The World is Crazy (part xxii)

Let's see, we were talking about crazy.... How about this. Massoud is a member of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. It’s widely assumed by the soldiers of Company B, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, that Massoud killed two of their buddies in resent ambushes. But we have been reaching out to the Taliban in resent days trying to get them to work with the Afghan government. So, Maaoud showed up along with around 100 fighters and offered to switch sides and join the Afghan security forces. Our side counts that as a small victory. I suppose so -but can not get past the hard fact that a quarter (1 in 4) of our casualties in Afghanistan have been at the hands of Afghans supposedly working on our side. 100 of them joining one unit would make me very, very nervous having them around...

Here is a fun one: Eleven Secret Service agents and five members of the U.S. military working on a security team preparing for President Barack Obama’s arrival at a regional summit in Colombia were under investigation for apparent misconduct involving prostitutes. The incident occurred at the Hotel Caribe, a beachfront hotel where the advance team was staying in the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena. The episode began when police and hotel personnel began checking hotel rooms as part of the strict security surrounding the weekend Summit of the Americas.

Several visitors had not left identification with the front desk as required, prompting the room checks. It was then that a Secret Service agent was found with a woman believed to be a prostitute in his room. Other Secret Service agents also had women in their rooms who were believed to be prostitutes. Prostitution is legal in certain “tolerance” areas in Colombia, and Cartagena has a large red light district. Checks of the rooms also revealed U.S. military personnel with unauthorized visitors. A dispute between one of the women and a Secret Service agent over whether she should be paid created the disturbance, and the U.S. Embassy ultimately was notified. There is an old saying about paying the piper -but maybe it's best if I don't go there...

Here is an interesting tidbit from history. On this day in 1942, French General Henri Giraud, who was captured in 1940, escapes from a castle prison at Konigstein by lowering himself down the castle wall and jumping on board a moving train, which takes him to the French border. Hitler, outraged, ordered Giraud's assassination upon being caught, but the French general was able to make it to North Africa via a British submarine. He joined the French Free Forces under General Charles de Gaulle and eventually helped to rebuild the French army.

Live Long and Prosper...