Seyed Razavi (webmonkeyx) also gifts us with a critiique by Martin Luther King. Note it's applicability to our present action in Iraq.

ACCEPTANCE ADDRESS FOR THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE DELIVERED IN OSLO, NORWAY 10 DECEMBER 1964

The following works almost equally well if you replace "Vietnam" with "Iraq":

.... In these days ... there is no greater need than for sober-thinking, healthy debate, creative dissent and enlightened discussion. ....

I would like to speak to you candidly ... about our present involvement in Viet Nam. .... We are all aware of the nightmarish physical casualties. ....

But the physical casualties of the war in Viet Nam are not alone the catastrophes. The casualties of principles and values are equally disastrous and injurious. Indeed, they are ultimately more harmful because they are self-perpetuating. If the casualties of principle are not healed, the physical casualties will continue to mount.

One of the first casualties of the war in Viet Nam was the Charter of the United Nations. ....

It is very obvious that our government blatantly violated its obligation under the charter of the United Nations to submit to the Security Council its charge of aggression against North Viet Nam. ....

The second casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the principle of self-determination. .... our participation in the war in Viet Nam is an ominous expression of our lack of sympathy for the oppressed, ... our failure to feel the ache and anguish of the have nots. .... Today we are fighting an all-out war--undeclared by Congress. .... American planes are bombing the territory of another country, and we are committing atrocities equal to any perpetrated by the Vietcong. ....

A third casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the Great Society. ... the promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefield of Viet Nam. The pursuit of this widened war has narrowed domestic welfare programs, making the poor ... bear the heaviest burdens both at the front and at home.

It is estimated that we spend $322,000 for each enemy we kill, while we spend in the so-called war on poverty in America only about $53.00 for each person classified as "poor". And much of that 53 dollars goes for salaries of people who are not poor. ....

We are isolated in our false values in a world demanding social and economic justice. We must undergo a vigorous re-ordering of our national priorities.

A fourth casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the humility of our nation. ... our power has ... made us arrogant. We feel that our money can do anything. We arrogantly feel that we have everything to teach other nations and nothing to learn from them. ....

A fifth casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the principle of dissent. An ugly repressive sentiment to silence peace-seekers depicts advocates of immediate negotiation ... and ... a cessation of bombings ... as quasi-traitors, .... Free speech and the privilege of dissent and discussion are rights being shot down by Bombers in Viet Nam. ....

A sixth casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the prospects of mankind's survival. This war has created the climate for greater armament and further expansion of destructive nuclear power. ....

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. ....

Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Viet Nam because I love America. .... I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, extreme materialism and militarism. ....

The Casualties of the War in Vietnam Delivered in Los Angeles 25 February 1967 From the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project at Stanford University

Do the American People have the right to know the data used and the decision-making processes involved when they are taken into war?

If not now, immediately after? If not full disclosure to all, then full disclosure to individuals empowered to make a ruling as to the justice, the efficacy and the equal benefit all US citizens as well as the Iraqi citizens we are "protecting" with this action?

I believe we (citizens of any representative democracy) have the right to the assurance that we are not killing Iraqis and Americans primarily in order to line the pockets of the rich and to protect our own life style from any significant disturbance. (In a time of diminishing oil resources and increasing population this is an unreasonable, no, impossible, expectation.) War for those reasons is illegitimate, amounting to a war of aggression by the haves against the have-nots.

The Battle for Hearts and Minds of Iraq.

Hopes of a joyful liberation of a grateful Iraq by US and British armies are evaporating fast in the Euphrates valley as a sense of bitterness, germinated from blood spilled and humiliations endured, begins to grow in the hearts of invaded and invader alike.

[...]

Mustafa Mohammed Ali said he understood US forces going straight to Baghdad to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but was outraged that they had attacked his city and killed civilians. "I don't want forces to come into the city. They have an objective, they go straight to the target," he said. "There's no room in the Saddam hospital because of the wounded. It's the only hospital in town. When I saw the dead Americans I cheered in my heart.

"They started bombing Nassiriya on Friday but they didn't bomb civilian areas until yesterday, when these American dead bodies were brought in. "

[...]

Watching from behind a barbed wire barrier as hundreds of the marines' ammunition trucks, armored amphibious vehicles, tankers, tanks and trucks lumbered past through clouds of dust as fine as talcum powder, Mr Ali asked why such a huge army was needed just to catch a single man. "We don't want Saddam, but we don't want them [the Americans] to stay afterwards," he said. "Like they entered into Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar and didn't leave, they will do here. They are fighting Islam. They're entering under the pretext of targeting Ba'ath, but they won't leave."

Another Iraqi squatting next to him leaned over, pointed to the convoys and said: "This is better than Saddam's government."

[...]

The marines are aggrieved: aggrieved that the Iraqis aren't more grateful, aggrieved that the Iraqis are shooting at them, aggrieved that the US army's spearhead 3rd Infantry Division tore through Nassiriya earlier in the invasion without making it safe.

"They didn't clear the place, and then they left, and now the marines sure have to clear it," he said. "Just like the goddamn army."

[...]

"So the question I would like to be asked is, if this person already went through EPW [enemy prisoner of war] questioning and was found to be OK, why on earth would he come back? The problem with these people is that you can't believe anything they say."

Could he understand the locals' distrust of the US after what happened in 1991?

"If it weren't for the liberal press, we might have taken Baghdad last time," said the sergeant.

[...]

A few miles from the bridge to the south lie the ruins of the ancient city of Ur, founded 8,000 years ago, the birth place of Abraham and a flourishing metropolis at a time when the inhabitants of north-west Europe were still walking round in animal skins.

Sgt Sprague, from White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia, passed it on his way north, but he never knew it was there.

"I've been all the way through this desert from Basra to here and I ain't seen one shopping mall or fast food restaurant," he said. "These people got nothing. Even in a little town like ours of twenty five hundred people you got a McDonald's at one end and a Hardee's at the other."

[Source: Marines Losing the Battle for Hearts and Minds]

To win hearts and minds you have to make yourself humble. You have to open your eyes to the simpler charms of foreign lands and the ancient, proud history of a people. You have to speak their language, not just the words but the understanding that goes with those words. You have to be genuinely interested in listening to the people, of absorbing their thoughts and make them a part of your own.

If a trained soldier, fed a diet of confident superiority in their own culture and values, is expected to be the tool by which hearts and minds are won then you've already lost. Sure, there may be specialists and in the long run civilians who can do this job but the first contact leaves a lasting impression.

As the war gets dirtier, and I believe it will, the American troops will rashly retaliate at the wrong targets for fear of their lives. It is a natural inclination of any normal human being in the face of great dangers. However, from such actions are blood enemies born. Restraint is paramount and evident in the top-level plans which we see playing out on the news. However, restraint in the towns and on the ground by troops will be difficult to maintain.

It is not a unique failing of the American character, although it is most evident when they are seen in combat. It is no surprise the British troops, generally far more skilled at these measures, are used to clean up the population centers.

Winning this war will be more difficult than previously thought. Not on the grand plains of military strategies but on the street and homes of all those affected by it. Once, the war is won, winning the peace will be a monumental task. How large a task will depend on the efforts during wartime.

This is not merely a matter of economics, the flow of capital, the reconstruction of infrastructure or the proper sales of Iraq's natural resources. It is a function of how sensitively and with what humility the peace is managed. Historically, American forces have been extremely poor in this regard and this requires a United Nations presence. However, until the handover is completed I expect Iraqi hearts and minds will foremost be thankful for the death of the dictator but secondly wary of the foreigners who hold them, their culture and their way of life in such disregard.

[MonkeyX - Hairy Thoughts]