Fred Seamon — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 11:03:23 GMT

This argument reminds me of the mid-60s, when as a faculty member of the US Army Intelligence School I was a member of a team that studied past insurgencies in preparation of a course which trained intelligence personnel how to function in insurgency environments.

My next assignment was with the Special Operations Group in Vietnam. There I experienced close up the animosity between combat arms officers whose focus was conventional warfare and those of us who thought that there would be a lot of insurgencies to deal with in future; that we needed to focus on winning over the local populace; that less military presence is frequently more effective and that enemy kills are not only a poor indication of progress, but are most often counterproductive when accompanied by civilian casualties.

I thought we had learned some lessons about combating insurgencies in Vietnam, but it didn’t appear so until recently when General Petraeus reinvented the wheel.

To my comrades in arms who still espouse conventional warfare, I have one question: Where do you anticipate we will become involved in a war similar to WW II – Central Europe, China, Iran?

The Washington Independent - U.S. news and politics - washingtonindependent.com: Comments by Fred Seamon