You know how the Bolsheviks dealt with this, right? They took about 400 people hostage for every 1 person the enemy took hostage and killed ALL of them if the enemy didn't release the hostages.

We have a better solution - kill more militants. Kill the Mehdi Army. Kill al-Sadr. Kill anyone in Fallujah that looks at us the wrong way. Make Iraqi insurgents realize what f-ing with us really means.

they can't as yet. They need to wait til some more of the civilians move out.

that looks at you the wrong way? Yeah, right, perfect way to get the whole populace up in arms.

If we want to win this war we have to be as ruthless, if not ten times MORE ruthless, than they are. Only when terrorists see that terror totally and utterly fails to instill fear or make any impact on our political decisions will they stop. Their principles are not Islam; their principles are very political. They will stop if they see they cannot win.

more terrorists keep pouring in over the borders with Iran and with Syria. They wont see this.

In fact, many of the current problems faced by the US and others is heavy handed tactics used in the past that has driven people towards such actions. There is a time and a place for such tactics, but you can't keep going on with them all the time. To go further, what you don't seemt o recognise is that with such tactics you also run the risk of large scale civilian casualties. you can seekt o blame that on the terrorists as much as you like, in a sense you would be right, but somehow I doubt that the Iraqi people would see it that way.

The deadline for hte handover is approaching and the US still doesn't seem to have any real kind of plan for it apart from a wish and a prayer. The US is seen as an occupying force and the longer they stay there, the longer that the Iraqi people perceive there to be little progress, the more troubles the US will run into. The Bush administration really has totally f***ed up the handling of the country after the fall of Saddam. This is where the problems lie.

To sum up, I don't necessarily disagree with action, what I disagree with far more is the type of action and the sentiment behind what you type. It's dangerous and not likely to help matters. Surely you have some idea why they aren't in there right now fighting to get to Sadr?


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