More on 3-24 and the Vanguard of the Revolution

Charlie had originally filed this article under "eye roll" and moved on. Because honestly, how worked up can you get with people who are complaining about the lack of footnotes in a goddamned Army / Marine field manual? Instead, she'd like to direct your attention to two surprising elements of this "story":

1) We have a field manual where footnotes are required!

2) Anthropologists are reading it!

Let's be honest here folks: this is not about plagiarism (the paragraph about Kilcullen's 28 articles paralleling Lawrence's original articles is particularly hilarious). This is about opposition to the Iraq War (which Charlie understands) and opposition to civilian academics helping the military fight it better (which Charlie does not). So, instead of marveling that anyone took the time and effort to put anthropology, history, and (gasp!) even some political science in a freaking field manual (!), they kvetch over the footnotes. It reminds Charlie of the classic lament: The food here is tehribble, and the portions are so smawll!

This blogger is reluctant to write-off all of academia as irrelevant, tweed-lovers. Most all of her advisors did significant government consulting work, and the academy and policy-makers were better for it. But these sad, petulant attacks from a small Ivory Tower fringe shouldn't be tolerated. They are the last refuge of ill-informed scoundrels.