COIN, Shmoin, The Administration Is The Problem » Publications » Family Security Matters

COIN, Shmoin, The Administration Is The Problem » Publications » Family Security Matters

COIN, the abbreviation for Counterinsurgency operations, is hotly debated as applied in Afghanistan.

Those most blindly in favor on the Left think it is a way to be nice and avoid many of the harshnesses of war. Others think it’s a way to make foes like us and avoid creating more foes.

Those most angrily critical are either conservatives, experienced in war, or those whose lives are actually at risk on the front lines.

They are all partly correct, thus far. Many go off the rails by not understanding what COIN actually is, or in taking it to absurd or counter-productive excess, and in not confronting the quagmire created by Obama and his chosen meddlers.

Let’s re-visit the US entry in large numbers into Vietnam. President Kennedy’s “best and brightest” were enamored of their theories of guerrilla warfare and thought that would be enough to rely upon in countering the Viet Cong, its North Vietnamese masters, and their Soviet and Chinese backers. When that didn’t work, and they lashed out in frustration to blame President Diem out of their arrogance and ignorance, they participated in his murder and destroyed his hard-won control of the South. The US, then, had to send more and more troops to stem the disaster, and the Kennedy boys turned against the war aghast that there was actually a war to be fought.

That ignorance and lack of integrity and regard for the actual lives and national security interests at stake continues in the Left.