Advisors

In the next 2 weeks or so -- Great Satan's Command Cat in AfPAKland will be reassessing a reassessment of the war against Taliban and the au currant Xformation of the shaky relationship between Great Satan, her allies and Afghan civilians as troops press a counterinsurgency strategy of clearing and holding populated areas.

Laura @ FoPo Online has the 411 on who all is advising General McChrystal.

Fred Kagan and his wife Kimberly Kagan of Iraq's Surge fame, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations


"Other members of the McChrystal assessment team, in addition to the two Kagans, Cordesman, and Biddle, include:

"Andrew Exum, a former Army Ranger, counterinsurgency expert, and blogger at the Center for a New American Security

"Jeremy Shapiro, a civil-military relations analyst at the Brookings Institution

"Terry Kelly, a senior researcher at the Rand Corporation

"Catherine Dale of the Congressional Research Service

"Etienne de Durand of the Institut Français des Relations Internationales in Paris

"Luis Peral of the European Union's Institute for Strategic Studies

"Whitney Kassel of the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense

"Lt. Col. Aaron Prupas, a U.S. Air Force officer at Centcom

"The director/coordinator of the team was Col. Chris Kolenda. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has described Kolenda as "something of an amateur ethnologist" and a "key" Pentagon strategist for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ignatius says the young lieutenant colonel gave an "unforgettable briefing" on the local tribes in his corner of northeastern Afghanistan back in 2008. Kolenda was assisted by U.S. Army Col. Danial Pick. "

Pic - "GsGf's Assistant Military Advisor"