History hasn't been kind to their bluster,I'll leave you to check out the more ad-hominemy entirety at your discretion. Meanwhile I'll be checking out the comment threads at Kings of War and wishing for the old, analytical prose-focused SNLII to show up.
For every Kitson I can find a Custer
Who dicked up counter-insurgency
Quickly and with urgency,
And with little stragetic luster.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Ok, if we feature him, maybe he'll stop
As anyone who reads the comment threads knows by now, SNLII has taken to contributing solely in verse. Here's a snippet from one of his more entertaining long-form efforts (maybe just because it includes "dicked up"):
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But surely you must acknowledge
ReplyDeleteThat Ink Spots ain't Kings College!
The Dons over there,
Really don't care
For verse that's so cutting edge.
SNLII
And so what if Betz is at Corfu,
ReplyDeleteHe still pens a blog or two
In which I comment with pleasure.
They suffer my prose in their leisure
And a limerick they find a rhymed eff-u.
SNLII
Kings cornered the market in decorum,
ReplyDeleteSo why try to compete with humdrum?
Don't you fancy yourself brash?
A bit of burn, a whole lotta slash?
And sweet, sweet truth over mere hockum?
SNLII
Kings cornered the market in decorum,
ReplyDeleteSo why try to compete with humdrum?
Don't you fancy yourself brash?
A bit of burn, a whole lotta slash?
And sweet, sweet truth over mere hockum?
Ok, this last is my clear favorite, and it's not even close.
YOu have another option, of course,
ReplyDeleteCome ride on my Facebook horse,
She's a trim filly indeed,
Maybe a colt, perhaps a steed,
And the rhymes there I don't outsource.
SNLII
And as for the "ad homine-y,"
ReplyDeleteDon't be such a ninny.
"SNLII" is a voice, an avatar,
He's not the real man by far,
Mean words no more than a whinny.
SNLII
Well, maybe it's a verbal tic,
ReplyDeleteOr I'm some tragic dyslexic
Who can't spell "strategy"
Without putting a G before the T
And making myself very sick.
SNLII
Yeah, thanks to you guys - and others - I've been reading Kings of War (plus more blogs on various blogrolls). You all probably figured that out with the blog all linked in the comments.
ReplyDelete(I, too, hope the prose avatar returns. Remember, you are educating some of us. It's done some good, hasn't it? It means something, doesn't it?)
SNLII
ReplyDeleteA poetry anthology would be the next logical step.
Or indeed a truly Homeric affair in hexameter verse detailing the epic conflicts of OIF and OEF etc.
To paraphase my favourite NY poet of the 21st century - If you can't do it - it cant be done.
Ramzi N.
SNLII sent you an essay by Gumz
ReplyDeleteThat calls into question the sums
Cyphered by many prominent COINdinistas
But not the boys yelling "Meestah-meestah!"
To wannabe Andrew Exums.
SNLII
Ramzi my words are doggerel,
ReplyDeleteBut they clang like a bell
Warning against a certain story
Dominant in cheap allegory
That posits an ACU-clad devil or angel.
Who gets it? Who does not?
That's really a pedant's plot,
Because some pundits know as many guerillas
As I do talking purple-assed chinchillas,
And how is that a cheap shot?
The problem, as I said before,
Is that beyond all the battle gore
A salient reality often intrudes,
One that spares us the pious beatitudes
Of the rabid COINdinistas at the door.
All COIN, verily, is local and specific,
Failing to note that can be horrific
To practitioners on the battlefield
Cause ignorance makes a porous shield
And is anything but scientific.
One can borrow "lessons" from history
Pulling examples from a scholar's armory
But in the end one reads a bitter footnote:
Every enemy, every foe, gets his vote
So the rest is merely condemnatory.
Limericks here are my chosen art,
To play a fool's role, a crazy part,
Talking truth to those who find it queer
That I'm a latter day visit from Lear,
Betwixt dragon, wrath and the human heart.
SNLII
Great stuff - SNLII Il Magnifico!
ReplyDelete