Losing the war, winning the product tie-ins

(aritcle I just wrote for Media Week ME)


Communism may have failed, but the merchandise lives on. I just got back from Hong Kong and that place is awash with Chairman Mao watches, alarm clocks, little red book lighters and t-shirts galore. It was the anniversary of Tiananmen Square and the Chinese press wasn’t allowed to refer to it as a massacre, but yet it seems ok to turn their great leader into a novelty item. The wristwatches with Mao’s arm vibrating like he had Parkinsons disease, cracked me up. There obviously isn’t an office of the brand of Mao that approves these things.
Che Guevara is the ultimate commie pin up boy. I like a nice Che T shirt as much as the next bloke, but I draw the line at the pair of jeans I saw at Dubai Mall, featuring Che, spray painted in silver on the rear pockets. WTF?
There are more ex US presidents alive than at any time in history, but where’s their merchandise? I wonder if any of them feel a little bit bitter about the fact that although they helped win the battle of good versus evil, they never made it onto watches and lighters like their red counterparts. It’s not like there aren’t some good opportunities available. How about a Bill Clinton watch with little cigars for the hands. George W could do a deal with the makers of those units fro drying fruit. They could launch a big industrial sized one called George W Bush’s Weapon of Mass Desiccation.
Speaking of launches, seeing as how Gulf War 1 was basically a really big PR event for the launch of the Hummer, why didn’t they do a George Bush Senior model – ‘The Bush Hummer. It will go anywhere except Baghdad.’
Saddam Hussein missed out on a greatest commercial opportunity after the 1st Gulf War. His line ‘The mother of all battles’ was a classic that’s been adapted all over the planet. Bet he wished he’d copyrighted that beauty. George W tried to launch his own catch phrase in GW2, but ‘Mission Accomplished’ came back to bite him in the bum. It seems that the truly memorable leaders have loads of merchandise. In a million years, when alien anthropologists are sifting through the charred remains of the wasteland that was once earth, they will sort through the watches, t shirts, coffee cups and key rings in an effort to work out who was once the most powerful and revered leader on this rock. Based on the sheer volume, I think they’ll conclude it was Mickey Mouse. And that’s kind of interesting because when you think about it he has a lot in common, with Americas Presidents. A well recognized face of a large organization who is ultimately just a figurehead with no real power.

A measure of mass by country

There was a Mass shooting in Alabama today. What constitutes a mass? 10 people. Oddly though the definition of mass changes by nation. 33 people were killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq yesterday but I didn’t the read the word mass in conjunction with that anywhere. Wonder how many Iraqi’s have to die to make a mass?

The mother of all prime numbers

Apparently some maths nerds just found a 13 billion digit prime number. Good timing. The US government will probably need that to calculate the cost of the war in Iraq in a year or so.
Lost Vegas hint - If you meet one of the maths nerd who made the discovery and he starts telling you the story about this new mega prime number, don't let him draw it for you.

Bang!

In Britain the Scots Guards Association is preparing 650 Christmas parcels for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan but they have to take the crackers out because the RAF classify them as explosives and they are banned on their planes. I assume that rule doesn’t apply to the bombs their bombers carry or it wouldn’t make them a very effective air force.
But back to the crackers. Do you think a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan really wants a cracker in a care package? In a country full of things that go ‘BANG!’ all the time is it really necessary? It’s a bit like giving a bar tender a bottle of booze for Christmas? Or giving a builder a present he has to assemble himself? Or giving a hooker a porno film?

Collin Powells Leadership Lesssons

I added a few thoughts to some of Collin Powells stirring and inspiring leadership lessons.


General Colin Powell: Lessons from a very successful leader

Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.

Take George W Bush. He’s responsible for the War in Iraq and his approval ratings are at an all time low. That is a lot of pissed off people.



Don’t be buffaloed by experts and elites.

When weapons inspectors who have been searching for months, tell you Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction. Don’t believe them. They probably just aren’t doing their job.



Never neglect details. When everyone’s mind is dulled or distracted, the leader must be doubly vigilant.

When Bush was told a plane had hit the World Trade Centre he didn’t get distracted. He still managed to finish the story about the goat for the children in the Florida classroom.



Keep looking below surface appearances. Don’t shrink from doing so (just) because you might not like what you find.

If the weapons inspectors cant find the weapons of mass destruction and the intelligence agencies in other countries say there aren’t any. And you own people say there aren’t any. Don’t listen. Keep believing.



Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.

When the guy you send to find evidence that Iraq bought Yellow cake in Nigeria for Nukes cant find any evidence. Discredit him and leak to the press that his wife works for the CIA. That’ll show him.


Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.

BUT, if you have to go to the UN and convince them Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, take some cool drawings of trucks that are mobile weapons labs.



Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

You get into Iraq but you can’t find those weapons of mass destruction? Get more forces to look for them. They’ll turn up.


Powell’s Rules for Picking People" – Look for intelligence and judgment and, most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners. Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high-energy drive, a balanced ego and the drive to get things done.

Or hire the people that used to work for your dad.


(Borrowed by Powell from Michael Korda): "Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.

Saudi Terrorists attacked the Twin Towers. America needs to invade Iraq.



The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proven otherwise.

Unless the rear echelon is Donald Rumsfeld and the commanders are invading Iraq in which case he calls the shots and says how many men will be needed to get the job done.



Have fun in your command. Don’t always run at a pace. Take leave when you’ve earned it: Spend time with your families.

George Bush has one of the highest records of holidays of any US President ever. Before 911 he had been at his Ranch in Texas for a month.

Baaaaaaaa. The war in Iraq was about oil. Baaaaaaa. What are you gonna Baaaaaaaa,

I’ve been watching films on U tube about the war in Iraq and they all beat the same drum. We were lied to. There were no WMD. The war was about oil. Saddam had no links to Bin Laden. The invasion was already being planned before 911.
A lot of people knew this before the invasion and now the truth is seeping down to the masses. Most of these films pull out experts. Ex CIA, Army, Government people to help prove the point.
But so what.
You think the men who planned the invasion. The men who wanted to get Saddam out of power and their hands on Iraq’s oil and care. Why should they.
You see what the men in power count on is the fact that we, the masses, are sheep. Especially in the West. We plod along in a flock. Most of us under the illusion that because we live in a democracy. That we, the people, are in control and because we ‘elected’ our leaders they will safe guard our interests and do the right thing by us.
Meanwhile, the men in power. And I’m not talking about the muppet out front who got the job from daddy. I’m talking about the men with the real power. The men off to the side. They just quietly go about doing what they want.
Want to kick out Saddam, get control of the oil and get Iraq to start selling oil in US dollars again. No problem. Tell the sheep Saddam is linked to 911 and has WMD. Sure the truth will come out eventually, but it will be too late by then. And it is. The job is done. When Bush was on that aircraft carrier in front of the sign ‘Mission Accomplished’. It was right. The mission was accomplished. The war hasn’t been won. But that wasn’t the object. As long as the war goes on there are plenty of men making loads of money. Ask the team at Halliburton. And as for the oil. They don’t need to start pumping it right now. They are too busy making loads of money off the oil they are pulling out of the ground everywhere else. Plenty of time before they need to start sucking Iraq dry.
And why can people like Bush Blair and Howard lie to the people that supposedly put them in power? Because they and their handlers know they wont be held accountable. Sure there will be a lot of films and protests by some of the angry sheep, but we’ll all get tired and go back to chewing grass. Politically we might se a few heads role, but hat doesn’t worry the men in power. There are plenty more Bill Clintons and George W Bushes to wheel out in front of the flock to provide the illusion that we have a choice of leaders and that the power is in our hands.
How did this happen? Surely we can blame someone for the travesty. It can’t be our own apathetic selves at fault. What about the greeney peace freeks? Why didn’t they try to persuade us a little harder? Why did they have to look so green and freaky and not very credible.
What about the political opposition? Surely they should have sniffed out what was going on. Isn’t that what the opposition do? Don’t tell me they're just waiting to have a turn in the drivers seat and serving the purpose of the men in power by making it look like we, the sheep, have an alternative choice in leaders. What about the press? Shouldn’t they have searched out the truth. Don’t tell me they're in the pockets of the men in power. (Or in the case of the embedded journalists, in the tanks and personnel carriers of the men in power).
So what do we do now?
Maybe if we make a real effort to hold the people in power that lied to us, accountable, we could send a message to our leaders that they can’t get away with bull shitting the flock. That there will be a price to pay. But that wont happen will it. The men at the top rely on the ineptitude and apathy of the flock. People like you and me who are too busy chewing grass and hoping someone will trim our dags.
I guess we get the leaders we deserve. Baaaaaaaaa. Baaaaaa. Baaaaa.

Brand Old

In Sri Lanka these factories are banging out jeans. That’s the easy bit. What takes time is all the extra effort they have to go to, to rub the jeans with sandpaper and wash them over and over to get them looking really old. But the Sri Lankan's don’t mind because they get to charge more for older shittier looking clothes. Mental when you think about it.
Imagine if the same trend took off with cars. You could buy a brand new Ferrari and for a bit more cash they could get little men to take to it with rocks and car keys. After scratching and denting the body they would attach doors that had been soaking in seawater so they were all rusty.
You would even have the option of a cracked windscreen so when you drove that car down mainstreet it looked like it had been places. If that trend took off it would be great for the makers of Humvees. The new H3 sucks. It looks like a suburban mums kid bus. Why not ad a little credibility by giving every new H3 a tour in Iraq to ‘age’ it. Nothing like real bullet holes and blood stained seats to add to that authentic all terrain look. Forget the cup holder and cigarette lighter. In a genuine Iraq conditioned Humvee you get an M16 gun rack and a place to stick your field dressings. Of course the war worn H3 would cost a little more depending on how many tours it had done. And maybe you pay more for a Humvee out of Iraq than Afghanistan because that is a more popular war. By popular I mean Iraq is in the news more. Maybe when America gets round to bombing Iran the Humvee people will be able to put a few H3’s near the Iranian nuclear plants to soak up some of those cruise missiles blasts. Imagine being the first stockbroker on your block to be driving a humvee that was conditioned in Iran with genuine US military hardware.

The Surge report that has congress in a spin.

General Patraeus testified to a congressional committee last week on the progress in Iraq. Some of the committee members thought it was a bit odd that the general started his presentation by handing out free sunglasses but everyone agreed the lovely rose tinted lens made for comfortable wearing. And things only got better. The generals general message to the crowd was that the Surge has worked its tits off. Violence is down, Iraqs armed forces are improving, Baghdad is more peaceful. In short, it is all good ladies and gentlemen. With the update on Iraq over so quick but the audience still enjoying their sun glasses General Patraeus went on to update them on some other big events. He reported that Global Warming is over and the planet is starting to cool down again. Britney Spears comeback performance at the MTV music awards was a huge sucsess and very well received by the audience. Burt Reynolds has decided to stop doing crap movies simply for the money. And Posh Spice has been a hug hit in America. Yes folks, it was a 5 star effort from a 4 star general.

Lego and legging it.

So there I am in the lounge aged about 6, Lego all over the floor. And this was back in the day when Lego was just blocks. If you wanted to build a castle or space ship you had to build it out of blocks. Like actually think how to make it. Not like the lame, fully formed Lego they sell now where it is all done for you.

But that’s not what this rant is about.

So my box of Lego is all over the floor. The lounge looks like a bombsite. But I decide I want to go off and do some painting. Up I hop, but just as I am about to leave the room mum busts me with the old ‘Darling. If you’re finished with the Lego how about you tidy it away.’ And that was one of the things my mum taught me as a kid. Another thing she told me was that if I ate my crusts my hair would go curly. But that turned out to be bullshit. But the tidying up thing made sense.

If you make a mess you are only going to have to come back and tidy it up later, or live in the mess you’ve created and probably piss other people off at the same time. Either way you make trouble for yourself. So parents teach their kids to finish what they start or tidy up. Now the coalition of the willing didn’t heed this advice when they left the job half done in Afghanistan and ran off to invade Iraq. Pity, because now they have created two giant messes. It’s all too much for the Poms. They’re packing up and leaving Iraq. Job done. Well, not done actually. Things are a hell of a lot worse for the people in southeastern Iraq. The mission was to bring democracy and stability to them. They had Saddam and stability now they have democracy and chaos. Wonder which they prefer? The Poms will find it easier to bail on the Yanks now because they have a new PM. It’s like me tipping the Lego all over the floor then leaving it for my brother to play with. When it all gets too much he just walks out telling mum that he wasn’t really responsible for the mess because he didn’t make it. The yanks will pull the same stunt when the Democrats get their arses into the White Houser.

Of course what my brother and me really needed was an older stupider brother. One who would do whatever we said. That way when the Lego mess needed to be looked after we could have got him to come in a take care of it. Not tidy it up because he wouldn’t be clever enough to do that. Just kind of watch over it. Monitor the mess if you will. Me and brother didn’t have anyone like that. But the British and the US do. It’s called the United Nations.

7 Blunders of the modern world

At a star studded ceremony in Masterton New Zealand (star studded because it was held outside at night) The winners of the 7 blunders of the world were announced. Voters from around the world were invited to write their nominations on the back of used car park receipts and attach them to carrier pigeons. Perhaps it is a reflection of the fact that it is hard to find reliable carrier pigeons these days because only 8 submissions were received and the ink had run on one of them ( I think the pigeon flew threw a rain storm). So here they are.


Y2K
2000 US Presidential Election
The UN
The invasion of Iraq
The multi tune car alarm (WaaaWaaaWaaa DooooopDoooooopBeengBeengBeenb!)
Turning Paris Hilton & Lindsay Lohan into celebrity status
Aspartame

Son of Surge

The problem with deadlines is they have a habit of creeping up on you. September must have seemed so far away when Bush first introduced his Surge. What to do….what to do?
Well luckily the American Command have sent in a Battalion of Army engineers to shift the goal posts. The new plan comes in two phases. No point in biting off more than you can chew. The “Near Term” goal is to achieve “localized security” in Baghdad and other areas no later than June 2008 (I thought that was what the Surge was meant to do by September 2007?) The new theory apparently puts a premium on protecting the Iraqi population Baghdad, on the theory that the improved security will provide the Iraqi political leaders with the breathing space they need to try political reconciliation. No surprise that this plan has been stitched together by General Petraeus, whose balls are well and truly in the sling with September approaching. And I’m sure the ‘breathing space’ will be welcomed with open arms by Mr Bush. June 2008 pushes the whole messy Iraq thing a long away away. From there it will be a short skip and a jump to the end of his presidency and then some other sucker can take charge of the mess.

My new theory on the war in Iraq

Could Rumsfeld and Cheney and the other war hawks really have got it so wrong about Iraq? All we read in the paper, online and on TV is how bad the war is going. What a mess it has been. How Bush’s boys were fools to go into Iraq against the advice of the experts and how things have blown up in their faces and turned into a big mess.

But what if the brains behind the war are secretly happy. What if things have worked out pretty much how they and their other experts planned?

Lets look at the facts. The big defense and construction companies that make money out of war are raking it in because Iraq is a big country and there is plenty of war to go round. The oil companies and other big business vultures are in there carving up the spoils. I’m sure corporations take a much more long-term view than us mere mortals. Sure it might not be as cost effective to remove oil from Iraq right now and there could be the annoying fact of having to replace equipment and men who keep getting blown up the insurgents. But in the long term things will work themselves out and then the oil companies will be ready to pump. In the meantime, the war in Iraq is helping to push up oil prices around the rest of the world. Good news if you’re in oil.

And what is the cost? You wont hear the companies that supply all the equipment to the US army complaining. Or the contractors, or the politicians who rely on cash from the companies that supply all the equipment to the US Army. You wont hear a peep from the thousands and thousands of dead Iraqi civilians. And our leaders in the west know that their voters are delightfully oblivious to large-scale deaths when they are dark skinned foreigners far away.

So that leaves us with the deaths of a few thousand US troops. I heard Michael Moore say on CNN that it is estimated that 18000 Americans die a year as a result of not having life insurance. Does that put the number of US war dead in Iraq in perspective for you? If US leaders are prepared to live with 18000 innocent dead at home a year, what is three and a half thousand over 4 years. I bet the men behind the invasion of the Iraq are rapt with such a low casualty count. Unluckily for them the US public’s tolerance for the death of their own boys doing democracy’s dirty deeds on foreign shores is a lot lower than it was back in the days of Vietnam. Rumy and Cheney know that eventually public opinion will force them out of Iraq ‘officially’. The trick is to hang in there as long as they can. And that’s not hard. The beauty of American democracy is that its leaders can pretty much do what they want. For example. They invade a country using false evidence of WOMD knowing the truth will come out eventually. But so what. It was too late by then and they knew no one would be organized enough to do anything about it. Even with the public finally awake to the big con and overwhelmingly against the war, the men running the oval office know they can just box on doing what they want.

But eventually noise control will get its shit together and drive over to Bush’s place to confiscate his sound system and shut the party down. The press and the Democrats will high five because the government has listened to the will of the people and withdrawn from Iraq. Thing is Bush’s boys wont care because they know the truth. What’s left behind is the15 square mile Balad Air Base and the $592 million dollar US embassy in Baghdad. Officially the US might be out of Iraq but unofficially the men who planned it in the first place are there to stay, to reap the rewards for themselves and the men that suggested they get in there. And I think they’ll sit round the table and congratulate themselves on a job well done.

Lucky for America that Al Qaeda can’t multi task.

I’m pretty sure Osama Bin Bung Kidney hasn’t sent out an email like this.

"Hi team, just got time for a quick email before the CIA spy drone is due for it’s next fly by. Firstly, congratulations to Achmed from accounts for winning the ‘Where’s Binny this week?’ staff competition. He correctly picked the small village on the Afghan/Pakistan border which, for security reasons, I cant name. Too be honest after this long on the run all these bloody villages are starting to look the same to me. Except for one I crashed at last Thursday. They had little individually wrapped soaps in the bathroom of the guesthouse. Nice touch. Just cause you live in the mountains doesn’t mean you can’t have a bit of style. Achmed wins the ‘I worked out where Bin Laden was, why cant you America’ t-shirt.
Now to business. Don’t worry; I’ve been listening to the grumblings around the water cooler. I know things are a little crazy at the moment. No one said a global Jihad was gonna be easy, but we have really got our hands full with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The organization has grown hugely in the past few years you will have noticed a whole lot of new faces at Friday drinks. Given the current workload we have decided to put all plans for terror attacks on the American mainland on hold until we get things under control in the Middle East. And lets hope America doesn’t invade any more countries because I just don’t think we can handle any more work.
OK that’s it from me. I’m off to film some scenes for the international news networks to use when they do stories on me. Apparently they’re sick to death of the ‘Me walking down the steep hill with a stick’ and ‘Me firing a machine gun at a target’ footage."

BUT, the American government are using this angle as one of the bullshit pills they force feed the public. It sounds even more tragic when you hear this theory being regurgitated by GI’s stuck in Iraq who are trying to rationalize their involvement in this crappy war.

America. Mowing the lawns in Iraq

Back in January I was watching one of the American networks and the news host compared their invasion of Iraq to helping out a neighbor by mowing their lawns.
Now I like analogies, but helping a neighbor by mowing their lawns? What a load of bollocks. Here’s one I think is a little more accurate.

Some guy decides he doesn’t like the wasp nest on a property way over on the other side of town. He hates these wasps. Some say it is because one tried to sting his dad once. For years he’s been cutting off supplies to the property with the wasp nest. It hasn’t affected the head wasps at all but the people on the property have suffered. Now the man convinces his family and friends that the wasps from this nest could fly over and sting them in their own home. Some wasps have already done it. The fact they were a different kind of wasp from a completely different nest on a different property doesn’t matter. It is convenient for the man to lets his family think all wasps are related. To make his point about how dangerous this wasp nest is he produces ‘evidence,’ pictures and statements from men who say they know about wasps. It works, his family gets scared.

Now the man doesn’t sort out the wasp nest himself, he sends some people who work for him, in to do the job. Men with wasp nest fighting experience warn the man that he isn’t sending enough people to do the job but he ignores them. The wasp fighters fly in and smash the nest. They kill some of the boss wasps but lots of the other wasps fly away. Now there are wasps buzzing all over the property and the people who live there are getting stung a lot more than they were before. Wasps from other nests around town start coming to the property. Back when the wasp nest was there they couldn’t get in, but now any wasp can fly in and start stinging as much as they want. The men sent in to deal to the wasp nest find it a lot harder to fight the wasps when they are just flying around. They start to get stung more and more. Back at home the man’s family finds out they were lied to about the threat from the original wasp nest. They ask the man when he plans to bring the wasp fighters home. Some people argue that they got rid of the wasp’s nest, their job is done and the people on the property should clean up their own mess. The man says that what they need to do is actually send more wasp fighters over to deal with the new problem.

Simplistic bollocks that doesn’t come close to summing up the tragedy unfolding in Iraq? Probably. But a hell of a lot more accurate than making a comparison to helping a neighbor by mowing their lawns. Thanks for tuning in folks that’s all we have time for. Chad will be along with a weather update in just a moment.

Goodnight.

Surge. Not a European hairdresser. Just the Presidential bullshit machine working on the war in Iraq?

So here’s how it went down. A few months back Bush and his brains trust were sitting round a big table. Probably made of American oak and decorated with lace doilies made by his mum when his dad was in office.
‘Mr President. You know how back before you invaded Iraq those army guys said you needed to go in with more troops but Rummy said bollocks? Well it seems they were right. It’s all gone FUBAR and we need to send in more troops.’
Bush was busy playing with one of the Doilies. There was bottle of water sitting on it and he was trying to see if he could pull the doilie out from under it. Luckily one of his advisors was listening.
‘Troop build up. Are you crazy? The American people wont like that one little bit. That will make it sound like we aren’t winning the war and we have already told them we are winning the war.’
Everyone in the room agreed, except George W who was still concentrating on his doilie trick.
Then someone suggested they bring in the bullshit machine. It’s on wheels because it gets moved around the Whitehouse so much. The words ‘troop build up’ and ‘escalation’ were fed into the machine and it did its thing. Its ‘thing’ only takes a few seconds. That’s what you get when you spend billions of black budget dollars.
‘The word you are looking for is ‘Surge’ said one of those automated computer voices.
‘Yes!’ shouted the President. ‘Perfect.’
Everyone agreed, but it turned out the President was talking about the fact he just whipped out the doilie without knocking the bottle over. No one noticed. They knew ‘surge’ was a great word. It implied a short-term increase. You wouldn’t need extra troops for a short term if things were turning to shit would you? Then the brains trust realized their only problem was how to get the public to pick up on the phrase. That was easy. They just fed the word ‘surge’ into an even bigger bullshit machine. The Media. And it worked. Every news presenter you see on TV refers to the ‘surge’ instead of what it really is. Why? Well because all the other news people are doing it.
Speaking of build-ups and escalation, after his success with his doilie trick George W decided to up the ante and try it with a bigger bottle of water. He is pretty confident he’ll be able to pull it off (or out in this case) and has already had a new ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner made up