April 6, 2006: During the "Second Battle of Fallujah" in 2004, the terrorists and anti-government forces seem to have borrowed some ideas from World War II Imperial Japan. While some of the terrorists were more or less hard-core fighters, many were poorly trained volunteers. Most of the fighting was done by small groups - fire teams and squads - with little or no direct supervision by higher command. Their orders were essentially to impede the U.S./Iraq forces by any means necessary. Their tactics relied heavily on traps, ambushes, infiltration, and long range fire. This is how the Japanese fought the final battles of World War II. It was based on the assumption that, if you could not beat the Americans, then you could at least try to hurt them. The Japanese lost the war as a result of that strategy, something al Qaeda and Sunni Arab supremacists dismiss as a fluke.

The Fallujah defenders tried hard to make use of "sensitive" locations, such as mosques, hospitals, schools, and the like, from which to operate. This was a good bit of public relations on their part, and is literally, right out of the al Qaeda playbook. This is where the defenders of Fallujah were different from the defenders of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945. The Islamic terrorists believed they could play the media and spin a defeat into a victory. In general, the volunteers tended to fight to the end, while the more seasoned terrorists resorted to evasive action to enable them to avoid death or capture, so that they could fight again.

This was another difference from the World War II Japanese experience, where all the defenders had orders to fight to the death. During the battle for Iwo Jima, the 20,000 Japanese defenders suffered 100 percent casualties (95 percent dead, five percent captured) while the 70,000 American attackers, suffered 37 percent casualties (27 percent dead, 73 percent wounded). In Fallujah, the 4,000 defenders suffered 63 percent casualties (30 percent dead, 33 percent captured), while the 5,000 attackers suffered ten percent casualties (15 percent dead, 85 percent wounded).

Fallujah was also a propaganda defeat. Although attempts were made to portray the outcome as a glorious example of courageous Moslem warriors. But most Iraqis, and Moslems in general, saw it for what it was, a quick and embarrassing defeat. It became more difficult for the terrorists to recruit new people, after details of the Fallujah fighting got out. That's the downside of so many of the defenders escaping. These guys talked, and their tales of the murderously efficient Americans were convincing, too convincing. The American troops were described as very well prepared, and relentless in their attacks. Worse yet, some Iraqi troops accompanied the Americans, using the same tactics, and with the same success. The Iraqi troops were used for things like clearing out Mosques, thus depriving the terrorists of any media victory. The Americans were also quick to show video of weapons stored in Mosques, hospitals and schools. Iraqi television had captured terrorists confessing to the use of these locations. Fallujah was a defeat not just because the terrorist military tactics failed, but because the media ploys did as well.