Firefight kills 3 U.S. military police officers in Iraq (cnn - 9-17-03)

[Liberalator]

Firefight kills 3 U.S. military police officers in Iraq
From Jane Arraf
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/10/17/sprj.irq.karbala/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) --Three U.S. military police were killed and seven wounded Friday in a fierce gunbattle near a mosque in Karbala, south of the Iraqi capital, CNN has learned.

U.S. forces were trying to disarm an unknown, armed faction that established itself near the mosque.

Last Friday, Muqtada al-Sadr -- a firebrand Shiite cleric -- announced he was forming an Islamic state in Iraq, as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites flooded the streets of the holy city of Karbala last weekend for the birthday of the historic 12th Imam.

Al-Sadr has since backed off his proposal to form such a state.

Further details were not immediately available.

[Sticky]

1. Another link

Three U.S. military policemen killed in Karbala as Pentagon plans to send additional forces to Iraq


Three U.S. military policemen were killed and seven injured Friday in a fierce gunbattle near a mosque in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala, CNN has reported. According to this report, U.S. occupation troops were trying to disarm an unknown, armed faction that established itself near the mosque

http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=261163&lang=e&dir=news

[tedzbear]

2. Why are they called military police?

Why not soldiers? That's what they are.

[ze_dscherman]

3. Beware of the Shiites

This is an article Uri Avnery wrote in March, close to the beginning of the Iraq war.

On the fourth day of the 1982 Israeli attack on Lebanon, I crossed the border at a lone spot near Metulla and looked for the front, which had already reached the outskirts of Sidon. I was driving my private car, accompanied only by a woman photographer. We passed a dozen Shiite villages and were received everywhere with great joy. We extracted ourselves only with great difficulty from hundreds of villagers, each one insisting that we have coffee at their home. On the previous days, they had showered the soldiers with rice.

A few months later I joined an army convoy going in the opposite direction, from Sidon to Metulla. The soldiers were now wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, many were on the verge of panic.

What had happened? The Shiites received the Israeli soldiers as liberators. When they realized that they had come to stay as occupiers, they started to kill them.

When the Israeli troops entered Lebanon, the Shiites were a down-trodden, powerless community, held in contempt by all the others. After a year of fighting the occupiers, they became a political and military power. The Shiite Hizbullah is the only military force in the Arab world that has beaten the mighty Israeli army.



http://justworldnews.org/archives/cat_military_occupations.html

[ozymandius]

5. This is what's happening to us.

The Hizbollah became better fighters as their guerilla war pressed on over time. The kill ratio eventually went to 1:1 Guerillas to Israeli military. One reason Israel pulled out is because they could not sustain such losses.

As the occupation of Iraq continues, the guerilla fighters will get better at killing. Happens in every conflict like this.

[Aidoneus]

8. astute comparison by Uri

and predictably, history seems to be meticulously repeating itself as far as the Iraq-Lebanon comparison goes..

Iraqi students of the martyred Ayatallah al-Udma Sayyid Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr seem to be first out of the blocks in Iraq among the Shias at this time, just as the students of Ayatallah al-Udma Sayyid Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah (who the CIA tried to kill in a failed attempt that ended up as a massacre of mostly women and children) were in Lebanon in resisting the Israeli invaders.

[bluestateguy]

4. Despicable

When will young white conservatives be signing up for military service to replace these young men?

[Flubadubya]

6. The Bush Brigade...

Yeah, I'd really like to see that happen. But you know these guys really do follow their leaders. Look at all the chicken hawks in this administration that found one excuse after another to NOT serve their country in the military.

One thing you can certainly say of the young conservatives... they are loyal to tradition. :puke:

[saigon68]

7. The crackers will never do this

They will draft some darkie or mexican guy to take their place </sarcasm>

with apologies to the racial references--but thats how these crackers talk