Article

2004-05-26 Iraq-Jordan

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Posted by tipper 2004-05-26 03:02|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Why is everybody assuming that the Marines intend to leave without the killers that tehy came for?

Posted by Super Hose 2004-05-26 3:06:08 AM|| 2004-05-26 3:06:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 SH,it sure looks that way.To my mind it seems to me that the Marines should have been allowed to clean-out that hornet's nest.Instead we have a SRG general taking over.Isn't that like setting the weasal to gaurd the hen house.

Posted by Raptor 2004-05-26 9:36:23 AM|| 2004-05-26 9:36:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Didn't the Marines yesterday give the "Fallujah Brigade" a list of 20 - 30 thugs that were to be arrested for the festivities on the bridge? Aren't the Marines still manning a cordon around Fallujah? Aren't the heavy weapons starting to be turned in? While it would have been much more satisfying to have bounced the rubble of Fallujah with a series of B-52 raids followed by a search and destroy sweep, the Marine's approach seems to be working. What's the problem?

Posted by RWV 2004-05-26 9:38:06 AM|| 2004-05-26 9:38:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 The endless orgy of coverage of the Abu Ghraib incident, for example, is insufferable. The successes and sacrifices of more than a hundred thousand soldiers go ignored, while a sanctimonious media focuses on the viciousness of a few ill-led criminals in uniform.

The truth is that Abu Ghraib was the story big media longed for, a scandal journalistic vultures could turn into strategic roadkill. Press coverage of our military's many successes has been scant.

Development projects go ignored. If soldiers don't complain, they don't get camera time. When our forces successfully target a terrorist hideout, the evidence doesn't matter. The media leaps to validate enemy lies that a "wedding party" was attacked.

This is right on the money.

Posted by CrazyFool 2004-05-26 10:21:51 AM|| 2004-05-26 10:21:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 I think sending Sadr quietly to meet his virgins, would save everyone a lot of grief. I hope our special forces guys have something going towards that end.

Of course, certain political forces would whine about the military silencing "legitemate voices". But I have two letters for those politicos (Kennedy, Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, et al) , F, and U.

Posted by BigEd 2004-05-26 11:25:47 AM|| 2004-05-26 11:25:47 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 There are responsible journalists (truth tellers), and there are irresponsible journalists (the "whatever gets me my paycheck" hacks), the amoral journalists (the lie tellers) and then there are the "operative" journalists (the political messege gurus) who, straight up, use the media the way posters like "Antiwar" and "Gentle" and their gang attempt to use Rantburg. The operative types are bedfellows with the amoral journalists and occasionally use the irreponsibles to effect the outcomes they desire.

The thing to remember is that none of them have any obligation to the American public aside from what they, as individuals, decide they have. It's all personal choice, and some of the journalists who do have their consciences intact, never make it to the "big time." The amoral, operative, irresponsible "culture" of the media shuts them up and drums them out.

Nevertheless, a free press at least gives us a fighting chance that somehow, some way, we will hear the truth. If you have the opportunity to hear something that is based as objectively as possible on fact and truth, take the time to thank the writer, filmmaker, radio host, blog manager, etc. It means the world to them, and definitely helps the right side win the WOT.

Posted by ex-lib 2004-05-26 12:04:54 PM|| 2004-05-26 12:04:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Somebody needs to explain to me how the loss of even one Marine in house-to-house fighting in Fallujah would have been worth rooting our the terrorists? Or, in other words, why would we ever fight the enemy on their terms and at their site and time? He's far too eager to needlessly kill Marines.

On one hand he criticizes the Administration for not going in to Fallujah, and then praises them for not going in to Karbala and Najaf. Can't have it both ways.

Posted by Chuck Simmins 2004-05-26 1:01:27 PM|| [http://blog.simmins.org] 2004-05-26 1:01:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 . . .one of the consistent American weaknesses in the future would be the impulse of our own diplomats to rush to the rescue of our enemies just when our military had them on the ropes. It happened in Fallujah."

I think that's what he was saying.

Posted by ex-lib 2004-05-26 1:28:34 PM|| 2004-05-26 1:28:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Chuck, during the "thunder run" of first assault on Baghdad, we whacked many of the jihadis that were willing to impale themselves on our amour.

Unfortunately, the clowns in Fallujah have demonstrated the ability to plan and execute an effective ambush. It would be a mistake to walk away from Fallujah where some of them seem willing to stand and fight only to have the same clowns burying IED's someplace else in a week. In small numbers they can certainly leave the area over time. Full-fledged sieges would probably require more assets than we can spare with Sadr running loose.

We will take fewer casualties in assaulting these clowns than in allowing them leave and pick their own time and place for the battle as they have been doing. While it may look like Pickett's charge, I would say that it's more like the Alesia, except the legions now have night vision.

Posted by Super Hose 2004-05-27 3:34:05 AM|| 2004-05-27 3:34:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 Ralph Peters is crazy. Really.
He sits at his NYPost desk in the comfort of NYC and yells at the generals for not using a "scorched earth" policy.
(He's been critical of Rummy from Day One.)
He and the Media have continued to play Falluja as a "defeat" and a "retreat" because the Marines didn't go in there GUNS BLAZING.
I'm glad they didn't. Britain tried that against the Iraqis in 1921 and it didn't do them any good.
Clearly, as President Bush stated the other night, we could have gone in there and wiped out the whole town, bombed it into the dust,but we chose not to.
Our commanders thought it was preferable to work with the locals and talk it out.
Even now, AFAIK, the Marines are still encamped around Falluja in case there are new signs of trouble.
But you haven't heard of any IED attacks on vehicles or soldiers the last few days or even weeks, have you?
The wise general picks his battles to win the war.
Ralph Peters ain't a general and that's a good thing, as Martha would say.

Posted by Jen 2004-05-27 4:05:07 AM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com] 2004-05-27 4:05:07 AM|| Front Page Top

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