guest commentator on the Italian Hostage Crisis

This from a discussion we were having about this article via email. "I see the insurgents as attempting to influence and mobilize the Italian population, through coercion, to act on their behalf, just as many American war-protestors did by sporting the Viet Cong Flag and identifying with the communist forces of Ho Chi Minh, and actively protesting the war. Of course most probably protested in opposition to war, and not because of an affinity for communism. It was the protestors that eventually ended the war, and not military defeat. We killed 60 of them for each one of our guys killed, 3 million versus 50,000. Even the Tet Offensive was a military success, with only a few successes on the part of the VC, including the televised and brief takeover of the U.S. embassy. I think the insurgents know there best ally are domestic protestors and anti-war sentiment, to accelerate the erosion of resolve, and speed up the inevitable departure of Coalition troops. It may work, it may back fire. Either way, I am convinced that we have lost the War in Iraq, and now are trying to jockey for an honorable exit, and a mitigated failure. We don't have the moral absolutism to act as creatively and ruthlessly as the enemy, nor the resolve or interest to see democracy planted in Iraq, and nurtured with the rich soil of American blood. Maybe the San Francisco bumper stickers are becoming more right: Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam. I am just pissed that I bought into their war, and am conflicted about what are our current moral responsibilities to the Iraqi people, including those that don't have a voice." -ben