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"The chicken littles on FR amaze me. Do you really think you have the big picture sitting 6000 miles away from the action in front of your computer screen. Lets just say for the sake of argument that most of the bad guys are no longer in Fallujah. Do our guys gain much by marching through the city, being exposed to every IED left behind, and taking the blame for every civilian casualty that results? We're their to kill the enemy. Not capture territory. If the enemy is destroyed, our job is done."

The enemy is obviously not destroyed, since everytime we poke our heads up someone takes a shot at us.

And I readily admit I don't have the big picture - no one could, except the people who are running the show. Does that mean we should all just shut up and trust the people who are running things to do the "right thing"?

It is, however, perfectly reasonable to gripe that by sitting on our thumbs in Fallujah we're appearing weak and indecisive to our enemies. This has nothing to do with inside knowledge of our course of action in Iraq - there may or may not be good reasons for acting the way we are around Fallujah, but the image we're projecting is real enough for any of us to see.

Perhaps what they're now reporting as a repositioning of troops is simply preparations for going in there and finishing this. It's embarrassing to see us crowing "Look! See! We're negotiating with the terrorists, and, um, we didn't hurt the Mosque, so please don't hate us!." It's as if Baghdad Jim has been put in charge of the war. I would have liked to see us stomp this cleric craphead the minute he tried to exert power and oppose us.

"The enemy is obviously not destroyed"

And we're not done yet.

"Does that mean we should all just shut up and trust the people who are running things to do the "right thing"?"

No, but the very fact that you don't have the big picture means you ought to temper your criticism because it is based on guessing. Not fact. So how useful is it, other then to vent. Which isn't very useful.

"perfectly reasonable to gripe that by sitting on our thumbs in Fallujah we're appearing weak and indecisive to our enemies"

Sure, if that's what we are doing. But we aren't. It all goes back to the fact that we don't all have the big picture.

"It's embarrassing to see us crowing "Look! See! We're negotiating with the terrorists, and, um, we didn't hurt the Mosque, so please don't hate us!."

The only people doing that seem to be on FreeRepublic. Even Powell yesterday described why we have every justification to destroy the mosques we've destroyed.