Counter-insurgency doctrine consists of retrospective corrections for past failures to create fresh failures.

Counter-insurgency is a 25-cent, sometimes-hyphenated euphemism for attempted military solutions to populations who refuse to be quietly dominated by invading foreigners. The problem is it doesn’t work… or perhaps that’s the upside.

Military success is not determined by tactical outcomes, but by political ones. The war in Iraq was lost when the troops crossed the line of departure in March 2003.

David Petraeus is the current and principle author of the United States Armed Forces counter-insurgency doctrine. His ultimate boss is George W. Bush. David Petraeus, therefore, is now the number-one proponent of retrospective corrections for past failures to create fresh failures; and he works for a pig-headed idiot, who in turn takes most of his guidance from an ailing, ill-tempered, corporate dickhead, who got drunk and shot one of his lawyers while “hunting” captive quail.

If David Petraeus were not willing to toe the Bush-Cheney line on the war, he would not have been selected for the job of overseeing the last FULL COMMENTARY