This is a terrible metaphor. If you're assuming the town is Iraq, the Iraqis don't want American protection anymore because they have shown they can't protect the Iraqi citizens from looting. Now they want a Hussein-style strongman to come to power, a total flip from 6 years ago and only possible because of the incompetence of the CPA and its various replacements in dealing with the invasion and insurgency. If the town is the United States, when has there ever been an Iraqi attack on US soil, and how could there possibly have been while Saddam was in power, considering the state of Iraqi infrastructure at the time, much of which had been bombed back to pre-Saddam era thanks to the constant bombings by the US during the 90s (which, ironically, were only carried out because the United States believed that Iraq would descend into chaos if Saddam fell)? The farthest any Iraqi SCUD ever fell was Israel, and no Iraqis participated in the 9/11 attacks, nor has any evidence surfaced that Saddam Hussein's government helped them. I'm not suggesting I have the answers to what is happening in Iraq, but certainly nothing is being solved while the Iraqi army is using the American Army as a crutch, or while the American government is arming the Shi'ite militias to kill the Sunni insurgents in the same way we armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan to kill the Soviets.