ISIS on the offensive in Iraq

[a completely inoffensive name]

The point is that most soldiers, today and historically, know combat, or some amount of logistics involved in war. They know the affects of war on individuals in the field firsthand. They don't understand why they are at war or what the objectives are or the geography/demographics/economics/diplomacy/etc. Most understand some elements of war better than the majority, but war is bigger than anecdotal experience, no matter how traumatising and/or heroic it may have been.

This is not a particularly controversial opinion, is it?.

My opinion is that it is 100% hubris to claim any more knowledge about a region than a soldier who had to survive in that region for years and dealt with the locals to minimize the amount of disgruntled people planting IED's on the roads.