New Document

Lahore, Pakistan Police Academy Attacked killing six police personnel including cadets. Three of the 10-12 attackers blew themselves rather than surrender when trapped. 4-5 attackers were captured after an 8-hour firefight which left 100+ security forces wounded.
There are no good figures available either on government casualties or the attackers. One policeman told media he personally had helped load 32 killed on to ambulances.
Asia Times Online gives 70 killed and the number of attackers at 20. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KC31Df02.html
Longwarjournal.com says an "obscure" Taliban group based in South Waziristan has claimed responsibility, saying it staged the attack in retaliation for the Pakistan security forces presence in its region. http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/03/waziristanbased_terr.php
US Aegis Warships Sail From ROK Two warships left ports in ROK for the sea of Japan, to join two JSDF Aegis destroyers deployed on anticipation of the DPRK satellite launch.
Read this article that explains Japanese capabilities and limitations in shooting down a DPRK missile.http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200903300055.html
Wall Street Journal cites a Japanese newspaper as saying a group of 15 Iranians has arrived in DPRK for the launch.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123843944684370587.html
Fit for Ripley's Believe It Or Not Read this story about a Japanese shipyard worker who survived Hiroshima, only to be ordered to report to a shipyard in Nagasaki - where he survived the second atom-bomb attack.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/times_tokyo_weblog/2009/03/the-luckiest-or.html
Hijacking Ships For Dummies Rule 24: do not attempt to hijack a warship, even if it is only an auxiliary. That's what Sudan pirates did when they moved on a German Navy supply ship supporting the international anti-piracy task force. The auxiliary turned on the pirates and pursued them, aided by a frigate, a helicopter, and a patrol aircraft. Seven pirates were captured.
Once you know that the pirates get hopped to the gills before doing a raid, you can see how they might have though the supply ship was a defenseless civilian cargo vessel.

0230 GMT March 30, 2009

US says it will do nothing regarding DPRK missile launch unless the missile is heading for Hawaii.
We admit to complete bafflement at the US so clearly showing its hand before the launch. Surely the idea is to keep DPRK on edge just the same as DPRK is keeping everyone else on edge.
The only explanation that comes to mind is US-Japan are playing good-cop/bad-cop, because Japan has unequivocally indicated by word and military deployment it is ready to shoot down the missile at its discretion.
We hate these complex explanations, though, because if you approach this stuff from a pure intelligence analysis perspective, which you should, you don't make unwarranted assumptions. This good-cop-/bad-cop explanation is unwarranted in that we are assuming the US is being coldly rational, and there is no reason to make that assumption.
Northern Ireland police back to flak jackets and rifles in some areas following the killing of two British soldiers and two civilians, plus policeman in another incident. Working very quickly, the police have arrested a leading IRA splinter faction person for the soldier murders.
This model of civic rectitude has apparently said that the killing of the soldiers was an act of war.
If you know the Irish, you know they are quite "southern" in their habit of letting their mouths run way ahead of reason or logic, and that's what makes the Irish so genuine and likable - they'll say the first thing on their minds.
But we wonder if this gentleman fully understands what he has said. If killing the soldiers and the civilians that were "collaborating" by delivering the soldiers pizza is an act of war, then the gentleman should not complain if he is taken to the woods and quietly shot. In war this is perfectly legitimate as he is not part of a uniformed group, and his people committed the killings using civilians as cover.
Mexico's drug war The Mexican and US governments say the increasing violence in the drug war proves the cartels are losing and have grown desperate.
We'd like readers to take a look at this from the New York Times and then tell us if they think the two governments are right. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/world/americas/30mexico.html?_r=1&ref=world
We were struck by two figures in the article. One, 100,000 Mexican Army soldiers have joined the narco militias over the last seven years. Two, in a single arms cache find, albeit the largest yet, Mexican authorities seized 540 rifles and half-a-million rounds of ammunition.
We are not taking a position on the legitimacy of the drug war. It is for the democratically elected governments of both nations to decide the hows, whens, wheres of dealing with the problem. But when we are being given the above figures on the one hand, and being told on the other that the narcos are losing, we have to wonder who are the desperate ones, the narcos or the governments.
New NATO supply route through Dushanbe in Tajikistan Non-lethal supplies for NATO have begun arriving in Kunduz, Afghanistan from Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The US built a bridge across the Panj River to create this new route. The Tajiks have agreed to permit 250 trucks a day - 5000-tons of supplies - via this route. That's just a bit less than cross the Khyber every day.
Read http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/30/afghanistan-tajikistan-obama-pakistan for more details.

0230 GMT March 29, 2009

Russian Navy Submarine Programs to 2017 include
Six cruise missile boats of the Severodvinsk class (Project 855, Graney) ; first boat in 2011, five more by 2017; the first uses the hull of a boat initially started in 1991.
Five Project 955 Borey SSBN with the Bulava missile
Two Project 885 Yasen nuclear-powered multipurpose submarines
Six Project 677 Lada diesel-electric submarines
Pakistan-Afghanistan Longwarjournal.org reports insurgents have shut down the Peshawar-Kabul road for the seventh time since September 2008 by taking out a bridge. Taliban also rocketed a Peshawar truck terminal, destroying 12 trucks. Government wants the Peshawar terminals shifted to the Punjab; the state government declines the honor. In our opinion it is right to do so, as this will simply spread the insurgency into the Punjab faster than it might otherwise happen. NATO trucks are unlikely to be safer in the Punjab.
Signs of improvement in Zimbabwe Paying state workers, mainly bureaucrats, teachers and soldiers, in US dollars has given inflation a serious knock on the head, and shops are now well stocked. The problem is, of course, that relatively few are paid in dollars, and donors have to be persuaded to keep giving the money.
But still, public services and schools are showing signs of revival.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/zimbabwe-is-the-basket-case-finally-on-the-mend-1656662.html says that political intimidation is down.
The new prime minister, Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai has taken a firm stand against the new wave of farm encroachments launched by the discredited but still power President, Mr. Robert "The Crocodile" Mugabe and said encroachers will be arrested. The problem here, of course, is that Mr. Mugabe still controls the police and the army.

0230 GMT March 28, 2009

Just another day in Afghanistan The article below is useful because it describes a typical day in Afghanistan, this time for a platoon of the 10th Mountain Division new to the area and setting up to assert itself.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KC27Df01.htm
The article has a minor patronizing tone which is programmed into the typical Brit before s/he is born. We are unsure, for example, why the Brit mediaperson chooses to call the platoon "motley". Is he referring to the soldiers not presenting a uniform racial face as is the case with the British Army? If so, he has to understand America is not Britain. Is he calling the platoon motley because its men are from different backgrounds? Well, isn't the same true of the British Army. Is he referring to the less than stellar personal histories of some of the troops? Well, isn't the same thing true of the Brits? More to the point, perhaps he needs to appreciate that men with less than the best backgrounds make very good soldiers if they are properly trained and controlled, for the simple reason they know their violence and they know how to survive.
The Editor's father, who was no fan of the US Army for many reasons, in the 1960s would caution other foreigners who thought Americans were too soft to make good soldiers. He'd say the bulk of the American infantry was drafted from the urban ghettos or from rural areas where most males learned to hunt and kill before they reached puberty. Such men, he would say, were very tough and shouldn't be underestimated.
But that said, the article is a fair and informative account of life on the ground.
Israel tests "Iron Dome" defense against rockets and mortar rounds. A video of the system at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/Page/VideoPlayer&cid=1194419829128&videoId=1237727560480 shows the business of the system is a high rate of fire mobile cannon. We presume it's a Gatling type but couldn't make out for certain.
The Sudan arms convoy attack: who was responsible? Someone took out a 17-truck arms convoy destined for Palestine as it transported Iranian weapons through Sudan. US says Israel did it. Israel says nothing. 39 of the 40 men with the convoy were killed.
Problemo: We're told US C-130 gunships did the deed, not the Israeli Air Force. We were a bit surprised to see Debka.com suggest the same thing.
Meanwhile, http://www.weaselzippers.net quotes Israel's Channel 10 as saying the Israeli Air Force has sunk two Iranian arms ships this year.
Japan readies Patriots and 2 Aegis warships to shoot down any "debris" from the expected launch of the DPRK "satellite". (Think Austin Powers.)
The missile is expected to over fly two Japanese prefectures. The destroyers are in the Sea of Japan, and the Patriot PAC3s are being deployed at 5 locations including three in Tokyo
We're quite tickled at this Japanese alibi. Dashed ingenious: if the launcher flies over Japan, the JSDF can shoot it down and say it was aiming at "debris" that threatened to come down over Japan.
Details in Japan's Asahi Shimbun http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200903280071.html

0230 GMT March 27, 2009

Pakistan, Afghan Taliban Preparing Joint Front to battle US mini-surge in Southern Afghanistan. You can read about it in the New York Times - no point is us going over old stuff.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/world/asia/27taliban.html?_r=1&ref=world The article on Pakistan Government support to the Taliban can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/world/asia/26tribal.html?ref=asia
Kashmir Turns out both the Indians and the terrorists are correct in their respective accounts of the recent encounter, which saw 8 Indian soldiers and 17 terrorists killed. The Army had advance intelligence of the movement of a group of 25 infiltrators, and was prepared to meet them. But in the first encounter, when an Indian group penetrated thick forest it was ambushed by the terrorists, costing four Indian dead. Thereafter the Army eliminated the infiltrators.
Indian sources say there are only 400 militants left in Indian Kashmir. The Pakistanis are, therefore, focusing on infiltrating men from their side of the border. We've noted that the Indian army is much better prepared for this new round of fighting than was the case even two years ago.
Afghanistan UK MOD says 42nd Commando killed 130 Taliban and wounded 200+ in a fight that cost the Brits just two wounded.
Great case of winning the battle but losing the war because, of course, the Brits are in no position to hold ground. So the Taliban will come back.
Congratulations, Mr. Obama for having the courage to publicly accept that America also bears responsibility for the Mexico-US drug trade and cross border violence. Drugs flow north and guns and money flow south. The situation is very complicated, what with American demand for drugs and Mexicans determined to supply for that demand. The entire Mexico-US drug wars thing is under very sharp review in Washington, we'd rather wait to see in better detail what will be done than to generalize now, but its a good start that America openly acknowledges its role in this deadly business.
Meanwhile, we are told that more than one US state is quietly trying to bring up for eventual public acceptance that marijuana should be legalized - and heavily taxed. Nothing the US has been able to achieve in the last 40 years has led to a reduction in the traffic, and why should the profit go to criminals.
Normally the idea of legalization would be a No Fly, but the prospect of red ink budgets for at least the next 10 years has encouraged people to be creative.
Neither Orbat.com nor the Editor have any position on legalization because we fully understand the arguments of both the pro and the con.
From $2.50/month to $250/month for an anti-allergy drug Editor is a walking advertisement for the US pharmaceutical industry, i.e., the state-sanctioned drug peddlers. His immune system was compromised from birth due to a series of illnesses, and he has limited resistance to every kind of allergy you can think of. For years he has been taking Deconamine, which controls allergies well enough he is sick "only" for 90 days a year compared to 180 days a year before his HMO prescribed this drug. Sick means sick: fever, exhaustion, non-stop asthma attacks, unable to see straight or think straight. (But, you will say, Editor never thinks straight anyway on any day - okay, we can talk about this later: allow him to relate this sad story.)
So when he put in for his refill, for which his HMO charges him $5/2-months as copay, he got a mysterious message from one of the senior pharmacists at the HMO to call her. She wouldn't say for what specifically, and when you spend all your time being sick or recovering from being sick, you get a bit paranoid. Nothing major, just the usual "OMG I'm gonna die she's gonna say they've found this drug, in interaction with the other 10 or so I take, causes death on the first day after 10-years of taking Deconamine."
Not helped by said doctor having a low, warm, sympathetic voice of the sort you associate with being told: "Mr. Ravi, but you are shortly going to be dead, sorry about that."
Well after 3 days of trying Editor finally got through to the pharmacist doctor. To be told that the drug was now available over the counter, so the HMO would not cover it anymore. Try your local pharmacy, she suggested, for the OTC version.
So Editor did, and guess what: OTC the drug costs $545/2 months.
So obviously Editor is not going to buy this medicine, no one except Wall Street fraudsters has that kind of money to spend on a single medicine. So what happens now, Editor has no clue, which is worse than it sounds as he has no clue about much even on the best.
So, when you're about to die they say your life passes before your eyes. In Editor's case, for an entire sleepless night till he found out he was going to live, but may as well not bother as he - and presumably 250-million others - cant afford this particular medicine any more, his life did not pass before his eyes. What passed through his mind was 11,035 retorts that he never got to make to Mrs. Rikhye, because he thinks of his best retorts way after the event. Some of the planned retorts were really sophisticated, such as: "Yeah? Well I think you are ten times as stupid and ugly as you think I am."

0230 GMT March 26, 2009

DPRK Prepares Missile For Launch The missile has been moved to its launch pad in preparation for what DPRK says will be a satellite launch early next month. Twp reasons why people are not impressed by DPRK's explanation of peaceful purposes. In 1998 it faked a satellite launch to test its missile; and whatever the intent, a missile capable of carrying a satellite to orbit can also be used as an ICBM.
ROK has already said if the launch proceeds, there will be consequences, without specifying what these might be. Japan has said if the missile heads its way, Japan will have to consider shooting it down.
US says that indications so far are it will be a satellite launch, but no one will really know until the launch trajectory becomes evident, as trajectories for a weapons launch putting a satellite in orbit are different.
Lakshar-e-Taiba Claims Indian Army Ambush saying it lost 10 fighters in exchange for 25+ Indians killed. It threatens more attacks. This is the same outfight that did the Bombay attack.
Indian Army says it attacked the insurgent party based on information received, and that it lost 8 soldiers in exchange for 16 insurgents killed.
By claiming this attack and threatening others, Lakshar is busy torpedoing American efforts to stop India from retaliating against Pakistan. The Indians obviously never bought the American theory that Washington would see that justice was done in the Bombay case and that the Pakistan government would, under US pressure, rein in anti-Indian militant groups.
The Indians have their own way of handling people like the US, and they held their hand after Bombay, letting the US take as long as it needed to control Pakistan, despite knowing full well the US could do belch-all about Pakistani terrorists.
What the Indians will now do is to miss no opportunity to "subtly" point out to the US that Washington has not been able to deliver. The process has already begun with the Indian Army chief publicly saying 40-50 terrorist training camps are active in Pakistan.
While India is "giving the bamboo" to the Americans, to use a favorite and quite inelegant Indian phrase, we can be sure that with the snows melting in the high mountains, Lakshar and other anti-India terrorist groups will become more active. It's clear to the Indians, though it may not be to all Americans, that with President Musharraf gone, the Pakistan civil government has absolutely zero control of the military.
Even President Musharraf was making only a show of reigning in anti-India groups, but at least he was pretending. The Pakistan military this time will not even pretend, and every time the Pakistan President and Prime Minister, whoever they may be in a few months, will cringingly appeal to the Pakistan Army to stop the terror groups, the Pakistan Army will tell the civilians they are traitors to Pakistan, and best they get their nose out of the Army's business before the Army chops off the offending nose.
When the Indians have given the US a second or even a third chance to stop the insurgents, the Indians will pat the Americans on the back, and say with deep sighs: "You are such true friends. You have tried so hard for us. It is not your fault that the perfidious Pakistanis have taken advantage of you. Now, why don't you sit back and let us handle the matter."
And where will be the US leverage to stop India from attacking Pakistan? Down the same latrine which we talked about yesterday as the natural home of "Overseas Contingency Operations."
Now, we don't want to be like other blogs and crow to our readers "as forecast in Orbat.com", but both Mandeep Bajwa and your editor warned readers in the winter that a new Pakistan offensive against Kashmir is in the works.
What you see is the first skirmish, the first shots of the new offensive.
And when the Indian reaction comes, its going to blow the lid off the pathetic, stupid, mindless "balance" between Pakistan and India that the US has tried to foist on South Asia.
We will discuss tomorrow an article that has the Americans clearly on record as saying Pakistan is still very much supporting Afghanistan/Pakistan Taliban in Afghanistan. That the Americans have come right out and said that after years of being "diplomatic", means that the balance between those Americans who have been calling it as it is, and those who keep pretending that Pakistan can be bribed, wheedled, or threatened out of supporting Islamist fighters in Afghanistan, is shifting. The head in sand school is losing.
You can count on the Pakistani fighters to also clearly drive the point home to the US this summer: we are your enemies, and we will kill you. Watch for the start of the Taliban counteroffensive, currently under preparation, designed to defeat the mini-surge.
Interesting times. Maybe Orbat.com will actually have some real news of interest to give our readers this spring and summer.

0230 GMT March 25, 2009

News Flash: Latest Klasse Klowne Awarde Won By US Pentagon The Global War On Terror is over, according to the US Pentagon, reports www.rantburg.com We are now to call former GWOT - ahem - "Overseas Contingency Operations".
Editor's Memo to Self Remember to send email to Pentagon pointing out that a latrine still smells like a latrine even if you change the name to "Individual Personalized Comfort Station". GWOT was former President Bush's phrase, and at least it called it as he saw it is: a global war on terrorism.
If President Obama's team sees the GWOT as something offhanded as "Overseas Contingency Operations", it tells us more about his team than it does about reality. Closing in on Year 8: some "contingency" (think Austin Powers).
Should we expect the Prez's team to start referring to World War 2 as a "Short Overseas Contingency" and the US Civil War as and "Temporary Internal Security Contingency"?
Oh, wait: no one will rename WW 2 and the Civil War: US actually won those, didn't we? The US always win wars, we never lose wars. We're losing the GWOT, so by definition it cannot be a war. It has to be a "contingency".
Note to Readers The KKA is not lightly awarded. The recipient has to do something extraordinarily stupid, like flushing himself down the drain in an Individual Personalized Comfort Station after mistaking the IPCS for a shower.
Israel The Labor Party led by defense minister Ehud Barak has joined Prime Minister Netanyahu's coalition, giving the Prime Minister 66 seats in the 120 seat Knesset. The search for additional allies continues.
The nice thing about Israeli politics is that us Indians need not feel so ashamed of our politics. And political morality in India is so low, its not an easy thing to compete with us. But the Israelis are heroically managing. Keep it up, Israel. Pretty soon Indian politics will start looking as clean as freshly laundered bed sheet.
Iraq Government Not Hiring Awakenings Militiamen New York Times reports that the US has turned over control of 84,000 of 94,000 Sunni Awakenings militiamen to Iraq government, but despite promises, Baghdad has given permanent jobs to only 5,000. Worse, because of the drop in oil prices, Baghdad is having trouble making payroll for existing employees, leave alone undertaking commitments for an additional 90,000 or so new positions.

0230 GMT March 24, 2009

Holbrooke Changes US Policy On Afghan Opium We've indicated that we bear no great lobe for Imperial Washington's viceroy Richard Holbrooke, both because we consider him a bull in a china shop, which unfortunately is insulting the bulls, who are the very model of delicacy compared to this diplomat, and because by planning to unleash him on the intractable Kashmir problem, the gentleman would have single-handedly have set Indo-US relations back a hundred years. Which is a bit odd, considering those relations are only 60 years old, but that's Mr, Holbrooke.
So we were pleasantly surprised to hear him blasting the US policy of opium eradication in Afghanistan, calling it the most failed policy he'd ever seen. When a man like Holbrooke says that, you have to take him seriously, because he has many failed US policies.
Eradication hits the poorest framers and poisons their legal crops and land, whatever the proponents may claim eradication is safe. The surest way to turn Afghan farmers into Taliban supporters is to eradicate; besides which, seven years into the eradication policy Afghanistan seems to produce more opium than it did before eradication.
The converse policy is to pay farmers not to grow this wretched narcotic, and thanks to Mr. Holbrooke, the US will now try this in Afghanistan. This represents a very major strategic shift, and is the twin of the new clear-hold-stay policy being implemented by the military.
We'd be the last to deny things are very grave in Afghanistan, not least because we among others have been raising the alarm and giving our readers statistics from our own sources, who have no horse in the race and have no reason to twist reality in any particular way. This unlike the American fiddlers who have been watching while Afghanistan burns, and telling us its all been going well. It took the American military to keep repeating: "we are losing" before Toon Town, aka Washington DC, began to see some sense.
So we are not going to pretend that the clear-hold-stay and pay-em-not-to-grow strategy is going to win the Afghan war. For one thing, there's the unpleasant happenings east of the Durand line. There too we see refreshing signs of reality finally having penetrated the thick skulls of Washington decision-makers, because we increasingly hear people eschew the old, incredibly stupid formulation: "the voting polls shows Pakistanis overwhelmingly do not support Islamization", as if the people of Pakistan had any intention of voting to Talibianize their nation. What the Pakistani people think was never the issue; rather, the reality is that the Taliban is shooting, murdering, and oppressing its way into power was the issue. For this you need only 2% active cadres and 3% sympathizers, and you can take over a country.
If Pakistan falls, then success in Afghanistan will be ephemeral. But at least, at long last, the Americans are wising up on what they need to do in Afghanistan, even if they have yet to come to terms with what they need to do in Pakistan. For the latter we cannot blame them, because the problem is so severe and US options so limited, that it's natural to retreat to la-la land.
But eventually the Americans will face the reality of Pakistan too, and the sad truth is that a 20-30 year battle lies ahead in this region. Having wasted seven years that the Bush administration gave to the military and the politicos and the economists and so on, the real danger now is that the American people may be unwilling to give the Obama administration and its two, perhaps three successors the time needed to win.
But at least Mr. Holbrooke represents a fresh wind that is blowing away the deceptive miasmas of the past, failed policy.
PS: Keep the man away from Kashmir or you can kiss India goodbye. Indians are about as ready to accept any solution short of complete national sovereignty over ALL Kashmir as the United States is to give back Texas and the South West to the Mexicans, Alaska to the Russians, Louisiana et. al. to the French, and the rest of America to the Indians. If you think we exaggerate, you don't understand India and Kashmir.

0230 GMT March 23, 2009

No major developments yesterday

Somalia While one Islamist leader admits he takes orders from Al Qaeda, two others tell Bin Laden to mind his own business. OBL issued a statement the other day calling on Somalis to overthrow their newly elected president, who is a moderate Islamist.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves closer to a majority; with Shah, the extremist religious party joining his coalition, he has 53 MPs. Aside from his own party, Likud, the Russian immigrant party Israel Beiteinu - another extremist group - has partnered with Mr. Netanyahu.
Meanwhile the deputy defense minister says Israel may have to reenter Gaza and occupy a buffer zone to prevent mortar attacks, i.e., 5-6 kilometers wide. He says an anti-tactical missile defense system will become operational in 2010.
Afghanistan US plans to move 100 containers a day through the northern route when at becomes fully operational. The minimum requirement at this time, before the reinforcements, is 80 containers a day, up to 130 containers a day arrive through Pakistan.
We assume these are 20-foot containers. The theoretical net payload is 28-tons, but depending on the volume of the cargo, can be as little as 15-tons. For our calculations we use 20-tons/container.
Sri Lanka The army estimates the last battle with the LTTE will take place two weeks from now. The army advanced another 1.5-km along the last road leading to the last LTTE redoubt.
Meanwhile, Red Cross estimates 350 civilians a week are dying due to the fighting, lack of medicine, and lack of food. Stri Lanka government has sent two weeks of medical supplies to the last functioning hospital in the rebel enclave , which was about to close because it was out of medicines. doctors at the hospital, however, say, no blood or anesthesia was sent.
Red Cross has been trying to evacuate seriously wounded by sea. Yesterday 1000 amputees were trapped under artillery barrages while waiting on the beach for evacuation.
The LTTE's political leader has begged for a ceasefire and talks. Too little, too late. Sri Lanka government is determined to finish off the remaining rebel fighting core.
The LTTE's leader and his son have been spotted in the surrounded enclave, so presumably he plans to go down fighting. Given how much blood has been spilled by this man in the last 25 years, we think its likely his prospects for life after capture are dim, and presumably he knows that.
Sylvia Plath's Son Kills Himself Not a GWOT item, but one of those sad stories that grabs one's attention. Ted Hughes's mistress killed herself and her 4-year old daughter in 1969, six years after Plath's death. The son was one year old in 1963; Plath carefully sealed the room in which she gassed herself so that no fumes would harm her son and daughter, who slept in an adjacent room.

0230 GMT March 22, 2009

We did not update yesterday as nothing interesting caught our attention on any news site; other sites had material of interest that could wait.

Afghanistan Campaign Season Begins Of course, NATO now fights around the year, but the season opening marks the resumption of offensive action by the Taliban. For details, visit http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/03/coalition_and_taliba_1.php which also has latest developments in Pakistan's NWFP. www.rantburg.com reports the Taliban took down half of Peshawar City's power supply by bombing pylons. As far as we know, this is a first for the NWFP, though the tactic has long been used by rebels in Baluchistan.
Media reports that IEDs are become the major Taliban weapon, now causing 70% of US/NATO casualties. Oddly, the IEDs are all home developed/manufactured. There is no evidence so far that Iranian or Iraqi bomb makers are work.
Meanwhile, the Dutch commander of NATO forces in the south says 3-5 years will be required to stabilize the region after which serious reconstruction can begin. At least the man is being realistic, given how short NATO is of troops. What the good general does not say is that 3-5 years gives the Taliban plenty of time to develop new strategies, tactics, and forces. The US mini-surge is insufficient to substantially disrupt the Taliban in short order, so NATO will not get ahead of the Taliban in the action-reaction cycle.
Of course, with the new plan to double Afghan security forces to 400,000 in five years, sufficient troops to win the south may be available by 2015.
There are indications that at long last the US may be ready to change its failed CI strategy in Afghanistan to clear-hold, from the present clear-withdraw. Editor will stop banging his head against brick wall only when he sees the new strategy happen. Better late than never, but why does it take the US military so gosh-darn long to see sense when it comes to CI?
(Readers are going to say: this is news to us that Editor says US CI strategy has failed. The editor generally only drops oblique hints because (a) Orbat.com supports the war and US/NATO troops; and (b) Orbat.com did enough Iraq bashing. We'd rather our readers use discovery learning to appreciate what a complete mess-up is current US CI doctrine in Afghanistan.)
Rantburg.com also reports Tajikistan has started building a 141-km rail line from its capital Dushanbe to the Afghan border, as part of the US plans to develop alternate routes to Afghanistan.
We don't understand this report as there is already a broad-gauge line from Dushanbe to the afghan border. What's needed is a rail-link between Samarkand in Uzbekistan and Dushanbe. Such a railway would cover about 140-km.
US Clears Sale Of 8 P-8i MR Aircraft To India These will replace the Il-142s and Il-38s in Indian Navy service. The deal, the largest signed by the Indians is worth $2.13-billion. First aircraft will be delivered in 2013 and all by 2015. India is the first international customer for the P-8, which is also on order for the US Navy.
You'd think the Indians were ordering ships instead of an aircraft based on the Boeing 737.
While there has been speculation that India's refusal to sign End User Monitoring and disposal agreements may yet scuttle this and the $1-billion deal for 6 C-130Js, others point out that Boeing could not have obtained its license to sell unless the Government of India has already signed the EUM. Conversely, some speculate the US may have made an exception for India and US interests are covered in other ways.
The C-130 deal includes options for 6 more aircraft. The aircraft will be used for special operations. The An-32, which forms the backbone of the IAF's transport fleet with six squadrons will be replaced by a new Russian aircraft developed with Indian funds. The Il-76s will be replaced by the MKI version of the same airframe; six are already in IAF service.

0230 GMT March 20, 2009

Israeli Army Killings in Gaza Operation We are not going to comment on the new revelations because (a) we've never had any illusions about "the most moral army in the world", which is a figment of Israeli propaganda without basis in fact; and (b) there's no point to playing "who is more moral" when Israel's opponents have not the slightest hesitation in making civilians their primary targets.
We appreciate Israelis themselves are going to be sickened as more and more incidents come to light. All we can tell them is: don't be angry or upset. You have to be naive to believe that war is a chivalrous affair. We don't think the IDF treats Palestine civilians any worse than - say - the US treated Indochinese civilians.
On a purely military level, we've explained before that many of the IDF's excesses come about because even the professionals' training standards would not be accepted in armies like the American, British, or Indian. The civilians are actually quite an amazing bunch - in the good as well as in the bad. But "discipline" and "Israeli conscript" are not words you normally see on the same page. When you add pure racism to this, you are going to have more trouble in a CI situation than you want to think about.
You must be clear we are NOT blaming Israeli civilian conscripts. If you put Americans with the same firepower and and the same limited training into situations where they hate the adversary, and the rules about killing civilians are lax or not enforced, you are going to get very serious problems.
The IDF, first and foremost always has been a besieged citizen-army. Where people go wrong is they believe the Israeli propaganda about how professional is the IDF. CI in particular is very brutalizing, and when the thing has been going on as many years as in Israel's case, let's just say morality and ethics go to the back of the bus. That's true of all human beings regardless of ethnicity.

0230 GMT March 19, 2009

Editor's memory is definitely going, much like HAL 2000's in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Today is the birthday of some ex-wife or the other and the editor cannot recall which. Moreover - this is alarming - he hasn't even thought about the ladies in his life at the time - for 45-years or so. They say when you grow old you can recall the past much better than the past. If true, luckily the editor is not old: he can't remember the present OR the past. The problem, as we've mentioned before, is that when one has told so many lies in one's life it become difficult to sort out the lies from the reality. Is that old age approaching, or is it just that the quantity of lies has created a tipping point? Is it a sign of old age that one of a sudden now wants to sort out the lies from the truth, whereas previously one cheerful never felt the least compulsion.

Yesterday the editor found himself telling three different colleagues that he is 70, 67, and 64 years old. All he achieved was to confuse himself, because now he can't recall how old he really is. Documents, alas, mean nothing. What really gets one is when old friends tell you that you were at their wedding in 1969 in Washington, and heaven help us, the editor has NO recollection of being in Washington in 1969, leave alone at the wedding of his good friends; and then he was telling his son and his niece in great detail about Stockholm in the summer of 2004, and when he checked his passport, there was no entry for Sweden in 2004 - or in the 2000s.

One year in a class on international affairs the professor asked: "What do we know about life for the ordinary German citizen in 1946?" Editor gave a detailed eyewitness description of a typical day for a typical German civilian, so much so the professor was impressed at the level of recall. Months later occurred to editor the first time he ever visited Germany was 1965, almost 20 years later.

PS: the editor neither smokes nor drinks, licit or illicit substances, so that's no explanation.

But on to less confusing matters.

Russia announces plans to bring its military into the 21st Century. It will disband 90% of its 2000 units that exist as mobilization cadres.
US Considers Expansion Of Covert War to Baluchistan Whereupon Pakistan Government says there is no Taliban or Al Qaeda in Baluchistan. Pakistan Government also said there is no Mickey Mouse in Disneyland.
Israel Making Case For F-22 When we say "Israel" we include its American supporters. The case rests on if the Russians have given or will give Iran the SA-20 as opposed to the SA-12 - both missile systems for some reason go by the designation S.300 - then Israel's F-15s/F-16s are dead before arrival at all heights of the penetration spectrum, as are its cruise and ballistic missiles.
Seems the SA-20 can do anything, but here's a simple question: Can it sing Handel's Messiah? If it can't, we refuse to believe it can do the other things it's supposed to be able to do.
And if the Raptor is the only fighter aircraft that can penetrate SA-20 defended airspace, take a guess as to who else besides Israel needs more of the aircraft? Hint: it isn't the Tonga Air Force. And take another guess: which Defense Department is trying to kill the Raptor program? Another hint: it isn't the the Tonga Department of Defense.
Somalia Government Fails To Take Southern Town reports Xinhua. Fifteen government soldiers and one Islamic fighter were killed in the fighting, which led to the retreat of the attacking government force back to its base 90-km west of Rabdhure. Apparently the government has tried several times to win back this southern border town, without success.
Predator X had a bite force of 16-tons, sufficient to chomp Hummers in a single bite. This cute little fellow was a pliosaur who romped around the Arctic 147-million years ago. He was an estimated 15 meters long. For a nice artist's conception see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7948670.stm

0230 GMT March 18, 2009

Israel-Hamas Talks To Free POW Fail because the Israeli government is unable to release about 100 of the prisoners demanded by Hamas as part of the exchange for the lone Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas. Israel says release of these men, additional to the approximately 350 it agreed to free, would pose unacceptable security risks to the country.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister says he is considering measures to toughen the prison conditions of Hamas prisoners. He says the measures will approximate the conditions in which the Israeli soldier is being held. So its back to the "We can go as low as you can" game with the Arabs.
In our opinion, Israel is completely wrong to be negotiating the release of hundreds of prisoners for the return of one Israeli soldier. The family of the soldier will get him back if a deal succeeds, but what about the families of those Israelis who have suffered at the hands of many of the prisoners the Israelis hold? Several have been convicted of terror attacks. The families of the terror victims have paid a big price. Surely their sacrifice should also be considered, as much as the sacrifice of the soldier's family.
Washington-Based Think Tank Suggests Ballistic Missile For Iran Strike rather than aircraft. You can read the article at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1237114853776&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
This is an interesting idea. We'd certainly go for using missiles as supplemental weapons in addition to the air- and sea-launched missiles Israel will use. We're not sure where this long-ongoing discussion came up with the assumption that Israel would use only aircraft. Yet, aircraft must still form the main striking force.
Sure, Israel could lose up to a quarter of its air strike force due to enemy defenses, aircraft technical failures, and refueling and navigation errors. If Israel send 100 sorties, that's somewhere around 35 pilots.
But look at the consequences of failure if only missiles are used.
BTW, we keep forget to ask this question. (a) Why do people assume Israel will have an air refueling tanker problem and so has to fly overland with all the political complications? (b) If the US sends in - say - an 8 ship B-2 strike in conjunction with the Israeli air strike, who is going to know?

Letter on Pakistan

Faisal Khan

I differ with your characterization of Gen. Zia as being ‘personally honest.’ He was an extremely corrupt ruler and tolerated major corruption in his main subordinates. Just ask yourself how his son has the money to continually contest elections in Pakistan? Or how Gen. Akhtar Abdur Rahman’s son (a former cabinet minister and PM hopeful) is among the richest men in Pakistan? The only ruler who died a comparative pauper was Gen. Yahya Khan who, despite his many other flaws, did not make money while ruling Pakistan.
The Old Guard, as you call them, until the 1960s were NOT ‘Freedom Fighters’ as you Indians refer to them but the remnants of the old Indian Civil Service and the pre-Partition commissioned King's Commissioned Indian Officers and Indian Commissioned Officer. West Pakistan was the Marches of the Empire and so was many, many decades (if not a century or so) behind (settled) India in terms of its civic institutions and strength of civil society. It also had, compared to its population, few ICS and KCIOs/ICOs and more ‘feudals’ than did India: thus, unsurprisingly, its institutions also decayed much faster than India’s. It is not surprising that democracy never took root in Pakistan, the soil was too barren and undeveloped for that to have occurred. India was also lucky to have had Nehru until 1964; Pakistan only had Jinnah until 1948. The Raj was the Administrative State par excellence but an Administrative State needs well trained administrators—India could limp along, Pakistan couldn’t.
What happened after 1948 was that, lacking a power base in what was then West Pakistan, those that followed Jinnah used Islam as a tool to cement their own hold on power (conveniently this also allowed Bengalis to be dismissed as being insufficiently Muslim as their Islam was Hindu-contaminated). This use of Islam also allowed the Islamist parties to ‘out Muslim’ any personally-secular ruler who used Islam as a legitimization tool. Anyway, one can write a book (or ten) on why India turned out the way it did and why Pakistan turned out the way it did. Thanks to early Indian hostility and intransigence, the Pakistani ruling elite felt compelled to seek out allies. It was either that or capitulate to the Indians. Remember, Ayub Khan offered Nehru a mutual defense pact that was contemptuously dismissed out of hand by Nehru. That, as far as the Pakistanis were concerned, made clear what India’s intentions were.
You are of course correct about the complete uselessness of Pakistan’s leaders, but they were only part of the equation. The US but also India had a part to play in this.

0230 GMT March 17, 2009

Pakistan: President for a Day

Ravi Rikhye

From its 1947 birth, Pakistan has never developed the strong institutions required for constitutional democracy. From the beginning, with the exception of its founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, it has been ruled by little men with two principles: one, survival, two, making money while they can. Up to the mid-1060s and the rise of Z.A. Bhutto, Pakistan still had significant numbers of the old guard, people who had struggled against British rule to free India, men of honor and capability. But these men died off without replacement.
Bhutto was a man without scruple, and an outsider in the Punjabi dominated ruling elite. He lived - and survived - each day by the worst kind of dealing, always seeking his own advantage at the cost of others and of his country. Betrayal, treachery, lies and corruption were his trademarks, and he kept winning till President General Zia, who proved to be personally honest, but a lot cleverer than Mr. Bhutto in the game of betrayal and treachery. Mr. Bhutto's mistake was thinking Zia was a bumbling buffoon, and he paid with his life for this fatal misestimation.
The story of Pakistan after the execution of Mr. Bhutto has been a three way drama between the Army, Mr. Bhutto's daughter, and Mr. Nawaz Sharif. Neither of the three were bothered about Pakistan, least of all the Army, which under the guise of Pakistan's patriotic defender, looted on a scale neither the Bhuttos nor the Sharifs ever managed.
Now step back a minute. Since the early 1950s, the foreign player with the greatest effect on Pakistan has been the United States, whether it was actively involved (1954-62, 1980-88, 2001-present) or overtly ignoring Pakistan.
To get money from America, the Pakistanis have repeatedly shown the Americans they are willing to sell their souls. Uncle Sam has bought when he needed, and rejected when he did not need. The Americans have known from the start that the Pakistanis are with them simply for personal gain, and not from any principle or common ground.
They have thus treated Pakistan as a client state, and acted contemptuously because they know the Pakistani leadership with sacrifice all respect to get money, and they know the Pakistanis will cheat them whenever possible.
For a variety of reasons, every time the Americans have landed up, they have managed to destabilize Pakistan at all levels - internal, political, security, what have you. This has happened because Pakistan has always been a weak polity, and with the American colonialists stomping around, its polity has taken more hits than it can stand, with the inevitable result that Pakistan is fracturing. Pakistan is doomed because of its destructive American alliance.
Let us for today skip over US-Pakistan history 2001-2008 and go straight to 2009.
The restoral of "democracy" at America's behest was so clearly destined to fail that even I, a naive observer, knew it. The war in Afghanistan has spread to Pakistan, and Pakistan at this moment is a ship that has taken so many torpedo hits it cannot stay afloat for much longer.
The Pakistani leaders know this. As is usual with them, they have reacted to this danger by becoming even more "every man for himself" than they were before. And this is as true of the Army as of the politicians, and the Army itself is fatally fractured as are the politicians.
In this situation survival for the next 24 hours has become the sole determining principle for everyone including the generals. No one trusts anyone, everyone is watching everyone, everyone is afraid they will get stabbed by others, and everyone is stabbing others.
Thus, the situation can and will change every day.
When this mess began about a week ago, President Zardari was all powerful, and both the Americans and the Army backed him. A week later, he is on his way out, the Army has withdrawn support - not from any principle, but because they know Zardari is going down, and they're helping his race to the sewer with a few well-timed kicks of their own.
The most powerful man in Pakistan today - bar the Army Chief, is Nawaz Sharif, hated by the Americans for being too accommodating of the insurgents and distrusted by the Army. After all, it was his attempt to reign in General Musharraf that began this stage of the Pakistan crisis 10 years ago.
But Nawaz is neither savior nor liberator. He is equally skilled at looting his country and at destroying democracy.
Pakistan will not gain political stability. The Army will not fight the insurgents. The Taliban will continue to advance. Indeed, the most likely scenario today is that instability and violence spread so fast and so deep that Pakistan - which has been undergoing years and years of instability and violence may reach the Afghanistan stage 1996 or the Somalia stage 2009: people will want the Taliban to take power because they can't stand anymore things as they are.
If you don't believe me, just read what the ordinary people in the North West Frontier Province say to the few journalists that get through: "We don't support the Taliban, but right now at all costs we want peace." Subset? "If the Taliban give us peace, even if it is the peace of the grave, we'll take it."
Since yesterday, when the government ignored the President and agreed to reinstate the dismissed judges, UK and US have been engaging in voracious self-congratulations about how they have defused the crisis, democracy is safe, the war against the insurgents can go on.
Children, children, children. Have you learned nothing? Don't you understand that the returning Chief Justice will not be an American or British pawn? Don't you understand that if he rules against the Bhutto-Zardari immunity deal the Americans foist on General Musharraf - which he will, because heaven forefend, he seems to be that joker in the pack, an honest civil servant - he will also insist the cases against the Sharif brothers are to go on? That just as much as Zardari will be disqualified from political office, so will the Sharifs?
If you wish, children, by all means play the game: Who next will be Pakistan's president for a day?
But that it will be for a day, and that the political crisis will worsen, that the Taliban pressure will increase, that the Army will become more divided, etc etc etc., please don't doubt.

0230 GMT March 16, 2009

President Zardari Capitulates? In a dispatch at 0200 Local Time, Jang of Pakistan says that the Government will restore the sacked Chief Justice by an executive order. This is the main demand of the lawyers, and a start on the demands of the Sharif brothers.
We suggest caution on the news report as the Pakistan media often does not thoroughly confirm its reports. In this case an opposition leader says he was told of the Government's decision by the Prime Minister, but there has been no official announcement.
If true the development could imply a split between the Prime Minister of Pakistan and his fellow power-holder in Ms. Bhutto's party, the President of Pakistan. We've seen one report where the PM is said to have stated he is against the imposition of central rule in the Punjab. The junior Sharif brother was Chief Minister of the Punjab, and getting the Supreme Court to rule both Sharifs ineligible for political office was President Zardar's bright idea to crush the opposition.
Readers will recall we'd said some time back that the President in his arrogance has even alienated his wife's party. Two People's Party of Pakistan ministers have already resigned from the national cabinet to protest the crackdown on the opposition.
IF all this plays out the way it might if the Chief Justice is indeed being reinstated, President Zardari is on his way out and possible soon enroute to exile.
But until the Chief Justice's restoration takes place, this is all speculation.
South China Sea PRC reacts to US dispatch of destroyer to protect its ocean surveillance ship by sending a patrol vessel to "protect" Chinese fishing boats off Hainan. Protect them against what?
The Xinhua report on the move does not mention the US Navy. It speaks of asserting PRC's sovereignty in the area. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/15/content_11015942.htm

0230 GMT March 15, 2009

Pakistan: Army Begins Deploying, Belying Hope Of Compromise Dawn of Karachi (0430 Local Time Sunday March 15) reports the Army is deploying to several districts and the major cities to aid the police in stopping the march of lawyers and Sharif supporters to Islamabad.
This is disappointing because earlier it seemed as if President Zardari was willing to compromise with political rival Nawaz Sharif. For example, Government says it will file a review petition with the Supreme Court asking for a review of the Supreme Court's ruling disqualifying the Sharif brothers from holding office, thus removing the major threat to President Zardari.
It now seems the move is farce designed to mollify the US and West in general. The West has been squashing Fat Head Zardari, demanding he find a peaceful compromise to the political problem.
Its a farce because pro-Zardari judges gave the ruling - at the request of the President. Unless the original judges dismissed by Musharraf are reinstated - the whole point of the lawyers' agitation - the court will not change its ruling. Mr. Zardari will not reinstate the judges particularly the fiercely independent dismissed Chief Justice because he rightly fears the CJ will go after him, including the US-brokered deal by which corruption cases against the Bhuttos were dropped - but not the cases against the Sharif brothers. It is on the basis of those cases - ruled on and ongoing - that the supreme Court disqualified the Sharifs from office.
Should the deposed CJ and other judges return, all the senior Pakistan politicians are going to get whacked, and then what will US/Pakistan do?
In the absence of information from the front, so as to speak, we cannot assume to penetrate the Army's game.
But it now seems to us the whole business of the army warning Zardari to compromise with Sharif is a misreading by the press. US does not want Sharif in power, so it's like the Army is speaking with a forked tongue.
Message 1: "Respect" democracy (think Austin Powers) because that's what our masters the Americans want. Message 2: The Americans and we are behind you in stopping Sharif from coming to power. Message 3: We are saving your Big Fat Butt, buddy, and don't forget it when we arrive to cash the IOUs we're making you sign.
Meanwhile, as it begins repressing democracy in Pakistan, the army can get all sanctimonious and primly say "We are proving we obey the civilians: they told us to roll out, we're complying."
Its a good thing the Editor has no lady at home, because after trying to figure out the Pakistan situation, the Editor is so definitely, like, "Not tonight, my dear. I have a headache."
Hurricanes and Global Warming Reader Flymike sends this URL http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/ which analyzes hurricanes over the last 35 years and finds that in 2007 and 2008, tropical cyclone activity worldwide has collapsed.
We are not disrespecting the Global Warming people. What we are saying is the issue is so complex no one has a good handle on cause-and-effect. Then for some GW fanatics to say any doubter is a fool, idiot, or charlatan is being one of those things himself.
Its doubly unfortunate that the bulk of the GW stories you and I are likely to read are those where the proponent is not a climate/weather/oceanic/atmospheric scientist and where the proponent has a vested political interest in maintaining we are all as good as dead unless X, Y, or Z is done at vast expense.
We also want to make clear that as far as Orbat.com is concerned, US needs to kick its transportation oil habit purely because of strategic considerations. If that should turn out to reduce global warming, that's a plus. But it has to be done even if we are heading into an age of global cooling.
Editor Definitely Losing It The other day the Editor was in a discussion with some amateur naval enthusiasts - the best kind of expert, by the way - and was about to rhetorically say: "The day I confuse a Spruance with a Burke you can cart me off to the Glue Factory and I will not complain." Editor did not say it - premonition, perhaps?
Because here comes a letter from Brian Schott, that is as cutting as it is brief: "The last Spruance class destroyer was decommissioned in 2005. The Chung-Hoon is an Arleigh Burke Class destroyer."
No sense saying the Editor is known to be Non Compos Mentos once the sun sets, and almost always, the daily update is written at night. But was not the Burke hull developed from the Spruance hull? Editor has a vague remembrance of that discussion near 30 years ago. And please, no letters saying "Editor has no vague remembrance, he is generally vague." Old Age deserves some respect.

0230 GMT March 14, 2009

US-PRC Naval Confrontation We were very pleasantly surprised to learn that the US Navy has dispatched a Spruance-class missile destroyer to protect the ocean survey ship that was harassed by the Chinese.

Like reader Mike Brown, the Editor had expected a "limp-wrist response", along with much brandishing of little scented lace handkerchiefs and strong oaths like "Gazdooks!"

PRC, equally to our pleasure, is going apoplectic with wrath about what they unnecessary escalation of an incident where the US was clearly wrong. It's very simple with the Chinese: if you don't stick it right back to them, they'll assume you are a coward and they will 100% stage a new, more dangerous escalation.

India, of all countries, should know this. But these last 4-5 years, as the PRC has been happily building roads all through Indian territory, the Indian response has not been limp-wristed. It has been a total "So sorry, your excellencies, that we have forced on you the inconvenience of building roads through our territory. Please whip us with limp noodles as much as you want: we deserve total humiliation and nothing else."

In case our younger readers do not know, the 1959-1962 Sino-Indian confrontation began precisely because the Chinese began building roads through Indian territory and India responded with a series of escalations that were all bombast, leading to the worst defeat the Indian Army has suffered since the fall of Singapore in 1942.

Why the Indians are letting the Chinese get away with this - again - is something we'll discuss another time. But the basic is very simple: the Government of India is composed of cowards. They are happy to pick on someone ten times smaller, but they cannot stomach the thought of standing up to someone who is a mite bigger. Nothing very complicated.

Pakistan The Pakistan Army Chief of Staff made a second visit in three days to President Zardari yesterday. The result? Best to quote the Dawn of Karachi: "At the end of a day of intense politicking and speculations, and after a midnight meeting at the Presidency, the word from the official quarters was that there was no question of giving any concessions to the PML-N if it was not prepared to back-off from the lawyers Long March. In other words: a complete deadlock." See http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/Dawn%20Content20%Library/dawn/news/pakistan/govt-opposition-fail-to-break-deadlock--za
We had a thought the other day. Has the Pakistan Army ever considered that its Always-Ready intervention stance may have prevented the growth of a genuine Pakistani democracy? Could it be that Pakistanis always fractious political leaders continue to play with self-restraint or respect for the rules because they know that Big Daddy is always there to pick up the pieces and give them a time out before things get really bad?
If we are right, the Pakistan Army is not the Savior of Pakistan, but the Doom of Pakistan.

0230 GMT March 13, 2009

Pakistan Though the Government of Pakistan denied the Army had warned President Zardari to resolve political differences with his opponent Nawaz Sharif, the denial seemed hollow when Pakistan papers themselves have said the Army chief and two senior generals called on the President to express concern about the nation's stability.

The grand opposition march to Islamabad has begun. Its ostensible aim is to get judges ousted by then President Musharraf restored. This was a joint aim with President Zardari's party when it and Mr. Sharif's party were campaigning to overthrow Musharraf. When he became President of Pakistan, Mr. Zardari found it inconvenient to restore the judges and has used them to bar Sharif and his brother from elected office. So the real aim of the march is force Mr. Zardari's machinations and for Mr. Sharif's party to be given its share of power.

A massive security crackdown on the opposition has been underway. Some local police officers in the Sharif stronghold, Punjab, are refusing to follow orders, but by and large the internal security structure is obeying.

US meanwhile has piously said it disapproves of the anti-opposition moves. Lets first be clear we completely disapprove of Us interference in Pakistan's domestic affairs. That said, had the US exercised some control over Zardari when he set about destroying the opposition, Washington's warnings might have some legitimacy. Instead, Us has done its best to see Sharif sidelined, because he is disinclined to be America's running dog in Pakistan.

Zardari has no problem being the running dog. Except in true South Asian style, he tugs his forelock in the Great White Uncle's presence and then proceeds to do exactly what he wants. This is just one of the many reasons the GWOT in the Pakistan theatre is going nowhere.

Peshawar and Kabul What do these cities have in common? They are besieged by the Taliban. Everyone is waiting for the Islamists to make their next move. In Kabul the first move was the attack on the Ministry of Justice by an 8-man squad which saw 22 killed. The attack, incidentally, was repelled by the initiative and bravery shown by individual policemen fighting the Taliban; apparently the high command was nowhere to be seen. The Kabul police chief himself allows the Taliban could take the city. Holding it would be different, as presumably the Afghan National Army and US/NATO would counterattack, but losing your capital even temporarily is not a Good Thing.

In Peshawar, things have reached the stage that senior politicians are starting to move their residences and families out of the city and the region. Flavor of rats deserting the sinking ship about this, though personally we cannot blame the politicians and security people: they are openly on the Taliban's assassination list.

Somalia Meanwhile, if you still have optimistic feelings about the GWOT, we suggest you read http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/03/somalias_rising_tide.php article on the rising tide of Islamist extremism in that country, as discussed by US officials.

Also, you will know from your local press that Somali extremists are busy recruiting expats living in the US. So much for the theory it's a sad, miserable, poverty stricken life that drives recruits to the ranks of the Islamists.

("Sad, miserable, poverty stricken life"...Gee, that almost reminds us of how many common people feel about their life in America. So do the people who feel that way now pick up guns and start shooting innocents, and will American "experts" tell us how they've been driven to it? Naaah. We suspect the "experts" will be screaming "kill them all and right now". Its easy to be a liberal when it's not your country and your neighborhood, is it not?)

0230 GMT March 12, 2009

US-PRC naval confrontation You can get the details at http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com Suffice it to say that the American ocean surveillence vessel was not engaged in dolphin research on behalf of Greenpeace. Suffice it also to say that if the PRC is going to come up with its own definitions of the Law of the Sea and claim the US had no business in what was indisputable international waters, then the US is simply going to have to protect its civilian-crewed, unarmed surveillance ships.
These ships tow classified large array sonars which, among other things, listen for submarines. The US ship was about 70 nautical miles off a Chinese submarine base and in no manner challenging or infringing on PRC sovereignty.
For PRC to object to US surveillance is laughable. We call the US action surveillance and not spying for the simple reason the Americans make no pretence of hiding what they are up to. What the Chinese do in the US, tens of thousands of times a year, is outright spying.
The uncounted number of attacks PRC makes every day on classified and unclassified US computer networks falls into a different category from spying. It is outright hostile action.
Our point here is not to pour scorn on the pathetic temper tantrums the PRC has been throwing over the incident. Our purpose is to remind Americans that while they may be forgiven for thinking they are a land power, they are first, foremost, always and last a maritime power.
The Americans have faced no challenge at sea since the end of the Soviet Union. But now a new challenger is flexing its puny muscles, and what is dangerous is the challenger shows neither understanding of the rules of maritime behavior, nor the least inclination to follow what rules it does understand.
You will see from the blog link we've given that the Chinese acted in an extremely provocative manner designed to expose the US ship - and themselves - to the gravest danger. It is only the patient skill with which the American captain handled his ship that saved this from becoming an incident in which Chinese boats were sunk and their people killed.
We'd also like to remind Americans what the Chinese did was attack an American ship, when one of the five Chinese boats involved tried to snag the US ship's towed array. The results would have been both comical and dangerous - you dont try and grab a sonar array that runs to many miles long with a boat hook. But if the Chinese boat had indeed snagged a part of an array cable, the US ship would have had to take drastic action from losing anything from the array. While the US ship is officially unarmed, it does not mean that there are no small arms aboard, and if that is not good enough, the US ship would have had to simply run over the attacking boat with consequent risk to the Chinese crew.
We expect the US response to be the typical Yellow Wimp Brigade response: after the words will come a suggestion that we need to partner with the Chinese to develop rules of procedure to avoid an escalation during these confrontations, as we did with the Russians.
We do not need either to talk, protest, or suggest developing rules of procedure. We need to quietly tell the Chinese that the next time they approach within a certain distance of US Navy ships, we will blow them out of the water.
If the US thinks the Chinese understand any other language, it is very mistaken, Do not make the mistake of mirror imagining, i.e., assuming the Chinese think like Americans. They respect only brute force, readily applied. We need place no bets when we state that right at this moment, the Chinese are loudly congratulating themselves for having faced down - and forced away - a US Navy ship.
Also do not assume that the Chinese will give primacy to the business of making money when that conflicts with their national pride. All the trade with China will be worth none of the tea in China if for the Chinese it comes to a choice between business ties and their pride, which seems to grow exponentially each year.
Speaking of guns We'd like to warn the next Euro who smugly lectures us about Americans being a violent people that he will get heavily smacked with a limp noodle. First Finland, then Germany. We aren't going to go into the Trite Phrase business and moan about what a terrible tragedy was the German school shooting in which sixteen died. It was no more a tragedy than the deaths in the most recent Baghdad bombings.
But its time the Euros became a little more humble when braying about the superiority of their way of life and about those crazy violent Americans. Like it or not, America has no monopoly of violent crazies.
This young German man was a real hero. His victims were primarily women. Of the nine students her killed, eight were girls. He killed a woman teacher trying to protect the students, and then two more women teachers as he fled when the police arrived.
He came with a single Beretta 9mm, and murdered ten people in one classroom in two minutes.
The police responded with amazing alacrity, within two minutes of receiving a call from the school. Otherwise this piece of garbage would have killed even more people in the school.
What a great poster person for the male sex. You live your entire life trying to do the right thing, and teaching your male students to do the right thing, which mostly seems to revolve around protecting women, and in a couple of minutes this scum shames all men.

0230 GMT March 11, 2009

Two developments are of much concern to the United States. First, the Pakistan situation. second, the utterly irresponsible and highly dangerous confrontation forced by the Chinese on an American surveillance ship operating well into international waters. The second matter we'll discuss tomorrow.

Pakistan

This is a simplistic background, but reasonably accurate. When US decided for its own purposes that the Pakistani autocrat, President General Musharraf, had to make way for a civilian government, it anointed Ms. Benzair Bhutto as his successor. She was in exile, the US negotiated her return to Pakistan as well as the freedom of her husband Mr. Zardari from jail, where he languished on corruption convictions. Charges against her were also dropped.
The problem became that Pakistan's other former prime minister and bitter rival of Ms. Bhutto deposed by General Musharrif, Nawaz Sharif also in exile, decided to come home. We wont go into why he was permitted, but note that the US didn't want him to become prime minister because he would not serve American interests. Charges against him were not dropped, and his various trials continued.
Before the 2008 election took place, Ms. Bhutto was murdered and her husband took over her political mantle. Mr. Nawaz Sharrif put aside his differences with Ms. Bhutto's party to fight President General Musharrif.
The Pakistan president had his own exit strategy. He planned to keep the post of Army Chief, and to get himself reelected as president - before the election. This was highly irregular, as the new president should have been elected by the new national and provincial assemblies.
The US balked at both of Mr. Musharrif's plans. It did not prove unduly difficult - for reasons we omit here - for the US to outmaneuver Mr. Musharrif, so that he had to resign as Army Chief.
When the combined political parties moved the Supreme Court to disqualify him as President, he suppressed the independent judges who would have ruled against him and no longer feared him. So he remained at his job. But he was too hated to play any role in democratic Pakistan. Once the political parties were told by the US the Army would no longer back Musharrif, the political parties went all out to make his life so miserable he had to resign. So he was out, betrayed at US insistence by the Army, and hated by everyone else, and even betrayed by the US - a story for another time.
Ms. Bhutto's party won the most seats in the election, and at first Nawaz's party worked with Mr. Zardari, her husband. For reasons unnecessary to detail here, Mr. Zardari decided to become President Zardari.
Then the trouble began with Nawaz's party. President Zardari did not want to be a constitutional president, he wanted to rule Pakistan. He began to push out Nawaz's party from centers of power, and even his wife's supporters who had never liked him.
Now, one of the big demands of the political parties while Mr. Musharrif was in power was that the sacked judges be reinstated. But Mr. Zardari, having won immunity from past charges, far from reinstating independent-minded judges forced out by Mr. Musharrif, persuaded the Supreme Court to rule that both Nawaz and his brother, the latter having become the Chief Minister of the Punjab, which is Pakistan's core, could not hold office because of convictions - which had been forced by then president General Musharrif.
Naturally Nawaz and his brother called a foul. President Zardari was unmoved. US, which had been beating Musharrif about installing democracy, saw no need to thump president Zardari's fat head about his anti-democratic tactics, because - as said earlier - US did not want Nawaz to have any power.
Problemo, dudes: the people of Pakistan such as those represented by Nawaz's party, want to see fair play. They have opened a civil disobedience campaign to culminate in a march on Lahore on March 16.
President Zardari has launched preemptive arrested and bans against demonstrations to stop the march on Lahore. US again has nothing to say about his refusal to abide by democratic norms.
So the stage is set for confrontation, and no one in Pakistan can see where it will lead except to the ruin of the country.
All US could think of is to use the Pakistan Army Chief to "stress" on President Zardari the need to avoid political confrontation. Is anyone in US Government losing sleep, or is anyone embarrassed, that US is actively using the threat of Army intervention to bash Zardari? Not a bit. You have to understand that the US stands on principle when it is advantageous, and it abandons principle when it is advantageous. It's called Win-Win. So US beat up on Musharrif on human rights, but human rights in Pakistan can now go hang.
Anyhows, enough moralizing on our part. What's going to happen? The most informed Pakistani opinion is that Zardari is too stupid and too arrogant to compromise with Nawaz, and that the Pakistan Army will "gently" nudge the President to "agree" to a new election.
What will this achieve? Precisely nothing, because if anyone has learned anything about Pakistan since the death of Mr. Jinnah, its highly principled and illustrious founder - a staunch secularist, by the way, is that the politicians of Pakistan can be guaranteed to first seek their own advantage at the expense of their people, and then to fight with each other to win the whole cake each for themselves instead of sharing it between fellow politicians. That brings instability. Which brings...
...Army rule, which makes it...
Deja vu all over again.

0230 GMT March 10, 2009

Pakistan

A major political crisis has developed to the extent the two major parties, the late Ms. Bhutto's party and Nawaz Sharif's party seem about to start fighting each other on the streets. The Pakistan Chief of Army Staff has threatened the President, Mr. Zaradari, husband of the murdered Ms. Bhutto, to stop using his power to eliminate Mr. Sharif and his party from the opposition, and given him till March 16th to come up with a solution to the political crisis.
Far from listening to the message, President Zaradari's political party has escalated tension with Mr. Nawaz Sharif's party.
The situation is both dangerous and complex. Your Editor has been working on a final exam since coming home from work, and the middle of the night is not, for him, the best time to give readers an accurate picture of the background and an analysis of where this is going.
He requests, therefore, that readers wait till tomorrow for a proper update. Its possible some defusing may take place today, presuming General Kiyani's warning has been heeded. Surely no civilian political party wants another army coup, and surely however much the ruling party hates the opposition, a compromise is preferable to being thrown out of power. With Pakistan one can never tell, but one more day may bring clarity to the situation.

0230 GMT March 9, 2009

True US Unemployment Rate is 14% and not the official 8%. The official rate does not count those who work part-time because they cannot get a full-time job, and those who have given up looking.
700 Apply For School Janitor Job You read that right: job, as in one position. This is at a school in Perry Township, Ohio. Job pays $15-$16/hour with benefits.
Stimulus Packages Land Without Parachutes Opening In other words - to quote the immortal Lord Lovatt, who during the Retreat from Burma said to his personal bagpiper, the faithful Bill, "This isn't working, old boy." He was, of course, referring to failed efforts by Bill and himself to open a rusted can of sardines they found on the road. The can had been run over by 30,000 dispirited British and Indian troops along with 8,548 vehicles ranging from Singapore pedi-rickshaws to a Royal Navy frigate. The sole tool they had at their disposal was a 4-foot, 15-pound wrench used to change tank engines, which they had found earlier.
The smart whisper around Toon Town - sorry, our nation's capital - is that the combined stimulus packages are failing to have the neccessary effect and that an additional stimulus package will be needed.
Wall Street Investors Have Lost $10-trillion as the Dow has sunk to the mid-6000s. Even if you personally do not own a single share, like the Editor, you've also lost because your 401, 403, or conventional pension is (or at least was) heavily invested in stocks.
The smart whisper around New York is that it is STILL no time to start buying stocks. The reason is that Price Earning Ratios are still at 11-1, because earnings have fallen along with prices. Everyone has their own theory, but we've heard people say 8-1 or less is when stocks start being a bargain. The optimists say buying will start after mid-year and the Dow will rise to 8000. The pessimists say the Dow will fall to 4000 before recovering.
By The Way: Editor Is Not Opposed To Stimulus Obviously a stimulus is needed. what Editor objects to is the bulk of the money has gone to bail out Fat Cats. He wants the money to go directly to the people.
Gloria Estefan, CIA Agent Code Number 8 1/2% Ms. Estefan, who is Cuba born, says the CIA once wanted to recruit her as an undercover agent. She was working as an interpreter for US Customs at Miami at the time. She says CIA wanted her for her Spanish, French, and English language skills, and she was to train at the CIA's Atlanta HQ.
"Maybe I made the decision [to do it]," she said "What better cover than going around as a singer, talking to presidents, talking to kings, close to all the people they wanted access to? So, who knows?" (Story at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/4947063/Singer-Gloria-Estefan-says-CIA-tried-to-recruit-her-as-a-spy.html ).
And your Editor thinks he has a fantastic imagination.
Shall we bother to deconstruct this story or just let it go? Maybe just a bit of deconstruction: we cannot be ungallant toward a lady.
Ms. Estefan was presumably a part-time singer when she was with US Customs at Miami. So how she would associate with kings and presidents etc. is a mystery.
It's more than likely that someone, struck by her considerable physical charms, was - um - trying to impress her. No one in the CIA would as much as have told her: "You should work for the CIA, your language skills are great" - we're assuming they wanted her as a language expert, not that there was or is any shortage of Spanish-French-English speakers. When she has not applied for any agency except Customs, for whom she is already working, and when she has not been cleared, where is the question of reporting for training to Atlanta?
As for undercover, you have to be in the Directorate of Operations, even if you work under Non Official Cover. The process of getting chosen for DO is, let's just say, rigorous. Now its always possible that someone was trying to recruit her an informant, that is another matter. But young, aspiring singers working for Miami Customs, no matter how good-looking, are not recruited as informants except to give information on drugs and exiles and the like. No kings and presidents involved. The clerk in the procurement section at Country X's MOD is who you recruit as an informant.
Though the Brits are really the past masters at this, the Americans do ask people who move in the right circles to keep them informed should they pock up anything interesting. But what right circles was young Ms. Estefan moving in at the time?
Last, if Ms. Estefan things undercover espionage is conducted by hanging around with kings and presidents who along with the sweet nothings they whisper in your ear add "and darling, no one must know, but we've just ordered six batteries of SAM-10s from Russia", then Ms. Estefan is mistaken.
Being a true undercover agent is very, very hard work. It requires an extraordinarily long list of specialized skills and a certain temperament.

0230 GMT March 8, 2009

2 UK Soldiers Killed in Northern Ireland in the first Army deaths in 12 years. Splinter IRA groups opposed to the peace accords have tried several times over the last 15 months to kill police but have been frustrated each time. The soldiers served with 38 Engineer Regiment at Antrim in Ulster. They died in a drive by shooting which also wounded two civilians.
There appears to be a connection between the incident and the revelation two days ago that UK Special Forces troops had returned to Northern Ireland to help gather intelligence on the increasing efforts of the splinter groups to create problems.
The Irish have a special dislike of the special forces because they often operated in civilian clothes and undercover, capturing and sometimes killing wanted terrorists.
Indian Army Commando Trainees No Longer To Kill/Eat Snakes because of ecological considerations. As India has has become more urbanized and the growing population has led to increased farming, snakes have lost their habitat. Among other problems this has created has been the huge proliferation of rodents who eat stored crops.
The Army says the ritual is intended to help trainees master their fear of the jungle and for survival.
Personally, we are happy to see the custom ended is rather unfair to the snakes who are simply minding their own business and doing their own thing. They have a right to live on earth as much as humans.
If the Indian Army needs to toughen up its soldiers and teach them how to feed themselves in the wild, how much better it trains its men using humans as the targets. Equity demands that the hunted be armed to level the playing field - hunting anything that doesn't have an equal chance of killing you proves nothing.
Oh wait, armies already have their men hunt and kill other men, don't they. We believe it's called warfare.
As for the survival food part, as one Indian Army information officer who underwent the training in his young days notes, there are more calories in a chocolate bar.
Lets Play Army Coup: It's That Time In Pakistan Again If Pakistan is falling apart, as the west increasingly believes, then what is to be done to stop the disintegration?
Obviously the army must take over. But wait a minute: wasn't the west saying just the other day that to save Pakistan from extremism the military had to be removed and representative democracy restored? Wasn't it the US who beat Dictator Musharrif over the head and forced him to hold elections?
Too bad the Pakistanis got rid of Dictator Musharrif and now Dictator Zardari has replaced him, Dictator Z. being a civilian but making very clear he will tolerate no political opposition, nor will he tolerate judicial limits on his power, nor will he tolerate bureaucratic limits.
Be that as it may, the west has decided that stability is more important than representative democracy, and is signaling it is not averse to the military taking over again. In fairness, west is saying nothing that Pakistanis themselves are not saying.
But lets pause for a moment. Is Pakistan falling apart? Just because Islamists are taking over more and more of the country doesn't mean the country is disintegrating. Didn't west learn in Afghanistan and in Somalia that if its stability you want, the Islamists are the people to back? Might the same thing not be true of Pakistan?
As for the west saying it cannot tolerate the Islamists because of their human rights abuses, tut tut tut. Let's pretend they are Chinese Communists. Then the west will come to love the Islamists as much as they love the Chinese Communists.

Elvira Madigan and True Love: A Short Essay

Yesterday while rapidly scanning Napster, I came across "Elvira Madigan" by Mozart. Only as it played did I realize I knew the piece as his 21st Piano Concerto. Somewhere was the thought that there was a movie by the same title.
Remembering that when Beethoven was 40 he became hopelessly infatuated with a 16-year-old he for whom he wrote two of his loveliest pieces, the Romances in F and G, and recalling his unknown Immortal Beloved, and going through the end of a painful process of falling in a previous life when I was alive and not dead as I am today, for my own sixteen year own with whom I had a tumultuous and obsessive love affair over three decades, only to see love die, as True Love must inevitably, I decided to see what Wikipedia had to say about Mozart's lady love, Elvira Madigan. People laugh at Wikipedia, but its a good place to start your research or just to jog your memory.
So I was mildly surprised that Mozart had no lady love named Elvira Madigan, and that the 21st is retroactively named because it was used as background to the 1967 film Elvira Madigan. I'd never seen the movie because though I was very much present through the Sixties, I was engaged with Other Plans, and the Sixties and myself just sort of passed each other as do Ships In The Night, with an occasional "Hail!" and "Ho!" and "It's been real!"
So naturally I looked up the movie, which - again to my surprise - has a basis in a real life 19th Century Scandinavian story of a young circus performer who at age 20 fell in love - and vice versa - with an aristocratic Swedish cavalry officer, 14 years her senior, who happened to be married with two children. The age gap was not as much as between my sixteen year old and myself, but it sufficed to create an instant rapport.
Until I read the story. Elvira Madigan and Lieutenant Count Sixten Sparre - an extraordinarily handsome name for an extraordinarily handsome soldier - had a doomed affair via mail for a year, doomed because he could not formally leave his wife and children. Then in the late spring of 1889, he abandoned his family and ran away with Elvira to a forest in Denmark. They spent a month together. When they ran out of money, they packed a picnic and went into a secluded forest. There they had their last meal and last moments together after which the Count shot Elvira with his service revolver and then shot himself.
Now, I fancy myself as a bit of an expert on True Love, something I pursued for 50 years at the cost of everything else, and the instant I read of their end, not only did red flags begin dropping all over the place, alarms and sirens went off in deafening cacophony.
After a month their money runs out so they decide to kill themselves? This made absolutely no sense at all. True lovers kill themselves only when there is no way back for them. For example, Hero and Leander. He nightly swam the Hellespont, a very hard, treacherous swim, to be with Hero in her tower, and at daybreak he swam back, a superhuman performance. One night he drowned as he approached her tower in a storm, and Hero threw herself off a cliff to join him in death.
Where was the doom in running out of money? Couldn't the feller simply get a job? She already had a job, with her circus. So you cant live without her, shoot yourself, be my guest, but why would she agree to a suicide pact?
The alarms were still going off when I read another Wikipedia article which said there was controversy after the lover died. Her family said she wanted only to get away from the circus and thought the Count was her way out; that she full of fun and life and fancy free and would not have wanted to die over a man; and that the position of the bodies as found left open a suggestion the Count had shot Elvira as she lay asleep. The implication is that the Count could not live without Elvira, and the decision to kill her and himself was unilateral. And please remember, Elvira was a circus performer, and presumably one tough lady quite capable of looking after herself. No doom here.
So okay, Wikipedia is not to be relied on for your doctoral thesis, but this was a real life story and clearly there existed enough loose ends to cast doubt on the notion of doomed lovers killing themselves rather than face a future without each other. This quite apart from the structural facts of the love affair itself, which has no indication of doom.
Myself, I am also quite a tough customer in the matter of True Love, having broken up with several True Loves during the course of my life, but honestly, I was absolutely revolted and upset about the story. I kept thinking "This is so wrong, he had no right to kill her. Killing himself was his choice; what she chose to do after is her business. This is not true love, this is murder and selfishness carried to its logical extreme."
It was only when I decided to write about the story was I able to cope with it.
The moral that Great Grandpa Ravi wants you, the reader, to walk away with is this. If you really love someone truly, and things are not working out, it is your duty to let that person go. That is the measure of true love. Even if Elvira wanted to die with her count, it was wrong for him to agree, and even more wrong to take her life. His duty to her was to tell her to forget him, and at the minimum to escort her back to her family and circus.
He did not live up to his duty. He was neither an officer nor a gentleman, and no poster for True Love. He was just a cheap murderer, no different from the men who kill their wives or girlfriends and sometimes, horrifyingly, their children too, because they cannot bear to lose them to another man, and then kill themselves to escape the consequence of their murder.

0230 GMT March 7, 2009

Sri Lanka The Army says rebels are down to a strength of 400. They are trying to recruit to increase strength to 4000, but that will not happen. Rebels control 45 square-kilometers and have some 122mm howitzers and 130mm guns in the pocket.
US Starts Moving Afghanistan Cargo Through Russia Shipments originating at Riga on the Baltic have begun. The cargo crosses Russia to Kazakhstan and thence to Afghanistan. US plans to upgrade Temrez in Turkmenistan, the rail terminal just across the Afghan border in the northwest to expedite cargo movement.
Infamous US Abu Gharib K9 MP Killed In Afghanistan This is the MP who has his dog baring its fangs at a chained, naked POW. The dog looks as if it is preparing to attack and the POW is in a complete state of fear.
The soldier was discharged from the Army five years short of the time needed for a pension. He tried to reenlist but was not permitted. He joined a private security firm which sent him to Afghanistan with another dog to clear IEDs. His vehicle ran into mines, killing him and the dog.
The ex-soldier was said to be bitter because, he said, he was only following orders at Abu Gharib and believed he had been hung out to dry.
We sympathize with the soldier, but the average US serviceperson is well educated; he may be unclear on the finer points of Geneva, but he should also know that unleashing an attack dog on a chained prisoner is - shall we put it politely - not standard treatment for POWs.
That said, we find it difficult to suggest what soldiers in such positions could have done. To say they should have refused to follow orders they believed illegal misses the point that the soldiers were repeatedly assured the orders were legal. For a soldier not to obey a legal order is to land him in a world of pain about which no civilian has the least knowledge.
The correct procedure in such case is for the soldier, as soon as possible, to quietly document orders/conversations/events etc., and send the documents/recordings whatever to a safe place. That way he has some cover.
Indian Troop Offer For Afghanistan We asked Mandeep Singh Bajwa, our south Asia correspondent, if he had any follow-up on his story that India had offered the United States 120,000 troops for Afghanistan. Mr. Bajwa replied that the US knows about the offer, but Washington still has not decided to abandon Pakistan. Until the US makes that decision, it cannot accept the offer as accepting will destroy ties with Pakistan. The Indians, says Mr. Bajwa, are confident the US will sooner or later take that decision.

0230 GMT March 6, 2009

Bad News Day

Searched and found nothing of interest: Washington Post, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Haartez, Debka, Times of India, Dawn (Pakistan), Jang (Pakistan), Der Speigal, Le Monde, BBC, Reuters, Times London, Independent (UK), Corriere del Sera, RIA-Novosti, Asahi Shimbun.

No one can say we didn't try.

And we don't have anything to rant about either.

Instead, here's a few random astrophysics facts:

How far away is the nearest universe? Somewhere between one millimeter and the width of one atom says brane theory.
How can we live in a universe of five or more dimensions and yet perceive only four? Since dimensions higher than our standard three are hard for us to conceive, think of an analogy. Take a section of an oil pipeline and put it on a level plain. The pipe has three dimensions. But look at it from a distance, and you will see just one dimension - a line. Come closer and you'll see it has length and width. Come even closer, and you see it has three dimensions - length, width, and depth.
Entry to other universes via a Black Hole Its generally accepted that a black hole warps time-matter-space sufficiently that if you could survive travel through one, you'd enter another universe. The problem is not just the well-known problem that gravitational forces would rip you apart, but light inside the black hole keeps bouncing around and its radiation gets stronger with each bounce (we haven't figured this one out). So the radiation will kill you even if you figure out how to deal with the gravity.
There is an exception, and it's called a Kerr Black Hole, after the New Zealand astrophysicist of eponymous fame. This black hole spins so slowly that you wont get ripped apart.
Each time you go around the inside of a Kerr Black Hole you will enter a different universe. Think of an ant on a spiral slinky: after each 360-degree circuit, the ant can jump off and it will be in a different universe. (This analogy is ours, and since we are not astrophysicists, it may be imprecise, but it works.)
Should you want to create a universe in your kitchen you may need only an ounce of matter. (Don't ask us to explain this one, but in theory you can create your own universe in your kitchen. See http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125591.500

Other universes may have different physical constants

Light moved 10⁶⁰ times faster than today, immediately after the Big Bang This one remains a bit of a puzzle to us; explanations welcome.

0230 GMT March 5, 2009

Bangladesh Because the Army has begun taking over border outposts from the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles, as a precaution India says it has moved a battalion of the Parachute Brigade from its Agra base to Kaliakunda, a major airbase in West Bengal.
Sounds a bit odd to us: India is good friends with the current civilian regime, and the Bangladesh Army is not about to invade India, last we heard. India has several army divisions in the East, why get the Bangladeshis upset and worked up at a time the country is in an uproar, by moving troops in a pointedly obvious manner?
India Cruise Missile Test is successful, after a January failure. The Brahmos missile is already deployed with the Indian Navy, the air-launched version is to be tested. We're assuming the Army version will replace the bulky, liquid-fuelled Prithvi already equipping perhaps 3 Army missile groups. The missile tested was for the Army and fire from a vertical launcher. Range is 290-km.
Titter There Twitter and then there's Titter. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton deserves a Titter. she has "warned" Israel over the latter's plan to expand settlements.
So, let's see. Israel has been expanding settlements in occupied Palestine since when? Gosh, could it be since 1967? And Israel is going to stop because Mrs. Clinton says to stop? Who is going to make the Israelis stop the expansion, Mrs. Clinton and which army? Titter.
America Has No Monopoly On Lunatics a favorite pastime of the world media - UK media foremost - is to ridicule the bizarre things that happen in America. And heaven knows, we in America see a lot of bizarre things. But here's one from UK. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5847911.ece
The gent in question stabbed to death one person and wounded others. When told one of the victims had died, he told the police: "Yeah, sweet." He rejected notions of his responsibility. He said the victims had run onto his knives.
So, our friends in the UK: you see now why the death penalty in the US is so popular. No one really cares if it deters crime or not: sensible people armed with statistics convincingly argue the case both ways. Its not deterrence people want. Its vengeance, and Americans are honest about it. Come on now, Brit friends: don't you want vengeance, just a little bit? Don't be afraid to say yes, we wont think less of you. To want vengeance is human, when the matter involves a remorseless killer.
From Jonathon Coldspring On Interest Rates You can be upset all you want about low rates right now, but if you understood the mechanisms at work you wouldn't blame the fed. Yields are a product of demand and supply. The Treasury are the ones creating extreme amounts of supply right now. Of course things are so messed up that everyone is in panic and rushing to buy the treasuries. So despite the excessive supply, rates are going to near zero right now because of the free market, the Fed isn't doing a thing. Same thing with the short term rate, the demand is so high that yields are
naturally at zero.
Now could the Fed actively try to force rates higher? Maybe, but that would be bad. When they warn of systemic failure, they mean it. The are aware of the problems you cite, but consider far worse the consequences of the alternative. The systemic failure is that perfectly well run banks are at risk of going bust, lots of them, because there is no liquidity in the system. It came close to seizing up entirely multiple times. This doesn't mean that just the big bad
investment banks go, but all of the community banks and conservative banks that did nothing wrong. All of the business, small and large, that depend on some degree of credit for daily operations (which is all of them) would be at risk. Does it suck to bail out these jackasses? Yes. The alternative is simply too dire to contemplate
though.
Much of this is the result of simple accounting rules. As liquidity contracts and prices deflate rapidly, firms that were holding investments/debt for the longterm are forced to take mark to market losses on their balance sheets. This is not a real cash loss, but it appears so on their sheet and can trigger bankruptcy, or eliminate their ability to get credit for over night operations. At the very
least banks in this position become even less able to lend money to
customers, deepening the crisis.
The only solution is to get money flowing again, and for that we need low rates. We also need to stop the chain reaction before it spreads to totally viable companies which means some regrettable bailouts. Does it suck? Yes, but to paraphrase Dr. Strangelove, its a choice between two regrettable yet distinguishable post crisis economies. One where we have 10%-12% unemployment, and another where we have 30%.
Oh and one more thing on the issue of rates and mechanisms- The Fed
only sets short term interest rates. These influence long term rates,
but there are other more powerful forces at work. My point is that
retirees don't depend on ST bonds for retirement, they depend on long
term Treasuries which the Fed doesn't directly control, and one could
argue that their ability to influence these is limited at best. When
treasury rates are low it simply means that the rest of the world
wants to lend us money, so technically you should be blaming the
governors of the rest of the world's economies for low rates.
Editor But the rate cuts haven't worked. So the Government wanted multi-trillion dollar bailouts. That hasn't worked either. Government's solution? Double the bet again. What happens if this doesn't work? We know what common people are paying for the bad decision of at the Fed, Treasury, Government, banks, car companies etc., But what cost is being imposed on these lofty decision makers?

0230 GMT March 4, 2009

Japan sending Aegis Destroyers of DPRK Coast The Kongo and Chokai, armed with the ABM interceptor the Standard 3, are to station themselves off DPRK in the event Pyongang's satellite launcher's trajectory takes it over Japan, advertently or inadvertently. Japan says it will shoot down the launch vehicle if it appears to be threatening Japan. Patriot batteries are also involved in this exercise, should a point-defense interception become neccessary.
Analysts are overthinking this launch and Japanese/US reactions to it. They say if the Japanese miss, it will cast in doubt their ABM program. Hmmmm. Last we heard, the program has been declared operational by the US, on a minimum operating capability basis, not by the Japanese. The Japanese have fired just twice against target missiles, "killing" one and missing one. It is still an experimental program, even for the US. If there is a miss, nothing will be lost.
Then, say analysts, if the Japanese fire, this will infuriate DPRK. Yawn. Does anyone care what this rogue state thinks? If it doesn't want to be infuriated, let DPRK make sure their launch vehicle goes nowhere near Japan.
By the way, are we supposed to believe that if the US was carrying out missile launches off Kamchatka or the Soviets were testing of the Florida coast, neither side has a right to be concerned for its security and that it should not take precautions? So why should Japan not take precautions? You aren't dealing with "normal" people when you talking about DPRK.
Attack on Sri Lanka Sports Team: A Touch of Hypocrisy? So the visiting Sri Lanka cricket team was attacked by 12-14 gunmen in the heart of Lahore. Five police guards and the driver of a following bus were killed; the bus with the team was saved except for some injuries when the bus driver floored his accelerator and drove straight through the ambush. In case anyone cares, that the standard counter-ambush strategy soldiers are taught.
So all of a sudden, the world is focused on terror in Pakistan outside of the NWFP and everyone is going blah blah blah. Folks, where were you when ordinary Pakistanis are killed every day in these attacks? Terror in Pakistan's heartland comes into view only when foreigners are targeted, and is barely visible when Pakistanis are attacked?
Fatah-Hamas To work Toward Reconciliation with the aim of a unity government. They are meeting in Cairo.
Another victory for Hamas. Till the latest Gaza war, Fatah was working with Israel and US to get rid of Hamas. Now Fatah is discussing joining hands with its enemy.
Wonder what will happen to all the aid if a unity government is formed. Donors say they will give no aid to a Hamas government because the movement is officially listed as terrorists.
Meanwhile, Israel has filed a complaint with the UN Security Council over the continued firing of rockets. Israel has every right to complain. We accept the people of Palestine are oppressed. That doesn't give anyone the right to attack civilians. Just as the Israelis are wrong to punish the Palestinian civilians, so is Hamas wrong to punish Israeli civilians.
Sri Lanka Army: 3-km to go The Army says it took the key road junction in the last town which remains with the insurgents, and that it has 3-km further to advance before the town falls completely. This is the last insurgent stronghold, after that its the jungle for them. even there, just a few villages stand between Sri Lanka and the end of the insurgents as an organized fighting force. It will back to Stage 1 - terror attacks - for the insurgents.

0230 GMT March 3, 2009

Bangladesh Army Revises Missing Officers Downward saying initial confusion was caused because no one knew how many officers were at the meeting on base. Now the toll is 56 officers dead, 40 rescued alive, and 7 missing, i.e., 103 officers versus initial estimates of 135. But what the new figure means is that many more wives of officers have been killed.
SAM-14 In Afghan Taliban's Hands? So US intelligence believes, after two missiles were found by American troops. US believes Iran is shipping missiles to the Taliban in Helmand province, where UK troops are in the lead.
The West Is A Strange Country First the west stood aside as Israel demolished Gaza. Then it pledges $5.2-billion in recovery aid as guilt money. West seems to be determined to say: "We hate those Hamas terrorists, but have nothing against the Palestine people." West loves the Palestinians so much that it does nothing about the economic blockade, which prevents, among other things, import of cement and steel required to rebuild. Rationale? The materials can be used to make Kassams.
May we interrupt this orgy of self-gratification West indulges in to ask a simple question? Why are you rebuilding so that Israel can just bomb the place to dust next time around?
And the US heads the list of peculiar people US gives billions in military aid every year so Israel can do its "bombs away" trip. Then the US gives Gaza $900-million to repair the damage.
By the way, $900-million would give $1500/month unemployment for a year to 50,000 families who do not qualify for benefits for any number of reasons. Don't Americans matter any more?
Sure, hard times is no excuse not to help other less fortunate. But when I help someone, I do it of my own violation. Did the US Government ask me, just another Joe Shmuck American taxpayer, if I want money to go to the Palestinians? No it did not. And in truth, while when it comes to Palestine civilians I am very anti-Israeli Government, I don't want money going to Palestine when the Israelis are going to destroy everything the next chance they get. If US Government wants to help the Palestine people, why doesn't it force a solution on the region?
US Government is give AIG ANOTHER $30-billion. The reason ""Given the systemic risk AIG continues to pose and the fragility of markets today, the potential cost to the economy and the taxpayer of government inaction would be extremely high," the Federal Reserve said in a statement."
Dear Federal Reserve: I know I speak for millions of Americans when I say to you: "Take your systemic risk and stuff it somewhere unmentionable." I am no longer interested in your stupid self-rationalizations. The Dow is heading south of 7000, and all the retirees and near retirees who did the right thing by saving money have been wiped out by your constant lowering of the interest rate. After committing a few trillion as bail-outs, I now have to be told that the US economy has become so dependent on handouts that when the "stimulus" money stops, the US is going to get into a second recession? So whatcher gonna do then? Print another $10-trillion and default on the US global debt and put us through 10% daily inflation?
People keep saying that those who got us into this mess should pay. In case it's escaped your Giant Minds, this means also YOU, dear Federal Reserve. You all need to be set to cleaning sewers for $6/hour, the level you bozos define as poverty level in the US. You are simply just another part of the gross corruption that has enveloped the US for the last 40 years and is putting this country on track to becoming a bannana republic.
I'm warning you: DONT MAKE ME COME THERE AND WHIP YOUR STUPID BUTTS WITH A LIMP NOODLE. Take your face out of the public trough and hie yourselves over to a poor country and dig wells or something productive. You aren't worth the $150,000/year or whatever you get paid.

0230 GMT March 2, 2009

Bangladesh Mutiny Bodies recovered now total 81, none of the remaining missing officers have been found. Approximately 20 women, including officers' wives, are also feared murdered.
Bangladesh Army says it will establish special tribunals to dry mutineers and those guilty of murder will be executed.
South Asia thrives on conspiracy theories, but if we denote the depth of an average South Asia as X, in West/East Bengal you have to go X⁴ . That said, this theory as reported by the Times of India is a doozy. The Bangladesh Prime Minister is said to have asked for FBI help because some of the mutineers captured speak of a businessman who is close to the Prime Minister's chief rival, and also close to Pakistan intelligence. Phew. Our information is it is none of the above.
A surviving officer says only a few of the Bangladesh Rifles men were involved. Many BDR men tried to help the officers.
Incidentally, as the mutiny broke out, several thousand men slipped away from the base because they did not want to be involved in what was happening.
Both facts above strengthen our theory about the perps.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Army has in custody and is looking for a total of 1000 suspects believed guilty of arson and murder. Readers do need to realize that military court martials are designed to very quickly squash mutinies or other major disturbances. The standard of evidence required to hang a soldier is much lower than in civilian court. A lot of blood is going to flow, and our information is this too is part of the perps plans. In this particular case, please note that the Bangladesh Army is going to be victim, judge, jury, and executioner. The Army is in a state of barely controlled rage. The prognosis for accused mutineers is not good.
Iran Has Material For One N-Weapon says a senior US commander. The opinion is based on information Iran now has 1000-kg for low-enriched uranium, around 3%, and is an extrapolation assuming the material is further enriched, to 90%+.
Alas, were it that simple. Take it from your kindly Editor, Iran is not going to make a bomb out of that amount of material.
Are we saying there is no threat? Of course there's a threat. If those fuel rods are used to feed a plutonium production reactor, you could get a bomb. We're not saying you get it from the assumed quantity of Low Enriched Uranium, but presumably Iran will continue producing the stuff and sooner or later it will have enough plutonium for a bomb.
But those of us who have fantasies about striking Iran, it looks as if we can just forget about that happening.
Rockets From Palestine Continue To Hit Israel As of yesterday the count since the end of the Gaza operation is 81, according to Debka.com's count. Jerusalem Post says a heavier warhead/longer range version of the Kassam is being fired, and in two cases Grad rockets, which are more powerful than the Kassam's, were used.
Meanwhile, as soon as Prime Minister Olmert steps down he will be arrested to stand trial in a corruption case.
Ice Pack Correction While total global ice pack is much the same as in 1979, the Northern Hemisphere ice has diminished. We assume ice in the Antarctic has increased. One reason we don't much broach the subject of global cooling vs. global warming is this is a very, very technical subject and from what we can tell, very few experts have a complete understanding. There seem to be dozens of major variables, and a lot of dispute about many of them. This field of knowledge seems particularly vulnerable to quotation of selected data.
For example, we just learned from http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ that the Northern Hemisphere routinely goes down each summer by 10-million square kilometers: it starts at 13+, goes down to 3+, and then climbs back up to 13+. And we know someone is going to come right back and say: "Yes, but the thick old ice has been diminishing for the last 40 years."
Our position is simple: let's see what happens by 2011-2013. If it's global cooling we need to worry about, Editor has a solution: every human on earth will have to eat a hundred kilos of black beans every day. and we know someone is going to come right back and say: "Editor has the mind of a 6th Grader." That might be the only correct fact that everyone can agree on.

0230 GMT March 1, 2009

We're supposed to be writing the daily update but nothing seems to grab our interest. Bangladesh: more bodies of officers found, including that of the wife of the Bangladesh Rifles commander. Their teenage son is missing. Several bodies are mutilated. Wives of army officers were assaulted. Zimbabwe: another land invasion is taking place as the last of the white owned farmed are seized by Mugabe's goons. We assume the Mugabe faction senses the end is in sight and wants to loot as much as it can. Canada A Russian Bear bomber was turned away from Canadian airspace by two fighters hours before President Obama arrived. Russian embassy says it sees no significance in the flight, which it says is routine. Venezuela President Chavez seizes all rice processing plants because, he says, they are exploiting the people. Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu makes no headway in his efforts to get Livni's Kadima to join his coalition. Ireland Low budget airline Ryanair considers a charge to use airplane bathrooms. Iraq withdrawal Americans relieved by the deadline set by President Obama, are prepared to see boost in Afghan forces. Pakistan President Zaradari dismisses Punjab government after supreme Court upholds ban on Sharif brothers (we'll talk about this tomorrow). Global warming US casually says its satellites underestimated formation of Arctic ice by an area equal to California; i.e., the ice is increasing. Meanwhile other records show Earth has cooled slightly in the last ten years. Another account says polar bear population increasing.

Yawn. This is even more boring than Editor's geometry classes. The other day, five of his six sections agreed his class was the most boring in school, but one section said there was a science teacher who was even more boring. Editor's self-confidence completely shattered.

So, unsurprisingly, Editor turns to something more interesting, a theory that time has two dimensions, not one. That is, time does not move in a straight line, but moves on a plane. Thus, it is possible to go back in time and change events. Editor is trying to figure out how to get on this plane, because he wants to remedy his No Date on Saturday Night situation (or any other nights, or days, or afternoons, or evenings, or mornings, or any time at all). Problem is, as far as Editor can figure, is this a bit like a 2D creature figuring there have to be other dimensions, but since he is stuck on a 2D plane he can never experience the other dimensions. Matters not helped by the theoreticians saying that for time to have two dimensions, space has to have four, and then M-theory should have 13 dimensions, and not 11. Editor has just been able to get his mind around the idea of a 5th Dimension (which is space: a 5D being can travel instantly from any point in the universe to another without warping space) and now people are creating problems again.

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