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September 12, 2006
The Day After September 11th
Today is the Day After September 11th.
All the words about the infamous attack on America have been said.
Five years after, here is where we are:
1. No successful follow-up in the US. I expect that to change, sooner or later, but so far, so good. The IslamoFascists will continue to try, and sooner or later, they will succeed. Americans will not, ever, tolerate the level of intrusiveness of the police that would be required to make us absolutely safe.
2. On-going LIC (Low-Intensity Conflict) in Afghanistan and Iraq. I don't mean to be brutal, but our casualty rate for this type of warfare is incredibly low. Meanwhile, the enemy is recruiting, and losing, an entire generation of easily influenced young men. That these young men could be put to useful work for their people instead of blowing themselves up is lost on the Fascisti running the "insurgencies".
Which brings us to ...
3. We are expending enormous amounts of "treasure" to fight these LICs - both in human terms - our soldiers and airmen, and in money.
Is the cost in military lives, and in money, worth it?
In my opinion, yes - for three reasons:
A. The bad guys are in, and traveling to Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd much rather they blow themselves up over there, rather than here.
B. Progress is being made. There are now sorta functional democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan. And in Iraq, the participation in the democratic process by the people is heartening to behold. They still need a bit of hand-holding, but the Iraqis are pitching in and trying, and trying very hard.
It's been a long day for me - I've been wrestling with a recalcitrant Windows 2000 Server, and trying to figure out how come my Exchange Server 2003 install doesn't want to play, PLUS I ran the Dad Taxi for Chickie, who's the 11-year-old who's taking (and loving) Ballet, Jazz Dance, and one other type of dance that I can't remember right now.
The Win2K server is eventually going to need to be rebuilt, which will be a PITA. The Exchange Server, when I've got it figured out, will make my life SO much easier - because while my local TelCo does a dandy job at providing a single mailbox, their management tools for multiple mailboxes really sucks rocks. In a month, maybe a little less, I'll have that whupped. In the meantime, there's a major deployment of new workstations at our most remote location. Well, major for the SFI (Small Financial Institution) - ten PCs to be totally replaced, and configured, all in one business day.
As Dr. Pournelle says, "It's a great life if you can dance fast enough".
And yeah, I love my job - it's fun, it's a challenge, and the people I work with are great.
Posted by ward at September 12, 2006 10:18 PM