The Political Officer as a Counter-Insurgent (merged thread)

[davidbfpo]

The AM blogsite: http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama has a fascinating link to a You Tube item, under the headline 'Afghanistan Big & Small', dated 23/10/09, with Michael Semple on 'Taking Helmand' talking in a ninety minute lecture at Harvard (in Rory Stewart's centre). A lot of scene setting and he gets to Helmand after nearly thirty minutes.

The direct Youtube link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA7S__Q2olc and to Rory Stewart's centre: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/sbhrap/index.php

He also refers, at the start, to the Ganjal ambush a few months ago and that four LeT fighters were killed (LeT is the Kashmiri group linked to Mumbai and other attacks).

He does make clear the Adviser role (POLAD) is very different from the Political Agent i.e. from the Imperial / Colonial era. Perhaps Tom Odom can add his Iraqi viewpoint as a POLAD?

davidbfpo