Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
Hi Uboat,
Well, without speaking for RA, I took his points as being "popular understandings" more than anything else. Of course the surge isn't a strategy, but it has been spun as one by a number of politicians and some media who conflate the surge with a strategy. Since most non-military people use the term "strategy" to cover everything from "how I am going to make breakfast" to "how I will penetrate the Chinese market and achieve world widget domination", I really don't find it surprising that they can't distinguish between them.

What I saw RAs list as was a series of reasons (actually, emotional responses, not rational thought) why the "common man" doesn't believe pretty much anything coming out from "official sources" - the blocks to communicative legitimacy as it were.
My issue is not so much that he does not understand what the strategy is but rather that he takes what little knowledge he has and makes the leap to "We're being lied to."

SFC W