11/08/2004|||109990778964559713||||||

TRIGGER-HAPPY AMERICANS?

I have very mixed feelings about Sir Max Hastings. As a military historian, he is quite wonderful. I can't wait to read his latest book, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45. But as a columnist, well, it is not too hard to see why he is a contender in Stephen Pollard's bad punditry awards. Sir Max, who never misses an opportunity to voice his disdain for the US troops in Iraq, was having another go at gun-toting Yanks in yesterday's Telegraph (registration required):

"Even many British soldiers dislike American tactics. A senior adviser in Basra said to me a couple of months ago: 'It is very uncomfortable to fight as partners with allies who have a completely different attitude to the value of civilian lives from our own.' The Americans' doctrine of overwhelming firepower is repugnant, indeed counter-productive, in the present circumstances of Iraq.

Yet it is the only way they know to do the business, and it might yet succeed."

At least he was willing to concede that this allegedly callous approach might work. The next couple of weeks in Fallujah may well settle the argument once and for all. In the meantime, it's worth recalling Robert Kaplan's vivid eye-witness account, The Real Story of Fallujah, published in the Wall Street Journal (link via Power Line) in May:

"Whenever the Marines with whom I was attached crossed the path of a mosque, we were fired upon. Mosques in Fallujah were used by snipers and other gunmen, and to store weapons and explosives. Time and again the insurgents forfeited the protective status granted these religious structures as stipulated by Geneva Conventions. Snipers were a particular concern. In early April in nearby Ramadi, an enemy sniper wiped out a squad of Marines using a Soviet-designed Draganov rifle: "12 shots, 12 kills," a Marine officer told me. The marksmanship indicated either imported jihadist talent or a member of the old regime's military elite.

"By the standards of most wars, some mosques in Fallujah deserved to be leveled. But only after repeated aggressions was any mosque targeted, and then sometimes for hits so small in scope that they often had little effect. The news photos of holes in mosque domes did not indicate the callousness of the American military; rather the reverse.

"As for the close-quarters urban combat, I was in the city the first days of the battle. The overwhelming percentage of the small arms fire -- not-to-mention mortars, rockets, and RPGs -- represented indiscriminate automatic bursts of the insurgents. Marines responded with far fewer, more precise shots. It was inspiring to observe high-testosterone 19-year-old lance corporals turn into calm and calculating 30-year-olds every time a firefight started.

"There was nothing fancy about the Marine advance into Fallujah. Marines slugged it out three steps forward, two steps backward: the classic, immemorial labor of infantry, little changed since Hue, or since antiquity for that matter. As their own casualties mounted, the only time I saw angry or depressed Marines was when an Iraqi civilian was accidentally hit in the crossfire -- usually perpetrated by the enemy. I was not surprised. I had seen Army Special Forces react similarly to civilian casualties the year before in Afghanistan."

|||Clive|||http://clivedavis.blogspot.com/2004/11/trigger-happy-americans-i-have-very.html|||11/08/2004 09:36:00 am|||||||||

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