This is not the script from an episode of The Office, but the banal goings-on of al-Qaida in the Sahara. The written complaint against terrorist Moktar Belmoktar, contained 30 successive bullet points of non-compliant behavior, for example “Who handled this abduction poorly?”
In the face of being fired, the recalcitrant MBM, as he is known in Pentagon circles, quit and formed his own group in direct competition with his former employer – unfortunately with deadly effect, claiming responsibility for attacks so large they rivaled the biggest operations undertaken by al-Qaida on the continent.
Not since the quintessential book The Mafia Manager: A Guide to the Corporate Machiavelli have the inner workings of an criminal organization been laid so bare. It’s reassuring, though only marginally so, to see that those who do us harm experience from time to time the same issues as those who do us good.
