The curriculum, according to three American military tactics instructors who reviewed its contents, was suited more for creating a ground combatant than an international terrorist.
I will say that, as a ground combatant, I felt the air battle was more or less separate from the ground one, and a couple guys with SAMs can keep things even if your pilots aren't the best.
In its original missions, United Nations troops were likely to be the first force on the ground, after combatants had agreed to step back.
This "engrossing account" of the campaign relies on the "vivid, at times powerful" recollections of ground-level combatants, Ronald H. Spector said here last year.
But after his release he renounced violence and founded a ground-breaking group, Combatants for Peace, that united former Palestinian militants and Israeli ex-soldiers in a campaign for an end to the conflict.
Mr Brahimi has taken pains to lower expectations unsurprisingly, since on the ground Syria's combatants are locked in a bloody death grip, determined to fight to the end.
His desire to end civilian suffering is powerful, but he has no sway over what happens on the ground – where the combatants show no signs of halting the slaughter.
A policy expert, he goes into considerable detail about each issue and tries to identify common ground between the ideological combatants.
Northern Mali has long become a rear base for drug traffickers, al-Qaeda fighters and other Islamist combatants sharing ground with Tuareg rebels.
With few exceptions, each chapter follows a similar pattern: a summary of the biological facts followed by a survey of the combatants' common ground and the point of departure taken by one from the other.
