Fallujah a lesson in counter-insurgency

[deadparrot]

FALLUJAH, Iraq (UPI) -- Fallujah may end up being a lesson in both how not to conduct a counter-insurgency campaign, and conversely, how to do it successfully.

And paradoxically, the real success will be when terrorists can be treated like criminals and dealt with through the judicial system, according to Col. Dave Berger, commander of Regimental Combat Team 8, responsible for Fallujah and its immediate environs.

The how-not-to-do-it part is by now military lore: don`t allow insurgents to gain control of a city, and if they get it, don`t let them keep it. The safe harbor gives them status, legitimacy, operational command and control and a reach well beyond the city`s borders.

'We lost seven months,' a senior military official told United Press International, regarding the decision in April 2004 to turn the city over to a corrupt local security force after a truncated battle to avenge the deaths of four private security contractors. It was a battle the military advised against entering into in the first place, but one that Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer and the White House wanted, according to U.S. military and civilian officials.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1047669.php/Fallujah_a_lesson_in_counter-insurgency

[Alpharetta]

1. yeah, we've turned the corner

'`Big Mil` ended with Operation Al Fajr. It`s `Big (Politics)` in December (with the new election) and next year it will be `Big Econ,' the official said.

sure it is. let the power of the marketplace stop the insurgency.

[Barrett808]

9. More delusion -- the reconstruction money has run out n/t

[henslee]

10. And its an alley.

[underpants]

2. Counterinsurgency means flattening the place?

Well I guess that is right, there aren't any insurgents left.

[0rganism]

3. "success will be when terrorists can be treated like criminals"

Man, the ol' memory hole must be getting awfully deep.

So, when is Col. Berger going to be pilloried by the media whores as "soft on terror"?

[maxsolomon]

5. so can Kerry be President now?

that's what he was accused of wanting.

[0rganism]

6. amazing, isn't it?

Where's the headline saying, "Military commander in Iraq agrees with Sen. Kerry: success is when terrorists are prosecuted as criminals"?

We will never, ever, not in a thousand years, see that reported as long as corporate fatcats own the media.

[0007]

4. ....are we trucking down the home stretch now?

cheney sez we're just about there.

[Javaman]

7. "don`t allow insurgents to gain control of a city"...

I loved that line. we are playing a giant game of hit the gofer over there. After we flatten one city, they Iraqi fighers, pop up in another one, controlling it. And it goes on and on.

colossal racist failure*.

[daleo]

8. In a way, Bush traded New Orleans for Falluja

Things might have been different if all those resources hadn't squandered in Iraq.