In an effort to invoke the ghosts of Somalia, Iraq' "insurgents" have mutilated the bodies of five Americans and dragged them through the streets of Fallujah, dismembering them and hanging them from a bridge in the heart of the Sunni Triangle:

Jubilant residents dragged the charred corpses of four foreign contractors — including at least one American — through the streets Wednesday and hanged them from the bridge spanning the Euphrates River. Five American soldiers died in a roadside bombing nearby. ...

Associated Press Television News pictures showed one man beating a charred corpse with a metal pole. Others tied a yellow rope to a body, hooked it to a car and dragged it down the main street of town. Two blackened and mangled corpses were hung from a green iron bridge across the Euphrates.

"The people of Fallujah hanged some of the bodies on the old bridge like slaughtered sheep," resident Abdul Aziz Mohammed said. Some of the corpses were dismembered, he said. Beneath the bodies, a man held a printed sign with a skull and crossbones and the phrase "Fallujah is the cemetery for Americans."

In 1993, when minions of the local warlord did much the same thing in Mogadishu, the US turned tail and ran out of Somalia as fast as it was able. That incident instructed Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and every foe of the US that Americans could not bear casualties in any conflict -- that the US was nothing more than a paper tiger, unwilling and unable to stomach real battle. Create a disgusting enough spectacle and the Yanks would get out.

We cannot afford to have that happen again. This is what needs to happen in Fallujah: seal the town off, go house to house, tear the place apart looking for the terrorists who did this, making sure that the process is as uncomfortable as possible. Demolish houses where contraband weapons are found. If people put up an armed resistance, kill them. Leave no doubt as to our intentions and our will to prevail.

If they want to send a message by stringing up the bodies of Americans on their bridges, we can send a message that we won't be stopped. We'd better do it now, while they're paying attention.

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» Lets Go Saddam On Them! from Larry Morin
I'm sure every single blogger in the blogosphere has heard or read about this. The escalating violence that is coming out of this town should not be accepted by our military. It is obviously still an area where Saddam's followers still believe that t... [Read More]

Tracked on March 31, 2004 3:24 PM