To: Eurotwit
Part of the reason the military didn't treat this as SOP, clean up and recover, etc, is that they rightly saw this required new
policy. That new policy has probably been formulated and approved.
Fallujah is founded on tribal (as in Mafia) lines. The rackets and resistance operate through this structure. The likely scenario is that they cordoned Fallujah first thing, although the direct perps may have gotten away. The next step is probably going to be a street by street search and the arrest of all the principal tribal leaders and imams. Maybe 2,000 arrests, thousands of weapons confiscated. The principal businesses of the tribal leaders will be boarded up as crime scenes. Informers will be sown, and people known to be sympathetic will be insinuated into leading posts.
Experience shows that the perps will eventually come back. If not, the huge interrogation will be produce enough leads to find them and much else besides. The process will gut Fallujah's old tribal structure. It will be devastating and horribly effective. But there will be no collective punishment.
To: wretchard
The punishment needs to be collective, devistating and very public. The terrorists draw their strength and support from the broad population. If we just go after the individual perps, a hundred others will spring up. We must stop being PC or this will just continue.
Additionally, to allow the bodies and the desecration to continue and the bodies to be cut up and fed to the dogs should result in harsh discipline to the local marine commanders unless they were following rules of engagement which lead back to our political leaders who won't authorize the necessary action.
We need to be prepared for increased attacks as we approach the handover to civilian rule on June 30th and we had better take action of such deterrence value that the Sunni's know MANY of them will die if they don't reform. Otherwise, we will lose many more Americans and the new Iraqi government will be weakened and unable to defend itself.
109 posted on
04/01/2004 8:19:24 AM PST by
Truth29
To: wretchard
They still could have and should have dropped at least one small bomb to get those people away from the body. It's ridiculous and just plain stupid for them to let something like that go on for so long while being filmed for future terrorist propaganda. The Iraqis just sat an example for the Arab world that you can kill Americans and mutilate them and we won't respond. The Arab world will take that as cowardice and weakness because that's exactly what it's going to look like through their eyes. Most of them don't understand how politicized our Military is, so they aren't going to understand that point of view. We are suppose to be in control of that town, but it's obvious that we aren't when we can't stop something like that from happening. The amount of time this was allowed to go on is the most incredible part of this disaster. Now we may never find any of the remains of these men. I highly doubt they ever thought they would be allowed to be dismembered on TV for the world to see while the Military, that they once served, did nothing but watch. It was a big mistake not stop this and it's going to be an even bigger mistake if we don't strike back hard enough for the entire Arab world to see it.
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/index.html
121 posted on
04/01/2004 10:20:21 AM PST by
ThermoNuclearWarrior
(~ Vote for George W. Bush for reelection in November! ~)
To: wretchard
"The next step is probably going to be a street by street search and the arrest of all
the principal tribal leaders and imams. Maybe 2,000 arrests, thousands of weapons
confiscated. The principal businesses of the tribal..." Arrests? Arrests to what end? The arrested just spew a lot of lies during the
"interrogations." They know that no bodily harm will come to them from being
"arrested." They know that Americans are "soft." Arrests are a waste of time.
Raze the damn city to the ground. Let our tank gunners and bombers
have some target practice!
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