Are the UAE and Qatar Emiri Air Forces using the NATO intervention in Libya they are partaking in as a dress rehearsal of sorts for a possible future attack against Iran they may have to undertake if they feel directly threatened?
#1
I think we all know the relative capability of the Iranian Air Force. What's out there on the UAE and Qatar forces?
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/29/2011 11:24 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Interesting speculation. Nothing like a bit of live-fire training. What's important is being able to sustain a high operational tempo without running out of bombs, spares, fuel, and crew rest. Takes organization only expensive manuvers can provide.
So, do we have a high operational tempo for the folks in question? Do we have somebody else providing the logistics? How many pilots and front-line maintainers and loggy guys are under some kind of operational pressure?
Still, even having a few guys shot over, as the Brits used to say, is a benefit.
Against Iran? Not by themselves. As a minor part of a bigger op, they might be able to claim some credit, and justifiably so.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
06/29/2011 16:09 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Qatar plays is part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (the other five members are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and Oman).
Aircraft:
12 Aerospatiale SA342L Gazelle
- AgustaWestland AW139 18 on order
2 Boeing C-17A Globemaster III
3 Dassault Mirage 2000-5DDA
9 Dassault Mirage 2000-5EDA
6 Dassault-Breguet Dornier Alpha
- Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 Hercules 4 on order
2 Westland Commando Mk.2
7 Westland Commando Mk.3
Note that the USAF also has a facilities-use agreement with Qatar.
From the State Department: "The [UAE] Air Force has advanced U.S. F-16 BLOCK 60 multi-role fighter aircraft. Other equipment includes French Mirage 2000-9 fighters, British Hawk trainer aircraft, 36 transport aircraft and U.S. Apache and Black Hawk helicopters."
They've also picked up or are picking up C-17 transports.
[Dawn] There is a saying, if you look into an abyss, the abyss looks into you. In our case, there is much truth to it. Since the public flogging of journalists and social workers in the time of the all so much talked about General Zia, our nation as a whole, if it is even justifiable to use the term for Paks, has taken a plunge to greater depths, perhaps never thought before possible.
We have since then managed to kill a leader cum politician in 2007; blown to smithereens countless men, women and kiddies of Pakistain; eaten our own offspring -- quite literally;
Wait a minute -- we haven't seen any reports of cannibalism, which I'm pretty sure is forbidden by Shariah. But perhaps the editorialist didn't literally mean literally.
and, killed journalists as well as publicly flogged women in the name of honor; brutally murdered our youth only to hang them upside down on a pole; and left to die kids on road bleeding to their last breath.
Terror is an attention-seeking monster. It breeds on recognition -- the type of recognition one sees when one turns the television on, or picks up the newspaper, or even opens up a website. Three dead here, 17 injured in a suicide kaboom there, naval buses attacked, PNS Mehran, the GHQ, Data Darbar, Imam Bargahs, barely a spot on this country seems safe. And so, there is this delusional sick mind (read translation: Taliban) sitting somewhere in a valley showing to his students on television the trophies of his success in the form of broken limbs, splattered blood, and a nation writhing in pain and agony.
Intentionally or unintentionally we have given the spotlight to the Baitullah Mehsuds and Fazlullahs, to Lashkars of terror and their allies, to sectarian divisions and ethnic wars. Yes we are at war. No one is suggesting a state of denial, but the constant hammering of violence on our minds has made us collectively, a monster. There are segments that come out to justify acts of abhorrence and mob attacks and others that defend the cold blooded murder of the Governor of our largest province.
While America has a 9/11 and India harps about their 26/11, Pakistain has had so frequent and so many of them that it is hard to keep up. We kill in the name of honor; murder in the name of freedom; leech, loot and plunder the wealth of our nation under the guise of governance. To top it, the world accuses us of harboring terrorism and providing safe havens to "seasoned terrorists" that use our soil to attack India and threaten the security of the world on the lam (read: America). Yet, no one seems to acknowledge the fact that if we harbor and nourish them to this day, we would not have death looming over our citizens each passing day.
What we are breeding; however, is much worse. It is a generation as unfeeling and as unthinking as the dead. It is already a generation divided on every conceivable issue, whether it is politics, freedom of expression, honor, sectarianism or caste, biradari and ethnicity. As Gibran once put it, 'Pity the nation divided into fragments -- each fragment deeming itself a nation'. And now it seems, those much cherished and honorable beliefs of justice and humanity are washing away as well.
Day after day, week after week, year after year, these stories of hate have hardened our hearts to the point of no return. The monster has long been looking back into us, and we have gazed into this abyss far too long. Forget the notions of politics and of media, the inhabitants of the Land of the Pure are losing their grip on humanity -- slowly becoming a part of the abyss, being sucked into adversity and ignorance, a state of mind so dangerously powerful that it could wash away traces of any renaissance that ever happened.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/29/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Pakistan is on a roll -- downhill and picking up speed.
#2
Pakistan would be better off as a province of India. The most backward and shameful of Indian provinces -- but better off, nonetheless. And that is where their shame lies.
#5
We make our daily choices out of our Values. Every choice we make in the myriad of choices that comprise our days, our years, our lives is a brick in the internal edifice of our Character.
The Foundation of our beliefs is the origin of our character. Our beliefs have a foundation. Moslems have a foundation of belief. Hindus have a foundation of belief. Democrats have a foundation of belief. Nations have a character which is based on the foundation of their collective choices which define their common priorities of vision of WHO they are as a people.
Human nature itself is rooted in decisions and those decisions are characteristics of the being of humankind. We Know who we are by the choices we make. We MAKE those choices because we have built ourselves by a steady habit of choosing...and lay down a pattern of our choosing which defines us as individuals.
Belief Systems are literally that. Some survive and prosper and they will inherit.Some will not survive, they are inefficient both morally and economically.Some will not survive because they pursue death and not life. It is only a matter of time and competition. Every Age has its competition and struggle.
At Lepanto,Don Juan of Austria commanded a fleet of Galleys, BUT there were eight ships, only Eight, of the Van which carried Massed Cannon. The Ottoman Moslem fleet had its ships loaded with Infantry ready to ram and board . The Moslems had no massed Cannon, nor ships constructed solely for that purpose.
When the two fleets closed to engage. The Eight Ships of Massed Cannon in the Christian Fleet did something new, made a choice to fight in a new way. They moved into the Moslem fleet , straight into it, firing broadsides, all ships firing in any direction it chose, moving as a single body of the line, piercing into the Moslem Fleet and unapproachable, a wall of splintering massed fire. Broadside after broadside tore the Moslem Galleys to splinters, drowning thousands of Moslems who could later be speared in the water at leisure as they were helpless among the floating debris of their wreckage. Spitted by pikes as they drifted in the waves...after the battle was over and decided.Easy killing.
AND all that was NOT luck or an accident. It was based on men making choices out of their character, based on their beliefs in a foundation of what National Character they had. The Ottomans were largely Janissaries, armed Moslem slaves who served a Moslem Cause. Don Juan of Austria wasnt served by slaves and he didnt belong to a society based on obedience to a ruler who was God's Vizier. The men in Don Juan's fleet fought for themselves and their ability to make choices that would benefit them personally. Genoese,Portuguese, Spaniards...merchants and mariners in it for the trade and the money. Not slaves.
Essentially that was why they won.
Christianity in the age of Don Juan of Austria was full of flaws but its efficiency for the individual was way ahead of the Moslem worlds ability to marshall national and personal resources at the point of contact.
Eight ships with massed Cannon, unapproachable and firing broadside after broadside into the enemy who had nothing to counter it. A choice made by one man based on national character and a Belief System.
A man who fights doesnt just carry a gun....what he carries is his character.
Posted by: de Medici ||
06/29/2011 12:07 Comments ||
Top||
#6
This is the way to go. The 4th way!
...The Fourth Way is Accountability and it is simple enough. Stop arguing over who will rule in which Muslim country. That is a decision that only the inhabitants of that country can make. And they wont make it through elections, so much as through dealmaking among their oligarchy, tribal leaders and occasional outbursts of armed force. It would take a massive project of decades to have any hope of changing that. But we dont need to. What we need to do is make very clear the consequences of attacking us to whoever is in charge.
Rather than trying to shape their behavior by shaping their political leadership, we can use a much more blunt instrument to unselectively shape all their leaders. A blunt instrument does not mean reconstruction. It doesnt mean Marines ferrying electrical generators. It doesnt mean nation building. It means that we will inflict massive devastation on any country that aids terrorists who attack us. If they insist on using medieval beliefs to murder us, we will bomb government buildings, roads, factories and power plants to reduce them back to a medieval state. We will not impose sanctions on them, we will simply take control of their natural resources and remove the native population from the area, as compensation for the expenses of the war.
Accountability means no more aid to tyrants or terrorists, and no grand democracy projects either. It means that we stop trying to pick a side, and just make it clear what happens when our side gets hurt. We gain energy independence and never look back. And when weve done that, the Muslim world will no longer be able to play America against Russia, against Asia and Europe. Instead it will suddenly find itself stuck with a predatory Russia looking for an energy monopoly, a booming China expanding into their part of the world, and no Pax Americana to protect them from either one.
America has provided the stability that kept many Muslim countries from imploding. It has protected others directly and indirectly from being conquered more times than anyone realizes. All the treachery and terrorism that has been carried out, has been done under an American umbrella. Now is the time to furl up the umbrella, and let the rain fall where it may.
It will be a cold day indeed, when Russia and China realize that they can do what they like in the Muslim world, without the US to stop them. And a colder day still, when European countries realize that there is nothing standing the way of deporting their insurgent Muslim populations, because the US will not lift a finger to protect them, as it did in Yugoslavia. That is accountability. And in both its active and passive forms it will exact a high price from the enemy, and none from us. To employ it, we must be prepared to use massive force casually without considering any collateral damage. We must achieve energy independence at any cost. And we must be prepared to realize that everything else we have tried has failed. Only by disengaging from the Muslim world, can we ever be free of it...
[Dawn] WHO are the terrorists, and what do they want? There are many answers to these questions that have kicked up so much bitter controversy that there hardly is any possibility of consensus.
The confusion about beturbanned goons and terrorism is mainly because three different sorts of activities by three different groups have been lumped together, ignoring their separate concerns and objectives. Those three groups are clearly distinguishable: Al Qaeda and its affiliates, the Pak Taliban and their affiliates, and the Afghan Taliban.
Al Qaeda, born during the 'jihad' against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, is mainly an Arab-led organization that felt betrayed when the US established a strong military presence in many Arab lands soon after the release of Afghanistan from the Soviet bear hug. It has an anti-US and anti-West agenda, and a global network. But having been hunted down in many parts of the world for the last 10 years, it now reportedly has diminishing resources and arguably weakening support in the Arab world and elsewhere.
The Afghan Taliban, on the other hand, have no global agenda or network. Like their precursors, the Mujahideen, they are fighting against the occupation of their land. They have never attacked any American or European asset outside Afghanistan.
They do, however, have sympathy for Al Qaeda, an organization of their brothers-in-faith.
As Pashtuns and Wahabis they do have close affinity with the Pak Taliban, but they have never been directly involved in any unprovoked acts of violence in Pakistain. Calling them beturbanned goons doesn't belittle their objective nor does it diminish support for them in Afghanistan.
Finally, there is the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain and its affiliates. Accepting the reality of what the Pak Taliban did in the areas that fell under their operational control, such as Swat, and what they claim to aspire to, we should have no doubt that their goal is to capture the state apparatus by force and establish in Pakistain a regime dedicated to imposing their version of Islam on the model of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. While the story of Al Qaeda can be said to be almost over and the story of the Afghan Taliban will reach a predictable end in the near future, the story of Pak Taliban has just begun.
Even from those few things that we know for sure about the Pak Taliban, it is clear enough that what we are facing today in Pakistain is a raging ideological civil war, not merely terrorist activities by criminals or semi-literate mullahs. The Pak Taliban are, in fact, well-trained, well-equipped, overly motivated and generously funded. They also have significant support in every section and strata of society directly or through their affiliates and sympathisers.
The way this insurgency is proceeding in its early phase is so well-orchestrated that we cannot be sure whether we are in the midst of a civil war. Most of us have the uncomfortable feeling that we are in the midst of some kind of war. But whose war? We keep asking this question with the detachment of an unconcerned onlooker.
In the ongoing insurgency the classic tactics of guerrilla warfare are already observable: harass, weaken, infiltrate, confuse and sow the seeds of discord, and harvest the countryside for associates. The snuffies have done all this and more. Their technical and organizational competence has been displayed in the raids on such military strongholds as the GHQ and PNS Mehran where almost all the aforementioned tactics can be seen in operation.
The snuffies operate from behind the smokescreen of anti-US, anti-India and anti-Israel slogans and have probably assimilated a bit of the ideologies dictated by all these slogans. But their persona is not the sum total of all those negativities.
They have seemingly assigned to themselves a much larger task: overthrow the existing state apparatus and inaugurate a theocracy of their definition. During the course of an evolutionary period of more than 30 years, they have evolved into a formidable weapon.
This brings us to the most disturbing question of all: who wields this weapon? It is difficult to believe that any of the known present or past leaders of the Taliban could possibly plan and execute such professionally conducted raids as the ones on the GHQ or PNS Mehran. Could it be that all those names that we keep hearing are no more than the public face of so far unknown persons who operate from behind the scenes? Could it be a cabal of highly educated, trained and experienced zealots that are well-versed in the art of unconventional warfare?
It could be that the truth, if and when revealed, will turn out stranger than fiction.
Who can stop the bad boys, whether or not led by a hidden cabal? Obviously, the armed forces -- not unarmed civilians. It is time, therefore, for the armed forces, politicians and civil society to stop slinging mud at each other and come together. It is also time that the security forces cleansed their own ranks of infiltrators and zealots, instead of behaving like a harassed and embarrassed giant flailing at outspoken politicians and a hostile media.
Finally, the enigmatic role played by the US administration and think-tanks in providing fuel to the anti-US bandwagon, driven by the Taliban, on which all sorts of people are trying to clamber. Consider just two of the many examples. The US administration continues to rebuke and humiliate the Pak leadership publicly, while drones continue to pound the tribal areas. US think-tanks keep rolling out all sorts of anti-Pakistain prescriptions, including the break-up of Pakistain.
A number of analysts have joined the band of political cartographers in Washington that feel that an independent Balochistan would be a good idea. Yet, even better would be an independent Pakistain.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/29/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
? The Afghan Taliban have never attacked any American or European asset outside Afghanistan. BS! They provided critical resources and safe havens enabling the 9/11 attack. They bear the same level of responsibility as the Mo Atta.
#3
Oh lord. What a load of propaganda. In summary, Al Qaeda fading, Afghan Taliban good, Pak Taliban bad, but secretly a tool of the nefarious Americans who want to replace the government and army with ignorant, ill-mannered taqfiri terrorists for inexplicable reasons of their own, Hidden canals, forsooth!
Susan, fetch your steno pad -- I feel a best-selling novel coming on.
The Fourth Way is Accountability and it is simple enough. Stop arguing over who will rule in which Muslim country. That is a decision that only the inhabitants of that country can make. And they wont make it through elections, so much as through dealmaking among their oligarchy, tribal leaders and occasional outbursts of armed force. It would take a massive project of decades to have any hope of changing that. But we dont need to. What we need to do is make very clear the consequences of attacking us to whoever is in charge.
Rather than trying to shape their behavior by shaping their political leadership, we can use a much more blunt instrument to unselectively shape all their leaders. A blunt instrument does not mean reconstruction. It doesnt mean Marines ferrying electrical generators. It doesnt mean nation building. It means that we will inflict massive devastation on any country that aids terrorists who attack us. If they insist on using medieval beliefs to murder us, we will bomb government buildings, roads, factories and power plants to reduce them back to a medieval state. We will not impose sanctions on them, we will simply take control of their natural resources and remove the native population from the area, as compensation for the expenses of the war.
Accountability means no more aid to tyrants or terrorists, and no grand democracy projects either. It means that we stop trying to pick a side, and just make it clear what happens when our side gets hurt. We gain energy independence and never look back. And when weve done that, the Muslim world will no longer be able to play America against Russia, against Asia and Europe. Instead it will suddenly find itself stuck with a predatory Russia looking for an energy monopoly, a booming China expanding into their part of the world, and no Pax Americana to protect them from either one.
America has provided the stability that kept many Muslim countries from imploding. It has protected others directly and indirectly from being conquered more times than anyone realizes. All the treachery and terrorism that has been carried out, has been done under an American umbrella. Now is the time to furl up the umbrella, and let the rain fall where it may.
It will be a cold day indeed, when Russia and China realize that they can do what they like in the Muslim world, without the US to stop them. And a colder day still, when European countries realize that there is nothing standing the way of deporting their insurgent Muslim populations, because the US will not lift a finger to protect them, as it did in Yugoslavia. That is accountability. And in both its active and passive forms it will exact a high price from the enemy, and none from us. To employ it, we must be prepared to use massive force casually without considering any collateral damage. We must achieve energy independence at any cost. And we must be prepared to realize that everything else we have tried has failed. Only by disengaging from the Muslim world, can we ever be free of it.
#7
#6, makes sense, but the rest of the world would have to support that - it used to be called containment. I think there are too many players in the world for that to work. China has been getting away with sponsoring North Korea's shenanigans for over half a century now.
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.
[Dawn] WHO are the terrorists, and what do they want? There are many answers to these questions that have kicked up so much bitter controversy that there hardly is any possibility of consensus.
