U.S. Forces Kill 50 Sadr Militia in Baghdad Suburb

[Barrett808]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces killed more than 50 Shi'ite militiamen on Wednesday in a significant advance into a Baghdad suburb that is a powerbase for radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the military said.

The forces, backed by tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, advanced some 1.5 miles into Sadr City, a slum of two million mainly Shi'ite inhabitants, meeting sporadic resistance.

A U.S. officer said soldiers killed "slightly over" 50 Iraqis identified as firing upon the advancing forces. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the death toll.

"This is the first time (Sadr's) Mehdi militia has had to fight across the entire width of Sadr City. So it's got to throw them off balance," Lieutenant-Colonel Lopez Carter told a pool reporter with the advancing force.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040818/wl_nm/iraq_suburb_dc&cid=574&ncid=1480

[daleo]

1. The army advanced gloriously into the ghetto

A whole 1.5 miles. I bet you-know-who didn't make that kind of progress in the Warsaw ghetto.

[shadu]

2. sin after sin

God, I hope to see this country get what it deserves.

[atreides1]

5. We Will Pay

And this time it will be deserved, and we won't have the support of the world, God help us all.

And for those who either believe in a different deity or no deity at all, each to their own. :)

[homegrownLeaf]

18. And just what would that be?

Whom do you expect to deliver this mysterious payback?

[jimshoes]

3. Of course the Iraqi's are leading this charge, aren't they?

At least that's what I heard this morning. Or was that Najaf? How many of these Al Sadr's are there?

[coalition_unwilling]

4. Vietnam (Body Count) all over again

Let's see. The U.S. Military says it killed 50 militia. Anyone independently verify that with 50 bodies carrying weapons or in the irregular's uniform? What's far more likely is that the U.S. military killed 50 people, many of them women and children. Or the U.S. Military, as in Vietnam, is claiming combatant kills based on highly dubious evidence, such as recovered rifles (with no body).

[ElectroPrincess]

7. Only One F-16 in Close Air Support (CAS) = 30 dead Insurgents

If your air support is working, there's less need for militia engagement. "Bomb um' back to the Stone Age Son." /sarcasm off

This (Windows Media Video, .wmv) is an F-16 doing CAS during the recent fighting in Fallujah. As you know we have been bombing insurgent "safe houses" with some success recently. This F-16 was on such a mission, to hit a house with an LGB, when 30+ insurgents left the building en masse to hurry to a nearby 30+ engagement with US Marines which had been going on for hours.

The pilot communicates with an FAC either in the air or on the ground, and changes the flight path of the bomb while it is in the air. You can clearly see the "L" flashing in the MFD, and "TGP" is selected. Has sound crank it up. There is a countdown clock in the lower right.

Check out "Impact" = 30 dead insurgents.

http://www.jswaim.com/files/CAS.wmv

[bemildred]

9. Sort of reinforces the point.

You know you sent a bomb into a residential neighborhood;
but you have no real knowledge of who you killed or what
really happened other than something got blow up.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. Let's all salute the flag and sing "God bless amurica"

Our glorious fighting men are killing the same people Saddam was condemned for killing back in 92. The US population isn't at all aware of what the hell is going on.

[lottie244]

8. YOu and I both know that there were probably 40 civilian among the 50.

That's how we conduct our warfare of late.

[tarheelprogressive]

10. Let's get this bastard

Let's let the Marines do their job and wipe out this corpulent cleric.

[kentuck]

11. Let's think ....

about what we are doing. Wouldn't that be nice?

[bemildred]

12. I'm not stopping them.

Are you?
Who is holding them back?
Negroponte maybe?
Allawi?

[Disturbed]

14. "Let's get this bastard."

The new Neo Fascist mantra is "Kill al Sadr". That seems to satisfy many American dolts. Killing al Sadr would solve nothing. Another person would step up to take on the resistance to the US Colonization of Iraq. Most Americas fell for the lie that Iraq is now a "sovereign country. It is pure Bushite.

The Hand-Over That Wasn't: Illegal Orders give the US a Lock on Iraq's Economy
by Antonia Juhasz

Officially, the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended on June 28, 2004. But in reality, the United States is still in charge: Not only do 138,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the "100 Orders" of L. Paul Bremer III remain to control the economy.

These little noticed orders enacted by Bremer, the now-departed head of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, go to the heart of Bush administration plans in Iraq. They lock in sweeping advantages to American firms, ensuring long-term U.S. economic advantage while guaranteeing few, if any, benefits to the Iraqi people.

The Bremer orders control every aspect of Iraqi life - from the use of car horns to the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Order No. 39 alone does no less than "transition from a … centrally planned economy to a market economy" virtually overnight and by U.S. fiat. Although many thought that the "end" of the occupation would also mean the end of the orders, on his last day in Iraq Bremer simply transferred authority for the orders to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - a 30-year exile with close ties to the CIA and British intelligence.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0805-07.htm

[bemildred]

15. All very well.

My point is that noone is holding them back, the problem is that
they can't kill al Sadr. It takes a fool to think that it's some
form of reticence that has protected him from our mighty wrath.
They don't know where the fuck he is, and if they just bomb the
fuck out of things in the vain hope of getting him, there are going
to be way more dead people, marines and iraqis both, then we have
seen so far, and their potemkin government will be immediately
defunct, instead of a few weeks of months from now.

[homegrownLeaf]

19. No, I don't know that to be true

If you have a link that confirms your suspicions I'll look at it.

[dawgman]

13. Of course there is no independent verification of the death toll.

If there had been they would have noticed the women children and unarmed civilians among the fifty killed.

Go Fuckin' us of a let's engage in genocide.

We need to start keeping count of these unconfirmed kia's.

[al bupp]

16. 50, A Nice Round Number

I love a body count that's not too high that it strains credulity, but not too low to seem insignificant.

In the meantime we've, what? Marched a couples of miles into a slum, yipee.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

17. How many were women, children, and the elderly?

[homegrownLeaf]

20. I'd guess zero if it was our soldiers fighting

Our soldiers are the best in the world and they don't target innocents.

[daleo]

21. This is jingoism, pure and simple

Surely you don't really believe this.

[dawgman]

22. yeah, OK there pal...we may be the best in the world but

just to get a soldier to shoot at a human COMBATANT it takes intensive brainwashing and dehumanization of the enemy.

Read Lt. Col. David Grossman's "On Killing." YOu might learn something.

[NickB79]

23. Ah, I see

I suppose the 15,000+ civilians killed in the past 1 1/2 yrs in Iraq, verified by official hospital reports, death certificates. and the International Red Cross, were the result of a massive bout of suicide?

Our soldiers have a long history of killing civilians by the thousands, and I see nothing that indicates they've changed much since Vietnam.