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Tuesday 1 September 2009

Muammar Gaddafi: Evolution of a Revolutionary

Muammar Gaddafi has ruled Libya for 40 years and is well-known both in and outside the Arab world. Gaddafi is the last of a waning generation of Arab nationalist revolutionaries who came to power as the result of military coups in the 1950s and 1960s. On September 1, 1969, a group of young officers under his command deposed King Idris al-Senussi and proclaimed a Libyan republic.

In the latter half of the 1970s, Gaddafi renamed his country. It is now called the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The word Jamahiriya is a neologism introduced by Gaddafi that means "government of the masses" in literal translation from Arabic.

The ideological basis for Gaddafi's politics is his own "Third World Theory," building a just society as described in his "Green Book." Gaddafi's theory promulgates a "true government of the people without a parliament and its elected officials." Libya has no political parties, because according to Gaddafi's theory, the "party system is an abortion of democracy." There is no hired labor, because this is a "form of slavery," but there are partner relations for remuneration. There is no administration, but there are people's committees similar to the people's commissariats in the USSR. Quotes from the Green Book can be found not only in school textbooks and government institutions, but also on practically every fence in Tripoli.

Only 10 years ago, Gaddafi was looked upon in the West as nothing more than a tyrant, a necessary evil, someone that had to be dealt with. Today, while he cannot exactly be called a friend, at the very least, he is a partner of Paris, Rome, London, Moscow and even Washington. Gaddafi's political metamorphosis is understandable.

Libyan Colonel

In 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, Muammar Gaddafi was advantageously selling Libya's oil, which allowed a carefree life not only for himself, but for 3.5 million Libyans. However, Gaddafi, ever the fiery revolutionary, decided to fight<>

Gaddafi's revenge was even crueler. On December 21, 1988, a Pan Am 747 exploded over the village of Lockerbie, Scotland, resulting in the deaths of 270 people, including 189 Americans. U.S. intelligence services investigating the incident identified the two direct perpetrators of the attack - Libyans Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Amin Fahim. Al-Megrahi was found guilty in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, but extradited to Scotland only in 1998. He spent 11 years in jail, and returned to Tripoli a few days ago. He was greeted as a national hero there.

In 1992, the UN Security Council imposed economic sanctions against Libya, and the country was forced to endure diplomatic isolation. There was only one way out - seek compromise with the West, but Gaddafi was not ready to compromise...

The Lessons of Iraq

The war in Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime "sobered up" many Arab leaders, who subsequently understood that any one of them could be next. Muammar Gaddafi quickly learned the lessons of Iraq and fundamentally changed his foreign policy. He announced that Libya was abandoning its nuclear weapons program and invited IAEA inspectors to visit the country's nuclear center in Tadjoura. In addition, without admitting Libya's guilt, Gaddafi agreed to pay compensation to the Lockerbie victims' families - $10 million for each of the 270 casualties.

Washington replied in kind. In 2004, the U.S. removed the economic embargo from Libya, and in 2006, the White House removed Libya from the list of countries that sponsor international terrorism.

In 2007, Gaddafi made another "good will gesture." He released the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian medical intern who were held for more than seven years in Libyan prisons for the monstrous and absurd allegation that they had infected Libyan children with AIDS. The West responded accordingly. Gaddafi was invited to Spain and France, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Libya. Consequently, Gaddafi opened a window to Europe and Europe was once again granted access to Libyan oil under lucrative contracts. Russia was not left out either. In April 2008, Vladimir Putin visited Tripoli and in November, Gaddafi's Bedouin tent was pitched in the Kremlin. Moscow was once again an important trading partner for Libya.

Partners, but not Close Friends

Thus, Muammar Gaddafi returned to the global political arena as a full partner; however, it is premature to speak of close relations with Europe, the U.S. or Russia. The Europeans, Americans and Russians are in no hurry to go to Libya without a good reason. One example of this was French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi declining to attend the 40 year anniversary of the Libyan revolution. Russian leadership - President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - was also invited. Almost simultaneously, a source from the Kremlin and another from the Russian government announced that the travel plans of the president and the prime minister were already set, and neither of them would visit Tripoli. Of course, like other countries, Russia will send a delegation, but it will not include its chief executives. Nevertheless, Moscow has prepared its very own surprise for Gaddafi. A company of the Moscow garrison's honor guard will visit the Libyan capital. Russian soldiers, like some of their western colleagues, will participate in the military parade in Tripoli on September 1.

Russia: building a nuclear deterrent for the sake of peace

It took the Soviet Union less than two years to make its first plutonium bomb. A war-ravaged country risked launching two major defense projects - atomic and missile ones - without the help of its recent allies. These projects turned out to be interdependent and subsequently brought a huge conversion gain to Russia and the rest of the world.

The results of the Manhattan Project revealed themselves in the desert and then over two Japanese cities in the summer of 1945. On the eve of the Cold War and America's post-Hiroshima intoxication, Moscow was faced with a challenge of bridging the nuclear gap in a short span of time. The relevant project did not receive a name but the end product was named RDS-1, which could be interpreted as the Russian acronym for "Russia does it itself" or "Stalin's jet engine."

A design bureau was set up at the Igor Kurchatov Laboratory in the Mordovian village of Sarov in April 1946 on the basis of artillery shell production. A reactor, a combine on the production of uranium-235, and a radiochemical plant were built near Chelyabinsk by 1948.

The rates were astonishing. Whole complexes were being built practically from scratch by Gulag prisoners and volunteers under the control of all-powerful Soviet Deputy Prime Minister Lavrenty Beria. A tough political regime would not tolerate any setbacks in testing the bomb.

The project was top secret. The construction site was called a "base," "office," and eventually Arzamas-16. The project's security and reliability required tough discipline. Nuclear scientists were given exclusive powers and access to huge funds. When they asked for gold and platinum to experiment with the intensity of neutron radiation, Beria ordered the manufacture of 60 kg plates. These plates were under permanent protection, and their return had to be guaranteed.

Not a single detail was neglected. Detonator capsules, which guaranteed simultaneous explosion of the neutron fuse, exploded with a maximum time interval of 0.2 microseconds. About 3,000 single and group detonations were carried to achieve the required result. Several sets were made for the bomb. Attention to the minutest detail was typical for all components of the RDS-1. All of them were made thoroughly to achieve their failsafe operation.

Everything was ready by August 1949. To study the destructive effects of the new weapon, about 50 aircraft, armor hardware, and more than 1,500 animals were brought to the testing ground. Houses of brick and wood, a bridge, and three stretches of pits at a depth of 10, 20, and 30 meters (simulating the metro) were built. The blaze and the roar from the explosion were registered even 80 km away from the testing ground, and the bomb itself proved to be 50% more effective than its rated capacity.

The Soviet Union had done it, and much quicker than America expected. It was also the first to test the hydrogen bomb and launch the first nuclear missile carrier, the first satellite, and the first cosmonaut. These achievements can hardly be called the inertia of enthusiasm, calculation, and a systemic approach.

One of the trickiest issues is whether this was a Soviet bomb or a replica of the American one. This is how head of KB-11 Yuly Khariton replied to this question: "We had to show in the quickest and most reliable way that we have also got nuclear weapons. More effective designs, which we had in mind, could wait." The authors of the book Soviet Atomic Project wrote that "unit 501," which actually copied the American invention, "was an objectively required minimum, dictated by political considerations." At the same time, as the last Soviet nuclear minister Lev Ryabev put it, it was not a replica but a creative quest that determined the effort to invent new technology and design, build new laboratory and industrial units, and adopt new calculation methods.

Soviet success in building the bomb has largely predetermined the world's existence without a global war. It launched an era of mutual vulnerability. As the great Khariton put it, "apparently, the greatest paradox of our time is that the most sophisticated weapons of mass destruction are facilitating the preservation of peace by being a powerful deterrent."

There were also other factors in curbing the forces of aggression apart from strategic parity with the United States, such as the position of nuclear scientists (Russell-Einstein manifesto on the inadmissibility of nuclear war, Pugwash movement documents, Andrei Sakharov's appeals, and the development of the nuclear winter concept).

By the beginning of the 21st century, the perspective of the nuclear apocalypse became more remote. Local conflicts and wars are being fought with precision weapons. Nuclear flagships - the United States and Russia - have embarked on the talks to reduce nuclear arsenals and delivery vehicles.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

"China's Attack on India Before 2012"

The 2000 km border between China and India has been a notable absence from press headlines in the years since then-Indian PM Vajpayee’s 2003 visit to Beijing. Tensions, however, have risen again as India announced last month a plan to deploy two additional army divisions and two air force squadrons of Su-30 Fighter Unit, some 60,000 soldiers in total, in a disputed border area in the southern part of Tibet, which India claims as its state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Adding fuel to the flames is an article by Bharat Verma, editor of Indian Defense Review, predicting that China will attack India before 2012, leaving only three years to Indian government for preparation.

According to Mr. Verma, "growing unrest in China" due in part to economic downturn will leave the Chinese government looking for something to "divert the attention of its own people from ‘unprecedented�?internal dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems." China will also want to strike India before the latter becomes powerful, which is the reason for the 2012 "deadline." India, with its growing affiliation with the West, is yet weak under China’s fire.

But a "China’s attack" is not going to happen, and one wonders at the basis for Mr. Verma’s thinking. First, although it is true that China’s macro-economy has taken a hit from the global financial crisis, the extent of the damage is under control. Recent statistics shows China’s economy grew 7.1% in the first half of 2009, while its foreign exchange reserve has exceeded $2 trillion. China’s stimulus plan has been effective and given people confidence. China will survive the global downturn as well or better than the rest of the world’s economies.

And even if China’s economy was really all that bad, would the government try to distract "unrest" by taking military actions against India? Mr Verma’s reasoning rests on a lack of documentation. Looking into the past 60 years, China has no record of launching a war to divert public attention from anything. Moreover, while Mr. Verma supposes the Chinese Communist Party has no cards to play other than "invading India," the Party, widely experienced in dealing with domestic disputes, will hardly in only three years have run out of all options facing potential social instability. Moreover, even if Chinese leaders considered such an option, they would certainly be aware that an external war would severely jeopardize domestic affairs.

Other reasons the author mentions in the article are also vague. The Western powers would not take kindly to a Chinese conflict with India, leaving China rightfully reluctant to use force in any case other than extreme provocation. US forces well deployed in Afghanistan and Pakistan could check any China’s military action in South Asia. And then there is also the nuclear problem: there has never been a war between two nuclear equipped nations, and both sides would have to be extremely cautious in decision-making, giving more room for less violent solutions.

Further, it is important to realize there is no reason for China to launch a war, against India in particular. Economic development, rather than military achievement, has long been the consensus of value among China’s core leaders and citizens. Despite occasional calls to "Reoccupy South Tibet (occupied Chinese territory)," China’s decision-making is always cautious. It is not possible to see a Chinese "incursion" into India, even into Tawang, an Indian-occupied Buddhist holy land over which China argues a resolute sovereignty.

Last but not least, China’s strategy, even during the 1962 border war with India, has been mainly oriented towards the east, where Taiwan is its core interest, while the recent Xinjiang unrest highlights China’s growing anti-terrorist tasks in the northwest �?both issues are more important than the southwest border. If China were to be involved in a war within the next three years, as unlikely as that seems, the adversary would hardly be India. The best option, the sole option, open for the Chinese government is to negotiate around the disputed territory.

However, there is one scenario where there is possibility for war: an aggressive Indian policy toward China, a "New Forward Policy," may aggravate border disputes and push China to use force �?despite China’s appeal, as far as possible, for peaceful solutions.

Consider the 1959-1962 conflict, the only recorded war between China and India in the long history of their civilizations. After some slight friction with China in 1959, the Indian army implemented aggressive action known as its Forward Policy. The Chinese Army made a limited but successful counterattack in 1962.

Now, it seems "back to the future". Mr. Verma asserts another war will happen before 2012, a half century after the last, regrettable one. India has started to deploy more troops in the border area, similar to its Forward Policy 50 years ago. Is Mr. Verma’s China-bashing merely a justification for more troops deployed along the border? Will India’s "New Forward Policy", as the old one did 50 years ago, trigger a "2012 war?"

The answers lie mainly on the Indian side. Given China’s relatively small military garrison in Tibet, Indian’s 60,000 additional soldiers may largely break the balance. If India is as "pacific" as Mr. Verma says, and is sincere in its border negotiation, China-India friendship will remain. After all, China shares a long and mostly friendly cultural exchange with India as well as other neighbors. Now China is seeking deeper cooperation, wider coordination, and better consensus with India, especially in the global recession, and peace is a precondition for doing so. China wants to say, "We are on the same side," as the Indian Ambassador did in a recent interview in China. Thus, "China will attack India before 2012" is a provocative and inflammatory illusion.

Unmasking China : By Bharat Verma

China will launch an attack on India before 2012.

There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century. The recession that shut the Chinese exports shop is creating an unprecedented internal social unrest. In turn, the vice-like grip of the communists over the society stands severely threatened.

Unemployment is on the rise. The unofficial estimate stands at a whopping fourteen percent. Worldwide recession has put thirty million people out of jobs. Economic slowdown is depleting the foreign exchange reserves. Foreign investors are slowly shifting out. To create a domestic market, the massive dole of loans to individuals is turning out to be a nightmare. There appears to be a flight of capital in billions of dollars in the shape of diamond and gold bought in Hong Kong and shipped out towards end 2008.

bharat-vermaThe fear of losing control over the Chinese masses is forcing the communists to compulsorily install filtering software on new computers on sale to crush dissent on the Internet, even though it is impossible to censor in entirety the flow of information as witnessed recently in Tibet, Xinjiang and Iran.

The growing internal unrest is making Beijing jittery.

The external picture appears to be equally dismal. The unfolding Obama strategy seems to be scoring goals for democracy and freedom without firing a single shot. While Bush unwittingly united and arrayed against himself Islamic countries and radical Islam worldwide, Obama has put radical Islam in disarray by lowering the intra-societal temperature vis-à-vis America and the Muslim world. He deftly hints at democracy in his talk without directly threatening any group or country and the youth picks it up from there - as in Iran. With more and more Chinese citizens beginning to demand political freedom, the future of the communists is also becoming uncertain. The technological means available in the 21st century to spread democracy is definitely not conducive for the totalitarian regime in Beijing.

India’s chaotic but successful democracy is an eyesore for the authoritarian regime in Beijing. Unlike India, China is handicapped as it lacks the soft power - an essential ingredient to spread influence. This further adds fuel to the fire.

mapIn addition, the growing irrelevance of Pakistan, their right hand that operates against India on their behest, is increasing the Chinese nervousness. Obama’s AF-PAK policy is primarily a PAK-AF policy. It has intelligently set the thief to catch the thief. The stated withdrawal from Iraq by America now allows it to concentrate its military surplus on the single front to successfully execute the mission. This surplus, in combination with other democratic forces, enables America to look deep into resource rich Central Asia, besides containing China’s expansionist ambitions.

To offset this adverse scenario, while overtly pretending to side with the West, the Chinese covertly ordered their other proxy, North Korea, to test underground nuclear explosions and carry out trials of missiles that threaten Japan and South Korea. The Chinese anxiety is understandable. Under Bush’s declared policy of being ‘a strategic competitor’ alongside the ‘axis of evil’, they shared a large strategic maneuverability with others of similar hues. However, Obama policies wisely deny such a luxury by reclaiming more and more international strategic space ceded by the previous administration.

The communists in China, therefore, need a military victory to unite the disillusioned citizenry behind them. This will assist in marketing the psychological perception that the 21st century belongs to China and assert their deep belief in the superiority of the Chinese race. To retain the communist party’s hold on power, it is essential to divert attention from the brewing internal dissent. In an autocratic system normally the only recipe to unite the citizenry is by mannpulating their nationalistic feelings. The easy method for Beijing to heighten the feeling of patriotism and forging national unity is to design a war with an adversary. They believe that this will help them to midwife the Chinese century. That is the end game rooted in the abiding conviction of the communists that the Chinese race is far superior to Nazi Germany and is destined to “Lord over the Earth”.

At present, there is no overall cost benefit ratio in integrating Taiwan by force with the mainland, since under the new dispensation in Taipei, the island is ‘behaving’ itself. Also, the American presence around the region is too strong for comfort. There is also the factor of Japan to be reckoned. Though Beijing is increasing its naval presence in the South China Sea to coerce into submission those opposing its claim on the Sprately Islands, at this point of time in history it will be unwise for recession-hit China to move against the Western interests, including Japan. Therefore, the most attractive option is to attack a soft target like India and forcibly occupy its territory in the Northeast.

Ideally, the Chinese believe that the east-wind should prevail over the west-wind. However, despite their imperial calculations of the past, they lag behind the West, particularly America, by many decades. Hence, they want the east-wind to at least prevail over the other east-wind, i.e., India, to ensure their dominance over Asia. Beijing’s cleverly raising the hackles on its fabricated dispute in Arunachal Pradesh to an alarming level, is the preparatory groundwork for imposing such a conflict on India. A sinking Pakistan will team up with China to teach India “the final lesson”.

The Chinese leadership wants to rally its population behind the communist rule. As it is, Beijing is already rattled, with its proxy Pakistan, now literally embroiled in a civil war, losing its sheen against India. Above all, it is worried over the growing alliance of India with the United States and the West, because the alliance has the potential to create a technologically superior counterpoise.

All these three concerns of the Chinese communists are best addressed by waging a war against pacifist India to achieve multiple strategic objectives. But India, otherwise the biggest challenge to the supremacy of China in Asia, is least prepared on ground to face the Chinese threat.

How will India repel the Chinese game plan? Will Indian leadership be able to take the heat of war? Have they laid the groundwork adequately to defend India? Is the Indian military equipped to face the two-front war by Beijing and Islamabad? Is the Indian Civil Administration geared to meet the internal security challenges that the external actors will sponsor simultaneously through their doctrine of unrestricted warfare?

The answers is an unequivocal ‘NO’. Pacifist India is not ready by a long shot either on the internal or the external front.

It is said that long time back, a king with an excellent military machine at his disposal could not stomach the violence involved in winning wars. So he renounced war in victory. This led to the rise of the pacifist philosophies. The state either refused to defend itself or neglected the instruments that could defend it.

Any ‘extreme’ is dangerous, as it tends to create imbalance in statecraft.

We saw that in the unjust unilateral aggression in Iraq. It diminished the American aura and recessed the economy. China’s despotic regime is another extreme, scared to permit political dissent. This will fuel an explosion worse than the Tiananmen Square. Despite the use of disproportionate force and the demographic invasion of Tibet, Beijing’s hold remains tenuous. Pakistan’s over-aggressive agenda in the name of jihad haunts it now to the point of fragmentation of the State.

Similarly, India’s pacifism is the other extreme. 26/11s will occur on a regular basis as it infects policy-making. Such extreme postures on either side invariably generate wars. Armed with an aggressive Wahabi philosophy, Pakistan, in cohort with China, wants to destabilize a pacifist India. India’s instruments of state steeped in pacifism are unable to rise to its defence.

In the past sixty years, the deep-rooted pacifism contributed to the Civil Administration, ceding control of forty per cent of the Union’s territory to the Maoists and ten percent to the insurgents, effecting a shrinking influence internally, as well in the ‘near abroad’.

India must rapidly shift out from its defeatist posture of pacifism to deter China. New Delhi’s stance should modify, not to aggression, but to a firm assertion in statecraft. The state must also exclusively retain the capability of intervention by use of force internally as well as externally. If it permits the non-state actors to develop this capability in competition, then the state will whither away. On the contrary, the state machinery should ensure a fast-paced development in the Red Corridor even it if has to hold Maoists hostage at gunpoint. The state’s firm and just intervention will dissolve the Maoist movement.

Keeping in view the imminent threat posed by China, the quickest way to swing out of pacifism to a state of assertion is by injecting military thinking in the Civil Administration to build the sinews. That will enormously increase the deliverables on ground - from Lalgarh to Tawang.

Bharat Verma, Editor Indian Defence Review.

___THE CHINESE RESPONSE__

http://www.chinastakes.com/2009/7/illusion-of-chinas-attack-on-india-before-2012.html

Illusion of “China’s Attack on India Before 2012″

ByChen Xiaochen, Beijing, Published:July 17,2009

The 2000 km border between China and India has been a notable absence from press headlines in the years since then-Indian PM Vajpayee’s 2003 visit to Beijing. Tensions, however, have risen again as India announced last month a plan to deploy two additional army divisions and two air force squadrons of Su-30 Fighter Unit, some 60,000 soldiers in total, in a disputed border area in the southern part of Tibet, which India claims as its state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Adding fuel to the flames is an article by Bharat Verma, editor of Indian Defense Review, predicting that China will attack India before 2012, leaving only three years to Indian government for preparation.

According to Mr. Verma, “growing unrest in China” due in part to economic downturn will leave the Chinese government looking for something to “divert the attention of its own people from ‘unprecedented’ internal dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems.” China will also want to strike India before the latter becomes powerful, which is the reason for the 2012 “deadline.” India, with its growing affiliation with the West, is yet weak under China’s fire.

But a “China’s attack” is not going to happen, and one wonders at the basis for Mr. Verma’s thinking. First, although it is true that China’s macro-economy has taken a hit from the global financial crisis, the extent of the damage is under control. Recent statistics shows China’s economy grew 7.1% in the first half of 2009, while its foreign exchange reserve has exceeded $2 trillion. China’s stimulus plan has been effective and given people confidence. China will survive the global downturn as well or better than the rest of the world’s economies.

And even if China’s economy was really all that bad, would the government try to distract “unrest” by taking military actions against India? Mr Verma’s reasoning rests on a lack of documentation. Looking into the past 60 years, China has no record of launching a war to divert public attention from anything. Moreover, while Mr. Verma supposes the Chinese Communist Party has no cards to play other than “invading India,” the Party, widely experienced in dealing with domestic disputes, will hardly in only three years have run out of all options facing potential social instability. Moreover, even if Chinese leaders considered such an option, they would certainly be aware that an external war would severely jeopardize domestic affairs.

Other reasons the author mentions in the article are also vague. The Western powers would not take kindly to a Chinese conflict with India, leaving China rightfully reluctant to use force in any case other than extreme provocation. US forces well deployed in Afghanistan and Pakistan could check any China’s military action in South Asia. And then there is also the nuclear problem: there has never been a war between two nuclear equipped nations, and both sides would have to be extremely cautious in decision-making, giving more room for less violent solutions.

Further, it is important to realize there is no reason for China to launch a war, against India in particular. Economic development, rather than military achievement, has long been the consensus of value among China’s core leaders and citizens. Despite occasional calls to “Reoccupy South Tibet (occupied Chinese territory),” China’s decision-making is always cautious. It is not possible to see a Chinese “incursion” into India, even into Tawang, an Indian-occupied Buddhist holy land over which China argues a resolute sovereignty.

Last but not least, China’s strategy, even during the 1962 border war with India, has been mainly oriented towards the east, where Taiwan is its core interest, while the recent Xinjiang unrest highlights China’s growing anti-terrorist tasks in the northwest - both issues are more important than the southwest border. If China were to be involved in a war within the next three years, as unlikely as that seems, the adversary would hardly be India. The best option, the sole option, open for the Chinese government is to negotiate around the disputed territory.

However, there is one scenario where there is possibility for war: an aggressive Indian policy toward China, a “New Forward Policy,” may aggravate border disputes and push China to use force - despite China’s appeal, as far as possible, for peaceful solutions.

Consider the 1959-1962 conflict, the only recorded war between China and India in the long history of their civilizations. After some slight friction with China in 1959, the Indian army implemented aggressive action known as its Forward Policy. The Chinese Army made a limited but successful counterattack in 1962.

Now, it seems “back to the future”. Mr. Verma asserts another war will happen before 2012, a half century after the last, regrettable one. India has started to deploy more troops in the border area, similar to its Forward Policy 50 years ago. Is Mr. Verma’s China-bashing merely a justification for more troops deployed along the border? Will India’s “New Forward Policy”, as the old one did 50 years ago, trigger a “2012 war?”

The answers lie mainly on the Indian side. Given China’s relatively small military garrison in Tibet, Indian’s 60,000 additional soldiers may largely break the balance. If India is as “pacific” as Mr. Verma says, and is sincere in its border negotiation, China-India friendship will remain. After all, China shares a long and mostly friendly cultural exchange with India as well as other neighbors. Now China is seeking deeper cooperation, wider coordination, and better consensus with India, especially in the global recession, and peace is a precondition for doing so. China wants to say, “We are on the same side,” as the Indian Ambassador did in a recent interview in China. Thus, “China will attack India before 2012″ is a provocative and inflammatory illusion.

U.S.-Pakistan Missile Spat: The Indian Threat

The spat between Washington and Islamabad over allegations that Pakistan illegally modified U.S.-supplied missiles to improve its ability to target India reveals a deeper schism in the relationship: Pakistan's military establishment remains unmoved by Washington's best efforts to persuade it that the Taliban, rather than India, is the primary threat facing Pakistan — and that's bad news for the U.S. effort in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry on Aug. 31 "categorically rejected" charges made by unnamed Obama Administration and Congressional officials quoted in the New York Times the day before that new missiles enabling Pakistan's navy to strike targets on shore were modified from stock supplied by the U.S. during the 1980s. Officials in Islamabad insist that Pakistan produced the new missiles itself.

The quarrel centers on Harpoon antiship missiles sold to Pakistan during the 1980s by the Reagan Administration as part of a broader strategy to counter Soviet influence in the region. Pakistan is alleged to have tinkered with the missiles to enable them to be used against targets on land, and to have conducted a discreet test of the new capability in April. If the allegations are true, Pakistan could be in violation of U.S. law — a point that was reportedly raised by Obama Administration officials with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in June.

Some Pakistani experts believe the official claims. "It's nothing extraordinary for Pakistan," says Talat Masood, a retired lieutenant general who headed Pakistan's largest ordnance factory. "Pakistan has a very comprehensive missile program and is fully capable of producing a wide range of missiles: surface-to-surface, ballistic, anti-air, anti-tanks, etc."

Other former officials and analysts are less convinced. "It's quite possible that they may have made some modifications," says a former military official, speaking on condition that his name be withheld. "Because of the sanctions that were imposed in Pakistan in late 1990 [by the U.S. in response to Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program], the missiles stopped going to the U.S. for routine maintenance. They must have opened it up and probably extended its range."

"This is what happens in countries that are dependent on foreign technology," says Ayesha Siddiqa, a military expert and author of Pakistan's Arms Procurement and Military Buildup, 1979-99. Much of Pakistan's military modernization has come about from U.S. arms sales in the 1950s and '80s. "In Pakistan, we have not really gone beyond license production and reverse engineering." Siddiqa adds that this is not the first time that Pakistan has been accused of reverse engineering or modification. A U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile that had strayed into Pakistani territory during strikes on al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in August 1998 and was recovered intact by Pakistan is widely believed to have provided the basis for its Babur cruise missile.

Pakistan spends "a very small amount of defense production on research and development," says Siddiqa. The Ghauri missile — Pakistan's much-vaunted medium-range ballistic missile, capable of traveling up to 1,500 km and carrying a payload of 700 kg — is simply a renamed Nodong-1 missile imported from North Korea. Drawing on the technology of the North Korean imports, Pakistan is continuing to develop its own longer-range variants — all pointed at India.

The Obama Administration has been keen to revive the peace process between Islamabad and New Delhi after it was derailed by last November's Mumbai massacre, believing that taking the relationship between the two countries off a war footing could be a key factor in helping stabilize Afghanistan. The Pakistan military's unshaken focus on its eastern border stems in large part from advances by its rival, including the recent testing of a nuclear submarine. The fear, says retired general Masood, is that "every major induction [in India's military arsenal], whether it is from abroad or indigenous, can be used against Pakistan more than any other." That, of course, may be based on an exaggerated sense of Pakistan's importance in India's strategic thinking: India is establishing itself as a regional power to rival China, which guides the development of its military capability.

Pakistan remains suspicious of Indian ambitions in the region, and angry at unresolved disputes, first and foremost over Kashmir. The refusal of Obama's envoy, Richard Holbrooke, to even discuss the issue — which he says falls outside his purview — has not helped the new Administration win Pakistan's trust. Many in Islamabad accuse President Obama of reneging on a campaign promise to seek a resolution on the Kashmir question. Pakistan also fears rising Indian influence in Afghanistan, fearing that the prime challenger to President Hamid Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah, is even more hostile to Pakistan than the incumbent has been perceived to be. To make matters worse, there is also a slowly bubbling water war between India and Pakistan.

Against this backdrop, Pakistan's unpopular civilian government finds itself in a squeeze. President Asif Ali Zardari has prided himself on improving relations with Washington and across the region, but like all civilian leaders of Pakistan before him, he is faced with the dilemma of responding to Washington's concerns at the same time as staying on side with an all-powerful military hard-wired for war with India. As ever, in Pakistan, it's the military brass that Washington must convince that Islamic extremism rather than India is their primary challenge, and thus far the generals appear to remain unpersuaded.



The Secret History of Hurricane Katrina

There was nothing natural about the disaster that befell New Orleans in Katrina’s aftermath.

Confronted with images of corpses floating in the blackened floodwaters or baking in the sun on abandoned highways, there aren’t too many people left who see what happened following Hurricane Katrina as a purely “natural” disaster. The dominant narratives that have emerged, in the four years since the storm, are of a gross human tragedy, compounded by social inequities and government ineptitude—a crisis subsequently exploited in every way possible for political and financial gain.

But there’s an even harsher truth, one some New Orleans residents learned in the very first days but which is only beginning to become clear to the rest of us: What took place in this devastated American city was no less than a war, in which victims whose only crimes were poverty and blackness were treated as enemies of the state.

It started immediately after the storm and flood hit, when civilian aid was scarce—but private security forces already had boots on the ground. Some, like Blackwater (which has since redubbed itself Xe), were under federal contract, while a host of others answered to wealthy residents and businessmen who had departed well before Katrina and needed help protecting their property from the suffering masses left behind. According Jeremy Scahill’s reporting

in The Nation, Blackwater set up an HQ in downtown New Orleans. Armed as they would be in Iraq, with automatic rifles, guns strapped to legs, and pockets overflowing with ammo, Blackwater contractors drove around in SUVs and unmarked cars with no license plates.

“When asked what authority they were operating under,” Scahill reported, “one guy said, ‘We’re on contract with the Department of Homeland Security.’ Then, pointing to one of his comrades, he said, ‘He was even deputized by the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use lethal force if we deem it necessary.’ The man then held up the gold Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck.”

The Blackwater operators described their mission in New Orleans as “securing neighborhoods,” as if they were talking about Sadr City. When National Guard troops descended on the city, the Army Times described their role as fighting “the insurgency in the city.” Brigadier Gen. Gary Jones, who commanded the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force, told the paper, “This place is going to look like Little Somalia. We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.” Ten days after the storm, the New York Times reported

that although the city was calm with no signs of looting (though it acknowledged this had taken place previously), “New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers.” The local police superintendent ordered all weapons, including legally registered firearms, confiscated from civilians. But as the Times noted, that order didn’t “apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property…[who] openly carry M-16’s and other assault rifles.” Scahill spoke to Michael Montgomery, the chief of security for one wealthy businessman who said his men came under fire from “black gangbangers” near the Ninth Ward. Armed with AR-15s and Glocks, Montgomery and his men “unleashed a barrage of bullets in the general direction of the alleged shooters on the overpass. ‘After that, all I heard was moaning and screaming, and the shooting stopped. That was it. Enough said.’”

Malik Rahim, a Vietnam veteran and longtime community activist, was one of the organizers of the Common Ground Collective, which quickly began dispensing basic aid and medical care in the first days after the hurricane. But far from aiding the relief workers, Rahim told me this week, the police and troops who began patrolling the streets treated them as criminals or “insurgents.” African American men caught outside also ran the risk of crossing paths with roving vigilante patrols who shot at will, he says. In this dangerous environment, Common Ground began to rely on white volunteers to move through a city that had simply become too perilous for blacks.

In July, the local television station WDSU released a home video

, taken shortly after the storm hit, of a local man, Paul Gleason, who bragged to two police officers about shooting looters in the Algiers section of New Orleans.

“Did you have any problems with looters,” [sic] asked an officer.

“Not anymore,” said Gleason.

“Not anymore?”

“They’re all dead,” said Gleason.

The officer asked, “What happened?”

“We shot them,” said Gleason.

“How many did you shoot?

“Thirty-eight.”

“Thirty-eight people? What did you do with the bodies?”

“We gave them to the Coast Guard,” said Gleason.

Gleason told his story with a cup of red wine in one hand and riding a tractor from Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World.

Although the government’s aid efforts were in chaos, those involved in the self-generated community rescue and relief efforts were often seen as a threat. Even so, Common Ground, founded in the days after Katrina hit, eventually managed to serve more than half a million people, operating feeding stations, opening free health and legal clinics, and later rebuilding homes and planting trees. But they “never got a dime” from the federal government, says Rahim. The feds did, however, recruit one of Common Ground’s founders, Brandon Darby, as an informant, later using him to infiltrate groups planning actions at the 2008 Republican National Convention.

And while the government couldn’t seem to keep people from dying on rooftops or abandoned highways, it wasted no time building a temporary jail in New Orleans.

Burl Cain, the warden of the notorious Angola Prison, a former slave plantation that’s now home to 5,000 inmates, was rushed down to the city to oversee “Camp Greyhound” in the city’s bus terminal. According

to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the jail “was constructed by inmates from Angola and Dixon state prisons and was outfitted with everything a stranded law enforcer could want, including top-of-the-line recreational vehicles to live in and electrical power, courtesy of a yellow Amtrak locomotive. There are computers to check suspects’ backgrounds and a mug shot station—complete with heights marked in black on the wall that serves as the backdrop.”

In the virtual martial law imposed in New Orleans after Katrina, the war on the poor sometimes even spilled over into the war on terror. In his latest book Zeitoun, published in July, Dave Eggers tells the story of a local Syrian immigrant who stayed in New Orleans to protect his properties and ended up organizing makeshift relief efforts and rescuing people in a canoe. He continued right up until he was arrested by a group of unidentified, heavily armed men in uniform, thrown into Camp Greyhound, and questioned as a suspected terrorist. In an interview with Salon, Eggers said:

Zeitoun was among thousands of people who were doing “Katrina time” after the storm. There was a complete suspension of all legal processes and there were no hearings, no courts for months and months and not enough folks in the judicial system really seemed all that concerned about it. Some human-rights activists and some attorneys, but otherwise it seemed to be the cost of doing business. It really could have only happened at that time; 2005 was just the exact meeting place of the Bush-era philosophy towards law enforcement and incarceration, their philosophy toward habeas corpus and their neglect and indifference to the plight of New Orleanians.

Through all the time that the federal and local governments, in concert with wealthy New Orleanians, were pitching their battle, there was virtually no one fighting on the other side. Reviewing the “available evidence” a month after Katrina, the New York Times concluded that “the most alarming stories that coursed through the city appear to be little more than figments of frightened imaginations.” The reports of residents firing at National Guard helicopters, of tourists being robbed and raped on Bourbon Street, and of murderous rampages in the Superdome—all turned out to be false.

Since then it has become increasingly clear that the truth of what happened in New Orleans—vigilantism and racially tinged violence, a military response that supplanted a humanitarian one—is equally sinister.

U.S. weakening Pakistan by staying in Afghanistan


Scores of national security strategists have implored that the U.S. cannot withdraw from Afghanistan anytime soon (if ever) because if Afghanistan falls into the hands of the Taliban it would lead to the further destabilization of Pakistan; and if Pakistan is destabilized, nukes would fall into the hands of al-Qaeda. However, I agree with Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold that reality on the ground has proven the indirect what-if postulates of foreign policy clairvoyants wrong, and it is time for the United States to begin a phased withdrawal.

Let me be clear: if anything is causing conditions to deteriorate in Pakistan it is the U.S. war in Afghanistan, which is driving malicious jihadists across the border. Senator Feingold deftly argues this point in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, in which he called for the U.S. to exit Afghanistan and focus resources on defeating terrorists where they are actually located.

Perhaps Senator Feingold is an avid reader of the Chicago Geopolitics Examiner because I recently outlined a similar case for extracting forces from Afghanistan because not only have the costs outweighed the fruits of the bloodletting, but it has impeded the U.S. from keeping its eye on the ball, which should be fighting terror in Pakistan. I wrote:

...I wonder what would happen if we draw down forces in Afghanistan and focus exclusively on partnering with Pakistan to help them win their war against militants, instead of such a disproportionate focus on Afghanistan in terms of the risks it itself poses versus the scant benefits.

A few days later, Mr. Feingold wrote:

Some may argue that if we leave now, the Taliban will expand its control over parts of Afghanistan and provide a wider safe haven for al Qaeda. But dedicating a disproportionate amount of our resources to the military occupation of one country is not the most effective way to combat the terrorist threat we face.

The Senator agrees with other policy gurus that we cannot afford Pakistan to crumble because, in Feingold’s words: “Pakistan is a nuclear power beset by poverty, sectarian conflict, ineffectual government, instability and an inconsistent record of fighting militancy.” Feingold’s argument is compelling and smashes the rationale for war in Afghanistan and buttresses his case for a phased withdrawal. He hammers home the following key points:

  • Obama campaigned against the Iraq war because al-Qaeda was in Afghanistan.
  • Well now al-Qaeda operatives have been captured, killed or crossed the border into Pakistan.
  • The nation- building “experiment” in Afghanistan has distracted us from fighting al-Qaeda in Pakistan, Yemen, the Horn of Africa and other terrorist sanctuaries.
  • A timetable does not mean we should stop targeted strikes on Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders.

Feingold then says that we shouldn’t just take his word for it, all we need to do is ask a few people “in the know”:

During hearings in May at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I asked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and Special Representative Richard Holbrooke, whether our troop increases might worsen instability in Pakistan. Adm. Mullen candidly said he shared that concern.

Mr. Holbrooke went even further. "You're absolutely correct," he said, "that an additional amount of American troops, and particularly if they're successful in Helmand and Kandahar, could end up creating a pressure in Pakistan which would add to the instability.

Yet, I do depart with Feingold’s polemic on one point - his advisement of continuing U.S. civilian intervention: “we should step up our long-term civilian efforts to deal with the corruption in the Afghan government that has helped the Taliban to thrive.”

I think it's ultimately up to the Afghans to root out corruption within their own government, plus, the unctuous clamoring of U.S. politicos loses legitimacy in the eyes of many because we should not cast stones. Political legitimacy and purity is an ideal to shoot for and an evolving process. The Karzai administration might be the equivalent of Tammany Hall, but eventually voters will grow weary of graft and reform movements are likely to sprout. But this will take time. Afghanistan must crawl before it walks, and the United States isn’t positioned to export a model of chaste civics or above-board electioneering anytime soon.

Feingold closes:

It is time to ask the hard questions—and accept the candid answers—about how our military presence in Afghanistan may be undermining our national security.

Case closed – we gotta get out of this place. We need to let go and see if Afghans can trudge the path towards democracy on their own free will, as we fix our eyes on Pakistan and other terrorist states. Allowing Afghanistan to regress back to the seventh century would be a shame; however, allowing our number one enemy to acquire nuclear weapons would be a crime.