U.S., Iraqi forces launch offensive in Najaf

[ryan2772]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/08/12/iraq.main/index.html

so this is pretty much the heaviest fighting we've had so far. i think this could be a huge turning point if we (and the iraqi security forces) take this f*cker out.

[V. Barbarino]

i found myself over the last few days viewing this a game, then i had to step back and realize americans might die. I hope this is the last push, but i'm really facinated by the articles on US tatics. We have some smart mofos in our military, they are bascially cornering them today, then will send in the iraqis..

[Guest endymion]

i found myself over the last few days viewing this a game, then i had to step back and realize americans might die.

...and of course that's the only thing that matters to you. Gee I wonder why so many people all over the place want to kill Americans.

[V. Barbarino]

i found myself over the last few days viewing this a game, then i had to step back and realize americans might die.

...and of course that's the only thing that matters to you. Gee I wonder why so many people all over the place want to kill Americans.

it's a distance war in a distance place. just like ww2... i'm detacted from the reality of it all. not a good thing, but just the facts. unlike 911 it hit home and i understood it unlike modern warefare in iraq.

[rbs]

They say that most of the fighters against the US and Iraq are not even from Iraq...

[LESjunkie]

They say that most of the fighters against the US and Iraq are not even from Iraq...

who is "they?" It irks me when people say "they" in this context. it sounds like water-cooler talk. "They say it's going to rain today..."

"There was a great far side cartoon back in the day. A man was on the phone and he said to the person on the other line..."Barry Horowitz! So YOU'RE the they in that's what they say."

I always found that to be a very funny, clever cartoon. ;D

[rbs]

"They" as in BBC News. You know another news source besides cnn since american media "sucks"

"Defence Minister Hazim al-Shalaan said 1,200 suspected fighters - many of them non-Iraqis - had been captured in the huge cemetery which has become a key battleground in Najaf."

Here is the article

Sorry...didn't think I had to be technical... ???

[Guest endymion]

... then i had to step back and realize americans might die.

...and of course that's the only thing that matters to you. Gee I wonder why so many people all over the place want to kill Americans.

i'm detacted from the reality of it all. not a good thing, but just the facts.

Your subjectivity prevents you from even seeing what I was saying. I was trying to point out that you're not at all worried about the lives of any of the other variety of people who are going to die today in Najaf. You have a terrorist's attitude about civilian lives. I just think that it's amazing that even after you realize that it's real and that people will die today, you just don't give a shit about any of them but the American soldiers. To you it's obvious that they are the only people there who count.

The Iraqi grandmother blown apart by an American 120 mm shell in Najaf is just as tragic as the stock broker doing a swan dive from the 98th floor, but not to you. To you she's not human. I still haven't figured out exactly why you think that she counts less than the stock broker. Even if you support this war you are still a human. You even claim to be a Christian, a religion of compassion. Innocent civilians are dying tragically every day because of our politics. Gee maybe we should put some serious thought into our politics at this point. Maybe we should have in 2002.

Innocent civilians are dying becuase of somebody else's ideology. That stock broker only gave a shit about his portfolio, that grandmother only gave a shit about her family and her garden. Osama bin Laden killed the stock broker out of some deranged us-and-them mentality and we recoiled in horror at the unthinkable evil that could reduce that person to a pawn in some global religious chess game. We condemned the evil, we committed to seek that evil out and end it so that such a thing could never happen again.

...then we went out and did it to somebody else. George W Bush killed that grandmother in Najaf because of his good-versus-evil ideology that he's being fed by his Christ-freak base. We reel in horror at the unspeakable evil that could drive Osama bin Laden to reduce that stock broker to a pawn but then we let Bush treat that grandmother as an expendable chess piece in his little crusade. A crusade is a holy war. A jihad. We think that jihad is evil if it results in tragic civilian deaths, we call that "terrorism".

So how is it that you feel morally superior to the Muslims of the world who cheer for the jihadis? The aspect of the jihadis that you fear the most is the complete disregard for the lives of innocent bystanders. You are that. You support terrorism. You're sitting here today cheering it on.

Jump up and down and call me a leftist for calling you a terrorist, I know that part is coming, but I really do want to hear an answer to this question: how is your attitude about today in Najaf morally superior to that of the Iraqi who will cheer when Al Qaeda manages to blow something up in the US? How does that work exactly? How are we on the "good" side on this one? Because we look an awful lot like the terrorists today in the minds of a lot of people in the world.