U.S. says Falluja battle won't break insurgency

[floda]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military says this week's Falluja offensive will not shatter Iraq's insurgency, while analysts argue that merely seizing real estate does little to stop rebels able to relocate and keep fighting.

U.S. officials have said Iraqi rebel leaders and foreigners, including al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, used the Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad as a safe haven from which to direct a campaign of bombings, killings and kidnappings.

But U.S. commanders acknowledged Zarqawi and other senior insurgents probably left Falluja before Monday's launch of the long-expected offensive to take control of the city.

"For Falluja to be a success from the U.S. perspective, we would have to achieve something pretty close to total victory -- not just retaking real estate but accomplishing real strategic objectives," defense analyst Charles Pena of the Cato Institute said on Thursday.


more...

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=619798&src=rss/uk/worldNews§ion=news

[knowbody0]

it will take a long time to kill 25 million insurgents

[Skidmore]

1. So how long were they planning tokeep this up before someone

insisted they acknowledge failure?

[DrWeird]

4. They still think they could have won Vietnam.

So at least forty years or so.

[skooooo]

2. no shit!!

[BootinUp]

3. U.S. admits folly of Iraq War

I can dream can't I? :)

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bring it ON!

By the way weren't they promising that this was gonna break the back of the resistance?

Oh for that matter, lets go back to May First and that landing, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED indeed

[uppityperson]

15. Aww come on.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED sign was put up by the boys on the boat, not by our fine president. It was hard work but not HIS fault. (And the boat was in the Gulf of Iraq. And our fine president was elected twice. In case you miss that I'm being sarcastic, I am totally appalled at the whole thing.)

[ChitownProgressive]

6. Oh, SURE IT WILL. Those silly insurgents are done for.

Nope, that'll be it. We'll have our troops home within a week.

The economy and deficit will be fixed. Yep. The environment will be cleaned up. The states won't be bankrupted. UBL will be caught, the world will love us again, and the Democratic Party will be over.

Great job, America.

/sarcasm

[Barrett808]

7. True enough, if by "won't break" they mean "will strengthen" n/t

[4_Legs_Good]

8. Oh man! And I *totally* thought it would!

Geesh.

david

[maddezmom]

9. guess someone in the WH reads the wires

now they say it won't, when only a week or so ago it was going to be the example to all the "insurgents"...it would pacify all the other cities....and they will hold elections in Jan. :eyes:

[DELUSIONAL]

10. Invaders kill a whole lot of people and then the

invaders admit that they can't stop the local people from being real pissed off that their family (also meaning extended clan family) is being killed by the invaders.

Such an astute observation -- US military.

This country -- that NEVER attacked us was invaded -- because it had WMD -- which it didn't have.

Oh then Saddam had to be taken out -- he is in US Custody -- so check off that goal.

Now the people have to be pacified so that they can "vote" -- just like the election in the US -- hey Iraqis -- It doesn't matter who you vote for -- the US will provide the numbers for their choice.

In this vote -- only the US's vote counts.

So the U.S. is killing people so that they can be forced to accept democracy -- meanwhile people in the U.S. are denied having their vote counted.

[truth2power]

11. That about sums up this FUBAR situation.

I feel like I'm living in a Kafka novel. :crazy:

[DELUSIONAL]

14. Can't these idiots feel the Cognitive Dissonance?

or is that Cognitive Disconnect?

The Propaganda and PSY OPS is so thick that I'm having trouble keeping up with it all -- and this is my college degree (more or less) -- In grad school we spent a whole graduate seminar deconstructing Government propaganda -- plus I grew up in the Navy (saw the lies up close and personal) -- the Psy Ops people are working over time.

Oh -- FUBAR -- yes this exactly explains both the election and Iraq -- in fact bush = FUBAR

BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR
BUSH = FUBAR

[maddezmom]

12. well said DELUSIONAL

it's a clusterfu*k here as well as there...ain't democracy grand? :eyes:

[Az_lefty]

13. Their acknowledging failure....n/t

:shrug:

[maxsolomon]

16. that knowledge must comfort the parents of the freshly dead soldiers.

COLD comfort.

4 more years of this?

[DemoTex]

17. Cue Simon & Garfunkle's 7 O'Clock News/Silent Night ... 4-3-2-1 ...

Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial increase in the present war effort in Vietnam, the U.S. should look forward to five more years of war. In a speech before the Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York, Nixon also said opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single weapon working against the U.S. That's the 7 o'clock edition of the news,
Goodnight.

Nixon predicted five more years of war and there were seven. These fuckers love war. I mean they really love it. It makes them so much fucking money that they actually love war. I heard it at a bar called "The Casino" in Auburn, Alabama in 1972. Nixon was on the tube, running for re-election, when a semi-drunk young women said, "I love Nixon and I love what he is doing in Vietnam!" I was one of several Vietnam vets that got up and left. Walked out. Went down the street to the next bar (which was equally as rabid right-wing).