Check out this from William Blum at Monday's Counterpunch.

Excerpt: What is most surprising about this is not the [desperation Iraqi peace] offers per se [back in March], but the naivete -- undoubtedly fueled by desperation -- on the part of the Iraqis that apparently led them to believe that the Americans were open to negotiation, to discussion, to being somewhat reasonable. The Iraqis apparently were sufficiently innocent about the fanaticism of the Bush administration that at one point they pledged to hold UN-supervised free elections. Surely free elections is something the United States believes in, the Iraqis reasoned, and will be moved by.

Other countries have harbored similar illusions about American leaders. Over the years, a number of Third-World leaders, under imminent military and/or political threat by the United States, have made appeals to Washington officials, even to the president in person, under the apparently hopeful belief that it was all a misunderstanding, that America was not really intent upon crushing them and their movements for social change. Amongst others, the Guatemalan foreign minister in 1954, Cheddi Jagan of British Guiana in 1961, and Maurice Bishop of Grenada in 1983 all made their appeals. All were crushed. In 1961, Che Guevara offered a Kennedy aide several important Cuban concessions if Washington would call off the dogs of war. To no avail. In 1994, it was reported that the leader of the Zapatista rebels in Mexico, Subcommander Marcos said that "he expects the United States to support the Zapatistas once US intelligence agencies are convinced the movement is not influenced by Cubans or Russians." "Finally," Marcos said, "they are going to conclude that this is a Mexican problem, with just and true causes." Yet for many years, the United States has been providing the Mexican military with all the training and tools needed to kill Marcos' followers and, most likely, before long, Marcos himself.

While another William, William S. Lind, concludes his latest column at Military.com with the following warning:

What wins at the tactical and physical levels may lose at the operational, strategic, mental and moral levels, where 4GW is decided. Martin van Creveld argues that one reason the British have not lost in Northern Ireland is that the British Army has taken more casualties than it has inflicted. This is something the Second Generation American military has great trouble grasping, because it defines success in terms of comparative attrition rates.

We must recognize that in 4GW situations, we are the weaker, not the stronger party, despite all our firepower and technology.

You ever notice how a lot of conservatives and neo-cons repeat over and over the mantra that the world "has changed forever" since 9/11? In a sense, they are correct, even as evidence shows the PROBLEM was NOT one of lack of anticipation that terrorists would do something as sinister as use a hijacked airplane as a bomb--indeed, at least one FBI agent specifically mentioned the World Trade Center as a possible target. No, the world changed in the sense that conventional military strategy is of little consequence when in conflict against a stateless entity. So why are we continuing to bang our head against the wall with such a backwards plan? If you want to stop terrorists, you'd better come up with something better than the failed war in Afghanistan--man, we managed to screw THAT one up--and the failed war in Iraq. I mean, how dumb can you get? Iraq was a brutal police state, but NOT an exporter of terrorism, while Afghanistan was a damn theocracy until our handiwork put it in the most recent condition prior to damn theocracy--several regional warlords presiding over essentially anarchy. Great.

Why didn't we go after bin Laden as an international criminal first, using Special Forces and/or international policing tactics--then, if we thought it prudent, go after the idiots Taliban? Didn't anyone NOTICE that Afghanistan has been virtually ungovernable since--well, since we began funding the immediate precusors to the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a vain-foolish attempt to give the even-then-imploding Soviet Union a bloody nose (while it was suffering the imperial equivalent of terminal heart disease).

Bin Laden is STILL at large, Iraq is a chaotic mess, and I'm convinced that Civil War in Iraq is not a question of "if" but "when."

Meanwhile, the general public is still merrily riding the carousel, seemingly unaware that the situation overseas is a serious threat to American security. The so-called Free Press has abrogated its responsibility to provide the people with the whole story, apparently having got caught up in the social lifestyle of the rich and famous, and reluctant to give that up in exchange for honest reportage. George W. Bush either doesn't care or doesn't know just how bad things are. The PNAC stubbornly clings to the thoroughly discredited notion of Pax Americana, apparently because they weren't mature enough to consider that there were limits to American military power. And our soldiers in Iraq are getting killed as a result.

Military power should ALWAYS be used as a LAST resort. While the world may be ever shrinking in a figurative sense, it is foolish to think that military invasion will always result in achievement of the desired diplomatic aim. War is expensive, dangerous, and frought with heavy risk. Like Solozzo said in The Godfather, blood is a big expense.