Grim at Blackfive answered the 82nd Airborne soldiers who wrote an editorial in today’s NYT’s so well I am just going to tell you to go read it.  No way I can parse through his excellent analysis.  Take the 10 minutes to read it, it is well worth it.  Then check out Jimbo’s rebuttal:

I don’t really enjoy criticizing what is obviously a sincere and well done opinion piece by this group of junior NCOs from the 82nd ABN. I think they did an excellent job of pointing out the extreme difficulties faced in fighting an insurgency, but that’s all they did. They break no new ground and they illuminate no inherent flaws in our current policy. If anything the piece should be read the opening day of the classes on counter-insurgency COIN I assume all our officers are getting.

I don’t recall anyone saying that COIN was easy, quite the opposite in fact. Every time Gen. Petraeus or LTC Kilcullen opens his mouth, he says many of the same things this piece does. COIN is probably the most difficult mission an Army could have given the huge need for successful interaction with the civilian populace. The military is not designed for use refereeing internecine squabbles some of which have the complicating factor of religion thrown in. The main thrust of this Op-Ed seems to be the idea that we are not up to the task of doing the hard tasks outlined and that remains to be seen.

Together they thoroughly took apart the editorial….piece by piece.