"John Dallman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(John Carrier) wrote:
Just finished reading "Dying to Win." Pretty good analysis of the
terrorist agenda and methodology. If its author is correct (and I
suspect he is closer to the truth than anyone in the administration)
we're going about this all wrong.
Yup. Notably, its thesis implies that significant numbers of Iraqis (and
Afghans) believe that the western powers are planning to occupy their
countries indefinitely and will have to be forced out. Or why else would
they be doing suicide attacks?
Define "significant numbers"...
All indication is that it's a few thousand, strengthened by Iranians,
Jordanians, and Syrians mainly, doing the damage.
It has been known for centuries that a small dedicated guerilla force can do
damage way out of proportion to its size, the current situation in Iraq is
no exception to that.
The problem in Iraq is that due to the political situation it is deemed
unacceptable to effectively wipe out the guerilleros by employing
overwhelming power in large scale operations.
Effectively the process of routing them out has been turned into a civilian
police style operation rather than a military style seize and occupy
operation.
The same happened in Vietnam and failed miserably there. Israel under
international pressure tried the same agains the PLO and failed miserably as
well. The Germans in WW2 tried the same against the French resistance and
failed miserably.