Quote Originally Posted by couriermike View Post
Nowadays, when the idiot pastor in FL wanted to burn the Koran, which is totally his right as an American, Petraeus himself reached out and asked him not to. How about just killing the enemy, general? Ever since Vietnam, politicians have gotten the idea that our military is some super charity we dispatch to 'win hearts and minds' and make friends. That's not how we won ww2.
As cool as your aspirations to badassery are, the "hearts and minds" approach to warfare is a very valid tactic. It's acknowledged as much by your Department of Defense.

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I don't think you can dispute, given the extreme worldwide media coverage, that the moron's act of burning the Koran would have inspired at least 1 suicide bomber and turned at least 200 of the civilian populace of a US-occupied Muslim country against the USA, and the cost of this happening to American soldiers would have been a non-zero amount of American lives. In which case Petraeus is doing what all good generals do by tactically protecting his troops.