0230 GMT November 30, 2007
No news, so we climb back on some of our fave soap-boxes.
Iraq: Everyone Is Unhappy About The Security Improvement Before we proceed with our rant, can we request people refrain from labeling people who support as "right-wing" and those who oppose as "left-wing"? Wings have nothing to do with it. Plenty of righties oppose Iraq, and while we know very few lefties, we can see that you can be a leftie and still support Iraq. For example, if you are a rabid left socialist but also back Israel, then the Iraq intervention is supportable.
Hokay, back to the rant. The pro-Iraq lot are upset at what they see as the anti-Iraq lot's refusal to admit that security has improved. The anti-Iraq lot are upset at what they see the pro-Iraq's lot refusal to see that (a) had the US not destabilized Iraq, there would be no issue of improving stability, and (b) if security has improved, shouldn't we planning our exit?
While the pro- and anti- crowds stamp around locking horns, let us slip aside and restate our point of view. We care not a whit whether the US is losing or winning. The US has decided, for whatever reasons, that it can maintain only a small army. Thus, the US needs to send ground troops only to the most important conflicts. Afghanistan/Pakistan a much more important conflict than Iraq when we speak of the GWOT. Ergo, take the troops out of Iraq and send them Afghanistan/Pakistan.
If the US is winning, jolly good, pip pip, God Save President Bush, America Forever and so on, now can we stop playing in our sand box and get out into the real world?
if the US is losing, no dishonor, no shame. The US did what it came to do, now it needs to get out instead of continually raising the bar. Lets pat ourselves on the back, and stop playing in our sandbox and get out into the real world.
Nawaz-i-Sharif Organizing Pakistan Poll Boycott according to Pakistan's Frontier Post. He is in touch with all major political parties. He says that the President's resignation from the Army means little and as long as certain conditions are not met, the polls will not be fair.
We should explain that Mr. Sharif is actually the only one who would benefit from a boycott. When General Musharraf sent him off, the General took over Mr. Sharif's political party as his civilian front. That lot has grown fat with the spoils of the land in the last 8 years, and don't want Mr. Sharif back. If a poll boycott is successful, Mr. Sharif gets time to wheel and deal and strengthen his position.
Ms. Benazir Bhutto's party, on the other hand, remained more or less faithful to her during her exile. So she doesn't need to engage in the same shenanigans.
A major political party has already said boycotting the polls will only play into President Musharraf's hands because his stooges will get elected and dominate the provincial assemblies and parliament.
We think this party is correct. We are also getting this feeling that - despite our depictions of President Musharraf as weak and battered - he may actually have played his cards very skillfully and may emerge the champ after all.
For example, Pakistan's political parties can be counted on to destroy each other. That leaves the Prez the last person standing. Another example: Mr. Sharif is not covered by the amnesty extended to Ms. Bhutto. Any minute now a "concerned" citizen can go to the Supreme Court - who are now all pally-wally with the Prez - and demand the government arrest Mr. Sharif and Company on outstanding corruption charges. Bye-bye Mr. Sharif, see you in 10 years.
Similarly, a "concerned" citizen can challenge the amnesty to Ms. Bhutto. The Prez no longer needs her as she tried to stab him in the back when she thought he was going down. So it will be bye-bye Ms. Bhutto, see you in 10 years.
On any case, can we once again ask the west not to insult itself by going on and on about Ms. Bhutto as the savior of Pakistan? Yes, you can say a horribly inept and horribly corrupt civilian leader is better than a modestly corrupt and moderately effective ex-military leader. But then say just that and don't go all dewy-eyed about Ms. Bhutto and democracy.
And if its cooperation in the GWOT, the Prez is still a better bet. He will go 5% of the way with you (that's right, five percent). Ms. Bhutto will talk big, the Army will simply yawn and refuse her orders, and then you won't get even the 5%.
The Pakistan Army still holds all the cards in GWOT cooperation, and Pakistan's interests are absolutely opposed to America's.
President Bush Allegedly Involved In Plame Leak We should have published this a week ago in all fairness to Mr. Richard Cheney who we frequently - but en passant - dumped on re. the Plame case. The President's former press secretary is to publish a book in which he says the President himself was also responsible.
Our response: "So big deal". Ms. Plame was not covert. Ah, say opponents of Mr. Bush/Cheney, but they lied about the matter. They must be impeached.
Look, people, we were angry that Mr. Scooter Libby, the Veep's chief of staff, was convicted of lying to a federal jury investigating the leak, particularly since if he told any lies it was to protect his boss. We don't give a hang about the self-promoting couple of Plame and Wilson - the latter probably also guilty of crimes such as leaking confidential government documents. We don't give a hang what Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney said. Washington is a hardball kind of town. You can't go up against the President and Veep to advance your own agenda and then weep when you get smacked right back. This is not crimes, this is politics.
We believed the impeachment of Mr. Bill Clinton for lying to a jury was wrong. We believed the trial and conviction of Mr. Scooter Libby was wrong. We equally believe any impeachment of the President/Veep would be wrong.
A legal type pointed out to us that the law was the law, and no one is above it, not even the president. If you lie to a jury you strike at the heart of the American judicial system.
Fine. So change the stupid law to separate overtly political matters from criminal matters. The law can be an ass, but why does it have to be an ass's ass?
Saudi Arabia's "Qatif Girl" Independent of UK has managed to get an interview with the married Shia teenager who was repeatedly raped by seven men and then sentenced to 200 lashes. Her sentence was doubled from 90 lashes because her lawyer dared go to the media to protest against her original sentence. He, of course, has been disbarred.
Read this story to understand the kind of slime the US has allied itself with in the name of "energy security" and "Mideast stability".
We completely fail to understand how a people like the Americans who hold the sanctity of individual rights paramount can have any dealings with the Saudis. Everyone and his kid sister has been dumping on President Musharraf of Pakistan for violating human rights. But re. the Saudis, all we get is cautious statements expressing distress, disappointment, and concern. Hey, Washington and America's establishment: how about your ever-so-good buddies the Saudis who everyday commit crimes against you in the form of terrorists and money given to terrorists? You have any time to condemn this sorry lot for human rights violations or are you too busy fighting for crumbs from the table of the Royal House of Saud?
We found the reference to 40% of foreign fighters in Iraq being Saudi http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3187098.ece The US extensively interrogates captured terrorists and suspected terrorists. So are we to assume that until now the US didn't know till now? Or should we assume the US government knew but has has been blaming Syria - 8% of foreign terrorists - to deflect attention from its best buds, the Saudis?
We have a suggestion: why don't all those who think Saudi Arabia is so great leave America and go live over there? They might change their mind fast.
0230 GMT November 29, 2007
Pakistan Orbat for NWFP/FATA Mandeep Singh Bajwa says that reports saying Pakistan has withdrawn troops from Jammu and Kashmir for the NWFP/FATA are wrong. Orbat.com speculates that the reports, from India, are the result of an inexperienced correspondent misunderstanding what was told to him by his military source.
There are 17 brigades committed to NWFP/FATA as well as almost the entire Frontier Corps. Six of the brigades are from 7 and 9 Divisions, which have their peacetime cantonments in the region. Six brigades are infantry from Army Reserve North. ARN is normally committed to the area between the River Chenab and the River Sutluj as a strike force, it is possible that the Indian media thought troops had been withdrawn from Jammu and Kashmir. Three brigades are from XXX Corps, a holding formation that protects the Pakistan border between Suliemanke and Rahim Yar Khan. One brigade is a corps reserve for IV Corps, which protects Lahore-Kasur. The last brigade is infantry from Army Reserve South.
While reinforcing formations have left their tanks behind, their mechanized infantry is deployed mainly for convoy escort. Integral artillery regiments and the whole of the aviation combat group with ARS has also moved.
In Swat alone there is one division plus 10 wings (battalions) of the Frontier Corps. This is a huge deployment to deal with a small area and 500 insurgents. We are waiting word from Mr. Bajwa as to why Pakistan feels 20,000 regular/paramilitary troops are required for Swat.
Pakistan Army Says Swat Mainly Under Control and that the insurgent leader has abandoned his 2-square-kilometer headquarters and fled with his supporters into the mountains. The Frontier Post of Pakistan says it was unable to to contact the insurgent leader's spokesperson due to a complete breakdown of telecommunications in the Swat valley.
BBC On Improvement In A Baghdad Neighborhood http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7116717.stm
Lebanon Jerusalem Post says that a consensus is emerging to make the Army chief president of Lebanon. He is considered neutral between the pro- and anti-Syria factions, the dispute between whom has left the country without a president.
The newspaper emphasis that this is by no means a done deal. All sides are to meet on November 30 for the fourth attempt to elect a president.
Oil Falls To $92 on rumors of additional OPEC production and a slower than expected drawdown of US stocks.
The World's Five Worst Airports according to Foreign Policy magazine are: Dakar in Senegal; New Delhi in India; Mineralnye Vody in Russia; Baghdad International, Iraq; and Charles de Gaulle in Paris. Congrats, New Delhi! Well done! Of course, we don't know how the list was compiled. The inclusion of CDG Paris is a surprise to us, but then the French, you know...
With the Indians, we suspect, the problem is the opposite. The Indians want to hug you, and squeeze you, and make you theirs forever. If you like to keep a distance between yourself and other human beings, don't go to India. Indians are den animals: they seek comfort in piling up together, and that all may be strangers makes no difference. Personally, your editor thinks its quite charming. By the way, don't read your newspaper on an Indian bus: people will take away pages that you are not immediately reading. Like everything else in India, reading a newspaper in an Indian bus is a communal activity. Think: 1.1-billion people and they all will take you to their collective bosom for endless group sessions of hugs and cuddles. "You Will Never Be Alone" is India's motto.
Venezuela: US Is Right To Stay Hands-Off One of the few points on which we agree with the Administration is its hands-off policy on President Hugo, our favorite dictator - and soon to be our favorite madman, judged by the pace which he is separating from reality. Read the following quoted from CNN and you will see why the US is right to stand aside - the man will destroy himself given time.
In the past few years, the countries have sparred over everything from oil prices to free trade to democracy. But this year, the United States has studiously avoided being drawn into diplomatic disputes with the ally of Cuba and Iran.
In that vacuum, Chavez has focused on other targets.
Earlier on Wednesday, he called for an investigation into the U.S.-based TV network CNN on suspicion it might have subliminally instigated an assassination attempt against him.
Hours later, the former paratrooper also broke off diplomatic ties with Colombia after calling its president a U.S. pawn for canceling his role as a mediator in talks with Colombian rebels aimed at freeing a large number of hostages.
0230 GMT November 27, 2007
Chad Fighting Resumes after a month-long ceasefire expires. The government claims hundreds of rebel dead; the rebel say they have lost 17 men while killing 100 government troops. The clash took place about 15-km from the Sudan/Darfur border.
In September the UN cleared a 3000-troop joint EU-UN force for Chad and the Central African Republic. Its mission would be to protect refugees who have spilled into these two countries as a result of the Dafur war. Several hundred police would provide civil protection to refugees and the force, mainly French with a British general in command, would protect the police as well as refugees from military threats.
Somalia Internally Displaced Persons Approach 1-million Of these, 450,000 have fled Mogadishu's continuing battles between the Islamic Courts Union and the Somalia government which is backed by Ethiopian forces.
The CIA Factbook, which despite its provenance uses open sources, estimated Somalia's 2007 population at 9 million.
Oil Still Holding At $99 We thought the $100 barrier would have been breached by now. Some experts say, however, that this will not happen unless some kind of geopolitical trouble spooks the market. Nonetheless, prices are expected to remain above $80 at least into 2009.
Pakistan Releases 2 Taliban Leaders in exchange for troops held captive by a local Taliban warlord, says Pakistan's Frontier Post http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ts&nid=630 .
The Frontier Post reports the government as saying its troops control all exit/entry routes in Swat and Shangla Districts. Parachinar town in Swat is said to be back in government hands, and Pakistani forces have taken control of dominating mountain top positions.
We are not going to judge Pakistan's imperatives in this swap. The Taliban have no compunction in executing Pakistani prisoners and it is natural the Pakistan government would want its men back alive.
We are told that we should be careful when talking price to specify which price because there are several. For example, OPEC crude sells in the US at a $2-$3 discount against West Texas Intermediate, which has less than .5% sulfur. There is an OPEC price based on an average of 7 types of crude. Brent crude is often used as the benchmark oil price.
From Feisal Khan Re. Mandeep Singh Bajwa's thoughts on India sending troops to Afghanistan: Even if the Indian government was delusional enough to offer a mountain division to ISAF in Afghanistan, how would the Indians keep it supplied? Do they propose to conquer the Northern Areas and use the road links from there? Use Karachi/Bin-Qasim? Use the US to arm-twist Pakistan into cooperating? How long do you think Musharraf would last then? Or any other Pakistani government that allowed Indian troops into Afghanistan.
If the Indians were to put a division into Afghanistan, it would make the ill-fated IPKF venture in Sri Lanka look like a walk in the park. Every nut-case in the NWFP and Punjab, and there is no shortage of them, would home in on the Indian troops. Of course, I can see why the NATO members want Indian troops there but even Indians can't be stupid enough to want to intervene even if the Pakistanis are going to replace the pro-Indian Tajiks with pro (one hopes!) Pakistani Talibs!
I used to think that no one was as stupid as Pakistani generals day dreaming about liberating Central Asia from the Soviets but if there are actually Indians thinking about intervening in Afghanistan, they take over as the world's worst strategic thinkers. Get used to the fact that India does not matter much outside of South Asia. After/If Pakistan collapses, and you've established a protectorate over Punjab and Sind and fought your way through the Khyber Pass, then consider pacifying Afghanistan.
0230 GMT November 26, 2007
Hezbollah Says US To Blame For Lebanon Impasse says the Jerusalem Post. We absolutely agree it is the US's fault, and we 100% support the US position, which is that at all costs a pro-Syria/Iran president is to be avoided.
We do not object to Syria or Iran having their due share of influence in Lebanon: after all, it's their backyard. We object to their controlling Lebanon to benefit their objectives at the cost of a multi-ethnic democratic Lebanon.
Normally, we'd say it is Lebanon's business what it does. But Lebanon is too weak to stand up for itself in the face of determined Syrian/Iranian assaults on its polity. Lebanon has always been a fragile state because of the need to keep a balance between Christians, Druze, Sunnis, and Shias. Anything that makes more difficult the business of maintaining a balance is to be condemned and the west must do what is neccessary to counter factions that do not contribute to stability in Lebanon.
We fully realize our position leaves us vulnerable to being accused of overlooking Israel's role in destabilizing Lebanon. But we ask readers to remember that we have repeatedly condemned Israel for attacking the whole of Lebanon in 2006 just because Hezbollah had kidnapped two of its soldiers.
Further, like it or not, there is a qualitative difference in Israel's objectives compared to Syria/Iran objectives. Israel does not want to impose its will on Lebanon; it simply wants a neutral state that will not pose a threat. If that were acceptable to Syria/Iran, the US would have no objection to which president runs Lebanon.
The issue of the next president is now to be decided November 30. Failing an agreement, there is a high probability that trouble will erupt, plunging Lebanon back into the chaos it experienced through the 1980s and 1990s.
The outgoing president - anti-Syrian - has declared a state of emergency and asked the army to keep peace. Hezbollah and Company say - correctly we are told - that there is no constitutional authority for an outgoing president to do this.
But we feel no sympathy for Hezbollah/Syria/Iran at the lack of fair play because they are not playing fair either.
Indian Troops To Afghanistan: From Mandeep Singh Bajwa Our readers will recall that in our November 24/25 update we'd posed to Mr. Bajwa how India could send troops to Afghanistan in the face of Pakistani opposition. His reply is below.
The move isn't serious at all. Just kite-flying by some analysts to enrage the Leftists who are everybody's favorite target nowadays. True, the US hasn't asked because of Pakistani objections. But India can't just let Afghanistan go the Taliban way because NATO nations' threshold of casualty-tolerance are very small.
There's too much at stake in the country right now. There are a number of Indian companies working on development projects including the Zaranj-Dilaram highway. The strategic implications are only too obvious. A friendly Afghan Govt will keep Pakistan on the tenter-hooks for all time to come. Then there's the matter of Indian interests in Central Asian oil and gas. India will make vigorous efforts to keep the Taliban and by implication Pakistan away. If that involves sending troops I don't think the Govt will flinch. Public opinion will support any such move.
Oil at $99 in Singapore market this morning. Factors are said to be the colder than normal weather is expected in the US for the next few days and the US dollar keeps weakening.
Your editor is doing his own protest at $3+/gallon heating oil. He is keeping the house thermostat at 10 centigrade day and night. He has to admit this is not as easy in one's sixties as it was in one's fifties, but it has to be done. Budgets have to be adhered to. Normally your editor's maximum temperature tolerance is 18 centigrade, and 15 degrees inside is perfect. No one visits him except his youngest, to whom 10 centigrade means he must wear a light sweater - unbuttoned, of course, and Mrs. Rikhye, who simply keeps her outside wear, boots, hat, and gloves on. So we are all managing well.
Saudi Says Woman Confesses To Affair Readers will recall the case of a Saudi woman who was gang-raped by seven men and was given a sentence of 90 lashes for being in a car with a man not her husband. The punishment was increased to 200 lashes when her lawyer protested the sentence. For protesting he is likely to lose his license. Perhaps he can find work in a Macdonald's or something. Meanwhile, the rapists were given nominal sentences of 2-5 years or so, increased to 3-9 years when the woman's sentence was increased.
Well, Saudi has been quite upset with the unusual attention this matter has received. It has said international criticism is interference in its affairs. Now it has said that the woman confesses to having an affair with the man in whose car she was when attacked.
May be offer Saudi our famous unsolicited Orbat.com advice? Please shut up with the explanations already, because you just make it worse each time.
Strange that the woman did not confess to an affair while on trial. Given the Saudi legal system is completely opaque, and given she no longer has a lawyer, might one suspect a teeny weeny bit of pressure on her to say she was having an affair?
Next, so what if she was having an affair. That makes it okay to be gang-raped by seven men? This attitude is going to infuriate outsiders even more than they are already angry.
Further, as we understand Islam, rape is a crime even worse than murder. So, if your law says she has to be given 200 lashes, the men need to be stoned to death. Orbat.com is objecting to the light sentences the men have been given, not to the sentence given to her.
The thing with Saudi Arabia is that it is always ready to sneer at how immoral the west is given that in most situations men and women do as they want in the privacy of their homes. But here we are faced with an anomaly. We cannot speak for countries other than the US, but in America these men would be looking at 20-years to life for gang-rape. It would not matter that the woman was having an affair. We are not certain that this point would even be allowed into evidence.
So isn't a bit odd that the immoral America takes crimes against women a lot more seriously than the virtuous Saudi Arabia?
We again bring our readers attention to this story because it shows what Saudi Arabia is all about. It is not a society that is acceptable to civilized people. This is not about Islam, but about a bunch of degenerates using Islam to justify their perversities.
If Saudi Arabia were just some insignificant country, we wouldn't bother. But this country is the banker for Terrors Wars all over the world. It is more than a banker: one report we saw the other day and meant to carry said 40% of foreign fighters in Iraq are Saudi. If the US could justify its invasion/occupation of Afghanistan as counter-terrorism, it needs to invade/occupy/breakup Saudi Arabia even more urgently. Afghanistan was not the source of global terror. Saudi Arabia is.
0230 GMT November 24-25, 2007
Apologies for the delayed updates. The editor has been battling allergies/colds/sinus-infections/laryngitis/bronchitis for weeks. The list of ailments sounds impressive, but for some reason, at a guess, about a quarter of the Washington DC region seems to be down with some combination of the above and about one-on-ten seems quite ill.
Theories abound: chief culprit is said to be unseasonably warm October and November which has extended Washington's deadly allergy season - about the longest got a world capital - which normally runs April-September. The editor's theory is that we in Washington have compromised immune systems because of extreme stress.
As a schoolteacher one is particularly vulnerable because one is in close contact with the kids, and you get serial infections: you get sick from a couple of the kids; by the time you and they have recovered another batch of kids is sick. The editor cannot take off because his kids completely fall apart when he is not there.
We are required to following a daily lesson pacing guide; if your classes get behind - as invariably happens with all but the very best substitute teachers - the mess up is so serious that most teachers, unless they are about to die, stagger off to school. Of course, there we play our part in getting everyone sick, but this is America: you have to work regardless of being sick or not. No one is bothered about the low quality of output when teachers and kids alike are passing bugs around left, right, and center.
Dispatch from Mandeep Singh Bajwa
Our South Asia correspondent returned from a visit to Pakistan for a wedding, and this is the unedited communication he sends. Kindly keep in mind he is simply sharing his thoughts; this is not a substitute for a rigorous analysis which he may do if he has time.
We replied to Mr. Bajwa that the Indians had so far not offered troops for ISAF because they hadn't been asked by the Americans. Pakistan considers Afghanistan is bailiwick, moreover, the Taliban is wholly supported by Pakistan. Islamabad will oppose tooth and nail any plan that puts 40,000 Indian troops into its sphere of influence, both because that number would seriously undermine the Taliban's successes as well as Pakistani influence. To support that many troops India would have to utilize Pakistani territory for logistics support; even if it is all done under the ISAF and not an Indian soldier sets foot in Pakistan, we do not see Pakistan agreeing.
Pakistan benefits from ISAF/US related expenditure/military aid and the payoff is marginal because Pakistan does the very least it can to "combat" the Taliban. But if India lands up in Afghanistan in force, the benefits of cooperation with the west are far outweighed by the costs.
Incidentally while this move is very much just private talk, two points are worth noting. First, the ISAF commander will have to be an Indian because India will contribute 2/3rd of ISAF troops. Second, the Government of India will face no domestic political opposition because the deployment will be seen as a big blow to Pakistan.
Re. Iraq, India was willing to send its 17th Mountain Division to Kurdistan before things started heading south in that country. Kurdistan was a very quiet sector and the Indians have good relations with the Kurds as well as with the Iraqis. But even before security began to deteriorate starting February 2006, the opposition within India's ruling coalition and dominant Congress party was so extreme that we wonder how the Government actually warned the division for an Iraq deployment. There was no way in which Indian political parties and people would agree to fight what they believe is Mr. Bush's imperial war against a third world country.
Mr. Bajwa sent his reply to our comments; we will publish them Monday.
A New Take On Mrs. Bhutto and the Pakistani Generals
Benazir Bhutto Behaving Badly is the better title for this post. Kamran Khan is a very experienced Pakistani journalist, Two days ago he provided the best explanation of what is happening with Ms. Bhutto. We'd picked up much the same by way of unconfirmed talk; we were not sufficiently comfortable with our sources to put up the information. To summarize Mr. Kamran's story; our information where it adds to his story is within parentheses.
The Pakistan generals are 100% behind President Musharraf and his declaration of emergency.
(Ms. Bhutto, on returning to Pakistan, immediately reverted to her wildly impulsive and intemperate mode of decision making and speech. Instead of quietly working with President Musharraf as per the agreement brokered by the US/UK and negotiated with Ms. Bhutto by General Kiyani, the Pakistani general of all held in the greatest esteem by the west and Pakistanis alike) Ms. Bhutto immediately began pushing the western agenda by, among other things, calling for the US to suspend military aid to Pakistan. (The reason she did this is that she gave herself over to an inflated sense of her own power and believed, within a very days of landing up, that she didn't need to keep her agreement with the President; she thought with western support she could overthrow him, reign in the military, and rule on her own. This was an amazingly immature and misconceived decision.)
The military, astonished and dismayed by her turning her back on power-sharing agreements so carefully negotiated (and as far as the military was concerned, with an overabundance of compromise from its side) reacted by deciding to make sure Ms. Bhutto did not become Prime Minister of Pakistan. The one thing the military cannot tolerate is a direct attack on its power.
This is a simple proposition that Mr. Kamran puts forth; besides the authenticity conferred by his admirable reputation, it has the virtue of elegantly explaining everything that has been happening in Pakistan.
That the west in general and the western press has remained spectacularly clueless about how quickly Ms. Bhutto threw away her big chance, and that the west is now backing a lame horse, renders 100% irrelevant what anyone in the west has been saying. Ms. Bhutto is yesterday's news.
Now, anyone who knows her and is objective enough not to be taken in by her being a modern, pro-western woman with impeccable liberal credentials - Harvard and Oxford, what else does anyone want, it was obvious from the start she was a weak reed on which to build the west's hopes for a democratic Pakistan. Your editor, for one, has been watching the whole show with much hilarity. But even he did not think Ms. Bhutto would crash and burn so rapidly.
Incidentally, Mr. Kamran says that President Musharraf told the generals he was ready to both retire and to relinquish power if they thought it in the interests of Pakistan. They refused. We've said before we believe any coup contender knows he would be crazy to try and run Pakistan at this juncture; let President Musharraf do the job. If he succeeds, fine, no coup is needed. If he fails, that would be the time to move against him.
Pakistan's generals are tough, disciplined, and experienced in the ways of power. We believed she would be done in ASAP by the generals, who according to what we hear, are completely unprepared to give up power to either of the two ex-PMs, even while they believe the military has outstayed its welcome and that a return to civilian government is needed. We believed they would give her rope to hang herself. We sure as heck didn't figure that they didn't have to give her rope. She wove it herself, mighty quick.
0230 GMT November 23, 2007
We did not update on November 22. 2007
Lebanon The impending crisis over the presidential election has been put off for a few more days. The thrice-postponed vote was to have taken place tomorrow, but there is still no agreement between the pro-west and pro-Syria/Iran factions on who should be president. Both sides have gone to the wire, saying they will elect their own president and run their own government should agreement not be gained.
BBC says observers predict the vote will not come up now till next week. There is a grave danger that Lebanon will again descend into chaos and violence is a solution is not found, and as of this moment no one is hopeful.
Meanwhile, there's the usual recrimination about US policies, with people saying the US should have done this, that, and the other. Has it occurred to anyone the US is horribly overextended all over the world, and even if it were not, given the level of American competence these days, perhaps its best that America is laying low?
People seem to forget Newton's 3rd Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Each time the US acts, its adversaries react, and the matter escalates. Sometimes its better to let things sort themselves out without the US getting involved, particularly when the US has neither the time or the military force needed to impose a solution on Lebanon.
Pakistan has been suspended by the 53-member Commonwealth, a body consisting of former British colonies, for President Musharraf's failure to meet it's deadlines. It had said the President must become a civilian and lift the state of emergency by yesterday. Personally, we doubt much if the Pakistan president is losing sleep over this: he has his own agenda and the Commonwealth's approval is unlikely to be high on that list.
Robert Kagan, a right-moderate intellectual yesterday showed in a Washington Post op-ed how completely out of touch with reality westerners are re Pakistan. His entire thrust is "America must do this and America must do that" to solve the Pakistan crisis, as if America has that much leverage with Pakistan. Mr. Kagan suggests that the Pakistani generals are unlikely to be willing to do with military aid from the US.
How he has arrived at this conclusion is a mystery to us. Pakistan, Mr. Kagan says, has gotten about $10-billion in various aid packages since 2001. But has it? Look at http://www.publicintegrity.org/docs/CSIS_CSF_paper.pdf and you will see that $5.6-billion has been to reimburse Pakistani costs incurred in supporting US operations in Afghanistan; $1.6-billion for budget support, $0.9-billion for economic assistance; and just $1.8-billion for military aid.
If Mr. Kagan thinks Pakistan's military junta will sell itself to the US for $300-million/year of military aid, he needs to be reminded that Pakistan has a GDP of $160-billion growing at 7%/year, and overseas Pakistanis send twenty times that sum in annual remittances.
Yes, President Musharraf did sell himself to the US for the proverbial pence. But he did so not because of the money, but because the US threatened his country with force if he did not cooperate. The alliance with the US has created massive problems for him inside the country; worse, he is required to reign in the Taliban, which are a key asset for Pakistan's security.
If the US should aid tomorrow, Pakistan can cut all cooperation concerning Afghanistan. Who will be the loser, the US or Pakistan?
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai says that in the last 7-8 months, the number of contacts with Taliban elements who want to negotiate has greatly increased. Not all Taliban factions are hardline, he says.
Well, President Karzai knows his country better than we do, so we will take his word. But we wonder if there is a relationship between the willingness of some Taliban to talk and the Taliban successes of the past year. Could it be that the people who want to talk with are getting squeezed by the hardliners? Could it also be that the Taliban have created the conditions that would permit them to win a majority in the next election, using popular appeal, guile, and intimidation?
"Experts" say the problem will be resolved only by talks, but that Kabul should negotiate from a position of strength. We agree.
In which case there will never be negotiations, because in one more year Afghanistan should be done for, with government/coalition forces holding Kabul, Kandahar, Ghazni, Herat, and Kunduz - the towns, not the districts, with the rest of the country under the Taliban.
Iraq 300,000 Iraqis have signed a petition asking Iran to cease its interference in Iraq. The problem is that several Iraqi factions themselves need Iranian support in their internal wars, and just because a bunch of concerned citizens have signed a petition is not going to get these factions to tell Iran to mind its own business.
From Mandeep Singh Bajwa Have you seen this amazing book?
Operation Broken
Reed: Truman's Secret North Korean Spy Mission That Averted
World War III
> Boyd, Arthur L.
> Operation Broken Reed: Truman's Secret North Korean
> Spy Mission That Averted World War III.
> Carroll & Graf. Nov. 2007. c.320p. index.
> ISBN 978-0-7867-2086-6. $26.99. HIST
By late 1951,
President Truman had become increasingly concerned about the
possibility that the Soviet and the Chinese Communist forces
were going to get much more involved in the Korean conflict.
According to Boyd, he therefore secretly authorized Operation
Broken Reed, a Special Access Program (or so-called black
operation) that was to traverse Korea in January 1952 and gather
military intelligence. A team of army rangers, air force
officers, navy frogmen, and CIA operatives pretended to be crew
members of a captured
B-29 bomber, who, under the guard of Chinese nationalist
military personnel posing as Chinese Communists, moved in
military vehicles across the North Korean countryside gathering
information about Soviet and Chinese military forces massing
quietly inthe North Korean countryside. Boyd served as a
cryptographer for the operation, signaling information back to
American forces. The Chinese forces ultimately discovered the
true purpose of the small caravan, and all but Boyd were killed.
Sworn to secrecy, Boyd waited over 50 years to tell his amazing
story. There is no official or unofficial record of Operation
Broken Reed, but Boyd believes the work of this small band of
men helped convince Truman that it would be disastrous to expand
the war into North Korea. A chilling story and, if true,
certainly an amazing one in the annals of wartime espionage.
The blurb is unattributed.
0230 GMT November 21, 2007
Goodbye, Afghanistan
Afghanistan is lost and the blame falls squarely first on the US administration and then on NATO.
Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL2119472620071121 quotes from a report written by the Senlis Council, which has a permanent presence in Afghanistan, that 54% of Afghanistan is under Taliban control. Unless NATO doubles its forces to 80,000, Senlis believes it is not a question of will the Taliban retake Kabul, but when.
Some of our readers may raise an eyebrow at our quoting Senlis. Most of us know it for advocating controlled legalization of opium growing in Afghanistan, and those of us who are hard-liners in the drug wars may be disinclined to give Senlis any credibility. This is a matter we can take up at another time.
But we do not rely on Senlis to tell us how rapidly the Taliban has advanced. Our own correspondent, Major A.H. Amin, sent his estimate the other day. He concluded that if you count areas where the Taliban rules by night, more than three-quarters of the country is in the Taliban's grip. Major Amin is based in Kabul and he combines first hand knowledge with his reportage.
And while Senlis is making a dramatic statement by saying double troops or all is lost, common sense tells us at least a doubling is required.
That means 8 more brigades needed right now, and that is not going to happen. The US is not about to leave Iraq. The US Army is indeed broken despite all the efforts by pro-Administration sources to say the contrary. The troops that will be slowly withdrawn from Iraq cannot be sent to Afghanistan. The Surge, which brought US strength in Iraq to 20 brigades, was really a surge, a high tide that is now ebbing.
As for NATO, here is the latest possible contribution: A French battalion, and even that France has publicly denied, so sensitive is the matter given the European public's opposition to casualties. The European troops matter is, of course, tightly wound with the global hatred - yes, hatred is not too strong a word - of the Bush presidency. Even though the Europeans fully realize Afghanistan must be defended, they would rather see it return to the dogs than support a US-created and US-led initiative.
We have several times said that the US should have worked to persuade India to contribute troops - for India, 40,000 troops, two divisions, is a yawn. But the US, hogtied by Pakistan, could not even begin to think of such an approach.
Afghanistan is irrevocably linked to Pakistan because it is Pakistan that provides sanctuary, money, arms, and casualty replacements for the Taliban. The rise of the Taliban in Pakistan is the mirror image of its resurrection in Afghanistan.
So it is not just that Afghanistan is gone, Pakistan west of the Indus is going and is in danger east of the Indus. US hopes Pakistan will fight the Taliban are simply the opium-dreams of a drug addict: Pakistan is the Taliban.
To us it seems just a matter of time before Pakistan falls to the Taliban. Scoff, if you will, as people did when your editor predicted this 11 years ago. See what is happening in the North West Frontier Province, find out what is happening in Baluchistan, and then try scoffing.
Where does this leave India, who after all has the greatest stakes of any country in Afghanistan/Pakistan? This leaves India up the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle, and indeed, with less than half a boat.
But the marvelous thing about India is that it is so huge, so enduring, that it is the elephant lazing in the sun, munching sugar cane and bathing in the pond to its heart's content. India was least concerned when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. When the Americans took Afghanistan, India's reaction was one of extreme indignation - what right did the Americans have to invade? Today the Indo-American strategic understanding is deeper, so India is tolerant of the Americans and has even reasserted itself a little bit in its traditional competition with Pakistan for influence in Afghanistan.
Yet, events in Afghanistan are what events west of the Khyber have been to India since recorded history began: a distant rumor, and not a particularly interesting one at that. Historically, India has been a bit more alert to events west of the Indus, in what is today Baluchistan and the NWFP. But even here, no threat was taken seriously till the barbarians crossed the Indus. India, as it has defined itself for three millennia, begins east of the Indus. Events in today's Baluchistan and NWFP became of interest only in the last 800 years, when Islamic invaders started arriving out of Central Asia. The odd thing about the Islamic invaders is that they too became lotus-eaters, and ignored events west of the Indus, making possible conquests by other Islamic invaders, for example, the Mughuls.
India exercises so fantastic a narcotic effect on people that one reason the British left, more or less willingly, is that they realized the longer they stayed, the more amorphous became their identity, till one day they would have simply become yet another people of India.
So your editor can blow the trumpet as long and as hard as he likes, India is not bothered anymore than the elephant is bothered by a mite.
As for Pakistan: objectively this is the most interesting development of all. From its birth, Pakistan has been regarded as a failed state. One reason India has never bothered to do much about Pakistan is that it has expected for six decades that Pakistan will fall apart one day and be reabsorbed into India without India having to exert itself.
And certainly Pakistan has given every indication that it is failing. Even the west speaks of the dangers a failed Pakistan is/will creating.
Oddly, however, Pakistan is not failing. It has failed as a non-sectarian, multi-party democracy. But it is morphing into a new identity that its founder, the great Jinnah, could never have dreamed of, and that 99.9999% of Indians even today cannot imagine. If things continue as they are, you will find there will be a new Pakistan. It will be much larger because it will encompass almost all of Afghanistan. It will be not called Pakistan, but something else. It will be a hardline fundamentalist state, determined to destroy everything that western humanism - whose values have spread to the whole global - holds inviolable and non-negotiable. It will represent the greatest American foreign policy failure since China became communist, and a far greater danger than China ever presented.
To the ghost of Pakistan's President/General Zia-ul-Haq who seized power from Benazir Bhutto's father in 1977 and died in a plane crash ten years later, and to those Pakistani military men who carried forward the dream which he himself never dared believe was possible, Orbat.com's editor offers nothing but his sincerest congratulations. You are my country's mortal enemy. After 1971, every Indian assumed Pakistan was finished. Alone I disputed that notion when in 1972 I wrote "Pakistan Rearmed", my first book of four that were suppressed by the Indian censor. Of course, no more than anyone else, I had no idea that you, Pakistan, would rearm yourself with the weapons of ideology and not the guns and tanks with which I was familiar.
In my first book that was allowed to be published, though not without the personal intervention of the then head of the Indian Army who would not accept the recommendation of his Directorate of Military Intelligence that the work be suppressed, I had written that in all probability there would be no Fourth Round, that India and Pakistan had likely fought their last war. The 1999 war, incidentally, was a mere border skirmish - and I had partly foretold that scenario in the Fourth Round.
Well, when I wrote the Fourth Round in 1982, I was still familiar only with guns and tanks as the weapons with which wars are fought. I now see that a Fourth Round is very much underway - the Punjab insurgency, the Kashmir insurgency, and the Kargil war were merely opening shots. This new round has snuck up on India without India being aware - and it still is unaware. And this round is being fought with the most primitive of weapons - rifles, machineguns, rocket-launchers, IEDs. But its real weapon is not a material one. It is an ideology.
Thirteen hundred years this ideology originated in one of the most obscure backwaters of the world, and within 140 years it dominated the territory from Spain to the west bank of the Indus River. For those times, 140 years was "overnight". By 1970, that ideology had become a bit of a laughing stock; the Muslims, once the most advanced of human peoples, had become the most backward.
Then came the rise of oil and the patiently laid schemes of the Saudis realized through money and committed cadres. Within 30 years the ideology had revived and become the greatest threat liberal humanism faced since its inception five hundred years ago - the communists do not count because though they established political dictatorships they did not constrain their peoples in any other way; indeed, they valued the gods of atheism, science, equality between the sexes, education and so on even more ardently than the west.
The success of any enemy is the result as much of the adversary's missteps as the enemy's efforts. So it is with Islamic fundamentalism and the Taliban. Since the last 35 years have been America's years, it is the US that must take responsibility for the blunders that have brought us to this pass.
Ultimately, an ideology - the manner in which Islamic is expressed by the extremists - that is so revolting to the human sprit cannot succeed. Islamic fundamentalism will be defeated, not least because it threatens the whole world. But right now the fundamentalists are in the process of winning, and they will continue winning for perhaps 20 more years. Then they will start going down. The fight will be long, and very bloody. Just as the war against fascism and communism destroyed so much of the values that made America the greatest country in the world, this war, too, will adversely impact our values - you can already see the damage. We will become the people we despise, because ultimately fanaticism can be defeated only by a greater fanaticism. But the alternative will be worse, so this a price that must be paid and regarded as collateral damage.
News
Pakistan Starts Freeing Dissidents ahead of the planned January 8, 2008 election. Some 7000 persons recently arrested have either been released or will be released today.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Musharraf to stand for a second term. He is expected to retire from the army this week.
President Musharraf is in talks with Nawaz-i-Sharif, the prime minister he deposed. Mr. Sharif is in exile in the Mideast. He was not permitted to return after the US forced President Musharraf to allow Ms. Benazir Bhutto back so that she could provide a civilian face to the sham democracy she was to co-chair with the President. But now Ms. Bhutto has turned against the President, thinking she can win on her own, without his support. So naturally president Musharraf turns to his old enemy; it is likely the situation can be manipulated into a win for Mr. Sharif.
In other words, it back to the unprincipled principals who have dominated Pakistan for 20 years, and the people of Pakistan will once again be the losers.
Why the US wants to get involved in this mess is beyond us. When it goes bad - and it will as surely as Brittany Spears will get arrested again for driving drunk - the US will be blamed. As if enough Pakistanis are not already blaming the US for the mess in which they find themselves.
China To Invest $4-Billion In Afghan Copper Mine says BBC. That compares to $5-billion total foreign investment since 2001. The project will come on stream in five years, generate 10,000 jobs and $400-million in royalties to the Afghan government. That sum, incidentally, equals a whopping 5% of Afghan GDP, about half of which is opium-related.
Talking of drugs, the Colombia police found a 4-crew-member fiber-glass almost-completed submarine capable of carrying 12-tons of cocaine and traveling the Pacific to Central America, from where the drugs would be shipped to North America and Europe. We also read the other day that Venezuela is becoming the transshipment country of choice for Andean narco-traffickers.
The story in news.com.au says that these submarines are towed along by cargo ships and since 2005 the authorities have found 11.
Colombia produces 600-tons of cocaine a year.
Iran Agrees To Study Saudi N-Proposal says UK Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3174389.ece The background to this is that Russia had offered to host an enrichment facility for Iran, under safeguards, so that Iran could have the technology/uranium it wanted while satisfying the US it was not up to no good. After all, Iran says it has purely peaceful purposes in mind for its N-program, like, you know, India's Peaceful Nuclear Explosion of 1974. As we all know, India is busy using the technology for Peaceful Nuclear Purposes such as digging seaports and irrigation canals - that was the rationale India gave at that time.
Anyhow, Iran told the Russians "don't be absurd, we aren't having our bluff called by you."
The Saudis, however, revived the proposal and offered to set the plant up in a neutral country like Switzerland. The Iranians have said they will think about it.
View One: The Iranians are simply stalling for time to develop their N-weapons.
View Two: The Iranians realize they have pushed the rhetoric too far and are looking for a face-saving way to pull back.
Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice.
Personally, we say why take chances? Knock off their N-program and just their N-program, forget about grand plans of regime change and so on. Worried about oil? Build multiple pipelines bypassing the Gulf, will take 12-24 months. Stockpile more oil. If Iran blocks Hormuz, let the Gulf States and the world go to the UN saying this is an act of aggression and then clobber Iran with UN sanction.
So what happens when the Iranians rebuild their N-facilities? Well, you'll have bought 10-years, and in that time you'll have much better weapons to wipe-out the new facilities.
Come on, Washington, start thinking out side the box.
Yes, yes, outside the box idea Number One: give Iran assurances against invasion, make it your partner in managing the Mideast.
But geez, that is so wimpy. Its so much more fun to blow things up.
(We are not being sarcastic.)
0230 GMT November 20, 2007
News
Pakistan Sectarian Fighting Continues in the North West Frontier Province's Kurram Agency. Reports cite different figures, but about 90 persons including civilians have been killed in fighting between Sunni and Shia groups. The army is deploying, but at least one source says this is not having any effect.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Army is reported to have made some slight gains in Swat. Insurgents are claiming 45 soldiers killed, which the Government denies. We have found that generally the insurgents' reports tend to be more accurate than the Government's, though the figure of 45 does seem very high.
US Says Violence In Some Iraq Areas Down To Pre-Mid-2005 Levels That is good news if true, but ironically news of US successes only adds to the pressure to pull out.
Meanwhile, another reprise of the Law of Unintended Consequences. It seems as if 2-million of the Iraq refugees are Sunnis. Since there were less than 5-million to begin with, in 2001, we have to soberly face the reality that ethnic cleansing is not a theoretical possibility should the US leave, it has already taken place on a very large scale while the US has been in Iraq in force.
Be that as it may, as security for Sunnis has improved, some are coming home.
And running smack into the same Shias who drove them out, and who now occupy their homes. Not a recipe for peace.
United States Has 1/4th Of The World's Prisoners according to a report in Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1841666120071119
It has 5% of the world's population.
The prison population has grown 8-times since 1970; population has grown 50%. The study the article cites says there has been no appreciable drop in crime.
Look, people, we love America and think it is
Reader Walter E. Wallis Brings Perspective To The Taser Debate when he reminds us that policemen used to big Irishmen who controlled prisoners with billy clubs and brute force, and only occasionally guns. Thanks to affirmative action, women were inducted into the police. Generally they tend to be smaller than the men. And smaller men also began to be accepted. If you lack the bulk, you cannot afford to close in with an unruly suspect. So you either use your gun, or if you have it, a Taser.
Mr. Wallis's letter led the editor to reflect that when he first came to the US, New York policemen tended to be gigantic. They also traveled in threes in high-risk areas, and they had only to blow a whistle and more police would arrive from a neighboring block. The same was true of Boston. The editor had already reached his full height so this is not a case of mistaking the heights - and breadths - of the police, as might happen to a kid.
Currently the editor sees police in Washington, DC, and Montgomery and Price George's Counties in Maryland. "Sees" is a bit incorrect, as police in the Washington Metro area are rarer than hens teeth. We believe in self-policing, with the predictable result that there is neither policing nor respect for ordinary laws. Be that as it may, the editor is continually struck by how many petite women and small men are on the local police forces.
We read somewhere or the other (how's that for precision - but when you are flipping webpages at high speed you sometimes forget where you saw a particular item) that 150 Taser-related deaths have taken place in the US since mid-2001, and contrary to the Taser manufacturer's claims, their weapon has been implicated in 30 deaths.
0230 GMT November 19, 2007
Afghanistan
An Article By Sarah Chayes in the Washington Post's Outlook section November 18, 2007 tells of the death of hope and the tragedy that is starting to engulf Afghanistan. Ms. Chayes is exceptional because she has spent six years living with villagers; a remarkable achievement for an unmistakably white American woman. Her voice is gentle and muted. She accuses no one, blames no one, is an advocate for no special interests.
Unfortunately, the article has been quickly transferred to the registration only part of the Post. If, unlike the editor, you can stomach registering with the Post, you will learn much. We focus on the issue of civilian casualties because for some reason, this has been bothering your editor immensely for the past few months. Earlier he was completely indifferent to matter: wars result in bad things happening to innocent people. Just as we accept the mayhem caused by drunk drivers and murderers as a small price to be paid for our free and individualistic society, your editor accepted civilian casualties as just another unavoidable cost of war.
In Afghanistan West Kills More Civilians Than The Taliban This point is often made. The reason seems to be that because of a shortage of troops, the west relies more on air support, four times more by one estimate.
Afghanistan has 50% more area than Iraq. In Iraq you not only have 180,000 coalition troops, you have 600,000 Government forces including police, and now 70,000+ Sunni militia as well.
In Afghanistan the coalition has in the vicinity of 50,000 troops; the Afghan government's forces including police seem to number about 100,000.
Even if this were not so, because of the inherent difficulty in separating civilian from militant from the air, and the lethality of air-delivered munitions, air strikes, no matter how precise, usually end up killing more civilians than ground troops do.
In Afghanistan non-US members of the coalition usually blame the US for its excessive reliance on air support, particularly the US tactic of aggressively using small Special Forces teams to smoke out the enemy. Because the SF, when they succeed in initiating contact, are usually heavily outnumbered, they need immediate air support. When you have ten soldiers pinned down by many times their number and in eminent danger of annihilation, you have to forget about the niceties, you have to send in the gunships and the Harriers, A-10s, F-15s, F-16s, sometimes even the B-1s and B-52s, and do so immediately. Minutes count in such situations.
While there is truth to this allegation, other coalition members are just as quick to require air support when their troops get into trouble, so we are unsure as to how fair the allegation is.
Ms. Chayes says civilian casualties are driving recruitment to the ranks of suicide bombers.
Logically this should not be so, because the Taliban deliberately kill civilians whereas NATO not just tries not to, it does everything it can to improve the lot of civilians. The problem is that logic does not apply when your family has blown to pieces by an American 1000-lb bomb. People expect much higher standards from the west than they do from the Taliban, so they are far more critical of western-caused deaths.
In Cambodia, for instance, one school of thought believes that the US bombing of Cambodian villages so angered the populace that they flocked to the Khmer Rouge because the communists promised revenge on the Americans.
During the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, an estimated 10,000 French civilians died in Allied air attacks. The French have never held it against the Allies because first, they were liberated from Nazi occupation, and second, in the larger scheme of things 10,000 dead was a mere punctuation mark. Also, within a few weeks most of the bombing was over and the liberated areas could go back to their life which had been denied them for three years.
By contrast, in counter-insurgency wars, the bombing goes on and on. There is no end in sight, and there is no immediate benefit to be seen.
It is very easy for the insurgents to provoke retaliation by staging incidents and hiding among the civilians. The US response has been pro forma pious statements to the tune of "the insurgents are at fault for using the civilians as cover; we do not target civilians". Such lawyer-like talk infuriates the civilians who expect the US will make them safe, not kill them.
The British experience in Northern Ireland - as is true of all counter insurgencies - is that it is usually better not to return fire if this is at all possible. General Petreaus, to give him his due, makes this a basic tenet of his counterinsurgency doctrine. There is nothing remarkable about his doctrine, it is all standard stuff. What is remarkable is that an American has said these things.
That is because American troops are trained to react with maximum force when threatened. They also cannot fight a defensive war: they have to go looking for the enemy and to provoke a fight. These tendencies are central to the American temperament. We personally believe you can give Americans as much training as you want to the contrary, they will not attain the level of inhuman self-control needed for CI operations.
In this connection we might mention that the British in Northern Ireland, as also the Indians in their several counterinsurgency wars, were fighting not "others", but their own people. It is easier to show control than when fighting "others".
All this said, we do not know what the solution is. But it has to be addressed. Just the other day, for example, the US announced it had killed 24 insurgents in Iraq. Not so, said a Sunni militia. You killed 45 of our men, which is to say of your allies, and you continued killing us for hours despite every effort we made to tell you we were friendlies. First the US stuck to its story, but yesterday American military sources themselves say the militia version is true. It is not a small thing to kill 45 of your allies in a battle-lust so strong you ignore all attempts to get you to stop.
Incidentally, Sarah Chayes makes clear what is causing Afghanistan to be lost to the Taliban is ultimately not so much the civilian casualties or the slow pace of development activities, it is the sustained and spreading corruption of the Afghan authorities at all levels, from President Karazai's brothers down to the lowliest constable. The Taliban were unbelievably brutal if you violated their social edicts. But they were not corrupt.
0230 GMT November 18, 2007
Another Pakistan District Falls To The Taliban
Just for once we'd like to get some straight news from Pakistan. The Pakistan Army has been claiming great success in its offensive against Islamic fundamentalists in Swat District. But now Jang of Pakistan http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=11200 tells us that the Taliban have overrun both subdivisions of Shangla District, which lies to the east of Swat.
Apparently it wasn't much of a fight: the Pakistani authorities simply vacated much of the area and the Taliban walked in to establish its rule.
We are so baffled we are left speechless.
For a focused summary of events read http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/11/fighting_intensifies.php
The NWFP has 24 districts, the equivalent of US counties. Of these 7 are in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and have considerable autonomy. FATA borders Afghanistan, and the Taliban basically control or have put the Pakistan government on the defensive in 5 districts. But Swat and Shangla are part of "settled" Pakistan and the writ of the federal government is supposed to run in all matters. The Pakistan Army claims to have defeated Taliban attempts to control two more settled districts last year, Tank and Dera Ismail Khan. But the Taliban are still in control of considerable swaths of these two districts.
The Pakistan Army is 600,000 strong and as such is the third largest in the world after China and India. It is highly trained, reasonably well equipped, and composed of long-term volunteers. In NWFP and Baluchistan, it is backed by the paramilitary Frontier Corps of perhaps 60-70,000 troops.
We absolutely refuse to believe the Pakistan Army cannot defeat 3-4 thousand Taliban particularly as the latter operate in a landlocked area far from any external supply bases. The Taliban has no sanctuary and no nations which back it.
We are very hesitant to create a conspiracy theory - in our experience, such theories turn out to be simply theories. But it is seeming to us, more and more, that fundamentalists in the Pakistan Army, ISI, civilian administration and police are seeking to create a pseudo state from which to launch an assault on all Pakistan.
If we were like Debka, we'd quote "Orbat.com's military sources" for the above theory. In truth, we are making inferences based on a myriad of small, unconnected pieces of evidence.
Is this an impossible scenario? Best to remember that the Taliban was created by Pakistan and within 4-5 years had overrun all of Afghanistan barring a small area in the northwest. At peak perhaps 10,000 Pakistani troops on "leave" backed the Taliban militia, providing trainers, advisors, supply, armor and artillery. The story of the Taliban's emergence from nowhere to control of a large country is one of the most remarkable of our times. We don't think it's too farfetched for us to suspect that the new Taliban is on the move again, this time looking to the east since the US is blocking the west. And the Taliban are not doing at all badly in the west, by the way.
Please Excuse Us, But Hasn't The US Long Since Won The Iraq War?
When you fight a total war, the definition of victory is easy: you win when the adversary is completely ground down, you occupy his territory, he concedes defeat, and willingly cooperates in whatever fate you may have for him and his country.
When you fight a limited war, victory has to be defined by your stated objectives. US's stated objectives were Iraq WMDs, the overthrow of Saddam because he was an evil tyrant, and bringing democracy to Iraq. Whatever you might believe about unstated objectives as might have been held by the so-called neocons, we can all agree that the US absolutely did not envisage an occupation of Iraq. The job was supposed to be a quick in-and-out; if we recall right, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld planned to leave 20,000 US trainers/support personnel in Iraq by the end of 2003.
Okay, so hasn't the US won the war a long time ago? WMDs: weren't any, sorry about that. Saddam: plays the harp with his 72 virgins, which is all he can do since he lacks a physical body. Democracy: established, and while it is nowhere near as functional as the US would define democracy, best to remember that England took several centuries to become really democratic - nine, as we reckon, from the Magna Carta to full voting rights for women. The US, building off what England had done, attained full democracy some 190 years after declaring independence, after the civil rights revolution of the 1960s gave real - as opposed to paper - voting rights to African Americans. In Latin America, depending on which country one considers, democracy took 150 to 200 years after the Bolivarian revolution. Pakistan does not have what the US considers a democracy sixty years after independence, and while Americans are perturbed about this, no one is advocating a US occupation of Pakistan.
Since the US won the Iraq war, why are we still in Iraq? Just thought we'd ask.
We hope no one is going to say "We're there to fight AQ" because as we all now know, there was no AQ in Iraq till the US occupied the country. The Iraqis who allied with AQ did so to fight the US. If the US had left in 2003 or even in 2004, the Iraqis, who may the most xenophobic people in the world, would not have let AQ get a hold. Okay, some will say, that's all past, we need to deal with the present. Well, the Iraqis seem to be doing quite well fighting AQ; they should not need much more than some advisors and money.
We hope no one is going to say "We're there to stop Iran from expanding its influence" because it is the US destruction of Iran's natural enemies, the Sunnis, that has permitted Iran to expand in the Middle East. Further, if we can work with America's natural enemies Russia and China for the sake of stability, why can't we work with Iran?
We hope no one is going to say "We must bring stability to Iraq or the Middle East will blow up," because Iraq was rock stable before we went in and destabilized the place. As to "that was then, we have to think of now", Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon are all creating very serious instability in the Middle East; but we don't see the US rushing to occupy those countries and vowing to stay 50 years or more if neccessary.
News
OPEC Almost Votes To Ditch The Dollar Due to a camera inadvertently remaining active at a session of OPEC in Saudi Arabia, the world learned of an acrimonious debate where Iran and Venezuela among others argued for denominating oil in Euros and not dollars. Saudi Arabia single-handedly held the moves at bay, but only by agreeing to refer the matter to a meeting of OPEC finance ministers.
We are all for denominating oil in Euros. First, the US will pay more for oil and move faster to cut it dependence in oil imports. Second, OPEC will have to buy Euros, pushing the Euro up by anywhere between 10-15%. That will boost US exports, generating more jobs back home.
A delightful explanation for why the US is not already in recession Apparently so much of American consumer purchases come from overseas that the slow down of the US economy is not resulting in American jobs lost, which would start a recessionary spiral. Instead the jobs lost are overseas ones.
In theory that should mean that markets for US goods should shrink, costing American jobs. In practice, the Chinese workers who make shoes for America are not consumers of American exports such as jet engines and Hollywood movies.
Vancouver Taser Death Reader Jim Kayne corrected us on our story: the venue was Vancouver and not Montreal.
We should make clear that we are shocked not just at the behavior of the Canadian police, but of the airport authorities who did nothing to help either the mother or the son locate each other even as she explained her son spoke no English. Apparently it took six hours for the man to clear customs, and he had traveled for 15 hours, not 10. His mother went home after six hours as she could not find out anything from anyone. After clearing customs the man - as nearly as we can gather - was in the high security area for another 4 hours.
Members of the public variously tried to help the man, but it seems that neither the police nor the airport authorities paid any attention to what they had to say.
The mother's lawyer says that going by the videotape taken by a member of the public, the police took 24 seconds after entering the room where the man was to tase him. In other words, a shoot first, ask later policy.
The company that makes tasers has issued an indignant statement saying its equipment does not kill. If the taser was responsible, the man would have died instantly whereas he was alive for - from what we can gather - for two minutes. The company says it has been accused before but has been found not culpable each time. We will leave it to medical experts to say if a person dies from being tased, death is instantaneous. It seems to us, from the little we know, a severe shock to the heart will stop the heart beating, but that doesn't mean the person is instantly dead.
To the credit of the Canadian police, they immediately started an inquiry and a neutral person is on the inquiry team.
We would like to add that we are generally very pro-police. Your editor in particular has direct knowledge of what risks the police run when faced with a violent person. We note that in the case of the South American national who was mistaken for a suicide bomber in London and shot we defended the London police. But this man did not threaten the police officers: he tried to explain what he was about to them; failing, he then walked away with his back to the police before he was shot.
0230 GMT November 17, 2007
Saudi Arabia, We Love You A 19-year old woman is gang-raped fourteen times by 7 men. They get 1-5 years in jail, whereas under strict Islamic law they should have been stoned to death. The victim gets 100 lashes because she was in the vehicle of an unrelated man when the assault took place.
So she appeals, and the good judges double her sentence to 200 lashes, says the BBC. Why? Because, say the judges, she attempted to use the media to influence them. Her lawyer has been suspended from the case and faces action, adds BBC. Just to show how fair-minded they are, the judges doubled the sentences on the men. That makes it 2-10 years.
What a shining bastion of justice and freedom! What a worthy ally of the US! How inspiring are these Saudis, what?
As far as we are concerned, the faster the US breaks up this stinking cesspool, the better. Of course, right now the US couldn't put together four pieces of a Meccano set without fouling things up, so Saudi is quite safe.
Oh, did we mention the woman is a Shia and Saudi is ruled by Sunnis?
US Dollar Dissed Again The Archeological Survey of India manages some 120 important tourist sites in India including 27 on the World Heritage list. BBC says foreigners will no longer be able to pay entrance fees in dollars.
So you'd expect the Indians wants Euros? No no no. They have dissed the dollar so badly they want rupees.
Maybe We Are Becoming Liberal We heard something on National Public Radio that actually made sense. Mark Shields, syndicated columnist, and David Brooks, New York Times, said that the US has little influence in the internal politics of foreign countries. So it is not that President Bush is too weak to get President Musharraf of Pakistan to listen to him, President Musharraf has many other considerations apart from the US. Both commentators agreed that given US influence is limited, it is best for the US to simply take a principled stand and demand the restoration of democracy.
President Musharraf Needs To Read Machiavelli We'd say he needs to read Kautilya, an Indian who wrote his definitive treatise on politics and statecraft almost two thousand years before Machiavelli, but then readers might accuse us of seeking to sabotage the Pakistan president because the editor is Indian.
Machiavelli said that when the leader must act harshly, he should come down like a ton of bricks at once. People get over the shock quickly and life goes on. If the leader stretches out the bad things he must do, opposition builds up.
Well, President Musharraf keeps detaining Benazir Bhutto and then releasing her, at all times allowing her to talk freely to his opponents and western envoys. So whether he is detaining her or releasing her, she gets to blast him coming and going, leaving the population scratching their heads as to why the President has suddenly become so weak.
Then he tells the broadcast media to shut up but allows the print media to attack him left, right, center, upside and downside. So he sends goons to the print media threatening them - and they promptly report every last detail. So the broadcast media is emboldened and starts saying what it wants, so he shuts down offending channels.
He says he is cracking down on militants, then makes peace deals to avoid fighting them.
He arrests a prominent critic who heads Pakistan's human rights body, then releases her.
Does he get any credit for the "good" things? Obviously all he gets is opprobrium for the bad.
Instead of following Churchill's motto "never explain, never apologize" - Mrs. Rikhye is quite Churchillian - the President keeps demanding the west understand his sensitive feelings. He will doff his uniform, he will hold elections, blah blah and blah, anything the west wants.
Come on, guy. Enough already. You wannabe a dictator, arrest anyone who speaks against you, tell western envoys its time they went home, and do what you have to do. Then people hate you, but fear you. The way you are proceeding, you're becoming a laughing stock.
An Air Passenger Arrives After a 10-hour Trip in a foreign country to join his mother. He has never flown before. He cannot find his mother, who is also looking for him, and no airport employee helps either of them. He gets agitated while alone in a room with glass windows in the customs area. He is sweating and breathing heavily. He paces back and forth, throws a couple of things to the floor. Four policemen enter. He turns his back on them. A policeman fires a Taser, shocking the man twice, then he is "restrained" by all four officers as he lies on the floor, with one policeman "restraining" him by pressing his knee down into the man's neck. The man dies almost instantly. The whole thing is captured on video by an onlooker.
So you yawn. Its just those brutal American cops again, you say. Big deal.
Well, actually not. It's Canadian police who did this, in Montreal.
The Canadians really, really, really need to sit back and reflect on what they have become. Since when is it neccessary for four police to tase a man with his back to them? We expect this behavior from American police, where you can get killed because you didn't raise your hands fast enough or you made a move that the officer interpreted as "reaching for a weapon", which can be anything including lowering your hands. We don't expect it of the Canadians.
Did we mention the man spoke no English? And did we mention the officers were told by an onlooker before they entered the room the man spoke only Russian?
Our account is from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7095875.stm You can also read http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5304370.html
0230 GMT November 16, 2007
News
Swat Fighting Continues with the Pakistan Army saying it has killed scores of militants. Locals say some militants and some army personnel have indeed been killed, but the greater number are civilians killed in the Army's artillery bombardments and gunship attacks.
President Musharraf Continues To Make a Hash of his dictatorship. He has now lifted - for a second time - Ms. Bhutto's house arrest. So now she can start her street ac