Replies

I heard a story recently which is very instructive. During the Vietnam war, the Americans and their South Korean allies had a very different approach to the locals. The Vietcong would launch mortars into American bases - while the Americans would fight back, there were no consequences to (most) villages known to harbour the Vietcong. The response was "nuanced" and "selective".

A similar attack made on a South Korean base received a different response. The Koreans made it clear to the village known to harbour the Vietcong that if there was another attack, the village would be decimated. This resolve was tested, the South Koreans were as good as their word, and it should come as no surprise that the Vietcong tended to leave the South Koreans alone.

I suggest that the Islamists are even more depraved than the Vietcong. As such, high minded tactics are even less likely to work in Iraq than they were in Vietnam.

Regards, Ivan

I suggest that the Islamists are even more depraved than the Vietcong. As such, high minded tactics are even less likely to work in Iraq than they were in Vietnam.

Precisely! Strategic bombing is the correct tactic, but won't be acceptable to the PC crowd (or our political leadership).

So what kind of cooperation did the South Koreans get from the surviving villagers from what was left of the hamlet?

So long as our stated mission is to help Iraq build it's society we can't go around and wipe out the local inhabitants regardless of provocation. If we reach the point where we decide that the whole population is suspect and should be leveled on sight then what the hell are we doing there to begin with?

My own personal opinion is that North is right. Additional troops won't make a difference because the bad guys know that they'll go away eventually and are willing to keep their heads down till that happens. Somehow the Iraqi people have to come to the conclusion that their own future is worth fighting for and get trained to accomplish that goal. How they will ever overcome the sectarian hatred is beyond me, and I think that that will be the eventual reason for failure. Not the military or the Democrats, but the fact that having saved the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein we could not save them from themselves.

More troops means nothing if we don't allow them to decisively win confrontations. We didn't in Vietnam and we seem to be doing more of the same in Iraq. We don't need more troops, we need to "take the gloves off" and let the military do what they do best. As for a real solution, Ollie North has the best advice of anyone I read.

Agree entirely. If Lil' Mohammed plays suicide bomber, his entire family should pay the price. If the young men from a village join the jihadis, the village should be leveled and the headman and his family killed. We should hunt down and kill the people who preach jihad and recruit terrorists; we should destroy the madrissas where the jihadis are trained and kill all within. We should kill the people who fund jihad and their families.
There should be no place to hide and no mercy to be hoped for.