Hearts, minds and McChrystal

Marcy Wheeler's post Ill-Considered Trash Talk McChrystal’s Idea of Winning Hearts and Minds Emptywheel 06/22/2010 makes a connenction that hadn't occurred to me between two of the themes in my previous post:

So take a step back and think about what that means for McChrystal (and should mean for the question of whether or not he gets fired for this). Stanley McChrystal, the guy in charge of winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan, okayed this article, presumably intending it to win hearts and minds in the US.

And McChrystal presumably knows US culture better than he knows Afghanistan culture.

This article is McChrystal’s idea of winning hearts and minds.

Argue what you will about whether McChrystal’s insubordination requires his firing. Argue what you will about his unique qualifications for the job.

But if this is McChrystal’s idea of how to win hearts and minds then we will never achieve success in Afghanistan so long as he’s in charge.

Tags: counterinsurgency, us military

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