"There's no money in counterinsurgency"

[LilKim]

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Nearly 16 years ago, a group of four military officers and a civilian predicted the rise of terrorism and anti-American insurgencies with chilling accuracy.

<...>

But rather than adopting a new strategy, the generals and civilian leaders in the Defense Department have continued to support conventional, high-intensity conflict and the expensive weapons that go with it. That is happening, critics say, despite ongoing, lethal insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"They don't understand this kind of warfare," said Greg Wilcox, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, Vietnam veteran and an open critic of Pentagon policies. "They want to return to war as they envision it. That's not going to happen."

<...>

Although they differ on the particulars of changing the military, the mavericks agree that the U.S. effort in Afghanistan and Iraq has become a lost opportunity. At best, they say, the outcome of both conflicts is uncertain. Some say they are doomed.

"There's nothing that you can do in Iraq today that will work," said Lind, one of the original Fourth Generation Warfare authors. "That situation is irretrievably lost."

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/politics/11834604.htm

[izzie]

1. I guess it is more fun fighting war in our minds

Lets get star war on line once more as they really brings in money to these corp. Odd that we have a group of men with no uniforms and small arms bring us to our knees and every army in the world is watching. Bet this makes China feel good. On top of that we can not even shut our borders to people we wish to keep out. IT IS LIKE LIVING IN A MADHOUSE WITH THE NUTS RUNNING IT ALL.:banghead:

[Wright Patman]

2. We could shut the borders

in a heartbeat if the powers that be really wanted to do so.

They want the tens of millions of slave-labor Mexicans to be able to flow back and forth across that border. Hell, * wants to erase that border entirely. Mi casa es su casa. NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA--we are all one big hemispheric family.

The fact that the borders have been left wide open after 9-11 proves to me, even if I didn't know anything else about it, that 9-11 was an "inside job" and so there was no reason to close the border. It was all about sowing fear and hysteria and laying the groundwork for the two wars they already had on the drawing board the day they took office on Jan. 20, 2001.

[followthemoney]

3. The weapon of choice in this conflict is a knife...

anything else is too course and creates political opposition. No bombs or sharpshooters. You must get to know the enemy before you kill him or you make more enemies.
This is the advice of John Paul Vann from "A Bright Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan writing about Vietnam.