Starvin Larry

Fred Reed nails it on theburningplatform.com:

Many Americans wonder why the US military has such a dismal record of failure in its wars in Moslem territories. Do we not have the most modern forces in the world? How can a force armed with fighter-bombers, B1s, night-vision goggles, helicopter gunships, heavy armor, and advanced remotely-piloted vehicles lose routinely to lightly-armed goatherds?

Journalistic old-hands in the regions, men who have spent decades following the wars and the complex and shifting alliances, say quietly that the cause is American ignorance of both the lands and the people. Virtually no one in the United States has any notion of the region, they say, though all seem to have strong opinions. Policy thus rests on self-assurance buttressed by factual vacuum.

Journalism being what it is today, reporters cannot say openly that the US, from the White House to the Pentagon to the public, is (as…