Happy Anniversary!

I started this over a month ago, then saved it as a draft, then promptly forgot about it. At first I was going to delete it, but then thought what the heck - just because I spaced it off doesn't mean that I feel or felt it any less. So here it is, a month late and out of sequence.

Happy October and Happy First Anniversary of my arrival on the far side of the world. Just over one year ago I arrived at my tiny Forward Operating Base near Kandahar to begin my adventure and new job of teaching/mentoring the Afghan National Security Forces.

It's been an interesting year. Looking back over my entries these past 10 months, I'm amazed at what I haven't chosen to write about as much as I am by what I did. The good news is that the weather has cooled off enough that generators are no longer the bane of my daily existence. That is a good thing, since the Afghan side is currently short one - blown head gasket, see previous blogs on "Fixing the Army" for the fun involved with fixing it.

I realized that I haven't written much about friendships here. Most places I have worked, I tend to have many friendly acquaintances but only one or two people that will remain friends beyond the work environment. Until recently, most military personnel were only here for six month tours. I arrived at the end of the New York National Guard's tour, was here for all of the Virginia Guard's tour as well as the short-lived Alabama/Tennessee Guard's stay (they were reassigned in another area because of internal Army politics - which was too bad, they were great guys), and am now working with the Kansas Guard under Active Duty leadership. Likewise the Coalition Forces members here have rotated regularly... I've gotten to know British, Dutch, and Canadian officers and men and learned much from all.

The longest-lived friendship here is with another US contractor, who has been here almost nine months. Ron is NOT what one would expect to see. He is a solidly built African American with long dreadlocks and a full beard. His expertise is communications and satellite equipment and he knows his stuff. He has the type of personality that everyone gravitates to. He left the other day for the states for a medical procedure. Not much fun to have your gall bladder go on the fritz in a war zone - I hope everything works out and he makes it back when he plans to - he's one of the good guys.

A few weeks ago another friendship changed when Jerry, a Dutch Major, finished his tour of duty and went back to the Netherlands. He and I didn't always agree, but we "got" each other. phrase he taught us was "You can go now.", used whenever he was getting the worst in a discussion. In exchange, I taught him the proper usage of the phrase "You Dick!" He introduced me to some wonderful Dutch cookies and other foodstuffs and I introduced him to "Firefly" - the short-lived US TV-series from a few years ago. I will miss evenings watching movies and Firefly on my computer with him, munching on cookies and Dutch sausages and the like. He's good company, but then again, he's good people, one of the band of brothers.

I've also established friendships with several Afghans. Friendships with the Afghans are a little different. Many Afghans want to be your friend, for friends do things for each other and buy things for each other. They might give me a ring or a scarf for my wife, then expect me to buy them a computer - after all, I make more money than they do, so it should be no problem, right? Luckily, I do have a few who are happy just to be friends, to share a cup (or six or seven) of chai or a meal together, and talk of families and houses and better days. These are good men that can put aside major cultural differences and accept others without judgment. I just hope that all the players here leave them a country that can be put back together again - or if not, can fragment without a civil war ensuing. High hopes, to be sure. No matter what happens, I wish only the best for men like Ahmad Shah, Mirwais Noorzai and Haji Mohammad. They are good men, in any culture, who I am proud to know.

As for the rest, the pleasant acquaintances and such, are like ships that pass in the night. Sometimes you see them and remember them, other times they become lost over the horizon as time slides inexorably on.

Hooah

SLK

Counter-Fear-Based-Operations

A few years ago, the US Military came up with a new euphemism for its emerging operational doctrine. “Effects-Based-Operations” or EBO seemed to be the perfect catch-all – it was short, catchy, ostensibly said what it intended to mean, and conveyed a sense of “thinking through things” before letting the cannonballs fly. It certainly was not as evocative or provocative as “Shock and Awe”, especially as Shock and Awe apparently did neither outside of the immediate blast radius of the bombs. Unfortunately, as much of corporate America already knows, coming up with an advertising campaign is often much easier than creating a product worthy of being advertised.

The challenge to the US forces has been to come up with a clear effect desired that can actually be realized by the operation planned. We want the effect to be the removal of the Taliban or other insurgents from an area. So, we plan a kinetic operation that involves major military muscle movements to go in and clear a district (or two or three) of Taliban. Sure enough, the insurgents all but disappear – nobody has seen them, “No Taliban here – they are all in the “next” village – but they are very bad”. And so forth. Eventually we give up, declare victory and pull back to our bases and then we wonder how the insurgents all reappear so quickly. After all, these people should embrace freedom and democracy, right? The root of this problem is, as David Kilcullen recently put it, “We’ve been fighting the insurgents, not the insurgency.”

The Taliban and other insurgent forces in Afghanistan, on the other hand, have a very clear idea of the effect that they want to create. Fear. Pure and simple, FEAR. I call their doctrine “Fear-Based-Operations” or FBO for short, and it is wonderfully simple and almost guaranteed to work, as opposed to our own Effects-Based-Operations. It is basically an information campaign backed up by targeted kinetic operations, in effect, turning our normal “kinetic ops with information supporting” on its head.

This nature of the fundamental relationship between kinetic operations and non-kinetic, or information operations marks the main difference between EBO and FBO is the. Kinetic operations are those involving troop movements, close air support, troops in contact, presence patrols, etc. Non-kinetic, or information operations are those designed to change perceptions and or beliefs. In the old days, information operations involved leaflet drops, “psyop broadcasts”, and radio propaganda. The US and Coalition militaries see the kinetic operation as the main effort with everything else supporting – even when it isThe Afghan Insurgents actually make it much simpler. It is a broadsheet posted on the door to the village mosque in the night. The sheet informs the residents that anyone found with ink on their fingers on election day will have their finger cut off, or their head cut off, or their family massacred in their sleep (all of which have been threatened this election season). This non-kinetic message instills the fear of the unknown – can they follow through, will they follow through – is it worth my finger/head/family to vote?

All it takes are a few kinetic actions to cement this fear in the average Afghan psyche. One or two people are made examples of beforehand – beaten for having a voter-registration card, or blown up by an IED after visiting a registration center. Of course, the insurgents are not bound by any law of war, criminal law, or anything else, so they have the freedom to do these types of actions. We, the coalition do not have this same freedom – we must fight for and by the rule of law, which is actually a huge advantage, but we squander it miserably.

The only way to counter Fear-Based-Operations is to create the opposite of fear – Hope. Hope is a commodity in extremely short supply here in Afghanistan. It has been crushed and ground out of the everyday existence of many Afghans over the past 30 years of virtually constant warfare. This withering if hope is shown in the omnipresent “Inshallah” – as God wills it. The main difference is that people WANT to hope – they do not want to fear – so hope, like a perennial weed, keeps creeping back into the psyche. After all, it’s got to get better than this, right? Inshallah?

So, the challenge to the Coalition Forces in Afghanistan is to create and implement “Hope-Based-Operations” where “Hope” is the desired effect. Now, after we roll into a village, “clearing” it of insurgents, we must roll in the civil assistance – in a coordinated effort. This means we should probably screen and train the Police and Government officials who come in to reestablish the Government presence beforehand – no corruption allowed. If we damage property, we fix it better than it was before. We help the village help itself improve by supplying materials and technical skills – but we hire and pay the villagers to do the labor to instill ownership. We do what it takes to get the family, village, and tribal elders to support us, reinforcing their respected positions vis a vis the Government officials. If we kill someone, we make it good with the families (even if they are bad guys). If we detain someone, we inform the village elders so they can inform the families. Mostly, we show patience and we follow through on our word and reinforce the rule of law.

The messages we MUST convey are direct contradictions to the messages the insurgents cannot but send: “They take, we give”, “they hurt, we heal”, “they destroy, we build”, “they come and go in the night, we stand by you 24 hours a day”. These are the very essence of Counter-Fear-Based-Operations. The Coalition cannot do it alone – the Afghan Security Forces must buy-in and adopt this wholeheartedly.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the US Military is ill-equipped to implement or execute this type of strategy. Bluntly speaking, they have been trained to kill and destroy a conventional enemy – and they are exceptionally good at that. They distrust these “touchy-feely” ways and just wish the “damn Taliban bastards would come out and fight like men”. Hooah! What is needed is to assemble a group who can do this, who have been trained by the likes of Chuck DeCaro in his SoftWar Doctrine at the National Defense University or guys like John Nagl – a soldier with a thousand pound brain if there ever was one. Unconventional thinkers who “get” that hope beats fear just as paper beats rock every time.

This group could then train and advise the Coalition leadership in Afghanistan, to include the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police forces. They have leaders like LTG Karimi of the ANA and LTG Mangal of the ANP do understand these concepts and who can provide the direction from above. At the lower levels, we control both the purse strings and most of the logistics infrastructure supporting these forces.

I realize that this may be “pie-in-the-sky”, but there is a rising chorus singing almost this same melody. The question at hand is do we have the right composers and conductors who can bring out the power and the beauty in the music? Not without help.

"Fixing" the Army

It's been a fun month or so here in Kandahar since my last post. July is the hottest month of the summer and the heat effects everything. The overall climate here is similar to Las Vegas or Phoenix, but with one major difference - Electricity. Stable, reliable electricity.

The trend in America (and also the NATO countries) since the Wall came down has been to downsize the militaries - cut the nonessential functions and create the "leaner, meaner" military that can deploy anywhere on a moments notice. This we have done, but in the process have created something we didn't anticipate - a bonanza for contractors and suppliers.

Armies used to be huge - they were designed to be entirely self sufficient in hostile territory. There were entire units dedicated to such seemingly non-military and mundane things as Power Generation, Laundry and Bath Services, and Pipleline Installation and Operations. Yet, when operating in the field, these units became indispensible to support the soldiers. But huge Armies are hard to move and very expensive to maintain in peacetime. Once the Wall came down, we decided that we didn't need these "luxuries" and, in keeping with the corporate strategy du jour, downsized them and outsourced them. However, in using this corporate model, we have become dependent on the contractors to literally keep us running. Let's look at electricity as an example.

In America, we take electricity almost completely for granted. It is almost always there, and when its not, there's normally a good reason. It is also stable - we know that when we plug something into a wall socket that the current will be 110 volts - not 175 or 39 or 500. Here, it is neither omnipresent nor is it stable. The most stable power source here is generators (yes, I'm ranting on generators again, sorry - big part of my life here). Yet generators are mere machines, and like most machines, need maintenance.

Generators are probably the most critical item in the Coalition's effort here in Afghanistan. Grid power is, at best, unreliable in most parts of the country, if it is available at all. Here, in Kandahar City, grid power is on for maybe 18 hours out of every 48. When it is on, it is very "dirty", with spikes and drops - both of which are damaging to anything depending on it. Voltage regulators and surge supressors are essential, as are Uninterrupted Power Supplies to keep things going through the spikes and drops, and outright outages. So much of our effort depends on technology that is electrically driven that I do not believe I am reaching too far with my first sentance of the paragraph. Simply put, without generators, we fail.

Unfortunately, in our quest to downsize and streamline, we have lost much of the inherent capacity we once had to maintain our generators. Every unit used to have Generator Mechanics on its manning roster - no more. The tactical generators have been simplified, "soldier-proofed", and the maintenance has been shifted to a much higher echelon, with the result that the Generator Mechanic positions were consolidated, downsized, streamlined, and, for the most part, eliminated. Most of the time, however, we are not using tactical generators though - we are using commercial grade generators just like the ones you see at construction sites or next to critical facilities. This is where the lack of mechanics hits hard - we expect that since we can outsource the generators, we can outsource the maintenance too.

I'm sure this made perfect sense to guys like Rumsfeld. No need to carry these "non-essential" functions when they could be outsourced. This was how we made the Army "leaner". And it wasn't just Generator Mechanics, but Cooks, and Electricians and Plumbers and a myriad of other specialties that don't make much sense in a garrison army in the US, but make a huge difference in the field.

In the US, if something like a generator fails, one simply opens the telephone book, looks under "generator" and starts calling until a satisfactory deal can be arranged. The odds are generally better than even that the work will be completed competently and things will be back to normal very quickly. In my house recently the main spring on my garage door failed. Within 48 hours my wife was able to contact a reliable contractor who replaced the spring, checked the rest of the operating mechanism and offered a warranty on the work for a reasonable price.

Here, the first challenge is that there is no telephone book. You might try an internet search, as some firms have found the web, but if your generator is out, you may not have power, so that is not a guaranteed method. The solution here is to have a "fixer". A fixer is a guy who knows everyone, or at least convinces you that he knows everyone. You tell him the problem, he contacts someone (most likely a relative) who has some knowledge ("some" being very relative) of the problem who will come fix it for you. There is no certifications, no guarantees that the guy who shows up has ever even seen your particular type of generator - his experience may be on repairing bus engines, but they are both diesel and that is close enough... for them. Oh, and the fixer gets a cut off the top - probably from both sides.

The "mechanic" who shows up (or the electrician or any other "professional") may or may not have tools, most likely will not have basic parts like filters or fluids. You must supply these or pay an extra arm and/or leg to have them get them. They, more often than not, know where to get them while you do not. They always say that they are going to "the bazaar" to get things - I wish I could go see this bazaar - we've had them get everything from folding chairs to 200 amp main circuit breakers to wireless routers to the aforementioned generator filters. I figure it must make Costco look like a poor imitation. In reality, it's just a matter of knowing who to talk to and negotiating a price. The mechanic will generally tear into whatever the problem is, creating a pile of nuts and bolts and miscellaneous pieces until the unit is completely non-functional. Then he will announce that he does not have a requried part, tool, or capability and must go back to the shop. Once he returns, most likely the next day, he will masterfully put everything back together again and announce that it is now fixed. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not, but that will just mean another service call for him, for now he has established a relationship both with you and your fixer.

The result is that both the US Army and our Afghan allies are now dependent on these maintenance services. We do not have the personnel with the expertise to train the Afghans, and they do not have dedicated Generator Mechanics on their manning documents (because they copied ours) so they fall into the same cycle/trap. The end result is that lots of money ends up changing hands to ensure that the generators (and the plumbing, wiring, HVAC, etc) keep working - with less than optimum results. I have to wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to add a Generator Mechanic, an Electrician, and a Plumber to every units manning document - but that would go against the leaner Army. Oh well.

It’s Hot – And It’s Barely Summer!

We topped out at 118 in the sun today (a mere 110 in the shade). It’s going to be a long hot summer the way things are going.

One of the things we have managed to accomplish here is get the Afghan Officers addicted to Air Conditioning.  They are adding them right and left – and not central air-type A/C – they add individual room units that cumulatively draw a huge amount of power.  Unfortunately, most of them have no concept of where the power comes from – they know that the generator does something (for when it is off, there is no power) but they cannot seem to grasp that the generator has limits to what it can produce.

I find it interesting that the climate here is very similar to Phoenix, Arizona – perhaps just a shade warmer, but pretty much the same. In Phoenix, the most common type of air conditioning is the “Swamp Cooler” – basically a fan that draws the dry air through damp filters, then blowing the now cooler, moister air into the house or office.  Here, they act like they’ve never heard of such a thing.  The air here is certainly dry enough (thank the maker – if it were any more humid it would be unbearable) and we have plenty of nonpotable water…. Hmmm, maybe a fortune to be made – or not.

The demand for air conditioning leads, in turn, to a demand for larger generators, which, in turn, leads to rewiring entire complexes to handle the increased circuit loads. This cycle is magnified many times over, for basically everything, large and small.  Today, the senior US mentor here was asked, in the form of a demand, to provide carpets (rugs) for the floor, curtains for the windows, and doilies (I’m not kidding) for the tables.  Our response was to tell them to fill out the Afghan Army/Police requisition forms and send them through their own channels. Oh, no, that cannot be done, for they will not fill the order, we are told. So why should we be expected to do what their own government will not?  I was asked to provide a hot plate for boiling water for chai – I told them that I would donate 5 dollars if everyone else would as well and someone could go to the bazaar and buy one, since I would use it too.  Oh no – we should provide it for them, for we have more money than they do.  Riiiight.

We asked the Afghan Officers last week what is going to happen when the Americans and Europeans leave this country. “We die” was the answer given.  Hard to build a country when even the senior Police and Army Officers have that attitude.

It Just Goes to Show You… It’s Always Something!

It’s getting to be summer here in Kandahar – getting to be is defined as over 100 degrees most days but not yet over 115 yet.  The temperatures put increased strain on everything, but mostly on the electrical infrastructure, what there is of it.

A note on my limited expertise here – my first real job was as a mechanic’s assistant for a small construction company. As such, i learned a great deal about small and mid-sized diesel engines, generators, and air compressors.  Who knew that 30 years later, that experience would come back to help/haunt me.

On the police side, we’ve been wrestling with two overheating generators since before I went on a much-needed leave in June.  They were starting to overheat then, when the temps were just in the 90’s during the day.  By the time I got back in late June, they were going down every afternoon for 4-6 hours. Finally, we figured out that the radiators had become clogged with a mixture of oil and dust – oil droplets from a leaking crankshaft seal on one and from spilled oil beneath the other had combined with the omnipresent dust to almost completely clog the radiators.  This, combined with the fact that the generators are sitting in direct sunlight let to them overheating anytime the temperature went over 100 degrees – which was every afternoon.  We had to totally disassemble the cooling systems and remove the radiator assemblies and send them downtown to clean them (no pressure washers available here).

Within two days of fixing that, the main circuit breaker tripped and wouldn’t reset. Investigation showed that it was a 160 amp breaker. We knew from the readouts on the generator that they were pulling more than 160 amps from time to time – and this proved it for sure.  So we requested that it be replaced with a 200 amp breaker.  From what we can tell, the electrician installed it backwards. It lasted one day then destroyed itself in a spectacular fashion, almost taking the rest of the circuit box with it.  When we went to replace it, the new electrician refused to put another of the same brand in – saying “That is cheap Chinese shit”. We sprung for a Siemens breaker (7 times as much) that easily weighed twice as much as the Chinese one.  As we were installing it, we noticed that it was counterintuitive – we are used to installing switches with “on” at the top and “off” at the bottom – but in this case, the breaker had to be mounted the other way – in tiny letters molded into the housing it had “load” on one side and “line” on the other.  Load being the use side and line being the supply side.  We turned it around and so far so good.

The very next day, we started to have serious problems on the US-side of the base.  We have been “blessed” with two bona-fide US certified contractor electricians.  So far, almost everything they have touched has been degraded. First, these experts told the commander that we really didn’t need the roof over the generators as the generators don’t need shade.  In the words of Bill Cosby’s Noah… Riiiiight!  The very next day we overheated a generator – FOR THE FIRST TIME!  Since then, it’s been a series of power outages as they attempt to “fix'” things that were working fine. Today they managed to short out the main switch box – twice, both times resulting in fires, melted cables, and no power during the heat of the day. They, of course, blame it all on the shoddy work done by the Afghans, but we had no problems of this type until they started playing with things.

At the going rate, it’s going to be a long hot summer.

Inspirations

Well, it’s been a pretty good week here for me this week. For whatever reason, the stars all were in my corner, in both tangible and intangible ways – which is pretty cool to look back on.

Do you ever hear or see or learn something that just overwhelms you with the “rightness” of whatever it is? The song that just grabs your heart and squeezes, or the dance performance that takes your breath away or the "click" when something suddenly makes sense? I had a couple of those experiences this week.

First, I read “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. WOW. If you haven’t read this book, please, read it. Then donate to his efforts. It is not often that a book can bring me to tears of pure joy and happiness – that overwhelming “rightness” of being. This is a man who is truly fulfilling his destiny – and is helping thousands of others to fulfill theirs. Having been exposed to similar conditions here in Southern Afghanistan to what he describes in Pakistan and Northern Afghanistan, I know the truth that he speaks. It is so simple, yet so profound – education is the answer.

One of the basics I learned in a Physics class somewhere was “Nature abhors a vacuum.” This applies to education. The one thing common to all humanity is the innate desire to learn and grow, to become something more than we already are. If there is no formal process or curriculum for education, superstition, folklore, and myth will fill the resulting vacuum. This vacuum in predominantly Muslim countries has led to the rise of the Wahhabi Madrassas system, “schools” funded by a very narrow minded sect of Islam that teach nothing but victimhood and hatred, using select passages from the Holy Koran to justify and reinforce their teachings. Often, these Madrassas are little more than pre-paramilitary schools, designed to do nothing but create potential martyrs for Islam – and a very narrow slice of Islam, at that. As Mortenson and Relin explain in Three Cups of Tea, these Madrassas don’t teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, nor do they teach geography, chemistry, biology, or physics. They teach the “Lesser Jihad” through rote memorization of the Holy Koran, in Arabic, a language that most of the students never really learn to speak as a language, just becoming able to recite suras from the Holy Koran. (The “Lesser Jihad” is the challenge of bringing Islam to the uninitiated – most often seen as war on non-believers. The “Greater Jihad” is the battle within to become a better Muslim by following the Holy Koran and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, PBUH )

The saddest part is that the Wahabbi financiers, generallywealthy Saudi and Gulf State individuals, seemingly practicing ‘zakat’, or the giving of charity - one of the five pillars of Islam,get it better than we generally do. They are pouring their money into building these Madrassas because there is no competition for the young minds and bodies, no other education system to counter them – until Greg Mortenson comes along, at least. The end of movie Charlie Wilson’s War said it all – we had been pouring in almost a billion dollars in military aid to the Afghan Mujihedeen per year, then the Soviets quit and withdrew. The next year, Representative Charlie Wilson tried to get a million dollars appropriated for reconstruction aid, some of which would have gone to schools, and was flatly turned down. We had “won”, doncha know. And in winning the battle, we began to lose what eventually became the war we are now fighting. I have to wonder if we had pursued reconstruction and education efforts in Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan through the 1990s, whether Osama bin Ladin would have found such ripe ground here when he was expelled from the Sudan in 1996. Three Cups of Tea should be the basis for how we help Failed States (and Nearly Failed States).

The second inspiration this week was much smaller in scale, but almost as moving. It was watching the performance of a 47 year old unmarried, unemployed woman named Susan Boyle on “Britain’s Got Talent”. Here is a middle-aged woman who has the courage to go out and sing on this potentially cruel program. She is not attractive in the conventional sense that is so important on television. You could see the audience and the judges preparing for a big laugh at this woman’s expense. She announces the song she will sing ("I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables- an inspirational song in itself) and you can see the judges rolling their eyes, girding themselves for what, from all appearances, must be a terrible performance. And then something absolutely magical happens. Something that happens often in movies, but so seldom in real life... the music starts, and she begins to SING! And I mean SING, with every ounce of her being – and it is wonderful, powerful – I mean she NAILS IT! The gasp from the audience is audible. The raw emotional impact literally brought audience members to their feet. Even Simon Cowell, notorious for his biting wit, is completely blown away, his expressions and body language while she sings show that he is moved as well. Check it out for yourself… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY . Thank you George for sending it to me - and thanks to Mark for forwarding it to make sure I saw it.

So there they are, my two inspirations for the week. They are completely different in form and function, but share the common thread of the triumph of the human spirit. I am still shaking my head in wonder at both of them, but I am extremely happy for the experience of them both, for they both touched me profoundly - I am a better person than I was before this week.

The Answer (as opposed to "The Secret")

I figured it out. It came to me while reading a memoir of our nation’s recent Iraqi adventure – a rather depressing read, by the way. This epiphany is so wonderfully simple, yet so awe inspiring in its applicability to every one of the current “issues” our country and we as a people face in the world. I can tell you “The Answer” for what is wrong in the world today. Are you ready for it? Can you handle the truth?

It’s this: Lack of Personal Responsibility and Accountability. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, really, we’re all responsible people, right? We have our families, we have our bills, most of us are making the mortgage payment and putting food on the table – we are responsible grownups. But we are not. We have given up so much control of our lives to other people and other things that we don’t take the time to really know what we are doing. And, at a certain point, at some certain dollar value with lots of zeroes, Personal Responsibility and Accountability ceases to be a factor at all anymore.

Let’s start small. I had(!), as probably most of you do, most of my retirement savings in “Safe Long Term Investments” – IRA’s, Mutual Funds, 401K’s. But I really can’t tell you how any one of those financial vehicles differs from the other. My mutual funds send me a prospectus or synopsis or some kind of a report every six months and I can say I’ve actually looked at it – once or twice a decade or so, mostly to see where the "highly paid fund manager" (highly paid is defined as someone who makes more than twice as much as I do) thinks he should invest my and a bunch of “other people’s” money (remember that phrase – it’s key).

Do any of you really understand how these Accounts and Funds work? What exactly does a Fund or Account Manager do every day to earn that high pay? I know I have the picture in my head of an earnest individual (balding, rumpled suit, rolled up sleeves, green eye shade) who is tracking every one of the stocks in their funds every single day, looking at projections, reading profit and loss statements, wetting their finger and holding it up to see which way the financial winds are blowing, or something like that. Perhaps that is what they do, sometimes, but I bet they spend a lot of their time in meetings with other fund managers listening to Branch or Division Chiefs tell them that they are not making enough money for the firm itself. That they are paying out too much in commissions because they are trading stocks too often or paying out too many dividends to us investors, because – and this is part of the secret – it’s not really “our” money anymore – we have given it to “Them” to manage for us, because we cannot do it as well as they can. We have transferred our personal responsibility for our money and investments to “Them” and our money has become “Their Money”. But it’s not really “Their Money” like it was their “Their (Personal) Money”, it’s “Their (Other People’s) Money.” Either that or these places are something like LA Law or Ally McBeal reruns and everyone is chasing everyone else around to have an affair with… but I digress.

Once “They” (pronouns are going to kill me here) have the money, it is “Theirs”, the company’s. And the first rule for companies in business is to make money. So they use Their (Other People’s) Money to make more money, keep some of that and give some back to us, the investor/"other people". This serves two purposes, one, it makes us "other people" feel like we have been responsible with our money for it is increasing in value and it also increases the amount of money that “They” can then use to make more money because most of us just let the money accrue in the accounts. The money they keep for themselves pays those highly paid managers (and even more highly paid Branch and Division Chiefs) their paychecks and bonuses and puts fuel in the Gulfstream jets and all of that.

The problem with Their (Other People’s) Money is that they treat it like what it is – other people’s money. Ever wonder why used rental cars sell for so much less than “regular” used cars – it’s because people have driven them like they are rental cars – they are “other people’s" cars. In my last job I traveled quite a bit and the company would provide a rental car most places. Usually the cheapest thing with four wheels and an engine but it was better than the riding the bus in a strange town. And usually I would find that there was no need for a gas pedal – a simple switch to go from coast to full power was all I really needed most of the time – well, that and maybe a brake pedal. Short of trying not to wreck the car, there was no need to really take care of it, as it was basically an “other people’s" car” – not "my" car. And worse, if I did wreck it, there was insurance that would cover it, so I wouldn’t be out any of “My Money”.

So now the picture is clear – these people were using what once was “Our Money” that we transferred to them to become “Their (Other People’s) Money” like it was a bunch of rental cars. They knew that we wouldn’t pay close attention to what they were doing, and that if they wrecked it, the government would step in and insure them so they would not be out any of Their (Personal) Money.

There it is, the financial crisis in a nutshell, and we let them do it through our ignorance, trusting, and, in no small part, greed. But it’s worse than that. We are doing this with entire countries.

Since this epiphany came to me while reading about Iraq, let’s talk about Iraq. Our former President, aka "The Decider", decides to change the regime in Iraq, and does so. At that point he should have became personally responsible and accountable for what happened next. As every good executive does, he delegated authority to a highly paid manager, Paul Bremer, and sent him over to run the place. Unfortunately, this manager did not feel any sense of personal responsibility and accountability because even though it was his country to run, it was “His (Other People’s) Country” – and he drove it like a rental car, doing things that he would not have done if he felt that he would be personally held responsible for the consequences. So, he fires all of the Baath Party members that were the civil service of Iraq and disbands the Army – putting most of what we would have called the upper middle class out of work, all at once. Chaos follows, but this man has an insurance policy – the US Department of Defense. They will “pay off” and make his stupid decisions seem less stupid over time – to the tune of 4,000 plus US lives (and a bunch of Iraqi lives as well).

How about here in Afghanistan? Same thing. It is “NATO’s (Other People’s) Country” – nobody really gives a flying flip about outcomes beyond their tour of duty, and if they do, they soon become disabused of such silly notions (like when I was young and would actually take a rental car through the car wash before taking it back – I didn’t want to be thought less of for bringing back a dirty car). I’ve already written about the “not my job” and “I’m too short to worry about that” attitudes – “short” being a term used to describe coming up on the end of a tour of duty. The problem is that that attitude starts about the second or third day here for some people. And the Afghans are kind of like us with our mutual funds – they have handed the country over to us – the highly paid country managers – to make it better for them. Now they don’t have to take any personal responsibility either – it’s someone else’s worry. So if the generator runs out of oil because nobody checked it – Inshallah, ask NATO for another one. If half of my unit’s weapons disappear over time, no worries, ask NATO for new ones. We are their insurance policy, just like the Government is for the big banks.

Of course, the problem is, eventually it comes back to be “Our/My Money”, just as my diminished retirement accounts are now “My (much less) Money” and the Bailout/Stimulus (I’ve lost track of what is part of what anymore) is “Our Government’s (much less) Money, Iraq has already become “Our (lots and lots of) Money” and Afghanistan is fast becoming “Our (lots and lots more) Money”.

Colin Powell, it is apocryphally told, espoused the “Pottery Barn Rule” – If You Break It – You Buy It (Pottery Barn, for the record, disavows this as a “rule”). He knew that we were going to break Iraq, and we have bought it many times over since. We have broken Afghanistan (didn’t take much), and are buying it now, after putting it on layaway for a few years. We have broken our financial system, and now are trying to buy it back. But here’s the rub – Paul Bremer took no responsibility for his decisions and has not been held accountable for the consequences; none of the “highly paid managers” – to include Corporate CEO’s – of the American Financial Industry are taking any personal responsibility nor are they being held personally accountable (I don't count Madoff - he's just a crook), and the same applies to the leaders of the American Automobile Industry. Evidently, the buck does not stop with them. It’s passed to us. Harry Truman would be appalled.

Here’s the kicker – my friends with small businesses, restaurants, and such – they are forced to take responsibility and are held personally, financially liable. Why aren’t we holding our corporations and our government to the same standard as they hold us to? I once heard that if you owe the bank a thousand dollars, they own you and get to make the rules, but if you owe the bank a million dollars (probably billion now), you own them and get to make the rules – I guess that’s really true.

The Answer sucks, doesn’t it.