Where Is 9M-MRO?

9M-MRO is the tail number of the Boeing 777-2H6-ER aircraft that was designated as Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing last week.  The location of the aircraft, crew and passengers, remains unknown, but on Friday night (US time) the Malaysian government issued a statement that they believe the plane's South and Westerly flight paths towards the Indian Ocean - instead of the NE direct route intended to go to Beijing over the South China coast line - were the result of a hijacking, and are now treating the disappearance of the plane as a crime.

While this may sound grotesque, I hope a debris field or fuel slick in the Indian Ocean are found soon.  Why?  Because if the passengers are still alive, they are imprisoned, hostages, or worse.  If they are all dead, then their families can begin to have closure and mourn their losses.  

Why would they be alive, and the plane possibly landed somewhere?  Well, consider the following evidence:
- Rolls Royce's monitoring system (9M-MRO was equipped with RR engines, instead of GE90s) continued to get satellite "pings" from the plane, for more than an hour past the time it was supposed to land in Beijing; meaning, the engines were still on, and still running.
- The built in Boeing transponder that sends out location signals was manually turned off over the middle of the gulf of Thailand, just after Kuala Lumpur air traffic control handed over guidance of the air craft to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon, in southern Vietnam).  
- The pilots (Zaharie Ahmad Shah [Zaharie was also qualified as a flight instructor] & Fariq Abdul Hamid) never checked in with Ho Chi Minh city.  They told Kuala Lumpur "Good night", and then turned their plane around, away from the Beijing flight path, over the Malaysian mountains, and out towards the Indian Ocean.
- yes, both the pilot and co-pilot were Muslims
- Not a single cell phone, black berry, iPad, iPhone, smart phone, smart watch, laptop, tablet, or other device carried by the 227 passengers has been answered, or has sent out any kind of tweet, FB post, distress call, text message, or anything else.  If the passengers (from 15 countries, most of them device happy Chinese) are alive, all of their electronic devices have been totally confiscated.  Missing not a single one.  If the mobile devices had been destroyed, then they would not be "going to voice mail" or ringing without being answered.  They would be giving "no longer in service" responses, from their respective mobile provider networks.

So where is 9M-MRO?  Why don't I call it MH370?  Well...  my theory is that it will never be seen again as MH370, unless it has crashed somewhere and a debris field is found, or a fuel slick spotted in the Indian Ocean.  Instead, either a "State Actor" or a "Non State Actor" has stolen the plane, killed or imprisoned everyone on it, and they are in the process of re-painting it to look like another country's airline 777...  probably a United States based airline, like Delta, American, or United, or a Emirates or Qatar airlines 777.  If there is an old, abandoned WWII runway somewhere near the Indian Ocean, and Zaharie was able to land his plane there, my guess is it being repainted, the electronics are being re-configured to send out a less conspicuously serialized signature that no longer resembles MH370, and the plane is being loaded with fuel, and (probably) explosives, or a WMD.  

What would a State Actor do with such a stolen plane?  Well, "Red Dawn" showed what Cubans could do to the US with troop carriers disguised as commercial airlines.  Tom Clancy probably has several novels that could provide a road map as well.  It would have to be a state actor with few connections to the west - like North Korea or one of the former Soviet "disillusioned-stans".  If it is a non state actor, like Al Qaeda, Basque Separatists, Philippine Separatists, Shining Path, or a Bond villain, then all sorts of terrible things could be planned.
- fly it into a large commercial building, ubiquitous in SE Asian capitals
- fly it into a military base, again, ubiquitous 
- fly it into an LNG plant in the gulf (many to choose from)
- fly it near a US Carrier task force, and detonate a nuclear device within the plane, before the navy shoots it down
- land it in a Western airport, and then detonate the WMD (nuclear, chemical, or biological, basically destroying that airport for that city)
- execute one passenger every time a US drone strike takes place, anywhere in the world (it is well known that Al Qaeda fears drone strikes more than any thing else), delivering the video of the passenger execution to Al Jazeera each time it does, so it can't be traced as to where).  With 227 passengers, that will halt the drone  strike program.  

Like I said, I hope a debris field is found soon, and the families can begin the mourning and closure process.  If their family members are still alive, nefarious things are going to happen to them, or they will be used as bargaining chips and more pain and suffering and death will be brought to more people in the world.  

I theorized this on Monday of this week, when everyone in the media and all pilot experts were saying "it is too early to tell" and "we should not speculate".  BS.  Many humans are evil, and the smart ones who are evil have nasty plans for the rest of us.  Plan ahead to deal with such evil, and minimize its impact on the world.

My Last Arizona Sunset

Arizona has some absolutely fabulous sunsets.  The desert dust in the air makes a beautiful prismatic display during the August and September monsoons, and the wide open spaces between the mountains that dot the Sonoran desert make for some beautiful back drops.  On Tuesday night, after helping the 2 man crew who packed my home Monday, load the 17,000 lbs of household belongings into their 53 foot semi trailer, I climbed into my Mazda 6 (loaded with weapons, packed up and ready to go) to drive to California.  While I heard no gun shots, out on the highway, I was also not dressed like a student or a housewife... I did get waved through the California Agricultural road block, and today, the cable guy is on a ladder outside my CA rental literally "tappin phone lines" as I type this up.  We Are still at war in Afghanistan, so I guess it is somewhat relevant.

But I digressed on a Byrne-esque diversion there.  The final sunset, as I drove West towards LA, was phenomenally pretty, and made a moving impression on me (no pun intended).  I was hyped up on a 5-Hour energy drink with enough B vitamins to feed a whole class of kindergarteners, and my hand might have been a little shaky as I took the pics through the windshield as I drove.

It will be an indefinitely long time before I am driving down I-10 again, westward, from Phoenix at sunset.  Dr Desert Flower is working with a property manager who is handling the renting out of our house there, and I detest being an engaged, active, out-of-state land lord as that's what we did for 7 years from South Carolina while our Bloomington IN FHA starter home wouldn't sell.  I used to have to cross the Appalachians and drive 7 hours along I-40 & I-75 to get to that house to fix things and check on it.  I don't want to have to drive through 6 and a 1/2 hours of Mohave & Sonoran deserts and through a check-point  on I-10 to maintenance the Phoenix residence.

The 5 and a 1/3 year Arizona experiment was not a complete loss.  I hiked the Grand Canyon twice.  Got to take friends and relatives who visited to Sedona & Torilla Flats.  Ate some really delicious Mexican food.  Saw some nice concerts.  Hiked every mountain taller than a 1000 feet in Phoenix city limits & within a 10 mile (or so) radius.  Got to swim in my own back yard pool, grew lavender & aloe, communed & bonded with hummingbirds, saw a massive number of lizards and a road runner or two (or three), got bitten by one and killed dozens of other black widow spiders, relocated  more than a dozen feral cats, farmed cactus, sculpted ocotillo, harvested vast numbers of ripe juicy lemons, drank many great wines, and paid ridiculously low taxes while watching my home value plummet by 2/3rds.  I fought & won a court magistrate case against a wrongful traffic ticket, frequently visited the nicest desert botanical garden in the world, volunteered at some good organizations, donated nearly another gallon of blood, started a blog at my old friend Rufus's prodding, and made some nice new friends as well along the way.

It's also ironic that my one friend who lives in California already texted me to ask me "do I feel flakier now?" that I'm a Californian, while back in Arizona I voted Against a flake (Jeff Flake) for US Senator.   While my candidate (Rich Carmona) lost, I am glad to leave Flake and his ilk behind, and for the first time in my life, live in a blue state.  Of course, I am in the reddest of the red counties inside that blue state - my next door neighbor has a sign on the back of his Hyundai Sonata parked in his driveway that actually says "I do not believe the liberal media" and there's no shortages of Hummer SUVs on my block (and John Campbell is my Congressman now, instead of Rahul Grijalva), but at least the governor and both Federal senators are moderate democrats, and the minority speaker of the US House of Representatives are not tea partying, racist, birther, 'build the damn' fencers.  So I think we'll get along okay here in the Golden State.  Now if it would just stop raining (as it has everyday since we got here) I can go soak in the hot tub I've warmed up in the back yard  =)

For The Love Of Dairy

Grrrrr....

I heard T. Collin Campbell (author of the deeply flawed "China Study"), on Bill Maher's Real Time earlier this month: (link here, at 4:40)
"We're the only species that I know of that drinks the milk of another species"

Well yes, that is correct.  We ARE the only species who drinks the milk of several other living species (cows, goats, sheep, soy beans, almonds, camels and lama in some places).  Perhaps it's those opposed thumbs, that make milking another species possible?  Perhaps it's the large cerebral cortex that humans have used to devise, think up and build pens / stables / barns to hold their live stock, containers to carry the milked liquid, and science to implement sterilization / pasteurization techniques?  We are the only species who enjoy artisan cheeses, delicious yogurts, succulent ice cream.  Yes T. Collin Campbell and Bill Maher, we are the only species who enjoy dairy, and I am glad and proud to be able to enjoy it.  Many things humans do are despicable, but enjoying dairy, is not in any way, despicable.

When I hear people say "don't eat dairy, it hurts the world carbon balance" I want to ask them 'how long they've been part of the Taliban'?  The Taliban would love to be back in the 13th century, with women covered from head to foot, women un-educated, men semi-literate at best, in a subsistence agrarian economy practicing Sharia law and harvesting opium.  Sure, the Taliban leadership, like Al Qaeda leadership, would still like their cell phone and porn, but for the 'common man' under their gray modular iron thumb, the nice things we enjoy in life would be forbidden, undiscovered, or part of the 'evil west / great satan'.  Having a carbon foot print is part of modern life.  Sure, I don't open my windows and run my air conditioner all day long, that would be wasteful and stupid, but I am not going to live in 105F ambient Phoenix in the present day and NOT use ANY air conditioning.  I love dairy, and I am going to eat my dairy.  Others do not have to eat any dairy if they so choose... but don't try and take my dairy away or criticize my consumption of it.

In this same vein, I heard a David Was story on NPR (link here) at the beginning of the month about Was's adventures in pool care.  It was a little silly, and showed the folly of a record producer not knowing enough basic science to take care of his own pool, which amused me.  But the "Thursday listener comments" that NPR aired excoriated David Was, for his 'lack of regard for the environment' and what 'impact he had on the world'.  Really?  David Was is a successful recording artist / executive who lives in the LA area, and he owns a pool.  People aren't supposed to own pools anymore?  Not every pool can be converted into a Salt Only pool.  Many, like mine, are designed to be used with Chlorine. Not able to own or use a pool. Ride your recumbent eco-friendly bike to work. Don't eat dairy, it'll hurt the environment.  No thanks.  Why don't you move to Afghanistan instead - many in Pashtunistan share your minimalist view... though they do drink curdled yak butter tea throughout most of the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, from what I've read.  ;-)

Able To Stop A Speeding Bullet?

This is not gory by any means... unless you have a powerful affinity for and connection to blue plastic poly ethylene 60 liter water containers, or you believe in the ridiculous myth that a Hollywood car door can stop any bullet effectively. Physics applied.

This video helps to give the viewer a better appreciation for the serious mess that combat trauma surgeons have to deal with, on a daily basis in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, The Sudan, Somalia (no, they just die in Somalia pretty much, without a central government, in a failed state), The Congo, Syria, Mexico, NW Pakistan - all the garden variety vacation destinations.

A Benefits Company Who Occasionally Kills Terrorists

""General Motors did not start out to be a healthcare company that occasionally built an automobile," he says. "Today, we're on the path in the Department of Defense to turn it into a benefits company that may occasionally kill a terrorist.""
A very interesting report about how the unjustified and unfinanced wars W got us into are bankrupting the US military and the US Treasury (link here).

Thanks Iran!

Iran's been stopping fuel trucks from entering Afghanistan, at all the road crossings along the hundreds of miles of shared borders (link here).  The Shia Fundamentalist lead regime misguidedly believes that the fuel is destined for NATO forces fighting Taliban in Afghanistan - even though zero percent of the land shipped fuel is headed for NATO.  NATO gets its fuel via Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan, since Iran is considered a "state sponsor of terror" and all US contractors cannot do business with Iran.

So how effective has this fuel blockade been at achieving Iran's goals?  Well, if their goal was to inspire PRO-AMERICAN rallies in Kabul, then Iran is doing a great job!  If their goal was to really p*ss off the civilian population of Afghanistan with exorbitant fuel prices and turn any sympathy they had for Iran into rage against the Islamic Republic to the west, kudos to you Iran!  Mission accomplished! 

Stones Into Schools - Read It

While relaxing Poolside at the Amara resort in Sedona this weekend (for our anniversary we stayed at the L'Auberge de Sedona, the sister property, which had no pool), I finished Greg Mortenson's Stones into Schools. It's given me hope that SOMETHING constructive can come out of Afghanistan. It's not by force, not by aggression or imposed rule - it's by channeling the free market.

Yes, the free market. That invisible hand, who has crept into land locked Afghanistan via cell phone and satellite dish. The poorest and most illiterate of blue collar, semi-agrarian, subsistence farmers and unskilled laborers, and their dirt poor wives, are getting cell phones. Not cars, or refrigerators, or large screen TVs, no. But they are getting cell phones. And those cell phones are CONNECTING them to their relatives outside of Kabul, out in Herrat, down in Helmand Province, over in Uzbekistan, everywhere. And these very poor, mostly illiterate people, are gaining connectivity that they NEVER had before. Not during the Russian occupation, or the 3 previous British land wars of retribution. Not during Alexander the Great's invasion millennium ago. Now women are talking to other women on cell phones in Afghanistan, and wow, is it starting to make a difference.

In America, Idiocracy uses their cell phones to text message while driving, take videos of bigoted comedians or subway platform police brutality. But in Afghanistan, cell phones are being used to discuss upcoming elections, where schools are being built, where vocational centers for women are being built, which villages are being threatened by Taliban, etc. They are empowering women and enabling connectivity that has never before been possible. The illiterate husbands want their wives to go to these local classes, so that they can Earn More Money, to help the household. More work on the women's shoulders, yes, but the Afghans are an incredibly resilient people.

Mortenson says it best: "I knew this idea of yours was popular," I remarked to Wakil later that afternoon, after we had toured several more facilities, "but you didn't tell me how many there were or how quickly this concept was growing."
"It's hard to keep count - in another four months, we'll probably have three dozen [women's vocational centers]" he said. "When women take charge things start to get out of control really fast."

Wakil Karimi is the Central Asia Institute's (CAI's) Afghanistan manager. A former refugee from the Afghan war, who learned English in Pakistan, and worked in a Western Hotel at the front desk, Wakil relentlessly pursued Greg Mortenson and his team to build girls schools and vocational centers closer to Kabul - instead of at the end of the road of known existence. Once Wakil's idea caught on, the slow process of building schools ramped up exponentially. There's a 130 women's schools now in Afghanistan that the CAI has grown.

The women who attend these schools are taught at night, for 3 or 4 hours, after all of their maternal house work is done. They're learning to read and write Dari, Pashtun, Arabic, Urdu, English. They are learning skills in weaving, child care, disease prevention, domestic skills, and basic cell phone usage. yes, cell phone usage - so that they can call their sisters, girl friends, mothers, cousins, old friends, in other parts of the country and in other countries, to provide a neural social network. A "counter insurgency" to fight back against the Taliban. These women sit cross legged on dirt floors in adobe mud buildings, 40 to 60 packed into the room, eager & hungry for basic knowledge.

Reading this gave me hope for the first time. The Taliban are a minority Pashtun force, governed by Wahhabi Sunni fundamentalists, funded by rich Saudies. They are only 40% of the Afghan population, and the Afghan population is nearly as multi-ethnic as the United States. And more than 1/2 of those Pashtuns, are women (30 years of war, and stupid military tactics by the Taliban have culled the male Pashtun population pretty severely). Like the Basiji in Iran, the Deobandi Wahhabi of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, and the Tea Partyers and Libertarian Militias of the United States, the fundamentalist Pashtun males are a small, violent, hateful, vocal minority. Instead of UN sanctions, or the 82nd Airborne, or a NATO imposed peace, the Petraeus counter insurgency in Afghanistan and NW Pakistan needs to continue to focus on education for women, home grown solutions, listening to village elders and helping them to affect long lasting positive societal change. Turn the neck, the head will turn as well.

If you'd like to have hope about Afghanistan, read Stones into Schools. It's made a significant improvement in my outlook on Afghanistan.

Chup!

The lovely and melodic Pakistani singers Zeb and Haniya sing beautifully. Attached here is a link to an acoustic version of their hit song "Chup!" - which in Urdu ( چپ,) means "Stop!" or "Hush!" (link here). The song is very simple, and a catchy tune - I heard it on BBC radio this afternoon. The essence of the song, as Zeb explained, is "Hush! it's time for love".

I see no better way of fighting fanatical Islamic fundamentalist extremism than to promote positive, societal change, from within. It's just too bad they didn't sing this in Pashtoon - the native tongue of coward Mullah Omar, the bastard father of the heretical Taliban movement. But singing (OMG! Singing! It might lead to dancing!) in Urdu, spoken by about 40% of Pakistanis, and Pakistan being where the majority of the Taliban training camps and madrasses are, is a good start. And the mega-flood that is covering 1/8th of Pakistan currently, they need all the love they can get.

You can see a video of an acoustic performance of "Chup!" here (link) but it's low quality. The "Coke Studios" youtube versions aggravate me as being way way way over-produced and bollywood sensationalized to the point of being creepy - making me wince. Just let the lovely girls with the sweet voices sing. That's enough for me.

Never Underestimate Extensive Training

As I read Greg Mortenson's Stones into Schools (thanks CKG for the recommendation!) as Greg is describing his band of local "fixers" and logistics guys, he mentions one who is a very quiet & reserved man, but who cannot stop laughing whenever he watches a Youtube video of a Taliban loading a mortar backwards (the end result, is dramatically fatal). I searched via Google, Yahoo, and LiveLeak with all filters off, trying to find this video, in both English and Arabic (there's no Dari translator). After about 20 minutes, I found This video (link here).

Warning for those with young viewers, or who don't want to be startled, don't watch the last 10 seconds of this video.

For me personally, I find several aspects of the video illuminating.
a) the Taliban moron firing the mortar is guiding the tube by hand; highly inaccurate.
b) the cowardly Taliban fool is wearing a ski mask / hood; makes it hard to see what you're doing and it demonstrates you're really not proud of your cause
c) yelling "God is Great!" (Allah Akbar!) between each round, doesn't do any good, and in fact, probably inspires such fundamentalist fervor that the person yelling (and the foolish cameraman recording) starts to not pay attention to the critical tasks at-hand.

I have to agree with Mortenson's colleague... I find the video amusing, and I hope more fundamentalists who hate America & Western Civilization follow this same example with the same explosive results.

Supposedly, looking at the comments on the Youtube page, some embarrassed fundamentalist keeps reporting the video to Google who keeps pulling it offline. If you find the link doesn't work here. Let me know and I'll try and restore it with another web search. Keyword searches ("Little video of an taliban guy", MSztarcss, alex054739, "Boom? Alah Akbar" [sic]).

"There is nothing to be gained by staying"

William Pfaff has a good article posted (link here) on his website this week. It talks about Afghanistan in depth. The gist of it is "There is nothing to be gained by staying". After having read 4 hard back books that were written in the last 3 years about the region (links here and here and here), I have to say, I agree with Pfaff.

We will never establish a strong central governed, Westernized, non-misogynist, equal rights, equitable, proud American-like Democracy in Afghanistan. There's too many fundamentalists, the environment is too harsh, the peasant subsistence farmers are far too desperate, the drug trade is far too firmly entrenched, graft and corruption far too wide spread, and we are funding the Pakistani ISI to the tunes of BILLIONS a year, who then fund and defend the Taliban.

It's time to draw down, and get the hell out of there. W and Gen Franks and Rummy and the Gen Sharif of Pakistan enabled 4000 Al Qaeda to escape, in Pakistani military airlift transports in 2002 (link here). Let Pakistan deal with it now. They hate Americans (95% of Pakistanis) there anyways.

Pilotless Drones in the US?

Pilotless drones being licensed by the FAA, to be flown in US air space? (link here). Not a very good idea. I've been in too many commercial aircraft, having too many "course changes" to avoid other aircraft - all of which had live pilots in cock pits - to think that putting some / dozens / hundreds of pilotless drones in the US is a good idea.

Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia have much fewer commercial flights, private planes, electrical transmission lines and signal towers in their air space... and alot more "wanted dead or alive" terrorists on their ground. I do not think that pilotless drones in the US will have a positive result.

Ewans Style & Perspective

I finished Martin Ewans' "Afghanistan, a Short History of Its People and Politics" this week (while sipping a glass of Spanish red, in the bath tub, a nice way to end a book). I found Ewans' writing style to be logical, chronologically consistent, and straight forward. That's the way a historical record is supposed to be, in my opinion. Ewans' perspective on Afghanistan corroborated Ahmed Rashid's to a great extent - which was interesting, since Rashid is a Pakistani national who lives and works in Lahore as a journalist, and Sir Martin Ewans was the Head of Chancery in Kabul for the British Diplomatic Service.

Both authors' accounts of this land locked region that clings to it's 13th century mindset while embracing 21st century guerrilla tactics, weaponry, and fundamentalist-Islamic-rural-rule-by-fear-and-terror parallel each other quite well. Rashid's "Please do not abandon my troubled region Western Powers, after you funded and fostered these fanatics to fight the Soviets!!" pleas contrast to Ewans' "this rural society has been chronically corrupt and without a strong central government for centuries, no Czar, British Monarch, Parliament, Polit Bureau, Shah, Maharajah, Greek or American conquering force will ever be able to impose a sustainable, equitable (by Western Standards), tolerant society here" perspective. I gotta tell you... I tend to agree with Ewan's implied conclusions. Sorry Rashid. Enough non-Afghan blood and treasure has been spilled there.

Afghan Lithium

read about the US Geological Survey's recent trillion dollar Lithium findings in Afghanistan. Made me think of the early 90s.

Taliban Training Video Uncovered

The unsuccessful attack today by the Taliban on the heavily fortified Bagram Air Force Base (link here), appears to have followed the methods that the Viet Cong used in Kubrick's classic, FMJ.

Advance to the 4 minute mark, and watch the advanced tactics and weaponry employed, very similar to today's attack:

Seriously, 20 tribesmen from the 13th century, armed with RPGs and suicide vests against the most heavily guarded US Air Force Base in the world? It does suck that they injured 9 coalition troops and killed one contractor, and that 1000s of rounds of coalition ammunition were used to decimate 20 very stupid, delusional, misinformed fundamentalists. They're not with 72 virgins now, no. If they did reach an afterlife, it hopefully involves "being hollowed out and used as prophylactics by thorn-cocked Gulbuth The Rampant" (link here).

Quagmire

I am reading Martin Ewans' incredibly insightful history of Afghanistan, and I cannot stop thinking of Family Guy's Glenn Quagmire. Not for his lecherous, inappropriate, obnoxiousness... but for his last name. Sending more 'trainers' to ramp up the Afghan army to 300,000 strong (announced today)? There's a large sucking sound coming out of the Hindu Kush and Helmand River Valley... =(

Petraeus Is Soft On Terror

MTP this morning had an interesting interview with CentCom Commander General David Petraeus. He's soft on terror. He
- wants Gitmo Closed
- has been against torture since me stated publicly in 2003 as the commander of the 101st Airborne that the 101st would obey the Geneva Conventions and not torture
- thinks diplomacy s more important than military strength and is delusional enough to think that Pakistan's recent cooperation in capturing Taliban leaders is credited to diplomatic cooperation instead of just bullying the ISI as W's administration used to
- supports having gays in the military (or at least does not say it''s a bad thing).

What's wrong with this guy? Doesn't he read (and obey) the RNC's talking points?

Oh that's right.. he's an elitist PhD... what does he know? =)

Moyers' Excellent Program Last Friday Night

Bill Moyers always does excellent work. This year's interviews are no exception. Friday night he spoke with Thomas Frank (link here), and the interview was infuriating to me. "Down the memory hole" indeed.

Then, Bill had a wonderful and uplifting interview with Greg Mortenson (link here), author of Three Cups of Tea (which I have given as Christmas Gifts) and now, Stones Into Schools. the key take aways I got from the Mortenson interview that gave me hope:
1) Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff consults with Mortenson frequently
2) Gen.s Petraeus & McCrystal have read Mortenson's books, require all of their officers to read them too, and have both stated to Mortenson on more than one occasion "there is no military solution in Afghanistan" and "we cannot win here militarily". (There is some hope, if the current administration listens to them, as opposed to how W and Rumy dictated to them and handcuffed their generals, who were lead by the incompetent Franks) ...in acknowledgment of the Greek, Arab, Mongol, British, and Russian past failures over millennium.
3) Afghan village elders LOVE playgrounds and swing sets
4) In 5 areas 100% controlled by Taliban, with no US presence, girls high schools have been built in Afghanistan and are thriving - NOT being demolished or head masters executed.
5) at their schools, they not only teach how to read Arabic in the Qaran (and Dari, or Farsi, or Pashtun, depending on what part of the country they are in) but HOW to Interpret that which they read, so it is NOT just rote memorization and being told what each phrase is supposed to mean, but Opening Up the students' eyes (defeating Fundy Madrassa teachings).
5) Saudi Funding of Taliban has DROPPED in the last 2 years, resulting in Taliban banditry, kidnapping, and things that are odious to the local populace, turning tribal elders (Shuras) and entire villages against the Fundamentalist Sunni advocates of terror.
6) MOTHERS are shaming their sons into quitting the Taliban, after being indoctrinated into it, in Madrasses, as youths. When they get into their 20s, and are becoming common criminals, MOTHERS of these miscreants are convincing them to leave the Taliban and reform their lives (who would've thought it??). Mortenson said that at the schools his NGO has built, they PREFER to hire ex-Taliban as instructors, since ex-Taliban are the STRONGEST and most out-spoken opponents of wrongly interpreted Fundamentalist teachings.
7) Boys who are taught how to read don't teach anyone else, but they don't go off to become Taliban advocates. Girls who are taught to read teach their mothers, their sisters, their villages... and everyone they teach, is a potential powerful force against evil & fearful misinterpretations of the Qaran.

I hope Mortenson's "peaceful insurgency" campaign is successful. For a million dollars (the cost to keep 1 NATO soldier in theater in Afghanistan for a year) he can build and staff 4 high schools. That's pretty damn impressive.

Watching this interview on DVR last night gave me hope.

We shall see.... سنرى

Valley-ism

Earlier this week, The WaPost ran stories about former Marine Captain and then Foreign Service area expert Matthew Hoh resigning from his position in Afghanistan, where as the senior US civilian official in Zabul Province he was trying to investigate "why are we not doing well here?" Simply found, the Afghans locals were helping the Pashtun Fundamentalist Taliban to fight NATO because they were seen as occupiers. Once the US withdrew from rural valleys, the Afghan local tribesmen chaffed at the Taliban occupiers, and started fighting against/ resisting them as well. NPR ran a story on him today as well.

I keep hearing this again and again, with NPR journalist implants who are with Airborne Ranger or Marine or Army units, from Richard Engel of NBC News, from author Jeremy Scahill, from Australian journalist Michael Ware who's been taken hostage by Al Queda and escaped to live and tell about it... and now Matthew Hoh, who has been in two different areas of Afghanistan and worked to try and pacify / mollify / stabilize a country that is still clinging to the 4th century in many rural regions.

My gut feeling is telling me, remaining en masse, in Afghanistan, with armed troops and civilian contractors trying to force "some kind" of centralized government and civilization on a massively diverse, multi-ethnic, fiercely tribal people... is not gonna work. It's just going to kill alot of Americans and drain alot of treasure, without doing anything to destroy Al Queda, who is hiding out in the NW FATA regions of Pakistan. Yes, the Taliban are evil and misogynistic fundamentalists, but they are just the Pashtuns, less than 40% of Afghanistan, and less than 20% of Pakistan ethnically. The rest of the country is surrounded by 3 totalitarian dictator former-soviet regimes on the verge of collapse (Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, Turkmenistan) Iran, Pakistan, and China (that tiny little umbilical chord that is as thin as Maryland's pan-handle, that stretches to the east, touches China). It would be easier, and cheaper (I believe) to just pay off these medieval tribesmen - more than what the Persian Gulf fundies are paying the Taliban, and maintain a very very small presence in the country - and STOP letting Toyota Land Cruisers (the preferred vehicle of the Taliban) and pick up trucks continue crossing Afghanistan's borders. Blow them all up with drone attacks. Goat herders ain't driving Land Cruisers. the more the Republicans scream that Obama stop "dithering" the more I am thinking, "surging" in my troops is a very bad idea.

I finished Ahmed Rashid's "Descent Into Chaos" book at the pool last week. As a Pakistani, Rashid's writing reflects his country's best interests (and his lamenting of its mis-management) first, not the US's best interests first. Now Jeff Sharlet's "The Family" has begun. Some day, I'll get out of 2008 and begin reading 2009 material. Sharlet's writing style, I find to be personal, fluid, easy to follow, and engaging... and prescient. His recounting of the 1934 Longshoremen's strikes in San Francisco, and the language used then, and attitudes expressed 80 years ago, eerily parallel the current shrill cries from the fanatical right in the US today.

Ahmed Rashid - An Informative Read

I just finished Ahmed Rashid's Taliban - Militant Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia last weekend. Chalk full of personal interviews, facts, time lines, maps, glossaries, 4 pages bibliographies, colloquialisms, 20 pages of foot notes, written in 2000, Taliban was well organized, insightful, and a very interesting read. The follow on book Descent Into Chaos - the U.S. and the Disaster In Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, written in 2008, I'm only 20 pages into so far.

Through his detailed accounts of the region's history, the main power brokers, and current events, Mr. Rashid subtly expresses a sadness for his native Pakistan as it implodes and staggers drunkenly down the road to disaster paved with corruption & drug money while driven with a fear of India and a proclivity for extreme fundamentalism. I'm looking forward to driving through this 500 page tome.

If you're looking for light hearted entertainment, this aint the book for you. If all the somewhere-a-bads, and vague-i-stans intrigue you, the differences between a Mujaheddin and a Taliban fighter elude you, and clueless Western myopic parachute reporting aggravates you, then give Rashid's works a try.

The Surge is Working!

I found this site (http://www.allhatnocattle.net/index.html) this afternoon purely accidentally. The header graphic is hilarious, and the page's top story, too damn funny!

"The Surge is Working!
The Taliban's Surge!"

Not quite as destructive as the Tet Offensive, but that's 41 years ago. Give Afghanistan another 34 years (the French were in Vietnam for nearly a century before they pulled out) and we'll see how things go.