zenpundit.com

I’ll be frank, as I am short for time until Dec. 7th, so I riffed this straight from SWJ Blog  which also posted a critique by Robert Haddick here.

My reader’s digest take – the president split the difference between the myriad factions in the national security community in a way that ultimately leaves his options open. A cautious, calculating, choice unless he gave General McChrystal carte blanche on new black ops inside Pakistan. That would not be unimportant – al Qaida safe houses in Quetta and rural Baluchistan blowing up would not be insignificant.

For what it is worth, in terms of domestic politics, President Obama is well to the right of the Democratic Party on Afghanistan, at least in terms of the activist base. The self-described “progressives” are not happy tonight.

That was my two cents. Fire at will in comments section….

ADDENDUM:

Will there be a “Revolt of the Progressives?” Here is one reaction to the speech from an important leftwing blog.

Two bloggers have stepped forward to lend a hand in preserving and carrying on DNI’s legacy. In each instance, both efforts are “under construction”.

John Robb has set up a page for William Lind to continue his column and to house 4GW docs, also a page to house materials from strategist Col. John Boyd, whose ideas were at the core of DNI.

Ed Beakley of Project White Horse is developing a Boyd Compendium that will eventually be greatly expanded to include much of interest at DNI.

Dr. Richards announced he will be keeping DNI up until he can find another person or organization to take over site management.

First Chet Richards and now Abu Muqawama.

Hat tip to Isaac.

Dr. Chet Richards announced that DNI is set to adjourn sine die.

DNI set to close 

 Probably on Monday, November 23, depending on how my travels work out. Please go ahead and download any thing you’d like to keep — I’d particularly recommend Boyd’s briefings and the 4GW manuals. I have great faith in the growing number of bloggers and commentators who cover many of the same subjects we did – check out a few of them in the “Blogs” and “Other Sites” sections on the right.

DNI started in March 1999 with a grant from Danielle Brian and the folks at the Project on Government Oversight. Its original purpose was to house the growing collection of Chuck Spinney’s commentaries on the foibles of our defense program (when you read these, keep in mind this was during the Clinton era.  We were not associated with any political party).  If you’re interested in strengthening our position in 4GW, I’d suggest a generous donation to POGO.  You could also run for office.

I’d like to thank Danielle, Chuck, Marcus Corbin (our original project officer at POGO and the person who commissioned A Swift, Elusive Sword), Ginger Richards (who designed and operated all the various versions of the site), Bill Lind and all of our other contributors, and all who have taken the time to compose comments.

Chet Richards,

Editor

This is a shame, but everything has its time.

DNI served as an important counterpoint to the “conventional wisdom” in military affairs long before the growth of the now influential  defense/.mil/intel/COIN/national security blogosphere. In addition to hosting the entertaining jeremiads of William Lind, Dr. Richards was the steward of the legacy of the great American strategist Colonel John Boyd and the benefactor of the 4GW School of strategic analysis. DNI was not only a resource for scholars and strategists interested in Boyd’s theories, it was a forum for vigorous debate at a time when unconventional views on military reform were unpopular as well as obscure.

Personally, I have learned much from both DNI and from Dr. Richards whom I had the pleasure of meeting in 2007, at the Boyd Conference at Quantico ( where I met other blogfriends and readers including Shane Deichman, Dan TDAXP, Shlok Vaidya, John Robb, Adam Elkus, Dave Dilegge, Frank Hoffman, Don Vandergriff, Frans Osinga, Ski, Isaac and Morgan). This event subsequently led to much good reading, writing, discussion and still more new friends now too numerous to mention here.  The keynote speaker that day was Col. Frans Osinga, whose magnum opus  Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd is still the most comprehensive and detailed text on John Boyd’s strategic thought that we are ever likely to see.

Consequently, as a regular reader, I would like to thank Chet both for his hard work over the years as editor of DNI and for his occasional advice and contributions to various projects and discussions that have occurred in this section of the blogosphere. Dr. Richards appears to be very busy with his business consulting these days and I wish him the very best in his future endeavors.

DNI will soon be gone, but it will not be forgotten.

ADDENDUM:

Joseph Fouche is a step ahead on the Boyd downloads

Here are the 4GW manuals (temp).

UPDATE:

James Fallows on Chet Richards and DNI

Planet Russell on John Boyd and DNI

Charles Cameron, an expert on forensic theology, is doing a series of guest posts here on Islamist extremism. His prior posts can be found here, here and here:

Breaking News on the Mystery of Maj. Hasan’s Powerpoint

by Charles Cameron 

I am in the middle of writing up an extended, contextualized commentary on the 50-slide PowerPoint presentation that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan made to his colleagues at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as a senior-year psychiatric resident in June 2007, but wanted to make one data point available to other analysts right away.

In the final bullet point of slide 11 he writes in quotes, “It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.”

This last phrase is a direct quotation from a statement made by Jeff Hammad, a Muslim in the Marines, reported by the SF Chronicle religion writer Don Lattin in an article in SFGate, the Chronicle website, titled “Muslims in the military walk fine line: War tensions put pressure on rising minority“. A quick search suggests that this is the original source for this particular phrase, which Hasan’s own use of quote marks suggests he was drawing from some source other than himself, although this saying of Hammad’s was also quoted from Lattin’s article in a 2006 Maxwell AFB Research Report by Timothy E. Stenmark, “Language, Cultural Awareness, and the Fourth Generation Warrior“.

The rest of Don Lattin’s article, and the contents of Stenmark’s paper, should therefore be subject to careful scrutiny.

Jeff Hammad’s opening comment in Lattin’s article: “The military has a tendency to demonize the enemy, and Muslims are on the receiving end of that hostility.”

ADDENDUM:

Zen here. Charles alerted me that readers can view the Hasan PPT presentation over at The Washington Post website. No embed option, sorry.