Far East Cynic

To Esquire Magazine.

It’s for the articles.

Honest.

Really, it’ true. I never let myself get distracted by the smoking hot women on the cover and inside.

Never.

Well, maybe a little.

Ok, Halle Berry looks pretty good.

But I love her for her mind-which reads articles like this, by Thomas P.M. Barnett.

Its a good read. Some of his conclusions will suprise you.

And if they don’t, you can still go back and look at some smoking hot women.

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Note to self. A) Build more connection time in when traveling through SFO. 2) Try not be sick as a dog when riding 11 hours in cattle class-with stingy booze service.

Made it back in one piece, but even after 12+ hours of sleep my head still feels like it is at the bottom of the pool. Up early this morining, (I forgot that the sun comes up at 0430 this time of year), when the cat decided that knocking my cell phone off of the dresser and then flinging himself against the closet door, is a good thing to do at 6 am. Said cat was quickly dispatched with a boot down the hall as I stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee.

In catching up on my reading, I stumbled upon a great deal of commentary about this article by Lt Col Paul Yingling. Its a pretty solid , “how did we get in this mess?” type of analysis, which takes fault with the uniformed leadership within the Army and their failure to more aggressively protest the micromanagement of the war plan by Rummy’s boys in DOD. Its generated a lot of reaction in the milblogging community. The article has been picked up by several news outlets, including the Washington Post. His key thesis can be summed up by this quote:

“After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America’s general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public,” he writes. “For reasons that are not yet clear, America’s general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq’s government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq.”

Commentary from various milblogs can be found here, here, here and here. Some supportive analysis can be found here. Marine Corps Times has a profile of the author.

I did a quick check of other articles that LTCOL Yingling has done. He’s been published at least 3 times in various military journals. His writing is pretty consistent in theme, namely that the Army is training for the wrong war again……he stresses the need for counterinsurgency over training for major combat operations-hardly a new idea among many military writers.

Most folks who are critical of the article are keying on two points: 1) That he simply points out the obvious with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and 2) that he is too critical of a entire group of officers who have tried to make the best of the hand they were dealt. There is also considerable criticism of media outlets taking his article and publishing their own excerpts as somehow showing “proof” that the media is out to use military personnel to discredit the administration. The latter contention has some merit, but on the whole its an overwrought reaction IMHO. In any case that’s not LTCOL Yingling’s fault or responsibility. Its is a consequence of the interconnected world we live in-any author has the right to look for commentary that supports the point he is trying to prove. Including major newspapers.

While many people both for and against have focused on his criticism of the Army’s generals-well earned by them-very few paid attention to one of his major points buried within the article. The “money quote” in my opinion is this one:

For more than three years, America’s generals continued to insist that the U.S. was making progress in Iraq. However, for Iraqi civilians, each year from 2003 onward was more deadly than the one preceding it. For reasons that are not yet clear, America’s general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq’s government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq. Moreover, America’s generals have not explained clearly the larger strategic risks of committing so large a portion of the nation’s deployable land power to a single theater of operations. (Emphasis mine).

Surge or not, I think its pretty clear that barring a major intervention by Congress or a change of heart by the administration, American Forces are going to be in Iraq for many years to come. Its armed forces are not, and have not been, properly resourced for that effort. As I have written before that was the major failing of Rumsfeld’s reign at DOD and why there should be a special circle of punishment reserved for him and the rest of his lackeys. “Winning”, at least as defined by the war’s supporters will come at a cost to the overall position of the US overseas and its armed forces. In particular the US is limited in its ability to exert power in other areas because of the size of its commitment in Iraq. That fact has not been really well portrayed by any of the spokesmen for the conflict. There is no such thing as free lunch. ( Free anything for that matter….). Even with projected increases in Army and Marine Corps end strength, the services will all be short of what they really need. The Navy and Air Force are being held down in order to pay for the war. Its a train wreck in the making, but the senior leadership in both services continue to insistent that all is well. They also continue to offer greater numbers of their personnel to do jobs that are more properly done by the Army.

The military is mortgaging its future to pay for the war today. Other areas that may in fact offer a better payoff in terms of benefit to United States interests, are being sublimated to our commitment to this particular group of Arabs-who cannot seem to get motivated to repay the favor and fix their own house-while not looking at other countries that are more critical to the region and to the global economy.

Yingling is not trying to fix a mess that is already in progress. His purpose is to remind folks of how we got into the mess to begin with-in the hope it is not repeated-and its a good analysis. One has to read the article in its entirety though and the risk of all this “extra” media coverage is that folks will only get the reader’s digest version and miss the really important points contained within the article.

Clearly, some of his suggestions regarding mentorship of the senior military’s leadership are off the mark-increasing involvement of Congress in the process for example. He’s right though, in pointing out the current system is not producing the best possible leadership. And I agree with him that service’s emphasis on technical education is ignoring the real need for officers with skill sets in languages and a solid knowledge of the forces at work in the world. He’s not the only one to say that though, its an often repeated and ignored idea.

Point is somebody is saying it-and a military publication is printing it. Given the current self serving tripe that passes for reasoned discourse in military publications these days, that alone is progress.

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Well, I’m either getting better, or they will be removing my body from the airplane tomorrow. What appears to be a chest cold, has now seemed to have migrated to my head. I stayed in last night, except for a brief foray for dinner. My ailment does seem to retreat for a while in the presence of alcohol, so maybe a short stint of medicinal beer is order.

Meetings over, its time to go home. And none to soon. Being here watching the political debate has been disheartening to say the least. On Iraq, it appears that neither side has a grasp of the whole situation or the mood of the country. And all the effort to pass a spending bill that is not going to go anywhere, seems quite wasted if you ask me. As I blogged a couple of times before, the idea of being opposed to the current fracas in Iraq is a good one, but just like the execution of the war, the Democrats have horribly misplayed their hand.

Lets start with Harry Reid. David Broder had a column out today that said:

Here’s a Washington political riddle where you fill in
the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats — a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.If you answered ” Harry Reid,” give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.

Harry Reid became a lighting rod for criticism by his non-careful use of language. Furthermore, someone is going have to tell me why picking a frontal assault here was the wisest thing to do. Why not take on the process which is flawed and demand that the President stop trying to hide the real cost of the war through the use of suppl mental appropriations. The timelines have no meaning because the Congress cannot sustain a veto override-so pick the fights you can win. Taking the approach I advocate would not have left the Democrats open to the charges of being surrender monkeys.

On the other hand though, it is frustrating to watch the pro-war rhetoric. Joe Lieberman posted the party line today in the Washington Post. He trots out the same tired old line.

Furthermore its amazing to see that yet again, the President gets a free pass on the overall mismanagement of the enterprise, or for that matter the choice to engage in an optional war at the particular time he chose to engage in it. Lieberman and crowd says that we have a moral duty to stay in Iraq forever, not matter how much the Iraqis screw things up.

George Will offers the answer to that line of thinking:

When McCain, an inveterate moralist, implies that America had a duty to “prevent” genocide in Rwanda, he ignores a principle of moral reasoning, one particularly pertinent to U.S. “nation-building” in Iraq. The principle is: There can be no duty to do what cannot be
done.

Speaking to the media after his VMI speech, McCain said, “I’ve always believed those words about ‘all of us being created equal and endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights’ didn’t say only people who live in certain parts of the world who come from certain cultures.” So, neoconservatives have their candidate.

Other Americans, however, may recoil from someone who does not distinguish between a sound philosophic judgment and an alarming policy. The judgment is that all human beings have a natural right to live under a regime respectful of personal autonomy and political self-government. Such a
regime is a natural right because it would be best for the fulfillment of human nature. The alarming policy flows from the assumption that all peoples and polities are somehow spontaneously—meaning without long acculturation in the necessary habits and mores—prepared to flourish under such a regime. That generous but preposterous assumption is a recipe for many Iraqs.

If you want to turn the corner and negate the opposition to the war, you have to show some way out the tunnel. Otherwise, I submit that most Americans are like me, they don’t understand how expending this amount of blood and treasure is benefiting Americans. Who should matter more to a US President than a group of Arabs. Problem is just the opposite seems to be true, these Arabs have been given an importance that is out of proportion with where they really fit in the food chain. And if they are so important, why is not the US pressuring or negotiating with other Arabs to get involved and fix what is essentially and Arab problem.

Answer that question and you would have an easy time getting rid of Harry Reid. Till then, a poor mouthpiece he maybe, but he voices an opinion shared by over 50% of Americans. They don’t want war without end. The President promises nothing but.

No wonder its time to go back across the dateline.

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Does anyone know where Madame Chiang went? Have not seen a post from her in over 3 weeks……………….

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I’ve been blogging for over 2 years now. For the most part it has been an enjoyable experience, however at the same time, it has exposed me to the less admirable things about the Netizens of Bloggerville.

People believe that blogs are an Internet expression of free debate and open minded argument back and forth. I must be reading the wrong blogs then because, from what I have seen nothing is further from the truth. The typical political blog comes down on one or the other side of the aisle and woe be unto the individual who dares to post a comment that is opposition to the feelings of that blogs particular herd.

It works for both left and the right. Go to a Democratic supporting blog and post a comment in defense of GWB or opposed to gay rights and you will be greeted with a stream of epithets, if your comment is not actually deleted. On right wing and / or milblogs if you try to voice an opinion that you are not expected to have, because you are or were once in the military- you get castigated beyond belief. Particularly by some narrow minded folks who think that their military experience somehow gives them the right to judge yours. Its sad because what it implies is that the reading public is not capable, in general, of rising to a higher plain.

Now its no secret here, that I am not a fan of the war in Iraq. I have not been since 2002 when the country set off down the road to war without end. Now were I just a reader of the Daily Kos or any other left wing item, well I would have lots of like minded company. However I don’t. There are some thinking bloggers who are on my daily reading list who do not share my conviction and in fact want to try to convince me of the error of my ways. That’s OK. Its interesting, helps me to think and allows me to voice my opinion. At least in general its done with respect.

Not everyone shows that respect though. For some its like they have a particular quest to convert me to some other point of view, one that, based on my particular life experience will never accept. When they cannot convert you, they simply fall back on simple name calling-especially when it comes to the fracas in Iraq, because it has gone on so long and has aroused such passion in so many individuals. Anyone who questions or tries to draw a conclusion that is different is branded with a host of epithets, which get more pointed as a particular comment stream goes on and on.

Which is why, at this particular point I also make it a point to read the expat blogs whose links are on the right side of my page. They provide a more personal point of view generally and also when they do comment on the politics of where they live, it provides an appreciation of why its good to be an American sometimes. Lately I have been finding myself going here, more often than I go here. Perhaps it has to do with learning slowly but surely that there are only so many fights I can pick at any one time.

I think its sad although it is not unexpected. People tend to hang with like minded people. And its easy to slot people with others expectations of what they should or should not do.

Still, it could be something different-something a lot better.

Just my .02-Your mileage may vary.

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Nothing sucks more than being in a really cool place while being sick. I wanted to go out tonight, but I just did not have the energy. I have been fading in and out of consciousness on the bed while watching TV. The lights of Sin City are blinking through the window taunting me.

I noted with great sadness today, the death of David Halberstam in a car accident. I always enjoyed his books, particularly his one about the Fifties. Halberstam was what we see too little of these days, a real journalist who thought he had an obligation to get the facts out with sufficient detail that one could actually draw coherent conclusions and not just get little sound bites.

His book , The Best and Brightest, chronicled the “whiz kids” who thought they had all the answers in 1965. It is a telling foreshadowing of the Rummy world in the early years of the 21st century.

He was a scathing critic of the war in Vietnam and in his conclusion that it was a quagmire in 1965, primarily because of the way it was managed by Washington and the corruption in Saigon were right on mark. He came under very tough criticism at the time. In today’s world had he written that way, he would have been branded a surrender monkey and just another biased member of the liberal media.

Problem with that approach was that the facts just kept getting in the way. Are you listening Michelle? If you could display facts the way Halberstam could you might actually become a journalist instead of a sales provider. His words about the attacks on the media are worth listening to:

“The crueler the war gets, the crueler the attacks get on anybody who doesn’t salute or play the game,” he said. “And then one day, the people who are doing the attacking look around and they’ve used up their credibility.”"The attacks on us were very, very unpleasant,” Halberstam said. “There was an attack on our manhood, on our politics. We were portrayed as being communists and weak.”

But reporters are often vindicated over time, he said.

“I think the truth will always out,” Halberstam said. “The people who attacked us are mostly forgotten; most of them have apologized.”

His words are applicable to both sides of the blogger sphere as well. Milbloggers do not believe they are guilty of such intolerance, but I think if Mr Halberstam were to do a chronicle of the type of discourse that goes on here in Bloggerville, none of us would like his conclusions.

He was particularly accurate in his later years with his analysis of the Iraq war and the lead up to it:

I think Vietnam and Iraq are different and yet there are a lot of parallels. There’s enough there to make you very
uncomfortable if the way you see these things is shaped by our experience in Vietnam, as it is for me and so many of the senior military people . . . .I remember during Vietnam there was a generation of correspondents, some of the older ones, who were very tough on us younger correspondents because they had been in Korea or World War II and those wars had worked and there was a legitimacy to what we did then. And some of them were very quick to put down the younger reporters who were saying, “This doesn’t work.” I had vowed never to be one of those who says, “Guys, you just don’t know . . . I was in Vietnam and I know things you don’t know.” You know, pulling seniority and perhaps living in the past. So I was somewhat reluctant to talk too much about Iraq. But
gradually, as we got nearer to it, I began to speak out.

There were four or five points I was trying to make before the invasion. One was that we were going to punch our fist into the largest hornet’s nest in the world and end up doing the recruiting for Al Qaeda. I said that I thought that we would do the race to Baghdad very well—that the sheer military part would go well because our military is just very good, marvelous people, and our technology is awesome. But then the battle would change; we would be involved in urban guerrilla warfare, and things would turn against us.

I said that I thought the movie that they were all watching in the White House and the Pentagon was Patton, and the movie they should have been watching was The Battle of Algiers [the 1966 quasi-documentary film about the Algerian struggle for independence from France in the late 1950s].

There is a moment in a war—as there was in Vietnam and as there will be in this war—where your military superiority is undermined or neutralized by your political limitations. And I thought the biggest miscalculation of all was a great underestimation of the colonial factor, just as there had been in Vietnam. In Vietnam the U.S. absolutely had refused to factor in the effect of the French Indochina War. And I felt the specter of colonialism would be a problem again in a more complicated way with Islam.

The greatest miscalculation was not about the weapons of mass destruction, but the idea that we would be greeted as liberators. When the Bush people kept talking about that, alluding to what happened in France and Germany after World War II, well, anybody who had been in Vietnam would have been wary of it. There was just no way we were going to be greeted as liberators in this part of the world. The Iraqis might want to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but they would not want us to do it for them. I was saying these things before they
happened and not just ex post facto.

He often alternated his subject matter, after writing a weighty tome he would settle down for a more mundane subject such as his book the Summer of 49. He was in fact on his way to interview a sports coach when he was killed.

The United States and the world is diminished by his loss. Too much of what passes for reporting these days is just shrill noise designed to further someones particular agenda. Authors who could provide the facts on complex ideas in a readable fashion a few and far between. Halberstam was one of those folks who could do that.

Rest in peace sir, and send good reports back here from the other side.

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Elvis sends his regards. Got here yesterday only to discover that I think I am getting a cold. All the travel is catching up with me. Within sight of Mandalay Bay, I huddled in my bed watching old movies on TV. Believe it or not I had a a lot of work today up at Nellis AFB.

Lots going on in the world, but no energy to post. Watching a TV show about the Holy Grail. Wish I could be out on the streets looking for it here. God , must have a sense of humor.

Gotta work tomorrow which means I need to conserve my strength. Go read something fun and think of me!

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Harry Reid that is……proving yet again that the Democrats are their own worst enemy. No opportunity is too great, such that it cannot be f*&ked away. In that regard, you and the Iraqis have a lot in common.

You used the “L” word. Just like the “wasted” word, its like throwing gasoline on a raging fire. The fire blows back in your face and you get burned up. I have yet to hear you apologize by the way.

Do you morons ever think about what you say?

It would appear not, because with one word-one lousy word-you have allowed idiot savants like Michelle Malkin and William “The bloody” Kristol and Conservative commentators everywhere to peg you yet again as a surrender monkey. Which is quite convenient for them because it allows them to obscure discussion of the very real and serious issues that pertain to war without end in Iraq.

Not to worry though pal, because you have given the pundits at least another 3 weeks of using you as a punching bag and not being called to account for anything they may say. Good job!

You know the old saying Harry, don’t you? Namely, “that you can build a thousand bridges and is it Harry the bridge builder? But just suck one c*@k and that’s all they remember you for.”

How’s it feel down there on your knees Harry?

Idiot. A real idiot. That is what you are.

Its bad enough that there are people working real hard to get the truth out about what the war in Iraq is costing the United States. Not even J. William Fulbright was so careless when he was dealing with qualms of conscience about the war he was called on to oppose. He did not use the “L” word. He did not have to- politicians of his generation knew how to speak:

The price of empire is America’s soul, and that price is too high.The citizen who criticizes his country is paying it an implied tribute

-J. William Fulbright

No L word anywhere.

When you get done washing the taste out of your mouth, you might want to go over and take a look at what he had to say. And then tape your mouth shut.

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World Bank style………………

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Tomorrow it will be time to embark on the next leg of the trip from hell-most probably with the new, smaller bag I have purchased and with out my other items that I packed specifically for this next leg of the trip.

I had some nice talks with my sister today. It jarred me a minute when she pointed out that it will have been 10 years this year since the plane crash that took our other sister’s life occurred in Panama. I don’t know how I did not realize that it had been that long. Been through a lot of ups and downs since then.

Also had long talks with my sister about the frustration she experiences being the one who bears the burden of watching out for my parents. My mother looked particularly frail this trip and her memory seems to be considerably diminished. I was jarred when the first night in , after I arrived late from the fruitless search for my bag, she asked me how my ex wife was doing. She said it with all seriousness. I was shocked and frustrated, but on closer cross examination she really did not remember that I had gotten divorced over 7 years ago.

My sister has a hard life these days. She works in a job she hates, but it allows her to be close to my parents. My mother is increasingly cranky and its hard for her to deal with. I was here only 4 days and it was hard for me to deal with. I can’t understand how she deals with this day in and day out.

Which of course led to the understandable guilt. I’ve enjoyed my life over the same time that she has been surviving hers. Travelled extensively, enjoyed wine, women and song, and seen a lot of the world. That has come at the cost of not spending a lot of time here with my parents. There is a part of me that feels like I should be here, doing my bit, sharing the burden-even though North Carolina has no attraction to me and is not any where on the top 25 places I would choose to live (Sorry Tar Heel fans). Now I’m walking out the door knowing it will be at least 3-4 months before it will even be possible to see them. And if I do come back it will be at cost to something else.

Feeling guilty that my life has been so good these last few years. And that I have found a place I enjoy living-with a lifestyle that suits me-even if it does not make me the model American pillar of chastely existence. Should I have bitten the bullet, last year and come here to live even if only for a few years? Helped my sister do what needs to be done, give my mother some happiness and in seeing me more than just once or twice a year? Have I not been just a trifle selfish?

All that is set against the opposite backdrop of having life cut short prematurely as it did to my other sister. Aren’t you supposed to grab life’s opportunities? But what about the debt of gratitude I owe my parents? They helped me out, financially and other wise when my life was falling apart and I was being used as an emotional punching bag by a hate filled woman-who thought she had the right to run my life. I am grateful more than words can describe to my parents and I think they know it, but would not a more concrete expression of that be helpful?

No answers to these questions and at least for the next year anyway, I’ve made my choices. But dealing with Mom is tough and it would be worse if something were to happen to my father. Which is something we both did some walk through drills about-morbid as it may seem. Better to have a pre-mishap plan than to try to make it up on the fly, we both agreed. Its up to us after all-my oldest sister will be useless in this. Both of us know that with 100% certitude.

It is also interesting how both my sister and I have changed in our attitudes toward the world. Mostly we have become more alike-especially in our attitudes and regrets towards the opposite gender and relationships. We both the decided that we are more alike than we realize-neither of us is the “marrying kind”. We just waited too late to realize that-much to the chagrin of both of our current S.O.’s………………We both agree that the idea of one person as the be all end all of our existence is just not true. And we both lament the missed opportunities and lost freedoms of the previous years. I would never have thought about that as something we would be of like minds about.

I told my sister that if she needed to take a break I could arrange it to spell her, which is not entirely true because there are times this year when my schedule just will not allow it. I felt it was important to make the offer and to let her know I would be there.

I love my parents dearly as do we all in our family. They been asked to help all of us more than any normal human being should. It is heartbreaking to see their once vibrant minds reduced to daily pedantic mumblings and grasping at what remaining memories are left. And spending most days inside a house that is increasingly impracticable for them. It hurts and I ask my self, will it be that way for me some day. Except my bridges are so badly burned there will probably be no visits from my kids in the home. Just nurses who will push me around and cast me away…………No wonder I need to work out more.

Of course that assumes one gets to that far down the road and as this week has proven there are no guarantees of that. Life is so damned unfair!

So its a cold, cold world out there and tomorrow, both my sister and I will be going back out into it. I love you Mom and Dad. Thank you for the opportunity to go out there.

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Busy day yesterday and today. Filed reports with the police, talked to my insurance, cancelled credit cards, bought clothes. I think I understand now why people say they feel so violated after a robbery. The 24 hour window has passed of someone making an honest mistake, and calling to rectify it. Now it just comes into the window of someone either being criminally lazy, or just plain criminal. Hope you f%$ks enjoy my dirty laundry from last weekend! You can keep my razors by the way-please use them to cut your wrists!

My brother in law had contacted the corporate headquarters of the rental car company. Which led me to go see the manager this AM and demand to look at video from the time I rented the car. Once I finally got to see a manager with some authority, he was very helpful. Using the time I got off the bus till I rented the car, we were able to use the camera shots to determine within what I believe to be 5 minutes of when my bag was taken. Under prodding from the corporate offices they called 9 different rental car customers. Not all were available-voice mail for about half-so I’m not optimistic that anyone will come forward. Especially the two guys dressed like they were ready for a 50 Cent video who look like they were loading luggage into a van from the spot where my bag was. Does that make me a racist? I don’t feel like one, but its hard to understand why, if they made an honest mistake, they had not called to correct it by now. The camera is a wide angle and attempts to sharpen the image to see faces and break out individual bags out of the blob that was there, were not successful. At least it gave me a great deal of detail to give the police. The manager also indicated that this kind of thing happens more than they care to admit. Which makes me wonder why they don’t use a different system for herding people to check out cars and why thy don’t upgrade their camera system. After all, you can see the pissed off look on my face pretty well when I came away from the counter.

I doubt I will see my bag again. And if I do, it will be lighter-although I doubt Mr 50 Cent and his pal will be able to wear my shoes or pants-and my 220 volt transformer will be gone I’m sure. Again, I thank my lucky stars that all the things I need for work and money were in my briefcase and backpack. The folks at my meetings will just have to get used to me being dressed casually. They will get over it.

It’s also an eye opener to see just how quickly using camera angles, and correlating info you can narrow down to see likely candidates. That’s also kind scary and reassuring in a way. All it proves though is that we can watch the crimes while they happen-not prevent them it seems.

I have a lady from the Tulsa headquarters assigned to my case. Good news about that is I can talk to real person with out going through hoops on the phone. The local manager also takes my ohone calls very quickly. However with out an exact idea and or an effort by the police, to determine exactly who or if, they took my bag all we will know is approximates. Which are probably not enough to charge anyone.

And set against the back drop of recent events, my little tragedy is a pretty small one. I’ve got all the big things I need, there is nothing that cannot be replaced in time, and I can walk and drive and eat with out having to use a feeding tube. In both Virginia and Iraq today, there are people who cannot make that claim. I remind myself over and over again that I need to be thankful for that.

The level of media coverage on this, the 3rd day after the shootings really surprises me. I don’t think CNN has talked about any other news since Monday. Not to diminish the significance of the tragedy, but in Iraq today over 200 people died today and as Juan Cole points out:

The profound sorrow and alarm produced in the American public by the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech should give us a baseline for what the Iraqis are actually living through. They have two Virginia Tech-style attacks every single day. Virginia Tech will be gone from the headlines and the air waves by next week this time in the US, though the families of the victims will grieve for a lifetime. But next Tuesday I will come out here and report to you that 64 Iraqis have been killed in political violence. And those will mainly be the ones killed by bombs and mortars. They are only 13% of the total; most Iraqis killed violently, perhaps 500 a day throughout the country if you count criminal and tribal violence, are just shot down. Shot down, like the college students and professors at Blacksburg.

But wait this is America you ask, this type of thing is not supposed to happen here. Neither are people supposed to get robbed in the course of daily business either-yet both happen with increasing regularity. To me these are signs of what needs to be fixed in American society. I’ve travelled over 7 years in Asia and never had to worry the way I now have to worry when I am over here. It builds bad habit patterns and that burned me to be sure. You can be sure I’ve learned that lesson well.

I guess what I am getting at is that somewhere somehow, the people have lost that concept of basic respect for each other. Once that is gone, all things no matter how stupid, seem acceptable. Which leads to a South Korean student going off the deep end. People will analyze this till the cows come home- I don’t have an answer. As an aside, I wonder how long it will be till the South Korean media blames all this on the presence of the 2nd ID in Korea………….

Just like I can’t explain why Sanjaya did not get sent packing till this week. Nobody ever said the world had to make sense. It is what it is. I’m tired.

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I’m up early this morning. I need to be because I have all kind of things to do today. Having my suitcase stolen is a major red ass, made doubly so because the rental car agency was less than helpful as they could have been. The police told me they do not have to call anyone to see if they got the wrong bag. Seems to me they could have at least taken a glance at who rented cars during that time frame.

So now its calling my insurance company, trying list in my mind exactly what was in there, call all my banks in case there might have been a receipt in there. Figure out what I can buy in clothes until I get back to Japan so I can complete the trip.

It makes me so mad. I am convinced that someone picked up my bag thinking they were getting all of theirs. However if that were the case one would think they would have the decency to call the car company.

Fortunately all my really valuable things were in my briefcase and back pack. It is what I get for not trying to be nuisance in the line by dragging a large suitcase behind me as I snaked through the line. I kept my head on the swivel up until the time I was actually at the counter. And then when I came away from it-it was gone.

So my day is shot and its not even 7am yet.

I’m pretty pessimistic at this point. What scares me the most is maybe someone did not mean to steal it, but will be lazy enough to wait till their trip ends before they notify anyone. And by then I will be long gone.

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The shootings at Va Tech.

And I had my bag stolen today-while I was in line at the rental car agency. Yea, Yea, I should not have turned my back on it, but the line was long and I did. At least my clothes and toiletries can be replaced.

Who will replace the life and talent that was lost today? You can’t. I don’t know much of the details, the news was breaking as I passed from gate to another, but its pretty clear that the guy went on a rampage.

“Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,” Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said. “The university is shocked and indeed horrified.”

But he was also faced with difficult questions about the university’s handling of the emergency and whether it did enough to warn students and protect them after the first burst of gunfire. Some students bitterly complained they got no warning from the university until an e-mail that arrived more than two hours after the first shots rang out.

Wielding two handguns and carrying multiple clips of ammunition, the killer opened fire about 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston, a high-rise coed dormitory, then stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building a half-mile away on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus. Some of the doors at Norris Hall were found chained from the inside, apparently by the gunman.Two people died in a dorm room, and 31 others were killed in Norris Hall, including the gunman, who put a bullet in his head. At least 15 people were hurt, some seriously. Students jumped from windows in panic.

Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior, said he was in a 9:05 a.m. mechanics class when he and classmates heard a thunderous sound from the classroom next door – “what sounded like an enormous hammer.”

Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.

“I must’ve been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last,” said Calhoun, of Waynesboro, Va. He landed in a bush and ran.

What in the hell is this guy thinking?

This unbelievable.

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Sitting in the lounge waiting to board the first of 3 airplanes today. Hoping I don’t get waylaid in Chicago. Looking at the weather news, I would say my chances are 50/50.

For a guy who only got 3 hours sleep last night, I feel pretty good this am. It was supposed to be a low key kind of night, but one thing led to another and………… Tell me again how beer is supposed to be good for you. Maybe the first two, but after 8 I think the healing powers dwindle.

Reading this morning in the paper about how Wolfowitz’s squeeze thinks that she is a victim. Victim? That’s rich. I would classify it a little differently:

The woman at the heart of the controversy that has embroiled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz says she is a victim and was forced into a job transfer because of their relationship.Shaha Riza said promoted into a high-paying job at the State Department in 2005, on
Wolfowitz’s approval. She says that at no time did she report directly to Wolfowitz and that he had proposed to recuse himself from any decisions involving her to avoid a potential conflict of interest.

She said the ethics committee of the World Bank’s board had required her “to go on external assignment contrary to my wishes.”

Riza adds that “I have now been victimized for agreeing to an arrangement that I have objected to and that I did not believe from the outset was in my best interest,” she said.

Her comments were made in a memo to an ad hoc committee of the World Bank looking
into the circumstances surrounding her transfer. The memo was part of a set of
documents released by the bank on Friday.

Sorry my dear, but when one is making 184,000 dollars a year, the concept of being a victim goes right out the window. Especially when the man you are sleeping with makes 3 times that. Ever hear about the word “discrete”? When you and loverboy Paul made this thing public-which was reported again and again in the press, you had no choice but to move somewhere else. Nobody is complaining about that.

It is your boyfriend directing you to get a 60,000 dollar pay raise and 8% raises per year after that, that makes folks mad. Interesting, when the good Dr. Wolfowitz was at DOD, he could not be bothered to recommend to his co-worker Dr. Chu the same level of pay raises-all the while leading the country down a dubious path to a war that has done nobody any good. THAT’s why people are upset.

Richard Cohen sums it up well:

Look on the bright side. She can finally have time to darn his socks.

Now if someone had called her “nappy headed”, then she might be a victim.

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Looks like a guy on the Yamanote line picked the wrong day to cop a feel:

TOKYO \ A man was arrested last week for groping a woman who happened
to be a police officer, police revealed Thursday. The incident happened on JR’s Yamanote Line on April 6, they said. The 20-year-old police officer felt her coat lifted and her buttocks touched between Kanda and Akihabara stations, they said.

The officer immediately grabbed the man and hauled him off at Akihabara. The suspect, a 39-year-old construction worker, has deniedthe allegation. The police officer was in plain clothes at the time.
–Japan Today

He probably loses at cards too………….

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