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« What is the middle class ideology of globalization? | Main | Think Progress on the Fallon piece »
10:53AM

My mistake on offering criticism of COIN piece

Here's my original comment on the COIN article.

Here's one of the author's replies:

Actually, in our article, we specifically indicate it is NOT the military that should be the lead component in defeating this Global Insurgency. We emphasize time and again USAID, State, a renewed USIA, the CIA, Law Enforcement mechanisms and the Dept of Justice to strengthened rule of law mechanisms around the world. I'm sorry you read into this that "inside the USG the Pentagon is the most competent, therefore the U.S. military can spearhead a global counter-insurgency strategy". Moreover, we wrote the pre-cursor to this article in January 2006 which was published in the Boston Globe around then, so this really reflects nothing of your dismissive "premature excitement over aspects of the surge's success in Iraq".

Jonathan Morgenstein

Definitely my bad. I've been reading a lot of expansive stuff lately on global COIN being the answer and I skimmed this piece too quickly and let 'er rip in the post. This is a mistake I am vulnerable to when I scan too much on my phone and after I spot a pattern in a bunch of stuff people send me, I light into one to make my point.

Here, I just picked the wrong one to light into, and I apologize for the mistake.

Once I started the book I decided I'd still try a certain amount of processing emails from people, and this is a reminder not to go so damn fast!

I stand by the concerns I express in the post. I just targeted the wrong piece.

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