Adonis Diaries

Pentagon: PowerPoint mania demoralizing troops?

Stanley McChristal, former commander in chief of the forces in Afghanistan (before he was sacked by Obama for expressing his opinion publicly) , has this right to two briefings a day in Kaboul on PowerPoint and 3 supplementary briefings per week. Once, McChristal commented acidly: “When we manage to comprehend (these spaghetti strategy) represented in PowerPoint then, war will be won!”

In 2009, Company Command, an internet site specilized in military matters, asked an army chief section in Iraq: “How do you spend most of your time?”  The officer replied: “I do presentations on PowerPoint.  I constantly have to prepare story-boards, strong with numerical images, diagrams and text summaries on everything that is happening.”

General James Mattis recently declared: “PowerPoint is driving us to stupidity.  It is dangerous: it gives the officers the illusion that they understand and that situations are under control.”

The Italian contingent in Afghanistan are livening up PowerPoint presentations accompanied by symphonic music.  PowerPoint is the ideal tool to hypnotizing officials and press journalists; only 5 minutes out of 25 are reserved for fielding questions; the remaining 20 minutes are for PowerPoint snoozing.

Apparently, as PowerPoint failed to hurt Stanley McChrista,l  the Senate defense group did: McChristal fainted during cross examination. Most probably, the Senate thought McChristal must be a PowerPoint guru and was trying to comprehend PowerPoint presentation on the state of war in Afghanistan.

It seems that PowerPoint graphics was the rage before the Iraq invasion in 2003.

General David McKiernan was commanding the land forces and he was losing patience waiting for orders in Iraq.  Instead of clear orders, General Tommy Franks kept sending McKiernan PowerPoint graphics that were already presented to this genius of Defense minister Rumsfeld.