Great article. There is no substitute for actually going to the scene and wearing out shoe leather looking things over and talking to people.
This Emma Sky is an interesting character. A british “Orientalist” who dedicated a decade out of school doing the NGO thing, working towards peace in Israel and the West Bank, she got discouraged and went home to work with the Foreign Office briefly, then headed for Iraq when the war broke out. There she made her legend working with the Coalition Provisional Authority and then became Gen. Odierno’s right hand.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/world/middleeast/21emmasky.html
“I’m experienced in working in different cultures. The most alien culture I’ve ever worked in is the U.S. military,” she said with characteristic candor.She may have a liberal pedigree, but also a sense of humor and an open mind. How refreshing.[snip]
Hardest for Ms. Sky, however, has been facing the ways that the military has changed her antiwar views.
“It’s a moral compromise I’ve had to make, and I think of that all the time,” she said. “I’m always wondering how much this has changed me because in order to influence them, I had to be willing to be influenced myself.”