In memoriam - Anthony Shadid

This past week the news broke that Anthony Shadid had died on assignment... Immediately the encomiums started to flow - "... In an era blessed with more than its fair share of brilliant foreign correspondents, he was the best of the breed...," being a relatively mild example (for more see the reactions of his NYT colleagues at: Remembering Anthony Shadid or do a Google search...) It seemed that every journalist covering international affairs was coming out of the woodwork to say how he or she had been touched, inspired, awed, etc. by Anthony Shadid... This blogger has two observations:

• The praise was well-deserved, Anthony Shadid was a great reporter who told it the way it is...
• However, there is scant evidence that the legions of journalists professing to have been inspired by him were all inspired enough to emulate him insofar as it comes to taking the time and care (as he did) in writing about the subjects that they cover! Most are pale shadows of Shadid. For example, which of the main journalists covering say, Iran, are doing a good job of laying out the facts and circumstances of a complex narrative? Hardly any - most seem content to be stenographers, parroting the positions of the administration or of various U.S. politicians; while others are actively beating the drums of war...

This is a big loss....

Anthony Shadid (1968 - 2012)
Anthony Shadid: The Best of Our Breed
At Work in Syria, Times Correspondent Dies
Correspondent Anthony Shadid, 43, dies in Syria
Anthony Shadid dies, leaves hole in foreign correspondency
Journalists and Friends Respond to Death of Anthony Shadid...

The 2004 Pulitzer winners - International Reporting - Anthony Shadid
The 2010 Pulitzer winners - International Reporting - Anthony Shadid

Random chart - gas prices

Source: Gasoline Prices: $4.50 per gallon by Memorial Day?

Random chart - unemployment context

Source: CBO: Understanding and Responding to Persistently High Unemployment

Where we are:

• The unemployment rate reached a very high level, peaking at 10.0 percent in October 2009. That rate has been topped in the post–World War II period only once before—during the severe 1981–1982 recession. From the end of2007 to October 2009, the number of unemployed people rose by almost 8 million.

• Unemployment has been high for an extended period. As of January 2012, the unemployment rate had been above 8 percent for 36 months and at or above 9 percent for 28 of the preceding 36 months. In contrast, the unemployment rate exceeded 8 percent for 26 months and was at or above 9 percent for 19 months during the recession of the early 1980s.
  

• Many people would like to work but have not searched for a job in the past four weeks, or are working part-time but would prefer full-time work. If those people were counted among the unemployed, the unemployment rate in January 2012 would have been about 15 percent.
  

• The share of unemployment accounted for by the long-term unemployed (people who have been seeking work for more than 26 weeks) has been at an all-time high. Over 40 percent of people who are currently unemployed have been out of work for more than half a year, as compared with about one-quarter during the 1981–1982 recession.
  

And the factors that caused the unemployment rate to increase from five percent in December 2007 to 8.5 percent in December 2011 - a three and a half percent increase:

• Weak demand for goods and services as a result of the recession and its aftermath, which accounts for about two-and-a-half percentage points;
  

• Mismatches between the needs of employers and the skills and location of the unemployed, which account for about one-half of one percentage point;
  

• Incentives from extensions of unemployment insurance for people to stay in the labor force and continue searching for work, which account for about one quarter of one percentage point; and.
  

• Erosion of skills and the stigma attached to long-term unemployment—that is, employers’ perception that people who have been unemployed for a long time would be low-quality workers—which together account for about one-quarter of one percentage point.
  

Perhaps why it isn't working...

Source: NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A/CSTC-A) Organizational Chart

Random chart - Iraq, Afghan tribal differences

Source: U.S. Army Human Terrain Report: Afghan Tribal Structure Versus Iraqi Tribal Structure

"... Most US personnel that are serving in Afghanistan have already served a tour in Iraq and are accustomed to doing things “the Iraq way”. Many people are trying to apply the lessons learned in Iraq to Afghanistan, which in many cases is inappropriate. AF2 wants to provide a product to US units to compare and contrast Iraqi tribal structure and Pashtun tribal structure to prevent future missteps by US forces.

The notion of applying ideas that worked in Iraq to Afghanistan is fraught with problems. The “lessons don’t transfer directly,” according to John Nagl, one of the authors of the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (FM 3-24). William McCallister, an expert advisor to the Marine Corps on tribal dynamics in Iraq2 said he is “not a fan of taking the Anbar experience and creating TTPs” for a Pashtun context.

The reasons behind this are legion. For one, the historical experiences of Iraqi and Pashtun societies are so dissimilar as to make comparing them difficult, if not impossible. For another, the specific circumstances of each warzone—one a sectarian conflict, the other a fractured society handling an international insurgency—doesn’t allow for easy generalization between the two.

Furthermore, each society is fundamentally different on a structural level. In Iraq, leadership is in a sense “institutionalized,” or “codified” in the sense that there is a set and identifiable structure for community leadership to interact with each other and with the State. In Afghanistan, however, that system is neither “institutionalized” nor “codified” in any real sense; therefore, structures of community leadership and power relationships within and between tribal groups and the state are much more ad hoc and cannot be discussed in a general sense. Comparing these two societies side-by-side demonstrates this, and shows just how difficult it is to draw lessons from one to the other..."

Next for Syria?

This blogger has no idea re how this is going to turn out... However, while trying to keep up with the evolving situation in the country, there are a few observations that can be made:

• One can discount 90 percent plus of what comes from the regime... Unfortunately this also seems to be true for 80 percent plus of what is reported as coming from most "activists"!
• The news media is mostly pretty much worthless for anyone trying to keep up with events and understand what is going on.
• None of the external parties have their primary focus on what is best for the Syrian people. Every one has ulterior motives and their own agendas...
• In the U.S. suggestions range from "do nothing", to demands that Bashar al-Assad step aside (which could lead to an "Egypt" solution if the regime remains), to supplying arms to regime opponents (probably resulting in a "Libya" solution). Easy answers abound, as does crummy analysis.
  

A sad state of affairs...

Random picture

Picture Credit

Aerial view of a system of trenches dating from World War I, recently uncovered in eastern France near the town of Carspach.

From The 'Pompeii' of the Western Front: "The bodies of 21 German soldiers entombed in a perfectly preserved World War One shelter have been discovered 94 years after they were killed... French archaeologists stumbled upon the mass grave on the former Western Front in eastern France during excavation work for a road building project... Many of the skeletal remains were found in the same positions the men had been in at the time of the collapse, prompting experts to liken the scene to Pompeii... As well as the bodies, poignant personal effects such as boots, helmets, weapons, wine bottles, spectacles, wallets, pipes, cigarette cases and pocket books were also found..."

Or not quite... (updated 2/11)

The August 10th, 2011 blog entry, 'Great quotes', highlighted a quote by Marine Gen. John R. Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, who claimed that “All across Afghanistan, the insurgents are losing. They’re losing territory, they’re losing leadership, they’re losing weapons and supplies, they’re losing public support. More and more, the insurgents are losing resolve and the will to fight.”

Hmm, as suspected, this turns out to be a slight (?) exaggeration. An Army Lieutenant Colonel recently penned an article - Truth, lies and Afghanistan: How military leaders have let us down - which notes the "discrepancy between official statements and the truth on the ground" and takes senior military leaders to task... Some brief quotes:

"... What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground... I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level... I heard many stories of how insurgents controlled virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a U.S. or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base..." A must read.

Updated 2/11:

Here's a link to the unclassified version of the report: Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leader’s Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort84-page PDF

Random...

Word cloud of the front page, from Tagxedo

Brief update II (Afghan fauna)

Source: NatGeo

The July 24th, 2011 bog entry, 'Brief update (Afghan fauna)', linked to an Al Jazeera article reporting that the Wildlife Conservation Society had found "...a surprisingly healthy population of snow leopards... in northeastern Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor..."

Here are a couple of National Geographic articles with additional information and photos:

First Pictures: Snow Leopards Rebounding in Afghanistan
Afghanistan Bright Spot: Wildlife Surviving in War Zones