IIRC, we’ve told innocents to leave.
Therefore, we’ll prob’l justify the use of heavier fire power than we were previously using. Once this happens, hiding behind walls and buildings will be of signifigantly less value than before.
So, I’d have to come down on the side of no effin way will Falujah become a siege situation that’s easily comparable to STALINGRAD.
You will be issued a break when you deserve a break. Even if we were going to just ‘beat them down’, it still isn’t comparable to Lidice. Until we raze Fallujah, kill all of the men, and pack the women and children off to das camps, Lidice it ain’t.
Seeing as the population of Lidice was about 250. And the population of Fallujah is about 250 k. It shouldn’t take the powers that be long to reach that level.
An amusing little discourse. It is about to become moot. The battle will begin any day now and who was right and who was wrong will soon be apparent.
While I’d agree the Stalingrad analogy is a bit of the mark. The scale of Stalingrad is pretty much unprecedented in modern urban warefare, even compared to other WW2 (Germany lost over 900,000 troops, and Russia causulaties were in the millions), plus of course for the US to lose Falluja in the same way Germany lost Stalingrad, would require a huge armoured army to appear from nowhere trapping the Marine Corp. troops currently beseiging the town in a huge isolated pocket, which resisted attempts to counter-attack or breakout, while the marines trapped inside slowly starved to death. Not a massively likely outcome IMHO…
On the other hand there, I’m afraid, are plenty of other unplesant historical analogies, the concerning the fate of Falluja (though like all analogies they are not exact mirrors of the situation today in Iraq). The “Battle of Algiers” during the uprising against French colonial rule Algeria, and the urban battlegrounds during the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam war are both paralells I would consider drawing (its these battles that are featured in Full Metal Jacket BTW). Both were urban insurgencies against a western occupying force, both were considered military victories for the western powers involved but were ultimately resulted (or at least played a major role) in their defeat. That’s not to say Iraq will end up like Algeria or (as many are now saying) Vietnam, but as the saying goes “He who ignores history is doomed to repeat it”…
It doesn’t need to be Stalingrad. It only needs to be Gaza.
Or Saigon. Or Havana. Or Belfast.
Or even Riyadh.
The war is over when the looser decides to stop. We claim we fought this war against Saddam. He stopped. We didn’t. So, now we fight the Iraqi people. We claim that we only fight some of them. But we don’t stop, and we continually tell the world that we will not stop, until every Iraqi stops.
We can never win. We can die until we loose, and we can decide just how many we want to kill.
And eventually, if it is never Stalingrad, it might well be Asculum.
Tris
The question is, what “they” was I talking about? Are you of the opinion that there are no violent scum in Fallujah?
I’m sure there are some innocent people still in Fallujah. Women, children and the elderly have been allowed to leave. I’m sure some of the guys of military age in Fallujah don’t really have a beef with the U.S. and aren’t really violent. But they’re um, embedded among some very violent guys who do have a beef with the U.S.
And Fallujah was a Ba’athist stronghold whose “solid citizens” were leaders in what all agree was pretty much the rape of the rest of Iraq.
I’d like to see a nonviolent solution to the problem here, anybody got one? The best I can think of, move the populace out of Fallujah and then sweep the place for weapons. Prolly won’t get 'em all, but might get enough to make things less violent. But it seems likely that if we do that, the Fallujans will be rearming with smuggled weapons as soon as possible.
Slippery slope fallacy.
Sure which is why we are making predictions now. There’s no credit for getting it right after the event.
In fact, while there was plenty of urban warfare during the Tet offensive, there were, to the great surprise and dismay of the north Vietnamese, almost no urban uprising.
Ok, I’ll stick my neck out and predict no battle of Fallujah will come within 1/2% of casualties withstood at Stalingrad. (As for the mass surrender of American troops, breaking the back of the American army, etc. They’re too ridiculous to contemplate.) Perhaps some of the others in this thread that are so quick to jump to historical analogies, will come up with prediction that make Fallujah more like Stalingrad? ralph124c? Reeder you’re always game for some wild predictions. How about it?
I predict a pincer movement and the destruction of an encircled US Army. After that, it’s falling back all the way to Kuwait. Hehe, kidding.
No. Not at all. Triskadecamus is very right but whether he is right or wrong he is not making any kind of “slippery slope” argument. What Triskadecamus is saying is what Colin Powell said:
(a) Have a clear objective and overwhelming support domestic and international,
(b) Go in with overwhelming force and achieve your objective and then
© get the hell out and do not stay around for occupation or nation building
This war has done exactly the opposite in every point and that is why American forces are bogged down in a war they cannot possibly win. They will continue to kill Iraqis as long as they want to remain in Iraq but, the more they kill, the more opposition they will find.
American forces cannot win this war because they are not doing anything in Iraq other than occupy the country and protect themselves from attacks. They are unable to effectively control the streets or provide security for the population. From the point of view of the native population all the Americans do is kill Iraqis for no visible result except to protect themselves.
Triskadecamus is correct in that, unless things change drastically, this war will just continue to be a drain on both sides until America gets tired and gets out. The Americans can get tired and get out but the Iraqis are fighting with their back to the wall and have nowhere to go. They will continue to fight as long as the Americans are there.
Fallacious or not, it ain’t a slippery slope after you have already fallen in.
Tris
To be honest I think you are letting your vision being clouded by neo-imperialistic propaganda from Fox News. After reading up on Al’Jazera, I predict that the evil American occupation forces will suffer a humiliating defeat at Fallujah, where after the noble Iraqi people will rise up in rage and driven them completely out of Iraq, across Asia and finally across America. In two years time the heroic Iraqi forces will hoist their flag on Capitol Hill and Bush will be found dead in his bunker. Rummy will flee to Argentina in a submarine. And Conni will publish her memoirs: How to be a NeoCon bitch and enjoy every second of it.
Trisk’s argument was classic slippery slope … he said that America had started out at point A, and that we would never stop at points BCD… until we reached Z, when we were total fascists and all of Iraq was in rebellion against us. Slipperly slope is saying that progress from point A to Z is inevitable or highly likely because progress from point A to B is, then point b to c is, etc. That’s exactly what Trisk did. There may in fact be several stopping points along the continuum. Like I think that in either 1 year or 5 years, depending on how the next U.S. election goes, we’re just gonna arm the Shias and the Kurds and bugger out.
Your paraphrase is not a slippery slope, but it’s not what Trisk said.
This war has done exactly the opposite in every point and that is why American forces are bogged down in a war they cannot possibly win. They will continue to kill Iraqis as long as they want to remain in Iraq but, the more they kill, the more opposition they will find.
American forces cannot win this war because they are not doing anything in Iraq other than occupy the country and protect themselves from attacks. They are unable to effectively control the streets or provide security for the population. From the point of view of the native population all the Americans do is kill Iraqis for no visible result except to protect themselves.
Triskadecamus is correct in that, unless things change drastically, this war will just continue to be a drain on both sides until America gets tired and gets out. The Americans can get tired and get out but the Iraqis are fighting with their back to the wall and have nowhere to go. They will continue to fight as long as the Americans are there.
[/QUOTE]
We have told innocents to leave?
If you believe our administration’s spokesman, the opposition in Iraq is only a small fraction of the population. A small, small fraction; just a few malcontents and Saddam loving hangers on.
So if we have told the “innocents” to leave that must be in the neighborhood of 300000 people we have told to pick up and move out into the countryside. The logistics of survival in such a case ought be be interesting.
We have told innocents to leave? Really?
Yes, really, a week or two ago. Then this past week we started letting them back in, but not in large numbers. Many of them are hanging out in Baghdad, about which you can read more here.
OP:
Will Fallujah Be A STALINGRAD?
Bollocks!
Do you people actually realise the *absurdity[/i ]of your “sound bites”?
Repeating this.
Your paraphrase isn’t what I said either.
I said the looser decides when the war is over. We can’t win. We won’t decide to loose until the political cost of winning is great enough to make our leaders decide that loosing is a more attractive option. That won’t happen until after then next election.
We already slid down this slope.
Slogging our way back out is going to cost a whole lot of lives, and accomplish nothing but a big boost to the terrorism of the next three decades or so.
Tris