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‘Precise Synchronization’ Part II

Building on yesterday’s question of how precisely Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s Afghanistan strategy is synchronized, take a look at Brandon Friedman’s post at

Jul 31, 20207.4K Shares931.1K Views
Building on yesterday’s questionof how “precisely” Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s Afghanistan strategy is “synchronized,” take a look at Brandon Friedman’s post at VetVoice. Brandon reads a CBS report about U.S. troops distributing a flyer to two villages in eastern Afghanistan that appears to tell the entire villages they “will be targeted” unless a captured colleague is freed. He observes:
Ultimately, I think whoever came up with the idea to print these things didn’t really think it through. While the likelihood of success using a technique like this is slim, the chance of inflaming the locals even further is much higher. This whole thing seems clumsy and ham-handed, and will almost certainly do more harm than good. I’d love to be proved wrong.
How does threatening villages — even implying that villages will be targeted — comport with McChrystal’s message that mission success is measured by population protection?
For more questions about the “precise synchronization” of McChrystal’s strategy, see Josh Foust in World Politics Review.
Hajra Shannon

Hajra Shannon

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