Masopher's Mind

We live in such a fearful world. This ash cloud debacle is the first piece of evidence. Every week in history volcanoes have erupted but never before in history have we grounded all the planes in Europe because of an eruption. For a week we waited in fear and watched as, as it turns out, a harmless cloud of smoke blew by.

I haven’t quantified it yet, but British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s language in the recent debates is loaded with fearful imagery. He fears a “double dip” recession; if the Conservatives cut government waste and borrowing. He fears what two remote, backward countries will do should Britain cut spending billions on nuclear weapons. He fears what would happen to the NHS if the government cuts the millions being spent on bureaucrats and failed computer systems. He fears that if we don’t continue being involved in Afghani civil wars; Saudi dissidents and Pakistani paymasters will fund some “youths” from Woking or Tower Hamlets to take out their social frustrations on innocent Brits. He and the Conservatives fear a ruined Pound Sterling if the parliament is not run in an authoritarian way. They fear a hung parliament but the UK would rejoice if every member in parliament were hung.

There will be no revolution, though it is often televised. Clegg is an admirable distraction and something fresh for young people to pin their hopes on. And that is why he has been built up; for a fall. His career and people hopes will be smashed down like all young peoples dreams are and the rotten leering lecherous old boys will return to business as usual. Even if they could get 40% of the electorate, Lib Dems could not get into power. Even with both rivals at around 25% all Clegg’s party could hope for with that improbable landslide victory is a hung parliament with them in the majority.

There are two ways to motivate someone: hope and fear. Barack Obama chose hope, McCain chose fear. Spiteful and malicious morally crippled leaders like Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam, Kim Jong-Il, almost any two bit dictator in South America, Africa, the Middle and Far East and pseudo democracies in Europe uses fear and intimidation to elicit compliance. Inspirational leaders like Lincoln, MLK, Kennedy and Obama use hope and dreams to prompt action. Brown chooses fear and despite the strong start, the Conservatives are choosing fear. Clegg is choosing hope.

But it isn’t that easy…politics also works on negatives…making people lose hope and promising people the alleviation of fear. Beating down people with impossible goals and perpetually loaded dice is as good as fear. Here’s a rock, there’s a greased hill, push the rock to the top and you might get what I get for free. With a constant background of fear, the promise of small relief is as good as hope. With the constant background of hopelessness the promise of free taxpayer’s money seems like a reward.

The only thing I fear is fear itself…but there is so much fear here.

Petraeus is the general who can do no wrong. Pulling off a decent semi-victory in Iraq (bringing a lull to the sunni uprising, blocking al Qaeda until the Iraqis “awakened” and now kicking ass in Afghanistan while the Pakistanis handle the leaders camping out in Waziristan and shopping in Karachi.  Arguably, all he does is pay off fence sitters, create a kerfuffel in fight-able areas and waits for the locals to do the right thing.  Perfect counterinsurgency. The brains of the beltway and European military minds pay reverence to this man for his results oriented techniques. He gets the job done. Success is the only real quality a hero needs and Petraeus does that. He also has a good PR machine and that doesn’t hurt one bit either.

Here is a status report on the progress so far in this large military push.

WASHINGTON: With U.S. forces entering the second week of a 12- to 18-month campaign in Afghanistan, the general in charge of U.S. forces in the region acknowledged yesterday that the way ahead will be tough.

“I have repeatedly said that these types of efforts are hard, and they’re hard all the time,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Likening operations in Afghanistan to the surge in Iraq, the general pointed out that when U.S. forces go on the offensive to take away Taliban safe havens, they will see definite resistance.

Petraeus said the past year has been spent putting things in place for a “comprehensive civil military campaign,” putting in the best leaders, helping to develop concepts, giving counterinsurgency guidance and starting to filter an additional 30,000 forces into the country.

“So the inputs we think now are about right, and now we’re starting to see the first of the output, and the Marja operation is the initial salvo, the initial operation in that overall campaign,” he said.

Early results have included taking down high-value targets, such as Taliban shadow governors, Petraeus said.

“We are there for a very, very important reason and we can’t forget that,” Petraeus emphasized. “We are in Afghanistan to ensure that it cannot once again be a sanctuary for the kind of attacks that were carried out on 9/11, which were planned initially in Kandahar, first training done in eastern Afghanistan before the attackers moved to Hamburg and then on to U.S. flight schools.”

When asked if al-Qaida still poses a threat to the United States, Petraeus pointed out that the terrorist organization is a “flexible, adaptable” enemy whose threat, although diminished within the 20 countries making up the Central Command area, is one that requires constant vigilance.

“It is a network, and it takes a network to keep the pressure on a network, and that is, indeed, what we are endeavoring to do,” Petraeus said.

Although he wouldn’t get into the details on the intelligence operations surrounding the recent capture of Afghanistan’s No. 2 Taliban commander, Abdul Baradar, Petraeus said Pakistan leaders have done “very impressive” work over the past several months leading up to this event.

“They saw this as the most pressing existential threat to their country, and they supported the Pakistan army and frontier corps as it went into Swat in the Malikan division of the northwest frontier province, and then expanded this operation in to the federally administered tribal areas,” Petraeus said. “They know they can’t just clear and leave. They have to clear, hold, build and, over time, transition to the local security forces. That’s indeed, what they are endeavoring to do. They are carrying out this fight.”

On the topic of potentially revising the law that prohibits homosexuals from serving openly in the military, Petraeus said he’s sure there’s a very sound and good process at work on that issue.

During Feb. 2 testimony before the Senate, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced the creation of a review to be headed by Gen. Carter F. Ham and the Defense Department’s general counsel, Jeh C. Johnson.

“It will provide a rigorous analysis of the views of the force on the possible change,” Petraeus said. “It will suggest the policies that could be used to implement a change, if it does come to that, so that it could be as uneventful as it was, say, in the U.K. or the Israeli militaries or, indeed, in our own CIA and FBI.”

The general said that he’ll be ready to provide his input on the topic when he testifies before Congress with other combatant commanders in a few weeks.

“I think that it’s very important that these issues be handled and discussed and addressed by this review that will be so important in forming decisions as we move forward,” Petraeus said. “I think it is hugely important that we have the answers from the questions that they’ll be asking in a very methodical way – something we’ve not done before because of the emotion and the sensitivity of this issue.”

The snorefest of finance and the potentially more interesting topic of stopping AQ from paying dumb kids to do dumb things.

Bin Laden and other rich old guys who don’t believe in blowing themselves up (hence why they are old) might have experienced a bit of a a strain lately with oil devaluing and financial institutions taking a beating. Nigeria (another place with oil) had its recent AQ related terrorist scare and Afghanistan’s insurgency is run by “ten dollar Taliban”, poor boys who are fighting to earn enough money to pay a dowry or pay off debts so yeah, maybe there’s a correlation.

Anyhow, here’s one bunch of rich guys who don’t mind sending young men to their deaths and to kill people discussing how to stop other rich guys from sending young men to their deaths and to kill people.