"Disneyland should create a Falluja w/real dogs eating real human corpses"

[poe]

Maybe Disneyland should create a Falluja display to include real dogs eating real human corpses and happy Iraqis wandering round the rubble with Goofy to fill dirty cans with even filthier water. Perhaps LtCol Malay could act as technical advisor to Disney on how to present slaughter and destruction attractively. He could be joined by the carefree LtCol Tim Ryan who (blogger Billmon points out) had a piece in the Tacoma News Tribune on January 18 describing his happy life : "From where I sit in Iraq, things are not all bad right now. In fact, they are going quite well . . . In the distance, I can hear the repeated impacts of heavy artillery and five-hundred-pound bombs hitting their targets. The occasional tank main gun report and the staccato rhythm of a Marine Corps LAV or Army Bradley Fighting Vehicle's 25-millimeter cannon provide the bass line for a symphony of destruction."

So, if the people in Fallujah are upset about their houses being blown up, and they are understandably, then let's remind them why we had to conduct operations in there in the first place. Many seem to forget that we were nice guys back in April and we gave them the city to run. We were hands off for six months. In that time that city became a model for what the rest of the country would look like if we did the same thing. It was a haven for terrorist of the first order. The corruption in the police and security forces was rampant and the locals had begun to establish a radical Taliban-like government in the city. So much for being a nice guy. Sometimes the only way to change the behavior of someone like that is to kill them. That doesn't sound nice, but that's a fact. This is a war, let's not forget that.
War is difficult because in war, one side is trying to change the behaviour and alliances and ultimately to impose their will on the other side. People don't change easily. The same people who were assassinating Iraqis and running one of the most corrupt and vicious dictatorships in history are the same ones we are fighting now. You want to know why we are still fighting them? Because we weren't heavy handed coming in. We didn't try to completely obliterate this country which is what it would have taken to kill -- yes I said kill -- all of the hard core members of the former regime. We tried to be relative nice guys as far as wars go to avoid as much suffering as possible.

The result was there were a lot of bad guys still left at the end of the big push in April 2003.

Then, we tried to win them over by rebuilding schools and sewer systems, etc. We tried to win the hearts and minds, so to speak. The corruption and hatred of some runs so deep that they sabotaged our efforts instead of embracing them. We built youth centers, government buildings, and employment offices only to have the enemy blow them up. We've worked to rebuild a formerly corrupt police and military system only to have the enemy specifically target those individuals because the enemy knows these security forces the biggest threat to their survival. No, these are not nice guys we're dealing with here. They are the most ruthless, cold-blooded murders I've ever seen.
Regards,
LTC Tim Ryan
Commander, 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry
://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley02042005.html