Read about the new US Army Human Terrain System, a rubber-meeting-the-road pairing of academic expertise with the military. Can we apply it to Columbia?
Also check out this blog by Marcus Griffin, PhD, who is a participant in this new exciting project.
Eric
Sunday, 19 August 2007
Superbad - go see it.
Superbad . . . McLovin! . . . read this review and go see the movie.
Judd Apatow describes his movies as a combination of "dick and heart". That works as well any description. Like his other recent hit movies, Superbad is marked by its raunchy, sharp male-perspective dialogue, a goofy set of insecure, sympathetic characters, and sensitive depictions of awkward situations. He uses few, if any, antagonists; the challenges to the protagonists are from a perspective of personal development. The stories are about life challenges, not bad guys. There's a sense of decency with more than a touch of sad nostalgia from the 30-something perspective.
I identified a lot with Evan's relationship with Becca, especially his dauntingly built-up idealized fantasy of Becca crashing against her real behavior as a normal teenage girl in their drunken bedroom failed-sex scene. It reminded me a lot of what I went through with Judy, in that sense, but more so with the disconnect between the fantasy of Judy/Us that gripped me so hard for so long and the reality of our actual interaction together. You can sense that Evan's real maturation with romantic relationships will begin at the end of the movie in the mall as he finally deals with Becca as a real person. I hope they hit it off, but it's just as likely that Evan, as he gets to know the real Becca, will find her to be as incompatible with him as Judy was for me. Whether they hit it off or not, it's highly unlikely Becca will match up to his fantasy of her. That's life's learning curve. Not so glorious as the pure fantasies of youth, but it's real and, as you age and life moves on, it's better than the alternative.
Eric
Judd Apatow describes his movies as a combination of "dick and heart". That works as well any description. Like his other recent hit movies, Superbad is marked by its raunchy, sharp male-perspective dialogue, a goofy set of insecure, sympathetic characters, and sensitive depictions of awkward situations. He uses few, if any, antagonists; the challenges to the protagonists are from a perspective of personal development. The stories are about life challenges, not bad guys. There's a sense of decency with more than a touch of sad nostalgia from the 30-something perspective.
I identified a lot with Evan's relationship with Becca, especially his dauntingly built-up idealized fantasy of Becca crashing against her real behavior as a normal teenage girl in their drunken bedroom failed-sex scene. It reminded me a lot of what I went through with Judy, in that sense, but more so with the disconnect between the fantasy of Judy/Us that gripped me so hard for so long and the reality of our actual interaction together. You can sense that Evan's real maturation with romantic relationships will begin at the end of the movie in the mall as he finally deals with Becca as a real person. I hope they hit it off, but it's just as likely that Evan, as he gets to know the real Becca, will find her to be as incompatible with him as Judy was for me. Whether they hit it off or not, it's highly unlikely Becca will match up to his fantasy of her. That's life's learning curve. Not so glorious as the pure fantasies of youth, but it's real and, as you age and life moves on, it's better than the alternative.
Eric
Thursday, 26 July 2007
Colonel H.R. McMaster passed over for BG
COL McMaster passed over for promotion . . . Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over? What an awful message for the young leaders being forged in today's battlefield environment. Men like COL McMaster should be defining the future of the US Army, not passed over for promotion. I also hope that - as the Third Way intimates he is - GEN Petraeus is not being set up for failure in Iraq.
Read the Contrary Peter Principle discussing the COL McMaster issue at the always excellent Small Wars Journal.
Eric
Read the Contrary Peter Principle discussing the COL McMaster issue at the always excellent Small Wars Journal.
Eric
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
Violence works
"Violence works" was Professor Thad Russell's repeated mantra in his history class, "American Civilization after the Civil War" (Spring 2005, Barnard College). His point was about American activist history and that diplomatic means of political advocacy could not match the change wrought by insurgent tactics.
My gut reaction is that the removal of humanitarian people and organizations from places like Afghanistan and Iraq is devastating to the greater political process because they - perhaps more than our military civil affairs and government-based aid/development orgs - embody the positive (progressive) promise of the Western relationship in its most interactive form.
Further, I believe their introduction, relationship-building, and then removal under threat has been more damaging to our mission and empowering to the insurgents than if they had been absent from the beginning. The tactic of targeting "non-combatants" has been repeatedly validated, and more significantly, the gap left by the aid groups' removal has severely undermined the full-spectrum interactions necessary to bring about the so-called "political" solution in the peace-building process.
Read this and despair: YONHAP NEWS: Afghanistan kidnappings keep Korean missionaries from going overseas
Excerpt:
Update: The SMEs at Small Wars Journal assure me that the actual impact by aid groups, such as the Korean missionary group, has been minor to the point of insignificance.
Eric
My gut reaction is that the removal of humanitarian people and organizations from places like Afghanistan and Iraq is devastating to the greater political process because they - perhaps more than our military civil affairs and government-based aid/development orgs - embody the positive (progressive) promise of the Western relationship in its most interactive form.
Further, I believe their introduction, relationship-building, and then removal under threat has been more damaging to our mission and empowering to the insurgents than if they had been absent from the beginning. The tactic of targeting "non-combatants" has been repeatedly validated, and more significantly, the gap left by the aid groups' removal has severely undermined the full-spectrum interactions necessary to bring about the so-called "political" solution in the peace-building process.
Read this and despair: YONHAP NEWS: Afghanistan kidnappings keep Korean missionaries from going overseas
Excerpt:
Rev. Park Eun-jo of Sammul Church in Seongnam, south of Seoul, to which all the hostages belong, said Monday that the church will stop volunteer services unwanted by the Afghan government and is taking steps to pull the remaining volunteers out of the war-torn country. "Some already began preparations to return home," a church official said.
In Afghanistan, volunteer workers affiliated with about 10 nongovernmental organizations were to soon close their medical and educational aid activities and return home. "The South Korean Embassy in Afghanistan sent a public document recommending we immediately leave the country, but we have yet to decide when to leave," a medical aid worker operating in Kandahar told Yonhap News Agency by phone, requesting anonymity.
According to the Middle East Team, a Seoul-based Christian group working to help evangelical missionaries and volunteer workers abroad, seven teams had plans to leave for Afghanistan and other Islamic countries in late July, but three cancelled the planned trips and four postponed trips indefinitely in the wake of the kidnapping.
"They already finished reserving air tickets between April and May, but cancelled or indefinitely postponed their trips after learning about the Taliban's kidnapping of Koreans," said Kim Do-heon, a manager of the group. "We persuaded them to make the decision to cope with a possible recurrence of the kidnapping crisis even if they intended to stay in relatively safer regions."
Four Christian evangelical churches in Seoul and its suburbs also changed their plans to dispatch missionary and volunteer teams composed of 10 to 20 members each to such Middle East countries as Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan, according religious sources.
Update: The SMEs at Small Wars Journal assure me that the actual impact by aid groups, such as the Korean missionary group, has been minor to the point of insignificance.
Eric
Cool Patton (the movie) imitation
First, here is the best overview of the current strategy in Iraq I have seen from the mainstream media: Michael Gordon's US is Seen in Iraq Until 09.
Check out this cool parody on youtube speculating what George C. Scott's Patton might say about the War on Terror:
Compare with the movie speech:
Eric
Check out this cool parody on youtube speculating what George C. Scott's Patton might say about the War on Terror:
Compare with the movie speech:
Eric
Monday, 23 July 2007
The oaths I've taken
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962)
"I, (your name), do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and bear true allegiance to the National Government; that I will maintain and defend the sovereignty of the United States, paramount to any and all allegiance, sovereignty, or fealty I may owe to any State or Country whatsoever; and that I will at all times obey the legal orders of my superior officers, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice." (The Cadet Oath taken upon entering the United States Military Academy)
Eric
"I, (your name), do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and bear true allegiance to the National Government; that I will maintain and defend the sovereignty of the United States, paramount to any and all allegiance, sovereignty, or fealty I may owe to any State or Country whatsoever; and that I will at all times obey the legal orders of my superior officers, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice." (The Cadet Oath taken upon entering the United States Military Academy)
Eric
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