I happened on this CNN website news headline reporting that the agents who rescued the Columbia hostages used "old-fashioned trickery" by pretending to be part of the FARC, then leading the band to safety, rather than where the hostages thought they were going, to meet international leaders.
That's fantastic. But my question is why could we not have done that in Iraq? I've long believed we didn't need to have a big military effort to do this; that we could send people to embed into the culture and work their way in.
In my view, the effort of the Columbian rescuers gives yet another reason why we should not have invaded Iraq, let alone started the Iraq War we're still in.