Tim Lynch, the Afghanistan country manager fo r World Security Initiatives, chimes in with his assessment of the differences between Bill Roggio's and Barry McCaffrey's, information-gathering techniques:
Excellent post and a most accurate analysis of the widely divergent views of Bill Roggio and Gen McCaffrey. I hosted Bill during his stay in Kabul and have been in Afghanistan for the past 18 months. I agree with Bill’s assessment and thus have no idea what the good General was talking about. I did not have much of a clue what he was talking about when he was active duty and during his drug warrior years either so no surprise there. As a guy who makes his living providing security assessments to NGO and other business’s operating throughout Afghanistan I can tell you that Bill’s take on things is spot on. That is probably due to the fact that Bill actually embeds and lives the local experience. The good General flies in on private air and stays at the Serena – the only times he sees the real Afghanistan is when his convoy of armored SUV’s slows down on the way to and from the airport. Easy to get fooled when you live that way and as a former grunt McCaffrey should know better.
Lest you think that Tim is an Afghanistan equivalent of the mythical Green-Zone-Dweller, he gets out a lot himself, as this post from Roggio shows.
