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StrategyPage.com has an interesting take on what is going on in Iraq. Here's an excerpt.
The U.S, military planners, from the beginning, saw the situation as a classic counter-terrorist operation. The American military has been winning these kinds of wars for over a century, and the methods used then still work. The U.S. Marines, who did a lot of this in the early part of the 20th century, wrote a book about it in 1940; "The Small Wars Manual." This is still be used successfully. Vietnam was one of the few times American counter-terrorism tactics failed. Or did they? Actually, they didn't. By the early 1970s, the communist rebels in South Vietnam were crushed. What people forget was that South Vietnam fell to a conventional invasion from the north in 1975. The Baath Party and al Qaeda have no neighbor with an army ready to come in and rescue them.Posted by Ted at December 26, 2004 10:17 AMThis time around, American troops have better tools to collect information, identify the terrorists and quickly carry out raids. The terrorists had big advantages, in that they were Iraqi and the Iraqi population knew very well what the Baath thugs were capable of. A further complication was the attempt by the newly formed Iraqi government to negotiate deals with traditional Iraqi tribal and religious leaders. It was thought that these leaders could rally their followers to resist the terrorists. This had worked among the Kurds and Shia Arabs. There was some resistance from Shia Arab groups that wanted to establish an Islamic Republic, but these were defeated by the Summer of 2004. But many of the Sunni Arab leaders have proved unable, or unwilling, to resist the terrorism.
The battle against the Iraqi terror is not being reported accurately. One reason is that the American military cannot release information then have about the enemy, as that would let the terrorists know what is known about them. This is a war of information. The terrorists depend on secrecy for protection. They must remain invisible to survive. But bit by bit, the Baath Party and al Qaeda organization has been revealed. And as it is, raids go in and take it apart. Towns and neighborhoods are cleared of terrorists and staffed with police and army bases.
Al Qaeda is a crucial factor in this war, because many of them are foreigners, and all are fanatical fighters who will go anywhere to die for the cause. Baath Party fighters are more likely to remain in their own neighborhoods. So al Qaeda is the mobile reserve of the terrorist force. But al Qaeda is still an organization, and organizations can be identified, located and taken apart.
There is a war going on in Iraq, it's just not the one you read about in the mass media.