Retreat, Hell! (Analysis of Fallujah situation and tactics)

Belmont Club ^ | May 1, 2004 | Wretchard

[Antoninus]

Yes, the USMC and the Iraq command is invovled in a complex and difficult situation. The mainstream press is unable to report very well on the situation because they only report through a single prism--BUSH BAD.

Not only that, the agit-prop media is also pathetically ignorant of anything military. It doesn't interest them and they have no capacity to understand it. I never expect them to get stories about military actions right.

The situation on the ground is much more complex and we may be succeeding, only time will tell. More depressing than the elite media is the chicken littles on this site who should know better.

Exactly. Just like the media reporting that the Tet Offensive was a defeat for us. Such bad reporting had the requisite effect on the irresolute among the US populace--sapping their strength and their will to stay in the fight even though militarily, we were winning.

[John Jorsett]

Amen. I put The Belmont Club above Stratfor or the Northeast Intelligence Network for excellent current anaylysis.

I stopped reading Stratfor after it carefully explained how we were going to get our butts kicked in Afghanistan, just before we didn't.

[Antoninus]

Not so good to allow the Fallujans to score a victory over the US. Yes, despite all the convoluted rationalisation and justification, it's a victory for the jihadis and will be percieved by the world as such.

Actually, the convoluted rationalization is on the side of the jihadis. Only a fool thinks that the statements played in the agit-prop elite media represent the reality of the situation. The jihadis left alive are exuberent today because they expected to be dead by now. Certainly, the thousands already killed in Fallujah are not so exuberant.

However, I reckon their reprieve is only temporary. Time will tell.

[Antoninus]

Shoulder fired missiles too.

I was wondering when we'd hear about this. Those AC-130s must've really scared the cr@p out of them.

[Nick Danger]

Yeah, I've been thinking the same thing. People worry that this General might take his thousand troops and join the resistance. And maybe he will. But my hunch is that he's smart enough to recognize what he's being handed here. The Americans will be gone someday. If he plays his cards right, he could be the guy in the right place at the right time to become the next Saddam.

He'll pretend that's not his goal, and the Marine General will pretend that he doesn't know it's his goal. This is a very capitalistic solution... it harnesses the guy's own greed to make him do the right thing.

The General knows that one of the steps in becoming the next Saddam is to crush all of his future rivals. So he might as well start with these guys -- and their damned imams -- right now. And of all people, the Americans are going to hand him the guns to do this. If he wasn't a Ba'athist, he'd be screaming, "Allah be praised."

[SuziQ]

The mainstream press is unable to report very well on the situation because they only report through a single prism--BUSH BAD.

Oh man, did YOU ever hit the nail on the head. I haven't paid any attention to the partisan media about what was happening in Fallujah because they either cannot get it right because of their built in bias against the President, or because what they're being fed by the Marines is what the Marines want the Iraqi enemy to believe. I'll wait until the dust settles to see what really happened.

[Nick Danger]

Only a fool thinks that the statements played in the agit-prop elite media represent the reality of the situation.

This is especially true among the Arabs. I remember interviews from a year ago with guys in "the Arab Street," and one of the things they were most pissed about was how they were lied to through the whole thing. On TV, it was one great Iraqi victory after another. The Americans were being routed. Iraqis were roasting their stomachs. And never mind Al Jazeera, that's what they were seeing on CNN.

The next thing they knew, there were pictures of American soldiers with their feet up on Saddam's living room sofa. Saddam ran like a dog, and his mighty army fell apart like a cheap suit.

When the press starts to blow the horns of Iraqi Victory again, they're gonna wait to see whose statue gets pulled down this time.

[Travis McGee]

Good question.

[endthematrix]

Thanks, I learn something new every login at FR!

[nathanbedford]

A very inciteful post.

If indeed, in the face of all televised appearances to the contrary, this is actually and American victory, it certainly has not been sold as such.

Worse, we are now vulnerable to charges very difficult conclusively to refute, that we have buggered out and tried to manipulate appearances to cover a defeat. Suppose there is a period of quiet and then another incident. Do we send the Marines back in? If so, then much of the world will say the policy has failed and most of the bad guys have escaped. If we do not send them back in, the world will say not only did the policy fail but the whole deal was a sham.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Eurotwit has started a Belmont Club ping list.

[wretchard]

Thanks.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Recently photos of M1A1/A2's have appeared..burning..gutted. The Higher scale RPG 7's..the 93 to 105mm are most likely the reason.

[King Prout]

I have some suspicions about what we are up to over there.
a nagging little voice in the deepest corners of my cynical souls whispers "we're giving them a target they cannot but engage... we are sucking them in, and getting as many as we can into the killbox before we drop the hammer on them all."

I'll have to look into this Belmont Club thing, and see if there are hints and intimations along these lines...

[Cannoneer No. 4]

I think the Marines at Fallujah know what they are doing. This is the un-Grozny.

[King Prout]

one can only hope they will be permitted to execute their jobs with minimal micromanagerial interference.