“U.S. general fired for criticizing Hamid Karzai
“FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan — One of the top American generals responsible for training the Afghan security forces was fired Saturday for criticizing President Hamid Karzai and his government.
“Maj. Gen. Peter Fuller, the deputy commander for programs at the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, based in Kabul, was relieved of his duties by the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, after comments Fuller made to the news Web site Politico…”
“Andy Rooney, former ‘60 Minutes’ commentator, dies at 92
“By Sarah Halzack,
“CBS News said he had been hospitalized for an undisclosed surgery, but he did not recover after major complications developed. He had made his final appearance on “60 Minutes” on Oct. 2…”
“Mr. Rooney occasionally weighed in on more serious topics, such as a 2003 segment about the war in Iraq.
“We didn’t shock them and we didn’t awe them in Baghdad,” Mr. Rooney said less than two weeks after the war began, citing a slogan used by the Bush Administration to promote the invasion. “The phrase makes us look like foolish braggarts. The president ought to fire whoever wrote that for him.”
He said later in the same essay, “I wish my America had never gotten into this war. Now that we’re in it, I want us to win it.”
“No matter the subject, his television essays always served as a cultural touchstone.
“In so many of his commentaries, he sort of encapsulates all of the changes that occurred in America during and after World War II,” said Ron Simon, a curator at the Paley Center for Media in New York. Mr. Rooney, Simon said, “is like the grandfather who remembers life without television.”
“Mr. Rooney, a reporter for the Stars and Stripes newspaper during World War II, had worked at CBS for almost 30 years before joining “60 Minutes.” He joined the network in 1949 as a writer for “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” and went on to write for “The Garry Moore Show” and various public affairs programs.”
Cassi Creek:
As usual, I have turned both my solar-powered watches an hour into the past. I’ve adjusted both to the USNO time signal. One of them was off by three seconds since it was last synchronized. The other was one second slow since the synchronization last spring. I’m certain most people would find those to be inconsequential and insignificant errors, if they even acknowledged that there was an error.
I recall many hours at a biochemistry bench running enzyme reactions that depended upon reagents and sample being delivered into the reaction vessel at precise intervals. Missing any action by as little as a second could invalidate an entire morning’s run of enzyme determinations.
I remember pulling radio watches and being required to listen for an order or a sit-rep at a precise time. Delivering sit-reps was also required to be a punctual event.
For me, a watch is a necessary tool with required accuracy, never jewelry. I’m not interested in designer brand names on cheap watches. I buy and wear chronometers. The two I own and wear are extremely accurate, Japanese-made, solar-powered with reserve batteries, and made of titanium as much as possible. Now that I have had my lens implants, the first thing I put on when getting out of bed is my watch. Old, ingrained habits die extremely hard.
And considering old, ingrained habits, telling the truth about a military situation is essential for any sort of success in a war. Success being defined as getting in and out with the fewest casualties to our troops, our command structure, and our economic ability to sustain the financial cost of the war.
Maj. Gen. Fuller was tasked with training a working Afghan army, one that doesn’t desert after every payday; and most essentially, one that doesn’t collectively turncoat and attack our troops. That we have failed to train such an Afghan army is no surprise to our troops, no surprise to the Pentagon or the DOD/White House/Congress. And the overwhelming non-support for the U.S. and NATO forces combined with the innate corruption of the Afghan government and army is no surprise to the Afghan government and army. Fuller should have been a bit more circumspect, perhaps. But he gave nothing away to the enemy or to our supposed allies. And frankly, I don’t care if those Afghan “allies” were offended. They possess no loyalty toward us and never will. Our current mission there, supposedly building a working nation and a working army while changing centuries of ingrained medieval tribalism and sexism taught by the local Islamic fundamentalists, is impossible of execution. Fuller should be promoted for telling the truth and doing his part to end the clusterfuck that Bush and Cheney brought about.
As for Andy Rooney, I hope he was alert and aware enough at the end of his life to appreciate the depth of the irony surrounding his death. It must have been a small thing, this minor surgical procedure that felled him. Was it a complication of anesthesia, a post-operative infection, a medication error, or simply an aging body that was unable to recover from some small final insult?
What ever it was, I would have loved to hear what must have been his last commentary to family and friends. He will be missed.
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