Face it. Do you or Green Day really care about Afghanistan or its combative tribes? Iraq, now that had oil worth fighting for. Afghanistan has what? Plants.
Of course, they should have democracy, burqas by Donna Karen, used voting machines from South Carolina and an American air base. They should be free to press, process and ship-by-super-tanker all the Poppy Juice Cocktail American can drink, too. They can make those nice throws and dogs, as well.
But, they are still pretty much Muslims who don't want infidels, largely and recently ambivalent about Muslims, shooting up their mountains, deserts and thorougfares. Not just Natoans, but Russians, as they indicated pretty well in the 1980's.
America and its willing allies really ventured into Afghanistan (damn it, not "invaded") to catch one guy, Osama bin Laden and break up his day camp network. The Taliban were simply so obsessed with Buddha shards and repurposing soccer stadiums that they missed the significance of one particular September in New York and, consequently, had to be shown both the boot and the door. Which door, unfortunately, led them back to Pakistan's mountains where they settled in next to Osama himself and where the Paki Intelligence Service just couldn't see them.
But really. Afghanistan?
Oh, my. How all that has changed.
Suddenly, under all the craggy hills, velcro-jamming sand, motley goats and prayer rugs Afghanistan is rich. Trillion dollars in minerals we need rich.
In a country where almost half the population lives on less per day than it cost to buy your Starbuck's latte on that day; where more than a third of $13 Billion in GDP comes from poppy juice and its derivatives. And that gaudy GDP is about 20% of what the US spends in shooting up the montains, deserts and both thoroughfares there.
The US Geological Survey, under contract with Harmid Karzai (but hopefully not his cleverer brother, Ahmid), found lots of gold, copper, iron ore and other mundane minerals. Like iron ore is worth an hour of drone fuel. True, but that's not the sexy stuff.
Sexy? Afghanistan? The camel vacation spot where Mullah Monocle made the guys where scraggly beards and the women head-to-toe draperies?
Can you spell Lithium?
No, not as in the med you just refilled. For batteries. The bass-drum-beating bunny things we're just beginning to need. For Priuses and their electric cousins; for storing solar energy where the sun don't shine and wind power when your flag flags. For our army of iPads and Droids. For crystal meth manu... Well, lots of important stuff.
Trying to revolutionize energy without Lithium is like trying to have a beach party without BP.
Ironically, TBO, just tonight, after asking the very same BP for some cash, has called on all Americans--except Dick Cheney--to gear up, seriously this time, for the green energy revolution. Like it was a big-time war or something. Our Green Day is upon us (to complete a quasi theme). And guess what afterthought is suddenly front and center in that Green Day revolution, at least until solar cells can run on moonlight. That would be long after your Lithium-driven pacemaker quits one last time.
Not a question, this time: Afghanistan.
That's almost like a big-time war already.
Showing posts with label afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label afghanistan. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Afghanistan: Operation Candlehour Burns
Or, about as brightly as you'd expect it to.
With Operation Candlehour, the US and NATO (or Not Afghan Treaty Organization) intend to take Kandahar, Afghanistan and turn it into condos. A bold and meritorious idea, but not easy to accomplish in that market as in Marjah.
Candlehour means "light at the end of the tunnel thrown by one candle for one eleventh hour". Or not very damned much. Named after several different Vietnam-era strategies, all of which ended with both the tunnel and the city of Saigon being named after some other guy with a scraggly beard who was not Uncle Sam.
If it worked well in Vietnam... Well, it's worth a shot, anyway.
You may remember Kandahar as the poppy-festooned capital of the Taliban when they were blowing up Buddahs and stoning... well, just about anyone wearing lipstick in repurposed soccer venues. Incredibly, many Kandhardians are whistful for those days of "very serious, tough but fair" government, the current one being failry tough to take very seriously. And, please, watch your wallet.
To set the tone for the operation, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that, under Operation Candlehour there will be no tank tops parading down the streets of Kandahar, which is both good PR and practical disaster planning. The last tank top parade you saw was the Pride thing at Disney Orlando and that sucker brought on a mess of huricanes.
Operation Candlehour is going to be tricky, as the generals will need a measure Afghan political clearance to advance very far. Before the US and NATO brass can so much as blow up a house, for example, they must consult President and Closeted Talibanista Harmid Karzai. It seems clear that President Karzai has the de facto power of veto. But only as to one house, after which whole neighborhoods may wish for that tank top procession instead.
Plans are to flood the area of two million Taliban sympathizers with 10,000 extra troops, primarily looking to help only the good Kandahardians across the street to Iraqi-style democracy.
Kandahardian city police, usually on street duty, have been extensive retrained, mostly in ducking and covering, like there was an atomic bomb coming (see Plan B below). Most of the provincial courtrooms are overseen by fewer judges than "Dancing With the Stars", which, it turns out, is okay. The Kandahar jail is already way over the one-prisioner-per-HD-TV rule mandated by American sensibilities. So, there is no place to put all the soon-to-be-stranded-across-the-street suspects. Not this side of Waziristan, anway.
The second phase of the plan is to bury Kandahar in smiles, ribbon-cutting-worthy developmen and heart-felt promises of more to come, a strategy that worked so well in, say, Watts or East St. Louis. Trying to find honest pro-Karzai officials to run such projects is harder than getting Lindsay One-Name into court for fifteen minutes worth of "Oh, Je suis désolé, but I just lost it partying, on Wednesday. And my passport,too."
Ahmed Karzai, Brother-in-Chief in charge of influence-by-EBay, sells access to Harmid for thousands of pounds, like he was a Fergie who can't sing and it's dried poppyade. Ahmed boasts that he can--and please start the bidding--bring the Candlehour-chastened Talibanista to the table. The table in question being the one so feebly lit by the tunnel-visioned candle for which all this was named to begin with.
Sure, he can, but he make them stop with the RPG's anytime soon after they get there?
Remain calm. The Big O has a Plan B just in case Operation Candlehour gets snuffed. Unfortunately, he has to keep the plan a complete secret until Tuesday, after Jack Bauer finishes up on "24".
With Operation Candlehour, the US and NATO (or Not Afghan Treaty Organization) intend to take Kandahar, Afghanistan and turn it into condos. A bold and meritorious idea, but not easy to accomplish in that market as in Marjah.
Candlehour means "light at the end of the tunnel thrown by one candle for one eleventh hour". Or not very damned much. Named after several different Vietnam-era strategies, all of which ended with both the tunnel and the city of Saigon being named after some other guy with a scraggly beard who was not Uncle Sam.
If it worked well in Vietnam... Well, it's worth a shot, anyway.
You may remember Kandahar as the poppy-festooned capital of the Taliban when they were blowing up Buddahs and stoning... well, just about anyone wearing lipstick in repurposed soccer venues. Incredibly, many Kandhardians are whistful for those days of "very serious, tough but fair" government, the current one being failry tough to take very seriously. And, please, watch your wallet.
To set the tone for the operation, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that, under Operation Candlehour there will be no tank tops parading down the streets of Kandahar, which is both good PR and practical disaster planning. The last tank top parade you saw was the Pride thing at Disney Orlando and that sucker brought on a mess of huricanes.
Operation Candlehour is going to be tricky, as the generals will need a measure Afghan political clearance to advance very far. Before the US and NATO brass can so much as blow up a house, for example, they must consult President and Closeted Talibanista Harmid Karzai. It seems clear that President Karzai has the de facto power of veto. But only as to one house, after which whole neighborhoods may wish for that tank top procession instead.
Plans are to flood the area of two million Taliban sympathizers with 10,000 extra troops, primarily looking to help only the good Kandahardians across the street to Iraqi-style democracy.
Kandahardian city police, usually on street duty, have been extensive retrained, mostly in ducking and covering, like there was an atomic bomb coming (see Plan B below). Most of the provincial courtrooms are overseen by fewer judges than "Dancing With the Stars", which, it turns out, is okay. The Kandahar jail is already way over the one-prisioner-per-HD-TV rule mandated by American sensibilities. So, there is no place to put all the soon-to-be-stranded-across-the-street suspects. Not this side of Waziristan, anway.
The second phase of the plan is to bury Kandahar in smiles, ribbon-cutting-worthy developmen and heart-felt promises of more to come, a strategy that worked so well in, say, Watts or East St. Louis. Trying to find honest pro-Karzai officials to run such projects is harder than getting Lindsay One-Name into court for fifteen minutes worth of "Oh, Je suis désolé, but I just lost it partying, on Wednesday. And my passport,too."
Ahmed Karzai, Brother-in-Chief in charge of influence-by-EBay, sells access to Harmid for thousands of pounds, like he was a Fergie who can't sing and it's dried poppyade. Ahmed boasts that he can--and please start the bidding--bring the Candlehour-chastened Talibanista to the table. The table in question being the one so feebly lit by the tunnel-visioned candle for which all this was named to begin with.
Sure, he can, but he make them stop with the RPG's anytime soon after they get there?
Remain calm. The Big O has a Plan B just in case Operation Candlehour gets snuffed. Unfortunately, he has to keep the plan a complete secret until Tuesday, after Jack Bauer finishes up on "24".
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Afghanistan Phooey. We Have Stuart Little and Arizona.
Sure we need places like Iraq. For their oil and, of course, Iranian democracy. Afghanistan? Not so much.
But what about opium products? That's where controlling Afghanistan is an economic and social necessary.
Or so we all thought. No longer.
A new paper has declared that mice can manufacture morphine. And not the Globe or Enquirer, either. The paper in question was published in something we'll call Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, because, well, that's its name.
How do mice do cook up all this... medication? Do they grab poppy seeds and crush them with their sharp little teeth? Do they stomp on them like so many grapes? No, they just make it from scratch inside their furry, undersized brains.
The test required researchers, led by Meinhart Zenk, to stick thin stainless steel tubes into the little critters heads. And using techniques awfully closed to those discarded as cruel by Josef Mengele during WW II. Anyway, these genteel scientists pumped a gallon or two THP, a chemical that flora use to build morphine, into mousey brains, over four exruciating days.
By the way, mice do show pain on their pointy little faces, and must have been expressing up a storm during those 96 hours of needle work. Just think of the orbital tightening, nose and cheek bulging, ear and wisker flattening going on. Mind you, this mouse expression study came out in Nature Methods, the animal acting journal, well after the pin-cushioning of the mice noggins, so who knew?
Not surprisingly, mice don't make morphine the same way plants do, the scientist determined. They--the scientists, not the mice--extracted brain chemicals, using God knows what methods, and ran them through a really expensive What-Chemical-Is-That machine. This allowed them to track the chemical pathway used by mice being prodded by scientists. Perhaps, it is no surprise that mice with pins in their heads use a different technique to make morphine than plants that just sit there expressionless.
Let Chuck E Cheese-huggers whine their high-pitched squeals 'til bedtime, but the upshot of this study is important. In a world where Americans don't have all the raw materials we need for the future, like oil, neodymium, lanthanum, geranium and formerly poppies, one thing we got. Mice, them we got. And we can grow more really fast whenever we need them.
It is not clear from the study how to process all those little pink noses in order to produce the morphine we want. But how hard can it be. Stick needles in their brains until those pink noses bulge fire engine red and the whiskers receed all the way into their equally bulging cheeks and you know you've got morphine synthesis underway. When the faces relax and get all dreamy, despite an extra twang on the pins, you know the morphine is ready.
The next step requires complete automation or more researchers like Meinhart, since you'll have to grind the tiny cuties into a thin paste or, even better, boil the morphine out of them. Perhaps, you could just eat one whole, like it was sushi. That's the way the thin-skinned aliens on "V" do it.
And you know, pretty soon, our ambitious scientists can tweak American mice to make cocaine, nicotine, caffeine, maybe semi-sweet chocolate.
So, let Stretch bin Laden and Left-Eye Omar have Afghanistan and all those now-useless poppies and ladies in black wrappers. Let those geniuses try to convince Afghans to change their names to Lindsay and Bruce and start up call-centers or to farm tomatoes and corn on the cob for roadside stands. We're done.
America can, once again and forever, pursue happiness, bliss even, on its own.
Oh and the scientists say we don't have to stop at mice. This is where Arizona comes in.
But what about opium products? That's where controlling Afghanistan is an economic and social necessary.
Or so we all thought. No longer.
A new paper has declared that mice can manufacture morphine. And not the Globe or Enquirer, either. The paper in question was published in something we'll call Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, because, well, that's its name.
How do mice do cook up all this... medication? Do they grab poppy seeds and crush them with their sharp little teeth? Do they stomp on them like so many grapes? No, they just make it from scratch inside their furry, undersized brains.
The test required researchers, led by Meinhart Zenk, to stick thin stainless steel tubes into the little critters heads. And using techniques awfully closed to those discarded as cruel by Josef Mengele during WW II. Anyway, these genteel scientists pumped a gallon or two THP, a chemical that flora use to build morphine, into mousey brains, over four exruciating days.
By the way, mice do show pain on their pointy little faces, and must have been expressing up a storm during those 96 hours of needle work. Just think of the orbital tightening, nose and cheek bulging, ear and wisker flattening going on. Mind you, this mouse expression study came out in Nature Methods, the animal acting journal, well after the pin-cushioning of the mice noggins, so who knew?
Not surprisingly, mice don't make morphine the same way plants do, the scientist determined. They--the scientists, not the mice--extracted brain chemicals, using God knows what methods, and ran them through a really expensive What-Chemical-Is-That machine. This allowed them to track the chemical pathway used by mice being prodded by scientists. Perhaps, it is no surprise that mice with pins in their heads use a different technique to make morphine than plants that just sit there expressionless.
Let Chuck E Cheese-huggers whine their high-pitched squeals 'til bedtime, but the upshot of this study is important. In a world where Americans don't have all the raw materials we need for the future, like oil, neodymium, lanthanum, geranium and formerly poppies, one thing we got. Mice, them we got. And we can grow more really fast whenever we need them.
It is not clear from the study how to process all those little pink noses in order to produce the morphine we want. But how hard can it be. Stick needles in their brains until those pink noses bulge fire engine red and the whiskers receed all the way into their equally bulging cheeks and you know you've got morphine synthesis underway. When the faces relax and get all dreamy, despite an extra twang on the pins, you know the morphine is ready.
The next step requires complete automation or more researchers like Meinhart, since you'll have to grind the tiny cuties into a thin paste or, even better, boil the morphine out of them. Perhaps, you could just eat one whole, like it was sushi. That's the way the thin-skinned aliens on "V" do it.
And you know, pretty soon, our ambitious scientists can tweak American mice to make cocaine, nicotine, caffeine, maybe semi-sweet chocolate.
So, let Stretch bin Laden and Left-Eye Omar have Afghanistan and all those now-useless poppies and ladies in black wrappers. Let those geniuses try to convince Afghans to change their names to Lindsay and Bruce and start up call-centers or to farm tomatoes and corn on the cob for roadside stands. We're done.
America can, once again and forever, pursue happiness, bliss even, on its own.
Oh and the scientists say we don't have to stop at mice. This is where Arizona comes in.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Taliban Killing US Hearts-And-Minds Strategy
Didn't we win the post-war war in Iraq by winning the hearts and minds of the Sunnis? Yes, we had to arm them to the teeth and pay the warlords a Hedge Fund CEO-level... stipend, but they came to love America and their Shiite brothers and sisters. Sunnis even vote now.
So, off to Afghanistan we took this strategy. Hearts and Minds, people. That will win Afghanistan. Forget the occasional stray HMA Rocket or Predator Hellfire missile taking out a village or two. Enlist the Afghans to clean up that mess of a bazaar (we had to bomb just last year) by paying them with real afghanis (a currency worth about 2 cents). That'll make them love us in Afghanistan, too.
So we battled to take Marja, a Taliban stronghold. Once we did that, we set about romancing (that means paying) its inhabitants.
But we have run into the unexpected. We're paying a bunch of Talibanners, too. Do they go out and buy bread and jam with their afghanis? They do not. They buy IED's and rocket propelled grenades.
So why pay the Talibanners in the first place?
Because, for the first time ever, we can't tell a Talibanner from Afghan. Damned if they don't look alike. They even wear the same clothes and walk the same way. They shake your hand like an Afghan. Who would have guessed?
Have we ever had a war where the enemy looked like the people? Think about it. The enemy usually looks completely different. Sometimes, they have uniforms that are gray or blue, like in our Civil War (Or War To Keep Our Slaves Ours, depending on your address). Other times, they have orange horns growing out of their foreheads. Some look just like the Kracken in "Clash of the Titans" (pick your version). One of them, for sure, had only one eye, like the Cyclops in the pre-2000 graphic novel "The Odyssey". But we definitely have always been able to tell an enemy at 100 plus yards, making them an easy target for our laser-approximating bombs.
The American military is stymied by this radical development. A guy walking down the street with an AK-47 could be the local grocer or sandal vendor. Or he could be a Talibaner. Maybe all three.
Worse, the Talibanners, looking like the familiar foreigner-invader-loving Afghans, are killing off the foreigner-invader-loving Afghans and suggesting to others that foreigner-invader-loving is generally best done on foreign soil. Somehow, the Talibanners can tell the differences and don't kill their own guys (and they are all guys, by the way), by mistake every fortnight or so. How can they tell and we can't?
We all were assured that our military had taken Marja and freed it of its Talibaner interlopers. We were well on our way to daily hugs, parliamentary elections and poppy-laced tea with the locals...
Oh.
So, off to Afghanistan we took this strategy. Hearts and Minds, people. That will win Afghanistan. Forget the occasional stray HMA Rocket or Predator Hellfire missile taking out a village or two. Enlist the Afghans to clean up that mess of a bazaar (we had to bomb just last year) by paying them with real afghanis (a currency worth about 2 cents). That'll make them love us in Afghanistan, too.
So we battled to take Marja, a Taliban stronghold. Once we did that, we set about romancing (that means paying) its inhabitants.
But we have run into the unexpected. We're paying a bunch of Talibanners, too. Do they go out and buy bread and jam with their afghanis? They do not. They buy IED's and rocket propelled grenades.
So why pay the Talibanners in the first place?
Because, for the first time ever, we can't tell a Talibanner from Afghan. Damned if they don't look alike. They even wear the same clothes and walk the same way. They shake your hand like an Afghan. Who would have guessed?
Have we ever had a war where the enemy looked like the people? Think about it. The enemy usually looks completely different. Sometimes, they have uniforms that are gray or blue, like in our Civil War (Or War To Keep Our Slaves Ours, depending on your address). Other times, they have orange horns growing out of their foreheads. Some look just like the Kracken in "Clash of the Titans" (pick your version). One of them, for sure, had only one eye, like the Cyclops in the pre-2000 graphic novel "The Odyssey". But we definitely have always been able to tell an enemy at 100 plus yards, making them an easy target for our laser-approximating bombs.
The American military is stymied by this radical development. A guy walking down the street with an AK-47 could be the local grocer or sandal vendor. Or he could be a Talibaner. Maybe all three.
Worse, the Talibanners, looking like the familiar foreigner-invader-loving Afghans, are killing off the foreigner-invader-loving Afghans and suggesting to others that foreigner-invader-loving is generally best done on foreign soil. Somehow, the Talibanners can tell the differences and don't kill their own guys (and they are all guys, by the way), by mistake every fortnight or so. How can they tell and we can't?
We all were assured that our military had taken Marja and freed it of its Talibaner interlopers. We were well on our way to daily hugs, parliamentary elections and poppy-laced tea with the locals...
Oh.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Europe Used To Be Something
Defense Secretary Robert "M for Macho" Gates says it like he thinks it is. He may be in a Socialist Democratic administration, but he is still an All-American cowboy.
Macho pretty much said what we've all been thinking for months: Europeans don't like war the way they are supposed to.
We don't know how this happened. We've given them plenty of wars lately to show how much war can accomplish, how it promotes security. Europeans used to enamored of war like no one else. They had Hundred Years wars, Thirty Years wars, World wars, Napoleonic wars and lots of other named and unnamed wars. For Centuries they didn't do much else, except, maybe, for the Black Death. You have to wonder what happened to their appetite for armed conflict.
Could it be that Europeans only like wars on their own soil? No American can figure that one.
Really, though, Macho doesn't much care why the Europeans have turned namby-pamby. He is just concerned that NATO will lose the occasional Dutchman or Spaniard in the endless fight for peace against world-wide badness.
He didn't mince words, the way, say the French probably would, when he laid it out for some NATO types. According to the New York Times, Macho called the Continental sissies out. “The demilitarization of Europe--where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it-- has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st."
Tough language? He used the word "swaths", for God's sake! Large ones. Europeans don't seem to like shooting and bombing people and are afraid there might be ramifications, like the ones they might miss shooting or bombing back. But isn't that what peace is all about?
Macho wowed the NATO guys with this: How can we ever have lasting peace without war?
This is new thinking, right? Has anyone ever said that we need war to have peace? Not in my lifetime. Very often.
The proof is everywhere. War brought lasting peace to the Iranian province of Iraq and has practically decorated Afghanistan with little flowers.
What brought Macho's anxiety out in public was The Netherlands flushing its pro-war government. The land of cheese and tulips decided it didn't want to keep its collective finger in the Afghan dike any longer, Americans having far more fingers if fewer dikes.
Furthermore, Europe barely spends the Euros on war they had promised to put out. Five of twenty-eight countries spend two percent of GDP on war-making. How weak is that? The US, the only really dependable war-making beacon, spends more than four percent of its GDP (mostly Chinese Yuans) on tanks, missiles, submarines, soldiers and Defense Secretaries' secretaries.
And for our leadership, we get less than two percent from yesterday's Huns, Vandals, Normans and Romans. Those were heroes; they spent their ancient currencies, Francs, Lira, Marks dry, like so many dollars, and selflessly wiped out tens of millions in their quest for lasting peace.
And today's Europeans? Pathetic and soft are words far too kind. Especially when Macho uses "swaths".
TBO may be too busy band-aiding health care, but you know for sure that George III must be proud.
Macho pretty much said what we've all been thinking for months: Europeans don't like war the way they are supposed to.
We don't know how this happened. We've given them plenty of wars lately to show how much war can accomplish, how it promotes security. Europeans used to enamored of war like no one else. They had Hundred Years wars, Thirty Years wars, World wars, Napoleonic wars and lots of other named and unnamed wars. For Centuries they didn't do much else, except, maybe, for the Black Death. You have to wonder what happened to their appetite for armed conflict.
Could it be that Europeans only like wars on their own soil? No American can figure that one.
Really, though, Macho doesn't much care why the Europeans have turned namby-pamby. He is just concerned that NATO will lose the occasional Dutchman or Spaniard in the endless fight for peace against world-wide badness.
He didn't mince words, the way, say the French probably would, when he laid it out for some NATO types. According to the New York Times, Macho called the Continental sissies out. “The demilitarization of Europe--where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it-- has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st."
Tough language? He used the word "swaths", for God's sake! Large ones. Europeans don't seem to like shooting and bombing people and are afraid there might be ramifications, like the ones they might miss shooting or bombing back. But isn't that what peace is all about?
Macho wowed the NATO guys with this: How can we ever have lasting peace without war?
This is new thinking, right? Has anyone ever said that we need war to have peace? Not in my lifetime. Very often.
The proof is everywhere. War brought lasting peace to the Iranian province of Iraq and has practically decorated Afghanistan with little flowers.
What brought Macho's anxiety out in public was The Netherlands flushing its pro-war government. The land of cheese and tulips decided it didn't want to keep its collective finger in the Afghan dike any longer, Americans having far more fingers if fewer dikes.
Furthermore, Europe barely spends the Euros on war they had promised to put out. Five of twenty-eight countries spend two percent of GDP on war-making. How weak is that? The US, the only really dependable war-making beacon, spends more than four percent of its GDP (mostly Chinese Yuans) on tanks, missiles, submarines, soldiers and Defense Secretaries' secretaries.
And for our leadership, we get less than two percent from yesterday's Huns, Vandals, Normans and Romans. Those were heroes; they spent their ancient currencies, Francs, Lira, Marks dry, like so many dollars, and selflessly wiped out tens of millions in their quest for lasting peace.
And today's Europeans? Pathetic and soft are words far too kind. Especially when Macho uses "swaths".
TBO may be too busy band-aiding health care, but you know for sure that George III must be proud.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Taliban Outduels US in Green
Once again, the US is surpassed by an Asian country in the Green Revolution.
You expect the Chinese to do it. Their Revolution never stops, so they have all the infrastructure. The last American Revolution was all about Dot.com's and we know how that worked out.
But now it is the Taliban.
How embarrassing is that? Mullah Omar's Taliban. These are the guys who plan to spend most of their time detonating the occasional Buddhas, enforcing a head-to-toe-but-not-hands burka law and stoning anyone they can see without a beard (thankfully, the burkas protect the women). Not that kind of stoning, either, even though Afghanistan has more poppies than decent stones.
You probably think war is not that great, but it can foster Green innovation. And it has in a place where the last know innovation was... Okay, that's not the point, because innovation is happening now in Afghanistan.
In ancient and even recent times, shields were made of wood and/or metals, like highly polished chrome-steel and the less glamorous cast iron. They were pretty effective if you could lift them. But wood requires cutting down carbon-dioxide-gulping trees and metals must be mined, melted, purified and cast or hammered into usable shapes. All of that metal work takes energy, generally from carbon-based fuels, probably trees again, worsening Global Warming and threatening to flood the family poppy farms.
The Taliban solution may not be for everyone, but it is Green. Afghan Human Shields. In Afghanistan, humans, especially women and children, are plentiful and need no hot smokey fires to purify them, although that would help. Unlike oak or metal shields, human shields make your enemy think twice before trying to shred the shield to get to the combatant's vital organs. In the Taliban case, that might not include the head, but big deal.
Best of all, these days, human shields can last for days and are recyclable as all get out.
Can you wait for this high-powered close up: Mullah Omar getting his Nobel Prize?
You expect the Chinese to do it. Their Revolution never stops, so they have all the infrastructure. The last American Revolution was all about Dot.com's and we know how that worked out.
But now it is the Taliban.
How embarrassing is that? Mullah Omar's Taliban. These are the guys who plan to spend most of their time detonating the occasional Buddhas, enforcing a head-to-toe-but-not-hands burka law and stoning anyone they can see without a beard (thankfully, the burkas protect the women). Not that kind of stoning, either, even though Afghanistan has more poppies than decent stones.
You probably think war is not that great, but it can foster Green innovation. And it has in a place where the last know innovation was... Okay, that's not the point, because innovation is happening now in Afghanistan.
In ancient and even recent times, shields were made of wood and/or metals, like highly polished chrome-steel and the less glamorous cast iron. They were pretty effective if you could lift them. But wood requires cutting down carbon-dioxide-gulping trees and metals must be mined, melted, purified and cast or hammered into usable shapes. All of that metal work takes energy, generally from carbon-based fuels, probably trees again, worsening Global Warming and threatening to flood the family poppy farms.
The Taliban solution may not be for everyone, but it is Green. Afghan Human Shields. In Afghanistan, humans, especially women and children, are plentiful and need no hot smokey fires to purify them, although that would help. Unlike oak or metal shields, human shields make your enemy think twice before trying to shred the shield to get to the combatant's vital organs. In the Taliban case, that might not include the head, but big deal.
Best of all, these days, human shields can last for days and are recyclable as all get out.
Can you wait for this high-powered close up: Mullah Omar getting his Nobel Prize?
Monday, February 15, 2010
US Terrorist Policy: Just Shoot the Bastard!
It started under George III, but The Big O has continued the policy included in the title of this post. Basically, if we spot a terrorist walking down a dusty road in Afghanistan, Somalia or Not-Pakistan, we shoot first and ask questions of... well, of scooped body fragments, but really of DNA.
Some sissies in the intelligence community insist that we are losing important opportunities to get some names, ranks and serial numbers. All of which are either fake or nonexistent, but we do need them for our terrorist contact list.
Didn't we try the capture approach and fill up half of western Cuba with the results? And now, we are stuck with trying the best of the captured some place Outside of New York.
Fortunately, we don't have any place to put the terrorists we would capture. TBO is closing Guantanamo Bay's Terrorist Correctional Facility sometime soon. Romania and Egypt have full slate to practice on and won't need any more for years. Bring them to Outside of New York? On US soil? Can you find a nice spot where all the lawyers are at the bottom of a lake? I didn't think so.
Haiti? That is an excellent suggestion considering the Cirque tents on their way. But those tents are to help Haiti's government get organized. That means the Cirque tents will be tied up until Global Warming eliminates the need for a Haitian government all together.
Worse, after putting our CIA and Special forces guys and their helicopters at risk, all we get is "I don't have a present recollection" or "It depends on what 'is' is" before a panel of interrogators. We have to simply write that response down (only once, followed by 238 ditto marks) and accept it all. Under Congressional subcommittee precedent, we just have to take it and live with it. Should a terrorist be held to a lower standard than that applied to a President, Cabinet member, tobacco executive or Enron CEO?
Those neat Predator flying robots don't worry about capture and a chat. They have Hellfire missiles with semi-precision laser aiming and Virginia-based triggers, for reasons not including an invite to gossip over low voltage electrodes.
In Afghanistan itself, we have High Mobility Artillery Rocket systems that can whack a Talibaner from great distances without a harsh word or a single day of water-boarding. And the accuracy is to within 1000 feet or 17 civilians, whichever is better.
To paraphrase, In war, the first of many victims is accuracy.
Besides, those 17 civilians may not be all that civil and most of them probably grow a certain dangerous-to-Americans plant in their backyard garden or press said plant into Afghan Poppy Juice concentrate. We'll ask their DNA later.
Surely, TBO may hate to admit it, even to Lady O, but George III was on target this one time. No one loves this policy, really, but no one loves a terrorist, either. For PR or blogging purposes, both President have, as I have, abbreviated the formal policy designation to punch it up for a better executive order of blog post banner; the real, classified title over the Presidential signature is too long and appropriately vague:
Line 'Em Up, Pretty Well, and Just Shoot in the General Direction of the Bastards!
Some sissies in the intelligence community insist that we are losing important opportunities to get some names, ranks and serial numbers. All of which are either fake or nonexistent, but we do need them for our terrorist contact list.
Didn't we try the capture approach and fill up half of western Cuba with the results? And now, we are stuck with trying the best of the captured some place Outside of New York.
Fortunately, we don't have any place to put the terrorists we would capture. TBO is closing Guantanamo Bay's Terrorist Correctional Facility sometime soon. Romania and Egypt have full slate to practice on and won't need any more for years. Bring them to Outside of New York? On US soil? Can you find a nice spot where all the lawyers are at the bottom of a lake? I didn't think so.
Haiti? That is an excellent suggestion considering the Cirque tents on their way. But those tents are to help Haiti's government get organized. That means the Cirque tents will be tied up until Global Warming eliminates the need for a Haitian government all together.
Worse, after putting our CIA and Special forces guys and their helicopters at risk, all we get is "I don't have a present recollection" or "It depends on what 'is' is" before a panel of interrogators. We have to simply write that response down (only once, followed by 238 ditto marks) and accept it all. Under Congressional subcommittee precedent, we just have to take it and live with it. Should a terrorist be held to a lower standard than that applied to a President, Cabinet member, tobacco executive or Enron CEO?
Those neat Predator flying robots don't worry about capture and a chat. They have Hellfire missiles with semi-precision laser aiming and Virginia-based triggers, for reasons not including an invite to gossip over low voltage electrodes.
In Afghanistan itself, we have High Mobility Artillery Rocket systems that can whack a Talibaner from great distances without a harsh word or a single day of water-boarding. And the accuracy is to within 1000 feet or 17 civilians, whichever is better.
To paraphrase, In war, the first of many victims is accuracy.
Besides, those 17 civilians may not be all that civil and most of them probably grow a certain dangerous-to-Americans plant in their backyard garden or press said plant into Afghan Poppy Juice concentrate. We'll ask their DNA later.
Surely, TBO may hate to admit it, even to Lady O, but George III was on target this one time. No one loves this policy, really, but no one loves a terrorist, either. For PR or blogging purposes, both President have, as I have, abbreviated the formal policy designation to punch it up for a better executive order of blog post banner; the real, classified title over the Presidential signature is too long and appropriately vague:
Line 'Em Up, Pretty Well, and Just Shoot in the General Direction of the Bastards!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Army Brat Aids Taliban?
The US Army is tough. They make you roll around in the mud, run with heavy packs, shoot terrorists and, I guess, not have kids.
One soldier, Alex Hutchinson learned that--what other--the Army way, having had a kid without permission and the Army got pissy.
Okay, Alex didn't show up for a scheduled deployment to Afghanistan, but it's not like Alex was going to the beach with the unit for the afternoon. For that mission, a teen-age sitter and her inevitable boyfriend would have been fine.
Afghanistan is far away and--don't let the pretty poppies fool you--no place to take a little kid. Or a marine, for that matter.
So Alex, skipped the deployment so that little Kamani didn't end up in Army Foster Care and you can imagine how those guys would treat him, being unauthorized and all. The Army was all angry and threatened a Court Martial or maybe two, one for having an unauthorized kid in the first place and a seconc for missing the first group meet in Kabul.
Don't blame the Army too much. They did give Alex 30 extra days to formulate another long term plan for Kamani, the original one having fallen through. Well, Alex did come up with another care plan, but the Army didn't like the part that kept Alex several thousand miles from the Taliban our Army had planned to have Alex shoot at.
Without Alex, the Army's mission will probably falter, Alex being a Specialist... having been a key Specialist.
The good news is that the Army and Alex settled out of Court Martial and Gitmo still has that extra room. The bad news is that Alex is pretty much out of military and the Afghanistan thing is not going that well.
One soldier, Alex Hutchinson learned that--what other--the Army way, having had a kid without permission and the Army got pissy.
Okay, Alex didn't show up for a scheduled deployment to Afghanistan, but it's not like Alex was going to the beach with the unit for the afternoon. For that mission, a teen-age sitter and her inevitable boyfriend would have been fine.
Afghanistan is far away and--don't let the pretty poppies fool you--no place to take a little kid. Or a marine, for that matter.
So Alex, skipped the deployment so that little Kamani didn't end up in Army Foster Care and you can imagine how those guys would treat him, being unauthorized and all. The Army was all angry and threatened a Court Martial or maybe two, one for having an unauthorized kid in the first place and a seconc for missing the first group meet in Kabul.
Don't blame the Army too much. They did give Alex 30 extra days to formulate another long term plan for Kamani, the original one having fallen through. Well, Alex did come up with another care plan, but the Army didn't like the part that kept Alex several thousand miles from the Taliban our Army had planned to have Alex shoot at.
Without Alex, the Army's mission will probably falter, Alex being a Specialist... having been a key Specialist.
The good news is that the Army and Alex settled out of Court Martial and Gitmo still has that extra room. The bad news is that Alex is pretty much out of military and the Afghanistan thing is not going that well.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
The Afghan Plan Part II
I received an email the other day that relieved much of my anxiety over the newly announced Afghanistan Surge. I was supposed to send it along to ten people, etc., but, hey, I was looking for an edge here.
The Big O is going to send just enough troops to Afghanistan to immobilize the Taliban and al Qaeda through unbearable laughter. While they are writhing on the ground, Halliburton will quickly build a huge heroin refinery in Kandahar so that Afghans will get a longer dollar out of their national natural resource, their poppy fields.
The US will guarantee to buy the entire production of the refinery for ten years--unless The Netherlands outbids us in Euros--and use people without health care insurance, such as me, as street-level dealers to distribute these Afghan-US co-branded products. We now gainfully employed can afford to overpay for health care, assuring that Republicans and Lobbyists will rally to the plan.
As part of the plan, medical marijuana will now be free to those with head colds, guaranteeing Democratic support.
By the way, whatever you do, do not buy stock in Methadone clinics.
The Big O is going to send just enough troops to Afghanistan to immobilize the Taliban and al Qaeda through unbearable laughter. While they are writhing on the ground, Halliburton will quickly build a huge heroin refinery in Kandahar so that Afghans will get a longer dollar out of their national natural resource, their poppy fields.
The US will guarantee to buy the entire production of the refinery for ten years--unless The Netherlands outbids us in Euros--and use people without health care insurance, such as me, as street-level dealers to distribute these Afghan-US co-branded products. We now gainfully employed can afford to overpay for health care, assuring that Republicans and Lobbyists will rally to the plan.
As part of the plan, medical marijuana will now be free to those with head colds, guaranteeing Democratic support.
By the way, whatever you do, do not buy stock in Methadone clinics.
The Afghan Plan
I thought the Cadet-oriented speech given by the Big O (the man is President; hence the respect) was pretty good, given the topic. I think a nice little surge for 18 month is a good idea. If nothing else, Afghans need to know that we are back to our usual attention span and not John-McCain's 100 years.
This is not Vietnam. Vietnam had a stable government-in-waiting; it just happened to be where Jane Fonda stayed on vacation.
Jane Who? you might ask, if you never donned a leotard or ankle warmers.
It is sad that so many members of the Peace, Love and Simple Flower Arrangements Generation would forget its beloved aid and comfort-woman, Hanoi Jane. No wonder Bush was elected over her strong right (or maybe left, if that's possible) arm, John Kerry.
Maybe some of you just missed that mentally altered generation. I know a few who were just at the tail end of the "Greek is Good" generation (through no fault of their own) and skipped straight to the actual Hustle and Disco. During a single Bee Gee's song one night, the Soviets snuck hundreds of tanks into Afghanistan, many of which we paid Holy Freedom Fighters to disable if not fix.
Anyway, with our plan, we have 18 long months to fix everything else wrong with Afghanistan, the tanks long gone to China as scrap.
We can do it. I watched, from across the street, my local McDonald's go up in 18 days. And it rained twice.
This is not Vietnam. Vietnam had a stable government-in-waiting; it just happened to be where Jane Fonda stayed on vacation.
Jane Who? you might ask, if you never donned a leotard or ankle warmers.
It is sad that so many members of the Peace, Love and Simple Flower Arrangements Generation would forget its beloved aid and comfort-woman, Hanoi Jane. No wonder Bush was elected over her strong right (or maybe left, if that's possible) arm, John Kerry.
Maybe some of you just missed that mentally altered generation. I know a few who were just at the tail end of the "Greek is Good" generation (through no fault of their own) and skipped straight to the actual Hustle and Disco. During a single Bee Gee's song one night, the Soviets snuck hundreds of tanks into Afghanistan, many of which we paid Holy Freedom Fighters to disable if not fix.
Anyway, with our plan, we have 18 long months to fix everything else wrong with Afghanistan, the tanks long gone to China as scrap.
We can do it. I watched, from across the street, my local McDonald's go up in 18 days. And it rained twice.
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