guardian angels

Econ: irregular warfare finally gets the US military's attention, plus origin of the word "zealot." now the Pentagon's catching up, or at least debating restructuring the US military. "...the murderous chaos in Iraq, and the growing violence in southern Afghanistan, have shown that America is good at destroying targets, and bad at rebuilding states." Gates is pushing to adapt army to fight counter-insurgencies: "Precisely because America is so powerful against conventional armies, Mr Gates expects its enemies to rely on asymmetric warfare," in which "The model soldier should be less science-fiction Terminator and more intellectual for “the graduate level of war”, preferably a linguist, with a sense of history and anthropology." and less, from the first article, like what T.E. Lawrence described as “helpless without a target, owning only what he sat on, and subjugating only what, by order, he could poke his rifle at.”

NYT: speaking of anthropology and “armed social work," this UChicago anthropology prof thinks the Human Terrain System (read: deployment of anthropologists to translate culture to American soldiers) shouldn't be officially boycotted by the American Anthropology Assoc: "The real issue for academic anthropologists is not whether the military should know more rather than less about other ways of life — of course it should know more. The real issue is how our profession is going to begin to play a far more significant educational role in the formulation of foreign policy, in the hope that anthropologists won’t have to answer some patriotic call late in a sad day to become an armed angel riding the shoulder of a misguided American warrior."

Slate: thank god for polling technology - now we can just ask Iraqis about the state of their hearts. or minds. or something. have a look at the full report here.

WP: on another related note, US expanding its non-military presence in Iraq by forcing diplomats to rotate to Baghdad.

NYT: playing with the life of a former top military commander under Saddam to see if it can generate any solidarity among sects in Iraq. ever-insightful anonymous American: “Once you execute someone, you can’t unexecute him”

Slate: Blackwater begs for help from supporters in an email, leaked to Slate

LAT: domestic pressure builds in Turkey to launch attack against PKK

Reuters: Maoist insurgents in India fire on civilians at a soccer match, kill 17. apparently police had increased operations against them in the area.

McSweeney's: outsourcing guardian angels can be dangerous