Hearts and Minds

(fm the BC thread "Starting the New Year with a Bang")

herb,
What Petreaus and McChrystal have done is to look back at what Abrams did in Vietnam

The military always accepts as doctrine that for any political question the best policy is to simply move on. They believe in that more than MoveOn ever did. Fortunately in the case of the Civil War they were able to separate the political and technical questions so they could usefully study the conflict and learn lessons. That has proven far harder to do since WW-II. The question of whether we could or should have won in Vietnam is one the Army will no more touch than the Navy would go back and review John Kerrey's record. Creighton Abrams did groundbreaking work. He was a full spectrum warrior. It wasn't easy to tear the US military down and I see that the Weasley Clark's of the world are now back in charge. For myself I think Petreaus did more than I thought possible. My desire was to level Fallujah in 2004.

monkeyfan is 100% correct about the threat of surgically implanted explosives.