VIETNAM? IT’S NOT EVEN MOGADISHU. Wagner James Au sends this email, noting the Marines’ success at killing attackers without suffering casualties in two recent engagements:
2 firefights x 0 US casualties + 120 dead militants = Vietnam?
Glenn, check out these Times and Post accounts of firefights in and around Falluja on Tuesday. (The Post story recounts a daring rescue of an APC crew who lost their way into hostile territory.) In both of them, US Marines were surprised by surprisingly fierce, well-organized attacks-and then proceeded to kill a tremendous number of insurgents, while suffering zero deaths.
American forces killed more than 100 insurgents on Tuesday in close combat in a small village in central Iraq, Marine commanders said Wednesday… Marines fought house to house, roof to roof, doorway to doorway. They repelled attacks of machine-gun fire, volleys of rockets and repeated charges by masked fighters, Colonel McCoy said. Two marines were shot but their injuries were not life-threatening.
Marine officials said the three-hour battle that erupted at dusk Tuesday on the streets of Fallujah, and was recounted Wednesday by several of the key officers involved, exemplified the bravery and resourcefulness that Marines are known for, even when surprised and surrounded by a host of enemy fighters on alien urban turf. By the end of the tumultuous encounter, the charred personnel carrier had been towed to safety by a tank and most of its 17 crew members — several of them wounded — had been rescued from a house where they had taken shelter… The rescue squad rushed four tanks and six Humvees to the area, where they fought their way through several blocks to reach the burning carrier. Surrounded by 25 Marine riflemen on foot, the armored vehicles advanced, firing machine guns from their turrets. Overhead, Air Force attack planes repeatedly strafed the area. Marine officials here said at least 20 insurgents were shot dead during the fighting…
“This is a story about heroes. It shows the tenacity of the Marines and their fierce loyalty to each other,” said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. “They were absolutely unwilling to leave their brother Marines behind.”
To me, the most interesting quote was this one: “It showed not only the intensity of the resistance but an acute willingness among insurgents to die.” You can always find something to agree on, if you look hard enough.
What this really underscores, of course, is that the real problem is political, not military, as this item from DefenseTech pointed out last week. And unfortunately, it’s harder to tell how things are going on that front since much of the negotiation is behind closed doors, and dissembling is part of the game. Will Iraqis rise to the occasion? This is a big test, not only for us, but for the proponents, and skeptics, of Arab democracy.
UPDATE: Rand Simberg:
As Glenn points out, Fallujah isn’t Tet, and it’s not Mogadishu either. It does appear that the next attempt at dressing it up in old clothes (though not so old this time) will be to resurrect the myth of the Jenin “massacre,” and to try to make it appear of similar kind.
Yep. It’s the old game: Play fearsome warrior until you get your ass kicked, then play victim.