[moki]

They cast their lot... and at least some appear to believe they chose poorly.

from: http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/new...q/10166880.htm

.....

Foreign fighters now reviled by Fallujah residents

By Hannah Allam

SAKHLAWIYA, Iraq - The fighters came to Fallujah last year with piles of cash, strange accents and a militant vision of Islam that was at once foreign and fearsome to residents emerging from nearly 30 years of Saddam Hussein's secular regime.

Yet out of custom and necessity, tribal locals offered their Arab guests sanctuary and were repaid with promises to help keep American forces out of the town. This week, with U.S. troops battling their way through the Sunni Muslim stronghold, several Fallujah residents said it had been a grave mistake to trust the foreigners who turned their humble stand against foreign occupation into a sophisticated terror campaign.

Once admired as comrades in an anti-American struggle, foreign fighters have become reviled as the reason U.S. missiles are flattening homes and turning Iraq's City of Mosques into a killing field. Their promises of protection were unfulfilled, angry residents said, with immigrant rebels moving on to other outposts and leaving besieged locals to face a superpower alone.

The fact that Iraqis are turning away from foreign terrorists, however, doesn't necessarily mean that they're turning toward the United States and Iraq's U.S.-backed interim government.

"We didn't want the occupation and we didn't want the terrorists, and now we have both," said a Fallujah construction worker who gave his name as only Abu Ehab, 30. "I didn't think the Arabs would be so vicious, and I never thought the Americans would be so unmerciful."

How foreign jihadists came to make Fallujah their base is a cautionary tale for other Iraqi cities that might receive fighters in search of a new place to plot bombings and beheadings. The most notorious foreign rebel, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi, is still at large despite a $25 million price on his head. The violence that's rocked several other Sunni areas since the Fallujah battle began also suggests that insurgents are broadening the battleground now that they've lost one of their havens.

American-led forces launched Operation Dawn, so named to signal a new day for Fallujah residents, to wrest control of the dusty city 40 miles west of Baghdad from rebels. U.S. military officials believed the insurgents' leaders were foreign fighters who earned their stripes in Afghanistan and were importing their guerrilla war to Fallujah.

Within the first hours of battle, top military officials predicted that most foreign insurgents, including al Zarqawi, had left the area. So far, the military has confirmed only a handful of foreign nationals among the 600 fighters it estimates have been killed in Fallujah.

"I personally believe some of the senior leaders probably have fled," Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told reporters on Tuesday.

The Bush administration has faced criticism that it overstated the presence of foreign fighters in Fallujah to justify a prolonged occupation of Iraq, minimize Iraqi resentment of the American presence in Iraq and tie its war in Iraq to its battle against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.

Likewise, interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has blamed much of Iraq's mayhem on al Zarqawi and other foreigners, minimizing homegrown opposition to his government. He's drawn condemnation from prominent Sunni politicians and clerics who've withdrawn from his government and announced a boycott of national elections set for January.

Fallujah residents, most of them now displaced by the fighting, said there were hundreds of non-Iraqi Arabs in town before the offensive began on Monday. However, they added, the ties of brotherhood had mostly unraveled and the remaining foreign fighters had tried to intimidate residents into staying as human shields.

A rebel-allied cleric who goes by the name Sheik Rafaa told Knight Ridder that Iraqi rebels were so infuriated by the disappearance of their foreign allies that one cell had "executed 20 Arab fighters because they left an area they promised to defend."

Other residents said foreign militants wore out their welcome months ago, when they imposed a Taliban-like interpretation of Islamic law that included public floggings for suspects accused of drinking alcohol or refusing to grow beards. Women who failed to cover their hair or remove their makeup were subjected to public humiliation. Those accused of spying for Americans were executed on the spot, residents said.

The turning point for a young man named Hudaifa came the day he saw a Yemeni fighter whipping an Iraqi in a public square. He recalled his humiliation this week in a conversation with other Fallujah residents now in Baghdad. Still fearful, the men asked that their last names not be published.

"An outsider beating an Iraqi in his own town?" Hudaifa asked, outrage still in his voice. "It's such a shame for us."

His friend Amer interrupted: "But we have to respect them. They left their families to come fight with us."

When they swept into Fallujah from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and North Africa, the Arab fighters told wary residents that God favors believers who give up their homes and travel to defend Islam.

"God has preferred the strivers above the sedentary with a great reward," they quoted from the Quran, Islam's holy book. "Whoever emigrates in the cause of God will find in the earth many a refuge, wide and spacious."

The Arab visitors portrayed themselves as the Muhajireen, the storied emigrants who in ancient times journeyed with the Prophet Muhammad to the holy city of Medina in what's now Saudi Arabia. The tribes of Fallujah were cast as the Ansar, the legendary "helpers" who offered the prophet's people refuge and loyalty.

Several rebel sources confirmed that al Zarqawi had settled in Fallujah until recently, running his group, which recently said it had allied itself with al-Qaida, from farmhouses and even downtown buildings. Some even claimed to have seen al Zarqawi; others only know him as a myth spoken about in hushed conversations as Sheik Ahmed or The Emir, the leader.

In a Sept. 11 audio recording posted on the Internet, al Zarqawi boasted that Muslim holy warriors had humiliated the Americans through "the brotherhood of jihad, both Muhajireen and Ansar."

Indeed, al Zarqawi loyalists won favor during the first U.S. invasion of Fallujah, an April offensive that ended with Marines withdrawing and installing an Iraqi proxy force. Foreign fighters took credit for the outcome and invited more outsiders into the city, residents said.

"When the Marines stepped back in April, the foreigners grew stronger, so they persuaded their friends to come and help them hold the victory," said Ali Jarallah, 32, a Fallujah resident now living in a cramped camp with other displaced locals.

But then came the wave of foreign hostage-takings, many ending with gruesome beheadings broadcast for the world to see. Zarqawi also claimed responsibility for massive bombings that spilled the blood of hundreds of innocent Iraqis.

Aghast, Fallujah residents began drawing distinctions between their own fighters, who favored mainly military and police targets, and foreigners encouraged by the fear they inspired through spectacular attacks.

When the military build-up for Operation Dawn began, local tribes and Iraqi fighters wanted to negotiate with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government. In several interviews, Iraqi rebels, negotiators and residents insisted that it was the foreign elements who scotched a peaceful settlement.

U.S. air strikes began pounding their city, and hopes of peace evaporated. Families fled to nearby villages. When they returned to check on their homes, many found small groups of foreign fighters camped out in their living rooms.

Abu Omar Daoud, for example, opened his front door this week to the surprise of eight militants hiding in the house that his family had fled. Only two were Iraqis, said the 35-year-old truck driver. The rest were Syrians.

Daoud said he demanded that the men leave immediately. The fighters rose, reached for their guns and told him he was being impolite. They said they'd come to "defend Iraqis and their honor and their families," Daoud recalled Thursday.

"I yelled at them, `don't you know where my family is, the ones you came to defend? We're refugees,'" Daoud said. "We are living in a school. If my house is destroyed, who will fix it?"

If he kicked them out, Daoud figured, he faced two choices: die in a U.S. air strike or be killed as a traitor by the militants. He shut his front door and walked away.

---

(A Knight Ridder special correspondent in Fallujah contributed to this report. He is not named for security reasons.)

[aberdeenwriter]

As we've been saying for weeks, the insurgents are not all freedom fighting Iraqis. The fundamental Islamics will kill their Muslim brothers. When the attacks began it was the radical Islamic outsiders who were unwilling to compromise, making the assault on Fallujah inevitable. Then when the assault began, the outsiders fled.

Excellent post, moki!

[spauldingg]

Too bad the US forces guarded the Iraqi oil facilities instead of the Iraqi borders.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by spauldingg:
Too bad the US forces guarded the Iraqi oil facilities instead of the Iraqi borders.

I'm not going to say you are wrong. But, for just a moment, ask yourself, 'would there be ANY advantage in letting the foreign fighters into Iraq?'

Once again, I am NOT saying this was what the strategy was, nor would I support it, but what would that advantage be?

IF there were an advantage in letting the radical Islamic fighters come into Iraq?

[eklipse]

Originally posted by aberdeenwriter:
I'm not going to say you are wrong. But, for just a moment, ask yourself, 'would there be ANY advantage in letting the foreign fighters into Iraq?'

Once again, I am NOT saying this was what the strategy was, nor would I support it, but what would that advantage be?

To provide the US with an ever elusive bogey-man that needed to be chased from town-to-town, village-to-village and in the process allow it's military to ruthlessly crush a popular resistance movement and destroy Iraqi civilian infrastructure under the political cover of 'hunting down international terrorists'?

[spauldingg]

Originally posted by eklipse:
To provide the US with an ever elusive bogey-man that needed to be chased from town-to-town, village-to-village and in the process allow it's military to ruthlessly crush a popular resistance movement and destroy Iraqi civilian infrastructure under the political cover of 'hunting down international terrorists'?

[torsoboy]

Originally posted by eklipse:
To provide the US with an ever elusive bogey-man that needed to be chased from town-to-town, village-to-village and in the process allow it's military to ruthlessly crush a popular resistance movement and destroy Iraqi civilian infrastructure under the political cover of 'hunting down international terrorists'?

Yea, I'm sure the army wants to stay there as long as possible. right.

[spauldingg]

What the army wants is irrelevant. They just follow orders. What the U.S. Govt. wants is to have a permanent presence in the area. Good or bad, that's what they want. But I don't think that is why they guarded oil facilities instead of the borders.

[Taliesin]

Originally posted by torsoboy:


Yea, I'm sure the army wants to stay there as long as possible. right.

Yes, the US-army wants to stay in Iraq as long as possible. The neocons even have claimed such plan quite openly, I can't understand why people tend to ignore the most obvious developments. What the US wants is the possibility to reduce the US-army and to stay mainly in US-bases in Iraq but never to withdraw completely.

It's all part of the restrucuring of the global position of US-military bases, that Rumsfeld quite openly reported about.

Taliesin

[Taliesin]

What is becoming more clear by the day is that only a very small part of the resistance in Iraq is made up of "foreign" (they are all arabs anyway, countries in the middle-east were defined by ottoman-occupation and european colonialism) mujahedeens, more than 90% of the resistance in Iraq is of native iraqi origin.

Another propaganda-lie by the neocons is collapsing.

Taliesin

[Vpro7]

What a ******** article, sorry, but it is. Yeah, you'll find some people who despise "foreign" fighters, but to be honest, the foreign fighters are a tiny number, fighting alongside Iraqis. I'm an Iraqi, and from what I hear in Iraq (which is a lot), the Iraqis are pretty happy that fellow Muslims are there to help.

Hell, I'm sure I can find some Iraqis who actually support Allawi, if I dig deep enough.

Nice try though.

[Spliffdaddy]

Your fellow Muslims got you into the mess you're in.

Stands to reason that they should help you out of it.

[Vpro7]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
Your fellow Muslims got you into the mess you're in.

Stands to reason that they should help you out of it.

No, they didn't.

[OldManMac]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
Your fellow Muslims got you into the mess you're in.

Stands to reason that they should help you out of it.

Get a grip.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
Your fellow Muslims got you into the mess you're in.

Stands to reason that they should help you out of it.

Too true.

[Vpro7]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Too true.

So very not true, but that's going off-topic. This article... I can go out there and find a million Iraqis who will say the exact opposite, what does it prove? Not much, exceot that it seems some people are desperate to portray the Ameruicans as the saviours here, and all the insurgents as the enemy.

If people are really so blind a to the reality of Iraqi opinions, then that's just a shame. If you think some Iraqis revile the foreign fighters, then just imagine what we think of the occupying forces.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Vpro7:
So very not true, but that's going off-topic. This article... I can go out there and find a million Iraqis who will say the exact opposite, what does it prove? Not much, exceot that it seems some people are desperate to portray the Ameruicans as the saviours here, and all the insurgents as the enemy.

If people are really so blind a to the reality of Iraqi opinions, then that's just a shame. If you think some Iraqis revile the foreign fighters, then just imagine what we think of the occupying forces.

Yeah, yeah, Mr. "speaking for all of Iraq". Peddle your agenda to someone else, `cause I sure ain't buyin' from you.

[Vpro7]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Yeah, yeah, Mr. "speaking for all of Iraq". Peddle your agenda to someone else, `cause I sure ain't buyin' from you.

Yeah, you'd surely only buy it from FOX, or some other source that conforms to your rather blind and silly worldview. It's ok for the likes of you to go around pretending to be the voice of Iraqis, but as soon as we actually speak, you clam up like nothing on earth. Strange that.

It's quite the irony that you pretend to give us freedoms, but as soon as we speak for ourselves, you bury your heads up your arses and pretend we all love ya.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Taliesin:
What is becoming more clear by the day is that only a very small part of the resistance in Iraq is made up of "foreign" (they are all arabs anyway, countries in the middle-east were defined by ottoman-occupation and european colonialism) mujahedeens, more than 90% of the resistance in Iraq is of native iraqi origin.

Another propaganda-lie by the neocons is collapsing.

Taliesin

"There are no foreign firghters in Iraq! It is all an American lie!"

[Vpro7]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
"There are no foreign firghters in Iraq! It is all an American lie!"

They aren't foreign to us, genius. Try to work that one out.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Vpro7:
Yeah, you'd surely only buy it from FOX, or some other source that conforms to your rather blind and silly worldview. It's ok for the likes of you to go around pretending to be the voice of Iraqis, but as soon as we actually speak, you clam up like nothing on earth. Strange that.

It's quite the irony that you pretend to give us freedoms, but as soon as we speak for ourselves, you bury your heads up your arses and pretend we all love ya.

I don't speak for the whole of the US (obviously), but you speak for the whole of Iraq... simply amazing. You're very gifted.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Vpro7:
They aren't foreign to us, genius. Try to work that one out.

Just using your own word, genius.

[Vpro7]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
I don't speak for the whole of the US (obviously), but you speak for the whole of Iraq... simply amazing. You're very gifted.

I'm sorry if you can't comprehend things. I speak for those that I know are at least in the country, much more than you will ever know.

What you're saying is like some American telling me that Americans are behind Osama bin Laden. That is an absurdity, just like the one you trot out about us Iraqis luvin you. Doesn't take a genius to know what the feelings are in one's OWN country.

[Vpro7]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Just using your own word, genius.

I'd rather you didn't try to use words that I never even said, or dress them up as parody, bub. Big difference betwen what I am saying, and what you are spewing out in here.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Vpro7:
I'm sorry if you can't comprehend things. I speak for those that I know are at least in the country, much more than you will ever know.

What you're saying is like some American telling me that Americans are behind Osama bin Laden. That is an absurdity, just like the one you trot out about us Iraqis luvin you. Doesn't take a genius to know what the feelings are in one's OWN country.

Really? I know hundreds of Orthodox Christians in Iraq, this isn't what I'm hearing from them. Hmmm...

"The American Press is all about lies! All they tell us is lies, lies, Lies!"

*see above pic of Iraqi "mis"information minister

You've got some good spin though, I'll grant you that.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Vpro7:
I'd rather you didn't try to use words that I never even said, or dress them up as parody, bub. Big difference betwen what I am saying, and what you are spewing out in here.

I wasn't quoting you, I was quoting Taliesin... that is, unless you have something you want to tell us about?

[Vpro7]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Really? I know hundreds of Orthodox Christians in Iraq, this isn't what I'm hearing from them. Hmmm...

No you don't, you don't know hundreds of Iraqi Christians in Iraq, so don't peddle your BS, dude. I do know Iraqi Christians, so don't even go there.

Also, keep believing the myths on your screen, as if we need hicks from the sticks to tell us how we feel, lmao.

Oh, and if you forgot, Iraq is a mostly Muslim country, so it's not like minority part of the nation's people actually speaks for the majority of us, which is what we're getting at. Imagine if the Gypsies in Britain were used to portray the general consensus of the thoughts of every-day Britains, lol.

Oh, and if you think I'm BS about the Iraqi Christians, just PM who you know, and I'll talk to you. Let's see if you can back that up.

[Vpro7]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
I wasn't quoting you, I was quoting Taliesin... that is, unless you have something you want to tell us about?

good for you, just keep quoting.

[deedar]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Really? I know hundreds of Orthodox Christians in Iraq, this isn't what I'm hearing from them. Hmmm...

Are you maybe hearing something more like this?

[Vpro7]

Name your friends in the Iraqi Christian community, Macnstein. I'll probably know them since my family has very close contacts wth the Christian elders around Baghdad, N. Iraq, and W. Iraq, my dad even learned Syriac from them. So if you want to give a blanket statement about how they feel, then go right ahead, but you're no better than me for the so-called blanket statements you imply I make.

Anyway, we're talkng about the consensus of opinion in regards to the Iraqi people as a whole.

[Vpro7]

Pffft, you can't, can you? except trot out some articles you might find online. Yes Iraqi Christians have suffered, but know what? They were plenty safe under Saddam than under this occupying force. You brought out the worst in some Muslims, not even Muslims, just criminals, now those Christians are leaving because of them.

So, we're back to the general consensus amongst the majority of Iraqis, and that consensus is that we do NOT want your occupation forces in Iraq. So trot out every minoroty group yu can find, they are not representaytove of the nation as a whole. In fact, if you really believe that we just love the occupiers. Go walk down any Iraqi city and say half of this crap you say here, then report back me.

Until then, I won't waste my time on those who are closed up.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Vpro7:
No you don't, you don't know hundreds of Iraqi Christians in Iraq, so don't peddle your BS, dude. I do know Iraqi Christians, so don't even go there.

Also, keep believing the myths on your screen, as if we need hicks from the sticks to tell us how we feel, lmao.

Oh, and if you forgot, Iraq is a mostly Muslim country, so it's not like minority part of the nation's people actually speaks for the majority of us, which is what we're getting at. Imagine if the Gypsies in Britain were used to portray the general consensus of the thoughts of every-day Britains, lol.

Oh, and if you think I'm BS about the Iraqi Christians, just PM who you know, and I'll talk to you. Let's see if you can back that up.

Actually. I do. I know Antiochine and Nestorian Christians in Iraq, and I've had correspondence with the Antiochine Bishop, Maran Moshe Thuma. And no, they wouldn't agree with you... though, I'm sure he'll think it's funny that you equate them to gypsies. I have a feeling he'll get a good laugh out of it.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Vpro7:
Pffft, you can't, can you? except trot out some articles you might find online. Yes Iraqi Christians have suffered, but know what? They were plenty safe under Saddam than under this occupying force. You brought out the worst in some Muslims, not even Muslims, just criminals, now those Christians are leaving because of them.

So, we're back to the general consensus amongst the majority of Iraqis, and that consensus is that we do NOT want your occupation forces in Iraq. So trot out every minoroty group yu can find, they are not representaytove of the nation as a whole. In fact, if you really believe that we just love the occupiers. Go walk down any Iraqi city and say half of this crap you say here, then report back me.

Until then, I won't waste my time on those who are closed up.

Calm yer ass down. I've got other work I'm doing too. Don't have all afternoon to nursemaid you.

[Spliffdaddy]

You're blaming somebody else for "bringing out the worst in Muslims"? edited: LMFAO

You and taliesin must be related. You're both in complete and utter denial about the root causes of the problems. Name *one* instance where something was a Muslim's fault. Go ahead. Do it.

I've never heard it said. But I most certainly do hear an incessant blame toward anything Western, Christian, and/or Jew.

"It isn't our fault...we're just victims.

PUHLEEZE.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, victimization. You say you cannot achieve because 'the man' is holding you down - and so you make no effort to achieve. Let me tell you something about 'victims'. See, victims are not responsible for their own current state of well-being. That's the definition of 'victim'. Ask any liberal Democrat.


Achieve in spite of those that claim to be victims - don't throw your hands in the air, give up, and deflect responsibility onto everyone but yourself.

Even a victim should assist in their own recovery.

There's no virtue in being a victim.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by deedar:
Are you maybe hearing something more like this?

Yes, they're very disturbed over the bombings and the deaths at the hands of the Islamic insurrectionists.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Actually. I do. I know Antiochine and Nestorian Christians in Iraq, and I've had correspondence with the Antiochine Bishop, Maran Moshe Thuma. And no, they wouldn't agree with you... though, I'm sure he'll think it's funny that you equate them to gypsies. I have a feeling he'll get a good laugh out of it.

To add to that, he'll probably think of it as Maran Jacob Bar Addai, since that early patriarch was commonly referred to as a hobo and a refugee.

[Mithras]

So aberdeen, you registering as a FOREIGN AGENT for Vpro's sake?

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
You're blaming somebody else for "bringing out the worst in Muslims"? edited: LMFAO

I like how you bring this up in a thread that is specifically about Fallujah. There's no doubt that the situation in the ME has a lot to do with the fact that the Arab peoples have failed to throw off their own corrupt governments and actually create governments that work in the interests of their people. Many like to blame the West for all their problems whilst doing nothing at home to actually prevent the West from being able to interfere so much.

However, that's not to vindicate the West from any wrongdoing. Western interference in Middle Eastern affairs goes right back to the colonial period. But let's talk about today, which is what vpro's point is anyway. I mean, how can you neglect the patently obvious? Do you really believe that what's happening in Fallujah doesn't effect how Iraqis and Muslims in general feel?

Just look at the pictures, dead bodies lying in streets with hundreds of flies buzzing round them and a two year old child who has had his leg blown off. You'd have to be pretty stupid to think that this isn't going to anger Iraqis and Muslims.

The operation in Fallujah has left the city absolutely devastated, nobody knows how many civilians have died but it's not a stretch to say that there have been many civilian deaths given the manner in which the operation has been carried out.

So yes, in this instance somebody else is responsible for bringing out the worst in Muslims. It makes me, particularly as a Muslim, really angry to see the appalling conditions my brothers and sisters in Fallujah have been subjected to. Even more so when I see Iraqi families spending their Eid day of celebration in hospitals with their critically injured children. So how do you expect those Iraqis actually on the ground living through this to feel? It is why civilian Iraqis across the country are taking up arms against the US.

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Calm yer ass down.

You're telling an Iraqi whose witnessing his country being devastated by war to calm down?

You've got nerve, I'll give you that.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
You're telling an Iraqi whose witnessing his country being devastated by war to calm down?

You've got nerve, I'll give you that.

Yeah, "I've got nerve". I go away for a couple minutes and he's yelling and jumping up and down. He chooses to come in here and discuss this, knowing full well what some of the positions in here are, he needs to relax a bit.

[budakhan mp]

That's really weird, because for a second there, I could have sworn that the foreign fighters in Iraq were American.

[James L]

Originally posted by budakhan mp:
That's really weird, because for a second there, I could have sworn that the foreign fighters in Iraq were American.

Lol, I was reading down this thread thinking the same thing to myself. I am pretty sure that the American troops there haven't applied for Iraqi citizenship yet, so I would have to agree that the American troops are the foreigners.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Taliesin:
What is becoming more clear by the day is that only a very small part of the resistance in Iraq is made up of "foreign" (they are all arabs anyway, countries in the middle-east were defined by ottoman-occupation and european colonialism) mujahedeens, more than 90% of the resistance in Iraq is of native iraqi origin.

Another propaganda-lie by the neocons is collapsing.

Taliesin

Ok Einstein, tell your followers (hahaha, the blind leading the blind?) the significance of the "piles of cash" mentioned in the story?

Foreign fighters now reviled by Fallujah residents

By Hannah Allam

SAKHLAWIYA, Iraq - The fighters came to Fallujah last year with piles of cash, strange accents and a militant vision of Islam that was at once foreign and fearsome to residents emerging from nearly 30 years of Saddam Hussein's secular regime.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Mithras:
So aberdeen, you registering as a FOREIGN AGENT for Vpro's sake?

My location has been accurately listed and has remained unchanged since the day I first posted here...unlike those who apparently had something to hide and prompted the now legendary thread.

My politics, my stance and my location are clear.

[SimpleLife]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Yeah, yeah, Mr. "speaking for all of Iraq". Peddle your agenda to someone else, `cause I sure ain't buyin' from you.

Isn't Bush taking on the same role?

[SimpleLife]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
I like how you bring this up in a thread that is specifically about Fallujah. There's no doubt that the situation in the ME has a lot to do with the fact that the Arab peoples have failed to throw off their own corrupt governments and actually create governments that work in the interests of their people. Many like to blame the West for all their problems whilst doing nothing at home to actually prevent the West from being able to interfere so much.

However, that's not to vindicate the West from any wrongdoing. Western interference in Middle Eastern affairs goes right back to the colonial period. But let's talk about today, which is what vpro's point is anyway. I mean, how can you neglect the patently obvious? Do you really believe that what's happening in Fallujah doesn't effect how Iraqis and Muslims in general feel?

Just look at the pictures, dead bodies lying in streets with hundreds of flies buzzing round them and a two year old child who has had his leg blown off. You'd have to be pretty stupid to think that this isn't going to anger Iraqis and Muslims.

The operation in Fallujah has left the city absolutely devastated, nobody knows how many civilians have died but it's not a stretch to say that there have been many civilian deaths given the manner in which the operation has been carried out.

So yes, in this instance somebody else is responsible for bringing out the worst in Muslims. It makes me, particularly as a Muslim, really angry to see the appalling conditions my brothers and sisters in Fallujah have been subjected to. Even more so when I see Iraqi families spending their Eid day of celebration in hospitals with their critically injured children. So how do you expect those Iraqis actually on the ground living through this to feel? It is why civilian Iraqis across the country are taking up arms against the US.

How awful this must be....

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Vpro7:
So very not true, but that's going off-topic. This article... I can go out there and find a million Iraqis who will say the exact opposite, what does it prove? Not much, exceot that it seems some people are desperate to portray the Ameruicans as the saviours here, and all the insurgents as the enemy.

If people are really so blind a to the reality of Iraqi opinions, then that's just a shame. If you think some Iraqis revile the foreign fighters, then just imagine what we think of the occupying forces.

All I can say is that you either actively support the PURE Islam state concept of the radical Islamic terrorists, OBL & Zarqawi, in which case you need to be seized...

OR, you are deluded into thinking the terrorists among the freedom fighting Iraqis are your friends.

The AMERICANS are your friends, not those radical weasels. We can do more for you, we are stronger, wiser and more humane than the terrorists.

We will free your country and allow you to choose your own destiny. They will enslave you. We will give you McDonalds! They will serve you McMurder Un-happy Meals and deliver turmoil and deprivation to your lives...every day.

Think about it.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by Taliesin:
What is becoming more clear by the day is that only a very small part of the resistance in Iraq is made up of "foreign" (they are all arabs anyway, countries in the middle-east were defined by ottoman-occupation and european colonialism) mujahedeens, more than 90% of the resistance in Iraq is of native iraqi origin.

Another propaganda-lie by the neocons is collapsing.

Taliesin

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE OUT OF YOUR CAVE!!!

HAHAHAH, you are ACTUALLY using the "ARAB CARD" to justify the terrorist weasels presence in Iraq????

The Arabs are fighting each other like CRAZY all over the M.E.! If I were an Iraqi the LAST thing that would make me feel secure would be depending on someone's Arab origins as a guarantor of peace!

HA!

The radical Islam concept you want to foist upon the good, peace loving peoples of Iraq is responsible for NO islamic country being free, almost NO Islamic country being at peace with it's neighbors, almost NO Islamic country with internal tranquility except when there is a total government crackdown, an almost TOTAL inability to provide even the basics of food and medicine and etc. for it's people.

That would be like me coming to give you a housewarming gift of a smelly old bag of PORK RINDS!

Hell, if you love pure Islam so much why don't YOU go live under their rules, huh?

You are such a joke!

The hierarchy you describe, 10% foreign, Arab Islamic terrorist instigators and 90% native Iraqis is the exact same ratio of the radical Islam terrorist state. The 10% will control the other 90% and ZEY VILL LIKE IT!

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by eklipse:
To provide the US with an ever elusive bogey-man that needed to be chased from town-to-town, village-to-village and in the process allow it's military to ruthlessly crush a popular resistance movement and destroy Iraqi civilian infrastructure under the political cover of 'hunting down international terrorists'?

Well, given all the hypothetical benefits IF allowing the foreign nutjobs into Iraq had been the strategy, you chose the dumbest one!

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by spauldingg:

Wrong! lolol