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Mike Totten sends a report from Fallujah:
Fallujah is so close to Baghdad it is almost a suburb, though technically it belongs to Anbar Province. Even so, I have heard almost nothing about the Anbar Awakening here. I’ve always thought of Fallujah as a place unto itself. The locals and the Marines think of it that way, as well. Ramadi is the real city of Anbar. Fallujah is Fallujah.
Whatever else you might say about Fallujah, it’s an original. For decades it has been the infamous bad boy city in Iraq.
Author Bing West describes the place this way in No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah. “Ask Iraqis about Fallujah, and they roll their eyes: Fallujah is strange, sullen, wild-eyed, badass, and just plain mean. Fallujans don’t like strangers, which includes anyone not homebred. Wear lipstick or Western-style long hair, sip a beer or listen to an American CD, and you risk the whip or a beating.”
“Saddam rewarded Fallujah with money and recruited his secret police and fedayeen from here,” Lieutenant Edwards said. “Now it is a powerless backwater.” It was also the backbone of the insurgency before it slagged off. Ramadi was the capital of Al Qaeda’s so-called “Islamic State in Iraq. But Fallujah was, as the lieutenant put it, Al Qaeda’s first club house.
It isn’t nearly as dangerous anymore. I would be foolish to say it is safe. You would not want to come here on vacation even if the Iraqi Police would let you inside its walls – and they won’t if you don’t live here and have the proper ID.
Just more of Michael’s first-rate journalism, something the MSM doesn’t seem able or willing to do a whole lot of these days. Read it all.
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