News archives for  2013

 

 

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Tuesday 0230 GMT December 31, 2013

 Terrorism and the 2014 Sochi Games

 

 

·         Yesterday a suicide bomber attacked Volgograd train station, killing sixteen, then another bomber attacked a trolley bus killing fourteen. Volgograd is, of course, none other than Stalingrad. Many Russians may have no particular affinity for the Iron Man of Russia, but the city to which he gave his name stands as an example of Russian – not Soviet – patriotism and endurance. Likely in World War 2 for the people Leningrad was a much worse siege, but Stalingrad is commonly reckoned as the high tide of German advances in the east. After Stalingrad the Germans began to lose the war.

 

·         Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union Islamic separatism and terror took hold in the southern republics. The Duchy of Muscovy, in its drive to create a new Russian empire conquered several Muslim areas as it rolled to Vladivostok. Like all other Russian peoples, Muslims were repressed by force. It helps when you build an empire to be as ruthless and brutal as possible, because that ends resistance as soon as possible.  Thanks to the first modern Afghanistan War, Muslim peoples such as the Chechens acquired the training, organization, weapons, and experience to rise up against the Russian state. They were quickly crushed on a macro scale; but have continued their resistance on a micro scale.

 

·          Okay, so Americans are usually thrilled and delighted with oppressed people striving for freedom. That is our own history, after all. Revisionists say the American Revolution was all about money, and this may be true. According to Marx everything was about money, and we are inclined to agree with him. The world cannot be about love, because with money you can buy love (the Beatles notwithstanding). Nonetheless, it cannot be disputed that the American Revolution triggered off a global revolution the aim of which was and is the recognition of the dignity and rights of every human. Sure, the American Revolution and its consequences were not perfect, but it was still a noble thing. So Americans should by sympathizing with the Russian Muslims, right?

 

·         Well, actually no. The problem is that fundamentalist Muslims, while demanding freedom for themselves, aim to deny it to everyone else, and mostly to their fellow Muslims. This is the same as the Communist Revolution, which ostensibly was about freedom for the powerless oppressed. We know how that turned out. It is the same for India, in that its Kashmiri “freedom fighters” want to take away the freedom of other Kashmiris that do not belong to their sect and religion. Thanks to the India-haters in the west, Kashmiri Islamic militants get a sympathetic press in the West, and the US keeps pushing India to come up with “solutions” to the “problem” of Kashmir. If the Indians were stupid enough to listen to the US, the result will be one day the same kind of freedom that non-Muslims and “heretical” Muslim sects enjoy in Pakistan and other Islamic republics, chiefly the peace of the grave. In Saudi Arabia, a relatively benign Islamic states as these things go, being caught with a Bible can mean imprisonment. These folks are, of  course, our Best Friends Forever, which kind of makes one wonder what happened to American revolutionary ideals. But we digress.  

 

·         Insofar as India and America have been, and continue to be, victims of Islamic terrorism, logic dictates we should be sympathetic to Russia. We do parenthetically need to note that the Indians have suffered far more from Islamic terrorism than the US, something Americans don’t understand. Of course, the Americans could retort that it isn’t their fault that Americans are so good at internal security and the Indians so terrible. This Indian has a counter-retort, but again, lets not wander off the point.

 

·         The problem with feeling for and identifying with Russia as the victim of Islamic fundamentalism is that the Russian regime as currently exists is one of the more unpleasant in the world. No need to go into the well-known details. It suffices to say that the tradition of Russian Czars continues, as it did with the communists. One supposes getting away from one’s history is difficult, but it can be done. Take India as an example. It had little tradition of democracy except on the village level until 1947, and of course even at the village level it was the higher castes that held the power, so it was democracy for everyone but the ones who needed it the most, the lower castes and out castes. Yet in 2014 India is a huge, raucous, and demanding democracy. Indeed, one wonders if in America it is even possible for a state government to take power on the platform of opposing political and bureaucratic corruption. In America there is little bureaucratic corruption, but the political corruption is limitless.

 

·         So, what are Indians and Americans to do? The Indians, of course, are so timid and insecure that they will never express sympathy for Russia. There is also the problem that as much as one-fifth of India’s people may be Muslim and India’s main way of getting through life is to let sleeping dragons lie. Condemning Islamic terrorism in other countries would, Indians feel, be to single out their own Muslims. Incidentally we are now told that the way to deal with a grouchy komodo dragon is to give it a good scratching behind its ears. What astonishes Editor is that people have taken THIS long to figure it out? Every child knows the way to deal with any grouchy dragon of any size is to give it a good scratching behind the ears, followed by a good tummy rub.

 

Monday 0230 GMT December 30, 2013

 India Deputy Consul Case: Corrections and developments

 

·         India Deputy Consul Case: 2 corrections First, a minor correction. Editor has been referring to Mr. Preet Bharara as Manhattan District Attorney. He is actually the US Attorney for Southern District of New York, which covers Manhattan.  94 US Attorney positions are assigned based on population. New York State has four US Attorneys, but Editor’s state of Maryland has 6-million people, with one US Attorney, 82 Assistant Attorneys, and 80 support staff.

 

·         Second, re. US State Department  Editor has taken the position that the case has nothing to do with State Department. However, according to a copy of the case filed against the Indian deputy-consul, and sent to us by reader Amitava Dutta, the case has everything to do with State Department because it was investigated and filed by said State Department. The consul was arrested by State Department’s Diplomatic Security service and handed to the Federal Marshals service by them.

 

·         This throws an entirely different and very serious light on the matter. The ramifications are widespread because it appears a concerted effort was made to act against an Indian diplomat who is no more guilty of visa fraud than any 2nd/3rd world diplomat who brings servants to the US. No action is being taken against other diplomats who may have violated US minimum wage law after signing affidavits for getting a visa for their servant by promising US minimum wages, as required.

 

·         Editor is now doing an investigation of this matter. For this he requires cooperation from US State Department and Indian Embassy in Washington for a few facts after which he has sufficient material to Reveal All. If this cooperation comes about, the investigation is easily done. If he does not get cooperation, his choice will be drop the investigation, or spend his own time and money on carrying the matter to a conclusion. As he has to work for a living, and is not backed by a media organization, working on his own time and money is not possible.

 

·         Editor is not suggesting there is a conspiracy on part of State and Indian Embassy to deny him information. It is simply that State may seem no particular need to indulge an unofficial blogger by giving him answers.  Ditto Indian Embassy.

 

·         Meanwhile, here are a few things Editor has learned. The servant and her family have been given T visas for trafficked person and her family, but State’s own guidelines for T visa suggest she is not entitled to it. There has to be force, coercion, mistreatement etc. for a T visa. A case where a servant signs a second contract before departure for a job overseas is not trafficking. It is a case of not obeying US and state minimum wage law, for which there is redress that does not involve arrests and quarter-million dollar bail and assorted humiliations. While US Government could add trafficking charges to the indictment, it is significant that so far this has not been done. The charge is visa fraud.

 

·         Might the T visa have been given because the testimony of the maid is required in the visa fraud case? In that case U and S visas are given, which do have a possible path to permanent residency and citizens. It also seems unlikely that the visa case rises to the level that the maid has to be given a chance to start a new life after her testimony is finished.

 

·         Editor has said that deputy consul had made clear maid was to get paid $4,500/month all found, she would have been on the right side of the law. Editor is wrong. According to changes made in 2010 and 2011, diplomats can no longer use “all found” to justify paying less than minimum wage. They don’t have to pay overtime, though. Which creates an interesting situation: servants of foreign diplomats hired on an all-found basis have, in effect, far higher wages than Americans are entitled to. Aside from minimum wage, they get room, board, insurance, travel and so on. US Government will say that the all found is not its business. It wants minimum wage paid; the all found is between the employer and servant.  In reality, one wonders how many servants will come to work for diplomatic employers if they are told out of their $9 plus overtime they have to pay for their own living expenses in New York.

 

·         Editor has wondered why deputy consul is being penalized if she gave a false affidavit so that the maid can procure her visa. The fraud falls on the maid, who knowingly submitted a false affidavit. Editor was wrong here because the diplomat procured the visa giving the maid as her dependent (A-3 visa). The fraud falls on the diplomat.

 

·         From the press we learn that the first non-governmental organization to take up the maid’s case dropped her as a client after a meeting arranged by the NGO between NGO, maid, her lawyer, and the diplomat. It is at this meeting, apparently, that the mail told diplomat that for $10,000 and help in getting a visa (which diplomat cannot help with). This is blackmail and it is possible this is the reason the NGO dropped the maid. Who was subsequently taken up by a second NGO.

 

·         Should diplomat have gone on her to the meeting? No, according to us. But Indians cannot be expected to know the details of US legal procedure any more than Americans can be expected to know Indian procedure. Nonetheless, the Consulate should have restrained the diplomat from going, sent its lawyer instead, and filed a case for extortion subsequently.

 

·         How is it possible that Indian government did not realize until days after the case broke that the diplomat actually did have immunity? Well, if you knew how India works, you’d be surprised it took the Indian Government ten days or whatever. That’s all Editor can say.

 

·         Since this is not a trafficking case and one of visa fraud, why is (a) US picking on an Indian diplomat , and (b) simply canceling her visa as is done for the vast majority of visa fraud cases? Only SecState Kerry can answer that. One reader has half-seriously suggested that this simply could be an Ultra Large Royal SNAFU, what do you expect from the Obama Administration? But even if Kerry is thrown into the category of Another Absolutely Clueless Obama Appointee, there are plenty of civil service types who would immediately see the danger in going after the diplomat. So what has happened Kerry went ahead regardless of consequences?

 

·         The answer to that is Editor has no clue. There is a mystery here. It doesn’t have to be a conspiracy, but this action is what you would expect from a Government determined to retaliate against the mistreatment of its personnel in the other country. No such case is known to have happened.

 

·         Would India be acting this way had the Chinese mistreated an Indian diplomat? Ha ha. They would be busy denying such a thing happened. India can beat up on US, it is frightened to death of China.

 

Friday 0230 GMT December 27, 2013

 

·         Southern District New York’s DA does it again! Charges 49 current and past Russian diplomats or their spouses stationed in New York with Medicare fraud. These official/spouses falsified their income to get pre-natal and maternity care via Medicare. In some cases they claimed their children were US citizens. We’re not sure how this works, because as far as we know, does not matter if you’re a diplomat or not, your child born here is a citizen. Please correct if we are wrong. Incidentally, many accused have diplomatic immunity, the DA has suggested the US should lift the immunity.

·         The Russians have sent those of the accused in the US home. So far the reaction from the Russians has been very mild. See http://rapsinews.com/news/20131225/270258559.html sent to us by reader Patrick Skuza. Moscow has confined itself to saying that US should have quietly taken up the matter with the US government instead of making the names/indictments public. Russia says they equally have problems with US diplomats but resolve the matters on a government-to-government level without going public.

 

·         Now let’s consider a moment what has happened here.  First, Editor really wishes the DA is appointed US Attorney General. Someone needs to take a hard and long look at the US Congress. The Manhattan DA is fearless enough to do just that.

 

·         Second, US State Department must be banging its head against the wall. First India, now Russia. And this means no one is safe, friend, foe, or neither. There are sure to be more indictments coming.

 

·         Third, the Russians are not pussy cats like the Indians. They are as hard as stone, and vindictive as the Gods. They also happen to be masters of fabrication, with a totalitarian court system that if conspicuously free of the need for real evidence.  And they happen to be led by Vladimir Putin whose skill-set includes extreme intimidation.  Connect the dots, and like Casey Jones, there is trouble ahead and behind.

 

·         India is not going to be impressed or mollified by the DA’s action against the Russians. In fact it will make the Indians even more angry because why was their diplomat not allowed to quietly leave. Why were the Russians not arrested, hand-cuffed, strip-searched and force to post bail? Sure not all had immunity. Certainly many of their spouses would have no immunity.

 

·         The only thing that will get the Indians to calm down is if white US allied diplomats are given the same treatment as their diplomat. Any minute now the Indians are going to start screaming racism. And indeed in light of the very different treatment of the Russians, they have a case. Except that the Government of India are not even pussy cats, but liable to be savaged by sheep without legs, Editor would have thought by now Government India would have filed a charge of racial bias – against the DA, using the Russian as their example of preferential treatment based on color.

 

·         Just a word of advice to young Preet from an admirer who hopes he goes on to bigger things including cleaning out the stinking mess that is the US polity. Sometimes it is best to compromise. Just quietly withdraw the charges against the Indian diplomat and say you’ll be satisfied with her returning to her home country. You’ve made your point. You were doing the right thing until you got the US Marshals involved. Just because you CAN mistreat a foreign diplomat doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

 

·         And while you’re out there waging a worthy crusade, please do something about the extraordinarily long sentences, including life, meted out to non-violent petty law-breakers. In this respect the system you are part of may be legal, but it is not just. If your system is not just, it loses credibility. Which destroys the system. Editor for one does not want that. He merely wants to see it reformed. And you are the person to do it.

Wednesday 0230 GMT December 25, 2013

 

·         Big setback for US in India consul case We had mentioned that the Government of India had withdrawn ID cards issued to US consular officers in retaliation for the arrest and strip-search of its deputy-consul in New York. We did not realize what this actually meant because the Indian press reported it as implying non-accredited personnel would no longer be able to go unsearched into airports and so on.

 

·         We are told that the real significance of the move is far more serious. The GOI has withdrawn the immunity from arrest of non-accredited American diplomatic officials. This immunity for events that happen outside the line of work was not required by Geneva. But it has been extended as a matter of courtesy. But now, because the US ignored courtesy normally shown to Indian non-accredited persons, India will show no more courtesy to Americans.

 

·         In practice this means that non-accredited diplomatic personnel – which includes most US Embassy/Consulate officials – can now be arrested for the least infraction of India’s labyrinthine civil and criminal laws. For example, if a non-accredited employee has a same-sex relationship with anyone, American, Indian, or whomever, the police can take the employee into custody. If a restaurant complains the American has misbehaved, or if a shop doubles the agreed price for an order of furniture and says the American has not paid his bill, regardless of the truth of the situation, the American can be arrested. If a servant is fired for theft but complains to the police he has been mistreated, the American can get arrested

 

·         Truthfully, Editor is feeling terrible for the American non-diplomatic staff. He knew a great many in Delhi and without exception they were very decent folks who went out of their way to help Editor if ever he asked for a favor. They were great hosts, and minded not a bit when Editor invited them to his garret and served fried eggs and sausages. They were modest, law-abiding, and with some exceptions, fond of India.

 

·         The US State Department and the Government of the US can say all they want about this being a human trafficking case in which they cannot get involved. The reality is every 3rd World mission brings servants. They have servants at home, often many servants. They cannot pay American wages. In this case the diplomat’s basic salary barring duty allowances was $700/month. To expect she should  pay New York minimum wage and overtime of $4500/month as well as all found, is not just absurd, it is a deal no American maid can dream of. Agreed the visa law is the visa law. The diplomat, however, did not do anything thousands of other foreigners posted to the US don’t do. So why now get huffy and say “we can’t interfere, the law is the law” and pick on one diplomat without investigating thousands of others to see if their servants are getting minimum wage/overtime?

 

·         Secretary Kerry, its time for you to apologize, make restitution to the diplomat, and get the case quashed. What’s that you say – you can’t interfere in the process of the law? Accepted. So what will you say when your diplomats are arrested on the street, taken to the lock-up, stripped, subjected to invasive search, thrown together with the local low-life in a cell? Will you be happy when you have to explain to American media and the US Congress that the Government of India piously says it cannot interfere with the law?

 

·         What will you do when the police object to some detail in the bail application and cause a delay of 2-10 days in getting your diplomats out? What will you do when the judge says he cannot give bail because there is a certainty of flight? Are you aware the most minor of Indian judicial cases can go on for months even if your diplomat pleads guilty just to get the matter over with? And if your diplomat is falsely arrested, refuses to plead guilty, and goes to trial, have you any idea at all how long it will take for her/him to be freed after trial? What’s that you say – a few weeks? Sonny boy, try a few years.  And if the Government of India accuses a non-immune diplomat of espionage, even if the allegation is totally baseless, try 10-years before a verdict is reached. Of course the judge will give credit for time served.

 

·         Secretary Kerry, think on this and talk to your boss. The matter doesn’t end because the Indian diplomat is now accredited. And you know what? Even if the Indian Ministry of External Affairs tells the Ministry for Home Affairs to let the American diplomat go in the national interest, Home is under no obligation to accede. If the Prime Minister tells Home to let the person go, Home will comply. And you know what? Home will leak the matter to the media, tying the Prime Minister’s hands. You can see we Indians have learned a few things from our big brothers, the Americans.

 

Tuesday 0230 December 24, 2013

 

Orbat.com Investigative Report Shows India Deputy Consul’s Maid Was Not a CIA mole

 

·         According to US intelligence sources, who cannot be quoted because they are not authorized to speak on the record, Indian allegations that the maid of India’s Deputy Consul at New York is a CIA mole are false and motivated, Orbat.com has learned.

 

·         Okay, so these days the in thing is US journalism is to question the integrity of journalists who quote anonymous sources.  This is sensible, because if a source is not willing to go on record, we have only the journalist’s word that the source has spoken the truth. Habitual liars who ask us, the public, to trust them, shouldn’t be too upset if we refuse to believe them. Doubtless there are few journalists who are outright liars. For one thing, they lack imagination. In a time where so much of the alleged news is planted by one interested party or the other, nothing less than an identified source cuts the mayo (or is the mustard?). We the public have to be able to check.

 

·         So, remorsefully the Editor admits he has done something wrong by relying on anonymous sources. He is prepared to reveal his sources – himself. That’s not fair, you will say. How can anyone use himself as a source?

 

·         Gather around while Editor tells a story. When he decided to go back to college 27 years after he dropped out in his senior year, he wrote a paper on the modern Japanese Navy. His professor gave him a B. When Editor asked why, professor said Editor had not given any sources. Editor explained that as he was an expert it hardly made any sense for him to quote himself. Professor changed the grade to an A.

 

·         So look, folks, Editor has been out of the US-India game for twenty years. But he still keeps his hand in for amusement  and to make himself feel important. You can really take it from Editor, quoting Editor, that the maid was not a US mole. But he is not asking you to take his word. He’s asking you to reason this out for yourself.

 

·         If the maid was a mole, why did CIA let her leave her position within a year of service?

 

·         Given US ability to eavesdrop, to put it politely, why would US need a mole to report on what happens in the home of an Indian consular officer stationed in New York?  

 

·         Moles are pulled out and their families brought to the States only if said mole is (a) important; (b) is in imminent danger of being caught, or has completed many years of faithful service. The mole is given protection in America so that her/his home government cannot arrest her.

 

·         Okay. So what is important about the home life of a deputy consul, who is a junior diplomat, who handled, among other things, women’s affairs? Of course, the deputy consul might be assigned to Indian intelligence and is using diplomatic cover. But again, why take the risk, trouble, and expense of recruiting a mole when electronic bugging will do a better job?

 

·         Next. What was the danger of being uncovered? None. What could India have done had a mole been uncovered? Nothing. Why would said mole try to blackmail her employer to get her passport back and help for a visa to stay on in the US? Mole would be given US documents, she would not need Indian documents, and she would not be so foolish as to get back in touch with her employer through a lawyer. Incidentally, if maid jumped ship, there is no way in heck the Indian diplomat could have gotten her a visa to stay and work in US. First, no one at Immigration has any reason to oblige an Indian diplomat; second employer cannot get maid a visa when said maid has jumped ship and violated the terms of her first visa. But this is an aside.

 

·         Here is what was going on according to Editor’s sources in New York. No need for quotation, because all this stuff is already in the press. You have a very ambitious Southern District of New York, who happens to be of Indian origin and is highly regarded. He also is highly publicity conscious – nothing wrong with that, it’s the American way. For some reason not known to anyone, said DA decided that jailing multi-billion business fraudsters was not enough excitement, and he decided to involve himself in making out a human trafficking case against an unimportant Indian official.

 

·         We’ve already said that if diplomat said “$4500/month” instead of “the $4500/month includes room, board, medical care, travel etc”, diplomat has committed a violation of US visa law. The Government of India is not defending her on this.

 

·         But to go from there to arresting a diplomat, even if she did not have immunity outside her official work, and subjecting her to the indignities of the US criminal justice system, is way beyond the pale. The DA maintains diplomat was better treated than other suspects. True. But that will not wash with any diplomatic service in the world. It absolutely does not wash with India, which treats all American diplomats with exaggerated respect, and especially women.

 

·         It is no use explaining to the Indians the viewpoint of the DA because they say “So what? Was she not entitled to be told she was under investigation? Was she not entitled to give her side to the police? Why could the US not have taken the matter up with the Consulate? How can you say the maid was “trafficked” when she came willingly, and there is no claim that her employer stopped her from leaving had she wanted to leave? What is this nonsense about being intrusively strip-searched to ensure she was not a danger to herself or others? Was she going to kill herself or attack the officers? Aside from underpayment, there is no allegation of mistreatment, so why did US have to arrest diplomat out of the blue – while ignoring the diplomats police reports that she was being blackmailed?”

 

·         What is particularly incensing the Indian public right now if the way the maid’s family was secretly brought to the US and given asylum. The Indians are saying this is done only for the most important spies. Ergo, maid has to be  spy.

 

·         Are the Indians wrong to infer this from the special treatment given to the maid? Of course not. How are they to know what Editor told you in the beginning? It’s easy to make fun of the Indians and their conspiracy theories – and you know Editor is second to none here. But they have before them a set of facts. They can only make sense of the facts within a framework they know. They are doing that, and concluding from the whisking away of the maid and her family that there is a conspiracy.

 

·         What Indians will never accept because to them it’s absolutely unbelievable that yes, a US District Attorney working with Immigration can actually get the family flown to the US. BTW, this has nothing to do with State Department. State gives visas as approved by the immigration folks. Even the visa they give you, such as a visitor’s visa is no guarantee of admission – it is conditional on acceptance by Immigration. The role of US State Department is unclear. Did the DA really not inform them of what was happening and what he intended? That’s another story.

 

·         Now, the best part of this story Its no longer a story. US Government has quietly accepted the diplomat’s posting to the Indian mission at the UN. She now has immunity, past and present. Of course the US wanted a way out, but it did India no favors. Except if the diplomat is a direct threat to US national security, US could not have refused to accept her accreditation. The maid and her family have won the immigration lottery ahead of the other 10-million or whatever people wanting to migrate. Not fair to the others, who are doing their application lawfully. If maid had any intent to jump ship once in the US, which clearly she did, she’s the one who is guilty of visa fraud. Anyway, no one cares about the other 10-million. The DA does not get egg on his face. His supporters will say he was sabotaged by US Government and his reputation is upheld about going after everyone, rich or poor. One asks, so what is next for our fearless DA who Editor has been hoping becomes head of Justice Department instead of the Klowne we now have. Is he going to prosecute diplomats who have no immunity about their parking tickets? That actually is a huge, huge scandal. (He’ll get out of it by saying it’s a city matter).

 

Monday 0230 GMT December 23, 2013

Help! Obamacare has fallen on me and I can’t get up!

 

·         So here is Editor, peacefully minding his own business, when he opens his mail and finds a $15 bill from Kaiser Permenante. That’s his Medicare plan supplier, and he cannot figure it out. Several calls later, he still cannot figure it out: the best KP can do is say “this is your premium for your plan, and it’s a monthly charge.” Editor protests that Medicare takes care of his plan, why is he being charged extra? No reply that makes sense, just a lot of “This has nothing to do with Medicare.” If it doesn’t, why is Editor getting a bill? No answer.

 

·         Next day Editor tries again and actually gets an intelligent customer service representative who explains this is a charge required by Obamacare as of January 1, 2014, and indeed it has nothing to do with Medicare, which is why Editor has to pay it himself.

 

·         Well, not to moan and whine here, but an additional expense of $180/year to handle. Editor is being punished by ACA for having insurance, even if the insurance is provided by the Government. Wonder if Kafka would have had something to say about this. Just imagine, Government is providing a service because Editor has faithfully worked for 25-years. Since he was away for 20-years and no social security or Medicare deduction was made, he gets no credit for these years. Then Government charges him a fee not because it is providing him a service, but because it needs to cover those who have no medical insurance.

 

·         Now, Editor has repeatedly said that the ACA promise that costs for insuring the uninsured would not raise costs because enough money could be saved from efficient administration of the medical system, but everyone and his dog know there would have to be an increase in taxes. And lo! This has indeed happened.

 

·         The thing is, “efficient” and “US medical system” used in the same book are an oxymoron. Editor is constantly amazed at how Americans go on whining about the “socialization” of medical care and the destruction of “the best medical care in the world”, completely oblivious to the reality we pay twice as much as any other advanced country for medical care, still fail to cover 1/6th of our citizens, and to top it off, we have worse health outcomes than any of the rich countries. But this being America, you can take a lie, repeat it endlessly, and it becomes a truth.

 

·         But the Government also has lied big time on the ACA. The only way you can insure everyone in a country and keep costs the same is using a single-payer system, and by controlling costs, which then means “socialism”. But we are against socialism too.

 

·         Now, Editor has no problem having his taxes raised to pay for the health care of the uninsured. That doesn’t stop him from wondering why that health care system cannot provide universal coverage and good outcomes for 9% of GDP instead of 18% - and going up, inevitably, to 25% and then 33% of GDP. This so called best system in the world will have us living in one-room apartments, eating beans-and-rice, but we’ll have great health care. Except we still wont.

 

·         Editor’s problem is the Big Lie. It’s no use blaming President Obama for using the Big Lie because the entire power-elite, regardless of political party, uses the Big Lie. One of the real whoppers is that the American public education system is a failure – but let’s not get started.

 

·         There’s a reason the Bible enjoins us from lying. Lies disrupt the fabric of society so that one day civil society becomes uncivil society. Much of the Bible is about conversations folks have had with God. These days those same folks would be put on medication because by today’s parameters of what we call sane, there were insane. So was Jesus. But let’s not get diverted. Yet much of the Bible is simply an ethical guide to structure a civil society. Sure its all referenced back to God as the Great Punisher if we don’t observe His Laws, but that’s the way the religions that came out of the Middle East were. Buddhism, for example, has a very advanced ethical system and there’s no God to be found.

 

·         Some will say: “well, the power elite have always lied”. But that is no excuse for the way America functions these days. Every generation is supposed to be better than the previous. To say “it always has been, it always will be” is passive pre-destination. We Americans are supposed to beyond such weak stuff. We are supposed to determine our own courses, and we are supposed to be better than those who came before us. If we don’t see this, then we’re going down with all the other peoples of this world who don’t think it is necessary, or even, possible, to have a civil society.

 

·         BTW, this news about an annual charge of $180 as required by the ACA – and which will for sure increase every year – came a week after Editor received Greetings from the Social Security Commissioner, informing that Editor was to get a 1.5% cost-of-living increase. Coincidentally, the increase is also $180/year. Moreover, as we’d mentioned earlier, the cost of generic medicines has shot up enormously, in some case from 400% and on up. Just on two prescriptions for 90-days Editor is paying $100+ more than he was in 2012.

Friday 0230 GMT December 20, 2013

Aircraft carriers are not dead or even in danger of being dead

·         Ever since China announced its DF-21 anti-carrier ballistic missile, some folks have been saying US large-deck carriers are finished. This is all very odd. As an analogy, did the arrival of anti-tank guided missiles mean the end of the tank? It is now fifty years since ATGMs began proliferating, and tanks remain the core of offensive ground operations. Not to mention that tanks can do nifty things in the defense too, a role that is usually ignored. Moreover, we are in one of those cycles where a weapon is getting ahead of its opponents. Previously tanks relied increasingly on better armor and passive defenses against ATGMs. Now they are being armed with shotgun type weapons to destroy incoming missiles. Soon this technology will make ATGMs irrelevant – till the defense figures out a new way to stop tanks.

·         The DF-21 is an old Chinese design intended to strike land targets up to 2000-km away. Of a sudden, the Chinese claim that they have added real-time satellite guidance, robust countermeasures, and maneuvering warheads. And equally of a sudden, the presumption is the poor old carrier is history. Might as well recall the carriers now and sell them for scrap.

·         The other day the Chinese had the temerity to say that aside from the quality of escorts, their carrier battle group is the equal of US carrier battle groups. Did anyone take them seriously? Of course not. This was correctly dismissed as the usual Chinese contribution to global warming, exceeded only by the Iranians. So why are folks going pale and needing smelling salts because of a Chinese announcements regarding an invincible anti-carrier weapon?

·         By the way, DF-21 Anti-CBG has been tested – against a target in the Gobi Desert. Impressive. Not. China is supposed to have 60+ missiles, and they are solid fuel, and fired from mobile road launchers. Given China’s resources, there is no reason why they cannot have as many as the need.

·         Meanwhile, the normally sober US Naval Institute has come up with an extraordinary idea: that a single hit from a DF-21 will sink a carrier. We have discussed this before. Short of freak situations such as a missile going through an open elevator and exploding in hanger deck, it is unclear if a modern super carrier can be sunk in the first place. DF-21 can carry a 300-KT nuclear weapon; yes, this could sink a super carrier. IS anyone suggesting the Chinese can use nuclear weapons in an anti-carrier strike?

·         So why all this weeping and gnashing of teeth about the demise of carriers? Nearly as we can tell, folks have decided that because the missile is fast, it cannot be intercepted. It can only be decoyed by electronic measures. First, we don’t see how from here folks jump to the demise of the strike carrier.

·         Second, the DF-21 Anti-CBG will rely on a chain of operations that have to work perfectly. The carrier has to be detected at sea and kept detected. Carrier groups usually mosey along at 20-knots an hour. If we assume the acquisition, processing, preparing launch, firing, traveling, and final guidance take 30-minutes, which is pretty fast, it’s not going to be  easy to hit a carrier – assuming that China will have the capability to make everything work flawlessly 15-20 years from now. To begin with finding and pinning down a carrier is not easy because of decoys.  Any disruption of the chain will cause a complete fail.

·         There are already existing defense against ballistic missiles – the same Aegis/Standard destroyers and cruisers that accompany a carrier. We aren’t going to get into this very complicated subject right now, except to say Aegis/Standard has reached the point it can handle multiple targets. We agree it is still a long way off from working to – say - .99 perfection. But the DF-21 is many years away from the prom. Meanwhile, the US continues to develop new last ditch weapons such as anti-missile lasers. Short-range missiles and Gatling guns already provide point defense. There have been major strides in US-Israeli programs for missile interception at all ranges, down to a few thousand meters. Lasers are effective as of right now: the US is not deploying them because it wants much more advanced capability than is practical now. But it will not remain impractical 10-years from now. Yes, lasers at sea have their issues – and folks are working on those.

·         Signals to and from satellites can be jammed, as well as signals on internally self-guiding warheads. The signals can themselves be knocked out. The US goes “OMG! OMG! The sky is falling!” each time the Chinese do an ASAT test, while cleverly hiding that they already have an excellent ASAT capability which is improving by the year. Indeed, this ASAT business, which includes deep black US programs, is getting to the point we for one are thinking folks had better start thinking of other ways to get reconnaissance data and communications than satellites. Ten years from now, or 20-years from now, people may well find themselves fighting without satellites. Though needless to say the US is pretty far ahead on protecting satellites from ASAT weapons.

·         Mainly, however, why do folks assume that the US is simply going to send its carriers into the China Seas without neutralizing weapons like DF-21. See, the US Navy’s doctrine is that carriers will not approach the danger line until after the enemy’s anti-carrier weapons have been neutralized. The US has so many weapons for neutralization, and so many more coming along, that it’s difficult to make a concise discussion.

·         So is all well and the super-carriers will continue to rule the waves? Not quite. The main problem has become one of risk. With just ten super-carriers and so much of America’s prestige bound up in each one, in wartime it will be very hard for commanders to expose them to risk. The super-carrier has reached the point that if by chance 2-3 were sunk, it would be a national disaster.

·         These monsters are now costing $15-billion – without the accompanying cruisers, destroyers, and attack submarines, and it is taking so long to build them – 7-8 years after several years of preparation time, that they are becoming irreplaceable. In war, no matter what the theoretical equations tell you, it is a very bad idea to have weapons you cannot risk. Everything has to be expendable. US has a good record of not losing super carriers, start with the Essex class which we mentioned the other day and which were the super carriers of their time. But no one in their right minds assumed that the Essex carriers were not be risked. They got close and personal with Japanese land and sea based airpower, and it was understood that if one, five, ten, or even more were lost in combat, well, that was war.

·         Personally what bothers us is the rapidly shrinking carrier air group. Used to be the big carriers from CVA-59 on could pack 70 combat aircraft on board. Now it’s down to 48 for the 100,000-ton behemoths. Yes, US carriers in wartime will take on more aircraft, and yes, people are working on ways of greatly expanding sortie rate. In our opinion, however, this business of “we have so much more capability with fewer aircraft” does not fly. The other side’s capabilities are also increasing all the time.

·         The time has come for the US to keep its super-carrier total at ten, and start building conventionally powered 60,000-tonners. Two or more can be obtained for the price of one super-carrier. The US needs numbers as well as capability. US could till recent decades maintain five carriers on permanent forward station (3 with 7th Fleet and 2 with 6th Fleet). That was when it had 15 carriers.  Now we are down to 3 on permanent station and this is not a good idea. We are not even going to get into the discussion of if single carriers should be operating alone for any reason.

·         Yes, the life-cycle cost of two carriers with 120-aircraft between them will be considerably more than one carrier with 75-aircraft. If this were all there is to it, we could build a single 1-million ton carrier with 600-aircraft. It would be highly cost-effective. And highly absurd. Life-cycle is not everything. In war it is nothing. US has to rethinking its carrier force. Carriers can be protected and will remain indispensable. Their size and numbers need to be rethought.

·         BTW, likely you think we’re joking about 1-million ton carriers. Oil rigs are already getting up to 1-million tons. And in World War 2, the British came up with the idea of a 2-million ton carrier made from – get this – ice and sawdust. It was ruled out – not because it couldn’t work, but because the Royal Navy didn’t want to risk the Sterling 10-million cost. See http://io9.com/5839623/the-unmeltable-weapon-that-could-have-changed-the-course-of-world-war-ii

 

Thursday 0230 GMT December 19, 2013

US-India Crisis: India Stops US Diplomatic Liquor Imports!!

·         Lesser provocations have led to war. In retaliation for US handling of an Indian consular officer in New York, India has – among other things – banned the US Foreign Service from importing liquor for its embassy and missions. But the background first.

 

·         An Indian deputy counselor at the Indian mission in New York brought a maid to work in her New York residence, as is the usual case with many missions. On the maid’s visa application the Indian counselor said the maid would be paid the New York minimum wage, which would have amounted to $45,000/year because of the number of hours to be worked.

 

·         The maid jumped ship – as is also common, and however it happened, the Brooklyn District Attorney, a very ambitious person of Indian origin, filed a case of visa fraud against the counselor. The Brooklyn DA has relentless pursued the high and the mighty; if you follow the American financial press you will be quite familiar with his name. When he comes calling, best to throw yourself at his mercy and make a plea deal, because he spares no one. A good guy in all respects, if a little publicity hungry.

 

 

·         But hey, this is America. Editor caught his cross-dressing raccoon Amanda (his real name is Andre) who regular raids Editor’s garbage negotiating a deal with ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, BBC, France 24, Al Jazerra, Xinhua., and RIA Novosti as an international security consultant. The media was so anxious to compete for him they did not notice he was a cross-dressing raccoon. They did get he was a raccoon, but they got his gender wrong. Media’s quite useless. When Editor intervened to shoo media away, he asked Amanda why only these networks? “Because,” said Amanda, these are the only ones of whom I know, from reading your garbage. (Yes, Amanda raids Editor’s garbage for reading material, since Editor throws out no food.) But we digress.

 

·         So, an arrest warrant was issued, federal marshals took the deputy-counselor into custody, and subjected her to the usual indignities accorded to suspects under the American criminal justice system. It may well be the most fair in the world, but it sure is the most brutal outside of DPRK. But then, as Editor tells his foreign friends, you don’t want to be mistreated, don’t break the law. It’s all quite simple.

 

 

·         Government of India erupted in outrage. GOI made clear that the criminal matter was the US’s business. It accepted that as a counselor, as opposed to an accredited diplomat, the lady had no immunity beyond the scope of her official duties. Maid servants have nothing to do with official duties. What GOI objected to, it said, was that under Section this, Subsection that, Rule whatever of the Geneva Convention on missions, she could not have the federal marshals’ grubby hands laid on her. And if you knew where those marshals’hands go 20 times a day, phew, you would not want them laid on you either. Which is why it’s best not to break the law.

·         Unofficially the GOI said that maids’ salaries included room, board, travel, and whatever extras are needed. Considering all that the maid’s pay was reasonable, particularly because the pay was more than the counselor received.

 

·         When US mumbled something about the law is the law, India imposed immediate sanction on US diplomats. This included withdrawing their passes giving them unrestricted/unsearched entry into airports, demanding details on the pay of every Indian employed by an official of a US mission, including servants, removing security barriers outside the US embassy in Delhi – the police piquet is still maintained, and the nuclear bomb of stopping alcohol imports. So, Editor does not drink, and could care less about the liquor, but then he learned ALL US supplies for its missions was suspended, this hurt, because it means no more chocolate milk! And the way the US Embassy got Editor to spy for them was liberal helpings of chocolate milk. It is likely the entire US espionage network in India has collapsed because the best spies work only for American chocolate milk.

 

 

·         Further, Indian politicians want any American mission personnel in same-sex relations to be arrested because same-sex relations are criminal under Indian law.

 

·         Okay. You have the background, now onto the deconstruction.

 

 

·         First, the US visa case is rock-solid if the counselor put down that pay was $4,500/month instead of saying the package was worth $4,500. If the former, which is likely the case, then visa fraud has been committed.

 

·         Second, if India is right about the no-hands rule, if the US does not back down – and it has said it will not - then US is in a big pickle because the ramifications extend far beyond this little imbroglio. This is not just a matter for Vienna, where US will be endlessly humiliated, and from where every petty bureaucrat in every unpleasant nook of the world will find license to harass US personnel.

 

·         Third, if the US has done wrong, India’s removal of security barriers from outside the US Embassy is also a wrong. Security has to be provided regardless of ongoing disputes.

 

·         Fourth, apparently the maid, after disappearing, contacted an immigration lawyer who invited the counselor to her/his office, saying if counselor cooperated, unpleasantness could be avoided. In other words, blackmail. Counselor informed local authorities, but no action was taken. This is not a breach of any convention, but it shows the local police in a bad light. US surely does not want a situation when its complaints to Indian police are ignored.

 

 

·         Fifth, and this is the really interesting thing. Back home this lady’s dad is a super-corrupt retired bureaucrat who was busted for a scam in which Bombay apartments meant for war widows were given to all and sundry whom the bureaucrat favored, at huge prices. Including his daughter, who presumably did not pay. An apartment in Bombay is harder to come by than an apartment in New York, by the way.

 

·         A friend in India has sent Editor the declaration of assets required each year by the GOI, and even though it is a property list –no cash assets are listed – it is a staggering compilation. Now, rich people can become members of the Indian Foreign Service and other services; there are still families of means who consider public service a virtuous career. There are people with property from their ancestors. A lot of property owned by the counselor is from her father; the question is, given Dad’s history, where did he get it from.

 

·         Nonetheless, the lady herself has clearly broken three Indian laws. First, despite owning an apartment in Mumbai, she applied for a second apartment. How is this anyone’s business? Because she has a subsidized accommodation, under which terms she could not apply for another subsidy. Next, she applied for an apartment meant only for war widows. She is not a war widow, and likely the only reason her application was accepted is that her Dad was heading the scam. Third, though the scam has been wound up and people are being investigated, the war widow apartments, meant to be sold for a nominal sum, were being sold to the high and mighty for several hundred thousand dollars. There are questions where she got the money –or if she even put down any money.

 

·         GOI has escalated by promoting the counselor to its permanent mission to the UN, in a position she has full immunity, including– says GOI – for past cases. The US does not, of course, have jurisdiction over officials posted to the UN. It is supposed to give a visa to whomsoever another country posts to a UN mission; the same applies to anyone the US posts to a UN mission overseas. Still, we don’t see how US is going to accept this lying down.

 

 

·         GOI is right to take issue with the US. The situation in the US has nothing to do with the situation in India. Still, one wishes that if the GOI is going on a crusade, it was on behalf of someone who was less ethically challenged.

 

·         So, you ask: if the case was up before Judge Ravi, how would he rule? Obviously he would acquit her on grounds of being Cute. From the fotos at least, the official rates a 4 of 10. (You have to be cute to get on the index. A Zero is not a total absence of cute, it means cute.) Is this fair you will ask? Is this not being sexist? No to the first and yes to the second. But that is life. It’s not her fault she’s cute. It would be discriminatory not to acquit her.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT December 18, 2013

Japan’s Phony Defense Increase

·         Recent headlines concerning Japan proclaim: “Japan set to increase defense budget in 2014” (Asahi Shimbun); “Japan ups military spending amid China dispute” (VOA News); “Japan seeks biggest budget rise in 22-years” (Reuters); and several more along these lines.

 

·         So all of us who want Japan to do more in the face of rising China will go “Oh goody, Tokyo is finally tired of being pushed around and is going to fight back.” Dream on.

 

·         When you read the details, spending is to increase by 4%. Now, anyone knows the Japanese yen has depreciated to Y100=US$1, increasing weapon import costs. And that Japan is a very expensive country to live and work in. And that there is inflation in 2013 – 1%, to be sure, but that’s already a quarter of the budget increase. Given that weapons costs increase faster than inflation, it may even be possible that the increase is zero or even negative. Government sources themselves say “most” of the increase will go to make up for yen depreciation and personnel cost increases.

 

·         You might get impressed at Japan’s procurement: five new destroyers including two Aegis ABM ships; 28 F-35; 3 high-altitude long endurance UAVs, probably Global Hawks; 17 MV-22 Osprey. Okay, you say, maybe the Japanese are barely increasing their defense budget, but they sure have stepped up procurement. Then you learn this is the five-year procurement plan, and start wondering if Japan is a poor country. Except it happens that the 2014 GDP is estimated at $5.4-trillion. And Japan spends less than 1% of that on defense.

 

·         Now, of course this Japanese “Talk Big, Do Little” policy is also a perennial feature of the Indian Government, so we are not criticizing Japan. And to be sure, the hype is coming from lazy media headline writers and journalists who have zero idea of the subject. Nonetheless, China’s GDP will rise to probably $10.6-billion in 2014. China’s defense budget in 2014 may be around $115-billion, a bit more than 1% of GDP. China’s per capita is a quarter that of Japan, so a lot more of China’s 1% goes to weapons procurement.

 

·         We are told that despite the pathetic amount that Japan spends on defense, there is still deep opposition to a military expansion. It is said to do with the Japanese people’s strong pacifism.

 

·         Would it be terribly rude of us to point out to the ever polite Japanese that relying on other countries for your defense when you have the money is not pacifism, but hypocrisy? True pacifism means avoiding military alliances, and just enough of a military to hold up a STOP sign while the enemy thunders past.

 

·         Indeed, a truly pacifist Japan would be no threat to China, and China would not be so aggressively hostile. The Chinese would simply take what they want, which is a few rocks in the China Sea, and everything would be calm and bright. The Chinese are not into beating up countries for the sake of it. They want nothing more than an annual payment of tribute, and a ritual “We will never do anything to annoy you, Great Masters” every now and then.

 

·         Instead, the Japanese want America’s protection, AND they want the right to complain about the American presence, loudly and often. They do not want to kiss China’s stinky butt. Editor sympathies. Neither do the Indians. And the Indians are so determined to stand their ground, they spend twice as much GDP percentage on defense as China. We Indians are real heroes. But when you see that India’s GDP is a little over than one-fifth China’s, it turns out we are real zeroes. Anyway. Anyway, this rant is about Japan and not India.

 

·         One of the hilarious things about Japan is how it calls a 27,000-ton full load flat deck ship a helicopter escort. We are referring to DD 183 Izumo.  It looks like a carrier. It walks like a carrier. It quacks like a carrier. But the Japanese have to say it is a helicopter escort because, you see, aircraft carriers are aggressive weapons, and we pacifist Japanese cannot have aircraft carriers.

 

·         Has anyone informed the Japanese that the prohibition against “aggressive” weapons and policies was written almost 70-years ago, by the Americans, who defeated the Japanese in a great war? Do the Japanese know times have changed, as – drat – they inevitably seem to in 70-years? Also, do the Japanese realize that a weapon in and of itself (don’t know what that phrase means but it sounds good) neither aggressive not defensive, it’s how the weapon is used? If Japan is not to have aggressive weapons, then it will have to disarm its military entirely, right down to prohibiting pistols, because pistols can be used offensively.

 

·         With China busting through the First Island Chain, using land-based airpower is no longer sufficient for a defense against the rising Chinese Navy, which is likely to have six carriers by 2030. Japan needs carriers strictly for defense. It sensibly plains a second carrier after DD 183.

 

·         To see how absurd is calling a 27,000-ton flattop a “helicopter escort”, India’s INS Vikrant (R11) displaced 19,000-tons at full load. The core of the US carrier striking forces in World War II was the Essex (CV-9) class, which had a standard displacement of 27,000-tons, and at 34,000-tons was not that much larger than the DD 183 class. Incidentally, not a single Essex class carrier was sunk in World War II, despite some taking very heavy battle damage. Just something to remember for those who think a couple of Chinese anti-carrier missiles getting through will sink a US carrier. More on that another time.

 

·         The last time the Japanese PM Abe tried to wake up his countrypersons to the Chinese threat, panicky citizens replaced him in one year, though admittedly his health was also a factor. Now Abe is back, and has managed to get approval for a whopping 4% increase . In 2007, when his first government fell, China’s defense budget was about $27; now it will be four times as much. In 2007, Japan spent $47-billion at today’s exchange rate, Y100=US$1. In 2014 it will spend – gasp! - $49-billion.

 

·         We are impressed with how tough the Japanese are. Not.

Tuesday 0230 GMT December 17, 2013

 

·         The case of the free-lance CIA agent There are days when Editor is so completed stumped by the way his adopted country works that he cannot even put together two intelligent sentences about the situation. The case of the missing CIA free-lance agent is one such case.

 

·         Very briefly, we have an adventurous sort of gentleman who retired from the FBI. While with the Federales, he made a reputation for himself in tracking money flows. CIA heard about it and asked him to do similar work for them, including determine corruption levels in the Iran Government. Definitely a worthwhile project. The gentleman accepted. Who would not when asked by the CIA especially when you are getting paid for your work? Heck, Editor would gladly accept if the CIA asked, which despite all of Editor’s efforts to sell himself, the Agency never did. Editor will not say more least he get his carefully rehearsed stories mixed up. This is the problem with us ex-intel types. In this day of show-and-tell, we want to yak about our heroic deeds, and do ourselves in as a consequence. And of course there is nothing heroic about our deeds in the larger scheme of things. Nothing Editor ever did changed the course of events any more than Amanda the Raccoon who raids Editor’s garbage has ever changed events. But let’s not get carried away here.

 

·         So the gentleman went to Iran in 2007, and has not been seen since. So for years the story has been about an avuncular retired FBI person who for reasons unknown, decided to go to Iran and vanished.  The US media knew about the CIA connection, but remained quiet at Government request so as not to endanger the gentleman. But then AP decided the people had a right to know and broke the story a few days ago. If this unfortunate gentlemen was still alive as of the story breaking, and if the Iranians did not already know he was working for the CIA, well, thanks to AP his death warrant has been signed. But the people have a right to know so who cares about the gentleman.

 

·         We are not concerned about the shenanigans within the CIA. Apparently the analyst side was running the gentleman, not the operations side. Three people involved in the case lost their jobs and seven were disciplined. We are not going to bother with the usual drivel about how wrong these people were to cross over into operations. A bureaucracy that is so strong as to punish folks who were merely working for America is not going to get anywhere, nor serve its country well.

 

·         No. The three things that bother us have nothing to do with the CIA’s internal business. The first thing that bothers us is the CIA paid the man’s family $2.5-million not to file suit against the CIA. What earthly basis did the family have to file suit? The gentleman was a grown person, he knew what he was doing, no one held a gun to his head and said “go spy for America”. If the CIA was liable, America has to be a sicker society than any of us have imagined.

 

·         The second thing is his family is pressuring the Government, saying it has abandoned the gentleman, and going public with all sorts of blather about how much they miss him. In fact, they now demand to see the FBI Director. For what? Why should the FBI director give them a second of his time? Just because he once worked for the FBI makes the Federales responsible for the gentleman for the rest of his life? Neither the FBI, nor the CIA, nor the US Government has the slightest responsibility for a free-lancer. Sure, if Editor’s family member vanished Editor would be most upset. But the last thing Editor would be doing is going around telling the Government and press that the Government has responsibility for the Editor’s family member.

 

·         The Editor must make clear to all you aspiring secret agents out there. In situations such as these, you are on your own. If you are unprepared for the consequences, do not volunteer. There is no need to amplify further.

 

·         The third thing that bugs Editor is a comment an intelligence person made. He said that since the gentleman was not trained as a spy, the analysis folks should not have sent him off. Let us repeat: the gentleman was a mature person with decades of FBI experience. If he volunteered, no one else is responsible. Sure there would be the question of how much damage he could do if arrested and forced to talk. We are willing to bet the damage he could do was zilch. His handler was dealing with him completely outside the system; reportedly even his emails went to her private account. As far as we know, he never stepped inside an office. We don’t know if the gentleman even knew his handler’s real name.

 

·         Incidentally, despite the US Government having taken up this case with Teheran, Iran says it is not holding him. Which may actually be true, because if they did, the Iranians would have a bargaining chip. And by now surely they would have used the chip.  So what is America supposed to? Blockade Iran? Send operative to kidnap the president and use their prez as a bargaining chip?

 

Monday 0230 GMT December 16, 2013

 

·         Benghazi: More cycles and epicycles on the story Read only if you have a life less than Editor, who has no life at all. This does cast light on the alleged STOP order that allegedly prevented help from being sent to Benghazi. Government has denied it issued such an order, and now it seems it was an order given by the Benghazi CIA paramilitary leader to stop some of his gung-ho security contractors from rushing to the consulate.

 

·         He did this because he wanted to get a handle on the situation and round up his Libya militia who had heavy weapons. When it became clear the militia could not be arranged in time, the CIA lot did proceed to the consulate. Not even the enthusiastic contractors say a faster arrival than the 25-30 minutes that elapsed could have saved the US Ambassador. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/cia-benghazi-team-clash-led-stand-down-report

 

·         Anyone knows in these situations, with potentially hundreds if not thousands of armed looney tuners in the streets, you do not get a dozen men together and hurtle into the unknown. What if the CIA lot had rushed out, straight into the arms of one armed mob or the other? The recriminations would have been multiplied manifold. Its sweet some of the contractors wanted to leave immediately. Now for the reality check: an armed force is not a democracy. There is a chain of command. It has to be followed. The team leader was absolutely right to stop folks from rushing around.

 

·         What we found interesting about the report is that the CIA team was followed back to their base and fired on. When CIA returned fire, the fracas ended. There was no fighting until the early morning when militia decided to have a go at the CIA facility. It was in this attack that two Americans were killed. There has been endless speculation about with the hours ticking away no help such as air support was sent. We’ve already been through this, and have explained that contrary to Tom Clancy’s universe, distant military operations are not mounted on a whim and a rumor. Sending aircraft without positive ground control from within the battle area and without the slightest idea what was going on would have led to heaps of militia killed – no loss there – as well as the good guys. Civilians have no idea what aircraft bombs do to people on the ground, particularly if they are not dug in.

 

·         Yes, in the movies one brave woman who just coincidentally happens to be – um – well rounded and half-naked is on her cell-phone or radio, which mysteriously is on the same frequencies the military aircraft are on, so she calls in the strike which kills all the baddies and none of the goodies. Editor is really sorry to say this, but that is not how real world works. Ground-air coordination has to be exquisitely tuned. In the tiny circle in which fighting was taking place no one in their right mind would have dropped inside or just outside.

 

·         Editor just read a Clive Cussler thriller, if you call 45-minutes reading. In this, one of the protagonist happens to have the ability to call in a super-black ops team for whom he once worked. They just happen to be mysteriously available in Guatemala or wherever this book was set, and they just happen to be willing to do an off-the-books mission for an old-buddy-old-pal. They just happen to arrive seconds before the good-guys-goose is irrevocably cooked, and without any prior reconnaissance or planning, wipe out the bad guys.

 

·         When the public is brought up on this nonsense, is it any surprise that every person decides he is an expert on military operations, decides on his own that Benghazi could have been saved, and reasoning backward, decides since Benghazi was not saved, there has to be a definite plot on the part of the government.

 

·         We’ve said before: the Government of the United States is 100% guilty. But not for what happened in Benghazi. The failure lay in the Government’s handling of the PR angle, which – as is usual with this government – was a fiasco so complete that it is hard to believe our country is not ruled by squirrels in human suits. Shouldn’t have said that – squirrels would do a better job of governing America than the putative humans.

 

·         And of course the Government is hiding things, among which is why the Ambassador was in Benghazi in the first place when everyone else was getting out, and when he knew security could not be assured. Yes, the Government is also hiding what the CIA folks were up to. But wait a minute: isn’t the Clandestine Service supposed to be, well, clandestine? Either you have a CIA or you do not. If you do, people need to get rid of the idea that we, the public, are entitled to know everything just because we are curious.

 

·         The public has NO right to know anything about clandestine operations. If said public disagrees, abolish clandestine operations and lets go back to the pre-WW2 situation where gentlemen did not read each other’s mail.

 

 

Thursday 0230 GMT December 12, 2013

 

·         This is really too painful Congressional Republican and Democratic leaders arrived at a budget deal to find the government through September 30, 2015, and it is certain to pass today. Both sides gave a little ground and did not gain much compared to their previous demands. This sudden outbreak of sense is getting just too painful. Obviously this all has to do with the 2014 elections, both sides realize that extremists of any stripe are now unwelcome. It’s either be sensible or lose your seat. Great. So where’s the gain in this?

 

·         The longer the Great American Collapse is put off, the longer it will take to rebuild this country for future glory. These compromises just keep a sick, dysfunctional system going longer on life support. This needs to end, people. We have to start from scratch; with the only thing carried over from the First Republic is the Constitution. Seems to us it’s the only thing worth preserving. Entropy cannot be reversed. The longer a system lives, the greater the entropy. Comes a point the only way you can get things back to a good place is to start over.

 

·         Mr. Kerry, Iraq, and Congress Congress is giving Mr. Kerry a very hard time on the proposed Iran treaty. There seems to be no wish on any member’s part to associate their name with this treaty. Now, we are not arguing for the treaty. We’ve made it clear Iran would be mad to agree to give up its N-weapons program. The only solution is doing a Bang Bang Maxwell and wiping out Iran’s program. Sure they will rebuild it. So it should just get knocked down. Help the Israelis blow down the house now; in another 10-years when the house is rebuilt America will have all sorts of really fancy weapons to knock it down even more efficiently. And maybe in 10-years America will learn not to take action and leave the situation worse off than it was earlier. (We wouldn’t hold our breath on this; since 1945 making things worse has become our specialty.)

 

·         But as temporary agreements go, this is not a bad one. The reason its going to be hard going for Mr. Kerry is that Teheran has been so thoroughly demonized for the last 35 years or so that its near impossible for America to turn on a dime and reverse course just like that. There is, for one thing, the matter of credibility. Mr. Obama has so little credibility he could not get a successful vote to replace the 4-way Stop signs a block away from Editor’s house with flashing red lights. (People will still ignore flashing reds, but are less likely to do so than stop signs, particularly when they’re being inattentive.)

 

·         When US policy on China changed, it was possible only because Ol’ Mad Dog Nixon, Commie Hater Supreme, led the charge. When the nuclear arms limitations treaties were signed, it was only because Mr. Reagan, a hard core foreign policy person and hater of Soviets that could get Congress to agree. Our current Prez cannot even get his nominees for government office approved. How is going to get a controversial treaty approved?

 

·         200,000 sign up for 1-way trip to Mars Okay, so a Dutch company has closed applications for a 1-way trip to Mars after 200,000 applied. Obviously a 1-way trip with the Marsnauts staying on the Red Planet is much simpler than bringing them back. So the idea is to send four people every 2-years starting 2018, and soon enough you have a nice little colony going. http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/10/tech/innovation/mars-one-plan/

 

·         Let’s not get into the technical details of if an initial launch can be made by 2018, because sooner or later one-way trips will become feasible. Let us not worry about folks being sentenced to exile for life. Assuming they are healthy and survive, by the 2030s or so ships will be able to bring folks back to Earth after delivering new immigrants.

 

·         What concerns us is this: Do these people know what they’re doing? Don’t they understand we humans CAME from Mars to Earth because Mars is not a comfortable place to live? And they people want to go BACK to Mars? Yeeesh. No wonder the human race is in such a mess.  No logical thinking. You won’t see Editor signing up. He remembers Mars all too well: very cold, no proper sunlight, no trees, no blue skies, nothing. As for housing conditions, you may as well apply to go live in a Federal SuperMax prison. And as for dating Thuvia Maid of Mars types, forget about it. We may tell you why one of these days.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT December 11, 2013

 

·         The great mystery concerning socks No, it isn’t where do they go to, invariably just one of eacha pair. It has been long known they go to an alternative universe where people believe in mismatched socks. Okay, you ask, then why are no socks appearing in OUR universe from THEIR universe? Silly question. Socks from their universe ARE appearing but they invariably have holes in them and so are no good. THEY have cleverly figured out a way to send us reject socks while taking away our perfectly good socks.

 

·         You laugh. Don’t. Editor has been noticing more and more of his socks have holes in them. We anticipate letters such as: “Dear Editor: your socks have holes in them because you wear them for 6-10 years.” Rubbish. Everyone knows a good pair of socks lasts for 40-years. Six to ten years means Editor’s socks have 30-34 years of life left.

 

·         “Dear Editor: don’t be ridiculous. Just spend $20 and buy 8-pairs from Target.” Editor’s response: “Sure thing. Kindly send $20 plus $1.20 tax plus $4.50 at $0.50 per mile round trip to the nearest Target.” Sheesh.

 

·         Things are getting desperate. Editor is wearing singletons left behind by Mrs. R. IV – you know, the kind in peculiar colors and peculiar decorative motifs and more singletons left by youngest before he got his own place. So now he has to wear only one sock with holes. But the non-hole singletons will get sock-napped by THEM in the alternate universe. He’ll then have to wear both socks with holes, as is the norm around here.

 

·         Australian Minimum Wage vs US we read in yesterday’s Washington Post Letters to the Editor that comparing the two countries’ minimum wage is doing the apples/oranges thing. In Oz, we learn, the minimum wage does not apply to workers below 20. So there can be no comparison. Hmmmm. To us, this seems like another example of the American habit of twisting facts to the point they squeak in protest. The statement is true on its face, so there is no lie. But then the letter writer proceeds to mislead, which is a lie.

 

·         First, let it be conceded the Oz system makes sense. Under 20s are not terribly likely to be living on their own or supporting families. They are in high school, many are in college, and we can assume a great many are living at home. We can agree they do “need” a minimum wage. But then what is the excuse for not providing over 20s with a living wage? It cannot be economic, because the Ozzies are giving a $17/hr minimum wage and doing just fine. Moreover, assume a worker has to work 45 years before being eligible to retire. Should s/he be required to work for 90% of her/his working life at below-living-wage incomes?

 

·         Second, we had earlier said that that it is immoral for corporations to pay wages to their employees such as require state subsidies to stay out of poverty. We think it is wrong for the state to subsidize individuals, but it is just as wrong to transfer income to corporations by taxing the public. What we’d like to see is a locality based minimum wage pegged to the cost of living. For all Editor knows, $8/hr suffices to live above poverty line in East Texas or rural Alabama, but it sure does not suffice in Washington DC Metro or the big cities.

 

·         One thing we read again and again is a plaintive statement by the fast food industry. If you force us to raise wages, we will have to automate, and workers will have fewer jobs than before. You are killing jobs.

 

·         Let’s make an indirect analogy here. In India, until some decades ago, indoor plumbing in urban areas was the exception rather than the norm. So you had a whole class of workers who would come to your house, empty the contents of your chamber pots into larger pots, and carry your poop away on their heads to dispose of. Where? No clue – no one asked these sorts of questions. Editor was perpetually baffled as to why these workers were referred to as “night-soil carriers” because in India we are taught to poop in the morning before we leave the house. So where did the night come in? But then, they say Editor was a difficult child.

 

·         Anyway. One day the Government of India decided – correctly, in Editor’s opinion, that this job was too degrading for humans and banned the practice. So people installed flush latrines. We cannot even imagine how many “night-soil carriers” were out of jobs – likely hundreds of thousands. Government had no plan to find non-poopy jobs for them. There must have been short-term economic suffering for these people. The Government rule was most un-American: these folks were prepared to do the work, wanted to do the work, but were being prohibited by some silly bureaucratic job-killing liberal do-gooders. The question: would you find people willing to do this work today? Unlikely. Even though the move must have cost jobs in the short term, in the long-term the economy adjusted.

 

·         Now, we are not suggesting that working at MickyD’s is the same as carrying people’s poop on your heads. That is why we said this is an indirect analogy. There are many jobs we do not allow people to do today. We do not allow 5-year old children to work in factories. If that is not job killing, we do not know what is. If there were no labor laws and restrictions on child labor, entire families could work! We betcha with two parents and eight kids working, you’d have very few families below poverty level, even if minimum wages were $4 an hour. And just think of the taxes we’d save because we wouldn’t need public education! That’s half-a-trillion annual deficit reduction alone! You could greatly reduce the police force because with people working 14-hour days no would have time or energy to make mischief! With no public welfare except poorhouses and private charity, whole swaths of government spending could be wiped out. We could probably lower taxes to 20% (all taxes including sales and property) and people would have more money to create jobs!

 

·         All we are saying is that the stability of a society depends on all constituencies feeling reasonable comfortable that they are getting a decent deal. Before you get alarmed, Editor is not getting all moralistic and liberal on his readers.  We’re not saying a living wage is the moral right thing to do. We’re saying if you want to maintain a stable society, you cannot have a growing underclass increasingly believe they are not getting a fair deal. Because when Americans feel they are not get a fair deal – well, just remember this is a nation armed, locked, and loaded to the teeth.

 

·         Please to note that for all the talk about creating jobs, Americans corporations are getting richer and richer these past 40-years while employing fewer and fewer Americans. And they are threatening to hire even fewer people if they have to pay a living wage? Again and again Editor reads that American corporations are sitting on enormous piles of cash. They are NOT investing to create more jobs. Why? Because there is no demand. There are not enough people willing to buy their products. Is it because we have all turned New England Puritan of a sudden? Of course not. It’s because people don’t have the money because they don’t make enough.

 

·         If Editor had a proper job - $60,000 is about the minimum “proper job” for a college-educated person in the Washington Metro area, as opposed to half that after taxes of all kinds, he would be right out there creating demand. He’d buy a new car to replace his 15-year vehicle with a failing undercarriage. He’d hire people to do his lawn instead of doing the George of the Jungle act – Editor is too allergy prone to stay outside for any reasonable length of time. He’d get the house painted and get repairs done that have been postponed for years. He might even get a date and create business for the restaurant people.

 

·         And he might even – gasp! – buy new socks.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT December 10, 2013

 

 

·         No one to make fun of today President Obama has not done or said anything totally absurd in the last few days. Congress is actually likely to get a budget done before they break for Christmas this coming Friday. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have said anything outrageous. Indeed, one wonders where they are hiding. The Government of India, which is always good for several sarcastic put-downs, has also not said or done anything screamingly absurd. There is a major crisis between the coach and owner of the Washington DC football team, but the Editor does not watch football. Actually Editor doesn’t watch anything except CCTV at the gym. And the only thing really watching is South Park reruns. If Editor has to see one more Steven Segal movie (or bits of one, anyway, as gym members are allowed only 30-minutes on the exercise machines), they’re going to have take him away in a strait-jacket. And if he has to see one more advert of Americans pigging out he is going to barf all over the CCTV. It really is stomach roiling. This statement is actually unfair to pigs, who are delicate and dainty eaters compared to the Americans in TV ads.

 

·         Iran Baby steps seem to be underway. Two IAEA inspectors are said to be visiting Arak, the under-construction plutonium production reactor, which is the real danger and not U235 enrichment as the Israelis and “experts” want us to believe. Iran has withdrawn a squadron of 10 Su-25s from a disputed island in the Gulf, ratcheting down tension. They must have had to attach party balloons to the Frogfoots and fly them out of there – seven are ex-Iraqi aircraft that fled Iraq in First Gulf, over 20-years ago. We cannot imagine they are in any decent condition. Qatar has broken ranks with the Mideast Sunnis and says it will not join in an attack on Iran.

 

·         Syria The Government has seized the last remaining town in rebel hands on the road from Syria to the sea. We don’t know if the port is Latakia or Tartus. In the context of the chemical weapons destruction program, this means that feedstocks that cannot be disposed of in Syria can now be picked up. Not sure who is going to destroy them. The US says it is prepared to do the job on a ship at sea. About time the US actually did something, though to its credit it was the US threat to bomb that gave the Russians the leverage they needed to persuade Assad to hand over the stuff.

 

·         One success at school In Editor’s county, Algebra I is now being taught under the Common Core Standards curriculum. Americans are great ones for claiming local control, but the CCS has been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. Just to show how relevant this curriculum is to K-12 education, it is said out of the 60 folks who laid down the standards, one is a practicing teacher. We think there may be three. The CCS was generated in secrecy – the folks responsible said they didn’t want vested interests interfering. And then people complain about North Korea’s opaque decision making. The CCS lot is yet to explain that if vested interests were excluded, why were there 7 of the 60 folks from the educational testing companies. Anyone sense a scam?

 

·         At any rate, the idea of CCS was that since it involves a completely new process of learning, it would be introduced one grade at a time so the kids would know what to do. So in Editor’s county we’ve reached 4th Grade. So just to show how logical we are, the county decided to jump CCS to 9th Grade. Leaving the kids completely lost. You see, for CCS we teachers are not supposed to give the answers or teach the old fashioned way. We are supposed to encourage students to come up with the answers themselves, yea, even unto the formulas. If you weren’t great at math, think back to when you were in school and the teacher refused to show you how to work the quadratic formula; instead s/he required you to come up with it yourself. You see the point – there is no end to the absurdity that is American K-12 education.

 

·         So Editor’s classes are pretty chaotic because he has students that would not, in any other country, be in Algebra I, the poor things are so low. Not their fault, it’s the way the system work from K-8: you get pushed up on social promotions whether you know the material or not. The kids are crazy with frustration.

 

·         So imagine Editor’s surprise when the other day one of his students challenged him on a correction Editor had made to her work. Get this: this Spanish-speaking youngster barely speaks any English, making it twice as hard for her to learn under the new methods which involve non-stop word problems. When she started 9th grade this semester, her arithmetic skills were low. Most of her Spanish-speaking classmates have essentially given up, and Editor cannot blame them. But not this young lady. She has refused to get distracted, talks to no one, and battles her way forward from day to day.

 

·         And she has reached the stage that CCS would have her reach. The great majority of students, when you tell them they’ve done the problem wrong, accept what you’re saying without demurral. After all, you are the teacher. This student insisted I explain why I said she was wrong. When I asked her to tell me why she was right (we’re supposed to get them to justify their answers), she gave such a convincing explanation that for one second Editor thought HE had it wrong (We teachers make mistakes, BTW – you’re groaning and saying NOW they tell us).

 

·         It is simply astonishing that someone so language limited and math skills limited has bootstrapped herself to the point she can actually dispute with the teacher. Staggering. This semester Editor has been teaching three classes a day (unpaid, BTW as he is on an internship – another boringly long story that will make you sure Editor has no sense, not that you didn’t know it) and this is the very first time he has had any success. (Under the old curriculum  success was relatively common. No doubt that’s why the Powers-That-Pee decided to junk the previous system).

 

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT December 9, 2013

 

·         Rumor of US Special Forces “Misadventure” in Pakistan within last 3-4 days. Major AH Amin, a Pakistani defense analyst with whom we are associated, sent an email asking if anyone had any information. He has excellent contacts with the military, but says he has just the rumor and no further details. If you know something, email Major Amin at pavo.11cavalry@gmail.com

 

·         Indian state elections India held elections for five state assemblies, including the tiny state of Mizoram. Excluding Mizoram, the ruling Congress party (which governs India as part of a center-left coalition) has been wiped out in the other four states by the opposition BJP. http://tinyurl.com/mcgfpxq Indian analysts point out that state elections do not necessarily presage results at the national level. But with national elections due in 6-months, analysts are saying this is a bad sign for the Congress.

 

·         While analysts are saying that people are fed up with the corruption the Congress culture creates, in Editor’s humble opinion there are other factors equally at work. One is that Indians are simply fed up with the complete ineffectuality of the government. There is no reason at all why India’s GDP should not be growing at 8-10% instead of the pathetic 5% it has sunk to, with predicted gains of only 6% for 2014 and 7% for 2015. High consumer inflation is also a cause that everyone agrees on. Much of that is due to governmental mismanagement.

 

·         Editor does not follow what’s happening in India except for the military. If what he sees is happening to the military is an indicator, India is in very big trouble. The Ministry of Defense has almost destroyed the Indian military over the last 10-years, during which period Congress has been in power. (It has been in power since for 51 years since 1947.) The shenanigans that go on in the MOD are so bizarre it becomes hard to describe them, let alone explain them.

 

·         The Congress party’s biggest liability is its scion Rahul, son of Rajiv Gandhi, grandson of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, and greatgrandson of Jawaharlal Nehru. He is a total cipher whose cluelessness about his own country is exceeded only by his complete lack of administrative activity. This fellow cannot speak without uttering nonsense. His latest, after the big defeats in the state elections, is a statement that change will come, and it will be such that we cannot even imagine it. He did not say “you will not be able to imagine”, but “we”. Which means he cannot imagine the change either, so how can he bring it about? He offered not a single idea about how he plans to reform his party.

 

·         Nonetheless, we will all be making a big mistake if we think the fall in Congress will bring much change in India. The opposition parties are as corrupt an ineffectual as the Congress. One party, the People’s Party is not corrupt and takes action against members accused of corruption. But it is entirely Delhi based. It will require years to build an all-India organization. And as it undertakes this task, it will find itself subject to the same pressures and temptations that others have fallen prey too.

 

·         Indians have to start thinking like Italians. Italy rose from one of the poorest of West European countries to one of the richest. So much so that the northern part of the country is said to have a standard of living comparable to Switzerland’s. Italy has had 61 governments since World War II . Its growth has occurred despite the government, not because of it. No Italian in his right mind counts on the government for anything is he can help it. Indians are going to have to start thinking the same way.

 

·         And by the way, won’t hurt if Americans do too.

 

·         The wonderland of American health care Editor must make clear he is not making any moral judgments. He is merely drawing attention to the wonderland of American health care. The Washington Post reported yesterday that two identical drugs used to combat age-related macular degeneration. One is Avastin, at $40/dose. The other is Lucentis, at $2000/dose. Both are made by Genetech, and barring a cosmetic molecule or two, are the same thing. http://tinyurl.com/mqajwng

 

·         Now, Genetech developed Avastin as an anti-cancer drug. Doctors found it worked just as well as Lucentis for AMD. Given the price difference many doctors began using Avastin. But why is Lucentis still selling well? Because Genetech makes Avastin in doses that are far too high for AMD treatment. This means that Avastin has to be repackaged, and though minute, there is a change of infections resulting as a result of repackaging.

 

·         Genetech says that Avastin is not safe for AMD. Six studies and the FDA say it is. If there is any issue of safety, it is because of the need to repackage Avastin which is being imposed by Genetech. (Truthfully, we don’t understand why Avastin has to be repackaged. Can doctors not draw only the amount needed into their syringes and throw away the rest? At $40 the thing is still 40-times cheaper than Lucentis.) FDA wants Genetech to apply for approval of Avastin for AMD. Genetech refuses.

 

·         Genetech says it spent $1.6-billion developing Lucentis. But how could it have done so when it is the same as Avastin except for the dose? If Avastin has cost $1.6-billion to develop, and Genetech feels comfortable charging $40, it is obviously making a profit it is happy with. Incidentally, the Lucentis dose is 0.16 mg and Avastin is 0.5 mg.

 

·         Now, it is quite possible that there is more to this story than WashPo has reported. Still, WashPo would have taken a lot of care in getting facts right. You don’t aggravate a multi-billion corporation by carelessness when you yourself are worth only $200-million. That’s what Jeff Bezoes just paid for the WashPo.

Friday 0230 GMT December 6, 2013

 

·         Another letter from Editor to President Obama Yes, I know you must be getting fed up of these letter from the Editor. Doubtless you are thinking “Aren’t letters supposed to be TO the Editor?” That’s an excellent question. Do let me know when you’ve figured it out.  Let me say I don’t take it personally when you don’t write anymore – oopsies, you never wrote so there’s no “any more”. Seems I’m getting my songs mixed up. Indeed, can today’s young people even write any more? Yes, you are indeed a young person as far as I am concerned. Just today, at the Senior’s Table in our school staff lounge we were discussing this and it was generally agreed that kids cannot write cursive anymore. Seems only a matter of time when they won’t be able to write at all. Their gadgets will all be voice, so they won’t need to know how to read any more. Since the advent of pocket calculators, folks have not needed to know arithmetic. So soon it will be the end of the 3 Rs, and we can shut down the public school system. That will save $500-billion a year, which you, dear Mr. Prezzyness, you can use to help in your new quest, income equality.

 

·         Senior’s Table, you ask? Yes, that’s where the oldest teachers sit. At nearly 70, your truly is the spring chicken. Are there teachers still teaching past 70? Of course not, silly. We’re all substitutes. My colleagues at the Senior’s Table have long since retired, outlived their husbands, and substitute because it gives them the opportunity to leave the house and earn a bit extra. That bit extra is the problem, if I may say so without complaining. You see, when you have led a blameless life, taught for 35+ years, get a decent pension, stayed married to the same person who is now dead and therefore whose pension you get in addition, and there’s Social Security, well, sub wages - $135/day before taxes, $107 after in my case – is  nice little bit on the side, as the English say. Of course, they are referring to a girlfriend that the wife doesn’t know about. I don’t want to complain, but Mrs. R the IVth never let me have a girlfriend so there was nothing on the side. Mrs. R IV was a great believer in the Double Standard, with which I am sure, my dear Prezzyness, you are well familiar, being a Washingtoon and all that. She had lots of boyfriend and when at last I objected to one, she walked out. Is that fair, I ask?

 

·         I bet you’re thinking “Is this Editor ever going to get to point?” Well, this Editor IS on point. Its your new program to rid America of income inequality I am writing about. But first I have to set background, don’t I?  “Don’t I?” is also English, to be appended to the end of the sentence as a sort of rebuke, whining complaint, rebuttal, what have you. So, for example, should Michelle catch in flagrante with the Nanny, you should say, “Well, you’re always so busy in the gym and growing broccoli in the White House garden, I deserve some relaxation, don’t I?” Not that Editor is wishing for you to get caught – man to man that would be a betrayal of the Brotherhood of Men, even if all the other men seem to be getting lots of IT and the Editor NONE OF IT, if you know what I mean. No sir, Editor is a loyal member of the Brotherhood of Men, even if he has reached the stage of life where even if he got a date on Saturday, even if it were with Beyonce, he’d have to spend the evening discussing urgent questions such as: Was God right to expel Lucifer from heaven just because ol’ Lucy was better looking and getting LOTS OF IT whereas God was getting NONE, because, as you know there is no Mrs. God. How was that Lucifer’s fault?

 

·         Talking about getting SOME, I must tell you, Mr. Prezzyness, that yesterday the Senior Ladies (I am an Honorary Senior Lady – that’s how I get to sit at the Table, no men are allowed) spent all of lunch insanely laughing their heads off with stories of someone or the other died right on top of the person he was getting IT with. Before yesterday I did not know that the normal cause of death in America is men’s tick-tocks giving out while they were – um – discussing the Bible. Each of the ladies seemed to have at least ten cases to their individual experience, and they were just getting started. The story that cracked them up the most was the gentlemen who – er – left for his heavenly abode while doing IT, and the lady couldn’t get him off her. So she had to holler for help till the neighbors came and got the gent squared away. Personally Editor thought this was a bit macabre, and how is the poor fellow’s fault that he has inadvertently created a rude situation? Also, the substitute ladies seem to think that every man wishes he dies while doing it. I wanted to discuss this matter and analyze it, because I thought it was an ill-considered prejudice. Us men are not shallow, you know. We have nobler things on our minds that die in the process, so as to speak? A great source of worry for every man is that he may not be able to – er – consummate the deed before he dies. As for nobler thoughts, everyone knows that a man’s real wish is to die in the process of being – er – assailed by Hugh Heffner’s personal harem. Yes, ladies, we don’t want to die doing IT with one lady, but with a whole bunch of ladies a quarter our age. Please don’t assume that men are just shallow creatures. But there’s one thing one does not do if one is an Honorary Lady at the Senior’s Table, and that is question or contradict the Senior Ladies. Not if he wants to continue with being Honorary.

 

·         So, as I was saying, not having a job except for substituting for $100 a day, and the best year Editor has had so far was 150 days – not bad when you consider school is in session for 180 class days, plus a miserable pension from a few years spent at Catholic Schools, whose administration expects its teachers to live on the Quality of Mercy That is Not Strained and Falleth Like a Gentle Rain from Heaven, and a pathetic Social Security check that just about pays the heating/cooling bills, Editor feels this business of Income Equality very keenly and very immediately. Particularly when the Quality of Mercy is Gently Raining and Editor’s umbrella has giant holes in it.

 

·         Why does his umbrella have giant holes in it? Because he won it in a wrestling match from the Giant Raccoon who feasts on Editor’s garbage. Well, shouldn’t say “feasts”, because Editor’s weekly garbage is less than half a 30-gallon bag. I mean, to generate garbage you have to have some money to buy things. Hopefully your expertise in Economics Minus 101 leaves you aware of that fact, my dear Prezzyness. The plus side of the half garbage back per week is that Editor does not have to tip the sanitation crew at Christmas. The crew spends the whole year grabbing garbage from the neighboring houses to the amount of 1 ton per house per week. They are so grateful that the Editor is considerate of them, occasionally they leave HIM a fat tip at Christmas. Its usually enough to buy three sets of Target underwear and three pairs of socks, which has to see Editor through the next two elections. Have you ever had your underwear and socks pleading to be shot and out out of their misery, Mr. Prezzyness? It is indeed a sad and sorrowful thing when you have to tell them: “Sorry, guys, you have to bear up for at least eight more years.” Then you have to immediately remove all the cyanide, firearms, ovens and car from the property because after being told to buck up, the underwear/socks have been known to try and commit suicide. I mean, its lovely if the 20- or 30-something lady teachers arrive at work sans underwear and socks, assume they look like a Botticelli model – yes, we realize Botty’s models wore size 50 underwear, but it didn’t matter that this size was not yet invented because the Renaissance ladies were anorexia compared to today’s American Beauties. Because, you see, while ol’ Botty’s models had no Size 50 underwear available in the mall,  they didn’t wear any underwear. You doubt the Editor? Hie over to a top notch museum and you will see Editor is not making this up. Yes, surely it crimped the conversation when you were having tea with Botty's models and you could not chant: “I see England, I see France, I see Sabrina’s underpants” because when you had tea with them, the models greeted you with see through scarves carefully draped to hide nothing. So you wouldn’t be chanting any ditties about England or France, because you could see Italy, and it was all good.

 

·         So, back to the Giant Raccoon and the umbrella with holes in it. One rainy night said Raccoon – no, his name was not Rocky, but Andrea – he is a bit confused about his gender – was majestically proceeding across the lawn to Editor’s garbage, holding an umbrella to keep himself/herself dry. Editor leapt into action, tackled Andrea, and after a battle worthy of Unlimited Cage Fighting, Editor won the umbrella, but not before Andrea spitefully chomped many holes through it. Sure there was a bit of blood on the Editor, but you should have seen the other guy/gal! Boy (or should it be Girl?) was he (or should it be she?) a mess. It was all good till a court summons arrived requiring Editor to present himself on such and such day. Yes, Andrea, who has been feasting – okay, hors de ouvere-ing  on Editor’s garbage slimly tried to get money from Editor claiming he had given her rabies! Imagine that! You cannot even bite anyone these days without sued for giving rabies. Luckily Editor had his vaccination all up to date, as he was able to show the judge when he, Editor, handed over his collar for inspection.

 

·         So, back to the income inequality. Editor whole heartedly supports your noble effort, my dear prezzyness. Editor looks forward to the day, very soon, when you equalize his income with that of Bill Gates. That would be fair and equal, no?

Thursday 0230 GMT December 5, 2013

 

·         Minimum Wage in news again In Editor’s part of the world, the minimum wage is back in the news because three jurisdictions – Washington DC, and Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties Maryland are setting minimum wages in the $12 range.

 

·         The argument whether this is going to cost jobs or help the economy without costing jobs is complex and without nuance, as folks tend to use the figures that suit their case. Nonetheless, in the spirit of “people, can’t we just all get along?” Editor has three not-original thoughts about the minimum wage.

 

·         First, is it wrong to set it to match inflation? In 1963 Editor, while in college, worked part time for Peter Bent Brigham hospital in a cancer research lab. Impressive, you will think. Not so impressive when Editor tells you what he did: his job was to wash glassware used for the research seven times over to reduce the chances of contamination skewing findings. If he lost count, the counter was reset at zero and seven washings had to be repeated.

 

·         Okay, so we all have our place in the world, humble or not so humble. Let’s just say Editor was serving in God’s good works, because he was paid $1.00/hour, whereas minimum wage was $1.15/hour. The hospital was exempt for some reason. When one is in college and working hard to earn money to take out that gorgeous redhead one has been chasing, then one is rather fixed on the date and not the details of labor law.

 

·         So, inflation wise, that should now be $8.78/hour. That was the first  not-so-original thought: many have been calling for the minimum wage to at least keep up with inflation.

 

·         The next not-so original thought was that $8.78 in Anniston-Calhoun, Alabama is not the same as $8.78 as in Manhattan, New York.  The latter is about three times more expensive. So a minimum wage would have to be about $26/hour in the Big Apple.  On that basis, a minimum wage of about $12+/hour in Editor’s county would be reasonable.

 

·         Now, opponents of higher minimum wages sometimes point out that that the wage income of lower income families is not their real income. They get federal and state transfers of income such as food stamps, Medicare, Earned Income Credit, lower tax rates and so on. But here is our third not-so-original thought. Is there not something wrong with our economy if private corporations shift part of the cost of paying their workers a living wage to the taxpayer?

 

·         Admittedly, some of our conservative friends will see nothing wrong with that. Government, as far as they are concerned, exists solely to help them make more money. We don’t have to be Libertarians to argue that Government’s job is to provide a level playing field for corporations, not to subsidize corporate profits by taxing everyone to boost corporate bottom lines. Yes, yes, we realize some of our readers are saying “Poor Editor, he is so naïve” But we’re talking morality here, not the sordid reality of American political practice. If money transfers from the rich to the poor are immoral, are not money transfers from the poor and just-managing to the rich also immoral?

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT December 4, 2013

 

·         India Abroad says: “America sacrificed Mumbai” This explosive charge is that to protect its informant David Headley, America let the 2008 attack on Mumbai (Bombay) proceed.  The India Abroad issue of November 29, 2013 features an interview by a correspondent for the weekly with Adrian Levy who has coauthored a book “The siege: 68-hours inside the Taj Hotel”. Levy has used unclassified reports and interviews with US officials and others.

 

·         Levy himself makes a somewhat less inflammatory statement: “America concealed its knowledge, its true knowledge of the growing risk to Mumbai”.

 

·         The problem is that the interview does not support either charge. Levy carefully points out that the US caught wind of the plot to attack Mumbai in 2006, and constantly kept Indian intelligence informed of development. Except that the US did not know the specific targets within Mumbai, it identified the city, the number of terrorists involved, their mode of arrival, their possession of RDX, etc. etc.

 

·         So why does Levy say America concealed its true knowledge of the growing danger? Because it did not tell India the source of the information – America’s double and triple agent David Headley; nor did it arrest Headley.

 

·         Incidentally, David Headley, despite his name, is not an American. He is of Pakistani origin and changed his name at some point, and became an American citizen. Just thought we’d get that out of the way for our American readers.

 

·         Editor has no doubt that Levy has worked hard and sincerely to uncover the story behind Mumbai 2008. Indeed, his first reaction was to curse the tribe he once belonged to, Indian journalists. Why did this story have to be left to two Americans? What on earth have the Indians been doing since 2008? Sorry, this needs another explanation. While in India for 20-years, Editor did various things, including write for the print media. He has never been a journalist in the sense of an accredited person working for a particular person. So Indian journalists are not, strictly speaking, his tribe, but he did run with them, so as to speak. Back to Levy.

 

·         Levy likely has done a great job – Editor has not read the book but you can tell from the interview he is very well informed. But that does not mean he understands how intelligence works. You never, ever, identify your agent to the intelligence of another country. It does not matter if that country is your BFF. This is not something you do. We won’t go into the whys, we’re just saying secrecy of your sources is paramount.

 

·         Nor did America “allow” Headley to go ahead to protect him for more important American purposes. From the Levy interview, it becomes apparent Headley was a source inside Pakistani terror groups and perhaps even Al Qaeda. Headley, it needs to say, was a rank opportunist of the worst kind. His sole purpose was to promote himself. He had a consistent record of doing things he shouldn’t have, and when he got caught, of turning in everyone and offering to work as an informant. So everyone knew he was a DEA informant, but Editor at least did not know that he was allegedly working on the US’s behalf by infiltrating Pakistani terror groups and so on.

 

·         Being the sort of person he is, Headley – it now appears – was not just reporting on the Mumbai plot. He was an active part of the plot, and one presumes he justified hanging around with all these unsavory terrorists by telling his handlers he needed to look authentic. After Mumbai – one assumes – the US realized what Headley was up to, arrested him and put away for a good long time. Headley, of course, betrayed everyone involved in the plot in America, including a childhood friend with whom he had plotted.

 

·         The question the Indians are not asking is: how would the US arresting Headley before anything happened have helped in stopping the plot? He was not crucial to the plan, beyond intellectual input and some scouting, the plan belonged to Pakistan ISI. So arresting him would not have stopped the attack. Moreover, it is in hindsight that America knew he was part of the plot. At that time he was a deep cover agent. So on what basis would America have arrested him? You do not arrest your own deep cover agents who presumably are risking their lives to get information to you. Even Indians should be able to see this makes zero sense.

 

·         The other question the Indians are not asking, because they plain are too scared to: when Indian intelligence had precise details, why was India unprepared for the attack? So much so that Indian authorities have said they were aware of something being up, but had no inkling the attack would come by sea. Sorry, folks. Levy makes clear the Americans said specifically the attackers would come by sea.

 

·         What Levy is saying, even if he does not mean to, that the Indians are guilty of criminal negligence and extreme dereliction of duty. The first is a criminal code offense; the second is a hanging offense. Moreover, something Editor at least had no clue. The Pakistanis had a mole inside India’s Ministry of Defense that kept them informed on the modus of Indian Special Forces and how they would react. So which Indian official has been shot for allowing a mole to wreck havoc? No one. Was the mole found and shot? Indian intelligence does not arrest moles and prepare lengthy court cases. It merely finds out everything it can and shoots the mole/spy and the body is cremated with the family told “he was killed in a car accident”. No one asks questions – if you know Indian intelligence, you would not either.

 

Tuesday December 3, 2013

 We did not update Monday December 2, 2013

·         The Shopping Drone: New US weapon against Terrorism Amazon is working on drone deliveries of stuff you order on-line. The UAVs will have only a 15-km radius of delivery and packages will be limited to about 2.3-kilograms. Obviously the whole thing has been funded the CIA. Extending range is no problem as the US already has weapon UAVs with hundreds of kilometers range and payloads of a couple of hundred kilometers.

 

·         It is easy to see how this will work. Amazon will have special promotions targeted specifically at the known wants and desires of the terrorist, say faux leopard-skin underwear and pink panties. We are reliably informed that these are big faves among terrorists, not for their girl-friends but for themselves. The terrorist orders online, and in keeping with Amazon’s delivery-within-hours policy, the drone is dispatched with missiles instead of undies.

 

·         Doubtless the next CIA step is to develop remote control exploding pink panties. Terrorist puts them on, this triggers a signal, and a button is pushed at HQ.

 

·         We’ve always said no one can beat the US at weapons innovation. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-02/amazons-drone-fleet-delivers-what-bezos-wants-an-image-of-ingenuity

 

·         New Russian improved Kilo submarine The first of six conventional Type 636.3 submarines has entered service. The only reason we mention this is because of the Russian habit of calling it the “Black Hole” submarine. This is supposedly a reference to its stealth capability, allegedly the submarine is undetectable.

 

·         Hmmm. Now, Editor has not looked at new submarine stealth technologies in a while. So if he is completely off track, please do write in. Some questions do nonetheless come to mind. Does the new boat have a super-quiet propeller? If not, we are unsure to what degree the boat is undetectable.  Contrary to the movies, which have submarines going around pinging away, submariners prefer to use passive detection. Pinging is a quick giveaway of your own position. Boats are covered with sonar absorbing material precisely to aid stealth. But the Kilo-class already has sonar absorption.

 

·         Are the Russians referring to the Air Independent Propulsion/Stirling Engine that is standard on new design boats everywhere? Since the engine is electrical, it enormously reduces engine noise. But should we refer to all AIP boats as “black hole” submarines? Moreover, you can reduce engine noise but unless the boat has a super-quiet propeller, it will still be sound.

 

·         Further, submarines can be detected as they push through water. Is the Kilo 636.3 hull advanced or is it just an improvement on the standard Kilo?

 

·         BTW, US has technology to generate false ship and submarine images, so that the enemy is wasting time and effort on attacking phantoms. US has long had electronic systems that deceive an enemy as to the position of a carrier task group, both by countering long-range radars and by control of own electromagnetic emissions.

 

·         What bothers Editor is the use of “black hole” in the context of submarine stealth. Black holes are detected precisely because they absorb all electromagnetic waves. If we use the black hole analogy, a black hole submarine will be very easily detectable. The idea with anechoic absorption tiles is to attenuate the sonar signal, degrading detection range. It seems to us if pinging is used on a black hole submarine, you will get a beautiful sonar picture because there is no return at all. With advanced signal processing – something the US is very good at – the US boat will be able to tell if the ping is simply disappearing into the ocean because it did not hot anything or is it being totally absorbed.

 

Friday 0230 GMT November 29, 2013

 

·         Japan and ROK defy China by flying through the recently declared Chinese Air Defense Interception Zone. Of particular interest is that ROK has been trying to improve relations with China. The Chinese reaction? Precisely zero. Moreover, China has had to make a retreat, by saying that commercial aircraft flying through the zone do not have to notify the Chinese authorities such as filing flight plans. That China has lost serious face is undoubted.

 

·         Nonetheless, for Americans or others to gloat about the three black eyes the Chinese have received, from the US, Japan, and ROK, would be a mistake of much greater magnitude than the Chinese made by proclaiming an exclusion zone they had no ability to enforce.

 

·         The point is the Chinese dared to declare the zone in the first place. They are not going to withdraw the zone. Today they cannot enforce it. Tomorrow, as Chinese military power continues to grow, they will. Even more worrying is China’s absurd willingness to act on pre-modern and imperialist claims, as the Japanese apparently wanted to publically say, but instead issued a toned down statement.

 

·         The real issue is this business of using selected historical documents, many of little independent authenticity, and with some going back to the 5th Century, to justify an imperialist expansion. Editor has heard it said that the Chinese feel everyone else had their imperial hey-day, now it is China’s turn. Well, one guesses the Chinese are not big on history after all. Just for Beijing’s information, you all have HAD your imperial hey-day. Western China which you still hold is a result of that imperialism. What you are trying to do is push claims that date from your imperial days. Pre-modern as the Japanese so delicately put it; five short of a six-pack as the Editor rudely puts it. Sheer Looney Tunes.  We’ve said this before: if the African Eve theory is correct, then the entire world belongs to that one small group of people, perhaps as small as 20-people, who migrated north from southern Africa and spread throughout the world. (This theory is based on tracing the world’s DNA back to one African woman.)

 

·         Has China forgotten that Germany and Italy made the same excuse when they went into North and East Africa? That the Japanese made the same claims to attack China and East Asia? They said the Great Power had got theirs, and Germany and Italy and Japan were going to get theirs.  We know how well that turned out for Japan, Italy, and Germany. That China was a huge victim of Japanese imperialism should, one would think, lead it to some restraint.

 

·         But asking the Chinese to be sensible is like asking a wolf not to eat the unprotected sheep it comes across. This line of action is absolutely pointless. China understands only one thing – as have all expansionist nations in their time. That is force.

 

·         The alleged subsidy of 3rd world medicines by Americans We were a bit surprised to hear, the other day, a new theory. This is that Americans consumers subsidize  medicines in the 3rd world. So its another reason for Americans to feel aggrieved.

 

·         This is a case where the facts can be arranged to give what seems a logical outcome, but actually is completely wrong.

 

·         The facts are that Americans pay 10-times, twenty-times, maybe even in some case 50-times more for the same medicines as people in – say – India pay. So obviously we are subsidizing the Indians. Except we are not.

 

·         First, it is best to define “American” when talking about pharma companies. Be hard to find any American companies in the Big Leagues, because they are multinationals.

 

·         Second, multinationals are not in the habit or the business of subsidizing anyone. We’re not making moral judgments here, simply making an observation of fact. Companies exist to make money. Particularly in America management can be taken to court if shareholders/investors feel their company is not maximizing profit.

 

·         The real issue is that multinationals are charging Americans so very more than the cost that we’re paying outrageous prices. But they do make a handsome profit on 3rd World sales too. That they can make a good profit on a medicine that is multiple times more expensive in America shows only how much they are sucking American blood. Again, no moral judgment. It is called the law of supply and demand. Since we do not have a command economy where some bureaucrat gets to set the price of medicines at what he considers fair – as happens in Venezuela, and we know the results – companies charge what the customer is willing to pay. Econ 101.

 

·         Sure, there are some cases where multinationals have sold drugs for less than they would have liked, say AIDS drugs. But that is for PR, to make themselves look noble. But how do you explain that made-in-India  generic drugs which cost cents per prescription there, are exported to the US where they are sold for many times that? Take Atorvastatin, generic from Lipitor. I don’t know what you pay for it, but from my Medicare health plan I pay 30 cents a tablet. In India, Abbott Laboratories is one of many companies that makes it, and it sells for 7 cents a tablet. This is for a generic, the price gap for brand names will be far higher. You can amuse yourself by looking at  http://www.medindia.net/drug-price/ for Indian drug prices. The same asthma inhaler for which I have a co-pay of $40 and for which my plan pays $120 total, costs $3.60 in India. Read about your drugs on the site and weep. Those Indian companies are not in the charity business any more than multinationals. They’re making good money. Which means the multinationals that supply Americans are making outstandingly great money.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT November 28, 2013

 

·         Chinese October naval exercises We’d casually read about these exercise and didn’t think much of them, even if they involved passage through the straits separating Japan’s Home Islands. After all, the Chinese were in international waters, and Japan recognizes the PRC’s right to transit them.

 

·         But now we come across a Reuters article http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/us-china-navy-specialreport-idUSBRE9AQ04220131127 which has the Chinese boasting that they have “demolished” the First Island Chain and would never again be confined within its boundary.

 

·         It is always interesting to get the other side’s perspective, but honestly we are baffled at this demolishing and never will be confined again bit. Who precisely came up with the idea of the First Island Chain as a barrier? The Chinese. As we noted above, they’ve always had the right to sail through/past the First Island Chain. Seems a bit neurotic to us to first set up a barrier and then say you have busted through it, when it has never occurred to anyone to stop you from sailing the high seas. But then who can tell what the Chinese are really thinking. They are so sophisticated that certainly those of us who live on the periphery of the Middle Kingdom can never under the depth of their thinking. Ultimately it doesn’t matter to anyone that the Chinese are playing games with themselves. And as for completely pointless boasting, well, we Indians are hardly strangers to that habit.

 

·         But there is a consequence for all this boasting. The East Pacific states are already extremely paranoid about China’s belligerence in pushing claims to their waters, and all this talk about demolishing barriers and busting out beyond is not going to reassure any of the local states. The US reaction to the Chinese declaration of its Air Defense Interception Zone accurately shows what the US thinks of China’s boating. The US ran two B-52s into the zone and out again and said succinctly “we don’t recognize no bleeping zone”.

 

·         Naturally since the US these days is into compassionate foreign policy, the Washington had make an idiot of itself by saying the exercise was long planned and the bombers were unarmed. When you’re giving the other guy a rude gesture involving fingers, it really does not help to say, in effect, we’re not seeking a confrontation. Perhaps the Giant Brains in the administration of He Who Has Bored All His Life don’t understand that by making reassuring kissy faces, they were actually boosting China’s prestige by saying they, the Americans, didn’t want a confrontation. Would the US have acted in so circumspect a manner ten years ago? No. US would have made its bomber run and jeered at the Chinese.

 

·         The Chinese, with 1000-year old egg on their face because they couldn’t do a darn thing about the “intrusion”, gruffed and muffed and said they tracked the US bombers throughout the “intrusion”. Oh for heaven’s sakes, Charley. Tracking two B-52s is a technological feat of some kind? Ever seen the size of these monsters? Of course, we are assuming the Chinese did indeed track, and the bombers were not wrapped in the electronic cloaks of invisibility. We’re guessing they were not, because why would the US want to give the Chinese a chance to study all the good stuff up close and personal.

 

·         A retired Japanese admiral with some ice in his veins as opposed to his lily-livered co-citizens struck the right tone. He said he welcomed the Chinese exercises. Earlier the Chinese hid their warships. Now that they were sailing around Japan, it gave the Japanese an opportunity to get a good look (electronically) at the warships.

 

·         Why do we say “lily-livered”? Well, its been obvious for years the Chinese have been poking the Japanese in the butt. In 2013 Chinese intrusions into Japanese airspace were over 100. The Japanese bravely responded: by intercepting intruders using F-15s – armed with flares. The Japanese have bravely announced they will respond to intruders who refuse to leave by firing flares. This is the same country that conquered China, Manchuria, Southeast Asia, and the Eastern Pacific just two generations ago?

 

·         The Japanese do not want confrontations. But when you are dealing with a rising power that is taking every chance it gets to confront you, backing off only emboldens the other guy. It rewards his bad behavior and makes him more aggressive. The Indians should know this, but after all, the Indians are beyond hope. Editor at least had thought the Japanese were made of sterner stuff.

 

·         At this point, apparently the support for a sterner Japanese defense policy does not exist. Japan is building what these days are called air control ships because they’re too small to be carriers. They have a ship in the woks that could take fighters. They have stopped cutting their defense budget further. But they still go freak-freak-freak if anyone suggests that instead of 1% GDP on defense they’d better start looking at 2%. After all, they waste hundreds of billions a year in infrastructure projects they don’t need, and with a $6-trillion GDP it’s not like they don’t have the money.

 

·         Now, fellers, a few sage words of advice from your old buddy the Editor. You have overdone this business of “we are committed pacifists and cannot raise defense spending”. It was a great way to get rich, shifting the burden of your defense to the US. But you are rich now. The US is declining relative to China. If you all do not start getting your act together, you’re going to pay. China will not suddenly making nice because you are non-confrontationist. They will push you harder because you’re weak. No ifs-buts-maybes. The Chinese are poking you in the eye several times every month. If you don’t get those aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines on the slip-ways, you’re going to regret it. It takes a minimum of 20-years to build a navy, even if you have the rich naval tradition that you are famous for. You have already wasted ten years.

 

Wednesday 0230 November 27, 2013

As a life-long asthmatic, Editor has recently been going through his 4 times a year cycle of allergies leading to asthma attacks leading to pneumonia.  These cycles take six weeks to work their way through, whereupon there is six weeks of health, and then we start again. For several years, after Mrs. R. IV took off and he lost the great insurance she has, Editor has been toughing it through. After a month into the current cycle, Editor asked himself what in heck did he think he was doing? He decided to take the asthma protocol again. Being well is better than not being well. Well, a few days later he was out of inhalers of all kinds, not surprisingly because they were last used in 2005 for several cycles. He called in, doctor immediately authorized refills. Editor went to pick them up. And then he realized why he had decided, years ago, to tough it out. His copay (Medicare) for 90 days of inhalers came to $175. He immediately got a severe asthma attack. The pharmacy people wanted him to report to emergency care across the hall. Editor said: “I’ll have to pay an additional $60 for emergency care and that’s supposed to make me feel better? No thanks.” Guess who will not be returning to pick up refills at the end of 90 days.

·         Thanksgiving So here we are at Thanksgiving, and for the first time Editor reads that Native Americans are protesting this holiday because the arrival of the settlers was not something that merited thanks on the part of the native Americans. So are we one day going to abolish Thanksgiving because it offends someone?

 

·         Back in the day, about 3 ½ centuries ago, it was a different world. The strong took and thrived, the weak lost and went under. We may all agree the Native Americans have no reason to celebrate Thanksgiving. So no one is asking them to so do. For the settlers, it was a completely different experience. They have every reason to celebrate, and since they were the winners, they have every right to so do.

 

·         Is this not insensitive and non-inclusive? Is this not, as has been suggested, misappropriation of an Indian tradition?  Let’s take Christmas.  It is an appropriation of a pagan festival. Christianity became supreme by wiping pagans out. So should pagans not say their festivals have been misappropriated and they feel excluded   and disrespected? Okay, so they can say, is anyone going to pay them attention? Doubtful.

 

·         There is only one lesson here: don’t lose the war.

 

·         At which point someone might say: “But American culture is supposed to be inclusive”. First question: says who? The only reason we even talk inclusion is that the once vast white majority allowed folks to migrate from any part of the world and because this same majority decided it had to be fair and include everyone. In other countries, folks have been less generous.

 

·         Is Editor standing up for white folks? Hardly. Because white folks, through their idealism, decided not to be racist and to allow anyone to settle here (President Kennedy), fairly soon this country is not going to be white majority, perhaps as soon as 40-50 years. Then things are going to change, and the way things are going, Hispanic festivals and so on will become the mainstream.

 

·         So, Editor does feel bad for white folks: after all, they gave him many chances when his family first came – that Editor rejected because at some point (age 19, he thinks) he figured he was not a real American and went into a rebellion mode – and they gave him a chance again when he returned. White civilization, as in Western European civilization, has a lot to recommend it, for example,  the right to equality before the law, one person one vote, inalienable rights simply because one is human and all that.

 

·         But is Editor going to mourn when Spanish becomes our first language? No. For one thing he will be dead by then, which is a relief because he can barely speak any language. He got a 394 on his French SAT after seven years of taking French in school. (The youngster cannot understand this, because he says you get 400 out of 800 points just for filling in your name right. Easy for him to say. He got 1560/1600 on his SATs, without studying for a single minute. Not all of us can fill our names correctly on a form, you know.)

 

·         For another thing, this move to let everyone in (from which he has benefited) was a conscious choice by white people to prove what nice they are. And you know what they say about nice guys and where they place in the race. You do not see the Israelis and the Japanese trying to prove what nice guys they are. To them the preservation of their culture is paramount and they make no excuses for it. In the real world you get zero points for being nice guys. You get a lot of points for kicking everyone else’s butt so hard they can never sit again.

 

·          PS: of course, Chinese will be our second language since no Chinese in their right mind want to live in China. Soon they’ll own every nice house on the West Coast.

 

·         PPS: Native Americans: Likely you in your turn pushed out the real original inhabitants of North America. It happens.

 

·         PPPS: Maybe the Hispanics and the Chinese will let us celebrate Thanksgiving Day. Or maybe when they take over they’ll have their own separate Thanksgiving Days and we’ll all have to celebrate along with them. Then the white folk can complain about being excluded.

 

·         PPPPS:And so it goes.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT November 25, 2013

 

·         China’s new Air Defense Identification Zone Readers will know that a couple of days back China announced its first Air Defense Interception Zone, which happens to cover the Senkaku Islands, occupied by Japan and wanted by China.

 

·         An ADIZ – India and Pakistan have them, surprising that China did not till now – has many implications. The simplest is that if you fly in a country’s ADIZ, you have to be under control by that country’s radar network and in constant communications with the ADIZ controller. If you refuse to comply with these conditions, you can be shot down.

 

·         The Senkakus are 330-km from mainland China, and it’s a bit unusual to declare an ADIZ that from your mainland. Japan has an ADIZ extending several hundred kilometers southwest from its mainland, primarily because of the Ryukyu Islands that are under Japan’s sovereignty. US, being the US, has ADIZs but does not recognize anyone else’s, at least for purposes of naval operations. There’s no sense in our getting involved in a highly technical discussion of the legalities of the Chinese ADIZ because like our readers, we know next to nothing about the law.

 

·         Suffice it to say China has established such a zone unto the West Pacific. This is all of a piece with China’s strategy to assert control over what it calls the First Island Chain. This encloses the South and East China Seas, and effectively limits nations on the periphery of these two China Seas to 12 nautical miles off their coast. This includes the western side of the Philippines, Vietnam, part of Cambodia, all of Taiwan, and between South Korea and Japan.

 

·         It is on the basis of the First Island Chain claim that China objects to anyone exploring for resources even if the area is in a country’s Exclusive Economic Zone. It is also on this basis a couple of years ago the Chinese tried to stop an Indian Navy warship from sailing off the Vietnam coast after the warship had visited Vietnam.

 

·         Now, everyone, including India, is quite familiar with Chinese imperialism post 1950, but till this First Island Chain and now ADIZ business, the imperialism has been limited to land borders. As China has risen and the US has fallen – relatively – and as the US Navy has shrunk, it makes perfect sense for China to get force the US Navy east of the First Island Chain, whereupon the Chinese will start pushing east toward the Second Island Chain. This lies east of Japan to Indonesia. And doubtless after that the Chinese will try and declare the Western Pacific as theirs, leaving the Pacific east of Hawaii to the US. That doesn’t mean they will not sail the Eastern Pacific. Like the US has done since 1945, no doubt the Chinese would like to regularly run carrier groups off Alaska and the US West Coast.

 

·         The Indians, of course, go out of their way not to confront China. They are saying “What does have to do with us? It’s a quarter of the world away, far from the Indian Ocean. It’s a US-Japanese problem, NOB.” NOB = Not Our Busyness.

 

·         The Indians have a valid point. But have they considered that China is going to start pushing into the Indian Ocean, also? It already has port rights in Burma, can have access to Bangladesh ports if they want,  have built a “communications station” off India, are constructing a major port in Sri Lanka, and have, of course, unlimited access to Karachi and Gwader.

 

·         Note the irony about the Sri Lanka port: Mrs. Gandhi was duped by the Soviets into thinking the US wanted naval bases in Sri Lanka; a lot of her Sri Lanka policy including the LTTE was to preempt the US. Mrs. G. went on and on about US threats to India from the Indian Ocean, US imperialism, and so on. Now it’s the Chinese are building a port.  Government of India’s reaction? “There’s no one here but us meecees.” Seen no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. India for the better part of 40 years abused the US at every turn; the US being civilized, objected every now and then, but with the exception of Nixon and Kissinger’s bad behavior during the 1971 crisis, never tried to punish the US. In any case, as Editor has said in an unpublished book he wrote and now cannot find, Kissinger-Nixon were bluffing, allying with the USSR to deceive India. There was nothing the Dynamic Duo could have done; indeed, Kissinger toward the end drew a line, refusing to carry out Nixon’s orders to punish India because he realized if the Congress found out, his goose would have been cooked. The book is entirely based on declassified cables.

 

·         Anyway. India’s attitude is when the Chinese start applying pressure against us in the Indian Ocean, we’ll take up the matter then. When that day does come, we’ll quickly decide the Indian Ocean is not all that important to us.

 

·         Just like we decided after 1962 that Indian territory in Kashmir was not that important to us.

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT November 25, 2013

 

We did not update Friday November 22, 2013

 

·         Iran Okay, let’s try and calm down and detach the Iran deal from our dislike of President Obama. It does not help to say “To what extent will he go to distract attention from Obamacare fiasco.” This deal has been years in the making, and builds on work done by the Clinton and Bush Administrations. It also does not help to say “US accepts Iran’s right to enrich uranium” because US has not accepted such a right, and Mr. Kerry, SecState explicitly said so. If Iran claims the US has, there’s nothing US can do about it. It also does not help to say, as the Israeli PM has said, that this is a “historic mistake”. Neither is there a mistake, and even if it were, it will be a very minor mistake – as we shortly explain. Nor is it a good idea to forget the failures of three administrations, Clinton, Bush, Obama, to curb the DPRK program to make Mr. Obama look bad. We’re not clear even those rabidly useless deal rise to “historic mistake.”  And of course, it takes very little to make Mr. Obama look bad, due primarily to his Giant Inflated Ego. Nor should we be saying Iran has tricked the US, because no such thing has happened, as we shortly explain.

 

·         All that has happened is an interim deal has been signed. It buys six-months grace period to negotiate a lasting agreement. If Iran ceases its cooperation during the next six months, then its back to sanctions.

 

·         The deal does not stop Israel and its new Sunni Arab allies from clobbering the Iran N-program if that is what they want to do. All the US has done is rule out its own attack option for six months, and no, Mr. Netanyahu, Iran is not about to build a bomb in 6-months. When you spread disinformation, however noble your cause, it inevitably degrades your credibility. We’ve already explain a couple of times that Iraq’s bomb with come from Arak and plutonium production, not from enriching uranium. Iran needs to enrich uranium to above commercial grade to help Arak produce more plutonium than it otherwise would.

 

·         Arak has not been dismantled, but its construction is on freeze. Let’s see what happens after six months.

 

·         Meanwhile, Iran has given so many concessions that Editor, at least, is mildly boggled. Aside from Arak, it has (a) said it will not enrich beyond 5%; (b) that it will convert its stocks of 20% enriched U to oxide from which further enrichment is difficult; (c) that it will make changes in its U enriching cascades so that they cannot enrich beyond 5%; and (d) that no new centrifuges will be installed.

 

·         The essential question is: Iran has said it will do all this, but how will we know for sure? Well, again this is mildly boggling, Iran has agreed to daily monitoring and installation of sensors to record data. If inspectors suspect something is amiss, they will not certify compliance, and its back to sanctions.

 

·         Iran has gained no time. Time to do what? It need not have agreed in the first place, because six months buys it no time worth mention. What does access to $7-billion in its overseas account accomplish if Iran is going to cheat? That’s a small fraction of its annual revenues. We need to take a look at the items on which sanctions are being lifted. Doubtless this will include limited sales to customers like India which cannot afford to do without Iranian oil. (India is buying anyway, under US Government exemptions, but it cannot pay in dollars because no bank – including Indian banks – will handle the money for fear of US retaliation. Paying in rupees and barter trade is working out badly.) As for imports, right now, folks, we need to remember even food and medicines are embargoed. This is a very tough embargo which may actually be violating the UN charter on human rights and Geneva conventions on mass punishment.

 

·         We still believe Iran will not give up its quest to go nuclear. But as we’ve said before: This. Is. Not. An. Existential. Problem for the US. It is an existential problem for Israel and the Sunni Arabs. The US solution should be to provide – very quietly – whatever strengthening of Israel/Saudi attack capacity that is needed. More tankers, for example. Intelligence when required. Add US naval Search and Rescue facilities if an attack is decided on. Perhaps even electronic deception and countermeasures. Etc.

 

·         The two states that are most affected should be the ones to do an attack. US should not get involved – not for the reasons others say, but because US has proved totally incompetent at realizing real benefits from the use of force.

 

·         From Phil Rosen, who makes an important point about the quantum computing company D-Wave You should read up a bit about what D-Wave is doing. While their machine may technically be using quantum entanglement to solve a single specific problem, it is not at all commercially viable. It is designed to solve one problem and one problem only. It costs $10m, and is still slower at solving that problem then a commercial laptop running conventional software. It is a research project with lots of PR that is still far off from
being actually useful.

 

 

 

·         India, Israel, and the Barak-8: Just what is going on? Last week Times of India reported that the Barak-8 70-km SAM being jointly developed by Israel and India, is so far behind schedule that no one is sure if the Indian Navy and Indian Air Force will ever get the missile. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-11-14/india/44073265_1_joint-venture-indian-air-force-indian-navy

 

·         What particularly irks us is that a few days ago Israel-US staged a flawless test of the Stunner missile. It is to be the second tier of the Israeli ABM system http://www.army-technology.com/projects/stunner-terminal-missile-defence-interceptor-israel/  At the short end will be the highly successful Iron Dome, which intercepts rockets and short-range missiles at ranges out to 7-km. Stunner, the missile part of David’s Sling, is good for 70-km to 300-km. The long end is taken care of by the Arrow missile system.

 

·         So how come Israel is going great guns on its own systems, but failing to deliver on the Barak 8, whose development apparently is funded entirely by India at $2-billion? (We don’t know if that includes some systems or is just the R and D cost.)

 

·         Now, we realize for all the bragging and boasting the Israelis do about their missile interception technology, they get a lot of help from US companies. Stunner, for example, is co-developed with Raytheon. Arrow is co-developed with Boeing http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/israel-successfully-tests-arrow-theater-missile-defense-01571/ The US apparently places no claims to intellectual property on Barak 8, which means the US is not involved. Since India’s SAM technology is not particularly advanced, presumably even though India is part of the R & D, the majority contribution is by Israel – without US help.

 

·         We further realize that despite the innocuous designation “Barak 8”, suggesting this is just another variant of the Barak SAM family, the 8 is actually a very advanced, world-class missile

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/india-israel-introducing-mr-sam-03461/ Meaning this is not going to be an easy-beazy weapon to develop.

 

·         Nonetheless, what exactly is going on here that an Indian newspaper, which obviously was briefed by someone in the know, says India may never see this missile, which was to enter service in 2012 for the Navy, and 2017 for the Air Force? There seems to be some dispute about sharing the technology. But when India has financed the whole show, why should there be any dispute? Both countries should be sharing the rights equally.

 

·         Or does Israel think it is dealing with the US, and it can simply take Indian money without giving any rights? Israel does this with Iron Dome’s interceptor? If so, big surprise, Tel Aviv! India is not the US! We are not your patron saint of protection who you can blackmail any time you feel like it because in so many issues to do with Israel you own the US Congress. India is a poor country. $2-billion is a whacking great amount of money. Its 5% of the Indian annual defense budget. The US would have to invest $30-billion in an Israeli system to make the burden comparable. And let’s make a wild, wild guess here: if US was paying over $30-billion for a weapon that Israel could not even give a tentative delivery date, we don’t think Washington would be too pleased.

 

·         In India, of course, there is zero government accountability for the country’s failures to do with defense. The Government merely says “it is not in the public interest” to give defense information, one of the shabbiest and most hypocritical of excuses given by any government to its citizens. This short phrase allows the Indian government to be as foolishly incompetent, and to hide all degrees of malfeasance and corruption.

 

·         Undoubtedly there is much more to this story. And undoubtedly we will not learn it from the Israelis. When the Israelis bribe someone, they have the good sense to keep their mouths shut – unlike their beloved patrons, the Americans, who are ready to blab every detail of a deal to the world, including how much was paid for the call girls

 

·         But it is past time the citizens of India demand an accounting. Under what terms was this deal signed? How much money has been paid? How much, if any, has gone to people it should not have? Why is Israel not delivering on this missile when it has a history of very rapidly developing, testing, and deploying missile – albeit with US help, but Israel moves a lot faster than the US could ever dream of? Did the Israelis oversell themselves to a bunch of gullible Indian scientists and politicians? Indian citizens need to know all this because it is their money that is being spent on Barak 8. It is absolutely vital a project for the Indian Navy, which has predicated many of its warship weapons systems on the 8, and now has ships with only partial SAM coverage. The Indian Air Force’s SAM systems are in a mess. With Barak 8 it cannot protect its air bases and vital areas.

 

·         Someone has to be held responsible, and if culpable, punished.

 

 

·         Letter from Richard Thatcher on the SR-71 One thing to remember is that even to this day the SR-71  is the "gold standard" by which any high speed, high altitude plane is measured and, thus far in all known cases, found wanting. Another thing to remember is that Kelly Johnson and his crew designed and built both the U-2 and the SR-71 without the use of anything we would "properly" call a computer. They made their calculations on paper, with slide rules, and their brains. Wonder how many design and engineering folks could come close to do the like today. As to the attitude part, well, I think Mr. Waylon Jennings in this video tribute to the Blackbird can explain that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1TGvvBrPVc   Editor: Watching the video makes one thing this aircraft must have been designed by aliens.  

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT November 20, 2013

 

·         They were giants then: the SR-71 Blackbird When we consider how myopic Americans have become and how puny our technological achievements, it is difficult not to look back to the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and feel envious admiration for what Americans could do. An example is the SR-71 Blackbird, a strategic reconnaissance marvel designed for spy missions.

·         To this day the SR-71s true high-altitude reach and speed remain classified, though researchers and enthusiasts have pieced together some details. The SR-71, which was developed forty years ago, had an official ceiling of 85,000-feet. But there are people who say after refueling, the plane would climb to 102,000-feet to start its mission. If so, 102,000 cannot be its absolute ceiling. Then, the aircraft flew at Mach 3.2 – but this was not a burst speed, as was the case for the Soviet MiG-25 Foxbat, which could hit Mach 3 for a few minutes. The SR-71 could sustain Mach 3.

 

·         Editor once talked to a person who had flown a light plane from the US to India in the late 1960s. He made refueling and rest stops in Iran, where other pilots told him about a new US reconnaissance aircraft that flew at Mach 5. It took Editor some time (as in a couple of days) to figure the US must have been launching a high speed drone from the SR-71. And it was decades later that he learned about the D-21 Mach 3 drone. The odd thing is the D-21 drone program using the SR-71 was unsuccessful, as was the program to launch it from B-52s carrying a pair, as were four missions over China. As a result, the D-21 was canceled. But pilots in Iran talked about a Mach 5 aircraft. So was it the D-21 was not, in fact, canceled, or did the US develop another drone altogether?

 

·         Remember, this is all back in the 1960s, when just 20-years previous the jet fighter was just coming into service. How the US went from subsonic jets to aircraft capable of sustaining Mach 3 at very high altitudes is something that just is not explainable today. And, by the way, in now-year dollars an SR-71 would cost about $250-million. For that price you get a couple of F-35s. Also consider, the new SR-72, which Lockheed says it is ready to build, a Mach 6 reconnaissance/strike aircraft with intercontinental range, comes more than 40-years after the SR-71 was taken up.

 

·         So what was it those old-timers had running in their veins that we don’t have today? Was it the urgency of the Cold War drove people to work harder and faster than is possible today? Was it that that they so believed in themselves and their country that “impossible” was not part of their mind-set? Was it that the aviation program managers of the era were special, that they knew how to get funding and the best design/testing teams together and then leave them alone to produce?

 

·         http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/sr-71/ will give you details and take you to several other pages on the SR-71.

·         Talking about miraculous weapons, considered the Minuteman ICBM. It was tested in 1961, and went into service just one year later! It was a revolutionary missile, solid-fueled for quick launch and with an inertial navigation system using a digital computer. All stuff that would have seemed like science-fiction just five years earlier. The Titan missile was put under development in 1955, and was operational in 1962. It had a storable liquid-fuel propulsion system that required just one-minute to ready. The atlas ICBM was initially designed in 1953, and went into service in 1962. It was the world’s first ICM: recall that just ten years previous, missile high-tech was the V-1 and V-2. And of course, everyone is familiar with John F. Kennedy’s pledge to put a man on the moon within 10-years – at that time the US did not even have a reliable launcher! And the target was beaten by two years!

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT November 18, 2013

 

·         India’s new mountain strike corps A friend writes to say that according to report, it is likely to be numbered XVII, be headquartered in Ranchi, and have three divisions, two in Panagarh and one in Ranchi. Presumably 23 Division already at Ranchi and assigned to XXI Strike Corps will go under this new corps. The process will take seven years, which is so pathetic it is not worth commenting on. The Indian Army has a base large enough to raise nine divisions and three corps every two years. The best part is there is supposed to a second mountain strike corps to be raised. That should take us to 2027 – providing the seven years per corps schedule is kept.

 

·         PS: Don’t take anything for certain till Mandeep Bajwa confirms it. Which he may or may not.

 

·         KY, WA, CT, and the ACA Yesterday WashPo had an op-ed by the Democratic governors of these states, and they say everything is working well and smoothly, people are getting better insurance for the same money or even less after subsidies, and if other governors just got down to work instead of complaining, there would be no problem. Apparently these governors have set up health-exchanges and so on, so we’d guess they aren’t relying on the Feds.

 

·         The point we’ve made and continue to make is that could not the Administration see in advance that GOP governors were NOT going to cooperate, whatever the reason? That ACA passed without a single GOP vote didn’t trigger any alarm bells? It doesn’t matter why the GOP guvs are opposing. Mr. “I am the smartest person around”, had he the slightest political savvy, should have seen this coming and used his alleged smarts to make ACA work.

 

·         Editor’s letter to Ms. V. Jarrett. Ma’am, I believe you said President Obama is so smart, he has been bored his whole life. I  am not as smart and would not be as bored. Can you ask Mr. O. to make me the president in his place? I could build a really, really, big model train layout in the People’s House (using donations from the public, of course) and this would take up all my waking time. So I would have no chance to get bored. Plus with me doing nothing except working on the railroad, and not doing any of the Prezzy stuff, perhaps the country would have a better chance of surviving than it has now. Thank you, The Editor.

 

·         PS: Ma’am, would love to know how you make the connection between smarts and boredom. I always thought it was the other way around, that smart people are seldom bored because there is so much for them to discover, learn, discuss, and do. If you are bored, it means you lack the smarts to be NOT bored, if you get my drift. Perhaps you can suggest to his Royal Prezziness that to alleviate his boredom he watch the Kardshian Sisters’ show? He should find that engaging. And I do apologize that us Americans are so stupid our problems bore him. It must be agony for a person with 1000 IQ to deal with us dumbos.

 

·         The 512 Qubit computers A while ago we were bring told quantum computers were a pipedream. So now they have not just 128 Q-bit computers, but have jumped to 512 Q-bit machines. These are not experimental gizmos: you can buy them from a company called D-Wave. No clue as to how much they cost. Here’s the thing. A 512 is not four times as fast as a 128. Its 2^384 times as fast. http://www.naturalnews.com/040859_skynet_quantum_computing_d-wave_systems.html What happens to all the high end encryption in that case, your RSA 2048s and so on? It all becomes junk.

 

·         But apparently quantum encryption is possible – read http://news.discovery.com/tech/quantum-encryption-goes-mainstream-131016.htm - and available to the private sector. How this plays out in the race to encypt/decrypt we haven’t the faintest clue.

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT November 18, 2013

 

·         Report: Saudi to cooperate with Israel in possible anti-Iran strike Finally something out of the Mideast that makes sense. We’ve mentioned that the US does not necessarily have a vital national interest in disarming Iran. The countries that do are primarily Saudi Arabia and Israel, plus the Sunni Gulf states because nuclear Iran presents an existential threat to everyone in the Gulf save Iraq. Turkey too is at grave risk. Now an Israeli newspaper says Saudi has agreed to provide Israel with overflights rights, and tanker/SAR support. http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-be-working-with-saudi-arabia-on-iran-strike-plan/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

·         Let us first make clear: on general principles Editor believes America should be the World Whacking Authority and do the job wherever it needs to be done. It reminds people they still need the US, and it is always fun to see the pictures/video of Bad Guy things being blown up. Americans are addicted to violence, as is Editor, and we badly some short, sharp, and effective violence to make up for the disappointments of Iraq and Afghanistan. Editor is perfectly happy to see US whacking someone even if it is not vital for US interests. As for example, Gulf One and Two. If Iran nuclear program has to be taken down, no better way to assure results than have the US do the job. We may be lousy at unconventional ground wars, but we’re tops at air wars. Be nice to show that to our lovely friends, the Russians and the Chinese, particularly the latter, who are really getting too big for their red bunny slippers and pink panties.

 

·         That said,  since World War II, the US has not done well with the aftermath of military action. We have a mortal inability to anticipate the consequences of our actions because we are terminally ADHD. As is Editor, BTW, that is why he loves it so much in America, which he feels is his natural home. The only sensible thing we’ve done in a long while is stay out of Syria once it became clear the time for effective intervention was past. And effective intervention would have meant US ground troops within the first six months of civil war. Which, everyone must admit, was a political impossibility.

 

·         So it is probably better for the US to stay out of an Iran n-strike because who knows what unwanted consequences we would unleash.

 

·         The main point to ponder is that if Saudi is willing to the cooperate to the extent that is being suggested, why not have the Saudis, the UAE, Oman, and Qatar also join in. With these additional air assets, a thorough job can be done because no compromises are needed in the matter of targeting, and a campaign of several days or even weeks can be mounted.

 

·         Now inevitably the matter of Muslim world reaction to Saudi enabling an Israel strike comes up, and even more so if the Mideast Sunni states join in the revelry. Some readers may find this simplistic, but Editor thinks this is not a problem.  First, ideology has to be shelved when mortal threats arise. The perfect example is World War II where the US and UK had to ally with the USSR, the source of all evil in the 20th Century. There must have been some folks who were against this alliance with the children of Satan, but by and large people understood that with the Soviets as allies, the job of whacking Hitler became simpler.

 

·         The Sunni-Shia schism is so deep that it transcends any reservations about Muslim reaction to joining with Israel. Besides, as someone has pointed out – is it David Ignatius of the WashPo – that with the US withdrawing from the Middle East, Israel becomes the natural guardian of the Sunni Muslims and the guarantee of peace and stability in the region. The Sunni states might as well face up to this starting, like, right now.

 

·         On a large level, it is best for America to leave the Middle East. The area is just too messed up with unresolvable issues going back at least one millennia. Thanks to the American oil boom, we no longer need to be in there. And if the Greens could be persuaded that N-power is actually safer than oil, coal, solar, wind etc., plus it adds no CO2 to the atmosphere, we could forget about oil from other nasty places in the world such as Venezuela and West Africa.

 

·         A potential Israel-Saudi alliance allows the US to leave.

 

Friday 0230 GMT November 15, 2013

 

·         Mr. Obama’s Mea Culpa "I am not a perfect man and I will not be a perfect president…" said on the ACA snafu. That is okay, son. We forgive you. We were not expecting perfection because technically only the Divine is capable of perfection, certainly not us humans. On the other hand, we’d have gladly settled for some modest competence. (As an afterthought: may be the Divine is not so perfect, after all, else why did he create all the smart people who say they deserve to run this country.)

 

·         Sometimes when Editor is doing his Jonah act “Why, God, do you persecute America so much by saddling it with such incompetent leaders?” he finds it calming to consider the Nobel Prize lot that gave Mr. Obama a Nobel for Peace before Mr. Obama had done a single thing for peace. Here was the US President, not even completed one term as senator, with no record of anything except the Big Yak, and they gave him the Nobel prize on the basis of the Big Yak? Is not the Nobel committee supposed to consist of the Best and the Brightest? Or is that the explanation for its perfectly useless decision?

 

·         Speaking of Nobels for Peace. The committee made itself into an Ignoble Committee by overlooking the brave little Pakistani girl who defied the Taliban’s attempts to shut down girls’ schooling and was shot in the head and almost died as a result.  Instead, they gave it to a UN group mandated to destroy Syria’s chemical arsenal. But what sacrifice, what brave deed did the UN group do? An agreement was negotiated by the big powers, the group, as a servant of the UN, was told to go in and do its thing. How does it deserve anything? The Taliban, after failing the first time to silence her, have now declared she is to be killed. Yet she continues to preach her gospel of education for girls. She’s 15-years old or something. She can never return home now. And she can never feel safe overseas, because the Taliban have plenty of agents who can try to murder her no matter where in the world she is.

 

·         Internet ads So there’s one that says you can feed your family for $10 month, and says the man who came up by this plan is feared by grocery stores. The system was invented by the ancient Babylonians. It is called growing your own food. The concept is so revolutionary that Senate Bill 501 tries to ban it- another government conspiracy. Maybe we didn’t read Senate Bill 501 right, but it says nothing about growing food, it has got to do with FDA powers to inspect food – but excludes growers under $500,000/annually.

 

·         There’s another ad that you will be shocked at how easy it is to learn a foreign language. The ads all feature buxom ladies scantily clothed. Not sure what this has to do with learning a foreign language. Unless the company provides you a buxom, scantily clad instructor, and to indemnify itself against law suits says in 1-point type “Not liable if you failed because you spent your time staring down the blouse of the instructor.”

 

·         So Google is really, really smart in finding out which ads they should run on your screen, yes? So Editor is a perpetual on-line student at University Maryland University College. So does not matter which website he visits where in the world, there is an ad for UMUC. This does not seem clever to us. We are are being targeted because of typing in “umuc.edu” all the time to access the school’s website. We are already enrolled, so stop already, please, Google algorithm.

 

·         Senator Lindsey Graham refuses to permit any nominee to come up before him for hearings until he is satisfied about the Benghazi cover-up. We have followed the Benghazi story fairly closely, and it seems to us two things were at work. Whatever the CIA was doing in that town was covert. So the information is available to only those Congress folks who are cleared for it.

 

·         That is half the story. The other half of the story is that the US ambassador should not have been there with a minimal escort, as there is no secret that a very dangerous situation existed. So why did the ambassador go? He either was connected to the covert mission, or he went for his personal business. If he was on covert work, well, Senator Graham is unlikely to be told what was up in open session, is he? If the ambassador went on personal work, he did something he should not have done. Now that he is dead, do we really want to rake up all that personal stuff?

 

·         Personally we pay no heed to all the cries of outrage about the people being misled. The people are not entitled to know about covert ops and what went right or wrong. If Senator Graham doesn’t like that, he should work to abolish covert ops. Personally we think that is not a bad idea, but we suspect 99% of Americans won’t agree with us.

 

·         Talking about covert ops someone in Pakistan done gone murdered one of the big leaders of the Haqqani network, in public, on the outskirts of Islamabad. Boo hoo. The Haqqanis are possibly the leading killers of Americans in Afghanistan, and they belong lock, stock, barrel to Pakistan ISI. So as far as Editor is concerned, the only good Haqqani is a dead Haqqani. US has knocked off three of the family using UAvs.

 

·         So naturally there is speculation the US did him in. Possibly, but the man did travel all the time to North Waziristan and worked from there. This looks more like an ISI hit, perhaps to remind the Haqqanis not to get any ideas about acting independent of its handlers, or a dispute with another insurgent group. In Pakistan, as in North India, the concept of the blood feud rules. So it might even have been someone with a personal grudge.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT November 14, 2013

 

We had to skip Wednesday November 13 because Editor has his last paper for the semester due as well as articles for which he – unusually – is being paid. Orbat.com is now 13 ½ years old. The business model was that “World Armies” would provide a better product than Jane’s, and enable the Editor to make a modest living and sufficient time and money to make the rest of the website into a high quality but free site that would continue after the Editor’s – er – appointment with the gentleman in the red satin clown suit and the large fork.  Hasn’t happened. So thirteen and a half years later is Editor prepared to shift to a different business model? Well, he hasn’t been able to think of another model. So he sticks with what he does best: Bash On Regardless.

 

·         The Affordable Care Act (Oh no, not again!) We received flak from some readers about our criticism of the ACA and its implementation. We are not printing the letters because they are based on a misreading of the Editor’s argument. Or maybe he did not explain well enough. Readers have brought up two points. (a) ACA will replace rotten health plans with good plans; (b) People are losing plans because so many states have refused to provide the necessary subsidies under Medicare; and (c) the number of policies signed for is much larger than the total used by opponents of the ACA, which focuses only on individuals  with health plans

 

·         Last first. We have said nothing about the numbers. We assume that once the glitches are sorted out, and repairs/modifications to the ACA made, the numbers will rise. Nonetheless, the numbers of healthy uninsured people signing up entirely relevant. The money to keep ACA affordable for all who take advantage it was supposed to come from the healthy uninsured group. So the ACA, contrary to what its supporters said, is going to up health care costs, which means increased taxes or a bigger deficit. But everyone knew this, so we are unsure why this is even an issue to be discussed. The ACA is very much about forcing more people into plans from which the insurance folks will benefit, because federal subsidies are supposed to make plans affordable for those who lose individual coverage.

 

·         Next, our criticism was directed to the Administration, for lying about no one losing coverage, keeping their own doctors, and so on. The Administration knew this was going to happen and that the ACA’s success is based on this happening. As for people being forced out of rotten plans into good ones, we agree that is a noble objective. But because half the states are not prepared to take federal subsidies, the folks with rotten plans now have NO plans or face huge increases in premiums. How does this help anyone.

 

·         Last, and we hope this will be the end of the discussion, it is entirely true that half the states have refused to  take federal subsidies. There is a good reason and a bad reason for this. The good reason is the states have no assurance at some point the feds won’t reduce subsidies, forcing states to pick up the difference. The bad reason is many of the states hate Mr. Obama’s intestines and will take every opportunity to sabotage anything that gives his party more votes. But hello, this is called politics. More to our point, how is it the Administration’s best and brightest never foresaw this happening? These best and brightest, regardless of political affiliation, are destroying this country and that’s all there is to it. They are so arrogant they don’t see the need to get the consent of ordinary folks, or if they get consent, it is under false pretenses. The GOP did this with Iraq and Afghanistan, the Democrats are doing it with ACA, and both parties are doing it with the so-called War On Terror. We do not need the best and the brightest. We need honest people with simple, workable ideas.

 

·         At no point has Editor said the right-wingers are correct and the left is wrong. BOTH sides are working together to make this country a 3rd rate power while their real constituents, Mr. and Ms. Money Bags, flourish. No one is saying both sides are deliberately putting America into a decline. But that is the effect of their policies, which provide short-term profits to the 1% at the cost of the country.

 

·         There used to be a consensus in America: the rich and advantaged would make money, but they would also look after the poor and disadvantaged. People realized that impoverishing the 99% to make the 1% hugely rich was (a) anti-Christian; and (b) a threat to the stability the rich need in order to make money.

 

·         That consensus gas broken down because the 1% have decided they want it all and they want it now. Their view of government is that it exists to (a) make them richer; (b) keep the 99% passive and quiet and suppressed so that they don’t create lawlessness and disorder.

 

·         There are several things wrong with this on a purely practical level. First, the agents of repression – the people who make local, state, and federal government work, are going to realize they’re being taken for a ride by their government masters. They will refuse to repress anyone. Cant happen? What do the 1% think has been happening all over the world including the Former Soviet Union. Second, if you don’t look after the 99%, who is going to do the work that makes the 1% ultra-rich? Because of globalization, the 1% ditched American workers and replaced them with Chinese and Indian workers. But this cannot continue because as those countries develop, they are no longer going to be a source of cheap labor. China is already heading that way; in terms of white collar workers – where India excels – India is also heading that way.

 

·         It is not in the long term interest of the 1% to keep repressing the 99%.  If these people are really as smart as they tell us they should see that. But they don’t, because they too are Attention Deficit We Want It All Now people. By the way, the rich seem to think the upper middle class is their ally. One groans at the ignorance. The upper middle class is also getting badly squeezed. And remember what Hannah Arendt used to say: revolutions are made by the middle class, not the poor. The poor have nothing to lose and cannot rise from the business of making it from one day to the next. It’s the middle class that has everything to lose. When people who make $150,000 household income start feeling that everything is being taken away from them – and they do – then, 1% rich friends, it is the start of the beginning of the end.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT November 12, 2013

 

·         Iran Last Saturday the Six that have been participating in resumed negotiations with Iran about freezing its N-program adjourned with France objecting at the last minute. The Six – known as the P5+1 but easier to remember as Six – are Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States, and Germany. Negotiations are to resume eight days from now.

 

·         Why are folks negotiating when a while ago it seemed the Six had called it a day after years of frustrating talks that seemed to go nowhere? Assigning cause and effect to Iran’s actions is problematical because the regime is quite opaque. Not helping is that while the Grand Ayatollah is a final authority of sorts, there are several faction competing for power and always willing to play hardball to increase their influence. So we hesitate to say US-led sanctions have forced the regime to the negotiating table. At the same time, the sanctions have bitten very hard and the people are hurting badly. Iran is quite the police state, at the same time, even in police states when people are pushed to the wall they tend to revolt. So the regime does have to take the people into account, though obviously not in the same way a democracy must.

 

·         We’re not going to get into the details of the discussions and who wants what and when and where. France’s objection, which unnamed diplomats have characterized as last-minute spanners-in-the-machinery for the purpose of proving to its partners that Paris is still very relevant to any agreement, is actually reasonable. France wants work on the Arak plutonium production reactor frozen because the project could be complete before a final agreement is reached.

 

·         The Israelis are going bananas, and understandably because their entire strategy vis-à-vis Iran nuclear has fallen apart. Their strategy has been to spread alarm about how Iran is just about to go nuclear and must be stopped. Preferably with the US making an attack while Israel sits on the sidelines griping about how they would have done it so much better. The Israelis say Iran cannot be trusted and no negotiations should be taken place because Iran is using negotiations to stall while it comes up with N-weapons, next month, next three months, or the next six months. The Israelis keep coming up with these estimates which they plant in the western press, and the estimates are magically pulled out of the air to suit whatever is the immediate Israeli agenda.

 

·         Readers will notice that Iran has been on the verge of acquiring N-weapons for several years now. Let us say most politely that our Israeli friends have been taking the world for a ride. Let us also add in all fairness that they have every reason to assume the worst and to use any means necessary to force the US/West into attacking Iran. The Jewish people went through one Holocaust barely seventy years ago, and the Iranians, charming as ever, keep threatening to wipeout Israel even if it means they will die in the Israeli N-retaliation. It’s easy for outsiders to say “Oh, it’s just rhetoric on Israel’s part”. Us outsiders are not going to suffer if Editor is wrong and the Iranians really are (a) close to N-weapons; and (b) will actually use them.

 

·         People supporting making an agreement with Iran argue that if the Iranians wanted to make N-weapons, they would have done so. So, they don’t want to. Such persons have their heads stuck up the nether regions of a moronic donkey. We have to say a moronic donkey because actually the donkey tribe are among the savviest of animals. This line of reasoning lacks any reasoning. Iran has not gone nuclear because it has not been able to, not because it doesn’t want to. Its negotiating position after it goes nuclear is so much stronger that we’d have to believe the Iranian regime are idiots by not going nuclear when actually they can.

 

·         (Parenthetically we do sometimes wonder why Iran just doesn’t fake being a nuclear power, like DPRK and till just a couple of years ago, Pakistan.)

 

·         After having slammed the Israelis for conning the world – or at least trying to – about the imminent emergence of Iran as a N-power, let us do one of those 180-degree turns Editor is so famous for. We happen to agree with the Israelis that (a) the Iranians are not to be trusted; and (b) they WILL go nuclear when they can regardless of any agreements they sign. We arrive at this conclusion by looking at the problem backward.

 

·         To believe Iran will agree to truly freeze its N-program is to believe the following. (a) That Iran is not interested in competing with Saudi Arabia for Middle East supremacy. (b) That Iran is not worried about the prospect that Saudi has dibs on Pakistan nuclear warheads. (c) That Iran takes the US’s word that US will restrain Israel from attacking Iran’s N-program. (d) That Iran accepts the US word that America will not invade Iran – as opposed to a de-nuclearization strike. (e) That Iran believes the US has no intention to change the Iranian regime.

 

·         Americans seem to have a congenital inability to puts themselves in other people’s shoes. Or at least, if they do, they don’t give a hang what other people think. But if our readers, at least, can put themselves in the Iranians’ shoes, they will see that the Iranians would have to become mushrooms incapable of thought before they believe these things. Iran gains zero by giving up its N-program. It loses right now by not giving it up. The solution is not to give up the program, but to stall for time – exactly what the Israelis are saying.

 

·         Unfortunately for the Israelis, they have to realize by now that they cannot get the US to make a strike on their behalf. We’re not going into why the US has suddenly become coyly maidenish about the possibility of attacking; suffice it to say the US has very good reasons to avoid making that final decision.

 

·         The Israelis must face the reality that they have to make a strike by themselves. Militarily it is not anywhere near as difficult as some people who say 25, 50, 100, 250 targets will have to be struck. We can discuss this sometime if our readers want. The Israelis can do the job with discreet help from the US. There will be consequences. Israel’s aim is to avoid those consequences by having the US do the job. But when Israel cannot persuade the US, it has to go solo.

 

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT November 11, 2013

 

·         The Best and the Brightest Are Going To Sink America One of the things about America that has – till recently  - surprised the Editor is the outright anti-intellectualism. Editor is an intellectual and proud to be one. Someone has to come up with ideas and to discuss their pros and cons. Editor acknowledges people who do things with their hands are as important, something  most intellectuals do not realize. Editor believes in a partnership between thinkers and doers; thinkers are not automatically superior because doers are not so great at thinking. If it were not for these folks, who would make our ideas real?

 

·         But after the Obamacare deal, Editor now understands why Americans are anti-intellectual. Was a time when the intellectual could not do anything without the doers – the engineers, craftsmen, worker etc. If the doers could not actualize the intellectual’s ideas, well, that was the end of it. Nowdays, however, it seems intellectuals can cause enormous damage just by giving orders. Take Obamacare as an example: it’s a bunch of rules and software, it is not like someone is manufacturing something and imposing a reality check on the intellectuals.

 

·         This Best and Brightest thing started when Editor was young, with McNamara and Kennedy. McNamara was a data wizard and organizational genius. Supported by youngsters who loved data as much as he did, he completely changed the way the Department of Defense functioned. It may be agreed that he did good things. Before McNamara, there was little systematic thinking about defense and not a whole lot of efficiency. For example, the US had a vast reserve army structure but not the equipment for all those divisions. So he reduced the National Guard to eight high-readiness divisions and eliminated all Army Reserve combat divisions. It didn’t look good on paper. The Soviets were credited with 300 active and reserve divisions, US came down to 28 including the Marines. But US reserve divisions could be quickly prepared for war, the Soviet reserve divisions were mostly rubbish – as was the case for most of their active divisions. Probably only 40 divisions were worth anything in wartime, the Soviet Group of Forces Germany and the first follow-on echelon.

 

·         But when it came to actually fighting a war, McNamara and his like proved to be total failures. They had all these fancy ideas about “gradual response”. All that did in Vietnam was permit the enemy to adapt to every fresh induction of US troops. Had the US sent  ten divisions and 1000 fighters to Vietnam in 1965-66, the war would have been over in a year or two, with the North Vietnamese Army forced into China for its survival. You can legitimately ask “and what then?”, but it can legitimately be noted that the strategy the Pointy Heads came up was a massive failure from Day One.

 

·         The US won the Cold War not by any fancy thinking, but by jumping the defense budget to the point the Soviets – who we now know were economically much weaker than they appeared at the time – realized they simply could not compete. The way the US won First Gulf was gathering everything it had and clobbering the Iraqi military. One million coalition forces took part, half of them American. No deep intellectual thinking here.

 

·         But somewhere along the line, the Pointy Heads got this great idea: the US must fight to make the world democratic. Earlier we fought to protect western democracies who were under threat, or – as in Korea – to protect our global position. There was little ideology involved. Using military force to create democracies where none previously existed was a novel intellectual idea. And we know how well that has gone.

 

·         Similarly it was the Pointy Heads that came up with the idea America didn’t need to manufacture anything, global economic superiority arose from coming up with ideas. We know how well that has gone. Our wages, which used to be highest in the world, are now so low that we have actually begun competing with China on manufacturing.

 

·         Editor’s enlightenment on the Road To Damascus regarding why Americans hate intellectuals has come with Obamacare. Editor has already started seeing how dishonest the intellectuals had been about Iraq and Afghanistan – not just in what got us involved, but the way the wars were fought. The US military is universally admired globally because so many of its senior officers are highly educated, and so – intellectual. That they are so intellectual they cannot fight their way out of a paper bag seems to have evaded most Americans and foreigners.

 

·         Now America learns that the President’s team knew from the start that millions of folks were going to lose their individual coverage. And they wanted it that way because  - now we learn – forcing all these folks into ACA coverage was necessary to get sufficient numbers enrolled in the health care exchanges. Fair enough. But the President and his team not only did not think it necessary to share this information with the public, they believed we the ordinary folks were too stupid to understand the benefits of the ACA. So the truth had to be hidden from us, and soothing words such as “When people get ACA coverage they will realize what a great deal they have.”

 

·         This is akin to forcing folks to take a new pill without telling them it makes them infertile for ten years, and urging them on with the promise it will be so much better after the pill. Then when people realize they cant have kids for 10 years, the Government says “but you see, with fewer people the stress on the environment will be less, and so you will be so much better off.”

 

·         All this may be true, but in a democracy are we not supposed to be told the truth and permit us to make decisions for ourselves? The idea, of course, was to prevent such a debate which the President’s people feared would be taken over by his opponents who would misrepresent his ideas. So what the Obamacare folk were really saying is their idea was so weak they could not counter the right-wing’s propaganda.

 

·         The Obamacare folks have sought to shift the blame to states that refused to expand Medicaid. This has denied people the opportunity to get subsidized coverage. So we are now confronted by the inevitable: the  Pointy Heads are such blithering idiots that they could not tell half the states are governed by Obama haters? They could not make a plan that accounted for this?

 

·         Well, yes. They couldn’t make a plan which accounted for this. They couldn’t make a plan that could be sold on its merits. THEY decided they knew best, and us Stoopids were to be corralled into the ACA for our own good.

 

·         Seems to us we’ve heard that before – Stalin, Mao, and Hitler come to mind. The European Union is getting there. And we all know how well Stalin, Mao, and Hitler achieved nirvana for the ordinary folks.

 

·         None of the above rant is to dispute that health care for all is needed, else the uninsured merely shift their costs to those of us who pay taxes. The ACA was originally a GOP idea, and there’s nothing wrong if a good idea enriches business people while helping everyone. The Tea Party should be all for something like the ACA if only to stop freeloaders, which they correctly hate. BTW, do Tea Party types actually drink tea? Just wondering.

 

·         What was wrong with coming up with a plan that gave people the choice: get insurance, or if you don’t want insurance, you cannot get treatment except if health care providers are willing to give it free. You cannot make the rest of us pay for your choices. Such a plan would have been honest. Moreover, except for the most extreme anti-government types, most Americans would have been willing to pay a bit extra to make sure the plans were subsidized for the poorest.

 

·         Alas, this goes back to something Editor has been saying. America has become a nation of liars. Don’t want to get all biblical about this, but lying is a sin. It was made a sin by the religious folks back in the day, the ones who gave us ethics under the threat God will punish us because lying destroys individual lives and it destroys societies.

 

 

 

 

 

·         Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Nuclear Weapons According to an investigative report by the BBC http://tinyurl.com/ohupw4w Pakistan has nuclear warheads ready to be shipped to Saudi Arabia any time the latter wants them. Saudi has said it will not tolerate a nuclear Iran. With the US  less-and-less likely to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and with moves underway between the Six and Iran on curbing its nuclear program, Saudi Arabia has become more agitated. Like Israel, it sees all this as an Iranian bluff that the US is being suckered into. That, anyway, is the polite version of how the Saudis feel; there are other versions which are considerably less kind to the US.

 

·         Now, Editor is not going to get into the plausibility of the BBC’s investigation results. It is not his job to defend Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The days when the Editor took on these stories and did his own investigations for the sake of the truth and getting a little attention are long since gone. He doesn’t have the time anymore, nor does he have patrons that would provide a minimal living and cover travel costs while he works.  So Editor is going to treat it as given that Pakistan has nuclear warheads and can hand them over to Saudi Arabia at any time.

 

·         Editor’s argument is going to be entirely separate. The argument is that the US has zero credibility with anyone in the world when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation. Its entire program goal is not to make the world a safer place, but to rearrange the nuclear world to suit itself.

 

·         To be clear: there is nothing wrong with this. Securing their interest is what countries do. What grates is the totally fake air of morality that the US puts on when it comes to Other People’s N-weapons.

 

·         First, US is the only country to have actually used the weapons. Editor agrees whole-heartedly with the US’s use in World War II, and regrets only that the US didn’t bomb the Soviet Union before the latter got its own nuclear weapons. Again, however, this argument is not about what the Editor thinks. It is what the world thinks of US non-proliferation efforts. US has at times considered using N-weapons after World War II, for example, against China during the Korean War. (Another pity that the US turned out to be a gutless wonder when it refused to do the needful.) Accordingly, the entire US anti-nuclear weapons drive smacks of false piety.

 

·         Second, US never has anything to say about its own N-weapons, or those of its allies UK/France. The US says: “But of course WE can be trusted with N-weapons because WE are responsible people. “ The rest of the world goes “Ha. Ha. Right. Do tell. You don’t say. And who has intervened all the world more than the US?” This shows the US is not against N-weapons. It is against anyone but its best buddies having them.

 

·         Third, US has never punished Israel or South Africa for their acquisition of N-weapons. In Israel’s case it has been directly complicit. So again we have a situation if the US deems it necessary to its interests, other people can have N-weapons. Only if you as a country are deemed not be in the US interests, are you to be denied and punished for N-weapons or for the attempt to acquire them.

 

·         Fourth, there’s Pakistan. Pakistan has pursued an active N-weapons program for 40 years. At various times, US has sanctioned Pakistan. At other times, it has turned a Nelsonian eye, for example during the First and Second Afghan Wars.

 

·         What is truly strange about the US tolerance of Pakistan’s N-weapons program, is that Pakistan is an active nuclear proliferator: it has sold technology to Libya, Saudi, and North Korea. North Korean cargo ships are stopped and boarded for inspection on suspicion that they may be carrying weapons to other countries the US doesn’t like – like Cuba. Never heard of a Pakistani ship being stopped and searched.

 

·         Still further, Pakistan’s Father of The Bomb, Dr. A.Q. Khan, was actually in the process of making a deal to sell Al Qaeda two nuclear weapons when the 9/11 thing came down. We don’t think AQ intended to use them for decorating Osama’s living room. Oh yes, the US made many threats to Pakistan – but they were of the variety “if you ever do this again”. Pakistani weapons would have blown big holes in New York and Washington, but Pakistan was, and remains, a US ally.

 

·         Next, US’s Best Friend Forever, China. China supplied 50-kg of weapons grade uranium to Pakistan. But China has never been punished.

 

·         The collaboration between Saudi and Pakistan on N-weapons has been long known. Saudi has provided money, and continues to do so. The Saudis are not doing this because they are simply loveable people. “You have a N-weapons program? Please, let us give you a bunch of money. No, we don’t want anything in return. We’re giving you the money because we want you to be successful with N-weapons. Sheer goodness of our heart.” Right. That rings really true, doesn’t it?

 

Thursday 0230 GMT November 7, 2013

 

·         India kowtows to China again Editor supposes India is getting ready for when China becomes the biggest economy in the world. It is doing serious practice of kissing China’s butt. No need to ask what is India’s plan for when China is economic Number One. We already know: India will lie back and think of England in winter. A greater bunch of knaves, poltroons, morons, and idiots cannot be found outside of the Government of India. We are Number One in few things, but in running up the Yellow flag, we are by far and away Number One. In fact, Editor is going to have to come up with a new name for Indian yellowness.

 

·         And no, Indian Yellow is not the name.  Believe it or not, Editor wanted to be a painter in his youth, so he can tell you Indian Yellow is a perfectly decent color. They used to feed cows an exclusive diet of mango leaves, and the pigment was made when the cows went Number One. We need a new name like Poopy Indian Yellow or something.

 

·         Here is what the Government of India had done most recently. It has downsized an annual Indo-US naval exercise. Why? Because the Chinese objected and we don’t want to offend the Chinese. And what are the Chinese doing for India in return? Trying to force the Indian Navy from transiting the South China Sea, surrounding India with naval bases, intruding several times a month on Indian territory, being Best Friends Forever with India’s mortal adversary Pakistan, occupying Indian territory both in East Ladakh and in North Ladakh, and leasing large parts of Indian Kashmir presently under Pakistani occupation for economic exploitation. And protecting their leases with their own security troops.

 

·         Why on earth does the Government of India care one hang-nail what the Chinese think of our relationship with the US? How is it China’s business by any measure? Why does the Government of India and its Ministry of External Affairs take their marching orders from Beijing? We know China is working towards making India – and all neighboring states – into tributaries, but has India already reached that point?

 

·         Why is the Government of India not telling China to get its nose out of our affairs? Because you have only to say “China!” and the Government of India goes all Poopy Indian Yellow. How does New Delhi expect to ever get any respect from Beijing when New Delhi does not even respect itself?

 

·         Now let us be clear. According to Editor, India should NOT be holding any exercises with the United States. Reasons for Editor’s position can be discussed another time. Editor is not irate at GOI because it has reduced the scope of the naval exercises. Editor is irate because we’re acting at China’s behest after Beijing went  “Boo! The Boogerman is going to get you!”, and the GOI is afflicted from an immediate and nauseatingly stinky case of terminal runs.

 

·         Don’t the people care that their government’s chief function in life seems to be to humiliate the country? Why are we putting up with these cowards, who are hopelessly inefficient and massively corrupt to boot? India’s GDP growth is coming down to 4-5%, which means tens of millions of Indians, who have already waited near seven decades for the government to save them from crippling poverty, must wait again. If it was possible to sue the Government of India for dereliction of duty, failure to perform basic functions, criminal negligence, and making hundreds of millions of people suffer in abject poverty, the current and past governments of India would be jailed serving 100-year sentences. On Mars. Without space suits.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT November 6, 2013

 

Another conversation with our Washington insider source

Who by now you have guessed is not one person

 

·         Q: So why are the Republicans still getting so het up about Obamacare? They thing looks as if it will fail of its own contradictions.

 

·         A: Aren’t you forgetting that Obamacare was actually a Republican program intended to force all Americans to buy insurance – from private companies, i.e., their big bucks sugar mommys? Despite all the farce in Congress, it’s the Tea Party who wants it to fail, not the mainline GOP.

 

·         Q: Fair enough. But isn’t it going to fail? For one thing it doesn’t look like enough healthy people will sign up. Also, the millions of individual buyers who are being kicked off because the insurance companies can make more money not servicing them.

 

·         A: We already knew from the start the ACA was not going to be revenue neutral, that it would become another entitlement. The Tea Party may be whacko birds but it doesn’t mean everything they say is nonsense. It doesn’t matter who is being kicked off the individual insurance, there will be adjustments made to the plans and they’ll have insurance sooner or later. This is going to be another subsidy and by golly Americans of every political shape do love their subsidies. This is going to be wildly popular.

 

·         Q: You’ve said that a number of times. But I don’t see it: people are upset and angry.

 

·         A: You don’t study much of American political history, I take it.

 

·         Q: Try and avoid politics of all countries.

 

·         A: Okay, so let me explain. When FDR introduced Social Security, go back and read the newspapers. You’d think a whole lot of America was going to secede, they were so angry about the socialism. Heard anyone criticize Social Security lately? It was the same with Medicare. It upset many no end. Heard anyone complain about it lately? Talk to me in ten years about Obamacare: the same folks who want to kill someone over Obamacare will kill you if you try and take it away.

 

·         Q: But wasn’t it wrong for the President to say you can keep your plan and your doctor?

 

·         A: You’re forgetting he’s a lawyer as much as Clinton. The Administration knew darn well people were going to lose their insurance. But did Obama say you can keep your plan and doctor at the same price?

 

·         Q: But is that not lying?

 

·         A: Sure. What are you going to do about? All politicians lie. All people in power lie. Lying is our national pastime.

 

·         Q: But isn’t is cruel when you know people are going to lose their insurance and you don’t do anything about?

 

·         A: The Administration arranged for subsidies through Medicare for people being kicked off. There was no intention that they should have to face 5X increases with no where to go.

 

·         Q: Right. But didn’t the Administration anticipate that so many GOP states would refuse to take advantage of the subsidy?

 

·         A: You tell me. Mr. Obama is supposed to be smarter than God – at least that’s what his people say. You going to question someone smarter than God?

 

·         Q: But isn’t the roll-out disaster going to cripple his presidency?

 

·         A: First, the American people have the attention span of a gant. Second, you’ve already heard me say many times the man’s entire presidency is a disaster because he is not a politician. He’s another of the “Best and Brightest” that led us to disaster in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. A politician gets down in the muck and cuts deals. This man seems to think that because He Has Spoken, anyone who disagrees with him is sub-IQ. He does not like people. With one exception. He loves himself and the sound of his voice. Third, if he does not get the House back in 2014, he’s cooked – though it could hardly get worse than it is. If he gets the House back – which thanks to the Tea Boys he well may – he’ll get his way, and then God will have to help America because no one else can.

 

·         Q: What do you suggest should be done?

 

·         A: Migrate to Canada.

Tuesday 0230 GMT November 5, 2013

 

·         Saudi Arabia There is a strange report from AFP http://tinyurl.com/kwlyyaf saying Saudi Arabia wants to buy five Type 209 submarines from Germany. Nothing wrong with that. Saudi should sensibly be able to achieve superiority over Iran in the Persian Gulf, and five boats is an excellent start. What’s odd is that according to the report, Saudi wants to buy 25 more long term.

 

·         The money is not the issue. At $600-million per boat, that’s less than a day’s oil piracy yields the kingdom. It is the enormous number. India, for example, has the third largest navy in the world, and it plans 24 conventional submarines plus perhaps six nuclear boats. Why on earth would Saudi want so many boats?

 

·         Our first thought was that Saudi is holding out the prospect of a huge order for reasons of its own. One might be to overcome Germany’s reluctance to sell it weapons. It’s not the German government per se that’s the problem, its parliament and the people are not exactly enthusiastic about the Kingdom’s human rights record. So perhaps Saudi figures that offering to buy 30 boats is bait to get Berlin to sell 5 plus a few more. Another reason might be to get other suppliers – France and the UK – all hot and sweaty at the prospect of a once in a lifetime order and perhaps the competition will push down the price. The thing is, Saudi seldom bothers about the price. It has so much money it buy the best and pays top dollar. So perhaps there is some deeper geopolitical game afoot and Saudi does really want 30 submarines.

 

·         Whatever it is, it really is time Saudi started to look after itself rather than rely on the US. We can understand that with just a 30-million population, Saudi may feel nervous in its neighborhood. We also understand that the Saudis do not really like soiling their hands with work they consider beneath their dignity. Military forces need folks that are able to accept little monetary compensation in return for long and arduous years of service. This is not the Saudi style. Nor are the Saudis keen on hiring mercenaries, which also is understandable.

 

·         But the US cannot be Saudi Arabia’s shield for ever and ever. Defending Saudi interests at the cost of America’s other interests is, like the Israel situation, another tail wagging the American dog. The two potentially strongest Mideast states are Iran and Iraq. They also happen to have a great deal of oil. Iraq may have even more than Saudi Arabia. These are Shia nations, and the less said about the Sunni-Shia “disagreement” the better. True Christians have been through their own rift, Protestants versus Catholics, but people got over it quickly enough. People are supposed to have progressed since the 16th Century. There really is no excuse for continuing the Sunni-Shia fight, now 1300-years old, but that is not our point.

 

·         Our point is that Saudi will get Super Freako if the US throws in its lot with the Shias. Indeed, this is already happening; one reason the Saudis are throwing a major tantrum is the US is not intervening in Syria for the Sunnis against the Shia, another is US is seeking to normalize relations with Iran. Both actions are needed to support US interests, regardless of if these actions are in Saudis interests. Saudi support of terror is also not in US interests – just by the way.

 

·         It’s time for Saudi to grow up and go its own way. Its fine to say America needs Saudi for its oil. Actually, we do not. It’s a lot safer in geopolitical terms to develop our own resources and buy from Canada; between us and the Canadians we can produce enough for at least 30-years that other countries we import from can be relied on less. What is Saudi going to do – stop selling us its oil? No big deal. Oil is fungible. What we get from Saudi will be sold to someone else, prices will remain exactly the same. It is not as if Saudi does us any favors oil price wise. It sells oil at market price. Sure, Saudi has served as the world’s emergency supplier because it had a large reserve pumping capacity. So the Saudis could act to dampen OPEC’s more mercenary members.

 

·         But this is no longer useful to the US. Saudi realizes that if the oil price goes too high, substitution will occur and prices will crash. Finis Saudi. The days when that country needed relatively little oil revenue and could cut production to 6-million barrels/day to maintain a floor price are gone. Saudi also now needs to produce as much as it can.

 

·         If American and Canadian environmentalists would only understand that there is a lot more at stake than some minor green issues that can be easily straightened out, it would be US/Canada determining world oil prices.

 

·         The price of friendship with Saudi Arabia is much too high. Sure, perhaps 9/11 would have happened even if no Saudi Arabia existed. But when you consider we’ve spent over one trillion dollars because of terrorism, of which Saudi is a significant exporter in the form of money, you have to wonder: is continuing being BFFs with Saudi really cost-effective?

 

Monday 0230 GMT November 4, 2013

 

·         Vo Nguyen Giap A pleasure of reading history is to find revisionist writings that totally overturn what one had previously believed. So it was the other day concerning the Vietnamese general Giap. It has often been said he was one of the modern world’s greatest generals. Editor thought this was complete bosh. The 1968 Tet Offensive was a defeat in military terms, and the 1972 all-out PAVN offensive against the South a mistake of epic proportions. Sure, General Giap won in 1975, but that was when the US not just refused to provide the South Vietnamese air power, but also refused to authorize $800-million or so for ordnance to fight the invasion.

 

·         Some weeks ago Editor briefly read that Giap had not, in fact, planned or executed the 1975 offensive. Editor filed that away for more research at an appropriate time.Now Editor reads in Washington Post http://tinyurl.com/mcs6g97 that far from being responsible for the Tet 1968 offensive, Giap was not even in the country when it was planned, arriving from exile in Hungary two days before its launch. He was aghast because he knew how it would end. For this he was sent into internal exile and remained there to the end of his working days.

 

·         Giap exiled to Hungary? What on earth is this about? Well, apparently both Giap and Ho were sideline by the Communist party in an internal coup in 1963. One reason for the coup is that neither man wanted to get into a war with the US so they were eased out. Presumably they could not be jailed or shot because they were both fathers of modern Vietnam and heroes to the ordinary people. Presumably also they retained sufficient support in the party that drastic action against them would have led to the overthrow of the coup leaders. At some point Ho left the country for China, and in 1967 Giap went to Hungary.

 

·         While retained as a symbol of Vietnam, Giap on his return had no power. Indeed, thirty generals who were thought to be among his supporters were purged and imprisoned (Timing unclear from the story). This being the case, he could not have planned/executed the failed 1972 offensive either, and would explain why he had nothing to do with the 1975 offensive either.

 

·         At this point you have to utter at least one “Wow!”, because everything one believed about Giap’s role in the liberation of Vietnam from the Americans turns out to be false. Apparently Giap was so loyal to the party – and probably sufficiently wise – that he kept quiet about his real circumstances for fifty years until his death this year. It has apparently been in the last few years that archival material has started emerging with the truth. And that he and Ho lost power because they did not want to fight the Americans merits another “Wow!”. Editor guesses that this reluctance was not because the two giants loved the US meeces to pieces, but because they understood the American ability to destroy.

 

·         And they were right, because 2-million North Vietnamese soldiers may have died in the war against America, of whom 800,000 are missing. This last was told by a Vietnamese general to the Americans when Washington was again pressuring Vietnam over missing Americans. The bulk of the missing must have died in the wholesale bombing by B-52s. When a 3-cell of B-52s went over, left below were bits and pieces of humans that could not be identified as belonging to a particular individual.

 

·         Another thing Editor learned is that Ho’s famous letter to Ike asking for help against the French was not Ho’s first approach to the Americans. Apparently from the 1920s he had been pleading with the US to intervene against the French. The principles he cited were precisely the same principles that are the foundation of American democracy. Every approach was ignored, as by the way was every approach Ho made to the international communist movement. There are reasons for the Big Ignore, it is not as if the US was just plain stupid. Among the reasons was that Ho was a nobody until World War II. Even when the US started sending him clandestine help, from Washington’s viewpoint, Ho was just a minor local guerilla fighter in a forsaken part of the world.

 

·         Still, it is tempting to think that had Ike intervened for Ho, US history would have been different. And Ike DID intervene against the colonialists when he turned against Britain and France during the 1956 invasion of Suez. Ike was acting on principle even though the security of the Suez Canal was of great importance to the US. He could have done the same thing in Indochina. Again, there are many sides to every story. With the communist takeover of China and the Korean War, anyone with “Communist” in their resume would really not qualify to be invited for tea at the White House.

 

·         None of this is to suggest that Ho or Giap were nice guys who were supporters of democracy. When North Vietnam drove France from Indochina, the atrocities committed by the communists to consolidate their hold over the North rank in the serious Crimes Against Humanity list of the 20th Century. They might have been democrats when they were young, but that doesn’t count. Its what happened after they came to power that matters.

 

 

Friday 0230 GMT November 1, 2013

 

·         Halloween 41 kids showed up while the candy lasted. When we moved into the neighborhood 18-years ago, maybe 6-10 used to arrive. So it’s very nice there are so many kids now, satisfying in a grandfatherly way.  

 

·         So one of the next door neighbors arrived with her middle daughter, so naturally I asked where was the youngest, as the little one is kind of a favorite. “This is the little one,” said mom. We had a discussion getting the ages of the kids in the family straightened out. Of a sudden, there was no satisfaction, because Editor realized four years of his life had just passed him without noticing a thing. Just the other day the littlest was two, and now she’s six.

 

·         Editor had to sit down to absorb this. Whereupon an even unhappier thought surfaced: hey, you’re worrying about four years passing in a wink, where did the last fifty years go? Editor feels he has lived only twenty years. That is in his mind; his body tells him he’s lived at least a hundred.

 

·         Halloween is an oddity in America. It is about witches and grave yards and the dead and all that. Good Christians are not supposed to celebrate Halloween. Not only is it pagan, its positively satanic. Now, Editor is not a Christian, but in Rome do as the Romans do, so he thinks he should behave like a good Christian, and he shouldn’t be celebrating Halloween. Okay, so it’s for the kids an all that. But if we weren’t putting the kids up to it, they wouldn’t be doing Halloween. Also, seems a bit sick to be living life vicariously through your little ‘uns. Sure, take happiness in their happiness, but why manufacture these false festivities so they’re happy so you can be happy?

 

·         Many costumes seem to get sold on Halloween. And they all seem to be Made in China. As a patriotic American, Editor is displeased with the thought folks are shoveling more bucks into China. Yes, yes, Editor is not American, but when in Rome and all that. Of course, some are the costumes are home made. Editor’s fave little kid who went from two to six when he turned his back, the one he mentioned at the start, came as Dorothy and the family dog came as Toto.

 

·         Thinking of this dog as Toto requires a massive suspension of disbelief, like believing Mr. Obama is an actual intellectual and so smart that all earthly things like running America bore him. (His sidekick Valerie Jarrett said something like that, not Editor. She may have inadvertently revealed the truth about the Obama presidency. Not that he’s so smart, but he thinks being President is boring. That’s wonderful, but why is he inflicting his smarts on us, the American people? What have we done in our past life to deserve this punishment? Back to the dog. This fellow has the meanest soul of any dog Editor has ever met. That he has to be muzzled even at home tells you something about him. He has not one single redeeming feature, which saying something about an animal. Okay, Editor is fond of the kid , so Toto it is. This guy is so mean he cannot even be the Devil’s Dog, if you know what Editor means.

 

·         So what exactly is this thing Americans have about vampires, witches, zombies, and so on? What is so fascinating about these creatures that just about every teenage girls Editor teaches has the latest book in her hand? And now prepare for the shocking truth: the moms ostensibly buy these books for their daughters, but Editor has first-hand evidence that the moms read them just as carefully! Okay, we know the American male is no longer – er – capable, which must lead to a lot of loneliness for their wives and girlfriends. But are things so bad these nice, attractive women have to seek release in vampire fantasies?

 

·         Doubtless well-intentioned readers will suggest that this is Editor’s chance of getting not one but many, many dates on Saturday. Editor is very sorry to inform well-wishers getting an American mom away from her daughter’s vampire book is harder than flapping your arms and traveling to the Andromeda Galaxy and back in eleven years. Which is to say, it is impossible. Very strange country, America.

 

·         So every time a white person costumes himself in blackface, there is an unholy row about racism. Washington Metro has a lot of black folks – back in the day it was the largest settlement of free African Americans. The very first Halloween Editor was in Washington, he noticed two kids in whiteface. He thought that rather cute. Today there were FIVE black kids in whiteface arrived at Editor’s door. Apparently that’s not racist. Don’t get Editor wrong: he doesn’t want to ban kids in whiteface. But shouldn’t we a bit more relaxed about kids in blackface?

 

·         Of course, Editor’s Indian friend (who is he kidding, he has NO friends, this is a friend of Mrs. R. IV) once set the record right. Editor mentioned that we Indians are just about the most racist of all folks. We even invented a special caste for dark skinned people. It is so special that it is, really and truly out-of-caste. Dark skinned people are, according to us Indians, so low they cannot even have a caste. Back in the day in India if you had no caste, you were not a person. Period. So the friend, who is a feminist and ant-discriminationist and all that calmly says: “You are of color, therefore you cannot be racist”.

 

·         Editor thought this is the weirdest thing he has ever heard an Indian say. Then he reminded himself that she may have been born Indian, but was now an American. Dashed strange, the folks of Editor’s adopted land. Just cannot figure them out.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT October 31, 2013

 

·         Letter from Vinesh M. Rao Thank you for your usual confusing rant, which explains little, clarifies nothing, and gives no indication of what you really believe. (Big deletion here – language not fit for adults.) I am wondering: did you deliberately omit the fact that companies are engaged in massive cancellations because Obamacare requires them to cover all sorts of stuff that they didn’t previously cover? It’s fine to say if a company drops you, you can apply for insurance under the ACA. But how does this work if your premium under ACA takes a big hike and you cannot afford it? Previously you had some insurance, now you have none. Further, I thought this was a national security blog. Why do you go off on all these excursions on irrelevant matters in which you yourself proclaim you have no expertise?

 

·         From Editor to Vinesh I see you are one of those perpetual troublemakers who actually read what Editor writes. You are not supposed to read the posts! Editor writes them for his most admiring reader, i.e., himself.

 

·         Nonetheless, you have raised valid points that deserve answers. First, has not Editor said several times that the ACA is one enormous, huge, mess of the 1st Degree and that nothing that complicated can work? The more complicated one makes something, the more two laws kick in: Murphy’s Law -  anything that can go wrong will go wrong; and  the Law of Unintended Consequences. A good law is, by definition, a simple law, and there is nothing simple about the ACA – or actually about most recent American laws or about most things America does as a society or as a country. There are many reasons the country does not function anymore, gargantuan complex laws is one reason. People complain ACA will cut employment. Ha ha. It will increase employment because now a bazillion lawyers, analysts, and consultants will be required to understand what it all means.

 

·         Second, no, not mentioning the clause that private insurers must now offer stuff they never offered before was not deliberate. Editor’s rants are written as “First  and Onlys”. If something gets left out of the first draft, well, that’s it: its left out. But bringing up this point, Reader Vinesh proves two assertions made by Editor about ACA.

 

·         Rather than provide a certain minimum level of care, insurers are dumping customers who cost them money. They are doing it in a lawful manner, by saying: “Your new policy costs you 500% more than your old; you may find better deals under ACA.” In other words, the companies are working to further add to their profits and are not so secretly thrilled and delighted about ACA. They will now keep only the healthiest customers, leaving ACA with the sick and dying, and raising your taxes and mine. Mr. Obama has done a very big favor to private health insurance companies in two ways: by allowing them to dump expensive clients – which they do at any excuse anyway – and by forcing them to buy insurance from private companies. Remember, Obamacare is not government health care. It is simply a mandate to buy from the private sector. More rejoicing among health insurance companies.

 

·         Okay. To be fair, the people who are finding they cannot get an affordable policy under ACA are those who are living in the 50% of states that have refused to accept federal subsidies to make affordable policies. There is a good reason these states have refused, and there is a bad reason. The bad reason is – IMHO – these state leaders just cannot stand the reality we have a black president. The good reason is that the feds have a habit of forcing unfunded mandates on the states. Today the feds provide the subsidy. Tomorrow, with the little warning, they can reduce it and tell the states “tough taters, you raise taxes to pay for our mandate.”

 

·         We spoke to someone who has a better handle on the ACA than we do, and they said actually cheap insurance plans are available under ACA, it just that they have high deductibles to make up for the low price. They also say that whether or not Mr. Obama intended to preempt this, but there is a storm rising among employers who every years are handing over larger and larger sums of money to buy insurance. Five, ten years down the road the existing health care payment system is going to collapse because prices just keep rising. Companies are just not going to be able to afford to give their employees but  the most minimal of high-deductible plans, while continuing to up their employees’ share of the premium. Paying more and enjoying it less is inevitable. So there has to be a replacement system. So we said “and Obamacare is the replacement system? Heaven help us all.” To which they said the only way a just and practical system can work is single-payer – the Euro model. They said the current hybrid model is not going to work no matter what the government tries.

 

·         But – we said – if you mention single-payer, a whole bunch of Americans start rushing to gun shops to buy ten more guns to add to their arsenal of 50 – and here Editor is too poor to buy even one, is this justice? They shrugged and said you asked for an explanation of what’s going on with people being dropped and unable to buy coverage under ACA, we’ve told you, and we’ve also told you the pre-ACA system is going to collapse, and we’ve already told you Obamacare is a mess.

 

·         So we said: So you’re saying we are heading for the deep doo-doo no matter what? And they said “Yes”.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT October 30, 2013

 

·         Stop with the propaganda already, people Normally propaganda does not bother Editor. He goes through it because even in untruth there can be truths that one might not normally be exposed to. Plus, you have to read what the other guy says or you are self-censoring. But for some reason the conservative opposition to Obamacare is starting to bug Editor because there is so much discussion needed about out health care system, and the conservatives are blowing their credibility to bits. They should, instead, be presenting thoughtful ideas worthy of debate. Editor thinks that the liberal brand is terminally contaminated in America, given the goings on since LBJ’s Great Society. But if the conservative brand is going to terminally contaminate itself by pointless misrepresentations, when is a serious debate going to take place? We have a great many rather severe problems with the way America today is set up. To rebuild America we need to talk sensibly.

 

·         First, there’s this business about ACA socializing medicine. Sorry, my conservative friends. While you were sleeping, the government became the biggest provider of care in this country – more than 50%. Your health system is socialized. And even the private part of the system is socialized – ever wonder how many tons government regulations on health care weigh? The weird thing about ACA that seems to escaping the notice of some is that ACA actually uses government mandates to force people into private healthcare plans. This is not socialism, but  crony capitalism. It is 100% un-American. The government’s job is to ensure smooth conditions for business, commerce and so on along with all other constituencies in the country. It is not to enact laws that enrich a few at the expense of the ordinary people.

 

·         You can call Obama socialist, Editor thinks he is a paid agent of rapacious capitalism that benefits no one but the 1%. So was Bush, so was Clinton, so was Reagan. It’s not a Democrats versus Republicans thing, it’s a Lets All The Grubby Elite Get Together To Loot America thing. And what better way to loot America than mandatory government rules that enrich one particular faction.

 

·         Second, what conservatives are not telling people is that many people’s insurance rates are being jacked up because ACA permits them to do that. Thanks to ACA, insurance companies can kick out the high-expense customers they serve, dump them on the ACA, and make whacking great profits more than before because they can cherry pick the best customers. To those who say ACA is a scam, Editor agrees: it is a scam to make wealth health insurance companies wealthier. You’ve been had again, Liberal America, by a president you thought was yours.

 

·         Third, it is absolutely true that if you want benefit-rich insurance plans under ACA, you’re going to have to pay more. ACA cannot function by charging low rates to the sickest people. But just the fact ACA is now law allows insurance companies to dump the sickest in the first place.

 

·         Fourth, it is absolutely true companies are reducing benefits and increasing employee contributions. They have been doing so for years because health care costs are going up so fast and because the loose labor market reduces the need for them to pay big bucks to get employees. This trend began long before ACA and will continue.  

 

·         Fifth, ACA opponents go on and on about the quality of American medical care being compromised by ACA. So these folks think American health care is the best in the world? Then how come we spend twice as much of GDP on health care as other advanced countries and our health care outcomes are worse? Folks inevitably trot out some case from England or Canada where XYZ had to wait months for surgery. That’s because socialized medicine in other countries doesn’t provide for Cadillacs made out of gold. And that’s because they want to keep the cost to their taxpayers down. But if you have the money, by all means go to whichever doctor you want and get whatever care you want.

 

·         For ACA to have made any sense, it should have offered basic means-tested plans to the uninsured at affordable rates. The revenue should have come from cutting current expenditures or raising taxes. All ACA has done is add another entitlement without worrying in the least how it’s to be paid for. Editor is not against health care for all. He’s happy to agree it’s a human right. But it is NOT a human right that everyone should have unlimited medical benefits.

 

·         An analogy. By all means provide food stamps to the hungry. But would anyone agree that the hungry are entitled to nine-course gourmet meals twice a day? Obviously not. They are giving a minimum to make sure they have two meals a day. It should have been the same with ACA. The homeless are provided shelter in many states and cities. Never heard of an Department of Housing renting rooms at the Four Seasons Hotel for homeless people.

 

·         Conversely, he ACA supporters don’t realize that one thing that sticks in the craw of opponents is the mandatory requirement to have insurance. ACA supporters make a plausible case for this. Why should people get to sign up only when they are sick? They haven’t paid into the system when they were well, and every insurance scheme depends on the healthy to subsidize the not-so-healthy – aaaarrrghhhh – run run run! ACA socialism is being practiced by health insurers! Its also true that uninsured people when they get sick burden hospitals because care cannot be refused. That cost-shifting means every insured person pays.

 

·         But mandatory insurance is not the solution! Have a simple rule that since universal insurance is now available, hospitals CAN turn the uninsured away. Have a simple rule that if you wait until later to buy insurance, you have to pay a much higher rate. Why complicate things.

 

·         Someone is going to ask: Is Editor proposing that if we do not want to buy auto insurance we shouldn’t have to? He absolutely is. If you’re an uninsured motorized, and you cause an accident, and if you can’t pay because you have insufficient assets, the solution is terribly sensible: you go to a jail factory. You are made to work your butt off till you’ve paid your debt. You can bet your booties after a few thousand people get hefty sentences everyone would start buying auto insurance.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT October 29, 2013

 

·         India, China, and the Indian Ocean Back in the days when Mrs. Gandhi was in power as Prime Minister of India, in the 1970s the Soviets managed to convince her that the US was angling for a naval base in Sri Lanka. Since the US discusses every contingency and every possibility, we would not doubt that someone at some point at some level in the US Government said “Gee, it would be nice to have a base in Sri Lanka.”

 

·         Said base would not have been critical in any way, because the US had its base at Diego Garcia from where, if the US wants, it can dominate the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia has the great advantage of (a) not requiring US to deal with unpleasant regimes – it is a British possession; (b) of being too far away from anyone to attack; and (c) no locals to keep protesting, and no incidents to take place between US military personnel and the locals.

 

·         It is said that Mrs. Gandhi became so concerned about a US base in Sri Lanka that she decided she had to be proactive and dominate Sri Lanka. Thus she began to support the Sri Lanka Tamils, through their battlefield front, the LTTE, aiming for a partition of Sri Lanka. Now, please don’t ask Editor how would this have stopped the US from getting a naval base, because it would have been as easy for the US to make a deal with Tamil Eelum, as was called the independent state Sri Lanka Tamils hoped to have, as with residual Sri Lanka. Perhaps Mrs. Gandhi though that India would become the protector of Tamil Eelum and have the say in who got bases and who not. But what did she propose to stop a residual Sri Lanka from granting bases?

 

·         If anyone knows, it is surely not Editor. You have to understand that for decades Indian national security policy and geostrategy has been run by a handful of folks – civil servants and the Prime Minister’s office – who answer to no one. They are not in the habit of leaving details records of their decisions. When they do leave a record, they are not in the habit of declassifying them. And if things become uncomfortable, they simply destroy the records, as the Indian Army did concerning its East Pakistan campaign of 1971. Someone decided that it should never become public how much India helped the East Pakistan rebels. It didn’t matter that everyone and his blind dog knew the story. It mattered only that no one should have access to the records.

 

·         Though Editor was in India in the 1970s and 1980s, and had access to the establishment – heck, he was even a part of the establishment though he was a renegade member – and often picked up authentic and important information, you must keep in mind he was not in India to investigate every interesting thing happening by way of national security policy. His concern lay in other direction. So he didn’t follow up on the story because frankly, it was kind of boring.

 

·         The point of this lengthy disclaimer is that simply because Editor heard the story many times, that he has it right in detail. Added to that is that since 1947, India ‘s national security decisions have been irrational with the exception of the 1971 East Pakistan crisis. One thing Editor learned in India was that looking for rational reasons was a complete waste of time. The foreigners he talked to thought he was being too cute by half when he expounded that thesis, because obviously no country acts irrationally in the  matter of national security. But as you doubtless know, us Indians are very special (think Austin Powers inverted commas) and our thinking process is so advanced that you witless foreigners can never understand it. We are so clever we spend 95% of our national security effort crippling our national security.

 

·         Be that as it all may, something interesting and wholly rational has happened. Rising China is taking over Sri Lanka, not America, which really didn’t have much of an interest in the Indian Ocean. And still doesn’t, except since First Gulf War for the Arabian and Red Seas, and the Persian Gulf. Read the following article forwarded by reader Marcopetroni http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Sri-Lanka’s-inaugurates-second-highway,-'made-in-China-'-29389.html China has built two limited-access highways, Sri Lanka’s first. Knowing the Chine, Editor assumes they are world-standard. In 2009 China provided $1.2-billion in loans, in 2010 and 2011 $800-million for each year.

 

·         Current projects include a $1.3-billion thermal power station, additional infrastructure in the south for $1.5-billion, and – get this – a port for $1.2-billion. Sri Lanka’s 2012 GDP is $60-billion, so these are whacking great sums of money. The cost of the thermal power station suggests it will be in the 1000-MW range, making it easily the biggest single project in the country.

 

·         Ah, the Chinese are helping with a port. How interesting. They are helping Pakistan with a port at Gwader, and the only argument in India is how much of the port the Chinese actually control – is it 50% or is it 100%. The Chinese have virtuously denied they intend to base warships there. Sure, they will probably not permanently base ships there. Its not required. But Gwader will become critical for Chinese efforts to maintain the oil lanes, and as a rail/oil-pipeline/road terminus for West China cargo. Right now all of it has to go through Malacca to Eastern China ports, and then be moved by rail and road to the west. Much time wasted and much expense, aside from the dangers of Malacca as a choke point.

 

·         So, undoubtedly the Chinese will not have a Sri Lanka based naval squadron. But they will have a base.

 

·         When India thought the US was trying to encircle India – as if the Americans actually cared two hoots about India – the Government of India had a lot to say, mostly informally. Now that China is encircling India, including port facilities in Burma, the Indian Government has little to say.

 

Monday 0230 GMT October 28, 2013

 

·         Libya Yesterday’s Washington Post had an op-ed by David Ignatius, who is a regular correspondent. He is a Washington insider, so understandably he tends to take what his sources tell him as a Higher Truth. His articles are interesting if you belong to the establishment, or as the Editor calls it, the ruling elite. For the rest of us sans culottes, it gets a bit boring. Nonetheless, a good fellow, tries to stay balanced, is not abusive to anyone, and probably is very kind to animals and other dumb things.

 

·         Ignatius wrote about the complete mess that Libya has become, and regretted that the US has not done more to stabilize the situation. At this point, when reading anyone’s ideas, Editor tends to stop reading and go on to more interesting things, such as “Bike thief gets 8-years”. Something to do with Washington Metro area’s determination to be a bike friendly city. The little piece didn’t mention that Washington folks like riding multi-thousand dollar bikes, so the darn things are more expensive than a lot of folks’ cars. If you look at it that way, it’s not really a frivolous activity to be chasing down a serious bike thief. But we digress.

 

·         Editor has become immensely distrustful of anyone in the ruling elite who criticizes, however mildly, the government for not doing more to stabilize X, Y, Z because it seems to him such people are living in the past when the US had a great more power than it does today. Even that might be begging the reality, which is probably that aside from Europe, Japan, and South Korea, the US hasn’t had much success with stabilizing anyone. Likely the US never had the power to stabilize anyone except like-minded folks.

 

·         This time Editor grimly ploughed on beyond Sentence Two. Igantius made an interesting point: that after Benghazi 2012, the Administration is loath to mention the word Libya because the Republicans hammer Mr. Obama on anything to do with Libya.

 

·         We’d like to sort of refute Igantius’s point – not because it is Editor’s intention to defend Republicans. As far as he is concerned, they’re just another bunch adding to Le Grande Cesspool, aka, the American government. The point made by considering Syria. If it’s the Republicans Mr. Obama is worried about, why has he not intervened in Syria? After all, the Republicans and a whole bunch of political types have been screaming for intervention in Syria, the American people are a bit less enthusiastic.

 

·         Could it be that Mr. Obama is not intervening in Libya because he believes – as he apparently does about Syria – because he considers the situation hopeless and he is waiting till things sort themselves out one way or another? Libya, which for some reason most of us did not realize, is a highly factional tribal nation. Gadhafi ruled by rewarding his people and punishing the heck out of everyone else. Ditto Saddam, ditto Assad, ditto any authoritarian in Africa or the world. Now that The Wise One has gone to his Just Reward, tribal factions in Libya have taken over. They are numerous beyond count, their alliances change every time the wind changes direction, and they have only one thing in common: they want to kill the other guy.

 

·         Things are so bad that Cyrenaica – the Eastern part – is talking secession. Nothing new here; if Gadhafi had not cracked down, it’s quite possible Cyrenaica would have seceded a while ago. Particularly as it has most of the oil. This Cyrenaica thing goes back to the time of the Italians, and we are sure if you really get into it, it goes back even further.

 

·         The Benghazi affair arose because of US problems with different factions. Maybe, just maybe, the Administration has come to its senses and realized that getting further involved in the quicksand of Libya is not worth the returns. If so, shouldn’t we all rejoice – Republicans also – that Mr. Obama is staying out of things?

 

Friday 0230 GMT October 25, 2013

 

·         Snowden, Wikileaks, the UK Guardian and anti-Americanism Interesting point made by a commentator on CBS radio news yesterday. Snowden has handed over the material he had to various people. These, we know already, include the UK Guardian and Wikileaks. Indeed, Wikileaks was “managing” Snowden when he went to Hong Kong and then Moscow. Snowdon is now irrelevant, though as long as he is alive he will have a date with the US Attorney. Like any successful cult, Wikileaks was managing quite professionally. We also already know from the media that Democracy and Mr. Assange don’t quite go together, though WL insists it is only doing its democratic duty to bring Traitors Manning and Snowden’s material to the attention of the world.

 

·         So now new material has been “revealed” by the UK Guardian, suggesting that the German Chancellor’s cell phone was being evesdropped on. Not coincidentally, this “revelation” took place before an EU summit. Just so we fail to get the point, UK Guardian lets us know http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/24/us-usa-spying-idUSBRE99N19W20131024 that 35 world leaders had their conversations monitored. Undoubtedly it will turn out that many of these leaders are EU people.

 

·         So noble is the Wikileaks/Guardian crusade against US malfeasance, that we hardly hear about UK’s worldwide signal intercept projects. It took the French paper Le Monde to note that the French too have a massive intercept project, with almost all electronic communications to and from France recorded http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356178/Hollandes-hypocrisy-Edward-Snowden-revelations-revealed-French-intelligence-services-spy-illegally.html This revelation came after the Hypocrite Hollande pretended to freak out on the US for NSA’s misdeeds.

 

·         So are we supposed to believe that Russia, China, Germany, Israel and so on don’t listen to global electronic traffic? We know India does, because from time to time India provides journalists with the naughty deeds of Pakistan intelligence which can only have come from signal intelligence. The last time we checked, some years ago, the Indian Army’s Headquarters had four signal regiments, up from one when India went to work in India and two when he left at the end of the 1980s. We are sure no one will get particularly upset to be informed that honestly, Army HQ in Delhi does not generate so much traffic with its subordinate commands as to need four regiments. And we will delicately draw a curtain over the activities of Indian Research and Intelligence Wing, which has a fairly sophisticated signal intercept program.

 

·         So what UK Guardian and before that Mr. Assange are doing is not fighting for democracy. They are exhibiting naked anti-Americanism. They are nothing noble. They are solely partisans. Does their motive matter? As Mrs. Palin says “You betcha”. It would be perfectly fair if UK Guardian and crawled-out-from-under-a-rock types like Mr. Assange attached as a caveat to their drip-drip-drip revelations that their own countries eavesdrop, and that they are diligently working on obtaining evidence of this. That would be journalism. What they are now doing is propaganda in the style of communists and fascists.

 

·         Dare we make a generalization here? The percentage of global electronic traffic spied on by a country varies in direct proportion to its financial resources. Anyone who CAN do it, IS doing it.

 

·         We’ve already written in the blog that as far as the US is concerned, if NSA was NOT intercepted the German Chancellor’s communications, it is being criminally negligent. To go: “But the US is spying on allies! The horror! The horror!” is not to be naïve. It is to be cretins. (Sorry, cretins are smarter than those going on about US snooping.) France and Germany, to take two examples, may be US allies but they are not US stooges. Nor are their foreign, military, economic, and intelligence policies dictated in Washington.

 

·         The old notion of Between The Wars diplomacy when Henry Stimson, that great and stalwart American public servant, announced that gentlemen do not read each other’s mail, has long since died. Mr. Stimson may have been against reading other diplomats’ mail, but all countries did so with gusto.

 

·         The Europeans – the people, not their governments – are now weeping and wailing about the right to privacy. America is a national security state. Has been since 1941. Will continue to be. With the growth of technology, there has been an erosion of everyone’s freedoms. Half of “1984” is here. That’s the part where the government snoops on its people all the time. The other part, where the government controls the thoughts of its people – well, we’re a good way down that path even if we haven’t reached the zenith itself. Of all government’s into mind control, the US is by far the most advanced.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT October 24, 2013

 

·         Keeping the truth straight First, let us clearly state that before yesterday we had no idea who Sean Hannity is. Now that we know who he is, we don’t care that we know. Nothing partisan, Editor feels that way about all talk show folks pushing any agenda. So apparently he is a right wing Pooh Bah and on his program recently he had a small businessperson who declaimed that because of Obamacare, he would be unable to hire more employees. Well, turns out he has four employees, so he is well below the 50 threshold.

 

·         Now, this is America and Americans have become the world’s most sophisticated liars. Indeed, they take great pride in lying without actually lying. Not saying other folks are not liars. Us Indians are big fat liars. We lie all the time. But we lie knowing it is a lie and knowing the other person knows it’s a lie. So no one is fooled. Moreover, we do not get huffy when someone calls us a liar. In fact, we get hurt, because it is an insensitive thing to do: you know I am a liar, I know you are a liar, but it’s just darn rude to accuse anyone of lying – pots and kettles and all that.

 

·         Americans insist they would never be as low down doggish as to lie, and then they proceed to twist matters so skillfully, and to lie by omission with such guilelessness, that if you did not know we are a federation of liars, you would think this is the most honest country in the world.

 

·         So, Editor is not saying that the 4-employee gentleman on Mr. Hannity’s show lied. Probably what he meant to say is in two parts. One part is sotto voce, so sotto that he said it in his head. This part would read: “This law does not apply to me but if it did…” and now the gentleman goes grosso voce “…I will not hire more workers because Obamacare is raising my costs.”

 

·         So technically, in all likelihood, the gent did not lie. Now let us revert to our Bibles. When we are told lying is a Bad Thing, does it anywhere talk of about technicalisms, parsing phrases, and high-priced lawyers? No it doesn’t. There is a reason for this. God is not a lawyer, and he signs no contract with us. He allows us to take his words or leave them, to make our own decisions, and to pay the consequences. Jesus even goes to the extent of expressing the thought “Hate the sin but love the sinner”. Christian doctrine says the consequences for sin will be paid after death, but a lot of folks Editor has talked to say the consequences for sin are paid in this life. Anyway, we won’t get into theology.

 

·         The point is simply that any attempt to mislead is a lie. Mr. Hannity’s guest is a liar. And in this he has great company, because darn nearly every one of us is a liar. There is no “little lie” or “white lie”. A lie is a lie. At the least Mr. Hannity has been negligent in failing to check the background of his guest. At worst he knew and doesn’t care because he is going to make his point regardless of the truth.

 

·         Just so that our readers don’t think Editor is being partisan, he will mention a Big Fat Lie told by the Obama Administration yesterday. The German Chancellor personally called Mr. Obama to complain about reports that NSA has been intercepting her calls. Mr. Obama looked her right in the eye – metaphorically – and assured her the allegations were all lies. Mr. Obama is a lawyer, so doubtless he also had a sotto voce conversation in his head, along the lines of “Not to my knowledge” or “my subordinates tell me it isn’t true”.

 

·         Now, the Chancellor is a politician, so she is a skilled liar too. She knew Mr. Obama was lying. Mr. Obama knew he was lying. Everyone knew the score. Now the Chancellor can turn around and say: “The president assures me it is not true.” Note the fine parsing of words there.

 

·         You may ask, how does Editor know it is not true?  Think for a minute. What is the purpose of the NSA? It is to snoop on foreign communications. The Germany Chancellor is an important foreign leader. If NSA is NOT snooping on her communications, people need to be fired for dereliction of duty. Do you think NSA is incompetent at its job? If you think it is competent, you have to assume NSA is snooping on whoever is of interest. And of course, what your friends are doing is as important to know as what your enemies are doing.

 

·         But back to Mr. Hannity. One reason no one can have a rational discussion in America any more is the prevalence of lying. It is very hard to trust the other person because the odds are that he is lying to you – just as you are lying to him.  So we’re sure Mr. Hannity felt a warm glow at having fired another partisan shot in another partisan debate. But it was not a helpful thing to do. Moreover, if the only way anyone – left, center, right – can make their case is by lying, well, then it is down the tubes for the ol’ US of A.

 

·         When it comes to situational ethics, no sense blaming any political party or group. Americans have come to believe all ethics are situational. Indeed, they believe it’s wrong to judge anyone else. We’re told this is a liberal affliction, but certainly Mr. Hannity must think even if he perpetrated a lie, it was just a teeny weeney itsy bitsy tiny thing, and it was for a good cause, a just cause, the saving of America from liberal fascists. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. This is how civil wars start. Yes, it’s a long way from Mr. Hannity to a civil war. But why has anyone embarked on the path, however long it might be?

 

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT October 23, 2013

Editor is today finding it very difficult to get worked up about anything to the point he has to rant. Two explainations are possible. The world is going through a very boring phase, Editor has ranted on everything under the sun and there just is not anything left.

Or - and this is very disturbing - Editor's mind is finally failing after 17 years of hanging around with American teenagers and the daily battle to educate them. When one gets to the stage that one has finally persuaded a student that she does need a calculator to divide 2 into 8, and one reckons that as the day's triumph, readers can understand that one's mind gets affected.

Now, we realise some unsympathetic readers will retort: "don't blame your low-level of intellectual ability on American teenagers and the frustration of getting them to work on factors of 2 without a calculator; instead face the fact that you were pretty feeble-minded to begin with."

This criticism might be valid. In which case.....

Tuesday 0230 GMT October 22, 2013

 

·         American Best Friend Forever, Saudi Arabia. Not. One of the few cases were Editor regrets he does not travel anymore (the usual problem, money) is Saudi Arabia. This is a country where one cannot have much of a clue about what’s going on unless one travels on a regular basis to the region. So much about Saudi is rumor, particularly in local sources, that it is not a good idea to rely on media and scholarly articles. Relying on people who know visit the region is okay, but here again you will get several different stories for the same issue, like the Japanese movies Rashomon. It is only when you are in the thick of the region that you start to get some idea of what’s really going on.

 

·         So the other day Saudi caused an unprecedented ruckus at the UN. The nation had lobbied for a seat on the Security Council, won, and angrily refused to take the seat saying that the UN did not care about Syria. What Saudi meant is that China and Russia have been taking Assad’s side and Iran’s side, and now the US had joined them. The Saudis are also mad as heck that the US is playing silly buggers in Egypt. Editor will excuse you if you go “Say what, again? US is taking Syria’s and Iran’s side? Are the Saudis not taking their medication again?”

 

·         Well, you see, Saudi is mad as heck because we didn’t bomb Syria, and it is even madder than that because we’re talking to Iran. You will surely ask: But shouldn’t the US run its foreign policy to suit US interests and not Saudi interests? The answer is that for decades the US and Saudi have tacitly worked together for mutual benefit. They keep the price of oil low, we whack their enemies on demand.

 

·         Two problems with this cozy deal. Saudi Arabia is OPEC, being the largest producer and more importantly the key swing producer. If there was no OPEC, you probably would be paying half the current price for oil. So Saudi is not really our friend. All it is doing is telling us: look, we’ll extort money from you, but because we like you, we’ll extort less than we could. Next, Saudi is the greatest underwriter of global Islamic fundamentalism and terror. That is reasonable, seeing as it has the most money of any Islamic country. We hardly need to explain this is not just an unfrendly act; it is an act of war. Just as blackmailing us on oil is an act of war.

 

·         So how come a state that is at war with us is treated as a Best Friend Forever by Washington? And on top of that they want to dictate our policies toward the Islamic world? The answer to this question, dear readers, is best you ask your government, media, academics,  and Congress. You will not like the answer, because it is a clear case of your ruling elite selling you, the Common Person, out for the elite’s greater advantage. As to what the payoff is, Editor would rather not get into it because he is not about to start crusades on behalf of the US, much as loves the US. He has enough problems to deal with in his home country. But here is a hint: the payoff the American ruling elite receives is not herds of camels. ‘Enuf said.

 

·         At which point our more cynical extreme leftie readers and more cynical extreme rightie readers will sniff disinterestedly, and say: the American ruling elite is always selling the Common Person out for its own gain. Why should we get upset about Saudi? No reason. Editor is just pointing out a few obvious things about our BFF, the Saudis.

 

·         And at which point some readers sympathetic to the Arab cause (not sure we have any, as our readership is precisely three people) might indignantly ask: so how come Editor has nothing to say when Israel runs US Mideast policy, incurring a huge burden and disadvantage to the US?

 

·         First, we do have plenty to say and say it often. US foreign policy in the Islamic world is crippled by our need to defer to Israeli interests. There - we just said it again.

 

·         Second, however much the Israeli tail may wag the American dog, please to remember the Israelis are not, in any way, out to harm the US.  What anyone says about Israel, its people share the same culture and almost all the values that western civilization holds dear. Sure, western civilization does not hold treating certain people as 2nd class citizens, and there an influential minority of Israeli fundamentalism that is antithetical to western values.

 

·         But the Israelis have a democracy. They hold regular elections – pretty fractious ones, too. They have a free media. They have a functioning Supreme Court that while in matters of national security tends to give the government the benefit of the doubt (like American courts) is not a servant of the government. They call their mothers on a regular basis. And they do not ban women from driving.

 

0230 GMT October 20, 2013

Correction: In our Friday rant, we said that $45 in 1991 was $135 now. It is $77 now, furthering  our argument no one who lacks the money should be spending $200/week for grocieries for a family of three when people can be fed on much less.

·         India prepares to lease 2nd nuclear attack submarine from Russia As was the case of the first boat, this one – also an Akula class, apparently – will be paid for by India and leased to its Navy for ten years. The submarine – such as it is – was laid up after construction started for lack of funds, as happened to the Soviet Nerpa commissioned in the Indian Navy as INS Chakra.

 

·         In microcosm – if you can term $1-billion for a 10-year lease as micro anything – this deal shows what is wrong with India. It may be accepted that India leased a Charlie class SSGN in the 1980s to gain experience with nuclear boats, to help design its own. But thirty years have passed. Why is India still leasing from Russia, especially when the first of its own class of nuclear boats is about to begin trials? Three more Arihant class boats are planned, each capable of carrying 12 750-km SLBMs. The second has been put under construction this year. It is said the Indian boat resembles the Akula.

 

·         We can agree that for the sake of accessing the Akula’s technology, Russia put a price of $700-million to build one boat. Could the leasing part be because of international restrictions on transfer of nuclear boats to third parties? This, however, was not an issue when in the 1980s Canada proposed to buy 10-12 SSNs and more recently, when there was been talk of Australia leasing 6-8 US Virginia class boats. (The two cases are different because the Canadians were serious about their procurement plan, where the Australians seem to have simply made an academic suggestion). And this does not answer the question about a second lease, this time for $1-billion.

 

·         The Indians have made a complete and utter mess of their domestic arms production programs. As an example, consider in the early 1950s India was assembling large numbers of British Vampire fighters for its air force. Sixty years later, it is still assembling, this time the Russian Su-30 Flanker. In the 1960s India designed and put into production a ground-attack fighter, the HF-14 Marut, albeit with the help of the German designer Dr. Kurt Tank. But at least it was a start. Forty years later, the Indian light fighter Tejas continues to language despite a long series of successful test flights by about 8 prototypes.

 

·         What happens is this: the Indian services inevitably end up rejecting indigenous designs on ground they don’t meet the need. In military terms, this is correct. Tejas, of which a solid fraction is important, meets only 80% of requirements. But the important thing is to build up your own industry and not be reliant on other nations. For this, one has to accept lesser quality – see the Chinese course to arms self-sufficiency. Incidentally, the Tejas program was formulated as the next step after the  HF-24 Marut. Its taken almost 50 years to get to where we are now. As for the 5th Generation fighter, it’s basically been handed over to the Russians though India says the FGFA-PAK (or is it the other way around) is a true joint project.

 

Friday 0230 GMT October 18, 2013

  

·         Society’s responsibility vs the individuals responsibility The Washington Post just the other day had a story on a government worker who was asked by her boss to return to work during the recent shutdown. But she soon realized that with no money coming in, she could not afford to go in. Indeed, she – a single mother – was packing to leave her apartment and move in with her mother, taking her two children, because she could not afford to pay the coming rent. Hopefully things worked out for her, because the shutdown ended with a day or two.

·         First, please to understand that at no point are we judging the woman. She makes $38,000, which is really not a whole lot in this metro area which is one of the most expensive in the nation. Not in the class of New York and Los Angeles, but still. It’s tough to make ends meet on that kind of money when you have two kids. Though she probably gets an Earned Income Credit, and she does get two additional income tax exemptions on her annual return, when you factor in federal, state, local, and sales taxes, she like has perhaps $2800/month or so. From the story, she sounds like a person conservatives should admire, because she is determined to make it through life without blaming anyone for her plight or asking for favors.

 

·         Nonetheless, several things struck Editor about the story. Her rent was $1000, which is quite reasonable for a not-so-nice neighborhood in our metro area. She paid $800 monthly for food, $350 for her car note, fees for her daughter to take dance and tumbling classes, credit cards bills for purchases like cell-phones and computer, etc etc etc- we’re all there, to a greater or lesser extent. But apparently she had no savings at all to see her through a crisis. Nothing unusual here, either: a lot of us live paycheck to paycheck.

 

·         The first point about society’s responsibility versus the individual’s comes up because she is a single mom with two children. On her own she probably could manage quite well. Editor is quite familiar with the many vicissitudes young women in modern society suffer. Men have their fun and leave. Perhaps they can be tracked down and made to pay child support. A lot of times they cannot. Editor teaches the children of a great many such women, he is intimately familiar with the troubles they see.

 

·         At the same time, in the year of Our Lord 2013, surely people realize there is no security in relationships, and just as little in marriages. Today having children is a choice. Editor will agree 100% that many women are simply too young to understand the consequences of having sex and having children; by the time they mature, its too late. But even 14-year olds know about contraception. So like it or not, the problem becomes women are not making the correct choice. We agree that throwing everything on women is morally wrong – there’s a man in each case who must share responsibility. The reality is women take the brunt the single parenthood – and it is NOT society’s role to step in, beyond finding the father and making him pay. Society – which means taxpayers who play by the rules and act responsibly – should not be made responsible for the personal choices of others.

 

·         Now take the item of $800/month for food. We all want to eat well. But not all of us can afford to. When Editor returned to America in 1989, he was forced to spend no more than $45/week on food for his family of three. Today that would be $135. It was miserable, but it was the way things were. Eating out was once a month at McDonalds, budget $7. To save money to buy Lego for my son, wherever possible we would walk to save $1 for the bus (he went free), and when he tired, I would carry him. It was no fun, but that was the way things were. If you don’t have money, you have to do without. Both my wife (the ex Mrs R IV) and myself worked minimum wage for the May company, She got $5.30 or thereabouts, I got 50 cents more because I worked in the warehouse, which was physically demanding.  Nonetheless, in three years we saved $3000 for a rainy day fund. Mrs. R IV could not even make a monthly call back to her parents in India, forget about visiting home.

 

·         Take the matter of a $351 car note. That’s reasonable for a 4-door car. But we couldn’t afford a car, let alone the insurance, so we took Metrobus and Metrorail. Anyone who lives in Washington knows what a wonderful experience that is. One year my father, then retired, got a visiting fellowship at George Mason University and had an apartment at Falls Church. To visit him required 4-hours roundtrip, using Metro. Enuf said. When we saved up separately for a car, we got one with 140,000 miles for $1000. Of course it perpetually needed repairs. We made repairs when we could, and when we couldn’t we didn’t. But before we bought the car, we saved for a computer for the little one – luckily my parents kicked in half. What was more important, a car or a computer for our then 7-year old? Computer, obviously. We also had no health insurance – also obviously.

 

·         Again, Editor pleads with the reader to appreciate he is not judging anyone. Yes, there are times when disasters destroy our finances; sometimes those disasters are not our fault, such as a long illness or an accident. The state helps in such cases – disability – and that seems reasonable. But for the rest, a whole lot of stuff is entirely within our control and the responsibility should be ours.

 

·         Take a simple matter, that of the woman having to move back in with her mom. Americans take it for granted that they should have their own place to live. But for much of the world, as in Editor’s home country, having your own place is a great luxury. Forget about living with your parents, often three generations have to live in the same accommodation. It can be terribly stressful because the parents have to subordinate their personalities to the wishes of their parents, and the children have to subordinate their personalities to their parents AND grandparents. But you know what? Not so long ago this was also the norm in America too.

 

·         If we have no families to turn to, whose responsibility is that? It certainly is not the responsibility of taxpayers to pay for rent subsidies for those who cannot afford a place of their own – for whatever reason.

 

·         We have said this many times. One reason America is so divided is that a good many people do not agree it is their responsibility to pay for other folks’ bad choices. You can call it un-Christian. You can call it mean. But folks who think this way call it self-reliance.  In Europe, they are happy to pay 60% taxes so that everyone is looked after. Good for the Euros. Editor respects their choice. In America, however, we end up paying 40-50% tax (everything included) and we do not seem to get much value for that money – take the ACA, for example. And many don’t like this. Different people, different values.

 

 

 

Thursday 0230 GMT October 17, 2013

 

·         The Affordable Care Act Please first look at this diagram http://jeffersonsrebels.blogspot.com/2010/08/visual-nightmare-obamacare-flow-chart.html  Then consider this CBS report http://t.co/nXvBpqDPxH which says the ACA and accompanying regulations now total almost 12-million words. At 400 words/page, that is 30,000 pages.

 

·         Now look people. Editor is not against universal health insurance. His gripe is, first, that nothing this complex can work well. There is going to be a huge cost associated with running this, whether or not someone tabulates it. The ACA has been designed to worship at the throne of the God Murphy.

 

·         Second, editor’s gripe has been we cannot afford it, any more than we can afford the other social welfare programs that are part and parcel a feature of American government. The US spends $1 for every 70 cents it takes in as revenue. Many economists earn a good living explaining how the National Credit Card is not the same as the credit card you and I have in our wallet. Running up increasing debt on our personal card – assuming someone is willing to keep increasing our credit limit - is bad. That’s easy enough for anyone to understand. But continually running up debt on the National Card is not bad because we owe the money to ourselves. We just simply raise the debt ceiling and all is well. It’s all very counterintuitive and if we don’t get it, we’re uneducated morons from the backwoods (as differentiated from the educated morons who constitute the American ruling elite).

 

·         So, if it is really the case that the NCC does not matter, why bother with taxation? We can as easily run deficits of $3-trillion/year as opposed to the current $1-trillion/year. Indeed, why doesn’t the US Government mandate a minimum income of $1-trillion for every person in the US? Since no employer can pay that money to every employee, the Government can create a super-subsidy, and issue $320-million-trillion worth of annual checks to the people. At current interest rates, that’s a mere $6.4-million-trillion of interest, which we will pay by raising the debt limit even more.

 

·         Silly Editor, experts will say. Ignore him. He knows not of what he speaks. Forgive the foolishness of one so intellectually challenged. The thing with the current deficit is that its underwritten by the full faith of the USG. As long as people are willing to buy our debt notes we are okay increasing the deficit. And when we return to growth, the national debt will be paid down.

 

·         Pick up any half-serious paper or journal, and they will tell you the US is on its way to a permanent 2% annual GDP long-term growth rate. Subtract population increase, and we’re looking at 1%. So are we going to pay off $17-trillion (and growing) with 2% GDP growth?

 

·         Next, no one disagrees that taking on debt for growth is good. But how much of the $1-trillion we finance annually via the deficit is used for growth? Is it not instead being used to maintain our current standard of living in the form of government subsidies to rich and poor alike? (Who says the US is not a democracy?).

 

·         But now we come to the crux of the matter. This debt flim-flam works as long as we can convince others to buy our debt notes.

·         Yet, how long is this state of affairs going to last? We’re already at 100% in the debt to GDP ratio – see http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GFDEGDQ188S . If the GDP grows by 2% a year and our deficit grows by 4% of GDP annually, do we really a SuperComputer to work out how long it will take before we are 200%? Using the rule of 72, in 36 years we will have doubled GDP to – say $32-trillion. Debt will have gone up to $60-trillion, or nearly 200% of GDP.

 

·         So far folks have been telling us, smugly, that no one has a choice BUT to buy US debt because there is no alternative. Hmmmmm.

 

·         The Chinese are busy beavers making sure there is an alternative. Them. Even as its lows, China’s economy should equal our GDP in 10 years or so. The Chinese debt – including local governments - is 40% of GDP. Our 100%. (We have no local government because states are required to run balanced budget.)  

·         The simple reality is nothing lasts forever. Currently, despite the Washington shenanigans even China has no alternative but to hold US debt. Ten years it will be different.

 

·         The other reality is that either we cut spending before we become a Banana Republic or we raise taxes. The right tells us cutting taxes makes for growth. It does – for the rich. For others, not so much. The left tells us deficits don’t matter, with growth they will shrink. Except there’s no growth, and yes, deficits don’t matter  – until they do.

 

·         Scarlett Johansson In our daily web-surfacing we came across an article “How you may actually be smarter than Scarlett Johansson” http://www.celebuzz.com/2013-09-30/how-you-may-actually-be-smarter-than-scarlett-johansson/ . We did not read the article, with old age we are losing an incredible number of brain cells every minute, particularly in America, and even more particularly because we hang out with teenagers 7 hours of every 24 hours per school day.

 

·         Nonetheless, let it be recorded that Editor would gladly give up his smarts right this minute if he could be immediately reincarnated in Ms. Johansson’s body.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT October 16, 2013

 

·         Syria According to a report in the Washington Post, the secular opposition is on its way to oblivion and fundamentalist factions including AQ on their way to take over the rebellion against Assad. The situation is get so bad that the fundamentalist groups now even have the space to fight each other. This is possible only when you are on the brink of victory. Earlier the fundamentalist groups had to hang together to fight the secular groups and Assad.  Also important: the influx of foreign fighters exceeds that of Afghanistan and Iraq. So lots new fundamentalist fighters are getting their training.

 

·         The people of Syria are said to be shocked at the savage implementation of fundamentalist laws. But we would caution against interpreting that to mean that the people of Syria will rise up against the fundamentalists. It is all too easy for vastly outnumbered armed groups to impose their will by sheer brutality. This is all too clear in both Afghanistan and Pakistan where a few tens of thousands of men willing to go to any extent to grab and maintain power are holding whole countries hostage.

 

·         The west should realize that every year that passes sees fundamentalists expand their reach and it becomes exponentially harder to defeat them. Ultimately it is going to come down to the west killing fundamentalists faster than they are generated. So far it’s been the other way: the fundamentalists are generating much faster than they are being killed.  In other words, total war. Not Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, but World War II. Hearts and minds is not going to work. The only thing that will work is the determination to inflict more pain on innocent civilians than the fundamentalists can. That’s the only way the civilians are going to rise up against the fundamentalists.

 

·         Folks will argue this is uncivilized, immoral, unsustainable, unlawful, whatever. Well, these folks can argue away while the infection spreads to the point the West will have to strike back simply to survive. Then the West will have to kill a hundred times more people than it needs to stop the infection now.

 

·         Oh yes – did we mention the West cannot win this by refusing to shed its own blood? Drones are not adequate for the war that is developing. The West is going to have to draft its children, send them to war, curb its consumer consumption to pay for war, and line airports to take back its dead children. Sounds horrible? Welcome to the real world. America has already done this on a total war scale thrice: 1861, 1917, and 1941. So America thought that after Vietnam it had worked out a way to fight wars at minimum cost in lives and spending small sums of money?

 

Well, guess what happened to that scheme. Sorry about that.

Tuesday 0230 GMT October 15, 2013

 

·         The Decline – But Hopefully Not Yet The Fall  - of America We suggest readers read this entire article by Jeremy Warner of the UK Telegraph.

·         All great empires – from the Greek, to the Roman, the Spanish and the British - have at their heart a dominant means of exchange which is very much part of their political and social hegemony. Once upon a time, it was Roman coinage which was the world's pre-eminent currency. In more recent times it was the British pound. Today, it's the US dollar to which international investors flock as a safe haven for their money. Highly liquid and apparently reliable – until recently at least – nothing else comes even remotely close to the greenback's dominant position in the international monetary system.

·         That this position – what Giscard d'Estaing referred to as America's "exorbitant privilege" – could so casually be put at risk by politicians on Capitol Hill is an extraordinary spectacle that may be indicative of a great power already seriously on the wane.

·         http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/10378666/The-sun-is-setting-on-dollar-supremacy-and-with-it-American-power.html

Monday 0230 GMT October 13, 2013

 

·         Debt Limit Week Reuters reports that 12 Asian nations have created a cushion against a US default. The $6-trillion tranche will permit those nations to use currency swaps to make up for any shortage of dollars, and will help each other in case their depositors rush to sell their dollars.

 

·         Yawn.  Wildly exciting stuff for bankers and financial junkie, no doubt. You know, the kind who may be in bed with Beyoncé unmarried identical twin sister, and are drooling, gasping and panting – over global finance statistics. But more seriously, what stuck us is that apparently China is providing half the money in the tranche, which it can do easily given its forex reserves are a massive $3.7-trillion. In other words, the show is going to be led by China.

 

·         This just shows, again, that the new Big Dog on the block is going to be China. You can bet your bunny slippers that the Chinese will take every opportunity to be helpful on forex to the other 11, which includes India. In return all it will want is that the 11 start using more Yuan and fewer dollars, getting China closer to its target of replaced the US dollar as global currency.

 

·         Now, of course much of that $6-trillion is in dollars. Doubtless Americans who refuse to wake up and smell the cesspool will argue that even in this pool, China cannot get away from the dollar. Fair enough.  But just think. Did anyone anticipate a time when the Mighty Greenback would become the Sort Of Mighty Greenback, or its way to becoming the Has-Been-Back? If this trend continues, and it will, whose butt do you think those 11 nations will be kissing? Hint: It won’t be America’s.  If this drive to reduce exposure to the USD continues, and it will, every year more and more global transaction will be denominated in Yuan, and fewer in dollars.

 

·         Americans are so convinced they are The Greatest, that it is not occurring to them that they are under serious challenge from the large, hungry, focused, and determined Dragon. When they do realize, it will be too late. They’ll be going in one end and coming out of the other as processed dragon poop. But we will always have Miley Cyrus. Yaaaay! Not.

 

·         The Affordable Care Act Website Unlike some ACA critics, we are not surprised or jubilant about the travails of the ACA website. Yes, it shows yet another aspect of Government unable to get things together, and America has had several such fiascos. But its not clear that the private sector could have done much better, considering the size of the project and that it cannot be rolled out in stages, it has be 100% from Day 1.

 

·         Moreover, all the contractors are private sector, so this as much the private’s mess as the government’s. We are told that two things contribute to these Mega Messes.  First, private sector can roll-out in parts, working systematically on each thing that is not going as expected, and improving it as they go along, until they have a fully functioning system. Second, Government contracts are just so convoluted that there are companies that specialize in getting these contracts, but they are not necessarily the ones that are competent to do the work.

 

·         Why is government contracting so onerous? Because of the bureaucracy. Before you go “Aha! We knew the government bureaucracy is incompetent!” please consider that the process has been created so that your money is not stolen or wasted. The irony is, it may not be stolen, but it sure is wasted because the rules to prevent waste gum up the works and create waste. But look at the converse: are you, the taxpayer, willing to put up with the inevitable fraud and waste hurry will entail?

 

·         Okay, but why could the Government not roll out the ACA website in stages? (a) It would have been more expensive; and (b) the site is not an alternative to some other system for those who wish to buy insurance. There is no pen-and-paper system that you can go to while the site’s problems are resolved. Also (c) we are unsure if such a site can be implemented in stages.

 

·         Some conservatives are besides themselves with delight with information like “Five people sign on in Iowa”. That’s great if true. If enough people don’t sign on, the ACA will have to be rejiggered, perhaps scrapped altogether for a fresh start. We join the “hoorays”.  Alas, one reason the site kept crashing was that traffic was way too heavy. Government did not think, we are told, that more than 60,000 folks an hour would log on. Also please to note that according to Wall Street Journal/NBC, support for the ACA is seven points higher than before the shutdown stuff begun. http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/10/20903624-nbcwsj-poll-shutdown-debate-damages-gop?lite We don’t know about NBC, as we don’t watch TV, but the WSJ is hardly a hotbed of America-hating commie lovers.

 

·         We are not surprised at the poll results. The Administration did such a poor at making its case that it was forced to stutter the retort that “when people see it, they will love it.” Nonsense, said the conservatives. Actually, not nonsense. No one, regardless of her/his political color, is averse to a subsidy. Anti-ACA folks are right that this thing will cost much more than anticipated. Some folks may even end up paying more. But that’s not going to make a dent compared to the 30-million people who never had insurance to begin with. As for the cost, the Government will increase the deficit. No pain, lots of gain. Who is going to argue with a deal like that?

Saturday 0230 GMT October 12, 2013

 

This is in lieu of the missed Friday update. Reader Luxembourg sent an article saying the price of chocolate is going to go up again, which made Editor even more severely ill. After eating a double daily dose of the stuff, Editor felt well enough to write.

 

·         Everyone’s doing it…Okay, so Editor realizes just because everyone is assigning blame for the Government shut-down is no reason for him to be jumping in. But when in Rome…

 

·         Editor finds the conservative position on the issue hard to understand. Why exactly is President Obama supposed to negotiate over a law that has been passed, signed, upheld by the Supreme Court, particularly when 40 attempts in Congress to get the law repealed have failed? Is there something about the American system of government that Editor is abysmally ignorant about? He thought if you don’t like a law, you keep working to win people to your side, and at some point you have enough votes in Congress to change or repeal the law. How is it moral to say “We will shut down the government because you won’t negotiate on a settled matter”?

 

·         Please to note Editor is not saying this maneuver is illegitimate or has not been used before. He does not know enough to make an informed statement on that. He’s just trying to understand what is morally right about the conservative position in linking two unrelated issues.

 

·         Editor accepts that some folks have a vehement belief against the Affordable Care Act. That is perfectly legitimate, so shouldn’t they follow procedure to repeal the ACA? Editor accepts that this President has no negotiating skills, zero charm, and a too high opinion of himself. What does that have to do with shutting down the government? Especially since – so Editor is told – the three biggest Federal employers are exempt – Defense, VA, and Homeland Security. Then in each agency there are essential personnel who continue to work. So what kind of shutdown is this anyone? And the conservatives want to keep funding government functions they approve of – like food safety testing. So what kind of conservatives are they anyway?

 

·         The role of government in America is a legitimate subject of debate. Personally Editor agrees that there is just way, way too much government, to the point its UnAmerican. At the same time, shouldn’t us small government folks accept that Big Government is not something liberals have slipped over us while we were trustingly asleep? Big Government is there and is expanded by every Administration since World War I because the people want it that way. So yes, Editor feels the tyranny of the majority, but do conservatives have a solution for that? Government small enough to drown in a bathtub – a famous phrase by a gentleman who seems to have lived on government and university paychecks all his adult life – is not acceptable to the majority of Americans. If someone can tell Editor what can be done about it, he’s ready to pitch in. He doesn’t see shutting down the government that is place because voters want it is doing anything about Big Government.

 

·         Yesterday Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek had a comment that probably only an outsider can make. (He’s an establishment insider, but from the same parts as Editor, so he is also an outsider.) He said the real issue in this fight over ACA is that a part of America feels that the America it knew and loved has irrevocably changed for the worse. It feels alienated from the country. It feels no one cares about its views. Because the country doesn’t care, this part of America no longer feels part of the system, and does not see why it has to play by the rules of the system.

 

·         Fair enough. Can Editor share a secret with his conservative readers? He is an immigrant, and of color. But he is just as bewildered as you are about what’s happened to this country. Okay, when you grow old you look at the past with rose-tinted glasses. Editor understands that the past in which he grew up imposed terrible costs on many segments of society, women and African Americans, for example. But in righting old wrongs, we’ve imposed new ones such as the almost complete breakdown of what conservatives consider important: God, country, family. And it hurts when liberals scornfully say those are narrow, bigoted values that SHOULD be thrown out.

 

·         As a teacher, many is the day Editor walks into school – almost 70% minority – and gets spaced out to the extent he’s in a foreign country and somehow took a wrong turn on the way to America. Please to understand: Editor has absolutely no problem with American black folk. They are more originally authentic American than most white folk. Editor was brought up by his parents to be internationalist, but believe it when he says most of the kids around him are speaking Spanish or French or a language other than English he feels like the proverbial stranger in a strange land.

 

·         Take a small thing. He absolutely hates it when immigrant kids won’t stand up for the Pledge. He’s even had kids say to him “Its not my country”. Okay, people, it’s not my country either. But no one forced me or your parents to live here. I don’t recite the Pledge because it isn’t my country. But I always, always, always stand up in silence because I am a guest in this country. Incidentally, the kids saying its not their country are almost invariably born here or have become naturalized when their parents became citizens. America IS their country, and if you feel it isn’t, please give up your citizenship and leave: no one is stopping you.

 

Friday 0230 October 11, 2013

Sorry, no update today. Editor is wiped out by first 'flu wave to hit the kids at school. Cannot take any days off. There will be at least two more as per experience before next May. Its an occupational hazard for teachers. And of course, being older does not help. Neither do flu shots. You can get sick from them, plus they're for last year's strains. Someone in Europe has worked out a vaccine that will work for every strain, even future ones. If Editor had money, he's buy shares in the company this gentleman will undoubtedly set up.

 

Thursday 0230 October 10, 2013

Keran Sector (Kashmir) Intrusion

Name withheld by request

·         The militants were tracked by the Army - the day Samba incident happened, news channels were also carrying reports and visuals of large body of militants tracked in Keran sector. There was IR footage from possibly UAV showing movement of terrorists that was shown on Indian news channels. The most plausible chronology of events is  as follows

 

·         Army was tracking the movement and accordingly prepared reception parties at appropriate locations. Initial contact(s) were of the longest duration and most intense; this is when IA suffered casualties (05). Militants would have also suffered casualties during this phase when they were ambushed/surprised. This round of operations was led by 3/3 Gorkha Rifles.

 

·         The above point also means that militants never managed to get past the FIRST layer of defense and did not come in too deep. As one of the ingress routes was along the nullah next to Salla Bhatta village, retreating terrorists under pursuit could have taken up defensive positions in the general area; this could be the reason name of the village came up in first place and impression went out that village is being held by terrorists.

·         The issue  of “Kargil-II” started with talk of capture of 'village' at some 9,000 feet height and militants staying back to fight the IA. That 9,000 feet was taken at face value w/o getting into the realities of the geography in the region - the village is at 7,000 feet height and close to nullah in the region. And the Army maintains positions and posts on all the dominating ridges around it. Basically, inconsequential from military point of view - COAS Bikram Singh said the same thing in so many words.

 

·         After the first contact and attendant firefight, the militants did splinter but more for sneaking back than going ahead into the valley. This is when the Army moved in more troops to set up the cordon to mop up the splinter groups which can scattered around. This would have also ensured that terrorists did not sneak into the valley.

 

·         The distance covered by militants was not too great - that is why after initial contact(s), they retreated back and during the process received some bit of firing support from Pakistan Army posts as well. This could also be the reason why no bodies were found. They were required to be carried back a 'short' distance back into POK.

·         News item like militants being forced into small area (800 x 400 meters) gave impression that militants were holed up in defensive positions and holding ground. I don't know what was the context of this statement - It could simply mean that except for this area, Army had covered all other area. But one thing is for sure: Around 60%-70% of the militants managed to get back - and this would have happened in first couple of days of contacts.

 

·         Going ahead - PA may try to use strong body of terrorists to overwhelm the first line of defense and use the confusion created to sneak in militants in other areas.

 

·         Please read attached article by the previous General Officer Commanding  XV Corps. It explains Pakistan’s likely strategic aims in making this intrusion. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/an-ambitious-ploy-in-the-heights/article5214886.ece

 

·         Editor’s note This communication to the Editor is highly compressed as would be the case for a knowledgeable person talking to another knowledgeable person. We’re sorry if it is too compressed. Editor being an analyst rather than a journalist would have to write a few thousand words to explain the matter. Moreover, we could not reprint an annotated geosat terrain pictures at 50-meters to the centimeter scale provided with the email. The map clearly shows how geographically difficult this area is.

Wednesday 0230 GMT October 9, 2013

 

·         Latest India-Pakistan Fracas The Indian Army has declared an end to a 15-day fight against 30 Pakistani infiltrators in the Keren Sector (Neelum Valley) of Kashmir. As if often the case with infiltration attempts, this came as 3/3 Gorkha Rifles was preparing to leave the area at the end of its 3-year posting, making way for a relief battalion. Departing units sometimes slack off, giving infiltrators a chance to create trouble. We doubt this strategy worked this time after the earlier intrusion in Poonch sector, where five Indian soldiers were murdered in their sleep. Their battalion was leaving, and the patrols had been taking things easier than they should have. We’d assume that after that incident all battalions with short-time are being kept on their toes.

 

·          Anyhows,  30 infiltrators managed to enter within a short distance of the Line Of Control. They were engaged. At some point they were reinforced by 10-12 more men. The terrain, as is usual in this part of Kashmir, is very rough so infiltration is easier than in other places along the LOC. Since the infiltrators holed up rather than proceeding to the Kashmir alley as is their wont, it was hard work finding and digging them out.  At any rate, the fight is over, though no one should be surprised if some more infiltrators are found in coming days.

 

·         Just another incident in the ongoing war on the LOC? Unfortunately, no. For one thing this was a large group and it did not disperse as infiltrators usually do. They appeared to be actually trying to hold ground, which is a really odd thing. For another, the skill level shown by the infiltrators was akin to that of regular troops. That is why it took so long to flush them out. It looks like many of them were Pakistan Special Services Group soldiers fighting out of uniform, a very favorite tactic that the Pakistanis just love to use.

 

·         For yet another thing, it appears they succeeded at some point in occupying an uninhabited village. These lads, from all evidence, appeared to have come to stay. This occasioned many comparisons with the 1999 Kargil operation, where several battalions of Pakistani troops crossed the LOC during the winter to occupy positions on the Indian side. That resulted in quite a shindig, with about 8-9 battalions on the Pakistan side and a corps-sized force on the Indian. After several weeks of fighting over 500 Indian troops were killed, Pakistan killed were over 800.

 

·         The Indian Army Chief quite indignantly denied any comparison with Kargil, and he was right to. 40 infiltrators do not equal several enemy battalions. The problem is, as Mandeep Bajwa has explained, Keren looks to be a new phase in the LOC war. In Kashmir, Kargil aside, infiltrators have sought to enter, create havoc, and exit. They haven’t before quietly slunk in to take up residence with the hope they would not be discovered. This is like Kargil in that it was an attempt to occupy territory.

 

·         Why only 40 men, in that case? Well, this was probably just an advance party. Had it not been discovered, it would have been quietly reinforced before the winter snows arrive – which can be any day now. The Pakistanis would have further reinforced the position if needed, and when the snows melted in 2014, a chunk of Indian Kashmir would have been gnawed away. The Chinese have been doing this for years now.

 

·         So, you will doubtless ask: “But discovered they would be at some point in the spring, and then just as happened at Kargil, India would have pushed them out. So what’s the point?” Funny you should ask. There IS no point. What the Pakistanis are doing is totally senseless. But look: you have a country that sends a division’s worth of troops to occupy Indian position in North Kashmir – India used to withdraw from the northern heights because the winter is absolutely brutal and the Pakistanis as well as the India were too frozen to create trouble. Until 1999 Kargil. Pakistan actually thought that it would present India with a fait accompli and India would say: “Oh well, Kargil sector is really tough terrain, we have minimal roads there, we can’t take it back, so let’s forget about it.”

 

·         This assumption is so Whacko Bird that you have to shake your head at Pakistan’s foolishness. The real question is why India puts up with is foolishness year in and year out. Since this Kashmir War began in 1987, India has at no point ever retaliated to punish Pakistan. So for Pakistan to go on attempting to occupy Indian territory is a zero risk strategy. If you look at it that way, the Pakistanis appear not so uselessly foolish as it might seem. If there is no cost to their trying this, that, and the other, why not try it.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT October 8, 2013

 

·         China warns US, Japan, Australia not to gang up against China in regional sea disputes http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/07/us-asia-southchinasea-china-idUSBRE99602220131007 The Americans have an expression “what goes around, comes around”. Starting in 1970, the US decided it really, really, really loved China. At least Nixon and his Rasputin (Kissinger) did. Then when China started to open its economy, US jumped in with all four paws. The Chinese benefited madly, the American corporates benefited madly, and American workers got royally shafted. But for heaven’s sake, who cares about the sans culottes? Certainly not American corporates. It wasn’t just the Americans. India lost 6-million specialty weavers alone because the Chinese automated textile items which previously were made by hand, and then flooded the Indian market with cheap stuff. But honestly, no one cares about Indian workers, certainly not the Government of India.

 

·         If you bring up this point with an economist, s/he will look sad and say “But it was inevitable. If we hadn’t traded with China, others would have. Besides, we all benefit because we get goods at cheaper prices and get to export to China, generating jobs that offset our job losses.” Of course! How dumb of us! This must be the reason that the US has consistently run giant deficits with China, we’re exporting so much! A couple of years Editor posted detailed US Department of Commerce figures on what we export and it turned out we did pretty good in soyabeans, grains, and leather.  Real high tech stuff!

 

·         The phenomenal growth of the Chinese economy has had another effect. China has become the world’s second-largest military spender, on just 2% of GDP spent on defense. Please to remember that $110-billion worth of Yuan spent on the Chinese military is not the same as $110-billion spent by the US on its military because the Chinese do not have the enormous manpower costs we do. It seems just a matter of time that Chinese GDP reaches $10-trillion (in exchange-rate terms, not PPP terms which would give China a higher GDP than $10-trills). It also is inevitable that China will reach the same GDP as the US. Okay, so current thinking says the Chinese are NOT going to reach US per capita, but when it comes to defense, GDP and not per capita matters.

 

·         Big surprise, people! As Chinese military power grows, Beijing has become increasingly assertive to the point it has become working on forcing all powers out of the China Seas. Naturally countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei and so on don’t have a snowball’s chance of facing up to China by themselves. They have to ally with the US, and here is China telling them – Australia and Japan included – not to do that. Then there’s the unspoken “or else”.

 

·         Americans, who will say anything regardless of its reasonable, rational, or logical if they can make money, used to insist that we would co-opt China as a partner in a new strategic balance. It didn’t matter if a future China built up its military power, because it would work with the US, not threaten the US. Well, this Chinese announcement, just one of a great many, shows just how well this is working. BTW, we’d appreciate if folks did not make this into a partisan issue because it hasn’t mattered who was/is in power these last 40-years, they have been anxious to kiss China butt. Money does not recognize political parties. Money is its own force.

 

·         Because the US is in military decline, there is a lot of sick, pathetic rationalization going on. Oh, the Chinese anti-carrier missile will not work. Oh, the cyber-capabilities are actually puny. Oh, their stealth fighter is a joke. Oh, their own bloggers say their carrier ops are a joke. We’re still tops. Well, you know, what the Americans say about Chinese weapons is 100% true. And what they say about us still being tops is absolutely true.

 

·         But just consider for a moment. We’re in military decline , they’re ascending. They’re working from a low per capita base, one-eighth of ours. But they have four times our population, and in 20-years their weapons are not going to be junk class. What happens then.

 

Monday 0230 October 7, 2013

 

·         UN begins destruction of Syrian chemwar stocks Color Editor as Surprised.  First, he was as doubtful as the next person that destruction was actually going to happen. We thought the technicalities would drag on for months, then the stocks would have to be identified, then transported safely out of the country to Russia, and then destroyed. Instead, within weeks of the agreement being signed, elimination has started. Never seen the UN move so fast – second surprise. http://world.time.com/2013/10/06/inspectors-start-destroying-syrias-chemical-weapons/

 

·         Bigger surprise is that Putin of Russia has delivered on his promise to the US and the world. Frankly, we regard Putin a lot less seriously than we regard the prognostication of Gilroy, one of Editor’s four Teddy Bears, who is in that happy state of nirvana because he has not one single thought in his head. Indeed, we regard Putin so low that mentioning him in the same paragraph or article as Gilroy risks severely insulting the latter. Luckily Gilroy is not much given to reading so hopefully he will never know.

 

·         On the one hand this is unexpected lucky break for the hapless American President, who on Syria was lost somewhere between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. He had become an object of ridicule even before he first announced, then cancelled, his strike on Syria. True the strike would have achieved precisely zot. Unfortunately, once you announce a strike and then call it off – particularly because Klasse Klowne Vlad Putin steps in – then even the cockroaches desert the white House because they cannot bear to be identified with the Head Doofus of the Free World. (We know this because we interviewed some of the ‘roaches.)

 

·         Of a sudden, Mr. Obama has come up smelling of dignity, reason, restraint, peace and so on. Of a sudden, he looks like the Obama the Nobel folks fantasized about when sight unseen they handed him the Peace Prize. The Prez no longer looks like such a lamester. And when is the last time anyone thought the US could actually exercise military restraint? It has always been our habit to smash first and then ask questions, such as “why exactly did we clobber the guy?” This whole thing is akin to the sun rising in the west.

 

·         Okay, so we are not so anti-Obama that we begrudge him his success, though undoubtedly many of his enemies are grinding their tooffers in frustration. (Or teefees, as a very bright student of Editor used to call the ol’ chompers.) Or at any rate those enemies who read the press and understand words bigger than No No No Wont Wont Wont.

 

·         Still, Editor is mightly displeased that Putin has strengthened his position as a man of his word, capable of delivering what he promises. Let’s not make the mistake of underestimating the big jump in his stature. You know, bringing the US to heel is a pretty remarkable feat, even if Putin was dealing with a weak reed. This will be noticed all over the world. You may be assured that another Putin initiative is being dreamt up as we read this.

 

·         Now, of course, it’s a long way to Tiperrary and all that (and it becomes longer since Microsoft’s Word spell checker, one of the more useless inventions since dateless Saturdays doesn’t recognize the place name). None of this means that Assad The Terrible will give up everything and that everything will be destroyed. Maybe a bunch of stuff has already gone to Iraq, as the Israelis would have us believe. (Anyone who believes the Israelis on anything that could impact their national security is a dodo, dunce, and dunderhead. The Israelis have absolutely no problem in twisting anything to their advantage, and they are experts at pretending they know everything that goes on in the Mideast. Probably they learned this from us Americans.)

 

 

 

Friday 0230 GMT October 4, 2013

 

A slow news day

 

·         Poor Berlo Editor is a great admirer of the former Italian Prime Minister, chiefly because of the latter’s great success with women. Okay, we can hear you saying “anyone with a few billions can be successful with the ladies”. The point is, most of us do not have one billion, let alone a few. However Berlo does it, we admire him.

 

·         We thought the Italians were being perfectly hypocritical when they started hounding him about his womanizing and spending state money on flying ladies in for parties. Since when have the Italians been down on a womanizer? Have they become eunuchs? We thought Italy, along with France, still admired the lady or gentleman who has a lot of – er- admirers. As for misuse of state assets, who among Italian politicians and senior assets can cast the first stone? Why did the Finance Ministry not politely hand him a bill? We’re sure Berlo could have paid it with the loose change from the Bunga Bunga couch in his living room.

 

·         With Berlo out, we eagerly awaited the day he would be back in power, trampling down the hypocrites. Alas, they may not happen. Berlo tried to break the ruling coalition to which he gives his support after his party failed to form the government at the last election. Possibly the Government mumbling on and on about prosecuting him for tax evasion irritated Berlo and he struck back. Prosecution for tax evasion?III Have the Italians gone mad? Only the Little Guy gets prosecuted for tax evasion in Italy, for heaven’s sake. It is SO déclassé to be charged with his crime, we are surprised Berlo did not open his veins in Roman style just for the sheer humiliation.

 

·         Well, Berlo pulled out his ministers from the ruling coalition and it looked like fresh elections would have to be called. Then – shock and dismay - his own party, the ungrateful wretches, turned on him. They said if he withdrew support from the Government, they would abandon him and vote for the government anyway.

 

·         Poor Berlo had to reverse course and tell his party to vote for the Government. So the existing coalition is restored, Berlo has suffered what could be a terminal loss of face and credibility. We are told even Ruby The Heart Stealer has told him to keep his distance while she thinks things over.

 

·         Woe.

 

·         US Capitol shooting We don’t want to sound callous, but our reaction when we heard the first report was to yawn and say “Boooorrrrriiiinnnngggg.” After all, in the Washington Metro area we have our share of crazies, and why should we consider ourselves special just because the government is based in the region?

 

 

·         The entire incident seems to have been about a woman driver who decided to run security barricades in the area at high speed. The shots seem to have been all fired by police trying to stop her. The woman was killed.  Anyone with a minimal IQ knows that when police tell you that you cannot cross a barricade, you ask for alternative directions and leave. You do not challenge the police in a high security area

 

Thursday 0230 GMT October 3, 2013

 

·         Mr. Maduro, we knew Hugo – and you are no Hugo Why is this ex-bus driver who now rules Venezuela such an irritating person? He has so little personality that even with Hugo’s dying anointment he barely got a majority. Hugo started the process of running the Venezuelan economy into the ground, but Maduro seems to have easily reached new lows. And for his failures he blames the US.

 

·         We often tell 3rd World folks that if the CIA is so powerful that it affect minute events in their country, shouldn’t the folks be nice to the US? After all, if Washington gets really mad at them, given the power of the CIA, they’re toast. Maduro has the CIA obsession in spades. The Farm (or is it the The Firm? Editor is getting foggy in his old age) is supposed to be responsible for Venezuela’s economic decline.

 

·         Back home people laugh at the CIA. Beware, says Editor. If the CIA can make Venezuela’s toilet paper vanish, hitting that country in its – er – nether end, it can as easily make American toilet paper vanish. And then what will you do, friends? The CIA has also made food essentials like milk, corn flour, and cooking oil vanish. And red meat. There is a ghastly story in the media about a meat distributor’s truck driver getting into an accident. Passersbys make no attempt at succor. Instead they frenziedly loot the truck. The bus driver dies. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/world/americas/to-venezuelans-heir-of-chavez-is-a-poor-copy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

·         Things are so bad that the timely start of baseball season is in doubt because thieves stole the copper wiring from the capital’s stadium. Inflation is running at 45% - and that’s something given its an official figure and the price of many commodities is capped by the government. The black market rate for the dollar is six times the unofficial rate. This is a clear sign the country is in trouble.

 

·         Editor believes in peace and love to all, Venezuela included. But when Mr. Maduro starts making more of a fool himself than usual by attacking the US and expelling more diplomats, the time for retaliation has come. And actually perhaps the CIA is quietly retaliating. The other day Mr. Maduro fell off his bicycle on national TV, which added to the ridicule  already heaped on him. Obviously the CIA sabotaged his bike. Better be careful, Maduro. Next thing you know the CIA’s specially trained alligator will be biting your butt when you are on the throne for your morning constitutional. Editor has information the alligator is named – whoa, whoa, we almost revealed a national secret. Thank goodness we caught ourselves. Next thing Editor’s toilet paper stash would have vanished.

 

·         Back to Obamacare/The Shutdown We should have mentioned for the benefit of our foreign readers that while the US president has the right to veto legislation, Congress can overrode a veto with a two-third’s majority. What our In The Know source yesterday meant when he says even if the GOP wins the Senate and retains the house, it would need that supermajority to override the president’s veto on Obamacare. This means in the Senate, at least, the GOP needs to go from 44 seats to 67, which does seem unlikely under any scenario.

 

·         As for our source’s opinion that the only solution to the US’s crisis is to go back to a traditionalist interpretation of the US Constitution, this needs amplification. We have had several discussions with the source and with moderate conservative friends.  They’re pointing out that the US was already going bust because of entitlements. Obamacare is another entitlement that could end up bigger than all the others put together. When Editor points out that the Bible – the New Testament, at least – requires us to help our neighbor, they say yes it does. But the Bible does not absolve individuals from being required to take responsibility for themselves. And while we can argue about the quantum of help that should be given to the less fortunate, the point is today’s levels of help are unsustainable. Aside from the moral repugnance of loading our children that they will never be able to pay because entitlements are so costly, the principle of making the state the father and mother of us all is anti-American. Sure, the Europeans feel comfortable with that idea and have cradle-to-grave welfare. That is their business. But that is not the way we have done things here.

 

·         Entitlements are a tax on current and future generations. There is no war underway that we must keep running up our debt year after year. Some of the $17-trillion debt is on account of the Afghan and Iraq wars – which were wars of choice and not something our Source approves of. But the rest of the debt is because we are living beyond our means. This has to come before the country collapses.

 

·         We’ve asked several friends about the GOP decision to slash $40-billion in food stamps. There is actually a wide divergence of views on this. The consensus seems to be that the decision comes across as mean-mindedness at a time the Congressionals who passed the bill get to live on $174,000 of taxpayer money. It also comes across as hypocritical because the GOP continues to fight for subsidies and taxpayer funded breaks that benefit their special interests.

 

·         But the appearances are one thing, the reality is another. Somewhere the line has to be drawn and the country has to say “no more subsidies, we have to start reducing what we already cannot afford.” One friend asked: “if food and medical care are fundamental rights, isn’t housing a fundamental right? Isn’t daycare a fundamental right? Isn’t being able to get to work a fundamental right? So where does it end?” Of course, our Euro friends would say that yes, these are all fundamental rights. They’re ready to pay 60% in taxes to fund these subsidies. Americans are not.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT October 2, 2013

 

US Government Shutdown and Debt Ceiling Shenanigans

 

We spoke to Someone in The Know about Washington’s ways. This is really more for our two foreign readers (as opposed to our two US readers) as there is nothing in this that our US readers have not seen endlessly repeated in American media these past weeks.

 

·         When Obamacare funds more taxpayer money to big business, why are conservative Republics rejecting Obamacare to the extent of shutting down the Government and risking a debt default?

 

·         This has nothing to do with Obamacare. It has everything to do with reelection for GOP conversatives. This has energized their base, which is raising vast amounts of money because they have finally found an issue that unites them. The issue is not Obamacare, but Obama, whom a significant minority has never accepted as the legitimate President.

 

·         But won’t the public punish the GOP for all this foolishness in the 2014 midterms?

 

·         It well may, though no one really knows. But the conservatives do not care what happens to the GOP. They are interested only in their own reelection. Because of large scale gerrymandering it has become very difficult to dethrone incumbents of either party. Thanks to the money the conservatives are raising, it will be doubly difficult to defeat them.  

 

·         Surely the conservatives don’t think they can get Obamacare repealed without seizing control of the Senate? Why should it not matter to the conservatives that they are lessening their chances of winning the Senate and retaining the House?

 

·         Again, this is not about Obamacare. That is the conservative smokescreen to get money from their base. The conservatives know they cannot get Obamacare repealed. Even if the GOP gets control of the Senate and retains the House in 2014, the President will merely veto the bill. By 2016 it will be too late to repeal the bill because the public will have realized that this is a very big subsidy they are getting for paying very little money from their pocket. They will not just fall in love with Obamacare, they will kill anyone who tries to take it from them.

 

·         I don’t understand how American conservative voters can simultaneously say they reject Obamacare and yet get hooked on it as you say they will. Isn’t this a violation of their principles of small government and self-reliance?

 

·         Do American conservative voters reject Social Security and Medicare? Do they reject disaster relief? Do they reject unemployment? Do they reject the mortgage subsidy they get from Fannie Mae?

 

·         Surely this is not the same thing. After all, we pay taxes for Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment benefits.

 

·         Surely we do. And as any economist will tell you, we pay just a fraction of the real cost of these programs. They all represent enormous subsidies, Despite what conservative voters say, they are as much hooked on wealth distribution as the liberals. They want the services the Government provides – another subsidy in my view – as much as liberals do. Take schools K-12. Are the conservatives willing to end public funding for schools, which is one of our bigger subsidies? Obviously not. Are conservatives willing to pay the true cost of a Mideast barrel of oil? Obviously not. They are all for the US military “protecting American interests” everywhere. Cheap oil is taken not just as an American interest but as a God-given right. That we spend near $800-billion in total defense spending to subsidize cheap oil does not bother conservatives.

 

·         So are you saying conservatives are hypocrites?

 

·         Yes. The liberals at least openly support a transfer of wealth from those who earn it to the “common people” regardless of the common person’s political ideology. The liberals are thieves, but not hypocrites. Conservatives are thieves AND hypocrites.

·         So what is the solution?

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT October 1, 2013

 

·         Iran Given the modern world’s attention span, one bet you  are always sure of winning is saying “Iran will be nuclear-ready in six months”. Folks have been saying this for years, but people forget that many, many six-month periods have passed with no sign of nuclear weapons.

 

·         The reason for this is simple, as Editor has been blaring for years. There is a huge gap between the theory of uranium enrichment for weapons via centrifuge and the practicality. Engineering is everything here, and it’s very tough engineering. It is unclear to us that getting weapons grade uranium via the centrifuge route is even possible. What it does do, however, is provide 5% or more enriched uranium that can be made into fuel rods for a plutonium production reactor, easing the path to weapons grade plutonium. Until Iraq has an unsafeguarded Pu production reactor, there will be no N-weapons in Iran.

 

·         In this respect, the Wall Street Journal’s article headed “Iran seen trying new path to a bomb” is misleading, because likely this has been Iran’s path from the start. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323997004578644140963633244.html Iran “could” make weapons grade Pu by next summer, says the article. This is about as helpful as saying “Editor could get a date by next summer.” 99% of what you read about Iran’s N-weapon advances are undiluted propaganda. And everywhere you look, you will find the muddy paw-prints of Israel.

 

·         Israel’s reasons are not subtle. Or at least they are as subtle as a bludgeon. Israel does not want to take down Iran’s N-program by itself. Its preferred outcome is for the US to do the dirty while Israel stays out of it altogether. If this ever happens, Israel will claim that the US insisted it would do the job by itself and they had no choice but to comply.

 

·         Nonetheless, the matter of timing is irrelevant. At some point Iran will have a plutonium weapon; some years into the future it may have six. When it gets one, the reports will start “Iran is building weapons in assembly line fashion”. Anyway. Having a few weapons, integrating them with a delivery platform, and having some certainty the thing is going to work is a whole another story. But who wants to take the risk, seeing as 2-3 10-KT warheads successfully landed on Israel’s biggest cities will cause a catastrophe beyond imagining for the tiny Jewish state.

 

·         Now, needless to say, while Israel naturally insists that Israel is the issue when discussing Iranian N-weapons, this is pure fantasy. To imagine Iran will sacrifice a few tens of millions of its people for the satisfaction of killing 1-200,000 Israelis (many of whom will be Muslims) is to imagine irrationality on a big scale. It is fine to say your adversary is irrational, but if that is true, you need to cripple him for a hundred years before he does anything. Which means an Israeli first strike with most of its N-arsenal (which actually may not be as big as people say).

 

·         No. The issue is the Sunni Arab states who are the sworn enemies of Iran. We aren’t going to get into this because honestly, we don’t find it of any interest. As far as we are concerned, Iran AND the Sunni Arab states need to be wiped out. There’s very little to choose between them. If forced at gunpoint to choose, Editor would likely choose Iran as the lesser of two evils. But let’s not go there.

 

·         Why this bile against the Iranians? Editor is going to get into his American mode now. Because they humiliated America back in 1980, and because their theocracy is a nasty piece of goods, and because the Iranians killed/help kill many Americans in Iraq. A European or 3rd Worlder might accuse us of being petty. Go right ahead and accuse, folks. You’re not going to change Editor’s mind.

 

·         (Kindly do not wait for a conclusion to this rant. Editor has used up his rant time and in any case is quite bored of the topic.)

 

Monday 0230 GMT September 30, 2013

 

·         Government shutdown We’re told that the failure of the Congress to pass a budget on time is actually the norm rather than the exception. Apparently in the last 40-years Congress has been on time for something like 10% of the time. That is why, we are told, the Fiscal Year was changed from its traditional 30 June end to September 30, thus giving an extra 30-days to pass a budget.

 

·         If this is true, whoever came up with the bright idea is obviously clueless. If 15-months is required for discussion, obviously the only time Congress would have extra time is the first year the budget starts at October 1. After that, every year, Congress still has only 12 months as it did before. If it couldn’t get budgets passed in 12 months before, unless the structural factors are addressed, they’re not going to pass budgets in 12 months now.

 

·         Editor is aware that Americans live blissfully in their own universe. The rest of the world may as well not exist. Still further, even if the US knew there was a world outside the US, Americans would not care. We are so convinced we are – er – so “special” that we have as much interest in what the world thinks of America as we have in knowing what the squirrels in their yards think of us.

 

·         Nonetheless, to the rest of the world, the world’s sole superpower and by far the biggest economy send the message that we are incompetent. In most democratic countries, the national budget is also subject to legislative approval, and folks usually get their budgets on time. It gives us a bad reputation, and causes people to take us less seriously than they should. And forget the timely budget, the very notion that the mighty United States might default on its national debt because of internal political debate strikes oversees folks as ludicrous. The world’s financial system works on the US honoring its debt. If the US is going to futz around, folks are increasingly going to prefer to hold Euros, Yen, and Yuan rather than dollars.

 

·         True that day has not arrived. But many countries already hold the dollar as only one currency in their basket. It’s easy to see that between 1945 and 1970, with the European and Japanese  economies clobbered by World II and the British fading, that essentially no one had a choice beyond dollars. But now the EU is first with 23% of world GDP; U.S. 21 percent, China 10 percent, Japan 8 percent and U.K. 3.3 percent. In 25-years the US is going to go down more, say 15%, so holding dollars is going to become less of a necessity and more of a choice. In other words, we will have to compete with other currency blocks for the money we borrow to keep our economy going. If the US really defaults – as would seem possible if the Tea Brigade have their way, interest rates are going to go up. Which is not good for us. More than that, we will lose face.

 

·         According to http://www.cnbc.com/id/100726245 the world has $11-billion worth of currency reserves. Of this the composition of $6-billion is known: the US dollar covers about 62% or $3.6-trillion dollars. But the composition of $5-trillion is not known, largely because China holds most of this money and it does not disclose the composition of its holdings. China’s announced foreign currency reserves are thought to be $3.5-trillon, or about as much as the US’s. Of course, about $1.8-trillion is in US dollars.

 

·         But according to http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-07-22/china-maneuvers-take-away-us%E2%80%99-dominant-reserve-currency-status as well as the CNBC source mentioned above and many others, China is operating stealthily to displace the US$ as the world’s reserve currency. One way it is doing this is by hugely stepping gold reserves. It is now producing/importing 1000-tons gold per year, worth about $50-billion at current rates. Apparently it may be reaching 6000 tons, or $300-billion, with a goal of 10,000-tons or $500-billion.  US is supposed to have 8100-tons.Then it is doing currency swops with several countries; in 2012 it did swops for $467-billion.

 

·         http://asiatoday.com.au/content/rmb-approaching-safe-haven-status says that while the Yuan (technically the Renminbi) has not reached the status of world’s reserve currency, the Chinese are assiduously working at it without necessarily blaring their intentions to the world.

 

·         Okay, so what does this have to with price of tea in China? Obviously if the Chinese economy keeps running at 7% annual growth whereas we manage 3% and look pleased, at some point it is going to reach the US level. Yes, it may never reach the US per capita contrary to what a lot of overenthusiastic economists forecast by using simple extrapolations. But China already runs the world’s largest trade surplus. It is already preparing for the day cheap labor will no longer be its selling point, so its surplus may not decline by much. It is working toward the world’s largest gold reserves. It seems inevitable the yuan will replace the dollar, but what are Americans supposed to do about it? What CAN we do about it?

 

·         Naturally Editor has no ideas what we’re supposed to do about this. But by refusing to get budgets in on time, by having the minority tail that wags the dog saying “its going to be our way or default”, by running massive trade deficits (which we can only because we are still the global reserve currency), we are helping China rather than ourselves. Just as our failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the US unquantifiable but real prestige, this crazy talk also costs us prestige. (Please, no one write in to say we won in Iraq – strengthening Iran is winning?).

 

·         Three things Editor knows we should be doing: (a) investing in infrastructure; (b) investing in R&D; and (c) investing in education. But because inevitably the government must play the major role, we are not about to invest the money. BTW, when Editor says investing in education, he does not mean getting more people ready for college – another idiot idea. It means investing in vocational education and thus producing workers needed by the economy.

 

Friday 0230 GMT September 27, 2013

 

·         Can someone please explain this anti-Obamacare  obsession? Personally, Editor doesn’t like it because in his book, anything that cannot be written down in 3 double-spaced pages is too complex and likely unworkable. He also doesn’t like it because the way privatized medicine is practiced in America, so much of our GDP is going to healthcare that we’re falling behind in just about every other aspect of human endeavor. Editor accepts the concepts of healthcare for all, he just doesn’t accept the idea that everyone should have unlimited health care. What will happen to this country when we’re spending 20, 25% of GDP on healthcare?

 

·         That said, one would think conservatives would be overjoyed at Obamacare. It offers the possibility of business off-loading health care on the Government. Insurance premiums are probably the single worst factor in pulling down American competiveness.  Everywhere else that matters, the Government pays for insurance. (They manage in other countries because they spend half of GDP that we do with better outcomes.) And mandatory care pulls another 40-million or whatever people into insurance companies and doctors’ practices and hospitals.

 

·         This business of “socialism” is arrant nonsense no adult with better than an 8th Grade education should espouse. Kiddies, America is a socialist country. Every aspect of our existence from before birth to after death is governed by rafts of rules. The pension and old age health care systems are totally socialized. If you have no money, you can still get $300,000 or whatever of hospital care because no hospital can turn you away. If you are too poor to eat, you get money. If you don’t make enough to afford a place to life you can get a government subsidy. If you want to start a business – pulheese, let’s not even get started on the rules and regulations and permits.

 

·         Talking about “rationing” is equally pathetically lame. Editor has been in an HMO since he arrived here 23 years ago. He has absolutely no freaking choice in anything. Unless you are willing to pay huge premiums, which insurance company doesn’t ration care? And these are private for-profit companies doing the rationing, not the US Government. Everyone is rationed concerning everything unless s/he is very rich. Editor loves steak, he sees it maybe once a year at someone else’s house because he cannot afford it. In the winter Editor shivers through 65F during the day and 50F at night because heating oil has become so expensive he cant afford something more reasonable like 68F. Editor is rationed to four haircuts a year because he cant afford more. He has been able to afford ONE suit since he came back, and of course that was 20-years ago, no way he can fit into that suit. He’s driving a 14-year old 1.3-liter subcompact that the mechanic has said is going to die any day; when it dies Editor will buy a moped because he cant afford another car.

 

·         Editor is subject to rationing at every step. And you know what? That’s life. That’s the way it is for maybe a third of Americans. Is this rationed existence a big deal? Obviously not! Editor is grateful he’s able to make $36,000 a year and have a house. He’s grateful because there are so many people who make two-thirds that or half that or one-third that. He knows people who make 10-times that and consider themselves as barely scraping buy. You would also feel poor on $360,000 a year when after all taxes you get to take $240,000 home and you’re paying half that for private school for your kids because your public school stinks.

 

·         So please, people, can we stop whining about Obamacare? Now, if you’re going to say “I hate Obamacare because I hate Obama,” well, okay. That’s a valid reason. There were people who hated Bush on principle no matter what he did. But then be upfront about the hate and don’t go making excuses about socialism and rationing and that kind of irrelevant stuff.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT September 26, 2013

 

·         We cannot understand why US Government is not going after the Arab financiers of Islamic terrorism. Agreed that many financiers will operate in secret and be hard to track down. But in Syria, at least, many are operating openly. Is it the case that the US cannot arrest, for example,  Saudis and Qataris who are supporting Islamists? If so, surely the USG owes it to us to explain why it cannot.

 

·         Similarly, why are those companies who host jihadi websites not being told to stop? In the US, using the postal service, telephone company, or internet company to commit a crime is in itself an offense. The communication company is generally not held responsible because they are innocent of any wrong doing themselves. You don’t, for example, charge the airline on which a terrorist travels to reach the US. An internet host hosting millions of accounts cannot be expected to know the antecedents of every account. But if – say –  a bank is providing services to someone engaged in criminal activity, the USG can order the bank to stop. So why can it not order webhosts to stop? This is not a matter of free speech because jihadis use their sites to recruit and to raise money. Their activities are not benign; rather, they are waging war. Would USG allow a criminal enterprise the same privilege of putting forth its “message”, posting dramatic videos of its criminal operations as a way of getting more recruits, and asking for money to further its criminal activities? We don’t think so.

 

·         It seems to us that the West is generally confused on this issue of jihadis. We appear to see them as espousing legitimate causes that just happen not to accord with our interests. So since democracies are tolerant, we must tolerate the jihadis.

 

·         But what exactly is the legitimate cause that Al-Shaabab is espousing when it killed a young woman with 12 blows to the head, and then burned her son? What legitimate cause is being espoused when the terrorists ask civilians the name of the Prophet’s mother, and failing to get the correct response murder those persons?

 

·         Then we have the gentlemen who killed 75 Christians at their Pakistani church. They said they did so in retaliation for the US’s UAV strikes. Now just a darn minute folks. First, these are Pakistani Christians, not American. Second, America is killing terrorists because they are – hello, world – terrorists. You want America to stop killing you, give up terrorism and surrender to the authorities. That people are for one second giving any legitimacy to the terrorists position is akin to accepting that because the American police shoot a criminal, his “tribe” now has the right to commit mass murder halfway around the world, killing people who have nothing to do with the police.

 

·         All this business of “we must fight the Americans because they defiled our holy land” is complete and utter nonsense. American went to Saudi Arabia because the Government of Saudi Arabia asked the US to help repel Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and his threat to the region. The Americans obliged the Saudis and other Arabs and left. If there are still contingents of American troops it is entirely because Arab governments have asked for them. If the terrorists have a problem with their government, why are they attacking everyone else EXCEPT their governments? Besides, how come the terrorists were not bothered about the hordes of westerners tramping around their countries for business? Were they also not “occupying” the holy land?  These are all stupid excuses which should be tossed out.

 

·         It is past time that the west took a firm stand. What the terrorists are doing is just plain wrong. They are waging war on us. We have a right to defend ourselves. And we particularly have a right to defend ourselves because the jihadis are waging war because we are either non-Muslims, or if we are Muslims, we are the wrong kind.  How are these legitimate causes?

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT September 24, 2013

 

·         Well At Least Someone Is Thinking Outside The Box Lech Walesa, former president of Poland, has suggested that Germany and Poland unite to form one country. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/10330826/Poland-and-Germany-should-unite-says-Lech-Walesa.html Today’s international structures are outdated, he says, and it is time to come up with new ones.

 

·         There are many people who think that the current structure is not working well. It is refreshing, Editor feels, that someone is willing to come up with such a big, bold idea. At least it gets a new conversation going. And since today we look to do better in every aspect of human endeavor, what’s wrong with analyzing something as basic as the alignment of nation states?

 

·         Editor is unfamiliar with why Germany and Poland would make a good match, but is anxious to learn. Just off the cuff it seems if anyone has to united, it should be Germany and Austria. Yes, Editor can hear the “Uh Oh here we go again”. But surely a German-Polish unification is a far bigger and more ambitious idea than a Germany-Austrian one.

 

·         Editor’s take on nation states is that the trend is toward smaller states than larger ones. Economics no longer dictates that a nation’s power comes from the resources under its direct control. Just as standard labor theory says it is best for folks to export the goods they can produce most competitively, and import those which other folks make more competitively, it makes sense to get your raw materials from wherever you get the best deal. It’s an international market now for labor, manufacturing, services, and raw material.

 

·         You also don’t need the traditional nation state for security – this and economics were the big drivers of the nation state and then of empires. Take Europe, for example. A war among European nations is becoming an increasingly remote possibility. There is no chance of a war in North America. Clashes may happen in Central/South America, but there seems to be no reason for a real war. And if you fear you are vulnerable in case of war, these days you can join security alliances no matter how small a country you happen to be.

 

·         The trend since 1945 has been a steadily increasing number of smaller and smaller nation states. The number of nations in the UN has quadrupled since the end of World War II. The latest example of smaller states is Sudan/South Sudan. The Scots want their own country. The Belgians are wondering about their future as one nation. There are people who want a separate North Italian state – which incidentally would be one of the wealthiest in the world. Folks in South Asia are always ready for their own state. Against the number of states breaking up – USSR and Yugoslavia being the most obvious – there are few examples of states uniting. Yemen is an obvious case.

 

·         What Editor has seen both in India and in the US is that folks in both countries are just plain fed-up of being so remote from their own representation. India’s Uttar Pradesh state has 200-million people – after parts of it were spun off into new states. Take Editor’s Maryland as another example. The five counties of Western Maryland feel that being ruled from Baltimore is like being colonized. Their way of life and political beliefs is/are different from Montgomery, Prince George’s, and Baltimore Counties, which make up most of the people in Maryland. Northern Virginia has a strong lobby for its own state. And this is after the state split during the US Civil War. An separate state of East Texas may have a very different take on illegal migration than other states. East Texas may want a softer border with Mexico and perhaps it should be allowed that. An Green state in California/Washington might calm down many folks. And so on.

 

·         Giving people greater autonomy within their own territory is a powerful antidote to the call for separatism and smaller nation states. People want to feel they are in charge of their lives, and not ruled by distant rulers. Just as India would do well to permit a hundred states, so might the US. Indeed, India uses spin-offs of states to keep down discontent. Admittedly it is something the central government does with the very greatest of reluctance and after decades of pressure. There are reasons for this reluctance that are beyond the ambit of this discussion.

 

·         Western Europe has gone the furthest toward a super-state. It is a noble experiment but one is left to wonder if it is not too much too soon. Americans complain about their over-regulated state. Brother, you haint seen nothing till you go to the EU.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT September 23, 2013

 

·         Nairobi Mall Attack by Al-Shaabab/AQ We usually don’t comment on individual terror incidents. Just wanted to note that three of the terrorists are Americans. No one who even superficially follows global terror can be the least surprised by this attack, because Al-Shaabab – now part of Al Qaeda – has been threatening a major attack for at least a couple of years now, ever since Kenyan troops entered Somalia to fight Al-Shaabab.

 

·         The sad reality is that while the US pretends it has AQ on the run, as we have said numerous time, AQ is growing rapidly. The US has spent enormous effort attacking AQ in Afghanistan/Pakistan. But Osama was the ideological godfather of AQ, providing money for individual attacks. There is little evidence that after 9/11 – which Osama neither planned nor executed, though he likely financed some or all of the attack – AQ in Afghanistan-Pakistan has had much or anything to do with AQ attacks outside the region. Doing in AQ AfPak has had little to do with enhancing US security. It is almost as if US has been suckered intoAfPak while AQ has been free to spread elsewhere

 

·         In other words, US has neatly played into Osama’s hands. Osama’s larger plan was to use attacks that required very few resources to tie up the US. And he succeeded, and continues to succeed. US has already spent $2-trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan. (See article on Harvard’s  research into present and future costs http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-wars-in-afghanistan-iraq-to-cost-6-trillion/5350789 If a third of this was spent in Afghanistan, it means the US may have ended up spending a billion dollars for whacking each AQ person of consequence. Osama may have spent less than half-a-million to pay for the 9/11 attack. Talk about cost-effectiveness.  On our side, talk about stupidity.

 

·         This is going to be a long war. We have to stop spending unbelievably large sums to kill a handful of the enemy. What is acceptable? Not more than $1-million per kill in our estimation. And even that may have to be revised downward to $100,000 depending on how fast this infection spreads.

 

·         Well this is awkward According to NPR, Russia has one-tenth the guns per capita than the US, but the murder rate is twice as high. (We’re using UN figures on murder rates for 2012 from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate; and the gun ownership from http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/09/19/224043848/the-u-s-has-more-guns-but-russia-has-more-murders ).

 

·         It is difficult to get a gun license in Russia. You have to under criminal background check, physical testing, psychological testing, and an exam. When you do get your license, the police come to your house to check on you, and they maintain a catalog of bullet patterns to allow matching of guns used for crime. Then your license is good only for 5 years; whereupon you have to go through the same process again. And 80% of Russians support their gun laws.

 

·         An exact comparison is difficult because the Russians do not break out how many homicides are caused by guns whereas the US does. Nonetheless having double the US homicide rate with just one-tenth the number of guns per capita does seem to indicate that having way fewer guns that the US does not make Russians any safer from being murdered.

 

·         Well this is a stupid question UK Independent carries the news about George Soros, 82, marrying a 42-year old lady. The article is titled: “So what attracted her to George Soros, the multi-billionaire who’s twice her age?”

 

·         Can the Independent spell $$$$$$$$$$?

 

Monday 0230 GMT September 22, 2013

 

·         Thank you, Indian Army for behaving so stupidly just as the Editor is finishing up a book in which he argues – among other things –that it is time for the Army to stop passively sit by while the Government of India continues to completely mess up national security. Opponents are going to say that recent events prove exactly why Army should not be given any say in national security.

 

·         The trouble started when the previous Army Chief, who seems to enjoy creating personal situations that get him much media attention. Personal because it is not as if he takes some controversial stand on national security, but because the issue is about him personally.

 

·         Okay, so the former Chief had an excellent idea. Within the Directorate of Military Intelligence, he created a Technical Services Directorate for deep cover anti-terrorist operations with plausible deniability should things go wrong. The Army already has a Special Forces battalion for clandestine operations and like the UK SAS and Special Reconnaissance Regiments, its personnel sometimes operate in civilian clothes. But since it a regular forces unit, there is no plausible deniability.

 

·         In creating the TSD, the former Army Chief did nothing that Pakistan ISI does not do. That became the problem, because the ISI is known for its very active involvement in domestic politics. The TSD used Directorate Military Intelligence funds – which like the funds of any secret organization are not subject to normal audit – to do various political things include discredit the new Army Chief. For reasons unknown to Editor because he is not in India, and because our stalwart South Asia correspondent has been off the Orbat.com radar, the former army Chief so badly wanted his chosen man to become Army Chief that he was prepared to go to any extent to smear the man who did become Army Chief. This included giving money to NGOs to bring false cases against the present Army Chief (before he took up the position).

 

·         So not only was the former Army Chief petitioning the Supreme Court six ways from Sunday over the matter of how long his tenure as Army Chief should be, and creating such a public mess that the words “officer and gentleman” could not be spoken in the same sentence, he was dragging a well-regarded senior officer through the mud using the TSD. On top of which the former Army Chief would give press conferences in which he made dark and unsubstantiated allegation that arms dealers had tried to buy him off.

 

·         The matter of arguing he had an extra year in service as Army Chief was a bit strange because he had accepted all his previous promotions on the basis of being one year older than he now claimed. Since the Indian Army promotes officers on the basis of seniority to avoid politics, your age very much matters. He would not have become Army Chief had he been a year younger. After becoming Chief he began arguing he was a year younger. This is the kind of discussion that should be taking place quietly with the Military Secretary’s Branch, and absolutely not taken to the courts if the MS ruled against him.

 

·         If the former Army Chief got a year’s extension in service, the current chief would have been retired on reaching the maximum age for a 3-star general, and the former Chief’s man would have been in. So when the former chief’s gambit failed, and the current chief took charge, naturally he began an investigation into the illegal domestic activities of the TDS. In due time he forwarded the results to the Government of India, who promptly – and correctly – disbanded the clandestine unit because it had become compromised by its domestic activity.

 

·         One supposes the current chief leaked the fact of the report to the press to clear his reputation, which had been besmirched by the previous Army Chief. Understandable. Then the former Chief held a press conference to say he was being punished by the government because he had appeared on the same political platform as an opposition member. That he should not be appearing with any political party just after retiring did not occur to the former chief. He also announced he was taking to politics to clear India of corruption. His intention seems to be to discredit the inevitable inquiry the GOI must launch against his role in TSD – Editor assumes such an inquiry is already under way because the charges are very serious.

 

·         What this is doing to the Army’s reputation is further driving it through the mud. Further because thinking they are Pakistani generals, many Indian generals have been engaged in corrupt practices. Unlike the Pakistan generals who at least have some dignity about the money they steal from the country, the Indian generals have been stealing or manipulating pathetically small sums. So the Army’s reputation is in tatters.

 

·         The last thing anyone in the GOI or the Indian public will now want to do is give the Army a greater say in national security. But, Editor argues in his book, unless this is done, India will continue to lose its continuing low-level wars with Pakistan and China.

 

·         How they must be giggling at Pakistan GHQ. There will be no giggling in Beijing because the Chinese have such complete contempt for India no one will bother laughing at India.

 

·         From John Cramer: “Top Gun” Stunt This is the stunt the item about the F-22 chasing away an Iran F-4 was referring to  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn_C-ZHxXDE

 

·         Editor’s Comment  Seems Editor took the new story too literally. In the stunt Mr. Cramer refers to the F-14 is flying upside down over the Soviet aircraft; the news story speak of the F-22 sneaking up under the Iran F-4. See Richard Thatcher’s comment below.

 

·         From Richard Thatcher on the F-22 incident As to how to "warn off" an annoying Iranian F-4,  the easiest way, from low 6 o-clock position, would be to lock on to him with the radar and let his RWR (radar warning receiver) scream at him.  The RWR should not only tell him that someone has lock on him but "say" from which direction it is coming from.  Behind and low is the worst. Of course, that presumes that the RWR is operational.  If not you resort to radioing him and let his DF (direction finding) system "point out" that the radio source is from somewhere behind him.

 

·         When pilots hear the RWR they do (without thinking, in most cases) a "missile break"; a very hard, bank to left or right to try to lose any missile coming their way.

 

 

 

·         USF-22 encounters Iran F-4 Iranian F-4s approached a US MQ-1 UAV flying over international waters, coming within 16 miles of the UAV before being warned off by an F-22. The US fighter got underneath an Iranian F-4 without being detected, inspected the F-4s weapons load, then issued a warning. The Iran F-4 turned away.  We’re not quite sure what Washington Times means by “Top Gun worthy stunt.” If recollection serves accurately, the stunt pulled by Tom Cruise and his weapons officer was buzzing their carrier’s control tower. It is also not explained how the warning was issued. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/19/us-pilot-scares-iranians-top-gun-worthy-stunt-you-/

 

·         BTW, 750 F-22s were to have been ordered. Less than 190 were, largely because of escalating costs – Pentagon did not have the money. Plus the F-35 was ramping up. One of these days fighters will cost $100-billion each, so we will be able to afford just one. It will do everything including singing the Star Spangled Banner, filling in for “Dear Abby”, and mapping out a strategy for Washington DC’s football team to win. Its countermeasures will include tapping into enemy air defense networks and infecting them with endless film loops of the Kardashian Sisters TV program. This will utterly destroy the enemy’s minds and their air forces will collapse. We are not kidding.

 

·         Eric Cox on guns at US military bases Back in the Viet Nam era, at Stateside Army bases, officers in on-base housing and enlisted persons in family housing were permitted to have firearms and ammunition in their personal quarters on base. Enlisted persons in barracks housing were required to turn their personal firearms over to the company armorer, who would store them securely, but make them available if the owners were either going off base or going hunting or shooting on base.

 

·         Since many Army bases were and are largely undeveloped space, they commonly had a designated Fish and Game officer who monitored such activities and issued licenses to civilian wishing to fish or hunt in base in designated areas. It was also permitted for both officers and enlisted persons to have firearms and ammunition locked up in the trunks of their personal vehicles.

 

·         Bayonets were stored in the armorer's secure storage, but personal knives were permitted in the barracks and folding knives "shorter that the distance across your palm" were permitted to be conceal carried.

 

·         There were armed guards on the gates, but large portions of the base perimeters were fenced but unguarded.

 

·         A lot of discretion was given to the base commander on how firearms were to be stored and where they were permitted.

 

·         Most bases had sport shooting ranges, both rifle and pistol ranges and skeet. Most had either gun clubs or rod and gun clubs, which were officially sanctioned.

 

·         I owned guns at the time and so did most of my acquaintances of all ranks. No waiting period and most sporting goods stores sold guns and ammunition. The Post Exchanges did not sell guns or ammo, at least not the ones that I encountered, but they did sell fishing tackle. (And the local feed and fuel often sold dynamite, hopefully for blowing out stumps or breaking up boulders.)

 

Thursday 0230 GMT September 19, 2013

 

Warning: Boring Article Ahead

 

·         Washington Navy Yard shooting Right after declaiming yesterday that the shooting was of no interest and not worth covering, two pieces of news emerge. First, the Navy Yard has Marines stationed. They had guns but no ammunition and for whatever reason they were unable to get to the armory or were refused permission to get to the armory. Second, is a study that shows that countries with lower gun ownership rates have lower gun homicide rates, those with higher gun ownership rates have higher rates. http://tinyurl.com/kjnmxme

 

·         Apparently the Marines were of the view if they had ammunition, they would have stopped the gunman after murder number three. In these matters, Editor defers to the military. And it does make sense: one gunman, a few score Marines, clearly the outcome would be a short and sharp elimination of the murderer. As it happened, the murderer was cornered and sent to his just deserts  by the Washington DC police and other civil agencies such as the Park Police.

 

·         It is common practice, however, to restrict both guns and ammunition inside of military facilities. Everyone does it. Just as it was unsurprising that the Ft. Hood murderer was able to kill so many folks before he was stopped because personnel on base are not supposed to walk around with guns and ammunition unless they are authorized, it is unsurprising the military personnel at the Navy Yard were essentially unarmed. (They need their guns for sentry duty.) Now that Editor thinks about it, he is unclear on the purpose of this rule. Maybe it has to do with safety. Maybe it has to do with the same reason arming teachers is not a good idea: faculty meetings would turn into battle zones. Be that as it may, perhaps a discussion on the rules is needed, but that as is a separate issue.

 

·         The clear implication of the no-ammunition story is that is good guys had guns, these mass shooting outbreaks would be tackled with less loss of life. Which takes us back to the 2nd Amendment and the study on guns mentioned above. A quick look at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate shows there are several countries with gun homicide rates far higher than that of the US: Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras (top, 17 times US rate), Jamaica, Mexico, Montenegro, Panama, and Swaziland. We are not looking at gun deaths, but at homicides.

 

·         The first question to ask is: are legal guns easy to obtain in those countries? If not, then the homicide rates are due to illegal guns. Next, what is the ratio between legal guns used in US homicides and illegal guns? Further, why is the homicide-by-gun rate so low in countries that have high gun ownership, such as Switzerland, Canada, Germany Austria, Finland, Sweden, Yemen, Kuwait, France, and so on? This list from Wikipedia covers legal guns, obviously, and the countries with gun-homicide rates higher than the US do not feature on the legal ownership thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

 

·         So let us say the people of the US rise up and decide to do away with their legal guns. Where is the assurance that criminals won’t get guns? Look at South America, for example. How on earth can anyone tell the American people that giving up their guns is good when the government cannot assure illegal guns will also be stopped?

 

·         It is not impossible to stop illegal guns. Make the ownership of all guns illegal and possession a death penalty situation. Illegal gun? Hang them all. At some point illegal owners will get the point.

 

·         It hardly goes without saying that the chances of the US public agreeing to a death penalty for the mere possession of a gun are so remote as not to merit discussion. But without this most draconian of penalties, illegal guns will remain a problem, and then you are not going to get the people to agree to disarm.

 

·         Another question is, the US has about 10,000 gun homicides a year. Given the population of 315-million, is this really a sign of acute dysfunction? Three time as many people die in vehicle accidents. Do I hear a call to ban vehicles? Some hundreds of thousands die due to smoking, drugs, and drinking. Do I hear a call for banning tobacco, drugs, and alcohol? Hundreds of thousands die prematurely from over-stuffing their faces. Do I hear calls for forcing Americans to eat wholesome food in moderate quantities?  The Centers for Disease Control tells us 26,000 people a year die due to falls – 2 ½ times the gun homicide rates. 33,000 die due to poisoning – three time gun homicide rates. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/acc-inj.htm Are the causes of falls and poisoning to be banned?  

 

·         The American people are hardly unaware of the danger guns pose. But this danger is acceptable to them. Whereas N-power, which has caused three digits worth of deaths since 1946, is unacceptable to Americans despite the deaths from coal and oil pollution. This acceptance is unacceptable to some Americans. Editor believes deaths from smoking, drugs, and alcohol are unacceptable. Do Americans agree with him? Obviously not.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT September 18, 2013

 

Nothing of interest happening

 

·         Disposing of Syria’s Chemical Weapons ITAR-Tass has an analysis of the issue at http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c39/876280.html Scroll right to the bottom and you will see a Russian source as saying it will take 1-5 years to secure the weapons and transport them to Russia because the civil war makes any removal operation difficult. The source suggests a UN force may be needed to secure the Syrian weapons in place. Good luck with that: any UN force will be a big fat target for jihadi groups and is unlikely to last even if approved.

 

·         The article notes that the Russians still have 14,000-tons of chemweapons left to destroy. Not only is the deadline of 2015 fast approaching, the Russian stocks are now old enough to be dangerous. Whatever capacity Russia has must be used to destroy its own stocks; Russia will not be able to dispose of Syria’s stocks too, though several nations have agreed to help.

 

·         Chinese intruded 40-km into India on August 15, 2013 says India Today http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/chinese-incursions-are-a-regular-affair-in-arunachal-reveal-locals/1/310123.html These intrusions into Arunachal Pradesh have become routine. This time the Chinese captured and held Indian civilian porters used by the army before releasing them.

 

·         India’s Ministry of Defense and Ministry of External Affairs have not, of course, said a word. Their first priority is to avoid getting on China’s nerves by forcing China to stop walking into Indian territory. Both ministries even deny there is a problem with China. Its seems the Indian MOD and MEA must be part of the Chinese government, because they certainly have no interest in looking after India’s interests. It isn’t the US that is “exceptional”, it is India. Exceptional as in run by poltroons, cowards, and retards with the IQ of earthworms. Editor now expects there will be a big demonstration of earthworms outside his house, with the aggrieved denizens carrying placard saying “why are you insult us? Compared to the Government of India we are Double Mensa class.”

 

·         The Washington DC Navy Yard incident Before readers want to know why we didn’t mention this, what is there to mention? There is no national security angle in this. Just another deranged American exercising his 2nd Amendment rights. A lot of people get appalled at the homicide-by-gunfire rate in the US. We think of it another way: which other country is so heavily armed and yet has such a LOW homicide-by-firearm rate. Please, people, try and be positive about the 2nd Amendment.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT September 17, 2013

 

The American World Empire, Syria, and the hawks

 

·          The last world empire was the British who at one point ruled over a quarter of the world. In 1945, the US had about 40% of the global GDP, and it had the largest number of people under arms. So as of 1945, we had the American world empire.

 

·         But the rise of the Soviet Empire – made possible by America’s destruction of Germany and Japan – created a military competitor to the US. That the Soviet managed to do so considering how low their GDP was is somewhat of a mystery to those of us not knowledgeable about the Soviet economy.

 

·         It had something to do with being a command economy. So they could arbitrarily set the price of a tank at something ridiculously low compared to free market prices, and then they could buy enormous numbers of tanks. Of course the diversion of resources to the military cost them by reducing consumption expenditure, so their people had a pretty low standard of living for such a militarily powerful nation. They managed to keep the people quiet using a police state, and by providing highly subsidized essentials like rent, vodka, public transport, medical care and some foods. Okay, the quality of the subsidized stuff was third-rate, but at least no one starved or was homeless, and the crime rate was very low.

 

·         Once the Soviet Union fell and the colonies broke away to make their own independent countries, and once the centralized command economy was discarded, the whole show collapsed. Russia’s GDP is comparable to India’s. Yes, India has nine times as many people, but for an empire that opposed the US at every step this is a pretty pathetic comedown.

 

·         By 1990, however, America was down to 25% of the world GDP. Its claim to World Empire was made possible because with the Soviets gone, the US military was so powerful that no one could mount a challenge.

 

·         Editor was – and still is – all for the American World Empire. To keep the international peace someone has to be big time Top Dog. Alliances shift, so strength through coalitions doesn’t work out so well. Starting from 1980 the US became truly committed to a democratic world; its economic system was successful in producing unimaginable standards of living. Editor hoped America could be a benign hegemon. The world would have to play by American rules, which essentially were good rules,  and folks would have to play by those rules or get whacked.

 

·         Once US security was defined as ensuring the absence of countervailing power in Central and South America. Then it became control over the Atlantic and the East Pacific. Then it became control of Europe to the middle of Germany and the West Pacific. Then with the fall of the Soviet Union, US security came to be defined as encompassing the entire globe. Any threat to US formulated rules anywhere in the world was now seen as a threat to American supremacy. You can think of this as the global windows theory. If someone breaks a window in some distant corner of the world and gets away with it, then two people are emboldened to break windows and so on as the world descends into chaos and America is pushed back to its continental homeland.

 

·         If you consider Syria in the light of Assad breaking windows, you will see why hawks want him whacked and why hawks are really, really upset with the President. If you believe in the American World Empire as good for humanity, as Editor does, then Assad must be put down like a rabid dog.

 

·         The problem has become that America no longer wants to pay for its World Empire. The Royal Navy was the police force of the British World Empire; being a tiny island nation the Brits tended to avoid becoming involved in land wars if at all they could. Today the world has become a much smaller place, and America needs not just a power army, navy, and air force, but one so powerful that no one will even think of challenging it. Such a force cannot be done on 4% of GDP, and nor can it be done entirely from the sea or from the air. Troops have to be committed to the land. But America no longer wants to commit troops to the land. This is understandable considering how badly America has mucked up its interventions since 1990, and before that, in 1950-75. One exception to this string of dismal failure is, of course, the Former Yugoslavia which we can talk of some other day.

 

·         On top of which Americans have become fat and lazy and hedonistic in the extreme. We all know what happened to the Roman Empire when it became fat and lazy and hedonistic. Not only do Americans don’t want to pay for World Empire – we estimate 8% of GDP is needed, they don’t want to volunteer to serve in the military, and they get frightened at the tiniest casualties. After all, twelve years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the US 7000 killed. India and Pakistan managed that in two weeks in 1971, and as wars go, that was a mere skirmish. After all the British, whose population in 1916 was smaller than that of California today, took 20,000 killed and 40,000 wounded on a single day at the Somme. France and Germany took a million casualties in the battle for Verdun and so on.

 

·         What you have today is a mismatch between American aspirations and American willingness to pay for those aspirations. You also have an elite and a leadership singularly prone to making ghastly errors and then refusing to learn anything from them. Editor agrees: Assad offends human sensibility, along with other characters such as China, DPRK, and the Congo. Assad is getting away with murder, and yes, that will encourage someone else to go the same course, and yes, it will be much more costly to stop the next madman once Assad has gotten away.

 

·         But Editor, for one, has to face the reality that Americans do not want to pay the price of maintaining a world empire. This being so, Editor would rather recognized this, and give up its aspirations. This current situation where US wants to be unchallenged anywhere but not prepared to pay the cost is unhealthy. It has almost become a psychosis. And that negatively affects America at home, every single American. No one is happy about our failing to do something about Assad, hawks and doves alike. America and its people are not in a good place right now. They need to start rethinking things.

 

Monday 0230 GMT September 16, 2013

 

·         Mr. Putin and American Exceptionalism Honestly, Editor does not understand why Mr. Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times has aroused anything except Reaganesque yawns and “There you go again.” Editor finds what his dead flowers have to say about Unified Field Theory more interesting than what Mr. Putin has to say on any subject.

 

·         As a democracy, the US is far from perfect. Editor agrees we should not lecture anyone because Let Him Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone and so on, and our benighted nation has plenty of sins past and present to our discredit. But since when do we need a petty bureaucrat KGB thug to lecture us about our sins? Whatever you may say about America, at least its president does not go about without his shirt, particularly when Editor has 9th Grade boys better built than Mr. Putin. There is a reason people wear clothes aside from protection from the weather, you know. One reason is that most people are considerate of others and do not want to inflict shock and trauma on unsuspecting civilians. Is Mr. Putin trying to win points for an ugly body? Forget it, Mr. Putin. If Editor took off his shirt you would die – instantly.

 

·         Now, the more serious of our three readers may ask: “What does Mr. Putin’s hairless nakedness have to do with American exceptionalism?” Nothing. It is wholly irrelevant. And that’s precisely the point we’re trying to make: Mr. Putin’s op-ed was wholly irrelevant. America media should have at most commented on the NYT’s bad taste in publishing the op ed, and forgot Mr. Putin’s words.

 

·         Dana Milbank of the Washington Post is a level-headed journalist. Too liberal for Editor’s taste, but Milbank always has interesting things to say. So Editor should have ignored Milbank’s op ed on Mr. Putin’s op ed (WashPo  Sunday, September 15, 2013), but he nonetheless read it. Quite harmless, no grey matter cells from Editor’s rapidly dwindling stock were damaged. But then Milbank made a major error. He argued that when Americans say they are exceptional, they do not mean to put themselves above anyone. They mean only they are different, as in unique.

 

·         Alas, if that were only so. What drives nine-tenths of the globe nutzoid about America is the constant moral lectures and assumption of moral superiority.

 

·         Take China. It has a hugely unpleasant government that as the country gains economic and military strength, stomps on everyone around. China is an extreme bully. The Editor believes that when China becomes a superpower, people – particularly in the 3rd World – will beg for US intervention because no matter how bad they thought the US was, China is far worse. This is already happening in Southeast Asia. The Philippines and (of course) Vietnam were thrilled to see the US leave. Now they want the US back. But do you hear people criticizing China for throwing its weight around? No, because the Chinese do not talk about being guardians of international law while they are gobbling up your territory. They do not lecture about human rights, unlike the US, which uses the issue as a club to beat countries it disapproves of.

 

·         For example, US is ready to tell off anyone it believes is violating human rights – except countries in which it has financial stakes, like Saudi Arabia and China itself. US is terribly worried about what will happen to Afghan women once it leaves and the Taliban take over. The US has nothing to say about Saudi’s treatment of women, or about Congo’s. US law prevents financial aid to nuclear proliferators and terrorism supporters like Pakistan, but the US disregards its own law because it is inconvenient to enforce it. The US has imposed tough trade sanctions against Iran because of the latter’s nuclear weapons program. US not just says nothing about Israel’s programs, the US provides whopping great amounts of money and technology to help Israel militarily keep down its neighbors.

 

·         Now look, folks. US is world Number One. No matter what US does, it will get hated. For example, the Euro intellectuals lay a lot of hate on America simply because they feel inadequate. During the Cold War, the elite of just about every 3rd World country hated America because it was easier to do that then work on their own problems. India was such a champion US hater that it helped create and lead the so-called Non-Aligned movement, which was the greatest grouping of totalitarian regimes the world has ever seen. And this despite India being a democracy and having far more in common than with any of its allies, including the USSR.

 

·         We are not talking about the US should try to win the next Miss Congeniality award. America is powerful, it has many wonderful achievements to its credits, and at least it has the grace to be occasionally shamed when it is being hypocritical or when it fails to live up to its ideals. Americans have an earned right to be proud of their country.

 

·         But they have no right to selectively lecture other countries when Americans opt for expediency over morality all the time.

 

·         We wonder if Mr. Milbank realizes in the American school system “exceptional” is a polite term for brutal words like retarded, slow, mentally and physically handicapped, and other unpleasant things. As a teacher, Editor would advise Mr. Milbank to ditch “exceptional”.

 

Friday 0230 GMT September 13, 2013

 

·         US weapons reaching Syria rebels According to Washington Post, Syrian rebels have begun receiving light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked. The latter are not identified, but presumably include nti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-begins-weapons-delivery-to-syrian-rebels/2013/09/11/9fcf2ed8-1b0c-11e3-a628-7e6dde8f889d_story.html Also, the first batches of CIA trained rebel fighters have been arriving on the battlefield.

 

·         Excuse us for being underwhelmed, but the Syria rebellion has, after all, been underway for 2 ½ years. At least the US cannot be said to have acted in a hurry. Our problem is not that the US has taken its time before getting involved on the ground. That’s fine, at least the US for once has devoted some time to thinking things through before leaping in with all four paws and eyes firmly closed.

 

·         Our problem is that for all this time there has been a blaring cacophony from the Administration, words without action. We are told by climate scientists that half of the increase in greenhouse gases in the last three years has been to the Administration’s excessive production of methane from both ends, so as to speak. This business of just talking, talking, talking is a sign of a failing nation. Reminds one of Charlemagne ordering the tide not to approach him.  Some Senator by name of Robert Corker said that the President has definitely harmed US credibility by calling off the planned strike.

 

·         Now, we have no clue who this august gentleman is, and nor do we want to find out. Editor doesn’t need his head clogged with more useless information. But the good senator should keep in mind that from the minute the strike was announced, US credibility fell so low that it emerged on the other side of the globe. The kangaroos in Oz were much annoyed at having their tea party disturbed. The strike was so pathetic, so utterly pointless, so unlikely to achieve any objective except supposedly improve the president’s image, and the president himself so wishy-washy about it that the US had no credibility left to destroy by calling off the strike.

 

·         Unless the good senator is on the payroll of the Gulf oil states, in a perverse way calling off the strike has restored US credibility. It has shown the world that the US has the courage to reassess its position based on the new dynamics of the situation. There is a huge sense of relief that the US is NOT attacking. The Gulf oil states are the ones pushing the thesis that US credibility has been wrecked because they are still trying to manipulate Washington into doing their dirty for them. This is akin to the person who has paid a hit man to do a murder, and when the hit man changes in mind, the person accuses him of losing his credibility. Subtle the Gulf oil states are not.

 

·         Then in Washington we have the usual mumbling from people who wanted a strike. They are saying rounding up, securing, and destroying  Syria’s chemical weapons will be very difficult. We agree. After all, the US has still not destroyed all its chemwar stocks because of the difficulty of the job. But striking Assad is hardly a good way of solving the Syrian chemical stocks problem. We don’t know how clever Assad is, but had we been him, we’d have put chemical weapon stocks at every place the US was likely to strike. The entire world would have come down on the US at the consequences.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT Monday 12, 2013

 

·         UK Guardian on Benghazi UK Guardian tells us that they have the real story on Benghazi September 11, 2012. We doubt that very much because no one can ever have the real story about anything. Even people who are on the scene will disagree on events. The Guardian also claims to poke holes in the official version. Is this an achievement? Er, not really. Official version was given to hide things and divert questions; it did so mainly by omission.  So obviously there are going to be discrepancies, but that doesn’t mean that on every point the report brings up it is right and official version wrong. Besides, there wasn’t much of an official version to begin with.

 

·         Nonetheless, if you are interested in the Benghazi incident, do read http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/us-consulate-benghazi-attack-challenge Editor can say at least now in addition to the official version we have an alternate coherent version of events, so the Guardian deserves that much credit. What interested us in the report was:

 

·         As evident from several reports plus casual stuff Editor heard, there was plenty of warning that there could be trouble in Benghazi for a variety of reasons. It was also known that a policeman assigned to the closed consulate had been taking pictures of the facility. The “information officer” who died in the attack was so worried he even sent an email to a friend say “Assuming we don’t die tonight”. So why did Ambassador Stevens travel there to Benghazi with just four guards, and why did he and his team not shift to the CIA annex immediately?

 

·         The report says that the CIA issued warnings there could be repeats of the Cairo attack, which was provoked by the American anti-Muslim film. So you cannot really blame Susan Rice or Hilary Clinton for giving a false story. We had told readers these two officials gave that story because that’s how they were briefed at the time. That additional material came in later does not change the situation that Rice and Clinton did not lie.

 

·         Ambassador Stevens did ask for more security for Benghazi. But (a) he shouldn’t have been in Benghazi because additional security could not be sent; (b) Editor is not sure people understand how bureaucracies work when it comes to allocating scarce resources. Just because an ambassador wants more security in a secondary location does not mean State goes into overdrive to send the reinforcements at once. Even the military does not work that way.

 

·         Security in Tripoli was reduced even though trouble in Benghazi increased. So was State negligent in not sending more folks to Benghazi? No. State, along with other countries, was focused on getting its personnel OUT of Benghazi. We’ve already said the ambassador was not supposed to be there. Why do people assume if one or more diplomatic security teams had been in Benghazi the ambassador might have been saved? When the situation is bad, you don’t create more hostages by increasing your footprint in Benghazi, you get the heck out. Benghazi is not an army post to be held at all costs.

 

·         In August US Africa command offered the ambassador troops to make up for the diplomatic security withdrawals from Tripoli. The Ambassador refused. To Editor this is the crux of the Guardian’s findings. The Ambassador twice bought danger on himself: first traveling to Benghazi when there was no need so urgent (our information) and second by refusing reinforcements a month earlier. Why? We cannot answer that. Why was the Ambassador insistent that only diplomatic security personnel be assigned to him, not military? We have no answer. Our guess – and it is purely a guess – is that whatever the Ambassador was up to, he did not want the military to know.

 

·         What was he up to? Well, we’ve said all along we have not the slightest cue but our instinct was that the Ambassador did not even tell his deputy where he was going. You will recall Ambassador called the deputy; the deputy did not recognize the number and did not pick up. If Stevens had gone on official work, how is it he was using a phone that his deputy did not recognize?

 

·         Because Guardian has not found answers to the central mystery of the Ambassador’s presence, we cannot accept the newspapers claim it has provided answers that are contrary to the official version. All the stuff in the newspaper’s report about three of the security personnel not having their guns and armor with them is irrelevant. Everyone made it to the safe rooms. The security people, armed or not, did their job.

 

·         Guardian says it was untrue that State had provided sufficient security because while the attackers could not breach the safe rooms, the rooms were not smoke-proofed. There is the theory of life as beloved by American tort plaintiffs: should have known, could have known, would have known. Please throw this line of reasoning into the garbage. A lot of stuff becomes evident only in hindsight. If this was not the case, no accidents would happen. You can bet the State has now checked all its facilities for smoke prevention. That is the way life progresses: someone makes a mistake that was unforeseen, now they know better.

 

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT September 11, 2013

 

·         Move along, nothing to see here So for the time being the Syria crisis fades into obscurity. President Obama appears to have accepted Mr. Putin plan for Syria to surrender its chemical weapons to the UN, and the US can hardly make a strike while the discussions, modalities, safeguards and so on are discussed in endless detail. Americans being lawyers all there is surely a 10,000-page agreement to be written and argued over till the cows come home, are sent to the glue factory, and the factory crumbles to dust due to old age.

 

·         Editor received letters from readers asking – not so politely – as to what had happened to Editor’s liver. Had it turned yellow at the prospect of a little military action? Boys, boys, please grow up. Editor was a hawk before your grandparents were in short pants, and he remains one.

 

·         After all, were any of YOU for bombing the Red River dykes in North Vietnam and drowning a third of the country? Were you for using tactical nuclear weapons when the Chinese crossed the Yalu? Are any of you for bombing DPRK back to the Stone Age and beyond? And if the Norks attack Seoul in retaliation are you for the judicious use of nuclear weapons to teach DPRK a lesson? Do you advocate overthrowing people like Mugabe of Zimbabwe by force? Have you ever supported the seizure of Saudi Arabia’s oil fields and the destruction of its corrosive monarchy that is the source of many of the US’s problems? Are you ready to invade Iran on the ground to finish the mullahs? Have you advocated sending 200,000 NATO/US troops to the Congo to end the decades of violence there? Are you for reinstating the draft, and for doubling defense spending so we have 20 active divisions, 20 carrier battlegroups, and 40 fighter wings?

 

·         If you answered “no” to any of these – not even to most, but to any – you need to be sent to reeducation camp for two years, given 1000-calories a day to eat, assigned to 16-hours/day of hard manual labor, and forced to watch President Obama’s speeches for the remaining 8-hours. Should you fall asleep, a device will be implanted in your brain that at random moments will feature dialog for “The Kardashians” and Miley Cyrus songs. Then at the end of two years you will be given a single chance to affirm your complete loyalty to hawk causes. If you waver, you will be put through the torture for another two years, and so on till you repent.

 

·         The reason Editor has been against action in Syria is that after 50-years of total military fiascos – including Gulf One – Editor is convinced that the post-World War generation are freaks without stomach for war, and their leaders are certified incompetent  even to clean up dog poop. Hey – cleaning up after dogs requires SOME skills and US leaders lack them.

 

·         And Editor has been totally right to oppose military action in Syria. All of you have seen the inane, sub-moronic plan the President and his advisors have come up after two-plus years of war. Moreover, you have seen the stupid way in which US leaders have put the country in a situation that no matter what course it follows in Syria, it will lose. It takes sheer genius of a mentally disturbed  kind to come up with plans that have no chance of success whatsoever – no matter which plan is chosen.

 

·         Being a hawk does not mean mindlessly and reflexively resorting to war for every problem. Being a hawk means first opting for the use of military force over other alternatives, but that doesn’t free hawks from the requirement to execute plans well – and to win. Last time US won was almost seventy years ago. Think about that.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT September 10, 2013

 

·         Pooty Poot throws a wrench in Obama’s works Quite an amusing little feller, President Putin of Russia. He’s proposed Syria hand over its chemical weapons to the UN. Before you go “this is nuts”, SecState Kerry brought this on himself. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/09/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE9880HY20130909 He was asked if there was some way Syria could avoid US attack. Our stalwart SecState replied: “"Sure. He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week - turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting. But he isn't about to do it and it can't be done."

 

·         Five hours later Moscow made just such a proposal and Damascus welcomed it. You can imagine Pooty giggling away, highly thrilled with having skewered the US. Hey, if you don’t have a life, how else are you to get your cheap thrills except to pour salt on the Eagle’s tail?

 

·         SecState Kerry rushed to say he spoke rhetorically. Problem is, with US and global support  for a strike measuring at below a midget’s ankles, Pooty has trapped President Obama. If US goes ahead and strikes (assuming Congressional approval – or is it Bo’s approval the President will settle for?) it will be condemned worldwide as not having given peace a chance. Further, President Putin’s proposal will surely cause borderline Congresspersons to shift to the “No” column. Whichever way one looks at it, President Putin has stuck it but good to President Obama.

 

·         By the way, isn’t there some way we can blame Bush for this, since he’s responsible for every bit of misfortune that has befallen Mr. Obama? And to think during Mr. Bush’s Administration people made so much fun of him. Example, bumper sticker: “There’s a village in Texas missing its idiot”. And another bumper sticker: “A thousand points of light and we get the dim one”. But it appears Mr. Bush is actually so powerful that he has created crisis after crisis, crippling the Obama presidency. Hey, if Mr. Bush us that powerful shouldn’t we be saying nice things to him? Who knows but that next time we need to go potty we find that we cannot, because we’ve been hexed by Mr. Bush?

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT September 9, 2013

 

·         Syria We wish we knew why the US feels compelled to leak details of its proposed military strike on Syria. Is it because US cannot control its employees and stop them for leaking for their own purposes, whatever they might be? Is it to mislead the Syrians? Is it show the world that the US is going to do more than a flea bite to Syria? We have no idea.

 

·         The latest is that the US has expanded the target list beyond the initial 50 targets, and now will require bomber attacks in addition to 200 ship-launched cruise missiles. The attacks will cover 72-hours, and include pauses for bomb damage assessment. Six Syrian Air Force main bases are part of the target set, as well as short-to-sea missile batteries, ammunition storage areas, and some Syrian Army formations. The military has also leaked that 75,000 US troops will be required to secure Syria’s chemical weapons, a polite way of saying that no effective action is possible.

 

·         Meanwhile, back at home the Administration is trying to gain wriggle room with Congress. It seems unlikely the House will authorize strikes, but the Senate may well do so. So the Administration’s latest theory is that Senate approval by itself suffices. So good luck with that, Administration. Five days ago, Pew Research found only 29% of Americans support military action http://www.people-press.org/2013/09/03/public-opinion-runs-against-syrian-airstrikes/   In the UK, only 19% support military action against Syria if undertaken with the US. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10293825/No-attack-on-Syria-no-matter-what-say-voters.html  The House is more vulnerable to what voters think because elections are held every two years, and the next election is only 14-months away.

 

·         US for some reason is now backtracking on the chain of the command of the chemical weapon attack on a Damascus suburb. US says there is no evidence Assad, or Baby Assad who commands the 4th Armored Division – which is said to have launched the attack – had any hand in the strike. So is the US saying a brigade commander or even lower officer did the strike without orders? Please, US Government, most of us are not Red Queens. We can believe six impossible things before breakfast, but not this. If the US is suddenly unsure, after insisting it had precise details including signal intercept, it can only mean US was earlier fibbing.

 

·         Nonetheless, in our opinion the president has boxed himself in so badly he has to make an attack even if it has zero effect on the outcome of the war.

 

·         Oh bother, more confusion on global warming After losing record ice cover in 2012, this year Arctic ice cover has expanded by a million square miles (2.5-million square kilometers). http://tinyurl.com/pyomunr Now increasingly people are saying we are headed for a period of cooling, the duration varies depending on the study from 15- to 50-years.  Old timers will recall in 1965-75 the concern was cooling. The British astronomer Fred Hoyle even wanted a vast series of pumps to bring cold water to the surface of the oceans, where it would warm, thereby preventing a new ice age. Though global temperatures have remained high during the last fifteen years, there has been no increase in that time. Now even some warming scientists are saying their model predict a period of cooling, after which warming will start again.

 

Friday 0230 GMT September 6, 2013

 

·         India economic crisis The fall of the Indian rupee to almost US$1=INR70 is easily explained. In calender 2013, the trade deficit (Current Account) is expected to touch $100-billion http://tinyurl.com/m43sc6d or 5% of GDP. The US, which also runs a heavy trade deficit, is at 2.8% of GDP. India has been financing the CAD by capital inflows, and these have greatly slackened, because the Indian Government as usual has its foot stuck in its colon. Much, much deeper than foot-in-mouth, which is bad enough.

 

·         Its worth noting that between 1950 and about 2004, India’s trade was in balance, or a tiny deficit, or sometimes a surplus. The deterioration is about 8-years old. So, as Economics 1 tells us, when a trade deficit opens, in a free market the value of a country’s currency has to fall. This makes imports more expensive, and exports cheaper, leading to an eventual evening-up of the balance.

 

·         Fair enough. Worth recalling that in 1950 the USD-INR exchange rate was 1-1 and India had no external debt. The rupee was freely convertible. Now, our learned economics major readers – we are assuming there is one among the rapidly diminishing pool of readers, will tell us this is quite irrelevant. India was a very poor country and manufacturing had been crippled by the British so that Indian products could not compete with British products for the market. To develop, India had to start accepting loans and boost imports of machinery, critical raw materials and so on. Well, since India decided that only the bureaucrats had the wisdom to run the economy, and that capitalism was a filthy American word, India remained a very poor country until the Government in 1990 decided it could not continue with business as usual. – Especially since the Chinese, who in 1980 had the same per capita income as India, had by 1990 shot well ahead.

 

·         So the economy was opened up. It worked for about 16 or so years, then things started collapsing because the bureaucrats would just not let go. There was the issue of massive corruption at all levels, the horrible thorny forest of bureaucratic approvals, the political whims and fancies of state and national governments, environmental clearances delivered at slows than snails-pace or not at all, populist uprisings against land acquisition, out of control inflation, the lack of transport infrastructure, and an incredible power shortage. China’s installed generating capacity is, for example, six times India’s with almost equal population.

 

·         Here is an example of how things work in India. The country has some of the world’s largest coal reserves. Yet India is a major coal importer because mines are largely a government monopoly. The Government itself cripples the economics of coal mines by forcing the government monopoly to sell coal at up to 70% under market price. (To read a brief but informative article on the coal production problem, see http://tinyurl.com/lqy8lfs )

 

·         Among many production problems is that stones are so high a percentage of the shipped coal that boilers get damaged, not to speak of the reduced BTU per ton of coal. Rail transport has not kept up with coal demand. A criminal coal Mafia steals a large part of coal production and sells it, depriving mining companies of revenue and raising prices. Then, the Coal Ministry has its own process of allocating coal to new power plants. One hundred and twenty-two power plants are held up because of lack of various clearances, including refusal of the ministry to assure fuel supplies. Needless to say, the crippling shortage of power has affected all economic activity in India – agriculture, manufacturing, and services. This has significantly cut GDP growth.

 

·         The catastrophic fall in GDP annual growth has finally forced the Government of India to act. Just the other day it clear coal supplies to 15-Gigawatts worth of power plants, and in the next few days another 4-Gigawatts or so should get their assured fuel supply. http://tinyurl.com/n6cmp9n

 

·         Two questions arise. First, why does Government have to hit a wall, and bang its head against the wall for years before giving in and speeding up its paperwork? Second, the clearances still cover only one-sixth of the power plants held up.

 

·         The reason, in Editor’s opinion, is that the Indian political and bureaucratic class honestly believes anything positive it does is a great favor to the people of India. Monarchies are defunct, but these two classes still act as if the monarchies were alive and well. That the Government and politicians have a duty to work for the people is a concept conspicuous by its absent. That they grow fat on public money creates no sense of obligation of service to the people. Collecting taxes are their divine right. They owe nothing to the taxpayers or in fact to anyone who won’t enrich them personally.

 

 

Thursday 0230 GMT September 4, 2013

 

·         Syria: Some really bad news Please read this article http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-saudis-supplied-rebels-with-chemical-weapons/168135/ The article is written by an American freelancing for several agencies including AP and NPR. He was not on the ground in Syria, but was provided information by a Jordanian report who was on the scene and talked to the residents of the suburb that was hit by a sarin gas attack.

 

·         People including rebels told the Jordanian reporter that Saudi Arabia provided the chemical weapons to a rebel group it backs; the weapons were mishandled, setting off explosions.

 

·         If this is true, then the US’s inconvertible evidence is either (a) lies made up by the US; or (b) lies planted on a gullible US. You can see for yourself either possibility is dangerous in the extreme. We will not bother going into the all the issues if Saudi really did provide sarin to the rebels. In our opinion, we think it near impossible that Saudi manufactured the nerve gas. It would have been stolen/captured from regime stocks by a Saudi-affiliated rebel group. Nonetheless, if the Saudis today are willing to provoke the world community into attacking Syria by the use of nerve gas by its groups, we really do need to ask who needs to be bombed, Syria or Saudi?

 

·         Our principal problems with the idea that the Syrian government staged this attack are two. First, at least as revealed to the media, the information has come from Israel. To the Editor, such intelligence is both worthless and suspect. Second, Editor has again and again gone over this question: Given that the US had said chemwar weapon use would breach a red line, why would Syria use such weapons in Damascus when UN inspectors are on the ground to investigate previous attacks. The only plausible explanations that make sense to Editor are (a) The Government of Syria, or senior military officers, have gone mad; or (b) Syria wants the west to attack.

 

·         That a dictator goes mad is not all that far-fetched. Hitler was mad. Mao definitely had several screws missing. The various Kims of North Korea suffer from severe mental pathologies. For example, Kim III just recently had a former girlfriend and 11 well-known performers machine-gunned in front of their families, and the families including children were marched off to the gulag. Similarly, Assad or Little Brother Assad (the general) might have flipped. They would have to be mad to use chemical weapons when they are doing just fine with the murdering business using conventional arms.

 

·         Scenarios could also be created for Syria wanting the west to attack. One might be that Syria wants to draw Iran, Israel, and Hezbollah into a wider war.

 

·         Nonetheless, we also cannot rule out that the Martians did not stage the nervegas attack. After all, we can’t rule out the existence of adolescent aliens who just for kicks decide to create trouble on earth. The point is, how likely is it that aliens were responsible, or that Assad has gone bonkers, or that Syria is deliberately trying to provoke a western attack – which after all could be a very extended affair ending up destroying Assad’s military machine.

 

·         Conversely, the Saudis who are committed to Assad’s overthrow, and who are known to play some really nasty games around the world, have every reason to stage a provocation. These same dear allies of ours are supporting the rebel groups killing civilians in Iraq, and the extremist Sunni Islamofascist groups in Syria. In other words, they are deliberately undercutting US policy and interests in Syria and Iraq. Such people would think little of a provocation to further their goal of ousting Assad.

 

·         Reasoning does not constitute evidence. Certainly Editor has no evidence of the AP story. All Editor is saying is that given all this filthy stuff floating around, the Government of the US is going to have to do a lot more than tell the people “Trust us, we have the evidence”. On the other hand, this being the US, where the people don’t mind being repeatedly made into turkeys by the government, perhaps the GUS does not have to do more than say “Trust us”.

Wednesday 0230 September 4, 2013

 

·         US Naval Academy Assault Case It all you have been following this case, it is an exceptionally unpleasant one. There will be no winners regardless of the hearing judge’s ruling; all sides have already lost.

 

·         In short, a midshipperson party, the accuser got drunk. Three cadets had sex with her. She says she had no clue until she was informed via social media that the cadets were boasting about their exploits – on social media. She did not want to make an issue out of it, partly because she is underage and admitting to drinking/being drunk is sufficient to get her into trouble.

 

·         Unpleasant fact One Drinking is a common enough problem at US service academies, and it is a wildly out of control problem at American universities in general. America being America is a nation singularly devoid of logic when it comes to personal behavior. An 18-year old can vote, s/he can fight for the country, but cannot drink until 21. That is law is universally violated in America is hardly a secret, but the people apparently support the 21-year minimum age, because this absurd law does not get repealed. This said, Editor would like to know why military academies, which supposedly represent the highest ethics and morals in the country, tolerate underage drinking. Certainly a cadet caught is disciplined. But there is only one form of dismissal in such cases acceptable in a military academy, and that is dismissal. If a cadet cannot follow the most basic of rules, how can s/he be an officer?

 

·         Unpleasent fact Two American newspapers like the Washington Post virtuously proclaim they do not name victims of sexual assault, but they have no problem naming the accusers. In cases where the alleged victims are women and the accused are men, this is blatant sexism. Editor accepts the women need protection, but by the same logic, so do the men until proven guilty. Washington Post yesterday went one better: it published  portrait fotos of the three accused. If these men are guilty, punish them to the full extent of the law. But if they are innocent, why has the media smeared them for the rest of their lives?

 

·         Unpleasant fact Three The woman did not want to file a complaint. But in Washington we have a woman lawyer that has made it her mission – pro bono – to see that those accused of sexual assault are tried and punished. She gets enormous publicity, win or lose. If she loses, she simply says “well, we all know women cannot get a fair deal in the service”, so she gets more publicity. It is this lawyer who worked on the accuser to file a case. Nothing the lawyer has done is illegal, but is it ethical? In persuading the cadet to file the case, the lawyer has heard only one side of the story. So how is she so confident the accused are guilty and the cadet must complain?

 

·         Unpleasant fact Four The woman apparently had prior consensual relations with two of the accused. She apparently also had relations with other men at the party. A friend had to help her reconstruct with which men she was intimate during/after the party. The law is very clear on this point: a woman may have slept with nine men, but if she did not consent to the tenth, he is guilty of assault. Her character, which the defense has aggressively sought to smear, is irrelevant to the case. We cannot blame the defense lawyers: their clients if convicted are facing dismissal at the very least, and life imprisonment at the worst. It is the defense lawyers’ duty – within the law – to use every trick they can to help their clients. Still, the hearing – which sees if there is probable cause for court-martial – has descended into tawdry, filthy world of peephole participants, who get off on every degrading detail brought up by the defense.

 

·         The defense’s job is to prove, at least beyond reasonable doubt, that the woman may have been drunk, but nonetheless was in a fit state to give consent. The woman is not helping her case by insisting she does not recall if she gave consent, because she cannot remember much, but nonetheless, one has to admire her courage because she is trying to be fair to the accusers. She also has not helped her case by telling other witnesses that she knows what she did, and that she wanted to do what she did. Men are not the only ones who keep score.

 

·         So, what is the point of thie editorial? The point is simply this: the woman may have given her consent, but the men have proved themselves ethically challenged – to put it kindly – by boasting of their deeds over social media, so that basically the whole world and his dog knows what happened. It is no excuse to say “everyone does it”. Boasting about sexual exploits complete with tasteless fotographs is the way of life in our country. But the ethical behavior demanded by the service academies is of a much higher standard than that demanded of the people at large.

 

·         Editor sincerely hopes these men are found not liable to stand trial. Women as much as men are responsible for their actions. If they get drunk and do things they later regret, to punish the men is to say that women are victims that need protection. If that is the case, they cannot be reckoned as equal to men, which surely is not a position anyone, male or female, wants to take.

 

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT September 3, 2013

 

·         Syria US Navy has ordered the Nimitz battlegroup (1 CVN, 1 CG, 4 DDG, 1 SSN) to the Red Sea. From there it will be in position for immediate transit of the Suez into the EastMed. The Truman battlegroup is already in the EastMed (1 CVN, 4 DDG, 1 SSN). The Nimitz had finished her Arabian Sea deployment and was enroute home via the Indian Ocean.

 

·         It is likely the two battlegroups and the missile destroyer task force already in the EastMed (5 DDGs, including one being held over at the end of its deployment) can launch 500+ Tomahawks at Syria. Of course, in the event of strikes the US Air Force will also launch long-range cruise missiles.

 

·         Meanwhile, the US Congress will reconvene September 9, 2013 after its summer recess. We need to explain something to our non-American readers. For all the noisy dissent aired in the media, Congress is extremely reluctant to deny the President war powers when he asks for them. Congress’s primary concern is not whacking Syria. It is that the President’s plan has neither rationale nor end game. Okay, so the US destroys 500 Syrian targets. What then? Everyone knows this will have zero effect on Assad, who in any case has moved his core assets to sanctuary, including dispersal in heavily populated civilian areas. The President cannot explain his purpose in the smallest degree except to say “Syria cannot go unpunished for its use of chemical weapons”.

 

·         Second, even Congressional hawks have become wary about endless US interventions based on little or no evidence. Remember, false intel is nothing new: the US President in 1964 got authorization for war against North Vietnam on false evidence.

 

·         Third, only 9% of US respondents polled are for whacking Syria. The public is definitely not on board. Nonetheless, Americans absolutely love blowing up things when it costs them nothing except deficit money. The Americans, contrary to what non-Americans may think, are in love with war just as they are in love with guns and violence. We don’t think Congress will be the least deterred by the absolute lack of public support for a strike. During and immediately after a strike, the American public will be in a euphoric mood. Later, when it turns out the strike has achieved nothing, the President’s critics, even though who want him to attack, will pile on him, and be dismissed by others as playing partisan politics. We don’t think anyone will be angry enough at their Congressperson to cost the person her/his seat – also don’t forget, in this context, the teeny-weeny American attention span. Despite the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya fiascos, not one Congressperson has lost her/his seat because of the foreign wars, and the US has had elections in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2020, 2012, with another one due next year.

 

·         Back at the British ranch, many are upset at the “nay” vote on UK participating in an attack on Syria. Indeed, the British seem a bit taken aback at their own vote because in well over two centuries, the Prime Minister has never lost a vote for war. There is a feeling that the Prime Minister was politically inept and more care on his part to convince the dissidents would have seen a yes vote. Given the Prime Minister was not planning to ask for a vote, then flippantly agreed and went for the vote at light speed, there is a case to be made he was not taking his responsibilities seriously. Given the very narrow margin, just 13 votes in a house of about 630 persons, some are angling for a second vote.

 

·         But the ruling party has said a firm “no”, and it has a point. If it joins the Syria strike, the utter pointlessness of it will cause a huge backlash against the party. This way it can simply blame the vote for doing nothing. It is likely the US president is also secretly prating for Congress to refuse him: he cannot then be attacked for doing nothing, or taking responsibility for the inevitable failure.

 

·         As we write this news has come in that the French Prime Minister says there will be no vote taken during Wednesday’s debate on Syria. He has neatly put the responsibility in the President’s lap, saying the President has the right to demand a vote or to make a strike without a vote.

 

 

Syria SITREP August 31, 2013 by Todd Croft

 

 

We received Todd Croft’s latest analysis on August 31 and decided to put it up early. With the news that the US President will ask Congress for authorization to attack Syria, no strike is imminent. You will see from Mr. Croft’s analysis of US Navy ship movements he anticipated a delay. The sole question now becomes: is Mr. Obama hoping Congress will refuse him permission so he gets out of his inane promises to attack? What is playing out now is the biggest farce in US national security policy since Iraq II and Afghanistan. To read the full report, which includes Mr. Croft’s “Look fors” as clues to the next developments, read http://geo-strat.blogspot.com/2013/08/august-31-syria-crisis-sitrep.html

 

Allied Attack No Time Soon

 The various involved powers continue to maneuver, but the expected allied massing of power is shifting downward.

 

USA:

·         The USS Truman CSG assumed the Nimitz CSG OEF duties in the Arabian Sea. This places them in a follow up role at best, and probably a non-player role unless they shift into Arabian Gulf.

 

·         The USS Kearsarge ARG seems to be shifting eastward, as the LSD-Carter Hall made a port call in the Seychelles. If the ARG were to participate, it would consolidate and move westward, but they're not ...so they're not getting involved either.

 

·         The media made hay about the addition of a fifth destroyer to the Syria task force, but that interpretation is wrong. The USS Stout is being sent to relieve the Mahan, not join it ...so it's still only 4-DDG's. If the US wanted a fifth, then it could shift the Bainbridge back to the Mediterranean from the Indian Ocean, or donate any of the Nimitz or Truman's DDG Escorts ...but they aren't. It was noted that the USS Barry and Gravely conducted a surface warfare exercise with the FS Aconit between Cyprus and Crete. This places the two lead DDG's in a defensive position outside any Syrian anti-ship missile strike range, instead of cruising the Lebanese or Syria coasts, which is where I would expect them to be as an advanced screen and capable of deep scanning and even controlling Syrian airspace with their AEGIS radar systems. The Barry is noted as being tasked to EUCOM as an ABM patrol destroyer, so they should be able to handle ANYTHING Syria can dish out (cruise missiles, AS missiles, and ballistic missiles). To have it behind Cyprus means we have no stomach for anything the Syrians might do or say, nor are we interested in applying an advanced defensive ABM role to the situation to protect Turkey or Europe ...or even Israel from a Syrian strike.

·         The command ship USS Mt. Whitney is still off radar after it's visit to France a couple weeks ago. It should technically be available for deployment to Syria on short notice, but has yet to announce any participation.


UNITED KINGDOM:

 

·         The UK amphibious battle-group, currently deployed for the COUGAR 2013 (Mediterranean and Indian Ocean), is busy launching planned amphibious training exercises off Albania. The 2-FFG escorts remain west of Cyprus ...they aren't involved. So far the RAF has sent only an additional 6-Typhoon fighter-bombers to Cyprus. That's not enough to matter or care, and the House of Commons seems to prefer that as the official response.

 

FRANCE:

 

·         No noted activity directed at Syria ...talk is cheap.

 

RUSSIA:

 

·         The only country to do something interesting is Russia. The Moskva Task Force is being sent to the Mediterranean to supplement their patrol there ...which means nothing special because they were going to do that anyway, and nothing in their patrol schedule has changed much. The Russians also mentioned that the RFS Varyag from the Pacific Fleet would sortie out to the Mediterranean ...which means nothing because it easily takes a month to get there. However, once the Moskva and/or the Varyag get there, the Russian task force will be scarey enough to keep NATO on edge. However, all things considered, in spite of all the talk, NEVER would Russia take forceful action against NATO on account of Syria. Syria just isn't that important, and Russia won't risk their flagships being shot full of holes and irreparably lost. Instead, having such powerful flagships in theater provides valuable assets on hand for other things, such as monitoring NATO / US operational abilities (IE. spying), being available in case Russia needs to directly act in Syria (IE. evacuations or direct covert actions), and for waving a big anti-US flag and looking like they really care in diplomatic circles.


CHINA:

 

 

 

Friday 0230 GMT August 30, 2013

 

·         UK Parliament votes against Syria intervention 285-272 and PM Cameron says he will respect the vote. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10270342/Syria-conflict-latest.html Editor is surprised at how close the vote was: he thought the “nays” would be a lot more.

 

·         Meanwhile six RAF Typhoons arrived in Cyprus to protect UK’s two sovereign bases. As we had guessed, a fifth US destroyer has arrived in the East Mediterranean. Meanwhile, US Administration is reported looking for ways to bypass the UN Security Council on the matter of a Syria strike. US has decided the case against the Syrian Government is so strong that there is no need for UN inspectors in Syria to evaluate or investigate anything, and they should come home. The evidence has been provided by Israel. Normally we would criticize the Israelis for their masterly efforts to wag the US dog, but this time it appears that the US knows what the Israelis are doing and are going along because a strike suits the Administration.

 

·         It is all quite bewildering since President Obama has for a long time been making a cogent case against intervention, particularly in the absence of UN authorization. Now of a sudden Administration has decided a strike is so necessary that there is no need for a proper accounting of what happened.  Not only that, according to New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/us/politics/obama-syria.html?hp&_r=0 he is ready to act unilaterally without allies. He also sees no need to have a conversation with the American people or to have a debate in Congress.

 

·         The funniest (as in ha ha you’re so funny) part of this all is that at least according to NYT, the Administration’s intent is to deter Syria from using chemical weapons again. So we’re back to the problem Editor has been pontificating on for several days: its fine for Syria to kill 100,000 using “conventional” means, but 500 (or whatever) dead in a chemical war attack means we go to war? Meanwhile, the US feels no responsibility of stopping the killing in places like the Congo, where between 2-5 million civilians have been killed in the last 20 years in the greatest slaughter of civilians since World War II, and where the killing continues. So 500 Syrians are somehow more important that 2-5 million black Africans? Is that what the President intends to say? If he does not intend this, we sure would be delighted if he would explain what he feels about the Congo and the multiple genocides that have taken place there. Or perhaps Congo is unimportant to this and previous administrations because Israel has no stakes in that country?

 

 

Thursday 0230 GMT August 29, 2013

 

Syria Situation Report 8-27-2013

 

By Todd Croft

http://geo-strat.blogspot.com/2013/08/august-27-syria-crisis-sitrep.html

 

When I first heard about the chemical attack in Damascus, Syria and the call for a US response the day after, my thought was that a week would be required to set up a response, both diplomatically and militarily. Theoretically, any nation within range could ACTUALLY respond within 12-24 hours, such a response would possess only emotion gratification, and lack any true diplomatic or strategic depth. Even so, even a week isn't enough to acquire true strategic depth, even for the US ...but at least a limited depth, and therefore a limited victory, is possible.

 

If the one week rule is true, then the earliest a strike could occur is August 28-30 (Wed – Fri).

 

Current observations of the news indicate that Thursday is doomsday for a US strike. The rebels are hunkering down; the Syrians are dispersing; the new CENTCOM base in Jordan went active and a big meeting was held last weekend; the Russians activated their forces in the Caucasus and Asia, and various militaries are maneuvering.

 

USA

 

The US has an acceptable position for attack by the deadline ...not overwhelming, but winnable.

 Here's a list of known (or speculated) available forces:

 

USS Harry S. Truman CSG (Lead Carrier)

 BATTLEGROUP: 1-CG; 4-DDG

LOCATION: Red Sea / Gulf of Aden

 

USS Nimitz CSG (Follow-on / Iranian Contingency Carrier)

 BATTLEGROUP: 2-CG; 2-DDG

 LOCATION: Arabian Sea & Gulf

 

USS Kearsarge ARG

 BATTLEGROUP: 1-LHD; 1-LPD; 1-LSD; 1-MEU

 LOCATION: Red Sea / Gulf of Aden

 

6th Fleet Warships within meaningful range:

 1-LCC; 4-DDG; 3-FFG; 1-SSN(?)

 

USAF / Army (ADA, Fighters & Bombers / unknown composition)

 Location Jordan; Turkey; Italy; Israel; UAE; Germany; UK; USA

 

US Army / Marines fast response units

 

The US only has one viable CVN in this fight, the USS Truman CSG, which is currently in a good defensive position in the Red Sea far beyond Syria's ability to counter with anti-ship missiles in Lebanon or Latakia, Syria. The Nimitz is best used as a follow-on carrier with it's aircraft from the Arabian Gulf, or as a counter weight to Iran in the Arabian Sea. It's location during this time will reflect it's use and posture. The US has excellent battle-control using the CENTCOM bases in Jordan and UAE, and the US Navy's command ship USS Mt. Whitney. The USAF has good AOR coverage with bases in Italy, Jordan, Turkey, with support from the German and UK bases, stealth bombers from the US, and ABM / ADA bases in Turkey, Israel, Jordan, UAE, and US Navy ABM destroyers. Ground forces will only be a factor in special strikes, raids or operations that must be done by hand ...and I expect to hear nothing about it. This is a fighter / bomber / missile fight.

 

UNITED KINGDOM

 

While the UK appears to be taking a lead command role with the US on this issue, and commentators have speculated on their weakness, they have missed the UK's main strength ...possibly because it's currently woefully unbalanced for the needs of the situation. Right now the Royal Navy has an enormous battlefleet in the Mediterranean. This should attract the attention of analysts, but hasn't. Why? Because it's all amphibious, with very limited strike, ADA or cruise missile attack capabilities ...and if this is a fighter / bomber / missile fight, then the Royal Navy might as well sit it out, because only the RAF will attend the show. Most commentators have also speculated that even the RAF is meaningless in this fight because Cyprus has thus-far denied them the right to use the base there but a buildup of RAF power at the base has been observed, thus eliminating the UK from the theater. However, I'd like to remind the casual observer that the RAF can forward their fighter-bombers to any Allied base that is cooperating with the USAF or NATO around the world within 24 hours or less. As such, expect them to show up in Turkey and Jordan (a huge ally of the UK). NOTE: as of 8/27 PM, the RAF has been observed building up air power at the base, but permission hasn't been granted yet. Either Cyprus will soon allow strikes, or the RAF will shift to bases in Turkey or Jordan. (as of 8-28-2013, commercial pilots from Cyprus report seeing C-130s on the ground and flights of fighter aircraft on their radar.

 

FRANCE

 

France is a secondary Allied superpower in this campaign. They agree on attacking, but they'll only fulfill a minor position ...based on current observations. They have an ability to act equally with the US, but will they? The CVN Charles de Gaulle was last noted in homeport. Their airgroup has completed their certifications, so they can surge forward if needed, and only two days are needed for them to take a good strike position behind Cyprus. However, I have yet to hear any word that they are (as of 8/27 @ 3:00 Eastern US time), and something as big as this would be advertised. They do have 4-DDG's and 5-FFG's available for surging as well, which easily matches our surface combatants in theater, but nothing has been said yet. The only true frontline units noted are Rafale fighter-bombers in Saudi Arabia. France has the ability to move units as fast as the UK, and a better naval strike package available, but unless they're being sneaky (which doesn't sound like France) then they're a virtual no-show at this one. Personally, I think their mind is still on Operation Serval in Mali and their precarious UN army unit in Lebanon, so making a lot of noise isn't to their benefit this time.

 

RUSSIA

 

Russia is in a bad spot in the Syrian crisis, and I really feel for them. Syria has been a long time ally and client, and an excellent flanking position opposite NATO's virtual ownership of the Mediterranean. However, Russia has been losing this one in slow motion for a couple years now, and despite all their diplomatic stalling and bluster, they know it and have been feeling around for a replacement for at least a year. It's been observed that various military units, Naval, AF and Army / ADA, within Russia (Caucasus and Asia) have been placed on alert status, and that's a prudent maneuver, but it's essentially meaningless. If they were SERIOUS about protecting Syria's sovereignty, they'd have surged the Black Sea and North Sea Fleets, and moved a couple Army ADA and AF fighter squadrons in country to check-mate the US ...but they've done nothing along those lines. Instead, all military units, including the floating repair ship have been removed, and right-this-second they're evacuating Russian nationals from Syria. I'm still thinking a special Russian Army ADA unit was stationed at Tartus and Latakia (refer back to when the Turkish AF fighter was downed), but I'll bet they've left too via the RFS Azov and Filchenkov in May. Since that time Russia has been aggressively shopping for a replacement base, and to me that's a game changer for Syria.

 

Still, could Russia respond in any way other than diplomatically? Ummm, not really...

 

The core of the Black Sea Fleets strength is halfway around the world ...the RFS Moskva Task Force docked in Venezuela on Monday. Without it, the fleet is defensive by nature, and no superior naval threat can be mustered. The Mediterranean Task Force has dwindled to a couple warships in the East Mediterranean, and without the ability to stand a credible battlegroup, they'll mostly stay out of the way. The Russian AF is a non-player, as they have no squadrons in the area, no ability to sortie out over international airspace from Russia, and no on-station refueling. Their only access is via Turkey (HAHAHA, right) or Iran / Iraq. Iran might allow it, but Iraq probably would get VERY squeamish and not play ball. So, all they can do is complain and drive their tanks in circles. And this is what's so tragic for them. They have 30,000 nationals in Syria, lots of contracts and money, strategic assets ...and no good ways of extracting or improving their position without cooperating with the US and NATO.

 CHINA

 Other than being a diplomatic dark horse, capable of not caring or causing lots of noise, China is pretty much a non-player. Their assets in-country are minor, so there's not much to defend other then principal. They have a good handful of naval (strike and amphibious) assets within 2-3 days sailing if they wanted to fly the flag ...but why? China is friendly with Syria, but their big push is into Africa and the S. China Sea. Syria would only be a distraction ...and if Syria did use WMD's, then a moral liability too. I expect only complaining from China.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT August 28, 2013

 

Stratfor on Syria

The article shows how completely messed up this Administration is about Syria. Since 2001, no lessons have been learned. The US is going into a fourth intervention (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) without the slightest idea of what it is doing, and the American public, as usual, is quiet. Yes, only 9% of people in  recent poll said they supported intervention. But the remainder are not speaking out. So it is business as usual, with the Americans adding another chapter to their book titled: “We have ADHD and we are going to prive this once again.”

  "Obama's Bluff is republished with permission of Stratfor."

George Friedman

·        

 

·         Images of multiple dead bodies emerged from Syria last week. It was asserted that poison gas killed the victims, who according to some numbered in the hundreds. Others claimed the photos were faked while others said the rebels were at fault. The dominant view, however, maintains that the al Assad regime carried out the attack.

 

·         The United States has so far avoided involvement in Syria's civil war. This is not to say Washington has any love for the al Assad regime. Damascus' close ties to Iran and Russia give the United States reason to be hostile toward Syria, and Washington participated in the campaign to force Syrian troops out of Lebanon. Still, the United States has learned to be concerned not just with unfriendly regimes, but also with what could follow such regimes. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have driven home the principle that deposing one regime means living with an imperfect successor. In those cases, changing the regime wound up rapidly entangling the United States in civil wars, the outcomes of which have not been worth the price. In the case of Syria, the insurgents are Sunni Muslims whose best-organized factions have ties to al Qaeda.

 

·         Still, as frequently happens, many in the United States and Europe are appalled at the horrors of the civil war, some of whom have called on the United States to do something. The United States has been reluctant to heed these calls. As mentioned, Washington does not have a direct interest in the outcome, since all possible outcomes are bad from its perspective. Moreover, the people who are most emphatic that something be done to stop the killings will be the first to condemn the United States when its starts killing people to stop the killings. People would die in any such intervention, since there are simply no clean ways to end a civil war.

 

·         U.S. President Barack Obama therefore adopted an extremely cautious strategy. He said that the United States would not get directly involved in Syria unless the al Assad regime used chemical weapons, stating with a high degree of confidence that he would not have to intervene. After all, Syrian President Bashar al Assad has now survived two years of civil war, and he is far from defeated. The one thing that could defeat him is foreign intervention, particularly by the United States. It was therefore assumed he wouldn't do the one thing Obama said would trigger U.S. action.

 

·         Al Assad is a ruthless man: He would not hesitate to use chemical weapons if he had to. He is also a very rational man: He would use chemical weapons only if that were his sole option. At the moment, it is difficult to see what desperate situation would have caused him to use chemical weapons and risk the worst. His opponents are equally ruthless, and we can imagine them using chemical weapons to force the United States to intervene and depose al Assad. But their ability to access chemical weapons is unclear, and if found out, the maneuver could cost them all Western support. It is possible that lower-ranking officers in al Assad's military used chemical weapons without his knowledge and perhaps against his wishes. It is possible that the casualties were far less than claimed. And it is possible that some of the pictures were faked.

 

·         All of these things are possible, but we simply don't know which is true. More important is that major governments, including the British and French, are claiming knowledge that al Assad carried out the attack. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a speech Aug. 26 clearly building the case for a military response, and referring to the regime attack as "undeniable" and the U.S. assessment so far as "grounded in facts." Al Assad meanwhile has agreed to allow U.N. inspectors to examine the evidence onsite. In the end, those who oppose al Assad will claim his supporters concealed his guilt, and the insurgents will say the same thing if they are blamed or if the inspectors determine there is no conclusive evidence of attacks.

 

·         The truth here has been politicized, and whoever claims to have found the truth, whatever it actually is, will be charged with lying. Nevertheless, the dominant emerging story is that al Assad carried out the attack, killing hundreds of men, women and children and crossing the red line Obama set with impunity. The U.S. president is backed into a corner.

 

·         The United States has chosen to take the matter to the United Nations. Obama will make an effort to show he is acting with U.N. support. But he knows he won't get U.N. support. The Russians, allies of al Assad and opponents of U.N.-based military interventions, will veto any proposed intervention. The Chinese -- who are not close to al Assad, but also oppose the U.N.-sanctioned interventions -- will probably join them. Regardless of whether the charges against al Assad are true, the Russians will dispute them and veto any action. Going to the United Nations therefore only buys time. Interestingly, the United States declared on Sunday that it is too late for Syria to authorize inspections. Dismissing that possibility makes the United States look tough, and actually creates a situation where it has to be tough.

 

·         This is no longer simply about Syria. The United States has stated a condition that commits it to an intervention. If it does not act when there is a clear violation of the condition, Obama increases the chance of war with other countries like North Korea and Iran. One of the tools the United States can use to shape the behavior of countries like these without going to war is stating conditions that will cause intervention, allowing the other side to avoid crossing the line. If these countries come to believe that the United States is actually bluffing, then the possibility of miscalculation soars. Washington could issue a red line whose violation it could not tolerate, like a North Korean nuclear-armed missile, but the other side could decide this was just another Syria and cross that line. Washington would have to attack, an attack that might not have been necessary had it not had its Syria bluff called.

 

·         There are also the Russian and Iranian questions. Both have invested a great deal in supporting al Assad. They might both retaliate were someone to attack the Syrian regime. There are already rumors in Beirut that Iran has told Hezbollah to begin taking Americans hostage if the United States attacks Syria. Russia meanwhile has shown in the Snowden affair what Obama clearly regards as a hostile intent. If he strikes, he thus must prepare for Russian counters. If he doesn't strike, he must assume the Russians and Iranians will read this as weakness.

 

·         Syria was not an issue that affected the U.S. national interest until Obama declared a red line. It escalated in importance at that point not because Syria is critical to the United States, but because the credibility of its stated limits are of vital importance. Obama's problem is that the majority of the American people oppose military intervention, Congress is not fully behind an intervention and those now rooting the United States on are not bearing the bulk of the military burden -- nor will they bear the criticism that will follow the inevitable civilian casualties, accidents and misdeeds that are part of war regardless of the purity of the intent.

 

·         The question therefore becomes what the United States and the new coalition of the willing will do if the red line has been crossed. The fantasy is that a series of airstrikes, destroying only chemical weapons, will be so perfectly executed that no one will be killed except those who deserve to die. But it is hard to distinguish a man's soul from 10,000 feet. There will be deaths, and the United States will be blamed for them.

 

·         The military dimension is hard to define because the mission is unclear. Logically, the goal should be the destruction of the chemical weapons and their deployment systems. This is reasonable, but the problem is determining the locations where all of the chemicals are stored. I would assume that most are underground, which poses a huge intelligence problem. If we assume that perfect intelligence is available and that decision-makers trust this intelligence, hitting buried targets is quite difficult. There is talk of a clean cruise missile strike. But it is not clear whether these carry enough explosives to penetrate even minimally hardened targets. Aircraft carry more substantial munitions, and it is possible for strategic bombers to stand off and strike the targets.

 

·         Even so, battle damage assessments are hard. How do you know that you have destroyed the chemicals -- that they were actually there and you destroyed the facility containing them? Moreover, there are lots of facilities and many will be close to civilian targets and many munitions will go astray. The attacks could prove deadlier than the chemicals did. And finally, attacking means al Assad loses all incentive to hold back on using chemical weapons. If he is paying the price of using them, he may as well use them. The gloves will come off on both sides as al Assad seeks to use his chemical weapons before they are destroyed.

 

·         A war on chemical weapons has a built-in insanity to it. The problem is not chemical weapons, which probably can't be eradicated from the air. The problem under the definition of this war would be the existence of a regime that uses chemical weapons. It is hard to imagine how an attack on chemical weapons can avoid an attack on the regime -- and regimes are not destroyed from the air. Doing so requires troops. Moreover, regimes that are destroyed must be replaced, and one cannot assume that the regime that succeeds al Assad will be grateful to those who deposed him. One must only recall the Shia in Iraq who celebrated Saddam's fall and then armed to fight the Americans.

 

·         Arming the insurgents would keep an air campaign off the table, and so appears to be lower risk. The problem is that Obama has already said he would arm the rebels, so announcing this as his response would still allow al Assad to avoid the consequences of crossing the red line. Arming the rebels also increases the chances of empowering the jihadists in Syria.

 

·         When Obama proclaimed his red line on Syria and chemical weapons, he assumed the issue would not come up. He made a gesture to those in his administration who believe that the United States has a moral obligation to put an end to brutality. He also made a gesture to those who don't want to go to war again. It was one of those smart moves that can blow up in a president's face when it turns out his assumption was wrong. Whether al Assad did launch the attacks, whether the insurgents did, or whether someone faked them doesn't matter. Unless Obama can get overwhelming, indisputable proof that al Assad did not -- and that isn't going to happen -- Obama will either have to act on the red line principle or be shown to be one who bluffs. The incredible complexity of intervening in a civil war without becoming bogged down makes the process even more baffling.

 

·         Obama now faces the second time in his presidency when war was an option. The first was Libya. The tyrant is now dead, and what followed is not pretty. And Libya was easy compared to Syria. Now, the president must intervene to maintain his credibility. But there is no political support in the United States for intervention. He must take military action, but not one that would cause the United States to appear brutish. He must depose al Assad, but not replace him with his opponents. He never thought al Assad would be so reckless. Despite whether al Assad actually was, the consensus is that he was. That's the hand the president has to play, so it's hard to see how he avoids military action and retains credibility. It is also hard to see how he takes military action without a political revolt against him if it goes wrong, which it usually does.

 

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT August 27, 2013

 

·         IAF/PAF Note According to Shiv Aroor http://bit.ly/1d9d8vC the Indian Air Forces third C-17 has been delivered. We are informed by the usual background sources that after the 10th aircraft is delivered next year, six more C-17s will be delivered in 2015. That will make India the largest C-17 operator outside the US, but considering India’s minimum requirement is 48 aircraft plus attrition and maintenance reserve aircraft, there’s not a whole lot to celebrate.

·         Meanwhile, Editor has been baffled by the lack of JF-17 deliveries to the Pakistan Air Force. Apparently no aircraft were delivered 2012 or in the first months of 2013. The usual background sources tell us that according to the PAF air chief, the third JF-17 squadron will become operational “later this year” and the delay has arisen because of “modifications”. Was there a serious flaw with the Block I JF-17s that forced a manufacturing halt? No comment says the source.

 

·         It will likely be no news to readers that the IAF is in rather deep (deleted bad word) on its combat fighter strength. It is already down to 36 squadrons from the authorized 39. Eight squadrons of MiG-21s and MiG-27s will stand down by 2015, but five only squadrons (4 SU-30, 1 Tejas) will replace. And on top of that six additional MiG-21 squadrons stand down in 2017. We could be looking at south of 30 squadrons in 2017. Ajai Shukla explains why this and several other major Indian defense programs are SNAFUed at http://ajaishukla.blogspot.in/ Be sure to have a large box of Kleenex at hand because you’ll be doing a lot of crying. And Shukla has been very kind: he hasn’t mentioned Army programs that are in a coma and on life support.

 

 

·         Also meanwhile, our sources say that when asked the induction date for the FC-20/F-10 Chinese fighter, the PAF says “ask the Chinese!” Are the Chinese for some reason holding up delivery or is the PAF refusing to set a delivery schedule because the Chinese have not brought the aircraft up to PAF specifications?

 

·         This is the problem with this defense information business, or any intelligence business. Every answer opens up more questions. There is never enough information to satisfy intelligence folks.

·         Warships in the Eastern Mediterranean Four US destroyers with possibly one enroute, 2 attack submarines with possibly one more enroute; two Royal Navy frigates and on attack submarine moving into position. Of course, US 5th Fleet can also participate in a missile strike on Syria from the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.

 

·         This will be no surprise to readers: the military is prepared to execute its orders when given, but no one Editor knows in military, intel, or State believes a missile strike will have any useful outcome. But you didn’t need Editor to tell you that. This is an appropriate time to tell young readers about US 17th Cavalry’s motto from Vietnam days.  One helicopter squadron (British regiment) was with 101 Air Assault Division when the (unofficial) motto became “Patience my ass, I want to kill something!” That is spoken by an evil smiling vulture crouched on a tree branch.

 

·         At least the vulture would have eaten what it would (hypothetically) have killed. A missile strike on Syria will provide only emotional thrills to the Chicken Hawks of Washington.

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT August 26, 2013

 Gaaakkk! We just learned the old Twitter code stopped working a while back. Have to figure out the new deal.

·         Syria Oh boy. Here we go again. The interventionists are getting all hot and sweaty, believing armed US intervention in Syria is now just a step from becoming inevitable.  Through earlier allegations of chemwar use in Syria, the Administration was unsure if solid proof existed. All of a sudden, the US has decided that it is almost certain the Syrian regime Did The Dirty Deed.

 

·         The Israelis have even provided a number and a name for the military unit that did the deed. None less than the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division. The division is commanded by Assad’s brother. The Israelis even provided a location from where the chem weapons were fired, a mountain area west of Damascus. Editor is surprised that the Israelis haven’t provided names for the battalion and battery commanders responsible, the ages of their children, their pets, and how much money they have in the bank. Editor is disappointed that the Argus eyed Israelis have not told us how many shells or rockets were fired, at what time, where they hit precisely, and the names of the victims, along with where they went to school and whom they married and what brand of toilet paper they used. After all, the Israelis have the best intelligence in the Middle East, right?

 

·         We’re going to ignore for the moment the nagging question of why Assad and his brother, or just Assad’s brother on his own, decided to make a chemical strike at precisely the time the UN was in Damascus to investigate – allegations of chemical weapons usage. Let’s postulate the Syrian Army is guilty. How does that make things our business?

 

·         Ooooh the Syrian used weapons of mass destruction so they must be blown to bits. Indeed. First, haven’t we been through this before?  We were very sure Saddam had WMDs and when we failed to find any, we merely said he must have moved them to Syria or somewhere.

 

·         Second, over 100,000 people are supposed to have died since the civil war began, most likely rebels and civilians. The Administration didn’t think 100,000 deaths was reason to intervene. So what has changed? Medicins Sans Frontieres says it treated 355 people with symptoms of  nerve-gas poisoning. It may seem odd that MSF cannot say for sure if – for example – Sarin was used. But when you consider that laboratory equipment is required to provide a precise blood analysis to confirm the agent, and this equipment may well not be available to MSF within the country, perhaps it is not so odd. Some days ago rebel sources were saying 200 people died. In comparison to the 100,000+ who have already died, that hardly seems relevant.

 

·         Okay, say that we have changed our mind on intervention, and are now trying to build up a case that will convince the American people and the UN to provide a mandate for US/Allied retaliation against Syria. If so, it doesn’t matter who used the weapons; it doesn’t matter that a negligible number of people were killed; all that matters is that we have the makings of a case. But are the American people going to fall for this all over again? It seems the Administration is not in a good position regarding credibility because it is in effect saying “well, we lied about Iraq but THIS time we are telling you the truth.” And even if it is all true, are the American people going to get all agitated and demand the US intervene. Don’t think so.

 

·         Next, US intervenes and then what? By removing Assad, the US also clears the way for Al Qaeda and other Islamic fundamentalist movements to turn on the secular rebels. Are we then going to take sides in the second civil war? Have the American people signed on this idea? Don’t think so.

 

·         See, the American elite is so impressed with the American military’s new toys since Gulf 1991, that we see to have forgotten the limits of military action. The US does best in total wars: World War I, World War II. Excellent jobs, American can be proud. But the US does badly in limited wars, and it does very badly in limited wars where political factors are more important than military ones. Syria is one such case.

 

Friday 0230 GMT August 23, 2013

 

·         Goodbye Bradley, Hello Chelsea Editor is feeling a bit bad about this latest business of Bradley Manning declaring himself as Chelsea Manning. As it is the rest of the world regards the US as agiant freak show, and now they will have another reason to laugh hysterically at us.

 

·         To be clear: this is the United States, and everyone has the right to their own gender. That Bradley says he is really Chelsea does not discombobulate the Editor in the least. After all, he’s from India, where the national motto is Live And Let Live. Peace and Love to all, carry on.

 

·         No. The mirth and hilarity will arise from the US Army having found Manning a suitable candidate for the All-Volunteer Army. Sure, in wartime, when matters are dire, you have to take everyone. But the US is a land of 315-million people. It has a tiny army, which requires just 80,000 volunteers a year. Yet apparently enough people don’t volunteer and they are just so desperate that they will take anyone. What will really raise the roof is Manning’s lawyer. He has said that if the Army does not give Manning hormone replacement therapy, he – the lawyer – will fight for the right of his client to receive it. So now you’ve got a double freak show.

 

·         Manning is (a) a soldier of the US Army – disgraced, dishonorably discharged, convicted, for sure. But a soldier nonetheless. (b) The US Army is not in the business of helping its prisoners work through their gender identity issues. (c) During the time Manning remains a guest of the US Army at Leavenworth, the taxpayers – you, dear reader, and I – will pay taxes for his incarceration. It’s a bit much to be told by a sleezy attention-seeking lawyer that we taxpayers should pay for a traitor’s gender identity conversion. To be told we have to do pays implies that Manning has a natural right of which society is denying him. Sorry, don’t see how he has that right. But this is America. Who knows how this will play out.

 

·         Syria and Chemical War A reader asks: “Out of curiosity, is there a reason you haven’t discussed the latest story about Syria using chemical weapons against civilians. This is the most serious such development since Saddam’s rabid attack dog, Chemical Ali, gassed the Kurds.” Actually, there are reasons we haven’t brought this up.

 

·         First, it seems a big odd that right after UN chemical/biological warfare inspectors arrive in Damascus to investigate previous reports, Assad should gas civilians in his capital, which is easy for inspectors to visit. They’re right there, for one thing. Readers will recall there have been earlier reports that rebels have used chemwar agents. Chlorine was specifically mentioned, so that’s not even something that has to be seized from government. It’s a plain old industrial  chemical that’s easily available.

 

·         Second, Editor honestly doesn’t see what is the fuss about chemical/biological warfare. It is really peculiar, he believes, to say “Oh, you’re only bombing, rocketing, mortaring, shooting, civilians, and also cutting their throats; we’ve got nothing to say. But if you go biochem we’re going to come down on you like a ton of stones” or whatever the current metaphor is. Not only is this hypocritical, it is hardly for the US to take the lead in moral outrage considering the US has probably killed more people using chemicals since Mussolini. We’re referring, of course, to Second Indochina. And honestly, we don’t think the US can validly say “But we weren’t trying to kill people.” This is lawyer talk.

 

·         It is a bit like saying “Oh but Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate military targets.” Well, yes they were. But they were not atom-bombed for that reason. The attacks were intended to show Tokyo that it was helpless against America, and it worked. Editor is all for the bombs being used. War is war. A machine gun is a weapon of mass destruction – look at World War I. Haven’t heard anyone say: “Oh you bad boy, you’ve been using machineguns so we are now going to attack you.” The combined bomber offensive against Germany and the conventional bombing of Japan also used weapons of mass destruction. You can argue retrospectively well, maybe in Germany’s case it wasn’t worth the cost. But the US/UK had every right to use bombers because war is war.

 

·         You either believe war is immoral – in which case Editor will respect you – or you accept the object of going to war is to win in the shortest time at the least cost. Is the Editor saying Dien Bien Phu and Khesan were  legitimate targets for use of tactical nuclear weapons? Absolutely.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT August 22, 2013

 

·         Egypt and its Christians So Egyptians are having a violent disagreement about their politics. So why precisely are they attacking Christians? It was the same in Iraq: while the US was busy fighting to bring freedom to Shia, Sunni, and Kurd, the Iraqis were busy ethnically cleansing Christians. True, the process began under Saddam. But the US was not shedding blood for Saddam.

 

·         And what precisely is the US doing about persecution of Christians? In Afghanistan it didn’t have anything to say. In Saudi Arabia, where the mere possession of a bible is a crime, far from saying anything, the US declares Saudi is its Best Friend Forever. In Iraq, far from saying anything, US is hoping Damascus invites the Americans back. As for Egypt, there is not a meep out of Washington.

 

·         Does this make any sense? Or are the right-wing blogs right and Mr. Obama really does care more about his new dog than the persecution of Christians? Not that Mr. Bush showed any interest either, but since he’s not longer president, he’s irrelevant to this discussion.

 

·         India’s 66th Birthday The biggest Indian newspaper in North America is Indian Abroad; Editor used to write for them once-upon-a-time, and they kindly humor him by still sending him the paper every week. So the issue that arrived the other day is about Independence day. Three things struck the Editor.

 

·         One, a person writing an article says – we think – that it is not that India in such a terrific mess right now; it is that people have come to expect their government will perform. And of course, it is not performing, never has. This person is right: there is nothing to see, move along please. Business as usual.

 

·         Two, another writer warns that we should not expect India in 66-years to have achieved what the US did in 200. This was news to the Editor because he has never met an India who demands India in 66 years should be at the US’s level. Indians are wondering about two things. One, how come even among poor countries India is so badly off on decent free education, health care, clean water, and a minimum diet? Is it okay if we compare ourselves to someone like Cuba? Two, is it allowed that we compare ourselves to China? PRC was even poorer than India was 1980. Much of China is still poor. We will agree with those who China’s stats are fudged. So may be China does not have a GDP of $6-billion or 8, or 10, or whatever people are claiming right now. May we agree it has a GDP of $5-trillion, giving it a per capita about three times that of India? Or should India compare itself to, say, Somalia and Zimbabwe?

 

·         Three, the Indian Parliament has sought to thwart a Supreme Court ruling last month that would require members of the national and state legislatures to be immediately disqualified if they are convicted of a crime. Indian MPs do not think this is fair. You will not be surprised to learn that 30% of Indian legislators have admitted to the Election Commission that they have criminal cases pending against them.  http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-07-12/varanasi/40536098_1_criminal-cases-mps-and-mlas-six-mlas

 

·         Before we get into this business  of “But in China…” yes, China has massive corruption. Because the country is much richer than India, and  there is no free press, and power is centralized in the Party, the quantum of corruption is much more staggering than in India. But if the Chinese official is stealing $1, at least he is making sure the Chinese people are getting one dollar. In India the rule is: “everything of yours is mine, and from what I steal from you I will give you a little bit as charity.”

 

·         Letter from Reader Duncan McClean Ravi, I have to say that I'm really disappointed with your blog. It has recently descended into sub-college drivel which given your background and previous works is just such a shame. Your previous work on orbat and other military subjects has been first class and I have to admit to watching your spiral downwards as quite depressing. Such that I shan't be bothering to read any longer. Occasionally you exhibit an old spark of insightfulness but it is pretty rare these days. If only you had some discipline to stick to important subjects rather than drone on like an old pub drunk. No doubt you'll continue so I wish you the best. I can truthfully say that not visiting orbat.com will be a real loss but, again, truthfully, you're now rarely saying anything of interest.

 

 

 

Yesterday Editor ate ice cream before doing the update. The ice cream has the same effect as 10 Prozacs. The world was wonderful, everything was just peachy; Editor felt no outrage about anything; he just wanted to bless everyone and tell them to make love not war. That’s why you didn’t see an update.

 

·         More NSA Leaker Shenanigans we hope the NSA Leaker is feeling righteous. Thanks to him, NSA has fired about 90% of its systems administrators, mainly those who were on contract. Way to go, mon. You really showed The Man, didn’t you now?

 

·         Then there were shenanigans at London airport. Two Guardian correspondents have been working on the story from the start. One was in Berlin and the other in London. The London person is the main gentleman. So his partner was detained flying from Berlin to Rio with a transit stop at London. He was detained for 9-hours, the maximum possible without reference to a court or something under whichever section he was detained. His data stuff was confiscated, and he was left free to go.

 

·         Major uproar. The Guardian gentleman made it out as if this was a case of family member being intimidated as a way of bring pressure on him. Everyone is in danger, he screamed. Others went on with statistics about how in xx% of cases people are not detained for 9 hours so this was Government dirty tricks at work. Well. Actually no. The partner, of Brazilian origin, was not someone stopped at random. He was suspected of carrying classified materials. And his trip was not personal: his ticket was paid for the Guardian. The newspaper tried to make out that while he was not a journalist, he was working on the story for the paper. A-a-a-n-n-n-n-d-d-d? That gives him immunity from questioning? When official secrets are concerned, and when you are suspected of couriering government property (the data), doesn’t matter if you are a journalist or not: Government wants to stop you, they can.

 

·         Then the London Guardian correspondent said (not his exact words): “Oho! You have stopped my partner, and now I will release information that will really, really, really hurt the government. You’ll be sorry.” Wait a minute? Wasn’t this supposed to whistleblowing, to tell the Americans and Europeans their government were up to NoGoodNix? Aren’t you all supposed to Noble Crusaders For The Truth? So then why are you blackmailing your government? Perhaps you didn’t know that blackmail is a criminal offense? This gentleman has apparently earlier made similar statements, saying that the NSA Leaker has such crushing information that the US Government should be on its knees thanking him for not saying more. (Incidentally, the Guardian person has said he was misquoted, or something, on that first blackmail threat.)

 

·         See, my good and decent friends, we already know this is not about whistleblowing. Otherwise Mr. Leaker would have stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial or whatever, delivered his revelations, and said: “I am now willing to show up the government for what it at my trial”. Daniel Ellsburg did not release the Pentagon Papers from overseas. He stood his ground. Furthermore, whistleblowers do not rush to Hong Kong to seek asylum, considering HK is part of China. Nor do they try and get asylum in Ecuador, whose Prezzy, well known exponent of press freedom that he is, is trying to stop newspapers he doesn’t like from publishing print editions. He wants them to go on the net, which of course (snicker, giggle, titter) he can block. It also doesn’t look good when you take asylum in Russia, which is known as a Shining Beacon Of Truth And Freedom And Light. At least in Satan’s universe. Does the London person not see any irony that if and his male partner visited Moscow they could be locked up for homosexuality? After having their skulls beaten in, of course.

 

·         No. This is not about freedom or breaking the law. Sorry, however distasteful you find it, NSA was acting within a very broad framework given to it by the US Congress. There is no sense in bringing out teeny weeny little violations about how they pushed this too far or that too far. Editor is willing to bet that NSA has been given UNLIMITED power to snoop depending on what is defined as a threat to national security. This is why you do not see NSA under investigation, and the most that will happen is a few smacks with a limp noodle – US Congress doesn’t seem to want to do even that.

 

·         What Mr. Leaker and Mr. Guardian have to understand is that push to shove, American would rather give up their privacy – which they knew full well they don’t have, because if it’s not the governments, it’s the corporations, and boy, have THEY got the goods on you – in return for security.

 

·         BTW, now we would like Americans to understand that Russians, in their turn, are also willing to give up huge degrees of freedom for personal security. That is why they put up with Mr. KGP Pooty Tooty. In the days of yore, Russia had a very low crime rate because if as much as looked at a cop wrong, and it was curtains for you. If you have not lived in an environment where you had very little crime, and then got to live “free”, you can have no idea how frightening this “freedom” is for many Russians. Not to forget that though they lived badly, they lived. They were looked after. Just like Mr. Leaker and The Gang should impose their suppositions on America, we should not impose our suppositions on Russia.

 

Monday 0230 GMT August 19, 2013

 

·         America, America Reader Luxembourg sent a link to a HuffPost article which discusses the latest teacher sex-abuse story. There is a slide show of about 40+ teachers accused of sex-abuse; for some reason, 90% seem to be of women teachers. The article does not enlighten us about what the ratio of female to male perps is, but Editor welcomed the article because the slide show makes apparent abusing students sexually is hardly a male problem. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/14/summer-michelle-hansen-charged-teacher-sex_n_3754716.html

 

·         What caught Editor’s attention was one case in which an 18-year old boy and his mother are suing on grounds of the school should have stopped the abuse. That occasioned Editor’s headline, “America, America”. You see, it is ALWAYS someone else’s fault. Never ours.

 

·         First, perhaps things have changed since the Editor’s day, but over half-a-century ago, us schoolboys secretly, and not so secretly, lusted after the young women teachers. Had one such seduced students, we’d have thought we’d died and gone to heaven. Editor is being  blatantly male chauvinistic in saying, sorry, regardless of what the law says, abuse of male teenage students by a female teacher cannot be the same as the reverse case, male teachers having sex with their female students. Cases where male or female teachers have sex or inappropriate contact with elementary and middle school students are plain sick. Editor is all for protecting adolescent girls. But male students complaining? Something is very wrong with the universe.

 

·         Second, back to the legal case. How exactly is the school district supposed to ensure that the student’s virtue remains inviolate in the face of predatory female teachers? Should a tiny surveillance drone be positioned over the female teacher’s head at all times, 24/365, and should the surveillance feed be monitored 24/365, to catch out the teachers? Or should there be a “Minority Report” type of surveillance, where powerful computers can determine in advance that a female teacher will have sex with her male student(s), providing advance warning this teacher should not be hired? Or maybe the teacher is undertaking her daily constitutional on the ‘loo, and the police bust in with an arrest warrant, which says the teacher will commit at 12 noon an illegal act on/with a male student?

 

·         Editor is not saying the school district can never be liable. In a recent case, a teacher from the same county school system Editor works for was confronted, and admitted to abusing his 1st grade girls. Apparently there were several warning indicators. Including a fellow teacher who twice complained to the administration that the teacher was locking himself in his room for lunch with selected girl students; the administration took no action. Clearly wrong, and action should have been taken immediately: a written warning the first time, dismissal with prejudice the next time. Very clear cut.

 

·         Incidentally, the complaining teacher probably does not realize it, but she also unwittingly broke the law. On child abuse, every adult who has children in their care must report her/his suspicions that abuse is taking place to the administration AND to the authorities. That the kids were not her students, and that she reported matters to administration, is insufficient.

 

·         Moreover, though this has nothing to do with the case under discussion, teachers are clearly instructed it is not up to them to judge the merits of the matter or to seek proof. Suspicion alone is required. Yes, these sort of laws remind one of colonial New England and “1984”, because the accuser cannot be identified. But that’s America. Love It Or Leave It.

 

·         Quite frequently, teasing between Editor’s boy and girl students gets out of hand. Often the girls start things, and then when they find things are getting uncomfortable, complain. Editor makes a point of telling the boys that they should be aware that should a girl complain, even if Editor knows she started the thing, encouraged, incited, whatever; the moment she complains Ed  has to write up a report of sexual harassment, keeping one copy, a second to his supervisor, and the original to the Principal. Ed further explains if he fails to write it up, he can be held negligent. He agrees its highly unfair if the girl has started the teasing or physical teaching, but that is life in America. (Sexual harassment does not have to be reported to outside authorities.)

 

Friday 0230 GMT August 16, 2013

 

·         Syria Reports say the rebels are receiving Konkurs ATGMs from Saudi Arabia through Jordan. The ATGMs have been used with good effect, but a few launchers are not going to cut the mustard (whatever that expression means – why would anyone want to cut the mustard, and with what?).  Definitive results depend on the supply of several hundred launchers and at least 10 missiles per launchers.

 

·         At any rate, since we last assessed the situation, the tide may have turned again, this time in favor of the rebels. Needless to say, AQ and the Islamists are firmly established inside Syria. There is worry – with good reason – that the second civil war that will follow Assad’s overthrow will be much worse. When that stars in earnest, we are willing to guess that folks are going to say “Thank goodness we stayed out of it.”

 

·         Jordan is not to be pleased with being pressured into acting as a transit route because it fears Syrian retaliation. Doubtless US and the Gulf states have given Jordan assurances of protection against retaliation. But when you are a tiny country that has barely survived crisis after crisis to its existence since 1948, a lack of enthusiasm to get involved in disputes is understandable. Whichever way the Syria revolt turns out, it is not to Jordan’s advantage.

 

·         Jordan has several internal problems. One is that the sects supporting the ruling family are in a minority. Surrender to demands for democracy could lead to the fall of the family. Naturally, it will not be followed by democracy, any more than Egypt got democracy from the Brotherhood  after the revolution. Jordan will then become just one more conflict state in a region that is already falling apart.

 

·         Meanwhile, readers know what’s happening in Iraq. Three thousand people have been killed since the bombings began in April this year. Best to keep in mind Iraq’s population is one-tenth the US’s side. It’s easy to appreciate what a mess the US would be if 30,000 people were killed in bombings in five months, half of them in Washington.

 

·         Also meanwhile, the Russians are having the last laugh, and they will laugh the longest. From the beginning they said in much of the world you can either have authoritarianism or chaos. Naturally in the West this was regarded as self-serving bilge. Editor also has to plead “Guilty”. Not only are we getting chaos in the Middle East, it is worsening. Nonetheless, it is difficult what the west could have done differently. Sticking with the authoritarian ways was not a viable option, no matter how bad the alternative. This is the reason why, having enabled the revolutions, we need to get out despite all our instincts to jump in with all four paws.

 

·         Strategically, the US really needs to cut is dependence on Mideast hydrocarbons to zero, and build up enough of an export capability to meet some of the EU’s needs. Yes, fracking causes environmental problems. But we need to understand that if the Middle East blows up, without self-sufficiency from the Middle East, we are going to up the creek, not just without a paddle, but without a rudder and without the bottom of the boat. Americans are famous for their segmented thinking: my issue is the most important and overrides any other issue. Real life is, instead, a series of compromises, very often requiring choices that are least bad instead of good or great. If we refuse to make compromises, and insist on battling each other to the death, guess what? We will all lose.

 

·         BTW, the anti-nuke lobby can at least take comfort: fracking has killed the resurgence of the N-power industry. This is what we mean by there are no perfect solutions. Everything comes at a cost. If you hate N-power, you have to accept fracking as an intermediate stop on our way to Shangrila.

 

·         Also BTW, you know the best to return the US’s environment to pristine condition? Simply mandate 1 child per family for the next 200-years. It’s not cars or power plants or whatever cause pollution. People cause pollution. Remove the population; the problem is solved. No need to thank the Editor. Provide solutions: that what he does every day.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT August 15, 2013

 

Today will be celebrated in India as Independence Day, but it should be a day of mourning. Sixty-six years ago, India was deprived of one-third of its territory thanks to the machinations of the British and their Indian stooges. Not sure why August 15, 1947 should be celebrated.

 

·         Israel-Palestine: US squirrel in a cage To be clear: Editor has no dispute with Israel and the Arabs slugging it out for 65-years. Carry on folks, be happy. Editor’s problem is US. Why is it every administration since 1956 sought to insert itself into the dispute, and why after 57-years of failure to solve anything does the US think it can resolve the dispute? Is it not undignified for the SecState to endless run around like a squirrel in a cage?

 

·         Clearly the new SecState, just as every other SecState, has completely failed to grasp fundamentals. Israel-Palestine is a zero sum game. Do we need to explain what this means to the SecState? Apparently we do, because he doesn’t get it. In a zero-sum game there is no compromise possible because if one side gains, the other loses. That’s all that needs to be understood.

 

·         Israel and a Palestine nation cannot coexist, because a viable Israel needs more land, and a viable Palestine needs Israel not just to stop grabbing more land, but to give up a whole bunch. Not. Going. To. Happen.

 

·         Can we go home now and be spared the sanctimonious speeches from this SecState; who surely must have been bored silly having to listen to the stupid speeches of his predecessors.

 

·         Or if were are not going to go home, can we at least stop being hypocritical and just admit that we, the US, do not give a tinker’s darn about the Palestinian people and is 100% on Israel’s side? Nothing to feel bad about: the Arabs care even less about the Palestinians. Americans these days seem to live their lives wrapped in lie after lie after lie. Time for us to attend to our mental health and unwind lies. Israel-Palestine would be a good place to start.

 

·         A friend said he was shocked at our comments yesterday supporting New York’s stop-and-frisk policy. “Should you not, as a person of color yourself, object to this blatantly racist policy?” Sigh. First, Editor can support the policy precisely because he is of color. His friend is white so he cannot. Second, if there is a better way to stop folks from murdering each other, then let us know what it is.

 

·         We were careful to note that it is not proved that stop-and-frisk has led to the drastic decline in NYC’s murder rate. This is a legitimate question for discussion/analysis. But Bloomberg’s intent was not to indulge himself in being racist, his aim was to bring down the high crime rates in “minority” areas. We use inverted commas because while we are not familiar with New York City’s demographics, we’re assuming that the minorities are actually the majority in the high crime areas, based on what we know about Washington DC, and Prince George’s County, Maryland, Editor’s neighboring county which is 80% minority last time was asked.

 

·         Bloomberg made an interesting statement the other day. He said whites are disproportionately targeted under his policy. Before passing judgment on stop-and-frisk, shouldn’t we at least find out if this true? If it is, then it’s the whites should be complaining about racial profiling.

 

·         If the police stopping minorities are also minority, is that standard racism or standard police distrust of folks who rack up more crimes than whites?

·         There more than a bit of an echo in the debate over the NSA. For the sake of our safety, what degree of privacy are willing to give up? To stop minorities from killing each other, to what extent is racial profiling justified? 

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT August 14, 2013

 

Sorry, folks: had to turn in a book to the publisher, a deadline is a deadline. That’s why Editor has been missing for two days. But: nothing is lost. The world is turning peacefully on its axis, the sun has been coming up per schedule, the Comedia Della Washingtoonia has been blasting away full-bore. In other words, SNAFU.

 

·         His Royal Prezzyness and Al-Qaeda  Why is Our Great Leader such a pain in the battooti on this matter of AQ? Even Bo (Prezzy’s dog) knows that AQ Pakistan and Afghanistan was beaten down a while ago, even before OBL was killed. He’d been ineffective as a leaders for years before. Equally, as Bo knows, AQ set up serious shop in Yemen, began spreading to the Mahgreb, made itself cozy in Somalia, and of late has been busy-busy-busy in Iraq and in Syria.  So what on earth is Prezzy blabbing on about AQ has been defeated?

 

·         How does Editor know even Bo knows that AQ has spread rather than being defeated? Because Editor had a conversation with him the other day on the Animal Internet. Indeed, Editor was so impressed at the depth of Bo’s knowledge Editor wants Prezzy to step down and let Bo becomes the nation’s Chief Executive. Time to face reality folks: we already know Bo is a lot cuter than Prezzy, and he’s smart enough that he has to do a much better job of governing America than his boss.

 

·         Proof that us Americans have lost it Four men of color went to court in New York to stop the city’s very aggressive stop and frisk policy. Since most of the folks stopped were men of color, it would seem they had a case on racial profiling. All quite logical up top this moment.

 

·         Except the chief beneficiaries of the stop and frisk policy have been – young men of color. New York’s murder rate is way, way down, and that means young men of color are being murdered at rates far lower than have been seen for decades.

 

·         Now, you can legitimately ask for proof that Mayor Bloomberg is right when he says the murder rate for young men of color is way down because of stop and frisk. Correlation is not causation as the stats people like to say. But then these four gents should have asked the court to look into that question first. The court has said yes, its racial profiling. Brilliant. Everyone and his dog – especially his dog – knows that yes, it IS racial profiling. But that because most murders were being committed by a certain demographic. How does it help if New York, to avoid being accused of racial profiling, starts stopping little ol’ white folks? Is that going to save the lives of young men of color?

 

·         What Editor would like to learn is what is the population breakdown by ethnicity and age in the high murder neighborhoods? If the folks there are predominantly if color, then the policy is not racial profiling.

 

·         In Washington DC’s 2nd Police District, for example you get a couple of homicides a year. Great surprise: 2nd District is the white area of town. So what sense would it make for the police to spent an equal effort trying to prevent murders in 2nd District as they might in, say, 6th District? That is East of the Anacostia, and the 2011 homicide rate was 7 times higher, 28 versus 4?

 

Friday 0230 GMT August 9, 2013

 

·         Bad news for us global cooling enthusiasts There is a school that says temperatures on earth are linked to the sun’s activity. The sun is supposed to be heading for a grand minimum, which could trigger a mini-ice-age instead of the global warming folks have been getting upset about.

 

·         New Scientist says that while sun activity is slowing, it looks like this is part of a 100-year cycle where activity declines, but then picks up within a few years. http://tinyurl.com/mrwgkjx

 

·         More bad news…Folks have been studying Greenland ice cores going back 800,000, and there seems to be no doubt that at many times in the past the earth has been much warmer than it is today. As study of the cores going back 20,000 to 10,000 years, the time of the last ice age, shows that CO2 increases could have lagged rises in temperature by as much as 1400-years. Meaning, the rising temps could not have been caused by rising CO2.

 

·         So along comes Scientific American to smugly discredit the above research. Someone else has shown that the lag is only 200-years. Nothing to rejoice about because apparently that’s within the margin of error if CO2 rise causes temp rise. It’s got to do with the pace at which CO2 bubbles move through ice. You can read about it at http://tinyurl.com/ak49w2e

 

·         Our point has been a bit different By all means say the CO2 is causing global warming. But our planet changes all the time due to nature by her little ol’ self. So why is it that the earth’s temps have to be frozen at the level they were in 1990 or whatever? Okay, so some species will die but other species will thrive. Life will go on. It’s apparently cheaper to help the tens of millions of folks – Maldives, for example – to move than to spend tens of trillions or even hundreds of trillions to stop warming.

 

·         But what about the argument that if the warming trend continues we’ll end up like Venus? Okay, but what is the need to go there? Nuclear-power and fusion-power can provide all the CO2 free energy we need. In the meanwhile, fracking can help the shift to natural gas, which produces half as much CO2 as our current regime. It’s no use going on and on about the risks of N-power because they are orders of magnitude less than coal. And with the new generation of passive-fail-safe reactors, the role of human error in causing potentially deadly accidents is greatly reduced. If you still don’t like N-power, then lets pout a few trillion into operationalizing fusion power.

 

·         Let’s face it: there is no such as pollution free power. Windmills were the big thing, now we learn they off so many birds and create so much background noise and create so much visual blight that wind is not a cost free alternative. Plus with wind and solar no one has figured how to store the power for when its needed. For baseload power, there is no alternative to the gigawatt sized conventional generating plants, at least not till fusion comes on line.

 

·         What western greens don’t understand is how racist is their demand that we stop burning coal and oil. The west has got its economic development, y’all can afford to think of environmental issues. If it means you have to sacrifice 10-20% of your economic growth, you will still have a high standard of living. But for Africa, India, China, for economic development we need electric power at the cheapest rates and we need it NOW. Taking coal and oil out will cripple economic development in areas where billions of people live on less than $5/day. It will condemn them to generations more of poverty.  Unless you have lived that poverty, as opposed to having visited as a tourist, you cannot possibly even begin to imagine how dehumanizing it is.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT August 8, 2013

 

·         Eternal India, again Yesterday we discussed the China problem. Today it is Pakistan. In brief, a Pakistan Army team slipped through a 300-meter gap in the border fencing near Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir, ambushed a six-man Indian patrol, killed five and badly wounded the sixth.

 

·         The Government of India announced this as “terrorists in Pakistan Army uniform” or some similar nonsense. Then the Defense Minister said the same thing to Parliament. Instant uproar. Opposition calls for impeachment (similar but not identical to US system) of the DefMin for misleading Parliament. Turns out that the Army announcement of the ambush said it was Pakistan Army soldiers, and named a specific unit, 101 Battalion Mujahid Regiment.

 

·         Of course the DefMin was trying to mislead Parliament because if he’d said it was the Pakistan Army, there would have been cries for revenge and – heaven forfend – the GOI might actually have had to do something. So the DefMin lied – following GOI policy, not on his own. But then GOI lies every day about the Chinese intrusions, so Editor for one does not see what is the big deal. India and Pakistan are planning détente talks, the GOI does not want to upset things, particularly as the Pakistan Army is prone to do these intrusions entirely on its own.

 

·         The Pakistanis, BTW, as usual said that they have investigated, no such episode took place, the Indians are lying. Nothing to see here, move along. The Pakistanis needed no lessons from the Americans on how to lie, they’re pretty darn good all by themselves; but after they got back with the Americans starting in 2001, they started to pick up the memes and cadences of American public relations lies.

 

·         Actually, the Pakistanis have a point. There is indeed nothing to see here. This kind of action happens so frequently on the border that except for the blatant nature of crossing into India and staging an ambush while in uniform, it’s just business as usual. When the Pakistan Army covers terrorist infiltrators, it usual does so via artillery barrages. A couple of people get killed on either side after vast quantities of ammunition are extended; India protests, Pakistan says India started it; and so on to the next yawn-inducing incident.

 

·         There is no need to ask why there was a 300-meter gap in the border fencing because this is India. Storms could have downed the fence, which in some parts is pretty rickety. The Pakistanis could have surreptitiously cut it earlier or even just prior to the infiltration. There is no sense in asking why the Indian Army did not retaliate immediately. We’re not up to date on the latest Rules Of Engagement, but as far as we know, the local commander is not permitted to retaliate. Some time back there was a major blowup because the brigade commander of the sector ordered it. We don’t know if he is now pushing files in some dusty cantonment. The local commander has to report the incident and it goes all the way up the chain, and then the Army is told by GOI to show restraint.

 

·         One thing is for sure: the Pakistanis knew with 100% certainty that there would be no meaningful Indian retaliation. How do they know this? Because ever since 1985, when Pakistan started infiltrating into Indian Kashmir, India has on many, many occasions planned retaliatory strikes. Not one has been launched in the period of almost 30-years. In fact, even after the Bombay 2008 attack the GOI did absolutely nothing.  Compared to that major terror strike, what are the lives of five army soldiers? Less than nothing.

 

·         We said yesterday: Indians are poltroons and cowards. We’ll say it again: Indians are poltroons and cowards. Pakistan has one-fifth the area of India, one-seventh the population, one-eighth the GDP. Yet India is too frightened to retaliate. It isn’t just the GOI: the citizens of India also want no trouble that could disturb the peaceful equanimity of their lives.

 

·         Meanwhile, just as we are sure the sun came up yesterday, we are sure that India’s great pal, the US of A, has already sent a quiet message to Delhi asking for restraint. The obvious retort, that if the US wants Indian restraint, why does it not come and police the disputed border itself, will never occur to the GOI, the media, the elite, or the people of India. The other obvious retort would have India urge the US to show restraint when there is another terror attack against the US. America has a vast hypocrisy when it comes to India. It is okay for the US to go occupy countries in response to a terror attack. It is not okay for India to retaliate.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT August 7, 2013

 

·         Eternal India So first we learn that in Northern Ladakh, the Chinese have turned back 19 of 21 patrols over the last few months. The patrols were on India’s side of the border as forcibly established by China in 1962. Apparently the Chinese have the advantage of the heights in this particular part of the world, so they can see the Indian patrols setting out, and have plenty of time to drive down and block the Indians.

 

·         So basically, as they have been doing for several years, the Chinese are sitting inside India – as even they recognize it – and shooing away the Indian forces. What are the patrols doing? Nothing. They are under very strict orders to turn back if obstructed. They are under no conditions to provoke the Chinese into an incident. This policy has been imposed on the Army by the MOD, which is acting on behalf of the Cabinet, which is acting on behalf of the Ministry of Surrender – beg pardon, the Ministry of External Affairs.

 

·         Now, Editor abuses MEA enough, but even he has to admit that like Indian government organizations, MEA follows its orders. It just so happens that the NEA policy of surrendering without a shot fits nicely into the Cabinet’s position of surrendering without a shot. The Army is mute in all this. The Indian Army, to a greater extent than any major army in the world, makes a fetish of following precisely the Government’s orders, however irrational or humiliating they may be.

 

·         Why are the Chinese acting aggressive? After all, didn’t both India and China agree to a stand down and a pull-back of forces from the border? Yes they did. But China, not content to let the situation be, is determined on forcing a settlement of the border issue on its terms. It will agree to accept Indian ownership of China-claimed territory in Northeast India, which India has always been in possession of, if India agrees to accept China’s occupation of a large part of Ladakh. To the Chinese it’s all quite reasonable: where you sit is yours, where we sit is ours. The Chnese want to know why the Indians are being so unreasonable.

 

·         Well, the Indians are being unreasonable because they never agreed to China’s occupation of Ladakh. Their land was seized by force by China, who then has been trying to get India to legitimize Chinese aggression.

 

·         That Indians are cowards and poltroons is indisputable, but even the Government of India realizes that if it agrees to China’s terms, it will be thrown out of office. So it stalls, as it has for sixty years. Luckily, the Chinese make stalling easy. For example, to this day they have never shown India an official map of what they consider to be their territory. Without such a map how can talks advance?

 

·         So the Chinese have taken to a no-shot-fired war against India, using its patrols to gradually force India back. So whose fault is this? Clearly India’s, because when for sixty years you have given ground, except once in 1967, how do we expect the Chinese to show us respect?

 

·         That one time in 1967, at a pass called Nathula in Sikkim, the Chinese started intruding on Indian territory. The Indian Army confronted the Chinese. Acting with total cowardice, the Chinese opened up on the Indians, killing up to sixty – no one has ever given an official account of happenings so one doesn’t really know. The Indians then retaliated with artillery fire, and kept firing till the Chinese decided it was time to call it a day.

 

·         But so frightened of China is India that it has never retaliated again and indeed, has expressly ordered the Army not to retaliate. So the Chinese keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing. Meanwhile, they are creating a situation in Ladakh that if the Indians do not push back, in due time we could lose another part of Northeast Ladakh and be pushed back to the Ladakh mountain range. This will allow China and Pakistan to join hands, and leave Leh, India’s main base in Ladakh, under the rockets and guns of China’s long-range artillery. This development will not happen tomorrow. Perhaps not even in 10-years. But unless India draws a line, it WILL happen.

 

·         Meanwhile, in Northern Kashmir, the Chinese are already occupying the area. It’s done peacefully, with the full agreement of the Pakistan Government, which controls that area, having seized it from India in 1947-48. Ostensibly the Chinese troops there are providing security for the widening of the Karakoram Highway and for the mineral exploration teams they have sent.

 

·         But the Chinese will not leave, because they want a buffer between Afghanistan-Pakistan Islamic militants and Sinkiang. Watch this space: soon the Chinese will be pressing against Afghanistan’s northern border for that same reason: to create a buffer against militants.

 

·         Meanwhile what is Eternal India doing? What it does eternally: nothing. In a discussion forum an Indian writer exasperatedly asked after the early spring showdown in Ladakh – which India lost, at what point will the Government of India react? When the Chinese reach Delhi?

 

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT August 6, 2013

 

·         New Russian corvette stuffed full of weapons The Project 21631 corvettes displace about a 1000-tons with a crew of 52. But look at its weapons load: 8 x SSN-27, 1 x 100mm, 1 x 30mm last-ditch system, 2 x torpedo tubes, and 2 x 6 round Igla M short-range SAMs http://russian-ships.info/eng/warships/project_21631.htm Range is 2500-nm at 12-knots.

 

·         US’s Littoral Combat Ship LCS-1 displaces 3000-tons, has a 57-mm gun, 2 x 30mm cannon, and 21 RAM SAMs. Its range is 3500-nm at 18-knots. The big difference is the LCS carries a UH-60 type helicopter and a UAV. The helicopter is invaluable for coastal and inshore work, no doubt about that. The 57mm gun has almost 1000-rounds. But for shore bombardment shouldn’t  the US have used something heavier, like a 76mm? The Russian 100mm gun fires a 60-lb shell. Okay, so there may be no more than 100 in the magazine, but the ship has a serious wallop (it’s an automatic, by the way). And how about putting some anti-ship/anti-shore missiles on the darn LCS.

 

·         Tunisia launched offensive against Islamists After right soldiers were killed in an ambush, the Government has launched a “huge” offensive http://www.france24.com/en/20130802-tunisia-launches-military-offensive-islamist-fighters. What caught our eye is the abush site was 16-km from the infamous Kasserine Pass. This was the scene of the first major encounter between US troops and the Germans in World War II and was a complete disaster for us. Fortunately the US learned its lesson rapidly.

 

·         A Twitter reader asks if we have endorsed the Zimbabwe win by the Ol’Crocodile, aka Robert Mugabe. No we haven’t. All we said was that according to the AU and SADC, though there was fraud, it likely was not sufficient to have changed the outcome. As far as we are concerned, the sooner the earth opens beneath the Ol’Crocodile, the better. Who has ever won a fair 7th 5-year term, after royally messing up their country?

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT August 5, 2013

 

·         Which universe does the American power elite exist in? These days the papers are full of folks saying we should be helping Egypt become democratic, save the Syrian people from their murderous dictator, assure women’s rights in Afghanistan, protect gays in Africa, and so on down an endless list. If it ever going to occur to the power elite that not only cannot America change the world, it never could.

 

·         The power elite seems to believe there was a mythical time when America merely had to give an order, and a country snapped to “make it so.” Actually that time never existed even when America had almost half of the world’s GDP, and it certainly doesn’t exist now when we have just 22% of the world’s GDP and are headed, in the next twenty years or so, to 15%.

 

·         To give just one example, anyone remember South Vietnam? Was there ever a time during those 14 unfortunate years 1961-1975 that we managed to get the South Vietnamese government to do what we wanted it to? If, in those days, we got folks like the South Koreans and the Thais and so on to do what we wanted, it was only because we installed and kept in power dictators who owed their lives to us. This was not something America could be proud of.

 

·         Liberals of the Cold War era forgot one thing, as many historians do even now. The US was locked into an existential war of survival with Communism. Communism was not a made up threat. The Soviets could destroy the US in 30-minutes. They could overrun western Europe in 10-days. Left to themselves, the Communists would have taken over many, many countries, yea, even in our backyard. Back in the day, America did not have the option of allying only with governments that met our democratic standard. World War II forced America to ally with Stalin, whose religion (Communism) explicitly demanded the eradication of the US and the West. To survive, we had to take our allies where we could. It was the same during the Cold War.

 

·         Starting in the 1970s, bit by bit America began to push democracy all over the world. More dictators have fallen thanks to America’s direct or indirect actions, more countries became democratic, than at any time in history. The more Communism weakened, the more proactive we could become.

 

·         So we liberated much of the world. Having done so, how is it the power elite wants us to go back to the bad ol’ days of interfering in other countries? The power elite insist that it isn’t the same thing because we will intervene for democracy. But, kiddies, when we were trying to control the whole world, we were also intervening to save democracy from Communism. Okay, so it was our democracy and the West’s democracy that we were fighting to save, even if meant the locals got oppressed by our sanctioned tyrants; but our intent was every bit as noble as today’s generation.

 

·         On what grounds can we possibly go back to forcing other countries to function as we want them to function? Equally to the point, having brought democracy to the world, how does anyone propose we now reimpose our will on other nations? Not only is it morally wrong, it has now become impossible. No more than George III could tell us what to do, can we tell the Afghans, Iraqis, Sudanese, Libyans, Syrians, Egyptians, and so on what to do.

 

·         Was democracy imposed on America? Obviously not. We became democratic through the will of our people. True, we did impose democracy on Japan. After wiping out that country and after getting the tacit consent of the people. Suppose the Japanese people had refused to accept defeat and launched guerilla war after the surrender. How long does anyone think we could have stayed on?

 

·         America has given dozens of countries the right to be free, all of South and Central America, almost all of Africa, a dozen nations in the former USSR, the Balkans, South East Asia and so on. We did so by stopping to interfere in their lives and make their own decisions. Now these countries have to work out things by themselves. And they will. Venezuela is an example. Hugo did his best to turn the country into a totalitarian state. But seen from the very close margin in the elections after his death, he did not succeed.

 

Friday 0230 August 2, 2013

 

·         Sigh. Back to Benghazi. Again. We don’t understand why Americans are going on and on about Benghazi. Now a CNN report is causing much excitement in the blogosphere. For example, this piece from Hot Air http://tinyurl.com/nyddbhq CNN has discovered that the CIA had a big presence on the ground in Benghazi and was up to nogoodniks. The best guess is that it was supplying weapons to Syrian rebels. Yawn.

 

·         At least people have stopped going around in circles about no help being sent for Ambassador Stevens. If readers recall, we said he should not have been in Benghazi to begin with, and was likely on his own business. Help was sent as soon as possible from Tripoli. Now it turns out that four men from Tripoli would not have made much difference, because there were already 31 CIA folks around, 21 at the Annex. What annoys us no end is that no one mentions the CIA’s local militia, which had at least a couple of hundred men respond when the fight at the consulate started. There was no shortage of people at any time. This was not the Alamo, with a handful of loyal Americans fighting off hordes of enemy soldiers. This was the CIA and one of its militias fighting another militia or a breakaway faction of the same militia. The CIA did not ask for help. It did not want help. It did not need help. We hope the bloggers get that.

 

·         The real issue is, who knows what happened, and more to the point, who cares. The entire problem was the Benghazi folks did not know Stevens was in town. From what we hear, his deputy did not know either.

 

·         Of course the CIA was up to nogoodniks.  That’s what the CIA is for, for gosh sakes. Why is this even news? Still, we’re a bit baffled the Republicans have let go the entire matter of Barry and Hilary being responsible for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. Could it be they were briefed and advised any further revelations would only hurt the Ambassador’s reputation? That he was not a martyr but instead got three Americans killed for no reason of state? If this is the case, the Republicans are guilty of a cover-up as much as anyone else.

 

·         US NSA paid GCHQ $150-million over three years to gather material of interest to the US. US also paid half of GCHQ’s Cyprus station. GCHQ is the UK equivalent of NSA. The press is going “The horror! Revelations! Conspiracy! Dirty Deals!” http://preview.tinyurl.com/mh5gqvj

 

·         As always the press is missing the point. What this shows is how cheap the Americans are. $50-million plus a few million more each year? This is simply pathetic. Having had dealings with yon friendly Yanks, Editor has several times said there is one word for them: CHEAP. Doubtless you are saying the Brits must be cheap too, to be dealing with the Americans for so little. Actually no. The Americans are very hard bargainers. They will not only pay you pennies, they’ll also steal your wife – while you’re making love to her. And your girlfriend too.

 

Thursday 0230 August 1, 2013

 

·         The longest ship in the world is the first of 20 Triple-E class containerships operating by Maesrk. It is 400-meters long and carries 18,000 20-foot containers. Emissions are 3-grams/ton/kilometer, about 6 times less than rail and 185 times less than air freight. The ships cost about $190-million. Deadweight tonnage is nothing compared to oil tankers, just 165,000 tons. And the crew is 19 persons. Not much job creation going on here. They will sail between Baltic ports and China/South Korea. The article notes one ship can carry 111-million pairs of trainers. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/10203784/The-biggest-ship-in-the-world.html

 

·         Now this is embarrassing…India’s Telegraph newspaper reports that the Army reported 155 Chinese UAV intrusions over a lake in the border area. Presumably this is the Pangong Tso. Indian astronomers say the objects are Jupiter and Venus rising. Apparently because of the altitude, which would be 4000-meters, and the lack of any pollution, atmospheric or light, the two planets show up quite brightly. Still, when the objects are moving very slowly in an arc over several hours, why would anyone mistake them for UAVs. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23455128

 

·         Teacher protest dress code – Editor joins them Look, people, one of the big joys when you are Editor’s age is going to school and discreetly admiring inappropriately dressed lady teachers. Now the Satan-worshippers in Lewis County, wherever in heck that might be – probably the Hot Place Downstairs, have mandated a dress code. Fie. Lewis County Board of Ed, may you all die unpleasantly.

 

·         The teachers are protesting and one union, the American Federation of Teachers, might challenge the ban as unconstitutional. Editor plans on joining the suit if filed. If this thing spreads, Editor’s constitutional right to – ahem – admire inappropriately dress teachers will be violated.

 

·         On one point Editor has to side with the teachers. This is the no blue jeans requirement. Board of Ed should come do a day’s teaching, particularly in elementary and middle school. It will discover the business is a rather messy one.

 

·         Talking about admiring women it may be time for Editor to quit chasing after them.  Not because he never succeeds. That’s no reason to quit. Editor has been complaining that women are starting to all look the same to him.  Having watched a bit of Iron Man on the CTV at the YMCA, Editor recognized Pepper – same lady who plays Mary Jane Parker in the Spiderman movies. But for the life of him Editor could not recall her name. Thank you Google: type in the question and the answer pops up.

 

·         But the answer is not what Editor expected. Apparently it’s not the same lady, but two different ones, by name of Dunst and Paltrow. Editor looked and looked, and indeed, they both do look exactly alike to his old eyes. To add insult to injury, Editor learns that some rag has declared Paltrow the most beautiful woman in the world.

 

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT July 31, 2013

·         Japan stands up to China About time someone did, because the US sure gets limp-wristed about China. And as for India, let’s not talk about that or Editor will have to throw up in disgust. The new Prime Minister says that Japan will have to reconsider its pure defense posture via-a-vis China. He is speaking of raising amphibious forces to protect Japanese islands. About the second or third thing Abe did after being elected was to visit Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand, to discuss joint naval strategy against the PRC. Good for him. As for the US, it should hide its face in shame for deeming money is more important than national security. As for India, may we suggest the Indian politicians swim the Andaman Sea, without life-vests? At least they’ll provide food for the sharks and perform a useful service.

 

·         Oh oh. Editor just looked out his window and there’s a crowd of sharks with placards all over his front law. The placards say: “Indian politicos are stinky rotten. We wouldn’t eat them even if we were starving.”

 

·         Mr. Manning convicted This had to happen because he freely admitted to what he did. But he’s been found guilty of espionage, not of aiding the enemy. Let us see what the sentence is.

 

·         India to create new state Andhra Pradesh is to be split into Andhra and Telangana, fulfilling a 60-year demand for the people of Telangana. At the time of independence, India’s political leaders were concerned that the demand for more states would lead to a weak confederation. Splitting states, however, leads folks calming down. India has 1.2-billion people, and the bigger states are bigger than most countries. Folks feel ignored in these mega states. Uttar Pradesh, despite being split into three states in 2000 still has 200-million people. Maharashtra has 113-million. Bihar, which was also split, nonetheless has 105-million people.

 

·         Imagine if the US or the Europeans had states each with 100+ million people or even 50+million as seven Indian states do. It would be impossible to deliver anything except the minimal governance to these giant entities. The same applies here. Reasonably, no state should be larger than 10-million people. Far from weakening the center, this strengthens the center because no one is able to challenge Delhi.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT July 30, 2013

 

·         Prince Alwaleed warns Saudi about shale hydrocarbons This sort of story leads to believe there may, after, be justice. The good prince, who as readers will know, is himself quite a beneficiary of Saudi oil, warms his country it will need to diversify away from oil as fracking steadily expands the availability of gas and oil http://news.sky.com/story/1121610/saudi-prince-fracking-is-threat-to-kingdom

 

·         Folks like the Prince have billions and billions not because they did anything except below to the Royal Family, as the Mafia that runs the country is called. He is right to be alarmed, because the day may come when the masses, which are kept sedated by handouts of oil money, may face the prospect of – gulp! – actual work.  That could lead to a revolution. Not that the Royal Family will suffer, because they probably have a couple of trillion or so stored overseas. But still, the thoughts that the proles may burn down the palaces must be a bit worrying.

 

·         Mind you, we do not really see this as happening. If Saudi oil revenue goes down, they’ll just have to be a bit more less lavish in their spending. But anything that makes the Saudis anxious makes Editor happy because this lot is behind almost all the terror originating from the Islamic world. And yet America is in bed with them. Which is to say, the American elite. The people of the US either don’t know, or more like don’t care.

 

·         Editor also has another interest in this. Eighty percent or more of the money flowing into Indian madrassas and to the insurgents attacking Kashmir comes from the Saudis.

 

·         There’s this from UK Telegraph which explains why the Saudis might worry about shale: “The “break-even cost” for their budgets has doubled over the last decade, reaching $140 (£91) in Iran, $115 in Bahrain, $100 in Iraq, $80 in Saudi Arabia, and $75 even in the lightly-settled Emirates. Russia too has topped $100.”  The newspaper is referring to the per barrel sale price http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/10209822/US-shale-threatens-Saudi-funding-crisis-and-demise-of-OPEC.html  This seems to indicate that Iran will be the first to become bankrupt should prices continue falling.

 

·         Meanwhile, our American readers will be asking why we keep paying more for gas even as we produce more and cheaper hydrocarbons. We’ve explained its got to do with refineries. Previously, economics plus environmental regulations have been shutting down refineries. In the case of the new boom, there’s no way to get the oil to the refineries inexpensively. By shutting down pipelines like Keystone XL expansion, the US price remains high.

 

·         If you like conspiracy theories, think of this: whose interest is served Greens shutting down   pipelines and fracking? The oil companies that are not big players in the new oil. And interestingly, there is a new anti-pipeline lobby in town. These are folks who DO NOT want Midwest and Dakotas hydrocarbons getting exported out of area or out of country, because their industries are making whacking more loads of money from lower energy costs. So in the spirit of free enterprise, which is so much extolled in America, are these companies leaving it up to the free market to sort out things? Of course not, silly. They’re going to the Congressional folks to pass laws to favor them. All we are saying here is, don’t blame only the Greens for the pipeline mess.

 

·         Some people have all the luck A gentleman on a long-haul flight in the US has been convicted of molesting the woman who was next to him. She awoke, she says, to find the gentleman’s one hand down her pants and the other down her blouse. I am innocent, said the gentleman. She forced me to do these things, I didn’t want to touch her. Why is it Editor never meets women who force him to - er – do these things? If a lady insisted, your helpless Editor would do as she ordered and merely lie back and think of winter in England.

Monday 0230 GMT July 29, 2013

 

·         Syria We’ve been avoiding the topic, largely because we get progressively less clear what the US can do to resolve the issue. Americans are great ones for firmly believing anything can be solved given sufficient skill, enthusiasm, determination and so on. They are right, but in practice the effort one expends into finding a solution to a problem like Syria has to be proportionate to the return. This is because there are many competing problems. Syria is one such problem: the US can certainly go in, defeat Assad, kill Al Queda, create a democracy and so on. But are we willing to pay the price? Well, in Afghanistan we aren’t, so why would we in Syria?

 

·         Nonetheless, there is news from that country. Government forces continue their successful offensives. They now control 60% of Homs, as told by the insurgents themselves. The guessing is that Assad wants a separate Alewite state in south Syria to retreat to if his battle to reclaim all of the country fails.

 

·         If you think about this, is it not a sensible solution? The Alewites are a minority. If/when the Sunnis take over, they will busily suppress Alewite rights just as the latter have suppressed Sunnis’ right. In the Year of Our Lord 2013, the idea has become that everyone should be able to lead their lives peacefully. So why not give Alewites their own state and be done with it?

 

·         In Iraq, Baghdad has perforce to accept Kurdish autonomy. Why not go the whole hog and let the Kurds go? The Iraqi Sunnis don’t want autonomy or independence because their provinces lack oil. But at least at this stage in Shia-Sunni relations, there is simply no way the two are going to coexist. It’s likely the Sunni provinces have hydrocarbon reserves – the whole world seems to, these days. So why not have the West, China, India, explore, find the reserves, develop them, and let the Sunnis go their own way?

 

·         So what about Kashmir? You will ask why Editor is not advocating letting Kashmir go if it doesn’t want to stay in India. Surprise: Editor, despite being an extreme nationalist, is prepared to let independence-wanting Kashmiris go. But these folks, who constitute a fith of the population, want to take all Kashmiris with them. How can they be allowed to do that? Kashmir is a Muslim majority state, but by now we all should realize that Religion does not imply Unity. There are Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists in Kashmir who have no desire to be in independent Kashmir. There are Shias who don’t want to be there, either. There are many Sunnis who don’t, either.

 

·         Let the independence minded Muslims agree that they can have the districts (counties) where 50% or more want independence, provided the districts are continuous or can be divided. Ethnic transfers of population have to be kept to a minimum.

 

·         Of course, India will need UN-enforced assurances from Pakistan that Pakistan will not walk in when India leaves. India cannot possibly give up parts of its nation only to have Pakistan take over. BTW, it is estimated 1% of Kashmiris want to join Pakistan. So why should Pakistan be allowed to take over? Which it will, within 12-hours of Kashmiri independence, unless the US/NATO/ working under UN mandate stop it. And then the US/NATO/UN can spend the next 100-years fighting off Pakistani insurgents attempting to retake independent Kashmir.

 

·         One hundred years? Surely Editor jests. No, he does not. India has already spent 66-years stopping Pakistan from taking Kashmir. And once the partition of Kashmir is agreed on, can we have a vote to see if the Pakistanis of the Northern Territories want to stay with Pakistan, join independent Kashmir, or join India?

 

·         But before Indian Kashmiri Muslims vote, they  might want to look around at what’s happening in other parts of Kashmir. Pakistan Kashmir has, last we checked, 61 of its 66 cabinet ministers from outside Kashmir. Pakistani Kashmiris are not permitted to as much as demonstrate for independence. Northern Kashmir is no longer even a part of Kashmir. The Pakistanis have simply merged it into Pakistan proper. Independence minded Kashmiris say they are not bothered that India spends $10 on Kashmir for every $1 it takes in taxes. They bravely say that tourism will more than make up for it. What kind of tourism will there be with Pakistani insurgents fighting to take over the newly independent country? And will the US/NATO/UN agree to protect independent Kashmir? And BTW, how many tourists are going to come once the fundamentalists take over, as they are trying to do even in Indian Kashmiris.

 

Friday 0230 GMT July 26, 2013

 

·         New NSA facility in Utah 7-times larger than the Pentagon Holy Chihuahuas!   Why so large? This article explains it http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2013/07/nsas-big-dig/67406/

 

·          “A 2012 article in Wired reported that NSA needs the megaplex partially because the Pentagon wants to expand the military global communications network to manage yottabytes of data. “A yottabyte is a septillion bytes—so large that no one has yet coined a term for the next higher magnitude,” the article said. “Should the agency ever fill the Utah center with a yottabyte of information, it would be equal to about 500 quintillion (500,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text.” NSA officials told Government Executive, however, they do not discuss such operational details.”

 

·         BTW, the built-up area certainly does not look like its 7-times the area of the Pentagon. We think the size comparison is for the whole campus, which is misleading as there is no shortage of space in Utah. And certain to store yottabytes of data does not require gigantic buildings.

 

·         Also BTW, for the information of our foreign readers, the US House of Representative refused, by a narrow margin, to impose curbs on the NSA’s data gathering. Maybe the US Congress had little idea what it was getting into when it okayed these surveillance programs, but that’s a far cry from saying the snooping is illegal. If the senate also considers the issue and gives the same okay, then even after Congress has gotten to know the scope, it is not illegal. Whether the US Government should permit such extensive data gathering is another discussion, but we should start avoiding the term “illegal” in these discussions.

 

·         DPRK to put USS Pueblo on display Now, Editor did not know this, but the surveillance ship is still a commissioned US Navy vessel. That means the US has not given up claim to it. That means it is ours. http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/DA7OK8980  So, when it comes on display, a cruise missile should be used to sink it. Its legal: we are permitted to destroy our own property illegally seized by anyone. As for the cruise missile violating DPRK territorial waters, the ship was attacked and seized in international waters. We don’t think a thief can claim immunity for the proceeds of his crime.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT July 25, 2013

 

·         Dutch scientists invent process to generate electricity from waste CO2  Approximately 23-billion tons of carbon-dioxide is generated by homes and industries each year. Now Dutch scientists have demonstrated a proof-of-concept method of turning the gas into power. Theoretically 4-Terawatts/day can be generated, approximately 4x the US total. Currently the process uses more energy than it creates, but it is early days yet. The CO2 doesn’t convert to something benign, but the process does not add  more to the atmosphere.

 

·         Baby Cambridge to be George VII if he comes to reign. William, his dad, will be William V. Charles, his grandfather will be Charles III. There is a nice symmetry about this. George VI was Elizabeth II’s father who came to the throne because his elder brother, Edward VIII, gave up his right to rule since he wanted to marry an American divorcee. These days no one cares. Charles III, aside from being himself divorced, is married to a divorcee. The tragedy here, we are told, that Charles wanted to marry Camilla, but Mummy and Daddy said no as she was of unsuitable family. Well, he showed them: he married her anyway after both had been married to other people.

 

·         Too many hires are now stacked above the runway. The decent thing would for Queen E 2 to retire (she won’t), for Charlie 3 to rule for one day and abdicate, and let Wills 5 get the job. Charlie 3 is a pretty eccentric coot and won’t do the monarchy any good when he succeeds.

 

 

·         House and Senate agree on military aid to Syrian rebels – with apprehension. So the aid MAY start in a few weeks. As for the apprehension, Congress is quite right to be apprehensive. Syria is in a complete mix and it’s going to get worse, without or without the US.

 

·         NSA Leaker is given documents to leave airport The first attempt proved abortive as there was some glitch with the papers. Those in the know say he will be shipped off to some really distant part of Russia and given an apartment in a crumbling building in which to live. We’re assuming that the “no political talk” condition that President Pooty Poot wanted means he will not be talking to the Wikileaks crowd. They’re not going to like that. This entire “whistle-blower” lot needs to stop playing silly buggers, grow up, and get real jobs at McDonald’s or cleaning offices or something productive.

 

·         New York City and its pervvy mayoral candidate In a sense it’s a sign of Americans’  growing maturity that they are taking the former congressman’s candidacy in stride. The gentleman, you will recall, resigned his seat after it became public knowledge he was texting women pix of his – er – jockey shorts while wearing them. As long its between consenting adults, it isn’t anyone’s beeswax what he does to amuse himself. But now it turns out he has been texting pix of – er – of himself without the jockey shorts. Apparently the 22-year old on the receiving end is appreciative of the pictures.  Former congressman’s wife has forgiven him again, and again, that’s their business.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT July 24, 2013

 

·         Letter on Martin/Zimmerman case from Peter La Salle In your editorial of two days ago, you said of course race was an issue in the Martin/Zimmerman case for all that we may deny it. You also said you define President Obama as white since his mother was white. Zimmerman’s mother is Hispanic, and from photographs I have seen, I think it is apparent she has some black blood. So why do you assume Zimmerman to be white? To me, he is Hispanic, and as such both Martin and Zimmerman are persons of color. So where is the issue of race?  Incidentally, I am white.

 

·         Response from Editor In Mr. La Salle’s letter you have all the complications of race in America. Americans pride themselves on being multi-racial, multi-cultural, whatever have you. Yet at the first opportunity we start talking about race. Not that anyone reading this blog cares, but it is our obsession with race that drives the British quite angry. They say Americans are absolutely racist because everything is framed in terms of race. Editor has to admit he’ll often read a story in one of their online papers, and unless a photograph is provided, or a country of origin mention, it’s not easy finding out what race the people are.

 

·         Editor will also be honest; he too is totally imbued in defining things by race. When he was growing up in America race seemed to be irrelevant. He accepts this might have been because his world was almost entirely white, black folks tended to be invisible. The only Hispanics one encountered in New England were from Puerto Rico. The Kennedy immigration reforms had not begun to have an impact. Returning to America, particularly to Washington DC, and particularly changing careers to become a teacher, it is race, race, race all the time. When you work at the Hecht Company’s warehouse and see three people are white – the top managers – and everyone else is black except for yourself, another South Asian, and one East Asian, you cannot help wonder what’s going on.

 

·         When you’re working in the Hecht Company’s buying office, and every single clerical but you and one white is black, whereas every buyer but two are black, you again start to wonder what is going on. When the white buyers themselves openly tell you Hechts has a huge history of racism and still is racist, and the reason Editor is not getting promoted to executive status is 100% because of race, well, you start thinking a lot about race. As for our education system and its focus on race – let’s not get started. And when you live and work with black folks, there is no way in heck you are going to get away from the discussion.

 

·         Okay, that said: if the theory of African Eve is correct, then we are all black because the Mom Of Us All was black. We’re saying “theory” because everyone does not agree about African Eve. Also, all humans are of one race: it is called – Duh! – the human race. So why there is ANY American discussion about race, starting with the Census, is not quite clear to Editor.

 

·         And that said, Editor needs to clarify that he does not take Zimmerman to be white. To Editor, Zimmerman is Hispanic. But if you want to talk about racism in America, just wade into Black-Hispanic relations to learn about yet another dimension of the American obsession with race. That’s why Editor said when it comes to black folk, everyone is racist, and black folk are not hesitant about repaying the favor.

 

·         BTW, the President apparently said he was followed in stores and he could hear the clicks of car remotes locking doors when he passed. It’s quite likely he was followed when he was young – store detectives keep a sharp watch on all young people. But this clicking of locks is interesting. Where did this happen? In parking lots? So people in parking lots keep their cars unlocked and then when they see Barry near their cars, be they in offices, on the other side of the lot, or wherever, they lock their cars? Implausible. On the street? So folks who park on their streets leave their cars unlocked until they see Barry and as he passes each porch he hears car locks clicking? Help us here, Barry. What exactly are you talking about?

 

Tuesday, 0230 GMT July 23, 2013

 

·         Queen Elizabeth can go on vacation Baby Cambridge has arrived. This is probably the only real news today.

 

·         US to count intellectual property in GDP and this will raise the GDP by 2.7%. How exciting. Snooze-Snore. Is this going to get Editor a job? No? Then they can take their GDP increase and stick it wherever.  http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-18/the-rise-of-the-intangible-economy-u-dot-s-dot-gdp-counts-r-and-d-artistic-creation#r=hpf-s

 

·         Snowden had little access to secrets says a friend who is not in the NSA. Snowden may have had security clearance, but so do the janitors. Contractors are kept on the fringes of the organization. This, says friend, creates a problem for NSA. On the one hand it is screaming and crying about the damage the gentleman has done. On the other, if it says he did not damage worth the name, doubtless his lawyers will seize on that.

 

·         To Editor that is no dilemma at all. Knowing a bit about how these things work, breaking the law is breaking the law. The gentleman has broken the law. How much damage he has caused is irrelevant. Though of course if he has caused little or no damage, the prosecution and the judge will not get to deliver powerful, thundering statements about how bad the gentleman is.

 

·         BTW, this is not really relevant, but people are saying “If the leaker wanted to blow whistles, running to countries that are repressive of press freedom and dismissive on individual rights is hardly the way to go about it.” This has never been an issue for Editor, because to him it’s quite clear the gentleman has no ideals, no principles, and no morals. This is a narcissistic attention grabber, that’s all. Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, did not run anywhere. He took full responsibility, and was prepared to pay the price for stealing classified papers.

 

·         Also, BTW, America must have been a terribly, terribly naïve place in 1971. Shock and horror that the Government has consistently lied about the Vietnam War? Quelle horror! Call Captain Renault immediately, round up the usual suspects! There is a reason the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution the way they did. They started with the very sensible assumption that if you give anyone power without checks and balances, that power will be misused.  This is exactly what happened with Johnson, Nixon, Bush The Younger, and Obama. In the name of national security a great blackout has been imposed by government for several decades now, to protect the wrongdoers, not the national security. We’re telling you, you can make all the fun you like of Dead White Men, but that lot knew a few things and were way, way ahead of the times.

 

Monday 0230 GMT July 22, 2013

 

·         Dear Mr. President Editor would like to offer you a deal. If you’ll stop already about Trayvon Martin, so will we. First, you are president of the US of A, not of the black folks of the US of A. So can we have fewer musings about your blackness? Second, as far as Editor is concerned, you are white Irish. Yes, yes, we know in America everyone gets to define themselves as they want. Define away. And Editor will define you as he sees it.

 

·         Editor is not being facetious. Editor is not black, but for 11 years he worked among blacks and for five years lived in a black neighborhood. You, dear President, are a child of privilege who happens to have a black father. Editor very seriously doubts you have much clue about being black in America, and he finds your black musings to be phony and grating, as well as insulting to real black folks.

 

·         Second, let Editor say that when Mr. Martin was killed, Editor was calling for Mr. Zimmerman’s head. He thinks what Mr. Z. was absolutely, morally wrong. “Neighborhood Watch” means exactly that – watch. We have a neighborhood watch in Takoma Park, MD, and everyone with an IQ above 40 knows you can call the police, but you cannot stop, challenge, question anyone, much less follow them over the place and kill them because they punched you. Editor accepts that Mr. Martin threw punches; at which point you either throw some back, or you walk away. To shoot un unarmed person for a fight you provoked is cowardly.

 

·         Editor also accepts that many black folk themselves had been victimized in the area, including some Mr. Zimmerman may know or have known about. In Editor’s mind, that makes it twice as imperative for Mr. Zimmerman to phone the police and back off. In short, Editor cannot see any justification at all for Mr. Zimmerman’s action.

 

·         Unfortunately, there is something in the US called the law of the land. However totally absurd this may seem, and if you read the foreign press you will understand that all over the world people are appalled, but Florida has this Stand Your Ground law. SYG as defined in Florida says nothing about who started what. If you fear for your life, you can resort to lethal force.

 

·         In the US justice system there is also something called Beyond Reasonable Doubt. Since there were no witnesses, and Mr. Martin is dead, there can be no conviction of Mr. Zimmerman. Actually, there can be no prosecution of him either because there was no evidence on which to charge him. Unfair? You bet. Immoral? You bet. But illegal? Sorry, no. Mr. Zimmerman got away with manslaughter, which is what he should have been accused of – if at all there were grounds for charges. That is his good luck, thanks to SYG.

 

·         The way this case has proceeded, and continues to proceed, it is indeed a lynching – of a man Editor considers thoroughly disgusting, but who did not break the law as determined by a jury. There was no miscarriage of justice. Horrible as is the outcome, justice was done. Now Mr. Martin’s parents want a DOJ investigation. Incredibly, though no evidence was adduced that Mr. Zimmerman is racist, the DOJ has complied. This then becomes a political persecution. Last Editor heard, political persecution is something the Russians and Chinese do not. We at least make a big attempt not to.

 

·         Again, to be clear. There is very much a failure here. But it is not a failure of the US justice system. The failure is of Mr. Martin’s father. It was his duty to get a gun and shoot Mr. Zimmerman dead. It does not matter if Mr. Zimmerman is innocent or guilty under the law. If someone killed a child of the Editor, no matter what the circumstances, Editor would fail in his duty if he did not take revenge. An eye for an eye. It says that in the Holy Book. For the state to say: “You stay out of this, we will decide the punishment if any for your child’s killer” is morally illegitimate. The state has the power, and it can force Editor to comply. But that does not make it morally right. Mr. Martin’s father is free to make his own choices. But where Editor comes from, we don’t leave it up to an ineffective, hair-splitting legal system to administer justice on our behalf if murder has been done.

 

·         Anyone who has followed this blog at any point in the last 12 years knows that Editor is absolutely opposed to radical Islam, and frankly Islam as it is practiced in most nations is also nothing to write home about. But in one respect Islam is way ahead of the rest of the world. It recognizes that a crime twice victimizes: the victim, and her/his family. Which is why states ruled by Islamic law accept the responsibility to capture and put the criminal on trial. But the penalty, particularly for wrongful death of any kind, is up to the victim’s family. It can ask for blood money, but if the killer cannot pay or if the victim’s family refuses, well, the killer must die – at the hands of the victim’s family if they so ask. No one is interested in the killer’s background, state of mind, childhood, level of intelligence or any of that wholly irrelevant stuff of which the west is so fond and one reason it claims it is superior. There are no excuses.

 

·         But enough about the Editor. Let us get back to you, Mr. President. Editor believes your duty as President of this country, regardless of color, is to point out to people Mr. Zimmerman was tried and acquitted under the law. Your emotions, Sir, as much as Editor’s are irrelevant. The conversation you should be having is not false musing on Mr. Martin could have been your son or he could have been you 35-years ago. Both positions are fallacious because they do not take account of the role class plays in the US. And please, Editor is so tired of hearing US is classless. Your son, Mr. President, would not have been up to the no goodniks young Mr. Martin was; nor would he have been wandering around unsupervised at night in a dangerous neighborhood. Yes, before you protest, Mr. Martin’s character has nothing to do with the law. But neither does Mr. Zimmerman’s, and that needs to be acknowledged – by you.

 

·         White folks have spent much time decrying black folk’s immediate cry of racism. They have – correctly – said that there was no proof of racism. But anyone who believes Mr. Zimmerman, a white Hispanic, was not racist is living in a world of make believe. When it comes to young black males, everyone is racist. To say otherwise is to deny reality. And frankly, Sir, Editor is a lot closer to the reality of young black men than you are. So please do not preach to him. But you know what, Mr. President? Talk to black law enforcement officers. They will tell you that if a crime has been committed, and there is a young black man anywhere around, they – the black officers – also suspect the black man first. As a black 8th Grader in Editor’s 98% white Catholic school once said, wryly and humorously, but with raw truth: “It’s always the black man’s fault, Mr. Ravi.” Racist means making assumptions based on race and acting on those assumptions. When black police themselves are racist, it is exceedingly naïve to claim Mr. Zimmerman is not racist. Black men had been responsible for crime in the area. Mr. Zimmerman got all het up because he saw a black man wandering around. He targeted Mr. Martin because the latter was black. He had cause, but in America it doesn’t matter if you have cause: targeting someone because they are a particular race is racist. End of story.

 

Friday 0230 GMT July 19, 2013

 

·         Finally a reason to disregard economic forecasts There is a book out called “The signal and the noise” by a wunderkind named Nate Silver. Editor got the book from the library, but it seems to be available on Torrent, which Editor is unsure if it is a legal service because there’s no price mentioned, just a Download button. Anyhows. Editor knows in generally that one has to be very careful about statistics, but for some reason thought that US economic stats, at least, were sound. Apparently not. Apparently they are a bunch of garbage, with little predictive power. For example, economists have predicted only 2 of the last 60 recessions. One would think if they just guessed, they would do so much better!

 

·         One stat catching Editor’s eye was that the recession in 4Q 2008 was not negative 3.8% of GDP as the official stats said, but negative 9%. That is a whacking great drop in just one quarter. Stuff like this may help to explain why the economists keep saying we are doing okay but you have only to look around and see people are still really suffering. We are not saying there is a connection between the negative 9% and people’s misery today. We are just saying if the stats are so whacked out, there just might be another reality out there that the policy makers remain unaware of.  And even if there are, there is precious little they are going to do about it; because the folks at the top are doing very well indeed.

 

·         One of the things Editor wishes someone would explain to him is the happiness with which the Federal Reserve has pushed down interest rates and plans to keep them down to “boost” the economy. Well, say you are a saver. You are not being boosted; you are losing money with the ridiculous interest rates the banks and government bonds pay. So is this not simply a shift from one sector of people to another, who just “coincidentally” happen to be the rich?

 

·         There is something very rotten in the Kingdom of the Potomac. Of course, the left will tell us there is no great mystery as to what is happening: there is a deliberate shift from the have-nots to the haves. The left will say the grand bargain between the American elite and the rest of us has broken down. Between 1940 and – say – 1980, the bargain was “Let’s work together and we’ll all get rich.” Now the elite say: “I’m getting mine, I want even more, and if that means the bottom 60% must lose, well, so long suckas!”

 

·         There is a certain logic to what the left says. It at least has the virtue of explaining what is going, whereas the right doesn’t seem to be quite on the right track. A lot of what the right says makes sense, at least to Editor, such as government regs, irrational taxation, the failure to take personal responsibility and so. The problem is, if this is what is taking America down, why are the advanced socialist economies also not failing? Sure, the socialist economies – which means just about everyone but us – have also overreached and are taking corrective action. And yes, folks like the Irish and the Greeks are really suffering. But these were not advanced economies in the sense of Australia, Canada, Germany, and so on.

 

·         And the right comes up with some fairly strange constructs, such as universal health insurance is going to destroy us. Actually one reason American companies find it hard to compete globally is that we do NOT have universal health insurance. In just about every other advanced country in the world, the government takes responsibility for it, the GDP spent on health is significantly less, and the health outcomes are better. The burden is less and spread over the entire country, and is not borne just by employers. People say “But health care abroad is rationed.” Well, Editor is in an HMO and his care is very tightly rationed. And US health care IS rationed: a fifth of the country lacks insurance or enough insurance, so we are just basically telling them to go die quietly. Also, overseas there is nothing to stop you from spending your own money for premium care.

 

·         One reason Editor is reluctant to embrace the left’s explanation is that if it is right, we are becoming a 3rd World Country. We will not be the first, because Argentina used to be 1st World country before World War II. In the 3rd World, the elite arrogates to itself all the resources it can grab, and the rest can just go die unpleasant deaths from hunger and disease and plain deprivation. If this is happening in the US, the only way to stop it is revolution – which is what is happening in many places, and the root cause, not to channel Marx, is economic.

 

·         If revolution is the only solution, it raises terribly uncomfortable questions for Editor because bringing about the revolution is up to you and I, to us ordinary folks. Editor has noted often this is what the country needs, and excused himself on the grounds he is a guest here. Also, what he doesn’t say in this blog is that he did his revolutionary thing back in India and while he did not sacrifice his life, the price he paid is such that he often thinks it would have been better to go out shooting . And the problem is, Editor’s entire family is American: children, grandchildren, parents, nephews, nieces, whatever. Does he not owe them their future?

 

·         The thing is, Editor has lived his life in India and in the US with great everyday economic uncertainty. He has worked for fifty years. Only for four years could he say he was comfortable in a modest sort of way, when Mrs. R IV reached a decent salary level and there were two earners in the family. That was before she decided with her new salary she could have more to spend on herself if she left without the hassle of putting up with yours truly. Now, Editor is not saying his position is similar to that of the underclass. But he was not born to the underclass, he had thanks to his father an elite education, he has further degrees sufficient to drown people, and so on. But his position is similar to the underclass in that just one financial disaster will knock him into the underclass. So like the underclass – the bottom 20% - and like many of the next 20%, his every day is spent in a grinding effort to pay the bills and to skimp, skimp, skimp. This is not a happy state for a 68-year old.

 

·         And this is precisely why revolutions are not made by the underclass, as Hannah Arendt pointed out long ago. It’s the middle class who makes revolutions because they will fight rather than be pushed downward. Editor and his ilk are to worn out by the time the sun goes down to even think of making a revolution. And everytime he does think, up pops the nasty truth. Should he not be making revolutions in his own country, where 60% of folks don’t have enough to eat? But that would mean leaving his family, and ultimately all a person has is family.

 

·         Yet occasionally when Editor wakes up in the middle of the night to worry, which happens despite whacking great doses of the Good Stuff the doctor prescribes, this terribly unpleasant thought comes up: Mr. Editor, aren’t you just making excuses.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT July 18, 2013

 

·         Byebye UK Telegraph This most excellent newspaper is now behind a paywall, following by some years the revered Times of London. It is sad, but there it is. The concept behind the free Internet is that ads will pay the costs. Perhaps its wasn’t working out for Telegraph. Perhaps it was and they simply want to make more money. All we can say is that the ads do not work out for us. Readers generally see one ad, but Concise World Armies has two ads per page. Our ad income is about $200/year. Okay, so that pays for 2/3rds of the server cost, but nothing else. And certainly not for subscriptions to online publications.

 

·         UK Guardian warns US of license plate scanning Okay, we thank the British paper for warning us. Now all it has to do, as at least one letter writer has suggested, is to substitute “UK” for every “US” in the article and we’ll get some balance. Editor has no problem being lectured by UK on our faults, which are many. But it is kind of ignorant to attack the US when UK is equally bad.

 

·         Why the War on Terror will just go on and on Reader Richard Thatcher sends an excerpt from Stratfor explaining why the US Government will never end the GWOT http://tinyurl.com/k6kwqnh

 

·         "The problem with the war on terror is that it has no criteria of success that is potentially obtainable. It defines no level of terrorism that is tolerable but has as its goal the elimination of all terrorism, not just from Islamic sources but from all sources. That is simply never going to happen and therefore, PRISM and its attendant programs will never end. These intrusions, unlike all prior ones, have set a condition for success that is unattainable, and therefore the suspension of civil rights is permanent. Without a constitutional amendment, formal declaration of war or declaration of a state of emergency, the executive branch has overridden fundamental limits on its powers and protections for citizens.

·         You know, when you read stuff like this you have to admit the Old White Boys who wrote the Constitution really knew what they were talking about. The very situation they feared, a government powerful enough to abrogate the rights of the individual has come about largely because of technology. What the writers did not foresee is a citizenry so apathetic that it has let the government take away our rights – without a fight or even a question. The Executive, Congress, and the Supreme Court have colluded in this. The people’s sole recourse when this happens is to throw out the bums in the Executive and Congress when the next election arises. No chance. We’ve had three elections after 9/11 and few people – as opposed to partisans – seem to be bothered.

 

·         It is no sense blaming the Government. It is acting the way ALL Governments act. The blame lies with us citizens. We are the ones that allowed a media that makes us mindlessly follow the media’s agenda. Most of the time the media is simply trying to make us into perpetual consumers. But there’s a reason the French used to call the media the Fourth Estate. Media is part and parcel of the ruling elite. It pretends to be independent, but is simply a tool of its class. There is no giant conspiracy is taking place with a cabal that meets secretly to coordinate policy. It is more that the media exists to make money, so its interests are those of the moneybags. Who not coincidentally own the media.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT July 17, 2013

 

·         Six whacks with limp noodle for DPRK The North Koreans really should get into the comedy business. They can be quite hilarious. Panama intercepted a DPRK vessel transiting from Cuba to North Korea. Turns out from a partial inspection that under 250,000 sacks of unrefined sugar, there are radars for SAMs. The crew cut the ship’s crane cables, so the sugar has to be emptied by hand to find what else is hidden. The captain got into a fight with the Panamanian boarders, then suffered a heart attack, and then tried to kill himself. The crew refused to weigh anchor so the ship could be moved to another berth, so the Panamanians had to do things manually.

 

·         Personally Editor feels the crew should be given a 15-minute trial for resisting arrest and inspection, and then made to unload sacks or no food or water.

 

·         Personally, Editor has also to admit that this weapons embargo thing against DPRK is a bit unfair. Everyone else is busy selling weapons to whomever they want; every power has its own missiles and stuff they have developed; why beat up DPRK for wanting to develop missiles and N-warheads? Mind you, Kim III and his buddies need to be knocked off. DPRK is a giant gulag and this needs to end. Of course, the US is so cowardly it picks only on countries it can destroy without losing a single soldier or pilot. Attacking DPRK will cause a few US casualties, so that is not under consideration.

 

·         Florida trial This may come as a surprise to readers, since the Editor opines freely – a little too freely according to some of the letters we get – about any subject on earth. Nonetheless, there are lots of subjects the Editor won’t opine on, and the criminal justice system is one he avoids. It really is America’s business what sort of criminal justice it wants, and Editor is unsure what gives others in other countries the right to criticize the US. One time Editor did speak out was when the US was slamming Country XYZ for its mistreatment of prisoners, when the US proudly subjects its prisoners to some pretty gosh-awful conditions.

 

·         Nonetheless, there is so much nonsense in the media and on the blogs about the acquittal of the Sanford, FL neighborhood watch person  tried for murder that Editor feels he has to point a few things to his fellow Markins (channeling LBJ, here). First, Editor firmly believes what the accused did was morally wrong. You do not stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, provoke a fight, kill the other person, and then claim self-defense. It doesn’t matter if the murdered person was the devil himself; his character is not the issue.

 

·         Okay, that said, do we want America to be a nation of laws or not? If we want it to be a nation of laws, we have to look at what the judge and jury had to consider. The issue was simple. Under Florida law, if you fear for your life, no matter that you created the situation leading to a threat on your life, you are permitted to Stand Your Ground and employ lethal force if necessary. Does this make sense? No. But it is the law in Florida. The law often makes little sense depending on whose side you are. Nonetheless, the jury’s duty was to find the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt under Stand Your Ground or, if this standard could not be applied, to acquit him. Since there were no witnesses to the incident, how on earth can there be evidence of the accused guilt beyond reasonable doubt? The problem is Stand Your Ground which allows you to start a fight and then shoot if you fear for your life. There is no sense blaming the jury. You cannot expect the jury to go beyond the law. Had it done so, the case would have been overturned on appeal.

 

·         Editor believes the law needs to be changed, and there is a procedure to do that. The good people of America who are outraged by the acquittal need to work to get the law changed.

 

·         Now, some attention to elementary logic. It is utterly irrelevant to say: “If it had been a black man shooting a white, he never would have been acquitted.” This case did not involve a black man shooting a white. It is irrelevant to bring up hypotheticals beyond the facts of the case. It is also irrelevant to say: “Now blacks can be freely killed in America.” It so happens they CAN be freely killed. And guess what? In the vast majority of cases, the killers are other blacks. Editor has no intent to inflame this debate, please go to the FBI sites and check the national crime statistics for yourself. In Washington DC in the 1990s, folks had less consideration for the life of a black man than they did for a dog. This was during the drug wars that afflicted the city starting in the 1980s. Almost always, the killers were black. In five years there were five young black men killed within a mile of Editor’s apartment – that he knew about. In each case the killers were black.

 

·         During the OJ Simpson case, Editor taught in a private school that had 3 white teachers, the rest were black. When the black teachers talked privately and editor was around, they were shocked and upset that OJ Simpson had killed his wife, and regretted his acquittal. To them it was almost as if the issue was violence against women and nothing to do with race. But the minute a white teacher walked in to say she thought the acquittal was wrong, without exception the black teachers jumped her, crying “racism”. Editor lived or worked in black communities for ten years. Again and again black folk expressed their anger and their grief at the misdeeds of their community. And why shouldn’t they? The same FBI stats will show the victims of black criminals are very usually also black. People were in pain about it because it seemed just none of them of them could say they did not have relative or someone else close to them who was murdered, but they had no idea what to do. Never did Editor hear “it’s the fault of the whites.”

 

·         And before Editor gets off his high horse, before black folk shout about racism, Editor can tell you from his personal experience from work that blacks can be just as racist towards other people of color as white. Racism is an equal opportunity crime. Among the worst racists toward Africans are Indians, who are generally brown and sometimes black. In 17 years of teaching, Editor has yet to see one single case of a white students being racist. He can count many cases of expressed racial hatred by blacks toward whites. And let him not get started on the black-Hispanic equation.

 

·         By the way, in one school Editor was known as Mister Nigger. Students from the Swamp Nigger gang made him an honorary memeber. So since black kids use “nigger” between themselves, it was naturally they would apply the noun to Editor. He agreed, providing the honorific “Mister” was applied – discipline has to be maintained. A favorite pastime of his fellow Swampies and other black kids was to ask Editor: “What kind of a nigger are you?” When the Editor said “A Swamp Nigger”, everyone would crack up. His Hispanic students did not think this was the least bit funny. One even chastised Editor for letting kids call him nigger.

 

·         The thing is, students become your grandchildren regardless of race or country of origin. Editor’s black students were simply seeking a way to make a personal connection with him, and whatever works is fine. Needless to say, not for a second did Editor every think of greeting his fellow Swampies with a “Hey, Nigger”. Sometimes Editor’s girl students want to paint his nails as a way of bonding. Carry on, people. Until one gets home and get the polish off, there are many strange looks from strangers and teachers. So what. Whatever works.  Editor did draw the line when some of his girl students wanted to buy him a girl wig and to let them dress him in drag. Hey, kids, no problems, but can’t see the Principal being amused.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT July 16, 2013

B-o-o-o-o-r-r-r-i-i-n-g

·         Syria gains more ground in Damascus retaking most of a suburb and feeling sufficiently confident to show media around. This goes to show what a death wish the Islamists have. Is this the time to start a second civil war, against the secularists, while the main civil war is going so badly? As for US help, it looks like some will eventually be forthcoming, (see http://tinyurl.com/pcw7wem ) but almost surely it is going to be that too-late-too-little thing. Best to stay out of it, we say.

 

·         Be ye of good cheer: life on earth ends in two billion years And it will because too little carbon dioxide, not too much. http://tinyurl.com/q8joyv3 The sun is going to get hotter, so in about a billion years the CO2 in the atmosphere will cease to exist and photosynthesis will stop. (The article does not explain why CO2 will get reduced due to the sun growing hotter.) A billion years later the last microbes should have copped it. Doubtless you will be saying: “A billion years in the future and I should worry now?” Just remember: time does fly. Before people know it will a billion years later.

 

·         India to finally provide night-fighting equipment to all AFVs The Ministry of Defense has approved the purchase of ~5000 sets for the T-72s and T-90 MBTs tanks that are not thusly  equipped , and for approximately 1800 BMPs. The Israelis are already installing equipment on 700 T-72s. It’s taken the Indians 40-years to get to this stage, and of course, just because MOD has cleared the purchase doesn’t mean a thing. It is still a long way to completion.

 

·         Meanwhile, MOD has also cleared a program to convert M46 Russian 130mm howitzers to 155mm. Editor cannot recall how many times he has heard this news. As far as he knows, maybe 200 guns have been upgraded in the last 20-years.

 

·         And needless to say, there is no word on mechanizing India’s enormous massed of plains infantry. There is mention of  SP 155mm howitzers, more tanks, or more BMPs. Only one-third of India’s plain brigades are armored/mechanized. With the PLA downsizing, mechanizing/motorizing, and deactivating pure infantry divisions, India has the largest infantry army in the world. Perfect for 1939. Oh wait, isn’t this 2013?

 

·         The only way to save the Indian armed forces is to add cyanide to the MOD’s morning tea.

 

Monday 0230 GMT July 15, 2013

 

·         Hard times for Germany Green Energy The American Interest has a series of articles and comments on Germany’s problems with green energy. Little of the article http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/07/13/germans-re-thinking-turn-to-green-energy/ is a surprise. More German solar firms going bust? That’s everywhere, though it could be asked how do cheap Chinese solar cells create problems for green energy. Seems to us the Chinese are making it wasier to be Green. Windmills in deep trouble? We knew that, not to speak of the US, where apparently 14,000 windmills have been abandoned after reaching the end of their working lives, and sit polluting the landscape. This figure, of course, has been challenged as propaganda, but the reality is you want pollution of the landscape and to kill birds, install wind turbines. And if folks are not removing dead turbines, that is flaw in the laws. Germany struggling to stay competitive with other countries despite soaring electricity rates? Understandable. German government sick and tired of giving Green subsides?  Well, yes, most governments are trying to cut back on subsidies of every sort because of budgetary pressure.

 

·         What struck us was the news that Germans will have to pay $26-billion more ($100-billion adjusted for 4x larger US population) next year for electricity because of the Green energy costs http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/10/12/germanys-renewable-energy-unicorn-hunt-stumbles-again/ Everyone knows Green energy is expensive, but this figure is staggering. If Germany alone were to put that sum of money annually into fusion research, who knows what would be possible in that area? If that sum was spent in making N-power plants even safer than the new types, which do not depend on humans to shut down the reaction in case of anomalies, who knows where we could go?

 

·         In general, mixing ideology and economics is not a good idea. That does not mean that the commons is free and that industries should not pay for the damage they do to the commons. We’re saying that to decide N-power is bad whereas it has, per gigagwatt produced, been safer than any other power source, is ideological. And if it is global warming you care about, than to rule out N-power and go for Green Energy regardless is also ideological. To say that if the Government subsidies Green Energy the costs will come down to economic levels creates the same problems that socialist/communist central planning did, where bureaucratic judgment is substituted for the market. And we know how well that worked.

 

·         Editor doesn’t have to look to other countries to see the point: India has had centralized planning for over 60-years. In the centralized period, economic growth was 3% versus population growth of 2%, so per capita income was growing at 1%, required 75 years to double. It is only when controls were lifted in 1990 and subsequently that India began its economic growth. And whenever the government gets the old itch to interfere, growth goes down. We talk of the tens of millions of people that Stalin and Mao killed for ideological reasons. No one says a word about the billion plus Indians who have lived and died in deprivation since 1950 because of the Government’s ideological bent.

 

·         So, to be clear, we are indeed saying the free market should be allowed to work. We are also saying that the nasty, brutish life that has become the norm for half of America has nothing to do with the free market. It has to do with the distortion of the market by greedy capitalists, who pay off venal politicians to pass favorable laws.

 

 

 

Friday 0230 GMT July 12, 2013

 

·         More speculation of Mr. NSA Leaker’s whereabouts The diversion of the Moscow-Havana flight from its usual course created speculation that the gentleman may be aboard. http://rt.com/news/snowden-plane-route-cuba-965/ . Nonetheless, the flight change took the aircraft over Western Europe, so it seems unlikely Mr. Leaker was on the plane. Excitement was generated because Aeroflot was quite vague for the reasons behind the route change. Aeroflot denied Mr. leaker was on board, but them apparently Russians airlines cannot give passenger information to unauthorized persons. A quick change of appearance is all that is needed to escape detection from journos, so he could have been on the plane and the route change was for legitimate reasons.

 

·         Reader Chris Raggio forwarded a Time Magazine article http://world.time.com/2013/07/10/snowden-in-moscow-what-are-russian-authorities-doing-with-the-nsa-whistleblower/?hpt=hp_t3 which speculates the Russians won’t let Mr. Leaker go until they have all his passwords to his encrypted files. The article is of interest because it speaks of a spy-fiction truth serum that makes you tell all without any remembrance of having told all. As for holding him till he squeals, it wouldn’t take much using the old-fashioned way. An hour, tops, especially if he is told he may as well spare himself pain as the world has been told he is no longer in Russia, so no one will be looking for him.

 

·         Professor Alan Dershowitz speaks on Florida case “Not guilty”, he says, because it is not known who struck the first blow. He says all other considerations are irrelevant under Florida law, so it does not matter who followed whom, who yelled what at whom, who is a racist,  and so on. Nonetheless, the Great Lawyer allows the accused is not a Nice Person and he sympathizes with the dead person’s family. http://www.newsmax.com/Newswidget/zimmerman-martin-trial-defense/2013/07/09/id/514186?promo_code=125BD-1&utm_source=125BDTelegraph_Media_Group&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1

 

·         This is the sort of thing that makes conservatives upset We may first agree that conservatives are not the nicest people in the world, because it seems so many, when they rail against the government, are aiming to reduce their tax bill, and that government help to business through the tax code and so on is fine. But this New York Times article on how NYC high schools are providing Plan B contraceptives to students should raise anyone’s blood pressure, not just that of the real conservatives who seek to minimize the government’s role in the life of people.

 

·         The schools sent an opt-letter to the parents, saying if they did not want emergency contraception for their child, they should let the school know. If the parents do not opt out, how does this give the NYC schools the right to give Plan B contraceptives to children? Is it not more logical to contact the parents and get their permission?

 

·         See, if the state is going to be mother and father, it should take away children at birth and bring them up. In fact, the state should go one step further and require potential parents to undergo rigorous exams, physical and educational, before giving permission to reproduce.

 

·         The state says it has a right to interfere in my life, say by banning where I can smoke (Editor does not smoke), because the consequences of my smoking create a burden on society. If I argue then why doesn’t the state raise my insurance rate and let me smoke myself to death if I want, the state says the smoke affects others. How it affects others if I smoke on my lawn or in a park is quite beyond Editor’s comprehension, but there it is. So similarly, if people have children and cannot look after them in the manner the state prescribes, the burden falls on the state. So by the same logic as anti-smoking, the state should also have the right to decide who has children and who not.

 

·         Editor has lively discussions with a relative who says Editor’s libertarian ideas cannot work because the Constitution was written for a society that has long since vanished. Others have told the Editor the Constitution hardly prescribes democracy.  Okay, so all these folks have a point. So we cannot go back to the 18th Century. Conversely, however, we cannot  have a world in which the state decides what is good for us or bad for us by taking over, as in Orwell’s  and Huxley’s novels.

 

·         America was founded on the principle that a gentleman sitting on a throne in London did not have the right to tell us how to live our lives. Similarly, the state cannot tell us how to love our lives. People may argue “but we get elect those who run the state, so what the state does is democratic.” Er, no. This is the same mistake Hugo of Venezuela and Morsi of Egypt made. Just because yu came to power democratically does not mean you get to do what you want. You can say the Constitution and the Supreme Court are our protection against an oppressive state.

Thursday 0230 GMT July 11, 2013

 

·         Saudi targeting Israel/Iran with missiles? Jane’s, the military reference book publisher believes so, based on satellite photographs of a Saudi desert missile base. http://tinyurl.com/m6vch7h Generally, from the little we’ve seen from extracts of Jane’s World Armies, the company is not up to scratch. Our Complete World Armies is far more detailed. Nonetheless, on this news scoop we have to say to Jane’s “good job”. Of course, Jane’s has the money to buy high-res sat fotos and analysts. That’s because Jane’s actually sells its products, good, indifferent, or bad. We sold so few copies of our 2012 edition we had to cancel the 2013 edition. Just how many copies did we sell? Zero. Indeed, 40 folks we sent free copies to did not even acknowledge receipt, let alone give a “thank you”. Sigh. In this business, as with any business, who you are is more important than what you are. Books are indeed judged by their covers.

 

·         Russian spy Anna Chapman proposes to Mr. NSA Leaker Further proof of our complaint that its who you are that counts rather than what you are. Apparently Russian red-head spy Anna Chapman, who was kicked out of the US, has proposed to Mr. NSA Leaker. http://tinyurl.com/qe8mvsf At  any time of the day or year, Editor is better looking and smarter than Mr. Leaker. But has Ms. Chapman proposed to Editor? No. Of course, you’ll say “but she doesn’t know you – in fact no one knows you or even if you are a real person”. That just proves our point.

 

·         Egypt issues warrants for Muslim League officials including the head of the organization and about 200 others.  http://tinyurl.com/ltlz2e7 This is the sort of move that makes one want to think some more before pontificating. Obviously it is now impossible for the Brotherhood to now compromise with the new Army-backed government. The civilian interim head of the government has said everyone will be permitted to stand for the next election. True that the Brotherhood had said that unless Morsi is returned to power they are uninterested in standing for elections. Still, until the arrest warrants it would seem possible to persuade the Brotherhood to dump Morsi and come on board in a new government. So does this mean that the Army believes the Brotherhood has to go back to where it has been for 80-years, i.e., in jail? If so, what might be the long-term implications?

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT July 10, 2013

 

·         US no longer world’s most obese nation That honor now belongs to Mexico, which has 32.8% adults as obese versus US’s 31.8%. Chee. If we cannot be Number 1 in Fatness, what is left for us? Against his better judgment Editor weighed himself at the gym: 191-lbs. He’s 5-feet six-inches. At least he’s doing his bit to uphold honor. What are readers doing, may we ask? http://tinyurl.com/megno49

 

·         NSA Leaker has not accepted Venezuela’s asylum offer Due to misunderstanding a Russian TV report, a Russian lawmaker tweeted that the NSA Leaker has agree to go to Venezuela. Later he deleted the tweet. Wonder what Mr. Leaker is holding out for. Perhaps Iceland? Some prominent citizens have said they’d be happy to have up, but Editor, at least, hasn’t seen anything from the government. http://tinyurl.com/k6kndeg

 

·         Archeologists baffled at find of sphinx statue in Israel The statue celebrates Mycernius, a  Pharaoh  who built a pyramid at Giza around 2500 BC. The artifact is small, it would have been about 1 by 1.5 meters. Editor does not understand why folks are getting their knickers in a twist. Israel and Egypt are adjacent. It’s not like the statue was found buried for thousands of years  in Las Vegas.  http://tinyurl.com/kleljkt

 

·         Iran stationing Revolutionary Guards in Latin America according to this report http://tinyurl.com/m98cr8q . This includes 50-300 ITGC personnel at a military training academy in Bolivia. Argentina is particularly cozy with Iran. While we have no reason to doubt the report, it is always wise to be a little cautious when accepting US claims about countries it does not like. Argentina and Bolivia are definitely on America’s Do Not Invite For Tea list. As a patriotic American (sort of American, anyway), Editor has also put these two countries on his Do Not Invite For Tea List. Editor does not drink tea, but let’s not get into irrelevancies, please.

 

·         Philadelphia dry cleaner delivers garments via drone The video and story are at http://tinyurl.com/l7mldws Naturally the first thing we thought was “Uh Oh, what does the FAA think about this?” The drycleaner thinks nothing of it. He does not see the drone, which he calls a toy, is the FAA’s concern. Well, one drone carrying one shirt, maybe. But the gent plans to have drones delivering 10-15 lbs of garments all over the place. He really should check with the FAA first. Bet the US could have used this to deliver pizza and adult movies to Osama at his hideout, followed by a loud “Boom!”

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT July 9, 2013

 

·         Syria: US Waffle Factory Running 3-Shifts Reuters reports that Congressional committees are holding up proposed US arms for Syrian rebels because of fears they will fall into the hands of Islamic groups. Congress has not bought the Secretary of State and CIA’s assurance that the US can keep these weapons out of the hands of extremists. Though the President does not need Congressional authority, there is a tacit agreement between the executive and Congress which Mr. Obama does not want to break.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/08/us-usa-syria-arms-idUSBRE96713N20130708

 

·         Let’s first go back a bit and ask why the US cannot let Saudi Arabia do the arms supplying, and in the process save the US Treasury a few badly-needed bucks. Saudi Arabia, our close and loveable “ally”, prefers to aid extremist Sunni groups and has been doing so with gay abandon. (We use “gay” in its traditional sense; sorry, “gay” rights supporters.) So even as the US and Saudi Arabia are all huggy-poo and kisses, if US does not step in, the Sunni extremists will defeat the secular resistance and Syria will become an extremist Sunni nation, just like our BFF, Sadui Arabia.

 

·         We have said before that if the US was to intervene in Syria, it should have done so at the start, arming, training, and supporting secular groups as they fought the Syrian Army and the Sunni extremists. But now it is too late. Will it causes the Editor acute acid indigestion to concede Congress may actually be right for once, Congress has every reason to wonder if it is not too late and any aid to the secular rebels will end up with Sunni extremists. The latter have already started shutting down secular groups. Many folks have said it is, indeed, too late for the secular groups.

 

·         The easiest thing is to jump into a crisis with all four paws. The hardest thing is to stay out of things because no good outcome seems possible. The US, feeling badly neglected and unloved in the Middle East is just dying to jump back into the fight, and has even gone to the extent of offering Iraq military trainers and other assistance in the battle against resurgent Sunni terror. In other words, having learned nothing from our involvement in Second Gulf, and having been politely asked by the Iraqis to scram, exist, get lost, wants once again to go into Iraq for exactly the same reason it went in the first time. The first time was to overthrow Saddam’s terroristic Sunni regime that was oppressing the Shias – the “bringing democracy to Iraq” bit. Now we are to go in to stop Sunni terrorism against a Shia state.

 

·         But by doing so, purely to salve our pride at being kicked out of Iraq, we are forgetting that the Shias of the Mideast are not our BFFs, but our enemies. It is also being forgotten that once again we will get the Sunni Gulf mad at us and lead the Sunni states to pour more money and effort into supporting Sunni extremists in Iraq and Syria.

 

·         There is one, and only one reason for the US to be in the Gulf other than being Israel’s ultimate protection. That is to overthrow the Gulf Sunni monarchies, particularly Saudi, because these are the centers of the extremist infection. Other than that, we are simply getting ourselves in the middle of an increasingly vicious sectarian war between the two major factions of Islam.

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT July 8, 2013

 

·         A theoretical resolution of the NSA-Leaker case Venezuela has decided to offer the gentleman asylum and a Russian lawmaker says this is a good solution to the problem. This suggests Russia is getting fed of playing host to the gentleman.

 

·         Now, while there is no difficulty for Caracas to get travel documents to Mr. Leaker, difficulty may arise because the sole flight Mr. Leaker could take is the run to Havana. But this overflies Europe and the US. Unless the plan is to smuggle him out of Russia disguised as a carpet or a diplomatic pouch, US could seek the block the flight’s passage.

 

·          This comes down to how good is US intelligence on Mr. Leaker’s movements within Moscow airport. If the US does not know he is on a particular flight, he could escape. Also, a private charter could take him from Moscow to Murmansk and then down the North Atlantic to Cuba without overflying Canadian or US airspace.

 

·         A plausible thesis for why the Egyptian Army removed Morsi Reader KJ sends this quote: "Army concern about the way President Mohamed Morsi was governing Egypt reached tipping point when the head of state attended a rally packed with hardline fellow Islamists calling for holy war in Syria, military sources have said. At the June 15th rally, Sunni Muslim clerics used the word “infidels” to denounce both the Shias fighting to protect Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the non-Islamists that oppose Mr Morsi at home. Mr Morsi himself called for foreign intervention in Syria against Mr Assad, leading to a veiled rebuke from the army, which issued an apparently bland but sharp-edged statement the next day stressing that its only role was guarding Egypt’s borders.

 

·         “The armed forces were very alarmed by the Syrian conference at a time the state was going through a major political crisis,” said one officer, whose comments reflected remarks made privately by other army staff. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to talk to the media."

 

·         More: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/morsi-role-at-syria-rally-seen-as-tipping-point-for-egypt-army-1.1450612

 

·         Jihadis, criminals flock to US Government funded network says reader Patrick Skuza, forwarding an article with the details http://freebeacon.com/anonymous-jihad/ In the 1990s the US Navy created a network called Tor to permit people living in dictatorships and tyrannies where the Internet was control by the government.

 

·         To quote the article, “The network uses technology called “onion routing” (Tor is an acronym for The Onion Router), which refers to layers of encryption that prevent governments or other users from obtaining information about users or websites hosted on the network. Tor uses volunteers’ computers to route traffic through thousands of “nodes” worldwide, obscuring users’ locations and the sources of data hosted on the network. The technology makes it nearly impossible to trace or identify the network’s roughly 500,000 daily users.”

 

Thursday 0230 GMT July 4, 2013

 

Not to worry if you don’t see an update for Friday: Editor is here, but work schedule has gotten really confused. Trying to sort it out.

 

Happy 237th Birthday, America

 

·         Egypt coup it’s never over till it’s over, but this time it really is over. President Morsi has been deposed by the Army acting on popular demand. http://www.cnn.com/ He says he’s still the President. Editor says that he (Editor) is the richest, smartest, and best looking person in the world. Anyone can say anything, does not make it so.

 

·         Muslim Brotherhood is decrying the dirty pulled on the party. It has grounds for complaint, but maybe if it hadn’t tried to swiftly turn Egypt into an Islamic republic, and if it had realized winning an election doesn’t mean you can act the despot (Yo, Turkey, hope you’re listening), then perhaps things wouldn’t have come to this.

 

·         NSA Leaker People are saying Mr. Leaker made a big mistake by running away, and at that first to China and then to Russia and then trying to get to Ecuador. Whistleblowers don’t running away – Daniel Ellsberg did not when he leaked the Pentagon Papers and he took the rap for it too, though a mistrial was declared. 

 

·         Ellsberg said “I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.” http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1971/The-Pentagon-Papers/12295509436546-7#ixzz2Y1TLyAjl  (Thanks, Wikipedia, for the reference.)

 

·         By running away, Mr. Leaker has made the story all about him and taken it away from where it belongs, which is on the head of the US Government.

 

·         And falling into Wikileaker Assange’s hands may be about the worst mistake Mr. NSA Leaker has made. The gentleman’s father is saying Wikileaks is not letting him talk to his son. He can communicate only through an intermediary. This is what happens when folks get kidnapped by a cult.

 

·         It also has to be noted that no one is willing to take Mr. Leaker except Russia under strict terms. This sudden aversion cannot be because the US has such an enormous influence on the world. The Euros, for one, are raving angry at the US for the spying thing. (Bit hypocritical, everyone knew it was happening and the US shares the information at need with the self-same Euros.) Ecuador even told the US to take its free trade agreement and stuff it. But Ecuador is not helping the man, either. It’s almost as if all these countries have convinced themselves – or have been convinced by the US – that the man is a common criminal. This business of refusing the Bolivian president plane to land in Europe and then searching his aircraft for Mr. Leaker, albeit with permission, seems almost unprecedented.

 

·         India food scheme for the poor One thing that has been driving Editor bats for years is that some parts of India suffer malnutrition worse than even parts of Africa that are in trouble, yet India’s bulging foodgrain reserves are wasted each year at rates upto 20% due to improper storage and pests. So India has finally said it will give every poor person 5-kg of very heavily subsidized grains each month. Editor thinks this is a good thing; malnutrition is India was, really, a crime against humanity. Just because you are a democratic country where everyone gets to vote doesn’t mean you should let your poor starve while the rats get fat (the 4-legged kind). That’s killing them slowly instead of murdering them swiftly.

 

·         Critics say India cannot afford it. Actually, India can, because the $20-billion/year is 1% of GDP and there are so many inefficiencies in government spending – such as subsidies for the middle class – that applying cuts elsewhere can offset this worthy subsidy.

 

·         The problem is (a) other waste will not be cut; the 1% will be added to the already too high deficit; and (b) why on earth did this government have to wait nearly ten years and for the eve of the next election to do the right thing? This goes to show the Government – and the Indian elite – frankly, my dear, don’t give a darn about the poor. Not that give a darn for anything else except lining their own pockets. And don’t get Editor started on the pathetic condition of the national defense.

 

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT July 3, 2013

 

·         Morsi refuses to resign after talks with Army fail and today’s deadline for his departure is imminent. Army is said to have published plans for new elections and new constitution. Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi’s party, calls for resistance if Army removes him. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/10156164/Egypt-Mohammed-Morsi-vows-to-stay-in-office-and-defend-his-legitimacy.html

·         Bit of a dilemma for those of us who support democracy. Morsi was democratically elected, the means being used to remove him are 100% undemocratic.

·         More NSA Leaker mystery The aircraft carrying the Bolivian president Evo Morales home from Moscow had to be diverted when France and Portugal closed their airspace to him. Because of allegations the NSA leaker was onboard. The plane was allowed to refuel in Spain before proceeding to Vienna, where the president is working out a new route home. Bolivia denies the leaker was on the aircraft. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23156360

 

·         We honestly do not know what is going on.  We don’t understand even if Mr. Leaker is on board, how can countries close their airspace to the president of a sovereign country with whom they are not in a state of war? So he is a wanted man, presumably on an Interpol as well as a US warrant. So next time a wanted person is suspected to be on a flight, you can close your airspace to that flight? Very baffling.

 

·         Hope for Editor yet An Italian scientist says that head transplants are possible, he just needs money for the research. Editor is sending him his spare $1. Maybe a different head will help Editor get a date on Saturday night. It would have to be a gorilla head; Editor is told women go for the animal types.

 

·         Whine on, Corporate America See, this is why Editor is getting quite fed up with any figures America produces. Here Editor has been feeling mildly sorry for Corporate America because of the allegedly high rates it has to pay for income tax. Everyone knows the official 35% rate is not the real rate, but it comes as a bit of shock to learn that the GAO says the effective rate is 12.6% for companies with over $10-million in assets http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/business/big-companies-paid-a-fraction-of-corporate-tax-rate.html?ref=business&_r=1& When foreign, local, and state taxes were included, the rate is 16.9%. And the percentage of GDP paid as taxes by corporate America has gone from 30% in the 1950s to 9% today.

 

·         How dare people like Tim Allen of Apple sit there and whine on about US corporate tax rates for his company’s decision to use fancy accounting to avoid paying US taxes? And how dare Apple start running giant ads saying “Designed in California”? That makes Apple products American? We thought products had to be made here before you could claim them as American, or is that also an example of fancy thinking? What exactly is it Mr. Allen wants from the country where he makes most of his money? A zero percent tax rate? A 10% payment from the US Treasury on his profits? Or does he think that the money to run this country and keep its safe from enemies should come from small business and little people?

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT July 2, 2013

 

·         NSA Leaker Seems to be in Trouble He’s asked for asylum in Russia, as he is unable to get to Ecuador. US pressure on that country seems to have worked, because Quito has cancelled the travel documents a consular official gave Mr. Leaker, saying the official acted beyond his powers and will be punished. Quito says the leaker is welcome to seek asylum at an Ecuadorian embassy. Any such request will be carefully analyzed, possibly taking months.

 

·         The gentleman’s problem has become he cannot get to an embassy because he cannot leave the transit lounge at Moscow airport. While President Putin has piously said he cannot do anything about the gentleman as long as he is in the transit area, apparently the airport rules allow only a maximum 24-hour stay. So why is Mr. Putin not just putting the gentleman on an Aeroflot flight for Havana or Caracas or wherever Aeroflot goes? Why this sudden circumspection for international air travel rules? Mr. Putin will hardly be impressed by US threats.

 

·         Did Mr. Putin maneuver the gentleman into seeking asylum in Russia? Why bother, since it can be taken for granted that the Russians have copied everything they want to from the computer drives the leakers has in his possession? So right now the whole thing is looking strange.

 

·         Meanwhile, the leaker’s father says his son is willing to consider a return home as long as he is not jailed pending trial, or gagged. Presumably the father says this after consulting with his son. The US, however, is unlikely to cut a deal. First, it is not in the nature of the US criminal justice system to do that just to get an accused person back. US will say all points can be discussed once he surrenders. Second, US position will have hardened since the leaker cannot leave the airport, for whatever reason.

 

·         Back in Egypt it appears that President Morsi is finished. The country’s Interior Ministry estimated that on Sunday demonstrator turnout was 14-17 million, which may qualify as the largest demonstration in the world, ever. The demonstrators have given him till today to resign. In case he is disinclined, the Army has given the warring political parties 48-hours to sort things out between themselves or it will intervene. Since the opposition wants Morsi to go, and is very close to its goal, it is difficult to see how any compromise can be negotiated.

 

·         There is no doubt that Morsi has totally messed Egypt up. At the same time, since Egypt has been a dictatorship since its independence from Britain, it’s easy to see that nobody has much experience in governing. On top of which Morsi was under continuous pressure from his party, the Islamic Brotherhood, to quickly move Egypt to becoming a theocratic Islamic state. Egypt has always been quite secular, so understandably the Brotherhood’s more extreme ideas would not play well. And, of course, people are generally more concerned about their economic well-being than about ideology. Under President Morsi the economy, perpetually in bad shape, has gone into free fall.

 

·         President Obama’s opponents at home are having a field day criticizing him for having backed Morsi. We’d like folks to step back and think for just one second, if that is possible. Morsi was elected  to head Egypt. What choice does President Obama have except to accept that? Had Obama refused to accept the will of the people, he would equally have been accused of being anti-democratic and Egypt would really have turned even more anti-American than it is usually.

 

·         Some Americans get rather smug about the democratic failures of other nations, particularly is those nations tend to anti-Americanism. And Egypt does, because even though the US came to Egypt’s rescue when France, Britain, and Israel attacked in 1956, America’s protection of Israel has been a constant sore point for Egyptians. Nonetheless, Americans might do well to remember that they have had 237 years to get their democracy right. And, as we all know, there still remain grievous flaws, such as the prevalence of special interests which cripple the will of the people. A little sympathy, and a little humility when observing the travails of other nations, might become Americans more than arrogance.

 

·         Egypt is just one more example of why the US needs to pull back from the world and tend to its own campfire at home. For better or for worse, the Arab Spring has spread, with people demanding good governance in many other countries. Brazil and India are two such examples. China is quiet right now – relatively – but it is hardly a coincidence that the Chinese spend almost as much on internal security as they do on defense. Still, even China could explode one day. The conflicts in the Arab world, South America, Africa are completely beyond the US’s power to manage.

 

Monday 0230 GMT July 1, 2013

 

·         Letter from Richard Thacher All the crying and bemoaning about this NSA leaker (whistleblower?) is amusing to watch and listen to. The stories of stuff similar to what he brought out have been around for a few decades at the least. I remember something about someone telling a story of one NSA guy calling him over to listen to a phone conversation he was listening in on and it was a US senator they heard chatting up someone. Though they didn't say who he was talking to, or about what, there was the hint that it was a mistress (as if that would be a surprise).  So, to be cynical, "What is new about this stuff now?"

 

·         The only thing that has changed is the technology and some or more of the "faces". Yes, yes, I hear those out there that say "There are laws in place and oversight to prevent such abuses!" Folks, get REAL! Our wondrous operatives in the NSA (And other related/similar agencies) worry only about the law when their abuses come to light and, in pretty much all the cases, barely so. Can anyone tell me the number of the abusers that were prosecuted and sent to prison? "None,  as far as I can find out.

 

·         The age old problem with preventing abuse is the maintenance of secrecy. The more secrets kept means the greater the possibility for misuse of the power. As to "oversight", again, we need to get real.  When the supposed overseers are just as interested in keeping things secret/out of sight as those in the NSA the supposed intention, the “spirit" of the oversight is rendered null and void. Add to that that our wondrous political types quietly write up laws and regulations that legalize the questionable activities.

 

·         I have seen and heard the assurances of political and some security and intelligence types that this stuff is needed and is not intended to be "aimed" at the general population of the US. But one is advised to remember that these people lie for a living to keep things secret. So how do we know they are not snooping on the population at large?  Another item to keep in mind is that governments tend to regard that own local populations as a greater problem threat than any outside force/group(s). Is the US Government any different?

 

·         That brings me to an odd thought and the real reason for this missive. This large monitoring program may serve as a kind of polling in its own right. Keying in certain words in e-mails and other communications within the US (words like "dissatisfaction", "distrust government", "impeach", "unrest", etc.) could provide a monthly, weekly, and daily feel for the mood of the people.  This information could have several uses; among them if the people are going to become troublesome about being spied on!

 

·         Editor’s comment A case can be made that the Government is shouting about damage done to national security by the NSA leaker’s ”revelations” to divert attention from the fact of the spying. A matter of blaming the messenger. Of course the leaker has broken the law and must be punished. Whether harm has resulted is immaterial. At the same time, this episode appears to have become the proverbial storm in a teacup. Though it has to be admitted if one is the size of a gnat that can be quite tempestuous. (We have no idea what that comment means, so please don’t ask.)

 

Saturday 0230 GMT June 29, 2013

This update is lieu of the Friday June 28 update

·         President Obama and the “29-year old hacker” Yesterday we wrote a piece trying to make sense of the President’s statement that he wasn’t going to scramble jets because of a 29-year old hacker, and he wasn’t going to bargain with Russia or China or whomever for his return. Eventually we had to delete the entire piece because, as folks know, trying to make sense of nonsense is not a productive process.

·         It seems the Big O was saying he’s too busy for this nonsense. If he was saying that, he is correct. You cannot expect the Prezzy to concern himself with such relatively small matters. He does, after all, have a country to run, not to speak of the Free World, not to speak of managing the Unfree World. Busy, busy, busy. It is unsurprising that instead of just saying the appropriate authorities were handling the case, he waspishly said he had better things to do, thus making it about him. We live in a world where everything is about us alone.

 

·         It’s the use of the term “hacker” that intrigues. Now look, folks, we accept that speaking casually  unguarded moment, you cannot expect His Prezzyness to carefully think put every word. It is true that George W. Bush did. He stumbled over words and knowing this problem, he spoke in carefully scripted fashion and spoke seldom. What a relief it was from Ol’ Billy Bob, whom they said could talk till the last dog put down his ears. And looking back, one does wish Big O understood that not everyone finds every word he utters as fascinating as Big O.

 

·         This said, “hacker” seems to imply a youngish, anti-social, misadjusted computer nerd; an image reinforced by Big O drawing attention to Mr. Leaker’s age; misguided, obviously; needing a few tight slaps, obviously; but come on, no big deal. Now let Editor get into a heretical mode: he really does believe that Mr. Leaker’s revelations are no big deal to anyone who even casually follows popular magazine like Wired. The CIA/NSA/Intel combine is lamenting loudly, inundating our tender ears with much weeping and wailing, but one can dismiss the whole lot with a rude “Oh Pooh.”

 

·         For example, the weepers and the wailers say that great damage is ALREADY evident because jihadis are not visiting their usual websites. Think about this a moment. If the NSA can tell that jihadis are not visiting certain websites, it has to have a pretty good understand and knowledge of who these folks are. Which in turn means NSA will track them wherever else they go.

 

·         Well, what if they go dark? Let’s just say this. Bin Laden went dark because he knew – years ago – that any e-communication can be tracked. Are not the more technically adept jihadis at least as smart as OBL? Or did he know something no one else knew? Come on, now, NSA, get a grip. No one can be a functioning anything if they go completely dark. There’s a reason OBL became irrelevant: he couldn’t communicate with anyone except via a courier. So if these jihadis have gone dark because they fear interception, it is a good thing. Their effectiveness will fall dramatically.

 

·         But while Editor thinks Mr. Leaker has broken the law, and must pay, bur nonetheless he has not caused anywhere near the damage he is alleged to have caused, the point here is not what Editor thinks. It is what Big O thinks. Was “hacker” a slip of the lounge or was Big O saying the man is not important.

 

·         The US has missed a great opportunity with Mr. Leaker. Instead of bemoaning the end of the world, the US could have beamingly honored him as a whistleblower, thus showing everyone the strength of American democracy. It could have ordered a high-level “inquiry” into if the practices were illegal, and wasted away a great deal of time. It could have found “abuses” and said “matters are now being corrected; unfortunately because of the national security angle we can’t discuss this with you.” So the anti-Americans would still have hissed and booed, but they’d have a much harder time since Mr. Leaker was being celebrated instead of persecuted.

 

·         Another approach might have been not to insist  Mr. Leaker has caused as much damage to US national security as the Yucatan asteroid strike did to the dinosaurs; but to say that Mr. Leaker “does not have access to anything important, and has caused no damage”. It’s too late to dismiss Mr. Leaker as a “hacker” now because US has explicitly and repeatedly said he has caused great damage. But saying he was unimportant, hinting he was a bit socially challenged, saying he would receive a suspended sentence and probation because he broke laws, but nothing more, and the whole thing would have been defused.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT June 27, 2013

 

·         Editor got a minor piece of good news today that was so depressing he had to have three helpings of vanilla ice cream with chocolate milk to revive himself. How can good news be depressing? Watch and learn, my friends. Like many other places in the country, Maryland state offers a rebate on your property taxes if your house is your primary residence and if your income is less than $60,000. Editor handily qualifies, and the refund will cover one month’s rent. So that’s one more month the crisis is avoided. Accompanying the refund was a letter that explained that Editor was one of 166 people in the fair City of Takoma Park, Maryland, to receive the refund.

 

·         Very roughly, there are 6500 owner-owned houses and condos in the city, apartments are excluded.  Since the tax refund is given solely based on income, it is easy to calculate that Editor is down in the bottom 2.5% of the home owning population in terms of income. Now is that depressing or what? Editor feels urgent necessity for another helping of ice cream and chocolate milk…

 

·         Ecuador and the Department of Irony So it’s hardly a secret that there is little press freedom in Ecuador and that it’s a bit of a police state. So understandably we thought the snooping has to be relatively old-fashioned. So imagine our surprise when Reader Luxembourg sends an article http://t.co/GLxgDzVn1w sayng Ecuador is the first country in the world to introduce a national voice and facial recognition system (see http://tinyurl.com/dyc5k88 for details).

 

·         Among the gadgets Ecuador has is one which can “copy SIM cards, identify phone calls, route phone calls to different places, intercept text messages, falsify and modify the text messages, keep messages in their system, disconnect calls, block phone calls, system should be able to intercept a minimum of 4 phone calls simultaneously.” It also has a system that intercepts 250 cell phone calls simultaneously. Four phone calls simultaneously does not sound like much, but remember this sort of equipment is modular. And the module that does all the naughty things costs ~$500,000.

 

·         What is so interesting about America-haters that they can neatly erase from their memory all the bad things in which their fave countries indulge. So Europeans – and some Americans – have no trouble in praising Ecuador as a bastion of freedom when it is anything but. India before the mid-1980s had a virulently anti-American elite, much of their thinking inherited from the British Socialist lot. India was a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement – being a Soviet ally was okay to claim non-aligned status – and regularly hammered the US. It never once occurred to India that it was eminent in a gathering of the worst dictatorships and autocracies in the world, and opposed to the one state with which India had everything in political common, i.e., the US, with whom India shared a love of democracy.

 

·         What happened after the mid-1980s? Well, the Americans finally got India in bed with them, and India swerved so wildly to the other side that Editor had to undertake a crusade to protest at the speed and efficiency with which the US was buying Indians left, right, center, up, and down. Editor loves America, but that doesn’t mean you sell out your own country to America.

 

·         So from 1970 to mid-1980s the Indians slandered Editor by saying he was “CIA”. This shut off any channel of gainful endeavor. Please. Editor is very class conscious and being CIA is totally déclassé. When just about anyone who counted for anything in the Indian bureaucracy, military, political class, media, etc. was in fact working indirectly for the CIA or other agencies and Editor was protesting, some of the military folks he uncovered as working for the Americans told the US Embassy Editor was working for RAW, the Indian CIA equivalent. Groan. RAW is ten times more déclassé than CIA, which is pretty low in status for us snobs. So among other things when Editor visited the US Military Attache’s office, he was not allowed inside. He was taken to the Political Office, where an officer had to act as monitor.

 

·         The Political Office people were quite intelligent, and the whole idea of Editor working for the Indian Government caused them a certain amount of mirth, particularly as the Indian Government was constantly trying to put Editor away for something – GOI itself was not very clear what that something was.

 

·         Folks, you have no idea how difficult it is for an honest spy to do his work when people first accuse him of being CIA, then of working for Indian intelligence. I used to ask people: “So, CIA agents get around the city on a bicycle, live in a converted garage, and can’t afford a telephone?” Back would come the reply: “Ravi, you are so cunning. It is all just a cover.” Editor would ask “So living with my wife and son in one unairconditioned room in a Delhi garage and risking their lives anytime I took them on my bicycle shows I am cunning? Doesn’t it show I’m poor? Doesn’t the CIA pay its agents?” Reply: “Haha. Of course they do. This is part of your cunningness, never to show you have money, to get people to think by your lifestyle you are a poor student.” Editor: “I’m not a poor student because a poor student at least gets a room in which to live, I have to pay through the nose for this room.” Reply: “We admitted you are very cunning.”

 

·         Then when Editor was accused of being an Indian agent, he’d protest he had never, ever, met a single RAW person in his life. With the possible exception of a gent who came to visit when there was a spy scandal on. The spies were Editor’s good friends. But not just was this gent beautiful dressed, he was cultured and polished and he put no pressure on Editor when Editor said he couldn’t sneak on his friends, no matter which nationality they were. He merely said “Here’s my card, should you change your mind and want to talk to me, you are always welcome.” Does that sound like an Indian intelligence agent? In fact, does that sound like any kind of intelligence agent? Reply: ““Oh, Ravi, you are just so cunning. We admire you.” Editor: “How can I be CIA and RAW at the same time?” Reply: “You are a double, you are that good.”

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT June 26, 2013

 

·         NSA Leaker is still in Moscow Airport as Mr. Putin finally admitted while firmly refusing to hand the wanted man over to the US. The gentleman is said to be in a transit hotel. Mr. Putin says he does not need a visa to transit Russia and can go where he wants, but the sooner the better.

 

·         Rumors abound, but our young hero is supposed to have documents from Ecuador giving him refugee status. If so, he would not need a passport to leave Hong Kong. People have started pointing out – including in Ecuador – that a US-Ecuador free trade agreement is up for renewal and 400,000 jobs depend on a resigning. So this might not be the best time to give yet another person asylum. In our opinion, the Ecuador president’s hatred of the US is so great that he may let it go to the wire and capitalize on a US refusal to sign to strengthen his position at home.

 

·         Letter from Patrick Skuza  I must take issue with your statement today: "It is not as if Government/Congress, everyone and his blind aunt does not know why Russia or China are not lifting a finger in apprehending NSA Leaker."This is blatantly not true!  They are lifting their middle fingers!

·          Just a thought here, but are we seeing a "generation gap" starting to appear.  Snowden, 29, tells US society to take their 'country' and shove it.  Working for NSA/contractor, did he see a future not worth living?  Do the under 30 crowd see a life/nation worth living in? What!?! With Pelosi and other congress critters saying Narf, Zort Point. Oh, how my confidence is inspired. I think this would be the perfect time to open a Viagra bar down in Cartagena, Columbia for all the soon to be retired NSA guys.

 

·         Sidon, Lebanon The Lebanese Army stormed the offices of the renegade Sunni sheikh whose men attacked an army check post in the area killing up to 12 soldiers. Up to 18 soldiers may have been killed. The sheikh has escaped and may be hiding in a nearby refugee camp. The army is in a bad mood – understandably – and is unlikely to halt till they have their man dead or alive. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/2013624161613545710.html

 

·         The provocation for the shiekh’s attack appears to be his anger that the army is not (a) letting him attack Shias, and (b) not helping him attack Shias. He is inflamed by the Syria fighting. Alas, said sheikh seems to have forgotten Lebanon is a multi-religious state and the army’s role is precisely not letting different groups attack each other.

 

·         Gliese 667C has three potentially habitable planets Readers will have heard of the first two, but looks like there is a third one out of seven planets. Moreover, Gliese 667 is a triple-star system, about 22-light-years away. It is possible the other two also have habitable planets. In the case of 667C, the habitable planets are close enough that folks could visit each other after journeys of 1-2 months. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23750-three-habitable-worlds-found-around-the-same-star.html But of course, they have nothing to talk about. Kim Kardashian would be only about 8-years old as far as the Gliese folks are concerned.

 

·         Mali Tuaregs sign peace agreement with government It was the Tuaregs that started the rebellion which almost led to Mali being overrun by Islamists. When the French intervened, they did not fight the Tuaregs, who were holding out in the north, saying they had declared autonomy and the Mali Army could not enter the region. Mali Army has been preparing for an offensive, but that is rendered unnecessary by the new agreement. Government says no concessions have been made. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/world/africa/mali-and-rebels-reach-peace-deal.html?ref=africa

 

·         It is still a long way to the defeat of the Islamists and a return to normalcy. Questions remain about the ability of Mali and African forces to defeat the insurgents, who have taken to guerilla tactics. Still, the Tuareg accord is an important step forward.

Tuesday 0230 GMT June 25, 2013

 

Editor has been feeling mildly out of sorts. Cannot summon up the outrage. Deathly worried old age may be taking over. Disasters continue unabated: CAC did die, $5200 new one, and the folks who installed it, who do this work for Editor are too small to give installment payments. Editor is going into a four month teaching internship where he will not be able to substitute, and of course not get paid for it as it is part of the training. Yes, before you ask, Editor already is certified in four different areas and has four Masters’, but he thought it would be nice to get another one, in teaching. And certainly it’s a great learning experience. And being a senior citizen working less than 1000 hours a year he gets to do any number of degrees free as a Maryland taxpayer. Some benefit to paying the taxes. Then his Indian employer is having money woes so don’t know how long that job is going to last. One gets so tired of living on the financial edge that one gets plain fatalistic. No school replies to applications, so no prospect of a job in private sector. Public sector out of question on age grounds. Nothing to do except what Editor does best: Bash On Regardless and hope for the best.

 

·         NSA Leaker What worries Editor is he’s not particularly disturbed about this affair. One supposes part of it is none of his revelations is any news to anyone. Or at least, should not be if you read the computer press. Even Wired magazine is enough. But: sneaking suspicion at his back of Editor’s head: what if he no longer cares? Gulp!

 

·         It was different with Wikileaks because you had this self-promoting foreigner who looks he’s an alien, and who is an utter anti-American hypocrite. The NSA leaker is a pathetic American specimen who has crawled out from under a rock with his naiveté and savior complex. It’s very hard to get mad at him, just as it is hard to get angry at Bradley Manning. The only outrageous part about Manning is that this country is in such dire straits that it has to take people like him for the military because so few people volunteer, and of those so few are fit enough to meet the military’s physical/mental standards. It is not easy getting mad at a person who is not sure if he’s a boy or a girl. Both with Manning and the NSA leaker Editor wants to say, just find them guilty, sentence them to probation, and let them go.

 

·         Assange, now. It’s difficult to feel mildly toward a person who is so smugly anti-American, sticking his fat nose in other countries business, doing programs on Russian TV and wanting to go live in Ecuador – real bastions of press freedom, and an accused rapist at that. And one who uses people all the time. No, sir. US needs to send a Switchblade RPV through his bedroom window in the Ecuador Embassy, and not make excuses for offing him.

 

·         We want to make a minor point about the US Government’s fake outrage about Russia’s refusal to hold NSA Leaker. Why precisely should the Russians oblige? Who said – except in Bush/Obama’s fantasies – that the US and Russia and friends and allies? When Hong Kong is under China’s thumb, why exactly should the Chinese hand over a leaker who has “revealed” – do think Austin Powers – that the US is spying on China. We are shocked, shocked. Not.

 

·         Particularly annoying is the US Government’s smarmy hypocrisy for political consumption. It is not as if Government/Congress, everyone and his blind aunt does not know why Russia or China are not lifting a finger in apprehending NSA Leaker. Everyone knows. Why go through this fake upset? Who are these people trying to impress? Constituents back home? Well, those constituents would be a lot more impressed if Congress learned which organ is for talking and which is for excreting waste.

 

·         As far as Editor is concerned, the Second Coming is not coming fast enough.  Yes, yes, Editor realizes he has committed so many sins that he is already tagged with the Red Label that says “Downstairs”, rather than the Blue which says “Upstairs”. And in any case who wants to go Upstairs, where they do a little operation so that you are of No Sex At All, be issued a white robe and a McDonald’s cardboard gilt halo, and sit on a cloud playing on a harp for eternity. Robe, Halo, Cloud, and Harp all Made With Pride in China, of course.

 

Monday 0230 GMT June 24, 2013

 

·         Pakistan N-weapons protection force now 25,000 troops From Mandeep Bajwa: the SPD security force is army (Special Plans Directorate, controls Pakistan’s nuclear weapons). Trained at various regimental centers. Lots of publicity given to the training and particularly the passing-out parades. For Western consumption, to show that they are serious about preventing the falling of their nukes into terrorist hands.

 

·         Editor’s comment Seems Pakistan is overdoing it. Three thousand well-trained and vetted troops are quite enough to protect 4-5 N-weapon depots; Pakistan is thought to have one central depot. We are wondering if the Pakistan Army has snuck in an extra army division into the total.

 

·         Saudi/Qatar weapons enroute to Syria rebels There is not much clarity on this issues, but it seems that Gaddafi’s stockpiles are starting to flow to Syrian rebels. This could be undertaken quickly because apparently shipments were held up in Turkey at US insistence. Saudi Arabia is said to be supplying SAMs and anti-material rifles. The rebels are getting 106mm Recoilless Rifle rounds.  If our reading of the situation is correct, Aleppo seems to be the priority, to halt the planned big Syrian Army/allies offensive.

 

·         UK Telegraph says rebels have stalled the offensive before it took off, using newly arrived anti-tank missiles and other weapons. The rebels says they are taking the offensive now. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10137558/Syria-rebels-heed-lesson-of-Qusayr-to-drive-back-Assad-forces-in-Aleppo.html

 

·         Meanwhile, a Sunni militia opened fire without provocation on an army outpost located in a village. Al Jazeera says six Army personnel were killed. Roads in Tripoli and the Bekka Valley are reported blocked by various militias. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/201362315132483536.html

 

·         Also meanwhile, the US presence in Jordan after the joint exercises has increased from 250 troops already present to 1000. Included are a Patriot SAM battery and an F-16 fighter squadron. The troops are to stay indefinitely.

 

·         CIA leaker is in Moscow pending travel to Ecuador where he will seek asylum report UK Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/23/edward-snowden-escape-moscow-ecuador A Russian official says as long as the leaker stays in the transit lounge, he is safe; not that Russia would extradite him, seeing as it offered him asylum.

 

·         If the Guardian story is accurate, Hong Kong has acted illegally in letting the leaker go. He no longer has a valid passport and had no visa for Moscow. Moreover, the authorities told the US about his departure five hours after he left. Still further, when the US handed over papers to Hong Kong, there was no mention by the government about any lacunae in the papers. And even if there was a problem, Hong Kong is duty bound to inform the US and give the US a chance to remedy the issue. Accepted they likely could not have arrested the leaker till the problem was sorted out, but they should not have let him leave without valid travel documents.

 

Saturday 0230 GMT June 22, 2013

This update is in lieu of the missed Friday update

·         Brazil protests abate after peaking at 1-million demonstrators in 80 cities on Thursday. The protests are driven by a frustrated middle-class angry about several issues as affect them, such as official corruption. But when looters and criminals used the protests as an excuse for their illegal activities, and when people began protest the demonstrators’ tactic of shutting main roads, the media/social media began condemning them and the left party behind the protests called a halt. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/21/us-brazil-protests-idUSBRE95K0JU20130621

 

·         The Brazilian leader, Dilma Rousseff, herself a former left guerilla originally welcomed the protests as an expression of democracy, but then fell silent as the movement grew. Nonetheless, what problems America may have with her, President Rousseff is to be commended for her restraint compared the wildly autocratic crackdown by Turkey’s Edrogan . There they demonstrators have had to resort to silent action after the Government began arresting protest leaders from their homes and offices.

 

·         How the Islamists in Syria overnight destroyed a group of 2000 fighters they saw as competitors. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/19/us-syria-rebels-islamists-specialreport-idUSBRE95I0BC20130619 The Islamists simply moved in, took away the group’s guns, vehicles, and vehicles, and reduced it to 100 people.  Personally, the Editor thinks the Islamist move a brilliant one.

 

·         The UK Telegraph says this pattern is being repeated across Syria and the moderates are at a disadvantage because they are ill-organized and often dicker amongst themselves. If this trend continues, then it is possible there will be no second Syrian war as Editor and others have predicted. The moderates will be defeated before the war against Assad ends. Remember, the fundamentalists have the support of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations.

 

·         The Femen Topless Protest  http://www.france24.com/en/20130621-tunisia-femen-topless-activists-appeal-jail-sentence-france-german First, the ritual disclaimers so that no one misunderstands. These demonstrators have the right to free speech as much as anyone. If that free speech is in the form of women taking off their clothes, that is fine. Nonetheless, Editor wonders what is the point of protesting in this manner, particularly when the protests are European women in an Arab country. We thought the idea of protesting was to draw attention to the issue, not to yourself. We fail to see what is achieved except giving men (mainly) a free opportunity to drool and voyeur (Editor is indulging in the bad American habit of turning a noun into a verb.)

 

·         Recently, Mr. Putin of Russia was greeted by a similar protest on his visit to Germany. Photographs show him clearly delighted. Was that the object of the protest? To provide an opportunity to leer for a despot the protestors want gone?

 

·         Alert for Femen members who might be planning to protest outside Editor’s house. Please keep your clothes on as Editor does not want to upset the variety of critters big and small who use his yard as a playground. These animals are quite sensitive – they have feelings too, you know. Besides which Editor is quite blind even with his glasses on. And in any case, even he can see you, he will not be moved, as he inured to nudity given the way his girl students dress in the spring and early fall. Editor has often wondered if to protest Montgomery County Public Schools lack of a dress code, he himself should arrive in a state of – er – revelation. But were he to do so, both students and adults would have cause for complaining about child abuse and staff abuse. There is a reason aside from the weather people wear clothes, you know. It is spare other people from permanent trauma, you know.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT June 20, 2013

·         Syria UK Telegraph says rebels have begun to receive Konkur anti-tank missiles from Saudi Arabia following a US decision to arm certain rebel groups, and have used them at Aleppo. The success of the ATGMs, issued in limited numbers, may have stalled regime plans for an all-out attack on Aleppo. For the regime’s strategy in this area, read http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10131063/Syrian-rebels-get-first-heavy-weapons-on-the-front-line-of-Aleppo.html

 

·         It hardly needs saying that if the rebels are already using these missiles – one unit says it was given five; four of which destroyed regime tanks and the fifth was a dud – then the decision to supply arms was actually taken weeks ago. But that’s okay, the US Government can no longer talk straight about anything, so this lie hardly matters. It is a baby lie in the greater scheme of things.

 

·         We knew Qatar was supplying ATGMs and that the rebels had captured some from regime arms depots. What we did not know it that after some Gulf supplied weapons started turning up with bad rebel groups, the US asked the concerned suppliers to halt. This does not mean that the bad rebels stopped getting weapons, because they are being funded by Saudi and others. All it means is that it becomes harder for the bad rebels to get ATGMs because suppliers will have to buy them from the open market, including Libya.

 

·         Moreover, ATGMs and SAMs are not exactly like – say – assault rifles and machine guns. The latter, if stored properly, can be recovered from an arms depot and quickly out to use. ATGMs and SAMs have shelf-lives; moreover stuff like batteries have to be stored separately. We don’t know what the shelf-life of Soviet ATGMs is; western types are generally good for 10-years. Plus we don’t know if the missiles were properly stored. The batteries used by US missiles are unique and have a deliberately short life. There are other safeguards. So if someone should steal a bunch, or as was the case with Afghan Mujahideen not return every unused missile, within a short time – which the military has not shared with Editor – the missiles are no good. By the way, these batteries are not your usual AA or AAA batteries that you can pick up in the dozens at Home depot. You either have the right battery or you are holding something that has the lethality of a large, heavy baton.

 

·         In Afghanistan the US used several measures to ensure missiles did not wander off in the first place. The CIA has not chosen to share the exact measures with Editor; he takes it personally because lots of other people know, if only Editor could get up and about and visit folks. All of which takes money, with which commodity Editor is not generously endowed, to say nothing of if you are working 12 hours a day seven days a week to meet the mortgage, you don’t have time to travel around by hitching rides. But it can be guessed one measure was that the CIA went along with the Afghan rebels given a small number of missiles; another would be the return of the firing tube before more missiles are issued. We thought someone once told us that there are software locks, but this was almost three decades ago so Editor is unsure.

 

·         Okay, so the rebels now have the likelihood of a significant number of ATGMs and possibly SAMs. The Syrian Army is essentially mechanized, so it generally fights with tanks and AIFVs plus lots of firepower from artillery, fighter aircraft, and attack helicopters. (This may be our imagination, but we think the use of attack helicopters has been curtailed. Syria didn’t have a whole lot to begin with, and there have been several losses.) The Russians are said to have replenished Syrian Army stocks of tanks and AIFVs, but fighting ATGM-armed infantry in built-up areas is not the favorite activity of tank troops because it is a high-casualty business.

 

·         The usual thing when you have  this situation is to use firepower to blow the area on which you are advancing to smithereens, and then send in the infantry ahead of the armor. Even with an area supposedly sanitized by fire, this is not a popular activity among the infantry, because lots of folk survive the heaviest fire barrages  in urban areas. Things were different in Fallujah, because the US Marines blew up every house, every automobile, anything that looked like it could hide an IED, as they advanced. Again, however, this is the Marines you are talking about.

 

·         So in theory regime forces could get stopped from attacking urban areas. In more open terrain its easier for the armor and harder for the rebels even with missiles. But: this is where Hezbollah, Alawite militias, and the Iranians come in. They will be quite happy to go toe-to-toe with the rebels inside towns and cities, and the one thing ATGMS cannot do is protect you from enemy infantry.

 

·         This is just one of many reasons some analysts are noting that the US intervention at this stage might not change anything much. The rebels need close air support, which of course is not forthcoming.

 

·         Much larger questions are being asked  such as assuming the Syrian Army is defeated, what happens next. They could opt to fight a guerilla war just as the rebels have been doing. Their lines of supply through Iraq and Lebanon will not be easily closed. Like it or not, neither Hezbollah, Iraq, or Iran is just going to let the rebels win. This is not Libya, where Gaffy had no friends.

 

·         Even assuming Shia forces are ultimately defeated; this will only mark the start of the second civil war, as the fundamentalists an semi-secularists fight it out. US/West can say or do what they want, arms and money from the Gulf States will continue to flow to the fundamentalists.

 

·         These are just some of the reasons that folks who normally might enthusiastically support US intervention are worried. It is okay for President Obama to say the US is not rushing into another Mideast War. We may agree there is no rush, except this refusal to rush may already have cost the US the Syria War. US has shown unusual wisdom in staying out of Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya (the last except for some covert action to help stabilize the Government). Now it is jumping into an exceptionally complicated and brutal civil war in Syria. Meanwhile, moderates of the Arab Spring are under severe pressure from fundamentalists. US can believe what it wants, but Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria will fall to the fundamentalists.

 

·         No one can control revolutions, neither insiders nor outsiders. Revolutions have to burn themselves out. It can take many decades. And those who control state organs of power can easily thwart the will of the people – see Iran. Fundamental Islam will one day become obsolete, irrelevant, and will be overthrown from inside. But this really is going to take decades. In such situations the best course for the US is to stay out of the way. Be polite, maintain decent relations with everyone – yes, even the Taliban, the Iranian Mullahs, the Egyptian Brotherhood, the Sahel fundamentalist groups if they come to power.

 

·         Automatically opposing such movements serves to strengthen them. This is the case with Cuba. The day the US lifts the trade embargo and normalizes relations is the day the bell will start tolling for the communist regime. The US stayed out of Venezuela, and it got the second best outcome it could have hoped for: a squeaky narrow victory for the Chavistas, who know have to face the wrath of the people as more things go wrong economically and in terms of law and order. The Brazilian President is a very large pain in the buttootie. But the US has kept out of that dispute. And guess what? The people are starting to revolt.

 

 

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT June 19, 2013

·         From Phil Rosen on US losing supercomputer race  You said: "Obviously it has no shame. China’s Tianhe supercomputer has hit 33-petaflops" Such an irrelevant measure. Super computers are for bragging rights, but this is no measure of America's leadership in computing. The fact is that the innovations driving science and businesses’ ability to gain insight from vast collections of data are not in super-computing, but in the ability to leverage large numbers of cheap commodity computers in parallel. These super computers are yesterday's game, they are as dated and irrelevant as your commentary.

 

·         Editor’s reply Two letters in two days! We must be on a roll here. We thought we’d noted that Tianhe is the fastest publically known computer, and that NSA normally is one generation ahead. After yesterday’s post we googled around to see what folks are saying about NSA and exaflop computing. Rumor is they’ll have such a machine ready in three more years. Intel is working one a 1-exaflop machine by 2018, 4-exaflops by 2020, and 1-zetaflop by 2030. Further, if there is some breakthrough in quantum computing that NSA has not seen fit to share with the public, then even an exaflop machine is irrelevant. We also noted that that pure speed doesn’t mean much when the software to use it doesn’t exist.

 

·         Mr. Rosen makes Editor’s point. America no longer exerts itself to be Number One. It’s a manifestation of sheer laziness, not that Americans cannot do it. More and more America is saying “Well this doesn’t matter and that doesn’t matter. We have no time for the nonsense; we’re focusing on the real things”. This like Apple saying of its products: “The real skill is the design; anyone can do the manufacturing”. Really? Perhaps anyone can but the US for sure cannot. And what is so ineffably wonderful about American design that others cannot catch up and exceed it?

 

·         Similarly supercomputers. We agree with Mr. Rosen pure speed is irrelevant – without the software to exploit it. Now, we don’t expect Americans of this generation to understand that there is a whole world out there, and part of a nation’s power is what other peoples think of it.  For example, only us older folk can remember what a huge blow America’s global reputation took when the Russians – and the East Germans, what an insult, put America’s Olympic superiority under threat.  

 

·         Another example is high-speed rail. It’s quite likely Americans neither know nor care at the manner in which the Japanese and the Europeans – and the Chinese, double insult - laugh at the Acela train that runs between Washington and Boston. Theoretically capable of 150mph, it generally averages 75mph because the tracks cannot take anything resembling high-speed trains. Similarly, when Airbus caught up with Boeing, American global prestige took a bit hit.

 

 

·         In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, America was the best at just about everything. Yes, it was a superpower because of its military capability. But one reason folks globally admired the US – even as in the 1960s they began criticizing America’s foreign policies – was precisely because America was Number One in just about anything. American prowess in space was particularly mesmerizing.  But now, particularly in engineering, both products and goods, China has pulled well ahead. China, which in 1980 was one of the poorest countries in the world.

 

·         Nowdays, what precisely for is America known the world over? Well, Hollywood and entertainment. That’s always been the case from the start of the film industry. Weapons: America is really good at weapons. And finance, which in an astonishingly large number of countries is considered a slimy business.

 

·         For heaven’s sake, we don’t even have the Richest Person In The World anymore. That boast belongs to Mexico. Mexico? Yes, Mexico, which to many Americans is considered a joke of a country. Keep laughing, my friends. Keep laughing. You’ll be speaking Spanish soon and English as a second language. Isn’t that hilarious? Luckily Editor will be dead before that happens. (Yes, we are aware that Bill “Pieface” Gates might still be the richest if he hadn’t been giving some of his money away. But once an American would have been the richest as well as the biggest philanthropist.)

 

·         If we go on saying “That is not important”, one day we’ll wake up and say “America is not important  Americans likely will not care, because we’ll still have the biggest comic book action blockbuster movies.

 

·         Recently two good things have happened that show America still has some oomph. One is the hydrocarbon production boom, which is helping to restore some of America’s lost mojo. In energy matters global people had begun to consider the Americans a gone case, like a once beloved but now decrepit, seedy, and slightly sordid uncle with unmentionable vices. Well, if things continue the way they are, America may soon be the world’s top hydrocarbon producer again – take that Russia, double take that Persian Gulf. Unless the well-intentioned but utterly clueless Greens wreck things.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT June 18, 2013

·         Czech Republic provides us a bit of a laugh in this grimly boring times. The Czech Prime Minister has resigned from the government as well as from his party. Eight of his aides were arrested; in the case of six we’re not entirely sure why. His “close” aide was justifiably detained. This lady had ordered the military intelligence folks to keep tabs on the wife; again, unclear why. Though we can concede that using MI is to keep track of the lover’s rival is not a proper use of that organization. Why Czech MI complied with the illegal order is also a mystery. The general in charge of MI has also been arrested, as he jolly well should.

 

·         By the way, for those of big on electronic privacy, the press now reveals how the former CIA’s chief’s mistress was caught. The lady sent anonymous emails to a socialite she thought was a rival for the CIA head’s affections, threatening her with (unspecified) consequences for (allegedly) carrying on with the CIA gent. So the authorities matched up the IP addresses of the hotels from which the threatening emails were sent with the hotel guest lists, and KaChing! Out popped the name of the mistress.

 

·         Sleep soundly, America! Any infidelity anywhere will be detected and revealed to the public! The utility of this multi-gazillion dollar snooping system is justified just by the one case! Nay sayers and “privacy seekers” are only trying to hide their misdeeds! Bit embarrassing, now, if you are being unfaithful to your spouse. But of course you have nothing to hide. Except that you buy the cheapest brand of toilet paper. (Editor too.  Editor would just love to be unfaithful to his spouse. Except he has neither spouse nor girlfriend. Sigh.)

 

·         Dang. The Chinese are at it again Does the US have no shame? Oh, shoot – why are we asking that? Obviously it has no shame. China’s Tianhe supercomputer has hit 33-petaflops, leaving the previous Number 1, US’s Titan, in the dust with half that speed. Why are we even letting the Chinese even compete in the same league? Have we no shame – oh, shoot, there we go again.

 

·         Of course, the obvious retort to the Chinese feat is “fastest unclassified computer”. Generally, NSA has stuff at least one generation ahead, so it may have exaflop computers (Exaflop = 1000 quadrillion flops per second; speed varies widely depending on the program being run; its doubtful anyone has the software to actually keep a 10-petaflop computer running). Then of course no one knows what NSA is doing in quantum computing. Hopefully it is doing something. These days Americans are so lax about competing for all we know NSA doesn’t care to be Number 1 again.

 

·         Meanwhile, the Booz Allen leaker has issued another ringing affirmation of his fight for all our freedoms. He tells the US government, murdering me will not stop anything. You poor, deluded boy! US doesn’t want to kill you! That would give you the easy out. They merely want to give you 60-years without parole in SuperMax, where every day you will have 1440 excruciatingly long minutes to repent your actions.

 

·         More details on the leaker’s education. He dropped out of 10th Grade as reporting, but did do his GED, so technically he is a high school graduate. He took some years of computer classes at a community college and perhaps at a 4-year; no degree.

 

·         Jordan 4,500 US troops are participating in joint maneuvers along with several other contingents including the British, bringing the total to 9,000. As it is the US was going to keep troops in Jordan after the exercises to protect the country against Syrian retaliation for Jordanian/US help to the rebels. With Iran Revolutionary Guard troops headed for Syria, the only question is will the US send more troops.

 

·         Meanwhile, we wonder what, if anything, the US is doing to stop men and materials from Iran flowing to Syria through Iraq. Logic says US should now use the Anbar Sunni tribes to interdict supplies to Syria. We know if the US does this everyone will roll their eyes and say: “Here we go again”. But if the Americans were like the Brits of yore, arming this tribe today and that tribe tomorrow would not cause any moral or policy problems. Just remember what the French say: “Countries have no permanent allies, only permanent interests”.

 

·         Syria: Letter from Ramganesh Iyer I actually think what the US is (not) doing in Syria is a masterstroke. Let us look at the two sides fighting this war - on one side you have the Iran and Hezbollah allied Alawites. On the other, you have the Sunni Islamists of varied stripes. Yes, there are a few secularists into the mix - but I suspect they are a tiny proportion.

 

·         The West would like nothing than to see both these sides fight and annihilate each other. All without the West having to lift a little finger or lose a man in the effort.

 

·         Then why, you may argue, the rhetoric? That is purely to keep its position in high moral ground as a defender of human rights to whoever cares to listen. US policy is, and should, be governed by self-interest. And that's being served perfectly well by offering pure rhetoric and nothing else. Just as India's cause is well served by the Pak military fighting the TTP.

 

Monday 0230 GMT June 17, 2013

Syria: Here We Go Again

·         So no sooner than US says it will provide arms to secular Syrian rebel groups than Iran ups the ante. UK Independent reported yesterday that Iran is sending an initial 4000 Revolutionary Guards to Syria http://tinyurl.com/k9a7vzy Generally Editor is of the opinion that if someone challenges the US to a fight, it is America’s moral duty to give it to them. Especially if the challenger happens to be Iran. It is long since time Iran was made to understand that all the religious fervor in the world is as wind before American weaponry.

 

·         But with regard to Syria Editor has doubts. The problem is not the battle capability of the US military which in conventional war is simply unmatched. You give the US military a clear cut task to do – except Counter Insurgency – and the task will be done without breaking a sweat. The problem is American geostrategical direction. In three wars in eleven years the higher direction of war has proved an abysmal failure. The military is as much to blame as the civilians. If this country’s top leaders had any shame they would have committed hara kiri and cleared the way for more effective leaders. Of course, asking American leaders to feel shame, is asking a pig to feel embarrassed at its nakedness. Probably the pig is more sensitive than American leaders.

 

·         First, let us throw this business of chemical weapons into the trash basket. Russia is right when it says the evidence cannot meet the standards of UN conventions on banning chemical weapons. Besides, how does it make sense to say 1-200 people have been killed by chemical weapons – which may have been used by the opposition and therefore a red line has been crossed. An average of 100+ people are being killed each day by good old conventional weapons.

 

·         It is nothing short of amazing that the American leadership will stoop to nothing in justifying itself, trotting out – again – the aged male whore of chemical weapons. Hello, people: if you are interventionist, there is every reason to intervene in Syria even if no chemical weapons were around. But truth and the American leadership are strangers. No sooner did the news come that the US had decided to supply weapons because Syria had crossed a red line, then the news was leaked that actually the US had decided on intervention before the chemical thing became such an issue. So once again American leaders choose to lie to the people when the truth easily suffices.  Aside from gross incompetence, do the American people want to go to war yet again led by folks who are congenitally unable to tell the truth?

 

·         Second, everything has its time and place. Had the US intervened early in the Syrian civil war, it could have done at low risk. But now this mess has become a regional war, and fundamentalist Islamic Sunni groups are running rampant. Not because they are such great fighters, but because the usual suspects are funding Sunni groups. Some folks like Qatar are open about this. Saudi and Kuwait, as usual champions of sliminess, are doing the plausible deniability thing by letting private individuals be their fronts.

 

·         So effectively, the US is going to be fighting alongside Sunni extremists. We are back to Afghanistan Round One where it didn’t matter the Mujahedeen were religious fanatics, as long as they are killing our designated enemies of the day. We know how well that worked out.

 

·         The problem is not, as American opponents of intervention say, that arms can fall into the hands of the Islamists. Pray tell what is so superior about American arms that in the hands of Islamists can be turned into deadly weapons against us? Especially when the arms will be 100% the same Russian-origin weaponry that all rebel groups are using? Everyone goes on endlessly “SAMs, SAMs, SAMs” as if these are magical weapons. This constant mewling about SAMs shows only how lazy western scholars and analysts have become. Please, sir and madam, do tell: how many US SAMs given in the hundreds to the Afghan Mujahedeen in the 1980s have been used elsewhere? Precisely. Thank you for answering.

 

·         Soviet origin SAMs have been looted from Libya probably in the thousands. Did we see their use against French forces in Mali? Have we seen their use against Syrian forces in the civil war? No, because the matter of acquiring a SAM is simple compared to the matter of actually use it. We aren’t going to get into this; we ask only that people look at the factual record. The issue is neither SAMs nor weapons falling into the wrong hands.

 

·         The issue is, what is the endgame? What are our plans to deal with the open influx of Hezbollah and Iranian forces into the fight? How are we going to handle the rebel Kurds who are fighting their own war? Plans for dealing with the Sunni extremists who may be the ultimate military winners in the second civil war that will follow Assad’s defeat?

 

·         It may not be a coincidence that this push to put America into Syria comes at a time when two passionate interventionists have come on board President’s Obama’s team. One is going to the UN, the other is becoming the National Security Advisor. Do these two know their history? Doubtful. Americans don’t do history. Bush’s conservatives derided the Europeans for being prisoners of their history. We Americans were superior: history did not constrain us from muscular diplomacy and war.

 

·         Anyone realize that Americans are not constrained by history not because they are superior beings but because they are ADHD? An ADHD person so quickly forgets what went wrong the last time, s/he has no memory to trouble her/him the next time around.

 

Friday 0230 GMT June 14, 2013

·         More on Twinkle Toes, the Tooter of his own horn The young gentleman was a system administrator for Booz Allen which assigned him to NSA. He held a Top Secretly clearance. Seems to us a checkout by Editor’s pet raccoon would be cheaper and more efficacious than US Government/NSA/Booz Allen’s checkout. This raccoon is not really Editor’s pet, but he often transits Editor’s backyard on stealthy midnight assignations. Editor likes to think he is a CIA raccoon and On The Job, defending America from its myriad enemies. Honestly, though, we now know Mr. Raccoon does not work for CIA and all that. He’s too smart to be able to put up gladly with government intelligence fools.

 

·         In fact, US Government is proving, once again, what Editor has always firmly believed: “intelligence” is an oxymoron. According to paper some 5-million Americans hold security clearances – that’s one in 63 people, illegals included. Some astronomical number of this non-elite fraternity have Top Secret clearances – Editor, if he recalls correctly seems to recall a figure of 1.3-million.

 

·         Just who is kidding whom? How can you possibly have that many people with security clearances? What do all these people do? Track each other like folks were doing in James Coburn’s “The President’s Analyst”? To find ultimately that the Phone Company (nowdays morphed into Google) controls the whole world? Complete bosh and nonsense. Reduce CIA to 1000 people, with no more than 100 operatives; cut NSA back to the same figure, 1000. To gather intelligence, be intelligent. Less is More in this game.

 

·         We’d like to say more on this topic, but then readers are just going to say of Editor “There he goes again”. But seriously, folks, America is being taken for a ride by the intelligence community. We trembled with awe when the general who heads the NSA loudly declaimed that the NSA had foiled dozens of plots in recent year. Much like Dr. Evil demanding a ransom of $10-million dollars or he’ll destroy the world. So impressive. Dozens of plots. At a cost of what? $5- to $10-billion a plot? Rubbish. This general needs to be given a 10-pound iron bar and made to run laps holding the bar above his head until some reality soaks into his noggin.

 

·         No wonder Al Qaeda thinks its winning. Remember one of AQs objectives is to use a small sum of money to elicit such violent reactions from the West that the West is bankrupted? It’s happening.

 

·         A sad episode followed by the predictable American response This happened in Editor’s part of the country, suburban Maryland in the DC Metro area. Army recruiter age 31, married, recruits a 17-year high school girl, not just to serve the country, but to serve him. She gets a call one night, rushes from the house telling her parents one of her “platoon members” is suicidal, she has to help him. The next morning when her parents get the police to the recruiter’s house, the law finds the girl and the sergeant in the shower: he has shot her and then killed himself.

 

·         Someone opines that he’s been wanting to commit suicide, but the only way he can bring himself to do it is to kill his girlfriend. We do not buy this theory one bit. Too complicated. We prefer a simpler theory, that likely his wife found out or he was afraid his affair was going to get revealed; he can’t live without his girlfriend so he kills her then himself. Who knows, maybe we’re totally off base. But that isn’t the point of this comment.

 

·         Now the girl’s family says they are thinking of suing the Army for not supervising its man properly. Recruiters are not supposed to have contact with students out of official business hours; the official business hours are obviously solely to discuss business, not to socialize. Had the Army been monitoring this man more closely, they would have found out he posted inappropriate messages on Facebook and wrote online poetry about suicide. QED, but for the Army’s negligence, their daughter would have been alive.

 

·         We are very sorry, but we are not going to let emotion get in the way of commenting on the parents’ complete lack of logic. They have failed to adequately supervise their child. Why did they not stop her as she ran out of the house at 9PM. As a parent myself, Editor would NEVER let even his boys rush out like that, let alone a daughter. They have the legal and moral right to check her Facebook pages and electronic trail. They did not. How can they possibly not have figured their daughter was having an affair with the man? She talked about him and his wife enough. Okay, fathers are stupid; but Editor has yet to meet a mother who doesn’t know if her daughter gets up to no good.

 

·         What they are suggesting is that the Army should have monitored its man’s electronic trail and it is negligent. Please to explain to Editor how army is supposed to monitor the man’s Facebook messages and online posting? The Army has – what – 550,000 people on active duty and several hundred thousand reserves? Should it be monitoring everyone’s online activity? Should schools be monitoring what their under-18 kids post from school?

 

·         Think about this: teachers/administrators are custodial guardians of children when the children are at school. Kids do drugs at school, they even drink. They even manage to have sex, though honestly Editor has checked out every book and cranny of every school he’s attended – you never know when one gets a date with a teacher – and he just doesn’t see how the kids manage this. (Once in a while it’s the teachers are up to no good with each other.) But we teachers know this sort of stuff happens because we overhear the kids, sometimes kids get caught and administrators get involved. So is Editor, as a teacher, supposed to follow his kids around, demanding to look in their bags, insisting they detail why they took 4-minutes to change classes when they should have taken 3, and demand to know the phone numbers/text numbers of people they have contacted while in school?

 

·         Editor knows some readers will say “There he goes again”. But please – this is a serious point. You can see how absolutely ridiculous it is to say the school must protect the children from themselves every minute of every school day. A principal who instituted routine checks of kids’ bags from drugs or alcohol or condoms or whatever would lose her job the next day.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT June 13, 2013

·         Update on Twinkle Toes Also known as the NSA Leaker (would adult diapers help?) (Sorry, we know we are supposed to act mature. It is hard acting mature when discussing an immature person).

 

·         First, youngster who is also in the computer biz says Twinkle Toes had a salary of $122,000; $78,000 would have been his bonus. Youngster says we don’t know what TT’s qualifications are, so it is not possible to say if this is too much, just right, or too little. Contractors do tend to pay more for the right talent because folks are hired for a particular contract; technically you’re done when the job is done. It does need asking if TT is some kind of computer whiz, what was he doing enlisting in the Army at age 24. Also, where else did he work at computers? Don’t know yet, but if you’re not keeping up your skills you’re outdated in a couple of years.

 

·         Second, TT joined Booz Allen Hamilton in February 2013. He contacted the media in – February 2013. So, like, before he even got his first paycheck he had all this information at his disposal and became so outraged that he had to expose NSA/CIA? Or did he get the job with the object of exposing something? A normal person would unlikely to be so outraged in a couple of weeks that he has to go renegade. And it would excruciatingly naïve of him – if he was a computer person – not to know NSA are the snoopiest snoops in the world. Of course, no one has said he is a computer person. But what else would he be getting paid so much for? Or did he just make up a resume saying he was, for example, a super-analyst with years of experience?

 

·         Third, youngster tells us apparently government can remotely turn on the microphone of your cell phone. Chee. Nice guys. Well they aren’t going to get Editor, because he doesn’t use his cell phone. Its turned off except when he has to make a call, for roadside assistance or to coordinate with someone he’s picking up or he is late. Average 3 calls a month.  Bwahahaha, take that, US Government! On the other hand, as readers know, no need to snoop on Editor because he tells all anyway on this blog. And more all. And even more all. To the point everyone is sick with the TMI syndrome.

 

·         Fourth, youngster says to read http://arstechnica.com and not rely on the usual media. Problem is, he says, Arstechnica updates when it feels like it. He also says to remember that internet companies can now produce diagrams of all your people connections. Useful for advertisers and for the anti-terrorist folks. If you want privacy, he says, go live in a bunker in Idaho; do not buy anything except with cash, do not use any means of communication other than face-2-face – and hope the other person isn’t recording everything, no credit cards, no bank accounts, no power or telephone or internet connection, no mail, do not register anywhere for anything – you cannot buy a car or get a driver’s license, do not collect food stamps, Medicaid, social security and so on. In fact unless you find someone willing to pay you in cash, you cannot even work for money. In other words, party like its 1600 AD.

 

·         Washington Post now posts rate for prostituting itself. (Thanks to Luxembourg for telling us about this.) http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-252855/ You pay them, you can get your point of view on the Opinion pages. Obvious next step: you pay them and make up your own news to post. If you’re rich enough, the headline can say not “Syria fighting escalates”, but “Mrs. And Mr. Bumpf had a really whacked out party last night." Or if you want to get even, you can always say: "Not only is my wife a terrible driver, she's no good in bed either." You could have a daily newspaper of 1000-pages and make lots of money.

 

·         Of course, the cynics will say that Washington Post is only now being honest, the media has always been for sale, though it doesn’t always take money. It will do anything, for example, to prove it has access.

 

Wednesday 0230 June 12, 2013

So, another boring update about the new leaker. What is happening around the world is even more boring than this story. So it is the lesser of evils. Plus Editor’s outrage meter is running very low. He just cannot seem to find anything to be outraged about.

·         More about the current leaker First, we’re not going all moralistic about this. The fellow says his conscience about what the US Government is up to in its surveillance bothered him, so he had to speak. That’s fine, this is America. If your conscience bothers you, but all means relieve the conscience. Equally, however, when you take a job with the Government, particularly one handling sensitive national security information, you have to follow the rules. You have the right to break the rules, and the Government has the right to come after you. That’s all; no need for anyone to get hot and bothered.

 

·         Next, he is no more a whistleblower than is Bradley Manning. Bradley Boy took 700,000 classified documents and gave them to Wikileaks. The documents seem mainly to consist of diplomatic cables – at least the papers that have been revealed. Diplomatic cables and the contents are not documents showing someone is breaking the law; they show that the diplomats are doing their job. Our hero in the second leaks case has not actually revealed any classified information as much as he has revealed the existence of classified programs. Which said programs were notified to the requisite people in Congress, the courts, and other agencies as relevant. He has not made any case that the Government is doing something illegal. We’re not even sure how secret this stuff was from the general US public – any reader of Wired knows the government intercepts every signal in the world. If the public does not know this, it hasn’t been paying attention, it has not been lied to.

 

·         President Putin of Russia is at his unhelpful worst by offering to consider asylum for #2 Leaker. He is not doing this young man any favors at all. Poot-Toot is not doing himself any favors either, seeing as how free Russians are to reveal classified information and how their government is  really concerned about civil liberties. Not. Ol’Toots is only making himself look like a windstorm of stinky air and exposing himself to ridicule.

 

·         This said, there’s a lot about #2 that is – well, peculiar. According to Washington Post page A4, June 11, 2013, #2 says he joined the Army in 2004 and trained for the Special Forces for 4 months, and was discharged because he broke his legs. Okay, contrary to what old timers believe – Editor is definitely an old-timer – you can now volunteer directly for the Special Forces. Except you’re unlikely to make it and you’ll still have to serve your enlistment period. Used to be you had to be at least an E-4, already in the military, and then you could volunteer for extra training. Now you go apply directly. But when did this policy change? Anyone? Had it been changed by 2004? Moreover, you do need a high school diploma and at least according to what the rpess was saying day-before-yesterday, #2 doesn’t have one.

 

·         The mystery about #2 at NSA is now explained; he was an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, which has Government contracts; he did was not an NSA employee. Was he a CIA employee? Assuming he had the education qualifications, he could have been. A high school diploma does not qualify you for much of anything. But we may never know because CIA is not in the habit of confirming or denying anything and has refused to confirm/deny in this case.

 

·         He says he had the authority to order a wiretap on anyone, including the President. Hmmmm. Oooookaaay. #2, have you been taking ALL your medications on schedule?

 

·         He says he has knowledge of every CIA station in the world. Hmmmmm. Double Oooookaaaay. #2, from your records we see you have not been showing up for your twice-daily therapy. You have won a $600-million lottery. Please claim your prize immediately before we have to throw the money back in the general pool.

 

·         He says he had the authority to access orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Hmmmmm. Triple Ooookaaay. #2, you left home without your binky. Please return at once. Signed Mom.

 

·         He says he was paid $200,000. This claim Editor finds credible. If the sum was Z$200,000.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT June 11, 2013

Warning: this is one of the most pathetic updates we have ever done. Do yourself a favor and skip it, please.

·         Before America’s conservatives attack failing schools as epitomized by the young gentleman who decided to leak details of US snooping operations, Editor has decided to do the job himself, is his teacher mode. First, please to note that the gent is a high school drop out. Never finished school, leave alone went on to college as is today’s stated national goal. Big failure of US K-12 system right here.

 

·         Of course, this lack of a high school diploma has caused puzzlement among CIA folks, at least according to the Washington Post of June 10, 2013. As may be expected, CIA is not into hiring school dropouts, even if they happen to be talented hackers. Nor is the NSA, where said gent worked via a contractor. Nor are contractors. Anyway. We’ll let others figure this out.

 

·         Next, the gent says he fled to Hong Kong because it has a strong commitment to free speech. Clearly he doesn’t know his basics, because HK also has a very strong extradition treaty with the US. Apparently the only people HL won’t extradite to the US are those accused of do-no-goodniks against the People’s Republic of China. Which is neither a republic nor run by the people, but that is another matter. And who happens to own Hong Kong under the “One China Two Systems” doctrine. Technically our hero has fled to PRC, which last we heard, was not a bastion of free speech or personal liberty. Again he has failed what Indians call General Knowledge. Just to make sure the Hong Kong folks under who is who, the Chinese have a nice troop garrison stationed in the territory. And the two systems bit comes about only because corrupt PRC moneybags, public servants and business people together, need a conduit to send their ill-earned gains overseas. Or – wait – is it Apple we should be thinking of? Never mind.

 

·         The young gentleman has left his hotel and the blogosphere rumors are he plans to defect to the PRC.  See http://freebeacon.com/nsa-leaker-surfaces-in-hong-kong/   and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324904004578537062414488652.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories  Which government no doubt will be happy to learn all it can from him about US snooping so they can utilize his knowledge to do a better job at home. After which they can hand him over to the US, earning no end of good will from Uncle Sam. But what all this adds up to is the gent is woefully uneducated; another great example of the failure of US schools. Maybe we should ask the Chinese to take over our K-12 school system? Just a thought.

 

Monday 0230 GMT June 10, 2013

·         The case of US Government Snooping leaves the Editor – baffled Readers know Editor is seldom baffled or at a loss for words, but the uproar over the US Government’s snooping  is one such case. Why exactly are people getting upset? What privacy is being breached?

 

·         Folks, this is the US of A. No one has privacy to begin with. Every email you send is recorded somewhere and available to the government on demand. Every site you visit and what you do on it is tracked. Every website you visit and what you do on it is known. Every book you take from the library, every video you rent, every item you buy, be it milk or No. 10 nails is recorded somewhere. Every cellphone number you call from or receive a call from is recorded somewhere or the other. The most intimate details of your credit card expenditures, your bank account, your debts, the value of your house, the taxes you pay on your house, if you’ve ever been arrested, your school and college grades, your medical records and the medicines you take and so on to countless other details are recorded somewhere or the other. With cameras coming in large scale – and the bulk of US cameras are operated by private enterprise, not by governments, what tiny privacy you had left is being ripped away. All these details are available to the government should it ask for them.

 

·         Now please, folks, don’t come back with this business of  “well, the government has to get a warrant before it calls for all these records of which you speak; we’re concerned about warrantless snooping.” Oh dear. Is there anyone really so naïve to believe that after September 11, 2001, a judge is ever going to tell the government “No, you cannot have Jane Doe’s records”?

 

·         Americans are always complaining about something or the other. So are Indians, by the way, but we don’t take either our complaints or ourselves seriously, and we don’t get hypocritically self-righteous about our complaints either. What exactly is it Americans want? Had similar snooping been in place prior to the attack on the Twin Towers, it’s likely the attack would have been stopped. It’s been said enough times that the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle existed, but then law prevented agencies from exchanging information or even feeding it into a giant centralized computer system. So now your government has such a system, and it’s quite effective, the Boston bomber notwithstanding.

 

·         By the way, the FBI is being beaten up for not taking seriously the information given by the Russians on the two young men in the Boston case. But this is all after the fact. Suppose – just suppose – that the US uncritically accepts whatever the Russian FSB tells the Americans. Then tomorrow it turns out that to settle its own scores with a dissident, the FSB has planted information on the US, which gets the dissident into trouble. The same people who are screaming about the FBI not listening to the Russian FSB would be screaming about how the US is helping Russia suppress fighters for democracy.

 

·         The reality is we live in an environment where to get the cross connections the Government needs, it requires to know fairly much everything we do. For example, readers know by now that the feds have busted an actress for sending the ricin letters that have been causing much anxiety. They got her because apparently there is a program – and it makes perfect sense there is one – where every piece of mail is photographed front and back. Now suppose no such program existed, suppose the ricin had gotten through and killed a few Congresspeople. Editor knows our readers are saying: “And why is that a problem?” but consider the uproar that would have caused. Enormously bloated and content-free media analysis would have taken place, invariably ending up: “The feds failed.” BTW, this actress tried to frame her husband for the letters. Apparently she has some issues with him. Nice lady. If the feds had fallen for her deception, this man could have been spending the next 60-years of his life in SuperMax for terrorism.

 

·         Okay, perhaps Editor is not getting worked up because he always assumed the US NSA intercepts and records every electronic signal in the world. It would be extremely foolish to assume anything else if the NSA has the physical equipment. And of course it does, what’s the point of being the richest country in the world if you cannot afford to snoop on everyone in the world? Perhaps its because he reads so much science fiction. Anyone who reads SciFi knows Philip K. Dick forecast continual snooping by the authorities – read Minority Report. The government accumulates so much data on you it knows you are going to break the law even before you think of breaking the law. The government can arrest you just to stop you from breaking the law in the first place. That is one classy system. If it was sci-fi a quarter century ago, it will be reality soon enough.

 

 

Friday 0230 GMT June 7, 2013

·         Syria Rebels seized the Golan crossing between Syria, but could hold on to it only for a few hours before Syrian forces won it back. Austria became the latest country to announce it would withdraw its troops from the ~900 man UN Disengagement Observer Force that patrols about an 80-km zone between Israel and Syria. Apparently Croatia, Canada, and Japan have already withdrawn.

 

·          The UN says it will look for other troops to replace the planned/actual departures. The problem is no country likes to station peacekeeping troops (as opposed to peacemaking, which the UN very rarely undertakes because the potential complication are vast) in zones where folks are shooting at each other. The idea of peacekeepers, which is seldom understood in the US, is to enter after a solid agreement for peace is made by the warring  and act as neutral police to stop small incidents from escalating. The peacekeepers are not supposed to be shooting at either side.

 

·         Meanwhile, the US is sending between 1-2 Patriot batteries and 12-24 F-16s to Jordan for an exercise. Hints are being dropped these units might stay on after the exercise. If the purpose is to reassure Jordan that the US is there to help in case the Syria war escalates, that’s fine. If the purpose is to complicate Assad’s life, forget about it. Assad is a dead man if he now enters any peace talks or leaves Syria. No matter where he goes, there will be warrants out for him, and the country taking him in will face sanctions. Assad Baby has committed big time war crimes. He has no choice but to fight it out to the end, regardless of what the end looks like. The entire western effort for peace talks is a fat farce, an excuse to delay the decisions that the west must make. That is to help get rid of Assad or let him win. Both courses have extreme dangers associated with them. We aren’t worrying about these decisions because we are not paid to make them. So Editor can cheerfully say: “Suit yourself folks, whatever works, and good luck.”

 

·         Now THIS is a serious conspiracy Canada is investigating allegation that its major candy manufacturers/distributors have been colluding to fix chocolate prices. We are glad the Canadians are taking this seriously. We have always though Canadians are a lot smarter than the Average Bear. We take this opportunity to remind the US that there are many things far more serious than the IRS and Benghazi and wiretapping. If Congress wants to benefit America as opposed to itself, we’d suggest it immediately start looking into the possibility of US chocolate price fixing.

 

·         Editor would like to ask Congress why the candy and soft drinks that were a nickel and later a dime when he was a kid now cost a dollar. Has there been 2000% Inflation in the last 60-years? Don’t think so.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT June 6, 2013

·         Back to Benghazi – Groan  Even if the details are classified, we’d love for the administration to just come clean on the matter from beginning to end. Not just would it completely undercut the conspiracy theorists, it would save people like Editor and the readers from being repeatedly dragged back to this most boring matter.

 

·         Now an Islamist group claims it tried to kidnap the US envoy to Libya in Benghazi, and when things went inexplicably wrong, the kidnappers improvised by going to Plan B – which was to kill him with a lethal injection that no autopsy would reveal. The group is bursting with pride at its own cleverness. It says it has decided to reveal these details after seven months because its cells are safe from US penetration.  

 

·         The object, says the group, was to trade the US ambassador for high-level detainees. Perhaps this would have worked. Though the US does not pay ransom, considering this was an ambassador perhaps that inflexible rule would have been waived. But if so, one thing the Islamists seem not to have figured out that are sure as God made modern Congress to punish the American people for their lack of faith in Him, the exchange would have come only as bait. US would have attempted to kill the insurgents and extract the ambassador. These things are very risky, but it goes completely against US policy and character to not, at least try. Perhaps the ambassador would have died anyway, but so would have a bunch of Islamists.

 

·         US policy is, of course, straightforward. To surrender to kidnappers only makes the situation worse. Once they have succeeded, they will try again. Insofar it is impossible to keep all potential US targets save at all times, they would have succeeded. Better to try and rescue the hostage, no matter how high the risk.

 

·         We again repeat a question we’ve previously asked many times. The consulate was closed. Clearly the ambassador was on clandestine business outside of the knowledge of the CIA, else he would have gone straight to the CIA annex on his arrival, and conducted his business from there with the full CIA protection. Also as clearly, he was betrayed, probably by the people he was scheduled to meet. Who were these people, and why was he meeting them?

 

·         To say, as conspiracy theorists say, that the CIA refused to give SAMs to the rebels so Hilary Clinton decided State would do the job, and the ambassador was trying to recover those missiles, is so implausible that it doesn’t pass the limp noodle test. Meaning the explanation is limper than a limp noodle, and we’re unsure if the laws of physics permit this, because the limp noodles we use to beat people are really, really, limp.

 

·         The first question with this theory is why would Hilary decide to run her own clandestine arms supply operation? Her critics say it was because she wanted to win the war against Gaddafi on the cheap. This requires us to believe that Hilary had the intent and the means to go rogue against her government, whose policy is no SAMs to rebel groups. The second question is how would this help bring down Gadaffi on the cheap? NATO airpower destroyed his forces very cheaply. You need to give someone SAMs when you cannot openly show your hand, as in the 1979-1988 Afghanistan War. But when you are openly involved, and have a huge superiority over the adversary’s air power, there is nothing to be gained and must to be lost by giving rebels SAMs.

 

·         The third question is this: why did the rebels need the US to supply them with SAMs? Gadaffi had assembled an eye-popping arsenal of weapons, out of all proportion to any conceivable military need or the size of his armed forces. The rebels broke into warehouses on a continual basis, and took what they needed. Why would the US – and State Department on Hilary’s order, at that, buy these weapons from the rebels and give them – to the rebels?

 

·         If someone is really desperate, they might insist that the rebels with the missiles are not the rebels the US wanted armed. Well, overlooking for the moment the very real objections we’ve raised to the US wanting to give the rebels SAMs, and the improbability that Hilary was running her own clandestine operation with the ambassador as point, would it not be simpler for Hilary’s henchpeople to drop off suitcases of cash to the rebel groups they favored and tell them to buy SAMs themselves?

 

·         See, saying that Hilary was doing this is (a) to make her out to be far more powerful than she can possibly be, and (b) to fall into the same trap Lyndon LaRouche fell. Mr. LaRouche, a one-time presidential candidate, honestly believed that the Venetians (as in Renaissance Venetians) and the Queen of England were running the world and the US was just a helpless puppet. Besides, if Hilary is THAT powerful, should the conspiracy theorists be exposing her operation on the web? She’ll know where to get these gentlemen and ladies. Perhaps they should be more careful.

 

·         Speaking of Lyndon LaRouche, the great man himself visited Delhi once with a large entourage. Somehow Editor found himself invited to his reception. Please don’t ask Editor how and why, because throughout his life he has found himself in strange situations without the slightest clue of the how and the why. After all, can you rely on the recollections of a person who doesn’t even recall how many times he has been married, and it takes a US immigration officer to consult her computer and tell him? Nope, Editor would definitely not trust such a person, because obviously he is a moron.

 

·         Anyway, while the other guests made a beeline for Mr. LaRouche, with unerring aim Editor made a beeline for Mrs. LaRouche. Priorities, people, priorities. Mrs. L. was – how to put it – a good bit younger than her husband and – how do we put this – definitely worth a date on Saturday. You can tell Editor has had this date problem forever because this is 35 years or so ago. Well, Editor – how to put it – definitely charmed by Mrs. L. formidable – er – intellectual capacity as she explained to him about the Queen of England and Venetians.  By the end of the evening Editor was 100% convinced of the logic.

 

·         So convinced he was ready to help Mrs. L. fight the Queen and the Venetians – provided we could do it – how to put this – privately. Alas, at this point one of Mr. L’s bodyguards, in a very brief moment of sobriety while waiting for the wait staff to bring him another drink, noticed what was going in and moved to interpose his considerable bulk between Editor and Mrs. L. We don’t know about you, but it’s hard to be engaging in the First Deadly Sin while breaking the 10th Commandment and intended to break the Seventh, en passant, as it were,  when someone four times – or was it eight times? – your size is blocking your view of the object of your planned violation. And on top of that engaging in chemical warfare by breathing poisonous alcohol fumes down your neck.  In any case, it was nearly Editor’s bedtime. He’d have to hurry to get home, shower, and jump into bed promptly at 2100 sharp.

 

·         Before our godly readers admonish Editor for the rapidity with which he was willing to break Commandment 7 and 10, and was engaging in Deadly Sin the First, please remember that God loves sinners, not saints. For one thing, saints are unwanted competition. For another thing, God’s true joy lies in bringing home the straying sheep and all that. If you love God, do you or do you not want to make him happy? If you do not, please reconsider if you really love God. If you do, then Go, and Sin A Lot.

 

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT June 5, 2013

 

·         Nothing much happening as the world descends further into degeneration of many types, and the Editor peacefully awaits the Second Coming. Or if  you’re more inclined toward the Indian religion framework, the Coming of Kalki, last avatar of Vishnu, who does more or less the same thing – punish the guilty, reward the innocent, and the cycle of life starts again. Then the Editor remembered: last time he did the calculation the Second Coming is not happening in his lifetime, so why is he waiting. The problem, folks, is that bad as one may think things are, we’re only about 10% of the way to total degeneracy. Sorry Editor can’t give you more positive news.

 

·         American logic Americans, of course, think they are the most logical people around, a fallacy they share with just about everyone else. Today the paper had a particularly noteworthy example of American logic. A pirate leader whose gang murdered four American senior citizens who were sailing in the Indian Ocean is on trial in Virginia. So far, so good. Nothing to see here, move along.

 

·         But then his defense lawyers that the shooting was precipitated by aggressive US Navy maneuvering (http://tinyurl.com/mgl7w5p ) In other words, it’s the US Navy’s fault for not letting him get away with the hostages. The US Navy forced him to kill the hostages, in effect.

 

·         Now, folks, we are not lawyers, but isn’t the judge supposed to exercise some control of the court? Is anyone allowed to say anything, just blabber the first think that comes out of their mouth and this gets recorded as evidence? Why this attempt to evade the sole point, which is, did this fellow kill the Americans or not?

 

·         Then there’s Bradley Manning His trial is underway, and let us outright say it’s a shameful reflection on the American military justice system that it’s taken three years to get to this point. Back in the day Americans were Americans, if someone had been committing espionage during wartime, they would have spent five minutes on the case and shot the fellow, and been done with it.

 

·         Anyway, Manning’s lawyer has been going on and on about how his client was trying to help the Guantanamo detainees, and help this person and that person (Washington Post, June 4, 2013, p. A3, “Manning Wiki-Leaks Court Martial Begins”). He did not mean to commit espionage or to endanger the US, which he doubtless believes in and so on – pardon us while we barf. This is all lovely, but again, why is Manning’s intent a reason for debate? Did he break military law or did he not? If he copied and sent off to anyone several hundred thousand documents marked “Classified”, he broke the law. His intent is irrelevant. Why this enormous circus the government is staging? And at the expense of readers and us, because this is where our tax money is going.

 

·         Incidentally, the defense is also arguing that Manning thought the information was unclassified? Really? Doesn’t the defense understand when the military stamps something “Classified”, it becomes irrelevant what Manning thought? He is a soldier, and it is not up to him to judge what’s important and what is not.

 

·         Oh yes, defense says that when he and fellow soldiers learned an Iraqi civilian had been killed in an ambush, but none of their colleagues, the fellow soldiers did not look sad. This caused Manning to question the war. Really? Can defense accuse while we give a double barf? This justifies release of classified information? Can we suggest Manning should have refused to continue to serve on grounds of conscience, taken his punishment, and accepted his discharge? If his moral voice is upset, that is the sole legal course available to him.

 

·         While on this subject, we are told that Major Hassan Nidal, aka the Fort Hood Shooter, is going to argue in his own defense that he killed Americans because Americans were killing Muslims (Washington Post, June 4, 2012, p. A16, “Suspect in Ft. Hood shooting will represent himself, questioning victims”).  If he really says this, we suggest that after he makes this statement, the trial be concluded, and death sentence imposed, after which everyone can go home. An enemy soldier, dressed in American uniform, pretending to be an American soldier, shoots his “enemies” – none of whom were armed, but that’s irrelevant. That’s it: The End, Geneva does not apply. He has no rights; there should not even be a trial.

 

·         So Israel contracts with US to construct its new, ultra-secret Arrow 3 ABM site. Israel says this is a very technical thing, it requires a lot of experience and so on, so that it is why it had to be outsourced. So the Americans thoughtfully put the whole 1000-pages of specifications on the web so that sub-contractors can see if they want to bid. Israelis are gagging with shock. US doesn’t see what its done wrong: “but its normal procedure, we do this all the time,” US says.

 

 

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT June 4, 2013

·         Syria we hate to say this, but things are not looking for Syria’s rebels. We’d warned a couple of times that Assad was holding his own and even regaining some ground. No sooner than we take our eyes of this gentleman to focus on India, things get worse – a lot worse.

 

·         We’d mentioned the entry of Hezbollah into the war on Assad’s side, and said Hezb was going all in. Well, it already has a rumored 10,000 fighters inside Syria, including 2,000 massing at Aleppo.  It cost the rebels darn nearly everything to seize Aleppo, if they lose it now, it will be a severe setback. Nonetheless, it is not as if Hezb is having things all its own way. It started off with a 7-day combat/7-days off cycle, but already has had to go to 20-days of combat for 7-days off. These means the group is under a lot more pressure than it thought it would be.

 

·         A second development is that Putin, our new fave dictator now that poor Hugo of Venezuela reads revolutionary tracts to the angels, has also decided to go all in on Assad’s side. Ol’Pooty, as he is known to insiders, has decided he has had enough of being dissed by the US and laughed at by just about everyone else in the Mideast, where not so long ago the USSR was the strongest power (think allies Iraq, Syria, and Egypt – though he had to share the last with the US).

 

·         He believes he will never be accepted in the Western Club except as a junior partner – and that too if he gives up Russia’s core interests to please the west. This is not a paranoid fantasy of Ol’Poots. As the west’s relentless expansion of NATO and the EU shows, the west is indeed determined to reduce him from Hero to Zero. Of course, why he thought he would be accepted into the western club without at least acting like a westerner is beyond us to explain. Ol’Poo is a descendent of the Tsars, in the mindset sense, and if readers recall their European history, the Tsars were not terribly big on democracy. To be part of the western club you have to be – er – a true believer in the will of the people and all that.

 

·         Of course, if Ol’Po had called us for advice, we would have told him to adopt the US system to thwart the will of the people instead of – shudder – all that crude Okhrana stuff. But – just another minor tragedy of Editor’s life – no one calls him for advice, for the good and sufficient reason they don’t know he exists. But we wander.

 

·         The consequences of Ol’P going all in – or is it Leaning All In?  - do not include the S-300s he is supposedly supplying Syria. Contrary to popular belief, the S-300 do not threaten Israeli air supremacy because (a) the Syrians will not be able to operate and maintain such an advanced system; and (b) Israel will destroy the systems with much ease. After it learns all about them, of course. The only way the S-300s can be effective is if the Russians man the network – as they have done earlier in the Mideast, and even then the Israelis will knock them out quickly-quickly. Not before they squeeze another couple of billion dollars worth of weapons out of the US, of course. The Americans think they are so-so-tough negotiators, but the truth is any Middle East baazari can take them for a ride. Needless to say, the Israelis are not just any ol’ baazaris, but the very best. Look at the way Israel develops weapons with US money and technology, then turns around the US sand says: “sorry, we can’t let you see them, because they’re top secret.” That takes real class. Oops, we are wandering again.

 

·         No. The real problem is that Ol’Po has been shipping large amounts of conventional arms. The rebels, for example, say Assad has received 120 new Russian tanks – model not revealed. Assad also has obtained tens of thousands of tons of ammunition, spares, vehicles, and other stuff. In case the US leads an international blockade of Syria, Ol’Poo will say he’ll respect it – after the west stops giving the rebels any assistance. And believing Ol’Poot will be about as sensible as the 3 Pigs letting the Big Bad Wolf in for tea and cookies.

 

·         Meanwhile, what is it the west is doing? Why, Pinky, what the west does every night: dither. (The reference is to Pinky and the Brain, for you adult readers out there who may not be familiar with that finest expression of American art, cartoons.)(Can you imagine the Chinese ever coming up with decent cartoons? Har har har.) (But we wander again.)

 

·         Yes, Britain and France were instrumental in getting the EU arms embargo on arming the rebels lifted. But they will supply no arms before August, if then, as they strive to Give Peace A Chance, which is all they are saying as the Syrian rebels get gunned down. Chamberlin Gave Peace A Chance in 1938 Munich, and look what happened. But let’s not be bitter, after all none of our readers is old enough to remember Munich.

 

·         The US is digging itself in a deeper mess each day. Had it intervened in the first months, an easy victory could have been done and the Islamists not given a chance to establish themselves. But intervening now will be hard for America because the situation really is getting out of control. Al Qaeda even have greeting banners up celebrating the accession of Syria to the Caliphate. Okay, we exaggerate, but not much.

 

·         For the US generals who are disinclined to get their golf routine upset, the arrival of the S-300s is heaven sent. As it is they so mournfully intoned, repeatedly, that controlling Syrian air space will be very, very costly and difficult. These are the same people who will tell you they can achieve air supremacy over North Korea in 72-hours. They can do it too, but they say it only because they know they will never be called on to actually Do The Deed. Now with the S-300s about to be set up, they will look positively even more gloomy, shake their heads, and say “It’s one of the most advanced air defense systems in the world. Are you, Mr. Prezzy-Wezzy, prepared to lose 50 to 100 aircraft?” Naturally Ol’ Prezzy-Wezzy will decline, he and his advisors were fainting with worry at the thought of losing a single pilot over Libya. They will also remind Congress, should that august body dare to insist that the generals act, that the sequester has crippled US readiness. Restore the money, give us a year or two to recoup our skills, and that should give us enough time to come with a new set of excuses.”

 

·         Anyway, honestly, Editor has his hands full of the utter uselessness of the Indian military – the Indian generals excuse is they have to follow orders from the civilians. Its just that when the civilians do tell the Indian generals to do something, they look very handsome and neat in their uniforms while they dolefully stroke their beards and say “that would probably not be a good idea, considering the shape we’re in.” Generals are alike the world over. Hitler was right not to trust his generals. More on that another time.

 

·         So when Editor says he truly doesn’t care what the US problems in Syria, or what the problems with getting US generals to move off their glass duffs, he is not saying that in a dramatic, Jewish Mom fashion – “See if I care that you refuse to do your work, I’ll just lie here and hold my breath till I die. And then you’ll be sorry.” Hint to to Prezzy-Wezzy: don’t pull this on your generals, because they really won’t care if you suffocate yourself to death – at least not while there’s 18-rounds of golf waiting to be played.

 

Monday 0230 GMT June 3, 2013

·         This weekend Editor had plenty of cause to ponder his favorite topic in life, i.e., the unfairness of it all. So: here is the house Central Air Conditioning Unit, hardly a luxury in a region where 90-degree temperatures start in May and continue well into September. Its been working fine for eleven years, all it needs is the air filter washed once in a while. By Friday it’s pretty clear that indeed yes, the CAC is not cooling, it’s not the Editor’s overheated imagination. The outside is cooler than the inside, and the outside is 93F.

 

·         Immediate panic, because the weekend is about to start and the Editor is going to home every single hour except the daily pilgrimage to the gym. Itself a depressing journey, because no matter what, the beam balance scale refuses to go lower than 190-lbs. Editor is 5-feet 6-inches. No need to do the math.

 

·         So it’s after 5PM, and none of the four highly recommended CAC folks in our area is picking up. Presumably they all have dates on Friday night, unlike Editor, who never has a date on any night. So it’s off to a tossy-turney sort of night, with Editor’s dreams all involving the Hot Place Downstairs, and with the gentleman in the red satin suit and large fork saying “How nice of you to visit early”. Comes the bleary morning. Editor waits until 08:01, calls one of the recommended people. At 10:00 the technician is here, by 10:45 the problem is fixed: 3-pounds of Freon and all is tickety-boo.

 

·         Until Editor sees the bill. $155 for the visit. Just the visit, not for the first hour or anything. $130 for the first hour. $280 for three pounds of R22 freon, available wholesale at $12 or so per pound. (Tech insists I stand and watch while he tops up the Freon so I can assure myself the weight is correct, well, the weight is correct, but who knew the markup is going to be 700% over wholesale?) A few dollars for this, that, and the other, and the ever-suffering credit card is charged for $576. The tech is smiling as he leaves and gives his last advice: “You have a leak somewhere, and these refrigerant leaks are very hard to find. If the Freon runs down again inside of six months, call us for a new CAC.” Editor checks web: new CACs $2-4,000 without installation; heaven knows what the refrigeration company will charge were Editor to foolishly order a CAC from them. $8,000?

 

·         Editor has to take to his bed in shock: he has just managed to get the credit card paid off after $850+ for 190-gallons of heating oil in February (Editor didn’t have the cash); $550 worth of textbooks for two semesters; $230 for emergency service the car battery died in the school parking lot; $480 when the car died just as Editor pulled up to fill gas. Alternator was gone, this was gone, that was gone. Again, very good service: the gas station mechanics put aside other work, fixed Editor’s car within 90-minutes including ordering an alternator for immediate delivery. Then the mechanic cheerfully says “you have a defective engine head gasket, $400, and in the worst case $800. You should get it attended to when you can afford it.”

 

·         Well, at least the bedroom was cool at last.

 

·         So, you will ask, why live in a house at all? Why not rent an apartment? 2-bedrooms in a decent area of Montgomery County run about a middling $1500, which is the same as Editor’s mortgage plus insurance. Taxes are extra. He’d save on taxes, but he wouldn’t be building equity, and the house is all the assets he has to leave to his kids.

 

·         That’s if he wins his case against Mrs. R IV. Editor bought her out of the house, but the page which says that is missing from the agreement filed in court. So she still claims half the house and the  whole house should he predecease her.  Editor found this out well after the agreement was filed – he did not have a lawyer, as he absolutely could not afford one, even with the credit card. At the time of the agreement he was working part-time while studying to get certified for public school.

 

·         When Editor went to the lawyers – good ones, there is no point in trying to save a thousand or two by going to not-good ones; the lawyers are polite and sympathetic  even as behind their hands they are saying “what an idiot, this client, but then, if everyone was smart how would we earn anything.” They handle Editor’s immigration work (it’s a very large all-purpose firm) and know he has little money, so they accommodate him. So they say at reduced rates $10,000 is all Editor needs to get together for the case, and the outcome is 50-50.

 

·         When Editor protests, and says “look, here's where the agreement is defective and there where its defective, anyone can see its invalid, so how can I lose?" they smile kindly, as if dealing with a moron, which is not far from the truth.

 

·         “The judicial process is a complete crapshoot,” they say. “We have our reputation to protect, which is why we never tell a client, no matter how good a case he has, that he will win. We always lay out the truth. Everything depends on how the judge feels that day. How he feels depends on the moon, the stars, the wind direction, the alignment of the nine planets, what he had for breakfast, his college kid’s grades, and whether his wife’s boyfriend has been keeping her in a good mood.”

 

Sunday 0230 GMT June 2, 2013

Mary Josephine Fish 1961-2013

·         I last spoke to Mary Josephine Fish on May 13, 2013. She was panhandling at her usual spot, the grass median where Viers Mill Road joins southbound Georgia Avenue in Wheaton, Maryland. Wheaton is on my route to a school I substitute at, less than 8-miles from my house. the site is opposite Wheaton Mall and a adjacent to a Metro station. Both roads are six lanes, so there is plenty of traffic. It is, I assume, a good place to panhandle.

 

·         My firm rule has been, for decades, to give money to the first begger – or panhandlers, as beggers are called in America – of the day. For Mary Josephine Fish I made a point of giving a dollar even if she was not the first, because she was a cheerful woman, perpetually trying to stop herself from smiling on account of her badly disfigured teeth.

 

·         She showed me that her teeth were now fixed,. It must have cost a few thousand dollars. “Next I plan to get my hair done,” she said.

 

·         She never got that chance because on May 16, 2013, she was struck by a van jumping the median. She died in hospital, and the Washington Post duly reported her death.

 

·         The newspaper said it was not the van's fault. A car making an improper lane change before the traffic light jumped into the van’s path, forcing the van to swerve to save itself. Mary Josephine Fisk had occupied that spot for nine years without incident. As far as I know, the car driver was not prosecuted for causing the accident, though likely s/he was ticketed for an improper lane change. A couple of hundred dollars, perhaps, as penalty for snuffing out a life.

 

·         Now, normally there would be no reason to relate this story in the blog. After all, people die all the time, even people we know, or care about. They’re dead, the universe continues. But I am compelled to write because of a letter to the Post editor. The writer was much upset that Montgomery County permits panhandling.  Had this not been so, he avers, no death would have occurred.

 

·         What bothers me is the sheer illogic displayed by the letter writer. In microcosm the letter is yet another example of the single-issue, narrow-focus thinking that is destroying America. The issue is the way people drive, not the county law on panhandling or the presence of Mary Josephine Fish. This is because pedestrians wait on the median all the time, waiting for a green light to cross.  The accident could just as easily have killed a pedestrian, or a student, or a parent with a child. Would the letter writer then have written in saying pedestrians should have no right of way at this or other crosswalks? Obviously not.

 

Friday 0230 GMT May 31, 2013

·         Syria So now Hezbollah has decided to back Assad “to the end” and is openly fighting on his side. Initially, we were quite surprised that Hezb had decided to go all in. If things don’t work out, Hezb could be crippled. At the minimum it would lose much of its credibility as an invincible force, the only force capable of protecting Lebanon from Israel.

 

·         But after a few seconds of cogitation, it became evident that the loss of Assad is, for Hezbollah, an existential threat, and that justifies extreme measures. Don’t intervene and Assad will lose the war, and militant Sunni groups will be at Hezbollah’s Lebanese door, threatening to upset the balance in Lebanon. The current balance favors Hezbollah. And Hezb will be cut off by land from Iran. For years Iran has been shipping weapons via Iraq and Syria. This will no longer be possible. Of course arms can be shipped by sea using the Persian Gulf – Red Sea – Eastern Mediterranean route, but the Israelis and the West have this bad habit of stopping seaborne arms shipments from Iran.

 

·         Go all in for Assad, and given the US’s extreme wimpiness, it’s a good chance Assad will defeat the rebels. Doing nothing means 100% chance of losing. Supporting Assad markedly improves the odds for Hezb’s future.  None of this means Hezbollah is hoping to clear Syria of the rebels. Right now, simply assuring that the southern part of the country in a line Homs-Damascus stays with Assad is sufficient. This gives Assad/Hezb a solid base from which to reconstitute and retake more of the country. Our conditional opinion at this time is that Hezb is prepared for a prolonged campaign over many years.

 

·         Now, before anyone starts blaming Mr. Obama, please to consider that the Prez gave in to pressure to intervene in Libya, and the result is both the Mahgreb and West Africa could, in a decade or two, fall to Al-Qaeda. Bad as the internal fighting was/is in Libya, Syria would be 10-tomes worse because you have a whole bunch of states bordering Syria with a vital interest in the outcome.  There doesn’t seem to be any good outcome should the US intervene in Syria.

 

·         Yes, you will retort, justifiably, that had Prez intervened from the start, the moderate would be in power and keeping AQ out. True. But believe ot or not, these 3rd world interventions – Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya – may be wildly popular with one set of Americans, but they are very unpopular with the 3rd World, the Chinese, and the Russians. Oh, you say, who cares a fig about what those losers think? Okay, but let us go softly here. If the Americans are seen as out of control crusaders – and they already are by many, US is going to end up fighting most of the non-white world. We don’t think this is the best idea since vanilla ice-cream with chocolate milk. Uncle Sam is not exactly in his heyday right now, military and money wise. And though this seldom seems to occur to American interventionists who are utterly convinced of the righteousness of their cause, there’s a whole bunch of Americans who are anti-interventionist.

 

·         On the sensible principle “don’t start a fight you cannot finish on your terms”, US is probably right to stay out. Besides, who says Sunni Muslims are America’s friends? AQ for one is Sunni. Saudi which has funneled tens of billions into global terrorism is Sunni. It follows that if the Sunnis are so anxious to see Assad gone, they should be doing it, not the US. They have the gigabucks, and they live in the region. By any logic intervention in Syria should be left to them.

 

·         So far this has been the case. Saudi and Qatar have been doing most of the financing of rebels, Turkey has been a big help with training and other activities. It’s time the rest of the world grew up and started to carry its own nightsoil, instead of giving over everything to the US. If the US keeps intervening, the world will never grow up, and especially not the EU. Which after all has more people and more money than the US, for gosh sakes.

 

·         This business you read of in the paper of the Prez asking his advisors for air exclusion zone options is complete nonsense. Don’t people know the Pentagon has plans for every contingency, and that as crises flare up the plans get more detailed? Prez probably has 10 plans at his disposal already. EU has lifted the arms embargo on the Syria rebels, but for now both UK and France are being a bit cautious: they will hold off weapons supply/trainer till August, to give the opposition a chance to get together and to develop plans to keep extremist groups at bay. Personally we don’t think either proposition is feasible, but who asked us anyway.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT May 30, 2013

India and China

(Hopefully this will bring to an end this analysis)

·         So what are the 100 objections the Army will raise if told to aggressively patrol across the Line of Actual Control, going into China-claim territory just as China has for years been coming into India? We’d said yesterday that the overarching position of the Army will be that China will escalate, it will bring 10, 20, 30 or whatever many divisions strikes some poor, put-upon staff colonel told to write up the objections, and we will get our butts whipped. In other words, if we cross the LAC there will be general war; if they cross the LAC no escalation will result, because we’ll just lie back and think of England in winter. In other words, we’ve lost the contest before we’ve even started, and pinned the gold medal on China without taking the field.

 

·         The civilian bureaucrats, the bulk of the media, and even 95% of Indians, when confronted by so stark a scenario, will hurriedly say: “Better not start anything.” The beautiful thing is that since no one in India knows much about the Army outside a few top generals, and no one knows anything about the Chinese, there will be no one to contradict the Army leadership. In fact it is  China that cannot risk a general war. As said yesterday we’ll discuss this another time.

 

·         But suppose a resolute prime minister insists on the Army telling her/her why the job cannot be done, out will come the Army’s 100-point list of our shortcomings. Now, readers do realize we’re saying “hundred points” as a symbol. In reality, if the army wanted, it would find shortages of more than 100 types of batteries alone. The Army will also insist that Pakistan will try and take advantage of our mix-up with China and it will extend the list of shortages.

 

·         What are the Indian military shortages? Except for hot air, everything. That’s the way it is in any army, navy, or airforce. No one is ever really ready to go to war. That’s why we have Rummy Rumsfeld’s aphorism “you to go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.” In some case critical shortages will become manifest within a very few days, things like tank main gun ammunition and laser-guided ordnance for the Air Force. The sad reality is that for the last several decades India has been focusing on bulk rather than readiness, whereas it should have focused on both bulk and a minimum 90-day war reserve of expendables.

 

·         If you were to tell that to the armed forces, they will immediately retort: “We are not idiots, we put in our demands every year and both the MOD and Finance ignore them.” If you totter over to MOD they will retort “we are not in the business of approving military forces demands without examination.” If you tell MOD “but look fellers, some of these demands have been hanging fire for 30 year, how much more time do you want?” the MOD will reply cryptically “we have our procedures which must be requested.” If you still have decided not to shoot yourself in sheer frustration, you can totter over to the Ministry of Finance, which will say: “Money, money, money, that’s all the military wants, where is this money to come from, we have to think of our development budget.” If you point out that not much development has taken place since 1950, when the 1st 5-year plan was developed, so why is MOF invoking development as an excuse, MOF will sharply tell you “you don’t understand these things.” If you go back to the Army and ask why are they not pressing their case, the Army will primly say: “In our country the civilian executive is supreme, besides what’s the use, the politicos chicken out at the first shot.” If you now amble over to the politicos, they will say: “the Army raises so many objections, what is the point of our pushing the Army?”

 

·         In other words, you get a never-ending carousel of clowns, each pointing their fingers at each other. Meanwhile, the Chinese are laughing so hard they’re getting hernias. “The Indians are so amusing,” they Chinese say, “let’s go and take over another 100-square-kilometers this month. By way of settlement they’ll probably throw in 200-square-kilometers free.”

 

·         At this point the Army will interject indignantly “We never tell the government we cant do this that or the other. We are ready to do our duty.” Well, yes, if you all want to play lawyers, to the best of Editor’s knowledge the Army has never refused a direct order to take the offensive. The Army will simply mutter in the ear of the bureaucrats “You want us to go up against 30 divisions with what we have, that’s fine, we’ll do it…” – pause to look noble – “…but you might like to know they can bring in 30 divisions in two weeks..” – or whatever the current fantasy is – “…while we might manage to bring up three…” – or whatever figure the Army feels like plucking out of the air.

 

·         Now should someone timidly say “But, sir, why can we move up only three divisions in 2 weeks?” the Army will pounce down their throat: “Look at the multi-lane metaled all-weather roads on their side, and look at the fair-weather mule tracks on ours.” If this person should say “But sir, fifty years after the Sino-Indian war we still don’t have roads? Why?” the Army will smartly reply “because Border Roads doesn’t do this and Ministry of Environment doesn’t do that and Ministry of Finance wont do this…” in other words, it’s back to the Carousel of Clowns.

 

·         Is anyone in this country of 1.2-billion actually going to stop whining and DO something? Nope. And you know something? One day those roads will be built – 10, 20, 30 years down the line. By then the Chinese will have broad-gauge railroads running all over Tibet. In addition to the present line to Lhasa from Golmo, there is a railroad scheduled along the Aksai Chin Road, Kashgar to Lhasa; 2017 has been mentioned but we haven’t been able to get any details. Then the Chinese have started to build a lateral line from opposite Kathmandu to opposite the extreme northeast corner of India. Editor’s estimate is this line will be able to move at least 6,000-tons/cargo in each direction without anyone exerting themselves. China is also building very nice, modern airports all over Tibet.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT May 29, 2013

·         More on China and India In the likely case readers did not follow the Editor’s argument yesterday, here is a summary. The article was occasioned by the news of yet another Chinese intrusion that occurred before the Chinese premier’s visit. India again backed down, apparently to the extent that in Ladakh, at least, all forward patrols have been stopped. The government cowardice is too well known to require elaboration. But not so well known, and reqiring elaboration, is the Army is none too keen to standing up to the Chinese, either. The government’s abject “we-give-up” behavior provides a cover for the military to blame the civilians. We said if asked to take action against China, the army will come up with a hundred reasons why it cannot.

 

·         So today we are going to discuss the Army’s mindset. Editor fully acknowledges what he is saying will upset Indian readers, because in India we revere the Army and criticizing the Army is like criticizing Rama for mistreating Sita. Meaning, it can be done, but you do it at your own peril. But if Editor attacked just the civilians and held the Army blameless, he would not be fair or logical. It is not Editor’s job to protect sacred cows, but to give his opinions on what he thinks is best for India.

 

·         But again we need to emphasize: we are talking hypotheticals, because the occasion is just not going to arise that the Government tells the Army “get rid of the Chinese on our side of our claim line”. This is not even telling the Army to throw the Chinese out of Ladakh. It is simply ensuring the Chinese cross back to the border that they claimed in 1962.

 

·         Just suppose, however, that the Government, by some miracle, does tell the Army to take action. The Army will refuse; on the simple grounds it is not ready. And you know what: narrowly and strictly speaking, the Army is NOT ready for a general war against China. And it never will be, because our entire geopolitical strategy against China is never to do anything that could provoke China. If China, entirely on its own, decides to attack India as it did in 1962, of course the Army is ready to fight back, and it will. But asking it to be pro-active is a definite no-no-no-no-no.

 

·         Yet, who said anything about fighting a general war? All Editor is talking about is pushing the Chinese back to their side of the LAC, which essentially means getting rid of the scores of outposts they have on our side of the LAC. India does not have to fire one shot to do this. It can simply make intrusions into China’s side of the LAC at places of it choice, and tell the Chinese “You want us to withdraw? Fine, lets discuss your withdrawal too.”

 

·         At this point the wise bureaucrats and generals will look pityingly at Editor and say, “Editor, don’t you realize if we move across the LAC there will be general war? And haven’t you just said we aren’t ready for this?”

 

·         Stop right there, sir and madam. How do you know there will be general war? Can you prove there will? Don’t think so. This ia self-defeating assumption you make where in effect you are already conceding the war to the Chinese before we’ve done one single darn thing. If you say the Chinese will escalate and match us at every step including general war, you are saying that we cannot defend ourselves against the continual Chinese advance into our side of the LAC. That we have no recourse, that we cannot force them back at even a single point, because that will mean war which we will lose.

 

·         Hello, Delhi. Knock knock knock. Any brains in those big skulls of yours? If this is the way it’s going to be, why have an army in the north at all? Why not just ask the Chinese where they want to draw the border, and withdraw beyond that. Even if India had no army, the Chinese are not so mad as to attack India once their maximum demands are met. After all, Canada and Mexico do not fear an American invasion simply because there is no boundary dispute between them. Accept the Chinese version of the border, accept demilitarization of the northern border, and the Chinese will go home from Tibet.

 

·         In fact – guess what, people? The Chinese have already gone home from Tibet. From a maximum of about 15 divisions in the 1950s and 1960s, they have come down to two brigades and a regiment stationed in Tibet! That’s how terrified they are of India! And we on our side are at this time maintaining eleven large divisions, with two more approved, and likely another two or even more to come.

 

·         And also guess what, people? The Chinese are so entirely familiar with Indian thinking that they have deliberately designed their thin-salami tactics to take advantage of India’s fears. No one incident is ever big enough for India to go to war. So the Chinese create a non-stop series of incidents, taking over more of our territory, without giving us the excuse of retaliation. The Chinese know full well that India is not going to retaliate by establishing 30 posts on China’s side of the LAC, nor is India going to stop China’s forward patrols as they do all the time, most recently in the Sirijap incident we mentioned yesterday. The Chinese are getting away with conquest, and we’re letting them.

 

·         We’re letting them because we insist on the assumption that either we must be ready for a general war – which we never will be – or we should do nothing. Hello, Delhi. Knock knock knock. Anything in your knickers such as testicles? Of course not. You all don’t even know what they are. Because if you had even one collectively between all of you, you’d realize an Inconvenient Truth: its not just us not ready for general war. The Chinese are not ready either! In fact the only army that is ready, within six months, is the US Army. If the Indians cross the LAC, readiness or lack of it on their side or ours is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that the Chinese have no reason to escalate to general war. They cannot even fight in the mountains anymore, with the kind of force structure they have built. Moreover, they cannot risk a war.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT May 28, 2013

·         Latest Sino-India incident As incidents between India and China go, this was a minor one, typical of several that take place every month. On May 17, 2013, two days before the arrival of the Chinese premier in Delhi, an Indian patrol on the north bank of Pangong Lake in Ladakh was apparently making its way toward Sirijap, entirely on the Indian side of the Line of Control, when it was turned back by the Chinese. The Indian Army has routinely patrolled past the point it was stopped. The Chinese have a road running from Khurnak Fort (their main base for the area) along the north bank of the Lake. It now appears they have extended the road 5-km from the LAC into Indian-held territory, and surfaced it, to boot. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-05-26/india/39537733_1_chumar-indian-army-daulat-beg-oldi

 

·         It also appears that after the recent Daulet Beg Oldi incident, Indian XIV Corps stopped all forward patrols to the LAC, presumably on the Government’s orders to avoid provoking the Chinese. Needless to say, the Chinese Government has given its troops no equivalent order, and Chinese troops continue creeping further inside the LAC. The Defense Minister, of course, says there is no problem, the Army is handling the matter, India today is not the India of yesterday, blah blah blah, enough hot gas which, if directed at the Chinese instead of Indians, would surely blow the Chinese occupiers right of Tibet. We know how the Indian Army is handling the Chinese, essentially by stopping patrols into areas the Chinese don’t want India, to say nothing of the dismantled bunkers in the Demchok sector. So far it seems that China’s intrusion in the DBO sector, where India is at its weakest, was intended to force India to give up its positions opposite Demchok, where India is the strongest. Of course the Chinese succeeded; does it even have to be said?

 

·         The Indian Defense Minister sees nothing amiss, and is busy with his plans to visit China. The Government of India is immensely hassled by these news stories appearing in the press when previously little was said, simply because the press did not know, nor did it care to know. There were constant rumors about this incident or that, but in the main the Government managed to control the story. If you consider this Chinese advance has been going on for around ten years and no one has made much fuss – until the DBO incident, you can understand why the cowardly Government and its mouthpiece the Defense Minister honestly believe that nothing is amiss.

 

·         Right now, based on information received (not from Mandeep who is resolutely silent) the Editor “can reveal” – to use the phrase so loved of the British press, that even the Army is unhappy with this spate of revelations and the now constant pressure from the Indian public to do something. The Indian military is idolized, even revered, by the public. That the Army is repeatedly failing to take action, even though the government has ordered it not to, is rankling the public. This hurts the Army, and more so because at this point the Army does not want to do something, or anything for that matter. It is not just the civilians, even the military leaders are very, very hesitant to start something that could escalate.

 

·         Why the Army feels this way is something we’ll discuss tomorrow. But for now, we’d like to make something clear. While Indian generals today are quite ready to express strong opinions to the civilian leadership – this is no longer an army that stands aside passively and just does what the government wants – there is no one in the Army prepared to go over the government’s head.

 

·         This is not merely a matter of the constitution, which places the civilians firmly in charge of the military – much more so than is the case in the US, just FYI. Just for starters, in the US the president is also the commander in chief. The Indian prime minister is not, only the figurehead president is. In the US the media can exert tremendous pressure on national security; in India the media cannot. American generals and admirals have carefully cultivated allies in Congress and influence every debate; Indian generals are disdained should they even be polite to a politician. And so on.

 

·         No. Should the government order the Army to push the Chinese back across the Line of Actual Control, the Army will find one hundred reasons not to do this. If anyone in India is reading this, they will be outraged at what Editor has just said, because it is an article of fixed faith that the Army is always raring to go, the wimpy government is the one who stops it. Well, folks, we are sorry, but it really is not so. The government and army play a mutual game, which leads India into doing nothing even when there is severe provocation. It is not Editor’s job to blindly praise the Army. He has been watching carefully for the last 13 years, and his conclusion is that wimpy as the civilians are, there is also a great deal of wimpiness at higher military levels.

 

Monday 0230 GMT May 27, 2013

·         Unpleasant realities of the IRS mess up Source: Business Week May20-26, 2013 “Tempest and the Tea Party”, pp. 6-7.

 

·         Campaign finance laws were changed after Watergate. In 1976, the Supreme Court gave a confused ruling that limited contributions to candidates, but allowed limitless contributions to parties in the name of free speech. By the 1990s both unions and companies were busy taking advantage of this loophole. Congress in 2002 tried to stamp out soft money. So money began flowing to Super PACs (Section 527) and to 501c4 groups.

 

·         The Democrats in 2004 were the first to make massive use of 501c4, which does not require donor disclosure, to raise $200-million In 2009 Karl Rove also began using 501c4 along with 527s. In 2010 the Supreme Court invalidated all restrictions on campaign finance. Whereas in 2008 501c4/527s raised $300-million, in 2012 the sum was $1-billion. The GOP proved more successful in raising money. Bettering the Democrats 2-1.

 

·         The IRS began receiving complaints from citizens regarding the use of 501c4 for secret fundraising. IRS did nothing. In fact, IRS is so lax, it approves 99.5% of 501c4 applications. It has revoked no GOP 501c4, but has actually revoked a Democratic group, Emerge America.

 

·         Business Week concludes there is no political will on either side to change campaign finance laws because both sides reap benefits from the existing (and Editor believes highly corrupt) system. Presumably after the recent IRS snafu, IRS which was doing nothing before will now do even less.

 

·         The Pension Funds Snafu Source: “Low rates a death blow to pensions”, Washington Post, May 26, 2013, pp. G1 and G5.

 

·         Since 2007, pension plans of the 308 S&P 500 companies that maintained defined-benefit pension plans have gone into serious deficit because of the drop in interest rates. The deficit in 2012 was $343-billion out of obligations of $1.6-trillion. Presumably the public sector pension snafu is due also to the same factor.

 

·         So, once again, the Federal Reserve has taken money out of the pockets of the less well of to favor the wealthiest. It first did by crashing interest rates, that destroyed the savings of tens of millions of people. Now, because companies are in a deficit, they are abandoning defined-benefit plans and will benefit even further.

 

·         Please to remember that pension plans are not gifts to workers of private/public sectors. They are taken from the value-added by workers, and wages are correspondingly adjusted downward. With defined-benefit pensions on their way into history, will employers now raise wages because their workers will be less costly? Will the Kardashians ever behave in a dignified manner? Will politicians ever stop taking bribes (in America called campaign donations)?  Will the sun rise in the west? All these things are theoretically possible, but Editor is not holding his breath.

 

·         The Great Obamacare Destruction of American Business Source: “Hints from Massachusetts on Obamacare” May 26, 2012, pp.G1 and G3.

 

·         Obama opponents have expended a great deal of effort to show Obamacare will destroy American business. Of 5.7-million US firms, only 210,000 have more than 50 employees. Below that  there is no mandate to provide workers health insurance. Of that numbers, approximately only 10,000 do not currently offer health insurance. So where is this destruction of American business going to take place?

 

 

Friday 0230 GMT May 24, 2013

Then people call Editor crazy…

·         African-American professional with advanced degree: The CIA killed the ambassador to Libya to discredit Obama before the election. All this time they’ve been saying the ambassador died at the consulate. Now we’re told it was a CIA facility. [Source: conversation with Editor]

 

·         Ace of Spades HQ  http://ace.mu.nu/ Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft.  (Editor’s note: in other words, CIA refused to give Stingers to AQ groups, so State Department decided to do the job itself.]

 

·         Please sing with Editor: “I have one bat in the Belfry, I have two bats in the Belfry, I have three bats in the Belfry…but wait, there’s more”

 

The real scandal that no one cares about

 

·         The real scandal is that since 2002, approximately 2700 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan in full cooperation with the President, the Administration, Congress, and the media. The Taliban is an extension of the Pakistan military. We have been paying Pakistan to cooperate with us in the war with the Taliban. In other words, we have been supporting our ally Pakistan which is supporting its ally, the Taliban, which has been the cause of the Afghanistan War and spent the last 12 years – killing Americans.

 

·         Hundreds of top political, civilian, military, and intelligence people have been part of this charade. Not one has blown a whistle. Not one American soldier’s family has gone to court to file a wrongful death case. This American media, with its gigantically overblown self-importance, has not exposed the story. No one in the alternate media that we know of – aside from ourselves – has commented on this scandal. As for the American public, it is brain-dead and simply occupying space on earth that could be better used for trees. Trees actually perform a useful function. The American public does not.

 

On Mathematics exams

·         We yesterday forgot to mention a basic reason – possibly the basic reason – for the high rate of math finals failures in the elite Montgomery County Maryland public school system. We’d said that kids are not mastering math before getting pushed up to more advanced classes. We should have mentioned that a final exam is comprehensive – from the start of the course to the end. Because kids haven’t mastered their math, they are not going to do well on a final.

 

Saying “No” to Beyonce’s Babeliciousness in New York

 

·         We congratulate the people of New York who have been censoring a bus stop ad showing Beyonce in – well, very little. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2324220/Beyonc-s-racy-bus-stop-H-M-bikini-ad-gets-censored-daily-basis-angry-New-Yorkers.html Someone has been covering up the lower part of the ad. Then others rip down the covering to restore the sight of a full-size Beyonce clad in – well, very little, someone censors it again. When we say “very little”, what we mean is that Ms. Beyonce, who is built to – well, full-size - appears in the ad covered by the square-millimeterage equivalent of three US 1st Class Forever stamps.

 

·         Now, Editor is no prude. Beauty is to be admired, and there is a great deal of Ms. Beyonce that is very admirable.  It is just that we personally feel that a non-clad Ms. Beyonce should let her husband admire her in the privacy of their bedroom, rather than inviting the whole world to be voyeurs. The  point of sexiness is to suggest, not to hit passerbys with an iron 2 by 4. All that this  succeeds in showing that Beyonce is available to every dirty young or old person who passes by.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT May 23, 2013

Montgomery County Public Schools Math Scores – Here Come the Klownes Again

·         Montgomery County, Maryland is where Editor lives. It has one of the very best school systems in the country. The two situations are not coincidental: we specifically came to Montgomery County from India so the youngster could have the best possible education short of an expensive private school, which we couldn’t afford.

 

·         These days our county has its thongs in knots. The cause? Well, here are the percentage of kids who failed their final exams in the first semester of 2012-13: Algebra 1 61%, Geometry 62%, Bridge to Algebra 2  86%; Algebra 2 57%; Pre-Calculus 48%. In case you’re wondering, Bridge to Algebra 2 is a course given to kids who failed Algebra 1, but need their minimum 3 credits in Math to graduate high school. It is not even Algebra 2 for Dummies, its Algebra I for Dummies.

 

·         Okay. So if Montgomery County were, say inner city urban these figures would arouse no comment. Due to relentless immigration and migration from the inner city to the suburbs, much of Montgomery County has a student population that is starting to look more and more like inner city, or at least it is no longer a middle/upper-middle income white county. Nonetheless, the County does pour money into its school system. It pays very well, as school systems go, and so it gets the best teachers in the region, not to speak of hordes of great teachers from other parts of the country. There is no shortage of resources, except the unlimited Kleenex for each class starts running out in the 4th Quarter – we are really suffering from deprivation in Montgomery County as you can tell. Even this would not happen if many kids would refrain from taking 2-7 sheets every time they blow their precious noses. Anyway, we diverge. Don’t get Editor started on the Kleenex thing.

 

·         Classes with some percentage of lower performing kids get a second teacher, and when you count the SPED aides, it’s not uncommon to see three educators in the classroom.

 

·         But what has baffled the Powers-That-Be is that by every other standard, like quarter grades, ACT, and SAT performance, the county scores high, as it should. So: this is a case for the Educational CSI. You have high failure percentages in finals – the body on the floor, but by all other measures the kids generally do well.

 

·         Naturally the first thing that happened in our county is parents screaming “Teachers are not doing their job”. The second screaming is from people who use this meme: “We should require the teachers to take the same test and see how they do.” There, there, parents and people, just take your Prozac and everything will be fine. Editor has been teaching in five Montgomery County high schools (two high income, one middle income, and two low income) and can assure the parents that uniformly not just the math teachers, but the other teachers too, not just know their stuff, they know how to teach it too. Editor has observed about 60+ teachers at work, many repeatedly. Of course, if it were left to Editor, he wouldn’t be soothing parents/people with gentle requests to take their Prozac. He would take out his heavy duty Singapore cane, and whip all these whiners and complaining adults with 12 strikes each. Of course, for the more attractive lady parents/people he would use his feather whip, but that’s neither here nor there.

 

·         The first thesis to explain the debacle was quickly discarded: the test and the course work are not aligned. This happens in school districts, but the explanation had to be discarded because the test – made by Montgomery County, is aligned with the text.

 

·         The second explanation has some truth to it: that the County, which for years has been pushing its kids in math, are simply being pushed too fast and they haven’t had the opportunity to build deep foundations. Correct, except that doesn’t explain how the majority of the kids do okay on everything but the two yearly finals.

 

·         The third explanation is, unfortunately, very much true. The final counts for relatively few points. The kids already know their semester grades because the teachers tell them – parents can check their child’s progress on their own computers. Since they do know their math, they figure they can get by with a D or even and E in the final and still pass. Large numbers of kids simply slack off for the exam. Unfortunate, but its called human nature. Not every kid wants to be Young Einstein (bad example – our boy was actually quite limited in math, but you get what we’re saying). Many people just want to get by, as is all the case with adults.

 

·         All this is fine and well, but there is a fourth reason which Editor at least doubts the parents and County can face. This is: the kids don’t know their math. “But our little darling gets As and Bs”, cry the parents, “how can s/he fail the exam.”

 

·         Very simple, Ma’am and Sir. (This being Montgomery County Editor needs to quickly add: Ma’am and Ma’am, Sir and Sir, and Ma’am or Sir and Pet Animal – don’t want to get into trouble with the PC Police.) We teachers do everything possible short of providing your child the answers so that s/he passes. Extra credit? We give that. Partial Credit? We give that. Participation points? We do that too. Projects? You want projects, we got projects. A chance to make up your work that your child missed because s/he was missing school or not doing the homework? You got your chance.

 

·         But the exam is just the exam. Answer is right or wrong. No way of fudging the test. It’s the wall covered with barbed wire that has to be scaled for success, no short cuts, no excuses.

 

·         There are some reasons why kids don’t know their math. The 90-minute Block Period is one. Kids get math every other day, whereas its something that has to be done every day. With the Block period way too much material is covered. The textbooks are, like, 800-900 pages each and darn nearly impossible to follow because there is so much trash in them (trash as in stuff that should be omitted for clarity – more on this another time). There is no memorization, so if my calculator is saying 17 times 16 equals 256, I don’t have the basic knowledge to know on sight I must have punched a wrong key. The way you acquire proficiency in math is to work problems, which have to be arranged in progressive levels of difficulty. You have to do a lot of problems: 30-50 a day including class. For many reasons – can discuss this too if you wish – students get promoted to the next class without the foundations having been established. In Editor’s experience, sit and analyze why the kid is not doing well, you will find (a) s/he hasn’t been doing well since, say, 4th Grade, or (b) can’t read. You’re going to say: how can someone reach high school without knowing to read? You’d be surprised. Editor has had 12th Graders who cant read.

 

·         We could go on and on, but the main point is simple. In America we insist on making Math fun. Whereas Math, like just about every other subject except basketweaving, is just hard work. So many of our kids just give up when they’re asked to work hard. The degree of cheating that goes in even in high-income white schools is amazing. The cheater kid gets an A or a B, doesn’t know a darn thing. Bridge to Algebra 2? Editor REFUSES to teach this class because 2/3rds of the kids have no interest in working. This is a remedial class, a chance to make up. Few take that chance. Algebra 1? The kids think they’re still in Middle School and in fact behave worse than 8th Graders. Nothing that a 10-pound iron rod held above the head during 4-8 laps to straighten them out. Of course, you can’t do that in America.

 

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT May 22, 2013

·         The Three Obama Scandals The only one we really understand is Benghazi, even the talking point shindig. What we don’t understand is what Administration is covering up and why. BTW, the endlessly quotable Rummy Rumsfeld said the other day that if you can’t protect your people, you pull them out. Would he be so terribly surprised to learn that is what happened? The Benghazi consulate was shut. That’s why we are confused. We’ve asked endless times: what was the ambassador doing there, instead of doing his work from the CIA annex? That’s where the other diplomats such as had to be present were, and it was a protected place.

 

·         The ambassador went to Benghazi voluntarily. But what was his mission? If it was government work, what was so important he disregarded his safety and went to an undefended consulate? Incidentally, he cannot be ordered into danger. State Department is not the military. He was always free to say it was too dangerous – which it was – and refuse to go. Three State Department guards and two locals don’t make a defense. If he was on his own business, why is Clinton protecting him?

 

·         Another things bothers us. Its obvious that the ignorantii don’t understand this, but US had hired a local militia to beef up protection. The militia was not told to protect ambassador, which is why they were not in place at the consulate. This is not negligence on State’s part; as head of the US mission to Libya it would be the embassy’s responsibility to call the CIA station and/or the militia and let them known he was enroute. When called on by the CIA, the militia responded and fought alongside the Americans. It did its job. Why isn’t Administration saying “the Americans in Benghazi were NOT alone and helpless, they had a militia of several hundred on call and when called, the militia fought.”

 

·         We’ve asked before: who betrayed the ambassador, told the bad guys he was going to be at the consulate with little protection? It has to be someone known to him. Was it someone from the militia? If so, revealing this can be awkward, but this does not rise to the level of a hanging offense. Remember the CIA turncoat who killed six personnel in Afghanistan? Everyone knows bad things happen. No one was screaming for Obama’s impeachment. No one was called the CIA Director or the DNI to testify as to what they knew or didn’t know with the object of destroying them. Were those six people less important than the four who died at Benghazi? Then why hasn’t there been the kind of persecution that’s taking place here?

 

·         Of course, the simplest explanation here is that the Administration was totally maladept  in its response to the questions that would be asked about Benghazi. If so, let the Administration take its lumps: it is not our job to defend anyone if they’re being just plain stupid.

 

·         We don’t understand the leak scandal. Is the case of the Administration’s critics and the media that the media is above the law? First everyone is piling on Obama because of his habit of having favorable information leaked. We agree this is wrong. Now again information was leaked to make Obama look good. Should not the Department of Justice investigate this?

 

·         The media has done a marvelous job of laying down so many red herrings that everything stinks rotten in the Kingdom of Washington. The issue is not that the Administration was about to announce a success in killing whatever-his-face and so it was okay for the media to announce it a day early. That is not the point at all, darn it! Why are people acting so deliberately obtuse? The point is the media got on the story because it was leaked to them. No one is going to put a piddling lamebrain media person in jail because s/he received leaked information. If so, the government would have had to arrest the entire American media re. the Wikileaks case. But the government should put the person in jail who leaked the story. This is not whistleblowing, this is a matter of national emergency.

 

·         As for no harm done: puleeessssse (cue eye roll)! As Walter Pincus noted in the Washington Post yesterday, A great deal of harm was done because the sum total of the leaker’s loose lips and the work the media did on its own was to reveal a very important covert Saudi-US-UK operation to catch future underpants bombers. So anyone in the administration who wants to toot Obama’s horn should be free to leak stories showing what a brilliant man the Prez is, and the media should not be asked to reveal their sources? Media is associating with a criminal. Why should the government not force them to reveal the criminal? Or is it okay for the media to protect criminals in pursuit of a story?

 

·         And please don’t ask us what Mr. Holder is up to. Editor from Day One of Mr. Holder’s appointment has never understood what he is up to or how he is defending the United States. We’d think he’d explain how damaging the leak was and why the leaker has to be found. Instead he’s in a “no one here except us meece” mode.  Are there any adults running the US Government? Apparently not. We have one bunch of morons in Congress, another bunch in the media, yet another bunch in the Administration. Clearly only God can save America.

 

·         The IRS matter Agreed if the IRS is investigating only 501c4s or whatever they’re called belonging to the right wing, that is wrong – we’ll let the lawyers decide if it’s illegal. But is it the case of the right wing that the Government has no right to investigate their 501s? Government has every right to do so, and we’d think the right wing, which is always going on about taxes, would welcome such an investigation. 501s get a tax exemption because they are performing non-profit work to benefit people. If instead 501s are being used to escape taxes on political dark money, this needs to be investigated and prosecuted.

 

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT May 21, 2013

·         Syria Redux So, are there any lessons the US can learn from Syria? Yes, and the number 1 lesson is that the US should stay out of other people’s problems, because we cannot make things better and could make them worse. The model here is Libya. Though the effort to overthrow Gadaffi was a NATO undertaking, and though the US was pushed into participating by its partners, the media, and public opinion, it’s easy to see that things there are a right royal mess.

 

·         Which actually is the natural order of things. Revolutions are messy because they unleash forces outside of anyone control, let alone foreigners such as ourselves. A new meme has been in vogue since US went into Iraq. People are oppressed, overthrow the dictator, and voila! You have a perfect democracy.

 

·         Editor does not want to sound wise, because truthfully he fell for that meme too. Which is why he fully supported the Iraq, Afghan, and Libya interventions, and initially wanted the US to do much more in Egypt and Syria. But the blowback from Libya has forced him to rethink his position. Also, Editor has been working on a book concerning scenarios for India post the US/NATO withdrawal in 2014. He has been quite taken aback by how complicated things actually are.

 

·         What dictators do is repress the natural order of things. When the oppressor is removed, it is not all roses and dancing in the street followed by free elections and functioning democratic governments. The natural order of things is not the simplistic meme of people ready to become democratic with a bit of help from us. The natural order of things in Africa and the Islamic world is that there a whole lot of different factions and interests that have been kept in check by the dictator. Take away the dictator, and things explode.

 

·         The clearest recent example is that of Former Yugoslavia. Serbia was the oppressor of several different nationalities who were forced into a country to suit the victorious allies of World War I. Like any colonial creation, there was nothing “natural” about Yugoslavia. When Tito the Dictator died, and when Yugoslavia’s Best Friend Forever the Soviet Union cracked up, Yugoslavia exploded. The problem was resolved by letting Yugoslavia divide and sub-divide until it was sifted into its natural units. This involved much violence and much ethnic cleansing. And of course, while 80% or 90% of the process is complete, there is still unfinished business, namely the Serbs in Kosovo and the whole Bosnia-Herzegovina mishmash, which is a mini-Yugoslavia in itself.

 

·         Things worked out in Yugoslavia because the West understood the divisions and tensions perfectly – after all, the country was part of Europe; because NATO put in the required number of troops; and because the European Community put in enough money to get the new nations to stand on their feet.

 

·         But Libya and Syria and Iraq and to a great extent Afghanistan are not “natural” nations. They are legacies of colonialism. In Afghanistan’s case the place was not really colonized, but a minority ruled the majority. There are many, many divisions. And because these are exotic lands, neither the Americans nor the Europeans are particularly knowledgeable about the divisions. Worse, the west has neither the military or economic resources, or will, to sort out these countries. Removing the dictator has removed the peace of the grave imposed by the dictator, the countries have exploded, and we cannot make things right.

 

·         It has been said again and again: revolutions are created from within, and a country’s basic political problems have to be resolved from within. We cannot do it. We got out of Iraq, we are leaving Afghanistan. We messed up in Libya and now the whole Sahel is under threat. We should leave Syria and the next Libya/Syria strictly alone.

 

·         Notice Editor has not mentioned Vietnam. Well, that is a perfect case where we tried to stop change instead of accelerate it;  supported the colonial power, France; went in, fought like heck, spent money like water, and in the end? In the end Vietnam went back to a unified state, this time under communism. Maybe if we had persuaded France to get out of Indochina, maintained distant but friendly relations with Uncle Ho, given a bit of aid on his terms, and just minded our own beeswax, maybe we would have avoided a lot of grief for ourselves. Not to mention the people of Indochina.  Okay, the US was engaged in a mortal combat with communism, the freedom of the world really was at stake, so perhaps our errors were understandable, though not forgivable. We stopped change from happening the world over till Jimmy Carter came along, and then we ended up helping more countries become free and democratic than everyone else in the world put together.

 

·         Being wiser, we don’t try to stop change anymore. Maybe we need to now get even wiser, and also get out of the business of accelerating change.

Monday 0230 GMT May 20, 2013

 

·         Syria We suppose there’s no point in saying “things are getting ugly”, they’ve been ugly from the start. But now things are also getting very complicated. (a) Russia is positioning itself to thwart a naval blockade of Syria; three task groups compromising 11 warships have been rotating in and out of the Eastern med. Part of this is Putin’s show of his revived military, muscle flexing. Part of it is confusing, because as far as we know no one is planning to blockade Syria. Russia show raises the danger that the US, at least, is going to take umbrage: Russia has no friends in Congress or the media. So the show to prevent the west from taking action might provoke said action.

 

·         (b) A British paper (Telegraph) has pointed the hypocrisy of the media showing video of a Syrian rebel fighter chowing down on an enemy KIA’s heart, while refusing to show piles of massacred children as young as 2 and 3 years of age. We agree. Media is propagandizing for Assad, even of it does not intend to.

 

·         (c) Rebels have control of most of northern Syria. This is thanks to hard core Islamists who have joined the fight over the past several months, invited or not. When the West cannot or will not help, you cannot blame Syrians for turning to anyone who will help them, however disagreeable their ideology. One hard core Syrian rebel group has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, which has caused the group to split. This is not good.

 

·         (d) Hezbollah has been fighting for Assad along the Lebanon border; now Hezbollah is increasingly in the main fight. A coastal town that lies on the road from the Syrian coast to Damascus had fallen to the rebels, causing regime forces no end of problems. Now Hezbollah has helped Assad forces to retake the town. There will, of course, be the usual massacres of civilians committed by pro-regime militia, which Assad has been relying on as his army – primarily Sunni – becomes less willing to fight. But Israel will not let Hezbollah gain more power than the group already has. There is a real possibility of some serious escalation.

 

·         (e) Iraq and Iran are both involved this war, which is now a full-fledged regional conflict. Kurd groups in northeast Syria have been doing their own fighting against rebels and regime alike. As the US President loves to say, make no mistake, this has become an existential drag-out known-down fight between Shias (Assad regime is Shia, majority Syrians are Sunni) and the Sunnis. The Gulf Arabs have been pretty quiet so far, doing their thing against Assad in a low-key manner. But the Sunni states will not stand by while another Shia regime they hoped to see gone become a proxy in the Shia-Sunni battle.

 

·         (f) In Iraq the gloves are coming off, the Sunnis are starting to give up hope of fair treatment at Shia hands. While we cannot blame the Shias, considering what has been done to them over 4 centuries,  the lack of fair treatment is only rekindling sectarian warfare; Sunnis and Shias are back to killing each other. Meantime the Sunnis are reorganizing in Anbar to foght the Iraq Army, which has explicitly said it will bring Anbar under control. Also meanwhile, Saddam’s lieutenant Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, bad guy supreme, the Ace of Spades, turns out to be well and alive, probably operating with 5000 men around Mosul. The Iraq Sunnis will, of course, get all the money and weapons they want from the Gulf states.

 

Friday 0230 GMT May 17, 2013

·         Russia Spy Scandal So a US Embassy Moscow 3rd Secretary was arrested and then expelled for trying to recruit a Russian citizen to spy for America. Yawn. Glad someone at the US Embassy Moscow is out on the street working. But then the Russians have announced they are surprised at the clumsiness of the attempt. Now we’re surprised at how crude the Rooskies are.  Why are they pushing  this and making braying asses of themselves? The whole thing was a setup, for which the 3red Secretary fell. How do we know this?

 

·         Because the Russians say that the American recruiter offered an immediate $100,000 down as proof of good faith – piles of 500-Euro notes were shown as seized from the 3rd Sec; the Russian was to receive $1-million/year, and more for really important information.  Puleeeese. Get real, Rooskie fiends. These sums are not just in your dreams, they are in your high-doses-of-controlled-substances dreams.

 

·         We say this again: if you need an air tight story made up, email the Editor. He is a skilled professional. You all are pathetic amateurs. Hopefully the Russians who were responsible for making up these incredible sums are getting daily whippings at Head Office, with the dreaded Limp Lettuce Leaf.

 

·         So no sooner than the deficit for the year comes down a bit then we’re hearing mumblings about the need to increase spending. Just as Editor expected. The deficit is down to a still-frightening $650-billion thanks to higher taxes and reduced spending, the only practical way to bring it down. But this is still 4% of GDP. We need immediately to bring the deficit down to 3% of GDP, and when the economy recovers, push it into a surplus.

 

·         Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, we do understanding that when the economy is in trouble you increase deficit spending and when it is expanding you increase the budget surplus.  But Editor has been saying that we totally lack discipline. We spend more in recessions, and we continue spending when the economy recovers, so the deficit just keeps getting bigger. Yes, we do understand that the US is in a different position from other countries because we print our own currency and are the currency of last resort and so on and so forth.

 

·         But may we point out something? In 1945, US had more than 40% of the world’s GDP. Today we’re down to something like 18% if we recall right. If the developing world grows at 6% a year and we grow at 3%, it’s possible in 30-years or so we’ll be down to 10% or less of the world’s economy. Who is to say the dollar will remain the currency of last resort? Who knows but that we may actually have to compete with other countries to sell our bonds? Interest are 2% for 10-year bonds, the interest on the national debt is some piddling figure, $200- to $300-billion if we recall right. Halcyon days indeed. But what if we have to start paying 6% some years down the road?

 

·         Okay, so the spend-spend-spend lot may say “we’ll deal with that when we come to that.” But unless we start getting into good habits now, we will not be prepared to reduce spending when the time comes. As it is, so much of the deficit financing we’re doing is going to benefit the financial markets, we are not investing in the future, say in infrastructure and R and D.

 

·         No, no, no UK, you are hindering evolution A British teenager got run over by a train because she was listening to music and didn’t hear the train coming. Obviously that she was crossing tracks meant nothing to her. So now the cry goes out “We must do something!”. Please, folks, obviously we must not do anything. How is evolution going to improve the human race if we protect those who cannot cope with the modern world? When apes first took to the trees and started crashing to earth because of misleaps, did all the other apes start agitating for the government to place safety nets in the jungle? Obviously not. Instead they said “One less fool trying to hinder our evolution to humans.”

 

·         Actually, that didn’t come out quite right. Given what humans are, you can argue the apes underwent a degeneration, not a survival of the fittest. Maybe if the government had placed safety nets in the jungles, apes would not have degenerated into us humans. A fitter species might have been ruling the world. Like the Great Indian Dung Beetle.

 

·         $40K on daycare Washington Post had a story yesterday on the anxious search for day care vouchers in the Metro area. A young lady with two little kids, a toddler and an infant, was interviewed. She makes $20,000/year. Full market cost daycare for two is $40K. (Actually it isn’t, its much less, but lets go with the Post which has a reputation for being math challenged. We can see the kind of day care a CEO of a large company would want would indeed be $40K).

 

·         Okay, before our liberal friends go off on this shows people in America don’t earn a living wage, let us agree that making it in the Washington Metro area on $20K/year is very, very hard. AT Washington prices, $10/hr is equal to $6/hr in most of America. Half that is going to go in getting just a one bedroom in a reasonably safe area – at least. We agree American capitalists brutally exploit American labor. Say whatever bad you want, we’ll agree with it – and we are not being facetious.

 

·         But in the liberal outrage, one simple point is being lost. Why does this lady have two kids when she is single and earns minimum wage? Yes, surely she has a valid backstory. The most common is fathers who disappear. Nonetheless, folks, any woman born after 1960 knows that fathers disappear. They disappeared in earlier times too, but less frequently. Any woman born after 1960 has access to inexpensive, effective contraception so that in 99% of cases there is no need to have a child unless you want to. In the days when contraception was neither inexpensive, easily available, or that effective, unwanted babies were born too. They were put up for adoption. Heartbreaking, we agree. Its unfair the burden is on the women while the men get away, we agree.

 

·          But YOU were responsible for YOUR behavior. The state did not come to your aid. It is NOT progress to say we do things in so much more a sane manner now. What we do is insane, because we shift resources from those who have lived their lives responsibly to those who do not. BTW, its much, much worse in UK.

 

·         A person loses their job, if they’ve been prudent savers but still need some help, it’s the right thing to do to give it to them. It’s the right thing to do to provide some basic level of medical care for everyone, rich or poor. You want more, pay for it.  And so on. Senator Edward Kennedy’s dying wish that everyone in America should have the medical care he received free was total, complete, utter nonsense.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT May 16, 2013

·         Remembering Billie Sol Estes This won’t mean a thing to most Americans, but once upon a time this was tough country run by tough men. Editor recalled that when reading Estes’ obituary. Estes was – how to out this delicately so as not to offend the tender sensitivities of today – a wheeler dealer. Actually – don’t read this to your friends if you suspect they have weak hearts – he was a Class A fraudster who consorted with the country’s top politicos, including Senator/Vice-President/President Lyndon B. Johnson. And boasted of his connections even while being carted off to jail, as the Washington Post reminds us (page B5, yesterday). He channeled big money to the president and others, yet there was no real investigation of his links with the biggest organized crime family in the US, the political class. It was understand that of course everyone was on the take including His Preziness, and this was just the normal way of doing business.

 

·         When people close to him and au courante with his fraud might have had thoughts of squealing on him, they merely turned up dead. A USDA inspector who opened an investigation into Estes frauds on the US government was found dead, shot five times with his own bolt-action  .22 rifle. Investigators deemed it a suicide. His accountant was found dead in a car with tubing running from the exhaust. Except there was no CO in his lungs. Obviously another suicide, said local investigators. Two men indicted with Estes also died. Obviously suicides. (You can read more about all this at http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKestes.htm )

 

·         As far as Editor recalls, no one thought any of this was particularly strange. No one called for inquiries on Estes’ connections with the politicians including with the White House because everyone was on the take, an honor among thieves code prevailed. Everyone is still on the take, but now they have a dozen lawyers and accountants to scrub things. As for the dead people, well, everyone knew if you poked your nose into power peoples’ busy-ness, you risked turning up dead. Business as usual, move along, nothing to see here.

 

·         Ah, the good old days. When American men were men. Now the people who run this country are certified wimps.

 

·         No greater evidence of wimpiness is needed than the very recent shock, horror, turgid stomach syndrome since someone took a video of a rebel Syrian fighter eating an enemy’s heart. Apparently another rebel barbecued his enemy’s head. The media has rushed to lengthy analyses about “ this has forced Washington to reconsider aiding the Syrian rebels” and all that garbage. There are good reason to aid or not to aid the rebels, but for heaven’s sakes people, get a grip. Neither of these episodes, or episodes where rebels have executed prisoners, has the least relevance to the question.

 

·         Just what exactly do Americans think happens in a war? The above is mild stuff, unworthy even of comment. Oh yes, an American soldier is to be tried because he urinated on an enemy’s corpse. Well, the enemy is dead so presumably he did not feel a thing. Where’s the beef? Oh, okay, we the great, sensitive, politically correct American people don’t disrespect enemy corpses. What complete hypocrisy. Americans in wartime have no problems killing folks who disagree with them, and the bigger the explosion the more thrilled we are. You know what’s really disrespectful? Killing someone. That really hurts a guy’s feelings. Urinating on his corpse? Not so much.

 

·         What is this self-flagellation supposed to prove? That we’re culturally superior to the bad guys who don’t follow our conventions? But look, isn’t there a contradiction here? Isn’t the fact we’re killing the bad guys imply we consider ourselves culturally superior to them? Otherwise it’s his viewpoint versus your viewpoint, and as they teach you from pre-school onward, we must respect other folks’ opinions. You can kill someone only because you consider your opinion the right one. That means you assume moral superiority. The enemy has no problem killing those who don’t share their opinions, they don’t need validation via cultural superiority facades such as treating corpses with respect.

 

·         Grow up, America. If you feel so guilty about killing someone that you punish your own soldiers for showing “disrespect” to enemy corpses, we suggest you get out of the killing business and take up knitting socks.

 

·         And: not to mention the current scandals So anxious are some folks to bring Hilary/Obama down that they have been touting as a real a cable that is apparently forged. What these people are doing is not hurting Hilary/Obama, but making utter fools of themselves and undermining their own credibility. Stop already, fools! Can you not carry your loaded weapon without blowing off your foot?

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT May 15, 2013

·         Sigh. There goes America again. No need for its enemies to try and destroy America, the country is managing quite well, thank you very much. At a time when America needs to rework itself from the ground up, the country is busy with petty issues. So after Benghazi we now have IRSgate. With Benghazi, some have been opining that that was the worst coverup in American history, and Mr. Obama needs to be marched out of the White House, if not actually tarred and feathered and ridden out of town facing backward on a mule.

 

·         With IRS gate people are opining this is as bad as Watergate, and have jumped to the conclusion because the IRS is part of the federal government, there has to be a link back to Mr. Obama and now, this time, finally, at last, Mr. Obama will be impeached. We won’t even mention the alleged Associated Press – Justice Department “scandal”, which is supposed to prove that we all need to get more guns to fight an oppressive government.

 

·         By the way, before you get into this guns thing, Editor wants to boast that a medical professor (or something like that) of Indian origin has all you native Americans beat hollow. Aside from being accused of trying to blow up his senior at the place he worked, he stockpiled no fewer than half-a-million rounds of ammunition and 98 hand grenades. See, Muh Feller Markins, as LBJ used to say, you all is a bunch of wimps. India rules, ha ha ha ha neerer wiener. Etc. But we diverge from our point.

 

·         So will it shock everyone that Editor doesn’t consider Watergate much of a scandal? American politics used to be a rough sport, and still is in different ways. Opposition research was routine. It is still is, but now instead of burglarizing anyone’s offices you hack his computers and buy his political workers to give you the Juicy Couture news. Or are we getting our metaphors mixedup with the Bangladesh garment workers’ scandal? So many scandals, so little time.

 

·          Oooopsies! Did we just say something about hacking we shouldn’t have? Never mind. We didn’t really say that. We were misquoted by us. Nixon, it appears, broke the law. Anyone remember the ballot box stuffing to get Vanilla Clean Bean JFK elected? That was breaking the law, not this piddly little whiffle ball limp spaghetti offense of Nixon’s. Of course, people who are even older than Editor – he believes there are a few – will object and say “Ballot box stuffing was a time- honored American tradition, my boy. The REAL scandal was giving African-Americans and women the vote.” Yes, you can guess Editor does go back a few years.

 

·         A fellow resident of Iowa was telling Editor the other day of when he visited Maine. On the trip back, this all-American blue-eyed blond family with All-American husband, wife, and kids, was being all but strip-searched by the Homeland Security goons, and how odd it all seemed. Particularly with the wife repeatedly saying “Do you really think I am about to blow up a plane with my children on board?” Had Editor been there, he would have hushed the lady, because saying this kind of thing to law enforcement is 100% certain to get you not just a strip search, but a full cavity search including X-Rays and radioactive isotope testing of you right testicle, which might be a surgically implanted bomb. Yes, yes, we know women don’t have testicles, though with American women you do have to sometimes wonder, but you get the point we’re making here.

 

·         We had to explain to our good friend that Homeland Security knew full well that the All-American family were not terrorists, but their manual specifically says: “To avoid charges of racial profiling by the ACLU, search at random one of ten every All-American families, every third quadriplegic, and every fifth person without a head. Let the politicians dressed as Clowns alone, as to date ACLU has shown no interest in the rights of Clowns of any ethnicity, religion,  or political belief, and the most dangerous weapon a politician has deployed so far is hot air. Hot air actually helps provide lift for the aircraft, reducing the use of aviation gas, which in turn reduces greenhouse emissions. Yes, we are aware that politician emissions are one billion times as deadly as six-bean quiche, but the greenies have no raised any issues with six-bean farts, gigantic as they may be. These are “natural” – yes, you may think Austin Powers.”

 

·         So you see what we’re saying here. The IRS should have demanded details on all political 501(c) groups, not just those with Tea Party, Rand Paul, Jimi Hendrix, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in their names. It doesn’t matter that conservative republicans use 501(c) to avoid taxes on Black Money to their favored candidates. When we say “Black Money”, it is in the sense of covert, as in Black Helicopters, not that the patrons made it from smuggling cocaine or sell N-weapons to Al Qaeda. These days, of course, no one really knows what people are really up to.

 

·         George Will of the Washington Post would say the right to spend 1 Bazilion Dollars to buy an election is a right conferred by the 1st Amendment. Editor would say Democrats are just jealous that conservative republicans have more money by far than anyone else. It really is not worth investigating 99.99% of Democratic 501(c) because they have less money in them than Editor’s Piggy Bank. Besides which, editor might add, Mr. Obama and the Chicago style cash raising machine have not done too badly for themselves. In 2012 the Democrats raised more money from large individual donors than the GOP.

 

·          Then we have the DOJ think, where the department says it needed records to show who was leaking critical information or whatever. What gets the Editor at how hilarious the press is. “This has a chilling effect on the freedom of the press, which is the only check on the government.” Really? We always thought the so-called free press plus the government were only pawns in keeping the money-interests – regardless of politics – in charge of the country. To speak of a free press when the bulk of the media is owned by big corporations and driven primarily by the need to sell advertising is ironic. Only small blogs like this one are free to say what they want, and of course they have zero resources to ferret out real news. BTW, some of the bigger blogs had best stop indulging themselves in the hubris of criticizing the Main Stream Media because these folks are increasingly relying on the same instruments the MSM relies on: monied interests and advertising. The bigger blogs are also just as MSM as the traditional media, so they can jolly well get those smug expressesions off their faces and tinsel self-made halos off their heads.

 

·         Editor recalls a public policy class he took – talk about lack of freedom of expression, no need to go farther than American academia including think tanks – where the discussion was about suppressing information in the interests of national security. The specific case was: “You have learned the US is about to launch a rescue attempt of the Teheran Embassy hostages. Should you publish this information?” Twenty-four of twenty-five students said “Obviously not”. The last student, a media person, repeatedly said “the American people have a right to know and I would publish it.” No mention of the press person’s furtherance of her career, just a selfless dedication to the American public. Hahahahahahaha. Anyway, said media person was young, good looking, and perky, so Editor forgave her. So did the professor who for some reason spent much time trying to convince everyone he was the oldest and wisest person in the room when clearly editor was the oldest. Wisest, obviously not. That was a person who never opened his mouth. Probably the undercover FBI informant.

 

·         Editor’s point is simple: given the state of America, should we be at each other’s political throats, ensuring more deadlock, filling up our time with Benghazi, IRS, and the Associated Press? By all means, it’s a free country, let someone investigate. But should this country’s so called leaders be devoting their time to tearing each other down, Democrats as much as Republicans? By the way, have you heard the one where the aliens land and tell the human “take us to your leader” and the human takes them to meet Bobo The Clown? No? Actually, we hadn’t heard it either. We made it up on the spot and we agree it’s not funny. But this is America, and Editor has the right to make lame jokes and demand people laugh at them, else he will be so offended and sue for discrimination.

 

·         Here is one thing that is far more serious than the rest of Washington put together. The news is that the Nigerian Islamic group Boko Haram, after being pushed out of northern cities last year, is back in strength and starting to hold ground. Maybe just 5% of Nigeria, but if that is not a potent we don’t know what is. Why are they back? Well, they’ve now got access to a mother load of arms, ex-Libyan, and have tied up with Al Qaeda in the Mahgreb. This is a very serious development that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Obama and the GOP should be discussing?

 

Tuesday 0230 May 14, 2013

·         Pakistan’s New Prime Minister Redux Yesterday we said that Nawaz’s reelection changes nothing for India . Now, since he has immediately proclaimed a message of peace and love for all around, including India, Afghanistan, the US, and even the Pakistan Army which deposed him in 1999, might not our assessment be pessimistic? Unfortunately, no.

 

·         There is much talk going around that Nawaz Mark III (or Version 3, to use the American nomenclature) III is not the same man as he was 14-years ago. He is said to have matured and has become less impetuous. Certainly his overtures to all his enemies – including his invitation to his political opponents to join him in the government – indicate this is all true. In the case of India he has suggested greater trade and a peaceful resolution to the Kashmir problem. The greater trade is music to India’s ears and India will welcome it. But greater trade for India also means greater cultural trade. Will Nawaz reverse Pakistan policy and permit that? We don’t think so and you will see why in a moment.

 

·         India’s biggest problem with Pakistan since 1947 has been Kashmir  Sweet words are fine, but can Nawaz deliver peace on Kashmir? You be the judge. For India peace means (or at least meant) the acceptance of the Line of Control as an international boundary. The Simla Agreement 1972 was supposed to lead to this blessed state: Bhutto used a lot of political capital to come to India and sign that agreement, considering his angry and upset Pakistanis were about India’s role in the partition of Pakistan.

 

·         But things ended very badly Unlike most Indians, Editor is not about to blame Pakistan alone for the subsequent problems. Like it or not India has to bear its share of responsibility.  Mrs. Gandhi saw Pakistan’s 1971 partition as a model for another partition: Balochistan and Sind, which would have left Pakistan with the NWFP, West Punjab, and a third of Kashmir. She attempted to exploit the internal insurgencies/civil disorder in both these provinces and failed. Meanwhile, the Pakistanis returned the favor by supporting the Sikh insurgency in the 1980s, and failed. Then, when the jihadis saw the Soviet Union off, Pakistani tried to replicate the model in Kashmir, and also failed. Nawaz was very much part of this effort for all that he may choose to blame the Army. He may have tacitly approved the 1999 Kargil War, but Indians blame the Pakistan Army rather than him because they know how little power Nawaz had in actuality. Nonetheless, it is fair to see that the vast majority of Pakistanis supported both the Kashmir insurgency and the Kargil War. They would have done so even had there been no Bangladesh or India’s interventions in Balochistan and Sindh. Seizing Indian Kashmir is the central, fundamental basis of Pakistan’s internal and external policies. Is this going to change?

 

·         An enormous complication in all this has been Pakistan war of terror against India, coincident with the rise of the global terror war. This has completely shattered any goodwill India has for Pakistan. But still, even though two generations have passed since Partition 1947, most Indians would like nothing better than to be friends with Pakistan. Indians, more than Pakistan, are fairly forgiving of Pakistan’s 1947 and 1965 attempts to take Kashmir. But the insurgency they will not easily forgive. The damage of the Kargil War 1999 could be healed. India might even in time forget the terror war. But can Nawaz end the Kashmir violence and the terror war?

 

·         In Editor’s estimation, there is no chance at all that he can. It is not even that the probability is low, it is impossible.

 

·         Look no further than a big reason Nawaz won this election. It is because of the Pakistan Taliban. These folks told the secular parties that their version of democracy, i.e., secularism, is un-Islamic. They did their best to disrupt secular parties, and had a big impact. The PPP, for example, had to give up normal campaigning. Yes, the PPP would still have lost. But not as badly. The Taliban did not disrupt either Nawaz or Imran Khan because both have taken a strong line against US UAV strikes. Can Nawaz stop the Taliban? He and whose Mama? If he turns against the Taliban, between the Pakistan Army and the Taliban, depending on gets to kill him first, he is a goner. The only question being in how many days after he makes a speech saying the Taliban will be destroyed if they don’t lay down their arms.

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT May 13, 2013

·         Congratulations, Pakistan Naturally according to the nitpickers the election was not perfect – few are. But the internal security situation in the country it went off well. Nawaz Sharif returns to the prime ministership for the third time. He is likely to end up a few seats short of an absolute majority, but that is inconsequential as minor parties and independents will join him. Indeed, in a signal that business will not be as usual, he has invited his two main rivals, the People’s Party of Pakistan and Imran Khan to join him in the government.

 

·         Did we just say business will not be as usual? Inside Pakistan, perhaps. But as far as relations with India are concerned, it will be the same old, same old. This is no reflection on Nawaz. Pakistan’s was created because many Muslims believed they could not live in India. Pakistan’s identity is defined as Not India. Though many blame the Pakistan Army for refusing peace with India to safeguard its unique place in domestic politics, the reality is even the civilian government cannot afford to make peace for the simple reason India will eventually economically and culturally swamp Pakistan and reabsorb it. That has been the course of history for three thousand years and it will not change.

 

·         No Pakistan government can afford to give up its claims to Kashmir, though India has at times appeared willing to accept the Line of Control as the international border. No longer, however, the insurgency and Islamic terror has left India traumatized and radicalized. If Nawaz were to say “live and let live” regarding Kashmir, then that concedes that Muslims can live freely in India (which they can), which then undermines the rationale for the creation of Pakistan.

 

·         Moreover, obviously with the US leaving Afghanistan, regardless of what happens there, 5-10,000 militants will be freed to fight India. Both the civil government and the military will be only too happy to facilitate them because (a) it suits Pakistan’s strategic objectives; and (b) it keeps the militants occupied. There is yet another dimension to this, which is the more extreme militants themselves want to fight India to restore – at least partially – the Caliphate. And that means, at the minimum, Northwest India.

 

·         India, for once, has for several years anticipated events as they will unfold. The Indian Army has said since the last few years it is ready for another round with Pakistan’s insurgents. Normally Editor would have believed the Army, but his faith in the military has been severely shaken by the recent contremps with China in Ladakh. The Army will blame the civilians, but sorry, in this case it doesn’t wash. The Army is equally to blame. Editor is a patriotic Indian and proud of the Indian Army, but it is not his job to blindly swallow its spin and to blame the civilians alone. The positive thing is that the Army does not to get more ready than it was when it defeated the 1997-2005 insurgency (dates vary). The fences are construction, UAV numbers keep increasing, and though it will not happen tomorrow, more helicopters and advanced sensors will be installed.

 

·         What does Nawaz’s return mean for the US? It means bad things, because Nawaz is truculently anti-American. As well as he should be, because the Pakistan Army has been the bane of his life – and will again. And the US has been solidly behind the Pakistan Army. Now, if the US has any sense, which clearly it does not, it will leave South Asia altogether. This is the third time intervening on the Asian land mass has worked out badly: Korea, Second, Indochina, and now Afghanistan. But no one must ever make the error of thinking America will learn from its mistakes. That is a most un-American concept. Treason, even. The US will hang around until it is thrown out lock, stock, barrel, and the kitchen sink etc.

 

·         It will not find Nawaz as cooperative as it has found the two previous Pakistan regimes, one military and one civilian. Very silly, childish people in Washington mutter darkly “If they don’t cooperate we’ll stop our aid”. Okay, and so what? The Pakistan elite has been stuck on American bribes for sixty years, but the sums are tiny and at some point a nation’s pride has to force the elite to stop accepting the bribes. Perhaps Editor is wrong, and perhaps Pakistan will be just as ready to accept American money. But even if America leaves 10-15,000 troops behind in Afghanistan it is not going to be the major actor in Afghanistan after 2014. Afghanistan will be settled between Afghanistan and Pakistan – who just happen to live there. What an amazing coincidence. America is only a tiresome intruder with a very short attention span. There is a real question how long Pakistan will accept US UAV strikes. We could be wrong, but we don’t think Nawaz will give permission, tacit or otherwise.

 

Saturday 0230 GMT May 11, 2013

Benghazi Update

·         For once we don’t feel we are imposing on readers by going on and on like Aeolus because the main part of this update is a correction. Reader Luxembourg sends the day’s headlines he knows will interest Editor, sometimes twice a day. In the latest articles he sent, Editor saw something he had earlier missed because he had no interest in the statements by various parties immediately after events. The military part (or rather, non-part) was more interesting.

 

·         Nonetheless, Editor has been saying that the Administration initially said the attack was part of a demonstration because the CIA said so. That still remains so. What has to be added – at least until more information arises – is that the CIA changed its initial story based on information received, and said it was a terror attack. Meanwhile, the Administration continued saying it was a demonstration, until the Administration got in line with the CIA.

 

·         So you have a time gap where the Administration is sticking to the CIA’s original information and CIA has updated its story. If you are familiar with these things, you will know this is not an unusual state of affairs, i.e., someone is behind the curve. Part of the reason is the Administration has to work out if this is the final CIA version before saying “here is the final version”. Because if it isn’t, and CIA comes up with something else, then administration will look pretty silly for the tacking and yawing it is engaged in. (Not sure we have our small boat maneuvers down right. All Editor knows about small boats is they should be avoided at all costs.)

 

·         Now, we can hear the skeptics going “Oh, right, that’s really feeble even for you, Editor”. To which we say: we have no intention of speaking for the Administration. They’re all big boys and girls, they can speak for themselves. After all, when it turned out Mr. Bush had launched a war that cost us 4600 lives and near a trillion bucks on a big fat lie – which he and his knew was a lie, did the Editor pile on Mr. Bush’s critics? Nah. Editor was like “Well. Let him explain it.” Ditto Mr. Obama. All we’d like to say is those who think that there is material for an impeachment here or for a knock-out blow to Hilary have even more hyperactive imaginations than Editor. And that’s saying something.

 

·         Meanwhile, Editor has inferred from the various bits and pieces being released that the Benghazi consulate was indeed closed. This makes no difference to anyone except the Editor. Since the consulate was closed, what Ambassador was doing there is anyone’s guess. And seeing as there was a general alert that the embassy in Tripoli might be attacked under cover of a demonstration, and everyone knew that Benghazi was unsafe, why the gentleman set off for Benghazi is beyond us. We also know that the embassy was so worried about an attack that when they heard about Benghazi, they evacuated the embassy and headed for the safe annex. CIA no doubt.

 

·         BTW, does anyone else think this combination of State and CIA we are seeing revealed in Libya is peculiar? Editor thinks it’s very peculiar. There was a lot of that going on in Afghanistan too, and in Iraq, no doubt. And this business of the State Department having its own paramilitary force is also strange. No? Okay, Editor gets the hint. Readers want to say “Nothing to see here, move along”. We’ll move along, but REALLY it is strange.

 

Friday 0230 GMT May 10, 2013

Back to Benghazi (Groan)

 

·         There are two Benghazi stories. One is the political one of a lying President and Secretary of State, which even those of us not versed in the arcane world of Washington politics can tell is not going anywhere.  Honestly, no one is going to cast one vote less for Hilary, should she stand in 2016, because she said at first the Benghazi attack was a mob angry at some foolish video. The reason is that was not her judgment, it was Central Intelligence’s, which the Director said was the best available at the time. When people start getting into clock time in the minutes and seconds and tenths of a second about how long it took SecState and Prez to call it a terror attack, only partisans can get satisfaction, those who already support Hilary will not be moved.

 

·         Meanwhile, and interestingly, the GOP’s star witness who was supposed to destroy the Obama presidency has managed only to support the government’s story about why help was not sent

 

·         But there is another, far more interesting story. And yes, there is a cover up on the story, but one made because of national security. This concerns what the US Ambassador was up to and what went wrong. Here is Editor’s analysis on facts as revealed in the press so far.

 

Ambassador Stevens and his Benghazi visit

 

·         The ambassador went to Benghazi with two armed escorts. At the consulate were three other American armed personnel. When other missions were trying to get out of lawless Benghazi, apprehending various threats, why was the US ambassador blithely sailing into town with insignificant protection? It can’t be – as the narrative relates – that he was heroically doing his duty to show the people of Benghazi America cared about them, and went to ribbon-cut a school. Unless he was foolish, in which case State would simply have said he went of his own accord despite the situation and warnings.

 

·         We don’t know why he went, except there is a massive cover-up of his trip. It has been suggested he went for an assignation. But as we have said, unless something more definite emerges than rumors he and Mrs. Ambassador were not getting along, we cannot responsibly use this theory. There have been rumors it was something clandestine, possibly to do with a CIA covert operation to use Libya arms to support US interests in Syria. This would account for the cover-up, but it doesn’t explain why Ambassador was playing CIA games. Career diplomats are not CIA folks under cover.

 

·         One possible explanation, which is really just a guess, is that Ambassador had better trust with the folks he was to meet than did the CIA, and the folks said “no deal unless he comes and we meet no one else”. There have been vague mumbles about his excellent contacts with Benghazi folks, but nothing definitive.

 

·         Regardless of what he was up to, why did he have so little security? Here is Editor’s inference: because the same local militia used by State and CIA for security were to provide security. Okay, so why didn’t they? After all, the militia was present at all the fighting after the ambassador was ambushed. The Bad Guy militia numbered several hundreds; it was not just a handful of State and CIA paramilitaries who fought back and stopped the Bad Guy militia.

 

·         Possible reason why the militia did not provide security: they were not asked to. In which case Ambassador’s visit was seriously clandestine.  But someone betrayed the visit to the Bad Guys, who ambushed Ambassador at the consulate. Who, where, why, and when? No clue. Might a faction of the US militia have gone rogue? If so, that is a big reason to throw a national security blanket over the affair. Readers know in the clandestine biz things go wrong, but the American public and Government opposition, who all think they are crack lawyers, would get into the “woulda, shoulda, coulda” thing and it would make both State and CIA look bad.

 

·         Editor thinks US militia was not involved because it took CIA time to contact the militia and get a rescue going. Had a faction of the US militia gone bad, given there were at least 60 bad guys, the main militia would have come to know and moved to counter them. BTW, it’s entirely possible there were just a handful of baddies who approached the consulate under the guise of a demonstration.

 

·         That’s all of it. Wait, you say, Editor promised to reveal something, if not all. What is this lame business of saying Ambassador’s visit was a deal gone bad? Lame it is, but that’s all that’s known to John and Jane Q. Public.

 

·         Nonetheless, there are questions one should ask. (a) Why did the Tripoli Embassy apprehend an attack to the extent they evacuated to their safe annex? Could this mean there was advance notice that something was going down but the Ambassador went to Benghazi anyway? Which only adds to the mystery of his visit.

 

·         BTW, the 4 SF personnel who were ordered to stand down? In any case they intended only to help secure the Benghazi evacuation because they could not get to Benghazi airport before 8 AM, fighting was over, evacuation was in progress. We now know they were told they were needed to secure the Embassy. So end of “scandal” about help not sent.

 

·         (b) This is a very big question. What was a Lt. Colonel doing as head of the 4-man detachment, or even of the 12-man detachment there earlier? This was due to be pulled out before the trouble, because their HQ needed them somewhere else, and you really cannot use SF assets to protect embassies. A handful were kept back, we don’t know why.

 

·         Think about this. A Lt. Colonel would command an entire SF battalion, or be someone senior on the HQ staff. Why is this man in charge of a tiny team, which at peak would have amounted to an Alpha team commanded by a captain.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT May 9, 2013

An embarrassment of riches – II

·         The inanity of India’s Ministry of External Affairs One of the peculiar things about the Indian MEA is the mental caliber of its officers is the highest of all Indian civil servants. This needs explanation. The Indian civil service is recruited by a joint exam; the service you get depends entirely on your position on the exam. It is, of course, a nationwide exam of fierce competitiveness. Something around half-a-million people a year take the exam, which is really a series of about 11 exams and a personal interview, and about 3 of 1000 make it. Used to be the first 10 on the list of 1000 went to the Foreign Service. Now with so many new countries and international organizations and what not, about 20 are chosen. That is 0.0004 or 0.00005.

 

·         It’s not the first 20, because of various reasons. One is that men and women planning to marry bureaucrats will choose the Indian Administrative Service, so that both spouses can be posted together. Another is that the foreign service no longer has the glamor of postings overseas, because Indians can now travel, visit, tour, or live in other countries pretty much as they choose. A third is many youngsters prefer the real power of the Administrative Service to the zero power of the Foreign Service. So, for example, a family that lived in the same street as Editor’s paternal family before Partition and remained close friends with us, had three daughters get into the Foreign Service but all three chose the Administrative Service

 

·         Nonetheless, you can see the Indians are far, far more selective than the Americans. Editor while living in India knew many, many foreign service folks and even he has to admit they are a very bright lot. No shortage of talent.

 

·         But something happens once these terribly bright folks pass into the maw of the Indian Foreign Service. They are made into hacks. Conformity with what the senior-most officers impose is absolute; else you can forget your career. Short of extreme moral turpitude you cannot be fired from the Indian bureaucracy, the idea is to prevent political interference in the civil service. Nonetheless, your service bosses and political bosses have ways of making you miserable. Creative thinking comes to an end.

 

·         Further, the IFS doesn’t really answer to the minister, who generally knows so little about his own bureaucracy and the world that he is briefed by his bureaucrats and does as they want. Theoretically the FM answers to the Prime Minister, but with one exception Indian PM’s have been entirely clueless about foreign policy. The exception was Jawaharlal Nehru, and he mucked up foreign policy so badly the country has yet to recover.

 

·         The IFS operates on two principles: (a) take no risk; (b) give no information to the proles because they are too stupid to understand the IFS’s fine reasoning. The proles are the public, but also include the rest of the government, the military, the intelligence services, and the political bosses.

 

·         With this background, all readers need to know that is that the IFS has had but a single policy toward China, deeply reinforced by the Indian defeat of 1962. This is Lick Chinese Boots. Do not get the Chinese mad at us. Cringe before being asked to cringe. Why? Because the IFS, like the rest of India, is frightened to death of the Chinese.

 

·         Now you know this, the rest is easy. The IFS will go to any extent to avoid confrontation with China. Because no one else has the sophistication and insider knowledge the IFS has, and certainly not the armed forces, the IFS manipulates the political leadership even when the military wants to stand its ground. In all fairness to the IFS, most of the time the Indian military really, really, really does not want to aggravate the Chinese either. It’s not just the Ifs and the politicals are cowards, it’s the whole darn country including the military.

 

·         So, all that happened is this. We’ve discussed how the Chinese have been pushing India back from the Line of Actual Control is complete violation of the political agreements they have signed. The only ones who seem to be surprised that the Chinese are the biggest liars on the planet is the Government of India and its agencies. Starting in the late 2000s and into today, the Indian Army at least decided it had had enough and decided to stand its ground. Truthfully, its been a terribly pathetic standing of ground, because not only is the Army mentally a weak reed, but everytime the politicals are needed to show some spine, they force the Army to back off. So most of the senior officers have the attitude: why get into hassles with the Chinese to begin with? This also suits the Indian temperament: live and let live, even if the other guy has his boot on your neck and his jaw clamped firmly around your ankle.

 

·         As part of the Army Get Tough policy, the army built observation bunkers on its side of the LAC in the Demchok (SE Ladakh) sector. because of the terrain, which is flat, India can quite easily use armor to cut the Aksai Chin highway between Sinkiang and Lhasa. Chinese got paranoid, demanded India withdraw. India said no. So the Chinese intruded where India was the weakest, near the Karakoram Pass. Army wanted to throw out the Chinese; the last few army chiefs have not been spineless. Ministry for Foreign Affairs persuaded the government that it was Foreign Affairs job to sort this out, and there was no options to negotiations or war would result. Instant piddle puddle in the political leadership. Army was told to demolish the bunkers. Chinese promised they will withdraw from their intrusion in the north. As usual, they haven’t actually promised anything or written anything down – heck, they wont even tell the Indians what exactly is their claim line, allowing them to intrude everywhere, anytime, as they chose.

 

·         Ministry for Foreign Affairs, lying like a rabid rat as usual, said no deal had been reached. Indeed, had it not been for the press, none of this would even be known to the public, including the intrusion. And the only reason the press got to know this time is the Army, fed up to its teeth, leaked information to the press.

 

·         India’s political establishment and government and intellectuals and so on are very relieved. Heck, even most of the Army is very relieved. The press is being blamed for its jingoism and immaturity that could have led to war.

 

·         The point is, where does Indian stop running? Its been running for half-a-century. The only certainity is the Chinese will press again, harder. As an irate letter writer to an Indian newspaper demanded: Where do we draw the line? When the Chinese come down to the plains? When they take over Central India? When they rule South India?

 

Wednesday 0230 May 8, 2013

An embarrassment of riches - I

·         One of the nice things about calling two different countries home is that you have twice the opportunity to make fun of their governments. With the US Congressional hearings coinciding with the Indian fiasco on the Ladakh Line of Actual Control, Editor is overwhelmed with targets.

 

·         Since most of our readers are Americans, let’s take the Congress first and India tomorrow. A US diplomat has become a military expert to the extent clearly his next job must be head of the Joint Chief of Staff at the Pentagon. He has shyly let on that he thinks a jet fighter or two flown over Benghazi might have saved one of the two lives lost in the fight near the CIA annex. He, and his paternally encouraging “questioners”, who are proud as ducks whose egg has hatched to reveal a chicken, were told – and he has said this – that there was no way jet fighters could be scrambled because (a) tanker support was not available; and (b) more important, the US is not in the habit of throwing military assets into action without a reasonable idea of what was going on.

 

·         So that should put an end to the fighters buzzing Benghazi story, but apparently not. BTW, this hero in pinstripes acknowledges that US would need permission to enter Libya airspace, and does not see it as a problem. Neither do we. But how long would it have taken to get permission, in the middle of the night? It would not have been so magically easy as pinstripes thinks. And he should know – he’s a bureaucrat. Question: how do you stop an American diplomat from doing something incredibly stupid? Answer: you tell him he’s got lint on his butt. He’ll never locate that part of his anatomy.

 

·         Why does this gentleman think a jet or two buzzing Benghazi would have caused the rebels to break off, thus ending the action, thus saving the life of the US paramilitary on a roof who was struck by a mortar shell? Because, you see, the bad guys would have known what US airpower could do and would have run with fear. Amazing. We wonder if yon bonny dip knows that the US Air Force does not come down to the deck to buzz hostile positions to scare off people on the ground, in imitation of Tom Cruise’s buzzing his carrier in the movie Top Gun – had there been aircraft available. If he doesn’t, may we suggest he first learn how US air power is deployed in combat and then pontificate?

 

·         Our heroic dipstick also looked outraged as he explained to the proud committee, who looked on with the same approval you or I do when the neighbor’s pet rabbit has hopped in to make a poopy on your priceless Persian rug – or perhaps the committee members were constipated and unable to make their morning poopies and were dyspeptic rather than approving? Anyway, we were saying this hero, who apparently has bigger testicles than SF soldiers – as attested by an officer, presumably he measured using accurate calipers – was horrified when a Special Forces team was refused permission to get on to a C-130 and fly to Benghazi. Oh the coverup! Oh the lies the Administration told! Get out the impeachment hearings, the tar and the feathers – or should, in the case of this committee, be the white hoods and the rope?

 

·         How many folks were on the SF team? Four. They were to catch the C-130 for a 6AM take-off, on their own initiative. Gee Golly Grandma’s Green Galoshes. Who knew that every US SF soldier is actually Rambo in disguise and capable of non-stop heroic deeds? Has our dipstick figured that the C-130, if departing at 6AM, would have reach Benghazi at around 8AM, by which time the fighting was done? Has he information not shared with us that the CIA wanted reinforcements and asked for them? Did he have a secret plan to get the four men from the airport to the CIA annex, keeping in mind the US paramilitary  team from Tripoli and their militia got held up at Benghazi airport for several hours while negotiating passage to the CIA annex? Would he have offered to commit hara kiri if the team had taken his suggestion and ended up getting shot the hundreds of crazed militia in Benghazi? Would the committee members have signed their last wills and testaments and jumped from their mattresses to a certain death, crying “Goodbye, cruel world?” Obviously not, everyone would have been blaming the Administration for recklessly risking more American lives, crying “Impeach him! Impeach him!”

 

·         Here is the incredibly boring reality. The ambassador was where he should not have gone and had the very minimum of security. This is not because Mrs. Clinton denied him security, it is because the ambassador on his own decided he had business in Benghazi more important than proper security. The CIA did come to the diplomatic teams rescue, even though the ambassador and another state officer were dead by then. Remember the CIA team also had difficulty getting to the consulate nearby because of the militia. Reinforcements to the number – we think – of five DID arrive. The CIA and State paramilitaries DID win the fight. Two men were lost. So what is it the Congressional committee is now saying? That the government is negligent because two men got killed?

 

·         Now look, people. There is no dispute that the Administration first said the consulate attack was done by people aggrieved over some inane film made by some equally inane person. But does it occur to anyone the administration said this because that was what it was told? How does it follow that the Administration lied to protect Obama’s relection? Who thinks Obama would have gotten one vote less if he’d said it was a terror attack? In fact, he well could have gotten MORE votes – the horror, the horror – because Americans are so mindlessly patriotic they would have started singing “Take me out to the ball-game” and done their patriotic duty by getting further into debt. That’s showing those miserable jihadis!

 

·         The real question is: when Administration found out better, why did it not simply apologize and say “we spoke earlier on information we had, now we know better”? They seem to be hiding something. But it isn’t what media seems to think.

 

·         We have our own questions. Why did the ambassador come to Benghazi when other missions were hightailing it out because trouble was expected? Why did he come with just two guards considering the consulate had just three American guards? What aircraft did he fly in on, and where did this aircraft go after dropping him off at Benghazi? If he intended to spend the night in Benghazi – a stupid idea – where did he plan to do so? Who betrayed him? What were the four SF men doing in Tripoli? And, quite important, where was the C-130 going? Was it the one that was to evacuate the Americans from Benghazi? Oh, also, was it a Libya Air Force C-130 or a US aircraft?

Tuesday 0230 GMT May 7, 2013

·         Just like that the Sino-Indian crisis has ended Both sides have withdrawn their troops. But as the Chief Minister of Jammu& Kashmir state sarcastically asks, since India was on its territory well west of the Chinese claim line, where has it withdrawn to? Shouldn’t this crisis have been resolved by the Chinese withdrawing their troops?

 

·         A brief flashback. When the Chinese attacked India in 1962, in Ladakh they advanced to their claim line and stopped, virtuously telling the world that they had only taken what was theirs, and as such they had not committed aggression. Back in the day, China and India were competing for leadership of the Third World, the so-called non-aligned block, and the one thing the “non-aligned” countries were wary of is aggression. So it was important for the Chinese to put up a farcical explanation, which the Third world did not buy. Someone better acquainted with the history will have to detail what exactly happened re. the non-aligned world, but as far as we recall, the feeling was that China should have negotiated without first jumping into India and then attacking when India tried to get them to stop.

 

·         When the Chinese finished thrashing India in 1962, they gave India an order: you are not to approach within 20-miles of our border. The border being the Line of Actual Control. So for decades a wimped and terrified India did just that – stayed away. That did not mean intrepid patrols on the ground did not enter that China-defined buffer, or even cross the LAC, but this kind of aggressiveness dies down, and the Indians certainly did not build any permanent structures or outposts within the 20-mile buffer.

 

·         Now, when China began futzing around in the first decade of the 21st Century, making hundreds of intrusions a year, India decided to hang tough. It started patrolling up to the LAC and in some cases built bunkers on its side of the LAC. The Chinese have been loudly demanding that these be removed, which India obviously did not, whereupon the Chinese destroyed a few of the bunkers when they were left unoccupied for the long winter and before India got back. These particular bunkers are in the southeast Ladakh sector, and the Chinese helicoptered in and out in style. None of that grubby trekking on foot for the new, modern, advanced Chinese Army (we are being mordant here). The Chinese have also been demanding that the Advanced Landing grounds it reactivated toward the end of the first decade of the 21st Century be shut down again. But India did not pull back from the positions it had set up.

 

·         So: can it be a coinky-dinky that the Chinese now intrude into an area where India’s line of communications are probably the most non-existent, i.e., in the Daulet Beg Oldi sector, making retaliation the most difficult option for India? Is it also a coinky-dinky that the Chinese do this just before India’s foreign minister is due in Beijing and the Chinese premier in Delhi?

 

·         Unlikely. The Ministry for External Affairs is putting out “we hinted we might cancel our visit to Beijing and the Chinese backed down.” Rolling On The Floor Laughing Our Butts Off With Snot Running From Our Ears. It is far more probable that the Chinese put the forthcoming diplomatic exchanges on the table, knowing the Indians would cave first. And cave the Indians did. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-to-give-up-Chumar-post-for-Chinese-withdrawal/articleshow/19921512.cms

 

·         All throughout this nonsense in Daulet Beg Oldi, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has been saying there is no crisis, the issue will be resolved by negotiations. The Indian Foreign Ministry took up this theme. Now negotiations, as far as we know, and we do not know much being from Iowa, means I give up something and you give up something. The idea of a unilateral Chinese withdrawal and a complete Indian victory can be tossed into the garbage.

 

·         The Ministry of External Affairs thinks that these are still the days of the British Raj, when happenings on India’s frontiers were decided by a handful of men with no reference to the Indians. You can see this was so, India was a colony of the British. The old habits of secrecy have carried over to the modern MEA. Indians have been kept in the dark by the MEA from beginning to end. The only information given has been done by a highly irate Army that – reasonably – thinks this intrusion and others are military matters and MEA should keep its Big Fat Nose out of things. Well, the MEA got its Big Fat Nose shortened by the Chinese Dragon, but since everything is secret, it is going around pretending it has won.

 

·         The military services in India have very little say in security matters. The military doesn’t even control the border forces, which serve as the first line of defense. The Home Ministry controls them. For sixty years the Government of India has steadily cut the prestige and heft of the armed forces in national security decisionmaking. And we’re going to tell you something heretical: large segments of the Army will at this moment, be breathing sighs of relief that we do not, after all, have to take on the Chinese in a full-mobilization and crossing of the LAC. If you talk to the Army, they will say “we’re not ready”.

 

Monday 0230 GMT May 6, 2013

The Ladakh situation: Chinese forces

·         Last Friday we detailed Indian deployments in Ladakh, current and planned. On China’s side the situation is quite simple. The Lanzhou Military Region has two army corps, one of which has been reduced to three independent brigades. The Xinjiang Military District has an unusually large number of independent formations, giving the MR 1 armored, 3 motorized or mechanized, and 1 infantry division, plus seven infantry, mechanized or motorized, and armored brigades.

 

·         There is no particular reason why today these seven division equivalents cannot be deployed against India in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Personally, we have doubts about the efficiency of these troops, who have spent decades in (relatively) comfortable garrisons, have no experience in mountain warfare, and except a few senior generals have never heard a shot fired in battle. But none of this matters, because China does not intend to fight India in the high mountains as in 1962.

 

·         Primarily it counts on Indian political cowardice to forestall any aggressive action on India’s part. But should that fail, the Chinese plan to let India comes down from their mountains to the plains of the plateau, and crush them there using light and medium armor. Not a bad strategy given they lose very little if they lose their high altitude outposts, because their mountain positions are shallow.

 

·         To reiterate, in Ladakh we had postulated that soon there will be the equivalent of two infantry divisions and an armored brigade. It may appear on the surface of it that India is outnumbered three-to-one and in a very bad situation. At least the political types and Ministry of External Affairs, who are always holding out olive branches to the Chinese, would like Indians to believe that. Impressing on the nation its weakness reduces domestic pressure to take a hard line, and lets people believe “well, we have no choice but to compromise”. Naturally, Indians who cannot remember what happened yesterday and have zero interest in tomorrow, don’t ask why after 50-years and after the creation of the world’s largest mountain warfare force this should be so. No one who operates in a western frame of logic can explain anything India and Indians do.

 

·         In reality there is no 3-1 superiority for China because if we are talking of the Xinjiang theater, India can, without difficulty, reinforce Ladakh-Himachal-Uttarkhand with additional divisions to quickly bring itself up to parity in the theatre.

 

·         To problem is, what then? China is not about to launch a full-scale attack on India. The Chinese are arrogant and run their mouths like sewing machines, but they are not fools. They will get nowhere with an attack because their troops will have to dismount and slog it out in the mountains, where they will be at tremendous disadvantage. India is not about to attack China because of the lack of political will.

 

·         But, readers will object, aren’t you forgetting the highly unfavorable Indian logistical situation. So we can push additional divisions into the Ladakh-Himachal-Uttarakhand sectors, but how are we going to support an offensive? The days are gone when an Indian mountain division needed just 200-tons of supplies a day. Back in those days a Chinese division got by with 50 or less because their divisions had little artillery (in the mountains) and few vehicles. Ah yes, simpler times – Editor gets quite nostalgic. Now the division artillery alone would need 200-tons/day in the attack. Moreover, how is India going to get artillery and vehicles to the mountain passes and across down to the Tibet plateau when roads are lacking?

 

·         And what about an even greater problem: India has almost no east-west interconnectivity because of the mountains. Every sector has deployments like the open fingers of a hand, each finger proceeding up a steep, narrow valley, but the fingers cannot switch forces between them. For the Chinese that is no problem because they are on the plateau and have an excellent east-west main trunk road, plus other roads.

 

Sunday 0230 GMT May 5, 2013

An email discussion with a friend re. the latest on Benghazi

·         Thanks for the Fox Benghazi article. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/04/benghazi-names-whistleblower-witnesses-revealed/ This is the first we hear of requests for beefed security at Benghazi. I am still unclear whom the additional security was supposed to protect as the consulate does not seem to have been staffed except for five US/local guards. I considered that the staff might be living off campus and have gone home before the attack, but have to rule that out because given the security situation in the city the staff would have been housed at the consulate.

 

·         It would be useful to know if the consulate was still functioning - I aver not because no other personnel but the guards have been mentioned. If so, the lack of additional security for Benghazi was irrelevant. It may be that additional security was being requested to reopen the consulate, which again would have no bearing on the Stevens matter.

 

 

·         Unfortunately I no longer have contacts with the State Department. I think it is important to know why the ambassador arrived with just 2 security guards when other missions were hightailing it out of Benghazi. I also no longer have any CIA contacts, it’s also important to know what exactly the CIA was up to and how many folks they had there.

 

·         How did Stevens get betrayed? Clearly someone told the militia in question he was at the consulate with almost no protection.

 

 

·         Let’s see if the Wednesday hearing clear up some of these mysteries, though I am not hopeful. I see the GOP committee members have kept lips zipped, which means heavy secrecy has been imposed. GOP are not the ones to give Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama a pass. You already know about the speculation he was on the job to acquire or to transfer Libyan arms to Syria. Though I have problems with this scenario because why would State be involved when the CIA is there in full rig. I also must reject the thesis Stevens was there on some romantic matter: there is simply no evidence of this. If he arrived to extract someone he cared for and was killed, why wouldn’t State simply say that and add he was there on his own initiative.

 

·         The names of the ‘whistleblowers’ that Fox has learned are clearly from the lawyer, Tosening.  I had mentioned she is a well-known Washington lawyer but now someone tells me she is involved with the Republicans; no details provided and in case I do not understand the workings of this town. That she has gone on the attack suggests that her client/s too do not have clean hands and she is trying to influence the public before the administration puts its case forward.

 

 

 

 

Friday 0230 GMT May 3, 2013

The Daulet Beg Oldi area

If you use the information below in blog posts or articles/papers, kindly credit Mandeep Bajwa and Ravi Rikhye.

 

·         For those who like to know these things, the entire East Ladakh Line of Actual Control with China is under 3 Infantry Division at Leh. The division was hastily raised in 1962, and took over two brigades. One brigade, 114, was raised in 1959 when the East Ladakh crisis first erupted, with two battalions of locally raised troops, the Jammu & Kashmir Militia. Later, two regular army battalions were inducted. 70 Brigade arrived as a reinforcement after the war began. Later, 163 Brigade was pulled from the Pakistan border and given to 3 Division as division reserve. Still later, 121 (Independent ) Infantry Brigade was raised at Kargil, and put under the division’s command. At some point after 1963, the East Ladakh LAC was bifurcated between 22 Sector north of the Changchemo River, with 114 Brigade at Chushul and 70 Brigade at the southern end of the line at Demchok. 22 Sector has at least two subsectors, with Sub Sector North being responsible for DBO possibly down to the Galwan River.

 

·         Strictly speaking, our intrepid South Asia correspondent Mandeep Bajwa should be telling you all this, as he knows much more about the independent Indian Army’s history that the Editor. The above is to Editor’s best recollection, but likely he’s made errors as he was always more concerned with orbats than history. Still is. But Mandeep is mad at Editor for some reason (he won’t explain why) and refuses to answer emails and chat requests.  Please twitter him @MandeepBajwa and tell him to get with the program.

 

 

·         Okay. In 1971 163 Brigade was withdrawn to Foxtrot Sector in the Punjab for the forthcoming Pakistan War, and it was not replaced because it was appraised there was no longer a China threat. In 1984, 102 (Independent) Brigade was raised at Thoise for the Siachin sector facing Pakistan, and 121 Brigade went under the newly raised 28 Division at Nimu. 102 Brigade was put under 3 Division.

 

·         In 1999, on account of the Kargil War, 70 Brigade went to 8 Division, a formation brought in for the Kashmir Counter Insurgency from Eastern Command and stationed in Kashmir. 28 Division,  minus 121 Brigade, went to Kupwara in the Kashmir Valley for the CI. So when the Kargil thing blew up, for operational reasons it was decided not to shift 28 Division back; instead 8 Division took over. Editor believes that 114 Brigade was also withdrawn for a time, leaving the China front denuded of regular troops. Anyway, 114 Brigade came back, and now, 14 years after leaving Demchok, 70 Brigade has come up. So you can see how seriously India was taking Chinese incursions. I.e., not at all seriously.

 

·         To show how urgently India reacted to the threats in the decade 2001-2010, after opening DBO airfield not a single An-32 flight took place. Sub Sector North continued to be protected by outposts of the Indo Tibet Border Police, a high-altitude mountain warfare force raised after 1962 for patrolling the China border with Ladakh, Himachal, and Utter Pradesh. After the 1962 War, a new locally recruited force was raised, the Ladakh Scouts.  These used to operate in companies, but after their steller performance in 1999 Kargil, they were given the status of a regular regiment and have, Editor thinks, six battalions. Sub Sector North is protected by 5 Ladakh Scouts, but till the other day this was not forward deployed. The rest of 22 Sector consists, as far as we know, by an infantry battalion, a Ladakh Scouts battalion, and a heavy mortar battery (12 x 120mm mortars), now for some peculiar reason called a heavy mortar regiment.

 

·         After the Operation Trident fuss in 1986-87, India stationed a tank regiment and a mechanized battalion at Leh, under 3 Division; these became part of Corps troops when XIV Corps (Leh) was raised after the Kargil War. After the 2000s Chinese intrusions, India decided to sanction an armored brigade for Ladakh, which is now being raised, slowly. A T-90 tank regiment has gone to Leh and presumably it, plus the mechanized battalion, will form the nucleus of the new independent armored brigade, which will be under HQ XIV Corps as far as we know. India also okayed the raising of an infantry independent brigade group for the middle part of the Ladakh LAC with China. Something is happening, but we don’t know what since Mandeep is unavailable. Our assumption is that this will be based around Changchemo.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT May 2, 2013

·         Aaaargh! Not Benghazi again Unfortunately yes. The partisan media refuses to let this story go, and to the extent nothing they have said so far makes sense from a military viewpoint, we have to continue with the story. There is an interesting new development, though it might mean nothing.

 

·         By now we think – or rather, we hope – that the business of State department refusing to beef up Libya security has been resolved. First, it is established that generally cables sent from Washington to overseas missions are automatically signed in the name of the Secretary of State. So whatever those cries of triumph claiming to have found a memo signed CLINTON were about – we’ve lost track of what this was about – the discovery is meaningless. Second, requests for Libya mission security concerned the Tripoli embassy, not Benghazi, so any complaints that security was not increased at Benghazi are also meaningless.

 

·         The media has let at least one other thing go, at least mainly. This is the drone question. There was a lot of hooha about the drones were in the area fotographing everything but no one fored a missile. Most people other than hard-core squirrels now accept the UAV on station in the region was unarmed, it was on its way out, and its replacement also was not armed. Besides this point, we’d like to inform folks that even if you have an armed UAV in the area for whatever reason, you don’t send it to fire missiles during a night gunfight without the most careful reconnaissance, targeting, and communication with the ground. One simple reason is that UAV armament like the Hellfire missile is designed to bust tanks, and you don’t want to shred your people to pieces along with the bad guys.

 

·         Then there was a theory that F-18s could have been sent from Italy. This is not much mentioned these days, we hope because folks have realized that you don’t lay in air support across the Mediterranean with 15-minutes’ notice. Like UAV strikes, tactical air takes a lot of planning, reconnaissance, communication, air-refueling, rescue helicopters and do on. Also, you don’t want to drop 250-pound or 500-pound bombs unless your side is separated from the bad guys’ side, else 1 or 2 of these things basically off anyone within a given radius.

 

·         Then there was a theory that airborne troops could have been dropped. Well, all we can say is that if anyone believed it then, it takes time to gather the troops, make sure they are properly equipped and rigged and briefed, and you also have to have exact knowledge where you’re going to drop the men. An unplanned night drop in hostile territory is not something that makes any service thrilled and delighted. As with fighters, you also have to make sure no one is going to fire shoulder-fired SAMs at you. People see too many action movies and read too many thrillers. Real Life for the military is excruciatingly complicated. Even the simplest things are hard.

 

·         The latest theory is that a small force which is at the disposal of the theater commander for real emergencies was available. Some TV media has found a person on the team who says they were on an exercise north of the Mediterranean and might have made it to the scene in time to help with the second fight that took place, between the baddies and the CIA/Diplomatic Security Service near the CIA annex. Let’s assume this person is genuine, not a self-promoter that has interpolated himself into a promising media story.

 

·         Again, we have to repeat the obvious. Having troops available and organizing a rescue are two different things. We don’t know why we have to keep saying this. What if the rescuers had gotten into trouble? Then the partisans would be screaming for blood, asking “why was this sloppily planned rescue allowed to get underway?”

 

·         But that isn’t our real point. Our real point is: so some troops were available. Aaaaaannnnnnd?

 

·         Did the CIA ask for help? More important, did it NEED help? Did the people on the ground need to be rescued? Not really. They won their fight. They lost two men. Casualties happen. Surely no one is arguing that those two lives could have been saved if a rescue mission was sent? Maybe those two lives could have been saved, but just as maybe, without proper planning the rescue team might itself have needed rescue. Mogadishu 1993, anyone?

 

·         Further, the rescue team arrives at Benghazi airport and then what? Remember the Triploi team arrived fairly quickly. Now it turns out they had to hijack a private airplane and force the pilot to fly to Benghazi. They paid him $30,000 – guess these diplomatic Service Security and CIA chaps just walk around with wads of Benjamins. Nonetheless, supposing something had gone wrong there. “US troops hijack civilian plane at gunpoint, force pilot to fly them to Benghazi”. Nice story, no? Would you like to be the government spokesperson explaining that to the media? Be that as it may, this part of the story will make Tom Clancy fans happy, because this is just the kind of stuff Clancy’s heroes do.

 

·         Okay, so the Tripoli team arrived quickly, but lost hours as they negotiated vehicles to take them to the scene. Same thing happened with the CIA team that went to the ambassador’s rescue. They had to wait until the friendly militia turned up and arranged gun trucks required to take on the bad guys. So would the rescue team from Italy or wherever the exercise was taking place have even arrived on time to give help that was not needed? Question to ask: was the team anywhere near an airplane? We’re just asking, we have no idea. Being on an exercise, as far as we are concerned, is that the gentleman are hoofing around some rough terrain; requiring team to respond to a recall. If someone has information, do let us know.

 

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT May 1, 2013

·         In case you’re wondering what’s happening about the Chinese intrusion 19-km into Indian territory, the news you’ve been hearing is all wrong. There is no intrusion. There is no crisis. Nothing to see here, move on.

 

·         But what about the headlines and the photographs of Chinese troops and so on? Not a problem. They’re not in Indian territory. Not in India’s territory, you ask? Then what the heck is going on?

 

·         Very simple. India has capitulated without a shot. The foreign ministry has said there is no intrusion. The army has been told that it is not to provoke the Chinese under any circumstances. See? No crisis, no intrusion. Alice’s Red Queen the Government of India have much in common. If the Red Queen said black was white and white was purple, that was it. That’s what it was, and off with your head if you contradicted the Queen of Hearts, another BFF of Alice. So in this case reality is what the Government of India says it is. (Do we have the queens mixed up? There were two, one each in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.)

 

 

·         It is impossible for us to do anything about the Chinese intrusion because, you see, India doesn’t have a road link with Daulet Beg Oldi, which is almost at the Karakoram Pass. If you look at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/China_India_western_border_88.jpg you can see China’s roads in Indian Ladakh, but you won’t see anything leading to DBO except a mule track.

 

·         It’s not as if India cannot build a road to DBO. After all, it has built a road along the western Shyok River to past Sasoma (it shows as a track on the map likely because the map is old), and this is not exactly Shangri-La.  The only way to get to Murgo, which is south of DBO, is by a 16-day mule journey. And at that the track is inaccessible for at least half the year because of snow and extreme cold, going down to minus 30-Centigrade. Once at Murgo there is presumably no way to get by land to DBO. You can see a schematic map at  http://www.indianexpress.com/news/45-yrs-after-china-conflict-delhi-to-build-roads-linking--ladakh-outposts--------/31463/0 Possibly there are manpackable trails, but it makes more sense to use helicopters or An-32s to get into DBO. In 2009 India finished upgrading the long abandoned airfield there, and from fotos we have seen it’s a solid job though at least as of 2009 the runway was packed gravel, not cement or asphalt.

 

·         Okay. So in 2001 the Government of India decides a road has to be built to DBO, because the entire line of outposts in Northeastern Ladakh is without road access. In 2007, the Government announces the road (along with many others) will be built by 2012 on top priority. This is after the Chinese began seriously needling India all along their common border.  Well, here it is, 2013 and we believe the road has yet to be begun. India fail.

 

·         China, on the other hand, has a nice road along the Chip Chap River leading almost to DBO. Of course the terrain is smoother on their side. But the point is the Chinese occupation of Indian Ladakh was complete by 1959, and the China war took place three years later. So you’d think by now India would have built roads. Nah. India has only in 2007 started to build roads needed to reach forward outposts. Please don’t ask why, just accept this is India Shining: can’t wipe its bum even if someone is holding a loaded gun at its head.

 

·         Now, this business about not being able to do anything because there’s no road is just a huge excuse. For one thing, nothing stops India from making an equal intrusion into China-held territory at a location where India’s logistics are easier. For another, if the Indians put their backs into it, using helicopters and aircraft they can built up their positions by mid-summer and toss the Chinese out. If the Chinese escalate, counter-escalate to using airpower. If they Chinese want a war, give it to them.

 

·         At which point “sane” folks in India will ask if Editor is mad. We’re not ready for war with China, they’ll say. It will be like 1962, when we weren’t ready but the politicians told the Army to attack anyway. By the way, it then took India three years to station one brigade in Ladakh and three in what was called the North East Frontier Agency, now called Arunachal Pradesh. When the Chinese attacked, India within weeks sent the equivalent of a division into Ladakh and two into NEFA. Go figure.

 

·         Okay, so just when are we going to be ready? 2062? 2112? 2162? Before the sun goes red giant? Before the stars go out? Before the atoms come unglued? In the universe’s next incarnation? Not then? Okay, how about will India be ready in an infinite number of years? After all, that’s a safe bet: infinity never arrives. And India will never be ready.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT April 30, 2013

 

·         From Eugene Edwards You admit that austerity during a recession/depression is only going to make things worse – if the Europeans have not learned from the Great Depression that also affected them, it is their problem. Yet for the US you want austerity at a time our economy is shaky and the U6 unemployment rate is high because, you say, we never seem to pay down the deficit in times good or bad, so we may as well start now. But if we never seem to start paying the deficit down, with the exception of three Clinton years, how precisely do you propose we start now? On top of this, you want big cuts in spending, but happily note that a small cut imposed by sequestration is having an outsize negative effect on growth. So what was the point of tonight’s (April 29, 2013) rant on economics? Sometimes I suspect you know more economics than you admit to, but certainly your performance tonight shows no evidence of any sensible thought.

 

·         Editor’s response Precisely. By the way, learned a new statistic today. US household debt has fallen to the lowest in 29-years. This should be a sign the debt overhang which is bedeviling consumer spending has been seriously dented. So may be expect consumers to start spending? Hmmmm. The problem is, lots of people are out of work or working shorter hours than they want, and real growth of wages since 1980 has averaged a bit over 1% annually. So how are people to spend? Incidentally, our savings rate is falling again. It had dropped to 1% or so as the recession hit, then went up to 5%, and by 2012 was falling to 4%. In 1980 we used to save 10% of our income, about what Germany saves. These stats are from Washington Post Sunday April 28, 2013 Business section.

 

·         Also BTW, what if the genius economists are wrong, and the huge growth in per capita income we saw in 1880-1980 has come to an end? What if 1% growth actually is normal? If we recall right from the economic history books we never read in college, prior to the industrial revolution growth used be a fraction of 1%. At one-percent annual GDP growth means a doubling of per capita income every 72-years, or 8-times in 300-years. That’s still darn good compared to the real old days, but what’s going to happen when those who are not rich find out that 1% annual growth is in store for them? Just saying. You can see from www.ggdc.net/maddison/historical_statistics/horizontal-file_03-2009.xls that it took 1600 years from 1 AD for Western Europe’s per capita income to double.

 

·         More seriously, of course on a macroeconomics level you and I can do nothing. But on an individual level, there is a great deal we can do.  And that is to get out of debt PLUS save as much as you can. When things really go to the dogs, just being zero debt puts you at a huge advantage over most Americans. Yes, we know why you can’t save – everything you buy is vital and you’re sick of being poor. But here’s a story that might put matters in perspective,

 

·         About 15-years ago Editor was in the staff lounge of his Catholic school. A lady who often used to sub came in with a new coat. The other lady teachers immediately noticed and complimented her. She said: “This is the first new coat I have owned in all my life. Last month we finally paid off the mortgage, and I had promised myself years ago that when the mortgage was done, I’d buy myself a new coat. My husband doesn’t like to do more than work part time as a cashier at Giant, so I’ve had to be the breadwinner, and together we never earned more than $35,000/year in our lives – ever. I brought up six children and they all went to college.” State colleges, obviously, but you get the point. That $35,000 is about $45,000 or a bit over in today’s money, less than the median US family income.

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT April 29, 2013

·         Truthfully, Editor wanted to write again about the latest Sino-India flareup, which is making India look worse each passing day. The Chinese, aside from denying they have intruded in Indian territory, have also ordered India to dismantle bunker construction it undertook after Chinese intrusions became an epidemic. Daulat Beg Oldi is not the only place this nonsense is taking place. The Chinese have been systematically intruding across the entire Line of Actual Control with the aim of straightening it out to their advantage. Every time the Indian meep pathetically like whipped dogs, the Chinese give their standard retort: if you’d only agree to forgo your claims in Ladakh and about a hundred other points, we could demarcate the border for good. Naturally, even if India were to do this, the Chinese provocations would not stop because Beijing wants to make it clear there is only one top dog in Asia, and that dog is it. The only way China will stop is if it formally accepts China as its liege lord, and is prepared to kiss the Chinese emperor’s stinky big toe when ordered.

 

·         In response to this crisis, which is now approaching three weeks, the Government of India has sunk to a level of cowardice that amazes even the Editor. Amazes because the Editor has been sure for 40-years that the Indians can sink no lower. But this time they have managed with great ease, calm, and finesse. The Indian Prime Minister has said he does not want to escalate the crisis and plans negotiations to resolve the issue. The Indian Foreign Minister is still scheduled to fly to Beijing on May 9, and the Chinese premier is still slated to visit India on May 20.

 

·         Heaven almighty. They say even a whipped dog will at some point turn on its tormentor, but India has not yet reached that point despite every humiliation the Chinese have inflicted. Now, if Editor were to write more on the Indian Government he will end up in a frothing fury followed by the inevitable stroke. What’s happening is a complete an utter nightmare for any Indian who pretends to the least patriotism for her/his country. After many years of highly elevated blood pressure thanks to Mrs. Rikhye the Fourth’s mood swings, Editor’s heart is quite damaged. The idea of getting separated and divorced was that Mrs. R should be history, but instead she has chosen to keep returning to her favorite occupation, tormenting Editor. So the priority is to reduce blood pressure at least until his youngest has children. After that it won’t matter.

 

·         So instead Editor will today focus on a harmless topic.

 

Germany and the European Crisis

 

·         As readers know, Editor has been pressing the German Solution for America. To recap, the German Solution is to raise taxes, dramatically cut spending, and reduce debt. The results for Europe are clear: major depressions in Spain and Greece – 27% unemployment with GDP falling for five consecutive years; Cyprus on the edge of collapse; and severe recessions everywhere else – Britain is going into its third recession since the Euro financial crisis began. And everywhere except for the Eurozone strongest economies, rising instead of falling debt. In short, things are a complete mess.

 

·         Inevitably, Editor gets a stream of derisive letters from readers along the lines of “this is the solution you want for America? Thank goodness in America we have increased deficit spending instead of reducing it, and have escaped the horror the Euros are undergoing.”

 

·         Nonetheless, like the rock beside the water, Editor will not be moved. He still advocates the German solution for America. His argument is simply that we have proved incapable of cutting the deficit in good times; we cannot keep growing the deficit forever (Professor Paul Krugman disagrees, but he has tenure, he will get his paycheck regardless of what happens to America).

 

·         It would help if Americans of all economic denominations stop being ideologues and use their brains a bit. Keynes was NOT wrong, it is just that we do not follow Keynes. His prescription was exceedingly simple: in times of plenty, tax and pay down the debt. In time of scarcity, cut taxes and build up the debt. American geniuses have instead postulated that if there is a surplus, taxes are too high and must be returned to “the people”. Who in the estimation of these geniuses coincidentally happen to be the rich. Instead, our geniuses say government is the problem: drown the government in a bathtub and we won’t need to tax so heavily and that will promote growth. Well, we have started to cut government spending by a teeny-tiny bit; everyone is up in arms as the bull arrives to smash their china shop, and GDP in one quarter is already off by half-a-percent. Imagine the result if government spending was cut by, say, 25%.

 

·         On the other side the geniuses chant “Spend, spend, spend” regardless of if the economy is growing or contracting.

 

·         The sad reality is that we lack the discipline to follow Keynes. During recessions we make the excuse that this is no time to cut spending. During expansionary periods we cut taxes. What the geniuses of all ideologies are doing is driving this country into the ground.  We have to start cutting, good times or bad times, regardless.

 

·         So, you can call Editor crazy – and his readers of all economic persuasions freely do so, but the line has to be drawn sometime. Since Americans never find the time right, the line has to be drawn now.

 

·         Chances of this happening? Zero. Chances of us ending up like Greece or Cyprus? Not 100%, because we control our own currency. The European problem is that the southern countries have too expensive a Euro but they cannot devalue. Nonetheless, at some point increasing debt is going to choke us. We keep getting promises that the budget will balance in 10-years. If you believe that, Editor would like you to meet Charlie Brown, his football, and Lucy.

 

Friday 0230 GMT April 26, 2013

·         India and Chinese intrusions: oh no not again! Alas, it is all over again. The Chinese have walked 10-km into India, set up a platoon post, thus signaling they intended to stay for an unknown amount of time. In the last two years, they have intruded 478 times into Indian territory. Why do they do this? To use the inane American expression, because they can. This is all part of their “sophisticated” diplomacy that is so complex, layered, and nuance that only they can fully appreciate it. In the real world what they are doing is called aggression and thuggery.

 

·         The Chinese are intruding for two reasons. One is to underline to the Indians that for all the hot air that wafts north from the Indian plains, extolling the greatness of India, the Chinese are the lords and we pathetic Indians are the vassals. It’s simply a strategy of psychological intimidation, where the superior yellow race keeps the inferior brown race in its place – which is firmly under China’s fat, stinky foot. The second reason is the Chinese want to force India to formally recognize Beijing’s claims to Ladakh, in exchange they will recognize India’s possession of Arunachal Pradesh.

 

·         The Chinese must believe the Indians are morons, because while they have possession of their Ladakh claim, they have no possession of Arunachal Pradesh and no hope of ever gaining possession. This is like the thief in the night who occupies one room of your house, and then says he is prepared to recognize your occupation of the rest of your house, as long as you accept his right to that one room.

 

·         Now, while the Indians are the biggest cowards in the known universe, they are not morons. They have steadfastly insisted that the border can be satisfactorily demarcated – once China vacates the parts of Indian Ladakh that they seized in 1959-1962. In other words, the demarcated border will become the line of control as it existed before 1959.

 

·         Accordingly the Chinese, after decades of failing to coerce India to their terms, decided some years ago to show India that intransigence has a cost, and so you’re getting a situation where an average of 20 intrusions a month has become routine. The idea in large is intimidation, in small it is salami tactics. China plains to gain more Indian territory, which it is always willing to give back to India – providing India dances to Beijing’s tune.

 

·         Imagine if during the Cold War – or even today – the Russians established an army post 10-kilometers into Alaska. What would America’s response be? At the very least it would be to kick out the Russians, followed by strong punishment to ensure there was no repeat.

 

·         What has India’s reaction been to this new and deep intrusion? Well, we’ve sent the Indo-Tibetan Border Police to set up a counter-post 300-meters away. The purpose of this post is to watch the Chinese post. The ITBP is not police, but a very-well trained high-mountain force. The Indian Army has also sent troops from 5th Ladakh Scouts to back up the ITBP, and is considering moving up more troops. 5 Ladakh normally covers the Daulat Beg Oldi sector. This sector is at the extreme northeast of Ladakh and is known for the highest operational airfield in the world, at about 5800-meters.

 

·         Not without coincidence, India has been upgrading Ladakh air bases long abandoned since India decided there was no more threat from China. Daulat Beg Oldi is one such base. Of course, India is remilitarizing the northern border because China took us for a ride – as always with the Chinese. They sweet-talked us into demilitarizing the border, which was solely to their advantage and not ours, and then they started pushing us around. So for China to say “well, you’re building up on the border” is a bit disingenuous. The China-India border would be demilitarized today had China not decided to walk into Tibet starting 1957 or so and occupying Indian territory in the Northeast.

 

·         China’s response to this new crisis is a good-humored big-brother-speaking-kindly-to-little-brother approach. The Chinese say there is no crisis. After all, the border is undemarcated and these differences will take place. Why not demarcate the border once and for all? On our terms, of course. If China were really serious about peaceful relations with India, it would leave Indian Ladakh and agree to a 40-km DMZ between the two countries. Then intrusions wouldn’t happen. That, and not preposterous Chinese claims to Indian territory, is the solution – if China wants peace. Which of course it doesn’t.

 

·         Do the Chinese realize that if India followed China’s fantasy policy of claiming all territory to the watershed, it would have to withdraw at least 100-km back north in the Northeast? India controls the heights, the watershed is that of the Bhramaputra, which would put India within a day’s striking distance of Lhasa.

 

·         But again, our point here is not to condemn China. The strong do as they will, the weak must live as they can with the consequences. By “observing” this incursion and making vague references to Sumdorongchu 1986, India is already wimping out. There should be no discussion. Indian Army should be told to capture the Chinese outpost, a company-sized operation at most. The prisoners should be immediately handed to the Red Cross for transfer to China. No warnings, no discussion. Does anyone seriously think China will escalate when all India is doing is pushing the Chinese back across the claim line that they made up? If it escalates, the implication is it wants war. Good. Give it war, and take back Ladakh. It is a complete fantasy to think the Chinese can take on India in the north. It does not help this fantasy is perpetuated by India itself.

 

·         The way to handle a hardball player is to play hardball. Not send your foreign minister on a previously arranged visit where he will add the Depsang Valley intrusion to a list of things to be discussed.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT April 25, 2013

 

·         Benghazi, yet again (what a bore) Editor wants to clearly state he carries no brief for the Administration re. the Benghazi incident. Why this incident is back in the news we don’t know. If Administration haters want to keep something alive to embarrass the Administration, that is their constitutional right. All we are saying is, please be logical.

 

·         To recap (yes, you may give a hundred yawns here and a belch or two): if we have understood right, Administration critics make two points. (a) The Benghazi consulate was not provided adequate security despite pleas from State Department officials in Libya for more security. And (b) the Administration permitted no help to be sent once the attack began,

 

·         First, as far as we know, there was no request for additional security at Benghazi. The issue was Tripoli. So security or lack of it at Benghazi is not an issue needing discussion.

 

·         A really odd thing is that no one has told the public how many people were at the consulate, and what became of them. It is known that three US and three local guards were at the consulate, at least when Ambassador Stevens was visiting. He brought two guards with him. But we wonder  why the press has not managed to track down even a single member of the consulate to ask about the story of the attack and how they survived. Where then was the consul, the visa people, the information folks, secretaries, communication personnel and so on?   In a small consulate you do not need many folks, but you do need some.

 

·         It would seem likely that the consulate was not open to the public for business; you would not need other personnel. So what was the Ambassador doing at the consulate?

 

 

·         The official account of what Stevens was in Benghazi is to open a school and reconnect with local contacts. Did he open the school? Or did he fly in late afternoon to spend the night in Benghazi Consulate before doing the ceremonies in the morning? This would be a bit odd, considering the demands on his time and the chaos in the city. Perhaps he was meeting his contacts at the consulate? Given the dangerous situation in the city, he was not even supposed to be in Benghazi in the first place but insisted on going. He would need a meeting point in a safe place; it’s unlikely he’d wander around the city with a minimal guard

 

·         It is accepted more-or-less that Stevens was doing not just a school opening visit, but his presence had something to do Libyan arms, i.e., meeting with the local contacts.  Among the theories offered is these were arms planned for transshipment via Qatar to Syrian rebels.

 

·         The thing that baffles us is why would the ambassador be on such a mission? The business would more properly fall to the CIA, which had a substantial presence in Benghazi, certainly more than the 10 men mentioned as stationed at the CIA annex 2000-meters away. Yes, CIA does use State Department as a cover, but we have not heard of a CIA person pretending he is an ambassador.

 

·         It is further suggested that the good ambassador was on a clandestine mission, but one of the heart and not one of matters of state. Okay, good for him. But unless someone comes up with something resembling proof, what is the point of this line of reasoning?

 

·         On to security. The ambassador had his security detail, numbers unknown. It is known that additional help if needed was to be provided by the folks at the CIA annex. Please notice they were 2000-meters away. Yet it took them a couple or more hours to arrive. Nothing wrong with this, we’ve detailed it in earlier posts. The CIA folks lacked gun trucks and numbers, and until everything was sorted out with the friendly militia the US had on contract, for four or six men to rush headlong into the unknown would have been suicidal.

 

·         The blogosphere is full of ingenious comments like “this resource was available and that resource was available and it wasn’t used because Hilary did not give permission.” Quite persuasive are posts by people who have friends in the special forces community and told the posters they could have gone immediately but were never ordered to do so.

 

·         Now look, people. We’ve also covered this in detail in earlier posts. These zero warning rescue missions originating in Italy or whatever make good fiction and good movies. No military commander is going to send troops several hundred miles to stage a night rescue without very detailed information on what was happening and without detailed reconnaissance information. If people cannot accept that, we’re sorry, there’s nothing we can do.

 

 

·         The essential point, which we have already covered earlier, is that whatever was happening in Benghazi, it was within the CIA’s purview, not State or DOD. It’s not particularly clear that State/DOD even knew what the CIA was up to in Benghazi. But the CIA was in charge. Did the CIA even request help? Obvious DOD is not going to send CIA help unless requested. Let someone answer that before we even get into a discussion about rescues – which we’ve pointed out was not practical in the times involved.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT April 24, 2013

What to write about today? Editor is suffering from considerable angst, not to say exhaustion.  Ten days ago he decided enough was enough. Twenty-five years ago when Editor still looked young and moved in intellectual circles, where attractive women consider a man’s mind more important than his looks or income, there was no shortage of ladies throwing themselves at him. A couple of weeks ago Editor decided that there was no chance ladies would be chasing him, so he had best start putting more effort into chasing them. So he launched four simultaneous campaigns. The results? Judge for yourself. Lady A: Turns out to be interested in ladies herself; she is both flirty and chatty with Editor but he learns that is because she considers him a Safe Male. I.e., one who is too old to do anything except drool and pay compliments. Apparently many ladies who like ladies have no problem being friends with Safe Men. She may agree to go out for lunch, but not McDonald’s, which is what Editor can afford. Lady B: Things got to the stage that we were exchanging girlish confidences. Turns out she had to throw her husband out and divorce him because all he did is live off her, and she is quite shattered. Lady C: Going extremely well, getting along like houses on fire, true soul mates. Problem: she takes her marriage very seriously, even though the husband is quite useless, and she will never deprive her children of their father. The thing that hurts here is that Editor has to agree with her. Lady D: also going well, the only lady who instead of being 30-40 years younger than Editor is “only” 15-years older, great fun to be with. But she is taller than Editor, and this never works. Plus once she finds out what Editor is really like – work obsessed, earns nothing, spends nothing, and has to be in bed by 9PM every night, workday or not, Editor suspects she will lose interest. Why does he suspect? Because it’s happened many times before.

So, what’s there to say? Beautiful afternoon outside, low sixties, clear skies, and Spring Has Sprung as Ogden Nash used to say. Its very nice sitting in the work cubby hole and looking out at a bunch of picture-perfect houses and trees bathed in bright sunshine. Editor actually managed to stand on his lawn for a whole ten minutes before the allergies kicked in and he had race into the house for the Benadryl.  Will have to be satisfied with the perfect weather for now. Maybe Editor should give skirt chasing a break for a few years. Pick up again when he’s 75 or 80.

·         Another sequester that’s making the Republicans mad You’ve been reading about the FAA mess, and its only going to get worse as summer nears. Of course, the Dems are suffering as much, but at least they have the satisfaction of saying “We told you so!” The Republicans are saying spending has nonetheless to be cut, just not from the FAA. Well, of course. It’s always “cut from somewhere else” as if other agencies are not also doing jobs that are vital.

 

·         Mind you, as a teacher Editor would not at all object to eliminating the Department of Education. Education is clearly a state subject and the feds have no business in it. The problem is that the states have built federal money into their budgets. There are powerful constituencies within the states, regardless of political belief, who will fight tooth-and-nail to preserve this money.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT April 23, 2013

·         PRC continues to expand and consolidate control over South China Sea By the time the South China littoral nations get things together, China will have de facto control of the entire sea. It’s furthest southern claim extends to 80-km off Malaysia’s coast, if you can believe that. This article details what’s happening there. Basically, any waters more than 20-km off the entire Vietnam coast, almost all of the Brunei coast, and the entire Philippines western coast is claimed by China based on “historical documents”. Titter. We all know how historical documents purporting to go back centuries work out. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/22/us-asean-southchinasea-insight-idUSBRE93L16V20130422

 

·         So what comes next – a claim to Russian Siberia?

 

·         BTW, imagine the fun and games if the Euros started claiming each other’s territory based on historical documents. Poland’s maximum claim based on territory once controlled will likely make it the largest European nation west of Russia.

 

·         India, at various times, has controlled all South Asia as far west as Afghanistan. Maybe its time for the Indians to start getting out their historical documents. What about the Mexicans? They need to get out their documents too. Weren’t there just half a dozen countries in South America at the time of Bolivar? Lots of claims there too. Not to forget Italy: all the way east to Iran, west to England, Egypt, the Mediterranean, France, southern Germany and so on. And there’s the British too: Canada, a chunk of America, Australia, South Africa, India (then South Asia) plus all sorts of other place like Nigeria, Ghana, East Africa, Egypt, Malaya, Australia/New Zealand and so on.

 

·         We could have a lot of fun using historical documents.

 

·         But  of course, while it’s easy to make fun of how fatuous the Chinese are, best to remember the old adage: possession is ten tenths of the law. Not so long ago, the US controlled the China Seas. These days it has ceded all that to China, just as no doubt it will cede the First Island Chain and then the Second Island Chain. US won’t have to cede the west coast to China, or Canada have to cede its west coast, because soon the Chinese will own everything there. And you know the respect we Americans have for private property.

 

·         No terribly funny, but nonetheless mildly ironic. There have been complaints that President Obama cut back on Homeland Security spending for contingencies like the Boston bombers. We don’t know if that is true, but assume it is true. Then they have been complaints about how the FDA is inadequately monitoring compounding pharmacies.  Well, there you have an example of people calling for greater government in our lives. The irony is these are Republican types, who want less government. Until the bull destroys their china shop.

 

·         The sad reality is that Americans of all political persuasions live large on the Government’s largesse, which is to say your money and mine. Presumably your money, as Editor doesn’t have any. He paid the feds $203 in income tax for 2012, and Maryland State refunded the entire $411 he paid as state taxes. This entire debate about cutting government spending is phony. We said the other day that for FY 2014, if you take out entitlements, defense, VA, and interest, the rest of the federal government spends just $350-billion. To balance the budget, leave alone paying down the debt, you have to take a blunt axe to entitlements and defense. Republicans benefit from these as much as democrats. Any republican or democrat voting to cut entitlements is going to find herself/himself out of a job next election.

 

 

·         Talking about ancestry reader Eric Cox reminds us of our simian ancestors. Okay, if there’s something to be gained from claiming descent from monkeys, Editor is all for it. Before the monkeys there were all sorts of other ancestors, going back to the original molecules that were quickened into life and even further back to the birth of the universe when stuff like carbon and hydrogen were created. You want ancestors, we got ancestors for us.

Monday 0230 GMT April 22, 2013

·         America The Silly So this gentleman and his girlfriend have a baby. As is hardly uncommon today, he refuses to marry the mother. She asks for child support, in lieu of which she wants him to give up his paternal rights. Naturally he gives up his paternal rights. The baby is adopted by a family who has been bringing her up. Should be end of story, no?

 

·         Alas, this is America so nothing is ever simple. The man petitioned to get his daughter back though he had given up rights; more important, by refusing to support her, he had given up his moral rights. But an agreement is an agreement, you say. Ha ha. Not in America, my innocent, naïve readers. The man says the baby is of Indian ancestry, and invokes some statute that forbids the adoption of American Indian babies under some set of circumstances. Probably was a very good idea in 1880 or whenever the law was passed. But not such a good idea in 2013.

 

·         Why? Because this baby is 3/256th American Indian. How does that make her American Indian? But logic has no place in the US of A. Editor is now set to claim he is of English, German, Italian, Jewish, and Afro-American ancestry, plus Russian, Italian, French, and so on. How can he do this?

 

·         Well, the Mama of us all was a South African woman (from time to time this theory is disputed). Since we are talking 80,000-200,000 years ago, we can take it she was black. Thus Editor is black. According to the African Eve theory, blacks crossed over into Europe at one point; they evolved into Caucasians, of whom some went west and some went east. Editor is descended from the Caucasians who went east, so he can claim any white country in his ancestry. Since some of the original migrants settled the Middle East, Editor is also Jewish. Editor is told it would cost about $20,000 in DNA testing to establish all these various claims.

 

·         Oh yes, Editor is not just Indian, he also has American Indian blood. Rather, to state it more correct, American Indians and he share the same blood. How come? Because the lot that went east from the Caucuses eventually crossed over into North America. Now Editor has to research what benefit he can get from being 1/4096th American Indian.

 

·         Boston bomber and Miranda Media has been making the point that the federales do not care if a court says they cannot use evidence given by the bomber because he wasn’t given his Miranda warning. They apparently have more than enough evidence not to need anything from him. The only reason they want to question him is because he is suspected of being part of a 12-person sleeper cell, or at least his brother was. All this may be a moot point. A Senate intelligence committee member and the Boston mayor say they have been told bomber was shot in the throat and may never talk. 

 

Sunday 0230 GMT April 21, 2013

A brief comment on the Boston bomber and his Miranda rights

·         Once the authorities deliberately and most pointedly announced they were not Mirandaizing the surviving bomber, it was inevitable that the ACLU would object. Now, to be clear, Editor is an admirer of ACLU; this country was created on the basis of human rights principles, and it is good there are people out there constantly exhorting us to live up to our ideals.

 

·         At the same time, ACLU cannot possible know that the threat has ended. If it has not, then the authorities have a right to conduct interrogations without the presence of lawyers because there is an ongoing threat. True that the Boston police said they’re done. But as others have pointed out, the federales may well have information they have not shared with the local authorities. There are oddities to this case, like the three young men taken away for questioning – no information on what is happening there. Quite peculiarly, two Russian-speaking men in their 20s snuck into the apartment of the three men; when confronted they said the Boston Globe had sent them.

 

·         Meanwhile, the great Alan Dershowitz has spoken, most emphatically. He says the suspect is a US citizen, and it is irrelevant if a terror investigation is ongoing. Junior has to be given his Miranda rights and that means a lawyer if he asks.

 

·         Much of the rest of the world will be watching this debate with their usual wondering if the crazies are the terrorists or are they the Americans. After all, this is the same country whose army disciplined a battalion commander in Iraq for firing four shots next to a suspect’s head to scare him into talking. The battalion CO had information suggesting IEDs had been buried ahead. Without the information on their location, he could have lost men. The danger was immediate. But the US Army in its great wisdom this officer had tortured the man; the officer was disciplined. This is also the country that instead of shooting out-of-uniform fighters operating from amidst civilians, arrests them and tortures them by incarcerating them indefinitely at Guantanamo. This is the same country that admits to waterboarding many suspects, including the 9/11 organizer who was waterboarding a couple of hundred times, but executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American soldiers. So and so forth: we’re not taking sides here, we’re just trying to explain that much of the world thinks Americans are batty and this Miranda debate is just another manifestation.

 

·         But we blame neither the ACLU or Mr. Dershowitz. The latter, we are told, is from Harvard, and must be forgiven many sins because graduates of that august institution are so brilliant they are actually quite dumb. We blame the US government, which 12 years after 9/11 has still not thought out the legal doctrine by which it is waging the global war on terror. For example, the US Government has not declared war and suspended the judicial process for enemy combatants who happen to be US citizens. Just to add to the inconsistencies and general absurdity, the US permits American citizens to maintain dual nationality and allows US-Israeli nationals to fight for Israel. We wonder what Americans would think if one or more such persons were captured by anti-Israel fighters who then proceed to deny them POW rights and waterboard them as enemy combatants. Just saying. Personally, as Editor has said many times, when he sees Israelis mistreating Arabs his 3rd World indignation rises, but once the shooting starts the Editor is all for the Israelis – that’s his American side.

 

·         This country has become quite intellectually feeble and pathetic. That we are having a Miranda discussion about an Islamic terrorist who just happens to have been bought here as a child and thus acquired American nationality shows how pathetic we have become. Of course, asking the government to enunciate a clear policy on the issue is asking too much of our brain-dead government.

 

Friday 0230 GMT April 19, 2013

·         North Korea Reader Louis Maull wonders if the real danger posed by DPRK is to South Korea and not to Japan or the US. He specifically asks about the DPRK artillery threat to Seoul.

 

·         Yes, at this stage DPRK is no threat to Japan or to forward US West Pacific bases. It is supposed to have 2500-km range missiles. These have been never tested, so no one really knows their range. Meantime, what is known from DPRK missiles sold to Pakistan, is that the workmanship is exceptionally poor, and there is no assurance that if a missile is fired it will go anywhere. But, of course, no one wants to count on the worksmanship being pathetic forever. The point to be discussed is what DPRK would gain from attacking Japan or Guam with missiles. US has defense treaties with Japan and is obliged to defend that country against attack. Guam is US territory, so an attack on Guam is an attack on the US.

 

·         We do realize of late Washington has been giving the High Chicken Five on DPRK. You know the old joke in a new context: how many gears do US tanks have? One, a reverse gear. But honestly, we do not see how Washington could get away with a limp hand wave if Japan or Guam were attacked. It would be reasonable to assume the response would be robust and quite severely disadvantageous to DPRK. Anything akin to a proportionate response, which Washington has “threatened” – feel free to think Austin Powers quotes -  would lead to the wrath of the American public. And if the US did not thoroughly avenge Japan, the next thing you will have – in six months – is a Japanese N-weapons. No, really, we are not kidding.  

 

·         Of course, one can say the Norks are mad dogs and are capable of any irrationality. More the reason, then, that a response will have to be total, a final solution if you will. That will likely be the end of the problem.

 

·         Now, as for the Seoul scenario, which sees DPRK firing 10,000 shells a minute into the capital, one really has to say: “Whoa! Hold the horses!” Including the width of the DMZ, Seoul is 60-km from the northern edge of the DMZ. Obviously DPRK is not going to line up its artillery one centimeter from the edge. We know people have been talking of 60-km ranges for the DPRK 170mm gun, and 100-km ranges for its 240mm launchers, in the first case using Rocket Assisted Projectiles, in the second, an improved rocket. It’s also been pointed out that there are cities closer to the DMZ than Seoul and that the northern suburbs of the capital are within range.

 

·         All we can say, with utmost politeness is these are games amateurs play. Yes, it was a ROK Army officerwho came up with the 10,000 rounds a minute theory. But just because a person is from the army does not make him immune to silly statements. Tube artillery can be quietly ruled out because of range issues. We suppose if DPRK has a healthy supply of 240mm long-range rockets it could cause some damage to Seoul. The reality of military life is that economics interferes with theory. How many reloads does DPRK have of its long range rockets, assuming they do indeed have the range to hit Seoul? Two? Five? Ten? If you fire them all at Seoul, what’s left for the inevitable war that follows? Even the US with more money than Croesus is very careful with its MRLS rockets.

 

·         There are other problems. Like it or not, heightened military preparedness cannot be done overnight. Any attack staged with 240mm launchers already in place will be quite limited. Reinforcement is quickly apparent via a number of signal intercept  and other methods. We are not suggesting Seoul will be evacuated ahead of an attack. This may not be practical. We are suggesting, however, that the US/ROK will be ready if any DPRK reinforcement takes places. With US/ROK counter-battery and air attack capabilities, Editor for one would not want to be sitting to the north of DMZ banging away round after round. These days it has be shoot-and-scoot before the inevitable counter-battery response arrives. This further limits damage to ROK cities.

 

·         Agreed Seoul is densely populated. So is the Gaza Strip. Editor, at least, is perpetually amazed at how much firepower the Israelis use in their periodic spats with the Palestinians. They fly hundreds and thousands of sorties, and we doubt there is even one dead per sortie. Of course, you will correctly say the Israelis are not targeting civilians. But the Palestinians hide their military assets among the civil population, and bombs – even small ones like 500-pounders – cause far more damage than tactical rockets.

 

·         Some have mentioned the chemical/bioweapons threat to Seoul. Fair enough, but both US and ROK will respond with full retaliation. Others have noted that DPRK is supposed to have put its artillery in caves and built concrete defenses and so on, and this will limit US/ROK retaliation. Not really. These days counter-battery fire can be launched even before the first enemy shells land. Just firing a gun or rocket gives away the location. We dare say there is not much going to be left of caves and such after tactical airpower and strategic bombers have worked their way through.

 

·         Truthfully, we feel a bit awkward making these refutations because we are falling into the amateur trap ourselves. The real question is, what does DPRK hope to get out of attacking Seoul? The funny thing about threats is they are most potent when not activated. Once a threat is activated, the receiving side very quickly achieves perfect clarity of mind. An attack on Seoul will be followed by a full-scale US air offensive lasting eight weeks if not more. It may well be followed by an all-out ground offensive to seize a deep buffer. China can do very little if DPRK attacks first, because the long-term US/ROK retaliation will come under the UN umbrella. What is China supposed to do then? Show the world that it supports a mad aggressor? We don’t think China wants to be in that position.

 

·         So DPRK is better off just threatening. It has quite successfully managed to frighten the Chief One Chicken Feathers who lead this country. One would think that a country who says it is planning a nuclear attack on the US would already have met with the severest response. Instead we’re offering more talks, to which DPRK cheekily says the talks will have to be on its terms. But this game that DPRK so far is winning will come to an abrupt end if DPRK actually attacks. Neither the leadership, nor the party, nor the top generals will survive the aftermath. We think that’s a good enough reason to keep fighting with words.

Thursday April 18, 2013

·         Chinese PLA is not world’s largest For years we have been saying the People’s Liberation Army is not the world’s largest. That position is held by the Indian Army. But without fail, the media as well as trade sources would put the PLA first. We cannot blame folks for not heeding us because just a very people read the blog, even fewer read our annual Concise (now Complete) World Armies. Even those who do will come up against the US Defense Intelligence Agency’s annual report to Congress on Chinese military power, which steadfastly insists that the PLA has 1.25-million personnel.

 

·         Since India does not publish the manpower strength of its army, for years people have been stuck on a strength of a million, plus/minus 100,000 depending on the source. Well, the million mark was crossed years ago. The correct figure – which we have never been able to find out, by the way, is close to 1.3-million authorized strength. The PLA at 850,000 has a strength reached by the Indian Army more than 40 years ago.

 

·         Naturally readers will ask: Could China be understating its strength so as not to appear threatening? Perhaps. If so, however, why would China claim an air force with larger manpower than the USAF? The figures are 400,000 PLAAF and 330,000 USAF. Even though Chinese airborne troops are under the air force, personally we think the PLAAF figure is overstated but that is another discussion. Further, China claims what is easily the second largest naval manpower in the world.

 

·         The PLA now calls its armies Combined Corps, which is, of course, what they have been for decades: the Chinese army was the western corps and in most cases much smaller. It may seem that 850,000 personnel for 18 corps is way too small. India had just six corps when its manpower was 850,000. But many PLA corps are the size of a reinforced Indian division because PLA has been removing the division echelon and adopting the European corps-brigade structure.

 

·         Ever since we had to stop paying our World Armies correspondents, we’ve been out of touch with the PLA, but we are under the impression that the brigade structure has not in some cases worked out well, there being too many units under the brigade’s span of control. So there has been a slowing in the disbandment of divisions; nonetheless, PLA divisions tend to be smaller than their Indian standard counterparts.

 

·         Still, in recent years the PLA has been a theatre force, with armies generally operating within their military regions. This did not mean armies from one military region could not operate in another, but until the last few years formations from one part of China did not deploy to any part of China, as is the case with the Indian Army. This meant fewer support troops, and in any case PLA formations have a smaller logistical tail than Indian formations. Nothing wrong with that because the PLA was primarily an infantry force with few vehicles. In the late 1970s, for example, Chinese divisions depending on their type had one-sixth to one-fourth as many vehicles as did Indian divisions. So overall, the PLA could operate with significantly fewer support troops than the Indian Army. Though the PLA is transforming into an all-theatre force, the number of armies and divisions has been drastically cut, so 850,000 personnel suffice for 18 corps.

 

·         The real question is why the US Defense Intelligence Agency has for years been overstating the PLA’s manpower. All we can say at this point is that the DIA has an excellent grasp on the PLA’s order of battle and the odds are high this exaggeration was on purpose. Well, now it’s clear that DIA will have to accept that the Indian Army is soon going to be a full 50% larger than the PLA.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT April 17, 2013

We should have explained yesterday that we rarely discuss individual acts of terror anywhere in the world unless the military is involved in some significant way.

Curmudgeon Alert

The Seekers versus the Bleepers, the Adonmans, and the Gaggers

·         Yesterday for some reason Editor remembered a spiritual from over a half-century ago, “My lord, what a morning”. Went on Wikipedia, found a quite different version sung by the Seekers, whom Editor last heard 45+ years ago. One thing led to another, and there were all the Seekers’ hits from an era long gone on U-Tube: one lady, dressed with utmost modesty in dresses that covered everything, and three gentlemen in suits, white shirts, and black ties. No Great Wall of 100,000 violins, no mixers with more buttons, toggles, and gauges than Starship Enterprise, no hint of obscenity in the words, just plain, clean-cut, innocent – and dare we even say – sweet music.

 

·         A bit of background for younger readers: the Seekers were an Australian folk group who became popular in the 1960s, but their musical ethos is from an earlier era. We hate to say 1950s, because though the words are as clean as that decade’s songs, the music is much more traditional and with a most un-1950s delivery. We are all stuck in our young years, and as far as Editor is concerned, America 1950s and India 1950s was as close to perfection as you get. With that declamation, you should be able to better understand the rant below.

 

·         What passes for entertainment today is delivered by the like of the Bleeper, the Adonman, and the Gagger. Bleeper has been in the news because a thought actually made it across his tiny brain – unfortunately. Bleeper opined that he thought Anne Frank was fantastic, and he thought she would have been a fan of his. At which point no doubt many people aside from Editor had the thought that it is such a pity we can’t go back in time and give Bleeper to the Nazis in exchange for Anne Frank. She would have grown up and had a normal life, and our Earth would been free of the Scourge of the Bleeper.

 

·         Adonman has been in the news because she though the treatment she received on her last visit to Malwai was insufficiently royal. Why Adonman thinks a woman who is old enough to be a grandmother and who loves channeling the Whore of Babylon deserves any sort of treatment except a quick rejection of her visa application is beyond Editor’s understanding. Occurs to us we have been dreadfully unfair to the Whore of Babylon: that lady and her sisters had infinitely more class than Adonman.

 

·         Now we come to the Gagger. Oddly, we find it hard to condemn her. For one thing she’s just a kid performing in a difficult world and Editor finds it difficult to be harsh on kids. You will say but the Bleeper is even more of a kid than the Gagger. True. But the Gagger’s shtick is a complete put on in an era where to get ANY media attention you have to be topless and be sodomized by Lucifer’s Goat on stage in front of 50,000 people, while Putin watches approvingly. She’s actually quite a sweet kid. Bleeper is plain evil in a Bride of Chucky sort of way. But class and Gagger’s acts cannot be found in the same universe, even in an infinite universe.

 

·         You shall reap as you sow, as it says in the US Constitution. Or is that the Bible? Some days Editor is so right wing he gets the two mixed up. As any spiritual guru can tell you, base thoughts, base experiences, base friends degrade a human being. Good thoughts, good experiences, and good friends elevate a human being. It’s up to us as individuals to choose our own path and if you think the Bleepers, Adonmans, and Gaggers are the cockroaches leg hairs, Editor is not going to judgement….Cough cough cough gag wheeze gasp cant breathe cough cough…

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT April 16, 2013

·         Venezuela Sometimes a thing happens that causes Editor, who is a crabby, cynical, dyspeptic old vulture, to raise a surprised eyebrow, or at least to think he should raise an eyebrow. So it was when the Venezuela resulted rolled in: Maduro, anointed heir of Hugo himself, obtained 50.7% of the vote, which is so slim a margin that naturally the opposition has called for a recount.

 

·         Maduro, who had no agenda of his own except noting he was the heir, was expected to win by double-digits. Editor had previously even opined that Capriles, the opposition candidate, would probably be happy to lose because a Maduro victory would have seen the country experience another five years of precipitous decline. That would have given Capriles an excellent chance of victory. In 2016 will still be in his forties, so time is on his side.

 

·         Look at how amazing the wafer thin margin is. Hugo was obviously incapable of ruling since December; using outright lies that he was recovering and making decisions, the Chavistas managed to postpone an election to decide his successor for several months. Maduro ruled as interim president during the election campaign, which is illegal under the constitution, but the Hugo packed supreme court obviously backed Maduro. The Army announced it was for the interim president, as clear a threat as anyone needs. The private media has been silenced by Hugo; on the all-present public media the government got all the hours it wanted, Capriles was given four-minutes a day. And so on. Despite all the advantages, when Maduro won by 250,000 votes, naturally one wonders what is going on.

 

·         A reader writes to reprimand Editor for his continued use of inventive such as morons, idiots, imbeciles, and poltroons directed at the American government. These are ad hominum attacks , says our reader, and exposes us to ridicule and weakens our case.

 

·         Hmmmmm. “Ad hominum” means “against the man”, and we don’t call individuals names. In many cases, if we can, even when we are being sarcastic toward an individual, we leave out names. In a recent case we had no choice but to use Ashley Judd’s name because she had gone public using a bunch of facts that were simply made up. Next, not that it makes our reader feel better, we have worse things to say about Indian politicians. For example, have we ever called the American government “castrated rabbits”? Last, may it be that the American government, politicians, media, oligarchs and so continue to get away with their cowardice and greed is precisely because we the people are too polite to them? And now our reader has us wondering why, on Korea, Editor has NOT called the US Government castrated rabbits. We’ll remedy that in the next commentary on the yellow bellies.

 

·         Long live Maryland, long live Virginia A reader alerted us to a Maryland bill, just passed, that taxes a property owner for the rain that falls on her/his property. We had to tell the reader that in the People’s Republic Of Takoma Park, where Editor resides, we have had this tax for many years. From 1997 its been called a fee, as if being robbed by a person who politely thanks you makes one feel one has performed a civic duty rather than been a victim. Takoma Park, of course, says that the fee is to maintain the storm water drains and to help keep our rivers and the Chesapeake Bay pollution free. The city officials would laugh merrily if we suggested this is a rainfall tax. But the point Editor wants to make is that rain falls over most of the world. It’s called a natural phenomenon. To have adequate water run off drainage is part of a city’s functions. We get taxed plenty for the privilege of living in Takoma Park and we should not have to pay a separate fee. Editor pays about $3500 in county taxes, and as much again specifically for living in Takoma Park.

 

·         What’s next? A fee for the streetsweeper that comes through a few times a year? Extra payment for the police cars that come at least four times a day to keep an eye on the neighborhood? A fee for providing new sidewalks so that pedestrians are safer? A special air pollution fee for belching outside the house? Whoopsies! We shouldn’t have said the last. Hopefully no one in Takoma Park reads the blog. BTW, the fee has doubled from $24 to $48 in sixteen years.

 

·         As for Virginia. Virginia, from this year on, has stopped mailing tax refund checks to save $200,000. The refund will be deposited directly in your bank, or a debit card will be sent to you, presumably to people who do not have a bank account. Good move, we said approvingly. Government of Virginia is looking out for its taxpayers.

 

·         Then we learned the catch. To use the debit card costs $2.50 each time you withdraw money. To enquire about anything to do with the card costs $1 each time. Is it unreasonable to assume that each debit card user will pay an average of at least $10 in fees? Well, 300,000 folks have asked for the debit card, again, presumably because they don’t have bank accounts. If they did, why not get a direct deposit, use the banks debit card, and be spared all these fees? The program is managed by Xerox. You are asking “Xerox? Since when does that company handle debit cards?” Dunno. Apparently they do. So Xerox will get $3-million in revenues, at least. Will they share some of that money to the State of Virginia? Are you kidding? Get real, dear reader. Xerox will pay some miniscule tax – if it ends up paying any tax at all - for this new business.

 

Monday 0230 April 15, 2013

Is there anyone with an IQ of 51 in the national security establishment?

 

·         To clarify, back in the days before political correctness took over, IQ 51 was the lower limit of the moron spectrum. Below that came imbeciles and idiots. A reader sent us the scale, saying in effect “you throw the words morons, imbeciles, and idiots around in the wrong sequence; for example, you use ‘idiot’ as a  mild reproof whereas idiots have the lowest possible IQs” etc. etc. We won’t bore you with the details, but thank you, Dear Reader, it’s always good to be exact especially in the terminology of abuse and inventive.

 

·         Concerning the DPRK imbroglio, Editor would be satisfied if there was just one moron in the national security establishment; he would not mind if the rest of the folks were sub-51. Because even a moron can see the complete utter mess we’re making of the DPRK.

 

·         To recapitulate. When DPRK tested its missile in contravention of UN Security Council Resolution Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah, the world barring China announced tougher sanctions. Subsequently, Baby Powder Butt, aka Kim III, Supreme Pobah of the Democratic People Republic of Korea – talk about three oxymorons in one name, started making blood curdling threats of how he was gonna nuke the US and wipe ROK off the face of the earth and other ridiculous claims each more absurd than the last.

 

·         US responded by hanging tough. It said it was prepared to defend South Korea however necessary. While the B-2s, B-1s, and F-22s flown over the south were part of annual exercises, US made a point of publicizing the show of force. US announced it was moving a THAAD platoon to Guam; again this was long planned but when you underline these things in the midst of a crisis, you are sending a message. US decided to add 14 more ground-based missile interceptors to its arsenal. It closed up two Aegis destroyers to the Korean coast; again, at least one destroyer was part of the exercise.   US repeatedly announced that it was not going to succumb to DPRK blackmail; if DPRK wanted talks, the starting point would be for the country to adhere to agreements limiting its N-weapon and missile programs and to stop screaming a new threat.

 

·         This sounds impressive, till you realize this is the minimum the US should be doing. Moreover, US was not interested in the explanations being generated out of thin air by the specialists, such as Baby Butt was trying to strengthen his position vis-à-vis his generals who were not happy he was wavering from DPRK’s Army First program so on and so forth until the cows come home, are sent to the glue factory, and the glue disintegrates. Nor should the US have been interested, because you don’t settle your internal problems by threating to nuke the US. Scholars more knowledgeable than us will know better, but we don’t think anyone has threatened N-war against the US since the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the US certainly did not react to that crisis by providing pseudo psychoanalyses of how Khrushchev’s hemorrhoids were making him irritable. US prepared for war.

 

·         Fast forward to this past week. For no reason at all that can be discerened, the US has been vigorously backtracking. It said oh well those Aegis ships were moved without Washington’s orders, proving only that Washington is full not just of idiots, but of poltroons. It said it would react proportionally to DPRK’s provocations, giving Butt Face the go ahead to choose his provocation. It talked to China to intercede – incentive for China? US will reconsider its ABM defenses in Asia, and then the people in Washington say they are patriots. How dare they start making filthy trades with an enemy because they do not have the guts to face down pathetic DPRK? And as if PRC is going to keep its side of the deal.

 

·         But on Sunday came the worst news of all: US is prepared to talk to DPRK.

 

·         The end. US has caved in 100%. We have lost the confrontation with a state whose military power we can effectively defeat in 48-hours.

 

·         Now look, folks. Editor’s main aim in life these days is to (a) get a date; and to (b) keep his blood pressure down. Does he care that the once great Eagle has now been replaced by a Chicken? He would have cared before this new policy. Its your country, folks. You do as you want. Editor is only visiting. Sure, this time around at 23-years it’s a long visit, but, you know, if things get too unbearable, Editor has the option of going back to his home country. Where will you all go if you don’t want the national symbol to be a chicken – a rather scrawny and moth eaten chicken at that.

 

·         When the US bolted from Somalia after losing 19 soldiers in Mogadishu, and before that bolted from Lebanon after the Marine Barracks bombing caused ten time more dead, US set in a motion a chain of events. It showed the Islamic fanatics that it could not take losses, that it was weak, effete, and frightened. Our readers can decide on the consequences of those two defeats.

 

Friday 0230 GMT April 12, 2013

·         Cyprus so we thought there would be nothing more to say about Cyprus until the country crashed out of the Euro. Okay, so we were wrong. There is more news about Cyprus. http://tinyurl.com/d33cu5d For starters, EU has forced Cyprus to sell of 75% of its gold reserves – surreptitiously.  So it’s only E400-million, but why did this have to be done in the dark? Next, the cost of the Cyprus bailout has mysteriously increased from E17-billion to E23-billion; no explanation given. And Cyprus must come up with the difference itself – on top of the E6-billion it had to put up as its share of the E17-billion. So now Cyprus has to put up one euro for every euro it gets from the EU. Interesting bail out.

 

·         The Cyprus economy is expected to contract by 13% this year. At least that is the current estimate. Greece now has 27% unemployment, for young people its 56%. And the financial media still calls this a “recession”. GDP has been falling for five years. We say this is depression, and looking to be a long one at that. But then what do we know, being from Iowa. At least we Iowans know to tell the backend of a hog from the frontend. That’s more than financial media seems to know.

 

·         Might also be worth noting that Cyprus went down because of its exposure to Greek debt. When Greek debt was written off, Cyprus took an irrecoverable hit. So Greece gets bailed out, Cyprus is dropped in the cesspool? Makes perfect sense. In some alternate universe.

 

·         US 2014 Budget Cue the cute fairies with their magic dust. We learn from the Washington Post (Page A9, April 11, 2013) That the proposed budget has $3.03-trillion of revenue and $3.78-trillion of spending. Thus a deficit of $750-billion.

 

·         Interestingly, one the revenue side, $1.031-trillion comes from Social Security and other payroll taxes. But on the spending side, health, Medicare, income security, and Social Security, take up $2.3-trillion. There’s your deficit right there, plus a bit of half-a-trillion out of other revenues. Also interestingly, add defense to the social spending, plus interest, and the entire rest of the government costs us $500-billion. Of which $150-billion is for the VA. So basically the feds are running the government for $350-billion, or less than 10% of the budget.

 

·         Draw your own conclusions.

 

·         Federal work force The same page of the WashPo tell us, apropos the feds getting paid more than the private sector: 55% of federal employees are in high-paid occupations like doctors, lawyers, and scientists, vs 34% for the private sector. The private sector has 45% of employees in lowest paid occupations like janitors, laborers, cooks; the feds have only 26%. Feds out do the private sector in advanced degrees, 22% to 10%; and also in those who have attended college, 81% versus 60% in the private sector.

 

·         So clearly, yes, the federal work force is going to cost more than the private, per capita. Should we not want it that way? Should the feds be shedding highly trained professionals for burger flippers on a 1-to-1 basis? You decide.

 

·         Last, a rant about public school girls and their mode of dress We say “girls” and not “young women” for the simple reason most females in school are less than 18-years of age, and adulthood in the US is defined at 18 (still not old enough to drink, of course, but this is the Nanny State Supreme, we already know that).

 

·         Okay, so last week it was 45F outside, yesterday it was 90F. Understandably, the school kids, boys and girls, are dressing more lightly than they were for the winter. For the boys this means – in some cases – shorts, and in rarer cases, singlets. Editor cannot say he gets thrilled and delighted when his boys turn up in singlets. Seems a short-sleeve shirt would be polite. Anyway, our complaint was about the girls.

 

·         -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

·         That para has been left blank on purpose, because a discussion of what a third of the girls are wearing is not suited to a family blog. Let us just say that for anything close to exposure the one-third is providing, you’d have to go to the beach.

 

·         Now, Editor is not a prude. If the lady teachers dressed this way, Editor would be very happy. Well, let’s qualify that. If lady teachers of a certain age and build dressed this way. Some teachers have been coming as scantily dressed as the girls, and in some cases its back to Joseph Conrad all over again (”The horror! The horror!”). But there is something fundamentally wrong with our society that we accept, in public school, 9th through 12th Grade girls dressing like they forgot their clothes after donning their underwear.  Not to make too fine a distinction, its plain sick.

 

·         Its like the senator and sociologist Daniel Moynihan used to say. America is getting so sick that what used to be considered perverse is now normal – and then some.

Thursday 0230 GMT April 11, 2013

·         Indian Army A long time ago, 51 years to be precise, the Indian Army was ordered to expand from 10 divisions to 25. This was consequent on the 1962 Sino-Indian War, which ended badly for India. The thinking was that India needed ten mountain and one high-plateau infantry (Ladakh) divisions, and that since Pakistan would react to the Indian raisings, four more divisions should be added. All 15 divisions were raised by 1966, within four years. Many of the new divisions even took part in the 1965 War with Pakistan.

 

·         Now fast-forward to about 2008. Thanks to non-stop aggressiveness on China’s part, the Army asked for 7 to 11 new divisions. In seven years, four will have been raised (2010-2017). The speed with which new formations can be raised depends on the existing base. So if India could expand by 250% in four years, readers may be entitled to wonder why seven years are required for a 12% increase in divisions.

 

·         One reason is clearly no one in India, least of all the government, feels any sense of urgency. After all, if you can take 30-years to plan to order new medium artillery guns – no one said anything about placing an order or bringing them into service – then clearly we cannot use the term “snail’s pace” without insulting snails. A garden snail, we are told, can cover 55-yards an hour www.snail-world.com/Snail-Facts.html So a hypothetical snail going at it 24/7, would cover 14,000-km+ in 30 years, which is quite respectable, if you think about it.

 

·         As we have discussed in earlier posts, two of the divisions, already raised, have gone to reinforce the northeast border with China, and the two planned with be an offensive reserve. Given the increasing mobility of Chinese ground forces, even as they lose large numbers of men, and given that for Tibet China is no longer the end of the world, because roads, airfields, and rail lines have been constructed in abundance, the additional divisions are needed. China operates on a plateau, and is easily able to move its forces west-east thanks to new roads and railroads. India’s side of the border is very rugged, with a large number of rivers flowing north-south. So there are steep, narrow valleys that prevent lateral movement. India, therefore, has to deploy considerable manpower.

 

·         But in this new enthusiasm for the China front, India is exhibiting the same ADHD for which the US is famous. Since we are using psychological terms, ADHD now covers hyperactivity without paying attention and not paying attention even as you sit in one place (the old ADD). Realistically, ADHD applies to the US, because the Americans rush around madly without remembering why they are rushing in the first place. The Indians are more like the cute French bathroom drawing where you have a cute kid sitting on the po, with the caption “Sometimes I sit and thinks, sometimes I just sits”.

 

·         What the Indians are forgetting is they have a large infantry army deployed against Pakistan. This force is obviously not terrible mobile, which makes it of limited utility in a short war – which is Indian strategic doctrine. Why? No one has ever been able to explain. There are mumbles about “oh, within a week the superpowers and UN will step in to stop the fighting”. Never occurs to the Indians ask what sort of power do they think they are if the superpowers and UN can force us to ceasefire. Puts us on par with Lesotho. Or are we insulting Lesotho? Pretty pathetic.

 

·         But going by Indian doctrine, for any decisive result in a short period the entire plains deployment against Pakistan has to be mechanized, just as Warsaw Pact and NATO forces on the Central Front were fully mechanized. Consider. From south of Rajouri in SW Kashmir to the Arabia Sea India deploys 12 divisions on the line and nine in a “strike reserve”. The number of armored divisions is precisely three – one for each of the strike corps. So clearly India is still fighting the North African campaign of seventy years ago. This is pointless from another viewpoint, aside from the self-limitation of a short war. Soft infantry cannot operate in an NBC environment; when Pakistan becomes a real N-power – as opposed to the mostly fake N-power it is today, sending infantry divisions into Pakistan will be suicide.

 

·         In fact, if we were more cynical, we’d think India is talking itself out of taking on Pakistan at all, except in the mountains. Now, of course mechanized divisions cost a lot more than infantry divisions.  With Russian tanks at $6-to-8 million, BMPs at $2-million or more, and SP artillery from $3-to-4 million, it takes a lot of money to equip 18 infantry divisions. Though of course if India mechanized, you wouldn’t need 21 divisions against Pakistan in the plains, but lets not complicate this debate. Additionally, ALL vehicles operating in an NBC environment of high-speed warfare need to be mechanized, so for each division you’re buying at least 3000 tracked carriers for reconnaissance, signals, medical, military police, supply, engineers and so on.

 

·         So: not cheap as we said. But India has a $2-trillion GDP. It spends very little on defense for a country with such long and uniformly hostile land borders, not to forget a rising naval rival power that will soon threaten India’s sea frontiers. India will have to impose discipline on its other spending to free up money for defense, preferably it would embrace sensible economic policies allowing an 85+ annual growth as well, so that the country can have guns AND butter.

 

·         Now, the Indian peace lobby – which we respect for their sincerity, BTW – will say but why do we have to be a military power in the first place? Truthfully, we don’t. We can create trip-wire forces for the frontiers, backed by tactical N-weapons. NATO did that at one time, in the 1950s and into the 1960s. It didn’t work out so well for reasons we can discuss if someone wants. But it can be done. It s also possible, by giving up some of our territory as claimed by China and Pakistan, to bring about a diplomatic solution. Just as long as people are aware of the costs.

 

Wednesday 0230 April 10, 2013

·         Mr. Putin and the German Topless Protest The only way we can give an explanation for this protest is that the people involved – numbering three we are told – wanted publicity. If so, they got it. There can be no other reason for young persons to go topless to protest against a male, and especially Mr. Putin, who though sixty, prides himself on his virility.

 

·         The various fotos of Mr. Putin leering speak for themselves. But in case someone misunderstood his stares, attributing them to dyspepsia or something, there’s Mr. Putin’s own words to the effect off he liked the protest. Adding male chauvinist insult to injury, he loudly announced he did not even note the hair color of the protesters.

 

·         Now, please don’t misunderstand Editor. He fully supports feminism, in that beaten down, pathetic way us men get when women glare at us and say “you will support feminism or else…”. The “or else” is always left unspecified, which only adds to the terror your average male feels when confronted by feminists. At the same time, aren’t those who speak for feminism supposed to condemn this German kind of behavior which gives feminism a bad name? After all, is it the purpose of feminism to give people like Mr. Putin a free show. Unless something has changed while we weren’t paying attention, we don’t think so.

 

·         Editor would love to protest topless. Except he is liable to be arrested for frightening women, children, and squirrels.

 

·         Speaking of feminism, our own Mr. Obama created a furor the other day when he praised California’s attorney general as the smartest etc. and best-looking attorney general in the country. A bit of background. Ms. Kamal Harris is indeed the best looking attorney general – from a male perspective, at least; Mr. Obama has often called men he is praising “good looking”, and he and Ms. Harris are good friends.

 

·         Uproar. Women denouncing Mr. Obama for diminishing them. It’s okay for him to say men are good looking, but it’s not okay to say this about a woman given the eternities they have been marginalized and treated as sex objects. Okay, so are the women saying they are such weak reeds they need special treatment? Unless something changed while we were not looking, we thought this was the post-feminist era? Where women are the equals of men in every way and don’t have to act like men to prove it? Where it is perfectly okay for a woman to draw attention to her looks without in any way diminishing her own self-esteem when it comes to talent and capability? Do women think good looking men do not play on their looks and sexuality to get ahead? So what exactly is the problem if women do it? Or it’s okay for them to do it but the men should not mention their looks?

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT April 9, 2013

·         Color us Green – for Envy. You’ve likely heard about the Azzam, at 180-meters the largest super yacht in the world. The German shipyard building this 14,000-ton, $600-million ultra-rich man’s toy has launched the boat. It has 94,000-shp engines capable of 30-knots, which is fast. By contrast, the CG-47 Ticonderoga missile cruisers have 80,000-shp engines and a top speed of 33-knots. As yet no further details are available, not even the owner’s name. He is supposed to be a Saudi. http://tinyurl.com/d7v2spd

 

·         After reading this news, just as he sat down to do the daily update, Editor has been unable to focus on work. He cannot afford even a bathtub yacht, and even if he could, he couldn’t afford to fill the bathtub every time he wanted to play with it. You have no idea how expensive the water from Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission is, because you pay not just for the water, but also for its disposal. The best part is that water for the garden also carries the water disposal fee. You hafta love America – this not nickel-and-diming people to death, this is $20-and-$50-dollaring them to death. Anyhows.

 

·         In a just world, we all would have $600-million yachts. Big surprise: the world is not just.

 

·         Cyprus we have three people who occasionally write in on economic matters, two ask their names to be withheld. One of the ‘name-withheld-by-request’ told us that our dismay that the Euro has been saved thanks to the Cyprus bailout is misplaced. The euro, he says, has been fundamentally undercut and therefore weakened. We now have a 2-class Euro because a Cyprus Euro is worth less than a European Euro.

 

·         How come? Because Cyprus has imposed “temporary” capital controls. These controls are likely to remain for a long time – Iceland still has controls since its 2008 economic meltdown, even though its economy has mended. If the controls are lifted, Cyprus Euros will flow out of the island, collapsing the economy even more than it is already on pace to collapse. Since you can withdraw only a small amount of Euros every day and there is a severe limit on what you can take out of Cyprus, the Cyprus Euro is by default a second-rate currency. And the precedent set of confiscating deposits and imposing capital controls will sit badly: the moment a country’s economy starts looking vulnerable, money will gush out, destroying that country’s financial system and therefore its economy. So, says our friend, have patience. The beginning of the end has begun.

 

·         China and North Korea By now it is obvious to everyone except a bunch of Washington la-la-landers that China is not going to control DPRK by economic threats; and even the LLL’s would agree military threats are out of the question.

 

·         One thing that amazes us is the vast number of people who have bought China’s sly excuse that instability/collapse in DPRK will lead to a flood of refugees. Really? How? How are these hordes or refugees supposed to cross the Yalu and get into China in the first place? How are they supposed to stay undetected in a country where every citizen and his place of residence is tagged? The few that get past PRC river patrols and guards on the north side of the river will simply be rounded up and sent back.

 

·         But there is a more important question. Why would ANY refugees run north and not south to ROK? Sure ROK is getting into a habit of mumbling “do we really want to be united with these looney-tuners?” But if DPRK collapses, it will be entirely another matter. Is it feasible to conceive of a situation where the south starts turning away refugees at the DMZ without helping them? The help will come in the form of giant refugee camps and delivery of food, medicine, fuel, and clothing to those who stay put. That will buy time for an orderly integration. ROK has a trillion dollar economy. Spending $1000/year on every single DPRK citizen will cost barely $25-billion a year. The world, particularly the US, will help.

 

 

Monday 0230 GMT April 8, 2013

·         The Land of the Wimps Americans are generally so self-absorbed, and operate so much on old memes, that they are happily unaware their country has become the Land of the Wimps, and is no longer the Home of the Brave. Indeed, the typical American is narcissistic to the point it would not even occur to her/him that something very bad is happening with respect to North Korea. America is the most powerful, America is the best, America is this that and the other. Whereas the reality is we have become a bunch of yellow-bellies and brown behinds.

 

·         Before readers sigh “There Editor goes again”, just consider what is happening. North Korea is a third-rate power. As a retired US air force general said the other day, US requires 50-hours to wipe out DPRK’s air force and air defenses, after which the country is helpless while the US leisurely looks for and destroys its ground forces. The country has 24-million people and a GDP of about $12-billion. At least a fourth of the country is malnourished if not actually starving. For 20-years this country has broken every agreement it has made with the US to get aid.

 

·         The agreement has at every stage been simple. DPRK has to verifiably terminate is N-weapons and missiles program. Instead DPRK is building an ICBM and has staged 3 nuclear tests. Editor believes these tests are one failure and two bluffs. But Editor can say what he like, US has to assume the worst: the country has clearly said it will continue to develop its N-weapons/missiles.

 

·         After sanctions were imposed subsequent to its missile test and new sanctions to be enforced after the third nuclear “test”, DPRK has gone off the rails. It has repudiated the 1953 Armistice, which means technically a state of war exists between the North and the US/UN/South. It has repeatedly threatened the US with a nuclear attack. It has repeatedly said it is ready to attack the South. It has cut off the military hotline between North and South. It has even shut down the South Korean free trade zone north of the 38th parallel, thus depriving itself of employment for its citizens and a couple of hundred of million dollars in foreign currency.

 

·         When DPRK first started to act Looney Tunes, the US responded toughly, indicating any DPRK attack would be answered appropriately. The US avoided the mistakes of the last 20-years, where no matter what the latest Northern provocation, US rationalized it away. Though there was plenty of that among the media and the “experts”, which came up with every bizarre explanation for the bad behavior, ranging from Kim III is consolidating his position, DPRK is trying to force the US back to the negotiating table, this is a ploy for more aid and so on ad nauseum.  The implication of this unsolicited and unneeded advice to the US government was that DPRK is immature, no need for us to lose our cool, we should remain steady and keep talking.

 

·         The first question that comes up is: Why? Suppose Iran had said it has targeted the US and Israel and is preparing to launch a nuclear attack, would the media etc be sitting around saying “oh, they’ve got internal problems, just ignore them, keep talking?” No, people would not. They would be screaming for Iran to be punished. And at first the US talked tough regarding DPRK. Though it was staging routine annual exercises, US made a point of telling the world that B-52s, B-2s, and F-22s had deployed over the South, practicing their war missions. It was all very calm and dignified, no threats, just a simple affirmation that we’re ready for any eventualities.

 

·         Then this last week US started to fall apart and it began crawling on its belly – backwards. The first sign of trouble came when political Washington started issuing background statements that maybe our reactions to the DPRK’s statements and moves was making the situation worse. Pray tell, exactly how? We’re not the ones saying we’ve activated our nuclear delivery systems and have them zeroed in on DPRK targets.

 

·         Then the civilians at DOD started denying they had ordered two US Aegis ABM destroyers closer to the Korea coast. It was all the Navy’s fault. Right. In a country where Washington’s control of the field forces is so tight that a theatre commander has to ask permission to take a leak, we are supposed to believe the Pacific Fleet’s commander decided, at this tense time, to order two destroyers to close up to the coast on his own?  

 

·         Yesterday the last straw news arrived: US has cancelled a routine test of its Minuteman III ICBM from Vandenberg AFB because it wants to avoid misunderstandings. Misunderstandings about what? This test was planned months ago, and it and previous tests are intended solely to validate launch procedures and verify all systems are working. The N-deterrent is serious business, the US has to make sure everything is in order. Occasionally a Trident submarine will launch a missile for the same purpose. So are worried that DPRL will think we’re preparing to launch a nuclear attack and WE must back down?

 

·         How does this make any sense at all? If DPRK misinterprets, whose problem is it ? Hint: if the US were a normal power instead of a belly-crawler-backwards sort of power, it would not be our problem. Instead we’ve chosen to make Kim’s problem our problem. How brilliant: strength through backing down. This must be some new, secret US doctrine that is being revealed to the public.

 

·         Editor is unsure what is more frustrating: that the US is kowtowing to DPRK, or that Americans don’t care what is happening. They have to know what’s happening: after all, the Korea situation has been in the media for several weeks. Are we that concerned with our navels that we don’t know what’s going on and that’s we’re waving the white flag? Does it bother anyone that by backing down we are letting Kim win a cheap victory?

 

·         What next? We have talks, come to an agreement, which DPRK breaks once again? What is the matter with this country? Why have we come to a stage we are governed by ADHD morons who, like a goldfish in a bowl, don’t remember what happened two seconds ago, leave along what’s been happening for 20-years? Why have we come to a stage where we, the people of America, sit in front of our TVs with glazed eyes and drool dripping on the sofa cushions, and spend zero time thinking?

 

Friday 0230 GMT April 5, 2013

·         Hanoi Jane’s apology for 1972 incident is made on Oprah – so it is finally official Fonda has apologized many times for letting herself being photographed with an AA gun during her visit to North Vietnam 41 years ago. The fotos were used to great propaganda effect by the North Vietnamese, and enraged a great many Americans. But all the previous apologies mean nothing. Everyone knows only Oprah can give you absolution in America. Even god’s absolution is not legitimate. Only Oprah’s. So if the Lady O has accepted Fonda’s apology, so does Editor. He’s good with that.

 

·         Though he still thinks we should have blown the Red River dykes just to show the North who was boss. Of course, would have been better if we had remembered our own revolutionary heritage and aided Ho Chi Minh when he asked Ike for his help to liberate Vietnam from the colonialists. But that is all just water under the bridge. One has to let go of the past sometime.

·         A question on Cyprus for the Euro geniuses With the sudden death of Cyprus’s financial services sector, GDP is expected to fall by as much as 20%. So how exactly is Cyprus to repay the Euro $10-billion loan it has received? Another question: since bank deposit holders over E 100,000 are to lose 40-80% of their deposits, just exactly how much money has Cyprus had to hand over as part of its share to get the loan?

 

·         BTW, Cyprus did not get into trouble because of its profligacy. Its banks took a huge hit when Greece went down. The Cyprus government was pretty responsible about acquiring debt as compared to many European countries. The point of the EU is that people are supposed to help each other. Instead of helping Cyprus when Greece went down, it seems to us the EU has decided to get as much of its own banks’ money out as it can and it is quite ready to let Cyprus go down too.

 

·         So we asked a friend, why then give more money to Cyprus? Why willingly risk that E 10-billion knowing the economy will crash? Cyprus has discovered big reserves of offshore natural gas reserves. He suspects to get the new loan Cyprus has pledged future revenues from the natural gas.

 

·         This is all much too complicated for us. Perhaps there is some way to separate who exactly gained what from this deal and who lost what. But we certainly do not have the needed skill to go through official stats, if they are telling the truth about behind-the-curtain deals to begin with. However it was done, we think it’s pretty reasonable to suspect the EU bankers will lose nothing, the Cypriots will lose everything. That is the EU’s way of redefining all-for-one and one-for-all.

 

 

·         From Richard Thatcher on the need for non-college skills The real need in the US, and GB I'd venture, isn't liberal arts graduates but skills in things like welding, machinist, tool and dye making... in other words, tech fields that keep your basic "structure" (infra and manufacturing) up and "running", as it were.  Currently taking welding courses at a community college in my state and am a little dazed at the demand for even mildly competent welders, let alone good to excellent ones. 

 

·         What strikes me as interesting in the "hands on" classes I've taken thus far is that, with one exception in one class, I'm the only newby (no previous welding experience). All the other folks have some to a fair amount of welding experience and are either looking to gain more for further certifications or to finish out classes to get their Associates degree.  My one REAL good instructor I've talked with tells me that there are very few people out of high school, or even later on, who are interested in getting into welding.  It's not easy, you have to wear some to a lot of protective clothing and items, and you need to be aware that if you do not treat the equipment and, in some cases, even the, materials used with respect/care that it will injure and/or kill you (and maybe some others in the process). 

 

·         They talk about our living in an "information age". Well there is truth to that. But the infrastructure for the information requires a lot of bricks and mortar. Not to mention the roads that connect the country, the power plants, the railways, the factories that make our consumer products and so on. That means having people who not only have the skills to do all that but have the willingness to get themselves dirty and, in more than a few cases, endure discomfort in doing the work.  It's a pity that there seem to be so few Americans (and Brits?) willing to do that even for some pay that, in a number of cases, out does even the best salary paid in the US auto industry.

 

·         By the way. I am 60 years old and going for as much in welding that I can.  I've told folks, all of them younger than me, in my classes that if an old timer like me is willing to take this on and get certified then the rest of them have no excuses to not do the same.  I really hope that gets them to do so, we are going to need them, I believe.

Thursday 0230 GMT April 4, 2013

·         Smack Chubby Face now Chubbs now says he has given final approval for a nuclear attack on the US. What we say is that he has crossed a line and he needs to be punished. It is not for the US to figure out what the boy’s problems are, this sort of talk is absolutely unacceptable. Yes, he is making an empty threat because he has neither N-weapons nor the means to deliver them to US targets. But that is utterly beside the point. If a child in school takes out a toy pistol and says he is now cleared himself to shoot the teacher, do we stand around saying: “Awwww! Poor little tyke. He has so many problems at home. Let him be.” No we do not. We take immediate disciplinary action.

 

·         In this case the immediate action should include a total destruction of his N-weapons and missile infrastructure. We have repeatedly said that we believe he has not staged even one controllable N-explosion. That does not mean he will not get there in a few years. As for his missiles, sure he cannot hit the US now. But he could in ten years. And he can hit Japan or South Korea now. Moreover, he does not need a nuclear weapon to do it. He can simply load a warhead or two with plutonium, and have it explode over Tokyo or Seoul.

 

·         Editor remains singularly unimpressed by American arguments that we do not have a free hand against DPRK because of China. Is Chubbs threatening China? No, he is threatening America. Since the Chinese cannot control him – nor does it make strategic sense for them to so do, this is none of China’s business. If Iran was threatening us would we go to Iranian allies such as the Russians for permission to strike Iran? Obviously not. So why is a dual standard at work in the case of DPRK?

 

·         Some may argue when DPRK gets N-weapons it will act more responsibly. Really? Where does it say that? Chubby has the conventional means to attack South Korea. Has it made him act responsibly toward the South? In the case of global terrorism, is it America’s policy to wait till it is attacked before acting against the threat? No, America has a preemptive strategy towards global terrorism. Similarly, it needs to activate preemption against DPRK. By refusing to act, America is legitimizing DPRK’s efforts to nuclearize. This sanctions business is for the birds. Sanctions work if the ruling class is responsive to the pain its citizens undergo. Pardon us for saying this, but we see no evidence that DPRK gives half-a-hoot for what its people are going through already. In any case, as long as it can trade via China, sanctions are an inconvenience, nothing more.

 

·         America has become a country that can rationalize its failure to take difficult decisions in every field. Right now there is a lot of rationalizing going on re. DPRK. Everyone has to be held responsible for what s/he says. Instead of holding ol’ Chubbs responsible, US is giving great belches to try and frighten the boy. Folks, people need some smarts to be frightened. This kid ain’t got no smarts. If he is allowed to get away with his trash talk, other countries are going to draw the unavoidable conclusion that the US is unprepared to fight even when repeatedly poked in the eye.

 

·         So that’s nice the US is moving a THAAD battery to Guam, and has sent the Aegis ABM destroyers McCain and Decatur closer to DPRK – which the US is denying all over the place right now, so as not to “provoke” Chubbs or “add fuel to the fire” or whatever the excuse du jour is. That’s so sweet the US threatens to move an X-band ABM radar nearer to the Korean Peninsula. And the decision to add 14 interceptors to Ft. Greely is cute beyond words. But see what the practical effect of this is. The practical effect is to signal the world that we are taking Chubby so seriously we are reacting to his threats. We will destroy your missiles, we are telling him.

 

·         But why has it come to this? Again we are legitimizing his N-weapon and missile programs. We shouldn’t be discussing how to counter his missiles. We should be making sure he has no missiles or N-warheads to launch at us – ever. If China doesn’t like this, it can lump it. Who said China is our friend, anyway? It is an enemy, and a declared one. China shouldn’t be given a vote to decide what the US can or cannot do.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT April 3, 2013

·         UK willing to face truth on college at least the UK Telegraph is, but since it is a major national newspaper, we can venture the opinion that its thoughts are mainstream or about to become so. What any US school teacher can tell you is that the vast majority of high school students do not need a college degree, and that the more youngsters that end up with one, the more people will be doing work below their qualifications. Now read this this direct quote from the Telegraph www.goo.gl/dPv4o   

 

·         Research from the US government, which without doubt applies equally to Britain, suggests that just one out of the top nine occupations expected to create the most jobs this decade requires a university degree.

 

·         The picture is truly dire for the army of university graduates: only five of the top 30 fastest-growing occupations expected to create the most jobs by 2020 require an undergraduate degree (or an additional post-graduate qualification) – nursing, teachers in higher education, primary school teachers, accountants and medical doctors – and 10 of the top 30 don’t require any kind of qualification at all.

 

·         Among the top 10 fastest-growing professions are retail sales staff; food preparation (including fast-food restaurant jobs); customer service reps; labourers and freight, stock, and material movers; lorry and van drivers; and various healthcare aides, related to the ageing population. This is the semi-secret, and devastating, story that far too few people in government want to talk about.

 

·         Again, please to note this is from US research done at the University of Michigan. This is not a situation specific to the UK, but to our country.

 

·         This then raises the question: if the Brits can be honest about the no-need-for-everyone-to-go-to-college business, why can’t the Americans? Doubtless you have your own ideas, following are the Editor. You can call him out of touch, or uninformed, or eccentric, but he is in the K-12 education business as well as a perennial college student, so he does know something of what he speaks.

 

·         First, it’s the vested interests all over again as is the case in every country since the beginning of societies. It is the vested interests that push college loans merely on the student’s signature (if the student is independent of her parents), and as the number of students taking loans increases, the flow of money to colleges – private, public, for-profit – increases. Higher education is quite a business in America, supported by government guarantees to lenders. College debt at $1-trillion exceeds credit card debt. The pro-college-for-all lot  keep coming up with figures that show the college graduate earns considerably more than the high school graduate. Fair enough. But when everyone is a college graduate, there will not be jobs for them commensurate with their qualifications, and the gap will vanish.  It is simple economics, no voodoo involved.

 

·         A study quoted in the HuffPo www.goo.gl/qDGcL notes that 48% of recent college graduates are working jobs that don’t require a college degree, and 38% of those are working jobs that do not even require a high school certificate!  The figure is said to be 53% for the class of 2012. Sure there’s a job recession, but the point is, as more and more people go to college, there will always be a job depression for college graduate because the jobs out there don’t need anywhere near the college graduates we already have. Forget underemployed, the Atlantic says that college grads have a higher unemployment rate than those without a college degree www.goo.gl/HMjAP Undoubtedly this has something to do with people with college degrees being less likely to do menial jobs, but it is nonetheless a harbinger of things to come.

 

·         Second, as our society becomes less egalitarian, the masses need to be fed more and more false hope so they do not start hauling out the ropes and the flaming torches. One of the current myths is: get a college degree and you can become part of the American dream.  BTW did anyone stop and ask that a dream is just that, it’s a dream. Once it’s achieved, it’s no longer a dream, it’s a reality. So achieving the American dream is an impossibility. Just thought we’d throw that in to muddy the waters.

 

·         Yes, some college degrees are much in demand: science, technology, engineering, and math. So is the solution for kids to get more degrees in these fields. Well, if they do, there will be an oversupply just as there is in non-tech degrees. And – let’s be honest – how many of us have the aptitude to get a STEM degree? Doubtless someone is going to blame school teachers for this too: we’re not encouraging them, we’re not educating them right, privatize K-12 and we’ll all have STEM degrees. At which well over half of STEM graduates will be lucky to get jobs as wheel-barrow pushers. And how non-STEM teachers are supposed to encourage and facilitate the gaining of STEM school graduates is another unanswered question.

 

·         Since when did working with one’s hands become a path to second-class citizenship? The great thing about America is that back in the day you did not have to born of privilege or go to college to earn a decent middle-class living – the 3-bedroom house, the new car every so often and so on. Working with one’s hands used to be an American virtue. When I went to private school in New England, the school insisted that the students do all the school chores except for cooking (3 cooks), head of maintenance (one person), and laundry. That’s where I learned to clean bathrooms, along with the heir to an oil fortune. I consider that the most valuable part of my education, because in India manual labor is indeed looked down on as something the poor do. I have nothing but envy and admiration for the gentleman who maintains my car, and who makes way more than the average college graduate. I also envy and admire the plumber – who also makes way more than me, the telephone/internet installer, the people who pave the roads and the people who build buildings. They are actually producing something. What am I producing aside from an endless stream of words?

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT April 2, 2013

·         More economic news you don’t necessarily want to hear Retail sales have outpaced increases in national income for the last four years, says Bloomberg Business Week (April 1-7, 2013, p. 19-20). This creates a mystery, particularly as Americans have been paying down debt and saving more. BBW gives what may be the answer: the underground economy is flourishing. Two economists calculate 18-19% of US income may not be reported. That’s at least $2-trillion worth with lost taxes up to $500-billion.

 

·         We’ve been anxiously watching wages rise in China because in the higher paying regions the wages plus cost of doing business in China plus transport is reaching $12/hour, at which point the US southern states, at least, become competitive. But now we are told by an economist friend: “Do not expect a revival of manufacturing jobs. For four decades productivity gains have enabled the US to keep expanding industrial output with fewer and fewer workers. Now you have Robotics Revolution 2.0 coming up, where the price of robots is going down and their versatility is increasing. In another 10-20 years you’ll have robots each replacing 2-6 industrial workers with output continuing to grow.” 

 

·         Just great. So at one end you will have the bankers and hedge fund folks, and at the other end we’ll all be working for minimum wage. Wait a minute, you say. What about all the professional jobs? They’ll be outsourced to places like India. It’s already happening. Started off with low-level coding. Now it’s the lower ranking jobs in architecture, law, and medicine. The Indians et al will move up the ladder very, very fast. All you need for even the top level management jobs to be outsourced is wider global internet pipes and cheap virtual reality. Will happen sooner than most people can imagine.

 

·         French & Mali troops continue going door to door in Timbuktu for a third day, rooting out Islamists who had managed to infiltrate part of the city before mingling with the population. All this does is serve as a reminder that insurgencies are not won in a day. This is a process that can take decades.

 

·         Here is the fundamental mistake the US made in Afghanistan. If you’re going to conduct operations for decades, you cannot spend one or two billion dollars a week. You cannot have ten troops and contractors supporting one infantryman. And there really is no alternative but for your infantry to patrol on foot.

 

Monday 0230 GMT April 1, 2013

·         US sends F-22 to ROK An unidentified number of the stealth fighters have arrived at Osan AB from Kadena AB in Okinawa. Dramatic as this sounds, it has to be kept in mind that US and ROK are engaged in annual military exercises. So the question is: was this move a part of the exercises? Naturally US is not telling. So we do not know if it is significant or not.

 

·         We’re a bit surprised to still occasionally read opinion pieces suggesting the US negotiate with DPRK and coming up with excuses for Baby Kim’s bad behavior. The point is that if someone wants to negotiate, he cannot do it at the point of a gun. It is not for the US to keep playing the role of the sober-headed big brother who patiently endures the constant ankle-biting by DPRK. The reason the current embargoes have been put on DPRK is that it has not kept one single agreement it has made. So what exactly is the US supposed to negotiate?

 

·         Editor accepts that DPRK has every right to develop missiles and N-warheads. Please carry on. But then why ask the rest of the world for aid? People have the right to give aid on their terms. There is no evidence DPRK will honor any agreement it makes. So why negotiate? Because Baby Kim is acting badly and things could get out of control?

 

·         Listen people, this is not the US educational K-12 where essentially you have to kill someone before you get punished and where the “child” is never at fault, it is always the adults. This is the real world. If Baby Kim were a corporation negotiating a deal with another corporation and acted the way he is, he would be told to get out. It is exactly the same when he as a nation wants to negotiate with the US as a nation. The man (boy?) has been issuing one threat after another against the US and its allies. And the US is supposed to reason with him else there is a danger of an incident getting out of control?

 

·         Don’t know if the “negotiate at any cost” lot have read their history, but this is called appeasement. It does not work. When the west and USSR appeased Hitler in the 1930s, at least it was because he had become very powerful and no one wanted another world war just 20-years after the first had ended. In the end the west had to fight because Hitler just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. What is the excuse for appeasing a toy dictator? That he might shell downtown Seoul? Look, folks, if this is a concern the man needs to be put down – now. You don’t negotiate with a mad dog. Ditto Baby Kim.

 

·         Why precisely should any of us care what his internal problems are? Are they OUR problems or HIS? If you or I as individuals acted out our problems by threatening to nuke ROK, Japan, and the US, you know what would happen: we would be behind bars faster than we could say Jill Robinson and facing hefty sentences in SuperMax.  So why are we as a nation supposed to patiently give this overfed little puppy what he wants so he can improve his internal position? If he cannot manage his internal position, he will be deposed and the next dictator will take over. Are we supposed to care?

 

·         If he makes a mistake by escalating a situation, say by attacking another ROK warship, he will get smacked. If he escalates again, he will get smacked harder. And so on until he either sues for peace on the US’s terms, or he is overthrown by his generals. Tough taters. No one begged him to be dictator. No one forced him into being a dictator. It is his own choice; he has the glory such as it is and he has to take the bad that comes with the situation.

 

·         Baby Kim’s regime is a blot on humankind. It needs to be eradicated. If the US doesn’t want to do the job, okay, that’s fine. But there is nothing written anywhere that says the US has to negotiate with this prime piece of doggy poop. It is shameful anyone is suggesting negotiations. Editor does not care how much of an expert you are on DPRK or how many times you have been there. How does that give you the right to say we must negotiate? Weren’t the people who negotiated for the last 20-years also experts? Weren’t they as smart as you? And what do they have to show for it? Zippo.

 

 

 “Why abundant oil hasn’t cut gasoline prices”

Bloomberg Business Week, April 1-7, p.15-17

·         Fuel use has fallen by 16% since 2006; this year alone gasoline process have increased by 11% to an average of $3.65/gallon. Meanwhile, for the first time since 1995 the US is producing more oil than it imports.

 

·         But the increased oil production in ND, WY, CO, and OK is off the pipeline network. So it has to be transported by rail and barge, adding up to $17/barrel over domestic oil.

 

·         Ethanol program is backfiring: every gallon must contain 10% ethanol, a mandate from when US gasoline prices were steadily rising. For a full understanding of what the ethanol requirement is doing to gas prices, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/business/energy-environment/ethanol-glut-threatens-a-rise-in-gasoline-prices.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 Essentially, Congress mandated that refiners use 13.8-billion gallons of ethanol. But since gasoline demand is falling, they already have 400-million gallons surplus. They have to buy ethanol credits on the market, adding 10-cents to each gallon.

 

·         The Jones Act says cargo shipped between US ports must move in US ships that are made in the US and crewed mainly by US nationals. Meanwhile, EPA regulations have shuttered US East Coast refineries. Gasoline shipped from the Gulf refineries to the East Coast adds $6-8/barrel.  It is cheaper for a Gulf Coast refiner to ship gasoline to Brazil than to New York.

 

·         Globalization has meant that gasoline has become a global commodity. In 2011 US overtook Russia as the largest exporters of refined products such as gasoline and diesel. US in March 2013 shipped 3.2-million-barrels/day, besides Brazil to – hold your breath – Venezuela, China, Canada, and India. You, dear American reader, now have to compete with the exploding markets in Africa and Asia for your gasoline.

 

·         Have you seen a bigger mess? Actually, just about all of American “free” enterprise is messed up.

 

·         We often say in this blog that the US is not a capitalist country. We are a country where business pays off Congress to pass favorable laws – favorable to business, costly to you. This is closer to oligarchy than it is to democracy. True capitalism requires transparent flow of information and a level playing field. Both are missing in the US. Ninety-nine percent of Americans – that includes you and me – lose from this anti-capitalist, anti-democratic setup.  Yet regardless of if this 99% is left, center, or right in their political beliefs, we support the looting of America by the 1% and we happily give from the little we have to help the rich get richer. There is indeed a redistribution of income in America – from the less well off to the rich. Yet the 99% do not object. The 99% - you and me – pride ourselves on our ability to think for ourselves. Except we do not think for ourselves. The mind-control in this country exceeds in effectiveness by orders of magnitude the pathetic mind-control the Communists managed to impose.

 

·         Think about that. Oh, sorry – we have lost the ability to think. Let us just reach for a cold one, a bag of Cheetos, and watch Kim on TV. It is so much easier. So much less painful. So much more soothing…

Saturday 0230 GMT March 30, 2013

From reader VK

·         There is something called the ‘Karachi Project’ which is basically another set of safe-houses created by the ISI. It originated from something called ‘Forward Station 23’, an ISI plan which closed in which certain members of ISI as a  policy had given active support not just to the militants but also have given safe-houses in the Pakistani side of Kashmir.

·         It was closed but has been relaunched in Karachi. The Karachi branch of Pakistan’s ISI directorate has become the hub for anti-India activities – obviously you have seen the 26/11,  because all of these people came from Karachi.

·         Then you have a very active Mujahidin in Jamaat-e-Islami and all of these Indian people who have been injured and drawn to seek active shelter in Karachi. In time [inaudible] his daughters were video conferencing in a  place in Karachi, so of course everybody knows where he is.

·         http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Meetings/Meeting%20Transcripts/271011pakistan.pdf

Friday 0230 GMT March 29, 2012

·         Global warming or cooling? Readers will recall we’ve sometimes mentioned the school that says we are heading for cooling and not warming. This school says global temperatures depend on the Sun’s activity and right now the Old Boy is heading for Sleepy Time. He’s tired and wants a nap. Naturally, considering the prodigious amount of work he does  - burning 600-million tons of hydrogen every second - no one will begrudge the poor fellow this. But according to the cooling theory that means we could be headed into a repeat of the medieval Little Ice Age. Insofar as it is easier for humans to withstand a few extra degrees of heat as opposed to a few extra degrees of cold – particularly for the poorer countries, global cooling will lead only to disaster.

 

·         Now an article in Germany’s Die Welt discusses the cooling theme. You can read it at  http://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/vermischtes/article114733276/Wissenschaftler-warnen-vor-Eiszeit.html We used Google Translate, which is not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but works for Editor when he’s doing orbat stuff, as it’s easy to match up terms. How hard can it be to figure out “company” and “Kompanie” are the same thing? And so on. It is likely however, that we haven’t got everything exactly. Also we’d recommend you read the two studies the article quotes for yourself.

 

·         On the one hand, a US paper says that the effect of human-generated CO2 has been overstated by a factor of two. On the other hand, it talks about the sun activity thing. The sun is already cooling, but the effect on earth surface temperature is probably being delayed by the oceans giving up their heat. This, of course, ties in with what Fred Hoyle, the British astronomer used to say in the 1970s – not that anyone who reads this blog is that old that they can recall the global cooling scare of 40 years ago, with exception of the Editor. To counter the impending ice age, Hoyle wanted giant pumps installed in the oceans to bring deep cold water up to the surface where the sun would heat it. This would raise the oceanic temperature and see us through enough of the cooling period for us to figure out how best to cope.

 

·         While we haven’t read the US paper, we are assuming it does NOT say we can happily continue burning carbon. It likely is saying we have more time than we thought to shift to other fuels. As far as Editor is concerned, and we’ve said this a gazillion times, burning coal is very, very bad because of the millions of deaths each year from air pollution. We find it ironically people go “Eek! Eek!” about N-power when N-power kills a very people. Even the Fukashima disaster, which was about as bad as one can get with western reactors has turned out to raise radioactivity by miniscule amounts. As for people killed, you can count that on the fingers of one hand. Compare to the thousands of coal miners who die every year in accidents alone. We also don’t like the enormous environmental destruction caused by open pit mining.

 

·         What we are saying is that if the sun activity people are right, we are readying for the wrong crisis. And the consequences will not be a few tens of million affected by the rise of the oceans. It will be billions of people, including even the developed countries. If the north of the world – and presumably the south – is going to be ice covered all year or most of the year, huge swaths of people in North America, northern Europe, Russia,  China, and Japan are going to be affected. Same thing could happen to southern South America, southern Africa, and Australia.

 

·         Editor thinks we absurdly expect miracles from science. But this matter is serious enough that we suggest people start spending a bit more money on the studying of cooling and its effects instead of obsessing 24/365 about warming.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT March 28, 2013

·         Thanks to some cyberpunks known as Cyberbunker, today was not a happy day for many people, Editor included. For several days his internet has been running slow, and he’s been thinking it is at his end. Then his professor emailed the students to say he was also running slow. Well, it took Editor approximately two hours to get on the Internet today; when he succeeded he checked Google to find out what is going on. The answer is at http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/03/spamhaus-ddos-grows-to-internet-threatening-size/

 

·         Essentially, Cyberbunker is one of the world’s big spammers, more accurately, any spammer can use their servers. Then there is an anti-spam organization called Spamhaus, which means “House of Spam”, so we do think they need a new name. Anyway. Spamhaus has been blocking Cyberbunker, which has made CB unhappy because they’re losing revenue. So CB launched a denial of service attack on Spamhaus. Spamhaus says they cant succeed, meantime, however, during this battle which is already a week old, the global internet has been slowed down considerable. The battle shows no sign of slowing down, so unless the police get to Cyberbunker, thinks could be worse.

 

·         Forget about the police getting anywhere. Cyberbunker is boasting even a Dutch SWAT team could not breach their premises, which happen to be located in a Cold war bunker. Well, all we can say is that the Dutch police must be complete wimps. Or should we say “wimfs” since this is Holland. No surprise here. You may criticize American police for being overly militarized, but had Cyberbunker been in the US, the police would have gotten them one way or the other.

 

·         BTW, from curiosity we tried to connect to www.cyberbunker.com and have thrice  failed. This doesn’t mean CB has been defeated, just that the server hosting their own URL has been knocked out. (www.spamhaus.org is up.)

 

·         If all this is not just seriously unhappymaking, experts warn that the CB attack is just the first of many expected to take place this year. The Internet started out as a place of peace and love and flowers, where we all going to loving collaborate with each other. Instead greed and psychiatric cases and governments have turned the Internet into a battlezone with everyone busily armoring up. It’s like the battleship race of the 1920s and 1930s all over again. To its credit, the US takes any kind of hacking as a serious crime and it punishes people to the extent one hacker decided to kill himself rather than face jail.  This was probably a wise thing to do, given US jails. We’d be interested to know if US indicts Cyberhaus. If it does, CB’s officers will have a miserable life, which they richly deserve.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT March 27, 2013

·         It’s definitely a good day in the neighborhood because Walmart is getting its butt solidly kicked. Walmart has never figured out that low prices are insufficient to keep bringing people back. There has to be service, and the staff giving the service have to know what they’re doing. If you mistreat your staff, you’re going to get big turnover which costs you money. To be fair, most American retail has never figured this out because most management tends to be quite mediocre.

 

·         Bloomberg says http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-26/customers-flee-wal-mart-empty-shelves-for-target-costco.html that Walmart has made two mistakes by continuing to cut people. It now has insufficient people to stock the shelves, so shelves are empty while merchandise piles up at the back. For this Walmart executives get paid? Next, there’s hardly anyone to help and the register lines are long. So people have been running to Costco and Target. Analysts have mistakenly been thinking the fall-off in Walmart sales is because the economy is not doing as well as the Government says. Wrong. Walmart is doing badly because it added 443 stores while cutting 20,000 workers and people don’t want to go to the store anymore for lack of service.

 

·         In America we think that CEOs are gods because of what they get paid. We think they earn that pay so they must be terrific. In fact, the boards collude with the CEOs to reward them even if the CEOs are doing a lousy job, and in the process both the board and the CEO cheat the shareholders. You may remember the Great Naradelli who was supposed to save Home Depot? By cutting staff he drove the company into the ground. He still got paid. Cant blame the CEOs alone, though. The government and Congress do a lousy job, but they keep getting relected and keep getting to take dirty money. Of course, the American system has brilliantly legitimized political corruption, so its dirty money but generally legal. Drives Editor quite nuts to be condescendingly told “Oh there’s so much corruption in 3rd world governments” when his adopted country is politically the most corrupt place on earth. To be fair, the lower down you go, the less corruption there is. Editor’s town and county governments are pretty honest. Its also the same with the generals: they keep messing up, no one brings them to account.

 

·         China and North Korea We were glad to read in last Sunday’s Washington Post the same line of argument Editor has been giving about the two countries. Truthfully, Editor never cares if someone else supports his viewpoint. But when you say something again and again and all you read in the press is the opposite, one does start wondering: do they know something I don’t? Could I be wrong?

 

·         John Pomfret said in the Sunday WashPo that China is not in the business of helping the US contain DPRK. Yes, a nuclear-armed DPRK is a huge problem for the Chinese. But a collapsed DPRK followed by reunification is even a greater problem. We wish Pomfret had gone to discuss what happened to Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. The US could have declared an honest victory in the Cold War, the longest it has every fough, and dismantled NATO after the Pact collapsed. Instead US has taken NATO to the very borders of Russia. Moscow’s security situation is worse than it has been in 400 years. Is it surprising the Chinese don’t want the us a centimeter closer to their territory than absolutely necessary.

 

·         Far from beating DPRK with a limp noodle, long-term Chinese policy requires the US vacate South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia. This is what the Chinese will push for in the next 50 years. As a first step China is trying to get US carriers to leave the 1st island chain or whatever the Chinese call it these days.

 

·         By the way, though this is a tangent, those who are saying US carriers have become vulnerable because the Chinese have a long-range anti-carrier missile have absolutely no clue what they’re saying. That some of these people are US Navy serving or retired makes no difference. US defense analysts are so narrowly specialized most of their output needs to be put in the trash. After careful reading, of course. For all you young sparks out there, you must get into the habit of reading everything, however opposed to your own beliefs it is and even if you know the stuff is no good. Being aware of opposing arguments in detail strengthens your own analyses, and it saves you from hubris.

 

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT March 26, 2013

·         Thank you, Jeroen Dijsselbloem! If you have never heard of this gentleman, not to worry. We too had no clue who he is. He is the senior official who heads the Eurozone and also the Dutch finance minister. Magically, he has turned Editor's gloom of yesterday to happiness by a simple pronouncement. He says the Cyprus bailout, which requires Cyprus to seize between 40% and 100% of high value bank deposits, could be a model for future bailouts. After all, says he – with impeccable logic – since it is the banks that are creating the problem with their reckless lending, they have to take the first hit. http://tinyurl.com/cquxya8

 

·         If the learned gentleman includes bondholders in his hit, we are all for this formulation. After all, when the entire financial sector has been guilty of getting Europe into this mess (just as the US financial sector did to the US), why should not the whole sector suffer? But we suspect he does not, he means bank depositors.  Then all this amounts to is robbing one group to pay a preferred group – which not surprisingly includes the strong Euro nations like Germany and Holland. Marx will be dancing in his grave at this most brutal expression of capitalist society tearing itself apart.

 

·         Being from New England, Editor does not dance, so he cannot keep Marx company.  Those of us descended from the original Mayflower families remain unreconstructed Puritans. It is an iron rule of Puritanism that anything fun is ungodly. But wait, you will say, isn’t feeling happy fun? Is not the Editor freely admitting to Puritan sin? He is, and to do penance he will have boiled spaghetti with ketchup for dinner. But isn’t that what Editor has every night? At which point Editor has to request pesky readers to kindly zip it: Loose lips sink ships, that sort of thing.

 

·         Just think of the implications of what the Dutch finance minister is saying. According to the UK Telegraph article (URL above), three-quarters of a million Brits live abroad, and obviously they are in the Euro South. You don’t see many Brits retiring to Finland, do you now? We’re talking Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece (and Cyprus).  So now people like these Brits face the prospect of having their money confiscated. But won’t the great majority have less than a 100,000 Euros and be covered by deposit insurance? True. But who could imagine last month that depositors in Cyprus could lose 40-100% over 100,000 Euros? Who is to say at some point the Euro North might not find it convenient to take money from little peeps as well?

 

·         Look at it this way. Even if you have only a few ten thousand saved for retirement, would YOU at this point risk putting your money into a Euro bank? Case closed.

 

·         What this will do is lead to bank runs at the slightest hint of trouble – after all, the Euro South nationals also have their money in Euro banks. During this recent Cyprus crisis, everyone, big or small, was limited to the amount of money they could draw out every day. In one bank’s case it fell to 100 Euros - $133 – a day. And that was from ATMs, the banks themselves were closed. And since the banks were closed and no one knew what was happening, merchants wouldn’t accept credit cards or other debt instruments: they wanted cash on the barrelhead. Again, would you want to risk your money in the Euro South? No. Then why should the people who live there?

 

·         So there is every chance the Eurozone will start collapsing. After all, with its financial sector destroyed, Cyprus is headed for deep recession, even depression, because incoming money is how Cyprus has made hay while the sun shines, or whatever. So after the bailout, is Cyprus even going to be able to pay back this Euro loan money? Greece cannot pay back; everyone knows that including the Euro north. Like Greece, Cyprus exports little (except tourism), so an internal devaluation such as helped Ireland, Latvia, Estonia cannot work.

 

·         Simple logic says the Euro North has to let the Euro South go, perhaps with a second rate Euro worth 2 South Euros equal to 1 North Euro. The Euro North doesn’t want to lose the money it has invested in the South, so it is not doing what it tells everyone else they have to do: lose their shirts. Look at this extreme contradiction! The Euro South must pay so that the Euro North gets its bonds paid off! Think how Marxian this is! In fact, do we dare say this – yes we do dare, think how utterly feudal this is. The serfs must suffer so the lords of the north get their money back Euro for Euro. Does this not make a mockery of the Euro ideal of a partnership?

 

Monday 0230 GMT March 25, 2013

School vacation times for Editor are not just anxious, as he is not earning, they are also confusing. Editor is not good at relating to time. Time exists in one place, and Editor in some other, timeless place. So when school is in session at least he gets his Mondays etc. correct, though seldom the date, month, and even sometimes the year. But when school is out, he has no clue what is going on. So its way late before he realized Monday is coming up and he has to produce an update. Fortunately, he realized this before it was too late, because come 2130, Editor cannot keep awake, no matter what is happening. Or perhaps unfortunately for those of our readers who are glad when they are spared an update.

·         Cyprus Much to our disappointment, a last minute deal has been reached between negotiators for Cyprus, the IMF, and the EU. It will now be submitted to the EU finance ministers for final approval, but you can take this as approved because the same people who recommend approval or disapproval have been involved in the negotiations. The Cyprus parliament has already said it will approve confiscation of money from depositors over 100,000 Euros, about $130,000.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/25/us-cyprus-parliament-idUSBRE92G03I20130325  This illegal action is, of course, being put differently, because as nearly as we can make out, the depositors will get stock in the concerned banks.

 

·         This is a new aspect of capitalism: we will seize your bank deposit anytime we like, and issue you stock in exchange. So the bank expands its capital base and reduces its liabilities in one stroke. The good thing about the Cyprus affair is no one has really been fooled. It happened in Cyprus, it could happen elsewhere. British financial commentators are already recommending Brits pull money out of Spanish banks. So the EU will pay in the long term for this utterly harebrained scheme. We realize we are insulting the hares, who are considerably more intelligent than the EU.

 

·         You may or may not wonder what Editor has against the Euro. Nothing personally: since he never has dollars, it follows he never has Euros either. His opposition is based both on Anglo-American prejudice against the Euro, and that anyone gets to join just because they are part of Europe, no matter how weak their economy. Also there is the anti-German hostility because the Euro is a scam designed to enrich the Germans at the cost of their partners, and heaven knows the one people who don’t need to be enriched in this sleazy manner are the Germans. They are an economic toughly disciplined bunch of people and their economy is in great shape despite these bad times. German 10-year bonds are at 1.38% compared to US’s 1.98%. Of course, that is just one indicator of an economy’s strength, but it does make the point. We could use some of that German discipline back here. Not a chance, of course, since we are heading to banana republic status.

 

·         Central African Republic To put it as simply as possible, the African problem is that every nation is composed of a multiplicity of tribes, with the national boundaries drawn by the former colonial powers. In each country some tribe or the other is aggrieved because it feels it hasn’t got a fair share of the spoils of government. You don’t have tribal warfare in South Africa because the whites, while losing political power, still have economic power, and as Marx might have said had he met Austin Powers, it’s all about the green, baby. Some national leaders do try and transcend the narrow interests of their tribes, but this most often doesn’t work because you cannot come to power because your tribe is the biggest or baddest, and then deny your folk the rewards of being on top. Your tribe will overthrow you.

 

·         So in CAR, the northern tribes who felt aggrieved under Bozize’s rule, have now taken the capital, Bangui, and the Prez has fled, becoming the ex-Prez.  Bozize had offered the north all kinds of concessions to keep the country together, including making this his last term and forming a government of national unity. But the northern tribes said he was reneging on his promises, and in a 4-month campaign they swept him from power.

 

·         How was this possible? Mainly, France is sick and tired of being sick and tired about the CAR. They have no interests worth fighting for, there are only 1200 French nationals in the country. No matter who is in power, they have to deal with France, so really, why should France get involved for one side or the other? So there were no French forces to stop the rebels. In fact, with the Mali interventions there’s only 250 French troops in the entire country, as at least that many more have been sent to Mali. France has reinforced, but it is only to make sure the international airport stays open: the French have repeatedly said they are not involved.

 

·         Then, the regional powers are unhappy with Bozize. For example, Chad has supported him but Chad feels he hasn’t done enough for the Chadians inside CAR. The Central African AU force sent last year to stabilize CAR and halt the rebels has instead acted like those workmen you see working on a street. There is a man at the end of the street with a sign that says STOP  on one side, and when he gets a signal from a man on the other end, he rotates his sign so that now it reads GO. The African force has repeatedly put out the STOP part of the sign, then quickly turned it to GO, causing the rebels no delay greater than they need for a hot cup of tea or whatever it is people drink down there.

 

·         So this is all lovely, except now the southerners will feel aggrieved and will rebel, to be aided by regional nations that don’t like the northern dominated government. And so the mess will continue. What is the solution? We don’t know. We’d think permitting repeated divisions of a country till everyone is satisfied they have power over their lives seems the obvious situation. How practical it is to have 500 countries in Africa as opposed to the almost 50 is a matter to be debated by those better informed than us.

Friday 0230 GMT March 22, 2013

·         Strange doings in the Far East Just by the way, referring to China, Japan, the Koreas etc. as the Far East may have made sense when the British Empire waxed strong, but it makes no sense for Americans to use this term.  If you are standing in the middle of the country and looking West, the Far East becomes the Far West. With that cleared up, there are strange doings in East Asia.

 

·         Kim Babyface is at the heart of the current strangeness, but China is not far behind. For the past several months Babyface has been threatening war in Peninsula, nuclear attacks on the US mainland, and strikes against US East Asia bases. Frankly, we feel analysts waste their time figuring out what Babyface is up to because the Norks are stark raving bonkers and we make a mistake trying to fit their madness into some semblance of our American logic. Anyhows, the analysts say Kim is trying to force the US into negotiations on all kinds of issues.

 

·         One big issue for him – supposedly – is he wants the US to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, guarantee no first conventional or nuclear strike, give him economic aid with no strings attached, and invest in Disneyland Pyongang. (We made up the last part, obviously, but we have noted with sadness that when we are trying to be sarcastic some readers thing we are being serious. When we are being serious, people think we are being sarcastic. All we can say is that Oscar Wilde is needed to sort things out.)(We didn’t entirely make that up: Babyface wants a Disneyland, except he doesn’t seem to understand America is a free country, he is free to open negotiations with Disney at any time.)

 

·         So instead of getting what he wants by acting normal, he is acting crazy, saying in effect “if you don’t deal with me, I’ll be irrational and cause you so much trouble you’ll cry.” All sorts of other factors allegedly intrude, such as internal issues – for example, consolidating his power and inoculating his country against creeping consumerism and sex. That sex part alone shows he’s nutzoid because he doesn’t seem to understand everyone in America is sex-crazy because they aren’t getting any. The only thing to fear is consumerism: if the Norks become American-style consumerists, they too will not be getting any sex, including Babyface. Okay, maybe he’s smarter than we think and fears not getting any. Whatever.

 

·         Okay, thank you dear pundits for this deep, erudite analysis. You are making the mistake of mirror imaging. Because you are rational, you assume the Norks are too. And you’re invested in believing the Norks are rational. If you accept they are not, then there is no place in this business for you. No analyst should every get invested in his analysis.  Every morning when s/he wakes up, s/he should embark on proving wrong everything s/he believed before going to sleep the night before. Then what s/he supposed to do next morning? Obviously prove everything s/he proved to be wrong yesterday to be right today.

 

·         The problem with having any dealing with the Norks is that they can never be trusted to keep their word. They break it and hold out a larger begging bowl each time they break their word. Each time the begging is conducted with highly inflammatory threats. For decades the US has been falling for these tricks – which goes to show that the Norks are not the only patients in the looney bin. But the US is not falling for them anymore. At least not until next Monday, when in its usual ADHD manner the US will have forgotten everything that went on before.

 

·         One reason the Norks are going totally whacko is that currently the US has been raising the ante each time the Norks raise the ante. So, for example, the recent announcements that the US has been flying B-52s over South Korea as part of the annual military exercises. Well, you and I know this is no big deal. The B-52s are just a routine part of these exercises, and just how many sorties did the US fly? Exactly two, in separate missions. The difference is by publicizing this, US is giving Babyface the little finger. As a little guy of no consequence he doesn’t deserve the big finger. Another example: the US is to install 14 more ABM interceptors aimed specifically against a Nork attack.

 

·         By the way, not that we want to go off track, but don’t take these announced US numbers too seriously. The truth is you and I are not in a position to know how many GBIs the US has, how many are actually deployed, and how many are kept as reloads.

 

·         On the Nork side, aside from the usual threats, there has been the alleged repudiation of the 1953 Armistice agreement, mass air raid drills, mobilizations, and most recently a hacker attack against ROK banks and so on. Now look, folks, is it rational to stage a hacker attack right after the US has announced that such attacks will be taken as acts of war and retaliated against by all and any means the US deems necessary. The US never goes “like-to-like”. You hacked us, so we are going to hack you. No. US is more like “you hacked us; we’re going to take out a city”. Perhaps it is a bluff. But does any rational person want to find out?

 

·         But then Babyface and Company are not rational. US has this time around been counting on the Chinese getting so fed up they embargo the Norks. At which the Norks collapse. At which point ROK moves in. At which point after 20-years of ROK style economic development the Chinese have yet another hostile trillion dollar economy on their doorstep. So, please tell us, Mr. Sam Man, why exactly are we counting on the PRC to restrain the Norks? Its become quite clear the Chinese are not going to rein the Norks in beyond cosmetic measures to fool the US.

 

·         If the Norks were rational, they’d understand that all it takes is a single US Ohio class missile submarine to unload on their country, and they’re back in the early 20th century. Actually what we said makes no sense because that’s where they are now. Late 19th Century, then. If the Norks cross the 38th Parallel, the US has the option to use tactical nukes, but it is unlikely to do so because using just conventional means the US will destroy the People’s armed forces in a week or two. If the Norks start playing silly buggers by doing stuff like attacking Seoul with long-range artillery, then US will not spend days or weeks destroying Nork forces. They will use tactical nukes and finish the job in 12 hours.

 

Thursday 0230 March 21, 2013

·         Cyprus How strange. Just Tuesday the EU was going to collapse over Cyprus but on Wednesday the pressure has eased, all are in a good mood, and a solution is expected soon.  The reason for the sea change likely has to do with our Not So Fave Dictator, Pooty-Poot. With the Cyprus finance minister in Moscow, asking Russia for a bailout, the EU started mumbling about “we need to hang together and not involve Russia in EU affairs” and similarly wimpy stuff.

 

·         Either Russia agreed to help Cyprus and EU got wind of this, or Cyprus bluffed – with Russia as a co-conspirator – the EU by making the alter believe Russia was about to ride to the rescue. If so, you have to admire the Cypriots from smacking Madam Merkel with a rotten mackerel. Personally we do not think she was bluffing. We think she’s perfectly willing to flush Cyprus down the toilet. But maybe the rest of the EU got on her case about the bank deposit expropriation thing, which certainly would have hit the Euro zone very hard.

 

·         Once it gets about that your money is not safe in a Euro bank, there will be runs on the zone’s banks. And it is not like the EU has everyone by the short sardines, because money can always be shifted to the US. The issue is not “is the US rock solid?” because it definitely isn’t, but compared to the EU these days US is as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar as it is possible to get. No place is safe except bullion or the proverbial hole in the ground.

 

·         Talking about holes in the ground, a dear friend of Editor’s made some money he didn’t want Mr. Taxman to necessarily know about. This is about 45 years ago.  So friend went off to some nice woods in the Pacific Northwest, and buried the money for a rainy day. Well, the proverbial rainy day arrived. When the friend arrived at the stash he found – behold! – a big new housing development. Not only were the trees he’d used to mark the spot gone (this is before GPS) but it looked like the stash was directly underneath someone’s basement. Yes, bad things do happen to good people, and this friend was as good as they come.

 

·         But we wander. As of right now, Cyprus is not about to unravel the EU. None of this stops some people from continuing to mutter: “Well, having 10% taken away from your bank deposit is sure better than losing most of it when the Cyprus banks go bust.”  You may as well hold a gun to a man’s forehead, insist he hand over all he earns, and then tell him “you’re now poor, but that’s better than being dead.”

 

·         First, truthfully we do not understand why people make this comparison about being better off dead when no one knows what it is like to be dead. Scientifically, we cannot compare our current situation to the situation of dead-ness. The whole thing is quite bugging as a masterpiece of illogic. Second, force may win, but that does not make it morally correct. Stealing money from everyone’s bank accounts is not morally right.

 

·         Pennies and nickels and all that So US is wondering whether to stop minting cents because it costs twice as much to make a cent as its face value. Doing away with cents and rounding things up or down to nickels apparently does not help much either because nickels also cost twice as much to mint as their face value.

 

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT March 20, 2013

After we wrote this we learned via http://tinyurl.com/cmoshjd that Cyprus Parliament has unanimously decided to tell Ms. Merkel where she gets off. The EU deal stands rejected. The same source says 60,000 UK citizens have money in Cyprus banks, presumably those who have retired there. So there’s a lot of honest money in the banks too, not just corrupt. Cyprus government are saying if it agrees to the deal, no one will ever put their money in a Cyprus bank again, implying the country will be totally finished if it agrees to the deal. If you have time, read Ambrose Evans of UK Telegraph’s take on the crisis http://tinyurl.com/c7edqkb He says the fiction that the EU is a partnership has been exposed finally, trouble will spread to Portugal and Spain, and its better if everyone recognizes the inevitable and prepares for the breakup of the Euro.

·         Cyprus There’s no sense in following this story minute-by-minute because there are endless twists and turn as with any story in this 24/365 age of global media. Best to wait till Friday, March 22nd, when the outcome of the Cyprus parliamentary vote on accepting or rejecting the bailout deal that the EU has offered becomes clearer. The vote is set for Thursday, and banks are shut at least until that day.

 

·         Nonetheless, the EU’s position is looking ever more peculiar by the day. We don’t think the Alice in Wonderland stage has yet been reached, but unless EU sees sense, we may soon be there. To summarize: Cyprus needs a bailout of somewhere around $20-billion. That seems a piffling sum when we in America concern ourselves with no number less than a trillion dollars. But Greek Cyprus has a population of less than 900,000, so actually that is a heck of a lot of moolah. So, to lend this money, EU demands terms. That’s reasonable, even if the EU formula of forcing austerity and further pushing shaky economies into recession is not a brilliant formula. Tax revenue falls when spending is cut and recession results, making it harder to pay back the bailout. That means more money has to be lent, and so on until the whole thing is in a death spiral. Be that as it may, those are the terms that EU imposes, largely at the insistence of the Germans, for whom it is better to eat grass than be in debt. This stand does have merit, and is definitely something Americans need to heed. But that’s another story.

 

·         Usually EU terms include (a) spending cuts; and (b) increased taxes, both with the objective of bringing down the deficit. This makes bondholders happy, and they are willing to lend money. This approach is supposed to have worked in Latvia, Estonia, and Ireland, though there is serious doubt it has worked/is working in Estonia and Ireland. Some say that unemployment has been kept steady only because of increased immigration and because internal devaluations have taken place, increasing exports at the cost of hitting – seriously hitting – people’s living standards. In Greece none of this working because Greece exports  Zilch-O; so Greek living standards have gone down by about 25% and the economy shows few signs of recovery. But whatever the merits of this approach, it is what EU demands.

 

·         In Cyprus’s case, however, EU has made a novel, and very dangerous demand, which seems to have come out of left-field. This is that bank depositors must pay for some of the pain that Cyprus must undergo. EU says unless 10% of bank deposits are confiscated (about  $88-billion, maybe nearly five times the GDP, of which 40% is owned by foreigners), the figures don’t come out right and bondholders will have to take more of a loss than what’s fair.

 

·         So EU has told Cyprus, pass a law confiscating 10% of bank deposits, else its Goodbye, Charlie, goodbye. EU’s justification is that if the banks fail, which they will without a bailout, people with accounts more than $130,000 will lose a lot more than 10%. And says, EU, the big accounts are all corrupt money anyway. We dealt with this second point yesterday, saying an across the board confiscation targets guilt/innocent alike, plus depositors – however they made their money – abided by Cyprus rules/taxes when they moved their money to the country. Hardly needs mention that many people consider the almost $2-trillion US corporations have stashed abroad to shield it from US taxes is also corrupt money. But we wander, as often is Editor’s wont.

 

·         Our sole point here is that a bank depositor is not an investor in the bank. Shareholders/bondholders are. The person has taken your word for it that her/his money is safe. Now s/he finds that at the twist of the wind, her/his money is being appropriated by the state. EU saying Cyprus is unique hardly makes any sense. Corrupt practices on part of the EU are not justified by any unique situation anywhere.

 

·         Right now EU is going “Neener neener” to Cyprus because the country is a tiny state with .2% of EU’s GDP, and it is helpless. But what happens tomorrow when EU decides the situation in Greece, or Ireland, or Portugal, or Spain, or even – shudder – in France is unique? Having broken their word once (even if there was no written contract), EU’s fat cats are crippling their own credibility. Next time any EU country is in trouble, people will rush to withdraw their money and the banks WILL collapse, taking bank bondholders and shareholders with them – après moi le deluge and that sort of thing. Americans put it less elegantly, referring to toilets flushing and so on.

 

·         Now please to note: at no point are we saying we know the solution. Well, we are saying we know the solution but with the possible exception of Ron Paul we don’t see anyone agreeing. The West is bankrupt – for whatever reason. The only way out of this is either to declare bankruptcy, in effect refusing to honor debts; or to hugely increase taxes and reduce spending. Both methods have serious consequences. Editor’s point is, when I live beyond my means, I have to pay consequences. Why should a country be any different. Anyway, we ramble. We don’t know what EU or Cyprus should do, we’re merely opining that when governments start committing highway robbery, who is going to arrest them and put them on trial.

 

·         And yes, we concede that for our libertarian friends any money taken by the government just to give a better standard of living to someone else is theft; indeed, for government to take more than some unspecified bare minimum to provide unspecified bare minimum in service (limited defense being one – emphasis on limited) is theft. If our libertarian friends tell us that America is corrupt beyond redemption and only the Second Coming can save us, Editor is cool with that. He agrees, and especially in the Indian context he agrees. Our whole discussion about Cyprus is solely of the “Just Saying” variety.

 

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT March 19, 2013

        

·         Sherrod vs. Brietbart Yesterday we read in the Washington Post http://tinyurl.com/blpb2mb that the defendants in Sherrod vs. Brietbart want her suit dismissed because they were only exercising their right to free speech by giving their opinion about Sherrod’s alleged racism. Big media supports the defendant’s suit. This case baffles us, and it would be nice if readers would enlighten us on the matter.

 

·         But why is not the focus on who edited the video to make it look like Sherrod was a racist? Brietbart said before he died that he did not edit the video. Okay, but did his company? If so, he is responsible. If he did not, then who did? Surely no one argues that editing videos to make someone sound racist is covered under the 1st Amendment, when the full video shows just the opposite?

 

·         After the tampering issue is addressed, then people can go on to argue what responsibility does media have for publishing  incorrect stories. Here, we fell, Brietbart was wrong when he refused to apologize to Sherrod. Assuming he or his did not edit the video, he nonetheless participated in creating enough of an uproar that Sherrod lost her job and suffered by being accused of racism. He is guilty of not checking his facts. Regardless of if that is actionable under the law, he did something wrong, not merely give his opinion. If I say the US Congress and Administration consists of morons, I am expressing an opinion. I urge US Congress and Administration to retaliate by calling me a moron – I can use the publicity. But if I get a video from someone else that says a particular member of Congress is a pedophile and it turns out to be untrue, at the least I should apologize to that member of Congress.

 

·         Cyprus Reader Luxembourg got after us on the Cyprus affair which, honestly, we hadn’t been following and weren’t even sure we should be following. Finally, after receiving yet another article from Luxembourg, we read the article. And were startled to learn that under EU urging, Cyprus had decided to confiscate 10% of Cyprus bank accounts. Had the EU gone bonkers? Well, it turns out the EU has and independently so has Cyprus.

 

·          Cyprus’s GDP 2012 is about Euro 18-billion. Its debt is 127% of that. The bailout package is Euro 10-billion, about US$13-billion. So far so good, all is normal and transparent. But then along comes EU and throws an earthmover in the works. Cyprus must confiscate 10% of bank deposits above 100,000 Euros to produce a share of the bailout. If this is not sufficiently peculiar, Cyprus decides to seize a portion of everyone’s bank deposits. As is understandable, everyone is going crazy.

 

·         You can, by all means, levy taxes on income. But once someone has paid the taxes, and put the rest in their bank, you can’t just seize a portion of their bank deposits. Six slaps with a limp noodle to EU (maximum we are allowed to give by law), and six slaps to Government of Cyprus. Sure, as a requirement for a bailout you can demand cutting spending/raising taxes. This has been the formula for Ireland, Portugal, Greece. But confiscate bank deposits? Yo, pal, don’t Bogart that joint, pass it on to me.

 

·         EU’s reasoning, which is brilliant as always, is that Cyprus is a center of hot money. EU doesn’t want to give bailout money to banks that have hot money because that’s helping secure the depositors of that hot money. So it’s okay to seize part of every account over 100,000 Euros.

 

·         Editor’s reaction is to raise his hands heavenwards and intone: “Lord, please kill me right now so I don’t have to endure this insanity.” Look, even if Cyprus is a center for hot money, that money has been deposited as per rules of Government of Cyprus. You can’t just seize it because you feel like it.  Besides, how does EU know all accounts above 100,000 Euros are hot money? Still further, what about Euro rules that deposits up to 100,000 Euros are guaranteed? How can EU require a member to commit an illegal action in violation of EU’s own laws? Who is going to pay depositors of 100,000 Euros or less? The EU? Cyprus? The Tooth Fairy? Hansel and Gretel? Who?

 

Monday 0230 GMT March 18, 2013

·         Madhya Pradesh (India) assault case India, already in the bad news because of the gang rape and murder of a lady medical student in Delhi, India’s capital, has now taken another major slap. A Swiss tourist and her husband where doing a cycling tour of famous temple sites in Madhya Pradesh, which as its name indicated, is in Central India. They were travelling along a forest path which is part of the tour, when they decided to stop and camp in the forest at night. The couple were attacked by seven men – the woman says in the dark it was impossible to accurately tell, who beat the husband and assaulted her. The police have five men in custody and are looking for the other two, who are we presumed have fled.

 

·         Government officials are upset because India has come to rely majorly on tourism, with about $125-billionin annual earnings and the number of tourists visiting India still very small compared to its potential. The country is upset at the black mark against India’s image. Women will be doubly upset: first that one of their own sex was attacked and second that had it been just another tribal woman in the state, no one would have bothered arresting anyone. An official says the number of assaults against women is growing, and is now 9 cases per day. Of course, as anywhere in the world, rape is seriously underreported. In India it is because male police – and many men – blame the victim; and because the stigma of having been assaulted is extreme. In tribal areas and villages women that are raped are generally from the powerless sections of society; neither they nor their menfolk have any voice.

 

·         Now, Editor belongs to that section of people who believe hanging for convicted rapists is too kind  a punishment. At the same time, state officials have pointed out that no one in their right mind spends the night in the forest. Everyone clears out and goes home before dark. As a theoretical matter, why should that be a mitigating factor? Don’t women, and men too, have a right to be safe anytime, anywhere? Yes they do. But there is the practical as well as the theoretical to be considered. This cannot be a mitigating factor in the crime, but it still needs to be kept in mind.

 

·         Madhya Pradesh has almost 75-million people. UK has 63-million and reported about 230 rapes a day some years back. UK has one of the most tightly policed societies on earth; the lack of policing in India is legendary in great part because of a lack of resources.  Now, of course, MP’s 9/day cannot be comparable to UK’s 230 a day. For one thing, underreporting in India will be much more than in UK. Further, a lot of rapes in the west are date-related or too-much-drinking-at-the-party related. In India no woman would report such occurrences for a variety of reasons. Only the socially upper-class and upper-middle-class date, to begin with. These are not the types of women who are going to go to the police under any circumstances because of the social indignity and nor are the police even going to listen to them. India is still old-fashioned and a woman is expected not to willingly put herself in situation where she is assaulted by a male she knows.

 

·          But there is underreporting in the UK too, for exactly the same reasons: the social indignity of reporting, and the feeling among many victims that they shouldn’t have gotten drunk to begin with. Definition of the crime is important: Sweden has possibly the highest rate of rape in the industrialized world, but then as we know from Assange’s case, an encounter that starts consensually but the woman changes her mind midway is still counted as rape.  In one of the two Assange cases his condom broke during the act but he did not stop when asked by the woman. In another (or is the same case?) the woman was asleep in the same bed when in the morning he initiated sex without her consent. In Sweden that is rape.

 

·         Given the way men are cast as the Very Bad Boys in such situations today, Editor personally thinks that absurd as it may be, Oberlin Rules should apply. Oberlin College came up this idea some decades ago that every step had to be accompanied by written consent. Doubtless this kills any romance, and then you have to ask whether the man should get the agreement notarized and filed in court before getting with things. But for the safety of the men, especially the younger ones, this seems the only way out. Editor tells his male students: don’t even touch the girl you like in class because right now maybe she is enjoying the attention, but she can turn around at any point for any reasons and stop enjoying the attention. Then if she comes to me and says she is being sexually harassed, I have absolutely no choice under the law but to write up the boy and see the paper gets to the principal. Who has absolutely no choice under the law but to call in the competent authorities and let them investigate. This is America, exercising common sense as an educator is a sure recipe for getting into trouble. On Iwo Jima uncommon valor may have been a common virtue, in US education today common sense is suicidal.

 

·         Once in a while I get into a school situation that I feel, as a substitute, is none of my business. Except the law says it is my business. One day I passed a boy repeatedly hugging a girl against her protests. I had no idea who they were. The girl asked me to tell the boy the stop. He was already in a highly aggravated mood because she was rejecting him and kept saying she was his girl. I had to insist – quietly – that he get off her. Well, he did, and got ready to punch me, something I expected given his state of mind. BTW, as a teacher if you are hit you cannot hit back: there is no right of self-defense against students. Fortunately – for him – he went off. I say fortunately for him because had he touched me I would have taken the situation to its max including a civil suit for damages and insistence he be jailed. A punch is only a punch, no matter how hard it is or if something breaks. Its no big deal. But you have to make clear you are authority, even if the student doesn’t know who you are and vice versa, and you cannot back down.

 

·         Though irrelevant to the matter of sexual assault, here is another story: in a class for which I was subbing for the first time, the students tried to rush out before the bell. Administration gets really, really upset of this happened. I physically blocked the door. One young man said “If you’re standing there when the bell rings, I guarantee you will get crushed in the rush.” BTW if you think this is the usual minority in a poor school acting tough, this was a white upper-income school. I told the boy that I was having trouble paying my mortgage and I needed a quarter-million to pay it off. If he came within one-foot of me, his family would be paying off my house. Of course no one came within a foot of me after that. White upper-income kids understand the concept of civil suits.

 

Friday 0230 GMT March 15, 2013

Thank you, Ms. Ashley Judd – Part II (conclusion)

·         So to summarize Ms. Judd’s line of “reasoning”, (a) all mines in Congo are controlled by soldiers or armed militia/rebels; (b) these soldiers etc. use rape as a weapon to keep the local population under control; (c) by buying Apple products we finance mass rape in the Congo because Apple electronics use metals mined in the Congo. Ms. Judd specifically mentions tin, tantalum, and tungsten.

 

·         Now look, folks. If Ms. Judd wants to flagellate herself for her sinfulness in financing mass rape in the Congo, she is welcome to do so. The ol’ US of A is a free country, and we are free to be morons, as our esteemed SecState said the other day. But she’d better keep that whip away from the rest of us, at least while we go through her line of reasoning.

 

·         Tantalum: the odds are 99 to 1 that the tantalum in your electronics is NOT from the Congo. DRC produces 1% of the world’s tantalum. Titanium: Congo’s production is so small US Geological Survey does not even list it. Tin: odds are 44 to 1 your tin is NOT from Congo: DRC produces 2.25% of world’s tin. (If you like statistics, check out http://minerals.er.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/ for world mineral production and use.)

 

·         Can Ms. Judd prove that these tiny productions of tin and tantalum are exported to China or whoever makes the innards for iPhones and then the Chinese reexport the same tin/tantalum to the US? Unless she wants to use the “one drop” argument: one drop of black blood makes you black. Editor uses the converse at school: one drop of white blood makes you white. So if your grandparents or great grandparents were born in the US, it is likely you, as a black person, have white blood in you. Therefore you are white. So assuming at some point Congo tin/tantalum gets mixed in with the world production on recycling, then yes, every kilogram of tin and tantalum has been “contaminated” by Congo produced material, and then entire world is financing mass rape in the Congo, not just poor old Apple (a company we loathe and whose products we loathe).

 

·         So: 95% of titanium goes to making paint. Assuming Congo produces some titanium, and assuming it is comingled with global titanium, then anyone who buys paint is financing mass rape in the Congo. Tin and tantalum go into electronics in just about anything that uses electronics, so except for the poorest people in the world, we are ALL financing mass rape in the Congo.

 

·         Is this a helpful argument to make? We don’t think so.

 

·         Next, we believe there is some confusion in Ms. Judd’s mind as to how Congo militias/rebels control areas. They do not do it by rape, but with good ol’ AK-47s. A militia/rebel group does not arrive in an area, announce it will hereafter control the area, drop its pants, proceed to rape all the women in sight, then pull up their pants, and voila! they have control of the area. No. They arrive in an area, announce if people do not submit to them, said people will be killed. Rape is a byproduct of conflicts, it is not a tool used to gain control over territory.

 

·         Incidentally, Ms. Judd quotes a UN report (date not given) that says all mining in the Congo is controlled by armed groups. At the height of the Congo war, in which 8 countries participated, this may well have been true. But most of Congo mining at this time is in the hands of the government. Of course, the government troops also engage in recreational rape if they can get away with it. Oddly, Islamic fundamentalist are one armed group that does not rape. They find out which house has daughters of marriageable age, arrive, and most politely suggest to the man of the house that it’s time his daughters got married – to them, of course. So in the minds of the Islamic fundamentalists, this is not rape but marriage. All legal and square with the Koran. Naturally we wonder if the Prophet might have had a different interpretation of this process.

 

·         Ms. Judd might also care to note some other things we share with the Congo mass rapists. The air molecules we breathe have been breathed by them and vice versa, the water we drink at some point has fallen every place in the world, so we are sharing water too. International airlines fly to the Congo, allowing trade/tourism, which benefits the government, which then pays the troops. Ditto foreign aid, including food and medicines. Doubtless some of the medicine goes to treating the rapists, keeping them healthy and fit to rape some more. Sell your shares of Merck immediately, people, otherwise you are enabling mass rape.  Don’t breathe and don’t drink water, either.

 

·         Ms. Judd wants a “clean supply chain”. She aint gonna find one, not on this earth. For example, at some point every component that is exported from China has been touched by prison labor, if we use the one molecule contamination theory. That’s exploitation too, isn’t it?

 

Thursday 0230 March 14, 2013

Thank you, Ms. Ashley Judd, for bringing the Second Coming closer – Part I

·         The Second Coming is supposed to arrive when even our all-forgiving God cannot any more take the accumulated wickedness of us humans on Earth. The Second Coming’s agent is Jesus, who will recommend the good folks for eternal salvation and the bad guys to eternal heat. Now, Editor is unenthusiastic about the Second Coming, or as they expect in Hinduism, the coming of Kalki, Vishnu’s 10th incarnation on earth. Kalki does much of the same things as Jesus will do. Editor is resigned to the Hot Place, but no one likes to be unnecessarily reminded of one’s wickedness when The Time Has Not Yet Come. You can understand that.

 

·         Nonetheless, the world will be a much better place after the Second Coming, so Editor is determined to be selfless about the prospect. Those left after the cleansing will inherit a perfect, idyllic world without sin and without  want and without bad stuff, and so on. So bring it on.

 

·         What most people do not know however, because they never read the fine print, is that among the lists of wickednesses is stupidity. God gives us the ability to think, and to waste that ability on being a moron is sinful. Ms. Judd is exhibiting such moron-acity that she single-handedly is bringing closer Second Calling Day and therefore eternal salvation for the good folks. So all such people should keep her in their prayers because of her magnificent individual contribution to SCD (Second Coming Day).

 

·         To be perfectly clear Editor has no idea who is Ms. Ashley Judd. He thought she is a country/western singer. Reader Luxembourg kindly write to us to say no, she does not belong to the singing Judds. She is a Hollywood actor who plans to run for the US Senate from Tennessee. Before you ask “shouldn’t that be ‘actress’?”, no.  Actress is the diminutive for actor. Since we call the male of the species “actor”, calling women actors “actresses” is to diminish them and make them secondary to the men. This has nothing to do with Politically Correct Feminism, it has to do with logic. To call a great woman actor a “great actress” is to automatically demote her to below the worst actor. No matter how good she is, she will also be categorized as a diminutive of an actor, no matter how bad he is.

 

·         We are being extra careful with words here because Ms. Judd’s sin is illogic apparent in her thinking, in turn which is apparent in the words she uses to express her thinking. First we need to quote her overall sentiments:

 

“My (Apple) electronics, received as gifts or purchased, profit armed militias and support slavery,” Judd wrote. “I am financing mass rape as I enjoy these ridiculously Global North ultra-efficiencies and conveniences, for large scale rape is the preferred predation mining interests use to humiliate and terrify local populations, in order to control resource areas.” The full article is at http://ashleyjudd.com/writings/costs-of-convenience/

 

 

The quote is taken from the http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/11/in-2010-ashley-judd-accused-apple-customers-of-financing-mass-rape/#ixzz2NSZWmUKd

 

·         Aside from her words, there is Ms. Judd’s poetry. To wit:

I board my flight.

 I turn on my iPad.

 I write this diary.

 I hurt, even as my life is dedicated to helping.

 

·         Now, simple-minded morons like you and me may wonder: if she feels this way about Apple, why doesn’t she give away her Apple electronics? We need not wonder at Ms. Judd making the issue all about herself. Women are being brutalized in the Congo, but she hurts, with those helpless fingers irrevocably attached to her iPad. After all, we can chose to kill ourselves, but we can’t choose to let that iPad go. But if we go further into Ms. Judd’s thought streams, as you will see, by her definition we may end up raping women in the Congo. She seems quite attached to the word “rape” as you will see if you have time to read her thoughts. Reminds of a 10th Grade girl the other day who kept saying “sexual intercourse!” every minute or so, waiting to get a reaction from me. I ignored her and she kept repeating it. Finally I said “not in the class, please,” and she shut up; hugely pleased she’d gotten a reaction.  Editor realizes he risks a reaction from readers on the lines of “10th Grader? Isn’t that terribly mature for a wannabe senator?”  True.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT March 13, 2013

·         India is said to be making good progress on the air-launched version of the Brahmos joint Indo-Russian Mach 2.8 cruise missile (2.6-tons, 300-kg warhead, 300+ km range). Because of the Russian’s partner reluctance to help on the air-launched version, for unknown reasons, India has had to do everything itself. Contrary to earlier reports that the Indian Navy’s long-range MR aircraft will carry it, modifications are too expensive given the limited remaining fleet life. Only the Su-30 will carry one missile. Three Su-30 squadrons are to carry the missile by 2015, with more squadrons planned.

 

·         New Pope No one won the first ballot, held yesterday.

 

·         Mars Curiosity Rover finds evidence of past neutral surface water, so pure it would have been drinkable without treatment. Ideal place for microorganisms to grow. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21755976

 

·         Listen, people, if this is the big pending surprise that we’ve been hearing about for months, it’s no go. We don’t want possible microorganisms, we want proof that humans came to Earth from Mars, backed up with Martian skeletons and hieroglyphic evidence of planetary flight and so on.

 

·         Africa (primarily from www. france24.com). Mali press on strike after prominent editor arrested for revealing coup leaders has given himself an $8000/month salary, versus about $300 he earned as a captain pre-coup. Further, Mali troops say that unless this and other high salaries to his supporters are reversed, they will stop fighting.

 

·         Nigerian Islamists murder seven hostages they kidnapped: 4 Lebanese, 1 each UK, Italy, and Greece. They identified their victims as “Christians”. All we are waiting for is the western liberal defense of the terrorists. As we have said many times, no need for the Islamists to overthrow the west. The west will fall of its own weakness and failure to realize it is in a war.

 

·         French forces in Mali captured a French citizen fighting with AQIM. He is off to France where he will be tried. The French will not be serving him hot cocoa and giving him pink bunny slippers and blue blankies.

 

·         A conundrum Washington Post had an op-ed asking why girls as young as 18 are legally allowed to act in adult films when drinking age is 21-years. He mentions a specific person who won Miss Teen America or something. The writer wants a law. He is not a liberal, BTW, but right of center. Okay, we understand. There’s plenty of 18-year old girls at Editor’s school, and whatever may be the reason, 18-year old boys and girls are still children. The notion that kids of either sex might end up in the industry right after turning 18 is revolting.

 

·         At the same time, this writer has it backward. The United States deems that a boy or girl at 18 is an adult and can vote. The question rather should be, why are 18-year olds not allowed to legally drink? Kids can be drafted after they turn 18, should a draft be reinstated. They can run their own household if they wish.

 

·         It seems that it doesn’t matter if it’s the left or the right, Americans want the right to tell adults how to live. Thus on the right anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion laws, on the left the notion that we humans are feeble-minded and pathetically weak, and can be saved only by laws – written by wise people and enacted by wise legislators and upheld by wise courts. Don’t Americans have better things to do than determine how their neighbors live? Wasn’t the whole idea of America that folks fleeing tyranny of one kind or another should have a right to be free?

 

·         Pause for Head Smacks. How stupid of Editor. Of course Americans have nothing better to do than stick their fat noses in other people’s lives. In India we have a societal rule. In the street, follow society’s rules, which means what the majority define as “normal”. Within the walls of your house do what you want and it is no one’s beeswax.

 

 

·         Karzai, Addendum  Forgot to mention that Karzai says he will not run for president a third time, in 2014. We are not quite sure what to make of this. First, unless he has decided it’s time to move on AND move out of Afghanistan, who else is there that can deal with foreigners? The world community knows him, they don’t know otherAfghanis. Did he say he won’t run to make Americans think well of him, as in “I am no autocrat clinging to office”? But with the US departing earlier than might have been predicted a while ago, does he really have to impress his democratic credentials on Americans? Or is it a wily move to say he will not run, knowing that no one else is acceptable, perhaps even in the case of the Taliban.

 

·         After all, if you look at the mechanics of the Taliban taking over, given the US will leave behind 350,000 Afghan security forces, however ineffectual they may be, and given US airpower will be available to the Afghan government, it will likely take the Taliban to 2015 or even 2016 to take over. Best to keep in mind Afghanistan is a tribal state, so people do not think of the government first. They think of the tribe first. With the Taliban on the loose, the Army will disintegrate into its tribal components fairly quickly. Anyway, it’s too early to make detailed predictions. Winter of 2014-15 will bring the needed clarity.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT March 12, 2013

Cuckoo Land: Cliff Notes version of Karzai and the US 2001-2014

·         Karzai of Afghanistan says that the two Kabul bombings conducted while the Secretary of Defense was visiting were the result of US-Taliban collusion. The purpose? To show the people of Pakistan that Afghan security forces are incapable of maintaining security, so the people will clamor for the US to stay. Okay, so we see what the US gets out of this collusion with the Taliban, it gets to stay whereas a lot of people no longer what the US to hang around. But what do the Taliban get out of their collusion with the US? Why should they want the US to stay when (a) they have spent 12years fighting the US; and (b) the only thing between them and taking over most of Afghanistan – again – is the US?

 

·         That sound you hear in the background is a gathering of cuckoos, celebrating the final accession of Mr. Karzai to their family. The entire adventure in Afghanistan has been surreal, but this complete mental breakdown of our point man carries the business beyond surreality to some special place most of us crazy people never get to go. But let us start at the beginning.

 

·         Karzai was the wrong person at the right place and time. His contribution to the liberation of Afghanistan from the Soviets was quite minor. He served for a short period in the post-Soviet government, then accepted the Taliban as the legitimate government of the country. They even asked him to be their ambassador in Washington. He refused, saying the Pakistanis were using the Taliban. Taliban was not amused. He fled to the US and became joined his brothers in the restaurant business. He kept in touch with anti-Taliban folks and raised money for them. When US invaded Afghanistan, he was possibly the only Afghan who the Americans had any inkling of, so like a fairy tale, from being a restaurateur he became the president of his country. Cool.

 

·         Did he have any independent base in Afghanistan? Zero. His entire power derived from the circumstance the Americans wanted him to be Prez. In Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the sole power was Big Sugar Daddy Uncle Sam, and Karazi was Sam’s point man. Those who wanted their share of $$$$ pledged loyalty to Karzai, those that did not, the US destroyed as his behest. He was not a puppet as people claimed. He was a lap dog with a very indulgent master, the said Uncle Sam.  Of course, a lap dog’s power extends only as far as it suits his master.

 

·         Okay. So one day a transformation began taking place. With heads of countries and heads of Afghan tribes coming and going from his presence, he began to think he really was the President of Afghanistan. Laff, Giggle, Snarf. Periodically the US smacked his muzzle when he got particularly irritating; but in the main the barking Karzai suited the US, who wanted to maintain this façade it was in Afghanistan at the invitation of the people, not as a colonial overlord. Laff, Giggle, Snarf. If Karzai had his fantasies, the US Government encouraged it and sold the same fantasy to the American people. Necessary because Americans piously regard themselves as saints, and this narrative of a democratic Afghanistan headed by a genuinely elected Prez (Laff, Giggle, and Snarf; US/Karzai could teach Hugo of Venezuela a few things about ballot box stuffing). So everyone was happy.

 

·         But at some point after that Karzai started to throw his weight around and tried to give the US orders. US got fed up and humiliated him on a regular basis. Latest example is Karzai’s order for the US to leave Wardak Province where the US is – imagine this – fighting to keep the Taliban from infiltrating Kabul and offing Karzai. (You get the picture, he’s not terribly smart.) US has simply ignored the order. Then there’s some fuss about the giant Bagram prison; US had promised to hand it over to Kabul, but Karzai planned to release a whole lot of bad guys who had been captured after fighting against the Americans) and US put this on old. (We’re not entirely clued up on this dispute.) More humiliation – publically – for Karzai.

 

·         So after all this smacking down from the US, Karzai, who was never terribly stable to begin with – he’s an intellectual, not a vicious politician such as his country needs and cannot take much pressure – cracked big time, as evidence by his totally nutzoid statement that US is colluding with the Taliban.

 

·         Two things. Before American bleeding hearts say “Oh my, we treated the man so badly, destroyed his dignity by making him a puppet”, please to understand: the man has no position of his own. He IS a puppet in every sense of the word (we prefer lap dog because that’s ultra-insulting to an Afghan). His sole function is to serve as US’s front person, 100% of his power comes from the US, zero percent comes from him. So why in heck’s name SHOULDN’T the US treat him like a puppet?

 

·         Next, OF COURSE the US is negotiating with the Taliban! What, do people think Americans are all crazy? (Yes they are, but let’s leave that for another day.) US has known for years it can’t win on the battlefield, just as it knew in Vietnam. As in Vietnam, US government to save its own putrid face has hidden this assessment from the people. US has tried for years to get the Taliban to negotiate and to “Join the government” (wink wink nod nod) so the US can “leave with honor” after declaring victory. Just as in Vietnam. US hopes to prevent an outright Taliban overthrow of Karzai by keeping enough troops and airpower in country. But you know, US has gotten to the point in Vietnam in 1975: it just doesn’t care about anything except getting out.

 

·         US, perfectly realistically, knows the Pakistan control the Taliban, so it has been negotiating with Pakistan. Obviously Karzai doesn’t go for this and feels he is being sold down the river. Pakistan is Karzai’s enemy; the day after he leaves the 40,000+ Taliban inside Pakistan will cross the border, a week later they will be in Kabul and hunting for Karzai. If he is still around he will be dead. But of course he will leave ahead of the fall. This time he/his people have plenty of money (in the 100s of millions, not billions) so he needn’t return to running a restaurant in Washington.

 

·         Well, strangely, Karzai feels he is being sold down the river because he is being sold down the river. In a Talibanized Afghanistan, there is no place for him; US will view his as collateral damage. So: it isn’t the US plotting with the Taliban to create instability. IF anyone is plotting with the Taliban, it is President Karzai because he is the only one to gain from the US staying. We say that sarcastically about his plotting with the Taliban. The Taliban will not touch him. They  know he’s dead meat; they’ve rejected his every overture to let him continue as Prez of a new government dominated by the Taliban. Why shouldn’t they, when they can get it all.)

 

·         So here we have yet another fool, who thought he could use the US. No one can use the US a second longer than US finds convenient. Ultimately US allies have to learn this again and again and again (and it doesn’t where in the world they are or what color they are). US uses you, chews you up, and spits you out when it’s done with you.

 

Monday 0230 GMT March 11, 2013

Short update: confused by the shift to Daylight Savings Time, and doing an excruciatingly dull homework assignment, Editor fell asleep and lost 1.5-hours of work time. A nap is best at 20-minutes. Some people can time it that way. If Editor falls asleep during the day, he just cannot wake up before 2-hours and that truly messes up the night’s sleep, which with a working day ahead is not a good idea. Editor is one of those who can manage on 8-hours, but prefers nine. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t succeeded in taking over the world.

·         US personnel are training Syrian rebels in Jordan says Der Spiegal, quoting people on the scene. Two hundred have been trained with perhaps another 1000 planned. The reaction in Canadian Yahoo to the story is surprisingly negative and even violently so. Of the first 20 letters Editor read, not one is in favor.  One letter writer says he met two US servicemen who said they were being deployed to Syria.

 

·         If this news is correct, it again shows the Obama Administration’s penchant for covert action, just like Libya. We’re not sure what this means, truthfully. What’s bothering us is the completely gratuitous controversy the Attorney General has engendered by insisting the US Government has the legal right to use UAVs against American citizens on American soil. We cannot imagine this stand will do the administration any good. We fully agree that an American citizen who is in rebellion against the US and overseas can be targeted, even if the US has not formally declared war. We also can appreciate that if an American citizen is en route to commit an act of terror on US soil, he needs to be stopped. But surely there are other ways than UAVs to stop this person.

 

·         Venezuela Though the opposition candidate for President, who lost to Hugo in the last election, sounds confident, the consensus of what we read favors Hugo’s Vice President (now acting president in contravention of the constitution, which says a presidential candidate cannot hold office while campaigning). April 14 is the set date.

 

·         We’ve noted that the majority of the people genuinely favored Hugo because of the handout programs, big time, that Hugo put underway. There is no reason to believe the less well-off people have suddenly decided to put Venezuela’s long-term future ahead of their own short-term gains, which the acting Prez promises to continue. US continues to be low key about the next election, as it was about Hugo. This is absolutely the correct stance given there is nothing US can do.

 

Friday 0230 GMT March 8, 2013

·         Smack the Chavistas and Putin, please Now that Hugo, our Face Dictator, has gone we see no reason to be nice to the rest of his pet dogs. Here US has been trying to make nice with Maduro, now Vice President and likely to be the next president unless opinion shifts heavily against him. Maduro’s response has been the same vague, stale, boring allegations that the US was trying to topple Hugo and may have had a hand in his death.

 

·         Okay, we understand that despite his likely win, Maduro is probably hysterical with fear for himself and his campadres; after all, the whole gang has swum in the pigsty of corruption for ten years. Maduro, not being Hugo, will not be able to cripple the media as the Old Boy did, and who knows what will emerge. Nothing may emerge, but the guilty seldom sleep soundly. A US financial investigation firm estimates that $100-billion, or 10% of Venezuela’s oil revenues over Hugo’s term is missing. Now, of course, the firm may be doing disinformation to smear the Chavistas ahead of the election, but to believe the Chavistas are as honest as the day is long is a bit much. People accuse Hugo of personally stealing $2-billion. While it is relatively easy to track down the oil company’s actual receipts as opposed to what it should have earned, allowing for the free and reduced price oil Hugo so generously bestowed – including on the low-income residents of Connecticut, we remain dubious anyone can at this stage have much backing for the claim Hugo was a large-scale thief.

 

·         Nonetheless, Maduro’s claims lead to two interesting questions. First, if the US tried to overthrow Hugo for ten years, it must be pretty incompetent because it consistently failed. Then why get worried about the Americans? Second, and conversely, if the US managed to poison Hugo so that he developed cancer – a process that takes years – then shouldn’t the Chavistas be quivering in their pink bunny slippers? Obviously if the US is that capable, their lives hang solely on the US’s tolerance. They should be going kissy-faces with the US, not hurling abuse.

 

·         Then comes Mr. Putin. We should to like him because for a little man he has a lot of style. Editor is a little man, same height as Putin, and he lacks style. For example, Editor cannot put a snow crane beak on his nose, flap his wings to get into the sky, and lead the cranes to their winter home. Or their summer home as the case may be. Nor can Editor wrestle with bears. For one thing Editor is BFF with the bears, and when he encounters them, there are  a lot of hugs and cuddles and retelling of old stories like Goldilocks and singing of songs like The Bear Went Over The Mountain. Nor can Editor personally fight forest fires because he doesn’t own a plane, and even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to afford to gas it up. And so on. Editor is not making excuses; he’s just saying he thought Putin had style.

 

·         But then Putin rather openly took up with a champion Russian gymnast a third his age. Now, you will accuse the Editor of jealousy, because he would absolutely love to take up with a Russian gymnast a fourth his age. (Editor is older than Putin, so to retain the age ratio it would have to be a fourth in his case.) But no, this is not jealousy. Every rich and powerful man or woman has their little bint on the side, in Castro’s case four at the minimum (it’s good to be the Dicatator). By the way, until Fidel became Incapable, he was quite open about his young lovers, so you have to give the man points for honesty.

 

·         By being so open about it, Putin seriously disrespected his wife, and this is not right. After all, his wife appears in public, and travels with him to foreign lands, and it is grossly impolite to subject Mother Russia to all the snickers and mean gossip. Putin fell in Editor’s esteem.

 

·         Now here he is demanding an investigation into Hugo’s death, which is odd because Putin is Russia’s biggest criminal and if anyone needs to be investigated it is him. Quite cheeky of him to jump into this game of blaming the US for Hugo’s illness. And Editor particularly has it in for Putin’s harsh treatment of the girl band which protested against him inside a church. Two of the women are now serving sentences in prison.

 

·         Please do not get Editor wrong. The ladies had no right to desecrate the church by holding a political protest inside. Much of Russia feels they got what they deserved not because they made fun of Putin, but because of the church thing. We are unsure if trespass merits a 2-years sentence in a Russian jail. The prisons there, we are told, make American jails look like beach resorts. But that is not what we object to. It was Putin’s sanctimonious condemnation of the band’s breach of morality that got us. Looting your country is moral? Having dissidents killed or imprisoned is moral? Making an open show of your girlfriend is moral? Faking he-man deeds is moral? Supporting every nasty dictatorship to be found is moral?

 

·         There has to be some limit to hypocrisy. Putin has no moral right to take the US to task on any issue, leave alone hurl false accusations.

 

·         The US needs to officially condemn Putin on the subject of Hugo’s death. The US cannot all the time shrug its shoulder and say “oh, these people are so childish, we wont dignify them by replying.” Editor is not concerned with the dignity of the US government. He is concerned with the dignity of the American people. Maduro of Venezuela and Putin of Russia both need tight smacks – and many of them.

 

·         Meanwhile Putin might also heed whom he insults. As with Maduro, if US is so powerful, Putin could be the next one to get cancer.

 

·         BTW, President Putin, Sir, Editor’s bear friends the Polars say they’ve love to meet him and do a little wrestling. They plan to make a meal of you – though Editor has warned them you’re a skinny little guy who might, at best, make a little snack along with tea – and then sing The Bear Went Over The Mountain in four-part  capella harmony. Oh, you say, Editor is being rude to you, Sir? He is. But you started it first. Unlike the US government, Editor makes no claim to maturity. If Mr. Putin immaturely attacks the US, Editor will respond in kind. He teaches middle- and high-school, for heaven’s sake. He’s actually being quite mature.

 

 

Sunday 0230 GMT February 3, 2013

·         Just the other day we were whipping President General Musharraf of Pakistan with a limp noodle. He had claimed that Pakistan could have kept the territory infiltrated by his army in north Kashmir , except the civilian PM went off to Washington and Washington pressured him to accept a withdrawal. This version of events was a fantasy, and we explained this.

 

·         Today we have to defend the good general from an Anon Pakistani N-scientist who claims the Kargil misadventure came apart when the general was told his N-missiles didn’t work.  The guidance systems tended to fail and the missile sometimes just broke up. (They were from North Korea – no, we are not laying the ground for a joke.) http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/01/28/asia-pacific/norths-missiles-tied-to-musharraf-blunder/#at_pco=cfd-1.0 This Anon scientist is also engaged in a fantasy.

 

·         Not only do we have to defend the general, which is okay since we like him, but we also have to defend AQ Khan, the “Father” of the Pakistan non-bomb, whom we don’t like because he is the biggest liar the subcontinent has produced since independence. He can’t wear pants anymore because each time he dons a pair, it catches fire. He is that bad.

 

·         Okay, so how do Pakistan’s N-deterrent and the Kargil misadventure relate to each other? Scientist  Anon’s implication is that General Musharraf was counting on Pakistan’s N-deterrent to protect his land grab in Kashmir. The deterrent was supposed to so scare India that it would not react to the grab. Whereas India massed eight brigades in supposedly inaccessible terrain, and took back its territory. Sigh. Why does everyone create these complex, whacked-out fantasies requiring Editor to write thousands of words when he could be doing something better. Like telling readers about the attractive and educated lady who tried to pick him in the library. To save you the suspense, Editor bolted. Why? The matter will make the Editor look so pathetic that he has to think carefully about relating the story.

 

·         So, Dr. Khan has said the story is complete rubbish, because with N-weapons, how does it matter if accuracy is 1-kilometer this way or that way? Well, we have to speak for Dr. AQ Khan because he hasn’t made his case properly or addressed the matter of missiles breaking up. The idea of a deterrent is not to use it for N-warfighting, but to deter. If you’ve actual have to fire a missile, you’ve lost, because the other side will retaliate. No person on the receiving end is going to sit there and say: “Okay, half the missiles will not fire and half will not be within planned CEP” because of just one missile does what it’s supposed to, it’s a huge, huge disaster. When we say “none” we mean no sane person. That excludes the Americans, who used to be in love with nuclear warfighting though it made absolutely no sense. Oh yes, in the 1950s to 1980s this country was led by complete crazies. Good thing the General Public was unaware of the extent to which its leaders and generals and so on were nut jobs. Nutzoid jobs, actually.

 

·         General Mushy has also chimed in saying there was no N-factor in 1999 because Pakistan did not have an N-arsenal. That doesn’t stop the Americans from claiming they averted N-war in the subcontinent in 1998 and 1999. What absolute freaks these official Americans are, and they’re not terribly educated or intelligent either. (Worst insult Editor can bestow is to call a person who thinks s/he is the cat’s stinky butt ‘uneducated’). Of course, the Americans have on a number of times fooled the Indians into thinking that yes, the Great Ones From America’s Cesspool (aka Washington DC) have prevented an N-war. Indians are so entranced by American butt that they kiss it fiercely and non-stop, so it’s hard to say if they really believe these fables the Americans put out, or say they believe them so that they have another excuse to glue their faces to the American backside.

 

·         One person the Americans have not been able to take for a ride is your Editor. Luckily for them, the Indians give anything the Editor says zero credence. He might say: “The sun rises every day”, and they will say “if HE says it, the sun doesn’t”. Now if the Americans had just been willing to buy the Editor, he would be perfectly willing to spread whatever myth the Americans wanted. The Americans were willing to buy him, for the same sums they paid most bought Indians back in the day. When Editor would point he had been brought up in America, and knew what Americans should be paying, the people in question would just roll their eyes and say “there you go again.”

 

·         Once the French offered to buy Editor for $30/article placed in a major Indian newspaper. Editor was so annoyed he complained to the Americans. And you know what they said? “Ravi, the French are actually paying you the TOP rate and far more than we would. We normally give payment of one bottle of Scotch, purchased at the PX for $4.” Oh, the humiliation.

 

·         So, back to Scientist Anon’s story This is just someone settling scores or trying to get attention for himself with media outlets. There is no truth, not even a tiny bit, in what he says.

 

·         Okay, so Editor has decided to tell you what happened with the lady in the library First he has to explain something: to free time to plot taking over the world, Editor lives his everyday life on automatic. For example, when Mrs. R. IV was around, the Editor’s Teddy Bears had the middle of the bed, and Editor and Mrs. R. slept huddled on the edges of their side of the bed. So one day quite recently, Editor almost fell out of bed on his side. Then it occurred to him: Mrs. R. has been gone for 10-years, he no longer needs to sleep on the edge of his side. You get the point.

 

·         So, Mrs. R. used to go ballistic if Editor as much as talked to another lady, even at a party. Even if Editor was simply discussing history or current affairs with an Embassy lady staffer, Mrs. R. would drop whoever she was talking to and plonk herself in the middle. Back at home it would inevitably end up as a dark and stormy night, with Editor inevitably sleeping in the dog house. So Editor gradually learned not to talk to women, or if he did, talk to them with same intensity as he would to Sister Kay, his Catholic School principal. We don’t have to draw a picture here.

 

·         So at the library Editor was looking at the new books section when this lady said: “You might want to try that if you’re looking for a good read.” Editor looked up, to a smiling lady, attractive, fit, and given the book she referenced, obviously educated.” So Editor should have seized the opportunity to say “Perhaps we can grab a drink and you can tell me about the book”. Instead, as a conditioned response, he ran for it. Only when he got home did he realize for the Nth time: there is no more Mrs. R IV. Editor is a grownup now, free to talk to anyone he wants. Too late.

 

 

 

Friday 0230 GMT February 1, 2013

·         If it weren’t for the Pakistanis, Editor would morosely have to admit that Indian officials are the most moronic in the world. But one can always count on official Pakistanis to waltz away with the Booby Prize, and one such case is former president General Musharraf. This is not an ad hominum attack, BTW, because the man is actually a nice guy. He may be the only dictator of Pakistan to be overthrown because he such a nice guy. But that is another story. Stung by the allegation made by a colleague that Kargil 1999 was a failure for Pakistan, General Mushy has to put giant foot in giant mouth and insist it was a great success. http://goo.gl/Mda5h

 

·         Kargil like along the India-Pakistan Line of Actual Control in North Kashmir. Without doing any thinking, Mushy, who was Chief of Army Staff at the time, decided it would be a fine idea to infiltrate Pakistani troops into this sector during winter, seize territory, and come the spring, present a fait accompli to India. Editor himself had suggested this move, in a book published in 1982. This had to be about the most half-baked idea that any Pakistan general has come up with. Wait a minute, you say: Editor says he thought this up 17-years previous AND this was a dumb thing for Pakistan to do?

 

·         Yes. Because Editor had suggested this move as part of a general war, not as an end to itself. Moreover, 1982 is before India occupied the Siachin Glacier one step ahead of Pakistan in 1984 and the strategic situation changed. We cannot go into this now because we’d be writing a 10,000-word essay on how the situation changed and how written-for-fun scenarios pertaining to 1982 don’t apply to 1999. Incidentally, Editor is not claiming Mushy got the idea from him. If the good general had asked Editor, Editor would have told him his plan was tres silly. But there it is: Pakistan GHQ is not in the habit of consulting Editor before starting wars. Wonder why. After all, Editor is the only person who has worked out the only way Pakistan can defend itself against an increasing Indian conventional superiority without bluffing with N-weapons. Do you think GHQ visited Editor and said: “What is the great plan?” Of course not. They ignored Editor the same way everyone ignores Editor.

 

·         First it needs understanding that the infiltration attack in the Kargil sector was Part One of a two-part plan to take Siachin back from the Indians. And this second part was even stupider than the first, which already wins a prize for most stupid plan. We’re in negative territory here. Editor has, in fact, written a rant about the second part when he came to known about it, only last year, thirteen years after Kargil. Sitting in Washington is not conducive to keeping up to date on South Asia. Or anywhere in the world. (We just disrespected the US Government.)

 

·         To explain briefly. If Pakistan controls the heights north of the highway to Leh, it can use artillery to interdict the road. Aside from seizing part of Indian Kashmir, Pakistan hoped that with the road to Leh cut, India would not be able to support its troops on the Siachin, leaving Pakistan free to roll up Indian positions on the glacier. Mushy in fact had visions of starving Indian troops unable to meet the Pakistan attack. This second part is just so moronic that even relating it for readers lowers Editor’s grey cell count, and at his age he really cannot afford to lose the grey cells. Particularly as unlike Bertie Wooster’s man Jeeves Editor doesn’t like fish.

 

·         Okay. If you’re still with us, good, if you’ve given up, even better, because you don’t want your mine to go bad with the dumb details. What Mushy is saying in the article referenced in the open para, is that Nawaz Sharif, his prime minister – who he overthrew – went to Washington and the Americans told him to back off Kargil. Had the PM not done this, Pakistan would have gained 300-square-miles of Indian Kashmir. (We don’t know what Mushy is doing using the British system, as a math teach Editor feels compelled to give Mushy five whacks with a limp noodle for not using metric units. Anyway. Probably not his fault as he spent too much time with Americans.) So you see, Mushy is not talking about Phase Two, just pretending that Phase One was it.

 

·         The problem with Mushy’s statement is that Pakistan’s official position was, and still is, that the Government of Pakistan/Army was not involved in the Kargil affair. It was freedom fighters who did the whole thing. The implication is that the Government of Pakistan is so helpless that it cannot stop “freedom fighters” from deciding to start a war with India and has to sit there helpless for the almost two months the war went on. That, however, is another matter. There were no mujahedeen except some confused types who were impressed into duty as low-altitude porters. That is another long story. The attack was carried out by several battalions of Pakistan’s Northern Light Infantry, and so transparent was the fiction that freedom fighters did the attack that Pakistan had no problem openly awarding dozens of medals to men of the NLI.

 

·         But the official line still is the Pakistan Army had nothing to do with it. Mushy, the architect of the operation (actually it was Force Commander Northern Areas and a couple of his brigadiers came up with the idea, but GOC X Corps and COAS Mushy enthusiastically took it over) has now blown the whole fiction. Nice going, good buddy, to calmly admit to naked aggression. Give the man a medal. Is the Government of India now going to seek an indictment at the UN for the crime of waging a war of aggression? Obviously not. Mushy, however mistaken, had the guts to start a war. Government of India…anyway, best to ignore that for now or we’ll never finish.

 

·         The first thing wrong with Mushy’s thesis that the PM cost Pakistan the gains is that the Pakistan Army has never, ever, listened to its civilian leaders – when it has civilian leaders. Having scored a great victory, by his telling, why would Mushy listen to his PM, who – in Mushy’s narrative was ordered by the Americans to pull back?

 

·         The second thing wrong is why does Mushy assume the tap of war is his to start and stop? Doesn’t India have a vote? Mushy took the heights, and then sat back. Why did he assume India was not going to counterattack? This is typical official Pakistani behavior: come up with a half-baked thesis, and assume the Indians are not going to react to open aggression. Mushy’s Prime Minister in fact did him a great, great favor. When the PM went to Washington to beg the Americans to call the Indians off, the Americans obliged, and the Indians (this is so totally sickening Editor feels ill just writing about it), who were looking for any excuse not to carry the counter-offensive to its logical conclusion, promptly ran up the white flag after they had evicted Pakistan troops from India’s side of the Line of Control.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT January 31, 2013

Editor is sure he did an update yesterday, uploaded it, and checked it on the web.  But there is no sign of the Wednesday update. Its a big pain to do all that work, and not realising one has posted it on orbat.com in an ALT Universe

·         Israel attacks missile shipment to Hezbollah? So says an Israeli media source, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4339181,00.html quoting Associated Press. Apparently three flights of 4 Israeli fighters penetrated Lebanon airspace, each flight staying for several hours before being replaced on station. Presumably they were waiting for the truck/s with the missiles, said to SA-17s, and then interdicted the shipment. The missiles were supposedly shipped by Syria from the port of Latakia to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

 

·         This report baffles us. SA-16 or -18, okay. SA-16 replaced the old SA-7 and SA-18 is more advanced yet. These are shoulder fired SAMs and don’t require a whole lot of training. But SA-17 is a medium-range surface-to-air missile, you have to be an air force to operate them. Aside from the skills/training required, there’s heaps of ground vehicles needed to support them. We’re thinking an 8 launcher squadron (each with 4 missiles) would need ~300 trained personnel. Additionally, you can’t really hide these launchers the way you can the shoulder-fired SAMs. Israel would find SA-17 and knock it out as soon as they were installed.

 

·         Since Latakia is mentioned, we assume this shipment came from Russia via sea. We don’t think at this stage of the game the Russians are shipping new weapons systems to Syria. So did Iran order them and try to divert them to Hezbollah? This would be an exceptionally serious development even if they are SA-16/18.

 

·         Reader Aaron Menon writes to give a solution for gun violence. If people had no arms and legs, they’d find it much harder to kill people. And no arms and no legs would go a good way to solving America’s obesity epidemic. Two birds and that sort of thing. We’re glad others are also working hard to come up with innovative solutions to this epidemic of gun violence and to America’s problems.

 

·         Iran Navy increasing sea presence according to RIA-Novosti http://t.co/VmifI2mP A “23rd Fleet” is being replaced by a “24th Fleet”. The numbers could refer to Iran Navy squadrons, or could be numbers for rotated task forces. The ships will deploy for 3-months in the Eastern Mediterranean, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and all the way to Southeast Asia.

 

·         Well, good for the Iranians is what we say. It’s all international waters, they have a right to be there if that’s what they want, and if it makes them feel good, why not. Our sole complaint is the Iranians should not refer to their indigenous 1400-ton warships as destroyers. Once upon a time, like in World War I, a 1400-tonner was indeed a destroyer. Right now – and its admittedly quite obscene – you have 14,000-ton destroys (US Zumwalt class) which are the size of World War II’s heavy cruisers. Still, by today’s standard’s 1400-ton is not even a frigate. It is a corvette or an Offshore Patrol Vessel. Editor is reminding himself to send a note to the Iran Navy. We are sure they will be overjoyed at our suggestion.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT January 29, 2013

·         A reader complains that we don’t give answers, only criticism, so how are we different from the rest of the media/blogsphere? Actually, we give answers all the time but few seem to take us seriously. We know many people think our answers are just made up on the spur and thrown out to provoke, rather than being real answers.

 

·         Actually, our answers are real answers. Here for example, is our answer/solution of the day. People want a ban on assault weapons. But as any police officer will tell you, assault weapons are responsible for a tiny fraction of US murders. Half of murders are committed with firearms; of these handguns are used 40-times more than rifles (all sorts). In fact,  twice as many murders are committed with hands, fists, feet than with rifles, and 5-times as many are committed with knives. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

 

·         The obvious solution is to permit rifles including assault weapons, and ban all handguns. To ban assault weapons and not handguns is getting things butt-backwards. But how many people was to listen to this answer?

 

·         Mali With the news that Islamists have withdrawn from Kidal, the main phase of the ground war is over. Insurgent Tuaregs once allied with the Islamists and now with the Mali government have occupied Kidal ahead of the French arrival. Timbuktu has also fallen. The French surrounded Timbuktu after seizing the airport, which was taken by parachute jump without any shots fired. 1000 French troops are there along with 200 Mali troops. The French are proceeding with much caution as they don’t want to kill civilians, nor do they want to run into IEDs and other nasties left behind by the insurgents. Also, the French want to give the 100 Mali troops with them the chance to actually take the town. This leaves one town of significance, Kidal, in insurgent hands. The insurgents, just to prove what a great cause they fight for, set fire to two libraries housing some of the famous manuscripts of Timbuktu, a leading center of Islamic learning for several centuries.

 

·         The media has weakly complained they are denied access to the front and are given sanitized sound bites in response to their requests for information. The complaints are weak because the media realize they are deal with the French, who really don’t give a darn about what the media thinks of them. We also suspect that Mali is hardly a destination of urgency and import for most of the press.

 

·         Here is the problem with giving media access to the front. Watching the leading edge of war, like watching sausage being made, is a nauseating business. Mistakes are going to be made. Innocents are going to suffer. War on the ground is not like a nice clean videogame. Additionally, very few reporters understand the mechanics of combat. And the media style is High Hysteria. Combine this together, and there is a case to be made for keeping the media out of the immediate loop. If you are a media person and believe you have a mandate from God to “inform the people”, you are not going to agree. But without getting into the philosophical and scientific details of what is reality, what media reports is not the “truth”, but the collective biases of reporters, many of whom lack the training to understand what’s going on. And many of these reporters are experienced war reporters, but they still don’t get it. So how is media spin pure, and government spin impure?

 

·         This statement may come as a surprise to some readers. Those who know the Editor know he has spent a lifetime uncovering military information governments prefer to keep to themselves, sometimes at considerable risk to himself. But see, Editor has never claimed the public has a right to know – say – what are the Indian Army’s brigade numbers, where the brigades are located, and what is their strength. Editor has always agreed the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Malians, the whatever, have a right to keep the information secret. Even the US hides a lot of military information and it has the right. Editor digs for the info because he is an ever-curious bear and he wants to know because he wants to know, and the public interest can go hang.

 

·         Now the media meme is well, the Islamists have only withdrawn, they are intact, so it’s going to be a long and bloody battle with uncertain outcomes. Well, maybe and maybe not. Just because the insurgents are now in the wilderness doesn’t mean they’re safe. The desert is transparent to reconnaissance aircraft and UAVs. There are forests available, for example, north of Diabaly. These offer better cover. Again, however, vehicular movement can be detected and attacked. The insurgents can, of course, hide their arms, pretend to be locals, and unexpectedly attack targets. But if they gather to do this and use heavy weapons they will be caught and destroyed. Any long-distance movement requires vehicles; firepower means heavy weapons mounted on or transported in vehicles. So their attacks will be light attacks against villages and sabotage against vital targets.

 

·         This can go on for years. And that’s the point. Every year that goes by, the Mali forces grow stronger, and the Islamists have less of a base to operate from. So this Phase I guerilla strategy works both ways. Unless quickly converted to Phase II and III (last is control of towns), it’s as hard the insurgents as it is on the defender. The defender is on top as long as he keeps the insurgents from seizing towns.

 

·         Naturally this is a long term business David Cameron’s estimate of fifty years to clear the Maghreb of Islamists is quite realistic. And there will be setbacks for the defender. But at least with the ADHD Americans not involved, people can sustain a low-intensity, low-cost defense for years and decades.

 

·         US to set up UAV base in Northwest Africa We are amused to learn this. One moment the US is saying it doesn’t want to get involved in the region as it is no threat to US, next minute we see US signing a status of forces agreement with Niger, and planning the deployment of 300 personnel with UAVs either in Niger or in Burkina Faso. It’s almost as if having discovered they have been declared irrelevant, the Americans want to force themselves back in the game so they can throw their weight around.

 

·         We, for one, heartily approve The US has military assets greater than the Europeans can muster, plus, they have a lot of experience. True, Iran/Afghanistan were a mess, but that’s not because of shortcomings in American combat power, but because the troops were led by moron generals who took their guidance from brain-dead civilians. For example, for Iran the Chief of Army Staff told Rummy Rumsfeld a force twice as big as that Rummy planned was needed. Instead of listening, Rummy made sure the Chief was sent away. Then you had the usual suspects – careerist generals eager to please the civilians – who agreed with ol’ Rummy. End result? Disaster. Ten divisions committed from the start and keeping the Iraq Army together would have allowed the US to go home in 3 years and there would not have been the gosh awful ethnic violence. You can’t blame the American soldier for that, it was the fault of his generals and their superiors.

 

·         This said we’d like to remind the Europeans they cannot continue to get by on spending 1 and 2% of GDP on defense. Else their hopes of leading with the US playing a secondary role will remain fantasy. The Euros need more read-deployable troops, more airpower, more electronics, more surveillance, a lot more air transports/air refuelers. And they need much larger stocks of consumables.

 

Monday 0230 GMT January 28, 2013

·         Oh no, not Keynes again! Keynes is a bad word in America, and right now in the EU too. But do we dare say that the reason Keynes is counted as a failure is not because his theory is wrong, but because people do not correctly follow his theory. To recap (Economic 1 in less than five sentences), Keynes said when growth stalls, government must spend money even if it means running deficits; when growth recovers, the deficits must be paid down.

 

·         The problem is that in good times, everyone forgets about paying down the deficit. We want something for nothing, eternal gain with no pain. Alas, the Dismal Science is a hard taskmistress. In recent times, when Clinton began running budget surpluses, the money should have been used to pay down deficits. Instead, Dubaya said “We are doing well, we must return money to the people”. On top of that he decided there was no need to raise taxes to pay for the two wars of the 2000s, obviously you are going to get a right royal mess. We are doing well, so the money must be used to pay down the national debt, not take on more, for heaven’s sake. Bush, in the end, went Keynes on the deficit part, and with Obama giving an assist to the Bush plan, a depression was avoided – and the debt doubled. Resolutions to run down the debt are treated like resolutions to be celibate: it’s so unpleasant that we put it off till tomorrow.

 

·         Meanwhile, back in the Old World, they went counter-Keynes because Germany determines the fate of Europe and the Germans – with good reason – are more frightened of inflation than they are of recession/depression. The results are clear to see: unemployment in the badly hit countries is at depression levels, and growth has stalled. UK’s Cameron must be a German at heart, because he cut spending so viciously his country is in a TRIPLE-dip recession. In the spirit of his illustrious predecessor, Winston Churchill, Cameron has vowed no surrender. It’s like saying “Icebergs? The Titanic is not frightened of icebergs! Dang the ice and full speed ahead.” (This last in the tone of Admiral Farragut at Mobile Bay.) (Just BTW, torpedoes in those days were tethered mines.) In short, cutting spending when the economy is faltering is like leeching a wounded man – you speed his demise.

 

·         Now just wait a minute, Editor you will say. Haven’t you been saying that even if it means a depression the debt has to be cut? Indeed we have. And that’s because when the good times roll, we never cut spending. The way we’re going, adding a trillion plus dollars a year to our deficit means by 2023 we’ll have a deficit in the $25-trillion range, and then it will be time to sing the Banana Boat Song ‘coz we will be a Banana Republic (if we aren’t already). Now, we understand that Professor Paul Krugman disagrees http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/deficits-and-the-printing-press-somewhat-wonkish/ about deficits, saying they are unimportant as long as we are masters of our currency. But as nearly as we can understand, even Krugman is not saying that deficits never matter.  “…once we’re no longer in a liquidity trap, running large deficits without access to bond markets is a recipe for very high inflation, perhaps even hyperinflation.” He doesn’t think the US is anywhere near losing access to bond markets. Indeed, because the world is in such bad economic/political shape, that the US is offering 1.8% for its 10-year bonds, and people are buying. If inflation goes above 1.8%, which it will soon as the economy recovers, then in effect people will be paying the US to keep its money.

 

·         Fair enough. But there’s something called politics. When conditions change, will the US be prepared to sharply cut the deficit to make sure people keep buying our bonds? The answer is no. Ditto Europe. The Europeans have decided to cut their deficits now regardless of the hardships. It worked in little Estonia: they took their hardships in one go and have recovered. But then Estonia has 1.3-million people, about as much as Editor’s Maryland county. We dare say it’s easier to get consensus with 1.3-million people than it is with 316-million. Just saying.

 

·         You could also do an Iceland. That country defaulted on its debt, did a brutal devaluation, and is thriving again. But here’s the thing. Contra to pouplar belief, Iceland did NOT default on its sovereign debt. It allowed its banks to default on commercial debt. In other words, no bailout a la US and EU, let the bankers and bank shareholders suffer. Iceland also forced its banks to forgive 13% of debt held by individuals. Banks took another hit.

 

·         So can we force American bankers to take such a hit? Ha. Haha. Hahaha. Hahahaha. Hahahahaha. Since the bankers run Congress, the chances are less than the Editor getting two dates on Saturday. (Chances of 1 date equal zero. Zero multiplied by zero – oh the inhumanity! Still equals zero. Zero is the most powerful number there is. You can mess with Texas, you cannot mess with Zero. It will annihilate everything.)

 

Sunday 0230 GMT January 27, 2013

·         Mali Gao, the largest town in the north, fell to the French. Special Forces seized the airport and a vital bridge to prepare the way. Dozens of Islamists were reported killed, and their vehicles and logistics dumps destroyed.  Chad and Niger troops pushed to Gao from the south and are now in the town. The mayor, who had fled to Bamako last year when the Islamists swept in, has returned. The African troops will take over security in Gao.

 

·         Editor was rather amused with the media after Islamists blew up the bridge on the road from Niger to Gao. We were treated to analyses about how the Islamists had shown they could strike where they wanted. Well, too bad for the Islamists that there was a ford just a few kilometers away, so the meme about a capable and nimble enemy crashed. We got similar condescension the other day from the Washington Post, all about how the French didn’t know what they had gotten into. Considering the French have been in Mali since the 19th Century, we’d assume the French know Mali at least as well as Americans know Alaska, but let’s not let them stop the commentary about the French being as ignorant as us Americans.

 

·         Readers may be interested to note that the French have had an exit plan from the start. They know this is an African problem that only Africans can resolve. So they have made sure that the African intervention force has deployed months earlier than was thought necessary. They have also persuaded Chad to add 2000 troops to the West African brigade of the African Union intervention force, greatly strengthening the original force. They have also told the Africans they will stick around for as long as needed but the Africans will be in the lead. When it comes to airstrikes and keeping a couple of battalions in Mali, the French can sustain this level of effort for years.

 

·         So obviously the Islamists are not going to vanish overnight. They have the capability to continue a guerilla war for many years. But each time they try and capture a town they will get destroyed. The bush and the desert will be theirs. That’s not perfect, but it is a lot better than having Mali as a country run by Islamists. One of the main tools for success in counter-insurgency is to define the minimum acceptable level of disorder and not try for a 100% solution, or even a 90% solution. Once you get past 80%, every additional percent requires an exponential rise in costs.

 

·         The Osama Bin Laden foolishness aside, the US was not wrong to intervene in Afghanistan because the Islamist government was one of the worst violators of human rights in the world. Of course, we can argue there were more important targets, DPRK being the main one, but the Congo was also worth saving. We can also argue none of this was the business of America. But once the decision was made to go in, and once it became clear OBL had split, the US could have learned from the Soviets and the Afghans and history and focused on controlling the main cities and daytime control of the highways between them. This is as close to a central government as Afghanistan has ever had. Instead of that the US, in its usually ADHD way, decided Afghanistan had to become a modern nation with a democracy built to near US standards. The rest, as they say, is history. Not that it makes any difference. Americans do not believe in history.

 

·         Correction A while ago, on our Twitter feed, we’d mentioned an article from a conservative US Internet source that said the school that the President’s daughters attend has 12 armed guards as a matter of routine, aside from the Secret Service detail. We’d mentioned that in the context that when you move in circles where armed protection is available in school for your children, its easy for you to ridicule the idea of providing ordinary folks’ schools with armed guards.

 

·         Well, apparently the news item was wrong. Not a big surprise because in the Internet Age everyone seems free to say things without doing real checking. It turns out that Sidwell Friends, the Preziness’s school, has 11 security officers split between two separate campuses. Of the eleven, three are authorized to carry weapons, the rest are unarmed. Its not clear if the three actually do carry weapons.

 

·         The scandal about the general that wasn’t a scandal Anyone remember the Florida socialite who allegedly exchanged 30,000 emails with a high-ranking US general? She hit the news because the CIA Director’s main extra-circular squeeze had threatened the lady who had – bad, bad girl – kissed the CIA Director on the cheek. The Government put 15 investigators working extra hours to analyze the emails and uncover moral turpitude. We did not see how it was the Government’s beeswax to be user taxpayer money – that’s your money and mine – on digging into the private affairs of a government employee. But then, this is America. You can kill a dozen people and everyone will yawn, but have an affair, and its death by stoning. Here we kill you not by actual stones, which is actually quite fast and merciful. Here we stone you with the Death of One Thousand Cuts inflicted by government prosecutors and the media and tens of millions of citizens who are simply jealous they can’t have an affair either because they are too ugly, or because their spouse will go all Lorena Bobbit on them. (Note for younger generation: Ms. Bobbit was a Washington metro area lady who um – shortened her husband without anesthesia when she caught him having an affair.)

 

·         Anyway, the general has been found not guilty. The emails were in the hundreds, and they were sent from the joint email account of the lady and her husband. Our zealous prosecutors, able to sniff inappropriateness at a thousand meters with the wind blowing against them at 80-knots, did find streaks of inappropriateness in the wording of some emails, but not enough to make a case. Editor has noted that by those standards, he would be jailed for fifty offenses a day, since he calls his female students – and often his male students – baby, darling, sweetheart, sugar all day long. He also uses the same endearments for young women (under the age of 60) with whom he happens to be on close enough terms. Touching his students however affectionately? No, because that is against the rules. But the general and the Florida socialite were adults, albeit with a father-daughter relationships.

 

·         Doubtless a reader will write in and say: “But Editor, you are not a military officer or a Congressman.”  Oh, of course. America is a country with zero morality, so we have to insist on a very high standard of morality for certain groups of people. Then when they fall afoul of OUR standards, we jump on them, feel morally superior, and don’t have to deal with our total lack of morality.

 

Saturday 0230 GMT January 26, 2012

Folks, we are not returning to 7-days a week updates. Editor was sick at home for two weeks; in addition a lot has been happening. Week after next college starts again. That takes up 20-30 hours/week if one wants As, and Editor very much does. What’s really frustrating is when you do twice as much work as anyone else in the class, and a professor less than half your age who hasn’t published more than one article in their life (my college uses adjuncts a lot) decides that 90 or 92 is a high grade. Inevitably, on some assignments one will get 89, 88, 87 and there goes the A while you sing sad songs. Today’s A is like yesterday’s B. A B has come to mean nothing. You’re wondering why Editor is still in college? Well, it’s a long story, and like most long stories it’s not terribly interesting. Let’s just say Editor cannot afford NOT to be in college and delicately draw a curtain on the matter. Now his college is offering a masters in intelligence studies, so naturally when Editor finishes his current masters, he’s going to start that. Editor needs some light-hearted laffs in his life. The very notion of a degree in intelligence studies makes him giggle whenever he thinks of it.

·         Baby Kim needs many whacks with limp noodles Suppose you had a country that announces plans for an N-test, and says it is directed at the US. The country says words don’t work with the US, only action does. Suppose this country is also developing an ICBM to deliver the N-warhead, and says its next missile test is also directed at the US. Now suppose this country has been sanctioned for endless bad behavior by the United Nations. In response it says it will attack its neighbor.

 

·         Now we must ask you to make a giant assumption that you will find really hard to swallow, but for the Editor’s sake, please try. This assumption is the US is governed by rational leaders. Wouldn’t you think the US should (a) wipe out the N-program which is at a handful of sites; (b) wipe out the ICBM program which is also a handful of sites; and (c) if that country fires a single shot at its neighbor, you destroy the country. After all, destroying someone’s N- and missile programs when that country has been saying – repeatedly – you are its mortal enemy, and the country is developing these nasties with the explicit aim of threatening the US, is justified as self-defense. As for wiping it out when it fires at your treaty ally, well that’s responding to aggression. Required by our treaties and by UN law.

 

·         So here we have a situation where Baby Kim is doing these very things, and Washington is doing what? Shaking its head in disappointment at Baby Kim’s bad behavior. Oh, its all talk as it always is with the DPRK. Oh, Baby Kim is going to change things but he needs to talk hawkish to appease his generals. Oh, sanctions will control him. Oh, China will not let him get out of hand. Washington has 101 excuses for its inaction. None of Washington’s excuses are based on the slightest reality. It is all a bunch of overly-intellectualized intellectuals with giant heads and tiny, doll-like everything else who come up with these ideas after staging endless, arcane debates, which make as much sense as debates about transmuting lead into gold. Actually, that is not a good example, because we can now transmute lead into gold. It’s just the energy required is so high it would make no sense. But you know what we’re saying here. Which is that reading tea leaves is not a good way to chart US national security policies.

 

·         Let’s step back a moment. We went to war with Saddam because – we said – he was developing WMDs. Well, it was a big fat lie, possibly the biggest the US has told since George Washington said he did not have relations involving axes and cherry trees. We have no idea what Washington said or did in reality, our statement simply sounds good to us. And that’s what the people who run our national security policy also do: they say things that sound good them, logical or not, rational or not, factual or not.

 

·         Now we come to Baby Kim. He actually, really, truly, honestly developing WMDs; he’s doing it openly; and he’s openly saying he wants to teach the US a lesson. Washington’s reaction? More rationalization about he doesn’t really mean it.

 

·         Does this sound familiar? It should. Go back to the 1930s and a certain German gentleman with a Charlie Chaplin mustache. He kept repeating precisely what he planned to do. Then when he did what he said he would, the world was shocked, shocked. In the case of the Charlie Chaplin look-alike, the world at least had some excuse. Europe had been through one of the most brutal wars it ever experienced, the world was in depression, and people were just tired and confused and wanted peace at any cost.

 

·         Now we’re not saying Baby Kim is going to get his bomb and his ICBM tomorrow. The bomb in particular is a whole lot harder than people tell you. But nonetheless, DPRK is facing materials and technology problems. The theory of the thing is well known. Sooner or later Baby Kim will have real toys to play with, not just the cheap imitation Chinese rubber ICBM toys he plays with in his bathtub. If he takes baths. We’re starting to have our doubts when we see his fotos.

 

·         Oh well, by the time he gets his ICBMs with N-warheads we’ll have perfected our ABM defenses. A technical argument we accept, but not the political logic. Does Baby Kim have to actually fire off half-a-dozen missiles at us before we wake up?

 

·         Actually, probably it’s only when Baby Kim pushes the button will we admit he’s serious. Now that’s a really terrific way to run national security.

 

Friday 0230 GMT January 25, 2013

Editor was just getting settled to extend yesterday’s rant about the US and its position in the world, when we were interrupted by this news about Australia.

·         Australia oil Exploration suggests there may be as much as 233-billion barrels of oil in South Australia. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/9822955/Trillions-of-dollars-worth-of-oil-found-in-Australian-outback.html Seeing as Australia’s population is about a tenth that of the US, it is like the US finding another 2.3-trillion barrels of oil.

 

·         Immediately recoverable is about 3.5-billion barrels. This doubles Australia’s reserves to 40-years. More oil recovered will depend on the price, and later on, on the technology available. Even at 3.5-billion addition barrels Australia can export oil. It is interesting to note that over the last 30-years of oil extraction, global reserves have actually increased by almost 700-billion barrels, or 20-years worth at present consumption of about 100-billion barrels a year.

 

·         Is it not about time that we stopped already with this schtick that oil is running out? It is not running out for several more decades. We need to calm down. Calm down some readers may ask? We are all gonna ddddiiieee slowly. Soon Earth will be like Venus

 

·         Okay. Let’s concede there is global warming going on. (And not global cooling as some fear, which would be much, much worse especially for the 3rd World). Let’s concede that humans are entirely responsible for it. Let’s concede we need to cut back on burning carbon. But the US is doing its part, its energy used per unit of GDP has halved in the last 30 years, and our carbon emissions are at their lowest in 20-years (we’re using rounded figures here – we’re trying to make a general point, not write a scientific thesis).  Why aren’t people looking at ways to help China/India cut down their emissions? Can you imagine what it’s going be like when both countries overtake the US in GDP? China is already the world’s number one air polluter. Why do we have to keep blaming the US? Or is it too much to ask Americans to stop taking masochistic joy in beating ourselves up as the Evil Empire?

 

·         Like it or not, the transition to a non-carbon global economy is going to take at least 50-years. That will be to phase out carbon for transportation and heating: we’ll still need the H and the C molecules for industry. The obvious solution is passive N-power with a huge increase in funding for fusion. But mention the N word, and environmentalists just go bananas. Yes, solar/wind are alternatives, and their use is growing rapidly. But they cannot be answers all by themselves unless someone thinks of a way to store energy. Back in the day when Editor used to study the energy thing (1970s, when after 1973 non-oil energy looked like a strategic imperative), one idea was to use solar/wind to pump water into hydro reservoirs, and then use the water to smooth out supply. But now hydro is on the outs.

 

·         Besides, it should be clear by now that wind, at least, has enormous environmental consequences. Right now one of the most extreme schemes Editor has heard of involves putting a chain of 600-foot high turbines across a large swath of Ireland. No, you did not read wrong and editor did not add a zero. Six hundred feet. Sixty stories. How close to a wind farm of 600-foot turbines do the green energy folks want to live?

 

·         If you are not willing to go the passive N-power and fusion routes, there is just one way of cutting carbon burning. It’s a two-part way. One, put the Earth on a negative population growth curve. The greatest pollutant – obviously – is us. Two, drastically reduce our standards of living to reduce the impact on the environment. Editor is ready if you are. He’s from India, after all, and we Indians know about getting by with less.

 

·         But is your average American ready to cut down her/his dwelling to 1000-square-feet, end fast-food, Starbucks, the huge amount of clothes etc we buy, and do away with at least half the vehicles in the country? We don’t think so. So are the environmentalists prepared to force people to do this? Like a Green Dictatorship? We don’t think so.

 

·         As for reducing standards of living, good luck telling the Indians and the Chinese and the South Americans and the Africans that they can’t go above a certain point in population and economic growth. It’s commonly said we Americans constitute 5% of the world’s population and consume 25% of its resources. If we cut our use by half, we will still be consuming 12% of the world’s resources. We leave it to you to do the math on what point the 6-billion people who are poor in American terms should stop their growth. But whatever that point is, may we suggest  the Greens don’t push the idea? Else they won’t come back alive after preaching to the 6-billion.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT January 24, 2013

·         Responding to our rant yesterday where we said that if the US wasn’t prepared to go all-in in the fight against Islamic fundamentalism,  “Let’s just resign ourselves to being the Swiss: pleasant, well-manne​red, and of zero consequence”, reader Patrick Skuza asks: “Are you sure that isn't a bad idea? To be relevant, all you need is a (big) navy.” One way of looking at Mr. Skuza’s point is through the framework set out by Mahan: control the world ocean, and you control the world. Doubtless if Mahan had lived in the 20th Century rather than the 19th, he would have cautioned against getting involved in land wars not just in Asia, but anywhere.

 

·         On the converse we have the British geographer Mckinder who came up with the heartland theory. At that time (1904) all five of the five great powers lay in Eurasia: France, Germany, and Russia, with the UK and Japan on the immediate periphery. Remember back in 1904 the US was seen as having potential, but it was far from being accepted as a world power. Mckinder believed he would controlled the heartland – Russia – controlled the world.

 

·         To summarize: Mahan = seapower; Mckinder = landpower.  With the rise of the US to become, by 1945, the one and only superpower, clearly the argument runs in Mahan’s favor because with its seapower, the US could keep everyone locked into their land territories. No need to remind that the US Navy in 1945 was more powerful than all the other navies put together, and in a sense, the US was just getting going.

 

·         So why does the US need to a be landpower when through seapower it can be number one? Honestly, no reason at all. Now, suppose you look at military power in terms of carrier battlegroup equivalents. Don’t be worried if you’ve never hear this term before, because unless someone else has come up with the term/comparison in the last 3 decades, this is Editor’s formulation. One army/marine division equals a carrier battle group in terms of offensive or defensive power, and two air force fighter wings equal a carrier battle group in the same terms. So at present, with a $600-billion budget, the US could afford, say, 30 active and 20 reserve carrier battle groups. You can fiddle with the formulation as suits you, we’re just making a general point.

 

·         You can see already that with 30 active CBGs, no one else is getting off their land without permission from the US of A. Make that 50 CBGs on mobilization, and really  no one else is getting off their land without permission from the US of A. To show you what a 30 CVB force implies, that’s ten carriers permanently forward deployed and a surge capability of 20. In peacetime ten carriers, in today’s environment, means five off China and five for the rest of the world. You could make this two in the Mediterranean and three for Iran, or however you want to do it. On mobilization you have 25 carriers for surge, so double the above numbers and you still have five as a floating reserve.

 

·         Clearly no one is going to threaten the US with such a powerful navy. Conversely, US can threaten to destroy the land forces of any power (with sufficiently long-range carrier aircraft), but will not be able to influence events on land – no boots on the ground. Again, what is wrong with this? Nothing at all. It has a nice symmetry to it, kind of John Paul Jones and his “Don’t Tread On Me”, one of the flags/mottos suggested for the new United States. Of course, it’s a bit more aggressive than that: we’re not telling the enemy we’ll clobber him if he goes east of Hawaii or West of the East Atlantic, we’re telling him “We have you boxed in, do what you want on land, but you aren’t coming out to sea because the world ocean is our defensive buffer”. Still, you get the point generally.  

 

·         So, not only is the US still the world’s sole superpower, but of a sudden we are not involved in 150 countries (or however many we have some kind of military involvement in).

 

Wednesday 0230 January 23, 2013

·         The World Is Still Turning (Editor has no idea what he means by invoking the famous soap opera. Us creative types are kind of spontaneous.) So the excitement over Algeria and Mali is now over. Just a thought or two from the Head Curmudgeon.

 

·         Algeria The media has been going on and on about how the hostage leader (an Algerian) was willing to negotiate. Our reaction to this is: Aaaaaaannnnnnd? A criminal organizes 40 or so people to seize hostages. Obviously he wants to negotiate. That was the point of his criminality. So, so what he was willing to negotiate? How is this relevant? It is as relevant as saying he went potty six times during the crisis. True, but entirely beside the point. Just because a criminal is willing to negotiate does not mean anyone should waste a moment negotiating with him.

 

·         Many hostages lost their lives. One hundred percent of the responsibility lies with the terrorists, first by seizing people, then by saying they were willing to kill them if demands were not met, then by creating situations where the hostages were put at maximum risk by the terrorists and even executed by them. If the media can’t even straight who is the criminal and who is the victim, and if the media wants to equate terrorists with governments, Editor suggests the media remember one thing. Were the Islamists to win, the media would have to convert to the most fanatical brand of Islam, which is so far to left-field that it isn’t clear to us its Islam. If the media refused to convert, it would be killed. Still want to be even-handed between the terrorists and the rest of the world?

 

·         Mali so it should be clear by now that this is going to be one heck of a slog. It will be longer than it should be because the west has gone chicken and refuses to back France where it matters.

 

·         Actually, we’ve been thinking about this chicken business. We’ve come to the conclusion your average chicken is braver than the US Government or the UK Government or the German Government or whatever. We have also come the conclusion a one-cell organism has more courage than western governments.  Look, we understand that after Iraq and Afghanistan the west is tired of war.  But is Editor supposed to be impressed? After all, the rest of the sheep, led by the Head Shoop, the US, went for 11 years of war like blithering idiots. Now when the world needs the sheep to act like strong humans, the sheep are going “baaaaa” as an excuse and we’re supposed to accept this?

 

·         Then you have peeps like the US moaning and crying and whining about how many of our “brave men and women” have died. They died because of the government’s foolishness, that’s no excuse not to fight the wars that have to be fought. Second, can we stop referring to every soldier as a hero and brave? 99% of people who get killed in wars are neither heroes nor brave. The truly brave are those who take actions despite knowing they are going to be killed, they face certain death and win through or not. Third, six thousand Americans have died in 11 years of war. Round that off to 600 a year. The US has a population of 315-million. Do we need to do the sums? The total death toll does not come to even 1/4th the murders in our country for just one year. As for economic sacrifice, please tell us where that is. Both wars were paid for on the national credit card. Our children will be made to pay. Not us. The US needs maybe 200,000 volunteers a year to keep going. Since 2008 the military has been having trouble filling this quota. There are something like 4-million or more people who turn 18 each year. We can’t get 1 of 20 to volunteer. (We’re not blaming people for not volunteering: given the blithering idiots who run the country if it up to Editor he would stop anyone from volunteering for the military.)

 

·         Our point is its time to stop already with the tears of pity. The US has sacrificed nothing  in the GWOT. And if AQ gets more of a foot hold in the Maghreb, it isn’t just Mali that will be at risk. Does the US really want six or seven more Afghanistans a hop away from Europe? Are we isolationist, then? There is a case to be made for isolationism. Editor can make it as well as anyone else. But then let us put away these foolish dreams of American exceptionalism and leadership of the world. Let’s just resign ourselves to being the Swiss: pleasant, well-mannered, and of zero consequence.

 

·         Meanwhile, poor old Prince Harry He’s back from Afghanistan, where he had a jolly fun time killing Taliban. Now half his country is on his back because he made the mistake of all but saying so. It’s not politically correct for a consequential young man to say he enjoys war. Has anyone ever figured that if everyone hated war they would be no wars? The British are all-volunteer. They join to fight. Harry did his job and he deserves thanks – do not see too many elite Americans volunteering for combat duty. Oh yes, he made a joke about being well-trained an Apache gunner pilot because he got in a lot of practice on video-games. We are supposed to be appalled at this? First, its typical English modesty, this business of poking fun at oneself. Second, when you’re an attack helicopter pilot in Afghanistan the risk is low, and your cockpit is configured like a Super Video Game. We don’t doubt video games provide good training for the real thing. What’s wrong with saying that?

 

·         And to his credit, Harry has said he would rather have led infantry on the ground, in case anyone is thinking “oh, he’s all casual because he was in a helicopter”. He has volunteered for two combat tours. How many privileged young men have done that? UK media, leave him alone. He’s more of a man than you’ll be. Baaaaa.

Tuesday 0230 January 22, 2013

·         Mali Okay, folks, here comes trouble. First, it appears the Mali Army is even more useless than we thought.  Below is all we could from an article in Liberation, the French newspaper. Liberation wanted us to pay 1 Euro for the full article, doubtless a mere pfffffth in Euro where a cup of coffee can cost 5 Euros. First, Editor doesn’t drink coffee. Second, 1 Euro = 2 standard Hershey milk chocolates, or 48-hours’ worth for the Editor. Much as Editor loves his readers,  he is not going two days without chocolate, particularly as it’s doubtful anyone really cares about the Mali Army except him. So we tried a workaround and got the below from FranceInfo’s Press Review (translated by Google Translate).

 

·         Officially, it is the Malian army retains control of the reconquest of northern Mali, the French army being there to support that Malian forces and African. While the Malian army, how many divisions? Liberation in question, and this is already a problem, how many divisions, nobody knows anything. In addition, one expert pointed out that this is an army that does not have a warrior culture, which is still embarrassing for an army.

 

·         As for equipment, it would amount to a gun for five men, old worn Kalashnikovs. Another illustration of the abject poverty of the Malian army, hospital's largest military camp in the country, there is a lack of any care for the wounded at the front, no dressings, no drugs. The last time the Prime Minister of Mali came there, he gave the cameras a big envelope: the equivalent of 6,000 euros to cover the most urgent needs.

 

·         It is this army of ragtag which must confront heavily armed jihadists and overtrained. http://www.franceinfo.fr/decryptage/la-revue-de-presse/a-867339-2013-01-21

 

·         Personally, the 1 rifle per 5 men sounds a bit suspish, if you ask us. You can pick up old, worn AK-47s for a hundred dollars or so if you are a government, and however badly the government pays and feeds the Mali Army, that’s 1-months O&M so as to speak. But the hospital situation sounds genuine, otherwise so big a deal would not have been made for a $8000 donation by the Prez. By contrast a US serviceman costs $400,000/year when not at war ($600-billion divided by 1.5-million uniformed active duty personnel). Unless something drastic is done, it is pointless to ask the Mali Army to assume the lead once the French have made the jihadis flee their bases. As for the West African AU force, we were not encouraged to learn that the Senegal Army battalion is held up because it does not have sufficient ammunition.

 

·         Now comes Qatar From France24 we learn that several French officials etc are accusing Qatar of helping the jihadis. Apparently nothing new: they’ve been financing them in Mali since the 1980s. Their aim appears to be competition with Saudi Arabia for influence among the jihadis, and eyes firmly fixed on Mali’s rich hydrocarbon/precious mineral future.

 

·         Now, we’re also used to the Saudis and the American elite slimeballing America on the Global War On Terror. We pay the Saudis money for their oil; they use the oil (among other things) to pay off the jihadis. Go make jihad in other countries, leave Saudi Arabia alone. So you get this incredible criminal association, which seems to be fine with the US elite because their boys and girls are not getting killed in the GWOT. We in India are also large-scale victims of Saudi-financed terror, but then Editor, being Indian, knows better than to expect his elite to stand up to the Saudis. The Indian elite couldn’t stand up to a chicken-with-no-legs crossing the road. One would expect better of the American elite, and of course you would be committing an egregious mistake. Editor has long held the Indian elite needs to be (a) executed; or (b) those not killed  sent to reeducation camps for the atrocities they have inflicted on India for 65 years. Americans might want to start thinking along the same lines for their elite. But hey, that’s up to you all. Editor just lives here as a guest.

 

·         But this news about Qatar’s super-slimeyness comes as news. This is the problem when you cant afford to travel or afford to do full-time research, as was the case with Editor in the 1960s (travel) and 1970s-1980s (full-time research). One feels abysmally ignorant when one had no clue about the Qatari-Jihadi connection. One tends to think of the Qataris as good guys, modern, moving toward a rule of law, and a US ally. They did a lot for the west in Libya, and they are also a lead actor in the Syria revolt. Though if they’re financing jihadis then this is big trouble.

 

·         You see, the GWOT is hard enough as it is without our own government refusing to get down to first causes, which include the revolutionary overthrow of the Middle East/Gulf oil state governments. Please note we said ‘revolutionary’ as in of the ordinary people, the sans culottes (and no, we do not include Kim K in this category because she is very rich while being sans culottes).  BTW, we hope our readers realize that the only way this jihad thing can start to be brought under control is if the existing status quo in the West Asia oil states is overthrown – we’re not sure we’ve ranted about this, or have we just been putting this under the “everyone knows” category.

 

·         But it becomes harder when for every jihadi you kill the Saudis and Qataris and others let two more out of the attack-dog pens. The US can show sense: it ha, so far, in Egypt. We realize this is much to the anger of our conservative friends, but we think they are not really up on Egypt. The repression for these past decades has been so acute that the majority of Egyptians are radicalized and western-haters. The only way to remedy the situation is to let the radicals come to power, stand aside, and tell them “we respect the will of the people, we’ll help you as much as we can afford.” Well, you can’t be party to the repression – as US has been – for decades, then see sense, and then overnight think the Egyptians are going to clasp our knees and kiss our large, fat feet with gratitude. They are going to spit at us for years, and we simply have to remain calm and continue to engage them. One day they will realize we are no longer the enemy. We’ve made a good start in Egypt, we can do the same thing in Afghanistan.

 

Monday 0230 GMT January 21, 2013

·         Mali French aircraft have attacked Kidal, which is the northern most major town held by the Islamists. The French/Mali ground forces are a very long way from Kidal, but as we have noted in earlier posts, because of the nature of the terrain, it is possible for light mechanized columns to cover 200-km/day. The north is sparsely populated, and the few highways permit rapid movement. The French intent appears to be to signal that the Islamists are not safe anywhere in Mali and to attain moral ascendency.

 

·         Despite the media reports of heavy fighting in Diabaly locals say there was no ground fighting. The French/Malians did not enter the town once it was evident the Islamists were using the population as human shields. Instead, they cut off escape routes – again, the roads are very few, so this is not complicated and used airpower to target enemy vehicles. Without vehicles no one is going anywhere.

 

·         Russia and Canada are the latest to offer logistical support, but we were surprised to learn that NATO has committed just four transports to the operation. The US has with the greatest reluctance agreed to lift a French light mechanized battalion, and is charging the French $20-million for the privilege.

 

·         We hope the Euros are watching and learning their lesson They have run down their military forces to pathetically low levels by spending 2% or less on their armed forces. Implicit in this has been the assumption the US will do the heavy lifting. Now in Mali everyone has seen that the only thing the US is doing is lifting hot air. There is no doubt the US is doing the Scumbag routine. It mistakenly sees no threat to itself from AQIM, so it doesn’t see why it should participate in the current Sahel shenanigans. Naturally you will not get answers from the US on the simple matter of Afghanistan and Iraq. What exactly what was the threat these two countries posed to the Euros. (Of course you will ask what was the threat they posed to the US, but if we go off on this we will never finish the update.)The US stomped on its allies till they contributed troops and money to help the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. The arm twisting in Afghanistan was so extreme that the allied forces became known as the “Coalition of the unwilling”.

 

·         Our point here is that the French can accuse the US of scumbaggery all they want (and we enthusiastically join the French in the matter of Mali), but how does that change the reality that the Euros since 1990 have been evading their own responsibilities? The EU has a GDP bigger than the US’s so resources should not be a problem. Okay, no one is saying the EU should spend the actual 6% of GDP the US has been spending till recently on all matters defense, but is something in the 2.5-3% range all that revolting? Look at the way Germany and the UK have been cutting defense. Pretty soon they’re going to have trouble deploying a single brigade each. (Actually, the Germans can’t deploy that even now, without all the new cuts.) Would France have been in this difficult position if the EU had a combined force of, say, 30 C-17s? Agreed, that’s a cool $12-billion, but then either you are a player or you are not a player. You cannot be a player unless you pay the entry fee and have the money to remain in the game.

 

·         By the way, another way of looking at US perfidy in the matter of Mali is Libya. Has the US explained what threat Libya presented to the US? In fact, Gaffy had become our BFF. But we had no compunctions in bombing the Libyans to heck and below. Wasn’t there something about people seeking freedom from tyranny deserve our help? So what is happening in Mali? 3-4000 men with lots of guns want to take over Mali (half that is the Tuaregs), a country of 15-million. Mali has a well-deserved reputation for tolerance. But the 1000 or so Islamists imposed a brutal tyranny on the country and then went on to destroy priceless monuments and manuscripts that form part of a world heritage site. Any barbarity against the world’s collective cultural heritage is an attack on the world as a whole. No one suggests the US send in the 10th Mountain Division to Mali. But what’s stopping the US for aiding the French in air strikes and logistics?

 

·         Also by the way another reason to avoid media memes. Remember who everyone said the Tuaregs were the fiercest fighters Gaffy Waffy had, how they were his personal guard, and these are Berbers after all? We all know how tough the Berbers are. And now we see the proof: marshmallows are tougher than this bunch of Tuaregs. The Tuaregs outnumbered the Islamists at least 4-to-1 when this schmoo started last year. The Islamists beat the pants off the Tuaregs.

 

·         Then we were told how tough the Islamists were. A few score French air sorties put an end to that myth. We are not, BTW, mocking the Islamist: no one can face air power in the desert. US troops would not be able to. So it’s no disgrace the Islamists ran for it. We’re talking about media memes. Re. the Mali Army, we are told one reason for its pathetic performance is the defection of several officers and many troops to the Tuareg rebels. If this is really the case, okay, we can accept it. No one can fight when units to your rear are defecting.

Sunday 0230 January 20, 2013

Special Update

What to do with America, the problem child?

·         Twice this last week America was forcefully put in its place. Washington’s preferred solution to Mali was a negotiated rather than a military solution. By advancing on Mopti and planning to move on Bamako, the Islamists rendered American plan irrelevant. Then the French sealed the irrelevance by intervening on their own.

 

·         In Algeria, the government took no heed for America’s concerns and acted in its own interests. Down the hatch went years of American diplomacy: US has been trying to make Algeria a partner in GWOT, the Algerians have been telling the US to go do something unpleasant to the desert camels. Again, America was shown its irrelevancy.

 

·         To this we can add two small additional incidents. Taiwan is putting into production a 1200-km land attack missile. When asked if this did not violate the Missile Technology Control Regime – another imposition on the world brought about by America, the Taiwan official said that it 1000% violates the MTRCR, and he didn’t give a bleeping bleep what America thought. The Taiwanese are angry because Washington is constantly on their case about not provoking PRC, but nary a harsh word is said to PRC when it points hundreds of missiles at Taiwan. And Pakistan is freeing all Afghan Taliban in its custody, including the movement’s Number 2. Should US say anything, the Pakistan will look wide-eyed and say: “But it’s your idea to negotiate with the Taliban, and for negotiations we have to let everyone go.”

 

·         Logically, it had to be this way and it will increasingly be this way because the age of American supremacy is over. Why should anyone in Washington think after Iraq and Afghanistan it would be otherwise? Washington, being ADHD, thinks that because it has forgotten Iraq/Afghanistan, the rest of the world should do. It expects the rest of the world to give America a pass, pretend nothing happened, and continue looking up adoringly at Washington like good little boys and girls whose greatest aim in life is to become like Americans.

 

·         Iraq is a dead horse; no sense flogging it. But we will say: Americans, do not expect gratitude for what you did. The Iraqis are xenophobic; they would not let us keep even 3000 military personnel in country. The rest of the Mideast curses America for destabilizing the entire region and helping the rise of Iran. When a country doesn’t even understand what its own interests are, you are going to lose respect. (Full disclosure: Editor, being a patriotic American to whom the government would never lie, supported both the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Disillusionment and the sad reality that the government did lie cam later.)

 

·         But Afghanistan is an Ultra SNAFU. Not only did we mess up the place politically, but we have suffered an actual, hands on military defeat, as a consequence of which we are leaving. Whatever people thought of America’s capabilities to do international politics skillfully, everyone including Editor believed America was militarily invincible. More fools us. But readers do see this all has consequences: people take us less seriously than they did before. People don’t want to be preached at anymore by a big fat failure.

 

·         What is so hilarious about Mali is how the Americans manage to get things so messed up. Having not done the political thing in Afghanistan when it was political situation, we have decided we had to do the political in Mali. But Mali was a military situation. Algeria is a hydrocarbon exporter, it doesn’t need American favors; and it buys its weapons from Russia. So we have zero leverage. Because of their extreme nationalism, the Algerians don’t want Americans roaming around their country. End of the matter, and there’s fluff all we can do about it. As for the GWOT, the way it is going, please tell us: would even an American listen to what Washington has to say about how to work the Global War On Terror?

 

·         Honestly, to see America so disrespected is terribly painful for Editor. It is said of us immigrants  we are more patriotic than native Americans because we have seen the other side of the wall and we realize better what is at stake. Editor is one such example. Sometimes Editor thinks American liberals actually even rejoice at the defeats America is encountering, because they are convinced America as a country is deeply and irrevocably evil.

 

·         Nonetheless, Editor asks his American readers of any political persuasion: as he did in the 1960s, in the 2010s he is willing to make America’s case to the world, however skeptical the world might be or however unwilling  to listen. But after half-a-century of defending America, Editor is plumb out of talking point. You will have to come up with the talking points, Editor will act on them.

 

·         That Editor after 50-years of disappointment is still willing to return to the Battlefield of Rhetoric may, of course, only prove that Editor  by temperament is American: ADHD to the core. X didn’t work, let’s try Y. Y didn’t work, let’s try Z. Z didn’t work, let’s try X…

 

Saturday 0230 January 19, 2013

Special update

·         Algeria First, please, let’s get it out of American heads that the rescue operation was botched. If we keep judging others without knowing what they are about, (a) we get nowhere; (b) we only highlight our own ignorance.

 

·         The Algerians, as we noted yesterday have an extraordinary amount of experience in insurgency/counterinsurgency. They decided that negotiating with terrorists would serve only to encourage the latter. So they don’t negotiate. Their priority is NOT to get back alive a bunch of hostages, their priority is to kill the terrorists. This is a straightforward and efficient tactic, which the US would do well to emulate if it wants to win this war.

 

·         When they found themselves surrounded, the terrorists demanded passage – with hostages – to lawless eastern Libya. When the Algerians said no, the terrorists – who by now must have figured out the game was up – made a break for it by loading up a couple of vehicles with hostages and running. Possibly they figured the Algerians would not fire. Possibly they figured it was better to die making a stand than to be taken prisoner and then “disappeared” after bits and pieces of their anatomy were subtracted. The Algerians did fire, and perhaps about 8-10 western hostages were killed. With their kidnappers. We repeat: with their kidnappers, which was the point of the Algerian attack. The westerners were collateral damage. And surely we Americans know a little bit about collateral damage – wink wink nod nod – since we inflict it all the time when it suits.

 

·         We don’t give a chicken feather when the collateral damage we cause kills non-Americans. Please to explain why the Algerians should care when the collateral damage kills westerners? And we repeat: the Algerians were not being callous: they were following a long-established policy of no negotiations. A number of the usual mindless media suspects have gone on weeping and wailing about the Algerian failure to prevent the attack, about how this exposed Algeria’s weaknesses, and how now more attacks would take place. Blithering bilge and nonsense.

 

·         As far as we know, there has not been an attack against a desert hydrocarbon installation in Algeria. So they did not have troops already present. Now they have learned, just as Americans keep learning (and forgetting in an endless circle). We can reasonably assume that today there are troops at other installations. And if the terrorists strike again for the purpose of taking hostages, they must be very stupid. Because they will be killed again.

 

 

·         America correctly refuses to negotiate deals to free hostages. Then how come it’s okay for us not to negotiate but the Algerians must negotiate because westerns are captive?

 

·         Mali We were wondering how the Islamists were going to move around the country seeing as France has command of the air. The answer came yesterday: they are abandoning their 4 x 4s and going into the bush. Before the wise Know Nothings start moaning about how this makes things so much worse for the French/Africans, please to note that in a country the size of Mali – about 400,000-square-miles, and given its sparse population, guerilla war on foot is not a viable option. Accepted that even the US would not be able to stop all hostile vehicular traffic in so large an area, we expect that trickles of supplies will get through. As for food, that will be extorted from villagers. But to change anything the Islamists will have to concentrate, and of they do, they are done.

 

·         Editor made a big boo-boo on Ansar Dine the other day, and thanks to Al Jazzera, we can correct the error. We’d said Ansar Dine are outsiders. Some are, but many are Mali Tuaregs – which explains the alliance with the secular independence seeking Tuareg front. There are two other Islamist factions; they are mostly outsiders. We analysts need clear cut labels to analyze, but when you have a pan-national jihad, matters are not always straightforward.

 

·         Incidentally, someone told us that whether you are talking of a brown Malian or a black one, 90% are Muslim in a kind of low-key, toned down way. We went online to find http://www.onislam.net/english/news/africa/460939-bearded-muslims-face-malian-paranoia.html which will give an indication of the many shade of Islam in Mali, as also the problems  men with beards and traditional dress are facing in the capital Bamako.  It’s sad and we hope people calm down, but the Islamists have not exactly endeared themselves to the people of Mali.

 

·         French and Malian troops have recaptured  both Konna (after about six days of fighting) and Diabaly northeast of Bamako. The latter was the scene of the Islamist counterstroke after France intervened. We knew the Islamists could not hold the town, but with the French themselves saying the enemy had broken into small groups and were using human shields, we thought it would be a more serious fight. As far as we can tell most of the four days of fighting went into Mali/French troops clearing the villages surrounding Diabaly. Also as far as we can tell most Mali troops on this axis are holding the border with Mauritania to stop escapees, and the French did most of the fighting.

 

Friday 0230 GMT January 18, 2013

·         Algeria When we learned that Islamists had seized an Algerian gas production facility, taking hostage 600 Algerians and 41 foreign workers, we knew exactly what was to happen next. We said nothing because there is no particular point to saying something gloomy when innocent people’s lives are at stake. One has the alternative of crossing gingers and hoping things will work out.

 

·         To put the matter in short, the Algerian Army went in as quickly as it could. At least 8 Algerians and 22 foreigners are dead, as are between 11-14 of the alleged 60 AQ militants who took the facility. Those Islamists who were captured alive are doubtless wishing at this point they had done the suicide thing, because they will die, and unpleasantly.

 

·         You see, the Algerians are not sensitive, liberal westerners. They won independence from France in one of the bloodiest wars of liberation fought. Between 500,000 and 1-million Algerian died, the great majority civilians. Neither the French nor the militants asked for or gave quarter. Then the Algerians endured a second war, against Islamists; though 200,000 people are usually said to have died, the figure could be less. In both cases the suffering and casualties were on a scale that today’s westerners, particularly Americans, cannot begin to comprehend.  The Algerians defeated the French, they defeated the Islamists; in neither case were “hearts and minds” involved; these were situations of straight killing till one side gave up. After 2001, there has been low-level trouble with Islamists, nothing serious. And no, by Algerian standards, the gas field siege is not serious. It’s just another day’s work.

 

·         The Algerians’ first priority has  been no compromise. In this, they show the legendary rationality of the French because there can be no compromise with existential threats. This is something the west has failed to learn in 11 years of war against the Islamists. We still spend 90% of our time making excuses for the bad guy, and of the remainder, we spent 90% trying to assure the world that we are fair and legal minded – as if the enemy cares. So we end up spending 1% of the time actually fighting, and if you need an explanation of why the Islamists continue spreading despite all the money and effort the west has invested.

 

·         Normally, had this been a hostage crisis in the west, we’d have seen huge efforts to negotiate and to spare lives. We have placed ourselves in the position of God, to whom every sparrow is precious. This emboldens the terrorists, so much so we are in the absurd position that the Islamists take hostages, then tell us if we act to save them, the hostage will die and their  blood will be on us. Most peculiarly, much of this resonates in the west, which just shows how sick and degenerate our societies have become.

 

·         But for the Algerians the most important thing was to kill the militants, so that their fellows realized there is nothing to be gained from trying this again. By contrast, in the Sahel and Somalia the Islamists make money by kidnapping, and use this money to kidnap more. The west, of course, enables this by its blubbering rush to make deals at every opportunity. Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that we are financing – willingly – our own enemies who, on seeing success, are encouraged to seize more hostages? So we in the west have become agents of our demise. That is one definition of a degenerate society.

 

·         It is sad that many innocents have died in Algeria But let’s be clear: the responsibility lies 100% with the Islamists. By refusing to even entertain the idea of negotiations, the Algerians have saved themselves considerable future pain. The militants know the Algerians will stop at nothing to kill them, and they will be discouraged from taking hostages again.

 

·         Meanwhile in the US we are still vehemently arguing the rights and wrongs of killing the Islamist al-Awlaki without a trial via a UAV. He was an American citizen, and the government cannot kill American citizens without trial. As an immigrant, Editor would like to ask Americans: how does the mere fact of being born in America confer rights on its native-born enemies? When al-Awlaki turned against the country of his birth, according to Editor he forfeited all the rights of a citizen – as if they meant anything to him to begin with.

 

Thursday 0230 GMT January 17, 2013

·         Editor is inured to human folly (including his own) but once in a while he gets surprised at what an intelligent person says. So it is with http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/01/15/mali-dien-bien-phu-all-over-again/  And to be clear, we regularly read this gentleman as we want to try and understand Washington politics and he has interesting things to say. (Why would anyone want to understand Washington politics? It shows you Editor is sick, very sick. Doctor needs to up the Prozac.)

 

·         Editor is all for young people After all, he too was young (at least so he has been told; honestly, he has no memory of it and has felt 100-years old all his life). But being young is no excuse for not knowing your history, and we think this nice gentleman’s innovation of Dien Bien Phu in connection with the French intervention in Mali is – well, a bit strange. The quagmire thing apart, he suggests France has underestimated the Islamists’ strength, and France is already turning to the US for help. He graciously allows the cause is worthy and the US should give it. He says France’s Libyan intervention collapsed because France ran out of supplies, and the Mali intervention could collapse without our help.

 

 

·         At DBP, the French were fighting a highly competent, ultranationalist adversary. They were outnumbered 3-1 in men and 4-1 in artillery. Moreover, the outpost was essentially an airborne bridgehead deep in enemy territory. Giap quickly isolated it, and after that reducing it was simply a matter of detail. Where do any of these military conditions apply in Mali?  After the African forces arrive, even excluding Mali troops, the Islamists will be outnumbered 3-1; firepower and mobility advantages lie with the French. Moreover, in the desert there is no cover: every move the Islamists make is known to the French/allies.

 

·         So where is the ultranationalist enemy in Mali? There are two types of people in Mali: the Africans, and the Tuaregs (we are trying to keep this simple). The Africans welcome France’s intervention; the Tuaregs have at last realized that the Islamists are the greater of two evils and have decided to fight them. It’s fair to say the people of Mali are against the Islamists who are the invaders. This is not Somalia or Afghanistan.

 

·         Next, let’s talk about supplies Aside from the US, the allies in the Libyan air offensive all ran low on certain types of smart bombs. In Mali, there is no armor, and the air defenses are minimal. So far, France has been using 250-kg bombs, like fragmentation for employed against unarmored personnel and soft vehicles. As of yesterday, fifty sorties had been flown. Now, last time we checked our notes the French MOD had not thought it necessary to inform the Editor of their stocks of these bombs, but as a generalization, it is a bit harder to run out of 250-kg than it is of the big fat guided bombs. If there is a problem, this is general purpose item stocked in large numbers of any reasonably ready air force. So we don’t think “running out of supplies” is a problem, or that US intervention/non-intervention will create a make/break situation.

 

·         As to the statement that the French have already asked for US help. They did not ask for “help” – sorry to be pedantic. The US and France are allies; France is acting within the EU and in cooperation with NATO. Just as it was the duty of the French to join us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, it is our duty to assist France if we can. This is not doing any favors, simply meeting our treaty obligations, so there is no need for us to be snarkily condescending. There also is no “already” as if the French, poor pathetics them, have found they have bitten off more than they can chew and are now going meepily begging to the States. The US has unequaled intelligence and air transport resources: there is no operation anywhere in the world – allied or UN – that does not discuss US support in these areas before starting anything.

 

·         If anyone has been meeping, it is the US, which is imploding at the thought of entering another intervention however obliquely.  First the US pulled the “we can’t intervene because our laws don’t allow it” – since the junta came to power in a coup. This is enough to make anyone puke violently. But US cowardice extends further. Now the excuse is that we have few resources and we’re not sure what we can spare. After spending $600-billion the US lacks recon and transport resources to support a brigade-size intervention – when French and UK airlift are already doing the lion’s share of the work we don’t have resources to prevent Islamists from taking over the Sahel?  How can any country with a smidgen of self-respect say things like this? Oh, sorry, we’re Americans, we have no self-respect, we’re frightened of one soldier getting scratched and requiring a Disney bandaid. We’re also scared to death of getting our blue bunny slippers dusty.

 

·         The article does raise a valid point that needs answering  The Islamist move to seize Diabaly was a childish  effort to outflank the French advance to the north.  Seeing as they control neither the air nor the roads, how precisely did the Islamists intend to maintain this position or even advance to the capital, if that was their intent? They should be conserving their forces and preparing for a lengthy, drawn out guerilla war, not sending another 2-300 trained men to be surrounded – as they already are – and killed or captured. As most will be. One of the hardest thing in war is not making moves out of false pride, as the Islamists have done.

 

·         We, of course, have no idea of the French anticipated the move or not. Neither does the eminent commentator. We don’t see the Mission Accomplished parallel. The French have said from the start this will be a tough fight. They said they had the enemy on the run in Central Mali, which is a fact. We don’t think they said that every move they make will be perfect. By acknowledging from the start the difficulty of the operation, they accepted there will be upsets. Its lucky this one will work to France’s advantage.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT January 16, 2013

·         Sorry, India, this is not the way to retaliate India has taken two steps to retaliate against Pakistan’s actions on the Kashmir Line of Control. We consider both mean and petty minded. To be fair, Pakistan has also been petty-minded: it has closed the trade/transit point in the sector where the recent incidents took place, choking off supplies needed by ordinary folks in Kashmir and stopping their ability to visit friends/family on both sides of the border. But does India have to join Pakistan in a pettiness race to the bottom? India has always maintained it has nothing but goodwill for the people of Pakistan as opposed to their rulers. Now would have been a good time to prove these are not just words and to create a small wedge between ordinary people in Pakistan and their rulers.

 

·         First, the Indian Ministry for External Affairs has held up a scheme for Pakistan senior citizens to visit their families in India with minimum formalities. They are old people in the sunset of their lives – Partition took place 65-years ago. Why now to punish people for the follies of General HQ?

 

·         Next, India has sent home nine Pakistan hockey players recruited to play on Indian teams. Ever since the Indian rupee became convertible on current account, Indian sports teams have become an international business because players can be paid in hard currency. Now, again to be fair there is a security angle in this because Indian nationalists have been threatening teams that continue to use Pakistani players. We, feel, however, the team owners should not have given in. The owners have, at least, tried to do the right thing and for this we commend them. The Pakistani players will be paid as per contract even if they are not playing in India.

 

·         Meanwhile, back in Pakistan the Curse of the Nation strikes again The Pakistan Supreme Court, in a queer and unplanned alliance with Islamic extremists, is trying to undermine the elected government of Pakistan. As this comes just weeks before elections in March, naturally we must ask the question: are the Court and the extremists acting to force postponement of elections, which will suit the Army very well?

 

·         The situation with the extremists is clear. The cleric demanding the immediate resignation of the government or he/his will take direct action to force it out, has been away for seven years, living in Canada. All of a sudden he returns, showers fulsome praise on the Army – to whom he has been close – and says neither the people nor the Army deserve such corrupt civilian rulers.

 

·         So why is said cleric so frightened of letting the government hold elections just a few weeks away? Why the urgency to praise the army except that he is acting as a catspaw for the generals. As for corruption, the very reason the people of Pakistan voted out army rule is they were fed up of army corruption. Has that same army suddenly been enlightened on the Road to Damascus and now has become the paragon of virtue? When the army for 65-years has repeatedly led Pakistan to ruin and prevented the development of democratic institutions, why does this cleric think the army will ensure corruption-free rule? Well, he is only showing his own corruption, a thirst for power, which he hopes to get with the army’s help. And we should know by now that those the fundamentalists can on the local level deliver honest government, their complete suppression of civil liberties and democracy introduces a new kind of power. If I have the right to determine who lives and who dies, why should I bother accepting money so I can fatten my overseas bank account or buy myself luxury cars and a house in England?

 

·         The Supreme Court’s part in this new crisis is baffling and dangerous  Just a day or so ago the Supreme Court was assuring people the government could continue till the end of its mandate. Now it has ordered the Prime Minister’s arrest for corruption, saying no one is above the law. No one but the Court. Readers will recall the accusations made by a businessman against the son of the Chief Justice, who provided details of money he said he had to pay for bribes to the gentleman. Against all fair play, the Supreme Court justice himself heard the case and dismissed it as without basis. This is very serious corruption, far more blatant than anything the generals have ever done.

 

·         That the Supreme Court has been, in the past, severely at odds with the army makes no difference because the Court is illegitimating the government before and election, which can only help the army. The correct course is to let the people of Pakistan decide.

 

·         In South Asia most everyone in power is tainted by corruption. Individual government officers can be scrupulously honest; it has been my privilege to know many such who would never consider the least wrongdoing to benefit themselves or their kin. But because there is no “legitimate” channel for politicians to get rich and to fund their elections, you cannot, repeat cannot, be an honest politician. In the US we have cleverly made the highest level corruption legal. There are days Editor joins his fellow Americans railing against this state of affairs. But there are days when Editor says “at least most of American high level corruption is in the open so we, the people, can make our own judgments.”

 

·         For the Pakistan Supreme Court to dismiss an elected prime minister because of corruption allegations is absolutely not correct. Particularly when it is unlikely in the extreme that every judge can decisively prove s/he has never engaged in corruption, not even as a favor to a friend or kin. That too is also corruption.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT January 15, 2013

·         India-Pakistan We tweeted today that the Indian Army Chief has permitted his local commanders not to be inhibited in striking back at Pakistan’s ceasefire violations. We used an India Today video report as the source http://t.co/TPTJXdqD Nonetheless, unless India’s leading newsweekly is quoting sources, there seems to be no public statement to that effect. For example, Times of India has the Chief saying moderate things, such as “India won’t remain passive” if attacked; that the 2003 ceasefire has been holding except for some “aberrations” ; he does not see any escalation; and so on. http://goo.gl/uDJLI

 

·         Rather than being disappointed as this namby-response  we are actually quite relieved. This is because there is no way in which the Government of India would have approved a policy leaving retaliation for incidents to local commanders. This in turn would have meant the Army Chief was speaking out of turn. This would have meant he would have been hauled up, and that would have done the Army no good.

 

·         The right person to have commented on all this would have been Mandeep Bajwa, who unfortunately is refusing to respond to any messages from Editor. We hate to ask readers to carpet bomb him with emails insisting on his thoughts, but if the situation gets any more desperate we may have to respond to this dirty play.

 

·         Back to the Kashmir dispute as we promised yesterday. The Hindu majority princely state was ruled by a Muslim king who opted for Pakistan; India said the king’s subjects were against it, and that the subjects wanted India to intervene to save them. Two questions arise: was this dirty pool and does it mean India used one standard for Junagarh and another for Kashmir? And was Pakistan’s invasion of Kashmir a response  to India’s invasion of Jungarh?

 

·         The problem here is that India’s official position was that Junagarh was a series of enclaves entirely within Indian territory so the rule of contiguity did not apply. One large enclave fronted the Arabian Sea; Pakistan said there was contiguity by sea. At which point we get back to asking, does this mean any enclave fronting the sea was entitled to join Pakistan? On that basis should India have demanded Pakistan let Balochistan join India if it wanted? You can see this argument gets nowhere pretty quickly.  

 

·         Making clear Editor is NOT knowledgeable about Partition – except it was a fraud forced on South Asia by the colonial power – Editor thinks there is for sure a case to be made that India should not have invaded and that the matter should have been left to the UN. We have to say this because we feel Pakistan’s invasion of Kashmir was not justified – if Pakistan did not agree to the Hindu king’s accession to India, the UN should have been approached. You won’t hear Editor saying he would rather India had not invaded Junagarh because as far as he is concerned partition was illegitimate and India should (a) not have agreed; (b) attacked the Muslim provinces in seccession.

 

·         Rather the question is would Pakistan have refrained from attacking Kashmir if India had not attacked Junagarh? Now see here, friends, you may think Editor’s response partisan, and we do have an international readership as well as an Indian readership. If anyone feels our Editor is being partisan, please write in and you will published regardless of who you are. We censor for language and tightness of argument, but for nothing else.

 

·         Pakistan and Kashmir Editor’s position is that Junagarh had nothing to do with Kashmir. In 1933 the acronym PAKISTAN was coined to cover the five northern Muslim majority provinces of the British Indian empire. This was long before there was a partition agreement. P for Punjab, A for Afghanistan (an interesting matter, no?), K and I for Kashmir, S for Sindh, and TAN for Baluchistan. While we’re on this subject, please to note that East Bengal is nowhere mentioned, and we’ll have to leave it to others better informed to tell us what this means.

 

·         So well before partition or even any hint the Brits were willing to leave, Pakistanis assumed Kashmir was part of their future country. Therefore Junagarh and Kashmir are not connected in any way, except to provide endless fodder for the lawyerly defenders of India and Pakistan.

 

·         Is it permitted to mention that PAKISTAN, while an acronym, also means “Land of the pure”? Was this a harbinger of the ethnic cleansing that was to come and is continuing.

 

·         Editor and Washington  Jackie Chan the movie star/producer may have decided America is the most corrupt country in the world – we always thought it was Jackie’s China followed by Russia and poorly trailed by America and India, but what do we know, being from Iowa. But in one sense America is Top Dog. And that is hypocrisy.  Sure, the rest of the world, including Indians, are hypocrites too. But Indians admit it to anyone who mentions it. On “moral principles” America insists it is the Land of the Pure. (Excuse us while we gag). Most Americans no longer go on about “let Kashmir be free” and so on – everyone has to grow up at some point (except Editor). But what is aggravating is America’s refusal to plainly state that Pakistan has no rights in Kashmir. This is a false equivalence drawn by America. If India let those Kashmiris go who wanted, 12 hours later the Pakistan Army would take them over.

 

·         Noone in their right might will deny that India could have treated Kashmir better. (Except Editor, he berates the Indian Government for treating the Kashmiris too well and believes this is the source of the problem.) At the same time, what equivalency is there? Indian Kashmiris lead their own lives except when they entertain secessionists. Pakistan Kashmiris have no choice. The Northern Territories are no longer part of Kashmir.  Other parts of Pakistan Kashmir have been given to China. Last we checked, of 64 cabinet positions in the Government of Free Kashmir (Pakistan), sixty positions were held by non-Kashmiris. In Pakistan Kashmir it is illegal to call for independence. In Indian Kashmir even terrorist leaders have their rights observed.

 

·         Does any of this makes Pakistanis, mainly the Punjabis bad people? Obviously not. Editor as a Punjabi has more in common history and culture wise with Pakistani Punjabis than with most Indians. Pakistan Punjabis are doing what they believe is in their interest – even if the “right thing” is holding eighty millions of their country people hostage. What is bad is America continuing to make moral equivalences between India and Pakistan.

 

·         What is really reprehensible is that Indians accept this and fall over themselves to kiss Sam’s butt. Have you notice Sam actually has NO butt? That’s because the Indians have kissed it away. It is for the Indians to stand up for themselves, and say: if you give moral equivalence to us and Pakistan on Kashmir, you are clearly not our friend. Please go home until you straighten yourself out.

 

Monday 0230 GMT January 14, 2013

 

·         After stopping the Islamist advance on Konna enroute to Mopti, itself enroute to the endgame in Mopti, the French have wasted no time attacking Gao, the capital of one of the three North Mali provinces, all of which within days to Ansar Dine and their then allies the Tuaregs. Gao airbase, training camps, and logistics camps were attacked on Sunday. No need to think “Desert Storm” here, as far as we can make out, just four Rafales operating from metropolitan France did the attack. As far as we know, the French also have a handful of fighters at N’Djema, Chad, presumably they have also taken part, but we cannot say for sure.

 

·         France has said US has helped, with intel and air refueling US, of course, has barred itself from doing more with the Mali Army because the current leaders overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup last March, contributing to the government’s military defeat. Which would have happened anyway. US can be quite pathetic sometimes, but since Washington for decades has used “human rights” against its adversaries, its logical that the issue is going back to bite Sam’s Fat Butt. We wunner what human rights the people of North Mali are enjoying at this time, seeing as the Islamists rule. And of course we have nothing much to say about human rights in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and China, them all being our allies and Good Ol’ Boys and Gals. But enough ranting.

 

·         Letter: why US gun comparisons with Switzerland are relevant From Reader EC. “The reason that gun folks bring up the Swiss is because a large percentage of the guns that the Swiss possess in their homes are fully automatic "assault" rifles, with high capacity magazines.  The kind that our betters want to ban "for our own good" and "for the children".

 

·         “And, thank you for citing the difference in gun homicides adjusted by race.  Only quibble is you appear to have included "Hispanics" among "whites", which distorts the figures.  Virtue and vice are not the exclusive possessions of any race or nation, but behavior is cultural and in the US gun violence is overwhelming related to gang and other criminal subcultures, some of which tend to be dominated by particular ethnic groups.”

 

·         Pakistan and Kashmir To this day Pakistanis believe they were cheated out of Kashmir, that Kashmir was “theirs”, and the illegitimate ruler of Kashmir treacherously signed away his state to India. Thus, Pakistanis believe, they have the right to use force to recover Kashmir.

 

·         To be clear: Editor rejects the Partition of India act. But it is reasonable to assume 99.999% of Indians and Pakistanis accept it. So rather than pushing Editor’s iconoclastic ideas on readers, let’s stick to the partition business. Under this arrangement, the borders of the two countries were delineated according to “will” of the people who lived in states administered by British India. Borders had to be contiguous, no islands were allowed. Of course, the Brits of those days being as trustworthy as the day was long violated the principle themselves by setting up East Pakistan as an island from West Pakistan. Anyway.

 

·         So, when Balochistan and NWFP did not want to join Pakistan except under the traditional agreements with the British – we leave each other alone – India did not invade either province, but stuck to the agreement: no islands. That is why Hyderabad could not join Pakistan or become independent – another grievance Pakistanis had.

 

·         But in addition to British ruled states, there were 550+ princely states. Their lives and fortunes were directed by the British, but they were supposed to be independent and were allowed to vote for either side – if they remained contiguous to Pakistan or India. Since these states did not have democracy, the will of their ruler was absolute.

 

·         Hari Singh of Kashmir wanted independence, and busily spent his time playing off one side against the other. He was a Hindu who ruled a Muslim majority state. Pakistan, fed up his games, attacked using irregulars with regulars interwoven amongst them. (Sound familiar?) Hari Singh in a panic signed for India, and the Kashmir war began.

 

·         The problem lay with Pakistan’s recklessness. There was no call to invade. And it invaded not just in 1947 but again and again and has never been sanctioned for it. (No one’s fault, the Government of India are wimps. If you won’t stand for yourself, why should others do the job?). Pakistan could have made its case before the UN. It is because of the invasion the UN required Pakistani forces to leave Kashmir after Nehru (illegally in our view) agreed to a referendum on the state’s future. Indian forces were not required to leave. Pakistan did not leave – we are not moralizing here , we understand why. But once Pakistan did not adhere to the terms of the UN agreement, India had the right to abandon it. (BTW, Pakistan said it had withdrawn its troops, the 40 odd infantry battalions in Pakistan Kashmir were locals. Haha and double haha.)

 

·         India twice more repudiated the UN agreement. Once after Pakistan joined CENTO/SEATO and the US began arming Pakistan.  No agreement is absolute: if the situation changes so materially to make a mockery of the original, either party is permitted to declare it null and void. Next, Pakistan in 1963 gave away parts of Kashmir to China, something it should not have done because the territory was disputed. India believed this voided its original promise.

 

·         So when Pakistan never withdrew its troops, it’s not helpful to keep accusing India of treachery and insisting on a referendum. In the Year of Our Lord 2013 it is particularly not helpful, because of the Kashmiris unhappy with the status quo, 2% want to go to Pakistan. 98% want to be independent. We’re not getting into this now, but the US has a history of refusing its people when they want independence even though the US Constitution permitted it. Neither the Indian and Pakistan constitutions permit secession. If any American wants to insist that India must give Kashmir the right of secession, Editor would say, fine. Amend your constitution to allow secession, and make restitution for the Civil War 1960-64

 

·         It becomes even more unhelpful because Kashmir is a multiethnic society, and Pakistan has made it clear minorities – even Muslim minorities – are not welcome. Pakistan has pushed out every Hindu and Christian it can and is slaughtering its Sunnis. It has taken away the rights of the Northern Kashmiris, because they are Shia and don’t want to be in Pakistan. In the east, Pakistan/Bangladesh pushed out millions of Hindus, dropping the population from 30% to less than 10%. And still more unhelpful, the majority province of Pakistan, East Bengal, left Pakistan because of mistreatment. So how come the Sunni Pakistani Punjabis suddenly become the guardians of the Kashmiris

 

·         We’d like to understand on what moral basis do some westerners still insist that Kashmir should go to Pakistan. If they want to maintain this position, Editor wants them to (a) support the right of Balochistan, NWFP, and Northern Kashmir to be independent; (b) allow its own states to secede if they wish; (c) make restitution for the 1860-64 War. Don’t wanna? Editor understands. But don’t come preaching at the Indians. We find it more than passing strange that a country based on conquest and backroom deals should be lecturing anyone on how they should be handling dissent in their country, but that’s some Americans for you.

 

·         At this point the Pakistanis might say “Well, what about Junagarh? That was a Muslim rajah ruling a Hindu state who opted for Pakistan and YOU invaded.” Excellent point. We’ll talk about next post.

 

Sunday 0230 GMT January 13, 2013

·         France loses hostage in Somalia Approximately 8+ French citizens are held hostage by Islamists in Africa and the latter have been busy using them against the French government. When French troops joined the Mali war, it was understood the hostages would be in danger. So far only one hostage rescue has been revealed, and it did not go well. A French field intelligence agent held by Al Shabab was killed in a rescue attempt, along with a soldier and one soldier was captured in wounded condition.

 

·         Al Shabab says the hostage is alive. Outside of books and movies, hostage rescue is a very difficult task to conduct. It often fails. The sole consolation is that the French say they killed 17 militants. Some civilians may have been killed too as militants seem invariably to be in the midst of civilians. We hope the French do not give up on this particular Al Shabab lot and kill more.

 

·         Mali At this time it is unclear if the French will take the lead to push Ansar Dine out of Mali or just create a buffer in Central Mali between the Islamist occupied north and the government held south. Contrary to reports a helicopter was shot down, a pilot died of wounds. Sources say 100 Islamists have been killed; of course, with airstrikes it is often difficult to accurately judge casualties

 

·         We hope what has happened in Mali is a lesson to the “soft-approach” western types. Islamic fundamentalism is the greatest danger to western – and Indian – civilization. To say the west has somehow brought this on itself is plain wrong. In FRY and Iraq the west has fought for the rights of Muslims and has acted against those who would commit genocide of Muslims, or in Iraq’s case, against the majority sect. Do any of the Islamists groups really have any concern or connection with the Palestinians? And if they do, how is it justified to make war against Africans and Asians? Surely neither Somalis and Malians have oppressed Palestinians.

 

·         The Islamists are fond of invoking “Crusaders” Actually, in the US military to propagate Crusader beliefs will get you actioned and fired. Cabbot imagine it is different in Western Europe. In the US I as a teacher cannot even ask my kids to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance – I am breaking the law if I so demand. And heaven forfend I should demand the kids to say the words “under God” – I would be out of that school by day’s end. The Crusaders in this case are the Islamists, because they have determined they alone are privy to the truth and have the right to kill any Muslim or anyone who is insufficiently religious by their deserts.

 

·         This leads us to Kashmir First, the kind of ultra-pathetic response you are getting is epitomized by the Indian Air Force Chief. By rotation he is the senior military officer. When he speaks, intended or not, he speaks for the 1.55-million military personnel of India. He has suggested if Pakistan does not back down, India will have to consider an appropriate response.

 

·         Mother India, what were your past sins that you must continue to suffer  these leaders? First, what was the need for the Air Chief to say anything? He’s not making policy, nor will the Government pay his words any heed. Why risk the dignity of your office and the honor of your personnel by these meaningless utterances? Second, is the Air Chief saying if Pakistan does reconsider, India will forget all about it? He certainly seems to have said if Pakistan continues, India will think about a response. Tell us again, you want India to become a super-power? A super-power of what? Bombastic farting? If so, we have been there for a very long time.

 

·         The Indian Army has had two officers speak to the press (see Twitter account editor_orbat for links to video, you won’t be able to make out much unless you can follow Indian accents). The news is bad: Pakistan is now training jihadis to breach the border fence with IEDs. So an escalation is planned. There is only one thing to do, and you can bet your Ugg boots India won’t do it. If the fence is breached, India needs to attack and eliminate the opposite Pakistan Army post. No protests, no thinking, just straight punishment.

 

·         At this point the “Noone here but us meeces” Government goes into cardiac arrest. But that could escalate! Okay, so if you don’t want to retaliate with disproportionate force, then don’t blame the Pakistanis for repeatedly attacking you. Just change the national flag to feature an Indian politician without pants or underwear, with “I am a coward” written in black tar across his butt. Editor at least will be quiet. It’s the hypocrisy to which he objects.

 

·         In defense of Kim Kardarsdhian This defense may surprise readers who know his view on KK, one of the many symbols of how this once great country is going down the poopy-tube. But fair is fair. She has now been attacked for wearing a dress on the street without underwear. Please someone explain how this is any of our business? Are people unaware of the 60th Amendment to the US Constitution?  “Every American born or resident or visiting or even just flying over has the right to make a complete, utter, total ridiculous spectacle of herself/himself in public.” Besides which, since when has ANY American had the slightest right to criticize ANYONE for the way they dress? Jeez, come on people, get a grip.

 

·         What’s really sad about the K’s is that no one ever things of the horror the mother must have to live each day, having children so amazingly ugly. And people think the K sisters are beautiful? Gad, we Americans are sick, very very sick.

 

·         Swiss gun culture vs American We are not exactly sure how these cross cultural comparisons help, but Andres deGeorges  http://world.time.com/contributor/helena-bachmann/ sent this link. The Swiss are armed to the teeth, somewhere between one-fourth and one-half of Switzers have guns. Their gun homicide rate is 1/10th that of the US.

 

·          Editor knows we are supposed to now wisely nod our heads and say: “Ah, you see guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Fair enough, but the last we heard guns are inanimate objects, so why in the first place do people say guns kill people? Besides, why exactly are we talking about the Swiss? Have they any relevance to the US situation? If you want to talk about a bunch of northern whites and guns, why go that far away? Our own northern white and the Canadians whites have a low gun homicide rate too. Canada = 1/10th US rate. In US, nine states have a rate less than 1/5th US rate, except for Hawaii, eight are northern, predominantly white states. Older FBI stats good to 2005 say 52% of US homicides (not just gun homicides) are committed by African Americans, 46% by whites, 2% by others. White outnumber blacks 5-1 in the country. Adjust for that and white Americans as a whole will have a gun homicide rate comparable to Western Europe.  

Saturday 0230 January 12, 2013

Special Update

·         French paratroops and gunships have retaken the Central Mali town of Konna. Paris says Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal troops also participated, with Mali leading. This last can be dismissed as bit of necessary political fiction; Mali army has retreated from every town it has tried to hold since the start of the Islamist/Tuareg offensive last year. One French gunship may have been downed. The US Africa Command chief is in Niger at this time; there is no word of any US action, if any took place beyond providing intelligence and possibly logistic support.

 

·         After advancing to Konna there was little to stop Ansar Dine from advancing on the capital, Bamako, within two weeks. The Islamists would have been stopped outside Bamako, but the consequences of letting them come this far would have been serious.

 

·         Indications are the French-led offensive will next seek to recover Douzenta, and Paris has said the operation will continue as long as necessary. Does this mean until Ansar Dine is ejected from Mali? We hope so, other France is accepting a new haven for Islamists, this time in North Mali. From here they will threaten surrounding countries like Niger, Chad, and CAR.

 

·         Readers may ask how do events move back and forth so quickly. Go back to the North African campaign of World War II. In this part of the world, settlements are sparse, and long roads the sole connection between the towns. Once one point is taken, it is possible to advance 100-kilometers in a single day to the next point. If the defenders are in a panic, as the Mali Army has been from Day 1, they cannot organize themselves and the next town falls within a day, leading to another jump forward. But equally, the process works in reverse, particularly so when you have the French with their air and helicopter mobility plus their wheeled light armor. The wheeled armor is laughable on the Central European plains, but perfect for this kind of desert war because columns can range hundreds of kilometers at high speed with resupply from the air.

 

·         This entire mess was created by M. Hollande of France. We appreciate he is a socialist determined to jettison the bad old days of French imperialism. Good for him, we too are all for jettisoning the bad old days of French imperialism. But in this part of the world if the French won’t intervene, who else can or will? Certainly not a terribly overextended United States. Intervening in a war against the Tuaregs – okay, we concede Paris had legitimate concerns because that meant intervening in a civil war. But once the Islamists get into the arena, best to remember they are pan-national aggressors with zero legitimacy, bent on recreating their caliphate. If M. Hollande had had time left over from being managed by his girlfriends, he should have launched air strikes and an intervention last April at the latest and the destruction of Timbuktu would not have happened. Editor is first to admit he would love to be managed by the girlfriends, but then Editor is not president of France, worse luck yet.

 

·         Nonetheless, better late than never and now, M. Hollande, can you complete the job? Congratulations, and Jusqu'à la République and all that. Good luck.

 

·         Grammer correction from Reader CDR: You have been using rouge when you mean rogue. Sarah Palin = Rogue; Red = Rouge.

 

Friday 0230 GMT January 11, 2013

·         Did India provoke the recent Kashmir crisis? First, there is no crisis. There has been a series of tit-for-tats along the Kashmir Line Of Control, and this nonsense goes on all the time. Periodically the Pakistanis go bananas – 1947, 1965, 1999, but this is not about to become one of those times. On all three of those occasions Pakistan actually carefully considered its options before attacking. That they didn’t think the whole thing through made no difference, as in none of those case did India punish Pakistan aggression. So the only sure bet for Pakistan is that India will not do anything large-scale – or for that matter medium- or small-scale – as retaliation for what is happening.

 

·         Nonetheless, generally GHQ (and we mean the army, not the Government of Pakistan) is cautious. India, passive as usual, will escalate only if Pakistan escalates. There is no short- or long-term advantage to be gained from escalating at this time. So this furor will die down. Maybe not today, but soon.

 

·         The Hindu newspaper has published a story explaining how this crisis came out. An Indian Kashmiri grandmother wanted to spend her last days with her family, the men of which had earlier fled Kashmir many years ago as the Indians were closing in on them for insurgent activity. She found a blind gap in the Indian fortifications, which should not have existed (Slaps with limp noodles to Indian Army), and slipped across. Nice story, touching, maternal love and all that. India being India you have to be cynical: as likely the woman’s Indian family told her they were tired of supporting her, and she should take herself off.

 

·         As you may imagine the Indian Army had to react to close the blind gap, because next thing you know the Pakistanis would have been infiltrating through. They built bunkers to cover the gap. “Foul!” said Pakistan, “the ceasefire agreement of 2003 prohibits building bunkers on the LOC”. So India did indeed do a violation, and the Army on the ground has, at least, had the honesty to say it did. More slaps with limp noodles? Not at all.

 

·         If Pakistan wanted the 2003 ceasefire respected,  it would not have continued to push infiltrators into Indian Kashmir and resort to periodic artillery fire to cover in- and exfiltration. To piously invoke the 2003 agreement when it suits is the crassest hypocrisy. In case Pakistan has forgotten, what about the 1948 and 1972 ceasefire agreements? Or are those to be forgotten and the outrage clock set to a few days ago when India built the bunkers?

 

·         Second there is a well-established mechanism for Pakistan to complain about Indian violations. There is no cause to open fire, and then when India retaliates, to raid into Indian territory and kill/mutilate Indian troops. So these are all crocodile tears from GHQ, and may best be ignored.

 

·         The real significance of what is happening may lie elsewhere, as readers Ram Luhar and

Karthik Balasubramanian have pointed out to Editor. Mr. Luhar notes it is interesting the Indian Army on the ground took action on its own. This was not a rouge action, it was authorized at division level, likely even higher. Time to get out the noodles once again? Sorry, no. The Indian Army has long been fed up of the Government’s complete indifference to the lives of the soldiers. This is not the old army of yore where from the Army Chief to the lowest rifleman Delhi’s orders were followed with blind obedience, even when they were totally wrong, as in 1962. The men and officers of today are literate, plugged in, and highly aware. Nor does India want it otherwise, because the kind of recruit the Army needs nowdays has to be fully educated.

 

·         So should we be alarmed the Army has taken things into its own hands? Stand down, people. No alarm is warranted. From 1947, the armies of both sides have taken action on their own. What is perhaps not so well known is that in the 1960s the same thing used to happen on the Indo-Tibet border. The difference was that the media was 100% government controlled, so no one came to know of this. Same thing happens along every hostile border everywhere in the world. Nonetheless, Editor would like to warn the Government of India, if it can get its head out of its butt and uncover its ears. The time you can just ignore the hardships and losses of the soldiers is fast coming to an end. Deal with it, or it will deal with you. No one is going to mutiny, or stage coups. The Indian Army has way too much corporate and national pride to do that. We are not going to discuss this further.

 

·         Mr. Balasubramanian’s point is intriguing He notes that in the Mumbai 2008 raid, Pakistan took jihadis, trained them using ISI officers, and conducted the whole operation under tight control while maintain plausible deniability. It proved highly effective, and Editor for one has no problem saying he was much impressed. Pakistan is now doing the same thing with its so called Border Action Teams, but it is likely that ISI soldiers are also part of the team. Remember how the Taliban so quickly took over Afghanistan 1994-96? Well, it wasn’t the Taliban. It was the Pakistan Army and ISI, which doffed their uniforms and took on another role. Ditto 1999 Kargil. There is long precedent for these mixed or covertly Pakistan Army teams. If this indeed is what is happening, it does signal an escalation on the border because Pakistan is no longer just training or enabling infiltrators, it is sending its regular army in the guise of infiltrators.

 

·         Yesterday we forgot to mention one reason why Pakistan is testing the waters again. There are tens of thousands of Islamists who are now going to be free as the US/West runs from Afghanistan. These men have gotten used to an easy life, for which they have to take the occasional risk. Obviously the men are best turned against India. Incidentally, work on this has been going on for some time. If those in the now want to write in and inform our readers, we will happily publish their wisdom. Editor is not going to say anything more about this either. In 2008 when the Swat jihadis went on the rampage they reached the borders of Pakistan-held Kashmir. Frankly, at that time we expected them to cross and set up their bases whether the Pakistanis liked it or not, and then attack Indian Kashmir. For a variety of reasons this did not happen – then. It will happen now, and the Pakistanis are sensible enough to get these men under their control rather than let them run rouge.

 

·         Editor was just ruefully recalling that in 1996 he said the Islamists were going to take on India now that they had secured Afghanistan. The US intervention kept the Islamists tied up so India was immediately saved. The time bought, India used half-heartedly, but it did use the time. As Mandeep Bajwa has noted, the Indian Army today is very well prepared to tackle infiltrators, something that was not the case in 1987-2003. But that wasn’t Editor’s point. He recalls talking to some political/military senior types. They laughed at him and said there was no way the Islamists would move against India. Hmmmmm. Might Delhi draw a lesson from the current Middle East and Sahel and East Africa? The infection is spreading, and the US is no longer going to be around to save India.

 

·         But all of Indian history has been thus From antiquity India has denied it faces a threat from external enemies. It refuses to see the barbarians are at the gate. It is only when the barbarians bust through the gate that India wakes up. Sometimes the result is tragic. Between 1000 and 1947, a whole millennia, the barbarians – including white barbarians, destroyed and mutilated Indian civilization. We paid a very high price; that we came through at all is a testimony to the unparalleled ability of the Indian people to endure.

 

Thursday 0230 January 10, 2013

·         The Pakistan Army is NOT acting irrationally To a logical person, it is acting irrationally. A ceasefire has been in effect in Kashmir since 2003, after a bloody 16-year insurgency launched by Pakistan on the theoretical lines of the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation. That insurgency came on the heels of the Pakistan-sponsored Punjab insurgency, which was being put down by 1987 before Pakistan opened the Kashmir front. And certainly no one in India has forgotten Pakistan’s attack against India in North Kashmir in 1999. Or the Mumbai 2008 attack when everything has failed, as has been unrelentingly the case since 1947.

 

·         That Editor believes the creation of Pakistan was illegal and should be undone does not make him anti-Pakistani as many Pakistanis and some Indians insist.  To go into why it is not is a lengthy and complicated argument that will take us far from what we are saying today. For now let it just be said Editor understands perfectly well why Pakistan has been at war with India for 65-years. He does not think Pakistan is an evil state or acting out of malice. This again is a complicated matter, but if Pakistan at any time accepts that Kashmir is part of India, the very reason for Pakistan’s creation and existence these 65-year is undermined. You cannot believe in a separate Pakistan while believing in Kashmir as Indian. Can you see why Editor says Pakistan is NOT acting irrationally in making Kashmir an issue decade after decade?

 

·         The longer there is peace in Kashmir the less legitimacy to Pakistan’s claim of ownership. After all, the people of Indian Kashmir enjoy democracy, they go about their business, they thrive. True they are not permitted a vote on secession. But seriously folks, what do you think would be the result if Pakistan permitted votes on secession of the Northern territories, the North West Frontier Province, and Balochistan. Not that the Government of India is exactly panting at Editor’s feet for his drools of wisdom (when you get old it’s not pearls, but drool), but Editor is these days pushing the line that India should accept Pakistan’s 65-year old demand for a Kashmir plebiscite. It will have to be held in Kashmir proper – Jammu and Ladakh are not Sunni majority and no one has a right to force those people in Pakistan. According to Editor’s information six Kashmir districts will vote for independence – not accession to Pakistan. And India should allow those districts to secede, providing Pakistan allows secession votes in its territories.

 

·         Back to Kashmir (not the state of Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh as we have already explained, but Kashmir. We repeat: the longer the peace, the longer deeper the status quo. Here is a little secret about the state of Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh. India has for a very long time been willing to accept the Line of Control as a preliminary to a permanent partition of the state between the two countries. How long is a very long time? Well, 1972 is a specific date. There is evidence that had the idea of a division of the state based on the LOC been mooted earlier, India would have been willing to talk. India is willing to let Pakistan Kashmir go. To Editor, this makes Indian leaders traitors, and that India accepted Partition in 1947 to begin with makes the whole lot from then on traitors. But we are not talking about Editor here. We are taling of Delhi and Islamabad. India is willing to let Pakistan Kashmir go, but Pakistan cannot under circumstances let Indian Kashmir go because it will call the existence of Pakistan into question. We hope this simple analysis also helps in getting those westerners who are forever pushing a Kashmir “solution”, particularly the big fat Nosey Butts in Washington to a better understanding that this is zero sum game for Pakistan. There is not, and cannot be a solution except to reintegrate Pakistan back into India.

 

·         This makes Editor a crazy even to the extreme Indian nationalists There is no non-Muslim Indian today who wants the return of 180-million Muslims to the Union of India. It is likely there are no Muslims who want their breathern back, unless it is the Islamic Fundoos (Indian slang for fundamentalists). Does this bother Editor? Of course not. You either believe in principle and real-politik, or you believe in sentimentality and irrationality. Indians who reject Editor’s position – and indeed – Pakistanis who reject it too, are being sentimental and irrational. But again, to repeat, we are talking about Islamabad.

 

·         Once you understand Pakistan cannot let Indian Kashmir alone, you will see the new escalation of incidents in Kashmir is perfectly rational from Pakistan’s side. The Afghan War is ending on Pakistan’s terms. (Thank you, Oh You Best and Brightest of Washington DC, for procreating  up  another war that ends in America’s defeat. We lose – that’s who we are. Another bunch of traitors that need to be hung, but hey – if Americans are happy with their traitors, who is the Editor to object? He’s only the guest here. Let America go down the toilet if that what’s America wants. Why should Editor care? Caring for America today is surely sentimental and irrational because America’s elite cares for none but itself, and Americans don’t care their elite does not care.) Anyway, as we were saying. Having successfully pushed America out of Afghanistan (its just a matter of detail now), it’s only natural that Pakistan will once again unleash the jihadis against Kashmir – once again.

 

·         For Pakistan this is not just a wise policy move. After all, Pakistan knows it cannot win a conventional war against India. And every time Pakistan makes a nuclear threat, India hits the snooze button and ignores Pakistan. Not because India is foolish, but really, how can anyone take Pakistan’s n-threats seriously. So insurgency it has to be, though that has consistently failed for 65-years. Don’t blame Editor here, he’s not the one advising the Pakistanis. Hope springs eternal, and some people are not put off by failure. After all, you have the Editor’s example and Saturday night dates.

 

·         No. If anyone is to be blamed for what’s happening in Kashmir, it is Delhi and Delhi alone. India has never once punished Pakistan for aggression. Repeat: Never. Never? What about East Bengal? First let’s be clear that the creation of Pakistan in two wings, bound by nothing except a common religion, never made any sense – except to those Brits determined to cripple India, but that’s another story. You may as well say North Africa, the Middle East, Iran, and Indonesia should be one country. Pakistan would have broken up anyway because the Punjabis were not willing to live under Bengali rule. Because Bengal won the majority in 1970, the Punjabis had no choice. They deliberately created a situation where their country broke up. India acted solely defensively. Pakistanis say this is not true. Really? Then why right after Dakha declared its freedom did the Indians leave as fast as they could truck their Army out of there? Why did India not demand the right of return for the 30% of East Bengal’s population, Hindus,  that was pushed out of the province? India had every right to do that. It did not, and let Bangladesh go its own way to the point that on half the says of the year the Bangalis consider Indians their enemies. Had Pakistan permitted Mujib to become Prime Minister of Pakistan, there would have been no secession. India had very little to do with happened.

 

·         Punishing Pakistan would have meant disarming Pakistan for the next 50-years after the war in the east finished. This was one of the Indian objectives. It was jettisoned faster than you can say “See the rabbit run”.  After all these years it is unclear to Editor if this was even a serious option. Only the Defense Minister out of the entire cabinet wanted India top punish Pakistan. He had NO support. So couldn’t have been a serious option.

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT January 9, 2013

The world is one of those peculiar pauses where everyone is waiting for crises to resolve themselves positively or negatively, just as long as there is a resolution and we can get on with our lives. But Old Skinny Butt Upstairs (aka God) seems in no rush to oblige Editor, at least.

·         Venezuela The Chavistas are saying it doesn’t matter if Hugo cannot make it to his swearing in on January 10, he will still be the Prez because he was elected by the popular will. Okay, so if the poor fellow dies and the popular will says lets embalm him and put him in his palace as Prez for Perpetuity while his deputies rule forever, will this be okay? The opposition has asked the Supreme Court to rule that if he doesn’t make it to his swearing in, there have to be new elections in 30-days.

 

·         Meanwhile, all that is known about poor Hugo is that he is critical and he is not getting better. He may technically be alive, but he’s not able to do any governing.

 

·         We need to explain that the Chavistas are NOT acting irrationally, nor are they in denial. But the longer they can govern in Hugo’s name, the better chance they have of winning the next election. Its not more complicated than that. Meanwhile, we have said this before, do not assume the opposition will win the next election. The opposition does not think it will necessarily win. Hugo bribed the poor by running down the economy to heck and beyond. We are total his last deficit was 20% of GDP. No economy can continue functioning like this. But the poor will also make a rational decision: something in hand today is better than the certainty of sacrifice to hopefully get a stronger economy tomorrow. So they will likely vote in anyone who promises to continue the Free Gravy Train, consequences be darned.

 

·         So even Hugo’s demise – and Editor at least certainly does not want him to die like this – may well resolve nothing for Venezuela for many more years.

 

·         Meanwhile, our least fave dictator is also refusing to concede Assad has made it clear he will fight to the end. Already, says the UN, 60,000 Syrian have died and at the rate the casualties are mounting, the number is going to exceed 100,000 at some point this year, sooner rather than later. Even Daddy Assad killed only 30,000 of his citizens. Fewer people are willing to die for Assad, but he somehow keeps getting ammunition. And like Gaffy of Libya, he seems to have vast stocks of arms. He has air control. Because the west will not or cannot get itself together to depose him, here is another crisis with no resolution in sight.

 

·         In Mali while the West/AU dithers Ansar Dine, the Islamist lot, has declared it is no longer bound by the ceasefire it and the Tuaregs combined had earlier made with the government. The Tuaregs are maintaining the ceasefire and are preparing for talks with the Government. Both rebel groups have entirely different agendas. The Tuaregs are primarily people of Mali, and want more power via an autonomous region. Ansar Dine are outsiders who want a pan-Sahel Islamic state with the eventual goal of joining in a new Caliphate. (Wunner if Ansar Dine and Al-Shabaab and Al Qaeda realize that revolutions being what they are, if a new caliphate is declared, the first lot to be declared as enemies of the state will be THEM. But if they were that smart they wouldn’t be engaged in jihad.)

 

·         The Mali Government is torn between two unpleasant alternatives. One,  give the Northerners their autonomous region with every likelihood at some point in the future the north will secede anyway, but use the Northerns now to defeat Ansar Dine and hope to sort out tings later. Two, to wait for the arrival of the AU force. Since this does not plan to begin operations until September 2013, the situation could deteriorate for the south as the Tuaregs and Ansar Dine consolidate and grow stronger.

 

·         The Central African Union is also at a standstill. The rebels have taken an 11th town, but this one is not on the road to the capital, Bangui. Several hundred African troops have reinforced the government, including 200 South Africans who are “protecting” a similar number of their country’s trainers, but doing it in such a way they just happen to be between the capital and the rebels. Soon there should be perhaps 1000 African troops in the country, at which point the rebels cannot expect to win. You also cannot mess around with the South Africans because they are the most professional of continental troops. And you also know why: if we repeat the point there will be cries of racism, but the South Africans are a joint black-white army of very long standing and know their business.

 

·         Back on the ranch in India That Is Bharat, the land of We, The Indi People, it now emerges the spiritual leader we mocked yesterday regarding his comments on the assault on the Delhi medical student made more profound utterances. He says the victim should have thrown herself at the feet of the assailants and begged for mercy before God. Can this warped man tell us if the assailants were in the least god-fearing, would they have abducted the girl and did what they did to her? The details are so horrible that a lot of people – Orbat.com included – cannot bring themselves to relate them. To call the assailants animals is to insult animals because the latter attack only to save themselves or to eat. Man is far lower than the animals, and the assailants are lower than men.

 

·         Following the Indian media is very difficult and following Letters to the Editor is even harder. But Editor gathers that this spiritual leader’s son is himself accused of assaulting women and this may be why he, the dad, is being such a complete and utter ass. There are also suggestions that the spiritual leader may be concerned some of his own women disciples may accuse him of assault. While this is speculation, anyone who has been the devotee of popular Indian “spiritual” leaders knows that generally sex is one of the prerogatives of the leader. Editor has studied this closely in the past. Most of the sex between leader and followers is 100% consensual. But some is not.

 

Tuesday 0230 January 8, 2012

·         India: The Land of a Billion Looney Tuners Editor having spent 20 adult years in India is perhaps a bit too accustomed to Indian Style Looney Tuners. India is a vast, ancient land filled with what western logic-users would consider bizarre and irrational events and beliefs but which make perfect sense to Indians. So generally Editor, having spent 35-years or half his life in the US, mocks American Looney Tuners, particularly the empty-between-the-ears politicians and gives the Indians a pass.

 

·         Every now and then, however, India does something that jolts Editor awake and makes him realize we too have more than our fair share of people who might better spend their days in padded cells. Such is the case of a self-proclaimed spiritual leader. We will not name him, because we try and not make these things overly personal, but you can read his story at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Delhi-gang-rape-victim-as-guilty-as-her-rapists-Asaram-Bapu-says/articleshow/17922913.cms?intenttarget=no

 

·         First to explain that in is a wonderful open country when it comes to religion and spirituality. It is possibly India’s best cultural feature, and which alone puts India far ahead of any other culture. So, if you like, you can go to India, find a nice big tree, take off your clothes, assume the lotus position, and utter not a word. In a week you will have a dozen followers camped along with you though you have yet to speak – and indeed you can choose never to speak, that will only increase your power. In a month you will have a hundred in the permanent encampment, and men and women will fight for the privilege of feeding you by hand. Comers and goers will ask for boons, others will simply bathe themselves in your radiance. To grant boons you do not have to say a word. A mere locking of the eyes, unblinking, suffices for your followers to deduce the boon has been granted. Pretty soon you will be credited with miracles, and there will be a thousand in the permanent camp plus ten thousand daily visitors. Once the word spreads that you never speak, and you never ask for anything, you will become a saint and soon after that you will have a following of millions.

 

·         It does not matter if you are an Indian sitting under that tree, or a white-blond Scandinavian, or an ebony-purple Central African, you will become a god (little g). You could, of course, move into the palaces your followers will construct for you, and enjoy the hundred Rolls Royces they will buy for you, and impart spiritual wisdom to as many panting, beautiful, young women as you want. But Editor has studied this business quite closely, and to be really, really successful you should continue sitting under the tree without speaking. Providing you don’t touch any material possession, you will have more material possessions than anyone else on earth, and moreover you will be a god. Gates and Buffett may have a few tens of sterile billions, but they are not gods.

 

·         Since anyone can become a god in India, there are people who become spiritual leaders and are also have Bats in the Belfry. No matter how many bats fly out of their ears, there will always be “But wait – there’s more”.  Such a person is this spiritual leader.

 

·         India is in a frenzy of rage and sadness over the heinous Delhi assault on a 23-year medical student and her boyfriend and her subsequent death despite a gallant fight to live – despite horrendous injuries. What is it our spiritual leader has to contribute to the debate? He says that one hand cannot clap alone, and the assault is equally the girl’s fault. What precisely is the girl supposed to have done to save herself that she didn’t do? if you blink your eyes at the answer and think that Gene Weingarten style we are making things up, we assure our readers we are not. We’ve given you the URL, look it up yourself if you don’t believe us.

 

·         The spiritual leader’s answer is that the girl should have called the six men attacking her brothers and thus made them into her protectors. Before American women reach for their castrating knives, we need to explain that in the Indian tradition of chivalry, any woman can turn a man with bad intentions into her protector by declaring him her brother. Please note: “tradition of chivalry”.  But would six chivalrous men have (a) gotten drunk; (b) looked for a victim to abduct; (c) kidnap her; and then (d) stage a group assault? Sure, a fundamentally good, chivalrous man temporarily overcome by lust can theoretically be brought to his senses by the victim telling the man she has made him into her brother and he must protect her. We said theoretically. This is something that likely would have worked had Sita, after being abducted by Ravana, believed herself threatened with sexual assault and implored him into becoming her protector-brother. But you see, Ravana never touched Sita, or at least she did not let him touch her and he accepted that. So he was the chivalrous brother-protector unasked, because he believed respecting her was the right thing to do.

 

·         The Ramanyan, which is the epic story of the exiled King Rama, his wife Sita, his brother Laxman, and the abductor Ravana is to this day a powerful story that Indians live. Not just believe in, but actually experience. Getting abducted by six drunk criminals heck-bent on assault does not figure in the Ramanyan or indeed, in any of India glorious and ever-living stories. This spiritual leader’s position contravenes every concept of equality for women and indeed respect for women enshrined in ancient or modern India. You do not have to be a feminist to immediately see how completely wrong this spiritual leader is, how absurd, how much a caricature of an educated man, leave alone a spiritual one.

 

·         In the ancient ages from which the spiritual leader  draws his confused and sick inspiration, there was a simple test of a king to judge if he was an effective ruler. A married women, wearing all her jewelry, should be able to walk from one end of the kingdom to the other, alone, by night or by day, without fear of theft or molestation. Obviously this was an ideal impossible to realize in real life, but the point is this was the expected gold standard for a ruler. Such a ruler, learning his subject had been robbed, assaulted, and left for dead would have acted immediately and forcefully to punish the men involved. He would have blamed himself for his failure of governance; he would not have blamed the woman. Our spiritual leader does not want them hanged. Perhaps he wants them sent back to American kindergarten where teachers will attempt to change their ways by using “positive reinforcement”?

 

·         Supposing an American spiritual leader had given the advice that the Indian spiritual leader had. How long would he have lasted? One day at the most, we wager. Nothing will happen to this Indian spiritual leader because likely his psychotic values are shared by 80% of Indian men – and 60% of Indian women. The murdered girl’s crime, which most Indians cannot get past, is that she was out alone at night with a man not her husband or her guardian. That she was engaged to him makes no difference at all to the traditional Indian man or woman. (And then many Indians have the temerity to criticize Islamic fundamentalists. How are Indian fundamentalists that much different?) A girl out with her boyfriend/finance at night is by definition a woman of easy virtue. She is “enjoying” according to the Indian vernacular. She is likely not a virgin, and a good time girl. So she is fair game for any man.

 

·         If you read the Indian or listen to the Indian media behind the noise you will hear thoughtful Indian men and women saying that while these men must be punished, punishment alone cannot change things. It is attitudes that must be changed. And frankly, in Editor’s opinion, for Northern Indian men, this attitude is very, very difficult to change because the women that bring them up are totally against loose hussies. These women blame the young women for leading their perfect, darling boys astray. It is never the boy’s fault. Always the girl’s. Editor’s own grandmother, who was brought up by a feminist mother in India believed it was always the girl’s fault. Feminist mother in the early decades of India’s 20th Century? But see, you don’t know India. There are large parts of India where women have the power and the respect.

 

·         There are reasons Indian mothers of boys are the way they are. This was explained briefly to Editor by the great anthropologist/specialist on India, Cora DuBois. Like all great teachers she opened new worlds to the Editor – not by argument, pressure, repetition, demand. She merely took five minutes to make her point, and suddenly Editor realized he was not a WASP – he was brought up as one – but an Indian. This has caused 90% of the problems in Editor’s life, but that is another story.

 

Monday, 0230 GMT January 7, 2013

·         The discussion of gun control in America is sterile and therefore pointless Nonetheless, we fear from some reader responses that Editor’s position has perhaps not been fully explained. Editor is all for the Right to Bear Arms. He is also all for the right to Arm the Bears, because he is 100% against hunting animals. He is all for hunting humans, and he is not being mordant.  A game has to be fair or it is no game. Going after “game” and “big game” is simply wanton slaughter. Fairness requires both sides be matched with the weapons of their choice, and handicaps set so that the field is equalized. You can do that with humans, you cannot do that with animals.

 

·         Anyway, that was not Editor’s point. Editor accepts all the statistics that the anti-gun people bring up and their point that an armed population creates more problems than it solves. For our part we have argued that great damage can be caused by someone armed with limited-magazine weapons. The thing with rapid-fire weapons is not that they enable one to kill more people. The point is it leads to wasted ammunition. The Connecticut killer could have killed just as many people using a revolver and a large baggie of ammunition. If you don’t want people to kill people with guns, the only solution is to take everyone’s guns away. If the anti-gun side states this is their objectively honestly and clearly, we can respect them for their views even if we don’t agree.

 

·         But Editor’s concern about gun control is: we accept hundreds of thousands of deaths due to non-gun causes. When tobacco, alcohol, drugs, car accidents, inadequate childhood nutrition, burning coal cause so many more deaths than guns, what is the moral reason to pick on guns? Editor is all for making manufacturers and users of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs eligible for the death penalty, one strike and you are dead at the hands of the state. Please do not say that people who die from using tobacco, alcohol and drugs are harming no one but themselves. What about the people who drive drunk and kill and cripple tens of thousands a year? What about the domestic violence caused by alcohol? What about the crime engendered by drug – look at Mexico and see how many people are dying each year because of our demand for drugs. And so on. If you enjoy a glass of pinot noir (whatever that is) with your dinner, do you consider Editor’s stand on alcohol extreme? Well, sorry about that and so on, but Editor considers those who want to ban all guns or who plan to use gun limits as a first step to further controls to be extreme, too.

 

·         By the way, what about perfume? On Friday Editor in school passed a perfumed student. Within five minutes his throat locked up and he was incapacitated. Editor has a rule: you do not get sick in front of the kids. Luckily the rest of his day was baby-sitting the kids and he made it home, and then got so sick that no inhalers, no nebulizers, no cough syrup, no pills, nothing worked. He was about to call the ambulance when he remembered he had an emergency stash of prednisone left over from a poison ivy attack in the spring.  That enabled him to make it through the night and his HMO gave him the first appointment of the day for Sunday. Editor would not have died, but what about the entire weekend he lost and the Monday money he is going to lose because he is still not recovered? What about the expense to the taxpayer if he had to call an ambulance and go to the nearest hospital – he’s on Medicare, so you, dear reader, would have paid. And you know, people do die from allergy attacks. A college friend of Mrs. R. IV was in Germany when she had an asthma attack brought about by allergy triggers. It was 30-minutes before passerbys figured out what was happening and  an ambulance got her to hospital.  She did not reach alive.  What about a case in downtown Washington where – according to a person who worked in the particular office – a woman in respiratory distress due to allergy-asthma got into the elevator to go to Emergency, and also did not make it to hospital alive?

 

·         Editor has a motto: Life Kills. Once you come alive, you are 100% going to die. Death is the inevitable end-result of life. The only way not to die is not to be born. Now you all figure that out for yourselves. But his point is, some people are worrying about guns, anyone worrying about perfume?

 

·         We repeat what we have said repeatedly. Unless you eliminate all guns, whackos are going to use guns to kill people. You cannot eliminate guns by passing laws. Remember the 18th Amendment? Aside from not working, it created the criminal gangs that thrive until today while “marketing” other stuff. Are we saying illegal guns cannot be controlled? Of course not. Betcha there are not a whole lot of illegal guns in North Korea. Why? They’ll send you to a concentration camp if you’re caught with one. Anyone want to implement that here? Now, since concentration camps are expensive to run, it is cheaper simply having a same day trial of an offender who is then executed by the end of the day. We have suggested that too. You can do it humanely and use the perp’s organs to help someone else live. To Editor it has always seemed the height of absurdity to take a life and then say its “humane” and "undiginfied" not to use the person’s body to help others. We are told a healthy person can be used for transplants for up to fifty other persons. Can we try and be logical, for once?

 

·         Or perhaps we could go Sharia on this one. In the bazaars of the Sharia Gulf states, jewelers need not lock their shops when they leave for the afternoon siesta. Because if you get caught stealing the first time, they’ll chop of one hand. You get caught the second time, they chop off the second hand. We don’t know what happens if you steal a third time, but presumably even the hard coe are discouraged after the second offense.

 

·         See, again Editor can hear some of his readers saying: “The man is crazy, it’s the No Date On Saturday has done it to him, poor fellow.” But Editor is not crazy, he is acting French. The French are the ultimate rationalists, and rationalism says yes, you can free America of guns, with the appropriate penalties. If you are not going to use these extreme measures, you have to accept guns. If you accept guns, why do you want me, my family, and my school kids to be as lambs to the slaughter when a whacko is on the loose?

 

·         This whole idea that we shouldn’t protect ourselves because of problems the protection may cause – is it even American? Look what happened to the Jewish people. Look what happened to the Soviets – maybe 20-million killed in Stalin’s purges and forced relocations. Look at China: 40- to 50-million dead in the Cultural Revolution. What about the Cambodian people: whackos killed 3-million, near half the population. Look what happened in Rwanda – up to 800,000 dead in months. And most killed not even by guns, but by machetes. If my having guns in school causes problems, then by all means hold me responsible. So if my gun is stolen by a student, by all means jail me. If in a shootout I kill an innocent, charge me with manslaughter.  In India, BTW, you can be punished if you fail to secure your weapons and they are stolen.

 

·         But what I am saying is that given the reality of guns, no one, absolutely no one, has the right to say how I may, or may not protect myself and for those I am responsible.

Friday 0230 January 4, 2013

·         Al Bore makes another $100-million Al Bore is supposedly the richest Greenie on earth, with a $1-billion fortune gained from prophesying doom for our planet. We don’t know about the $1-billion, as we haven’t seen any proper breakdown of his assets, but the $100-mil he’s making is from just one of his ventures, Current TV (Cable).  Just to show you what utter yelps US media can sometimes be, New York Times heads its story “Al Jazeera Seeks a U.S. Voice Where Gore Failed”. If making a $100-mil is the sign of failure, then dear Lord, Editor prays for many such failures. NYT just doing its usual IMP act (Idiot, Moron, Poopyhead).

 

·         We must clarify that we are not against anyone making money. We object to someone who is sanctimonious in the extreme while making a lot of money because you cannot make money without exploiting people and resources, and Al Bore says he a saint above all this. At least he acts as if he is. Now hypocrisy is not a crime under the US Code, but it is a sin under Stinky Old Skinny Butt Upstairs, also AKA as God, and a good friend of the Editor’s. The degree of hatred between us is so high it has to mean we’re good friends, cause no one hates someone s/he is indifferent too. Anyway, this is about Al Bore, not Editor Bore.

 

·         What Al has done is sell Current TV, a cable channel that serves 60-million US households (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/03/current-tv-granholm/1806759/ ) to Al-Jazeera of Qatar for an estimated/rumored $500-million. He owns 20%, so he walks away with 100-million-clams. Nicely down before taxes went up, too. Al Jazeera is not funded by the offerings of millions of poor children worldwide contributing their mites. It is funded by Oil. Big Oil. Really Big Oil as in OPEC. OPEC is a monopoly that has forced up the price of oil well beyond what supply and demand dictates. We don’t shed tears for Americans paying $3.50/gallon for gas; we do get disturbed when millions of people in the 3rd world cannot be lifted out of poverty because oil prices are so high. As far as we are concerned, the money Al Bore has pocketed is as filthy as money from narcotics, extortion, and prostitution.

 

·         Do we hate Al Bore? Hardly. We’re deadly jealous of him. Edition could never do what he is done because Old Skinny Butt Upstairs would go: “Neener neener hey nay, who’s the big fact hypocrite today? Give me an E – Give me a D” – and so on. Do we hate the oil barons? Obviously not. They’re not hypocrites about what they’re doing. So would Editor turn down $100-million petrodollars oif offered to him? Obviously not. He has never said burning oil is a mortal sin. He's concerned about the effect the price structure has had on poor nations. There's nothing wrong with oil. You think burning oil is a sin, live without it, then. Be difficult, but it could be done. Your standard of life would be Native Americans circa 1000 AD, but so what?

 

 

·         There’s hope yet if you’re fat Repeat, fat as in overweight, not obese (BMI 30+) A metastudy in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that being overweight(24-29 BMI) is not a death sentence, you can expect actually to live a bit longer than “normal BMI” people. http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1555137

 

·         For some reason the metastudy has freaked out some people, with questions being raised about the competence of the researchers and so on. Some very scientific and devilishly technical retorts: have you seen a fat really old person? And – now people will think its okay to stuff themselves to death with Black Forest pastries. Phew! Good thing we are not scientists, we could never hope to reach that high level of argument!

 

·         We’re not sure why this angst. Everyone knows BMI is an imprecise way of measuring how much weight is ideal. For example, when Editor has his BMI done at the gym, they weighed him (192-lbs) and checked his height (5-feet six inches on a good day) and declared him obese. I pointed out to the trainers that they knew perfectly well I did weight exercises for up to 200,000-lbs a day (machines, not free weights) and I didn’t feel as if I was on the verge of death. They were not impressed. “You are obese”, they declared. My doctor, bless her, took up the refrain: you need to lose weight.” I protested I ate less than 2000-calories a day, there was nothing wrong with my thyroid, and teaching requires one to be one’s feet several hours a day, aside from the extreme exercise. Doctor was not impressed. So Editor cut down to 1800-calories a day, and started doing 60-minutes of vigorous cardio. He did lose eight pounds after three months – still obese according to the BMI. Great, except not so great: Editor got repeatedly sick through most of last year, clinically depressed, and had no energy, strength or stamina. Two months ago he said heck-with-it, got back to eating 2000-calories, and very slowly started up again with his usual weight exercises and light cardio for 30-minutes. He’s improving, but is still shockingly weak. Nuke the BMI is what he says.

Thursday 0230 GMT January 3, 2013

·         Editor makes major Boo-Boo In yesterday’s post we said the British, when they created the Indian army subsequent to the Indian Mutiny of 1857, refused to recruit Bengalis because the Bengalis were dominant in the rebellion against the British. We based our statement on Major AH Amin’s accounts of the rebellion: the Bengal Army was by far the largest of the three presidency armies (the others being Bombay and Madras.

 

·         So imagine our surprise when Major Amin writes in to say there were no Bengalis in the Bengal Army before or after the mutiny! It was called the Bengal Army, but the Bengal presidency at its height basically encompassed North and East  India from Burma (inclusive) to the Afghanistan border.  The Bengal Army’s troops were Hindu and Muslim troops from Avadh, which lay in modern Uttar Pradesh.

 

·         If you want more details about the British-Indian Army 1857-1947, write to Major AH Amin at pavo.11cavalry@gmail.com, and mention Editor’s name so he knows you are not writing just to waste his time.

 

When it comes to taking the public’s money, we are all Democrats

 

·         All through the last four years, after Mr. Obama took over from Mr. Bush, we have heard from the Republicans about the feckless spending habits of the Democrats. What is doubly immoral , the Republicans tell us, is that this is money confiscated from us hard-working citizens to feed Democratic gluttony. Triply immoral, say the Republicans, is that unsatisfied with they are already stealing, the Democrats print monopoly money and run up the national debt, further undermining America.

 

·         Well. (As George Will the conservative columnist would say when he is really outraged at the latest idiocy – in his view – of liberals. Read him if you want to experience top-class writing. For his ideas, do not take them seriously because to show off his writing he exaggerates even more wildly than editor.) Today, after the usual frustrating day trying to “teach” America’s kids, and some hours spent – futilely – at the tax office to ask why Editor’s mortgage payment of $1500 plus $400 taxes/insurance has gone up to $1500 plus $900 in taxes, editor was driving back, trying to figure out how on a total after-tax and after mortgage income of $1100/month he is supposed to find an additional $500/month for taxes (keep in mind Washington Metro is one of the most expensive places in America. Turning on the news, Editor learns this:

 

·         Governor Christie of New Jersey has essentially said Speaker Boehner is a liar, because instead of the $60-billion for Sandy disaster relief Boehner has voted for only $10-billion and kicked the rest to the next Congress. Boehner felt that at this difficult time boosting the deficit was not the right thing to do. Particularly as for every $40+ in tax increases, Mr. Obama offered $1 cut in spending, whereas everyone and his ancient, blind cat knows the ratio has to be $1 to $1 if US is to avoid a complete disaster.

 

·         So, Editor is no fan of Mr. Boehner because he reminds Editor of an alligator that keeps at hand a bag of onions, which he crushes to make the tears flow while he chews up a few 47-percenters for a snack, his way of getting rid of the parasite Americans. At the same time, Editor was highly impressed that Mr. Boehner was defying his own party man, essentially saying we cannot condemn government spending while simultaneously trying to grab the people’s money.

 

·         But Governor Christie a leading light of the GOP who needs his mouth washed out with soap six times a day (hey, Govvy old buddy old pal, we thought conservative values included not swearing, but Editor guesses your parents did not smack you for your foul mouth so you don’t know any better) instead of telling Mr. Boehner “thank you, bro’, for helping me see the light”, was outraged.

 

·         Now, we’d like to know, where does it say the Federal Government has to bear the costs of the mistakes ordinary folks and state governments make? In this case, the mistake of ordinary folks is not carrying sufficient insurance (and we are told that hurricane insurance and the like is very expensive). The mistake of the states is also not carrying insurance and not saving money for the inevitable natural disaster. If the government is to bail out everyone, where’s the moral hazard? Isn’t this what the Republicans were saying about the Obama bailouts? And at that we agreed with the Republicans.

 

·         So basically what the Republican hypocrites are saying is, if it doesn’t benefit me personally, I am against government spending. I do not want spending on welfare and roads and teachers and so on. Doubtless Governor Christie will say “the hurricane did not discriminate between liberal and conservative Americans; this money is for everyone.” But if the money were not spent, the Guvvy-Wuvvy’s political career might hit the rocks, so it is for him too.

 

·         In the end it comes down everyone grabbing what they can of the public money, regardless of their political creed. The Republicans have been screaming for spending cuts, and now they want spending increases because it suits them politically?

 

·         As the kids in India used to say: “Shame, shame, puppy shame, all the dawgies know your name.” (No clue what it means.)

 

Wednesday 0230 GMT January 2, 2012

·         US and French training of local forces Reader David Brata writes: regarding  your discussion about the  varied results of  the troops trained by France and the United States. Are the Americans and the French completely at fault with their training failures or are some of the problems the culture -  background of the troops that  were being trained? Gurkha warriors have a solid reputation when in action. How much of that is because of training from the British and how much of that is because of the culture - background of the Gurkhas?

 

·         Though the British relationship with the Gorkhas (Indian spelling) has been romanticized by the British themselves, the British successful trained a multitude of peoples for the British Indian Army. The Bengalis were almost banned from the post 1857 army because of their leading part in the mutiny (from the Indian side, the War of Liberation). The British further created the myth of the “martial races” of India, whereas Indian history makes clear that all Indian races were constantly at war for all of Indian history. What the British meant, defacto, by “martial race” were races willing to follow them without question and with total loyalty. So aside from the Gorkhas, the British trained Jats, Sikhs, Punjabis, Baloch, Pathans, Maharashtrans, Madrasis and so on, covering almost all of India. These races were as fierce fighters as the Gurkhas. The British fell in love with the Gorkha because the Gorkha was the most simple hearted of South Asian races, thought of his British officers as God, and followed them blindly with a childish faith. But best to remember India in World War II produced what is still the largest volunteer army in the world: two million Indians enlisted. And had the British asked, another two, or four, or eight million would have enlisted. By the Second World War the British were conscious of deep Indian nationalist stirrings, and they did not necessarily want a hundred division Indian Army, for all that they could have had it if they wanted. The Gorkhas were only a small part of that army. (Technically the Gorkhas was in a separate category, but that is irrelevant.)

 

·         When the British departed in 1947, they left behind the best trained 3rd World Army. A lack was general officers: only three Army officers attained brigadier (one-star) rank – Mandeep Singh Bajwa, our South Asian correspondent, may correct us on that. As a result of India having to home-grow its senior officers, it was not till the 1971 War that India had highly competent 3- and 4-star generals.

 

·         That’s the background. Now let’s get back to Reader Brata’s question. For ninety years the British actually officered the Indian Army. It was only in 1928 – again, we will defer to Mandeep on this – that the British decided to commission Indian officers. These officers had the benefit of British tutelage for 11 years of peace and six years of a world war. The enlisted men and the Junior Commissioned Officers had the benefit of British training for ninety years. Moreover – and Editor does not want to get all mystical and dewy-eyed about this, the British totally respected the Indian soldier and considered it their duty to lead them as well as they might lead white troops. The British officers took the same risks as the Indian officers and men. Socially they considered Indian officers their inferiors, but it was hard to keep up this charade given that the bulk of Indian officers came from the landed gentry and were of the “best” families. There is a famous case where one of the earliest commissioned Indian officers resigned from the Army because his British commander had ridden his horse without his permission!  As far as the Indian officer was concerned, his British superior had violated all norms required of a gentleman; and it mattered not a hoot to him that the commander was white! (The resignation was not accepted).

 

·         Because India has a millennia old martial tradition, it was easy for the British to make effective soldiers of the Indians. They already were effective soldiers, it was a question of bringing modern rather than feudal ways of organization, leadership and so on to the Indians. Because every Indian was a volunteer, his martial heritage required him to give his officers of whatever color his complete loyalty. By the 1940s the Indian officers in the British Indian officers were susceptible to the same winds of nationalism that swept the country, but primarily the Indian soldier’s loyalty was to the regiment.  

 

·         Now fast forward to Korea, 1950-53. Almost all South Koreans were draftees, without any martial tradition. Korea is an ancient country; but we will have to ask people more expert to answer the question: were the South Koreans fighting for Korea? Editor’s impression is they were on one level, but they were also very staunchly anti-communist. Aside from this hatred of the enemy on the part of the Koreans the US trained, the US had one other advantage. The average South Korean was a peasant used to abysmal living conditions in an exceptionally harsh climate. He was physically very, very tough. But please to notice: the Americans were also fighting alongside the South Koreans. It was a joint war, even if the South Koreans were very junior partners in the matter of status. This may account for the excellent performance put up by the South Koreans.

 

·         Now, there is little doubt that French colonial troops were first rate fighters. But here again you have a situation in which the French officered the colonial armies, and the loyalty of the men was not to Algeria or Morocco or Tunisia or wherever, but to their colonial masters. The same was largely true of their Indochina troops. When French officers are fighting alongside their men, obviously it is going to make a huge difference to their fighting capability.

 

·         Fast forward even further to US in Iraq. Iraqis are enormously nationalistic, they are educated, and theirs was probably the most capable of the Arab armies. Here it was not so much a case of training a new Iraq Army, as rebuilding  the one the Americans had destroyed. And the Iraqis were very determined to get the Americans to leave ASAP. To the extent that Americans deserve the credit for the new Iraq Army, the Americans did a reasonable job.

 

·         Onto Afghanistan. The primarily loyalty of an Afghani is to his tribe, not to the country. Afghanistan has always been a rather loose sort of country: the central government held sway in Kabul and a few of the big cities, otherwise the tribes did their own thing. How do you build an effective army in Afghanistan? This is complicated question requiring much more space and time than we have. Whatever was the right way, the Americans took the wrong way. After eleven years one – count it – one Afghan brigade is capable of independent operations. And if you look closer at the US definition of “independent”, you will notice a considerable spin.

 

·         When we get to Mali, the US has spent years training an elite force of five counter-insurgent/counter terror companies, perhaps less than 700 men. This is no big deal of any sort. And the result is an astonishing rout – Editor has never heard of a case where retreating troops even abandon their vehicles (did they run out gas?) because obviously you need the vehicles to retreat! Now, it does not matter what the political situation in Mali is. US cannot make that an excuse for its failing. The nature of these jobs is that you adjust your training to local conditions. Remember Lawrence of Arabia’s admonition? It is better to train the locals to do the job their job as best they can, then to expect them to do the job as best you can. To American trainers, this is a very, very strange concept. The British worked with what they had and they did not make excuses. The same has to be made true of the Americans.

 

Tuesday 0230 GMT January 1, 2013

·         Central African Republic The President has conceded to the rebels that he will immediately form a government of national unity, i.e., take them into the government, and that he will not stand for reelection in 2016. The rebels have refused, saying they don’t trust the president because in 2007 he made various promises that were not kept.

 

·         The rebels have no exposed their true colors. They want to overthrow a legally elected government instead of making their case democratically. The Central African states, which have their own economic grouping and also maintain a peacekeeping force under the aegis of the African Union, have said the rebels will be sanctioned if they overthrow the government. Nice sentiments, how about getting your $@#&* troops to fight? A contingent from the Central African states is stationed in the CAR to protect the government against rebels. Well, the rebels approached the last major town on the road to the capital, Bangui. And the rebels walked in without a shot fired, because the CAR troops (150) and Central African troops (150+, there are 400 in the country) made a brave advance to the rear as fast as they could drive.

 

·         We have beat up enough times on the US’s complete, utter, total failure to train the Afghan Army. Now in fairness we have to ask, what are the oh-so-great French doing regarding training. In 2012 the Mali Army simply collapsed. And in December 2012, the CAR Army simply collapsed. That the US military has failed in the training task in Afghanistan is no great surprise. The US trained the ROK troops very well back in the 1950s. It trained the Vietnamese okay, more or less. Afghanistan Army is a joke. So you see a downward progression, we all know America’s generals are blithering idiots and we expect nothing from them. But the French, now. Who is it that claims to know the Africans better than anyone else? The French. Who has taught the Art Of the Rear Advance best? The French. Who was all fire-and-brimstone to intervene in Syria but retreated into a “There’s no one here except us meeces” mode in Mali and CAR? The French again. Just like us Americans, the French today cannot be shamed. All we can do is to say we are very, very disappointed in them.