There’s good news: an American ally is finally going to take charge of Afghanistan. For keeps too. The bad news is that ally is Pakistan.
(Reuters) – The United States military has said in a secret report that the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control over Afghanistan after NATO-led forces withdraw from the country, Britain’s Times of London newspaper said Wednesday …
Citing the same report, the BBC reported on its website that Pakistan and the ISI knew the locations of senior Taliban leaders and supported the expulsion of “foreign invaders from Afghanistan. Senior Taliban leaders meet regularly with ISI personnel, who advise on strategy and relay any pertinent concerns of the government of Pakistan,” it said.
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In the meantime, another long-time friend of the United States, Egypt, has refused to even accept a letter from the US ambassador on the subject of American citizens being prevented from traveling home. The Washington Post writes:
CAIRO — The Egyptian justice minister returned a letter Tuesday from the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt asking him to re-examine the issue of Americans barred from leaving the country. The snub is the latest in a spat between the allies over a politically charged Egyptian investigation into foreign funded groups.
Elvis anticipated this situation long ago. But the President didn’t. He selected Afghanistan with the idea that he was going to end the War on Terror where it began. What he achieved was to move the best part of American strength from the Middle East to Southwest Asia where it is dependent on Pakistan for re-supply. But in a manner of speaking his actions have succeeded to the extent that we now know who masterminded the September 11 attacks on New York City; it is now abundantly clear who sheltered Osama Bin Laden and who engaged in chronic treachery against the United States. The bad news is that the knowledge cannot be acted upon.
In another brilliant act of “smart adhocracy” he decided to lead from behind in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood is poised to obtain dominant influence if not control. Now the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies look set to sweep most of the Sunni Middle East. He surely has “led from behind”. But toward what end? That’s the rub.
By these acts he was going to restore America’s prestige in the world. But it didn’t work out that way. These amazing feats of geopolitical genius will be studied by strategists for decades to come and doubtless they will conclude, “it’s Bush’s fault.” How could it be otherwise? So let’s hear it from Elvis again.
I gave a letter to the post man, he put it his sack.
Bright and early next morning, he brought my letter back.
Egypt wrote upon it:Return to sender, address unknown.
No such number, no such zone.
We had a quarrel, a lovers’ spat,
I’d write “I’m sorry” but my letter keeps coming back.
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So the Islamic world loves and respects Hillary just the way we all do.
Hey, now maybe Obama make like Dubya and fly out to some aircraft carrier sitting out in the Indian Ocean and declare
” Mission Accomplished”.
Or maybe the Pakistani Army chorus singing ‘Address Unknown’ by the Ink Spots
Address unknown, you asked where Osama abides
Address unknown, you ask where the Taliban hides
You were a fool to stay Afghanistan so long
You should have known there’d come a day when you’d be gone
Address unknown, oh how could you be so blind
Who’d think that you could think that we’d be so kind
As to be on your side with your arrogant pride
You may search never to find
Who has betrayed you
Address unknown
..until January, 2013.
We are no longer dependent on Pakistan for re-supply. Now we’re dependent on Latvia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for re-supply. The Pakistani border has been closed since November 26 and they haven’t served MRE’s for lunch yet.
One day the USA may have to do to Pakistan what they should have done to Iran in 1979, in response to that casus belli. But they’ll need to replace the current leadership with something decidedly meaner. For all the praise heaped on Reagan (belatedly), Iran survived his presidency with the mullocracy intact, and we even had the indignity of the Iran Contra debacle.
@2 I cannot believe the context the USS Lincoln “Mission Accomplished” sign is assigned time after time. It was the successful end of a very long deployment. Not a gibbering moron thinking the war was over. But, that is the kind of political analysis we have come to expect from our brilliant minds on the Left. Brilliant minds whose only solution always seems to be redistribution of (somebody else’s) wealth. Shear elitist Ivy League brilliance somehow out smarted for 8 years by the stupidest man on earth. Heh.
I would hope Obama would do the same so for the USS Bataan, now on its way home after 10 months at sea, but I don’t know if he maintains that kind of SA on the forces he is privileged to command. And I don’t think we could find a flight jacket to fit that size ego.
Oh, and you forgot the plastic turkey.
Regarding Egypt, I am puzzled why they think they can win this round of poker. Why don’t we just turn off the funding and food-aid tap for a month? Let the phone go cold. Pakistan doesn’t bother me so much. At far too high a price we now see clearly how we’ve been played. New management will adjust things. With short half lives on most of the fallout, I would hope that India can recover and prosper. The “Land of the Pure” will be pure indeed.
Wretchard – Thanks for this will deserved tribute to “The One”.
After all, any Texas chimp can surge US forces to take control of Iraq, a country which only has great weather, swift logistics/communications routes, easy war-fighting geography, large reserves of high quality crude oil, relatively well educated locals, a position in the religious, cultural and historical center of the Middle East, and is also well positioned, by the way, for influencing Iran.
But, it takes the smartest and most successful president in history (at least in the top four) to pivot our military forces into Afghanistan.
This man is obviously the veteran of many undergrad games of Risk at Occidental College.
“In another brilliant act of “smart adhocracy” he decided to lead from behind in Egypt”
Brilliant! I almost spit coffee on my keyboard when I saw that. Wretchard you can always be relied on to turn a new and shining phrase.
“…Iran survived his presidency with the mullocracy intact, and we even had the indignity of the Iran Contra debacle.”
Reagan was a real conservative and conservatives don’t do ‘preemptive’ wars and nation building. Carter had the opportunity to shape the outcome of events and he unwittingly pulled an Obama, who wasn’t bowing, he was bending over.
For once though, some of it IS Bush’s fault.
Make no mistake, we screwed the pooch big time in Afghanistan from 2002-2008. Obama’s handling of Afghanistan is only stupider in comparison to Bush’s because O doubled down on a losing hand when he had the perfect opportunity to fold and leave the table.
Anyone in the US government that honestly believed Pakistan would someday stop trying to maintain Afghanistan as a client state should be the first ones up against the wall. Their naivete has cost us much in blood and treasure.
#12
I’d like to remind you that the 9/11 attacks were planned by Al Qaeda, who at the time had training and HQ bases in Taliban-occupied Afghanistan. So what would you have had us do? Leave then alone?
E2, you are correct, “pooch-screwing” DID occur in Afghanistan after we succeeded in bombing al qaeda in the caves of Bora-Bora, but we should not have bothered trying to rebuild a country that has never really been anything more than a collection of primitive ethnic warring tribesmen. But that ethnic tribal disfunctionality is also true for Pakistan; we need to cut off ALL aid (military or otherwise) to both of these fundamentalist hell-holes.
But MarcH is also correct; if the US had wanted to influence the “direction” of Islam, then an invasion of Iraq was the place to do it. And Pres. Bush’s surge managed to actually accomplish that, right before Pres. Obama managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! Seems very similar to what we did to the South Vietnamese, right before the US Congress cut off military aid to that regime.
So how is that “World Apology” tour that Obama conducted to restore “US prestiege in the world” workin’ out for ya?
LarryD #12:
When they refused to turn over the people we wanted, bomb the crap out of them. Use nukes. Cities, towns, villages, tunnels. All gone. Cheap, easy, works good and lasts a long time. And nobody would have said squat after 9/11/01. Let the Left ruminate over it endless as they still do about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And thus restore the concept of deterrence. We would not have half the trouble we do today.
Read the book Kill Bin Laden about the Delta force guys sent in to do it right after 9/11/01. They refused to send in huge ground froces and came damn near close to getting OBL just with airpower then. But the noncooperation of Pakistan ruined the chances of that.
There is a lot to say for punitive expeditions being used to take down legitimate threats, but all that seems to get dissipated or lost entirely in the so called nation-building phase.
To be fair we cannot know if anything worthwhile is being accomplished in Afghanistan and Iraq for several generations. Has enough of the seed of individualism and democracy been planted so that it can bear fruit in the future? Who knows…
Hi Guys! Did you miss me?
Somehow I don’t think Vlad the Impaler II Putin did. All sorts of good news today. Fox News http://tinyurl.com/76yt29m Putin Says He May Face Runoff in Russia.
Really Vlad, no kidding?
From the Wall Street Journal http://tinyurl.com/6pf94po Russia Faces Heat Over Syria
Poor Little Vlad is complaining we want regime change is Syria! Hey Stupid, we want regime change in Russia and Iran too!!!!
I love this pull quote
“Moscow, which sold Syria $700 million in weapons in 2010, has fiercely opposed a proposed arms embargo.”
So you’re not too likely to get paid for military hardware soon to be left burning in the desert like that which you sold to Saddam??? Well, DUH!!!
But you STILL want to put more military “sales” on Assad’s credit card? Who do you think you are, Barack Hussein Obama III??
W: “He (Obama) decided to lead from behind in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood is poised to obtain dominant influence if not control. Now the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies look set to sweep most of the Sunni Middle East. He surely has “led from behind”. But toward what end?”
The end game is to re-establish an Islamic Caliphate – an Islamic Superstate. Obama has done his part by helping to overthrow existing non-unified Fascist dictatorships in the Middle East, knowing that a more unified Islamo-Fascist mega-dictatorship is likely to emerge – call it the Ummah. The end game also includes emergence of a totalitarian Asian Superstate led by China – call it East Asia. The end game also includes the emergence of a New World totalitarian Superstate led by the United States – call it Oceania. There will be no Eurasia because it will be overtaken and incorporated into the Ummah. The pieces are falling into place everywhere – hopefully with the exception of us – the good old USA. Maybe – hopefully – we can emerge as the true leader of a real Free World – and stand in opposition to the totalitarian East Asian Superstate and the totalitarian Islamic Ummah Superstate. Maybe – hopefully – three totalitarian Superstates will not emerge to wage war against their own subjects – propping one another up like three sheaves of corn. Maybe – hopefully – government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
“Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure; the same worship of a semi-Divine leader; the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare… The consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing over of all power to a small cast seem the natural unavoidable condition of survival. War it will be seen not only accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way… All that is needed is that a state of war exists… It follows that the three super-states not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up like three sheaves of corn… The war therefore… is merely an imposture… For though it is unreal it is not meaningless; it eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War it will be seen is now a purely internal affair… In our own day we are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects; and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.” George Orwell – 1984
The Arabs can probably create enough mayhem for a while to make life miserable for the civilized world but the chances of an Islamic Superstate are barely above zero. Taken together Arabworld has no infrastructure, no industry, and no experitse, and that’s before you even consider the lack of political cohesiveness that could make a superstate possible.
The Arab factions talk a whole lot better game then they can play.
Islam worked well when you could swarm hordes of horsemen on the civilized world and steal what they had. In the industrialzied world, not so much.
Peter Boston 19,
Your lack of faith in the Islamic Superstate assumes that the other two Superstates will not prop it up. I believe Orwell had it right on that count – it is in the interest of the other two Superstates to prop up a weaker Superstate – to keep the totalitarian structure of all three societies intact. The only fly in this dystopian ointment is the United States of America – our Declaration of Independence – our Constitution – and the will of our people to struggle for freedom.
LarryD @13
Notice that my timeline was 2002-2008. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have gone in there to kick the crap out of the Taliban, it was the complete and utter fail that came afterward that I object to.
@20
I don’t see it. The trend is toward further fractionalization not unification. Look at Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Libya. People in those countries have already divided into tribes fighting each other for a limited amount of resources. There are not enough goodies to go around to keep everybody even moderately happy, and there is no place to go to get them.
If Goldman is half right about Egypt’s reserves people will soon be fighting each other for just enough food to keep themselves and their families from starving a la Somalia. The Europeans have their own problems and are not going to relieve the pressure by accepting millions of new Muslim refugees.
The chance is greater that Arabworld will disintegrate into a patchwork of tribal chaos.
“The chance is greater that Arabworld will disintegrate into a patchwork of tribal chaos.”
Well, we can only hope.
Peter Boston 22,
I hope and pray that you are right, but Orwell was no dummy; he may have been prophetic. The forces on the side of unification under one type of totalitarian system or another are strong. Time will tell. As for me; I’ll cast my lot with our Founding Fathers – the American Declaration of Independence – our Constitution – and the will of our people to struggle for freedom. Live free or die.
From AFP:
Good.
That is 1.3 billion a year to Egypt we do not need to spend. No money, no F-16s. Let them fly that Russian crap. Of course the Russians want cash and they won’t have any left at this rate.
Bush handled Pakistan and Afghanistan properly. First he sent Dick Cheney over to tell the Pakis in words of one syllable that we were going to nuke them if they did not cooperate. They believed him. Sure they were lying treacherous bums who were looking to suck us for every dime but Bush’s small footprint strategy made sense. It is true that a slightly larger footprint and the insertion of ground forces to cut off the escape routes would have bagged Osama at Tora Bora but the Bush-Cheney plan for managing AFPAK was correct. Later the Pakis saw the treasonous actions of the Democrats, just as the Vietnamese had 35 years earlier, and the ISI reforged their alliance with the Chinese and the Taliban.
Now we will have to dismantle Pakistan to freeze out China and punish the Islamists. This is a much more dangerous and confrontational posture that we are being forced into. The Paleocon-Libertarian Isolationists are going to hate this. It is happening because of the defeat of the Bush-Neocon strategy at the hands of the Donks. The Paleocons bare some responsibility for this because they tore down McCain and assisted Obama in taking power. Now they are making the same noises to tear down any GOP opposition to Obama in 2012.
S-R@24
I think you point out the real danger. The American left who beleives that the constituion was written by racist old white men and that it needs to be updated to accomodate simple things like government intervention of the economy and making sure that the established race does not exercise any advantage, even one they create for themselves. They beleive, afterall, that the constitution is a living document and not only obsolete, but utterly incapable of facing the desires of an ascendent feminized class. The barbarians at the gate will unlikely breach our borders, the barbarians inside the gate vote.
IIRC, we went into Afghanistan to deny al Q a base of training and operations. But Afghanistan is the symptom of the problem. The real problem has been Pakistan. We have given them billions of dollars to buy cooperation and they have done the sub minimum. Paks enabled the Taliban. We need to get out of Afghanistan and end our enabling of Pakistan by cutting off all our funding of them. Pakistan is one of our enemies. We need to treat them as one of them and stop fooling ourselves.
To continue a theme from earlier threads.
If we use old big Cold War nukes on Pakistan will we need to build 18 foot walls on our compounds to keep out the resultant mutant giant goats? Can we pummel China with hordes of giant goats and giant ants pouring through the Dzungarian Gate? Will the Islamic world earn the lasting affection of Greenies by demonstrating the purity of a zero carbon economy? Perhaps they will subsist by eating the giant goats.
BftP
The problem with your scenario is that mutations are equally distributed from giant mutations to really small mutations. In one possible scenario we’d have giant ants eating really small goats. A horror beyond imagination. Imagine a trail of giants ants wending its way across the continent only to eat all of the honey in Zanzibar.
A note to the future,
…and let us not forget the Zanzibarbarians!
“Imagine a trail of giants ants wending its way across the continent only to eat all of the honey in Zanzibar.”
But then they will have to face the atomic-powered Zanzibarbarians at the gate!!!
(just tying the memes together)
18: I expect the majority of Egyptians would support a new Islamic caliphate- as long as it was run from Cairo and not Damascus, or Istanbul, or certainly not Teheran. Nasser’s United Arab Republic didn’t last long- no unity. If the Chinese don’t maintain an 8% annual growth rate (there’ no way they can) they will have big internal problems too.
Not to say the Arab / Persian world and the Chinese can’t make trouble for the rest of us. Let’s not underestimate our enemies, but let’s not give them too much credit either. pare gognot be able to bakc onyteh ‘d Th eprpoblme
How are the giant ants going to get to Zanzibar, which is an archipelago?
w@34
Usually along the window sill… but possibly in this case on the back of nuclear powered zombie sea turtles.
How are the giant ants going to get to Zanzibar, which is an archipelago?
Riding on the giant mutant sea-going frogs, I expect.
Blast From the Past @ 27 said:
“Bush handled Pakistan and Afghanistan properly. First he sent Dick Cheney over to tell the Pakis in words of one syllable that we were going to nuke them if they did not cooperate. They believed him. Sure they were lying treacherous bums who were looking to suck us for every dime but Bush’s small footprint strategy made sense. It is true that a slightly larger footprint and the insertion of ground forces to cut off the escape routes would have bagged Osama at Tora Bora but the Bush-Cheney plan for managing AFPAK was correct.”
I agree that George W. Bush handled Pakistan and Afghanistan properly. It was unfortunate the Osama bin Laden escaped through Tora Bora. However Bush’s original plan was excellent in using the Northern Alliance to take down the Taliban and thereby flush al Qaeda out into the open. It would have been a tough call to predict that al Qaeda would flee into Pakistan. Yeah sure, the Pakistani ISI originally put the Taliban in control of Afghanistan but the very fact that the Taliban had collapsed would have indicated to bin Laden that the ISI could no longer be trusted. With 20/29 hindsight, we now know that the ISI was always out there for bin Laden and provided him with a safe haven for almost a decade. Truth to tell, if I was bin Laden, I would have relocated to some “out of the box” location, e.g. Capetown, South Africa. The townships near Capetown have active al Qaeda cells, the local government is corrupt and in theory that location could have provided bin Laden with a comfortable safe haven for the rest of his life. Bin Laden should have been more focused on staying alive as a figure head rather than continuing to provide active leadership for al Qaeda along with the occasional propaganda video. I guess his own monstrous ego did not allow that option. Given that bin Laden survived for 10 years says something about the ISI’s ability. They are formidable adversaries and their dangerous ability should be respected.
Different topic: Looks like Romney has it in the bag (my feeling of utter gloom and despair resumes).
Can Romney actually beat the Messiah?
My guess is if the economy fully implodes (which is likely) then in the general election, literally anyone could beat the Messiah. However if the economy can be propped up with money printing for another few more months then the MSM can cut Romney to pieces by harping on the Mormon thing.
The utter hypocrisy will be beautiful.
The MSM will be running around the clock documentaries about how utterly idiotic the Mormon Church is and how any member of that religion must surely be a congenital idiot. Obama will be publicly going “tut-tut” while quietly smiling like the cat who ate the canary. We’re poised for the ultimate failure mode:
1) The MSM does a perfect character assassination on Romney and Obama is reelected by default.
2) The world economy fully implodes immediately after Obama’s reelection.
3) Iran plays its trick and Israel responds thus launching WW-IV.
4) Obama starts running around in a tight little circle crying “What will I do? What will I do?” or worse does something monumentally stupid and triggers a constitutional crisis.
We are so screwed and there is nothing we can do about it.
@37
Small “m” please.
Somewhere back in time, I heard a place described tongue-in-cheek as “a region to which all civilized tribes exiled and confined the most objectionable members,” and this occurs to me whenever looking at Afghanistan on a map. I don’t have a lot of faith in nation-building or the seeds of democracy there, but I don’t think we should turn our backs on the place either, if you know what I mean.
#5. Cannoneer No. 4 wrote: “We are no longer dependent on Pakistan for re-supply … they haven’t served MRE’s for lunch yet”.
Perhaps they haven’t at Bagram Air Field, but an assignment to COP Charkh (http://www.npr.org/2011/05/03/135848990/in-afghan-outpost-sunset-means-a-new-attack) is referred to as the “Charkh diet”. I have heard that things are similar at other small COPs in rough areas such as Kunar, Logar, Wardak and Loya Paktia), although such supply difficulties pre-dated the closing of the Pakistan border crossings.
I agree with you that operations seem to continue as normal but fear that there have been consequences of which we are unaware. For example, it would be interesting to review any authoritative OS information on whether supply costs have increased (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/nato-supplies-to-afghanistan-keep-flowing-but-at-a-price/), stocks have gone down, and non-essential activities have been reduced (ex: numbers of routine rotary wing flights between FOBs and COPs reduced). Such matters could have an invisible but long-term effect.
I also expect that supply convoys moving through Northern Afghanistan are paying a premium in “protection” money (I guess they call it security consultant fees) to the notorious “mafias” in Baglan Province (http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/11/14/afghan-people-suffering-under-powerful-elite-tied-to-karzai-u-s.phtml). I would also not be surprised if protection payments are helping to fund the expansion of Northern Afghanistan insurgent groups (http://www.operationspaix.net/DATA/DOCUMENT/6383~v~The_Strengthening_Northern_Insurgency_in_Afghanistan.pdf).
Contractor operated logistics convoys have been a honey pot for mafias and insurgents in Afghanistan (http://publicintelligence.net/u-s-house-of-representatives-report-warlords-provide-security-for-u-s-supply-chain-in-afghanistan/) for some time. It would be interesting to see how the shift in supply routes may have affected this activity.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Pakistani closure of the borders cut into the funding sources of the insurgents said to be aligned with the ISI such as Quetta Shura Taliban and Haqqanis? On the one hand it might drive them into the arms of the ISI for more funding, while another alternative is that it might make them more interested in peace talks (at least short term).
Let me get this straight: Is it “Lead from behind,” or “Lead With his behind?”
Peter Boston @ 38,
Pardon me… [edit has timed out, otherwise I'd correct it]
Don Rodrigo @ 40,
How about? Lead with half of his behind.
The whole thing is a giant Bilderburg-Zionist-Illuminati conspiracy to destroy the Islamic world by forcing them to accept democracy. It seems to be working.
At least the Egyptians won’t have to suffer through the pain of sipping rumrunners on the beach while scantily clad women stroll by anymore. What a nightmare that must have been. Combine that with the horrors of peaceful relations and trade with its most powerful and prosperous neighbor for 30 years and you can hardly blame them.
How can Pakistan control Afghansistan? Pakistan doesn’t even control Pakistan after all this time. Are we going to have to pay them to take over, or can we convince them to do it for free?
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Off topic. The following is a useful tutorial about the economy:
http://www.businessinsider.com/our-counterfeit-economy-2012-2
Eggplant (#37) I think Bush knew OBL wasn’t in Afgah proper as soon as US bombs started dropping, (didn’t know where he went till 6 yrs later)I think one of the reasons to keep it small was the mistrust of the Paki’s, but Bush being in the KSA corner wasn’t going to rock their world by hurting the KSA proxy (Pak) Army (which balanced Iran) Bush should never have listened to his in house traitor Sec of State (CP), Bush may have done a Blow It Up and leave act like Ronnie if CP hadn’t made Bush think he owed it to someone to fix what he broke… (That’s what Compassionate Conservatism does to ya!). Mitt lost in Fla, He spent ungodly amounts of time before everyone else and beat everyone (Newt) to death in a 60/1 TV ads that Mitt should have pulled a 30%+ win yet he barely does what Newt did in NH with next to NO Money and No ground troops, Mitt was a dud in Fla. Obama’s Billion dollar warchest and MSM (NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NYTIMES, Washington Post, etc…) propaganda machine are gonna make Mitt look like Elmer Fud come Nov!!! God Help us cause the Rub Elite’s ain’t (and I don’t think they really care ether)!
Wretchard #34:
AGW will freeze the seas and the glow-in-the-dark giant ants will be able to cross to Zanzibar via the icepack.
Eggplant #37:
If you read the book Kill Bin Laden you will see that it would have required a large blocking force of Marines (est 5000) in Pakistan to seal off the border area. Think the Pkais would have gone along with that, given what we know now? Pursuit with a large force from Aghanistan into Pakistan was impossible given the terrain and the fact that even our “allies” in Afghanistan would have considered such a force as invaders.
In your doomsday scenario you left out the Mini-Ice Age that’s acomin’.,
And relative to “Screwed and nothing we can do” let me sub for the long-missing Papa Ray and say B u y M o r e A m m o.
RWE @ 47 said:
“And relative to “Screwed and nothing we can do” let me sub for the long-missing Papa Ray and say B u y M o r e A m m o.”
I’ve done one better and joined a local gun club. I’ve been appalled by my own ignorance. I didn’t know how to use a sling properly when shooting. Previously I’ve always aimed with iron sights and had no prior experience using a scope. What a difference that can make. Also using a rifle that has been properly maintained by a skilled gunsmith can make all the difference in the world. I’ve taken my kids to target practice at the club. My 11 year old daughter is a remarkably good shot. Buying more ammo is insufficient. Ammo does you no good if you don’t know how to shoot straight.
Spindok…”At least the Egyptians won’t have to suffer through the pain of sipping rumrunners on the beach while scantily clad [Russian/Ukrainian] women stroll by anymore. ”
“That is 1.3 billion a year to Egypt we do not need to spend.” As Bill Gross, manager of the world’s largest bond fund PIMCO says, he’s feeling a little Ron Paulish. Sounds like Spindok also endorses not giving more money to Israel’s enemies than we give to Israel, at least, if not letting the Israelis off D.C.’s strings-attached money.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/im-bill-gross-and-i-endorse-ron-paul-president
And the notion that putting tens of thousands of infidel troops in Afghanistan for ten years might be a bad idea? Where of where did Rumsfeld get that idea in 2001?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVB9Xz2DyME
the post ww2 pax middle east-o meant that there was no restive rivalry between factions of tribes or sects of islam. Autocratic kingdoms kept anything in the form of reactionary islam in jail and “oppressed”. What islamism there was was channeled almost entirely toward Israel. Shia could dominate and have it’s influence here…in say Iran, and sunni could dominate just about everywhere else. The overall M.E. zeitgeist of that period was that the middle east was some sort of proxy for the so-called cold war between U.S. and Soviet union. That anti-U.S. feeling, was expressed first, in Ghaddafi’s Pan Am 103 bombing, and again on 9-11. The anti-soviet feeling was expressed in the Afghani expulsion of soviets from Afghanistan. The middle east, (muslim brotherhood, and the like) want all the foreigners out (of M.S) so’s they can all go to the mattresses and build back a caliphate. 0bama has happily obliged. What I believe 0bama and co. severely miscalculated on is any sectarian turmoil, over which sphere’s of islamic influence will split hairs over which kind of islam will comprise any such caliphate. 0bama tried to split the difference and take the low ground back to the 7th century. For their sake.
Show’s again how little he knows about anything. The policy to let islam/Middle East sort things out themselves doesn’t consider Shia/Sunni rivalries, or any other numerous subsets thereof, such as ethnic ones (Kurds, Pashtun, etc). 0bama uses a european blueprint for how differing people’s can all get along if left to themselves so they can begin to behave themselves like the europeans do so well. S/off.
I think again, of how 0bama goes to Berlin in 2008 to give this great “citizen of the world” speech, and what that could mean in hindsight now. Did he want Germany to set the course of euro future? Sure looks that way now. Does he have a preference for Shia or Sunni dominance? Or is that too complicated for him to have considered?
@ MarcH—the undergrad RISK games at Occidental must have been far below the average complexity and elegance of the game nation-wide.
From AFP:
France’s decision to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan a year earlier than planned deals a blow to the US-led war effort and threatens to trigger a “rush to the exits” by other NATO members, experts said Monday.
(wretchard @ 25)
Seems that “rush to the exits” will be led by the U.S. if the most recent report from Secy. Gates is accurate.
How are the giant ants going to get to Zanzibar, which is an archipelago?
Those complex social and engineering wonders will construct a huge Ferris wheel of interlocking legs, 1000 wide, with their backs out and simply roll across the waves. I saw them do that once in a dream.
It was unfortunate the Osama bin Laden escaped through Tora Bora
This was nothing when compared to Obama escaping Chicago with half his behind tied behind his back to make it fair.
52. wart – Mea culpa, mea culpa. It was not my intent to offend Risk players (although back in the day, I preferred SPI). I should have wrote Stratego.
some ants have wings
would like to read wretchard’s take on aeon flux
SPI?
You’re on my man.
58. blert – “SPI? You’re on my man”.
They has some great titles, didn’t they? Although in the end they were afflicted with mega-game syndrome.
Your comment gave me license to reminisce about some of their products which I especially enjoyed: Conquistador, Frigate, Sinai, World War II: European Theater of Operations – 1939-45, Napoleon’s Last Battles, Strategy I, Air War, etc. They were a real education and I was a bit of a nerd.
59. MarcH
most of these games are reasonably priced and available on ebay, although it is amusing to see how wrong and right the designers have been. And yes, I got my first game D Day by Avalon hill in 1963.
60. octa bright – “… yes, I got my first game D Day by Avalon hill in 1963″.
Sir – I salute you as a distinguished Grognard. That was a bit before my time. The first wargame I purchased was AH’s Richtofen’s War, early 1970s.
Octa bright…
The stacking in D-Day was changed for the Anglo-Allies when play testing indicated that thirty points on two hexes was too much for the Germans.
Then, the strategic bombing was thrown in to re-create Caen…
It did lead to the ‘perfect’ German defense plan and the ‘perfect’ Anglo-American assault.
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As for SPI: my fav would be Panzer Group Guderian. An entirely fresh game mechanic was introduced. Unlike AH, SPI’s format tracked rather well with the dynamics of the actual campaign.
What even Dunnigan didn’t know was that the Germans were entirely dependent upon their airlift. It was what was getting them around supply restrictions — so much so that they could plunge DEEP into the interior — and cut off the rail net from the front.
This shows up in the various logistical constraints set down in their rules. It is untrue that the Soviets could long supply their formations — if some long devious route existed to the rear. In such situations, their armies were, in fact, likely to cut and run.
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Curiously, the AH battle game ‘Stalingrad’ has a rail grid that actually DOES correspond to the real Soviet net. (!) Yes, there are THAT few rail lines in 1941.
Astoundingly, most of the Soviet rail grid was UNBALLASTED. ( That’s rail and ties with no drainage stones for support. ) This means that in all of the civilian wargames yet produced the supply rules are wrong for the Russians/Germans. When the mud comes, even the rail roads are bogged down.
The exception is the Karkov to Moscow run. It is unique: it is double tracked and ballasted. Karkov doubles as Moscow’s reserve food basket — and has extensive warehouses. THAT’S the reason that the German Army in mid-1943 has an immense concentration of forward supplies at Karkov. When the Soviet juggernaut rolled forth — this was mostly lost.
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My other SPI fav: USN. And, boy, did this scenario get things wrong. It is now very apparent that the Japanese were being lured into their doom on game turn 1.
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