A new chair in the garage GOOD MORNING!!! to you all! Yup, got a new bar stool type chair to sit on out in the garage. Pretty cool if you ask me!
Free For All Friday Ed-vise today. Cause it’s PIZZA NIGHT!
I’m going to wrap up this week on Afghanistan. It’s along the lines of “not seeing the train wreck coming.”
The signs about how Afghanistan was going to play out were simply too many to count. It would have taken centuries, literally CENTURIES (that’s 100 years per century) to change Afghanistan in any direction. Alexander the Great tried it. Conquered the region from Macedonia all the way to border of now Pakistan. That’s why there are blue eyed and fair skinned people in Eastern Afghanistan. According to some from Afghanistan, they are not nice.
Russia tried it. On the way out they dropped millions of mines all over the country with the greeting of “your grand-children’s grand-children’s grand children will remember us.”
I think the first sign for me was when we (the US) turned over Camp Leatherneck to the Afghan Army. US built a massive, modern day military compound. All kinds of bells, whistles, computer technology, kitchen appliances etc. I mean this place was NICE! After the ceremony turning it over and handing off the keys, the generals of the Afghan army stripped that place of everything shiny, and took it home. They LITERALLY took the kitchen sink as well.
Second was the continuous reports from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). Those reports, every quarter, said the same thing: rampant corruption, poverty, criminal activity, and a deteriorating security issue. That last part was becoming more and more prevalent over the past year. No matter how much money we were throwing at the problem, the problem was NEVER GOING AWAY! Not in our lifetime anyway.
Afghanistan and it’s people play by a completely different set of rules than the rest of the world. It is their set of rules…not ours. Not the Western World…THEIRS. Theirs and theirs alone. It is an isolated region and has been for centuries. A pit stop along the silk road. Nobody but the local Afghan people live in that region. Thus, they have their own way of doing business. The problem with Good Ol’ ‘Merica, is we forget that not everyone wants to play by OUR set of rules. Further, we refuse to learn how anyone else plays their games. And thus, the Taliban come waltzing back in with a bow from unpaid and hungry soldiers.
I’m just saying
That’s it for today. Take care of yourselves. Check in on each other and remember if you take a day off at the calendar factory…they will fire you! Damn shame too.
Peace
Ed-vise 