Just asking...
From Petraeus's* slideshow:
And is "overwatch" really a word?
NOTE Apparently, it is. Interestingly, "overwatch" works at the unit level, yet Petraeus or whoever made his slides uses it at the strategic level.
Someone with more expertise in milspeak than I will need to untangle this, but to me the "overwatch" trope conceals a category mistake, in the sense that terms appropriate to units (like overwatch) are not necessarily appropriate at the scale of theatres of war. The trope that the Iraqi government will "stand up" involves the same sort of category mistake: A government can't be characterized as being in the same category as a baby learning to walk, or a collection of people sitting down and about to rise, except in the most cartoonish and childish fashion. The same goes for Bush's continued reiteration of the trope Iraq is a "young Democracy"; in fact, a political structure can't be characterized as being in the same category as a human child, unless of course you're a stone theocrat, to whom everything looks like a patriarchal family.
Sorry for the incoherence, here, but I'm still reeling from the corruption of language (and hence thought) on display at the Petraeus hearings today. Shit, at least when the Brits were running their Empire, they could talk in something other than bureaucratic sludge.
NOTE * Listen, wingers, I'm really sorry about the whole Betray Us thing, and I'm sorry it got under your scales skin. I understand now how classifying the methodology behind the chart is an example of flawless, perfectly realized Civility
, and how making fun of somebody's name is a violation of all that makes the country great. Sorry.
UPDATE Hmmmm...
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Overwatch
Say, don't they have standard issue pulse rifles?
But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!
But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!
Tens of thousands of technical presentations
Tens of thousands of technical presentations sat through, I'm pretty good at sorting out the nugget of value in a sea of chaff. This one is complete obfuscation, nothing more. The only message being revealed is we can't/won't tell you how things really are. A suspicious person might think that's because things are really, really bad.
Figure 13 above is a classic use of too much undefined information and not enough quantification so as to overwhelm and confuse. It says only that things may change, in some way (?) or another, at some time (?) or another, unless they (?) don't.
Oh and for a drawdown, after we break the Army we promise to bring back home the shattered pieces. (Caution, descriptions in the text of this link are horrible, we get about 25% of these kids here in Palo Alto for rehab, breaks your heart.)
I love the horizontal "time" axis
which has no actual units of measurement, such as months, days, decades....
Or elections, for that matter.
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Pony Plan version of the chart
Via Uggabugga
"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead