Maybe there aren't any protests because the majority of the people *support* the use of force over there.
Problem is, the only force being used is by the enemy against us. A squad in our battalion was crossing a road when some guy jumped out of a car with an AK47. They lit him up, making him quite dead. The family claimed he was trying to turn it in - even though it was not inside a clear plastic bag, with the magazine removed - and the battalion commander got mad and said they used too much force. So basically, we are supposed to just be targets here.
To further increase morale, Washington has decided the we no longer need hostile fire pay, separate rations, family separation pay, SAVE pay - compensation for the living conditions - and that we need to pay taxes. This supposedly starts with the new fiscal year. Originally we were supposed to get more money for being deployed longer than 180 consecutive days. The biggest thing is the hostile fire pay. Is the enemy going to stop shooting just because we aren't being paid? Seems like we are being punished because someone higher up made a mistake in planning.
I know we are better off than the Viet Nam guys with respect to the people back home, but at least they could damage the enemy and do their job. I realize that there is a need for some military force, but it needs to be the right force for the job. I'll say it again, infantry are not trained to be nice on the battlefield. We are trained to use as much force as we can get to get the job done and get our people home safely. It takes a while to build a good team and we can't afford to lose someone to something stupid. That's why we fire 12 TOW missiles into a house. The use of force spectrum is for police. The infantry one goes straight from presence to lethal force. It's very irritating to think that if you pull the trigger on a perceived threat, someone is goign to armchair quarterback it.
Where would you suggest someone go AWOL to in Baghdad? That's just stupid. And no one is complaining about being shot at - it's not being able to use our assets to fight back. If someone fires an RPG at us, we can't hose that area with a .50 because of civilians. We are under constant observation by the enemy. We even have some of them working in our compounds - or at least their spies - there's a reason we know this. Do we do anything about it? Nope - too many pansies in charge. In WWII, we executed spies. Back then, if someone was caught attacking and not wearing a uniform, they could be held as a spy. Today, we ship them to a holding pen.
This is just a really frustrating mission. It was poorly planned, poorly executed. In the race to get to Baghdad, we left enemy in our rear. The enemy dresses like the civilian population, uses protected places as their base, and has the support of many of the locals. This is going to be a protracted guerilla war, and fighting it with conventional tactics isn't going to work. Reduce morale with stupid stuff doesn't help.