Quote Originally Posted by goesh View Post
Had the 4th ID been allowed to advance from the north, I believe many future insurgents would have been taken out initially and more weapons caches been destroyed thus saving a goodly number of lives. The cumulative lessons of history are never fully learned and leave the false assumption that today's mistakes are the worst ever. Our enemies and detractors were sure that Viet Nam would cripple us for generations but we are already in Gulf War II plus Afghanistan with Kosovo, Bosnia, Grenada, Panama, Haitti, Lebanon, Somalia well behind us and a Homeland Security system instituted and evolving. Weapons development seems on course and the DOW stands today at 13.5. The recovery from 9/11 is just short of miraculous and our Military seems no less inflexible and adaptive than in Washington's time. Things could be much, much worse.
I think the strengths of the insurgency follow out of the sort of super-empowerment of small, armed bands that John Robb talks about, so I don't think this thing could have been nipped in the bud by having 4th ID invade from the north as originally planned. It's just too easy for insurgents to wreak the havoc they do, with limited resources and manpower. One extra division sounds like a silver bullet solution.

You may be right, but there is also no guarantee that things don't become much, much worse. It's early yet.