Counterinsurgency Quotes

• You know as well as I do that counterinsurgency is a very nuanced type of military operation.

  John Abizaid

  Military, Type, Operations

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• I think the central mission in Afghanistan right now is to protect the people, certainly, and that would be inclusive of everybody, and that in a, in an insurgency and a counterinsurgency, that's really the center of gravity.

  Michael Mullen

  Thinking, People, Would Be

  "Mullen on Taliban, mission in Afghanistan". "Meet the Press" with David Gregory, www.nbcnews.com. August 1, 2010.

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• Sometimes,doing nothing is the best reaction.

  Bob Woodward

  Doing Nothing, Sometimes, Reactions

  Bob Woodward (2011). “Obama's Wars”, p.392, Simon and Schuster

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• There are some ideas that will translate from Iraq to Afghanistan and there are many that will not. The first lesson of counterinsurgency, in fact, is that every situation is truly unique, has its own context, its own specific set of factors - and you have to understand that context in enormous detail to be able to craft a sound and comprehensive approach.

  David Petraeus

  Unique, Ideas, Iraq

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• I do not believe that a counterterrorism strategy all by itself, without a sufficient level of counterinsurgency, will work.

  Rahm Emanuel

  Believe, Levels, Strategy

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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• ... the United States, for generations, has sustained two parallel but opposed states of mind about military atrocities and human rights: one of U.S. benevolence, generally held by the public, and the other of ends-justify-the-means brutality sponsored by counterinsurgency specialists. Normally the specialists carry out their actions in remote locations with little notice in the national press. That allows the public to sustain its faith in a just America, while hard-nosed security and economic interests are still protected in secret.

  Robert Parry

  Military, War, Mean

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• Netanyahu and his coalition have no strategy of their own except endless counterinsurgency against the backdrop of a steadily deteriorating diplomatic position within the world and an inexorable demographic decline. The operation in Gaza
  is not Netanyahu’s strategy in excess; it is Netanyahu’s strategy in its entirety. The liberal Zionist, two-state vision with which I identify, which once commanded a mainstream position within Israeli political life has been relegated to a left-wing rump within it.

  Jonathan Chait

  Wings, Two, Political

  "Israel Is Making It Hard To Be Pro-Israel". Article by Jonathan Chait, nymag.com. July 29, 2014.

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• One is the goals of 9/11 itself, of that attack was to draw the United States into Afghanistan to fight a counterinsurgency as the Soviets had done before them.

  Mark Danner

  Fighting, Goal, United States

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The general's staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. There's a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. They jokingly refer to themselves as Team America, taking the name from the South Park-esque sendup of military cluelessness, and they pride themselves on their can-do attitude and their disdain for authority.

  Michael Hastings

  Attitude, Team, Military

  "The Runaway General: The Profile That Brought Down McChrystal" by Michael Hastings, www.rollingstone.com. June 22, 2010.

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• I think indeed our response on counterinsurgency needs to be finely tuned to the needs of Afghanistan. This is not Iraq. We don't have a Sons of Iraq here. We don't have the same divisions here that we had between Sunni and Shia.

  Rahm Emanuel

  Son, Thinking, Iraq

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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• Just in time for the renewal of the war debate in Congress, the University of Chicago Press has released The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. . . . It's a nifty volume, not only because it gives you a sense of what our most highly regarded military theorists are thinking but because sometimes what they're thinking is the last thing you'd expect. Especially interesting is a section called 'Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency Operations,' which tells us: 'Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction' and 'Sometimes, the more force is used, the less effective it is.'

  David L. Ulin

  Military, War, Marine

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