Let Them Fight Or Bring Them Home

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As everyone that is keeping up with the war in Afghanistan knows there is a huge discussion regarding COIN and ROE taking place.

The link I've provided here tonight is one very important side of that discussion. The comments below the letter posted on Let Them Fight Or Bring Them Home are worth reading also.

I will be adding other links as I go along to support the other side of the discussion please feel free to read and then comment...

The Letter that started everything...

Posted by

John J Bernard
1stSgt USMC ret
Owner of Let Them Fight Or Bring Them Home
Father of Lance Corporal Josh Bernard, age 21 years,
killed in action in Afghanistan on August 15th
while serving as a rifleman
with Golf Company Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines.
Josh was on his second combat tour....

So many of you have been so kind throughout all of this. When the AP release hit the net today I realized that most everyone who has been tracking the progress of this effort have never seen the original letter I wrote to our delegation in DC. The issue was important then and even more so today. Since then, dozens of men have died staying in compliance with the current COIN strategy and its ROE; including my Son.

Click on link to find the letter that started it all...


http://letthemfight.blogspot.com/2009/10/letter-that-started-everything.html

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“A Marine, His Family, and One Gruesome Photograph”

By Jim Bennett

On Aug. 14, as his patrol was readying for a rumored Taliban ambush in Dahaneh, Afghanistan, Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, just 21, was on point. The ambush erupted and a rocket-propelled grenade blew one of Joshua’s legs off, leaving the other leg severely injured. His comrades struggled with tourniquets and battlefield first aid while still under heavy enemy fire, but sadly, for this young, mortally wounded Marine, this attack would mean the end of his life a short time later.

For his comrades, this attack was a moment of sheer desperation as they tried to drag Bernard to safety. And for his parents, John and Sharon Bernard, back home in New Portland, Maine, this attack would come to mean the loss of their only son.

But for embedded photojournalist Julie Jacobson and her bosses at the Associated Press, this attack was a Kodak Moment. Jacobson captured a vivid and dramatic photograph of the scene: Bernard’s gruesome wound is shown in all its bloody detail, and his young face, sickly pale and blank with shock, is haunting. The article that Jacobson and AP reporter Alfred de Montesquiou filed stated that, as that young man was exsanguinating, the photographer “wrestled” with a “question”: Should she try to help save Joshua, or should she keep taking pictures?

follow link to continue reading:

http://thebloviatinghammerhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/mainstream-media-outrage-ap-exploits-marines-death-ignores-familys-anguish/

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No Excuse: Marines Losing Legs in Now Zad

BY Herschel Smith
3 months, 3 weeks ago

In What Now Zad Can Teach Us About Counterinsurgency The Captain’s Journal ridiculed the decision-making for the campaign in Helmand and found the idea incredulous that the U.S. Marines in Now Zad would be under-resourced. They need more troops, as we have pointed out, and major combat action continues against Taliban fighters. These Taliban, it must be understood, have given us the opportunity for which we pray. They have separated themselves from the population and given us unhindered access to kill them. But the population-centric counterinsurgency advocates (we consider this to be similar to a cult) lament the fact that there is no population to woe and win, and so the campaign in Now Zad sees the Marines without enough troops.

Now Zad remains so dangerous that this is the only Marine unit in Afghanistan that brings along two trauma doctors, as well as two armored vehicles used as ambulances and supplies of fresh blood.

Please follow this link to the read the complete report:

http://www.captainsjournal.com/2009/07/07/no-excuse-marines-losing-legs-in-now-zad/

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Let Them Fight Or Bring Them Home.

YouTube - Afghanistan War, President Obama,...

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Produced by the Warrior Legacy Foundation:


http://www.warriorlegacyfoundation.org/?page=WLI



Primer on Counterinsurgency:

YouTube - Population-Centric Counterinsurgency...

Primer on Counterterrorism:

YouTube - Counterterrorism Primer

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Counterinsurgency Primer PDF Format:

http://www.warriorlegacyfoundation.org/resource/resmgr/wli_material/population-centric_coin_prim.pdf


Counterterrorism Primer PDF Format:

http://www.warriorlegacyfoundation.org/resource/resmgr/wli_material/pak.pdf

Both primers were produced by the Warrior Legacy Foundation:

http://www.warriorlegacyfoundation.org/?page=WLI