Great point about Galbraith article I linked to yesterday. E-mail:

Subject: RE: Peter Galbraith
Mr. Galbraith’s presumption is that Saddam had a distinct advantage because he could be more brutal than the allies and the Iraqi authorities. But this is a big assumption. If one looks at successful counter-insurgencies such as the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines (1948-1953), or the Malaysian “Emergency” (1948-1960), they were all carried out with a complex combination of increasing independence, political and social reform, and the iron fist. The ability to be brutal per se does not seem to lead necessarily to successful counterinsurgency, as the French discovered in Indochina and Algeria, and the Russians discovered in Afghanistan. Galbraith’s kind of reductionism is not helpful or instructive.