President Obama's speech (here) has received some good press. It was good speech making. Obama has a well deserved reputation of being a man of letters.
But what has it clarified? A lot: here is a crucial excerpt in defining the mission statement and the necessity of sending more troops:
..."We must deny al Qaeda a safe haven. We must reverse the Taliban's momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future.
We will meet these objectives in three ways. First, we will pursue a military strategy that will break the Taliban's momentum and increase Afghanistan's capacity over the next 18 months.
The 30,000 additional troops that I'm announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010 -- the fastest possible pace -- so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers. They'll increase our ability to train competent Afghan security forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans"...
I have one simple question, sir. General McCrhystal actually wanted 90,000 troops as we have learned from various leaks, though publicly he had called for 40,000.
If the 30,000 troops cannot "finish the job" with "job" now more clearly defined, will you still start withdrawal you say you will in mid 2011?
Thursday, December 03, 2009
21st Century Belongs to...?
I am back online. Indeed, there are two parallel universes. One for the common folks whose Internet connection has been cut from accessing all foreign blogs, so I am told, Facebook, Twitter and Lord knows what else. The other universe is where I am: a famous deluxe hotel of a famous global chain. From the privacy of my room, I don't see (yet) any Big Bro watching over me. I am assuming.
Just a note to say I have surfaced and will catch up with "outside" news soonish. Meanwhile, it remains amazing to a jaded visitor to this land of ancient history and modern myths to observe how vibrant, dynamic, can-do this former sleeping and very inefficient giant has become.
One very obvious reality is how youthful and entrepreneur this society has become. Granted this is the capital, yet regional accents are everywhere.
I see folks who would look like high schools kids managing businesses, starting a new business, walking about with a sense of self-confidence that to many American visitors remind them of what US of A once was.
China also proves once and for all FALSE what we all once learned in economic development 101: size matters. No, size does not matter.
China proves that growth is not limited by size. It is limited only by productivity. Professors used to say when a country "matures", productivity slows down.
Define " maturity "? Is the US "mature"?
Not to my eyes. US has become more like a second world country. More investments in the right areas would produce much higher growth than what it has taken for granted for years that its long term trend growth is roughly 4%.
More on this in future postings. I am just glad I am now "connected".
Just a note to say I have surfaced and will catch up with "outside" news soonish. Meanwhile, it remains amazing to a jaded visitor to this land of ancient history and modern myths to observe how vibrant, dynamic, can-do this former sleeping and very inefficient giant has become.
One very obvious reality is how youthful and entrepreneur this society has become. Granted this is the capital, yet regional accents are everywhere.
I see folks who would look like high schools kids managing businesses, starting a new business, walking about with a sense of self-confidence that to many American visitors remind them of what US of A once was.
China also proves once and for all FALSE what we all once learned in economic development 101: size matters. No, size does not matter.
China proves that growth is not limited by size. It is limited only by productivity. Professors used to say when a country "matures", productivity slows down.
Define " maturity "? Is the US "mature"?
Not to my eyes. US has become more like a second world country. More investments in the right areas would produce much higher growth than what it has taken for granted for years that its long term trend growth is roughly 4%.
More on this in future postings. I am just glad I am now "connected".
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Incommunicado
If you do not see my writings for the next 6 days, it is because the country I am visiting starting tomorrow blocks access to my blog. It remains to be seen if I could access my own blog from the hotel room of an international chain which may have its own cable connection to an overseas server. Not sure.
i have already confirmed with a friend in that presumed superpower in the 21st century that access when he tried from his own home.
i have already confirmed with a friend in that presumed superpower in the 21st century that access when he tried from his own home.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Revisiting War History of Vietnam and Afganistan
1) timeline of the Vietnam War
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/vietnam/timeline.htm
2) timeline of the Soviet War in Afghanistan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7883532.stm
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/vietnam/timeline.htm
2) timeline of the Soviet War in Afghanistan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7883532.stm
Why Obama = LBJ = Brezhnev
LBJ escalated the war in Vietnam because he didn't want to be the first President to lose a foreign war. He also believed his generals who told him just a more divisions will "finish the job".
Perhaps the most fatal error he and his entire administration made was they believed the South Vietnamese people they went all the way at great US sacrifice to "save" shared their values on just about everything -- on Vietcong, Ho Chi Minh and on democracy.
Brezhnev was "invited" by the Kabul government to fight against the Islamic Mujahideen. That war lasted 9 years with 100,000 Soviet troops on the ground.
A US military study later claimed the Soviets did not have enough "boots" on the ground. Right now, with the expected troop increase of 30,000 +/- Obama will announce tomorrow, US and allies will have more than 100,000 troops with most of them GIs.
You can count on the military to argue that 100,000 ain't enough given what both that study says and what General McChrystal has said openly. You can also count on whom the military will blame should they fail to "finish the job".
Incredible as this may seem, since so many analysts have drawn the comparison of this war to the US misadventure in Vietnam and the Soviet one in Afghanistan, Obama and his advisors are repeating the same fatal conceit.
They really don't appreciate the deep historical significance of Afghanistan as the place "empires go to die". Clearly the current leaders continue to believe in itself as being fundamentally different from all previous foreign empires since time immemorial. America is the Exception is as American as apple pie, as it were.
Here are just a couple of relevant passages from the Wall Street Journal report:
..."Few American officials know the Soviets' bitter Afghan predicament better than Mr. Gates. In the 1980s, he was the deputy director of the CIA, overseeing a massive U.S. effort to fund, train and equip the Islamic insurgents, called mujahedeen, who fought the Soviet army to a standstill.
Now some of the most prominent of these insurgents, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, are allied against America with the Taliban and al Qaeda. Almost daily their men are killing Western troops, who often operate from former Soviet bases and use Soviet-drawn military maps with faint Cyrillic markings.
"It's an eerie sense of deja vu," said Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution scholar who headed the Obama administration's Afghan policy review in the spring and who in the 1980s worked under Mr. Gates as a CIA officer in the region. "America," he said, "is in the rare position of fighting the same war twice in one generation, from opposite sides. And it's easier to be the insurgents"...
...Despite billions in U.S. aid since 2001 spent on roads, clinics and schools, there is little comparably prominent evidence of American reconstruction.
"What have the Americans done so far? They're only busy building their own military bases," said Mohammad Nassim, a 40-year-old Kabul resident, airing a frequently heard opinion....
...Portraying Americans here as the new Soviets, of course, forms the very foundation of the Taliban world view. "Both superpowers wanted to impose by force their alien ideologies on our country -- the Soviets socialism, and the Americans this strange phenomenon they call liberal democracy," Mullah Wakil Muttawakil, foreign minister of the Taliban government that was deposed in 2001, said in an interview. "These are outside ideas. And anything coming from abroad is resented and rejected here."...
The full WSJ report is here.
Perhaps the most fatal error he and his entire administration made was they believed the South Vietnamese people they went all the way at great US sacrifice to "save" shared their values on just about everything -- on Vietcong, Ho Chi Minh and on democracy.
Brezhnev was "invited" by the Kabul government to fight against the Islamic Mujahideen. That war lasted 9 years with 100,000 Soviet troops on the ground.
A US military study later claimed the Soviets did not have enough "boots" on the ground. Right now, with the expected troop increase of 30,000 +/- Obama will announce tomorrow, US and allies will have more than 100,000 troops with most of them GIs.
You can count on the military to argue that 100,000 ain't enough given what both that study says and what General McChrystal has said openly. You can also count on whom the military will blame should they fail to "finish the job".
Incredible as this may seem, since so many analysts have drawn the comparison of this war to the US misadventure in Vietnam and the Soviet one in Afghanistan, Obama and his advisors are repeating the same fatal conceit.
They really don't appreciate the deep historical significance of Afghanistan as the place "empires go to die". Clearly the current leaders continue to believe in itself as being fundamentally different from all previous foreign empires since time immemorial. America is the Exception is as American as apple pie, as it were.
Here are just a couple of relevant passages from the Wall Street Journal report:
..."Few American officials know the Soviets' bitter Afghan predicament better than Mr. Gates. In the 1980s, he was the deputy director of the CIA, overseeing a massive U.S. effort to fund, train and equip the Islamic insurgents, called mujahedeen, who fought the Soviet army to a standstill.
Now some of the most prominent of these insurgents, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, are allied against America with the Taliban and al Qaeda. Almost daily their men are killing Western troops, who often operate from former Soviet bases and use Soviet-drawn military maps with faint Cyrillic markings.
"It's an eerie sense of deja vu," said Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution scholar who headed the Obama administration's Afghan policy review in the spring and who in the 1980s worked under Mr. Gates as a CIA officer in the region. "America," he said, "is in the rare position of fighting the same war twice in one generation, from opposite sides. And it's easier to be the insurgents"...
...Despite billions in U.S. aid since 2001 spent on roads, clinics and schools, there is little comparably prominent evidence of American reconstruction.
"What have the Americans done so far? They're only busy building their own military bases," said Mohammad Nassim, a 40-year-old Kabul resident, airing a frequently heard opinion....
...Portraying Americans here as the new Soviets, of course, forms the very foundation of the Taliban world view. "Both superpowers wanted to impose by force their alien ideologies on our country -- the Soviets socialism, and the Americans this strange phenomenon they call liberal democracy," Mullah Wakil Muttawakil, foreign minister of the Taliban government that was deposed in 2001, said in an interview. "These are outside ideas. And anything coming from abroad is resented and rejected here."...
The full WSJ report is here.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Best Idea on Afghanistan - yet
This LA Times report here is encouraging in two aspects. Resistance for more troops is becoming bipartisan, relieving a young president, the first African American from the Freudian need to appear more "American" than American -- assuming that had for a moment entered into his deliberation.
The second piece of news is the best yet -- if Americans are really behind escalation, then they should pay for it by way of a Afghanistan War Surtax. Let's see how that goes down.
The second piece of news is the best yet -- if Americans are really behind escalation, then they should pay for it by way of a Afghanistan War Surtax. Let's see how that goes down.
Larry Summers - Best & Brightest 2
Larry Summers had to resign the Harvard presidency for his smart-alerk comment re shortage of women scientists due to possible DNA factors. His supporters argued he was merely listing a list of possible reasons the way any serious scientists would in intellectual speculation. Thinking aloud, as it were, without necessarily committing himself to any single position.
Well, if I were to similarly intellectually speculate in a public form that somewhere along Larry's family tree in eons past some of his ancestors might have had excessive arrogance DNA or perhaps some were mentally crippled mongoloids with excessively high IQ while adding the caveat that by the time Larry was born and later was universally lauded by an adoring press with a heavy duty Harvard-envy that any traces of that possible or even probable deformity had clearly become moot, would I have been intellectually speculative, therefore usefully provocative, or was I being just a horse's ass?
Mark, my most helpful friend, sent me this latest piece here on how Larry played fund manager leading the world's richest and mighty Harvard into a financial crisis.
Come to think of it, I wish he had not been drummed out of Harvard so that right now he would have had to face the humiliating task of righting Harvard's tattered balance sheets for which he was responsible.
Well, when Larry was Harvard's president he was paid millions being a part time consultant to D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund. I wonder how often D.E. Shaw acted on his advice or merely listening politely and then ignored his advice.
Anyone who has spent serious time managing money knows the difference between theory and practice. Anyone who has listened to expensive academic consultants at a fund management company also knows how often their advice is dismissed as not credible irrespective of their brilliant credentials.
In money as in so many other aspects in life, it is not a bad rule of thumb to remember that those who can, do; those who can talk well should keep talking.
Well, if I were to similarly intellectually speculate in a public form that somewhere along Larry's family tree in eons past some of his ancestors might have had excessive arrogance DNA or perhaps some were mentally crippled mongoloids with excessively high IQ while adding the caveat that by the time Larry was born and later was universally lauded by an adoring press with a heavy duty Harvard-envy that any traces of that possible or even probable deformity had clearly become moot, would I have been intellectually speculative, therefore usefully provocative, or was I being just a horse's ass?
Mark, my most helpful friend, sent me this latest piece here on how Larry played fund manager leading the world's richest and mighty Harvard into a financial crisis.
Come to think of it, I wish he had not been drummed out of Harvard so that right now he would have had to face the humiliating task of righting Harvard's tattered balance sheets for which he was responsible.
Well, when Larry was Harvard's president he was paid millions being a part time consultant to D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund. I wonder how often D.E. Shaw acted on his advice or merely listening politely and then ignored his advice.
Anyone who has spent serious time managing money knows the difference between theory and practice. Anyone who has listened to expensive academic consultants at a fund management company also knows how often their advice is dismissed as not credible irrespective of their brilliant credentials.
In money as in so many other aspects in life, it is not a bad rule of thumb to remember that those who can, do; those who can talk well should keep talking.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Bin Laden -- Almost Caught
Well, an official US Congressional report hereconfirmed what we long suspected. Bush dropped the ball.
Whither the US Stock Market?
These 2 charts, the stuff "chartists" love, suggest the Dow Jones Industrial Average at this point is neither here nor there -- in the middle of the "channel". They also suggest that if the Dow breaks out from its upper resistance, it will again take off in a major run. But if it breaks down below its support line in the charts, then it is headed back down, way down. This is "technical"-speak. Some people consider technical analysis a form of voodoo. Others swear by it. You choose.
Source: Big Picture Blog
Music to Gold Buyers
Read what China is doing for its economy here. Both the Chinese and the Hong Kong stock markets are among the best performing this year.
This is what makes a "market": Gold vs Bonds?
"This" is a gap in perception between what makes a buyer buy, a seller sell.
Both parties have one thing in "common": they both take a look into their crystal ball. There ends their similarity for they see a different future. A market is born precisely because both parties see the need to act differently.
This is what is going on in the bond market which sees Deflation and stagnation. A recent posting of mine shows the severe drop in consumer spending. You can read numerous stories about "negative equity" in homeownership and increasing personal savings -- for the first time in some years -- as US households fear for the future.
On the other hand, buyers of gold see huge increases in government spending -- all over the developed world, in US, China and Europe -- as well as money printing. So they forecast inflation ahead. Some like Marc Faber even see hyper-inflation.
Read this for a nice summary of what is going on in this gold/bond dilemma here.
Both parties have one thing in "common": they both take a look into their crystal ball. There ends their similarity for they see a different future. A market is born precisely because both parties see the need to act differently.
This is what is going on in the bond market which sees Deflation and stagnation. A recent posting of mine shows the severe drop in consumer spending. You can read numerous stories about "negative equity" in homeownership and increasing personal savings -- for the first time in some years -- as US households fear for the future.
On the other hand, buyers of gold see huge increases in government spending -- all over the developed world, in US, China and Europe -- as well as money printing. So they forecast inflation ahead. Some like Marc Faber even see hyper-inflation.
Read this for a nice summary of what is going on in this gold/bond dilemma here.
JIm Rogers on Gold and Geithner
Jim Rogers, the famous ex hedge fund co founder of Soros Fund, is long gold but is not buying right now even though he thinks it will go to $2000 sometime in the distant future. He also said this in an Businessweek interview:
What's your outlook for commodities in 2010?
I'm not smart enough to know. But I will say that if the world economy gets better, then commodities will be one of the best places to be because of the shortages that are developing. If the world economy does not get better, commodities will still be the place to be because governments are printing all this money.
Tim Geithner has been under attack lately. How's he doing?
Listen, I have been a critic for years. Geithner should never have been appointed to anything. He's been wrong about just about everything for 15 years.
Do you think he'll lose his job?
Of course he's going to lose his job, because as Mr. Obama realizes that Geithner doesn't know what he's doing, he's going to look for somebody else because he doesn't want to take the heat himself. So he's going to look to blame somebody, and the obvious person is Geithner.
The entire interview is here.
What's your outlook for commodities in 2010?
I'm not smart enough to know. But I will say that if the world economy gets better, then commodities will be one of the best places to be because of the shortages that are developing. If the world economy does not get better, commodities will still be the place to be because governments are printing all this money.
Tim Geithner has been under attack lately. How's he doing?
Listen, I have been a critic for years. Geithner should never have been appointed to anything. He's been wrong about just about everything for 15 years.
Do you think he'll lose his job?
Of course he's going to lose his job, because as Mr. Obama realizes that Geithner doesn't know what he's doing, he's going to look for somebody else because he doesn't want to take the heat himself. So he's going to look to blame somebody, and the obvious person is Geithner.
The entire interview is here.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
The Dazzling Blonde
The security at White House is a joke, apparently. Read this amazing report here of how a blonde effectively just walked into the White House uninvited.
Indulge for 2 seconds of racial profiling. Do you think a black or an Asian woman could have pulled this off? Just asking.
Indulge for 2 seconds of racial profiling. Do you think a black or an Asian woman could have pulled this off? Just asking.
The Brits Should Know
Gordon Brown, UK Prime Minister, has finally spoken frankly and publicly about what to do with Afghanistan as reported here.
The Brits ought to know a few things about that country. They were kicked out twice by local forces when Britannia was still ruling the waves and the sun never set on their empire. The first time their entire military force was wiped out saved for a couple of individuals deliberately set free by the Afghans to deliver a message to the Court to stay away.
The Brits ought to know a few things about that country. They were kicked out twice by local forces when Britannia was still ruling the waves and the sun never set on their empire. The first time their entire military force was wiped out saved for a couple of individuals deliberately set free by the Afghans to deliver a message to the Court to stay away.
War
"War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press ... have turned war into a vast video arcade game. Its very essence- death - is hidden from public view.": Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for New York Times
***
***
The Decline of the Catholic Church
I normally stay away from religious topics -- unless they have a connection to Rises and Falls of Empires, a favorite topic of mine.
This sad and sordid report here on sexual abuse by Irish priests over a very long time is relevant to the Rise and the ongoing Decline of the Roman Catholic Church.
The official government report on child abuses is here.
One normally does not think of the Vatican as an empire. At the height of the Soviet empire which covered all of Eastern Europe, Central Asia and could count China and North Korea as "cousins", Stalin famously asked an advisor dismissively: "How many divisions does the pope have?"
The last laugh is not heard in Kremlin, but in Vatican. The proper answer to Stalin would have been "How many divisions does the Pope need?" No one at Kremlin had the courage to give Stalin that answer, of course.
The Church has outlasted all secular empires. The Church and its doctrines shaped the minds over 2000 years around the world without having had to build its own armies. Well, to be fair, it had others to do its dirty work.
It is, therefore, not inappropriate to think of Vatican as an empire.
All falling empires shares these 2 features: economic and moral decay.
The Church is still rich, very rich. However, the moral decay as evidenced in this report and in other similar reports elsewhere in the world is a stake through its heart.
Has anyone wondered why celibacy is so important to the Church? Protestants long broke away from that medieval and ridiculous restrictions. What, pray tell, has sex got to do with salvation or lack of?
To enforce this ridiculous rule, the Church had to invent Virgin Birth so that the mother of Jesus bore a child without having had sex with Joseph.
Celibacy was enforced only in the 12th century at the Second Lateran Council, an edict held up by the Council of Trent in the 16th century. Prior to 1139 CE, priests could indeed take wives and, yes Virginia, have sex.
Sex was never a taboo subject in the old Testament and became an "issue" only in the New Testament which, we know, was more a book written by committees and revised over the centuries. It was more a political document than one about truth.
The fundamental issue remains: why is celibacy among priests necessary? Celibacy is the root of all sexual abuses by Catholic priests. But you can count on this conservative Pope Benedict XVI to keep on the books the law of celibacy. That can only hasten the decline of this "other" Roman Empire that has outlasted that secular Roman Empire by nearly 1800 years.
This sad and sordid report here on sexual abuse by Irish priests over a very long time is relevant to the Rise and the ongoing Decline of the Roman Catholic Church.
The official government report on child abuses is here.
One normally does not think of the Vatican as an empire. At the height of the Soviet empire which covered all of Eastern Europe, Central Asia and could count China and North Korea as "cousins", Stalin famously asked an advisor dismissively: "How many divisions does the pope have?"
The last laugh is not heard in Kremlin, but in Vatican. The proper answer to Stalin would have been "How many divisions does the Pope need?" No one at Kremlin had the courage to give Stalin that answer, of course.
The Church has outlasted all secular empires. The Church and its doctrines shaped the minds over 2000 years around the world without having had to build its own armies. Well, to be fair, it had others to do its dirty work.
It is, therefore, not inappropriate to think of Vatican as an empire.
All falling empires shares these 2 features: economic and moral decay.
The Church is still rich, very rich. However, the moral decay as evidenced in this report and in other similar reports elsewhere in the world is a stake through its heart.
Has anyone wondered why celibacy is so important to the Church? Protestants long broke away from that medieval and ridiculous restrictions. What, pray tell, has sex got to do with salvation or lack of?
To enforce this ridiculous rule, the Church had to invent Virgin Birth so that the mother of Jesus bore a child without having had sex with Joseph.
Celibacy was enforced only in the 12th century at the Second Lateran Council, an edict held up by the Council of Trent in the 16th century. Prior to 1139 CE, priests could indeed take wives and, yes Virginia, have sex.
Sex was never a taboo subject in the old Testament and became an "issue" only in the New Testament which, we know, was more a book written by committees and revised over the centuries. It was more a political document than one about truth.
The fundamental issue remains: why is celibacy among priests necessary? Celibacy is the root of all sexual abuses by Catholic priests. But you can count on this conservative Pope Benedict XVI to keep on the books the law of celibacy. That can only hasten the decline of this "other" Roman Empire that has outlasted that secular Roman Empire by nearly 1800 years.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
An Obama disaster in the making
The press is getting the unofficial word from nameless White House officials that Obama is likely to add 30,000 troops (roughly) to Afghanistan. Read this report here from the NY Times.
If he were to do this, he will jeopardize his domestic programs that are already strapped for funds, and he will send soldiers to die unnecessarily to fight a war without a firm agenda in a land that is fundamentally alien to global values.
To change that country turning it into a willing and effective ally is beyond the capability of 100,000 US GI's. No one can change a nation if it is not ready.
And no empire has ever subjugated Afghanistan which is called the country "where empires go to die" for good reasons. Russia, Britain, Persia all tried and failed. USA will be no different.
The logic of escalation will be cast in concrete once the 30,000 troops are sent. Why? Because if they can't "finish the job", more troops will be needed. Just as in Vietnam when the military consistently miscalculated what was needed with the acquiescence of a president too afraid to be the first to "lose a war".
That logic drove LBJ into early retirement and in the process turned the country into two decades of social and economic turmoil that is still reverberating to this day.
If he were to do this, he will jeopardize his domestic programs that are already strapped for funds, and he will send soldiers to die unnecessarily to fight a war without a firm agenda in a land that is fundamentally alien to global values.
To change that country turning it into a willing and effective ally is beyond the capability of 100,000 US GI's. No one can change a nation if it is not ready.
And no empire has ever subjugated Afghanistan which is called the country "where empires go to die" for good reasons. Russia, Britain, Persia all tried and failed. USA will be no different.
The logic of escalation will be cast in concrete once the 30,000 troops are sent. Why? Because if they can't "finish the job", more troops will be needed. Just as in Vietnam when the military consistently miscalculated what was needed with the acquiescence of a president too afraid to be the first to "lose a war".
That logic drove LBJ into early retirement and in the process turned the country into two decades of social and economic turmoil that is still reverberating to this day.
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