Fallujah

The Battle for Fallujah, by all TV accounts, appears to be going really well. Civilians? Well, they don't exist in Fallujah. Not one of the embedded reporters or military commanders has SEEN a civilian there. Everything is ahead of schedule, and the losses are "light," at least for the Marines. Occasionally the word "tough" is heard to describe the fighting.

The newspaper accounts are less sunny. The Times this morning had civilians getting shot at by Marines as they tried to crawl out of the city. "The Muhajadeen won't let us leave," one cried, waving his shirt at the Marines in hopes of not getting blown away. Baghdad hospitals are treating wounded civilians. The death toll of American forces (31 as of today) and Iraqi forces (6) indeed seem remarkably low for this sort of urban assault--but then I read that nearly 500 US troops have been evacuated to Germany since the assault began. Only seriously wounded troops get evacuated to Germany, folks. Meanwhile, Mosul and other Iraqi cities are blowing up with inurgent strikes--apparently most of our fiendish foe left Fallujah before the attack, to set up shop elsewhere.

And yet, I can't disagree with the strategy. I may think the war is being fought for bullshit reasons, but questions of jus in bello are perhaps pointless by this time. Roosevelt and Truman knew that to defeat fascism they'd have to rubble-ize Germany and Japan; so long as the people had any will for fighting, the troops could carry on. This brought us Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. If the Bushies are at all serious about democratizing Iraq, they'll have to do the same thing. Newt Gingrich, in his jovial, twinkly-eyed style, put it thusly this morning on This Week: (paraphrase) "The people of Iraq will have to decide whether or not they want their cities destroyed. They can continue to resist or they can play along." Now that's a true example of the democratic spirit, no? Gingrich continued by saying that sometimes governments have to force their will upon the citizens--I'm not sure what point he was making, but it sounded a lot like something Saddam Hussein could have said. Exactly what authority does the US have to enforce its will upon the Iraqi people, whether through bombs or through our surrogate Allawi? Are the Iraqi people the ones blowing up carbombs? Do we know WHO the insurgents are? Today Fareed Zacharia admitted the Pentagon made up the whole "foreign fighters" story because they wanted Americans to think the Iraqis were happy we were there.

The US has sufficient fire-power to rubble-ize Iraq if necessary, but it doesn't have the money, the resources, or the requisite number of troops to secure the country and help foster democratic institutions and rebuild it after doing so; further, it lacks the stomach to demand these things, because the Administration can't admit there's even a problem. "Oh, it may be a little tricky, but elections are coming." Sure they are. The Administration can't succeed without a general call to sacrifice; I include in this general call a draft, and rationing of resources at home, and an increased tax burden particularly on businesses (under FDR the war effort was financed through aggressive marketing of US bonds and a 90% top tax bracket).

If Bush and Co. are unwilling to do what it takes to "transform the region," then they should get the fuck out of Iraq now. THAT is the lesson of Vietnam; you fight an unjust war based on lies and distortions, then retro-actively try to justify it by humanitarian reasons, you better commit the full resources at your disposal and do the job. If you're not going to do so, we'll be stuck there suffering 500-1000 losses a year for ten years before going home empty-handed anyway.