http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/03/02/how-to-beat-an-insurgency-by-killing-fewer-people/ Canada's only national weekly current affairs magazine. Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:13:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/03/02/how-to-beat-an-insurgency-by-killing-fewer-people/comment-page-1/#comment-91348 kc Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:44:18 +0000 http://blog.macleans.ca/?p=39971#comment-91348 When i read articles like this i truly despair! None of this is new! The basic principles of hearts and minds has been known for a very long time - pre Vietnam. Does all the relevant literature get burned between wars? Or does the military simply stop reading? - Patraeus didn't invent the wheel! Politics is, in my opinion, a big part of the problem here. Publics in the western world have no appetite for 40yr nation building and perhaps lack the necessary attention span anyway. That's not to let the politicians off the hook entirely, leadership does require a modicum of persuasive and rhetorical ability - Obama what took you so long? Still many european countries, and now ourselves it seems have either PR, coalition or minority govts, there's the rub, i guess. Still there's no excuse for the mish mash of overlapping and sometimes competing interests in Afganistan. It's almost as if they want this to fail? One of the few things as bad as an unjust war is one fought without conviction. Because then you do have to ask yourself, what are we here for, and is it worth the sacrifice? When i read articles like this i truly despair! None of this is new! The basic principles of hearts and minds has been known for a very long time – pre Vietnam. Does all the relevant literature get burned between wars? Or does the military simply stop reading? – Patraeus didn’t invent the wheel!
Politics is, in my opinion, a big part of the problem here. Publics in the western world have no appetite for 40yr nation building and perhaps lack the necessary attention span anyway. That’s not to let the politicians off the hook entirely, leadership does require a modicum of persuasive and rhetorical ability – Obama what took you so long? Still many european countries, and now ourselves it seems have either PR, coalition or minority govts, there’s the rub, i guess.
Still there’s no excuse for the mish mash of overlapping and sometimes competing interests in Afganistan. It’s almost as if they want this to fail? One of the few things as bad as an unjust war is one fought without conviction. Because then you do have to ask yourself, what are we here for, and is it worth the sacrifice?

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