Reply #1: Catch-22 in effect

[PATRICK]

They just developed an effective policy, cop on the block so to speak, when the entire Bush plan calls for crusader castles and withdrawal of troops and smiting with weapons from afar. The embarrassment of having the counter policy actually achieving success cannot be tolerated. First they must insult and discredit, but no matter how the argument goes the policy and the execution is fixed(as was the pre-war intel) around the goals. You have to be somewhat in awe of inflexible focus like that, but focus is the prime active virtue of these Miltonic Satans.

On the other hand, the dutiful smart and highly trained strategists on the ground don't make policy, probably aren't allowed to "focus" because that would be competition. You have to feel for people taking their job seriously when the prime movers and controllers just want them to do things their way, no matter how evil and stupid- and then succeed. There is a lot of pathos in brilliant strategists trying to cure the common insurgency cold without taking into account the enmity of their own high command. Looking to the streets is not enough. There is someone else stabbing you in the back and it is not an Iraqi.