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Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! February 14, 2009 Strategic Marketing Error?By GreyhawkWhat Daily Show viewers learned about the surge, strategy, and COIN: Stewart: What they came up with was a plan that almost seems brilliant in its simplicity: "Let's not torture them anymore. Why don't we treat them with a modicum of some decency and see what that does. And give them money and see what that does." And it seems to have paid dividends. Ricks: I was sitting in Petraeus' office one day in Iraq and I said essentially that. And he began singing Aretha Franklin, r-e-s-p-e-c-t, find out what it means to the Iraqis. - end excerpt - So, we used to torture them, and we switched to paying them money instead, and that worked. Okay, good for a chuckle from the audience, but post-chuckles there was a brief opportunity for a 30-second explanation of COIN 101 and what the surge was all about (then quickly back to the funny) but it was missed. Instead we got 30 seconds of assurances that all that was done without Bush knowing about it. I know - comedy show, mass audience, looking for laughs. But I still think 'missed opportunity'. There are intelligent people who watch the Daily Show, and if you're going to promote your (presumably) intelligent book there it seems it would pay to pique their interest rather than play to their preconceived notions and prejudices. After the chuckling a simple "well John, there's much more to it than that - in fact it's a pretty amazing story, that's why I wrote it" might have been all it took - but that assurance never came. I haven't read Ricks' book yet, but if it could be summed up as "we used to torture them then we started giving them money instead but we had to do it behind Bush's back" then I don't need to - it's wrong and stupid and insulting to those of us who executed the surge. I don't think that description fits Ricks' book. At least, I didn't before I saw this. Posted by Greyhawk / February 14, 2009 11:42 AM | Permalink 6 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
![]() Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com ![]() Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
I'm very glad that Stewart would have this guy on and treat him with respect. But I had to wonder about some of his reactions: whether he believed what he was saying or if he was just going for a cheap laugh (I realize that is what he does for a living). He seemed surprised that American soldiers read serious books. My sense from reading things by and about our present crop of soldiers is that they are more educated and literate than the average citizen. He was surprised that Petraeus sings R&B music. But I was most surprised someone as knowledgeable as Stewart was surprised that George Bush is results oriented. It seems that Stewart is so dedicated to his ugly and unrealistic prejudice that he apparently is constitutionally incapable of looking at Bush with anything approaching objectivity. He is incapable of anything but hate and cheap, formulaic humor.
I saw this, and was disappointed in Ricks. He was pandering to the hardcore Jon Stewart (aka Leibowitz) crowd. Especially resented the quip about all those military officers who run around asking for his autograph on their personal copies of "Fiasco". Oh yeah, everyone thought it was a total disaster over there, and agreed with everything I wrote! Right. We can't discuss Bush, Iraq or military themes without the knowing, sardonic smirk of disgust, can we.
Not that I think it might not be at least partially true. One of the most disgusting aspects of this new warrior/COIN/scholar breed is the inclination to pander to the eastern academic and media lefty mindset, the perceived "intelligent" end of the spectrum. "Sure, I'm in uniform, but i'm really not one of 'them'."
Oh well, a flawed hero is still a hero.
FWIW: I did see one copy of "Fiasco" while I was in Iraq, and it was in the possession of an Army Officer. I didn't mention it, didn't ask him about it, and forgot about it, though I was very inclined to ask I was otherwise engaged at the time and never followed up.
My own reading in Iraq - when I had time to read for pleasure (and I did) tended to be more escapist in nature.
Okay - a bit off topic here, but I just walked over and scanned my shelf of military-related books because I remembered reading at least one in Baghdad but I couldn't recall which.
It was 'Thieves of Baghdad' by Col Matthew Bogdanos, and it told the story of the "looting" of the Baghdad museum in the early days of the war. That story is a great example of the horrible job the media did of covering the war in the early days (Jessica Lynch is another) - setting a standard of incompetence that they subsequently never tired of exceeding.
Great.
This is why I consider it an insult when people ask me if I watch the Daily Show.
I caught an interview of some guy hawking his new book on the (I believe) Bill Bennett morning show the other day. He explained the surge to Bill Bennett in the same way he explained it to John Stewart. Saying that the surge was really just about paying off the enemy to stop killing us. And he also stated that we didn't solve anything, because the political aspect has not been solved, despite the lack of violence and that most military leaders in Iraq are frustrated with the Iraqis and that we're probably going to be in Iraq with at least 35,000 troops until after Obama's 8 years are done.
After hearing that and no tribute given to the troops or President Bush and GEN Petraeus, I turned the station without bothering to hear the book title or the guy saying everything.
After reading this post, I have no doubt it was this same guy.