One other point is our military has been re-trained to fit the role of the “policing or intelligence agency”. It has successfully expanded beyond the role it was intended.

I wish I’d have taped the conference call. It was amazing.

Apparently, they’re adding 4 more counter-terrorism (CT) headquarters throughout Iraq. They’ve also got 4 battalions of CT troops + a logistics and support battalion. They’re getting their own personal air assets to do air assault and close air support, and the number of Iraqi CT troops is growing fast (albeit at a classified rate). The situation described by the general is right in line with what Rand seems to write about….though, I think RAND might be smart to learn from him rather than vice versa. My gut feeling is that RAND is a summary of what’s really going on; sorta like a book report before the book’s done being read. ‘Course, it should be noted that AQ is a terrorist network-not a group, and there’s never been a counter-terrorism effort like in the post911 era.

We talked about terrorist network mapping, operations, training, quality of people, challenges, it was great.

You and I are on the same page in so many ways, I think you’d have been very impressed as well.

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