Babette Goes to War was one of those films like Gidget Goes to Rome from the old days where a ditsy blonde or brunette gets into an incongruous situation and much hilarity and romance ensues.
Russians are said to love this movie, says the young female soldier on Twitter who uses this handle.
Well, sure. They love old Flipper re-runs too. They like all kinds of things. Soviet war movies, too.
In any event, after a few rounds of twit-fighting with Babette, I'd have to conclude the following:
o she's not a private (she said we shouldn't assume she is)
o she's not likely in combat
o she might be a soldier, but could just as well be a former soldier or somebody like Christine Fair or Joshua Foust on a "human terrain study" visit
o it does seem as if her TL does describe life in the army, however, but maybe it's fake
o she says for reasons of OPSEC she can't show the identifying marks on photos, yet she includes in her mix a photo of an Afghan man presiding over the serving of an elaborately carved melon and fruit tray with Fruit Loops — which is supposed to be a symbol of Excesses of American Empire or something. I hope that man and his family are safe…
o we can never know who somebody really is on Twitter with these personas
o this one is typical of others like @DCGomez or AllThingsDHS where people purport to be existing of former military or intelligence or law-enforcement officials, and we just don't know if they are — yet people stampeded to them as if they are authentic authorities in a world where the real authorities don't tweet (and talk less in a post-WikiLeaks world, which was the idea, after all, in Assange's "the worse, the better" Leninism).
This particular persona has a knowledge of Russia and a detailed view of the American blogosphere on Russia which seems, well, odd. She berates her few hapless conservative followers for supposedly thinking she is a typical patriotic and military person with conservative views by schooling them that she is from "Kennedy country" and "the Enlightenment".
I took issue with her approval of Trenin's piece, which I've critiqued here, because I just wonder how it is, in today's army, that young soldiers would not grasp the true nature of Russia and understand that Russia is the enemy — if not formally so, at least in a de factor working understand of life. How could they not, given the continuing war in the North Caucasus and of course Syria?!
I asked about whether the Soviet war in Afghanistan was taught and whether people knew there were one million civilian deaths — not because I was trying to make a peacenik message about how soldiers should care more about body counts and then they'd go to war less (although that's always a good sentiment) but because I wanted Private Babette to realize that an enemy that can ruthlessly kill a million people and displace millions more, and only lose 15,000 of its own men in the proces, even if hundreds of thousands of more were wounded, is an enemy to understand thoroughly and not have illusions about.
It's not an enemy you say has changed with the global times or say people are "outdated" about. Ever.
It's an enemy that one has to realize created the situation we face in Afghanistan with the Taliban, which was created by the Soviets' war and its aftermath for which they should take responsible.
Our backing of the mujahideen as only a very partial and modest solution to this extraordinary mass crime against humanity perpetrated by the Soviet invasion isn't the reason for the Taliban, and no, we didn't create or support Osama bin Ladn, and no, our policies with Pakistan, however flawed, are the reason for all this.
The Soviets are, and that has to be thoroughly understood. It starts by realizing every family was likely touched by a loss of a member due to Soviet soldiers and what that meant. It starts with the realization of who those boys were put in the madrassahs in Pakistan — boys made orphans by the Soviets.
And really, one should go back to the Soviets' home-grown mass crime against humanity, where they massacred, starved, tortured, threw in the GULAG to die or otherwise killed 50 million plus people in the Communist era, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s. That's such a staggering phenomenon that you would think it would get more study, but it never does, and I don't expect people in their 20s to even understand it at all as it is not taught in the schools and not in the textbooks.
Instead what we have now are flippant and even nihilist — if not brainless and ignorant — young people who think the US is to blame for war casualties in its wars or has solely brought them on by its invasions. It's a very sickening phenomenon and very widespread and very hard to eradicate because people in authority do not tackle it, thinking that counterintelligence or counterpropaganda is misguided and inappropriate for a liberal democracy.
The International Relations "Realist" school prevails, and I guess this is taught even at West Point, although you would hope for better. We're supposed to accept that Russia has "interests" like any country, even if some of those "interests" are in fact criminal to their root and involve wildly bad behaviour at home and abroad with things like presiding over corruption and assassination and jailing of whistleblowers and persecution of dissidents, gays, and migrants, while arming and excusing the mass-murderer Assad and shutting off the pipeline to Ukraine as it suits.
Thus we get the musings of a young private sitting on Twitter in Afghanistan whiling away the hours in between training Afghan soldiers and thinking worse of their own country and better of Russia (I'm informed we're not in combat any more, although our soldiers keep dying because I guess the Taliban didn't get that memo yet). We get a private who thinks Putin is a great global statesman and the US is backward and misguided, and can mock, together with other young twits, Sen. McCain as he stands up to this world bully Putin.
I used to think the armed forces of America were something to respect and appreciate without fail, even if I didn't approve of this or that invasion or war or tactic.
But after the easy treason of Chelsea Manning; after the bad judgement of Gen. Petraeus and the bad judgement of his enemies; after the massacre of Afghan villagers by a soldier who shouldn't have been put back in the war and other such tragedies; after so many cases of suicide and of disruption and mayhem from vets in civilian life; after the Navy Yard shooting; and even after hearing the geopolitical spoutings of Private Babette, I think there's a problem — of mentality, of morale, or mindset.
Yes, there's too much use of contractors which is definitely not saving us money, given how awful it turns out. But I also think there's something deeply wrong about the setting up of expectations of recruits in the volunteer army, as they think they are joining to get a trade and free education and then serve in a quiet place like Germany, and seem utterly unsuited and unprepared for combat in a place like Afghanistan.
Obviously, twenty years of preparing young men for war by having them practice on war games on video consoles or online in MMORPGs just isn't working out as planned.
With Russia, it's not about being "behind" or "hopelessly mired in Cold War categories" but about the scary prospect that people who live in virtuality largely through the Internet and then through experiences mediated through gadgets may not really understand the enemy. This is an enemy whose killing throughout history, at home and abroad, utterly, utterly dwarfs anything that the US is to blame for. This is an enemy who is winning the Internet with RT.com and Snowden….
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Insightful piece by @DmitriTrenin on why the West keeps getting Putin wrong via @JohnsonRussiaLi http://russialist.org/the-west-just-doesnt-get-putin/#.UjuFy73izrI.twitter … #Russia #Syria
babette goestowar@PVT_Babette@jgmaber @DmitriTrenin @JohnsonRussiaLi wouldn't be because we try to simplify complex issues to fit our pre-established paradigms would it?
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@PVT_Babette Did they teach the history of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the army? One million people were killed.
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@catfitz general history – Persia, Greece, Britain x2, USSR yes. body counts, not so much. Mooj & USSR tactics, also yes.
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@PVT_Babette Body counts are important to study & have more public diplomacy about or you get this: http://www.thenation.com/article/176256/americas-afghan-victims?rel=emailNation#axzz2fPhfpZwX …
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@catfitz I'm well aware of the tragedy of civilian casualties and their effect on political will. What's your point?
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@PVT_Babette Trenin is wrong, the problem isn't the West and we also don't need knock pre-established paradigms given mass murder.
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@PVT_Babette Connecting these dots doesn't fit on Twitter so I will put it in a blog.
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@catfitz As soon as you simplify an opponent to a caricature, you've given the opponent the upper hand in the long game.
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@catfitz Cold War paradigms no longer fit in the the post Huntington world.
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@catfitz We should use the most apt-best fit paradigm, rather than the one most palatable to our personal political view.
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@PVT_Babette Um, it's not a caricature to properly report on the deadliness of Putin and his cronies & the way these countries work really
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@PVT_Babette Could this notion be why we're losing? Cold is what you need to be to mass murderers & enablers of mass murderers like Assad.
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@PVT_Babette it was easy to justify cooperating w Putin when you needed the NDN, 60% of which went thru Russia. After 2014, not so much
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@PVT_Babette These kinds of statements are mainly wielded against ideological enemies in your own country (not in "Enlightenment) not abt RU
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@PVT_Babette Who decides? Who is we? If you and your superiors think @DmitriTrenin is right, active measures worse than we knew.
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@catfitz We lose momentum when we assume everyone wants to be just like us. It's another inappropriate paradigm
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@catfitz again-Really? You'll need to blog that out for me. When the global environment changes, context changes. Paradigm needs to adjust
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@catfitz Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel – btw VVP fails when he promotes Cold War paradigm too.
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@catfitz@DmitriTrenin round earth, flat earth, helio centric, geo centric, which paradigm works for you is just fine
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@catfitz@DmitriTrenin And just who are my "superiors"? We – is the collective consensus of political scientists, not Fox TV pundits
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@PVT_Babette No one assumed that, dear. I speak Russian fluently and have lived and worked in Russia for years in my life. Have you?
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@PVT_Babette You may have many impressive accomplishments and bravery under fire in combat, but I'm not one assuming people "are like us"
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@PVT_Babette The Taliban is, you know? That thing you're fighting there? Or retreating from, rather?
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@PVT_Babette Russia didn't change as you imagine — ask the Chechens or political prisoners. I don't really know your point of reference
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@PVT_Babette I don't have a TV. I don't watch Fox News. I don't drive an SUV and I don't shop at Wal-mart. I voted for Obama in 2008.
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@PVT_Babette I have a different *liberal* opinion to your "progressive" IR Realism. That's all. You seem to expect a lot of "right-wingers"
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@PVT_Babette Er, I don't think I suffer from an excess of patriotism, whatever that means to a soldier fighting in Afghanistan. (?!)
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@PVT_Babette Let's see. Your superiors would be all the people with ranks higher than private? Also the civilian command in chief? You know
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@PVT_Babette You can't really say "we" these days about "political scientists" as there are different schools & they are very opposed.
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@catfitz we is not you or me it's the collective USA, voters and leaders. It's the hubris that gets into too many misadventures.
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@PVT_Babette Well, hon, I marched against the war in Iraq & sang the Internationale with the antiwar socialists on the night of Af invasion
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@PVT_Babette You seem to need a windmill to tilt against that is called "neocon" or "GrumpyCat" or something. Wrong address.
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@catfitz What does your Russian CV have to do with misunderstanding American Exceptionalism?
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@PVT_Babette What would be your reason for serving in a winding-down war if you think US merely had "hubris"in getting into this war?
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@PVT_Babette What does your combat experience have to do with getting it about Trenin and Putin? Again, is it US military doctrine to friend
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@PVT_Babette I'm not an American exceptionalist OR a reverse exceptionalist like progs who yearn to fix America to save the world.
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@catfitz I never said Russia changed. I said the global context changed
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@PVT_Babette Trenin wrote abt Snowden as if he was confused youth who didn't know which way up & fell in Putin's lap http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/09/aeroflop_russia_snowden …
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@PVT_Babette *Putin himself* made both Kucherena, Snowden's lawyer AND Trenin, his propagandist look bad by confessing back story
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@PVT_Babette Oh come now, don't move the goal posts. You said at the outset *in response to Trenin RT* that we shldn't use old paradigms
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@PVT_Babette It is Russia now trying to force through "the multipolar world" that represents that global change you so admire. Happy w pole?
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@catfitz I'm not saying you're a FOX zombie. You sound like a neolib idealist, who's insanely jealous of @juliaioffe
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@catfitz but that's a snap judgment. i need more info to make an nuanced eval
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@PVT_Babette@juliaioffe No, I'm not a neo-lib — that would be, oh, Tom Malinowski. Er, jealous of poor Julie forced to leave her homeland?
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@PVT_Babette I think I'm the only public critic of @juliaioffe in a world of people who fear her wrath lol. Good! It's needed.
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@PVT_Babette@juliaioffe But my, for being so busy in Af in combat and all, you've had LOTS of time to follow intricate RU blog wars.
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@catfitz And what am i expecting of right wingers? @peaceloveandal would you call me a progressive IR realist?
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@PVT_Babette Oh go right ahead and make a snap judgement. You need that skill in combat — on an educated basis, of course.
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@PVT_Babette Looks like you have about…two…conservatives following you. Not that many on Twitter! Yes, u sound like prog IR realist
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@PVT_Babette BTW, in my family, we always thought the Kennedys were allowed way too many annulments and excused way too many affairs.
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@catfitz News Flash, we aren't fighting here. The GIRoA is fighting. We're train advise assist mentor
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@PVT_Babette My father fought in the Korean War, the Army Air Corps, served as a Russian linguist, died in what he called Taxachusetts.
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@catfitz Do you really think I'm a private? Babette Goes to War is a movie that was popular in Russia – but you know that as a Russia Expert
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@PVT_Babette "progressive" IR Realists even with love of UN (which I've spent A LOT of time on in my life) wdn't likely fight that war now.
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@PVT_Babette Dialectic? That's a word right out of Marxism, where I come from. Didn't take IR in college, it hadn't been invented yet : )
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@PVT_Babette Yep, sure do, which is why I wouldn't be surprised if you aren't even in Afghanistan : )
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@PVT_Babette *Blinks*. You aren't fighting. But you're still dying in combat. OK. Got it. Thanks for clearing that up.
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@catfitz Do you really think I share the personal political opinions of my randomly assigned boss?
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@PVT_Babette No one can ever really be sure WHAT you're up to as you're anonymous. You're like the army equivalent of @AllThingsHLS
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@PVT_Babette Not necessary to put any real soldier in harm's way whatsoever, believe me. But anon people on the Internet are what they are
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@PVT_Babette what do you hope to be when you grow up? Foreign service? Thinktankistan?
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@catfitz to see what it is and what it's not. Hubris got us into Iraq not Afgh. Mission creep got us where we are in Afghanistan.
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@catfitz you think all my comments are directed at you, and they're not. they're general statements about Americans & American elites
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@catfitz almost entertaining. are you related to @larussophobe by any chance? dear?
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@PVT_Babette Funny, if you say "What does your Russian CV have to do with misunderstanding American Exceptionalism" I'd think it was at me
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@PVT_Babette No, not at all related to @larussophobe and you must not really be paying attention. I have a real name & am not anon like u
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@PVT_Babette You sound like @cchristinefair on a "human terrain" mission. Or someone like that.
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@PVT_Babette So we can safely assume now that a) you're not a private b) not in combat c) not in the elite i.e. as to educational status
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@catfitz Russian CV, at you; misunderstanding American Exceptionalism, not at you.
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@PVT_Babette I don't suffer from American Exceptionalism. Is that Afghan man chopping fruit for US troops you've shown here still alive?
CatherineFitzpatrick @catfitz
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