While this kind of essay, exploring the motivations behind insurgency violence in Iraq, is important, this essay is unsuccessful. It makes strong claims about fundamentally different motivations on the part of Arabs with scant evidence, other than the observations of French imperialists in Algeria years ago. If empiricism is a methodology those in the west understand so well, perhaps it should be used when making arguments.

Interesting to get a military strategist view. a little late to try fighting the kind of war you'd like with the army that you have...especially with all know unknowns????

Perceptive assessment of humanity's faith-based willingness to kill anyone who disagrees with them. The author believes that the military should engage fundamentalist Muslims and discover their dreams. The problem with that is that their dreams don't include continued theft of their resources, or the subjugation-by-proxy that we intend for them. Like other fundamentalists, they just want to hurt those who are different enough to scare them.

The concluding paragraph of this very long and interesting piece sums it up pretty well: "We need to spend at least as much time asking ourselves what our enemies want as we do telling them what we think they should want. Unless we accept the power of the enemy's dreams and deal with those dreams as a motive shaping reality, we'll get it every bit as wrong as the French did in Algeria."