Afghan Charlie Foxtrot

I read things like this in the news and I wonder, I really do.

Let's table for a moment the questions of "What-the-hell-are-we-doing-in-central-Asia-and-why?" and just look at this issue of the formation of an Afghan National Army in the light of our most recent successful experience with army-building.

I'm talking about the work that was done in the highlands of Vietnam in the 1960's. According to Jim Dunnigan's "Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War" the CIA first made contact with the ethnic tribes ("montagnards" or just "'yards") living in the western mountains of South Vietnam in October 1961.

"By the end of 1963..." Dunnigan says, "...some 674 Green Berets...were working with the Montagnards, of whom some 40,000-60,000 were under arms."

Got that? Two years after the first CIA mission, roughly a battalion's worth of SF teams had more than two division's worth of tribesmen in the field.

And these guys weren't the "never-fired-and-only-dropped-once" Marvin the ARVN types, either. The montagnards routinely cleaned the clocks of the NVA units they encountered in their home mountains. They were a fighting people, they liked the hard-assed Yankee snake-eaters leading them. And, as Dunnigan puts it; "These tall, mostly-pasty-faced flatlanders came with loot and were generous with it. And all they want us to do is kill Vietnamese? Hey, what a deal."

By the U.S. government's numbers, three years later (1966) the SF teams (less than a brigade's worth - 2,500 SF) had organized about 35,000 troops into local village defense teams (CIDG), another 28,000 more into "Regional Forces" capable of reinforcing these little villes, and a brigade-size (3,000-man) "Mike Force", in effect a professional infantry unit that would maneuver against enemy field force elements.

We're talking a total of 65,000 troops in under seven years - the same amount of time its taken us to cobble together the rat-pack 70K or so that we refer to as the "Afghan National Army".

And this is out of a Montagnard population of about one million - barely a quarter of the number of Afghans we're supposedly helping into the 21st Century.

And these are Afghans. Afghans! Among the most savage fighting peoples on earth! The people who massacred an entire British army in 1842!

The fact that we can't assemble a decent fighting army of Afghans in seven years should give us pause.

Why don't they want to fight?Or is it that they just don't want to fight for "us"?

Chill

Back at work after my first involuntary day off in ten years. That's not a good feeling.

My little geotechnical company is definately shivering against the cold winds of the Great Recession. Better off than some because our overhead is lower and our accounts payable smaller. Worse than others because our skillset is less diversified and our line of credit lower.

What's that they say about how a recession is when your neighbor loses his job and a depression is when you lose yours?

Mmph.

Compounding this is my work history. MY first employer was a lovely man who couldn't manage to run a business more complicated than a pushcart. We would staff up like mad during good times and lay off like an Italian infantry battalion retiring under fire during bad. It was not uncommon for us to be asked to take unpaid days off just so we could make payroll during slow months.

Perhaps the worst example of this I remember is some time in the late 1990s. Two of us staff people were in the field working a job up in the Sandy River valley near Marmot. It was the end of the day, we had a problem that needed the project manager's input, and so we called back to our shop - a vividly remember standing out in the pasture with the old-fashioned "brick" cell phone to my ear. We each had a company cell, and in succession we both failed to get the office number, receiving instead some sort of recorded message about calling the GTE Mobilnet business office at 503-such-and-such.

Cursing the damn cell company and their crappy coverage we piled into the company rig and headed back to Portland. As luck would have it we got into the office just as our company accountant/office manager had stopped off at the front desk on her way out. We both whined loudly about the damn phone service until we noticed her look.

"Ummm...actually, guys, it wasn't a problem with the phones." she said in an undertone. We just looked at her.

"We...we didn't pay our phone bill last month. Or this month." she continued, a look on her face like someone admitting that one of her parents had been jailed for unnatural acts with farm animals. "They turned our phones off today."

Jim and I just looked at each other, appalled. I looked back at the office manager.

"Is there anything else I should know about?" I asked hesitantly. She looked around to see if anyone else in the office was listening before replying.

"You, unh, you didn't use the gas card, did you..?"


So you can understand - times like these give me a very familiar, very sick, uneasy feeling. Because when your neighbor loses his job...

Any Bonds Today?

Like I said, lately it takes a lot to get me assed up.

This did it.One of the things that the goddam Bushies did that always pissed me off was this; pretending that the costs of fighting imperial war in the hustings of Southwest Asia wasn't part of the "Defense Budget", slipping these damn supplementals past the budgetary process like an old lady tiptoeing into bed with the gardener.

Now the Obamaites are doing the same damn thing.

It's not like we can't see what's coming. We've been in both places for donkey's years. Our wastage rate and resupply needs are pretty consistent. There's no reason that these couldn't go in the regular budget.

Oh, yeah. Except for the fact that it would remind everyone that were pissing cash down a firehose trying to simonize a couple of tribal Third World shitholes.

And this thing looks like they're not even trying. Let's see...

"The request includes $11.6 billion to replace military equipment, including $600 million to buy the last four Lockheed Martin Corp. F-22 fighters the Pentagon wants and $400 million for 12 Boeing Co. AH-64 Apache helicopters, $3.6 billion to beef up the Afghanistan Security Force, $1 billion in aid to Pakistan, $30 million to begin shutting down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and $350 million to fight narcotics trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border. What else? How 'bout $1.5 billion to continue efforts to counter roadside bombs, $1.2 billion to accelerate “Wounded Warrior” programs for injured and disabled troops and $3.8 million for classified military intelligence gathering. Another $2.2 billion would speed up the growth of the Army to 547,000 personnel and Marine Corps to 202,000 members. A mere $5.5 million to deploy about 73 mail-screening devices to diplomatic outposts abroad. $800 million in aid to Gaza and the West Bank, $89 million for efforts to secure nuclear materials in Russia, $200 million in disaster aid for Sudan and elsewhere in Africa, $242 million in aid to Georgia that was pledged in the wake of that country’s 2008 conflict with Russia and $13 million in humanitarian assistance to Burma."

What? We couldn't see any of this coming? That $242 mil for our buddy Sakashvili was a black swan?

My ass. Obama's people managed to pull together a budget in the six months they've been working since the election, they couldn't have junked this crap in with it? The thing I tried for years to get my conservative pals to see (and which most of them just blinked at me owlishly when I mentioned it, like I was talking about frog sex or Dresden figurines or something) was that my headache with the Bushies wasn't that they were a bunch of unrealistic, rapacious, nepotistic and aggressive fatheads bent on shredding our governmental systems for their own selfish and/or partisan gain. It was that they were a bunch of unrealistic, rapacious, nepotistic and aggressive fatheads bent on shredding our governmental systems for their own selfish and/or partisan gain without a fucking clue what they were doing. They were like a bunch of special education kids using Semtex to blow the spillway gates off the Hoover Dam so they could get a drink of water. The damage wasn't just the damage they were doing at the time - it was the lasting damage they would leave behind.Morons.

So here it is, the truest, bestest Bushie legacy in action; their supposedly more adult, more responsible successors are using the Bush toys to play in the mud. It's like we've spent the past eight years living the Bourbon Dream: we've learned nothing but forgotten nothing.

Well, it's one thing for them to be Tom Fool and lead.

But it's another for us to be Jack Fool and follow.

No Joy in Mudville

There are bad ideas. Then there are REALLY Bad Ideas. And then are REALLY, REALLY, BAD IDEAS.

And then there's "Cooking with Dr. Pepper"...

As the commentator notes: "Any man comes home and finds his bride pouring a bottle of Dr. P in the sauce pan, he's going to snatch from her hand, grab her wrist with one hand, clasp the back of her neck with the other and bring her face to his, just to reaffirm his horrible suspicions: she's been drinking again.

He would be wrong. He would be a brute. She was only doing what the book suggested."

But to give you an idea of where I'm at right now, I'd have to tell you that I would personally gnaw my way through steel bars and low-crawl naked over a kilometer of broken glass to devour a thick slab of Dr. Pepper-marinated meatloaf with Dr. Pepper slaw and a Dr. Pepper on the side.I'm freaking famished. My internal flora has gone completely, dramatically wrong and has been for almost a week now. I've been subsisting on crackers and bread for three days without result. Today is a complete fast - water only. And of course, my unruly brain has been tormenting me with images of charcoal broiled New York strip...fresh tomatoes direct from the garden with sea salt, brie and basil...buttery prawns in garlic sauce...clean, briny hamachi with the sweet ginger and hot, hot tang of the wasabi...

Sweetbabyjesus, just kill me now...arrrgh.

Anyway, yesterday was a long, rough day in the field, working a steep site in Portland's West Hills. Hard drilling in the drizzly cold, and me just wanting to lay down and sleep all freaking day.This is the worst kind of internal disorder; it just feels like someone has stuck a tap in me and left it wide open. I can feel my energy draining away like...mmmm, let's not talk about water running, eh?

At one point I just lay on my back in the ivy and didn't move for five minutes. I could have gone to sleep there. Seriously.

The one interesting thing about yesterday was that the part of the West Hills I was working in was the site of the famous West Hills Martini Glass, a Christmas light icon that has loured over our Xmas drinkers since some time in the 1970's. During the MADD '90s the glass got one of those "no" red-circle-and-slash things that the homeowner would turn on at 10pm to signify Last Call.

So one of the few high points of the day was a long moment in the late afternoon when I could stop and just look over the railing across the Portland basin and enjoy the whole wierd Portland goofiness of this gigantic cocktail glass.

The story I've heard is that the homeowner actually inherited the martini along with the house and the damn thing is now a multi-generational project. It's funny to see the actual hooks and wires behind the big martini I've seen for years while zipping along I-405...

I'll try and get back soonest; it's just hard to find the energy to blog when you don't have the energy to, say, cook, clean or work.

Ugh.

(h/t to Jim Lileks for the Dr. Pepper cookbook)

Too Cute

The kids were just so damn cute this past weekend that I had to post these.

OK, this isn't cute - this is me playing roller hockey, and it's for my little buddy down in Tucson. Hey, guy, be nice to your mommy and she can teach you to skate and do this! No more throwing stuff, got it?So here's where the cute starts - the kids at Astor playground in the evening:

And not to forget - the Peeper has started "Chess Club", which he loves to death, mostly because he can crush his enemies, drive them before him, and hear the lamentations of their women.Peep the mighty tactician; think Clausewitz with a Star Wars the Clone Wars lunchbox...

Cool Things in North Portland: Swap n' Play

It's been very difficult to work up enough give-a-shit to blog about a lot of the political and military stuff I usually care about.

The Obama people seem determined to continue to fight a land war in Asia - in Afghanistan, to be specific - and so to discuss why this is probably not such a good idea seems like beginning a deep discussion on the epistemology of self-murder with a 280-pound offensive guard who has already got a firm lip-to-muzzle weld and one toe in the trigger guard. It's gonna happen, nothing short of snatching the shotgun away will stop anything and you know that you can't outwrestle the dumb bastard before he jerks down on that trigger and ventilates the top of his skull.Is a Sisyphean task, and I just don't have the heart for it. If you follow my blog you know why I think this is a bad idea, and I have no evidence that Dave Petraeus or Jim Jones follows the blog. What the fuck, over.

Likewise the Great Recession. Pretty much everyone seems to know what needs to happen. But a combination of venality and greed and the bought-and-paid-for Wall Street types working for the government agencies supposed to be keeping an eye one these rapscallions seems to ensure that we won't start hurling bodies out the windows until the malefactors of great wealth have had the opportunity to loot as much as they can from the public purse. And if Paul Krugman can't stop this, how the hell can I?

Nope...it's time to talk about another Cool Thing in North Portland: Swap n' Play.We first went there the Saturday before last, when the combination of rain and kid energy forced us to seek an intervention. This came in the form of this great little indoor playpark over in NE St. Johns. The people are great, the space is open and cheery...
...and the toys are terrific, as toy connesseurs Peeper and Little Miss can attest.

"WOW!!" shouted Himself, brandishing a truck, "This place has EVERYthing!"And indeed it does, from climbing playsets to trains to stuffed pets to trucks and EZ Bake Ovens. It's pretty damn amazing.As always, Mountain Climber Missy made right for the playset and conquered the highest peak thereof. She's a pretty incredible alpinist for an almost-three-year-old.

So we offically like Swap n' Play, and encourage any of you who're looking for some kid entertainment Tuesday and Thursday nights and every other Saturday to drop by.

And as for wars and lechery...well, for now let's just pull off our pants and dance our asses off. Hopefully that way we'll lull our corporate and government masters into complaisance so we can surprise them one morning with the torches and pitchforks and REALLY spoil their day.And for those of you who're interested, there's a nice little discussion going on over at Al and JD's "buggieboy" blog about education. Now there's something I can still get worked up about. C'mon over and info dump on us!

Hey, hey

...it's a Sunny Day! The kids are sleeping in their beds today,take a pic, and fly away,hey, hey, it's a sunny day!


Picture heavy post today, mostly since the day was so lovely and sunny it cried out for pictures.

Mojo ended up working a tad lateish on Friday anyway, so I took the younglings and asked Peep were he wanted to go for dinner. The final Jeopardy answer?

Burgerville!

Now as fast food goes, I like the 'Ville. They're local, they try and get their community props by being Oregonian and all green and recycley, their food is usually at or slightly above the usual run of sliders-n-grease. So St. John's Burgerville it was. Dad unloaded two silly, chattery kids in the little parking lot and the trouble started almost immediately.

Little Miss wasn't her usual happy self; Today's Special was Whiny with Not Listening sauce and a side of Demanding. The Peep had his own brand of whine, coupled with a need to have whatever she had right at that moment. AND they ordered a ton of food, most of which they freaking wasted. By the time we straggled back to the house I was as fried as the burgers, out of charity with my progeny, and retreated down to the shop to grumble and cuss.My bride, being the lovely and heroic woman she is, handled this debouchemont of cranky strangers with aplomb, got Missy quieted and jammied, got the Peep parked in front of his Friday-late-night-TV ritual and all down by ten.

Still. Ugh. Don't mistake me; I love my kids, they're wonderful children - smart, fun, funny, loving. But there are times, rrrrr...Saturday morning was chilly, but then, suddenly...the Sun emerged - Sun? Sun! OMFG, what the hell is THAT?!? It's the SUN!!! OH, Great Heat Tab in the Sky! You have returned to us! Ahhhh.....

So we opened the windows, did the laundry, swept the floors, played on the deck and argued about garden plans. Mojo and Missy went shopping. Peeper and I played Star Wars and I finished the woodwork - more about that later - and hung out in th - ahhhhh - Sun.

Then we napped (okay, Missy napped) and got ready to go to little Thor the Goddess of Thunder's 3rd birthday party.

Our girl's adoption siderunner is an incredibly terrific kid. She is growing up to be a happy, secure, fun and fun-loving little girl, for which I blame her parents, both terrific people theirownselves.We showed up prepared to enjoy the day and an enjoyable day it was, on whole.

Here's the gang ready to party like they were 1,095 days old!

Anyway, The 1899 House was lovely (especially with the cloudburst of pink and purple balloons), the homemade ice cream and cupcakes delicious. The company was lively, and the weather perfect.

Why did I come away feeling slightly blue?

Perhaps because it became increasingly obvious that, while they are friendly and polite to a fault, the Asgard family aren't really friends anymore. Friends in the sharing-things sense. Friends in the have-something-to-talk-about sense.They're aquaintences, yes. "Good aquaintences", if there is such a thing. People who, when you meet them, are warm and happy to see you and ask the right questions and tell you all the right things when you ask.

(oh, and for the record, the party is a great success when the Birthday Girl is under the table within an hour...actually, this is Miss Thor taking the shortcut past her auntie's and daddy's feet into the house for more b-day fun)

But who are also perfectly happy to NOT meet you for weeks, or months. They're - in dating terms - just not that into you. They have other friends who are more to their taste. It's not a bad thing, not a dislike thing, exactly...just...not so much.

And yesterday, I really saw that.

So while I like them and hope we see them again for Missy's 3rd in three weeks, I'm not expecting much. It is what it is. I just have to get over it and look to friends who are, well, more interested in hanging with...us, I suppose.Little Miss, by the way, was juuuust fine with that! She announced that she was having neither Thor nor her daycare diva rival Baby Ryan over for HER birthday. Mind you, Daddy did hint that the thing about having people over for you birthday was that they gave you presents. That brought a thoughtful look to her face. But she seems to see Thor as a rival rather than a potential friend.

Okay.

Here's the birthday girl with her daddy and grandpa. Whole lotta ove their, baby girl. Sweet.

So we're glad you loved your cocktail mixing set (we asked what a three-year-old wanted for her birthday and were told that anything food-y or games, or puzzles, would work. So we hit the Goodwill) and we hope you enjoy both the Speedy Alka-Seltzer ashtray/serving dish AND the Tickles the Tapeworm lunch box.Because we enjoyed celebrating your milestone.

But even with all the fun it wasn't all that long before we were all ice-creamed and cupcaked and played out. And it wasn't even dark yet. So home we went, to get our scooters and tricycles and rollerblades on, and scoot and skate and trike around the Astor School playground. And the a slow slide into jammies and stories and bed.

Nice. Nice day. And having "good aquaintences" - while it may not be all that as having good friends - isn't a bad thing. Better than not knowing these good folks at all. But I guess that the deal is accepting that what is, is.

As Ebby Calvin "Nuke" Laloosh would say: Sometimes you win. Sometimes, you lose.

Sometimes, it rains.

But not yesterday.Not yesterday.

Hey, hey; Happy Birthday, big girl.