Originally Posted by Rekna

Or there are 1000 dead bad guys and 200 dead innocents. I doubt that this whole seige happend without the deaths of innocents. Unfortunatly there is no way to kill the bad guys without killing innocents also. Another unfortunate side effect is every time we kill Iraqi's especially innocents we just add more people to the resistance.

When the US first invaded Iraq there was very little Iraqi resistance. But we started down a slippery sloap where we killed Iraqi's which angored other Iraqi's and no matter how many we kill/killed there were always more in their place.

This is the situation were in now. We will NOT win this war by simply killing people who choose to fight against us. We need to win this war by winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Get them to work with the process not against it. (I hope that this is still possible) Displacing an entire city does not help us acheive this goal.

Maybe it is time we start working with the clerics instead of against them. They are the key to this whole conflict. We cannot let our irrational fear of muslims effect our judgment. Muslims are not the enemy. If it takes a Islamic government in Iraq to bring stability and peace then let it happen. I'd rather have a friendly Islamic government then civil war and 4 more years of death on both sides.

I seem to recall an irrational fear of an ideal causing simalar problems in the past. Let's see wasn't it called communism?