The Hunt Doctrine

Below is a list of what U.S. Army Colonel (Ret.) David Hunt in his 2007 book On The Hunt. How to Wake Up Washington and Win The War on Terror thinks is the best way to run the war on terror:

• No soldier shall ever use, fly in, sit on, or ride in any vehicle or weapon that is older than he is.
• Only competent--that means proven competent--combat leaders get to lead soldiers in combat.
• When you are in an fight. . . kill them all.
• Never ask permission in combat.
• Never commit a soldier to combat you are not willing and capable of supporting 100 percent with everything he needs.
• Never give an order or mission you are not willing to do yourself.
• Always go with your men into the fight.
• As long as you care only about your soldiers and the mission, you can do anything.
• Once committed, the government tells only the truth to the American people when soldiers are in combat.
• Admit when you are wrong.
• It's intelligence, stupid; without it you die.
• The Air Force never runs a war.
• Never care who gets credit, just get it done.
• Love your soldiers enough to hurt them in training.
• Make training harder than combat.
• Make people do their jobs.
• When our troops f-ck up, punish and move on.
• Hold the highest accountable, just like the lowest.
• Keeping the peace is always harder than winning the war.
• When the order is stupid, say so, and don’t obey it.
• Your boss is only your boss; he is not always right.
• Administrative courage (standing up to the boss, telling the truth to the powerful) is more difficult than physical courage.

Most of doctrine is just common sense. He is referring to military commanders and the defense secretary mostly. A person in a blog said he disagreed with the first point. He said there are "B-52s in service now that are over 40 years old, but they’ve been retrofitted with new electronics and other gear and they’re perfectly good to use for dropping tons of bombs or missiles on bad guys." Disobeying stupid orders does sound like good advice, but first you have to recognize a stupid order. If you are in a combat situation you better be sure the order is stupid or not before you disobey it. It's a matter of having faith in your commander that he can do the job.

In his book, the Colonel says we should have shot the looters in Iraq in the beginning. Then put a sign in Arabic that says "American troops will shoot looters." A good idea, but the American press would have put headlines saying "American troops are murdering civilians." Then again the military commanders including the president has to ignore what the press reports on the war. Just win the war. Col. Hunt also said it was a dumb idea to disband the Iraqi army and the entire police force in the beginning. Yea, probably not a good idea. They could have gotten the looters under control and gave stability to the country.

This is very good book that every person in Congress and every presidential candidate should read. We (America and the Western world) have to get serious about this war because the militant jihadists are deadly serious about it.