SASless, I'll rise to the bait for you - albeit with caution!
Yes, we British do like to go on about how wonderful we are, and yes, we apparantly 'did the job' in Malaya, and subsequently critise the tactics used by the U.S. in S.E Asia. Of course, it's convenient to forget about how much of the British Empire we now don't have! The problem here is that times, and warfare, have chaged. I dare say that a lot of the work we did in Malaya, wouldn't stomach very well if it were to be shown on tv by the hoardes of camera crews that follow modern fighting units (much as they did in Vietnam - already we see a distinction between the 2 conflicts). And along with this we have the issue of collateral damage which every armchair General knows about, but has little solution to.
Mr Parris highlighted the biggest problem, that of the 'enemy' being able to go back to his village and instantly become a civilian again - just as was the case in Malaya and Vietnam. However, the problem now is that the hearts and minds job is much harder to acheive following countless military operations that have taken place. Our, and the Russian, army may well have been beaten in the past, but you claim that the U.S SpecOps soldiers have "won the military confict"? How can that be the case if we still need to control these insurgents?
The Malayan Emergency was conducted (as far as I'm aware) purely by British forces. The problem we have here is that there is a coalition to clean up / apologise / justify for, and that's harder to acheive. The proof of this could possibly be found in Vietnam - afterall, the French were there first, and the Aussies helped out too.
Let's hope that someone, somewhere has the answer and, more importantly, is given the means to deliver it - so we can all learn on common ground!