From another forum - a little insight into how the Bush forces are 'winning hearts and minds'.....

"Some of these people are still ready to kill a cousin or even a brother over an insult, even if it is something quite trivial, so imagine how a person like that will feel when the Marines perform a raid and kick down his door and force him face down on the floor in front of his wife and his children and bind his hands and feet like a sheep. If he was for the US before, it's enough to change his mind and he'll seek to avenge what he feels is humiliation."

  Although we would feel we were acting correctly based on the situation we find ourselves in, in their culture, we have shamed and humiliated the male head of the household. There is no right or wrong from either side just the reality of the difference in culture.

This isn't a flame.  I'm sure the people of Iraq hate it.  I'm not saying we are right to be there.  I am saying everybody has to deal with the reaalities of the situation.

I would not, for a minute, tell soldiers on the ground to increase their risk of being hurt just so the proverbial "head of household" keeps his dignity intact.  

Thinks about it:  if an armed group of men comes to you, points their guns, and tells you to do something, cultural norms shouldn't dictate your behavior.  If you are so stupid as to argue with them, thank them in retrospect that they did not kill you.  If it is the "cultural norm" for the head of an iraqui household to act in a stupid way, then heads of households in iraq had better change their behavior.

the American soldiers who are doing it safe, but then costs other American soldiers (and perhaps more soldiers) their lives later on.

It's just a reality.  Telling the Iraqis that they had better change their attitude won't do any good.