I have it on pretty good authority that several months ago, the question was surfaced upstream "Why does this COP exist, this is a dumb thing in a dumb place."
I agree with the dumb place comment based on what I have read, but why is it a dumb thing in your opinion? I think COPs are essential in COIN; however, like in any conflict location is everything. Key terrain is not an empty term, it actually means something, and in this case it appears the COP was surrounded by key terrain.

Just because this particular COP was poorly designed, doesn't mean we shouldn't establish COPs. How business is executed at COPs is how your force protection issues are addressed. In theory if you saturate the area with patrols with patrols 24/7, then the COP is not overly vulnerable. It is just a locaton that patrols on occassion and not all at once go back to refit, take their casualties etc. It should be the C2 and log node basically, not a Ft. Apache where the bad guys have free reign outside the walls. Of course that means we'll have less COPs, because they need adequate manning to maintain this 24/7 presence outside the wire. Where does that take us? IMO back to the oil spot strategy. Start relatively small, consolidate your gains and then expand. If you expand contiguously you won't allow the enemy any space between the seams to undermine your previous gains.

I don't think COPs in themselves are a flawed concept, I just think we're executing them incorrectly. We're pushing them into the middle of enemy terrority, instead of expanding out from neutralized zones, so in effect as stated they're not focused on protecting the populace, they're focused on protecting themselves (out of necessity). That doesn't achieve much from an operational and strategic view.

Perhaps instead of rushing, we need to slow the train down, consolidate and gradually push out with the main forces that are securing the population. We have forces that can execute deep patrols (much like the SAS did during Malaysia) to disrupt the enemy in the outlying areas. No new ideas here, just haven't seen them discussed yet.