Victor Vescovo

We basically put the population on reservations.

The cavalry hunted down the warriors.

And we had an institution, the United States government, that could take over and endure.

Those are the conditions you need.

And if you look back at the counterinsurgencies, you fought in, your friends fought in.

The political and high-level leadership of this country did not accept what I believe are the four critical conditions to win a counterinsurgency.

And we will continue to lose unless we do.

I did it from the Intel side.

We were tracking HVTs, high value targets.

And just like you guys in the field, I know I was a real echelon jerk, but we could see it from a higher level saying, what are you guys doing?

These guys are risking their lives, getting up at dawn to go take down hard targets.

They're just going to regenerate.

How are we solving the root cause of this problem?

And oh, by the way, if we ever leave, it'll collapse in weeks because these institutions are non-existent.

We all saw it at the middle level.

But no one paid attention.

Everybody was just go along to get along.

Let me get my next promotion.

Let me get out of this billet.

And it just continued and continued and continued.