Liberal/ MSM Stupidity: Womens Rights in Afghanistan

Afghan lawmakers block law on women's rights

This article has been in the yahoo news you see when  checking your email for a few days. Honestly it baffles me. Clearly the person who wrote has either never been to Afghanistan or has been brainwashed and is borderline mentally retarded. 

 Women's rights in Afghanistan isn't going to happen. My odds out lifting Jim Wendler in the morning, beating George St Pierre in an MMA match before lunch, out shooting Gerry Miculek in the afternoon then making a better dinner than Rachel Ray are higher than the odds of women in rural Afghanistan having anything that resembled rights or freedom.  It's just not going to happen.

 Major cities may differ slightly, and are historically more western/ liberal, however in the majority of Afghanistan women have no rights and are essentially properly. Women can be raped, beaten, killed, sold or married (same difference in that culture) as the male head of the family wants with no repercussions. That is the culture and it is not going to change.  I do not say that happily but it is absolutely true. Changing rural Afghanistan, and do not be confused the majority of the population, as well as the real axis of power in Afghanistan is rural, is next to impossible. The Soviets tried for 20 years, spending untold billions and killing millions of people. If there is a way to more brutally attack a way of life than the Ruskies did in Afghanistan I don't know what it would be. Heck, We've been there for more than a decade trying the soft and nice approach. The Afghan and in particular Pastun culture is not going to change. 

 Without getting further into Islam or Afghanistan lets get back to what this article shows us. Liberals seem to believe they are capable of imposing their beliefs on anyone. They seem to believe they know what is right for everyone, everywhere. They are confused when their agenda's simply do not appeal to people. They are even more confused when legal statutes and the implicit threat of force fails to make people comply. The idea that people are willing to ignore laws, face risk or ultimately fight/ die for their viewpoints is something they do not understand.  

 

 

Odds N' Ends

The lettuce, spinach and green beans went into pots today. That was big fun. This whole growing my own vegetables thing is pretty cool. Also I'm excited to say it looks like I'll be involved with an intro to canning thing in the near future.

Had dinner and a couple beers at a local bar. Since neither driving slightly inebriated or taking a cab appealed to me I decided to hang out drinking water and reading till the booze wore off. I am currently reading Ghost Wars:The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. I got halfway into this book way back in IBOLC but it lost my interest. These days I am a lot better informed on Afghanistan and the players involved, through research and personal experience, and am probably more patient so it's a bit easier to get through.

On the plus side guns are becoming more available. The local shop has a variety of evil black rifles and semi automatic pistols. They are also doing pretty well on mags. A variety of AR mags including PMAGs at $22ish were present. They had limited pistol mags, I think mostly various Ruger and XD mags plus a few Glock 19 mags at $32ish.

Ammo is trickling into the shops and flying out. A lot of guys are showing up at Wally World early in the morning. Some to meet their own needs and some to resell at stupid prices. The local shop sold 7k in .223 in 2 days with a 3 box per customer limit. Personally I'm semi actively looking and buying when prices are right.

As summer hits here we are seeing consistent temps in the 80's. My little .38 J frame is definitely earning its keep. The G19 is really only viable for open carry these days. However given that it I'm in Arizona that option is legally on the table and socially acceptable to boot. Sort of depends on my mood and the risk of a given venture. Since I'm much more of a grocery store at 4pm than an ATM at 3AM kind of guy the risk is usually pretty low.

In writing this rambling, I'm too lazy to do something serious post I realized that a month ago I wrote basically the same thing. Big fun.

Book Review: Wars of National Liberation by Daniel Morgan

Commander Zero loaned me this book with the conditions that it is eventually returned and I share my thoughts on it. Figured a book review is as good of a way as any to share my thoughts. So here we go.

Good:
Comprehensive- This book talks about a whole lot of different conflicts. China, Algeria, French in Indochina, Jews vs the Arab world I, II, III, IV, Vietnam and touched on themes of African and South American conflicts.

Well Researched- The guy definitely knew what he was talking about. The sheer amount of research put into this book is impressive.

Brought home key themes- Successful insurgencies have safe havens behind international borders, foreign support and tend to be fighting against unmotivated outside forces. Stuff I have talked about before.

Bad:
Bounces Around- This book seems to have sort of gone regionally then by time but could have been organized better. Specifically a set framework for discussing conflicts and another for battles would have been a huge help to this book.

Dove deep into some random conflicts/ battles but light in other probably more applicable ones. Talked a lot about Korea which was a pretty conventional fight. Also went deeply into a few other conventional battles. There really wasn't any rhyme or reason here. It was almost like they just made some old work fit into this project. They failed to really be descriptive enough to make sense when they tried to go deep too fast relying heavily on small diagrams Either needed to go deeper into battles or just stick to themes.

Ugly:
Misses significant conflicts like Chechnya and Northern Ireland. Also the Israelis vs the PLO (instead of the conventional fights vs the Arab world) would have been good. Some really useful stuff could have come from this.

Briefly and half heartedly mentioning Afghanistan in what they try to pass off as a closing. The Afghan war vs the Soviets is a great case study for a whole lot of information. The books failure to meaningfully discuss the Soviet Afghan War is almost irredeemable. It would be like talking pistol development through the 18th century and not mentioning Colt.

Sorely needed a good conclusion. Seriously they were going through the case studies then had a half halfhearted confusing chapter that vaguely mentions Afghanistan and mumbles about some other stuff and the book just ends.

Discussion: I got a lot out of the part on China which is a chapter of history I wasn't well informed on. The pieces on conflicts I was more familiar with were good and usually had an interesting new tid bit or three.  For a nonfiction book it managed to be informative while staying lively enough to stay interesting which is a definite balancing act.

This book would probably be on my fairly short list for studying insurgencies/ guerrilla war. It probably wouldn't make the top 5 but would definitely be in the top 10.

Overall assessment: Buy and read. The price on Amazon is like 7 bucks. I got stuff out of this book and considering my study of the field is pretty solid and I have some decent practical experience that says something.

Thoughts On Insurgencies #8: Fundamentals of a Successful Insurgencies 101

It became apparent to me after a discussion with an invisible that I needed to take a step back in this series. Sometimes I am guilty of forgetting that most folks here have not spent a good portion of their live training for or being personally involved in an insurgency. We should discuss the fundamentals of a successful insurgency.

I am not saying that every insurgency must have each of these elements or it will not be successful. There are a certainly examples out there which do not fit every criteria but most tend to fit them if loosely. In no particular order.

Obviously some group or subset of a state needs to be unhappy with the current governmental system. Not just kinda unhappy but enough so to fight a war they may well die in. Taking a step back it isn't so much that there need to be people willing to take up arms but conditions that lead to people being willing to take up arms.

Some of these people will be active fighters. For every active fighter there are a few supporters or axillary types helping make things work.  These folks are involved to varying degrees. Some are full time intel, logistics or C2 types filling your conventional staff functions. Others may be a farmer who gives an old cow to feed some fighters or a Grandma with a big house who loves to feed and look after a bunch of teenage and early 20 something boys. For every person who actively aids insurgents they need a bunch of people who just keep quiet. The neighbor who sees something and goes about his business or the apathetic local cop who doesn't search for insurgents very hard.

For an insurgency to build from an initial nucleus to a group that has a real chance the government has to have problems. Maybe it is a backwards corrupt nepotistic regime, maybe it is an aging dysfunctional empire, maybe the economy is toast or the government is distracted by war. The reason for this is that functional governments can eventually use the stick and or carrot to decrease the total amount of people willing to take up arms. Eventually this makes insurgencies peter out until an 'acceptable level of violence' which varies from place to place. There are bombings and high amounts of murders in a lot of places but that is just normal.

Some sort of a safe haven is very helpful for insurgents. This safe haven is very important for insurgents to train, rest and plan and conduct a variety of logistical efforts. These safe havens can be due to political boundaries the insurgents can cross that the opposing force is unable to cross at least in a widespread regular way. Vietnam as well as the Pakistan/ Afghanistan border are good examples of this. Other times a safe haven can be due to an area's isolation in terms of rough geography, lack of improved all weather roads and low population densities. Areas outside aside from the AF/PAK border in Afghanistan fall into this category. The longtime Philippine insurgency  and the FARK in the jungles of Columbia are also examples.

Without this safe haven motivated governments can eventually wear down an insurgent group or at least prevent them from regrouping, recovering and training. This means they are not healing up injured fighters or training new ones which makes it hard to build numbers and win. Some sort of a (relative) safe haven is just about impossible for insurgents to do without.

Outside assistance is very important. It is cool to think about a bunch of guys running to the hinter boonies with rifles and fighting the big mean government but it is just not that simple. To keep things going insurgents need money, weapons, ammunition, food, medicine and often outside training. Admittedly money can handle most of those problems if the insurgents can get enough of it. For a long time during the good old Cold War a group could pretty much bet on assistance from whichever side didn't have a relationship with the regime they are trying to topple. Since the Cold War has ended it has become a lot more dicey but wide open. Islamic groups can get solid funding from various Gulf State groups. Other folks may have relationships that work for various reasons.

Those are the big ones that come to mind based on my formal and informal education on the topic as well as real world experiences. As always input is welcome but please try to keep it on topic. I hope that some of you get something out of this post.

Have a nice day,
Ryan

Tab Clearing

Lizard Farmer links to an interesting CALL article it gives the weight of a bunch of different military gear.

John Mosby weigh's in on the 'Combat Light' discussion. As with most things John writes I find little to disagree with. It is pretty obvious to me that the gear needed for a specific mission can vary widely. An afternoon or an overnight is different from 2 weeks (or indefinitely), summer is different than winter (especially in the mountains or way up north) and vehicle based operations, though they have their own issues, are different than hoofing it.

Fake gold bars have showed up in NYC. 

It seems that President Obama said "I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody's got a shot." No comment here.

Mitt Romney said "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," Romney could be heard saying in the clip, referring to those who don't pay federal income tax. "There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it." I am ambivalent about this. It is an oversimplification as there are rich and poor on both sides of the political spectrum. However it is probably not totally inaccurate. 

It turns out that the miraculously lucky spontaneous attack on our consulate in Libya by average citizens during a riot wasn't actually so spontaneous and involved some hard core Al Qaeda types. Imagine my face showing great shock at this recent revelation.

Along these lines there is a whole mess of rioting all over the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere. The whole thing is really ridiculous. I don't care what the guy next door thinks about my religion; let alone somebody in a country I need a couple minutes to find on a map. Things like this make the whole 'Islam is a religion of peace' argument an uphill battle.

Body Armor, To Buy Or Not And When To Use

The topic of body armor has come up again recently. I have talked a bit about it in the past. Anyway here we go, some of this will probably be new and some will be rehashed.The first question is if you should buy body armor. I would say that folks who think they might end up on the two way range some day would be well advised to acquire body armor. It saves lives and gives a useful advantage. It broadly comes in two types soft armor (like cops wear)  and rifle plates. Soft vests can sometimes be had pretty cheap. They will stop most pistol rounds and buckshot. It comes in class 2A, 2 and 3A. Each successively heavier type stops larger/ faster bullets but is also heavier and thicker. A lot of folks recommend class 2 as a good compromise. One of these might be handy if you have to make large cash transactions or otherwise function at increased risk in a normal non mad max world. Rifle plates are solid ceramics or steel plates that stop heavier/ faster rounds including most common rifle rounds up to the .308/30'06 range. They are relatively heavy, cumbersome and expensive. Then again they do stop rifle bullets. While a stripped plate carrier could theoretically be concealed under a coat or sweatshirt they are not something most folks would wear outside of a war zone or situation where a gunfight was likely. When to buy it is however a practical question. Once you have some basic weapons w/ ammo and ancillary stuff, some food and other gear it might be a good time to look at body armor. The subject of cost comes up here. My experiences as a consumer and brief google research show the following for prices. A soft vest will probably cost as much as a decent used revolver (around $300) and a plate carrier with rifle plates costs about as much as a mid shelf AK or lower end AR ($600ish or more). This is honestly something folks on really low budgets may have a hard time affording. I wouldn't fault somebody who was doing their best to slowly work through their families needs in a logical way and had to put off the purchase of body armor indefinitely.That being said if you have several nice pistols and a half dozen military pattern rifles but no body armor your priorities are skewed. I would recommend that you stop collecting guns. Delay the purchase of your next toy vital survivalist tool, consider maybe selling a safe queen and get the stuff you need to have every possible advantage on the two way range. Personally I would place body armor before gen III night vision. This is simply because of cost as body armor costs about 1/5th as much as a PVS 14 monocle. [While night vision is another topic most of the things said about body armor could be amplified about night vision. Very useful but very expensive.]When to use it. Personally body armor is part of my home defense plans. I want every possible advantage, fighting fair is for idiots and losers. Lots of folks talk about how body armor is not useful for insurgents or  guerillas or generally in modern "4G" warfare. I have to observe that most of them have not been a boots on the ground (vs say a senior FG officer in some redundant "command") participant in one of these conflicts. Lots of lives are saved by body armor. There is a reason that historically speaking fatalities are down (though amputees are up by percentage) in our recent conflicts. Body armor saves lives. A plate carrier will typically weigh around 20 pounds (plates at 7-8lbs each, a couple pounds for the carrier, potentially side plates, etc) give or take. A full up IOTV weights more and to be blunt I would not recommend it for most civilian or G applications.Some folks talk about how the added weight slows you down. Some argue this is a significant factor in recent conflicts, particularly Afghanistan. I read a great article about this called Bring Back The Light Infantry which I linked to in an old but if I do say so myself pretty awesome post.For me if things went all Red Dawn and I was playing guerrilla with remaining parts of my unit, buddies or whatever I would be inclined to wear body armor far more often than not. The decision would be a trade off between the protection body armor offers and the decreased mobility it brings. Mostly this would be an issue if we needed to carry a particularly heavy load to sustain ourselves for a long period or due to heavy items needed for the mission. Also if speed was important and the risk of contact was quite low I might consider ditching the armor. Certainly I would wear armor if conducting any sort of planned operation such as a raid or ambush. Basically unless there was a really good reason (or reasons) not to I/we would wear our darn body armor. Not too long ago I found myself doing a timed run in interceptor body armor, a uniform, boots and a helmet. Two miles took me 16 minutes plus a few seconds but I do not remember exactly; so about a minute to a minute and a half longer than it would in shorts and running shoes. Of course adding a chest rig with a bunch of magazines and a rifle would be an increase in weight but you would have that stuff either way. The point I am trying to get at is that body armor, especially a basic plate carrier with 2 rifle plates, just ISN'T REALLY ALL THAT HEAVY. If you have a strong core, a bit of muscle and run/ ruck regularly like you should be doing anyway wearing body armor, though it does increase the suck a bit really isn't an issue. I have to humbly submit for consideration that if a person who isn't fit enough to go play war wearing body armor isn't fit enough to play anyway.

Countries I Have Been In: Brigid is to Blame

visited 17 states (7.55%)

Brigid definitely has me beat though but I am doing OK in the grand scheme of things. Still a lot of traveling to do. We are probably going to take another trip while over here and will go to Mexico when we are down that way soon enough. However broadly speaking once we are back in the states travel will stop for awhile. One toddler is hard to travel with and adding a baby would be a bridge too far. For awhile we will go camping, to the beach and home to visit.

I will bet $50 that inside of 7 years I will go to Africa for work.  The aftermath of Arab spring has yet to sort itself out and there is a wicked mess brewing in Syria. Odds are there are some more paid travel opportunities to dirty places with terrible weather where people try to kill me coming in the future.

So You Wanna Be a G?

The topic of armed paramilitary groups has always been a subset (or maybe they are separate with some overlap but let's not overthink it) of the survivalist movement. In the 70's and 80's folks talked about fighting off Soviet invaders Red Dawn style. After the fall of the Soviet Union the concern shifted to some sort of UN invasion. The latest concern seems to be more domestic in nature. Since I do what I do for a living there are a lot of things I do not talk about. To paraphrase Glen Beck "I believe everything that I say, but I don't say everything that I believe." This topic partly falls into that arena. It directly leads to some areas I choose not to talk about. Also it doesn't especially interest me. Maybe somewhat because of what I do for a living the kinds of skills and attributes needed to conduct small unit unconventional operations are largely already present.

For no particular reason I can think of this topic interests me today. Maybe it is the fact that a capable survivalist and a potential guerilla are both grounded in the same basic skills, I don't know. In any case I got to thinking about the sort of skills and capabilities and logistics one needs to develop in order to be a reasonably viable potential guerilla.

#1 Physical Fitness. I should not have to explain why this is really important. There is no way you are going to be able to fight anybody unless you are in some resemblance of decent physical shape. One of the funniest moments I can recall on this part of the web was when a man who could only be described as morbidly obese talked about how he plans to overwhelm (whoever it was) with "hit and run tactics". His fat ass couldn't hit and run the 2 blocks from his usual super sized ultra McFatty lunch at McDonalds to Baskin and Robbins for a post lunch milkshake; let alone outrun a bunch of 18-25 year old's who run multiple times a week, if not daily. Physical fitness or a lack theirof goes a long way towards establishing legitimacy as a potential or actual guerilla/ partisan or lack theirof. There is a sort of running joke that a militia is a bunch of fat guys sitting around calling each other Colonel. If I was a slightly different person with a very different life looking to join some sort of group and I got there to see they made group buys of extra extra fat multicam uniforms/ body armor/ chest rigs I would do a quick 180 and move on.

Aside from being a foundation for everything a tactical athlete such as soldier or guerilla does the reason I put physical fitness as number #1 is that it takes a long time to develop. There are no shortcuts. Physical fitness is truly a slow cooker concept requiring consistent, if not perfect, effort over months and even years. If you spend a week and a half or so at a premier tactical school you can become pretty good with a pistol and a rifle and probably learn some basic tactics. In a day you could buy a good pistol and rifle, as well as a .22, a shotgun, a "precision rifle", body armor, night vision, a chest rig, a ruck and camping gear, cases of ammo and boxes of mags as well as a years worth of food for your family. It would be a heck of a bill that very few people can afford but it could strictly speaking be done. Physical fitness does not work that way. There is no rush turkey fried/ pressure cooker way to significantly speed it up. When you realize that you need physical fitness there is unfortunately no way you can develop it in a manner timely enough to be useful.

That means you have to start yesterday. If you are too heavy then stop eating junk and have some discipline with portions. Start walking until you can work in some short jogs. Jog a telephone pole/ 100 steps/ a block then walk one. After a bit jog 2 and walk 1. Eventually cut out the walking from all but the longest runs. Take that backpack you bought and fill it with stuff then walk around. Do body weight exercises and lift stuff. In a slow and progressive manner add reps and sets to the body weight stuff and a few pounds at a time to the lifts.

#2 Build basic skills. Learn to shoot. Learn first aid and CPR. Learn some basic camping skills like starting fires, cooking over fires or backpacking stoves, building a shelter, land navigation etc all.

#3 Acquire basic weapons and equipment. We could talk about this one for a dozen blog posts but let's not get bogged down. Buy a fighting rifle and pistol. Get a setup to carry mags and ancillary stuff. At least one .22 is very useful and if you can afford it a shotgun and some sort of scoped precision type rifle are nice to have. Obviously you need plenty of ammo, mags and some prone to fail spare parts. Get sufficient wet and cold weather clothing, gloves, boots and headgear to operate in your region during the worst it has to offer. Get basic camping gear like a backpack/ rucksack, a sleeping bag, some sort of shelter like a bivy or tent, a water filter and all the little stuff in between.

#4 Acquire food, fuel, batteries and other logistical necessities. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to play Guerilla all day long then run out for a pepperoni pizza and a 6 pack of tall boys. If you are worried about running to the hills to play Red Dawn then it would be prudent to have a bunch of food, medical supplies, batteries and some fuel set aside to meet those needs. Also the kind of times when fairly normal folks are shooting at some sort of organized group are chaotic enough that even if you are not a G normal commerce will likely be disrupted.


Once you have this stuff it is prudent to put some consideration into where and how it will be stored. Unlike somebody with a more survivalist outlook your plan is probably not to stay at home (or your alternate location). If things are bad enough that you are playing G a basement full of food, while a great thing to have, may not cut it. Particularly if you have to leave in a hurry be it in a car or on foot having all your stuff in one place is problematic. Having some stuff at your home, more at some sort of bug out location/ basecamp and the rest in a couple caches around the area you plan to operate in is a much better answer.

#5 Build better skills. This was almost part of #2. The reason it is not is that while it is absolutely true that people are more important than stuff without some basic stuff it is pretty hard to do much of anything. I am pretty confident about the outcome of a gunfight between my boringly average self and just about anybody if I have a gun and they do not. If a guerilla war went on long enough there would be some extra stuff floating around but for awhile (and much more so without a convenient outside benefactor) things would be aweful tight. I would not say that a man without a rifle (and all the support stuff he needs) is exactly useless but he is a lot less useful than another shooter. In Afghanistan early on the Muj had to turn away volunteers who did not have weapons because they couldn't arm them. Now is the time to look at filling holes in your skillset's. Anyway.....

Getting some sort of professional firearms training from a fighting oriented school is an aweful good idea if you can possibly afford it. Medical skills are pretty darn important too. The new TC3 training and it's associated spinoffs are very worthwhile quality training.

#6 Find some friends. The whole lone wolf/ Rambo/ Chuck Norris/ Arnold one man army of death and destruction thing makes for a great action movie but that doesn't translate to real life. You need friends who are like minded and can work with you toward some sort of common goals. A sniper needs or at least can really use a spotter and local security. It is pretty hard to ambush a group by yourself, at most you can probably harrass them. Everybody needs somebody to pull security while they sleep and watch their 6 o'clock or help them should they get injured.


#7 Train with your new friends. People without an understanding of basic individual and team movement tactics as well as squad and platoon sized operations likely greatly outnumber those with an understanding of these things in most groups. If you somehow happen to have folks with meaningful experiences in these areas you all need to get onto the same page. Some of the most tragic accidents in military history come from ad hoc groups of otherwise trained individuals working together. If Bob zigs when Jim think he is going to zag or Tom is halfway down the wall when Rob thinks he should be at the corner people get shot. Training together will get everybody onto the same page, work out the kinks and build group cohesion.


#8 Develop plans. Based on your area, the local players and whatever sort of worst case scenario you guys see happening you can start to plan. Like any fight eventually it takes on a life of it's own but right away having a plan is priceless. Also the process of developing a plan leads you to see all sorts of interesting stuff like specific training or equipment or other preparations that should be made. Obviously doing things like making explosives or breaking federal firearms laws would be pretty foolish. However you can do all sorts of other stuff. Walk the terrain in your area to confirm or deny what map recon tells you. If you wonder how long it takes to move from Anderson butte to the ridgeline above Highway 25 then pack a lunch and go find out. If you wonder whether Deer Creek can be crossed on foot during the spring runoff go find out.

#9 Take advantage of your group's purchasing power. Make group buys to save money. I suspect if you call a school and ask them what kind of discount you get for filling the whole class they will work with you. Depending on your group dynamics consider the purchase of expensive or specialized equipment that is not practical for an individual but make sense for a group. Take advantage of the economics of scale which can be achieved. Renting a piece of specialized equipment you will only need for a short time is much more affordable if several folks can use it during the minimum time.

#10 Develop those around you. Some discretion is essential here but the more prepared that your extended family, friends and buddies are the better. Also a few may go whole hog into it and become assets. Also this is a great place to find and develop useful folks who could fill a more auxillary type role.

Note: One and two should be done successively as in one after another. You need to get started in physical fitness today (though you can pursue other things while developing your fitness) and work on basic skills until that requirement has been satisfied. They are really the basis for everything else. Three and four should probably be worked together. Six could really be done whenever but obviously has to be done before seven. The rest are somewhat more flexible, just use common sense.

Eating Expired Shelf Stable Foods

As a bit of background I recently returned from a year in Afghanistan. During that time Wifey went back home to stay with family in the PNW. We kept our residence in Germany through this time. We left all the shelf stable food in the kitchen. Over this time pretty much everything that was in the kitchen expired. Being cheap we want to use whatever we can. After all food storage is budget neutral or even positive (you can buy at sales since you don't need it for dinner that night) BUT ONLY IF YOU ACTUALLY EAT THE FOOD. Also I was just plain curious.

Before any more discussion there should probably be a disclaimer. I am going to write some anecdotal observations which come from evaluating and eating food that is past the "best by" date. Please do not take this as anything more than one families individual experiences. I am not a doctor or a nutrition expert or a scientist or in any way qualified to say that expired food is safe to consume.  I am just some yahoo sitting at home eating expired food and writing about it on the internet. Do your own research, talk to some experts and make your own decisions. If you eat a can of oysters that have been in a shed in Alabama for a decade, get sick an die don't have your survivors come complaining to me.

I think it is important to consider three things when it comes to the dates put on food. The first is that the dates are "best by" not "you will die if you eat after". Secondly we live in a very litigious society so companies have to error seriously (like belt and suspenders with pants that fit) on the side of caution. Lastly knowing that many people toss stuff at the date on the package and then go out and replace it companies have financial motivation to make the date a bit earlier to (over time and a large customer base) increase their sales. Due to these three things I think the dates on packages are often far earlier than the practical date where food is seriously degraded or unsafe to consume.

We will go item by item in no particular order discussing the edible then those deemed inedible. All items were in their original packaging.

The following items were solidly edible:

Cereal (Cherios 11 months past date, Captain Crunch 13 months past and generic Frosted Flakes 9 months past). No identifiable changes. Smells and tastes fine.

Flour, sealed, 6 months past best by date. It didn't rise quite as much as normal but tasted fine.

Folgers coffee opened 8 months past best by date. Maybe a little bit stale but perfectly drinkable.

Peter Pan chunky peanut butter, opened and partially used, 8 months past best by date. Starting to separate into solid and oil but smells and tastes fine.

Peter Pan creamy peanut butter opened and partially used, 10 months past best by date. No identifiable changes. Smells and tastes fine.

Crisco vegitable oil, 7 months past date. No identifiable changes. Smells and tastes fine. Used for cooking and baking.

Campbells tomato soup, 8 months past date. Slightly gelatinous and the soup came out with some lumps but otherwise tasted fine.
The below items were deemed inedible:
 
Manwich BBQ Sloppy Joe Sauce, 13 months past date. Opened the can and the contents were gelatinous and seemed to have some pockets of green discoloratation on the top that may have been some sort of mold. Needless to say we did not eat it.
 
Grape Jelly, Smuckers sugarless, unopened and 6 months past date. Smelled slightly like vinegar and we did not eat it.
 
It bears repeating that I am just some yahoo sitting at home eating expired food and writing about it on the internet. Just because something worked once for me does not mean it is necessarily so for all people under all circumstances. Do your own research, consult experts if necessary and use common sense before eating any food that is beyond the best by date or has been preserved/ stored questionably.
 
Anyway I thought this stuff might interest you all. As we try some more stuff I will keep track of it and report the results.

Quote of the day

Like the jellyfish, the absence of a backbone to be broken was the greatest defense
of the tribes against the waves of state power which beat upon them.
M. A. Yapp

Books Worth Reading: Guerilla War and Insurgencies

I was talking to a fellow recently who asked me about potentially putting together some sort of book list. I guess this is the first in the series though if you dig through past book reviews you could get some ideas. Maybe at some point I will make a stand alone page or something.

I really enjoyed On Guerilla Warfare by Che Guevara. Yeah the guy was a Commie but he fought a successful guerilla war. I have nothing in common with his beliefs or goals but I got a lot out of his writing. Now that I have a bit of a sense of the man (assuming he wasn't dead) it would be interesting to sit on a patio with a good bottle of run for an evening and discuss all manner of things. Definitely some lessons to be learned here. It is a quick read and I got a lot out of it. Definitely worth reading.

I also read Mao Tse-tung on Guerrilla Warfare. A total pedo and generally a terrible person but he did execure a successful insurgency against the Japanese then took control of China and kept it. This one is relatively long at 128 pages. It has that Oriental way of talking in a circular fashion around subjects. All the same I got some stuff from it.

Over the deployment I read and really enjoyed The Other Side of the Mountain. At some point you will see a review on it (I think it got stashed for a rainy day). The book is a sort of Soviet after action review from the side of the Afghan guerilla fighters. These two Soviet guys tracked down and talked to a bunch of former Afghan guerilla fighters and leaders. It is pretty long, some of the vignettes are redundant or boring and the maps are next to useless (I have absolutely no artistic skills and could make better maps after drinking a half bottle of Whiskey) but it is very worth reading. The insight of highly motivated and poorly equipped guerillas fighting a well equipped mechanized fighting force that has way too much ground to cover and varying motivation is very interesting.

The first book in the "series" The Bear Went Over The Mountain is also worth checking out. The guy I borrowed it from said it was best read while drinking vodka in a smoky bar. It was very interesting to me when I read it prior to deployment to Afghanistan. Maybe less interesting to most folks who read this site than the second book but reading one probably helps to gain understanding of the other.

Anyway that is some of what I have been up to in terms of reading. If you are interested in insurgencies or have been thinking G thoughts then checking some of these out (all PDF and thus FREE!) would be a good idea.

Life Update Redeployment

Wifey and Walker are back in Germany after spending the deployment home with her folks. Walker misses Amma (maternal Grandmother; no it isn't one of those weird family names it is how he pronounces Grandma) a lot and keeps asking for her. As he lived with her for a year and she was a big part of his life that makes sense. Wifey is getting settled back into our place. Apparantly I left us with no toiletpaper and forgot to take a block of cheese out of the fridge. Woopsy.

Well I am on my way out of Afghanistan. I have been done working for a couple days and have been finishing up little things, packing and getting some time to relax. Yesterday I got to sleep past 0620 for the first time since leave so that was pretty nice. Depending on weather and transportation I should be back in Germany between the next few days and a week and a half. I am looking forward to getting back to Wifey and Walker a lot. We will be taking leave shortly after I get back. Got some traveling planned but since dates are up in the air nothing is locked in yet.

I am going to resume administrative blog functions shortly. Please give Wifey some thanks because without her hard work and dedication this place would have shut down over the last year. She did a great job taking care of things even though she isn't the blogs biggest fan. I think she may have called it my mistress at least once. In any case she kept things going because it is important to me which really shows how awesome she is.

Along those lines I am pleased to say the blog faired pretty well over the last year. Aside from missing my family and the possibility of death or serious injury this place collapsing was one of my biggest worries. Things probably slipped a little in terms of readership and such but things are still going pretty well so I can't complain. I have some plans for the blog over the next couple months but will talk more about that later.

Anyway I just wanted to let you all know what is going on.

Take care of each other
Ryan

Reality Bites

It is interesting to me that I have never met an anarchist or a libertarian who is basically an anarchist that has actually been to a failed state. Talking about anarchy from a dorm room or college party house or a nice quiet farm out in the middle of nowhere is very different from actually seeing it. I am not saying there isn’t a person like that out there it is just that I haven’t interacted with one yet.

First of all anarchy is a very relative term. It is sort of like socialism in that it never truly happens, and when it does it is only for a short period of time. There is going to be some form of government clinging at the greased string of power until the last possible moment. Either that or some sort of  a thug stepping up to try and carve out his own little princely state, most likely a lot of thugs trying to carve out their own princely states. You can have bad government or ineffective government or illegitimate government but some sort of system will at least be trying to keep or take power.

Secondly it is really not something you want to be involved in. Between crime, general lawlessness and assorted thugs and former government entities vying for power there is often a lot of fighting. Basic rights such as property and relative (there is always some crime) safety which we take for granted would be gone overnight. Now granted there hasn’t been a civil war or riot or massive disaster of Katrina proportions in Idaho or Minnesota but ever indicator we have is that these events bring about the worst in people. Sure there are a few neighbors helping each other out and some good Samaritan will save somebody’s grandma but those are few and far between. My observation is that folks will typically do about whatever they think they can get away with in these situations. Also these situations are more likely to lead to another, even worse government, not a better government or a long term lack of government.

Look at how the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. After the Soviets left the Afghan commies fought on for a few years (till the money dried out with the fall of the Soviet Union if I recall) and then a transitional type government was set up for about a week followed by the big players like Heychmar and Massoud and other smaller regional guys fighting it out for power. The Taliban came to power because they could do a few things. They made roads safe to travel (a relative term in tribal central Asia). They had a court system that, while very harsh, was quick to deal with problems and most people found it to be fair. In short they offered the basic securities of rule of law.

The honest truth is that a pretty bad government is, by any functional measure, better than this sort of situation or the government which stems from it. It is not nice to say and goes against a lot of American ideals but if you look at history it is true. Our revolution is probably the only time in history that a revolution led to citizen’s lives getting better in the long run.

I file Anarchy under a “be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.”

Thoughts?

Back To The Stan

They say all good things must come to an end and at least that is true with leave. R and R was great. I got to spend a lot of time (minus a trip or two to the store all of it) with Wifey and Walker. Walker is a totally different kid and a complete riot. I caught up with my family and saw almost all of the friends in that area.
We got to take a scenic drive and stay in a great place for several days which was awesome. I ate and drank everything I wanted to so no complaints on that front. I accomplished my modest preparedness goal which was good also.

Now it is back to work. On the bright side I took leave late in the deployment so at least the end is somewhere in sight. I am eager to get back to the track and weight pile but other than that the only thing I am looking forward to is leaving this country and getting back to my family.

As Wifey noted having two stay at home parents is really the way to go. However the economics of that are to say the least difficult as we do not want to stay at home parents in a tent in a national forest. Our hopes in that department rest on winning multi millions in the lottery and since I do not buy lottery tickets and Wifey rarely does (less than $20 a year) the odds of that one are slim. Oh well I guess you can always dream.

Pic Post- Cleaning Out My Desktop

At Home

I am safely back in the wonderful PNW. The trip was a few days long and while uneventful left me totally confused in terms of time, sleep, etc. Slept like a rock last night exept one wakeup where I spent 30 seconds sitting up in bed figuring out where the heck I was.

Got to see Walker this morning (got home late last night and he as already asleep) which was pretty darn cool. He is huge and very active. Quite a change between a 4 month old and a 1 year old. Being able to drink good coffee and watch Fox News this morning was really nice. Spent a lazy morning playing with Walker and then ran around doing some errands.

I don't have many big plans for leave. Going to spend a lot of time with Wifey and Walker and try to see friends and family as much as I can. As for preparedness type goals I am going to do some gun cleaning, give the blog a facelift and that is about it.

I hope everyone has a good weekend. I know I am going to.
-Ryan

Thoughts on Insurgencies- What Made the Mujahedeen Successful

Thoughts on Insurgencies- What Made The Mujahedeen Successful?
I am going to try to discuss some of the reasons the Mujahedeen were so successful in Afghanistan against the Soviet’s. Some might draw parallels to the US experience here and I would say they have a case in some areas, though not in others. In no particular order here we go.
•    Rural Afghan’s are, particularly in the South and East of the country, strongly tribal in nature and very militaristic. When not fighting outsiders the tribes seem to, almost without exception, fight each other. It is about the closest thing to a cultural pastime as this country has.
•    They started out reasonably trained in small unit and individual tactics. Why, well I think consistent tribal warfare is the answer. This was probably the most helpful in the beginning because if you take anybody and toss them into a guerilla war after a year, should they be alive, they have some skills and knowledge.
•    They fought to their strengths and as such avoided their enemy’s strengths. Knowledge of local terrain coupled with hitting weak targets and vanishing worked pretty well. It helps when you can use the same hill Grandpa used to fight the British coming along the same road. This leads back to my last comment about training and knowledge.
•    Physical fitness. Between their rough lifestyle, reliance on foot transportation, moderate calorie intake and lack of medical care (that meant the sick and crippled were either useless in the village or dead) Afghan’s of military age were physically fit. They could haul butt up the side of a mountain carrying a medium machine gun after an ambush and leave the soviet’s panting at the bottom.

 [In my opinion physical fitness is the most lacking trait of American militia/ guerilla wanna be’s (I don’t mean “wanna be” in a derogatory way, just that since we don’t have a guerilla war going on it is kind of just a self imposed label instead of a title). Seriously if these guys spent half as much time exercising as they do arguing about what pouches to have on load out gear or which rifle to use in internet forum’s they would be much better off. I get particular amusement when somebody who is a disgusting fat body and probably hasn’t ran a whole mine this year talks about being a “light fighter” and using “hit and run tactics”. Many of these individuals are good, well meaning people and I probably poke too much fun. I hope that if any of them read this instead of taking it personal they look inward. If this side rant is hitting too close to home I recommend that you get onto a reasonable but ambitious physical fitness program and exercise some self control at meal time to get into fighting shape. ]

•    A proliferation of small arms, particularly rifles. Every military aged male did not have a rifle but a heck of a lot of them did. Eventually they started capturing weapons and getting them shipped in by foreign backers but for awhile it was just rural Afghan’s and their rifles.
•    A cohesive and resolute group vision. Rural Afghan life is very traditional and tribal, especially in the Pastun areas to the South and East, and its values stood in stark contrast to what the Afghan communists and their Soviet backers sought to impose. They were, and the Soviets never quite got this, absolutely unwilling to compromise and would rather just fight.
•    There are probably more but a couple of these are already more generic of all guerillas than is my intent. Now let us not forget the two factors which had a massive impact on events and were largely outside of the Muj’s control.
•    Safe haven’s. In particular the ability to seek medical treatment, shelter their families, train, plan and recover in Pakistan had a direct and immeasurable effect on the war. The Soviet’s launched a few rockets and probably a few raids but in the big picture the Muj were safe to recover and plan in Pakistan and parts of Iran.
•    Outside Aid. Despite some fantasy ideas to the contrary it is difficult to keep a force fielded without feeding and equipping them. While guerilla logistics are pretty simple and light they still need weapons, bullets to shoot, explosives and food to eat. Being able to keep at least part (this improved as the war progressed) of their force through the whole fighting season was essential to building up cohesive organizations and conducting significant operations. Even if you want them really bad guns, food and bullets don’t just appear. Also as these wars go on for years stocking enough of anything except maybe shoe laces to get you through one is wishful thinking.
•    A long term vision. In a sound bite and paragraph quote world they thought in terms of seasons and years. The Muj were never going to win in a sense where they militarily forced the Russians out. They could however continually make it uncomfortable for the Russians to be here (I am in Afghanistan as I write this, oh irony) until their government decided it was time to throw in the towel.

9/11 Anniversary-Ted Nugent said it better than I could

Here is a teaser-

"America must continue to identify and eradicate these terrorist vermin. We must never surrender to complacency or apathy as we did before Sept. 11, as they are the weakest link in our chain of security. We must remain vigilant and on the offense. Where two or more of these terror cultists gather, they should expect us to drill a hole in their foreheads." Read the rest here.

 

Deployments and Survival Scenarios

I was asked about mentally dealing with deployments recently. That is a pretty broad question so I will do my best to cover it. Also I hope that through comparison and examples some insight can be gained to dealing with various survival scenarios an average citizen might find themselves in.

For background I am currently deployed to Afghanistan and have previously deployed to Iraq. Also every deployment is different.  Some deployments are very kinetic (read lots of fighting and violence) and others are not, most are somewhere in the middle. Even for those involved in little to no violence the whole deployment thing is a pretty weird phenomenon of totalitarian control, social depravation, strange geography and weather. Whatever experiences people have pass through the filter of their personality (a sum of their background, skills, experiences, religion, etc) and there is an output. The end result is that people are affected in profoundly different ways, even by the same experiences.

In my experience if actual war was a video game nobody would buy it. The ratio of time spent doing monotonous tasks or boring repetitive duties (guard shifts, patrols, etc) vastly outweighs the time spent engaging or being engaged in combat. I would say this is true pretty much everywhere; it is just a question of what the ratio is. I believe this was true in previous wars though it manifested itself in a different way. In the current operating environment there are no front lines but contact is sporadic. A base or organization will keep doing the same thing and occasionally take contact. What people don’t see from the headlines is that for most people, in most places the average day is pretty quiet. When you hear some BN Commander on the news or in an article saying they are taking contact every day what doesn’t get mentioned is that all it means is that one of their numerous patrols got shot at, IED’ed or whatever. You can safely figure on at least 3 line companies and an HHC per BN. In each of the line companies there are probably 3 platoons and an HQ section. That is a lot of different pieces of a large organization. In short PVT Snuffy is not getting in a gunfight every single day. Now previous wars (specifically pre ‘Nam) had more clear cut front lines with more activity but units rotated in and out. The end result was probably somewhat comparable or at least within the same range.
Somebody once described war as long periods of complete boredom with random short periods of terror. I think that is half accurate. In my personal experience things happen so fast that you don’t have time to get scared. All the BS aside our training is pretty darn good and we know the right thing to do. We react to a given event quickly and with little thought. You are just acting and reacting until it is over. Later on the ‘what if’s’ and ‘if not for’s’ can haunt you if you let them. Dealing with the aftermath is far more difficult than the actual events. Like we talked about earlier, different people handle things differently and some profoundly worse than others. I don’t see a lot of reason to stress or worry. I do everything I can to be ready and to make the best decisions possible and if something happens, well that is that. I’m not fatalistic or anything like that but I don’t find much usefulness in stressing things I can’t control. You can the baddest dude alive and if you are in the shower and a rocket lands on it your race is run.

Now we will go onto the topic of staying sane over here. Finding ways to fill your time and mentally escape in a healthy way is essential. Lots of folks work out, pumping iron, running or whatever suits them. Some play lots of video games or read. A few take collect classes if their schedule and internet connectivity allow. Most have a laptop and an external hard drive full of TV and movies.

I find that human beings are far more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for. We can get used to just about anything. As for staying sane personally I work out a lot, watch tv and movies, talk to wifey as much as I can and do some reading.  As with most things in life having a healthy perspective helps a lot.
Relationships are a hard one. There are all sorts of stressors that mercilessly seek out dysfunctional relationships. Shallow marriages and relationships typically based solely on sex fall apart. Women cheat at home and men find ‘love’ over social networking sights. Deployments do a good job of weeding out the dysfunctional  (of which there are many but that is a whole nother post) military marriages. To be fair the added stress and distance also destroys some that would have probably been fine otherwise.
Adapting your expectations down is important. Everything here pretty much sucks but the least sucky things are by default pretty nice. I think finding the happiness in little things here is so important. A good cup of coffee or a hot shower, maybe a nice sunset or view now and then. Some of the best times are when you actually forget that you are here. The other day I was eating some chex mix and watching the Soprano’s on my computer and it could have easily been a random Weds night at home. Today I was in a great spontaneous political/ current affairs conversation with a group of guys. I looked at my watch and 3 hours had gone by. I couple have easily been in a restaurant or a quiet bar on a lazy afternoon. If you can’t find some things that make you at least relatively happy you are in serious trouble because there will definitely be plenty of things that stress you out.

There are of course endless negative things people can do here. The usual spectrum of derelict/ criminal behavior is present. Some folks turn to drugs or alcohol (also huffing canned air is a random and dangerous trend) to escape. Some folks stop caring or let their emotions get the best of them and get into all sorts of trouble. Folks get complacent and start doing stupid things. Others get into all sort of dysfunctional situations trying to get some kind of emotional closeness or just strait up looking to get laid. Some folks for whatever reason just can’t seem to deal with it.

How does this all relate to survival scenarios?  I think they relate pretty directly. I think there will be a variety of different situations for individuals but most won’t be the absolute worst or a piece of cake. I think different people in the same relative situation will deal with it very differently. That is just the start. Also I think survival scenarios are going to have the same, if not a lower ratio of boring to violent events, very low. Especially in common events such as natural disasters, storms and power outages where you won’t all of a sudden start a huge garden or need to cut a winter’s worth of firewood boredom is a big factor. This is where a stash of cards, board games and books, to include light easy reading type stuff is so important.

There will be a lot of boring routine work and every day challenges for every significant event. One thing about deployments is that there is a definite (if floating) light at the end of the tunnel. I know that at roughly next winter we will redeploy and I will go back to a better place. Most survival situations, except the really dark ones, will have that same benefit.