As Ralph Peters, a retired military officer, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed article: "Some things do not change. The best way to shock and awe an enemy is still to kill him."

Take Down Saddam TV
With sandstorms blackening their TV screens, with P.O.W.'s and casualties tearing at their hearts, Americans are coming to grips with the triptych of bold transformation experiments that are now in play.

There is the president's dream of remaking the Middle East to make America safer from terrorists.

There is Dick Cheney's desire to transform America into a place that flexes its power in the face of any evil.

There is Donald Rumsfeld's transformation of the American military, changing from the old heavy ground forces to smaller, more flexible units with high-tech weapons.

When Tommy Franks and other generals fought Rummy last summer, telling him he could not invade Iraq without overwhelming force, the defense chief treated them like old Europe, acting as if they just didn't get it.

He was going to send a smaller force on a lightning-quick race to Baghdad, relying on air strikes and psychological operations — leaflets to civilians and e-mail and calls to Iraqi generals — to encourage Iraqis to revolt against Saddam.

(The Pentagon has downgraded Saddam, the way it did Osama when it just missed getting him. Now the war in Iraq is "not about one man," as General Franks put it.)

The administration was afraid that with too many Iraqis dead, we would lose the support of the world. But some generals worry that by avoiding tactics that could kill Iraqi civilians and "baby-talking" the Iraqi military, we have emboldened the enemy and endangered American troops.

As Ralph Peters, a retired military officer, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed article: "Some things do not change. The best way to shock and awe an enemy is still to kill him."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/26/opinion/26DOWD.html