0230 GMT March 14, 2006

0230 GMT June 30, 2007

2 Car Bombs Found In London On the surface, they seem to be crude bombs. But had they gone off, they could have caused lethal damage within a radius of 40 to 400 yards. That's because the bombs were in cars packed with gasoline containers, propane cylinders, and nails.
The gasoline would have incinerated the propane cylinders. When propane cylinders are incinerated, the propane which is under 400 atmospheres of pressure, vaporizes so fast you get a fireball. And fireballs create overpressure. And overpressure turns everything within range into a lethal weapon. The car chassis for one, glass windows for another. If the overpressure goes above 10psi, you start getting brick walls collapsing - more projectiles.
Further, the two cars were parked in congested areas near each other. A bomber with a remote device could trigger the second to catch people fleeing in panic from the first, multiplying casualties.
So may be the bombs were not as crude as might appear, Remember, in the UK its difficult to get explosive materials. The gents who thought these bombs up made do with readily available material. 400 yards radius works out to a blast area of 350,000 square meters. In a crowded area, and with buildings having their glass fronts blown out, and perhaps their walls knocked down, that could mean a terrible lot of damage.
We loved a Times London reader's acid rejoinder to news headlines that Prime Minister Brown was tested on just his second day on the job. The reader says "I'd suggest that the explosives officer who risked his life by entering the vehicle and pulling out a trigger that would have allowed the bomber to detonate the device by mobile phone - - was rather more tested than the new PM - - who merely had to utter a few standard/obvious phrases for the press." One bomb, outside a crowded nightclub, was defused at the scene.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2007873.ece
Sunni Party Suspends Cooperation With Al-Maliki It freezes its support of 6 MPs, dealing yet another blow to the al-Maliki government's stability. The reason is that one of its MPs, a minister, is absconding on a murder charge. He apparently had some opponent offed. On the surface of it, its highly unreasonable to chase a Sunni minister for murder when you have al-Sadr and his gang, who have killed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, to say nothing of probably a few hundred Americans. Violence is the final arbiter of every Iraqi dispute. who in the Iraqi parliament is truly innocent? We can understand the Sunni MPs belief their party is being victimized.
No Better Illustration Of How Fundamentalism Has Spread In Pakistan Reuters reports a months long standoff between AQ linked terrorists sheltering in a mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, and the government. The government has been unable to negotiate their surrender, and is worried about attacking the mosque. The excuse that is being made is that the terrorists will blow up people, including themselves. Actually, of course the government is too frightened to attack a mosque. If this is happening in the capital, how much worse must things be elsewhere.

How Much Oil Does The US Really Have?

No sooner than we came up with the outline of a $1-2 trillion crash program to eliminate US dependence on volatile-region oil plus create an export capacity (see below) using every measure we could think of, than we come across two articles 2 US Department of Energy articles that suggest the US has 1.124 trillion barrels of conventional oil left.
Well, since the official figure you will see for US reserves is 21-billion barrels - just 3-years total consumption, you will be justified in asking what controlled substances has DOE been ingesting and why are we worrying about oil when we should be worrying about why DOE has not made this wonderful stuff available to everyone.
The mystery is resolved once readers recall we had run a piece some months back which said only one-third of available known oil had been recovered in the world. Let's back off a minute to go over the matter in admittedly simple terms.
Primary recovery of oil is when the pressure inside an oil field suffices on its own to push oil out through drilled holes. This is the easy, cheap oil, and yes, the US is just about out of it. Primary recovery gets 10-20% of the oil out.
Secondary recovery comes when you have to inject pressure into an oil field to force oil out. This can be done with water or with CO2. US has been using secondary recovery to get up the percentage of oil recovered to 20-40%. We knew about this technology as surely did most of our readers, its no secret. But whenever we did read about it, it was all "Waaaaaah! It's so expensive! Weep, moan, whine".
What was not known to us - we do have to earn a living and then there's Orbat.com to run, so it's not like we can spend 12 hours a day researching - is that the technology has now advanced to the point that once large quantities of CO2 are available, DOE figures US can comfortably recover 83-billion barrels more.
Now, our program calls for a reduction in use by 5-million of 20-million barrels a day, eliminating volatile region imports, and production from shale and coal of another 5-million barrels, which the US would export while blockading enemy oil. So, for example, if you didn't want the world to suffer when you blockade Iranian oil - a move that will destroy Iran in short order - you would put 2-million barrels a day on the market to make up for the shortfall.
But if all that's needed is CO2, we don't have to go the shale/coal route. That 5-million bbl/day could come from US fields for 50 years. And the nice thing about CO2? You've guessed it - you sequester it from existing coal plants. It can be shipped via pipeline - one project in the works has CO2 being shipped over a 300-km pipeline for use in injecting oil fields. So everyone should be ecstatically happy, including the greens.
You would still need programs that shift our energy from dirty to clean - nuclear, solar, wind etc etc because you still want to run vehicles on fuel cells and not on gasoline, for environmental reasons.
But we're talking about 83-billion barrels, where did the 1.124 trillion come from? Well, developing technologies that exist today can push up secondary recovery to 430-billion barrels. Next, geologists have found that under the secondary layer is yet another layer - we don't know if we are into tertiary recovery yet, perhaps readers can look at the articles closer than we did. But this additional layer is achievable with technologies we can conceive of, but still need to develop. That's how we get to 1-trillion plus barrels.
Yes, the stuff is expensive. And yes, the pure economics of oil say that oil companies will want to develop where they get the most money, so let's be off to distant parts of the world and worry about the strategic dependency later. Economic theory will also tell you when companies are making huge profits doing business as usual, they have no incentive to shift to new technologies.
The problem with all this is that as Orbat.com has repeatedly said, we are not paying $70/barrel for our oil. When you add in the cost of securing that oil - for example, obviously we wouldn't be in Iraq if it did not have oil aplenty and even there they've only scratched the surface because without oil Iraq would not be a strategic interest - we are paying way over $100/barrel. We did this exercise some years ago, we'll do it again soon.
You cannot in any case rely on market mechanisms when you are dealing with something so fundamental as energy procured from volatile regions. If for some reason the flow of Chinese toys to the US is disrupted, that is not a problem. But if the flow of oil is interrupted, we have a big problem. Energy independence, and indeed, the ability to export energy in support of US foreign policy, is a strategic national security issue. It requires top priority - right now.
The government will have to spend money to encourage conservation, demand reduction, and technologies for recovering secondary/tertiary oil because it's spending that and likely more anyway on defense of overseas production areas and the sea lanes.
So if companies say: "well, secondary CO2 recovery makes no sense for us because oil will come in at $80 barrel", then the government has to say "fine, we'll make up that $10" because right now the people, via the government, are paying more than that $10 AND there is no assurance overseas supply wont get disrupted. How much better to subsidize production of US oil than to subsidize Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The two articles can be found at http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/oilgas/eor/index.html and http://www.fossil.energy.gov/news/techlines/2006/06015-Oil_Recovery_Assessments_Released.html

0230 GMT June 29, 2007

Thank You Lord, There Is Justice In The World Part III Israel staged a large raid into the West Bank, looking for two Fatah gunmen. This follows a fatal raid yesterday into Gaza, which left 12 dead. The Palestine prime minister immediately accused Israel of trying to undermine Palestine-Israeli accord. Israel has done nothing of the sort. Did Fatah think because Israel is backing President Abbas it is immune from retaliation by Israel?
The Israelis are soon going to find out what they already know, but Mr. Bush style have deliberately decided to stick their heads in the sand because - like Mr. Bush - they have no good options: President Abbas has neither ability nor will to control everyone in the West Bank. People there are going to keep attacking Israel. They are going to be the ones who can maintain ideological purity because they are excluded by Fatah from feeding at the huge money trough the west and Israel are erecting for the West Bank. Fatah has always been corrupt - the reason for the rise of Hamas - and with hundreds of millions of dollars pouring in, it will continue being corrupt, but on a grander scale.
You can dye a pig yellow but you can't make it Paris Hilton. You read that first here, right after Hamas took over Gaza and the west decided it was in love with President Abbas.
The Egypt-Israel Double Agent's Death In London British police are treating the death as suspicious. From the Haaretz story we learn he was alone in his 4th floor with his housekeeper. The first she learned anything was amiss was when someone knocked on her door to tell her that her employer's body was on the sidewalk. We'd thought there was nothing more to this story as the revelation of his double-agent activities was made 4 years ago, but we hadn't considered the possibility of suicide - that's one of the theories being mooted. We'll get more details after the inquest. Times London says the agents friends say he could not have committed suicide. But he had been "very" unwell after various heart operations and may have fainted/fallen.
Absolutely Brilliant Military.com carries a Stars and Stripes story that says the Deputy Commander of 1st Cavalry Division, responding to "media-provoked rumour", denied that Iraq tours will be extended to 18-months from 15-months.
Great job, US senior commanders. As far as we know, the much-reviled Main Stream Media - which is in the main justly reviled and we've been part of the reviling - has said nothing about 18-month tours. In fact, the 4-5 US MSM media sources we read daily on the net didn't much concern itself with the extension to 15-months.
So is it possible that the brass started the rumor itself, rushed to say "no way", and blamed the media, who are the usual suspects? So now troops will go "Whew!" and not feel so bad about the 15-month tour? If so it's a brilliant move. Slimy, but brilliant.
That's neither here nor there. What we'd like to know from Stars and Stripes: since when is one-star a "top" US military official? And does the Deputy Division commander have it in writing from the Pentagon there will be no further extension? And even if he does, while we understand it's his job to mouth official propaganda, we'd love to know, does he actually trust the Pentagon to keep its word? It hasn't, so far.
Gulp: Kalyug Is Here, Yet Another Sign We'd mentioned the other day that Indians believe we are in Kayug, the 4th and last age of man before humankind is destroyed to rescue it from its total degeneracy and a new Golden Age begins.
Hint: If you were expecting another Paris Hilton story, stop reading now.
London Times says that the Rolling Stones have been charging up to $900 a seat in European concerts, and that a concert last month saw 33,000 of 70,000 seats remaining empty.
This is a double Kalyug smackdown: that 45% of seats at a Stones concert were empty AND that the Stones were charging $900.
Letter On Energy Independence From Brian A. Alletto He writes that, assuming our figures are correct, money will not be an issue. His concern is that: "there is no political will for doing any of these things, on either side of the political fence. The Republicans don't have the political backbone to do something on such a grand scale, the Democrats just want to put the Republicans into a permanent minority. Neither situation lends itself to crafting a workable solution to the problem.

I personally don't believe either that the greens "are patriots too." The greens in this country that would scream the loudest and thus derail any deal are merely anti-humanity. Anything that disrupts nature in the short-term they would be against."

0230 GMT June 28, 2007

Thank You Lord, There Is Justice In This World Part I 14 Iraqi insurgents busy rigging a tuck bomb translated themselves to the next world when the truck blew up on them. We're sure this sort of thing happens a lot and we don't come to hear about it because it's just a couple of people involved or the authorities don't come to know because obviously no one is going to complain. This time the authorities arrived in time to see locals shoveling body parts in a cleanup.
Thank You Lord, There's Justice In This World Part II Angry Iranians, upset at gasoline rationing that restricts them to 26 gallons/month, burned 12 gas stations. Iran says it imports 40% of its gasoline, we think its more. Till now people have been paying 40 cents a gallon. This is all costing the government money it doesn't have. BBC says that aside from a big budget deficit, inflation is running at 20-30%. As yet no information on if people will be able to buy more gas at whatever the new market price is.
Aside from the economics part, Iran wants to reduce its vulnerability to international sanctions that may be imposed over its N-program.
The real story, as far as we are concerned, is the very high inflation rate. Is it in way attributable to sanctions already imposed? Are people taking their money out of Iran? We suppose someone knows, and right now financial stats like that would be even more classified than military data. If the Iranian economy can be run into the ground without war, then we're all for it.
And the nice thing is, Iran's options are limited. What are they going to do about it - stop oil exports and destroy their economy further? Block Hormuz so no Iranian exports/imports take place? Hitting Iran economically is not like hitting Japan economically in the 1930s because of its China intervention. The Japanese had the military power to hit back - Pearl Harbor is the part Americans are most familiar with, but remember the Japanese also overran Southeast Asia to secure supplies of oil and other strategic materials. Talk about economic sanctions that backfired.
London Times gives more statistics. Gasoline demand in Iran is increasing at 11% a year (doubles every 7 years); $2.5-billion was allotted for fuel subsidies last year but $5-billion was spent; Iran uses older model cars so that for 8.5-million cars it uses as much gasoline as UK does for its 35-million.
Egyptian Agent For Mossad Dies In London Balcony Fall or died in the street due to a previous medical condition. London police are investigating, as they of course should. Reading about the matter in Haaretz, however, one gets no impression any dirty deed was afoot.
The gentleman was son-in-law to Egypt's Gamal Nasser, and his country people came to know of his knew of his spying for Israel - but he was assumed to be a double-agent. There was no reason for the Israelis to do him in, because they knew he was a double agent and didn't always tell them the truth. We need to get this out of the way to say what struck us about the Haaretz story.
Apparently the gentleman delayed telling Israel about the planned Egyptian 1973 attack for four hours. This has all been known for at least 14 years, when an Israeli intelligence person wrote about it to absolve himself of accusations he had failed in 1973. A libel suit resulted in 2004, so even to the public the double agent business was not news.
A researcher writing on the gentleman asked him about the 4-hour delay, and he told the researcher, what difference did 4 hours make?
Well, we have to stand up for the Israelis in this case because actually 4 hours made a world of difference. The thing is, the Egyptians achieved something that is near impossible to achieve: a zero-warning attack. They acted on Soviet advice, and kept mobilizing and demobilizing for months, moving units to the front and then moving them back. So when they moved in for the real attack, the Israelis went "oh brother, there they go again", gave big yawns, and went back to their routine business. If the Israelis had had just that 4 hours warning, they'd have been far readier to meet the attack because Israel is a tiny country and it doesn't take long to get units moving, and even less to alert/arm/fuel move units already at the front.
Of course, it may still have been for naught because the Egyptian offensive came in great force - if memory serves, they got 80,000 men across the Canal in a few hours, and the problem of the Israeli Air Force being neutralized for 72-hours by the SAM barrage - IsAF had not a clue this was going to happen - would have remained. But look, folks, on the Golan elements of a single Israeli tank brigade that made it to the pass a very few hours before Syrian offensive managed to buy enough time by blocking 5 Syrian tank and mechanized division long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Okay, okay, so the Suez is not the Golan, but no one can really argue that 4 hours made no difference.
Whatever one may think of the Soviets, after 1967 they worked very hard to get the Arab forces back in shape. They devised an operational plan that was carefully tailored to the limitations of the Arab forces. They taught the Arabs how to gain surprise - crossing a water obstacle like the Suez and breaching the huge sand embankments the Israelis had constructed was a considerable achievement. And blocking the IsAF for 72 hours by using a flak/missile defense that neither the Israelis nor the Americans had any clue about - that was brilliant. It was a great victory for the Soviets. As part of the peace, Israel had to give the Sinai back to Egypt.
And but for that one armored brigade - was it the 7th followed by the 188th? - the Syrians would have flooded the plain on the other side of the Golan. That would have pulled all Israeli forces to the Syrian front, leaving the Egyptians alone and giving them a chance to make another jump of 20-kilometers and the chance of getting their follow-up divisions across the Suez - the complications would have been endless.
So the Israelis performed brilliantly too, after the initial setbacks. When you compare the sheer courage of the Israelis at the Golan, the willingness to die, the amazing skill born of desperation with which they fought and yes, even the nobility of their cause, to their sordid occupation of Palestine and the even more sordid foray into Lebanon in 2006, you have to say what we say all the time about the Americans of World War 2 compared to the Americans of today: different times, different folks...
Courage, sacrifice, amazing skill born of desperation...that reminds of another army, does it not? The German Army in World War II which staged so many Golans that's it's almost impossible to count. You could reasonably argue that that Army - even though its cause was stinkingly rotten - may have been the best army the world has ever seen since the Roman Legions. Just 60 years later, the German people are so frightened to fight for what is right they are rapidly disintegrating their army - its down to eight combat brigades and a training brigade and even when it was twice that size, they couldn't get a single brigade into combat to help the US in Afghanistan, and nor did they want to. So pretty soon no will even expect anything of the Germans - the third largest economy in the world and the biggest European country if you leave out the non-European part of Russia's people. For the Germans too, different times, different folks...

The absolute best way for the US to destroy Iran...

...and other enemies like Saudi Arabia is to launch a crash program to substantially reduce oil consumption and to produce oil by other means such as shale and coal-to-oil. US should be installing enough capacity that it exports oil.
Oh yes, we are quite aware of the environmental issues. But freeze that thought for a minute.
Think of a crash program utilizing ALL technologies: more US drilling, coal-to-oil, shale oil, tar sands, N-power, vastly expanded solar/wind, cut transport use by increasing mileage standards/raising taxes. double mileage standards/cut demand by raising taxes.
Let's use round figures. US imports about 13-million bbl/day of crude/products. Lets say US needs to replace 5-million bbl/day that comes from unstable areas and it needs to export 5-million bbl/day to supply the world with oil when it blocks oil exports from countries that need smacking.
Okay, increasing mileage standards/decreasing use can cut 5-million bbl/day. Goodbye imports from volatile areas. Produce 5-million bbl/day with the combination of above technologies. That will be needed when you smack - say - Iran. WE blockade its ports and supply the world with the lost 2 million bbl/day or whatever. Let's arbitrarily assume the US government will need to subsidize this shift to the tune of $200-billion for 20 years. Throw $200-billion more into a mass expansion of N-power - that's the government contribution, the world is awash with liquidity, money for capital costs is not a problem. Why N-power? Because you need to start shutting down coal generation plants both for environmental reasons and to reduce the pressure on coal prices.
Next - back to the greens, and aside from Mr. Dick Cheney we are all greens at some level. Simple politics, and simple good stewardship of the earth says that if you are going to get the greens to agree even on national security grounds, they have to get something in return. So throw $200-billion over 20 years into each of the following: environmental cleanup of the damage caused by the coal-to-oil etc.; $200-billion into subsidies for clean new technologies - solar, wind, whatever; and $200-billion as subsides for mass transit. You are then spending $4 dollars to keep greens happy plus money to shift the existing base from coal to nuclear for every $1 for oil produced by other means.
Forget about Iraq for the moment, assume the regular defense/foreign aid/intelligence budget can be cut by $50 billion/year - say less than 10% of existing spending because we wont have to give a hang about the Middle East. You've paid off that trillion in 20 years. And in 20 years, with new technologies and a vast expansion of existing technologies like wind and solar producing results, you can start shutting down the extra coal and start drawing down on existing coal, which is used mainly for power plants.
You don't want to cut the defense budget? You don't like our figures and you want to - say - spend more on clean-up and subsides for solar/wind etc so less is needed for N-power etc? Okay, would you be happy with an additional $50-billion a year? That's $100-billion/year - what we spend on Iraq without a squeak. It means 0.8% of the current GNP - a lot less of the 2027 GNP. That money won't break any bank - and it will generate millions of good jobs for the US.
It would be nice to build a consensus on this, and if it is presented as a national security issue, and environmentalists are given iron-clad assurances that money will be spent on things they value - reduced consumption, clean-up, new clean technologies - and that the dirty stuff is temporary, they should find it palatable.
After all, no one wants to be held hostage to foreigners who hate America and use our money to try and destroy us. Environmentalists are patriots too.
But if consensus cannot be quickly built - well, the President keeps telling us we are at war, doesn't he? Time to put his money where his mouth is. In war you enact wartime measures.

What's The Reason For Islamic Fundamentalism?

Are Economic Conditions The Cause Of Islamic Extremism? It's easy to blame economic conditions. But think for a minute. Yes, many Islamic youth like to say its the difficulty of getting a job that leads them to feel alienated. If that were the case, why is it that non-Muslim immigrants in the west are not becoming extremists? To the extent Muslims face discrimination, so do all brown, black, and yellow skinned people. You don't see Hindus from India - or with the rarest of exceptions Muslims from India, for that matter - becoming extremists. Nor do you see black Africans joining the ranks. Or Chinese and Vietnamese.
If money was all there was to it, how to explain that the biggest financiers of extremism in the world are rich Saudis?
We're heard explanations based on sexual repression. First, anyone in a traditional society is sexually repressed. if sexual repression was the cause, you should have - by the editor's count - at least 1 billion crazed Indians, and at least 250-million crazed Americans if we're going to impartial. Okay, let's rephrase that. You do have 1-billion crazed Indians and 250-million crazed Americans, but that doesn't lead them to blow up men, women, and children in the name of religion. Second, in traditional societies it's actually easier to get married at a young age so that you don't need to be sexually repressed. People live in joint families, and a youth does not have to be earning a good independent living to get married, unlike in the west. Okay, so we know in the west you don't have to get married to have sex, but generally in traditional societies you do. Third, how to explain British extremists? Those boys have been born and brought up in Britain, they have jobs like anyone else, and they have girlfriends if they don't happen to live in the same house as their parents.
Another popular explanation is the religion itself. Christianity preaches love and forgiveness, Hinduism speaks of toleration and duty, Buddhism emphasizes harmony, Judaism is built on justice. Communism is about equality. Islam, however, speaks of jihad and killing non-believers, and that's what makes it different.
There are two problems with the religion explanation. First, Islam is a good deal more than just jihad and killing non-believers. We can't put the cart before the horse here. The issue is not the religion but some people's interpretation of the religion. After all, Christianity and Communism both had periods where slaughtering the non-believer was quite the thing and for justifications exponents of killing non-believers busily quoted their holy books.
Second, there is the inconvenient reality that the overwhelmingly majority of Muslims have no thought or intent to kill a non-believer, and they don't believe they are consequently bad Muslims. You could point to any Muslim community anywhere for an example, but since your editor is from India, he'd like to note that Indian Muslims are a mind-numbingly non-violent lot who wholly believe in tolerance towards all. Indeed, in Kashmir before the troubles you found one of the highest, most refined, most exquisite expressions of respect and tolerance in human history - and Kashmir is a Muslim majority state.
Let's Try Political Structure, a Most Favored Explanation of the so called American neo-conservatives - whatever that label means. The majority of Muslims live in highly politically repressive societies, true. So do the majority of Africans south of the Sahara, and every single Chinese, and most Communists, and till recently almost all Latins etc etc. We don't see any of them pushing jihad.
How About Failure To Come To Terms With Too Rapid Modernization? Same problem as above. Every part of the world, every religion, every economic system, every political entity, is under pressure from too rapid modernization. A popular cultish type of theory professes that the Japanese, who have rushed the hardest and fastest into the modernization thing, are going to be the first ones to crack and go berserk. Fine, but a jihad that forces ultra cell phones and game consoles on everyone is not of the same order as an Islamic Jihad.
Perhaps Its A Combination of All The Above That may be the best explanation, even though it doesn't explain anything either. Logically, it's quite accepted to observe facts and then come up with a theory, but we suspect when you take this theory and try to explain the facts, the theory will be left wanting.
Does It Matter? In the very short term, if we are only reacting to fundamentalist attack, no. September 11, 2001 is the perfect example. Someone declared war on the US. Neither their ideology, their reasoning, their religion, their national affiliation, their economic system or whatever mattered. The US had to respond, and it did, brilliantly.
But when you take the global offensive to pit our ideology against their ideology, which is what the US did starting with Gulf II, it very much matters that we understand the basis of Islamic fundamentalism.
After World War II ended, the US wasted no time confronting Soviet communism - there was not a moment to lose, the Soviets were swallowing up countries left and right. The US blocked the immediate Soviet expansion and went on the counteroffensive all over the world. But it did so with a very clear understanding of communism's appeal, its strengths and its weaknesses. The US-Soviet ideological war was far, far bloodier than the US-Islamic Fundamentalist war and it was truly global in scope, and it went on for half a century and required unprecedented financial and spiritual sacrifice to win.
When the US failed to follow through in coldly acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of communism, most notably in the sideshow called Indochina II, the result was disaster. Luckily for the US - and we believe for the world - the US got it right most of the time. It won without an American soldier killing a single Soviet soldier, or vice versa.
Think about that.

0230 GMT June 26, 2007

US Commanders Say Iraqi Security Forces Not Up To Job The BBC quotes US commanders leading the twin pushes north and south of Baghdad as saying the Iraqis are not up to holding cleared areas and there are insufficient US troops to do the job.
Our first reaction, frankly, was anger at being reminded how insanely stupid Washington is being. The basic premise of the surge, of the push in Baghdad, and now the push around Baghdad is that Iraqi forces would hold after US forces cleared. We don't know of ONE single analyst, civil or military, who thought for a fact the Iraqis could do their part. Please don't someone say "but the idea was to give the Iraqis time to stand up," because it's been three years and they haven't stood up diddly, and after three more years it's still going to be diddly.
The analysts who want to be positive hedged every statement with mights and coulds and possibles enough to choke a very large dragon, making their statements positively valueless. The basic fallacy of the surge was known before US troops began arriving. Why did the US government still order the surge, or if it insisted on a surge, why did it not call up the reserves, so that after the first 5 brigades went in another 5 were ready to follow and after them another 5 - and if neccessary another 5 after that?
Is the war in Iraq of utmost import or is it not? If it is, why are the American people not demanding that the government commit what it takes to win? If it is not, why are the American people not demanding the government pull out US troops?
Our second reaction, however, was a rhetorical question. We can go on blaming the government till the end of time. The point is the government has shown itself to be a bunch of incompetent morons on any level, foreign or domestic. So what's the point of blaming them?
Americans should be working to get rid of the government and everyone - regardless of political affiliation - who equivocates, temporizes, rationalizes.
Come on people, America is a democracy and we all have a bigger responsibility to our troops and our flag than to sit on the couch watching Paris Hilton and baseball while chugging down cold brew and burping and farting from every orifice.
Isn't there an American saying: If the people lead, the leaders will follow?" We saw that on a sticker on a car in Takoma Park, Maryland - where the editor lives - which city is so slobberingly liberal that it has - get this - a city law that says the US government is forbidden to transit N-weapons through the cityII This is the city that keep trying to ban people from smoking outdoors in their own yards!! This is the city that actually has a volunteer unpaid official whose job it is to ensure the city has no trade with Burma!! Before you ask: there is no interdict on trade with China.
Okay, so our point is, have we sunk so low in taking our responsibilities to our country seriously that your editor has to quote a Takoma Park bumper sticker to make his case?
The Indians have a saying when they despair of what's happening around them: "Kalyug has arrived". Kalyug is the Age of Iron, the fourth age of humanity, and represents the nadir of everything good and decent in the world. We start with the Age of Gold, go to the Age of Silver, fall to the Age of Copper, and then - you just can't go lower than this - the last stage, the Age of Iron. Things get so bad that Vishnu's 10th avtar, Kalki, is incarnated on earth. He enters riding a white horse and ends the world by fire. Those who are deserving are saved. Those not deserving perish. A new world is born, and it's the Age of Gold again. Does this sound familiar to our Christian readers?
When your editor reads news like the above headline, he rants and raves. Eventually he gets exhausted, mutters "Kalyug has arrived," and goes back to doing what he was doing. And no, it's isn't watching TV while glugging beer. The editor goes back to updating another orbat. It's the turn of French Antarctica. Infinitely more meaningful than discussing the US's Iraq policy and the lethargy of its citizens. Bah and double Bah.
Mr. Putin And ABM: Just Desserts Served in this case a lump of coal painted to look like chocolate cake. NATO says it supports the US on its European missile defense plan. Now, Mr. Putin, sir, if you don't mind us giving a bit of advice. This is what happens when you act the bully. Old NATO greeted the US proposal for an ABM battery in Central Europe with no enthusiasm at all. We are not saying if you'd kept quiet NATO would have blocked the deployment. The US is highly unpopular in Brussels these days, but people do generally go along with the US for the sake of alliance solidarity. But you'd have gotten a lot more mileage out of the anti-US lot had you not shown your bear claws.
Okay, so you're going to say "But it worked in the 1980s: our threats got the European public to stop GLCM deployments AND we got away with our SS-20 deployments." Well, yes, the Soviet Union did win that one, and we're not going to say we understand why it worked then except to say even for a brain-dead Better-Red-Than-Dead Euro, there has to be a difference between an offensive weapon, the GLCM, and a defensive one, the ABM.
Yo, German Dude, What's With You? Tom Cruise wants to make a movie in Germany about Count von Stauffenberg, a hero for the ages. He needs to film on German DOD property. The Germans say "No way, Jose," or whatever it is they say in Germany. Why?
Because Tom Cruise is a Scientologist. Germany does not recognize Scientology, saying it is a fraud intended to raise money.
Look, Bonn. At some level ALL religions are frauds intended to raise money, if that's the way you want to look at it. Is Mr. Cruise going to be raising money for his religion when he is in Germany? We don't think so. Germany guarantees freedom of religion. That's what makes it superior to - say - Saudi Arabia or Iran. As such, it's not for the German government to say what's a religion and what's a fraud. You're playing right into the hands of Islamic fanatics who doubtless are smirking away at this very minute. "You can see there is censorship of religion in Germany, so what's wrong with our censoring religions we don't agree with?"
Let's hear your answer to that.

0230 GMT June 25, 2007

6 UN Lebanon Peacekeepers Killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol. Hezbollah condemns the act. We had predicted the UN force would become a target; we're actually a bit surprised the first attack has taken so long. UNIFIL II is in Lebanon to serve western interests: the protection of Israel and the defense of Lebanon's pro-western government. People opposed to those interests - Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, Al-Qaeda, to name a few - were bound to make UNIFIL a target. Nonetheless, it's too early to say how the situation will develop.
Six Anbar Sheiks Killed In Baghdad Blast They are part of the anti AQ Anbar alliance and were meeting at a hotel. There's not much to say here.
Baqubah Operation Almost Over We were confused by earlier pronouncements by the US military as reported in the media, probably because the statements were not detailed in context. These statements said it would take months to finish off insurgents in Baqubah, and we didn't quite see why it would take that long, particularly as within days the US Army said it controlled 80% of the city.
We now learn that perhaps only 80-100 insurgents remain. What the Army meant was that after cleaning out Baqubah it would stay in Diyala province for several months after which the Iraqi security forces would be fully stood up.
Well, the Battle of Baqubah it wasn't. Either most of the rank-and-file also got away before the operation began, in addition to 80% of the leadership, or else there weren't that many insurgents to begin with. Still, it's a victory in itself that there was no major battle.
Simultaneously, however, the Army needs to tell us: how many times have the Iraqi security forces in Diyala been stood up, and why is it going to be different this time? It takes just a couple of smacks across the face to collapse Iraqi security forces. We don't think the US Army can do anything to stop them collapsing again. It has nothing to do with insufficient weapons and training. You could train and equip the Iraqis till the cows come home and are sent to the glue factory, and you aren't going to change the realities.
Among the realities is that insurgents target the families of security personnel; nothing takes a man out of the battle quicker than coming home and finding his son kidnapped or his daughter shot. Also among the realities is that by necessity the bulk of Iraqi forces are locally recruited; they immediately fall prey to local politics and then there goes the neighborhood.
We leave the topic with this thought. One reason for the quick US success was that several hundred Sunni fighters operated on the US side. Does the US government think that now AQ is forced out of Baqubah and will be forced out of Diyala that these men will become kissy-faces with the Americans? Obviously not. An Arab alliance lasts as long as the day is long. First the local Sunnis were killing Americans. Then AQ arrived and began killing the Americans and the local Sunnis. So then the local Sunnis began killing AQ as well as Americans. AQ proved stronger than the local Sunnis, so the locals joined the Americans to kill AQ. Now that AQ in Diyala is on its way out, the logical next step is? Complete the circle, folks, complete the circle. Yes, the Sunnis will go back to killing Americans. Not one single factor that led the Sunnis to oppose the Americans has changed.
Can We At Least Talk Straight, People? The other day the very smart senator from Michigan, Mr. Carl Levin, summarized his opposition to the Iraq war. We didn't read his tract with any attention, because in America to get any attention you have to so thoroughly overstate your case that you lose all credibility even if your argument was logical to begin with.
Today, a young former Army officer who served in Iraq writes a point-by-point rebuttal of Mr. Levin's arguments. The good senator had written a sort of "What would Lincoln do?" piece. The young former officer thumps him nicely on that one. He notes that President Lincoln chose to fight a bloody and unpopular war because he believed he was right, the implication being Mr. Lincoln did the Right Thing. We heartily agree it was the Right Thing.
But then our young former officer heads straight off the rails. He implies that Mr. Bush - and the next president - should persist in the Iraq civil war just as Mr. Lincoln persisted.
We are very fond of young people - your editor was once young, or so some anecdotal evidence suggests - so we merely went "Tut, tut, sigh, sigh, there go the young people again." With nothing more than a gentle reproof in the direction of the former young officer, we'd like to note there is a huge difference between Mr. Lincoln, the American president, persisting to win the American Civil War, and Mr. Bush/his successor(s), American president/s, persisting in trying to win the Iraq Civil War.

0230 GMT June 24, 2007

Hamas In First Battle With Gaza Criminal Clan says London Times. Hamas is seeking to extend its control over Gaza and has ordered everyone else to disarm. There was several hours fighting at a compound owned by a Gaza family allied to Fatah that is known for drug smuggling. The battle ended inconclusively: the clan said they would hand over their weapons; a Hamas source said they turned in only one-fifth, and when media spoke to a family member, he claimed even less had been handed in, just 6 firearms. So clearly the matter is not settled as yet.
Times says there may be as many as 400,00 weapons in Gaza. Read the article for a very interesting background on the criminal gangs of Gaza. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1977472.ece
Fighting Still Continues in Lebanon Camp Last week the Lebanon Army said it had defeated the Fatah Islam militants and the survivors had agreed to surrender. Yesterday 3 soldiers died while defusing a booby-trap. That's neither here nor there because the enemy can surrender and you are still left with the cleanup. But Associated Press says there was more fighting, with the army saying militants from within the camp had fired on them and they were responding with artillery. A fourth soldier was killed by a sniper. That implies the battle isn't over yet and that Fatah Islam is still holding out.
"Very Clever People" Working On Gitmo Closure says a Washington source.
Okay, people, you've been warned: run for your lives, forget about saving your car, your mother-in-law, or even your wife. When "very clever people" get to work on a problem in Washington, there is but one certain result: a massive failure of unbelievable proportions.
US Second-in-Command For Iraq Calls Departing AQ "Cowards" He says they ran away from Baquba (we notice we've been spelling the city name wrong) leaving second-rankers and ordinary fighters to face the American offensive.
Normally we refrain from criticizing American military leaders. But this general really needs to learn to keep his lip zipped.
If he has read his Insurgency 101, he will have figured out that insurgents cannot match government forces in firepower, numbers, capabilities etc. in Phase I and II. Its only in the last and final phase can they stand up and fight. So refusing to fight when the battle conditions are unfavorable is not cowardice, its basic insurgent tactics.
As for leaving the others behind while the leaders flee. The problem here is that AQ embraces martyrdom - remember the suicide bombers? 90% KIA rate. Of the 10% that do not die, at least half are the victims of a bad bombmaker. "Victims" because, you see, these lads want to die. So when they push the button and nothing happens they are victims, get it? The further problem is that apparently everyone and his camel knew the Americans were up to something. They had lots of time to flee if they wanted - AQ is not a conventional army, you cannot order an AQ fighter to stand if he doesn't want to stand. If they didn't flee, it's not because their leaders betrayed them, it's because they didn't want to go. Betrayal is when you're trapped and you tell your men "hey, I'm just going up the street to check on a position" and then you slip away. This is not what happened in this city.
American generals generally speak in restrained fashion and this earns them respect. But this commander has been getting a little overenthusiastic in his speech of late. He needs to stop. Trash talking doesn't work when you're facing men so determined to kill you that they welcome death.
This general needs to face up to the facts of life. Baqubah will be a tactical success. How can it be otherwise? No one, but no one can stand up to the Americans in a fight - in Vietnam the US never lost a battle of company-size or larger. But with 80% of the AQ top leaders gone, it's going to be a strategic failure.
AQ Reinfiltrating Falluja American military tells New York Times. Now this, we have to admit, is a real blow to us. We've been saying high and low, these past few years, that Fallujah was a real success. Not only did the US completely smash the Fallujah fighters, who had spent months fortifying their positions and were so convinced they would beat the Americans they didn't bother fleeing, it kept the insurgents out of Fallujah.
Moreover, we've been supporting the concept of the Anbar Alliance even if we are very concerned that after AQ is defeated those same allies will turn on the US.
If AQ is getting back into Fallujah, then this is a very serious development. The implications are many, but chief among them is that once again, for the gazillionth time, the Iraqi security forces have failed. The US gave them everything they needed to succeed, including 2 1/2 years of freedom from enemy attack. There is now yet another major example of why the "Iraqification" strategy won't work and this is not good.
We can almost hear our much-admired friend Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail saying "You don't get it, Ravi." Bill put his money where his mouth, persuaded his wife, family, and friends to back him financially and morally, and set out for Iraq to report the war from the military's side. He obviously did not need his four feather pillows, four teddy bears, three daily squares, and two changes of clean underwear a day, which is your editor's minimum requirement for going anywhere. Mr. Roggio is a great correspondent, and we don't say this lightly - our readers know we are not much for praising anyone, except the editor, of course.
We suspect Bill will say "there are no absolutes in insurgency, Ravi. You've said yourself it took India 40 years in Nagaland, 30 in Mizoram, 20 in Tripura, and 17 in Kashmir to bring things under control. And you will agree that those insurgencies are by no means won. There is ebb and there is flow. You have to be in for the long haul.
All we can say is that at no point did the Union of India deny its army whatever manpower was required. There were 200,000 security forces opposing 3,000 enemy fighters in Kashmir - the Indian army does not believe in using firepower against its people, and it believes the only way to do insurgency is on foot, day in and day out. If you look at the topography of Kashmir, you'll see why it took 200,000 troops. The thing is, the Union gave its army all the time and manpower, and whatever money it could afford because the Union was fighting on Indian territory for India's future. And it never had to rely on a third party to sustain the fighting, as the US is having to do in Iraq. And it had no demands anywhere else.
In all of Iraq, the US has less than 30,000 infantry facing insurgents/auxiliaries who likely equal the entire US force of 160,000. The US is spending colossal sums of money each and every week. And while America is so focused on Iraq, the enemy is busy opening new fronts.
If Iraq is that important, we've said time and again, let's have the US President/Congress declare war, lets call up all the reserves, lets bring back the draft, lets raise taxes, and lets prepare the nation for a 10, 20, 30, 50 year war.
But fighting Iraq the way the US is doing is a complete and utter recipe for disaster.

0230 GMT June 23, 2007

US On Offensive In Iraq Normally this would be great news: three US brigades are fighting to clear long-entrenched Sunni/AQ areas south of Baghdad, and three are fighting north of Baghdad, to clear out Babuquah and environs. The offensive is going well. More than 170 insurgents are reported killed and 700 suspects detained. Most of the suspects will be let go, but still, this means that already around 300 insurgents are out of the game. Moreover, the US intends to continue the offensive for at least 60 days, and perhaps even 120 days.
But when you read between the lines, you find there are two lines to a standard A4 page. Which is to say there is very much more that is being left unsaid than is being said. This is not a glass half-full/half-empty situation. This is a situation where even a half-blind person without his glasses can tell there are but 3 drops in the glass.
Where to start? We could start with the unhappy reality that the US has not even entered many of the current areas for three years. Since the war is 4 years old, and the insurgency began to take hold in 2004, it's another way of saying after preliminary operations, the US never returned. Look at this another way and ask yourself: what would your assessment have been if in Vietnam if the US left alone the areas immediately around Saigon for three whole years? We suspect you would have been hollering "this is the worst failure the US military has ever done". You would have been demanding the heads of everyone involved, from the President on downwards.
This business of 3 years absence is being casually tossed around as just another statistic. In reality is shows there is absolutely no accountability for the way the Iraq War is being fought. No one is being held responsible.
We could, of course, go back further and note that when the US arrived in Vietnam, it was to face an already years old insurgency where the opponent was one of the world's most skilled guerilla force. In Iraq, there were no insurgents when Baghdad fell. The Iraq insurgency dates from after the US declared victory. And still no one is being held responsible.
Now let's continue this dismal litany. At exactly the same time the General officer Commanding US 25th Division is proclaiming that the bottom line is the complete destruction of the insurgents, and we are being told Al Qaeda is bottled up in Babuquah, we are being told by an other military source that three-quarters of AQ slipped away before the cordon was in place. So the best we can hope for is the destruction of one-quarter of AQ in this critical target city. This is victory?
Even as the US military - justifiably - reports good daily tactical success it is watching other areas of Iraq where it is not present with apprehension. One such area is Mosul in the north. Now, the north was the first area to be pacified, so much so the US withdrew almost all troops to man the first Baghdad surge, and things remained reasonably peaceful. But what happened is that insurgents started to build up in the north, and this accelerated when the Marines started succeeding in Anbar: the insurgents pushed out went to Baghdad and they went north. Today the US has - get this, people - a single infantry battalion in the Mosul area. So, going by past experience, it's just a matter of time before the north starts blowing up.
Southern Iraq has already blown up and is on its way to becoming the next no-go area. As for Anbar, we've predicted that since AQ is taking a serious thrashing at the hands of the local tribes - an excellent tactical success by US forces, AQ will change its tactics. It will stop acting like it has declared Anbar an independent country where it makes the rules. It is likely negotiating with the local tribes right now, promising a more humble profile in exchange for ceasefires and a return to joint action against the Americans. Sometime next year, Anbar is going to blow up again. Heck, even Saddam the Dictator couldn't control Anbar. But in his day, it didn't matter because there was no Al Qaeda. The situation was exactly akin to Pakistan west of the Indus River. The locals left the government alone, the government left the locals alone. But now neither the Americans nor the Baghdad government can leave Anbar alone because it is not just the AQ stronghold, it is the Sunni stronghold. Cant leave it alone, cant bring it under control. What does this spell, folks? Strategic failure.
Underpinning the current American success in the Baghdad area is a foundation of quicksand called Iraqi security forces. Every single American general, analyst, politician correctly says, over and over, the Iraq War has to be won by the Iraqis. And no one we know, not even the most wildly enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq war, believes for a moment the Iraqi security forces can do the job.
That brings up the difference between Stay-in-Iraq proponents and Leave-Iraq proponents. The Stay types say it will take years, decades even, for the Iraqi forces to do the job and we must stay till then. The Leave types are divided into two subgroups. One - Orbat.com included - says the war isn't worth it regardless; our opposition is because we say US forces are needed for more urgent tasks and Iraq cannot be kept together no matter what. The other bases their opposition on ideological and moral grounds, which is it's right.
Whatever your position, Stay, Leave, or variations, the sad reality remains that for all the skill, energy, and determination the Americans are showing in the current offensive, for all the tactical victories the US Army will win, the offensive is going to fail in strategic terms.
Because ultimately it is not the job of the Americans to care more for Iraq than the Iraqis care for their country. And it's not as if we don't know that from Vietnam.
Zimbabwe Dollar Now 300,000 To US$1 On January 20 the exchange rate was an already mind-numbing low of Z$3000 to US$1. A week ago it was Z$100,000 to US$1. Now it is Z$300,000.
In 1995, when the Zimbabwe economy was still reasonably healthy, the rate was Z$10. By 2000, when the current decline set in, it was Z$50.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's official rate is Z$250. The overnight funds bank rate is 600%,
The official inflation rate is 4000% for 2007, with half the year to go. The IMF says if policies do not change, the rate could be 5000% for 2007, and 6800% for 2008. But - what fun - the unofficial inflation rate for 2007 is 11,000%.
What we have been unable to figure out is that Zimbabwe knocked 3 zeroes off its currency in August 2006. So is the current rate actually Z$3-million in terms of the old Zimbabwe dollar?
So whose fault is this economic mess? Why, obviously the white man's, sir.
But President Mugabe can take comfort: in 1914, the German Mark was 4 to the US dollar. Hyperinflation followed World War I. By the time the currency was stabilized in 1923 or 1924, the rate was approximately 4-trillion marks to the US dollar. Phew.

0230 GMT June 22, 2007

Neither is there any news today, nor does your editor feel in the mood for a good rant.