Ken, you are right, you did not mention the Surge. Still your point as I understand it is that by having the Army eschew coin and irregular war since the end of Vietnam has caused the, to use your words, "ongoing problems" in Iraq; Yes?

And with this clarification of your position I still disagree with it. The point I made in my previous post was that no amount of competent combat outfits practicing good coin methods even as far back as 2004 can make up for a failed strategy; that strategy was a lack of enough troops to occupy and rebuild a foreign land in the midst of a civil war.

But we keep trying to rescue the war in Iraq from its impossibility by compensating our inability to reconcile strategic ends with means by the notion that that is no longer necessary because there has been a different and imporved set of coin operating methods with the Surge. It is as if we are elevating simple coin tactics to the level of high strategy as an attempt to replace the failed strategy that came before.

That is why I spend so much of my energy commenting on these things. I am not personalizing things; I am trying to make an argument that shows there is not systemic and significant differences between Surge and pre-Surge forces. Since many folks out there believe there is it is necessary on my part to highlight which units are usually called as the exceptions, then argue why I seem them as not.

Not personal at all, just business; albeit a deadly business because we are talking about what I see as the strategic viability of the US Army. You and I will also disagree on the Army's condition; I see it is as much worse than you do. I hope I am wrong, but I worry that I am right.