Inside the Green Berets

Insight into the Special Forces in Afghanistan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9sOgjpmd4c&feature=channel

Linking Doctrine to Action

Linking Doctrine to Action: A New COIN Centre-of-Gravity Analysis
Colonel Peter R. Mansoor, U.S. Army, and Major Mark S. Ulrich, U.S. Army

Paper on COIN centre-of-gravity (COG) analysis.

My thought on concluding my first reading of this paper was that as a counterinsurgent you are not a policeman or an insurgent hunter - you are actually there in competition with the insurgents and you need to engage in politics with policies and programs and means and ways and ends. You need to implement your own agenda and counter the insurgent's agenda and counter his countering of your agenda.

Pakistanis rise against Taliban after mosque blast

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani tribesmen avenging a mosque attack surrounded two militant strongholds and destroyed the homes of some Taliban commanders, an official said Monday as the death toll in the fighting hit 13.

As many as 1,600 tribesmen have joined a citizens' militia in Upper Dir district — an indication of rising anti-Taliban sentiment in Pakistan as the military pursues its offensive against the militant group in the nearby Swat Valley.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD98MIF6O1

This is what democracy is - remember? Whoever is armed is the government. If the people are armed, the people are the government.

We are seeing the unfashionable wisdom of the Second Amendment in action.

CSIS: Post-Conflict Reconstruction

http://www.csis.org/researchfocus/pcr/