Selu's World

Selu is a female German Shepherd/Siberian husky mix. I got her from a lady up in the hills who had 40-50 or so similar dogs. There were at least three litters present scampering about the piles of empty Pepsi cans and trailer insulation that littered the property.(One full Ford F150 bed full of Pespi cans. Of course the F-150 had no engine or tires) Anyway it took us an hour and a half to capture one little scared 7 week old girl, later to be Selu. All her dogs were afraid of people, even this lady could not cox them out. They were half wild,like barn cats. Selu has always been wary of people. She is impossible to catch outside, thinks long and hard before crossing the threshold to the house. Yet at times,her times, she like to cuddle. She's a receiver not a giver. You might get one tongue swipe if youre lucky.Her eyes never set to long anywhere. The roam, probe,seek,question all about her. The guard rarely relaxes. You never catch her sleeping, she's awake by the time you get there,her ears never sleep. Yet nose to nose,eyeball to eyeball, she is majestic creature.One gold eye, one blue, darting incessently. Yet the face is calm, breathing controlled. There's a very faint and subtle sub tone, I could rip your face off in 2 seconds. You can feel it. There is a noblity in this dog, a wild creature, who gives you limited access. There's a loyality too,she knows I am a benefactor. She accepts me, maybe even loves me in dog emotions, but trust, no never, not completely. A wild animal has to be ever vigilant or it will be eaten, or starve to death. Selu will neither starve or be eaten.

Some interesting facts

1. In the late 90's the government of Iran supported warlords in the Herat area and the Northern Alliance in an attempt to oust the Taliban. Iran was concerned with the Taliban's treatment of the ethnic Hazara people, who were Shia Muslims.
2. Iran was extremely concerned with drugs being exported by the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the monies of which they used to finance terror. Iran actually built an electric fence in the Herat area. As of 2000 it is thought Iran had at least 1.5 million addicts.
3.After 9/11 Iran gave the Karzai government support, prefering it to the Taliban.
4. Pakistan supported the Taliban from the outset.
5. Pakistan was only one of 3 nations to recognize the Taliban government.
6. Pakistan's main concern has always been India and has always supported an Afghanistan that was anti India. A fundamentalist regime in Kabul would support Pakistani attempts to de stabilize Kashmir.
7. The Northwest Provinces( where Taliban and Al Qaeda remants have regrouped) has always been considered to be part of Aghanistan until the British partition of India and the drawing of the Durrand line as the Afghani-Pakistani border.
Given these facts,America's policy in the region seems to based on ignorance rather than any understanding of local issues.

National borders

Borders are a European invention, a line drawn in the sand. Mostly they don't give much substance to linguistic and national reason. Nomads abhor them, as to them, borders don't exist. Who can say exactly where the border between Mali and Algeria is, deep in the Sahara? Perhaps only the Taureg knows, deriving a satisfaction when moving his flock from one nation to another with no one around for hundreds of square miles.
European drawn borders are the source or fuel or many current conflicts. A great example is Iraq, a creation of those wonderful fuckersup of everything, the Brits. After WW I ended, the Ottoman empire was broken up. The League of Nations created the concept of mandates, whereby "enlightened" European nations would kind of guide a backward primitive nation towards statehood. A rather ethnocentric excercise, considering the high state of medieval Islamic culture.(Major cities, like Baghdad had running water at a time when the English were throwing their feces out the window in the street). Anyway, they had to give Lebanon and Syria to the French, so they created Iraq out of thin air. The name existed, two Iraqs, actually, Iraq Ajami which included western Iran, and Iraq Arabi, where the Arabic language was dominant. Although Baghdad served for years as the capital of the Abbasid caliphate, its culture was very much influence by Persia. So when the Brits drew lines in the sand after 1918, they included in their Iraq, 3 very different areas,each having the qualifications for statehood. A Shia,and Iranian inluenced south(the main Shia holy places are in the south of Iraq. A Sunni central area and desert in the west and a Kurdish north. (Kurds are not Semites, but Indo Iranian people) A recipe for disaster for sure. As King they appointed Faisal ibn Hussein ibn Ali al Hashimi, one of the sons of the Sharif of Mecca.( The another son, Abdullah became King of another British creation, TransJordan) Then of course Palestine, which Arabs always considered part of Syria. They promised it to the The Sharif o Mecca and his sons, and also, in the Balfour Declaration, to Chaim Weitzman and his Zionists. In the end, they kept it for themselves, greatly pissing off both Arabs and Jews and starting the ball rolling for the current Middle Eastern crisis.
In the 19th century, in order to secure India from Russian expansion in Central Asia, the Brits began to mess with the inner affairs of Afghanistan. They fought three wars up there against the tribesmen of Afghanistan and, as always, started drawing lines. They took away the Khyber pass and Peshawar from the Afghan kingdom and made it part of India, they peeled off the Muslim section of Kashmir from Afghan control, again to be part of India. Much of what today is Pakistan is made up of territories taken from the Afghanis. So, the Northwest Frontier provinces(NWFP) that now provide sanctuary for bin Laden and Al Qaida, are technically considered part of Afghanistan and inhabited by Pashtun tribes. Pashtuns are majority tribe of Afghanistan and have always provided the rulers. No wonder Osama feels at home up in those hills. The Islamabad government of Pakistan has little or no control up there, and even though they take American monies and arms, have little desire to antagonize these tribes. So its another border dispute we have gotten drawn into, that affords no real solution. All our presence does up there is piss off the inhabitants and, judging from the experience of the British(3 Afghan wars) and the Soviets( the 70's) its a losing propostion. When will we ever learn.

God has awesome tits!

I have a good friend who I exchange e mails with on a regular basis. She is a very spiritual lady. So I like Green Tara,
a Tibetan emanation of Quan Yin, a bodhisattva of infinite compassion. Nice lady, I keep her statue at my holy place and i got her T shirt. Since god is infinite, we have to make up ways to visual him/her/it, cause its beyond our understanding. So our gods and avatars, usually some kind of human form, sometimes animal. Tara come from India and besides her many other holy qualities she has great tits.. nekkid too! and green and thats good cause i spent 6 years with Mother Green herself, The United States Marines( que band.. Marine hymn).
So having read the Tibetan book of the dead a little i have a vague idea of the journey your light must make, The ultimate union is at the end, super blasted into the very essence of the godhead. but most people dont get that far and suffer low rebirth(read rat, cockroach,slug) So temptations appear on your path. Once I was talking with some friends about that and said ,Man if a roomful of Gothic Schoolgirls, uniform and all, fishnets cleavage,Demonia boots,appears i am toast. If you go in that room you are reborn as a pubic louse on the asshole of a Bangkok back alley whore. So Tara appears, topless, to spirit me away. Ain't god great!

Mistakes in Aghanistan

I see the President wants to increase troop strength and aid to Hamid Karzai's government and train more troops. It ain't gonna work. Didn't work in Vietnam, didn't work in Iraq and won't work in Afghanistan. In forming the new Afghan government we bypassed leaders of the resistance against the Soviets, and heroes to the Afghani people and selected an expatriate, who never shed a drop of blood or sweat or his nation's independence. Not a winner of hearts and minds. The Afghans see us no diferent than the Soviets, we are occupiers. Generals, incluing Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan,the early Persian empire, the brits and the Russians all lost in Afghanistan. What makes us any different. Afghanistan is a tribal nation that thinks in parts, not the whole. Its Pashtuns,Tajiks.Uzbeks,Hazara,Beluchis and many more that matter. Islam matters and the Mullahs have issued Fatwa for war on America. Afghanistan has been usually rules by Pashtuns,and this time won't be diferent. They'll fight us in the mountains and the deserts and like with the Russians, they will prevail. Afterwards,unity of purpose lost, the tribes and actions will descen on each other like locusts until a strongman takes charge. Such is Afghanistan.

Winning the war on terror in Afghanistan

President Obama has made the war in Afghanistan a priority, but unless he makes some major tactical and political changes he will lose. Here's why.
1. Osama bin Laden is Robin Hood. That is how much of Dar ul Islam ( The Islamic world) sees him. They do not hate the American way of life, democracy, hollywood etc enough to kill over it. They perceive America as a threat to Islam in general. Bush used to throw out platitudes about the "vast number of moderate Muslims who do not support terrorism". Muslims wonder about things we don't see. Why is an Iraqi,Iranian or Libyan nuclear bomb not permissible but an Israeli one is? Why does Georgia get US support, but not Chechnya,Why does Serbia and Croatia matter but not Bosnia. Because of religion, they think. We do not support Islamic nations. As long as we march hand in hand with Israel, sanction their version of terrorism, and supply them with the best arms, there will be terror. An unnamed Palestinian once said," Do you think we'd use suicide bombers if we had an air force?"
2. The Middle eastern regimes that theUSA supports are dictatorships, out of date monarchies and "self determination"in Iraq and Afghanistan means a non Islamic goverment.
3. The USA fumbled the beginning of the Afghan war by waiting one month before striking. Osama and his cronies had moved most their crap to the mountains by September 12th. In the late 80's and early 90's the Afghan's fought a long and victorious war against the Soviets. It produced many heros,names sung in poems, repeated in prayers. Hamid Karzai and his advisors were not there! They are expatriates who did not fight for the cause. Although Karzai is Pashtun, most of his goverment is Tajik. This means something in Afghanistan and it why Karzai is viewed as the mayor of Kabul, nothing more. The Afghans see American troops in their country as they saw Russian troops 20 years ago. We cannot win with Karzai.
4. Pakistan's maim concern is India, therefore it wants an Islamic state in Aghanistan that hates India. Number one priority here,folks, they'll take our money and weapons and put them in Kashmir. The people in the northern hills are mostly Pashtuns, the tribe that has usually dominates Afghanistan. Oh, they give us lip service,the Pakistani army, but when they move, they move very slow and only after a phone call.
Iraq, Aghanistan, just about anywhere, really doesnt want to be America. We cant,t get that thru our heads. We inherited it from the Brits, I guess. In Vietnam, I heard,"Inside every Vietnamese, there is an American trying to get out" WRONG! Some people, believe it or not don't want McDonalds, The Super Bowl, Lindsay Lohan or Walmart. Thats probably the first thing we need to learn.

To "win" the war on terror we need to rethink our policies towards the Islamic world. Really it makes sense, we need oil and they have it, so be nice. An equitable peace must be found for the Israeli-Palestinian problem, besides continued Israeli aggression. Hamas, Fatah, Hizbollah, aren't going to go away. They need to be listened to and dealt with.
And answer one question for me, please. Why is it that in the 80's an 90's they were Afghan freeom fighters and now they are terrorists. We usually define terrorist organizations as non state players. Whether we like their politics or not, most of these organizations support some kind of nationalist agenda. SO our definition is, if we like your politics you arefreedom fighters, if not youre a terrorist. Is anybody in America aware of social programs of Hizbollah?
I do not support terrorism, I was shocked by 9/11 and knew people who died there. I believe in a homeland for the Jewish people. I just don,t agree with the way the whole Middle east thing is being managed. Whoever advised President Obama that more troops will win in Afghanistan needs to read history. The key to Middle east peace is going to require some major diplomatic work to get the Israelis and Arabs on the same page.
In the end, it really is, for us. about the oil.

Musing

When it comes to the story of our lives, nothing is true.