The Dutch Boy Dilemma

"I have been victimized this week by a crashed internet system and one false start on this post. In addition when I do get a little net time I am engaged in several email conversations with FRI readers – some of these are so good I may post them as standalone articles. Chris Chivers of the New York Times has been one of the readers I have been chatting with and it is his piece here which is the start point for this week’s post. This post will be unreasonably massive – at times confusing but stick with it and I’ll tie all it all together in the end inshallah. Bonus feature alert: this post includes a story board in pictures covering last Monday’s assassination attempt on President Karzai’s brother I was on the road that day too but my faithful finance officer Misael – who hails from the island of Mindanao but claims to be a Catholic and not a Abu Sayef member – wedged himself firmly under the dash board when we turned a corner in the Tangi Valley and saw all the expended brass in the road and excited ANP officers hammering away at the adjacent hillside. Misael has spent the last year in Kandahar and has developed an exaggerated sense of danger but I’ll get him on track soon enough. So there are a few pictures which suck because Misael was trying to get completely under the dash while I was simultaneously taking a few snaps with a point and shoot camera and trying to pull him up to do the same while the ANP officers were yelling at us to keep moving which was probably a good idea."
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