the problem

why didn't we anticipate the insurgency? because when you are figuring out how a war will go you think what you would do in the enemy's situation. In the formal war we could ask what would we do against the tank army that we sent into Iraq. Well it turns out that we think a lot like Iraqi tank commaders but we have better tanks. on that basis we out thought as well as out fought the enemy. But the next stage of the war was something that we couldn't anticipate for the simple reason that no American could put himself in the shoes of the insurgents. the situation that the iraqi insurgents are in is not one that American commanders would ever be in. American commanders can imagine facing a superior force. American commanders cannot imagine trying to impose a dictatorship on thier own country. they cannot imagine a strategy of trying to create deaths in order to frustraite the democratic will of their own people. they cannot imagine simple killing for the sake of the nightly news. even when they put themselves in the shoes of the enemy they mistakenly import some unstated and in the case of the Iraqi insurgents an incorrect assumption. they assume that their enemies are, like them, men.