How the Red Cross Killed Non-Lethal Weapons
The retaking of Fallujah has become another bloody urban battle. It didn’t have to be this way.
By Gary Anderson
June 22, 2016 6:41 p.m. ET
‘We had to destroy the village to save it.” That quote from an American officer during the Vietnam War was used to great effect by the antiwar movement of the 1960s. It comes to mind after the recent battle for Ramadi in which the Iraqi army and its associated militias, backed by American air power, virtually leveled the city to liberate it from Islamic State, or ISIS. Ramadi was held by fewer than 300 ISIS fighters, but retaking it involved a massive assault by thousands of Iraqi security forces.
Now a bloody battle to retake Fallujah from ISIS is under way, and the tens of thousands of men, women and children unlucky enough to be trapped are being used as human shields. Meanwhile, those lucky enough to escape are overwhelming aid agencies. There are better ways to conduct urban combat than to flatten entire city blocks, but they won’t be employed in Iraq.
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