What would happen if the US military "levelled" Fallujah?

[markses]

Fallujah is a city of 200,000. Let's assume that a massive assault geared toward a collective reprisal for today's killings took place. Let's assume that 30,000 people are killed, and an additional 50,000 wounded. What would be the result, in purely pragmatic terms (I will leave out the ethical horror of such an action, since ethics have very obviously been abandoned those supporting it).

I submit:

1) You would see a massive uprising throughout Iraq. One million people would be dead by year's end, including 25,000 American troops. The uprising would be funded and supplied by other nations in the region, possibly leading to a spread of the war.
2) You would see the collapse of the United Nations, as the US alone vetoes full economic sanctions.
3) Authorities in the US military and US civilian administration would be charged openly with war crimes, possibly leading to a major crisis in the world economic system.
4) Foreign governments would be barred by their internal laws and people from associating with the US government, leaving it isolated militarily and with respect to terrorism prevention. There would be at least 5 successful terrorist attacks within the United States within the year, and many more attacks against US installations and citizens abroad.

Or is everyone under the impression that such an act would go without consequences? I always love the folks who think that we are the sole agents in the world, and that we can prosecute a war however we see fit, but choose to be "PC" about it because we are just nice. A more delusional pack I cannot imagine. Or am I just a pessimist?

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. Not gonna happen..

Its just going to be mass arrests...some airstrikes...make an example out of a few people.....

[markses]

4. Yes, of course

I just want to get a sense of what people think would happen were the US to do it.

I'm damn sure it's not gonna happen.

[leftchick]

32. I wish I was "damn sure" it would not happen.

I am convinced half the people calling the shots are drunk with power and will do what ever the fuck they want, damn the consequences, as they have already. Rumsfeld especially comes across as more than a little insane! If they do go ahead, I believe al-Sistani would give the go ahead to his followers to get rid of the US occupiers. All hell would break loose and the US would be the losers. Frightening scenario....

[kera]

5. I know that all wars of liberation

had no less than 2 or more millions of civilian killed , iraq is no exception

[DenverDem]

9. List these "wars of liberation", s'il vous plait.

Who liberated who from what?

So, we liberated Europe from the Nazis, right? After we armed the Nazis in the first place. (See Prescott Bush.)

We liberated Viet Nam from the communists. . oh, wait a minute, never mind.

We liberated Panama from Noriega. After we set him up as a tyrant in the first place.

We liberated Granada from. . . who the hell DID we liberate Grenada from?

Help me out, I'm drawing a blank here.

And Iraq is liberated because. . .?

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

[markses]

11. I think the poster means the opposite

The wars of liberation being the colonial wars against the European and American imperialists and their proxies (i.e., Indochina/Vietnam, Algeria, etc., etc.)

[DenverDem]

16. Thank you, I stand corrected.

Too much liberal bunker mentality of defensivism on my part.

In that case, I totally concur.

"Wars of liberation" should perhaps have been in quotations, then I would have gotten it right off.

[kera]

17. our friend correction is on the money!`

besides we are not wagging a war of liberation but "operation Iraq freedom" it is very different

we can be liberated but not free but there cannot be freedom without liberation

[mulethree]

19. Grenada

Castro inspired Marxists staged a coup. We were worried about the
safety of some students there so we flew in and schmushed the commies.

At least thats whats in the History books

Staging a coup without a license

[Must_B_Free]

7. In other words - Human Sacrifice

Here we are still using Human Sacrifice - the image of the Aztecs pulling out a beating heart, the image of Christ on the cross, people jumping from the burning towers, shock and awe...

it's all the same. the image of terror is used to produce obedience.

[DenverDem]

15. Good theological point, MBF!

Everyone realizes, of course, that the romanticization of the political execution of Christ was written into the Bible by the Roman bureaucrats who ran the Council of Nicea that canonized the Bible.

That expiation of sins through the cross is totally anti-Christian, Roman imperialist bullshit. Like you say, a terror image (see buildings falling down, looking awfully like a controlled demolition) to produce obedience.

Ann Coulter on killing John Walker Lindh to "send liberals a message" etc.

Bottom line, Jesus was not put here to die on a cross, he had a message that was too real for the sheeple to live with so they whacked him. His ministry was about the Beatitudes, not the crucifixion.

[mulethree]

18. any clues?

Why people are horrified by whats done to corpses?

Is that universal? Or just western cultures? Certainly goes way way back to very primitive times, at least burial rituals do.

It's like cleavage, some ingrained primal instinct that produces predictable responses.

[markses]

20. The philosopher Georges Batailles wrote extensively

on this question. One interesting thing I remember from his "The Accursed Share" (or maybe it was in "Eroticism"): people don't like corpses, but they really don't mind skulls. Or other bones. When an organic body is in the process of degeneration, it disgusts us. When the bone or skull is clean, we're kinda alright with it. People used to keep skulls as memento mori, for instance. Not a lot of folks hanging around with corpses. ;-)

[DenverDem]

21. Hanging with corpses is wicked bad aromatherapy.

Gimme a nice clean skull any day. A candle in them is kewl.

[salinen]

2. You can bet it's being studied

in the war room.

[JCMach1]

3. More misery and oppression.... business as usual

in occupied Iraq.

[DenverDem]

6. The rest of the world would unite and take us out.

If that is done in our name, with our money, we deserve what our stupid,lazy, greedy, self consumed, jingoistic, living in denial asses get. It will be nukearama around here.

[Minstrel Boy]

8. It would mean a 5% boost in the polls for Bush.

And likely everything else you say, too. But it would be very popular with a not-insignificant faction of a virtually mind controlled audience. (I say audience, because for many Americans, the Iraq war is little more than a popular series from last season, that's been on hiatus.)

[markses]

10. I doubt it would be popular when the sanctions kick in

the oil stops flowing, and the college kids are being blown up in Cancun, though...

[TeeYiYi]

12. Leveled / Liberated . . . it's all the same thing. (Isn't it?) .....n/t

TYY

[FlemingsGhost]

13. Nothing good, for anyone.

I see very little gained by such an atrocity.

[Mari333]

14. Sandy Berger on Nightline tonight

said that the US public has the right to the images and truths about this "war". I agree wholeheartedly. Many people are not affected by it in the least, it's "over there" and "doesn't affect them".
Sadly, for every job lost and the state of the economy, it is affecting them, but they aren't connecting the dots.
This, in light of the fact that Clarke is stating vociferously that Iraq is UNDERmining all efforts for peace, and will cost more and more and the arrogant assholes in the WH keep spinning the lies.
as a lawyer told me the other day from DC
"damn. This is just Vietnam again."
http://www.bringthemhomenow.com

[mouse7]

22. If they do, WH becomes war-criminals and combatants

A blatant war crime such as that would instantly give pseudo-combatant status to Bush, his staff, and Pentagon leadership. There's a line that is crossed when blatant war crimes happen according to international law that allows for the leaders ordering attrocities to be brought to justice.

I'm not sure exactly where that line would be crossed, but I'm certain the threshold is far below that of a city of 200,000.

[camero]

23. What I'm wondering with all this "leveling" shit

How in the fuck did we get this sick? To even consider retaliation only invites more retaliation. Some really do want this war to never end do they?

[DenverDem]

24. It starts at the top.

Our "leaders" are soulless, amoral, megalomaniacle sociopaths.

The sheeple take after their overlords.

That's why they want to kill all the liberals. We think for ourselves and know what the meaning of compassion is. We don't buy into the jingoistic hype.

Hard to understand how sheeple can be so blind and ignorant, I agree.

[camero]

25. I think so too

I also know that alot of people are just naturally bloodthirsty. Just when you think our country couldn't get any lower, it gets lower.

[DenverDem]

26. People are just weak and succeptible to demagoguery.

I don't think "a lot" of people are "naturally bloodthirsty" (but I know a few that are). Most people are just weak brained and easily led by tyrants who know how to use the sheeple's fears and prejudices to control them.

If we had moral leadership (and I'm not talking fundamentalist "morality" here) then the country would respond with their inherent goodness. There's too much money involved for morality to survive in DC, unfortunately.

[camero]

27. War is the schoolyard for grownups

Two kids start fighting and a crowd gathers egging the combatants on.
Happens all the time. The one who breaks it up or the one who walks away is seen as a "wuss".

Maybe not alot but too many in my book. I don't know how to stop it besides getting all of us who hate killing to rise up and shout NO.

It will take a sea change in attitudes and ostracizing the warmongers.
Money trumps morality (I agree the fundamantalists are far from moral, more like they are amoral) way too much.

[DenverDem]

28. You are a person who can make a difference.

Do what you can, where you are. We are the remnant of light keepers that are left.

Let your light shine and never let it go out.

[daleo]

29. Is this just RW radio blather?

Or is this message coming from more mainstream vectors? I haven't heard too much, other than some Fox, etc. types are raving insanely.

[mac1000a]

30. Why, we'd win the war of course!

Yeah! No one would mess with us after we made an example of those little bastards! Think they can kill Americans? Hah! That'll teach 'em. I say, napalm 'em all! USA! USA! USA!

P.S. April Fools

[DemLikr]

31. The corpse-mutilating was GROSS, BUT it is weird that Americans

seem to find such behavior more disturbing than the brutal killing and maiming of real, live people who can still feel pain, namely Iraqi civilians and American soldiers.

[lightbulb]

37. Perhaps what is most disturbing to people is

the level of mortal hatred evidenced by such brutal molestation of corpses. Maybe Americans are unable to reconcile such a display of repugnance with the "happy liberated Iraqis" myth. For Iraqi civilians to revel in this sort of barbarism en mass, they must be more than a little ticked off at us.

[DemLikr]

40. Or just bored and lacking something to do of an afternoon...

...sorry, I don't buy the "moral outrage" argument.

People who poke sticks in corpses and hang them from bridges and drag them behind cars, and smile while they're doing it, are not likely expressing their high moral values; they're expressing the same kind of animal-level venom that characterizes the Bush White House.

[Zolok]

33. Our Armed Forces would have to be arrested en-masse

for breaking Bush's new "don't harm the fetus" law.
Oh wait some of those fetuses are walkin' around and talking...
THAT is different.
:)
Bush doesn't have the guts to level Fallujah...he is barely allowed to talk back to Dick Cheney for ghod's sake!
All he is good for is threatening and bullying persons and institutions that can't fight back...a f*ckin' wonderful quality in a so called "war president".


www.chimesatmidnight.blogspot.com

[Capt_Nemo]

34. It will then be 130000 against several million

and, albeit well armed, the 130000 would be perfect targets.

[leftofthedial]

35. it will not happen

there will be some sort of reprisals, but nothing that outrageous.

If it DID, though, here's what would ensue:

1. Superficial international outrage and condemnations to no particular effect. Within a few weeks it will be business as usual.

2. Increased violence in Iraq and increased terror elsewhere.

3. A week or so of crying and expressions of disgust on DU to no particular effect.

4. Jingoistic "hell yeah! we kicked their ass" parties throughout much of America.

5. A couple of weeks of special programming on the horros perpetrated by Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Pol Pot and terrorists on the History Channel.

[mikey_1962]

36. Not ever going to happen...

[Mattforclark]

38. I really don't think they're that stupid

At least I hope they aren't. But I really don't think they are. The people we have running the scene over there are supposed to have a clue about Guerrilla warfare and how it works.

I think your predicted consequences are for the most part correct, should we do something that stupid.

[MadProphetMargin]

39. There would just be more Fallujahs. There always is. This is what

happens when you don't have a post-war plan.

[Corgigal]

41. I just hope no one is this stupid

but I believe all the thinking people may have left this adminstration, so flip a coin.