BUSH MAKES THE CALL: NO FULL SCALE FALLUJAH OFFENSIVE

The Drudge Report ^ | April 25, 2004 | Matt Drudge

[threat matrix]

developing tonight..header for now

[ohioWfan]

Don't confuse them with facts, McGavin.

It might make them feel bad.

[ohioWfan]

LOL! A vote for a Libertarian is a vote for Kerry.

Smart, Austin. Smart.

[Kay Soze]

Like Vietnam we are doomed to failure in Iraq.

In Vietnam we took great care to avoid a larger war with the Chinese and the Russians and here we are reluctant to engage Islam.

We had and still have the military capabilities just not the political capabilities.

Read: In Retrospect by Robert McNamara

[FreeReign]

IMO, Bush has to crush Fallujah, or he goes home in January.

Fallujah is a city of 300,000 people of which about 200,000 still remain in the city. Out of those 200,000 people, maybe about 1,000 are bad guys.

IMO, the president's purpose in Fallujah is not to crush the 200,000. It's to get the remaining thousand or so bad guys.

[AndrewC]

These are not 'convictions.'

Well, bud, a conviction is --

con·vic·tion    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (kn-vkshn)
n.

1. Law.
   1. The judgment of a jury or judge that a person is guilty of a crime as charged.
   2. The state of being found or proved guilty: evidence that led to the suspect's conviction.
2. 1. The act or process of convincing.
   2. The state of being convinced. See Synonyms at certainty.
3. A fixed or strong belief. See Synonyms at opinion.

And I say they are convictions. Morale has nothing to do with what I say. It has to do with the actions of superiors. Have you served in the military? Did you serve under Nixon? under Ford? under Carter? under Reagan? Can you guess when and why morale dropped under any or all of these Presidents?

[yonif]

Yeah, but the thing is this idelology isn't just in those two cities. It is just that those two cities are main instances of violent armed terror. But terror has been happening all over Iraq, in Baghdad, Basra. The US must target the ideology. It isn't just about a person or a group, it is about what is driving them to hate us.

[Rokke]

"The objective is to win the war on terror, not make oneself look good to armchair generals. You don't have the intelligence that the generals and the President have. You are basing your entire rants on a headline on Drudge."

Reread my posts Miss Marple. I'm with you 100%. And I'm glad you haven't shot your husband. But I'd understand if you at least considered it on occassion.

[yonif]

In Gaza, the IDF succeeds in going after the physical enemy. It is a small place. But its wider goal should be to remove the cancer from the population. The cancer being spread by the schools, TV stations and the Palestinian Authority regime. This is going unhindered. The IDF could take down the TV stations telling children to go murder Jews, but a political decision prevents them from doing so.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Thanks. Been reading this thread for a while now. Long and getting longer.

I think Generals Conway and Mattis know what they are doing.

My glass is half full. Count me amongst those who think it is brilliant.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

thanks

[DiscoStu1979]

senior U.S. military and civilian officials have decided to try to confront a band of hard-core Sunni Muslim insurgents by having Marines conduct patrols in the city alongside Iraqi security forces... Developing...

This pretty much says that we've decided to place greater importance on the lives of Iraqis than on the lives of our Marines. I can't fathom how the President can make this decision given that it is likely to lead to the deaths of many more Marines than would be killed from an all-out attack which is pre-ceded by a massive arial bombardment of Falujah.

This is akin to arguing it would have been better to invade Japan instead of nuking it so as not to upset the local population.

[DiscoStu1979]

Why isn't the military deciding what is best?

They generally do, but they have to follow the goal set by the President.

[ride the whirlwind]

...twists and turns of Dubya's war policy

Au contraire. This president is steady as they come. You won't find him following the latest polls or listening to the gloom and doom set to make important decisions.

[Jim Noble]

IMO, the president's purpose in Fallujah is not to crush the 200,000. It's to get the remaining thousand or so bad guys.

If war were brain surgery, history would be very, very different.

[Kay Soze]

your dead meat man.

We don't cotton to new folks around these parts!

[Southack]

c#218

[rwfromkansas]

Would you rather we just go in and turn the entire country against us by killing an entire city of innocent people?

Yes, some soldiers will die. Probably more would die if we went in with a full-scale assault.

Patience will win this war, not half-assed plans thinking we can just march in and kill everyone and not have the people trying to help us instead start helping the enemy!

[ohioWfan]

Thanks for the definition. What you said doesn't fit it.

And, no.........I didn't serve under any of those Presidents, but I do know why morale dropped under them.

But you are jumping wildly to a conclusion based on a single solitary sensationalistic headline by Drudge, and therefore your negativism is baseless.

[rwfromkansas]

Read post 13 and get a clue.

[RichardW]

This is exactly how LBJ used to wage war in Vietnam. Take the planning from the military and run it out of the White House basement. Bush is going wobbley. Terrible move.