Head-On In Iraq

As Wretchard points out, there is a critical aspect where Iraq IS like Vietnam: focusing on the US electorate:

The enemy has not been without successes, proving tactically adaptable and ruthless. Yet at heart his strategy was static: it was to inflict a low but continuous rate of casualty on US forces and broadcast that fact to the world. The enemy center of gravity was the US electorate. They attached video and camera crews to their striking units in the same way that US forces attached supporting weapons to theirs, creating the first combined media-military arms in history. Using these new type of formations they relentlessly projected the message, 'we are in charge'. And people believed them.

Those two competing strategies met each other head-on in Iraq. The US strategy was far superior in the conventional sense. The enemy strategy was arguably the more creative and daring; with a far larger "information" dimension than the American. Each approach had its strengths and weaknesses. The American approach emphasized changing reality and letting perception follow. It played to American strengths: logistics, training, advanced weapons, tactical speed. The enemy approach was to manage perception, both among its own base and in the field of public opinion, while striving to inflict as much damage as it could on US forces. Although it was America that first used the term, it was the insurgents who truly perfected the process of "shock and awe": the mind-altering application of battlefield force. But shock and awe are evanescent while dying tended to be permanent. My own guess is that the issue is no longer in the balance. While some combination of political or military blunders could still save the insurgency the fundamentals are against them.

Luckily, the enemy hasn't yet converted to Christianity -- so dying does tend to be permanent for them. And better yet, they still seem to be stupid enough to be striving for it.

Lefties and their Islamofascist idols are just are too dense to understand the wisdom of Patton and how seriously the American military has come to take it:

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country fantasy caliphate."