Bizarre, Congress, International, Politics, Society

Post Service Or The Karzai Family Fund? Congress Unsure Of Whether To Save Postal Service in The United States For A Fraction of The Cost of The Afghan Budget

Many of us have been highly critical of the decision of President Obama to allow our involvement in the Iraq and Afghan wars to continue. We continue to lose men and women in these countries and spend billions of badly needed revenue in countries where we are increasing despised. Indeed, Iraq is now becoming one of Iran’s closest allies and supporting that country in conflicts with the United States. While accepting hundreds of billions, Karzai has called the U.S. the enemy and said that he wished that he was fighting with the Taliban. We have been comparing the costs bankruptcies of cities and closing of programs with the billions spent or simply lost to corruption in these countries, particularly Afghanistan where the Karzai government has reportedly allowed billions to be stolen by Karzai family and associates. Now our postal system is facing default and its future is again in doubt. While Congress is unsure of whether to save this basic service for citizens, it has done little as many billions of dollars are stolen or wasted in countries like Afghanistan. It is perfectly insane.

The Postal Service will default unless it can secure $5.5 billion by August 1st. While service will continue after the default, it shows how uncertain the future of the service has become. The money is needed for its 2012 retiree health payment.

There is no question that the postal service needed reforms in light of new technology and consumer habits. However, it remains a basic function of governance. It is losing billions. I agree with critics in Congress that that is unacceptable. However, I remain amazed by the disconnect. These members are up in arms over a few billion while remaining silent on the loss of hundreds of billions in these continuing wars. We continue to fight over cutting scientific programs, educational programs, and basic services to often save less than a billion at a time while literally billions have disappeared in these countries. The public does not support these wars (while supporting our troops) and wants our involvement to end. They would clearly want this money spent here at home. Yet, there is not only a disconnect in logic but politics on the issue. I fail to understand why there is not greater outcry over this lack of priority in Congress.

Source: WSJ

43 thoughts on “Post Service Or The Karzai Family Fund? Congress Unsure Of Whether To Save Postal Service in The United States For A Fraction of The Cost of The Afghan Budget”

  1. TonyC,

    Matts started the whole CIA jacking with this link.
    It illustrates Ishmael’s point. How much credence? About as little as usual on the net.
    ==========
    What’s the deal with the CIA?

  4. idealist707 1, July 20, 2012 at 1:46 pm

    MattsJohnaon,

    You are just a name. Don’t see your email address.
    Are you identified? Where.

    Are you drinking again? Getting abusive. Is somebody beating on you on another thread? Malisha perhaps. Come and let me console you instead. OK?
    ===========
    Nobody is beating me up. mattjohnson@wi.rr.com

  6. MattsJohnaon,

    You are just a name. Don’t see your email address.
    Are you identified? Where.

    Are you drinking again? Getting abusive. Is somebody beating on you on another thread? Malisha perhaps. Come and let me console you instead. OK?

  7. ID707,

    I succeeded, that saved me. And it saved him too.
    Otherwise they would have let him go like so many. Huge dropout from CIA.

    Now neither of us have the time to go through his book here. Again suggest you read it. It has a very serious appendix aimed at correcting the culture failure there.

    What does the CIA do? According to him:
    It produces very good output from the analysis half. And this to some degree reaches the WH, etc un redacted. But most is politically “corrected” before submissal.

    You are very special TonyC. You say and give the impression that you play a straight game. I have asked you before how you can do that in a crooked casino. And you gave a good viable reply. But that was the business world where the bottom line and survival of the business proves the pudding.

    Now you are in effect claiming that a government bureaucracy (agency) is a straight game, ie clean with real objectives, real accomplishments on the op side.

    Neither Baer’s nor Jone’s book confirm that. The only ops the embassy ops can do is to subvert, if needed.
    The only ops are subcontracted black ops to the military boys. And intelligent agents who can do cold contacts (you know what that is I hope) are scarcer than hen’s teeth.

    Nice chatting with a fully engaged person.
    Or are you fronting for the Kochs? Ho ho ho.
    You never know who you are talking to here. Ehhh?
    =========================================
    What books? Everybody knows who I am.

    Is it classified? Are you guys playing a game?

    If you don’t have the balls to identify yourselves???

    Hen’s teeth. The smartest guys in the room?

  8. TpnyC,

    Quick idea.

    You do have some good questions and surmisings as to how it works or should work.

    Pass them on in an email to Jones. He might just answer. He answered me. And your chances with your qualified questions must be higher still than mine.

    Your comments here would do but you know best.

    mailto:stevejohnsonz91@yahoo.com

    Try it and let me know what he says.

  9. Tony C. 1, July 20, 2012 at 11:51 am

    @Matt: I do not understand your hypothetical or your objection.
    ==========
    It isn’t hypothetical and it isn’t an objection. It’s an observation. Abject stupidity is the observation.

    Don’t switch over to the new system until you’re sure it’s working properly. Are you sure you aren’t a shrink?

  10. TonyC,

    I agree wholeheartedly and will post on the wall your second comment along with your first.

    But not with the third. It took him the whole book to make his point of risk avoidance and passing the decision ball around between management layers to avoid getting caught and forced to say yes.

    It was quite simply a culture where positive decisions were never made because of risks. At most you order diversionary tactics by sending in supplemental specialist to fish the target, or watchers to gather ground info to make it appear you were doing something. After a while the target goes home where you can’t reach him, or your boys show their uniforms under their gray raincoat. So no risk involved to your career.

    If you as an op really wanted to do something, do it without asking HQ for permission. Mostly I never asked for permission either for same reason. They let me operate because all knew that I could be disclaimed, just like an op can be. I liked working for a big company because of big risks, big accomplishments and big resources. Never got rewarded. But neither did the chiefs either there.

    I succeeded, that saved me. And it saved him too.
    Otherwise they would have let him go like so many. Huge dropout from CIA.

    Now neither of us have the time to go through his book here. Again suggest you read it. It has a very serious appendix aimed at correcting the culture failure there.

    What does the CIA do? According to him:
    It produces very good output from the analysis half. And this to some degree reaches the WH, etc un redacted. But most is politically “corrected” before submissal.

    You are very special TonyC. You say and give the impression that you play a straight game. I have asked you before how you can do that in a crooked casino. And you gave a good viable reply. But that was the business world where the bottom line and survival of the business proves the pudding.

    Now you are in effect claiming that a government bureaucracy (agency) is a straight game, ie clean with real objectives, real accomplishments on the op side.

    Neither Baer’s nor Jone’s book confirm that. The only ops the embassy ops can do is to subvert, if needed.
    The only ops are subcontracted black ops to the military boys. And intelligent agents who can do cold contacts (you know what that is I hope) are scarcer than hen’s teeth.

    Nice chatting with a fully engaged person.
    Or are you fronting for the Kochs? Ho ho ho.
    You never know who you are talking to here. Ehhh?

  11. @Idealist: I am not saying there is never any reason to call an impromptu meeting of chiefs, there can be.

    But in the story as you presented it, I see that more as a story of incompetence by Ishmael, not heroism. It is like a quarterback recovering his own fumble.

    In your story he already talked to all these chiefs individually. Which means he failed in his presentation;

    a) He failed to answer their objections even though he knew the answers,
    b) He failed to follow up and answer post-meeting objections and get their approval,
    c) He failed to convey the sense of emergency and time line constraints.

    The reason for the meeting might have been to resolve cross-departmental concerns, permissions and support issues, in which case it was a routine meeting presented as a tale of heroism. If the meeting was truly to address “objections” then Ishmael failed to do his job, he fumbled the ball with incompetent presentations, and this meeting was just him correcting his previous failure.

    At least, that is how I would read it with my managerial hat on.

  12. @Matt: I do not understand your hypothetical or your objection.

    Certainly, in my world view, there would be no rush to switch to a new financial system, so the proper schedule for that is immediately after the most critical outputs of the old system (such as financial statements). Why could it not be delayed until then, and why wouldn’t you do the parallel check first? If you wait for the right time, you have two weeks before the next statement, paycheck, balance sheet or income statement, and if ONE week isn’t enough, you can switch back to the old system and try again next month or next quarter.

    Your hypothetical dilemma is a product of incompetent risk management and a lack of foresight: Things will probably go wrong, and we should have a truly workable plan B.

  13. Tony C. 1, July 20, 2012 at 9:03 am

    @Idealist: PS Ismael Jones, …

    I doubt that happened (I think the story in the book is fiction).

    In my former life I was a division manager, and I have seen this trick tried time and again, and it IS a trick. It was once tried on my by a CEO (who could fire me) that wanted me to voluntarily commit to a very aggressive product schedule: My answer to him was pretty much the same answer I always give:
    ===========
    What happens when there’s a financial system meltdown? They put in a new accounting software program without running the current program in parallel. Turned off the old one, turned on the new one. The new one crashed. You better give us our financial statements! Sorry, you’ll be lucky if you have them in a week.

  14. @Idealist: All the more reason to reject the pressure. Something somebody has been planning for six months? Forget it; I need at least a week of full time attention to evaluate that plan, not counting any delay I encounter for information I think is needed.

    If the “window is closing,” I would not care. I will not be rushed into a bad decision just because the opportunity to make a bad decision is fading!

    I am personally resistant to these tactics, I am always suspicious of manipulation and concealment, even when it turns out it was not present.

    I have very little trust of others in a professional context, I think of trust as an emotion as extreme as anger in the sense that it can get you into very bad trouble, and it is not a necessity in business or a professional life. Trust is a lazy shortcut, a substitute for the routine double-checking, inspections and audits that should always be done.

    Besides that, I find it hard to believe anybody rises very far in an organization if they are so easily pressured into making blind choices. I would expect that fundamental emotional weakness to have been exploited and exposed further down the ladder, before they rose to the top.

  15. TonyC,

    “…..IMO his superiors were incompetent decision makers.”

    Of course they were. 90 percent of CIA is in the USA.
    Successful people do not take overseas assignments as careers. They stay at headquarters and ascend there, using skills necessary there.

    One main problem with the CIA, maybe other bureaucracies too, is RISK AVOIDANCE. Risk of failure of operations which could/would ruin their chances for advancement. This is one of the major themes of the book. And it goes all way in the field hierarchy too.

    Extreme examples are shown: No ops in Europe due to NO HOTEL ROOMS DUE TO OLYMPICS. No ops in France for risk of offending Securité. Do it, but not in my backyard where I get the flak and fallout. Make your rounds, do the pumping up of nothing to make “nice” reports correct to the “T” in all CIA reporting criteria, language, etc., but real intelligence???—-forget it.

    It is as one said: If it were not for the seriousness of the subject, it would be a howling comedy.

  16. TonyC,

    My first reaction to your own methods is: OMG, imagine if all did so. INCLUDING MYSELF. Immediate decisions have, particulary under external stress, emotional stress given rise to wrong decisions on my part. Giving yourself time has shown itself, foa me the few times I have precticed it to be very helpful. It produces NEW insights and new ideas and new solutions, which are otherwise unattainable by me.

    Having said that, let us look at Ishmael’s book in toto.

    This was not a common occurence he cited, it was at the end of his long, extremely long field career. He earlier had shown himself a skillful cooperator, at ease with the peculiarities of the home bureaucracy. And he used his home refurbishing tours to good advantage.
    This may have been the only time he had done such a trick.
    I can imagine that he called them as though it was to be one on one. Got the nod from he highest chief to continue and went on from there. Nobody could back out with the chief there. Eight layers I think it was.

    As to the goodmess of the decision, your main point:

    This was a project that he had been preparing for over 6 months, IMSM. He had gone through it índividually with these chiefs previously.
    It was a project of major intelligence importance and the window of opportunity was soon closing.

    So, if there is any truth there, this may help to explain it.

    Have you read the book? Recommend it.

    It is not full of the obvious derringdo as in Robert Baers career memoir. Even a bit stingy in his telling
    where and when. But why is clear, and the picture of CIA internally is well-sketched. He was asked to reconsider his resigntion by the asst Dir. for Operations, ie head of the op side of the CIA vs the analysis side. He did so for a while.

    He was a unique operator in that he had many successful years as a “cold caller salesman” on Wall Street before joining the CIA. And that was the basis of his craft.

    No more, read it.

    BTW, he replied to a message by email I sent to him.
    Turns out he had been at the same Army base where I had many years before him. It is now the center of US Army Intelligence.

    With the given reservation that it is unconfirmed and will be so, as long as the CIA stonewalls their approval of the book.

  17. @Idealist: PS Ismael Jones, …

    I doubt that happened (I think the story in the book is fiction).

    In my former life I was a division manager, and I have seen this trick tried time and again, and it IS a trick. It was once tried on my by a CEO (who could fire me) that wanted me to voluntarily commit to a very aggressive product schedule: My answer to him was pretty much the same answer I always give:

    I cannot think of all my objections on the spot, those things come to me with analysis and time. So my objection is that I do not understand this in enough detail to agree to it or say it could be done, and I do not believe that is a deficit that can be corrected in the next 90 minutes.

    In actual business (for over thirty years) I cannot recall any big situation that truly required a decision or commitment on the spot. (I have made some big decisions on the spot, but I think they could have waited and in a few cases I should have waited).

    I suppose there are exceptions, but as a rule I consider any demand that I must decide immediately as a bluff or a con (trying to make me rely on emotions instead of reason). If something is a good deal for the seller now, it will still be a good deal for them tomorrow. If it is a good deal for me now, it will stand up to all the rational inspection I can muster and I will still think it is a good deal tomorrow.

    Immediate decisions are non-rational decisions, which means they are emotional decisions, and if Ismael Jones really did get that to work for him, IMO his superiors were incompetent decision makers.

  18. The post office is a truly amazing service and is a national asset. I believe the law mandating the ridiculously accelerated contributions for the USPS retirement plan was designed to push the service towards future failure so that the GOP could make arguments for privatization.

    Just as I believe the Bush tax cuts were designed in part to eventually lead to economic stress so as to provide cover for the GOP to eviscerate its pariah programs.

  20. Matt Johnson,

    That was worthwhile reading.

    Can you imagine? Performance awards annually to senior executives. With tax payer dollars.

    First the incentive was the secure salary.
    Next came assured raises.
    Next assured advancement for the crooked or the ambitious.
    Then swinging doors to and from industry who lobbied for the corrupt and lightfooted.

    And now taxpayer paid bonuses.

    What next?

    PS Ismael Jones, CIA (cover name), described in his book a meeting he once had with eight execs. He wanted to get approval quickly, ie less than the typical 6 months, for a planned op. So he got them all, all had to sign off in turn, into the same room, beat down the objections point by point, and got the signoffs.

    Now is that an example of:
    —bureaucratic efficiency (one time)?
    —permanent inefficiency?

    Right answer will get you an executive cash performance award. At our expense.

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