The U.S. military continues to try to shut down the Iraqi insurgents with "sweeps" of different towns or hotspots. Typically this is a reactive move following deaths of U.S. servicemen.

It takes time for the U.S. military to respond to any provocation, because the only way Americans will engage the enemy is from heavily armored vehicles with massive firepower. This calls for logistics, planning, and usually eliminates any possible use of stealth or rapid response to achieve tactical advantage.

So, we see the U.S. running their sweeps into towns and villages or utilizing air strikes and bombings or artillery attacks -- after the fact, usually well after the fact of any insurgent activity. This means that long after the militants are out of the building, the bomb strikes and killing non-combatants such as local families. Long after the insurgent tactical squads have evacuated a town or village, the tanks roll in and blast the smithereens out of any building from which fire was suspected two days earlier. Oops! More dead civilians.

This farce of warfare is good for only one thing -- increasing recruitment for the insurgency. "Kill my cousin and now I kill you" is the understandable reaction of thousands of Iraqis now. Talk about motivation!

The American way of warfare was designed to win huge land wars, such on the European theater against masses of Russians with huge tank armies. America needed massive firepower because of being outgunned in that potential theater of war. In Iraq, America has the advantage in numbers of men AND firepower, but little room for maneuver and little initiative. Americans are on their heels and when they do try to take the initiative they fire into buildings long after the battle is over.

This war cannot be won by America. Those pathetic Iraqis just will not stand and fight toe to toe. For some strange reason, the Iraqis are fighting to win, not to meet American wishes and expectations. Every day that Americans are in Iraq fighting the insurgency is another day that George Bush is losing ground. Every death of an American soldier is a nail in the coffin of the American Empire.

And George Bush thought it would be easy! Mission Accomplished, George! George has lost some of that strut he used to use when walking across the aircraft carrier deck. His senior military officers are probably having a hard time looking him in the eye. Rumsfeld is a little less cocky these days, and Cheney is buried in his bunker thinking about nuking Iraq and Iran, because he has no other solution. American strategy is proving to be weak, and it all started when the Iraqis refused to sit still and be blown to smithereens.