Laugh, or spit on your hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
You may believe after reading the manual that controlling the border is vital for a COIN effort. The Command recognizes the importance of the border and so has developed Afghan Border Police mentor teams and empowered them to train the Afghan border police so long as the team can make do without any logistical support. The command recognizes that not-too-interested Pakistani tribesmen now man check-points on the Afghan side of the border. This has been ignored by the Command in order to allow Pakistan-based fighters to flow more easily into Afghanistan and allow us to kill more of them.
The new field manual indicates that information operations should be pushed to the lowest possible level. The Coalition strongly believes in this, and in accordance with COIN principles has pushed information operations decisions down all the way to a one-star, so long as he completes a 48-hour approval process before releasing anything.
I’ve never been on a PMT. I’ve talked to some guys from the ETT at Camp Sherzai. I know enough about what they have to put up with to understand that they will never receive the recognition they deserve.
H/T: Lord John
Posted in The Forgotten War
