CAN WAR WHORE READ?

Today Ingraham was all excited about this article by Donald Stoker, "Insurgencies Rarely Win – And Iraq Won’t Be Any Different (Maybe)." On the surface, he seems credible:Donald Stoker is professor of strategy and policy for the U.S. Naval War College’s Monterey Program.

But on details, not so credible:

Iraq’s various insurgent groups have succeeded in creating a lot of chaos. But they’re likely not strong enough to succeed in the long term.

Stoker fails to tell us WHY they aren't strong enough. Then there's this odd claim:

Myths about invincible guerrillas and insurgents are a direct result of America’s collective misunderstanding of its defeat in South Vietnam.

I'm sure Stoker and I run in different circles but this is the first I've heard about this myth. Stoker gets back into reality by pointing out the real reason why we lost in Vietnam:

...they faced an opponent with leaders unwilling to learn from their failures: the United States.

Sound familiar? If not, Stoker spells it out for us:

Combating an insurgency typically requires 8 to 11 years. But the administration has done such a poor job of managing U.S. public opinion, to say nothing of the war itself, that it has exhausted many of its reservoirs of support. One tragedy of the Iraq war may be that the administration’s new strategy came too late to avert a rare, decisive insurgent victory.

A good question to ask WW is "Why should we trust Fredo this time?"