[Jalapeno]

What have we seen out of Fallujah since this conflict?

[Uncle Miltie]

I believe it comes down to killing inplacable insurgents, or allowing them to constitute the authority of Fallujah, and set the example for other wannabes. We chose to let the insurgents win.

We will pay for this over and over and over....Islamofascists learn, and here they learned it is profitable to face us down in cities.

Also, it is inaccurate to compare Fallujah to Dresden. There were probably not enough remaining fighters to require the razing of the city. A few thousand more, by most accounts. Had we creatively engaged them, destroying the town was not necessary.

Dresden, as you may recall, was a fire-bombing in which maximum civilian casualties were expected. My neighbor was a little girl evacuated to the hillsides outside Dresden, and watched the city and its inhabitants (including her parents) incinerated in a firestorm. That was not the prospect for Fallujah at any point.

[Dilbert56]

The author claims Fallujah is for all intents and purposes a rebel town. B.S. How many "rebel towns" can Americans drive downtown and meet with mayor? This is taking a rather creative, humane solution to a vexing problem and portraying it as a defeat. Another journalist working for the enemy.

[Prospero]

Overnight, between the rusty gun turn-in, and the decision to turn over the town to Iraqi authorities, combined forces put about 70 percent of the insurgents to death from above. That's about 90 percent of the reason the city has seemed so relatively quiet.

[nutmeg]

read later

[AlbionGirl]

With a potential bloodbath looming, Marine leaders adopted a mantra: "We don't want to turn Fallujah into Dresden," referring to the Allied firebombing of the German city in World War II that killed tens of thousands of civilians.

Col. Peters is right, American Soldiers in the here and now are the creme de la creme. While I don't think the bombing of Dresden is analagous, who am I to argue with the highest caliber of men on the ground, right there? They used their heads, and because of that they will prevail. I'm surprised at the ex-Saddamites backdoor knockings though. Just goes to show you Tzu was right, the faster you can incorporate the vanquished into the realm of the new order the better your chances of a quick success, and while I've never been to War, I don't think War provides for success should the effort drag on and on.

[CWOJackson]

Do you recall the live coverage of a similar, albeit smaller scale, situation like this during the early days of the war.

Some of our troops had entered a city and were progressing toward a mosque when they were confronted by a very large and very noisy crowd barring their path. It looked like it was going to turn ugly, then the platoon leader order his men to point their rifles toward the ground and knell down on one knee.

Right away the crowd calmed down and our people found out that there were bad guys up ahead.

I thought that was one of the most remarkable scenes I had ever witnessed. We have some remarkable people fighting this war.

[TomasUSMC]

In the end, the Americans left themselves with only bad options," said Michael Clarke, professor of defense studies at King's College, London. "They could either destroy the city, causing heavy loss of life. Or they could walk away. Both are a disaster, but the Americans chose the less disastrous of the two."

---

"They could either destroy the city, causing heavy loss of life- THIS would have been a GOOD option.

A Victory.

An Example - serving as a DETERRENT to future acts against the Coalition. Lets remember that Sadr started his crap AFTER the Americans were burnt and cut up and eaten and hung from a bridge.

THEN we could have gone in and established an Iraqi defense force.

The Marines should have never promoted this Matis guy. He is just looking after getting more stars. He's the one who changed the 1st Marines motto to "First do no harm". What crap!

We would not have had to level the entire city and kill all its inhabitants. Although if ever a city deserved it, Fallujah did. We had most of the enemy cornered in the Jolan neighborhood. Gunships, 155 arty tanks and 2000 lb laze bombs round the clock, would have crushed the enemy in 72 hours in that neighborhood- and our snipers where having a field day.

Instead Urbanturban legends will make Falujans sound bigger than David and Goliath.

Condi Rice, at the 911 hearing, had it backwards when she says we didn't avenge the Cole because we though it might EMBOLDEN the enemy and because we didn't have the right target or the right forces or this or that blah blah.

Failure to respond to attacks is what emboldens the enemy.

.

[Rokke]

This may interest you.

[prairiebreeze]

interesting article and commentary ping

[quadrant]

My advice to anyone who reads this excerpt is to read the whole article.

[Badeye]

Taking Fallujah wouldn't have entailed anything close to a "Dresden" type scenario. Not even close. That type of rhetoric on the part of the author is absurd to those of us that understand what happened to Dresden, and why.

The fact remains the target was never the city of Fallujah, it was Sadr.

And in 48 hours, we will once again witness "If its Friday, Its Meet Sadr!".

Thats the problem, thats the target.

[ZULU]

We had no need to conduct a costly house to house fight to level Fallujah. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, fire from heaven should have been rained down on these obstinate miscreants until the city was leveled.

A point would have been made.

[FreeReign]

...Conway had been given authority to cut a deal.

Most likely, by the CIC.