Driving while Afghan

It's even worse than driving while black here in the good old USA.

Here driving while black will get you pulled over and hassled, while driving while Afghan in Afghanistan is enough to get a laser guided missile up your and your children's ass. After you're blown to pieces your surviving relatives get to hear about 'regrets' and maybe get a pay off.

The person who ordered the bombing, the pilot, McChrystal, Petraeus, Gates and Obama may justify and excuse this, and promise some bullshit investigation that will be forgotten by the next news cycle, but it is obviously inevitable when you are running a bloody occupation and the value of the civilians there are not worth a hundredth of your gallant warriors lives.

'Hearts and minds' should be renamed 'hearts and brains and intestines'. That is all they will ever win there.

Happy

LARA M. DADKHAH must be really happy with the news from Afghanistan today.

The deaths of 27 Afghan civilians, including women and children, should go a long way in convincing her of the fortitude of the war effort, and the US commitment to victory no matter how many Afghans die along the way.

Goldman sacks Greece

Bloomberg:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. managed $15 billion of bond sales for Greece after arranging a currency swap that allowed the government to hide the extent of its deficit.

Of course, hiding risk from investors is Goldman Sachs modus operandi, so it must be legal, or as Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said, they were "“at the time legal".

We are wondering what other countries might have connived with GS in this type of deal. Time will tell, perhaps.

Togetherness

The most hyped military operation since D-Day, Operation Moshtarak (Together) is supposedly about to happen in Afghanistan's Helmand province. The residents (and Taliban) of the town of Marjah have been advised via leaflet to leave, and also advised to stay in their homes.

As Paul Rogers points out at Open Democracy, though the operation is touted as sure to gain and keep control of the province, past performance makes this doubtful. One of the psychological needs of warfare is victory, especially on the home front, and the hype seems more designed for that than any real change in Afghanistan. If it makes it easier for the US and NATO to really talk peace with the Taliban, it might end up having a good effect, but it might also push the theme that 'victory is just around the corner'. I suspect that is the military's goal.

Just too big

This must read editorial at Bloomberg points out that too big to fail also means too big to have to obey the law. The law is just for the little guys now, even those laws designed to keep a modicum of honesty in financial circles, putting that aright is clearly not one of the changes that Obama has made, or will make.
(h/t zero hedge)

New York Timesese II

Headline edition:

Goldman Chief Gets Bonus of Only $9 Million in Record Year

Hard times, what?

New York Timesese

From the pen of Jane Perlez:

Even though the United States calls Pakistan an ally, the country, unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, has not allowed American combat forces to operate here, a point that is stressed by the Pentagon and the Pakistani Army, the most powerful institution in Pakistan.

 A very brief trip down memory lane in Bizarro World.