Meet the New Center of Gravity-Mr.& Mrs. Abu Q. Iraqi-Public

The Army and the Marine Corps are planning on learning a new fight song from the same play book called new counterinsurgency doctrine, hard-learned lessons from the front lines and other hit tunes that moves the center of gravity from destroying thugs to placing a higher value on health, welfare and safety of Mr. and Mrs A. Iraqi Civilian. The doctrine is called New but ,of course, it is as old as the proverbial hills. In 'nam, Marine CAC units, Combined Action Companies were in charge of that detail. As a range free correspondent I made them my beat, as not only did CAC make excellent targets for the VC/NVA they also were a good source of photos and stories that illustrated how our young Marines were helping Vietnamese peasants trying to raise a family and a crop of rice in the middle of a war zone. After one such story, I mentioned to one Marine that I hoped their generosity would be repaid by at least little forewarning of incoming VC. 'Naw, he replied, its all bullshit. We help them out during the day but at night the gooks take over, smack them around to remind them who is in charge. There's not enough of us here for us to do anything about that...' Likewise, protecting Iraqi civilians from intimitation, a basic skill of thug insurgency, is going to be a troop intensive requirement that will scare off the weak knee politco's more interested in getting the job done on the cheap and on the fly.