"When I served in Afghanistan, my job- as a counterinsurgency instructor- was to study the insurgency, meaning the Taliban. In short, we taught both Americans and Afghans that they needed to know the terrain, especially the human terrain. Who is our enemy? What motivates them? And how to they leverage and/or exploit the population? From there, we looked at the "root causes" of population grievances that our enemy was experiencing. Finally, our job was to find sustainable solutions that advanced the legitimacy of the Afghan Army, police, and government. Know the human terrain, identify root causes for problems, find sustainable solutions, and legitimize our allies. It sounded great, and I knew how to teach the hell out of it. But, as it turns out, we always missed the mark on all aspects of what we taught. You know who did not miss the mark? The Taliban. They knew exactly who their people were, their root causes were clear, they were nothing if not sustainable, and they had legitimacy we could never manufacture."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation (2022), New York: Broadside Books, p. 55-56
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%932021)
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War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
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