Taliban's Got Spokesmen

Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet,
Machine gun ready to go
Are you ready, hey are you ready for this?
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat? 
--Another One Bites the Dust, 
Queen

 So when you hear it thunder
Don't run under a tree
There'll be pennies from Heaven
For you and me 
--Pennies From Heaven, 
Bing Crosby
 __________________

When another one bites the dust, the happy-yippy media cues up applause. So when the United States vaporized Pakistani Taliban head honcho Hakimullah Mehsud last November, the audience's neon sign lit up predictably.

But the Pakistan Taliban -- like all such groups -- self-generates, and every slot can be filled by another, one-each.  As we at RAW have written before (when "taking out" the No. Two's was big deal), if the 7th "No. Two" is taken out there will be an 8th.

The media crowed that the latest leader is the hardest of the hard, Mullah Fazlullah. Feh -- just another day at the office, but there is meaning here for U.S. taxpayers.

Fazlullah is reported to be supported by Afghan intelligence, noteworthy since Afghan intel is a creature of 12 years of support provided to Afghan National Forces. Afghan intel is supporting Pakistan Taliban in order to punish Pakistan for supporting the Afghan Taliban. (Sounds like a line from a Gilbert and Sullivan Opera.)  So U.S. monies are now supporting the Taliban, which is in turn trying to destabilize Pakistani interests.

Get that? Simply put, the Taliban flourishes in theatre with the support of U.S. tax dollars. -- the same guys who used to be the bad dudes. (What, no applause?)

The Pakistani Taliban's spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, has recently announced a month-long ceasefire of the affiliated groups (theTehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or "TTP") aimed at reviving stalled peace talks with the Pakistani government, and to coerce them into accepting conservative religious sharia law. So even the Taliban is ingratiating itself into governmental tactics by offering to stop breaking the law in order to twist the arm of the reigning rulers to do what it wants. The statement released by spokesman Shahid said the groups should "restrain themselves from all kinds of [fun] jihadist activities," like killing polio team workers.

However, the New York Times reports, "The announcement of the truce came just hours after two bombings killed 13 people and wounded 10 in an attack on a polio vaccination team in the northwestern Khyber region." We at RAW do not think it is because they are anti-vaxxers who got word on Jenny McCarthy's anti-mercury-in-vaccines crusade.

But beyond the local Taliban wars, does it even matter that U.S. policy destroyed Saddam or Qaddafi? Where is the progress in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria? Are the new regimes better than those deposed with U.S. tax dollars? Were those tax dollars well-spent?

An old military axiom is to never mistake motion for progress nor to move laterally under effective enemy fire, yet that comprises the entirety of the Phony War On Terror (PWOT ©). Afghan President Karzai recently called the war for what it was, an exercise for 'Western interest', and gave his version of The Romantics' "Goodbye to You" in a recent WaPo interview:

"To the American people, give them my best wishes and my gratitude. To the U.S. government, give them my anger, my extreme anger."

So, whence the progress for the hapless taxpayer, who was told he would become a safer Plebe if the Taliban could be combated?

Worst Case Planning

"Relax," said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive,
You can check out anytime you like... 
but you can never leave" 
--Hotel California, The Eagles 

Think where man’s glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends 
--The Municipal Gallery Revisited, 
W. B. Yeats 

______________________

The recent murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other diplomats along with the release of Mark Bissonnette's book No Easy Day prompt further thoughts:

The Special Forces Son Tay raid was an Act of War into a hostile nation to retrieve United States Prisoners of War.   It was a high-risk operation, just as was the SEAL team assassination party's incursion in Abbottabad, Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden.  The difference is, Pakistan is an ostensible ally, and allies do not invade other allies; the idea is, a nation runs hostile operations in hostile countries.

If Son Tay had failed, the U.S. could accept that fact and the resultant loss of friendly lives, but what would a botched job have done to America in the case of the OBL raid? Could we have accepted a Black Hawk Down scenario, in which U.S. dead would be dragged through the streets of a friendly nation in hideous glee?

Would the U.S. have fought any Pakistani troops sent to establish Pakistan's control of their sovereign territory?  Did anyone wargame these questions?  Were the risks worth the payoff?  Was the killing of OBL worth taking these risks?

Since the inception of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) the military logic of operations has consistently been composed of pie-in-the-sky planning and ignoring worst-case scenarios.  

What strategic value attended this operation?  If the intel was as good as Bissonnette's book suggests, why not just JDAM the target area?  If indeed killing was the object, why not simply put a precision target on the compound?

Maybe the fix was in, and the Pakistanis had been read into the scenario and had agreed to avoid and contact with U.S. troops, but this seems unlikely. If this were true, then they are a duplicitous bunch of opportunists sans straight-talk or straight-dealing. Whatever the situation, the operation lacked any semblance of military logic.

These thoughts pose further questions, "What is 'hostile'?"  Are Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan allies or even friendly, or are the hostile to the U.S.?  How does the U.S. treat enemies, and how, friends?  Can we even distinguish the difference these days?

It is hardly credible that Iraq and Afghanistan are friendly to the U.S.  It is readily believable that they will suck every dollar that we will throw their way, but they will never love or befriend us, and to believe so is delusional.

[cross-posted @ milpub]

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Pt. II

 Two shots in the heart, one in the mind
--T-shirt sold at a gun show

 Johnny's in America
Johnny wants a brain
Johnny wants to suck on a Coke
Johnny wants a woman 
--I'm Afraid of Americans, 
David Bowie
 __________________________

Former SEAL Mark Bissonnette's "No Good Day" recounted the assassination of Osama bin Laden, and though trying to serve as patriotic doggerel instead reveals the sham that is the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

Instead of having America's finest assassinate an ailing terrorist has-been by breaching his compound, why not find out where he was having his weekly dialysis performed -- would not that be a better place to conduct an operation?  What other possible scenarios could have occurred?  Bissonnette writes of the ever-re-converted modular structure in which they trained, but there is no talk of training OUTSIDE of the box.

Of course, that would not be Bissonnette's call, but his higher ups, and one must wonder why such an anti-climactic denouement with such apparent contradiction was executed.  However, this quality should come as no surprise when one of the founding theatrics of the PWOT © -- the all-services "rescue" of Jessica Lynch -- was revealed for the sham it was.

Further, was it necessary to kill bin Laden?  Was he still an operational threat, or just a symbolic target of revenge?  If the latter, then the United States is using terror to combat terror, a never-ending Mobius strip of murder.

If the PWOT is about winning hearts and minds, how do we justify assassination? If the operation was so vital to our national security, then why is the helmet cam footage not being released?  Surely we the citizens have the right to see our tax dollars at work killing folks and alienating Islamic hearts and minds.

It has not been explained how the U.S. has the right to violate the sovereignty of the borders of the  nation of Pakistan.  Would we Americans welcome United Nations black helicopters invading our borders?

The U.S. romps and stomps like a bull in a China shop, acting as though the entire world -- or even just U.S. taxpayers -- buys into the Special Operations view of the world, which is that they may kill at will.

I Spy

--High-tech British explosive, ca. 1942
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

I think the people have gotten dumber

Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D)

We can teach these barbarians a lesson

in Western methods and efficiency

that will put them to shame

--The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

___________________

Ranger will now be the fly in the punchbowl.

A recent cheery announcement says "Spy Planes Cut Roadside Bomb Deaths":

"Spy planes that capture images of insurgents carrying explosives from Pakistan and sensors that detect wires that trigger the bombs have helped to mitigate the No. 1 threat to U.S. troops in Afghanistan -- roadside bombs -- over the past year.

"The Pentagon has filled the skies over Afghanistan with high-tech sensors, and the effect has been measurable. ..."

When bombers are using wires to detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs), this indicates a low level of sophistication. If they were using advanced techniques they would be using detonators WITHOUT wires. Further, this indicates the ISI is probably not supplying the bomb makers as we would see an elevated level of sophistication.

The U.S. is wasting precious time and money on sophisticated 21st century devices tracking pre-technological improvised explosive devices using cord, often not even worthy of the word "bomb". How smart -- or necessary -- is that?

The article describes insurgents stuck somewhere in a World War II movie, like Bridge On the River Kwai. Moreover, how is the denial of insurgent bomb makers in the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan making us here in The Homeland any safer? When was the last roadside IED detonated here in the United States?

What exactly are the soldiers doing whom the drones are protecting in Afghanistan? The threat to Afghanistan by insurgents is not the same as the threat to the U.S. by radical Islamic terror groups like al-Qaeda.

Until we realize this glitch in our military raison d'etre, we will continue to roam the earth seeking wires in the sand.

Stand Your Ground

Atlas regrets that you are on its 'must die' list
and hopes that you will continue to use our products
should you survive this encounter
--Borderlands
_________________

A moral dilemma:

If George Zimmerman is to be tried for 2nd degree murder, then what would be the correct charge for a drone-wielding joystick jockey who remotely kills an innocent person with a sophisticated Hellfire missile?


Mitigating factors:

No imminent harm was posed by the person killed, and the joy stick killer has pre-planning and intent, which qualifies his action as 1st degree murder.

One crop which the Reapers are sure to sow is hatred (Hatred: What Drones Sow). Jefferson Morely reports today in Salon:

The metrics are dismal. The advent of the drone war in Yemen has coincided with the growth of al-Qaida there. When the Obama administration began the strikes in December 2009, al-Qaida had 200-300 members and controlled no territory. Now White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan tells a group of New York cops that it has “more than 1,000″ members.

We should consider how well this crop will feed our nation's future.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

His welfare is of my concern
No burden is he to bear
We'll get there
--He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother,
The Hollies

Presidents don't have power,
their purpose is to draw attention
away from it
--Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
Douglas Adams

I'm so glad we had this time together,
just to share a laugh and sing a song
Seems we just get started
and before you know it
Comes the time we have to say
so long
--Carol Burnett Theme
____________________

The brothers are tight. If push comes to shove, Afghan President Karzai is ready to give his U.S. partners the old heave-ho.

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has said he would side with Pakistan in the event of war with the US in a surprising political twist that is likely to disconcert his western allies.

"If there is war between Pakistan and America, we will stand by Pakistan," Karzai said in a television interview. He put his hand on his heart and described Pakistan as a "brother" country.

The Guardian article quotes Karzai in a Geo television interview following his last visit with Ms. Clinton in which he said, "Afghans 'will never betray their brother'." The New York Times said Karzai's stance would "mystify his Western backers"; another called his statements "baffling".

However, Karzai's words are neither baffling nor mystifying. Brother as used by Karzai is not simply a phrase of regional fellowship -- Karzai is speaking of the Islamic Brotherhood, which will trump and outlast any gringo undertaking. He'll take the roads and money, though.

Blood is thicker than water. Partnerships are lovely in their salad days, but given a few thickets, most are ready to step off for greener pastures. Partners remain so as long as there are mutually beneficial interests (unless legalization enters into it, with treaties or marriage.) But brothers? Well, they are always there.

The palletized bundles of bills were nice, thanks, but we are getting down to the nitty gritty as Secretary of State tough grrrl Hillary Clinton presses Islamabad to ferret out the Haqqani network in the once-and-forever "lawless region of Waziristan".

But her bravado is for naught, as the Haqqanis are a design feature of a lawless region, and Karzai undercut her in the television interview less than a day after her departure:

"[Karzai] said Afghanistan owed Pakistan a great debt for sheltering millions of refugees over the past three decades, and stressed that his foreign policy would not be dictated by any outside power.

"'Anybody that attacks Pakistan, Afghanistan will stand with Pakistan,' he said. 'Afghanistan will never betray their brother.'"

So that's the long and short of it. One of the supreme ironies is the ironclad conviction of the neoconservatives that kitting them out with the trappings of American democracy will win them over to our side. Even Donald Rumsfeld said that America "had no dog in the Afghan fight" and should avoid nation-building after a punitive raid, he of messy democracy fame. He knew, that sly master of the abstruse koan (Vanity, Machismo and Greed Have Blinded Us.

Turns out they are just like us (or them), and they will cleave to their doctrinal brethren, come hell or high water, despite the booty.

The King is Dead; Long Live the King

Black velvet and that little boy smile
Black velvet with that slow southern style
A new religion that'll bring you to your knees
Black velvet if you please
--Black Velvet, Alannah Myles

The only correct actions are those
that demand no explanation and no apology
--Red Auerbach

You do not wake up one morning a bad person.
It happens by a thousand tiny surrenders
of self-respect to self-interest
--Robert Brault
_____________________

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Elvis has left the building

Osama bin Laden is still dead, but not forgotten.

Take the Haqqani net, one-time U.S. ally against the Soviet Union, now BFF (kinda) with Afghanistan and the Taliban against the new invaders, the U.S. Still crazy after all these years and still conducting significant operations signifying their position as top warlords.

President Obama et. al are loathe to call the Haqqani's terrorists, preferring the kinder and gentler islamist, militarist and anti-goverment fighter. The Haqqanis are also hit men, war profiteers (cheek by jowl along with the U.S. contractors), pirates and a protection racket. Considering the robust entrenchment of the Haqqanis, one must arrive at the following:

• -- The PWOT is NOT Counterinsurgency

• -- The PWOT IS a civil war

• -- There is never a shortage of volunteers for combat duty in Afghanistan

The Haqqani network has been trained in Madrassas in Afghanistan and (primarily) Pakistan for at least 35 years. This means that old grads are now the fathers and possibly grandfathers of the youngest inductees. These members don't even need a G.I. Bill to motivate them, for their ardor arises from the project of ejecting the colonialists and establishing strict Muslim law.

Accepting the three points above, what benefit then killing OBL? Did killing Jesus put a stop to the new religion of Christianity? Killing bad men may be what good men believe to be good, but that moral issue should not be the barometer of the success of U.S. military actions.

Taliban

You have only those rights
you're willing to enforce
--Jean Luc Piccard

Afghanistan is not only the mirror of the Afghans:
it is the mirror of the world.
"If you do not like the image in the mirror,
do not break the mirror, break your face,"
says an old Persian proverb
--Taliban, Ahmed Rashid

“You always said about them,
‘best friend, worst enemy’ ”
--U.S. intel agent
____________________

[Today's entry is Pt. II to, "Shoot the Enemy"]

Christopher Hitchens stated the obvious today, "Pakistan is the Enemy", and so comes the second read Ranger will suggest in understanding the backfield story to Afghanistan, --Ahmed Rashid's "Taliban -- Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia" (YUP, 2000).

Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, gives a scholarly deconstruction of the Taliban in three parts: The history of the Taliban; Islam and the Taliban and The New Great Game. The issue is complex and this is not a book for summary; it should be digested slowly in order for the parts to fall into place.

Studying the Taliban is like exploring the fault lines of a tectonic plate dividing the fringes of the differing civilizations of the Central Asian area, with a shift in one area felt hundreds of miles away. Likewise, the shifts caused by the U.S. interventions are affecting the solidity of life within the U.S. borders. The earth is shifting beneath our feet as our foreign policies add pressure to our own deep fault lines.

The violent kingmakers of the Haqqani tribe -- the "Sopranos of Afghanistan" -- are closely allied with Pakistan's ISI and the Taliban ("Brutal Haqqani Crime Clan Bedevils U.S. in Afghanistan"). Taliban leader Mohammed Mullah Omar stated recently he has no interest in a monopolization of power. These groups reject the imposition of a western concept of centralized government. Q.E.D.

The present war is just as much about us as it is about them.

Flippin' Nuts

The quickest way of ending a war
is to lose it
-George Orwell

The deception with tact
Just what are you trying to say
You've got a blank face, which irritates
Communicate, pull out your party piece
--One Thing Leads to Another,
The Fixx

Oh, this is the night,
and the heavens are right!
On this lovely bella notte!
--Bella Note, Lady and the Tramp
____________________

When ISAF commander General John Allen recently spoke of "flipping the Taliban", he sounded as hopeful as a Florida real estate agent in 2011 pimping distressed properties at their 2008 bloat. Somehow, the glee or logic of his concept escapes us.

Gen. Allen is referring to his ordering of a surge to convince fighters in the Southern Afghanistan Pashtun - Taliban nexus to hang up the fight and return to their pacific village life, ahem (U.S. Seizes Moment to Try to "Flip" Taliban). Allen aims to "quickly capitalize on plunging morale among insurgents in southern Afghanistan, once the backbone of the Taliban movement, and to lure militants back to their homes with jobs and other incentives."

"Now is the moment," Allen said in an interview from Kabul.

If you believe that Afghani fighters wish to abdicate what they do best because they are feeling a little abandoned, I have some property in the armpit of North Florida which floods every rainy season and we'll call it "waterfront"

The Pashtuns have a constant supply of recruits from Pakistan willing to conduct border crossings to volunteer for combat duty with the Taliban (a fact which Ahmed Rashid [et. al.] confirms in his seminal study, "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2001)"), so how would flipping a few thousand low-level fighters have any tactical or strategic significance? Their replacements are standing in the door.

In Afghanistan, nearly 2,400 former fighters have gone through a reintegration program, and 3,000 more are waiting to do so. The program provides former militants with training and jobs to ease their reintegration into society.

Reintegration hasn't led to a groundswell of fighters switching sides yet, said Jeffrey Dressler, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. He said militants remain wary of whether the Afghan government and coalition can protect them if they switch sides, and they are unsure that the government can defeat the Taliban, which has killed some fighters who have switched sides.

Additionally, not all insurgents are Taliban. Some are Communist, some nationalists, monarchist, anti-colonialist, Islamist, and some just plain old garden variety dead-enders. Let us not forget the drug lords and associated criminal mafias.

Are our leaders delusional or just ignorant of the geopolitical facts of this conflict?

None of this black-and-white. The Taliban can't be flipped like McDonald's burgers or pole barns on 2008 price-bloated Florida sandbars.

--Jim & Lisa

Red Queen Metrics

--The Quagmire Game,
Parker, Florida Today

So the red queen is our baby.
Well, take a look at this, kid...
--Manchurian Cndidate (1962)
________________

Joe Wilson should have posed the interrogative, "Is Obama telling the truth?", and how does one discern the truth in our runaway fantasy "wars of necessity."

Foreign Policy published the Obama administration's draft metrics for Afghanistan and Pakistan in its, "Evaluating Progress in Afghanistan-Pakistan." Obama's New Strategy involves, 'metrics," which implies observable, measurable facts will quantify the reality, thereby facilitating policy adjustments. Whatever that means.

Rather than a quantification in the name of taming the beast, why not a complete reappraisal of the logic that gave birth to the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©)? The war is based on a corruption of logic and reality-based thinking. We are sold wars based upon emotionalism versus cold facts. You are a traitor is you don't hop aboard the war train.

While it is a fact that al Qaeda -- or loosely federated groups of Islamic terrorists -- is a threat to the U.S., at what level? How many operatives act out of AFPAK? Do they have the sophistication to export their activities to CONUS? Can somebody please give us these metrics? Terrorism against AFPAK, Israel or Europe is not the responsibility of the U.S. taxpayers, lawmakers or warfighters. Any threat from al Qaeda does not justify the U.S. war in AFPAK, nor does expanding these operations increase our security.

From Foreign Policy: "President Obama said 'going forward, we will not blindly stay the course. Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable.'"

What follows is a bunch of gobbledegook.

Agreed Metrics: The supporting objectives of the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy form the framework for evaluating progress. The indicators within each of the objectives represent a mix of quantitative and qualitative measures, intended to capture objective and subjective assessments.

It is presumptive to presume that there is any progress in the region. The only realistic metric is the loss of U.S. life and resources in theatre. When indicators are analyzed using "subjective assessments," then we are playing wishful thinking games based upon what stooge is writing the reports.

The report writers have vested interests in presenting best possible spin. They are using a "common start point" of July 17, 2009, based on a previous ODNI assessment, but a complete mission analysis should be performed concerning the necessity of these wars. Why -- not, "How?" -- should be the key question.

As a check and balance on the interagency, a separate assessment will also be produced by a Red Team, led by the National Intelligence Council [NIC].

The NIC check is simply a preaching-to-the-choir exercise. For eight years this nation has been flushing lives and money down the toilet, and our intelligence agencies are down with that.

Objective 1. Disrupt terrorist networks in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan to degrade any ability they have to plan and launch international terrorist attacks.

This objective is too broad and unquantifiable. U.S. policy cannot be so expansive, nor can we defend the world; nor should we want to. The U.S. goal should be to disrupt potential attacks against U.S. targets.

Development of an enduring, strategic partnership between the U.S. and Pakistan.

Why is this the center of U.S. foreign policy? Does the existence of al Qaeda dictate U.S. geopolitical actions? If so, we are being played like a fiddle. AFPAK is not the key issue facing the U.S., yet we pretend it is. Why?

Metrics:

1. Effectiveness of Pakistani civilian, intelligence and military in conducting counterinsurgency operations across the clear-hold-build phases to defeat insurgent groups
2. Level of militant-initiated violence
3. Extent of militant-controlled areas in Pakistan
4. Effectiveness of Pakistani border security efforts

Why is this a U.S. concern, and exactly what trust and confidence are we discussing? How does this further U.S. security objectives? If Pakistan does not have the trust and confidence of its citizenry, that is not a U.S. concern. The question is: Does the U.S. have the trusts and confidence of the American public?

U.S. actions will not alter the dynamics of AFPAK realities. To believe otherwise is an illusion. Our cultural realities do not dovetail.

"Demonstrable action by government against corruption, resulting in increased trust and confidence of the Pakistani public" -- If Pakistan has not achieved these metrics to date, why does the U.S. think it can change their internal dynamics?

1. Effectiveness of security, governance, and development assistance
2. Support from allies, international organizations, and other key players, including China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and UAE

We reckon that our New Policy doesn't much care about India, the subcontinent.
"Coordination of international efforts by the U.N." -- How will the U.S. achieve this coordination if they have not done so to date?

"Pakistani policies and resources committed to maintaining international support" -- Isn't this a Pakistani responsibility? When was the U.S. President designated coordinator of AFPAK nations?

"Objective 3a. Defeat the extremist insurgency" -- we have become extreme in our rhetoric: Aren't all insurgencies extremist?

Get this administration a copywriter, lest they become confused with the Bush debacle.

Words and Phrases

I been talkin' to playwriters
I been workin' on words, phrases
--Running Back to Saskatoon,
The Guess Who
________________

A phrase Ranger finds amusing in an AP analysis on Afghanistan (Obama Scrambles Against Militant Threat):

"Pakistan's army finally opened a belated offensive against the advance of extremist Taliban fighters"

Are there moderate Taliban fighters? If so, are we o.k. with that?

Death Dividends

,

We can find meaning and reward by serving
some purpose higher than ourselves—
a shining purpose,
the illumination of a thousand points of light
--George H. W. Bush,
State of the Union Address (1991)

Let us tend to our garden
--Candide, Voltaire

Dilli Doorsth (Dehli is a long way off)
--Sufi saint Nizam-ud-din Auliya to his followers,
assuring them that though impending attackers
had the will, they had not the means

If we're here to "help others,"
what are the others here for?
________________

The Serve America Act which just passed in the House would triple the current number of positions in the AmeriCorps volunteer program, adding 175,00 new participants. The cost will be $5 Billion, and the Senate votes on it next week (Hatch-Kennedy Service Bill Clears House.)

Of the act President Obama said, "If you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to your community or serve your country,we will make sure you can afford a higher education."

AmeriCorps partcipants are paid a weekly living stipend equal to that of the members in their service community. Generally, this amounts to a year living at or below the poverty level, and is similar to a Peace Corps assignment in this way. Occasionally, barracks housing is provided, and members may avail themselves of community health clinics for health care needs.

Following the completion of a year of 40-hour/week service, the volunteer is awarded a $4,725 voucher to be applied to college tuition (within seven years of separation from AmeriCorps.) This amount is prorated for part-time work.

Those volunteers in Americorps/VISTA who do not wish to attend college will instead receive the equivalent of $100/month for each month of service. However, this option is not available to non-VISTA Americorps workers (Americorps.org).

Despite Obama's assurance, $4,725 will not cover a year of college costs in most places. The program itself is a noble one, but was gutted under George Bush's tenure, and some Republicans argued that a "volunteer" program should not be paying any funds at all to the participants. At least funding may be returned to the program to get it back on its footing in the Clinton administration.

But back to the funds, or lack thereof.

While both parties now generally support the bill, the problem is funding. When the money is for killing, emergency funding bills sail through Congress. Money for warfare is always somewhere to be found, but social programs always go begging.

On the same day, papers reported:

"A missile fired by a U.S. drone killed at least four people late Sunday at the house of a militant commander in northwest Pakistan, the latest use of what intelligence officials have called their most effective weapon against Al Qaeda (Drones: The Weapons of Choice in Fighting al Qaeda.)

The U.S. killed people at the home of a "militant commander," he without any proven ties to al-Qaeda. Yet in the same sentence, we are told these drones and missiles are our "most effective weapon against Al Qaeda." One does not follow the other in this case, but the weasel words "terrorist" or "al-Qaeda" must always be dropped into a sentence to justify U.S.-imposed casualties.

We know how to kill them at millions of dollars a pop, yet their link to international terrorism is questionable at best. We are using million dollar missiles to kill the human equivalent of a coyote.

"U.S. Air Force officials acknowledge that more than a third of their unmanned Predator spy planes — which are 27 feet long, powered by a high-performance snowmobile engine, and cost $4.5 million apiece — have crashed, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan."

". . .13 of the 70 Predator crashes have occurred over the last 18 months."

One third of the birds are lost, at $4.5 million each. This seems a low-ball estimate, but Ranger will accept the figure on faith. 70 x $4.5 Million = $315 Million.

The exact cost of the missiles is unknown to Ranger, so $1 Million will be my SWAG guesstimate. Add on the 244 times these Air Forces critters fired in Iraq and Afghanistan and you come up with an additional $244 Million. (These figure exclude CIA-funded missiles and Predator losses in Pakistan.)

Adding it up, you get $569 Million -- that's right folks, over half of the way to a year of funding for over 260,000 volunteers to help patch up America.

There ain't anything in Iraq or Afghanistan worth a plugged nickel. Let us rearrange our priorities and spend money to help Americans help other Americans, paid for by American taxes. Now that would be something Made in America.

Instead,

And as the Obama administration prepares its first budget, officials say they plan to free up more money for simpler systems like drones that can pay dividends now..."

Uhhh, does anyone actually believe that weapons systems which kill people by remote-control "pay dividends"? Dividends are about money, not killing. Nobody asks what goes undone and who goes wanting, that might actually pay dividends if attended to.

The article indicates the fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan is intensifying, and of course it is. However, it is the provocation of the U.S. sending more fighters into the fray that causes this intensification.

A nation must prioritize its energies in order to survive economically and militarily. It must ask how and why killing people is in the service of the nation's better interests. The current crop of video game weapons are dealing death at an extravagant cost.

The military tech sites say "Wow", but we ask, "Why"?

the Jig is Up

The U.S. had never lost a war, but now men padding around
in black pajamas and flip-flops fashioned from discarded tires
gave every appearance of battling the mightiest military on earth
to a stalemate
--Still Reeling After All These Years, Bob Herbert

What has defeated America in Iraq , apart from the failure of the
state and its own incompetence, are a bunch of radicals
with nothing more sophisticated than reengineered artillery shells
and RPG's.That is a loss of cataclysmic proportions
--Planning For Defeat, Toby Dodge
___________

Mike Luckovich rendered the above question in 2005, when the U.S. death toll stood at 2,000. Double that for your New Year toll.

So what was 2007 all about, and what does 2008 bode for America and its taxpayers? If there is one outstanding fact, it is that America is no longer calling the shots, despite George Bush's bravado about invincibility.

We may believe BushCheney's, Rice's and Gates' fantasies about progress, but Bhutto's assassination and the attendant disarray indicate the entire Afghanistan/Iraq/Pakistan arena is tenuous, at best.

Pakistan is a keystone in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT©), yet one assassination has rocked it harder than a U2 concert. A trip down memory lane is in order.

How did the U.S. even get embroiled in this implacable region? Terrorism? No, try the U.S.S.R.'s invasion of Afghanistan. In our world where the media is the message, moviegoers are watching Charlie Wilson's War and feeling good about the thing.

You've got lovable, mediocre Everyman Hanks playing the Good Ole' Boy senator trying to do right by his country, in a movie pretending that the U.S. government did not totally support the mujahadeen fighting the Soviet Union. But this was good, since the U.S. opposed Soviet aggression.

Unfortunately, today's al-Qaida operatives find their genesis in those seminal groups sponsored and funded by CIA American tax dollars. Those Islamists were animated and empowered courtesy the U.S.A., and they learned they could face Western combat power.

Today, their scions are fighting the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, using the same tactics and weapons, with the additional employment of terror. The is the reason the U.S. is now hogtied to the unholy trinity -- Iraq/Afghanistan and Pakistan. The implications posed by Iran need not even be considered in this discussion.

We enter 2008 with leaders and leader wanna-bes selling the citizens snake oil by the case. The snake oil is the message that the U.S. can control or influence the events in the region. The fact that a few minor Sunni tribes are pretending to dance to our tune is heralded as an indicator that al-Qaida is on the run.

So a neighborhood in Baghdad is secured, and Pakistan is teetering on the abyss. Who has got the initiative, and who is controlling whom?

The hole just gets deeper.

Hydras in Hyderabad

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results

--Winston Churchill


My heart finally broke for the Iraqi people. I wanted to just sit down and cry while saying I'm so, so sorry for what we had done. I had the acute sense that we had failed these people.

It was at this time, and after an entire year of being deployed and well into the next deployment that I realized something. We burst into homes, frighten the hell out of families, and destroy their homes looking for an elusive enemy.

We do this out of fear of the unseen and attempt to compensate for our inability to capture insurgents by swatting mosquitoes with a sledge-hammer in glass houses.

--Army Staff Sgt. Darrell Ray Griffin, Jr. (deceased)

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The eloquent Staff Sgt. Griffin was felled by a sniper in Iraq 21 March 2007 ("A Soldier's Story.")

The recent revelations of the aborted raid on al Qaida in Pakistan shows off the phony nature of this War on Terror to nice effect (U.S. Aborted Raid on al-Qaida in 2005.)

Some facts which bear on the would-be Special Operation:

• Pakistan is a sovereign nation.
• Pakistan receives large chunks of U.S. aid.
• Pakistan, passively or actively, protects elements of al Qaida and Taliban in their country.
• Pakistani government does not control the periphery.
• Conducting a unilateral military operation in Pakistan is an act of war, even if directed at rogue elements of their society.
• U.S. Special Operations Forces are top-heavy and greatly resemble non-SOF Forces in their cumbersome decision-making processes and use of pertinent intelligence. An example is this Navy Seal operation, which had grown into an "invasion" by the time of its would-be execution.
  
• Afghanistan is still a failed state.

National Review Online points out that the example of Pakistan casts a pall on our raison d'etre for being in Iraq:

"We are supposed to be standing up a fairly stable, reasonably democratic government in Baghdad, so that al Qaeda can get no foothold in Iraq, and to serve as a beacon to which Muslims everywhere can raise their suffering, tear-stained faces in hope. Yet in Pakistan, whose government is as stable and democratic as can be hoped for in that neck of the woods (they have even elected a female prime minister — twice!), al Qaeda has settled in very nicely. Nor do the world’s Muslims seem to look wistfully to Islamabad as a shining city on a hill (Means and Ends.)"

The New York Times hopefully reported, "Intelligence officials say they believe that in January 2006, an airstrike (launched from a Predator aircraft) narrowly missed killing Mr. Zawahri. . ." But close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes.

The U.S. best beware actions in Pakistan. Al Qaida is often tagged as the destabilizing force in the region, but it is U.S. invasions that have prompted al Qaida's hydra-headed growth. Present civil unrest in Pakistan could boil over if U.S. forces push the envelope.

The Phony War on Terror dare not expand into Pakistan.