Ally Ally Oxen Free

Whoa...  SharkyandSharky remember playing hide and seek as kids, but we never expected this version - brought to you by your own government.  It appears that they are playing for keeps.  Not only are they hiding from you, they are playing you.  Let's take a look, shall we.

1)  FEMA - spent $1.3 Billion (with a B) building secret bunkers that are designed to keep you safe - never mind - to keep government employees safe.  Your ass don't matter.  Perhaps you have noticed deep explosions coming from the ground from time to time that you can't explain.  It's OK - you don't mean shit anyway.

The Greenbrier Hotel comes to mind.  Oh yes, designed to house Congress in the event of a nuclear war, the above ground renovation soon proved nothing more than a massive underground structure with 30 ton blast doors.

2)  Cell phone towers - you know the ones that look like pretty trees.  The U.S. doesn't want you to notice why they need so much bandwidth to keep track of you.

3)  Secret Government Buildings - how can a building be kept secret? - we're glad you asked.  The U.S. employs approximately 845,000 patriots, (not you), to make sure you "tow the line."  You can't talk to them, you can't photograph them, you can't question them and you can't admit that they exist.  The big question is - wait for it - why do you continue to exist?

To be continued.........

Race To The Bottom

The Garden State, replete with landfills the size of small mountain ranges, has made an error that rivals the height of Mt. Everest.

Basic mathematics has always been complicated for many, but you would like to believe that fundamental math skills are possessed by elected officials and their appointees.  It is becoming more and more apparent that that is no longer the case.  Witness the "numeric leadership" exhibited by one Commissioner of Education.  Let that sink in for awhile - the Commissioner of Education............... a Mr. Bret Schundler.

Bret has a problem with numbers - both large and small.  Calendar years confuse Bret just as much as numbers with lots of zeros.  Tasked with providing budgeting information for the calendars years 2010 and 2011, Bret gave the feds info for 2008 and 2009.  This slight error cost the state of New Jersey approximately $400 million in federal funding via the "Race To The Top" competition.  Caught reversing his story as to what happened exactly and why, Bret chose the only honorable thing to do - resign.  But then he changed his mind and refused to sign the letter of resignation opting to collect unemployment benefits instead.

Guess ol' Bret knows at least a little something about numbers after all.

©Sharky&Sharky

Testing 1..2..3..4 - Is This Thing On?

Ever since the U.S. entered WWII, there has been little question of the U.S. government's ability to dispense the ultimate sacrifice to peoples around the world.  Even if said people were playing the game unwillingly.  The key here is "around the world."  Ah, but the times they are a changing.  And remember my wee citizens, you wanted change.


Enter the MQ-8 Fire Scout.

This cute little "toy", brought to you by Northrop Grumman, had a bad day as it flew into restricted airspace over the nation's capitol August 2nd.


Apparently caused by a "software logic flaw", the drone started flying on it's own when the operator lost contact and control.  What's worse, is that in a non-contact/control scenario the drone is suppose to circle, but it "failed to follow it's failure protocol" and continued on it's little journey all by itself for twenty three (23) miles. SWEET!


Luckily, this time, our little crowd control enforcer was not armed.


What the HELL is this thing doing flying over Washington D.C.?

©Sharky&Sharky

Afghanistan is Chaos; Let’s spin Again

Recently, Michael Steele chairman of the RNC, expressed the reality of the Afghanistan War endgame by signaling victory is not possible. Ron Paul affirmed that Steele is correct, and demonstrated that the Republican Party knows how to snatch public relations defeat from the jaws of a positive PR direction:



Here is Ron Paul's interview for your analysis: transcript. (Horrible interview). Here is Ron Paul's statement (easy read). Sharky&Sharky agrees and posits that victory in Afghanistan cannot be achieved. Where victory is defined by Barry as the outcome of doing these components: (Here is a Transcript of Barry's speech and Barry's Video if you want to spend the time and effort.)

"First… [Victory is] a military strategy that will break the Taliban's momentum and increase Afghanistan's capacity over the next 18 months"
"Our friends have fought and bled and died alongside us in Afghanistan. And now, we must come together to end this war successfully."

"Second, we will work with our partners, the UN, and the Afghan people to pursue a more effective civilian strategy"
"This effort must be based on performance. The days of providing a blank check are over" "I want the Afghan people to understand –
America seeks an end to this era of war and suffering"

"Third… our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan"
"...the absence of a timeframe for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government..."

Sharky&Sharky asserts that victory is not determinable nor is it achievable from Barry's assembled causal components. What does Barry mean by military strategy, Afghanistan capacity, civilian strategy and partnership with Pakistan? The US will have extreme difficulty defining a goal or achieving a predicted outcome in Afghanistan. Barry's victory causal components in and of themselves are rife with conflict. Who is defining victory: The current leadership in Washington or Afghanistan leadership or the Taliban or the Afghan people? Who are the Afghan people that will acquire this "victory"?

As Sharky&Sharky sees it Afghanistan is/will be the chaos of an indeterminate n-party policy. The tools of analysis are not logical argument or linear regression where the objective is to find the outcome based on a few variables, the proper analysis tool is Chaos Theory where the value of the components necessary to achieve the desired outcome is unknown in that their exact starting point is unknown (and knowing exactly where all the values are at any point in time is not possible);  further the intermediary ends generated by nonlinearly related means are not proportional. Said another way Barry's causal components have no probability of leading a predictable desired outcome. That is why we have been in Afghanistan for 9 years going on 10 and when we leave it will appear to the non-elite of Afghanistan as if the US had never been there. To the American citizen it will be more addition to our unpayable debt.

Time for a Sharky&Sharky analysis: Where is Afghanistan? Well, it borders Pakistan sort of: Map of Afghanistan from World Site Atlas

This is literally half way around the round the world. See China's western border. See our "friends" Pakistan and India.  The border that divides Afghanistan and Pakistan it is an illusion. Pakistan is a recently created political entity broken off from India. When India became independent from England, the Muslim leader Jinnah sought independence for Muslim Indians. By 1956 the Constitution was adopted; and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was formed. However there was somebodies living there, the Pashtuns. The last war these folks lost was with Genghis Kahn.  Afghanistan and Pakistan envelope the territory populated by the Pashtuns, 12M on the Afghanistan side 40% of the population and 27M on the Pakistan side 15% of the population. These people were present for centuries prior to formation of Pakistan. The line dividing Pakistan and Afghanistan is called the Durand Line. The government of Pakistan wishes to put a fence along the Durand Line. However there are objections by both Afghani and Pakistani Pashtuns. Of course as you might imagine the Pashtuns objected strongly to be separated from their families.

Here is a Wikipedia map of Afghanistan Pakistan the blue shows the territory inhabited by the Pashtuns.

So a better question is what is today's Afghanistan? As Sharky&Sharky will demonstrate, it is an illusion, a politicla trick, and so is Barry’s “capacity. Afghanistan is a recent invention of the US and the Mujahideen. This is not a united country that has existed for a thousand years. Nor is Pakistan. The only consistency for centuries has been the Pashtuns.

Two political cohorts comprise Afghanistan: the Mujahideen and the Taliban. First the Mujahideen, .The Mujahideen current formal name is The United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, UIF. They are now the central government; their leader is President Karzai, a Pashtun. America helped the Mujahideen under the Bush adminisitration over throw the Taliban; we were looking for Bin Laden. Barry wants to build capacity in the UIF aided by the Afghanistan Army, ANA. The full name of the country now is Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Let us review a little history of the Mujahideen leading up today. Do not expect to know all the names just watch the time periods, the name changes, and the treachery. Of course you can skip all this if you are not stickler for proof.

In 1973 the Afghan Army overthrew the Shah of Afghanistan and supported the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA: read communist party) and Daoud, the Shah’s cousin, became president of Afghanistan. Five years later, 1978, the PDPA executed Daoud. The leader of the PDPA, Taraki, became President of the Revolutionary Council and Prime Minister of the newly established Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. In September of 1979, after killing 20,000 to 30,000 Afghans that were considered to be against Taraki s reforms, Amin another member of the PDPA had Taraki shot and took over. On December 28, 1979 The Soviet army executed Amin or he was suffocated by his own guards. The Soviets were brought in by Taraki and Amin was to quell the Mujahideen. With Soviet support Karmel was appointed president of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan immediately 12/79. He remained in power during the revolution until 1986. Gorbachev stopped supporting Karmel while the US started supplying war material, Stinger missiles, and ground intelligence to the Mujahideen. Karmel left office (first one alive) and Najibullah (a Pashtun) succeeded him. Najibullah became to rely less on Soviet army and more on Afghanistan’s army. Najibullah’s secretary of defense was Dostum who decided that he would take his troops and join the Mujahideen. This caused Kabul to subsequently fall. Najibullah was president until 1992 (he was imprisoned, castrated, then executed two years later). In 1992 Rabbani became president under a peace accord but in actuality there were two wars going on a civil war and the fight with the Taliban. Dostum broke with Rabbani and joined up with Hekmaytar 1994 to fight Rabbani. In 1996 the Taliban captured Kabul.

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan until 2001. On 9/9/2001 Al Qaeda killed Massoud the military leader of the Mujahideen. Some sources believe that Bin Laden was promised safe haven by the Taliban for killing Massoud. On 9/11/2001 Al Qaeda attacked the US. With the help of the US the Mujahideen captured Kabul and drove the Taliban south in Afghanistan and then Pakistan, deep in to Pashtun territory. Anti-Taliban Pashtuns assisted the US in routing the Taliban. Karzai became transitional president in 2002.There was a national election in 2004 which Karzai won handily and a recent election in 2009 in which Karzai’s run off opponent Abdullah Abdullah decided to not participate in the runoff (leaving Karzai’s current legitimacy in question) in that he considered the election rigged (or one wonders if received a Mafia offer).By the by Dostum is currently a general under Karzai.

The lesson/take away is: Treachery is the way Afghans do politics.

The following excerpts from the WSJ journal and other sources demonstrate that the Afghan elite are agents of corruption and are benefitting from corruptions

Matthew Rosenberg WSJ reported on 6/20 that more than $3 billion in cash has been openly flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years, a sum so large that U.S. investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted U.S. aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad. The cash—packed into suitcases, piled onto pallets and loaded into airplanes—is declared and legal to move. But U.S. and Afghan officials say they are targeting the flows in major anticorruption and drug trafficking investigations because of their size relative to Afghanistan's small economy and the murkiness of their origins. One figure often cited by Afghan and Western officials is $10 million a day leaving Afghanistan. That is $3.65 billion a year, more than a quarter of the current GDP.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime indicate that corruption is part of Afghan life. One figure often cited by Afghan and Western officials is $10 million a day leaving Afghanistan. That is $3.65 billion a year, more than a quarter of the current GDP. Officials can't say how much money is coming into Afghanistan; that isn't tracked by Afghan authorities. Afghanistan's endemic corruption and the suspected involvement of high-ranking officials in the opium trade has left the government deeply unpopular and fueled support for the Taliban, undercutting a war effort that is now focused on convincing Afghans to support their own state and turn away from the insurgents. The Taliban have become the new insurgents.

With the very foundation of traditional Afghan justice (administered by the village shura) weakened, the recourse to more violent forms of retribution (the Taliban sharia) becomes treacherously appealing. The problem of bribes is enormous by any standards. In the aggregate, Afghans paid out $2.5 billion in bribes over the past 12 months – that’s equivalent to almost one quarter (23%) of Afghanistan’s GDP. By coincidence, this is similar to the revenue accrued by the opium trade in 2009 (which we have estimated separately at $2.8 billion). In other words, and this is shocking, drugs and bribes are the two largest income generators in Afghanistan: together they amount to about half the country’s (licit)GDP.

To make things worse, in Afghanistan those entrusted with upholding integrity and the law are seen as being most guilty of violating them. Around 25% of Afghan citizens had to pay at least one bribe to police and local officials over the past year. Between 10-20% had to pay bribes to judges, prosecutors, doctors and members of the government. A kickback is so commonly sought (and paid) to speed up administrative procedures, that more than a third of the population (38%) thinks that this is the norm. Those appointed to uphold the law get the most severe moral indictment by the survey respondents: as mentioned, 25% of Afghans had to pay a bribe to police officers over the past year, 18% had to bribe a judge, and 13% a prosecutor. In some cases this may be the result of need: the Afghan police are notoriously underpaid. But greed also plays a major role: over half all large bribes ($1,000 or more) were pocketed by enforcement officers (especially judges and prosecutors) as well as police, customs officials and local authorities.

06/18/2010 June Abi Habib WSJ and Washington Independent on TF 2010
General Petraeus’s Task Force 2010 is challenged to find the pathways of corruption. It cobbles together under one command many law-enforcement and financial-oversight staff already in Afghanistan. Military officials say there also will be an influx of forensic auditors to trace the path of money distributed to private contractors. Investigators aim to trace how money is used as it is distributed to contractors who in turn distribute it to subcontractors. Investigators will try to clamp down on companies that overcharge for poor-quality materials, create ghost employees to pocket salaries or push for unnecessary projects in order to siphon off cash.

Coalition officials say they hope better coordination will mean that the money disbursed in Kandahar will go to better use than in previous years. "We're looking to support in every way possible via contracting what NATO is planning to do to help the people of Kandahar," said a senior U.S. military official in Kabul. Many Afghans say that past NATO development efforts using private companies simply lined the pockets of local warlords. Coalition officials also say they worry that aid and development money has fueled the insurgency, as private companies bribed Taliban insurgents to operate safely in particularly dangerous areas. A fly in the ointment are the power brokers (Karzai’s cousin Ahmed Walis is such). The power broker is a political official who raise or hire independent security forces and can have transactional relationships with the Taliban. Some use their contract money to consolidate their hold on power by providing jobs, thereby emerging as potential obstacles to the overarching U.S. strategy of expanding the Afghan government’s reach, capability and relevance

By Yaroslav Trofimov WSJ July 13, 2010
The Taliban have made themselves essential to Afghan life by taking over part of the electrical power grid in part of the country. There is the Kajaki hydroelectric dam which the US taxpayers built in 1975 and recently repaired on the Helmand River. The most recent price tag was $100M for upgrading the Kajaki hydropower plant; the biggest source of electricity in south Afghanistan. This system supplies electricity to Helmand and Kandahar provinces; the lines however pass through territories controlled by the Taliban in Helmand. Yet, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this American-taxpayer-financed project is the Taliban themselves. Since U.S.-funded repairs of a turbine at the Kajaki plant doubled its capacity in October, nearly half of the total electrical output has flowed to districts in Helmand province where the Taliban administer the grid, Afghan officials say. In those districts, residents pay their monthly electricity bills directly to the insurgents, who use the proceeds to fund their war with American and British troops. To be sure that you understand this said another way the Taliban do approximately nothing but collect for power they did not produce.

"The unfortunate reality in Helmand is that there are two governments, the official one and the Taliban one, and both of them have electricity departments," says Hajji Abdulaziz, a tribal elder from the Kajaki district. "At the end of the month, the Taliban department sends someone to knock on the doors to collect the payments. Every collector has wire cutters, and if you don't pay up they cut you off on the spot."The more electricity supplied the more money the Taliban make and the more opium poppies are grown. The Taliban collect a fee of $11.65 from the residents in the areas in which they control. Locals in Sangin, Kajaki and Musa Qala say they have been paying the Taliban for electricity since 2006, the year the insurgents asserted their influence across southern Afghanistan. "The more electricity there is, the more money the Taliban make," says Hajji Gul Mohammad Khan, tribal-affairs adviser to the government of Helmand.

Another reported source of income for the Taliban is their charging for protection of trucks transporting US goods; this is a source of income for Karzai’s cousins.

You offload a ship in Karachi and by the time whatever it is – you know, muffins for our soldiers’ breakfasts or anti-IED equipment – gets to where we’re headed, it goes through a lot of hands. And one of the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the protection money. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Dec 2009.

The Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee on Oversight and Government Reform U.S. House of Representatives June 2010 prepared a report called WARLORD, INC: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan.

The task of feeding, fueling, and arming American troops at over 200 forward operating bases and combat outposts sprinkled across a difficult and hostile terrain with only minimal road infrastructure is nothing short of herculean. In order to accomplish this mission, the Department of Defense employs a hitherto unprecedented logistics model: responsibility for the supply chain is almost entirely outsourced to local truckers and Afghan private security providers.

The principal contract supporting the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan is called Host Nation Trucking (HNT), a $2.16 billion contract split among eight Afghan, American, and Middle Eastern companies. The crucial component of the HNT contract is that the prime contractors are responsible for the security of the cargo that they carry. Most of the prime contractors and their trucking subcontractors hire local Afghan security providers for armed protection of the trucking convoys. Transporting valuable and sensitive supplies in highly remote and insecure locations requires extraordinary levels of security. The some of the key findings of WARLORD, INC are:

1. Security for the U.S. Supply Chain Is Principally Provided by Warlords. The principal private security subcontractors on the HNT contract are warlords, strongmen, commanders, and militia leaders who compete with the Afghan central government for power and authority.

2. Protection Payments for Safe Passage Are a Significant Potential Source of Funding for the Taliban. Within the HNT contractor community, many believe that the highway warlords who provide security in turn make protection payments to insurgents to coordinate safe passage.

3. Unaccountable Supply Chain Security Contractors Fuel Corruption. HNT contractors and their private security providers report widespread corruption by Afghan officials and frequent government extortion along the road. The largest private security provider for HNT trucks complained that it had to pay $1,000 to $10,000 in monthly bribes to nearly every Afghan governor, police chief, and local military unit whose territory the company passed.

These findings indicate that the allied forces feel that the warlords/power brokers provide better security than ANA is willing to do. The report singles out an Afghan warlord called Commander Ruhullah—known to locals as "The Butcher" for his violent tactics—as "the single largest security provider for the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan. "Commander Ruhullah guards some 3,500 U.S. supply trucks a month for several contractors, charging up to $1,500 per truck for their safe arrival in Kandahar. His forces guard trucks with heavy guns that are technically off limits to U.S. contractors. Critics have said powerful local militias such as Commander Ruhullah's have flourished by rebranding themselves as private security companies.

President Karzai wants to make policy deals with the Taliban. Now the Taliban are real bad guys, more on them later. For now, know that infidels (that’s Americans, Christians, and it would also appear Moslems that are not Taliban or Sunni like the Hazara) cannot make a binding deal with the Taliban. Nevertheless, Karzai wants to strike a power deal with the Taliban. The NYT reports (8/22/2010) that late last year the Afghan government reached out to a number of Taliban leaders to explore the prospect of a deal. The suspicion is that Karzai’s Brother Almed Wali met with Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the highly place commanders of the Taliban leader Mullah Omar (this is a really bad guy).Karzai on 8/22/2010 agreed to talk with the Tabilan as long as they were the faction that was not part of Al Qaeda. (How the hell would he know?) Here in thirteen minutes of watch Barry’s Capacity being given away by Karzai. Remember the US ran the Taliban out of many of the northern provinces not controlled by Pashtun in 2001. In this speech Karzai is looking for a very special Taliban; one that is a straight talker, trustworthy, and dependable.


During the interview, Karzai also said he was willing to talk peace with Taliban figures who break with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups — a key U.S. condition — and accept the Afghan constitution. He said there had already been "individual contacts with some Taliban elements" but not formal negotiations. The president acknowledged fears that political, economic and social gains of women and ethnic minorities might be eroded under a future peace agreement with the Taliban, which banned women from most jobs and education during their years in power. He said the Afghan people must make sure the gains made by women "in political, social and economic walks of life" since the fall of the Taliban were not only protected "but are promoted and advanced further." Associated Press writer Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report. Aug 23

The last item to consider on Barry’s capacity is whether there was, is, or will be an Afghani Army that will do the heavy lifting that a non-sectarian democratic Afghani federal government requires. We can clearly say not in the past. In the past prior to US help the ANA (or its processor) could not defeat the Taliban; the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Today even with US and Allied considerable help the Taliban is moving from the south and is capturing and is a direct influence on provinces in the north.

However, let’s look at the ANA readiness and willingness to fight the Taliban. Time magazine wrote the article Will the Afghanistan Military Ever Be Ready to Fight? This article reads as litany of gags from the KeyStone cops.

1. Nine out of 10 Afghan enlisted recruits can't read a rifle-instruction manual or drive a car, according to NATO trainers.

2. The officers' corps is fractured by rivalries: Soviet-era veterans vs. the former mujahedin rebels who fought them in the 1980s, Tajiks vs. Uzbeks, Hazaras and Pashtuns.

3. Commanders routinely steal their enlisted men's salaries.

4. Soldiers shake down civilians at road checkpoints and sell off their own American-supplied boots, blankets and guns at the bazaar — sometimes to the Taliban.

5. Afghans, not surprisingly, run when they see the army coming.

6. Recruits tend to go AWOL after their first leave, while one-quarter of those who stay in service are blitzed on hashish or heroin, according to an internal survey carried out by the Afghan National Army (ANA).

7. One NATO major from Latvia, stationed in the north, complained to a TIME video team that when an ANA battalion's combat tour was extended, three Afghan officers shot themselves in the foot to get medevacked out.

TIME video of the ANA in training:



The ANA is currently at 119,400 soldiers and will go to 171,600 by 10/2011. The recruitment of the Pashtuns has been very low; they are only 3% of the ANA. We have spent $26B and currently we are spending at a rate of $1B a month. We are paying the fighting ANA soldier $210 a month. This is a little more than the Taliban pays. The cost of continuing the fight after we leave is $6B a year. Kabul tax revenue is $1B a year. Some experts say that the ANA has to be 600,000. Also the ANA military elite from different ethnic groups and backgrounds are feuding.

Sharky&Sharky could not find any extensive material that indicated that the ANA was taking the fight to the Taliban. On the other hand there was no material that indicated that ANA was running away. However there seems to be ample evidence that the ANA is not protecting the roads or the polls. There seems to be a lot of dope smoking in the ANA ranks. On September 18, there will be parliamentary elections. "Taliban in one district of Nangarhar province went door-to-door threatening that anyone caught with a voter registration card would have her or his right hand cut off." Sharky&Sharky predicts that the ANA is not ready to be a significant part of Barry’s capacity. The ANA will not fight.

Net Afghanistan has to overcome, treachery, corruption, sellout to a vicious enemy and a weak ANA; Sharky&Sharky cannot see any way that Afghanistan will not be taken over by the Taliban when we and the allied military forces leave Afghanistan.

Let us take a cursory look at the Taliban: Who are these guys and who is their leader? The leader of the Taliban is a Mullah Omar. At first he was against Al Qaeda then he was a partner with Al Qaeda (It was because of this association that the US ran the Taliban out of Kabul and into places like Kandahar). Now it is believed that he broke with Al Qaeda. (Who knows really? Whatever works best for Omar). Omar is very secretive.

Council on Foreign Relations August 2009: The Taliban was initially a mixture of mujahideen who fought against the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, and a group of Pashtun tribesmen who spent time in Pakistani religious schools, or madrassas, and received assistance from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). The group's leaders practiced Wahhabism, an orthodox form of Sunni Islam similar to that practiced in Saudi Arabia. With the help of government defections, the Taliban emerged as a force in Afghan politics in 1994 in the midst of a civil war between forces in northern and southern Afghanistan. They gained an initial territorial foothold in the southern city of Kandahar, and over the next two years expanded their influence through a mixture of force, negotiation, and payoffs. Taliban rule was characterized by a strict form of Islamic law, requiring women to wear head-to-toe veils, banning television, and jailing men whose beards were deemed too short. One act in particular, the destruction of the giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan, seemed to symbolize the intolerance of the regime. The feared Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice authorized the use of force to uphold bans on un-Islamic activities.

The Hazara are Shia in Afghanistan; on their website they disply the words of Mullah Omar with regard to the Hazara. The Hazara profess this about the Taliban:

"The policy of the Taliban is to exterminate the Hazaras...Never has any group been more controversial then the Taliban of Afghanistan. Patrolling the streets in the pickup trucks, the Taliban members, under the General Department for the Preservation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Amr-bil Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munkar), search houses and destroy any television sets, radios, cassettes, and photographs. The bands of Taliban thugs roam the streets beating those they deem to be violators of the Shariah (Islamic code of Law). The Taliban's harsh fundamentalist rule has dismantled all civil institutions, and closed all women Institutions. Their leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, cloaks himself in secrecy, refusing to grant interviews or allow his photo to be taken."

With regard to women, the Taliban have demonstrated that the only things that Afghani women can look forward to is a socially enslaved life in Taliban controlled areas: no rights, no education, only kitchen duties, bedroom obligations, and child-rearing; women are not to leave home without their father or husband. Driving is forbidden. Here is a story on a recent gassing of a girls school in Kabul. Being with a suitor and not being chaperoned may result in stoning of the couple. This is way of the Taliban. In this article we have seen that the Taliban are treacherous corrupt and extortionist all in the name of Islam.

However it does appear that they are ass-kicking fighters that put the ANA on the run and have the amazing ability to recruit fighters and hold territories. They beat the Mujahideen/UIF, and they are the “army” that is currently keeping the US and Allied forces at bay, while Karzai is trying to find away to make a deal with them. Note on the map from Der Speigel the resources from 5 countries that the allied forces are using to beat the Taliban. The Taliban do not smoke joints on the job.

Further it is clear to Sharky&Sharky when the Allies leave there is nothing to stop the return of the Taliban assuming that they have only receded back south to Pashtun provinces from when they came or Pakistan not annihilated ala General Curtis Lemay. Thus in between Pakistan and Afghanistan are the 39 million Pashtun Sunni Muslims the main supply of manpower to the Taliban. Residents in the north say the Taliban are exploiting high unemployment among young men with a recruitment drive. "Taliban are paying 12,000 afghanis (240 dollars) to those who join them to fight government and international troops," said Mr Feda from Boka village in Balkh. "Their job is to lie in ambush on the Balkh-Jawzjan highway late at night and target the foreign convoys," he said, referring to the truck convoys that bring supplies to NATO bases from Central Asia. NATO and the United States have 141,000 troops in Afghanistan, concentrated in southern Helmand and Kandahar, where the war is at its fiercest.

The Taliban leadership says the parliamentary elections are a manifestation of Afghanistan's occupation by Western forces. "Such elections don't have any legitimacy for us, since our leader Mullah Omar has already called for a boycott," said Mullah Saheb Khan, a Taliban commander in Chahar Bolak, referring to the one-eyed Taliban leader believed to be based in neighboring Pakistan. "Our mujahedeen fight for the happiness of Allah. Until we push the foreigners out of our land, we won't give up," he said. Thus it seems that Mullah Omar has persuaded those in the far north to fight for “country”. On a final note the 08/08/2010 issue of Newsweek stated that morale is down among the Taliban because the Mullah Omar is missing has not been seen or heard from since 2001

Here is a Timetable that reviews all that is discussed here with pictures of the heros and villians
Now where does all of this lead? The US and its allies are dealing with an enemy that preaches that we are an invading force supporting an undesired central nonsectarian government. Preaches that Liberty is an insult to Islam. This enemy can recruit millions of excellent fighters from within country. Who seem to need little training. We have to recruit and train an Afghanistan Army which cannot protect the country’s roads or voters. The country has a leader that wants make a deal with a fanatical enemy leader that has not been seen publicly for almost a decade. (Mullah Omar was last seen running away as the US landed in 2001.) Further the US has announced when we will cut and run. Sharky&Sharky are sure that the Taliban can wait. Chaos reigns! We the nation that builds nation continues to fund wars that cost more than we ever project. Our politicians shamed by such remarks as: “We cannot leave XXX because women are being raped, mutilated or made to wear face masks.” It does not matter who is charge, Barry or George or Hillary or Palin. They find a war and demand that we pay for it with precious lives and money. While our cities go to rack and ruin, where American men and women are being killed, raped, and robbed and etc.
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Sharky&Sharky presents a tool (from Professor Harrison at the U of Toronto) to simulate Chaos theory in the policy arena so that at least we can predict when we are being suckered. The model has two suns you can change the mass of The American Sun and its allies, Sun 1; the Sun of the nation builders. Increasing the mass of Sun 1 represents more and more money that the US will have to spend nation building Afghanistan. Sun 2 will be the Taliban. The planets represent the free agents (up to 4) that we will need to influence to be attracted to Sun 1. The objective to get the planets circling around Sun 1 rather than collapsing back into the enemy state of Sun 2. Of course getting the planets close to Sun 1 means that more tax money needs to be shelled out to the planets. The planets can be the points that we indicated in this article. Like the ANA, Warlords, Pashtuns and/or corrupt Afghani government officials. You will see that an equilibrium that is in the interest of the US will not occur under any current strategy. It is our money that is keeping the Afghanistan Chaos going.

Now that Chaos theory demonstrates that military might and corrupt governments will not create a modern Afghanistan what should we do? There appear to be a limited set of alternatives. One, continue doing what the US is doing with corrupt Afghani elites. Two, do what the Taliban are doing; however, do not teach religious dogma and infidel hatred but go door to door and village to village and teach western enlightenment. Build schools, universities for boys and girls, infrastructure urban environment (cheaper than $1B a month for an joint smoking army). Three do nothing.

©Sharky&Sharky

Obamagoround - Where Are All The Jobs?

Occasionally SharkyandSharky like to ask their readers to take a simple test.  This is one of those occasions.  Are you ready....

Q.  Which political party has controlled Congress since 2007?

       a) What's Congress

       b) It doesn't matter, it's Bush's fault

       c) Democrats

That wasn't too hard, was it?  Seems the Obamagoround just keeps on spinning.  Newly released data indicating the economy just SHED 131,000 jobs is in stark contrast to Vice President Joe "Blow" Biden's claim that administration stimulus spending would add 500,000 jobs per month by now.  But wait for it - it gets better.

During the NINTH presidential vacation, (you wonder when MO (MichelleO) has time to pack and unpack), while secluded once again on Martha's Vineyard, (surely Martha must be getting tired of BO and MO by now), Obama issued a "special" four minute statement on his pathetic attempt to create jobs.  After spending a mere $787 Billion - with a B - in alleged stimulus money - OUR money - the jobs numbers have started going backward again.  Makes you wonder if ANYTHING is going forward with this bunch.

During this briefing, and it was brief, no questions were allowed.  Apparently the Chosen One does not answer peon's questions.

One thing is certain.  With a slew of new taxes after November 2, employers are wondering if they will survive this administration and are not hiring.

©Sharky&Sharky

Hooked On Ebonics

It had to happen sooner or later - given the fact that this country has been unable to educate it's citizens (legal citizens) for years. All hope is now officially lost as the DEA is pleading for help in deciphering Ebonics.

These linguistic "experts" will be tasked with helping this wonderful agency interpret the results of "telephonic monitoring of court ordered non-consenual intercepts (aren't those the kind that no longer require a warrant) and other media."

Further, to add insult to injury and no doubt to get this funded, Ebonics is now listed as one of the 114 languages for which prospective contractors must be able to provide linguists.

Is this a great country or what?

©Sharky&Sharky

Clunker For President

Remember the recent "Cash for Clunkers" program the current administration touted as the holy savior program to rescue Government Motors (aka GM) and others of their ilk?  Well, like most other liberal/socialist/progressive ideas where form is preferred over function and style over substance, this too has produced a massive backfire.


Edmunds, a provider of info for all things automotive, has released data (as of Aug 23, 2010) showing the true impact of this mis-guided program.  Used car prices have gone through the roof!  Why? - simple - supply and demand.  A concept, apparently, the geniuses and chosen people of the Obama administration have yet to grasp.

Visual Verisimilitude

Galactic Collision - No Insurance

In what is being described as one of the largest interstellar collisions ever recorded, the Antennae galaxies are duking it out with one another.  The following image, a combination of info and data from: the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope, provide a glimpse into the likely future of our Milky Way colliding with the Andromeda Galaxy.

Many of the faint objects in this image are young star clusters - each containing tens of thousands of new stars.

We can only wring our hands and pray alcohol was not involved in this accident.

©Sharky&Sharky

Hello Mudda Hello Fadda

Remember summer camp?  A time when kids could get away from their parents and find themselves in a scenic, peaceful setting with their peers embracing nature and the beauty of this planet.  The experience was at once intimidating and liberating and was forever popularized by Al Sherman in the song "Hello Mother - Hello Father.

Some lyrics from the song to refresh your memory:

Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda

Here I am at Camp Grenada

Camp is very entertaining

And they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining

I went hiking with Joe Spivey

He developed poison ivy

You remember Leonard Skinner

He got ptomaine poisoning last night after dinner

All the counselors, hate the waiters

And the lake has alligators

And the head coach, wants no sissies

So he reads to us from something called Ullyses

In a continuing effort to placate and embrace ALL other cultures into the miasma that is becoming the U.S., SharkyandSharky thought you might like to see a picture of summer camp in the Middle East.

Russian WildFires

It is no secret that large, mostly uncontrolled, wildfires sparked by a heat wave that has descended on many parts of Russia, have led to a state of emergency.  The worst hit areas are: Nizhy Novgorod, Voronezh and Ryazan.

Here's a peek at a car load of Russian adolescents navigating through "Hell On Earth."

©Sharky&Sharky

Obama and BP - Where's The Oil

Why it's right here...

Hurray You're A Citizen...What?...Didn't You Get the Memo

"...ways to achieve amnesty."  Don't you just love politico-speak.

Our dear leader is up to more shenanigans with respect to Illegal Immigration.  This time the prestidigitator is attempting to, "reduce the threat of removal for certain individuals present in the United States without authorization."  Certain individuals?  Oh my, I wonder who they could be - maybe the Albanians.

The memo further states and discusses "non-legislative ways to achieve amnesty."  Non-legislative.  I get it - ILLEGAL.  Isn't this the sort of thing that is called a conspiracy? But it appears all is well, as apparently the memo was never signed.  How convenient.  From now on smugglers of goods either into or out of the U.S. have nothing to worry about as long as the "bills of lading" are not signed.  And don't kid yourself - these people are smuggled into the U.S.

While the president continues to hide behind paper and teleprompters, Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona, is trying her damnedest to do something about it.   As Sarah Palin, former Governor of Alaska, stated June 29 in Duluth Georgia, "Jan Brewer has the cojones that our president does not have."

With Arizona having large areas of pubic land crawling with drug cartel and illegal immigrant activity, Jan-the-man has grabbed the bull buy the horns. Good for and good luck to her!

It is time to "man up" Barrack-O.

©Sharky&Sharky