The "fierce fighters" in Afghanistan still control most of the country, Karzai is in power only because of American support, his bodyguards are US Special Forces because they can't trust the Afghans.

Oh, yeah. Osama is still lose.

Re the Iraqi Republican Guards. Their reputation is entirely due to US propaganda. Period. They couldn't even beat Iran with US WMDs and US help. But the DoD and DoD blogs talked them up in order to excite public opinion.

The Iraqis did the only sensible thing in the face of overwhelming force. They quit the battlefield. And have since fought the "Coalition" to a standstill.

Please don't equate the Chinese, with missiles, with nukes, with a massive population used to living on a rather primitive level with Afghanistan or Iraq.

And, look at all the fancy battlefield equipment weighing down the average infantryman today. What if he/she didn't have batteries? Or air superiority? One nuke could eliminate one carrier task force.

It's foolish to believe yer own propaganda.