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Editor
Ravi Rikhye
Associate Editor
Mandeep Singh Bajwa
Chief
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Dale Atkins
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Concise
World Armies 2010
Ravi
Rikhye
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Analysis
Swat,
Pakistan North West Frontier Province
[February
13, 2009]
WE
BRING YOU THE WORLD ©
PUBLISHED
ON AN AD HOC BASIS
Long
War Journal on new US Afghanistan Strategy
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Somalia
Piracy
September,
2009
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#23. February 14, 2010 |
US Army, US Marine
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#24. February 17, 2010 |
Sweden |
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#25. March 4, 2010 |
Iran update |
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#26. March 9, 2010 |
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#27. March 13, 2010 |
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#28. March 15, 2010 |
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Serbia (6+ pages,
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New
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12.23.2009
Myanmar 2009 (6 pages) Richard M. Bennett
US
Relief Forces to Haiti
January
14, 2010 v.1.1
Terry
Shifflet
0230 GMT
March 17, 2010
-
The
return of al-Sadr When al-Sadr went off the radar
screen following his losing battles with the US Army,
told his followers to store their weapons and to turn to
social service, we believed the US had made a great
mistake in not dispatching him to his just reward in the
Very Hot Downstairs Place. This man is a very dangerous
snake, and there are some people who are so murderous,
so violently criminal, that's it's better for everyone
to get over one's squeamishness and to kill them. Had
the US not mounted its surge, it's possible that al-Sadr
would have created the greatest blood-bath in modern
times.
-
So it does
not make us joyously happy to learn from the New York
Times that this killer has returned, and may win as many
as 40 seats, becoming a kingmaker in Iraq. Doubtless
someone will say "oh, but we forced him to renounce
violence and he turned to democratic political action,
and this is a good thing."
-
Nothing to
do with a live al-Sadr is a good thing. This man is not
a democrat. He wants to rule all Iraq, and if it means a
few hundred thousand people or more must die, to him
that's just an inconvenience equivalent to a fly in
one's soup. He is young, ruthless, energetic, and
possessed of a cunning that many twice his age lack. If
he indeed becomes a kingmaker, the coalition that he
crowns will owe him, and big time. Money, guns, key
positions will come his way again. Remember what he did
last time when he had those resources.
-
Wind-power a money loser, writes Reader Flymike
Further, he points that the costs of subsidizing wind
power, while creating jobs in one sector, takes away
resources from other sectors. Some believe more jobs are
destroyed than are created by wind power.
-
Quotes
from an article Flymike cited (he is sending us the
URL).
-
"...researchers at King Juan Carlos University in Spain
released a study showing that every "green job" created
by the wind industry killed off 4.27 other jobs
elsewhere in the Spanish economy.
- Research director
Gabriel Calzada Alvarez didn't object to wind power
itself, but found that when a government artificially
props up this industry with subsidies, higher electrical
costs (31%), tax hikes (5%) and government debt follow.
Fact is, these subsidies have the same "Cuisinart"
effect on jobs as wind-generating propeller blades have
on birds. Every green job costs $800,000 to create and
90% of them are temporary, he found.
- Alvarez made no bones
about the lessons of Spain for the Obama administration,
which has big plans for "green jobs." His report warned
of "considerable employment consequences" from
"self-inflicted economic wounds." It forecast that the
U.S. could lose 6.6 million jobs if it followed Spain,
and it "should certainly expect its results to follow
such a tendency.""
-
That wind
power cannot stand on its feet at this time is
irrefutable. Nonetheless, there may be sound reasons
to subsidize certain things. America's phenomenal
prosperity in the 30 years 1940-70 was built on
subsidies: automobiles, computers, aircraft, advanced
materials - to give just a very few examples - used US
spending on defense. Nuclear power, of which we are
great fans, is subsidized in that the government does -
or at least did - the bulk of the R & D. Coal is
subsidized because the true cost of the pollution,
health, and environment, is passed on to us, the
consumers.
-
America is
falling behind in many technology areas precisely
because other governments do not hesitate to subsidize
technologies they believe will give them the lead in
coming decades. Our wanting to maintain our doctrinal
purity results in our falling further behind.
-
But as
far as the Editor is concerned his concern in not
global warming. It is national security. America needs
to throw everything it has into weaning ourselves from
imported oil. A whacking great chunk of our national
security budget - Editor once estimated it as 15% of all
security spending: homeland, defense, intelligence,
foreign aid, nuclear weapons, space etc; a case can be
made its higher. You and I are not just subsidizing oil,
but the government is leaving us completely vulnerable
to disruption of oil supplies.
-
As far as we
are concerned, America has to do everything possible to
eliminate oil imports from the Gulf, North Africa, and
West Africa. If it means subsidizing wind or
solar-electric or passive-safety reactors or fusion
power or whatever, we believe all sources have to be
developed on a crash, highest-priority basis.
-
Army
revamps physical training Read this great article
sent by Reader Luxembourg.
Daily Herald | Army drops bayonets, busts abs in
training revamp
0230 GMT
March 16, 2010
Iraq Election
2010 Results
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/03/maliki_allawi_surge.php
-
Pentagon
questions value of Israel as an ally Frankly, we
consider this a plant to try and get the Israelis to
behave themselves better, subsequent to the US
Vice-Presidential visit fiasco. Nonetheless, it's worth
a read because - if true - US has stopped being a
limp-wimp re. Israel. But how long this thinking will
last when the Israelis start pushing back is something
to be seen.
-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7063214.ece
-
Would
Islamic fundamentalism again the US disappear if Israel
was no longer an issue for the Arabs? Not one bit. Sure,
Arabs get propaganda value out of the US-Israel
connection. Maybe they even get a recruit or two on
occasion. But Israel has no relevance to the Islamists.
-
So while
Editor personally would like the US to have a more
even-handed approach to the Palestine-Israel issue, it's
best to remember that AQ and its various offshoots, the
Pakistani jihadi groups, the SE Asia jihadi groups and
so on, don't give a hoot about Israel. And please do
note we said "Palestine-Israel issue", not "Arab-Israel
issue". The Arabs do not care half a hoot about the
Palestinians. Never did. Never will. The people who said
they really cared about the Palestinians are the
Egyptians and the Jordanians, because they were impacted
by the creation of Israel and the subsequent wars. And
they are now America's BFF in the Middle East. Egypt,
indeed, is Israel's BFF when it comes to oppressing the
Palestinians.
-
Just
occurred to us that our overseas readers may need BFF
clarified: it's not what you're thinking, but Best
Friends Forever. As for Friends With Benefits and
Friends Without Benefits, that we leave to readers to
figure out
0230
GMT March 15, 2010
Why
the US has no credibility on non-proliferation Yesterday's
Washington Post carried an article describing Pakistan's
N-weapons cooperation with Iran. The British journalist Simon
Henderson has obtained papers and interviews with people to
document the relationship. None of this is unknown to US
intelligence agencies; the sole difference is that since they
would not or could not talk about it, there has been little by
way of hard evidence in the public domain. Pakistan's
proliferation efforts re. Libya and Saudi Arabia – and
heaven knows who else – are also well known, as are the
connections between AQ and Dr. AQ Khan, the so -named “Father
of the Pakistan Bomb”.
So has
Pakistan been labeled a rouge state and punished? No, because
the US is allied to Pakistan. In the same way, US never has
anything to say about Israel's N-weapons, and it had little to
say about South Africa's program. This is because these
are/were pariah states, creating situations where the US might
find it inconvenient to come to their direct defense. Also in
the same way, it is common knowledge in the N-weapons community
that Japan, ROK, and Taiwan have created the capability to go
nuclear within months if the need ever arose. These nations too
are US allies.
So when
the US turns around and punishes Iraq and then Iran for its
N-weapons program, for much of the world the question becomes:
how do you spell hypocrisy?
Now let's
be clear. Editor tends to look at global security issues
through a US lens, so he is all for Iran being denuclearized.
He completely understands that US allies's N-weapons programs
have to be treated on a different level from those of its
enemies.
But
here's the thing. US wraps everything it does in high-sounding
moral tones, when the US is no more nor no less moral than any
other state. US, like everyone else, does what it has to do to
secure its interests. You don't see the British and the French
and the Russians and the Chinese giving others moral lectures.
If the US
simply made it clear it acts in its own interests, very few
people will have a problem with America. Even the Arabs
would have little problem because they of all people know that
the strong make the rules, the weak follow those rules or pay
the price. They have been strong in their time, and if you
didn't obey their rules, they simply put you to the sword.
Nothing
we say is going to make the US change the way it does things.
We want only for our Americans readers to appreciate why the
rest of the world does not see non-proliferation the same way
when America insists on reserving the right of first-strike,
insists on maintaining enough active and reserve weapons to
devastate the world, and on top of all that, turns a Nelson's
eye tyo the proliferation by its friends and allies.
Letter
from Adam Lloyd on the current contretemps in US-Israeli
relations Maybe the
US they are distancing themselves in order to minimize backlash
to the US of an Israeli military operation. They are both
still allies thanks to mutual enemies regardless of the Soviet
Union being gone.
Letter
from a reader who wishes not to be names You
have not mentioned the biggest factor in the US's pro-Israel
and anti-Arab stance, which is racism.
Editor's
Comment Well yes, racism
does have a lot to do with it. Israelis are in the main from
Europe. But there is another side to this, and this is the
anti-Jewish prejudice – also a form of racism –
that runs very deep in the West. So this is not a simple matter
of racism as most people use the term.
And
yes, we acknowledge Mr. Lloyd's point about common enemies. The
Arabs have to in their turn accept their responsibility for bad
relations with the US. Yes, we know all about the colonialism
factor and how the US, thanks to the Cold War, turned from its
anti-colonial stance from World War 2 days to becoming a
champion of colonialism. Editor is a 3rd Worlder,
and knows first hand the damage the colonial and post-colonial
attitudes have done to the Arabs. At the same time, US has done
its share of damage: US supporting the Shah is the sole reason
the Iranians hate America. The cavalier manner in which US puts
Israel's interests ahead of everyone else's also plays a role.
But:
irony abounds. These days America is hated by most Arabs for
another reason altogether. And that is the rock-solid American
support for the Arab world's tyrants, chief among them the
Egyptian and Saudi governments. In a sense US is repeating the
mistakes it did with the Shah.
0230
GMT March 14, 2010
US to
Israel: you are a naughty little boy - but adorable If you
opine in Washington DC that Israel runs US Mideast policy, you
will get scornful looks from the idiotatti - the people who run
this town. How Washington cannot see this is a great mystery.
Most 3rd World types see Washington's tolerance, backing, and
protecting of Israel as proof the US does not care one whit for
the Arabs.
When the
Editor replies yes, you are quite right, US indeed does not
care for the Arabs, but it's got nothing to do with Israel,
it's got to do with the buttotti kissing the Arabs insist on
before handing over their oil, people argue back "then why
does the US blindly support the Israelis no matter what they
do?"
When
Editor says every nation has its blind spot where logic ceases
and there's no explanation for it, people retort "you're
the one being illogical."
See,
folks, the Arab hating part is simple. For 40 years the Arabs
have been standing between the US and its big cars. You can rob
an American's house, you can steal the house, you can sell his
children into slavery, and you can run off with his wife under
his nose, he will merely wave and say "Whatever". But
when he is told: "Sorry, fella, gasoline has gone up
another 20-cents", you have declared war. Indeed, Arabs
should be thankful they haven't been nuked yet.
But what
about the pro-Israel part? Well, you must remember that while
the US was instrumental in the creation of Israel, it wasn't
really pro-Israeli till the 1967 War. The Arabs, having got
their behind kicked for the third time in 20 years fell into
the Soviets' lap, and after that it was downhill between the US
and the Arabs. Okay, you say, the Soviets have been gone for 20
years. True, but old habits are hard to change.
We mean,
after all, would you throw out your kid because he's behaving
badly? Some parents would, but most wouldn't. As far as Editor
is concerned its not much more complicated than that. Sure, the
Israeli lobby has a ton of money and media influence, but look,
people, if it were only a question of money, the Arabs who have
more loose change than anyone in the world would be Kings of
the Hill. Capitol Hill, that is.
Anyway,
that's the Editor's opinion for what its worth, after pondering
the latest US-Israeli teacup in a tempest.
The
Israelis are terrifically sadistic toward Uncle. Mr. Biden went
to the Mideast to get peace talks started, and while he was
there Israel said it would build 1600 new housing units in
Jerusalem. An exquisitely placed kick to the shins.
So the
brouhaha is not even over, and American apologists are all over
the issue like flies on bull-poop. The Israeli Prime Minister
had no knowledge the announcement was going to be made, we are
being told. Really? Israel has about the population of the
Greater Washington Metro area and the Israeli PM doesn't know
what his own cabinet is doing? But the plan will not be
implemented for several years, we are being told. First, in
this case we'll wager an Israeli year is a month for normal
people. Second, if someone is deliberately trying to mess up
Israeli-US relations, why has the Israeli PM not had the man's
head served up to Mr. Biden? Oh, but you see the Israeli PM has
a tricky coalition; he depends on religious extremists and they
see Jerusalem as part of Israel. Okay, but why is the US making
internal Israeli politics its problem?
Mr. Biden
said that no matter what, talks must go on. Thank you, Mr.
Biden, for giving Israel's line to the Arabs. This has greatly
enhanced your credibility with the Arabs. A Nobel for the Veep
for sure.
So with
one kick the Israelis have set US Mideast plans back a few
years, and the US's response? Naught, naughty, but you are so
adorable.
Out of
the 6-billion or so 3rd Worlders, there may have been one who
believed the Editor when he says Washington is just being its
usual Big Fat Idiot self, and really, there's no conspiracy.
Now any
minute the Editor expects an email from that one person
yelling: "I will never let you con me again, may you rot
in that hot place where the usher is dressed in a red clown
suit and sticks people in the rear with a trident." Okay,
One-Person-Who-Believed-Me, you have every reason to be angry.
If it's any satisfaction, my place with the Red Clown is
already booked.
The
mushroom that ate the world! This ugly fat feller
covers 8.8-square-kilometers in Oregon and kills
trees as it advances. Oh yes, its 2400 years old. Safety tip:
do not go drinking in the Oregon woods and pass out.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/oregons-monster-mushroom-is-worlds-biggest-living-thing-710278.html
0230
GMT March 13, 2010
US/NATO
to retrain Afghanistan Police They have decided that they
made a mistake in the way they were training, and feel it is
better to start from scratch. Thousands, if not tens of
thousands, of police will be sent to Turkey and Jordan for
training.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/11/AR2010031103148.html
To add
12,000 police by October, 40,000 have to be recruited to
offset attrition and desertion. Right there you can see a huge,
huge problem. If attrition is so high, then the recruits are
not properly selected. If desertion is so high, the men are not
properly trained.
Indeed,
the Coalition has the temerity to say that the best-trained
units suffer 75% annual attrition rates. These are the
paramilitary forces which are heavily deployed.
Okay,
we'd like these Coalition geniuses to explain how we are seeing
75% attrition each year for units they call "best
trained"? If the US Army lost 75% of its elite units due
to annual attrition, wouldn't you call for an investigation of
how the men are recruited and trained?
So 8 1/2
years have elapsed, and we have to start from scratch? Isn't
there a high standard of accountability for leaders in wartime?
So where's the accountability for this colossal boondoggle?
We need
to make clear that NATO/EU have snafu'ed as much as the US, but
then is anyone seriously expecting anything from EU/NATO?
French
Navy captures 35 pirates in three days, destroying four
mother ships and six skiffs. The lot has been packed off to
Kenya for trial. Typical western move: you all so frightened of
trying them yourselves you've outsourced the job to a local
country.
We
told you speaking first thinking later is not just a Pakistani
trait but is a subcontinental trait. Now the Indian Home
Minister has announced that the Maoists, who are active in
one-third of India's districts (counties) will be defeated in
three years. What's so sad about this amazingly stupid
statement is that the Minister is actually quite a brainy
fellow and an effective administrator. The Maoist problem has
plagued India for 40 years, and a lot of it tied up with social
injustice. Its absurd to think its going to solved in three
years when India has not been able to defeat straightforward
secessionist insurgencies in its northeast for 40 years.
0230
GMT March 12, 2010
-
China's
rapid growth cannot continue says an opinion piece in
yesterday Washington Post. Because China's growth has been
export led, an IMF document says that to maintain 8% annually,
China will have to double exports by 2020. Seeing as it has
already edged out Germany as the world's biggest exporter, this
is unlikely to happen. China can shift to consumer demand led
growth, this will be much slower though it can continue for
decades.
-
China is
facing serious structural instabilities of which readers are
aware, such as the investment bubble and non-performing loans.
An example of the investment bubble: China has enough installed
steel capacity to supply the entire developed world plus
Russia.
-
So you
thought Americans refuse to pay higher taxes We certainly
thought so - till we read about Los Angeles. It seems Angelinos
have agreed to increase their sales tax by half a point to
8.75% - which is a whacking great sales tax - to fund a
rebuild/expansion of their very strained transportation
infrastructure. And the measure passed 67-33.
-
[Incidentally,
we gather from the California Government web site that
Californians pay a tax above and beyond the sales tax, called a
user fee. With that fee, Angelinos actually pay - gulp! - 9.75%
on purchases. See
http://www.boe.ca.gov/cgi-bin/rates.cgi?LETTER=L&LIST=CITY
and if we have it wrong, please write!]
-
Even more
peculiar, all they've asked of Uncle Sam is that he guarantee
the loans they will pay off using the sales tax increase - they
don't want Sam the Man's money. The US Government has recently
agreed to guarantee $8-billion worth of loans for new
N-reactors. It also guarantees the student loans I take out to
finance my education. When we first bought our house, we put
down only 2% because the feds guaranteed the loan. Of course,
we bought at the very bottom of the Washington DC housing slump
in the 1990s, and paid $135K for a house at a time our joint
income was $65K
-
What's
going on here? Well, apparently Angelinos first built a
consensus on which projects were to be undertaken. The
conclusion is they are willing to pay more taxes if they
believe it will benefit them. If we can extrapolate, this
seems to indicate Americans are not against taxes, but against
taxes that simply disappear into the maw of the Government
dragon which takes in more and more money, and produces nothing
but dragon poop.
-
Angelinos
also seem to have realized something the rest of California
fails to appreciate: you cannot have beer taxes and champagne
budgets. You either cut spending, or you raise taxes. If you
don't, you build deficits and pretty soon US is going to
begging for money the same as Greece.
-
To the
extent the Obama Administration is still promising increased
benefits with no increase in taxes, the administration is lying
to us and pretty soon when the piper's bill comes due, we will
realize it has done us no favors.
-
So, for
the health care bill, we at least would have been happier if
the Administration did not fudge every figure in sight, and
just told us: you want care for everyone, you have to pay more
taxes. Then we could vote yes or no as is our wont.
-
Mr. Obama
promised change: we call on him to deliver that change in the
budget process. Transparent budgets without ten gazillion
riders attached to the calculations, so that we can at least
see what it is we are voting for.
-
As it is,
thanks to the profligacy of Mr. Bush, a tradition Mr. Obama has
happily embraced - so much for change we can believe in. So we
are going to end up paying much higher taxes while having to
severely cut services. The worst of all worlds.
-
Ashley
Tellis testifies before Congress on Pakistan's Let Prof
Tellis is a national security analyst currently at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. He sends this link for those
of our readers who want to know more about the terror group and
its complex relationship with Pakistan.
-
www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=40330
-
Letter
from Josef Chamberlin on Predator targeting What they're
using to track and/or home missiles on insurgents is basically
a souped-up active RFID chip type/system, whereas before they
had to use laser designators/beacons, which are more
easily detected. All it takes is for someone close to leave it
anywhere...it's literally the size of a fingernail. If it
was at your door, you would never notice it. But
the Predator overhead would.
-
Now,
let's hope the Jihadi's never acquire cheap, commercial RFID
tag-read equipment...although the frequencies aren't the same.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,64189,00.asp
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=11976
-
Given
you can use cheap, off-the-shelf Russkie software and two
modified Dish-Network units, it's only a matter of time.
Luckily Afghanistan has a very low literacy rate. This isn't
like building an IED, this is like building a Heathkit, more
tech. skills required.) Plus if Predator encrypted frequencies
are anything like normal military encryption tech, it's going
to be really difficult to divert Predator to false targets.
-
The
Americans are so incredibly fortunate that their main enemy is
so completely technically backwards. Wouldn't happen with
even a moderately educated insurgency/populace.
-
Also,
Josef sends a warning "And
it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within
the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making
people love their servitude, and producing … a kind of
painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that
people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them
but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from
any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or
brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods." --
Huxely.
So
folks, we are already there and we don't know. But of course
the best mind-control successfully hides it is controlling you
and me.
0230
GMT March 11, 2010
-
US
SecDef says some US troops US may leave Afghanistan earlier
than President Obama's July 2011 date. We saw the news
yesterday late morning on CNN, but when we updated, we could
not find the article. So we are quoting TV station KSAT
http://www.ksat.com/news/22793742/detail.html
-
Now look,
people. We've said US is about to abandon Afghanistan, and
given the US has neither the will or the means to fight the war
as it should be fought to win, getting out is sensible.
-
What we
have strenuously objected to is the continuing of the war to
give President Obama cover. He opposed the war before he took
office. Let him have the courage to get out now instead of
wasting more time, money, and lives. US may think its drawing
things out will let it influence the future shape of
Afghanistan. But no Taliban or enemy will negotiate seeing as
it costs them nothing to hang in there till the US leaves.
-
We'd like
to ask President Obama, his cabinet members, and Congress:
would you buy political cover at the cost of your
children's lives?
-
Then why
are you buying it at the cost of other people's children's
lives?
-
Mexico's
oil: a coming strategic disaster for the US In the last two
years US has imported 12% of its oil from Mexico. But since
2004, Mexican output has fallen from 3.5-million/bpd to
2.5-million, and is likely to fall further at a time Mexico's
increasing prosperity is driving up domestic demand. By 2020,
it is feared Mexico will become an oil importer as production
falls to 1.9-million.
-
Why is
this so? New York Times points out the sacrosanct 1938 law
nationalizing oil production cannot be touched for political
reasons. So, just as in Venezuela, output is falling. Of
course, Mexico does not have to endure official government
corruption in disposition of oil revenues, but the reality must
be faced. Capital goes where it can get the best return, and
Mexico is not such a place at this time.
-
But given
the emotive issue of oil ownership, Mexico may change only
after it is too late for the US.
-
Meanwhile
South Africa's SASOL and India's Tata conglomerate are
discussing an $8-billion investment in an 80,000-bbl/day
coal-to-oil project. That is a huge investment, $100,000-per
barrel. But India has perhaps a quarter-trillion tons of coal
and is a big oil importer, so anything that cuts dependence on
oil is welcome.
-
We urge
the US to reduce its dependence on imported oil which last year
accounted for 50% of a $500-billion trade deficit. This
dependence cannot be reduced by investing in alternate energy
alone, because solar and wind-power are years away from
providing base-load power. Indeed, because of the environmental
difficulties with alternative energy, there is no alternative
to investing in every conventional source, including coal to
oil.
-
If US
finds coal so distasteful - and we accept coal has caused
enormous environmental damage in terms of air quality and the
destruction of Appalachia - then US needs to go very rapidly
into nuclear. We cannot sit around for the rest of our lives
vetoing this, that, and the other, and expecting conservation
and alternates will suffice. We have expressed our personal
preference for nuclear.
0230
GMT March 10, 2010
-
Zabul,
Afghanistan Washington Post notes that after US withdrew
one of three infantry battalions deployed in Zabul Province -
two American and one Romanian - for the Marja offensive,
Taliban has been returning in hundreds. The battalion was in
the western part of the province.
-
As
always, the Americans on the ground know exactly what is
happening. They are under no illusions. Zabul is an important
province and has a border with Pakistan to boot. But the
American commanders are clear about their current mandate:
clean out Helmand and Kandahar. To do that, they say they have
to pull in outlying forces. A lot more than Zabul is going to
see the Americans gone. As for the Afghans taking over, in
Zabul - as elsewhere - its clear the Afghans are not taking
over anything.
-
That's
life when you fight a war with insufficient resources, and the
American commanders are wasting no time feeling sorry for
themselves or Zabul. We suspect if one could talk to them,
privately, they'd say: "This place was a mess, is a mess,
and will forever remain a mess. We're ready for this last push
and ready to go home."
-
Who can
blame them? If Orbat.com and its readers grow increasingly
frustrated at the futility of the Afghan war, think how much
worse it is for the soldiers. We're merely bloviating; the
greatest risk we run is carpal tunnel or eyestrain or sore
vocal cords. The soldiers are doing the fighting. They're
risking a lot more.
-
Sarko
AND Carla having affairs He is - ahem - "dating"
his 40-year old environment minister, who is also a karate
champ. Carla is - um - "dating" a 37-year old
musician sic years her junior (he looks like he's 17 to the
Editor, but then at Editor's age anyone under 60 looks like a
teenager).
-
Got to
give the French credit: equal opportunity philandering and all
that.
-
Meanwhile,
Editor still has no date. Sigh.
-
Gotta
to give the Chinese credit...Editor fell in love with
America because in the 1950s and 1960s because it was the land
of engineers. Now America has become the land of Starbucks and
the Chinese have snatch the engineer's crown.
-
Their
latest scheme is to extend their high-speed rail network to
London through 16 countries. The trains will run at about
350-km, making the journey between Beijing and London in
48-hours.
-
The
Chinese say the project will take time - 10-15 years. Surely
the Chinese jest. In Washington DC, the capital of the Free
World, serious planning for a Metrorail extension to Dulles
began in 2000. The Silver Line will be complete in 2016, or
sixteen years. It will be 37-km long versus ~8000-km for the
Chinese proposed project.
0230
GMT March 9, 2010
Taliban
versus Taliban in Afghanistan
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/03/taliban_hig_infighti.php
-
Israel
plans civilian N-power Israel is suffering a critical short
of power. It is operating at 98% of available capacity, with
only 2% in reserve. One big plant goes off line and you have a
crisis.
-
Israeli
environmentalists have stalled a coal plant, so thoughts have
turned to N-power.
-
Small
problem, the Israelis are telling themselves. There's the IAEA
and all that rot. But, they comfort themselves, perhaps a deal
similar to India's can be worked out. India, they say, is not
an NPT signatory but was "allowed" to develop
civilian N-power
http://www.jpost.com/HealthAndSci-Tech/ScienceAndEnvironment/Article.aspx?id=170440
-
Sigh. why
is it no one offers the Editor the real good stuff they keep
for their private use? Selfish, selfish, selfish.
-
India was
never "allowed" to develop civilian N-power despite
not signing the NPT. It developed civilian N-power, then
weaponized and declared itself an N-weapon state in the late
1990s. It continued to develop civilian N-power all the while.
The idea of a separate agreement with India where it would open
its civilian reactors to IAEA inspection while keeping its
N-weapon plants safeguard-free was developed by the Americans
as a way of getting into India's civilian reactor pants while
trying to find a way into its N-weapons pants.
-
India's
agreement to the deal was one of the stupidest things the
country has done in 60 years, but anyway, the deal is done and
it does seem to have a lot of support in India even though it
has clamped a lid on future Indian N-tests. And anyway, the
Editor makes his fair share of dumb mistakes. Today there were
donuts in the staff lounge, and the Editor took only two, as
opposed to his usual quota of four to six (if he can get away
with it), under some poorly thought out idea that more than two
would gain him weight. The reality is if you eat 8 donuts at a
sitting (Editor has done that) you are so stuffed that you skip
half of lunch and so you actually save yourself the 300
calories you would otherwise have eaten had you had a whole
lunch. (We understand this sounds crazy, but really, it is no
more crazy than India's agreement to the US plan.)
-
Israel
has no civilian N-facilities, and what's more, refuses to
declare itself a N-weapon state. Further, there is a slight
difference between a market for 2 reactors at the max - Israel
is less than half the size of Delhi - and 200 reactors. The
Indian market is big enough for everyone, which is why UK,
Russia, France etc supported the two-track US plan. Who is
going to risk political capital the way the US did for India
for the sake of two reactors?
-
Yeh
Hai Pakistan Mayree Jan (This is Pakistan, my heart.) The
Pakistanis first say they have arrested the AQ spokesperson,
who happens to be an American convert to Islam. Then they say,
sorry, mistaken identity, initial reports were not right.
"Scuze me, please, aren't you supposed to confirm this
sort of thing before jumping to announce it?"
-
Then the
top Taliban commander in Baijur, whom the Pakistanis said was
deader than a door knob, turns out to be hale and hearty. This
goes on all the time.
-
By the
way, the Pakistanis are hardly unique in speaking before
thinking. Its a subcontinetal thing.
0230
GMT March 8, 2010
-
Hugo
says Hilary is a blond Condaleeza according to an article
forwarded by reader Luxembourg. Er, shouldn't that be "blonde"?
But no matter, much is lost in translation. We suspect Hugo was
smacked around but good by his mama; he seems to have a morbid
fear of strong women.
-
Hugo
says all is well with Spain the Spanish PM was only asking
a few questions, says Hugo. I answered, and the matter is
behind us, he says.
-
Now let's
see. If a judge indicts the Editor, and he gets a call asking a
few questions, if Editor thinks the matter is over, is he (a)
an idiot; (b) a moron; (c) a retard; or all three?
-
Hugo
doesn't believe in the rule of law, so one supposes he would
have no idea of how legal proceedings are gone about.
-
Hugo
wouldn't have talked to the judge, and further along, he would
maintain he was railroaded because he never got a chance to
explain. So the Spanish PM called him. But the Spanish PM was
not making a friendly call out of curiosity. He was in effect
recording your statement under authority of the judge.
-
This
matter has not ended, it has begun, and knowing you, Hugo, you
probably blabbed away non-stop instead of letting a lawyer do
the talking. (Do they have Miranda rights in Spain?)
-
Now, of
course we don't know how this will play out. There are all
sorts of reasons why the Spanish PM may want this matter
dropped. But in Spain, it's not up to him, it's up to the
judge. If the PM is to go against the judge, to us it seems
that Parliament would have to give permission.
-
Look at
it another way. If the Spanish PM didn't want to harm relations
with Hugo, he could simply have told the court "you guys
handle it, why are you involving me?"
-
We
suspect the Spanish PM called because (a) he has seen the
evidence; (b) he is very upset about it.
-
Why
should Spain get upset about FARC? After all, US has much the
same evidence of Hugo and FARC, US hasn't sought an indictment
of the man, and the US is much more directly affected by Hugo
than is Spain.
-
The
reasons the Spanish are upset is because of the ETA connection.
That any state has any dealings of any sort with ETA would send
the Spanish government and establishment straight up the wall.
Aircraft
would have survived Detroit bomber says a British aviation
expert http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8547329.stm
who conducted an actual explosive test in a derelict Boeing 747
at BBC's request. The explosion would have killed the bomber
and the passenger next to him, injured others, but no one else
would have died and the aircraft's flightworthiness would not
have been impaired.
We had to
read this three times to make sure we weren't seeing wrong:
"However, the experts said that the death of the suspected
bomber and the passenger sitting next to him would have been
traumatic for passengers. "It would have
been quite horrific. Obviously the blast itself would cause
eardrum rupture," said Dr Wyatt. Captain Joseph said the
noise and the smoke would have been awful, "not to mention
the parts of the bodies that were disintegrated as part of the
explosion".
Oh the
poor widdle things! We weep for the trauma they would have
suffered at witnessing body parts flying about. Good grief,
mon. What about the trauma they would have suffered if the bomb
had blown a hole in the plane?
-
India
and Pakistan Two readers have written asking how can things
be put right between India and Pakistan. Both readers, a
westerner and an Indian, are appalled at Pakistan's lost
opportunities since 1947 and the cost of the rivalry to India
and also to the Pakistani people on account of the rivalry.
-
We wanted
to assure the readers we have not forgotten them. We've been
trying to figure out a simple, short answer that will make
sense to people who are unaware of the myriad details of the
conflict.
-
More
acronyms People are suggesting BRIC is dead -
Brazil-Russia-India-China - because of the slowdown in Russian
economic growth and its seemingly unsolvable political and
economic structural problems.
-
So just
in time we get an acronym: Portugal-Ireland-Greece-Spain -
that's PIGS to you.
-
Don't
people realize that words have real power? When you create an
acronym to simplify a complicated concept, you end up defining
reality in a certain way. Then you react in a certain way, and
miss all the subtleties of the situation. Then obviously your
solutions are going to end up wrong and you're going to create
a bigger mess.
-
What, you
say skeptically, words can do that?
-
Indeed
they can. Think about the misconceptions that arise from
calling American states Red and Blue. Someone did a graphic by
counties of the 2008 Presidential vote, and guess what?
The United states ended up not Red or Blue, but Purple.
Meaning that actually Americans have a common consensus,
whereas the Red/Blue division polarizes the discussion and
creates something that is not the reality. It does not help
that extremists on either end of the spectrum grab the most
media attention.
0230
GMT March 7, 2010
We did not
update yesterday: Editor was researching and by the time he
looked at the clock it was past bedtime.
Pakistan
to ask EU for compensation for being front-line in GWOT
Pakistan's case is that it has suffered $45-billion in
economic losses because of the GWOT, and it wants aid/trade to
compensate.
You have
to admire Pakistan's chutzpa. Pakistan is a front-line state in
the GWOT, but in the sense of being the major terrorist player.
Editor must be careful to state he is not attaching any moral
judgment to that statement. We've said many times that the
support of insurgent/terror attacks against India and
Afghanistan are part of Pakistan national security policy.
We're not going to comment on Pakistan's support of AQ and if
this is related to its national security policy, because we
don't know enough. We don't believe Pakistan supports
AQ's attacks outside South Asia because it serves no Pakistani
purpose. Rather, Pakistan turns a blind eye to AQ's out-of-area
attacks because of whatever utility AQ has for the local
situation. What this utility is, we don't know.
Pakistan's
behavior is straightforward and easily understood. The great
mystery of the GWOT as far as we are concerned, is US behavior.
Editor hopes he lives long enough to see the first historical
judgments on the US misadventure in South Asia.
Can a
country be awarded a Klasse Klowne Awarde? Orbat.com has
not been giving these out lately because we feel there's very
little happening that deserves this highest of our awardes. So
now we learn from Times of India that a judge estimates India
will require 320 years (you read right - three hundred and
twenty years) to clear the backlog of court cases. So we're
wondering if we should give India a KKA. Your thoughts are
welcome.
BTW,
we're having trouble calculating India's GDP. If we go by
official economic stats, by end 2010 it should be $1.2-trillion
(at Rupees 46 to the dollar). If, however, we go by
announcements that say India's Fiscal 2010-11 deficit is 5.5%
of GDP, we get a GDP of $1.5 trillion. Either way, this doesn't
count the non-declared economy. People like to talk about about
how large this is in PRC, but if you want large in capital
letters, best study India. People argue that if you count the
non-declared economy, India's GDP growth is faster than
China's.
UK
Special Forces suffer crippling losses in the Afghan and
Iraq Wars. Approximately 120 have been killed or wounded so
badly they can no longer serve in first line positions. The
Afghan-Iraq breakdown is 2-1. The problem, as you will see from
the Times article
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7052605.ece
is that the UK SF are very small, possibly around 500 active
duty members, and since UK cannot contribute mass to GWOT, its
been riding its SF very hard.
0230
GMT March 5, 2010
-
Hugo
indicted in Spain for collaboration with FARC and ETA to
kill Columbia's President Uribe. Reader Luxembourg reminds us
about the indictment issues by a Spanish judge. Several ETA
members who fled Spain settled in Venezuela, in case you're
wondering about the Basque separatist terror movement's
involvement.
-
The
Spanish Prime Minister has asked for an explanation from Hugo
and spoken to him on the telephone. Hugo says there is nothing
to explain as he has nothing to do with FARC or ETA, and says
if Spain persists, relations between the two countries will be
harmed.
-
Here's
the problem. Spanish judges rarely if ever back down once
they've indicted someone, and this one seems to have enough
evidence that the Spanish PM is asking for answers from Hugo.
This makes the matter much more serious than if the judge had
been an iconoclast or publicity hound. This now on a government
to government level.
-
If the
judge issues arrest warrants, then Hugo has a rather serious
problem. We'll have to wait and see how this unrolls.
-
US/NATO
reorganize command for Kandahar offensive Regional Command
South has been split in two: Regional Command South West, which
focus on Helmand, and Regional Command South East, which will
focus entirely on Kandahar. This is an indication of how
seriously US/NATO take their southern offensives.
-
As
always, the defeat of the insurgents in Kandahar is foregone.
The problem - as we have repeatedly said - is that there is no
way the Afghan security forces can achieve sufficient
capability to fight the Taliban on their own. Once US and NATO
withdraw, Pakistan Army will step in openly as it did
1994-2001, so that even if the Afghan forces achieve a certain
minimal efficiency - even this is in doubt - they will not be
able to fight the Pakistanis.
-
When we
say openly, we don't mean Pakistan send brigades into
Afghanistan. It formed new brigades, manned by Pakistan Army
soldiers and officers on official leave from the Army. The
brigades included armor and artillery. Artillery is something
at which the Pakistanis are quite proficient, and we just do
not see how the Afghan Army will hold together when artillery
and armor is thrown into the mix. Right now the Afghan Army
cannot even protect itself against Taliban armed with just
company-level weapons.
-
Moreover,
please remember that the Taliban is an irregular force where
fighters fight when they want and go home when they want. The
Pakistanis are long-service professionals. And please don't
think the performance of the Pakistan Army against insurgents
is in any way indicative of its actual capabilities. It has
been fighting a mock war to impress the Americans and there is
also vast sympathy for the Taliban in the Pakistani rank and
file. And why not: the Taliban is just another arm of the
Pakistan military. When it comes time to throw off the
disguises, the Pakistan Army will do very well.
-
One thing
to watch out for is a Pakistan copy of India's 1971 strategy.
India recognized the East Pakistan government as the legitimate
government and as far as the Indians were concerned, they were
merely responding to a request for help from the legal
government.
-
Pakistan
acquires FFG-7 class frigate from the US and is negotiating
for five more. It is probable the ships will replace Pakistan
Navy's six Amazon Type 21 frigates. Pakistan has two new China
built F-22P frigates with a third due this year and a fourth
under local assembly. Pakistan's Type 21s were commissioned in
the Royal Navy in 1974-78, and transferred in 1992-93 after US
sanctioned Pakistan over its N-program and refused to extend
the lease of eight US frigates.
0230
GMT March 4, 2010
Read Bill
Roggio on Pakistan statement that Baijur is cleared
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/03/bajaur_cleared_of_ta.php
-
Pakistan
searches for four army men in Benazir murder says Dawn of
Pakistan. The main accused, who is absconding, has eight
relatives in the Army. Four are serving, but four, who had
retired before the murder, cannot be traced.
-
Correction
The Pakistani cleric who condemned suicide bombers does not
live in Pakistan, but in the UK. So at least he will be safe.
-
Syria
supplies SAM-16 Igla to Hezbollah says Debka. It further
says that Israel had warned Syria any supply of strategic
weapons to Hezbollah would lead to Israeli strikes against
Syria. If this is true, Syria appears not to be overly
concerned. Igla is not a strategic weapon, but if available in
sufficient numbers, could marginally erode Israeli air
supremacy. Igla is a contemporary of the US Stinger and
embodies technology almost 30 years old.
-
The
Dubai police chief says from now on anyone with an Israeli
accent will be refused entry if the passport is issued by a
European country. Dashed clever, the Dubai police chief. The
Editor knows a few Israeli dual nationals and they speak with
impeccable American, Australian, and British accents. Of
course, police chief will say he has no problem with
dual-nationals, only with people with Israeli accents.
-
Meanwhile,
we wonder if El Chiefy has an opinion on why many of alleged
murder team used genuine passports?
-
As if the
whole circus is not confusing enough, Al Jazeera says many of
the false passport people used their false documents to obtain
employment with American companies.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201033465170139.html
-
Dashed
clever these Israelis. They'll go to any extent to hide their
real origins. So Mossad has large hit teams with long-term
identities all worked out, for example, a second life in
America, but is so stupid that Dubai so easily - within days -
busted their cover identities?
-
Oh yes,
Chiefy also says he will seek arrest warrants against the
Israeli Prime Minister and Mossad head. This man protests too
much. Orbat.com intelligence sources tell us Chiefy is actually
on Mossad's payroll and in fact is not even a human being, but
an advanced Israeli biorobot. Has anyone checked Chiefy's
accent?
0230
GMT March 3, 2010
-
NATO
general estimates Taliban strength at 25-36,000, and
the leadership (all levels) at 900. This is the first time we,
at least, have seen anything resembling a definitive estimate.
We assume this is only the Afghanistan Taliban: the lot based
in Pakistan could number somewhere between 50-100,000.
-
Its hard
to tell exactly, because most Taliban fighters wander in and
out at will, fighting when they want, and relaxing when the
want. The next problem is, how do you count the fighters? After
all, if you counted fighters in a Western Army, even if you
include all combat support arms, you probably would get 1 in 5
soldiers as fighters. The Taliban have a large number of
supporters who help out at need. We don't think the NATO
estimates includes these people.
-
Original
story at
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7047321.ece
-
Pakistan
says Baijur cleared and it will next advance on Orakzai and
Khyber Agencies.
-
Now,
before you start snickering - as you would be justified to do
given how many times Pakistan has claimed victory over the same
battlefields - our information is that for the last 8-9 months
Pakistan has been furiously negotiating with its recalcitrant
Taliban groups to get them to focus on Afghanistan. Previously,
the "bad" Taliban groups fell over themselves
laughing. But now, after leadership losses caused by UAV
strikes and very serious civilian damage caused by Pakistan
forces, it's possible that the "bad" Taliban are
willing to agree to get back to the original task, i.e.,
Afghanistan.
-
So it is
possible, we feel, that Pakistan can show the US positive
"gains" by appearing to defeat the Pakistan-facing
insurgents, while actually stepping up pressure on US in
Afghanistan.
-
You have
to remember why some of the Taliban groups turned against
Pakistan. It was because they felt the Pakistan government had
become to cozy with the Americans, and they resented
restrictions Pakistan asked them to accept to make it look to
the Americans that they, the Pakistanis, were pulling their
weight in this war.
-
Pakistan's
greatest enticement to the "bad" Taliban is that the
Americans will leave soon, so why are you guys beating us
up. Let's focus on Afghanistan, and if you behave you'll
have a seat at the table. If you don't, well, the US will keep
UAV-ing you and maybe you won't have a seat at the table.
-
Pakistan
cleric issues a 600-page fatwa against suicide bombers as
being anti-Islam. We applaud this man's courage. We hope other
clerics follow him. And we very much hope that Pakistan, having
now really suffered at the hands of suicide bombers, will see
it is in Pakistan's interests these attacks stop, even if it
means giving up a weapon against India. If the Pakistanis see
sense, they will protect this cleric and others who speak out
against the bombers.
0230
GMT March 2, 2010
-
President
Obama pondering sharp reductions in US N-arsenal but still
refuses to accept no-first-use doctrine.
-
President
Obama has to safeguard the US national interest as he sees
best, but we'd appreciate if US defense experts could just sit
still for a minute and listen: as long as the US believes it
has to keep a N-force of thousands of warheads, even if that
comes down to 1000 or 800, there is absolutely no country in
the world - and we include India, Pakistan, Iran etc - who will
de-nuclearize. America can try till the cows come home, are
sent to the glue factory, the glue is recycled and maybe
nano-technology is used to turn the glue into new cows, no one,
but no one, will agree. If the US cannot see that, then Editor
has to regretfully conclude American planners are incompetent.
The only the only way to get anyone to de-nuclearize is to
offer to get rid of the US arsenal as part of universal
N-disarmament.
-
Further,
if US will not renounce first-use, well, sorry about that, but
everyone else will consider N-weapons not just legitimate, but
imperative to deter the US. If US N-planners cannot see that,
then - sorry about that - we have to suspect they are regularly
dropped on their heads from great heights.
-
The
reality of the matter is that the US tacitly accepts N-weapons
for allies - such as South Africa in the past and Israel in the
present, and expects everyone else not a US ally to give up
their weapons. The US has zero credibility in the matter of
N-disarmament.
-
If the US
feels it must posses not just N-weapons, but a vast array and
the right of first-use, we are not going to judge the US. Where
we will judge the US is in its ever-present hypocrisy on the
issue. We'd suggest the US simply shut up about other people's
N-programs because all that hypocrisy does is aggravate others
and makes the US look foolish.
-
India
stages offensive airpower exercise Observers from 30
countries were invited - but not from China and Pakistan. The
exercise was designed to demonstrate precision-bombing
capabilities such as are required to eliminate terror training
camps in Pakistan Kashmir.
-
It was
hardly a subtle message, nor was subtlety the intent.
-
Our
problem with such demonstrations is that Pakistan is perfectly
aware that Indian airpower can attack the terror camps - and
probably without entering Pakistan-controlled air space in most
cases. But the Pakistanis believe, with excellent justification
based on decades of experience with India, that India does
not have the guts to hit back.
-
So what's
neccessary is not to stage another exercise to impress anyone,
but to actually get up and do the job. That will send the
message India wants, not puffery. To us this exercise looks a
lot like whistling in the dark, from the political angle. From
the military angle, like anyone else, India has to stage
full-scale exercises on a regular basis. As far as we are
concerned it does nowhere near enough in this area.
-
A TOE
question from a reader What is the TOE of a German
mechanized infantry company? Do the company's platoons have
three Marder 2s or four?
-
Editor's
note Can any of our readers help: I think its 2 Marders in
the company HQ and three platoons with 4 Marders each, but its
been years since I looked into any TOEs except for US and South
Asia.
0230
GMT March 1, 2010
Is
Hakeemullah Mesud dead? Top Pakistan/US officials say he is. But
Long War Journal sources say he may well be alive. Read
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/02/taliban_release_vide.php
-
Dubai
police chief wants Mossad head to man up and admit Hamas murder
If this is what passes for Arab cunning, then we must admit we
have overestimated the Arabs. We'd like the police chief to man
up and admit he has no idea who dunnit. We think we're pretty
cunning too.
-
Reader
Luxembourg forwards a Wall Street Journal article by former US
CIA operative Robert Baer. Mr. Baer does not think a 26-person
hit team is too large. We were willing to accept 16-18 as
neccessary and were highly skeptical when the Dubai police
increased the suspects to 26. He further says that Dubai has
top-notch security consultants that can quickly correlate
cell-phone calls and images from security cameras and suggests
that several calls placed to suspect numbers may have provided
the consultants with clues as to identities.
-
We're
wondering what happens is an innocent guest at the hotel
happens to overhear a friendly accent and says to one of the
suspects "What ho, Old Bean, are you also from XYZ?"
The suspects, acting normally, have a normal conversation with
their fellow countryperson and continue on to their
skullduggery, but the cameras have captured the innocent person
talking to the guilty. So does he now get labeled as suspect?
-
Intelligence
agencies do make the most ghastly errors and to say: "Oh,
the Mossad is so professional it would never muck up like this"
is to use illogical reasoning.
-
At the
same time, we have to ask: Israeli informers permeate
Palestine. Why go to all this trouble to kill the man abroad?
And, okay, so perhaps there is a reason he had to be killed
abroad. We find it difficult to believe that Mossad did not
know about Dubai cameras etc.
-
You may
say, "Well, what about the American snatch team who got
the cleric out of Italy? They left a a trail as wide as the
Mississippi." We're unsure if that lot was actually
undercover. They seem to have used their legal diplomatic
identities. They would have seen no need to use covers if they
were working with an Italian police or intelligence agency.
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Of
course, the general problems with these episodes is the more
you analyze, the more you are likely to miss the truth.
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A
different perspective on Pakistani militants A Pakistani
economist says that "Various groups find it extremely easy
to create parallel states within the state, when the "national"
state fails to take care of individual security and cannot
provide basic services such as food, shelter, health, and
education to everyone. Growing militarization in Pakistan can
be understood in this context. Generally "militants"
are perceived to be Islamic hard-liners. However, many
"militants" are those who are outraged by chronic
hunger, endemic corruption, unfair courts, and the government’s
inability to supply basic services."
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/feb2010-weekly/nos-27-02-2010/pol1.htm
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He
further notes that "Food security ranking of 131 districts
in Pakistan, according to FIP 2009, indicates that 48.5 percent
of the total population in 76 out of 131 districts of Pakistan
is food insecure. The population in another 26 districts is on
borderline and extremely vulnerable to any external shock.
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The 10
most food insecure districts according to this report include
Dera Bugti, Musa Khel, Upper Dir, North Waziristan, Muhmand,
Dalbidin, South Waziristan, Orakzai, and Panjgur. Other worst
food insecure districts, according to FIP2009 are Bajur, Laki
Marwat, Lower Dir, Shangla and Malakand etc. The international
community might not have heard of these districts in the
context of food insecurity. However, many people would easily
recall that these districts are perceived as the "axis of
evil" within Pakistan. There is no empirical evidence to
prove that food insecurity is the only cause of militancy in
the above-mentioned districts. However it is an established
fact that food insecurity leads to violence and conflict."
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We've
been told by Pakistanis that most militants are not driven by
religion, but because of the feudal nature of the Pakistani
state, and particularly because the little man gets no justice
when he runs afoul of vested interests.
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The
first Patriot battery to deploy to Poland as part of the
interim ABM defense will arrive in April. Readers will recall
that President Obama cancelled deployment of 10 Ground Based
Interceptors on grounds that the utility of the move was not
proved, and promised to replace them with 30 ground based Aegis
3s in one field, with another field to follow somewhere in
North Europe. At least one Aegis ship will be kept on permanent
station in the Persian Gulf, at least as part of the interim
defense.
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