If ? If ? If ?
What do you mean "if ?"
I hope no Marine officer puts his/our men at the mercy of Iraqi Moslems taking up arms against other Moslems.
I'm sure they won't. There is only so much we can say when we have a hostile domestic press and an enemy that has its ear pressed to the direct phone from the NYT.
No other war has been fought this publicly, and in no other war have citizens expected up-to-the-minute reports and descriptions of battle plans.
If you want to support our troops, I would suggest getting together all of your arguments to defend them if this fails and they have to kill large numbers of Iraqi citizens.
This is not really a "truce," but a chance for the innocent to get out of the way. If it fails, it means more of them will be killed and the press will distort it to make us look like monsters.
We have to be ready to point out the great forebearance and concern that has gone into this arrangement in Falluja. We learned in Vietnam that wars are fought in public opinion as much as on the battlefield. We (the public) have got to be ready to fight fire with fire and call the press on every distortion they utter.