Abuse of Powerpoint

Two news items this week detailing our Government's abuse of Powerpoint. (click on slides to enlarge them)

Our first slide comes to us via an armsandinfluence post (link) on Thomas Ricks' book Fiasco (link). It turns out that Rumsfeld and Franks are big Powerpoint fans and they used it to plan Operation Iraqi Freedom. But as the following quote from Fiasco makes clear, It is not that easy to carry out a Powerpoint slide.

[Army Lt. General David] McKiernan had another, smaller but nagging issue: He couldn't get Franks to issue clear orders that stated explicitly what he wanted done, how he wanted to do it, and why. Rather, Franks passed along PowerPoint briefing slides that he had shown to Rumsfeld: "It's quite frustrating the way this works, but the way we do things nowadays is combatant commanders brief their products in PowerPoint up in Washington to OSD and Secretary of Defense…In lieu of an order, or a frag [fragmentary order], or plan, you get a bunch of PowerPoint slides…[T]hat is frustrating, because nobody wants to plan against PowerPoint slides."

Our second slide is from a classified Homeland Security Powerpoint scenario in which our nation's Internet is set upon... by hippies! Now, thanks to Scott's wonderful post from last week (link) we do know that hippies can certainly pull off a kick ass circle, but it seems truly irresponsible for the Feds to be playing wargames with an imaginary "World Wide Anti Globalization Movement." You can find more about this scenario on the Wired Blog (link). And you can download the whole Powerpoint slideshow via the Cryptome website (link).

Comments

[The Contrarian]

Who would have suspected that the feds were afraid of groups named the Internet Techno Politic Front? That title sounds like it was coined by a bunch of tooth-grinding ravers obsessed with Monty Python films.

[bartelby]

They probably made the name up. It would hardly make sense to use the names of actual groups.

[dissident]

You can turn the most rediculous nonsense into a Powerpoint presentation, but that doesn't automatically make it a practical application in the real world.

That kinda sums up the Bush administration's 'legacy' - putting all their efforts into what looks good on paper, and then avoiding the real human issues in exchange for an enormous stockpile of beaurocracy and Orwellian rhetoric to appease the press.

Never have I been so embarrassed of my American upbringing. thanks bush

[The Cockroach of Del Monte]

That is quite an affront to the eyes and brain. Proprietary imbroglio in, proprietary imbroglio out.

For something more warm and sooth[say]ing I turn to one of Al Gore's Keynote presentations.

[Chap]

Not *that's* some quality nonsense graphics! Ack!

Two observations:

--There are many hundreds of thousands of folks who work for the military, 20,000 in the Pentagon alone. That first graphic didn't spring from the brain of either of those guys; the action officers and flag/general officers built and approved those slides. So if you see something like that slide, it's useful to remember who really built it.

--The U.S. military or people they hire often choose made-up names or ideas to do exercises. So do other branches of the government. If, say, I did an exercise this week to test my skills at something and "Ghana" was all over the planning paperwork, even if I just needed a placeholder name to exercise certain things, when that exercise detail got to the press then Ghana would get all freaked out and so would a whole lot of wonks who now suddenly think there's something going on in Ghana. Even though it just came out of the bored head of a prole in a cubicle. So read into the second slide what you will, but be aware that meaning might not be what you think it is.

Similar thing happens when a reporter breathlessly reports "The Pentagon is planning for an attack from East Timor!!11!"--people try to plan for *everything*, and what the reporter found wasn't necessarily the only data point, or even a useful data point. Caveat lector.