This is the enemy that we fight

US Gen. Richard F. Natonski accuses the insurgents of storing weapons in mosques and schools in Fallujah. He does not say where he would consider it legitimate to store weapons. He says, “This is the enemy that we fight. It doesn’t respect the religious mosques or the children’s schools.” 1) mosques: Under the Same Sun has a picture of US soldiers wearing boots in a mosque and lounging around on prayer rugs. 2) schools: to repeat myself, when American occupied Fallujah for the first time a year and half ago, they took over schools and shot people who protested that take-over.

There have been a spate of articles criticizing the US’s Fallujah strategy, it’s belief that it could beat the insurgents in one set-piece “Battle of Fallujah” in which a geographic territory was captured, like this was World War II, or cowboys & Indians. The Pentagon seems to be surprised and annoyed that the guerillas aren’t playing their assigned roles. This is how it’s been for 3 years. The Onion soon after 9/11/01 had an article, something like: US to Give Al Qaida a Country So We Can Invade It. Soon after, Bush decided that Afghanistan would do as a proxy for AQ, and then Iraq. Fallujah is mimetic of a larger failure of understanding, as the US continues to think geographically and fights a take-that-hill war against enemies that do not think geographically (although they would prefer it if Americans kept their dirty boots out of their mosques and schools).