It's ALL in the PRESENTATION

Anthony Bourdain would be the first to tell you that the quality of any meal starts with what it looks like on the plate.  Some meals that have 'eye appeal', off the calorie chart, can taste like wet cardboard and other meals that look like they should be in the dog's dish can be sheer delight on the tongue. The same logic as Bourdain's 'looks' is taken to ridiculous extremes when the the 'ingredients' and the 'outcomes' are far less attractive and often anything but palatable. I'm talking about international affairs and the elite among us who earn living having them. This stuff is what big business used to be.

I was watching an old Afghanistan documentary the other night, I think I've mentioned it before, but it included a 'bit' where two  US Marine 'advisors' are instructing a number of Afghan troopers in the fine points of proper hygiene.  After giving then the 'wash-up before you eat' and caution about what the bad bacteria a can do to you - they pause to let their message about sanitary wipes sink in. That tales a couple of minutes for the Afghans to figure out - no doubt as the translator puts the lesson into a language the Afghans understand.  They 'get it' quickly and, surprisingly, they're insulted. The Americans are telling them something they learned at their mother's knee - something the Americans - used to soap water, thorough cooking and decontamination procedures up the yin-yang - don't seem to realize - that Afghans, bring raised in a Moslem culture,  without the benefit of regular showers an flushing port-a-sans , decent refrigeration ,  preserved foods  and lacking the concept of  paper used  only for wiping shit - are scrupulously careful to avoid contaminating what they put in their mouth  with whatever might be 'left over from yesterday' and coming out.  I'm hoping that those two Americans were aware that the left hand, for Muslims, has a purpose that the right hand just never shares.  If they were,  they failed to mention that - other than saying they 'had no intention of offending anybody' - which put a skid mark on the rest of the presentation. If they had anything good to impart that was lost in the subsequent Afghan  round of 'these guys think we're idiots'.   The presentation - meant for the folks back home, courtesy of a front line videographer -  was lost on the Afghans and served no purpose.

When it comes to that home front and far more important things, the 'presentation' is sometimes blown out of all proportion. Sometimes the presentation is everything.

I don't know if the military has a training program in intra-unit communications,  but as in any self-respecting organization - getting the word out well is probably a leadership tool skill.  But I have a feeling that, like the briefing for General Dreeble's visit in Joe Heller's  'Catch 22' ,  those so involved might get carried away with the beauty of their 'weapons' - or rather their power point and slide making skills. There have been reports of some incredibly intricate schematics used to describe probably far-less-complicated situations - done,  I would imagine , when the presenter doesn't know his stuff and hopes bullshit will baffle brains. I remember Ben Netanyahu addressing the US with a graphic that looked like something from a Wile E Coyote cartoon and using a red marker to draw a red line on it. Ludicrous!  He did the same thing again,verbally , at a more  recent event,  when he interrupted his speech to recognize Trumps' son-in-law and fellow Hebrew, Jared Cushner. Granny Netanyahu cooed about how he remembered the lad as a baby and inquired "How long is it now that we have known you?"  The Roman emperor couldn't have done a better job talking  to little  hostage Herod in some Hollywood epic.  Americans just eat up that homemade shit but such stuff comes honestly,I guess, to them.

Pattun 2: I AM the Presentation

Look at the way they're cocked-up to be  special.  They look like the country club set with their very own caddies and, in some cases, social planners and personal 'fluffers'. A lot of 'really important' Americans play it like that. J. Paul Bremer comes to mind. I'd bet that John Negroponte never sat on a dirt floor or got fleas.  If he did it was 'for fun'.  He certainly didn't get too near the Miskitos.

Look at the photo of America's latest  military Triumvirate .  Not only are the mood lighting and camera angle enough to enhance 'the willies', the occasion is meant to portray substantial change for 'the guys' were reporting that,  after 17 years,  the Afghans were finally 'involved' - like really really involved -  with America's war in their country.

They're NOT dicking-around any more

As if in counterpoint, the Taliban attacked the Afghan  Military,  across Afghanistan, killing over a 100 of them last week alone and wrapping things up by sending another American home in a box.

There's a lot of deep thinking in train these days as the good guys try to get a wheel back on the wagon of 'democrazy' that seems to be heading into a Calvin&Hobbesian drainage ditch,  This is an interesting study - done to the Nth to impress with  'Presentation'.

The CSIS Study on how best to address Terrorist violence World-wide


Tony Blair and Leon Panetta, the original 'bullshit artist' and the latter-day 'Pagliacci' headed-up an all-star panel of, essentially, western think-tankers to come up with the best way to 'tackle' a terrorism problem that has only grown since first we noticed it in 2001. Essentially it boiled down to three things:  First - baffle them with bullshit - flood the "ideas market" with the kind of thinking about a possible heaven on earth brought to the have-nots by free markets and western business.  Second: do what good guys do best and cut off their funding. And, third: failing the first tow, go all out to kill them. The order is mine - I have a feeling that number three could be number one because it is both easier and ultimately more effective.  More of the same with glossy new packaging and brilliant photography depicting the ultimate objective (even some humanitarian white Helmets). If they don't stop - 13th century living  via  21st century bombardment.

The big weakness, aside from the obvious repetition of failed policy expecting a different outcome  here, is that it's written as an 'action-paper' for Donald Trump. And yet it doesn't mention him once.  Lightweights at work. Ergo: FAIL.

Here's another 'slick little piece', this time on the sort of distaff side that global thinkers don't bother thinking too much  about. But it's the kind of thing that probably got that old terrorism ball rolling in the first place. And the kind of thing that has probably been at the root of every evil ever done. It's about somebody 'screwing up' and, first,  nobody giving a shit. Then spending an awful lot of time and resources to cover their asses. It's the kind of thing that both Blair and Panetta have done - personally.

An Australian Tale: The Valley

Since the Last Time, Last Time

The 'last time' I updated (October 5th)  I wrote about the USAF strike in the MSF hospital in Kunduz.  The most recent development of that horror is the announcement that the aircrew involved have been suspended and may be looking at a court martial.  Something has come off the rails at PR headquarters.

LA Times Report

We should recall that the incident happened when Afghan and US Special forces were engaged in the mission to drive the Taliban invaders out of that city - hopefully saving it, without destroying it.  If the Taliban were playing true to form - where the notion about 'fighting and running away' is wiser than 'standing up' like a man so the nice chopper jockeys can shred you, they were probably exiting, stage north, while the good guys rolled into town from the south - at night.  An assault, at the best of times, is usually governed, at least when there are Americans involved,  by the 'war philosophies' of 'fire superiority'  and its related axioms: fire suppression, reconnaissance by fire, fire and movement,  etc - which generally involve a lot of shooting.

That this is happening at night, when either you can't see, or the night vision goggles are lighting up like a Disney movie, you have a recipe for the wrong people getting shot, or shot at.  And so when the 'Spectre' gunship, circling above to provide 'fire support' (another axiom),  received the report that maybe, somebody inside the hospital may have fired at the 'saving' forces, the gun sights would have been zeroed on the coordinates and confirmation of target sought. Obviously they got that for they opened-up and, after 55 minutes of the best airborne bang-bang money can buy and their ammo bins emptied,  the hospital had been put out of commission. Obviously too, in the heat of all that 'action' nobody thought to vet the procedure with HQ - which had, unbeknownst to the birdmen,  one of those silly humanitarian agreements with MSF about not shooting-up their hospital.

I'll bet that, after they wiped-off,  even the gunship crew knew there was a 'shitstorm' coming their way. And so the PR second-guessers kicked into overdrive. They took witnesses out of action to testify to seeing Taliban dashing about and firing from inside the hospital. Only thing wrong with that there were no dead Taliban, their weapons or even empty cartridges from all the shooting, found inside.  Not that there wouldn't have been,  for some non-military types actually got into the hospital before the good guys drove an AFV though the wall of a destroyed ward three days later  to get inside to 'do their investigation'. The MSF and Afghan watchman could easily have spirited-off the dead bad guys and picked up all the empties and guns left behind.   Why they even got the President of Afghanistan on the news,  to say that he wouldn't second-guess 'good intel' and, while it was regrettable, the shoot'em-up was OK by him. The President of the USA, of course, praised the good work of MSF and blamed the Taliban for endangering them. The US armed forces came up with a body of information and 'scenarios' to justify wiping them out.

And to-day, well the pendulum swings and somebodies, the guys at the sharp end, are going to have a chance to make their own case for why they felt the need to do what they were trained and deployed to do,  in front of the humanitarians who sent them there and would have been pinning medals on them if this had turned-out to be a 'feather in their cap', rather than 'a black eye'.   If Joe Heller were still alive he would be roaring about this one.

A human interest story coming out of this sad mess."The Man on the Table"  


Milo Minderbinder lives and the Big Picture is still what counts.

Speaking of that Big Picture again. The western military is agog in anticipation of what Putin is going to do to the Turks.  While he seems to have ruled out risking a 'nukuler conflagration' by attacking a NATO member under Article 5 of the Treaty. (Boo! Hiss!  Pusssaaay!) , Putin is being cracked-up for all kinds of creativity designed to bring about the end of all we hold dear and sacred.  The western media is full of 'what ifs', but the other 80 percent of the balderdash deals with why it was so right of the Turkish Air force to drop a Russian jet in the course of its duties bombing Syrian terrorists - well not quite terrorists like the ones we don't like, these are doing the same things and we do like them.  Like the Kurds defending their homes against ISIS, the Turkomens of Syria are 'defending their homes' against the Assad regime. In most other places they are called 'rebels', in Syria they're called the 'Free Syrian Army' because we've armed them like a regular army  to destroy tanks and aircraft. Apparently they couldn't drop the Russian aircraft 'attacking' them,  so their blood brothers across the border did.   The Russians initially claimed it was ground fire that downed the jet  (it was ground fire that killed one of the crew) but rather than take the 'free out',  the Turks responded with a radar tracking map and claimed the Russians flew over a 20 Km-wide sliver of southern Turkey that pokes 50 KM into northern Syria. the overflight took 17 seconds, during which the Russian aircraft (2) were 'warned' 10 times. Then a Turkish fighter fired an Aamraam long-range missile which struck one of the Russians while it was in Syrian airspace. That caused a crash inside Syria.

Russia denies the aircraft were in Turkey at all.  It's maintaining that story to-day while NATO is making noises about 'overreactions' and the US is saying it can't confirm Turkish radar data.





The Russian media slant:

We'll see where this goes but it's pretty certain it won't be a cause for war or even some Shock 'n Awe.

Brennt Paris? Nein Mein Fhurer.

Like the cinematographic marvel that described Dietrich Von Choltitz' defiance of a  Fuhrerbefehl in order to save the City of Light, there will probably be a couple of 'cinemas' come out of 'Paris - the bulwark of latter-day democracy and freedom'.  I've been waiting to see how things shake-out after the latest 'terrorist outrage' and, as I expected, there's more of 'wag the dog' in the reaction than there seemed to be in the perpetration.

One of the nice things about having all the perpetrators wind-up either killing themselves (preferred) or being killed in subsequent security operations, it that it leaves the sheeple wondering 'why' and the way open for somebody to fill-in their blank. The narrative belongs to the survivors, usually the distaff side of the perpetrators' cause, if there is one. In most western democracies, under such attack, is there any permissible cause to be killing innocent citizenry or upsetting 'routine life' - unless they are rioting coloured people?  And such it was in Paris.

But, as in other such instances,  a couple of points are noteworthy.

Once again security forces were able to identify the perpetrators quickly,  almost within  minutes. Lucky happenstance - an abandoned rental vehicle loaded with weapons - led to rented hotel rooms and the identification of a number of the terrorists and the 'Belgian connection' which continues to generate news (see below) Had there been a dumped corpse in the trunk, that car might well have sat, ignored, until the pong  disturbed the neighborhood - but when everybody's looking in back windows for a 'bum' it was quickly identified. Or maybe they left it parked in the roadway.  A passport found in the street led to the notion that Syrian Jihadis might have be on a mission from God to pose as refugees and infiltrate the vulnerable EU.   The discovery has EU member-states shoring-up the internal 'grenzen' and fortifying the outer wall - to stop refugees.  And then there was the logo. Somebody went diligently to work to create something to portray the times, faster than Parisian came up with caps and 'liberty trees'  and altars to celebrate the Revolution a couple of centuries ago.

Presidente Hollande was 'on the air', again within minutes,  promising France that revenge was in the air that 'relentless attacks' were in the offing and that the target was clear - ISIS, or as a preceding step perhaps a regime change in Syria. He announced to the French that their country was 'at war'. As if what France's membership in NATO and it's involvement in 'Yugoslavia' (vestigial), Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, CAR, Djibouti and a number of other places weren't actual 'wars'.  This is 'vrai laine' - all that's needed is a UN mandate and some willing allies.  The only real ally - or at least 'relentless' - seems to be Vlad Putin.


Needless to say outrage was worldwide and spread by a media slavering for the sort of sensation that sells paper. Even Charlie Hebdo rose to a suitably moronic  'Gallic' reaction to the shooters

                                     "Zey av zee weapons, F*ck them! We av zee Champagne!"


The rest of the world looked for stories of courage under fire, lucky escapes, tragic deaths and who to blame. All were intrinsic to the story, and Paris is famed, or infamous,  for its 'paparazzi'.  But the main intent, or message, was to instill fear of imminent repetitions. The fear spread faster than a Tsunami. Populations at far remove from Paris were demanding military action. France was placed under a state of National Emergency that will last until February at least. Belgium started-off with police raids - they netted no real suspects - but warnings of 'imminent attack' were announced yesterday and  to-day EU headquarters and no doubt the NATO command complex, is under guard and lock-down  security.

In related news  - according to the world press,  ISIS claimed responsibility for downing a Russian airliner the week before -  that resulted in increased Russian air attacks on Syria.  In Mali,  AQ - now ostensibly an 'ally' against ISIS in Syria - attacked a hotel in Bamako killing a number of westerners.
In the west,  the Syrian refugees are being tarred with the terrorism, despite any substantial evidence of a link. Plans to locate some of those fleeing the war there are being squelched by those afraid of actually 'importing terror'.  In other news it has been reported that Syrians have been fleeing to the west surreptitiously for the four years since trouble broke out and during the years of economic hardship leading up to it.  What put so many on the road, just recently, is another story as yet untold.

The plight of the refugees and the call to help, in my estimation, is a really good 'cover' for western governments to use to distract from the on-going process used to create refugees in the first place. They've found a winner with this, as it adds to the notion that 'they hate us just for trying to be kind'.
And it creates another subset of 'losers' in Syria, and other places, when the illegals are sent back, or the 'evil doers' aren't selected for resettlement.  The Polish foreign Minister called for arming, and training Syrian refugees in military camps before returning them to 'liberate' their homeland.  This wouldn't be far from the truth, for collecting pay as a 'rebel', or an ISIS jihadi,  beats starving in the dark and being suspected as a traitor..

Warnings of attacks on Jews by somebody, and by ISIS on the US military,  have been announced. While actual attacks on Israeli Jews have seen a number stabbed, and lot more Palestinians (and a couple of mistaken identities) shot or beaten to death by 'scared' or  vengeful Israelis.

The UN voted for 'action' on the incident, in response to France's pleas,  but thus far no definition of the action, or call for participants, has been made.  The only possible dissenting voice on the UNSC could be China - unless Ukraine opposes Russia on principal.

And in Ukraine an uptick in both 'provocations' and military movements seem to be pointing at somebody perhaps thinking that Putin has taken his eye off their ball. We'll possibly see another outbreak of fighting there. Or perhaps all the sabre-rattling is to make sure the EU doesn't lighten-up on the new anti-ISIS  'ally'  living in the Kremlin.   The EU has just extended sanctions on Russia past next June and Kyiv, like TelAviv, doesn't like not being on Page One - so this could all have just been PR hype. Recent blockades of Crimea and closing airspace to Russian commercial flights just add to all the romance - (while the Russians boycott Ukrainian turnips, eggs and kielbasa while threatening to turn off the gas)

In Belgium a week of 'dragnets' have not turned-up  the one 'missing' perpetrator, the brother  of two of the dead attackers. Nor have any arms caches or bomb-making labs been uncovered as they have in France. Belgian authorities blame their lack of success on Belgians "tweeting about police activities" so that the 'jihadis' are forewarned and have time to move themselves, and their arsenals. In response to an appeal, the Belgians are being lauded by authorities for tweeting and posting pictures of cats in poses relating to security situations and warnings. Maybe now the police will be able to stop the terror,  pussy-cat style.


What's new pussy-cat?

Putin is Assad (Offside) Again

Putin is 'off side' in Syria now, as well as in EUkrainia. Russian 'interference' in Syria is starting to bother America. Just yesterday the US had to complain that Putin was giving Assad the 'red carpet treatment' on his first visit outside Iraq in 4 years. I expect they would have preferred the Russians 'shirtfront' him over the barrel bombs and ostracize him into leaving office. For the first, and most annoying, aspect of that Russian interference has been an insistence on maintaining Assad in power, in contravention of everything else good and holy that's been going on in Syria.  Assad you see has been busily killing 'everybody' that ISIS hasn't already killed.

Add to that a rumor that the Iraqi government was preparing to ask the same kind of Russian assistance for its war on terror and you have America 'hitting back'. "It's him or me, Delores"  or something like that General Joe Dunford - Marine tough guy and US Chief of Staff is supposed to have told the Iraqi government. There is only room for one good-guy (or 65 of them)  in Iraq's GWOT. If Russia wants to help fight ISIS in Iraq, the USA will be taking its 'balls' home. What in the heck are the other 65 'independent' nations who've seen the sunny side of the need to fight terror in Iraq going to do?  Are they going home on the freedom bird, too?  That would sort of make a big fat lie - or expose a nasty truth -  about 'growing democracy and freedom' and rebuilding damaged lands. I think there would be a whole whack of people in a number of first world countries looking at their boys being used as America's cannon fodder, and changing the regimes that pretend independent action but really just sell-out to Washington. Something like this could put the kibosh on NATO.

Our way or the Other way?

Since Putin started his Syrian campaign the world is missing the blow-by-blows we've come to expect with serious military operations. That could be good reason,  for such 'reporting', later,has often failed to meet any criterion for truth. The results have certainly not borne out the 'descriptions' of 'vic'try'.   Assad has LEFT Syria for the first time in four years.  Maybe something is changing and we just haven't heard about it.  And maybe the Iraqis have.

Maybe 'getting it done' have a very different meaning in US English and in Russian.  Or the 'it' part is completely different between the two.

 It's obvious, given 14 years of the best warfare money money can buy,  that something hasn't been done right, or at all. Who needs a multi-national  coalition if  the strategy and tactics are clear and unimpeded by massive economic 'disruption'?

That trip to Moscow?  Another 'bust' for US intel.  They didn't know he'd gone until he was back in Damascus. And he flew through US-controlled airspace - a war zone - to get there.

Assad's Flight into Russia

Ramadana-ding-dong

Isis turned one this past month and, according to them who know these things, it's a 'real' , 'new', evil that seeks, not a place at the 'table', but the actual removal of said table. According to the wise, it's celebrating the feast of Ramadan in a very special way because of that.

 Counterpunch exposee!

Clear-eyed realists, (it beats the drug-induced kind) such as Canada's Steve Harper and 32 percent of all Canadians 'know' (otherwise he wouldn't have deployed half the Canadian Air Force, and all of the sniper force, to aid Iraq in their destruction of ISIS/IL) what a 'threat' they really are - even more than the evils that are Putin, and the NDP.   (Well not really - 65 percent of us recognize the 'threat' of Putin to be so great we want to send the whole army to eastern Europe. And the NDP is actually starting to 'come a winner' for Canadians!). Can we be faulted if there aren't as many targets in northern Iraq as there were in downtown Libya, or Afghanistan?  Target richness is variable, eh? But that shouldn't stop us looking, or bombing.

Naturally, you have to have security for 'the mission' and so that's why most Canadians are earning their campaign ribbon in sun-blasted Kuwait, where the fear of the 'bolshie bomber' is lessened and the 'jihadi jitters' not so bad.  Although that's equivalent to flying out of Base Trenton to a war zone around Iqualuit . Even with their 'long legs', Canada's F-18's require air-to-air refueling to get here, stay there to look/bomb and  then return to base. It's a good thing we have 'friends and allies'. I wonder what they're charging for the 'joy juice' even if delivery is free.

It makes one wonder what happened to the magnificent forces that 'shock and awed' Saddam, blasted Iraq into the middle ages and now seem to have redeployed somewhere else. Do  8 Canadian aircraft make all that much difference?

While Canada was 'holding the line' in Iraq, Isis apparently is running amok , (to 'celebrate its birthday'?), almost everywhere else. There have been on-going attacks in Nigeria, Niger and other parts of Central Africa. Isis is still fighting in Libya. ISIS took Ramadi and Palmyra in the face of the best mediocre 'bang-bang' some money could buy (We've 'trimmed that fat' in Iraq.).  It attacked the friendly AU forces in Somalia last week. It made an outrage in Pakistan. Yesterday, it struck at Egypt in the Sinai. 'ISIS fighters' (viz a guy with a gun - but completely different to shooting-up a black Bible study class) supposedly struck in peaceful Tunisia and in France with 'front page-grabbing terror attacks'. About the only thing the west can counter with, is a growing number of 'security arrests' and regular announcements that the drones have nailed another 'biggie'.  Thank goodness the Taliban haven't shared the secret of the 'invasion rowboats' - but then, they are 'enemies' of ISIS as well and, maybe, because of that, they are no longer, perhaps, as much the 'enema' we've been fighting for the past 14 years as they are  potential 'peace partners'. Or maybe they still are scumbags in need of killing,  we haven't figured it out yet.  All is couched in possibilities.

 What we have figured out is that Iran is behind it all.  Not, as some wags thought, Saudi Arabia and the other Arab forces of light and goodness. From Ansar al Aqba to Zeddi al Djinn ANY and EVERY  problem in the middle east leads back to Teheran - in an almost straight line! The mad ayetollehs of Teheran are plotting the demise of western civilization, don't cha no?  Just the same as did Darryl the Mede as he swept down on snoozing Nebuchadnezzar.

And just a soon as they spill the atomizer:  Kablooie! Civilization as we know it goes poop!

In the meantime - even though their economy has 'gone bust' with the sanctions program - they're shipping-off the last of the national wealth to pay for unibombers. Somebody ought to tell the Iranians. They, being the decent people they are, wouldn't stand for that and there is a perfectly good Shah ( 'Och, he's a lovely wee boy"- as Mum would say) and his court-in-waiting in New York.

Meanwhile we'll keep the table polished and gather around it the 'hard core' forces of 'piece and progress'. The world needs gay marriage and real 'love' more than it needs high explosives or even another banking fiasco. If there's one thing we can stand for and they can't,  it's human rights, and the free-market system. We don't shoot innocent sunbathers, or even drop bombs on them. Well not unless they're Russians, for, you see, them 'Islamics' don't doff their duds at the beach, where you could really scope 'em out with the drone optics and nail them. Or at least get some 'actionable' imagery to post in the trailer.

We will, for the foreseeable future, 'keep on keeping on'.  It's them invasion rowboats (robots???), eh?