Skip the words, drop the bombs

I'm waaaiting.

Col. J.C. Coleman, chief of staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, said "We were going to roll in there all quiet like the fog."

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But they didn't.

Col. Michael Walker, a Marine civil-affairs commander, said "Should we have sent in a tank so we could have gotten, with all due respect, four dead bodies back?"

Damn right, they should have gotten those four dead bodies back. Those four dead bodies in Fallujah were the bodies of former military men, three Navy Seals and one Army Ranger.

I guess they don't count because they were civilians.

Col. Walker should be drummed out of the Corps.

And while I wait, the savages in Fallujah gain courage and righteousness.

Bottom line, they consider us foolish, cowardly infidels

They believe they've identified our Achilles heel – and they're probably right. They know we try to do the right thing. We play by the rules. We try to be humane and careful, even in war.

Yes, in a war. That's where we are today. And it's a sad place.

I'm not waiting alone. You're waiting, too, if you have a shred of patriotism. If you have any sense of pride in our country and what it stands for in a barbaric world, the events last Wednesday in Fallujah are a stinging rebuke to turning the other cheek.

The New York Times reported that the Marines had just taken over the area of Fallujah and "announced a shift away from aggressive tactics. They wanted to win friends by doling out $540 million in reconstruction projects."

WIN FRIENDS!? By handing out money!?

This is WAR, not a quiz show!

It was real life in Fallujah when 4 civilian guards (those four, former military men) were shot, their vehicles set ablaze, charring their bodies which were pulled from the flaming vehicles, hit, kicked, beaten and mutilated. They were dragged through the streets and finally strung-up from a bridge, naked and upside down, as they continued to be brutalized.

The angry mob – children and young men – cheered and jeered. Some held signs, one reading, "Fallujah, the cemetery of the Americans." This clearly was planned.

The horror was captured on video and broadcast around the world. Well, almost. Al-Jazeera carried every frame. Everyone else saw just about everything. But in this country, our media, who usually rail about First Amendment rights and freedom of speech, suddenly got religion and decided that the scenes were too awful for our sensibilities.

They chose not to show Americans what happened to civilian Americans in a war zone – Americans who were there protecting food deliveries to the very people who took such delight in killing them and debasing their bodies.

A few newspapers published some pictures and finally, some TV outlets showed a few frames, but the Internet got it right and showed Americans the gruesome truth.

Good! We need to know, to understand just what and who we're fighting. We need to know the stakes of this war. We need to know the enemy in order to defeat him.

It's interesting that the media, which have no compunction about showing photos of the real horrors of Nazi concentration camp victims, and praise the Hollywood reality of "Saving Private Ryan" and the creative violence of "Kill Bill," will suddenly develop queasiness about reality. They censored the pictures of the World Trade Center towers falling – along with the people who jumped rather than die in the inferno. Now, they censor this supreme insult against this country.

I remember Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993. We saw that live coverage and I'll never forget my horror of seeing an American military man, kicked and dragged by an angry mob.

My parents taught me that whenever and wherever an American was attacked, the country would defend them and seek retribution. I was proud, knowing that. I was proud, knowing that the military credo is never to leave one of their brothers behind, injured or dead. It was a matter of honor and I was proud this was an honorable country.

Is it still? How did we retaliate for Mogadishu?

We didn't. We left.

What are we doing in Iraq to retaliate for this brutal and inexcusable attack on civilians?

As I write this, four days after the event, nothing has been heard from the president. From others? Just words.

Presidential press secretary Scott McClellan declared he's "confident that those people will be brought to justice, that those thugs will be brought to justice."

What does that mean?

The U.S. civilian administrator, Paul Bremer, said the killings won't "go unpunished," and called it "inexcusable."

Oooh.

Then he added that what happened violated "the tenets of all religions, including Islam, as well as the foundations of civil society."

But this enemy is not civil and not a society. And if we mean to defeat them, we'd better loosen up.

Roll those tanks in and level the place. If they're worried about civilians, give them 24 hours to surrender, then destroy everyone and everything else in Fallujah.

And by the way, get those four dead bodies back ... with all due
respect, of course, Col. Walker.