Word: guerrillas
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Courageous it certainly was, and a morale boost for G.I.s too. But not even a presidential visit can change the reality on the ground. In Iraq the U.S. and its coalition allies are trying to pacify and democratize a nation of 25 million people while fighting a guerrilla war against determined and increasingly effective insurgents. The morning after Air Force One left Baghdad, a U.S. soldier was killed in a mortar attack in Mosul. By the weekend, 79 Americans had been killed since Oct. 31, making November the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq since the war began...
That is the enemy's entire war objective: to inflict pain. And that is why it would be a strategic error to amplify and broadcast that pain by making great public shows of sorrow presided over by the President himself. In the midst of an ongoing war, a guerrilla war, a war that will be won and lost as a contest of wills, the Commander in Chief--despite what he feels in his heart--must not permit himself to show that he bleeds. He is required to show, yes, a certain callousness. He must appear that way to the insurgents...
Even that goal will be at risk if the security situation does not improve. In a guerrilla war, the sort of heavy-duty offensive launched last week can quickly backfire. "We risk looking really stupid if we say that we're going to get really tough but we can't, and if those measures only push those Iraqis sitting on the fence over to the other side," says former Marine Lieut. Colonel Dale Davis, who served in the Middle East and North Africa. "You don't win hearts and minds by blowing up somebody's house...
...having gone to war in the first place, these forces are doing their best to restore civilized authority over a nation used to dictatorial suppression. Saddam Hussein's regime was not at all innocent, and its agents have been lying low only to inflict maximum damage in the subsequent guerrilla war. Jagmohan M. Manchanda New Delhi...
Under the Saddam Hussein regime, "Ahmed" was an insider, a commando who served in the feared Fedayeen Saddam militia. Now he's a guerrilla battling the American occupiers who rule his homeland. He spends his days plotting new ways to kill U.S. soldiers and his nights carrying out those deadly raids. His base is Fallujah, the town 30 miles west of Baghdad that has become the epicenter of the insurgency. Ahmed, 40, who won't allow his real name to be published for fear of leading the Americans to him, looks more like a simple farmer than a killer: deeply...