Vital Systems Security

No time like this very second to point all you anthropology people (once again) to the debate about the role of your discipline in enlightening soldiers to the nuances and minutiae of cultures and cultural difference. As the debate about the army’s Human Terrain System (HTS) gets uglier, I thought this would be an appropriate time to link us to some the antagonists. In one obscure corner you will find the work of one Ann Marlowe, writer of - not kidding - such works as “The Book of Trouble: A Romance” and “How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z”, who has just published a scathing review of said HTS in the amusing slash scary Weekly Standard. (Dynamic link, so check it out fast!) In the Red, White and Blue corner, you will find the writing of a Mr. Dave Dilegge, editor of the curious and fascinating Small War Journal, who takes umbrage with Ms. Marlowe and hurls compelling counterpoints and blog daggers at her. And in the hipster corner, you will find the latest (rather blasé) blurb on the whole mess in the Danger Room. You will also find there links to Wired’s continuing coverage of this increasingly heated discussion. So glad my discipline of sociology is untouched by internal strife or critique of its methods and social utility.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 22nd, 2007 at 12:35 am and is filed under briefly noted. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.