[Marxism] Random thoughts on Fred's contribution on Fallujah

[dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

In reply to Fred, anyone who really thought this was going to be a "Stalingrad"
really, really doesn't no much about the military or who and why battles are
fought in the way they are. The examples Fred uses: Stalingrad, Hue, the Warsaw
Ghetto, or Khorramshahr, were, with the exception of Warsaw,fought with the
power of the State apparatus behind them, be that the Islamic Repubic or the
USSR or North Vietnam. Fallujah was anything but that. Even in the case of
Warsaw, if we are talking about the Ghetto uprising in '43, we are talking
about a whole people openly targeted for extermination with no place to run to.
It's a lot different than Fallujah, both for the occupiers and the Resistance.

***

That officially 36 GIs died and a few hundred injured, even if it was 5 times
that number, historically, it's almost *free* from the Pentagon's point of
view  in that from a strickly military perspective, such casulties would be
considered inconsequetial and a testament to great military planning,
intelligence, etc. IF one compares such casulty figures to any of the examples
cited by Fred above, this was, indeed, a military *freebee* for the
imperialists. Indeed, the whole of "1,000 plus" is for the entire campaign in
the last 18 months for this type of occupation is something the military, at
any rate, can live with virutually forever. During Vietnam we were talking
about 150 to 350 GIs killed every *week*, figures announced Thursday nights by
Walter Cronkite regularly. It's hardly that now...even unofficially...there
simply is no military pressure driving the US out at this point. Continued
attacks such as been what's going on is something that from a military
perspective could go on forever, given what's at stake for imperialism.
Politically it's far more sensitive for the imperialist occupation, but how
this unfolds is hard to say...

***

It's the other issues involved that Fred touches on...the fact that the major
aspect of the campaign to "kill or capture the 3,000 plus" insurgences simply
didn't happen. Yes, it is unlikely that Fallujah will be used as an open
resistance base for some time and the city will be in 'effective' control by
the US, it is clear that most of the resistance fighters cleared out (something
I would of recommened without hesitation had I been in command of the
resistance from what little I know) and attacked the 'rear', so to speak, in
the other cities. In this sense the military offensive was mostly a failure,
albeit it appears to be somewhat of a political victory for the
collaborationist gov't, it's a very limited one at that.

At the end of the day, it's a war of attrition: a military one being waged by
the US and a political one, militarily implemented, by the Resistance. The book
is out on both.

David Walters

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