People who didn't look at this article by James Meek the last time I
mentioned it might want to look now:
<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n15/meek01_.html>
It's an in-depth review of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful
Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill
P
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Joseph Duemer
> Sent: 02 October 2007 16:22
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: West Point & poetry
>
> The most detailed Blackwater reporting I've seen is at Talking Points
> Memo<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/>.
> They have had several stories up over the last week.
>
> jd
>
> On 10/2/07, Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > Any clue as to the status of Blackwater? Is there a chain of
> > command there? If so, is it only within the State Dept.?
> > What the legal status of private US armies in a place like
> > Iraq?
> >
> > Hal
> >
> > Today's Special
> >
> > G(e)nome
> > http://www.xpressed.org/fall03/genome.pdf
> >
> > Halvard Johnson
> > ================
> > [log in to unmask]
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
> > http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> > http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> > http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
> >
> >
> > On Oct 1, 2007, at 8:59 PM, Joseph Duemer wrote:
> >
> > > Thanks, Douglas. In the US these days we tend to give the military a
> > > complete pass. Can do no wrong. Has the public's trust. This is mostly
> > > unexamined guilt left over from the American War in Vietnam. A
> > > dangerous
> > > precursor to fascism. I think we're very close to that, now.
> > >
> > > Peter, the poet always marries the horse.
> > >
> > > jd
> > >
> > > On 10/1/07, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Joe
> > >>
> > >> I read the piece with interest this morning, after finding my first
> > >> reference to it in a reply to a note I haven't found yet. It was an
> > >> interesting piece, but I think you've caught the aspect that bothered
> > >> me too. Her concern for those she teaches is fine, but,yes, her
> > >> seeming
> > >> lack of concern that her charges are going off to fight an immoral &
> > >> illegal war in a country where the country they serve has destroyed
> > >> both hundreds of thousands of its people and much f=of its
> > >> infrastructure as well as created millions of refugees, for a set of
> > >> lies ddid bother me.
> > >>
> > >> Thanks for pointing that out so clearly....
> > >>
> > >> Doug
> > >> On 30-Sep-07, at 5:42 PM, Joseph Duemer wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> Here is my comment on the article, from my
> > >>> weblog<http://www.sharpsand.net/>
> > >>> :
> > >>>
> > >>> That is what Elizabeth D. Samet appears to have written in her
> > >>> forthcoming
> > >>> book, excerpted
> > >>> here<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30WestPoint-t.html?
> > >>> ex=1348804800&en=1295af93deef8a15&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rs
> > >>> s>i
> > >>> n
> > >>> the
> > >>> *NY Times Magazine*. I find her her eerie coolness about the Iraq
> > >>> War
> > >>> deeply
> > >>> unsettling. I suppose it is a good thing that the young officers she
> > >>> describes carry Wallace Stevens or Andrew Marvell into the gibbering
> > >>> moral
> > >>> idiocy of Baghdad with them. A tolerance for ambiguity of the
> > >>> sort one
> > >>> learns from poetry might also serve as a kind of restraint
> > >>> against the
> > >>> military culture of certitude, I suppose. Samet's accounts are
> > >>> full of
> > >>> budding *noblesse oblige*, but all the Stevens & Marvell in the
> > >>> world
> > >>> doesn't change the truth, as Tim O'Brien (an infantryman) put it in
> > >>> "How to
> > >>> Tell a True War Story" - "Send young men to war and they come home
> > >>> talking
> > >>> dirty."
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> --
> > >>> Joseph Duemer
> > >>> Professor of Humanities
> > >>> Clarkson University
> > >>> [sharpsand.net]
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >> Douglas Barbour
> > >> 11655 - 72 Avenue NW
> > >> Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
> > >> (780) 436 3320
> > >> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> > >>
> > >> Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> > >> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> > >>
> > >> When you combine two unique voices
> > >> it creates a third, phantom voice.
> > >>
> > >> Emmy Lou Harris
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Joseph Duemer
> > > Professor of Humanities
> > > Clarkson University
> > > [sharpsand.net]
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Joseph Duemer
> Professor of Humanities
> Clarkson University
> [sharpsand.net]
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