US Forces Killing Of Innocent Iraqis Continues With Anti-Insurgent Tactics

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Experts: U.S. using wrong tactics
Fighting in Iraq likely to stay at same level

By Stephen J. Hedges
Washington Bureau
Published June 17, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0606170142jun17,1,1851065.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

WASHINGTON -- Despite the recent killing of insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, some former military officials and experts worry that the U.S. has not learned the lessons of counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq and that, as a result, a significant improvement in the fighting may not be around the corner.

In confronting a frustratingly resilient insurgency, the U.S. is relying heavily on precision bombing, which destroys buildings and can kill civilians, generating ill will. Tactics used in house clearings have led to incidents such as an alleged massacre by Marines in the town of Haditha. Large incursions into the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi have bred dissatisfaction among ordinary Iraqis, violating a cardinal principle of counterinsurgency.

A `losing' tactic

The increased use of air strikes, said G.I. Wilson, a retired Marine colonel who recently finished a second tour in Iraq and who writes frequently on fighting insurgents, "means that you're losing. A 500-pound bomb causes a lot of destruction."

Bush said in December that about 30,000 Iraqi citizens had died "as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence." Although some of those deaths can be attributed to al-Zarqawi's campaign of car bombing and suicide attacks, Iraqi civilian deaths have continued in a spate of car bombings and shootings since al-Zarqawi's death.

full article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0606170142jun17,1,1851065.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

[kenny blankenship]

1. yeahbut it's not really a massacre

it's not a real massacre massacre unless we actually line the civilians up and shoot them in the back.
We avoided the massacre of tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians by dropping bombs and artillery on them instead. America doesn't like massacres. We find them morally offensive.

[Biernuts]

2. So how do WWII's firebombing of Dresden & Tokyo fit?

[kenny blankenship]

4. "Surgical strikes"

brilliantly staged raids, successfully carried out with a minimum of Allied casualties, against an enemy so depraved that he would position his civilians as "human shield" right where our bombs were going to drop.

[libodem]

3. sad but true

you make an excellent point