and win a $3,000 Grand Prize as well as the respect and awe of fellow COINerds worldwide: the Small Wars Journal is launching a writing competition.
I am slightly disappointed by the topics chosen, though:
“1. Security vs. [Jobs & Services & etc.] -- horse and cart, or chicken and egg?
[…] What does security really mean in a small war, how much is needed when, and how do you make meaningful security gains through the pragmatic application of affordable capabilities? How does security relate as an intermediate objective or an end state? Include examples of real successes and failures.
2. Postcards From The Edge – the practical application of the Whole of Government approach.
Organizational issues are being discussed from Goldwater-Nichols II to unity of effort and simple handshake-con. Whatever the structure on high, people from different walks of life and different functional expertise need to work together on the ground at the pointy end of the spear to deliver effects that matter. Discuss real experiences (personal, known firsthand, or researched and documented) of real people facing real challenges that offer relevant insights into the conduct of a small war. […]”
In my humble opinion, Steve Metz had more inspiring suggestions.
Pondering over the last sentence of topic 2 (real experiences of real people facing real challenges), I suggest that this blog launches a counter-competition on imagined experiences of fictional characters facing minor dramas—with a fictive $3,000 Grand Prize for the winner.
Pondering over the last sentence of topic 2 (real experiences of real people facing real challenges), I suggest that this blog launches a counter-competition on imagined experiences of fictional characters facing minor dramas—with a fictive $3,000 Grand Prize for the winner.
ReplyDeleteLOLZ @ Alma.
Fake COINdinista
Wanted to write about war
But faced no challenge
Gunslinger bores wife
ReplyDeleteWith COIN. Gulliver will hear
Speechboy on NPR.
http://www.kcrw.com/media-player/mediaPlayer2.html?type=audio&id=tp090721afghanistan_casualti
SNLII
says to skip 20 minutes
Before Speechboy's speech.
Or, in Sicilian Haiku:
ReplyDeleteO, Lady Alma,
COIN is so Vietnam-a.
Try atom Bomb-a.
SNLII-a
Triage for Exum.
ReplyDeleteSoup-knife, group hug for Nagl.
Me? I'd try Callwell.
SNLII
Oh, I effed Iraq.
ReplyDeleteOh, he effed Afghanistan.
Let's eff Darfur, too.
SNLII, punning on acronyms...
Or a limerick...
ReplyDeleteThere once was a man from CNAS.
Who got stuck up an Afghan's ass.
A COINdinista 'til the end,
He thought we could win,
But instead flunked strategy class.
SNLII
Tom Ricks went to Wanat
ReplyDeleteTo find a metric or stat.
But it was a quagmire,
The sitrep quite dire,
And ISAF out cold on the mat.
SNLII
F-22 ain't
ReplyDeleteCOIN. Neither is JSF.
People need to work.
Good God, Alma, look
ReplyDeleteWhat you've done to S-N-L
I-I, and our blog.
Gunslinger sighed and frowned,
ReplyDeleteThen he fired a sabot round.
His employers were dead,
Lead poisoning in the head,
And I sensibly hugged the ground.
I've decided in Army fashion to adapt and overcome, Gulliver. I'm going with limericks.
ReplyDeleteSNLII
On the day Tom Friedman was born,
ReplyDeleteHe began to write war porn:
"We must fight on in Kabul!
"That's the Golden Rule!
Even if the grunts are forlorn."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/opinion/19friedman.html?_r=2
SNLII
Now he's on about fragging,
ReplyDeleteAnd clearly the others are lagging,
So I'll take up the bait, and respond to the spate
Of SNLII posts -- it's better than nagging!
Rick Perry went to Iraq,
ReplyDeleteTo show off his Texas sack.
"It's just like U-Tee,"
He said with some glee,
The stupid, effing hack.
SNLII
Back to haiku...
ReplyDeleteGentile and Nagl,
COINtra and COINdinista.
One heart and two minds.
SNLII
Kelley B. Vlahos
ReplyDeleteNext to Gulliver at Cee-Nas.
Hot blonde. Bacevich.
SNLII
There once was a man from Kabul,
ReplyDeleteWho didn't want to be a tool.
They called him the "Pope,"
Said he's nobody's dope,
But on drone strikes he acts like a fool.
SNLII
Gulliver, himself, is a nag
ReplyDeleteNo blood, nor treasure, in his bag.
Federalist Six,
Bacevich and his kicks --
Banned, oh, what a drag.
SNLII
King David brought a lesson from Iraq,
ReplyDeleteThat everyone grunt said was a crock.
"Pop-centric is the way,
"I don't care what the realists say,"
Yes, his ID card is a rock.
SNLII
OK, that's enough for me. I'm going home.
Grrrr... Typo...
ReplyDeleteKing David brought a lesson from Iraq,
That every grunt said was a crock.
"Pop-centric is the way,
"I don't care what the realists say,"
Yes, his ID card is a rock.
SNLII
OK, that's enough for me. I'm going home.
SecDef Gates is a big fraud,
ReplyDeleteBut everyone here thinks he's a god.
He was A&M's dean,
But he acts like a drama queen,
And Gulliver still gives him the nod.
After Abu Muqawama jumped the shark,
ReplyDeleteSWJ tried to hit it outta da park.
Three thousand dollars is the prize,
Metrics, stats -- damned lies,
Or so saith Twain, the guy we call "Mark."
SNLII
There once was a prof from Carlisle,
ReplyDeleteWho sat and stared at SWJ's pile.
"Three thousand -- that's real class,
But the whole thing smells like ass."
And he wasn't wrong, not by a mile.
SNLII, with grave apologies to Dave (I don't mean it!)
Good grief.
ReplyDelete"Organizational issues are being discussed from Goldwater-Nichols II to unity-of-effort and handshake-con." - to an outsider, this sounds like word salad (schizophasia). By word salad, please do not think I am referring to the attempts at poetry. I've read worse in The American Poetry Journal, so some of you may have a future in all this.....
Another haiku:
ReplyDeleteThe graduate school
of War. People are the key.
Two lies from one mouth.
SNLII
From the desk of Bacevich:
ReplyDeleteCrikey Dave is at Crumpton to make moolah
Off of COIN and half-baked Galula,
The dead Frenchmen from RAND,
He and CNAS continue the brand,
And they're just as likely to fool ya.
SNLII (tongue firmly in cheek)
Some call him a policy whore
ReplyDeleteBecause it's all half-assed 3-24.
COINdinistas' profits rise high
'Cept they can't look a mom in the eye
As she tugs the body bag in the door.
SNLII
USMA, he was top of the class,
ReplyDeleteHis head firmly up his ass.
Insufferable now,
Riding his COIN cow,
And everyone gives him a pass.
How did King David get his C.A.B?
ReplyDeleteSure wasn't fighting the war of the flea.
Probably a load of crap,
Some jundhi farted near his MRAP,
Just when he got out to pee.
OEF is the chance to eff a goat,
ReplyDeleteEveryone better get on the boat.
Pop-centric COIN is the fad,
Always be good and never bad,
And forget the enemy gets a vote.
SNLII
OEF has gone to sh*t,
ReplyDeleteEven if the Pope "gets it."
Bin Laden will stay free,
A card-carrying Pakistani,
Living high and completely legit.
SNLII
Somebody needs to put this thread out of its misery.
ReplyDeleteThe Germans hate to fight,
ReplyDeleteThe French told us to fly a kite.
But when the Taliban come back,
That kite goes in the sack,
And the Mayor of Kabul says "good night."
These developments are really disturbing --
ReplyDeleteIt's a trend we ought to be curbing.
Stick to prose! Not the poetic fire-hose!
You're so prolific, it's kind of unnerving!
When you open Pandora's Box,
ReplyDeleteYa ain't gonna get bagels or lox.
The verses come fast,
The zingers, they last,
Like a good stiff kick in the crotch.
SNLII
There once was a soldier-scribe,
ReplyDeleteWhose rhymes none could abide,
With lurid prose,
And an arrogant pose,
'Kill the enemy' he endlessly cried!
Too bad that isn't his bag.
ReplyDeleteHe's just not riding that nag!
He's centric as much to terrain
As he is to the foe, the hearts and a brain.
Only the doctrinaire does he slag.
SNLII