US Soldier captured in Afghanistan

[Brandon Friedman]

Drawing a comparison to Steele is to suggest recklessness or incompetence. It surprises me that products like this were fielded. But having some familiarity with how the development process works, I am very hesitant to assume that this was just some reckless or poorly thought-out decision. Of course, this is the Army, so there is always the possibility that your hunch is correct. But it seems a bit early and information a bit scarce to start making such comparisons.

Yes, I’m speculating. I’m not there on the ground, so there’s obviously a lot I/we don’t know. And like I said, I’d love to be proved wrong. I just can’t think of a context or scenario where threatening the civilian population could end well. Even if it gets positive results initially (like, say, we get the soldier back), it’ll still likely end with Jed carrying his brother out past a disillusioned Cuban counterinsurgent.

It seems to me that most everyone agrees that, as presented, this is a bad idea. And I just stopped being uncritical of the leadership in these types of situations after witnessing the abysmal lack of COIN prowess at times by individuals like Odierno, Steele, and Craddock (not to mention in places like Abu Ghraib).

I was trying to be brief in hopes of not being misunderstood. . . .

No worries, man.

here

And ABC News has now posted the video. They’re a media organization, so competition presumably dictates that they must post this video if they have it. But I probably wouldn’t have helped the Taliban spread propaganda by posting it if it were up to me.