A few thoughts on Fallujah

A threadbare narrative of recent events in Iraq might go like this:

After multiple warnings - and within the context of a long-simmering antagonism - on March 28 the U.S. shuts down Al Sadr's newspaper (Al Hawza) on the grounds of "incitement";
On March 31 four U.S. Contractors are killed in Fallujah;
The U.S. subsequently launches aggressive strikes against targets in Fallujah.
(For useful background, see this).

The precise chain of events wouldn't have been the same, but had Al Hawza's offices been left open, there's no telling that a similar showdown wouldn't have transpired anyhow. A prudential gamble may have been taken, either to get Al Sadr to back down, or force his hand - sooner rather than later. Unlike some, I don't see the muzzling of the newspaper as malum en se - though it may well have been imprudent. But to assess matters of prudence judiciously, one needs to be privy to the facts on the ground which supply the data for deliberation. "We" can speculate, but I'm not sure enough is known from this remove to make more than provisional judgments. Allegations of Iranian meddling further muddle the issue.

The killing of the contractors was undoubtedly the tipping point, but surely it's wrong to view the "siege" of Fallujah as simple retribution; hence it's not apt to try to draw up a balance of the hundreds of dead civilians vs. a "mere" four dead Americans. Rather, the killings catalyzed the commanders to suppress the insurrection decisively, which unfortunately entailed having to move on the militiamen in their urban redoubt.

With whom does the primary culpability lie for the civilian deaths - those who attack and then hide themselves within civilian enclaves, or those who are attempting to suppress militias pursuing unjust ends? Worst case scenario: there's a shared blame, if the intentions and objective dimensions of the American response are indiscriminate. Still, the militiamen bear the greater responsibility/blame for inviting combat within urban centers. So far as I know, there's no evidence that the American response has been grossly indiscriminate (e.g., carpet bombing); a Russian commentator on Chechnya, for example, explicitly denies any analogy to Chechnya along those lines (hat tip to Glenn).

In any event, urban warfare is extremely dicey morally, and there is no unproblematic casuistry related thereto, beyond the traditional notes: it's indefensible for military targets to be destroyed incidental to the destruction of a city; damage to infrastructure and noncombatants must be incidental to the pursuit of military targets. As to what quantum of damage evinces indiscriminate warfare, there's no easy formula or recipe to apply; as ever, the quantitative-qualitative dialectic is inherently imprecise, and must be viewed within the frame of what's at stake in a particular campaign. All one can say with much certainty is that it is illegitimate - in intention, and actually - to destroy virtually an entire city (life and property) in order to vanquish a foe sequestered there.