Fallujah’s empty promise True to guerrilla form, insurgents faded away

Staff Sgt. Michael Nasworth / AP
A U.S. Army photo shows buildings and debris burning in Fallujah on Tuesday.
By Michael Moran

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6452966/

As battles go, Fallujah has been a big disappointment to the U.S. military, which had wanted to draw the Iraqi insurgents into a cataclysmic mistake: a “fair” fight. Not that any officer relished the prospect of a Stalingrad- or Hue-like street-to-street, house-to-house blood-letting. But the alternative has even less to recommend it: a continuing series of roadside bombings and mortar and grenade ambushes that bleed American forces and frustrate efforts to secure Iraq ahead of January’s elections.

Unfortunately, from a military standpoint, the latter, less attractive option is the reality, and the choice was never the U.S. military’s to make. Iraq’s insurgents, with weeks to react as U.S. forces gathered and postured about what was about to happen in Fallujah, decided against turning it into al-Alamo. They saw the folly of taking on the Americans on their own terms, and they did what intelligent, determined guerrilla movements have always done in the face of overwhelming force: They faded away and lived to fight and kill and maim another day.

Anticlimax
For those who accepted the notion, propagated by the Pentagon in the week leading up to the attack, that many thousands of Iraqi insurgents had dug in to defend their vital base in Fallujah, news that only light resistance greeted the U.S. and Iraqi government forces may be perplexing.

“In military terms, Fallujah is not going to be much of a plus at all,” says Bernard Trainor, a retired three-star Marine Corps general. “The downside is that we’ve knocked the hell out of this city, and the only insurgents we really got were the nut-cases and zealots the smart ones left behind — the guys who really want to die for Allah.”


On Edit: a lot of us said this DemoTex, The Magistrate(sir) Many more--- jump right in and show that we said it would end this way

The US miltary did this to convince THE SHEEP IN AMERIKA, THAT THIS WAS IWO JIMA and we were WINNING (whatever that means to a sheep) the WAR.

Just read any book on Algeria in 1960, Tito in 1944, Mao in 1946 Uncle Ho 1947-1975, Castro in 1959 or any other number of texts on how to defeat a far superior military army.

THE CRUSADERS ARE GOING TO LOSE THIS RELIGIOUS WAR.

HOW MANY MORE WILL DIE?

the chickenhawks in the admin. don't know about these texts because 1.They don't read 2. They have NEVER experienced war.

:puke: on chickenhawks

is being so comprehensively pummelled;this is not a fight against the rebellion, it is a signal to other Iraqis-"do you want this to happen to your home? Support the insurgents,& this is what awaits you."

since the late 1700s when they used it on Native Americans and countless times in Central America during RayGun's reign and other places around the globe.

However, resistence is spreading all over Iraq as reported on Democracy Now this morning. What always comes to mind is what the Ruskies said when we attacked Afghanistan--that the jihadists were like cockroaches that once you got rid of them in one spot they simply popped up in another. That's what's happening here, IMO.

Meanwhile, headline at Al Jazeera reads:

Iraq group captures American man
<clips>

Iraqi armed fighters have seized an American national who works as a manager at Baghdad airport.

In a videotape sent to Aljazeera, the captors identified themselves as the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a group which has previously seized foreigners working with US forces.

In the footage, which ran on Friday the man, who is of Lebanese origin, was shown holding papers identifying him as Dean Sadik.

The captive asked all foreign contractors who cooperate with the company he works for to stop dealing with it. Sadik worked for a company called Sky Link as the manager of the Baghdad airport building.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3AB71732-D39C-42EC-B44B-3AF9ABF2B5D9.htm

the result of an invasion. :(

I hate being correct - I hate all of this.

Whether success in Fallujah — even a limited success like turning it into a ghost town — will be enough to bring the “silent majority” in Iraq off the fences is a major question. Military analysts suggest that similar pushes into other Sunni cities — Ramadi, Samarra and Hit — as well as the much larger, ethnically mixed city of Mosul may also be necessary. In the meanwhile, there is a real danger that the insurgents who slipped out of Fallujah ahead of the attack may slip right back again when things calm down.

Destroying the village to save it yet again.

I don't want to think of what will spring from the bloodied sands.

comprehend the text....

Churchill's answer to Kurdish resistance was to gas them in 1920.

Iraq is the Middle Eastern version of Yugoslavia. With its ethnic and religious divisions, it will eventually split. It's notable that we haven't seen any fighting between the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis yet. The presence of our forces has been a unifying factor thus far. They're unified against us. If/when we leave, civil war will break out between the groups. I see no way Kurdistan will allow itself to come under Shiite majority rule. It has its own standing army and has tasted freedom since 1991. Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani and the other moderate Shiite clerics who hold political and religious power over the Shiite majority will continue to insist on direct elections whereby the majority rules Iraq. They will get it. Kurdistan breaking away will cause a conflict with Turkey over the ethnic Kurds living in Turkey. What is left of "Iraq" will probably consist of a Shiite majority dominating the Sunni minority.

ChimpCo had absolutely no clue what to expect from their invasion. The neocon pipe dream of establishing a western-style, pro-Israel democracy in Iraq is laughable. Any sane person with knowledge of the history and culture of Iraq could have seen the outcome.

that's how Randi Rhodes on AAR described the battle to contain and fight the insurgents in Fallujah. They just moved out and filled another or other spaces. And they will continue to gather supporters as they move from place to place.

Fool me twice.
Fool me three times.
Keep on fooling me.
You are either for us or against us.
Bring it on!

never, Ever, EVER pick a C student for a leader.

If anything, razing Fallujah is going to make the opposition stronger and larger. The insurgents are going to continue to come up with new and creative ways to thwart the occupiers. The people running this war are arrogant idiots who are either unwilling or incapable of learning from their mistakes. This war is doomed, and it's going to destroy America.

Pull the troops out and then send in four or five Blackwater Security goons to see how safe Fallujah is these days. Yea, thats just the ticket.

Don

I know: Get the mercenaries to go in with the Iraqi quislings and see
how effective the combined force turns out to be.

If it works, great - the troops can be pulled out tomorrow.
If it doesn't work, still great - at least it's saved the lives of
a few slowly-awakening soldiers for another day or two.

Your American Pride tank just gets more full by the day.

Fallujah being taken down now demonstrates to all concerned that Allawi will not shrink from that course of action.

Please.

What F'ing a joke. If you want to fight the insurgents like men, drop your armor, CAS and high-tech gadgetry and do it. That would be a fair fight. I also said this (Fallujah) was all a propaganda move to placate the public. Like I said "why stay and die, when you can come back later and be insurgents again"

Jay

Then it would be fair, yes.

"Fair" to repukes is like "bi-partisanship". They have everyone else drop trou for their complete benefit.

Has everyone gone insane?

Hey freepers, take a good look at that picture and tell me General Myers was telling the truth on Pravda yesterday when he said no there had been no civilian casualties.

We had a whole pile of stuff on this Moran when he launched shock and awe. (Remember that)

He is no friend of the troops and a NeoCon Sock-Puppet kneeling to service his Masters

.

US and Iraqi troops. 18 US and 5 Irari troops died, fighting the insurgents...

Oh. In war, what ISN'T fair? Forgive me, but if the US troops haven't clocked it by now that war isn't fair and that the enemy isn't what they expect them to be, then they're a gaggle of twits. (Didn't we learn in Vietnam that the enemy does not act like we do? This is not football where both teams do the same things. This is real war; real actions based on two very different sets of rule books. There can be no 'Hail Mary', even if this is a new Crusades.)

did they actually think the insurgents would stay and fight M1 tanks with AK-47's???

As you point out Sir, no self respecting Resistance fighter is going to do that

Myers and Rumdumb did this to pacify their base of Jesus Freaks with the Mechanical Killing of Thousands of Satan worshiping "RAG-HEADS"

General Boykin and that Shit for Brains Marine Colonel can tell us all about SATAN !!!!!