Fallujah

The battle of Fallujah is finally being waged. It was obvious that this would happen, and that the main thing holding the US back in the past few months were political considerations. In itself, that is unfortunate but understandable. Even now, despite the near certainty that the US military will triumph there, and with relatively few casualties, a larger political victory is far from assured. Ralph Peters describes the battle and what we will undoubtedly see from the US and world media.

Meanwhile, be prepared for media monkey business. No matter how well things go, we'll hear self-righteous gasps over the inevitable U.S. casualties. The first time a rifle company consolidates a position long enough to bring up ammunition, we'll hear that the attack has bogged down. If commanders on the ground decide to shift forces from one axis of advance to another, we'll be told that our troops couldn't make progress against "dug-in terrorists."

If four Iraqi units out of five perform well in battle, but one outfit fails or flees, we'll be bombarded with reports insisting that our training program hasn't worked, that the Iraqis aren't really with us, that the interim government has no grass-roots support (sort of what the Dems said about George W. Bush).

And if Operation Phantom Fury goes miraculously well, we'll be criticized for waiting too long to go in, for exaggerating the threat and for knocking over a stop sign with a tank.

The global media lost the U.S. presidential election. They'll do their best to win the Second Battle of Fallujah for the terrorists.