http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/us-army-colonel-reveals-failure-of-coin-and-barbarism-of-afghans/print/
DIANA WEST HAS BEEN WRITING ABOUT THIS FOR YEARS NOW PUNCTURING THE MYTHS OF DAVID PETRAEUS OF ARABIA AS A GREAT GENERAL AND COMMANDER….THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT PUT FORTH BY THE COIN DOCTRINE HAVE PUT AND CONTINUE TO PUT AMERICAN SOLDIERS AT GRAVE RISK IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN ALL IN THE SERVICE OF “NATION BUILDING.”….AND THIS ONE CAN’T BE BLAMED ON OBAMA BUT RATHER ON GEORGE BUSH WHOSE WHINING ABOUT THE “GREAT RELIGION OF PEACE HIJACKED BY THE TEENY, TINY, MICROSCOPIC MINORITY” DHIMMIFIED AMERICA’S RESPONSE TO JIHADISTS….RSK
The letter from Colonel Harry Tunnell is making its rounds around the internet, but here are some choice and relevant excerpts. But first a shot bio of Tunnell.
Tunnell had been gravely wounded in Iraq, where he led a battalion of paratroopers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. In October 2003, his convoy was ambushed by insurgents near the city of Kirkuk.
Despite his emphasis on education, Tunnell had a dim view of the intellectual underpinnings of counterinsurgency theory. He didn’t think insurgencies were defeated by protecting villages and winning over residents through reconstruction and development projects. He believed that the top priority was to kill the bad guys.
By the time Tunnell took over the brigade, every other infantry commander preparing to go to Iraq or Afghanistan was using Gen. Petraeus’ COIN manual as his lodestar. But not Tunnell. He told his soldiers that their approach to security operations would be drawn from an Army manual that outlined counterguerrilla operations, which had long been superseded by Petraeus’ playbook. Instead of emphasizing the protection of civilians, it instructed commanders to “give priority to destroying the guerrilla forces.” He called his unit the “Destroyer Brigade” and ordered that its vehicles be painted with the motto SEARCH AND DESTROY.
The Colonel speaks generally on the conflict
“The willingness to combat an enemy cannot be turned on and off like a light switch. Leaders are willing to conduct operations at the tactical and operational levels of war to decisively defeat the enemy or they are not. Soldiers join the military today to protect the United States, yet they are told once in Afghanistan that we are fighting for the Afghan people– this is a rather mercenary outlook and ignores the fact that the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001. If we have an army led by people unwilling to defeat a disorganized illiterate adversary such as we face today, even after a despicable surprise attack on our nation, there is little hope that we can defeat a modern sophisticated enemy that we may face in the future.”