[Polybius]

But how will this be perceived by the Fallujah insurgents?

They will see it as a sign of weakness. They will attack and they will be picked off by Marine sniper teams and air support.

Marines: 11 insurgents killed in ambush in Fallujah [embedded reporter]

[victoryatallcosts]

Bingo.

Hell, for all we know, that could very well be the strategy.

See what happens. It doesn't really make it any easier to wage a war if you've got the President's supporters second-guessing his strategic decisions before the results have been seen- hours after he's made them.

It seems to me that they concluded that a full-scale offensive into the city (with all of the attendent risks) was not worth the trouble.

After all, the insurgents are the aggressors and, if they want to do a damned thing, they'll have to take on the US. Let them come to the Marines rather then sending Marines in for house-to-house battle.

[section9]

See, I think that the military hung back for a while to let the goobers in who wanted to die with their rags on. Now, the trap is shut. Instead of a full scale assault, like the evisceration on von Paulus' Sixth Army by the Red Army's Don and Stalingrad Front Army Groups in January of 1943, we'll have a grinding, methodical attrition of the bad guys.

Some of these people will, on their own, decide to break out of the ring. We'll spot them using thermal imagery, and they'll be dead.

No terrorist is coming out of Fallujah alive. I suspect that far from getting the martyrdom they crave, they will instead, receive only suffering and continued loss.

Be Seeing You,

Chris