Susan is correct.

Our massive military is brilliant at fighting traditional/conventional wars against national armies – but extremely limited (almost to the point of being totally ineffective!) in its ability to fight small terror cells and gangs living in a civilian population.

That’s not to say our military couldn’t be used to increase general security in Iraq – but I am saying our conventional (keyword) military cannot “stabilize” a totally unstable country. They don’t have magic powers, folks!

Our military can only(!) be effective if the Iraqi government were unified, strong and had a clear sense of direction in addition to a highly stable police force and judicial system.

When people hear that the Sunni, Shite and Kurds are “fighting” they aren’t exactly sure what that means.

Best example: Imagine a government composed not of somber lawyers and stately Jeffersonian politicans – but imagine a government filled with a quarter Aryan Nation a quarter Latin Kings, a quarter ACLU and a quarter Conservative Republican!

Bush’s master plan was to have these groups set aside their differences and work together to come up with a cohesive plan for all of Iraq that all Iraqi’s could rally behind.

If it were a Saturday Night Live skit it would have been rejected for being to far-fetched to be humorous – yet that 21st century Alexander the Great, president Bush, came up with this great idea all by himself! Military genius or mildly retarded? You decide.

But even if the Iraq government were fractured and paralyzed by in-fighting the military could STILL be useful if only the police force and the judicial system and the infrastructure were stable!

There is MASSIVE unemployment in Iraq – so you’ve got a lot of poor, desperate people who are angry and looking for someone to blame. Not to mention starving and dying from lack of access to medical care.

The infrastructure was bad before we got there and the bombing campaign has destroyed it totally. The vast majority of Iraqi’s have no access to clean drinking water!

The police force is hopelessly corrupt and has fractured along religions/ethnic lines. Shite are arresting Sunni for driving while Sunni and the Kurds are popping everyone.

The civilians are all fighting each other. Imagine the feuds between the Crips and Bloods being played at by over a million people – none of them share the same goal, the same strategy, heck even the same language in some cases.

In such a deeply, deeply destabilized environment our military (which only would have been minimally affective in a stable environment) is totally useless.

But this is all theoretical to us. The kids coming home with limbs amputated or in wheelchairs joined the Army believing that the guys in charge would never put them into another Vietnam. They joined up believing this time the experts would do right and if they got hurt they could trust it was in pursuit of a realistic/workable military strategy. The best of the best would plan it this time.

Can that 20 year old with no legs really sit back and say with total confidence that his sacrifice was not in vain because the “plan” he was following made sense?

Is staying in Iraq and continuing to execute a strategy that has no chance of succeeding really honoring our soldiers?

Every time a soldier gets put into a wheelchair for the rest of his or her life – can we really say it was worth it because this is REALLY the best plan we could come up with in relationship to the actual reality on the ground?

All he is doing is teaching social skills and ice-breakers.

Is there seriously anyone here who doubts that beautiful women have their guard up whenever a man talks to her in a bar?

So she has her guard up after years of being hit on and automatically assumes everything this guy (or any guy!) says to her is a lie and a trick and she simply either ignores or disbelieves anything he says because, well, he is a man after all!

So Mystery comes up with a simple technique to break through that habit beautiful women have of simply assuming everything a man says to her is a lie – he acts a certain way to make her think, “I’m not interested in you” and all that accomplishes is that the woman lets her guard down so they can have an actual conversation! Is that really sexual sadistic mind control trick or just good old fashioned Dale Carnagie?

I’ve see this in action. Nice, average looking guy goes up to attractive woman in a club and tries to strike up a conversation with her. He says, “What kind of music do you like? I am teaching myself classical guitar.” The response of the beautiful woman? To roll her eyes and groan in disbelief. “That’s such a lame pick-up line!” she whines. “If you’re gonna lie to me come up with something better!”

Um, but it’s not a lie.

So is it really “tricking” a woman to make it seem you’re not interested in her so that she let’s her guard down long enough to actually communicate with you?

Is a woman who actually has an intelligent conversation with someone in a club suffering from “low self-esteem” as some of these other posters claim? So a woman that actually talks to a man in a club must have “emotional damage” – is that what our culture has come to?

Connecting with ANY human being socially is difficult.

For one man to simply make friends with another man is incredibly difficult and awkward outside of high school.

Now imagine having to fight through all the baggage to try and communicate with someone of the opposite sex who automatically assumes everything you say is a lie designed to basically rape her!

Love or hate Mystery – he has a point and his techniques should be viewed more as ice-breakers and not pseudo-sexual assaults.