Slashdot Mirror
Losing the War Data For Iraq and Afghanistan
cervesaebraciator writes with an excerpt from an analysis of a kind we're likely to see more of as ubiquitous sensors and cheap storage continue to proliferate: "'The Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns are unique in that they were the first wars to be documented electronically. The use of computers to track stabilization efforts produced enormous datasets in which important indicators were tracked, including daily electricity-production rates, georeferenced insurgent attacks, factory employment numbers, military spending on locally sourced goods and services and public opinion. [...] Army Secretary John McHugh recently admitted to members of Congress that thousands of records from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are missing. [...] The problem is that much of the existing data were collected in an ad hoc manner that reflects the lack of planning for stability operations following both invasions. While certain data types were methodically maintained, others were kept by single individuals in more arbitrary ways—in some cases, on a single computer's hard drive, in a personal computer or within an e-mail account. As flash drives are lost, computers reformatted, files erased, and human and magnetic memory degrades, various data types have been and will continue to be destroyed." With apologies to Santayana, those who do not backup data sets of the past are condemned to repeat them."
The problem is that much of the existing data were collected in an ad hoc manner that reflects the lack of planning for stability operations following both invasions.
With each generation the prior generation of technology often looks ad hoc or patched together. Given that these operations happened over a decade ago it's no surprise that the data was handled poorly by today's standards.
" The problem is that much of the existing data were collected in an ad hoc manner that reflects the lack of planning for stability operations following both invasions. " bureau-speech for "We didn't plan well enough, so no one can be blamed."
Uh no. It's bureau-speech for "we planned well, so that no one can be blamed". They can lose any data they like as long as they claim that this is standard, and never get in trouble for burying any kind of evidence. Next to be lost: The NSA's records of who they've been spying upon.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The units brought their own network gear and staff, and it all departed at each RIP/TOA.
Much harder to track down and prosecute anyone there for much of anything, for reasons of justice, or to slake our emerging lust for kangaroo courts.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
In wartime, militaries do some really nasty stuff. Ever since Vietnam, the US military has made it a policy to keep hidden from the public the facts about what they do, because they firmly believe that the US would have won the war had they not gotten into trouble with the US public for walking into villages and killing everybody.
And no, more modern wars have been no different in that regard: For example, the US has used drones to launch missiles at weddings and funerals in Afghanistan. There's the infamous "Collateral Murder" video which shows US soldiers gunning down unarmed civilians trying to rescue wounded unarmed civilians. The US has acknowledged torture (by the definitions the US used before they got caught doing it) of often innocent prisoners in Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. There have been some very suspicious "suicides" of prisoners of war.
I'm not saying war is never worth it, but you have to remember that in war all conventional morality is thrown out the window pretty quickly.
I am officially gone from