Incoming powerpoint complaint....
Getting back to the briefing for a minute, I guess it was OK. The problem, of course, is that I didn't have the benefit of hearing the actual presentation like Steve Metz did, so my take on the slides is very different without the context added by seeing the actual briefing. I'm enough of a powerpoint ranger to know that the slides are probably less than 50% of the content, if that (at least that's been my experience). Hence I'm inherently dubious about taking PPT presentations at face value unless there is detailed information or the text of the briefing is on the notes pages - something that is all too rare. To be honest, I really wish people wouldn't release slide presentations without the other content included in some form. Tufte's pamphlet/book on powerpoint ably demonstrates the dangers.
I hate to be my usual dense self but I have no idea
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Originally Posted by
SteveMetz
But Germany isn't counterinsurgency.
what that has to do with what I said? Sorry...
Since Steve replied to me instead of you and I replied
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Originally Posted by
Rank amateur
Knew you were going to say that. How about Somalia? The public was supportive until the bodies showed up on TV. (Yes you can say Clinton was a wimp - that word is for Ken - but he was responding to the Metz effect.)
to you instead of Steve... :confused: Oh, never mind... ;)
Anyway... Bodies on TV always arouse SOME in the public; others -- most, I'm pretty sure -- not so much. Clinton was not a wimp (not BTW my sensibilities, which I'd think are obviously inured to far worse, but the Board's reputation as professional instead of being another internet cesspool. If that's too much to ask, don't worry about it), he truly did feel everyone's pain and he reacted to the TV as one of those who was truly affected by the sight. Like most politicians and some others, he thought everyone felt, believed and wanted the same things he did. They didn't -- and don't. IOW, he reacted as he thought the public did -- while some felt that way, most reacted differently, the vast majority of the great unwashed just got angry and wanted Somali blood...
There is a reason why it wasn't sold
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Originally Posted by
SteveMetz
In Somalia we didn't even get the three years because it was sold as peacekeeping rather than counterinsurgency.
as counterinsurgency -because there was not an insurgency present. One of the key ingredients required - a functioning state, did not exist in any form. What we did have was an anarchical situation with various groups picking over the body of what passed for Somali society.
In all the nightly and morning briefs I sat in - Australian, Coalition and UN, from CJTF Comd Level to Component (ARFOR and MARFOR) to Battle group, no one in the five and a bit months I was there mentioned the terms 'insurgency' or 'counterinsurgency'. There was plenty of talk about UN Chapter VII...