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RETURN TO MAIN Condensed World Armies Condensed World Paramilitary Forces 2006 Analysis WE BRING YOU THE WORLD © Published on an ad hoc basis Declassified Gulf II Planning Documents Report on US Army readiness March 2007 [Thanks Joseph Stefula] Welcome to  America Goes To War. We focus on news about the war on terror and other important strategic matters. 0230 GMT December 26, 2009 Yeman air strike against AQ in the Arabian Peninsula leadership http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/12/yemeni_airstrikes_ta.php Pakistan update we spoke with out South Asia correspondent Mandeep Bajwa today. He confirmed our information that the Pakistan COAS has no interest in running the country because he is the real power in any case. He is happy to let civilians take the ostensible lead. Of course, the situation changes if Supreme Court starts indicting army generals on corruption charges. Our analysis has been that repeal of the NRO has gravely weakened the institutions of Pakistan's nascent, reemerging democracy; Mandeep's assessment is more dire. He feels the NRO is just the last straw and that Pakistani democracy can be declared dead and given a decent burial. According to this line of thought, the person who dealt Pakistani democracy hard blows was the President, who is now in the soup himself due to the repeal of the National Reconciliation Order. On the Kashmir insurgency, Mandeep agreed with out information that the scale of the insurgency has dramatically reduced, in large part due to the security fence. He warns, however, that the effectiveness of the fence depends on the specific sub-sector under discussion. There are still areas where the terrain is so rough that a fence system, no matter how closely patrolled, cannot eliminate infiltration. 28 Division, which Editor uses as his indicator of the strength of the Kashmir insurgency, is down to five brigades from a high of 8-9. The division had three brigades when it was inducted from Ladakh into Kashmir for the counterinsurgency campaign, but in its new location, even if the CI was definitely over, its likely the division would have 4 brigades to protect its sector of Kashmir against the Pakistan Army. We went through Indian Army battalion strength and came up just short of 1000 infantry, mechanized, armored, CI, field and AD artillery, engineer, and Scouts/Frontier Force battalions. In terms of manpower the PLA is still the largest in the world, about 1.4-million to India Army's 1.2-million, but in terms of first line combat/combat support battalions the Indian Army is the biggest in the world. The reason you perhaps did not know this is that the Indian Army is not bothered to itself know the total number of combat/CS battalions. Of course the information is there in bits and pieces. But no one has put it together simply because (a) the Army refuses to do self-publicity; (b) Army does not consider such figures at all relevant. Incidentally in terms of 10 battalions to a division, excluding CI troops who form the equivalent of five divisions, India has 50 division-equivalents as opposed to the official figure of 34 divisions plus two raising. There are simply a great many extra brigades and battalions. This is the reason Mandeep has been saying that the two new divisions will come mainly from rationalization of extra units. China still has perhaps 4 internal security personnel for every 1 Indian. This is after the recent expansion. You might think that well, China is a dictatorship so they need more troops to keep their population down. Actually, it's because India is such a rambunctious democracy that it needs at least double the number of internal security troops it has now. Indians riot, demonstrate, and take up arms at the slightest excuse. Law and order through much of the country is in a scandalous state. The example here is the Maoists, who have a presence in one-third of India's districts. if a bunch of Commies had an armed presence in 1000 of America's 3000 counties, and controlled a few hundred, there would be heck to pay. India, however, is unique. Little troubles India as it majestically makes it way through life. The Prime Minister has specifically forbidden federal intervention to support the states against the Maoists. We are not to hurt the poor, misguided dears. All they need is hot cocoa, bunny slippers, and pink blankies, and a lot of cuddles, and they will see the wrong of their ways. Okay, so if the Maoists were running amuck in a couple of districts (counties), this approach would make sense. But running amuck in a third of the country? You just have to shake your head and wonder how India has kept it together for 60 years. 0230 GMT December 25, 2009 India completes 2 division pullout from Kashmir 27th and 39th Mountain Divisions have returned to their home stations (XXXIII Corps Eastern Command) and Yol (Pathankot, Jammu) after a big drop in the Kashmir insurgency. Part of the reason for the drop has been Pakistan is engaged elsewhere, but mainly it's because the Indians finally got their act together and erected anti-infiltration fences between Indian and Pakistan Kashmir. Not to be ignored: many insurgent groups got fed up of fighting to no gain and decided to return to the political process. The real test of whether the insurgency has wound down is if 28th Mountain Division reverts to three brigades, divesting itself of several reinforcement brigades. Nonetheless, before everyone starts doing the Happy Happy Joy Joy Dance, Pakistan has not changed its political position one bit and is still determined to win Kashmir by force. The Pakistan Taliban have infiltrated to a district just west of Pakistan Kashmir, and this is a complicating factor. From India's viewpoint, the situation has not changed in 60 years: India is willing to let the status quo continue, and is increasingly inclined to reach a permanent settlement based on the Line Of Control, India made one pathetic attempt to wrest territory back from Pakistan when it launched Operation Meghdoot in 1984 and ended up freezing its rear end on the Siachin Glacier because as usual, the politicals did not have the courage to follow through to seize the Northern Territories. So India ended up with the most useless part of the area, one where the line between India and Pakistan was in any case not delineated. In 1986/1987, the late General Sundarji devised Operation Trident to complete what Meghdoot did not, but that also ended very pathetically. Indeed, the operation never got started, being cancelled 72-hours before launch. If the Indians now just tamely gives up the Northern Areas and West Kashmir to the Pakistanis, it will be just another piece of its six decade old appeasement policy. Editor can rail all he wants about the coterie of traitors that has ruled the country since August 15, 1947. The truth of the matter is when the Editor tried to do something about this coterie, he failed so miserably, that he was less noticed than the proverbial dimple on the pimple of the coterie's sorry behind. He never made it to the point where more than three mid-level officials mused to themselves: "This fellow is up to something, but what?" Of the three - bless their souls, good men all - only one got anywhere close to figuring it out. Now the Editor is just another of the querulous old men he railed about yesterday in reference to the US. He'd promised himself over the years that when Mrs. R. Number IV left and his children were settled, he'd return to the revolution. Instead, he huddles in his house, to keep which he has devoted five bitter years, and to keep which he continues living just like any below average Joe: one paycheck from ruin, focused entirely on keeping his head down so he doesn't get into trouble with his employers and lose his job, frightened to take the least risk, let alone work on the revolution. This is what it comes down to: from the bright, sharp dreams and ambitious and righteous causes of youth to the myriad aches and pains of old age, living sordidly to the point that going to bed and saying "made it through one more day" is the highest achievement of one's life, before falling asleep, before waking up, and starting the struggle to get through the day and get to bed saying: "Made it through another day..." 0230 GMT December 24, 2009 Another good idea meets reality We've been wondering why the Afghan Army is little in evidence. In the next 2-3 years the army is supposed to double in size and take over from the United States. This video shows why no one will take over from the US. http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/12/less_than_an_afghan_army.php One US Marine trainer says on the video that up to 80% of Afghan soldiers use drugs. An Afghan officer expresses his disillusionment with the Army because the men he gets are uneducated and miscreants from the villages. And so on. If our American friends don't mind, we have a slightly different take on this. Nothing about the Afghan Army should be news: after all, the US has been working on this for eight years. This is not a short time: world wars have been fought in half that many years. By now the US should have figured out that you have to build an army for the Afghanistan that is what it is, not what the Americans would like Afghanistan to be. Such an army would be very different from what the Americans consider an army. It would consist of mainly illiterate men, because most of the country is illiterate. It would consist of men who abuse drugs, because many Afghans do. It would consist of men with less than stellar character, because who in his right mind volunteers to fight in a civil war as a vassal to a foreign power if he has any other alternative. It would plan for the habitual absence of 40% of its ranks because the men slip away if there is a problem at home, and they don't come back until the problem is taken over, because that is what happens in a poor country where society does not look after people, only your sons look after you. In the Punjab, where the Editor comes from, there is a saying: "Every mother must have three sons. One to till the family's land. One to be a soldier. And one to hang after he has avenged the family by killing those who do it wrong." This is a brutally fatalistic view of life, but it is, unfortunately a reality in many parts of India. And India is five hundred years more modern than Afghanistan. When the Americans look for a model on which to base the Afghan army, absolutely the last thing they should be doing is creating a Mini-Me version of the US military. The model should aim, rather, to produce a better version of the Taliban. The Afghan are natural fighters. If the US has failed to shape them into an effective fighting organization, US should be looking at itself, not at the perceived failure of the Afghans to meet US standards. But what about the Iraqis? Hasn't the US succeeded in training the Iraqi military? Well, if the US had gone about that in the right way, it would have had a new Iraqi Army in six months. To us the 6 years the US has taken is not an indicator of success, it is an indicator of failure. You see, before the Americans got to Iraq, the Iraqis had quite a well-trained, well-officered, and well-led army with 50 years of experience. It wasn't the US Army, but then who is? All the Americans needed to do was post an announcement: As of May 1, 2003, we expect the Iraqi Army to continue doing what it has done for 50 years, except till the economy gets back on its feet, we'll be making the payments to the MOD. Of course the new Iraqi Army will answer to the interim provisional civilian government. Oh yes, since we destroyed all except a dozen tanks, and you Iraqis basically have no heavy equipment left in any shape, we'll pay for you to buy stuff from Former Soviet Union, which is drowning in surplus tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers, and what have you. For the rest, we're going to keep a 50-person liaison staff at Iraq MOD and we will stay out of your way. Enjoy yourselves. But asking the Americans to do the above is like giving a kid a 20-foot container of Lego, and saying, you are not to touch it. Americans are basically engineers, and the one thing that is absolutely, absolutely irresistible to them is arriving in the middle of nowhere, wiping the slate clean, and building a new country from scratch. This is engineering on a grand scale, in in Editor's humble opinion, it's twice as bad because Americans have so few real engineering projects left to do at home. It's not that there aren't any: going to Mars, building high-speed rail networks, and starting on a tunnel between US and UK (rail, vacuum, 6000-mph, i.e., 30-minutes New York to London - not our idea, we read about it years ago). Want more projects? Replacing fossil fuels with nuclear power - 1000 N-plants of 1 GW each would keep a lot of Americans busy; redesigning cities for the 21st Century' restoring America's primacy in its R and D primacy and doing the basic research for the technologies of the 22nd Century; fusion power; redesigning all of America's factories for energy efficiency better than the Japanese (we are highly energy efficient but still use twice as much energy per dollar of GDP as Japan); rebuilding the nation's roads and bridges for the smart transportation network era; and creating a better broadband network than ROK. Not enough? Wipe the slate clean and design a new health care system before we go utterly bust (we spend 17% of GDP on "health", going to 33% by the 2020s, at which point we will live in houses 500-feet square and eat rice and beans, and have 600 cc cars, because one-third of your money will go to running local, state, and federal governments, one third will go for health, an in the remaining one third you'll have to do everything else: shelter, food, clothing, utilities, savings etc.; but boy, we'll have every medical technology available to everyone. Still not enough? Redesign public education from the ground up. Each of the projects are trillion dollar scale. They would keep us very busy at home, and maybe incline ourselves less towards gratification sought in overseas mis-ventures. Of course, none of this is going to happen, because Americans have become querulous, fearful old men and have neither vision, nor patience, nor grit, nor an ability to take risks or sacrifice for a better future. We have met the 21st Century and have been defeated. Talking of natural fighters would our foreign readers be surprised to learn there is another people that are natural fighters, and that is the Americans? 0230 December 23, 2009 Don't read this is your blood-pressure is high From Bill Roggio: "In the past, the Pakistani government denied that the Afghan Taliban is based in Quetta. However, on Dec. 10, Pakistan's defense minister admitted that Mullah Omar's Quetta Shura is indeed in Pakistan, but said it is no longer a threat. Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar claimed Pakistan's intelligence services have neutralized the Quetta Shura. There is no evidence, however, that any senior member of Mullah Omar's cadre has been killed or captured." http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/12/afghan_forces_captur.php#ixzz0aSgOMOP4 Here is Pakistan calmly saying: "Sorry about that, the head organization and top leader of the same Taliban that is killing Americans in Afghanistan is in Pakistan, but don't worry about it, we're taken care of them". This after denying many, many times that these people are in Pakistan in the first place. So where's the outrage in America? None whatsoever that we can tell. A country that is so indifferent to the fate of its soldiers, so detached from reality as to what is really going on in Afghanistan-Pakistan, deserves every bit of the misfortune of this futile war that it has gotten, is getting, and will get. Such a country has neither courage, nor pride, nor honor, nor any sense of duty, and no morals. But that's okay, because the soldiers we've sent to Afghanistan do have these virtues, so its okay to continue leading our degenerate lives while they do the sacrificing and the dying. Isn't an all-volunteer military just the greatest thing? Maoists make trouble in Nepal In the elections that followed the end of the civil war last year the Maoists came to power. Their candidate for prime minister, however, resigned for various reasons http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/world/asia/22nepal.html?_r=1&ref=world Now the Maoists are demanding he be installed as head of the government, else they will sweep the government from power using demonstrations and unspecified methods. So: it's taken the Nepali Maoists a remarkably short time to abandon the democratic principles they espoused. They were against the monarchy, in whose abolition they played the major role, because it was anti-democratic. And using force to get your man named as head of government - after he resigned, which no one told him to do - is democratic? What's wrong with going through the usual constitutional procedure to have your man made PM again, such as voting no-confidence or defeating a money bill, which leads to the fall of the government and an invitation from the President with the person able to show a majority of MPs to form the new government? Might it be the Maoists know they will not be able to form another government so what is denied to them by democratic means must be achieved by illegitimate means? New US "very stealthy" bomber under development While the US makes out to the world that it is still futzing around with a proposed new bomber, is it needed or nor, should it be unmanned or piloted, etc etc, Aviation Week and space Technology says its likely the US has already put such a bomber under development as a black program. http://aviationnow.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/NGB122209.xml&headline=Classified%20Bomber%20Under%20Consideration&channel=defense The new bomber will have a wing-span comparable to the B-2, and will be far more stealthy. A new, large hanger is being built at Groom Lake, Nevada. AW&ST says unlike other hangers, this one is protected from sight of anyone outside the base by a berm. Letter from Reader Jayant Regarding your post December 20, 2009 on Congress "spokesperson" Rajiv Shukla's comments on Indo-Pakistan relations: Lol...you are just getting carried away for nothing. Mr.Rajiv Shukla is a total non-entity. Do a straw poll among ten Indians as to who Rajiv Shukla is and you would come out looking silly? He doesn't even represent the congress's position on national or for that matter even local issues. His say on issues of foreign policy could just be summarized as 0/100 hence nobody ever quoted him and I am amused that Bharat Rakshak even mentioned it. Looks like Dawn got refused for the nth time for an interview by Mr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the real spokesperson of the congress and in desperation latched on to one of the lackeys in the Congress party and the lackey Shukla went blabbering his top. 0230 December 22, 2009 We missed December 21, 2009 update - unsure why, Editor was snowed in the house the entire day, managing to dig himself out only by dusk. First Century AD house excavated in Nazareth Just in time for Christmas comes news of this discovery. Nazareth was home to Mary and Joseph, and as far as the archeologists know was a small village of 1.6 hectares with ~50 houses. The house has four rooms. This the first time a Jewish dwelling from the time of Jesus has been excavated. found.http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1261364468185&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull A few days ago archeologists announced the discovery of fragments of a burial shroud from the 1st Century AD, at a Jerusalem tomb. The person who died was likely a member of the aristocracy, and had both TB and leprosy. This makes him the first verified case of leprosy in human history. The shroud, needless to say, has nothing like the weave of the Shroud of Turin. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1260894117527&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull US targeted Bin Laden brother-in-law in December 17, 2009 UAV attack says Bill Roggio at http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/12/bin_ladens_brotherin.php The strike was unusual in that seven drones were involved, and they fired 10 missiles. The gent was supposed to show up at a meeting, so presumably attacked different sites and vehilol...you are just getting carried away for nothingcles. US sourcn escaped, perhaps 15 fighters, many belonging to the Haqqani network. This network is one of many run by Pakistan, and the one Pakistan has flatly told the US it will not move against. With the repeal of Pakistan's National Reconciliation Order all those granted immunity for crimes under the NRO are now again liable for judicial action. A Rawalpindi court, called Accountability Court No. 1 has begun its process by summoning the Interior Minister to appear in a case where President Zardari is the main accused. So it begins. "Interior Minister: in Pakistan does not look after parks and so on, he is the main person responsible for internal security. This is a very powerful post, and by definition, Accountability Court No. 1 has summoned someone who is likely the fifth most powerful person in Pakistan, after the Army Chief, the head of the Supreme Court (which used to count for little till very recently, the President, and the Prime Minister, The morality of mandatory health care Reader Flymike and Editor have been engaged in a debate on mandatory health care. Editor says yes, because as a Christian society we must provide for the less fortunate. Flymike says no, based on a number of arguments starting with constitutional issues. Neither has convinced the other, but today Flymike scored a good point. A major argument to provide health care for all is that the sick land up at the hospital regardless of lack of insurance, and have to be treated. This results in losses for hospitals. If private, the losses are charged to those who can pay in the form of increased fees. If public, the losses are made up through increased taxes. This is an argument Editor has also made. But Flymike asks, why do we allow the uninsured sick to get away without paying? After all, we don't let them walk out of a supermarket without paying because they are unable to pay. We don't let them travel free of charge. We don't excuse them their property taxes. Etc. Answers to this question, people? And talking of Christian duty...here's something truly weird from England: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6964050.ece Tje English are entitled to lead their lives as they see fit, but the more the Editor reads the London Times, the more he is inclined to ask the England, "Look, are you really so sure Americans are weird?" Glass houses and all that. Letter from Rick on West refusing help Africa (Orbat,com December 16, 2009). "When one considers the cost of intervention, perhaps it's understandable the West finds its easier to ignore Africa. The situation is not helped by the long list of African dictators in the decades after independence, who have chosen to exploit their people instead of serve them." 0230 December 20, 2009 Challenge to President Zardari already reaches Supreme Court but to us this particular one seems a futile business. The petitioner, a retired air force officer, says the Constitution cannot give the President immunity as all Pakistanis are equal. Sorry about that, old son, but all over the world in democracies the head of state has immunity. There is nothing unconstitutional about this. Another petition in front of the Supreme Court is equally futile. This says that foreign courts cannot open cases against the Pakistan President, who enjoys immunity. The reference is to the corruption cases brought against then Mr. Zaradri in Switzerland, and dropped at the Pakistan Government's request in the wake of the NRO. There is talk of asking Switzerland to reopen the cases, but of course the Swiss Government is under no obligation to do so particularly if it feels Switzerland is being used a s a political football to settle scores in Pakistan's internal affairs. But the reason this is a no go as far as we can tell is that the charges stem from the days of Citizen Zardari and not President Zardari. The Swiss jolly well, in any case, have jurisdiction over their own country and illegalities committed in their country no matter by whom. Naturally any conviction is not enforceable as long as Mr. Zardari rules because the Pakistanis have to arrest him and they cannot because of presidential immunity. These two cases are so typical of the way we South Asians function. No one applies any thought, does any deep research, or argues a matter systematically. Just hire the first lawyer wanting a little publicity, put down your inane legal theories on a piece of paper, and rush to file a case. A strange - very strange - announcement by the Indian ruling Congress party spokesperson According to Dawn of Karachi he says that (a) Pakistan bashing does not work in Indian anymore; (b) India does not blame Pakistan for the Bombay 2008 attack; (c) Pakistan's challenges from terrorism are greater than India's; and (d) the two countries should fight terror together. This is a complete, total, unbelievable reversal of India's long-stated official position on Pakistan and terror and it has come without warning or context. Could this be an Indian example of what we said about South Asians acting first and thinking later? http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/18-india-does-not-blame-pakistani-govt-for-mumbai-attacks-am-10 What's additionally confusing us is we do not see the story mentioned in the Times of India or the Hindu. And the statement seems to have aroused nothing beyond a single post in Bharat Rakshak Forum. This is the leading Indian defense site. New US ABM developments As we suspected when the US cancelled a new long-range interceptor, a multiple kill warhead, and froze the long-range interceptor force at 32 missiles, the Missile Defense Agency is working on other solutions. Aviationnow.com speaks of an upgraded Standard 3M for land-based use that will have a liquid fuel engine and a lighter multiple kill vehicle. The Standards used on ships have to be solid fuel, and the Standard 3 improved is so fat that the ship load-out would have been severely restricted. With the liquid fuel, flexibility increases because the missile can be told at what rate to burn fuel and for how long. so you can play with across the sky, have it go hither, thither, and yon so as to speak. With solid fuel, says the magazine, you fire and you have to forget: the missile keeps going till the fuel is exhausted. Interesting, no? Standard 3 Block II is a quite different missile from Standard 3 Block 1. Its diameter is 21-inches versus 14 for Block 1, which means it can carry more than twice the fuel and the warhead can be much bigger. The new Japanese government is stalling a commitment to continue work on Standard 3 Block II jointly with the US. We don't yet know how this affects the timeline, which is 2010-12 for IIA and 2012-14 for IIB, 0230 December 19, 2009 Pakistan Army has no need for a coup - yet Because this is a serious matter, we need to clarify our position on the possibility of an army coup in Pakistan. At the present time, there is no need for a coup, if only because the Prime Minister gets along with the Army. Further, we believe that the Pakistan Army knows perfectly well that internal and external politics have become hugely complex in the last 10 years and no longer thinks it can, or must, save Pakistan. Our scenario for an army coup is something else altogether. You now have a Supreme Court of Pakistan that stared down one military dictator, and is staring down - and winning - against an unsavory civilian president who thought he could rule without the checks and balances imposed by the Constitution and enforced by the Supreme Court. The Pakistan Army is lock, stock, barrel part of the corruption in Pakistan. As the rule of law strengthen in Pakistan, what's going to stop someone who has been hurt by military corruption, or is simply a patriot who believes in democracy,  from going to the court and asking for an investigation of the generals, present and retired? At that point the You Know What will hit the You Know What and the Army will step in, simply as a matter of self-preservation. Does it have to be this way? No. First, the Supreme Court could refuse to act against the military. At which point it completely undermines its own credibility and becomes a puppet of the military. The democratization of Pakistan comes to a screeching halt. Second, the Pakistan generals could bow down to the rule of law and submit to justice. If they did that, it would be the best outcome and would end Pakistan's endless decline. Pakistan would rise again, this time as a stable state. But what no one has managed to explain to us is, why should the military exhibit a change of heart, accept its subordination to the civilian authority, and tamely go in droves to fill jail cells? A civilian government might well accept a deal to settle Kashmir on the existing line of control. Wham, 50% of the reason for the Pakistan Army's current existence goes away. A decade ago, before the US arrived next door, that was darn nearly 100% of the Pakistan military's reason for existence. The the civilian government might decide that  thanks to peace with India, there is no need for strategic depth in Afghanistan, and Boom, the other 50% of the Pakistan Army's rationale for it's existence goes out of the window. Now, despite having studied the Pakistan Army closely for 40 years, Editor is not an expert on its sociology. But the Pakistan Army has dominated Pakistan for 60 years. Its going to take a lot, a whole lot, to get it to cede its primacy. Then there's the other problem: the Pakistan Taliban. They aren't going to stop till every last one is killed or till they take over Pakistan. We could be looking at decades of civil war. Not ideal circumstances for Pakistan, often described as an army with a state, to become Pakistan, a state with a modestly important army. Have scientists found Dark Matter? A team of physicists thinks it just may have, two particles of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, at the bottom of a Minnesota mine-shaft. They are preparing for more experiments. WIMPs are also known as Dark Matter, though some theorize that Dark Matter is not WIMPs. If Dark Matter is proven to exist, it will solve many astrophysics mysteries, and may resolve the ultimate problem are we heading for a Big Crunch or a Big Freeze. Massive water-world planet found closely circling a red dwarf 40 light years out. The planet is six times the size of earth and estimated to be 75% water and 25% rocks. It is so close to it's parent that the surface temperature is estimated at 200 Centigrade. The water may be in supercrystalline form because of the pressure of the planet. As such, it would not melt even at that temperature. 0230 December 18, 2009 Pakistan's President The Pakistan media indicates that a challenge to the legitimacy of President Zardari's election may be in the offing. The ground will be that he is a proclaimed offender. This bit of terminology is from the days of colonial rule, and means that the accused has run away or otherwise refused to present himself for trial. At some point Mr. Zardari did take off to live in self-imposed exile, so the proclaimed offender bit is not in doubt. Iran testes 2000-km range missile capable of hitting Israel and some parts of Europe. The west is again going "Blah Blah and Blah", and frankly all this stupid posturing is becoming tiresome. Either hit Iran or shut up. The first rule of issuing threats is: Don't, unless you're going to back it up if the threatened person does not cooperate," Are the petro-states telling America to lay off Iran? Reader Chris forwarded an article from the UK Telegraph, which you should read if you have the time. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6819136/Gulf-petro-powers-to-launch-currency-in-latest-threat-to-dollar-hegemony.html The petro-states' plan to set up their own reserve currency is sensible from their point of view. In recent years the oil-dollar link has brought the petro-states nothing but misery as the dollar has depreciated. (Let us now weep crocodile tears at the sad plight of the petro-states - rapacious dictatorships that have thought nothing of stomping down the poor countries as they seek to limit oil output and raise prices all around.) What got our attention, however, was the end of the report which says that while the Gulf nations are concerned about Iran and are taking steps to protect themselves, "They nevertheless repeated on Tuesday that “any military action against Iran” by Western powers would be unacceptable." No need for us to elaborate what that means. It is our belief that the world can survive a temporary shut down of Hormuz (and it would be temporary, no matter what the Iranians think. But should closing Hormuz be followed by an Arab oil shutdown, then we are in trouble. Given that the Gulf states are Sunni and hate and fear Shia Iran why on earth would they object to the US and/or Israel smashing Iran? They could issue the ritual condemnations while privately telling the US "Good show" or whatever it is the Gulf states say. Well, there's a very good reason why. This has to do with that the Arab oil states are not exactly shining beacons of democracy. They are despotic regimes, who use massive and brutal security apparatus' to keep down their people. It is possible that these regimes - who have very good domestic intel services, have figured out the Arab street, already incensed by the refusal of their leaders to help Palestine, will go ballistic if the regimes are seen to have colluded with the US in bashing Iran. Fear Iran they do, but they fear their own people more. More Climategate revelations At a time we need the best science and great clarity in figuring out what is happening to the global climate, fresh Climategate revelations are not helpful. Now the Russians are saying the Brit scientists involved have manipulated Russian data. You can read the story at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/ and the article provides a link to the Russian report (in Russia, strangely) should anyone want to check it out. The gist of the matter is that the Climate Research Unit picked and chose which Russian data they wanted. Russia has 12% of the world's land mass, and the gist of this new scandal is that had CRU taken all data from all Russian weather stations and past records which go back to 1860, the true rise in earth's temperature is 1.4 centigrade, whereas CRU says it is 2.06 centigrade. But the CRU "ignored data covering 40% of Russia and chose data that showed a warming trend over statistically preferable alternatives when available. They ignored completeness of data, preferred urban data, strongly preferred data from stations that relocated, ignored length of data set. On the final page, there is a chart that shows that CRU’s selective use of 25% of the data created 0.64C more warming than simply using all of the raw data would have done. The complete set of data show 1.4C rise since 1860, the CRU set shows 2.06C rise over the same period." 0230 December 17, 2009 There you go again... Pakistan Supreme Court in a magnificent gesture to strengthen Pakistan's polity as subject to the law, has declared the National Reconciliation Order void. And thus has thrown Pakistan what could become a massive political crisis, the end of the American imposed regime, and instability so acute that the people of Pakistan will ask the military to take over once again. which will mean the supreme Court will be put in its place again. Some background is useful As opposition to Pakistan's hapless military dictator, President General Musharraf began to emerge, the US saw a threat to Pakistan's stability. US needed stability to prosecute the Afghan war. Also, US was fed up of Musharraf's double-dealing, and also reasonably decided that here we were fighting for democracy in Afghan, but our main ally Pakistan was a corrupt military dictatorship. The house had to be cleaned. So United States decided to get Benazir Bhutto back from exile preparatory to elections and a goodbye Mr. Musharraf. Naturally, it did not matter to the US that Benazir and her husband, the current Prez, were themselves shining beacons of corruption and had court cases an arrest warrants galore outstanding. All politically motivated, the US decided. So it squashed President Musharraf until the later agreed to give immunity to the Bhuttos so they could return. Now, at the levels US policy toward the region has been run, it is as if the US is headed by an Emperor and his advisors are responsible to no one except the Emperor and to themselves. The machinations of the emperor  and his advisors have gone unnoticed because the American public is completely disengaged from what's happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The subject gives your average American a severe headache, and he'd rather let the "experts" deal with it. So it was no surprise that the emperor & Company decided the amnesty order would NOT apply to other political stalwart in Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, who was also a shining beacon of corruption, and had also been deposed by the military. Why one and the other, and if the US wanted democracy in Pakistan, why should the US be doing all to get one particular person in power? Obviously because the US didn't want a real democracy. It wanted a sham, and it planned to control Mrs. Bhutto in a way it could not control President Musharraf. Nawaz Sharif was correctly seen as anti-American (in other words, a nationalist) and he could not be permitted to come to power. So the NRO was passed, Mrs. Bhutto returned in triumph, was expeditiously murdered, possibly by the Army, whom she rashly decided to threaten for having hanged her father and thrown her from power. So rash was Mrs. Bhutto that she even threw the US weight around as proof of her authority. Poor lady. She signed her own death warrant, and the US, as usual Clueless in Rawalpindi, let her. So her husband was elected leader of the country. Problemo, dudes and dudettes. This gent is the most hated man in Pakistan because when his wife was in power, he gave new meaning to the word "corrupt". He is also arrogant and ignorant, a dangerous combination. The joker in the pack was the Pakistan Supreme Court, to whom, we are told, perhaps three US State Department officers paid attention, and which did not exist for the rest of the Emperor and his advisors. You see, under Musharraf's rule in its waning days, one body decided to stand up against the dictator, and that was the judiciary. It ruled that his reign was illegal. So he replaced the uncooperative judges with new judges. This became a turning point for the people of Pakistan. Musharraf having made the fatal mistake of showing weakness, was increasingly vulnerable, and the long-oppressed people of Pakistan smelt blood. An agitation began that brought down Musharraf - only because the US warned the Army that any attempt toward a new coup would spell the end of the cash pipeline from Washington. If the US had good motives we would commend the US, but Washington did not - as we noted above. When President Zardari, Mrs. Bhutto's widower, took over, he doubtless expected a subservient Supreme Court. The SC was having none of this. Having after so many decades tasted the power that is its right under the Pakistan Constitution, the Supreme Court declared the National Reconciliation Order void, as of yesterday, saying President Musharraf had no right to issue it (which he didn't, by the way). By the way, till a few days ago the Government of Pakistan would not even allow the names of the beneficiaries under the NRO to be published: talk about nepotism. Turns out 97% of the 8000 people given amnesty for illegalities ranging from corruption to murder are from the Sindh. Mrs. Bhutto's party is Sindh based. Connect the dots. This shows in another way the incredible cynicism of the United States. Possibly the US did not know that its Golden Girl, Mrs. Bhutto, had basically given all her supporters amnesty. But this unlikely, and we can explain our reasoning if anyone cares. US didn't care that Mrs. Bhutto was less than clean: it planned to control Mrs. Bhutto: she was supposed to beat up the army, bring it under control, and dismantle the Taliban. BTW, did it occur to anyone in Washington that under Mrs. Bhutto the Taliban reached new heights of power? This is during her second reign, 1993-96. Anyway, we digress. Now you have the background you can see the implications. The President of Pakistan is once again a common criminal, facing scores of charges in different courts and cases. Logically, the Supreme Court can call on the Government to order him arrested, and we kind of suspect this is coming. The PPP, the ruling party, will be crippled by the withdrawal of the order. Very few politicians in Pakistan are honest; expect hordes of petitions from the enemies of each politician asking the Supreme Court to order the Government to set up inquiries against those who have so far escaped corruption charges. The NRO apparently covers thousands of bureaucrats; this is going to cripple Pakistan's administration. Few if any politicians will be able to come before the people and say: "We are clean, we will lead you". Those that do so will be minor types with few followers. And you just know what is going to happen: people who for decades have suffered under Army rule, direct and indirect, are now going to come to the court and ask for inquiries against corrupt generals, retired and serving. If the SC refuses, it destroys its entire credibility with the people of Pakistan, leaving it vulnerable to counterattacks by bureaucrats, politicians, and generals alike. If it orders inquiries into the affairs of the generals...the sound you hear is the Man on the White Horse galloping to the Supreme Court - not to give his answer to charges, but leading the tanks of the Pakistan Army. Meanwhile, the Afghanistan War...be realistic, people. If you were a Pakistani, what is the last thing you're going to be concerned about? The Afghan War. With things going wrong, the Pakistani people are going to need a scapegoat. Who better than Uncle Sam? Three last points. Don't make too much of President Zardari's immunity from arrest as a sitting president. There are plenty of ways of getting around that. Particularly if it turns out that $60-million, seized by the Swiss when the Government of Pakistan asked the Swiss to investigate corruption charges against then private citizen Zardari, and released when Zardari's government withdrew the cases in Swiss court, was given back to Mr. Zardari's offshore companies. This is a current offense, not a past one. And it is very, very serious. Next, we havent said a word about the Brits, have we? They are complicit in the whole mess because they acted in partnership with the US to get Mrs. Bhutto back etc etc. But look, people. Does Britain really count for anything any more? Besides, we beat up on Britain yesterday. Give the Brits a break, is what we say. Last, it is our belief that the people of Pakistan are ready to rise up against the corrupt establishment. From everything we hear or read, your average Pakistani has simply had it with the bureaucrats, the politicians, and the generals. We think Pakistan has moved one step closer to the inevitable end - and new beginning - thanks to the Supreme Court order. If you have a revolution in Pakistan, we can guarantee you the biggest loser is going to be the US. The cows coming home and all that. 0230 December 16, 2009 London court issues, then withdraws warrant against Tipzi Livni Pro-Palestine activists managed to get a warrant issued against the former foreign minister, thinking she was in the UK. Turned out she wasn't, and the warrant has been cancelled. The grounds were her strong support of the Gaza operation last December. If you're going to issue warrants on the basis of strong support for the Gaza operation, the Brits are going to have to issue warrants against hundreds of senior Israelis and officials and generals. because this was an operation that had widespread support at home. This then leads one to wonder: there are people who think UK's participation in the 2003 Gulf War is a war crime - unjustified aggression based on trumped up charges, obtaining UN approval on forged evidence, conspiracy with the United States, and the unknown number of Iraqi soldiers who perished under the weight of UK airstrikes and artillery barrages who were given no chance to surrender. Lets be clear: Editor is not maintaining UK committed a war crime. He's saying only there are people who believe a war crime was committed - if you doubt him, talk frankly to a few 3rd World citizens. So how would UK feel if warrants were issued for its officials in some 3rd World country? Just asking. War again in Sudan Independent of UK says there is a great danger civil war will again break out in Sudan. In 2004, the Islamic North and the Christian South ended a decades old civil war. One of its terms was that the South could hold a referendum on secession. Now the time for the referendum is on Sudan, but the North is not going to let go, if only because of the oil. Independent says there is fear that China will assist the Northern regime in the event of a resumption of the civil war, because of Beijing's growing energy stakes in the  country. The west would likely support the South because it absolutely abhors the Northern regime. War crimes in Africa When you look at the history of modern Africa, you come away asking how much more does this continent have to suffer. There seems to be just no end to the horrors its people have been subjected to, are subjected to, and will be subjected to. You have to ask, where's the justice when white people were targets of genocide in Former Yugoslavia, the west went in full bore to stop the killings. Killings on a scale that make Former Yugoslavia look like sideshow have being going on for years and more. Add to that deaths due to war - Congo alone has lost in 12 or so years 3.5-million people and still counting - due to actual killing, starvation, and disease because of the wars. The west has little to say about Africa's wars. Indeed, you have the highly absurd situation where the West has gotten so attached to Darfur, that though the killings are down to a few thousand a year, Westerners get angry if you ask: "Is there really a true genocide anymore?" Ask about the Congo, and you get blank looks. Sure you can say that well, it was white people dying in FRY and obviously the predominantly white West would identify more with its own people than with Africans. Okay, fair enough. But then westerners should not expect the rest of the world to just sit there and say: "Oh, the Great West are morally superior to the rest of us. As far as we are concerned, the failure of UK among dozens of other Western countries including US to do their best to stop wars in Africa makes them all complicit in war crimes. Issue arrest warrants for all of them, is what we say. Then when you issue arrest warrants against Israelis, at least UK cannot be accused of hypocrisy. 0230 December 15, 2009 Israel develops UAV with Iran range The Hermes 900, now on trials, has a several thousand kilometer range and is designed for Iran surveillance. As yet no orders have been placed. Beast of Kandahar Meanwhile a stealth US Abu Dhabi bails out abu Dubai UAV has been flying out of Kandahar. This black project was uncloaked only a few weeks ago. It's unclear if it is armed or not. NYT says Pakistan refuses to turn on Haqqani network despite intense US pressure to do so. This refusal underlines wnat we have been saying for years: Pakistan will NOT attack the Taliban that it works with in harmony. The only reason it has turned on Mesud Taliban - and that too is turning into a farce - is because the Mesuds were attacking Pakistan. But it still supports the Mesuds and has avoiding cracking down on them in force: the 30,000 troop campaign is turning out to be nothing more than an elaborate show. Which comes as no surprise to anyone except the usual stoned-blind elements in Washington DC. Frankly, we are impressed that the Pakistanis have firmly said a big fat NO to the US on Haqqani network instead of the usual double-timing they do, as on the Mesuds. If you read the NYT article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/world/asia/15haqqani.html?_r=1&ref=world you'll see its because Pakistan now sees the US as withdrawing from Afghanistan. Once that happens US is not going to hand over stacks of cash to Pakistan anymore, so the Pakistanis lose nothing by refusing to cooperate with the US on Haqqani network. Abu Dhabi bails out Abu Dubai with a $10-billion loan, much to everyone's surprise. The guessing is that with Dubai heading for a default, the cost of the rest of the UAE's debt was rising rapidly, Dhabi may have figured it was cheaper to give Dubai the money. Nonetheless, economists emphasize that the loan only buys Dubai a breathing space. The kingdom still has $35-billion coming due within 2-years. As far as we've been able to tell, the only way Dubai can pay back loans is to sell assets. 75% of TARP bank money returned by end December 2009  75% of the $245-billion loaned will be returned by the end of December, earning the government healthy profits, says Reuters. Of course, the bank loans were supposed to help the banks lend money, and unless someone tells us differently, we believe this has not happened. As far as we are concerned, the whole exercise was intended to make the fat banker cats fatter. But at least the money is coming back rapidly. A great incentive is the populist outrage that has forced an unwilling Government to restrict bonuses if a bank owes government money. When the banks learned of this measure, they suddenly decided they didn't need TARP money after all. 0230 December 14, 2009 Something odd is happening in Pakistan And no, it doesn't have to do with the news that Pakistan says its willing to negotiate with the Taliban - only because the Taliban has begged four times for talks, of course. Of course. Rather, we are interested in a story from Dawn of Karachi http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/12-two+more+us+consulate+vehicles+intercepted+in+lahore--bi-03 which says yesterday two more US consulate Lahore vehicles were stopped at checkpoints because there was something fishy. In one case it was a fake license plate, in another a "suspicious" license plate. In both cases it appears that the occupants resisted a search of their vehicles and called the US consulate which sent security to retrieve them. If that isn't odd enough, Dawn says this is the third such incident in the week. We could speculate for hours on what's going on, but it wouldn't be useful because we don't anymore have anyone in Lahore who'd know something worth knowing. Accredited diplomats have the right to refuse search of their vehicles, but non-accredited personnel are not covered by Geneva. As a matter of courtesy local authorities extend the same privileges to anyone with diplomatic plates or who identify themselves as posted to the local consulate/embassy. So the multiple stops are peculiar. If the vehicles were carrying local plates and in a high security environment police saw numbers of foreigners in the vehicles, they might well make a stop. But if one or more of the vehicles was carrying a fake plates, this is seriously lax of the local station. Any country with a serious undercover presence has locally-registered cars. Sometimes they can be paid for the mission and assigned to lower-level staff like secretaries. Then you have your secretary drive your diplomatic car all over town, diligently followed by the locals, while you hop into the secretary's car and go for your clandestine rendezvous with your best friend's wife or whatever clandestine activities you are indulging in. Other cars are totally clean and you switch to them hopefully unseen to "liaise" with your local boyfriend. Hey! Curb that dirty mind! There's plenty of lady diplomats these days! We don't want to give you the impression that spies only have illicit rendezvous to - um - read the Bible with attractive members of the other sex. Spies do occasionally work, you know. I am absolutely not making this up. In my 20 years in Delhi hanging around 33 embassies, I actually twice saw a spy do some work. Editor has reached the age he misses the Good Old Days. Sigh, Going five days a week to teach math at Bladensburg High School in Prince George's County and going once a week to grocery shopping, and going seven days a week to the gym is just not very exciting, with only good old Walter Mitty for company. F-35s, F-4s, F-104s and F-86s Editor got serious indigestion the other day to learn the unit price of an F-35 fighter is north of $100-million. He recalls gagging 50 years ago when told the then brand-new F-4 would cost $3-million. He had barely gotten over the shock of learning the F-104 cost $1-million because as far as he was concerned fighters should cost $250,000 - the F-86. Don't you just hate these stories of "Back in my day Cokes cost a nickel"?  Well, they did, when the Editor was a kid, and they tasted darn good too. So there. Talking about aircraft the European A400M 4-prop 30-ton payload airlifter just made its first plate. It took only twenty years to get from here to there. It's lucky people live longer these days. We are not criticizing the Euros as is our wont. The Americans are just as bad. We want people only to keep all this in mind before they rag on the Indians for taking forever and a day to operationalize their weapons. (Ragging on the Indians is the Editor's job.) Oh yes,  first operational aircraft are to be delivered in 2013; more likely it will be 2014. 0230 GMT December 13, 2009 Pakistan declares South Waziristan operation over and considers the Orakzai Agency as the next target. Orakzai is where the Mesud Taliban is supposed to have fled. We are tempted to say scathing things about the South Waziristan operation, except we have to remind ourselves that it was a farce from the start, put on solely to impress the United States into reducing its criticism and increasing its aid. No one in their right mind - or any mind - expected anything but a pyrotechnic show. Yes, there are people in the US power structure that expected a real operation and still believe a real operation has been conducted. Short of putting this lot on serious medication there seems no viable option to get them to see sense. Meanwhile, WashPo talks of "ferocious battles" being fought by the Pakistan Army This must be in an Alt-Universe, because in this universe no ferocious battles have been fought. There has been a lot of bombing, artillery bombardment, and gunship attacks, delivered mostly where the Mesud Taliban was not and mostly killing villagers - if at all anyone was killed. There have been a few skirmishes resulting in less than 200 dead on either side. For a multi-division offensive over some months against 10-20,000 insurgents, this thing has been a pathetically quiet affair. Are you perhaps thinking that there were two parties to this Noh play, the Pakistan Government and the Mesud Taliban? If so you think that, you think right. Our information is that's what happened in South Waziristan. The famous British commando, Lord Lovatt and his inseparable comrade Piper Bill were one day munching on their usual lunch while in an observation hide on the outskirts of Bastogne. This was in 1944, and Lord Lovatt had just arranged with General Patton to send 20 divisions to the relief of Bastogne. Lord Lovatt, for all his ferocious reputation, was terribly conservative about what he ate. It was his invariable practice, when in observation hides outside Bastogne amidst his advising Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton while simultaneously smoothing things over with Montgomery and discussing Japan's post-war constitution with the Japanese Emperor, discussing the future of the Indian Empire with Churchill, and trying to soothe that savage beast Stalin - while not forgetting to write to the beautiful Lady Lovatt a dazzling love sonnet that would have made Shakespeare despair of his own vaunted abilities in this arena - to have the same lunch delivered to the observation hide. The lunch invariably came from the Savoy and consisted of cold, greasy sardines, rock hard hard-boiled eggs, and soggy chips made fresh every day. It is said the Royal Air Force had to dedicate six fighter squadrons a day from Fighter Command and 2nd Tactical Air Force to accompany the Dakota bringing lunch to the finest warrior the British Empire has ever known. But this was a sacrifice cheerfully borne by the British, because everyone knew that without Lord Lovatt, there could be no victory. It has only recently been revealed from documents classified for 60 years that Lord Lovatt and Piper Bill's real everyday same lunch consisted of a seven course gourmet French meal prepared, on General de Gaulle's orders, by the Savoy in Paris, not London. The whole scheme involving the Savoy London and the six RAF fighter squadrons was a pure deception so that the Germans would not come to know about Lord Lovatt's real lunch and turn up wanting to share. Lord Lovatt was a generous soul who would have given the clothes off his back to the first beggar who asked. But being properly brought up in British public schools (that's private schools to you Yanks reading this), Lord Lovatt knew that the one thing you absolutely never, ever do is share your food, with anyone, enemy or friend. The sole exception to this rule was Piper Bill, for obvious reasons. There were times when the double lunch from the Savoy in Paris did not arrive and Lord Lovatt and Piper Bill would amiably share their lunch, which sometimes was a meager dried out turnip forgotten by the village harvesters. War is indeed hell. So this particular day, the lunch from London arrived wrapped up in the Washington Post and not the London Times, as was the usual wont. Why this was so is another story entirely, to be told a different time, but it had to with the Manhattan Project - we must stop, as this story is still classified under the 100-year rule. Lord Lovatt shuddered delicately on contemplating the  Washington Post. But, having nothing to read during lunch he decided to read the editorial page. After he finished, he lay back, gazing silently into the far distance. "A thought, m'Lord?" asked encouragingly. Piper Bill was Lord Lovatt's sounding board for the latter's genius ideas, without which the war would not have been won. Lord Lovatt took his time answering, and Piper Bill knew better than to interrupt. Eventually Lord Lovatt stirred and said: "occurs to me, Bill, that the WashPo contains so much gas that were we to bomb Berlin with WashPos, the entire city would rise up and float away to the stars, Adolf included." It is a matter of record (125-year classification) that on January 2, 1945, 1092 American and British bombers attacked Berlin, dropping between them 4000-tons of WashPos. Berlin did not rise to the skies. What went wrong? Well, the WashPo that Lord Lovatt read had actually come back from the future, December 12, 2009 to be specific. This was because of a disturbance in The Force created by the secret test of an invention that was to change America - sorry, 150-year classification. The energy used in the secret test was so great that the space-time continuum became distorted, sucking in the WashPo of the future. As everyone knows, back in the day, the WashPo was a serious newspaper and contained no gas whatsoever. An unfortunate effect of this raid (this has only 65 year classification) was that thanks to an unprecedented shortage of toilet paper, at the very hour the raid took place, Hitler was in his bunker discussing with Lord Lovatt terms for the German surrender. Everyone knows that the Germans are a people who will unflinching face the greatest hardships. Has to do with their Teutonic Warrior side. But even the toughest German cracks if no toilet paper is available. There is a story about how Rome conspired to deny toilet paper to the Germanic tribes, but we mustn't get off-track here. So Herr Hitler was about to put his signature on the surrender document when an aide ran inside the bunker, shouting "Mein Fuhrer! Toilet paper has arrived, 4000 tons of it!". Hitler apologetically tore up the document and he and Lord Lovatt chivalrously shook hands. "Care for a bite before you push off, Lord Lovatt?" Lord Lovatt and Piper Bill then sumptuously dined on a meal prepared for them by Eva Braun herself. After eating, Lord Lovatt was embarrassed to realize he had in return no gift for Hitler. Piper Bill saw his Lord's anguished brow and whispered in his ear. Whereupon Lord Lovatt produced the day's lunch from the London Savoy, which had been delivered during the air raid. Herr Hitler liked the sardines, hard-boiled eggs, and soggy chips so much that Lord Lovatt made arrangement for the lunch to be delivered every day to the bunker. This led to complications...but we digress...and all we can say is the reason Tiger Woods has only 13 girlfriends and not 14 has to do with the lunches, as also Al Gore immortal epic "An inconvenient belch," and the invention of ZhuZhu Pets... 0230 GMT December 12, 2009 Truth telling on Afghanistan/Pakistan Yesterday CBS radio news interviewed a former CIA official who was the head of the Get OBL unit. The gentleman was asked what he thought about reports that a high AQ officer had been killed by a UAV strike in South Waziristan. He said if it was Number 3, Al-Libbi, it was not as useful as if it was Number 4, the head of the Afghan unit. When asked if the better kills were coming because of increased Pakistani cooperation, he mumbled something formulaic that we couldn't get, but clearly indicated it is because the US has changed the rules of engagement and is prepared to accept greater collateral damage. When asked about the consequences of these hits  for AQ, he was pessimistic. He said AQ spends a great deal of time ensuring the organization stays intact despite hits. He also said that the Russians kept killing the leaders of the Afghan resistance. There were always others to take their place. When asked if Afghanistan could be resolved without clearing out Pakistan he said no, and then said something sensible: America does not have the stomach for this war and for what it will take. He said the Afghan surge will help push the Taliban back, the surge will end at some point, and the Taliban will return. I.e., the war is lost. This bit of honesty was refreshing because in the last week, after President Obama announced the surge, there has been any number of op-eds and talking heads telling us why staying the course in Afghanistan is crucial. Folks, don't listen to anyone who says that. Because, as we have said many times, sure Afghanistan is vital. But America aint going to do what it takes to win. As such, all discussion about staying the course is ridiculously absurd. And even more absurd are statements saying we need to kill OBL to win in Afghanistan. It does not matter if OBL is killed tomorrow (assuming he is alive today). It doesn't even  matter if AQ disappears tomorrow. The Taliban, with Pakistan behind them, will remain - today, tomorrow, always because hello hello, they are fighting where they live. 0230 GMT December 11, 2009 One reason why we have limited our coverage on Pakistan is the constant lies the Government feels compelled to state on every little thing to do with the Taliban. An example is the Government's denial that a UAV strike took place yesterday. Bill Roggio has confirmed from his US military sources that it did, just as he has on occasions too numerous to recount confirmed that the Pakistan spokesperson has lied. Here is an extract from Mr. Roggio's story: "The Pakistani Army doesn't want US interference in their operation in South Waziristan," one offical told The Long War Journal. "Their [the Pakistanis' operation in South Waziristan] is winding down and they haven't achieved their goal: to kill or capture Hakeemullah Mehsud and Taliban's leadership, and they don't want to be one-upped by the US." Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/12/us_strike_kills_four.php#ixzz0ZLNG1qRC Letter from reader Kittoo In your post on 7th December, you posted one post titled 'Shame on India' and quoted a ToI article claiming that one study confirmed that 97% of low-caste people are not allowed at certain places in Gujarat. I am not sure how accurate that survey or the report was, but as a low-caste fellow, let me assure you that the numbers are way off. There is no way in hell that the number are that high. Let me give you my own example. I am 21 years old and have lived my whole life in India and never ever was I stopped or even questioned before entering any temple. I have been as much a Hindu as much anyone else and no one has questioned anything. I have had friends in all castes and never ever they questioned anything or segregated anything. I have celebrated Diwali, or any other festival for that matter, with people from every caste, and never was anyone hesitant. That too in the state of Rajasthan, which is far more backwards than Gujarat, where the so called 'study' has taken place. And for me the case could have been even worse as my mom and dad are from different castes. My mom is a Sindhi while my dad was a dalit, if one prefers that word. But no one, and I stress that no one, ever objected or asked me questions about it. The most I have faced are uncomfortable moments, most of the times by someone unknown to the case, and that too very rarely. My mom and dad were as much respected as anyone else (and we arent rich either, both my mom and dad are teachers) and even my ex-gf, with whom I had a very healthy relation for the most part, was a high-caste Brahmin. Even her parents, who were orthodox and were opposed to our relation, never ever said anything to me about my caste. I confess that once they did say something behind my back, but that was because some catastrophic incident had taken place in our relations, and not because of inherent hatred in them. I have never seen anyone being stopped from going anywhere cause he is a dalit, and I dont know anyone who has seen this. I am not saying that untouchability doesnt exist at all. It does, more so in UP and Bihar etc, but there is no way that the number could be this high (and that too in Gujarat!), even in UP. I am not a right-wing fanatic, but I would take these 'studies', especially done by NGOs and foreign organizations, with a pinch of salt. It draws a picture of Hinduism as if castes are the corner stone of it. They aren't, they never were, and India has taken strides to cure the remaining after Independence. I request you to put this letter on your site, or at least some part of it, so that there is some counter to the maligned and false picture that might get drawn because of that completely inaccurate survey. Editor's response I suspect the problem may be - as far as I recall - the study was done in villages. In a village everyone knows everyone. In a town or city, no one does. 0230 GMT December 10, 2009 Taliban counteroffer on Afghan negotiations? http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/12/taliban_bosses_make_you_leave.php Russia patrol boats guarding Abkhazia This is one of Georgia's breakaway regions, and RIA-Novisti says since  the Russians have begun patrolling off the Abkhazia coast to stop illegal traffic. Presumably that means Georgian Navy boats. After the Georgia-Russia War 2008, Moscow recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent and entered into military alliances with them. Russia will station a brigade in each area aside from aircraft and patrol boats. Georgia marked a temporary halt to NATO expansion to the East. Russia's violent reaction during and after the war has destroyed the appetite of NATO's European members for further expansion. Most directly this means Ukraine will have to stay out longer. Nonetheless, in our opinion there is nothing wrong with a pause. In less than two decades the West coopted the non-USSR members of the Warsaw Pact, setting Russia's borders back to 1945, and in the Baltic area setting Russia's borders back to 1939. Ukraine, Belorussia and several other former Soviet republics have broken away. All this has happened without a shot being fired. In due time the expansion will pick up again. USAF to ask for initial NextGen Bomber funding in 2011 says Aviation Week, based on a meeting the US air chief had with press and private companies."Defense Secretary Robert Gates put a hold on the NGB program last spring in the fiscal 2010 request because the Air Force hadn’t fully outlined the “parameters,” such as range and payload, and whether the aircraft would be manned or unmanned and carry nuclear weapons in addition to conventional ones.Schwartz (USAF head) says he feels the Air Force now has a more complete idea of its bomber needs, and has been able to better articulate them to Gates and his staff." http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=aerospacedaily&id=news/NGB120909.xml&headline=Bomber,%20Space%20Surveillance%20Eye%20Boost We've said this before. If US had purchased 100-125 B-2s as planned, we wouldn't be having stupid discussions about bombing Iran. We'd be doing it. Meanwhile, Defense News says US is looking for a successor program for the E-8 JSTARS as the aircraft are getting onto 40 years old. JSTARS has been playing a big role in the GWOT. http://defensenews.com/story.php?i=4412855&c=AME&s=AIR China to overtake India in gold imports? Reuters says in all of recorded history, India has imported more gold than China, but that might change this year because of falling demand in India. Nonsense, say others: India's demand fell because of the very high prices; Indians were cashing on the rise, and will resume net purchases of gold. If you look at this graph http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/129/GLD_INCNDM1209.gif you'll see that Indian imports drop in a major way compared to China in 1Q/2009; but in 2Q and 3Q the Indians again top China. So lets see what happens in Q4. 0230 GMT December 9, 2009 An apology to Andrea Bocelli One reason we hadn't been taking this Italian tenor seriously is that he seemed to be in no major operas. We thought he was simply a pop musician. Well, it turns out he has been blind from childhood. So obviously acting in operas is kind of out. Insurgents target ISI Multan and kill 9-12 persons including four soldiers, but media says the building is so badly damaged that the death toll may rise. Meanwhile, Bill Roggio says Pakistan Government has banned the press from South Punjab, where Multan is located. This is because the Islamist insurgency has been growing by leaps and bounds in this region. Israeli COAS vists India This is the first such visit by the highest ranking Israeli officer, says Defense News. Israeli is now India's second largest defense supplier after Russia, the earlier second-ranked French having dropped. We suspect the French are fourth and the US is third. 0230 GMT December 8, 2009 2nd Marine Regiment for Helmand next spring 1500 Marines are leaving before year end for Helmand, to be followed by 2nd Regimental Combat Team with 6200 Marines. This will give a second Marine Expeditionary Brigade in that province. First Brigade, 10th Mountain Division will be next off; it will deploy as trainers. We do not know if this brigade is one scheduled for Kandahar Province. Including support troops, this will make 16,000 by Spring 2010. We'd like to politely ask the military and press to stop referring to support troops as "enablers". They have a functional name, can we leave it at that, please? Don't expect oil from Brazil The country has been reporting massive oil finds, well off-shore in deep waters (2000-meters down). By 2020 production will double to 4-million bbl/day and reserve double to 30-billion bbl. So we've been speculating that Brazil will become an oil exporter and help reduce US oil imports from the volatile Gulf. No such luck. Brazilian officials say they're going to need most of that oil for the increasing domestic demand as Brazil grows. Of course, it looks likely that the US is sitting on super-massive natural gas reserves and this can help reduce imports of oil. 0230 GMT December 7, 2009 "Good Taliban" break Wana truce http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/12/taliban_attack_army.php Secretary Gates says US doesn't know where is Bin Laden and hasn't known for years. Fair enough. But then why has the US been beating up Pakistan for sheltering him? Is the boogey man even alive? (We say "boogey" deliberately.) Videos are no proof. It's easy to dress someone up to look like OBL. Here's a suggestion: US declares OBL is dead. Irrefutable proof. So OBL side says "no he's not dead and here's this video of him." US says: "Ha ha, that's one fake video, the man is deader than a doornail, we have DNA proof." What is OBL's side going to do? The more they protest he's alive, the more people are going to start wondering. So they take journos over to see OBL. US needs only to say: "Naah. You media lot get fooled so easy. He's dead. We even know where he's buried, we're not revealing it because we don't want the place to become a shrine." Come on, America. You keep talking of psychological warfare. What about practicing it? American "Reality TV" is completely unreal, completely staged. If US Government can't manage this, send over the TV people. They'll convince everyone the man is gone, bye bye, we don't miss you one bit. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/03-bin-ladens-location-unknown-for-years-gates-ss-14 One brave Pakistan mullah has issued a fatwa against suicide bombers, saying Islam does not condone them. Okay, folks, when we wanted the mullahs to rise up and condemn suicide bombing and attacks on civilians, we didn't mean someone who is vulnerable to being killed at any moment for his truth, which the Taliban will say is heresy. When you are living under the gun, no reasonable person cane expect you to expose yourself to your enemies. What we meant is that mullahs in "safe" countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran should issue the fatwa. Dubai not sunk: Business Week BW takes a contrary view and says Dubai is alive and well. Haven't had time to read the article yet, brutal three-day homework intervened. Meanwhile, Dawn of Karachi says that the 2007 population of the Emirates (which includes Dubai as one of the seven sisters) was 6.4-million - and 5.5-million were foreigners, of which 3-million were workers. Dawn says property prices have fallen by half and office rents by two-thirds. Shame on India Times of India reports a study done in Mahatma Gandhi's adopted state of Gujarat that 97% of outcastes are not permitted to enter temples. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/No-temple-entry-for-dalits-in-Gujarat/articleshow/5308970.cms This is near 100-years after the Mahatma began his crusade to end the curse of untouchability. If this is true of Gujarat, it is likely true of large parts of India. It is now 62 years since India became independent, and 59 since it adopted its constitution which guarantees equality to all India. This nonsense has to stop. Either the temples permit every Hindu to enter or they need to be shut down. Yes people might revolt. But either the Government of India is the Government of India, or it is not. No Government that permits such wholesale violation of human rights has a right to exist. In 1954 the US Supreme Court declared segregation of US schools illegal. In accordance with the law, the Little Rock, Arkansas Board of Education drew up plans to desegregate district schools by start of school year 1957. But the Governor of the state, no doubt supported by a great majority of the citizens, called out the National Guard to prevent the entry of the students into the Little Rock High School. The Council of Churches condemned the Governor. On September 23, the mayor of the town asked President Eisenhower to intervene. On May 24, the President federalized the Arkansas National Guard and ordered the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock. On May 25, the black students began school under the paratroopers' fixed bayonets. This is what you call a Government. The highest court had given its ruling, the school board acted, and when the Governor stopped the students from attending, the mayor asked for federal intervention. To the school officials and the mayor, it didn't matter what they personally thought. To them the law was the law, and the law had to be obeyed. If the people of a test area of Gujarat want to revolt if the Government takes over the temple for refusing to obey the laws of the land, let's see if they have the courage to risk getting shot down by the Army. We wager they will not. India aspires to become a great power. It will be a great big zero if the Government cannot enforce even this most fundamental of civil rights, the right to worship without being turned away at the door of God's House. 0230 GMT December 6, 2009 US Marines begin next phase of their offensive to retake Helmand http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/12/marines_launch_openi.php Rawalpindi mosque attack killed a major-general (commandant, Pakistan Rangers), a brigadier who we think escaped an earlier attempt on his life, two lieutenant-colonels, and a major, and five other ranks. While military personnel are a legitimate target, the wholesale slaughter of children is an abominable crime. Will Islam's religious leaders rise up and condemn this attack? Based on past experience, some will, most will be indifferent. In such a situation Muslims must not be surprised that how pacific they may be, others see their religion as violent. It's no use saying: "but Christianity sanctioned violence in the name of Christ." For one thing, no where in the New Testament that we are aware of is there any call to kill others. Those Christians who killed in the name of Christ were clearly without religious sanction. For another, that was centuries ago, And no point for Muslims to say, "Well, Christianity took fifteen hundred years before killing in Christ's name ended, and our religion is just 1300 years old." If you want to hark back to the religious mores of centuries past, best to do without  all the trappings of modern civilization such as medicine, automobiles, and cell phones. You cannot live in the 21st Century and use as your justification for violence what the Prophet (Blessed be His name) is supposed to have said 13 centuries ago. The toll includes sixteen children, many killed at close range by the attackers. Media reports say that more children would have died but for a lieutenant-general who managed to get ~20 children to safety during the attack. The only son of GOC XI Corps, responsible for the current operations in the NWFP, was among the children killed. The Taliban, who have claimed responsibility for the attack, could perhaps say: "When the Pakistan military and the Americans bomb us don't they kill our children?". Yes, but that's because the Taliban insist on keeping their women and children in the battle zone. And the US/Pakistanis still do not target children, as the Taliban did at the Rawalpindi mosque. Wrong is wrong, and the Taliban are just plain wrong in targeting civilians, as they have repeatedly done in the past several months. But it's no use our saying it, or the west saying it, because the Taliban are the least interested in what we have to say. The only way an impact can be made is if ordinary mullahs preach the difference between right and wrong, and senior mullahs issue fatwas against targeting civilians, particularly children. That for the Nth time this is not happening shows only how a few have completely perverted Islam with the silent sanction of the many. Can someone explain why a Pakistan Army captain is standing guard with weapon at the ready after the Rawalpindi mosque attack?  http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/11-dozens-of-militants-attack-pakistan-army-checkpoint--il--01 Human rights researchers say 2600 unidentified killed found in Indian Kashmir unmarked graves, after a 3-year survey. First, congratulations to the Indian government for permitting the HR people to conduct their survey, even though the war still continues. Second, the Indian government needs to release the figures on how many officers have been court-martialled for unjustified killing of non-combatants by their men. As far back as 1993, we were told 23 officers had been court-martialled and punished, including brass. That is more than the US has brought to justice in fifty years. The Indian Army takes care of these issues on its own, without political or media scrutiny or pressure. This is commendable, but simply from a propaganda viewpoint the Indians would immensely gain from releasing some figures. Third, we need not doubt that some of the 2600 were indeed innocent, and some others if not innocent who surely did not deserve death as their punishment. But we are prepared to bet the bulk of the dead are outside insurgents executed on capture. Editor completely supports this policy. And we are willing to bet some fraction of the dead are victims of the insurgents. 0230 GMT December 5, 2009 Here it is Friday night and Editor has been staring at the page wondering what to write. Listening to repeat plays of "Milli cherubini in coro" is not helping. It's one of the songs that sends Editor into a trance. One thing this song has done is to change Editor's mind about Andrea Bocelli. Editor thought this was one overrated singer, certainly never the new Caruso.   But yesterday Editor heard his version of Milli cherubini and Editor has to admit, the man is potentially great. Singing sacred music puts that extra passion in his voice that distinguishes the great from the merely good. So, random thought about Afghanistan Indian CI in Northeast India: 40 years and counting. British in Northern Ireland: 30 years. Sri Lanka versus LTTE: 25+ years, and a particularly brutal 25 years, which continued till the last LTTE insurgent fell. Indian Kashmir: 25 years and counting. Aside from the time factor, please note one other thing. None of these long wars is/was being fought by the principals in some other part of the world. They were/are fought at home. Please note another: there is no nation-building involved. Principals are/were full-fledged operating states. Please note another: in none of the three states mentioned was/is anyone trying to bring anyone from the 15th Century to the 21st Century. Please note: comparisons between Afghanistan and Iraq. Zero. There are none. Iraq was a strongly centralized unitary state before the Americans got there. No one could do any nonsense in any part of the country with the Center come galloping to cut you down. The trouble the US had in Iraq was 100% of the Americans' making. They dissolved all organs of state rule: bureaucracy, police, army. Moreover, thoughtlessly they pushed out the Sunnis, who had ruled for 400 years, and who knew they were now dead men walking, just a matter of time before the Shia began to exterminate them. Sunnis were 20% of the population; 80% was with the Americans even at the height of the trouble. US managed to calm the Sunnis down and convince them the Shias weren't going to kill them all. Insurgency ebbed. Personally, we believe the US sold the Sunnis a crock, and that it's only a matter of time before the Sunnis are either eliminated or  thrown out of Iraq, which is to say, they are given their provinces and bid goodbye. But our suspicions are irrelevant because US got the Sunnis to stop fighting. and Sadr neutralized, long enough to create space for a withdrawal. The correct comparison is not with Vietnam, but with Lebanon We've still to think this through fully, but even so, there is no comparison with Vietnam. US is not facing a full-fledged, fully functioning state with a large army/air force backed by a superpower (USSR) and fully supported by a major power (China). Rather, the analogy may lie - somewhat awkwardly, to be sure, with Lebanon. You have a weak central government being fought over by the west, the Syrians, the Iranians, and the Israelis, and a part of their own people, the Hezbollah lot. In the past there was also the PLO. Lebanon has been in trouble since the original 1975 Civil War. There was nominal peace between 1990 and 2006, but you had the Syrians occupying a good part of the country, which is hardly peace. Now Syria has been driven out, but the place is just waiting to explode all over again. You can, without exaggeration, speak of a 35-year conflict, likely to continue for many more years.  In Afghanistan you have a weak central government being fought over by the West, half the people (the Taliban), the Pakistanis, the Iranians, and the Indians. The FSU Central Asia republics are being drawn in, surely but slowly if only because of the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. Now, the US phase of the Afghan civil war may have started in 2001, but the origins of the war go back to 1978, so you have a 30-years situation. Those who forecast a 30-50 year US war in Afghanistan were entirely correct. That's how long it takes to work things out. in Afghanistan's case, because it is a weak state with a good part of the country stuck in the Middle Ages, 50-60 years would be more realistic. But for that long a war, you need to conserve your resources. You need to have a few thousand troops and a few billion dollars a year, as we suggested in our posts. When you go to 100,000 troops, you are guaranteeing the US will have to leave very quickly. By the way, the west fought in Indochina for 30 years - that figure again. The French took the first 10 years, the Americans took the next 20 years. That did not prove enough time. There is one comparison with Vietnam. In Afghanistan, too, the cause is worthy. Its Americans strategy that is all wrong. This is a country that excels at big wars, the bigger and more total the better. Americans are very self-congratulatory these days about becoming CI experts. We even heard someone say that the Americans are the best at CI in the world. Complete and utter rubbish. First, the military part of CI is just a small part of the overall. The Americans have completely failed at the non-military part. As for the Americans being great at CI, sorry, gentlemen, and this hurts the Editor more than it hurts you because he has to defend America in the verbal wars with America's enemies, but on a scale of 1 to 10, you've moved from zero to 1, maybe 2. And it's not as if the Americans haven't in the past had excellent success in this field. The Indian Wars. The Philippines. The interwar Central American interventions. It's just that this is a country without a past. That has it's advantages. One disadvantage is that each and every time the Americans have to learn to invent the wheel. So who do we rate at 10? Be comforted, all ye Americans feeling insulted at being given a 1 or 2. Editor gives the Brits a 3 and he gives the champions, India, a 4. India? India is the best at CI? Well, it is nowhere - absolutely nowhere - as good as it should be, but yes, it is the best. If you didn't know that it's because the Indians are pathetically modest. Even they don't know they're the best. One example. India is getting ready to fight the Maoist insurgency - which began in 1967, if you can believe that. It's taken India 42 years to decide it must, really, do something about the Maoists. The Maoists have a presence in one-third of India's counties by now. So the first step taken by India is to refuse all calls to deploy the army. The policy of not letting the Air Force shoot back when its helicopters are attacked continues. The armed police will do the fighting. And India has started the war by announcing it will negotiate anywhere, anytime, and, oh yes, India admits the insurgents have just cause, and the biggest part of the mission will be to eliminate the underlying causes of the insurgency. Think about that. 0230 GMT December 4, 2009 Pakistan minister say India uses kidnapped Afghans for suicide attacks Okay, so this is a minor minister, but this is one of the more bizarre conspiracy theories we've heard. For one thing, the Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the recent spate of suicide attacks. So following this minister's logic, the Indians control the Pakistani Taliban? For another, have the Indians developed some esoteric form of mind-control that they can indoctrinate captured Afghans to become suicide bombers? Else what stops a kidnapped Afghan from stopping the first Pakistan security officer he sees and foiling the dastardly Indian plan by confessing all? The minister says a 3-star Indian general planned the attacks which were conducted by India's RAW. Is he perhaps getting the Indians confused with the Pakistanis? In Pakistan the military and the ISI are one. In India RAW is a civilian agency under the control of the Prime Minister's office. Indian army generals of any star don't plan attacks for RAW. Perhaps the Pakistani minister is unaware that one of RAW's missions is to penetrate the Indian armed forces and keep a close eye on their senior officers. In Sri Lanka the RAW was directly working against the Indian Army. Neither of these two circumstances is exactly forgotten or forgiven by the Indian Army. http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Regional/Islamabad/03-Dec-2009/Indian-threestar-General-planned-suicide-attacks-in-Peshawar-Gabol By the way, we don't want to insult anyone in Pakistan, but in India we don't need 3-star generals to plan attacks. Even if the Indian Army was in the terror business, which it is not, a major or a colonel would be assigned to plan attacks. We have very competent officers at all levels, thank you, and our generals are way too busy to busy with their jobs to waste time on planning individual terror attacks. Five arms shipments to Hezbollah/Hamas stopped this year, we read - we apologize for not noting the source. It is probably realistic to assume ten times that number got through. WashPo loses its mind - again Earlier this week, Washington Post had an aircraft carrier landing on Mr. Bush's S-3 Viking (the infamous "Mission Accomplished" thing). Wow. Those Americans are geniuses, without doubt, that they can take an aircraft carrier of a 100,000 tons, get it fly, and then land it on an S-3 Viking, a two-engine submarine-hunter aircraft. On the same day (December 1, 2009), WashPo had a reference to 3rd Battalion of the 60th and 9th Divisions in Vietnam. Again, another example of how the Americans managed to fool us all again. Editor kept close tabs on US units in Vietnam, and he never came across a 60th Division in Vietnam - or in any war for that matter, And then to assign the same battalion to both divisions - that must have confused the heck out of the enemy. Now, of course, President Bush's Viking landed on an aircraft carrier, and the WashPo means the 3rd Battalion of the 60th Regiment of the 9th Division.. But this is what is sad: when US had a draft, most men at least had a basic familiarity with the military. Someone on the copy desk would for sure have caught the error. Now the military is an isolated caste and so fewer people seem to know about it. The other day, for example, we were in a discussion where someone referred to "all those poor black boys getting killed in Afghanistan and Iraq." We had to gently explain that whereas infantry draftee units in Vietnam ran up to 40% black, whereas the number in the general population was around 11%, now days the infantry is largely white and Hispanic.  You can verify what we've said by counting the number of African-American faces in the media's periodic listing of casualties. For example, we took a random page from online WashPo http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/page3/ and counted 13 of 99 killed as African American, say 13%. The subsequent page, http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/page4/, has 9 African Americans of 100 killed. England versus America So the wife of the Speaker of the Commons (Sort of like House Speaker in US Congress) wants to enter politics herself. So she starts of by confessing she was a binge drinker and reveled in casual sex after getting drunk, from college to well into her 20s.  So she was talking of being drunk at work and arguing with her bosses and falling asleep and missing her subway station, and often putting away a bottle by herself. Surely you exaggerate, ma'am, said the London Times correspondent. Okay, she says, it was actually two bottles at a time - I told my husband I'd stick to one bottle when I told this story. Okay, so why tell the story? She wanted to get stuff out of the way before she ran. Now folks, how you can say America is superior to England? This lady had a great time in her younger days - i.e., she's normal - and feels no compulsion to pretend she was the Virgin Queen who drank only soda pop. No "But I didn't inhale". No "I tried it, didn't like it, didn't try again." Of course in the American case we're referring to drugs, but we're sure had the Times asked this lady about drugs and had she been there, she would have come right out and said so. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6942945.ece 0230 GMT December 3, 2009 Lebanon Government says Hezbollah need not disarm says Haaretz of Israel. As part of the UN-imposed settlement of the 2008 Lebanon War, Lebanon's armed forces were to be strengthened and used to ensure Hezbollah's disarmament. The problem, evident to everyone at that time, was that any attempt to disarm Hezbollah would lead to another civil war. Yet another problem - mainly which Orbat.com had - is that it was unjust for Israel to beat up Lebanon because the latter couldn't control Hezbollah, and then for the UN to say Lebanon had to do the disarming job. The UN did help by expanding its forces in Lebanon; nonetheless, this force was not authorized, nor able to even if authorized, fight Hezbollah and force it to disarm. So here we had a piquant situation. Israel didn't want to price of defeating Hezbollah. UN didn't want to pay the price of fighting Hezbollah. The US, EU etc. who were driving UN resolutions against Hezb didn't want to pay the price. So with all the strong powers unwilling to do the job, forcing it on Lebanon was just another example of the La La Land in which the world's powers seem these days to reside. Why was it La La Land to ask Lebanon to do the job? First, strengthened army or not, Lebanon was the weakest of the interested parties. Second, Lebanon is a multi-ethnic state divided between Christians, Druze, Shias, and Sunnis, though usually its the first three who count. In the good old days before terror became the norm worldwide, and people wanted to live in peace with each other, in the main, Lebanon was a successful multi-ethnic state. But since the 1970s, when the tensions between Israel and the Arabs engulfed Lebanon, the country has been heavily divided, and either in a state of war or about to be in a state of war. To tell the Lebanon Government "disarm Hezb" was, and is, to ask Lebanon to commit suicide as a state. Hezb will resist, Syria will get back in big time as a purely defensive measure, Israel will get sucked back in, and there's the happy ayatollahs, the Iranians. Sound bad enough. But wait: there's more. Any new conflict will also see the US getting involved, and given the US style of functioning, anything America gets involved in becomes a stompfest. Next time around there will be no Lebanon that will survive. The Lebanese, who have the bad taste to live in Lebanon and get in the way of all the plans the US, Europe, UN, and Israel make for them, understandably are reluctant to see their country destroyed once again. If it means ceding Southern Lebanon to Hezb to keep the peace, no one need be surprised that the Lebanon choose to placate Hezb rather than sign their death warrants and fight Hezb . A further complication is that thanks to all the strenuous western efforts to restore a democratic government to Lebanon, Hezbollah is now a legitimate part of the government. Hezb stood for elections like everyone else, and it won enough seats it can provides the balance between the three major ethnic groups. If Hezb pulls out, or throws its weight to one side or the other, the current government of Lebanon is, as the Americans with their usual pungent language put it, toast. Now that you understand why the Lebanon Government is telling Hezb it can keep its weapons, you can ask where do we go next? Why, precisely nowhere but to the next war. This is the Middle East, on one side you have the Israelis and the Americans, and on the other side you have a gazillion Arabs, and if anyone thinks there will be a peaceful settlement acceptable to all parties, all we at Orbat.com can say is "Don't Bogart That Joint, My Friend." Editor finds it highly amusing when Israel protests about the UN not enforcing its own resolutions regarding Lebanon. editor would like to tell his Israeli friends, its the Goose, Gander, and Sauce thing all over again. Given the number of UN resolutions Israel ignores, it's the last country to complain about UN inaction. And before our Israeli friends protest and say: "But we agreed to UN intervention to save Lebanon from its own folly", we have to say "No. You were defeated by Hezbollah and you weren't willing to pay the price of a full-scale war against this terror bunch. You did no favors to the UN. The UN did you a favor and pulled your chestnuts out of the fire. Without the UN you would have no face-saving device to end the war. So be grateful for what you got, and don't complain about what you didn't." Having said that Editor has to do one of his quick costume changes and run to the other side of the stage before the 3rd World part of our readership starts beating him up by saying: "Which UN, Kemo Saby? Are you talking about the Security Council which is dominated by the world's hegemons or the real UN which represents 80% of the world and is powerless before the hegemons?" Editor is obviously talking of the Security Council which is the handmaiden of the hegemons. He uses the term "UN" rhetorically. Chee. World is so complicated these days you can't make a single statement without the other side protesting. And there are too many other sides. Editor longs for his youthful days in America, when there were the Bad Guys, and there were the Good Guys, and we were the Good Guys, and anyone who didn't agree with us were the Bad Guys. Bit like King Arthur's Camelot "Brief shining moment..." Nowadays it seems everyone is right, and everyone is wrong - simultaneously. Quantum physics at work again, darn it. 0230 GMT December 2, 2009 Indian Air Force Sukhoi-30 wings of two squadrons each will ultimately be based at Ounee (first Su-30 base); Bareilley (second base); Tezpur (third base, four aircraft were sent as a first increment this year); Halwara (Punjab); Jodhpur; and Chabbua (Assam). This means four squadrons are slated for the China border. Currently India has 105 Su-30s, 125 are on order for last delivery by 2015, and another order for 50 more is being placed. Indian fighter squadrons have 16 aircraft plus 2 trainers, with another 3 aircraft as maintenance float/strike-off wastage. This is all terribly jolly, but doesn't take into account that China is surely going to speed up its own buildup in response. Indians are still waiting on three other fighters for its modernization program. One is for six squadrons of Light Combat aircraft, for which the international competition has been going on that the cows have come home, died, and been reborn. Another is for 40 light fighters (Indian Tejas) with the Indian Air Force making vague mumbles about ordering another 125 when the Mark 2 version is developed. Tejas is to enter squadron service next year. A Medium Combat Aircraft is to be put in development; heaven knows when that program will mature. Last, India-Russia are developing a Generation 5 stealth fighter. Right now all you can count on is 12 Su-30, 2 Tejas, and 6 LCA squadrons by 2015-18, which is only around half the fighter strength the Indians need. Climate change: Reader Flymike sends a communication from his friend who is a PhD in R and D.  In my opinion, the rigorous application of the scientific method to the global warming debate has not taken place.   This is because it is nearly impossible to get enough reliable data to apply the known principles of the scientific method.  The situation is also complicated in that there is such a large political component to the equation that many unqualified people, wanting to benefit from the situation, are drawn into the picture making basically outrageous claims from data of which they have no understanding.  In the scientific method, step one is to propose an hypothesis (eg, some cancers are caused by viruses).  The last step, after rigorous testing and proof, is a statement of fact (eg, the sun rises in the east).  Unfortunately, many ( such as Al Gore) state the step-one hypothesis as final-step fact because they do not know the difference between the two.  In the last decades, there have been a number of misstatements/retractions/reversals in the medical field just because of this poor understanding of how to handle and interpret data. Editor's note: As for the data shortage, we see it acutely in India, where the Government of India has come out with data saying the Himalayan glaciers are not retreating and in some places are advancing. We have not seen the studies, nor would we be qualified to comment on them. Meanwhile, the British university whose hijacked emails seem to indicate a deliberate attempt to suppress contrary papers, now says that the original data for its studies is unavailable. What is really bad is that the university made this admission only after a Freedom of Information request was filed. Read http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece for details. The thing to remember here is that we laypersons tend to think of scientists as right there with God, but the truth is - obviously - they are human beings too, as prone to hubris, pride, ambition, selfishness, greed, lying, or whatever as the rest of us. Why this should be a surprise to the rest of us suggests that perhaps we need our heads examined, and not the scientists. 0230 GMT December 1, 2009 South Asia Reader V. Akula sends three articles that provide details of the new US thrust in the region: Stop using insurgents as strategic tool, Obama warns Pak In a stern message to Pakistan, the United States has asked it to shed its policy of "using insurgents" like LeT as a strategic tool and warned that if it cannot deliver against terrorists, the US may be impelled to use "any means" at its disposal. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/stop-using-insurgents-as-strategic-tool-obama-warns-pak/547981/0 A good rule in life is to never make a threat you cannot follow up on. President Obama has not only violated that rule, he is being extremely naive if he thinks that Pakistan will give up its traditional strategic objectives because of the vagaries of what the US wants today. We've been through this many times, and really have a hard time believing anyone in the US Government thinks they can get Pakistan to forgo its vital interests to keep the US happy. US stalls as Pakistan drifts http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KL01Df03.html Summary "Three developments over the past few days have dealt a severe setback to the designs of the United States in the South Asian theater of war.1) Mullah Omar No to peace talks 2) COAS states no one can separate Islam and Pakistan, and wants an Islamic state 3) Pakistan President Zardari handed over nukes to PM (military)." On the first point, we disagree with Asia Times. Talks are taking place and they will continue. It is hardly to the Taliban's strategic advantage at this early stage to say other than it won't negotiate. Whether the talks lead anywhere is a different question; here no one on the outside will know either way till both sides announce success or failure. The third point, control over Pakistani nuclear weapons, is symbolic only to the US: the military never handed over control to the civilians, and the US knows that darn well. If the US is playing games, possibly it's to impress Congress about how Pakistan is coming along to meet US demands. The second point is interesting not because its surprising, but that the Pakistan Chief of Army Staff is openly saying something that cuts at the very heart of US policy for Pakistan, i.e., a secular Pakistan. First we need to whip the US with a limp noodle for ever having gotten the completely nutzoid idea that it could shift Pakistan from an Islamic to a secular state. Hasn't the US ever bothered to read the Pakistan Constitution? Is the US still to figure out that long ago Pakistan threw out 99% of its non-Muslim citizens? The process was more or less complete by 1971, so we're talking of events near four decades ago. We know Washington takes a while to get things, but four decades and Washington still hasn't gotten it? Had anyone in the Bush Administration bothered to actually understand what Pakistan is about, they would have known that by backing Benazir Bhutto and forcing her return to Pakistan, they were giving her the kiss of death. And not in a metaphorical sense. What to Editor was the wonder is that the poor woman lived for so long, not that she was killed - remember, the bad guys targeted her from Day 1. As for Zardari going...Look people, all we can say is that all the crazy people in Washington are not safely locked up in St. Elizabeth's Hospital. After his wife died, Zardari had one chance only to make it: he was/is the most hated man in Pakistan; but Pakistan was so shocked by his wife's killing, and was in such turmoil because US had forced the military dictator aside, that Pakistan accepted Zardari. Better that than chaos the typical Pakistani thought. It took him maybe a few weeks to revert to form, and it was just a matter of time before he went. So yes, we have to agree with Asia Times that this is the end of US's political plans for Pakistan Our reaction? Big yawn. Washington bombs again in efforts to impose its will on another country. Sun rises again in the East. What else is new? PM in US: The Spin & The Fizzle http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers36%5Cpaper3525.html "Long story short. US trip was an unmitigated disaster for India." Our opinion? Not really. If anyone in India thinks the US is going to live up to its words on terror, then I'm afraid the Indians need their heads examined. US has repeatedly made clear to India since 2001 that the question of Pakistani terror against India has to be subordinated to US interests in Pakistan. The simple reality is that if US admitted openly that Pakistan is a terrorist state, that would mean the end of all normal interaction between US and Pakistan. No more aid. No military cooperation. No US investment. No travel to US by Pakistani officials. Seizure of Pakistani accounts outside. Warrants of arrest for Pakistani leaders. Etc. Now, Editor will be the first one to tell how angry he gets at America's support of a terrorist state, Pakistan, and how angry he gets that the US not just condones Pakistani terror against India, US tells India to grin and bear it. The US is the Number One power in the world, and the Number One hypocrite. Our reaction? Big yawn. Sun still rises in the East, you know. As for the nuclear issue. We want Honorable Mr. B. Raman, author of the article, to come to Washington and see for himself the strength of US anti-proliferation lobby. He will see how much political capital both President Bush and President Obama have expended by lifting sanctions and by extending n-cooperation to India. But the non-proliferation lobby hasn't gone away. Mr. Raman is a nationalist, and he gets very angry at the US on matters of terror, and now on nuclear policy. He is absolutely right from India's viewpoint. But there is a US viewpoint in this too - editor considers it wrong, that's his prerogative, US sticks to its position, that's its prerogative. N-policy is something India and US both understand they are constrained by their domestic electorates. They're trying their best to maximize cooperation and minimize disagreements. It's always going to be a messy part of the Indo-US relationship. There is one way US can make it okay: announce unilateral n-disarmament tomorrow. Editor can assure US India will be the first country to step up and join the US. · ·  Continue to archived news JULY 2009 JUNE 2009 MAY 2009 APRIL 2009 MARCH 2009 FEB 2009 JAN 2009 DEC 2008 NOV 2008 OCT 2008 SEP 2008 AUG 2008 JUL 2008 JUN 2008 MAY 2008 APR 2008 MAR 2008 FEB 2008 JAN 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002

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