You really can't compare Iraq and WWII though with all due respect. The occupation after the fall of Berlin was relatively short (nearly non-exsistant with the exception of the bases we kept). Furthermore, we occupied a place where the people were not being influenced by a globally organized fundamentalism based on the worlds largest religion. This thread will make me crazy at some point as I have so much to say and not the time to write it.

 

But you are missing my point. We are not dealing with a nation, state, or defined group of people. The Navajo were a tribe with fairly defined boarders, and who lived in fairly large group of likeminded people. That is the primary difference, and why a war like the Iraqi war will not work when fighting an ideology. You cannot possibly go into Baghdad and pick out who is a terrorist and who is not. They have no defining dress, no defining uniform, and no defining language: 270 million people speak various dialects of Arabic, and 1.4 billion people practice Islam, so how do you pick out the good from the bad?

Open war on an enemy who hides within normal neighborhoods, and communicates via 21st century technology simply cannot work without grave human rights violations, and massive casualties on both sides. And I personally, am not willing to go back to the days of the Indian wars and the incredulous atrocities that occurred. War is war is war, but as the leader of the "free world" we have to show other nations that even in the face of a ruthless and lawless enemy, we still abide by rules designed to protect human rights. If we fail to do so, we will fall into the same trap of lawlessness and disregard for the human condition that plagues the people we are fighting.
-Jeff

 

In reference to the above it is definetly a lot harder but it all falls back on building accord with the people. Use them to help you fight your war (sometimes literally). They know who's good and who's bad best and more importantly, who's new. Adapt and overcome has never been so true as it is for leaders in todays war.

 

First off, the war is over. What we're doing over there is more of a police action. Not like a "Vietnam" police action, where that was a war. No, this is us doing security while at the same time trying to get the local government and police/military up to speed.

If you call this a war, you'd be saying that it's the safest war we've ever been in. I mean, we loose less people in this war a month than we do U.S. citizens in a day (perhaps hours) on our highways. Hell, maybe even several months or years.

The war is over people. The question here is, how do we help the Iraqi government become self sufficient?

More to the point, how do we better establish a FOB to maintain a presence in the middle east without it looking like we've established a permanent FOB in the middle east. The facts are, we'll never leave, we can't. We need our eyes, ears, and guns out there all the time. There are savages on this planet that still want to kill every last American standing....make no mistake.

We have to do this while at the same time keeping the media as happy as possible...the media controls us.