Gen. Petraeus, Plagarist?

[Quixote1818]

Danger Room is reporting that Prof. David Price has looked a little more closely at Dave Petraeus's COIN manual and found a lot of theft cribbing has been going on:

While some in this group are producing interesting quality studies of the military and intelligence community, the Manual shows the sort of low quality work that can pass as "innovative" uses of anthropology for the military. Chapter three reads like the work of lazy C students, taking phrases and sentences promiscuously from various sources, cobbling them together into a sort of Cliffs Notes version of anthropology, which the University of Chicago Press has now laundered into a book posing as an object of academic respectability.


It seems the General "Integrity" Petraeus copied a whole bunch of other peoples' work and printed it up. Like I said before, I wondered who the hell asked him to rewrite the thing anything. Its not like he was an expert. Hell, now its clear he didn't know enough about it to actually come up with anything original in the first place!

The Manual's PR campaign has been extraordinary. In a Daily Show interview, John Nagl hammed it up in uniform with Jon Stewart, but amidst the banter Nagl stayed on mission and described how Gen. Petraeus collected a "team of writers produced the strategy that General Petraeus is implementing in Iraq now." When Jon Stewart commented on the speed at which the Manual was produced, Nagl remarked that this was "very fast for an Army field manual; the process usually takes a couple of years";
-- counterpunch.com

More:


http://www.groupnewsblog.net/2007/11/gen-petraeus-plagarist.html

[EFerrari]

1. General Plagarist is right. n/t

[jody]

2. FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 COUNTERINSURGENCY is not Petraeus' manual it is the Army/Marine manual.

Petraeus can be accused of many things but it's not correct to accuse him of plagiarism for subject manual.

FM 3-24 COUNTERINSURGENCY

Preface
This field manual/Marine Corps warfighting publication establishes doctrine (fundamental principles) for military operations in a counterinsurgency (COIN) environment. It is based on lessons learned from previous counterinsurgencies and contemporary operations. It is also based on existing interim doctrine and doctrine recently developed.

Counterinsurgency operations generally have been neglected in broader American military doctrine and national security policies since the end of the Vietnam War over 30 years ago. This manual is designed to reverse that trend. It is also designed to merge traditional approaches to COIN with the realities of a new international arena shaped by technological advances, globalization, and the spread of extremist ideologies—some of them claiming the authority of a religious faith.

The manual begins with a description of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. The first chapter includes a set of principles and imperatives necessary for successful COIN operations. Chapter 2 discusses nonmilitary organizations commonly involved in COIN operations and principles for integrating military and civilian activities. Chapter 3 addresses aspects of intelligence specific to COIN operations. The next two chapters discuss the design and execution of those operations. Developing host-nation security forces, an essential aspect of successful COIN operations, is the subject of chapter 6. Leadership and ethical concerns are addressed in chapter 7. Chapter 8, which concerns sustainment of COIN operations, concludes the basic manual. The appendixes contain useful supplemental information. Appendix A discusses factors to consider during the planning, preparation, execution, and assessment of a COIN operation. Appendixes B and C contain supplemental intelligence information. Appendix D addresses legal concerns. Appendix E describes the role of airpower.

Doctrine by definition is broad in scope and involves principles, tactics, techniques, and procedures applicable worldwide. Thus, this publication is not focused on any region or country and is not intended to be a standalone reference. Users should assess information from other sources to help them decide how to apply the doctrine in this publication to the specific circumstances facing them.

The primary audience for this manual is leaders and planners at the battalion level and above. This manual applies to the United States Marine Corps, the Active Army, the Army National Guard/Army National Guard of the United States, and the United States Army Reserve unless otherwise stated.

This publication contains copyrighted material. Copyrighted material is identified with footnotes. Other sources are identified in the source notes.

Terms that have joint, Army, or Marine Corps definitions are identified in both the glossary and the text. FM 3- 24 is not the proponent field manual (the authority) for any Army term. For definitions in the text, the term is italicized and the number of the proponent manual follows the definition.

Headquarters, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command is the proponent for this publication. The preparing agency is the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center. Send written comments and recommendations on DA Form 2028 (Recommended Changes to Publications and Blank Forms) directly to Commander, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, ATTN: ATZL-CD (FM 3- 24), 201 Reynolds Avenue (Building 285), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-1352. Send comments and recommendations by e-mail to [e-mail]. Follow the DA Form 2028 format or submit an electronic DA Form 2028.

If Petraeus made mistakes in any report/paper he published as the author, then he should be criticized for those mistakes.

[johnfunk]

4. Petraeus affixed his name to FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 COUNTERINSURGENCY -- it's his plagiarized book now!

Or don't you believe that the highest-ranking members of our military should be accountable for documents to which they affix their name?

Petraeus the Plagiarist. Has a nice ring to it. I can't wait to see what his press flack, Col. Steven "Staff Puke" Boylan has to say about the matter.

[jody]

6. How ridiculous, JAMES F. AMOS, Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps, Deputy Commandant, Combat

Development and Integration also signed the document.

Anyone with military experience knows that all military manuals are signed by the senior member of the OPR and for joint manuals the senior officer from each service signs a manual.

[johnfunk]

7. Irrelevant and obfuscatory! The buck, and the responsibility, stop with PETRAEUS

It is incumbent on the general himself -- not the subordinates, not the toadies or staff pukes -- to address these substantial and robust allegations of outright intellectual theft.

[jody]

8. I see we disagree. I hope you head an organization someday so you can accept the blame for every

mistake made during your tenure.

On the other hand you might spend your entire life at the lowest level doing grunt work. :shrug:

[johnfunk]

10. I own a company, Sparky. And the buck stops with ME.

[jody]

11. I've owned several and I know employees make mistakes that I did not cause or allow to happen. n/t

[johnfunk]

3. But... he's "Mr. Integrity," the new Eisenhower! The number 2 influential US Conservative!

Time for a new MoveOn.org ad, I say!

Crooks and Liars has also linked to the Danger Zone piece. C&L is right -- someone should ask Col. Steven "Jack T. Ripper" Boylan about this scandal. It's not as if his e-mail address is a big secret anymore (scroll to the phrase "centcom.mil" in the previous link).

[johnfunk]

5. General Petraeus, the military's answer to Jayson Blair...

... and Ann Coulter...

... and Osama bin Laden!

[Igel]

9. Odd, that a professor has to view everything as original research.

I mean, most posts here aren't original research. Albeit some are fiction.

Then again, maybe he's confusing an army manual with fiction. Can't rule it out.

The problem is the same as with my 1992 Taurus manual. It's not research. Nobody discovered a 1992 Taurus, dissected it and analysed it in writing the manual. It's a manual. It's a compilation of stuff from other sources, put together in a way that's not particularly novel. I'd hope that it's based on engineering reports, which weren't necessarily all research in an academic sense, but a purely applied sense.

If all you have is a hammer, it's also a screwdriver and a chisel. Esp. when you really don't like something and you really want to diss somebody, lest they get a compliment or praise that you missed out on (which is to say, any that doesn't go to like-minded thinkers). I've seen it in action in academia, in the press--no good will, just trying to spin things to make yourself look godlike while the others look like slugs. No need to actually worry about your reputation, because your only friends are sycophants that believe that critical thinking means "debunking the other guy". And with their appeal to authority--because if they don't, then they're stuck criticizing themselves--it's rather hard to argue.

Nice echo chamber, if you have tenure or really Want to Believe. Otherwise ... just a little Faraday cage adapted for facts, not EM fields.