U.S., Insurgents Compete to Win Informants

[Roland99]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=16&u=/ap/20050429/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraqi_informants_1

But if the U.S. military is getting better intelligence these days in Iraq, it appears that the militants are too. A recent surge in attacks against Iraqi officials and security forces, Shiite civilians and U.S. troops indicates rebels are successfully using informants to plan such assaults.

"Look at the people the insurgents have managed to kidnap or murder in the last few weeks. These actions depend on very good intelligence," said Barry R. Posen, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in military affairs and Iraq.

At the same time, Posen said, it looks as if U.S. and British forces are getting better intelligence on the insurgency, "mostly from Iraqi civilians."

<...>

"The American forces must convince the public they are the proper authority, or scare them to death," Trainer, a former Marine deputy chief of staff, said in a phone interview from the United States. "They must convince the public to act against the insurgents before they can do something, instead of being a reactive force."

Be sure to recommend the article at the bottom of that page, too.

[Frederik]

1. Winning hearts and minds

"The American forces must convince the public they are the proper authority, or scare them to death"

Scare them to death, sounds like a brilliant long-term strategy.

[PATRICK]

2. Simply impossible

Even were we to TRAIN monsters to terrorize the population wholesale, Hussein did that better too and there will always be a lot more permanent anti-American neighbors to contend with. Those make the sensationalism of terror less a worry than being on the wrong side in a civil war.

However we can further destroy and degrade ourselves and our soldiers. plenty of moral slope decline for that. All the worse for being strategically irrelevant.

As to the positive "convincing" that can work in a limited way since the Shiites and others see some temporary benefit for a surface cooperation- which as the genius noted, can never be effective.

The dilemma is because the Bush occupation is doomed as a civilizing force and likely any US is fatally crippled because of the same even should we change administrations abruptly. In the best of worlds we have more reason to get out fast than we had in post WWII Germany. But this is the worst of worlds and people coping in Iraq are forced into absurdities leading to endless death.

The long term scenarios don't have to deal with hard evidence and current failure so the optimism there is the last refuge- and in fact equally absurd.