The official said that Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a former inmate at the American military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who is now a top Taliban lieutenant, was involved in replacing Taliban shadow governors and commanders, as well as reorganizing the Taliban throughout the country.

Nuts.

Wearing camos was as close as the worst president ever got to military experience. Of course, we should follow such ideas, as of ‘harsh’ intelligence gathering.

Mornin, BT, pups

I imagine a re-reading of these documents would be advisable:

David Kilcullen’s Countering Global Insurgency (medium pdf)

David Petraeus’ Counterinsurgency Manual (huge pdf)

I wonder if anyone in the WH has read them. I also wonder if they’ve read the basic material by T E Lawrence, which is still relevant today.

Morning All
Someone once said It’s darkest before the dawn. I was just outside gazing at the dark. Stars are incredibly beautiful this morning. Mr. Orion’s looking mighty fine.

How’s the new job goin’?

The gym is okey dokey, schmokey. I quit the stupid christian bookstore. Walked out on Monday. Good riddance. Almost made me not want to be one.
Thanks for asking.

This guy Steve King in the fourth piece above is wacky. Do we think he really believes that, or is he just talking smack to get attention?

Entirely OT: this is what you get when incoherent shitheads like Grover Norquist talk about drowning government in the bathtub:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c…..hp?ref=fpb

Wasn’t Lawrence an insurgent, not a counterinsurgent?

Speaking of Christian literature, have you ever read any of the pre-Catholic church writings by the early Christians, particularly a volume titled “The Nag Hamadi Library?” “The Gospel of Judas” has also been published in the last few years. All part of what are generically known as the Gnostic writings.

If drowning the US government is anything like subverting the US government I guess we know who the traitors are.

You are correct but his writings are still studied by counterinsurgency folks. His passages on the cultural makeup of the Arabs were ignored for the most part when they should have been the focus of attention. We still haven’t learned.

I hope House progressives continue to stay strong on health care reform. It sounds like the White House is threatening to find a couple dozen Olympia Snowes in the House to pass a right-leaning bill. I doubt that’s possible, but even if it is progressives have little to lose at this point.

BTW, SD, Petreus is on cspan2. Among other highly intelligent things he’s said is that they had to issue drivers’ manual because the way the military was driving was pissing off the locals. Duh. Hasn’t that been obvious for 8 years?

I actually read 7 Pillars in 06.

(Haven’t read Clausewitz yet, though.)

This piece, “The Science of Guerrilla Warfare” is often neglected.

Being the Lawrence fan I am I’ve got a First Edition in really good shape. Quite the read, isn’t it?

I have heard of those two, but have not read. Just read the synopsis in your link for the Judas Gospel. Sounds very interesting. I’m actually backed up right now, but should have a little more time for reading these days. Ha ha. I’m wanting to find the Gospel of Mary Magdalena.
Am reading about apocallyptic eshatology currently. Viewed through a non-literal lense, it’s very different than what we were taught in Sunday School. Transcendence from violent injustice to nonviolent justice. It just tickles me.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Irak: 4346

US KIA Afghanistan: 843

US MBS 2009: 32,718

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

This is the better of the bunch of translations.

The tenacity of someone fighting for his own land vs. fighting to occupy somebody else’s land was a lesson we should have learned from our own goddamned revolution.

Mine is a used copy from “East High School Library.” Doesn’t say what city. There was an East High School in Buffalo, where I grew up, but I think that no longer exists. The binding hadn’t been cracked. And yes, it’s quite a read.

When the terms insurgency/counterinsurgency first arose I found the 4 or 5 most popular books on the subject in amazon & read them in less than half a year. Took the generals another 4 years to write their coin manual. And that means no one was trained in it for a lot longer, if ever. Amazingly, Petreaus said his thesis was about lessons learned in VN. (How many of those were there?) Enough to make one tear out one’s hair.

Thanks, hon. Saved to favorites.
Swim well and safely today.

The American military is bound and determined to reverse the trend of conventional military force not being successful in fighting insurgencies that have widespread indigenous support. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.

Yes, and we humans could have learned it from ancient history too. We be dumb and slow.

As I first typed several days ago, where is the U.S. military gonna find all those multilingual, culturally sensitive 18 year olds? And the CIA too.

Yeah. He was writing from the perspective of someone who saw Arabs as human beings, not just as obstacles or (at best) cheap labor.

Unfortunately, King believes it. Worse, so do many in his district.

I find that incredibly sad and pathetic. What is so freaking hard about understanding unconditional, inclusive respect for all?

Oh man, another FALSE equivalency.

The misguided souls piece burns me up. It tries to equate 42% of Republicans believing Obama is not qualified to be President (due to not being born here) with 25% of Democrats who believe Bush intentionally allowed 9/11 to happen to go to war.

To refute one requires positive proof (Obama showing his birth certificate) while refuting the other requires proving a negative (proving Bush DIDN’T allow 9/11 to happen). No matter the details involved, those aren’t equivalent arguments, because you can never prove a negative.

To equate questions lingering over 9/11 where no such “proof” is available with questions lingering over Obama’s birthplace where an abundance of proof is available (his birth certificate, testimony of nurses, and the local newspapers at the time) is just hogwash.

You know, reality really does have a liberal bias.

Ding.

I don’t know, but the history of the world suggests it is very hard.