Tweet
November 23, 2004 -- IN Fallujah the shooting has died down to the occasional burst of automatic weapons fire and the stray rifle shot. For all practical purposes, according to one officer, the "back has been broken" of the terrorists who called Fallujah their headquarters. What remains are smoking ruins, wary, battle-hardened Marines and dead terrorists.
Scores of dead terrorists.
Perhaps most significant, according to sources in the field, is what has been uncovered in a battle-damaged house in Fallujah where, alerted by Iraqi troops, Marines moved in to find two dozen dead terrorists strewn among the rubble of what appears to have been Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's nerve center.
A jumble of munitions, weapons and explosive devices, the building houses banks of computers which were used to produce the literature of hate and grim records of terrorist excesses. Blackboards still hold crude drawings of U.S. aircraft and an adjacent house shelters an American Chevy Suburban that was in the process of being converted into a rolling bomb. There's no telling which police station, marketplace or schoolyard it was designed to ravage.
More chilling than this is the evidence that it was here in these now smoking ruins that hostages were held, brutalized and murdered horribly while the cameras rolled. One of the products of this murder factory was discovered on the streets of Fallujah ? the battered and dismembered corpse of Margaret Hassan, an Irish aid worker and humanitarian who had devoted 30 years of her life to assisting the people of Iraq.
This disgusting and ultimately dehumanizing crime was committed by Zarqawi's henchmen to further what they would have as the primary export of the region ? terror.
The computers and video equipment discovered in the ruins of Zarqawi's headquarters were used to record and duplicate recordings of Hassan's murder. Recordings that were then exported throughout the region. A copy reached Al-Jazeera but even that font of anti-American propaganda was sickened by the subject matter and declined to air the tapes.
This heinous act of Zarqawi's vicious brood was not designed to win friends and supporters among the Iraqi people ? it was done to terrorize them.
We weren't having it. The Fallujah terror boutique is now closed for business thanks to the heroic ? even Herculean ? efforts of GI Joe. Was it a hard and brutal business? No doubt about it. If you want to make omelets, you're going to have to break a few eggs. The bad eggs in Fallujah needed breaking badly and no one understands this better than the thousands of Iraqis who were helped by the gentle and generous Hassan.
If ever there was a time to "send in the Marines," this was it. Not just for Margaret Hassan, but for the scores of Iraqi men, women and children who have been murdered, brutalized and terrorized by these anarchic thugs.
Not all of the criminals were brought to account in Fallujah. They died foolishly and by the scores, especially the younger, less intelligent fanatics. Left behind by their nefarious directors, these violent bullies now moldering corpses, were used to cover the flight of the high priests of terror. The leadership scuttled away like rats.
But the Marines are on their tails ? in Mosul, Ramadi, Bayji and Kirkuk.
There's an old saying that goes "There's no rest for the wicked"; the Marines are making sure that this saying has teeth. They're rooting them out and killing them ? they're giving the insurgents no rest. And as the Marines sweep through, stomping out the brushfires of terror as they ignite, they're revealing some of the true character of Zarqawi's associates.
Everywhere they go the Marines find mosques converted by the terrorists into snipers' nests, headquarters buildings and arsenals. Houses of worship ? theoretically untouchable under the rules of war ? are routinely exploited by the enemy.
In the convoluted and corrupt interpretation of the Koran which these criminals use to justify their spree of murder and rapine, mosques have no more value or significance than their existence and the respect which they are usually accorded by Westerners. Muhammad would be livid at the corruption introduced into his houses of worship.
For the terrorists, the Iraqi people and for millions of devout Muslims, a mosque is fast becoming a Temple of Doom. With any luck the Marines are well on their way to putting a stop to this abuse.
Frederick J. Chiaventone ? award-winning novelist, screenwriter and retired Army officer ? taught counter-insurgency and National Security Policy at the U.S. Army's Command & General Staff College.
Scores of dead terrorists.
Perhaps most significant, according to sources in the field, is what has been uncovered in a battle-damaged house in Fallujah where, alerted by Iraqi troops, Marines moved in to find two dozen dead terrorists strewn among the rubble of what appears to have been Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's nerve center.
A jumble of munitions, weapons and explosive devices, the building houses banks of computers which were used to produce the literature of hate and grim records of terrorist excesses. Blackboards still hold crude drawings of U.S. aircraft and an adjacent house shelters an American Chevy Suburban that was in the process of being converted into a rolling bomb. There's no telling which police station, marketplace or schoolyard it was designed to ravage.
More chilling than this is the evidence that it was here in these now smoking ruins that hostages were held, brutalized and murdered horribly while the cameras rolled. One of the products of this murder factory was discovered on the streets of Fallujah ? the battered and dismembered corpse of Margaret Hassan, an Irish aid worker and humanitarian who had devoted 30 years of her life to assisting the people of Iraq.
This disgusting and ultimately dehumanizing crime was committed by Zarqawi's henchmen to further what they would have as the primary export of the region ? terror.
The computers and video equipment discovered in the ruins of Zarqawi's headquarters were used to record and duplicate recordings of Hassan's murder. Recordings that were then exported throughout the region. A copy reached Al-Jazeera but even that font of anti-American propaganda was sickened by the subject matter and declined to air the tapes.
This heinous act of Zarqawi's vicious brood was not designed to win friends and supporters among the Iraqi people ? it was done to terrorize them.
We weren't having it. The Fallujah terror boutique is now closed for business thanks to the heroic ? even Herculean ? efforts of GI Joe. Was it a hard and brutal business? No doubt about it. If you want to make omelets, you're going to have to break a few eggs. The bad eggs in Fallujah needed breaking badly and no one understands this better than the thousands of Iraqis who were helped by the gentle and generous Hassan.
If ever there was a time to "send in the Marines," this was it. Not just for Margaret Hassan, but for the scores of Iraqi men, women and children who have been murdered, brutalized and terrorized by these anarchic thugs.
Not all of the criminals were brought to account in Fallujah. They died foolishly and by the scores, especially the younger, less intelligent fanatics. Left behind by their nefarious directors, these violent bullies now moldering corpses, were used to cover the flight of the high priests of terror. The leadership scuttled away like rats.
But the Marines are on their tails ? in Mosul, Ramadi, Bayji and Kirkuk.
There's an old saying that goes "There's no rest for the wicked"; the Marines are making sure that this saying has teeth. They're rooting them out and killing them ? they're giving the insurgents no rest. And as the Marines sweep through, stomping out the brushfires of terror as they ignite, they're revealing some of the true character of Zarqawi's associates.
Everywhere they go the Marines find mosques converted by the terrorists into snipers' nests, headquarters buildings and arsenals. Houses of worship ? theoretically untouchable under the rules of war ? are routinely exploited by the enemy.
In the convoluted and corrupt interpretation of the Koran which these criminals use to justify their spree of murder and rapine, mosques have no more value or significance than their existence and the respect which they are usually accorded by Westerners. Muhammad would be livid at the corruption introduced into his houses of worship.
For the terrorists, the Iraqi people and for millions of devout Muslims, a mosque is fast becoming a Temple of Doom. With any luck the Marines are well on their way to putting a stop to this abuse.
Frederick J. Chiaventone ? award-winning novelist, screenwriter and retired Army officer ? taught counter-insurgency and National Security Policy at the U.S. Army's Command & General Staff College.
Comment