We're the Military and Airpower Guys of Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online + a stray we found wandering around looking lost. All original material JHD, BHD, JR, WT, and KA 2003-2010 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/05/something_you_wont_see_in_an_arab_military_writing_collection.html Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:52:58 Z Movable Type 4.12 en Copyright 2012 http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Thanks to the nature of the MSM - and it's consumer base, and, to a lesser extent blogging, too (we want traffic, boring-but-important-stuff doesn't generate traffic, it's just some of us don't care as much about traffic as others, thanks to Google), what we don't see, absent the pronouncements of the Generals and Secretaries (the post below) there is actually a *lot* of paddling going on under the surface. By those order-taking unthinking Myrmidons the left is so, um, well, you know what I mean. Anyway - here's something you won't see much of in Arab professional journals. No, not... http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/05/something_you_wont_see_in_an_arab_military_writing_collection.html http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/05/something_you_wont_see_in_an_arab_military_writing_collection.html Sun, 21 May 2006 07:45:56 -0600 That was great. short, sweet, concise. chai tea, mud huts and villages with no names. That is the new war. We fight the information war without firing a shot orkeeping future shots from being fired. Now, the question is going to be between state department and the military. Many in the military will say it is the state department's job to organize and develop such abilities. Many in the state department would agree. Other's would say they do not have the forces, money or capability. The military will say the same and discuss how expensive it is to develop these programs. Much easier to spend 100 million per air plane that doesn't think, ask questions or have feelings. Much less trouble and less messy. Just blow things up from afar. I like the idea of different uniforms or something. You know what it reminds me of? The brits and aussies who, when doing "security patrols" switch to berets instead of helmets. Maybe our guys would wear their class "A" uniform? Looks like a suit and is less intimidating than a guy with camouflage, body armor and huge weapon. They would have a security detail that was dressed appropriately depending on the security situation, but the advanced civ affairs people would be open and unprotected to put themselves on the same level as the civilian population. And, there is so much information available now, even on the internet, about the history of Iraq, it's tribes, local politics. Blogs are great like that. If the military had specific groups of people that regularly checked the english and arab langauge blogs for local info to a specific area then they would better understand the people, the security status, the politics and who the insurgents are or their relationship to the people. I remember reading an Iraqi girl's blog from up near mosul. She kept talking about the signs that were being put up all over the city warning women to wear hijab (regardless of religion) and the young men who were on the street with weapons that she called "mujihadeen". In her view, it was not the mujihadeen who were the threat. These were brave young men who were protecting the Sunni arabs of Mosul from attack by some nefarious "other" (not necessarily us) that was the insurgent. Although, she was seriously confused about who this "other" was. There was (and is) much talk about the "Israelis" or "jews" who were somewhere unseen supposedly hiring local "others" to blow up things and kill people. She was also certain that Americans were behind it because we simply wanted to stay there so we were stirring up trouble. Finally, she was pretty sure that the Mujihadeen would not close down their school or attack them if they went, however, SOMEBODY was threatening them. This "other" that she could not identify. Who did she get her opinions from? her father who was a doctor (she was 16). My point is, this is a valuable source of information. If you know this right off, you know what you have to address in regards to "hearts and minds". Interesting that her uncle, also a doctor, was much less anti-american and had a blog as well asking how he could get in touch with local commanders and what he could do for his local community. there was a lot of talk about how to organize local committees to take care of trash, select people to go to the local meetings, etc, etc, etc. But, this man reached out, we didn't reach him. This not only re-enforces the internet as a tool, but really emphasizes the point of this paper. Sadly, the doctor with the blog stopped blogging and I don't know what happened to him. I hope we helped him. I know one soldier who had returned from mosul read the blog and tried to send the info to the new unit that was there. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/05/something_you_wont_see_in_an_arab_military_writing_collection.html#comment-45510 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/05/something_you_wont_see_in_an_arab_military_writing_collection.html#comment-45510 Sun, 21 May 2006 12:35:16 -0600