Did any of you stop to think that this video and others like it is no less a weapon in the war the enemy is waging than is the sniper's rifle? You'd be wrong if you think it isn't. They can inflict far more damage on us than the mere killing of one of our troops. Just by demonstrating the killing and then broadcasting it is using the killing and film as a weapon that has far far mor impact on the war than the casualty. It allows that killing to be amplified multiple times in a broadcast war that our media is gleefully cooperating in.
We could win every battle on the ground overseas and still lose the war (any war) here in this country because of this kind of weapon, so effective in destroying the will of the people to successfully wage that war.
A conversation with Giap after the fall of siagon was printed in a book titled "On Strategy and Tactics, a Study of the Viet Nam Conflict". (I believe that is the complete title, it's been almost 20 years since I read it in Command and General Staff College)
In the conversation it was pointed out to Giap that on the battle field the Americans never lost a major engagement. Giap replied that that observation was correct, it was "also irrelevant"
Al Q and other radical muslim groups learned that lesson and know exactly why it is so important to control the news flow. They did it regarding the latest dust up with the Isreali's just recently and they are doing it to us now. They don't have to win on the battlefield, they just have to guide the media and the media will defeat the public. Public opinion is far more important to the war in this case than is the actual control of the battlefield. If you can infulence the public opinion, you direct the course of the enemies politics and therefor the war. It works in fighting a democracy, but not so much a dictatorship.
