http://www.tompaine.com/blog.cfm?sta...ow=2#blog10254

The Fallujah Alamo
"We have the potential to turn this into the Alamo if we get it wrong."
Those prophetic words were spoken by a senior U.S. military officer to a
reporter for The New York Times .
http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?UR...st/22MOOD.html
He's right. It's a potential turning point in the entire U.S. war in Iraq.
If the United States goes full-force into Fallujah, it will be a Pyrrhic
victory: from the ruins of that city, hatred of America will rise all over
Iraq. (If the United States attacks Najaf, where Muqtada al-Sadr is holed
up, it's curtains for the occupation.) ....

It's a slow-motion catastrophe happening before our eyes. It appears that
even the British forces in Iraq are repulsed by America's bloody-minded
tactics. For months, there have been reports the Paul Bremer-the U.S. czar
in Iraq-has clashed with our only real ally there. British generals wince at
our brutality. Yesterday, in the British Parliament, British military
officials reported "friction"
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1092313.htm
with the United States, and General Michael Jackson, the head of the British
armed forces, makes it clear:
The head of the British Army has publicly conceded the United States and
Britain have different approaches to military doctrine on the ground in
Iraq.

General Mike Jackson told the parliamentary Defence Committee it was a
fact of life that British military doctrine on post-conflict situations was
different to that of the United States.

Tensions between the two military forces in Iraq have emerged in recent
weeks.

U.S. commanders are privately critical of the British for taking too soft
a line while senior British military officers are describing the Americans
as too brutal.

Gen. Jackson appears to distance the British Army from its U.S. allies.
"The phrase I use for this is, we must be able to fight with the Americans,
that doesn't mean we must be able to fight as the Americans, if you see my
distinction," he said.
In other words, the British don't want the blame for the potential
massacres in Fallujah and Najaf. But I don't think many Iraqis will see the
"distinction."