one more time...
No one here, Little Phil's droll notions to the contrary notwithstanding, sheds a tear for the late Dynamic Duo. I remain curious, however, as to why no serious attempt was made to take them alive. Was there not at least the possibility that under "coercive interrogation" they might have been able to throw some light on the whereabout of the Big Guy? Can we conclude that this potential information was just deemed Not Very Important?
200 heavily-armed US soldiers, using machine guns and TOW missiles, took out four armed men, one of whom was fourteen. Impossible, with this correlation of forces, to capture them?
Thought experiment: Private Jessica Lynch, on the eve of her triumphant return to public view, is spirited out of West Virginia by Ba'athist "sleeper" cells, drugged and Fedexed to the villa in Mosul, there to slake Uday's goatish lust. Our Brave Boys receive word of her whereabouts (staked down in the living room as Uday waits for the Viagra to kick in) and rush to the rescue, surrounding the structure. Do they pepper the premises with 200,000 rounds and risk harming America's Cracker Sweetheart, or do they take the place by less lethal means? In other words, was it simply impossible to go in without killing everyone inside, or would the attempt have been made (as it certainly would have for photogenic little Jessica in my scenario) had the possibility of getting a line on Papa Hussein not apparently been seen as being of negligible importance?
cordially,
