Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
a.) Yes, I want to kill bad guys and not the good guys. The discriminator is their actions. Their armed opposition to your policy.
Again there seems to be a sort of reflexive assumption that anyone who opposes our policy is a bad guy who should be killed. What if people are opposing our policy because our policy is stupid? Is there any one of us who is prepared to say that our policies are by definition smart?

If we're going to address small wars from the perspective of economy, shouldn't the first and most necessary step be to review the policy?

To start with... in any given case, what are the objectives of the exercise? Are they clear, immediate, achievable, practical, and above all are they absolutely necessary? Are they sufficiently compatible with local objectives and beliefs that we aren't going to find ourselves fighting a whole pissed off populace who just doesn't want to be messed with?

If the answer to all of the above isn't a clear and unequivocal "yes", we can save a lot of money and trouble by just not going there, or not staying there, as appropriate..