Afghan Astrolabe

Opera Singers and Final Thoughts

2010-03-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

Fa-la-la-la… hear that? That’s the sound of the fat lady singing. That means my Afghan adventure is over.

After 18 months, it was time. Basically, I had outlived my usefulness, given the changes going on in the South of Afghanistan. That was actually a good thing, as my position was going away due to changes in the support contracts. So, rather than wait for the boat to sink, I jumped ship a little early to avoid the turmoil.

My farewells were both wonderful and a bit anticlimactic. The Afghans were genuinely sorry to see me go and presented me with many honors and gifts. Most important to me was when the senior officers of both the Afghan Army and Police presented me with my former military rank (Lieutenant Colonel) in Afghan Army and Police Insignias. I had told them early on that, if they thought I had earned them, that that would be the highest honor I could imagine, and far more meaningful than a rug or a vase or a plaque. They came through, the Police even promoting me to full Colonel (although that may have been just to “show up” the Army ;-) ). Several Afghan officers also provided personal gifts for my wife and children. I am humbled by their generosity and honored by their respect. The anticlimax came with the Americans – after 18 months of living on the FOB, managing the internet service, and helping out whenever I could, I was told that it was “not convenient” for them to run me into KAF to start my outprocessing. Instead, they helped me coordinate a run in with another team – and changed the time/date three times in three days. Oh well, Doris Day sang it best… “Que sera sera.” I wish them the best of luck and success as they finish their tours.

Have been home for two weeks now. Very strange reintegrating into routine “home-life”. Having more than 81 square feet to live in is a huge difference. For 18 months I lived in a 9ft x 9ft box, with all my worldly possessions crammed inside. Now I’m rattling around my 1900 square foot ranch style and have found myself misplacing things all the time. Also strange to share this living space with three other people (wife and two boys) and the dog. I was used to a much more private/solitary existence. Don’t get me wrong, these are good things to get used to, as is not having to get completely dressed to go to the bathroom at 3am, having a very comfortable bed to sleep in, and being able to “pop down to Lowe’s, Walmart, Albertson’s, etc.) whenever we need something, instead of having to plan it for the next KAF/PX run.

“We’re” going to win in Afghanistan, but not because of any great strategic or tactical thinking on the part of McChrystal or Petraeus or Obama. “We’re” going to win because the forces of modernity have established a beachhead into Afghan culture that cannot be undone. Cell phones, satellite television, and the internet are “corrupting” the conservative Pashtun/Taliban culture beyond all repair. Between the cultural corruption and the actual corruption, Afghanistan will never be the same. Think Vietnam after we pulled out in 1975. It went through a repressive period, then, strangely, began to modernize and embrace Western “values”. It was the younger generation that had grown up with the Americans that did it – as they aged and took over the reins of power, they remembered what was good and put it to use. The young Afghans will do the same thing, trust me.

The “builders” always beat the “destroyers” in the end. Most young Pashtuns I worked with loved to see pictures of Western Cities. Many of them had been to “big” cities before – Kabul has several million now, Quetta is over a million, Peshawar and Karachi are several million each – but they all look dated next to the BIG cities of the West – New York, Hong Kong, Singapore – with all of their high-rises and vibrant economies. Google Earth was a wonderful tool to show these young Afghans that we are no strangers to urban sprawl – and that we’ve figured out how to ensure that all those houses all have affordable electricity 99.99% of the time, as opposed to the 20% or less time that the Afghans have in Kandahar. Try running a business when you only have power 8 hours out of every 48 (and it may be between midnight and 8 am). All I had to do was show pictures of high rise buildings, then ask the question “When’s the last time the Taliban built a high-rise? – when’s the last time the Taliban built ANYTHING?” Then I’d show them a picture of the Taliban blowing up the statues of Buddha in Bamian. Believe me, they got it. One interpreter, on seeing a picture of an 8-lane freeway full of speeding traffic asked, incredulously, “How do you stop and check for bombs?” He was amazed and at first refused to believe us when we told him that we do not have IEDs on our roads. He asked several other Americans to verify that we weren’t pulling his leg. He could not imagine a road without the danger of IEDs – but he can now.

As for me – I’m starting an exciting new business promoting proper nutrition and wellness. I’m promoting a product called Isagenix™ and I’m VERY impressed with both the product and the company. If you have stubborn pounds you need to lose or think you or your family could be healthier, please, check out www.isagenix.com to get an idea of what I’m talking about, then, if you think you could be both healthier and potentially wealthier, contact me and let me show you why I’m so excited about this.

This is also an energy thing for me – for 20+ years, I’ve been working in the Intelligence Community. Basically, my job has been to forecast the worst possible things that anyone could do and help my commanders plan to mitigate or eliminate the potentials. All of this has smacked of negative energy, and frankly, I’m tired of it, as good as I might be at it. With Isagenix™, I am helping people better themselves, from a positive energy position. It’s much more exciting and energizing to work from this position.

As for the blog here, it will stand for now – but this will be the last entry, methinks. I’m going to start up a new blog to go along with my new career. Check out www.astrolabealley.blogspot.com for my further adventures and musings.

As the dolphins said to the Earth in Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide” series “So long, and thanks for all the fish!” See you on the flip side!

In Case You Doubted "The Politics of Fear"...

2010-03-03T21:14:00.000-08:00

Just came across this in “The Politico”… link to original is here: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33866.html

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Exclusive: RNC document mocks donors, plays on 'fear'
By: Ben Smith
March 3, 2010 04:23 PM EST

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.

In neat PowerPoint pages, it lifts the curtain on the often-cynical terms of political marketing, displaying an air of disdain for the party’s donors that is usually confined to the barroom conversations of political operatives.

The presentation explains the Republican fundraising in simple terms.

"What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate...?" it asks.

The answer: "Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”

Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC – Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms – but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms.

One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.

The document, which two Republican sources said was prepared by the party’s finance staff, comes as Chairman Michael Steele struggles to retain the trust and allegiance of major donors, who can give as much as $30,400 a year to the party.

Under Steele, the RNC has shifted toward a reliance on small donors, but the document reveals extensive, confidential details of the strategy for luring wealthy checkwriters, which range from luxury retreats in California wine country to tickets to a professional fight in Las Vegas.

The 72-page document was provided to POLITICO by a Democrat, who said a hard copy had been left in the hotel hosting the $2,500-a-head retreat, the Gasparilla Inn & Club. Sources at the event said the presentation was delivered by Bickhart and by the RNC Finance Chairman, Peter Terpeluk, a former ambassador to Luxembourg under President George W. Bush.

The RNC reacted with alarm to a question about it Wednesday, emailing major donors to warn them of a reporter’s question, and distancing Steele from its contents.
“The document was used for a fundraising presentation Chairman Steele did not attend, nor had he seen the document,” RNC Communications Director Doug Heye said in an email. “Fundraising documents are often controversial.

“Obviously, the Chairman disagrees with the language and finds the use of such imagery to be unacceptable. It will not be used by the Republican National Committee – in any capacity – in the future,” Heye said.

The most unusual section of the presentation is a set of six slides headed “RNC Marketing 101.” The presentation divides fundraising into two traditional categories, direct marketing and major donors, and lays out the details of how to approach each group.

The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”

Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.”
Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.”

The slide also allows that donors may have more honorable motives, including “Patriotic Duty.”

A major Republican donor described the state of the RNC’s relationship with major donors as “disastrous,” with veteran givers beginning to abandon the committee, which is becoming increasingly reliant on small donors.

The party’s average contribution in 2009, according to the document, was just $40, and the shift toward a financial reliance on the grassroots may help explain Steele’s increasingly strident tone toward the Obama Administration.

While the crude portrayal of Obama may be - as Steele ‘s spokesman put it - “unacceptable,” other elements of the presentation may be of equal interest to close political observers.

The RNC plans to raise $8.6 million from major donors alone in 2010, less than 10% of its total 2009 fundraising take, which was primarily from small donors."

The center of that plan is an extensive, and colorful, schedule of events. Along with traditional fundraisers with conservative luminaries including Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, the party plans to raise $80,000 for a trip to London to meet David Cameron, the British Conservative Party leader, on September 17.

The RNC’s “Young Eagles” – younger major donors and the only group, according to a major donor, continuing to pull its weight financially – are invited to a “professional bull riding event” in October, expected to raise $50,000, and to a no-holds-barred Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Las Vegas the same month, expected to raise $60,000.

The RNC’s aim, according to one section of the document: “Putting the Fun Back in FUNdraising.”

CORRECTION: The RNC raised a total of $81 million in 2009. An earlier version of this story understated that figure.

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So, there you have it in black and white – and here are the slides in question…

Cover Slide for the Presentation

Slide 29

Slide 30

Slide 31

Anyone out there still think that you’re not being played? Guess again.
Thanks to the Politico and Huffington Post for breaking this story!

Now in all fairness, this is not the exclusive domain of the RNC – the DNC used much the same strategy against G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney – which is exactly the point I’m trying to make All of the big industries – Politics, Banks, Insurance, Health Care, Religion, Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, Agriculture, etc. – all of them understand and use FEAR to manipulate you, the potential donor, buyer, consumer, etc.

One more week until I start my odyssey back to the US and the next chapter of my book of life. Hooah!

SLK

Getting Short

2010-02-26T04:01:00.000-08:00

It’s been eighteen months since I came to Afghanistan, and my time here is coming to a close. In mid-March I will leave my position and return home to my family and friends to start a new chapter in my book of life.

I have no personal regrets whatsoever. This has been a good experience, both personally and professionally. It does bother me, however, that we as a nation, and we as a coalition of nations, have not made more progress. We are still locked into a “one step forward, two steps back, two steps forward, one back,” box-step dance routine that leaves us standing where we started with little to show for it except for the blood and the grave markers.

As for the Afghans I have decidedly mixed feelings. There are several Afghans that I have come to know and respect. They are good men in any culture. Men like Haji Mohammad, Mirwais Noorzai, Ahmad Shah, Gul Ahmad, and Basir Tokhi. These men are willing to fight for Afghanistan as a nation, not just their tribe or ethnicity.

Unfortunately, men like these are overshadowed by the corrupt and the power hungry. But that’s no different than in our own country. Edmund Burke said it best when he said “All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” The problem in Afghanistan is twofold – first, no one trusts anyone to allow them to do anything (similar to our own country, anymore) and second, 30 years of war has created a “get it while you can before the well goes dry” attitude among many. Thus, aid monies are pocketed, goods are misappropriated, and illegal activities are run by the same warlord/powerbrokers that we are trying to woo. Bank balances in the Emirates and Switzerland grow fatter, and, just as in America, the average citizen just gets stepped on.

As for the coalition effort, to include the US military effort… Never has so much been done by so many for so few who are so unappreciative. The Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and Sailors (yes, surprisingly common to see various countries naval personnel running about) are, collectively, great. If it weren’t for the uniforms and the languages, there’d be little to tell them apart. The leadership is challenged, however, by a complex war that is run by complex rules. And, all of the troops and officers are people, and people make mistakes. The problem with a war is that mistakes can cost lives, sometimes many. Sometimes the consequences are immediate and due to one or two people, as in an airstrike called in last week by special operations forces that killed over a dozen civilians. That was definitely a “two-step back” day as relations with the Afghan people and government were very significantly affected.

Sometimes, the consequences are affect fewer people and are due to complacence, momentary inattention, or sometimes just plain bad luck. We had a pretty high speed MP Lieutenant here – her platoon was the first true MPs we had here. They’ve been working a subdistrict of Kandahar City. The other evening, her platoon was dismounted in a built-up area, checking things out. A motorcycle drove up and the rider got off and walked away as if going somewhere. The LT walked over towards the motorcycle – and then it detonated. A fragmentation device was in one of the saddlebags – probably remotely detonated. The bulk of the blast hit her in the upper legs. She lost one and they are fighting to save the other. It is a testament to the discipline she instilled in her platoon that there wasn’t a massacre of Afghans that night – she was well liked, but more importantly, well respected. She’s the second officer that I’ve known who has been gravely injured by IEDs. What a waste.

It’s time to go. Kipling nailed what is happening here over 100 years ago. He originally wrote “White Man’s Burden” as a commentary on the US Annexation of the Phillippines after the Spanish American War. But he based his commentary on his own experience living in India and the struggles of Great Britain and the Great Game. If “White Man’s” is too racist or politically sensitive, substitute "Western" – it doesn’t change the meter and applies equally well.

White Man’s Burden – 1899
by Rudyard Kipling

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

Let’s hope that our peers judge us for our intentions as well as our actions and the consequences we’ve wrought.

Hooah
SLK

Absolutely Brilliant!

2010-02-08T21:32:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I stumble across something I find very profound - this is one of those things. It's long, I know, but the last sentence is perfect... enjoy the read and be happy that our society and our armed forces have such great minds despite the challenges outlined herein.

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The Founders’ Wisdom
BY LT. COL. PAUL L. YINGLING (Published in Armed Forces Journal, Feb 2010)

The U.S. faces a number of difficult challenges in civil-military relations that carry with them profound effects on our national security. Among these issues are declining popular support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, growing isolation between the U.S. military and the society it serves, and unresolved disputes over the limits of executive authority. However difficult these problems may be, they are neither unprecedented nor insoluble.

The underlying issues in these debates were explicitly addressed by America’s Founders in drafting the U.S. Constitution. Winston Churchill famously observed that “America will always do the right thing, but only after exhausting all other options.” Having today exhausted all other options to provide for our security, Americans would be well served to return to the system of war powers established by the Constitution.

James Madison’s elegant system of checks and balances created a system to ensure that we choose our wars carefully and prosecute them intelligently and vigorously. After rebelling against Great Britain and rejecting the Articles of Confederation, the Founders were well aware of the dangers of both tyranny and anarchy. They created a system of government that provided for strong legislative and popular oversight of national security and vigorous executive power to deal with crises. Many of the challenges in civil-military relations that we face are attributable to insufficient legislative and popular oversight of executive authority. The solution to these challenges therefore lies in a reassertion of this authority.

It’s important to consider the historical context in which the Constitution developed. The rebellion against British tyranny was a defining experience for America’s Founders, shaping their views on virtually every aspect of governance. While the American Revolution was largely a dispute over the authority of Parliament to tax the colonies, civil-military disputes also played a significant role. The American colonists’ grievances against King George III cited in the Declaration of Independence included the maintenance and quartering of standing armies in times of peace without the consent of colonial legislatures and the denial of colonial jurisdiction over crimes committed by British troops in the colonies.

The Founders were deeply suspicious of standing armies accountable solely to executive power. The colonists accepted the presence of British regulars out of necessity during the French and Indian War (1758-1763) but wished for the removal of these forces to the greatest extent possible once the war ended. Consistent with this view, the Founders raised a Continental Army only for the duration of the Revolution, and all but disbanded it once the British were defeated.

Unfortunately, the Articles of Confederation replaced British tyranny with a government too weak to defend American interests. Each state maintained its militia, and 11 also maintained their own navies. The Congress lacked the power to tax, which made it difficult not only to provide for future expenses but also to pay past debts, including those owed to veterans of the Revolution. Amending the Articles required unanimity, and the passage of any law required the assent of nine of the 13 states. The national government lacked the authority to resolve disputes among the states, creating numerous disputes in every aspect of public life. The new government was nearly paralyzed on questions of foreign policy and defense, including negotiating a peace treaty with Great Britain, resolving boundary disputes with Spain and raising a navy capable of protecting commercial interests. Throughout the 1780s, the newly created United States drifted toward anarchy. George Washington feared that unless the national government could be made more vigorous, the new country would “become the sport of European politics.”

The Constitution created a system of war powers that remedied many of the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation while ensuring that the war powers of the U.S. remained under strong legislative and popular oversight. This system of checks and balances applied to every aspect of war powers, from raising forces to conducting operations. The Founders vested the power to raise armies with Congress, using specific language intended to ensure these forces would remain beholden to Congress for support. The Constitution states that Congress shall have the power “to raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.” The Founders used different language when describing support for naval forces. While the Constitution empowers Congress to raise armies, it then states that Congress shall have the power “to provide and maintain a navy.” The Founders viewed armies as temporary necessities to deal with particular crises but understood that the maintenance of a navy was an enduring requirement. Naval forces, both the fleet and Marines, gave the young republic an enduring expeditionary capability to protect its commercial interests. As these commercial interests were enduring, so too the capability to protect them must be enduring. Additionally, the Founders viewed naval forces as less of a threat to popular liberties than armies, as the latter are capable of controlling land, populations and resources for extended periods.

The Founders also ensured that executive branch officials, including senior military officers, were accountable to Congress. While the authority to appoint military officers resides with the president, the Constitution requires Senate confirmation for the appointment of officers.

Perhaps no check on executive power is more important than the provisions concerning the writ of habeas corpus. The Constitution states that “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Two issues are worth noting here. The first is that there are no “emergency war powers” in the Constitution. The Founders expected us to govern ourselves in time of war according to the same laws that apply in times of peace. Second, the language regarding the suspension of the Great Writ is found in Article I, which covers Congress, and not Article II covering the president. This omission was no accident; the Founders considered executive power to be both a necessary guardian and a potential danger to popular liberty. The Great Writ is the most important of all checks on executive power, for if the executive has the unchecked power to imprison its opponents, every other liberty is meaningless.
The Founders also extended legislative oversight to the conduct of war itself. By vesting the power to declare war with Congress, the Founders ensured that America would choose its wars carefully. While Congress may be less well-suited to vigorous unitary action than the executive, it is far better-suited to engage in deliberation over the purpose and necessity of committing the nation to war. At the same time, entrusting Congress with the power to declare war ensured that America would prosecute its wars vigorously. The Founders expected that the prosecution of war would require the mobilization of the militia under federal service paid for under the federal budget.

The president alone is the commander in chief, but he is dependent on the Congress to raise and maintain military forces and to mobilize the militia. The president may appoint officers to positions of command, but such appointments are dependent on Senate confirmation. Most importantly, the president cannot commit the nation to war without congressional authority. While in practice the president may act in the interest of public safety, Congress’ power of the purse limits such actions to brief expeditionary operations.

Many of the difficulties in civil-military relations today are attributable to our departure from the elegant system of checks and balances established in the Constitution. Congress has all but abdicated many of its war powers, including raising forces, confirming the appointment of officers, providing oversight to operations and declaring war. This has made the U.S. weaker by allowing hasty, ill-considered and poorly supported executive actions to imperil national security. The remedy for these failures requires not innovation, but rather a return to the time-tested principles of America’s founding.

The Constitution requires Congress to raise and maintain military forces to ensure popular support for the development and employment of American military power. However, today’s military forces are manned solely by volunteers and paid for with borrowed money. The congressional task of “raising the Army” has been reduced to the acts of appropriating money and raising the debt ceiling. Until recently, wartime funding came through supplemental appropriations that received far less scrutiny than funds allocated through the normal budgetary process. The financial burdens for raising today’s military and fighting today’s wars will fall to future generations, as the entirety of the defense budget has been financed with deficit spending for nearly a decade. The dangers of military service are born solely by volunteers, a disproportionate number of whom come from working- and middle-class families. The wealthiest and most privileged members of American society are all but absent from the ranks of the U.S. military.

Moral exhortations for citizens to care more deeply about national defense are insufficient. Unless the public and its elected representatives have some personal stake in decisions of war and peace, they can not and will not provide adequate oversight in these profound choices. Madison understood that “if men were angels, no government would be necessary.” It is precisely because men are not angels that the Founders placed the terrible power to choose and make war with those who would feel its burdens most directly. In Federalist 51, Madison argues that the “policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public.” Rather than hope for better motives in either the executive or the legislature, the American people would be best served by returning to the system of checks and balances in war powers that has served us so well for so long. Given America’s global responsibilities, the U.S. can no longer rely for its security on a small and relatively cheap standing military supported by a large 18th-century style militia. However, we can return to the principle that America’s citizens and our elected representatives must be engaged in the defense of our country.

A RETURN TO CITIZEN SOLDIERS

The U.S. should therefore abandon the all-volunteer military and return to our historic reliance on citizen soldiers and conscription to wage protracted war. This approach proved successful in both world wars and offers several advantages over the all-volunteer military. First and most important, this approach demands popular participation in national security decisions and provides Congress with powerful incentives to reassert its war powers. Unlike the all-volunteer force, a conscripted force of citizen soldiers would ensure that the burdens of war are felt equally in every community in America. Second, this approach provides the means to expand the Army to a sufficient size to meet its commitments. Unlike the all-volunteer force, a conscripted force would not rely on stop-loss policies or an endless cycle of year-on, year-off deployments of overstressed and exhausted forces. Third, conscription enables the military to be more discriminating in selecting those with the skills and attributes most required to fight today’s wars. Unlike the all-volunteer force, a conscripted force would not rely on exorbitant bonuses and reduced enlistment standards to fill its ranks. Finally, this approach would be less expensive. Unlike the world wars of the 20th century, today’s dangers will not pass quickly, allowing for a return to a smaller and less expensive military establishment. Imposing fiscal discipline on the Pentagon would not only strengthen America’s depleted finances, but also constrain executive ambitions for adventures abroad and congressional appetites for pork-barrel projects at home.

Some may argue that conscription is unfair. Only a small percentage of the 4 million Americans eligible for military service in any given year would be required to serve. Past conscription systems were riddled with waiver policies that allowed the most-privileged Americans to avoid military service. Any future conscription policy must be both fair and militarily effective. Both goals may be achieved by raising induction standards to conscript those with the attributes necessary for today’s wars: the ability to speak foreign languages and operate in foreign cultures, engage in complex moral reasoning about the use of force, as well as bear the heavy physical and psychological burdens of combat. Many of the young people who possess these attributes also demonstrate a low propensity to volunteer for military service. Conscription based on militarily relevant skills and attributes without waiver would provide the quality and quantity of manpower required to prosecute today’s wars. Conscripting gifted young people would embrace the fairest principle of all: To whom much is given, much is expected.

Defenders of the all-volunteer force often argue that the U.S. already has a military that is broadly representative of and better educated than the society it serves. Today’s military volunteers have certainly demonstrated admirable intelligence, courage and adaptability. However, claims that today’s military is representative of American society are based more on methodological sleight of hand than rigorous analysis. Opponents of conscription point out that the richest 20 percent of American households with military-aged children are slightly overrepresented in today’s military. This category includes all households with median incomes over $52,000, grouping together middle-class families with multimillionaires. By grouping together widely divergent income categories, the Defense Department obscures the absence of the most-privileged Americans from the ranks of the armed forces. The same sleight of hand is evident regarding educational levels. Any educational barrier to enlistment, however low, would necessarily produce a force that is better-educated than the general population from which it is drawn. Defenders of the all-volunteer force are at difficulties to explain why, as demands on enlistees have increased since the end of the Cold War, enlistment standards have declined. In truth, the all-volunteer military competes in a labor market for a limited pool of talent that often has more viable economic alternatives than military service.

Beyond the issue of fairness, some may object to increased reliance on the National Guard and reserve on the grounds of strategic responsiveness. The U.S. will continue to require an immediately available active-duty expeditionary force to respond to short-notice, small-scale contingencies. A congressional declaration of war and mobilization of the National Guard and reserve take time. However, for cases of protracted major wars, this time would be well-spent in deliberating the wisdom of proposed war aims. Prior to America’s entry in World War II, Congress and the country engaged in a rigorous debate about the wisdom of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s defense policies. In the summer of 1941, congressional authorization to extend the draft and federalization of the National Guard passed the House of Representatives by a single vote. However contentious and slow this process may have been, it ensured the country was informed of and committed to FDR’s policies. Roosevelt understood that congressional debate was a vital step in mobilizing popular passions for war. However tactically proficient today’s all-volunteer force may be, it remains isolated from America’s greatest strategic assets: the wisdom and energy of the American people.

Others may dispute these methods of raising and funding military power on the grounds of political expediency. Imposing conscription, mobilizing National Guard and reserve forces, raising taxes and cutting domestic spending to pay for military expenditures will be politically unpopular. However, the development of America’s military forces and their commitment to protracted wars were never intended to be politically expedient. The Founders placed these powers in the hands of Congress to ensure that such momentous decisions were undertaken carefully after sober public deliberation. The Founders did not expect that America would “go to war with the Army we have” but rather that Congress would raise the Army we need to prosecute carefully thought out war aims to a successful conclusion.

The responsibility of Congress to raise military forces includes the responsibility to confirm senior military officers to positions of important command. To ensure that America’s armed forces are ably led, Congress must return to its tradition of exercising strong oversight on the appointment and conduct of senior officers. The historical record contains ample evidence of the efficacy of Congressional oversight in this regard. The National Security Act (1947) and the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act (1986) both substantially strengthened U.S. military capabilities and both passed despite the objections of senior military officers. During World War II, Sen. Harry Truman’s leadership of a military oversight committee dramatically improved procurement procedures, saving lives as well as money in the process. More recently, Congress has deviated from this tradition of strong oversight. When Army Gen. George Casey was nominated to serve as the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, the Senate confirmed the nomination unanimously after essentially pro forma hearings. As Greg Jaffe and David Cloud note in “The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army,” “[Casey] hadn’t interviewed with either Rumsfeld or Bush before being chosen. No one asked him for his ideas about what needed to be done, and he hadn’t thought about it very much. [Army Chief of Staff Gen. Pete] Schoomaker had given him a book entitled ‘Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned from Malaya and Vietnam.’ ... It was the first book Casey had read on guerrilla war.”

After two more years of mounting chaos in Iraq, Congress again returned to its tradition of strong oversight in the appointment of military leaders. When Army Gen. David Petraeus was nominated to replace Casey, the Senate confirmation hearings were far more vigorous, despite Petraeus’ distinguished pedigree in counterinsurgency warfare. The Senate would never confirm a Supreme Court justice who hadn’t given much thought to questions of constitutional law. Instead, senators inquire vigorously into the qualifications and judicial temperament that each nominee brings to his or her grave responsibilities. The Senate should exercise the same rigor in confirming those who lead American forces in battle.

Congress must be equally vigorous in resisting expansive interpretations of executive authority. Hasty and ill-considered executive decisions may burden the country with untenable and counterproductive policies whose consequences endure for decades. No issue makes this point more clearly than the Bush administration’s policies regarding the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Bush administration asserted broad authority to detain suspected terrorists, asserting that they were neither lawful combatants fully protected by the Geneva Conventions nor criminal suspects fully protected by the Constitution. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected these arguments, but not before these policies did substantial damage to America’s reputation around the world. Greater congressional oversight in the formulation of the Bush administration’s detention policies might have prevented this. The Founders provided Congress with ample authority to conduct such oversight, including the appropriation of funds and the confirmation of executive branch nominees. The Founders did not provide the executive with expanded power in time of war, and placed the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus under Congress. The Founders were not naive and understood that not every exigency of war could be anticipated and satisfactorily resolved by the law. Even strong advocates of legislative supremacy recognized the possibility that an executive might act contrary to the law for the purpose of preserving the state. John Locke, whose “Second Treatise on Government” powerfully influenced the Founders’ thinking, acknowledged the possibility of executive prerogative, defined as “power to act according to the discretion for the public good, without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it.” However, Locke warned that “the people shall be judge” as to whether such sweeping executive action was intended for the public good. Lincoln’s suspension of the Great Writ in the Civil War, imposed during congressional recess and affirmed only after the fact, is an example of the exercise of executive prerogative for the public good. Especially in times of war, the people’s elected representatives must balance executive demands for broad discretion with equally important concerns for accountability and oversight.

Finally and most importantly, Congress must discontinue the practice of authorizing protracted military operations without a formal declaration of war. Since World War II, Congress has abandoned the practice of declaring war prior to the onset of military hostilities. This practice may be justified in the immediate aftermath of an attack, such as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or the al-Qaida attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In such circumstances, the president as commander in chief has the authority to act in self-defense until he can bring the matter before Congress. However, the Constitution places the power to declare war and commit the armed forces of the U.S. to battle with the Congress.

The Founders recognized that war placed substantial demands on the public in both blood and treasure. For a self-governing society to fight a protracted war, the people must believe in the wisdom and justice of the conflict. Because they will bear the burdens of war, the people through their elected representatives are the best judges in the decision to use force to achieve the aims of policy. The Founders relied on the people and their elected representatives to ask hard questions and seek peaceful solutions in order to avoid potential conflicts.

There is no need for Congress to revisit or revise the War Powers Act of 1973, or to pass new legislation constraining executive war powers. The constitutionally mandated power of Congress alone to declare war is sufficient in and of itself. A popularly supported declaration of war is the surest indication that the war aims proposed by the executive have been carefully thought out, and peaceful means to achieve those aims have been exhausted. More importantly, such a declaration commits the full energy of the American people in prosecuting the war to a successful conclusion.
Eschewing a congressional declaration of war calls into question both the wisdom of the war and the public’s commitment to winning it. The clearest example of this phenomenon is the 2002 congressional authorization for the use of force in Iraq. This resolution authorized the president to employ the armed forces “as he deems appropriate” to “defend the national security of the U.S. against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.” Moreover, unlike U.N. Security Council resolutions, the congressional authorization for the use of military force had no fixed time limit. Once passed, the president could and did use this authority to initiate a preventive war and sustain a protracted counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq. Congress granted this authority despite the fact that the Bush administration’s justification for war contained a number of highly dubious claims. Among these were that Iraq had links to al-Qaida, that Iraq possessed or would soon possess weapons of mass destruction and that establishing a democracy in Iraq could transform the conflict-torn Middle East into a more peaceful region. Prior to the war, a number of highly prestigious international relations scholars questioned the wisdom of the case for war. Moreover, several internal Defense Department studies indicated that the armed forces lacked sufficient troop strength to prosecute the war successfully. To be fair, a number of members of Congress questioned the justification for war and the means available for its prosecution. However, the resolution interpreted by the executive branch to provide sweeping presidential authority to invade, occupy and govern Iraq passed both houses of Congress by wide margins and without members of Congress accepting responsibility for the ensuing conflict.

In many ways, the prosecution of the war in Iraq is a cautionary tale against bypassing the war powers of Congress. If members of Congress had to impose conscription and fully mobilize the National Guard, they might have been more skeptical of the case for war. Had members of Congress been required to cut popular domestic programs to pay for the war, they might have insisted on prosecuting the war more intelligently and vigorously. Instead, Iraq edged toward chaos over the course of four years, costing the lives of thousand of volunteers and hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowed money. Members of Congress held hearings and asked questions, but took no action to change the course of events in Iraq. The public did not have to endure conscription as it did during the Vietnam War; the nascent anti-war movement therefore never approached the size and intensity of its Vietnam-era counterpart. Congress played only a minor role in the 2007 change of strategy in Iraq, the so-called “surge” that has created a remarkable, if fragile, turnaround. Nonetheless, the underlying fact remains that our conduct of the war in Iraq calls into question both the intelligence and vigor of America’s capacity to wage war.

As the U.S. commits additional forces to Afghanistan, Americans would be well-served to return to our constitutional system of war powers. The burdens of fighting in Afghanistan cannot and will not be shouldered solely by those in uniform today. Many of the soldiers who will fight in Afghanistan have not yet entered high school, and many of the workers who will pay for this conflict are not yet born. No war policy can succeed unless the American people are committed to the wisdom and justice of the conflict, and prepared to bear the burdens necessary for victory. America’s Founders understood this principle well, and gave us a system of government to keep us both safe and free. In practice, this form of government provides for a deliberative process that is slow, inefficient, messy and noisy. However, these inconveniences are a small price to pay to ensure that we choose our wars wisely and fight them intelligently and vigorously. We have paid a terrible price for ignoring the Founders’ wisdom, and in doing so have gained neither safety nor freedom. However, the great advantage of our system of government is that it allows us to learn from the past and do better in the future. Perhaps Madison should have added an eighth article to the Constitution: “When all else fails, read the directions.”

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There it is - "When all else fails, read the directions" - and the Constitution of the United States is, if nothing else, the directions that came with the country.

Hooah
SLK
FOB Walton, Kandahar

The Politics of Fear - The War for Your Mind

2010-01-30T21:02:00.000-08:00

There is a war going on, but not one you think about as a war - I'm not referring to Afghanistan or Iraq or any other hot spot on the planet.

I'm talking about the war for your mind. For your beliefs. For your ignorance.

No, I'm not going to counsel wearing tin foil hats, nor am I hearing voices from my dental fillings. I'm talking about the constant battle that is ongoing through what we call the "Mainstream Media".

The Mainstream Media, or MSM, is actively engaged in what can only be called an information warfare campaign to modify your behaviors, and by extension, your belief structures. Sound paranoid? Let's review a few basic facts.

Most Americans get their news from media corporations through either television or the internet. Both are "visual" mediums, which increases the rapidity and scope of the impact on us - after all, we are visually oriented creatures. These media corporations exist as capitalist entities to make money.

The primary source of income for both television and internet news is advertising. Advertising rates are set based on viewership. Thus, the advertising rates for the Superbowl are astronomical while the advertising rates for my blog are nil.

The way that media networks maintain viewership is to provide engaging content - to do whatever it takes to keep your attention just enough to keep you from turning the channel or clicking a bookmark to another network or web page. To to this, they use every psychological trick in the book - graphic video, the teaser line before the commercial, powerful music and graphics. All is fair in the quest for your attention.

Now here's the great secret. I think it's been known for a long time, but really first reared its impact with Orson Welles' 1938 Halloween broadcast of H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds". He "made" people believe that Martians were actually landing in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, and several small panics ensued. He did this by making his broadcast sound like actual "routine" programming - a radio orchestra being interrupted by news bulletins that gradually escalated into live broadcasts from the scene. Brilliant - it was "Wag the Dog" without the dog - which is the point.

The great secret is that "Fear Sells". All we have to do is make you afraid and you will not change the channel. In fact, if we advertise it up front, we can get you to watch without knowing what you will be afraid of. Think of all the "Very Special Episodes of..." that you've heard advertised. What did that mean? Something bad was going to happen to a main character on a normally comedic show and you were going to share the pain and uncertainty with them. Pain and uncertainty - two roots of fear.

Now think about the central message of most of what you see on what passes for television news today. Pain and uncertainty. Even when something good happens - a peace treaty is signed, rain comes to a drought ravaged region, a baby dolphin is reunited with its mother - the reporters or the anchors will end it with the "It remains to be seen what happens next with the warring parties," or "Forecasters fear that the rain may be too little, too late," or "We have no way of knowing whether baby Flipper's mother will accept him back into the fold - if not, he will surely die." Why do they do this - pain and uncertainty leading to an implied promise that, if we find out anything, we'll update you.

What are the right-wing television and radio talking heads doing with Obama? Pain and uncertainty. Be afraid, be very afraid. In the spirit of fairness, the left-wing television and radio talking heads did the same thing during the Bush administration - what few there were, but they do not have the same traction with the public.

The other day I received, as I'm sure many of us do, a forwarded email of a right wing pundit's column or blog or whatever. Now, I am aware that the person who sent it to me has far different political beliefs than I do, and we playfully throw stuff at each other from time to time. This one was a great example of what I am referring to here - here it is, as sent...

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It's Hillary in 2012, if Obama even makes it that far

By Bryan Fischer

There is virtually unanimous agreement that President Obama is toast. Mort Zuckerman says the air is out of the balloon, and even Der Spiegel is saying that, for German commentators, the hope is gone. In my judgment, Obama is now a lame duck president with 75% of his first (and only) term remaining.

ObamaCare, his signature issue, is dead in the water and Democrats are floating belly up right next to it. Think Corzine, Deeds, Coakley, Dodd, Dorgan, Snyder, Nelson, Lincoln, etc. etc.

If the Democrats do not insist that Obama resign from office ¬ politically unlikely to be sure ¬ they are liable to be dessicated, withered and powerless by 2012. His coattails are just long enough to drag them all under unless they detach themselves immediately if not sooner.

The natives are restless. If I've observed any one thing over time in politics, it's that the only thing that matters to 95% of politicians is getting re-elected. They will sell their soul to anyone who will ensure re-election and abandon any principle and any friend who serves as a drag on their electoral hopes.

The president is now dead weight, an albatross around the neck of every Democrat member of the House and the Senate. They simply cannot afford to be linked to him anymore. He is blindly pursuing policies that the great majority of Americans flatly reject, and yet he soldiers on, oblivious, perhaps through sheer hubris, to the fact that voters aren't buying the swill he is trying to sell as champagne. Congressional Democrats have got to get as far away from him as they can, and they will. Sheer self-interest will dictate separation.

Obama is a disastrous 0-5 on the campaign trail, in his first year after an inauguration attended by unmatched euphoria and expectation. Few in political history, apart from appalling scandal, have fallen so far so fast. He is the Tiger Woods of the political world. He got hosed in Copenhagen, trying the bag the Olympics for Chicago. He got hosed again in Copenhagen, trying to impose economy-destroying carbon caps on the entire world.

And he got hosed in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts when he tried to lend his now vanished charisma to troubled candidates. He's now preparing to make it 0-6 by going to Nevada to prop up the dismal fortunes of the thoroughly unappealing Harry Reid.

Congressional Democrats now can safely ignore their own president, and in fact must do so to preserve any chance of survival. Dick Morris is surely correct when he says that the president will never be able to pass a significant piece of legislation ever again. The American people are watching, they know he cannot be trusted, and they will beat the daylights out of any politician who supports his disastrous agenda.
He has grossly misread the American public, perhaps again because in his insular and self-adulating world he believes he is the smartest person in the room and is sure that his brilliance will inevitably be recognized by the great unwashed. Ain't gonna happen. The American people are a lot smarter than he thinks, maybe even smarter than he is, and surely wiser when it comes to politics. They will never trust him again about anything.

The president is catastrophically weak and naive when it comes to our war against Islamofascism. He is indifferent, desultory, casual, and lacking in seriousness regarding the threat. The American people know this. He waited three days to say anything at all about the Tighty-Whitey Bomber of Christmas Day, his Pentagon whitewashed completely the jihadist attack on Ft. Hood by refusing to use either the word "Islam" or "Muslim" anywhere in its 86-page report, and he nominated a manifestly unqualified man (Erroll Southers) to head the TSA.

If there is another successful Islamic attack on the United States, and a planeload of innocent Americans gets blown up, I believe that will be the last straw for this vain and incompetent president. The American people will hound him out of office. He won't be able to show his face in public because the reaction will be so visceral and angry. He will become as isolated as Dick Nixon became in his last days in office.
He'll crank up the Oval Office thermostat to 72 degrees and hunker down in an effort to ride out the storm.

Hillary Clinton is of course watching, and I have been predicting for months now that she will launch a primary challenge to Obama in 2012. Rush Limbaugh said much the same thing this past week. The campaign of 2012 is her last realistic shot, and she is shrewd enough to see that he is finished as a politician and she'll just be too old in 2016.

Surely the Democrats in the party will see the same thing, and know that if they back Obama in 2012 they will be backing a loser. Believe me, there will be an underground movement among Democrats to plead with Hillary (or somebody) to save what shreds will remain of their party from The One in the next presidential election.

President Obama has no chance at a second term. And eroding chances of completing his first one.

© Bryan Fischer

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Are you afraid? What is the message? Obama's a loser. As Americans we don't back losers. We like to win. Therefore, you should fear to associate your beliefs with Obama.

My response to my friend was the following:

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Anytime I hear a commentator use terms like “virtually unanimous” I remember what an old boss of mine told me when I wrote something similar in an analytical piece - “Scott, there are no modifications to unanimous – it is either unanimous or it is not. If it is not, it may be a majority, but it is intellectually dishonest to try to imply something that simply isn’t.” He was one of the smarter guys I worked for over the years – and the best Commander I ever had.

Last time I checked, “Obama-Care” had morphed into “House and Senate Care” – with Obama agreeing only that it was better than doing nothing. It wasn’t “his” plan by the time the Congressional sausage grinders got done with it.

I will agree that Obama has failed – but what he has failed to do is communicate with the people who elect those Congressmen and Senators. Those same people who elected him.

Anytime I hear anyone mention Obama’s “birth status”, I want to puke. The man is President. Every court in the land that this issue has been raised in has rejected it out of hand. But that’s not good enough for politics these days – no, we’ll keep on beating the dead horse because there are still idiots who will believe it and pass it on, whether out of ignorance or out of thinly disguised racial prejudice or undisguised political prejudice.

Think about how far this country has fallen intellectually in the past 40 years. Do you remember, as I do, the Vacuum Tube Testers that used to be in the front of stores like Skaggs or Thrifty Drugs? Where you could pull a tube out of your television or radio at home, bring it in, and plug it in to the tester to see if it worked or not – and if it didn’t, they were right there for you to buy a replacement – that you then could put back into your television by yourself? We can now text 30 words a minute with our thumbs, often while driving, but we can’t change the oil in our own cars because we’ve turned into a nation of idiots – no curiosity, no skills at anything beyond mere existence. How many kids today can tune a carburetor by ear? How many kids can actually make something from nothing to play with? That’s one of the reasons I’m so indulgent with the boys with their Legos – at least they are creating something. I know technology has made vacuum tubes and carburetors obsolete, but it illustrates the point - but what is the modern equivalent? Playing golf under par on the Wii?

I am very suspicious of the motivations for most of these pundits, commentators, etc. Pure and simple, they make their money by counseling “fear” – fear of the evil Democrats, fear of the evil black man, fear of anything “non-Christian”, fear of anything not 100% Republican party – and even then they will turn on each other like sharks if any one of them deviates the slightest degree. Their incomes and livelihoods are based on spreading fear, spreading rumors, walking right up to the line for slander and libel, then hiding behind the very legal system they decry when they are called on their inaccuracies. Their tactics are taken straight from the masters of the game – Goebbels, Stalin, Mao, Castro – repeat a lie often enough and it gains a truth of its own.

Why deal in fear? Manifest the things you fear and you will find things to be afraid of. Why not have faith in our system of government and faith that most of our leaders are doing their best every day to make America better? I’ll give George W. Bush that much credit – I think he was doing what he believed was right, much as I disagreed with the things he did. I can disagree politically, religiously, philosophically, and personally and still respect the individual for who he is, what he attained and how he has dared stand in the arena. Teddy Roosevelt said it best…

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

How many of us can say that we have risked what Obama has risked to pursue what we believe in?

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I think that many of these commentators, pundits, etc., have forgotten or confused just what the real arena is – they think they are the gladiators out there jeering at Caesar, when in fact, they are mere spectators, often loud ones, but spectators, nonetheless.

As Americans, we can choose to be informed or ignorant - no one makes us pay attention. But apathy is insidious - and ignorance is ripe ground for the practitioners of political or media information warfare.

Next time, we'll talk about how we've failed to apply these similar lessons in Afghanistan. There - a teaser with no fear involved.

Hooah
SLK
FOB Walton, Afghanistan

Retirement

2010-01-30T20:40:00.000-08:00

On December 28th, I was ceremoniously retired from the Armed Forces of the United States. I say ceremoniously because, well, that's when the ceremony was. Officially, I retired back on 30 June, but haven't been in the country since then to do the ceremony.

As retirement ceremonies go, I think it was pretty routine. I was awarded several medals and presented with the certificate of retirement and certificates of appreciation. My wife was presented with a certificate of appreciation as well, as is customary.

Then it was my turn. I gave my retirement speech. I hope you enjoy it.

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Thank you all for coming.

I believe that retirement speeches should serve two purposes. First, they should offer heartfelt thanks to comrades, friends, and family who have also shared the ride that has been this career. The second purpose is to offer one last piece of advice, make one last attempt to achieve immortality, of a sort - to be remembered. So, here it is, my thanks, and my attempt to pass on something of myself so that I might be remembered someday by someone else on this stage. Of course, in the best traditions of an intelligence officer I will be accompanied by a 48 slide presentation and the entire thing will be classified SECRET NOFORN. I will also be reversing the order, saving the thanks for last, as an OPSEC measure.

Michael Shaara, in his book "The Killer Angels" made perhaps the most poignent observation about the military that I have ever come across. He attributed it to Confederate General Robert E. Lee in a conversation with General Longstreet. "To be a good soldier, one must love the Army. But to be a good officer, one must be ready to order the death of the thing he loves. No other profession requires that." All of us have chosen to wear the uniform and swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foregn and domestic, amongst other things. My challenge to you is to live that oath every day.

The challenge is to defend the Constitution against complacency. It must take the form of a constant struggle to make things better, for your subordinates, your peers, and for your superiors as well as for your organization. By constantly seeking to improve your position, you create a culture that embraces change and seeks out ways to capitalize on change, for change is one of only two inevitables in life, the other being death.

As for my career, Wow, what a ride. I've been places I never would have dreamed of; seen things both wonderful and terrible to behold; done things that many just dream of; and best of all, I know I have made a difference.

I cannot imagine a better epitaph to a career. "I made a difference." I wasn't the best officer, the best leader, the best boss, the best husband, or the best father over the past almost 30 years in uniform. But I think it's fair to say that I have become better in all of these roles as time went on. Perfection isn't the standard, learning and improving are the standard by which we should measure ourselves.

So, there it is, my nuggets of wisdom for you all. All I can hope is that they resonate for someone here, makes their path a little clearer from here on out.

The people I owe for this success are legion. First and foremost is my wife Kim. She stood by me through the bad bosses and the long deployments and the 80 hour workweeks and somehow held it all together. Thank you, my dear - I know that today I am as much in love with you as I was in 1982 when I was that JROTC Geek.

I thank my two boys, Preston and Liam for constantly reminding me why this career is important - for if it is not for our children that we make a better planet, who is it for? Thank you both.

I am grateful to my parents who instilled the work ethic to do it right then keep going from there. Dad, you also were one of the best bosses I ever had the privilege to work for - serving as your intelligence officer was the highlight of my career.
I am grateful for my brother, who allows me a peek into the next generation's mindset and who reminds me to have fun in doing the job.

Over the years I had some great bosses and mentors who exemplified professionalism. LTCs Clair Armstrong and Kent Thomas, MAJ John Midgely, and COL James Sfayer from my West Point days. COL G. Pat Ritter, COL Robert M. Williams, COL Mike Altomare, COL Steve Lemons, COL Greg Fontenot, Col. Bill Shawver, COL John Goodale, COL Tim Kelly and COL Rob Lytle are just a few of the great officers and men for whom I have worked for or with and grown from the interaction.

No officer can hope to be a success without the support of his subordinates, and I had some great ones over the years. SGT Larry Halminiak my first gunner and Specialist John Stehley, my first driver were the first of many. Sergeant Major Bill Moore, First Sergeants Dana Sullivan, Mitch Andreasen, and Ric Holmes. Sergeants First Class Sean Kelly, Lonny Grout, Theodore Berryhill, and John Martin and Sergeant Marie Ristow all contributed immensely to my success as an officer over the years. It was a pleasure to serve with them.

Finally, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my peers all along the way. They were the ones that kept me sane when things were tough and provided the support to keep going. You all, collectively, make up my "Band of Brothers" and I have no doubt that our friendships will last beyond the military. COL Steven Sauter, LTC Dave Dahle, LTC Tony McClure, LTC Albert Gomez, LtCol Bruno Plourde, LtCol Drummond Fraser, Maj Jerry Hager, and Maj Klaus Fisher - I owe you all for doing your jobs so well, which made it so much easier to do mine.

Finally, a Parthian Shot - and for once I won't explain the background as I've been talking too long already. Google it if you care. Perhaps the most important lesson I learned here in Idaho - It's better to know which battles to fight than it is to win all of the battles that you do fight. Choose your causes wisely.

Again, Thank you all for coming. I genuinely wish you all the very happiest of holiday seasons and a joyous and bountiful new year.

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There it is, short and to the point. The best part is that I truly believe the points I was attempted to convey.

The military is not like any other "job" - and we should continually emphasize that point, to the recruits, to the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines; but most importantly, we need to remind the American People of that - and their elected Representatives and Senators.

Likewise, I see the danger to the Constitution, and by extension America, isn't that of radical change, it's of complacence, somnolence, and apathy. The words in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are not just quaint creative writings - they are the bedrock of what we are as a nation. We must be on guard that we do not chip away around the edges to the point where nothing remains.

Finally, I am proud to say that I HAVE made a difference, however small. I think that that is all that any of us can hope for.

That all being said, I'm glad that my time in uniform is done. It's time to move on to the next chapters in this adventure called life.

BTW - I can't resist - the Parthians were follow-ons to the Persian Empire in what is now Mesopotamia. They successfully resisted the Roman Empire's expansion to the East. One of their favored battle tactics was to conduct a cavalry charge, then at the last minute, wheel about, as if they were going to flee - then turn and fire a volley of arrows over the rumps of their horses - directly into the ranks of the defenders, who, more often than not, had risen and shifted out of position to begin pursuing. As an Armor Officer, we called these "rear deck engagements" - firing the main gun over the back of the vehicle as we displaced from our fighting positions. Same thought, different technology. Hence, the Parthian Shot is a powerful volley fired as one retreats from the battlefield.

Hooah
SLK
FOB Walton, Kandahar, Afghanistan

Nice Break

2010-01-30T20:37:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the long absence - I took a wonderful three week vacation home for the holidays, then have spent the last three weeks here getting myself back in order.

The good news is that my Afghan Adventure is starting to come to a close. As of today, I've got about 43 days left in Afghanistan before I go home for good.

Anyway, lots of things to write about, so stay tuned.

SLK
FOB Walton, Kandahar, Afghanistan

The Wicked and the Evil

2009-12-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

The Wicked and the Evil
Crash Test Dummies – Songs of the Unforgiven

There are those who kneel to worship
And beg for clemency
There are those who know the hardship
Of a conscience that is not free

Some are weary, some are cold
Some barely half-alive
But the wicked and the evil
Eat, and drink, and thrive

The prisoners feel the scorching sun
As they toil among the rocks
Some are grim, some resigned
But not one ever talks

Some are weary, some are cold
Some barely half-alive
But the wicked and the evil
Eat, and drink, and thrive

The sinner knowing he has sinned
Is not saved, he is cursed
For no matter how he may repent
He's done his worst

Some are weary, some are cold
Some barely half-alive
But the wicked and the evil
Eat, and drink, and thrive

The perfect song for Afghanistan today. Kleptocracy at its finest, where corruption has to be categorized into “functional” and “dysfunctional”, where bribing someone to do their paid job is more common than trying to bribe them to not do their job.

It’s not hard to spot the wicked and the evil in Afghanistan today. They are, of course, the drug barons, the warlords and probably a majority of the ministers and governors across the country – the obvious ones. The generals and the police chiefs tend to be more subtle – demanding rent for soldiers quarters that they themselves pay no money on, or extorting money “for better rations” for policemen. But corruption has permeated every corner of this society.

My last interpreter, in his quest to emigrate to the United States, found himself paying Afghan Government clerks bribes just to get them to complete the paperwork that they were paid to complete as part of their jobs. He also had to pay the baksheesh to the Pakistani consulate for the visas required for him and his entire family to visit the US Embassy in Islamabad – they handle Afghan immigration, not the embassy in Kabul. It becomes such a regular part of life that people hardly notice – they just turn and pass the charge on to someone else as time goes by.

How do you bring a kleptocracy into the modern world. I can probably advance the argument that it won’t be that hard – they just need to learn how to play with computers and they’ll fit right in. But, just as in America, where Joe the Plumber probably hasn’t seen many benefits from the Bank and Auto bailouts yet, here in Afghanistan, it will be a very long time before Ahmed the Pashtun sees anything any less corrupt.

We’re a month into the anti-corruption 6 month deadline… haven’t seen any changes yet. One down, five to go.

Cassandra Calling...Again

2009-11-17T19:03:00.000-08:00

I’ve said it before here on the blog somewhere – I often feel like Cassandra, which leads to some interesting lines of thought.

Cassandra was Pandora’s sister. Apollo fell in love (more likely lust, given his reputation) with her and tried to seduce her by giving her the gift of prophecy, but she rejected his advances. As punishment for spurning him, Apollo twisted the gift – no one would believe her prophecies. Cassandra was driven to madness in fairly short order thereafter.

Years ago, when we were first starting our punitive, pre-emptive wars, I sat at my desk and tried to imagine how I would strike back at the US if I were in Osama’s shoes. Now granted, my cultural mindset is in no way comparable to Osama’s, but this exercise has often proven useful in the past. It is a way of coming up with the “most dangerous enemy course of action”. Military planning doctrine is to use the “most dangerous enemy course of action” and the “most likely enemy course of action” into consideration. You plan your main effort against the most likely course of action and you build a contingency plan to deal with the most dangerous.

My worry years ago was that if Osama was as evil a thinker as I can be, then he would find a way to strike back at our military asymmetrically. The best way to do that, I felt, was to strike back at the home bases of the troops deployed to find and kill him. This would serve two purposes, both which would benefit him. It would demoralize some elements of our forces – create a strategic psychological distraction, and at the same time would enrage these same forces, potentially causing them to commit atrocities in violation of our rules of engagement and the laws of war. He, in turn, would use these atrocities to further his campaign to turn the conflict into a true Jihad, portraying us as being anti-Islam. His defense against our counter charges would be that the Koran speaks of only two lands – Dar al Islam – the land of submission to Allah/God and Dar al Harb – the land of war.

Conventional wisdom would have it silly to attack a military base, but conventional wisdom is often wrong. The only personnel with ready access to weapons are the usually undermanned Military Police-type units and possibly contract security guards at the gates. The military bases have huge housing areas full of families with either a father or mother deployed. There are commissaries and post exchanges and administration buildings, all soft targets full of unarmed people once initial access is gained.

As it turned out, Osama never did hit our bases – he never had to. We provided enough ammunition to keep his propaganda campaign going with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and Bagram. Then, last week, in a what had to be a vain attempt at martyrdom, one of our own committed the act that I had conceived as Osama’s most dangerous course of action.

Twice in the past two weeks now, we’ve had our own turn on us. First in Helmand Province, an Afghan Policeman opened fire on a British unit and his own comrades, killing five before escaping. This week, there are thirteen dead in Texas because a US Army Officer could not reconcile his personal beliefs with the orders he had been given and the information he had received as a military psychiatrist. Rather than resign publicly as the senior Department of State official in Zabul Province, Matt Hoh, did recently or quietly as many more have, he chose to punctuate his protest with mass murder.

At the risk of sounding like Cassandra again, I expect an insanity defense to be presented. However, in the military justice system, insanity is not a defense to the act, but merely mitigation in the sentencing. I expect the officer to be found guilty of twelve counts of murder in the first degree, and quite probably sentenced to death, which will be reduced to life imprisonment due to the insanity. Death would make him the martyr he wishes to be – the exclamation point to his protest. Life in Leavenworth will mean disappearing from all but the memories of the victims and their families – an ellipsis instead of an exclamation point. Perhaps that is a better punishment – almost Cassandra-like, in its own way. A lifetime of insanity, knowing that your protest was in vain.

While I feel no pity or sympathy for Nidal Malik Hasan, I have to admit to feeling a slight bit of empathy. On the last day of combat operations in Operation Desert Storm, I too was confronted with a situation seemingly completely antithetical to my core beliefs, both as an Army Officer, and as a human being.

The last several hours of Desert Storm were basically a race. We were racing to retake every square inch of Kuwait from Iraqi control and the Iraqi's were racing to stay ahead of us to avoid capture. In doing so, they abandoned equipment seemingly haphazardly in their single-minded flight. They also, as it turned out, abandoned their wounded.

We had reached our stop position in Northern Kuwait by mid-morning. We, in short, were exhausted. We had been going for virtually the entire 100 hour war with less than 4 or 5 hours of sleep interspersed. Despite this exhaustion, my boss, the unit intelligence officer and the intelligence sergeant took a wheeled vehicle back to look at some abandoned equipment we had passed earlier in the day. This was at the end of the Cold War and we intel types could not pass up the chance to look at some functional Soviet-made equipment. They took off and left me in the command post with the junior intelligence sergeant.

After a bit, we heard them on the radio. "Demon 2 Alpha, this is Demon 2, over."

"Demon 2, this is Demon 2 Alpha, go ahead, over"

"Demon 2 Alpha, this is Demon 2, tell Demon 3 to send the Band-Aids to my location, vicinity charlie papa 41. There are at least five zero wounded Iraqi soldiers in bunkers this location who need medical attention and will not last the night."

"Demon 2, this is Demon 2 Alpha. Roger. Verify charlie papa 41, five zero plus casualties. Wilco."

What that basically said in the radio-speak of the day was that my boss had stumbled upon an abandoned Iraqi field hospital that we had overrun unknowingly in our haste. My boss was asking me to go to the operations section (Demon 3) and ask them to send the Medical Platoon (Band Aids) back to checkpoint 41. The wounded were in underground bunkers, essentially holes in the earth, with no heat or light. The nights were getting down close to freezing, hence the warning about not lasting the night.

I put down the radio handset and walked out of my command post vehicle and over to the Operations command post vehicle. There, on duty, were three Captains (I was a First Lieutenant then). I reported what my boss had told me and requested that they send the medics over.

They refused to do so. They told me basically 1. the medics were asleep, 2. who gives a fuck about wounded Iraqis, and 3. these fucks were shooting at you three hours ago, what are you thinking, and 4. who authorized Captain S. (my boss) to go back there anyway.

I first tried to persuade them by telling them that we had to do this - we owned the land now. I was told to leave.

I then tried to use the argument that if we took no action, that this could be considered a war crime. I was told to leave now - in rather profane terms.

Finally, almost in tears of complete frustration, I implored two of the three whom I knew were West Point graduates (as I was) that this was our Duty and Honor at stake. I was then bodily pushed out of the operations track and ordered back to my vehicle amidst tauntings at my lack of emotional control.

I can honestly say that I have never been so frustrated in my adult life. My intelligence sergeant had heard most of the interplay and saw the tears streaming down my face. He was very perceptive and afterwards told me that he knew that I was "on the edge of a cliff." He jumped into my vehicle and spun the dial on the safe, locking it. That was where we kept the grenades. Pretty astute on his part.

Luckily for me, before I could get to my vehicle, the Battalion Executive Officer showed up. He saw the look on my face and assumed that something tragic had happened. He stopped me and asked me what was wrong, so I told him. This Major got it instantly. He directed me to use his radio and relay the message to the Medic Platoon.

When I did so, the Captains in the Operations track tried to cut me off, telling the Medics to "Disregard Demon 2 Alpha's transmission". The XO heard this and told me to use his call sign and that he would deal with the Captains. He went into the operations track and the yelling began.

I got the message to the Medics and off they went. When they got there, they found over 120 wounded Iraqi soldiers in the bunkers and they assisted another unit that had come upon the scene, the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, in ensuring that the wounded received proper care.

The Captains were verbally reprimanded and over the course of the next few days, each of them, individually, apologized to me for their conduct. They blamed their actions on their exhaustion and their misunderstanding of what I was telling them. The Battalion Commander also talked to me, subtly pressuring me to take no further actions. I took no further actions, seeing how the realpolitik was shaping up. The histories make no mention of the event nor of the medevacs. The closest there was to an acknowledgement of what happened came almost ten months later, when I was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for my actions during the war. In presenting it, the same Battalion Commander joked (poorly) that he wasn't sure if it was for telling him where the Iraqi forces were, telling him where the Iraqi wounded were, or not killing his three Captains (who had all been transferred out by then).

In all truth, I don't know to this day. I do know that were it not for the timely intervention of a decent human being, I might have snapped due to my inability to reconcile the orders and actions of my superior officers with what I knew in my heart of hearts to be right. I have to believe that this was the same pain, anguish, and frustration that Nidal Malik Hasan was feeling, misguided as it may seem to the rest of us.

Pity, no. Sympathy, none at all. Empathy - a little, yes - for I have stared what had to be a similar madness in the face and felt its fury. At West Point they taught me that often one must choose the harder right over the easier wrong. Easy to say, hard to implement when the adrenaline is coursing through your veins.

Over the years, I've shared this story with a select few, usually veterans. A few of them have told me their own, similar stories of staring the Berserker in the face, looking over the edge of the abyss and feeling the pull towards madness. I offer it now, not as excuse, but as possible explanation to those who do not understand.

In the current case, perhaps the cruelest twist of all is that Nidal Malik Hasan was, by training, a healer. A healer who dove into the pit and became the opposite - a destroyer of life. To use another religion's deity - he became Shiva-like - creator and destroyer, a paradox. By most mainstream interpretations of Islam, he is simply what we perceive him to be, a murderer. He did not strike directly at his tormentors - he struck randomly, just as Osama did on September 11th. Mainstream Islam says that as such, he will be forgotten by Allah and tormented in Islamic hell. I think he will have pretty much the same in this life as well.

We few...we happy few...

2009-11-17T07:21:00.000-08:00

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers:

For he today that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

---Henry V – Wm Shakespeare

It was Veteran’s Day last Wednesday. I spent the morning in a helicopter taking the long way from my Forward Operating Base to Kandahar Air Field. The long way because when I jumped on, there were about 15 Dutch Soldiers already on board with their gear. The Crew Chief told me they were heading to Deh Rewood – the second largest city in Oruzgan Province to drop them off and pick up some more that had finished their tour and would be heading home.

The flight up was beautiful – CAVU – ceiling and visibility unlimited – old aviator speak for not a cloud in the sky. The Dutch Soldiers were nervous, but trying to look cool in front of each other. I remember the feeling well. For me it was also on a holiday – New Years Eve, 1990. The 747 I was on was landing at King Fahd International Airport in Ad Damman, Saudi Arabia. It was filled with soldiers from my battalion, 1^st Battalion, 34^th Armor ,1^st Infantry Division and we were going to war. We too were doing our best to be cool about things – like this was just another training deployment. I know my stomach was churning as we descended into the darkness – having no earthly idea what to expect. I saw the same look in these young Dutchmen – full of bravado – piss and vinegar (remind me to write a story on that sometime), but their eyes betrayed the butterflies they were feeling as the helicopter started its descent. I think I managed to catch the mixture of cool and butterflies in the picture.

The flight back from DR to KAF was totally different. There were about 30 soldiers who got on (I didn’t count, but a full load). This group was a band of brothers. They had lived together and likely fought together in a combat zone. As the bird lifted, I think every one of them was smiling, and by the time we landed at KAF, there was a spring in their step as they debarked the aircraft. I remember that feeling too in May of 1991 as another 747 landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport– and look forward to it again here soon as my time here wraps up.

I received many greetings and thanks from friends from all over the world yesterday (gotta love Facebook™), thanking me for my service. One, in particular, put a lump in my throat and made me think. It was from a still-serving officer who has worked for me from time to time over the years. He thanked me for being a great mentor and credited me, at least partially, for the success that he has achieved. That brought back a flood of memories of similar occurrences over the years. The farewell letters from NCOs who wrote me after they retired, thanking me for being their last officer in charge or section leader or whatever. The warm affection I feel from them when I run into them a year, five years, ten or more years later. What I realized yesterday was that these grizzled professionals were not just thanking me for being a good boss… they were thanking me for upholding the trust – both the ethereal trust of officer and gentlemen, but also for trusting them to do their jobs. They were (and are) telling me that they were considering me one of their “band of brothers”.

I am honored by this belated realization and humbled by it as well. What I would like to convey back to these men and women is that they touched my life as well - and while I may forget their names as I age, their faces never age in my memory. I thank them all for helping me become who I am today as well.

My feelings are nothing unique, nothing new. HBO's mini-series "Band of Brothers" tried to show this bonding, this respect and, let's face it, love, that goes far beyond mere friendship. "Saving Private Ryan" did it in film, and "The Best Years of Our Lives" did it both more eloquently and subtly shortly after WWII.

While the title Veteran's Day is both appropriate and proper, I like what the Commonwealth countries call it even more - Remembrance Day. Remembering the sacrifices of the one and many bands of brothers over the years is the first step in making their sacrifices mean something.

I do not think it is appropriate, however, to wish someone a "Happy Veteran's/Remembrance Day" - I think it is far more appropriate to tell them to "Have a thoughtful Veteran's/Remembrance Day." And so I wish it for all of you as well. Remember - and LEARN!

Hooah

SLK

Apologies

2009-11-17T07:14:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been another long blog-less period. Half of my defense is that I have been very busy, the other half of my defense, if it can be called such, is that when I've had some down-time, I haven't felt like writing, or if I have felt like writing and actually did it, I did not finish the thoughts. Mea Culpa.

So, here in the next couple of days, I will try to publish several pieces that I've been working on.

Enjoy

SLK

Happy Anniversary!

2009-10-25T05:47:00.000-07:00

I started this over a month ago, then saved it as a draft, then promptly forgot about it. At first I was going to delete it, but then thought what the heck - just because I spaced it off doesn't mean that I feel or felt it any less. So here it is, a month late and out of sequence.

Happy October and Happy First Anniversary of my arrival on the far side of the world. Just over one year ago I arrived at my tiny Forward Operating Base near Kandahar to begin my adventure and new job of teaching/mentoring the Afghan National Security Forces.

It's been an interesting year. Looking back over my entries these past 10 months, I'm amazed at what I haven't chosen to write about as much as I am by what I did. The good news is that the weather has cooled off enough that generators are no longer the bane of my daily existence. That is a good thing, since the Afghan side is currently short one - blown head gasket, see previous blogs on "Fixing the Army" for the fun involved with fixing it.

I realized that I haven't written much about friendships here. Most places I have worked, I tend to have many friendly acquaintances but only one or two people that will remain friends beyond the work environment. Until recently, most military personnel were only here for six month tours. I arrived at the end of the New York National Guard's tour, was here for all of the Virginia Guard's tour as well as the short-lived Alabama/Tennessee Guard's stay (they were reassigned in another area because of internal Army politics - which was too bad, they were great guys), and am now working with the Kansas Guard under Active Duty leadership. Likewise the Coalition Forces members here have rotated regularly... I've gotten to know British, Dutch, and Canadian officers and men and learned much from all.

The longest-lived friendship here is with another US contractor, who has been here almost nine months. Ron is NOT what one would expect to see. He is a solidly built African American with long dreadlocks and a full beard. His expertise is communications and satellite equipment and he knows his stuff. He has the type of personality that everyone gravitates to. He left the other day for the states for a medical procedure. Not much fun to have your gall bladder go on the fritz in a war zone - I hope everything works out and he makes it back when he plans to - he's one of the good guys.

A few weeks ago another friendship changed when Jerry, a Dutch Major, finished his tour of duty and went back to the Netherlands. He and I didn't always agree, but we "got" each other. phrase he taught us was "You can go now.", used whenever he was getting the worst in a discussion. In exchange, I taught him the proper usage of the phrase "You Dick!" He introduced me to some wonderful Dutch cookies and other foodstuffs and I introduced him to "Firefly" - the short-lived US TV-series from a few years ago. I will miss evenings watching movies and Firefly on my computer with him, munching on cookies and Dutch sausages and the like. He's good company, but then again, he's good people, one of the band of brothers.

I've also established friendships with several Afghans. Friendships with the Afghans are a little different. Many Afghans want to be your friend, for friends do things for each other and buy things for each other. They might give me a ring or a scarf for my wife, then expect me to buy them a computer - after all, I make more money than they do, so it should be no problem, right? Luckily, I do have a few who are happy just to be friends, to share a cup (or six or seven) of chai or a meal together, and talk of families and houses and better days. These are good men that can put aside major cultural differences and accept others without judgment. I just hope that all the players here leave them a country that can be put back together again - or if not, can fragment without a civil war ensuing. High hopes, to be sure. No matter what happens, I wish only the best for men like Ahmad Shah, Mirwais Noorzai and Haji Mohammad. They are good men, in any culture, who I am proud to know.

As for the rest, the pleasant acquaintances and such, are like ships that pass in the night. Sometimes you see them and remember them, other times they become lost over the horizon as time slides inexorably on.

Hooah

SLK

Counter-Fear-Based-Operations

2009-08-16T00:42:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, the US Military came up with a new euphemism for its emerging operational doctrine. “Effects-Based-Operations” or EBO seemed to be the perfect catch-all – it was short, catchy, ostensibly said what it intended to mean, and conveyed a sense of “thinking through things” before letting the cannonballs fly. It certainly was not as evocative or provocative as “Shock and Awe”, especially as Shock and Awe apparently did neither outside of the immediate blast radius of the bombs. Unfortunately, as much of corporate America already knows, coming up with an advertising campaign is often much easier than creating a product worthy of being advertised.

The challenge to the US forces has been to come up with a clear effect desired that can actually be realized by the operation planned. We want the effect to be the removal of the Taliban or other insurgents from an area. So, we plan a kinetic operation that involves major military muscle movements to go in and clear a district (or two or three) of Taliban. Sure enough, the insurgents all but disappear – nobody has seen them, “No Taliban here – they are all in the “next” village – but they are very bad”. And so forth. Eventually we ~~give up~~, declare victory and pull back to our bases and then we wonder how the insurgents all reappear so quickly. After all, these people should embrace freedom and democracy, right? The root of this problem is, as David Kilcullen recently put it, “We’ve been fighting the insurgents, not the insurgency.”

The Taliban and other insurgent forces in Afghanistan, on the other hand, have a very clear idea of the effect that they want to create. Fear. Pure and simple, FEAR. I call their doctrine “Fear-Based-Operations” or FBO for short, and it is wonderfully simple and almost guaranteed to work, as opposed to our own Effects-Based-Operations. It is basically an information campaign backed up by targeted kinetic operations, in effect, turning our normal “kinetic ops with information supporting” on its head.

This nature of the fundamental relationship between kinetic operations and non-kinetic, or information operations marks the main difference between EBO and FBO is the. Kinetic operations are those involving troop movements, close air support, troops in contact, presence patrols, etc. Non-kinetic, or information operations are those designed to change perceptions and or beliefs. In the old days, information operations involved leaflet drops, “psyop broadcasts”, and radio propaganda. The US and Coalition militaries see the kinetic operation as the main effort with everything else supporting – even when it isThe Afghan Insurgents actually make it much simpler. It is a broadsheet posted on the door to the village mosque in the night. The sheet informs the residents that anyone found with ink on their fingers on election day will have their finger cut off, or their head cut off, or their family massacred in their sleep (all of which have been threatened this election season). This non-kinetic message instills the fear of the unknown – can they follow through, will they follow through – is it worth my finger/head/family to vote?

All it takes are a few kinetic actions to cement this fear in the average Afghan psyche. One or two people are made examples of beforehand – beaten for having a voter-registration card, or blown up by an IED after visiting a registration center. Of course, the insurgents are not bound by any law of war, criminal law, or anything else, so they have the freedom to do these types of actions. We, the coalition do not have this same freedom – we must fight for and by the rule of law, which is actually a huge advantage, but we squander it miserably.

The only way to counter Fear-Based-Operations is to create the opposite of fear – Hope. Hope is a commodity in extremely short supply here in Afghanistan. It has been crushed and ground out of the everyday existence of many Afghans over the past 30 years of virtually constant warfare. This withering if hope is shown in the omnipresent “Inshallah” – as God wills it. The main difference is that people WANT to hope – they do not want to fear – so hope, like a perennial weed, keeps creeping back into the psyche. After all, it’s got to get better than this, right? Inshallah?

So, the challenge to the Coalition Forces in Afghanistan is to create and implement “Hope-Based-Operations” where “Hope” is the desired effect. Now, after we roll into a village, “clearing” it of insurgents, we must roll in the civil assistance – in a coordinated effort. This means we should probably screen and train the Police and Government officials who come in to reestablish the Government presence beforehand – no corruption allowed. If we damage property, we fix it better than it was before. We help the village help itself improve by supplying materials and technical skills – but we hire and pay the villagers to do the labor to instill ownership. We do what it takes to get the family, village, and tribal elders to support us, reinforcing their respected positions vis a vis the Government officials. If we kill someone, we make it good with the families (even if they are bad guys). If we detain someone, we inform the village elders so they can inform the families. Mostly, we show patience and we follow through on our word and reinforce the rule of law.

The messages we MUST convey are direct contradictions to the messages the insurgents cannot but send: “They take, we give”, “they hurt, we heal”, “they destroy, we build”, “they come and go in the night, we stand by you 24 hours a day”. These are the very essence of Counter-Fear-Based-Operations. The Coalition cannot do it alone – the Afghan Security Forces must buy-in and adopt this wholeheartedly.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the US Military is ill-equipped to implement or execute this type of strategy. Bluntly speaking, they have been trained to kill and destroy a conventional enemy – and they are exceptionally good at that. They distrust these “touchy-feely” ways and just wish the “damn Taliban bastards would come out and fight like men”. Hooah! What is needed is to assemble a group who can do this, who have been trained by the likes of Chuck DeCaro in his SoftWar Doctrine at the National Defense University or guys like John Nagl – a soldier with a thousand pound brain if there ever was one. Unconventional thinkers who “get” that hope beats fear just as paper beats rock every time.

This group could then train and advise the Coalition leadership in Afghanistan, to include the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police forces. They have leaders like LTG Karimi of the ANA and LTG Mangal of the ANP do understand these concepts and who can provide the direction from above. At the lower levels, we control both the purse strings and most of the logistics infrastructure supporting these forces.

I realize that this may be “pie-in-the-sky”, but there is a rising chorus singing almost this same melody. The question at hand is do we have the right composers and conductors who can bring out the power and the beauty in the music? Not without help.

"Fixing" the Army

2009-07-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a fun month or so here in Kandahar since my last post. July is the hottest month of the summer and the heat effects everything. The overall climate here is similar to Las Vegas or Phoenix, but with one major difference - Electricity. Stable, reliable electricity.

The trend in America (and also the NATO countries) since the Wall came down has been to downsize the militaries - cut the nonessential functions and create the "leaner, meaner" military that can deploy anywhere on a moments notice. This we have done, but in the process have created something we didn't anticipate - a bonanza for contractors and suppliers.

Armies used to be huge - they were designed to be entirely self sufficient in hostile territory. There were entire units dedicated to such seemingly non-military and mundane things as Power Generation, Laundry and Bath Services, and Pipleline Installation and Operations. Yet, when operating in the field, these units became indispensible to support the soldiers. But huge Armies are hard to move and very expensive to maintain in peacetime. Once the Wall came down, we decided that we didn't need these "luxuries" and, in keeping with the corporate strategy du jour, downsized them and outsourced them. However, in using this corporate model, we have become dependent on the contractors to literally keep us running. Let's look at electricity as an example.

In America, we take electricity almost completely for granted. It is almost always there, and when its not, there's normally a good reason. It is also stable - we know that when we plug something into a wall socket that the current will be 110 volts - not 175 or 39 or 500. Here, it is neither omnipresent nor is it stable. The most stable power source here is generators (yes, I'm ranting on generators again, sorry - big part of my life here). Yet generators are mere machines, and like most machines, need maintenance.

Generators are probably the most critical item in the Coalition's effort here in Afghanistan. Grid power is, at best, unreliable in most parts of the country, if it is available at all. Here, in Kandahar City, grid power is on for maybe 18 hours out of every 48. When it is on, it is very "dirty", with spikes and drops - both of which are damaging to anything depending on it. Voltage regulators and surge supressors are essential, as are Uninterrupted Power Supplies to keep things going through the spikes and drops, and outright outages. So much of our effort depends on technology that is electrically driven that I do not believe I am reaching too far with my first sentance of the paragraph. Simply put, without generators, we fail.

Unfortunately, in our quest to downsize and streamline, we have lost much of the inherent capacity we once had to maintain our generators. Every unit used to have Generator Mechanics on its manning roster - no more. The tactical generators have been simplified, "soldier-proofed", and the maintenance has been shifted to a much higher echelon, with the result that the Generator Mechanic positions were consolidated, downsized, streamlined, and, for the most part, eliminated. Most of the time, however, we are not using tactical generators though - we are using commercial grade generators just like the ones you see at construction sites or next to critical facilities. This is where the lack of mechanics hits hard - we expect that since we can outsource the generators, we can outsource the maintenance too.

I'm sure this made perfect sense to guys like Rumsfeld. No need to carry these "non-essential" functions when they could be outsourced. This was how we made the Army "leaner". And it wasn't just Generator Mechanics, but Cooks, and Electricians and Plumbers and a myriad of other specialties that don't make much sense in a garrison army in the US, but make a huge difference in the field.

In the US, if something like a generator fails, one simply opens the telephone book, looks under "generator" and starts calling until a satisfactory deal can be arranged. The odds are generally better than even that the work will be completed competently and things will be back to normal very quickly. In my house recently the main spring on my garage door failed. Within 48 hours my wife was able to contact a reliable contractor who replaced the spring, checked the rest of the operating mechanism and offered a warranty on the work for a reasonable price.

Here, the first challenge is that there is no telephone book. You might try an internet search, as some firms have found the web, but if your generator is out, you may not have power, so that is not a guaranteed method. The solution here is to have a "fixer". A fixer is a guy who knows everyone, or at least convinces you that he knows everyone. You tell him the problem, he contacts someone (most likely a relative) who has some knowledge ("some" being very relative) of the problem who will come fix it for you. There is no certifications, no guarantees that the guy who shows up has ever even seen your particular type of generator - his experience may be on repairing bus engines, but they are both diesel and that is close enough... for them. Oh, and the fixer gets a cut off the top - probably from both sides.

The "mechanic" who shows up (or the electrician or any other "professional") may or may not have tools, most likely will not have basic parts like filters or fluids. You must supply these or pay an extra arm and/or leg to have them get them. They, more often than not, know where to get them while you do not. They always say that they are going to "the bazaar" to get things - I wish I could go see this bazaar - we've had them get everything from folding chairs to 200 amp main circuit breakers to wireless routers to the aforementioned generator filters. I figure it must make Costco look like a poor imitation. In reality, it's just a matter of knowing who to talk to and negotiating a price. The mechanic will generally tear into whatever the problem is, creating a pile of nuts and bolts and miscellaneous pieces until the unit is completely non-functional. Then he will announce that he does not have a requried part, tool, or capability and must go back to the shop. Once he returns, most likely the next day, he will masterfully put everything back together again and announce that it is now fixed. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not, but that will just mean another service call for him, for now he has established a relationship both with you and your fixer.

The result is that both the US Army and our Afghan allies are now dependent on these maintenance services. We do not have the personnel with the expertise to train the Afghans, and they do not have dedicated Generator Mechanics on their manning documents (because they copied ours) so they fall into the same cycle/trap. The end result is that lots of money ends up changing hands to ensure that the generators (and the plumbing, wiring, HVAC, etc) keep working - with less than optimum results. I have to wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to add a Generator Mechanic, an Electrician, and a Plumber to every units manning document - but that would go against the leaner Army. Oh well.

It’s Hot – And It’s Barely Summer!

2009-07-06T05:17:00.001-07:00

We topped out at 118 in the sun today (a mere 110 in the shade). It’s going to be a long hot summer the way things are going.

One of the things we have managed to accomplish here is get the Afghan Officers addicted to Air Conditioning. They are adding them right and left – and not central air-type A/C – they add individual room units that cumulatively draw a huge amount of power. Unfortunately, most of them have no concept of where the power comes from – they know that the generator does something (for when it is off, there is no power) but they cannot seem to grasp that the generator has limits to what it can produce.

I find it interesting that the climate here is very similar to Phoenix, Arizona – perhaps just a shade warmer, but pretty much the same. In Phoenix, the most common type of air conditioning is the “Swamp Cooler” – basically a fan that draws the dry air through damp filters, then blowing the now cooler, moister air into the house or office. Here, they act like they’ve never heard of such a thing. The air here is certainly dry enough (thank the maker – if it were any more humid it would be unbearable) and we have plenty of nonpotable water…. Hmmm, maybe a fortune to be made – or not.

The demand for air conditioning leads, in turn, to a demand for larger generators, which, in turn, leads to rewiring entire complexes to handle the increased circuit loads. This cycle is magnified many times over, for basically everything, large and small. Today, the senior US mentor here was asked, in the form of a demand, to provide carpets (rugs) for the floor, curtains for the windows, and doilies (I’m not kidding) for the tables. Our response was to tell them to fill out the Afghan Army/Police requisition forms and send them through their own channels. Oh, no, that cannot be done, for they will not fill the order, we are told. So why should we be expected to do what their own government will not? I was asked to provide a hot plate for boiling water for chai – I told them that I would donate 5 dollars if everyone else would as well and someone could go to the bazaar and buy one, since I would use it too. Oh no – we should provide it for them, for we have more money than they do. Riiiight.

We asked the Afghan Officers last week what is going to happen when the Americans and Europeans leave this country. “We die” was the answer given. Hard to build a country when even the senior Police and Army Officers have that attitude.

It Just Goes to Show You… It’s Always Something!

2009-07-05T08:03:00.001-07:00

It’s getting to be summer here in Kandahar – getting to be is defined as over 100 degrees most days but not yet over 115 yet. The temperatures put increased strain on everything, but mostly on the electrical infrastructure, what there is of it.

A note on my limited expertise here – my first real job was as a mechanic’s assistant for a small construction company. As such, i learned a great deal about small and mid-sized diesel engines, generators, and air compressors. Who knew that 30 years later, that experience would come back to help/haunt me.

On the police side, we’ve been wrestling with two overheating generators since before I went on a much-needed leave in June. They were starting to overheat then, when the temps were just in the 90’s during the day. By the time I got back in late June, they were going down every afternoon for 4-6 hours. Finally, we figured out that the radiators had become clogged with a mixture of oil and dust – oil droplets from a leaking crankshaft seal on one and from spilled oil beneath the other had combined with the omnipresent dust to almost completely clog the radiators. This, combined with the fact that the generators are sitting in direct sunlight let to them overheating anytime the temperature went over 100 degrees – which was every afternoon. We had to totally disassemble the cooling systems and remove the radiator assemblies and send them downtown to clean them (no pressure washers available here).

Within two days of fixing that, the main circuit breaker tripped and wouldn’t reset. Investigation showed that it was a 160 amp breaker. We knew from the readouts on the generator that they were pulling more than 160 amps from time to time – and this proved it for sure. So we requested that it be replaced with a 200 amp breaker. From what we can tell, the electrician installed it backwards. It lasted one day then destroyed itself in a spectacular fashion, almost taking the rest of the circuit box with it. When we went to replace it, the new electrician refused to put another of the same brand in – saying “That is cheap Chinese shit”. We sprung for a Siemens breaker (7 times as much) that easily weighed twice as much as the Chinese one. As we were installing it, we noticed that it was counterintuitive – we are used to installing switches with “on” at the top and “off” at the bottom – but in this case, the breaker had to be mounted the other way – in tiny letters molded into the housing it had “load” on one side and “line” on the other. Load being the use side and line being the supply side. We turned it around and so far so good.

The very next day, we started to have serious problems on the US-side of the base. We have been “blessed” with two bona-fide US certified contractor electricians. So far, almost everything they have touched has been degraded. First, these experts told the commander that we really didn’t need the roof over the generators as the generators don’t need shade. In the words of Bill Cosby’s Noah… Riiiiight! The very next day we overheated a generator – FOR THE FIRST TIME! Since then, it’s been a series of power outages as they attempt to “fix'” things that were working fine. Today they managed to short out the main switch box – twice, both times resulting in fires, melted cables, and no power during the heat of the day. They, of course, blame it all on the shoddy work done by the Afghans, but we had no problems of this type until they started playing with things.

At the going rate, it’s going to be a long hot summer.

Inspirations

2009-04-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a pretty good week here for me this week. For whatever reason, the stars all were in my corner, in both tangible and intangible ways – which is pretty cool to look back on.

Do you ever hear or see or learn something that just overwhelms you with the “rightness” of whatever it is? The song that just grabs your heart and squeezes, or the dance performance that takes your breath away or the "click" when something suddenly makes sense? I had a couple of those experiences this week.

First, I read “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. WOW. If you haven’t read this book, please, read it. Then donate to his efforts. It is not often that a book can bring me to tears of pure joy and happiness – that overwhelming “rightness” of being. This is a man who is truly fulfilling his destiny – and is helping thousands of others to fulfill theirs. Having been exposed to similar conditions here in Southern Afghanistan to what he describes in Pakistan and Northern Afghanistan, I know the truth that he speaks. It is so simple, yet so profound – education is the answer.

One of the basics I learned in a Physics class somewhere was “Nature abhors a vacuum.” This applies to education. The one thing common to all humanity is the innate desire to learn and grow, to become something more than we already are. If there is no formal process or curriculum for education, superstition, folklore, and myth will fill the resulting vacuum. This vacuum in predominantly Muslim countries has led to the rise of the Wahhabi Madrassas system, “schools” funded by a very narrow minded sect of Islam that teach nothing but victimhood and hatred, using select passages from the Holy Koran to justify and reinforce their teachings. Often, these Madrassas are little more than pre-paramilitary schools, designed to do nothing but create potential martyrs for Islam – and a very narrow slice of Islam, at that. As Mortenson and Relin explain in Three Cups of Tea, these Madrassas don’t teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, nor do they teach geography, chemistry, biology, or physics. They teach the “Lesser Jihad” through rote memorization of the Holy Koran, in Arabic, a language that most of the students never really learn to speak as a language, just becoming able to recite suras from the Holy Koran. (The “Lesser Jihad” is the challenge of bringing Islam to the uninitiated – most often seen as war on non-believers. The “Greater Jihad” is the battle within to become a better Muslim by following the Holy Koran and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, PBUH )

The saddest part is that the Wahabbi financiers, generallywealthy Saudi and Gulf State individuals, seemingly practicing ‘zakat’, or the giving of charity - one of the five pillars of Islam,get it better than we generally do. They are pouring their money into building these Madrassas because there is no competition for the young minds and bodies, no other education system to counter them – until Greg Mortenson comes along, at least. The end of movie Charlie Wilson’s War said it all – we had been pouring in almost a billion dollars in military aid to the Afghan Mujihedeen per year, then the Soviets quit and withdrew. The next year, Representative Charlie Wilson tried to get a million dollars appropriated for reconstruction aid, some of which would have gone to schools, and was flatly turned down. We had “won”, doncha know. And in winning the battle, we began to lose what eventually became the war we are now fighting. I have to wonder if we had pursued reconstruction and education efforts in Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan through the 1990s, whether Osama bin Ladin would have found such ripe ground here when he was expelled from the Sudan in 1996. Three Cups of Tea should be the basis for how we help Failed States (and Nearly Failed States).

The second inspiration this week was much smaller in scale, but almost as moving. It was watching the performance of a 47 year old unmarried, unemployed woman named Susan Boyle on “Britain’s Got Talent”. Here is a middle-aged woman who has the courage to go out and sing on this potentially cruel program. She is not attractive in the conventional sense that is so important on television. You could see the audience and the judges preparing for a big laugh at this woman’s expense. She announces the song she will sing ("I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables- an inspirational song in itself) and you can see the judges rolling their eyes, girding themselves for what, from all appearances, must be a terrible performance. And then something absolutely magical happens. Something that happens often in movies, but so seldom in real life... the music starts, and she begins to SING! And I mean SING, with every ounce of her being – and it is wonderful, powerful – I mean she NAILS IT! The gasp from the audience is audible. The raw emotional impact literally brought audience members to their feet. Even Simon Cowell, notorious for his biting wit, is completely blown away, his expressions and body language while she sings show that he is moved as well. Check it out for yourself… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY . Thank you George for sending it to me - and thanks to Mark for forwarding it to make sure I saw it.

So there they are, my two inspirations for the week. They are completely different in form and function, but share the common thread of the triumph of the human spirit. I am still shaking my head in wonder at both of them, but I am extremely happy for the experience of them both, for they both touched me profoundly - I am a better person than I was before this week.

The Answer (as opposed to "The Secret")

2009-04-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

I figured it out. It came to me while reading a memoir of our nation’s recent Iraqi adventure – a rather depressing read, by the way. This epiphany is so wonderfully simple, yet so awe inspiring in its applicability to every one of the current “issues” our country and we as a people face in the world. I can tell you “The Answer” for what is wrong in the world today. Are you ready for it? Can you handle the truth?

It’s this: Lack of Personal Responsibility and Accountability. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, really, we’re all responsible people, right? We have our families, we have our bills, most of us are making the mortgage payment and putting food on the table – we are responsible grownups. But we are not. We have given up so much control of our lives to other people and other things that we don’t take the time to really know what we are doing. And, at a certain point, at some certain dollar value with lots of zeroes, Personal Responsibility and Accountability ceases to be a factor at all anymore.

Let’s start small. I had(!), as probably most of you do, most of my retirement savings in “Safe Long Term Investments” – IRA’s, Mutual Funds, 401K’s. But I really can’t tell you how any one of those financial vehicles differs from the other. My mutual funds send me a prospectus or synopsis or some kind of a report every six months and I can say I’ve actually looked at it – once or twice a decade or so, mostly to see where the "highly paid fund manager" (highly paid is defined as someone who makes more than twice as much as I do) thinks he should invest my and a bunch of “other people’s” money (remember that phrase – it’s key).

Do any of you really understand how these Accounts and Funds work? What exactly does a Fund or Account Manager do every day to earn that high pay? I know I have the picture in my head of an earnest individual (balding, rumpled suit, rolled up sleeves, green eye shade) who is tracking every one of the stocks in their funds every single day, looking at projections, reading profit and loss statements, wetting their finger and holding it up to see which way the financial winds are blowing, or something like that. Perhaps that is what they do, sometimes, but I bet they spend a lot of their time in meetings with other fund managers listening to Branch or Division Chiefs tell them that they are not making enough money for the firm itself. That they are paying out too much in commissions because they are trading stocks too often or paying out too many dividends to us investors, because – and this is part of the secret – it’s not really “our” money anymore – we have given it to “Them” to manage for us, because we cannot do it as well as they can. We have transferred our personal responsibility for our money and investments to “Them” and our money has become “Their Money”. But it’s not really “Their Money” like it was their “Their (Personal) Money”, it’s “Their (Other People’s) Money.” Either that or these places are something like LA Law or Ally McBeal reruns and everyone is chasing everyone else around to have an affair with… but I digress.

Once “They” (pronouns are going to kill me here) have the money, it is “Theirs”, the company’s. And the first rule for companies in business is to make money. So they use Their (Other People’s) Money to make more money, keep some of that and give some back to us, the investor/"other people". This serves two purposes, one, it makes us "other people" feel like we have been responsible with our money for it is increasing in value and it also increases the amount of money that “They” can then use to make more money because most of us just let the money accrue in the accounts. The money they keep for themselves pays those highly paid managers (and even more highly paid Branch and Division Chiefs) their paychecks and bonuses and puts fuel in the Gulfstream jets and all of that.

The problem with Their (Other People’s) Money is that they treat it like what it is – other people’s money. Ever wonder why used rental cars sell for so much less than “regular” used cars – it’s because people have driven them like they are rental cars – they are “other people’s" cars. In my last job I traveled quite a bit and the company would provide a rental car most places. Usually the cheapest thing with four wheels and an engine but it was better than the riding the bus in a strange town. And usually I would find that there was no need for a gas pedal – a simple switch to go from coast to full power was all I really needed most of the time – well, that and maybe a brake pedal. Short of trying not to wreck the car, there was no need to really take care of it, as it was basically an “other people’s" car” – not "my" car. And worse, if I did wreck it, there was insurance that would cover it, so I wouldn’t be out any of “My Money”.

So now the picture is clear – these people were using what once was “Our Money” that we transferred to them to become “Their (Other People’s) Money” like it was a bunch of rental cars. They knew that we wouldn’t pay close attention to what they were doing, and that if they wrecked it, the government would step in and insure them so they would not be out any of Their (Personal) Money.

There it is, the financial crisis in a nutshell, and we let them do it through our ignorance, trusting, and, in no small part, greed. But it’s worse than that. We are doing this with entire countries.

Since this epiphany came to me while reading about Iraq, let’s talk about Iraq. Our former President, aka "The Decider", decides to change the regime in Iraq, and does so. At that point he should have became personally responsible and accountable for what happened next. As every good executive does, he delegated authority to a highly paid manager, Paul Bremer, and sent him over to run the place. Unfortunately, this manager did not feel any sense of personal responsibility and accountability because even though it was his country to run, it was “His (Other People’s) Country” – and he drove it like a rental car, doing things that he would not have done if he felt that he would be personally held responsible for the consequences. So, he fires all of the Baath Party members that were the civil service of Iraq and disbands the Army – putting most of what we would have called the upper middle class out of work, all at once. Chaos follows, but this man has an insurance policy – the US Department of Defense. They will “pay off” and make his stupid decisions seem less stupid over time – to the tune of 4,000 plus US lives (and a bunch of Iraqi lives as well).

How about here in Afghanistan? Same thing. It is “NATO’s (Other People’s) Country” – nobody really gives a flying flip about outcomes beyond their tour of duty, and if they do, they soon become disabused of such silly notions (like when I was young and would actually take a rental car through the car wash before taking it back – I didn’t want to be thought less of for bringing back a dirty car). I’ve already written about the “not my job” and “I’m too short to worry about that” attitudes – “short” being a term used to describe coming up on the end of a tour of duty. The problem is that that attitude starts about the second or third day here for some people. And the Afghans are kind of like us with our mutual funds – they have handed the country over to us – the highly paid country managers – to make it better for them. Now they don’t have to take any personal responsibility either – it’s someone else’s worry. So if the generator runs out of oil because nobody checked it – Inshallah, ask NATO for another one. If half of my unit’s weapons disappear over time, no worries, ask NATO for new ones. We are their insurance policy, just like the Government is for the big banks.

Of course, the problem is, eventually it comes back to be “Our/My Money”, just as my diminished retirement accounts are now “My (much less) Money” and the Bailout/Stimulus (I’ve lost track of what is part of what anymore) is “Our Government’s (much less) Money, Iraq has already become “Our (lots and lots of) Money” and Afghanistan is fast becoming “Our (lots and lots more) Money”.

Colin Powell, it is apocryphally told, espoused the “Pottery Barn Rule” – If You Break It – You Buy It (Pottery Barn, for the record, disavows this as a “rule”). He knew that we were going to break Iraq, and we have bought it many times over since. We have broken Afghanistan (didn’t take much), and are buying it now, after putting it on layaway for a few years. We have broken our financial system, and now are trying to buy it back. But here’s the rub – Paul Bremer took no responsibility for his decisions and has not been held accountable for the consequences; none of the “highly paid managers” – to include Corporate CEO’s – of the American Financial Industry are taking any personal responsibility nor are they being held personally accountable (I don't count Madoff - he's just a crook), and the same applies to the leaders of the American Automobile Industry. Evidently, the buck does not stop with them. It’s passed to us. Harry Truman would be appalled.

Here’s the kicker – my friends with small businesses, restaurants, and such – they are forced to take responsibility and are held personally, financially liable. Why aren’t we holding our corporations and our government to the same standard as they hold us to? I once heard that if you owe the bank a thousand dollars, they own you and get to make the rules, but if you owe the bank a million dollars (probably billion now), you own them and get to make the rules – I guess that’s really true.

The Answer sucks, doesn’t it.

Return to Blogville

2009-03-16T06:21:00.001-07:00

It's been almost two months since I last wrote and the muse has finally returned. The first month was spent with my family on leave and closing the door on my military career. The second has been spent getting my feet back on the ground here in Afghanistan.

Leave was simultaneously a huge morale booster, a profound disappointment, and a huge emotional sense of relief.

Spending time with my family was wonderful in every way. Prolonged separation gives one a sense of perspective on what is normally taken for granted. I found that things that annoyed me prior to starting this job no longer did so or did to a much lesser degree. All in all I loved every minute of it - I can only hope that when my boys are older, they will look back on my visits and smile at the good memories. I know that I will.

The profound disappointment came with the end of my military career. After 22 years as a commissioned officer, I requested to be retired from the Army National Guard, effective 30 June 2009. The leadership of the Idaho Guard was no longer willing to make the required accommodations for my work here in Afghanistan. My disappointment was really for how shallow and short-sighted the IDNG has become a an institution since 2005. There is no strategic vision there beyond preserving the status quo. Any advancements made are "on the margin" - or other people's ideas that are basically "low hanging fruit". That lack of energy, lack of a mark on the wall that defines what the Idaho National Guard could be in the future also explains the huge sense of relief I felt when I handed the Adjutant General the signed request to retire. It felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off of my back. The negative energy at Gowen Field is palpable - the exact opposite of what I wrote about feeling in Washington DC on Inauguration Day. I hope that changes soon, for the sake of the still-decent people that work there.

All in all, I'm glad to be back in Afghanistan, but disappointed in some of the short-sighted decisions that are being made here - hmmm, I'm seeing a trend here... impatience with lack of strategic vision... that's one of the services I provide through my company - Astrolabe LLC. Strategic Vision - redefining where a company can be, based on its strengths and an honest appraisal of where it is at today. Unfortunately, here in Afghanistan as a contractor, I get exactly no vote, whatsoever. All I can do is point out the relative costs and benefits, as I see them, to the military chain of command then abide by whatever decision is made, short sighted or not. C'est la vie, c'est la guerre. KAFka Castle, watch out, I may be moving your way!

Inauguration Day - Washington DC

2009-01-20T06:04:00.000-08:00

By pure luck, my leave travels put me in Dulles International Airport, outside of Washington DC on Inauguration Day. I knew that there would be a lot of positive energy in DC today, but I was totally unprepared for just how overwhelming it is.

Like most of America, I'm watching the images from the Capitol Mall on television, but I swear, I can feel the energy here. It's like an overwelming urge to cry for happiness. Even people who didn't vote for him seem to feel the sentiment - some try to poo poo it as ignorant sentiment or marginalize it by calling him "the Messiah", but that tells me that they still feel it.

I've become very sensitive to "energy" in the past few years, as my awareness of what I consider to be the real universe has grown. Negative energy is like a drain - a suction, it drags me down, leaving me weary, both mentally and physically. Positive energy is a euphoric - it just fills me up with joy that just wants to bubble out.

There is something special about someone who can fill the Capitol Mall with people when the temperature with wind chill is hovering around 10 degrees. I don't think it is all people who believe, as some of my more right wing acquaintences have stated, "that Obama will be making their car and house payments for them." He, BTW, is not a generally positive energy person - he exudes negativity and fear, and he's not alone. I think fear has become almost an epidemic since 9.11 - we should be afraid, very afraid of the unknown and trust those who know better and would look out for us, you know them - the government, the banks, the mortgage companies, etc. We saw how well they did. Then here comes a guy who asks us not just to believe in him, but to believe in ourselves as well - and that positive energy starts to seep through.

I wish Obama all the best - the best advice, the best judgement, the best conditions, and the best tools to run this country for the next 4 years. I think he has surprised a lot of people with his cabinet picks and am willing to bet that his administration will not be as ideologically "to the left" as many have feared. But I think that that just shows both his realism and pragmatism - it's more about making change than talking about change. I think that Clinton tried for too much too quick - tried to shift the country from 12 years of a Republican/conservative executive branch policies too soon, losing both respect and influence in the process. I expect some quick changes - reversal of the abortion gag rules, clarification and statement prohibiting torture, possibly even an executive order on "don't ask, don't tell" - all firmly within his perview as President and head of the Executive Branch. I expect quick action/debate on the economic crisis, but it won't be a one sided thing - it will be based on a bipartisan coalition - trying to make the best choices for the short term without sacrificing the long term. But I'm rambling...

Anyway, it is a joyous day here in DC - I wish all of you could be here to share the energy with me - it is intoxicating!

Afghanistan - A Place Where If It Can Go Wrong, It Will! By Design!

2009-01-14T05:07:00.000-08:00

It's been a fun week - using "fun" in its most ironic sense. One of the skills I've developed over more than 20 years of intelligence work and 43 years of life experience is a strong sense of what could happen - which, if I give it some thought and weigh the various probabilities, i can give a pretty fair assessment of what will happen. I'm not talking Nostradamus stuff here, just the basics, maybe a step beyond the "you get a BB gun, you'll shoot your eye out" level in "A Christmas Story."

So, there I was, back in October, brand new to this Forward Operating Base (a grandiose name if there ever was one), walking around when I noticed that the power cables running from the generator to the housing area were just barely buried under the crushed rock that is the ground here. We're not talking gravel, we're talking fist size rocks that have been spread 4 - 6 inches deep over most of the FOB. These cables were not protected by any type of conduit, or even taped - just insulated cable that had been run from generator to power distribution boxes, then the rocks poured over them. We drive heavy (20 ton) vehicles over these rocks/cables. Now, I'm not a certified electrician, and I have not stayed in a Holiday Inn Express since leaving the United States, but that struck me as asking for trouble. I brought it up to the "FOB Mayor" - the guy you go to when a toilet clogs or there's no hot water and pointed it out to him. His response was all too typical "That's what the contract called for." When I clarified that the rocks would tear the insulation, thereby letting water in when the winter/rainy season came, he gave the second response that I really hate to hear: "I'll be gone by then - someone else's problem." Well, it's rained for the past 3 days/nights - not steady, but sometimes very heavy. Yesterday morning the wi-fi was down on the FOB - why? Because water had gotten into the power cables that serviced the room that had the wi-fi hub. It took all day to get an Afghan electrician out to run new cables to rewire the four rooms that were shorted. Oh, guess where the new cables run? Now they are on top of the rocks (it wasn't in the contract to bury them).

The second of my "Cassandra" experiences (for those of you not familiar with Cassandra, she spurned Apollo's advances and he cursed her with being able to fortell the future, but no one would believe her - she slid into insanity shortly afterwards) was in one of our two latrines (bathrooms to you non-military types). I noticed that in one of them, you occasionally did not get hot water, you got nothing but steam. That is usually not a good thing. When I looked at the hot water heater, it's temperature gauge showed between 60 and 70 degrees celsius - that's 160 degrees F! This is the same hot water heater that melted the guts in the toilets. I continually have brought up this issue, to no avail. There was talk of moving it to the laundry room to replace the non functioning water heater there, but it never made it to the top of the priority list. Well, it is now. It blew up this afternoon. Literally. Filled the room with scalding steam. Luckily, no one was close enough to it to be more than scared and were able to get outside before the boiling water got too deep.

I relay both of these experiences because they show an attitude of ours that will result in our defeat if left unchecked. The attitude of "it's someone else's problem" is a poison to the work we are, ostensibly, trying to do here. That, combined with our complete dependence on the contracting mechanisms to get anything done is positively ludicrous. I found out that I have "upset" the local handyman because I do things myself to improve my situation (I put linoleum down on my floor, built my own shelves, installed two washing machines and a dryer in the laundry room, etc.) rather than pay him to do it or arrange to have him paid to do it out of official funds (it costs three to four times as much if it's being paid for with "official funds"; go fig. With the materials, i could have rewired those billets rooms - and I probably would not have charged 2500 dollars to do it - but we are the military - we're supposed to be self-sufficient for that kind of thing, aren't we? I'm reminded of the book"The Sand Pebbles" (and subsequent movie with Steve McQueen and a young Candace Bergen.) A main theme of the movie is "breaking peoples' rice bowls." Well, if we want change in Afghanistan, we're going to have to break a few rice bowls (pilau bowls?) We are pussyfooting around, trying to fight a politically correct counterinsurgency. There is no such thing. The US Forces try not to offend the NATO/Coalition forces and vice versa. Somewhat ironically, no one has a problem disrespecting/offending the Afghan forces, as I've related in previous entries. The end result is nothing of lasting significance gets done. I'm wondering if anything of lasting significance is "in the contract" implied by our presence - only time will tell, I fear.

You want to end the Afghan conflict quickly? Once the troop surge is in place, inform everyone, US and Coalition, that nobody rotates out or goes home on leave until the Taliban are defeated, the people have electricity and access to water, and a functioning government is in place. That way it can't be "someone else's problem" and no one will want to wait around for the contract to be let. Within 6 months this country would be turned around on the right track.

A "KAF"ka-esque Experience

2009-01-08T03:37:00.000-08:00

Having once been forced to read Franz Kafka's "The Castle", I find it somewhat humorous that the closest existing monolith to bureaucracy that I have ever found is known commonly by pronouncing its acronym as a word, KAF. It isn't exactly irony - more of a fascinating coincidence, of epic proportions.

Kandahar Air Field, KAF, is the main operating base for the Coalition Forces in Southern Afghanistan. It is co-located with Kandahar International Airport, an architecturally fascinating structure in its own right, built by the United States in the 1960's when we and the Soviets were vying for Afghan favor. We built this airport and a huge irrigation project near Lashkar Gah in the southwest. The Soviets built a tunnel through the Salang Pass, north of Kabul. The irrigation project was of limited success as the soils were found to contain too many residual salts and the tunnel was the site of a major disaster for the Soviets when, during their war here, a major fire ensued with a convoy inside the tunnel causing many fatalities. Kandahar Airfield's claim to fame was as the "Last Stand of the Taliban" against US and Northern Alliance allied forces in the opening days of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001. Now, it is a huge complex of well over 20,000 personnel, from most countries participating in the ongoing conflict. It is the location of the headquarters for the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, and the headquarters for Regional Command-South, the geographic command for the area as well as for COMKAF, the headquarters for running what amounts to a small city, in its own right.

KAF is a sprawling mix of barracks, tent cities, logistics yards, headquarters buildings, storage facilities, maintenance shops, aviation support units (it is, after all, an air field!), dining facilities, restaurants, coffee shops, and shopping centers. Yes, restaurants, coffee shops, and shopping centers - oh, and a movie theater and a hockey rink (well, floor hockey, but it is regulation size!). The "Boardwalk" is the social center of KAF, a huge square, well, boardwalk, ringed with shops and restaurants, ranging from American fast food (Burger King, Pizza Hut and Subway) to soon to open Italian and Thai sit-down restaurants. There are two coffee shops - a Tim Hortons- kind of a Canadian Starbucks, only better coffee (I always have thought Starbucks coffee itself tasted burnt) and with free wi-fi (great coffee and donuts too) and a "Green Bean" - not as nice, but does have better chai (tea) in my personal opinion (at least the one in Kabul did, the one in Kandahar hasn't been open when I've been there). There are also numerous shops selling souveniers from Central Asia, jewelry and semi-precious stones, tailor shops for suits and coats, embroidery shops, and electronics/dvd shops. This is in addition to the British, Dutch and American post exchange stores. Life is not bad if you live at KAF - and the shops and restaurants appear to be virtual licences to print money for their proprietors.

The denizens of KAFstan (literally, land of the KAFs) take all this in stride. There are posters to instruct you what do do in case of rocket attack (the base is big enough to be an irresistable target for the rocketry enthusiasts among the Taliban - luckily it is also big enough that odds of major damage or serious casualites are pretty slim). There is even a sign in the Tim Horton's informing patrons that "Tim Horton's will close upon the sounding of the Rocket Alert and will reopen 15 minutes after the All Clear." Pretty surreal on first glance.

What makes it truly KAFka-esque (sorry, can't resist), is that fully half of the people at KAF exist solely to facilitate the lives and duties of the other half. There are large areas where the service workers live - all those folks who run the stores, cook the food in the mess halls, pump the porta-potties (although most of the "permanent" buildings have indoor plumbing) and service all of the generators and heaters and air conditioners and what not that keeps this city functioning.

Then there are the headquarters themselves. I've served in headquarters units at various levels from the tactical combat level to the theater level. Never have I seen more bureaucracy than here. All in all, KAFstan is a monument to the seven deadly sins - Sloth immediately comes to mind, with staff offices not bothering to coordinate actions between themselves, despite being only a few hundred feet apart and then expecting field (non-KAFs) units to sort it out on their own (we once had three different SOPs for a specific action being circulated by three different staff offices,they were mutually contradictory). Pride, for KAFstani fecal matter stinketh not - even if there are three flavors of it circulating about - the problem is clearly that of the non-KAFs for bringing it up. Gluttony, for thou shalt not interfere with their access to Tim Horton's or the mess halls. Greed in wanting to keep all that glitters for themselves, sharing only under duress with the dirty, unwashed masses (non-KAFs). Simple things like no taking sodas or any food items from the mess hall, for thou will then be denying profits from those who would sell sodas or food items to those who did not arrive in time. There is Wrath, for hell hath no fury like a KAF who hath been scorned, especially when it was there job to ensure that three different versions of a SOP did not go out to the non-KAFs, thus provoking their scorn. Envy in that the KAFs wax nostalgic about how "lucky" the non-KAFs are to be getting all of the combat decorations (and most of the Purple Hearts!) while they toil away diligently for service medals. Finally, there is Lust - for which I can only report as has been reported to me - there's lots of it.

The true comparison to "The Castle" comes when dealing with our Afghan allies. Never have so many been scorned by so few. The restrictions that have been placed are absolutely insulting. Coalition must have Afghan National Police present in all convoys. This makes sense, for if there is any type of incident, it's good to have 1. Afghan Police witness the incident and 2. Afghan Police to calm down the locals who may have gotten caught in the cross fire/blast radius. What doesn't make sense is that they are basically "persona non grata"on KAF - they must be escorted by coalition personnel wherever they go and aren't allowed to use many of the facilites (nor do they have the money to pay the prices charged!) Many units just leave their ANPs to park outside the "secure zone". These ANP officers roll with our convoys in unarmored 4-door Ford Ranger pickup trucks while we are in up-armored HMMWVs and Armored Mine Resistant vehicles. That takes guts, and yet we treat them like the enemy at worst and as suspect/barely competent allies at best. When an Afghan General travels, he chooses bodyguards that are personally loyal to him - usually family members. They too are usually left outside the gate if there is no assigned Coalition escort. Space does not permit me to list all of the slights and insults that KAF's rules serve out to our Afghan partners - those that we are here solely to help - remember?

The fate of a senior Afghan officer trying to go to a meeting (that he's been invited to) on KAF is something like that of "K" the land-surveyor in "The Castle" - always on the outside, stripped of dignity, and then having the wealth and opulence and power of the West dangled before their eyes. What an example we set. I'll have more to add about examples in another post. For now, I'm glad that I don't live at KAF!

A Graduation Address - 20 Years On

2009-01-04T23:58:00.000-08:00

Almost 20 years ago, a well known author, E. L. Doctorow (Ragtime, World's Fair), gave the commencement address to his alma mater, Brandeis University. Shortly thereafter, it was printed in "The Nation", where I came across it. It impressed me then, and it continues to impress me to this day.

I was thinking of it the other day - and how it was still topical, both in terms of the United States, but also in terms of the future of Afghanistan. The sad thing is that the "Gangsterdom of Spirit" that Doctorow wrote about in 1989 was, in my humble opinion, kid stuff compared to that which we've seen since. I'm talking about those behind Enron and the current banking/economic crisis we face. I'm talking about the entire political climate that leads to the Vice President dropping the "F-Bomb" on the floor of the Senate, and the mutual villification that is a political campaign today. Here in Afghanistan, that same "Gangsterdom of Spirit" is what prevents progress from occuring more rapidly, and could, in fact, doom efforts to rebuild and modernize this beautiful country and people.

So, for your reading pleasure, I present E.L. Doctorow's Commencement Address to Brandeis University, 1989. I'll have an observation or two afterward as well...

"Dr. Handler, members of the Board of Trustees, deans of the university, honored doctoral decree recipients, distinguished members of the faculty, parents, friends, and most especially the pride and point of these proceedings – the shining, resplendent Class of 1989.

Good morning, class. You’ve been going to school all your lives, and in a few minutes you’ll be free. But not until I’ve finished talking to you. I’m the last compulsory lecture of your undergraduate careers. I represent your faculty’s last shot at you, their last chance to tell you what they meant, before you slip out of their grasp forever.

You know, a few miles away, not one, but two heads of state are this moment about to address graduates like yourselves in a stadium seating 30,000 people. What they say will be of only theoretical interest to the young men and women somewhere in that crowd whom they are presumably there to address. Perhaps they will use the occasion to enunciate major foreign policy statements, and when they are through, the will get back into their motorcade with the Secret Service men running alongside, and lift off in their helicopters, and the TV cameras will shut down, and the army of reporters will scatter, and those students, at least the ones who didn’t scalp their graduation tickets, will be able to look at one another and say: “Well, it is historic to see a president. But what, after all, has been celebrated here?”

What indeed?

It seems to me that your university this morning looks very, very good by way of contrast. Your president and faculty and Board of Trustees have presumed a commencement should be directed to the graduations seniors in an academic setting that retains its meaning and integrity – that what is being celebrated is the moment of your personal rite of passage, the moment of the beginning of your post collegiate lives. And they know it’s a crucial moment, a solemn celebratory moment, that should not be scanted; and so, I’m honored to be called upon to speak to you – not a politician but a writer, a novelist included, I like to think, among the “unacknowledged legislators of the world,” in Shelley’s phrase – you English majors know that – unacknowledged like the poets, like all artists, in fact, helpless legislators of created consciousness who from the struggles of their own minds make poems and stories that would contribute to the moral consciousness of their time.

So I will begin by turning for instruction to an earlier unacknowledged legislator, a storywriter, a novelist, who lived and flourished in the 1920s. His name was Sherwood Anderson, and he’s most famous today for a small book of stories about life in a small town in Middle America around the turn of the century. Winesburg, Ohio is the title of the book. Some of you may know it. And in his introduction to the book, Anderson proposed a theory which he calls the Theory of Grotesques. It is not a scientific theory, but a historical poetic theory of what happens to people sometimes as they strive to give value and meaning to their lives.

Here is the theory: that all about us in the world are many truths to live by, and they are all beautiful – the truth of passion and love, the truth of candor and of thrift, the truth of patriotism, the truth of self-reliance, and so on. But as people come along and try to make something of themselves, they snatch up a truth and make it their own predominating truth to the exclusion of all others. And what happens, says Anderson, is that the moment a person does this – clutches one truth too tightly – the truth so embraced becomes a lie and the person turns into a grotesque.

Suppose, for instance, you’re thrifty and you work hard and scrimp and save and live modestly in order to pay your way through college. Your thrift is a good thing. But then afterward, in later life, long after it is necessary, you continue to deny yourself and you save and save until hoarding money becomes an end in itself. Your thrift has become a lie. You’ve turned into a miser. You’ve become a grotesque. You see how it works? If, for instance, your patriotism blinds you to all other moral and ethical truths, and from your love of country you deceive duly constituted bodies of governmental authority, and you break laws and shred documents, the truth of patriotism has turned to a lie in your embrace of it, and made you a grotesque. Or take the truth of self-reliance. It is undeniably beautiful. It was the truth that underlay the entire Administration of the previous President, Ronald Reagan – this idea of self-reliance, rugged individualism. Who wouldn’t like to stand up for himself independently, and make his own way through life? Yet Mr. Reagan’s advocacy of self-reliance caused him to scorn or forget other truths – of community, for example, and the moral responsibility we have toward those with fewer advantages, and the profound truth of the interdependence of all society’s citizens. And so he was moved at various times in his Administration to take away school lunches from needy children and tuition loans from students, and to deny legal services to poor people and psychological counseling to Vietnam veterans, and Social Security payments to handicapped people. You see how it works – this theory?

In fact, I will venture to say that insofar as Mr. Reagan inserted his particular truth into the national American mind he made it the lobotomizing pin of conservative philosophy that has governed us and is continuing to govern us to this very moment.

The philosophical conservative is someone willing to pay the price of other people’s suffering for his principles. And so we now have hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of our citizens lying around in the streets of our cities, sleeping in doorways, begging with Styrofoam cups. We didn’t have a class of permanent beggars in this country – in the United States of America – fifteen or twenty years ago. We didn’t have kids selling crack in their grade schools, or businessmen magnifying their fortunes into megafortunes by stock manipulation and thievery – I don’t remember such epidemics of major corporate fraud. A decade ago you did not have college students scrawling racial epithets or anti-Semitic graffiti on the room doors of their fellow students. You did not have cops strangling teen-age boys to death or shooting elderly deranged women in their own homes. You did not have scientists falsifying the results of experiments, or preachers committing the sins against which they so thunderously preached. A generation or so back, you didn’t have every class of society, and every occupation, widely, ruggedly practicing its own characteristic form of crime.

So something poisonous has been set loose in the last several years as we have enjoyed life under the poser and principles of political conservatism. And I have used Sherwood Anderson’s theory of the grotesque to account for it, but I don’t know what to call it – a "gangsterdom of spirit," perhaps. I do know that to describe it is bad form. To speak of a loss of cohesion in society, a loss of moral acuity is tiresome. It is the tiresome talk of liberalism. In fact, part of this poisonous thing that I’m trying to describe is its characteristic way of dealing with criticism: It used to be enough to brand a critic as a radical or a leftist to make people turn away. Now we need only call him a liberal. Soon “moderate” will be the M word, “conservative” will be the C Word, and only fascists will be in the mainstream. And that degradation of discourse, that, too, is part of the something that is really rotten in America right now.

Some of you, perhaps some of your parents, may be wondering at this time if I am speaking appropriately for this occasion, which is, after all, a celebration. In answer, I have to say I believe my subject is all too appropriate; I think it is my obligation to tell you, as truthfully as I can, the context, the social setting in which you will find yourself when you walk out of here with your degree. As an unacknowledged legislator, I am giving you not a State of the Union address but a State of the Mind of the Union address.

What does it do to you young people, I wonder, to grow up in a time in which the bottom-line standard of business thinking now controls every aspect of our lives? You may have heard our president ask just the other day that the Senate delay its consideration of a bill to apply stricter ethical standards to government officials. Mr. Bush is worried that if men and women are made to behave honestly, they won’t want to work for his administration. That’s funny, except that at one time people were honored to be called upon to use their expertise for the sake of their country. There was an ideal of public service, and financial sacrifice was part of that ideal. Now, it is taken for granted by everyone in Washington that people can be expected to come to work for their country only if they can afterward turn a trick from it.

It is in this context that I find myself thinking of a lately deceased Brandeis graduate, as unbusinesslike a person as you’d ever meet. He is not the sort of alumnus you would expect to be mentioned or that I would expect to mention in a commencement address. His name was Abbie Hoffman. Class of ‘59. I knew Abbie, though we were not close, and I didn’t have that much contact with him after the sixties. The truth is I found him easier to take from a distance; I have to admit that our ways were different, but I admired him tremendously. He was fearless, and very funny, with the humor, the precision of insight, of a great political cartoonist. And as an activist he put his body on the line. In the sixties he was a scruffy sort of fellow, skinny and nimble, somewhat unwashed-looking with his torn T-shirts and jeans, his long hair, his headband. He was a founder of the Yippies, the Youth International Party. And he was in the vanguard of the antiwar movement in the days of big street demonstrations, much like the one they have been having in China, the students, these days, and for the same reasons, to bring government into alignment with the popular will of the people.

Anyway, Abbie did street theater; he staged events that might be clownish or vulgar but that invariably caught the attention of the media and enraged the authorities. (For instance, I remember he once wore a shirt made from an American flag, and when angry policemen tore it off his back he shouted, “I have only one shirt to give for my country!”) He got people terribly mad, Abbie, and for very good reason: He was insufferable. He was insufferable because he held the mirror up so that we saw ourselves. That’s just what the biblical prophets did, they operated in just that way. Wasn’t it Isaiah who walked abroad naked to prophesy the deportation of the Jews? And wasn’t it Jeremiah who wore a yoke around his neck to prophesy their slavery? Same insufferable thing. So Abbie was a kind of unacknowledged legislator of this order. Once he organized a demonstration to ring the Pentagon and by means of prayers and incantations make it rise from the ground and levitate. And another thing he did, he stood in the gallery overlooking the New York Stock Exchange and threw handfuls of dollar bills down on the floor and watched all the traders scramble to pick up the money. These were prophetic acts, were they not? Throwing money onto the floor of the Stock Exchange knowing people would crawl around in a frenzy to pick it up? The Pentagon and the Stock Exchange are in the eighties the twin images of our idolatry. He had it exactly right.

It’s my view that in the last decade or so of life in our country, roughly the time since you were in the tenth grade, we have seen a national regression to the robber-baronial thinking of the nineteenth century. This amounts to nothing less than a deconstruction of America, the dismantling of enlightened social legislation that had begun to bring equity over half a century to the lives of working people, to rectify some of the terrible imbalance of racial injustice and give a fair shake to the outsiders, the underdogs, the newcomers. We have seen the ideals of environmental sanctity sacrificed to the bottom-line demands of business thinking in which we have done only as much to protect our environment as industry has found convenient, as if only a few songbirds and some poor dumb animals were at stake, as if the bleeding hearts of woodsy environmentalists were the issue, and not our lungs and skins and genes, and the wholeness and health of our children and their children. We have seen a new generation of nativist know-nothings called up like primitive comic-book warriors to make overt the covert racism and anti-Semitism of the campaign demagoguery of our conservative politicians. And we have seen with more and more deadening frequency the banning of the books of our heritage in our schools and public libraries, as for instance in Panama City, Florida, where they have found it necessary to expunge such dangers to the republic as Wuthering Heights, Hamlet, The Red Badge of Courage, and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

So that we may in fact have broken down, as a social contract, in our time, as if we were supposed to be not a just nation but a confederacy of stupid murderous gluttons.

So that, finally, our country itself, the idea, the virtue, the truth of America, is in danger of becoming grotesque.

This is certainly serious stuff for a happy day, but I would not be doing honor to you and to this occasion if I did not tell you what’s been going on while we’ve been waiting for you.

That is something else I meant to say. That we’ve been waiting for you. Did you know that? Your mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers, in fact all the generations older than yours, have been watching you and waiting for you. Because whether you know it or not, you have learned here at Brandeis the difference between authentic thought and cant, between rational thought, honest perception, on the one hand, and simplistic intellectual flummery on the other. And that makes you very precious to us, and to our nation.

And if your teachers here have seemed to you at various times to possess commanding intellectual presence, and I trust they have, the truth is they are itinerants, like you, having given their lives over to the strange species-grooming that is peculiarly Homo sapient: the modest, exhausted instruction in mind-survival of the generations that will succeed theirs.

And everything impractical they’ve given you, lines of poetry, phrases of music, and philosophical propositions, and ancient histories, and myths and dance steps, is terribly practical, in fact, the only means we have of defending the borders of a magnanimous, humanist civilization—just that civilization which is today under such assault.

The presumption of your life here, the basic presumption, is that every life has a theme. It is a literary idea, the great root discovery of narrative literature: every life has a theme and there is human freedom to find it, to create it, to make it victorious. And so however you find your society as you walk out of here, you do not have to embrace its lies, or become complicitors to its cruelties. Perhaps that is what your faculty wanted to say to you.

You are in charge of yourselves.

The stack of books you’ve collected in your four years here is an icon of the humanist ideal.

You have sanctity of thought, the means to stay in touch with the truth.

Your living, inquiring, and lighted minds are enlisted in the struggle for a human future and a society unbesieged by the grotesqueries of stupidity and terror.

Yes, I think that’s what your faculty might want me to tell you. You may not have realized it, and we are somewhat embarrassed to have to say it, but willy-nilly and ipso facto, you commence this day in the name of civilization.

I have every confidence in you. And I congratulate you. From up here I have to say you all look beautiful to me. Your families, I know, are proud of you, your teachers are proud of you, Brandeis University is proud of you, and let me say as an itinerant speechmaker, I find that I am proud of you too. God bless you all."

I find it amazing that this address has stood the test of time so well - change the names of the President and this could have been given this past year, or even this past month.

Our country was made great by our ability to intellectually and politically disagree with each other - yet be able to work together to find common ground and work toward common goals. If you don't believe that's what we were founded on, go back and reread all of The Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers and the essays of Madison, Hamilton, Henry and Jay. Unfortunately, it is said, politics are like sausage - you don't want to know what went into it, and it's unpleasant to watch it being made. But we have to watch it, to ensure that what rules are being enacted, what regulations are being made and enforced, what laws of the land are being foisted upon us are, in fact, representative of the will of the people, and not designed to benefit only a few, or only the powerful, or only the rich.

Here in Afghanistan, the Gangsterdom of Spirit exists on all sides of the conflict. The Taliban are more than willing to sacrifice innocents for their cause, likewise the Criminals - the drug kingpins and smugglers. The Government is struggling against corruption at all levels, in all organizations (see the front page story in the NYT, Friday 2 Jan on the issues within the Police). But then, once corrupt, Government members become synonymous with the Criminals.

The saddest part is that, just like in America, amidst all of this greed and graft and gangsterdom of spirit, it is the people who suffer the most. The individuals who are trying their utmost to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads and just get a little ahead - they have dreams and aspirations, but they are modest - money enough for a nice vacation or a new car at least once a decade or so. The capability to add a bedroom when another child is born without having to refinance the entire house (or borrow the money from predatory lenders). The middle class, which is credited with making the United States so strong, compared to so many other countries.

I have hopes that moderation (and the middle class) will win out in the end. That service to country and community (go soldiers and teachers!) will be as prestigious as a movie star or CEO. That the measure of a man's success isn't his bank account, but in the quality of his children - after all, we are waiting for them to take the reins of power from us!

Hooah!

SLK

Publish Post

PS - The command cracked down and the puppies were moved off the compound (adopted by local families).

Puppies and Children

2009-01-03T07:54:00.000-08:00

It must be their innocence. Taking the world in through wide eyes, instinctively wanting to trust, but wary at first. Puppies and children the world over are universally cute.

Our base has been adopted by 7 or 8 puppies. Not sure what happened to Mama Dog - never saw her. She had the litter in a nearby storage yard and eventually the puppies found their way into our area. Not sure what their official status is, as we are not to have pets - but not sure that rule applies to our interpreters. I've not made friends with them - much as it pains me, for unfortunately, there is no good way out of this situation. Eventually they will have to be driven off, or worse, put down, when they become a nuisance.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a dog person through and through, but I've also been in the military long enough to know that we don't have provisions for pets. Any food they get will be scraps (or misappropriated), there are no provisions for vaccinations or health care, and diseases and parasites are epidemic here. These dogs will most likely have a short, fairly brutal life - but that is also the lot of quite a few Afghan people too.

There are some kids who hang out in the Police compound, doing odd jobs like taking out the trash, etc. I think that some are the children of some of the police officers. They are friendly, but you can tell that some have already become a little jaded. Technically, school here goes from 1st through the 12th grade, but i have yet to meet anyone who has gone much past the 10th grade in formal education. Granted, when your country has been at war with one party or another (including a civil war) since 1979, that doesn't leave much time for formal education.

This is a country desperately trying to pull itself together, but lacking in many of the unifying themes that allowed the United States to form, then reform again after our own Civil War. I hope they can, for the kids' and puppies' sake, if nothing else.

Everything is Hard

2009-01-03T01:49:00.000-08:00

One of the challenges of working at the end of a VERY long logistical string is that everything becomes at least ten times more difficult, due to the lack of ready supplies and tools. At home, when my kitchen sink water supply hose failed at 9:30 at night, it was a matter of putting on my shoes and driving the three miles to the Wal-Mart to get a replacement hose. At worst, had they not had one, I would have had to wait until morning to go to the Lowe's, which was only a mile away.

Here, it is another story entirely. Say a toilet flush mechanism malfunctions. What would be at most a 1 hour fix at home is a two week ordeal of negotiating a contract to fix the toilet. First you have to find a contractor who can really deliver on that kind of work - no easy feat. Then they have to get the parts. We have two very different types of western (sit down) flush toilets where I am - and guess what? The parts are not interchangeable. So, the parts have to be ordered in from Pakistan. Allah only knows how they actually manage it, given the lack of anything resembling UPS or FedEx. Anyway, two weeks and a few hundred dollars later, the toilet will flush again.

However, there is no attempt to determine why it failed in the first place. In this case, it is becaue the hot water heater overpressurizes and forces scalding water back through the cold water pipes into the toilets where it is hot enough to melt and deform the plastic parts. It took a second toilet "gut melting" and a burst hot water pipe before anyone pointed out that it wasn't the toilets, but the water heater that was the problem. Guess how long to fix it? Two weeks. I feel like I'm in the town in "O Brother Where Art Thou" - "a geographical odyssey - two weeks from everywhere" as George Clooney's character notes.

The single most handy thing I've obtained since arriving here in October is a complete Black and Decker tool kit, complete with rechargeable drill. I have used one tool or another out of that kit almost every day since it arrived (thanks Mom and Dad!), with the drill/driver, the tape measure, and the level being the most used. I have installed washers and dryers, built shelves, installed the closet organizer kits that my family sent me for Christmas (thank you all!) all with my handy tool set. The only tool I've felt a lack of so far is a pair of channel lock pliers - will pick some up when I go home on leave later this month.

Raining today - a slow drizzle. Evidently we are on the very Southern edge of a big storm covering the rest of Afghanistan. A friend of mine told me it's snowing in Kabul. It's about 65 degrees here, so I don't expect any snow anytime soon.

Good story on Friday on the front page of the New York Times about the problems in the Afghan National Police. From my foxhole, the story is dead on. Luckily, there are some leaders who are willing to make hard calls and arrest the corrupt. It's going on, albeit quietly, so that they can round up as many as they have evidence to prosecute. Now, if they can just keep them from bribing their way out of the charges and/or the sentances, so much the better!

Hooah

SLK

"Weekend in Afghanistan"

2009-01-02T08:57:00.001-08:00

No, it's not like "Weekend at Bernies" - far from it. As a contractor, I actually get some down time (unless the situation dictates otherwise) - unlike most of the soldiers, who still have to perform their duties. Thursday afternoons and Fridays are the "weekend" in Afghanistan. I wish I could say that I could kick back, pop a cold one and watch the big screen, but alas, that is not the case. I can kick back - a little, but the only cold ones are sodas, gatorade, water, or milk and we don't have a big screen (yet - one is supposedly on order for the dayroom!)

The weekend is the time for housekeeping chores - much like in most families in the states. Laundry has to be done, the floor of my room needs to be swept, the sheets changed on the bed, the week's accumulated clutter sorted through, the trash burned, and any special projects done. Some of this can also be done in the evenings, after my "duty day" is complete, but it's good to set up a routine and stick to it - otherwise I find myself forgetting to do portions or tasks.

Of course, if there is work to catch up on, the weekend is there to do it as well. Today I wrote the After Action Review (AAR) for the course I just finished teaching. I believe that we can make it into a very worthwhile training event with some minor restructuring. That is, of course, if the decisionmakers in Kabul want to support it. But that is what my AAR is for - explaining what worked and what didn't work with recommendations for improvement.

Unfortunately, much as at home, the weekends here pass much too quickly. Tomorrow it will be back to work, working with the Afghan National Security Forces to improve communications and coordination between the Army and Police organizations. No easy task, that, but it is an essential one for the success of the government.

With this post, I'm finally caught up. I started writing notes on my Facebook page on New Years Eve, but decided to go for a wider audience (and make it easier for my friends and family to find). I'll update as I can with what I feel the need to say, within the bounds of decency and operational security.

Hooah!

SLK

New Years Day Thoughts

2009-01-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

It's been a great day here near Kandahar. My 19 students graduated the two week course I've been teaching and their feedback was universally positive - it was also a much needed esteem boost as this is the first time I've ever taught a formal course. I've given hundreds of individual briefings, but I've never taught every day for two weeks straight. The course material ranged from technical hands-on map reading training to the theory and practice of counterinsurgency.

I went out on a limb during the counterinsurgency portion. We are warned not to criticize Islam in any way, or even say things that could be seen as criticism. I think I walked right up to that line. One of the characteristics of Islam is the concept of "Inshallah" - or "as Allah wills it". Once you understand how Inshallah works in Muslim culture, many things become clearer. It appears to me that it has become an excuse for not succeeding. Don't want to learn to shoot your weapon - fine - just point it in the general direction of the enemy and pull the trigger - Inshallah, the bullets will hit what they are supposed to hit. I pointed out that while it is fine to invoke Inshallah after the fact, it is not a substitute for training, learning and bettering oneself, one's family, and eventually the country. Islam also has a saying/tradition that parallels the Christian "God helps those who help themselves." If the Afghan people truly want security, stability, peace, and eventually the potential for prosperity, they have to believe that they can make it better, and then act on that belief.

I was pleasantly surprised when the class agreed with me, vociferously even. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised after all, though - these were all policemen - volunteers each and every one. You don't become a policeman in Afghanistan unless there is a bit if idealism in your soul.

What is really needed here is a leader with a vision that transcends ethnicity and tribe. Someone who can "paint the picture" of what Afghanistan can become, and do it in terms that both a city dweller and a rural farmer can both latch onto and make their own vision. Easy to say, hard to do.

Happy New Year to everyone.

SLK

New Years Eve - Outside Kandahar, Afghanistan

2009-01-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

It’s about 9pm New Years Eve here in Kandahar – a beautiful clear night. The weather has been very nice the past couple of weeks, sunny and warm – highs in the high 60’s and low 70’s. We’re into what should be the rainy season, but we’ve only seen a week of rain so far this winter. Up north, in Kabul, it has snowed once or twice, but here it’s only dropped below freezing a few nights so far.

I’m sitting in my 9’x10’ room drinking a big cup of hot cocoa (thanks Mom and Dad) and reflecting on all of the good will I have experienced since coming over here, both from my wonderful family and friends, but also from the Afghans that I am working with. As much as I miss my family, and tonight I really do, I am glad that I am here, for these are good people who both want and deserve our help.

I just finished teaching (we graduate the students tomorrow, New Year’s Day) a two week Basic Intelligence Fundamentals course. I had 19 students from the Afghan National Police, the Afghan Border Police, and the Afghan National Army – most slated to do intelligence work, with a few going to work in operations. Overall, I am extremely impressed. These men have chosen the tough life. A policeman makes, on average, less than 400 dollars per month. Soldiers do a little better, but not much. My local interpreter makes more than the Regional Police Chief does in monthly salary. Policemen and Interpreters are targets of the Taliban, as is anyone who helps the coalition. The police have lost more men this year than the Afghan Army has, for less pay and lousy equipment (although we are working on that part). And yet they keep coming to work every day, and they keep going back out on the streets every day, undertrained, undergunned, and undermanned. I’m impressed.

Sometimes it takes being without to appreciate what you really have. We live in a country that, by and large, has security as a given and police do not need to carry automatic rifles as their duty weapons. We live in a country where the electricity is on 99.99 percent of the time and doesn’t shut off at 6pm in the second largest city in the country. We live in a country where you do not have to bribe officials to do their jobs, then have them do it poorly. We live in a country where there is a 100,000 square foot Wal-Mart (open 24 hours a day), a 50,000 square foot Lowe’s or Home Depot, and at least 75 restaurants within 75 miles of 95 percent of us. Here, running water and indoor plumbing are seen as signs of wealth and opulence. It certainly makes one appreciate what we collectively have.

Of course, I am also without my family – at least in person, for they are in my heart every minute of the day. As hard as it is to be away from them, it would be much harder to do this if they weren’t there for me.I thank my wife for letting me take this big adventure. I and we will be better for it. My two boys – you’re both too young to fully understand what’s going on, but I miss you every single day and think about you constantly. Mom and Dad – your support has been wonderful.My Brother and his wife, my Aunt and Uncle, my Sib-in-law and my Niece, you have all helped immeasurably in making this all possible.

As for the friends – you know who you are – and I still owe most of you emails – (for that I apologize, but I will get there, hopefully before I get home on leave in 21 ½ days (but who’s counting, right?)) - thank you for all the support you’ve shown me as well as for my family. I appreciate it more than you can know.

So, before I get any more maudlin, here’s wishing a Happy New Year to everyone. May 2009 be better than 2008 in every possible way.

In the immortal words of Edward R. Murrow… “Good Night, and Good Luck”

Love and Peace to all

Scott Kane
Kandahar, 12/31/08

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!
And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine,
And we'll tak a cup o kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine,
But we've wander'd monie a weary fit,
Sin auld lang syne.
We twa hae paidl'd in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin auld lang syne.
And there's a hand my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o thine,
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne

Meanings:
auld lang syne - times gone by
be - pay for
braes - hills
braid - broad
burn - stream
dine - dinner time
fiere - friend
fit - foot
gowans - daisies
guid-willie waught - goodwill drink
monie - many
morning sun - noon
paidl't - paddled
pint-stowp - pint tankard
pou'd - pulled
twa - two