"Phantom Fury in Falluja" Well, I guess we knew this. It's bad.

Sometimes I feel like I have fallen into the Harlen Ellison story, "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream". God help us all.

This author (Not Ellison) fled Iraq in 1974 after being repeatedly imprisoned and tortured by the Baathists. He states that Operation Phantom Fury is becoming all fury and phantom success. The insurgency in Iraq is several stages into development, he parallels it with the emergence of Hezbollah and al Qaeda ... This is just beginning folks. I'm guessing merging is next.

He does say, "We knew then and we know now that Iraq was not a threat to the United States before March 2003...

We are killing his people.

http://denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E73%257E2537059,00.html

"But for those who continue to believe the Bush administration's rosy assertions that things are getting better, I can assure you of this: The situation in Iraq is much worse than you think and it will deteriorate further. As a U.S. diplomat stationed in Baghdad said in the Sept. 20 Newsweek magazine, "All hell is breaking loose."

Yet, I agree with those who say Iraq is not Vietnam. In reality, Iraq is more like Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979 or Lebanon after Israel's conquest in 1982.

The Soviets fought a draining guerrilla insurgency in Afghanistan for a decade before turning tail, while Israel bogged down in Lebanon for nearly 20 years prior to its withdrawal.

The anti-Soviet Afghan insurgency (the mujahedeen) formed the nucleus that later became al-Qaeda and the Taliban, while the Lebanese resistance to Israel's occupation spawned Hezbollah. None of these organizations in Afghanistan or Lebanon existed before the Soviet or Israeli invasions."

edited for clarity

Ah, how true! and that's exactly how many of us feel about what is taking place in Falujah right this second