Stanley McChrystal – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

U.S. Army Female Engagement Teams Expand: King Xerxes’ Queen Esther Cited

[In connection with this article, please see the associated file uploads: COMISAF ppt or COMISAF pdf; FET pptx or FET pdf; ISAF Engagement with Females PDF; and the previous post: “Recommended ISAF Guidance for Female Engagement Teams“] “In the time of Xerxes, it is documented that the King took advice from his Queen which significantly […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Burlesque Afghanistan: Pulp Fiction from an Embedded “Reporter”

This is the second in a two part series on recent examples of the Human Terrain System in the military’s own media, and in military-embedded media. The first was “The Many Faces of the Human Terrain System in Iraq.” Much more remarkable, and coming from a supposedly professional journalist who embedded with the U.S. Army […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Military’s Media Whores: On Ethics, Power, Rapport and Responsibility

First, my thanks to Erik Davis (colleague, long time friend of this blog) for directing my attention to this brilliant piece by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone: Lara Logan, You Suck, from which I will quote extensively in the extracts that follow. This is a “notes and quotes” feature of this blog, apart from this […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Marjeh, Afghanistan: X-ray of McChrystal’s Bleeding Ulcer

Updated: 28 June 2010 Operation Urban Inflation One objective I cannot accomplish here is a comprehensive recap of counterinsurgency doctrine, the development and execution of Operation Moshtarak in Helmand province, Afghanistan, starting in February, and a comprehensive analysis of all of the apparent outcomes. Instead, this a selective series of vignettes. The first vignette: on […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Information, Communications, and Targeted Killing

Two previous articles on this site (Innocently Informing State Terrorism: Journalism, Knowledge, and Counterinsurgency, and Human Terrain System Under Investigation: HTS Link to JIEDDO & US Death Squads) dealt with the figure of Michael Furlong and what some claim was a “rogue” program of extrajudicial execution. Here, Ishtar Enana, an Iraqi writer (blog: غار عشتار, […]