A Liberal Hawk And A U.S. Marine

Tim Cavanaugh | November 11, 2004

Blogging Superstar Andrew Sullivan:

The war in Iraq has now officially re-started for the third time. I'm counting 1990, 2003, and November 2004. We are rightly focusing on the coalition's attempts to retake Falluja. But we should not ignore the insurgents' previous onslaught...

Samarra - the success story - sees a new bloodbath. Allawi imposes martial law without an army to enforce it. And the possibility palpably exists for a full-scale national uprising in response to the battle for Falluja. This really is the third Iraq war. And this time, thanks largely to decisions made by this president, it is by no means certain who will win.

1st Lt. Paul Webber, U.S.M.C.:

Webber, a platoon commander, said he was sitting in his vehicle turret Monday when a man in a white T-shirt and black sweat pants stepped out of the bushes 25 yards away and hunkered down to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the vehicle.

"I saw him, and I was in shock, in awe," Webber said. He fired, wounding the man in the leg, but the attacker managed to launch the rocket.

"I felt the heat," Webber said. "He missed by just a few meters."

Comments

|11.11.04 @ 12:45PM|#

Sullivan is "getting the vapors" (to borrow from Colin Powell) if he thinks we could be so lucky that the pacification of Fallujah will lead to a nationwide uprising.

Tim Cavanaugh|11.11.04 @ 1:06PM|#

Get serious, SR. The possibility exists so palpably that Sully can feel it even while sitting in his beanbag working on his blog.

|11.11.04 @ 1:13PM|#

Tim, with all due respect, if ventilating the dome of the Imam Ali's mosque in Najaf with machinegun fire wasn't enough to trigger off a major uprising, why will bombing a few hospitals and liquidating a couple thousand locals in Fallujah provoke one, given that the majority of the country's population isn't even that sympathetic to Fallujah?

Tim Cavanaugh|11.11.04 @ 1:16PM|#

I was goofing on Sully's purple prose, SR.

|11.11.04 @ 1:39PM|#

Doesn't that marine realize smoking could kill him.

|11.11.04 @ 1:39PM|#

Sorry for misunderstanding you.

|11.11.04 @ 1:47PM|#

The marine described the miss in meters instead yards or feet. Which would make him...a communist!

Seriously though, does the military use metric? If there was one thing in this country that actually ran on that sensible system, I would hope it would be the military.

|11.11.04 @ 1:48PM|#

If Sully thinks the war in Iraq "restarted" last month, he is quite, well, stupid.

|11.11.04 @ 1:49PM|#

The longer Bush delays getting the hell out of Iraq--presumably to save face?--the greater the liklihood of losing both ass and face.
Could lack of ability to distinguish between the two be Bush's problem?

The War in Iraq is like Vietnam. The War on Terror is like the War on Drugs--the more vigorously waged, the more vigorously lost.

(Vietnam was my war--as a Marine 1st LT)

Peace AND Out!

|11.11.04 @ 2:14PM|#

MTC,

Yes, the military uses metric for distance, elevation, etc. Makes it easier to calculate ballistic solutions. Soldiers get used to it very quickly, possibly because of the use of the metric distance at rifle ranges.

Height and weight are still in the Imperial system.

I think aviators still use the Imperial system, at least for altitude.

Some equipment requires metric tools, some Imperial system, some both. That is a pain in the ass for mechanics.

|11.11.04 @ 2:55PM|#

sully watch
http://sullywatch.blogspot.com/

|11.11.04 @ 3:12PM|#

kuros,

That is fucking amazing. Note all the the other "watches" linked to.