Actually we are. I know of (and was peripherally involved) with several incidents in iraq that involved good solid intel, that we acted on to capture insurgents/terrorists only to find out later we were being used to settle a debt of 5 goats (or some such) from the late 1800's. My buddies in A-Stan tell me the same thing happens there.
Yes, the ones actually shooting at us are easy to tell apart, but those are actually pretty rarely captured. The ones we capture are most often not actually shooting at the moment of capture.
* which is not to say I think we need to import these guys to New York civilian courts, but pretending that everyone we catch is definatlly a tango is absurd.
That doesn't sound like "good solid intel" to me....
Sounds like we should be killing them all and let God sort it out.
During WWII the Germans had "good solid intel" we had poison gas we were shipping over to use. This came to light when some G.I.s stumbled into a cave in Germany that was below ground level and in which canister after canister of German munitions (poison gas) had been stored. It had begun to leak out and a couple of the soldiers died. This was after surrender and when the German Top brass were confronted with this they were asked why they didn't use it. They replied by claiming that they didn't dare because they knew we had much, much more of it. We said that's cr@p, we don't, and one German officer went off and came back with a stack of photos showing an American supply ship offloading doezens of pallets all loaded to the gills with gas canisters. The German challenged his American counterpart with this "proof" and the American officer simply laughed and told him -- correctly -- it was nitrogen gas canisters used in American artillery recoil systems.
The Germans had a different artillery recoil system and thus had
"misidentified" inert Nitrogen containers.
So much for "military intel."
Most wars we've fought are replete with stories like that. There's "good" intel" and "bad" intel, and the only way it can be ascribed "good" is if it turns out real.
The problem is confounded because the other side is usually going to be trying to mislead you.
So long as we allow ourselves to become distracted, we're going to prolong this war indefinantly. Engaging in "nation-building" before you achieve a clearly defined victory is wrong.
We ought to be fighting this war with a great deal more ruthlessness than we are. It's going to be Vietnam redux if we don't start clobbering the terrorist camps in NW Pakistan and other places they're holing up.
And predator drone strikes, nice as they are, aren't enough.