On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 09:38:02 -0400, Harry Krause wrote:


What our military cannot do is defeat a large, well-organized,
non-uniformed and non-traditional group or groups of motivated partisans
in areas outside of urban areas. Thus, we flopped in Vietnam and we're
flopping in Iraq, even though we defeated the Iraqi army, and why the
Taliban are re-emerging in Afghanistan, and why the Israelis are having so
much trouble with Hezbollah and Hamas.

Unless you are a *native* army, very, very few have defeated a guerrilla
movement. It's mostly because the solution isn't a military one, it's a
political one. If you can't win the "hearts and minds" of the population,
you are in for a long war of attrition. I don't think our army can win in
Iraq. However, with luck, the Iraqi Army might.