The meaning of Fallujah

What is true WITH OUT A DOUBT, is that it has been a MONTH since we said we were going to avenge the death of those 4 mutilated desecrated Americans AND TAKE FALLUJAH.

We havn't. The Islamist have held out.

This is worse than Vietnam
- because in Nam whenever the NVA or VC stood and fought, The US Forces crushed them, whether in the jungle or in the sacred ancient provincial capital of HUE, anywhere.

The only time the enemy in Nam could stand and fight was when we turned it over to the ARVN and withdrew some of our support.

One B52 can carry 108 500lb bombs.

Buchanan is on target, as usual.

U.S. Must Leave Falluja, Iraq General Says
Reuters ^ | Thu, May 06, 2004 | Michael Georgy

Posted on 05/06/2004 9:36:01 AM EDT by Eurotwit

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - The Iraqi former general entrusted with pacifying volatile Falluja said on Thursday U.S. Marines must withdraw quickly from around the troubled town and go home so stability can be restored.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1130614/posts

Pat B. is ignorant of the tactical environment in Fallujah. He should do some research before he starts on a comment rant. The Marines are helping the rebels die ugly, time is a tactic. It is so bad for the rebels that the Imams and clerics are calling for them to surrender. The Marines are students of history having faced a suicidal enemy before. Rather than compressing the rebel perimeter and forcing a final charge like the Shuri line at Okinawa they are starving them out, have destroyed their armories, and co-opted the 200+ ICDC deserters into redeserting into the Fallujah Brigade. The rebel nightly collection points have been hit so hard the enemy knows to stay decentralized, ending their mobile defense and assault squads. The end of the fight is only days away. The Marine strategy was brilliant but very brutal, the rebels met the wrong people. S/f

I have reason to believe the Syrian involement is significant. When it comes out after rebel captives are debriefed and exposed, it will pose a big strategic problem in that we may have to realize that we can't secure Iraq without dealing militarily with Syria. The perception may be that we would do so at the bidding of the "Zionist gang that runs Washington". What do we do about Syria?

What do we do about Syria?

In respone to your query, I posted the following a few days ago. I am afraid events are carrying the initiave away from Bush not only in Irak but also more broadly in the war against terror. His ability to intimidate friends of terrorists is being eroded at home as we speak by democrats:

Syrian President Assad: Resistance Against America in Iraq and Israel in Palestine is Legitimate

Musharraf and Quidafi have taken the proper lessons from recent events. Alas, American educated Assad has taken precisely the wrong lesson. The Saudi royal house has come down somewhere in between.

It seems to me there are two models of instruction which Assad might investigate to improve his time. The first is Afganistan and the second is Irak. In Afghanistan, America demonstrated the capacity and the will to take out a government which had supported terrorists but undertook relatively little in building a shining new western democracy. Our cost in blood and treasure has been minimal. The second model, Irak, saw the attempt to build a democratic paradigm at much greater cost.

Rather than being applauded for our selfless trouble, the distorted Arab mind sees our efforts and losses to be indicia of defeat in a quagmire. Indeed, much of the world, including western Europe and the domestic Democrat party see the efforts as, at best, misguided. These efforts in these two countries should not be judged sui generis but in the context of the world war against Muslim fanaticism and terror. I believe that Assad while Machiavellian is not foolish and has considered and rejected the possibility that he could end up in solitary confinement like Saddam if he flirts too closely with the terrorists. He probably fears his own fundamentalists more than the possibility that America will take him out. This is not the fear of Uncle Sam that we want to be animating the actions of these Arab dictators.

I listened intently to Charles Krauthammer s acceptance speech at his award from the Heritage Foundation in which he argued cogently that the Irak model of building a democracy was not a bridge too far. I hope feverently that he is correct but I suspect that some dictators like Assad are betting that he is not. Assad has, in effect, concluded that George Bush has shot his bolt and cannot possibly start another war. He sees a fifty fifty chance that Bush will lose this election and Kerry will revert to the feckless appeasement of the Clinton administration.

I think it is time we reconsidered whether we can virtually alone take on the task of nation building throughout the Arab world and in Iran with the inevitable attendant guerrilla conflicts following a relatively cheap and easy regime change. After the dust settles in Irak, and not before, perhaps Bush should modify his doctrine to confine it to regime change without the moral obligation to pay and bleed and die for a new democratic nation. If in the aftermath of regime change and new odious dictator assumes power, so be it, unless he supports terror in which case he will know that he will go the way of his predecessor.

I invite comments about this proposal to return to the Afghanistan model in the hope that our freedom of action which now appears to be greatly constrained might be restored

Bush might well be forced by electoral politics to accelerate the commencement of that debate. I think Longbow has said it about right, no doubt because he agrees with me.

I know Americans recoil from the ruthlessness which will be required to win the war on terrorism. I do not believe we will arrive at a national consensus to harden our hearts which Longbow and I see as indispensable to victory, without another strike on the homeland. The majority of Americans do not yet understand that we are in a footrace with these terrorists to destroy them before they destroy Dallas. If they succeed in just one massive WMD strike on an American city which blasts it away or sickens tens of thousands, our entire democratic structure is in mortal peril. If we cannot stop the first strike, we probably cannot interdict the second and the appeasers will be in full cry.

We are already conducting a national debate, called an election, but it is about pictures of naked prisoners and a trivial amount of casualties. As long as the debate stays so focused, America will become enervated and more vulnerable.