The Army is so often criticized for not responding quick enough and then questioning why no one is paying attention when they issue a response well after everyone stopping talking about it.
Not this time.
Lt. Col. David Flynn, the commander of the Combined Joint Task Force 1-320th in Kandahar Province, responded immediately to critiques of his tactics in his AO. The critic is Joshua Foust, who blogs on Registan.net. He ripped the Army lieutenant colonel for arming a militia in southern Afghanistan and his decision to destroy the town of Tarok Kolache, which the Army says was empty and riddled with improvised explosive devices.
Flynn caught wind of Foust’s commentary and relayed his response on Ricks’ blog, The Best Defense, via Paula Broadwell, a correspondent on the blog and research associate at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership. Click here to read what Flynn had to say. And here is the blogger’s response to Flynn’s response.
Like Ricks, I have to commend the lieutenant colonel to responding so quickly and adding his views into the debate in a timely manner. Here’s hoping the PAO world is paying attention.
