As most of you have probably heard, 14 Marines were killed by a IED today in Iraq:
Fourteen U.S. Marines were killed Wednesday when a huge bomb destroyed their lightly armored vehicle, hurling it into the air in a giant fireball in the deadliest roadside bombing suffered by American forces in the Iraq war.
A civilian translator also was killed and one Marine was wounded. The victims were from the same Ohio-based Reserve unit as five of six members of a Marine sniper team killed on Monday in an ambush claimed by the Islamic extremist Ansar al-Sunnah Army.
…A Marine officer, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said the attack occurred as troops were traveling in an armored amphibious vehicle to assault insurgent positions around a village near the Haditha dam, a longtime way station for foreign fighters infiltrating Iraq from
Syria.Suddenly, a thunderous explosion rang out and the vehicle flipped over in a fireball, he said. The surviving Marine scrambled from beneath the overturned vehicle, the officer said.
The Marines killed Wednesday were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines based in Brook Park, a Cleveland suburb, and attached to the Regimental Combat Team-2. Nine of them were from a single smaller unit in Columbus.
This is terrible news. Most of these Marines are from L Company, 3/25, 3rd Bn based out of Cleveland Ohio. The 25th Marines also lost six snipers yesterday. That amounts to 45 Marines this Battalion has lost (25 additional Marines have been killed since their deployment). Keep the families of these brave Marines in your prayers.
By all accounts the recent operations by our Military in Iraq to shut the pipeline of terrorists from Syria has been working well. Bill Roggio has been keeping tabs on the operation from the start and has an excellent rundown:
The River War continues. US Marines are engaged in a tough fight in the Euphrates River city of Haditha. Operation New Market commenced on May 25 to pacify the city, and the fighting has intensified in recent days. On August 1, six Marines were killed when engaging the enemy in a firefight. On August 2, terrorists conducted the perfect roadside bombing, and fourteen Marines were killed when their amphibious assault vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.
The terrorists continue to shield themselves by using civilian infrastructure as their bases of operations. A school is turned into a pillbox and an armory.
Marines from Regimental Combat Team-2 were attacked with mortar fire from terrorists occupying a local schoolhouse. The building was rigged with explosives and fortified with .30 caliber machine guns in the windows. Coalition forces determined that the school was being used as a weapons cache site.
The engagement began while forces were conducting a cordon and search of the area, during which a weapons cache of rockets was discovered nearby. M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks were in support of the assault on the building. Coalition aircraft also engaged targets within the building. Numerous secondary explosions were observed. Coalition forces on the scene described the secondary explosions as being larger detonations than the bombs that were dropped.
…The push into Anbar province is chipping away at the insurgent?s control of the Sunni regions. The saner elements of the insurgency understand the intractable nature of the extremists. Sunni groups are committing to the political process.
Add these events together, and the reasons for violence in the Sunni regions of Iraq become clear. The insurgency is disjointed and unorganized, and cannot muster any meaningful support among the Iraqi people. To achieve victory, they must disrupt the political process, and the only means they have at their disposal is violence. That they can offer, and do so regularly.
The news that the Sunni’s will be participating in the upcoming elections is probably making the terrorist’s even more desperate…they can see they are losing their grip. Things are definately turning around and will continue in that direction but then I read a article out of Al-Reuters that says the following:
The blast, which highlighted the effectiveness of makeshift bombs against the most powerful military in the world, was the second major attack against Marines in the Haditha area in the past three days. On Monday, six Marines were killed in the town, and a seventh was killed by a car bomb in nearby Hit.
The above article is actually gloating about our troops being murdered by unseen cowards….Gloating! The author is one Michael Georgy, who writes stuff like the following:
according to Michael Georgy, a Baghdad reporter of the British owned Reuters, a 153-year-old institution that bills itself as the world’s largest multimedia news agency. In a “man on the street” piece, Georgy couldn’t find a single Iraqi who had a good thing to say about Allawi, or, for that matter, the United States.
Which we know not to be true as you can see here. Based on the biased reporting here it looks as if Al-Reuters picks their reporters well, meaning leaning to the left and the more anti-American the better.
The terrorists now are in a hide and fight mode, as usual, and will be attempting to bring the bodycount as high as possible in the immediate future before the constitution is done. Their objective? To get the MSM to defeat America, just as was done in Vietnam. They know as well as we do that the MSM and the liberals are wishing for our defeat. They hope that this kind of news will turn people against the war.
It’s amazing to me sometimes to watch how wishy washy people get about war. We defeated and put in jail one of the worst dictators in the region and we free’d millions of people who now have a freely elected goverment while only losing 1,821 soldiers over 2 and half years. Yes, every death is regrettable…but this a all-volunteer military we have here. When I joined the Marines I knew what I was in for. I knew I may die defending my country and I was proud to do it just as I know every single one of those who have died in Iraq were proud to serve.
It is estimated that we lost 1,465 soldiers during ONE day on D-Day. 7,640 died during ONE day during the battle of Antietam. 4, 435 died during the whole Revolutionary War. 2,200 died during the attack on Pearl Harbor and over 3,000 died during 9/11. Put this into perspective and you see we are doing a damn fine job. Our countries finest are making us proud and they need our support.
Check out LGF, Evil Conservative Blog, The Jawa Report, Winds of Change, The Greatest Jeneration, and 21st Century Republican for more.
Semper Fi!
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