Separating the wheat from the chaff in Samarra

The US is announcing victory and the Iraqis are claiming civilian casualties. Perhaps the reality is in the middle because I do not subscribe to the theory of "surgical" or "precision" air strikes. It's a public relations term to sell to the US public but take a look at the leftovers of some of those precision strikes. Kill the bad guys, sure, but the air strikes are no doubt killing civilians. That is no way to win the peace and we are only creating more trouble in the long run with distant and heavy-handed attacks like that.

We have a problem right now in Iraq with information because the few journalists that are left in Iraq are limited to the Green Zone. For us at home, this means that much of the information that we receive is run through the Pentagon filter and considering how far off they have been in reporting the truth in Iraq, we have to be suspicious of what they tell us.

Again, perhaps it's true that we control the streets of Samarra for now but the cost (killing civilians) is no way to spread the democracy that I know and love. I wonder about the long term abiblity to hold the streets at such a cost.