U.S.: Al-Qaida 'neutralized’ in western Iraq

[Thom Little]

Recent offensives near the Iraqi border with Syria have dealt a significant blow to al-Qaida and cut off the group’s ability to smuggle in foreigners through the volatile western area to join the insurgency, a U.S. commander said Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, commander of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force Forward, said the operations had “neutralized” the group’s ability to use the vast Euphrates River valley to organize and attract followers.

The fighting helped restore Iraqi control of the border with Syria to eliminate smuggling lines and paved the way for successful Sunni Arab regional participation in Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, he said in an interview with a small group of reporters at this dusty U.S. base in al Asad, in western Anbar province near the Syrian border.

He said U.S. forces had “dealt the enemy a ... significant blow out here in the western Euphrates, knocked him off of his stride, took away his areas where he was congregating, made it difficult for him to organize, and cut into his rat lines that run through this particular part of the country.”



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10675507/from/RSS/

[LiberalVoice]

1. Now if we can only take car of that pesky 95%...

...you know, the ones that are IRAQI!

[xchrom]

2. since there were never many ''foreign fighters"

what have they cut off?

and then there's the whole issue that fighting al queda this way is pretty useless anyway.
al queda is patient and extremely malleable -- it doesn't matter that you plug one hole -- there's always another.

[Webster Green]

3. "Neutralized" my ass!....More like whack-a-mole....

Who makes up this crap?

What a bunch of bullshit. :rofl:

[mallard]

9. one of those planted news stories

Even if there ever really was an al-Qaeda, there's no way the main foreign incursion - that being the US invasion and repressive occupation - could be so easily deemed a success in that area where the aftershock of recent raids may have just created a lull. Lots of rubble, wounded, displaced and lately sacrificed civilians are the stuff of any honest account. Of course, there is no justification for much of the destruction and state of civil despair, so the war press serves its primary function, marching everyone back on board, forward with a seal of approval.

They're totally rigging this news to cover for major harsh and supressive martial law 'drills', all based on the presumption (tactical strategy) that terrorists (not mere insurgents) can and will be located by shoot-to-kill arbitars, sent into towns going house-to-house before, during or after bombing runs. Our troops are made to engage whomever and obviously count scaring the shit out of everyone else as a measure of achievement.

It's hard to imagine how any of the locals can still appreciate having to go from one form of tyranny to one eight times worse - and to one with no clear future - because . There seem to be very few genuine live reports coming from on the ground through the mainstream media - which says heaps - and what few we do get are mostly just some form of political flak and the daily details on numbers of US troops lost and wounded.

Iraqis who get themselves killed trying to defend their own homes may be 'disgraced' by their suffering and a 'relative' high rate of loss, or even deemed 'enemy' right after the fact, but having done nothing wrong according to (pre-occupation) international law. Their memory will most certainly not disappear into a happy new loyalty base for the enforcers. This is a formula for years more of civil war at best.

If their relatives were ever deemed human enough to deserve an interview, they might remind how they didn't ever ask for our help in the first place.

Others who've have accidentally recieved 500-pound exploding packages dropped from the 'liberators' also have survivors who also want their chances to make up for earlier misunderstandings.

Where's Oliver Stone? How many years before someone within post-9/11 Hollywood allows the Platoon genre to be scripted and cast about the truth in this war?


The constant rumors that organized insurgency has been Syria-based or 'al-Qaeda' is more neocon warmongering intimidation used to justify the Israeli-style occupation tactics on local populations who will become permanently hostile, prone to sabotage and 'susceptible' to attack.

Without the so-called foreign enemy, these raids would be far more clearly in total violation of the Geneva Conventions.

[TomClash]

4. "Final Throes . . . "

I'll believe it when I see it.

[pinniped]

5. Mor BS from the propaganda machine.

.

[psychopomp]

6. It sounds like our boys have won a major battle against Eurasia!

Extra chocolate rations for all!

[ixion]

7. just what I was thinking

double plus good!! :sarcasm:

[bemildred]

8. Well, if this means the end of the military dog and pony shows

on the Syrian border, it's a good thing.

[HuffleClaw]

10. *yawn*

just more standard propaganda. FINAL THROES ! ! ! !