Professional Writing

[surgicalcric]

...The Khost double (triple?) agent suicide bombing was definitely a failure on the part of the intel community, but I saw it as the failure of a small part of the community, not the systematic failure of the entire IC. Although it was public and tragic, I didn't really feel that it affected the IC's credibility as much as some of the other failures and letdowns, partly because the damage was confined to the IC itself. I don't say that to downplay the significance of the event or the loss of life, it's just to limit the scope of the paper.

Well said Sir!

The incident wasn't reflective of the entire IC community or HUMINT in particular.

What it did was bring back to the forefront of the IC's collective minds that you cant trust people further than you can throw them...

Crip

 

[Marauder06]

...
One possible example for future consideration would be a look at the Iraq National Congress role in intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq War. ...

Good point- that didn't occur to me. I could have added Chalabi and Curve Ball and just titled it "The Iraq War" instead of "Iraq WMD."

I thought it was a great paper and hope you got a nice grade for your effort......

Thanks Scott, I appreciate it.

As far as the grading goes, maybe what I should have done was type up a one-page summary involving how much of a bad ass I was in Iraq and Afghanistan and use graphic descriptions of how I like to murder people with knives and then blaming it all on the big, mean Army. I could have gotten an "A" and gotten published, plus I wouldn't have had to provide any corroborating facts, and of course not be constrained by pesky things like the "truth." /crossthread ;)

 

[Scotth]

As far as the grading goes, maybe what I should have done was type up a one-page summary involving how much of a bad ass I was in Iraq and Afghanistan and use graphic descriptions of how I like to murder people with knives and then blaming it all on the big, mean Army. I could have gotten an "A" and gotten published, plus I wouldn't have had to provide any corroborating facts, and of course not be constrained by pesky things like the "truth." /crossthread ;)

The down side to the new "Like" system you can't designate the Cross-thread Rep. LOL

 

[Chopstick]

Cant even call it a cross thread like.
I await this paper you speak of Mara!

 

[Marauder06]

First post this thread, Chop.

 

[SpitfireV]

I found your assertion that the US has the best intelligence community in the entire world to be a bit of a reach. While you're certainly world leaders (by a long shot) in anything to do with technical intelligence, you appear to be lacking in a few other areas- protecting your intelligence from people like wikileaks, for instance. How many other countries having S rated and up documents on wikileaks. If wikileaks can get these documents from people what is a foreign government getting? It's my totally uneducated opinion that your counter intelligence needs work. I have no idea about now but from open source material the KGB and SVR had the upper hand on your work during the Mid/Late Cold War through to the late 90s. The British did a much better job. Again, entirely open source.

I don't mean to be overly critical and like I said, it's an uneducated opinion, but it's what I think.

Other than that I thought it was a good paper.

 

[Marauder06]

I think the part you were referring to was "When functioning properly, the U.S. IC is the largest, best trained, and most effective intelligence organization in the world," to me that's different than saying the U.S. IC is the best in the world- which I do believe but since I didn't define the metrics I shouldn't put it in a paper. I also added the caveat "when functioning properly," which is an important distinction. Since I didn't quantify "most effective" either, perhaps I should have used "best resourced" instead. Point taken.

I think you have a great point about the security of our information and intelligence. It's extraordinarily frustrating to live in a community that stresses secrecy, only to have former unit commanders on down write stories about it for profit and get away with it. That doesn't even count legit spying. The WikiLeaks issue is also a major pain. While I see it as a major annoyance, I also see it as part of the tradeoff for living in a free country. I also think that despite its shortcomings, the U.S. IC is still the best in the world. Not perfect, but the best nonetheless.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Manolito]

Mara you said a mouthful about people being able to write books without fear of being taken to task by our country. A book was written and the forward was people need to know the sacrafice these people have made. I spent my working life to protect this information only to read about it in a lousy book.
I can't fathom this wikileaks stuff. I think this should be a capitol case and death as the punishment. I would like to see us go back to the check it out and check it in and total control in a specific area.
Bill

 

[SpitfireV]

I'm not ignoring your post Mara, I'm just mulling

 

[Marauder06]

No worries- as an intel officer in the best IC in the world, I'm used to stunning people to silence with my brilliant observations and insights :cool:

 

[skeeter]

I just wanted to say thanks for the ideas, they really helped me write my paper. I got my paper back today and unfortunately he did not agree with many of my points, saying they were too stereotypical using case studies of Mormons out West (yes, I know they are not Mormons). Three weeks ago he stood there and said to pick a side and stay off the fence. This week he said that the paper was about being culturally relativistic. He gave me a C+ on my paper, which is the lowest grade on a paper in my college career. I thought I wrote a well thought out paper backing up my points with good case studies. I'm confused and a little frustrated.:confused: Time to go PT this one off.

 

[Marauder06]

Post it.

After PT.

 

[skeeter]

Alright, here it is.

 

[Dame]

Good paper, well written, only one punctuation error (that I saw). Only thing I can say about effectiveness of arguments is they might make more impact if the pro position had been stated in paragraphs throughout and then refuted using the exact words you have there anyway.

Other than that, this is not a C paper. IMO, as a published essayist, your instructor is an asshole.

 

[Scotth]

Skeeter it was a good paper. My writing skills are pretty horrible at best so I won't try to critique it.

If the instructor didn't leave specific examples why he downgraded the paper. I would talk to him either after a class or during his office hours. Find out what his issues were with the paper. Maybe he has legit points or maybe he was having a bad day and was being an asshole. Either way getting specific feedback will help you avoid the same mistakes on the next paper.

Plus it will leave a positive image with the instructor that you take his class seriously and it never hurts to have an instructor thinking you value his class. Whether it's true or not.;)

 

[skeeter]

Skeeter it was a good paper. My writing skills are pretty horrible at best so I won't try to critique it.

If the instructor didn't leave specific examples why he downgraded the paper. I would talk to him either after a class or during his office hours. Find out what his issues were with the paper. Maybe he has legit points or maybe he was having a bad day and was being an asshole. Either way getting specific feedback will help you avoid the same mistakes on the next paper.

Plus it will leave a positive image with the instructor that you take his class seriously and it never hurts to have an instructor thinking you value his class. Whether it's true or not.;)

Thank you both,
Scotth, I talked to him after class and he told me I was the only one out of 90 people to take the opposition.He also said my case studies that I used as examples were not acceptable since they were polygamist in the U.S. and had to be "covert polygamist." I don't see how this makes a difference though since he told us to pick a side and support it. I'm not going to support my side by making the other side look good, and to be honest I personally don't care what they do as long as I'm not involved. I just needed to support my side.
Thank you both, Scotth, I talked to him after class and he told me I was the only one out of 90 people to take the opposition.He also said my case studies that I used as examples were not acceptable since they were polygamist in the U.S. and had to be "covert polygamist." I don't see how this makes a difference though since he told us to pick a side and support it. I'm not going to support my side by making the other side look good, and to be honest I personally don't care what they do as long as I'm not involved. I just needed to support my side.

 

[Marauder06]

Skeeter- I haven't had a chance to read your paper yet but I will. I've been in the same situation as you in the past, made me think of this:

 

[skeeter]

That is Great!

 

[Dame]

Thank you both,
Scotth, I talked to him after class and he told me I was the only one out of 90 people to take the opposition.He also said my case studies that I used as examples were not acceptable since they were polygamist in the U.S. and had to be "covert polygamist." I don't see how this makes a difference though since he told us to pick a side and support it. I'm not going to support my side by making the other side look good, and to be honest I personally don't care what they do as long as I'm not involved. I just needed to support my side.

I see what he's saying and I don't consider it a valid argument. He wants you to use examples of legal polygamy and explain why (if) they don't work. Since it's illegal in the U.S., his argument is that any data is colored by the fact that they do this covertly. The big problem with that is he wants you to apply it to U.S. culture and that cannot be done without turning it into a SciFi paper. There is no legitimate culture for it here so you have to use what statistics are available of Americans practicing this lifestyle, which you did. An essay comparing life in a harem to life in the U.S. is just a literary jerk off. It would be an impotent gesture to satisfy his impossible criteria.

You done good, Skeet. Best thing you can do in a case like this is do your damndest to get an A and then trash him in the eval. That's what I used to do anyway. Bad grade + bad eval = disgruntled student. A grade + bad eval = intelligent complaint.

 

[AWP]

This is one reason why I hate college. Most papers/ thesis (even at the Masters and Doctorate levels) only require you to take a side and argue it. You did that, but NOW the prof says in essence that your conclusion was one he couldn't agree with?

What a douche. Imagine if his Master or Doctorate were handled the same way...mo fracker would be managing a Burger King right now.