We still only have three techs available at work! Our newly remodeled cyborg is back, but two others are out, sick or in training. (Sick of training, that’s 100% of us, 24/7).
Anyway, finally noticed that both MG and edo made recent posts. Thanks, guys! The Cyprus mess is absolutely newsworthy and would have been jaw-dropping less than a year-ago. Now it’s merely…I don’t know what to call it. The human race keeps me shell-shocked these days. “We believe enlightened 21st-Century economic policy is to steal from the thrifty poor and give to the greedy rich.”
How do you respond to that?! And I mean a rhetorical response, not a practical one. The smart move is dead-simple. It may not be easy…but it’s simple.
I’d advise diversifying your portfolio a bit more than that…but it’s a good start.
As far as the policy itself, all I’ve got is…Dooh Nibor. Dooh Nibor. But hey, pretty succinct analysis, right?
Edo’s post at least had a speckle of good news. Japan is gearing up a bit, militarily, in response to Obama’s fecklessness toward North Korea and China. Not that it will make much difference unless the government regains its…its feck, I suppose.
How feckless is my country right now? So feck-free that even the Russians can’t believe anyone could be that stupid. Yep, that’s us. Acirema fo Setats Detinu, everybody.
World's Only Rational Man 
The problem with Iraq and also A-stan is that the mission goals were completely messed up by both Bush 2.0 and Obummer.
Nation-building? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
I give Iraq a maximum of 5 years to enjoy the current freedom. After that they will fall into the same old “extremist” hole like the rest (even though there’s nothing extremist about jihadists, they are, by definition, pious followers of Mohammed, they do exactly what he did.) A-stan will encounter the same thing, though I’m 100% convinced that it will go faster there. Karzai is likely already snuggling with the Taliban behind the scenes.
Both wars could have been over with quickly. They were, in fact, on the road there. SOCOM was raising hell in A-stan. They put the hurt directly to the Taliban. Sure, they had to bribe local warlords to do that, but it was still cheaper than the current op, and also cost a lot less lives.
Then the Beltway Mafia figured: we must wage this war conventionally!
Yeah… the result you can see today.
There’s that old saw about generals always tend to wage the previous war. Our civilian command goes even further, believing that you can somehow skip all the effort of getting an unconditional surrender.yet still create a post-WWII Japan or Germany. In Islamic nations, to boot.
The only useful information from all this is to tell us how much fortitude to expect from our “leaders” if they ever felt the slightest personal threat.
Generally our civilian command has always been stupid.
If only our generals would be able to wage a little WW2 on some of these people things would get quieter!
If, and that’s a shockingly huge if, we had beaten these places into submission like some others it might have been possible to make ‘modern’ states out of them; but right now, if we had to redo the occupation of Germany again, the press would whine against it no end and we wouldn’t do it.
I wish we had waged either of them conventionally, as in conventional doctrinal warfare for victory. This touchy-feely war fighting is insane, stupid, wasteful and fruitless. Not one damn success in any of its adventures.
Both Afghanistan and Iraq had a complete breakdown of mission conception and execution.