Put simply: Happy viewing. Although navigating the world of online war videos is at best a haphazard venture, there is enough material to provide as clear a view into the lives of combat, boredom and pointless amusement of the soldiers in Iraq as one will find anywhere.
On this particular video:
One topic that has received extensive online treatment is the role of contractors on the battlefield, the subject of a Robert Greenwald documentary, "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers," that has been promoted heavily on YouTube and other online forums. As with many critiques of contractors on the battlefield, Greenwald lambastes the extravagant fees paid to contractors in Iraq and the apparent disregard for their lives shown by the companies that send them over.
Put simply: Happy viewing. Although navigating the world of online war videos is at best a haphazard venture, there is enough material to provide as clear a view into the lives of combat, boredom and pointless amusement of the soldiers in Iraq as one will find anywhere.
On this particular video:
... the popular blogger "Buck Sergeant" at American Citizen Soldier is working to edit his footage from Iraq into a serviceable full-length feature, "Give War a Chance." The trailers he has posted on YouTube show some of the stunning images he has captured, as well as the inspiration for his title choice — a plea for public support on the home front that will let the troops continue to fight for hearts and minds in Iraq.
Put simply: Happy viewing. Although navigating the world of online war videos is at best a haphazard venture, there is enough material to provide as clear a view into the lives of combat, boredom and pointless amusement of the soldiers in Iraq as one will find anywhere.
On this particular video:
The video "Iraq Marine Battle Fallujah" is set to the somber "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits, which captures perfectly the tragic futility of the April offensive that ended in a unilateral cease-fire after 27 Marine deaths.
Put simply: Happy viewing. Although navigating the world of online war videos is at best a haphazard venture, there is enough material to provide as clear a view into the lives of combat, boredom and pointless amusement of the soldiers in Iraq as one will find anywhere.
On this particular video:
The most common format for the online videos are barely that — they are photo montages either compiled by returning U.S. troops to commemorate their experiences in the war, by American citizens to express their gratitude to the soldiers fighting there, or reflecting a collective effort on the part of whole units. Usually set to sentimental, patriotic music (with genuinely moving effect, given the pictures they display), these montages have been available since the beginning of the war. One characteristic example is "Iraq Freedom 2006 'The Kids,'" with photos that Army reservist Rene Phan took of his unit interacting with Iraqi children in the course of their mission to train Iraqi police.
Put simply: Happy viewing. Although navigating the world of online war videos is at best a haphazard venture, there is enough material to provide as clear a view into the lives of combat, boredom and pointless amusement of the soldiers in Iraq as one will find anywhere.
On this particular video:
A characteristic and terrifying example of the invisible menace posed by insurgents is a YouTube video in which a camera lying on a barracks floor during an intense mortar attack captures troops praying and screaming as rounds land ever closer to their position.
The final version of Army FM 3-24, "Counterinsurgency," (MCWP 3-33.5 for the Marine Corps) deserves applause for coming a long way fast. The Sept. 21 draft was a jumble of platitudes and a prescription for continued failure. After key leaders in the Marines and Army realized how badly the doctrine had gone off track, earnest debate and long days spent rewriting and editing the document resulted in a useful manual that begins to come to grips with the actual challenges facing us, instead of simply repeating the failed recommendations of the last century's counterinsurgency (COIN) "experts."
The manual now admits the existence of religious zealots and ethnic demagogues — salient insurgent types the previous draft ignored — and accepts that some enemies are irreconcilable and must be killed. It states bluntly that "old, strongly held beliefs define the identities of the most dangerous combatants in these new internal wars." The draft field manual's most-foolish claims, exemplified by its "paradoxes of counterinsurgency," have been qualified and the text now stresses the importance in many COIN operations of a "high ratio of security forces to the protected population." If only more of our military leaders had stressed that point to their civilian superiors four years ago.
Yet, FM 3-24 still doesn't swing open the door to the future of COIN warfare; at best it's a hinge between the failed dogmas of the 20th century — myths embraced by soldiers and civilians alike — and a growing sense that the reality on the ground in Iraq and elsewhere contradicts the theories we were fed. This document isn't meant as definitive doctrine but as a stopgap. Responsible leaders in the Marines and Army recognize the need for an ongoing process to continually improve our COIN doctrine. The manual will help officers think more incisively about the problems facing them, but many of the solutions it offers, nonetheless, are outdated and dubious — when not foolhardy.
An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West
Topic: Society
10:48 am EST, Feb 3, 2007
The growth of government during this century has attracted the attention of many scholars interested in explaining that growth and in proposing ways to limit it. As a result of this attention, the public choice literature has experi- enced an upsurge in the interest in anarchy and its implications for social organization. The work of Rawls and Nozick, two volumes edited by Gordon Tullock, Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy, and a book by David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom, provide examples. The goals of the literature have varied from providing a conceptual framework for comparing Leviathan and its opposite extreme to presenting a formula for the operation of society in a state of anarchy. But nearly all of this work has one common aspect; it explores the "theory of anarchy." The purpose of this paper is to take us from the theoretical world of anarchy to a case study of its application. To accomplish our task we will first discuss what is meant by "anarcho-capitalism" and present several hypotheses relating to the nature of social organization in this world. These hypotheses will then be tested in the context of the American West during its earliest settlement. We propose to examine property rights formulation and protection under voluntary organizations such as private protection agencies, vigilantes, wagon trains, and early mining camps. Although the early West was not completely anarchistic, we believe that government as a legitimate agency of coercion was absent for a long enough period to provide insights into the operation and viability of property rights in the absence of a formal state. The nature of contracts for the provision of "public goods" and the evolution of western "laws" for the period from 1830 to 1900 will provide the data for this case study.
Almost two decades after the appearance of most of the classical texts on the subject, this book's fresh introduction to Graph Theory offers a reassessment of what are the theory's main fields, methods and results today. Viewed as a branch of pure mathematics, the theory of finite graphs is developed as a coherent subject in its own right, with its own unifying questions and methods. The book thus seeks to complement, not replace, the existing more algorithmic treatments of the subject.
This book can be used at various different levels. It contains all the standard basic material to be taught in a first undergraduate course, complete with detailed proofs and numerous illustrations. To help with the planning of such a course, it includes precise information on the logical dependence of results, including forward referencing.
Intended Audience:
For a graduate course, the book offers proofs of several more advanced results, most of which thus appear in a book for the first time. These proofs are described with as much care and detail as their simpler counterparts, often with an informal discussion of their underlying ideas complementing their rigorous step-by-step account.
To the professional mathematician, finally, the book affords an overview of graph theory as it stands today: with its typical questions and methods, its classic results, and some of those developments that have made this subject such an exciting area in recent years.
This archive, provided by Columbia University, offers access to the complete range of free content developed for Fathom by its member institutions. Columbia encourages you to browse this archive of online learning resources, including lectures, articles, interviews, exhibits and free seminars.
There is a wide variety of stuff on offer here. A sampling:
Diversity in Britain is not what it used to be. Some thirty years of government policies, social service practices and public perceptions have been framed by a particular understanding of immigration and multicultural diversity. That is, Britain’s immigrant and ethnic minority population has conventionally been characterised by large, well-organized African-Caribbean and South Asian communities of citizens originally from Commonwealth countries or formerly colonial territories. Policy frameworks and public understanding – and, indeed, many areas of social science – have not caught up with recently emergent demographic and social patterns. Britain can now be characterised by ‘super-diversity,’ a notion intended to underline a level and kind of complexity surpassing anything the country has previously experienced. Such a condition is distinguished by a dynamic interplay of variables among an increased number of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically differentiated and legally stratified immigrants who have arrived over the last decade. Outlined here, new patterns of super-diversity pose significant challenges for both policy and research.
