The Most Dangerous Weekend

I was a little perturbed that the gang at Wired.com's Danger Room didn't post its weekly "Most Dangerous Week Ever" update. Fortunately, Adam Weinstein from Mother Jones picked up the slack with his "This Week in National Insecurity".

Yet, I think Adam missed out on some of the important highlights. Therefore, without further ado, I'm posting my own link compilation entitled "The Most Dangerous Weekend". (Totally original title. Don't sue me, Spencer.) Furthermore, I've compiled the thing in bullet-point format because we all like bullet-points, right?

• In PowerPoint news this week, Army Lt. Col. Lawrence Sellin, a regular contributor to the news outlet UPI, was sent home from Afghanistan after posting a hard-hitting—albeit hilarious--rant against the all-too familiar excesses of PowerPoint in the US military. Lt. Col. Seelin, PhD, has a number of great articles on the state of the military, many of which are as critical—and bitingly prescient--as Lt. Col. Paul Yingling's infamous 2007 "A Failure in Generalship". Despite the Pentagon's attitude towards him, Lt. Col. Seelin has a number of supporters, too, judging by the reaction in the blogosphere. Seelin infamous post also rails against the endless creep of bureaucracy in Afghanistan, reminiscent of the same phenomena in Iraq. (If four Multi-National Divisions compose a Multi-National Corps Iraq, why was there only one corps in Multi-National Force-Iraq? Why not eliminate the corps headquarters?)
  
• Adam Elkus and Jason Fritz provide some much needed background and context for the COIN v. COINtra debate which is rocking the milblogosphere. I'd say it's required reading for those of you who might be arriving from The Atlantic to check out this article.
  
• While Weinstein linked to Elisabeth Bumiller's article on a US Navy Fire Scout drone which accidentally happened to travel through DC airspace, I have to mention that the Great Satan's Girlfriend also delved into similar territory. Reporting on the latest "Drone Gone Wild"—the US Army's portable Raven system—Courtney had a few choice quotes from a certain milblogger that might have spent an entire night walking through a German forest like Hansel and Gretel looking for a missing Raven drone. Though I asked her to take out the specifics, I did like that she mentioned that the, uh, certain milblogger made "good drones go bad". (In my defense, the Raven appears to fly off on its own quite often, with one even winding up in the hands of Shia insurgents)
  
• This week also gave us sarcasm from Schmedlap, strategy from Snooki, and, well, I can't think of an alliterative term to describe this, but suffice to say, more asinine IT policies from the DoD.  Don't forget the great commentary on the new Medal of Honor game.  And on the topic of games, can you believe that the crew at CNAS plays the game Risk?  I think the gang at PaxSims can come up with a much better board game for them.
  

Now, here it is: your moment of Zen.