I seem to have randomly spent the last few days immersed in the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars.
First of all, after listening to an interesting episode of the Econtalk podcast, I read ‘War’ by Sebastian Junger one day this week. It’s a hugely powerful piece based on the fifteen months that a couple of journalists were embedded in an area know as the deadliest place in Afghanistan during the height of the war. Then discovered that there was a documentary based in the book called ‘Restrepo‘ on Netflix. Rather uniquely, despite being focused on the same raw material, both present entirely different experiences and I’d recommend checking both out.
Next up, I’d heard a podcast Tim Ferris did with General Stanley McChrystal – who basically headed up the US army’s operations at the time – a while back and stumbled across another podcast which I listened to during a few runs this week.
All of which leads somewhat randomly to what I think is a prime piece of amusement for anyone who’s spent any time themselves deeply embedded in any form of organisational hell…
This is a causal loop diagram by Army Staff on the Afghan conflict. Gen. McChrystal joked "When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war", and since has been labeled "worst powerpoint slide". However, as I know CLDs, I actually find it powerful. https://t.co/QArARhBH1y pic.twitter.com/6QAehIdTL4
— Christopher Allen (@ChristopherA) February 10, 2019