Patterson School of Diplomacy, University of Kentucky, Screens Steven Soderbergh's Che to Commemorate Fiftieth Anniversary of Bay of Pigs

According to Robert Farley, who is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Patterson School, University of Kentucky.

See his entry at Lawyers, Guns and Murder: "Happy Bay of Pigs Day!"

Seriously. This is not a joke.

Farley indicates that watching the Che movie is "In support of my COIN seminar this semester..." Farley's seminar spends a week reading books on "the other side," including two on Che Guevara. I'm looking over the assigned readings, and it's "assumed" that students will read David Petraeus', U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which is arguably the most important work on counter-insurgency published in the post-Vietnam period. Hopefully they'll have read it in time for its "deconstruction" in Week 4: Time for the Deconstruction of Field Manual 3-24. But better to "assume," since Farley wouldn't want to overload the students. In Week 12 they have to wade through "The Runaway General," at Rolling Stone, the article that helped bring the early retirement of General Stanley McChrystal, former Commander of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Some former uniformed personnel had only the warmest thanks for McChrystal's service, and no doubt McChrystal wasn't thrilled that President Obama was handing out medals to troops who did not kill the enemy. Now that's important! So I'm sure Professor Farley has students spend extra time studying the administration's debilitating Rules of Engagement (ROE) that have placed American lives at risk. And that's not all! Farley features Firedoglake's Spencer Ackerman as a guest speaker during that same week. Ackerman, who's also a military affairs writer at Wired, infamously quipped on Christmas 2009 that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempted airline bombing was "a joke" about how some guy was trying to "set off firecrackers" on a plane in a "failed bid for relevance." Boy, that's one crack seminar!

But hey, rejoice! Our future diplomats are in the best of hands! As I note at Farley's post:

The Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce is a propaganda outlet for the Cuban Revolution? Hey, way to train America’s next generation of diplomats! No doubt students get target practice as well, so they’ll be prepared to put the bullet in the next generation of counter-revolutionaries — just like Che!!

Whooo heee!!!!

RELATED: Some alternative readings for Farley's next "counter-insurgency" seminar. See Adam Hassner, "Why The 50th Anniversary of The Bay of Pigs Should Matter To All Who Cherish Freedom." And Babalú Blog, "April 17, 1961."

BONUS: From Ron Radosh, "Marx in the American Academy: When Will its High Priests Ever Learn?"

EXTRA: At ABC News, "Cubans Mark 50th Anniversary of Failed Bay of Pigs Invasion: Country Celebrates 50 Years of Staying Power and Standing up to America."