Jim says:
Many times I feel like I’m a hack, a fraud. It scares me. It paralyzes me sometimes. I do everything...
Sonja says:
Wow! That was great. So true, so true.
Basilis says:
The All is lost moment hunts me exactly at the finishing part of the book (last two or three chapters)....
Jerry Ellis says:
Thanks for responding to my post, Steven. You’re doing a magnificent service for writers. I...
Solid gold creativity says:
Very useful! Thank you.
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Maj. Jim Gant, ODA 316, with Malik Noor, Mangwel, Konar Province
I like very much Gen. McChrystal’s idea for a new Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell (cited in Max Boot’s article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal). This entity would be an ongoing “corps of roughly 400 officers who will spend years working on Afghanistan,” even when they are not actually in-country. (more…)
Courtesy Prof. Andrew Lubin
This blog has been up now for a little more than a week. Many thanks to all who have contributed comments–and to all who will do so in the coming weeks. Now seems as good a time as any to pause for breath and ask, “What have we been trying to say here? What exactly is the thesis of these videos?” (more…)
Today marks the release of the final video in the “It’s the Tribes, Stupid” series. Believe me, I’m aware of the presumption of titling any discourse, “How to Win in Afghanistan. ” Even Alexander the Great would balk at treading that ground. So, as I say in the video, the thoughts therein are offered not with presumption but, as Rod Serling used to say on the old Twilight Zone show, “submitted for your approval.”
That said, I’d like to stick a toe into those waters by touching on a recent (last week) excellent white paper from the Center for a New American Security, entitled “Triage: The Next Twelve Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” The paper too suggests courses aimed at that elusive object: success. The first of its two operational recommendations for Afghanistan is: (more…)
