Reason at the Navy War College

There are some right minds in the military talking sense to future senior officers. Just check out what Odysseus at TPMCafe turned me on to.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson speaking at the College layed out enough wise nuggets to fill an entire article. I'm quoting many. Check out the many others.

“The center of gravity, the decisive terrain in this war is the vast majority of people who are not directly involved but whose support, willing or coerced, is necessary to insurgent operations around the world,” he said. “Hearts and minds are more important than capturing and killing people.”

“We don’t have enough ammunition to kill all the terrorists that the enemy can run at us,” Gregson said. “We have to start working on the population from which the terrorist foot soldiers are recruited.”

“We have a chance to start winning this war here and walk it back into the Middle East, but we can’t just continue to admire the problem,” Gregson said. “We have to start doing something and we have to start walking the propaganda back in the other direction and get ourselves on the right side of this issue.”

Providing doctors, engineers, dentists, veterinarians and other aid to enhance the lives of people living in very troubled parts of the world is “often far more important than projecting some type of force,” Gregson said.

Michael Vlahos of Johns Hopkins University added some common sense of his own to the mix. Read it all. I found it at least somewhat encouraging.