Andrew Exum has lunched with Gen. George Casey, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, and came away with interesting stuff, such as:
Gen. Casey said repeatedly — and stressed repeatedly that this was his own estimate and not policy — that he thought the U.S. Army would be engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan for at least the next decade.
Incidentally, it turns out the little wanker¹ Ralph Peters was also in attendance and, true to form, ventured to ask Casey whether he thinks COIN is causing younger officers to “lose their killer instinct.” Jeez, is there no place safe from this menace?
¹ Try as I might, I haven’t been able to come up with a better epithet for a guy who advocates the killing of journalists on the battlefield. ‘Crazy man’, for example, would bestow upon him an aura of creative wildness he doesn’t deserve.
How about “psychopath?” Or “wanton berserker?”
I mean, there are options.
‘Twat’. I like the sound of that. The Brits have some other good ones, too. ‘Stupid git’ is one of my favourites. Or how about ‘ponce’?