Far East Cynic

A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language.^[1][2] Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.

So to take it to its most interesting extreme-Slate has put together what a Wiki breakup might be like:

Better off renting……….

And calls Obama a Socialist ( which is an insult to both Obama and Socialism), I’m going to use some variation of these words:

I came to this country and worked hard also.. and, like you, have been lucky enough to be successful. This country is wonderful that way – if you work hard you have a good chance of being successful. But many people work very, very hard and are not successful – and not because they are stupid, or lazy. The difference between Obama and his predecessors is that he realizes that the people who work hard and don’t make a lot of money, or work hard and don’t have health insurance, or who worked hard all their lives and now – in their golden years- have little to show for it also deserve some minimum level of dignity.

And yes, someone has to pay for it, and I’m happy for it to be me and people like me, because there for but for the grace of God. It’s not punishing the successful, it’s realizing that hard work is only part of the equation and we as a society need to recognize our obligations to those people who have held up their part of the bargain but didn’t end up on the winning side (and children get an automatic pass).

I’ll have to say this, we are living in interesting times. Obama makes Republicans happy and pisses off Democrats about Iraq, who would have thunk it?

If David Petraeaus needs a job after he leaves the military-assumng he does not continue his role as 21st Century American Caesar and run for President-he can always take up selling used cars.

Because it seems to me, that him and Gen Odierno snookered Obama but good when it came to withdrawing from Iraq.  They said they needed 23 months to get most combat troops out of Iraq. Obama settled for 19-and caved on the number of troops left in country after that. I want to see a break down of exactly what units will comprise the remaining 50,000 after August 2010.  It won’t be pretty-especially if it commits us to be Iraq’s Air Force, and Praetorian guard for Maliki for the remaining 17 months till 2011.

If we leave by 2011. Its clear to me-from watching the Generals lobby the President and from the data in Thomas Ricks book, that the surge lovers are in no mood to ever leave Iraq. Like a stoplight in Naples, they regard the  SOFA agreement as advisory in nature only. The surgeaholics are so in love with the idea of “victory” -a meaningless term at this point when it comes to Iraq-that they are prepared to see America stay for years after years in that Godforsaken country. They don’t want us to ever leave-they believe their own rhetoric about “a long war” and also believe that “fixing” Iraq will take a long time. They have gone native.

What’s always bothered me about that line of thinking is that it gives, once again, a pass to the Iraqis for their inability to rise above their stupid religion and their stupid tribalism. I don’t expect much to be gained by staying, and if Iraq does fall apart if we leave-why can’t that be on their heads, not ours? Even Gen Odierno, in an interview in December 2008 for Rick’s book acknowledged that, “”What we’re finding is that as Iraq has become more secure, they’ve… moved backwards, in some cases, to their hardline positions.”

Stephen Walt points out that regardless of motive-the surge did not achieve the strategic goals it set out to achieve.  Thomas Ricks has pointed out the same thing.

Most important of all, the evidence in The Gamble points to a different conclusion than the one Ricks advances. His account shows is that even after the United States got the right commanders in charge, employed the right approach, and adopted more realistic goals, it was still unable to achieve its broader strategic objectives. Thus, Ricks’s belief that we must stay for another ten years or more doesn’t really follow from his own account: if we couldn’t win under the best circumstances we can reasonably expect, why linger on?

The simple answer is we shouldn’t. If anything, we should paying the troop withdrawals forward, and pulling a fair amount of troops out this year, not next year, to show the Iraqis we mean business and that their American umbilical cord will not last forever-and that whatever stupid course they choose, it will be their Arabs asses, not ours, that have to suffer the consequences of choosing wrongly. A visible, significant early withdrawal would break the status quo mindset that Petreaus and others are counting on to make our presence in Iraq permanent. Deep down, I wonder if that is what the Fred Kagans et al really want-empire without the perks that come with owning the territory.

And we should be clear what the costs of staying exactly are:

And let’s be clear about what staying in Iraq entails. Keeping U.S. forces in Iraq indefinitely means we will continue to hemorrhage our power and wealth on behalf of a government that has 1) already forced us to sign an agreement to withdraw, 2) is openly hostile to Israel, 3) friendly to Iran, 4) lukewarm about us, and 5) increasingly uninterested in Washington’s desires. And this is the regime on whose behalf we should expend more blood and treasure?

Obama had a hard choice politically. He could stick to his guns and open himself up to a huge wound when, thanks to the deity status that has been imposed upon David Petreaus since September of 2007 ( Thanks to Move On.Org), he would be subjected to criticism that he had not listened to his military commanders. The conservative critics would have had a field day with that.

Or he could have gone along with the longer time table and the greater residual force and appeared to have been the more reasonable guy. This latter alternative might pay off-but it makes a big assumption. It presumes, that the case won’t be made again that we have to “slow down”-especially if we keep losing soldiers the way we are this month. It would seem he’s opted for the latter course-it helps get the war off the radar screens. With the current economic mess-he probably figured he could do that. There is a cost, of course-by conservative projections it is at least 3 Americans a week. Guess they can all live with that-I sure can’t.

Getting out of Iraq sooner-rather than later needs to be the goal. Because every day we stay in that country we are doing ourselves no favors. Nor, for that matter, are we doing any favors for the Iraqis. Iraq is no longer a war we can afford, militarily, diplomatically or economically. I would ask the President to make the step that the Bush could not-and put American interests first.

U.S. forces cannot prop up venal, incompetent, or corrupt leaders, and threatening to go home and leave them to their fate is often the best leverage that we have. And if a government we are trying to help cannot help itself, then exercising that exit option is the right response. I hope Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Zardari are paying attention, but I hope Obama is, too.

For now though-we are driving a used car off the lot-one that David Petreaus sold “as is-No warranty”.

It is Ash Wednesday, and belive it or not I went to Mass today. The church did not cave in on me-so I’m taking that as a good sign. Nonetheless it leaves me in a non-blogging, contemplative mood today. I want time to read my books-and think some.

However I did stumble across something really cool-the NASA web site. It is really worth checking out-its got some neat things to do.  For example you can go here, and track where the International Space Station is right now. Or see pictures of the Earth.  There is also a pretty cool tutorial on how the station orbits the Earth.

Then again, if I had my way, NASA’s budget would be tripled ( I’d take the money from Iraq-at least with NASA we get a return our investment) and they would be sending at least one mission a year to the Moon with people on board.  To resupply our lunar base, of course.

But that is  just me. Enjoy……….

I noted with interest the comments of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who safely splash landed a US Airways jet into the Hudson River last month. I don’t know if the Airline Pilots Union put him up to it-but he said some things that truly need to be said:

“I am worried that the airline piloting profession will not be able to continue to attract the best and the brightest,” said Captain Sullenberger, 58. Captain Sullenberger went on to point out that he, like many pilots had been forced to accept some pretty heavy pay cuts over the last few years.

[He] told the House aviation subcommittee that his pay has been cut 40 percent in recent years and his pension has been terminated and replaced with a promise “worth pennies on the dollar” from the federally created Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. These cuts followed a wave of airline bankruptcies after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks compounded by the current recession, he said.

The reduced compensation has placed “pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation,” Sullenberger said. “I do not know a single, professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps.”

When I heard that, I thought of the article I had read in New York Magazine, which I purchased when I saw this cover:

The article was basically a comparison of the training that produced military aviators of Sully’s generation and the type of training that goes on for aviators today. One of the key points of the article, is that military flying builds a type of aviator that cannot necessarily be replicated in the Flight Safety programs that train commuter pilots-and they also point out that it can both work for good and for ill:

But the truth is, in the years since Sully began flying commercial jets, piloting has become anything but glamorous. Automation has taken much of the actual flying out of the job. The airlines’ business woes have led to longer hours and lower pay. Flying is now governed by enough rules and regulations to fill several encyclopedias. The people attracted to the profession today are different, too. Where the piloting ranks were once made up of former Air Force jocks, many of them combat veterans, they are now filled mainly with civilians for whom flying is less an adventure than a job. “Twenty-five years ago, we were a step below astronauts,” says one veteran pilot. “Now we’re a step above bus drivers. And the bus drivers have a better pension.”

From a passenger’s point of view, that’s mostly a good thing. Each year, hundreds of millions of people fly commercial in the U.S., and fatalities are almost always in the low double digits. In the past two years, there have been absolutely no deaths at all. Changes in the way pilots are recruited and trained are a key reason: In the vast majority of situations, airline-safety experts say, you want the company man, not the cowboy. But then there are the exceptions, the Miracles on the Hudson, the rare moments when it is following the rules, not subverting them, that becomes the riskier course of action. Pilots like Sully who can perform in such circumstances are a dying breed.

Now the article does go on to point out that aircraft are safer than 30 years ago and many great strides, like crew resource management training ( training that focuses on working together as a crew-for the good of the whole flight) have made great improvements in aviation safety. However at the same time, the cuts in the airline industry have made it much less attractive to the military aviator leaving the service. Unlike my generation, who in my humble opinion, was much more focused on the adventure and the excitement-along with camaraderie of a primarily male profession-the current breed understands the economics of the business far better than their elders did.

And because of airline changes, and mismanagement that allowed worthless assholes like Glenn Tilton to walk away with 36 Million and a pension worth at least that much-while stiffing United Employees out of their pensions. That has made the airlines no longer attractive monetarily. Especially when one considers what a military pilot with 8 years and one bonus under his belt has made. This happened while service levels went down hill on United Airlines and other American air carriers.

The full testimony can be watched here.

Now the flip side of the story is that airline pilots don’t work 24 days a month in general-probably closer to 16. However, for better or for worse, they work in a profession filled with a mortal responsibility. Screw up bad, and over a 100 innocent people will pay for that mistake. So working 15 days a month and paying them a decent wage is probably a fair trade.

There once was a time I did not think so.  I always used to hate guys who left the Navy early and went to work for the airlines. I hated the fact that NFO’s never had the same opportunity-my dream job is still: pilot for Cathay Pacific ( based in Hong Kong).  However as I have aged I also realized something else. Many of the guys who left probably did not have much of a future in the Navy. Some did, but a lot did not due to their performance as officers. However, very few of them were what I would call bad pilots. The profession has a tradition of identifying those who cannot perform in the air early and finding other things for them to do. As I used to tell my JO’s, ” If you can perform in the airplane, people will forgive a lot on the ground. However if you can’t get the job done  airborne-there is little slack left that anyone will cut you.” I also used to tell them that being an officer was 90% of their job. ” If the Navy just wanted you to fly, you would be a warrant officer”. That never set well with some folks-but its the truth.

Some took the advice and did well both as aviators and as officers. Others did not, and went a separate path-but the simple truth is they still had a lot of experience and a contribution to make. The nation as a whole is probably better served when the military produces the majority of the nation’s airline pilots.

Better business guys like Glenn Tilton lost sight of that. And if you look at the demographics of today’s pilot population it should make you nervous.   I still maintain that people will pay for higher levels of service-and if anything, we could do with a transportation infrastructure that was not totally dependent upon the airplane-particularly within the Northeast.

Having a trained cadre of good pilots is one of the benefits of investing in military aviation.  Of course, with the changes that are happening within the military these days-sometimes I wonder about that-but there is still no other place to gather a grunch of hours quickly. In 1984 at the end of  my first sea tour I had almost 1400 hours. Those days have come and gone however.

I submit that airlines can offer both service and timely arrival , even if it means a little more money for a ticket.  What the traveling public must understand is that cheap airfares come with a hidden “fee,” and that fee is the cost of not having the right folks in the right places.

Money is tight to be sure-so I’m not sure what the right answer is.

I’ll close with a story about a great pilot I once flew with.  He left the service right in 2000 and got picked up by a major airline. He got furloughed right after 9-11. The thing he used to say about flying with him was that “you are as safe as in your mother’s arms”.  My ability to climb into my trusty War Hummer rested on that belief-and he never let me down. Even when the deck was pitching in the North Atlantic.

Can US Airways tell me the same thing in 10 years?

GI Korea reminds us that there are more important things than worrying about a couple of mid ocean rocks:

The S.O. has been engrossed in the Oscars tonight. I’m not sure why. Its not like she likes most of the movies that are being honored.

She watched the Red Carpet show -from start to finish.

We ate dinner quickly and since then she has been parked on the couch watching the actual show.

I have floated back and forth from computer to TV and back to the computer. I’m sure Slumdog will win in a walk-but can’t say as I am excited about it.  A movie about Slums in India- should be an indictment of India, especially in todays day and age when they are spending horrendous sums on weapons they don’t need.

But of course it won’t be. It will be a recognition of Indian film talent ( and British producers).

And tomorrow the usual “tut-tut” will trotted forth and the usual suspects will decry Hollywood for its narcissim and its politics.

Those two things may be true-and its quite plain that they have way too much money on their hands and not enough sense sometimes. However, at the same time, I think we would all do better if we remembered that movies exist to tell a story, to dramatize a point, or to show complicated subjects in a short time span. This year a lot of movies have done that very well-others not so well.

But it is what it is-the market pays for it. And when it is done exceptionally well-it highlights things that might otherwise be lost in the noise. So I for one, like to see movies that challenge you either in the heart or the mind. Or at least allow you to relax from the drudgery of  work life for a couple of hours.

So before we-or they- take themselves too seriously, remember the movies that we have enjoyed. And hope that some good ones come along next year.

Besides-most of the women look really hot in those designer dresses.

Got to go see Jerry Lewis now……………………………

Another week-and another shopping trip with the S.O. God forbid we might actually do something useful on a Saturday-like play golf.

Today though we decided to liven it up a bit by exploring some. The weather this morning was beautiful-albeit somewhat cold. So off we set for the town of Arab AL. After its recent trashing in the media- I wanted to see the place. The S.O. was in the mood to hit their thrift shops.

The S.O. loves thrift shops. They are the closest approximation here to what they call “recycle shops” in Japan-but sadly our thrift shops are nothing near as good as the ones in Japan. Personally, I hate going to them-but if it keeps us from spending money-well then it can’t be a totally bad thing.

I do have to give the S.O. her due-she has an incredible knack for finding the diamond in the rough in these places. She has a good eye and does not just grab any old thing. She’s brought some good things home for very little money. That’s an instinct I like to encourage.

So we went to her favorite one here in Shopping Mall, then set off for Arab. Bounced around between a couple of antique stores and the Salvation Army store. Thought it was kind of odd that the Salvation Army store had the following sign posted:

Unattended children will be captured and used for medical experimentation.

You never know if they are kidding or not.

Fortunately, just about all of these places have books-lots of old books. So I get something to do while she sifts through racks of clothing and other things. Usually I know we are in for a long siege when she sees the plates.

As I peruse the book section a couple of observations come to mind:

1) Readers Digest must have made a fortune on its Condensed Book series, judging by the number of those volumes that end up on the shelves of thrift shops. Probably loads of people bought them at the same time and the younger generation gave them away cleaning out the attic or the garage, or both.

2) A lot of people bought the book Scruples back in the day. The book had an incredibly dirty opening set of chapters-not that I would turn right to them as I look at the books today.

3) For all the popularity of the Left Behind series-it sure gets thrown out a lot. The devout must buy the book and then throw it away to lighten the load for the journey to apocalypse.

4) Old National Geographics are a great way to kill time waiting for the S.O.

We got off fairly light today-no really big purchases and we got to see some country side along the way. Looked as if this was the place to buy land if were so inclined-saw lots of houses sitting on what looked like a couple of acres. Lots of houses with boat docks on the lake too-but everyone knows those are big bucks.

I’d also point out that not one, not one single store, was devoid of customers today. In fact, it seems to my untrained eye that the volume of people shopping in the thrift stores was up from what it was last summer.

Sign of the economic times perhaps?

I came across this video of Myron Cope, while searching for some other things.

For anyone who lived or grew up in Pittsburgh in the last 30+ years, Myron Cope is a legend. He’s a product of the media that I think will never be repeated-a genuine fan, who broadcast about his home team. Teams that he loved.

One thing about living in Pittsburgh-you have to like sports, or a lot of your conversations will be boring ones. Steelers, Pirates, Penguins. ( Does anyone even remember the Condors?)

Pitt, Penn State, and lets not forget the smaller schools.

Myron Cope is the Pittsburgh fan on steroids. He did not have a “broadcasters voice”-he sounded like your loud mouth friend who lived in Carnegie. Close your eyes and you can picture listening to him, while driving a car down 79, with a girl in a sweater-maybe about 10 punds heavier than she should have been, holding your hand and talking about “Where y’ins all going tonight?”

Watch the video you will see what I mean. They don’t make sportscasters like him anymore-nowadays it is the beautifully packaged ESPN model-and the nation is poorer for it.

Guess you had to be in the “Burgh” for a while to really appreciate it. Southerners think they are fans-but they would never appreciate a sportscaster like him.

I vividly remember his voice on the radio.

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you………

To heck with the grilled cheese sandwich!

I need a beer!

The March Forbes Magazine ( my Dad gave me a subscription this year) has an article giving advice to the new president from Lee Kwan Yew. For those who do not know he was the Prime Minister of Singapore and is now the Minister Mentor-which is Singaporean for, ” the man behind the curtain pulling the strings”.

I found it interesting that LKY would have anything to say to Obama at all. After all, he is the father of a dictatorship one party state, that persecutes and drives opposition into the dirt. I mean what advice can he give that is relevant to America’s problems?

Maybe things like:

1) Pay your serving class nothing. After all it worked in Singapore, as E @ L noted, “Such a practice has kept Singapore the clean, well-lighted golf-course that is is. Pay the maids and the building laborers and accountants and clerical staff and radiographers absolute SHIT money!”

2) Resist open discussion. Write your laws such that newspapers, bloggers, and other malcontents can be prosecuted and bankrupted at the whim of the party in power.

3) Make sure the Chinese are allowed to make lots of  money.

Actually, that last bullet is what the good MM’s point really is. ( He did not say the first two-except by his actions both in and out of office).  After eight paragraphs of fluff about not leaving Iraq ( Like Singapore ever made a great contribution there), Israel and Palestine-he comes to his real point:

After a short period, though, both China and India will resume their spectacular growth. With their huge populations spread over two subcontinents, these two giants can prime their economies and grow through their domestic markets. They will become heavyweight actors on the world stage. Though they will not displace the U.S. as the preeminent world power, the U.S. will no longer be able to take their views and interests for granted, as it has in the past.

My dear Mr. Yew, this good for America how?

But that is not LKY’s real point now is it? It is good for the Chinese and so by extension it must be good for those who launder their money do their banking.

I love the city state of Singapore dearly, and this little diatribe is probably not helping my chances for a work visa. However unless Obama is ready to adopt a policy of trying to marginalize 40% of his population-LKY is the last man anyone should seek advice from.

Maybe the US should start a Gweilo stimulus plan for Singapore………………. and thus give guys like me work.

Till that happens-mind your own business Mister Mentor.

I am knee deep in Thomas Ricks book, The Gamble. So far I am only into it for about 100 pages. I’m trying to read carefully and since I have enjoyed his previous works, I’m wondering if he has been swallowed up by the hype that permeates everything written about Gen David Petreaus.

It would appear, at early look anyway, that Ricks has been drawn into the cult of this particular four star’s deification. Sad. I thought Ricks was more objective than that.
I’ll have to read more to see what conclusions he draws about our long term presence in that Godforsaken country.

Setting aside arguments about the rightness or wrongness of the surge for the time being ( I’ll come to my opinions about Iraq when I have finished the book), I find myself incredibly troubled at how the surge came to be.

If Ricks is correct, then one has to face the possibility that the flag officer leadership within the US military is/was so dysfunctional, that a retired, almost Army Chief of Staff, had to do an end around the entire uniformed leadership to convince the President of the United States to place one of his proteges in charge.

And that being the case-the blame for the early conduct of the war has been successfully laid at the feet of some men who have given many years of service to their country, thought they were doing their best and in the process-the political leadership that put them in that impossible position is to be given a free pass on its share of the blame.

Anyone who has a professional military background should be deeply troubled by all of the implications of that idea. So Keane got it right-what if he had not? And more importantly, what if it had been him, not Gen Casey in the shoes of the active duty officer-would he have wanted the same thing end around to happen?

I’m going to be curious to see what his conclusions are for the future-does he really want to embrace, as Andrew Bacevich has called it, “an open-ended war aimed at asserting some form of benevolent hegemony across the Greater Middle East”?

The goal in Iraq has to be about getting out of the country and letting it develop on its own. Ricks’ books, if the past is prologue, can help shape opinions. I hope he’s not leading up to the idea that we have to be in Iraq for 10-20 years. That might be good for the Iraqis-but its an utter disaster for the United States.

More to follow.

I have also finished another of my January purchases, The Culture of War by Martin Creveld. Chapter 20 should be required reading for the heads of all the service academies and my Alma mater. Its devoted to a ripping critique of feminism:

Some military schools try to cope with the problem by concealing these discrepancies-for example by issuing men and women training {aids} that look similar but are made of different materials and have different weights, or else by making women run separate courses but with a common starting point and a common finish point. All such measures rest on the belief that the men are stupid-and will therefore tend to make them even more cynical and bitter. As long as the number of women does not exceed token levels….these and other problems may be handled by men…….
Put in more, however, and once again the inevitable outcome will be demoralization.

If you like Creveld you will like the book.

The woman below missed a flight to Los Angeles on Cathay Pacific. Watch how she freaks out:

Cathay Pacific said the incident occurred earlier this month, and the video appeared to have been loaded onto YouTube late last week. By Monday, the “woman going insane after missing her flight video” had over 400,000 hits.

Don’t start drinking till after the press conference:

The man in the video is Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan’s former finance minister.  He resigned today over this event.

Then again, if I knew this, I might start drinking early too.

Ever since I saw a Sony book reader in an exchange a few years ago-I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a Kindle. They remind me of what Arthur C. Clarke called a”Newspad”, which in his novel 2001-A Space Odyssey had replaced books and newspapers.  Amazon’s ad makes it sound just like the device he described over 40 years ago.

I mean, think of the boxes I would have saved in my last move, where I had to move my library of books. (25 Full shelves and that does not count the four boxes of old books in the garage). It seems fascinating-until you realize that maybe, just maybe, books don’t need replacing.

Basically publishers have no incentive to encourage people to read books on screens and every incentive to get them to enjoy the fetish of the object. The preference consumers have shown for digitized music and iPods doesn’t seem to translate to books. The usefulness of the iPod derives from its ability to shuffle songs that many people enjoy as background, more or less passively. On the subway I hear about a dozen songs each morning, and it pleases me that they are randomly selected from a list of several thousand. But I wouldn’t want my reading material served up that way. Generally I’m reading one thing at a time, and I benefit from the finality of that decision, when I leave home with one book. Books have the great built-in advantage of preventing me from surfing away elsewhere when the reading becomes arduous or requires an effort of concentration.

What he said. For now, I think I’ll save the $359 dollars for a rainy day. Or a plane ticket to (FILL IN THE BLANK).