11-28-2004, 12:56 AM
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#84 (permalink)
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Banned
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Originally Posted by Tarl Cabot
From: <a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041117/news_lz1e17perlmut.html">http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041117/news_lz1e17perlmut.html</a>
In fact, we can estimate that a sizable number of U.S. casualties in Iraq were because of the basic decency of the America soldier, sailor, Marine and flier.
That is the story that needs more reporting.
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I doubt that the observations displayed above provide much consolation to
the survivors of the dead and wounded Iraqis or of the Americans caused by
this "war of choice".
Quote:
One is that, in a war against an enemy already defined as extremist and barbaric, only our excesses count - and the amplification of them can negate all tactical success on the battlefield. Another is that, even in the fair fighting of those battles, the most efficient military means are not necessarily the most effective.
The Abu Ghraib scandal, and the terrible damage it caused, seems to have impressed the first of those truths on the Pentagon - which is probably why the videotape of the mosque shooting quickly produced a show of accountability, rather than the brusque dismissal that too often answered reports of atrocities by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq before this year.
But that still leaves the question of whether the hard-hitting combat tactics employed in Fallujah, including the liberal use of heavy artillery and 500-pound bombs, will ultimately prove to have done more harm than good. Yes, U.S. forces routed the dug-in insurgents in relatively short order, with relatively few U.S. casualties, thereby achieving a textbook victory. But what of the aftermath? Will others - Fallujans, Iraqis, other Arabs, the world - judge that the U.S. attack involved "excessive force"? And if so, will we still have won?
U.S. spokesmen insist that civilian casualties in Fallujah were modest; if that's the case, the fallout may be mild. But reports from the scene tell of heavy destruction of property, with scores of buildings flattened by the 500-pound bombs and 155mm artillery shells. One vivid battlefield account by Dexter Filkins of The New York Times described a confrontation between Marines and a couple of insurgent snipers in a mosque's minaret. A tank round punched a hole in the minaret and eliminated one sniper; but when a survivor shot and killed a Marine, two 500-pound bombs were dropped, reducing the entire mosque to rubble.
Such stories prompted acerbic commentary from veteran Israeli journalist Zeev Schiff, a sympathetic observer who has covered his own country's wars for decades. After resorting to warplanes and artillery in urban areas, he wrote in the daily Haaretz, Americans should at least find it more difficult to issue reports lambasting Russian military offensives in Chechnya or Israel's in the Gaza Strip.
Alternatively, U.S. commanders could learn something from the Israelis, who, Schiff says, learned the hard way that "this is not World War II" and that "the legitimization of international public opinion" is needed to fight terrorists successfully. A turning point came in July 2002, when the Israeli air force killed a Hamas leader by demolishing a block of houses in Gaza: Thirteen civilians were killed, and even the Bush White House joined the international chorus of condemnation, calling the attack "heavy-handed."
<a href="http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/10265254.htm">http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/10265254.htm</a>
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Pointless war......too many Americans steadfast in their cluelessness. |
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