Fallujah; a city remains captive

[Thom Little]

At the edge of this city the other day, Fallujah residents waited in a line of 130 cars to pass through the fortifications, document checks and vehicle inspections that separate their city from the outside world.

Near the center of town, American and Iraqi troops cordoned streets and searched each house for the tools of rebellion: weapons, cash, computers, and the explosives, wires or batteries used to make bombs. Troops enforce a 10 p.m. curfew, but residents say they get off the streets soon after dark to avoid the dangers of nervous soldiers at .checkpoints.

A year after 10,000 American troops blasted into Fallujah to dismantle a stronghold of anti-U.S. guerrillas, they and their Iraqi allies grip the city tightly enough that deaths from mortar attacks, bombings and other urban combat are way down. Fallujah seems quieter than many other cities of central Iraq.

But in a day's visit this month, there was little immediate evidence that America is achieving its broader counterinsurgency goal: winning popular support, or at least acceptance, by convincing Fallujah's people that they can rebuild their lives and their city. Residents say the lockdown of the city humiliates them and chokes the economy so badly that many people struggle simply to survive.


http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wofall1127,0,5880093.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

[neweurope]

1. So we're all rebels now, or terrorists, or whatever the name of the

day is... I have cash in the house and a computer, and at last check there were certainly some wires and batteries.

Ah, the Land of The Free! I see why they aren't plucking roses for you: There is no time, seeing as you can't leave your house for fear of "nervous soldiers at checkpoints". "Fallujah seems quieter than many other cities": I suppose so, for quite a number of those noise makers are dead, and the rest is grieving...

I very much doubt that "winning popular support" is your "broader goal", not even the Bush administration, not even the US military could be as stupid as to believe that this was the way of gaining support. No, the aim is quite clearly shock and anger and perpetual civil war.

Fallujah will forever be a stain on your nation's honour.

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[4dsc]

2. Its the Israeli way

This has the mark of how Israeli's have been dealing with the Palestinian issue all over it! I guess the Army bought their playbook on how to pacify the native people!!

But somehow, I doubt this is winning the hearts and minds of Iraqi's..

[DELUSIONAL]

3. sort of like the Indian Reservations --

Indians were locked up to starve -- if they ventured off the reservations then they would be shot by white settlers.

A bounty was paid for dead Indians off the reservations.

Times are still hard on many US Indian reservations.

The Nazis did this to the Jews and other "undesirable" minority populations -- it makes it easier for the evil controllers to exterminate the "other".