Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Best I can do is report my impression through my chain of command. It's a problem for my Policy maker.
Yes, I'd agree that as a soldier that would be all you could do... and one would hope that the policy maker would understand the possibility that a simplistic approach might very well strengthen the overall position of the insurgent.

Of course in order to report that situation you would first have to be aware of it, and if you enter the area with the assumption that your job is simply to kill as many insurgents as possible there's a good chance that you might not become aware of it. All I'm saying is that before we start killing insurgents it might be useful to find out why the specific insurgents in a given local theater are fighting, and see what options exist for removing or mitigating local causes of conflict.