Ralph Peters sees a valid, and disheartening, analogy between Iraq and Vietnam, especially in the apparent standoff at Fallujah.
Our enemies are laughing at our folly, while creating a myth of heroic resistance in Fallujah - for which we will pay dearly in the months and years ahead.Posted by Alan at April 27, 2004 07:16 AMMake no mistake: There can be no compromise in Fallujah. If we stop one inch short of knocking down the last door in the last house in the city, our enemies will be able to present the Battle of Fallujah to their sympathizers as a great victory: They fought the Americans to a stalemate (with the implication that, next time, the Americans will be defeated and driven from the Middle East).
Of course, we could defeat them. We know that. But in the broken world between the Bosporus and the Indus, seductive lies trump hard facts. Our insipid diplomacy plays into the hands of our enemies: It looks like cowardice. And it is.
We must not only win, we must be seen to win, graphically and decisively.
"Experts" warn that we mustn't alienate the hard-core Sunnis or the fundamentalist Shia's. Wake up and smell the cordite: They're already alienated. They'll never love us. So we'd better make damned sure they fear us.
The Battle of Fallujah isn't about one city. It's about the future of the entire Middle East. Despite the low number of casualties in historical terms, this could prove to be one of the decisive battles of history in its long-term effects.
We must win. If the enemy fights from mosques, level the mosques. If they fight from hospitals, gut the hospitals. If they open fire from orphanages, turn them into blackened shells. We cannot allow terrorists any sanctuaries. The men we face - and the watching world - interpret our decency as weakness.
The diplomats have had their chance. Now it's time to fight.
Unfortunately, our Marines and soldiers are in the position of a man in a fistfight in an alley. The other guy has total freedom of action, while our man's "friends" keep tugging at his arms and trying to restrain him. Guess who gets his teeth knocked out?
The president needs to lead, not equivocate. If there is any emerging resemblance to Vietnam, it isn't on the battlefield, but in the White House, where no one seems to have the will to win.
The terrorists pull the triggers and detonate the bombs. But the Marines and soldiers who come home in flag-draped coffins are Donald Rumsfeld's dead and Paul Bremer's corpses. President Bush is listening to the kind of men who destroyed LBJ's presidency and ravaged a generation of young Americans.
We cannot waste the lives of our troops for yesterday's bankrupt theories of international relations. Stop worrying about making our mortal enemies happy. We must either make up our minds to win, or bring our soldiers home.