An LATimes reporter named Tony Perry was on “Hardball” last night, and made a lot of sense. Check out this exchange when Chris Matthews was asking a somewhat appalling question:

MATTHEWS:
Suppose the minority Sunnis, who ran the government with Saddam Hussein when he was in power, supposed they decide as a community, 90 percent of them decide not to vote. Can we continue to call them insurgents or are they not secessionists, people who say we`re not part of this new government and therefore you have to ask the moral authority question. Can American service people fire on them if they simply say we`re not part of this new government? Do we have the right to tell them that they can`t do that…
Let me start with you, Tony, in country. What happens if the Sunnis say, we`re not playing ball, we`re not joining in this election? Could they become then a secessionist movement? What would happen?
PERRY: No, I don`t think so.
I think you have to realize that the Marines — I`m with the 2nd Battalion, 5th Regiment — they`re not firing on people because of some philosophic difference. They`re firing on people they have to fire on to protect their own lives, people who have been using roadside bombs and suicide cars and snipers.
And I think — I spoke to a Marine, a young Marine captain. He made a very good point. He said, this is not Vietnam. The insurgency here has no philosophy to speak of. This isn`t a philosophy like the Viet Cong that had communism, that had a national leader, Ho Chi Minh, that they adored. The insurgents basically have no philosophy, except no government, no control, no self-determination.
So it`s hard to think of them as some sort of legitimate party in that regard. They`re essentially — in Ramadi, certainly, you could liken them to the Mafioso, who would really like to control, if not the whole city, certain neighborhoods and continue doing so.
Remember, this is a city that not even Saddam Hussein could control. They took over the government center from the Saddam Hussein government while he was in power. This is a very, very tough city as part of a tough province, the Al Anbar Province. There`s no philosophy here. There`s violence.