Word: fight
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...going to get that message down to the guys in the fight, who are used to depending on air support? Well, one, we have an extraordinarily intelligent and mature force now. We have had for a number of years. The way I would frame it to them is, Suppose the insurgent occupies an enemy home or village and engages you from there, with the clear idea that when you respond, you are going to create collateral damage. He's going to blame that on you. Even if you kill the insurgent there - and in many cases...
...want to see results in a year. How do you rectify this? It's going to take longer than 18 to 24 months to make permanent progress. What I want to see here in stages is, first, if in a fairly limited time we can focus our force on fighting the war that we want to fight, the right kind of counterinsurgency strategy; and second, if we can organize ourselves, in terms of command and control structures, in terms of unity of effort, in terms of all working together. The increase in civilian capacity that is coming...
...conduct operations in an area, the most obvious was usually the most incorrect. So you had to get down to what the motivation of somebody we had identified as an insurgent really is. Who is he connected to? It is not a monolithic enemy here. And they have been fighting for 30 years, and they have got lots of different reasons for fighting, and I am not sure there are two different people out there with the same reason for the fight. And so you have to be careful not to think you are going against a foe with...
...Because we are competing with the Taliban for influence and control of the population. The analogy that a smart young guy I work with is that it is an argument. In conventional war, what you do is, you have an argument, and when the argument is over, you start fighting. And no one thinks during the fight, afterwards you will end up going to the peace table. And you end up with a completely different outcome than you wanted. Counterinsurgency is an ongoing argument. Everything you do in an operation or influence is trying to convince the population...
...have lost at least seven men to IEDs since you arrived. What does this say about the way we fight this war? What they are doing is multi - for one, they have found a tactic that can create casualties. They found a tactic that they don't have to stand and fight against Afghan and coalition forces. They have found a tactic that can be employed by anyone, any age, any sex, whatever. More importantly, we have to look at what this tells us about their capabilities and intent. We know that IEDs have a tremendous psychological impact on everyone...