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Serious Strategy

Santa Ana won the battle of the Alamo and Goliad. He then split his forces, started screwing some fine mamita and Houston surprised him.

Crazy Horse killed Custer and then spanked Gen. Cook. Matter of fact he would have wuped Cook if some friendly indians hadn't disrupted his plans.

Santa Ana and Crazy Horse went for total Victory. The Marines in Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Tinian and countless other Island went for total Victory. We Island hopped and that was sucessfull because the Japs SURRENDERED! Fallujah did not and still has not - and we have lost that battle because of apeaseniks in D.C. who are afraid of the worthless arab street and instead of taking care of the American Street.

Some folks believe that by being nice to the enemy you encourage the enemy to be nice to you. Nick Berg would not agree with that. Daniel Pearl wouldn't either.

The Alamo was a fairly complete military victory for Santa Ana. So was Goliad.

But both were treated by the Texicans as 'war crimes' and reasons to demand independence. It did nothing to advance Santa Ana's real war aims of crushing the rebellion.

To think that Fallujah was about mostly quelling 1 town is to miss the bigger picture: Our goal in Fallujah was first *NOT* to let it cause us to lose the whole effort here, by careering out of control. The "MOAB" solution would have led to that. "Atrocities" would have led to a dangerous response from throughout Iraq. We forget that our main challenge was and is political, not military - and there was a deliberate provocative attempt to create an Iraqi 'rebellion'. We forget for example the Ramadi attack, a clearly coordinated attack that led ot one of the most difficult days in Iraq - 12 soldiers killed in Ramadi in one incident. had we had that sort of situation throughout Iraq, it was all over.

Thanks to cool heads in the Marines, the rebellion was first contained, and then sputtered into oblivion. The US military did jujitsu on the rebellion, refusing to play the part of over-reacting oppressor for the Al Jazeera cameras. The so-called 'uprising' failed, and we are now back to a lower level of violence and casualties. Moreover, the solution

Now a previous linked article mentions how 'mujahadeen' are enforcing islamic laws in Fallujah. If so, it begs the question - does this mean most people like that? Or that these folks dont represent Fallujah and represent something else? Either conclusion suggests that we were wise to let Iraqis deal with it themselves: If they *do* represent Fallujah, then in fact we could only win by flattening the place, which would not serve our war aims. If they *dont*, then, while we have missed an opportunity here to kill some militants (yet we got plenty), we give an opportunity to see how Iraqis can themselves assert a democratic authoriy *over* such forces.

I am frankly not disturbed by either case - this is local government at its best/worst. I think such lessons of governance are good lessons for Iraq, IF the trend to democracy is intact and safe, because then Iraqi voters will KNOW where their interest lies. Do they want alcohol sellers to get whipped? Do they want a govt of cranky clerics? etc.