Fighting off the net

[unixronin]

In which the US military — or some of it, at least — grasps the concept that the very latest trappings of military technology are no substitute for direct on-the-ground human intelligence and actually making a human connection to the locals.

Why do we have to keep re-learning the simple lesson that you can't defeat an insurgency without the help and support of the locals?

Comments

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

Based on what I've been hearing, we've been applying that lesson in Iraq for some time now.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we have been for several years now. But we should have been doing it in Iraq from the start. We shouldn't have had to re-learn it (again) there. It should be part of the standard textbooks and ops manuals.

[7leaguebootdisk.livejournal.com]

Because bush and co decreed that we didn't need to, that we would be greeted as liberators, and shut out anyone who said different.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

"None so blind as those who will not see..."

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was my fault.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

That's what PsyOps was created for. Unfortunately, there seems to have been a breakdown of the mission statement, over the years, mostly by folks who saw the division as a personal power trip, rather than an organizational mission.

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

well, the military, by and large, knew that (they remember vietnam etc a lot better than the rest of us for some strange reason.) the administration (rumsfeld et al) did not. or refused to be dissuaded from their grand plan of getting a mark in the history book as a strategic innovator in modern warfare or whatever. get fixated on a goal like that and you forget what your actual job is. they made no plan for transfer of power because that wasn't their purpose- their purpose was to show that yeah, verily, we could do blitzkrieg too. look at what our fancy toys can do.

and now we're showing the rest of the world what our fancy toys can't do. but we should have known that already.
i keep forgetting that "obvious" to me, in situations like this, isn't necessarily.