Targeted, selective, mobile forces after the real bad guys, in conjunction with realistic aid for these backward areas would both eliminate the bad guys and win hearts and minds. Supply some books, pay some teachers, dig a well, hell, what would 10,000,000 books, subsidizing 10,000 local teachers, and 1,000 wells cost compared to bombing the bejesus out of anything which crosses the minds of a local commander?

Good God, I give up. I suppose it would be utterly futile to point out that this is exactly what our military has been attempting to do since day one in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The four men who were burned and hung from girders were guarding food shipments, a fact that seems to have made remarkable little impression on those calling them "mercenaries."

We lose Americans every day precisely because they are treading carefully, and not simply erasing the opposition and all around them.

Are you aware what percentage of 25 million Iraqis are actually shooting at us? Most of the rest want us to win, but will not stick their necks out. They did that after the Gulf War, and those who are still alive remember. The military has to be satisfied with them not hindering their actions, and with the furtive phone calls leading troops to insurgent cells.

And then when mistakes are made, like the wedding in Afghanistan, the new schools, the roads, the food, and all else is forgotten, and this mistake is what is pounded on by people like you for month after month.

Doesn't any of this sink in? What war are you watching, and how?

I highly recommend that you begin reading what military personnel in Iraq have been actually doing. Read what they themselves have been writing.

It is exceedingly difficult to eliminate the "bad guys" with zero collateral damage, particularly since the "bad guys" make a career out of ensuring that there is a maximum amount of civilians between them and harm's way. They base themselves in holy cities and mosques. They run across sniper-covered streets behind kids on bicycles. They hide in family homes. They wear no uniforms, and switch between "civilian" and "killer" in moments. Kids are carrying guns, too.

If you want our military to create fewer collateral or mistaken civilian casualties, you are going to pay for it with more dead Americans. This may be a valid strategic choice. But you don't get to have both.

The insurgents and terrorists know quite well how to play the Vietnam P.R. game. The buttons they need to push on American anti-war people are two feet across, and brightly lit.

The only big surprise I've had so far is that we haven't been inundated in pictures of wounded children, like the famous armless boy of the original invasion. Don't know why the media have slipped up on this.