They are calling it the Battle of Baghdad now -

[Joe for Clark]

AMERICA IN IRAQ
Crackdown fails to halt violence
DEATHS CONTINUE TO MOUNT DESPITE U.S.-LED OPERATION
By Paul von Zielbauer
New York Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The bodies of 40 people, including 25 who had been blindfolded and shot at close range, were found Monday in Baghdad, as violence continued despite an American-led crackdown.

U.S. military officials announced Monday that four soldiers and two Marines had also died since Sunday.

At least 334 people, including 23 women, were slain in Baghdad between Wednesday and Monday, according to morgue figures provided by Ministry of Health officials. Most of the victims had been kidnapped, tortured, hogtied and shot.

During the week, at least 394 other people were killed around Iraq in other types of violence, including bombings, mortar attacks and gunfights, Iraqi authorities said.

The spike in violence followed an announcement by U.S. and Iraqi officials at the beginning of the week that the number of killings in the capital had dramatically fallen during the month, from more than 1,800 in July. Although August as a whole was still less violent than the month before, last week's killings suggested that death squads were still able to move about Baghdad despite checkpoints and curfews.

As part of the recent and much-publicized security crackdown, dubbed ``The Battle of Baghdad'' by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, about 11,000 Iraqi and U.S. soldiers were sent to the capital to reinforce security forces already there. In the past few weeks, soldiers have cordoned off some neighborhoods and flooded those streets with around-the-clock patrols.


Joe

[liberal N proud]

1. Is it anything like the Battle for the Little Big Horn?

Maybe it will be bu$h's last stand or at least Rumsfeld's

[Lexingtonian]

3. more like Algiers or Saigon

[Critters2]

8. Dien Bien Phu nt

[Critters2]

7. A LOT like it

Arrogant white assholes getting their butts handed to 'em by indigenous defenders.

It's deja vu all over again!

[acmavm]

2. What was it last week? Operation _______ (fill in the blank)

[Joe for Clark]

6. I know when it started they called it "Phase Two"

Joe

[acmavm]

12. Are you sure it wasn't FAZE II?

[Critters2]

9. Operation _Oh, yeah? Well you're a fascist, neener, neener, neener__ nt

[Cocoa]

4. isn't Baghdad where that Saddam statue got pulled down?

that was a nice moment, I liked when that happened. Let's just pretend nothing ever happened after that.

[whistle]

5. This may be the Iraq version of the TET offensive

<snip>
Tet offensive: a turning point in the Vietnam war

The American intervention in Vietnam began in 1963 withe direct aim of stopping the South falling into 'communist' hands. In August of that year, Lyndon Johnson, who had taken over the American presidency in the wake of the assasination of John F. Kennedy, ordered the first air strikes on the North.
Six months later the 'Rolling Thunder' air campaign began. In this campaign alone more bombs were dropped on North Vietnam alone than were used in the whole of the Second World War. In the following five years the two Vietnams received the equivalent of 22 tons of explosives for every square mile of territory, or 300lb for every man, women and child. 7 million tons of bombs and defoliants were dropped in total and 2.6 million Vietnamese were killed.

The American deployment jumped from 23,300 in 1963 to 184,000 in 1966 and reached a peak of 542,000 in January 1969 under Richard Nixon's presidency.

The Tet offensive is seen as the great turning point: from then on the war, costing ?30 billion a year, was widely acknowledged as unwinnable by the Americans. It was only a matter of time before mighty US imperialism was humiliatingly forced to withdraw.

On the night of 31st January 1968, 70,000 North Vietnamese soldiers launched the Tet offensive - it proved to be one of the greatest campaigns in military history.

by Steve Forrest

Vietcong guerrilla fighters violated the temporary truce they had pledged to observe around the lunar new year celebrations, and surged into more than one hundred towns and cities, including Saigon.

<more>
http://www.marxist.com/1968/vietnam.html

[underpants]

10. I think maybe the US forces got the go ahead

and take out or at least start taking out Sadr's militia or at least enough of them to get them back in line.

Maybe it's just a hunch. :shrug:

[Joe for Clark]

13. They don't have the guys to do it.

This whole thing is a fiasco. They sent a brigade and a couple battallions of American kids to clean up a total mess they failed miserably with in "Phase One" -

They sent some Iraqi soldiers too, I guess - I can't believe the kids will or should trust them -hell, they ration their bullets (Iraqi soldiers), you know?

Anyway, its a city the size of Los Angeles, what difference does ANYONE think a few battallions make one way or the other?

I think it is starting to get serious now, for our kids.

Joe

[The_Casual_Observer]

11. It's absolutely futile.

Call it whatever you want, it will just be another name for lost cause.

[Joe for Clark]

14. I think that is exactly right.

Joe

Eleven kids died in the last 48 hours - and the weather is just starting to cool down.