So this is summer?

Only a short update this morning as I have to shoot away up the road and check out a business opportunity in Otorohanga – hopefully the weather will be better than yesterday!! It is meant to be summer down here…

Yemen – the good oil

There has been much talk recently about the War on Terror shifting its focus down to Yemen however before we go in and bomb and/or invade it, perhaps we might want to make sure:

• Our intel is right this time.

• If we go in, we have a plan for getting out

• We actually understand what it is that we are there to do.

Coming Anarchy has a very interesting background item on the situations (note plural) in Yemen that helps set it in perspective.

One comment states “…What the US really needs to do is avoid relying on the Yemenis and Saudis for identifying persons and groups of interest…” It is way past time that the intel community got back in the saddle to provide the quality analysis and assessment that are so necessary for good decision making. While you would think that this is pretty much ‘common dog’ common sense, recent events like the Flynn intel paper and Steven Pressfield’s establishment of a Tribal Engagement tutorial indicate that this simply isn’t happening at either end of the scale.

Parting shot

For all the furore a couple of years about urban ops being the new war (war amongst the people, yeah, yeah, yeah…), has any one noticed that we are back fighting out in the boonies again…?