[NavVet]

Of course it helped that the insurgents in Maylasia were ethnic Chinese and easily identified by the British who were not afraid to use ethnic profiling. Also, the Insurgents in Maylasia had no easy way of resupplying.

[Sudetenland]

McCrystal is not using the "Malayan Emergency," he's using the "Iraq Surge" as a model...a strategy that succeeded under very similar circumstances to those now facing American troops in Afghanistan.

This guy apears to be an idiot. He mentions Vietnam as an example of "an abysmal failure" of the "hearts and minds campaign." Quite the opposite, what failed us in Vietnam was not the "hearts and minds" campaign, but the will of the Democrat Party dominated Congress and their failure to abide by the commitments America made to the people and government of South Vietnam in the Paris Accords.

The ARVN troops were succeeding against the NVA and Cong in their struggle for freedom, right up until they ran out of bullets and monetary support promised to them by Congress and the American people in signing the Paris Peace Accord.

American has never lost a war through military might nor even strategic blunders, only through the loss of will of the American people and their "representatives" in Congress and the White House.

This guy Bernard is a defeatest who has no knowledge of history and no understanding of the war in Afghanistan (or Vietnam, or anywhere else).

[Retain Mike]

David Galula in writing arguably the finest modern book on counterinsurgency warfare summarizes eight steps for implementation area by area.

1. Concentrate enough armed forces to destroy or expel the main body of armed insurgents.

2. Detach for the area sufficient troops to oppose an insurgent’s comeback in strength, install these troops in the hamlets, villages and towns where the population lives.

3. Establish contact with the population, control its movements in order to cut off links with the guerrillas.

4. Destroy the local insurgent political organizations.

5. Set up, by means of elections, new provisional local authorities.

6. Test these authorities by assigning them various concrete tasks. Replace the softs and incompetents. Give full support to active leaders. Organize self-defense units.

7. Group and educate the leaders in a national political movement.

8. Win over or suppress the last insurgent remnants.

The Obama administration dawdles over steps 5 through 7 when critical military operations must wrest initiative from the Taliban. A military providing security must precede “hearts and minds” initiatives by civil servants, and meaningful nationwide elections. Currently, too many people align themselves to whichever violent faction accepts them each day. Only within secure environments will moderate local political and spiritual leaders emerge as they relax from thoughts dominated by assassins continually stalking them and their families.

McChrystal understands the above realities. I hope he also understands Jim Sauer enough to know success does not mean establishing a Jeffersonian democracy.

[Mike Darancette]

With an election coming up al-qaeda has targeted the Afghan civilian population for it’s terror attacks. It should be noted that this was their ultimate undoing in Iraq.

[SunkenCiv]

it's from "letthemfight.blogspot.com", so...

The 'insurgents' in Afghanistan are hardly an alienated element within the society there. They represent the true doctrine of Islam and, arguably, the hearts and minds of the Afghans in that regard. Success for them is measured in infidels and apostates killed.