Mission Control – writing a Harvard thesis

A report from the AP today says Blackwater guards who killed 17 Iraqis last September in Nisour Square, Baghdad may be indicted under a 1988 drug abuse law. Sounds like a stretch but here’s the explanation: though drugs were not involved in the incident, the Justice Dept. may use the law, meant to target crack users (Peter Singer will find this ironic since he said the USG had developed an addiction to security contractors). The AP said the “Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 law calls for 30-year prison terms for using machine guns to commit violent crimes of any kind, whether drug-related or not.”

As AP notes, this will be an uphill struggle for the Justice Dept. The law may not apply to the basic elements of the Nisour incident — the contractors were operating overseas and under a State (not DOD) contract. That immunity deal State gave to Blackwater guards afterwards may be a high hurdle as well.

Remember Iraq? It seems with all the dismal economic news people’s attention has turned to the domestic front…possibly pushing Iraq a bit too far in the background. To spread some Christmas spirit, a non-profit, Trees for Troops and FedEx have joined together to send Christmas trees to some of the soldiers and their families. Last year they sent 16,846 trees from 29 states and 750 farmers to 15 countries where troops are stationed (not just Iraq). Great idea, nicely done.

[photos from the website - somebody's got to do the decorating!]

6:30pm. Thursday, December 4. I’ve finished my first good draft of the heart of the thesis — the Results and Findings Chapter. It’s currently written up as three chapters: one per hypothesis.

I “spitballed” the lengths of each in the official outline I did up with my Director back in September. So far, I’m off by about 5-10 pages per hypothesis. On the outline, Chapter V should be about 40 pages total. Currently, hypothesis #1 is 19 pages; #2 is 17 pages; and, #3 is 21 pages. This equals 57 pages. I thought hypothesis #3 would be the easiest and shortest but it turned out to have lots of material to include to make the case. I still think #3 is inconclusive but there’s plenty of data to suggest it’s true.

I’m going to hand Chapter V in next week with the caveat that it will be re-drafted and improved after my director gets a look at this initial, decent draft. I want her feedback on how she thinks I’ve argued and organized my work. Although my first two chapters were quite well-received, with only minor changes, I know this will require some back and forth.

Some of my uncertainty concerns style:

– it’s acceptable to do each hypothesis either way: as an individual chapter OR all together. Have to find out what she thinks. I think it’s easier to write and more readable to have a “discussion” section (analysis) right after each hypothesis rather than at the end of all three. That’s why I chose to break them out.

– also, I don’t know whether she wants me to weave counter-arguments in as I go, or put them in at the end. In all my course papers, the professor preferred that I put the counter-arguments in along the way. I think that makes it easier to follow and see the connections.

God my office is so clean now. Wow does that feel good!

Update to follow submission and feedback   : )