In Afghanistan, supplying US military is big business

In a landlocked, mountainous country the size of Texas, moving supplies is no easy task.

By

Ben Gilbert

- GlobalPost

Published: August 29, 2010 08:49 ET in Asia

Heavy-duty machinery waits at Kandahar Airfield to be shipped all over Afghanistan to help in the war effort. (Ben Gilbert/GlobalPost)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Moving all the things 100,000 troops need to fight and survive in a hostile foreign land is never an easy task. In a landlocked, mountainous country the size of Texas, with few paved roads, it is even harder.

“I don’t think anyone has ever brought in this much equipment to a landlocked country that has only two major airports,” said Col. Gary Sheffer, acting commanding general of the U.S. Military’s Joint Sustainment Command in Afghanistan. “Without the road network, the railroad network, it’s a huge effort.”

And the effort has only grown more intense this summer. Sheffer and the 5,000 troops under his command are responsible for supplying all American forces in Afghanistan with everything from food and water to bullets and beds.

They are now on the front lines of President Barack Obama’s troop surge into southern Afghanistan that began this summer. Almost 100,000 U.S. troops are now in Afghanistan — up from about 40,000 when Obama first came into office. That increase has come in a short period of time, with 30,000 arriving in just the last eight months.

With the surge, Sheffer’s quartermasters and logisticians have seen their jobs grow more frantic. The dusty central receiving and shipping point at Kandahar Airfield, one of several massive supply yards here, is filled with everything the troops might need: mobile kitchens, bulldozers, transport trucks and thousands of shipping containers stacked in twos and threes. They are filled with radios, tires and everything else imaginable.

“We’ve had a 300-percent increase of what used to be pushed through here since we took over,” said Staff Sgt. Jose Garcia, from the 567th Cargo Transport Company, as he directed a forklift bearing yet another shipping container to its spot in the stack.

The 567th transports about 150 to 200 shipping containers or other pieces of equipment per day.

Sheffer said moving supplies in Iraq, with its port, relatively flat topography and extensive highway network, was a breeze compared with Afghanistan’s mountains and mostly dirt or gravel roads.

He said Kandahar Airfield has become the busiest single runway airport in the world with a flight slot every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day. The military uses planes and helicopters to move much of its “sensitive equipment,” like ammunition and combat vehicles.

But trucks are the main mode of transport. They pick up supplies from the port in Karachi, Pakistan, where U.S. supplies are shipped from either Kuwait or the United States.

Lt. Col. Ralph Burks, the distribution integration branch chief for the Sustainment Command, said between 6,000 to 8,000 Afghan and Pakistani trucks move 80 percent of the U.S. military’s supplies around Afghanistan each day.

“That many trucks moving back home would be impressive,” he said. “Out here, it’s amazing.”

The amount of supplies moving around the country is equally amazing and the costs staggering.

The Sustainment Command has supplied 47 million meals to U.S. troops in Afghanistan over the last six months at a cost of $900 million. During the same period, the Command processed 15 million pounds of ammunition, 21 million pounds of mail and distributed 237 million gallons of fuel. At the same time, the Sustainment Command’s troops also procured and delivered over 2 million gallons of bottled water. Capt. Jason Mann said they buy water from 10 plants located around the region.

“We’ve got some that comes from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, two located in-country in Kabul, and various plants in the [United Arab Emirates] that we source from,” he said.

§

In a landlocked, mountainous country the size of Texas, moving supplies is no easy task.

By

Ben Gilbert

- GlobalPost

Published: August 29, 2010 08:49 ET in Asia

Heavy-duty machinery waits at Kandahar Airfield to be shipped all over Afghanistan to help in the war effort. (Ben Gilbert/GlobalPost)

All that water has to be shipped to Karachi and then driven by truck to Afghanistan. That means that by the time a single bottle gets to Kandahar it costs the U.S. taxpayer an average of $1.50 to $2 per half liter bottle.

The price can even rise as high as $6 per bottle if unforeseen costs, of which there are many, crop up.

Some of that cost is generated up by the notorious corruption endemic at all levels of Afghan society.

Many of the supplies must be trucked through dangerous and hostile routes in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The dangers of that journey are evident at the central shipping yard where one shipping container lays abandoned after being shredded by a rocket propelled grenade attack. Another truck is smashed and battered after what looks like a roll over. Bullets have shattered the glass on many of the vehicles.

Lt. Col. Beau Eidt, commander of the 4th battalion of the 401st Army Field Support regiment, said the drivers have to brave dangerous roads where they might encounter Taliban, bandits or warlords. Many such characters demand bribes for passage.

“There are a lot of entrepreneurial enterprises between here and the port of Karachi that may or may not affect their pocket book on the way up here,” Eidt said. “That’s a nice way of saying that warlords are stripping them. And sometimes warlords wear uniforms.”

Private security companies also play this game. They often charge the U.S.-led NATO force here between $1,500 and $2,000 per truck to provide security to escort convoys.

A recent U.S. congressional report has called for more oversight of U.S. military contracts with private Afghan trucking and security firms. And in August, the Afghan government announced it would disband the country’s private security industry within four months in an effort to regulate the unruly sector.

But because the U.S. and Afghan security forces are so dependent on the private trucking and security companies, many see the order as unrealistic and unenforceable.

Source: http://realityzone-realityzone.blogspot.com/2010/08/in-afghanistan-supplying-us-military-is.html

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Iraq, Afghanistan, and the ghost of Vietnam

When the last US combat brigade left Iraq last week, it did so in triumph. The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled across the border into Kuwait leaving an Iraq that is relatively stable, even though many politicians and opponents of the war had called it hopeless less than four years ago. Many of the same people are similarly painting the war in Afghanistan as a lost cause today.

We should all be proud of the magnificent job that the US military has done in Iraq and Afghanistan. Units who fought in these theaters of the War on Terror include soldiers from the Georgia Army National Guard, Rangers from Hunter Army Air Field, and elements of the 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Benning. Georgia soldiers also served with units based around the country and the world.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have long been compared to the US experience in Vietnam with many warning of a quagmire as US forces engaged al Qaeda and Shiite insurgents. It is possible however, that many in this country have learned the wrong lesson from the history of the Vietnam War.

It is widely believed in some circles that it is almost impossible for a conventional force to defeat insurgents fighting a guerilla war. This view is ignorant both of world military history as well as the history of the many small wars that the US has fought around the world. The US military, especially the Marine Corps, has defeated or neutralized insurgents in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and even Vietnam. The story of these and other conflicts is detailed in Max Boot’s The Savage Wars of Peace.

Boot disputes the conventional wisdom that the US military was defeated by the Viet Cong in a guerilla war. He explains how General William Westmoreland was the wrong man for the command of the US forces in Vietnam. Westmoreland was a West Pointer who tried to fight a conventional, big unit war similar to what he experienced in WWII and Korea.

Mounting casualties led to increasing public opposition, especially after the Tet Offensive of 1968. During Tet, the VC violated an armistice to launch surprise attacks around South Vietnam. The scale of the attacks convinced many, including veteran newsman Walter Cronkite, that the insurgency was not nearly defeated, as many in the government and the military had claimed. In reality, Tat was a huge defeat for the VC. WE and ARVN counterattacks decimated VC ranks and they never recovered (Boot, p. 310).

In the wake of Tet, General Westmoreland was replaced by General Creighton Abrams. Abrams implemented a “one war” strategy that focused on “clear and hold” in a manner similar to General Piraeus’ successful strategy in Iraq. William Colby, leader of the CIA’s Phoenix Program was also instrumental in turning the war around. The Phoenix Program targeted VC cadres in South Vietnam and was responsible. The program led to the killing of 26,000 local VC as well capturing 33,000 and inducing 22,000 to defect (Boot, p. 310).

The methods of Abrams and Colby were so successful that in 1970, only two years after Tet, 90% of South Vietnam was under Saigon’s control (Boot, p. 311). Sir Richard Thompson, a counterinsurgency expert, wrote in 1970 that he was “able to visit areas and walk through villages which had been under VC control for years. There was a much greater feeling of security and people were ready to take up arms for the government because they sensed that the VC were weaker…. Existing roads are kept open, and more are being repaired and opened monthly” (Boot, p. 311).

Yet we know that the Vietnamese communists ultimately prevailed, overrunning the South and reuniting the nation under communist rule. So what happened? In a word: Congress.

Richard Nixon began a policy of Vietnamization, turning over prosecution of the war to the Vietnamese and drawing down US forces in the country. As US forces left, the North Vietnamese saw an opportunity. On March 30, 1972, the NVA launched its Easter Offensive, a conventional forces invasion of the South. Nevertheless, the ARVN forces were able to hold long enough for US airpower to inflict heavy losses on the invaders and the NVA was ultimately turned back (Boot, p. 310-311).

The strong showing led the North Vietnamese to sign the Paris Peace Treaty on January 27, 1973. This was a victory for the United States since it imposed an immediate ceasefire in addition to stipulating the withdrawal of US troops. President Nixon promised the South Vietnamese that the US would come to their aid if the North Vietnamese broke the ceasefire (http://hnn.us/articles/31400.html).

Unfortunately for the South Vietnamese, President Nixon was forced to resign in 1974. Even before that, Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment on June 19, 1973 which banned US military activity in Southeast Asia after August 15. Congress also cut aid to South Vietnam from $1.26 billion to $700 million (http://hnn.us/articles/31400.html). The North Vietnamese sensed blood in the water.

In 1975, the North Vietnamese launched a second conventional invasion of the South. This time, without American airpower or aid, the ARVNs fell back. Boot reports that the situation was so dire that the South Vietnamese troops had to reuse bandages taken from corpses (p. 310-311). With no American help forthcoming, an angry South Vietnamese President Thieu pleaded, “If [the U.S.] grant full aid we will hold the whole country, but if they only give half of it, we will only hold half of the country” (http://hnn.us/articles/31400.html). Instead, Congress granted no aid and South Vietnam fell in 55 days.

Many of the prominent Democrats who prevented the US from honoring its commitments to South Vietnam also opposed the Iraq War. These include Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.

Knowing the full story of the fall of Saigon, the lesson that we should learn is that when our enemies cannot defeat us on the battlefield, they sow dissension at home. They realize that their best chance is to exhaust the political will of the government’s civilian leaders. General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the NVA, stated “We were not strong enough to drive out a half-million American troops, but that was not our aim. Our intention was to break the will of the American Government to continue the war” (Boot, p. 316).

A very real danger is that history will repeat itself in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks in large part to the sacrifice and hard work of the US military, Iraq is now much more stable than many observers believed possible a mere four years ago. The turnaround is also due to President Bush’s troop surge and General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency strategy. Afghanistan has further to go, but variations on the same strategy could also work there given enough time. It is a testimony to the stabilizing effect of US forces, and the reality of the danger that remains, that more than half of Iraqis did not want US troops to leave yet (http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2010/08/poll-60-of-iraqis-want-us-troops-to-stay.html).

Much of the violence in Iraq was caused by Shiite militia groups supported by Iran. Iran pledged to the Iraqi government in 2007 that it would stop equipping and training these groups (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110600853.html). This pledge may have been partly to reduce the violence in Iraq and lull the US into a false sense of security, making it politically easier for the Obama Administration to withdraw US combat troops. It might also have been inspired by the possibility of uniting Iraqi Shiites into a political bloc that would elect a government friendly to Iran.

As Iran moves ever closer to developing nuclear weapons, it is possible that they will become emboldened by President Obama’s stated goal of a withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan by July 2011. A nuclear armed Iran that is faced with only token US opposition might well decide that a conventional invasion of Iraq is in their best interests. After all, Iraq is a long-time enemy that fought a decade long war with Iran in the 1980s. Perhaps more importantly, Iraq also controls significant oil reserves. Control of Iraq’s oil would make Iran exponentially more powerful on the world stage. Nuclear weapons in the Persian Gulf and conventional forces in Iraq would also threaten the vast oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

The danger for the United States is that, like the Americans of 1975, we will be tempted to wash our hands of Iraq if an Iranian invasion comes. To do so, would be a mistake of the worst order. Not only would Iranian domination of the Persian Gulf threaten our own economy, it would also threaten our allies Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, as well as the economies of the industrialized world. It would be very difficult to form a “coalition of the willing” to stave off a nuclear-armed terrorist state.

Additionally, it would further damage America’s reputation abroad if countries in which the US has invested vast amounts of men and material are allowed to fall to Iran. A fall of Baghdad and Kabul would arouse similar emotions as the famous photo of US embassy personnel being evacuated by helicopter from the roof of the Saigon embassy. It would lead our allies to question whether we can be counted upon and our enemies to sense our weakness.

Americans should make no mistake: Just because US forces are no longer in a combat role in Iraq, it does not mean that the war is over. It merely means that US troops are less likely to die in combat and that native forces are doing the lion’s share of the work. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to continue for some time as long as al Qaeda and Iran continue to oppose the elected governments and the US doesn’t cut off aid. As George Orwell once said, “the quickest way to end a war is to lose it.”

Sources:
Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace. Basic Books, New York, NY. 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110600853.html
http://hnn.us/articles/31400.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96350333
http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2010/08/poll-60-of-iraqis-want-us-troops-to-stay.html

Denver CO
August 27, 2010

Source: http://captainkudzu.blogspot.com/2010/08/iraq-afghanistan-and-ghost-of-vietnam.html

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Your War Is Next

In a world full of perceptions and point of view, there are no clear delineations of good and evil, right and wrong. Lines may be drawn for taking sides but in war, there is no winning side or losing side. We all lose. We all suffer. We all believe in what we're fighting for and we all have reasons for believing the way we do. These are just people. We're all just people. People just trying to make it day by day, the only way we know how. It's too bad the effects of war aren't more tangible in our own waking lives. Maybe we'd think more about the ultimate costs of heavy artillery in countries far, far away in which the majority of our own tax paying (and war funding) populace can't find on a map. Or maybe we'd realize the fragility of life and appreciate the simple details within.

With that said, from my own standpoint, it doesn't mean I support the Taliban or accept their ultra-conservative and often violent traditions. Anything but. Their 12th century approach to religion and culture is mindblowing. Burqas and stoning, music is forbidden, girls cannot go to school, and yet they can assimilate technology enough to fly planes into buildings... Yes, it is backwards, hypocritical, and morally wrong. But how many things in our own culture can that be said about? Disagree? Argue with me. However, regardless of how you view anyone's culture, bombing it to smithereens doesn't teach them anyone about democracy or human rights. Instead, it reinforces their hatred and their misconceptions about the 'good' side of American culture. Without education and a little bit of compassion, there is no breaching the barrier of miscommunication, distrust, and a lot of bad history. There must be a new line drawn. We either continue to play these war games of avenging the cycle of atrocities, (to which our 21st century approach is no different than our own 12th century, now just revamped with titanium and computer chips), or we stop playing these ridiculous games (anyone ever realize the irony of the card game 'War'?) and take to a new level of existence.

Everyone knows the quote about 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind' but how many of us actually believe in it? Pretty soon, we'll all just be stumbling around in the dark together, punching and screaming at each other, not realizing we just added yet another stark similarity between us. I don't know what the answer is. I know we've made promises, and we're breaking them. Seems like it's a losin' either way. We got ourselves in this mess and now we can't get out. Anyone notice the recent mile marker that this is the longest American war yet? I mean, I know the majority of us on Facebook weren't alive during Vietnam, but shit, we're going for the long haul in the Middle East and we aint even protesting anymore. No one cares so long as it doesn't interfere with our own precious pointless lives. Even with this massive federal deficit...

The DOD requires $708 billion dollars to operate in 2011. And I guess a job is a job, even when you're getting shot down and blown up. Does OSHA know about this? The Peace Corps got $400 million in 2010. The federal budget for our failing education system is $ 78 billion. The states are on their own. So how does our world work where America, the land of the free and the brave, spends more money on blowing up the world than it does fixing its own problems? Check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures Make your own conclusions. I find it odd that we can't find more constructive ways of spending tax dollars. You know, like... convincing people we're really not that bad.

I know we have schools and hospitals to rebuild in both Afghanistan and Iraq since we're the ones who tore em down. We have a new government to build (is that odd or is that just me?). We're training the new non-Taliban military. The women and children are taking back their lives. Villages of people enjoying music and dance again. But I also know we're not winning the 'war'. What does war mean anyway? There aint no front-lines anymore. There's drones and ambushes. Faceless no-name bodies, and its just another casualty of what? What are we fighting for again? Opium is at its highest level of production and usage in Afghanistan. New recruits and supplies are steadily flowing over the border from so-called allies. Bodybags with our sons and daughters are still being shipped back to our hometowns. We let the parents mourn while we send freshies back over. We throw tax money at GM to reward them for fucking up and yet we can't get decent armor shields to protect the Hummers from IEDs. We're compromising on the very things we told them we wouldn't, because it's exactly why we went to Afghanistan in the first place.

Time Magazine put out an article in mid August about what happens if we leave Afghanistan, putting the emphasis mostly on what happens to the women if we leave. Interesting article if you get a chance to read. It's one of the reasons I half-heartedly supported our efforts there when we began in 2001. I mean, you know you're going in, you try to make the best of a really bad situation. That was one of the few things. There's plenty of debate about the role of democracy and women's rights. Women and girls have made major strides in gaining freedoms otherwise never granted like girls going to school or women being seen in public. Or is that true? Does it work and how long will it last? Unfortunately, as we get distracted by other wars (Iraq? Iran? Pakistan? North Korea? Libya? Sudan? Who's next?) and (as expected) lose interest in things we started and don't want to finish, details are becoming obscured. The reasons not so clear. Read!! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-chen/emtimeem-pictures-afghan_b_669862.html Even if we stuck around to help the women out, I have to ask, are we actually doing more good than bad by being there? Can we force democracy on a people who are not ready for it yet? Certainly, can we force rather than teach? Can we make them see women as equals? Can we subject a culture to our ideals when we can't uphold them ourselves? Equality? Freedom? Democracy? I'm not sure we can say we truly value those yet either.

So with all that... I don't know what is left to be said. We're in a rut? I mean, as civilized as we'd like to call ourselves, conscious beings of religious basis (God's chosen species right?), we sure have a shit load of problems to deal with. Our egos, to say the least. With all our technological advances, our ability to communicate, all our cultures and moral doctrine, we've got the world falling in on our heads with nowhere to begin. What exactly is the root of our problems? Our very nature? America has been a world power for a couple centuries now, but it can't last unless we can change. We've simply lost focus. Maybe the change needs to come from within. Power in itself... why exactly do we need to dominate and crush? Neo-colonialism has gotten us nowhere but instability with a few wealthy folks in power. The rest of us weep and sow... It's time to stop putting things in little categories, to stop taking these ridiculous sides, to stop looking for enemies within ourselves. It's time to accept that we're all in this together on this tiny speck of nothing floating in space. This is all there is and this is all we have...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot



Source: http://conceptualperception.blogspot.com/2010/08/your-war-is-next.html

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Film Shows How Bush Admin Lies Marred Legacy of Pat Tillman

The "Tillman story," tells the struggle his family went through to learn the truth about Tillman's death and how political leaders covered-up the real story
By Rory O'Connor, MediaChannel.org
Posted on August 16, 2010

vidlink

Of the many lies George W. Bush told us about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some were larger but none worse than that told about the death of Pat Tillman.

In 2004 – just after Bush’s invasion of Iraq, ostensibly in search of those non-existent weapons of mass destruction — Tillman became a military-and media-manufactured symbol of duty, sacrifice, patriotism and heroism. But the truth about Tillman’s life is much more complex, and his death ultimately far more heroic, than the convenient, self-serving lie served up by the military and then sent out by our ever-gullible media.

Tillman, a truly remarkable young man who walked away from a multi-million dollar contract as a professional football player to enlist as in the Army Rangers after the 9/11 attacks, is the subject of The Tillman Story, a moving documentary directed by Amir Bar-Lev that opens in theatres in New York and Los Angeles this week. Although the film rightly tells the story of Pat Tillman’s remarkable life, it also focuses on a parallel Tillman story, that of the struggle his family went through to learn the truth about Tillman’s death from “friendly fire” and the ongoing cover-up of how and why our military and political leaders lied in order to exploit his heroism for propaganda purposes.

Tillman was on his second tour of duty when he was killed in Afghanistan — a victim of “fratricide,” inadvertently killed by his own troops during an ill-fated expedition. Our leaders should have told the truth — namely, that Corporal Tillman’s death was a senseless accident coupled with incompetence. Instead they lied — to all of us, but most despicably to his family – rewrote the details of his death, awarding Tillman a posthumous Silver Star, America’s third-highest military decoration, and turned the tragedy into an opportunity to promote their endless and unpopular wars.

Why did they lie? No doubt it began because at the time of Tillman’s death, in April 2004, the Bush war machine was roiled by a number of negative images that threatened to adversely affect public perception of the war in Iraq. Remember those haunting photographs and videos of the bodies of American contractors strung up in Fallujah? Can you ever forget the searing images depicting abuse by U.S. soldiers working as guards in the Abu Ghraib prison? Adding the news that American soldiers had gunned down a celebrated NFL star certainly wouldn’t help the war effort… So Pat Tillman was recast, in death, as a war hero and lesson to us all.

The Tillman Story excels in teaching us other lessons, however — not only about Corporal Pat Tillman, but also about his remarkable family, led by his indefatigable mother Dannie. It shows the arduous journey his family undertook to find the truth about what happened and to have someone held accountable not only for their son’s death but also for the added insult of its use as a propaganda tool. Handed a massive, confusing box of intelligence records — thousands of pages of documents about her son’s death – Dannie Tillman patiently dug through the voluminous material to uncover the roots of a carefully coordinated cover-up. Her efforts, along with that of Tillman’s father and other family members and friends, eventually forced a Congressional hearing into the matter. As the film dramatically demonstrates in its stunning climax, however, the ultimate fix was in… and although the many obvious lies and cover-ups can be tracked up to and even well beyond such military brass as the recently fired general Stanley McChrystal, in the end no one among the higher-ups was ever found blameworthy or even responsible for lying to the Tillman family and the nation.

In lieu of presenting a hagiography, Director Bar-Lev does an excellent job of humanizing Tillman and offering a multi-dimensional look at his actual character. Scenes with Tillman’s family as they lovingly describe his character and his close, funny and frequently profane relationship with two brothers (the film is unfortunately and unfairly burdened with an “R” rating as a result) along with testimony from family friends and fellow soldiers paint a clear portrait of who Tillman really was — warts and all. As Bar-Lev points out, Pat Tillman was no “paragon of moral certitude; he was curious and tried to see things from every possible point of view.” That impulse is what the director attempts to give back to his subject, after he had been dehumanized and exploited for political gain by America’s leaders, aided and abetted as usual by the complicit cheerleaders of the national news media.

“I hope the story of Tillman tells us that heroism and humanity are not contradictory and heroism is complex,” Bar-Lev told Documentary magazine. “‘Hero’ is a problematic word that says a lot more about the people using it than the person they’re speaking about….

“I knew there were myths around his death,” Bar-Lev added, “but what began to intrigue me was when we found out there were equally as many myths about his life.”

“Ultimately, what I would want to have happen is just the truth,” Pat’s youngest brother Richard told ESPN.com. “At the end of the day, Pat deserves the truth. This isn’t about our family. This isn’t about the Tillmans. This is about Pat Tillman. And he deserves the truth, period. He sacrificed so much for his country, and then the government turns around and uses him for propaganda. That is totally unacceptable.”

Source: http://spiderlegsworld.blogspot.com/2010/08/film-shows-how-bush-admin-lies-marred.html

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[Joke] Post office interview: This is a government job

A guy goes to the Post Office to apply for a job.
The interviewer asks him, "Are you allergic to anything?"
He replies, "Yes - coffee."
"Have you ever been in the military service?
"Yes," he says, "I was in Iraq for two years."
The interviewer says,"That will give you 5 extra points towards employment."
Then he asks,"Are you disabled in any way?"
The guy says,"Yes. A bomb exploded near me and I lost both of my testicles."
The interviewer grimaces and then says, "O.K. You've got enough points
for me to hire you right now. Our normal hours are from 8:00 A.M. To
4:00 P.M. You can start tomorrow from 10:00 A.M. every day."
The guy is puzzled and asks, "If the work hours are from 8:00 A.M. to
4:00 P.M., why do you want me to start here from 10:00 A.M.?"
"This is a government job," the inter-viewer says, "For the first two
hours, we just stand around drinking coffee and scratching our balls.
No point you coming in for that."
This is a government job

Source: http://feelgoodemails.blogspot.com/2010/08/joke-post-office-interview-this-is.html

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"Worlds Apart."

His O ness is finally making good on his promise to get us out of Iraq, and it looks like September 1, 2010 is the target date. I say it's about damn time. We shouldn't have been there in the first place. That goes for Afghanistan as well. And with each passing day we are seeing why.

"The bullet-riddled bodies — including three women — were found Friday near three four-wheeled drive vehicles in a wooded area just off the main road that snakes through a narrow valley in the Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan, provincial police chief Gen. Agha Noor Kemtuz told The Associated Press.

One of the dead Americans had spent about 30 years in Afghanistan, rearing three daughters and surviving both the Soviet invasion and bloody civil war of the 1990s that destroyed much of Kabul.

'Spying for Americans'
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told the AP that they killed the foreigners because they were "spying for the Americans" and "preaching Christianity." In a Pashto language statement acquired by the AP, the Taliban also said the team was carrying Dari language bibles and "spying gadgets."

I heard a man I respect immensely say something to this effect on CNN, and it's true: The Taliban share the same ethnicity of the Pashtun Tribe, which represents half of the population of Afghanistan. And, apparently, their "influence extends far beyond the Pashtun heartland" in Afghanistan. They are never going to cooperate with us on a nation building mission, so if we are not there to bomb the place into oblivion (I am not saying that we should) then why are we there? What, exactly, is our vital interest in Afghanistan? To go after al-Qaeda? To catch OBL? To put a clamp on the world's heroin trade? What? It's a rhetorical question, because I know that none of the above makes any damn sense. OBL is either dead or in Pakistan. There is more al Qaeda in other Middle Eastern countries and places like Somalia than Afghanistan, and the president and his damn brother controls half of the drug trade in that country. So who are we kidding with this war?

Finally, these border states are going to have to do something about the killings of innocent law abiding citizens by folks who come into this country without proper documentation. This is what drove those poor people in Arizona to pass those seemingly draconian laws against immigrants. I mean we just cant let this type of thing continue to go on.

"Two men who escaped from a private Arizona prison and a woman thought to have helped them have been linked to the investigation of a couple's killing in New Mexico, authorities said Saturday.

New Mexico State Police spokesman Peter Olson said Tracy Province, John McCluskey and Casslyn Welch were linked through forensics but he declined to provide specifics.

He declined to say whether police believe the three were responsible for the killings, adding that "we don't know how involved they are."

Province, McCluskey and Daniel Renwick escaped from the medium-security Arizona State Prison near Kingman on July 30 after authorities say 44-year-old Casslyn Welch of Mesa threw wire cutters over the perimeter fence. Renwick was arrested in Colorado on Aug. 1.

The badly burned skeletal remains of Linda and Gary Haas, both 61, of Tecumseh, Okla., were found in a charred camper on Wednesday morning on a remote ranch in Santa Rosa in eastern New Mexico. " [Article]

Wait, did they say they are looking for two guys named McCluskey and Renwick? Well I will be damned! I was looking for names like Gonzalez and Rodriquez. Oh well, I am sure that this is just a case of reverse racial profiling. Sorry folks, nothing to seed here, move right along.

Source: http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2010/08/worlds-apart.html

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Beltway liberalism in 24 words

"From a Keynesian standpoint, I believe that with the economy depressed it’s better to spend the money in Afghanistan than not to spend it."

-- Matt Yglesias, Center for American Progress

The above excerpt comes from a post noting the inconsistency of self-styled deficit hawks complaining about the relative pittance spent on social programs and its contribution to the national debt even as they vote in lockstep to drop another $37 billion on a failing nation-building exercise in Afghanistan. And as far as the point goes, it's a good one: there has long been a glaringly obvious inconsistency in conservatives railing against totalitarian "Big Government" while pledging undying allegiance to growing a military-industrial complex that sucks away more and more of their tax money while helping chisel away at the remainder of their civil liberties.

But there's something wrong -- something sick, really -- with Ygelsias' war-as-stimulus argument that strikes me as far more offensive than the fact that some fiscal conservatives are hypocrites when it comes to the National Security State. If you believe the war in Afghanistan is vital to protecting America, well, go ahead and make your case. Explain why pushing the couple dozen or so members of al-Qaeda allegedly still in the country over to Pakistan, while creating new enemies with each errant air strike, actually makes us safer.

What you shouldn't do in a debate over war, at least if you want to maintain your status as a Non-Despicable Person, is argue that bombing and occupying a foreign nation makes good economic sense. Even if it were true as an academic point, it's grotesquely out of place in a discussion of matters of life and death. War, if it can ever be justified -- and I have my doubts -- can only be so on the grounds that it is absolutely necessary to protecting human life: there is no other choice, it's a last resort. Yet Yglesias discusses the continuation of a major, bloody armed conflict as if it were just another jobs program; perhaps not the most effective one to his mind, but hey, it's better that the federal government spend money on a pointless war than do nothing at all (like actually save money by ending said pointless war). Read the line again: "I believe that with the economy depressed it’s better to spend the money in Afghanistan than not to spend it." Sorry, but someone truly familiar with all the horrors of war, someone who could actually empathize with an Afghan mother or father losing their child to an American smart bomb -- or a child watching their parents die in a botched night raid by U.S. marines -- could never write that.

On Twitter I brashly argued that Yglesias' statement demonstrated that he was in fact a "truly awful human being" -- an assertion I regret because I don't actually think Matt Yglesias is"awful" in the sense that he would, say, shoot an Afghan child in the head if he thought it'd boost U.S. Treasury bonds. As I've argued before, Yglesias and other war supporters likely wouldn't dare countenance violence in their personal lives, and are probably perfectly nice people who spend their weekends doing perfectly normal, nice people things. And these very people who wouldn't think of kicking a dog much less killing a person are capable of cooly endorsing monstrously awful actions overseas, the distance -- and their safety behind a MacBook screen in a DC think tank -- removing them from the ugly reality of the killing be carried out in their name. War to the Beltway wonk essentially becomes just another intellectual exercise, something to be endlessly debated, a game of dueling white papers and comment threads, and not so much a matter of life and death, of newlyweds killed and children's limbs blown off by some guy pulling a 9-to-5 in a Nevada control room. No, wars and the merits of launching new ones become something you debate on BloggingHeads.TV before getting drunk at the local hipster bar's trivia night.

Yet despite the self-evident horribleness of defending war spending on the basis that not spending the money on a military occupation would harm your 401k, Yglesias acted surprised anyone could be offended by his post when challenged on it. "Is Paul Krugman also awful for raising this point," he asked me, "or is economic illiteracy necessary for goodness?"

But of course the issue isn't who knows more about economics. The issue is the fact that economics is irrelevant to the question of whether the U.S. ought to be in Afghanistan, and that it is deeply disturbing to frame a war supplemental as if it were a less-than-ideal second stimulus package -- and to bolster your argument by pointing to the fact that the illegal Iraq war, too, was ultimately good for your bank account. Invading Norway might stimulate certain sectors of the economy and perhaps even bring the unemployment rate comfortably below double-digits for a time, but does anyone outside of a Weekly Standard editorial meeting think that's a morally defensible argument for dropping some bombs?

In a back-and-forth debate on Twitter, though, Yglesias stuck to his argument. "I think you don't understand how stimulus works. See the Krugman item," he told me, adding that he didn't see why "a factual dispute make[s] me 'immoral.'"

The Krugman item, as it happens, doesn't really help Yglesias' case as much he thinks. Yes the esteemed Nobel Laureate argues that "war is, in general, expansionary for the economy," but he's not so cynical as to argue that countries should therefore prolong military quagmires to promote such an expansion, which is Yglesias' implicit argument. And there is still a major flaw in Krugman's analysis: he doesn't even begin to consider the potential downsides to creating entrenched economic interests whose well-being depends on there being a perpetual state of war, nor the economic impact on the people in Iraq and elsewhere who are being bombed. We are all cosmopolitans now, right? So if we're going to weigh the economic impacts of war, one would think a good liberal would not be so parochial as to focus just on one party -- their party -- in a conflict.

It's also unclear to me how spending loads of money on missiles and Predator drones actually benefits society as a whole, rather than just a select few politically connected military contractors; sure, it might boost GDP temporarily, but only because the government is borrowing money from China -- itself an act of dubious morality given the Chinese government's human rights record -- to build a bunch of weapons that serve no purpose other than killing people. So I sound like Cindy Sheehan: it's true.

As for the confusion as to how taking one side in a "factual dispute" could make someone "immoral", well, again: I don't consider it so much a dispute over facts because my fundamental criticism is not that Yglesias is wrong that spending another $37 billion on the war in Afghanistan will benefit the U.S. economy, but that it doesn't matter, and that by acting as if it does he is displaying a rather unfortunate and ugly nationalistic bias. True or not, I don't see why anyone with a functioning conscience should care if the Afghan war boosts consumer demand for iPhones and DVD players at home, and it's frankly a bit disconcerting that he can't understand why some would consider his an immoral (amoral?) line of argument. All this doesn't make Yglesias an awful person, per se, but it does certainly demonstrate an awful callousness on his part toward those who will undoubtedly die as a result of his and George Bush's brand of economic stimulus.

(h/t toombzie)

UPDATE: IOZ weighs in.

Source: http://charliedavis.blogspot.com/2010/07/beltway-liberalism-in-24-words.html

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