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Originally Posted by powerclown
The last dozen threads were based on your comment regarding civilian casualties specifically in Fallujah '04:
You respond (from my link) with civilian casualty figures that had nothing to do with Fallujah '04. Those figures were for the entire Iraq War. You insist that every man in Fallujah '04 of fighting age (out of 350,000 residents) must have been killed. I say there were nowhere near tens of thousands of civilian casualties in Fallujah '04.
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Here we go again (for powerclown, who evidently has comprehension issues):
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According to the British Independent Newspaper "Since the Anglo-American aggression began in March 2003, more than 16,000 Iraqis have been killed by the invaders in Fallujah, some 10,000 of whom were civilians, a large proportion of them women and children. It is in this context the hatred felt by the majority of Fallujah citizens against US forces must be looked at and calling them resistance fighters is justified."
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Doesn't get any more clear than that sentence I bolded that the figure is referring to fallujah.
The bar keeps getting higher. Now we are only talking about '04? Pardon me, but people in Fallujah are going to be affected by civilians killed by the US throughout the entire invasion. So, yeah, I don't know the number killed in the past 2 weeks. But I don't see how that new limitation on the discussion is in any way helpful when one is considering the overall impact of the assault on fallujah (which is and has been ongoing save for breaks).
I never said that every fighting age man in fallujah has been killed.
I said (once again);
a) check your math. You keep using the figure of 350,000. Since that number includes women, children, and aged, there are probably only like 50,000 fighting age men in that figure.
b) not all of them have been killed, nor did I ever claim they were. The military has reportedly killed about 1,000 insurgents. That leaves at least 50,000 men in the city that aren't insurgents because they haven't been allowed to leave since they are of fighting age. Regardless, they are in the city and hunkered down waiting for the attack to stop.
They are engaged against the US whether they like it or not because the US military can't distinguish between insurgents and innocent 18-40 year olds. They also are witnessing the civilians (men, women, and children) who didn't leave dying in the rubble. That will create blowback, whether you admit it or not.
I certainly hope you are done here because repeating myself isn't very productive.
EDIT: I actually didn't see this question, powerclown, I wasn't avoiding it.
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Smooth, where do you think these 'decentralized cells' are going to operate once they can no longer hide in the cities? Are they going to set up shop in the middle of the desert?
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I believe that is exactly what is happening and will continue to happen.
Although I should add a point to this: you are evidently lumping the organized resistance movements with terrorist cells. Decentralized cells refers to terrorist cells. They can always hide in a city because they are formed from 3-4 or sometimes as much as 10 people, but nothing that wouldn't prevent them from living normally in a community until they are activated.
The organized resistance movements are tribally based. They have lived in the desert for millenia. After the cities are demolished (which would be the only way to ensure someone can't hide in it), they certainly can continue to be mobile in the desert and operate from it. In fact, their entire infrastructure is based on ancient modes of transport, trade, and communication. There is nothing within their infrastructure that I am aware of that depends on an urban environment.