From: "Bob Coe"
Date: 9/24/04 9:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id: %L35d.152$gk.35@okepread01

"Dav1936531" wrote
If the US had dealt in a merciless and brutal fashion with the Fallujah
insurgency, the remainder of anyone leaning towards insurgency wouldn't be
quite so ready to leap out into the street to create problems.

Which is pretty much how Saddam controlled things. Maybe he wasn't
so bad after all? Maybe the people he killed deserved to die?

The U.S. has probably killed more Iraqis than Saddam ever did. The
streets of Najaf were running with Shiite blood. Something never seen
after the Kuwait war.

Exactly my point. If the US had put down the rebellion in Fallujah, Moqutada
Sadr never would have hijacked Najaf.

Monkey see...monkey do.

Moqutada Sadr came to the conclusion that the US would deal with him weakly,
and as a result, more Iraqis have been killed then if he had gotten the message
early on that any insurgency from his group would be ruthlessly crushed. He
wouldn't have dared to hijack Najaf had he gotten that message.

Instead, sending weak signals is allowing a creeping lawlessness to set in.
Anarchy could be the end result of these improper signals. If complete anarchy
is allowed to break out, the Iraqi dead will number in the hundreds of
thousands. The car bombings, etc. have already killed 700-1000 (not sure of the
numbers) police and Iraqi National Guard recruits.

Much better (and fewer dead) to send strong signals up front that a new social
order is being created, and that that social order is to be respected. Had we
smoked the insurgency in Fallujah, I think our problems pacifying the current
insurgency would be much fewer.

It's all Monday morning quarterbacking now though.
Dave