46 "insurgents" in Iraq get to go meet allah!

[RedFury]

*Originally posted by Age Quod Agis *
**Although I’m just an American, I’m one of the few that’s aware of la Furia Roja and Raul (I admit to rooting for ManU when they’re facing Real). My point was that you were criticizing others for the the lack of discretion in their names, and yours is hardly a bastion of Quaker virtue, no matter where it comes from. **

Not sure I understand your point. On the one hand you admit to knowing the source of my name, on the other, you seem to be struggling to give it some meaning that is simply not there in order to make said point. FWIW, I’ve been using the same nick on-line for over ten years now. Goes all the way back to the now defunct sports forums at CNN/SI, continued elsewhere by yours truly.

BTW, you’re more than welcomed to visit if you so choose: RedFury’s World Football

**Nor do the words daisycutter and ammo carry any sort of political connotation, in my opinion. Heck, for all we know, DaisyCutter’s first name is Daisy, and ammo52 is a reference to a power forward for the the old Washington Bullets (American basketball team).

**

Please read Dissonance’s post directly below yours. I’ll add that I was well aware of the meaning behind DaisyCutter’s moniker even before he “proudly” went on to explain it. The bellicose nature of his postings along with the misplaced smilies and great glee displayed when speaking of Iraqi deaths left little room for doubt.

I see much the same pattern with this new poster, ammo52, and you’ll forgive me if I see no reason to think that he/she was referring to the “Big E” as ‘ammo.’ Because this lowly Spaniard believes you might have been thinking about Elvin Hayes of the old Bullets championship days when you made that reference. Great scorer, but you’ll agree that the backbone of that team was Unseld, yes?

**My point was that your attack on their screen names was silly and inappropriate, and more than that, it was beneath a poster of your longevity. Criticize their posts if you want – and there is plenty to criticize – but let’s try and stay within the bounds of logic, shall we?

**

I’ll agree that as far as criticism goes, attacking their screen names is not exactly Pulitzer Prize material. But I submit that the logic is not exactly faulty given the evidence. The same evidence that points away from any double-meaning in my own nick.

**PS – In an effort to appear more mature than I really am, I have omitted any reference to South Korea, and I specifically deleted a frivolous comparison between the name “ammo” and a certain shootout with a certain host country in 2002.

**

I am always game for a discussion of the 2002 World Cup Farce and how the Azzurri and la Furia were done in by a power much greater than that of the Red Devils – FIFA interests. But this is neither the time or the place.

**I hope that helped.

**

Not nearly as much as a hundred dollar bill would have, but thank you for your measured response all the same

[Dissonance]

Originally posted by Age Quod Agis
Criticize their names at your own risk.

I wasn’t criticizing the names, I was pointing out that Daisy Cutter did in fact choose to name himself after the bomb, and was in fact making a political statement with his choice of a screen name. Feel free to do a search on his posts; he made a statement to the effect that he cut through terrorist supporters agreements like a daisy cutter. I actually took RedFury’s comment to be humorous rather than a serious attack on screen names.

[rjung]

*Originally posted by Age Quod Agis *
I’m aware of the bomb, and I’m aware of ammo52’s childish namecalling. But how do those facts lead to the conclusion that their names are reflective of a political orientation? Are you saying that only one party uses daisycutter bombs or ammunition?

Just speaking for myself, but I can’t imagine an anti-war advocate on either side of the aisle deciding to name himself after a pro-war WMD/MOAB/big-weapon-thingie. At the very minimum, the conscious choice of handles is a pretty good hint of what position the poster is not adopting.

[Age_Quod_Agis]

RedFury, I’m impressed, not only with your webpage and sports knowledge, but with your civil response.

RedFury:
I’ll add that I was well aware of the meaning behind DaisyCutter’s moniker even before he “proudly” went on to explain it.

Dissonance:
Feel free to do a search on his posts; he made a statement to the effect that he cut through terrorist supporters agreements like a daisy cutter.

If this is true, and DaisyCutter did intend his name to have some political connotation, then I am certainly wrong and I apologize for that.

[elucidator]

This sort of civility and polite discourse is all very well in its proper place, which is of course GD. This is the Pit, gentlemen, and I’ll thank you to conduct yourselves accordingly.

[threemae]

To avoid hijacking this thread entirely (not as if there was much of worth in the OP to hijack), I’ve started a new thread in GD.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=226574

I’ve addressed a few of the points in regards to non-strictly news stories in the OP in the next thread.

[Mr.Svinlesha]

Well, reports of 54 insurgent deaths appear to be greatly exaggerated.

Go here for more, quite mysterious, details.

[RedFury]

Well then, Mr. Svin, just like you to spoil the laughing hyena’s death-dance with those nasty little things called “facts.”

Must say that the timing of this wonderfully ‘succesful’ counterattack on the insurgents was straight out of “Propaganda 101,” coming as it did, on the last day of the – by far – bloodiest month for the occupying forces. Note that this particular bit of news managed to displace the attacks on Spanish and Japanese vassals from front-page news – as well as what we’ve gotten a glimpse of in this very thread. Namely a return of the triumphant cries of those who think a popular uprising can be quashed by the way of the Gun. Capital “G” for Gun, lest anyone forget who has the biggest of all.

Along those lines, note that putting out a precise number of “enemy combatants killed” (or whatever the military euphemism d’jour is) goes against the very policy that had been in place up to this very point. Pretty transparent all of it. And from the looks of your link…so were the “bodies.” :eek:

Tisk, tisk, Mr. S, trust you weren’t expecting an invitation to a Liberator’s Ball anytime soon.

[RedFury]

Note: The “laughing hyena’s death-dance” quip was intentionally included to satisfy elucidator’s lofty standards of Pit-worthy postings.

Meager effort, I know. But I humbly submit that one must crawl before one can sling with the best of them.

[Mr.Svinlesha]

RedFury:

Well, it is rather mind-boggling that, despite claiming 54 kills (all insurgents), US forces can’t produce a single body. Not one. All 8 bodies in the Samarra morgue are civilians.

More info from the New York Times:

** “If I had a gun, I would have attacked the Americans myself,” said Satar Nasiaf, 47, a shopkeeper who said he had watched two Iraqi civilians fall to American fire. “The Americans were shooting in every direction.”**

Or consider the following disjunction:

**Colonel Rudesheim, saying he had not seen any reports of civilian dead, contended that battles like this one would more probably win the support of Iraqis.

“Attacks, in our view, are attacks against freedom-loving Iraqis that want to move on with life, versus those that are trying to drag them back to something akin to the former regime,” he said. “What we hear is that the people of Samarra are fed up.”

But many different emotions were on display here on Monday. Outside the hospital, a small crowd of Iraqis gathered around a bus they said had been destroyed in the fighting and began chanting an old refrain: “Our souls and our blood, we sacrifice to you, Saddam.”**

Way to win ‘em over, Colonel.

[Ale]

*Originally posted by elucidator *
**This sort of civility and polite discourse is all very well in its proper place, which is of course GD. This is the Pit, gentlemen, and I’ll thank you to conduct yourselves accordingly. **

[President Muffley]Gentlemen, you can´t be civil here, this is the Pit![/President Muffley]

[PatriotX]

US Brigadier General Mark Kimmit: 54 killed, 22 wounded, 1 arrested
Gen Kimmitt said, “I would suspect that the enemy would have carried them away and brought them back to where their initial base was.”

Colonel Fredrick Rudesheim: 46 killed, 11captured
Col Rudesheim said, “This is a good question and I think perhaps if you can interview the Fedayeen or whoever attacked us, you might get a better answer.”
Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Gonsalves: a total of 60 militants, divided into two groups

This is my favorite part:

If the US troops killed 46 and captured 11 of them, only three of the survivors would have been left to pick up the corpses.

…Kimmit’s figures… with 54 killed, 22 wounded and one captured, 13 militants remain unaccounted for.

As to how the troops came up with their casualty figures, Rudesheim said…“We don’t indiscriminately engage people, only those who engage us with AK 47s and RPGs. That’s how we determine the number of people we are engaging and, after talking with each soldier, we can tell just how many people are returning fire at us.”

[Ale]

*Originally posted by SimonX *
Colonel Fredrick Rudesheim: 46 killed, 11 captured
Col Rudesheim said, “This is a good question and I think perhaps if you can interview the Fedayeen or whoever attacked us, you might get a better answer.”

How peachy!, fetch one of those and let´s get the straight dope.

[Steve_Wright]

Is this “body count math” in action?

You know - 1 guerilla + 2 probables + 1 pig = 37 enemy KIA. That sort of thing.

[Mr.Svinlesha]

More on the Samarra firefight can be found here. Some interesting tidbits:

** Of greater importance is the scale of the attack and the coordination of the two operations. Iraqi Rebel Guerilla Units elements still retain the ability to conduct synchronized operations despite the massive overwhelming firepower “Iron Hammer” offensive this month.

Hack, most of the casualties were civilians, not insurgents or criminals as being reported. During the ambushes the tanks, brads and armored HUMVEES hosed down houses, buildings, and cars while using reflexive fire against the attackers. One of the precepts of “Iron Hammer” is to use an Iron Fist when dealing with the insurgents. As the division spokesman is telling the press, we are responding with overwhelming firepower and are taking the fight to the enemy….

The ROE** [i.e., Rules of Engagement, for you non-military types – S.] **under “Iron Fist” is such that the US soldiers are to consider buildings, homes, cars to be hostile if enemy fire is received from them (regardless of who else is inside). It seems too many of us this is more an act of desperation, rather than a well thought out tactic. We really don’t know if we kill anyone, because we don’t stick around to find out. Since we armored troops and we are not trained to use counter-insurgency tactics; the logic is to respond to attacks using our superior firepower to kill the rebel insurgents. This is done in many cases knowing that there are people inside these buildings or cars who may not be connected to the insurgents….

Since we did not stick around to find out, I am very concerned in the coming days we will find we killed many civilians as well as Iraqi irregular fighters. I would feel great if all the people we killed were all enemy guerrillas, but I can’t say that. We are probably turning many Iraqi against us and I am afraid instead of climbing out of the hole, we are digging ourselves in deeper.

A COMBAT LEADER**

The entire report, quite short in length, is definitely worth reading.

[Steve_Wright]

Ah. Right. Throw massive amounts of firepower at the problem, and hope that the non-combatants are cowed, rather than angered, by the collateral damage.

Right. Because we all know that approach has worked so well in the Palestinian occupied territories - why, Israel hardly has any problems with Palestinian militants these days, does it?

:rolleyes:

[Dissonance]

What makes the figures being put out sound implausible to me and an example of “body count math” is the small number of wounded being reported and the large numbers of killed, along with an absence of bodies. A good rule of thumb is that the ratio of killed to wounded is normally ~1:3. In the figures provided by Kimmit, this ratio is put on its head and the killed outnumber the wounded by more than 2:1. Rudesheim’s figures put it at over 4:1. The number of POWs, which should be much easier to determine, is also up in the air, either 1 or 11.

[Ale]

This reminds me of the Korean War air kill ratios; going from 15:1 to 10:1, dropping to 6:1…
At this pace by 2007 the USAF may find that they actually lost the war :smack:

What a shame, what a shame…

[elucidator]

I kind of wish this thread had been started better, because the question of what actually happened at Sammara is pretty darn interesting. Great clouds of bogusity hang over this, and the implications are enormous.

Clearly, the facts are murky, to say the least. Yet, nonetheless, news of a very clean, very successful firefight with a splendid “body count” (Lord, how I had hoped never to use such a term again…) found its way to all the major news outlets toot damn sweet.

Then, what amounts to a completely opposite story is right on its heels. Where’s all the bodies? According to the military, they were carried off by the survivors. OK, so where are all the pools of blood the wounded left behind? Where did they take the wounded? Which is to ask, do the insurgents, like the Viet Cong have an infrastructure than includes hospitals? That would be bad.

By what reasoning do we categorize this as “insurgents”? Why not just bank robbers? Do we have any reasons to believe this was more of a political endeavor than a criminal one? We are told, at one point, that the attackers were wearing Fedayeen uniforms. Huh? Since when do guerillas wear uniforms? How do they get to the site of thier attack while wearing the uniforms, which make them stick out like a sore thumb. City bus?

How is it that the morgue reports only 8 killed, apparently all civilians.

Now, keep in mind no judgement is rendered here, I don’t know more than you, assuming you know diddly squat.

At the least, we seem to have been presented with a very exaggerated report of military success, based on evidence most generously described as “flimsy”. We’ve been down this road before, its like deja voodoo all over again.

Just what the hell is going on here? Does anybody know? Does anybody even have a source of information that we can trust?

[pantom]

One more month like this and yours truly is going to have only one thing to say anymore: Bring 'em home.
I’d forgotten about propaganda tactics like false body counts, killing anything that moves or even doesn’t move and claiming it as a “kill”, all the while constantly harping on the theme of helping the “silent majority”, or something.
I’d already thought the occupation was a failure, but I figured Bush had this figured out too, or at least his people did, and all the stuff about turning it over to the Iraqis and all the rest was about trying to figure out a way to at least try to make it right, or at least a little better.
But it’s obviously not about that. They really do think, far as I can tell, that they can use the occasional propaganda victory and some phony movement towards goals that others pressure them towards as fig leafs for continuing the occupation indefinitely, regardless of how much of a disaster it might be for the average Iraqi.
It really is just about oil, securing a place for some American bases, engaging in some war profiteering, and generally turning the place into a playground for American oilmen, contractors and, eventually, other businessmen, it looks like. And it looks like they’re willing to sacrifice an undefined number of lives for an undefined period of time to achieve these goals.
I wonder if the occasional bit of propaganda like this supposed routing of the insurgents is going to be enough to get Bush re-elected?

BTW, just to depress our international posters a little more, on Sunday morning I watched “Meet the Press”, a show from DC that interviews big shots. This week was just a panel discussion among some prominent American, along with one British, journalist. Big leadoff story? Bush’s Thanksgiving trip and how he got away with fooling the press about it. The dead Japanese and Spanish barely rated a mention. (This ambush hadn’t happened, or at least hadn’t been reported, yet.) It appears that as long as the dead aren’t American, they really don’t count for a thing, even among the cream of American journalism, from whom I would have expected a little more. Whatever respect I had for them is shot to hell after watching this unbelievably idiotic display of navel-gazing.
The even more depressing thing is that the Administration’s political operatives probably understand this perfectly well.