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Dec. 21, 2009 Watching the incredible and regretfully bloody muddle the United States is getting itself into in Afghanistan makes me think of lobster and champagne. Escapism? No. Just trying to illustrate how the principles of American multinational muddled meddling works. In the late 1970s, the East African coast was a tourist paradise, at least for me. The beaches were (and still are) great. Lobster was the cheapest item on the menu, oysters were plentiful and the people friendly. With abundant numbers of sailfish and blue marlin, deep-sea fishing was not only wonderful, but affordable to a schnook of modest means such as myself. The happy coincidence of good things led to my settling in on this paradisiatic setting. While I was busy doing all the things I liked to do, which included playing with dolphins, an American foreign aid official moved into the exotic town of Malindi, Kenya. He was a lobster specialist. (Music of doom, please). Lobsterman watched the natives catch lobsters with their hands, then sell them to hotels and restaurants that catered to foreigners. He decided this was not efficient. He gathered the fishermen and told them, they were not being efficient and he would show them how to create an industry. The ever so polite local Bajuns thought this was wonderful news. Promising he would return soon with the tools to launch the operation, Lobsterman left. The coast returned to its somnolent ways. The Monsoon winds shifted as they always do and I supplemented my lobster diet with crab. Lobsterman returned with several truckloads of lobster pots, hired several boats and set his pots in every suitable location he could find. No sooner he finished placing his pots along miles of coastline, he returned to his starting point. He pulled out his first pot, Nothing there. The next pot held nothing. Two weeks later, nothing. Someone was stealing his lobsters, Lobsterman decided and started watching his pots and posted guards for 24/7 coverage. The wily thieves carried on stealing. Once he reached a million dollars, the limit of his budget, Lobsterman left. The locals used the lobster pots as firewood. No one had been stealing lobsters. Lobsterman left still ignorant that the East African lobster is a vegetarian species.
I wonder how many American lobstermen are working in Kabul.
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