It was America's Mogadishu moment - only with civilian private military contractors going down in Fallujah, Iraq instead of Army Blackhawks in Somalia's capital. The Marines are trying to wipe the slate of history clean today with a few coats of fresh paint splashed over a ghastly landmark in America's painfully long war in Iraq. Four years ago today, four American security men from Blackwater were ambushed in Fallujah. They were shot in their vehicles, doused in gasoline and set afire, mutilated...(read more)
A Marine charged with murdering an Iraqi detainee captured during fierce house-to-house fighting in Fallujah, said his squad leader asked for help in killing captives after weapons were found in their house. Sgt. Jermaine Nelson told investigators that his squad leader, Jose Nazario became furious after AK47s were found upstairs in the house and took [...]
Billy Joel lanzó un nuevo sencillo pop, el tema anti-guerra "Christmas in Fallujah" (Navidad en Faluya). A los 58 años, Joel sintió que estaba demasiado viejo para interpretar la canción, inspirada en cartas que recibió de soldados en Irak. Así que se la dio a Cass Dillon, un músico de 21 años de Long Island, Nueva York. "Pensé que debía ser alguien joven, como de la edad de un soldado", escribió Joel en su sitio de Internet. "Quise ayudar a alguien con su carrera. Tengo suficientes éxitos. He tenido suficiente difusión... Creo que es hora de que alguien más, quizás, se beneficie de mi propia experiencia". Enlace | Continuar leyendo
This is a good read and surprisingly it is from Salon. And when I say 'surprisingly' I dont mean that Salon articles generally suck. They don't, they are generally well written and interesting. It is just that their liberal bias and BDS is as obvious and blatant as the smell of patchoulli oil on their aging hippie editors. And as much as the author wants to find defeat and failure in Iraq he grudgingly admits that maybe, just maybe, our military is doing something right. There are a lot of back handed compliments in the piece that follows but over all I have to take it as a positive assessment by the author. ~RJHSalon article link Fallujah catches its breathDespite Bush's deceptive rhetoric and mishandling of the war, the Marines I rode with here have won a delicate peace in this once-deadly city. By David J. Morris Aug. 21, 2007 | I've been traveling throughout western Iraq for almost a month now and what I've seen so far has been shocking, but not in the way you might expect:
Unidentified gunmen shot dead the Al-Qaeda militant group's leader in the western Iraq city of Fallujah on Saturday, police said, as fighting between rival Sunni factions continued. Colonel Tareq al-Dulaimi, a senior police intelligence officer with close ties to Anbar Province's pro-US tribal coalition, confirmed reports that Muwaffaq al-Jugheifi had been killed but did not identify the attackers. Dulaimi described the slain Al-Qaeda leader as an Iraqi from Fallujah. A police capitain, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "Militants riding in two civilian cars opened fire on al-Jugheifi and his group on Saturday morning as they left the Abu Ayyub al-Ansari mosque." Fallujah is currently at the centre of a large-scale security operation in which Iraqi police and tribal levies, backed by US forces, are attempting to drive Al-Qaeda's Islamist militants out of the town. Saturday's killing came after the Anbar Salvation Council, the armed wing of the province's tribal coalition,
Higher troops levels are a major contributor to the success of operations in Iraq, especially in cities like Fallujah, a U.S. commander of troops in the western city said during a news conference today. Building on the successes of the combat teams before his, Marine Col. Richard Simcock, commander of Regimental Combat Team 6, said the biggest advantage he has over his predecessors is the number of troops available to secure and stabilize the city. "We can do more because we have more," Simcock said. "Troop levels have allowed us to go places our predecessors couldn't." He told reporters that his 6,000 troops have been able to break the "whack-a-mole" cycle of securing an area and then moving on only to have the enemy to come back in afterward. "We can go into a particular area with a large force, establish security and set conditions for Iraqi security forces to come in behind us to transition into securing the area," Simcock said. He said his troops, with coalition and Iraqi forces,
Marines Find Diamond in the Rough on Camp Fallujah, Story by Gunnery Sgt. Mark Oliva Regimental Combat Team 5CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Marines with Regimental Combat Team 5 found themselves a diamond in the rough on an empty dirt lot here. Several Marines meet weekly to play pick-up baseball games. They’re nothing fancy. The baseball diamond doesn’t even have a blade of grass on the infield. But for these boys of summer, it’s their field of dreams, and it takes them away from Iraqand back to their glory days when they could have been swatting away at the next walk-off homer.“Everybody goes back to their past when they get out here,” said Staff Sgt. John L. Heine,a 28-year-old from Buffalo, N.Y. “The stories come out and we’re all trying to play at that level again, even though the skills have faded away.”Every Sunday, they gather at the baseball field roughed out from the desert floor. It’s humble as far as fields go. There’s no chalk for baselines, just white engineer
*WARNING: This Video Contains Graphic Scenes*
Casualties of war are inspected by a crowd searching for missing loved ones, friends and family. The bodies came out of Fallujah, when the US first raided the city.
