Time Out

I'm not planning to post in the"Shadows and Fog" series over the weekend, in part because the army office where I work is deluged with visitors who are keeping us busy. I'll post again on Monday morning. In the meantime, this is a link (in PDF format) to a remarkable article by British Army Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster that was recently published in a U.S. Army journal, Military Review. My sense is that Aylwin-Foster, who served in Iraq, is largely correct in most of what he writes about American military operations there, despite the very loud protests of his American colleagues in the higher pay grades. It's well worth reading if you're interested in what the U.S. Army -- and I mean the army, not the entire military -- is doing in Iraq.

But there is also this little problem, for whatever it's worth.

Also take a look at this short essay by a newly retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who served in Iraq, which makes one point that resonates with Aylwin-Foster's discussion of army operations:"I think what has made this war really ugly, in addition to our controversy over the rationale –- Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to terrorists and WMD –- is the way we conduct operations. We go kinetic, kinetic, kinetic."