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Tim Cavanaugh | November 17, 2004

How will Fallujah go down in history? Jeff Taylor has some ideas.

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|11.17.04 @ 11:48AM|#

That Marine general was likely correct. The Battle of Falluja will go down is history as an extremely destructive engagement that had no consequence on the ultimate outcome of the war.

|11.17.04 @ 11:52AM|#

Or as the last major battle of the war.

|11.17.04 @ 12:00PM|#

The first battle in Operation Declare Victory and Get Out.

|11.17.04 @ 12:13PM|#

I like the Whack-A-Mole analogy better in the column on AntiWar.com.

|11.17.04 @ 12:19PM|#

Brian,

George Bush, August 2005: "We laid all the groundwork for peace, prosperity, and democracy in Iraq. It's too bad Allawi screwed it all up."

|11.17.04 @ 12:48PM|#

"The Battle of Falluja will go down is history as an extremely destructive engagement that had no consequence on the ultimate outcome of the war."

Joe, can you see ANY aspect of the war in a positive light? I bet if Mr. Kerry-Heinz was directing the battle you'd be whistling a different tune.

|11.17.04 @ 12:56PM|#

In 25 or 30 years Joe will be stumping for some boring elitist liberal who is running for president by bragging that he fought in Fallujah before and after opposing the overthrow of Saddam.

Mike H.|11.17.04 @ 12:57PM|#

George Bush, August 2005: "We laid all the groundwork for peace, prosperity, and democracy in Iraq. It's too bad Allawi screwed it all up."

joe, something along those lines could very well happen. Yet it also seems painfully obvious that since Falluja was apparently being used as a "safe haven", the military had little choice in the matter.

Time will tell, of course, but I sincerely hope you're wrong.

|11.17.04 @ 1:02PM|#

Well, its too early to say whether Falluja is a turning point or a footnote. What we can say about the fight for Falluja at this point is the following:

The US force's new doctrines and tactics for urban warfare were devastatingly effective. Never before has a heavily defended urban setting been taken with so few casualties. American casualties an order of magnitude higher would have been historically low; the casualty and exchange rates we had were close to miraculous.

The city was taken with a minimum of collateral destruction, due to the use of smart weapons and the willingness of the Americans to risk their lives in close combat in order to save Iraqi lives and property. We could have just levelled the place, but elected instead to sacrifice American lives and bodies for the benefit of the Fallujans.

The 'insurgents' lost their primary base in a humiliating route; the only thing they got out of this fight was the propaganda victory represented by the footage of the Marine putting an anchor shot into the fedayeen. That's not inconsiderable, but it was handed to them fortuitously by a Western reporter.

Whether the loss of Falluja is strategically important, we don't know yet.

|11.17.04 @ 1:21PM|#

"Joe, can you see ANY aspect of the war in a positive light?"

Hussein's going to receive justice. Uday, Qusai are dead. Other top criminals have gotten, or will get, theirs. That's good.

Not worth 1200 dead Americand, X0,000 dead innocent Iraqis, an expansion of the jihad, a lowering of our military readiness, half a trillion dollars (if we're lucky), the coming elimination of Kurdish liberal democracy, and the undermining of the Iranian liberalization movement. But yes, there are positive outcomes.

Mike H., you are probably right about Falluja being military necessary. The bad decisions that came before have left us with options ranging from bad to horrible.

RC, you are correct about the efficacy of the Marines. The capabilities of our military continues to astound me.

|11.17.04 @ 1:30PM|#

I was as outraged as anybody by Abu Ghraib. But is anyone outraged by the Marine who shot the injured guy? Yeah, it's not right, and it should be avoided when possible. But it's a war, for chrissake. If you blow up a building with 20 bad guys and 5 innocent civilians, isn't that worse? I assume the guy was injured in the first place because he was shot by those same Marines, who were trying to kill him. If the Marine who fired the shot felt threatened, then what he did was legitimate, if not exactly the 100% best course of action.

|11.17.04 @ 1:57PM|#

"A minimum of collateral destruction?" Practically the whole city's been demolished.

|11.17.04 @ 2:14PM|#

I think "practically the whole city's been demolished" is probably an overstatement, unless the demolishment was accomplished since Monday, when I saw footage of the area on CNN. It looked to be in better shape than many parts of north St. Louis, which admittedly may not be saying much.

(P.J. O'Rourke once said we could terrify the beejesus out of any country we wanted by sending them video footage of Detroit. "This is what we do to our cities in peacetime. Imagine what we'll do to yours in a war.")

|11.17.04 @ 2:43PM|#

R.C. Dean,

Its not a new doctrine; a guy by the name of Wohlsletter has been arguing for something along these lines since the 1950s (he's dead now I think - but he was one of the founders of the neo-conservatives). What caught up was the technology.

American casualties an order of magnitude higher would have been historically low; the casualty and exchange rates we had were close to miraculous.

American causalities were only slightly lower than what happened at Hue.

Stevo Darkly,

Its probably difficult for any of us to know how much property damage has been done unless we journeyed there.

|11.17.04 @ 2:46PM|#

Steve,

It apparently violates the rules of war set out by the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. military. Rules are rules and to be frank, as much as we hear about honor, integrity, etc., coming out of military circles, etc., no one should be bitching about the rules being applied non-arbtrarily.

|11.17.04 @ 3:02PM|#

How about "Steve O'Darkly?"

|11.17.04 @ 3:18PM|#

joe

The Iraqi democracy which will emerge from this would have been worth 10 times the casualties.

Morat|11.17.04 @ 3:32PM|#

*snicker*. Oh wait, are you serious Andrew? It's so hard to tell these days.

fyodor|11.17.04 @ 3:37PM|#

If the Marine who fired the shot felt threatened, then what he did was legitimate, if not exactly the 100% best course of action.

Steve, I would say the operative word there is "if." The possibility of booby-trapped insurgents is an important, and I agree that killing one particular wounded enemy soldier is, in a certain perspective, small potatoes in the larger picture of the horrors of the Iraq War (and I hope even those who back the war agree there are horros) or war in general, but I also think that the Iraqi people and the world have reason to care whether our guys are killing people for any reason other than that they have to.

|11.17.04 @ 3:38PM|#

Andrew, when they played Russian roulette in The Deer Hunter, at least the money was put on the table before the player pulled the trigger.

"...which will emerge..." is a very questionable verb tense, to say the least.

fyodor|11.17.04 @ 3:38PM|#

I would say the operative word there is "if."

I meant Steve's first "if."

|11.17.04 @ 4:19PM|#

"Both developments are absolutely crucial to getting Iraqis to take control of their own country again."

Iraqi's were in control of Fallujah until the Americans moved in..

|11.17.04 @ 5:33PM|#

Joe: Since we have too many Steves here (and one Too Many Steves), I'll stick with your original suggestion of "Stevo Darkly" for now, with thanks.

Also: I will reserve the right to call myself Stevo Snarkly, or Stevo Dorkly, where warranted, depending on my mood.

|11.17.04 @ 6:12PM|#

spur rather naively assumes that the insurgents in control of Fallujah were Iraqis. Certainly the chief insurgent, Zarqawi, is not. He is Jordanian.

|11.17.04 @ 7:13PM|#

I was gonna say something similar, RC. I would bet (and perhaps lose) that most of the insurgents (or whatever you wanna call them) are not Iraqi's.

|11.17.04 @ 7:31PM|#

Forget about the number of people who were killed. The proper question to ask on a libertarian forum is:

What about all the private property that was destroyed?

|11.17.04 @ 8:01PM|#

What about all the private property that was destroyed?

thoreau,
How much longer before one of our smart bombs comes with an estimator of how much it will cost to rebuild what it is about to destroy?
Then our bombs will DEFINITELY be smarter than our Prez.

|11.17.04 @ 9:11PM|#

Lowdog,

The U.S. military has stated that most of the "insurgents" are Iraqis. R.C. Dean already got burned on that issue a little while ago. I see that he is now arguing a variant of that claim (as I predicted that he would).

|11.17.04 @ 10:23PM|#

Of the approximately 1000 insurgents captured, 15 have been identified as being non-Iraqis.

It's amusing to watch the hawks shift from "they're Baathist dead-enders, the war didn't inspire foreign terrorists to attack Americans" to "they're foreign jihadis, the Iraqi people support us" as one or the other argument becomes convenient.

And by "amusing," I mean, of course, "revolting, in their willingness to openly lie or suspend disbelief in order to to justify the killing that they started, now that their first three justifications have collapsed."

|11.18.04 @ 10:49AM|#

It's Iran next! Note Powell's pronouncement:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57465-2004Nov17?language=printer

Neocons in full control. Get ready for us or the Israelis to hit Iran. Powell's statement is meant to create cover. Also, check this out from the story:

Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace...said Powell's comments were striking because the International Atomic Energy Agency said this week that it had not seen any information that Iran had conducted weapons-related work.

Recall the pack of neocon/Pentagon lies that Powell repeated at the UN.

|11.18.04 @ 11:28AM|#

joe

I would bet my soul the troops believe it...and if they believe it, they'll do it. That is the one, big, important thing worth knowing. If you want to forsee then outcome in Iraq, don't study the history of their region...study the history of ours.

|11.18.04 @ 3:13PM|#

Jason - then I stand corrected. I'm surprised a bit, but always realise I can be wrong. :) I'll have to look into further for myself...

|11.18.04 @ 11:01PM|#

That's touching Andrew, in the same way as the legion hall/wedding reception scene at the beginning of The Deer Hunter.

Your head is like the first chapter of a Graham Greene novel.