Blind Quote by H. R. McMaster

“When we came to Iraq, we didn't understand the complexity - what it meant for a society to live under a brutal dictatorship with ethnic and sectarian divisions. When we first got here, we made a lot of mistakes. We were like a blind man, trying to do the right thing but breaking a lot of things.”

H. R. McMaster

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Blind Blind man Dictatorship Failure Mistakes Right thing Society

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Much of the conventional wisdom associated with Vietnam was highly inaccurate. Far from an inevitable result of the imperative to contain communism, the war…

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We confuse activity with progress, and that's always dangerous, especially in war.

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What is certain about the future is that even the best efforts to predict the conditions of future war will prove erroneous. What is…

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We often operate effectively on the physical battleground but not on the psychological battleground. We fail to communicate our resolve.

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Consequences of linear thinking in Afghanistan and Iraq included overestimating indigenous forces' capabilities, underestimating the enemy, and the associated expectation that the coalition could…

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The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or…

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Bombing, particularly from the perspective of the receiving end, is not 'communication.' Bombs result in death and destruction.

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I think any of us who have been involved in the mission of Iraq have developed a great deal of affection for the Iraqi…

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Muslims who commit terrorist acts are perverting their religion.

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Because war is a competition involving life and death, and in which national security and vital interests are at stake, establishing an objective other…

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What we can afford least is to define the problem of future war as we would like it to be and, by doing so,…

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Offensive operations and hunting down the enemy is an integral part of any counterinsurgency approach.

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Explore all 40 H. R. McMaster quotes

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