Tuesday, November 3, 2009

All hail the COIN-istas!

In what is otherwise an excellent and comprehensive profile of the SecDef, Gordon Lubold of the Christian Science Monitor drops in this line about the two major factions contesting the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan:
Put simply, there are two poles in Washington: the counterinsurgency experts, or COIN-istas, who believe Afghanistan's deteriorating security can only be reversed by adding tens of thousands of troops – perhaps as many as 80,000; and those who believe US interests in Afghanistan are few, and the best way to keep it on a low simmer is to employ a counterterrorism-like model – using drones, bombs, and special forces teams to keep Al Qaeda at bay.
Come on, Lubold, you know better. "COIN-istas"?! That doesn't even make sense! It's even worse than Michael Cohen's consistent misspelling of the term as COINdanista!

Let's give credit where it's due: to SNLII, erstwhile commenter on this and other blogs, birthday boy, and creator of both "COINdinista" and "COINtra." This may mark the first (botched) use of either term in the non-blog media, so happy birthday, SNLII! (Do you get more than a dime for this mainstream infringement of your patent?)

4 comments:

  1. Oy. OK, OK.

    Thanks, "Gulliver." And for those who don't know, his birthday is Thursday.

    So, Happy Birthday to you, too.

    SNLII

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  2. I have the power to delete your comments on here, you know.

    Seriously though, I want to know where Lubold got this and why he isn't giving you credit!

    By the way, looking back at that AM-on-TV drinking game thread, and it was epic.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy Birthday Gulliver. SNLII, I would love to touch base via e-mail.

    When I first started visiting Abu Muqawama (back in the early days), I visited in large part to see your comments in the comment section.

    But you were a tricky bastard. Google searches wouldn't pull up your name, because you would flip it to something like:

    "SNLII loves green onions" to paraphrase.

    ReplyDelete

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