You're right Michael, I did have a knee jerk reaction to your article or blog post, so I removed the personal attack and apologize for making it. I actually agree with the last paragraph of your article, but strongly disagree with most of it. Not sure why it elicted such a visceral reaction, it was probably just the straw that broke the camel's back that day. We had several generals that were highly incompetent in this war, but still isn't the reason we're struggling in Astan, the reason we're struggling is there isn't military solution that we're willing to pursue. We could have any number of great GOs in charge and it wouldn't change much, and the same is true for Iraq. Why do you think we did so well during Desert Storm and in Panama? Clearly defined and feasible military objectives. In OIF and OEF-A the military did well initially, but we started social engineering we understandably got off track.

If SWJ is going to stay relevant I think it will have to move past population centric COIN. There are a lot of ways for us to achieve our objectives without willingly stepping into guagmires.