Yeah, the big evil American Military men should just sit around and wait to be added to the list of dead and wounded rather than killing those who are trying to kill them.

I guess people's definition of "supporting the troops" varies greatly. While my "support" includes not second guessing the actions of the highly trained military professionals on the ground being fired upon, I guess others' definition of "supportive" is to say they should have just pulled back and risk being killed in retreat rather than give the appearance of "attacking a religion" without regard for the realities of what was happening on the ground at that moment.

That is not quite true.

Source is here

They didnt just knock a wall down, they fired a hellfire missle at the minaret. That is a shot right at the heart of the mosque. That would be like taking a shot right at the steeple of a christian church. The minaret is also where the call to prayer comes from.

Bad, bad move.



In my opinion picking up a gun and protecting yourself from fire that has hurt collegues as you state in your analogy is far different than calling in an airstrike and bombdrop. Those take planning and approval from higher ranks in the chain. Someone should have decided it was a very bad idea and thought of the possible consequences.

In that situation you want to pick up the biggest gun you have. That's what they did. There is no doubt there was an approval process and the consequences were considered. They decided it was the best way to proceed in this situation.

Hello?

It sounds like they are being insensitive, not us...

Ummm, no. Your own article states the minaret was hit by shrapnel which is far from firing a "missile at the minaret". Other articles also specifically state that the mosque was not the main target.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ike/index.html

My article states - The Abdel-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque was hit by U.S. aircraft that launched a Hellfire missile at its minaret

The minaret is part of the mosque.

" Witnesses said part of a wall surrounding the mosque compound was destroyed but the main building had not been damaged"

They are talking about the 2x500lb bomb damage their.

A hellfire missle was still aimed and fired at a minaret.

Anyhow, no point arguing these points.

My thoughts are that the US still made a huge mistake here and as someone said previously, if Sadr had 10,000 supporters before he will have many many more today.

It also gives a very bad visual to those outside of Iraq who already dislike the US.

But, again. The minaret is an integral part of the Mosque, and many of the innocent deaths were probrably caused when it (most likely) collapsed through into the Mosque itself.

Can you point to a single report of the minaret falling? I can find nothing of the sort.

No I can't but I can make the assumption (in tandem with the number of dead) that when a hellfire missile strikes a fragile structure on the top of a dome, destruction has taken place.

There hasn't been a single report that the Hellfire struck the minaret. Every report that I've seen says there was minimal or no damage to the mosque itself.

Video crashes my computer at work, anyone mind watching this to see if you can analyze the extent of damage?

http://news.yahoo.com//p/v?u=/ap_av/...452&f=53746348",650,450

Looks like an incomplete address. It doesn't come up for me.

Nevermind. The link worked the second time. Can't get it to run properly however.

It runs here, but it shows very litte from the fighting around the mosque. It only shows some gunfire (?) hitting a wall at the end.

I'm looking but I'm not finding any pictures of the mosque after the battle.

Off to the Arab news then.

Hey I got it to work. Installed Real Player and could actually see it.

Video was inconclusive. They showed a mosque with two minarets then they showed some helos, tanks, Marines, etc then a wall being hit by machine gune fire and then an explosion. There is no minaret in sight during this part of the segment.

When it comes down to it, one way or the other, the point is the Marines were taking fire from the mosque. The point I was making about the minaret was that there has been no statement anywhere that I can see that it was damaged seriously yet that's the story people have started to tell in this thread. The most I saw was a comment about it being hit by shrapnel.

The video shows nothing of importance to the issue in question. The footage and reporter show a mosque, but undamaged and then claim it may not even be the building in question.
Earlier in this thread someone says "if they had guns , they are no longer civilian, or innocent" or something to that effect. Yet I believe the same poster in another thread(concerning the mutilation of the four security forces) says the were civilian, and that makes it worse.

I guess it really comes down to a simple fact.

This has become a new type of war, and I dont think we really want to be in it.

In what way do you believe it is a new type of war?

I think we can all agree to that.

Our armed forces aren't equiped or trained to be able to occupy a nation. It's making the situation worse and putting our forces in danger.

No clear enemy. Fighting through a city'sinhabited buildings and religious structures.

It's not the kind of thing our military is trained for. Our forces can't respond with the type of tact that civilized society demands.

I don't think it is so very new, it is the usual guerillia style warfare, and it is always the problem with this style of fighting that the "real" military is not trained for that. They need their enemy to be a "real" opponent, to be available.
what makes the situation in iraq special are the numerous religious groups and the different mentality

The Mosque, and Specifically the Minaret, were not bombed
 

"We specifically did not target the mosque as we felt we could engage the enemy in the area with disciplined and well-aimed fire from our Marines without needing to cause extensive damage to the mosque and surrounding structures," the source said.
...

Marines, pinned down, dropped two precision-guided 500-pound bombs on the walls of the mosque and fired a Hellfire missile.

"It didn't appear to us," Kimmitt said, "to have any effect on the main dome building itself."

The wall is a few hundred yards from any structure, the source said, and the mosque building was not damaged.
...

Muslims consider all of a mosque's compound as the mosque because worshippers gather on the grounds if the structure is full.

Insurgents "firing from the mosque blatantly misused a protected symbol by conducting offensive military operations from a place of worship," the source said.

"As a result, the mosque lost its protected status and therefore became a lawful military target."

Full story here (CNN)

Absolutely agree that it is not new in the least. I do disagree with the belief that the military isn't trained for this. Urban fighting scnearios have been indoctrinated into the military training regimen for a decade or more now. Until it is confronted in real life, of course, that training can't be gauged. It seems they have done a hell of a job thus far through the invasion and occupation of Iraq. There have been countless cases of urban battles during this time.

As far as the different mentality, I disagree. The mentality involved here is classic. A man trying to cement his power by assasinating rivals and building an army so he can seize whatever he can at his earliest opportunity. In this case he uses religion to control/influence his followers. It's not a new mentality at all, it's just that we're confronting it in Iraq and not somewhere else in the world.

No it's not the urban fighting they are not trained for (although Urban combat is still the most dangerous form of combat since the technological advantage is not that importand here) it is the guerillia combat style, that you don't have your opponent in front of you. You have your opponent all around you, without a clrear frontline.

I'm not talking about Sadrs mentality here, what I meant was the mentality of the people the different cultures. That makes it difficult for the US to appear as a friend, and of course stuff like blowing up a mosque (or a part of it) doesn't help making friends.
When trying to rebuild a nation you have to work together and not appear as a occupying force. Thats what i menat with different mentality, the US troops seem to be in a nation they don't really understand. But thats a whole different topic.

Guerilla fighting is even less new than urban fighting. Training against guerilla tactics has been around since Vietnam.

Building a nation requires the elimination of lawlessness. Sadr is accused and wanted for the assassination of another Iraqi cleric. Allowing him to remain free because he is a religious leader or because he has built a small army undermines any hope of building the nation.

There is a difference between older guerilla wars and this, though. There's countless news media reporting on each and every act of the US troops. This includes some rather one-sided and biased reports aimed at Muslims worldwide.

These same Muslims won't hear about the fact that only a wall was damaged, they'll just hear that the infidels attacked a mosque, where brave resistance fighters were doing their best to protect their country, themselves (and Islam). During the attack by US airplanes, over 40 (no, wait, make that 100!) innocent Muslims were killed, with the US troopers laughing and mocking them. To top it off, the infidels pissed on the smoking corpses, and then forced everyone there to convert to Christianity.

Okay, it's a bit over the top, but that's the basic story extremists tell everyone and their dog. And it's the story that will not be ruined by such things like "facts" or "reality". It will fuel the hatred worldwide, warranted or not.

Note that I'm not saying this airstrike shouldn't have happened - I assume the soldiers on the ground can be trusted to do the right thing. And no, I'm not saying that every Muslim is an extremist, nor that every Muslim reporter is biased, or whatever. Just sayin'.

It looks like another miscalculation on the part of the CPA to have allowed Sadr to remain free this past year. When was that warrant issued for his arrest? Shortly after the death of that cleric in April, wasn't it?

I'm not disputing what you say but a journalist who was imbedded with U.S soldiers in Fallujah recounted on the CBC tv that the American's seemed confused and didn't know what they were doing.

Apparently according to this journalist ( his name escapes me) the American's were shooting at everything in sight, militants as well as civilians. According to him, anything that moved was a target.

He also said the Americans lost composure and were very scared, even calling for back up to get them out because they appeared to not know what to do.

Certainly a perspective I wasn't expecting to hear.

This is because of the love-fest the left has for ANYTHING that can be spun to make this country and our troops look like bumbling fools, as much as we all know you support them. It'd be one thing if you were as discerning of this type of info, as you were with stories that actually make this country look good.

This is the first thing i thought of when i opened this thread. This thread was purposefully posted for the above reason, no one bothered to wonder why the mosque was fired on. It really felt like the dems on this board were excited at this, without questioning initially why or under what circumstances this mosque was fired on.

As much as i avoid using this word because of the use and abuse by again, the left, yeah the originally post totally offended me. I think Strange Famous owes the board an apology, owes americans an apology.

His presence is limited to full-on anti-american sentiments, and the left never EVER questions him. That's where your patriotism is questioned, IMHO. You always give this freak militants the benefit of the doubt, and not even have the courtesy to wait till the full story is out before you start blaming America - on near every issue.

I'm sure this attitude will change if you're boy Kerry is elected, and that's all the more frustrating. Your hatred for Bush supercedes your respect for the country.

People can go rounds about whether we should be using our reserves over there, but regardless, these are still predominantly what we refer to as "weekend warriors." Not a dig, actually it's touted by people I know as fun way to serve and get some action on the weekends. I think our reserves usually do one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer. Given that, it shouldn't be surprising that they become scared (not saying that regular military doesn't get scared) and appear to not know what they're doing. I think part of training is to make many things reflexive and/or "instinctual." Not much chance of that, IMO, if you're only training one weekend a month and still retaining a civilian identity.

Wow.

Well said.

That's bunch of bullshit, dude. The reason the "left" doesn't get its shit all twisted is because we actually allow for difference of opinion. I don't think any one of us thinks SF owes anyone an apology for his opinion, anti-american or not.

The one thing that I think none of us can stand equally, and this is likely the only place where we are intolerable of a difference of opinion, is when the right constantly brands us as american hating and questions our patriotism. We grew up in the same fucking country as you. I don't even care about what right you might have to question another's loyalty, but it certainly has to be the most rude thing to say to another US citizen purely based on political ideas.

You think you're patriotic because you won't tolerate difference of political ideas? You better check your history...and stop insulting us. The only thing I would demand an apology over would be the totally inflammatory and piercing accusation that I don't love my nation and its ideals as much as anyone else who grew up here and I think it's odd that you keep on this track even though I haven't seen one person from the left calling someone from the right on this board unpatriotic or anti-american. In fact, one could even argue that an american can't, by definition and according to the tenets laid down in the constitution, be anti-american--no matter what he or she believes.

your right smooth, and my questioning of your support for our troops being completely baseless......noted.

Imagine that, confusion during war. And this guy is an expert on how people should react when fired upon and in the identification of enemy combatants I suppose. In fact most anything that moed probably was a target since most non combatants flee in the opening minutes of a prolonged battle.

As far as the claim that these are reserves doing the fighting, it's the First Marine Division not the National Guard.

Don't attribute that fucking statement to me. Strange Famous is from England and I don't appreciate your crap aimed at me, a US citizen, based off his statements. Get off your high horse.

Lefties all look alike, dude.

You need to fuckin relax. My original post was how NONE of the left question Strange Famous' motives or statements, to the contrary, they seemed to embrace them. As such - i am attributing them to you. Got it?

...and for the record, the original post was "aimed" at pan's, not you - perhaps you should get off your high horse. She wondered why her patriotism is being questioned, i told her why i thought so.

Well said. It's a shame that some people have to bring petty political nonsense into a situation like our troops being fired upon, and returning fire.