[jpl]

As I see it, the biggest problem in the current political situation is increasingly we are asking the military to do things that they are not really significantly trained to do.

We still train most of our troops primarily to fight conventional warfare as we always have, but more and more we are demanding that they conduct policework, security, and local political affairs in areas that we don't understand all that well.

This is the sort of work that is best done by Special Ops guys, spies, diplomats, and contractors. If we have reached the point where we can no longer fight conventionally (which means killing the enemy in very large numbers) because of collateral damage concerns, then we really need to transform the way we train our forces.

[Gondring]

Well, we have retrained many of our troops in Special Ops, prior to deployment to Iraq. But the fact is, we don't have a large Active Duty Special Ops contingent (only one unit, IIRC, at Ft. Bragg), and if we are going to be doing these sorts of missions, you're right, we definitely need to transform our military in that way, too!