smirk has West Point writing geography bks. on axis of evils - (really)

http://www.counterpunch.com/kay04092005.html


West Point is now in the business of writing geography books for mostly geographically illiterate American population. These books reflect a conqueror's propagandistic view of the world. It is deplorable that our military is being trained to see countries in this light. The winners not only write history books, but also geography books dehumanizing their enemies.

Listening to their beloved commander in chief, some of the professors in the Department of Geography at West Point decided to write books on the members of the Axis of Evil. They have written two books on the members of the Axes: Iraq and North Korea; however, for some reason, they have replaced Iran, world's first Taliban state, with Afghanistan. A book on Iran also will be written as soon as Washington decides what to do about Tehran, to invade or not to invade!

They subtitled all of their books with "Geographical Perspectives". I have not seen the book on North Korea; thus, I am not going to deal with it. The other two, were apparently conceived by Colonel Dr. Eugene J. Palka who edited the book on Afghanistan.

-snip-

Dr. Malinowski, editor of the book and one of only two contributors without an army rank, writes that the thirteen authors, all professional geographers, of different chapters of this book "made the conscious decision not to overwhelm the reader with in-depth analysis, forecasting of the future, or political debates" (p .vi). This sounds like three different types of disclaimers in a single sentence. They did not want to overpower the readers with the language of "excessive jargon," but promise "a lengthy bibliography" (p. vi). He is saying they had the ability to write a comprehensive geography book on Iraq but did not! Thus, in order to educate, the readers are recommended to consult the book's bibliography.
-snip-
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read the rest of this article to see how twisted these books are.

so now West Point is in the make-our-own-reality game.

West Point, the academy that rapes it's women and twists geography to please smirk.

It's bad enough having a geography teacher who later became a dictator (Pinochet).

A lot of geographers refuse to acknowledge the role that our discipline played in encouraging geopolitical conflicts and outright racist policies based on environmental determinism. I hope that Neil Smith is all over this one -- his book describing how Bush's dad, as CIA head, wanted to encourage "learning about other countries" for less-than-benign reasons, was a real eye-opener.


p.s. thanks for posting, Donsu -- I'm going to put this on the reading list for my political geography course next semester.