Wednesday, December 2, 2009

change we're not quite sure of...

meet the new boss—and all that...

here we go again. Sending troops to a place halfway across the world to fight an enemy that isn't there only to incur the wraith of those very enemies we have been searching for since this whole mess started so many years ago...

Afghanistan. A barren wasteland. Principal economic value: poppy seeds and setting for the new Mad Max productions. Fifi will happy to be able to get his poppy seed bagel fresh from craft services. Really all we are talking about is a game of Risk. Yeah, the board game. Afghanistan is the gateway to the orient, as well as the buffer between that an Iran—part of the middle east in the game. In strategic terms its a transition area. If a large part of your army is based in Africa you want the Middle East to be your barrier country, using Afghanistan as a pawn in which to buffer from an Asian or Australian attack. Normally, when you hold Australia, your best course of action, after fortifying Siam, is to move westwards towards Africa, you see, Asia is too difficult to hold throughout the game so you are better off building a bridge to Africa, Africa offers the most points via continent bonus and also allows easy access to South America and Europe. In other words you save Asia for last. Ask the Chinese and the Russians how they feel about having to take over Asia, it just doesn't work out to well. Mostly because of the wasteland, the terrain and the angry individuals who have lost the genetic lottery. So why bother, you wait until you can trade in your cards for a boatload of armies and make Asia your last conquest, win the game and go home...

this isn't your older brother's game of risk—the one where he doesn't tell you the rules until they come up during the game and they are too late. The rules are simple here. Anything for the pipeline...

we have our interest back Iraq, even if the military presence has dwindled, believe you me, Chevron is all up in that as much as they are ass-deep in patents for the batteries that make the Hybrids work. There be oil up there in Asia—Kazakhstan to be exact, untapped and waiting for someone to drill the shit out of it. This is land that Genghis Khan didn't give a damn about, now its fucking Disneyland...

so if you were looking to build a pipeline from central Asia to Iraq, how would you go about it? Well there's Iran, but they have an Air Force and a terrain just as nasty as Afghanistan, so you might as well go for Afghanistan and surround Iran use sanction tactics and diplomacy to try and get Iran to change itself, and then just walk right in, all of a sudden you have the Persian Gulf and 3/4 of the countries needed to pump oil out of Kazakhstan and into the waiting tankers of Exxon/Mobil, Chevron and the like...

i bring this up merely to map out the reasons why President Obama went on TV last night, preempting A Charlie Brown Christmas, the only Christmas Special worth watching (it seems that Frosty the Snowman make 11 year-olds cry), to sell out 30,000 men and women to try and law up the lawless in Afghanistan. Meet the new boss...

things haven't quite come to pass as Obama laid them out for us this time last year—change we can believe in all that. Its getting harder to believe he'll get anything done and easier to see him turn into Jimmy Carter. This is the job, these problems aren't of his creation. The economy was weak-kneed after tax cuts in the early part of the decade and then exacerbated by getting involved in this Middle East mess to begin with. Then there is the toxic investment practices of the uber rich, the conceiving and institution of NAFTA, and the coddling of the Medical-Pharmaceutical Complex. There are the countless feckless education initiatives that have put an onus on useless numbers instead of real tangible results, like smarter, better prepared and more creative children instead of drones already halfway into their very own Matrix-pods. These things were all in place long before Obama entered the White house. That's the job, i understand. Its easier to let people tell you what to do then actually find a solution, see the former title holder...

thing is, i believed that Obama would put his foot down. That he had heard and seen enough like many of us already had. i thought this dude was going to pull a Black Belt Jones when he got in there, not merely get seduced like some Williams, i mean; nothing unusual about a President believing the hype...

Obama has to find a way to grab the power back. He needs to cut the puppet strings and flow free, because making the mistakes of a past administration because it is the path of least resistance won't endear him to those of us who expect and demand change. His administration should be on a suicide mission to get things done. The only way he won't be reelected in 2012 is if he sits back and allows the status quo...

breaks over Bro'ham, time to get up and go to work...

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