Hitting Bottom in Foggy Bottom (FP), Civilian Surge Fizzles (Christian Science Monitor)---to name a few.

I keep looking for something to change the landscape, and wonder when it is going to get so bad that change will be possible.

Last Sunday, I hit bottom when reading a Washington Post Article about a brave LTC, his pride in meeting with Gen. Petreaus, and the soldiers that he lost in 2007. Somewhere in the article was a quote from 2007 from the General about the substantial strategic interests we "have" in Iraq that necessitate....yadda, yadda, yadda.....What were they again?

That came after a Thursday article that the Iraqi Ministry of Planning was suspending the upcoming census---just too hot, politically. That was especially significant to me because I spent so much time trying to build the civilian GIS mapping and demographic base in order to allow serious resource and service planning (and the census) to get started. The basic rule of quantitative methods and planning---if you can count it, you can know something about it.

So, I'm watching Afghanistan second-hand, and know that it is rapidly becoming an even bigger mess on the civilian reconstruction side. I already know that the civilian mapping base, population data, and planning there is complete chaos. Just crap thrown against a wall instead of anything serious when so many young kids' lives are on the line.

Like Rory Stewart said, working for the government (at least right now) is to be asked whether we should wear a seat belt when we drive over the cliff. Nobody seems to be concerned that driving off a cliff isn't such a great idea, or that, with a little well-informed strategy, there might be an alternative route that actually gets you somewhere other than a junk pile at the bottom of a ravine.

I keep watching for some smart military/civilian leader to say: "Gee, we ought to do things differently. What can we do instead?" But it ain't happening. "...Cannons to the right of us, cannons to the left.....rode the 600."

When is somebody going to cut the gordian knot? Where is Alexander when you need him?

Steve

Since returning from Iraq, I'm back in the States working on regular local government corruption and planning incompetence stuff. The goal is just to keep things generally on a reasonable track because perfection doesn't happen there, or here. You just do the best that is possible. And fix serious problems when they are seriously broken.