Blaming the victims for their deaths -- women and children at that -- won't cut it in a battle for hearts and minds. And US policy requires winning them over before the war ends. More careful ways of handling civilians could help avoid such ugly accidents, and help win their trust, if indeed it is winnable. In other words, the UK military's long "peacekeeping" experience in Northern Ireland could actually pay off -- in Iraq.
But US military doctrine since WWII has been to call in the heavy firepower (and/or close air support) when the going gets tough. And regular US forces haven't had any large-scale urban warfare experience since Hue in 1968.
As for the endgame, the Pentagon reckons Baghdad to be more like Berlin, the Ba'athists prefer the Stalingrad analogy. Both are wrong, of course, (it's perhaps more like Grozny v Sarajevo?) but that's no reason not to read both the books by Anthony Beevor. They are masterpieces.
The NY Times ran a headline that said something like "Failing to Heed Warning, 7 Iraqi Civilians Killed at Checkpoint." (It's down now.) The American reader must always be reassured.
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But US military doctrine since WWII has been to call in the heavy firepower (and/or close air support) when the going gets tough. And regular US forces haven't had any large-scale urban warfare experience since Hue in 1968.
As for the endgame, the Pentagon reckons Baghdad to be more like Berlin, the Ba'athists prefer the Stalingrad analogy. Both are wrong, of course, (it's perhaps more like Grozny v Sarajevo?) but that's no reason not to read both the books by Anthony Beevor. They are masterpieces.
- bruno 4-01-2003 7:08 pm
The NY Times ran a headline that said something like "Failing to Heed Warning, 7 Iraqi Civilians Killed at Checkpoint." (It's down now.) The American reader must always be reassured.
- tom moody 4-01-2003 7:26 pm