#1
“It is politically unsustainable to stay with any significant military presence, and it’s unlikely that Congress will go for more than two years before they pull the plug on economic support for Afghanistan,” said retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a decorated Vietnam veteran and former chief of U.S. Southern Command. “I don’t think kidding ourselves about the outcome is going to help.”
McCaffrey, who shared his presentation with a senior joint audience, said he would rather bring the troops home than leave behind small numbers, organized into adviser teams across the country, to fend for themselves.
“In Iraq, at least you had access to the ocean and the U.S. Navy, and access to friendly, supportive nations on the margins. You could rapidly withdraw forces or posture in Kuwait,” he said. “Afghanistan is different. Afghanistan is the end of the earth.”
#2
This is the best advice I've heard thus far from any talking head, but it is still way too accommodating to inertia.
I'd like him to have said:
1. Get out now - yesterday, if possible.
2. Get EVERYBODY out - leave no one.
3. We don't need an Embassy to the barbaric 7th century. Blow all the bridges that connect this region (its not a nation) to the outside world. Build a wall around the place, with signs saying "beyond this wall is hell on earth" - and be done with it.
#4
Vietnamization - Afghanization, same difference. Click on the link and read how history is about to repeat itself.
In this remake of the 70s original they've updated the script with different actors and locations, but the same sad ending. All those brave fighters will have died for nothing.
Expand the Kabul Embassy helipad and get the long range aerial refuel capable helicopters ready.
The original movie
Sir William McNaghten, who had been trying to negotiate a way out of the city, was murdered on December 23, 1841, reportedly by Muhammad Akbar Khan himself. The British, their situation hopeless, somehow managed to negotiate a treaty to leave Afghanistan.
On January 6, 1842, the British began their withdrawal from Kabul. Leaving the city were 4,500 British troops and 12,000 civilians who had followed the British Army to Kabul. The plan was to march to Jalalabad, about 90 miles away.
The retreat in the brutally cold weather took an immediate toll, and many died from exposure in the first days. And despite the treaty, the British column came under attack when it reached a mountain pass, the Khurd Kabul. The retreat became a massacre.
#7
The Great Game is up for like the zillionth time. I am going out on a limb here and say the next round (losers bracket) starts sometime after 2014. Pakistan goes in for the mop up, sets the Taliban's second conclave up and then starts to allow the insurrection of normality in the region. Iran is pissed and they want a piece of the pie but just can't bring themselves to use their one and only Nuke.
Who goes first? The Brits (they can't resist the magnetism of the Stan or the Russians who love the intrigue of screwing the Chinese or the Chinese who love the sensation of actually using their military?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
03/05/2013 17:22 Comments ||
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#1
As a believer in the pendulum theory of history and politics, IÂ’m confident that some event or series of events will eventually interrupt and correct this destructive course,...
And I'm sure that in the last phase of the Roman republic, there were those who shared the same thoughts.
#3
The sequester was a lazy low brow approach to the budget problem. We only attacked the measly discretionary funding.
What about all of those pork programs locked into long term appropriatations.
If you wanted to fix the deficit and the budget, you have to go into all of the long term programs and start cutting with carefully crafted legislation that targets the over appropriation and waste.
Of course with all of the lazy intellectual light weights in our government right now no one wants to really WORK at governing the nation.
The Stimulus was thrown together and Obamacare was thrown together neither was given any serious review or analysis on cause, effect, or potential consequences.
No one wants to work in Washington anymore, they just want to ride around in their limos and eat lunch at San Souci
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/05/2013 10:40 Comments ||
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#4
My Norton antivirus blocked a "Malicious Exploit Kit" intrusion attempt when I clicked on the link. FYI
#5
Espec when the only real anti-Sequester plan US Politicos have is to keep raising the Debt Burden, + commit the US to a [temporary?] higher US Debt ceiling that has already been surpassed even before it comes up for Congressional debate or approval.
The editors of Investors Business Daily pose a good question:
About a day after we did [sniff]...
What are we to make of the U.S. suddenly finding $250 million to spare for Egypt during a supposedly devastating sequester? Has this administration miraculously parted a sea of red ink?
The editorial concludes:
The U.S. is giving $250 million to an Egyptian president who calls Jews "blood-suckers" who are "descendants of apes and pigs"; Morsi unequivocally supports the Iranian-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, because the two-state solution is "nothing but an illusion" and the Palestinian Authority "was created by the Zionist and American enemies for the sole purpose of opposing the will of the Palestinian people and its interests"; and he calls on fellow Muslims to "besiege the Zionists wherever they are."
Nothing has exposed the truth about all the Chicken Little sequester rhetoric like these hundreds of millions in taxpayer cash so easily slapped down on the Mideast roulette table in the vain hope that we can buy Morsi's friendship.
If President Obama believes he can perform miracles in Egypt with $250 million, then he can handle the mortal task of managing 2% in automatic spending cuts.
Michael Gordon explains where $190 million of the $250 million pledged by Kerry comes from in Gordon's New York Times article: "President Obama pledged $1 billion to support Egypt's democratic revolution. The $190 million in aid announced on Sunday is the first disbursement of that pledge" (and was already approved by Congress, according to Gordon).
The mysterious balance of $60 million is supposedly dedicated to the creation of a fund to support small businesses, which will provide "direct support to key engines of democratic change in Egypt, including Egypt's entrepreneurs and its young people" (according to Kerry). Somehow, I doubt it, as well as the wisdom of the rest of the $1 billion pledged. In any event, there is no apparent thought given to conditioning the disbursement of funds on reforms that might constrain the blight of the Muslim Brotherhood, but there should be.
Terrorism continues to be viewed conventionally in Pakistan. However, the phenomenon has assumed a structured formation driven by rational choice perspectives. This article attempts to identify distinct trends and patterns of terrorism within prevailing environments of Pakistan. In doing so, it also examines the validity of seasonality dimensions of routine activity theory (use of summer months and earlier days of week) for terrorist acts. Eight trends are identified tentatively. Using empirical data and analytical discourse, the findings confirm the assumed trends in terms of their typology, structure, operational system and rallying themes. In addition, the article finds support for the hypothesis of terrorism being a strategic approach rather than an ordinary form of violence. It is further found that changed patterns of violence warrant a revisiting of earlier assumptions regarding the applicability of routine activity theory within the Pakistani context. By implication, the study also suggests a variation of terrorism under different regime types, i.e. military or democratic.
#1
Simple. Locate a Suni mosque. Draw circles at various radii from it. Rate the viperous speech of each Iman and use it as a bias for the circles. Do the same for the head banging Koran memorizing pretend schools and you have pretty much got it.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
03/05/2013 17:17 Comments ||
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[Dawn] IN the wake of the attacks against the Hazaras in Quetta, accusations have been levelled by a section of civil society, media and human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... organizations that the armed forces and its intelligence agencies have some links with proscribed beturbanned goon outfits like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ... (LJ).
There is also a widespread general perception that our security establishment calls the shots on internal security issues, especially those pertaining to Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... and Fata.
This criticism against a publicly respected institution of the armed forces resulted in an emphatic denial by none other than the chief of the ISPR, the military's media wing, at a specially arranged media briefing last month.
At the same time the secretive and powerful ISI formally told the Supreme Court that it had conveyed prior information about the transfer of large-scale chemicals from Lahore for preparation of explosives in Quetta to be soon used against the Hazaras.
It conceded that formal counterterrorism operations were not part of the ISI's mandate, implying that the Frontier Corps (FC) and the police had failed to prevent the carnage even after being given clear information.
A military front man stated clearly that "the armed forces were not in contact with any beturbanned goon organization, including the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi". This realisation is welcome, especially after a change in the military doctrine recently when the army chief unequivocally declared on Independence Day in 2012 that the Pak state was pitted against an internal enemy in the form of beturbanned goon organizations that were planning to unravel the country through terrorism and religious extremism.
The very public and categorical denial by the army command should also result in the institution's own soul-searching and internal accountability about the patronage of certain beturbanned goon organizations by the military and the intelligence agencies, especially during the Zia and Musharraf eras.
The present army command knows and understands that security-handling and political engineering by the Military Intelligence (MI) in Balochistan led to the woes of that unfortunate province that continues to bleed due to the unresolved issue of the missing persons, the Baloch insurgency, assassinations of Punjabi settlers and sectarian terrorism, especially against the Hazara Shias.
While ruling out any collaboration at any level, the army front man stated that there was "no reason to think about the army's involvement" with the LJ. He vociferously added that "there is no way the army can afford this. If such a thing comes to notice it will be sorted out".
The record shows and all Hazaras know that there was not a single incident of sectarian terrorism in Quetta or the entire province in 2007 because high-profile LJ bully boyz like Usman Kurd and Dawood Badini had been apprehended and incarcerated in a high-security, anti-terrorism police force-guarded prison in the
military cantonment in Quetta.
Will the army command and intelligence agencies honestly probe the circumstances under which the LJ desperados beat feet from a secure facility in January 2008? Is it not a fact that the LJ Balochistan regrouped under these runaways and since then has unleashed a reign of terror, not only in Quetta but all over the country?
In my view, the armed forces now have a responsibility to come up to the expectations of the victim Shia community of Quetta and leave no stone unturned to re-arrest the LJ runaways.
No army operation is required for this challenging task. All it requires is for the Crime Investigation Department, the Special Branch, Intelligence Bureau, and the ISI to pool their resources, share information and help the police, FC and the armed forces for a targeted raid in an area which is outside the jurisdiction of the police.
It is now time to address the civil-military disconnect to resolve the issue of internal security fault lines and stop blaming each other. Sectarian violence is now the biggest threat to our national cohesion and peace.
The timing is also crucial because the next national elections are around the corner.
An inept and corrupt government failed to muster the political will to tackle the security challenges facing Balochistan during the last five years.
A truly representative new politicianship elected as a result of fair and transparent elections will hopefully be chastened by the previous misrule and try to deliver peace and progress to the hapless citizens of a province crying for the healing touch of reforms.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wrecked scow, Harrigan had lost the feeling in his legs from the cold. I told 'em they'd never take me alive, he thought. I was right!... our security establishment led by the armed forces and intelligence agencies, who have been part of the problem, has to become a very active part of the solution to combat sectarian terrorism, resolve the issue of missing persons, guard our vast frontiers, and actively support the police, Levies, and civil armed forces such as the FC and Coast Guard.
It must do so not only to protect our vital national assets in Balochistan but become part and parcel of good governance and service delivery for citizens of the hinterland of our nation. I wish it Godspeed.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2013 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi
[Dawn] A CITY already battered by a cycle of violence has been rocked by a deadly attack targeting the Shia community -- the tragedy in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... yesterday is compounded by the fact that the description could apply to several other Pak cities, not least Quetta and Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. . After each such attack as yesterday's in Abbas Town (located in an area prone to attacks) the same set of questions are asked -- and never answered. Leave aside why the attack took place at all and what the intelligence apparatus did to try and prevent it, where are the lessons learned by the law-enforcement personnel, emergency services and first responders? Law-enforcement personnel are often worried about their own safety after such attacks because angry crowds can turn on them, but that still leaves a vital job to be done: helping emergency services and first responders rescue the injured and saving lives. Instead of helping impose order, an all-too-familiar scene of chaos broke out: ruptured gas lines were not quickly closed, rescue equipment was late in arriving and expertise was missing from the site. Much as bystanders and citizens want to help in such situations and can do some good, collapsed buildings pose a special danger and rubble moved hastily by untrained volunteers can cause more harm to survivors. But then, with the state absent, can people stand by and watch others die unnecessarily?
After the dust settles and the dead are buried and the injured are discharged from hospitals, the next set of usual questions will be asked. Among them, why is Karachi's security and intelligence apparatus unable to detect thug cells and groups capable of mounting such devastating attacks in the city? But perhaps more pertinently, the past has to be re-examined first. What exactly has been done to find, prosecute and shut down the groups that have perpetrated previous major attacks, in Karachi and elsewhere? The answer, known to one and all, is damningly little. Little can be fixed in the present if the recent past continues to go unaddressed.
Perhaps the greatest challenge is the geographical spread of violence against Shias: from Quetta to Peshawar and Karachi to Gilgit-Baltistan with Lahore thrown in for good measure recently, no one federal or provincial intelligence or security agency can address the threat on its own. But with meaningful cooperation between various tiers being intermittent and institutional pie fights a reality, the country is no closer to finding a solution to a problem that just keeps growing in complexity and scope.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2013 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11123 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[GUARDIAN.CO.UK] Rather than lifting the US-European arms embargo, as Britain has proposed, why not ask Russia and Iran to join it? Because they'll tell you to screw off?
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2013 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
Waiter, more guns for everyone! I say turn Syria into a Disney World for civil war. (as if it isn't already!) Let it be a jihadi sponge.
These people (yeah, I'm stereotyping) seem to have an innate urge to murder. Better they expend their energies on each other than create mischief for us. Besides, it will make it easier to shoot the winners.
I realize this is not exactly Tom Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map. To which I reply, bite me.
#2
There will be peace and tranquility in the region right after Barrett-Jackson goes exclusively Toyota. I strongly recommend sitting back, savoring the moment, and methodically war-gaming the eventual destruction of the victor.
#2
This "President" sees his role not as the one the oath of office defines, but one of retribution, transformation, power, and ultimately, a solely political lens through which everything is filtered. His entire focus is 2014, and the opening that might give for single party rule, and the devastation that will bring as we are "transformed" to the place his community organizing has always been fouced upon, equality of outcome through Marxist redistribution and systemic leveling, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
The pain and ruination that Americans feel while he does this is unimportant to him, since "social justice" means that most who suffer need to do penance for their unearned prosperity. Most devastatingly bad choice for President in American history, not merely incompetent or petty, but diabolical in the secular sense.
#2
I'm sure she is like my wife in never attributing to malice etc.
Me, I'm too cynical. This was definitely a sucker's bet, a trap set by the editorial board so that they could beat a favorite prey, Catholics and the church. They are not only despicable they are cowards.
When are they going to write the editorial disembowling Islam?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The editors of Investors Business Daily pose a good question:
[Dawn] IN the wake of the attacks against the Hazaras in Quetta, accusations have been levelled by a section of civil society, media and 
