Welcome to the technology age where your foe has access to "up-to-the-minute" news from your home country via the worldwide web. They realize as any good student of irregular/guerilla warfare does that popular support or lack there of is instrumental in your strategy against a western foe. Al-Qaeda's #2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is no slouch in his guerilla studies and has long promulgated the specific targeting of Americans and other westerners such as Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Kiwi's....he knows all too well that public support at home (whether in U.S., Canada, or U.K.) for an unpopular war will cause a change in political course over time. He also plays this in reverse and uses the killing of civilians as a launchpad for further criticism of allied actions in Afghanistan. This will most suredly cause Karazai to try and place further restrictions on our operations to defeat the Taliban threat in the southern provinces.

In Department of Defense circles there is a lot of talk about Information Operations or IO, and for the life of me I can't understand how we as westerners are losing this fight. If there is one thing we love and that is our media outlets, especially television. I think it is shameful that our government does such a poor job a garnering its citizens' support for these wars. I understand not being able to reach an audience in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but for the life of me I can't understand how we fail here at home!?!?