Matthew Yglesias- Counter-insurgency guru

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

What do you mean where have I been? Family reunion that was an awful lot of fun, k? Video of me describing my injuries sustained saving lady from mountain lion to follow.

But for now I'd like to commend Grim for doing such an able job of making sure B5 was rockin' while Matty O' and me have been lolly gagging. He hates when I point out that he is an excellent writer etc,  but it's his fault for not sucking.

His latest post highlights the problem when liberal smarty pantses run their lips on topics they know less than nothing about. Matthew Yglesias is considered by far too many to be one of the brighter lights on the the left, if so that only highlights the over all lameness over there. I'ver read quite a lot of his stuff as Jonah Goldberg points his way a fair bit, but I have been underwhelmed by, well pretty much all I've read. He is not a hater which I guess is his best quality these days given the vitriol common in the fever swamps. But he has that other irritating quality of assuming his gargantuan intellect and Ivy League beer-drinking experience qualify him to flap his gums on issues he is woefully ignint regarding. This time he weighed in on Counter-Insurgency, and while I have consistently opposed all use of the chickenhawk argument to stifle someone's right to comment on a topic, that doesn't mean if you do pop off, you will not be judged for the foolishness of your blathering and the lack of any reason you should have inflicted your asininity on anyone.

Yglesias' bio-

Desperately out of touch with the American mainstream, Yglesias was born and raised in Manhattan and studied philosophy at Harvard where he was editor in chief of The Harvard Independent, a campus alternative weekly.

Since then he has written for numerous lefty pubs, but beyond hanging out with other lefty smarty pantses who know self-evidently that war is bad mmmkay, he has done nothing to gain any capability to make informed commentary about Counter-insurgency tactics. However:

Strikingly, the big "sweep" against al-Qaeda failed for the exact same reasons that this technique always fails, both in previous iterations in Iraq, and also in other counterinsurgency situations around the world and throughout history.

I would hazard a guess that I have read more than 50 books specifically related to counter-insurgency and guerrilla warfare and have actually been there and done them. Mr. Yglesias would be hard-pressed to convince me he has read one or thought more deeply than "W's policy? Must be wrong". Now on the topic of those who could be more useful with a cork in their cakehole, look at who he links to in his toss-off brilliance.

Robert Farley- I'm an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky.

When I start dropping my thoughts on Trade Tarriffs please shut me down, yet this maroon figgers his thoughts on COIN are worth consderation, sorry no. Jeez I can't believe that up against those two titans of military strategy we can only put up this chump.

Gen. David Petraeus

Petraeus was the General George C. Marshall Award winner as the top graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College - class of 1983. He subsequently earned a Master of Public Administration (1985) and a Ph.D. (1987) in International Relations from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He later served as Assistant Professor of International Relations at the U.S. Military Academy, and also completed a fellowship at Georgetown University. He has a BS from the U.S. Military Academy - class of 1974.

Now that would be a distinguished career for any egg head, but Gen. Petraeus actually managed to squeeze in quite a bit of time leading troops in combat and counter-isurgency missions in several conflicts, but sadly he had little time for smoking Dunhills and creating world peace with Mr. Yglesias and his co-brainiacs. Heck Petraeus even found time to co-author the brand spanking new Army manual on Counter-Insurgency. Not that that really compares to Ygelsias' snarky blog commentary, eh?

I have always been a huge advocate of free and open exchange of views, with the standard being can they compete in the market place of ideas. Mr. Yglesias you are not just  out of  your league, you don't even know what game we are playing. Just a bit of advice, hush.

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Comments

Matthew Yglesias- Counter-insurgency guru

What do you mean where have I been? Family reunion that was an awful lot of fun, k? Video of me describing my injuries sustained saving lady from mountain lion to follow.

But for now I'd like to commend Grim for doing such an able job of making sure B5 was rockin' while Matty O' and me have been lolly gagging. He hates when I point out that he is an excellent writer etc,  but it's his fault for not sucking.

His latest post highlights the problem when liberal smarty pantses run their lips on topics they know less than nothing about. Matthew Yglesias is considered by far too many to be one of the brighter lights on the the left, if so that only highlights the over all lameness over there. I'ver read quite a lot of his stuff as Jonah Goldberg points his way a fair bit, but I have been underwhelmed by, well pretty much all I've read. He is not a hater which I guess is his best quality these days given the vitriol common in the fever swamps. But he has that other irritating quality of assuming his gargantuan intellect and Ivy League beer-drinking experience qualify him to flap his gums on issues he is woefully ignint regarding. This time he weighed in on Counter-Insurgency, and while I have consistently opposed all use of the chickenhawk argument to stifle someone's right to comment on a topic, that doesn't mean if you do pop off, you will not be judged for the foolishness of your blathering and the lack of any reason you should have inflicted your asininity on anyone.

Yglesias' bio-

Desperately out of touch with the American mainstream, Yglesias was born and raised in Manhattan and studied philosophy at Harvard where he was editor in chief of The Harvard Independent, a campus alternative weekly.

Since then he has written for numerous lefty pubs, but beyond hanging out with other lefty smarty pantses who know self-evidently that war is bad mmmkay, he has done nothing to gain any capability to make informed commentary about Counter-insurgency tactics. However:

Strikingly, the big "sweep" against al-Qaeda failed for the exact same reasons that this technique always fails, both in previous iterations in Iraq, and also in other counterinsurgency situations around the world and throughout history.

I would hazard a guess that I have read more than 50 books specifically related to counter-insurgency and guerrilla warfare and have actually been there and done them. Mr. Yglesias would be hard-pressed to convince me he has read one or thought more deeply than "W's policy? Must be wrong". Now on the topic of those who could be more useful with a cork in their cakehole, look at who he links to in his toss-off brilliance.

Robert Farley- I'm an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky.

When I start dropping my thoughts on Trade Tarriffs please shut me down, yet this maroon figgers his thoughts on COIN are worth consderation, sorry no. Jeez I can't believe that up against those two titans of military strategy we can only put up this chump.

Gen. David Petraeus

Petraeus was the General George C. Marshall Award winner as the top graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College - class of 1983. He subsequently earned a Master of Public Administration (1985) and a Ph.D. (1987) in International Relations from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He later served as Assistant Professor of International Relations at the U.S. Military Academy, and also completed a fellowship at Georgetown University. He has a BS from the U.S. Military Academy - class of 1974.

Now that would be a distinguished career for any egg head, but Gen. Petraeus actually managed to squeeze in quite a bit of time leading troops in combat and counter-isurgency missions in several conflicts, but sadly he had little time for smoking Dunhills and creating world peace with Mr. Yglesias and his co-brainiacs. Heck Petraeus even found time to co-author the brand spanking new Army manual on Counter-Insurgency. Not that that really compares to Ygelsias' snarky blog commentary, eh?

I have always been a huge advocate of free and open exchange of views, with the standard being can they compete in the market place of ideas. Mr. Yglesias you are not just  out of  your league, you don't even know what game we are playing. Just a bit of advice, hush.

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