Reflecting

I watched college kids- apathetic college kids- gather around a television and cheer and cheer today. It was beautiful. Well- I saw them gathered and I heard the cheering because somebody had to man the library! I had to watch the inauguration on BBC because I couldn't get it to stream on C-SPAN, CNN or Fox- which was pretty intense.

I also realized something today- it has been about six months since I've moved here, to "live with" Ranger Man, and (pre-deployment) he's been here about 6 weeks. I haven't yet decided if that's a good ratio or a bad one.

I spent the weekend baking, knitting and reading- altogether not a bad (long) weekend all things considering.

I even took pictures of my Finished Objects from my compulsive Christmas knitting. There are pictures of the socks that are literally three inches longer than my foot. It's kind of funny looking. Someday soon I'll release them from the the confines of Ranger Man's camera and set them free into my flickr account. Right now, there is a cat on my lap so I must go.

Little Blue Diplomacy

Um. Read this.

Newest tool for winning over Afghans? Viagra.

My question: What happens to the rape rate after these 'gifts' are offered? (not, of course, that rape would regularly get reported there anyways...)

There is part of me that truly agrees that commodities such as this are much more effective agents of soft power than cash. This is actually quite a large part of me. You can't possibly finance (or arm with hard weapons) anything bad, and the connection you make is probably much more personal and real with your asset. However... at what cost does encouraging dirty old men to have more sex? How appreciative are their four wives, and are they sticking to only their wives?

Does doling out viagra inadvertently lead to an Afghanistan where women become even more oppressed?



And about the other stuff- I still don't want to talk about it. At least the internet router is turned back on in this house and I can connect to the outside world again.

Secession.

Secession? People are talking about secession? Is it bad that reading that article kind of made me giggle?

For the record: I live in Georgia, and I haven't heard anyone talk about secession. But- I also stay out of the 'country' parts of town (not really sure where they are, but I stay away none the less).

But then I was thinking: What if it's not just MSM crazy over-reacting yellow reporting? Theoretically, what would secession look like in 2009? And how on earth would I avoid it and get back to the land of the Yankee? What would they do with all the soldiers on post? Would every single member of the US Armed forces stationed south of the Mason-Dixon (or its 2009 equivalent) line be moved North of the line? Logistically, how is the possible? Do they know how long that would take?

Apparently I've been a little too engrossed with schoolwork lately, because once I actually started thinking about that, it was quite an interesting proposition. Silly and giggle-prompting yes, but still interesting.

This is NEWS?

Reporting something in the news should mean that that 'thing' or newsitem is newsworthy. There are a few checks on the newsworthy checklist, but basically it should be new and relevant information. NEW information. Something that people don't already know. Something that people shouldn't already know.

Seriously?

No kidding. You think? This AP writer could possibly up for the duh of the year award.

NO KIDDING the Taliban and AQ weren't on good terms before we started bombing.
NO KIDDING said bombing strengthened a bond that had previously been tenuous at best and really only tolerated due to convenience.

There is no freaking way that this should be presented as novel information.

(Can you tell I'm a little riled up about this? Come ON people- get a clue! Do some research about what is actually going on!)

The very worst part.

Okay- yes. It is appalling that John Edwards had an affair. yadda yadda yadda. Keep it in your pants, poor Elizabeth etc. Don't lie... got it.

The worst part about the whole thing?

"They" are printing the name of the CHILD he says he did not father.

What happens when this poor kid grows up and googles herself? The first thing she's going to see is this crap. That is absolutely uncalled for. The name of the baby, until it is proven to be his, should be privileged information. They won't print rape victims names (and um, that is the story) and thereby perpetuate victim stigma... but they can release the name of an innocent child who did nothing but be born? The child is not the story- the story is that poor choices were made- lots of them. This child has nothing to do with that and does not deserve to be immortalized in this way by the press. That's the really trashy part of this whole thing, if you ask me.

Link to: Yahoo story, NY Times Story I got too nauseous to keep looking after that.

On being female and a blogger.

But can't blogging be anonymous? No one can see anything you don't put on your blog. If you feel like you're not going to be taken seriously because you're female, make your blog gender-neutral for crying out loud.
If you're going to write a blog in which you intentionally write about being a woman... be prepared to face the consequences. Those consequences are that your experiences, at best, are only able to relate to half the population.

This is not the same as someone looking at me, seeing my blonde hair and dismissing my intelligence. The internet is the one place that doesn't apply to. Gr. I am mostly a feminist, but seriously? For some reason this just rubbed me the wrong way.

A couple hours later...

Let me edit this and explain myself a little more clearly.

If you have a "mommyblog" you should expect to be taken seriously by a niche audience only.

If you are trying to have a competitive political blog- you should be savvy enough to know that being a woman is going to be a bit of a turn off and not broadcast that until after you've gained credibility. You should know that. It may not be right, it may not be PC- but that's the way it is. And if this recent political season has taught us anything- it's taught us that gender still matters. I do think that it would be interesting to see if there are similar issues regarding bloggers of different races- and why not. I agree- it shouldn't matter what one's gender is when commenting on politics, for the most part. If that's the case, then be gender neutral for crying out loud, don't complain when people see female and discredit it because that's a fact of life. Gain credibility without gender and then gender can be revealed. I'm all about the sucker punch.

Very Interesting.

Good piece here from the LA Times.

I don't know if I ever explicitly stated this, so I'll do it now. For the last year, while on the Island, I was getting my MA with a number of military personnel doing the same thing. These were officers who had "been there and done that" and their respective branches sent them to school for some PME to advance their careers.

Now that I've been outed on milblogging.com, I figure I have no reason to be super-secretive about it anymore, although I'm definitely not giving any identifying information about any of the other students in my classes.

One of the classes that has been the most useful was a COIN class I took this last spring. In this class were a couple of SF officers, a logistician, a former NG member, an (I think) regular Army artillery guy and the list goes on. There were also civilians like myself. All but the NG guy were officers.

I say this all not to laundry list my contacts from class, but to show the range of viewpoints that existed there. The topic of this article came up multiple times in that class (as well as in other classes, to differing degrees). Granted this was a COIN class so our focus was definitely in that direction- but while we agreed that ignoring the possibility of a conventional war was not wise, reverting to post-Vietnam when the US decided that we weren't going to engage in any more COIN operations was equally unwise. There are compelling arguments for future conflicts being both directions- and really- should we forget that we are actually fighting insurgents? Knowing that young American men and women are getting on planes every day to go fight the insurgents, don't we want to equip and train them the absolute best that we can in helping them to come back to their families?

My thoughts are these:
Yes, there are conventional threats. No doubt about it. But we also have numerical and equipment superiority over any of those threats. That means that they won't come to fruition any time soon.

There are unconventional threats right now. Ignoring AQ, hezbollah and hamas is, as far as I'm concerned, tantamount to letting the enemy fight the "War of National Survival" that is talked about in the article without responding.

Those who would fight a conventional war are not doing so because they are actors with a degree of rationality- i.e., survival is a priority for them.

For other organizations such as those mentioned above, rationality is (granted, from our prospective) more um... fluid. Survival may be an overarching end goal- but it is not a priority. If everything is destroyed in the attempt to wipe out the infidel then the virgins just come faster for the martyrs. Fighting an enemy who does not fear death and does not value life in the same way we do is really scary and it can't be overlooked as a national security goal.

So what do I think about the article? Assuming that the research wasn't biased- I think they did a decent job covering both sides of the issue, although I'm not convinced that the bias isn't more pronounced than it should be. Meaning, I'm not convinced that the majority of officers really feel this way. But I could be wrong. I sometimes am.

Wow.

I realize that by reading this blog it is not readily apparent, but actually a large part of my academic studies has been on the phenomena of blogging- milblogging specifically.

As an undergrad, I was in journalism school and trying to reconcile the ideas that milbloggers are some of the only true ways to get reliable information about contemporary warfighting with the fact that my professors were telling me that bloggers were bad sources. In grad school, one of my first papers was on the historiography of milblogs.

Enter this article from the NY Times.

I'm not sure if they're more about (a) a Supreme Court Justice mistaking law fact (but really, I don't believe they are truly expected to know UCMJ law- even though it would certainly be applicable in this case) (b) none of the other briefs filed mentioned this (c) no major MSM news outlet caught the mistake (d) Child rape has in fact been an executable crime and in practice, not just theory or (e) that the one to break the story was a blogger.

I don't know what the "punchline" of the story is. I think that is is certainly admirable that they are finally doing their homework and consulting reliable blogs, and it has been a long time coming. It is just really interesting and you can bet that I will be seeing if this trend continues...

Lt Murphy

I have had my parents buy me current copies of the NY Times to send to me both today and yesterday to see if maybe- just maybe they didn't drop the ball so badly on this one? (And partly because this is a great case study for my ethics class) Nothing on their web site, you'd think they'd have to print something, right? Anyone know? If only people on this Island read the Times- I haven't seen a current edition in about two weeks!

Thank Goodness!

It seems that the democrats on Capitol Hill have finally realized that maybe now might not be the best time to alienate Turkey.
Yes- The Atrocities that occurred should rightfully be classified as genocide, according to historians, however... now is not the time to lose Turkey as an ally.

Marines to A-Stan, Soldiers to Iraq?

Check out this article from the NY Times.

Move all Marines to A-Stan and Army to Iraq? That is really interesting. Send the marines to the place where they're assured funding, relegate the Army to the unpopular - but bigger - war... hm. It sounds like it's a real, honest to goodness serious proposal? I have no sources at the Pentagon to confirm or deny, but I sure as heck wish I did right now.

The implications would be pretty incredible. I mean, think about how many more KIAs are in Iraq than A-Stan... Could it go so far as to backslide to Vietnam era stereotypes? Is it possible that the only thing keeping the "support the troops" mantra going for the left is Afghanistan? And if so, if you could distinguish between the troops doing what is perceived as good things- in A-Stan from the "bad war" soldiers in Iraq, would admitting you were a soldier lead to people calling you a baby killer or spitting on you?

Maybe it's taking things to the extreme, but maybe not. Truly, maybe not. Also, is there enough infantry in the Army trained in counter insurgency/urban warfare to do the same work as the Marines are doing? I'm not trying to pass judgment on one branch or the other, but the Marines have been a small war machine since their inception, while the Army is arguably still trying to make that transition.

So, I guess for those reasons, I have a hard time believing that this is a real honest to goodness being considered option at the Pentagon. but, what do I know?

Atkinson - IED alert

Rick Atkinson at the Washington Post is one of my favorite traditional media embeds- I have admired his objectivity. He wrote a feature, being published in a series starting today, about IEDs in Iraq, Afghanistan, and historically (which I thought was pretty cool). It is definitely worth checking out the reading- partly because it supports an awesome job by a reporter, which means that maybe the MSM will start realizing that bias is NOT a good thing, and also because there is a lot of information in the writing.

"Non-Citizen Soldiers" etc. - WashPo

The Washington Post had an awesome opinion piece today... Definitely worth a read. Totally valid point- and a good illustration of politics getting in the way of a really great idea. Politics can be okay sometimes, but in this case the conservative agenda is harming the country.

Also this one... food for thought. Something that isn't illuminated very often, but there are a great deal of our servicemembers that don't see combat, while others see way too much. Thus is the nature of different types of jobs - the military has them just like every other industry has them!

Ugh, Sean Penn

Mr. Watada, seriously... it is shameful enough to shirk your own duty, and then to promote a spectacle outside post? I am so glad the true bridge people of Fort Lewis made a counter-protest, they are my heroes for today! I no longer have any stomach for Sean Penn films...