0230 GMT October 31, 2009

• Pakistan needs better propaganda On Page 8A, Washington Post October 30, 2009, is a photograph of Pakistani soldiers stacking captured "Taliban" arms. There are some ATGM launchers of indeterminate age plus MBRL rounds, Unless Pakistan gave these items to the Mesud Taliban when all was love and kisses, they date from the Soviet era and their usefulness can be debated.
• But - fair enough. ATGM launchers and MBRL rounds are not carried around by ordinary people, even if this is the NWFP.
• But the array of rifles is highly problematical. About two dozen rifles are visible, along with what may be an LMG and a rather decrepit barrel of what might be a dismounted AFV machinegun. Of the rifles, 2+ are AK-47s. The rest are bolt action rifles, carbines, possibly a single-barrel shotgun, and at least one, possibly two of what look like flintlocks, the long barrel jezzails of the late 19th Century.
• We may be from Iowa, but we do know the Taliban does not carry bolt-action rifles, carbines, and jezzails. These are the weapons of the poorest civilian tribals, who cannot afford the Wal-Mart priced knocked-off AK-47s from the Frontier's indigenous armories, let alone real AK-47s.
• We have no clue what the Pakistan ISPR thought when it handed out the photograph, but generally, when you are making a huge hoo-ha about bitter battles against harden Taliban fighters, it's not a good idea to display weapons taken from poor tribals, possibly after you have killed them.
• Moreover, that Pakistan was unable to stage a good show of modern weapons leads us to believe it is not killing Taliban in any noteworthy number.
• Japan-US ABM Test Defense News has more details on the October 28, 2009 test. The Japanese ship was the Aegis missile destroyer Myoko, becoming the third JMSDF destroyer to be certified for the Standard 3. The missile was a 1A version, and intercepted a target launched from Hawaii at an altitude of 150+ kilometers. The US ships that were part of the exercise were the destroyer USS Paul Hamilton and the Missile Defense Agency test ship, the cruiser USS Lake Erie. The destroyer Kongo was the first Japanese Aegis ship and was certified in 2007; the Chokai was certified in 2008, and the Kirishima has yet to complete her Aegis transformation.
• For your directory of useless facts: the Japanese Aegis destroyers are named after Imperial Japanese Navy battleships. Kirishima was mortally wounded by the US battleship Washington in 1942, in the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, the first battleship-to-battleship fight of the Pacific War, and was scuttled by the IJN. The ship was hit by 9 16-inch and 40+ 5-inch rounds fired at ~5000-meters, which is not a range at which you want to engage a US battleship. Apparently Washington managed to close undetected during the night battle. http://www.combinedfleet.com/Kirishima.html
• Reader C. Raggio sends a link http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/30/afghanistan.costs/index.html to a CNN article saying 40,000 more troops will cost the US $20-billion a year for Afghanistan. We do not know how the Pentagon calculates costs, but the real figure will be closer to $1-million/year,
• Be that as it may, you gotta spend what you gotta spend in a war, though we have oft said in a counter-insurgency you need to keep your costs seriously down because CIs go on for 10, 20, sometimes 50 years. You have to fight CIs on a Defense-Lite budget.
• That isn't the point of our comment. The article says: "But one official noted that if that plan is put into effect, additional forces would be needed to be sent to areas that the Taliban might then flee, such as the northern region."
• Exactly. That's why its dishonest of anyone to say - "oh, we need 40,000 troops to turn this around." First, this will triple the Afghan commitment from two years ago when things were going well.
• This means that - as always, and didn't be learn this lesson in Vietnam - you proposes, the enemy disposes. The reason the count needs to triple to stabilize Afghanistan is that the enemy has reacted to previous injections of forces. They will react to the 40,000 too, so that more will be needed.
• For this reason, the US must train more Afghan forces, not send more of its own troops. US has a phobia about training locals, because everything has to be done to US standard. Well, no one can match US standard, so the Americans always want their own troops.
• Wrong. Lawrence of Arabia used to say you have to let the locals do the job, however badly they do it by your reckoning.
• For example, US/NATO are going bananas that Afghan recruits are illiterate.  It's common for western trainer to throw up their hands and exclaim: "What are we supposed to do when the men cannot even read or write!"
• What are you supposed to do? You're supposed to train them, that's what you're supposed to do, dumbo. If you don't know how to train illiterate soldiers, look to yourself.
• Reader Luxuembourg sends a link to a story http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvr9bt7zu5ixL9z6g3p8ViQ72pWQD9BJPMK00 that says a UN official has said US drone attacks amount to extra judicial killings and calls on the US to explain how it arrives at the decisions re. targets.
• Our first reaction: serve you right, America. You've been beating up everyone else on human rights when it suits your political purposes, time you got smacked.
• Our second reaction: sadly, war is itself an extrajudicial killing. No one killed in a war is tried in court, convicted, and has punishment imposed. Ah, our UN official might say, but the US has not declared war. True enough. But just because you declare war doesn't make killing judicial. Many more innocents die than combatants, and where is the justice in that.

0230 GMT October 30, 2009

• Al-Qaeda, Pakistan terror groups deny role in Peshawar blast The bomb blast yesterday killed 106 people, mainly women and children. Our suspicion is that since this attack has created revulsion in Pakistan the guilty party, whomever it may be, is distancing itself from the deed.
• Russia offers helicopters for Afghanistan says RIA-Novosti. But before anyone gets excited, the offer is solely for helicopters to be supplied on commercial terms. Russian Government has not offered to send a contingent.
• Karl Marx foretold fall of US dollar in 1857 says - who else? - Pravda of Russia. The man must have been an absolute prophet. The US dollar did not rise till 1944. Marx was not able not just to foresee the dollar's rise to supremacy, but its fall fifty years later. We're impressed.
• The problem is tat nowhere in the article itself does it say anything about Marx. Looks Pravda is suffering from the Washington Post Syndrome 34: headlines that have nothing to do with the article.
• http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/17-10-2009/109936-marx_dollar-0
• Talking about the Washington Post...For the second time, yesterday, we saw a reference to US nuclear power plants referred to as a "fleet". But for this we cannot entirely blame the WashPo, because we just saw a reference to the US nuclear power plant "fleet" in an engineering magazine.
• Strange sort of fleet, rooted as it to the earth. Maybe after midnight US power plants sail about the oceans and get back to their foundations before dawn.
• The magazine, Power Engineering, has an interesting fact: simply by upgrading several N-reactors, US is adding 5-GW of power in the next - we guess ten years from the article - in addition to 1-GW added in the last five years. That's the equivalent of six N-reactors of typical US size.
• Successful ABM Test A Japanese destroyer successfully intercepted a medium-range target using a Standard 3. Two US Aegis warships were also involved in the exercise.

0230 GMT October 29, 2009

Pakistan and Terror

Ravi Rikhye

• Strictly in my personal capacity, I offer deep sympathies to the people of Pakistan in this time of their sorrow.
• Nonetheless, the long road that has led to its present stage of a brutal internal war must be examined.
• In 1947, according to the rules of the Partition of India, princely states on the border of India and Pakistan could decide which country they wanted to join, purely on the ruler's decision.
• The Kashmir ruler tried to play every side off the other till Pakistan sent irregulars to seize the state. This naked act of aggression led the ruler to sign for India, and the 1947-48 War resulted. Pakistan ended up with about 40% of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, and India with 60%.
• In 1965, without provocation, Pakistan again sent irregulars to seize Kashmir. The 1965 War was the result.
• In 1971, when East Pakistan revolted against the West, the Pakistan launched a genocide for which no one has been punished. East Pakistan revolted because their leader won the elections freely. East Pakistan leaders had been Prime Minister of Pakistan before, there was no reason why Sheikh Mujabir Rehman could not have been allowed to form the Government.
• But there was, and is, something in the makeup of the Pakistani generals that tends them to release brutal repression when democratic results are not to their liking.
• India supported East Pakistan, and the 1971 War resulted.
• Sometime around 1980, India, still angry at Pakistan over the three wars and the constant state of tension between the two countries, decided to aid secessionists in Pakistan's Sindh province. India had earlier, in a minor way, aided the Balouch separatists but Pakistan suppressed that insurgency, using tactics that would today have its generals on trial at the Hauge. There was a difference between Indian infiltration and Pakistani infiltration. Pakistan sought to annex Kashmir; the "freedom fighters" were Pakistani-raised, equipped, trained, and led by regular Pakistani officers. India merely sought to create separatism, it had no interest in taking over any part of Pakistan.
• In the early 1980s began the process by which America and Pakistan worked together to create the jihadis who defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan. But even as that war was in full swing, in the mid-1980s, for the third time, Pakistani jiohadis began infiltrating Kashmir. This undeclared war lasted 25 years and still continues at a low level.
• And in 1994, Pakistan began using jihadis to take over Afghanistan.
• After 2001, the United States duplicitously permitted Pakistan to continue the jihadi war against India while the US fought jihadis in Afghanistan. And against all legality, the US continues to support Pakistan, which is a terrorist state because of whose actions Americans are being killed, let alone Indians. Meanwhile, America has released huge volume of global warming gas condemning Pakistan, while continuing to fund Pakistan so that its government can continue funding, hosting, training, equipping and - yes - even leading these insurgents and terrorists who fight America.
• One day the American people will demand an accounting from their government for its eight years of treason, and I'll leave it to the American people to sort out their leaders. I'll leave to the Indian people to sort out their leaders on the matter of why the Government of India allies itself with America, the one country that has kept Pakistan from collapsing for over 50 years, and that keeps turning a blind eye to Pakistan terror against India.
• Here I will confine myself to a single point. Pakistan is a highly dysfunctional state that has from days of its birth unleashed war against its neighbors. It does not know the ways of peace. It only knows the way of subversion and killing, be it against its own people, or its neighbors.
• That one day the insurgents and jihadis would turn against Pakistan was not anticipated. Indeed, it is only because the US has been pushing Pakistan to fight its own troops, the Taliban, that the jihadis have turned against Pakistan.
• If the United States thinks that Pakistan can crush its own jihadis, it is sadly mistaken. This is because Pakistan will continue to use jihadis as an extension of its army. Pakistan has a suicide complex that first became highly evident in 1971. Its leaders, civil and military would really rather die than accept peace.
• Do not think that Pakistan's civilian leaders are innocent. They may hate the Army for its power, but they 100% support the Army's goals against India and Afghanistan. They are complicit every step of the way.
• When states have been at war so long, against their neighbors and against their own people, it becomes impossible for them to shift the paradigm from war to peace.
• None of the above prevents me from sympathizing with the ordinary people of Pakistan. They did not create the irregulars, they did not create the Taliban. Had they been given a chance, I have no doubt they would have opted for peace with India, perhaps even a confederation with free trade and free movement. But their leaders never gave the Pakistani people a chance. Their leaders have oppressed the Pakistan people for decades, and they would rather see the country burn that give up their power. Pakistani people are as much victims of their own governments as they are of the Taliban.
• This is the reason I offer my sympathies.

0230 GMT October 28, 2009

NWFP Update

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/taliban_army_clash_t.php

We didn't update yesterday not because of homework, but because we were working on orbat updates. This is something where once the editor gets started, he doesn't look to left or right, he just bashes on. By the time he looked at the clock it was a few hours later, and too late to update.

• Please add to your Taliban categories As everyone except the Washington Post knows, there are many different categories of Taliban. To the usual categories, please add the US contractor Taliban. These are the Taliban groups US contractors pay off to ensure security for its convoys and other things. These Taliban take their job very seriously: once a deal has been made that they will take a convoy safely from Point A to Point B for X dollars, come heck or high water, your convoy will reach.
• Of course, each Taliban group has many different ventures, so it is not as if there are groups that only escort US convoys. The same lot could be running drugs and attacking the Afghan government in their province or district. They could be attacking a US convoy that uses other someone else for protection, say a local warlord.
• Very complicated.
• Pakistan Brigadier escapes assassination attempt says Dawn of Karachi. This officer is in charge of the Defense Security Guards at GHQ, who are sort of a paramilitary force for protection of defense installations. A lone gunman attacked the officer, who was on private business in his private car. Fortunately his driver accelerated as the gunman began firing and broke through. No word on if the gunman has been found.
• Pakistan claims 8:1 kill ratio against the insurgents, about 170 insurgents for 22 soldiers. We realize the Pakistanis are using full out firepower, but this is an impossible ratio against insurgents on their home ground and who have ample heavy weapons.
• This operation is supposed to be the Mother of All Battles according to the Pakistanis. Nowhere close, bro. In Vietnam that sort of ratio was a heavy fight for a rifle company and not much to write home about for a battalion. Pakistanis have 3 divisions committed and two on the sidelines for duties like infiltration control.
• Dorset Pliosaur So, readers are familiar with the pliosaur fossils found off Norway a couple of years back. Now one that matches the Norwegian fella has been found in Dorset. This little guy has a 2.4-meter head, weighed between 7 and 12 tons, and was likely 16-meters from tip to tail. It is so big it could have snacked on T-Rex. Apparently southern England was a warm sea 150-million years ago.
• Editor thought for a moment he'd love to have a pliosaur as a friend, but since the wee beastie requires an Olympic size swimming pool just to wallow in, its not practical. Editor's backyard is not large enough. Plus Takoma Park has a clean-up-after-your pet law. Taking Plio for a walk would mean hiring a Super Pooper Scooper front loader and a truck following. Too expensive when you barely make the mortgage each month.

0230 GMT October 27, 2009

Sorry, have to miss the update again.

0230 GMT October 26, 2009

• Russia to considering dropping dollar in bilateral China trade says RIA-Novisti, and of course the Chinese have been pushing all their trade partners to discuss abandoning the dollar. The oil producers want to say bye, bye, and the Euros are fed up with US deficits that - as is clear to everyone except the US Government - there is no intention of reducing leave alone ending.
• Doubtless you have heard many times recently that the dollar is on life-support and few want to stick with it anyone. So okay, a shift to a new global currency, which will be a basket that will include the yuan and like the rouble aside from the usual suspects, is going to take time. But we should make no mistake: it is going to happen for the very simple reason the continuing decline in the dollar benefits no one except the US. And here, no secret, US has been borrowing abroad not to finance investment, but to finance consumption. Aint just you and me that's been living high on credit, US Government has too, in grand style.
• As for as we are concerned, the death of the dollar cannot come soon enough. Yes, it will probably destroy the US economy for at least ten years, not least because interest rates on new debt will skyrocket and because US debt holders will dump dollars. The hardship will be great and widespread. This is not something the Editor is looking forward to in his sunset years.
• But here is the good part: burying the dollar as the international medium of trade will dramatically catapult the United States and its citizens into the cruel, real world. We will have to drastically cut consumption, and to rebuild the dollar, we will have to run decades of budget surpluses. This will lay the foundation for a sound future for our children.
• What will the death of the dollar mean for US national security? Great question. We've paid for Gulf II, Afghanistan, and the rest of the GWOT on borrowed money. We haven't raised taxes, because that would really upset the public, who wants to go first class in everything without paying the bill. So clearly we will have to raise taxes or cut back on defense. Though editor is a taxpayer, he will not get into the discussion one side or the other. If his taxes are raised, provided the Fat Cats are socked proportionately, he has no problem. if US decides it has to reduce its involvements overseas and reduce its forces, no problem.
• Why is the Editor being bilious? Two reasons. First, he believes in America and he believes in a Pax Americana. But the basis of military power is economic power, and the Americans have been completely, 100% irresponsible in maintaining their economic strength. How can you stand up to the Arabs who are funding Al Qaeda and the Taliban when you depend wholly on their oil? How can you stand up to the Chinese when you rely on them to buy your debt? How can you confront Iran, knowing you as a nation are totally energy dependent - despite 35 years having passed from the 1970s oil shocks? The decline of the British Empire is directly correlated to the decline of Britain as an economic power and the rise of Germany, Japan, and the US. To be a debtor nation reliant on the most basic of commodities and now increasingly even intermediate manufactures and claim to be King of the Hill is absurd.
• Second, the health care debate. Huh? What has health care to do with national security? Everything. It is all too clear that our America has no resolve to face the obvious: if you are going to insure everyone, you have to raise taxes. This business of cutting costs to pay for insuring everyone is a crock. You know it. I know it. So how will universal health care be paid for? Deficits, which will send us down the path of becoming a second class nation that much faster.
• Please don't misunderstand. Editor supports universal health care. He supports rebuilding the national infrastructure. He wants the government to pour hundreds of billions each year into R and D. He wants school district funding equalized - which by the way will reduce the absurd real state prices in counties with good schools. He is all for the government spending the 3, 5, or whatever trillion needed to make us energy independent.
• But this, you will say, means that taxes will have to return to the levels of the Kennedy years.
• Exactly.
• That extra money can come only at the expense of our consumption. To be the King of the Hill means you have to sacrifice. You cannot be a warrior and then make consumption the focus of your existance.
• Easy for you to say, you will say sarcastically. You spend less than $50 a year on clothes, eat pasta for dinner every single night, don't smoke, drink, go to concerts, eat out, buy "antiques", always pack your own sandwich lunch, boast you have stepped inside a Starbucks twice in your life, one time to buy nothing, the other to buy a $1 pastry for which you reprimanded your self all week, keep the winter thermostat at 60 during the day and the heat off at night etc etc.
• Okay, so Editor is a Puritan. Except in the matter of drooling and panting after women, but you do know that women cost big bucks, and its not the Editor is a miser, its he wants to leave his kids with as much as possible because who knows what future awaits them.
• So go ahead and be a spendthrift. Object to higher taxes. But then resign yourself to living in what will soon become a second-class state. Editor has made his choice and his position clear. Rest is up to you.

0230 GMT October 25, 2009

South Waziristan

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/us_strikes_in_bajaur.php

• South Waziristan We are determined to stay out of this discussion because it is 100% boring and the operation is pointless. Baitullah Mesud's Taliban, according to the Pakistanis, was doing little in Afghanistan. And Pakistan is not touching it's good Taliban who fight in Afghanistan. So what is impressing the Americans - at least they claim to be impressed - we don't see. Must be the politicals back in Washington that are impressed. The Americans on the ground, military and intel alike, are ruthlessly honest about what the Pakistanis are doing or not doing, we can't see them putting out drivel.
• Anyway, one comment is unavoidable. The Pakistan Army keeps talking about fierce fighting.
• Now, in their (for now) successful effort to retake a key (so the Pakistanis say, we don't know how key) village that the Pakistan Army took on Monday and then lost on Tuesday, the last push cost 4 Pakistanis and 12 insurgents. These are Pakistanis figures, and it doesn't matter if they are understating their losses and overstating the insurgents' loss, because which ever you cut it, given that close to 50,000 Pakistani army and Frontier Corps troops are involved, directly or indirectly, and given that the Baituallah Mesud Taliban has between 10-20,000 fighters including between 1,000 and 3,000 Uzbeks who are allegedly the toughest fighters of anyone on the scene, 20 or 25 KIA combined is not "fierce battles", it is a skirmish.
• We suspect, since the Pakistanis are using all-out firepower (something they deny, to be fair to them), all the sound and fury is impressing the heck out of them and US observers (however the Americans are observing, and they are.)
• There is no fierce fighting going on, lets not be confused about that.

Iran  nuclear, the West, and Pinky and The Brain

• Many years past, youngster and I would come from school and sit down with our bowls of cereal to watch the cartoons. Pinky and the Brain was a favorite because of its mordant humor. Editor in particular loved it because he closely identified with The Brain.
• Each episode ended with the failure of The Brain's latest scheme. Pinky, who never lost faith in his genius friend,  would loyally ask: "What are we doing tonight, Brain?" And as you all know, Brain, unfazed by the latest failure, would cheerfully say: "What we do every night, Pinky; plot to take over the world."
• That one line summed up Editor's entire life then and now.
• It seems also to sum up the West's entire life with regard to the Iran N-program. Unfazed by setback after setback created by Iran's refusal to honor any agreement they sign, when the West's Pinky says: "What are we going to do tonight?" the West optimistically says: "What we do every night. Negotiate another agreement with the Iranians."
• So just the other day. the Iranians were caught in flagrante delicto so as to speak, with their nuclear panties off. The West was shocked, shocked to find the Iranian were secretly constructing a uranium enrichment facility. No matter the west has known about this facility since construction began - that's another story of the shadow play that takes place on the issue of the Iranian N-bomb.
• The Iranians simperingly said: "You caught us! You are so smart! We cannot outwit you! We agree to give you access to the facility and agree our low-grade uranium stocks will be handed over to France and Russia under safeguard, for conversion to fuel for our medical isotope facility."
• In one go the Iranians outwitted the dimwitted West, because the Iranians cannot enrich that uranium further anyway. And what does the West think it will see at the Qom facility? Does it really think Iran is going to show anything except a Potemkin village?
• (Fairness alert: some of the experts who are going to visit, if the visit comes up, have the position: "We know the Iranians are going to try and fool us, but even then we can pick up useful information otherwise denied.")
• But anyway, all that is beside the point. The Iranians and Western negotiators were to sit down starting Sunday to start negotiations.
• And the Iranians are already saying: "Wait a minute, you misunderstood us, X is not what we said, it was Y". In other words, no deal. No one has misunderstood them, they said X, now they say Y. When you and I do this sort of thing, it's called lying.
• And when someone lies to us repeatedly for years on end, we stop wasting our time with words. We either waste the other guy, or we walk away and get on with our life.
• Its nowadays the fashion to make fun of the "simple-minded" President Bush, as opposed to the "sophisticated" President Obama. But you know, President Bush had a point. His reasoning was that no matter what the US did, it would never be enough for the rest of the world. So best to forget about keeping anyone happy and do what made sense for the US. Okay, so Mr. Bush's doings were often fatefully flawed, but his logic was impeccable.
• President Obama is going to find out pretty soon that he can kiss the fat behinds of the rest of the world all they want, and they will raise the bar. Kiss their butts 10 times, and they will want 25. Give 'em 25, and they will want a hundred.
• Its an oxymoron to say the US can gain the respect and cooperation of the world by being considerate of other's views. The only way you can gain their respect is by doing what they want the US to do, and since everyone has different interests, even if we ridiculously postulate the sole function of America is to do what the world wants, the US cannot. You keep A happy, B gets angry at you. In reality the US's job is to do what's right for America.
• If any of those countries were as powerful as the US, do you think they'd be blabbing about cooperation and peace? No sir. They'd be pointing a gun to the US's head and telling America what to do.
• So: either the US should say, "What the heck, who are we to talk about other people's N-weapons, we're going to walk away." Or the US says "Its life and death, and the plan is we live and they die."
• But this business of keeping to talk with congenital liars is plain cowardice. US is afraid of the consequences of denuclearizing Iran and North Korea, so it keeps talking. US fools no one but itself.

0230 GMT October 24, 2009

Sorry - couldn't update second time this week due homework. This particular course in the program requires 50% more home work time than other courses.

America is committing war crimes in South Waziristan...

• ...At least the way US defines war crimes for other countries. What's happening in South Waziristan - and has been happening in the NWFP since the Swat offensive are war crimes. To wit:
• Unrestricted use of firepower without concern for civilian casualties, sometimes even deliberately targeting civilians whose sole crime is that are forced on pain of death to support the Taliban. The firepower includes hundreds of air strikes, so many in fact that the Pakistan ran out of PGMs even before the new offensive and the US had to supply more; massed artillery; unrestricted gunship strikes; and use of armor.
• Collective punishment of Mesud civilians including summary execution of suspects simply on the word of informers. This was - and is - widespread in Swat.
• Forced use of Mesud civilians as combat porters in a war zone.
• Refusal to let Pakistan and foreign agencies provide relief supplies.
• Refusal to let Pakistani or foreign journalists report or investigate war crimes. This is true to this day also in Swat, insuring war zones in the NWFP have become information war zones.
• But wait a mo' will say the Americans we aint doing none of this bad stuff. Why blame us.
• Hmmm. Do we really have to draw a graphic? American UAVs are active over the war zone. The Pakistanis are equipped, supplied, and paid for by the United States. Indeed, the only reason they are fighting their own  people is they have been forced to by the US. This is America's war carried out by America's mercenaries. BTW, its not Orbat.com that's being rude. This is what the Pakistanis say.
• Oh come on, Americans we will say You know jolly well the Pakistanis are fighting the Mesud Taliban because the latter poses a mortal threat to Pakistan. We are only helping an ally who requested our help.
• Oh dear. What a pack of driveling lies. Sad that intelligent grownups should fib and fib and fib. The Mesud Taliban was part and parcel of Pakistan's ground forces. They turned against their own country because they believe by bowing to America, the Pakistan Government/Army has betrayed Pakistan, Islam, and the True Cause.
• Sauce for the goose US has sanctioned Sudan for its use of mercenaries to attack Darfur. It wants a war crimes investigation against the Sri Lanka government, which has managed, after 25 years of mortal peril, to destroy the insurgents who were bent on destroying Sri Lanka.
• So by that same token, US is guilty, guilty, guilty of war crimes.
• OK, Editor, that's great rhetoric, but what exactly is it you are saying? What Editor is saying America needs to stop shredding further its tattered Human Rights credibility. Are Americans really so naive that they believe they have ANY credibility on this issue in the world? For decades the US has operated under a double standard. Most recently, apart from the South Waziristan operation, America has been threatening - quietly - retribution against any government that is pushing for Israel to be put into the dock on its 2008 war crimes in the Gaza offensive. This is right after it has managed to prevent any action against the Republic of Georgia for its share of war crimes in the Russia-Georgia war.
• In Mexico the Mexican Army and police are committing huge Human Rights violations as they fight America's drug war. Aside from an occasional peep from official Washington, US government shrugs this off because America gains.
• BTW, America is the last country in the world to protest Iranian jail conditions. No country that has invented the Super Max has the least right to speak of jail conditions anywhere. As for rape, beatings, sensory deprivation, months at a time of solitary for "difficult" prisoners, hello, people, how is this different from Iran? Oh, OK, so American security agencies don't rape prisoners. But the condition of prisoners in American jails is such is that rape is systemic, and the Americans do very little to stop it. As for the beatings, at least the Iranians are honest about what they do. Not like America with its "enhanced interrogation techniques", which include water boarding, for which  America executed Japanese officers after the war for having committed war crimes. But Jack, its okay if we do it because God is on our side.
• Odd thing, though, the Iranians, the Israelis, the anti-Israelis, the Taliban, the Sudanese, do terrible things because they believe god is on their side too.
• So what else are we saying For one thing, we saying that its unfortunate the Pakistanis are committing war crimes and the Americans are behind the said crimes, but it isn't our our darn business as an American blog to be condemning the Pakistanis, the Mexicans, the Israelis, the Sri Lankans, the Georgians, the Sudanese, the Russians in the Caucuses either.
• There's a reason for the saying "War is heck" because war is a terrible thing that, in its modern practice, punishes 10 to 100 civilians per combatant, simply for living in a country where a war is being fought.  The Americans are masters of unrestricted warfare: the Civil War, the Indian Wars, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the 1980s Central American wars fought on America's behalf, Gulf I. Has Orbat.com ever, even once, passed judgment on America for its war crimes, particularly Vietnam?
• Not once. Editor has defended America at a time when in India simply being known as a friend of America made one an outcast with real consequences. Editor has never once condemned the widespread killing of civilians in Iraq in the first years of Gulf II. Can America tell us how many innocents it killed when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and it unleashed unrestricted air warfare with heavy bombers against the Taliban? It cannot. And nor should it.
• But equally, Americans should not condemn others while giving its allies a free pass.
• War, and counterinsurgency in particular, is impossible to fight if human rights are to be considered. We feel sorry for those American Human Rights people who think any war can be fought cleanly. If you want a war without HR violations, you should be honest and oppose ALL war under ALL conditions.
• The solution is not for the Americans to start judging Israel and Pakistan and Mexico - which is in a state of war. The solution is, simply out, to just shut up.
• If the Scandinavians or the Swiss or whoever seek to pass judgment on war crimes, have at it, good buddies. You have every moral right because your hands are clean in modern times. And you know what? Pass as many judgments as you like,  Orbat.com will ignore you.
• Because we understand America has had to fight wars, is having to fight wars, and will have to fight wars. We will not judge America because a clean war is an oxymoron.
• All we ask is America stop judging others. Either judge everyone, yourself included, or zip the lip.
• And don't push the war crime business, okay? Or do you want to see President Obama indicted for war crimes? Think it can't happen? Think again. Americans have no monopoly on self-righteousness.

0230 GMT October 22, 2009

Operation Path to Salvation: Pakistan’s renewed offensive in South Waziristan

Mandeep Singh Bajwa

You are welcome to reproduce this article with credit to Mandeep and to Orbat.com

• The Pakistan Army and Air Force supported by their para-military troops the Frontier Corps (NWFP) and Frontier Constabulary and with the active support and backing of their Govt and that of the US have launched a massive all-out offensive against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al Qaida elements in South Waziristan in Pakistan’s troubled tribal region, FATA. Infantry backed up by tanks, APCs, huge artillery concentrations, helicopter gunships and airstrikes by PAF fighters are seeking to make large inroads into the insurgent presence in the mountainous region. 
• The PA has deployed 3 infantry divisions for the offensive. 7 and 9 from its Peshawar-based XI Corps which is also the controlling HQ for the operation and 40 normally the companion to its much-vaunted 1 Armd Div in II Corps, their Army Reserve Centre. In addition 2 more infantry divisions, unidentified as yet are in reserve awaiting induction for mopping-up operations, humanitarian assistance and holding captured territory. Large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) are already on the move away from the war zone and more are expected to swell their numbers in the days to come. It is pertinent to mention here that very little in the way of promised and supplied Western aid is reaching these refugees, something that they share with the victims of earlier operations against Islamic insurgents in areas like Swat, Buner and Dir-Bajaur.
• The TTP and its Punjabi allies like the LET and LEJ are not keeping quiet in the settled areas of Pakistan in the meantime. Suicide attacks against the security forces and law enforcement agencies have been drastically stepped up in recent days. The aim is to deter the strong anti-terrorist operations launched by these forces in recent months. The effectiveness of such measures by the Islamic terrorist alliance remains to be seen but definitely pose a stiff challenge not only to the Govt of Pakistan and its security forces but to Pakistani civil society as well. While the security establishment and civil society have shown remarkable resilience in the face of these attacks however the political elite continues to be in disarray.
• Editor's Note Mandeep informs us that the orbat is confirmed from multiple sources. He is waiting for additional details.

0230 GMT October 21, 2009

South Waziristan Operations

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/pakistan_carefully_advances_in_south_waziristan.php

India: The Limp Wimp

• So the other day we were bemoaning India's serial wimpiness re. China on the Indo-Tibet border. Turns out India is being even more wimpy than usual.
• The Chinese, apparently, have taken to presenting Indian Kashmir as a separate country in publicity materials and maps, and have gone to the extent of issuing different visa to China bound Indians from Kashmir.
• India's reaction? India has expressed "bewilderment". Just look at how passive-aggressive this is. "We're bewildered," the Indians are saying, "that our friends the Chinese should treat us this way. what have we every done to them?"
• A real country would by now have quietly told China that if this nonsense does not stop, India will start presenting Tibet as separate from China. No official statements - the Chinese have made none regarding Kashmir; just a little matter of changing official maps and a few other gestures like "India is deeply troubled at the denial of rights to the Tibetan people, who for 1800 of the last 3000 years - " or whatever it has "- have enjoyed independent status, etc etc
• Is this going to happen? Let's answer this using another question: "Is Editor going to win Miss Universe 2010?"
• We rest our case.
• Further feeble military steps - sort of Having upgraded three former advanced Landing Grounds to full-fledged airfields in Ladakh, India is working on converting four former ALG's in Arunachal Pradesh, the northeast Indian state bordering Tibet. (Notice we didn't say "bordering China".)
• ALGs were, and still are, set up the Indian Air Force mainly for helicopters, though STOL light aircraft can use some of them.
• Mandeep tells us that Force magazine reports the raising of 56th Mountain Division in Arunachal, but is away and cannot tell us when what where etc. We assume this one of the two new divisions announced last year, but are drawing no conclusions till we learn more. The Indian newspapers say a new artillery brigade is to be raised in the Northeast, but again, we have no details. If this for the new division or is it for III Corps, the CI corps which is supposed in wartime to be a reserve for Eastern Command.
• Also, the Indian Air Force has ordered 50 more Su-30s, to bring India's total order to 280, of which over 100 are in service. 140 are being built in India, and the Government has issued a "complete at any cost" order for completion in 2015. Given how rundown the IAF is, only the Indians would think that 25 aircraft a year is an urgent priority "at any cost" program.
• Talking about airfields, we closely examined satellite photos of China's combined civil/military base at Gonggar near Lhasa, and a new mixed-use base Southeast of Lhasa, and we have to admit we are impressed. The Chinese have spared no expense from what we can tell. BTW, they have not built permanent PLAAF hangers even at Gonggar; they rotate fighter squadrons for exercises.
  And why should they bother? India is never going to attack China.
• The Chinese have the advantage in building airbases on their side because Tibet is a plateau and there are several river valleys. India has the advantage its bases are in the plains and its aircraft can take off with full loads. We think the main runway at Gonggar is about the longest in the world at over 5000-meters, which shows how high altitude lengthens the take-off distance. Again, we haven't checked, but it looks as if Gonggar is used by B-757s and B-737s - that main runway is not for jumbo jets.
• If any of readers have travelled to Tibet or have more knowledge about the air situation there, please do write.

0230 GMT October 20, 2009

Bill Roggio on Jundallah and attack on IRGC officers

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/jundallah_kills_seni.php

People, kindly excuse for not updating. Homework has been killing: had to get on it yesterday 12 hours, and today since returning from work, just finished after 4 hours.

0230 GMT October 19, 2009

Blaming Pakistan For Iran Terror Attack Is Absurd

• The prime duty of an analyst is to seek the truth. Anything else makes a person not into an analyst, but a propagandist. India is the main victim of Pakistani terrorism. You cannot count Afghanistan as the main victim because Pakistan's support of the insurgency there is not terrorism. Its insurgency. Sure Pakistan backs certain terror acts in Afghanistan. But usually its target is India and Indian interests, and in any case the sheer number of terror incidents against India in the last 25 years far exceeds anything Pakistan has done in this line in Afghanistan.
• But whatever the Editor's personal opinion on Pakistan - and this has remained unchanged for 4-decades, that Pakistan is an inalienable part of India and it is in a state of illegal secession - at Orbat.com we have to be fair. This requires us to point out Iran's accusations about Pakistan being behind the attack on the Revolutionary Guards are the purest hogwash, that don't stand up to the least rigorous examination. The same goes for other allegations that Pakistan acted at the behest of Britain and the US, which is even more absurd.
• The incident A delegation of Revolutionary Guards was enroute to meet with tribal leaders in separatist Sis-Baluchistan, the huge eastern province of Iran that is populated by Baluch Shias with no love for the government. A suicider got into the RG convoy, 42 people were killed, including six senior RG officers, including a general,
• First, pardon our failure to issue the ritual denunciations of terror. The Iranian RG has killed and maimed thousands of American soldiers in Iraq and it supports insurgent groups in Afghanistan that are fighting America and NATO. What goes around, comes around.
• Next, Jundallah, the Army of God, which has claimed responsibility for the attack, is a Pakistani secessionist group. It is certainly supported by the UK, US, and India in varying degrees, but it seeks the secession of Baluchistan from Pakistan and union with Iranian Baluchis. We might add with Afghan Baluchis too. Crippled as it is by the secession of East Pakistan, any further secessions could well spell the death of Pakistan. To suggest the Pakistanis, who are Iranian allies in Afghanistan, is involved in supporting Jundallah is beyond absurd. You may as well Pakistan supported the terror attack on GHQ the other day.
• The Iranians must be forensic masters of the universe. A man blows himself up and hours later the Iranians have figured out he has come from Pakistani and wants Pakistan to hand over his co-conspirators. No doubt the Iranians, who make Sherlock Holmes look like an IQ 60 retard, already have the names of the others.
• But we mere mortals may be forgiven for suspecting the Iranians have not the least clue of what they speak, and like Casablanca's immortal Captain Renault, want the usual suspects rounded up. (BTW, perhaps inspired by our Klasse Klowne Awarde, longwarjournal.org has instituted a Captain Renault Award.)
• The Iranians have reason to accuse the US/UK. We leave India out of this because while India wants to hurt Pakistan, it has the best relations with Iran. At the same time, Occam's Razor requires us, in the absence of information to the contrary, to look for the simplest explanation.
• Iran's habit, on capturing Jundallah members, is to torture and execute them. Iran and the group have been engaged in a running battle for years. Indeed, the London Times says Iran is holding the brother of the Jundallah leader and he is slated for execution. This has been deferred because the Iranians want further information from him. And the Iranians being the Iranians are unlikely to be waterboarding the man, or making him dress in pink panties, or playing American country music at 120 decibels, or forcing him into stress positions. These acts are mere love endearments compared to Iran standard  - SAVAK may be dead but it's children live on, swearing fealty to a new set of masters, but utilizing the same uniformly murderous methods of "interrogation", as we have seen with the democracy demonstrators in Teheran.
• Surely Iran understands it is not the US habit, at least, to hire suicide bombers. The US wants live Iranian generals, not generals who are spattered across half an acre of terrain.
• Given Jundallah operates on both sides of the Iran border, and that both the Pakistani and Iranian Baluch have serious issues with Teheran, it is best Iran look to itself as the cause of what happened, and not blame everyone else in sight.
• Especially not Pakistan.

0230 GMT October 18, 2009

For the latest on operations in South Waziristan, read http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/pakistan_launches_so.php

• South Waziristan As foreign media was in any case banned from the region and the few local media present have mostly decided to leave, we will be dependent on rosy reports of unvarnished success from ISPR and the Pakistan Ministry of Internal Affairs.
• So take it the battle has been won, even if this takes two months as the army estimates.
• The problem with guerillas is that they are, well, guerillas. When seriously pressed, they retreat, when facing defeat they hide their weapons and push off somewhere else. When seriously hurt they reform.
• In Sri Lanka the government finally won after 25 years by deploying overwhelming force, perhaps 10:1, and squeezing the insurgents from one piece of land after another. The insurgents were of a specific ethnicity, and easier to identify than is the case in most places. And they had nowhere to go.
• In Pakistan, the insurgents have got other districts to move to, and if all else fails, they've got Afghanistan. Meanwhile, insurgent strength in the Punjab continues to grow.
• There is no easy resolution to any of this, and even if the Mesud Taliban is taken care of, there's plenty of old groups who have slipped government control, new groups that have formed, and plenty who continue as an extension of Pakistan's armed forces.
• Please note from Bill Roggio's story (link above) that only Mesud Taliban are being targeted, NOT pro-Government Taliban. The only people who expected all Taliban in South Waziristan agency would be target are the Clueless Peter Pans who seem to dwell in the US media and some Talking Heads.
• Mr. Roggio has good US intelligence sources, and he is informed by them that at a time the Pakistan Government is saying 4 soldiers have been killed, the real KIA total is 12. This is not particularly relevant one way or the other. You don't judge operations by the number killed, but by the results. Nonetheless, this should serve as a warning to our readers that when you read the Pakistan and global media, you will not get the truth.
• Hamas may win West Bank in next years elections, says London Times. Apparently President Abbas has upset his supporters, who are mainly in the West Bank, by being too close to the Americans and Israelis.
• If Hamas wins, say London Times this will give Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu the excuse he needs to veer away from concessions the US is forcing him to make, such as freezing the settlements.
• Moon crash was a success Reader Luxembourg sends a link on the latest news about the crash http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/LCROSS_impact.html Apparently lots of very good data has been returned and is being analyzed. It will be a while before we are told if the crash licked up water from the impact crater.

0230 GMT October 17, 2009

Update 15:30 GMT

South Waziristan Offensive Begins

For a detailed military analysis of "What Lies Ahead" read Bill Roggio at http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/analysis_what_lies_a.php

Report from the BBC

Read the article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8311927.stm Below is an excerpt from Syed Shoaib Hasan, BBC News, South Waziristan border

• The fighting in South Waziristan is fierce and it is intense. Local administration officials say the Taliban are resisting fiercely as troops try to push into their territory.
• Dozens of casualties have taken place, they say, and both sides are using heavy weapons.
• Meanwhile locals from South Waziristan are facing great difficulty in leaving the area. All roads have been blocked by the military which is using them to transport ammunition and arms into the heart of the battle.
• The transport and communication network has been effectively crippled. The casualties are now expected to rise as the terrain gets difficult for ground troops to operate in against the battle-hardened Taliban."

• Afghan recount puts Karzai at 47% but what this means in practical terms is unclear. A second election is also likely to be rigged, questions of logistics aside. Afghanistan is entering winter, and security deteriorates daily. Some are suggesting a coalition with the main challenger, who got 28% of the vote. While both sides say they have no interest in a deal, talks are underway and positions are being staked out.
• Crisis in Turkey-Israel relationship Turkey refused to participate in a joint exercise with Israel and US was forced to cancel it. Turkey and Israel have had very close ties for years, but the Turks say the adverse Muslim reaction to the 2008 Gaza offensive has made it impossible to continue as before.
• Turkey has also permitted its state TV to show a fictional drama which depicts Israeli troops committing atrocities during the offensive. This has upset Israel.
• Meanwhile, Turkey and Syria have been playing kiss-and-make-up, leading to further unease in Israel.
• On their side the Turks are angry because Israel has not fulfilled a contract for UAVs, and because Israel refused Turkish mediation in the Hamas-Israel dispute. It also seems Israel has not been thrilled with Turkey's plans to mediate between Iran and the West.
• Don't get the wrong impression about Iran's enrichment setback Washington Post says Nucleonics Week reports that Iran's 3% enriched uranium is contaminated and cannot be enriched further unless it is scrubbed. The French have a process to do the needful, and the Russians have agreed to enrich the uranium to 18% required for a Teheran research reactor which is under inspection.
• So we may assume that this is the reason Iran turned all sweetness and light and was ready to put its uranium under safeguard.
• Nonetheless, we caution readers who might jump to the conclusion - as has WashPo's David Ignatius - that since Iran  cannot for now make a uranium bomb, there is time to work out a solution. 
• Okay, anyone who is familiar with the difficulties of enriching uranium using gas centrifuges will not be surprised. We been saying for years we doubt Iran can acquire N-weapons via this route; its bomb will be plutonium based.
• Sooner or later Iran will have to be confronted on the N-issue. Sooner is better because every day that goes by makes the matter more difficult.

0230 GMT October 16, 2009

• Correction on PLA We mispoke yesterday. Its the Russian army that is slimming to 40 brigades.  PLA might end up with 60 or so brigades if they abolish all divisions.
• http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/China_Military_Power_Report_2009.pdf gives PLA 38 divisions vs. 40 brigades; so for the first time brigades outnumber divisions, but there's still a ways to go. Artillery divisions are almost gone, with just 2 left vs. 17 artillery brigades.
• Haaretz of Israel reports Iran rumors Supreme Leader is dead Apparently the Iran blogs are full of this rumor. He is 70 and was made Supreme in 1989. Now if he really is a goner, a lot of what the President has been doing makes sense. But let's wait and see.
• Meanwhile, the Russian agency RIA-Novosti says Iranian embassy in Belarus says Supreme is alive.
• BTW, by the Christian calendar its 2009, but by the Jewish calendar it's 5770. Some people have very long memories.
• Mideast Peace Process stalled, says Washington Post Leave it to the Americans to be surprised. How many times have we said that Palestine-Israel is a zero sum game. For Palestine to be a viable state, Israel has to give up the entire West Bank, and after that Palestinians will want back the land Israel took between 1948-67. For Palestine to win, Israel has to lose. For Israel to win, Palestine has to lose. Is this very hard to understand? Apparently if you are a Washingtoon it is very hard to understand.
• Time for the Americans to just get out of the Mideast and let people there do what they want to do. We have no objection to the US jumping into disputes where a result to US advantage can be obtained. There is no prospect, whoever wins or loses, that the US will see any advantage, because the losing side will hate America forever.
• Hugo says Obama does not deserve the Nobel Our position is thee is no question of deserving or not deserving, all sorts of non-deservers get it. We are concerned only the reason the Nobel peeps gave Mr. Obama the prize will turn out to be true. No one's making a secret that Mr. Obama got the Nobel because the committee wants to influence him to define peace the way the committee people define peace. The nominations last date was February 12. Mr. Obama had been governing for less than a month. Do the math.
• BTW, Senor Hugo, our favorite dictator, now that you oppose the Nobel for Mr. Obama, you leave us no choice except to support Mr. Obama. So back off, Hugo. Go close another golf course, which seems to be your idea of urgently attending to the people's business.
• Brits may have found the original Labyrinth says UK Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/has-the-original-labyrinth-been-found-1803638.html. It consists of 2.5-miles of underground tunnels with dead end rooms.
• Goldman Sachs has already put $16-billion in its bonus fund with one quarter to go. This is about the same as the halcyon year 2007.
• As a committed socialist (what is mine is mine, what is yours is also mine) Editor is not objecting to the bonuses per se. He's objecting that he doesn't have a job at Goldman. As a true socialist, he believes everyone is entitled to a job at Goldman, and calls on the US Government to pass the neccessary laws to make this a reality.

0230 GMT October 15, 2009

• India stands up to Beijing - sort of Editor nearly fell off The Throne this morning when he read India has told Beijing it objects to PRC's deals with Pakistan to build hydel projects in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Just yesterday we had thrashed India for wimping out re PRC's intrusions into Indian territory these past few years. And not only has India had words with PRC over Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, India's Home Minister has now said there have been several cross-border incidents in these last two months. Earlier the Government was saying that the Sino-Indian border was the most peaceful in the world, which is a truly jackass thing to say.
• The 270 intrusions figure we gave yesterday applies to all of last year, but additionally over the last four years there have been an average of 500+ incidents of PRC aggressive patrolling incidents - stuff that is definitely provocative, but does not rise to the level of an intrusion.
• Still, the Indian note to PRC was the model of politeness, whereas the PRC note to India was plain and simple insulting. One swallow does not a summer make and all that. Just because India has talked back once to the non-stop trash talking the Chinese do doesn't mean the Indian are not wimps. They are 99.99% wimps instead of 100%. We don't think that's much progress.
• As an example of India saying it is standing up to PRC is the Government has ordered 300 light tanks for use in Ladakh and some areas of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Should we be impressed? Until India did the demilitarization thing, at times it maintained two heavy armored battlegroups in Ladakh. Going to light tanks is no substitute for this. And replacing obsolete fighters with Su-30s in one squadron in the Northeast is definitely not standing up to anyone. Right through the 1980s the Indian Air Force was far superior to the PLAAF in Tibet (after PLAAF reinforcement). The discussion used to be would India need 72-hours to attain air superiority or 96-hours. Then the Indians just threw away their  advantage by failing to modernize the IAF. Its taken them 20 years to get back on track, and there is a huge backlog. Meanwhile, PLAAF has shot ahead and has many more bases/fields it can use.
• Our position is quite clear. At the minimum, India needs to put two more divisions into Ladakh; return the division assigned to Himachal Pradesh and withdrawn in 1970 or 1971; unburden the division for UP from all other tasks and restore the independent brigade group withdrawn - we think it was in 1971; return XXXI Corps to the single task of Sikkim/West Bhutan; give a new division to Arunachal for the central sector; give a new reserve division to Eastern Command, and create a two-division corps, later three divisions, for the Nepal border.
• It's not as if we have pulled this plan out of the thin air. Army has said it needs seven more mountain divisions. Government has sanctioned one and is thinking about the others.
• Government needs to stop thinking and act. And it needs to create a defense procurement czar of unimpeachable honesty with no connections to the people in power who is given a one-point mandate: get equipment contracts signed as fast as possible.
• It further needs to put a big fat STOP sign in front of anyone in the military or government who is talking of smaller but high tech forces as an excuse not to approve immediately the other six divisions. The mountains are no place to futz around with "small but high tech". The Americans have completely mucked up their land war capability by going small and high tech, and the Chinese, bless their hearts, are helping India by going the same route. They're going to soon have 40 or so piddly brigades of four battalions each, and they'll learn the hard way what the high mountains do to high-tech. Not the Indians are not also inducting high tech hand over fist, but it has to supplement numbers, not substitute for numbers.
• A little glimpse into history: General K. Sundarji 25 years ago said that Pakistan was no longer a threat, China was going to keep becoming stronger and a greater threat. He worked out India would need, by the 1990s, 19 mountain divisions against China. He was correct - however inadequate he was as a practical general, he was a master theoretician.
• Today we have nine mountain divisions plus 3rd Infantry Division in Ladakh, and the Army is raising two mountain divisions. But one of them, and one of the existing mountain divisions, are slated for the Pakistan front. And as China grows stronger and more belligerent, it will be a big mistake to assume that India will face only one adversary at one time.

0230 GMT October 14, 2009

For the story behind the attack on Pakistan GHQ, please read

http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/10/whats_wrong_with_pakistan_a_fo.php

The analysis is by our correspondent, Major A.H. Amin, Pakistan Army (Retired).

Beijing expresses extreme displeasure at Indian PM's visit to Arunachal

• The Indian prime minister went electioneering in Arunachal Pradesh, a part of India claimed by PRC. Beijing is very upset and has protested left and right.
• We are deeply grateful to Beijing. You see, the Indian Government attitude to Beijing has been that of playing the poltroon and the buffoon. India has gone out of its way to avoid upsetting PRC, particularly after the 1962 border war. India did build up a very strong high-mountain force as a defense, and though this force was strong enough to knock the PLA out of Southern Tibet through the 1990s except for a few months in 1986-1987, China has never seen India as a threat.
• The reason is the Chinese felt confident about India's subservience is that, well, India does grovel and turn the other cheek when slapped. India did foolishly reduce its high mountain forces in the 1990s as part of a demilitarization agreement with China, which gave the Chinese everything and the Indians nothing. Ah, the pure genius of being an Indian administrator and diplomat! You and I will never be clever enough to kiss the fat Chinese behind and rationalize it as as supremely, cleverly, statesperson-like.
• Now, not only did PRC trick India into demilitarizing the border - not very hard, no harder, certainly, then taking candy from a 2-year toddler belted into his pram with his mother way off in the distance - do you think the Chinese were happy to leave well-enough alone?
• No. The thing with the Chinese is they cannot treat anyone as equals. They have to be master or slave. So they began pushing India even harder, to the extent of this year alone (or is it last year?) creating 270 intrusions into India, including building roads through Indian territory. The Indian response? "Oh, the newspapers are exaggerating, there is no problem." Because acknowledging there is a problem means having to act, which means having to stand up to the Chinese, which means showing some courage, which is impossible, because India is best at beating up its lame, blind, and mentally retarded neighbors, it is no good at standing up to a real power like PRC.
• So we are delighted when Beijing publically humiliates India, as it has by issuing statements of extreme belligerency, such as saying "we demand" India do this, that and the other. At some point, we hope, the Indian public will get mad enough at the Government to force it to stand up.
• A bit of history. Why are India and China claiming the same territories along their northern borders? Because at various periods, Delhi has ruled those territories, at various periods independent Tibet has, and at other times China has. It all depends which period of history to look at.
• Most recently, the British Empire ruled the border areas and Tibet was a tributary of the British Empire. That interest passed to India in 1947, and Nehru, ever generous as he was in giving away bits and pieces of India, graciously told Beijing that Tibet was Chinese, and withdrew Indian troops and interests from Tibet.
• So it should hardly have been a surprise to Nehru when in 1959 the Chinese began taking over areas they said belonged to Tibet. That led to the 1962 War and we can skip over the intervening history unless readers really want to know the boring details. Be that is it more, the Chinese, having decided they are so wonderfully great and so powerful militarily that India is insufficiently smooching their big, fat behind, have been these last few years pushing India daily to recognize that India is a vassal. Pay no mind to all the diplomatic cow patties about respecting India as an equal and so on.
• Complicating the problem is that India, having severe what the Indians call "loose motions" at the thought of standing up top their northern neighbor, have rushed to seek comfort in the arms of Uncle Sam, and the Chinese are even more upset about this than they are with the India refusal to kowtow. India kowtows lots, but the Chinese want even more kowtow, such as forcing India to kick Uncle Sam out Uncle Sam's presence upsets the Chinese.
• The Indians are trying to impress themselves with long range plans to build back their forces in the north. At which point we have to collapse laughing. Look, the Indians haven't even been able to get it together for 25 years to modernize their field artillery, how can anyone including the Chinese take them seriously? Near forty years after India began a project to link Srinager in Kashmir to the plains by rail, the project is still underway. Meanwhile, in less than 10-years the Chinese linked Lhasa with their Sinkiang rail network, and are now expanding their lines to Gyantse and Shigatse. India doesn't even a lateral road east west in Arunachal Pradesh.
• In India you have a country that has made it into the trillion-dollar economy arena, but where the majority of villages, sixty years after independence, are not linked by metallic roads, have no medical clinic, safe running water, or reliable electricity. More than 300-million people are malnourished in a country where because of improper storage, rats eat more food per year than needed to give those hungry people a decent two meals a day. Let's not talk about how many Indians are still illiterate.
• How has this happened? Because the ruling elite has no time except to enrich itself. The elite is corrupt from top to bottom and back again, and now that a genuine middle class has emerged, the middle class is acting the same way, closing its eyes to the poor and the unfortunate. We claim we are a Gandhian state, but we have no desire to follow Gandhi's standards, which in simplest form require that the more fortunate help the less fortunate. Not very complicated - the Bible says the same thing.
• But so frightened is India of China, that it will take a very great deal more than a verbal tongue-lashing to get India to start standing up to Beijing. And by standing up we mean a lot more than the passive-aggressive way India currently deals with Beijing.

0230 GMT October 13, 2009

Civil-Military Battle in Pakistan

• While it's no secret the Pakistani president has been trying to subordinate the Chief of Army Staff to civilian authority, we must confess that the details of this struggle are well beyond our remit.
• Reader David sends a link to an article that discusses the struggle http://www.metransparent.com/spip.phppage=article&id_article=8421&lang=en He notes he hasn't seen similar news elsewhere, and wonders if this is just gossip.
• Well, that the President and the COAS are on the outs is not gossip. The difficulty is that the Pakistan press speaks in code, partly because its the journalistic style in those parts - you are assumed to have all the background, so the discussion is arcane to people who are unfamiliar with the matter being discussed, Partly its also because the press is very vulnerable to those in power, civil or military, so it has to be extremely circumspect in the way it says thing.
• On the surface of it, we wonder why President Zardari is taking umbrage at the Army. Is he so full of hubris, has he been so inflated by the Americans insisting that the Army be subordinated to the civil authority, that he has lost his senses? In all of Pakistan's history, not once has the result of such a fight resulted in anything except total, abject defeat for the civilian leader.
• We went through this with President Bhutto and General Zia; we went through it with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and General Musharraf, and we went through it with Mrs. Bhutto. She was not killed because she was a woman and the Islamists couldn't stand the thought of being ruled by a woman. She was killed because her feckless - and reckless - American handlers and court clowns told her the United States was 100% behind her and this time the military could not determine her destiny, as it had done before.
• Sadly, the military did determine her destiny.
• So if America is pumping the president full of gas and telling him to stand up and be a man, cynically speaking it is either planning to get rid of him, or as is America's wont when it interferes in a country's leadership crises, the Americans are going to learn the hard way you don't cross the military.
• Don't expect the military to stage a coup. The Pakistan Army has learned to be a bit more sophisticated. Because of the spread of terrorism all over the country, the Army will merely use one of its many terror groups to send Present Zardari to join his wife, and there is absolutely nothing the US can do about it.
• What we do know is this In the $7.5-billion aid bill the US sanctioned for Pakistan, Congress wrote in some pretty tough words about the need for the country to prove its commitment to fighting terror. Rumor has it there is a bunch of stuff that may not be written in plain language that interferes with what the military says is its internal business.  Now, we haven't read the bill, so what we're telling you is what we read in the Pakistan press.
• To keep it short, the Pakistan Army blew its top - in public - about what it correctly saw as an attempt to curb its power. Its blaming the civilians for even letting the language make it into the bill. The prez is not entirely a dodo: he has been making soothing noises about he will never let Pakistani sovereignty be compromised by those so-and-so Americans. But at the same time, his civilian supporters have been saying "we're a democratically elected government, so please tell us, again, just what is wrong with the military being subordinate to the civil authority?"
• Well, my darlings, if you're not afraid to die for your principles, then there's nothing wrong with sticking up for them. But if Editor were a betting person, he wouldn't bet against the military. They're kind of "You wanna die for your principles? Here, let's help you attain martyrdom."
• Some civilians do appreciate that, which is why the Foreign Minister is rushing back to Washington to try and get the offensive clauses changed. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/13+qureshi+to+convey+concerns+over+aid+bill+to+us-za-05 Good luck with that. When the Americans get all high and mighty and moral, they simply will not compromise - particularly as its their money, and they have a right to see the quo for the quid.
• Read this too: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/13+govt+military+agree+to+talk+to+us+over+aid+bill-za-09
• We haven't commented on the attack on Pakistan GHQ for various reasons. One, we've been trying to ignore Pakistan as the situation is getting progressively more crazy. Two, we generally don't discuss specific terror attacks. This sort of thing is going to happen more and more, and we don't see any more significance one way or the other. Three, we've been discussing with Mandeep the almost certain raising of a new Pakistani brigade for XXXI Corps, and when the Editor gets all drooling and panting hot chasing an orbat question, he kind of loses interest in other things. Its the ADHD thing.

0230 GMT October 12, 2009

Something to share with our readers

• The Pakistan Army, as is well known, is the Pakistani state. The current Chief of Army Staff is a realistic and clever man. He knows that thanks to his predecessor's misrule, Pakistan seethes with anti-military anger. He knows he controls Pakistan, and he is sufficiently confident that he has no difficulty apparently playing second fiddle to the country's civilian leaders. There is nothing in what we have said that is a surprise to the merest tyro on Pakistan.
• The Chief of Army Staff rules with the advise and consent of his corps commanders. These ten three-star generals command the fighting forces of the Pakistan Army. Not for a minute are saying these ten are warlords with their men swearing their oaths to them. They are a disciplined part-and-parcel of the military bureaucracy. Yet, no one can rule Pakistan without consent. It is not as if their Chief decides who he will support and the ten blindly follow the chief.
• The ten are highly cautious men who listen much and talk little.
• It is not our habit at Orbat.com to claim "Orbat.com's military sources say..." and then make fabulous and foolish claims. Your Editor is an Indian national who voluntarily exiled himself from his homeland. No one in authority there has the least interest in what he has to say. No one in their right mind would dream of leaking something to your Editor. To put it simply, no one in the Indian establishment trusts the Editor one little bit. We are talking about the ten establishment people who remember him: he has been gone for 20 years and just about everyone who knew him has forgotten him.
• So what we are about to tell you is not an Indian leak. Indeed, it isn't from India in the first place. It isn't from the Americans, who are quite unaware of the Editor's existence, and who, when the Editor was in India, trusted him even less than the Indians. But really, truly, honestly, there are people who are not American or Indian and who know a very great deal more about the Pakistani military than either of them.
• This is the information we are receiving from them:
• The Chief of Army Staff, who has done his best to maintain good relations with the United States is becoming progressively more angry with his masters. He expected to be treated as an equal, and while the American military do give him much respect, other Americans don't.
• No more than any patriotic Pakistani is he willing to destroy the Taliban.
• But worse, Editor is told that a majority of the corps commanders - without confronting the COAS directly - are increasingly of the opinion that national pride does matter, even if means opposing the Americans. These are officers who were brigadiers when the US attacked Afghanistan. They may be of the elite, but they are also of the people.
• Editor is being told that the Americans should not assume they can go on pushing the Pakistanis for much longer.
• And a very blunt warning has come to the Editor through his sources: if Pakistan blows up, do not assume that a majority of the corps commanders, or even the COAS,  will stand by the establishment. These men are complex: they benefit from being part of the establishment and kowtowing to the Americans, but they are first and foremost patriotic Pakistanis.
• Make of this what you will. Editor's specialty is orders of battle, not Pakistan's internal politics leave alone its military politics. He can't even name any senior Pakistani military officers other than the Chief. Editor is merely relaying, without interpretation, what he has been told by people he has ever reason to trust.

Pakistan: Militants and Terrorists

• If we go by David Ignatius's recent articles on Pakistan in the Washington Post, Americans are still confused about Pakistan and its relationship with militants and insurgents.
• Mr. Ignatius is a widely traveled, well-connected, and informed columnist. according to his analysis of October 11, the Pakistan military's ties with anti-India militants and the Taliban are things of the past. His evidence is (a) the head of Pakistan ISI and other generals told him so; (b) the Pakistan Army's operations in Swat and its preparations for an offensive in South Waziristan prove it has cut its ties to the Taliban.
• If someone of Mr. Ignatius's caliber can't get the simplest things about Pakistan right, we are forced to wonder what hope is there that the typical member of the American elite understand what's going on. And with right understanding, there is no chance of right action.
• Let's keep this as simple as possible. India is five times Pakistan's size. In four wars, three of which Pakistan started - 1971 being the exception - Pakistan has made no headway, and it cannot given the disparity in resources. It is then unsurprising that Pakistan sought to replicate against Indian Kashmir American tactics that got the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Starting in 1987, Pakistan began recruiting, organizing, training, equipping, and infiltrating armed men into Indian Kashmir under the guise of "Kashmiri freedom fighters".
• Given how tightly Pakistan controls its part of Kashmir, if anyone thinks that these "freedom fighters" can survive 24 hours without the Pakistan military, they are mistaken. Pakistan is at war with India, if anyone thinks the Pakistanis, outnumbered, outgunned, and outspent as they are in conventional military terms are going to give up their effort at asymmetrical warfare, they again are mistaken.
• I estimate Pakistan spends less than $50-million/year on its anti-India militants, at the height of the Kashmir insurgency India was likely spending 50 times as much to fight the Pakistanis. Does Mr. Ignatius think the Pakistanis are ignorant fools they would give up this weapon just to please the Americans - who by the way don't particularly care and have never cared about the Pakistani use of this weapon against India, not least because to this day a great many Americans believe Pakistan has a case regarding Kashmir?
• Now lets turn to the Taliban. Once upon a time the Taliban were Afghan and Pakistani Pushtuns organized, trained, equipped, and led by the Pakistan Army. The Taliban included 10,000 Pakistan Army regulars. Pakistan's objective was simple, and logical: lacking strategic depth against India, Pakistan planned to control Afghanistan. Incidentally, this strategy was also designed to get India out of Afghanistan, a country where it has traditionally had more influence than Pakistan.
• Then the US invaded Afghanistan, and began beating the Pakistanis with a big stick, forcing them to fight the Taliban. To the Pakistan military this made as much sense as sending one part of its army to fight the other, because the Taliban were a Pakistani military organization. So - again quite logically - Pakistan refused to fight the Taliban.
• Had Pakistan been a "normal" state, it would have refused the US and taken the consequences. But Pakistan is not a "normal" state. It consists of a peculiar combination of feudal civilians and soldiers who have worked together to maintain power over the people of Pakistan. Sometimes this was done indirectly, through civilian leaders who ruled purely at the pleasure of the military, sometimes it was done directly by Pakistani generals.
• To the Pakistan elite its survival comes first. For reasons I am not particularly clear, the Pakistan elite has a slave mentality. It gravitates to anyone powerful who dispenses patronage which enriches individuals of the elite and helps maintain their hold on the country. The powerful person in this case, since 1954, has been the US. When the US returned to Pakistan in 2001, for one part of anger at the American's imposition of their diktat was one part joy that the Candy Man had returned.
• So Pakistan played the US, taking America's money, giving it bases, and pretending it was fighting the Taliban in its own country and preventing it from operating in Afghanistan. Whereas in reality, and please pardon our Spanish, to use an Indian expression, the Pakistanis were doing "f-all" to help; indeed, they were rebuilding the Taliban right under the noses of the Americans.
• Well, by 2007 the rebuilt Taliban had just about taken over most of Afghanistan once again. Washington, which had steadfastly refused to listen to the information its soldiers and intelligence people in the field were sending back, suddenly woke up. It began squeezing Pakistan in deadly earnest.
• The Pakistanis then staged a few mock offensives and declared themselves "beaten" and told the Americans "look, we have to solve this problem by political means and we are doing so."
• Okay. Now here's the not-so-complicated part. Once you create a rebel group, the rebel group starts having its own idea. India created the Sri Lanka LTTE to overthrow the Sri Lanka government, then for reasons too muddled to discuss here, decided it wanted to help Sri Lanka. India sent four reinforced divisions to Sri Lanka, fought the LTTE for two years, and then someone had a light bulb flash: "Hey, what are we doing here? We've lost 1500 men, the LTTE is growing stronger, the Tamils hate us. Best we call it quits and go home."
• Sections of the Taliban started thinking: "Why on earth are we taking orders from these craven, American boot lickers who are betraying their country for the sake of a few silver shekels? We're fighting to create a pure Islamic republic in Afghanistan, how does it make sense not to fight to create a pure Islamic republic in Pakistan too, and from there we'll teach the Indian heathens a few lessons, and there's Central Asia waiting."
• Readers have to appreciate that there is no such thing as a unified Taliban. It is a confederacy of groups, each of whom cooperate when they want to, ignore the others when they want to, and occasionally even fight the others when they have to. So it is not like there was a Comintern type decision taken to turn against the Pakistani state. For example, all the supporting of insurgency in Afghanistan and Kashmir from 1980 created massive instability in Pakistan itself, with more and more Pakistanis saying: "hey, this armed force business works, look at Kashmir, look at Afghanistan, maybe its time we got rid of our own exploiters."
• Be that as it may, partly as a result of hatred against Islamabad for serving as American lackeys, and partly because the logic of revolution required revolution at home as much as in Afghanistan, sections of the Taliban turned against Pakistan.
• But as of now the majority of the Taliban are still pro-Pakistan state. Pakistan has no choice but to fight the anti-state Taliban - they reached within 100-km of the heartland in the spring of 2009. But why should it add to its problems by fighting the loyal Taliban and the loyal anti-India terrorists and militants? Just because one section of its proxies has turned against it, why should it provoke a fight with the other 90%?
• Can Mr. Ignatius not see this? And does he not understand that while the slave generals he speaks with are happy to mouth the words America wants to hear - as long as the money keeps coming - they do not represent the Pakistan Army? Can he not see that the Pakistan generals have a wholly legitimate fear that if they now too deeply to America, their officers and men will mutiny? Can he not appreciate that America is destroying its opportunistic allies in the Pakistan elite by insisting they fight their own countrymen, and by blatantly itself repeatedly striking Pakistan?
• Can the Americans in generals understand that the average Pakistani has zero stake in the survival of his massively oppressive and corrupt state? South Asians are amazingly accepting of mistreatment by their rulers, but there comes a time when the ordinary man cannot be pushed any further. Pakistanis are definitely NOT at the stage where they are ready to rise up en masse against their elite. But the Taliban - and scores of other religious-based groups are busy exploiting the ordinary urban and rural Pakistani's anger at sixty years of exploitation by his government.
• This situation  is going to soon degenerate into a 100%, total, complete, mind-boggling disaster. America is going to get thrown out of Pakistan. which is why Orbat.com, for one, has been arguing the US should leave Pakistan and itself stop the Taliban on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and if it is unwilling to do that, better to leave Afghanistan too.

0230 GMT October 11, 2009

Letter to President Barack Obama

• Mr. President, may we respectfully suggest you decline the Nobel Peace Prize. It is no honor, but a devious political trap.
• By awarding you this prestigious prize, the Nobel Committee is trying to tie you down to certain viewpoints that may not be in the interests of the United States, of which you are Commander-in-Chief. This is blatant attempt by foreigners who have never shown any great admiration or affection for our country to influence US policy in several areas, including the Mideast, Iran, DPRK, Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Military force is a critical tool in America's arsenal. No a priori constraint on your right to use military force is acceptable, especially if the constraint is moral.
• We are no warmongers. For example, we want the United States to leave Afghanistan. But that doesn't mean we are peacemongers, either. Any objection we have to the US use of military force is purely tactical and not ideological. We believe the US has in the last ten years used military force in ways that are not to our nation's benefit (Iraq and Afghanistan), and failed to use military force when it is to our nation's benefit (Iran, DPRK).
• Equally, however, we want you to reject this prize because it is unearned. All your life you have striven to be the best you can be. Would you have accepted an award given to you simply because of your race? No. You have too much integrity to accept an award to which you are not entitled. It is the same with the Nobel Peace Prize. Decline the prize and tell the Committee it is way too early to judge what contribution you will make to world peace. Tell them you are deeply honored but have not earned the award. Ask then to consider you again, in 2013 or 2017, and if they consider you worthy, you will accept the award with humility.

0230 GMT October 10, 2009

• US pulls out of Nuristan posts and ISAF says it was planned all along. Strange. ISAF has been letting it about that for several months it doesn't have the helicopter lift to evacuate the bases. Six days after the attack the helicopter lift is found. Not that ISAF/US in Afghanistan any longer has credibility re. its statements, but when you spin, spin, spin, you raise the level of distrust among your own people. Of course, these days you can't admit mistakes because next thing you know families are asking for officials to be punished and official statements are cited as evidence.
• Reader Luxembourg sends a link to an ABC news story on the fight: http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/exclusive-apache-pilots-shocked-size-attack-camp-keating/Story?id=8785878&page=1 Three things of interest: (a) some local warned the post 10 minutes before the attack; whoever this person is, he is a loyal friend of the US and we hope the withdrawing US troops took him with them, else he is going to be rather dead. (b) The base was completely destroyed in the attack, the Taliban got inside the wire. (c) Medevac flights could not land till well after nightfall because of Taliban heavy weapon positions all around the base. US had trouble seeing where the positions were located. Then clouds rolled in and muzzle flashes gave way the positions. After that it was a matter of eliminating them.
• A good fight and all that, but let's not get too carried away. This was a minor incident compared to every day attacks on US Special Forces outposts and firebases in Vietnam.
• You know, we hate to keep diminishing the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the US public really needs to be reminded that in the old days the US fought real wars. No one called the men who fought in Vietnam "heroes" and wept fat tears for their sacrifice. The first and last thought anyone in America had - if they had any thoughts in the first place - was: "Poor bleedin' sods" (We use the older English expression as the American expression is more pungent.) We doubt 8 soldiers killed would have merited a single line in a major US daily or perhaps even in local newspapers. They dead would simply have been lumped into the week's grisly total.
• But these men served their country in the same way the current generation serves the country. Instead of being called heroes, they were reviled, as if the war was of their making. The bulk of them were draftees, so its not like they had the least choice unlike today's soldiers, who at least get to volunteer. And they were thrown into battle against the best infantry the 20th Century knew bar the Germans, with minimal training. Today units take the better part of a year to train for Iraq/Afghanistan; in those days you arrived in-country one day, and the next you were in battle.
• It's hard to avoid the suspicion that the adulation we now give our soldiers and the retroactive adulation we gave our fathers' generation is because America knows it wronged the men who went to Vietnam. Yes, it forgot the men who went to Korea, but at least they were not abused or belittled and mocked.
• Apologizing for past wrongs is a big thing today. Psychologists say apologizing heals the one apologizing and helps heal the one being apologized to.
• Isn't it time the nation apologized to the men who fought in Vietnam? They're starting to die of age, and one day it will be too late because there won't be any of them left.
• Oh yes, the sad memorial in Washington DC doesn't really cut it as an apology.

0230 GMT October 9, 2009

• US ABM for Central Europe US has revealed details of the proposed replacement for the original 10-launcher ABM installation in Europe. First, US says it has the ability to link sensors worldwide to provide information. Second, the installation will have 30 SM-3.
• US is saying the missiles will cost $300-million versus $700-million for the previous configuration and require 100 troops versus 400. This economy thing is a diversion, we feel. Secretary of Defense had said he didn't think the previous interception was sufficiently proven, and our guess is US has something under development for late 2010s or early 2020s and wanted to channel all available resources to the new system.
• The global link means the European installation will tie into the US/Israeli Arrow system. That's another area that more is hidden than revealed. Israel has just contracted with Boeing to build a new version of the Arrow. Boeing is the builder of the long-range interceptors including the now-cancelled one for Central Europe. 
• Indian Air Force requests permission to fire on Maoists who attack its medevac and relief helicopter flights in infested areas. Amazingly, at present when the Maoists, who are armed insurgents with a presence in 40% of India's districts (US counties) attack air force helicopters, the air force cannot return fire even in self-defense. And even while asking for permission, the IAF has gone into convulsions to show that it has zero aggressive intent toward the Maoists and will use the permission under the strictest fire restrictions.
• This is all part of India's "softly-softly" approach toward its insurgents. The approach is so softly softly that for decades it has been left to ill-equipped local police to deal with the Maoists. Thousands of police and villagers have died in the last three decades, so sensibly the police do their best to leave the Maoists alone.
• To put this in a US context, assume that 40% of Maryland and Virginia has an insurgent presence. These insurgents clearly say their aim is overthrow of the US government and its replacement by a communist state. But the federal government sees no urgency, and tells the local and state police to do their best with their own resources in combating the insurgents, all the while using minimum force. The insurgents, meanwhile, collect taxes in much of their area, regularly attack police stations and pro-government villagers, target people they feel are insufficiently committed to their cause and extort money from companies and truckers.
• This amazing situation is possible only in the Wonder That Is India. Leaves one wondering what the heck the Government of India is smoking. The only wondering the Editor does is wonder if India exists in its own universe.

0230 GMT October 8, 2009

• Afghanistan Outpost This is even worse than we feared. The outpost is on the valley floor and is surrounded by peaks. These peaks are not, like 10-km away or something, they are right around the outpost.
• http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/fighting-uphill-in-afghanistan/
• The official justification is that the post is to interdict Taliban traffic. We presume by this is meant Taliban vehicular traffic, because setting up in the valley is not going to do a darn thing to stop foot traffic.
• In reality, however, we can guess the post is in the valley because whoever came up with this brilliant idea didn't want troops to hoof it up mountain and down mountain, and didn't want to build a landing pad at altitude.
• In the mountains, you control the valleys by parking yourself at the top: you not only have a great all-around view, you can bring fire down on anything moving around. If someone wants to attack you, he has to come up mountain against your fortified position, and there is just about no operation that's harder.
• On top of this location, the Americans let Afghan workers into the post between 9AM and 4PM each day. Why was this permitted? To begin with you are completely vulnerable, on top of that you are letting the locals in every day so they report back to the Taliban exactly what is happening inside?
• A "plus" of letting the workers in is that 9AM-4PM is the only safe time - relatively safe - at the outpost, presumably because the Taliban don't want to kill their own people. The rest of the time, its a free-for-all, with snipers and other attackers firing down-mountain at will.
• No wonder the outpost never got to send any patrols out.
• In short, this outpost was not defending anything but itself, and it was not interdicting anything. It spends every day working to stay alive. It is a hostage to the Taliban, who can attack it whenever they feel like.
• If this is what passes for CI tactics in Afghanistan, we are doomed.
• Here's what we suggest: the US Army should send its people to the Indians and - yes - the Pakistanis to learn how mountain warfare is done.
• Oh but the Pakistanis know nothing - we have to train them. Really? The Indians and Pakistanis have been slogging it out in the mountains for 60 years. What exactly is it the US is going to teach them?
• And as for teaching the Pakistanis CI, and taking 8-months to train a Pakistani battalion, gentlepeople, the US is making itself a screaming laughingstock in the world. The typical Pakistani soldier serves for 14-20 years. The typical US soldier serves for 4-6. You're on their ground, and you're going to teach them? Hahahahaha.
• The Pakistanis are taking the Americans for a ride, once again. "Oh, we can't fight the Taliban because we don't know how. We don't have the weapons. We don't have the training. We don't have the money. Give us time, a few billion dollars a year, and we ask most humbly, Great Uncle of all Uncles, that you teach us."
• Right. So who does America think taught the Taliban and continues to teach them? Who does America think defeated the Afghan warlords in two years to bring the peace to Afghanistan, when the Soviets couldn't defeat the warlords for 10 years? Who does America think has revived the Taliban and seen that they control 80% of the country and laid the grounds to defeat the mighty west?
• Great Uncle of Uncles, here is a hint. The army that has done all this belongs to a country whose name starts with a P and ends with an N. The country was born on August 14, 1947 and is in South Asia. Its name has 8 letters, including one I and two As. Get it?
• Its the same army that is whupping your sorry behinds in Afghanistan, and then holding out its hand for more western money.
• Does it get any more ironic? What brings down empire? Hubris is one big factor.

0230 GMT October 7, 2009

Tactics in Afghanistan

• Three days ago the Taliban attacked a US/Afghan outpost in Nuristan Province of Afghanistan. The outpost is described as "remote"; this is not particularly helpful because most any part of Afghanistan is "remote" Be that as it may, the outpost is set among forests and mountains, perhaps 10-km as the bird flies from the Pakistan border.
• The reason the outpost was set up in the first place was to interdict infiltration from Pakistan. when attacked, it had 50 US soldiers and 90 Afghan Army and police. A year ago the US decided things weren't working, and decided to withdraw the outpost. The new Afghanistan strategy in any case calls for giving up desolate outposts in the middle of nowhere, and focusing the limited available resources on the main town and cities. This is sensible, as in any case no one manages to control the countryside, which has been, is, and always will be the home of the tribes. If the west thinks it will at some point succeed in building up sufficient Afghan forces to permit Kabul to control the country, then the west is sadly deluded and will fail even worse than it is failing.
• Back to the outpost.
• Every story we read leaves us shaking our head in sheer bewilderment. We cannot understand in the slightest what the US military thinks it has been doing.
• Let us first make very, very clear: we would never presume to judge the tactics employed at a particular place and time, no matter which army we are discussing. Not just are we going solely by the media reports, the media more often than not gets things very wrong. Unless we went over, carefully examined the ground, and extensively discuss matters with the US troops, the Afghan military, the locals, and the Taliban, we would lack the data needed for an objective judgment.
• So we are not passing any judgments: we are simply going to point out a few things that make absolutely no sense to us about this outpost.
• The outpost was situated 1-km down-mountain of the mosque and village used by the insurgents as their assembly area. It does not matter what the reason, you absolutely never put yourself down-mountain of the enemy especially when he is practically at your doorstep.
• US troops had not visited the village for a year, and also did not visit other villages in the area. The reason given is that the US, in the interests of good relations, did not want to enter the local villages unless invited, and they were never invited. Bosh, Baloney and Bunkum. Since when has it been US policy not to enter villages without invitation? Where in the world when you are doing CI do you wait for invitations from the locals who are hand in glove with the insurgents to issue you polite invites for tea and crumpets?
• US troops could not patrol the area beyond a couple of thousand meters out. The reason given is that the area was too dangerous. We accept that. But in that case the Army was super-negligent in stationing the outpost because the troops there are blind to what's happening all around them, and sending over a UAV every so often is not going to give them eyes to see.
• The outpost was not evacuated because the local Governor said if the Americans withdrew before the election, it would Not Look Good. In case you are waiting for us to grandly proclaim: "Military decisions should never be made on political grounds," you wait in vain. That is complete twaddle. Everything in CI is political first, military second.
• But a clear distinction has to be made: the decision to go to that region can be political. Once you arrive there, however, purely military considerations have to take over. How can it be that US Army found the outpost untenable but hung around for a year because the provincial governor would lose face? Makes no sense - and here we are willing to acknowledge likely the press has got things wrong. Nonetheless, if for political reasons US had to be there, the US Army should have done everything possible to make the outpost defensible.
• US is short of helicopter lift and could not evacuate earlier Someone has got something egregiously wrong here. It take 4-5 Chinook sorties or 20 UH-60 sorties to get 140 men and essential equipment out. Mo way you will get us to believe that for weeks or months or whatever US couldn't spare this tiny bit of airlift.
• US Army knew this was a hotspot: outpost has come under attack 50 times since May 2009. This speaks for itself. No one can say they were caught unawares.
• How it looks to us in the absence of better information. You have an outpost in the middle of nowhere, and the troops are boxed into a tiny space. They cannot get out because its not safe. They cannot go out every night and lay ambushes, even if it is just a 2-man sniper team. They are sitting passively in the middle of Indian Country, with a big Kick My Butt sign on the outpost. The enemy knows everything the post does, the post knows nothing of what the enemy is doing.
• The Taliban obliged.
• We are NOT attempting to second-guess anyone We are not joining the coulda woulda shoulda brigade here. We don't know the whole story, likely even 5% of the story. But what we do know is, this outpost looks like a Prime A error to us. It smells of careless complacency and people who have still not understood what counter-insurgency is about.
• If and when we get more information, we will be the first to revise/update/change our formulation. Right now things don't look good to us, not one little bit.
• What's the big deal, the outpost held It did. Excellent. We are not going all mushy hearted because 8 US soldiers got killed. That's war. People get killed, and most of them get killed for no good reason or meaningful gain. Sorry about that.
• But see, people. We are not writing about this outpost because of the battle the other day. The same outpost was written up in detail some weeks back in the WashPo. Our head shaking reaction is from then. We've been mulling over writing the same thing we have above, then.
• We're writing because when we read the first article, we thought what we have said here: why is the US Army accepting being in lock-down in a little place in the middle of nowhere. The story then said no one had been interdicted or intercepted in months. And that's not because All Was Calm, etc., the troops made clear they couldn't get out and couldn't control anything.
• The Taliban on the battle This battle, as far as is know as of now, was very professionally fought by the Taliban. Aside from the US casualties, there were several Afghan dead and perhaps 20 or more Afghans captured. This means the Taliban caught the outpost completely by surprise and got inside the wire. This is Big Boys League.
• Likely this is the caliber of the enemy in this region, because the Taliban certainly has not managed anything like this elsewhere. The 2008 attack at Wanat, which in the same province, was also highly professional.
• US deploys a powerful lot of firepower, and when artillery, gunships and tactical air joins in the battle, a lot of attackers are going to die. But only five bodies were found. This is very, very professional indeed.
• So, we are suspicious and so is our occasional correspondent Major AH Amin. He has said, in a circumspect way, that he believes the Pakistan Army conducted the attack. Nothing impossible: till the US came into Afghanistan the hard military core of the Taliban was the Pakistan Army, not just as advisors, but as entire brigades. That's how the Taliban came out of "nowhere" and in two years took the entire country bar 15% in the northwest, beating one warlord after another in conventional battle.
• In fairness, we must say Bill Roggio does not agree He feels the Taliban are quite capable of executing such attacks by themselves and there is no need to invoke the Pakistan Army.
• Either way, however, this attack is trouble, even if only - say - 10 percent of the Taliban have reached this level of competence.
• Meanwhile, the Taliban tied the attack directly to the impending US reinforcement of Afghanistan, saying they too could reinforce, and reinforce more than the US could.
• Now boys and girls: here is a question. Since the outpost is 10-km from Pakistan border, guess just where those Taliban or Pakistani-soldiers-as-Taliban came from.
• Hint: it wasn't from London or Paris.

0230 GMT October 6, 2009

• Shabab Beats Hizbul in Port Battle The two Islamist factions shared control of Kismayo Port in Sudan till now. In fighting that may have left scores of insurgents dead, Shabab has ejected Hizbul from the port and now has unilateral control.
• Meanwhile, US is holding up aid to Somalia government as it fears the assistance may fall into insurgent hands.
• Also, last week Somalia government troops recaptured the central Somali town of Beldeweyne, which has changed hands several times over the last year. We are curious at this sudden efficiency of Somalia government forces. and are forced to wonder why the government has not been able to retake more of the capital, which after all,  is more important than a district town.
• President Karzai will win recount the Wall Street Journal reports. WSJ's analysis is that the President enjoys the support of too many powerful institutions. He may get less than the 54% he has now. In other words, the recount will be as much of a sham as the election, but that could have been guessed when a full recount was refused and only a selective recount authorized.
• US unemployment rate of 7% may become the new normal says Reuters. Previously 4.5% was accepted as the "natural" US rate. http://blogs.reuters.com/columns/2009/10/05/is-the-us-job-market-broken/
• The true unemployment rate is 17% at present and not 9.8%. The bigger figure counts those who work part-time because they cannot find full-time work, and those who have given up looking for work altogether. Since US unemployment benefits are of short duration, it can be assumed the "given up looking" category is not artificially high.
• To add further to the joy and happiness, Bloomberg says the government likely has underestimated job losses and that in the year ending March 2009 the economy may have lost 5.6-million jobs, not the official 4.8-million. Apparently the lower figure is a quick estimate; more detailed studies will be released next year.

0230 GMT October 5, 2009

Bill Roggio on Taliban/AQ attack on US outposts in Nuristan, Afghanistan

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/us_afghan_troops_bea.php

• Guantanamo versus an American Super Max We had a good laugh at a Washington Post story (October 4) which had some people worried about plans to close Gitmo and transfer the prisoners to the US. These people have pointed out that compared to a US Super Maximum prison, Gitmo is a relatively benign jail. For example, at a super Max, you are confined to an 80-square foot solitary cell 23 hours a day, and if you behave, you are let into a tiny yard to "exercise" by yourself. Except for your guards, you never see another human being. And from what hear, the guards do not talk to you except to give orders.
• We made this point a number of times when the Iraq Abu Gharib foofaa was getting people all over the world all hot and bothered: if you think Americans treat their GWOT prisoners badly, just compare it how they treat their own people. And conversely, how can you reasonably expect them to treat GWOT prisoners better than they treat their own citizens?
• So: those who want American justice for the Gitmo prisoners don't seem to have much clue as to what awaits those subjected to American justice.
• Some civil liberties group was quoted in WashPo as saying that the group thought bringing the terrorists to the US was still better than leaving them at Gitmo because at least in the US they'll have due process.
• Sure they will: then they'll be found guilty if they are guilty, and they'll be parked in a Super Max, possibly a nice one underground, and the world will never hear from them again. Are the civil lib people sure they wish this on the terrorists found guilty?
• Missile Defense in Europe US Defense News says (quoting from hearings) that the US could deploy Patriot missiles to Poland while it works on deploying the alternative system (Standard 3) after the previous plan was cancelled.
• We are wondering what missile is going to replace the cancelled Ground-Based Interceptors in Alaska. The field there was supposed to have 40, but will now have 28. Will Alaska and other US sites also get Standard 3s while a new long-range interceptor is being developed - or perfected, since we suspect there is another long range missile in development aside from the one that was supposed to go to Poland.
• Letter from Reader Catterik Re Lady Gaga Kindly do not take up valuable space in this blog by diverting to existential issues such as your legs versus Lady Gaga's legs. I read this blog to be better informed on the GWOT, and while I understand from time to time you get bored of the subject, please alleviate your boredom by finding other GWOT related topics to discuss.
• For your information, Lady Gaga was accepted at Julliard, which shows she is no dummy.
• Editor's Comment This is the kind of tough, dedicated reader we dread. This blog is now 8 years old, and we'd think readers would be screaming: "Enough! Stop this torture now! We don't care anymore about the GWOT, assuming we cared in the first place!".
• Now did we ever say Lady Gaga is a dummy? Clearly she is many million dollars more intelligent than the Editor if you measure intelligence in terms of bucks, which is a valid measure ("If you're so smart, why aintcha rich?").
• We we're simply complaining about the injustice of it all. Editor is just as smart as Lady Gaga if we measure smart not in millions of dollars but - say - tonnages of chocolate eaten. But just because the Editor refuses to shave his legs and Lady Gaga has no such compunctions shouldn't mean she gets rich and the Editor stays poor. Yes, yes, who said life has to be fair, but aren't we allowed to whine about it from time to time?

0230 GMT October 4, 2009

• General Stanley McChrystal and the President We were so busy falling over ourselves with glee when the good general, fed up up with what he saw as the White House's indecision on Afghanistan, went public saying the war was lost unless reinforcements were sent. We were thrilled and delighted that someone was giving it back to the politicals, even though we do not think 40,000 troops will save the day, or 80,000 or even 160,000.
• Apparently we should have been shocked and dismayed. We learn the good general has very seriously overstepped the boundaries set by US law regarding civil-military relations. He is not supposed to pressure the civilian side of the government by going to the media to push his agenda, however worthy. Apparently its not only a matter of protocol, there are written rules about who talks about what and how and when s/he talks.
• Our failure to see what is an obvious point is a small example about why you should never trust the "experts". In a few more months it will be fifty years since the Editor started studying the US military, along with many other things. Does fifty years make him an expert? In some aspects of the subject. But in many aspects - civil-military relations being the case in point here - the Editor has zero interest and zero knowledge - beyond Truman firing MacArthur, and that too only in the most general terms.
• In the US, there is a big, big problem with "experts". There are very few - if any - people who study a subject for its own sake. For the rest, it's all about getting the jobs and the money and the positions, and you don't last long unless you toe the line set by the people who pay you. This is one reason foreigners are seldom as impressed with the US's putative "freedom" of the press as are the Americans, and as for freedom of thought in US universities or think tanks, forget about it
• Letter on Baluchistan from Rameez Raja  I am writing regarding your comments or Mandeep's comments regarding Baluchistan. Firstly, is that comment an admission that India is helping BLA? I am very confident that India isn't operating or helping Baluchistan apart from just keeping diplomatic relations with BLA individuals.
• Is there a level of Omani - Indian co-operation regarding Balochistan as indicated by Mandeepji? India and Oman share strategic level of relationship. Example being the top secret extradition of terror suspect Sarfraz Nawaz from Oman to India. Omani police and Ministry of Home Affairs are co-operating very very closely regarding investigations of a LeT cell that planned attacks in Oman and were involved in the financing of attacks in India. I am to believe that Pak ISI is trying to retaliate in Oman due to the possible Omani actions inside Balochistan. Omani police shut down an LeT cell, that was involved in 26/11 and planning of attacks in Oman in Jan/Feb 09. The war is ongoing. I'd be grateful if you could comment on this issue, if you know anything about it.
• Gwadar used to be part of Oman, hence the cultural linkages. There was a Saudi funded rebellion in Western Oman. Saudi air force were dropping supplies in support of the rebellion. India, Iran and Royal Jordanian army had come to the rescue. Omani army recruited many Balochistanis from Gwadar to fight against the rebellion along with the British.
• That's a very short version of why Balochistanis are in the Sultanate. Relations with Pakistan aren't very good at the moment. Oman has openly supported India with regards to 26/11. I watch Oman's moves at a very close level. I noted that HM Sultan Q did not send a cable of greetings to Pakistan, but sent a massive message to the President of India during India's independence day.
• But Oman and Pakistan are still maintaining relations, The foreign ministers met on the sidelines of the UN summit last week.
• Editor We thank Mr. Raja for informing our readers about an obscure corner of the world that may, nonetheless, one day be in the headlines.
• India's support of Baloch independence movements goes back decades and is no secret. If India were not intervening in the region, we'd be accusing Delhi of not doing its job.
• We leave it to Mandeep to answer the questions directed to him.
  
  
  

0230 GMT October 3, 2009

• Iran N-Deal We're puzzled as to what is the bid deal about Iran agreeing to turn over its partially-enriched uranium to Russia for further processing into civilian-reactor fuel. This is no compromise Iran has made. It shows only that the country cannot even enrich uranium to 3% and manufacture fuel roads, leave alone enrich to 95% as required for N-weapons. So it has sensibly decided to let someone else enrich fuel and to open up some facilities to inspection. Meanwhile, it will keep developing uranium enrichment technology.
• We've always believed Iran when it says its uranium program is for civil use.
• Its N-bomb, when it comes, will be plutonium-based and not uranium.
• Since Iran has made no concessions, and has actually managed to secure a legitimate source of reactor fuel despite its rouge status, in our opinion Iran has won a major victory and not the west.

Lady Gaga and why Life is Unfair to the Editor

• Along the billions of bits of information that stream around one all one's waking hours, Editor had heard the name Lady Gaga. An entertainer of some sort. Nothing worth chasing the info bits and grabbing them to examine.
• Well, two days ago Washington Post Style section had an article on Lady Gaga's latest show. WashPo's comic section is in Style section, and to be perfectly frank (Editor is Ravi, but let's be Frank for argument) the comics are the only reason Editor gets the WashPo. Even if the paper has decided to commit suicide by deleting six strips to save money. Its best hope of survival was to add six strips, but when an established institution becomes degenerate, its thinking becomes progressively more devoid of clarity, and that leads to an accelerated of its eventual death. But we digress.
• We gathered from the article that Lady Gaga can neither sing nor dance, but is very successful because of her habit of appearing in shows - er - sans culottes.
• A five-second inspection hearing of each of two Lady Gaga tracks confirmed the singing part: think Puss suddenly grown to the size of a tiger and raking an old-fashioned chalkboard with its claws while demanding to be fed.
• A slightly lengthier examination of some of Lady Gaga's album covers did, however, confirm that she does look rather - er - fetching sans culottes.
• So the Lady makes millions a year, while your Editor, who has spent decades on studying, analyzing, writing about knowledge of every kind, shape, and color, toils pointlessly at his lonely desk, day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime, just to pay the bills and to - will you be able to bear the excitement? - afford a Giant Foods 99-cent ice cream bar on Saturdays, as the high point of his week.
• Well, what's the problem, you are doubtless thinking. Why can't Editor prance around a stage - er - sans culottes while rhythmically reciting the names of US aircraft carriers starting with the Langley, or gyrating to a rap incorporating the numbers of Red army divisions from 1917 to 1990?
• The Editor is going to explain the problem. Last year, a very cute new teacher at his school happened to drop into the YMCA while Editor was exercising, avec cullottes aka shorts cut to a modest length below the knee. Cute New Teacher gave a pleased start and started to engage Editor in a conversation until...
• ...her eyes slid down to the Editor's legs. Editor has nicely muscled legs, at least he thinks so, what with years of cycling and more years of doing 100-tons worth of daily leg presses. Editor's heart was biblically gladdened and so on at the movement of Cute New Teacher's eyes; he was sure what she now beheld would biblically gladden her heart and so on and perhaps from there we could proceed to discussing what she thought of 9th Century French poetry.
• (Editor knows zero about 9th Century French poetry, but thanks to long experience, he knows this is not a subject the very great majority of Cute Young things know anything about either, so its easy to impress them with your deep knowledge of sensitive things like poetry, say by looking them deeply in their eyes, and reciting the immortal lines written by the French 9th Century poet Captain Haddock - "In your limpid eyes I can see a humongous supermarket full of 99-cent Giant brand ice-cream bars", and "your - er - shapely bosoom reminds me of  extra large scoops of vanilla ice cream and your lips red as the cherries topping vanilla ice cream scoops...", that sort of thing. Your Editor is very refined, and not one prone, when he sees a Cute Young Thing, to start singing "I wanna see England, I wanna see France..." No, Sirs and Madams. Being an ultra refined Punjabi from Northern India, that's not the first thing the Editor says, it's the second thing he says. It's called good breeding and manners designed to melt the Cute Young Thing in your arms like a triple choco fudge on a 102-degree day. But we digress.)
• ...until Cute New Teacher started making sounds like the Giant Squid might have made had it gotten Captain Nemo's  Nautilus into its maw without the dash of salt, if you know what we mean. Next thing, Teacher has fled. Next day she is not in school. "Oh," says her colleague, "she's been putting off accepting her Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, and she called last night saying she was at Dulles boarding the last flight to London and to tell the Principal she'll be back in a year." Bummer.
• But what, you may, ask, is the matter with Editor's shapely legs that should elicit such a drastic response?
• Well, the Editor can explain it this way. On a very warm day he turned up at school in his shorts, as per permission of the Principal for staff and students. In math class two of his students who are in Cosmetology politely asked: "Mr. Ravi, is it okay if we braid your hair for practice? It's so nice and long. You must have to shampoo twice a day to keep it so shiningly fresh looking."
• Editor: "But I have practically no hair on my head."
• Students: "Its your legs we're referring to."
• So Editor hopes you can now understand the problem. And say what you want,  it's just not fair that people pay real money to see Lady Gaga sans culottes, whereas people run away to Oxford when they see Editor's legs...

0230 GMT October 2, 2009

Pakistan says S. Waziristan offensive imminent

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/11-battle-for-waziristan-looms--il--12

Bill Roggio analyzes US strikes against Pakistan Taliban 2006-present

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/analysis_us_airstrik.php

• US has taken over Baluchistan Liberation Army from the Indians says Mandeep Singh Bajwa. The Indians are still involved, but in a minor role. US objectives are (a) hunt down AQ/Taliban; (b) keep the Iran Baluchis boiling; (c) keep PRC out. The Indian reading is that the US wants to maintain an option for the future of an independent client state in Baluchistan, simply as one more option among many.
• The Oman Government is acting as surrogate for US and UK intelligence and Omani agents are thick on the ground. The Omanis have a "formidable" intelligence set up, trained by UK's MI-6.
• The Omanis find it easy to operate in Baluchistan since a significant percentage of their population is Baluchi. Till some years ago, 8 of the Oman army's battalions were Baluch manned. Pakistan Baluchis are employed in security roles by many Gulf countries, including Oman and the UAE, and may also be in the Yemen,
• Secretary Gates and limits of reinforcing Afghanistan Wall Street Journal says one reason the US defense secretary is reluctant to increase US troops in Afghanistan is that the 40,000 additional requested does not take into account the deteriorating situation in the north and the west. The troop reinforcements are only for the east and the south.
• Because of Orbat's focus on GWOT from the US viewpoint, we had completely missed this point.
• Now since the Europeans are not going to do more than they are, and likely will do less, does this mean we have to think of 40,000 troops for the west and the north? And obviously there's no assurance that's going to work.
• There's a simple point people are overlooking, and we haven't emphasized strongly enough. Because the GWOT is, well, global and because we have imposed limits on ourselves as to the number of troops we will field, and the economy is imposing limits on what we are willing to spend, to succeed in the GWOT we have to go for the most cost-effective solutions. Tromping around in one country for decades and spending what will surely climb to $10-billion/month is reinforcements are sent is not cost-efficient.
• if the US is serious about the GWOT, it has to reorganize its military and intelligence from top to bottom. You cannot spent close on $800-billion a year (regular budget, GWOT funding, intelligence budgets) and get a few thousand boots on ground as a result. It just makes no sense for the US to spend $5-million per pair of boots a year (we haven't done the calculations lately, but that's what it was for Iraq) when the enemy spends less than $5,000.
• Moreover, none of this will work unless the US goes after the funding and the Pakistan safe havens.
• None of this going to happen, too many American interests are tied in with the status quo.

0230 GMT October 1, 2009

• US Says Success Against AQ According to Washington Post, US officials say they have seriously disrupted AQ to the point it is unable to launch major attacks. We will provide you with a link to Long War Journal when that blog covers the story, as LWJ is better qualified to comment.
• UAV attacks claim another Pakistan Taliban leader This time its the brother of the successor to Baituallah Mesud, Pakistan's Most Wanted who died of injuries sustained in a UAV strike. Just shows when the Pakistanis want to, they can track Taliban leaders. Of course, in this case they want to because Mesud turned against Pakistan instead of being a good boy and getting on with jihad against the Americans in Afghanistan, which he was supposed to do.
• EU says Russia provoked Georgia, but Georgia started the 2008 War Read a story on the report at http://defensenews.com/story.php?i=4302374&c=EUR&s=LAN
• New US Low-Collateral Damage Bomb Under Test Here's an example of what the US is absolute best at: weapons design. "Among the tasks undertaken here was the development in less than 12 months of a very low-collateral-damage bomb, says Randy Cope, associate department head for energetics. Scientists, engineers and technicians took an existing weapon, maintained the mass and logistical needs, and produced the 500-lb. BLU-126/B with an explosive footprint that can destroy a truck but not whatever is next to it." http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/ChLake093009.xml&headline=New%20Weapons%20Look%20And%20Act%20Strangely&channel=defense
• We're not sure how the bomb was developed in 12-months, though. Given the US military bureaucracy, a year sounds like a miracle. To be fair, the US weapons development/acquisition process moves at warp speed compared to the Indian.
• Of course, when the truck is filled with gasoline - as was the case for the two trucks destroyed last month that created such a hue and cry - then none of this matters. Nonetheless, the bomb gives the US a vital new tool in its CI arsenal.
• West's capability to use economic pressure against Iran diminishes This is because the Chinese have jumped into Iran full-force: they have committed to energy deals worth $120-billion already. Moreover, analysts say Iran is become increasing less dependent on gasoline imports, so to that extent another potential lever against the country is becoming less effective.