the posts are moving so fast today it's hard to keep up.

Good point on bias, perception, etc., and:

Some of this I think is what we often call surprise, but may just as often be willful ignorance in that either we did not believe what we were seeing, or that we disregarded the evidence in favor of predisposition.
Recently, Ken and I had a little sidebar re: Chinese POWs in Korea (late Oct 1950) and FECOM C2's refusal to recognize the threat they posed. Knew I'd seen the story before; and lo and behold, in Fehrenbach's This Kind of War (p.315) is a Wide World photo (7 Nov 1950) of Ned Almond (Ken's Corps CO) talking to one of them, big as life (actually, the Chicom is pretty small). Almond knew they were Chinese; but Willloughby disregarded reality in favor of the dogmatic perception of Tokyo HQ.

Agreed, it usually is not that clear; and your job (to something I can relate) is like a hot day on a 200 yd bench rest range where the scope picture looks more like a fishbowl of roiling water.

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Hey, as to Laura Secord, here's a Wiki. She illustrates a point about civil wars - and probably relevant to Astan. Laura's husband James (officer in Loyalist Butler's Rangers) was a relative (distant cousin) of my wife's ggg-grandmother. The Secor (Secord; originally Sicard) family was of French Huguenot ancestry (Ambrose Sicard coming to NY in the 1600s). During the RW, the family split into Loyalists (James, etc.), Neutralists and Rebels (my wife's side). New York was a mess of conflicting people.

I don't know where you put all that into a plan. Hire a Pashtun genealogist, I suppose.

Tis a complicated world you have to plan for. We do appreciate it (which is why we sent you and pay you the big bucks :).