Man, I am tired of this.

Filthy little insurgencies really do evaporate when you knock off the leaders, and they tend not to start up in the first place when everyone knows well that there's a death-to-rabble-rousing-murderers policy in place.

So get it in place, already. Precedent. Pour encourager les autres, and all that.

I have posted more detailed comments on the previous thread but one thing you can count on:
Al-Sadr will never surrender to us.Never.Never.Never.Islamic thought does not allow surrenders.Victory,death,or hudna. But never surrender.
We are falling into yet another trap and remember it is you who said," Kill Al-Sadr"!!
Good advice then ---- better advice now.

>>>"The potential problem here is that Sadr and his gang are calling a hudna, a truce in a moment of weakness, in order to regroup and fight again later."

This is typical Arab trickery; otherwise known as the hudna. And the U.S. naively agrees because we're afraid of scratching that holy mosque currently doubling as a weapons cache/outhouse. It could inflame the "arab street."

And what does showing weakness do? It emboldens them. The "truce" is their victory, and probably a great recruiting tool. The politicians are running it again.

Enough is enough. Finish Al-Sadr and his ragtag army off.

If not, we're going to see a repeat of this again.

Lose one for the Gipper !!! We have idiots in charge.This fiasco is actually making Kerry sound reasonable and that takes some doing.

http://tinyurl.com/5g4lq

Michael,

We'll know when it's really over when we DICTATE the terms of his surrender.

He will negotiate squat.

If you think people are upset on this blog,you should take a wander through the comments on
" Iraq the Model". Scathing.Talk about 'turning points'.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

I do wish the media (like Reuters) would stop calling it "the holy city of Najaf". It may have been a holy city once, but holy cities are not marked by the presence of armed thugs.

If it is indeed a holy city, they should move out - because we all know that the US has no intention of bombing it. And if they insist on staying there, with their heavily-armed fighters in heavily-armed mosques, they should drop the word "holy".

Mike,

you're right. I don't even bother putting the word holy in quotes anymore (see above) because it should be self-evidently not holy. But the press are just a bunch of pandering dhimmis.

I think we all need to show a little patience on this issue. We are only nine days into this. It appears we have him and his 'army' surrounded in the area of the mosque. We do not know all of the details on the ground. But nine days in a small amount of time. Rushing to achieve victory can backfire; see March - April 2003 in Iraq, where the quick victory can have negative consequences.

In the end, it is best if the Iraqis get him. Perhaps we are preparing the Iraqi assault force in case Sadr will not surrender. Let's give this time to play out. And save the criticism IF we let him go.....

The pace of this op has been totally controlled by the coalition; amidst all the confusion, conjecture, and spin about the only facts that seem solid are that ING/police are at the walls of the Shrine of Ali and the cemetery is (possibly) under control of the Marines. I think it'll be another 24 hours before anything substantive makes it through the fog about what, if any, terms, are granted to al Sadr.

ROE have been been reset to defensive fires only, and only for disengagement.

Belmont Club is updated.

TmjUtah, As usual, you are in my head....

Latest TV news says al-Sadr is trying to dictate terms, i.e., Iraqi govt to resign, all prisoners to be freed, etc. Doubtless he will next require that the US troops convert to Islam!
All this seems to be what in Farsi is called "ta'arofa"--empty talk, ritual boasting.
Doubtless Arabic has a similar term.
What's important is the politics of the assault on Najaf: Bush needs a big victory now, just like Lincoln needed (and got) Atlanta 140 years ago. If he presses ahead and destroys al-Sadr, I will vote for him. If all this results in yet another bogus truce, then he is not that different from Kerry and his "sensitive war" and I have no real reason to vote for him.

It's a little more complex than that. Pretty obviously the Iraqi government is trying something. Whether it will work or not remains to be seen. Give it a couple of days.

I think we should never show weakness when dealing with these bullies and thugs, it only encourages them. I suppose we have concern that we will get 700 million Shiites on a rampage against us if we do this wrong, but I think the best way to keep the Shiites in line is to destroy Sadr quickly and mercilessly. How to do so without destroying the mosque? Probably if we knew how to do that, the Marines would have done it already.

Good luck to our guys, and all of us. It would be especially nice if we set Sadr up for the kill and Alawi went in and took him out.

Let's see, U.S. forces to pull back and the city to be patrolled by some vague "third party" force which is actually the same thugs we've been fighting. This all sounds drearily familiar.

I would feel a lot more confident about the endgame in Najaf if we hadn't agreed to this sort of arrangement in Fallujah back in April.

We've got to get over this Enlightenment belief that the Shiites will say, "Wow, the Americans really are bending over backwards to be merciful and respectful, we should do what they want."

I have absolutely no military experience, but can't Iraqis/ U.S. special services just rush the shrine and kill all who resist with small arms fire without causing major structural damage? Sure, it'll make a mess, but the place is probably a pigsty already.

...about the only facts that seem solid are that ING/police are at the walls of the Shrine of Ali...

Ahh, classic tmj -- utterly self-assured, and utterly clueless.

It may interest you to know that the people at the walls of the Imam Ali shrine are thousands of demonstrators who've arrived as human shields to protect it from an attack.

Go ahead, look at the pictures in the link. Then tell me how many of those people you're willing to kill to get at al-Sadr.

All of them.

Next question?

No further questions, your honor.

If you're willing to look to all the world like as bloodthirsty a tyrant as Saddam, and accept the consequences, then go for it.

Good thing I'm not running the show, isn't it?

No sanctuary for combatants. We spend millions of dollars to AVOID destroying non-combatants and cultural/religious/medical facilities.

We need to disabuse people like al Sadr that there is anyplace to hide that we will not go.

But this impasse with al Sadr will end with his capture or death just the same. The primary beneficiary will be the provisional government of and for the Iraqi people. It's a revolution; just this time it's not to install another thug but to make sure that no more ever arise.