The Relationship Phase or Another Steaming Pile

[RoyGBiv]

Found this while trying to see if the news wires had anything new on the current push into Fallujah.

<http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040405_65.html>

U.S. Military Shifts Tactics With Iraqis
Bread-And-Butter U.S. Military Operations Move Away From Strong-Arm Tactics With Iraqi Civilians

The Associated Press

April 5 — Deep in the Iraqi countryside, a small patrol rolls into a poor village of mostly illiterate farmers.

U.S. soldiers emerge from two armored vehicles and a crowd gathers. The older men reel off a litany of woes and Laith Hamid, son of the village chief, tells an officer: "The American unit before you was not good to Arabs. In this rural society, it is an insult to search our homes. If you deal with us with force, it will be to nobody's benefit."

The patrol leader, Capt. Sean Sims, happens to agree.

<snip>

U.S. forces conduct some 1,400 patrols and raids across Iraq every day. Whereas in the past missions like Sims' favored strong-arm tactics, these days the emphasis is on what is being called "the relationship phase" with Iraqi civilians.

And at this very moment, the miltary is initating Operation Valiant Resolve.

I guess this is sort of like compassionate conservatism.