From the BBC:
A US helicopter has crashed in northern Iraq, killing all eight passengers and four crew, the US military has said. The UH-60 Blackhawk came down just before midnight on Saturday, some 12km (seven miles) east of the town of Talafar, seen as a rebel stronghold.The US military said the cause of the crash remained under investigation.
Five marines have also been killed over the weekend. Three died in attacks in the western town of Falluja and two were killed by separate roadside bombs...
Meanwhile, the US military confirmed it had conducted what it said was an anti-terror operation at the headquarters of the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars.
Witnesses quoted by Reuters news agency said US troops slid down ropes from helicopters as soldiers on the ground burst into the Umm al-Qura mosque complex...
What is the likelihood of tons of arms, ammunition and explosives being found in the Umm al-Qura mosque complex. Pretty good, I'll guess.
My best friend, who I served with over 20 years in the military, has a son (his oldest) flying the Blackhawk for the Army in Iraq. He is in constant anguish worrying about his son (as am I). Everytime I hear about a Blackhawk crash my stomach turns wondering if this will be his son. Then, I call him to see if he has heard anything. Although the units are very good about relaying information to families, the short wait is absolute torture for families that have sons, fathers and brothers over there. No news yet.
Also, anyone who believes the comments by Sheehan, Murtha and others are not harmful are kidding themselves. Their comments have become another form of torture for families with relatives in Iraq and Afghan.
what a place of worship containing non peaceful items eh? l wonder who gave them the tip? or does any mosque count?
A spokesman for the clerical group condemned the raid as a "crime", saying it had been carried out as punishment for its stance against US-led operations in Iraq.
US military spokesman Barry Johnson said the pre-dawn raid had been prompted by a tip-off regarding "significant terrorist related activity in the building" and was timed to minimise risk to civilians.
Hum, some place of worship..isn't it? Is allah the Creator? Do you believe that? allah is the great deceiver, who desires worship and covets G-d's throne. allah requires blood and torture to be sated. Who does that sound like...muslims...any guesses?
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What an incredible waste of American lives.
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Semper fi.
Casualty Marines R.I.P.
ALWAYS ANGRY ALWAYS AGGRIEVED ALWAYS BITTER ALWAYS MOSLEM ALWAYS
... the US military confirmed it had conducted what it said was an anti-terror operation at the headquarters of the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars.
What is to scholar about Islam? What is to scholar about Sharia? What is to science about the Hadiths?
I've read this crap. It's low-down, animalistic, subintellectual, awful bilge that doesn't deserve the light of day. In a phrase, all Islamic writings are swine shit.
It will be a happier time when Moslems are accorded the extremely low regard they so richly deserve.
Way to go Greg, Right on,let's throw away more of the precious lives of our sons and daughters, as well as our national treasure for the benefit of Islamists.
Got to keep up the good fight don't we, to save the ass of Muslims and provide Islamists more training and recruiting opportunies.
You might not like Sheehan, Murth and others but maybe they are on to something, just like Hugh is on to something.. only braindead ideologues will throw good money and blood after bad, and none of it serves to fight Islamism, and all of it only serves to recruit, train and promote Islamism.
Those mass graves of Saddam are full of mujahideen and "shaheds", he was doing a good job of squatting on them, now they have the run of Iraq, not only the run of Iraq but thanks to our interference and Saudi financing a first class operation for recruitment and training of mujahideen/shaheeds.
So Nariz, you're saying we should have left Saddam alone??
And another thing-- Greg appears to be stating a fact, not a value judgement, so exactly how or why do you refute it??
I have a nephew over there on a helicopter crew and news of a helicopter crash is especially nerve racking.
My disagreement with the Michael Moores and the Cindy Shehans is that I have nothing but contempt for the insurgents in Iraq (and contempt for Muslims in general). But I really don't know with a Shiite religous government in Iraq, what we are really trying to attain? In a way, I agree with Hugh that the best result for this is for the Shiites and the Sunnis to end up trying to kill each other and the Americans basically getting out of the way and letting it happen.
Hang in their Greg. Even those of us without family in the military have our hearts drop with every bit of bad news that comes out from Iraq and Afghanistan.
One has to keep in mind that there is a noble purpose here. And it is not necessarily the construction of Democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan - though that goal is not the impossibility that so many insist. No, the noble purpose is the protection of the American people.
Those who call for unconditional withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan refuse to answer the most telling question in the equation:
How should we then respond in the likely event that after our withdrawal, the most fanatical elements in the Muslim world gain control of these two countries (or portions of them), and then use their hard won territory as a base to wage global jihad, to spread their violence far and wide, to repeat the atrocity of 9-11?
"...an anti-terror operation at the headquarters of the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars."
Terrorism from the Muslim Scholars? Why is it that the ones who study the Qur'an the most, the ones who know Islam the best, the ones who are most devout, who are the terrorists?
The more they study the Religion of Peace, the more violent they become.
What an incredible waste of American lives."
Right. And not only a waste, but a waste that is occurring because the very opposite of the stated goal should be what is to be achieved: leaving Iraq, and leaving it so that the natural fissures, ethnic and sectarian, can play out. And meanwhile hope that they draw in, the hostility and open warfare one hopes develops between Sunni and Shi'a, men, money, and materiel from the two most malevolent and powerful Muslim countries, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the (Wahhabi) Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And if the conflict within Iraq causes Shi'a in al-Hasa province to be more restless, or the Shi'a in Bahrain or the Yemen (perhaps in response to Sunni attempts to pre-emptively discourage any local Shi'a getting any big ideas), this is highly desirable.
And one can also that the Kurds, sensing American support, but in any case believing that they will have to make their move now, while the Sunis and Shi'a are battling each other, or never be able to attain the independence that 98% of the Kurds voted for a year ago, in a separate Kurdish referendum, will demonstrate the ferocity of the peshmerga (also having received useful training from the Americans).
And while the Americans can hold off Turkey, by extracting from the Kurds a promise, and then transmitting that promise to the Turkish government, that no territorial demands will be made on Turkey, and that there will be no aid extended to the PKK, they can also demand from the Kurds, as a price for American support, that the Christians of Iraq be provided with territory, within Kurdistan, where they will be guaranteed safe haven and even protection by the Kurds -- otherwise, the United States will call the whole thing off and Kurdistan will be on its own, and that means Kurdistan will not be allowed to last for very long.
An independent Kurdistan should inspire the many Kurds, persecuted within both Syria and Iran, to insist that they, and the lands they sit on, be included within this new state. Syria is in no position to do much, especially if the Americans show a willingness to bomb them at will -- as it should and could, defending "helpless" Kurds being attacked by the outlaw regime on its last legs (and meanwhile other Alawites, not in the government, can be given to understand that the Americans would prefer another Alawite regime, and are willing to contemplate it -- but only if those who might replace Assad recognize that the mixture as before will not be tolerated).
And then there are the Kurds of Iran. They too have suffered, just as all non-Persians have suffered (about 50% of the population) from the Persian mistreatment of non-Persians which is one more unpleasant feature of the entirely unpleasant Islamic Republic of Iran. And should those Kurds in western Iran revolt, would things stop there? Would not the millions of Azeris in the north prefer to join a less Islamic Azerbaijan than to remain within a disintegrating Islamic Republic of Iran (one that might already have lost face, or about to lose it, along with its nuclear project, one way or another). And then there are the Arabs of Khuzistan, already in territories where much of the oil is, and which the Iranians cannot possibly lose, and will have to concentrate their efforts in suppressing the ethnic Arabs.
And like the Sunni-Shi'a conflict, with its repercussions for Sunni-Shi'a relations in Pakistan, Yemen, Bahrain, eastern Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon, the establishment of a Kurdish state would not only inspire Kurds in Iran and Syria, but other non-Arab Muslim peoples who have suffered from the Arab supremacist ideology within Islam. Think of the effect on Berbers in the Kabyle region of Algeria, or in Morocco, or for that matter, Berbers in France who already may be, some of them, a little more inclined to turn on their Arab "brothers" and, in so turning, offer help of all kinds to the security services -- in exchange, though, for some tangible signs of the French favoring the Berbers, which might be a good idea by way of dividing and conquering, within the Muslim community that menaces France from within.
All sorts of things are possible, plausible, at least to be imagined and thought about.
So far, from the Administration, all we get is the same stolid repetition of the same obvious nonsense, about Iraq and the March of Democracy and Iraq the Light Unto the Muslim Nations.
No imagination? No Alfred Thayer Mahans or Halford Mackinders? Nothing but sweetness and light as the way to handle Islam? End that poverty? Bring that democracy? Listen with great solicitude to Muslim propagandists? And above all, pay that jizyah?
That has been the policy -- the jizya payments to Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, and of course the "Palestinians." The bringing of "democracy" to Iraq at great cost to the United States. The inability to imagine a future in which the islamization of Europe could happen -- when in fact it will almost certainly happen, unless there is a mass attempt at instructing Infidels, ignorant and unwary and wanting not to believe, and believing fervently that some threats cannot possibly come true -- instructing them in the tenets of Islam, the attitudes of Islam, the history of Islam, the division of the world between Infidel and Believer, that is at the heart of a belief-system initially created in order to promote, and justify, conquest of lands and peoples who were more advanced, wealthy, settled, and already possessed their own religions, which Islam came to displace, by a sly mixture of the new and the appropriated.
Wile E. does not wish to rehash old arguments or freshly antagonize the benificent VP of Jihadwatch. He's content to agree to disagree and let sleeping coyotees lie.
But he is at pains to point out that a mere promise of good behavior on the part of Iraqi Kurds is hardly likely to alter the explicitly stated policy of the Turkish government, that it will intervene militarily should they declare their independence.
And an America that is walking away from a fight against the fanatical 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' is hardly in a position to dictate with any credibility...particularly to the Turks who possess the largest military establishment in the Middle East.
No folks, we're not about to burn our bridges with Turkey over the Iraqi Kurds. Those poor souls will just be cut loose again, as they were in the mid-70s when the Shah sold them out for the rights to the Shatt-al Arab waterway.
The Kurds of Iraq have never known such freedom and prosperity as they have today. The loss of their sovereignty to Turkey or to a future revanchist Shia gov't in Iraq backed by Iran is a preventable tragedy...and one more reason why we should see things through in Iraq.