0230 GMT January 18, 2008

• 2nd Frontier Corps Falls To Taliban according to media reports, this time without a shot. The Taliban surrounded the second fort and told the Frontier Corps garrison, which Taliban says was 60 men, to surrender. After the FC troops did so, they were released. Taliban say not a shot was fired. Local reports say Taliban are advancing on a third fort. While an intelligence official confirms the capture of the second fort, the Army spokesperson has issued a vehement denial. http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=12369

• In the case of the first fort, apparently the garrison was left to its fate after Pakistan artillery fired a few rounds in its support. The garrison was well-stocked, says the Army, with orders to fight to the last round and the last man.

• These orders are easy to give when you are sitting in comfort hundreds of kilometers from the front line. But when you are besieged by a force ten times larger - the Army says first 200 men attacked and then a second attack was out in with a total of 400 men - and the enemy has breached your defenses, matters look a little bit different. 7-15 troops escaped, so that's about two-thirds casualties, and as far as we are concerned, the Frontier Corps troops did what they could. They are trained and equipped on army lines, but they are paramilitary troops intended for internal law-and-order and for border patrol.

• So why are these forts garrisoned with just a platoon? Well, in peacetime that's probably sufficient, but in any case a large part of the Frontier Corps has been withdrawn from the frontier and is helping the Army fight insurgents. Additionally, right now because a Shia festival is coming up during which traditionally there is violence usually committed by the majority Sunnis, the equivalent of 40 Army battalions and an unknown but also substantial number of Frontier Corps troops are on police duty. So it may well be the FC really does not have troops to reinforce its garrisons. Though we suspect with the loss of two forts Pakistan will have to rethink the matter.

• Also read Bill Roggio at http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/01/pakistani_troops_aba.php

• Meanwhile, 2 Lashes with a Limp Noodle For The Editor Reader Arif Khan politely writes to remind us that Swat and South Waziristan are two completely different places, so whether Swat has been pacified or not is immaterial. The Editor knows the two places are quite different, but is usually half-asleep while doing the update, and deserves the punishment.

• Mr. Arif Khan also suggests that when the Pakistan Army says it has pacified Swat, it has handed over to the paramilitary and police. It may not mean that the insurgents have been wholly defeated.

• Chinese Are Gradually Revaluing Yuan In the last 18 months, the yuan has gone from ~8 per US$ to 7.2 per US$, a 10% gain. By the end of 2008 the yuan may rise to 6.6 per dollar, which will be a 17% gain. But is this going to cut the trade imbalance with the rest of the world? We think not.

• Our reasoning is not complicated. China adds little value to its exports, which are largely made with imported materials, because its labor costs are so low. A rising yuan makes imports that much cheaper and keeps things in balance.

• But won't the rise in labor wages and general inflation in China cause a rise in Chinese costs? Possibly. Again, however, with the price of raw materials and semi-finished goods going down because of the stronger yuan, inflation will come down. As for labor inflation, China is said to have 300-million workers who move from city to city looking for work. This seems to suggest that there is a lot of room to keep wages from rising.

• Indian Power Companies Turn To China we admit to being amazed by the news that several Indian power generation companies are not just turning to China to buy equipment, but two companies apparently plan also to import Chinese labor to erect the power plants.

• Our surprise comes because what possible cost advantage can China have over India? We learn the answer is in two parts. First, domestic Indian production of power generating equipment cannot keep up with the demand. Second, the quality of Chinese equipment is better.

• Okay, but can that quality compare to that of industrialized nations? No. But the industrial nations take from twice to three times as long to fill orders as do the Chinese. In power generation for a chronically power-short economy, delays impose big opportunity costs, so maybe you don't get equipment as slick as that produced by the west, but it works, and is available quickly.

• The proposed import of Chinese labor really baffled us till we remembered a couple of things. Chinese workers really don't get paid as much as Indian workers, for all that China supporters tout its expanding per capita income. Next, Chinese workers are a much more desperate lot than Indian workers, being poorer, and they work just a whole lot harder. And last, Chinese workers have no rights. Indian workers, living in a democracy, have rights.

• So add all that up, and you can see it makes sense to import Chinese labor. Of course there will be a political problem with Chinese taking away Indian jobs. But the Indian companies seem fairly confident they can make the case to their government that the extra power is needed right away and that getting Chinese labor is cost-effective. After all, once the power plants are up, Indian agricultural and industrial production will spurt ahead, generating large numbers of jobs. Delay the process to provide a few ten thousand Indian workers jobs, and you are delaying the creation of millions of jobs using that extra power.

• If India is to continue growing at 8% annually, it will need to jump its power capacity from 130-GW to 800-GW by 2030, or approximately 25 years. Essar has already placed orders for 2.4 Gigawatts of power plant equipment from China. Reliance, which is planning to put up 14-GW, is looking at China.

0230 GMT January 17, 2008

• France, UAE Agree on Base France will station 400 military personnel at a UAE base. The move has several ramifications. The most interesting is that it is obviously aimed at Iran and indicates the US is not alone in its opposition to that country. It also indicates that the UAE, at least, wants to reduce its exclusive reliance for its security on the US.

• France has been and remains a big arms seller to the UAE. The bases agreement was announced concurrent with deals for 390 Leclerc MBTs and 63 Mirage 2000 fighters.

• And. significantly, UAE is also to purchase two nuclear-power generating plants from France. Other Mideast countries are also expressing interest. This is a good defensive move for the time the oil runs out, far in the future that may be. It may also be related to a desire to obtain N-technology expertise just to show Iran Mideast countries are not helpless in the face of Iran's N-threat.

• Thanks to reader Jose Tejeda for the heads up.

• US To Add 100 Troops to Sinai Garrison which currently numbers 800 troops. We are still not entirely clear on why, but an article sent by reader Marcopetroni seems to suggest the US wants Egypt to become more proactive in stopping arms smuggling from Egypt to Gaza. If the additional troops are to help police smuggling, we will have a major increase in the American commitment to Israel.

• Swat, Pakistan NWFP This is the sort of thing that gives us high blood pressure: The Pakistan Army says it has pacified Swat, the writ of the government runs throughout the areas four districts (counties) and so on; but at the same time, between 200 and 1000 militants attack and overrun a Frontier Corps fort with upto 30 soldiers killed or captured. Seven escaped.

• Then to add to the absurdity, Pakistan Army says 40-50 militants were killed. Look, people, let's be sensible. The fort fell to the militants and most of garrison of 37 soldiers and 5 civilians is dead or captured. There is no one around to inform HQ of how many militants were killed. So where did this figure come from? The militants say two were killed, and given the feeble, pathetic resistance the Frontier Corps has been putting up against the militants, the lower figure has more credibility than the higher one.

• If Swat is pacified, where are these insurgents in such large numbers coming from?

• Anbar Marine Commanders Can Reduce Body Armor Requirements because of security improvements: incidents have fallen from 200/week high in February 2007 to three last week, so HQ is allowing local commanders to use their judgment in reducing body armor loads. The Marines have been complaining loudly about the ever-increasing weight, but so far their complaints have not been entertained at HQ, which is focused on keeping casualties down.

• A very nice article at http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,160092,00.html?wh=wh explains the decision.

0230 GMT January 16, 2008

• Department Of Irony: Galileo  The Pope in 1990 (before he became Pope) said that he thought Galileo received a fair trial in 1633 - "But still it moves" and all that. The Pope is scheduled to speak at the University of Rome. The University is in an uproar over his 1990 comment: Ban the Pope, it says; "Science is Secular" and all that.

• Okay, folks. So you are reacting to censorship by imposing censorship? How terribly liberal!

• Question to the good professors of the University: you're sure Galileo believed science is secular? After all, you're speaking in his name.

•  Leonardo Di Vinci A German university says it has found definite proof that the name of the Mona Lisa lady is indeed - surprise! - Lisa. Lisa del Giaconda, to be precise. Mona is supposed to be a short form of Madonna

• Further surprise: the Italians call the painting "La Giaconda".

• This shows why you and I can never be university professors: we know our noses are attached to our faces.

• Senator McCain Likely To Lose To Governor Romney In Michigan With 77% of precincts counted at 0338 GMT, Mr. Romney has 39% of the vote versus 30% for Senator John McCain. He has increased his lead from 37% to 31% which more or less held constant till 15% of precincts counted. As nearly as we can tell, 15% of Michigan's voters have cast votes.

• Since most Democratic candidates pulled out from their primary in protest against Michigan jumping its date forward, the only significant Dem candidate is Mrs. Clinton. We thought that this would leave moderate Dems and independents free to vote for the Senator in large numbers, when we said yesterday he was likely to win. It hasn't happened.

• The Senator is still the leading Rep favorite nationwide.

• Another US-UK Quarrel Over Afghanistan The Brits want to arm Afghan militias in selected districts where their experience tells them this will work. US is adamantly opposed, saying the Army and Police have to be built up, and after all the work that has been put into disarming militias, it will be wrong to regress.

• Further, there is an unbridgeable gulf between the two allies on opium eradication strategy. The US, as is common knowledge, is big on aerial spraying. The Brits have been saying that when there is no alternate source of income for farmers, spraying will only lead to more of them turned to the Taliban. The Afghan president is absolutely against spraying for the same reason, and he is concerned about collateral damage to other crops and the land.

• If this was not enough, the Brits - and the Canadians - are telling Washington enough already about the Allies not doing enough by way of troops. They say Washington has carefully parked the biggest fraction of its troops in the East, where there is relatively little fighting, whereas they are fighting in the South, which is the key area. They say the Canadians and Dutch are suffering disproportionate casualties because the US has taken the safe areas. They also say America's Iraq obsession has caused a shortage of troops for Afghanistan.

• First, folks, this is all very bad news. It shows how hard the US has pushed its allies on more troops, and how frayed allied nerves are that they are pushing right back. This is not the first time we are getting very bad feelings about events in Afghanistan. Adding to our unease is stories along the lines of "Euros getting tired of Afghan commitment". We are increasingly of the opinion that Washington may need a Plan C for Afghanistan because of the danger Allied will-to-fight will collapse. The Afghan war is hugely unpopular in most of the allied countries. As a German official said (paraphrase): "our Government is not making excuses. It is merely telling it as it is, and that is the people do not support our participation in the war."

• Now to more detailed points, but briefly. First, it's odd that the US is arming anti-government militias in Iraq, the Sunnis, overruling the Iraqi government, and it's odd the US is touting the success of the Sunni militias, but refusing to arm Afghan militias. The US will prevail because it is the senior partner, but the its position will lead to more friction with allies and reduce its moral leadership.

• Second, US troops are performing a vital mission in the East. If they are shifted South, the East will go to pieces. The US is blocking Taliban infiltration from that direction, and with things in Pakistan going to heck and beyond, those troops are needed in the East. It's not that the US has chosen an easy sector, it's the US has pacified its sector to the extent it looks easy.

• Third, Re. spraying, the American "police approach" has been shown not to work, not least in the US itself. We're not going to get into this any further, but the longest and least productive war the US has engaged is the Drug War. We don't think the US has any credibility on this issue. In Turkey, India, and Southeast Asia the US has supported an approach that focuses on giving farmers alternatives to growing poppy, and this has worked very well.. So for the US to turn around and say "we wont do it in Afghanistan" is irrational.

• Fourth, re. the disproportionate casualties. The US says its casualties are less because its troops are simply better and so is its expertise. The harsh truth is the Americans are right when they say this. You simply cannot compare American troops to British, Canadian, and Dutch troops. These Allied troops are just as brave as the Americans and just as willing to fight. But in experience, training, supply, and so on, there is just no comparison. For 60 years America has been a garrison state, constantly either at war or training for war. There is no shame for anyone to accept the Americans are just better at the war business.

• And no one need bring up Northern Ireland. There is just no basis for comparison. South Iraq is a better comparison, and while we have repeatedly said it was inevitable the Brits would fail because they so few resources, we know what happened in South Iraq.

• All we can hope for is that with Mr. Bush in his last year, the "Bush Effect" will wane and the Allies will step up their effort.

• Bush Effect: Anything Mr. Bush wants to do is automatically opposed by the rest of the world simply because he proposes doing it, even when in their hearts they know he is right. He is right on Afghanistan.

0230 GMT January 15, 2008

• Senator John McCain's Campaign The Senator is likely to win Michigan's primary being held today. We believe he is the only Republican who can beat Mrs. Clinton. Nonetheless, we share with readers what we were told last year and again this year: the establishment Republicans hate Senator McCain to the point they will do everything to see him shot down, even if it means ceding the election to the Democrats.

• Senator McCain is a person who speaks his mind. He has antagonized a lot of people in his own party, not least because he considers Democrats and Republicans as equally corrupt and in willing slavery to special interests. There is a host of other issues which are too complicated for us to grasp where he has antagonized powerful people.

• Frankly, we have always been impressed with him. Any man who can endure six years of torture and not break, and any man who refuses the enemy's offer to release him unless all other American POWs is, as far as we are concerned, a person of demonstrated character. If the editor could vote, he'd vote for Senator McCain. Only he can bring real change to Washington. Every other candidate is just another hack politician.

• That said, politics is the art of the possible. The US President seems all-powerful, but aside from getting the country into a war he has limited powers. He has to be a consensus-maker, he has to accept compromises.  Its very hard to see how Senator McCain could be effective when basically he can't stand politicians of any stripe and it's very hard for him to compromise on his principles. Electing him president could turn out to be a quixotic act because he would likely be one of the most ineffective presidents the US has seen, and that's saying something considering the current president's performance.

• Mr. Zardari's Opinion Of Scotland Yard Mr. Zardari is Mrs. Bhutto's widower. Scotland Yard's investigative team sent to Pakistan has reportedly concluded that (a) the belief that Al Qaeda killed Mrs. Bhutto is a credible one, and (b) there were mistakes made by Pakistani authorities immediately after the murder were the result of inefficiency and no deliberate cover-up took place. 

• Now, readers should be careful of such stories simply because the London Times story is on background http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3177691.ece The Yard sent 8 experts to Pakistan and there is no way its report is complete, and there is no way the Yard will do other than hand over the report to the Government and let the Government do the talking.

• It is not Scotland Yard's investigation that we find interesting, it is Mr. Zardari's reaction. The Times quotes him as saying:  “She was a world leader,” he said. “We don’t just want a sergeant from Scotland Yard determining the angle of fire. She’s dead - that’s the proof. We have the footage, we have the doctors who were trying to rescue her.” Mr. Zardari wants a UN probe.

• Okay, first off she was not a world leader. She was a disgraced ex-Prime Minister that became an American darling, which just goes to show how totally the Americans were out of ideas on what to do with Pakistan. Let's forget that part of his stupid statement.

• Next, is Mr. Zardari so bereft of IQ that he does not know the UN has no police investigative arm? A UN inquiry would have to rely on expert police evidence, and Scotland Yard are among the world's experts. Moreover, the Times says the Americans concur with the British. Okay, so let's let that also go. It isn't important.

• What's interesting is Mr. Zardari's statement "we don't just want a sergeant from Scotland Yard determining the angle of fire." Again, we're assuming he was correctly quoted, and we do urge readers to remember that though educated South Asians speak excellent English, they use words differently from the British and Americans.

• Nonetheless, someone needs to tell Mr. Zardari that in the west experts can indeed be sergeants. Moreover, does he know the ranks of the British team members? Did all the Yard do is send over a bunch of experienced sergeants? We don't think so. Its the breathtaking arrogance of his statement that is astonishing. That is Mr. Zardari the Feudal Lord speaking, not an educated man committed to democracy.

• We agree with him that a UN inquiry is needed. But we differ with him as to the inquiry's target. We want an inquiry into the corruption charges against him and his wife, into allegations of his criminal behavior when she was prime minister, and the source of income used to buy the British properties the couple are said to own. We also want the inquiry to investigate Mrs. Bhutto's nexus with the Taliban and several terror groups who she used when she was Prime Minister

• We want such an inquiry because (a) we'd like to see an end to this effort to sanctify her; and (b) we'd like the world to understand that she was part and parcel of Pakistan's feudal culture that has crippled Pakistan's democracy, and that when the Americans were pushing her, not only were they pushing a person who was thoroughly corrupt and totally anti-women's-rights, but also a person who used for her official purposes the same terrorists America is fighting today.

• We agree Pakistan needs - and Pakistan wants - democracy and that Pakistan needs to fight terror. But putting Mrs. Bhutto in charge of democratizing Pakistan and of fighting terror is akin to putting the fox to guarding the chickens - inside the coop.

• US Navy SEALs To Get New Assault Boat The current boat, we are told, subjects SEALs to forces upto 20Gs when it is operating at high speed. Fighter pilots pull 10Gs, but they have special flight suits to reduce the stress on their bodies. The SEALs have no protection, so they simply get injured.

• It has taken the admirals all these years to figure out that it's not a good idea to have your men severely beaten up before they even land on the enemy's shores.

• Military leaders worldwide seem to share a common characteristic.  To paraphrase Admoral Chester Nimitz's famous remark concerning the Marines at Iwo Jima, "common sense is an uncommon virtue".

0230 GMT January 14, 2008

• 1st Iraq Benchmark Met The Surge has come and is going, and Iraq has actually just met one of the 18 benchmarks the Surge was supposed to enable. President Bush, of course, sees so much hope in Iraq he is willing to let General Petraeus slow the withdrawal if that's what the general wants. The General's schedule, by the way, is already considered way too slow by many in the Army.

• If Mr. Bush taught the editor's students math, he would undoubtedly claim success when he made them do one problem out of 18. Mr. Bush would say: "See? evidence of success!". Well, yes, if the kids are getting zeroes to begin with, a grade of 6/100 is progress. The problem is the county defines success as a minimum of 60/100. So as far as the county is concerned, Mr. Bush would still be achieving nothing.

• This benchmark concerns a reconciliation law allowing all but the top Baathists to be reemployed, and attempt to do the infamous Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number One which likely did more to fuel the Iraq insurgency than any other single action.

• But we see two problems. First, for some reason we are unable to understand, the reconciliation law requires dismissal of 7000 Interior Ministry officers. This does not seem a Good Thing. Second, the Iraqis may finally be mastering what we call the Pakistan Evasion Syndrome.

• PES occurs when the Americans tell the Pakistanis to do something; the Pakistanis go to rigid attention, look the Americans square in the eyes, give  smart salutes, and shout in unison "Sir, yes sir!" and then just go and do what they darn well please. Odd as it may seem to those used to dealing with Arabs, the Iraqis while just as double dealing as anyone else, have generally been pretty straight with telling the Americans "No way, Jose," or its equivalent in Arabic when they don't want to do something.

• There are various bits of evidence that the Iraqis are finally going PES, for example, in the matter of the Sunni militias. Now, when you have a bunch of American higher-ups hanging on to the ankles of Iraqi officials and saying: "we wont let go till you do something to make us look good," the Iraqis may well be saying "these Americans are getting to be a problem, because how can we use the toilet when they're hanging on to our ankles, we really need to go badly, better say yes just to get some relief from bladder pressure.

• Oil and Gas in Anbar Gas was struck in Anbar some time ago but the poor security situation prevent exploitation. Now the Iraqis are getting ready to export a modest 50-million/cubic-feet of gas to Syria, with plans to build up to 450-million/cft to Europe.

• The larger figure is  equivalent to 75,000-barrels/day of oil using the standard conversion of 6000-cft equals 1 barrel. So, assuming that AQI and other nasties are prevented from blowing up new infrastructure, and assuming there is little corruption - both rather optimistic assumptions - Anbar will finally have its own source of revenue.

• Of course, 75,000-barrels/day is not going to meet the needs of 5.5-million Sunnis because there is nothing else but hydrocarbons in Anbar. But the province also has oil, perhaps as much as 100-billion barrels, almost as much as Iraq's estimated 112-billion barrels. when looking at the figure of 112-billion/bbl Keep in mind that most of Iraq has not been explored; we've heard figures as high as 80%. Most of Iraq has not been explored because till recently, oil used to be in the $10-20/bbl range. The known reserves were plenty enough to support the 1979 peak production of 3.7-million bbl/day. There was no incentive to explore, and producing more oil would have simply crashed the market

• If Anbar at some point can get up to 4-500,000-bbl/day, then the Sunnis will be in fat city. They will have no incentive to continue insisting on a unified Iraq.

• At that point Iraq's biggest problem, sectarianism, will be out of the way, and there will be peace in the country.

• By the way, so far everyone but the Americans have benefited from Iraq's oil. The Anbar gas contracts, for example, have gone to Total (France) and Shell (Netherlands). Yes, everything is multinational now so there are bound to be significant American holdings in these and other companies. But that is not the same thing as American companies getting contracts.

• So: pretty stupid, huh? Here we invade the place, spend $120-billion a year to occupy it, and are getting very little benefit from that investment. Dumb and Dumber. Makes those foreigners who say we invaded Iraq for the oil look pretty stupid, doesn't it?

• But: let's not despair. Someone has to do the exploration, lay the pipelines, maintain the infrastructure. And who are the front-runners here? Schlumberger is one, it is rapidly repositioning itself to become an oil major and not just a petroleum engineering company.

• And the other is? You got it: Halliburton.

• At which point we are forced to ask an impolite question. Wouldn't it be cheaper to pay the Halliburton people - who cannot be named - $10-million/year each in an offshore bank account than to spend $120-billion/year?

• Hey, just a suggestion. Everyone has her/his own ideas on ending the war. Thought we'd offer one of our own.

• Taiwan Repudiates Independence Supporters We have long predicted that the PRC-Taiwan problem is Old News because sooner rather than later Taiwan will vote for reunification.

• Now comes initial proof of our proposition: the independence party has been defeated in elections and now has just 27 of 113 seats. The KMT, which opposes independence, won 81 seats; it's allies have most of the rest.

• In our opinion , two things will convince the Taiwanese to reunify. First, they will simply get tired of being afraid of the PRC all the time. Chinese military intimidation will work. Second, more and more Taiwanese are investing money in PRC. Bloomberg estimates the investment is already an incredible $150-billion - remember, Taiwan's population is just 23-million. That's $6000 per capita. And, Bloomberg says, 1-million Taiwanese live in PRC. Remember in many ways this is just the start of Taiwan's investment in PRC: lots more is to come.

• Taiwan's 2007 GDP was estimated by the US State Department to be $380-billion. Look at this another way. Suppose the US had invested $5-trillion in China with the figure increasing every year, and suppose 13-million Americans lived in China. Would the US be talking about war with PRC?

0230 GMT January 13, 2008

News

• Sri Lanka Reports 81 Rebels Killed says Press Trust of India. Even allowing for exaggerations, it's clear the LTTE rebels are taking a beating as the Sri Lankan military continues it's offensive.

• May we respectfully request the Japanese Government, who are Sri Lanka's biggest aid donors, to stay out of this? Tokyo has begun making noises about its concern that the Sri Lankans unilaterally abrogated the farcical ceasefire with the LTTE? Did Tokyo want the rebels to abrogate first before the Sri Lankans reacted? But why should the rebels abrogate? They were merrily continuing the war of terror and recouping their strength. That in itself is an abrogation.

• People have to stop thinking that just because you have an armed group that is fighting for something it has a legitimate cause. Yes, Tamils in Sri Lanka felt they were getting a bad deal and that war was the only way they could achieve it. But the LTTE - trained and supported for many years by India, by the way - very quickly got into the terror business. That is not legitimate.

• The world has to come up new and practical definitions of what is a legitimate resort to force and what is not. Just as Bin Laden's war against the war against the West and the Taliban's war against democratic Afghanistan are illegitimate uses of force, so is the LTTE's war against Sri Lanka.

Iran's Swarm Tactics

• When it comes to political/strategic matters the editor tends to the garrulous. When it comes to military matters, he is laconic. This comes from decades of debating the former with people who have some expertise in some area of politics/strategy, requiring detailed explanation of one's position, and of debating military matters only with the military so that use of shorthand is possible.

• Reader Jose Tejada sends us a link to a New York Times article on the subject of Iran's swarm tactics, and another by James Dunnigan on the dangers/opportunities of wargaming. Mr. Tejada asks us to comment. we had actually commented the other day but in shorthand.

• First off, contrary to what the US media might think, the US Navy has been perfectly aware for several years about the potential use of swarm tactics by Iran against US/Coalition warships in the Gulf. The NYT, to its credit does include a quote by the US JCS Chairman which makes that clear.

• Second, the NYT makes much of a wargame where a now retired USMC 3-star played Red and swarmed the US Navy to send 16 major warships to the bottom in 5-10 minutes.

• Hmmmmm. We hesitate to launch one of our special Mockery Attacks when we don't know the details of what the good general really said and we lack the parameters of the war game. But off-hand, the odds of that scenario happening are a good bit less than the odds of the editor displacing Paris Hilton in the media. Which is to say near zero.

• The scenario seems to imply the US is sailing a 1-carrier task group escorting amphibs for a major landing on Red's coast, blithely unaware of any impending danger. It further seems to imply the Americans are right up against Red's coast or are caught in/around the Straits of Hormuz.

• In short, the scenario seems to imply the US Navy are a bunch of blithering idiots as opposed to this prescient, intelligent, and wide awake Marine.

• Rebutting the NYT in detail would be too tedious even for us, but one sentence alone is enough to sink the article. "In the days since the encounter with five Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz, American officers have acknowledged that they have been studying anew the lessons from a startling simulation conducted in August 2002."

• We are very sorry to tell the NYT this, but the US Navy does not need to dust off a 2002 simulation to study the problem. It has been studying the problem long and hard years and years before this latest swarm thing happened. You have either misunderstood what the officers are telling you (high probability) or the officers are being disingenuous in pursuit of some special interest like the Littoral Combat Ship or whatever new gadget is immensely coveted right now (also high probability).

• The simple matter is that the US is more likely to start a war with Iran than the other way around. We've said we do not doubt that the Iranians could catch a single US warship transiting Hormuz by surprise and damage/sink it. The purpose would be what, besides giving the US an open season license to do what every red-blooded American is dying to do, send Iran back to the Stone Age?

• Any US war against Iran will begin with several days/weeks/months of bombing. With reference to Gulf waters, the US will seek to destroy any port, base, facility that could be used by the Iranians to launch attacks against US warships and oil tankers in the Gulf. The US will not be in a hurry: we've learned from Gulf II that the US is rather good at ignoring world opinion when it needs to, and there is no one who can do anything about stopping America. US warships will enter the Gulf only after it has been sanitized - there are other scenarios but we're sticking with this one for simplicity.

• Okay, so its possible that dozens of Iranian boats remain hidden and can make sudden sorties at an appropriate time. And they will find US Navy warships how? When your shore installations with radar and electronic intercept are working 100% during peacetime, it's not too hard to find a US Navy warship. Though we do have to note the US Navy is skilled at not being found when it doesn't want to, though obviously that is easier in larger bodies of water than in the Gulf. But we digress. But with your shore installations gone, you are blind. You can conduct reconnaissance only by sending your boats out into the Gulf. By the way, there wont be a goat left alive on any island the Iranians control in the Gulf.

• There are many ways of combating dozens and even hundreds of swarm boats. A simple one is to keep aircraft in the air to attack boats with cluster weapons. These boats range from the size of the small craft you see in the Chesapeake Bay to a few naval-sized patrol boats. Against cluster bombs they have no defense. Remember, the US has access to bases all along the south coast of the Gulf. It is not a problem to keep - say 16+ aircraft on station with twice, thrice, four times as many available to take to the air in short order.

• Also, with the exception of Hormuz, which is 65-km wide - the rest of the Gulf is wider. We've said that nothing is going to sail anywhere near Hormuz until after the Americans clear the land on the Iranian side. Not only will the Americans have 1-2 hours warning of any approaching swarm if they sail along the Gulf's south side, locating the warships at night and coordinating an attack under conditions of electronic jamming and Iranian radars dead is not going to be a winning proposition.

• We have to stop because we are getting carried away. But we are compelled to make a small point. The Washington Post reported yesterday that the US Navy says in December alone there were two incidents of Iranian boats approaching US warships too closely. In one case the amphib USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41) even fired warning shots when the Iranian boats came within 500 yards.

• So don't you think that incident was much more serious than this one, where no shot of any sort were fired? So how come the US never publicized the December incidents but made a loud hoo-ha about this recent incident?

• We have no clue as to what the US was upto, but from what we know of the Iranians it is very unlikely they would seek to dismiss a real incident to the extent they have said the US Navy videos are fakes and to the extent they have released their own videos. If a real confrontation had taken place the Iranians would have been out there boasting loudly about having driven off US warships.

• By the way, people have commented that the US videos seem to at least obscure as much as they reveal.

India's Giga Rich and India's Poor

• India Has 54 Billionaires which is  more than twice China's total, and Indian billionaires on average likely have three times as much money as Chinese billionaires. India has shot well ahead of Japan to become Number One is Asia and if it has not already, it will become second in the world only to America.

• Our figures are calculated from http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Mumbaikars-beat-Delhiites-in-billionaires-list/239494/2/

• First, why this huge disparity between China, which began its economic expansion in 1980, ten years before India, and has grown faster - at least that's what the official statistics say - every year since?

• The reason is simple. Capitalism in China had to start from the ground up. Modern Indian capitalism is at least 120 years old. But the government severely repressed Indian private enterprise in the period 1947-90, in the name of building a socialist economy. About all that achieved was a colossal waste of resources exceeded, probably, only by the former USSR. Nonetheless, once the economy was liberalized, you had a whole horde of Indian companies that were skilled at making money in very difficult situations. It was simply a matter of lifting restrictions and these companies shot ahead.

• Many of Indian billionaires come from "old money" and have gained their new status by taking their companies public in the liberalization era. China's billionaires had to start with nothing.

• This is all terribly jolly and we are proud of of fellow countrypeople, and we are thrilled and delighted that you can now casually put down $10-million for a penthouse apartment in Bombay and no one will say "Wow! That's really a lot of money." We are impressed that in Delhi you can pay $3000 for a cocktail, which is not much less than the new Tata Nano 4-seat people's car. We say to India's billionaires, centimillionaires, millionaires and on: "You earned it, enjoy it."

• Minor problem, folks. While its not clear how many Indians live on less than the $2/day the World Bank says is poverty level, it's clear it's a lot of people. We use the figure of 600-million, which is about 55% of the population - see http://www.nextbillion.net/newsroom/2008/01/07/indian-ex-pats-will-direct-investment-into-social-projects

• So what are India's gigarich doing to help the poor? A bit here and a bit there, but nothing much. We are not suggesting that the gigarich divest themselves of their money to help the poor. We are suggesting that they do set an example, but more than that, they should use their money/influence to get both the government to do more for the people and to fight corruption.

• There is a totally non-altruistic reason for doing this. It's called "Assuring Your Own Security". Once upon a time, darn nearly everyone in India was poor except perhaps the top 5%, and likely 99% of the top people didn't have much money. The poor accepted this as the natural order of the universe. But now perhaps 300-million people have enough that they should worry about what happens if you get a charismatic leader who can raise the poor masses to follow him.

• Besides, what happened to our Gandhian conscience? We revere the old boy as practically another avatar of Vishnu, a demi-god. Do you think he would have been happy to see $10-million apartments while so many don't have enough to eat?

• We are not saying buy each poor family a car. All we are saying is, make sure everyone has an 1800-calorie/day diet, 10-square-meters of solid construction in which to live, clean water, minimal health care, reliable electricity, education for the kids, and some sort of social security net for the widowed, the disabled, the outcast.

• We'd be happy to do the calculations for what this would cost over 20 years if someone is interested. Working as we do with back-of-envelope estimates all the time, we think this can be done on 4% of current GDP.

•  For the comic discrepancy between estimates of how many Indian are poor, read http://www.sajaforum.org/2007/09/statistics-indi.html You should also keep in mind that much of the economic activity of poor people is not easily quantified in terms of GDP.

0230 GMT January 7, 2008

• US Considering Covert Operations Inside Pakistan says New York Times. We are of two minds. Primarily, we support an aggressive GWOT posture. Pakistan's badlands are the base for the resurgent Taliban. For reasons we have endlessly repeated, Pakistan will not fight the Taliban, its own creation and its front-line tool in securing its security interests. So having the US go in by itself makes sense.

• On the other hand, you have to ask what the US will achieve besides further antagonizing the Pakistan military, which is already absolutely fed up with the US. [Ooops! Our bad. We weren't supposed to say that. The official line which a surprising number of Washingtoons actually believe is that the Pakistan Army loves America.]

• You can say - as we do - that it no longer matters what the Pakistan military thinks because we need to kill Taliban and the Pakistanis have made clear they will not kill Taliban. But you don't want a situation where the Pakistan Army is doing its best to kill Americans operating covertly inside its country.

• And by the way, it isn't just the younger officers who are raring to have a go at American troops: there are quite a few senior commanders who would like nothing better. [Ooooops! There we go again. Just cain't keep our foot out of our mouth today. The official Washington belief is that the senior Pakistani commanders just love America.]

• Some of the limitations of sending US troops into Pakistan are discussed in this blog-post forwarded by reader Chris Raggio http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/01/uh-oh-us-comman.html

• We should make clear there are already US SF/CIA teams working inside Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province. They are hunting Al Qaeda and they work with local hires and trusted folk inside Pakistan's security agencies.

• Of course, "trusted" and "Pakistan's security folks" cannot be said in the same sentence. America may have turned a couple of lower level types, but the rest remain completely loyal to their Government. Moreover, we are doubtful this farcical cooperation will extend to hunting Taliban.

• Meanwhile, Bill Roggio reports that despite Government claims that Swat is pacified, fighting continues and the Taliban are threatening to extend their war to the "settled" districts of the NWFP. "Settled" means those that are governed by the government as opposed to areas governed by the tribes. http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/01/taliban_military_cla.php

• Basra Revisted Before you read this article, we need to reiterate that we completely understand why the British abandoned the city. From the start they had less than a third of the troops required to pacify the place, and their mission faced widespread opposition at home. So this article is not a condemnation of the British for leaving. It is merely a sad indication of reality for most Iraqis today, not just in Basra. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3056726.ece

• Bill Sinks Hil's Ship Mr. Bill Clinton seems determined to destroy his wife's political campaign. That is our take as to what is happening to the former front-runner, Mrs. Hilary Clinton. She should have won Iowa, and New Hampshire should have been hers. Instead, she crashed in Iowa and is running a double-digit deficit in New Hampshire.

• The problem, we think, is Bill. Forget that every time he opens his mouth ostensibly to support Hilary, which is all the time, he makes the conversation about himself. He is taking up her TV/media time to deliver his speeches - which are, predictably, about what about what a great Prez he was. What is causing us concern is that Mrs. Clinton seems unable to control him.

• There is increasingly no doubt whatsoever that if the nation elects Hilary, America will have its first dual-Presidency. Bill will not stay quietly in the background, keeping his fat mouth shut and giving his wife advise only when asked. He will jump into everything with all four paws and he will dominate everything.

• We will get a third Bill Clinton term even though the Constitution forbids it. If Hilary is elected, he will destroy her presidency and the chances of a second Democratic term. The man is too brilliant, too loquacious, and too energetic to do anything else other than take charge.

• We believe the country does not want a dual-Presidency, particularly when the senior member is unelected. We believe that people who otherwise would gladly vote for Hilary in the primaries will vote for Mr. Obama simply because of the Bill factor.

• Now, primary season has just begun. Iowa and New Hampshire are irrelevant because the delegate votes come from the ten biggest states in terms of population. The Clinton attack machine, which is formidable and the best in the US, has not even moved from Park to Neutral gear. There has been no need so far because Mrs. Clinton was assumed to be the winner. Mr. Obama is a Chicago politician, and simple by virtue of that unfortunate condition, there will be a wide range of dirt in his past. So it's early days.

• If Mrs. Clinton in elected Prez. she will seek to get Bill out of the way by appointing him to the Supreme Court. This is something he has very much wanted. But: first she will need a vacancy; second he will have to agree - and its not clear to us that he wants the Court while his wife is Prez. The problem with all this is first she has to get elected, and right now there is a big problem standing in her way, Bill.

0230 GMT January 6, 2008

• Lebanon Still Has No President and is unlikely to get one soon, as Hezbollah is demanding a veto right over the choice. The good news is, however, that Lebanon has not torn itself apart over the issue, as was widely feared when the presidential choice crisis became intractable in December 2007.

• Israeli Opinion Poll http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/941792.html 81% of Israelis support "targeted killing" of Palestinian militants.

• Our problem is that the words "targeted killing" are just public relations to assuage the Israeli conscience, much like America's "precision strikes" are intended to blind the American public to the ugly reality. Because in both the Israeli and Iraq/Afghanistan cases the militants and civilians are mixed up, targeted or precision strikes inevitably end up killing more civilians than militants.

• Now, if Israel/America were in an all-out war situation then even a 1:2 militant: civilian dead ratio would represent progress. For example, had America had to use ordinary weapons to destroy Iraq's infrastructure in 1991, it is probable hundreds of thousands of civilians would have died. With precision weapons it is likely the toll was an order of magnitude less, and this is a good thing.

• But when you are doing counter-insurgency, you cant kill 2, 3, 5 civilians for every militant, and at that we know Israel and America - as would any other country in the same circumstances - define "militant" with extreme generosity.

• Other poll findings were that 51% of Israelis believe settlements should be frozen and 55% believe illegal settlements should be evacuated. Both these figures support the oft-made generalization that Israelis are evenly divided on key Palestine questions.

• If the Palestinians had any sense, they'd work to expand support among the Israelis. But this requires an impossible attitude shift. Palestinians are overwhelming believers in their victimhood. Conversely, so are militant Israelis. Neither side is willing to take responsibility for their negative actions.

• Dakar Rally 2008 Cancelled because of terrorist threats.  BBC says the threats concern the Mauritania leg, but our information is there are other threats as well.

• This is just a small indication of the spread of Islamic militancy through North Africa. We believe the US obsession with Iraq is in great part responsible for the strengthening militancy. The US cannot commit 80% of resources to Iraq, 10% to Afghanistan, and then try and deal with the rest of the world using the remaining 10%.

• President Bush Wins In Iraq We should have made this point several weeks ago, but one thing or another led to it slipping our mind.

• President Bush has won his Iraq war. Thanks to the improvement in the security situation and the start of the presidential campaigning season, most people are focused elsewhere.

• Mr. Bush's strategy was not to take responsibility for his mistakes and to leave the mess for his successor. He has succeeded.

• It's sad that in the end Mr. Bush turned out to be just another American politician: partisan, selfish, and incompetent, governing by exploiting the fearfulness of the people after 9/11. We had high hopes for him both in 2000 and 2004. Those who never liked him will be rolling their eyes at what they will perceive as our naiveté. But to the extent they simply hated him on sight - as many people did with Mr. Clinton - they should not confuse our lack of prejudice with naiveté.

0230 GMT January 5, 2008

• Kenya Though violence has died down, the standoff between the opposition and the government continues. The President has made soothing noises about being willing to consider a rerun if ordered by the court. This is rejected by the opposition which says the court is packed with pro-government judges and the judicial process itself is very lengthy.

• BBC says at least 180,000 people have been internally displaced in Kenya in the last week.

• The President also says he is willing to consider a coalition government. No good, says the opposition, been there, done that, and it didn't work for us.

• Trust For Fatah Falls, Rises for Hamas A month ago 46% of Palestinians said they supported Fatah, President Abbas's party inherited from Yassar Arafat, and 13% said they supported Hamas.

• Now according to a poll, 39% said they support Fatah and 16% Hamas.

• 41% say they trust neither party, up from 32%.

• Hamas Refuses Indirect Talks with Israel via European channels, says Jerusalem Post. The offer was made by unspecified European nation/s to discuss a truce. Hamas's leader-in-exile says resistance is the only path left for the Palestinians.

• Hamas responded to President Abbas's offer for talks with a statement that the President's pre-conditions were unacceptable. No preconditions or no talks.

• Palestinians Averaged 8.2 missiles daily in 2007 says Debka.com, citing Shin Bet as its source. The Israelis, being the Israelis, will doubtless have concluded they have not been tough enough and pay no heed to the likelihood their repression is fueling the attacks.

• Though - as always - we must state that regardless of how kindly or how cruelly the Israelis behave there is no possibility of a final settlement. We are sure the very great majority of people on either side want a final settlement. But it takes just 1-2% of a population to destroy peace, and there are likely to be higher percentages of hardliners on both sides.

• Another Fact For Ripley's Believe It Or Not A worker and his brother were cleaning windows on a New York skyscraper when their platform collapsed, sending them 500-feet to the street. The brother died instantly.

• The worker, believe it or not, not only survived, he has regained the use of his limbs. Nonetheless doctors warn he could relapse at any time as his condition remains serious.

• A doctor on the case says normally they don't see people who fall from above 100 feet: it's a one-way trip to the morgue.

• Story from BBC.

• UAE Said Latest To Warn Mrs. Bhutto of threats to her life. The US has already said it updated her regularly. President Musharraf has said Mrs. Bhutto was warned not to go to the venue where she was killed.

• All this seems to make no difference to Mrs. Bhutto's supporters. They keep chanting "the government was negligent". Her close friend Mrs. Sherry Rehman even gave one of the stupidest explanations for Mrs. Bhutto's actions we have heard/read to date. Mrs. Bhutto loved crowds, says Mrs. Rehman, and she needed to be among them for campaigning.

• We've said this before: unless you put yourself completely in security's hands, you cannot be safe. And the way security works is to isolate you from everyone. When Mrs. Bhutto was told this would be the price if she was to be given protection on the same level as the President, she refused.

• We are sure Pakistani security could have been better. But the way Mrs. Bhutto was behaving, it was juts a matter of time before someone got her. And even with the best security she was a goner the day she came back.

0230 GMT January 4, 2008

• Kenya Violence was substantially reduced yesterday, but the reasons are not necessarily good. Primarily Kenyans seems to be drawing a breath before having at each other again. The opposition called off its march in Nairobi, but security forces continued to clash with opposition members. Now the march is scheduled for today; if it goes through, there will be trouble because the government is determined to stop the march.

• Meanwhile, the Attorney General has suggested a vote recount as a way of resolving the issue of who won. Like other Kenyans, he warned the country faces an unprecedented crisis.

• The president, who was declared winner, said he is ready to talk to the opposition. This may be a good sign, it may mean nothing un less he is willing to step down while the matter works its way through various judicial processes. if these are not seen to be fair, regardless of the truth, the opposition will not be satisfied, just as it is not satisfied right now.

• US is calling for negotiations and an end to the violence. Kenya is a US ally, but may we suggest the US simply stay out of this dispute. When you have a half-ton bull in the china shop, the bull will destroy everything even if it has the best intentions.

• Pakistan: United States Sentences Nawaz-i-Sharif To Death Jang of Pakistan says US has opened negotiations with ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after the death of Mrs. Bhutto.

• Goodbye, Nawaz, we hardly knew you.

• What is with the lamebrains who run American foreign policy? Don't they realize that if Nawaz is seen as an American puppet, he too will be killed by extremists? Does anyone in Washington care that President Musharraf has been the target of at least nine assassination attempts because he is seen - correctly in our view - as an American stooge?

• President Musharraf is not a politician. It is a much simpler matter to arrange tight security for him because he can, and is, isolated from the people, than it is to protect a politician who has to meet people and mix with them all the time. Despite the  security, several of the attempts on the president's life have been "there but for the grace of God..." affairs.

• For a moment we wondered if the US has a devious plan to give the kiss of death to every Pakistani politician as a way of getting them all killed and then saying: "Oh well, only Mushy Bhai is left."

• Naaah...this assumes some degree of planning and competence. You will not find this in US policy toward Pakistan these days.

• Palestinian Authority Says It Will Not Accept Demilitarization and the right of Israeli security forces to operate at will in the proposed independent Palestine state. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517290305&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

• Jerusalem Post bases it report on Palestinian statements of Israel's demands. Israel has not officially said anything on the above lines, but the demands, if they are made, are consistent with Israel's hard-line position on its security.

• So, if the Palestinians have it right, here is another fatal blow to the notion of Palestinian statehood and and end to the war with Israel.

• Of course, this presents an interesting philosophical question: can you strike a fatal blow  to someone/something that has already been killed many times over?

• Annapolis was a sham, and that part of President Bush's Mideast visit that relates to getting a resolution of Israeli-Palestinian issues will be a sham.

• There is no hope of a peaceful settlement.

• Moreover, the Israeli effort to punish Gaza while rewarding the West Bank will fail. The Palestine authority will lose all credibility with the West Bank if it is seen as accepting the escalating Israeli action against Gaza.

• After Palestinians fired a 122mm rocket at an Israeli city, causing no damage or casualties, Israeli security forces attacked what they said were terrorist positions. According to the Palestinians, four dead were militants, the rest were civilians. 30 are said to be injured/wounded. The above Jerusalem Post report shows how the allegedly pro-Israeli President Abbas is already attacking the Israelis for their actions in Gaza.

0230 GMT January 3, 2008

Kenya

• Media estimates of killed in riots and attacks range up to 300. The opposition, which narrowly lost the presidential vote in an election where the Election Commissioner himself said he wasn't sure who won, and which says the election was rigged, plans a major march in Nairobi today. This might lead to more violence.

• The antagonists belong to Kenya's two major tribes, and as has happened time and again and again in Africa, tribal rivalries simmer just below the surface only to blow up. That this is happening in Kenya is a great tragedy because the country has managed to put itself on the path to modernization and reasonably good governance.

• Pessimists are saying the vote dispute will escalate into a bloody civil war as happened in Rwanda. As of right now, we don't agree. From what we know of the Kenyans they are considerably more pragmatic than many other Africans and we are sure every Kenyan knows the risks of continuing the violence.

• Now, people, hark: the western media was so excited about Pakistan and baying like a bunch of starved hounds about democracy and Pakistan falling apart and so on, but the Kenyan situation was largely ignored till 48 hours ago. You have similar allegations about rigging, we don't see the great United States and the even greater UK and the very greatest EU making all sorts of threats against the Kenyan government. In fact, we hear appeals for "calm", for "moderation" and such piffle.

• The west's position on Pakistan is compounded of nine parts hypocrisy and one part genuine upset. When it has come to Africa, the west, my dear, frankly could give a darn. Someone please explain to us why President Musharraf is a worse dictator than President Mugabe.

• The editor, in his younger days, futzed around quite a bit in Africa - doing what he can't even remember. It must have seemed very important at that time or why would he repeatedly land up in Africa? He must have been suffering from deep delusions about his own importance, and he must have up to things so insignificant he has forgotten.

• Be that as it may, this was in the 1960s when the colonial powers were leaving and tribal conflicts, long kept under iron control by the colonial powers, began to surface. Biafra/Nigeria was one particularly bad case that the editor has some dim recollection about, something about C-47s, but for whom he can't recall. Ghana was peaceful, the Congo was not, the Rhodesias were under the boot of white supremacists, Col. Gaddafi had not come to power in Libya but the country was seething with unrest, the Algerians were fantastically proud of their victory over the French but the country was shattered by another very brutal colonial war and the forced departure of the French. Rwanda and Burundi were still one country and as in so much of Africa, you had these beautifully neat white settlements with every modern amenity, and right outside was the dangerous, mysterious deep jungle and its native inhabitants about which/whom your hosts talked in whispers. These are the countries he remembers.

• The point of this long, rambling, and pointless remembrance: Your editor was introduced to Africa by his father, who was on UN service in the Congo, and then your editor kept coming back on his own. While the Biafra thing was on, the editor had - what he thought - a genius inspiration. Tribalism was the problem in Africa, boundaries drawn by the colonial powers without regard to ethnicity. We needed new countries in Africa, ethnically homogenous countries, that would solve the problem.

• Sitting in comfort in New York, your editor put this idea to his father. His father had many things to say, but the chief one was "the problem is there are no clear correspondences between ethnic groups and geographically compact territories. People talk of this tribe as inhabiting this region and that tribe inhabiting that region. Actually Africa is thoroughly mixed up, a real melting pot. In every region where one tribe may dominate, there are several minority tribes who in many cases are oppressed by the dominant tribe. If what you suggest was done, you would have a horrible mess that would make the Partition of India look like a garden tea party."

• This all came back to the editor when he saw this map of Kenya's ethnicities at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7168580.stm The map is quite deceptive because it has solid color bands - for example, the Eastern Region is given as Somali majority. But there will be 100 other tribes and sub-tribes living there. Africa is perhaps the most complicated continent of all when it comes to ethnicity.

• So: the editor has to agree: ethnic states are infeasible. But then what is to be done? Africa -and the Mideast - is predominantly tribal. Scratch the surface and underneath that very modern African or even pan-African is a person whose loyalty is to the tribe. In such a situation, its very difficult to keep a consensus going, very difficult to say: "Well, their group won the election but next time we'll win so lets work with them to keep the peace and make the country strong". That's because very often "their group" doesn't willingly give up power - and usually because once any group comes to power, it works to advance its tribal interests, not the interests of the country.

Other News

• Oil at $100 America goes "tsk-tsk" and gets back to consuming itself into a coma. The poor nations take another severe hit, but who cares about the poor? Certainly not the west and even more certainly not OPEC.

• Meanwhile: BioFuels Version 1 Is Dead On Arrival Washington Post tells us that between 2003 and 2007, the Europeans increased their biodiesel capacity to 10-million tons. Last year 5-million tons was sold. The whole thing has gone bust because even with subsidies etc. it's costing $4.80/gallon.

• Back in the US, the ethanol boom is about to go bust because the infrastructure to transport the stuff long distances doesn't exist. Equally important, neither the economics nor the carbon reduction make any sense. And both in Europe and in the US there is very serious concern about pushing up food prices as land is diverted to fuel production. The west can afford it: in the US we pay a ridiculously low percentage of our incomes for food. In the editor's case this is about 6% of his income - that includes eating out. But as usual, it is the poor countries that are getting/will be getting hit.

• So: This Is Good, This Is How Innovation Works On to BioFuels Version 2, which at least in the US will likely be based on switchgrass and in Africa on jatropha and in Latin America on sugarcane - though this last is not entirely controversy free because of the worry forest is being cut down to expand cane production, something we have heard cane enthusiasts deny.

• Learning comes from doing. Much has been learned about BioFuels in Version 1. BioFuels Version 2 will be more successful.

• Pakistan has agreed to accept police assistance from UK's Scotland Yard in the Mrs. Bhutto murder investigation.

• This leads us to make an observation about Pakistanis versus Kenyans The Pakistani political opponents, President Musharraf and Mrs. Bhutto/her successors, are outdoing themselves in seeing who can be a bigger stooge of the west. The Kenyans have more dignity.

• In the 60 years since South Asia gained its independence, we have never seen anything as servile as Mrs. Bhutto/her party dealings with the west. Mrs. Bhutto was acting as if she was on the American payroll and not a Pakistani: every little thing that happened she would start crying for Washington to make right.

• As for President Musharraf, the less said the better. He has sullied the dignity of his country and of his army with his frantic efforts to suck up to Washington/London/Brussels. He needs to be replaced for insulting his country. His government acted rightly in saying foreign police involvement would not be helpful. Then he turns right around and invites the British to send a team. Hello, anyone in the Pakistan Government heard about August 14, 1947? We guess not.

0230 GMT January 2, 2008

Here we go again. It's not as if there isn't other, more important news.

Mrs. Bhutto's Murder: Myths, Realities

• Was Mrs. Bhutto Killed Because She Was About To Reveal Proof the election was to be rigged?

• No, Since everyone and his stuffed toy - including Washington - knows the election would not be fair in terms of what the west might deem fair, Mrs. Bhutto's "proof" was no news to anyone.

• Does Pakistan Criminal Law Require An Autopsy? Yes.

• Did The Police Prevent An Autopsy? The police officer who is supposed to have prevented doctors from conducting an autopsy told CNN it was the family who objected. Mrs. Bhutto's husband is on record as saying he refused to allow an autopsy because (1) he did not want the body desecrated and (2) he did not trust the government.

• But Isn't A Court Order Needed To Prevent An Autopsy? Yes.

• Doesn't That Show the Government Acted Mala Fide? No. We have already said that there was no manner in which the police would have attempted to stop Mrs. Bhutto's enraged supporters from taking her body away. To do so would have meant major rioting, something the police would want to avoid for their own safety. Besides, Mrs. Bhutto had sympathizers in the Government. For every police officer who might have said: "The body cannot be removed" there would be another who would say: "yes it can.

• Is The Government Covering Up? Yes. But that doesn't mean it ordered her murder. In many ways the murder was at the very least a major embarrassment for the Government and an indictment of its security efforts. It also exposed the Government to credible charges it was part of the conspiracy. None of this helps the government in any way.

• Insofar as Mrs. Bhutto could not take power a third time - assuming she won the election was in a position to form a coalition government - the Government had nothing to immediately fear from her. With a packed Supreme Court, there is no chance that Mrs. Bhutto would have managed to get changed the laws preventing her - and Mr. Nawaz Sharif - from a third term. She would have remained the head of her party but not been prime minister.

• The cover up can equally be explained as an attempt by the Government to avoid getting blamed for something it did not do.

• But Hasn't The Extremist Blamed By The Government Denied The Murder? Yes. And he may well be innocent. There are any number of people who wanted Mrs. Bhutto dead.

• But Al-Qaeda did claim credit for the murder. Bill Roggio covered this thoroughly in www.longwarjournal.org.

• If AQ Did It, Is The Government Off The Hook? No. The intelligence services work with AQ and against AQ as the situation requires, though mainly it is a "live and let live" situation. It's always possible some government personnel were involved at some point. That doesn't mean the government did it, but after all, any government has to take responsibility for its agencies.

• What About Allegations Of A Sniper As The Killer? Sure, it's possible. We'll just never know because Mrs. Bhutto's family will never allow exhumation. The family has no more interest in the truth than the Government; both have their narratives and will maintain them at all costs.

• But Snipers/Gunmen Are Not Al Qaeda's Marks Says who? AQ in Iraq fights in perfectly conventional manner - organized units, infantry weapons, standard infantry tactics - as well as using suicide bombing. AQI uses snipers, so why is it inconceivable that they used one or more in Rawalpindi?

• How Did The Assassins Penetrate A High Security Area? Doesn't That Indicate Government Complicity? The rally was held in in a park that happens to be part of the exclusive residential area in Rawalpindi. That doesn't mean the whole area is high security. The White House is a high security area, downtown Washington DC isn't. This was a rally of the people. Tens of thousands, if not a hundred thousand, were present. Usual risks apply.

• Snipers, Gunmen, Bombers: Doesn't This Indicate A Highly Sophisticated Attack? Lets assume all were present. Yes, it does indicate a high degree of sophistication. But why do we assume AQ is unsophisticated?

• Next, if the Government organized the attack, it's a bit odd it did not also organize the aftermath. For example, it could have arranged its security agents immediately took charge of Mrs. Bhutto's car and controlled everything from then on out. You wouldn't have had this pathetic confusion that makes the Government look like idiots.

• Doesn't The Destruction Of Forensic Evidence Indicate A Cover-up? Yes. But we've already said the Government has every reason to cover-up its incompetence. Further, here we are in the most exclusive area of Rawalpindi. What's the first municipality's instinct? Get the bodies and vehicles off the street, clean up. Not everyone in the world watches CSI. We don't know if the possibility we offer is what happened. But it's plausible.

• Did Democracy In Pakistan Die With Mrs. Bhutto? Till the Americans stepped into Pakistan's domestic politics with their Size 44 feet and parachuted Mrs. Bhutto into the country, Pakistan was chugging along as it has always chugged along. Whatever crisis existed was because of America's insistence that Pakistan fight Islamic terrorists. This upset traditional balances of power.

• The Pakistan frontier was just as lawless and out of control when the Americans were fighting the Russians in Afghanistan via proxy. No one said Pakistan was in crisis. When America left, the frontier continued to be lawless/uncontrolled. No one said it was a crisis. So how come because the Pakistanis weren't doing what the Americans wanted there is suddenly a crisis?

• Mrs. Bhutto's many western supporters want you to believe that she was Pakistan's democratic savior. She had zero relevance till the US decided to back her. Believe it or not, there are plenty of Pakistanis who were fighting for democracy all the years Mrs. Bhutto was in luxurious political exile. Incredible as it may seem, there are many other political parties in Pakistan and they will continue to fight for democracy as they have been doing.

• There is even a case to be made that the Army wants a return to democracy as long as its left alone to do what its prerogatives and privileges are respected. This isn't democracy as Americans understand it. But neither is it authoritarianism/dictatorship.

• For various complex reasons democracy has not developed in Pakistan - or a hundred other countries - as one would have wished. Mrs. Bhutto was not a democrat: she was part and parcel of Pakistan's corrupt feudal system.

• Further, there can be no true democracy imposed on any country - particularly not by America.

• Is Pakistan Falling Apart? No. Orbat.com believes there is a real danger Pakistan will become fundamentalist. But the country is not falling apart and nor is it likely to fall apart.

0230 GMT January 1, 2008

• Robert Baer On Pakistan Once in a great while one come across an article that says everything one wants to say in such succinct fashion that one is left with one emotion: jealousy. So it is with Robert Baer's article on Pakistan   http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1698607,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics&iref=werecommend Mr. Baer is a widely known former CIA field officer.

• He hopes that the Administration's misguided policy of foisting democracy on the Islamic world will end with Mrs. Bhutto assassination. The policy has been spectacularly unsuccessful because the countries where the US has tried its hand - Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Lebanon - are at war and "wars poison democracy".

• He head-on blames the US for what's happened in Pakistan: "...because it forced a premature reconciliation between President Musharraf and Bhutto; it forced Musharraf to lift martial law; it showered money on Musharraf to fight a war that was never popular in Pakistan. The Administration could not understand that it can't have both in Pakistan — a democracy and a war on terrorism."

• First we must note that Orbat.com has been a firm supporter of the Administration's democracy initiative. But Mr. Baer's point that you cannot have democracy while fighting a war is absolutely correct.

• Few Americans understand this, and their blind insistence that human rights must be respected by the US-backed side while the war is on is inane. The US itself doesn't respect the human rights of enemy combatants on or off the battlefield. It has an amazingly loose set of rules of engagement designed - understandably - to reduce US casualties, but this comes at the expense of other people's rights.

• Because Americans are not fighting a war at home, they feel quite free to lecture others on how their wars must be fought. We've said this before: suppose every other day a suicide bomber blew up 10, 20, 30 people in Washington DC, and suppose that everytime police/army patrols left their bases they were shot at or attacked with IEDs, how long does anyone suppose US respect for human rights would last? About a week at most.

• Supporting The Moderates The reason the US decided to send Mrs. Bhutto home is two-fold. First, whatever you may say against Americans, they do take the democracy thing seriously. It did not sit well with them that Pakistan was ruled by a military dictator. We believe the Americans genuinely, completely, entirely wanted a democratic Pakistan.

• Second, they wanted to strengthen moderate elements in Pakistan as the key to winning the war against fundamentalists. Mrs. Bhutto was seen as a moderate person.

• We're going to ignore for today the delicious irony of attributing to Mrs. Bhutto the quality of "moderate". She was part and parcel of Pakistan's repressive, anti-woman, anti-modern, anti-progress feudal power elite.

• What we're going to ask is, where do very intelligent people - and Washington is run by individuals who are very intelligent - come up with inane theories such as "moderates must be strengthened to combat terrorism"?

• Do people in Washington actually believe for a moment that the Pakistan Army, the ISI, and other agencies that run the country would have listened to Mrs. Bhutto's orders, leave alone obey them? Don't they understand by now that you as a civilian do not order the military junta to do anything? You ask politely, and if the junta says "no", well, that's it. It's no, and there is no way to change this.

• President Musharraf, we all know by now - and Orbat.com has been saying this for years - will not fight the Taliban because they are part and parcel of his country's security policy. He is willing to make some moves to knock off AQ because from time to time AQ in Pakistan gets too big for its boots and tries to give the orders. He acts only against those fundamentalists who directly threaten him.

• Little as he does, it is still a whole bunch more than Mrs. Bhutto would have been able to do. Does she think the Army would calmly have accepted this westernized civilian, imposed by hated America, as their boss and gone "Yes, Madame Prime Minister" and rushed off to kill fundamentalists? Come on Washington, please tell us you know the Army wouldn't have, because if you don't see points as basic as this, then America is doomed.

• President Musharraf is one of the "boys". He has a certain degree of authority over them. He can say to them "Come on, people, we have to give the Americans a little something to keep them happy."

• But Mrs. Bhutto hated and feared the Pakistan Army - all with good cause. They executed her father for the crime of trying to assert civilian control, they got the country's president to overthrow her elected regime twice because her mere existence bothered them - she wasn't trying to exert control over the military because she had not the slightest idea of how to do that.

• Mrs. Bhutto's sole authority in Pakistan derived not from the Pakistani people, who don't count for anything, but from Washington. Is this going to go over big with the people who run the country? Would Americans accept an externally-imposed puppet if the situation in America was analogous to that of Pakistan? Moreover, please remember that Mrs. Bhutto, because of her skillful lobbyists, created the impression in Washington that she, and she alone was the savior of Pakistan. But she was only one of many, many quite capable politicians who America n ever hears of because they dont know how to lobby Washington - and also because they realize they will lose all credibility if they treat with Washington.

• Washington Did Not Kill Mrs. Bhutto by sending her back to Pakistan. That was her choice, that is what she lobbied for. But Washington is culpable because it just didn't understand how immature, rash, and inexperienced she actually was. She lost no time in breaking her agreement to let President Musharraf rule quietly while she ran around amusing herself. She lost no time in attacking the military. And she lost no time in ignoring everyone's advice on her security - including, it now turns out, Washington's.

• Unsurprisingly - and we can't explain how we didn't figure this out on our own - Washington was providing her advice/alerts/warnings at every stage. Now, whatever Washington's faults, security is something Americans know how to do. It is very unlikely they were telling her to mix with crowds of 100,000 and more in the reckless fashion that she was doing.

• It is then absolutely wrong for anyone to hold the Pakistan government responsible for the lack of security. We are assuming for the moment that the government did not kill her: we don't see why it needed to dirty its hands when there were any number of fundamentalist group gasping and panting for the opportunity. And we do not accept any future possible evidence of ISI involvement as prima facie proof the Government was involved. Pakistan has three big intel agencies: Inter Services, Military (which is to say Army), and the civilian Intelligence Bureau. These agencies work together, but they also have their own agendas. Given the way Mrs. Bhutto was going about things, given her complete and utter lack of common sense, there is only one person to be held responsible, and that is Mrs. Bhutto.

• Reader Walter E. Wallis asks if Blackwater might have done the required job for Mrs. Bhutto. He asks purely in the spirit of "What if", because the provision of Blackwater guards for her would have killed her political chances in one stroke. It was bad enough she was sent as America's viceroy, it would have been the end if she had come with American guards.

• But to Mr. Wallis's point: no, Blackwater couldn't have done a darn thing. There is nothing magical about Blackwater guards, indeed there are downsides to using long-in-the-tooth mercenaries for protection. Blackwater boats it hasn't lost a single person under its protection. Well, yes. If you shoot first at the slightest excuse, you can give anyone good protection. Blackwater security involves a rigid separation of the VIP from potential threats - any good security does.

• Mrs. Bhutto would not have accepted that kind of security - she refused it from her government. This was not because she was brave, it was because she so got off on the screaming masses that she couldn't bear to be separated from them.

• You have to understand South Asian crowds to see why BW would be unable to protect a stuffed toy in South Asia. We'd mentioned 100,000 people. Well, that's a small rally. 1-million and up is a good rally. Now, these people are not strung out at decent intervals as are crowds in America. You have five people in the space occupied by one American, and everyone is fighting to get near the candidate and everyone is fighting to touch her. Vehicle convoys proceed at sub-walking speeds through an incredible press of humanity. There are people hanging off every building, lamp post, and tree, busting down barricades and fences to get near their candidate.

• From a security person's viewpoint, it is an absolute nightmare. BW guards would have had a nervous breakdown within one minute of her getting off the plane that brought her to Karachi. They would have opened fire, killed a few score or a few hundred people before being stampeded to death. At which point Mrs. Bhutto would have had to get back on the plane and return to exile.