Posted: 4/22/2004 7:40:59 AM EDT
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From www.andrewsullivan.com and belmontclub.blogspot.com I can't verify this first-hand but it comes from a source I know and trust. It's from a military chaplain in Fallujah: Here's some background on Al Faluja to keep in mind. A) Why is it in the news almost every night? Because it is one of the FEW places in all of Iraq where trouble exists. Iraq has 25 million people and is the size of California. Faluja and surrounding towns total 500,000 people. Do the math: that's not a big percentage of Iraq. How many people were murdered last night in L.A.? Did it make headline news? Why not? B) Saddam could not and did not control Faluja. He bought off those he could, killed those he couldn't and played all leaders against one another. It was and is a 'difficult' town. Nothing new about that. What is new is that outside people have come in to stir up unrest. While Iraq is laced with antiquities, Fallujah isn't one of them. Just after World War II, the population of the town was around 10,000. The city, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, is on the edge of the desert, and now has about 300,000 citizens. It is a dry and arid landscape, made productive only because of extensive irrigation from the nearby Euphrates River. It was, however, located on the main routes into Jordan and Syria. And in crime, as in real estate, location is everything. The city was on the main route for smugglers, and sheltered a number of very successful crime lords. The area is poor, and the villages surrounding the city still shelter subsistence farmers and their families. The smugglers were a source of money – even wealth – for those in the region. Even government officials sheltered the smugglers, DoD officials said. When Saddam Hussein took power in 1979, the city received a boost. Many of the people in Fallujah supported Saddam, and many of his closest advisors, highest- ranking military officers and high-ranking members of the Baath Party came from Fallujah, Ramadi, Tikrit and other areas in the center of the Sunni Triangle. Arab tribes in and around the city also owed fealty to Saddam and became bastions of the regime. Hussein returned the favor by building factories in the city and providing jobs for his chosen people. Fallujah took a number of hits in the first Gulf War. News reports indicate that in one instance, a U.S. bomber tried to take out Fallujah's bridge over the Euphrates. The bomb missed and allegedly killed 200 Iraqis in the city market. Following the Gulf War, the city became an even larger smuggling center, this time with government encouragement, officials said. Saddam encouraged the smugglers to skirt the U.N.-imposed sanctions on Iraq. Since the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq, former regime supporters have allied themselves with foreign fighters who seem to be entering Iraq via Syria, officials said. U.S. officials suspect that members of al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al-Islam have cells in the city. Other terror groups have allied themselves with former regime elements and Sunni extremists, making for a very volatile mix. C) Then why does it get so much coverage? Because the major news outlets have camera crews permanently posted in Faluja. So, if you are from outside Iraq, and want to get air time for your cause, where would you go to terrorize, bomb, mutilate and destroy? Faluja. |
LOOSE, v.t. loos. Gr.; Heb. 1. To untie or unbind; to free from any fastening. 2. To let loose, to free from restraint or confinement; to set at liberty 3. To break loose, to escape from confinement; to gain liberty by violence. 4. Wanton; unrestrained in behavior; dissolute; unchaste; as a loose man or woman. 5. Disengaged; free from obligation; with from or of. 6. Unengaged; not attached or enslaved. 7. Not crowded; not close or compact. 8. Not tight or close; as a loose garment. 9. Unbound; untied; unsewed; not fastened or confined; as the loose sheets of a book. |