Posted By Marc on March 19, 2010
I am continually amazed at how “muddy” at lot of thinking is these days, and how this is reflected in a lot of the writing that I now read. I find myself yearning for the “Good Old Days”, which existed only in myth, where people would hold sensible conversations in their writing. Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety, but I have noticed a commonality in errors appearing with a greater frequency in the material I now read.
Posted By Marc on March 2, 2010
My friend Jim Cassidy just sent me a link to this presentation. Totally cool, and a fantastic way to show the power of music.
Posted By Marc on February 22, 2010
For the past 4 days, I have been involved in a rather intense discussion over at the Small Wars Council on “What is education?”. One of the truly nice things about the discussion is that it immediately started off at a fairly “high” level – i.e. talking about philosophy and effects of differing systems of education.
Posted By Marc on February 17, 2010
The people in the past used to worship the idols which they used to make with their hands. Nowadays, people worship idols which are more intellectual – like democracy, liberalism, freedom, and so on. So these need to be destroyed as well, and replaced with worshipping and obeying Allah.
(source: Anjem Choudary)
I rarely write about religion, even though I use a lot of religious concepts in my writing. This comment, however, by Anjem Choudary (hat tip to MEMRI), however, has made my blood boil. His comment reminds me of something that H. Beam Piper wrote years ago
“Oh, no, Mykhyl; it will belong to everybody,” Khreggor Chmidd told him earnestly. “But somebody will have to take care of it for everybody. That,” he added complacently, “will be you and me and the rest of us here.”
“I believe,” Yakoop Zhannar said, almost smiling, “that this freedom is going to be a wonderful thing. For us.”
(source: A Slave is a Slave)
Choudary’s “proposals”, which are in keeping with those more modest ones of Johnathon Swift, would have us destroy that which we have spent centuries working for to embrace a vision of social order which even the Prophet Muhammad would have opposed (or has Choudary never heard of the concept of Jihad outside of its irhabi variant?).
He, Choudary, would do well to go back and read, since I am certain that “re-read” would be incorrect, the Revivification of the religious Sciences by Abu Hamid al-Ghazali.
“I believe,” Yakoop Zhannar said, almost smiling, “that this freedom is
going to be a wonderful thing. For us.”
Posted By Marc on February 15, 2010
John Stanton has posted a follow-up piece noting that the kidnapped social scientist, Issa Salomi, was living off base at the time of his abduction. According to John’s sources, this is not unique, and non-approved absences from base are, in some areas, “normal”. While John’s piece gives us more details, a much more damning piece was just published by David Price at Counterpunch (thanks to John for the link!) entitled Human Terrain Systems Dissenter Resigns, Tells Inside Story of Training’s Heart of Darkness.
Posted By Marc on February 9, 2010
The February, 2010 issue of Proceedings (USNI) has a wonderful article in it by MG Robert H. Scales entitled Too Busy to Learn. His basic thesis is that the American military, like its British counterparts during the 19th century, are focused too heavily on the “doing” of professional military practice at the expense of actually studying what they are doing. As he notes,
The evidence is disturbing. Throughout the services officers are avoiding attendance in schools, and school lengths are being shortened. The Army’s full-term staff college is now attended by fewer and fewer officers. The best and brightest are avoiding the war colleges in favor of service in Iraq and Afghanistan. The average age of war college students has increased from 41 to 45, making this institution a preparation for retirement rather than a launching platform for strategic leadership.
Posted By Marc on February 7, 2010
John Stanton has just released a story at Cryptome that Issa T. Salome, a 60 year old HTT member, was kidnapped in Iraq by insurgents in January. John argues that this shows that the HTS is failing to find qualified candidates, train them properly and, then, guard them. Personally, I am not so sure about that given the lack of details surround how the kidnapping took place, but it certainly does highlight that being a member of an HTT is not a secure, restful and relaxing position.
Posted By Marc on February 4, 2010
It’s been a busy, but stimulating, week so far. I just got back from a presentations on Canada’s Evolving Mission in Afghanistan, and I’m preparing to head down to Quantico on Sunday for an interesting workshop next week. This week and, to a lessor degree last week, have been quite synergistic in terms of my thinking about COIN. I’m not really ready to put down any models just yet, but I have been toying with some interesting questions.
Posted By Marc on February 1, 2010
A week ago, I posted about the medium is the message vs. massage and used a couple of YouTube Videos from the Ottawa Back Choir as example. On Saturday, I was over for dinner at an old friend’s house and he showed me one of his favourite YouTube recording artists: Pamplamoose Music. As he showed me some of the videos, I started to understand what I was seeming – a truly brilliant use of the video medium that bypasses some of the sensory limitations.
Posted By Marc on January 29, 2010
Margaret Atwood was recently honoured with a Chrystal Award at the World Economic Forum. The true esteem in which the Arts are held by the WEF, however, was clearly shown in how they handled the acceptance speaches by the various winners: the canceled them.
I really can’t let this go by both as an Anthropologist and as a performing artist.
MM on Pentatonic power
john on Some more (!) HTS news…
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