Thank you.
General, I was reading this morning with a great deal of interest Jeffrey Simpson's piece in The Globe and Mail. I don't know whether you had a chance to see that. What he's talking about are the rules around counter-insurgency. He's citing David Galula, the great French counter-insurgency expert. Jeff Simpson says that this expert listed five rules for success against insurgents, and that it would appear that none are being used by Canadians and other NATO forces in southern Afghanistan.
The rules are these: do not divide the military-civilian command; put a civilian in control of the overall operation; since counter-insurgency is ultimately a political affair, try to avoid large-scale conventional military force in response; and above all, remember that the target is the support of the local population--which is what you've alluded to in terms of the hearts and minds situation.
First of all, is it important to follow those rules? Jeffrey Simpson thinks they should be followed. I'm just asking your opinion without actually making a comment on them. I just want to know from an expert whether or not those are important rules, and if they are, are we following them? If we're following them, are we following them adequately?