Reductio Ad Absurdum Weblog

[...]

This is the part of the story that Byron left out:

The fighting in Fallujah and neighboring Ramadi has killed 15 Marines since Monday and was part of an intensified uprising involving both Sunni and Shiites that now stretched from Kirkuk in the north to the far south.

Marines waged a six-hour battle around the mosque with the militants holed up inside before a Cobra helicopter fired a Hellfire missile at the base of its minaret, and an F-16 dropped the bomb, said Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne.

The fight began when a Marine vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from the mosque, wounding five Marines, Byrne said. A large U.S. force converged on the mosque.

Emphasis mine. He also changed the order of the two paragraphs that follow his [...], at least from the version I saw.

So, to summarize:

1. Militants fire an RPG on US troops from within a mosque.

2. Marines converge on mosque.

3. Marines and militants engage in a 6-hour battle.

4. Worshippers go to mosque to attend prayers during this battle.

5. Cobra fires missile, F-16 drops bomb.

That makes no sense that innocent people would run from behind US Marines shooting at militants in the mosque and towards the militants who are shooting at the Marines from inside the mosque. After this had been going on six hours. That story doesn't pass the common-sense test.

As far as firing missiles at mosques goes, once a mosque is harboring armed militants who try to kill US Marines, they no longer can make any claims of sanctuary.

As far as this goes:

If terrorists or insurgents are hiding out in mosques, we should contain them, and force them or starve them out.

They could also just try to shoot the RPG launchers out of the militants hands. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work that way.

[Posted by Rob Booth] [04/08/04 06:00 AM]

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Other crucial point (which makes no practical difference, since it's not being reported and won't be believed by the america-haters anyhow): they blew up part of the *compound*, not the mosque itself. They were quoted as saying they were specifically avoiding the mosque, because they knew all hell would break loose.
[04/11/04 09:04 PM] [Posted by Adrianne Truett]

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