Every Soldier A Sensor - Localized Elicitation Training for IDs

[jcustis]

and there was training provided to recognize specific tribes and individuals who might have been outsiders.

And what are they supposed to do once they recognize outsiders? Is there a presumption that outsiders are going to be hanging around at a shura?

Also, I'd like to see more COs use Shura funds rather than CERP funds or Small Rewards, to encourage those Lts and Sgts to be confident enough to hold them more regularly.

And what good is a shura if the coalition side doesn't have the tools, resources, or authority to act on anything that comes up in the shura? More shuras mean more complaints and, frankly, more opportunities to annoy the locals as we ask the same questions over and over, and continue to fail to deliver on their often outlandish demands. I'm not so sure that we understand the genie that is safe in his bottle right now. It goes back to getting better at the PIRs in the first place. We need a holistic approach, and holding a better shura is not the place to start.

If you have not been in country, you need to go. It should be very easy, if this program has any actual teeth and patrons who are at all serious about the effort. A San Diego newspaper reporter made it to way south Helmand pretty easily, and do did a Filipino Reuters photographer. Same with a German writer for some military-related glossy mag.

You need to get on the ground in Sangin or Gereshk, or the Korengal to see it this stuff at work. And you need to sit in a shura or two and see how Soldiers--if they care to open their mind and learn--can pick up much of what it is they need to know about who's who in the zoo from:

1) listening to the unit they are replacing
2) doing a bit of studying of the problem set before they go
3) just stopping and talking to folks
4) spending some time listening to their linguists

You could validate all of the training's assumptions by going into country just before the next unit rotation, to observe the unit in place, and then watch these newly-trained Soldiers show up and begin to operate.

There would be no anecdotal information collected from surveys, AARs, etc. All primary source observations.

I am dead serious about the relevance of getting on the ground. If there was integrity to the analysis of the training's effectiveness, I venture to say that you'd see there isn't really quite the need that some folks think.