I have to echo what Susan_Sunflower wrote. A standing army cannot defeat small, decentralized groups of guerilla fighters living and working within a civilian population. PLUS – the majority of the “fighting” our infantrymen are doing over there have nothing to do with actual enemies, but something more nebulous that an average infantryman isn’t trained to deal with. Just check out this typical situation:

You’re walking down a street in Baghdad on patrol with your platoon and your interpreter. Suddenly a woman comes running out of an apartment complex yelling for your attention. Your interpreter explains that the woman knows where a terrorist is! The man is living in her building and she wants you to come and arrest him.

Your squad follows the woman into the building where she brings you to an apartment, indicating the terrorist is inside. You kick open the door to find a man and his son sitting inside watching TV. Scattered on a table in the kitchen is a collection of electronics and what looks like a broken stereo broken open with some of the wiring removed.

She explains (through the interpreter) that the man acts mysteriously and associates with known terrorists. The man defends himself by saying the accusations are false and only being made because he is a Sunni living in a mostly Shite neighborhood. He explains that the woman's father is the landlord of the building and is trying to evict him simply because he is a week late with the rent. He says that he has started a business with his son fixing DVD's and radios to earn money since there is no work in Baghdad since the Americans invaded.

The yelling between the man and the woman has aroused the interest of the entire apartment and a crowd is gathering around the door. Most of them are Shites. As the man and woman argue the crowd begins to yell and act aggressive, but you can't understand what any of they are saying. Your interpreter, also a Sunni, tells you that the man is innocent and that the woman is admitting she is lying. He also says the crowd is insisting the man be arrested or they will handle matters themselves. Although it looks to you as if some in the crowd are adamant that the man not be arrested.

There is no evidence of any actual wrong-doing for which to arrest the man, but the interpreter suggests you take him into custody anyway for his own safety. When this idea is mentioned to the man he insists he is innocent and that if he is taken away his family will avenge him by burning down the apartment complex.

Oh. And there is also the little problem of the Iraqi police themselves. Mostly Shite in this neighborhood and an inordinate number of Sunni prisoners seem to commit suicide while in custody by beating themselves in the back of the head with a pipe.

What do you do?

Is the woman lying to you in order to get revenge on a fellow tenant she hates because he's a Sunni and she's a Shite?

Is the interpreter trustworthy or does he have his own agenda?

Would leaving the tenants to their own devices and staying out of it completely solve the situation or just make it worse?

Would taking the man into custody without any clear evidence that he's done anything wrong solve the problem or just escalate it?

As you ponder your next action the interpreter suggests you act quickly as the crowd is becoming more agitated and aggressive. "They want to know why they can't find work and there are no jobs," the interpreter says. "Also this building has not had running water for two weeks and they want you to fix it! We better do something quickly."

A woman carrying a baby elbows her way through the crowd. She is crying and holding up a baby. "The woman says the baby is very sick," the interpreter says. "She wants you to take it back to the base for help. She is afraid it will die. She has been giving it water from the puddles outside but it stopped drinking two days ago."

What do you do?

Would more firepower effectively solve this difficult situation?

Would more tanks create "victory" in this situation?

We’re not “fighting terrorism” in Iraq we’re mediating a gang war. Cops are more effective against the Crips and Bloods in LA than the 151st Airborne is.

"Excellently dramatic. I think you could get George Clooney interested in doing the movie. Give him a call.

-- Jim"

Yes, but it's all true.

The neocons have convinced us for years that "terrorists in Iraq" are like a standing army in the middle of the desert and that our standing army is hunkered down in a foxhole (think World War II) fighting them off. They walk around in black hats and "I Love Osama!" t-shirts (to make them easy to identify, of course) and all the fighting takes place in the open desert where our tanks and jet fighters can be put to excellent use.

Nope. Not even close.

The situation I described is exactly the kind of work they are doing. Being an expert marksman doesn't do you a lot of good when the there is no standing army to fight....just regular folks either begging you for medical help or blaming you because there are no more jobs or running water.

Our infantry was trained to fight armies.

They are not social workers.

They are not cops.

Yet that's the role they are in now.