Gene Lyons writes of another buck passed...

[mooseandsquirrel]

snip

They report U. S. military superiority offset by failures everywhere else. American soldiers can’t tell friend from six or eight varieties of foe. Claims about the increasing skills of U. S.-trained Iraqi cops and soldiers are “misleading rhetoric.... The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.”

snip

http://moose-and-squirrel.com/gene/gene.html

m&s