Master of the Obvious I

There has been a setback in the recent battle in Afghanistan.  Two NATO rockets flew off course and killed 12 civilians.  One story can be found here.


It appears "Master of the Obvious Award" for 15 February 2010 goes to British Chief of the Defense Staff Air Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup.


Here is his quote:

He . . . "called the off-target strike a "very serious setback" in efforts to win the support of local communities.

"This operation ... is not about battling the Taliban. It is about protecting the local population and you don't protect them when you kill them," he said in an interview with the BBC.

I hereby award Master of the Obvious distinction to (insert long British title here) Jock Stirrup.  Thank you for the  input. 

Romans Eliminate Christianity

The U.S. is NOT making the same mistakes in Afghanistan that it made in Vietnam.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The U.S. is going out of its way to make new and more modern mistakes.

On Wednesday, 9 December, BBC News reported that General Stanley McChrystal told Congress:

"I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's (Osama bin Laden) captured or killed."

"Doing some fancy mouthwork he went on to say that killing or capturing Bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but that the movement could not be eradicated while Bin Laden remained at large." (BBC quote)

Link to the report can be found here.

How times change. Imagine the lambasting General William Westmoreland would have received if he had suggested the Vietnam War could not be won without killing Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh died in 1969. The war raged on for half a decade.

Additionally, remember the Galilean Herald-Tribune's headline in 30 AD

Pontius Pilate Squelches Christianity With Seditious Jesus' Elimination

Maybe the U.S. isn't making a modern mistake at all.

It's The Same Everywhere

In the eastern hemisphere the Afghanistan government and international governments are trying to tackle a different crisis.

In the western hemisphere the United States is trying to tackle an economic "crisis."

In a recent article from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting is a good article by Aziz Ahmad Tassal and Mohammad IIyas Dayee, titles Taleban Hamper Musa Qala Reconstruction Efforts.

In it Mullah Abdul Salaam, the district governor of Musa Qala says that after British and Afghan troops retook his district from the Taleban, there has been no assistance.  In the article he says, "My relations with Hamed Karzai (Afghan President) are very good.  But the president himself cannot do anything.  I have problems with Karzai's ministers.  They do not listen to the president and they promise to do things but they never do."

The economic "crisis" in the U.S. is a different problem, however, it appears that U.S. ministers and experts are like Afghanistan's ministers.  They are doing and have done very little.  

House of Cards, a program found on CNBC details many of the overlapping problems that "caused" (my quotes) the current financial situation.  Some of the causes stem from home buyers purchasing homes that they couldn't even pay interest on.  But, that is just the start.

It appears that marginal mortgages were consolidated into mortgage-backed securities.  These mortgages should have been rated EEE, but the ratings agencies routinely rated them AAA--the best with no, or limited risk.

Additionally, mortgage companies "targeted" sub-prime borrowers and then sold those mortgages to financial institutions that packaged and resold them.

Through the entire process regulators were "asleep at the wheel."  Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan had some interesting comments.  When asked about the complex repackaged mortgage instruments, he said that he didn't really understand them.  (He implied that he didn't discourage the use of financial instruments that the country's head financial wiz didn't understand.)  Greenspan also said that if he had tried to stop a crisis, there would have been ten percent unemployment and other negative economic consequences.  Seems that is his reason for NOT DOING ANYTHING.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Anwar Khan, provincial council head said, "Promises made by the government and the international community have not been fulfilled in Musa Qala.  Residents in Musa Qala have nothing.  [ . . .]People are very disappointed in the government, they do not trust government and they do not listen to it."

The situation on both sides of the world are different, but they seem to share the common thread of government officials not listening and not doing as promised.