Loofah....with regards Vnam...indeed the Yanks brought a method of warfare that was not appropriate to the theater and in fact, the Oz RoE and tactics were much much better
But again, if we are going to debate the history of the V war...one has to accept the FACT that as heavy handed and ill-conceived as their tactics were..they in fact had it won before and AFTER the Tet offensive which in fact failed
It was only the turning of the US people's opinions and the keen abiltiy of the Vietnamese to play this that eventually led to the withdrawal
Having said that the tactics in Iraq were problematic from the beginning as even then many (including myself) were concerned about the apparent lack of an exit statetgy
In retrospect the biggest mistake was demobilising the Iraqi Army. However this was done because of the perception that they - being representative of SH's reign of terror and control over the populace -would have been counter to the objective of winning the hearts and minds
Where to from here?
Simply try and get the Iraqis to the stage where they have the capacity to deal with the unrest within and from without and to then withdraw in a manner that allows that balance of power to remain vested in the hands of the democratically elected govt.
May take a while but I keep reminding myself that the quest for the democracy we see in India cost >120,000 lives.
