He did discuss COIN principles, which begin with "securing and serving the people." Not the American people, mind you; but local populations within and of the Islamic world. It is the disastrous vacuousness of COIN doctrine that it ignores the existence of Islamic culture, Islamic law, as I've written many, many times, but it is the disastrous vacuousness of COIN doctrine that now, by the general's telling, influences all US military thinking. Worse than thinking, however, is how COIN doctrine manifests itself in unconscionable rules of engagement predicated on "courageous restraint" as a means, COIN theory goes, to make them...
