Code Black

The bad guys certainly traumatized a whack of people earlier this week in Kabul . My first warning came at 1325 on Tuesday in the form of a "Security SMS" which usually means a sentence of unintelligible ACRONYMS - but this one was easily interpreted as "International security forces and insurgents shooting in vicinity of US Embassy." Well Nobody has shot in the vicinity of the US Embassy for a quite while - although I and many others have done some shooters there. Anyway I was just about to start final interviews for a new staff member - it’s energizing to talk to talented outsiders about the company business and how they might help us do it better. It was a pretty absorbing coupla hours with the two shortlisted candidates - until we were interrupted at the end of the second interview and told we were being moved back to the guest house due to a highly elevated security threat.

The definition for "Security Code BLACK" includes "anticipated possibility of evacuation from the country" in the DAI Security Guide. That won't be necessary as long as 100,000 foreign troops are stationed here to keep the peace. But a coupla code blacks probably help spike the risk graph and with it the insurance premiums and therefore the Cost of Doing Business stays ridiculously high ...... as do the profits. Al Quaida has broken the American economy as they intended too - and it only took ten years.