Winning hearts & minds

US targets al-Qaida insurgents with massive air strikes
Matthew Weaver and Ian Black
Thursday January 10, 2008
Guardian Unlimited
The US launched a major air strike this morning against what it claimed were al-Qaida hideouts on the southern outskirts of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
Planes dropped 40,000lb (18,100kg) of explosives during a 10-minute blitz on 40 targets, according to a military statement.

Great. We're still blowing things up. In the fifth year of the war we still rely on the very blunt instrument of air power. What's wrong with this picture?

... None of this should be taken to deny the importance of surface forces, for whom many tasks remain, some of which (e.g., occupying territory and maintaining an extended presence) air power cannot now and almost certainly never will achieve.
AIR POWER THINKING:
"REQUEST UNRESTRICTED CLIMB"
LT GEN CHARLES G. BOYD, USAF
LT COL CHARLES M. WESTENHOFF, USAF

High-tech weapons blow things up really well. They do not bend populations to our control. If we cannot bend Iraq's population to our will, we will not win the war.

To date neither our political nor our military leaders seem willing or able to admit this simple fact.

Stop the madness!