16 December 2009 Pharaoh and the Sergeant – Kipling 1897

"...Consider that the meritorious services of the Sergeant Instructors


attached to the Egyptian Army have been inadequately acknowledged ...

To the excellence of their work is mainly due the great improvement

that has taken place in the soldiers of H.H. the Khedive."

(Extract from letter).

Pharaoh and the Sergeant – Kipling 1897

“SAID England unto Pharaoh, "I must make a man of you,

That will stand upon his feet and play the game;

That will Maxim his oppressor as a Christian ought to do,"

And she sent old Pharaoh Sergeant Whatisname.

It was not a Duke nor Earl, nor yet a Viscount —

It was not a big brass General that came;

But a man in khaki kit who could handle men a bit,

With his bedding labeled Sergeant Whatisname”

Today’s mail brought a very welcome box of oranges and grapefruit, courtesy of Gloria’s brother, Shea and his wife Brigitte. We’ll ration them out, one each/day and enjoy them greatly. It was nice having tangerines, navel oranges, kumquats, mangos, and avocados growing in the back yard in Florida. But the tangerine tree produced so prolifically that we could never eat what it grew. Nor could we give them away – everyone we knew had some sort of citrus fruit growing somewhere. The navel orange tree was old and slowing down but provided wonderfully juicy oranges. The kumquat tree provided marmalade one year but most years the fruit was used to amuse the dog. The avocado trees produced only about every third year, but the mango tree was marvelous. We planted it and it rewarded our care with the finest mangos I’ve ever eaten; syrupy, tender, non-stringy, and thin-skinned, with hints of honey in every bite. We miss those trees. But here we have hemlocks, pines, four seasons, and wild turkeys.

We received an amazing package from my sister, Suzanne and her husband Ernie today. It was filled with some seasonal plates and mugs, carefully monogrammed fatwood, a toy for Gloria to decorate her work area, carefully chosen small items to be opened on the appropriate night of Hanukah, and even a gift for Loki. Loki quickly realized what was hers and took it off to enjoy alone. She didn’t offer to share. Obviously Suz chose wisely!

Also in today’s mail, from Diana, Gloria’s niece, two very interesting cookbooks and a new kitchen scale. These followed and already happily received CD of Ozark fiddle tunes.

Gloria saw the neurosurgeon this morning. His verdict, surgery, a micro-decompression. She wants to try to ride it out until after her jewelry design class is over. I hope she can. We three all agreed that now is not a good time for elective surgery. We’ll see how this plays out.

The Obama plan for Afghanistan, much like the Bush plan for Iraq, reminds me all too much of a program I once watched fail, called “Vietnamization.” Our gallant allies in the ARVN were supposed to be trained up to speed and capability so that they could effectively wage war against the much more highly motivated PAVN and allow LBJ and Tricky Dick to bring home our troops. In fact, the entire reason for being in VietNam originally was one of training and advising them in how to slaughter the other side like the big kids do.

There are enough weapons floating around Afghanistan that no one need want. The means to deliver 7.62 mm bullets in an indiscriminant spray ate there for the taking. What the Soviets left behind during their withdrawal has been supplemented by the immense number of weapons we purchased and used to equip the jihadis of the Mujahidin in the last of our surrogate wars with the Soviets. Every male in the mountains can load and fire one if not maintain it well. For the long standing warrior culture of Afghanistan’s tribes, spraying death and making noise count for more than cleaning one’s weapons.

The thrust of our effort to train indigenous Afghan troops will fail, slowly or rapidly, but miserably as have all other attempts to forge tribal bandits and religious enforcers into a real working army. That certainty is guaranteed by the corruption of the national and local governments in Afghanistan and the culture that controls life in those mountains. The religious fanaticism of the Taliban meshes with the willingness of Afghan males to keep their wives and daughters unable to read, bare-foot, and pregnant. The tribalism overwhelms any chance of a working army because no “warrior” will willingly take orders from someone in another tribe. That same warrior will, however, happily call down an airstrike on a rival tribe’s military component of the local militia.

It seems that there has been little progress since Islam swept the “stans.” There has been little since the Mongols ruled the area. And there has been no progress at all since the British were shown the borders.

I’m sure it is politically incorrect to disparage the ability of the Afghan army. It was equally politically incorrect to cast aspersions on the army of South VietNam. It mattered not; the ARVN broke and ran, led by their officer corps. I saw Vietnamization fail. Anyone who really looks hard can see that no matter how much money and manpower we spend to rebuild the Iraqi army, it will likely fall apart along religious lines when we leave their soil. In fact, we’ll be lucky if it really holds together that long.

And “Afghanization?” Well, late night comics and op-ed writers are going to enjoy it. But our edition of Sgt. Whatshisname, who will have worked so hard to try to make an army of a mob, most certainly won’t enjoy it. Perhaps the next generation of politicians may remember the failure. One can only hope so.