Obviously anybody who doesn't follow this forum's Group-Think opinions fails miserably...
Taken from: "Heads We Win. The Cognitive Side of Counterinsurgency (COIN)" by David C. Gompert. RAND COIN Study Paper 1:
The jihad is able to perpetuate itself by relying on perceived Western injustice and aggression to turn disgruntled Muslims into radical Islamists and then using the story of the West’s assault on Islam to recruit radicalized individuals to violence and martyrdom. Understanding this cognitive process is the first step toward breaking it. Preventing Muslims from being radicalized, preventing radicals from choosing violence, and protecting society from violent radicals are different problems requiring different cognitive strategies.
Keeping Muslims from becoming radicals or radicals from becoming terrorists cannot be achieved through a U.S.-led propaganda assault on Islamic fundamentalism any more than it can by reliance on force.
[...] In COIN, force might weaken an insurgency, strengthen it, or both.
[...] the governing authority and its COIN can fail if the loss of the legitimacy of force puts it on the same level as the insurgents.
-End of quote-
I still ask the question about the legitimacy (not for the US soldier; I am aware that the president ordered it after cheating the congress on WMD in Iraq) of the whole OIF campaign in the perception of the Iraqi people
bruz
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