This man should not be allowed near nuclear weapons!

[kandrathe]

Well, I do agree that a fleet of Palaces is a highly asymmetric and non-traditional force. Whether that made necessary an invasion of Iraq to remove the immediate threat they posed to the US is less clear.

:D Well sure, there was the whole playboy lifestyle too. In many ways he reminded me more of Scarface. In GW I he stood toe to toe with the US and played the conventional warfare game, the one we had been working on for 50 years. After dismantling their air defenses, we crushed them on the ground in about 100 hours. In GW II, Saddam feinted with a conventional force, but he had built and banked on his unconventional, low tech force. It proved enough to make Iraq a very nasty place to occupy and the insurgency apparatus was in place before the invasion. Add into the Bathe party loyalists, a flood of Sunni jihadists from points west, and south, and Shiites from the east and you have three serious well trained and financed insurgencies.

All of our enemies watched GWI and GWII and either went high tech, or low tech. None of our enemies will choose to fight to our strengths again. Some, like Iran, North Korea, and others are investing heavily in longer ranged and more accurate missiles hoping to be able to target operating bases. Others without the means are choosing the asymmetric low tech option. Re-read T.E. Lawrence's Principles of Insurgency.

Now, consider FOB camp bombaconda, or more affectionately called mortaritaville.