Recent History and Gen. David Patraeus - by Yon

Michael Yon (ex SPECOPS soldier) has distinguished himself as a non-partisan reporter who is not afraid to be in the field with soldiers. It may be a little premature to say he is the Ernie Pyle of our time, but he's headed for that kind of honor.

His latest dispatch is a synopsis of his experience in the GWOT since 9-11 and is well worth the read. It also is a great explanation to new readers as to WHY he was compelled to write about the war.

a few excerpts;

Even critics like Mr. Ricks recognized that some military leaders saw it differently. While old-school commanders stormed in and crushed anything that dared resist, one particular two-star general slipped ingeniously from the kinetic force-on-force mode to a sort of “pre-counterinsurgency.” His 101st Airborne Division swept up through Iraq and with masterful strokes—punching when needed, yet pulling punches that other leaders likely would have thrown—they took northern Iraq, and the key city of Mosul.

Mosul was a made-for-insurgency city, surrounded by huge amounts of former generals, tens of thousands of soldiers, and enough weapons and explosives to outfit several European armies.The commander’s work in northern Iraq was the subject of study at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Newsweek called him Iraq’s Repairman.

..there is a simple litmus test in this war for commanders who are able to win counterinsurgency battles. Check their press. Good or bad, there should be some; little or none is a bad sign, especially if the enemy is using media.

Some in the military even now disparage this general for his embrace of media, for understanding that complex counterinsurgency warfare can only be successful when the media battles are decisively won. He once corrected a junior officer who wanted to track media coverage according to whether the reports were “positive” or “negative,” saying that it only mattered that the reports were accurate, since it was how the soldiers did THEIR job that would largely determine the way people on all sides reacted to news, so long as it was accurate.

This Major General’s name is David Petraeus. (emphasis mine)

Full Article HERE