IRAQ: Ramadi residents flee city after latest US-led attacks

[leftchick]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/f088ccb9258d6720ea36591a9abb5b37.htm

"Many insurgents have escaped Fallujah to this area but they won't have time to take the city and our early operation will prevent that. People have started to flee the city but it's too early for that," Brathen added.

But citizens, exhausted by ongoing violence, are afraid and are choosing to leave before the situation worsens. "They want to destroy the whole area and build a New York City there, and for that they are tearing down everything. We want to live in peace. We are tired of fighting and bombs. God, please protect us," Muhammad Farhan, a father of five, who was fleeing the city with his family, told IRIN.

Government offices and shops have closed and people are having difficulties getting food supplies as the offensive came quickly and without warning, giving them no time to prepare.

A government official from the city, who wished to remain anonymous, told IRIN that they expected the situation to get much worse, especially in some areas of Ramadi where insurgents were putting up a strong fight. He added that most government officials had already left the city.

Firdous al-Abadi, a spokeswoman for the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS), told IRIN that many people had been trapped in the university and inside mosques for over 48 hours as fighting raged outside.

[Zen]

1. Candy and rose pedals.

but, were "just about to turn the corner"

Stupid lyning mass-murdering fucking war criminals...

[meganmonkey]

2. "We are tired of fighting and bombs. God, please protect us"

I can't stand it anymore, just reading about it and seeing pictures. I can't imagine what this is like for these people. I cry every day here in my plush little safe world just thinking about it.

GOD PLEASE PROTECT THEM!

:cry:

[jmcgowanjm]

3. IR forces launch ground assault on US Marine checkpoint in Hit Wednesday a

IRR 022305

Iraqi Resistance wipes out American troops manning
checkpoint in Hit Wednesday evening.

In a dispatch posted at 6:10pm Wednesday night Mecca
time, the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in Hit reported
that Iraqi Resistance forces a short while before had attacked
a US checkpoint wiping out all the American troops
there.

Resistance vows to fight as massive American
armored columns advance on Hit from four
directions Wednesday night.

In a dispatch posted at 8:26pm Wednesday night Mecca
time, the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in Hit reported
that massive US military columns had been withdrawing
from the cities of ‘Anah, Rawah, and Hadithah to head for
Hit. The correspondent reported eyewitnesses as saying that
the massive US columns included tanks, armored vehicles
and hitherto unknown American fighting
vehicles.

The columns, including their heavy equipment, were
seen advancing towards Hit from four directions, indicating
that zero hour was at hand for expected American attacks on
the city, likely to be the longest such operations targeting the
city so far.

The correspondent reported that Resistance forces in Hit
had broadcast over mosque loudspeakers that Hit will
become the second al-Fallujah for the US occupation
forces. The Resistance pledged to fight no matter how large
the American force advancing on the city turned out to
be.

www.freearabvoice.com

Can we do Hit and Ar Ramadi the same time?

[jmcgowanjm]

4. Speaking of Fallujah

Resistance bomb leaves 17 US troops dead north of al-Fallujah Tuesday night.

An officer in the Iraqi puppet forces told Mafkarat al-Islam that
a Resistance martyrdom fighter driving a government pickup
with an Iraqi Commerce Ministry license plate slammed into
a US checkpoint on the al-Fallujah - as-Saqlawiyah road
at 11pm. The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent, who attended
a press conference together with a reporter for the
Washington Post, wrote that 17 American troops were killed
in the attack and that a large number were wounded. One
of those injured was the deputy commander of US forces
in al-Fallujah.

[jmcgowanjm]

5. US declares Saturdays to be Holidays

Like we haven't got enough problems?
Who comes up w/ this merde.

Puppet Iraqi “government” declares Saturday weekly
holiday; al-Anbar Province refuses to comply.

In a two-hour expanded meeting of tribal and religious
leaders, college professors, and other prominent persons
of al-Anbar Province held in the house of a tribal Shaykh
in ar-Ramadi
on Wednesday morning it was decided that the people
of
the Province would not comply with the order of the US-
installed government to make every Saturday a public
holiday Mafkarat al-Islam reported.

Wednesday morning’s meeting followed a
surprise announcement by the puppet “government” in
Baghdad made without consultation or prior public
discussion, declaring Saturday to be a weekly
holiday. Traditionally Friday, the Muslim day of
congregational prayer, has been Iraqis’ day off
work.

The reporter for the London-based al-Quds al-‘Arabi
newspaper reported on Wednesday that Iraqis were shocked
by the news, particularly since the US-installed government
is still embroiled in working out the results of the
farcical “election” held on 30 January, and is still
supposedly wrestling unsuccessfully with the tasks of trying
to get basic economic functions and utility services to
work.

[NYC]

11. Is this a reliable source?

Why would they do such a thing? It makes no sense at all.

[jmcgowanjm]

12. Just found this, NYC

Iraqis march against Saturday

Many Iraqis are opposed to links with Jews and
Israel
Hundreds of Iraqis have marched against plans to make Saturday a
day of rest, calling the proposals a "Zionist
plot".
Students in Baquba opposed the scheme, backed by outgoing
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, because they identify Saturday with
the Jewish Sabbath.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4291997.stm

And this is the cherry on the "sunday" Hah

Public sector employees would have to work longer hours during
the week to compensate for the new day of
rest.

But you get time off for good behavior!
You can't make this stuff up.

[NYC]

15. No, you can't make this stuff up.

This makes absolutely no sense to me. None whatsoever. Let me know if you hear of a "reason".

[MattNC]

6. why are they fleeing from freedom? n/t

[cthrumatrix]

7. don't forget Rummy says democracy is "un-tidy"

[leftchick]

8. Dropping Bombs Again. Fallujah II??

A U.S. AV-8B II Harrier from the 'Tomcats' of Marine Attack Squadron 311 out of Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz., rests on the flightline in al-Asad airbasen near Ramadi, west of Baghdad, in this photograph released on February 24, 2005. The 'Tomcats' have logged more than 3,000 combat flight hours in a mere three-month period and in support for military operations in the al-Anbar province.U.S. forces used warplanes and an AC-130 gunship as they stepped up operations against insurgents in the restive western Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Thursday. REUTERS/DOD-Handout EDITORIAL USE ONLY

[LynnTheDem]

9. The Fallujah'ing of Ramadi. One genocide wasn't enough for US marines

Fallujah wasn't a large enough American national shame. Well, to the rest of the world it is, but not, of course, to Americans.

When the final report comes in that America has slaughtered a quarter million or a half million or a million Iraqi men, women & children, will Americans sit stunned and ask "How could we have let that happen?"

Nah.

[yinkaafrica]

10. Are we all damned yet?

[jmcgowanjm]

13. The list is too long, too awful to go on.

No matter what its eventual fate, America will have gotten off
very, very cheap.

The full measure of its guilt can never be fully balanced or
atoned for.

Were the opportunity acted upon in some reasonably good
faith fashion – a sufficiently large number of Americans rising
up and doing whatever is necessary to force an immediate lifting
of the sanctions on Iraq, for instance, or maybe hanging a few
of America's abundant supply of major war criminals (Henry
Kissinger comes quickly to mind, as do Madeline Albright,
Colin Powell, * and *) – there is
every reason to expect that military operations against the US
on
its domestic front would be
immediately
suspended.

Whether they would remain so would of course be contingent
upon follow-up. By that, it may be assumed that American
acceptance of onsite inspections by international observers to
verify destruction of its weapons of mass destruction (as well
as dismantlement of all facilities in which more might
be manufactured), Nuremberg-style trials in which a few thousand
US military/corporate personnel could be properly adjudicated
and punished for their Crimes Against humanity, and payment
of reparations to the array of nations/peoples whose assets the
US has plundered over the years, would
suffice.

Since they've shown no sign of being unreasonable or vindictive,
it may even be anticipated that, after a suitable period
of adjustment and reeducation (mainly to allow them to acquire
the skills necessary to living within their means), those restored
to control over their own destinies by the gallant sacrifices of
the combat teams the WTC and Pentagon will eventually (re)
admit Americans to the global circle of civilized societies.
Stranger things have happened.

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html

Churchill's People Push Back

[hector459]

14. Isn't democracy and freedom wonderful?

Peaceful dictatorship looks much better than what is going on now.