You keep saying we MUST fight in mega cities? Calculate the costs in tiny Marawi in your planning!

via Star and Stripes.

MARAWI, Philippines — More than six months after Filipino and foreign fighters claiming allegiance to the Islamic State stormed this lakeside city, setting off a monthslong war with U.S.-backed Philippine troops, liberated Marawi lies in ruins and its people seethe.

The heart of the city has been bombed and burned beyond recognition, its domed mosques pierced by mortar fire. Homes stand roofless, blackened. There are armored vehicles on the streets.

Some 200,000 residents are still scattered across the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, living with weary relatives or in displacement camps thick with mud and worry.

Those who have been allowed to return found their homes sacked and looted - safes open, jewelry snatched, appliances gone.

Many are angry at the men who seized their city in a failed bid to establish a caliphate, taking hostages and targeting civilians. They are angry, too, at the forces that fought those men, namely the Philippine army and its backer, the United States.

Beyond earshot of officials and soldiers, people wonder why the army was so quick to pummel their predominantly Muslim city. They are also suspicious of the role played by U.S. Special Forces.

Story here. 

Hate me if you want but I bet body parts I consider valuable that this fight was a test bed for the Army/Marine Corps and specifically the Special Ops bubba's wet dream of fighting in mega cities.

I hope they're properly assessing the costs.

I've talked about the refugee crisis that will develop.  I've talked about how air operations will be inadvisable due to enemy forces firing horizontally at our aircraft as they're inserting personnel.  I've talked about how the terrain favors the defense over the assault.

I could go on but you get the drift.  Fighting in a mega city is a STUPID idea.

While this debate has raged (well not really...there is NO pushback in the military journals) I have yet to hear a plausible explanation of why we should do such a thing.

All I get is "that's where the people are so that's where we have to fight".  What bullshit!  But ignoring the lack of logic, it really seems as if a general got a chance to see Call of Duty Advanced Warfare and wants to make it come true.  There is no strategy other than thinking that a video game points the way to the future.