Biblical proportions

Tuesday, the military resumed airstrikes in nearby Fallujah, said to be the hideout of the terrorist network run by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant responsible for numerous bombings, kidnappings and beheadings, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

WaPo article

Resumed. As if they had stopped. On Sunday they bombed a wedding party.

Wire service reports said at least one of the buildings hit [on Tuesday] was a restaurant. The Associated Press reported that five people died in the strike on the restaurant.

Precision air strikes aren't quite what they're cracked up to be.

Remember when we were actually hunting for Osama bin Laden in the Afghan desert? Remember the leaflets we dropped over the desert that said the bad guys couldn't get away from us, we are so tough, and our weapons are so awesome? That we have missiles that can target bad guys to such accuracy that we can aim them through windows? While watching the TV news report that incredible, ridiculous, juvenile tripe, my then 17-year-old son said, "Oh my God! They're in caves. They don't have windows." Well, yeah. That, too.

And now, we've thrown out all caution and sensibilities, and are going straight for their Iraqi hiding places - the mosques. That should improve things.

Treading into yet another flashpoint city, U.S. Marines and Iraqi security forces began a series of raids Tuesday on mosques in and around the Sunni city of Ramadi...

The military took pains Tuesday to explain the mosque raids, issuing a statement detailing recent attacks in which a mosque was used as a base or refuge.

Most recently, the Marines said they were attacked Monday from the Sharqi Mosque in the city of Hit near Ramadi, with insurgents engaging in a three-hour firefight using small arms, machine guns and mortars.

Marine airstrikes were called in to end the battle, the military said. Wire services reported that the mosque caught fire after the fight.

...Brig. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford of the 1st Marine Division said in a statement that the mosques are suspected "of participating in a spectrum of insurgent activity, including harboring known terrorists, storing illegal weapons caches, promoting violence against the Iraqi people and encouraging insurgent recruitment."

... "Mosques are granted protective status unless they are being used for militant purposes," said Dunford. "At that time they lose their protective status as places of religious worship."

Angry residents were unreceptive to the explanations, according to wire service reports from the scene.

Yes, I imagine they were.

If it is Armageddon we are looking for, I'm sure I couldn't have done a better job of finding it myself.