Getting ready for work this morning, I was, as usual, listening to NPR and was struck by a story on the difficulties US soldiers face in their counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq.  Here’s a quote from the transcript:            

Lt. Col. John Nagl wrote a book about fighting insurgents called Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife.

He
remembers working closely with an Iraqi police chief who provided
valuable intelligence. Then, he learned that the man he had trusted was
supporting the enemy — "providing weapons, ammunition, body armor to
the insurgents in Fallujah who were then fighting the Marines. And
against some of my soldiers."         

Nagl said he found himself "faced with a horrible dilemma."            

"What
do I do to this police chief who has clearly risked his life to help
us? Every time I think about it, I wonder if I did the right thing. But
ultimately what I decided to do was — nothing…

     The audio report, which is not available yet, goes a bit further, with Nagl saying that, sometimes, doing "something" only makes the situation worse, so better to do nothing.

      And if he had his trusty Tao Te Ching at hand, he might have added that, in doing nothing, nothing is left undone….