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News archives for 2012 have been recovered. Still working on 2011 and on creating an index for 2002-2012 |
Monday 0230 GMT
December 31, 2012
·
Editor
really didn’t need this
It was sent by an alleged
friend. Alleged because no friend should make a friend suffer this
much. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ACkmg3Y64_s?rel=0
As readers know, Ed is a model railroad fan, has a 120-foot long
layout in his basement, but has never managed to get the wiring
straight. So the railroad does not run. Meanwhile the kids on the
block whom he promised to have it ready when they started
Kindergarten, are now in Middle School. Editor’s morale is totally
shattered and his feelings of inadequacy are overwhelming. Nothing
happy about his New Year. Moan, whine, complain, and kvetch and so
on. Someone has to do it. The moaning and whining, Editor means.
·
There’s another demoralizing thing Editor has been wanting to share. TMI, you will say, but you can always skip
to the next item. Kids have an acute sense of smell. For a teacher
its particularly important to be ultra clean because the kids and
you are on top of each other all school day. So along with his
morning routine, Editor shampoos his hair. Luckily it doesn’t take
long as he has one and a half hairs left. Since one fetish Editor
has is to be completely clean before jumping into bed, he ends up
shampooing twice a day. This one and a half hairs are extremely well
looked after, let Ed tell you.
·
So the
other day when he went to CVS, he picked up what he thought was
men’s shampoo. He doesn’t see so well any more.
One whiff in the shower and
Ed realized it was women’s shampoo.
Okay, now Ed does not believe in wasting money, and he had
already opened the container so there was no question of returning
it. So, Ed said to himself, he would smell like a woman. Given he
has the hide of an ancient rhino, this did not bother him in the
least. Saving $4 by not buying the right shampoo is more important.
·
So first
this lady teacher starts leaning over him and Ed’s heart is glad,
because he thinks he is getting somewhere. Then another lady teacher
starts standing really close when we’re talking, and Ed is getting
all ready for that big date Saturday night. Of course, one has to
ask the lady, and she has to agree, but
please, enough of these petty details. You cannot ruin a good
fantasy for no reason. When a third lady teacher also starts
standing very close, and he notices her sniffing. Ed is very, very
pleased. Any minute now it’s going to be not just a lunch at
McDonald’s/matinee movie date, but a Real Date.
·
Editor
has a lady friend from when he was in school and college – happily
married to someone else – that he often consults on matters of
women. So he tells her that
he now a chick magnet. She laughs and says: “Do you notice
I am standing very close
to you?” Editor allows he has noticed, and that’s it is kind of
nice. Just because Editor is now almost 80 does not mean he cannot
feel passion for someone he was kissing friends with many decades
ago.
·
(Don’t be
prurient – it never got any further because the lady in her youth
was quite evangelical. Also her dad had a repeater shot-gun and was
never shy about telling stories about his daughter’s many admirers.
The stories all had depressingly identical endings: the admirer was
seen off the premises by Dad. Now seeing as Ed was a heathen, the
wrong color as well, you may ask how Dad tolerated Ed dating his
daughter. Simple. He too was a model railroad fan. Most of the date
would be spent with Ed helping Dad with the latest railroad work.
Then Dad would casually look at his watch, and say: “Mmmmm. It’s
almost Anne’s curfew” – 9PM if you must ask – “why don’t you go up
to the parlor and talk to her.” Then he’d turn on all the parlor
lights, and retire. Naturally
Anne’s mother would come in and want to chat. It’s a wonder Ed got
any kissing done. Ah the good old days. America was a different
place then.)
·
Then his
friend explains patiently to him. It is well known, she says
that women do not like the
way men smell – of two-week unwashed gym socks with a pathetic
attempt to cover up using one of those Old Spice body sprays for
moldy, sweaty clothes. Ed thinks that is a manly smell, having grown
up with all guys and constantly playing sports or running.
Women like men to smell at
least a bit feminine, his friend tells him. Less threatening.
·
Ed
pointed out that back in the day he smelled of moldy socks and
sweatsuits, so how come she
never complained? And Old
Spice body spray had not been invented then. “Ah,” she said, “when
you’re a teenager the lust hormones overcome those inhibitions.”
Now she tells Ed. He might
have been more willing to take risks when he was dating her. BTW,
folks, don’t get the wrong idea. The lady’s husband is sitting in
the room during this discussion, smiling indulgently. He thinks it
is all very cute (excuse Ed while he hurls) and he loves hearing
about his wife when she was in school and college, before he met
her.
·
“So,” Ed
says brightly, “you are saying my teacher lady colleagues are now
standing close to me because I smell “Nice” like a woman and am
non-threatening?” Yes, she says. “So this means they are
not overcome by lust at
the very nearness of my person?” No, she says.
Saturday 0230 December
29, 2012
·
Delhi rape victim dies To cut the long story, and to spare you from throwing up over your
lunch, I am not going to give the details of what was done to this
girl. Suffice it to say her entire intestine had to be removed, she
had serious brain injuries, repeated abdominal infections, and a
lung infection, any and all of which were bad enough to kill her.
Aside from what was done to her in the bus, she was thrown out of the moving bus. This not the
sort of thing that does any human body much good, even if you have
not been grievously injured already.
·
What
makes the story all the more forlorn is that she fought back to try
and save her boyfriend who was being beaten in the bus. This drove
the perp completely crazy, and he sure showed her not to mess with
him. I wonder what attitude he will show to the hangman. This is now
a murder case, the man has already confessed to everything and shown
no remorse, and in India when a group commits a murder, the courts
do not waste a lot of time in apportioning responsibility. As well
they should not. No one asked the other five perps to participate.
The court is not going into “well, this killed her and not that, so
the defendant has diminished responsibility.” The sole point the
court will consider vis-à-vis the head perp is the girl was well and
alive when she boarded the bus; as a result of what was done to her
she is dead. No one cares he was drunk, that he might not have
intended to kill her, or whatever. In these group murders there is
always someone who does not participate enthusiastically; perhaps
the court in their case/s will settle for life, but that’s just
guesswork.
·
My point
here will not be the heinous nature of the crime. Terrible as it
was, worse things are done every day. I will mention a personal
angle, but even this will not be the point. The bus stop at which
the couple boarded is mid-way between Mrs. Rikhye IV’s university
and the upscale area in which we lived. (We lived in a garage with a
bathroom, so no snarky comments about upscale.) IIRC, the distance
from where the girl was thrown off the bus to the bust stop to the
university is about 2-km. Mrs. R IV and myself have walked the road
many, many times, at all hours of the day or night. In our day, 20+
years ago, people did not bother you if it was a couple. The one
time we were mobbed by a bunch of rowdy college boys (in another
part of town) wanting to have a bit of fun at our expense, I
immediately introduced myself to each of the boys, commented
favorably on their firm handshakes and earnest student looks, and
discussed their hopes for the future. We parted as good friends.
·
I should
explain about the bus. Delhi has government public transport
supplemented by private buses. If a bus stops at a bus stop, there
is no reason to suspect foul play. It’s just a bus. This is what
makes the affair doubly bad, because these men deliberately set a
trap for anyone who boarded. They had already robbed one person
unfortunate enough to fall for it at a previous bus stop, they threw
him out on the road too. Buses are innocent, they help you get where
you want, you don’t expect to be brutally attacked by the driver and
accomplices.
·
My point
concerns an Indian politician, who happens to be the son of India’s
President. This man is from West Bengal, a place where women are
treated with respect – as they are mostly in India except in the
Northwest. For no reason at all, he came out with a statement saying
that he didn’t see any women students demonstrating, all he saw is
pretty ladies who were painted and dented. In case you scratch your
head at the metaphor, please let me explain. It means these are
sexually active women available to anyone. His subtext is the same
as every rapist’s: the victim brought it on herself. If you are
interested, you should read the letters to the editor in any Indian
magazine or newspaper, for every two letter expressing horror, there
is one saying “why was she out at night with a boyfriend?”
·
This man
seems to have an overactive imagination, because Delhi is a cold
place in winter. The demonstrators regardless of their sex are
bundled up – it is not LA in the summer, if you get my meaning. That
he is an elected representative of the people comes as a shock. His
sister was shocked enough she publicly rebuked him and made him
apologize. It was a mealy mouthed apology of the “if I have offended
anyone” variety, no one has accepted it.
·
The
sister was asked if her father, the Prez, shared her sentiments. She
was sure he did. But – and finally I get to my point – the Prez has
not rebuked his son. In microcosm this shows why Indians are so
angry about this case. The politicians just have no clue as to what
are the concerns of ordinary people. You can be 110% sure that the
sister, or the politician’s wife and daughters if he has any, do not
have to travel by bus. They will have cars and chauffers. For the
son to have made the statement he did is bad enough. But for the
President not to give his boy a verbal thrashing – and a whipping –
is the real crime.
·
The
President of India is father or mother to all Indians. Under most
circumstances the President’s powers are limited; he is like a
constitutional monarch. But the position is always occupied by a man
or woman who has spent her/his lifetime serving the country, and who
is of the highest moral integrity. This president has shown zero
moral integrity. Old man though he may be, he needs to be thrashed
with a Singapore cane. Of course, it is likely he does not see what
his son has done wrong. And that’s India for you. Indians
are supposed to hold women in
the highest esteem and respect. But in reality Northwest India is
famous for its ill-treatment of women – if the woman is outside the
house, more so if she is young. Indian men make a big thing of
saying “but she dressed provocatively, she was asking for it.”
Sadly, however, as Indian journalist Seema Sirhoi has pointed out
http://www.cnn.com/video/?iid=article_sidebar#/video/world/2012/12/27/nr-officials-ask-for-calm-in-india-rape-riots.cnn
the woman’s dress has nothing to do with it. Most Indian women who
get assaulted and molested themselves come from the conservative
middle/low middle/poor classes. Upper class girls generally do not
get molested except as students because they have cars in which to
travel.
·
The
President used to be a member of the Congress Party, which is the
ruling party. This is the same party that was headed for almost 20
years by a woman (until her death), Mrs. Indira Gandhi. It is now
headed by her daughter-in-law, Italian born Sonia, who has never had
to take public transportation, but still, she is a woman. The
biggest star of the Congress Party, despite Mama Sonia's attempts to
push her lame-brain son, is her daughter, Priyanka.
·
So what
is the Congress Party’s position on the moronic son of a clueless
President? It wants us to accept the apology and forgive the boy –
lovingly and affectionately. This is the state of Delhi today.
·
In
conclusion, I want to defend the Delhi Police. People blame the
police reflexively. People are saying: “How come the bus passed
unchecked through 5 police checkpoints?” Hello, Indian public. Your
outrage at what happened is justified. Your attacking the police is
not. This was a public transport bus. Why should the police stop it
at a checkpoint? It was a Delhi Police foot patrol that heard the
feeble cries of the victim’s boyfriend and came to their aid.
Passerby seem to have minded their own business and walked on. In
36-hours the Delhi Police had tracked down the bus. Delhi is a city
of 20-million people. It is huge and it has huge exurbs. The woman’s
friend remembered the color, the name of the transport company, and
that the bus had tinted windows. The Delhi Police speedily tracked
374 buses and got the right one. I don’t think US police could have
done it much faster. Having lived in Delhi, and having taken the
time to get to know the police (sometimes involuntarily) and how
they live and work, I am personally astonished at their efficiency.
Friday 0230 GMT
December 28, 2012
·
Central African Republic So
this rebel group, which has grievances it says the Government has
failed to address despite an agreement, attacks government forces
who become conspicuous by their absence. This is a repeat of Mali,
where government forces also rapidly splat when the rebels showed
up. Rebel advance stops about 100-km north of the capital, after
taking ten towns. Are the rebels running out of steam? Are they
offering a chance for the government to negotiate? None of this is
clear from the news reports.
·
Well, the
people of the capital get irate and attack the French Embassy. Not
the usual reason: these folks are angry because the French WONT
intervene. This is the New France: Hollande says France cannot
intervene to protect a particular regime. That this “regime” is the
closest thing CAR has had to a democracy, the CAR Prez winning
elections twice, seems to have escaped M. Hollande, who is probably
spending his time with a current girlfriend while trying to hide
from THE girlfriend and the ex-girl friend. (Gotta say THE
girlfriend is one snazzy dresser. These French women really know how
to dress very simply and every elegantly. Ed has always believe
French women are wasted on French men.)
·
The
people of the CAR, having seen enough misfortune in fifty years to
last normal people five hundred, are in complete panic. They have
been fleeing into the jungles, anything to get away from the rebels.
The capital has 600,000 people, and they are not looking forward to
fleeing into the jungle, as you may well imagine. France has a
200-troops contingent, mainly for security of French interests. EU
has a 400-troop force to protect civilians from the last time around
there was a crisis. European/French reaction to the rebel advance?
Get out of Dodge. They’re all working on evacuating embassy staff
and citizens, the black folks can look after themselves. After all,
we know from the west’s record in black Africa that one white life
is worth more than a 100 hundred black lives; it is so fragile, so
beautiful, so precious to God that it cannot be risked for any
number of blacks.
·
In case
“Central African Republic” sounds familiar to older readers, this is
the home of the self-declared Emperor Bokassa, who fed people he
didn’t like to crocodiles, personally beat children to death, and
had human bodies in his cold storage, because he liked to indulge in
tasty treats once in a while. The French had no problem protecting
Bokassa until he got too much even for the French, whereupon they
overthrew him.
·
Ah, but a
supporter of the French might say. That was then, in the 1970s, in
the immediate post-colonial era. We, the French are enlightened now.
And how can we take perpetual responsibility for these people?
Actually, both morality and humanity demand the French take
responsibility. Like the other colonial powers, though none equaled
Belgium’s king for sheer cruelty and genocide, France exploited the
people and resources of their colonies. It is now only fifty years
since the bitterly and brutally repressed black folk of Black Africa
have had their freedom. For much of this time the “freedom” was
notational, with the French intervening whenever necessary to
protect their commercial interests. The current government is
democratically elected; it deserves to be protected against those
who would overthrow it by force.
·
But of
course, appealing on grounds of morality and humanity to the French
is like importuning a rock. Probably you will make better headway
with the rock. The French pride themselves on their pragmatism. They
had zero problem intervening most recently in the Cote de Ivorie
because they have money to be made from that former colony.
Thursday 0230 GMT
December 26, 2012
·
Setback to Editor’s suggestion on arming school staff
Someone wrote in to Washington Post
asking if we really wanted faculty meeting held in an environment
where the principle, administrators, and teachers have guns. Being a
teacher, Editor has to concede the point.
·
On this
subject, as we mentioned in Tuesday’s post, gun supporters have to
give up the claim that 2nd Amendment gives us a right to
arm against tyranny, so we need automatic weapons. First, that means
we have a right to artillery, rockets, tanks, and nuclear weapons.
Second, that is not what 2nd Amend says. It speaks of a
well-armed militia to SUPPORT the government, not to OPPOSE the
government. In other words, you have a right to be armed so you can
be an oppresser on BEHALF of the Government. Editor is ready, able,
willing to be an oppressor in support of government. Dear Govs,
kindly deliver the following to Editor’s door so he can help you
oppress: 100 100-MT nukey-poos, 100 M-1 tanks, 100 F-35 fighters,
and one Glock. Thank so much.
·
This
is funny After the Americans
started a petition to deport Piers Morgan, the British have started
a counter petition, which says: We spent 40-years trying to get rid
of him. You wanted him, now you keep him.
·
Editor
read something odd: someone saying US Constitution does not apply to
non-citizens so Piers Morgan has no 1st Amendment right.
He CAN be deported because by mocking the 2nd Amend, he
has insulted the US Constitution. Sigh, Editor loves America, but he
could love its citizens more if they weren’t so darned confused
about their own constitution. The constitution does very much apply
to non-citizens
http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=facpub
That is why US Government has not bought the Guantanamo terrorists
to trial in the US. The first thing that will happen is the US will
have to admit it got their confessions via torture, and then its
goodbye case, pay the terrorist money. Further, because he lives
here, Piers Morgan likely has a residence permit. Every law and
constitutional articles applies to him, but he can’t vote. That is
the sole difference between him and citizens. He works under other
limitations as expressed by Congress, for example, he can be
deported for any conviction that carries a sentence of more than
1-year imprisonment, even if he doesn’t serve a day in jail. But 1st
Amend rights he does have. As is also true of 2nd Amend
rights. Morgan, instead of abusing those who advocate for the more
extreme interpretations, should go get his own weapons. Just a
thought.
·
The
hypocrisy of the American ruling class. Our reader Luxembourg sends a story by
Brietbart The Brat saying that Sidwell Friends, the Washington DC
school where Our Royal Preziness sends his kids along with other
Washington elitist, has 12 armed guards on its roster. This does not
count Sasha and Malia’s armed protection detail. Okay, on one level
Editor understands: lots of UIPs (Ultra Important People, at least
in their eyes) send their kids to Sidwell which presumably could be
a target for would-be kidnappers and publicity seekers. You can
further say that Sidwell is a private school, so the guards are not
costing the taxpayer a dime.
·
But see,
this is the way it is with the wealthy of America.
They live in one world with their unique
set of privileges bought with their money, and then there is ROU
(Rest of us). Any person sending their kid to Sidwell who ridicules
the idea of armed guards in school needs, before anything, to vote
to get rid of the school guards. Then they have a right to join the
conversation. Your Royal Preziness, that mean YOU.
·
On the
subject of our own Royal: a friend tells us when the
Commander-in-Chief gave the funeral peroration for the late Senator
from Hawaii, he managed to include the word “I” sixty-one times. It
was all about him, as usual. Then he wonders why people genuinely
don’t like him.
·
Gender Wars We listened to a
press interview with the lady dental hygienist who was fired by his
boss for being too attractive and, as is the obvious corollary, he
couldn’t resist her. Or she him, apparently. Well, she was very
upset in a quiet way and said at least twice that the Iowa Supreme
Court’s ruling was unfair. Two points. There is fairness and there
is the law. The lady said she was the victim of gender
discrimination. She could not prove this as ALL the dentist’s
employees are women; he replace the lady with another woman. There’s
the end of the matter as she brought before the court.
·
There is
also the law and common sense in another sense. The dentist said he
had no complaint about her work; indeed, she was the best assistant
he’d every employed. But his wife was raising heck, he found the
assistant irresistible, and she found him irresistible, and it was
his marriage or his assistant. Regardless of what the law says,
common sense dictates either of two outcomes. One, her boss could
have transferred her. But in a dental office, where was he to
transfer her? Two, he could fire her, which he did. We don’t think
that’s unfair.
Wednesday 0230
GMT December 26, 2012
Editor got home very late last night so
with apologies he is skipping the update. He had gone to visit the
new grandkid, being Christmas and all, and the family insisted he
stay for dinner, even heroically moving it up by two hours. Its five
hours each way. The morning run was perfect, the interstates empty
like they mainly used to be in the good old days, 40 and more years
ago, before everyone in America had two cars each and insisted on
driving them simultaneously. But returning it was like the usual
weekend traffic, particularly I-95 Peterboro to Richmond to
Washington DC. Everyone drives with their brights on, so Editor,
being low to the ground, gets blinded and basically drove nearly
300-miles by angling his side and rear mirrors away and following
the car in front. Good thing the car in front was also going to
Washington, or Editor might have ended up in Iowa or someplace.
Editor was very resentful: just because he has no life doesn’t mean
everyone else in Virginia should also have no life and spend their
time going up and down the roads for no purpose and getting in
Editor’s way. The worst of it was that to keep his mind off the
traffic and bright lights Editor had to put the radio on. Now Editor
has no problem listening to Holy Night ten times and Silent Night
five times, but Have Yourself A Merry Christmas ten times and Rudolf
the Red Nosed Reindeer 20 times is torture. Editor became so
desperate that at one point he tried to figure out a practical way
of killing himself while still getting home on time so he wouldn’t
have to listen to Rudolph any more. Quantum mechanics tells us we
can be dead as a dodo in one state and alive and well in another
state, but as usual, between theory and practice there seems to be a
wide gap.
Tuesday 0230 GMT
December 25, 2012
Happy Christmas, folks. At least try to
be good this coming year. Okay, okay, Editor is being unrealistic.
Go be as bad as you want. If you hang around in money circles, you
will get great gifts in 2013 no matter how bad you are. If you hang
around with the poverty stricken, you will get lousy presents no
matter good you are. Happy now?
·
Piers Morgan First, Mr.
Morgan had no right to hurl verbal abuse at his guest no matter how
strongly he feels about gun control. This is bullying, particularly
so if the guest had called Mr. Morgan the same names or worse, we
may doubt the tape would have been shown. An apology by Mr. Morgan
is in order.
·
Second,
have gun rights folks lost sight of the US Constitution? There is
something called the 1st Amendment in the same
Constitution that allows us the right to own guns. The US Supreme
Court has ruled that anyone residing in America is entitled to the
protection of the Constitution. That includes Mr. Morgan. There is
no need for any further debate.
·
Nothing
like writing about an issue to learn more about it. We are now told
that the idea of the 2nd Amendment was not to arm the
citizenry against the possibility of an oppressive government. The
idea was to PUT DOWN insurrections against the state. And the state
more or less means the government. In other words, the original idea
was oppression of the people.
At this point we are just shaking our head and going: “Oh wow, who
knew”.
·
Armed guards in schools This
is not going to stop attacks in schools, and in any case, given the
rarity of gun attacks against schools, this is horribly
cost-ineffective. There are 140,000 schools, at the very minimum you
need one trained person for each. That’s $60,000 per year counting
benefits and overheads, or $8.4-billion/year. To save what? 30 lives
a year? $250-million to save each life? Please, someone, apply the
brains you have. For that money, you could save tens of thousands of
children’s lives by assuring them of proper pre-natal/post-natal
care, proper nutrition, and proper medical care through 12th
Grade.
·
And what
exactly will one armed guard do against a madman? BTW, not that the
armed school guards lobby wants to here this, in high schools at
least this is absolutely not going to work. In every high school I
work (5 in Montgomery County, Maryland) there are so many hallways
and dead ends that a gunman could happily shoot up 50-100 kids
before anyone could do anything about it. Will an armed guard be a
deterrent? No, because to a mad person determined on making his
point regardless of consequences no deterrent will work.
·
Does this
mean we are saying that limits on weapons shouldn’t be enacted?
Look, people, you can enact any limit you want. Short of making a
law – and enforcing it – that any person owning a gun for any reason
will be shot by the same gun, limiting guns is not going to work.
Are gun control advocates willing to lobby for such a law? BTW, this
business of “let’s ban high magazine capacity” is another blind
plunge into Utopia. If someone is determined to kill, 8-round
magazines, or even six-round revolvers, are not going to stop a mad
person landing up at a school. Two 8-round magazine semi-automatics
is 16 rounds which can be fired in as many seconds, allow 20 seconds
to change magazines and firing 30 rounds a minute is entirely
feasible for a semi-skilled gunman.”
·
So are we
saying no limits on assault weapons? May we repeat once again:
Americans, this is your country. Do as you see fit. Editor can’t
afford even one proper gun so the whole thing is academic to him.
But if you think these badly though out ideas are going to save
lives, think again.
·
By the
way, it’s anyone’s 1st Amendment right to beat up on the
NRA. But why are people so convinced the NRA is the one blocking
“sane” gun legislation? Take a look at
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000082 which
is an anti-NRA site. Editor for one was truly astounded at how
pathetically little the NRA spends on Congressional lobbying:
$2.2-million in 2012. Please excuse us, $2.2-million won’t buy you a
herniated three-legged cow in the lobbying stakes. Of course,
another $18-million or so is spent in advertising and such.
$20-million is a pathetic, truly laughable sum of money. Editor
laughed so hard when he learned this he got a hernia. Top “earners”
in Congress got less than $10,000 each.
·
It is
absurd to say you can buy a Congressman for $10,000! If gun control
advocates think they can, what’s stopping them from collecting
$2-million to bribe the Congresspersons not to accept NRA money. The
uncomfortable truth has to be that most Americans are opposed to
serious gun control. Don’t blame the pathetic wimpy NRA, blame the
people.
·
Now
that’s a winning strategy, isn’t it? Mr. Morgan, comments?
Monday 0230 GMT
December 24, 2012
·
Gender wars Is it time to
stop this ritual bashing of media: “You
described what XYZ looks like and the clothes she wear. Would you do
it for a man?” Generally these comments are by women, but
occasionally you get one from a male; and we always suspect it’s
some guy trying to get in good with his lady so that he gets to –
you know, read the Bible with her.
·
Some
American women seem to have no clue about how things work. Men are
always 100% into a lady’s looks and figures, they could care less
what she’s wearing, because they have already undressed her in their
fantasies. And women are also 100% interested in what other women
look like and especially what they are wearing. There is not one man
in the world who gives one little darn about what men are wearing.
Women like a nicely dressed man, but since men are perpetual bores
in the matter of their dress, women are not interested in
discussions on what the guys are wearing. What
other women are wearing –
now that’s not business, its personal.
·
So we’re
going to suggest to the media that it is perfectly A-OK to comment
on women’s clothes and even their looks. The media by doing this
perform a valuable service for its women readers and the few men
readers who notice what women are wearing.
·
Now
comes this peculiar case from Iowa The State High Court rules 7-0 that it is
perfectly okay for a male employer to fire a woman employee because
she is too good looking. The judges are seven men to zero women. The
woman in question’s lawyer has gone totally off her rocker by
declaring that these men don’t get gender discrimination. Bosh,
nonsense, and rotten fish heads.
·
The man
is a dentist; the lady is a hygienist in his office. She has worked
there for ten years. The dentist’s wife somehow caught on that her
husband and the employee wanted to – er, read the Bible together.
Really smart woman that it took her ten years: apparently the
husband and the hygienist have had a long-standing pash for each
other, even though both are married. And the wife works in the
office, too. Well, the wife did what any wife is entitled to do: she
demanded her husband see off this lady. He called her woman in front
of his pastor, and told her he was firing her even though he had no
complaint about her work. The woman sued.
·
One
reason the judges did not go for this gender discrimination baloney
is that the dentist said he hired only women. This of course sets
him up for a real gender discrimination suit when a man applies for
a job and is turned down. That is another story. Also, are the
judges supposed to tell this hapless man “even if it costs you your
marriage, you must keep the plaintiff employed”? This is not a
company where they woman can be transferred to another office or
division. And just in case people forget, dentists and their
hygienists work in rather close physical proximity to each other.
·
The
judges ruled correctly. It really is time for women’s advocates to
use their brains and not just scream discrimination where no
discrimination exists. Our request is directed toward both male and
female advocates for women, just to show Editor is not biased.
·
When
the media revealed the case of the two Army generals rather taken up women they were not married
to, naturally some women began their ritual of mumbling: “Oh yes,
it’s always the woman’s fault, the men are like, totally helpless.”
Just to make clear which side Editor is on: Yes, it is always the
woman’s fault and men are like, totally helpless, and like, also
total jerks.
·
Anyone
knows that it is the women target the guys, and just as if a switch
is flicked, the men respond by drooling and following the woman
around. The men think they are doing the chasing; this always amuses
the women because they know who is manipulating whom. The men are
just doing what nature intends for them to do. They are hardwired
for this kind of behavior, no amount of moralizing – or snarky
comments from women – is going to stop this, any more than Pavlov’s
dog could stop his drool when food was shown to him. The men are
total jerks precisely because they are not in control of themselves
– they cannot and still remain true to nature. Just like the dog,
men drool when an attractive woman shows interest in them. Sorry,
Editor lied. Men drool when ANY woman shows an interest in them. The
man who has many women who want him can afford to be selective, the
rest of us cannot.
·
So are we
absolving men of all responsibility for affairs? Of course not. A
man has to drool when a lady beckons, but it’s his choice to follow
up or not. Also, BTW, every man has to try his luck even if the
woman is giving no vibes. Men are indiscriminate beasts: they run
from woman to woman, knowing that if they do not try they will get
no woman. But if the woman is really not giving signals, all except
the stupidest of men get the point. If they refuse to get the point,
then Editor for one if with the women: tar and feather the man
because he obviously has no manners, and no man without manners is a
real man.
·
The
second general was not accused of an affair. The crime, which
required 15 investigators working overtime to investigate –
taxpayer’s money being used to satisfy a mentally ill society’s
“morals” – was “inappropriate” emails. The man’s crime was calling
the woman not his wife “sweetheart” and “darling” and such offences
against the public morality.
·
Editor
would like to tell the US Government that he sends no inappropriate
emails, but scores of times every working day he calls much younger
females he is not related to “sweetheart”, “darling”, “baby”,
“sweetie-pie”, and so on. Yes, he confesses all! Investigate him,
please! His guilt is killing him! Actually not. The targets are his
students, when they are behaving badly or need to be cajoled to
work. A lot of girls today seem to have an issue with male authority
– maybe girls always did. Speaking to them firmly or harshly or
coldly gets them into a rebellion mode. Speaking gently and
affectionately usually works, because that’s the way their grandpas
talk to them. The same goes for the boys. When he needs their
cooperation he calls them “son” or “sonny boy”. With high-school
boys you can’t call them “darling” and “baby boy” because they feel
embarrassed. But with his middle-school boys when Editor taught
middle school, he would address the boys and girls exactly the same.
It works.
Friday 0230
December 21, 2012
Next update Monday December 24, 2012
·
Back to guns This being the
hot button issue that it is, clearly we are not going to change
anyone’s present position and nor do we want to. But Editor hates in
when people seek to make a case by using statistics that have no
meaning.
·
One
example is an article that says 11,000 Americans die due to gun
murders each year, whereas 3000 Afghan civilians have been killed
(either this year or last year). Where upon Editor has to restrain
the urge to say: AAAANNNNDDDD? Like,
what’s the comparison? What is you are trying to say? Is your point
that four times as many Americans are getting killed in peacetime as
Afghan civilians are getting killed in wartime? But so what?
·
There
are, to start, twelve times as many Americans as there are Afghans.
Next, the Afghan War is not just a very low intensity war, the
allies do everything possible not to cause collateral damage, and
even the Taliban do not cause that many civilian losses. Next, will
someone kindly inform us what the Afghan gun
murder rate is compared to
America’s 3.5% per 100,000? Editor does not know, and neither does
the writer of the article we mention. But it is the only honest
comparison.
·
Gun
opponents correctly point out that America’s gun murder rate is
about 30-times higher than most advanced nations. They also point
out correctly that America has the highest per capita gun ownership
rate of any country. We believe it’s one gun per man, woman, and
child; though we have to suggest readers take this estimate with
diffidence unless someone can show the estimate is based on solid
facts. It is also undoubtedly correct to say that without guns there
would be no gun murders. Japan is cited as an example. This raises
two questions: are Americans homicidal whackos, and is anyone
suggesting that every single gun in America be made illegal and
confiscated?
·
Let us
take the whacko part first. According to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list
there are 25 countries with gun murder rates equaling or exceeding
the US. True some really small countries are included, like Jamaica,
Barbados, Anguilla. The point is that the US is by no means alone in
the whacko league. Indeed, we are told that aside from the US’s
homicide rate falling by half in the last 30-years, US has generally
been fairly violent murder wise. Ten per 100,000 in the rate during
the Depression, for example. So if we wanted to push it, we could
say the US has one of the fastest dropping homicide rates in the
world despite the wide availability of guns.
·
That
doesn’t quite square with the narrative of the anti-gun folks, does
it? Here’s another statistic to randomly throw around. America has
half of the world’s civilian-owned handguns. But it’s gun murder
rate is only 2.9 or so per 100,000 folks. We’d have to do a bit more
research, but we suspect you can make a case that
compared to the number of guns
available, Americans are
less likely to use their guns to kill than most countries.
Likely you’d get even better figures if you took just handguns. (See
http://www.gunpolicy.org if you want to work this out yourself.)
·
Now of
course this does not prove there is tea in China, or whatever,
because it is another false comparison. All we are saying is there
is no sense in anyone, pro- or anti-gun, throwing out invalid
comparisons.
·
The only
way you are going to get the gun murder rate down to zero is by
having zero guns, right? We leave it to the anti-gun lobby to
suggest how this is to be done. Obviously it will cost money, a
great deal. So you can work out a figure of dollars spent to save
one life. Then you can see if it wouldn’t be more effective to use
those dollars to save lives lost through fast food, smoking, air
pollution, and drunken driving. Not the same thing, you will argue,
because no one gets into their car drunk with the intent of killing
someone. True. Objectively, however, a life lost to a drunken driver
is the same as a life lost to a murderer. A life is a life.
·
Now let’s
go back to a position anti-gun folks hold. We are not trying to ban
all ownership. We simply want (a) more control over who guns are
sold too; and (b) we want to limit guns with magazines of – say –
more than 10-rounds. On the first, we have to ask our pro-gun folks
to be reasonable. To say, as some do, that ANY restriction on
ownership is the thin edge of wedge makes no sense. For example,
there’s that hoary chestnut: you have a right to free speech, but
not to yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre. You have a right to
pornography, but child pornography will get you as many years in
jail as most murders. You have a right to free speech, but not to
take out large ads in the media saying “Kill the Jews” or “Kill the
Editor” or whatever. (Actually, on the principle that some attention
is better than no attention, please do take out ads saying “Kill the
Editor”.) You have a right to your automobiles, but boy, is this
ownership regulated or what. You have a right to get married, but
not if you’re under 18. So on and so forth. After all, I have no
right to own an M-1 tank (I’d prefer four, if you don’t mind, in
different colors; red, pink, baby blue and sunflower yellow; thank
you). So we already accept restrictions on weapon ownership. What is
an M-1 but a platform for a 120mm gun.
·
On the
second issue, limiting magazine size, okay, if it makes people feel
better, Editor will go along with it. But let’s not fool ourselves.
Will homicide rates drop? Unlikely, for the reason that these random
mass murders happen rarely. The Newtown, CT shooter could have
easily killed just as many people using a 10-round magazine – and
ten magazines. Sure, it would have taken him a bit longer. But even
Editor, who is so butter-fingered he’s the Kindergarten kid that
they never gave scissors to, can swap out a magazine in 7-seconds.
Someone even that slow could still kill 10-15 people in one minute
with one gun.
Thursday 0230 December
20, 2012
·
Benghazi
The report is in, and to no one’s
surprise it found no conspiracy. It said there was no
delay in getting the cavalry to the scene. This we told readers long
ago. An interesting point is that the report said there was no
demonstration and no mob. But before anyone gets agitated at the
Government having misled the public, please to appreciate this is
the information is was given – including by the CIA. In crises wrong
information is often given. This is not a hanging offence.
·
The
report did find negligence in
State’s failure to adequately protect the post. It said that there
were plenty of warning signs that should have been heeded, and that
in the future officials that show this kind of negligence should be
sanctioned. There also seems to be a move to add 1000 Marines to US
overseas posts. Wish someone would remember the Marines are there
not to do an Alamo but to make sure the documents are safe, which
means destroyed before the mob breaks in.
·
Personally we have no problem is US Government decides embassies are
to be protected by American forces; all we’d have to do is to
appropriately increase the size of the Corps. Editor would remind
readers that stationing troops at US posts is not something the US
can unilaterally decide. The home country has to agree, and a great
many will not. Then the US has to make a cost-benefit analysis: is
the post more important than the protection?
·
And this
is what bothers us about the Benghazi thing. Blame who you want, but
the Ambassador chose not
to tell State he was going to pull the consulate out unless safety
could be assured. Someone more familiar with the rules may come up
with Rule 56,551, Section 9919, Subsection bbxdef, and para 83,745
that says the Ambassador cannot unilaterally order shut a post he
deems unsafe. As a practical matter, he can. Let’s not go into this
because we’ll drift far and wide. We are told that the Ambassador
knew the risks better than anyone else because he was better
informed than anyone else, but believed not only that the post was
too import to shut down, but also that he personally had to be
repeatedly present. He was not a mindless puppet in the hands of
State. He took a decision for the good of the US that cost him his
life. We admire his courage and his sense of duty, but ask readers
to remember this all is not a simple matter of blaming some
bureaucrat back in Washington.
·
We
haven’t seen the report; yet we will not be surprised if it doesn’t
tell us what was really going on in Benghazi. It was something
covert, involving the consulate and the CIA, and there, we suppose,
the matter will rest. It would also be interesting to know why the
CIA sent the report of a demonstration when none took place? A
genuine mistake in the heat of a crisis or covering up some Dirty
Work? If it is the latter, we for one are not going to blame the
CIA. Dirty work under
different covers is part of the Agency’s work. Editor knows from his
Delhi days that the use of embassy cover by the CIA was not
something greeted with joy and celebration by the State Department
folks. It becomes harder for genuine diplomats to do their work when
the locals suspect them of being CIA. Also, as a complete aside, the
anti-narcotics people in the embassy did not trust the CIA people
one bit, and you know the reason for that too. Again, we don’t blame
the CIA. Protecting the US involves a lot of dubious goings on. If
the American people want absolute purity, they’d best either join
monasteries and nunneries, or simply disband all secret service
organizations and take the consequences.
·
By the
way, Editor is one who believes this whole intelligence and covert
action thing is vastly, vastly overrated. He is the first one to admit
it can be wildly exciting to a certain type of person. But 90% of
the intel apparatus can be done away and no one will miss it.
·
All this
said, as long as the people of the US authorize covert
organizations, they have to accept that they, the people, do NOT
have a right to know what those covert organizations are doing. If
the people are told, there is nothing covert, which kind of defeats
the purpose of the thing, don’t you think? Secrecy is also needed to
cover mistakes. The covert biz can be incredibly risky. If you have
watchers sitting on the shoulder of the covert folks, you deny them
the ability to make mistakes. There is no such thing as covert biz
without mistakes, including some ghastly ones. The greater the risk
undertaken, the greater the chance of failure.
Wednesday 0230
December 19, 2012
·
Mali So back to the
discussion about Mali. One of the arguments given for a cautious
approach to intervention in Mali is that the locals do not like
foreigners, so a foreign intervention could make things tougher for
the west. But please to tell; just who exactly does love to have
foreigners intervening in their country even if it is to oust the
bad guys? And if foreigners are unwelcome, isn’t the intervention
force being planned going to be unwelcome? They’re all foreigners,
West Africans, quite different folks from the Maghreb folks. So this
is yet another silly argument seeking to justifying no intervention.
·
Current
plans call for 3300 West African troops to assist 5000 Mali troops
to retake the north. This is insufficient for a proper CI campaign,
but enough to destroy the Islamist hold. So another question arises:
where precisely are these 5000 Mali troops? The Mali army as existed
at the end 2011 broke and ran. For all the US and French training,
it was unable to do the job. One problem was the usual tribal
rivalries. You can take any 10,000-square-kilometers of Africa at
random and there will be at least two different ethnic groups living
there. Mali troops defected as well as running away. (We lack
authentic details concerning this part of the story; defections did
take place, but the whys and the whos of it are unclear to us.)
·
According
to Complete World Armies 2012 (ahem) the Mali armed forces consisted
of about 7000 troops, which means about 6500 army troops. Since no
counteroffensive has been launched by Mali, it’s probably safe to
assume there is no Mali army of 6500 troops any more. The enemy, as
nearly as we can tell, consists of about 1500+ trained Tuaregs, and
a bunch of Ansar Dine hangers on, plus some armed tribesmen that no
army should have much problem with. True the Mali Army was badly
trained and equipped with. So we are not blaming the government for
collapsing, we’re saying if there was no effective army then, there
certainly is no effective army of any sort now.
·
We’ve
seen from Somalia training up even half-a-dozen local battalions is
not done in a day. It seems to us, in fact, that the Somalis have
only recently started to become effective, after 3 or more years of
training and relapses. Why it should take so long is a very
interesting subject. We wander off the point so much that we risk
confusing our readers if we take on this topic, but basically it has
to do with when the White Man arrives the natives regress to an
infantile stage. They refuse to take responsibility, they feel
overwhelmed, intimidated, and threatened by the White Man; worse, it
doesn’t take them very long to figure that as likely as not, the WM
may be a very professional soldier, he has no clue about the
country. So the distrust factor also builds up. On top of this the
west has done a perfectly absurd and pathetic job of training –
Afghanistan. West did okay in Iraq because the Iraqis are educated
and have a high level of organization, motivation, leadership and so
on. We doubt any of this applies in Mali.
·
To us,
then, this idea of a West African force and a new western trained
Mali Army seems utopian. Not that it can’t be done. It IS being done
in Somalia. But it has taken a good many years, five years to be
precise. We don’t have five years in Mali because the Somalis
basically are focused on their own country, they have no desire to
go to war with the west. AQ in the Maghreb is a beastie of a
different color. Unless the west acts fast, in five years we may
push AQ out of Mali, and find they have made themselves cozy in
Niger and Mauritania among other places. So we’ll be back to
Whack-A-Mole. (Frankly, we don’t like this metaphor. What have moles
done to us anyway that we should be whacking them?)
·
So you
will by now be in a tired, crotchety mood at the Editor’s lengthy
meanderings. So you will say “so what do you want us to do? Send in
the 82nd Airborne?” Actually, it will be the 10th
Mountain. Under the new new new reorganization of the US Army for
the first time specific formations will train for specific
locations, and the 10th Mountain Division is for Africa.
You will also say “Ed, you keep saying how incompetent we are at
intervening; you’ve lukewarmly supported the Obama administration’s
policy of not intervening in Syria because, you say, we’ll make a
huge mess of things, so why are you calling for intervention in
Mali?”
·
Two
reasons. One is the American part of Editor. Americans are ADHD (as
is Editor), and every day to them is a new day with not history
tying today back yesterday, forget the past. So Editor is all for
washing hands of Afghanistan, and for going off to a new adventure.
This time we will be SURE to get it right. (If you believe that, you
are incredibly naïve, and yes, Editor is indeed incredibly naïve. HE
really does believe it will be different this time.)
·
The
second reason is the dilemma the entire world comes up against very
fast. NOBODY, and we have to underline it several times, wants the
US stomping all over the world creating one giant disaster after
another. But NOBODY (underline that several times) has the will to
do the job instead of the US. In this case the French are the
logical people. Of all the west, they know this part of Africa
better than anyone else. They also have the loveable French Foreign
Legion, which not only is highly experienced in these little wars,
it suffers from no angst when local bad guys have to be slaughtered.
The FFL does not go into action with the supporting Legion of
Lawyers. The FFL also does not daily need a gazzilion tons of supplies
per man to function.
·
But as
you’ve noticed, the French have been strangely silent. The red blood
in their veins has been replaced with Evian, as is the case for the
rest of the west bar the US. After Afghanistan, the French seem to
have lost their appetite for intervention even in their back yard.
Tuesday 0230 GMT
December 18, 2012
·
A
rant about naming US Navy carriers
We were supposed to finish the
discussion on Mali, instead we got into various rants. Being ADHD,
Editor is easily distracted. So he learned over the weekend that CV
79 has been named John F. Kennedy, and CV 80 has been named the
Enterprise. CV 80 follows in a long line of US Navy ships following
that name. CV 79 follows what tradition? A president who was
assassinated in the prime of life and already had a ship named for
him? (The original JFK commissioned in 1966.)
·
When you
look at US aircraft carrier names, you step into a world that
Alice’s Mad Hatter would have found comfortable.
The trouble started when CV
42 was named after FDR (for simplicity we are using the designation
CV for all attack carriers, there have been others, such as CVA,
CVB, and CVN, the latter for the nuclear-power carriers). It was
originally laid down as the Coral Sea, to commemorate that famous
naval battle. A worthy name for what was then the largest carrier
ever laid down. OK, so FDR died, and it is understandable the Navy
wanted to honor the World War II leader. Even the Royal Navy, which
is very tight on proper naming of its warships, slipped a bit and
called a nuclear powered attack submarine Churchill. We can forgive
the lapse.
·
But then
the first of the super-carriers was named Forrestal. The gentleman’s
claim to fame? He was the first SecDef, and he committed suicide. US
Navy, you want to name your then-largest warship after a SecDef and
a suicide? You’re starting to get funky, like 10-year old stale
stinky cheese. Well, after this lapse the US Navy seemed to
straighten out: Constellation, Ranger, America, Saratoga,
Independence, and Enterprise (not
in order). Kitty Hawk was bestowed as name – not quite pukka, as the
Brits used to say, but okay, that was the birthplace of aviation,
lets not get hung up on it.
·
Then came
the JFK, and everything fell apart.
Nimitz: a great naval leader but now we’re really running
wild. A destroyer would have been good, no reason to go haywire.
Eisenhower: an army general and president. Weird. Vinson: a
Congressman? You’re naming America’s capital ships after a
Congressman? US Navy has lost its ball bearings. Then we get Teddy
R, Abe Lincoln, and George Washington. But the presidents and famous
Americans already had their own line of naval vessels, the deadly
ballistic missile submarines. Why not stick with that? Since when is
it okay to name the biggest, baddest ships after dead prezinesses? Worse is to come. Stennis:
another Congressman.
Truman: a decent man, but for heaven’s sake, US Navy get a grip. It
gets worse: Ronald Reagan, an actor who became president and is
famous for his naps.
Bush the First: another decent man, but where’s the justification?
Ford: the accidental president.
What is with the US Navy? A Klowne Parade? A Confederacy of
Dunces? The US Navy in La-la Land? Inhaling too much ozone?
·
Now we
get JFK reprised, and Enterprise, which may be ready by 2025. So
basically, in over a half century, US Navy has named ONE carrier
properly. Some readers may
wonder if we’re not making too much of a deal over names. Okay, so
the tradition used to be to name carriers after famous warships. Now
there’s a new tradition, naming them after Prezzies. We ask our
readers to imagine they are back to being 18-year old youngsters and
a sailor on a carrier. So the Captain comes over the loudspeakers
and says “Men and women of the US Navy, we are surrounded by enemy
too numerous to count. Our ship is crippled. We must fight to the
last for…” for the Ford? For the Reagan? For the Truman? The Bush?
Come on people. You fight to the last for the America and the
Enterprise and the Ranger and so on. Not for the Barrack Obama and
Bill Clinton. Can’t happen you say? Haha.
Suppose a Congressman starts
a petition to name the next carrier Clinton and the one after that
Obama. What excuse is the Navy going to give not to comply?
Monday 0230 GMT
December 17, 2012
·
Newton, CT There is a good
reason we do not comment on mass shootings in the US or other
countries. First, nothing we say is going to either inform any
reader or provide fresh insight. Similarly, we do not comment on
bombings in – for example – Pakistan, or on accidents, or on
tragedies with a high death toll. But we are breaking our rule
because we were amazed and astonished at the hypocritical sight of
the President wiping tears from his eyes and announcing that “our
hearts are broken” when you, I, and the patient street lamppost
outside my house know neither president nor Congress has no
intention of doing anything to prevent similar tragedies. To then
speak of the national heart being broken is simply a puerile show
for the benefit of the voters.
·
Let us
first be clear that what we are about to say is not another liberal
gun control rant. Editor is a firm believer in the right to bear
arms. He accepts when you ban gun ownership for the public only
criminals and the Government have arms and the citizenry is
helpless. He maintains that all the facts explaining how guns in the
hands of private citizens kill more people than they save from
criminal are entirely irrelevant. Every person has a right to feel
safe in her/his house and on the street, and if there is a cost to
this, so be it. There is a cost to cars – accidents kill more people
by at least an order of magnitude than is the case with guns. We
have never heard of a drive to ban cars. Coal mining and coal
burning kill thousands each year and shorten the lives of hundreds
of thousands of people – each year. We don’t see anyone petitioning
to end coal. Alcohol kills hundreds of thousands a year, too, and is
a huge factor in domestic violence. Do we hear any calls to ban
alcohol? The American predilection for fast food also kills by
shortening people’s lives, again likely hundreds of thousands a
year. Still waiting to hear calls to ban fast food. The case of
death from smoking is very well known. Any calls to ban tobacco?
Nope. And so on.
·
Indeed,
Editor has often complained how he cannot afford a decent gun or
two, and has suggested that the right to bear arms becomes
meaningless when some of us cannot afford to buy the darn things.
People think he is joking when he says it is the duty of the state
to offer every person 18 or older a free gun. But if people have a
right to state-subsidized medical care, they also have a right to
state-subsidized guns.
·
It is
also worth noting that the greatest single gun killer in peacetime –
as far as we know – is the young fascist from Norway, who
remorselessly picked off 69 people, mostly teenaged school children.
Norway is a very high prosperity country with an amazing set of
social protection for every citizen, and is free of the terrible
virus of violence that has America in a deadly grip. Yes, we do have
the highest murder rate among the advanced countries, but conversely
if you take only whites, America is no more murderous than peaceful
Canada. In these cross-national comparisons its best to compare
like-to-like.
·
It is
undoubtedly true if you took away people’s guns the murder rate
would fall. For example, access to guns in China is restricted. You
have the same horrific attacks on toddlers and little kids as
happened at Newton, CT; but because the attackers generally must use
knives, the death toll is much lower. But as we have said, to focus
on guns when other evils in society kill many, many more people is
hypocritical.
·
Please to
note in this particular case, the system worked. The killer tried to
buy a legal gun and was refused. The fault lay entirely with his
mother, a gun fanatic who appears to have owned at least six guns
and who took her boys to shoot at targets. Lots of people are gun
fanatics and take their kids to shoot; except in this case the
killer had what is being delicately described as a “personality
disorder”. This is a case of an adult parent acting irresponsibly.
Plenty of parents let their
children drive without adequate supervision and the children kill
themselves and/or others. As we said earlier, no calls for banning
cars.
·
Having
spent 750 words assuring readers Editor is all for guns, the rest of
his argument can be short. The
reason the president is being hypocritical is that in America, at
the top levels of government – mainly the presidency and Congress,
there is no real democracy. What we have is bought democracy. You
want a law changed or retained, pay off the Congress and the
President. Doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. No politician in their
right mind – and as a politician the president is very much in his
right mind – is going to go up against the gun lobby. The gun lobby
is not, as it seems to think, synonymous with the right to own guns.
It is synonymous with to right to own guns without restriction.
·
In modern
society, no one has absolute rights. Assuming Editor had the money,
he would very much like to buy an 8 x 8 armored personal carrier
with a 20mm cannon and other goodies. He would get some respect on
his morning commute. Since he drives a Suzuki Swift that loses
10-mph for every passenger, he gets no respect. And talk about
off-road: an 8 x 8 APC gives you plenty of off-road. He would also
like, say, 100 tacnukes. That would ensure the government cannot
take away his hypothetical guns without paying a wholly
disproportionate price. We
are, of course, exaggerating to make a case. Society correctly
imposes all sorts of restrictions. And so it must be with guns.
·
The
obvious restriction is on high-magazine semi-automatic weapons and
assault guns. Will this stop future Newton, Connecticuts? Obviously
not. But it will reduce the damage a shooter can cause. There are
other restrictions. One that is very overdue is Singapore Rules on
use of a gun to commit a crime. Even firing a gun in the air during
a crime qualifies the shooter for the hangman. Singapore quite
coldly and rationally says that firing the gun equals intent to
kill. It doesn’t matter someone due to good luck didn’t get killed.
The US needs to go one step further: the mere possession of a gun,
loaded or otherwise, during a crime should mean sleepy time – for
good. We are certain the gun lobby would support these rules if any
president/Congress has the courage to bring them forward, because
the gun lobby very clearly stands for the right for
lawful possession and use
of guns. Another measure is making people responsible for their
guns. Your kid or your sister-in-law takes your gun and commits a
crime, you get the same penalty. If they are caught with your gun,
no crime committed, a 20-year jail term should learn you to make
sure your guns are secured at all time – really secured.
·
That
said, Editor will now say something that is going to outrage a lot
of people. But then Editor is not running for Miss Popularity.
Schools are gun free zones, whatever that means. They’re also, BTW,
drug free zones and Editor can testify this rule is obeyed about as
well as the biblical injunction about not taking the lord’s name in
vain. The school provides a perfect case of what the gun lobby says:
“banning guns means only the criminals will have guns.” If the
people who worked at the school had been allowed to carry guns, the
young shooter would have had his career as a mass murderer cut a lot
shorter.
Friday 0230 GMT
December 14, 2012
Next update Monday December 17, 2012
·
Mali Ol’ Gaffy of Libya
didn’t have a whole lot of trust in his army, which is why he kept
it weak, half-trained, and ill-equipped. That was one reason his
army couldn’t suppress the rebellion in the early stages. He had
good reason not to trust the army. After all, he was
Colonel Gaddaffi when he
overthrew the last ruler of Libya, King Idris. He knew a bit about
armies and coups. Consequently, his trusted troops included
mercenaries, including Tuaregs from Mali. When Ol’ Gaffy was about
to lose, the Mali mercs wisely split for home.
·
Bit of
background. Mali, like almost every nation in Africa, is a colonial
legacy, in this case of France. The Tuaregs have been rebelling
against the state for about a hundred years. Inspired by Libyan
events, the Mali Tuaregs decided this was a good time to resume the
fight for independence. The relationship between Gaffy and Mali – as
with all his neighbors – was complicated, the man used to be a
megalomaniac. But definitely Gaffy’s imminent demise was a prime
motivator in the rebellion. We
won’t go into that as it would require doing some research; our
memory is a bit dim.
·
For some
reason, likely the addition of a couple of thousand tough tribesmen
fresh from the extended Libya campaign, bringing home with them
weapons of a quantity and type they never had, North Mali was
overrun in three days. Now, you know Mali is not the size of
Holland, where back in the day it took four hours driving at a
sedate speed to cross from one side to the other. We’re talking a
territory the size of France here. It’s a pretty remarkable military
achievement, but to give you an accurate account of how this was
made possible, a trip to Mali would be required. Aside from the
impossibility of funds, this is not a Good Time to visit either
North or South. One of the reasons for the fast win was that (a)
government troops defected; and (b) those who did not ran for their
lives – including five
allegedly crack companies trained by the Americans.
·
Hot on
the heels of the Tuaregs came an unwelcome ally, the Ansar Dine, an
affiliate of Al Qaeda in the Mahgreb. The Tuaregs did 90% of the
fighting; Ansar Dine, like the jackels they are, fed off the Tuareg
victories and began imposing the usual whacked out Islamist laws and
destroying Mali’s famed Islamic heritage which dates back seven
eight centuries. The Tuaregs, who admittedly are not Obama Liberals,
got miffed by were beaten by Ansar Dine whenever they chose to make
a stand.
·
So: time
out for some banging of head against stone wall. AQ is supposed to
be the biggest threat the US has faced since the end of the Cold
War. Here was US declaring victory against AQ in Afghanistan, and
deposing Gaffy,
and all of a sudden, AQ is
now in control of half-a-million square kilometers if not more.
There’s blowback and there’s
whackingly immense, mega huge blowback. Put Mali in the latter
category. This is what the US Government calls “strategy”, and what
others call “The March of the Klasse Klownes”.
·
So,
anyway, naturally the West was alarmed, but not enough to do
anything about it: with Libya messed up, Egypt double messed up, and
Syria triple messed up, Washington has not been overly keen on new
foreign adventures. France, for some reason which makes sense only
to the French, have abdicated all responsibility. A few hundred
French air strikes would have finished off the rebellion, but Paris
said no. So the obvious is happening, Ansar Dine is working on
expanding into Mauritania and Niger. This entire region has been
bolstered by the US since 2001 to prevent the spread of the
Islamists, and lo! The Islamists are spreading like locusts – just
when the US/EU has soundly thrashed them in Somalia, what rotten
luck for us.
·
So aside
from the Yellow Condition (the Runs, but our authoritative source
inside the CIA – he cleans toilets – tells us American Government
Runs are kind of scummy green, so its really the Green Condition,
why is the US not decisively intervening in Mali? Well, we’re told
that actually that is the reason. We don’t entirely trust our
sources because Editor hangs out with a lot of Super Hawks, you
know, the kind that blame Ike for not unleashing Patton on Berlin
because of a stupid agreement made with a perfidious guy called Joe
The Stalin. And of course, rationally that was the start of a lot of
problems in the post-war period, but that’s another story.
·
The US
says it is not intervening because democracy has been overthrown in
Mali and – kof kof – our laws forbid us to give aid to
anti-democratic types. Just think for a minute: have you ever heard
anything more absurd? If the Maghreb falls to AQ, who is the loser?
Do we really care about 25-million or so desert dwellers? Seeing as
we don’t really care about 60-million Congolese, 25 million North
Koreans, and 1.3-billion Chinese, let’s face facts. We don’t care
what happens to the Maghreb. But surely we should care what happens
to us. What’s more important, that a weak democracy be restored to Mali
before we intervene, while AQ uses our delay to spread further, or
that we go in an whack AQ now?
·
It seems
to us our Super Hawks may be right, the US is using this
lack-of-democracy thing as an excuse while we flail around
uncontrollably, hoping some solution will present itself. When the
threat is mortal, remember, the color of potential allies is not
important. So it was with Joe The Stalin. In the 1930s we believed
he was far worse than Satan, but by 1942 he and we were BFF’s
together. (By the way – seeking his alliance may have looked logical
at the time, but it was a mistake. Also BTW, we’d have defeated
Hitler without the Soviet Union. That’s another story from the
Distant Past.)
Thursday 0230
GMT December 13, 2012
·
We love you, Kimmy, yes we do
Finally DPRK got an ICBM
analog rocket to work. Back in the US, the Ballistic Missile Defense
program was facing program cuts; serious ones in our opinion. The
cost of R and D, weapons, and so on goes up 10-15% every year. So an
increase of less than, say, 10% is a defacto reduction. US BMD
budget was being reduced in absolute terms. i.e. fewer dollars were
being sanctioned each year; so with cost inflation it was a double
hit.
·
But
thanks to that loveable rascal, Kim III, the long, sad, tedious,
morbid, discouraging, pointless debate about DPRK’s missile
capabilities is finally over. People were insisting DPRK did not
present a real threat; okay, now you have your real threat, And
where DPRK goes, can Iran be far behind?
·
That
still leaves the question of effectiveness. Here we feel critics
have the wrong end of the stick. No one ever made a defensive weapon
that could, at its deployment, meet 100% of the threat. You can’t
just say “this doesn’t work” or “the enemy will find a way through”
and then sit back forever on your fat tushie. BMD is not a luxury
option, it is possibly the most critical of all weapon systems. Why?
Because the consequences of even one warhead getting through are
horrendous. Then the academics go into this long, utterly useless
discussion about rationality, as in, knowing the US’s retaliatory
capabilities, no one in his right mind will attack the US. Time out
for uncontrollable giggles, snarfs, and plain merriment. People are
claiming people are always rational and still calling themselves
rational? Come on, guys, what about a break here? First, our
rationality is not always the other guy’s rationality. Second,
people can make a very rational decision that can turn out totally
wrong. Pearl Harbor, anyone?
Third, people can make mistakes. Fourth, people can go crazy
and act crazy. To sit back and claim the perpetual rationality of
human beings is highly irrational.
·
One
reason we aren’t further down the BMD road is that we haven’t been
serious about the weapons. Spending $6- to $10-billion a year in a
defense budget of $600-billion, and an actual national security
budget of $1-trillion (these last few years) is a perfect example of
irrationality. Lets spend $100-billion/year on BMD on a war footing,
and we’d be a lot, lot more advanced than we are today. Some of our
readers may be tempted to say “Take it easy, Old Boy, $100-billion
for BMD R&D and deployment every year? Aren’t we going overboard?”
Well, considering what one 20-MT warhead could do to a major US
metro area, $100-billion doesn’t seem all that outrageous.
·
There is
another factor to consider. The whole notion of today’s systems
being ineffective is because we are all making the mistake of taking
DOD at its word, i.e., that its objective is a hit-to-kill warhead.
Well, let’s be fair here: that is
an objective. But if
anyone thinks that this is all there is to BMD program, we are being
unfair to DOD. We know, we know, the whole notion of being unfair to
DOD given this august organization’s shenanigans of the last decade,
to say nothing of Korea and Second Indochina seems eccentric. But
really, folks, DOD is not COUNTING on hit-to-kill.
·
The
etiquette of writing in the public media requires that no one should
say: “I have secret knowledge and that’s proof of my assertions.”
That’s why journos who quote unidentified sources speaking off the
record are so unpersuasive. If the journo cannot give some evidence,
on what basis are we supposed to trust her/him when s/he goes “Trust
Me”. So Editor cannot claim secret knowledge. But we can use
analysis.
·
Back in
the day, when Spartan was deployed – mid-1970s – no one spoke of
hit-to-kill. Spartan carried a whacking 5-MT warhead that killed
incoming warheads using radiation, and the beast was effective to a
50-km radius. The incoming warhead had only to be within a circle of
15,000-square-miles for it to be neutralized.
·
So why
was Spartan cancelled. Well, primarily it was a political decision,
nothing to do with technology. Later on people started to say, “oh,
the EMP generated by an N-warhead knocks out all unprotected
electronics over a huge, huge area, so you’re basically shooting
yourself in the head. The first warhead wont get through, but since
no electronics will be working afrter that first intercept, we’re
dead anyway.”
·
Really?
Hahahahahaha. ROTFLBAG (Rolling On The Floor Laughing Busting A
Gut). People, people, a small matter of four decades has passed
since Spartan was developed. (a) Thanks to the quest for
hit-to-kill, we’re currently at the stage where we can be reasonably
certain the interceptor is going to come within 100-200 meters of
the warhead. Oh yes: multiple warheads, multiple warheads on the
interceptor, so lets not bring up that old chestnut. When you are
that close, you don’t need a 5-MT warhead. We don’t know the
equations, but a 5- to 10-KT warhead should suffice to fry the
threat.
·
Wait a
minute, you will say, we’re committed not to deploy N-warheads on
our interceptors. Really? Since when? We agreed not to TEST
N-weapons in the air, on ground, or underground. That doesn’t mean
we cannot design and produce the needed warheads without testing. Is
that dangerous? Perhaps. But the US did develop scores of compact
warheads in the 1950s and 1960s and tested them repeated. That’s
that whole tacnuke thingy. There's an enormous base of pratical
experience to build on. Next, who says you have to have N-weapons to
generate serious EMP? May have been true then. Not true today. Last,
because conventional EMP weapons are developing so rapidly, you can
betcha US military electronic systems are being hardened or soon
will be hardened.
·
We recall
reading that the BMD system for Europe (30 interceptors) was based
on the assumption 4 to 10 interceptors would be needed for a single
incoming missile. So obviously it was planned for a limited Iranian
capability. (You have to add Aegis at sea and Patriot etc on land to
that mix, so you’re looking at interception 10+ missiles.) With new
systems coming available for terminal defense, and with EMP
warheads, we’ll be able to protect against a dense attack. Not in
2013. But by 2017 it will be different. Assuming we don’t lose our
way on this.
Wednesday 0230 GMT
December 12, 2012
·
We’ve spent much time trying
to figure out why the US Army, which needs about 80,000 new recruits
a year, has to work so hard to fill quotas when this country has a
population of 313-million. Yesterday the Washington Post (Page A3)
let us into the secret. Three of every four people wanting to join
the Army are found unfit to even consider. Among the main problems
is obesity. Then, of the one in four that are recruitable, 65% are
not fit enough on application day. They have to be sent back to get
in better shape.
·
One of
the truly freaky things about American soldiers is if you look at
archival fotos/film from the Vietnam War, you would not know it’s
the same country, i.e., the US of A. The soldiers look
normal. They are lean and
look fit, which should be the case for soldiers. When those boys
move or run, their motions are
normal. When you look at today’s soldiers, they are near
immobile – and who wouldn’t be, carrying 100 to 130 pounds of gear.
But even from the fotos/film of today’s soldiers without all the
extra gear, the image that comes up is a herd of elephants in the
jungle. And badly overweight heffies at that.
·
The other
day Editor was at Dulles IAP for some reason and from far he saw a
group of lean and strong-looking soldiers in camo. This is such a
rare sight in America, editor was compelled to investigate. No
sooner than he got within hearing range (which for him is about
one-meter) then he realized by the accents that these were not
Americans, but British. Oh
well.
·
What we
don’t understand is that Americans will spend $5-10 billion
developing a weapon and then saying “this doesn’t work” or “it’s too
expensive.” This is an every day affair in the Department of
Defense. Well, why hasn’t DOD sat down and developed, from ground up
(no pun intended) lightweight equipment for the infantry. Surely
even in America you can get the infantryman equipped and protected
within 60-lbs for an R & D cost of a few billion? Or is somehow the
case that we are so advanced at the practice of war we don’t need
our infantry to be able to walk from Point A to Point B without
killing themselves? Sometimes Editor thinks Americans are really
messed up – in the head.
·
And BTW,
don’t Americans find it strange that the entire purpose of American
forces in war has become force protection? The armed forces don’t
want to risk getting even one pilot killed or ten infantrymen
killed. Editor is often treated to weepy-sobby articles in the media
about the terrible casualties we’ve taken in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Really? Afghanistan was one bad month in Vietnam in 1968. That’s in
eleven years of combat. Iraq was 9-10 bad weeks in Vietnam. That is
in eight years of combat.
·
Okay,
before someone points out the obvious, one reason casualties were so
high in Vietnam was that the men were being sent over with minimal
training, and the rotation policy meant that you had a constant
stream of youngsters coming in who were simply destined to die ASAP.
We’ve all heard the stories about how the more experienced soldiers
would freak when new men arrived as fillers because they had so
little training, the experienced hands were frightened the newcomers
would get them pointlessly killed. But somewhere they has to be a
middle ground between sending out a battalion on a night mission and
then calmly announcing, oh well, we had a hundred killed and two
hundred wounded, just another yawn-inducing day, and between
designing your entire war to keep reducing the possibility even one
man is killed. In fact, leaving out IEDs and accidents, we wonder
how many American soldiers have been killed in straight combat.
·
Now look
people, Editor wholly understands why someone would not want to get
killed. You don’t see Editor volunteering for the service. Well, he
did when he was young but could not prove his age – he doesn’t have
a birth certificate. But here’s the weird thing: Editor has zero
evidence that American soldiers are unwilling to die. From what he gathers, they are as
fatalistic as any other soldiers. Naturally no one wants to die
uselessly, but soldiers accept even that. The American politicians –
not even the public – are casualty averse. The politicians think the
people will rise up if there are casualties.
·
But the
people will not rise up if there are casualties. No one rose up in
any American War for that reason. Not even in Vietnam. The people
who were objecting the loudest – the white middle-class kids – were
objecting because they didn’t want to die. None of them gave a tinker’s broken pot
that the poor white and black kids were dying.
·
Now, we
can’t prove this, but Editor has pretty good intuition and he is
seldom wholly wrong. What he thinks has happened since 2001 is this.
99% of this country has no interest in defending America – even
after 9/11. We feel guilty about this, even as we manage to suppress
our guilt – with great bravery. The politicians feel particularly
guilty because with a couple of exceptions, none of their kids are
in danger. Editor thinks the politicians in particular, and possibly
the public too, are
compensating for their guilt by insisting that casualties must be
reduced, then reduced again, and then reduced once again till we get
down to a handful.
Tuesday 0230 GMT
December 11, 2012
·
Returning jobs from China
Readers may know Editor has anxiously watched the rise of China’s
wages and had noted some months ago that a very low wage US state
like Mississippi or Alabama can, as of this year, finally compete
with China for manufacturing. China’s wages have been going
up-and-up, ours have collapsed. People have already, in a small way,
starting shifting production back to the US and Editor was looking
for a great revival of American manufacturing.
·
Now
Editor has been reading several articles that say the US
manufacturing sector will indeed, rebound majorly – but
manufacturing jobs wont. The culprit? Robots. The price of
industrial robots has hugely dropped, and their capabilities have
hugely increased. So manufacturing will return, but instead of the
millions of jobs that went to China returning, ten times fewer will
be needed now because of robots. Bummer.
·
We are
further being told that US labor has completely lost its bargaining
power because employers have consistently upped efficiency, and
instead of sharing the gains with workers, have kept the gains for
themselves and shareholders. So, we are told, this business about US
companies not spending because of “uncertainty” and “taxes” is total
banana hogwash. Profits are soaring as never before, and taking a
larger and larger share of the national income. When companies are
getting ever richer while
firing workers, why on earth should they hire more workers?
·
Okay, so
you might say that at SOME point this process of squeezing
efficiency has to end and companies have to start hiring. Editor has
been told by Those Who Know not to hold his breath. Because of
robots and computers and outsourcing, companies have a heck of a lot
of leeway to squeeze more efficiency from their operations. How?
From professional workers. These have already started to be
replaced, but in the next 20-years there is going to be tsunami of
professional worker layoffs.
·
So
naturally Editor keeps asking the obvious question: if the number of
unemployed and marginally employed keeps increasing, and real wages
continue to stagnate as they have for 30-years, how are people going
to have money to buy the goods and services the companies produce?
And then how are the companies going to make money?
·
The
people Editor talks to smile gently at this point, kind of if your
idiot cousin got all excited about something and wanted to know why
it couldn’t be done. Editor is told that all major American
corporations are multinationals, and as the hugely populous by still
poor countries grow, they will generate plenty of demand for goods
produced by American companies. The specific case of Apple I-Phones
was brought up. Apparently they are all the rage in India – and
that’s a $500 phone in a country with a $2000 per capita income. In
the next 20 or years, there will be 600-million Indians with the
money to buy I-phones, or three times the US market. So why should
Apple care if Americans will not be able to to buy I-Phone Model 20?
Apple will simply sell zillions of I-Phone Model 15s to India, and
China, and Africa, and South America. And it will do so at the same
time as selling boatloads of I-Phone versions 20s to these very same
countries because their upper middle class will just keep exploding.
·
Depressing. Editor is wondering if it is time to return to Mars.
·
Letter from a former US Defense Intelligence Agency person
in response to Editor’s whining and
moaning about not getting DIA to respond to a FOIA request. I worked
at DIA for a while and knew a fair amount about what hard-copy
historical data was stored there. Once I retired from the military,
I submitted a FOIA request for some of that material, as I had (and
still have) hopes to write on some topics concerning military
history. Despite even citing the exact material requested and
exactly where it was located, the reply I received, after several
months, was that it would take at least several months to respond to
my request. I wrote back that I would wait, and did just that. It
was a year later that I finally received a second letter, asking
what exactly was I looking for.
·
I
responded to that one as well, enclosing a duplicate of the first
FOIA request. I then waited another 4 months and received a letter
stating that the material I wanted was classified and could not be
released.
·
At this
point, I copied all the letters and my responses, drafted a new
letter explaining exactly what I was asking for and exactly where it
was located, why I was requesting the data, and then sent it off to
the DIA FOIA Office again, only this time it was a courtesy copy as
I sent the originals to the Office of the President of the United
States. I got my requested data 2 weeks later.
·
Now, when
I worked in DIA, in my section was an analyst whose sole function
was to respond to FOIA requests, always with a 2 week time limit. It
is the FOIA Office itself that delays or "loses" the information. In
my case, I already had the data, as all it required was a quick trip
to the copying machine and reproduction of the unclassified bits I
wanted. I just wanted to exercise the system and see what happens.
Well, I saw what happened. SO, even though I spent a lifetime inside
the Intel beastie, some people do lie, and for no good reason at
all.
·
And I
will say that it is not unique to the US, but seems to be pervasive
to all Intel agencies, be they established national ones or ad hoc
insurgent ones.
·
Editor’s response This letter
does provide comfort, in that if DIA can confound a former employee, then us
outsiders shouldn’t whine and moan about the agency’s
non-cooperation. Editor just remembered he had had two earlier
encounters with DIA. Sometime in the 1990s he sent a request for a
handbook of the PLA. The 1970s edition was available on the market
as a printed book out out by some commercial company, but there was
a 1984 edition. DIA was silent for a couple of months, then the
postman dropped a fat manila envelope inside my screen door and
behold! DIA had not only sent me a foto-copy of the updated version,
they refused to charge me a penny.
Monday 0230 GMT
December 10, 2012
·
Note to Government of India
It has long been known in Indian that the Romani people (Gypsies)
came from India. Now scientific research done in the west uses DNA
genetic evidence to prove this.
http://tinyurl.com/bkym5jf Indeed, it is being said that the
Romani were outcastes who enlisted in Prithvi Raj Chauhan’s and
other northern armies to fight the Muslim invaders on the promise of
an improvement in status. On the defeat of Chauhan, the Romani fled
westwards, eventually arriving in Europe.
·
As you
know, the Romani have been victimized over centuries and many of
them do not have statehood or proper papers. It seems reasonable to
consider giving them Indian citizenship. It is, after all, only
820-years since they were scattered. It might be nice if, for once,
you – the Government of India – got off your fat butt and did
something proactively because it is the right thing to do.
·
While we
are on this subject, may I remind you that donkey’s years ago
Parliament authorized dual citizenship for India. But you – again
said Government of India Fat Butts have not acted on the intent and
will of parliament, on the wholly paranoid and specious excuse that
enemies of India, such as Pakistanis who were Indian citizens before
1947, might claim Indian nationality, arrive in India to undermine
our defense and to steal our women. First, is there a shortage of
Pakistani agents infiltrating India? Second, are you saying you are
so incompetent that you cannot keep out people who might threaten
national security? Third, even the Pakistanis, who are even more
paranoid than the Indians, permit dual citizenship. If infiltrators
are the problem, doesn’t allowing Indians dual nationality permit
the infiltration of Indian agents into Pakistan?
·
Right
now, what you – Fat Butts – have done is force Indians to choose
between their Indian nationality and their foreign countries of
domicile. This probably comes as a great surprise to you, but there
are some of us, at least, who don’t want to make that choice. We
don’t want to give up Indian nationality. In the case of Editor he
is not sure why, but then, of course, Editor is known to be seven
short of a six-pack when it comes to the land of his birth. At the
same time, living overseas without nationality of the country of
your domicile poses its own perils. I do not see why, given – last
time Editor checked – 80 or 90 countries permit dual-nationality,
India has to be stand out for Super Stupidity and expose the country
to even more ridicule than you already have, simply by the fact of
your sad, pathetic existence.
·
Thank for
allowing me this opportunity to express myself on how India can be
improved. Of course, it would be best improved by every bureaucrat
seizing one politician, binding the pol to the bureaucrat with iron
chains welded tightly, and then launch said pol into the nearest
river. Of course, you, the bureaucrat would also die, but hey, no
sacrifice is too great for you guardians of the nation, is it? Since
you do not want to allow dual nationality for the sake of national
security, think how much safer the Republic would be if the
bureaucrats eliminated the politicians – while eliminating
themselves at the same time. Jai Hind!
·
PS: while
you’re busy drowning yourself and the politicians, would you be so
kind as to take an American politician with you? With the American
politicians gone, America will easily meet its Kyoto targets even if
we switched all power generation to coal tomorrow.
·
Meanwhile, Back On The Ol’ Ranch
the American president is going strong
by showing the GOP who is the boss. According to what we read in the
media, now that he’s been reelected, and gained an unassailable
position in the Senate, he does not see why he has to compromise
with the GOP. One should not believe everything in the media (and
readers will be best advised to believe nothing they read in this
blog), but if the analysis of the President is correct we are in
trouble. We are not referring to hyper-partisanship as being bad for
the country. The US has pretty much had it anyway, the issue now is
really how best to hasten its decline so that its rebirth can begin.
Friday 0230
December 7, 2012
Pearl Harbor Day. Doesn’t mean much to
many Americans, but that’s inevitable. We suspect the Civil War
didn’t mean much to Americans of 1937 (72 years after Appomattox),
or the Revolutionary War to Americans of the 1840s.
·
Fox News and more Benghazi Revelations Now, admittedly Fox is not the most objective
of observers on the Benghazi September 11, 2012 fiasco. But this
article is worth reading because it suggests that Fox’s thesis of a
major administration Snafu may not be accurate.
·
Fox says
that when the attack on the US consulate began at 2135, the CIA post
started destroying its files and equipment. There likely wasn’t
much, because the CIA knew the post was in dangerous territory. By
2335 CIA officers had done their thing. Fox further says the
shenanigans at Benghazi may have been an attempt at driving the CIA
out.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/05/cia-moved-swiftly-scrub-abandon-libya-facility-after-attack-source-says/
·
If this
is correct, the implications are interesting and significant. First,
CIA had two critical missions that day, in the few hours the crisis
lasted. First, likely protecting the consulate was a contingency CIA
was not prepared for. No blame attaches to CIA because likely they
went on this mission despite having their own work to attend; in other words, they
responded gallantly to appeals for help. Protection of the consulate
was not in their remit.
·
Second,
if the real target was the CIA post, the possibility arises the
terrorists attacked the consulate – under cover of the Koran
protestors – to get CIA personnel out of their fortified post,
making it easier for the Islamists to attack the post. This is the
purest speculation, but it could make sense.
·
Why so?
Because the Islamists seem to have had no interest in the consulate.
They made no effort to kidnap any State Department personnel, or to
steal files. All reports say files were just lying scattered over
the consulate; Fox says the consulate was not secured after the
attack. If files were an objective, surely a half-dozen Islamists
would have energetically grabbed everything in sight. Now, we don’t
KNOW that no attempt to kidnap consular staff was made. But since
the armed protection numbered perhaps four, one may assume that
snatching hostages was not a difficult thing.
·
Further
more, there is the very baffling circumstance that it was
Libyans who searched for the Ambassador, found him, and rushed him
to the hospital, to no avail. Several possibilities. One, the local
militia tasked to defend the consulate
did turn up and got into
doing what they were supposed to do. Two, the Ambassador was
supposed to a popular sort, perhaps when the trouble started
ordinary Libyans rushed to the scene to see if they could help. We
prefer One to Two, because we don’t see a bunch of unarmed fans of
the Ambassador risking their lives to spontaneously arrange rescue
parties.
·
Another
baffling aspect is: just how big was the mob and just how many
Islamists were present? We tend to think the mob was small and so
was the group of gunmen. We base this on the news that enroute to
the consulate fallback
position and until the arrival of reinforcements, just two Americans
were killed – including the Ambassador. The other two deaths took place after the
consulate staff was rescued and reinforcements arrived in the early
morning. Please feel to correct us in case we’ve got these details
wrong. The immediate CIA reinforcement was just eight men. True,
they finally got the militia organized, so a lot more armed forks
appeared at the fallback position. But that took a couple of hours.
Till the CIA cavalry arrived, there was essentially no one
protecting the consulate staff. It seems likely that were the
Islamists in any number, say 30, 40, or 50, they would have
overwhelmed the remaining consulate staff. Of course, we also don’t
know how many consulate staff there were. The American staff at the
consulate may just have been 4-6; presumably the Libyan staff could
slip away in the confusion.
·
Another
question is what was the connection between the consulate and the
CIA post? Everyone assumes they two groups were completely separate,
but this may not have been the case. For example, the consulate
could have been part of the CIA presence, or at least some of it.
There have been many rumors the Ambassador was on a clandestine
mission. Perhaps this is no more than rumor. But if there is some
truth to it, it may strengthen Fox’s belief that the entire
operation was directed toward the CIA.
·
Now, of
course, all we’ve done is present a new set of speculations by
parsing the very limited data available. But at any rate, if the
whole thing was an anti-CIA op, is it beyond possibility that CIA
lied to the Administration to divert attention from itself? Nothing
sinister here, please understand. Regardless of what the good
Senators may think, CIA’s first responsibility is to maintain its
operational secrets. If the CIA did lie, then we should stop beating
up the US ambassador to the UN for having “lied”. She has said a
hundred times she was going by the info given to her. That brief
would have had to be prepared by CIA, because they were the only
ones on the scene bar a couple of American staff and some Libyan
staff at the consulate.
·
Again,
please to appreciate we are not defending the young lady. We
absolutely don’t want her as SecState. BTW, while women media
persons are beside themselves claiming sexism, that no one complains
when men are rude and offensive, we’ve give the example of Mr.
Holbrooke who never got a chance to try for SecState. There is
another person we did not mention. The infamous John Bolton; oddly
enough the young lady’s predecessor at the UN. He also suffered from
Soccer Mom Mouth, and no one liked him either, men or women.
·
If this
was a CIA affair, forget about learning the truth. You might get to
take a look at the scrubbed files in 2062. By the way, there’s even
higher levels of classification. Used to be 75-years was the max in
our day. That Editor knew of.
·
BTW,
here’s what happened when Editor wrote to DIA under FOIA, asking for
material on Warsaw Pact orders of battle 1947 or whenever the Pact
was formed to 1980. Months later we got a letter saying the
information was scattered in many buildings and would take time to
assemble. Months after that
we got a letter saying no such material existed. We’ve often commented that
Americans are as big fat liars as the Indians. Whereas the Indians
lie blandly, Americans bury themselves in legal talk. The DIA is
lying through its tooffies. And
for what reason? None, except habitual liars have to lie. (We sent
in an inquiry the other day asking if any faculty or fellowship
positions were available at the DIA. We’ll let you know what they
say. Probably “Dear Sir, the Dustbin Inspection Agency has no
fellowships or faculty. You may, if you wish, apply for an unpaid
volunteer internship to inspect your own dustbins and report any
suspicious activity.”)
Thursday 0230
GMT December 6, 2012
Sorry for the short update: have been
under the weather this week.
·
Syria: beginning of the end but when is the end?
The Syrian Army is starting to
disintegrate. It may be down to 100,000 and is continually losing
ground. The big question is when does Assad make a run for it? Rumor
has it he has asked some South Americans if he can hang out. This
includes our fave dictator. Hugo of Venezuela. It appears that
previous western promises to settle him nicely in exile have been
withdrawn, and the International Criminal Court is starting to look
through documentation to make a case – many months away, if not
longer.
·
The
breaking point of an army is difficult to predict. But if it is true
Assad is down to 100,000 loyal troops, it can take the loss of just
20,000 to cause the organization to collapse, no matter how
desperately the rest fight. The army has lost many of its bases and
is said to be low on ammunition. Assad is in the process of
attacking his own capital’s suburbs, which from the loyalist side
cannot be considered a Good Thing. The rebels are moving to control
the roads to/from the capital; each day makes an escape more
difficult. Of course, Assad can always do a goatherd kind of escape,
but he has his family to worry about, and in any case we don’t see
the lovely Asma Assad doing the goatherd’s wife thing and helping
Baby Assad drive a flock of goats on foot from Damascus to – where?
·
Whenever
the collapse comes, dear readers, please evaluate it just as the end
of Phase 1. The next war for Syria will start immediately as the
rebel factions, already far from united, start fighting each other.
·
BTW, speaking of our Fave Dictator, the rumors say he is very ill. Cancer has
spread to the bones. The poor fellow may be terminal. We don’t want
him around because he is anti-American, and honestly, we don’t need
more reason than that. We are not going all “My country right or
wrong” on readers, but the truth is America has not for many years
been oppressing the people of Venezuela.
·
The
people of Venezuela have been oppressing their own people, first the
fascists and then the Chavistas. US has nothing to do with what’s
happening there. In fact, Clinton, Bush, Obama all took a hands off
approach: the people have elected him it’s not our business. We
don’t like he is using made up stories about the US to justify his
oppression. While it is true he won a “Fair” election, which is to
say he didn’t much tamper with the vote, but he played every dirty
trick before the vote by silencing the opposition. Nonetheless, no
one should wish serious cancer on anyone.
Wednesday 0230 GMT December 5, 2012
·
The Morons That Rule America
So readers will already know about the latest fiscal cliff
foolishness. After
talking up a compromise, President Obama offered a bill that had
little the GOP wanted. So then the GOP came up with its own bill,
and it has little the Democrats find acceptable. Normally you could
say that these are just first negotiating positions. But this fiscal
cliff thing has been under prolonged negotiation already. The idea
is not to start off ab initio.
The idea is we know in nauseating detail what both sides want
(GOP=spending cuts; Democrats=tax increases). So – say – a trillion
dollars must be cut from the budget. The solution is half that money
comes from increased taxes and half from reduced spending, and we
can all go home. Of
course, no one is talking about cutting a trillion a year, which is
the minimum needed for a balanced budget. They’re talking about a
couple of hundred billion a year, so in the meantime the national
debt is just going to keep growing. So to realize how bad the
situation is, there is no deal even on the symbolic reduction of the
deficit.
·
Readers
may not be so aware of another deal that is going down the tubes.
Everyone agrees the US needs more technically educated migrants, the
so-called Science, Engineering, Technology and Math brigade. So the
GOP said it will agree to an expansion of 50,000 visas, provided the
so-called Diversity Visa program is cut to accommodate the
additional STEM visas. Over our dead bodies, says the Democrats, and
truly Editor wishes he could grant them their wish. The visas the
Dimwits are protecting are for random people chosen by a lottery,
and require only a high school degree. So to let in people with no
more qualifications than high school degrees, we are going to have
the joy of excluding people with STEM college degrees.
·
At this
point Editor has to make a diversion. There are lots and lots of
people who argue no, we do not need more STEM immigrants, we need to
pay our people better. The STEM program, they say, is just a cunning
ploy by the Elefant-wits to provide cheap technologically skilled
labor to the greedy capitalists. At least one of our readers who is
the computer field has disagreed in the past, saying there is a
genuine shortage. As a teacher, Editor can personally testify that
the issuance of H-1 skill visas to teachers is absolutely, 100% a
ploy to get 3rd World teachers happy to work for a wage
US teachers refuse. Editor has had the pleasure of working with some
of these teachers, and there is no doubt they are very highly
skilled. But then we get into the argument why stop with teachers?
Why not let anyone migrate who is qualified and willing to work for
less? India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh will send you 50-million
teachers, engineers, architects, IT types, skilled workers,
administrators, doctors, lawyers, corporate leaders etc etc and we
could cut US salaries by half in every field and become more
“competitive”.
·
In line
with the growing American trend towards Moronism, here’s something
from one of the two big US teacher unions. They’re proposing a
national certification exam as rigorous as the bar and other top
professional exams, plus a year of intern teaching. This will ensure
us qualified teachers, says the union. Now, everything the union
says makes perfect sense, yet it has declared itself a firm adherent
to the Cult of Moron. Why the union is doing this is a very
Machiavellian thing, so cunning it will make you shiver. We’ll
discuss that another time. Right now, the assumption behind the
union’s proposal is that all we need is stricter teacher standards
and we’ll get better teachers. Ha ha. Double Ha Ha Ha. This is so Ha
Ha that we need – Indian style (Indian Indians, not the fakes ones
you all called Indians) – to flap our arms, make rude armpit sounds,
and go “Tickle me!”. This is Indian-speak for “what you just said is
so unfunny it’s not funny.”
·
To
explain what we are saying, let’s remember this is a capitalist
society at least in the sense everyone gets to work at a job of
their choice. No one can be drafted to do a job. We are all
volunteers. True, much of the time we “volunteer” for Job X, say
WalMart, because we can find nothing better. But still, its not like
the Department of Labor says “Hmmmm, next year we will be short
11,111 elevator operators, so send out the draft cards.” So if you
want better teachers, you have to ATTRACT better teachers. No
teacher will invest in qualifications up the wazoo unless there is
an incentive for them to so do. (Except Editor, who is likely the
most overqualified teacher in his county, but then we all know
Editor is quite Cwazzeeeee!)
·
So let’s
look at Republic of Korea. It has a 1-2% teacher turnover, probably
the lowest in the world. The teachers come from (different people
give different figures), the top 5-10% of college graduates. But
here’s the hitch. ROK teachers spend HALF the time American teachers
do in the class (in class – not in school, where they likely spend
as much); and they get paid twice what American teachers do in terms
of per capita income.
Suppose you offered teachers $100,000 a year for teaching half the
load, you can be sure you will get very qualified people competing
to get these jobs. Needless to say, in ROK students are respectful,
behave in class, and do 3-6 hours a day of homework and extra
tutoring. Back on the ranch in the Good Ole USA, my advanced 12th
Graders, all college bound, are telling me – in September – they
can’t focus because they’ve got Senioritis. If this is not enraging,
I don’t know what is. These are NOT poor minority kids, but
upper-middle class Anglo kids supposed to be doing college level
work. The good citizens of Montgomery County spend nearly $18K a
year per student (and they get what by many measures is the top
large school system in the country). If I could, I would take these
students, issue them 10-lb steel bars, and make them run laps with
the bars held above their heads, with whipping each time they
collapse. Of course a good many of them ARE working very hard. But
enough are not the teachers are openly saying it’s become a problem.
ROK kids don’t suffer from senioritis.
·
But
Americans are unwilling to pay their teachers more; indeed, they
seem to think teachers are paid way too much already. So please do
tell: how does anyone propose to get more qualified teachers into
the class? By flogging teachers till their morale improves?
·
What is
this teacher union up to? Quite simply, it is tired of hearing
teachers are insufficiently qualified.
But you do know what happens
when teachers have professional qualifications similar to lawyers
and architects? Yes indeedy –do. That same union is going to say:
Well our members are just as qualified as the other top
professionals, and they deserve the same type of salaries. And you
know what? The people who run this country are such drooling,
blithering idiots they’re going to walk right into this one, with
their eyes wide shut.
Tuesday 0230 GMT
December 4, 2012
·
Indian Navy Chief: Something Really Strange Happened
The Navy chief announced at a press
conference that India was determined to protect its interests in the
South China Sea. If that meant sending warships, then so be it.
http://t.co/mtfZLR8d
·
What is
odd about this is it is the first Editor can recall that a senior
Indian military officer has told China quite calmly where it gets
off. The Army and the Air Force chiefs have made several statements
in the last couple of years about defending Indian territory,
referring specifically to Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as
part of Tibet. But they have not been aggressive about it. No talk
of going into China’s wading pool or something, just signaling a
clear intent to fight back if China attacks. The Navy chief’s
statement falls into a different category altogether because its
asserting India’s right to project its presence well outside its
backyard, the Indian Ocean. Naval movements to the South China Sea
are expeditionary in nature because of the distance.
·
China has
been behaving very badly about Indian warships in the South China
Sea, going “Mine! Mine! Mine!” loudly and throwing a tantrum each
time an Indian warship visits. India has economic interests with
ASEAN and Vietnam, and it has specific anti-China military interests
in Vietnam. It’s not an alliance, let’s just say it’s a close
friendship that dates, oddly enough, from the 1960s.
·
A bit of
background. Everytime China glares at India, its political lot and
civil service gets what the Indians inelegantly term “loose
motions”, and the Americans with their usual aversion to mincing
words, call “the runs”. So this stiff stand will cause eyebrows to
rise.
·
Part of
the reason the Indian Navy is acting tough is that China has been
doing altogether too much sniffing around the Bay of Bengal and
along Pakistan’s Makran Coast. China calls it the “String of Pearls”
approach, where it has built, is building, and planning to build, a
chain of naval bases to keep India quarantined in its own backyard. But there is an another
reason which is a bit harder to pin down. This is that the Indian
Navy is not disturbed by the notion of fighting the PLAN. It’s major
warships are every bit as good as the PLAN’s, and the Indian Navy is
confident it is superior in organization, tactics, and the myriad
bits and pieces that go into making an effective naval force.
· The Indian Navy is not by any means dismissive of the PLAN. Indeed, the Navy chief specifically admires the rapidity and quality of the PLAN’s buildup. But the Indian Navy believes it is better. One place where the PLAN is superior is in the matter of nuclear-powered submarines. India’s domestic construction program is finally yielding results, as is its seaborne ballistic missile program. But India has taken so long to developed its own propulsion reactors, that in numbers it is ten years behind the PLAN. Though not nopt neccessarily in operating experience, thanks to India’s leases of Soviet boats, including a large, sophisticated, and spanking new Akula II class. Earlier, in 1988 India recieved a Charlie I on lease and had signed for two more. But they never came, and the first was rerurned in just three years. The Charlie was was a piece of junk even the normally mong-suffering Indian Navy could not tolerate.
And of course India’s
nuclear-armed cruise missiles are limited to a 300-km range,
though a 1000-km missile is likely to make an intial flight in
2013. The Indian SSBNs
will carry a 750-km range missile to start, with longer range
ones in development. The first SSBN is undergoing trials for
2013 commissioning, and the second of the class of four will
launch next year for 2016 service. The boats can carry 12
missiles, or four 3500-km range missiles under development.
·
India’s
sole point of happiness, submarine wise, is that the PLAN’s SSN/SSBN
programs seem to experience one failure after another to match
actual performance to design specifications. Inevitably, however,
the PLAN will get it right within the next five to seven years.
India is also undertaking a six SSN program. India is, of course
half-a-century ahead of the PLAN in the matter of carrier aviation.
Monday 0230 GMT
December 3, 2012
·
The next US Secretary of State
Editor is against the appointment of the
likely nominee. His sole reason is she is a rude person. And no, he
is not being sexist because he cordially dislikes rude men. So, for
example, he thought the late Mr. Richard Holbroke was fit only for
latrine duty, because that is where his mouth belonged. Editor does
not care how brilliant someone is; a potty mouth shows a fundamental
weakness of character. When someone swears at an equal or a
superior, that is fine by Editor. But to swear at subordinates or
people who have no power to retaliate is the mark of an extreme
bully. Americans display a confused state of mind when they equate
cussing with toughness. A bully can never be tough. Rather s/he is
weak.
·
Editor
had to make this clear as prelude for what he is about to say. To
pick on the likely nominee over her briefing on Benghazi is
stupidity beyond moronic. First, she said what she was told. Second,
her duty lies not to Congress, but to her President. So she shilled
for him on the issue. That is her job, if the President tells her it
is her job. Third, Editor has yet to hear one explanation of how
what she/President said affected the outcome of the election. How
would it have hurt the President to say “this was a terrorist
attack”? Some people have gone just looney tunes over this, claiming
it was the biggest cover-up in American history. There was no cover
up. The thing start to finish was a CIA affair. In case someone
hasn’t noticed, the CIA prefers to say as little as possible.
Further, it is hardly unknown for the CIA to mislead to protect its
operations.
·
This
said, neither the President nor the likely nominee has helped their
case. While Editor keeps insisting on the facts, one reason he has
gotten nowhere in life, the reality of life is that personalities
count for 90% and facts for very little. The likely nominee did not
help her case because she reacted with her usual arrogance when
questioned about the alleged misstatements. The President has gone
wholly over the top, saying sexism and racism, and saying an attack
on her is an attack on him. Gee, what a giant ego the man has – its
all about him.
·
Sexism
has nothing to do with it – and how weird to allege sexism when the
likely nominee’s boss is a woman. And equally weird to allege racism
when the country has twice elected a man who defines himself as
black. (Editor defines him as white Irish. According to Editor, the
mother is more important simply for biological reasons, and in this
case, the mother was also the one who brought him up. To deny his
mother is to betray her. This is only Editor’s opinion, but there it
is.)
·
Some
professional women commentators who Editor respects for their
balanced views have said the opposition has to be racism because a
man who is abrasive is seen as tough. First, who has denied the
likely nominee is tough? Moreover, has anyone said SecState Clinton
is not tough because she does not have an uncontrollable middle
finger and a potty mouth? Second, no one likes an abrasive man
either, especially for a job that requires the utmost tact. We go
back to Mr. Holbroke. Would he have been okayed as a SecState? We
doubt it.
·
Obviously
the likely nominee has some very serious personality issues. The
opposition has every right to criticize her for this without being
called racist or sexist. But the opposition needs to be responsible
and not put the blame for flawed announcements on her. When
personality is the issue, false facts are hardly the way to go.
·
Kim K was in the Gulf the other day. Hundreds of screaming teenaged girls paid
fabulous money to come see her. Meanwhile 100 stern-visaged mullah’s
demonstrated, saying she should not have been allowed to come
because she has a “bad reputation”. How
delightfully quaint. Where does that leave Lady Gaga? With a “very
bad reputation”? At any rate,
the girls expressed their opinions of the mullahs, which can be
summarized as “Butt out”.
·
Knowing
Editor’s oft-stated antipathy for Kim K, readers might be surprised
to know he very much approves of the young lady as an ambassador for
America. The reason is simple. American is headed down the tubes of
history. Thanks to Kim K and others like her, at least we’ll take
the rest of the world with us. Can’t be the best, then strategically
the power play must be to pull down everyone else to our level. We
believe Sun Tzu was the first to make this point, and it was updated
for modern times by Mahan and McKinder. After all, America destroyed
its greatest enemy in 236-years, communism, by pushing consumerism.
Now it is busy destroying the People’s Republic of China’s political
structure because, oddly, consumers also somehow want the freedom to
Just Be Me. The Chinese, before the embarked on their capitalist
revolution, the previous one having flopped big time, thought their
people could be kept satisfied with material objects while allowing
the Party to rule, instead we have to start wondering how long this
so called Party is going to last.
·
The way
to destroy fundamentalist Islam is not to bomb it of existence, but
to push the idea that sex and lusting after under-aged girls is a
human right up there with the right to life and liberty. Sex and
lust come under the Pursuit of Happiness clause. Now truthfully
Editor has never associated Kim K with sex. Of course, her fans can
retort that at Ed’s advanced age, sex is at best a faded memory, so
what does he know. A student asked Editor when was the last time
Editor had sex. Editor said Roosevelt was still president. “Ah,”
said the student sympathetically, “Theodore Roosevelt’s time”. But
truthfully, Editor does not know many males who think Kim K = Sex.
If the women are going wild over her, okay, good for them because
anything that pokes a mullah in the eye has to be a Good Thing for
America.
·
Readers
might wonder why Editor is constantly putting down Kim K. Could it
be he secretly lusts after her? Truthfully no, because like Jimmy
Carter, Editor has reached the physical age where the only place
that he can feel lust is in his heart. A good lady friend has
pointed out this may be the source of Editor’s lack of dates on
Saturday. She says women are now sexually liberated and apt to
expect and pursue sex as
much as men, if not more. She suggests that when Editor thinks a
tender, intimate moment is when the Editor looks deeply into his
date’s eyes and seductively says: “Now,
my dear, would you like me to explain why India’s mountain strike
corps is delayed?”, women are likely to say “This old coot is weird”
and cross him off their Must Invite To Tea list. Editor refuses to
believe women are THAT shallow. But back to the question of why
Editor makes fun of Kim K.
·
The first
reason is that she is not aesthetically designed. If she were a
warship, she would sink bow first into the sea on her very first
trial run. The second reason is that when she goes on a date, she
has to be carefully constructed layer-by-layer. Industrial size air
compressors and paint guns the size of those used on automobiles are
involved. You start wondering “is she really a robot sent to invade
earth by an engineering team that has relied on what it thinks are
Earth notions of feminine beauty?” The third – and most important
reason – is that the Editor is plain frightened of Kim K. You see,
you may have noticed she is – er – incredibly pneumatic. And she
wears a lot of jewelry on her wrists. Well, this is an accident
waiting to happen. Should she prick herself accidentally with a
sharp part of the jewelry, well, there will be a massive explosion
and Earth will undergo an extinction event. It’s kind of like
watching someone dance Chubby Checker on a wire anchored on opposite
sides of the Grand Canyon. It is complete agony, because you’re
frozen in fearful anticipation that the dancer is going to miss a
step and plunge into the canyon. In Kim K’s case she would go
straight through the Earth and arrive in time for tea with the Ozzie
Kangas, which is serious animal abuse.
Friday 0230 GMT
November 30, 2012
Next update Monday December 3, 2012
·
Letter from S. Renfrew on Obama and Taxes
Your assertion that everyone with an
income of $1 or more should pay federal tax is shocking.
Particularly so because you claim (I am inferring from the figures
you have given) that you are in the bottom of the third quintile and
undergo considerable financial hardship. Shouldn’t you of all people
be more sympathetic to the poor, who consist of minimum wage
workers, disabled, and elderly. Are you even aware that the poor pay
a higher percentage of their income in federal excise taxes,
payroll, and state and local taxes than the 4th through 1st
quintiles? They are not, as you seem to believe, getting a free
ride! Imagine if you earned minimum wage and took home $12,000 a
year, or were an elderly or disabled person getting that or less. If
$400 for car repairs has busted your budget for a year, can you
possibly imagine what that would do to someone with an income a
third of yours? Shame!
·
Editor’s response Phew! S.
Renfrew is clearly a person of strong convictions. Actually in India
we say “Shame, shame, puppy shame, all the dawggies know you name!”
Don’t ask what it means. Okay. Let’s go back to first principles.
Editor most of his life has been for income equalization while
giving those who make more money enough incentive to keep at it.
Editor has pointed out that in Eisenhower’s/Kennedy’s time, the top
1% was paying confiscatory rates of taxes, 70-90%. Editor cannot
recall anyone in the 1% saying “I have no incentive to make more
money and so I’m not going to work more than I am. He agrees the
argument that the wealthy generate jobs is bogus. He has himself
stressed that the Bible enjoins us – requires us a precondition of
salvation – to help the poor even if it means going around in shabby
clothes ourselves. The Indian philosophers very very big on the idea
the rich have a special responsibility for the poor. (Not that
anyone with money does that; for all their faults Americans are
exceptionally generous when it comes to giving to those less
advantaged.)
·
There was
all this excitement about the Lotto, with the prize reaching half a
billion or something. Editor also bought his $2 ticket, though
objectively he understood the chances of winning were less than the
chances of a date on Saturday night. Since the latter is effectively
zero, so is willing the Lotto. But, since Editor likes to be
prepared, he went through the plan if he won the Lotto. To his
horror he realized his philosophy did not allow him to keep even a
dollar of winnings. His first obligation – this is enshrined in
India – is to ensure his family is comfortable for the rest of their
lives. What’s left over has to go to what the Indians call “feeding
the poor”, which of course these days extends to a lot more than
just feeding them, if you have the means. Pardon us a moment…
·
Okay,
we’re back. Editor was so overcome with his own nobleness he had to
get a box of tissues of which he had to use half to wipe away the
tears.
·
But there
is a problem. Some of our readers who are to the extreme right of
Ron Paul have been pointing out in private emails that where does it
say in the Constitution that the Government has the right to take
from the rich to give to the poor? Okay, you will say, and where in
the Constitution does it say black folk and women can vote? Correct,
it doesn’t, and it’s because in time people came to understanding
that denying black folk and women the right violated the spirit of
the Constitution that the original absurdity was corrected. But
there is no spirit of the Constitution that says the rich have to
pay more taxes and the poor no taxes. There is an ethical issue here
because we are treating the rich differently from the poor. It’s
called discrimination. Editor does not deny every time he sees a BMW
700 series or a Mercedes 600 series sedan stopped at the light, his
first impulse is to block the car, get out, throw the owner into the
traffic, and drive off in the fancy car. But it would not be
ethically right for the Editor to do that, just as it is not
ethically right for the government to do that.
·
Yes,
agreed that the poor pay an outsize share of their income in
non-federal taxes. The biggest item, almost 9% for the bottom
quintile, is payroll taxes. But its fair for the poor to pay this
because they get it back in Social Security and Medicare. As for
sales taxes, they’re completely neutral between income groups and
thus ethical. Editor said the other day that taxes have to be
raised, entitlements have to be cut. You don’t have to charge the
poor much by way of federal tax – make it 2% if you want. But you
have to charge them something
because that is the ethical thing to do. As for bringing up the
disabled and the elderly, this is emotional blackmail and nothing
more. Before the state massively took over the job of financially
supporting the citizenry, families looked after the elderly and the
disable. If you had children out of wedlock, you either looked after
them yourself or you put them in an orphanage. If your husband ran
away that was your bad luck. What has this got to do with the state?
It is not the duty of the state to be our father and our mother. If
we take this argument to its logical end, should the Editor maintain
it is the state’s duty to provide him with dates on Saturday night?
And BTW, Editor can make that argument in a logically sound way.
We’re going to quite now because Editor is on the verge of getting
carried away. He’s very sensitive about the No Dates issue. But he
will add what also got to go is government assistance to
corporations. Leveling the playing field means leveling for
everyone, not just poor people.
·
Letter from AA on Technology Readiness Level 6
There are actually 8 levels. Level Six
is not "ready for deployment". It is only prototype demonstration of
effectiveness in a combat, or realistically simulated combat
environment.
Thursday 0230 GMT
November 29, 2012
·
A
short note to the President
Dear Your Prezziness. I am told yesterday you called for tax cuts
for the middle class. See, right here you have shown you are no more
serious about putting America on the road to fiscal responsibility
than the Republicans. It is well-known that our Government spends
$1-trillion/year more than it takes in taxes. It is further well
known that we will have to raise taxes on everyone, poor, middle
class, and rich (I am the lower-middle class income wise). Yes, I
know raising taxes on people like myself and the many, many
Americans who make less than I do is going to be very hard for us
citizens. But you know perfectly well just raising taxes on the rich
is not, by a long shot, going to work.
·
As well
as requiring everyone with an income above zero dollars to pay taxes
– income taxes as well as other taxes, you know perfectly well
entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid
and so on will have to be cut. My Medicare medicine and doctor
visits already require copays so high that I skip the doctor for
important things unless I am in pain or hemorrhaging blood. (For
some reason, the sight of my own blood makes me upset. Other
people’s blood – including your administration’s – bothers me not at
all.) I already do what I am told tens of millions of American do:
cut their medicine in half, or skip doses. If my co-pays go up even
further, I will have to cut back even more. My Social Security check
is $770 which I am told is fairly typical. Yesterday my 14-year old
car died – conveniently – right after I refueled as the gas station.
So it was easy for the repair shop to wheel it 20-meters and into a
bay. Very nice people – immigrants – and because they know I am a
substitute teacher they cut their labor cost back and got rebuilt
parts rather than new. Alternator gone, belts gone, bunch of other
stuff, came to $440. That takes care of my discretionary income for
four months. Turns out the car is leaking oil and burning oil; it’s
not going to die, but it requires $550 worth of work. Which pretty
means discretionary spending gone
till September 2013. Okay, so you know, and I know, that in addition
to raising taxes, and cutting entitlements, you’re going to have cut
deductions. I save $2250/year on annual taxes because of the
mortgage deduction (mortgage is 63% of my monthly income), and if
you take that away, I am going up Honey Creek with a limp noodle for
a paddle.
·
I am
telling you this not to angle for sympathy, because despite all my
problems I am STILL better off than about one-third of the people in
the country. I am very heavily in student debt, but unless the law
changes that will be eliminated when I drop dead, and provided I can
keep paying the mortgage, I will at least have something left to
pass on to my kids. I am where I am because of my own choices and a
never ending stream of bad luck - yet, even the luck was mine to
make, or not. No one gave me bad luck. I absolutely do not begrudge
Pie Face Gates and his ilk, or even you and your ilk, the money you
make. The skinny-butt long-haired
guy Upstairs tells me you and Pie Face earn your money honestly, and
that’s good enough for me.
·
So why am
I telling you this? See, it’s because I have two sons, two nieces,
and two grandkids, with more – I hope – in prospect. Every time I
realize that the comfort I enjoy – small as it may be – is at the
cost of my children and grandchildren, I don’t feel good. In fact, I
feel downright sick.
·
You have
two daughters. Supposing tomorrow you fell on bad times – the Lord
forbid. Supposing your family did not have enough to eat. Would you
and Ms. Prez tell your daughters: “I need to eat, hand over half of
what is on your plate”? Obviously not. Though you may only half the
calories you need, you will give from your share to your children.
But this is exactly what you and others of your ilk – the politicals
of America – are NOT doing for the country. You are, in a very real
sense, the father of our country (not the first father, obviously,
but the job gets passed down with every election). Yet you are a
father who is concerned only to secure the future of your two
natural born children. But all the other children in America are
also yours, at least while you are in office.
It is your ethical and legal
responsibility to look after all of America’s children. For that you
know we have to have fiscal responsibility, which means everyone –
poor, rich, you, me, 20-years old or 90-years old – will have to cut
back on our consumption for the sake of our children and
grandchildren and great grandchildren.
·
You say
you care for America. But when you say the middle class must pay
less, how are you any different from your so called opponents across
the aisle, who want the rich to pay less. (I say “so called
opponents” because everyone knows there is absolutely no difference
between you and opposition politicians. Your motto as much as their
motto seems to be “I’m looking out for Number 1”.)
·
See, if
we’d built up these huge deficits for a noble cause, like World War
II, we’d have some justification – but no justification for blindly
adding to the deficits. These deficits have come about because we
spend more than we earn. Its not more complicated than that. Yes, I
am aware that many respected economists say the deficits don’t
matter. Is that really the case? Today people pay the US to keep
their money. But what happens tomorrow when we have to pay real
money to pay interest? And BTW, the US Government keeping interest
rates low has not been without cost. You’ve robbed from those
Americans who dutifully and diligently saved for their retirements,
only to see themselves getting no more than inflation as returns.
Wednesday 0230 GMT
November 28, 2012
·
Revolutions and all that In
various blogs and letters to editors and so forth, we are seeing a
lot of people very upset about developments in Egypt and Libya.
Egypt: a return to dictatorship that the dictator planned as even
tougher than that if ousted Mubarak.
Libya: chaos that was part of the cause four American embassy
deaths. Americans are asking: what did we intervene for, then?
·
Sorry to
tell the upset folks you aint seen nuthin yet. When Assad of Syria
goes down, you are going to see a bloody mess that is going to make
you grossly ill. Please to remember, forty thousand (40,000) people
have already been killed in a country that is about the size of
Missouri, and if people think that when Assad is overthrown it may
be 50- to 60,000 dead. If anyone thinks after Assad is hung in
Central Damascus there is going to peace has been imbibing something
stronger than the Editor’s 20mg Prozac a day (BTW, Editor has
protested to his doctor that everyone he knows is getting more than
20mg a day, why is he being discriminated against? Doc has a very
peculiar answer: “You don’t need more; in fact, I don’t think you
need any at all.” Is that something to tell someone who is
perpetually broke even though he works 12-hrs/day every day of the
year, and who has not had a date on Saturday night since 1968?).
Then let’s not forget that Iraq is going to crack, and whether
that’s done peacefully or with more blood is entirely up to Baghdad.
·
First,
Editor should be clear he is not an expert on history and
revolutions. Indeed, today he had a very sharp recollection that
when he should have been reading Hannah Arendt half-a-century ago he
was missing class and out chasing some particularly pretty and empty
headed lady. They were the only ones he could persuade that the
proper attire for discussing Indian philosophy was – er – no attire.
And even with the empty-headed ladies he had no luck. That said,
think back: with the exception of the American Revolution – that was
back 236 years in case people have forgotten – has any significant
revolution ended well?
·
Well,
what about Iraq 2003 to the present. They seem to have some kind of
functioning democracy. So they do. But they didn’t have a
revolution. The US came in and executed the dictator. The natives
did not have to lift a finger. Then before it left, the US built up
a force of 600,000 military/paramilitary troops. The Iraqi Army
circa Saddam was actually a pretty efficient one, and Iraqis as a
society were pretty educated. US did not have a particularly hard
time creating the new army. Peace
has been maintained because the Shia ethnically cleansed the Sunnis
under US rule, and have a Size 18 quadruple wide jackboot firmly
planted on the Sunni neck. And the Shia leave the Kurds alone; the
Kurds run their own show. So what is there to fight about?
·
Next,
remember that the countries of the Mideast went straight from the
Ottoman Empire to subjugated states run by Western masters. Then
when the western masters decided to call it a day, the local tyrants
took over. On the question of states, folks, what you see in the
Mideast – as in Africa – is administrative divisions drawn on the
map by the Western conquerors of the Ottoman Empire. Places like
Libya, Syria, and Iraq have been kept together by force. Not only do
they not have a tradition of self-rule, each of these places is a
country only courtesy of Mr. Shotgun. Take Mr. Shotgun away, and
you’re going to get chaos. Look what happened to Yugoslavia. The
country was an artificial created to suit the needs of the victors
of World War I. The first time the tyranny was removed Yugoslavia
fell apart into what – eight different countries? And anyone thinks
Bosnia-Herzegovina is going to stay together because US said so is
also on something stronger than 20mg Prozac a day. Same thing is
happening in the Mideast, just that it’s taken something like
700-years to lift the tyranny.
·
Well,
you’re going to say, what about the Soviet Union? Sixteen new
countries and they’re doing okay. Well, sort of. Russia itself is no
democracy, and neither are most of the other states. Also remember
this was the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. The
constituents of the USSR had their own nationhoods, even though they
were ruled as vassals of Moscow. Their own history, culture,
language and so on. With the exception of Egypt and Iran, the other
countries are made up patchworks. Take the jackboot off their necks
and they’re going to explode.
·
What’s
happening in the Middle East is 100% normal. Nothing to get worried
about. Things will take time, and the best the US can do is to stay
out. When we say time, remember the Central and South American
republics? They were independent for darn nearly 200 years before
they got democracy functioning. And some of them are doing their
best to unget democracy.
Tuesday 0230 GMT
November 27, 2012
·
Now Let Us Praise Iron Dome Frankly, Israeli boasts about their weapons
being the best get terribly tedious. For one thing, a whacking high
percentage of their weapons is built with US money, components, or R
and D. For another, systems like their Merkeva MBT may be
well-suited to their requirements, but best MBT it is not.
Nonetheless, with Iron Dome the Israelis have legitimate bragging
rights. And so far, at least, the Israelis haven’t been claiming
it’s the best in the world because actually it is the
only operational CRAM
(Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar) system around.
·
Well you
may ask: why doesn’t the
US have such a system. That’s because in the matter of weapons, the
US has become Futzer Nation. We’ve been futzing about on CRAM for at
least 10-years Editor can recall, and where are we? Well, read this
RFI (Request For Information)
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=e859f9a0d04cbea443bebc75f3587faa
which was posted in October this year. It calls for coming up with
components that can be moved into Level 6 by 2015, i.e., just short
of limited rate production. The
bulk of the hardware has already been developed in some form or the
other. (It’s been decades since we did anything related to US RDT&E,
and we cannot find a definition of the levels after spending
15-minutes on the web. So we may be wrong about what’s expected at
Level 6. Please correct us if necessary.) The way the US goes about
the development business, it will be a miracle if anything is
actually ready for an RFP (Request For Proposals) by 2015, and how
many years it takes to get to the troops is anyone’s guess.
·
The
Israelis, on the other hand, started work on Iron Dome in 2007. They
too relied on components that were mainly already developed and
tested. The first battery was deployed in 2009. They’ve cut the
production time for new batteries – we are told – to 4-6 months from
years. The clever thing about the Israelis is that were updating
their system during combat!
Yes, it was software updates, but that’s what they needed for
greater effectiveness, so while the troops were firing away in the
field, others processed the new data gathered within hours, and
within hours altering the software. Phew.
Can the US do this? We’ll
leave the snickering and snarfing to reader. (A snarf is when out of
politeness you try to suppress a major snicker and it explodes from
your nose with more force than if you hadn’t tried to suppress it.
Snot – a great deal – is involved.)
·
How were
the Israelis able to achieve this highly compressed schedule from
start of work to combat? They say they focused on developing a
system that did just what it was supposed to, with no extras or
diamond plating or hypothetical threats to the year 2412 AD. They
figured that once they got it deployed, actual combat would show
them what they needed to do in order to improve. So whatever cannot
be accommodated by the software upgrades, will roll out as Iron Dome
Version 2. (Actually, we think was used last week
was Version 2 if not 3.)
And by the way, a new battery of 3 launchers with 60 ready missiles
is priced at – get this - $50-million. Of course, this is not what
the Israelis will charge other customers, because they will expect –
and get – fat profit margins. But still.
·
Now, in
case you are an old timer, you may be scratching your head and
asking yourself: “Now where did I hear of someone else using this
system: rapid development-test-upgrade-rapidly deploy-test-upgrade
and so on ad infinitum. Scratch your head no longer, friend. This
was the US system just a few decades ago. The Nike Ajax/Hercules SAM
system is such an example, US got battalions and battalions deployed
as fast as possible against the Soviet bomber threat, kept testing
furiously every year – actually every month – and then going back
and modifying/upgrading the system on the go. Compare this with
Aegis/Standard, where tests are less frequent than total solar
eclipses (or something like that).
·
India has
been interested in Iron Dome since the system’s inception. Every
time Americans feel bad about their messed up development and
procurement system, they can look at India. We are working on
forming our first squadron of the Light Combat Aircraft, which
requirement was formulated and on which work began
42 years ago. India inducted its first aircraft carrier
half-a-century ago, its first own-made carrier is still not ready
for deployment. We have to stop now – blood pressure is rising
dangerously.
·
India is
talking of four regiments, which we assume means 12 batteries. We
cannot imagine the batteries will have just three launchers. For one
thing India is about a gazillion times larger than Israel. A battery
should have at least six launchers. So – this is interesting –
Editor was reading the Letters to the Editor in a major Indian
newspaper about this news, and someone said what good is Iron Dome
for India because it
cannot intercept cruise missiles. Coincidentally. The Israelis have
been working on David’s Sling, for first deployment by 2014. This
system is intermediate between Iron Dome (75-km max range – the
Israelis squeezed an extra 5-km out of it
during the week-long war)
and Arrow, which handles the ballistic missiles. David’s Sling will
have a range of around 350-km. And get this: not wanting to waste a
good little fight, the Israelis launched a couple of David’s Sling
missiles at live targets and even shot down one. These ranges are
current ranges: there’s already talk of extending the Iron Dome
interceptor’s range.
·
And also,
get this. Israeli Ministry of Defense told Rafael, which makes the
Iron Dome interceptor, “we need to rebuild our inventory ASAP as
well expedite deployment of more batteries because the shooting
match could restart at any time. Rafael said “no problem dudes,
we’re already working to double production for you.” The rumor mill
says that within months Rafael will be turning out 10 interceptors a
day. Can you imagine a US manufacturer doing this? And the missiles
cost between $40- and $50,000. The interceptor is like a long-range
air-to-air missile. Can you imagine a US company handing this over
for $50,000/round. US AMRAAM costs $300,000+ a round. Okay, AMRAAM
is not the same as an Iron Dome interceptor. Its heavier, but the C
version has about the same range as an Iron dome interceptor.
Incidentally, it is likely Israel’s improved interceptor will cost
$90,000; meanwhile AMRAAM D version will cost - $700,000.
·
The
genius of the Israeli system is that it does not try to shoot
everything down. No sir. It
calculates which rockets will likely impact against a target, and it
takes out these with 90% efficiency. Those that will land without
causing damage are ignored. Editor at least is very impressed.
Monday 0230 GMT
November 26, 2012
·
Letter from Reader VK on Israel-Hamas
If we use Occam razor in Pillar of
Defence this is indeed a massive Israeli cop out. But this round
looked like that neither side wanted a fight
and grabbed the
ceasefire when a face-saving opportunity arose. Methinks the whole
thing was deliberately calibrated Israeli escalation war game to see
how each actors precisely behave in the changed Middle East
scenario, testing its civil defense infrastructure, effectiveness of
Iron Dome in real life situation, how new Islamist regimes react etc
on top of usual lawn mowing of Hamas in preparation/anticipation of
something big. Perhaps US is going to do something in Syria or
US-Israel is planning something big in Iran.
·
It was
weird how US, Israel and major European countries were in perfect
co-ordination and at least the criticism of Israel was minimum. The
status quo on Syria and Iran
is untenable and it must break down
soon. The arrival of US warships to evacuate its citizens from the
region is ominous of something big will happen. My preference is for a
conspiracy theory in this round of Israel-Hamas/Hezbollah fighting
is because usually Israel is sucker punched into a situation like in
2006 into reacting.
·
This time
Israel took the whole escalation right up to mobilization on border
and sudden seeming cop out points to a pre-planned calibrated
escalation & de-escalation. The clause in ceasefire that promises
stopping assassination means nothing. If the Israel wants to resume
assassination, it can make some rogue group fire couple of rockets
to Israel, cry "violation of ceasefire",
and whole thing can start
over. A piece by David Sanger piece supports my theory.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/23/world/middleeast/for-israel-gaza-conflict-a-practice-run-for-a-possible-iran-confrontation.html?hp
·
Letter from Reader YL on Israel and Hamas
Your rant on Israel’s defeat oddly
matched the extremist Debka.com’s comments on the recent operation.
In case your readers are unaware, Debka.com is an unofficial
mouthpiece for “Israel first” extremists masquerading as patriots.
Their preferred solution to Israel’s security issues, first and
last, is unlimited violence unleashed against its enemies. I don’t
know if you are aware, but Israeli views on Palestine cover a wide
range and there are probably more people for peace than there are
for war.
·
As an
Israel-American, I follow your blog closely when you write on
Israel. I am amused – and baffled – at your totally schizophrenic
attitudes on Israel and Palestine. You often say as Third Worlder
you sympathize with the Palestinians, even to the extent of
maintaining that Israel should not have formed in Palestine. Yet
whenever Israel launches war, you get upset and angry because it
hasn’t gone far enough, at least by your lights. So which is the
real Editor? Your writings make it impossible to tell!
·
Concerning the recent flare up. It was not started by Israel, but by
Hamas, Bibi responded, as he must, meeting force with force. But
Gaza is not this prime minister’s fight, He is focused on the more
serious threat of Iran. Gaza was, for him, a distraction that he
needed to get rid of at the soonest. It was critical to keep western
public opinion favorable to Israel, to give him a freer hand on
Iran. A ground invasion of Gaza, with the inevitable civilian
casualties, would have cost him the support of the western public.
The same applies to any
hawkish moves on Gaza. By accepting the ceasefire Bibi has conceded
nothing, because it is inevitable Hamas will start its nonsense
again as soon as it can. Instead of losing, Bibi and Israel have
gained because for the first time you have Israel willing to forgo
some of its national security objectives for the sake of peace. This
is very important. Unlike yourself, who are very pessimistic on what
has happened, I am very optimistic, and I believe Israel won this
round.
·
Editor’s Response Editor
freely accepts he is schizophrenic on Israel and Palestine, and this
is inevitable considering he is a 3rd Worlder brought up
in, and living in, the US. Editor is a great believer in the
traditional American theory that ultimately force is the solution to
all intractable problems. After all, when confronted with the
Gordian Knot, Alexander immediately and efficiently solved the
problem by slicing it with his sword. America’s stalemate in Korea,
and its defeats in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan all arise from an
insufficient application of force. Either American should not play
the game of force, or if it chooses force, it must go all in. Going
half-way will led to defeat, which causes far more problems than not
intervening in the first place.
·
Editor
has no reason to doubt that Reader YL has accurately stated Bibi’s
position. This does not change the reality that this is the first
war that Israel’s enemies began and ended on their terms. Every
other time Israel has severely punished the aggressor. By letting
Cairo broker a ceasefire, Israel has let Hamas go, and Hamas is
already preparing for the next round. Not enough people have asked
why Hamas broke the ceasefire in the first place. By using force,
and by remaining standing after Israeli retaliation, Hamas has
clearly established to the people of Palestine that Hamas, not
Fateh, gets results. Fateh, which is for peace with Israel, has been
discredited. As it is Fateh was in decline; this rumpus has
accelerated the decline. Hamas, needless to say, far from being
interested in peace with Israel, doesn’t even acknowledge the
existence of Israel.
·
Far
worse, Hamas had shown the ability to exploit western public opinion
to limit Israeli punishment . Isarel’s greatest strength – as was
Ronald Reagan’s – was giving the impression it is violently crazy
and will not be swayed by logic even if that violence hurts Israel.
No one wants to fight a crazy person.
That is all gone now. Hamas’s next provocation will be
greater still, and the cost to Israel greater still. Israeli
deterrence has failed. This is a major defeat.
Friday 0230 GMT
November 23, 2012
·
The Congo Civil War turns
serious again as M23 rebels take Goma and advance on Sake to the
west. M23 is supported by Rwanda; indeed, Goma is just a few miles
from the Rwanda border. There was no real fight for Goma as the
Congo Army simply withdrew. MONUC has no mandate to fight the
rebels. It has supported the Congo Army in operations against the
rebels, and did so last week as it used attack helicopters to try
and stop a rebel push. But by itself the air support proved
insufficient, and with the Army having vacated Goma, there is no one
for the UN to support.
·
M23 says
2100 Congo Army troops and 700 police surrendered; many have joined
the rebels. The rebels plan on advancing on Bukavu, at the southern
tip of Lake Kivu, which is shared between Rwanda and Congo. From
there they want to advance west, all the way to Kinshasa. To us at
this time this seems an unrealistic plan, but let’s see what we see.
The push for Bukavu has hit a temporary roadblock because the Congo
Army is fighting back at Sake, an important town on Highway N2 from
Goma to Bukavu. Whether the army can stop the rebels remains to be
seen.
·
The UN’s
position is simple. Its job is to provide security for the civilians
in the region and to help out the Army. It is not to do the fighting
for the government. There is no doubt that if MONUC is ordered into
action, with its several Indian and Pakistani battalions it will
quickly sweep away the rebels. But what next? MONUC was supposed to
buy time for a new Congo national army to be formed from the 5-6
major rebel armies in Eastern Congo. MONUC did this, and now the
Congo Army is not doing its job. Frustrating as it is, MONUC is
doing the right thing by staying out of things.
·
The
Central African War, which at its peak in the 1990s involved eight
countries vying for the resources of this astonishingly mineral rich
land, has already cost over 5-million lives, the vast majority
civilians, who have brutally treated by all sides. This is the
costliest war in terms of casualties since the Second World War.
Africa is an out of sight, out of mind situation for the west, which
has done little except support MONUC and conducted some training for
the new Congo Army. It is only a few million African black folks
that are being killed, how is Europe and the US to get excited about
this?
·
The
rebels loot, murder, rape, and impress children into their armed
service. The Congo Army does the same, though it is less guilty of
using child soldiers. Unwilling to defend Goma the Congo Army
nonetheless gave the people they were supposed to protect a parting
gift: they looted the civilians and along with the rebels, are doing
their standard killing and raping.
Thursday 0230 GMT
November 22, 2012
·
Israel Loser This may sound
harsh, or at best a rant from the Israeli right. It is neither. This
particular round started with Hamas ramping up its usual rocket
nonsense, in the calculated belief that the Arab Spring and Cairo
being on Hamas’ side would stop Hamas from suffering fatal
consequences. The idea was to say “we punched Israel, and Israel has
to back off leaving us still standing.” If you are not an Arab or a
Palestinian, this may sound like a pretty self-destructive attitude.
You may laugh, or even taunt Hamas. But that would be making the
always big mistake of viewing a situation solely through our own
lens. But for the people who live in the Mideast, to punch Israel
and then escape from Israel’s crushing retaliation is a very big
deal indeed.
·
Within
days of Hamas starting this round, the world rushed in to stop the
fighting. So Hamas was already proved right. It could provoke, and
get away with it. Then the Israelis scored a massive hit on Hamas:
they got a chance to kill its military chief, and did. Retaliation
was inevitable; the last people to be surprised that the rockets
started flying again would be the Israelis. But as far as the
Israelis were concerned, they were on top, because obviously they
could punish Hamas at will.
·
Well,
sadly, it didn’t work out that way. The minute Israel started
hitting Hamas in earnest, the whole world including the US jumped on
Israel and told it to stop. Israel has become so weak politically
after years of punishing Hamas, Hezbollah, whoever and whatever,
only to see them spring back that it couldn’t even afford to see
this round through. Hamas and allies launched over 1000 rockets etc
at Israel. Back in the day, say even 2 years ago, this would have
meant Israel would have gone in and whacked Hamas but good,
regardless of how many civilians died. Instead Israel launched 1500
surgical strikes, and collapsed.
·
The
ultimate humiliation: who saved Hamas’ lamb chops? Egypt. Yup.
Egypt, which has never had respect from Israel, was the coordinator
of the ceasefire and Israel (and Hamas too) is now accountable to
Cairo to maintain the peace. For heaven’s sake, is it possible to
sink lower? We do not think so. Particularly because Hamas from the
start said Cairo would stop the fighting.
·
If that
wasn’t enough of a victory for Hamas, Israel has had to make a very,
very major concession, one that frankly is having trouble accepting
Israeli actually made. This is Israel has given up its right to
target individuals. Hamas and its terrorist allies can sleep soundly
in bed now.
·
Now,
obviously it wasn’t Cairo that forced Israel to back down. But this
is what is really bad: all of Israel’s allies ganged up against it
and accepted Cairo’s role as the key negotiator.
For all the honeyed words
uttered by the US Administration, even the US helped sell Israel
down the river. The entire world’s first priority was to stop the
fighting regardless of Israel’s interests, and they succeeded.
·
We can
just hear right-wing Israelis saying: “Gosh, this Editor is such a
dingbat. He has so little understanding of the situation. Israel has
scored a great victory because for the first time it has forced the
Arab world to take responsibility for restraining Hamas. Next stop,
we’re going to maneuver the
Arabs into restraining Hezbollah. You say we’ve lost? We’ve scored a
major victory.
·
We can
also hear the left-wing Israelis saying: “How could we have invaded
Gaza again? There is no end to this if we choose the path of
violence. We need peace, and now the Arabs are working with us to
ensure peace. This is a great first step to a negotiated settlement.
We’ve scored a major victory.”
·
But what
is there to negotiate? Is Israel going to withdraw its people from
the West Bank and let an independent Palestine rise? No. Is Israel
going to allow the Palestinians it kicked out return? No. Is Israel
going to dissolve itself as a nation and head back to Europe and
America? No. So what is this business about a negotiated peace? Any
agreement that leaves the Palestinians with one slice of bread in a
loaf is not going to be acceptable to the extremists. They might
settle for half-a-loaf. They never have, but Israel is not prepared
to give half a loaf. It doesn’t matter if 99% of Palestinians say:
“We’ve had enough, let’s have peace at any cost.” It takes just 1%
who are extremists to reject this and top keep the violence going.
Wanna bet that the 1% is not going to agree to peace except on its
terms?
·
As for
the idea that the Arabs are now invested in peace with Israel and
will control their extremists who seek to use violence against
Israel, please, people, have a heart. The Arabs can’t control their
extremists, how are they going to control Palestine extremists? And
we’ve made huge assumptions here, namely that Israel is willing to
give half a loaf (it never will) and that the extremists will accept
half a loaf (they never will).
·
Hamas had
10,000 rockets at the start of this round. Israel has destroyed
thousands. Okay, so not only has Hamas got thousands more, it is now
free to rebuild its arsenal. Hamas lost 150 military and civilian
lives. That is what – half-a-day’s population growth? Hamas and the
Palestinian [ep[;e probably suffered the loss of a billion dollars
worth of infrastructure, perhaps even two billion. Wanna bet the
west is right working overtime to rush fresh aid to Palestine and
Hamas’ allies including Iran are rushing hundreds of million worth
of military assistance to build up Hamas ‘ arsenals?
Wanna bet Hezbollah and Hamas
are sitting down, this very minute, plotting the next move against
Israel, slapping each other on the backs and saying “tole ya the
Jews are wimps, next time they’ll sue for peace even faster.”
Wednesday 0230 GMT
November 21, 2012
·
OK, this Gaza thing is getting really boring
and both sides need to stop already. We
were hoping Israel was going to do a ground invasion because
strictly from an enthusiast point of view we want to see what the
Israelis have learned about combat in urban areas. If they’re not
going to invade, then please stop wasting Editor’s time, too much of
which has gone in covering this matter.
·
Among the
things we note approvingly is that the Israeli Air Force is using
mini smart bombs. We cannot, from the pictures, estimate their
weight because for that we need a full side shot. But the bombs seem
to be shorter than the ejector racks. The Israelis are also taking
some care to warn people of impending attacks. And they are
continuing to send civilian supplies into Gaza so to that extent
they are not squeezing the civilians. The squeezing of the civilians
on the expectation they would rise up against the militants was
brutally vicious, and the least attractive and least defensible
aspect of Israeli action in Palestine. This is against the law of
war and defies common sense,
because of all parties, the civilians are the most helpless.
·
Mind you,
we are reporting this stuff from the Israeli side, and of course you
would expect the IDF to paint itself in the best possible light. But
from the casualties – just 124 dead over 6 days, according to the
Palestinians themselves, or less than one per ten strikes – it
really does seem the Israelis are being careful. A reader wrote us
to ask why we haven’t mentioned the fake dead children positioned by
Hamas propagandists for gullible fotogs, and the habit of Hamas and
other militant groups of using civilian shields. The answer is that
the Israelis say they are civilized – indeed, they a western nation
that happens to live in the Mideast. Civilized behavior is expected
of the Israelis, no one expects anything from the militants. Unfair?
Yes. But if Israel wants to appear moral, unfairness has nothing to
do with it.
·
We have
also been asked why we are not condemning Hamas’s indiscriminate
fire whereas Israel is going to considerable lengths to target
civilians. We have explained this in previous years, no harm in
repeating it. The disparity in combat power between Hamas and Israel
is probably three orders of magnitude. That is to say, Israel
militarily outclasses Hamas by thousands of times. When someone is
that badly outclasses, they have no choice but to hit back as they
can. And that is what Hamas is doing. It’s managed to kill exactly
one Israeli soldier so far, and of course that was by accident. This
does not mean we are excusing Hamas. We have a real problem with
Islamic militants not least because they wrecked so much havoc in
India. We are simply stating the reality. The underdog has to seize
the few opportunities that come his way.
·
Would
Hamas solely focus on military targets if it had the necessary
weapons? Doubtful, because the Palestinians believe Israel
deliberately targets civilians. Besides, Hamas does not have the
necessary weapons, so this becomes a sterile debate like where would
Editor take his date on a Saturday night. He doesn’t have a date, so
what is the point of discussing where he would take her?
·
In case
you haven’t been following the cease fire discussions of the last
48-hours, the reason there is no ceasefire is simple. Hamas does not
want a ceasefire that makes it look as if it was forced into a dead
end by Israel. Not just that, Hamas wants to be able to declare a
victory. Fair enough, that’s Hamas’s business, not ours. Israel says
it is tired of this stop and go rocketing business, where Hamas
agrees to a ceasefire to buy time, then starts up again. Israel
wants, tactically, a 24-hour period where no rocket is launched
before it ceases fire; and strategically it wants a solution to the
rocket problem.
·
But what
about the assertion that the militants had ceased fire and Israel
broke the ceasefire by killing Hamas’s military commander? This is what the Turks have been
repeating a hundred times a day, and all we can say is that the
Turks, who are among the most level-headed people in the world, have
lost their marbles. At least their leaders have lost their marbles.
First, any ceasefire agreement Israel makes explicitly excludes its
bringing to justice militant leaders. Israel has not attacked the
political leadership, but never once has it implied or stated that
terrorists get immunity.
·
Second,
Hamas broke the ceasefire first, by starting rocket attacks all over
again. Moreover, that is hardly the only problem. Since the Arab
spring, Hamas has been stretching its macaroni muscles, and pushing
Israel from all sides – attacks on the frontier, increased smuggling
of weapons, missile attacks on Eliat – these are just some of the
things that come to mind.
·
Okay, you
say, didn’t Editor just say that the weaker power has to strike as
best it can? People, people, we are not moralizing. We are not
saying “Hamas devils, Israelis angels.” There is much wrong on both
sides going back to the turn of the 20th Century or
whenever it is large scale Jewish immigration to Palestine began.
BTW, this is not an argument anyone can with an Israeli, because he
will say “We are only returning to our homeland from where we were
expelled in 70 AD”. Fine. By that standard, us Northwest Indians
have the right of return to our ancestral lands in the Caucasus. And
as the eldest surviving male heir of my grandfather, I have the
right to return to claim my grandfather’s house in Lahore, that our
family had to flee on Partition in 1947. You all in Israel support
my right of return – there’s also a dacha on the Black Sea I am sure
I can make a claim to – the land at least. We can argue this
nonsense till the earth grows cold and we will get nowhere.
Tuesday 0230 November
20, 2012
·
Israel-Gaza Jerusalem Post
says the cabinet met late Monday night to consider a ceasefire.
Hamas is already crowing that it has achieved a balance of power
with Israel, and says that Israel must ceasefire first because Hamas
will not agree to an imposed ceasefire. Israel, of course, is saying
the same thing in reverse, plus insisting a long-term solution be
found to the problem of Hamas’ and other terror attacks. If no such
solution is found, Israel will do a ground invasion.
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=292612
·
So what
exactly is going on with Israel? First, let us be clear that if
Israel agrees to a ceasefire without a long-term solution, Hamas has
won. Hamas’ calculation was Cairo would save Gaza’s lamp chop. It
wouldn’t be Cairo saving much, but the world community which is very
keen that the whole problem of Hamas and Israel would just go away,
preferably to another star system, say Epsilon Eiridani, if not
further. The EU in particular is sitting on both sides to
compromise.
·
So why is
Israel of all countries playing nice, even to the point of
kissy-facing with its enemy? First there is the practical
consideration that an election is due in January, though the talk is
it may have to be postponed. If Bibi goes into Gaza and it turns out
a disaster, his political career suffers. Second, his public is not
behind him on a ground invasion. Israel is not just a raucous
democracy, it is not falsely
patriotic like us Americans. Waving the flag in Israel does not
automatically bring the country to its feet singing the national
anthem; nor does it cause a complete suspension of thought as
happens here. Your typical Israeli is a true patriot: threaten his
country, and he’s ready for war. But over the years he has become
suspicious of his government in this matter of marching off to war.
After all, the current op is the third major one in just six years.
Third, just about every Jewish Israeli is in the military, or
closely related to someone in the military. That makes the people a
bit more hesitant to shed blood. Unlike in America, where we always
ready to shed our soldiers’ blood. Fourth, Bibi needs to keep the
west sweet because of the Iran problem.
·
Last, and
this may be Hamas’ real victory, Israelis are plain tired of war.
Please to remember that in their first four major wars (1948, 1956,
1967, 1973) their enemies created an existential threat where if
Israel did not fight, things could end up with Israel vanishing.
1978, 1982, 2006, 2008, and
2012 are non-existential threat situations.
·
So, lets
see how this goes. The general mood seems to be this round will end
with a ceasefire, but not just yet. Meantime, anyone can see nothing
will be achieved by either side, except the laying of ground for the
next bash. When you grind a man down to nothing, as the Israelis
have done to the Palestinians, he has nothing to lose. The
Palestinians are fatalists; they expect to lose everything at
regular intervals; and if the Israelis are tired of conflict, the
Palestinians are beyond exhausted. They have no strength to tell
their militant leaders that they don’t want more war. Nor can they
fight Hamas, or in the West Bank, the Palestine Authority. No matter
what happens in 2012, the hardliners of both sides are ever ready to
provoke the other side, and then it starts all over.
·
Frances loses Moody’s Triple A rating
The UK Telegraph is careful to note,
however, that being put on negative watch in the past mid-year did
not increase France’s borrowing costs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9689457/France-stripped-of-prized-AAA-credit-rating-by-Moodys.html
·
Meantime, the Telegraph,
which has always been super-skeptical on Greece, has bluntly stated
the obvious re. Greece. Athens is going to need $125-billion debt
forgiven on top of what has been previously forgiven; else it is
heading for a debt of 190% of GDP, and its youth unemployment to
58%. The economy is down 7% this year after many years of decline.
Fiscal tightening has not worked for Europe, indeed, the EU/IMF have
made things worse. It is a given that either more debt relief is
given, or it’s bye-bye Greece. (Many think its bye-bye Greece
anyway, even with debt relief. If the immediate relief is given, the
Germans stand to lose $25-billion, which is going to play havoc with
Merkel’s political standing. If it is not given, the consequences
will be worse.
Monday 0230 GMT
November 19, 2012
·
Israel-Gaza There has been a
serious reduction by strikes by both sides on Sunday. Only 120
rockets and 120 air strikes were launched. We do not think this is
because of any negotiations taking place. The Israeli Defense Forces
spokesperson has said Hamas’s launch capability is reducing. But we
would like to make clear that our assessment is not they are running
out of rockets; they have used just a fraction of their arsenal.
Rather, the problem is the speed with which Israel has been
retaliating makes launching a risky activity. This is so even in the
case of the rockets fired from tubes buried underground and remotely
detonated. There is not a lot of room to hide in Gaza. On Israel’s
side, we believe it is running out of targets.
·
Our
assessment is that both sides are waiting for third parties to bring
about a ceasefire. Israel is hardly suffering, but Hamas is being
hammered and now the Israelis are going after individual Hamas
leaders. Israel has said it will not quit until Hamas cries “Uncle!”
Hamas says we will never surrender, we will unleash the gates of the
Hot Place Downstairs (as if Hamas has control of the Downstairs
Place); vengeance is ours and so in in rather colorful language that
could send a hot-air balloon to the Moon.
·
Nonetheless, Israel is fully aware of the risks of a Gaza land
invasion. It is not on the Israeli “Must Do Today” list. And in any
case, when you have a reservist army, you need time to bring the
reservists – and even the regulars – up to the mark. Better to spend
more time getting ready than less. And of course, in the meanwhile
may be a ceasefire can be arranged. But Israel wants to tell
everyone that if this shooting does not stop, an invasion is
inevitable.
·
What
honestly amazes us is not that by the end of Day 5 75 or so
Palestinians have been killed. What amazes is that ten time or more
have not been killed because Israel has put in around 1000 air,
attack helicopter, naval, and artillery strikes. If you have been to
Gaza (which we haven’t since the 1970s but we keep in touch) you
will see the towns – Gaza City in particular – are very densely
populated. The Israelis are
using small bombs and anti-tank missiles where they can, accuracy
makes up for the loss in kill radius. But still, this absurdly low
death toll speaks well of the Israelis. Who, we repeat, in our
opinion should not have created their country where they did. Yet,
saying “should not” doesn’t help when the country is already there
for six decades.
·
Back to Benghazi Episode CXII
One thing that baffles us about Benghazi
is that people are saying the president lied. For the sake of
argument, let’s assume he did lie (as opposed to messing up the PR
part, which is actually what happened).
But why exactly would he lie?
What would he have gained? People say he wanted to avoid an October
surprise. But how exactly does a bunch of crazies overrunning a US
consulate in the back of beyond qualify as an October surprise?
·
A friend
of ours says we need to stop reading the right wing blogs and trying
to make sense of what a bunch of Obama haters say, and will keep
saying forever. Fair enough, but how can we stop reading material
and views that contradicts our analyses? What should we read
instead? The White House Times or whatever? The left-wingers do not
make much sense on the issues they take up, either. Everyone needs
to read a bit of everyone’s angle if only to learn different points
of view, rational or not. Editor does need to stop trying to
convince people whose hatred is so visceral they will not be
convinced. It was the same thing with the Clinton haters and the
Bush II haters. We owe it to readers to say something, but there is
no need to take up every point every time it is repeated.
·
UN Ambassador as SecState When we heard this lady was a serious
candidate for Secretary State, we were, like, “Say what, again?”
Truthfully, if you are going to make her SecState, even the Editor
is better qualified. Even his Teddy Bears are better qualified.
(Likely the Bears are more qualified than he is.) On hearing the
news, Editor had no choice but to roll his eyes and say: “There he
goes again”, meaning the Prez. The Prez, according to Editor, lacks
maturity and gravitas, and here he was demonstrating it – again.
·
Well,
Prez is free to choose his own team, but we have to disagree when
Prez/supporters said attacks on the UN ambassador were sexist and
racist. Pathetically cheap shots. Still, this person is such a
non-entity we couldn’t understand why Washington was getting het up.
To say she shouldn’t become SecState because she said the Benghazi
attack was on account of the anti-Islam video seemed unreasonable to
us. That is what she was briefed, and the briefing had to come both
from State and the CIA. So why beat her up?
Friday 0230 GMT
November 16, 2012
Next update will be Monday November 19,
2012 unless there occur important developments in the Middle East
·
We’ve had
to postpone our planned comments on the US and its Klasse Klowne
Parade as there is serious news to be covered tonight.
·
Meanwhile, please to note General Petraeus will be testifying before
a Congress committee, which starts work today
0730 US winter time (1300
GMT). So we can stop with the conspiracy theory he was pressured
into resigning as part of a Benghazi coverup. This widely touted
theory made no sense at all because Congress can subpoena who it
wants when it wants. And a General Petreaus mad at being thrown
under the bus (part of this conspiracy theory) would be very eager
to tell Congress his side of the story. It is time we all took our
medication and calmed down both about Benghazi and the General’s
personal misfortunes. Editor has zero idea what is actually going in
the investigations including the Broadwell investigation. Editor
wagers that the bloggers also do not know. To then run around
posting bits of gossip and pausing every second to go “OMG!
Treason!” is immature and unintelligent.
·
Republicans will say that Democrats were doing just that with Mr.
Bush the Second. True. And we defended him when we thought we
should. Just as we are defending the present administration. Why do
so many bloggers want to wage a propaganda war? Sure, it feels good,
especially since Mr. Romney lost. But the purpose of a blog – we
feel – is to convince others to come to your side, not to preach to
the choir. Unless we are all to pick up guns and decide issues that
way, the issues have to be decided by debate. Those who are civil,
reasoned, and fair have a better chance of winning the debate. We
repeat that Editor is NOT pro-Obama: he said many times the US is
doomed no matter who gets elected because our leadership regardless
of its political bent is owned by the oligarchs and is, besides, a
complete and incompetent
failure. You want to attack Mr. Obama, please do so. It’s your
right. But if you want to convince others, be fair about it.
·
Israel/Gaza As of midnight
Israel time, the Jerusalem Post reports that Israel has recalled
30,000 reservists and begun concentrating infantry brigades and tank
units on the Gaza border.
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=292102
·
Late
Thursday night the Israeli defense Force announced it had launched
70 air attacks on Gaza in an hour, bringing the total
number since Operation Pillar
of Defense began to 320. Readers will recall that Israeli killed
Hamas’ military chief on Wednesday in retaliation for a resurgence
of rocket fire against Israel. At that point Hamas and allies began
firing rockets all out, and have launched 270 as of 2330 GMT
Thursday November 16.
·
The blitz
attacks appears – as far as we can make out – to be directed mostly
against the longer-range rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv, like
the Fajr 5 given by Iran. Yesterday Hamas & Co said they had
launched two rockets against Tel Aviv; the Israelis said they had
seen no sign of attacks against Tel Aviv. Nonetheless, Hamas does
have the longer-range rockets, stored mainly for underground launch,
and presumably the Israelis have decided to reduce the risk to their
capital. Hamas has shifted much of its rocket capability underground
because by the time rocket crews get set up to launch from the
surface, Israeli UAVs have detected the setup and the sites have
been attacked while they are launching or very shortly thereafter.
·
Situation Assessment
Orbat.com’s obligation is to be honest with its readers and not to
pretend we know more than we know. Nor do we believe in the
standardized media headlines which seem to be dragged out from
wherever they are kept and used at every opportunity. What follows
is our best assessment.
·
We cannot
say why Hamas was provoking Israel before Wednesday by resuming
rocket fire. People are saying that in view of the Sunni victories
in the Arab world Hamas is feeling strong and is ready to tough it
out. We reject this explanation as making no sense. It is being said
that Hamas is counting on Egypt to pressure Israel not to retaliate.
This may be so, but if so, it is a major error. Israel is not going
to give immunity to Gaza because of Egypt. The Israeli Army will use
no more than 30,000 soldiers in any Gaza invasion; it can quite
easily handle Egypt simultaneously. It remains unclear to us that
Egypt is willing to risk war and the inevitable defeat just to help
Hamas in some totally unclear objective. This is quite aside from
what happens to Egypt’s relationship with the US if Egypt attacks.
·
So if
Hamas wants to appear to be tough, the question “why” is unanswered.
The answer most probably lies in the internal politics of Palestine.
But right now things have become personal: by killing Hamas’
military chief and threatening to declare open season on Hamas’s
civil leadership, any back down by Hamas will reduce its credibility
in Palestine. Of course, an Israeli invasion will destroy not just
Hamas’s credibility, it will destroy Hamas. In our opinion, it is
perhaps unnecessary to think too deeply on why Hamas has started
this, because the Arabs are impulsive in the extreme.
·
There is
a possibility that Hamas is acting on Iran’s behalf. Teheran is
under immense pressure because Israel has declared openly and
covertly it is prepared to go for a unilateral strike, and clearly
such a strike may happen right after the Israeli elections early
next year. We could sit here and argue that elections Israel will
calm down, but we’re not talking Israeli motives, we’re talking
Iranian perceptions.
·
We don’t
like this explanation because it makes Hamas an Iranian puppet,
which is absolutely not the case. The worst outcome for Hamas is an
Israeli re-occupation of Gaza; why should Hamas sacrifice itself to
oblige Iran? From where we sit, we see no good outcome for Hamas
regardless of it continues fighting or it stops now.
·
It is
possible that Hamas has decided that in view of Israeli failures in
Lebanon 2006 and Gaza 2008, that Hamas can defeat or at least
stalemate Israel in the event of a new ground invasion. Two things.
First, this still leaves unanswered what has led Hamas to stage a
showdown. It’s doing rather nicely as it is, and given that Abbas of
the West Bank is very weak right now, shouldn’t Hamas be focusing on
overthrowing him?
·
Second,
if Hamas is going by the 2006 and 2008 outcomes, it is making the
mistake of fighting the last war. It is true that years of peace and
plain hubris led to a very severe deteriorating in Israeli Army’s
fighting capabilities. We are not in a position to say to what
extent the deficiencies of 2006/2008 have been remedied. What we do
know is that Israeli Army itself was seriously shocked at its bad
performance and has been working to correct the situation. And we
can say with surety that Israel will not repeat the strategic and
tactical mistakes of the earlier wars. Still further, Israel’s
airpower capability has significantly increased
·
Now,
Israel has clearly said it will not stop attacking Gaza unless the
rocket fire ceases. We’d like to add that unless the whole show is
stopped immediately, Israel’s position will harden and even if the
rocket fire stops at some point, the Israelis will want blood.
Israel is headed for elections early next year, and the
conservatives are on the rise after having to rule within a tricky
coalition. Israeli internal politics require a stern response or
else come Election Day the Government will be in trouble.
·
It is
understandable that Hamas wants to hit Tel Aviv. If, however, it
succeeds in inflicting casualties in this critical city, Israel will
have to react in full force. Though Israelis do not want to reoccupy
Gaza, this may become a necessity if Tel Aviv is attacked.
Thursday 0230 GMT
November 15, 2012
·
Editor
considers himself doubly blessed in the matter of his countries.
Both his home country (India) and adopted country (America) have an
endless profusion of Klasse Klownes. Both countries have a high
percentage of citizens who are simultaneously citizens of La La
Land. Both countries are a source of endless amusement. Thank you,
Lord (twice over) for your beneficence in this matter. If either
India or America were “normal” countries, life would be so dull. As
it doubtless is for people not privileged to live in those two
countries. Editor has often
wondered why the British press, to take an example, is so fixated on
strange doings in America. He used to get irritated at what he
perceived was an open anti-Americanism.
·
But then
one day the truth hit him: the Brits, poor things, have no choice
but to focus on America because Brit people are excruciatingly dull
(“normal”). But for America, the Brits would have a suicide rate ten
times as high as they do now, because they would have no lives. Brit
Metros would not run because trains would be constantly held up
while workers scraped the latest suicide off the rails. Brit ports
would be shut down to recover those who, unable to take it anymore,
have drowned themselves. No airplanes could fly for the Brit
passengers screaming “No! No! No!” before opening the emergency exit
and hurling themselves out. And so on.
·
Thanks to
America, little of this happens. Because of America, when a person
calls the National Suicide Hotline to announce “Goodbye, cruel
world”, the counselor on the end says “Not so fast mister. Before
you go let me read to you the latest on an American general and his
tootsie…” By the time the counselor tells the latest news, the
would-be suicide is restored to his regular radiant self, and tells
the counselor “Thank you. Thank you so much for giving me a reason
to live. I now anxiously wait the next episode.” The counselor
responds “Don’t thank me! Thank America!” Then they sing “God Bless
America” and shed a quiet tear for the love God shows us by having
created America – God’s own country and all that.
·
So let’s take India first In
2008, the Government auctioned 122 licenses for 2G wireless
spectrum. A government agency declared that the government was
cheated out of $32-billion because the auction was rigged by telecom
operators working with corrupt ministers and bureaucrats. Several
people were thrown in jail among national outrage. All 122 licenses
were cancelled in 2012, and a re-auction ordered.
·
The
re-auction was held this week, and guess what? The bidding topped at
$1.8-billion, almost 18 times less than what the government watchdog
said the spectrum was worth. You will naturally want to know what
was paid in the 2008 auction. Please hold your breath: $2-billion
was paid, or MORE than the 2012 auction
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/what-is-2g-spectrum-scam-66418
(All figures at current rate
of Rs 53 = US$1.) But please to notice that the 2008 price vs 2012
price has to be adjusted for inflation for the last four years. Very
roughly, the Indian rupee has lost about a third of its value over
the last four years (this is not an exact calculation). So the
$1.8-billion paid is worth $1.35-billion today (again, rough
calculation); so the government has theoretically LOST money after
it repays the 2008 fees. Of course, it will not be this much because
government will pay only a nominal interest; perhaps it will not pay
any interest. Against that, however, are intangibles like global
loss of confidence in India as a stable place to invest. If your
license can get cancelled on a zero-fact assessment of fraud, then
you will think many times before investing in India.
·
Now,
government critics will likely point out that two of the original
2008 companies sold major shares of themselves to foreign companies
for prices higher than they paid for their licenses. Neither company
seems to have had previous telecom experience, so their sole assets
were the licenses. At this point our reaction is a big fat AND??? So
what? Foreigners were not allowed to bid. If they wanted to get into
India, they had to partner with an Indian company. Since it is the
spectrum the foreign companies wanted, it would make no sense for
them to pay anything for the two Indian companies unless the Indian
companies had the licenses in hand. If anyone was so concerned about
this, why not have let the foreign companies bid directly? When you
artificially restrict bidding for licenses, there will be those
willing to partner with the license winner if it makes them money.
This doesn’t mean the Indian company should have bid higher: the
Indian companies bid against other Indian companies and won. Any
future profit is theirs. Not letting foreigners bid was the
government’s stupidity and these two Indian companies too advantage
of that.
·
One of
the two companies, an old, established Indian firm, won only two
licenses, indicating it wanted to put a toe into the water in this
new (for them) business. What is wrong with that? Or is the critics’
case only those already in a business should be allowed to bid? That
is called oligopoly, which is generally considered A Bad Thing.
·
The other
company took 9 licenses. Allegations have been made these were
improperly awarded as the company did not meet auction requirements.
Fair enough. Investigate and prosecute the company if cause is
found. Why cancel the entire auction and end up earning LESS money
than you did the first time?
·
Now it is
time to play “Bring in the Klownes…” India Rising: always fabulous,
always exotic, and always good for a hearty laugh. Please don’t
shoot us: we’ll do it ourselves and save you the cost of a bullet!
Wednesday 0230 GMT
November 14, 2012
·
The FBI and the investigation of the CIA former director
Our letter writer is at pains to note
that while he is familiar with FBI procedures, any information about
this particular case comes solely from the media. We hope the letter
will help resolve many questions our readers may have about the FBI
handling of the matter.
·
The
chairman and ranking member of the house and senate intelligence
committees must be informed of ongoing intel activities and
operations. This is a
legal requirement that was enshrined in law back in the 1970s after
the Church committee hearings.
So, the FBI was perhaps naughty not to tell Feinstein in the
Senate and Rogers in the House.
·
In
response, FBI will say that this started as a criminal investigation
into cyber threats, and the FBI rightly never talks about ongoing
criminal investigations to Congress or other government agencies. However, one of the things
they saw in the emails from Broadwell was info about Petreaus'
schedule and movements when he was CENTCOM chief. This set off alarm bells
regarding potential breach of security for obvious reasons. Later FBI learned of the
sexual affair and put the pieces together realizing that there was
no security breach, and that they were dealing with a psycho
ex-girlfriend.
·
So, in fairness to the FBI,
this thing was a criminal investigation that kind of veered into the
realm of intel issues.
As a political matter, someone high up in the Justice Department
should have informed the President, as well as congress earlier. Remember that FBI would have
been working with a federal prosecutor in Tampa as they sought court
orders to get into Broadwell's email.
Something like this surely would have quickly gone from the
US attorney in Tampa to DOJ HQ in Washington.
·
So, as a
political matter, this was a cock-up, as the Brits would say, by the
high level appointees in the DOJ.
FBI handled things exactly the way they should have. However, they will now take
all the blame, as the powers-that-be in Washington scramble to
protect Eric Holder from the Congress.
·
According to another source
the Editor spoke with, since the end of J. Edgar Hoover’s days, the
FBI has been most loathe to be seen as an instrument of the ruling
politicians. FBI would have completed its investigation with due
diligence, and given its report when the investigation was finished.
It was not for the FBI to rush to the President or press until it
was satisfied it had been thorough, particularly as no intelligence
breach was found. The investigation was not wrapped up until just
before the election. Mr. Leon Panetta was informed on November 6th.
·
We drew
our source’s attention The Washington Post of November 13, 2012.
WashPo rhetorically asked that since there was no national security
issue, and since the FBI concluded the threats made by Ms. Broadwell
to Ms. Kelley did not rise to the level of criminality, why is this
matter being discussed in the first place?
· Our source said the FBI never went public with anything. An agent knowledgeable about the investigation informed Mr. Eric Cantor of the investigation and said he was a whistleblower because he feared the matter would be covered up. It is likely, but not proved at this point, that the “whistleblower” was acting from political motives. But you cannot go public because you fear something may be covered up. A crime has to be committed before you can blow whistles. This agent has committed a gross breach of discipline; it now appears he is infatuated with Ms. Kelley; and his future is in the hands of the FBI's internal affairs unit. The FBI has committed no sin here: its agent lost it, the Bureau acted promptly.
·
Our
source asks us to note that Mr. Cantor wisely chose not to make
capital of his information and thus open himself up to charges of
partisanship. Mr. Cantor
merely informed the authorities and said nothing. This shows that at
least he has shown high ethical standards.
·
We asked
our source that since the FBI had concluded there was no criminal
action, why did it inform Mr. Leon Panetta about the investigation.
Our source cryptically said it is not the FBI’s place to inform Mr.
Panetta and that our source doubts this is what happened. Our source
noted the information from two aides of the former CIA’s Director
that he had no thought of resigning; presumably because he believed
he had done nothing wrong. Our source says he believes the news
correct that only when the Director National Intelligence told the
CIA Director he should resign did the Director put in his papers. Our source suspects that the
former CIA Director’s wife may have had something to do with
resignation decision as she is reported to be “furious”, but added
this is just his speculation. He does not know.
·
Meantime, Reader Luxembourg, our resident cynic
wants to know how the general accused of
improper relationships with Ms. Kelley found time to generate 30,000
pages of emails to the – er – object of his affections. He would
have had to write nonstop for 40-hours a week for the whole year, at
the high speed of 50 words a minute, to fill anywhere near that
number of pages cited. Reader Luxembourg says no wonder we are
losing in Afghanistan.
·
Well, the
reality is more prosaic. First, the total pages seized include only
some that are emails between the two – er – the two admirers.
Further, a single line email prints out as a page when sent to hard
copy. A 30-minute luvvy-duvvy session can easily generate 50 pages
to and from, allowing for times for sighs, languidly sniffing roses,
refilling the wine glasses and so on.
·
Also meantime, Editor has
long been sick and tired of this business that women promote, that
men rapaciously seeks affairs and the women are the victims. First,
this is not biologically correct. The female of the species chooses,
not the male, and the poor, pathetic mindless male simply responds.
Second, look at the fotos and bios of Ms. Broadwell and Ms. Kelley.
Just who exactly is victimizing whom here?
Tuesday 0230 GMT November 13, 2012
·
Former CIA Director We had
one response from a reader. He asked why liberals thought it was a
matter of little concern for President Clinton to have an affair and
then pile on to the former CIA Director. We may be wrong, but as far
as we know no one is condemning the former official for having an
affair. What people of every political stripe seem unable to process
is why a man of his stature should embark on an affair at all.
·
Speaking
purely for himself, Editor does not see what is the big deal about
anyone having an affair. He does not see it is any business of the
American public. Let those without sin cast the first stone and all
that. Editor, as a true sinner – along with the other 5-billion
adults on the planets – is not in a position to cast stones. If
anyone IS condemning the former official, they need to stop right
quick, before the Old Boy Upstairs enters a “Hypocrite” against
their name. Hypocrisy is also a sin, and it seems quite pointless to
condemn someone else’s sin and then get written up for sinning.
·
Back to
Mr. Clinton and the CIA former director. Is there actually a law
that says the President cannot have affairs? We’re asking for
informational reasons because there definitely is a law that says
married military personnel cannot have affairs. We will go one step
further and assume the CIA also has such a rule, at least for its
senior officers. Though
there is no security angle in this case, we are reasonably guessing
the former official’s boss (the DNI) had to ask him to resign. It
also seems to us since the lady in question is an officer herself
(we were told Major but apparently she is a Lieutenant Colonel),
even if she is a reservist she
is likely to be subject to military discipline. The CIA officer,
having retired at 60, would not be a reservist. So the CIA and so on have to
sort out their rules. As we
said, let the rest of us MOOB (Mind Our Own Business).
·
Another “A Billion a’int what it used to be” example
So at the peak of World War II, in 1944,
US was spending about $70-billion; in today’s money $920-billion or
so. No need to repeat the obvious: 100 army divisions, 6800
warships, 80,000 USAAF aircraft, 12-million men under arms and so
on. In 1968, US was spending about $80-billion, or about
$450-billion in today’s money, and that too was a big spending
blowout. Ten divisions fighting in Indochina, whacking great
N-weapons buildup, 3.6-million men under arms, something like 2500
air force and naval aircraft and
12,000 helicopters in the war zone alone, 930 warships, etc etc.
·
Now comes
news of two $6-billion arms deals, one for Saudi, and one for Qatar.
The Saudi deal is for 25 (that’s right, twenty-five) C-130Js, and
the Qatar deal is even more pathetic, for two THAAD
anti-aircraft/anti-missile batteries (12 launchers and 150
missiles). Yes, yes,
training and documentation and parts and so on for a few years is
included, but still.
·
The other
day Editor was idly wonder what three new UK 60,000-ton class
carriers would cost if India had the money. Well, $12-billion for
the ships plus $12-billion for parts and mods for 20 years; about
the same for 12 Daring class escorts, and about the same for the
airgroups (F-35B plus helicopters and so on) including attrition. In
other words, three carriers would cost $36-billion over 20-years.
That’s not much lower than India’s total defense budget for about
1.5-million men under arms (all services).
·
Why is not India knocking a zero off its currency?
When Editor first came to the US, the US
dollar equaled Rupees 4.78. The rate is now around Rs 53=US$1. The smallest Indian coin now
issued by India’s central bank (the Reserve Bank of India) is 10
paisa, or one-tenth of a rupee. Therefore India can knock off one
zero, making the exchange rate Rs. 5.3 to US$1.
Monday 0230 GMT
November 12, 2012
·
Former CIA Director We no
particular fans of the gentleman. If he is the greatest American
general of his generation, all we can say is this generation’s
standard are abysmally low. He did a good job in Iraq; he did a bad
job in Afghanistan – along with all the other Afghanistan generals,
of course. This said, orbat.com’s position on the gentleman’s
personal life is this: it is his personal life.
·
Regarding
the matter of his testifying in front of the scheduled closed
Benghazi briefings. There are briefings and then there are hearings
initiated by Congress. It is the government’s prerogative to bring
who it wants to a briefing. But it is Congress’ prerogative to
subpoena who it wants for a hearing. So the general may not be at
the briefings. But if Congress is unsatisfied, it can summon him. To
talk about cover-ups and link the revelation of his affair to the
Congressional proceedings is naïve.
·
We
bloggers and media types have to stop seeing a conspiracy behind
every corner. We need to follow Occam’s Razor, which broadly states
that the simplest hypothesis with the greatest power to explain the
factcs is preferable. If we refuse to be logical, and
attribute everything to some giant conspiracy being manipulated by
the government, we not only are unable to face reality, but we are
also clinically paranoid. In any investigation of any sort, it is
not for the accused to prove every charge made by accusers wrong.
The accusers have to prove their
charges.
·
The
Benghazi affair is the first time Editor has followed events as seen
through the lens of bloggers, thanks to reader Luxembourg who sent
us stories several times a day. Editor was utterly amazed at the low
level of “facts” presented, the lack of standing of the “sources”,
and the abysmal lack of knowledge of military procedure on the part
of the bloggers. The solution for clinical paranoia lies in the
hands of trained doctors, not in the government opening its
classified files to the public.
·
As with
Benghazi, the anti-government (meaning anti this particular
government) blogosphere says “this does not seem right” or “that
does not seem right”. But who are the bloggers to say what seems
right or wrong? What are their
credentials? Do they understand that just because ABC is a retired
official and is alleged to have said “this does not make sense”
means absolutely nothing and is no proof at all? And of course, the
vast majority of the blogosphere has not talked to retired official
ABC. Some blog somewhere may know someone who talked to ABC. After
that it is all multiple repetition and Chinese Whispers.
·
So, for
example, some bloggers are saying the FBI would have notified X, Y,
or Z that an investigation was underway. From there they jump to the
assumption that someone WAS told. Then comes the next assumption:
since someone WAS told, the government is withholding information.
Why? Obviously so that the President’s reelection bid is not harmed.
It all makes perfect sense. But trained professionals who work with
paranoids will tell you that if you accept the paranoid’s starting
assumption, the rest of the belief system can be remarkably
consistent and even logical.
·
Let’s go
backward on this. If anyone believes the President’s chances of
being reelected were contingent on the public knowing that the
former CIA Director had had an affair, can they prove this belief? A
simple way of looking at it is that supposing the GOP was in power.
Just before the election it emerges the CIA Director has been having
an affair. Is there one person, just one person, who was going to
vote for the GOP person now say to herself: “Oh dear: the CIA
Director was having an affair. I blame the GO president. I am
shocked to the point I will now vote for the Democratic nominee”.
Does this make sense? It does not to us, and if there is someone out
there willing to make the case, please do. Your case will be printed
as a letter.
·
A
prominent Congressperson – not belonging to the President’s party –
says Congressional intelligence committees should have been notified
an investigation was underway. Really? We don’t know what the law
is, but what if the investigations uncovered evidence saying a
member of the committee was up to no good? You can never tell where
investigations go. After all, this one began only because the former
Director’s paramour was threatening harm to another lady friend of
the Director’s. It is the second lady who went to the FBI, and their
initial investigations led them to believe someone had hacked the
former Director’s email account. It is only when the FBI confronted
the former Director and his friend and they confessed, was the
matter settled. That still does not mean the FBI is under any
obligation to rush anywhere making pronouncements. They have to wrap
up everything as neatly as possible before informing anyone. After
all, you are dealing with a national hero here. You do not want to
be the one to ruin his career without possessing as many facts as
possible, or get yourself into trouble for not having done the best
possible investigation.
·
When the
Director National Intelligence was informed, he immediately called
in the CIA Director and asked he resign. But, says the
Congressperson, this was a matter of national security and he, the
Congressman, should have been involved. But was it a matter of
national security? The paramour was not a Syrian or Iranian or North
Korean reporting back to her government. She was a US Army Reserve
major and a fellow West Pointer with her own security clearance.
This was an in-house affair not having anything to do with national
security.
·
Do we
know all this for a fact? Of course not. But on the facts as
announced so far, we are taking the least complicated hypothesis.
Tomorrow new facts will emerge that may change matters. Instead of
heroically going down with our good ship USS Hypothesis, we will
reframe the hypothesis in the light of new facts. And keep repeating
the process as many times as necessary.
·
Editor
has made this point before, for our Very Young readers. The essence
of military intelligence analysis is that you are required to give
your superior officer snap analyses with a bare minimum – or even
less than bare minimum – of facts in your hand. You therefore do not
engrave your hypothesis in stone. You engrave it in sand. The minute
a new fact arises, you have to redo the hypothesis. If you stay
attached to your original position, or if you came to your original
position based on ideology and not facts, you are not doing your
job. The same thing applies to bloggers.
Friday 0230 GMT
November 9, 2012
Next update Monday November 12, 2012
·
Pentagon says Iran fires on US drone
in international airspace and US will do
what is required to protect its forces.
Two aircraft attacked the UAV
and missed. US has conveyed through diplomatic channels to Teheran
that it will continue to fly reconnaissance over the “Arabian Gulf”
– nice stab at Iran there. The incident happened November 1, 2012.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9665701/Iranian-fighter-jets-fired-on-US-drone-in-Gulf.html
·
South Korea working age population to start falling
from 73% starting next years (15-64
years). By 2050 the working age populated is expected to be 53%.
According to the report in Chosun Ilbohttp://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/11/08/2012110801139.html
, the Bank of Korea says every 1% drop in working age population
causes a 5.2% drop in the growth rate. We are assuming this means
that – for example – GDP growth is 10% annually, a 1% reduction in
available workers will slow growth to 9.5%. if this is not what the
Bank of Korea means, we are unable to explain the figure.
·
Sudan threatens “painful” response to Israeli attack
on Khartoum arms depot shipping weapons
to Israel’s enemies.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=291079 Gee,
Sudan, we hope the response doesn’t hurt you too much: we don’t want
to see you in pain.
·
Putin dismisses his defense minister
Since Mr. Putin is known for sticking to
loyal followers through thick and thin, and the defense minister is
one such, there has been some confusion and considerable speculation
on what is really going on. On the surface, the gentleman is being
fired because he was told not to protect subordinates over a
corruption inquiry into sale of Defense Ministry owned lad as below
market prices. The Minister refused to back away. But the notion
that a corruption inquiry is the cause of the minister’s downfall
has everyone familiar with Russia ROFL (rolling on floor laughing).
Particularly because Putin and Co have made much of their money by
selling state assets way below cost.
·
The
closest anyone can come to a plausible reason is that the Russians
generals have revolted. The minister has been reorganizing the armed
forces, emphasizing quality over numbers, and firing generals left
and right as he reduces manpower. We’d add that possibly,
additionally, the reorganization has upset the internal empires of
important generals. Perhaps generals’ ties to military factories
have been threatened.
http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c142/565216.html
Thursday 0230
November 8, 2012
In
the unlikely event any of our readers expects a comment on the
election, here it is: Boooooorrrrriiiinggg
More seriously, one of Editor’s boys, who
is a Republican, BTW, and has a fair knowledge of Washington as well
as US election history told him in early 2008 that Mr. Obama would
win the election. He has been steadfastly saying since early 2011
that no matter whom the challenger, Mr. Obama would win again.
·
So are the Good Times ever going to Roll again?
There is a school of thought that says “No,
they aren’t.” This school says that US’s economic woes are not
temporary, and cannot be solved by politicians because the problems
are structural. For
increasing amounts of GDP, you need an increasing population and
increasing productivity. The US population growth is slowing –
without immigration we may even head for negative growth. And there
is no sign of what the next productivity thing is going to be.
·
You have
to see that GDP growth of even just 1% is pretty wild in historical
terms. Rounding off, 1% means GDP doubles every 75 years. In just
over 2000 years, GDP would increase by 134,217,728 times. So just arbitrarily
assume the world had a 200-million people in 1 AD. The Roman Empire
had over 50-million
http://www.tulane.edu/~august/H303/handouts/Population.htm ;
given that India and China likely each had far more, and there was
Africa and the Americas and so on, a quarter billion is probably
reasonable. Further arbitrarily say the per capita income was $200
in today’s money – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_GDP_Capita_1-2003_A.D.png
, we are estimating the height of the bars by sight. So world GDP
would have been $50-billion back in the day. At 1% annual growth
world GDP should be about $6.7 quintillion (15 zeros). It is, in
fact, about a million times smaller.
·
In case
you’ve forgotten – and with all these figures who would not have a
blank mind – our point is that 1% annual growth is very, very high
if you look at the past 2000 years. So obviously the sudden spurt
that began in 1700, accelerated in 1800, and then really took off in
1900 (all approximately) has to be in small part because of
population growth by about 30-times, and a whacking increase in
productivity, which came mainly in the 20th Century.
·
Now,
obviously no one can foretell the future. So we don’t know for a
fact there will be no more breakthroughs on the order of the steam
engine, the telephone, and the computer and so on. Indeed, it seems
to us very unlikely there will NOT be spectacular breakthroughs.
Humans use only 1/10,000 of the energy the sun puts out. So we are a
long ways from using all the energy of a sun, let alone all the
energy of a galaxy, or that of a universe. In our known universe there
are 300-sextillion starts (300 followed by 21 zeroes). Our universe
is infinite and the number of universes is infinite. So in theory we
should at some point have an infinite GDP, which each of being
infinitely wealthy.
·
All we’re
saying is that at this time we know the factors that are causing
growth to slow down in a mature economy like the US, the same thing
will hit everyone else in the next few decades. 1% annual GDP growth
may become the norm for the rest of this century, and, until the
next big productivity breakthrough occurs, in the 2100s even 1% is
going to look like explosive growth.
Wednesday 0230 GMT
November 7, 2012
·
India: The Republic of Government Idiots we start with a deep apology to actual idiots
(IQ zero to 25). Compared to the Government of India, particularly
the Ministry of Defense, idiots are actually Mensa level. To
properly define the IQ of significant parts of the Government of
India, we have to construct a new scale, going into the negative
numbers. So deeply into the negative numbers that we would emerge in
Australia for tea with the kangaroos.
·
The
latest atrocity about to be committed with the MOD is cancellation,
for the second times in 5-years, of bidding for the Light Utility
Helicopter program. It is said that 197 LUHs are on bid for Army
Aviation, at a cost of $1-billion. About 130 are for the Army. The
money seems way to low, because now-a-days you do not get military
grade light helicopters for $5-million each. Be that as it may, at
this point the LUH requirement is seven years behind schedule. If
the bidding is cancelled and a rebid ordered, at the very minimum
two years will be lost. After a big is accepted in Indian defense,
the real negotiations start before a contract is signed. This can
take 1-2 years. Then the helicopters have to be manufactured. More
years.
·
Meanwhile, Army Aviation continues operating the obsolete
Aerospatiale Alouette 3 (entered service 1960) and the Alouette 2
Lama, modified for India’s very high altitude requirement (entered
service mid-1950s). India built 500 Lamas and Alouettes (Cheetah and
Chetak are the local names. A
Lama can lift 20-kgs to the Siachin Glacier, about 8000-meters. We
do not have to explain that is a very serious limitation. And aside
from the Siachin, there are dozens of places where the Indian Army
is deployed at altitudes of 5000-meters and up.
·
It is not
as if Army Aviation is getting no new equipment. An order for about
130+ Dhurv utility helicopters should be complete next year, and
orders for 40+ attack versions (which can zip along happily at
6000-meters and up) will start delivery in 2013. A Dhruv, BTW and as
far as we know, can deliver 200-kg to the Siachin outposts. Also
because of the LUH program delays, as an expedient 12 Cheetals
(Alouette 3s upgraded with a new engine and capable of very high
altitude operations) are likely to be ordered. The problem is that
all this may meet less than 40% of Army Aviation’s requirements. The
Army, at least, has to have the LUH.
·
We should
make clear that our “inside” sources cannot be quited, and at least
as of this update, the blogs we rely on – Ajai Shukla Broadsword,
Shiv Aroor Live fist, and some others – have not taken up the matter
of this latest holdup. It seems as if the US Defensenews.com has
been first to break the story.
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20121106/DEFREG03/311060001/India-8217-s-1B-Deal-Light-Helos-Faces-Cancellation?odyssey=nav%7Chead In addition to our lack of
more precise information, the story from this source is quite
confused and the details are making no sense. With this proviso, we
Bash On Regardless with this analysis, and promise to update it as
more information emerges.
·
What the
source is saying – we are jettisoning the contradictory parts of the
story – is that this second rebid was to be decided anytime very
soon, but may be in jeopardy because some Army one-star officer
asked someone for a bribe. We’ll have to wait till one of our
experts emails us to explain why the first bid was cancelled in 2007
or 2008. This was followed
by a 3 ½ year reevaluation, with the contenders winnowed to the
Ka-226 and the Eurocopter 550. The Indian Defense Minister has said
if any signs of misdoing happen, the contract will be cancelled
again. This man is so incompetent that we would be justified in
suspecting he is in the pay of both China and Pakistan to cripple
India’s armed forces. Except, of course, why should India's enemies
bother to bribe the man when he is destroying the armed forces for
free. We are told the gent is on a one-man crusade to clean up
corruption in the MOD, though we’d like him to lay bare his 40 years
career and tell us that he has been an Honest Injun all along, and
has committed no corruption, nor taken a bribe. Which would make him
a saint in India – and were he an American politicians, in
America too.
·
Now look
at the foolishness of this man. If someone has asked for a bribe,
investigate and punish that man. If a bribe has been given,
investigate and punish those that gave it. The larger question is,
how can an Army one-star be bribed to influence the outcome of
bidding? He cannot, because in the hierarchy of decision-making his
importance is lower than that of the file clerk. Moreover, the point
is the Army needs modernization. This idiot defense minister is also
holding up dozens of other programs.
Tuesday 0230 GMT
November 6, 2012
·
The election
Editor is feeling tres grumpy about this
fraudulent show called the 2012 US Presidential election. In 2008,
Senator John McCain opted for federal financing, spending
$74-million. In 2012 Tweedledee and Tweedledum have spent
$1-billion, with $300-million coming from black funds. No one except
those who spend it knows from where it comes.
·
One
gazillionaire, some vague fellow by name of Adelman, has alone
contributed $53-million known, so that 1 of 20 dollars spent is from
just this one person. If anyone thinks their vote is worth the same
as vague fellow’s vote, they are delusional. This is an election by
the rich, of the rich, and for the rich. This is not democracy, it
is an oligarchy. Can’t say we’re constitutional experts here, but
last we heard the US constitution says nothing about oligarchical
rule.
·
The
effect of money is simple. It distorts, indeed renders irrelevant,
the will of the people. This vague person, for example, is
contributing $53-million not because he likes his candidate’s smile,
but because he expects if his candidate wins, the candidate will do
favors for the vague person. So again, your one vote is not equal to
this gazillionaire’s vote.
·
If
Americans feel this system is fine, then certainly Editor is no one
to disagree. After all, he is a guest here. But he has lived here
long enough, and knows enough, to be able to tell what’s happening
is not democracy, but a sham. What’s happening is anti-American and
is subverting the foundations of the Republic – what’s left of the
Republic, anyway. Those who subvert the Republic are traitors.
Traitors need to be shot.
·
Honestly,
we wouldn’t have to shoot too many. Just take the top 10 donors. It
wouldn’t even cost money because lots of people with guns would
volunteer in a snap and would be happy to use their own ammo. If the
rule became the top ten donors to any election campaign are shot,
you can bet next year no one will give a penny to any election.
Problem will be solved. No need to thank Editor. Solving problems:
that’s what he is here for.
Monday 0230 GMT
November 5, 2012
·
Syria Things are getting more
complicated in Syria, and not in a good way. Militarily, the rebels
are getting money and arms from supporters, who include governments
operating under credible deniability and rich individuals. Everyone,
of course, backs their own faction.
·
Because
of this influx of supplies, and also because the rebels are becoming
more experienced, the fighting has gotten fiercer with heavier
casualties on both sides. The rebels have made no substantial
headway in Damascus and Aleppo, so they have started to sight out as
the Government’s supply lines. Much of the fighting is taking place
out of site because it’s happening at communications nodes. The
Government has thrown restraints on air strikes to the winds. Last
week on one day alone there were sixty air strikes. The Government
from the start has shown no restraint on the use of armor and
artillery; combined with the air strikes the cities and towns being
fought over increasingly look like something out of World War II,
the damage is so extreme.
·
The
United States has pulled way back. Not that it was particularly
involved to begin with, but if this continues US will be irrelevant
to the outcome of the war and Syria’s future. Is this a bad thing?
We’ve argued it need not be: US is so overextended it does not need
another commitment. US has even withdrawn support of the main rebel
alliance – which was mainly words – because, Washington says, the
alliance has become unrepresentative of the Syrian opposition. US
wants everyone to get together to exclude extremists. But of course,
in this early stage of the troubles, a unified opposition is
impossible. It is only after the main opposition groups have fought
it with each other (as is happening in Libya) that a unified
opposition can emerge (as is the case in Iraq, where the Shias,
previously in opposition, now rule).
·
Because
US has put so many conditions on the opposition before it even
considers help, the opposition is taking help from where it can and
ignoring Washington. Among the help opposition is getting is from
extremist groups, including our old buddy old pal AQ. So even as US
knocked off AQ in Pakistan and crippled it in Afghanistan, like the
Hydra, AQ has spread to one more country, having p[previously
established itself in the Sahel, Yemen, and Somalia. This is what
happens when gnats and elephants fight. The elephants are tormented;
the gnats are sufficiently nimble to change countries and alliances.
This is very sad from a professional view point, but as we’ve said
many times, the words “US” and “counterinsurgency” have become
oxymorons when used in the same sentence.
·
You
cannot blame the opposition for taking help where they can find it.
US is not helping, the opposition has been dying for months, so
anyone who comes willing to foght the Assad regime is welcomed.
·
Last
month we thought that Turkey was building up to an intervention, and
to heck with the US. This month it looks like Turkey has become
rattled about the prospect of intervening all alone. NATO has made
it absolutely clear Syrian action deliberately provoked by Turkey
does not fall under the defense charter. And NATO has also made it
clear that with each passing day, its wimp factor increases; i.e.,
the odds NATO will intervene grow less. As such, recent reports of
rebel atrocities must have been greeted at NATO HQ with cheers and
sighs of relief, because obviously NATO cannot help an opposition
that is committing some of the same crimes as the government is
committing, and to stop which will be one purpose of intervention.
·
The
spread of war crimes among the opposition is inevitable. The longer
these civil wars go on, the more ruthless all sides become. The
Syrian opposition is not evil; it is not killing prisoners out of
some desire to get cheap thrills. It is giving back to the
Government what the Government has given to the opposition, which is
merciless killing of civilians, women, children, and captured
fighters. This extrajudicial killing will only get worse each
passing day.
·
Washington Post yesterday said what we and a hundred other people
have been saying, which is the increasingly unstable environment in
Syria is spilling over to the Kurds. Syria has its own Kurds, who
according to WashPo have established independent rule in the North
west corner of Syria, on the Turkish border. This is only going to
encourage Turkey’s own Kurds, and those in Iraq and Iran, to step up
their efforts for independence. We’ve in fact argued that the US
should support the Kurds as a way of crippling Iraq, which because
of its alliance with Iran is now inimical to US interests, and as a
way of increasing pressure on Iran. But Editor’s ideas aside, the
Kurdish factor appears to be giving serious pause for thought in
Turkey.
·
So
naturally readers will want to know: what is Orbat.com’s evaluation
of the outcome of the Syria civil war? Impossible to say. Compromise
is now impossible because Assad steadily rejected compromise from
day 1. He might under pressure be open to a compromise, but the
opposition will not agree – not least because Assad cannot be
trusted. To much blood under the bridge and all that. The situation
has to get a lot worse before the outlines of possible outcomes
become clearer. Editor knows you will be saying: how can it get
worse? Well, honestly and not to shock readers, the Syrian civil war
is pretty mild. A hundred people a day are dying. That’s nothing.
Both sides can keep this up for a long period. Particularly as Iraq
is making sure Syria is supplied from Iran. Needless to say, pay no
attention to the occasional truck or plane Iraq stops for inspection
on account of US pressure. After what happened with Pakistan, no one
takes US pressure seriously because they know US is impotent and has
turned soft.
●9:40 p.m.: A senior State Department security officer at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi called the CIA base, at an annex about a mile away, and requested assistance: “The compound is under attack. People are moving through the gates.” CIA officers at the base can hear the alarm, and a team immediately begins gathering weapons and preparing to leave.
●10:04 p.m.: A six-person rescue squad from the agency’s Global Response Staff (GRS) leaves in two vehicles. The team leader is a career CIA officer; the team includes a contractor named Tyrone Woods, who later died. During the previous 24-minute interval, the CIA base chief calls the February 17 Brigade, other militias and the Libyan intelligence service seeking vehicles with .50-caliber machine guns. Nobody responds. The team leader and the base chief agree at 10:04 that they can’t wait any longer, and the squad heads for the consulate.
The senior intelligence official said that he doesn’t know whether Woods or any of the other team members agitated to go sooner but added that he wouldn’t be surprised. “I want them to have a sense of urgency,” he said.
●10:10 p.m.: The rescue team reached a chaotic intersection a few blocks from the consulate. Militias gathered there have several .50-caliber machine guns, which the CIA team tries unsuccessfully to commandeer; three militiamen offer to help. The rescue party now includes 10 people: six GRS officers, a CIA translator and the three Libyan volunteers.
●10:20 p.m.: A reconnaissance party of two GRS officers heads to the consulate; at 10:25, three more GRS officers enter the main gate and begin engaging the attackers. The firefight lasts about 15 minutes.
●10:40 p.m.: Members of the CIA team enter the burning inferno of “Villa C,” where Ambassador Christopher Stevens is believed to be hiding. CIA officers try numerous times to reach the “safe room” but are driven back by the intense smoke and fire. Small-arms fire continues from the Libyan attackers.
·
Benghazi Episode CIX (That’s
one-hundred-and-nine). So some credible new information has finally
emerged, thanks to David Ignatius of the Washington Post
http://tinyurl.com/94oku7f
First, necessary to make clear Mr. Ignatius and the Pentagon are
BFFs. That gives him the credibility. Second, if you are anti-Mr.
Obama, you may be tempted to dismiss Mr. Ignatius
because he and Pentagon
are BFFs. Frankly, the way the gentleman defends the Pentagon
through the worst atrocities of its decision making does make the
Editor frequently upchuck.
But here he is not giving his opinion. He is simply giving
four facts. If someone disagrees with the facts, then they have to
counter with their own. And the information has to come from someone
on the level Mr. Ignatius has access to, not from a blogger who was
in the service or has a BFF still in the service.
·
Fact One. The nearest armed
drones were at Djibouti, out of range as Benghazi is 1700-km
distant. This should put to an end Monday Night Quarterbacking (or
whatever night it is that people sit down to replay that lost
football game) about how a drone was up and it could have fired
Hellfires and come to the rescue. Editor would like to add that even
if an armed drone had been up, with the civilians and the bad guys
mixed up, firing missiles would not have been the greatest idea. May
we suggest skeptical readers examine fotos of what a building looks
like after a Hellfire hit. Please to notice this missile is designed
to take out highly armored main battle tanks. It creates one big
mess. Unless you are certain the friendlies are out of the danger
zone, you don’t let loose these things. Please also to notice that
the pro-US militia supposed to be protecting the consulate
staff/building was also mixed in with the civilians and baddies.
Another good reason not to blast away.
·
Fact Two. No AC-130 gunship
was available anywhere near Benghazi. In any case, as we’ve pointed
out before, you absolutely do not use a C-130 gunship unless the
good guys and bad guys are clearly demarcated. The destructive power
of this weapon has to be seen to be believed. It is as the
proverbial scything the field of wheat. Now, of course if your
troops are in a very bad place and about to be overrun, the ground
commander may decide it’s better to risk own casualties than
everyone get it, and may call in a gunship strike. This situation
does not pertain to what happened at Benghazi.
·
Fact Three. Two Special
Forces teams were sent to Signonella in Italy. They arrived too
late. The reverse side of this is there were no Special Forces when
the incident began.
·
Fact Four. The delay in
sending in the CIA men in Benghazi? Mr. Ignatius says yes, a delay
did take place. It was 20-minutes, which was spent getting
coordinated with the local militia. Now someone is going to say well
even 20-minutes is precious in such situation. This is true. But
when your SOP as laid down is to coordinate with the militia,
charging off like the cavalry of yore is not a good idea. Indeed, it
can lead to far worse trouble.
·
Mr. Igantius’s question He
has an absolutely valid question: was it the greatest idea to rely
on a local militia for protection? In retrospect no. But what was
the alternative? The US ALWAYS depends on the local authorities to
protect its embassies/consulates. Yes, Baghdad and Kabul are
exceptions. Surely readers will not want Editor to explain why they
are exceptions and why we can’t have hundreds of guards at each
embassy and consulate.
·
There
was an alternative: with the
consulate warning it had insufficient protection, State could have
closed down the office. But two questions arise. One, there is
always a conflict between people on the ground who need more
resources and the people upstairs who don’t have sufficient
resources to give everyone what they need/ask for. This is as true
of the police in your neighborhood as it is of the US military. Two,
would the US ambassador have agreed to close the consulate? He is
the man in charge, ultimately State will go by his perception.
Editor thinks by now we should all be clear that the ambassador
would not have closed the consulate. Indeed, despite the known
danger, underlined many times,
he chose to go to Benghazi because he believed it was his duty, that
it was more important to go than to worry about his safety and that
of his subordinates.
·
Then there is Ms.
Jennifer Rubin
a conservative blogger for the
Washington Post. She has said that if President Obama had spent as
much time on Benghazi as he has on showboating in New Jersey
regarding Hurricane Sandy, then maybe things would have been
different. Er, so President Obama is supposed to personally worry
about the safety of the Benghazi consulate? We thought he was Prez
of the US, not the head of State Department Security for North
Africa/Mideast, or whichever directorate the area falls under.
·
Before we
say our piece, let it be clear we are neither judging nor condemning
Ms. Rubin for her comment. The reason is that she is openly partisan
and if we recall right, she was hired to be partisan. WashPo had a
contest where they chose one left and one right blogger. So Ms.
Rubin is not a journalist for WashPo, and she is under no obligation
to be non-partisan. In fact, that would likely violate the terms of
her employment.
·
But the
purpose of this blog is
not partisanship. Editor is not shy about giving his opinion, even
as his readership of three cringes and begs “Please heaven, not
again!”. Our job is to provide such analysis and insight as is
within our capability, hopefully leaving the readers better informed
to make their own decisions about a situation.
·
This
Benghazi thing has reached heights of absurdity Editor has not seen
since Congress tried to impeach Bill Clinton for Monica whatever her
name was. People are screaming the coverup has been worse than
Watergate. Er, no. Mr. Nixon committed crimes against American laws
in the matter of Watergate. Personally we have always wondered what
the big deal was. The dirty Tricks were totally normal back in the
day. Still are, its just that people are smarter about their Dirty
Tricks. Be that as it may, Watergate and Benghazi are hardly
comparable. In Benghazi the Administration has shown its
incompetence in its public dealing with a crisis. Incompetence is
not a crime, else we all would be sitting in jail.
·
If the
24/365 media did not demand answers to the most complex situations
30-seconds after the action has happened, maybe the Administration
could have quietly gone about its fact-finding. Of course, not for
us to defend the Administration for its incompetence, no one held a
gun to Mr. Obama or to Ms. Clinton’s head and forced them to take
the job. Mr. Obama’s response was also not worthy of his office.
Like President Reagan re. Beirut 1983, it would have been best for
Mr. Obama to say: “Whatever happened, I take the responsibility
because the buck stops here.” Call us naïve, but we believe that
would have taken the agro out of 80% of his critics. So Mr. Obama is
not Mr. Reagan. Is that a crime?
Thursday 0230 GMT
November 1, 2012
·
October 30 we Twittered a
story from UK Financial Times
saying that four Chinese patrol vessels had tried to force a
Japanese Coast Guard cutter from the Senkaku Islands.
We must note that yesterday
we saw no mention of the story in Xinhua of China (English) or Asahi
Shimbun (Japan, English) and Japan Times. While it could be that
China does not want to publicize such an incident, and Xinhua is the
official paper, the Japanese newspapers are independent, even if
Asahi Shimbun is deferential to the government. It does not see
reasonable that the Japanese press would not mention such a major
incident. http://t.co/AKalV3mI
·
Meanwhile, the incoming Japanese ambassador to Washington reminds
that the Senkakus are covered by the US-Japan security treaty,
implying that Washington’s pleas of neutrality between Beijing and
Tokyo are irrelevant. The Us is extraordinarily limp-noodlish when
it comes to China’s provocation, so Editor at least is looking
forward to China doing something aggressive on the Senkakus and then
seeing Washington writhe in agony. Washington needs to be taught
that the profits of American companies cannot take precedence over
national security, of which our alliance with Japan is definitely
part.
·
The
Japanese also need a solid spanking with a limp noodle in the matter
of their defense. They are terribly passive-aggressive when the US
wants Japan to raise its defense spending, saying “well our
constitution does not allow us an aggressive stance”. This is a dig
at the US because the Japanese constitution was basically written by
the Americans, specifically McArthur. We think Japan has gotten
enough of a free ride from the US on defense. McArthur could not
have foretold – when he wrote the constitution – that China, then a
US ally, would quickly become a US enemy. Nor could he or anyone
foretell the economic rise of China and the vast expansion of
China’s military power. It’s time for Japan to stop quivering in
sensitivity about being seen as aggressive. Germany was very quick
to assume the major role for the ground defense for Western Europe
when the Soviet threat became acute. Twelve powerful German Army
divisions backed by a large and very modern air force provided the
core of NATO’s defense for decades.
·
Right now
the need is for Japanese aircraft carriers, and Tokyo needs to stop
futzing around on this. If the people of Japanese get the vapors
every time “aircraft carrier” is mentioned, US needs to tell the
Japanese people that US cannot carry the West Pacific defense burden
by itself, and if the Japanese don’t like aircraft carriers, the
solution is simple. They can become a vassal of China and finish the
matter.
·
It is
true the Japanese have moved on to 19,000-ton full load “destroyer
helicopter carrier”. You can see a video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bduj9j2XGM
This ship’s main armament is supposed to be 11 helicopters;
defensively it carries a 16-cell Standard SAM launcher, a 16-cell
advanced Sea Sparrow launcher, and two Phalanx 20mm Gatling guns.
Obviously something this big can carry the F-35B fighter, but
apparently there has been zero discussion between Japan and the US
on acquisition of this STOL/VTOL navy/marine fighter. Now, Japan
plans to buy 42 F-35Cs to partly replace its F-4Es, so it will gain
familiarity with the type.
·
Of
greater interest is the new 22DDH class of “destroyers” which at
27,000-tons full load are about the size of the US’s Essex class
fleet carriers that bore the brunt of the Pacific war in World War
II. Calling this a destroyer is now really, really, really pushing
things. The first has been laid down and two more are planned.
Meanwhile, of course, China is moving ahead with 60,000-ton
carriers, which is about the minimum size to qualify for fleet
carrier today. The 22DDH could carry 18 F-35Bs and 6 helicopters.
But all this is still doing the pussy-patter. There is no need for a
progression from 19,000-tons to 27,000-tons to – say 40,000-tons and
so on because Japan is one of the world’s most advanced ship
builders. Nor is money an issue. Japan routinely drops hundreds of
billions for infrastructure construction it does not need, as a way
of stimulating the economy. Let’s have some of that money to build
six 60,000-ton carriers, which will certainly stimulate China, at
least.
·
Meanwhile, the Japanese remain hugely aggravated about the
deployment of the Marine Corps’ V-22 Osprey aircraft to Okinawa. As
time has gone by, populated areas have crept right up to the base.
The Japanese are convinced an Osprey is going to crash into them,
and so you have hordes of Japanese researching every mishap the
plane has ever had and standing around making notes on every flight.
This is all a shadow play, the real problem is the people of Okinawa
don’t want to be a US base, period, and feel their wishes are being
ignored by Tokyo, which allegedly treats Okinawa like a colony. It
does not really, but that is the way the inhabitants feel. So here
again it would be a positive solution for Japan to expand its army
and marine corps and naval aviation tyo take care of Okinawa itself,
unburdening the US of this responsibility.
Wednesday 0230 GMT October 31, 2012
·
The mystery of bad American generalship resolved Yesterday was a rare intellectually good day
for Editor. For decades he has been trying to understand what went
wrong in Second Indochina, and for the last ten years he has been
banging his head, trying to figure why American generalship in
Second Gulf and Afghanistan has been so abysmal. Now thanks to Tom
Ricks, who summarizes the problem in about four paragraphs, Editor
is finally enlightened.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general-failure/309148/?single_page=true
·
You first
have to see that American generalship in World War II was remarkably
good; particularly considering the Regular Army was so
insignificantly small between the wars. American admiralship, of
course, was spectacular. From
there one jumps to Second Indochina, skipping Korea because Korea
was a war severely constrained by the political leadership. There
was almost nothing the generals could have done to obtain a more
favorable outlook, since the political decision became a restoral of
the status quo ante. American troops suffered terrible disasters at
the outset. This had less to do with generalship than that the Army
had been completely hollowed out by demobilization, and the advent
of nuclear weapons made problematical the future function of
conventional forces.
·
Though
Editor began his military studies in 1960, he was in a 100% learning
mode and did not write his first paper till 1970. Moreover, he has
never been interested in strategy. His expertise lies in orbats,
weapons, tactics, and grand tactics, not in the biggest issues. The
last thing he knew about was American generalship in Second
Indochina. He was aware that something was going very wrong, if only
because every six months the US would declared victory was at hand,
followed almost instantly by a request for more troops. We were all
much more trusting of the government then, and since the military
had won the Second World War in such spectacular fashion, it would
not have occurred to many that something was very badly wrong with
the leadership. So there was just this continuous, vague, nagging
feeling that there was an 800-pound gorilla making giant poopy
messes, but where he was in the room and what he was poopily messing
up was unclear. Sort of Aristotle and his Cave. Editor went to India
in 1970, and naturally his focus became south Asia and the Indian
Ocean. When he returned to the US in 1989, the last thing he felt
capable of was undertaking a study of what happened in Vietnam. The
trauma was too much to deal with except blanking out that war. And
then, of course, in 1991 we had the super-spectacular First Gulf
Victory, so finding out what happened twenty-years ago in a
forgotten war didn’t seem important. It was only about 2000 that the
Editor could bring himself to read analyses of Second Indochina,
very small doses at a time, and he quickly learned the failure was
caused by the most severe failures starting from the Presidents down
to the battalion commanders. In other words, just a mess through and
through.
·
During
the conventional phases of Second Gulf and Afghanistan US generals
performed with the clockwork precision we had come to expect since
First Gulf. It was kudos all
around. But by 2005 it had become apparent to even the most loyal
that things in both wars were going very, very wrong. Editor knew
that the strategy and tactics were both faulty. But here is a
well-known problem of being an expert. As an expert, you know how
much detailed knowledge and years of study is required to attain
that status. And it makes you very, very hesitant to criticize other
experts. Editor having spent 20-years in India was reasonable
knowledgeable about successful counterinsurgency. But what would his
credibility been had he pointed to the Indian Army as a model the US
should study – and that includes the Indian Army back in the British
days? Zero. Moreover, Editor though knowing American generals were
acting like pretentious jack-asses, since he is not a Washington
insider, what would have been his credibility in saying this, aside
from the occasional dark mutter in the blog? More importantly, he
could not answer the question WHY were American generals performing
so badly.
·
Well, Tom
Ricks has answered all that. It’s useful to read his article, but
unless you are a historian there is no need to read his book because
his thesis is so simple and therefore so obvious. Of course, it
takes very clever people to come up with simple, obvious
explanations.
·
Ricks
goes back to General Marshall’s management style (not in this
article, but elsewhere). Marshall selected who he thought the best
man for the job. If he felt the man was not up to the job, within
weeks he would warn the person. If the performance was not improved
very quickly, the man was replaced. It is important to understand
that did not mean that the man was incompetent. It meant only
he was not the right man for
the job under discussion.
·
By the
time Second Indochina rolled around, no one was being replaced for
incompetence. The
infamous 6-month tour of duty encouraged people who should have been
leading to keep their heads don and not make trouble, so they could
go on to their next job with a clean record. Careerism at its worst.
As Ricks says, to take risks and be a good leader was not rewarded,
to be a bad leader was not punished. So who the heck wanted to take
the risks associated with good leadership?
·
By the
time Second Gulf and Afghanistan rolled around, the American people
had become detached from their military, which was now given a huge
measure of uncritical adulation. The generals could do no wrong,
whatever bunkum they fed us was swallowed uncritically. When
criticism arose, it was of the civil leadership, and the Editor was
right there on this for some years. Until it began hitting him that
yes, the civilians were really stupid despite their high IQs
(remember Vietnam), but it was the military doing the serious
messing up. The same syndrome – mediocrity and failure not punished,
success not rewarded, keep your head down and go on to your next
promotion, operated here too.
·
There
actually is no more to the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan than
that. On a narrower level, Editor has become convinced that the
American military has a serious mental block about CI. It does not
understand what is required, and it refuses to learn. After Vietnam
the US military made a unilateral decision that it was never going
to do another CI, so instead of doing a proper lessons learned, a
painfully accumulated body of knowledge was tossed out. The same
thing has been going on in Iraq/Afghanistan. Nothing has been
learned, and those who have learned are not listened to. Editor
honestly thinks the US should, once and for all, get out of CI.
Enough is enough. You can’t teach the new dog old tricks; its time
to stop trying. It’s time to do the conventional war thing,
something at which the US really is best in the world, and after the
enemy’s conventional forces are destroyed, we should go home. It is
not complicated.
Tuesday 0230 GMT
October 30, 2012
We’re doing this partial update at 0030
GMT while the power in Washington DC Metro area is still on. Likely
to go soon.
·
US Missile Defense Agency has
staged its first multiple target, multiple missile test
incorporating all major systems except for the big fat Boeing Mid
Course Interceptor. This was last tested in 2008 and the program was
put on hold while people fiddled with improvements. A three stage
missile will be tested this December.
·
Five
targets were involved. A THAAD missile intercepted a Medium Range
Ballistic Missile analog dropped from a C-17. Patriot PAC 3
intercepted a short range SSM as well as a cruise missile analog.
Most disappointing where two Aegis tests from the USS Fitzgerald
(DDG-62) which, as far as we know, are the first time a destroyer
instead of a cruiser has been used. One Standard 3IA was fired at a
cruise missile analog and missile; another missile missed a target
analog for a short-range ballistic missile. There are no details as
yet on what went wrong with the Aegis: the targets were “engaged”
but not intercepted. We have no clue what “engaged” means in this
context. Acquired and tracked only? Or were missiles fired and
missed?
·
At least
this test (FT-1) used multiple targets and different systems,
simulating a real-world engagement to a greater level than yet
conducted.
Monday 0230 GMT
October 29, 2012
Tested the generator today and it works,
but if you don’t see an update on either Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, or Friday, it’ll be because the generator is being moody.
In the Washington DC Metro area we are supposed to have only a 50%
chance of tropical storm winds. But our utility, PEPCO, is known to
shut down on clear days with zero wind. It’s not the storm Editor is
worried about, its PEPCO’s well-known prowess at “restoring power”.
·
Benghazi Editor honestly
wishes he could give readers more analysis on the subject,
particularly with a whole bunch of new facts emerging. The problem
is that Editor has no way of confirming these facts. Every source
seems to have its own fact that no one knew about, but a lot of this
seems to be someone giving their version of what happened. Since
government people have also become hyperpartisan, there is no sense
in accepting these facts just because some in the Pentagon or
someone in State or someone in the CIA is given as the attribution.
That does not mean that the fact is verified.
·
The best
advice Editor can give readers is that by its very nature combat is
highly confusing and people’s accounts are limited to what they saw,
or what they thought they saw. Two people standing
shoulder-to-shoulder can give completely different accounts. Working
in an environment where people are trying to kill you is not
conducive to calm note-taking and reasoned analysis. The more people
that get involved in the telling of the story, the more confusing
and the more obscure the truth gets. And in the Benghazi story there
seem to be hundreds of people involved at every level.
·
There is
only one thing that is clear beyond doubt: the Administration’s
handling of the story has been pathetically inept and has itself
created endless paranoia and suspicion. Mr. Obama has only himself
to blame even if some of the people after his life think it’s
preferable to have the Devil as the president rather than him. Just
because Mr. Obama has enemies does not excuse the way he has gone
about things. He should have said he has ordered an investigation,
and a proper investigation will take time. That will not stop people
from screaming “cover up”. Let them scream. Anyone knows a criminal
investigation – for example – takes months; something as complex as
Benghazi should take at least that time. Or it has not been properly
done. Coming up with a different version every day is not helpful.
Nothing shows the ineptness and haplessness of the Administration
better than this episode. When all is optimal, anyone can be
president – Editor could do it in his sleep. Where the separation
between leaders and
sheep comes is when things go wrong.
Leaders lead when disaster strikes. Sheep go “baaaa” and act
helpless. This administration has been going “baaaa” and acting
helpless, with a high degree of passive-aggressiveness directed at
those who question the administration’s version – if there was a
version as opposed to ten versions. We, the people, have a right to
criticize the administration. But none of that means that there was
incompetence beyond the norm for any large organization, or that
there is a conspiracy afoot.
·
Readers
should also remember that there can be many explanations for what
happened. We’ll take just three. It is now said that a Predator or a
Reaper was the drone at the scene and it could have taken the
attackers under fire. Point the First: do we definitely know it was
a Predator of a Reaper? Point
the second: that a drone is capable of carrying weapons does not
mean it was. In most cases the killer drone are not on a kill
mission. They are on a surveillance mission. The US is no longer shooting
in Libya: even if it was a killer drone, there is no reason to
believe it was armed. Point the Third: unless you have an exact
handle on where the good guys are and the bad guys are, you do not
order weapons release. From everything we read it was a very
confused situation. Supposing the drone was armed and had been
ordered to fire, and the drone killed Americans. The same people who
are screaming for blood because this putative armed drone did not
fire will be – screaming for blood.
·
Then it
is being said an AC-130 was in the air. Please, people. Do you have
any idea how destructive these things are? You absolutely do not
tell an AC-130 to fire unless you are sure you’re not going to kill
people on your team. In combat, you often have to accept collateral
damage when the sacrificing some lives you save many lives. How can
we the public possibly judge if this was the case?
·
Then it
is being said that General Carter Ham told the high command he was
ready to intervene and was told no. He is supposed to have said to
heck with the high command, I’m sending intervention. A few minutes
later his second-in-command walks up to him and tells him he has
been relieved. Question: given the vast and dense telecom networks
that exist in the US military, why is high command not directly
telling General Ham he is relieved rather than getting on the horn
to his deputy to deliver the news? Particularly when some are saying
he was in the Pentagon while the attack was underway?
Friday 0230 GMT October 26, 2012
·
Electronics destroying warhead tested You’ve probably heard of this feller because
it’s been in development for four years. Boeing has staged an
operational test where a missile with a warhead broadcasting
microwaves shut down seven electronics targets one-after-the-other.
It does not appear the electronics were hardened, but it seems
inevitable a more powerful version will take care of that.
·
It has
been known for some time that atmospheric N-explosion can fry
electronics over a wide area. So obviously lighting a nuke over –
say – Iran prior to an attack on its air defense systems is probably
not the best idea, but this new system generates the required killer
microwaves conventionally with a warhead compact enough to fit in an
aircraft-fired cruise missiles.
·
And the
project has gone from RFP to field test in 4-years, which shows that
American R & D can deliver if required. Of course, to be fair,
people were working on this sort of thing well before 2008, but
still.
·
So we in America have our religious nutcases just as the Islamists have. Of course, our
nutcases merely try to get their ideas passed through legislation;
they are not running around with guns and bombs killing those who do
not agree with them. Still, America has a particular nutcase
Congressperson who is against abortion even in the case of rape
because, he says, if a woman gets pregnant because of rape,
obviously God intended it. It goes without saying that one cannot go
against God’s will.
·
This
creates a problem, because yon Islamic fundoos who busy killing
people insist that they are only doing what God intended. Thus
people like Stalin and Mao, who between likely caused directly or
indirectly the deaths of 100-million were doing Gods work (They
didn’t call their god God, but no matter). And where does that leave
Saddam and Assad? You mean to say we executed a man who was doing
God’s work? We sure are gonna go to heck in that case. This lot
including Hitler will have to raise to the position of saints
because they have done so much of God’s work.
·
There is
another problem. The people who claim that God told them X, Y, and Z
cannot prove that God told them that. Look: let’s be reasonable:
you’re out in the desert, starving yourself, and its 135F in the
shade, you’re liable to get the DTs, if you know what we mean.
Alternatively, you have people who are consuming vast quantities of
the Really Good Stuff. Editor sure would not to like judge any human
being on the basis of what such people are telling us God told them.
In any case, we’ve all played Chinese whispers and you know how
messy that can get.
·
So, as
Editor has often mentioned, he regularly communicates with God via
the Special Purple Telephone that has no dial. Just pick it: its the
direct line to the skinny, bad-tempered guy upstairs who seems
always to be in the middle of a bad hair day. Editor and God have
not had one conversation where God says “I want you to go and tell
people back down there that I prefer sacrifices of chocolate.” Or
even if God has told him that, Editor is not about to start
preaching because he doesn’t want the little green men in white
coats taking him away. Also, people will get suspicious when Editor
tells them that he, the Editor, is the channel via which your
chocolate sacrifice will reach the Almighty. (Of course, if Editor
is intercepting the chocolate its only for God’s own good, because
the Old Boy get serious gas when he has too much chocolate and then
the heavens rumble and the people tremble and the air gets
unbreathable and so on.)
·
But
seriously (not that we haven’t been very serious all along), if a
woman’s getting pregnant via the agency of rape is God’s wish, then
God must have meant the rapist to do what he did. So it would go
against God’s word to punish the rapist. Rather, we should make him
a saint. Equally, however, if some irate woman takes a large pair of
scissors to the Congressperson’s – um – vitals, we’d have to say
that too is God’s wish. Then we’d have to saintify the woman too.
Thursday 0230 GMT
October 25, 2012
News/commentary 5 days/week
M-F
·
Iran and Iraq The law of seen
consequences is at work. By destroying the Sunni minority regime
that has ruled Iraq for 3-400 years, and by bringing democracy to
Iraq, the US has strengthened Iran. Iraq and Iran are now close
allies, and among other things Iraq is helping ship weapons to
Syria’s Assad – the Alewites of Syria are Shias.
·
Some will
see this as an opportunity to attack former President Bush. But even
if Mr. Bush’s actions have had negative consequences for the US,
they were still the right thing to do. Saddam was a terrible
dictator and he needed to be overthrown. The US was right to replace
his dictatorship with a democracy – else how would the US be
justified in overthrowing Saddam? The US’s true mission from 1776
has been to spread democracy; this will be the enduring contribution
US has made/will make to civilization. Nowhere does it say US has to
see immediate benefit from freeing other nations.
·
The real
question involves not the past, but the future. A democratic Iraq is
to the US’s long-term advantage; an Iraq closely tied to Iran does
nothing for US geopolitical interests. So what is to be done now?
Quite simple, shift the paradigm. Reduce Shia Iraq’s power by
encouraging the country to split. The Kurds want independence; let
us help them. The Sunnis do not trust the Shias – rightfully – so
let us support a separate Sunni state. And let the US help to ensure
the two new states will be democratic. Kurdistan will block Iran’s
land access to the Mideast, and a new Sunni state will block Iran’s
access via Iraq to Syria.
·
Of course
these moves will create their own problems. Supporting Kurdistan,
for example, will aggravate
relations with Turkey. There are several ways of looking at this.
One, an Iraq earning $350-billion/year from oil – possible by 2025 - is going to aggravate the
heck out of everyone in the Mideast because Sunnis are the majority,
including in Turkey. Two, it’s unclear if the Turks can fully
suppress its Kurds; moreover, if the various ethnicities in Europe
deserve their own countries, Former Republic of Yugoslavia and the
USSR being the leading example, so do the Kurds. Three, an
independent Kurdistan will bring eastern Iran under severe pressure
and cramp Teheran’s plans to rule the Mideast. Fourth, Iraq is the
creation of western imperialism, an amalgam of three provinces of
the Ottoman Empire that are home to different ethnicities. There is
no “natural” Iraq, just as there no “natural” any nation, not even
the US. The boundaries of nations are flexible; again, look no
further than today’s Europe, particularly the UK, which once not so
long ago rules the world. Last, no matter what action one takes,
including doing nothing, has consequences. The object of foreign
policy is to tilt the consequences in favor of the US. There is no
risk free action.
·
The
objections on an independent Sunni state are also many. The state
may have little oil, so how is it to support itself. Will Sunnis be
satisfied with their own small country, or will they use it as a
base to promote insurgency in residual Iraq, destabilizing the
reason as they have been doing since 2003? Will not a new Sunni
state prove vulnerable to Isalmist and AQ penetration? Good points
all. With a strong US alliance, many objections can be mitigated.
Islamists can be kept out. The Sunni state can be encouraged to turn
its attention inward, to develop itself instead of fighting old
battles with Najaf. Most of Iraq is unexplored for oil; there may
well be large reserves of oil in the Sunni majority provinces; there
is a good possibility of gas reserves.
Wednesday 0230 GMT
October 24, 2012
·
US Navy: Quality vs Quantity
Editor has just a smattering of functioning brain cells left, so he
avoids reading what politicians say because he can’t afford to lose
any more cells. So just to be clear, he was told – but did not
himself read – that one presidential candidate said the US Navy was
down to its lowest ship strength since 1917; and the other one said
quality is what matters, the day of the horse and the bayonet has
passed. Terribly witty rejoinder, we have not stopped laughing.
(Actually, truthfully we never started laughing, so we cannot stop
when we haven’t started. Our statement then becomes logical, but
totally devoid of sense. Sort of typical of America today.)
·
We’d like
to say that the debate about quantity vs quality is a serious
debate. Except there is no debate, so it can’t be serious or
unserious. Every country now automatically opts for quality. The
Indian Army may be the sole global exception. Because India has two
long borders with hostile nations, Pakistan and China, India needs
quantity as much as quality. Particularly when India’s strategic
doctrine, such as it is, and that means it’s seven short of a
six-pack, mandates that no ground has to be given up. So you have to
have mass to hold on to every kilometer of frontier. Mountain in
particular absorb huge amounts of manpower. Oddly, the Indians are
not off-base with regard to the mountain frontier. This is because
of India’s side the frontier consists of an endless series of
valleys running from Tibet into India; lateral communication is very
difficult. So you have to hold the frontier in force because
shifting reinforcements along a west-east axis is very difficult.
Anyway. That is another discussion for another time.
·
In modern
times the debate of quality vs quantity is said to have begun with
the rise of Germany in the 1930s and continued in full force till
1945 and the defeat of Germany. The Germans went through this two
decade period of a weapons Cambrian Explosion. They came up with an
amazing variety of different weapons, some pretty darn advanced.
Because Germany’s industrial output was limited, even after it
seized most of Europe’s arms producing factories, and because
Germany did not enjoy a large population – 80-million – the quality
vs quantity debate was automatically resolved in favor of quality.
So, it is true that it took 5-10 Shermans to put down one Tiger
tank. But the Americans in those days knew mass production like no
one else (now its China), and they produced Shermans like cupcakes.
Nonetheless, even back in that day the quality vs quantity debate
was a bit overdone. Lots of Americans weapons were high quality AND
were produced in big quantity. The Willys Jeep, artillery (quality
came in the form of networking vast numbers of guns, the first soft
multiplier of modern times), aircraft carriers, and any number of
aircraft – the C-47, the P-38, the B-29 and so on and so forth.
·
After the
war, the west opted for quality, the Soviets for quantity. But the
Soviets had no choice: they were technologically behind, the
communist production system never assigned a true opportunity cost
to a weapon, and – equally important – the Soviets lacked the highly
trained soldiers that a quality military machine requires. Quite
cleverly, the Soviets turned their lemons into lemonade: they
adopted a very short war doctrine which required overwhelming force
from Day 1, and would be over by Day 10 or 21 by the latest. In such
a situation, it didn’t matter of Soviet equipment broke down on Day
3 and there were no trained maintenance crews or spares to fix it.
The Soviets simply brought up replacement units, and they had enough
to keep replacing 1 for 1 for the time they needed. You ask: well,
what happens after Day 21 when the Soviets are out of tanks,
aircraft, everything? No problem, folks. The soviets figured –
correctly we reckon – that either NATO would be defeated, or it
would have to use tac nukes, and every scenario involving tac nukes
rapidly escalated to the doomsday scenario of full nuclear release.
When each side has taken 100-million casualties in a full-scale
N-exchange, it really doesn’t matter if your tanks, BMPs, and
aircraft are out of spares and unable to function.
·
But
please note. It’s very easy for tough generals to calculate they are
better off with quantity, but it’s very hard for those who have to
do the fighting to know they’re entering action with inferior
equipment even if they have lots of it. In a democracy it is
downright impossible to give the troops anything but the very best a
nation can afford. The Soviet Union in the 1970s began realizing
that it could no longer count on sending millions of men to their
deaths to overwhelm the technical superior enemy, and they too
turned to the quest for quality.
·
The race
for quality has meant an ever escalating cost escalation, and the
cost escalation has reduced the number of weapons you can buy, and
that has pushed up the cost of the remaining weapons even higher.
Thus the $2-billion B-2, the $150-million F-35, the $12-million M-1
tank, the two billion dollar submarine and so on.
·
The
people who vow quality have a perfectly reasonable point. An F-22
can routinely fight off ten other top-of-the line fighters, and if
you look at the lifetime system cost, the F-22 comes in far cheaper
than the 10 adversary fighters. Ditto the M-1 tank – we saw what it
did in First Gulf; the kill ratios ran above 25-1 and so on.
·
But the
people who are arguing quantity are also right. The lack of numbers
limits your options, and as we have sarcastically remarked, every
time an F-35 goes down the US will have to declare a week of
national mourning. There are plenty of situations in which 10
va-va-voom carriers will be worth less than 20 not so va-va-voom
carriers. Etc.
·
Nonetheless, the quantity crowd has not considered psychology.
Suppose the SecDef were to announce America’s new fighter, the F-40.
We can afford five F-40s for every F-35, he says, and we’ll just
swarm the heck out of any air force. The same prezzy candidate who
is now advocating for quantity will be accusing the administration
of not providing the best possible weapons for our men and women in
uniform.
·
It’s a
cliché to say we need quality AND quantity, and the price of quality
weapons will decline if we order more. We’ve gone over this before:
the west bar America has given up. It cannot countenance high
military expenditure – high for them being 3-4%. America will face
China largely on its own, and it has got the rest of the world to
look after. Six percent of GDP is needed. But that means raising
taxes. In 2060 when health care will take up 33% of GDP, in any case
who is going to agree to 6% for defense? The way we’re going on weapon
costs, soon we will have 100 ships, 6 fighter wings, and 5 army
divisions.
Tuesday 0230 GMT
October 23, 2012
·
Benghazi and the Clive Cussler effect
You could also call it the Tom Clancy
effect. Anyway. Finished reading an old book of Cussler, “Cyclops”.
Editor has little time to read off the net, except at night when
from life-long habit he reads for at least half-hour. With “Cyclops”
Editor read it in one day, letting all the other work go to heck. It
is that kind of a book. Tom Clancy, before he went rouge and started
prostituting himself for money – anyone’s money – used to be that
kind of author – can’t put it down, sort of thing.
·
Anyhow,
lets leap to Benghazi. Yesterday’s
pointless chatter on the incident goes like this: “US had a drone up
in the area, and Washington was listening in to phone calls. Yet
Washington did nothing”. Ergo Obama is incompetent, venal,
unpatriotic – insert whatever anti-Obama adjective you want. This
kind of talk did not irritate Editor, because after all how are
civilians to know the difficulty of staging some kind of
cavalry-to-the-rescue drama. People think the military is just one
giant machine on constant alert, and can go into action anywhere in
the world at a moment’s notice. They’re overly influenced by the
action movies, where the US can seek, locate, target, and take out a
particular individual in the middle of the Sahara, or the Congo, or
the Arctic.
·
But
yesterday a reader forwarded an article by a former Pentagon
official
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/331125/first-aid-living-bing-west#more
that says the US could have had a fighter over Benghazi in an hour
of the start of the attack, and Special Forces troops at the
consulate in 3 hours. Editor found this a bit baffling because,
after all, the gentlemen should have some idea of how his military
works – or any military for that matter. Its only when the Editor
got to this that he had an explanation for what was going on with
this official:
In the past,
presidents had taken immediate actions to protect Americans. In
1984, President Reagan had ordered U.S. pilots to force an airliner
carrying terrorists to land at Sigonella. Reagan had acted inside a
90-minute window while the aircraft with the terrorists was in the
air. The Obama national-security team had several hours in which to
move forces from Sigonella to Benghazi.
·
Editor
than realized that either the official was being partisan, or he was
being ignorant. In either case what he was saying could be dismissed
·
In 1984
the Cold war on in Europe, and interceptors were maintained on 5-10
minutes alert. US would know precisely where the airliner was, and
sending in interceptors to force it down represented as close to
zero a chance of danger as it possible to get when you’re doing this
kind of intercept. An order from the C-in-C could be carried out
within the window of opportunity.
·
But
Benghazi? That’s a different of kettle of fish. (Another expression
Editor has no idea what it means. Why is it significant that’s it’s
a different kettle of fish? What’s the deal here? Say you’re cooking
fish for a hundred people, won’t you have lots of different kettles
of fish? Anyway. The world is a mysterious place.)
·
First
let’s get it out of our heads that the Administration sent no help.
It’s not at all clear to us why the President has to order help if a
consulate is under attack by an armed mob, there are plenty of other
levels that can give that order, but let us let that be. The point
is, help was sent,
whoever ordered it. A
presumably armed group of – what? – contractors? Marines? – 22
persons were sent by air from the Tripoli embassy. It took four
hours to arrive. If at all you are familiar with the mechanics of
these things, four hours is reasonable.
·
Since
everyone is speculating and prescribing wildly, Editor should also
be allowed to do that. What if something like this took place. (a)
President to Tripoli: “What help do you need?” (b) Tripoli to
Prezzy: “We think we’re okay; reinforcements are on the way, party
is holding its own and is a step from the bunkers. If we need more
help we’ll ask. (c) Prezzy to Tripoli: “all right then, we’re
standing by.” Now of course Editor has zero idea if such a
conversation took place. But it’s plausible. Before shoveling a
supertanker of poop on the Prez, shouldn’t we wait till a thorough
investigation is done?
·
Re.
sending an F-18 to make big noises. Ha ha. And more ha ha. Do people
seriously think the US Navy/Marines operate like that? Does anyone
actually believe the Navy/Marines think: “Oo-er, we can make some
giant sounds in the sky, launch the aircraft?” Now, Editor cannot
swear that the military would NOT do that, but after all, you all
have a thoroughly professional military. A thoroughly professional
military would not launch planes to make noise in the hope some
people can en scared away from the consulate. And in any case,
before you start buzzing targets you have to know what the situation
is. For example, do the attackers have some of those gone-missing
SAMs? You have to get aircraft ready and brief pilots. (Why on earth
would aircraft be sitting at Signoella ready to launch 360-degrees
in minute?) You have to arrange tankers and SAR, the latter if
something goes wrong. After you’ve done that, you’re faced with a
big question: “We can’t release ordnance because we’ll kill our own
people. We cannot strafe because we’ll kill our own people. So all
we’re doing is making a noise. Will
that work? Can we take the risk? And if it doesn’t work, what then?”
·
As for
the Special Forces arriving in three hours…Really? This official is
absolutely sure of that? He’d better be if he’s accusing the Prez of
criminal negligence. But look, folks. It took 4-hrs to get
reinforcements from next door, and that’s quite reasonable. Three
hours using Signolla as a base? The flight time alone in a straight
line for C-130s is 90-minutes. Rather than distance, the limiting
factor is planning. For that you first have to know what’s going on
with some precision. You just don’t round up the first soldiers you
see roaming around, toss them into a plane, and send them off. We’re
out of touch with the mechanics of these things, but simply getting
teams organized, checking out the equipment, making plans, making
sure everyone is on the same page, getting intelligence grade
information as to what is up at Benghazi and its environs, etc etc
ad nauseum is going to take several hours. Its only in Clive Cussler
or Tom Clancy that all this stuff is done instantly. The cavalry
would have to consider many things, including ingress. Do they drop
over the consulate? Very complicated requiring at least 24 hours –
and that’s really pushing thing because you don’t just drop at the
drop of a hat. Proper planning can take days. If you land at
Benghazi, how do you know you’re not walking into a trap the minute
you enter the city? Anyone remember what happened with Mohammad
Adeed in Mogadishu? And BTW, that was a careful planned/rehearsed
mission. Another how do you know: how do you know the mob/terrorists
haven’t taken hostages and once they realize a rescue has arrived,
they simply shoot everyone?
·
People
who come up with these nutty rescue scenarios should take time to
figure out what they’re saying. Unless the know the reality but are
twisting facts to make a partisan attack. If its politics you’re
into, well, Editor has nothing to say except “Have the fun. Enzoy.
Just don’t expect anyone to take you seriously.”
·
The sad
reality is that the only thing that could have been done was to keep
Ambassador Stevens out of Benghazi. Everyone and his rabid parrot
knew it was a high dangerous place. Everyone in their right mind was
avoiding Benghazi. Mr.
Stevens was a brave, dedicated American who wanted to show the
people of Benghazi that he was not going to be put off by risk, he
was going to come there and do what he had to do. It was his
decision. Editor admires him enormously for that. Editor in real
life has led the Charge of the Light Brigade – to the rear. He has
never, ever, knowingly gone into the slightest danger. If there is a
risk of a hangnail, Editor retreats, bravely of course. Being a
SuperCoward, Editor has a double appreciation of bravery. But you
see, there is the expression: There are old knights and there are
bold knights. There are no old, bold knights. Count Editor in the
Old category. Mr. Stevens knowingly, deliberately, put his duty
ahead of his personal safety. And he lost.
Monday 0230 GMT October
22, 2012
·
US training of Afghan forces We’d mention this as
one of the failures of US policy in Afghanistan. Now you can have
Americans tell you about the failure, though you have to read
between the lines. Rajiv
Chandrasekaran of the
Washington Post http://tinyurl.com/8g8zan2 has
written an article that covers of 3% of the problem. For an American
journalist (and young Rajiv is very highly regarded for his seminal
work on Iraq and Afghanistan), 3% means a deep analysis. We are by
no means running down Rajiv. You cannot expect a journalist to be
expert in more than one primary and one related field. American
journos became instant experts in whatever happens to catch their
fancy. They are bettered only by Indian journos in this regard, but
with a big different. Indian journos know they are frauds, and they
write with the full understanding they are producing hectares of
bull poop. They know their writing is a joke. American journos are
convinced they are God’s gift to humanity.
·
See, the
problem is American journos will talk to 10, 20, or 50 sources.
(Indian journos will talk to 1 or 2.) But since the journos
themselves are not experts, they have no way of assessing the
validity of what they’re being told. Because they cannot assess the
validity, they rely on what the majority of their sources tell them.
The majority may be absolutely wrong, and the outlier may have the
real story. But the jounos don’t know that. Another problem are
Bravehearts of the 4th Estate face is that they cannot
tell who is an expert and who not. The assumption is that if you are
a battalion commander in Afghanistan, then you are in expert.
Nonsense. The battalion commander is expert – highly so, we might
add – in leading his troops. It does not make him an expert in
anything else. Then you have military sources who have an impressive
academic degree in, say, counterinsurgency.
·
Such a
source gets double rating from the journos. But here’s the thing:
Editor could write quality doctoral theses in – for example –
military history, Indian national security policy, teaching K-12,
distance education, some aspects of management theory, modern
international relations, 3rd World development, energy
policy, and English. He could go on and on, but he’ll modestly stop
at nine. But would a doctorate in any of the mentioned fields make
him an expert? It most certainly would not. A doctorate in a subject
is only the start of having some literacy in a subject. Editor began his study
of the military 52 years ago. Every day he is struck not by how much
he knows, but how much he doesn’t know. As a generalist in the
field, of course, it wouldn’t take him more than a week of reading
and talking to real experts to bring himself up to snuff (what
exactly does this metaphor mean, BTW?).
·
The
Editor’s point here is not to say what a great person he is (though
if readers were to say it he would demur modestly, but not very
forcefully), but rather to say journalists are really limited in
their expertise. One reason is they have to report stories, another
reason is they have to cover what their editors tell then. So how
much time do they have to study? So, we are not blaming Rajiv for
being superficial in his article, particularly as he has actually
packed in a lot more than most journalists could or could.
·
The Post
article mentions criticism by US officers of the attempt to
make Afghan forces clones of the US military. This is accurate, and
if it comes as a surprise to our American readers, we’d suggest they
talk to some non-Americans on the subject. Because the whole world
and his brother, sister, mother-in-law, three-legged dog, and rabid
pet squirrel has been saying this from the early years of the Afghan
campaign
·
The Post also
talks about the Afghans’ base centric CI
policy: spend the day in fortified bases, go and patrol at night.
This is obviously a foolish way for the home team to run things, but
Rajiv might have noted that the Americans also operate this way and
it is absolutely futile. There is, of course, a reason for this
American approach. It maximizes force protection. Problem is, no one
won a war by putting the focus first and last on force protection.
If you are that worried about casualties, don’t go to war to begin
with.
·
In our
critique, we’d mentioned that only about five Afghan battalions were
capable of independent operations. From the Post article we learn
the number is – zero. Every ANA battalion has to have a cadre of US
advisors, and even the ones rated “effective with advisors” rely on
the Coalition for “…air support, medical evacuation, intelligence,
and other tasks not yet developed within the Afghan army”. This
last, of course, covers anything the US wants it to cover.
Seventy-two battalions are in this category, seventy-four require
much more help. Basically what this assessment says is that ANA
cannot function on its own.
·
US
officers that spoke to the Post decry the rush for numbers over
quality. Excuse me, please, but eleven years is a rush? You have to
wonder is the US military functioning on Earth or is functioning on
Gliese 581B. This statement is just so wrong, so pathetic, so futile
that you want to beat these officers with limp noodles. If eleven
years is a rush, whose fault is it, the Afghans or the US’s? And
further, if after 11 years the ANA cannot fight independently, what
earthly good is it? How can the US possibly insist that the Afghans
will EVER fight for their country? How long did it take the ROKs,
the ARVN, and the Iraqi forces to build up their army with US help.
The ROK took two years, the ARVN took perhaps five, and the Iraqis
took perhaps three. Sure, all three armies relied extensively on US
advisors, firepower, and logistical support. In all three cases US
units and formations had to fight alongside the local armies. But
think: the Afghans have to fight off a couple of hundred pathetic
insurgents, once in a while. The ROKs and ARVN regularly battled
very experienced, very tough communist units. The Iraqis, of course,
would have taken less than six months had the US not disbanded the
Iraqi Army in the first place.
·
Everyone
realizes that pure counterinsurgency has to depend primarily on the
police. Even the US knows it. But the Afghan National Police is in a
complete, utter, unsolvable mess. To this day no ANP unit can
perform even to totally minimal standards. And the reason here is
the culture. Like 3rd World police, the ANP believes its
job is to (a) extort money from the locals; (b) do as little
policing as possible; (c) take zero risk. It doesn’t matter if the
US spends another 11 years training the ANP, nothing will change,
because the US cannot change the culture of a nation – something the
US has known all along. But something the US has steadfastly refused
to face the logical consequence: there can be no winning this war.
·
Another
example the Post gives concerning total US stupidity is that the
Afghan forces, having being built up to 350,000, are now to be
reduced to 230,000. The lower number is supposed to be more
sustainable and provide the opportunity for quality. If only it was
so. Afghanistan cannot afford even the lower number. The higher
number of troops requires $4-billion/year, twice the Afghan
Government’s revenues. No one
is factoring in what air support, helicopters, ISR and so on will
add to this total. The reality is Afghanistan can probably afford no
more than 50,000 effective troops and central police. That means the
national government has to go back to the pre-American era: 50,000
suffices to control Kabul and four other major towns. That is it. Is
the US willing to face this reality? Absolutely not.
Friday 0230 GMT
October 19, 2012
Afghanistan: What did
we wrong and will we learn from our mistakes?
Part II
·
The
third thing we did wrong – and this is the real doozy is
what happened after we missed OBL at Tora Bora. The right thing to
do would have been to continue covertly searching for him. Instead
someone set up the objective of making sure that AQ never again
returned to Afghanistan. Odd. Why didn’t we plan something simpler,
like building a wooden staircase to the moon? Our reasoning was that
to stop AQ from returning – all fifty of them – we needed to take
over Afghanistan, build a national government capable of protecting
every square mile of its territory, and keep that government as our
slaves to do what we told them.
·
In
retrospect, this is about the nuttiest foreign policy idea that
America has had since it became independent. We are not going to go
into detail about why it was nutty, because by now everyone knows
the notion of making a tribal state into a hard state with the
governance of the US or Europe, and one whose interests would be
what we told Kabul, as pretty, pretty far out. You can see here that whoever
thought it up had just committed America to a high-intensity
adventure that would last a minimum of 50-years. Ooooooh, how
exciting: another endless war. Pentagon so happy.
Another endless battlefield
for the CIA, so happy. Thoughts of thousands of State Department
jobs, so blissful. And hundreds of billions of dollars, possibly
even trillions, to be spent. Everyone including defense contractors
so happy.
·
The
fourth stupid thing we did was
to convince ourselves that we would
force Pakistan to help us destroy the Taliban. Interesting idea,
given the Taliban was a de facto fourth arm of the Pakistan
military. For the Pakistanis to not just abandon the Taliban, but
also to kill them, would have meant that Islamabad had to abandon
its deepest national interests for what? A couple of billion dollars
a year in economic and military aid. We see how far that idea has
worked.
·
The
fifth stupid thing we did was
the way we trained the Afghans to become Mini Me, bearded,
mustachioed brown folk who would be taught to do everything the way
the Americans did thing. First, we failed massively – maybe 3-5
Afghan battalions can fight, that’s about 5% of the Army – after 11
years of training. Second, given how entrenched the Taliban were/are
in half of Afghanistan, the Pushtoon part, given how large the
country is, given the pathetic state of communications, given the
terrain, etc etc etc, nothing less than 500,000 well-trained afghan
military could have secured the country. And no one could ever
secure the country sufficiently that a hundred AQ would not be able
to find a friendly valley with a few friendly villages to shelter
them.
·
The
Taliban have no military organization or logistics. They come in
sneakers with commercial grade 4 x 4s, and largely use infantry
weapons. They fight for a few days and go home. Then when they feel
like it, they fight for another few days. The men who don’t feel
like returning to the battlefield don’t return until they feel like
it. This is not even a guerilla army. It is NO army at all. It is
like the Somali clan fighters. A couple or three or five million
dollars per month suffices to
keep 20,000 men available, if not more. The Pakistanis give the
Taliban that. They extort local taxes and they accept payoffs from
optimum smugglers. The same transport companies that move NATO
supplies to the front are paying off the Taliban to let them through
– after the Taliban take what they want. The reality is that the
Taliban have way more money than they need. Depending on how you
calculate it, $5- to $10-million/month keeps them going for ever and
a day. We on the other hand, at peak were spending $10-billion/month
– above and beyond what our allies were spending and above the
regular budget of the military, probably another $50+ billion a
year.
·
The only
thing that would have made sense is an Afghan Army that looked like
the Taliban with a bit more by way of weapons, signals, support, and
transport. But to create such an army would have required our troops
training them to live and operate the same way. And there is no way
we were prepared to do that. We had to have the entire nine meters
that goes along with the US military, which is the most lavishly
equipped in the world and lives better in the field than just about
anyone else. Once your trainers and your military units mixing with
the Afghan units are living six-stars, you cannot expect your
so-called Allies will agree to live like zero stars. And no matter
how well you equip the Afghans, your troops remain better fed,
looked after, and equipped by a factor of ten. And you cannot expect
them to fight and die for their country.
·
This
brings us to the sixth mistake Can the Americans understand that when they
have to pay Afghan recruits the same monthly salary a career Indian
Army captain gets, and yet the recruits keep deserting,
that the Afghans are not
willing to fight for their country?
·
And if
they are unwilling to fight for their country, how can we fight for
them instead? From everything we see and hear, in the public media
and not-so-public sources, American troops on the ground have known
this for a very long time. But it has taken 11 years for Washington
to understand. And the understanding has hit Washington so hard,
that OUR morale has collapsed and WE are running away.
·
As for
the military handling of our part of the war: it has been so inept that it is a travesty
to call the US military the best trained, the best equipped, the
best this, and the best that. It is all that, and they have just
about the most incompetent civil-military leadership of any major
army in the world. The strategy and the tactics have been so
pathetic that the leaders have shown criminal negligence in fighting
this war. We’ll discuss this another time when Editor’s blood
pressure is down.
Thursday GMT October 18, 2012
Afghanistan: What did we wrong and will we learn from our mistakes?
Part I
·
This
question is best answered by disposing of the second part. No, we
will not learn from our mistakes. Americans don’t do history. We are
so energetic, so clever, and so good-looking that history does not
apply to us. History is for those tired old Euros who are paralyzed
by their past. We step boldly into the future. When we get thrashed
and retreat with our tail between our legs, just like in a
videogame, we press the “Play Again” button. The past is
miraculously wiped out. Only the future, bursting with
possibilities, beckons. So we can safely go on to the first
question, what did we do wrong?
·
You may
well ask, what is the point of asking what did we do wrong when we
do not do the past? No point whatsoever. This here is just an
intellectual exercise for those who like the “What Ifs” and like to
replay the game with different assumptions.
It’s us enthusiasts that do
these replays. For example, Editor has a first draft of ten things
that cost Germany the Second World War. No great discoveries here,
anyone who studies WW2 knows what those mistakes are. For example,
on December 8, 1941 Germany should have declared war on Japan, not
on the US.
·
The
first thing we did wrong was to make OBL the Evil God who repeated Pearl Harbor 60-years after the
first Pearl Harbor. Yes, we know the US Government (GUS) says it has
incontrovertible proof OBL did the dead. GUS has nothing of the
sort. If OBL had been tried in court, he would likely have been
acquitted. The harsh truth is after 9/11 we wanted to reflexively
hit someone. Since we had no clear target, unlike 1941, we should
have done a careful investigation before undertaking any action. But
asking America to wait for gratification is, well, un-American. One
reason Editor loves America is that like the US, he has no impulse
control. He does something first and then thinks about why he did
it.
·
Second
thing wrong was that after
careful investigation, if we have the goods on OBL, we should have
negotiated with the Taliban for his extradition. Like it or not, the
Taliban was the sovereign ruler of Afghanistan. You do not tell a
sovereign government, especially one who has not done the crime,
“hand him over NOW or you die.” The reality is the Taliban are
Central Asians, and in Central Asia you state your position in
response to the adversary’s position, then the adversary gives his
second position and you give yours, and so on, until a deal is
reached. If a deal is NOT
reached, you escalate. Many Americans hold the Taliban would not
have given up OBL. This belief is so shockingly naïve, idiotic, and
moronic that it is hardly worth refuting. The reality is we could
not believe anyone would fail to tremble in fear and refuse to kiss our fat
left toe. We acted like the Big Bully On The Block, which we are,
instead of negotiating with Kabul on the basis of mutual respect.
You see the results of our belief that if we demand, the Taliban
must jump to it or we send the B-52s. We sent the B-52s. The Taliban
is preparing for our departure.
·
Humiliated in Vietnam by a bunch of 90-pound
yellow guys barely taller
than their AK-47s, and with
less than a hundredth of the US GDP. Humiliated in Somali by a bunch
of scrawny black guys with less than one-ten thousandth of the US’s
committed resources. Humiliated in Afghanistan by a bunch of towel
heads who spent likely about one-hundred
thousandth of what we spent.
Anyone see a pattern here?
Who is left to humiliate us? Tonga? The Maldives? The Senkakus? The
Republic of Antarctica? Bah.
·
And
please no one start the absolute bull poop about the Afghans have
never been beaten. They have been beaten ALL the time. Talk to Major
AH Amin who knows about the Afghans and he will tell you a starving
British-India force one-fifth of the strength of the Afghan forces
took Kabul. The force had no logistics, so it was pushed out.
But the British and Indian
returned in short order and beat the Afghans again, this time
decisively, this time permanently.
·
RTBC (Rant To Be Continued) Much as Editor loves
the sound of his own voice, once in a while he has to work to pay
the bills.
Wednesday 0230 GMT
October 17, 2012
·
India Corruption in India has
been much in the news for the last couple of years. After waiting
for decades for a wise king to come to power and eradicate
corruption, Indians have come to realize it is up to them, to the
ordinary people, to overthrow the corrupt. Americans consider their
society very advanced, and India somewhat on the primitive side. But
in the matter of getting rid of corruption, Indians are a light-year
or so ahead of Americans. American realize their system of
government is corrupt, but haven’t the faintest idea of what to do
about. And they too have become fatalistic, wondering what can an
individual do against the massive corporate interests that actually
rule this country.
·
So a
great grassroots movement has begun in India. We should explain that
for millennia the average Indian has not believed he could do
anything if the ruler as corrupt. And you can see this made sense,
because when you don’t have a democracy, protesting against corrupt
rulers is imprudent. If they get sufficiently annoyed, they simply
cut your head off. It is one of the sad realities of our universe
that if you are in one place and your head in another, there is not
much protesting to be done.
·
But, you
will correctly say, since 1947 India HAS been a democracy. So why
has this grass roots movement taken so long? Well, look. America has
been a democrarcy four almost 4 times longer than India, and where
is the grassroots movement to reform our governance? Anyway, that
doesn’t your question about India. Its taken so long
because you cannot undo three
millennia worth of conditioning. In India it has always been the
king who has changed things for the better. There’s volumes and
volumes of stuff on the duty of the just and dutiful king. Sometimes
you got a king who took these duties seriously, like the great
Emperor Ashoka. In some ways Akbar ruled as a just king. Of course
he was as capable of jealousy as the next man, and when his favorite
dancer, the more-beautiful-than-the-most beautiful Anarkali took a
shine to Akbar’s son, Akbar ordered her executed. That was not a
just thing. But we digress.
·
So we’re
not going to go into the events of the last couple of years. For one
thing they are of interest mainly to Indians; for another, the
Editor positive he doesn’t understand the nuances of the
anti-corruption movement. He never understood Indian politics when
he lived in India, so what can he understand today. Rather, we’re
going to mention one government officer who has refused to bow his
head to his political masters.
http://t.co/y6inNOsb
·
A bit of
background. The Indian Administrative Service provides the
administrators for the federal part of the Government of India. The
cadre is small, about 3000 officers. Appointments are won by passing
a very tough exam, and there is no way the exam can be manipulated
to suit X, Y, or Z. You either pass on merit or you fail. The system
is gender neutral, so you have a large number of women running the
country along with the men. When an officer gains admission to the
service, he is generally attached to a state government, and the
state disposes of the officer’s services as it decides. We will not
get into the details because again, Editor does not understand them.
Never did. Never will. (You can see how Editor us really an American
at heart. Here he is, boasting he knows nothing and he is just as
good as Warren Buffett or President Obama. But we digress.)
·
Okay. So
since the officer is an employee of the central government, there’s
nothing the state government can do if it is displeased with the
officer. Officers can be removed only for corruption and a few other
things; the process is not within the hand of the state government.
Officers being human beings want to get along with the state
government, so in reality they make a powerful lot of compromises,
obliging their state politicians and turning a blind eye to wrongs
committed by the state politicians. But an officer can be just as
stubborn as he wants, and just refuses to sign off on a file he
believes is improper. All the state government can do is transfer
him to another job in the state. With this in mind, we can make the
denouement.
·
This
particular officer has been transferred 43 times in 20-years. Phew.
He just doesn’t seem to get the hint that his state politicians are
unhappy with him. Transfers can be disastrous. Just take one simple
example: education of the officer’s kids. If he is transferred to
another city or district, he either takes his family with him,
disrupting the children’s education, or he leaves them in place, and
incurs the expense of running two separate households. A transfer is
not a small punishment.
·
Now, a
bit over two months ago, he got transferred to what the state
government presumed was a harmless posting, land records. No sooner
does this officer arrive, he starts investigating – as is his wont.
And what does he find? Government land has been sold to Citizen A
for a certain price. Citizen A turns right around and sells it to a
developer at about 15 times what the government charged him. Fifteen
times profit for two months is not bad. But obviously this is a case
that has to be investigated, because the state government has been
cheated of a large sum of money. On investigating officer finds the
land was sold for a pittance to Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law. For those
not up on these things, Sonia Gandhi essentially runs the country as
she is head of the Congress Party, currently in power.
·
Now
obviously it is the advantage of the Chief Minister of the state to
be on kissy-kissy-face terms with the son-in-law of the Great One.
Chief Minister is not amused that corruption has been uncovered,
since he is the source of it. Chief Minister does not care the
people of his state have been cheated, because his whole was to buy
favors with the Great One at the cost of the exchequer. Chief
Minister orders the officer transferred to another position.
·
The
officer starts getting threats to his life. In the state he works,
Haryana, you take threats to your life very seriously. Haryana folks
tend to shoot first – literally – and ask questions never. If you
are the Chief Minister’s man, the Chief Minister will make sure the
police (which he basically owns – too complicated to explain) throw
the case. So the officer has gone public. Chief Minister is not
bothered; he is a hardened criminal else he wouldn’t have become
Chief Minister. He has issued a statement it is the state’s
prerogative to transfer its officers where it wants.
·
This is
true. But now the cat is out of the bag, everyone in India knows the
Chief Minister has been engaged in a big scam with the Great One’s
son-in-law. Like all Indian politicians, he is used to getting away
with anything, so he still fears no justice. But from now on, the
officer’s strength can only rise, and the Chief Minister’s only
wane. If anything happens to the officer, the brotherhood of
government bureaucrats will be on the Government of India like flies
on the poopy. The state and Supreme courts will get involved, and
these courts are notoriously independent. The press is already
swarming over the case. The officer will become an anti-corruption
icon.
·
Does this
mean Editor is predicting the Chief Minister is going to pay? No.
Editor does not think India has reached that stage yet. But if the
matter goes to court, the Chief Minister may well pay. Indian
courts, particularly the Supreme Court, have shown no hesitation in
ordering the arrests of ministers. But as the trial will go on for
decades, the Chief Minister will likely escape justice. But he will
still pay, because of the uproar gets too much, the Indian National
Congress will have to ask him to step down. For one thing his
enemies within his own party will pull him down.
·
So this
is progress – not as much as Indians would like. But two years ago,
or certainly five years ago, neither the press not the people would
have had much to say. Particularly so because in the pantheon of
Indian government scams, this is a baby - $10-million. Central
Government is dealing with a $25-billion scandal (Coalgate). But it is really progress that the
Central Government is besieged on all sides on account of scandals.
People have indicated they are just not willing to take it any more.
And what is going on with this officer is just another indicator
that the people will have their say.
·
Back to
America: yo, peeps, have any plans for the revolution? The Indians
are on it. You going to be left behind? You going to let those poor,
backward Indians get ahead of you? After all, you have your massive
scandals too, when companies pay off the politicians and the
president to get the playing field tilted to their benefit. So what
are YOU going to do?
Tuesday 0230 GMT
October 16, 2012
·
India and China Editor is
getting tired of reading, again and again, that India has the second
biggest army in the world. It has the biggest, and this has been
true for some time because the PLA has been steadily reduced while
the Indian Army has been growing. US DOD puts China at 1.25-million.
Personally Editor would put it lower, but at least the DOD figure
has the stamp of officialdom.
·
So how
big is the Indian Army? The odd thing is that most people do not
know the precise figure, and that includes your Editor. But it is
certainly 1.3-million and increasing. People use a figure of
1.1-million which may have been true a couple of decades ago. That
figure does not include, for example, the 70,000+ Rashtriya Rifles
raised from the early 1990s as specialized counterinsurgency troops. They are called differently
for legal and psychological reasons. The psychological reason is the
Indian Army hates doing CI against its own people and has been
clamoring for decades to be taken off this duty. The figure also does not
include, for example, the latest raisings of at least 30,000 troops
in two divisions. We say at least because no matter how economical
you are, when you raise new divisions the support bases increases.
Agreed, it is not in proportion. But some increase is inevitable.
Also, formations totaling another 100,000 have been okayed, and more
after that.
·
When you
take a close at the PLA, you wonder why it even has 1.25-million
troops – if it really does. Public
Enemy Number 1, Taiwan, is down to a handful of active brigades.
Public Enemy Number 2, Russia, is down to 24 brigades for its entire
army, the bulk of which is west of the Urals. There are no plans to
teach Public Enemy Number 3, Vietnam, another lesson; particularly
as Vietnamese had their own lessons to impart to the PLA. As for
Public Enemy Number 4, the PLA has for decades known full well that
the Indian Army is very large, the Chinese assessment is that
because of psychological factors, the Indians are no threat. And to
be perfectly honest with readers, the Chinese assessment has, up to
now, been absolutely correct. An example: India’s permanent
deployment against Tibet is 8 divisions, each larger than a PLA
division. So how many divisions does China keep in Tibet? The
equivalent of one, and even then its main job is internal security.
·
On top of
this, China after First Gulf has fallen into a swoon over high-tech
warfare. It honestly, really, truly believes it no longer has to go
head-to-head with mass armies. Intelligence, reconnaissance,
electronics, airpower etc etc are supposed to be the decisive
weapons. Much as Rumsfeld of the USA envisaged, the Chinese really
believe that ground troops are now to seek and pin down the enemy,
high-tech will take care of the rest. Well, if the Chinese want to
delude themselves, far be it for us to argue. They might note the
Indians believe in quantity AND quality, but that isn’t our point
here. Because the PLA no longer sees corps, army, and army group
type battles as a Good Thing, it has been cutting down its corps
(armies in PLA parlance) to 3 and 4 brigades. So right or wrong,
they don’t see the need for a large army anymore. And look, if they
cut the PLA to half, they would still remain the world’s second
biggest.
·
When you
take a casual look at the Indian Army, you see 36 divisions. Because
the IA is not an expeditionary force, it does not need the huge
number of support troops that, for example, the US requires. In
World War II, US had 100,000 men (roughly) for each divisions. This
number had not significantly fallen by Second Indochina. Today the
US Army has 50,000 men per division, but of course this is
misleading because of the very high number of contracters. They
don’t quite bring the figure to 100,000 per division, but still.
There is nothing wrong with this: the further you are from home base
the more troops you need.
·
But India
makes do quite nicely on <30,000 men per division because all it
does is protect India’s borders. You will now say: wait a minute, if
it’s somewhere south of 30,000, then how come Editor is saying the
manpower total is 1.3-million. Even including the CI troops. Should
not the Indian total be around 1.1-million?
·
Well,
here’s where the Indians get a bit sneaky. In addition to the 36
divisions, they have a rather large number of independent brigades
and many divisions have extra brigades. And they’ve started adding
artillery divisions, replacing the old corps artillery of one
brigade plus the occasional reinforcement from a handful of army
level artillery brigades. Etc. etc. We can’t go into more detail,
but really 1.3-million is a more realistic figure. We of course
include what the Indian Army calls Non Combatants Enrolled – barbers
and washermen and so on that are part of every unit. Also good to
remember, Indian infantry/mechanized battalions run to 850 troops as
opposed to China’s 500.
Monday 0230 October 15, 2012
·
Turkey-Syria The gap between
Turkey and its western allies on Syria continues to grow. Editor has
nothing but sympathy for the Turks. It’s fine for Washington to go
“blah, blah, and blah”, but the Syrian civil war is taking place on
Turkey’s doorstep. If there wasn’t enough danger for the Turks, it
is clear that Islamic fundamentalists are steadily gaining influence
in Syria. All well and good for Washington to say “we can’t give
help till we can be sure our help goes to the right faction.” The
insurgents getting killed and wounded every day have no time for
niceties; they will accept help whoever gives it.
·
It
requires no great perception to say that Assad’s overthrow will lead
to a second civil war. It always is this way. We’re seeing the seeds
of a new civil war in Libya; this was only to be expected and it
would be far better if the Administration had taken some time to
explain this to the American people. But in Syria the new civil war
will be complicated by the presence of Islamic fundamentalists, and
by Iran, which will not take Assad’s overthrow lying down. The US
has basically dealt itself out of the Syria game. And you know, that
is not necessarily a bad thing. The US does not have to be involved
in every conflict in every corner of the world.
·
Turkey has made clear it will
not wait for Washington to get its thoughts straight. That is one
reason it has been trying to provoke a war with Syria. The seizing
of the cargo of a civilian plane flying between Russia and Damascus
is only a fresh attempt toward that end. With Russia sitting on
Assad not to respond to Turkey, it is possible Turkey will have to
escalate its provocations. Washington is attempt to sit on Turkey
and bring the temperature down, but Washington has zero credibility
because none of its solutions deal with the realities the Turks
face.
·
Washington, London, and to a lesser extent France are worried that
Turkey will drag NATO into a regional war. But unless NATO looks
after Turkey’s concerns, such as by equipping the rebels, Turkey
will have to make its own decisions. If NATO does not help Turkey,
the alliance will fracture. And that too may not be altogether a bad
thing. NATO too has
bought into Washington’s Endless War Syndrome. The dissolution of
the Warsaw Pact should have led to the dissolution of NATO. Instead
NATO has been expanding its size and its missions. What some in
Washington would really love is a NATO that encompasses all of
Europe, making it that much easier to dominate a world in which the
center of gravity is shifting from the West to other regions. When
Editor is in his hawk mode he sees much merit in this idea,
providing the effete Euros step up defense spending to 3% of GDP
rather than the pathetically-less-than-2% they manage. Otherwise the
Euros are using America, though Washington seems perfectly happy to
be used in return for a tug of the Euro forelock. But as an American
taxpayer, unless Europe antes up, Editor would have to violently
object to the continuing expansion of NATO and its missions.
·
The
problem with the problems facing US/NATO today is that they are
infinitely complex. The western alliance was built to handle a
single, very simple contingency: to stop the Group of Soviet Forces
Germany from crossing the Inner German Border. But now look what
NATO is being required to do. Remove a dictator from Iraq. Destroy
the Taliban and build a nation in Afghanistan though no nation in
modern terms has ever existed. Free the Mideast and North Africa
from its despots and build stable, democratic societies. Fight
Islamic fundamentalism in Africa. And no doubt the list will grow.
Its seems NATO’s hubris is infinite, and we know what happens to
folks with unlimited hubris.
·
All very
well, readers will say. You’ve made a good polemic, Editor. But what
is your prescription for the real world problems we face, such as
Mali, Yemen, Syria, just for starters. Well, Editor has been
thinking about this. There is a school of Indian philosophy that
says when problems get too complex, attempting solutions will
instead create new and deeper difficulties. It is best, therefore,
to sit and do nothing.
·
What are
the chances Washington, for one, will follow this course? Zero. You
cannot be an America while simultaneously believing you cannot solve
any problem. The more intractable our problems at home become, the
more determined we are to solve the world’s problems. This is also a
traditional method of diverting voters’ attention from what is not
being done at home. This was Soviet policy on a macro scale. It is
Cuba and Venezuela’s policy today. There are many other states that
could be named. Pakistan, for one. If Islamabad ended its plan to
take over eastern Afghanistan, the country might collapse. India
used to think that way, first in its non-aligned days and then in
the 1980s, when India decided to be regional policeman. Thankfully
it has realized that without sorting out problems at home, no one is
going anywhere.
Friday 0230 October 12,
2012
·
Benghazi If America is being
attacked in the media on a foreign policy/defense issue, Editor
feels obliged to respond immediately and forcibly. But if the media
is attacking one political party, in this case President
Obama/Secretary Clinton on the Benghazi incident, editor gets into a
difficult position. He has no interest in getting involved in a
domestic partisan battle, particularly when one candidate for
reelection feels he is so superior to the rest of humanity that he
does not have to rationally defend himself; and the other behaves
like he is an Etch-a-sketch: draw, tilt tablet, and you get a clean
surface to make another drawing.
·
As far as
Editor is concerned, if the Martians took away both candidates,
their vice-presidential partners, and a bunch of other people he
won’t specify, on whom to perform experiments, and if the Martians
forget to return them, America has a chance of surviving. With these
two Klasse Klownes there is no hope whatsoever. Come to think of it,
maybe the Martians did take away the would-be presidents/vice
presidents. That’s as good an explanation as any of why none of the
four can make any sense at all.
·
Be that
as it may, Editor’s field is national security and international
affairs, after all, and he feels compelled to say something here.
But please don’t take this as a defense of Mr. Obama at the expense
of Mr. Romney.
·
First, we
are completely, absolutely, totally baffled as to why the
administration had to shoot off its mouth about the attack before it
had the slightest clue. Our bafflement has nothing to do with
domestic politics, it has to do with common sense. In such a
situation, you do not, under any circumstances, fall for the
five-second analysis syndrome. You gravely announce this is a
serious matter, we do not have a full picture of what and why things
happened as they did, we owe the American people the truth. Soon as
we have the truth, we will inform you. End of the matter. That won’t
stop the GOF cuckoos from screaming “Cover up, cover up!”, but so
what. They’re going to scream that no matter what.
·
When you
shoot without taking the gun out of your holster, then have to walk
the story back several times, you actually strengthen the hands of
those yelling “Cover up!”, and what’s more, you look totally
incompetent. Remember, in life, especially Amerocan life, it does
not matter if you ARE incompetent; you must never give people the
idea that you are.
·
Second,
we are nothing short of confused why the Administration has not
pointed out the obvious smart alecky retort, which is the GOP cut
the State Department security budget, and has threatened vastly more
severe cuts in the total State budget.
·
Third,
why hasn’t the Administration made another simple point. No country
can assure absolute security of its interests everywhere in the
world. Resources are limited. You do your best to allocate resources
according to threat, but there is always a chance the threat is
going to win. That’s the game, and GOP needs to stop having a
tantrum and understand that. Anyone in the GOP remember Beirut? In
terms of human life that was much, much worse. The man in charge at
the times was their man. To have attacked President Reagan at that
point would have been totally unpatriotic. Anyone remember 9/11? Did
we start attacking President Bush for his failure? No, we united
behind the president.
·
Last,
Obama’s critics of every stripe (we cannot blame this on the GOP
alone) are going on and on and on and on and on and on about the
failure to pay attention to intelligence that the Benghazi consulate
was threatened. Kiddies, have you no clue whatsoever about the
intelligence business? Are you not aware of what goes on in your
country? If this is the case, confess to grandpa and he’ll let you
off with one hundred lashes of a Singapore cane, because while there
is no excuse to be so stupid, you confessed and you must get
consideration for your honesty. These days the problem is not a
shortage of intelligence. It is that there is just way, way too much
and it is a herculean task to sort out what’s relevant immediately,
tomorrow, the day after and so on, or not relevant at all.
· Lets make this personal. Have you never said over the telephone “I am going to kill that SOB”? Let’s suppose NSA intercepts all calls. How many calls a day do you think they will record with the words “kill”, “murder”, “wipe put” or whatever. Our guess is tens of thousands if not more. Is there any possible way in which the police have of following each lead to see which is serious and which is just gassing? Obviously not. In the Arab world these words, and people who utter them, probably do number ten thousand a day. 99.99% of those calls are likely no danger. In figuring out which one is real, you will win some, and you will lose some. If every time you get a hint that a US mission is in danger you dispatch a 50-member Marine counter-terror detachment, we will all have to serve in the Marines so they have sufficient teams.
It is said the head of the consulate
asked for a 16-man team to extend in Benghazi. So would you like
to guess how many other stations also needed that team? We’d
hate to guess because we fear we will guess too low. But you
don’t have to know a whole lot to appreciate the number of these
specialist teams is highly limited. Aside from which you might
well have had 20 Americans dead, including almost the entire
team. Of course, they’d take at least a hundred bad guys with
them, but is this any consolation? When you’re in the heart of
enemy territory, if the terrorists found themselves facing
resistance, it is a great deal easier for them to round up
another 300 militia than it is for the Americans to reinforce.
·
Okay, you
say, why didn’t the Administration withdraw the consulate? Okay, we
say, are you and I to judge from the outside when a facility should
be shut down?
·
And
finally, what about the lamebrain Congressperson who made 100% sure
at the hearings that the world came to know the Benghazi facility
also houses a 7-person CIA station.
First the GOP demands open hearings. Then midway through the
hearings people start saying: “Oh wait a minute, this is all so
SECRET, and we really should not be discussing that building over
THERE, and its not a good idea for the world to know that the
building is a CIA STATION. Please tell us: why are these people not
being arrested and thrown into Supermax?
Thursday 0230 GMT
October 11, 2012
·
China-Pakistan The
scuttlebutt is that China is very upset with Pakistan over the
latter’s inability or unwillingness to tackle the anti-China
militants that get safe haven in Pakistan. Beijing is allegedly
saying that if the Pakistanis cannot handle these militants, it had
better let Beijing take care of it. Which would mean more Chinese
troops on Pakistani soil. The ones that are already there in
Gilgit-Baltistan are, as far as we know, for security of Chinese
road building crews and those engaged in mining activity. While
China pressuring Pakistan over militants is well established, the
idea that China wants to station its own troops in Pakistan to take
care of the militants is, we much repeat, speculation.
·
China,
incidentally, denies it has anything other than civilians in
Pakistan. This is massively yawn-inducing because it is playing with
words. You can call the security troops what you want, but they are
troops no matter which way you look at it. China has to go for these
verbal subterfuges because it has a holier-than-thou attitude to
foreign bases and stationing troops overseas. These are all bad, bad
things that imperialists do; China does not. Whatever.
·
Meanwhile there is Pakistan’s deteriorating economic situation. Several negatives have conspired to bring
Pakistan GDP growth almost to a flat line. Growth for 2013-2014 is
estimated at 3.2%, barely ahead of the population growth, inflation
is expected to return to double digits. The fiscal deficit continues
at a high 7%+ because populist policies require subsidies that the
country cannot afford. And
2013 is an election year. Tax evasion is very high and the tax base
narrow. Government revenue is only 13.5% of GDP (India is at 18.5%;
not healthy, but better by far than Pakistan). In the past the IMF,
US, China, and the Gulf states have stabilized
Pakistan’s dwindling foreign currency reserves, currently down to
about $10-billion or less than 90-days imports. Currently, however,
with the possible exception
of China no big donors are on the horizon. Worse, Pakistan is in the
grip of a massive power crisis that is estimated to have cut GDP
growth by 3%.
·
You will
notice we haven’t included the usual western moan and whine about
Pakistan’s high defense spending. That’s
because in reality Pakistan is likely spending only 3% of GDP on
defense, with another 1% made up of US grants. Three percent of GDP
is not high by any definition.
·
So
naturally there is speculation of China will provide a bailout, say
of the order of $3-$5 billion. Let’s first say that the amount is so
low China could spend it without noticing any hit to its own
budgets. Let’s second note the Chinese do subsidize their allies.
Venezuela is a good case.
Let’s third note that Pakistan is a critical China ally
against a rising India. Whatever money the Chinese may need to give
Pakistan to keep it alive is less than peanuts compar3ed to the
percentage of Indian force that Pakistan ties down. This all adds up
to an assumption that China will help Pakistan. It’s only an
assumption, however, we don’t know. And if China steps in, it will
want a healthy return on its money, to be likely paid for in the
future with Pakistani commodities. This is something for readers to
keep their eye on into2014.
·
Pakistan-China military
cooperation More interesting to us is a 2011 report which we
just saw, saying the PLA’s 101st Engineer Regiment had
participated with the Pakistan Army on India’s borders. Both
countries, of course, stage frequent exercises with other
militaries. But China is India’s enemy, so joining Pakistan on the
Indian birder is pretty significant.
·
We asked Mandeep Singh Bajwa,
our trusty South Asia expert, what this
meant. He noted the Chinese exercised in the desert. That India’s
strategy calls for cutting Pakistan in two in the desert sector is
no secret. Mandeep said part of this is China wanting to practice in
the desert. Part, he said is posturing at India. Mandeep feels China
will not come to Pakistan’s assistance in case India makes major
inroads into Pakistan. Rather it will rely on posturing,
particularly in the north, to prevent India from diverting northern
front forces to the west, against Pakistan.
Wednesday 0230 GMT
October 10, 2010
·
Ah, the Bad Old Days Readers
know Editor has a heavy nostalgia for the America of yesteryear.
Editor thinks America was a great place and everything was just
picture perfect. A big blow-up at the British Broadcasting
Corporation is a sober reminder, though, that maybe it wasn’t such a
great place if you were a working woman, particularly if you were
single.
·
Jimmy
Savile, who died last year, was one of Britain’s top broadcast
personalities for thirty years. Since for many years broadcasting
was government controlled in the UK, he worked for the BBC, or the
Beeb, as the in-crowd call it. (Since Editor has never been in any
in crowd, he refers to the Beeb as the BBC). After Jimmy’s departure
from the world, a whole bunch of men and women started coming
forward, saying he had raped, sexually assaulted, or groped them;
many had been adolescents at the time. According to
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9594620/Former-BBC-DJ-Mike-Smith-hits-out-at-Jimmy-Savile-witch-hunt.html
there seem to be about 100 persons so far who have come forward. As
happens with these things, some people have said it is a witch hunt
and that there was a lot of horsing around at the BBC, all in good
fun.
·
The
problem becomes, fun for whom? Editor remembers the Good Old Days
well, particularly the 1950s and 1960s, and the amount of sexual
harassment working women endured would shock the pants off many
people today, men as much as women. Putting hands on women, openly
soliciting sex in the workplace or demanding it after work, and
plain, old fashioned rape were quite the done thing. The reasons
most women did not bring this kind of behavior to anyone’s attention
were not terribly complicated. The supervisors and executives were
men, who like Savile’s defenders today genuinely couldn’t understand
why the woman was complaining. Some of the men the woman might
complain to were themselves engaged in this behavior. Usually the
last thing the women wanted was to draw attention to themselves.
·
Not only
women were brought up to blame themselves, men also blamed women. We
were supposed to be terribly weak reeds, subject to sexual passion
at the drop of a hat, and if we, the men, did something wrong, it
was always the women had asked for it. This attitude is not all that
different from that of the Islamic conservatives of today, by the
way. Since women couldn’t go to the people in the organization,
where were they to go? To the police? Get serious, someone. In the
days before DNA testing it came down to “he says, she says”.
Moreover, going to the police could cost your job at work, and it
would 100% ruin your reputation in the public eye.
·
Editor
entirely agrees that today the pendulum may have swung too much the
other day. It is perfectly okay for a woman to get drunk with you,
get into your bed with you, and then scream rape when you do
something. This business of “it’s my body and I can say no at any
point” may be deeply satisfying to feminists, but let’s face it, no
one is asking women to get drunk with men and going home with them.
There are other types of perverse pendulum swing. A woman is
inappropriately touched and it becomes sexual assault, which kind of
diminishes the realities of real sexual assault, particularly as
groping is also a crime. And so on – Editor is just trying to make a
point here, he’s not interested in going into gory details.
·
But each
time he hears of a case where he feels the woman has gone too far
and needs to start taking equal responsibility for her behavior,
Editor harks back to the old days and has to remind himself: maybe
some things today are not fair to the men, but back in the old days
things were 99% unfair to women. There’s a bit of karma operating
here. And in any case, why does any man have to in any way force a
woman today? Back in Editor’s day for every woman who said yes there
were 25 who said no. Today, on the other hand, for every one that
says no, twenty five will say yes.
·
This is
why most of the young men Editor knows today, in high school,
college, or otherwise, are so relaxed. They are smart enough to know
that not only must they not in any way coerce women, there must also
be no appearance of coercion. So the young men simply lie back, and
let the women come to them. The relations between men and women are
so complex that many women are quite bitter about the current
situation where they have to make the effort. Women like being
chased, as long as they have total control. But after taking severe
beatings in the 1980s, 1990s, and the new century, young men have
decided not only its best to let the women make the moves, it’s fun
not to have to deal with rejection.
·
If the
former BBC women are trying to make money off this, that is wrong.
There is a statute of limitations on anything except murder, and it
really is not fair to take the BBC to court for stuff that happened
half-century or decades ago. Yet to dismiss all or most of the cases
as women money grubbing would also be wrong. Sexual assault, whether
committed on men or women, can be exceptionally traumatizing.
Indeed, so can violence of any kind if you are the victim. Editor
suspects many of these women may be coming forward solely because
they are trying to move on.
Tuesday 0230 GMT October 9, 2012
·
Hugo Wins Look, people, we
realize Hugo’s victory is upsetting many. But there is no need to
mutter darkly about conspiracies. Folks are making too much about
ONE exit poll that showed the challenger winning. We have no way of
knowing how that poll was conducted; and as everyone says about
American polls, these things can be quite wrong.
·
The main
reason we have to accept Hugo’s victory is that the challenger has
accepted it. Unless now we are to claim he was a Hugo stooge, and
that is why he is not complaining, are we really to believe that the
challenger would not object to Hugo’s dirty tricks? And if he is a
Hugo stooge, well then, he wasn’t going to win anyway, was he now?
·
The thing
is that whatever dirty tricks Hugo had to pull, he did so before the
election. The Number One dirty trick is muzzling the press and
opponents. This was not
a free election in the sense American might take the meaning. At
this point, of course, Hugo’s defenders are going to retort: “Oh
yeah? You have a free press in America?” Well, of course we do. It
is so free it runs the adverts of anyone who pays. Those who don’t
pay don’t get media time, so what good is a free press to them
anyhows? Freedom for the privileged is not really freedom.
·
Hugo’s
defenders will further say that the Venezuela rich owned the media,
and represented only their opinion. So are the ordinary people of
Venezuela to be denied a voice because they are poor? They have a
theoretical point. Sure, arresting editors and such doesn’t seem the
right way to level the playing field. But Americans have to face the
reality that the non-monied interests in this country don’t get to
express their opinion to the country as a whole. Also remember most
people in Venezuela are really poor.
·
And this comes to the crux of
the matter. Hugo need not have muzzled the press. He would still
have won because he is truly seen as the champion of the poor. He
didn’t fix the election because he didn’t need to. If people in
America had bothered to read the non-elite Venezuela press, such as
it is, they would realize the man is just wildly popular among the
poor, who predominate.
·
Okay, so
he has bought the votes of the poor. He has nationalized many
industries to provide goods below cost to the poor. This is nutzoid
economics, and hardly good for the poor in the long run. Hugo takes
money from the state oil company and gives it to poor people to buy
apartments. This hurts the state oil company because it cannot spend
the money it needs on maintenance and expansion. That is the reason
that oil production has steadily declined in the Time of Hugo. And
it isn’t good for the people in the long run.
·
At this
point, the Venezuelan poor would tell us to just stop right there.
They don’t care that the country suffers long term because whether
the country does well or not, they get shafted. They believe – on
excellent historical evidence – they will not get to share in the
country’s economic progress. So as far as they are concerned, a
cheap apartment and subsidized food is good for them. And they will
vote the man who gives it to them. And you can understand their
view. Suppose you lived in a shanty in a giant slum, and your kids
were malnourished, what would you chose – Hugo who is giving you
these necessities of life, or the man who says “I will think of the
country first and the poor after that”?
·
Before
you say this is bribery, please look at our own country. Whoever is
in power bribes the people using government programs to get votes.
How is that different from Hugo? Those not in power but wanting it
promise to bribe the masses if elected. How is this different from
what Hugo does each time he stands for election?
·
Editor
realizes this comparison is going to outrage you. But if there’s one
thing Editor has learned on his second time around in America, it is
that the people are subject to such overwhelming propaganda that we
go around saying orange is blue and yellow is black. The elite’s
propaganda is so powerful that even Editor, who should know better –
on national security he’s got 52 years under his belt – is often
taken in. Hugo and Co
are massively corrupt, but our elite is no better.
Monday 0230 GMT October
8, 2012
·
Syria-Turkey With the media
pundits and some of the world ratcheting up the frenzy regarding the
Syria-Turkey fire exchanges – 5th day in a row yesterday
– Editor has to pull people into a dark alley, whisper “Do you want
to see some facts?” and throw his coat open.
·
The
reality is, what is going on has absolutely no significance in
military terms. There is no crisis – except the one Turkey is trying
to make. The only way that
Syria can make sure no mortar and artillery shells land in Turkish
territory is to pull back about 10-km from the border, maybe even
more. So, you will ask, why can’t Syria do that? Because then the
rebels have their Turkish protected border zone. You will appreciate
that Syria cannot allow this.
·
Let’s
look at the mechanics of these things. The rebels get into a fight
with the Syrian Army on the border, and flee into Turkey. It would
take C3I, fire-control, and reconnaissance far, far more
sophisticated than Syria has to ensure none of its retaliatory fire
hits Turkish territory. Indeed, we’re not sure this level of
precision is even possible. To us the surprise is not that 1, 2, or
6 shells are landing in Turkey, but that it isn’t ten times more. To
us this suggests that far from being rash, the Syrians are actually
being very cautious, likely to the point the guerillas already have
some immunity at the border.
·
Now, the
reason Turkey is raising a big hue and cry is that it is building up
to an excuse to invade Syria for creating safe haven for the rebels.
Here’s a paraphrase of the official Turkish announcement : “After
exercising great patience and restraint in the face of daily Syrian
provocation and attacks on our sacred soil, Turkey has no choice but
to create a buffer zone that will protect its territory from these
attacks. We have no aggressive intentions and are prepared to
withdraw once provided with verifiable guarantees that Syria will
end its aggression.” (Editor hopes we are clear there is no such
announcement yet, but it is coming.)
·
The only
choice Syria has to defuse the matter is to withdraw from the border
– it has already moved some armor back despite Turkey’s continuing
buildup – or to stop using mortars and artillery adjacent to the
border. Either way Turkey gets its safe zone for the rebels.
·
Now let
us assume that Syria does indeed cease fire or withdraw its
artillery from the border. Will that end the incidents? Ha ha. It
will increase the
incidents because Turkey will start provoking fire against Syria –
if it isn’t already doing so, BTW. Turkey, having got its nose under
the Syrian tent, is now going to want to puts its head in the tent.
It will want to increase the safe zone. Anything less than 30-km
deep does not provide haven for the rebels or allow them to set up
their own government.
·
So Syria
is going to lose either way. We want to be clear that we are hardly
shedding tears for the Syria regime. They want to stop Turkey’s
inevitable drumbeat to war, it is quite simple. Let Assad stop
killing his people, allow free elections, and depart. Syria has had
more than a year to squash the rebellion. Now Turkey has gotten
involved full force, figuring that the wobbly west is not going to
help overthrow Assad, and deciding its cannot afford to wait longer.
We went over the reasons, the other day, why Turkey wants this mess
to end. Turkey is not going to back down. If Syria does, it places
itself on the short road to defeat. If bets have to be placed on
Turkey or Syria, we suggest you place your money on Turkey.
·
Quadruple rainbow? Yawn Editor is unable to understand why everyone is excited about a
quadruple rainbow.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15197774 In 1988
Editor was at about 2000-meters in the western Himalayas,
overlooking a valley, when the rain stopped, clouds starting
clearing, and the sun could do his thing. Editor counted eight (yup,
8) rainbows over the valley. The sight lasted only a few minutes.
Editor was excited enough to believe this was a good omen, but if he
recalls right, there was no practical result. I.e., Editor did not
get a date that Saturday.
Friday 0230 GMT October
5, 2012
Next update Monday October 8, 2012
·
The big news is not that Mr. Romney won the first presidential debate, but that
the Turkish parliament accepted a request from the military for
blanket permission to cross the Syria border at will. The vote was
320-129 in favor, and the authority cover one-year.
·
The
background to this is a bit complicated.
Officially the background
is the Turkish military wants to deter incidents such as happened a
few days ago. Syrian artillery firing on escaping Syrian refugees
killed two Turkish women and three children in Turkish territory.
The Turks piously declared they did not want war, but Syria needed
to understand that it had best behave itself.
·
If Turkey
really didn’t want war, it would have accepted the apology given by
Damascus. But of course the incident is only a pretext, because like
a leashed pack of hounds, the Turkish , military has been gasping,
whining, drooling, and panting to be let free on Syria. Turkey, at
least, has a clear position on Syria: Assad must go. That Turkey is
a Sunni Muslim nation is a major factor. And that Turkey does not at
any costs want instability on its southern border is also a major
factor. An unstable Middle East being to no one’s advantage. The
place is not as volatile as it used to be, but things are pretty
tense 24/365. Turkey has many worries regarding the Kurds, with whom
it is in a protracted civil war. Syria also has Kurds. They have
seen their main chance, and are busy as bees, preparing for – at the
minimum – autonomy within a new Syria. That will prove a disaster
from Turkey.
·
There is,
however, a third factor. Repeatedly rejected by Europe, Turkey has
basically told Europe and to a great extent even the US to go to
heck. It has decided that being Mideast hegemon is preferable to
being an inferior partner of Europe, where it will be continually
condescended to and insulted. [The problem, from Europe’s viewpoint,
is that (a) the Turkish respect for human rights does not meet
western criterion; and (b) Turkish Muslim conservatives are making
huge inroads against secular Muslims. Recently, for example, Turkey
sent 300 military officers to jail for plotting a coup, which they
may well have been. The armed forces are strictly committed to
secularism as the foundation of modernization, and the shifts over
the past years to the Islamic right were not acceptable to the
military. Problem was, the trials would have met old Joe Stalin’s
full approval: they were staged, violated just about every due
process precious to western law, and included the fabrication of
evidence on a massive scale.
·
Having
decided that at the minimum a separation – though not yet a divorce
– from the west is needed to end the countless humiliation Turkey
believes it has suffered, Turkey is seeking self-respect, and
respect in the eyes of other, but exerting its military and economic
power. Assad is not playing the role he has been assigned, that of a
humble younger brother who knows his place and is neither seen nor
heard. So Turkey has decided Assad must be punished.
·
Now,
thanks to the weak wobblies afflicting the west, Assad is daily
going “A hie, a ho, Off to kill I go” and having the time of his
young life killing his people. The west is saying a lot, so much so
that it is all sound and farty fury signifying nothing (with
apologies to the Bard and to Faulkner). But it is doing little.
Standing aside while the Sunni Gulf states send pop-guns to the
rebels is not helping. The Sunni Gulf states understandably don’t
want lots of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles floating around an
unstable area, with every possibility some of the women will one day
be used against them. Nor is the west establishing a no-fly zone.
·
This is
terribly frustrating to the Turks, because psychologically they are
unwilling to attack Syria as part of a coalition of One. There are
legal issues, one being aggression. If you get UN’s okay, it’s okay.
With Russia and China determined to exemplify the virtues of
fascism, we aren’t going to get UN cover. Second best would be NATO
cover; even that is being denying the Turks.
·
So just
about all they can do is claim self-defense, thus the resolution.
And at the least, whatever the world may say, the Turkish military
has cleared the decks with its own government.
·
Turkey is
still left in a predicament. If Assad is sensible, he will avoid
providing a provocation to Turkey. It’s
a bit hard to send in two army corps rolling to Damascus because a
sheep, a goat, and a camel have been killed in Syrian shelling. The
good news is that so far Assad has done everything he can to provoke
everyone. It’s part of his strategy, his way of telling the rebels:
“I can do what I want, no one will save you”. Assad may gamble and
call what he might think is Turkey’s bluff.
Readers have figured out by
now our information is that Turkey is not bluffing. It’s ready to go
in alone if it absolutely must, but it still needs a real pretext.
Hopefully Baby Blue Eyes will provide it.
Thursday 0230 GMT
October 4, 2012
·
Off we go to more lovely little wars
There
is a paucity of authentic information on US Africa Command’s
deployment. American forces have been operating clandestinely in the
continent for several years now. Djibouti appears to be the main US
base, but at any given time you are likely to find US Special Forces
and training teams tromping around 3 or so African countries at any
one time. Some of the teams
may be as few as 10-15 troops, and they rotate in and out of
different countries. The purpose of these teams is to impart Counter
Insurgency training. There are fairly big training teams – in the
50-100 range – in countries like Uganda and Kenya where CI is
training is secondary, the Somalia Africa Union mission is the
focus. There likely are trainers in Burundi, a major contributor to
the Somalia effort. The EU also contributes military trainers to the
effort, based outside that countries. There are long-standing
missions to Ethiopia, west Africa, and some Sahel nations.
·
The US is
very fond of paramilitary contractors. And these are stationed in
several countries. Contractors are just another branch of the US
military, whatever Department of Defense might say. Technically they
are mercenaries, almost all US citizens. But they are hired guns,
fighting as civilians, thus the mercenary label. If course we
America Do Not Do things like run mercenaries, so let us not get
into that discussion.
·
Contrary
to the widespread belief that the US cannot keep anything secret,
the war in Africa is secret. There are maybe 3000 persons committed,
and Africa is a huge, huge continent where neither the media nor
tourists are swarming. To this secret war the US is adding Mali and
Libya. It is so thoughtful of AQ to give us new wars, things were
looking a bit bleak since we withdrew from Iraq and started the
withdrawal from Afghanistan. AQ has entered Syria, and in an act of
pure kindness to America, AQ will reenter Afghanistan and start
strengthening in Pakistan, so we can go round and round and up and
down chasing our tails. Also in Pakistan they will start adapting to
US capabilities, if they haven’t already.
·
So, we’re
of two minds about this new expansion of the war. On one hand, after
seeing what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are not sanguine
about the US ability to fight counterinsurgency. Before you say “But
Iraq was a success,” please to note that before we dismantled the
Iraqi regime, bureaucracy, military and police, Iraq was a highly
functional state. We spent the next seven years trying to undo our
mistakes. That is not success.
But on the other hand, even the cynical critic (that’s your
Editor) will be the first to admit that in Africa we’ve done quite
well. Take Somalia, the main US effort. US has suffered no
casualties except to accidents, there are no US troops in Somalia
except maybe a very small handful, and we are not spending
$100-billion/year. But Al-Shaaba has suffered a major defeat thanks
to US diplomatic efforts, training, and provision of money. When you
think of it, it’s no mean achievement to have organized an African
Army to defeat the Somali insurgents.
Of course Al-Shabaab is going to go back to guerilla war,
but from a point where their victory in Somalia seemed imminent,
they have lost almost all their important bastions. Sure its going
to take another 20 years to finally defeat the insurgents, but
because the US is spending so little it has 20 years with no
domestic pressure.
·
What the
US has done, for the first time in its modern history, is not sought
to shove the locals aside, do the job itself, and try and recreate a
country to make it pleasing to American eyes.
It has focused on helping
locals fight Al-Shabaab. So there is every reason to believe that US
will also do a good job in Libya and Mali. In the latter country the
US has very experienced partners, the French, and as long as the US
doesn’t tell the French their way is wrong and here is how you do
it, and then rampage through the country like endless herds of drunk
elephants, everything will go well. The people of Mali oppose the
Islamists who have taken over the north; they have institutions and
an army. The army needs a lot of work, but that’s what the French
are there for. US will provide – as far as we know as of now – some
infantry training; for the rest it will focus on technical training
for the air force and specialist army troops, and provide money,
equipment, and intelligence.
·
And the
odds are excellent that 2-3 years from now you will see AQ/Islamists
pushed out of Mali. People will be waiting in Libya, Chad, the
Central African Republic, and Niger to take care of fleeing
militants. All very sensible.
Wednesday 0230 GMT
October 3, 2012
·
Afghanistan an innocuous
article in the New York Times tells the US and the world that the US
knows it has completely failed in Afghanistan.
http://t.co/N7HPqzU1 Editor was
about the last person to learn US was failing. It took him until
2008 to figure this out. Admitting to this to People In The Know
earned Editor considerable derision along the lines “Now you find
out?” Truthfully, Editor deserves the derision, because people WERE
telling him the US was failing, but he refused to listen. He could
not believe US Government would blandly lie to its people, not after
the transparency of First Gulf, and the fiasco with the public trust
in Second Indochina.
·
It is
said two things led to the end of trust Americans have traditionally
reposed in the US Government. One was the assassination of President
Kennedy; the other was the Vietnam War. Editor is still not sure how
the first played into the end of trust, but he is only restating
something that was said many, many times in the 1960s and 1970s.
Vietnam as a corroding factor in the trust thing is obvious.
Government on Monday would announce we’re beating the Reds, on
Friday it would say its sending another 50,000 troops. After
committing 550,000+ troops (actually 750,000 when you count the
Navy, airpower based outside Vietnam, and air force units supporting
the logistical effort), one day the country wakes up to the news
that General Westmoreland is asking for 2250,000 more troops. Total
freakout. Total, total freakout.
·
Anyhows,
what Editor did not realize is that around 2005 the Taliban had
rebuilt from its losses consequent on the US invasion of
Afghanistan, and slowly but surely Taliban steps up its activity. By
2008 it has reached the stage US has to up forces by 50%. This was
an “Uh Oh” moment for Editor. Bright feller that he is, he said:
“Something smells in the Kingdom of Denmark”. Probing deeper, it
emerged the Taliban controlled 50% of Afghanistan by day, 80% by
night. Editor, being the genius he is, goes “Yo, amigo, looks like
we’re actually losing”. Now he starts looking more deeply at the
situation, instead of ignoring it and relying on other blogs, which
give the US viewpoint 100%. Then he realizes (a) US has no strategy
to win; (b) US is massively failing to train the Afghans. Anything
wrong that can be done, the US is doing.
·
Editor at
this point cannot emotionally handle it anymore, because the
American failures are so massive and so total, that one either
ignores the situation or one faces the reality that this country’s
national security establishment and higher military leader is, like,
totally incompetent. The consequences of this are so immense, that
and aside from the occasional guerilla raid on conventional wisdom,
Editor basically goes “La la la, I can’t hear you.”
·
Okay, so
now Editor has done the mea culpa thing, lets come back to the NY
Times article. It says that the Americans now admit that we cannot
bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, and that it’s up to the
Afghans to work this out. Moreover, the article also says that until
we leave in 2014, there will be no major progress in negotiations.
And even more abjectly, the article says the americans will have to
give Pakistan a major seat at the table. This is as clear an
admission of defeat as you are getting from American leaders today.
·
Editor
has been saying, irregularly, moodily, and off-handedly that if
there are Afghan-Taliban negotiations, they will solely be a Taliban
deception to prepare its takeover. This means there will be NO real
negotiations; the game is lost, and the leadership knows it.
·
So: let’s
repeat what we’ve said before. Taliban will whack the Afghan Army
with greater ease than you whack the weeds in your garden because
the Afghan Army’s fighting potential is about as close to zero as
one can get. The only thing propping up the mockery of an Afghan
Army is the US. With combat units gone, no amount of advisors is
going to save the bacon, or however that expression goes. Once the US gets out of the
way, the Pakistan Army is going to come right back into Afghanistan,
and just as it did 1994-96, it is going to beat the daylights out of
the Afghans.
·
Now:
there will this time be a major difference. Last time the world was
basically keeping out of the dreadful civil war that erupted after
the Soviet withdrawal of 1989 between the warlords, followed by the
rise of the Taliban, who at that time were only an extension of the
Pakistan Army. Toward the end of the rise of the Taliban, people
like India and Russia were aiding anti-Pushtoon Afghans. At the time
of the US invasion in 2001, the Northern Alliance had 15% of the
country, Taliban had 85% (in so far as anyone can actually have
control over Afghanistan – another question for another time). This
time, however, India, Russia, and even the US are going to aid the
west and north Afghan who are anti-Taliban (and anti Pushtoon). The
core of new opposition army will come from the split-up Afghan Arm.
With foreign assistance, there will be no scope for Pakistan to take
over all of Afghanistan; and its not clear if Islamabad wants to.
·
We don’t
want to paint a rosy picture of Pakistan’s gains because there are
going to be all sorts of problems for Pakistan this time as opposed
to 1996-2001. Among these problems is that the Taliban have
developed their own identity, and plus you have a bunch of Taliban
who are anti-Pakistan. Again, this is another discussion for another
time.
·
The only
question we should be asking is: are any American generals,
bureaucrats, Administration officials, and media going to be held
responsible for America’s defeat? Are there going to be inquiries,
trials, and punishments? Of course not, you silly person. You see,
America works on two tracks. There is you and me, the peasants, and
there are the elite. When us peasants mess up, the elite makes darn
sure we suffer the consequences. When the elite mess up, they get
better jobs and after a decent interval return to make another, even
bigger mess.
Tuesday 0230 GMT
October 2, 2012
·
US walks itself back on Iran attack Let’s first stipulate that it never was
particularly clear how serious the Obama Administration was about
attacking Iran’s N-program. At various times in the last several
years (and during the Bush Administration too) it seemed that an
attack was unavoidable. But now that push has come to shove, the US
seems to be walking itself back on the subject. A clear distance has
been put by Washington between itself and Tel Aviv, to the point
apparently the US has warned Israel that the US will leave Israel to
its fate if Israel starts something without US permission. And then
the US has made clear it is not giving its permission. How much of
this is a bluff is not known to us, after all, Israel’s Bibi may
also well be bluffing when he says he will if necessary attack
without the US.
·
Washington’s point of view is that sanctions ARE working, and Iran
IS being squeezed by the America boa constrictor. Tel Aviv’s point
of view is that (a) the sanctions are a joke; Teheran is
successfully avoiding them, and (b) the Iranians will eat grass
before giving up their N-problem, no matter how much they are
squeezed.
·
Added to
this is the disagreement over how close Iran is to a bomb. The US
believes there’s time to let sanctions work. Tel Aviv says Iran is
weeks away from a bomb. Editor says he believes they are years away,
but one day they are going to get the bomb if nothing is done. He
also agrees with the Israelis that the Iranians would rather eat
grass before giving up their program. He further believes even if
the Iranians do give it up, they will keep the core of it intact,
ready to ramp up at need.
·
And as if
the above divergences are not bad enough, there is another. One
school says the Mad Mullahs are not really mad, and even if they get
the bomb, the Israeli/US N-arsenal will deter them. It is possible
to go one step further and argue that in fact, anyone who uses
N-weapons for any reason will have to be taken out by the world’s
nuclear powers acting together. The other school agrees the Mad
Mullahs are not mad, but they are far worse. They are ready to wipe
out Israel even if it means their country becomes a radioactive
waste. We could go back and forth forever on this issue alone.
·
Now comes
an article from a longtime and reputable Aviation Week and Space
Technology writer, David Fulgham that has US sources giving all
sorts of reasons an attack would be pointless. The article is at
http://tinyurl.com/92rn7bm
Now, it’s true that you should rely on any article on background
from Washington with less trust than you would regard a heroin user
begging for money and saying he promises you will have the money
tomorrow. It is also true that the people Aviation Week spoke to are
simply planting their point of view. In this case they would be
trying to slow down the drumbeat to war.
·
Essentially what the article says is that a strike will not work
because (a) anything short of N-weapons will not destroy the
deep-bunker part of the Iranian n-program; and (b) even if it is
destroyed there is nothing to stop Iran from getting 20% enriched
uranium and even working components of an N-bomb from smugglers. The
kindest thing we can say about people who are saying these things is
they need to step down form their jobs and get a proper education.
Since we aren’t here to make one case or the other, let us continue
with the theme that the US appears to be backing down.
·
Two
questions arise. (a) Is the US actually in favor of a strike but is
building plausible deniability by pretending to be against a strike?
Will it tell Israel to go ahead, wait for Iran to retaliate by
attacking US Gulf installation or Hormuz, at which point US says
“see, we do not want to get into a war with Iran, but now they’ve
made war on us.” If this is so, US is wasting its time. Those who
support a strike, such as the Sunni Mideast states, will support it
no matter what convolutions the US goes through. Those who oppose it
are going to get angry at the US and will not for a minute accept
there was any distance between US-Israel.
·
(b)
Normally we are all for striking left, right, and center, and we
particularly don’t like the Iranian mullahs. But as we have recently
said repeatedly, the US just seems to have no capacity to deal with
the aftermaths of its invasions/strikes/interventions. The quality
of decision-making in Washington is so low is that the US is going
to get into a right royal mess if it strikes. Look at the
super-hesitance in Libya and in Syria. So perhaps the Obama
Administration is right to avoid an attack, at this time, at least.
Monday 0230 GMT October
1, 2012
·
What do Sam Bacile,
Nakoula
Basseley Nakoula, and Mark Basseley Youssef have in common? They are the
same person, and only three of several names used by the maker of
the anti-Islam video.
·
Judging
from comments on the blogosphere, many Americans appear unfamiliar
with their own criminal justice system. Perhaps it is as well, since
this indicates they have little cause to deal with the system. But
the unfamiliarity has led to considerable heat without light. What
has upset many in the blogsphere is the belief the video-maker is
being punished by the Obama Administration for exercising his 1st
Amendment rights.
·
The
reality is more sordid, as is often the case when dealing with petty
criminals. And unfortunately, that is what the video-maker is, a
petty criminal. It is a mistake to turn him into a crusader for 1st
Amendment rights who is persecuted by the US Government.
·
The
videomaker is a convicted felon (check fraud) and has violated his
probation eight times. This violation concerns the requirement that
he stay off the Internet for 5-years unless permitted by his parole
officer. He has consistently lied about his association with the
video. And he has perpetrated a fraud on the actors, whom he told
the movie was an adventure film. There is, of course, no movie. All
that exists is the crude U-Tube clip the world has seen.
·
When a
criminal makes the headlines in the US, law enforcement goes into
overdrive at all levels, local, state, and federal. They do that not
because the person is necessarily dangerous, but because they love
publicity. The agencies pile on to the criminal. He may already be
stretched on the playing field after taking a hit, but other players
will jump on him just to get into the news, and to get their piece
of him. The way law enforcement works is that in a high profile
case, a considerable manpower is deployed to comb every aspect of
the person’s life for the slightest hint of other malfeasances.
Everything dredged is subject
to minute scrutiny, to see if additional charges can be brought.
·
This
gentleman has proved an easy target. He is so averse to the truth
that when tried for fraud, he used what was apparently his given
name. Nothing wrong with that, but in 2002 he had his name legally
changed so he should have given his legal name. There’s another case
right there. He carried a driver’s license in his previous name,
which means he has got the license renewed at least once in an
incorrect name. There’s another case right there. And we don’t know
what else will emerge.
·
What is
known is the gentleman is a habitual liar and a low-grade scumbag.
Why on earth is anyone holding him up as a paragon of the 1st
Amendment? Much of the reason is that a significant part of our
country cannot stand the President. They will jump on Mr. Obama for
the slightest thing, true or imagined. One respected blogger has
even made the argument that the Benghazi case is worse than
Watergate. Come on now, people. You need to separate your hatred of
Mr. Obama from facts. To allege the federal, state, and local
authorities are following the President’s orders to persecute the
video gentleman is a bit bunch. For the President to issue such an
order is illegal, and you can be sure people in the various
governments would be gleefully releasing the information to the
media.
·
As an
example of where people are making the wrong assumptions is the
denial of bail to the video gentleman. Violating probation, people
argue, is not a non-bailable offense. They are correct. He has been
jailed not because of his parole violation, but because the judge
wanted more time for the authorities to clear confusion about the
man’s multiple identities, and wanted the defense to offer firmer
proof the man will not flee the country.
·
This said, Editor agrees people have a right to be very angry about
the way the Administration has handled the matter.
The manner in which Administration
officials have apologized repeatedly, and excoriated the video
repeatedly, is completely unacceptable. There is nothing to
apologize for. The video person may be a low-grade scumbag, but he
retains his 1st Amendment rights. Absolutely all the
Administration can legitimately say is: “The US government does not
like the video, but the man who made it has constitutional
protection. We take the Constitution more seriously than the hurt
feelings of people.” The Administration might add that when we do
not punish people for “insults” to other religions, not even to
Christianity, America’s main religion, why exactly is America
required to be more sensitive to Islam?
·
The other
day news appeared of an ancient writing fragment that appears to
have Jesus say Mary was his wife. Washington Post had a cartoon of
Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, something very sacred to many
Christians. Instead of delivering the sermon, Jesus says that he was
misquoted, and he was referring to whiffle balls, not to a wife.
Personally Editor thought this was kind of a lame cartoon and
definitely unfunny. But look at the carton from the viewpoint of a
devout Christian. It can be seen as highly offensive. So should
Christians now insist the Administration punish the cartoonist and
the newspaper, preferably by execution? Should an American cabinet
member offer a bounty for the cartoonist’s head, as a Pakistan
minister has done for the insulter of Islam? And what about people
who are highly offended by ALL religion? Should foreign Christians
attack US overseas missions and murder US government employees?
·
By
condemning the video without adding the qualification the man was
within his right, the Administration has insulted the nation’s
honor. Further, it has shown that it is okay for tiny groups of
foreign extremists to attack and to threaten the US. Yet further it
has given one religion, Islam, a greater importance than other
religions whose sole crime seems to be they are not as violent as
some Muslims. Who would not be aggravated with the Administration?
Friday 0230 GMT September 28, 2012
·
Where is SEAL 6 when you need
them? They’re so hot to catch terrorists and scum like OBL, but
where are they when it time to take out a contract on Julian
Assange? What, exclaim our readers, is Editor also falling for this
business of Julian being an enemy of state?
·
Not one
bit. Okay, so he was given US secrets by a confused US private, but
if he becomes an enemy of state by releasing the secrets, so is
every Americans newspaper that carried some part of those cables.
Are we suggesting SEAL 6 take out the Editorial offices or the NY
Times, the WashPo, the LA Times and what not? No we are not. If
Julian in any way conspired with Manning to steal those secrets, by
all means, hang them both. But how does he become an enemy of state
by releasing the cables when the media is not an enemy of state for
doing the same thing?
·
No. We
want him assassinated because he is getting really, really,
annoying. Since when has an accused rapist hiding from justice
allowed to address the UN? What was Ecuador thinking? Since when is
this man an expert on anything? More to the point, what was the UN
thinking?
·
Okay, so
all the anti-Americans of the world are getting whacking great cheap
thrills from the Julian person. But don’t Ecuador and the UN realize
they are only cheapening themselves and the institution? So what
next? When there’s a human rights discussion at the UN, US should
get Russia’s Pussy Riot to address the august world body?
And, mind you, Missus P. Riot
have been severely
punished for speaking. Absolutely they should not have done the
protest in a church that they trespassed on. Absolutely they should
be punished for the trespass, say a fine. But THEY are victims of a
repressive regime, not Julian, who is being sheltered by a
repressive regime.
·
The thing
is, have all the laffs you want, folks. US is extraordinarily averse
to being slammed in the UN, especially without cause. Julian is no
one to speak on behalf of Manning, who is a US soldier and subject
to military law. The Americans are going to bite back and then there
will be real unhappiness. We sincerely hope the UN isn’t falling for
the line that “oh, America doesn’t matter, the Chinese will pick up
lost funding”. When the Chinese are in an economic position to
become the Number 1 UN donor, the only thing they will allow the UN
to do is sweep up the horse poop from the Emperor of the World’s
carriage.
·
BTW, we
have no clue of this is right, but someone told us the Swedish
police are no longer wanting young Julian because they want his side
of the story. We’re told they have completed their investigation,
have decided to charge him, he will be allowed his piece after he’s
under arrest, and then it’s off to court. Is there truth to this? We
seem to remember in Sweden they don’t have bail: you stay in till
your case is decided.
·
Canadians bust major
smuggling ring, arrest policeman Drugs? Arms? Human trafficking
for immoral purposes? Wrong, wrong and wrong. Please sit down with a
strong drink close to hand before continuing, because the shock can
be severe. Please read and sign the disclaimer that absolves
Orbat.com?/Editor of any responsibility in case you are injured or
die or suffer sleepless nights or your sex life, bad as it is, takes
a turn for the worse. All set? We can reveal that the smugglers were
smuggling…
·
…cheese.
Yup, the stuff you put on pizzas and ham sandwiches. Apparently it
is illegal to bring into Canada more than C$20 worth of cheese
without paying duty. Apparently the stuff is so much cheaper south
of the border, the Canadian cheese industry would be wiped out.
(Isn’t Canada part of the North American Free Trade Zone, by the
way?)
·
Everyone
likes the Canadians. They are clean-cut, of good morals,
straight-talking, peace-loving, and abhor violence. Honest, upright,
great civic citizens, excellent neighbors. Soft-spoken, tolerant,
kind to immigrants, bear more than their fair share of international
responsibilities and so on and so forth.
If there’s one shortcomings we Americans have
towards the Canadians, is we tend to condescend to them. To us
they’re amiable duffers, a bit eccentric, but harmless, really, and
really decent folk.
·
This
cheese episode confirms all the stereotypes of Canadians. On this
day and age were violence and chaos marches everywhere, it’s kind of
sweet, relaxing even, that our northern BFFs are fighting cheese
smuggling.
Thursday 0230 GMT September 27, 2012
·
Taliban attack on Camp Bastion These days since we usually stick to one
topic in the update, we haven’t gotten around to mentioning the
Taliban attack on Camp Bastion in Helmand, Afghanistan. Doubtless readers are simply
desperate to ask (at least on Alternative Earth
z5ZDA93TT54321LKB3838sxj) “Editor, you’re always criticizing the Taliban for being idiots
about their attacks on Allied bases. This was pretty successful:
they burnt 6 AV-8 Harriers and damaged two more, probably beyond
repair. So do you want to revise your opinion?
·
Not
really. Of 19 attackers, the Taliban lost 18 killed and one taken
prisoner. So where are the survivors to teach other Taliban the art
and craft of attacking Allied bases? In life, if every lesson you
learn, successful or unsuccessful, ends up with you being dead, the
learning curve becomes very, very short. Fighter pilots have a
saying worth pondering: “My job is not to die for my country, but to
make the other man die for his country”. Profound, and the Taliban
might want to think about it.
·
The
saying Editor quickly learned in his youth is also worth pondering:
“He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.” And it
works. That Editor is around to quote these wise sayings is proof.
·
American genius It is quite
boring to have to repeatedly slam American stupidity, so it makes a
nice change to celebrate American genius. A gentleman invented, and
is now field testing, $20,000 industrial robots that can be taught
to learn skills and keep upgrading those skills. Attachment can, of
course, be changed for new tasksThe robot also mingles freely with
humans, unlike the $200,000 specialized robots that the Japanese
produce. These have to be kept segregated because they have all the
brains of Killbot in the comics strip “Brewster Rockett, Space Guy”.
This robot, if utilized for one 8-hour shift/day, costs $4/day and
pays for itself in 3-years. Meanwhile, depending on the developed
country you’re talking about, human robots cost $30 to $56 dollars a
day. That high end is Norway, BTW.
·
Fascinatingly, the way you teach this robot a new skill is grabbing
its hands and mimicking the job you want done. Pure genius. “Smarter
robots, with no wage demands” by Brad stone; Business Week September
24-30, pages 39-40.
·
Something
interesting in the article. American manufacturers produce
$2-trillion worth of goods annually. Chinese produce $2.2-trillion.
But it takes the Chinese 9 times the workers to get the same dollar
output. Naturally people will worry that these new type of
inexpensive robots will displace American workers. On the contrary,
what the robots will do is allow American companies to compete with
Chinese ones, so hopefully more jobs will be created at home than
destroyed. Incidentally, as commonly noted, wages are not the sole
consideration in product cost.
The Chinese will always have an advantage in products
produced for their market and surrounding countries because
transportation costs will be way lower. And unless the Chinese change
their ways, American environmental costs will be way higher. Of
course, the transportation works two ways: American companies enjoy
the advantage when producing for the Americas. As for the
environmental cost, best to hie over to China and live there for a
few months. You will return and become a radical Green.
Wednesday 0230 GMT September 26, 2012
Not feeling
particularly rantish today because nothing particularly outrageous
happened newswise.
·
Mr. Romney’s
airplane joke Editor remains unsure
what to make of the joke. In a way it would have been better had he
NOT been joking, because this joke about why do not airplane windows
open is, well, totally pathetic. A good joke has to plausible at
some level, and the matter of roll down windows on a passenger jet
is not plausible no matter how you look at it. Editor is very
partial to jokers, and his Romney Like Meter, already very low, has
now fallen through the basement. The man is a preppy of considerable
privileges, if he cannot make a job, preferably at his own expense,
than what exactly is the point of all that privilege? He may as well
have gone to an urban public school and taken a job as a toll
collector.
·
Editor was thinking
the other day: have his right-wing friends come to grips about what
they will do when Mr. Obama wins a second term? Will they be able to
reconstruct their lives and soldier on for another four years? Given
the conditions of Mr. Obama’s first four years, the election was Mr.
Romney’s to lose. He has (as is said of us Indians) bravely snatched
defeat from the jaws of victory. Of course, anything can happen,
such as Mr. Obama saying something that actually is both meaningful
and sensible. But a
Romney win is no more likely than President Obama making sense. By
the way, before indignant readers assail us with the latest
statistics, for our opinion on a Romney defeat we are quoting not
Democrats, but Republicans. There’s no point to even talking to
Democrats on Romney. What may happen, we are told, is that the GOP
PooBahs may decide to stop throwing money after Romney, and shift it
to getting control over the Senate. That is likely to prove
acceptable to our right wing friends. As for someone writing in to
say “You are resigning yourself to 4-years more of gridlock”, Editor
has already said many times it doesn’t matter who wins, left or
right our politicians are sold out to the moneybags and nothing can,
or will change. It is only when the entire political system is
changed can there be an end to gridlock. That’s not going to happen
because the moneybags are not going to let it happen. Prepare for
gridlock for another 40-years, don’t bother worrying about the next
four.
·
The declining SAT
scores A
friend who backs charter schools over public schools metaphorically
rammed yesterday’s Washington Post down Editor’s throat gloating all
the while: “You keep saying where’s the evidence American public
schools are failing. Here’s your evidence!” Now look people, the
friend is very – um –intelligent
and Editor likes the friend not for the gorgeous figure, but for
said friend’s braininess.
Editor is not one of those shallow men who goes only for a woman’s
looks. It is pure coincidence that the women Editor considers
intelligent are also very good looking. Just saying if one is going
to be stuck with a non-brainy lady, time passes so much more
pleasantly if she is good-looking. Anyway, we wander off topic.
·
Right in the
Washington Post article – you do not have to take Editor’s word for
it – it clearly shows a direct correlation between family income and
SAT scores. Yes, there are exceptions. Editor’s youngest is one
such. He scored a 1580/1600 (when 1600 was the top score) without
spending a minute of studying for the SATs, and in our county Editor
ranks low in family income. You don’t have to spend money to make
sure your child learns, you have to spend time. In the Brahmanical
tradition, just as in the Judaic tradition, scholarship and income
are almost inversely correlated. In the case of the SAT, exceptions
don’t make the rule.
·
Moreover, the
article points out what every person with a half-brain knows. The
scores are falling because the American education system, against
all logic, believes all you have to do is set high expectations and
everyone can go to college. So American school systems encourage,
nay, require, everyone to take the SAT even if the kids have no hope
whatsoever of getting into college. Washington DC, which has among
the lowest SAT averages, also has one of the highest percentage of
students taking the SAT. So obviously the scores are going to drop.
WashPo notes that in the last 4 years alone the percentage of kids
taking the SAT has gone up by 35%. Obviously the scores are going to
drop.
·
Look no further
than this quote to see why American education is in such a mess:
But the national trend lines are alarming and should serve as “a
call to action,” College Board President Gaston Caperton said. “When
less than half of kids who want to go to college are prepared to do
so, that system is failing.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/sat-reading-scores-hit-a-four-decade-low/2012/09/24/7ec9cb1e-0643-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html?tid=pm_local_pop
So the criteria for success of the nation’s schools is that everyone who
wants to go to college should be able to go to college? Otherwise we
are failing? Please note
again: this man is the head of the College Board. If he cannot
reason with simple logic, why is anyone surprised American education
is messed up? Clearly he cant pass the SAT because reasoning is a
must for success. But of course, he IS being logical. He wants his
company to make more money, so he declares a crisis in American
education. Then he uses illogic to push his ideas forward, and a
public that cannot reason logically may well fall for it.
·
Here is Editor’s
comment America, please note and quote. “When 99.999% of Americans
who want to be billionaires are not making it, America if failing.”
Tuesday, 0230 GMT September 25, 2012
·
Like flies to like, as the poet says.
And so it with Iran. The place is run by
folks who could use serious does of product from the American pharma
industry. These folks like to think they are terribly Machiavellian
and devious and smart, whereas the truth is they are just plain
bonkers. Delusions of grandeur are just one sign of going bonkey.
But that is not our point today. Our point is that that because Iran
is such a crazy place, it attracts a lot of crazy happenings.
·
Take, for
example, the Signals Intercept Rock. Guards patrolling the outside
of the Fordow nuclear-enrichment facility (it is being built inside
a mountain, which sorry to say, will not save it from destruction)
came across a rock. They tried to move the rock. It blew up. From
the debris the Iranians learned the rock was intercepting feeds from
Fordow’s computers. We will join you in saying, “Hey, that’s really
neat!” But extend yourself a bit. An exploding Signal Intercept Rock
is a pretty crazy gadget. It took someone even more crazy than the
I-rain-ians to come up with this device, plant it, and tap into
Fordow’s computers.
·
Then came
Siemens and the nuclear equipment wired with tiny hidden explosives.
Foul, cried the Iranians. But Siemens says it has sold no
N-equipment to Iran since 1979. So are Iranian engineers perhaps
blaming their own mistakes on a sinister Western conspiracy? As in
“sorry, chief, but the whole centrifuge cascade is history and we
believe it’s because the Siemen’s equipment was booby-trapped.”
Since Siemens is not selling Iran anything that can be used for
N-work, is Iran clandestinely procuring equipment from Siemens? Is
someone pretending he is out to make a fast buck supplying
booby-trapped equipment to iron, saying this is the really good
stuff from Siemens? The possibilities are endless. And the scheme is
pretty crazy.
·
BTW, we
need to share with readers something most media do not seem to be
aware of. A uranium enrichment cascade is not conceptually a
difficult engineering problem. But the reality is very different
from the text-book. Once you have a cascade going, if anything
happens to force a jump or a reduction in centrifuge speeds can not
just physically knock the centrifuges to pieces, it can destroy the
product stream. You basically have to shut everything down, clean
out all the pipes and pumps and centrifuges, and start up all over
again. A centrifuge is a tall metal cylinder rotating really fast –
supersonic speeds. If one cylinder gets physically knocked out, say
by exploding, the debris is going to create havoc with the cascade.
We know from the media that someone has been tampering big time with
the computer programs that run the centrifuges. But this is not like
a regular industrial process stream gone wrong. You just shut it
down, reset, and restart. If a bunch of centrifuges in the cascade
are being spun up too fast, at the end of it the cascade might as
well have been bombed out. You can also tamper with the enrichment
process by fooling around with speeds without drawing attention to
your meddling, such as would happen if the cascade is wrecked. We
don’t mean to discourage you from the continuing with the centrifuge
you’re building in the basement, but the materials science part of
the deal is itself very, very hard. More so if you have smuggle
parts, alloys, equipment and so.
·
This is
why Editor, for one (and perhaps only) steadfastly said in the 1980s
that Pakistan had no N-weapons, and would get none, until its
plutonium fissile material
plants came on line. Which they now have, at greatly sub-desirable
efficiencies, but they probably by now have enough plutonium for
half-a-dozen warheads. It is the same thing with the Iranians. Watch
what their plutonium plants are doing, not their uranium enrichment
plants. These probably ARE really only producing, sort of, uranium
for civilian power generation plants.
·
Does this
mean that aside from civilian plants there’s no practical use for
Iran’s centrifuge plants? Nope. Keeping in mind it’s years since
Editor last looked into the physics and technology of the thing, and
does not have his notes, one thing he found was that instead of
using natural uranium in your plutonium production plant, if you use
slightly enriched uranium, say 3% or 5%, it much simplifies the
production of weapons grade plutonium.
·
The
Editor’s search for the Pakistan Bomb is another long saga that
would bore normal people (such as our readers) to death. This was
not a search such as in
“Where’s Waldo?” It was a search for data that would show Pakistan
was not diverting fissile material from KANUPP and its centrifuge
program was a hoax perpetrated by the clever Dr. AQ Khan. He not
only took his own government for a ride, he took several other
governments for a ride. This was not a search the few American
nuclear chemists and physicists Editor contacted were willing to
assist. Just hearing an Indian voice on the phone, asking for an
appointment to clear up the U-234 problem so Editor could show
Pakistan did not have a bombs, would result in phones slammed down.
The poor fools thought Editor is trying to find out how to enrich
U234, for the Indians. Actually fools is too lame a word. Blithering
idiots is more like it. Do they honestly think the Indians have to
ask someone who never passed Calc I to get this information from the
Americans? It’s probably Indians who are TEACHING the stuff to
Americans in American universities. This whole story also is about
University of Maryland College Park wouldn’t give Editor a
fellowship to get his MA/PhD in government, whereas as little babies
in the prams graduating with BAs were getting the fellowships and
coming to class with their mommies to get their nappies changes and
noses wiped.
·
What that
readers are asking? Speak up! Editor is 80% deaf! Oh, you’re asking
what is the U234 problem? Okay, its simple. Using centrifuges to
separate isotopes of uranium (or anything else) means spinning
natural uranium in centrifuges (in the form of a gas, UF6). So the
heavier isotopes go off to the side wall, and the lighter remain in
the middle of the spinning cylinder. Still there? So U’s natural
form is U238, which is not fissile. The U on Earth has 99.3% U238
and just 0.7% U235, which is the Good stuff (If you’re Dr.
Strangelove, anyway). The U238 goes to the edges, the U235 status in
the middle3. You drain off the U235 and pipe it to another
centrifuge and repeat till you get weapons grade uranium, composed
of (generally) 90% U235 and 10% U238. Purer the better, but for most
purposes 90% if good enough, and each step forward for purer stuff
gets more and more difficult
and expensive.
·
Okay. If
you are still there, what the popular media doesn’t tewll you,
perhaps because it doesn’t know, but in natural U, its not just 238
and 235, but tiny bits of U234. And lo and behold, U234 not only is
not fissile, it poisons the U235 fissile reaction.
Monday, 0230 GMT September 24, 2012
·
What do current US Navy
deployments tell us? Reader Chris Raggio asked our opinion on
what the current US Navy deployments indicate. Many decades ago one
of Editor’s jobs was keeping track of US Navy deployments and
drawing conclusions. Inevitably the reports went straight to the
trash. The folks who got them had zero interest in the subject. But:
Editor does not care if he has loved and appreciated. Then as now,
he cares only if he is paid in timely fashion.
These days Editor is pretty clueless, except he
remembers that back in the day when we had 15 carriers, action was
imminent only if five were in the same theatre. Now we have 12
carriers, so it makes sense action is imminent if there are four
hanging out in the theatre. Luckily, we have Tacman (who is a real
expert in the matter) to ask. This is what he says.
·
My angle
on the argument concerns the deployments ... and what boggles me is
why the President said nothing about COUGAR 2012 lighting up several
beaches in the Med real soon.... which would make people wonder if
they're going into Syria. BUT, give him a month, and maybe he'll
talk about that too.
·
Honestly,
I'm all for explosive-induced excitement in Iran or Syria... why
not... that seems to make them happy... and if I were any good at
predicting actual surprise attacks, then I'd either have different
employers or be dead. Anyway, I'll toss my two cents in...
·
5th Fleet
has 2-CVNs and 1-LHD...CVN-65 needs to go home ASAP for its
retirement party. CVN-69 is good until turn of the year. LHD-7 is
only good for 2-3 more months. 7th has 1-CVN and 1-LHD...CVN-72 is
beginning it's fall underway…LHD-6 is also just beginning…Moving
forward into 5th & 7th is 1-CVN and 1-LHA... my guess. CVN-74 is
replacing 65…LHA-5 is replacing LHD-7; 7th Fleet doesn't need any
help, so 5th gets it.
·
LHD-7 did
a lot of APS and Euro exercises on the way in, it might do the same
on the way out, and the mack-daddy EX to not miss is COUGAR 2012.
The Illustrious, Bulwark, De Gaulle and lots of escorts are
attending. Why the US is not listed isn't understood by me yet. It's
still possible that the US will send LHD-7 back into the Med next
month to join the party, either off Algeria or in the Adriatic. Of
course, part of COUGAR is to intimidate Syria politically by having
a primo NATO naval strike force next door... and right before the US
election, and maybe the Israeli election... right when things could
get adventurous. It gives us options, and I'll bet the Iwo Jima will
be in the Med in October / November. FYI... The Enterprise will be
passing through on it's final tour around the same time, but maybe
sooner.
·
My guess
is 5th and 7th will be same-old / same-old. 6th might see some
posturing during COUGAR.
·
If Iran
does light up then we have 2-CVNs and lot's of USAF assets nearby.
If Syria lights up then we have the UK, France and maybe the US
1-CVN and 1-LHD.
·
What I'm
looking for is 4-CVNs with plenty of time to blow within 2-days of
each other. We're close, with 4 sailing but separated. Put all 4 in
5th Fleet west of India, now I'm throwing a bag of popcorn in the
microwave waiting for the show to start.
·
BUT,
before that can happen, some kind of openly political justification
needs to be presented... remember Op Iraqi Freedom? Someone has to
draw the red line, and Obama isn't fond of such things. The Israelis
have pretty much done it already. That said, I don't see the US in
an offensive position, militarily or politically. The Israeli's and
Iranians, oh ya, big time. My thought is that the US is acting
defensively right now... status quo. Something has to change before
that does. That is what you look for.
Friday 0230 GMT
September 21, 2012
·
Somalia Kenyan troops are now
preparing to enter the last Al-Shabaab coastal stronghold, at
Kisamayo (South Somalia). Many are speculating if this means the end
of the terror group. Without a coastal base they will find it
difficult to obtain supplies. Besides which, loss of another port
means their tax base is withering. But as this article makes clear,
the matter is not so simple.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-last-stand-of-alshabaab-8157403.html
·
Initial
reports earlier this week said that Al-Shabaab had evacuated the
town ahead of the Kenyan offensive. For reasons Editor is unclear
about, the group went right back to Kisamayo. Perhaps their first
withdrawal was just to get their families to safety. Somalia’s story
is based on clans, not on governments and other groups. Al-Shabaab
has welcomed another anti-Government clan to move into the town,
upping its strength. Meanwhile, the Ethiopians – again for reason we
are unclear – are not about to let the Kenyans have the glory about
taking Kisamayo, which would be a key town in an autonomous
Jubaland. The Kenyans seem to back Jubaland, and their advance has
been focused on destroying al-Shaabab in the south. So the
Ethiopians are backing another tribe altogether.
·
So as the
UK Independent says, we
may see a 3-sided fight for Kisamayo. This is not going to help
Somalia. And apparently neither are Kenyan tactics helping. The
Kenyans are said to have refused creation of a corridor to permit
civilians to flee; presumably the Kenyans are worried that rebels
will escape. They are also using a lot of firepower such as
artillery and air strikes; inevitably civilians are being killed in
larger numbers than need happen. So regardless of which faction the
town’s residents belong to, they will not be happy with the Kenyans.
·
In many
ways Somalia is like Afghanistan. In Somalia the division is by
clans, in Afghanistan by tribes. There has been war in Afghanistan
for almost 35-years, non-stop. And surely fighting will continue
after NATO withdraws it combat troops. If the Taliban emerge
dominant again, the tribes in the other 60% of the country will turn
to Iran, India, and Russia, and the endless war will continue. Even
if the Taliban seek to merely control their traditional areas of
East and South Afghanistan and left the North and the West alone,
Afghanistan is finished as a country. It is unclear to Editor if the
different tribes can be expected to peacefully coexist in a unitary
national state. Before the arrival of the Americans, the different
tribes got along because Kabul’s authority was weak and it left the
provinces alone. That is the best outcome that can be imagined. But
so much blood under the bridge, it is possibly that whoever has
Kabul will refuse to preside over a weak confederation.
·
In
Somalia the clans have been at it for almost 25-years. People assume
that if a war continues too long, people long for peace and grow
tired of war, leading them to compromise. But beyond a certain
point, a continuing war breeds only more war. People want peace, but
they don’t see it as possible. In Somalia the fight has been about
control of resources. The longer the war continues, the fewer the
resources, and the more desperate the struggle. As it is we can
doubt if Somaliland can be forced back into a unitary Somali state.
Puntland has also become used
to autonomy. Jubaland is clearly heading for autonomy as a Kenyan
protectorate. The Ethiopians may insist on controlling central
Somalia, and if they cannot, they will keep the pot boiling. The
national capital region may well find nothing to govern, and it may
have to reconcile itself to an autonomous status of its own,
protected by the African Union.
Thursday 0230 GMT
September 20, 2012
·
China and the Senkakus The dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands had
witnessed a delightful escalation. It is all entertainment and so
much fun to see Japan being beaten with limp noodles by the Chinese.
Before we explain our happiness, the current crisis has been
triggered by the Japanese Government buying the four pieces of rock
topped with some greenery from a private owner. This was Japan’s
reaction to increasing aggressive Chinese demonstrations and claims
on the islands. There may be oil and gas in the area, but it is
important to appreciate for both sides this is a nationalist issue,
not an economic one. Do not get confused by Taiwan’s claims. Beijing
accepts they are part of Taiwan, but of course Beijing claims Taiwan
in its entirety, thus, says China, the islands are ours.
·
So after
nationalization, the Chinese started playing their usual double
game, which is rousing its citizens to demonstrate and riot, while
officially calling for calm and negotiations. This is all part of
China’s amazing subtlety that we in the west are too stupid to
appreciate. Of course, China in reality is as subtle as the Marx
Brothers, or a herd of starved elephants called for chow time. But
everyone has their fantasies, so let us allow the Chinese theirs,
even as we giggle and make rude gestures with our toes. Just to
demonstrate their subtlety, the Chinese sent 14 maritime/fishery
security vessels to the area. OMG! How subtle! Let us now swoon!
·
The
problem has become that China, having made its point, now wish to
dial down the temperature. But the citizens are having none of this.
Demonstrations have spread to 85 cities, and Japanese factories have
been attacked, leading the Japanese to shut down several plants. The
people are not just refusing to their government; they are accusing
the government of being cowards. They are saying the government
ignores the will of the people (Danger, Will Robinson, extreme
danger! – the citizens have neatly made the Senkakus into an issue
of the democratic rights they don’t have. Neato, no?).
·
As if
this subtlety is insufficient to make us crude non-Chinese morosely
low-esteemed, a Chinese Commerce Minister says that China should
consider selling its $230-billion worth of bonds. There are reports
that China is about to cut off supply of rare earths. Others are
saying that yes, China will suffer if Sino-Japanese trade comes to a
halt, but the Japanese with their corrupt, rotting economy will
collapse. China will not. To find an analog for China’s subtlety,
you have to go back to Bluto, Popeye’s rival for the affections of
Olive Oyl (“And he’s large, large, large, but he’s mine!”.
·
So the
first object of our good-humored mirth and acid derision is the
United states, which is caught between an ally (Japan) and a
producer of profit for American companies (China). The US has been
scurrying around like a little mouse with an invisibility cloak and
squeeking “There’s no one here but us Americans” for all it is
worth. The Americans are engaged in what they called “quiet
diplomacy”. This consists of running between Tokyo and Beijing
wringing hands and begging both sides to calm down. American foreign
policy is have the stuffing knocked out of a primary foreign policy
tenet. This says that as China becomes more integrated into the
world system, it will become less bellicose.
·
Of
course, the Americans have so long ago forgotten what it means to be
nationalist that they could not conceive of a China that would
become bellicose, not less, as it became economically/militarily
stronger. Just because we worship the almighty dollar, or
increasingly the almighty Yuan, it can never occur to us that their
pride is more important to the Chinese than money. Just a reminder
to Washington: the Chinese plan to push us back to Hawaii by 2040.
They will happily trade with us and go along with our fantasies of
importance, but that won’t stop them from doing what they believe
they have to do. we hope by 2040 the Americans wake up, but who
knows. We may be so busy buying IPhone-26 – made in China, of
course, that we may no time to notice we have become a second-rate
power.
·
Meantime,
from India comes the news that since January 2010, the Chinese have
intruded on Indian territory an average of 12 times month. Whatever
you may say about the effete and ineffective Indians, they at least
are engaged in a major buildup against China while Washington counts
the money it makes from the China trade.
·
But it is
for the Japanese we reserve our most affectionate derision. You see,
since 1945, Japan has been passive-aggressive on its defense. It
refuses to spend more than 1%, preferring to hide under the American
umbrella. The sole cost is having to periodically massage America’s
giant ego by whispering in its ear: “You really turn us on, Big
Guy!” Meanwhile the snicker behind their hand-held fans at how
colossally stupid the Americans are, and what a pain it is to put up
with their criminal-rapists sailors and Marines who we wish would
just go away to Hawaii or whatever. Whenever America has told the
Japanese to do more for defense, the Japanese make big eyes like the
kids in the manga comics, and exclaim “But we cannot! We were so bad
in World War II! You defeated us and demilitarized us! Thank you so
much for setting us on the right track! But clearly we cannot
militarize again! You have taught us so well!” Then they give us the
middle-finger salute when our backs are turned.
·
But now
the skinny Japanese behind is being squeezed in the Chinese mangle.
Today, yes, Tokyo can count on the Americans to protect them.
Tomorrow they may not have the military means; worse, they may not
have the desire. Japan will be left with a boat without paddles and
a large hole in the stern. Editor is for sure ROTFLLTBAG (Rolling on
the floor laughing to bust a gut.)
·
Nonetheless, under all that impeccable grooming, the Japanese are a
pretty darn people. Already some Japanese have responded to the
Chinese threat to sell-off Tokyo binds by delicately yawning and
saying “Actually, not a bad idea! The Bank of Japan will buy them
and the Yen will weaken, helping get our stalled economy going!” And
though we don’t know for a fact this is happening, surely many
Japanese are saying: “We spend hundreds of billions of dollars in
pointless infrastructure projects to revive the economy, we could
just spend that money on upping our defense preparedness.”
Wednesday 0230 GMT
September 19, 2012
·
The wounded Arab psyche Scholars who are sympathetic to the Arabs point out that the reason
the Islamic militants are behaving badly today is that they have
never gotten over their glory days. They feel inferior to the West,
disrespected, belittled, victimized, derided – add whatever
derogatory adjectives come to mind. So it all comes down to low
self-esteem. Because Muslims supposedly perceive themselves as
powerless, they will seek to demonstrate their power any way they
can.
·
India in the middle of the
second millennium was the world’s richest country. When it collided
with the western invaders, its greatness was crushed by people
Indians considered unhygienic,ignorant savages. My maternal
grandmother came from a wealthy family of art collectors and
intellectuals. To the end of her days, she never tired of telling me
how in the days of the British she would sit by herself at the Grand
Hotel in the Raj’s summer capital, Simla, and not a single English
person would speak to her. That she was “allowed” there in the first
place was because my grandfather was a civil engineer in British
service, and the Grand was where he was accommodated when visiting
on duty. If you want a flavor of what westerners thought about
Indians, read the American journalist Katherine Mayo’s report
“Mother India”. All she saw was
filth, perversion, and deviancy. (Good thing she's not alive in
these times in America.)Today India is so poor that 40% of
its people suffer from malnutrition, and $2/day is considered above
poverty level.
·
By the
logic people use to have us understand the Islamists, Indians should
en masse be striking out at the west, blowing up its monuments and
killing its citizens. Instead Indians learned from the west and are
now on track to become the second richest country. What is true of
India is equally true of China, and of Japan. If we are to talk
about people who have been ruthlessly exploited and mercilessly
disdained, look no further than Africans and African Americans. Let
us talk about the Maya, the Inca, and the Aztecs, who were destroyed
and enslaved just as the black people were. But do you see the
Chinese, Japanese, South Americans, and Africans not just becoming
global terrorists, but encouraging – no,
demanding the slaughter of
fellow Indians, Chinese, whatever, considered by the extremists to
be apostates? The British ruled the greatest empire the world has
ever known. Now they cannot even maintain two warships on
round-the-clock duty to guard their shores. Should they be murdering
and killing? The Russian empire was geographically the biggest land
empire until 1990, when overnight it just vanished like dust in the
wind. Should the Russians be out there killing and terrorizing?
·
Consider this episode from
the day before yesterday. An Islamic terrorist, claiming he was
striking out at America’s insult to Islam contained in a U-Tube
clip, not even in a movie, killed
twelve other civilian Muslims
in Afghanistan as protest. Excuse
me, folks, but people like this are not suffering from lack of
self-esteem, absorbed in dreams of distant days of glory. They are
simply murderous psychotics.
·
In my
younger days, I travelled often to the Mideast, a region I was
introduced to by my father, who had fought there in World War II,
and later returned under UN service. I stomped around Iraq, Jordan,
Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran (not Arab, but still a very hung-up
place). I went to the villages, where people were so poor sometimes
it seemed to me village India must be an advanced civilization.
Among the educated folks there was this overwhelming despair at the
problems their people faced, and at the abject humiliation at being
repeatedly defeated by the Israelis, and their just total inability
to change things. No one with
the slightest empathy (or Mitt Romney) could fail to feel the Arab
pain, a la Mr. Clinton.
·
But:
whose bleedin’ fault was all
this? The Arabs were being oppressed by – the Arabs. And they
are still oppressed by their own, as in Saudi Arabia, Syria and
Iran. The Arab condition has nothing to do with the West. It has to
do with themselves. And while they claim to be fighting the West,
for every Westerner killed there are 10, 100, or more Muslims killed
– by Muslims. What on earth does this internecine slaughter, which
reached new heights in Iraq, during Saddam and post-Saddam, have to
do with the West?
·
Okay, so
more sophisticated versions of the Arab-as-victims theory says that
since they are unable to displace their dictators, they strike out
at the West. Now, we can argue about how America should handle the
Arabs. For ten years I supported the US administrations aggressive
approach, until I realized that Bush/Obama have been lying to us
from Day 1 of the GWOT. I say the solution is to come home. Official
Washington, half of whom would be out of government funded jobs if
we did that, thinks we need more engagement, not less. Whatever.
·
One thing
we should by now be clear on is that the Arab condition is not our
doing, or our responsibility. Every time one of these mad dogs goes
on a killing spree blaming the west, we need the government, the
elite, the media, to push back and say: “This is YOUR problem, not
ours; you created it, we didn’t; you take care of it.
·
Someone
will come up with stuff like the overthrow by the CIA of the first
democratically elected Iran leader or America’s alliance with the
dirty House of Saud. My reaction to this is to say “I weep for you,
now I will play the world’s tiniest violin in requiem”. The US
between 1945-1990 faced an existential threat to its existence
because of the Soviets. All these countries could have allied
themselves with us instead of kissy-facing the Communists. That was
THEIR choice, and once they began the kissy-facing they became our
enemies. We had to do what we had to do. No friend as good, no enemy
as fierce. That’s us. And now the Soviets are gone, we’re helping
you overthrow your tyrants,
the current crop of whom are none of our doing. We did not feed
and nurture the Salafis, the Whabis, the Deobandis. Heck, 99.9% of
Americans don’t have a clue as to what these misgotten species of
sub-humanity are. I certainly didn’t know till two years ago and all
I do every waking moment I can is to read/study/analyze
international and military relations.
Tuesday 0230 GMT
September 18, 2012
·
Chicago Editor was first
saddened by the news the teachers strike had been resolved, then
again delighted that it was not. Editor believes in unions for all
workers. He is constantly astonished at how anti-union America is,
and for what? Japan, Germany, France, UK, Scandinavia etc. all have
tough unions, have the same
standard of living we do. so it baffles Editor why profits cannot be
sensibly shared between the capitalist, the manager, and the worker.
But, as they say, whatever.
·
Editor
was only establishing background to his happiness the Chicago strike
continues. We all have our red lines on behavior, we are tolerant of
this but not of that. Editor’s strong red line is hypocrisy, and he
happy to see President Obama and the Chicago Mayor getting it in the
neck for their hypocrisy. This
does not mean Editor prefers the GOP; were he Overlord, he would
give all politicians one hour to resign and go home and never enter
politics again. Failing which they would have a walk in appointment
with Mr. Guillotine. Editor is totally unable to understand why a
people would give power to someone who wants it. Leaders should be
chosen from those who absolutely do not want it and run for their
lives if their name is mentioned as a potential leader. Those who
run the fastest and farthest should be the ones to be put in charge.
But, as they say, whatever.
·
Editor
was only establishing he is non-ideological, and his attack on two
prominent donkeys does not mean he favors elephants. No. The issue
is thus. The President and the Mayor are trying to have their cake
and eat it too. They pretend they are for the worker, but when push
comes to shove, they are for Number One, who is not the worker.
The Chicago strike is all
about political money. Rich anti-worker people have been giving
money to the Mayor, so he has cracked down on the teacher unions as
a start.
·
But
remember when our pals the Dems were accusing Scott Walker of
Wisconsin of taking rich people’s money to destroy unions? Remember
when the Dems were accusing him of being a dictator? Well, now the
Dems are taking the money of rich people to be anti-worker, and they
are acting like dictators. Does this mean we support Mr. Walker? We
cannot award him the Klasse Klowne Award, because though he is a
clown, he has no class. We
thing the Chicago Mayor fails on both counts and is a terrific bore
to boot. So we are being impartial here. But the hypocrisy factor is
in the Dems court, because Walker has never pretended to be the
worker’s friend. He has never denied who pays him owns him.
But, as they say, whatever.
·
Editor
was only trying to show that he hates both Donkeys and Elephants
equally. So that is why he is delighted the President and the Mayor
are increasing up honey creek with a paddle. He is said only that –
as dozens and dozens of people have told him – they don’t like the
President, they don’t trust the President, they want the President
to go somewhere unmentionable, but they are still going to vote for
him because the Two Rs are even worse. But as they say, whatever.
·
Strikes
Editor as very odd that people are attacking teachers for what used
to be the package deal for most workers: decent pay, decent working
conditions, decent dignity, and decent pensions. So teachers are
among the last groups of workers, along with Federal workers, to
enjoy these things, which were once considered the right of every
worker. How strange that Americans do not envy the 1% at the top who
now control 40% or more of America’s wealth, but are ready to pull
down ordinary folks like them who have managed to hold on to
benefits which once most workers enjoyed. Is it the new American
way, to pull every down to the lowest level? But as they say,
whatever.
Monday 0230 GMT September 17, 2012
·
America in Wonderland It
is said the Soviet Communists and the Nazis perfected the art of the
Big Lie. If so, their most diligent students have been Americans. In
every walk of life, Americans utilize the Big Lie. Advertising,
which is built on the BL and which is part of blood, is an example.
The political campaigns we have witnessed this year, left or right,
are another. And now we have an example in foreign policy – as if we
needed it.
·
The US
ambassador to the United States has bestowed on us this wisdom: The
Benghazi attack was spontaneous, not preplanned. Problem the First:
the Libyans say it was preplanned and they informed the US of it 3
days ahead. Problem the Second: Al Qaeda says it was planned as
revenge for the killing of the Yemen AQ leader.
·
Could the
Libyan Government be lying? Of course it could. By saying the attack
was preplanned and warning given, the government is lessening its
liability for its failure to protect the consulate. Equally, of
course, why would Tripoli feel the need to do this when everyone
knows the central government’s writ does not extend to Benghazi? A
warning is all the government could do and as far as we know no one
is blaming the Government.
·
Could AQ
be lying? Sure. They are an opportunistic bunch, quite capable of
claiming credit for operations conducted by others, or even by just
a mob.
·
But the US
Government could also be lying. It HAS been widely accused of
negligence in protecting its personnel, so it has every motive to
say the attack was not preplanned, ergo, nothing could have been
done.
·
In a
situation all actors have a reason to lie, what are we to do? How
can we determine the truth? We can’t, but we can apply simple rules
of logic. Let us proceed.
·
How does
the US know the attack was not preplanned? We know from the media
the US has no contacts on the ground with the people and authorities
in Benghazi. CIA personnel who had those contacts have been shifted
to Syria. How come we know nothing about the people who carried out
the attack or why, but we know they did not pre-plan it? It is
logical to assume the US is lying because the US government has the
biggest reason of the three parties to lie: it is 41-days (or
whatever) to the presidential election. Obviously anything that
makes the President looks bad has to be spun using the techniques of
the Big Lie.
·
Next, in
the law if the guilty party is proudly announcing it Did The Deed,
unless the prosecution has clear proof it did not, the guilty
party’s word should be accepted. The US Government has no proof AQ
is lying.
·
We have
said endless times that just because post facto it turns out there
was a warning X, Y, or Z will take place does not mean it is
definitive to the point Action Stations have to be called. Every day
there are hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of intelligence that
say some attack or the other is imminent. Each has to be analyzed
and evaluated; the vast majority is dismissed. As they must, because
there is a cost to calling action Stations. Life is a compromise in
every aspect. Threat analysis requires a high degree of speculation.
That the Administration agency concerned got this wrong is neither
proof of incompetence or conspiracy.
·
Now, we
can say this because we have no dog in the fight. Matters not the
flutter of a gnat’s wings who gets elected President, the country is
doomed either way. Americans all know this, and we are applying the
Big Lie to ourselves, because we cannot face the consequences of
accepting we’re doomed. But to those involved in the political
fight, it does matter that the blame be fixed, and obviously the
Administration does not want to take the blame, thus its Big Lie.
·
Were it
that simple, we could all go home after yelling at each other. But
the matter, of course, is not as simple as the US being caught by
surprise. There was the decision taken not to station a Marine
detachment, to entrust security to local guards, and then refuse
them bullets for their guns. Editor has no problem accepting Ms.
Clinton’s explanation. She wanted a low profile, and a heavily
militarized consulate does not have a low profile. You clearly don’t
want Rambo consulate guards firing into crowds each time the guards
get spooked and causing casualties (and consternation). But then
where’s your back up?
·
In India,
as in most countries, your backup is the local police. There’s a
bunch of them permanently stationed outside the
Embassies and Consulates. The minute a crowd
forms, reinforcements are called, and arrive in short order. They do
the shooting of the mob, so no blame attaches to the Americans. If
rioters get over the walls no one has much to say if the Marines now
open fire and kill people; Indians know the Embassy/consulates are
US territory and the Americans have a right to save themselves.
·
So, to
repeat, where was the backup in Benghazi? There is no government
authority in Benghazi, so there can be no official backup. There is
no choice but to make the consulate into a fortress with Marines and
to have armed contractors, American and local, inside and outside.
After all, do we not know by now the Arabs will form a crowd and
starting wrecking the place at the slightest excuse or no excuse?
·
This,
then, is negligence. Better to explain to America, apologize, take
responsibility. Better to say all these security decisions involve
risks one way or the other. Mostly it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
But telling the truth – well, you can see the problem with that. We
can no longer tell the truth or take responsibility for our actions.
Can’t blame the government for doing what we all do.
·
Which is
to spin, using the Big Lie.
Saturday 0230 GMT
September 15, 2012
Just some items in the news
·
The anti-Islam film Still
unclear if there is a movie or just a crude 14-minute clip on
U-Tube. The alleged makers of the movie are
Egyptian Copts who later
took American citizenship. The Islamists, of course, have been
persecuting the Copts in Egypt, including killing them, so why is an
anti-Islam video a big surprise? Moreover, says Washington Post
(pA11, September 14, 2012) the clip has been on U-tube for some
months and no one was interested. So clearly it is not a cause of
the rioting, which appears more to be tied to 9/11.
·
Meanwhile, US president has gone against the spirit of the First
Amendment by asking for the removal of the clip. As reader
Luxembourg asks, does our tech-savvy prez not realize just how hard
it is to stop anything on the Internet? If he doesn’t know, we
suggest he ask the Chinese.
·
It is
argued that the First does not permit someone to yell “Fire!” in a
crowded theatre. Fair enough. So why is US not moving against the
Egyptian government for its failure to stop the persecution of
Copts? How is it okay that we must be sensitive to Islam’s concerns,
but ignore the persecution of Christians? Where in our Constitution
does it say one groups sensitivities take precedence over another’s?
What every single US president in the last 30-years has done is
discriminate against the majority American religion and Islam. For
example, we killed Saddam because he was killing Shias; we had
nothing to say when he – and his successors – were killing
Christians and driving them out of the country. NO American
administration has any legitimacy when it asks us to respect Islamic
sensitivities. And of course, we are sensitive to the Islamists
because they are a mad, murderous bunch whereas Christians are not
attacking the US.
·
Chicago and Teachers We’ve
been having a lively debate with reader Phil Rosen and learning
about advertising, as we hope he is learning about teachers. A point
he has raised that there is a 30% turnover in advertising staff
every year: 10% voluntary quits, lowest 20% performers fired. So
what’s so terrible about 20% teacher turnover in urban districts?
Existentially, no difference. But it takes 5-10 years of experience
to make a good teacher. So essentially, in urban districts you have
some experienced teachers and a great many that have not reached
that level – and never will, because they leave.
·
No
teacher objects to being assessed. All they ask is they be assessed
on factors under their control and using accurate measurement
systems. None such has been developed to date. Nor is their evidence
non-teacher union states perform better than union states.
Montgomery County, where Editor works, has one of the best schools
in the US. It is heavily unionized.
·
The issue
in Chicago, we learn, is personality. Unions and political leaders
have come to some very tough agreements all over the country. Thirty
states have assessments of student scores achieved by the teacher.
But instead of working cooperatively with teachers, the Mayor – who
criticized Scott Walker (Wisconsin governor) for not working with
unions – tried to unilaterally ram down teacher throats
his wants. He verbally
abused the local union head, because ultimately that is all he knows
how to do. The only way to resolve this issue is to take him out of
the negotiations.
·
Prince William and Kate A paparazzi using long-range lenses took pictures of a topless Kate on
a private, secluded beach. A media source thinks it is fine to
publish the pictures. Then the media wonders why it gets no respect.
·
So next
time the media publishes pictures of a constipated you trying to do
your thing on your throne, don’t complain. Yo, media: you are most
welcome to take pictures of Editor in a similar, private solution.
Any publicity is good publicity when you are a no body. Besides Kim
Kardashian will surely be taking things to this next level, and
Editor thinks he may as well cash in first.
·
Oh, say
our readers, you think you look like Kim K? No, and thank goodness
for small mercies.
·
Government of India has done something startlingly sensible: sun to
rise in West The one rock of
an Indian’s existence is you can count on the government NEVER doing
anything sensible. Which means all us Indians are drifting aimlessly
today because our secure order has been destroyed.
·
Many
aspects of economic liberalization in India are heavily opposed by
those who fear for their livelihoods. Not without good reason: we
were told that the Chinese textile industry has wiped out
6-million Indian jobs,
almost all of marginally paid handicraft weavers. So many Indians
have been concerned that allowing in foreign supermarket chains will
hit tens of millions of Indian jobs. India being a democracy, people
through their politicians have stopped the entry of foreign chains.
But India needs economic liberalization and the consumer needs
clean, good quality merchandise at reasonable prices. So what to do?
·
Government of India has left it up to the individual states if they
want to participate or not, In one stroke the problem is solved. And
it makes sense, because in a country of 1.2-billion, there cannot be
one solution for the whole country.
Friday 0230 GMT
September 14, 2012
·
Benghazi, Cairo, and Saana: More thoughts.
To the rational person, one of the
strange aspects of these embassy attacks is where is this film that
is supposed to have set off the Ever Ready Defenders Of The Faith?
No one seems to be sure if there is one movie, two, or even three,
and no one has a clue as to who made these movies if they exist. The
rational person also wonders: the Ever Ready Defenders Of The Faith
(ERDOTF) have only to hear a rumor, and they are out killing
Americans, without having bothered to verify the facts?
·
So what
stops a clever provocateur from (a) commissioning such a movie, or
(b) floating an internet rumor to the effect blasphemy has been
committed? We can also ask (c) what can one call the people who
embark on murder and mayhem on the basis of a rumor? This last
question is easily answered. We call such people mad dogs. And sorry
about that, but there is only one way to deal with mad dogs. Yup,
you have to shoot them because their illness is incurable. There is
no reasoning with a Deobandi, a Wahabi, or a Salafi just as there is
no reasoning with a mad dog. You cannot coexist with these sects any
more than you coexist with packs of mad dogs, because you never what
is going to set off either group.
·
At this
point, some reader is going to object “Editor, you are saying to
shoot people without a trial not because they have attacked the US,
but because they MIGHT attack the US? Isn’t this like shooting all
dogs because they might go mad? There’s only one mad person around and that’s you.”
Our reader is right, but for the wrong reasons. Editor was mad
before this whole war of Islamic fundamentalist ism against the US
started. But more seriously, what Editor is saying is a bit more
nuanced.
·
Let us
briefly go back to where all this started. All of a sudden America
is the bad guy, but had it not been for America, the Afghans – who
happen to be 99% Muslim – would have been wiped out. If it had not
been for America, our good buddy Saddam – a Muslim who may have
killed 300,000 Muslims during his rule, would have finished off
Kuwait, the Gulf states, and Saudi Arabia – all Muslim countries. If
had not been for America, Libya and Egypt and Yemen would still be
trodden down by tyrannies.
·
Muslims
say this did not start with OBL. It started when America created
Israel and dispossessed Arabs. This overlooks two inconvenient
truths. One, had Muslims really cared about Palestinians, they would
have taken them in and helped them make new lives. Two, instead
every single two-penny tyrant in the Mid East used Israel as an
excuse to deny their people freedom. The Muslim government cared as
much for the Palestine people as they do for pond scum.
·
OBL was
not one to belabor any point about Palestine. He is the one who
declared jihad against the West, and he explicitly said it was
because Americans had desecrated scared Saudi soil. Well, old buddy
old pal, did the Americans suddenly just arrive in Saudi? No, you
old dead loon, they came because
your government asked them. If you have a grudge against anyone, it
should be against your government. But
of course you could go
nowhere with that grudge because (a) the Saudis were paying you off
to get out of the country, and (b) had you called the Saudis out,
it’s more than likely you would be taking parachute training over
the Empty Quarter – without a parachute.
You turned against America
because you thought it was a soft target. And the same thing applies
to your other mad dog friends. They could not – and still cannot
fight their governments with whom the real grudge lies. That’s
because these governments will shoot down their extremists like mad
dogs – without trials and on sight. Strangely,
these ERDOTFs do not attack Russian targets, and the Russians are
the great suppressors of Muslims right now. Nor do they attack
Chinese interests, though the Chinese are number two oppressors.
·
They
attack America because they know we are soft as Pampers. There’s two
ways of dealing with this. One, declare open hunting season on
Islamic extremists, including bounties. No charges, no trails, no
sentences. Just kill them on sight, and if innocent people die, well
that’s just too bad. They should not have been hanging around the
extremists. That’s war.
·
But
before we go to the second way, we have to accept that the
extremists are absolutely right. We are too soft to fight back.
Knocking off half a dozen terrorists a week using drone is not
fighting back. Its propaganda to tell the American people the
government is being tough. Whereas it’s the other way around, we’re
being soft. If we were actually tough, for example, we’d carpet bomb
the Haqqanis till they were all blown up. We’d get the Arab
countries to open their police files, and go after the extremists.
We’d locate some, and start cutting off body parts till they gave up
others (no waterboarding please, it is so stupid). Then we’d shoot
the informers and go after more extremists. The Arab countries will
thank us.
·
But of
course we aren’t going to do that because we are a bunch of
quivering cowards and no longer fit to be a world power. OBL and his
fellows are absolutely right. This takes us to solution Two. This is
not our fight and that is all there to it. Every time the extremists
have some grudge against their own governments they have taken to
attacking Americans even though the same Americans helped overthrow
the dictators that jailed, tortured and murdered these same
extremists. The attacks on American embassies are a consequence of
local power struggles.
·
We need
to depart and let the locals sort out their own problems. Very Wise
Person (not) have said that if we leave the Middle East this will
not end the Islamic war on America. Agreed, it will not. But this is
not a problem that came flown blown into the world yesterday.
There’s decades of history behind it. It will take years to convince
the Arabs of all political hues that we have gone home. No harm in a
few well-planned retaliatory massacres of extremists, say 1000
extremists and their families for every American hurt. Each time we
massacre them we should loudly say: “we left you alone but you won’t
leave us alone. This will teach you.”Of course the second part of
this plan runs into the Quivering Cowards problem so we’ll probably
have to restrict ourselves to drone strike.
·
Readers
will now say: “But how does this help? We’re droning them and
they’re attacking us. What will change if we leave?.” A lot. We’ll
present fewer targets. Sure they’ll start attacking our economic
interests. They’re going to progress to that anyway. One that
happens, we simply tell the government concerned: “You are now under
tight economic sanctions because you enable terrorists”. The Arab
governments will take care of the extremists right quick.
Thursday 0230 GMT
September 13, 2012
·
Benghazi and Cairo
Truthfully, Editor was not going to comment on the attacks on US
missions because, in the long run, such stuff makes no difference.
They are just bumps in the historical narrative, and the more time
passes, the more the bumps get smoothed out until soon only
historians with a particular interest in that part of the world and
those decades note the events as footnotes. For example, in 1968-79
five US ambassadors were killed; and does anyone remember that now?
Editor certainly did not. He had to be reminded by the BBC website.
·
Then it
occurred to Editor that in the long run we are all dead, and by that
standard there’s no point in commenting on anything. (To which some
readers will be crying “Amen! At last we are spared the Editor’s
rants! But hey, readers, you do not get off that easy.)
·
Perhaps
recent events do signify something, because as some distinguished
media commentator or the other said the other day, Americans are
growing weary of the Arab world. They are thinking that with rapidly
growing domestic energy production, why do we have to be involved in
the region anyway? As for the perennial Israel question, well, we
can’t predicate a fifth of our global policy on Israel. This gent
thinks that we cannot withdraw, because the rest of the world will
continue its dependence on Mideast hydrocarbons, and any disruption
could hurt our allies and therefore us.
·
Well, you
know, Editor was saddened by this terribly silly thesis. It shows
how deeply Washington is invested in Endless War syndrome, which has
led to an enormous expansion of state power and a corresponding
reduction in the liberty of the people. The US elite is so terrified
of the Endless War ending that it will come up with any
rationalization to keep the war going. Editor wanted to comfort the
silly gent by reminding him the Global War On Terror was by itself
good for at least a century more of militarization, why on earth do
we need further complications?
·
What the
silly gent cannot see is that this is not the Year of Our Lord 1945.
The world lay shattered by war, and had we not erected a shield over
our allies, it is possible we would be living in a communist world,
with North America the sole haven of democracy. But that phase ended
in 1990 when the Soviet Union collapsed and we became BFFs with the
Chinese. Today the European Union and China have a GDP going on
$25-trillion. They do not need America to defend their interests in
the Mideast. If they spent 2% of GDP more on defense, and since they
do not need large armies or air forces to protect their Middle East
interests, they could spend most of that money on their navies. That
would give each block a navy as powerful as that of the US. And that
would allow them not to secure their global maritime interests, but
en passant ours too. But as long as the US is willing to be the
load-bearing donkey, they will never take their fair share of the
burden. And that burden includes their fair share of fighting
Islamic extremism.
