[river rat]

"...your approach to levelling entire cities won't do it. No matter how much you insist it will."

It worked for Alexander.
It worked for the Romans.
It worked for Attila.
It worked for the Mongols.
It worked in the war against the American Indians.
It worked in the American Civil War.
It worked in WWI
It worked in WWII

It will certainly work against the Islamists..
It is very difficult being an effective militant Islamic warrior if your cities, infrastructure, Mosques, financial base, families, farms, businesses and homes have been destroyed...

If ever again we can herd the militants of Fallujah, Sadr City, Najaf, etc, etc.....into a definable area as we have in the past ---- we certainly could and should reduce that section of the city to rubble, and then attack again simply to watch the rubble bounce...

And YES -- even if a "cherished holy Mosque" is endangered..
This alone, will convince the people that resistance to the coalition or support of the Islamists comes at a horrible price....

Unless of course -- YOU and YOUR family are willing to send your children and grandchildren for the next 50 years to gently suppress the murdering bastards...

My family will no longer go to wars that are not being fought to WIN at the least possible cost in our blood.

Semper Fi

[Coop]

I notice Vietnam was not in your list. God forbid I make the same comparison as Flipper, but that is indeed a war in which we cannot readily identify the enemy (Viet Cong) from the population at large.

It's much "easier" to fight a war when the enemy is a state or at least an identifiable group.