On the low army budget of some European states, the 21 states with the lowest budget together spend less than Vietnam on their armies, Howorth remarks:

One might ask exactly what those nation states believe they are buying with their money.

An interesting concept he brings up from the Venusberg report is the fighting intensity scale:

This poses the crucial question of the type of warfare the EU intends to fight. According to one analysis (Venusberg 2004: 68), the average US soldier, trained for high intensity warfare, operates at levels 8 to10 on an intensity scale of 1 to 10. If forced to, he can “operate down” to level 6 but is uncomfortable with that, owing to lack of training in the art of peace-keeping and nation-building.  Many UK and French troops as well as some crack German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch special-forces can operate up to level 8 but the vast majority are more comfortable lower down the intensity scale dealing with irregular forces in a peace-keeping environment. Most other EU troops cannot operate much above level 5 on the US intensity scale and are therefore incapable of assuming peace-keeping duties such as those required in 2004 in Iraq.

While he sees that as a problem for European troops (and I agree), in light of the current troubles in COIN, I see the fact that the average US soldier “is uncomfortable with [the low intensity warfare]“, an equally problematic aspect.

A book by Howorth on the topic is available here.

(The title of the post comes also from the article (”When, in 1958, the UK prime minister was asked by a young journalist what can most easily steer a government off its chosen course, Harold Macmillan replied: “Events, dear boy! Events!”), and made me wonder about Austrian internal politics. If there is no chosen course, you need no events …

Other nationals I met in big numbers, French and Japanese especially, Austrians, Chinese, Italian, Norwegian and German working in private business, as teachers, journalists or in the NGO sector. I met these people in the country, not just behind walled DHA mansions. But where are the Americans who make sure that all that money is actually spent as aid and not just contributed to be able to show off high numbers and use them as a leverage? Where are the Americans who explain Ann Patterson what happens outside her armoured vehicle, outside her Embassy compound, who explain Holebrook what’s going on while he is not there? Continuously relying on Pakistani informants who they then can blame again of not cooperating enough seems to be the credo.

Especially Japan, who is equally contributing extensive amounts of money in development projects in Pakistan, is showing how “Aid” actually becomes Aid (how extensive “Aid” can be counterproductive, erroding local structures is shown here on a recent example). They send well trained staff, most speaking one Pakistani language already when they arrive, who do not need armoured cars for safe passage but work without much clamour about their contribution. I know Japanese who rode a bycicle from Cantonement (Lhr) to Lower Mall where their office was (training police officers), who acted in Punjabi stage plays and the women were so adapted that they mounted the motor bike side-saddle. Of course, not being heavily involved in the area politically or in connection with the “war on terror” they are less a target for possible aggresion from locals. But that doens’t count as an argument, since people like Greg Mortensen or Todd Shea seem to manage.

(Update: my bad, they actually do mingle in public, she is the head of the consulate in Lahore – I really miss “Eye Spy” for Sunday breakfasts!)

Although Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell rejected that the US has been supporting the terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi did appear on Voice of America’s Persian service in 2007. Some analysts, including Seymour Hersh, attribute the capture of Rigi to Pakistan that it is a counter to US/NATO’s push in Helmand and Marjah region to drive out militants into Pakistani Baluchistan and then eventually gaining control of Gawadar port from Chinese in the guise of taking out these militants (from Russia Today, see below).

“I consider this a criminal attack by a lone individual.”

They testified this after proclaiming that it was indeed a suicide attack. Indeed, an ‘interesting’ definition. A man hits a building, housing numerous offices with alive people, knowing it might kill them all and he’s not a terrorist. Some Muslim groups have protested that on the statement and said, that for US (and West in general) one has to be a Muslim to be a terrorist. ‘No, you can’t be a terrorist because you’re not Muslim. No!’, they could have said.

Stay with me on this. What if Joseph Andrew Stack was Muslim? It would have added to Pakistan’s woes because in a few minutes after the attack, they would have found a link to Al-Qaeda and Taliban. How? You would have been told that he lived in a street same as a Nepalese. This Nepalese belongs to a city from where a small number of Muslims are settled in UK, and of which, one is a cook. Two years back this cook was employed in a restaurant where an Arab Sheikh from Egypt used to come for dinner. That Sheikh has married his son in Yemen in a family whose one member runs a business in Iraq. The business is of trucks, and one driver is a native of Ramadi. Ramadi is Al-Qaeda’s headquarter where Afghan and Pakistani Taliban come for training. Hence, it is proved that that suicide pilot has links with Al-Qaeda and Taliban. And Pakistan should launch an operation in North Waziristan to capture these non-state actors. Duh!

It’s quite unfashionable these days to go on about Guantanamo detainees, which battalion should be moved where in Marjah is more urgent. Of course the latter is easier to have a strong opinion on, it’s far away, we have little idea what’s really going on and it almost always sounds exciting. Guantanamo stories seldom do. They are just shocking.

There is coverage on it though fortunately. For me it’s hard to judge whether people who try to keep that in the press in the US are seen as leftist-demoralizers or are still heard or how that is a topic that is widely discussed. To ask black/white, what’s more important:

Capturing Siraj Haqqani and his father Jalaluddin or closing Guantanamo and correctly deal with the left inmates and reveal its stories?

Check Scott Horton’s article on the recent court sentencings here.

The full article on the Guantanamo “suicides” reads like a completely made up bad-thriller-conspiracy story. Cheap indeed. But the guy who wrote that is not some wanna-be literate but a respected attorney in this field. Read his full incredible account here. Responses have already started here.

Pankaj Mishra has earlier, nearly 10 years back written an article-triptychon in the Review on Kashmir.

The first in the series (Death in Kashmir, September 2000) dealt with then recent lethal encounters between Muslim separatists, Indian army and civilians. A long, sad insight into the Indian misconception of happenings there and the burden lying on the Kashmiri’s shoulders.

The second part (The Birth of a Nation, October 2000) deals with the history from Partition to the 90s, from Iqbal’s ideas for a Muslim state and Nehru’s assertion that Kashmir needed to be with India (both have Kashmiri roots) to Sheikh Abdullah and the creation of Islamic Groups on the Pakistani side infiltrating over the LoC.

On where the disillusioned Kashmiris could turn Mishra writes:

Pakistan was a natural choice. It had tried to liberate Kashmir by force twice by sending in armed infiltrators—first in 1948 and then in 1965—and on both occasions had failed to muster enough support among the local population, which, though not entirely happy with Indian rule, was also wary of Pakistan. But the fast-growing disillusionment with Indian rule through the 1980s made many Kashmiris look toward Pakistan for assistance: it was the only country in the world that consistently affirmed, at least rhetorically, the Kashmiri “right to self-determination.”

Looking at the Pakistani Kashmir today, especially the situation of Kashmiris from the Indian part who live in AJK without a legal status, often in tin sheds since years is dire (ironically these people suffered less in the Earthquake of 2005, since they didn’t have houses that could collapse over their heads). The Mohajrs from Indian Kashmir I know mock the Pakistani term Azad Kashmir and call it “Azab (azab-al-qabr being the hellfire) Kashmir” themselves.

What is missing from the Pakistani side in any case, is an assessment of the Pakistani Kashmir in the style of Mishra’s articles on the Indian part. While DAWN regularly writes about incidents on the Indian side of Kashmir, apart from AJK Cabinet reshufflings one never reads about the Pakistani part. While I respect figures like Yasin Malik who is given ample air time on Pakistani Talk shows, coverage of Kashmiri figures from this side of the fence is restricted to sad post-zalzala stories and I guess it would just be fair to hear their side of the story as well. The job would not be too hard, it’s not a case for self-criticism or pouring oil into a nationalist debate. Mishra has managed to give an unbiased account from “his” side – so could a Pakistani in Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Neelum.

The last part (Kashmir: The Unending War, November 2000) looks at the 90s and offers an outlook and some more insight into the plight of the local people.

The cycle of violence and destruction has been so swift and severe in Kashmir; the insurgency has poisoned and destroyed so many lives. Yet the insurgents’ political cause remains as lonely and hopeless as before. Independence, which a majority of Kashmiris seem to want, or integration with Pakistan, which for many Kashmiris is the second-best option after independence, are not possibilities that any Indian government can ever consider without immediately losing the support of the Hindu middle classes. The European Union and the US are unlikely to risk antagonizing India, with its lucrative markets and resources and the trappings of a democracy, by taking up the Kashmiri cause.

Domino’s Scientists Test Limits Of What Humans Will Eat

..there is elite consensus around the need for other people’s money. The only disagreement is about how to cash in.

The Kerry-Lugar Bill is a bitter pill that Pakistan’s strong and resilient people must swallow because they have repeatedly been failed by both their military dictators and their civilian megalomaniacs.

Read the complete analysis here: http://www.mosharrafzaidi.com/2009/09/30/kerry-lugar-bill-the-fruition-of-62-years/