Charlie WIlson's War

I do not want to make this a movie review, but I watched the 2007 movie Charlie Wilson's War. It is a true story about the CIA's covert involvement leading to Afghanistan repealing the Soviet Union's long standing war to take over the that country. The defeat ultimately led to collapse of the Soviet Empire. Even though the Soviet Union was our bitter cold war enemy, the Regan Administration had shown little interest in defending a non-Christian nation for fear of upsetting Israel. At some point, a liberal Congressman, Charlie Wilson, from East Texas and known for his immoral behavior became involved in the cause of the Afghanistan people. He was drawn after visiting a refugee camp and hearing horrible stories of the Soviets near genocidal attacks on civilians. Wilson, through his Congressional Committee positions, was able to covertly fund weapon supplies to Afghanistan and we all know the rest of the story. What is not widely known is something I believe significant to our recent history. Following the end of the Soviet/Afghanistan war, Charlie Wilson warned his fellow Congressmen that we needed to fund the rebuilding of Afghanistan or it stood to be taken over by Islamic fundamentalists. Congress turned down this request because they had little interest in assisting a non-Christian country and could care less about Islamic fundamentalists - what a mistake that turned out to be. Afghanistan was left to fend for itself. Because everything was covert, the Afghans believed that America did nothing for them in their fight with the Soviets. Many of the men armed by the CIA went on to become the Taliban's enforcers and Osama bin Laden's protectors.

I am all about keeping our money home, but I have to think we missed the boat on this one. Had we provided more assistance to Afghanistan following the soviet war, we might have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Think of the money spent and human lives lost since 9/11 and our war on terror. A little money spent in foreign aid might have saved us that expense. We need to think about this next time we criticize money being allocated for foreign aid.

In the movie, the CIA agent who worked with Wilson told him a parable of the Zen master.

In a village, a boy got a pony, and all the villagers said, “That’s good.” The Zen master said, “We’ll see.” A couple of years later, the boy fell off the pony and broke his leg. All the villagers said, “That’s too bad.” The Zen master said, “We’ll see.” Then a war came and all the other young men went to war, but the boy couldn’t because of his leg. All the villagers said, “That’s good.” The Zen master said, “We’ll see.”

So it is with Afghanistan. As we look back, we see that the victory over the Soviets was not the end of the story.

The movie credits began with this quote:

“These things really happened. We changed the world, then we [blew] the end game.”

Yes we did.

Antivirus XP 2008, Not Your Friend

Well I guess Tropical Storm Fay saved me from having a REALLY lousy day. I suppose it could have been worse had it been a pretty day. While Fay was dumping buckets of water on us, someone figured I had nothing better to do to than spend the day ridding my computer of a vicious Malware. I did manage to make it to Mass and Walmart. At Mass I learned that the average person commits 7 confessional sins a day. Between my computer problem and the trip to Walmart, I am sure I am way over the average.

It seems that while I was doing "research" a rogue program loaded itself onto my computer. Once it did its thing, it sent me a message that spyware was on my computer and I should click to let Antivirus XP 2008 repair my system - for a fee of course. It also didn't give me any options to decline or close the window. It then hijacked my control panel, hid access to my C drive, bombarded me with popups, and changed my wallpaper to constantly remind me Antivirus XP 2008 could repair my spyware problem. It also removed the tabs that allow the screens wallpaper and background to be changed. If that was not enough my computer slowed to a crawl or nothing at all.

I did a little research. Antivirus XP 2008 is a malware, a bogus antivirus application that mimics Microsoft Windows and other legitimate alerts. It is downloaded automatically by redirecting users internet browser to its predefined website to purchase its licensed software to clean up the mess it just dumped on your computer. If that is not bad enough, it never actually fixes its mess and has a history of repeated billing your credit card. Sounds like extortion to me.

Lets put what just happened in perspective. A rogue pest control company breaks into your house and releases roaches, termites, and rats. He sits back and waits for you to return home. As you arrive home and become stunned by the utter chaos, the pest control villain knocks at your door and announces he just happened to be in area looking for new customers. Just sign a contract and your pest will go away, only they never do really go away despite the money you paid him.

The assholes operating Antivirus XP 2008 have been traced to Singapore and Russia. Complaints have been filed with government agencies, but no action has been taken. (I guess they are too busy reading all of our email.) While billions have been spent converting our society into a police state to prevent another unpreventable attack by a handful of neo-medieval wackos, the problem of spam, spyware, malware and serious computer viruses has gone unchecked. Granted these problems are nothing compared to the mass death caused by terrorist, but I would wager the losses causes by attacks on computers is in the billions. The present administration probably considers those billions as money pumped back into the economy.

I'd like to thank precisesecurity.com for posting some great free advice on fixing this problem. They recommended this free malware remover which did the trick - I hope.

Katrina and Politics

In months preceding Hurricane Katrina divisive politics between the GOP's President Bush and Senator Vitter and Democrats Governor Blanco and Senator Landrieu set the stage for America's largest natural disaster. In addition to numerous partisanship press releases from both sides, Blanco had publicly defied President Bush by 1) refusing to greet the President upon his arrival in Baton Rouge to deliver a commencement address at LSU and 2) traveling to Cuba and meeting with Cuban officials concerning trade talks despite President Bush specifically asked Governor Blanco to cancel this trip. A last minute schedule change to dine with Fidel Castro was seen as a kick in the groin message to Bush. It was apparent that Gov. Blanco and Sen. Landrieu were setting the groundwork to give ammo to the Hillary Clinton campaign. This could have worked well for the democrats assuming, Gov. Blanco was re-elected, Clinton received the Democratic nomination and more importantly for all, Katrina did not destroy New Orleans. Gov. Blanco and Sen. Landrieu also miscalculated the ruthlessness of the GOP's Karl Rove. It is uncertain what gave Gov. Blanco such a euphoric sense of political power, but she later found herself way out of her league. Gov. Blanco and Sen. Landrieu were betting they could make the GOP look bad and would not need any federal assistance during President Bush's tenure.

As news reports began covering the worst natural disaster in US history, President Bush was on one of his extended "working vacations" at his Texas ranch. As Louisiana officials were begging for federal assistance, President Bush left his Texas ranch to deliver a speech in one of the western states. One might wonder why he did not immediately involve himself in the disaster relief. Upon reviewing press conferences something interesting has been found. Sen. Vitter announced in his first press conference that he had been speaking with Karl Rove. Say what? New Orleans is drowning. Why the hell are you talking to the GOP political advisor? Shouldn't you be talking to the President or generals? Days later a press conference was held at the site of the levee break. In the background, hordes of workers and heavy machinery was busily working to patch the levee break. The next day, Senator Landrieu was flying with reporter George Stephanopoulos recording for his weekly TV show. As they flew over the previously mentioned site, Landrieu looked down and saw nothing, but a single piece of machinery working to patch the levee. At that point she broke down crying. She realized the coverage the previous day was a set up. Karl Rove had put one over on the Democrats, there would be no serious aid for New Orleans.