0230 GMT February 28, 2006

·         Baghdad Relatively Calm as the curfew continues. The Defense Ministry has warned militias that any unauthorized person carrying weapons will be arrested.

·         True the Iraq government has said the same thing before; right now, however, it has a better chance of enforcing the ban than earlier. A large number of army/paramilitary forces that have been performing reasonably well are now in place.  Included are about 12,000 army and the same number of special police, aside from special police commandos and the regular police. Don't expect armed militiamen to disappear overnight: this is going to be a gradual process.

·         EU Threatens Serbia Over Ratko Mladic He is the former Serb general wanted for complicity in at least two major massacres. EU says it will call off talks with Belgrade unless Mladic is handed over.

·         It is not as if the Serbian government is not trying to capture him. The problem is somewhat similar to that faced by President Musharraf of Pakistan over Taliban/Al Qaeda in his country: Mladic is protected by factions of the security and intelligence forces who believe he is a Serb hero. Ultimately, however, the issue is that Belgrade has to decide: is it going to be Europe or a war criminal.

·         Saudi Eliminates More Al Qaeda bringing its total in the last year up to 100. Five men were killed in Riyadh and a sixth captured. BBC reports Saudi as saying three of the men were followed from the scene of the abortive oil facilities attack.

·         Osama's brains are no doubt somewhat disarranged by now, or else he wouldn't have ordered AQ to attack Saudi, the country that was paying him and other terrorists to stay away, a bizarre variation on the British remittance man from the colonial era. Its just been one setback after another for him.

·         Correction: we'd reported that the terrorists had got through the main gate of the oil processing facility they were trying to attack. They were actually stopped two kilometers from the main gate.

·         Palestine To Get 120 million Euros Aid from the EU, which is trying to keep control of most of the money. But 20 million will go to pay salaries, and some of that is going to get into the wrong hands. We don't see why EU is paying anything. The Arabs for close on 60 years have been proclaiming solidarity with the Palestine people.

·         Between our readers, us, and the garden gate, they've done everything not to resettle the Palestinians, preferring to keep the wound festering so they can justify their repression at home - "We have to fight the evil Zionists". We don't see that the Gulf Arabs are exactly hurting for money; if there is a crisis in Palestine funds, they can take care of it.

·         Egyptian Magazine Alleges Fatah Plot To Assassinate Hamas Official Saying its information has come from a Palestine official who was present at a meeting with a Fatah security chief, the CIA, and the Israelis last month, the magazine says the plot aimed to kill a key Hamas figure ahead of the election to weaken the group.

·         Well, we don't know how they do these things in Palestine, but you generally don't have corporate style meetings with lots of people present when you're planning to off a political/terrorist leader. As far as we know, the presence of the CIA at any such meeting would create big time problems for the agency, unless President Bush personally gave an order that the Hamas man had to be killed. We'd be sceptical about this story.

·         Taiwan Abolishes Reunification Council angering PRC as further evidence ROC plans independence. Xinhua has 16 stories in today's issue on the matter, of which one gives the story and the other 15 talk about various people protesting Taiwan's move. We get it, Xinhua, there's no need to hammer your readers on the head with a brick to make your point.

·         Philippines Arrests 16 for Coup Attempt but observers are warning this is hardly the end of the trouble: matters are still very tense and no one is sure yet how the matter is going to end.

0230 GMT February 27, 2006

·         Samarra Mosque Equally Revered By Sunnis The first thing your editor wants to do its plant a big fat boot on the big fat behinds of the lazy, uninformed, and incredibly stupid western media. Why do we have to wait till a marginal newspaper in Pakistan, Asia Times, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB24Ak01.html, explains to us that the Samarra Mosque is equally revered by Sunnis and Shias alike? The custodians of the mosque for many centuries have been Sunnis, and Samarra is, of course, a Sunni city. The author of the article is making the point that Sunnis could not have attacked the mosque. And interestingly, no one has come forward to claim responsibility.

·         So the general supposition has been that Zarqawi has to be responsible, as no Iraqi would do such a deed; nonetheless, to our minds the fact of the mosque guardians being Sunnis and the two imams buried there being revered by the Sunnis even if the imams were Shia, add a whole new dimension to the situation. This is a basic fact about which we should have been informed on day one.

·         From this follows another stream of thought, see below.

·         Is Iran The Real Loser In Samarra Bombing? Asia Times seems to thinks so, and while we are in no position to say if this is a correct line of reasoning, its a fascinating one nonetheless. Iran, says Asia Times, has been building linkages with anti-America Sunnis as much as with the Shias of Iraq. This is part of its strategy to retaliate against what it believes is the impending American attack, as also part of its startegy to drive the US from Iraq. So it has been tying up with, for example, Al Qaeda and the PLO.

·         If the Sunnis and Shias have at each other in Iraq, the Sunni terrorist groups are going to have to support their co-religionists, and that means Iran can kiss its investment in Sunni terrorism goodbye. These groups will have to fight Iran, not work with Iran.

·         Moreover, if Shias and Sunnis are fighting each other, no one has time to fight the US. In fact - though Asia Times doesn't say this, its self-evident, - both Sunnis and Shias are going to have to turn to the US as the only possible peacemakers. That means not just Iraqi Sunnis and Shias, but Sunnis like the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Jordanians. Far from getting the US out, Iran will be faced with a re-legitimized American presence in Iraq.

·         Also follows if the US cannot stop the civil war, the Egyptians, Syrians, Saudis, UAE, Oman, Jordan, and Pakistan are going to have to intervene themselves - on the Sunni side, so all of a sudden you have a gazzillion Sunni troops from all over the Arab world sitting in Iraq, doing what? Killing Shias. Big time bummer for Iran.

·         30 Killed In Iraq says Jang of Pakistan, likely quoting wire services, adding that calls for restraint seem to be working.

·         US Troops Hardly To Be Seen In Baghdad says Washington Post. Now, anyone following the sustained handover of security to Iraqi forces all over Iraq would have figured that out, but still, its nice the WaPo has brought this very important development to the notice of its readers. Last year was different: American troops were everywhere.

·         Now if this isn't progress, what is?

·         Philippine Marines Commander Relieved of Post, but according to a military spokesperson it was at his request, for personal reasons. We have to wait and see if the personal reasons have to do with the coup attempt: BBC says supporters of the commander rallied for him but the new commander firmly said he was going to follow the chain of command and is in control.

·         A Presidential spokesperson says 8-10 military officers and civilians - the latter financed the coup attempt - are being sought. Aside from a senior Scout Ranger commander, a senior police officer has been relieved of his duties.

·         Iran The Loser In Samarra Bombing? At least one observer writing from Pakistan believes so. Mike Thompson forwards a Belmont Club blog article which discuses

·         Are Iraq Civil Casualties Being Overstated? Statement by the US military spokesperson in Baghdad, quoted from a DOD publication: "reports coming out of the National Joint Operations Center over the past three days reflected 51 mosque attacks, with 23 having significant damage. Through use of troop observations and Unmanned Arial Vehicles, MNF-I and ISF looked at those mosques to verify the reports. The results showed only 22 mosques had been attacked, with six sustaining significant damage..."

·         Now clearly that any mosques are being damaged is not good. But one picture - the wrong one - is dire; the second is merely bad.

·         We've been hearing for some time that civilian casualty figures in Iraq are exaggerated. Partly this is deliberate: people with a case to make, such as anti-Americans and insurgents, overstate. Partly this is because of genuine confusion and uncertainty. Readers will recall that even in a nation as well organized and policed as the US, there was absolute confusion on Hurricane Katrina casualties till days and weeks later.

·         Another problem in Iraq is the blood feud. No one can prove this one way or the other, but some percentage of ordinary murders gets thrown into the terrorist/counter-terrorist pool of killings. In India, guns are rare. So murders are mainly committed with sharp-edged weapons, blunt instruments, and agricultural implements. In Iraq guns are plentiful. Why bother getting close and stabbing your victim to death when you can shoot him with an AK-47? Then only the most careful of investigations will reveal if this was a sectarian killing or one with a more personal motive. Given the state of the Iraqi police, we may guess in most cases careful investigations are not being carried out.

·         Israeli General Cancels UK Trip to attend staff college, after he was informed he risks arrest for war crimes on a complaint filed by a pro-Palestine group. The war crime? Demolishing 59 houses during operations in Gaza when he was division commander.

·         We have generally not been in favor of house demolitions as retaliation against Palestine gunmen and terrorists, though we recognize it is a complicated issue. At the same time, since when did house demolitions become a war crime? Should pro-Israeli groups now file charges against Palestine leaders in every court of the world for conducting terrorist operations? Why stop there: Iran, Saudi Arabia and several Arab countries fund Palestine, knowing that the country is a source of terror. Warrants needed, for sure. Then we can file against every country in the EU - they send money to Palestine, and to top it all off, we can ask for warrants against the US government - it also sent money to Palestine for years. Under US law, at least, the financier of an operation is punished more than the people who are merely the foot soldiers.

·         And is destroying 59 houses more serious that demolishing tens of thousands - not a war crime, but on the same basis a crime against humanity, and that's our good buddy Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe; definite warrants against Syria for atrocities committed in Lebanon;  Child of the Swan Kim for starving a quarter of his population to death; every Brazilian leader for the police-in-civilian-clothes extermination of youths in criminal gangs and on and on.

·         Heck, this is exciting...your editor thinks he should give up this thankless teacher business and become an international lawyer specializing in coming up with creative ways of defining war crimes.

0230 GMT February 26, 2006

·         60 Die In Iraq Violence says Jang of Pakistan; probably quoting a wire service. BBC and CNN are asleep because of the weekend so we cant get any news from them.

·         Brookings Institute in Washington DC keeps a tab of Iraq casualties. It says in the last two months about as many civilians, security forces, and US military have died as a year ago; i.e. using the death toll as an indicator there is no improvement in security.

·         Sadr Again Emerges As Major Problem This is our own "inside" analysis for our readers.

·         Iraq has more problems that 10 troubled countries put together, and now an old problem is remerging in force. This is Moqtada Sadr, who sought to build himself from being a relative nobody, just his father's successor by accident of his father being killed by Saddam, to a major player by taking on the Americans. Before Gulf II, even most Iraqis would not have heard of him - else he wouldn't have lived to see the fall of Saddam. He was not the first person to think fighting Americans was going to be a walkover, and unfortunately for him, he tangled with the Marines, who basically had him running like a rat to save himself. Then for a long time he was very quiet indeed.

·         Once the political process got underway, Sadr The Rat emerged to take part. So instead of playing a constructive role, now he wants to be the power behind the Presidential throne. He has of late been throwing his militia in everyone's face - except the Americans' and Iraqi forces - and even traveling abroad meeting foreign leaders and just generally being the brat that he is.

·         So along comes the Samarra bombing, and suddenly Sadr is on the move. First he bottled up the Sunnis in Sadr City. Now he is telling them he, the Great Sadr, will intercede for them with the government. In other words, he's trying to increase his influence so that both Sunnis and Shias will look to him. In the process, he's pushing to get his militia recognized as a legitimate peackeeping/policing force: before Samarra, his militia would get smacked down if they were too ostentatious about displaying their weapons, but right now, the Iraq government seems to be saying: "He needs to be taken down, but not just yet, he IS keeping the peace in parts of Baghdad."

·         Bad thinking, good people of Iraq. Sadr has shown if you give him a centimeter, he'll try and take everything - no subtlety or finesse with this boy. You may gain a few areas of peace for a while, the next thing you know, like the camel who gets his nose under your tent, he's going to be sitting right there in your bathroom deciding

·         Well, few politicians in Iraq are greeting his reemergence with cries of joy. But as before, because someone or the other needs him to do a dirty little job, he manages to live. In Iraq, of course, they have their own way of dealing with people who get too big for their boots. It usually involved ambushes, AK-47s, a lot of bodies. Sadr, to give him credit, is very, very careful about security. More on this, perhaps, another day.

·         Philippines is rounding up the usual suspects. Talk about a kubuki drama. A state of emergency exists, everyone is going around pretending things are calm and under control, and furious activity is taking place behind the scenes.

·         To keep the public diverted from the real game, Philippines is doing stuff like asking a left wing politician to present himself for questioning by the police. The charge? Well, a mere 21 years ago, he was charged with treason etc. Why? Well, he was one of those who worked to overthrow Marcos. Seeing as Marcos was a dictator, the man should have hero status. Anyway, Marcos was overthrown, he's dead and buried. Now the police want the politician to come in and discuss charges that were never pressed then?

·         What amazes us about people is not they're cynical, worldwide, about their governments. Its that they have any faith at all in their governments - we equally refer to the US government. We suspect its because you have to have faith in order to maintain your sanity. If we were logical about the way our governments work, we'd have no choice but to get off our behinds and stage revolutions - US included. It is so much easier to pretend that the next president, the next senator, the next governor is going to be better than the current one.

0230 GMT February 25, 2006

·         Learn Arabic and Chinese, Young Man The Washington Post is the last place we'd expect to learn something from, but we do have to differentiate between its reporting, which is pathetic on issues that interest us, and its Op-Ed page, which often has insightful articles. Yesterday's WaPo's Op-Ed page made an eye-opening point. So far, foreigners who buy the debt America runs up by its adverse trade balance and its refusal to run a balanced budget have put their money into bonds, public and private. But sooner or later they're going to start investing in equity, that is, the shares of American companies.

·         In which case worrying about a UAE company operating six American ports is going to be the least of our problems because fairly soon, the foreigners with money are going to buy up a lot more.

·         It seems to us wise advice to give our youngsters: Learn Arabic and Chinese, because in another generation, those are going to be your corporate masters.

·         A minor point raised by an Op-Ed concerned the Democratic. Delighted to have found an issue where they can be to the right of the Administration, they are busy waving the flag and saying national security will be compromised by the ports deal. Now, when a person who looks Mideastern or has a Mideastern name is stopped for extra checking at an airport, Democrats tend to yell "Racial Profiling!". And yet racial profiling is exactly what they are doing in the case of the port deal.

·         Iraq Curfew Extended into Saturday. The curfew, which covers the capital and three provinces, applies to vehicles, not to foot traffic. Violence fell sharply, but there are ominous signs a-plenty.

·         Our good buddy, Bad Boy Sadr, whose forefinger must by now be permanently locked in an extended, crooked position given the amount of time he spends waving it around, has moved his militia into a Sunni area of Baghdad and stopped worshippers from attending Friday prayers. Further, someone fired mortar shells at a Baghdad area mosque revered by Shias and Sunnis; there is no damage. Then there are the bodies that turning up around Baghdad: on Thursday 47 people were killed in the city, Sunnis and Shias both. Another two dozen bodies were found on Friday, no one can say if they are from Thursday, or from fresh violence.

·         Iraq Unity Frankly, whether the Shias and Sunnis  choose to live together or go their own ways is entirely their business. There is nothing the US can do, or should do, beyond the usual platitude-type words.

·         We are told the Kurds are moving out from all over Iraq and going home to the north. They are paying Christians to move in to their territory and paying Sunnis to leave. It is said 98.5% of Kurds want their own country - we have no information on how, when, where etc the poll was taken, but while one can argue about precise figures, its clear from any source the overwhelming majority wants nothing to do with Iraq. Apparently the major issue needing resolution is Kirkuk. This oil area was Kurd majority till Saddam did his ethnic cleansing, and the Kurds want it back. They're going to change the ethnic balance in their favor, like or not, after which its bye-bye Baghdad.

·         Let the US not waste more time on the unity issue. Keep good relations with the Shias, ally with the Sunnis and protect them - this may take very little effort, because the Shias are quite happy to leave Baghdad and the four Sunni majority provinces. Their capital is Najaf, not Baghdad.

·         Philippines Situation Murky Reader Mike Thompson forwards a post from The Belmont Club, a blog run by diplomats present and past. The post notes the ambiguous stand taken by the Philippine Army toward the leader of the thwarted coup. He is under the control of the Army, but not under arrest. Belmont Club says this indicates the Army has not made up its mind on if the president should step down. She is said to be one tough lady who has survived setbacks before and may well survive this crisis too.

·         Another Al Qaeda Plot Fails Two vehicles shot their way through the outer perimeter of Saudi Arabia's main oil terminal, and blew up when inner cordon guards fired on them. Everyone in the cars died.

·         Why AQ is taking credit for this thorough failure is beyond us. Had it been us, we'd have kept very quiet.

·         Unlike much of the media, we don't particularly worry about the security of the Saudi oil installations. They're protected by the National Guard, a force in which tribal loyalty and loyalty to the house of Saud is paramount. Its not a simple matter to subvert National Guard personnel or to use forged documents and uniforms to get past them. The proof is in that this AQ team had to shoot their way in to begin with.

0230 GMT February 24, 2006

·         Update 1040 GMT [CNN] The Philippine Army says it has prevented a coup by the commander of the elite Scout Rangers against the president. A state of emergency is in effect. The president is unpopular because of economic problems and because many do not accept the results of the hotly contested 2004 education that brought her to power. An effort to impeach her for misconduct during the election failed.

·         From Steve Schippert [thanks Mike Thompson] of Threats Watch http://inbrief.threatswatch.org Days before Iran is to be referred to the UN Security Council it has made a gesture of coming clean by admitting to producing UF4, an intermediate step to producing UF6 which is enriched for nuclear fuel/nuclear weapons. The US had made the allegation about UF4 some months back; Iran had denied it at the time. The admission has led the ever optimistic German Foreign Minister to appeal to the US to resume negotiations. The US says there is no one to negotiate with: Iran is not interested, its revelation was not voluntary, and there have to be consequences for continued deception.

·         Violence in Iraq and Nigeria Continues In Iraq, over 120 people, mainly Sunnis, have been killed in reprisal for the bomb attack that destroyed the mosque at Samarra. In Nigeria, after days of attacks by Muslims, Christians are retaliating wholesale; there are no good figures on deaths, but it seems that yesterday over 80 people were killed, mainly Muslims.

·         May we ask what was the crime of the Shias at Samarra that their mosque should be wrecked? And what was the crime of the Nigerian Christians that they should be targeted for cartoons published in a Danish newspaper?

·         Many Americans still have their eyes tightly screwed shut: it must be our fault that some Muslims are running amok and in order to change the situation we have to change ourselves.

·         Osama and his ilk want to reestablish the Caliphate. Well, folks, you just got a look, in Iraq and all over the world where cartoon riots have taken place, at what the Caliphate is going to look like. Lets not forget Afghanistan under the Taliban, where Hindus had to wear badges identifying them, where men were beaten with cables if their beards were trimmed, where women died because male doctors could not attend them, and where a widow who had no male relative to escort her could not walk on the street, leave alone hold a job to feed herself and her children. Better the women and her children die, the Taliban said, rather than Islam be offended.

·         Even in the 21st Century, America remains the Land Beyond the Sea. It isn't easy for extremists to get into America, or once they get in, to function. So besides September 11th, America has not suffered at the hands of the Caliphate builders. So if you want to keep those eyes shut, just like people who didn't want to get involved in World War II, please carry on. You can't run, and you can't hide. As a practical matter, the only question is: are you going to kill them far from America, or are you going to kill them in America? Kill them you'll have to do, we're sorry to say. Because if you don't, they'll kill you.

·         Israeli Commander Causes Jordan Uproar when he says Hamas is gaining strength, and pressure is building on Jordan's King. The general, commanding Central Command, was concerned the King might not survive. Jordan protested the general's comments; Israel responded by saying he spoke for himself and cautioned its officers to be more discreet.

·         We don't understand why the general has not been relieved of his post. Instead he has been merely reprimanded by the Israeli Defense Forces chief.

·         The Mideast NutCase Speaks The Iranian president blames America and Israel for the Samarra Mosque bombing, saying the two countries deny God and justice.

·         Thanks, pal, for explaining to us what's going on. If everything is an American-Israeli plot, did you stop to think your accession to power may also be one such plot?

0230 GMT February 23, 2006

[We seem to have been off by one day, a frequent occurrence with us as your editor finds it quite difficult to keep track of dates and even days of the week.]

·         President Musharraf In Trouble With US Our South Asia correspondent reports: "Pakistani analysts feel Musharraf is losing ground with the Americans. The US might go in for a regime change. Right now they're engaged with Ahsan Saleem Hayat, the Army Vice Chief. Ex-Army Chief and current ambassador to the US Karamat Jahangir is also playing their game."

·         We had earlier carried news that the president was in trouble with his generals, several of whom want him out. The recent riots, ostensibly on account of the cartoons, were fueled by the Army's Military Intelligence working with civilian intelligence personnel.

·         We must state that the US foreign/defense policy establishment usually discounts what Indian intelligence has to say because - we admit this frankly - the Indians tend to overstate their case, rely a bit too much on intuition, and push the facts further than they should. At the same time, the Indians do have the best intelligence on South Asia - no surprise there. You have to learn to sort out what the Indians are saying.

·         Reader Walter E. Wallis writes with a modest proposal that we feel is much to sensible for America to adopt. Build oil-from-coal plants and keep them on a standby basis for emergencies.

·         We did a bit of research. SASOL of South Africa produces oil from coal at $25/bbl, but because no major plant has been built in some time, is not 100% sure of what costs are going to be for the the two 50,000-bbl/day plants it is going to build in China. Incidentally, a third plant is to be built in PRC, this time with US technology.

·         The feeling is that an investment of $60-70,000 per barrel per day will be required. For 3-million-bbl/day that's $210-billion and probably $35/bbl oil. Well worth it, and the US may as well run them full-time instead of just in emergencies.

·         The first thing that will happen is that environmentalists are going to scream: 3-million-bbl/day, which would pretty much cover Mideast imports plus one more trouble spot, means adding about 700-million-tons/year of coal to the normal US production of 1.3-billion-tons/year. [This figure is based on SASOL's published figures: 40-million-tons of coal annual to produce 150,000 bbl/day of oil.]

·         Okay, so does Orbat.com particularly care how the US meets a potential deficit in imports? Obviously not! Go for the whole shmoo as far as we are concerned: $4-gallon gas, raise the mandatory mileage average, put in more windmills and solar, etc etc., and its quite likely you can cut the 3-million-bbl/day figure substantially. But please do something. Oil dependency introduces distortions into American diplomacy; moreover, oil from overseas does not cost $70/bbl! When you add in the defense/foreign aid cost to secure oil production and the sea lanes, you're topping $100/bbl for imported oil. so Americans may think they are paying $2.50 or whatever for gas, they're actually paying a lot more.

 

 

0230 GMT February 22, 2006

·         More Nigeria Violence 18 Christians were killed in predominantly Muslim Northern Nigeria. Christians began retaliating in the south, where they predominate, killing 6 Muslims and burning two mosques.

·         Readers must be careful not to impute the violence to the cartoons. Muslims and Christians have been feuding for decades in Nigeria, and the situation has become worse since Muslims have begun aggressively attempting to spread their religion. The cartoon dispute simply provides an excuse, however irrelevant, to those Muslim elements who were looking for an excuse to start violence.

·         750,000 bbl/day Oil Stolen in Nigeria Journalist Douglas Farah says on his blog that on top of official production of 2.6 million bbl/day, another 750,000 bbl/day is produced and siphoned off not just by the Niger Delta people, but by Nigerian officials. The latter, incidentally, are responsible for most of the theft.

·         Much of the oil is sold to China and DPRK at below-market prices. Farah uses $35-bbl as a base price and comes up with a diversion of $10-billion/year. While most of it is going into the pockets of officials, some considerable amount has to be going to criminal/insurgent groups in the Delta.

·         The US/EU Needs To Step In There is no evidence at this point that anti-US groups are benefiting from the illegal oil trade. But $10-billion/year is a powerful amount of money sloshing around and the potential for diversion to terrorist groups is obvious.

·         Moreover, the Nigerian people are being robbed, and still further, while the criminals who say they are fighting for the rights of the Delta people are doing no such thing, the environmental damage to the Delta by American and western oil companies that are allowed by Nigeria to operate as they will is an international scandal.

·         There's no use fighting for democracy in places like Iraq and Iran and then being complicit, admittedly by inaction, in the looting of Africa's most important country.

·         The bank accounts of all suspect officials need to be frozen, warrants issued for their presence to be required at investigators' offices, and the oil companies - no matter which country they are based on - heavily fined.

·         America is in the business of exporting its values worldwide. Those values include not just the right to vote and the right to free expression, but the right of peoples to be free of official corruption. Corruption oppresses people in different ways from lack of political voice, but it oppresses nonetheless. Time to get on the job.

·         The Iraq Papers Some 50,000 papers of the 2-million captured in Iraq have been translated/organized. A private group recently held a conference to bring attention to the contents.

·         What emerges so far is that while there is no evidence Saddam had WMD, he was obsessed with getting them - nuclear weapons - and getting them back - other types of WMDs.

·         This will not satisfy those who are angry the Bush administration used WMDs as an excuse to invade Iraq, as far as we are concerned the whole WMD issue is a blind. First, the documents make clear Saddam would have obtained them first chance he got. Second, Saddam needed to be taken down even if he had the purest of thoughts. Why?

·         Because he was the most brutal dictator in the world. That is reason enough.

·         But please keep in mind that 1,950,000 papers have NOT been analyzed. No telling what is going to emerge.

·         Methane Hydrates Fair warning: be prepared for a big headache. These are found around the world on the ocean floor, and slowly the technology is being developed to mine them. The US, Japan, and Russia are big on this potential source of energy. Now for the headache.

·         The US has 1,400 trillion cubic feet of conventionally recoverable natural gas. By 2020, US will be using 32 trillion cubic feet a year, so the reserves will be good for, say 50 years.

·         A mean estimate of the gas content of methane hydrates within the US Exclusive Economic Zone is - aspirin and water all ready at hand? - 200,000 trillion cubic feet, or enough for 7,000 years at the 2020 rate.

·         But wait - there's more. US DOE estimates global resources to be 400 million trillion cubic feet.

·         Okay, so no one is saying expect this to become the new energy resource, bye bye OPEC, hope you die dismally poor, that sort of thing. The economics are not right with current extraction technology. There are environmental concerns. But that's going  to change.

·         So remember now: next time someone says we are running out of oil, smack them across the nose and say: "We are running out of cheap oil. There's still 4 trillion barrels of conventional oil waiting to be recovered. There's unknown trillions of unconventional oil waiting to be developed. On top of that you have trillions of tons of coal - South Africa's SASOL produces oil from coal at $25/bbl. And now you have methane hydrates. The real question is: are we going to keep burning fossil fuel till the Earth's atmosphere resembles Venus', or are we going to focus on nuclear?"

·         But also keep in mind: someone is going to figure out how to sequester carbon - they can already do it when the carbon is being produced at a concentrated site like a coal power plant or gas field. But they'll come up with a way to scrub the air clean of carbon and sequester it. Its not going to happen in 2010, perhaps not in 2050. But it will happen.

·         Oh yeah? you say. Then how come we don't have the political will to replace imported oil? Well, there's the rub. Technology is one thing. Political will is another. As part of its drive for "Energy Independence" - think Austin Powers - the US has come up with an inane plan that MIGHT work by 2025, and no one even seems to be sure what the energy savings are. Enough to replace non-North American oil and gas? Ha ha. Do pigs fly?

0230 GMT February 21, 2006

·         Holocaust Denier Irving Gets 3 Years Jail in Austria for a 1989 speech in which he denied the historical event. The British academic says his views have changed since 1991, when he saw the Eichmann papers then and the sentence is absurd for expression of an opinion.

·         Ten countries including Israel have Holocaust denial laws. As nearly as we can gather from the BBC website, which carries the news, Holocaust denial is seen as a form of ant-Semitism and therefore illegal.

·         We aren't going to get into this debate except to note the Muslim world will be having a lot of fun at this verdict. So where is the freedom of speech that the West says it must defend? If you can send people to jail for denying the Holocaust, why can you not send them to jail for blasphemous cartoons of the Prophets.

·         Prophet With Bomb In His Turban Cartoon Incidentally, the Danish newspaper that ran the cartoons - which we thought quite dull - has said that the cartoon represents people who use the Prophet's name to justify bomb attacks. It does not imply that the Prophet would have supported the bomb attacks.

·         Now, we don't want to appear condescending, but isn't that assuming a bit more sophistication than most people, Muslim or not, are capable of?

·         Bi-Partisan Senate Attempt To Block UAE Ports Deal Senators from both parties saw they will block the deal that gives a UAE company the operation of six US ports. The British company P and O, which has been sold to the UAE company, will probably have to divest itself of the US ports contracts.

·         India to Joint TAP Gas Pipeline Boy, that was quick! Just the other day India was saying it was looking at joining the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan Pipeline - unstated was that this is an alternative to the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline the US is pressuring India to abandon.

·         Now comes the news India has said "yes". There will be a 640-km extension to the pipeline from Multan in Pakistan to India. An Indian minister says the project is further down the road because the ADB has already approved the funding.

·         Hugo, We Barely Knew Ye! President Chavez wants to amend the constitution to allow him to run again in 2012. He says he will let the Venezuelan people decide about the amendment.

·         Hugo, can you continue making your asinine statements for another 12 years? In your latest, where you tell the US Secretary of State: "Don't mess with me, girl", you seem to be slipping.

·         Keep us entertained or quit: that is Orbat.com's demand of you.

·         New York Times & Indian Air Conditioners Not to worry if you don't see the connection. Its obscure. The NYT is against the proposed Indo-US nuclear deal because it's against rewarding nuclear proliferators. Again, not to worry. Most Indians are against the deal too, because they don't want to diminish Indian sovereignty to keep the US happy.

·         So NYT feels that if Indians redesigned their houses with lower ceilings, the burgeoning middle class wouldn't need as much air conditioning, power demand would fall, and N-power stations wouldn't be needed.

·         We admit to feeling guilty when we beat up the NYT. Its like beating up a 130-year old lady in a wheelchair. But this opportunity we can't miss.

·         What NYT needs to do, instead of wasting time prescribing energy saving solutions for India, is to get Americans to drive less, thus reducing oil imports and improving national security. Let the Indians worry about their own problems.

·         BTW, you can add this to your list of Useless Facts. Painting in our Broad Brush Mode, US has approximately 3-kw generating electricity capacity per person. India has approximately 1/30th that.

 

0230 GMT February 20, 2006

·         Israel Embargoes $50-million/month Payment to Palestine The money mainly represents taxes collected on behalf of the Palestine state. While Hamas has said it will never negotiate with Israel, the latter says it will not talk to any government of which Hamas is a member.

·         For now Israel will not take tougher action such as banning Palestinian workers from Israel. Humanitarian aid will continue.

·         As far as Orbat.com is concerned, let the Arab states pay for Palestine now. They keep saying they are for the rights of the Palestine people, so lets see if the money goes where the mouth is.

·         18 Nigerian Churches Burned Down The Army has been deployed in NE Nigeria to quell rioting on the cartoon issue. More churches were destroyed by fire, bringing the total to 18. Of the 45 person killed, most are Christians.

·         China To Phase Out 2 Yuan Note Another puzzle from China: last week the government announced it would not print the 2 Yuan note any more as increase in prices had made the 10 Yuan note the choice for change.

·         Now, 2 Yuan is 25-cents, or about Indian Rupees 11. India phased out the Rs 1 and 2 notes and replaced them entirely with coins to save money, and of course, 1 or 2 rupees aren't what they used to be, also because of an increase in prices. But India hasn't reached the stage where Rs 5 or 10 is the choice for change.

·         So the question arises: what exactly are the Chinese getting for their money now a days? Couldn't be much if 2 yuan has become superfluous.

·         Can our readers enlighten us on the matter.

·         Golmo (Qinghai) - Lhasa Railroad Under Trial we must give PRC credit where credit is due. This 1956-km broad gauge line links Lhasa to the Chinese rail network and is quite a marvel of construction - the Tibet plateau averages 4000-meters in height. Trial trains are already running; full-length trials start July 1.

·         Such a project could never get done in India - simply because there is no economic sense behind the railroad. Its purpose is strategic, to tie a potential break-way region more firmly to China, and to permit an influx of settlers.

·         Some statistics: Highest point - 5072 meters; longest bridge - 11.7 kilometers; longest tunnel - 3.3 km. Because Tibet's surface cover is permafrost, much of the railway has been built on pilings and viaducts. The environmental damage to Tibet is enormous, and the railroad is expected to be very difficult to maintain.

·         Be that as it may, it is an ambitious project; congratulations to the PRC and the engineers who built it.

·         Hugo Takes on Mr. Chirac telling the French President to go to the Downstairs Place and calling him the "main ally" of "Hitler Danger Bush Hitler". He also wants France to return two islands off the Canadian coast to Canada. He blasted France for occupying the "entire" continent of Africa for hundreds of years. [Thanks to Mike Thompson.]

·         The reason for this tirade? Mr. Chirac made the mistake of saying that countries like Cuba and Venezuela should realize they had much to gain from democracy.

·         Er, Mr. President...Mr. President...can we break in for a moment? France did not colonize Canada. It settled Canada. The French-Canadians do not resent their ties to France. They celebrate them. Moreover, France colonized West Africa and parts of the North, not the whole continent. The Italians, British, Germans, and Belgians did their share of colonizing too. And it wasn't hundreds of years. Algeria was invaded in 1830 and colonized in 1848. French expansion into West Africa began at about the same time. OK, sorry we interrupted your tirade, please carry on

 

0230 GMT February 19, 2006

·         President Chavez Threatens To Embargo Oil Well, folks, we don't know what the US government is doing to get under President Chavez's skin, but he has suddenly escalated his one-way war of words by threatening to embargo oil to the US. Last we checked, Venezuela supplies 14% of US imports.

·         First, we find President Chavez's grasp of economics a bit wanting. Not that your editor was a standout student when he futilely studied economics in his misspent youth, but oil is fungible. If Venezuela cuts off oil to the US, it has to sell the oil to someone else. That someone else buys less oil from somewhere else, and that country will make it up by selling his oil to the US.

·         Second, if Venezuela embargoes oil, the US will embargo everything to Venezuela. Sure, nothing the US sells is unique, and President Chavez can find other suppliers. But the reason he is buying from the US in a free global market is because he gets a better deal than from someone else. So he will lose money. We are not even starting on the diplomatic, political, economic, and military pressure the US will bring on Venezuela, which will complicate life for Mr. Chavez.

·         Now, we assume he knows all this. So why is he escalating?

·         There could be two reasons. One, despite its outward appearance of torpor, the US is secretly stepping up the pressure on our favorite dictator. Two, and we think this is more likely, the very inaction of the US in the face of every outrageous Chavez statement may be driving the old boy bats. He wants, needs, demands attention. The US is ignoring him. If our reasoning is correct, our bad boy may only be doing be doing what bad boys do when you ignore them: become more bratty.

·         Rummy, We Love You Mr. Donald Rumsfeld reminded us today why he became one of our heroes. Without mincing words he flatly said that the Pentagon is being outdone in the propaganda war by Al Qaeda. AQ, he said, is on 24/7. The Pentagon, by contrast, is on a 9-5, 5-days-a-week schedule, and reacts pretty slowly even during working hours.

·         We need people like Rummy. But whether we need him any longer in the Pentagon is now the issue.

·         President Bush Finally Moves on Dafur He met with UN head Mr. Kofi Anan, and agreed that 7,000 additional troops are need to support the African Union's 7,000 troop force in Dafur. Much to our surprise, apparently Mr. Bush has agreed that US troops should be part of the new force. Though details are still to be worked out, this is the most encouraging news to come out of Dafur since the AU sent its troops.

·         Incidentally, we freely thrash the Washington Post - and well does it deserve to be thrashed. But on Dafur, we need to acknowledge again that the WaPo has consistently, and insistently, drawn attention to the plight of this forsaken region and continued demanding the US do something.

·         Indian State Minister Offers Reward to Kill Danish Cartoonists This person is Muslim, and a minor functionary in an Indian state with a large Muslim population. He has offered $11-million and his weight in gold to the person who kills the offending Danish cartoonists.

·         Needless to say, Indian Muslim organizations are busy distancing themselves from this local looney. Calls for his resignation are starting to come in. The Chief Minister of the state in question, who seems determined to prove he is a bigger ass than his minister, says the comments were made in the minister's personal capacity and as such can be ignored.

·         The problem this vigilante-by-proxy faces is that India has many laws against disturbing communal harmony. In a high profile situation like this, the government may have to charge the minister with criminal intent.

·         The second problem - and we wait with interest to see if India's tax authorities will take this up - is where did he get, or plan to get, $11-million plus 70-odd kilos of gold?

·         On a personal level, your editor is mortified that an Indian should act like an idiot and discredit the country. On a wider level, your editor welcomes this man's extremism. Every little bit helps in getting the west to wake up to what it faces.

·         Rioters Burn 11 Nigerian Churches This tells us everything we didn't want to know about the cartoon rioters. What has burning Nigerian churches have to do with a Danish newspaper? Nothing, except the rioters are making clear they see this as a war of religion - and we have been saying for some time that that's exactly what the US is engaged in. Thank you, rioters, for helping make our case.

·         Blasphemy A letter to the editor in the Washington Post makes what seems to us the most profound point anyone has made in the cartoon controversy. A religion can accuse only its apostate followers of blasphemy. It cannot accuse non-believers of blasphemy.

·         Thus, for religious-minded Christians, says the letter, meat is not to be eaten on a Friday. Are Muslims who eat meat on Friday blaspheming against Christ? Obviously not.

·         We can extend this analogy further. In India, the cow is sacred. Yet Muslims and Christians kill cows and eat them. To an orthodox Hindu, this is a religious crime beyond enduring. Yet we have never heard anyone say Muslims and Christians must be killed because they kill cows.

0230 February 18, 2006

·         Islamic State Declaration in Pakistan - Analysis Mandeep S. Bajwa writes: The announcement of the setting up of an Islamic state in Northern Waziristan while in itself not an earth-shattering event produces concern for other reasons. The Pakistan Army's reaction is going to be predictable - a mighty crackdown. Any crackdown with its attendant civilian casualties, built-in repression and negative reaction from the tribesmen will cause immense suffering and provide an impetus to further resentment and alienation.