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Colonel Kilcullen Reports
By John
I’ve spent much of the last six weeks out on the ground, working with Iraqi and U.S. combat units, civilian reconstruction teams, Iraqi administrators and tribal and community leaders. I’ve been away from e-mail a lot, so unable to post here at SWJ: but I’d like to make up for that now by providing colleagues with a basic understanding of what’s happening, right now, in Iraq.This post is not about whether current ops are “working” — for us, here on the ground, time will tell, though some observers elsewhere seem to have already made up their minds (on the basis of what evidence, I’m not really sure). But for professional counterinsurgency operators such as our SWJ community, the thing to understand at this point is the intention and concept behind current ops in Iraq: if you grasp this, you can tell for yourself how the operations are going, without relying on armchair pundits of whatever political ilk.
So yeah. Go educate yourself.
Update: Grim at Blackfive simply mollywhops those who have chosen not to educate themselves, but still wish to be considered an authority on COIN ops.
And I discussed the same topic at Townhall some time ago: They Know So Much That Isn't So
