Iraqi allies warn US over Falluja

[Chewbacca]

What gets me is the math:
450 dead and 1000 injured Iraqis for 4 dead security contractors.

Thats 112.5 dead and 250 injured Iraqis for each of the security contractors that were killed and corpes mutiliated.

How shameful. All that death and misery.

Also, it is quite chilling how members of the governing council are speaking out against us.

Link


Iraqi allies warn US over Falluja


Reports from Falluja say food and medical supplies are low
Members of Iraq's US-appointed governing council have condemned the US military operation in Falluja after four days of bitter fighting.
One member described the operation as "genocide" after doctors in the Sunni Muslim city of 300,000 reported 450 deaths and 1,000 injured this week.

The fugitive leader of the country's parallel Shia unrest has demanded the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

The US has declared a truce in Falluja but fighting continued as night fell.

Gunfire and mortar blasts echoed across the city west of Baghdad and a marine officer who spoke to AFP news agency on condition of anonymity predicted it would "get worse before it gets better".

Another officer, Maj Pete Farnum, said his men had tried to keep the noon (0800 GMT) truce on Friday but attacks by militants had not eased.

"We went into pause but the enemy kept attacking us on the western side of the city," he said.

"We had to defend ourselves so we asked for permission to return to offensive operation. This was granted."

However, the ferocity of the battle for the city appeared to have eased since the US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, announced the 24-hour truce to allow for peace talks.

US troops are said to be allowing women and children to leave the city but are stopping men as they search for suspects in the killing and horrific mutilation of four American security guards in Falluja at the end of March.

Coalition lashed

Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), said he was ready to resign if the US did not seek a peaceful solution to the crisis in Falluja.

"How can a superpower like the US put itself in a state of war with a small city like Falluja? This is genocide," he told AFP news agency on Friday, the first anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Fellow IGC member Adnan Pachachi said the Falluja offensive was "illegal and totally unacceptable" whilst Kurdish IGC member Mahmoud Uthman described US policy as counter-productive.

The Iraqi interim Human Rights Minister, Abdel Basit Turki, and a member of the Iraqi Governing Council's rotating presidency, Iyad Allawi, both resigned on Friday without giving a reason for their decision.

Moqtada Sadr, the radical cleric whose followers have been directing violent unrest in Shia areas since Sunday, has demanded the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq.

Speaking in a sermon read out at Friday Prayers by an aide in the town of Kufa, he said US President George W Bush could no longer point to Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction as reasons to be in Iraq.

"You are now fighting an entire nation, from south to north, from east to west, and we advise you to withdraw from Iraq," said Mr Sadr, who is the subject of a coalition arrest warrant.

'Serious' threat

President Bush has been consulting other coalition leaders by telephone, speaking to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and El Salvadoran President Francisco Flores.

A senior US commander, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, said in Baghdad that operations to quell Shia unrest were going well.

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said the coalition is facing its "most serious" threat since the end of the war.

The US has reported the deaths of at least 42 of its soldiers in combat since Sunday and militants are holding a number of foreign nationals hostage, including three Japanese citizens, two Palestinians and a Canadian.

Russia has called on the sides in Iraq to show restraint and warned of "an impending humanitarian disaster" in Falluja.

[johnny]

Russia has no right to judge whatever takes place overthere. They're doing exactly the same thing in Chechnia.

[Ronn_Bman]

What alarms me Chewie is that you're doing math as if there is a formula.

[ 04-09-2004, 09:49 PM: Message edited by: Ronn_Bman ]

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Ronn_Bman: What alarms me Chewie is that you're doing math as if there is a formula.

Formula? What are you talking about?

[Ronn_Bman]

Just what I said. You felt the need to break it down. 4 dead contractor = x amount of dead Iraqis.

All that death and misery IS shameful, but what does math have to do with it?

"450 dead and 1000 injured Iraqis FOR 4 dead security contractors" like there is might be an acceptable number?

What's worse is that sounds like "it's ONLY 4 dead security contractors, so we have to kill thousands of Iraqis".

I know, just another adhom/strawman. That's all I've got, right?

[ 04-09-2004, 10:14 PM: Message edited by: Ronn_Bman ]

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Ronn_Bman: Just what I said. You felt the need to break it down. 4 dead contractor = x amount of dead Iraqis. All that death and misery IS shameful, but what does math have to do with it? "450 dead and 1000 injured Iraqis FOR 4 dead security contractors" like there is might be an acceptable number? What's worse is that sounds like "it's ONLY 4 dead security contractors, so we have to kill thousands of Iraqis". I know, just another adhom/strawman. That's all I've got, right?

No Ronn, I have seen you make some excellent and thoughtful and funny posts.

You see, there is no formula or acceptable number. The math bit is just a perspective that frames the moral dilemna involved in taking lives in response to lives taken. I personally find it quite the even more shocking and shameful that so many Iraqis have been killed in response to so few Americans being killed.

You may not see it this way, and its your right not to as far as I am concerned.

[Sir Taliesin]

If it was only four, I might think you had a point, but many more lives have been taken in the triangle. The Four Blackwater deaths were just the straw that broke the camels back. What I can't understand is why we went in with such underwealming force. There should have been many more soldiers/marines going in. The fighting could have been over by now. For that matter there may not have been any fighting if the force had been large enough.

[ 04-09-2004, 10:58 PM: Message edited by: Sir Taliesin ]

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Sir Taliesin: If it was only four, I might think you had a point, but many more lives have been taken in the triangle. The Four Blackwater deaths were just the straw that broke the camels back. What I can't understand is why we went in with such underwealming force. There should have been many more soldiers/marines going in. The fighting could have been over by now. For that matter there may not have been any fighting if the force had been large enough.

You make two very good points Sir T. Many lives on both sides have been lost in Fallujah and the rest of the area. I failed to even mention any U.S. military deaths in my previous post, which I now think was a regretable oversight on my part.


late edit for spelling (know does not equal now) [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 04-10-2004, 03:54 AM: Message edited by: Chewbacca ]

[Timber Loftis]

Cheers to Sir T pointing out the total number lost. (Yeah, I know this will garner some "totals" post by Skunk or other terrorist sympathizers -- so be it.)

Thats 112.5 dead and 250 injured Iraqis for each of the security contractors that were killed and corpes mutiliated.

And it's not quite enough, I say!

[ 04-10-2004, 03:27 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Cheers to Sir T pointing out the total number lost. (Yeah, I know this will garner some "totals" post by Skunk or other terrorist sympathizers -- so be it.) quote: Thats 112.5 dead and 250 injured Iraqis for each of the security contractors that were killed and corpes mutiliated.

And it's not quite enough, I say! [/QUOTE]Holy Flamebait Batman! The repeated and unsubstantiated accusations of terrorist sympathizers are growing old fast.