My Opinion on Bin Laden & Foreign Policy

Like most Americans, I still remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard and saw the news on 9/11. It's our generation's Pearl Harbor. Many years later, I visited Ground Zero and gained an even more emotional perspective on those fateful attacks. When I heard the news about bin Laden's death, I must admit I almost cried. After almost 10 years, I never thought we would ever find him.

It seems like most people think Bin Laden has been outrunning US forces since 9/11 2001, when in reality it has been much longer.

In the 1980s, we secretly gave the Mujahideen, one of whom was bin Laden, $1 billion in weapons to rebel against the Russians occupying Afghanistan. The war left the country in shambles with millions dead and millions more displaced. Bin Laden raised money and helped fight the Russians from 1980 until they left in 1989. He founded al Qaeda in 1988. In 1990, bin Laden became enraged at the presence of the US military in Saudi Arabia near the holy sites of Mecca and Medina prior to the invasion of Iraq. From 1993-1998 he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American citizens in several different terror attacks around the world. In 1999, he was placed on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. 





The rest of the story is ingrained on our national memory...



They say hindsight is 20/20, so of course it's easy to criticize the actions of our leaders when we look back on what could have happened. But I'm going to do it anyway.

Clinton knew where bin Laden was, and failed to do anything about it because he was too busy screwing around. Pun intended. Because he was so entrenched in scandal he didn't have the political leverage to do what was needed. This article from MSNBC says that the CIA had video of bin Laden at a training camp in Afghanistan and knew the location! Why didn't Clinton authorize an attack to capture or kill him?? That is what we call an #epicfail. I'm not even going to say he could've prevented 9/11, because no one knows the future. But bin Laden was already one of the most wanted men in the world, and he had already murdered hundreds of Americans. Justice needed to be served and nothing was done.

My criticism for Bush is equal. I don't discriminate; Republicans and Democrats are equally to blame. His focus should have always been on bin Laden and Afghanistan. Iraq remains a mystery to me. When we invaded Afghanistan in 2001 the goal was to topple the Taliban government who was providing safe-haven to al Qaeda and find Osama bin Laden. This was definitely the right call, no question. We toppled the government in a matter of weeks, but didn't find our guy. In 2003, that became a NATO mission and we started focusing on nation building. Then we invaded Iraq to go after Saddam Hussein. In my humble opinion, the Iraq invasion was a distraction from the more important mission. If Bush had focused our manpower and resources on finishing the job in Afghanistan first, I think bin Laden would have been killed many years ago.

So I can't believe I'm saying  this, but I think Obama did the right thing. He finished the job that 2 Presidents failed to do by authorizing the mission to take out bin Laden. Plus, increasing troops in Afghanistan and replacing General McChrystal with General Patraeus were smart moves and now we finally caught the world's most wanted fugitive. But the whole story is much more complicated than that, and I actually don't think Obama deserves much of the credit. This is the culmination of the hard work of thousands of people over many years. Obama just happened to be the man in the Oval Office when the job was done. The credit should go to our military and intelligence community not President Obama.

But if any leader deserves the credit, it's General Patraeus. That man is brilliant. He wrote the manual on modern counterinsurgency and is responsible for turning the Iraq war from an utter disaster to whatever it is now. Then he took over in Afghanistan. It's his strategy and brilliance that finally led us to this day. And the war is far from over. We need his leadership not at the CIA but in the White House. President Petraeus has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

The war on terror rages on, but today we can celebrate this huge victory. Even if it changes nothing, bin Laden's death is a symbol of hope and victory that will once again unify the country and strengthen our resolve. This is America. We don't lose. I am so proud to be an American!

A Former Intern's View: Why Azul is Soaring

I have been reminiscing about my experience at Azul Brazilian Airlines lately. I was definitely fortunate to have learned from the best during my brief time there. They were recently named as one of the Top 50 Most Innovative companies in the world, right up there with Apple, Facebook, Groupon, etc. And check out the interview at the bottom of my post where David Neeleman says that Azul is on track to earn sales of $1 billion this year - after only 3 years in business. Wow!  It is amazing to me that they are having such monumental success in an industry that has really been struggling lately.

A big part of it is their focus on the customer and giving them a good experience. Not to mention the extremely affordable price. When Azul entered the market, the Brazilian airline industry was plagued by a duopoly that drove the price of airfare up to 150% of what it should have been. Only the rich flew. The driving force behind Azul was the idea that fares needed to compete with inter-state buses, which the majority of the Brazilian public used as transportation. So not only was it cheap, but when I flew on Azul I loved the new planes, the lack of a middle seat, the in-flight entertainment, the friendly stewardesses, and unlimited delicious snacks. It's almost like flying on Azul is a time-machine ride back to the glory days of commercial flight. I compare that to my recent experiences on Delta lately where I feel like they gouge you to death with fees and flying feels like an annoyance.

As if Azul wasn't affordable enough already, at one point they launched an extremely popular promotion called Passaporte Azul, similar to Jet Blue's All-You-Can-Jet Pass. For 500 Reais (around $200) you could fly anywhere in Brazil as many times as you wanted within that month! Letters poured in about how family members were reunited after many years because they could finally afford to fly. People in the middle and lower classes were flying for the first time in their lives. Azul was literally changing people's lives. At one point, I was asked to go to the airport and film some customer testimonials of people using the Passaporte Azul. I found a couple guys who were childhood friends who hadn't seen each other in years but happened to bump into each other on their flight. Both had purchased one of the passes so they decided to travel the country together for a whole month. Of all the people I filmed, not once did I hear a complaint or a lack of enthusiasm. In many cases people were actually grateful to the company and its founder, David Neeleman. When was the last time you heard someone filled with gratitude for their long flight from LA to New York? Everyone who flies Azul literally loves it.

Obviously building a great customer experience is essential, but you have to get the word out about it somehow. I may be slightly partial, but since my internship in Sao Paulo was in their marketing department I also attribute a big part of Azul's success to their creative and innovative marketing. Most of what we did would definitely be considered unconventional or non-traditional. We didn't advertise in newspapers or do big-bidget TV ads. I personally spent a lot of time working on creative promotions via Facebook and Twitter. Not only that, but I got to help with the launch of Azul's own social network viajamos.com.br, which means "we travel" in Portuguese and is a site dedicated to travel in Brazil. That, of course, was when I wasn't doing guerilla marketing, roaming the beaches of Rio de Janeiro handing out flyers and signing people up for Azul's frequent flyer program. Hey, it was a tough job, but someone had to do it! (photos to the left). It just goes to show you don't always need a gigantic, multi-million dollar advertising budget to be profitable. If you have a great product/service and some creative ideas to get the word out, success will follow.

I blogged about my semester with Azul, and you can read about my experiences at www.asaventurasdojj.blogspot.com  

Anyway, when I was there I remember the big party they threw when they reached 2 million passengers in
their first year of business. It was a world record. No airline in the history of aviation had ever reached that many passengers in its first year. It was very exciting to be part of that! Now, less than a year and a half later they have reached over 8 million. They started by flying between 3 cities. Three. Now they have flights to over 30. Stunning success! If there was ever a successful businessman to emulate, it would be David Neeleman. And rumor has it he might buy back Jet Blue. If he does, my resume will be one of the first in the inbox. 
Update 2021: These days I'm traveling with kids via minivan and you can read all about it on The Minivan Bucket List

A Real-Life Jack Bauer?

Making the headlines recently has been Obama's decision to oust General, a decision which 53% of Americans support. I do not. A change of command in the middle of a war is never a good idea. Look at it this way: he was the mastermind who convinced the ultra-liberal President Obama to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan when Obama wanted both wars over and done asap. He's a counterinsurgency genius. Everything happening in Afghanistan right now was all his idea. Luckily he's being replaced by the guy who wrote the counterinsurgency manual in the first place. And I am a big Petraeus fan, so I'm not totally upset. I met General Petraeus in person once at the National Defense University in D.C. His surprisingly small stature doesn't do justice to his huge reputation. But hey, Napoleon was small, too and he conquered Europe...for a little while, anyway. So here's hoping that General Petraeus has more success than General McChrystal and longer lasting success than Napoleon. I'm thinking President Petraeus in the near future. It has a nice ring to it, wouldn't you say?

However, after I read the Rolling Stone article that got General McChrystal fired by President Obama, the first thing that came to my mind was a desire to make a movie about this guy's life! McChrystal sounds like he's super bad-ass. A true B.A.M.F. The movie would be part A Few Good Men, part Black Hawk Down and part 24... and it would be seriously awesome. Imagine Jack Bauer taking command of the entire war, but still going on an occasional nighttime terrorist hunt. Bruce Willis would star and Steven Spielberg would direct. I just made myself a hundred million dollars.

Everyone's Got Issues! Do you?