[afghanistan] why did no one read history

UPDATE: You might like to look at this excellent post on the issue as well.

A little plug for the Asia Times. In understanding things going on in the Arab/Asian world, this is always a good first step. Admittedly, many of the correspondents are not pro-US but if you weigh what they say against the US line, then the truth lies somewhere inbetween.

On the inevitable failure of the Afghan war, these have been some reasons given:

One, the seven-year war is in a stalemate and time favors the Taliban.

Two, the US is increasingly focused on the bailout of its economy, which leaves little scope both in terms of time and resources for Washington to indulge in the extravaganza of undertaking on its own open-ended wars in faraway badlands.

Three, the US is having a hard time persuading its allies to provide troops for the war effort and even faithful allies like Britain seem fatigued and appear uneasy about the US's war strategy.

Four, whatever little popular support the puppet regime in Kabul headed by Karzai enjoyed so far is fast declining, which makes the current setup unsustainable.

Five, the Taliban have gained habitation and name on the Afghan landscape and no amount of allegations regarding Pakistan's dubious role can hide the reality that the Taliban's support base is rapidly widening.

Six, the regional climate - growing instability in Pakistan, tensions in US-Russia relations, NATO's role, Iran's new assertiveness, including possible future support of the Afghan resistance - is steadily worsening and the need arises for the US to recalibrate the prevailing geopolitical alignments and shore up its political and strategic assets created during the 2001-2008 period from being eroded.

Add to this another article from 2006 and the picture is clearer:

General Boris Gromov, the charismatic Soviet commander who supervised the withdrawal in 1989, warned, "The Afghan resistance is, in my opinion, growing. Such behavior on the part of the intractable Afghans is to my mind understandable. It is conditioned by centuries of tradition, geography, climate and religion.

We saw over a period of many years how the country was torn apart by civil war ... But in the face of outside aggressions, Afghans have always put aside their differences and united. Evidently, the [US-led] coalition forces are also being seen as a threat to the nation."

The inability to earn respect and command authority plus the heavy visible dependence on day-to-day US support have rendered the Kabul setup ineffective. Alongside this, the Afghan malaise of nepotism, tribal affiliations and corruption has also led to bad governance. It is in this combination of circumstances that the Taliban have succeeded in staging a comeback.

Washington had its chance in 2001 of setting up alliances in such a way that the Taliban need never have captured people's hearts but they opted instead for a NATO intervention which did not understand local factors and thought it could bulldoze its way through.

That the Taliban's guerilla warfare is succeeding once again is surely testimony to how the locals view foreigners on their soil and Karzai in Kabul. It's a case of " first get rid of the foreigners in a war of attrition and then we can restart the traditional bloodletting amongst ourselves."

[Earlier article on the Taliban and NATO.]

There is a feeling in some quarters that Afghanistan II was both an answer to the American people following 911 and a training run for what is coming up 2012-18. The strategy should have been thought out far better, in order to maximize its chances. Hell, they actually had the Taliban down and then lost the window of opportunity in a series of gung ho moves, to which the opposition by anyone back home was fiercely attacked as unpatriotic.

How unpatriotic is it to wish for a clever strategy in order to attain one's objectives? This one has not been clever at all.

[women] this blog's opinon of them

Woman and man as one
Together hear us roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And we know too much to go back an' pretend
'cause we've heard it all before
And we've both been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep us down again
With their divide and rule and all
Divided we will fall
But if we merge one with the other
Then you'll see us soar

[humanizing Helen Reddy, returning her to some sanity]

The often unspoken artificial conflict between men and women would have to be the most boring time waster ever devised. Why does the youth/age, gay/normal, black/white, anglo/non-anglo or blonde/brown-haired divide not dominate political discussion instead?

Why must battle lines be drawn along gender lines? Who hijacked the political agenda and created serious rifts where there needed be no serious rifts? Who stuffed kids’ heads full of this rubbish over two generations and have now achieved their result of mutual mistrust and intolerance?

A woman can multitask, she has an approach of onwards and upwards for the most part, each step needing to be an improvement on the last, she has a certain perspective in business but so does a man. Men can, for the most part, find lateral solutions, they bring a sort of blunt realism at the same time that they bring out the softness in a woman.

There is no doubt they can bring out the best in each other, once they are secure in themselves, in their own sexuality, in their roles in the relationship, in the desire to build up, rather than break down, the other partner. Only a good man can get a woman purring like a kitten; a good woman can really ensure a man’s happiness better than anyone.

There are those sad people who would constantly emphasize and carp about the gender divide and how woman is a thousand times better than a man. Bollocks. There is a range of aptitude with both sexes – poor quality men and poor quality women plus the opposite.

I say blur the differences, look for the common ground, embrace the power of man and woman as one team of two. Today was a case in point. There were a dozen of us in a room, mainly men but some women. I got talking to some of the men, we found common ground and it was good. Before that, I’d been walking along the road, a car had stopped and the chap asked if I knew where the centre was. He offered me a lift.

Pleasant. Rewarding.

After it was all over, a lady and I started conversing and swiftly it went to stage two. Smiles abounded on both sides, we covered many topics and there was also that X factor that I’ve never been able to pin down. There is most certainly a male-female chemistry and those who would play that down puzzle me. It’s equal, it is compl-e-mentary, coml-i-mentary at the same time and it’s biological. It is good vibes.

Contrast that with a different conversation between two people. They chat and within the first few sentences he gets an earful of how much better women are than men, how women are oppressed and so on. What chance is there, given this level of bitterness, that any sort of meaningful relationship could build up? Seriously – what chance?

So that’s my opinion of women – I feel at ease around them whilst they see themselves as human rather than as female warriors, which allows me to be human rather than scathingly anti-feminist and there’s always a je ne sais quoi in relations with the majority I’ve known, even before we start to get into the … ahem … other aspects of the equation.

[long distance voyager] on through the starry night

Age humbles and makes you contract your world. Where once you travelled to your network and counted yourself lucky that it spanned the globe, where once you were free and vibrant, now you’re content to run on rails, still vibrant but for shorter periods of time and you do need the toilet at hand just that little bit more.

Some people are strange and that strangeness comes from their interlinked banal experiences. You can go into Canada, America or Russia and have a banal life, going to work each day, coming home, then someone phones you and offers you more banal part time work and so it goes, layer by layer.

Friends in Britain and Australia think you have an exciting, alluring life and it is certainly varied but ultimately, it is routine, each part of it in its own way. You are a very routine person, even a little dull, once the standard dinner conversation has reached a pregnant pause and your circumspect nature threatens to silence you.

Your CV looks good until you look behind it and see that you have not surrounded yourself with the trappings of one career area – you don’t have the CELTA or CLAIT or whatever you need, you can’t speak the jargon of one career or social group. Your accent is a blend and it contains elements which annoy the person you’re with, no matter where you are.

You’re the eternal alien – everyone is a different age, both older and younger. People like you and wish you well but you’re not one of them in the end. So you settle somewhere and put roots down but ultimately it is artificial. People you know all have immediate families [your own is either deceased or dispersed] and though they accept you, [the young implicitly and quickly and the more mature with a certain friendly reservation], it always has a shelf life, as they themselves change their circumstances.

There’s no niche, there are no roots. There are all these question marks, far more mysterious and exotic in appearance than in reality. In reality, you’ve just gone from one thing to another – in your younger days a healthy thing but now a little eyebrow raising. You’ve filled out physically and you’re cast in the role of the interesting itinerant returned. Where is your wife, your family? In which box do you naturally fit?

Though possessing a keen sense of manners and even etiquette, you lack the local jargon, the local manner and some of the things you come out with, some of the expressions, for example, are from another place, maybe from Russia and Australia. People politely say nothing but inside them, they’ve concluded that you’re a bit less than respectable. You’re not ordinary in their eyes but in yours, you are. You yearn to be.

You’re turned in on yourself, no matter how expansive your real nature because you’ve been reliant on yourself so long. It’s difficult for anyone to really penetrate your persona, you’re too closed, which precludes a regular partner who wants to know every last detail and then some. You don’t want to be like this and something inside you screams, “Ask me, just ask me and I’l tell you all,” but they shy away and are too reticent to do that. Do they fear something there, some dark secret which will alter their opinion? There is nothing in there – you are just an ordinary citizen translocated.

You don’t talk much about yourself, what’s the point? This makes people all the more suspicious and by lacking some of the social lubricant which demands you fill in that space with small talk, you say nothing instead. People with egos don’t like you, deep down because you tend to speak in “I” and “me” even though you try not to. Again, you’ve been in your own world for so long that there is no choice but to speak that way.

“When I was in Thailand,” you say or even, if you were lucky at that time, “When we were in Thailand.” but no one is really interested, except to relate when they “did” Thailand, which is actually interesting to you, just as everything out there is interesting to you but in the end, you return to silence.

People eventually feel let down because the promise which was in your eyes and the pleasure you feel in their company has not produced the results they had in mind when you arrived. You say to yourself that you have little promise in you and you’ve never claimed differently but the weight of expectation from others bears down on you and they feel cheated by you and want you to just move on.

The bureaucrats and officials have a field day with you, blocking you here, stymying you there, demanding some document you don’t have in an evermore constricted state where you need to have a statistical history in one country alone to be a person – so much for the jetset. People are jealous of your travels and “exotic lifestyle” and resent your moaning about how difficult it is.

The worst of it is that the mates you’d dearly like to accept you don’t do that because theirs is a closed shop – army buddies or engineers or businessmen and though you can converse with them and share many of the same values as them, though you are almost one of them, still you fall short.

Where does it end? Hopefully by taking another woman who likes to be with you and you try to make a life, even at this late stage. It’s never too late, you anxiously hope, as your receding hair and shortness of breath tell a different tale. Anyway, you’ve probably atrophied down there by now so it would be embarrassing that your technique has got so rusty from infrequent use. What was once par for the course you now shy away from and pretend you’re not interested any more.

It becomes apparent that you need a goal. You have thoughts of joining a company and immersing yourself in their corporate structure but they take one look at you and are amazed you even thought of such a thing at this age. Someone gives you a chance and you take it.

You start a blog and think that a cool purpose in life would be to spread goodwill. Douglas Adams’ spaceman travelled from planet to planet, insulting people in alphabetical order and that’s a good purpose but spreading goodwill is ultimately more fun. You go to a shop and make an observation to the shopgirl – she likes it but the mate you’re with says, “Creep,” only half jokingly. Hell, it was true what you said. Oh well.

Your blog becomes a bit more and takes on a life of its own and the folly of humanity proves too much not to comment on, to the point people see you as so cynical. You have a penchant for losing friends but in the end, the real ones remain.

Tomorrow is another busy day, so you finish the extended rant you were writing at 01:22 because you couldn’t sleep but you need to sleep because you have another job interview.

[zevon] last interview with letterman

This one is best done from a pov angle. When I was in Youtube looking for another artist, the two names Letterman and Zevon popped up in the sidebar and I thought why not?

Expecting it to open with a song of Warren Zevon's and then the interview, he didn't seem to be around but the band leader and Letterman were eulogizing. Then I noticed that the whole show was about Zevon and a sinking feeling came over that this was an obituary.

Close. He died a few months later of lung cancer and this was his last appearance. Then the next surprise came when he actually shuffled across the floor and joined Letterman for the interview, a physical shell of what he'd once been and yet still sharp of mind in answer to the questions.

I was about to click out, as these things are not too nice but couldn't click out - his answers were loaded with humour and Letterman himself asked Zevon how he could joke in this situation. Letterman didn't feel he would and Zevon immediately answered, "Oh yes, I know you would." [6:25]

The first half of this long video is eulogy so you might like to let it load and come back to click halfway through - I think this interview is well worth the time and trouble.

It certainly affected me.



Zevon when relatively healthy and a lot younger:



Probably only for the afficianados:

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

[ignobel awards] and the dignity of plants

Video via Instapundit

Here is the 2008 list:

The "18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony" was held on 2 October 2008 at Harvard University's Sanders Theatre.

• Archaeology: Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo and Jose Carlos Marcelino, for showing that armadillos can mix up the contents of an archaeological site.

• Biology: Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc, for discovering that fleas that live on dogs jump higher than fleas that live on cats.

• Chemistry: Sheree Umpierre, Joseph Hill, and Deborah Anderson, for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang for proving it is not.

• Cognitive science: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero, Akio Ishiguro, and Ágota Tóth, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.

• Economics: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber, and Brent Jordan, for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility.

• Literature: David Sims, for his study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations".

• Medicine: Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive placebos are more effective than inexpensive placebos.

• Nutrition: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, for demonstrating that food tastes better when it sounds more appealing.

• Peace: The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland, for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.

• Physics: Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith, for proving that heaps of string or hair will inevitably tangle.

Let's look at the peace award a moment longer. Yep, it appears to be genuine:

The ECNH has also published a report on the consequences the constitutional definition of the dignity of living beings will have for our treatment of plants.

Practical Ethics addresses this thorny question:

This respect for plant dignity does not extend much outside science (or rather, the ethics committee). While most rules about handling animals apply regardless on whether they are in a lab or are someone's pet, it seems that Swiss gardeners are allowed to do whatever they want to their plants.

They can treat plants as instruments, create new ecological relationships or arbitrarily harm or destroy them (for example when weeding) with no legal repercussions. It is also hard to come up with a less dignified treatment than being cooked and eaten, yet this is the fate of many vegetables.

Maggie's Farm raises the question of how far this thing can be taken. This now effectively criminalizes Vegans who are clearly obsessed with non-animal food sources and are therefore dangerously psychotic. Cleve Baxter, father of the polygraph, maintained, in the 60s, that plants did indeed have feelings:

He also discovered that plants were aware of each other, mourned the death of anything (even the bacteria killed when boiling water is poured down the drain), strongly disliked people who killed plants carelessly or even during scientific research, and fondly remembered and extended their energy out to the people who had grown and tended them, even when their "friends" were far away in both time and space.

Gosh, you only need go as far as the Ents in Lord of the Rings to know they don't appreciate being mistreated by Orcs and the like. Do you mistreat plants? Do you maliciously chop a cabbage or gouge the stalk out of a tomato?

Leaving all that aside, it is not a greeny issue nor a party political one that most people I know adore the country stroll and the leafy nature of roadsides - property values are often higher where there is copious foliage too. Yet they'll still sit down to a dish with three veg and not feel any qualms.

I eat meat and veg in equal proportions, at least when I'm not being a pauper.

[duff equipment] the bane of the poor soldier

Pinnacle Dragon Skin

To bring us up to speed on this body-armour business, BAE has paid out to the U.S. over zylon, a defective component of body-armour which degrades over time. What made me smile was:

Gregory Katsas, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Division, said: "The Justice department will not tolerate its first responders wearing defective bullet-proof vests."

Hmmm. You might like to read this and this, by James Cleverley, which refer to substandard equipment and shortages for UK troops. It includes a video which should make your heart run cold. [Update - it would if they hadn't taken it down.]

I cobbled together an article a long time back on the vests themselves - here. This was linked to a site called Defense Tech, which runs a few articles on the issue. This article castigated the U.S., not the UK for a piece of nicely-awarded defence contracting which did not take into account the ultimate safety of troops, in this specific case, body armour again.

Essentially, Defense Tech asked:

Why the negative statements about Pinnacle Armor to Margaret Warner on News Hour with Jim Lehrer Armor for U.S. Troops In Iraq (Jan. 11, 2006) and why Major General Jeffrey A. Sorenson's, Col. John Norwood's, Col. Thomas Spoehr's negative statements about Dragon Skin in their recent news briefings?

These denials either show ignorance of the facts, a lack of knowledge of the available ballistic data, outright lies or are deliberately deceptive.Well, this is due to the fact that the military has (for years) outsourced these types of positions at Natick and PEO to [certain] civilians, instead of maintaining them within the military.

Unlike military personnel these civilians do not have the same level of oversight or controls on them to maintain the typical checks and balances necessary to ensure true and unbiased evaluation of performance-based products (like SOV/Dragon Skin, for instance) for the protection of the America's soldiers.

So you see, it is really rich for the U.S. to single out the UK for approbation, bad though the UK provision is.