Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
In Iraq, protecting civilians is a laudable goal. But it is not the key to success. The key to success is sustaining the flow of recruits, the will, and the coherence of government security forces, and stopping infiltration into them by the insurgents.[/I]
Steve Metz, I pretty much agree with this. I wrote a while back when we had a similar discussion that the COG of Insurgents is their freedom of movement. I called them stealth people. Like the article says if they wore uniforms it would be over in a week. Protecting the population is step 2! Step 1 is figuring out which part of the population to protect! When you do that the enemy becomes exposed! And just like LE that is the hard part which is why some type of initial population census is critical. Which was very much the key to Shanghai. Little side note the expression to be Shanghaied means to be kidnapped or hijacked sounds like Iraq to me.