Quote:
Originally posted by taxwonk
No.
I watched an old documentary on the Vietnam War last night. The segment was dealing with the war in the villages. It struck me that we have the same problem here that we had in Vietnam.
The terrorists are among the general population. In many instances, large segments of the population may not agree with the tactics they are using, but they share the same basic sentiments as the terrorists.
How do we root out the bad guys and kill them off without slaughtering huge numbers of innocents and not-so-innocents-but-non-terrorists? Any large-scale operation will drive the villagers into the hands of the enemy.
But we can't tell them apart simply by looking at them. They don't wear uniforms. They don't live in garrisons. We aren't going to make any headway with a "Hearts and Minds" campaign.
I honestly don't know what to do. I do know that what we are doing now is pretty much a forever proposition. It is sapping our resources and the American public and the current administration have no appetite for raising taxes to support the effort.
We can't simply throw up our hands in defeat. But we have to find a different way to fight this war.
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You don't believe that, assuming the Iraqi Military gets up to speed, that they won't have more success in identifying the bad guys and winning hearts and minds? I do. I also saw on Charlie Rose recently a retired general and former member of the Joint Chiefs say that the training of the Iraqis is going far better than he expected and far better than he witnessed a year before, and his belief was that we would begin pulling out within a year, though he acknowledged that we would need to keep command and control personnel there fore many years to come.
