Marc,

You are misinterpreting the "you" and "everyone else". These remarks are toward the COIN forces, NGOs, etc. not the locals.

I try to teach the very same point: that the pointy end of the COIN spear is also the point of greatest knowledge when it comes to situational awareness and its growth into situational understanding. That happens of course if the small unit leaders take that objective to heart: that SU is their goal and that waiting for headquarters to explain what is happening outside the wire is a certain formula for disaster.

best

Tom