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A balanced, nuanced, civil post from someone who disagrees with me on this issue! Thank you. And I'm *not* being sarcastic, either. Every time I've posted my opinion on a thread regarding this topic, the ad hominen name-calling has commenced forthwith, and continued without let-up. Something about the issue seems to set some people off into hyperbole-land.

As to your comments, I agree with most of them. *I* certainly don't want to "throw Bush and his folks out with each days news"--quite the contrary, I intend to vote for Bush this November regardless. But I do feel the policy regarding Fallujah *specifically* is flawed, and needs to be revised. Now it's quite possible that I've got it all wrong, but I can only go by the information I have at hand. Feeling that the policy is wrong and needs to be changed is not quite the same thing as declaring that the "sky has fallen"--some may feel that way, but I don't. Another trite, sloppy rhetorical tactic has been to declare "well, you just want to flatten the whole place" (you haven't leveled that charge, but some have), when all I've called for is all *necessary* force, not *ALL* possible force, instantly applied.
In any event, thanks for your civil reply. It was a refreshing change of pace from some of the replies I've recieved on threads pertaining to this singular topic.

Actually, I am not sure that in the long run you are wrong.

We may very well have to go back in with force. And I must admit I would like to see more combat troops around Fallujah before we go in to take it.

The general rule of thumb is 3:1 advantage needed against the enemy in a conventional battle, and 10:1 in an urban counter-insurgency battle. If we assume there are 2000 bad guys in town who would be willing to fight our Marines, that would mean we should have about 20,000 Marines ready to go.

Does not have to be that way...and certainly our advantage in technology and air power permits us to fudge those ratios quite a bit. Just I would feel more comfortable with more boots ready to go in and clean out the bad guys. I guess we just have to count on the Marine Generals to know what they are doing!

My biggest concern is actually not Fallujah. I think we could ignore it and let the new Iraqi government handle it except for one thing. There are some number of extremists in that town who will leave and come to where we are in order to try and kill US and coalition troops and civilians. So somehow we need to weed those folks out. Not sure how to do it.

I am worried that so many are so concerned about our body count. I do not mean that flippantly, as I mourn for every lost American and coalition military and civilian who dies over there. But it is very tough to fight a war when every night you are asked why you are losing the war because 1 soldier, or 2 soldiers (or 8) were killed, while in the same battle hundreds of insurgents were taken out.

In Vietnam, Ho had 14 million recruits to keep replacing his losses...these guys causing the trouble do not (at least not in Iraq).

I am still optimistic about the whole thing...and truly believe much of the moaning and groaning is due to bad press...at least from those who didn't support the war in the first place. Time will tell. Anyway, thanks for your pleasant comments...it sounds like we might not disagree so much after all.