Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS.
Allow me to re-introduce myself: My name is Andrew Exum, and I have edited and authored the "Abu Muqawama" blog since February 2007. After much deliberation and consultation, I have decided to stop daily blogging. I owe it to the readership to explain both why and also how it will affect this site.
First off, I have steadily grown dissatisfied with blogging as a medium since returning fulltime in December of last year. The best bloggers I know -- the ones I read and enjoy, like Spencer Ackerman, Tom Ricks and Andrew Sullivan -- are either also journalists or started out as journalists. They are much better at offering on-the-spot commentary and analysis on the events of the day. My friend and boss Nate Fick, meanwhile, accurately described me last week as being someone who enjoys taking a more deliberate approach and digging deep down into an issue before offering comment. Blogging forces me into more or less split-second reactions to complicated policy events before I have had the opportunity to research and weigh opposing views. In addition, the AD/HD nature of this medium -- as well as its format -- has harmed both my research abilities as well as my ability to write in the long form. Blogging, like any medium, is one you get better at with practice. As I have become a better blogger, my long-form writing skills have atrophied.
Second, since starting at CNAS and taking up a more public profile, I have grown concerned over the reaction to my blogging and public commentary. A few months ago, Lady Muqawama, after reading one of the comments threads here, asked me, half joking and half serious, "Are you going to be assassinated?" And when I had my phone turned off today for a CNAS offsite event, I turned it back on to a text message from her asking if I had been kidnapped by a disgruntled reader. (Again, only half joking.) I know that sounds ridiculous, but unlike me, my girlfriend and my mother read all the comments on this site, and they also read posts on the internet like this one. Sorry, but this is simply no longer worth it. I may have a certain talent for writing clever 200-word blog posts and offering sound bites on television, but I enjoy neither doing so nor the effects of doing so. In my heart, I would much rather do research, read more books, play more rugby and take on a more active role in my community than be some public figure sprinting from television interview to radio spot, twittering in the cab along the way.
So how will this blog change? First off, let me tell you how it will stay the same. This blog will remain an active website hosted by CNAS, and it will remain a home for Londonstani's awesome field reports from such dangerous places as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the ends of the Victoria Line. Second, I aim to use this blog in a different way than I have so far done. I look to friends like Marc Lynch and Reidar Visser and admire the way they use their blogs to highlight ongoing academic and policy research. I aim to do the same, which means you can expect me to post far less often but in a more considered way.
I want to thank the loyal readership for all its support. I treasure the community of people who read this blog, offer non-crazed commentary, and have reached out to become friends and drinking partners. I appreciate your continued support and hope you stay in touch.
Please don't go.
I didn't write that, Ex.
But you know my opinion.
Yep, Phil Carter. Another person that should of known better let his emotions drive him to believing in Obama's promises of everything. This is especially funny considering that a detainee expert like him should of saw that there was no place to send terrorists but a military prison.
Can't help but be curious as to the contents of that "My Last Wish" post by Zulu Kilo.
Anyway, as a long time reader and lurker I've found your blog to be very educational and informative, particularly on COIN, but on a whole host of other subjects as well.
Hope you change your mind.
Dear Mr. Exum,
As a follower of your blog and a future Army officer, I have thoroughly enjoyed your postings over the past two years. I sincerely wish you the very best in your future academic and research endeavors. Our country owes so much to you; I hope that if the revised McChrystal strategy does indeed work in Afghanistan, someone in the Obama Administration gives you at a hat-tip for being a vocal supporter of that strategy from an early period.
Good luck and godspeed.
Warmest Regards,
Brandon
"Allow me to re-introduce myself"
D'oh, not again...
Thanks for the words and good luck out there.
Thank you for what you've given us of yourself.
Just know that many people like myself - just an ordinary person who hopes to better understand what's happening 'over there' - have rarely commented here but gained valuable insight from what you've shared on your blog. Just last week, I e-mailed my supervisor at work - a USMCR Gunnery Sergeant who recently returned from Iraq and is thinking about going to Afghanistan - the link to your blog.
Well, we might as well all turn to www.bloggingthecasbah.com now. God Bless Andrew.
Andrew, thank you for the site work.
All need to retreat and ponder "pour quoi est-il ?"
I wish you all the best - and, selfishly, I hope to see your return soon. =)
On the face of it, it's a bit hard to understand: the great Abu M. chased away from the blogosphere by someone -- and I'm on page four of reading his blog -- who seems to have the reasoning skills, vocabulary, and articulation of a 7th grader. A guy who calls everyone else every name in the book, and then hides behind anonymity. Who even took down the post you linked to, apparently because his anonymous, cowardly ass can't take a tiny bit of heat. It used to be, before the Internet, that people like that would live sad, pathetic lives in isolation because nobody would want to be around them. Unfortunately, now they have easy access to us. The Interwebs have given everyone front-row seats.
But I do get it. It's one thing to shrug off crap like that, but it's another to have your loved ones exposed to it. It pulls at you.
Will be watching your stuff for a long, long time, dude.
Oh, good grief. What's the saying? "Man-up"?
We'll miss you, but it's a good choice. Your new trade does require a certain craft knowlege and as Kevin Walsh Crean recently pointed out you have some distance to go in mastering it.
It´s apparent that HMW at CNAS has given an order.
My first comments seems to have disappeared somewhere. No matter.
Abu M - I, like Fnord and a few others here remember last time you took a step back (and outed yourself in the process).
Understand your reasons - why put up with those wankers?
Best of luck in your future endeavours - I will keep checking out your longer written stuff.
Brett Favre....???
Not sure if quick reaction commentaries are really the thing to do - hot potato - unless you have really good sources and a fairly grounded background on the subject. I really liked that on your blog and hope we are still getting lots from you.
Regarding threads, wierd comments and such: There are certainly a lot of whackjobs out there, partly out of our society's absolute tolerance of any opinion/belief/ or just ability to type anything possible. It is a knife that can cut both ways, the right to say what you think and the responsibility to say it. Not all your commenters seem to realize that. Maybe the anonymity as a commenter on this site makes it too easy.
That said: We need people to speak up and speak the truth, otherwise we all loose. I personally think all of us have a mandate to approve or disapprove whats going on out there by voicing our measured opinions and commentary.
Best of luck to you in your future endeavours. I will miss your comments.
It seems that the comments here are being edited because I posted this comment before and it was delated. But let's not exaggarate the extent that the criticisms of Exum were coming from crazies. If we made a list of all those who criticized the CNAS COIN agenda, it would include a whole lot of people. So for every one wierdo, there have been ten or so that have put their name on paper criticizing the COINdanistas and to some extent Exum personally.
Yes: Andrew Exum
No: extremism
COIN as international policy, directed by and supported by an international co-operation that acknowledges the need for and the benefit of global co-operation and includes all nations, not just those at present the most powerful.
Stand down.
Stand up.
Andrew was a good blogger, and a good man. He was one of us. He was a man who loved the outdoors... and blogging, and as a surfer he explored the Internet, from La Jolla to Leo Carrillo and... up to... Pismo. He stopped blogging, like so many young men of his generation, he stopped blogging before his time. In your wisdom, Lord, you took him, as you took so many bright flowering young men at Khe Sanh, at Langdok, at Hill 364. These young men gave their hearts blogging. And so did Andrew. Andrew, who loved blogging and bowling. And so, Andrew Donald Exum, in accordance with what we think your last blogging wishes might well have been, we commit your final blog to the bosom of Jennifer-Love-Hewitt and Jessica-Alba, both whom you loved so well. Good night, sweet prince.
Dammit! Snake stops blogging for a couple weeks and Andrew throws in the towel? Sad to see you go man. It's been a nice ride.
Thank you Andrew and all for the learning experience. This Blog has provided a venue for me to learn more about the middle east / COIN / PRT Operations and how to nurture / get positive feedback and return from our diplomatic relations with foreign governments. I hope CNAS provides you with a venue to express yourself and brain storm greater ideas. Its sad you're still not active duty. We need people like you leading from the front.
Thanks for being the Dude, for this Blog. This was and still is your place... Don't let the Nihilist's get you down.
Have a good one.
Texas Thunder -OUT
Well . . . poop.
AM, thank you for your long and valuable public service.
I hope that after some time passes, you'll reconsider. Not only would your now-absent posts be highly relevant, you will find, especially after blogging, that confining your writing to academic research will have an extraordinarily specialized and narrow audience, and the impact of your writing usually takes years, if at all, if you're lucky.
So please don't feel that you must turn away from "a certain talent for writing clever 200-word blog posts and offering sound bites on television".
As for contemptible internet douchebags, they're here to stay, although the coward you link to is too afraid to keep his big-man-threat-page online—he's deleted it now, but Google still has it cached:
My Last Wish
November 7, 2009 in Zulu Kilo | by JR
I want Andrew Exum Crucified.
I want Exum crucified. Like the bad way. The way the Romans did it. Starved for 3 weeks, cut up, made to carry a cross or some shit, whipped, beaten. Yeah. My last wish – I want that done to Andrew Exum for twice as long as the Romans did it to Jesus. I don’t need it filmed. I just need it to be done.
I need to know Exum felt horrific pain and screamed and cried like a little a baby.
Mmmmmm. Exum is young. Perhaps he will deal. I’ll start selling his pain. YOU BETTER RUN MUTHERFUCKER.
Yeah. Exum never figured I would actually start selling his pain.
You can sell mine. I’ll give you a dollar a percoset. No, seriously. I can’t take it anymore
Run Like Hell
starnglely I may have pulled my best maneuver in the dark. Yeah. Good way to spell starnglely. No. Holmews will tell me about this. It will be my greatest moment. Yeah So. He;lp. me. talk me out. Dude you don’t unnnerstand. This isn’t LA. I’m a retard. Women have brains here. They are actually our companions. I’m not fucking kidding. Women and men are equal in Boston. Will somebody please tell him. FUCK!… careful. careful. It’s Bunn… careful… it’s Bunn. Don’t touch. DONT TOUCH. ITS BUNN. Only Rico Deals or he walks within 20 minutes, That is the deal. Only Rico Deals. It is very tight.
Come on. This guy is a pathetic loser. Even your mom knows that. Giving in to pathetic internet losers means that the terrorists win.
AM, thank you for your long and valuable public service.
I hope that after some time passes, you'll reconsider. Not only would your now-absent posts be highly relevant, you will find, especially after blogging, that confining your writing to academic research will have an extraordinarily specialized and narrow audience, and the impact of your writing usually takes years, if at all, if you're lucky.
So please don't feel that you must turn away from "a certain talent for writing clever 200-word blog posts and offering sound bites on television".
As for contemptible internet douchebags, they're here to stay, although the coward you link to is too afraid to keep his big-man-threat-page online—he's deleted it now, but Google still has it cached:
My Last Wish
November 7, 2009 in Zulu Kilo | by JR
I want Andrew Exum Crucified.
I want Exum crucified. Like the bad way. The way the Romans did it. Starved for 3 weeks, cut up, made to carry a cross or some shit, whipped, beaten. Yeah. My last wish – I want that done to Andrew Exum for twice as long as the Romans did it to Jesus. I don’t need it filmed. I just need it to be done.
I need to know Exum felt horrific pain and screamed and cried like a little a baby.
Mmmmmm. Exum is young. Perhaps he will deal. I’ll start selling his pain. YOU BETTER RUN MUTHERFUCKER.
Yeah. Exum never figured I would actually start selling his pain.
You can sell mine. I’ll give you a dollar a percoset. No, seriously. I can’t take it anymore
Run Like Hell
starnglely I may have pulled my best maneuver in the dark. Yeah. Good way to spell starnglely. No. Holmews will tell me about this. It will be my greatest moment. Yeah So. He;lp. me. talk me out. Dude you don’t unnnerstand. This isn’t LA. I’m a retard. Women have brains here. They are actually our companions. I’m not fucking kidding. Women and men are equal in Boston. Will somebody please tell him. FUCK!… careful. careful. It’s Bunn… careful… it’s Bunn. Don’t touch. DONT TOUCH. ITS BUNN. Only Rico Deals or he walks within 20 minutes, That is the deal. Only Rico Deals. It is very tight.
Come on. This guy is a pathetic loser. Even your mom knows that. Giving in to pathetic internet losers means that the terrorists win.
Andrew,
I'm glad I had the opportunity to meet you in Washington DC (dinner and drinks with Judith and Nick). Talking to you on the DC Metro was a memorable experience for me. :-) It was that experience that led me to your blog a few years ago... and I've shared your words with my colleagues on numerous occasions. I'm glad you're going to invest more time in your long-term research. I will miss your frequent postings here, but I think you're making the right decision.
Good luck to you and Lady Muqawama!
Go on ya good thing (and keep on writing about Hizballah)!
(See ya at Maggotfest one of these years?)
~Amanda
I look forward to your longer posts, Andrew. In the meantime, thanks for the reading list and the opportunity to participate.
Isn´t this a too high a price to pay to get rid of the norwegian antisemite Fnords comments?
[img src="http://www.bangitout.com/uploads/18hebrew_hammer.jpg"]
Help! The internet hate machine is gonna kill me!
Someone call the wahmbulance!
I gotta hide behind my gf & mom's skirts~
"These are the rules. Everybody fights, nobody quits. If you don't do your job I'll kill you myself. Welcome to the Internets." - Johnny Rico
Sorry if this isn't the right thread but I wanted to know if anyone knows what the best mini electric breast pumps are and if there are any extreme dangers of using them. I am blogging about it and don't want to mis-inform mothers.
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