Seems like there are some strong parallels between connecting with communities in our own cities, breaking down the barriers to law enforcement, and effective counter-insurgency practice. Is the code of silence on the streets of America much different from trying to get Iraqis to point out the insurgents in their midst?

The discussion made me think of this profile of Carmelo Anthony of the Denver Nuggets.

"For months after last winter's PR storm, Anthony's handlers wouldn't grant interviews with him unless a reporter agreed not to ask about Stop Snitching. No more. Anthony never felt he'd done anything wrong, nothing big at least. Now, he wants to talk about where he comes from, the hand he was dealt.

In the Pepsi Center, he sets down a PDA he has been tapping away at and leans back in his chair. "Drug dealers funded our programs," he says. "Drug dealers bought our uniforms." They were just about the only guys in the hood with the cash to outfit a team. They did it for three years beginning in late elementary school, he says, and never asked Anthony for anything in return, like carrying product. "They just wanted to see you do good."

When the cops took over the nearby rec center and nailed a Police Athletic League sign on the front, Anthony and his friends boycotted. The goal may have been to clear out the dealers, but to him it felt like one more act of harassment, another form of bullying by some Charm City cop who doesn't especially trust loitering young black males. More than once, Anthony says, men in blue left him black-and-blue. "Nothing major," he says. "They'd just choke me, drag me around." It was enough to seal the kind of resentment that could one day lead to five minutes of face time on a fire-starter DVD."

Not condoning it. But there are similarities between the impact of guys kicking down the wrong Iraqi door in the middle of the night looking for a guy who builds IEDs probably and grabbing the wrong guys on the street of an American city.