Back from the dead
So yeah, it's been a veritable eternity since my last post. Many of you are no doubt waiting with baited breath to find out exactly what I've been up to. This post will likely disappoint you, consisting as it does of a series of unrelated rambling thoughts. Without further ado, then...
I'm currently at Michele's apartment, hunched over the keyboard looking forward to playing some Neverwinter Nights a bit later today. Michele is currently sick--three guesses from whom she contracted the flu?--so I'm mostly sneaking around trying not to wake her up from her nap out in the living room. Here's hoping she gets to feeling a bit better in time for Easter tomorrow. Now, on to the exciting stuff:
First, Linux. I'm writing this from a shiny fresh install of Red Hat Linux 9 (thanks to Brian for burning the CDs for me). So far, I really like it. I realized the other day that while my Linux knowledge is quite sparse, I guess I'm actually sort of a Red Hat veteran at this point--I started a few years back with 5.2, upgraded a year or so back to 7.3, and have just installed 9, which is a great improvement over past versions (at least from my dumb-end-user perspective).
The RH9 install went flawlessly. I am most pleased with the fact that for the first time ever, I managed to get the latest nvidia drivers installed without having to wade through gtk errors and dependency hell. This means I'll be breaking out my low-quantity but high-quality collection of Linux games, including HoMM3, the criminally-overlooked Heretic 2, UT2k3, and of course Neverwinter Nights.
The only thing I'm stuck on is mounting my dos partition in Linux. Anyone know how I can mount a dos partition (on a separate hard drive, hda) so I can access it from Linux (hdb)? The current response to mount /dos is can't find /dos in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab. Help a dumb luser!
The war. So we did it--Saddam's regime is gone, and the number of children being tortured in the world has been decreased by a small but meaningful amount. Politics of the war aside, the wargamer/historian inside me has found the strategy of the conflict to be of extreme interest. I've been trying to hunt down intelligent analyses of the strategies and tactics employed by both sides during the war, so if you've read any, pass 'em along. From what I've read from military historians (as opposed to the TV "experts" we all saw crawling out of the woodwork during the actual conflict) some historians are going so far as to tentatively compare the Coalition advance to some of Patton's lightning strategic maneuvers during the Second World War. Some of my own observations for you to take along with a healthy grain of salt:
- I wonder if the decapitation strike in the opening minutes of the war may go down in history as one of the great military successes in decades. Command and control are vital to the effectiveness of any armed force, and the lack of such from the beginning of the war might go a long way towards explaining Iraq's strategic blunders (as noted by the great military historian John Keegan, who books I highly recommend) during the war. Fascinating.
- What's up with the American tendency to panic at the slightest sign that things might not be proceeding precisely as we planned? The second-guessing, criticism, inane analysis,and doomsaying (can you tell I like John Keegan?) that occurred during the second week of the war--days before Saddam's regime crumbled--was stunning to observe. Many of these prophets of doom were relatively easily-dismissable in my mind: retired generals with axes to grind, politicians with political reasons to hope for the war's failure, or high-school-educated celebrities the respectability of whose political views are roughly on par with your average just-read-Marx-for-the-first-time freshman in a college Political Science 101 course. But it's hard for me to understand why everyone--everyone--started second-guessing the military plan the instant it encountered resistance (that's the last Keegan link, I promise).
I wonder if a large part of this can be explained as the cultural scarring of the Vietnam War--an irrational, not-so-secret fear that all American military conflicts are going to turn into a Vietnam-style disaster. While it's certainly reasonable to prepare for a worst-case scenario, I'm sure I'm not the only one who grew tired of hearing politicians, celebrities, and talking heads with no military-analysis credentials whatsoever making irrational (and demonstrably false) prophecies of doom about the war. We learned valuable military lessons from Vietnam, but I think it's time to stop comparing every American military venture to a decades-past conflict. How would these modern-day Jeremiahs have dealt with the Second World War, in which the Allies occasionally suffered crippling defeats that make Mogadishu look like a decisive victory?
- Whether you supported the war or not, it's hard to deny the professionalism and skill of the American/British military. On top of the normal stresses of miltary action, our soldiers were operating under an unprecedented and uniquely Western concern for civilian life. History will speak well of this injection of humanity into the pages of Western war strategy.
- I note that a fan-created scenario detailing the Iraq conflict is now available for my favorite computer wargame, The Operational Art of War. I'll have to check that out this weekend--it might be interesting to play the Iraqi side and see if it's possible to resist the Coalition forces more effectively than happened in the actual war.
Other stuff. Wedding planning has been coming along well lately, thanks mostly to Michele's hard work. I realized with a start the other day that it's been nearly a month since I've played a computer game or cracked open a good book; I'm trying to rectify that imbalance this weekend. And tomorrow, of course, is Easter--that most wonderful of holidays! Here's wishing you all a blessed holiday season.
Well, it looks like Michele is awake now, so I'm off to go see how she's feeling and maybe visit for a bit. We watched the second Harry Potter movie last night (I'd already seen it)--fun film, and since Michele knows more about the books than I do maybe she can fill in some of the details for me. Y'all have a great weekend!
Comments
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Anyone know how I can mount a dos partition (on a separate hard drive, hda) so I can access it from Linux (hdb)? The current response to mount /dos is can't find /dos in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab. Help a dumb luser!
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Let's assume that /dos exists.
Is hdb really dos? If it's win9x, then it's probably vfat. If it's ntfs (XP, win2k), you're kinda screwed.
Let's say it's win9x.
in your /etc/fstab, put in:
on a line by itself. Then from the command line, just do mount -a and it should mount all that it can. mount /dos should work as well. This should also automount it when the machine is booted.Posted by: topher1kenobe | April 21, 2003 12:04 AM
I wholeheartedly agree with your statement, "Whether you supported the war or not, it's hard to deny the professionalism and skill of the American/British military." There were a few well-publicized quotes from grunts wanting to slaugher ragheads, but those appear to have been the exception that proves the rule. I am less convinced of the conclusion you draw from this demonstration of professionalism, "History will speak well of this injection of humanity into the pages of Western war strategy."
The war will be remembered for its tactics, but it is the conduct of coalition forces, and the US in particular, over the next 1-2 years that will be documented by historians. Most historians care about the details of war, but they care more about the tides of change that wars bring in and out. Will we be remembered as benevolent peacemakers, passing out freedom to the Iraqi children, or something less flattering? Now is the time for Bush to disprove the portions of the world's population that see him as nothing more than a corporate stooge.
Posted by: alan | April 21, 2003 7:51 AM
Topher--
Thanks much for the advice. I'll give it a whirl when I get home, although it's WinXP. Am I just screwed then?
And more importantly, if I can't get it to work, do I rail against Microsoft's vile capitalistic schemes, or do I rail against the open source community for not providing me with all the free Linux features that I want? :)
Posted by: jrau | April 21, 2003 12:09 PM
Alan--
Thanks for the comments. I think I mis-stated my original thoughts. I agree with you that history will base its judgement of the Iraq war primarily on how successful post-war recovery and government-building are. Now is the time for the US to step up to the plate and follow through on the Bush administration's stated purposes for action. In five or ten years I hope that we can answer "Yes" to the question "Is Iraq a better place now because the US intervened to destroy Saddam's regime?"
What I meant to say in my post is that I think that history will look back positively at the increasing importance that Western military doctrine is placing on safeguarding non-combatants and innocent bystanders in warfare. Even as recently as World War II, the mass destruction of civilians and civilian infrastructure was seen as an acceptable (if regrettable) side effect of war. I think this is changing drastically and we are witnessing a truly historic period in the history of warfare--a time when technology is advanced enough, and concern for human rights strong enough, that militaries are expected not only to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties, but to actively go out of their way to prevent such. As far as I can tell, this is not the way wars have been fought throughout most of history, and it speaks well of Western societies that we have moved beyond paying lip service to minimizing civilian casualties and are now actually shaping military strategies and weapons research to meet societal demands in this regard.
Currently, this integration of human rights with war theory doesn't seem to have much influence in the vast bulk of countries whose militaries aren't modelled on Western war doctrine. I wonder the next hundred years will see human rights become an integral aspect of international conflict or if it is just a passing luxury available only to countries with the technology and philosophical mindscape to support it.
It's been common throughout history to ask "How many of our people will suffer?" when considering military action. It's relatively new historically to ask "How many of their people will suffer?" and it's even more rare for such a question to be taken so seriously that the answer to it actually affects the final decision to go, or not go, to war.
Am I making any sense? That's what I hope history will look back upon kindly--the incorporation of human rights concerns into the very basics of military planning, strategy, and tactics. Most historians won't care much about the actual casualty figure or strategies of the second Gulf War, but I think that this conflict has been very indicative of a trend towards increasingly humane warfare (insert obligatory joke about oxymorons) that historians can't fail to notice.
Posted by: jrau | April 21, 2003 12:29 PM
Thanks for elaborating-- that makes sense. I wonder how much this new priority of human rights in warfare is due to the increased transparency of war? With embedded reporters, non-governmental satellite coverage, ubiquitous communication, etc, non-combatants have unprecendented exposure to the ugly realities of combat. Would the military strategists be as concerned with the welfare of "enemy" civilians if they knew that the public at large would remain ignorant? I don't know.
Posted by: alan | April 21, 2003 12:46 PM
From what I've read and heard, the idea of embedded reporters was initiated by the military. (See their reasoning in the first couple paragraphs here: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2003/d20030228pag.pdf .)
Any military willing to embed reporters has to be fairly confident in their strategies and tactics before allowing such access to a war front. I think embedded reporters are in part meant to keep the media in check moreso than the military.
Posted by: bcp | April 22, 2003 1:17 PM
Right, embedding reporters is a very nice way to keep them in check, because reporters otherwise have a tendency to report things they're not supposed to make public, to get themselves killed, or in some cases, both at the same time. News coverage is inevitable, so it's best to keep the reporters close at hand. "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't!"
Embedding allows a degree of strategic censorship, earns camaraderie with the press corp (you're less likely to speak badly about a unit after you've been shelled together), and pre-emptively addresses the historic mistrust between the military and the press by giving amazing front-line opportunities. In the end I think everyone benefits, including Iraqi civilians and the American public.
Posted by: alan | April 22, 2003 2:38 PM
Okay, the phrase "in check" was probably a poor choice of words for what I'm trying to say. Let me try again: embedding allows the media to see the truth with their own eyes rather than relying solely on the reports given by any government involved in the war. And with that truth being reported, I agree with you that in the end everyone benefits.
Posted by: bcp | April 22, 2003 9:12 PM
I think that generally it is a good idea to have reporters in the field. However, I worry about what they will actually report - a person's viewpoint can be pre-decided before they even leave the press wagon (assuming that is what they are called). So the 'truth' being reported could be vastly different from reporter to reporter. Furthermore, a constant media presence can be detrimental to something like crowd control, or the control of P.O.W.s. No doubt some of the iraqi 'military' know how things are in the US. If they know that they can get away with more with the media around, they are certainly going to use that to their advantage. In addition, you have the issue of yet one more person who isn't doing anything 'useful' (pardon the dig there on reporters) possibly getting in the way, or in Geraldo's case, giving away information in order to - golly - enlarge one's ego or presence in the news.
It is most likely a 'push' when you have media out on the field; you've got the reporters around making sure people don't misbehave, and you've the added bonus of not having to take the government's word for everything.
Posted by: Adam | April 25, 2003 4:24 PM