0230 GMT March 31, 2008

 

  • Zimbabwe: A Peaceful Revolution Something unthinkable seems to have happened in Zimbabwe. In the general election just held, despite all the power the government has to fix elections, as it has done repeatedly in the past, and despite the evidence of large-scale cheating this time around too, the opposition seems to have won a clear majority.

  • Despite threats that any announcement by the opposition of victory until the Election Commission would be treated as an attempted coup d'etat, the opposition has this time made sure the results from each individual station are posted on the walls for all to see. The opposition says to wait till the Election Commission announces the results is to forfeit the  election because the Government will rig the results in its favor.

  • And it seems that the opposition is running at 60% of the vote, with one-third counted, even though it was not united. In the major towns of Harare and Bulwayo, it appears the ruling party has lost an incredible 40 of 41 seats, with six ministers defeated. One has already announced his resignation.

  • The few independent observers that were allowed to monitor say essential the same thing, that the opposition has won. The observers noted in one case 8500 voters were registered to an empty piece of land and there are surely many such cases.

  • An ominous silence is said to have descended on Harare. The President has not been seen. People are naturally worried about Mr. Mugabe staging his own coup. Our own guess is that the Army will not go along if that is what he orders because the Army, though favored in the allocation of very scarce food and money resources, has also had a very rough time because there is so little to allot. Moreover, if a coup takes place, even the African Union will have to act against President Mugabe.

  • In our opinion there is some danger that while the Army may not back Mr. Mugabe, it's senior officers may cast him aside and stage a military coup. Naturally this will not be to anyone's interest because the country really is ruined. The Army can prosper only if it takes even a bigger share of available resources, squeezing the people even further. It would seem better for the Army to ensure the results are fairly announced and to stand aside while the country rebuilds, giving everyone - the army included - a bigger pie to share. But, of course, we are not privy to what the Army thinks.

  • Al-Sadr Calls Ceasefire: Seems A Compromise Has Been Negotiated He has ordered his men off the streets and told them not to tangle with the Iraqi security forces.

  • In return he has demanded the release of his arrested followers and amnesty for others.

  • The Government of Iraq has said this was a positive development and that it will lift all curfews. It denies any talks took place with Al-Sadr, but the militia leader said talks did take place, resulting in an agreement. Al-Sadr has not said that his followers cannot defend themselves if attacked, he has merely said theya re not to go on the offensive, whatever language is used.

  • Now, consider for a moment that Al-Sadr's men were already off the streets when Al-Malaki started his offensive. So a return to the status quo ante is a tacit acknowledgement he has won and Al-Malaki has lost, however the Iraqi prime minister may choose the paint the picture.

  • Our suspicion is that a number of people - including the Americans/British, Al-Malaki's senior commanders, Iran, neutral ayatollahs, and Shia factions such as Fidala (part of the government and one of the three rival factions in Basra) - told Mr. Al-Malaki his offensive was not going to work and that if he continued there would be consequences not to his advantage.

  • The US is, of course, going to spin this sea change and insist more than ever it did not sanction the offensive. But there is no way the offensive could have begun without US agreement. Anyway, its for the Americans to sort out what all this means for them. Having Al-Sadr break his initial ceasefire and begin attacks against the Americans and Sunnis was not in the American interest one bit. That is why we were surprised the Americans let the whole kit-caboodle proceed. If the offensive has been dropped because of US pressure, more power to the Americans. They are learning to act sensibly.

  • In all of this the Americans must have  had to consider the consequences if anti-US factions in the Mideast used the occasion to start their own offensives, such as Hezbollah against Israel, Hamas against Fatah, Syria against Lebanon, Iran against everyone. Really, this reduction in temperature is best for everyone.

  • Jonathan Pollard The affair of this American spy for Israel never fades because the Israelis keep trying to get him released. Here is a quote from Jerusalem Post: Pollard has been incarcerated since November 1985. Charged with spying for Israel, he reached a plea bargain which would have meant a 20-year maximum sentence, if not less. The presiding judge, however, ignored the deal and sent Pollard down for life without parole, a punishment considered extremely excessive for passing even highly sensitive information to a friendly country. His information on some matters - such as Iraqi and Syrian unconventional weapons, Soviet arms shipments to Damascus and Libyan air defenses - allegedly covered data that had actually been withheld by the Pentagon in violation of the 1983 Memorandum of Understanding between the two nations.

  • We find this position highly offensive. Spying for a friendly country is all right? Israel was in any case entitled to some of the information, so it was okay to steal it? Have the Israelis gone totally crazy? Who are they to tell the US government what to do or not to do with an American spy? Does having dual nationality with Israel excuse this man's heinous acts? Where do the Israelis get off?

  • Jonathon Pollard should have been hanged as a traitor to his country, which is America and not Israel. What Pollard did is far more serious than what Aldritch Ames did. Because of Ames, a handful of Soviet double-agents were executed. Big deal. No one forced those soviet citizens to spy for America. America was right to put Ames for life, but Pollard gave the Israelis some of the most secret, cutting edge weapons the technology the US had. And who knows to whom else he sold the secrets?

  • There is a standard rule in the spying game: if a man will betray his own country to work for you, be assured he will betray you too when the opportunity arises.

  • The US needs to retry this man and execute him, and let the Israelis go sulk all they want. This is not about them, it's about the United States, which last we heard was not a colony of Israel. It is actions like this non-stop barrage - now 21 years - to free Pollard that turns so many normally fair-minded Americans against Israel.

  • We ask the Israelis to be sensible: apologize to the US for your part in spying against your ONLY friend and protector, and leave off on Pollard. Would the Israelis expect anything less if and Israeli national was caught spying for America?

0230 GMT March 30, 2008

 

  • Al -Malaki Blinks After giving the Mahadi Army 72-hours to surrender, the Iraqi Prime Minister has pushed back the deadline by 10-days. There is no change in the Basra situation except that USAF/RAF have been giving ground support to Iraq forces. UK's Special Air Service is operating inside Basra as are US Marine snipers. No one has good figures, but the death toll in Basra alone appears to be heading toward 300. Iraq forces are experiencing both desertions and refusing to fight: they had failed to anticipate the level of resistance.

  • For an account of yesterday's events, read the New York Times. Also read the NYT's analysis  which discusses difficulties the Mahadi Army faces.

  • Al-Sadr has ordered his militia not to hand over their arms. That is one step closer to declaring war on Al-Malaki. Al-Sadr is still stressing diplomacy - we see the hand of Iran in this. He is trying to get the Grand Ayatollah Sistani to mediate, and keeps repeating he wants talks with Al-Malaki - after the Prime Minister leaves Basra. The Prime MInister says he will not leave till the battle is won.

  • In Baghdad, the situation is as confused as everywhere else, in part because the US is trying to keep a low profile while at the same time helping the Iraqis. The death toll should be exceeding 100. Hospitals in Sadr City have run out of supplies, doctors are exhausted from treating several hundred wounded, there are no pain-killers in some hospitals.

  • Government forces appear to have made no gains in the several other towns in the south which have fallen to the Mahadi Army.

  • Has America Betrayed Al-Sadr? We knew from Day 1 this was not an operation against renegade Sadrites, but an attack on the mainstream Mahadi Army. We are unsure why the Americans keep talking of "rogue elements". Some are saying it's because if they spoke the truth, they'd have to admit the ceasefire is broken, and it is, after all, Al-Sadr's ceasefire that permitted the surge to succeed.

  • The problem is, for all that the Americans are saying they had nothing to do with the operation, at the very minimum they knew exactly what Al-Malaki was up to and they did nothing to stop him from attacking the Mahadi Army, which in the perverse way of Iraq, had become allied with the Americans.

  • Moreover, Al-Malaki is seeking to eliminate Al-Sadr so he can consolidate the Dawa Party's power. This too was undoubtedly known to the Americans. So they are complicit in this offensive.

  • The question is why? Alone of all the Iraqi factions Al-Sadr is capable of destroying the surge's gains and exposing American claims of progress as a sham. We thought it would make sense for the Americans to continue with Al-Sadr who clearly was prepared to wait patiently till the Americans left Iraq before unleashing his militia. Surely the Americans don't think Al-Malaki will defeat the Mahadi Army, which has very deep roots in the Iraqi police, National Police, and Army? If Al-Malaki fails, not only is he toast, but America's main man for the last three years is gone, along with any credibility the Americans have in Iraq. The stakes are high, the odds are high, why are the Americans choosing to gamble everything at this stage?

  • We have no clue. Doubtless someone will get around to enlightening us, but - as we always warn readers - our sources talk to us when they feel like so doing. Right now there is no sign of any source on the horizon.

  • The British Are Not Showing The Least Interest in committing either ground forces or air support to the Iraqi security forces. Even the few sorties and one or two artillery counter-mortar attacks have been done with the great reluctance. Remember, the British have only three battalions in Iraq; one is needed to secure their base, and most of a second to protect their lines of communication to the city proper. They have available only a reinforced battalion at most.

  • Intervention for them is very dangerous: they have been preparing to leave, and their public wants the troops back home. If the British have to fight, the consequences for the government may be serious.

  • As for the Americans, there are political reasons they cannot send a couple or three brigades to the south. This will look like an expansion of an endless war, and will not play well with the public as elections approach. Many Americans are against a precipitate withdrawal. This does not mean they are for an expansion of the war. On the tactical level, of course, every brigade sent south will weaken the Americans in other parts of the country, particularly now, with every man needed to contain Al-Sadr should the later repudiate his ceasefire.

0230 GMT March 29, 2008

  • Iraq The simplest way of approaching this is to copy the CNN headlines:

    • U.S. military intelligence analysis says forces control less than quarter of Basra

    • Officials say militia's forces control many cities in Iraq's southeast

    • Bush called the operation "a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq"

    • "This is going to go on for a while," one U.S. military official said

  • If Mr. Bush wants to call this a defining moment in the history if a free Iraq, well, the President has said it, who are we to contradict him? What has been defined is that despite four years of training the US has imparted, and despite tens of billions the US has spent on the Iraqi military, what does the Government of Iraq have to show? Precisely zero. That's your defining movement.

  • One of the things that foreigners find so hard to understand about the US is that when it comes to give a task 100%, you will find Americans giving 123%. But the results in no way match the effort. This is particularly true of the US effort to train the Iraqis. Why has this happened?

  • Let's approach the question from the flank instead of meeting it head on.

    • Are the Iraqis stupid? No. They are some of the smartest people you will meet, in or outside or inside the Mideast.

    • Are the Iraqis cowards? No. They are as brave as any other people.

    • Are the bad organizers? Not a bit. The Israelis aside, they are among the organizers in the 3rd world.

    • Are the Iraqis just simply not good at fighting? Well, Al-Sadr's militia is composed of 100% Iraqis, so that should give you the answer.

    • Are the Iraqis untrainable? Just remember that till the fall of Saddam, every Iraqi of military age who lacked connections had to serve, and Iraq had tens of thousands of seasons officers and NCOs. You had close to a million men on active duty or less than 5 years out of service. Training them should have been the least of America's problems.

  • What's gone wrong is simply the Iraqis are - surprise! - not Americans. When the British trained their colonial armies, they astutely sought to temper their way of doing things with the way the natives did things. The best example of this is the old Indian Army. Agreed that the retreat from Singapore back to Imphal was not the Indian Army's finest hour. That is because British officers held almost all field and general staff command positions, and the British of the day did not, to put it politely, have their act together. But once they got their act together, the Indian Army became a formidable fighting force - its record from 1940 to 1945 speaks fir itself.

  • Now, the Americans are hopeless at the imperialism business. This is both their strong point and their weak point. The strong we'll discuss another day. The weakness in Iraq training has been that Head Office has insisted the Iraqi National Police and Army be trained the way Americans believed was correct. That is Point One.

  • Point Number Two: every Iraqi trained by the Americans is deeply ashamed of himself on a very deep psychological level. This was not a problem with the South Koreans and even the South Vietnamese for a number of reasons we have to discuss elsewhen. Iraqis have a very strong national identity, and they are exceptionally xenophobic. The Americans invaded and destroyed their country, humiliated them, and then when things started to go wrong, simply turned around and said: "Ahmed, we are your partners now. You are part of the Coalition. Freedom, Democracy and so on."

  • Problem is, these Iraqis see themselves as American collaborators, traitors to their country, and most humiliating, forced to take American orders because they need to feed their families. There is not a single Iraqi who would not give the Americans a fast boot in the behind if he could.

  • When these American lap-dog Iraqis are required to fight their own countrymen, they simply, absolutely, completely cannot do it because they are haunted by their overpowering sense of illegitimacy.

  • There is nothing more complicated going on. The day the Americans leave, the Iraqis will sort out their country right quick. The results will be neither pretty nor what the Americans want. We're amazed only that Americans, who are surprisingly respectful of other cultures, think they can shape the Iraqis to their will, for their preferred outcomes.

  • On a tactical level, there are several distinct problems. First, the Americans are the best-equipped army that anyone has seen in modern times. The Iraqi equipment is not just second rate, it is fourth rate. When the Iraqis are on their own - say 1980-88 Gulf War - this does not bother them one bit. They will fight with their bare hands if neccessary - the Kurds, who are also Iraqis, fight like the blazes despite serious shortages of every kind of weapon and equipment. Americans have fought Sunnis and Shias alike, and they know the Iraqis have the will, the heart, the courage to fight. Who but the Iraqis would repeatedly take on vastly superior American forces and go on fighting despite a continuous series of losses going back 5 years.

  • But you just cannot, and please take this seriously, you cannot treat the Iraqis as inferiors to be equipped in inferior ways, and then expect them to fight alongside you. We don't understand why the Americans don't see this.

  • Second, Iraq is a nation of tribes. What Saddam matter-of-factly said when he was on trial for his life is absolutely true: the only manner in which the Iraqi tribes can be persuaded to work with each other is to kill enough of each tribe that they realize they'd better work together.

  • There are some nationally-minded Iraqis, but these are a distinct minority, and in times of trouble every Iraqi falls back on his tribe. This being the case, the entire Iraqi police, National Police, and Army owe their allegiance to anyone but Iraq. If you consider that large numbers of Basra police deserted the minute the offensive began, tossing their uniforms away and hastening to rejoin the Mahadi Army, how can any attacking force expect to succeed? Please note we said "rejoin". Every member of the security forces retains his primary loyalty to his tribe. He checks constantly to see which way the wind blows. If he sees advantage in staying with the security forces, he does. If he sees advantage in deserting, he does - taking his weapons, training, knowledge, savvy back to the tribe to be used against the Government. This factionalism exists in every Iraqi army division. We will likely never learn how much of the 14th Division refused outright to fight the Mahadi Army, or sabotaged their orders passively.

  • If you see all that the Basra offensive is an attempt by one Shia faction (Dawa Party) to clobber another (Mahadi Army) with a third faction (SICRI-Badr) an ally of convenience, where is the legitimacy the Government needs to fight? Haven't we seen this time and again in Africa, most recently in Kenya.

  • If Al-Malaki had been left to himself with unlimited American support, he would have formed an army of Iraqi Shia loyal to his party, and this lot would have fought like heck. But the Americans say, no, you have to get along with X, Y, and Z, you must recruit so many X, so many Ys, and so many Zs - including Sunnis who have mercilessly oppressed you for four centuries, and who spent three years after the fall of Baghdad killing you with astonishing cruelty and mercilessness, and who we are arming just so they can whack you the minute our back is turned - well, our readers can see the problem. In fact, if the Americans wanted a stable Iraq, they'd have done better to back the Mahadi Army - the Dawa Party has limited support. Mahadi Army would have slaughtered everyone else, but Iraq would have been stable.

  • But, you say, in that case what was the point of replacing Saddam? To replace him with another dictator, Al-Sadr?

  • At this point the Editor pulls his "I'm only a guest in this great country. You all have to answer the question yourself. It's not his place to answer it." Cop out? Sure. Then why did we support the invasion, and incidentally Orbat's "we" included people from many different countries, but not one American! We also believed that America was doing a noble thing, overthrowing a brutal dictator, even though none of our group of nine was American. Turns out, we were just as naive and stupid as all the other Americans - more so, because we thought the real target was Saudi Arabia. Why did we continue supporting the mission? Because your editor is as patriotic as any of you. My country right or wrong. The other members of Orbat's "we" have simply drifted away, with the general statement "it's your blog to run as you please." Why did the Editor, then by his ownsome lonesome,  turn against the mission? Because he saw the powers that be cared nothing. That's not terribly complicated.

 

0230 GMT March 28, 2008

 

  • Baghdad Neighborhoods Falling To Mahadi Army says Times London. Iraqi security forces are being pushed out of one neighborhood after another according to the newspaper. There is some fighting, but in most cases Al-Sadr's forces simply demand local police/security withdraw and the government forces leave. There is concern Al-Sadr's troops are preparing to attack a neighborhood where an important leader of the SICRI lives: this the Najaf-Karbala Shia faction which controls the Badr militia.

  • We're a bit concerned that none of the other main sources we looked at just now seems to mention this development. Has Times got it wrong? We certainly hope so, because otherwise this whole witches brew is going to explode.

  • In Basra, the Iraqi offensive seems to have stalled, with the 16,000 police being repeatedly humiliated by the al-Sadr militia, and many policemen belonging to his faction are - to put it delicately - not doing their job.

  • The British say progress is being made, and that the Iraqi forces are merely rebalancing for the next push. Iraq 14th Division is operating inside Basra, but here too we are concerned because the Iraq Army is just as faction-ridden as the rest of the country. There is going to be heck to pay if some fraction of the Army mutinies. we are further worried about a report that says Iraqi AFVs are trapped in some places at Basra because no one bother to measure the width of narrow streets to see if AFVs could travel their length.

  • The Iraq police security chief, who from all we hear is a decent man determined to do his job, narrowly escaped an ambush. In Baghdad Al-Sadr militia killed the government spokesperson and burned down his house.

  • Someone has blown up the Zubair No. 1 pipeline in Basra, pushing oil to $107 from $104. The Iraqis are saying this is a bad development because so far the Basra pipeline has been relative secure - everyone was making too much money stealing oil. Now it seems some militia faction is making a statement: we don't care about the pipeline, and Mr. Al-Malaki, we are ready to go to the wire in our battle against you.

  • Also, attacks against the Green Zone have increased; a reported 16 rockets/mortar rounds landed there yesterday. Iran is thought to be using renegade Al-Sadr militia to stage the attacks, though honestly we've never really bought into this renegade business. We think most of the so-called renegades are acting on al-Sadr's orders - plausible denial, etc. The casualties are minor: 2 Americans killed this week and several wounded. But readers can appreciate that Iran etc, score a tremendous propaganda victory with these attacks.

  • Two other problems loom ahead. First, though the Iraq Government had made vague statements about cleaning up Basra, even the local security forces were caught by surprise when the Prime Minister arrived to take charge of the offensive. The people of Basra were not prepared for the crackdown, and again and again the media tells us civilians are running out of food, water, supplies. Unless Iraq Government finishes this quickly, we'll have a humanitarian disaster, and if the block-by-block fighting that Al-Sadr specializes in takes place, you have a potentially heavy civilian toll. Basra's population is 2-million: this is not some village.

  • Second, though US has control of all roads in and out of Sadr City - the outer cordon in most places, US troops cannot do a Fallujah against the 2-million people who live in the City. Fallujah was population- and area-wise a town; moreover, US was able to get most civilians to leave before the assault.. The Sadr City people are not going anywhere - even if they want to, Al-Sadr militia will not let them go, and it's not clear they want to because they are the most ardent supporters of Al-Sadr.

  • Fighting in other south Iraq towns continues, but unless we hear for a fact that the Government is being run out of a particular town, we'll continue assuming its minor. 100 are reported dead in fighting in Kut and Hilla; again, not many in the larger scheme of things.

  • Al-Sadr continues to call for negotiations, but Al-Malaki says this is a fight to the end. Unless this is the usual Arab rhetoric, we're wondering why the man is hanging tough when things are not going to plan.

  • Meanwhile, our own President Bush keeps saying we are winning in Iraq and Mr. Al-Malaki has taken a "brave" decision to clean up Basra. why the Prez keeps leaping 10 steps ahead of the American military in claiming results which are not happening, we do know. The Prez has his own reality. The military has at all times since the surge began emphasized how fleeting any gains can prove, they keep emphasizing that we've won some battles but the enemies are many and resourceful, and the tables could turn at any point. The Prez, of course, is doing what some of us suggested during second Indochina: declare the war won, and withdraw. Except he's declaring the war won but is not withdrawing.

  • Late news: UK Independent says US troops have sealed off Sadr City; the paper is the second source we've read that says the Basra offensive is stalled. The paper also says that the police in Kut have been expelled by Al-Sadr militia

 

 

0230 GMT March 27, 2008

 

  • Iraq There comes a point when one gets fed-up of shouting oneself hoarse from the rooftop, and certainly we at Orbat.com are approaching that point. None of our colleagues particularly bothers about Iraq except the Editor - and he is fading fast. Iraq, to use a colloquial Indian expression, is a Gone Case. Why keep dragging one's weary carcass to the soap-box to deliver another lecture? Old people like the Editor deserve rest. Anyway, enough about us, to paraphrase Mr. Bill Clinton.

  • First, the situation is so complex that no one set of explanations - ours included - explains much. Unless we wrote a 20-page single-space paper, there is no way in which we can adequately explain. What you're reading here are gross simplifications; our only excuse is that the people getting paid a bunch of money to pontificate about Iraq are also giving simplistic explanations, and we don't get paid anything.

  • Second, though the situation has gotten worse in the last 24 hours, it is still at a stage all sides are posturing. That's not the impression you get from the media, but then the media has to make-up a story and sell it, we have no such compulsions. This being Iraq, people can be fighting one minute and then going kissy-faces the next. There is no such thing as point-of-no-return in Iraq because the Iraqis are busy negotiating even as they fight. For them, negotiations are an extension of fighting; fighting is an extension of negotiating. If you look at the situation in terms of western logic, you'll not just drive yourself nuts, you wont get anywhere near the truth. (You can never get to the truth in Iraq; all is relative, nothing is absolute.)

  • Thus, the current fighting may blow over as quickly as it blew up, and it could get better at any point, or it could get worse at any time. (Gosh, we're so brilliant we dazzle ourselves.

  • Third, what happened is this. Imagine the following conversation. General Petraeus is Daaved, and President Al-Malaki is Alky. Daaved is reclining in his favorite posture, his feet up on Alky's desk. Alky is as usual looking like he hasn't had a decent bowel movement in a month.

  • "Yo, Alky". "You de man, Daaved". "Thanks, Alky. We've secured Anbar and Baghdad. Back home they want us to withdraw. But you know, Alky, the minute we do so the whole place is gonna go down the flush." Yes, Daaved. You are right as always." "Alky, we need to clean up some more so when we draw down you can have a stable government." "Yes, Daaved, you are right as usual." "So Alky, who's the biggest threat to Iraq now that we have Baghdad and Anbar under control?"

  • At this point Alky mops his sweaty brow and prays to the Divine for patience. He wants to say "Yeah, right. Anbar is under control because you've armed and trained 60,000 Sunnis who hate your guts as much as the first day you came, and they plus the other 30,000 Sunnis you've co-opted would like nothing better than to whack the Shias the minute your back is turned. And yeah, right, you've brought Baghdad under control. Al-Sadr has managed to ethnically cleanse the city, less than 20% of the population is now Sunni. By stopping the fight he declared victory, and saying it isn't worth his while to aggravate America over the remaining Sunnis, but we'll get them the minute you turn your back."

  • But Alky says nothing of the sort. He knows which side of his bread is buttered. The American side. Instead he humbly says, "Al-Sadr is the biggest threat, Daaved. I mean he's the biggest threat to me, but then I am Iraq so he's the biggest threat to Iraq."

  • Daveed says, "Right, Alky. What say you we whack Al-Sadr. Of course, we have to keep a low profile. Congress and the American people will not appreciate a major war against Al-Sadr. So we'll advise, write the press releases, do the logistics, keep the heavy artillery on call, and you do the fighting. It'll look so much better." Alky says: "Yes, Daaved. You are right as usual." Alky says to himself, that insolent puppy does need a comeuppance, says he's my ally, but is plotting to overthrow me when the Americans turn their back. Might as well use the Americans to settle scores with the puppy." Of course, the Americans are saying: "Before we seriously withdraw, might as well use the Iraqis to stomp on Al-Sadr. We do have scores to settle."

  • So: Iraq, starting 2-weeks ago, launches an all-out offensive throughout the southern provinces against Al-Sadr.

  • Meanwhile, Al-Sadr has been doing his own thing after clearing Baghdad. He now wants the south, and he has been steadily expanding his control. With the south and Baghdad under Al-Sadr's control, he will give Alky a well-deserved boot in the rear and become the ruler of Iraq. Forget the dirty Kurds: no one likes them anyway. As for the Sunnis, we'll kill them all, the ones that escape will go to Anbar, and we can forget them too. Iraq will emerge as a pure Shia state, and from there - why, anything is possible. Join with the Iranians to take over the Middle East, then at the appropriate time stab the Iranians in the back, and I, Al-Sadr, will emerge as the next prophet.

  • In Iraq/America's grand plan, there is an important ally. That is the Najaf-Karbala lot, who run the Badr militia, and who consider themselves the rightful rulers of Iraq, and who are very keen to shut up that yapping Pomeranian, Al-Sadr. Previously, the Najaf-Karbala Ayotollahs have forbidden the Badr militia to fight Al-Sadr because they want to avoid a Shia civil war. But what has their restraint gotten them? An America that shows no signs of wanting to leave, a US-armed Sunni army waiting to settle scores with all Shias, and Al-Sadr, who has been engaged in precisely the Shia civil war that the wise Ayotollahs have sought to avoid, but have failed.

  • In almost all the southern cities that the Iraq government has moved into, Badr militia has been engaging Al-Sadr - who started the contremps. The old Ayotollahs are right, a Shia civil war has been underway for at least the last year.

  • Wait a minute, you groan. Our government tells us every day we are winning in Iraq. Where did this completely different war come from? We defeated the Sunnis, we defeated AQI, now you're telling us the whole south has become a battlefield. Yes, folks, that is what we are telling you - and the north is not in such lovely shape either. To have avoided this situation, the US should have put 6 brigades into the north and 9 into the south - in addition to the 20 that pacified Anbar/Baghdad, more or less. The US didn't put in another 15 brigades - which would have required calling up all of the Guard. You say: we have to fight two more campaigns and in the meanwhile Anbar/Baghdad go all to heck? Absolutely. When people tell you we'll need to spend the next 20-100 years in Iraq, they're not kidding, because the US will continue to play Whack-A-Mole. Of course, who tires first, the Iraqis or the Americans is a separate debate. Hint as to likely outcome: Who lives in Iraq?

  • The sad reality is from Day 1 US objectives and means in Iraq have been mismatched. America will never lose a single battle in Iraq. But it won't win the war either unless the Doofus Brigade (Washington) comes clean with the American people, makes its case to them, and if they are won over, then America really goes to war. Will it be worth it? Will the American people accept it? Well, look good people. Your Editor loves America and if required is willing to put his body on the line if Bill Clinton also goes. But your Ed is not American. He cannot answer all questions and solve all problems. You have to figure it out.

  • Back to Mr. Al-Malaki. The only thing clear at this point is that he has put his political life on the line. He had to, because he has utterly failed to lead Iraq. His credibility was so deep in the sewer, he was having tea with the Ozzie 'roos. He really has nothing to lose. If he wins - chances are about 1% - great. If he loses, he was toast anyway.

  • If this new crisis does not calm down, you're going to have the Shia civil war full scale. And by the way, anyone remember the obnoxious lot in Teheran? They are not going to sit back and watch Al-Sadr crash. For all the make-nice, they hate Al-Malaki as an American puppet - truthfully, he is that.

  • At which point: what better time time for AQI and Sunnis in general to strike back, with the Shias and Americans bogged down? What better time for our our BFFs the Saudis and all the Arab Sunnis to jump into the act?

  • And remember two things. There is a US election coming, and the strongest, most disciplined force in Iraq remains Al-Sadr. The man has genuinely been trying to rein in his renegades, because he wants credibility in Parliament. But now Al-Malaki is pushing him over the edge.

  • One last thing. The Americans are saying again and again, as if repeating it enough times will make it true, that they and the Iraqis are NOT fighting Al-Sadr. They are only moving against rogue elements in his Army. The implication is, we're helping Al-Sadr so there's no reason for him to fight us.

  • Well, they are giving Al-Sadr the Kiss of Death. If his followers come to believe he is in league with the Americans, a puppet as much as Al-Malaki, they'll put him on a meat hook in Sadr City. But, of course he is not a puppet. as usual with Iraq, things were proceeding on two tracks: the Americans were trying to trim his power while at the same time not aggravate him back into open war.

  • Further, if the Iraqis/Americans are fighting only rogue Al-Sadr elements in Basra, how come Al-Sadr's envoy came to Al-Malaki to say: withdraw from Basra, we're willing to talk. But if you don't withdraw, we fight. So Al-Sadr is now also a rogue element of his own army? Look, your Editor is a trusting type. If the Government told him the Moon is made of green cheese, he'd believe that. But please don't ask him to believe the current campaign is only an attempt to control Al-Sadr rogues. Next the Government will try and convince him Santa Claus is actually a communist.

 

0230 GMT March 26, 2008

 

  • Iraq Forces Move Against  Basra Shia Militias agencies report. There are three militias: Al-Sadr's, SICRI (the Karbala-Najaf Shia nexus), and a small local militia that controls the port and oil jobs. They have been running amok in Basra, fighting each other and the Iraq security forces. This vital city has been under militia/criminal control since the British decided - sensibly - that as there was nothing they could do, best to let the Iraqis sort things out for themselves.

  • What role US forces are playing is unclear, but the operation is being touted by the US as Iraqi-led and Iraqi-manned.

  • CNN quotes a provincial official as saying 50 have died, including security forces, militia, and civilians, and 30 security forces have been kidnapped.

  • Iraq Government says it has most of Basra under control.

  • Fighting Breaks Out In Baghdad and Other Cities US troops have sealed off Sadr City in Baghdad, where 2-million poor live, mainly Al-Sadr supporters. US could do this because as part of the surge it has isolated major Baghdad neighborhoods from each other, controlling movement between neighborhoods. a good tactic, which has contributed to the improved security in Baghdad. Of course, if you are an Iraqi you don't think security has improved, because compared to Saddam's time, Baghdad is an absolute mess. But, as the Editor's students say, whatever. Us acted after clashes between Al-Sadr militia and US/Iraqi forces broke out when the US/Iraq moved to capture wanted militants from Sadr City.

  • We get the impression the Sadr City fighting is on a small-scale at this time, though several mortar/rocket attacks have occurred against the Green Zone and other areas.

  • The fighting coincides with Al-Sadr's civil disobedience movement throughout Iraq, which demands the Government stop misusing its power to punish the militia. Several towns are under night curfew to prevent the spread of violence there.

  • We don't know what game al-Sadr is playing, but is party's MPs are refusing to attend parliament. If the SICRI lot also pull out their MPs, it's Bye Bye Al-Maliki. But right now, no one knows what's going on and how the situation will play out. Best to watch before commenting.

  • 99% Of US Flights Are Without Sky Marshals according to pilots and sky Marshals who spoke to CNN on background. Transportation Security Agency denies this, but says it obviously cannot talk about the real percentage.

  • So the real percentage is 1.1%? TSA is a joke, US Homeland Security Is a joke. Luckily, even without the TSA the US has become a kind of Orwellian nation. American internal security can be pretty good, particularly now that everything is networked. Prior to 9/11, for example, it's not that the Americans didn't know a bunch of Arabs were doing flight-training. But because of their privacy craze, Americans had enacted a series of laws to prevent, rather than to enable, different agencies sharing data. That's all gone now. Everyone talks to everyone. Even the Editor's little City of Takoma Park, Maryland (13,000 population) is installing computers that can access data across a wide range of databases. Right now, for example, the police can stop you for running a traffic light, and using just her/his patrol vehicle computer, the officer can check your immigration status, traffic/parking violations, fines not paid, open warrants in civil/criminal cases, restraining orders, sex offender status, etc etc.

  • We realize our Brit friends will go: "So?" in the manner of the Vice President because, thanks to Northern Ireland, they were already way ahead on this sort of stuff, and they already had a gazillion security cameras all over the country.

  • In America's defense, we have to point out this is a huge country, with a huge population, 20% of which changes residences every year, with thousands of local police agencies and so on. And not to forget the privacy phobia. City of Takoma Park, believe it or not, has its very own separate police department. We've never been clear on its manpower total, but it has sufficient to keep 3 patrol cars on the streets at all times. This is very typical of America, where local rule has primacy.

 

0230 GMT March 25, 2008

 

What Does the 4000th Soldier Death In Iraq Mean?

  • Like it or not, it means nothing. In the War of the American Revolution, US dead were ~1% of the population, 25,000 killed from a population of 2.5-million. Heavy losses, but clearly worth the sacrifice. 2% of the population died in the Civil War; we're not going to get into was it worth it or not.  In 1940,  the US population was 132-million and about 420,000 American died in the Second World War, 0.3% of the population. Definitely worth it. The Vietnam War claimed .003% of the population; its doubtful the sacrifice was worth it.

  • In Iraq it's been 0.001%, but 65,000 people in the US are victims of homicide and car accidents - and 435,000 die prematurely from tobacco use, 85,000 die due to alcohol (some percentage is in vehicle accidents), 17,000 due to illegal drug use. Figures from http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_casualties_of_war.

  • 4000 Americans have died in Iraq in 5 years, twenty-five times as many were murdered back at home.

  • Not to be brutal, even if you believe Iraq is a huge mistake, we think 800 military death a year for five years doesn't mean much.

  • Agreed, the Editor has not lost a child in Iraq. On an individual and human level, every Iraq death is terrible. But even if the US has achieved little in Iraq, it has achieved something. What is achieved by the 65,000 deaths to homicide, auto crashes and the like? Nothing at all.

  • There are hundreds of individual losses each day that are completely pointless. do the families suffer any the less? A close friend lost his entire family - wife, children, mother and others in a ghastly crash on National Highway 1 in India: there were traveling to join him at his new place of work. Did he suffer less than the parents of the hundreds of Indian security forces that die each year? Don't think so.

  • The problem with the media is it creates artificial narratives, and says "we have to do it, people have to realize what's happening." Yes, but we don't have to be told by the media what these narratives mean, we can decide for ourselves. The media should report the facts, not create stories for us.

  • The media has acted in a ghoulish manner through the Iraq War, as if the war dead are some kind of sick sports statistic, and not least with its determination to list every soldier who died - Faces of the Fallen, that sort of thing, as if to prove how much it cares about the war dead. And of course the media doesn't care. The government doesn't care. The people of the United states do not care. If they did, they would hold their government accountable, every day, week, month, and year. In five years, your editor has not heard a single person, not one, talk about the Iraq deaths as if it meant something to them personally. Everyone generically says "oh those poor kids getting killed" because you don't want to be left behind in showing you care. But people don't, in fact, care till they lose their boy or girl to the war.

  • As such, it would seem reasonable to ask the media to stop imbuing war dead with oh-so-fantastic meaning. Report the casualties factually. Let the families grieve quietly or publicly as they want. Give the dead some dignity, instead of the obscene exploitation shows. Every time a soldier dies, its just another opportunity for the media to write about wonderful the kid was, how much everyone loved and admired him, how much of a great future he had. These are cheap stories and they need to stop. Only the families of the dead have the right to talk - and only if they want.

  • The media, and Americans need to understand the deaths are not about us. Our reactions are immaterial. We do not need to wallow in communal agony just to prove we care about the dead, because we do not care. Our guilt at sitting home guzzling beer and chips while a tiny fraction of Americans are doing the fighting cannot be expiated by our pretending to care and by talking about our feelings and how wonderful and how sensitive we are. We need to tell the media to shut up.

  • In the Indian military, where even to this day everyone is part of the military family, mourning the dead was permitted only to the military. They grieved privately, accepted that every death was life prematurely snuffed, comforted the soldier's family, and did not say a word to the media. It was none of the media's business, any more than it was anyone's business but mine and my family's when my father died recently. Of course, the psychopathy of the American media is catching on with the Indian media. We are all becoming Americans in that respect.

  • One of the things that made a lasting impression on your editor was when as a pre-teen he read that during the Battle of Britain, every time a fighter did not return, someone would  enter the mess where people were drinking and pretending they were having a great time though their country was in the greatest peril, and very quietly call out the pilot's wife or girl-friend to tell her the news privately. The lady immediately left the mess. People grieved with her privately. It was considered bad form to break down in the mess or to make your grief public. That is dignity. What the American media is doing is robbing the dead of dignity. It is cheap exploitation for the sake of making money. It is immoral.

  • Another story, told to us who did not witness the incident but had  close connections with the Luftwaffe, concerns the head of the air force. He had two sons, also Luftwaffe. One had previously died in a Starfighter crash - we don't know how many readers remember or know about that period, but we'll be glad to discuss it sometime. The general was at a high-level meeting when an aide entered to give him a note. He read it and put it away, continuing with his meeting. It was only after the meeting was done and he left the room did the other participants learn that the note said his second son had also just died in a Starfighter. This man had great dignity. Americans should learn from people like him.

 

 

0230 GMT March 24, 2008

 

  • Should We Be Worried About Anbar? The answer is No. Reuters has a story on how the Sunnis are getting restless after throwing in their lot with the Americans and running AQI out of the province. The problem is that Iraq's government, which happens to be Shia, has deliberately failed to address the Sunnis' problems. For example, basic services are still unavailable and unemployment in Fallujah alone is 20,000. The biggest problem is that the Sunnis want all their fighters taken into the military or police, 90,000 men, and of course there is no way Baghdad will agree because these are the same people who previously were fighting the Shias. Baghdad says it will take 18,000 men, and the reality it that it will take far less.

  • So, why are we saying "No, the US shouldn't worry about Anbar?" Because, folks, it's not the US's business to run the country. US has brought security in Central Iraq and Anbar to the point things can function - if the people want them to function. The Baghdad government is essentially non-functional, and there are reasons for that. The old government was largely run by Sunnis, now most of those experienced people are not there, replaced by Shias. You basically have a government that has no clue on how to govern; there is so much bad blood between Sunnis - who ruled the Shias with a heavy hand for 400-years - that the Shias simply don't want do anything for the Sunnis, and no one can blame them.

  • There is nothing the US can do about that - unless it wants to send in 20,000 of its own administrators who take over running everything, with the Iraqis in junior positions and as clerks. In other words, a recreation of the British Empire.

  • Even then, things will not function because obviously the Iraqis will refuse to be reduced to colony status and will do everything to ruin America's day. And even if by some miracle the US manages to run Iraq efficiently, say 5-20 years down the road, all the ethnic faults still exist and will still erupt.

  • When the Brits made their empire, they retained a monopoly of force. People in each colony was isolated from others because there were no cell phones, radio, limited phone service - usually in the cities and intended for government use, few roads and so on. In Iraq the US can never attain a monopoly of force, communications are instant, plus you have foreign countries meddling away.

  • So: we maintain the US has done it's job - more than done its job. If the Iraqis cannot make their country work, obviously the Americans cant do it for them.

  • If This Is An Example Of A Hamas-Fatah Agreement then we'd suggest negotiators for the two Palestine factions simple retire and lead relaxed lives. Right after the two sides announced they'd reached an agreement and left the table, they began disagreeing on what they'd agreed on.

  • Meantime, that supreme diplomat, Mr. Richard Cheney, has told the Israelis he'd like a Palestine-Israeli peace deal before Mr. Bush leaves office. Okay, we know Mr. Cheney lives on a different planet. But why is not kept quarantined there? He's making himself the laughingstock of the Middle East

  •  "Ooooh, I'll drop in for a day or two, talk to Fatah, talk to the Israelis, and tell everyone I want a peace deal in 9-months". Has anyone told this brilliant man there is something called Hamas? They're the one's lobbing rockets at Israel, not Fatah,  and stopping the rockets is Israel's No. 1 priority, but we can't talk to them because US doesn't negotiate with terrorists. And that's just for starters. Has anyone told him that when the Israelis say they will halt settlements - one of the several priorities of the Palestinians - they mean something completely different from what you and I think a halt means? Has anyone told him Hamas will not negotiate with Fatah, particularly now that it is in a good position to seize the West Bank too? Has anyone told him about Hezbollah, Syria and Iran? They call a lot of the shots and can instantly derail any peace deal - assuming one is possible. Are they BFF with America so that they will do everything possible to facilitate a peace agreement?

  • The situation is insanely complex, probably beyond a solution for the next 50 years - it's already been 60 years and there is no peace between Palestine and Israel, and the US is sending Cheney to jump in with all four of his left feet? Okay America, if you're going to be this dumb, you don't deserve a thing in the Middle East. Don't blame anyone but yourself.

 

0230 GMT March 23, 2008

 

  • Pro-China Candidate Wins Taiwan Election says the International Herald Tribune. He won 58.5% to 41.5% with 75.6% of eligible voters turning out. He is a cautious person, but wants closer China-Taiwan economic relations and direct flights. He is willing to talk to China, but says the 1000 missiles aimed at his country must be removed. The US wants Taiwan to defuse tensions with China, so Mr. Ma Ying-jeou will be welcomed by the US. Incidentally, Taiwan already has extensive trade with China; several hundred thousand Taiwanese work at their country's factories in China.

  • Pakistan To Negotiate With Militants If the US did not see this coming, then it needs to take off its collective shoe and beat some sense into it's own head. We've been saying for a long time a civilian government will go wobbly far sooner than a military government, and even the military did not/do not want a civil war.

  • Now, instead of treating our readers with a none-too-entertaining rant, we'll suggest you read this article http://iht.com/articles/2008/03/21/asia/pakistan.php

  • Every country has to pursue its own interests, and there is just so much America can do to force anyone to ignore their national interest. We've said time and again: American and Pakistani national security objectives are completely at odds.

  • Pakistan Prime Minister Chosen A gentleman who was a close confidant of Mrs. Bhutto, and who is loyal to his party, will become Prime Minister on Tuesday. He will step down once Mrs. Bhutto's widower is elected to Parliament. With the criminal cases against him withdrawn, there should be reason he can't stand for parliament and comfortably win a seat

  • Tibet We gather there is some confusion in the west regarding ethnic Tibetan objectives. We doubt that with the exception of a few hot-heads, anyone is talking independence. Tibetans likely understand this is impossible. They are fighting the increasing Hanization of Tibet. They want Beijing to stop destroying their culture, permit freedom of worship, and give ethnic residents a leg up on jobs. It may not seem like a lot to ask, but for China all that would simply be the thin edge of the wedge hammered by the "splitists". They aren't going to agree.

  • One unfortunate but almost certain effect these riots will have is that China will step-up its efforts to integrate Tibet. More railways - in any case two more are being surveyed prior to work, extension of the Lhasa railroad to Shigatse and Gyangste - more Han settlers, more People's Armed Police etc. The Chinese are unlikely to be caught unawares the next time.

  • The New New York Governor We already like Mr. David Patterson, formerly ceremonial Number 2 to the now disgraced Mr. Elliot Spitzer. Within a day or two of being sworn in, with his wife beside him, he said he had been unfaithful to his wife, and she to him, when their marriage was on the rocks and before they reconciled. And no, just in case anyone asks, he made clear he had not used campaign funds or government perks for his affairs.

  • With that one shot he has silenced - even confounded - everyone. Talk about your first strike. The man himself admits - before anyone has a chance to ask - his transgressions; his wife owns up to hers; neither of them attempt to justify their actions except to say they were going through a tough time.

  • How human is that?

 

Opinion

  • So, to return to a favorite theme of ours. The question of the US fighting China to defend Taiwan will not happen. One day - we cannot say if it is 20, 30 whatever years, the two countries will come together, no doubt with special status for China. Whether Beijing will keep its word is another matter.

  • Aside from the money, every Taiwanese has to feel frightened of the power China will be able to bring against his country. The 1000 missiles mean nothing. They will be equivalent to at best 500 sorties. But that doesn't stop a Taiwanese from being subject night and day to China's propaganda, saber-rattling, and non-stop military buildup. At some point the Taiwanese are going to say, forget about this independence business.

  • As long as the US was steady, Taiwanese could take comfort in America's protection. But readers, particularly non-American readers, should not get taken by the sound and fury of American human rights crusaders. If economic relations go bust due to war, the Chinese, who run a dictatorship, will be much better able to handle their people than the US. He who has less to lose is the one on top.

  • Yes, it's easy to say - as we have done - that so what if Chinese toys cannot come to the US. What's the big deal? It will help American toymakers. Sure, the product will be more expensive, but it will create more jobs.

  • The thing is ultimately even the ordinary Jane in the US does not matter. The hard men who run America will not want to fight an adversary capable of causing serious military and economic damage. These men are not interested in their workers, who are simply interchangeable, disposal parts. They are interested in their profits. And there's no need to even mention America's increasing debtor status.

  • As for the death of a democracy, who cares? When the Serbs were oppressing their minorities, the Americans were all bluster and bombing. The Americans had absolutely nothing to lose by beating up Serbia. When the Chinese are beating up the Tibetans, what is the US doing? Using "quiet diplomacy" to urge the Chinese to show restraint. Oh, brother!

  • We seriously suggest that all the wargamers who love to game China-US-Taiwan find something else to do. And the Taiwanese are not the Japanese. That lot would have fought to the last civilian had the Emperor ordered it. But with Taiwan and China, it is brother against bother. Sure, no one can take Taiwan if the Taiwanese are determined to hold their country. Look at the huge armadas of ships and bombers the US had to deploy against the Japanese. But Taiwan is split about China to begin with. It is not as if every Taiwanese is ready to fight to the bitter end as were the British, the German, the Russians, the Japanese. The results of the Taiwan election speak for themselves. The majority of Taiwanese want reconciliation, and this trend will grow.

  •  

    0230 GMT March 22, 2008

     

    • Al-Sadr Militia Breaks Baghdad Truce says Reuters. The militia attacked Iraqi forces in south Baghdad and exchanged fire with US troops. The incident Thursday night follows militia attacks in Kut.

    • Two weeks ago, Al-Sadr permitted his militia to fight back if threatened. Presumably this happened because a lot of his militia do not agree to the ceasefire with US-Iraqi forces and were getting restless. Particularly because the US has been picking rogue members of the Mahadi Army, and its a bit difficult in many case to say who is a rogue or not.

    • People understandably worry a truce breakdown, but we suggest it's best to wait and see.

    • Comment Our personal theory is that Al-Sadr, like a great many other people, expected a major US withdrawal to start this summer. All sides have been holding off so as not to continue providing excuses for the Americans to longer. But now the Americans are not just lingering, they are talking of a decades long stay. This is not going over well with Iraqis. Al-Sadr may just be probing to see how the Americans react, or else someone loyal to him in Baghdad and in Kut decided they'd had enough and went after Iraqi forces. If it works, Al-Sadr can claim victory. If it doesn't, he can always cry "rouge elements".

    • What's confusing us is Iraq is now earning ~$1-billion+ a week from its oil exports. But it's banking its money, letting the US spend ~$2.5-billion. Does this matter to anyone?

    • Re. contractors We're told that they number 140,000+. This makes sense, because the US uses 48,000 troops to maintain a division. (We're using old figures, but we doubt that's changed.)US has the equivalent of six divisions in Iraq, that gives ~50,000 personnel per division. This is about the same as for the Vietnam War. Again, please, we are talking approximates.

    • France To Send 1000 Troops To Afghanistan brining its contribution to 3000. The deployment area has not been decided. The contribution is expected to stead those countries threatening withdrawal because, they say, they are doing a disproportionate share of the fighting.

    • Comment People are coming up with all kinds of ingenious excuses why NATO cannot find even 60,000 troops to field for its various commitments: Europe, Afghanistan, ready forces and so on.  We want the excuse-makers to get a grip. The west has been at war for 7 1/2 years. There is absolutely no excuse not to keep 100,000 troops or more in the field.

    • The main reason for this laggard behavior is that all NATO countries want the US to do the fighting. They want to contribute money, civil reconstruction, advisors and so on. For the rest, it's been a "Don't Bug Me" attitude. Britain, Canada, France should have by now added a dozen new brigades between them, smaller countries like Holland should have activated another brigade. And Italy and Spain, which should be ready to send at least two brigades each overseas are effectively out of the fight.

    • Yes, NATO does feel that since the United States defended Europe for 60 years they owe the US help, just for solidarity. But their deeds are not matching their intent. The US needs deeds, not words. We agree that Europe has a good case about not getting involved in Iraq. That really is America's war. But Afghanistan is completely different. No sense of talking about freedom if the loss of a few score troops from each national contingent causes NATO to cry "Uncle!" - no pun intended. The tree of liberty needs constant refreshment with the blood of patriots, but the Afghan tree is withering away.

    • Power Requirements For Battery Cars A friend says that for the US to run 20% of its automobiles on electrical power could means anywhere between 6 and 160 new power plants. Why the immense range? Because, says the friend, if people "fuel" their cars at night, when power a plenty is available, you need only a small increase in power plants. If they want to "fuel" at will, the the high number is needed. Interesting, no?

    • Stars 100-150 Larger Than Our Sun? We browsed www.astronomy.com to learn more about a star 40 times bigger than the sun which blew up 7.5-billion light years from earth - 2.5 billion years before our sun lit up. The light just reached us the other day. Apparently you could see the nova/supernova for about an hour without a telescope if you knew where to look. We came upon references to stars 100-150 times larger than our sun. These hyper-giant stars must be something to see.

    • And talking about the star that blew up: it would have incinerated its planetary system, assuming it had one. That must have caused a serious disruption to any creatures who had their IRAs all lined up for retirement.

     

    0230 GMT March 21, 2008

     

    • F17 Fighters arrive in Pakistan Six more have reached after the delivery of an initial 2 last summer, says www.strategypage.com  Pakistan will get 25 a year over the next three years toward a total of at least 150, and perhaps as many as 250. With the F-16 situation being what is, Pakistan definitely needs 250, in our opinion.

    • Most of the production will shift to Pakistan; after the first 50, other aircraft will feature western electronics. The aircraft is economical, and said to be 80% as effective as later versions of the F-16. We'd love to know who comes up with these figures.

    • New Israeli Rules Of Engagement are intended to back the new policy that under no circumstances should an Israeli soldier be kidnapped, says marcopetroni quoting ANSAmed, in turn quoting Israeli public radio,

    • The Israelis are naturally not discussing the new policy; it's an operational matter and such stuff is not discussed publicly by any army. The Israelis have said that kidnapping must be avoided even at the risk of added Israeli casualties.

    • The Israelis have a point, because just a very few kidnapped soldiers - is it a total of 5? - is causing the country major grief. For example, the Palestinians want 1000 prisoners released by Israel for one soldier, and some of those 1000 have murdered Israeli civilians.

    • Problem is, if we were Israeli soldiers, we'd be worried. This sounds very much like your own side is going to shoot you if you are being kidnapped. This makes sense for the state of Israel, but it's not terribly comforting for the unfortunates that are in danger of abduction.

    • More Boeing Facts Foreign manufactured parts account for 60% of a Boeing commercial aircraft - we'd said its typically 50%. Nonetheless, Boeing plans to reply on only 15% foreign production for its tanker, versus 40% for Grumman-EADS. We're a bit suspicious of the figure because at least half of the 767 is built overseas. Of course, this is a tanker; basically its wings, fuselage, engines, and avionics; there is no fancy stuff inside the fuselage. Moreover, whereas foreign customers have a choice between US and European engines, presumably the KC-767 will have US engines, and it certainly will have US avionics.

    • Nonetheless, this is an academic debate because the USAF decided in favor of Grumman-EADS after a very detailed study; in several areas the KC-45 came out ahead. If Boeing is saying US jobs should be kept in the US, let it first get the manufacture of commercial airliners back to the US instead of whining.

    • And if Boeing says US military should buy only US-made equipment, what case can the US make for its considerable military exports? The Europeans, for one, have analogs to just about every US military equipment.

     

    Bye Bye Planet Earth

    • Now some are saying that to avert global warming we need to reduce emissions right away, and by substantial fractions. Others are of the opinion that catastrophic global warming can still be averted.

    • But it's time to face reality. The west can reduce emissions all its wants, neither India nor China will stop building more coal-generated power plants. The Chinese are absolutely resistant to the need to protect their environment in any case. People familiar with the issue say that the environmental degradation in China is of unbelievable proportions. But both countries are still poor and need decades of economic growth to give their people a decent standard of living.

    • Also, how exactly is the west supposed to reduce to zero or to negative emissions? Nuclear is verboten, and in any case the fastest plants can be built, assuming a standardized design, is six years. That's without the green challengers, which can add years to a construction process that usually takes 10 years to complete a plant. Coal has a radiation emission several hundred times that of nuclear plants; coal causes - so we are told - 24,000 deaths in the US alone. N-power casualties are lower by three orders of magnitude. And new designs are meltdown safe. But none of this impresses N-opponents.

    • Now, the US does have immense reserves of natural gas. But everywhere you look, any large energy project meets strong opposition. Americans don't want refineries, drilling for offshore oil, pipelines and so on in their backyards.

    • The bottom line is we'd better start planning for living with global warming rather than preventing it. There is no point to the west going zero-emission by 2030 or whatever if the developing countries continue yearly increases that keep overall emissions spiraling upward.

    • Consider a few random facts. The US has (rounded off) one terawatt of generating capacity or very approximately 3.3-kilowatts per capita. China has 800-gigawatts for approximately 0.7-kw/capita. China would need to install an additional 2.8-terawatts to reach US standards of today. India has ~150-gigawatts, 0.14-kw/capita (China wastes more power than India, but there is a considerable real gap as India began its economic growth 10+ years behind China). For India to reach the US level, it would have to add ~3.4-terawatts. None talks of South America and Africa. There are almost as many people there as in India. So they're going to need <3-terawatts more.

    • Again approximately, that's 10-terawatts China, India, South America and Africa will add to come to the US standard of living. And folks, if we're going to have to shift to electricity for transportation, then we are in big trouble.

    • Yes, there is a lot of room for added efficiencies. True commercial demand for power in the US could be reduced 40% by greater efficiency and so on. China could really use some efficiency and India too. All this will do is momentarily slow down the growth of power demand. Its likely going to be 2050 before anyone makes a serious dent in overall emissions. And when US costs for power are going to start rocketing on account of environmental restrictions, a whole bunch of Americans are going to say: wait a minute; its 2008 and China is already the biggest carbon emitter, and its power and transportation demand is only going to increase very rapidly, and there's all those other countries soon we're going to be a small fraction of the problem, why should we suffer trying to reduce emissions when no one else cares.

    • So: conclusion, better prepare for global warming and accept the climate changes. The west can go to zero emissions tomorrow, by by the day after the west isn't going to be the problem.

     

    0230 GMT March 20, 2008

     

    • Tibet The unrest continues. We were amused at a media person's comment that China has not succeeded in bringing calm to all Tibet. Tibetans live in a 2.5-million square kilometer region, a quarter of China's area. What today is called Tibet is approximately 55% of the country before the Chinese moved in (estimated, we don't have the actual figures). China split up Tibet by annexing much of it to other provinces. Because there are a large number of Tibetans living in the other 45%, and because today's Tibet is exceptionally remote, we doubt anyone could bring the Tibetans under control in just a week plus.

    • Mr. Bush's Approval Sinks To 31% compared to 71% before the Iraq War, says CNN. We opine that all this is simply sticks and stones as far as he is concerned. We like that he is a person of faith, but here we see the reverse side of people with strong beliefs. Mr. Bush absolutely is convinced that history will vindicate him.

    • In fairness to Mr. Bush, here are other low approval ratings from CNN: "Still, Bush's approval number is still better than the lowest number for his father, George H.W. Bush, who bottomed out at 29 percent in July 1992; Jimmy Carter, who fell to 28 percent in June 1979; Richard Nixon, at 24 percent in July and August of 1974; and Harry Truman, who dipped to 22 percent in 1952."

    • And to us this seems strange, but 64% of Republicans still approve of the job he is doing, versus 9% of Democrats.

    • Basara, Iraq An Iraqi general sent from Baghdad to restore order in Iraq's south has warned his troops to be ready for a push against the dozen odd competing militias, most criminal, that are terrorizing the city. The Independent of UK says Britain is will to delay further reductions in its forces as the Iraqi Army will need all the support it can get.

    • US Navy To Be Short 200 F-18s before the F-35 arrives for fleet service, says Aviation Week That's not the official picture, which sees a shortage of only 70. But Aviation Week says the official estimate is made on "very" optimistic assumptions. 

    • The magazine says 200 is 4 carrier air wings worth of aircraft. Actually it's three, because for every 48 aircraft on the wing there are others for training, rework, and attrition. Nonetheless, this is an extremely worrying development. With 10 attack carriers the Navy can permanently forward deploy three, and surge 7-8. This means the remaining F-18s must be flown more which will lead them to wear out even more quickly.

    • How American Is The Boeing Tanker? An argument being raised against the Gurmman-EADS tanker choice made by the USAF is that tax-dollars are being exported for overseas job. Keep the tanker American, say the critics, and that means Boeing.

    • Now along comes someone who tell us that 50% of the Boeing tanker is built overseas and so is up to 70% of its new 787. The Grumman tanker will create more US jobs than the Boeing tankers, albeit only by a 10% margin, but still.

    • Boeing and its supporters need to a grip (including us, we absolutely hate Airbus). It's absolutely wrong to talk about exporting jobs when that's exactly what Boeing is doing. This is plain lying to the public. The truth requires an impartial listing of all facts, not just the ones that buttress your case.

    • One of the 100 major reasons America is going down is because everyone from corporations to non-profits to politicians to anyone who is competing against someone tells lies. Leaving facts out cannot be justified as "accentuating the positive" or "taking control of the message". It is pure deceit and if you go trying to deceive others, pretty soon you yourself cannot tell truth from lies and then you are out of touch with reality.

     

    0230 GMT March 19, 2008

     

    • Kenya Power-Sharing Deal Approved By Parliament says Associated Press. The opposition leader, whose party claimed the government had rigged the elections to win, will become the prime minister; the president, from the ruling party, will remain as president.

    • Dalai Lama Threatens To Resign As Political Leader of the Tibetan Government in exile if violence continues. His threat is directed  at the protestors, because he solely believes in non-violence, but it is also meant to show that Bejing's allegations he has staged the riots is untrue. He has several times told his followers not to resort to violence, but Beijing keeps insisting the riots are at the Dalai Lama's instigation.

    • Opinion We find Beijing's attitude disappointing. We understand why it wants to keep Tibet under control. But we do not understand why it has to lie about the Dalai Lama. Simply say "we recognize locals have grievances, we are ready to listen, but violence must stop first".

    • Because the government is so repressive and so arrogant, however, there are thousands of clashes every year with farmers and workers demanding justice. The government smacks everyone down, sometimes it correct the injustice, and sometimes it doesn't. Beijing should remember that a government need the consent of its people to function.

    • You can keep people down only for a time. China cannot become a super-power by repressing its citizens. The Soviet Union tried that, didn't work. Okay, the situations are different, but our point is still valid. Maybe the Chinese should look at why their revolution succeeded in destroying the existing order. Same thing could happen to them some day: man does not live by bread alone, particularly when he has sufficient bread. And China is rapidly reaching the point everyone will soon have enough bread.

    • Iraq Reconciliation Talks Fall Apart Immediately Best you read this Reuters story yourself. We are sick and tired of saying while the US has had great military success in Iraq thanks to the Surge - and we never doubted this would be the case - the real issues are political and are beyond the US's ability to solve, not matter how much money and force it employs. The politics are absolutely not getting better. Particularly because the successes are so fragile and so heavily engineered by the US they can fall apart any moment. Sure, one day they will. And sure, the Editor will someday win the Miss Universe contest. That's going to have to wait for his next lifetime, and the way political reconciliation is going in Iraq, all of us are going to wait till our next lives before the problems are resolved.

    • Palestinians Reject Negotiation In Favor Of Violence: Opinion Poll An International Herald Tribune article cites the result of a poll of Palestinians. Some conclusions: Support the attack on the seminary - 84%; support end to negotiations with Israel - 75%; support rocket attacks on Israel - 66%. In the West Bank, those supporting Hamas is now 47% versus 46% for Fatah.

    • The poll taker says he has never seen such support for violence in his 15 years of taking 4 polls at 3-month intervals. He attributes it to Israel's attacks in Gaza that killed 130 Palestinians; a raid on the West Bank that killed 4 militants; and the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements.

    • Opinion So there you have it: instead of refraining from attacks on Israel because of Israeli attacks/blockades, the Israelis have succeeded only in pushing moderate Palestinians into the hands of the extremists.

    • And Israel's support of Fatah has been a kiss of death. We and others predicted this would happen. We don't anticipate Hamas will take over the West Bank soon. But a show down is coming and Fatah will lose because Hamas fighters to die and Fatah fighters are not. It's nothing more complicated than that. Then there will indeed be a reunited Palestine - under the control of religious extremists. Another great success for Vice President Richard Cheney to crow about. If the radicalization of Muslims continues at this pace, the GWOT is as good as lost and the US will once more be very, very grateful for the protection offered by the Atlantic and the Pacific.

    • But let's try and end this opinion on a positive note. It's early days in the 100-year war. Only 8 years have passed. We still have 92 years to get it right.

     

    0230 GMT March 18, 2008

     

    • Five Years On In Iraq Saddam is gone, but he ever a threat to the US? Iraqis have a democratically elected government, but it is incapable of governing. The country is largely pacified, except it went south in the first place because we invaded. AQ Iraq has taken heavy blows; it is down not out, and is regrouping; AQI did not exist before we took over the country. Economic conditions are better; but till we got the UN to impose embargoes on Iraq, it was doing rather well for a 3rd world country in terms of education, health, subsidized food and so on. Shias finally are free of a 400-year Sunni oppression, but this has only strengthened a real enemy, Iran, and the rise of a free Iraq has tolled the death knell for Iraqi Christians, with whom 85% of Americans share a religion.

    • Of the US Vice President thinks Iraq has been a great success, we have to conclude he is permanent occupant of La-La-Land, a very nice place to escape to when the real world becomes unbearable. What the Veep thinks is success, the headshrinkers think is major psychosis.

    • The truth is, five years on, the US is trapped in Iraq. It cannot reduce to 10 brigades and then pull them out one by one because the entire edifice will collapse, since everyone is waiting and watching for the Americans to go,

    • The Iraqis live in Iraq we don't. They can wait a hundred years. Can we wait a hundred years? Don't think so, but then what do we know, we're from Iowa.

    • US Makes Proposal For Joint US-Russia ABM Defense Congratulations to the US Administration for making the offer. New York Times says the Russians accept it as a serious proposal, but warn significant areas of disagreement need resolving.

    • That's fine, Moscow, but at least get talking. You want reassurance the US system is not aimed at you? What better way than to develop/deploy it jointly.

    • Pakistan Parliament Meets The choice of Prime Minister is still to be worked out. The President did not attend, apparently there is no requirement for him to be present, on account of the members's hostility toward him.

    • Our sole question is: will the parliament follow through on threats to confront and depose the President? If it does, much chaos will result. Perhaps it has to result so that Pakistan can move on. But if President Musharraf's continuance becomes impossible, the new President - indeed the new Prime Minister - must be Army approved. That is the reality in Pakistan.

    • Two Stories From The New York Times Meanwhile, here is an article about US ideas to fight the ABC threat from terrorists http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/washington/18terror.html

    • And a nice story about a Cold War submarine snoop mission that lasted two months, and was considered so risky the submarine was strip of identifying signs. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/18arctic.html

    • A Bear Market - Literally Bear Stearns, a leading Wall Street financial firm, was selling for about $150/share a year ago. Yesterday it was sold to another financial house, as an alternative to bankruptcy, for $2 a share. This is what happens when you, the ordinary Joan/Joe, entrust your money to these very clever people on Wall Street.

    • Spare a thought for the 14,000 Bear employees. They own 30% of the company. The life-savings of many of these people is likely wiped out. Plus many may lose their jobs.

     

    Editor's Home Town Finally Does Something For Its Monkeys

    •  This is just another story, nothing to do with anything, now that the Editor has a bit more time on his hands, but its a vignette of life in India, at least the way India was in 1989 when the Editor was last there.

    • Simla in Himachal Pradesh has had an increasing monkey problem as the city grows and their habit gets encroached upon. Now a new park is to built for them 8-kilometers away with an environment - food, water etc. - so attractive they will voluntarily move from the city to the park. Lets hope it works.

    • Monkeys have been a problem in Simla since as far back as the editor can remember, which is more than 50 years ago. The simians are aggressive in their search for food, Indians are absolutely terrified of animals, and the universal hatred directed at the monkeys gets them in a bad mood. Not helped by tourists who think the way to prove their manhood is to throw things at the monkeys. The only satisfying part of this is the speed with which the tourists run shrieking when the monkeys retaliate.

    • The late Mrs. Rikhye (late as in former, she is well, alive, and happy now that she doesn't have to see your Editor) had a troubled relationship with the monkeys because one attacked a lost baby kitten right outside her family's house and killed the kitten. She came to hate the beasts with a passion.

    • Your editor, however, taught his children to be friends with the monkeys. We'd feed them by hand, much to the shock of the locals who could not believe we were in physical contact with them. The thing is, these fellows have a phenomenal memory and they never, ever, bugged the Editor's family. They remember kindness and every cruelty done them. They live 25+ years.

    • The monkeys actually listened to him when he told them to take food one at a time. One day a monkey looking for food sneaked up behind the Editor to search his trouser pockets for food, and before he could do anything about it, the monkey had his wallet. The Editor then invited the monkey to do another search of his pockets. After the monkey did a second unfruitful check to convince himself the Editor was not lying, the Editor asked for his wallet back and the fellow handed it over without protest. They really are that smart.

    • There is a long story which will make no sense to anyone who hasn't actually been to Simla. Basically, while the Editor was away, Mrs. R was walking up the main hangout, the Mall, when she found four young men teasing a monkey. For all her hatred toward the tribe, Mrs. R demanded they stop, which they did, and proceeded instead to harass her the remaining half-mile to the nearest police station. There she told the sergeant on duty about the boys. The sergeant told her to come with him to look for the boys. She identified one.

    • He was collared and taken to the police barracks along with Mrs. R. The police on the parade ground took turns smacking the boy in the face until Mrs. R begged them to let him go. Police brutality? Not a bit. He was not hurt, there was no need to make a formal arrest for harassing a woman, no need for bail, no fuss and mess of a trial, no need for time served, no police record. The victim saw justice was done, the boy and his cohorts were never seen again by Mrs. R.

    • That's how petty juvenile/youngster crime is handled in Simla. and its a good system. The Editor was forever impressed by Mrs. R's courage in tackling four hooligans, in defense of a creature whose tribe she really hated.

     

    A Question For India's Prime Minister

     

    • Your Excellency, I have made no great effort to get US citizenship, despite having spent 29 years in the country. The half-hearted efforts were only because after my wife left me, I thought of remarrying, and it would be a far easier matter for a wife to join a US citizen husband as opposed to a US Green Card husband. But for my lady wife and her erratic ways, I would not have made any effort for US citizenship.

    • Why? For an amazingly stupid reason: India is the country of my birth and I am proud to be an Indian.

    • But today I learn from Reuters that half of Indian children are malnourished, with is twice the percentage of malnourished children in Sub-Saharan Africa. You can read the article at http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-32544320080318?pageNumber=4&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

    • India, I am told, has an official GDP of $1-trillion, and some say it's real GDP is north of $1.1-trillion. In your budget for 2008-09 you have proposed a $15-billion write-off of debts owed by poor farmers, who have been killing themselves in scandalous numbers because they cannot make enough to feed themselves and pay interest. I think this is a wonderful move and you deserve blessings.

    • Apparently we have 190-million malnourished children if the 50% figure is correct. It seems it costs 33-cents a day for 6 weeks to return a child to health. http://www.projectpeanutbutter.org/science.htm Let's assume assume a worst case, that the child has to be fed for a year. That means $22-billion/year.

    • That is a whacking lot of money, 2% of GDP, as much as we spend on defense. So clearly feeding all the malnourished children is infeasible. But can we not at least make a start with 10% of the children and add 10% a year? After all, the economy grows at 8%/year.

    • And just maybe at the same time you can correct the corrupt and inefficient food-distribution system. That would enable feeding of hungry adults as well, and surely reduce the burden on the children's program, allowing a larger percent to be fed. Yes, this is all back-of-the-envelope, but you get the idea.

    • May I expect a quick answer from you? Otherwise I will have to continue hanging my head in shame. Its hard to be proud of a country where 190-million kids are starving, don't you think, particularly when we are no longer a desperately poor nation.

     

    0230 GMT March 17, 2008

     

    I apologize for not updating March 16. Mrs. Rikhye and I agreed on an amicable parting at her request. I don't like loose ends or delaying what is neccessary, so there was a whole bunch of stuff to be done. Mrs. Rikhye and I have, incidentally known each other since she was 3-months old. I went through three marriages before getting together with her, and we' spent 31 years married. So you can see this relationship is complicated; all the more reason that now its over to move rapidly. told a counselor that marriages break up over two things: sex and/or money. She demurred: marriages break for three reasons: money, money, and sex. No money, no honey, to misquote a 1950s song.   

    • Tibet The situation remains unclear. Rioters in Lhasa seem to be off the streets due to a heavy security force presence, but gunfire was still heard. Riots took place in other town/cities on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, from all accounts they involved small number though several people were reported killed in police firing. No clear casualty numbers are available. The Chinese claim of 10 dead is clearly a lie, but some Tibetan claims of 100 dead by Friday remain unverified.

    • From an eyewitness: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7299642.stm

    • Meanwhile, in our opinion the ponderings by western gurus about China's dilemma in Tibet - not wanting to give in to the monks but not wanting to tarnish its image in an Olympic year - are superficial. You face a dilemma only when you have to decide between two objectives. If it comes top a choice between the Olympics and Tibet, does anyone think that China will not bid the Olympics goodbye?

    • And that assumes the world will boycott the games. No one will boycott the games. Everyone accepts Tibet as an integral part of China, and while no one likes what China is doing in Tibet, is anyone really going to sacrifice economic relationships and just general good relations with the rising super-power?.

    • When it comes to supporting the Tibetans versus sacrificing economic/political relationships with China, does anyone doubt the world would rather forget about Tibet?

    • Pakistan An unidentified 6-missile strike killed between 16-20 suspected Al-Qaeda/Taliban at a house in the North West Frontier Province. Undoubtedly some were civilians because the militants conduct their business in private homes, but what can be done about this? The US cannot not strike militants when it gets information just because civilians are present. Obviously, if the US killed a large number of civilians for every militant, matters would be unacceptable. But in the anti-AQ/Taliban strikes in Pakistan, the US seems to have kept civilian losses low.

    • How do we know that AQ was present? Because first, locals say they believed AQ/Taliban were in the house; second locals say the house was immediately cordoned off and no outsider allowed to approach. If the house had held only civilians, there would be no cordoning. The militants generally do not permit civilians to attend funerals when militants are killed.

    • In Islamabad a bomb exploded in a restaurant popular with foreigners. AFP says this is the first attack against foreigners in Islamabad since 2002. One Turkish aid worker was killed. The ten wounded include four FBI agents and two Japanese mediapersons.

    • From Jose Tejeda On Tibet I am certain that one day, Tibet will be a free and Independent nation.  Tibet is no more a part of China than Algeria was a part of France, or the Ukraine a permanent part of Russia.

    • As for all hype about a "One China" policy, the truth is that China is still an empire, whose leadership exhibit a "Red Mandarin" mentality.  Even to this day, these Sino-Imperialists are looking west in the hopes of annexing more territory.  Examples are:  Afghanistan (I know about how they were never conquered, but those opium fields look tempting for some get-rich-quick Chinese), Kazakhstan (gas fields), and the rest of Central Asia (lebensraum and more natural gas).

    • I agree that China will fragment, but that is to be expected.  All empires will one day fall.  The question is how gracefully do the Chinese want to fall?  Do they want to emulate the British (i.e. peacefully), or like the French (e.g. Indochina War and defeat at Dien Bein Phu)?  I think the time frame would be more like 50 years than the 100 - 200 you've suggested.

    • As for multi-culturalism in countries like the US and India, you've made a good point.  As for the US, we are still burdened by guilt over racist policies of the past, and for India, the rise of Hindu Nationalism may determine how peaceful or violent India as a society would become.

     

    0230 GMT March 15, 2008

     

    Tibet

    • After doing their best to resist the invading Chinese in the 1950s and some of the 1960s, Tibetans basically resigned themselves to being part of China. Their protests in Lhasa, which atypically have seen the Tibetans resort to violence, are not about being part of China. The issue is the rapid elimination of the last vestiges of Tibetan culture and way of life - Hanization - by increasing numbers of mainland settlers.

    • Tibetans don't have many opportunities to begin with - the province lies, after all, at an average altitude of 4000-meters - and the influx of mainlanders has reduced even those limited opportunities. Much of the fighting has been between Tibetans setting upon Han settlers.

    • China has legitimate claims to Tibet. But everyone has legitimate claims on everyone else. India, for example, has claims ranging between 800 and 3000 years old on South Asia - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Burma. Would the world accept India's forcible annexation of these countries on the basis of historical claims? We don't think so.

    • Tibet has been independent for more centuries than under Chinese rule. If you think of it, how can it be otherwise? Both Tibet and Sinkiang provinces are China's back of beyond.

    • In practical terms, the only country that could have helped Tibet was India, but India sold out the Tibetans for a sham "brotherhood" with China and then paid the price 1959-62. Then India repeated its cowardly performance in the 1990s when it signed demilitarization agreements with China, only to have the Chinese advance further. Now India has woken up, and is reacting, but as sure as the rise and set of the Sun, India will fall asleep again; China will not rest till India is reduced to vassal status.

    • The US could not have done anything in the 1950s to help Tibet because for America, Tibet was about as accessible as central Siberia. India would not have allowed the Americans to use its territory, making help impossible. After 1962 and up to 1970, the two countries cooperated in some very small scale operations to support Tibetan guerillas. Then came the US-China rapprochement. The Americans continued to work with the Indians to gain intelligence. That came to an end in 1977 when Mr. Moraji Desai became prime minister. If we haven't already told you that story, remind us. By the end of the 1990s the Americans had sold out to China for a few pieces of silver, and Tibet, already a non-issue from 1970, became a completely closed matter.

    • No one is going to pry Tibet loose from China, at least not till China again falls apart, say 100-200 years from now. Since even we, opinionated as we are, have no clue what the world will look like in 2108 or 2208, we have no clue what will happen to Tibet when the inevitable next contraction of Beijing's power takes place. Till Bush and Friends destroyed America's march toward complete global hegemony, we believed that the next 100 years at least would be a Pax Americana. Now anyone's guess is as good as ours.

    • But for all that many westerners want a free Tibet, we should all be clear on one thing. Before the Chinese arrived in 1950, Tibet was no paradise. It was a theocratic-feudal society of extreme rigid structure and of extreme violence visited by the overlords on the common people. Even a 16th Century westerner would have been shocked at what he might have seen in Tibet 1950.

    • The Chinese freed the ordinary Tibetans both from the theocracy and from a barbaric feudalism. It is too bad that the Chinese do not believe in multi-culturalism and that once freed, the Tibetans were not permitted to retain their own culture and way of life while being part of China.

    • But if you look at the matter from Beijing's perspective, everything has to be done to prevent China from fragmenting again. We are not sure the US could have survived as a multicultural society when it was first created, indeed, we doubt the US can survive in this manner even today. To ask the Chinese to stop Hanization of Tibet with China being united for just sixty years is unrealistic.

    • Your Editor's objection to the Chinese occupation of Tibet lies entirely in strategic matters, not in morality. India has done its best to honor multiculturalism from the day it became independent, and there is hardly any doubt that many of its internal security problems spring from that decision.

     

    Since The Editor Is Without A Date On Friday Night...

    • Marriage Readers Ted Thomas and Kyle Mizokami managed to give the Editor the shakes. Kyle is getting married today - for the first time - and he wanted advice on marriage. Our first reaction was "Whoa! Why is this youngster the Editor, of all people, for advice on the subject?" Then the Editor went through the shakes as he tried to pen a reply. If heaven forefend anything should go wrong, the Editor will blame himself for spreading his curse. In sum, however, the Editor opined the secret of a success marriage is to adore your wife, look after her materially and emotionally, and do what she wants - for better or for worse. In other words, be a Grade A wussy, but still be manly, calm, and decisive. How to manage these contradictory objectives? No clue.

    • The thing is - and every male knows - one minute women want one sort of man, and the next minute they want another sort of man. Conventional marriage worked only as long men had the power. There was ridiculous book some decades ago "The Harrad Experiment" - Harvard and Radcliffe, you can already tell how deep the book was. It had a cohabitation group of four men and three women. Personally, we think that was a bit unreasonable. Women are jealous creatures. As a lady colleague of ours says, "I need three husbands: one to make the money, one to keep me entertained, and one to run the house." No mention of sharing the husbands with other wives.

    • So really there is no rational solution except not to worry about it. If you and yours are a case of True Love, go for it.

    • Ted Thomas scared us in another manner. He is inspecting potential Number 4s. We've heard about people who got married four times - film stars don't count - but this was the first time we were in actual conversation with one such person. Could any person be as stupid as the Editor? Mr. Thomas represents a threat to the Editor's sole claim to fame: "There is no bigger idiot when it comes to women than I". If you can't be the top of the class, you can also find glory in being at the bottom.

    • Then we thought: "This is not generous of us. If someone wants to be as big an idiot as I, be gracious about it."

    • The Editor still has some claim to fame: each time a wife walked out, he was left destitute. Bank Balance when No. 1 exited: $200. Okay, so that was more than 40 years ago and we were students. No. 2 was not a legally consummated marriage: when the infatuated couple went to City Hall, it turned out the lady's divorce was not complete. Her Old Man had been shipped off to SE Asia and he did not get the final papers to sign. But No.2 left when shortly thereafter she met a gentleman who was 8-inches taller, 10-inches slimmer in the middle, did not need coke-bottle specs, and had inherited money. He was also a lot better looking and smarter. When No. 2 exited stage right, the editor had $18 to his name - not enough to buy a ticket out of town. Pathetic. When No. 3 left the Editor was overseas, had a 7-year old, and had to help contribute to his grandparents' modest expenses. Editor had $40 in the bank. When Mrs. Rikhye IV left, she left the Editor with all the bills, all the student loans, and a $260,000 mortgage, up from $125,000 when both paid the mortgage. Editor was working part-time, studying for his teaching certificates and she left him with $1100 in the bank, with $2000 due next day on the mortgage alone.

    • Mr. Thomas was short one house each time his wives exited. But he is an architect, and he did survive to remarry and buy another house. So he is better off than the Editor, and the latter's "I am a bigger dope than you" record stands.

    • My So-Called Life Mr. Mizokami also said he thought the Editor had led an interesting life and perhaps the Editor would talk about it one day?

    • Look, folks. The older you get and the farther away you get from some semblance of success, the more Walter Mitty-ish you become. When one claims to have spent a career in clandestine work, no one has any way of checking the truth. You can say what you like. The trick is to claim less and leave more unsaid. So people who claim they worked as a CIA assassin are being plain silly for obvious reasons. Your Editor always says: "I am absolutely scared of violence. When the going gets tough this tough person gets going - to the rear as fast as his feet will carry him." Then you say nothing else, and you will be surprised at the effect you will have. 

    • So, as the Editor has already mentioned, he never claims to have served in Vietnam with the Special Forces. He claims to have been the lowest grade of civilian advisor for an NGO. He claims his achievements were absolutely zero. He never came with 50-kilometers of a fight and did not have even a rusty pistol. He had so little money even the local whores gave him the cold shoulder. The closest he came to a brave deed was when he slipped into the village pile of buffalo dung and managed to fight his way out alive. People look at you and say: "this man is hiding something for sure." And yes, this man is hiding something indeed, that he never went within 5000-kilometers of Vietnam. You further convince them by dropping little details about life in Vietnam that anyone can glean from a book

    • The other day a young friend of his eldest boy said at dinner: "Mr. Rikhye, I have to ask you this, but is it true you worked for the CIA." Editor immediately fixed his eyes on the dinner table, gave a rueful half smile, and said in a low voice, "No, I never worked for the CIA". At which point everyone looked at each other and nodded their heads in a gesture of: "You can see he did and he is still not allowed to say anything about it 20 years later."

    • The sad truth is, the Editor has led a singularly pointless life with singularly little to show for it. His life for 20 years can be categorized as follows: 1% of the time spent being absolutely, sick-to-the-stomach terrified. 49% of the time being simply terrified. 25% of the time spent being just plain scared. And 25% of the time spent worrying about why he wasn't running scared, surely something really bad he had overlooked was coming down the pike.

    • Now if someone reads this and thoughtfully says: "this man is hiding something" that is his problem. For once I am telling you the truth.

     

     

    0230 GMT March 14

     

    • Archbishop Of Iraq Found Murdered For three years now, reader marcopetroni from Italy has been sending us daily emails that describe in dismal detail the fate of Christians in Muslim lands. He sent us news of the Archbishop's abduction and yesterday of his murder.

    • Except for the cleric's prominence, the persecutions of Christians in Muslim lands, are now so common that we doubt anyone but the energetic marcopetroni would even bother to collect the information, leave alone mail to scores of people.

    • For a very long time, we have felt we should make a public stand on these persecutions, which  except that the numbers are low, amount to clear genocide. The numbers are low because for sixty years Arab nations have been getting rid of their Christians.

    • But we were never clear on the point of making a statement because the truth is that the west, so in self-love with its "liberalism", "diversity", "tolerance", and "understanding" of oppressed people everywhere, including in Muslim nations, has no time to bother about the religious persecutions of Christians. To normal people, this seems odd, because the West, by and large, is Christian.

    • If some Christian Americans  threatened a Muslim, drove his family from their home, burned his mosque, killed him and his children, you would have a mind-boggling explosion of law enforcement and media activity. The guilty would be run down with a grim single-mindedness and handed the severest punishments a very punitive criminal justice could legally administer.

    • But when the same Iraqis that the US liberated from tyranny and persecution tyrannize and persecute Iraqi Christians, the US has nothing to say.

    • So what is that we can usefully say? That America has morally degenerated beyond redemption? That we have seen the godless atheists, and they are us, disguised as moralizing Christians? That Americans have become so effete they will fight worldwide for your right to practice your religion, as long as you are not a Christian?

    • We could say these things, and they would be true. But we doubt anyone would listen because, you see, we Americans are so humanist that we will not even condemn you for killing people of our religion, though we are ready to kill Sudanese for killing Dafuris, and we bombed Serbia for its persecutions, we will beat on Iran for murdering homosexuals, we will embargo Cuba for its repressions, we stand ready to defend everyone's human rights from Timor Leste to Bolivia, anyone and everyone with one exception, and that is the human rights of Christians in Muslim lands.

    • You will notice we are saying nothing about the Europeans who are equally culpable. We don't need to, because Americans have no trouble agreeing that the Euros are hopeless cases. Next time the Americans are beating up the Euros for being so pathetic, it might be a good idea to follow Jesus' advice about sin and throwing stones.

    • All around the 100 square miles that constitute the Editor's "country" he sees the automobile sticker and people wearing bracelets that say: "What Would Jesus Do?" Personally we have no information on what Jesus would do about the persecution of His people in Muslim nations. Some years ago the Big Man Up There and the Editor declared a ceasefire under the terms of which they are to leave each other strictly alone. But we suspect that His reaction can be summarized in a common British/Irish expression: "Jesus wept".

    • Palestinians Launch 64 Rockets/Mortar Bombs at Israel yesterday. Hamas says it will now consider arrests made in the West Bank, which is under Fatah, as provocations to which it will respond.

    • Jerusalem Post has an article which we could not open that seems to suggest militant Fatah people want President Abbas to join with Hamas, at least on the military front. If this happens, we'll be back to full-scale war in Palestine.

    • Meanwhile, former and would-be Prime Minister, Mr. "Bibi" Netanyahu says he would stop the rockets if he was in charge. We ask: how do you plan to do this, Sir, short of killing/expelling every Palestinian and taking over Palestine, in other words, committing genocide? Israel is in a crisis that its military/intelligence analysts say could easily escalate to an all-out Mideast war. This is not the time for for grandstanding or for saying stupid things to gain minor advantage over your political opponents. Try and be constructive, or shut up.

     

    0238 GMT March 13, 2008

     

    • Oil At $110 Barrel The US Energy Information Administration says each dollar increase in the price of crude leads to a 2.4-cent increase in gas at the pump. The current run up seems entirely due to speculators seeking higher returns in the face of the falling dollar: $1.53 to a Euro yesterday. Expect oil in many US markets to rise to $4 by Memorial Day before prices start declining, but they won't fall below $3.50. That will become the new $2.00, the mythical baseline that represents the "good old days".

    • We gained an insight to what's driving speculators. According to a friend - who speaks very fast and refuses to repeat for the benefit of hard-of-hearing people like the Editor - not to speak of the distortion over the telephone -  if you want security, the best you can can expect on your money is 1% post-tax, post-inflation annual returns. To double your money takes 75 years.

    • Now, in the period - very approximately 1980-2000, the US stock market gave real after-tax  returns of around 8%. That dropped drastically in 2001-08 so that probably many people were underwater on their investments. So during this period Wall Street came up with fancier and fancier financial instruments which gave real returns in the 4-8% range. But since these instruments were based on the assumption that the economy would continue galloping along, when the inevitable contraction in the business cycle began, you saw the collapse which is just starting. The wise ones have already pulled their money out of the complicated instruments and have been pouring it into commodities, which have the virtue of being "real".

    • The friend said a whole bunch of stuff too complicated for your Editor to follow, but essentially he said its 50-50 whether the US will get an ordinary recession or a full-fledged depression. He had choice words of abuse for the Administration's fiscal policies and our most favorite subject, the GWOT, Wall Street greed, the common man's greed, illegal immigration, the size of new home garages, the price of fish, "green" lightbulbs, bio-fuels, the F-35 program. China's reckless environmental degradation, Caspian Sea sturgeon, Paris fashions, the price of call girls, the price of rock concerts and about one hundred things. He is a staunch Republican, in any case any one wonders.

    • He was still adding items to his list of what's gone wrong and why it won't be easily sorted out when we gently put down the telephone. You can give the Editor five hundreds facts to do with the military and he grasps them with less effort than it takes to eat a chocolate. But economics is, to him, as easy to understand as witchcraft.

    • Israel Kills 4 Islamic Jihadis, IJ Fires Rockets in retaliation And that could be the end of the week-long truce. We're not going to assign blame, we're sure there's plenty to assign to both sides. Hamas has not, however, formally broken off talks. But what are the odds that one or two more of these incidents will kill the ceasefire?

    • Indian Communist Peasant Insurgency Statistics Incidents involving India's Naxalites, as the communist peasant insurgents are know, increased by 3% in 2007 compared to the previous year - 1565; security force deaths increased 50% to 238; civilian deaths fell about 13% to 460. Based on interrogation of prisoners, the insurgents are said to have a $15-million budget for arms/equipment in 2007-09. All information from Press Trust of India.

     

     

    0230 GMT March 12, 2008

     

    • Admiral William Fallon Chris Raggio has been keeping track of this story for some months. The URLs to give you the basic are listed at the end of our comment.

    • Briefly, Admiral Fallon was brought from heading Pacific Command to Central Command. Once he arrived, he came to quickly believe that war against Iran was not in the best interests of America. Each time Super Chiefy (the Prez) thumped the drum about Iran, Fallon would issue a contradiction and say, no we are not going to attack Iran. He made it quite clear that if given the order to attack, he would rather resign, and there was going to be no repetition on his watch of the spineless manner in which the brass acquiesced to the invasion of Iraq though none of them it was a good idea.

    • What's been pretty surprising is that Super Chief (the Prez) is known for his absolute intolerance of dissent, and here he has been letting Fallon make him look like an idiot for several months. Some of us thought the Admiral and Super Chiefy were doing the bad cop/good cop routine and that Super understood full well how quickly everything could go to heck and beyond if he ordered an Iran strike.

    • So you can taken the Admiral's resignation two ways. One, the poop is about to hit the fan on Iran and he has told Super he is resigning because he wants no part of it. If you go with this view, then war with Iran is imminent. Two, given new information about Iran's hiding its N-weapons program to the point even IAEA is getting upset and angry, the good cop/bad cop routine is continuing. That is, since everyone "knows" that an imminent strike would trigger the admiral's resignation, this is a clear message to Iran: we've had to here with your lies and we're coming for you. The object would be to scare the pants off the Iranians and get them to agree to western terms.

    • Incidentally, our information is that whatever the Iranians may publicly say, they are scared as heck the US will act irrationally and they'll pay the price. They don't worry about the US acting rationally, because they figure a rational US will not attack.

    • We are 100% opposed to any attack on Iran, not because we have any doubts it will succeed. It will succeed without difficulty, and oil will NOT be disrupted for any period that matters. Oil will NOT go to $200 because the same announcement that says we are at war will also suspend the free market for oil. People in Washington can be pretty lame-brained, but even this benighted town is not that nuts as to allow the free market to operate.

    • What we're worried about is that attacking is the easy part; and Washington will almost certainly bungle the hard part, which is what happens after the attack. Anyone who questions US military capability honestly has no clue about that capability. Anyone who questions US ability to deal with post-attack questions is simply being rational.

    • We ran all this past some extraordinarily knowledgeable people, and they and us agreed on one thing: if you see other brass following the admiral's example, then an attack is imminent. There are several 3- and 4-stars who have said they will resign if ordered to attack Iran. Naturally, our sources would not identify the officers.

    • Orbat.com has vigorously opposed many aspects of US policies re the GWOT. This leads to much confusion because many of readers think we are liberals. We are actually to the hard right of this administration on security matters. We attack US policy because we believe it is leading America into defeat.

    • But when it comes to operational matters, whether we think the US is right or wrong, we support the US. That is why we do not think it is any business of ours to learn who are the brass that are on the "we will resign" list. We are not going to make the slightest effort to find out.

    • Meanwhile, if Admiral Fallon has resigned because of principle and not because of some Noh play thing, we congratulate him and say "you, sir, are a true military leader.

    • From Mr. Raggio: 1. Admiral Fallon's resignation http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VBE6E00&show_article=1; 2. Original Esquire article about Admiral Fallon

    • http://www.esquire.com/features/fox-fallon; 3. Reaction to the article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030503059.html?hpid=topnews

    A personal statement by Ravi Rikhye that has nothing to do with any member of Orbat.com

     

  • Governor Spitzer spent $80,000 on prostitutes. He has hired one of the best and most expensive law firms. This man is no champion of the common people. He is a plutocrat every bit as much as the people he prosecuted.

  • If one of the my students breaks the law, as happens periodically, s/he gets the book thrown at her/him. There are no high priced lawyers to help. If you go to court, all you will see is dazed parents and very frightened kids. Sometimes they have lawyers, and heaven knows what debt they had to take on to get a lawyer. Sometimes they have a public defender who may or may not be any good. If jailed, the kids are brutalized in jail in ways you don't want to know about. They have to join a gang to survive. When they come out, even if they want only to go straight, their gang won't let them. It's just a matter of time before they are in trouble again and the downward spiral begins.

  • Yes, none of us should break the law. If you knew the backgrounds of some of my kids, however, you would not moralize. You would only be amazed at how many of them somehow manage to navigate the minefields of their daily lives.

  • It is absolutely not fair that Governor Spitzer gets all the breaks and my kids get none. I am more incensed by the Spitzer affair than I have been about any injustice in America since I returned almost 19 years ago because this man made his name going after the corrupt, the powerful, that no one could touch, because he pretended he cared for ordinary folks and acted on their behalf, and because my two years in an inner city minority high school have shown me how the bottom 25% of America lives. Previously I knew about this 25% from the media. My America when I was here the first time was the America of privilege. Sure, I've had many hard times since returning. I've worked as a manual laborer, as a clerk, as a school secretary. Nonetheless, my life is still one of privilege compared to that of the majority of my students.

  • This is why I am taking the Spitzer affair so seriously. Here is this smug little scumbag, oozing wealth and privilege, and working harder than he has ever done in his life, this time to weasel out of a situation he and only he brought on himself, taking advantage of every connection, and all he has to say he is sorry he let his family down and this is a private matter? To heck with what he's done to his privileged family. I'm supposed to have sympathy for his wife and kids who are part of the same corrupt ruling class? Sorry, Eliot, my boy, I don't feel the least sympathetic.

  • If the Feds and the State of New York do not throw the book at this man, I will have no choice but to change what I say to my kids. They tell me all the time they do NOT think America is fair to them. My invariable reply to say they still have opportunities of which people in other parts of the world cannot dream. Just last week one of the kids said: "But we don't live in those countries and we shouldn't have to compare ourselves to people in India or Africa. We're Americans."

  • If this man gets away with what he's done, I'm going to have to tell my kids: "You're right, and I am wrong. No one gives a darn about you-all in this country, and I'm going to stop harassing you about standing up for the Pledge."

     

    0230 GMT March 11, 2008

     

    Governor Spitzer, The Prostitute, And The GWOT

    • Should we be discussing the latest American scandal, which has the crusading governor of New York State consorting with a prostitute? Yes, we should, but not perhaps for the reasons most of our readers may assume.

    • Our first reaction was envy: "Golly, these women cost $1-$5000 an hour, where do these guys get so much money?"

    • Our second reaction was: "Governor Spitzer says - without mentioning specifics - that this is a private matter, yet it is anything but."

    • Okay, first we need to distance ourselves from those who say a public official has no private life. Character matters, and the public have the right to discuss a man's character before we elect him, and while he is in office. We don't agree.

    • If you have the drive to power, you have an excess of - um - hormones. Power, sex, money go together; not be too biologically determinist and all that, but the whole point to money and power is  to get you sex. It's no sense moralizing about Bill Clinton and Jack Kennedy for their overheated libidos because that's what drove them to seek power in the first place.

    • There is, however, a difference between Mr. Spitzer and other overheated libidos. This  man made his reputation as crusader against the big, heartless, evil corporates. It's because of his crusades on behalf of the little gal and little guy he was elected governor and enjoyed a 70% approval rating - in America that's akin to being next to God.

    • So you're waiting for us to say: he of all people should not be engaging in sex-for-hire? Nope. That isn't our point at all.

    • Point 1: This gentleman paid at least $5000 as nearly as we can make out for - um - companionship. The majority of Americans cannot imagine even in their dreams having that money to spend on companionship. In other words, Mr. Spitzer's moral crime is that he allegedly fights for the little people, but behaves like a rich exploiter.  This is big-time hypocrisy.

    • Besides which, how does a man who has spent ten years as a public prosecutor and governor get that kind of money? If you say he has money from the days he was a private lawyer, then we're back to the same problem: he's part of rich, evil guys' club, not the little guys' club.

    • Point 2: The thing that is wrong with prostitution is not the moral angle. If an erudite writer makes money using his brain, a brilliant surgeon makes money using his skill, and a great athlete makes money using his strength, why in heck's name should it be immoral for a man or a woman to make money using her/his body? Yes, at the street level things are different, but at the level the Emperors Club women are operating, the job choice is a matter of free will.

    • No. The thing that is wrong with prostitution is that it criminalizes the prostitute but not her/his client. Personally, we want the business legalized. But would you agree that only the seller of drugs is a criminal and not the buyer? Same thing with prostitutes. If what they do is illegal, Mr. Spitzer is a criminal too. That is why he needs to resign, and that is why Bill Clinton did not need to resign.

    • In a small way, the Spitzer affair relates to the GWOT.  There is a belief among the very rich, very famous, very powerful, very talented that they can play by a different set of rules, that they are not as the common man.

    • An example of this mind-set is the widely publicized, widely bragged about use of recreational drugs. My students are lower-middle class kids, and if they are found in possession of drugs, as sometimes happens, they are in real big trouble. But several celebrities - we need not name names - get away with use of drugs again and again. This is absolutely not fair; it is absolutely un-American. Either legalize the things, or send everyone caught with drugs to jail, not just my kids.

    • So Wall Streeters pay themselves hundred million bonuses while the little people lose their jobs, their savings, their homes. So just about everyone in major sports thinks its okay to use performance enhancing drugs. So those in the entertainment business thinks its okay for them to open, freely use drugs. And Governor Spitzer thinks that his consortings with a prostitute are a private matter.

    • Now we are going to make what to some readers will seem an incredibly long and incredibly unwarranted jump. We're are going to tie this attitude in with the GWOT. If you feel rules don't apply to you in one area, you're just that more likely to believe they don't apply to you in other areas. This leads you to make very serious mistakes. We'll amplify on that another time.

    • The war against Islamic fundamentalists is one where Americans are saying: we are morally superior to you, and so our use of force to defeat you is justified. While Americans think they are justified on moral grounds, most of the rest of the world do not think they are. They see Americans as corrupt, greedy libertines, shoveling a hugely disproportionate share of the world's resources into their vast maws so that they can pollute the earth further, who are violent and godless, who are killers without compunction or mercy, who are intolerant fanatics who will destroy you if you stand in their evil way.

    • Sounds extreme? Sounds like we're making things up? Talk to people from other countries, read their media, and you will see we are understatong things.

    • Some examples:

    • You will never convince anyone that torture is wrong if you torture. You have your justifications, indeed, we have explicitly said we believe torture is justified under certain conditions. So you say that  torture has helped in preventing another 9/11, but don't Americans realize that others who torture also have their justifications? And Americans come in for double criticism because they also support so many countries who torture. The minute any American talks about human rights, you get an almost universal rolling of eyes and "Oh, puleeze" from the rest of the world. And the horrible thing is that America is the cradle of human rights. America was the beacon of hope for those who fought for human rights in their country.

    • You will never convince anyone that Americans have a fair justice system when you jail more people on a per capita basis than any other country in the world.

    • You will never convince anyone America hasfree and fair elections when you spend billions of dollars. To those against McCain-Feingold, the issue is the 1st Amendment. To the rest of the world, the issue is they believe rich Americans buy elections.

    • You will never get the 3rd World to agree to major cuts in their carbon emission when with 5% of the world population, Americans use 25% of the oil.

    • The GWOT is an ideological war even if superficially it seems a military war. It is a war of right against wrong. You can beat a man to death, but you can never force him to willingly accept you are right and he is wrong unless your hands are cleaner than his.

     

    0230 GMT March 10, 2008

     

    • Despite Denials By Hamas, it is in talks with Israel via the Egyptians, we are told.  All well and good, but we ask readers to keep in mind there will be Hamas extremists who do not want peace no matter what the reward. working around the scumbags will not be easy. Hamas cannot simply off the extremists because any action to contain/eliminate the scum will lead to charges that Hamas has sold out. And if Hamas does not off the extremists, they will be around both to keep yelling that Hamas has sold out and to stage incidents that will ensure any potential Israel-Hamas accord breaks down.

    • After all, Hamas played the role of spoiler when Fatah made peace with Israel. Needless to say, when you have such fantastic goofs as the Israelis, you can also 100% count on them to continue oppressing the Palestinians. And they have their share of extremists too, who will do anything to derail peace with Hamas.

    • Which is why the Editor has always said: states resort to force to settle disputes because it's so much easier than using peace.

    • Colombia-Venezuela Restore Relations Seems someone sensible heed our "Prozac for Hugo and Hugo for Prozac" call because a week after breaking relations, threatening war, mobilizing troops and similar idiocies, Hugo has gone all kissy-face with Colombia. Crisis is over.

    • Naturally we will watch to see if Colombia still follows through on its announced intent to take Hugo to international court for his ties to narco-terrorists. If it does not, you had your pro for the quid.

    • Russians Split 50-50 On Stalin according to a poll quotes by Pravda The newspaper says the reason for the split, with half saying his way was the right way and the other half saying his way was not right, is that the "Stalin was right" side looks at the way he transformed the USSR from a peasant nation to a great power; the "Stalin was wrong" side points to the human cost he imposed. Pravda says that, for example, the executions of 1937 were so widespread that till today no one knows the real number, estimated at between 2- and 6-million. (Pravda says "2 to 60 million", but that zero after the 6 has to be a misprint.)

    • When one sees figures like that, one has two reactions. The first is to thank one's incredible luck to live in a democratic society that follows the rule of law - India and the US in the Editor's case. The second is to ask, can we really understand the psyche of a people that has suffered so terribly in historical memory. 1937 was followed by World War II where between 15-million and 20-million citizens died, though in all honesty we have to ask how many of them were at the hands of Stalin's actions/ But still, you see the point.

     

    US Perceptions of Pakistan's Future - Need for a New Strategy

    A.H Amin

     

  • US relationship with Pakistan has always been a combination of alliance and mistrust. Pakistan is viewed as a transitional ally and as a source of terrorism and possible destabilization. Hence any US official stationed in Pakistan generally carries out the multiple task of cooperating and interacting with Pakistani officials as well as spying on Pakistan's Islamist links and its nuclear/missile program.

  • The USA thus makes use of Pakistan , particularly its armed forces and intelligence agencies as a local auxiliary in the Afghan-Pakistan region in the so called war on terror.In many ways this Pakistani role is a continuation of the Mardan to Delhi tradition when the English East India Company made use of Punjabi Muslim, Punjabi Sikh and Pashtun Muslim troops against the freedom fighter sepoys of 1857 who were both Muslim and Hindu.

  • It is a fact of history that Muslims of Indo Pak were saved from total domination by Hindus and Sikhs by that knight in shining armor the English East India Company when it occupied Delhi in 1803 till then held by the Hindu Marathas and Punjab and major part of present NWFP held by the Sikhs in 1846 and in 1849.

  • The British Imperial policy in India was based on utilizing Punjab and NWFP as principal recruiting areas for the British Indian Army after 1857.When India was partitioned into India and Pakistan Muslim leaders of Pakistan headed by Mr Jinnah made an appreciation that Pakistan could not survive without US military and financial assistance. The USA ignored the first bid for US assistance by Jinnah but by 1954 the USA agreed to furnish military and financial assistance to Pakistan. In turn Pakistan joined US sponsored defense pacts like CENTO and SEATO and provided facilities for US planes spying against Russia.

  • US assistance was discontinued after 1965 , revived after 1978 and discontinued again after 1988 to be revived again after 2001.The USA sees Pakistan's armed forces and intelligence agencies as a cheap force which can be used in an anti insurgency role against the so called Islamists.On the other hand the USA views the Pakistani nuclear/missile assets as a possible threat and wants to puruse some kind of denuclearizing option for Pakistan which may be violent or non violent.

  • US Pakistan relations are maintained at various levels. One is the political level which means US congress/Presidency vis a vis Pakistan. One is the bureaucratic level i.e the State Department vis a vis Pakistan's defense/bureaucratic establishment. Another is the intelligence plane which includes CIA/DIA/FBI/DEA/Homeland Security vis a vis the Pakistani ISI/Intelligence Bureau/FIA/MI/Anti Narcotics Force etc. Yet another is the pure military level which is the Department of Defense/US Armed Forces vis a vis Pakistani Armed Forces Chiefs and their principal staff officers etc.

  • Each of these plains have different dynamics. Each level has a different agenda and different objectives. The USA cultivates various key Pakistani sources at various levels and these are provided retainers, although the USA is quite miserly in its retainers. It has been reported that US secret documents captured from the Tehran Embassy stated that many key Pakistani generals including the army's principal staff boss the Chief of General Staff in Zia's time and the custodian of army plans the Director Military Operations had been successfully cultivated by US intelligence. 

  • For USA dealing with Pakistan is relatively simple because they key decision makers in Pakistan are the army chief and the intelligence bosses of ISI and the military intelligence. There are periods when a political leader is more powerful as was the case in 1971-77 or in 1997-99 when Nawaz Sharif reduced the army to its due place. However generally the army chief is USA's best bet to manipulate and control Pakistan.

  • For the first time in Pakistan's history since 1971 Pakistan is witnessing a kind of civil war and insurgency and the army has been seriously challenged by Islamist forces who view the army as a collaborator of the Christian west led by USA .The same perception as was the case in 1857 or in the British era. The Pakistan Army has failed so far militarily against the Islamists in NWFP and Balochistan .Now the Islamists since 2006 have taken the low intensity war into Pakistan's political and economic heartland Punjab and Sindh. This situation is very alarming for the USA. Pakistan Army's mercenary value has now a question mark . Some may call this question mark big and some may disagree but there is general consensus that the army has failed to deliver as it was expected by the USA.

    • The great danger is not Pakistan but the fall-out after its demise.

    • The great danger to the West is not the hopeless Pakistani state but non-state actors.

    • The more Pakistani Don Quixotes are proved to be spineless clowns in Waziristan, the more dangerous the situation becomes.

    • Warfare has become cheap. It is easy to rock the boat and non-state actors are good at this.

    • The front is unclear. The distinction between friend and foe unclear.

  • In the present situation after the 2008 elections a complicated set of choices have appeared for the USA. On one side they still regard the mercenary role of Pakistan Army as their best bet. On the other side they have a dilemma of how to continue their arrangement with ex General Musharraf or to dump him. The USA sees Musharraf as a necessary evil but there is a perception in US policy making circles that Musharraf may not be a best long term bet. Nevertheless they want the transformation to be slow because a quick transformation would make the army lose face .Although Musharraf is retired but practically he is identified as an extension of the army.

  • The Pakistani politicians , it appears are not regarded as the safest bet by the USA. The army on the other hand as represented by the chief , who can be any one with his principal staff officers is regarded by the USA as a safer bet.

  • The elections of 2008 have led to a hung parliament and coalition government in whatever form will not be a strong government. This may lead to a weak political order with the army retaining a strong balancing position or re-elections within one or two years. Re-election would again lead to some kind of civil-military confrontation in case one party emerges in strength as happened in 1990 , 1993 or 1997.

  • We can safely conclude that Washington has failed to develop a fresh approach with regard to Pakistani political order and still prefers the short cut of dealing with the army while assigning more humdrum, day to day tasks to the new Pakistani set up.

  • Continued use of the Pakistani army as a mercenary force for US policy interests as done in NWFP and Northern Balochistan will further destabilize Pakistan .This will be a gigantic strategic challenge to USA because in that case it would have no choice but to resort to use of conventional military force in Pakistan. This in turn will further destabilize Pakistan. Which in turn would lead to Indian military intervention in Pakistan. All these developments would lead to devaluation of the Pakistan Army as a respectable institution and a coercive force. This would serve US interests if it wants Balkanisation of Pakistan. But once the fission process of this scale is started it can go out of US control. New forces can emerge and the outcome may not be as planned by any of the major actors.

  • Washington has so far failed to arrive at any significant consensus about how to deal with both Pakistan and Afghanistan. In strategic terms it may be defined as a temporary suspension of action with silent registration of targets going on. Afghanistan's south has now become more unstable and Taliban regularly search all vehicles on the main Kabul-Kandahar road. In Waziristan the Pakistani forces are acting like the mouse while the tribals are now the cats. War has been carried by the non state actors right into the heart of the Pakistani general headquarters. The war in NWFP and Northern Balochistan is now assuming more and more ethnic dimensions with a Punjabi-Pashtun divide. Pakistan cannot afford to lose the Pashtuns who have been the major albeit junior partners of the Punjabis. But this is what is happening since 2001.

  • What is needed is a new strategy within Pakistan to solve this gigantic strategic threat and also with in USA on how to effectively deal with the threat without seriously destabilizing Pakistan. The Musharraf option has generally failed. Now the USA has to find another Musharraf may be a different man and another Karzai for Pakistan. The situation demands immense statesmanship and strategic insight which is sadly lacking in both USA and Pakistani political and military circles. Zardari is an untried horse and Nawaz Sharif is regarded as an erratic horse by the USA. The USA has to act fast and decide on  a new strategy. Unfortunately a cursory glance at US history proves that strategy has never been the strong point of the US establishment.

     

     

    0230 GMT March 9, 2008

     

    • Hezbullah Claims Seminary Shooting Responsibility Originally there was confusion re. the shooter's affiliation. He was a Hamas member, but Hamas denied responsibility. Now Hezbollah has claimed it. Adding further confusion are claims from Palestine sources that while Hamas-Gaza was not in the loop, it was a joint operation between Hezb and Hamas-Damascus. Meanwhile, Hezbullah's deputy leader says his organization has rebuilt its forces since the 2006 Warm despite the presence of 13000 UN troops and the Lebanese Army in the south. Also meanwhile, it appears seven of the 8 students killed by the gunman were in the 15-16 year old range. Hamas Commander Says Syria, Iran Provide Training according to Times London. 650 fighters have been trained in Syria by Syrians trained by Iran. Sixty-two Hamas militia are in Syria right now. 150 Hamas militia have been trained been directly trained by Iran in that country; 150 are there now. The Hamas commander was not identified by Times London except as being in his 20s and a survivor. Lebanese Allege Israeli Overflights says Jerusalem Post. On Thursday three reconnaissance aircraft violated Lebanon airspace and on Friday two aircraft flew over Beirut.

    • $400-million A Helicopter? How can a helicopter cost $400-million? Easy. Just have the US DOD specify it, and the US defense industry manufacture it. The program to replace the 28 helicopters used to move the president etc around now costs $11-billion.

    • The US procurement process is so busted. By comparison with the helicopters, $200-million a tanker, $200-million an F-22, and $1.2-billion B-2 seem cheap. The good old Huey UH-1 used to cost $250,000 when the Vietnam War began, about $1.5-million in today's money. And, by the way, its not as if the VH-71 is an entirely new design. Its based on the Augusta-Westland EH-101 Merlin that entered Royal Navy service 10 years ago.

    • China's Labor Situation Xinhua quotes the Chinese Labor minister to say that whereas 20-million Chinese are entering the labor force each year, jobs are available for only 12-million. You can see right there why China follows a mercantilist export policy: it can't afford to have anything diminish the number of export jobs. But diminishing they are, in part because of increased wages and the global hike in energy and commodities prices. Moreover, the US economic slowdown - or is it a bust? - and the fall of the dollar is making exports to the US more expensive. Chinese export factories work on margins as thin as 5-10, so the slightest jolt can prove catastrophic.

    • Oil We are told that speculation and the fall of the US dollar have added $35 to the price of oil; political uncertainties have added $5; and $15 dollars or so has been added because of demand growth.

    • We were also told this is one estimate, and that breaking out components of the oil price increase with accuracy is difficult because there are so many different factors at play.

    • We were also told - but anyone can figure this out - that there is zero incentive for OPEC to reduce oil prices. It is selling all the oil it produces; why increase production and get less money per barrel?

    • Classic demand theory says when a commodity's price rise, substitutes become more attractive. In this case, however, we're decades away from true substitutes; in the meanwhile, since oil is the best fuel for transport, the growth of the vehicle market in India and China alone will take up oil demand displaced by the alternatives being introduced.

    • It does not help that the US is living in a fool's paradise and refusing to develop alternatives on a crash basis.

    • Further - and we have to keep repeating this - it does not help that while the US is the major importer of oil, directly and through its multinationals it is also likely the largest oil producer. Go ahead and blame OPEC, we don't like them and am all for seizing their oil-fields. But fairness demands that we note US producers have no interest in reducing prices either.

    •  

    0230 GMT March 8, 2008

     

     

    0230 GMT March 7, 2008

     

    • Orbat.com Condemns Killing Of 8 Israeli Students We condemn the killing by a Palestinian gunman of the Israeli seminary students. The Palestinians have a right to resist the Israelis. They should do it by peaceful means because their violence does not work. If they must use violence, it should strictly be against the Israeli security forces. If Hamas cannot get accuracy with its rockets, best to suspend firing till the problems is solved. There is no heroism when an armed man guns down civilians, no matter what the provocation.

    • Ecuador Captures 5 FARC Guerillas and we are glad Ecuador is doing the right thing by Bolivia. You cannot ignore narco-terrorists who use your territory for sanctuary, and even strike deals with such people, and then start a row because the Colombians took action on their own.

    • We see mentioned in a number of stories FARC/Venezuela recently released six hostages of the 700 or so they hold. What most stories don't mention is that right after FARC released six, it kidnapped six more.

    • Pakistan's General Kiyani Slips Up by making a political statement. He has called for political harmony: Reuters says A military statement quoted Kayani as telling army commanders in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, that "any kind of schism, at any level, under the circumstances would not be in the larger interest of the nation."

    • General Kiyani has taken several steps to take the Pakistan Army out of politics and this has added to his reputation for professionalism. But then out of the blue he makes a highly political statement. He is interfering in the formation of a new coalition government by expressing the views above. Since anything a Pakistan army chief says has to be taken seriously, his statement can be considered as highly threatening - form a government quickly, or else don't forget the Pakistan military is the true guardian of the nation.

    • Whatever his motives, it is not up to him to speak on a political matter. Imagine the uproar if in 2000 the US Chairman Joint Chief had issued a similar statement during the turmoil over the Florida vote and you will see why say General Kiyani's action is unconscionable.

    • Iran Says US Pulls Out Of Trilateral Talks that were scheduled to discuss the Iraq situation. The official news agency IRNA attributes the US action to American confusion after the visiting Iranian president received a rousing welcome in Baghdad. [We are only reporting what IRNA says.]

    • US Says No Talks Were Scheduled and the Iranians seems to have misunderstood. we are guessing from an International Herald Tribune story that the Iraqis are not keen on talks at this time and may have asked the US to cease and desist. That does not mean we buy Iran's story about cancellation. For one thing a scheduled meeting would have been announced in advance.

    • French Mayor Threatens Citizens Who Die with punishment because the local cemetery is full. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL0552076620080305

    • We are highly mortified - pun intended - because we are inordinately proud of the US's unparalleled penchant for kooky laws. How dare some peasant Frenchman pass a rule so stupid that it challenges the most peculiar Americans rules/laws?

    • Meanwhile, aid groups say the humanitarian situation in Gaza is the worst since the 1967 War.

    • India Claims 4 of 10 Richest Billionaires which is more than any other country, including US. Indian billionaires are Mittal (4), Mukesh Ambani (5), Anil Ambani (6), and K.P. Singh (8).

     

    March 6, 2008

     

     

    March 5, 2008

     

     

    0230 GMT March 4, 2008

    A short update today: the editor has picked up a giant bug from his kids, one of the delightful benefits of teaching. So he is on the verge of death, and all his kids are concerned about is: "Dont get sick because you promised to bring candy for the exam". These are 15-18 year olds, by the way. They were all sick last week, naturally this week they are leaping like gazelles while the editor can barely croak: "Sit down, everybody, do some work for a change."

     

    March 3, 2008

     

     

    March 2, 2008

     

     

    March 1, 2008

     

     

     

  •  

     

    Back to Main

    All content © 2008 Ravi Rikhye. Reproduction in any form prohibited without express permission.