CNN's War on Toledo - Progress Pond

Kill That Arab! A Marine crosses a downtown Toledo street during 2005 urban warfare training exercise. (All Toledo photos are from the Toledo Blade.)

Invaders attempting to kill patriots defending their country. Ramadi, Iraq.

Toledo mayor defends decision to send Michigan Marines away
2/10/2008, 6:42 p.m. EST
The Associated Press

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Mayor Carty Finkbeiner said Sunday that he stands by his decision to stop a Michigan-based Marine battalion from holding an urban warfare training session downtown.

About 200 Marine reservists had prepared to conduct the exercise at a vacant building Friday when city officials put a stop to it. Residents had complained about previous exercises, city officials said.

Finkbeiner said in a statement that more than 10,000 people would have been leaving their downtown offices as Friday’s exercise unfolded.

“The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people,” Finkbeiner spokesman Brian Schwartz said. “He did not want them drilling and practicing in a highly visible area.”

Of course, if you want the way the right-wing media plays this ‘abuse of our heroes’, watch CNN ‘news’:

Mr. Finkbeiner said downtown, particularly on a weekday afternoon, was not suitable for military staging operations since up to 14,000 people would have been departing their offices. . . .

“I also conveyed, as my staff did on Friday, that we would make available abandoned buildings for Marine training outside of the central business district.” . . .

Council President Mark Sobczak said the mayor had made arrangements for the Marines to come back to Toledo and use the vacant North Towne Square mall. . . .

Members of the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines have trained periodically in downtown Toledo since at least 2004 and most recently in May, 2006. Exercises included mock fire fights, ambushes, and the firing of blank ammunition.

Toledo police knew days in advance about plans for the three-day exercise and on Tuesday issued a news release to media outlets on behalf of the Marines that asked Toledoans not to be startled by the sight of camouflaged soldiers carrying M16 rifles.

“A marine plays the part of a terrorist as members of the Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 24th, Marines conduct an urban warfare training exercise in downtown Toledo on January 8, 2005.”

But here are what “terrorists” really look like.

Here are four more!

One more terrorist, killed by Americans.

Here’s the U.S. urban killers’ look at their future:

By 2020, 85% of the world’s inhabitants will be crowded into coastal cities–cities generally lacking the infrastructure required to support their burgeoning populations. Under these conditions, long-simmering ethnic, nationalist, and economic tensions will explode and increase the potential of crises requiring U.S. intervention. Likely U.S. enemies include a wide array of possibilities: al Qaeda terrorists; dictatorial strongmen; drug cartels; or perhaps tribal/ethnic strife leading to humanitarian crises. . . . enemies will tend to operate in cities and towns, attempting to use the urban terrain to neutralize U.S. technology. . . .

. . . post-Vietnam conflicts have been characterized primarily by urban warfare. Of 26 conflicts fought over the past two decades, 21 have involved urban areas, and 10 have been exclusively urban. The Corps’ experience in Lebanon, Panama, Khafji, Somalia, Liberia, and the Balkans demonstrated the need to be able to conduct a wide array of operations in close terrain. The battles for Iraqi cities such as Nasiriyah, Najaf, and Fallujah show that high-intensity urban combat has changed little since the days of Stalingrad, Seoul, or Hué. As the global war on terrorism continues, it is increasingly necessary that the Corps adopt an institutional focus on fighting and winning in urban areas.

Of course, the urban ‘warfare’ label is usually a crock. We Americans destroy cities, massacring innocent civilians knowingly and indiscriminately, and then our Orwellians call that ‘urban warfare’.

Here is Fallujah in November 2004, after ‘warfare’.

Here is Beirut in the summer of 2006, after Israel destroyed it. (Obama, Clinton, and even St. Feingold loudly and proudly backed Israel’s ‘right’ to destroy and kill like this.)