Reply #1: "Ramadi must hold" [View All]

[NewYorkerfromMass]

...Maj. Gen. James Mattis, delivered a terse message to a chow hall full of men: "Ramadi must hold."

What does that mean? That we don't want it to establish itself as a fundamentalist Taliban style state? When the majority of its citizens may want that?
Anyway, I read the whole article and it sounds like it's a lost cause:

"...With the transfer of power, Marines reduced patrols of troubled neighborhoods. There's a sense among some Marines that they have ceded these neighborhoods to insurgents. Some worry that rebels are gathering strength.

"They control the whole tempo of the battlefield," says Echo Company Gunnery Sgt. Bernard Coleman, 37, of Hampton, Va. "If they want to wait a month to attack, they can do that. While all that time, we're just waiting. There's always more people out there who hate us."