A decorated war veteran and Pashto speaker with multiple tours in Afghanistan, Gant had been assigned by the Army to deploy to Iraq in November. But with senior military and civilian leaders -- including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; and Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command -- expressing support for Gant's views, he was ordered instead to return to Afghanistan later this year to work on tribal issues.
"Maj. Jim Gant's paper is very impressive -- so impressive, in fact, that I shared it widely," Petraeus said, while McChrystal distributed it to all commanders in Afghanistan. One senior military official went so far as to call Gant "Lawrence of Afghanistan."
You can find the entire paper here. And go read the article. It's very good.
By: Brant
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2 comments:
I read the paper, and it is very good, but honestly I don't think "Lawrence of Afghanistan" is ever going to get more than a hundred or two people to step forward and live this kind of life. I woudln't mind being proven wrong but I don't think it's in the cards.
You might want to check out the follow-up. There's a lot of disagreement out there.
http://grognews.blogspot.com/2010/02/surge-in-afghanistan-send-in.html
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