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12/12/2005:

"Ex-Marine leader poses hard questions about war"

..."Occupation breeds resentment," he said. "When you have a boot on someone's neck, they don't appreciate it."...

Within the first days of the invasion in 2003, the U.S. military dropped leaflets in Iraq: "Surrender and be part of the new Iraq."

"It was a brilliant success," said Nathaniel Fick, a former Marine commander who participated in that first campaign.

Then, as the operation began to heat up, the military dropped "humanitarian rations," which did not include pork or chemical heater packs, which some in Afghanistan had ingested to their great peril. The rations came in bright yellow boxes so they could be seen easily.

This won the hearts of many, Fick said.

Then the military began dropping cluster bombs, some of which failed to explode upon impact. They came in bright yellow packages, too.
charleston.net