[Burkeman1]

What would Napalm do in a heavily concentrated slum area of shacks and tenements? Take out one building and kill a few goats?

If this is indeed the heart of the Falujah resistance it has to be taken house to house by infantry.

Any other option (like use of C-130 gunships or air strikes) is just utterly useless and will just kill civilians more than bad guys.

My non military opinion.

[GeronL]

I meant flood the area with Napalm. =o)

[Polybius]

Any other option (like use of C-130 gunships or air strikes) is just utterly useless and will just kill civilians more than bad guys.

You mean like the AC-130 gunships that have been used all through out this Fallujah engagement?

Fire burns, at left, as an AC-130 Spectre Gunship hits another target during military air attacks on insurgent activity in northwest Fallujah, Iraq, April 28, 2004. AP

AC-130 can put down very accurate fire and take out a single building or, as in the above case, an entire weapons storage area. It is not a B-17 carpet bombing weapon.

In regards to civilians, if civilians insist on staying in a building being used as a bunker by the jihadis, they can collect their Darwin Award at the same time they collect their 72 virgins.

It is not the job of U.S. Marines to die in order to save the lives of civilians too stupid to save themselves with a two mile walk to another part of town.