Go read "Counterinsurgency Warfare" by David Galula - this book was written more than 40 years ago.
General Petraeus deserves credit for implementing real counterinsurgency strategies/tactics - unlike the bumbling idiots in the Bush administration - but he was not the original theorist behind the strategy.
I think you will see in one of my earlier comments... that I made the exact same point. Gen. Petraeus' wisdom is actually ancient knowledge.
Ancient knowledge is often forgotten, and rediscovered in this fashion.
It just kind of grates on me the way we lionize people for doing what is right, or what should be expected. There were dozens of analysts, reports etc that were written way before we ever bungled into Iraq about what we would need to do when we invaded. There are probably countless colonels, sergeants and other mid level officers who knew this was what was required way before Gen. Petraeus became a star.
