Body Counts - Why Iraq could be worse than Nam

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/943801.asp?0cl=c1

Those of us who’ve covered the Third World’s wars are used to looking at mugshots of the dead, whole photo albums of corpses.

SOME HUMAN-RIGHTS organizations collect them to show the brutally murdered victims of evil dictators. Some generals collect them (I’m thinking of a Turkish general in particular) to show, body by body, their victories over elusive guerrillas. And sometimes the victims in one collection and the guerrillas in the other are the same. That’s the problem with counterinsurgency: separating “the innocent” from “the enemy.”

--snip--

But let’s not make too much of this triumph. The body counting is far from over in Iraq.

As the death toll for Americans goes up day by day and folks back home are having to think about what it means to fight what’s now acknowledged to be a guerrilla war, you’re starting to hear comparisons with the long, soul-destroying counterinsurgency in Vietnam. Well, Iraq could be even worse.

[lcordero]

1. Body counts is not the only reason that this could get worse than Nam

The biggest difference in between then and now is the internet. Information and disinformation will move a lot faster.

[caledesi]

2. Yes, that is it. The Intenet Ic. n/t