Allen January 14th, 2004
Proteus is getting ready to post Eject! Eject! Eject!: THE SLEEP OF THE JACKSONIANS (AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT).
I normally don’t write about someone saying they are going to write something, but I’ve always been impressed with his posts.
So stay tuned and see what comes up.
Allen January 9th, 2004
The Association of Computing Machinery (a professional society to which I belong) has a new paper and electronic magazine called
ACM Queue.
The About Queue page states that the magazine seeks to serve “young practitioners” and “practitioners who have planning responsibilites” — quite a diverese group. And how do they serve such a group?
ACM Queue responds to that need not by drumming up support for one particular approach or another, but by intelligently assessing the challenges expected to arise in the near term as emerging capabilities or technologies gain widespread acceptance — laying out the choices that software engineers and developers are likely to face and spelling out exactly what it is that will ride on those choices. This goes well beyond identifying future trends. Any publication can do that and many often do — albeit only sporadically. ACM Queue’s mission is to probe deeper to determine where coming capabilities are likely to live up to their promises and where they’re liable to fall short. And besides reviewing the benefits these new technologies seem to offer, we’ll also consider the disruptive impact they’re likely to have and look at how the problems they spawn are apt to touch people throughout the entire computing community.
They appear to have an RSS feed as well, so I’m feeding it to my FeedDemon.
Allen January 5th, 2004
Enough handwringing is going on in Soonerland that I have little to add to the analysis. Poor utilization of the run and White’s laser-like focus on his primary receiver, a fault he tends to have under pressure, will be discussed ad naseum. So this is my one and only post regarding the bowl games and the season.
Just some passing thoughts, in no particular order.
Allen January 5th, 2004
Paid subscription probably required.
Mr. Kaplan examines how our fight in Afghanistan has devolved into a fortress mentality. Quoting from the article:
Of the roughly 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan, only a fraction of them are doing anything directly pivotal to the stabilization of the country. The rest are either part of a long support tail or part of newly-created layers of command at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, which micro-manage and complicate the work of a relatively small number of Army SF troops (Green Berets) located at various “fire bases.”
Instead of powering-down to a flattened hierarchy of small, autonomous units dispersed over a wide area — what the 1940 U.S. Marine “Small Wars Manual” recommends for fighting a guerrilla insurgency — the Americans have barricaded themselves into a mammoth, Cold War-style base at Bagram that drains resources from the fire bases. It is ironic that just as the Pentagon is proposing a more light and lethal world-wide basing posture (with many smaller footprints rather than a few large ones in Korea and Europe), in Afghanistan, whose mountains and tribes make it the most unconventional of battlefields, the U.S. has reverted to such an antiquated arrangement.
Half of the U.S. soldiery in Afghanistan is garrisoned at Bagram…
The problem, from how I see it, is human nature. Which would you rather do? Slog around in the dust and dirt searching for targets or sit in an air-conditioned office and approve someone else slogging around?
Thankfully there are those who make the commitment to be on the front-line. Those is in support should remember they are just that, support.
Further in the article, Mr. Kaplan states:
The search for HVTs (high value targets) such as bin Laden has not been similarly compromised. That is because the various “Delta” and other “black” Special Ops elements hunting down the HVTs have air support at near the battalion level. These commandos operate more like 5th Group did in 2001, cut loose from Bagram’s and the Pentagon’s dinosaurian organizational structure — in the manner of the most innovative corporations, which are deliberately kept weak at the center.
But even the search for HVTs is hurt by the overly regulated approach of hunting down the MVTs and LVTs (Low Value Targets). For it is the hunt for MVTs that constitutes the real bread and butter in the War on Terrorism. If the hunt for MVTs remains snarled in bureaucracy, the MVTs will fill the positions of any HVTs who happen to be killed or apprehended. More importantly, MVTs hold the key to capturing the HVTs. It’s the subway turnstile phenomenon. When New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani began arresting kids for jumping turnstiles, a percentage of them turned out to be wanted for more serious crimes, or they had information on those who were. To wit, it was MVTs who proved crucial in the capture of Saddam. Thus, the U.S. needs to be capturing more MVTs. It can only do that by giving Army SF the same autonomy and air support that Delta has.
Our efforts in Afghanistan (and by extension Pakistan) will have smaller and smaller returns if we continue to allow the support personnel to run the show.
The article finishes with a review of what is happening in the Philippines in 2002. We are doing there what we should be doing in the Pashtun region — letting the frontline soldiers do their work.
Allen January 5th, 2004
Paid subscription probably required.
Mr. Kaplan examines how our fight in Afghanistan has devolved into a fortress mentality. Quoting from the article:
Of the roughly 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan, only a fraction of them are doing anything directly pivotal to the stabilization of the country. The rest are either part of a long support tail or part of newly-created layers of command at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, which micro-manage and complicate the work of a relatively small number of Army SF troops (Green Berets) located at various “fire bases.”
Instead of powering-down to a flattened hierarchy of small, autonomous units dispersed over a wide area — what the 1940 U.S. Marine “Small Wars Manual” recommends for fighting a guerrilla insurgency — the Americans have barricaded themselves into a mammoth, Cold War-style base at Bagram that drains resources from the fire bases. It is ironic that just as the Pentagon is proposing a more light and lethal world-wide basing posture (with many smaller footprints rather than a few large ones in Korea and Europe), in Afghanistan, whose mountains and tribes make it the most unconventional of battlefields, the U.S. has reverted to such an antiquated arrangement.
Half of the U.S. soldiery in Afghanistan is garrisoned at Bagram…
The problem, from how I see it, is human nature. Which would you rather do? Slog around in the dust and dirt searching for targets or sit in an air-conditioned office and approve someone else slogging around?
Thankfully there are those who make the commitment to be on the front-line. Those is in support should remember they are just that, support.
Further in the article, Mr. Kaplan states:
The search for HVTs (high value targets) such as bin Laden has not been similarly compromised. That is because the various “Delta” and other “black” Special Ops elements hunting down the HVTs have air support at near the battalion level. These commandos operate more like 5th Group did in 2001, cut loose from Bagram’s and the Pentagon’s dinosaurian organizational structure — in the manner of the most innovative corporations, which are deliberately kept weak at the center.
But even the search for HVTs is hurt by the overly regulated approach of hunting down the MVTs and LVTs (Low Value Targets). For it is the hunt for MVTs that constitutes the real bread and butter in the War on Terrorism. If the hunt for MVTs remains snarled in bureaucracy, the MVTs will fill the positions of any HVTs who happen to be killed or apprehended. More importantly, MVTs hold the key to capturing the HVTs. It’s the subway turnstile phenomenon. When New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani began arresting kids for jumping turnstiles, a percentage of them turned out to be wanted for more serious crimes, or they had information on those who were. To wit, it was MVTs who proved crucial in the capture of Saddam. Thus, the U.S. needs to be capturing more MVTs. It can only do that by giving Army SF the same autonomy and air support that Delta has.
Our efforts in Afghanistan (and by extension Pakistan) will have smaller and smaller returns if we continue to allow the support personnel to run the show.
The article finishes with a review of what is happening in the Philippines in 2002. We are doing there what we should be doing in the Pashtun region — letting the frontline soldiers do their work.
Allen January 3rd, 2004
DW and family was just watching a replay of SNL and OutKast.
DW happened to mention that is probably important to remove one’s Biore strips before singing onstage.
I must say that I agree with her.
Allen December 31st, 2003
Dave Barry’s guide to 2003.
My favorites:
FEBRUARY: . . . U.S. coalition-building efforts are dealt a severe blow when France announces that it will not participate in the impending Iraq invasion, a decision that, in the words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “could seriously impair our ability to surrender.”
JUNE: Speaking of unhealthy: An outbreak of monkey pox (really) forces federal authorities to ban the sale of, among other animals, Gambian giant pouched rats. It is not immediately clear why anybody would want a giant pouched rat, or why such a person would not deserve to get a disease.
Allen December 31st, 2003
Dave Barry’s guide to 2003.
My favorites:
FEBRUARY: . . . U.S. coalition-building efforts are dealt a severe blow when France announces that it will not participate in the impending Iraq invasion, a decision that, in the words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “could seriously impair our ability to surrender.”
JUNE: Speaking of unhealthy: An outbreak of monkey pox (really) forces federal authorities to ban the sale of, among other animals, Gambian giant pouched rats. It is not immediately clear why anybody would want a giant pouched rat, or why such a person would not deserve to get a disease.
Allen December 30th, 2003
Hilarious site proported to be the home page for the International Jewish Conspiracy.
Entirely tongue-in-cheek, so Mazal Tov!
Allen December 30th, 2003
Hilarious site proported to be the home page for the International Jewish Conspiracy.
Entirely tongue-in-cheek, so Mazal Tov!