Agreed.Originally Posted by SabreXray
Actually, FM 3-24 DOES provide notes to source material (pp. 373-377 of the U Chicago version), even to the point of noting date-of-access for webpages (p. 373, which is an over-the top, academic standard), but doesn't source the borrowings from anthropological sources. The "we don't do source notes" defence doesn't make much sense in a FM with source notes, IMHO.
Moreover, there are two other issues here. First, why not simply rewrite basic concepts in the authors' own words? This is the normal practice in every policy, diplomatic, and analytical shop that I've ever worked in, and frankly my bosses and team leaders would have had my a** had I ever used direct, verbatim quotes from published sources without attribution.
Indeed, the inclusion of these is a policy advisor's nightmare, since it puts your bosses in the vulnerable position of accidental, public plagiarism should they quote product not knowing that the product isn't original. The very wide play that this story is getting would seem to me to be confirmation of why one doesn't do it. It was apparent that a new COIN FM would be subject to intense scrutiny from the start. Given that a core lesson on FM 3-24 is that almost everything is political, there's a little irony in failing to predict the political consequences of non-sourced quotations.
Second, it is of dubious legality. In intellectual property law, ownership of the specific formulation and expression of an idea typically resides with the creator. Of course, in this case it would be hard to prove substantial damages, but there are one or two unsourced near verbatim borrowings that could be problematic in the case of a civil suit. (Steve earlier noted "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" ...yes, but don't Render unto Caesar what is Milton Rokeach's...)
Just to be clear: I'm a FM 3-24 fan (indeed, I've used it in classes), and I accept that there was absolutely no malicous intent to deceive by the authors. I think its a shame that the "plagiarism" issue has distracted from the real issues. I don't buy into Price's broader critique. However, I do still believe that the "oops, sorry, we'll fix it" defence is the best one to take.
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