However, I notice it echoes the commnplace about the opposition being mostly "foreign" jihadists - which AFAIK is total bunk. I've read interviews of high-ranking military intel types and the like who plain state that most of the guerillas killed are native Iraqi insurgents; the foreigners are uncommon in actual combat role, but make up the vast majority of the suicide bombers (one intel type drily observed that "they're ordinance").

Personally I suspect the griping about the 9mm and 5.56mm rounds is more a symptom of general frustration than anything else. AFAIK both calibers have over the course of their existence proven themselves quite effective combat munitions, and by all accounts I've seen (save those from Iraq, or in the case of the 9mm the pro-.45 crowd) kill people right well when used properly. Methinks it's a case of simple misplaced guilt - the troops more or less *know* the war they're fighting is crap, and to a large part thanks to their most superior brass, but for assorted psychological reasons find it necessary to complain about miscellanea such as their service munitions instead.

Not really unlike how kids with much deeper problems tend to express their general malaise through assorted acts of delinquency.