AFPAK Facts Jack

"We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offense...



"In our own native land, in defense of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed til the late violation of it: for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our forefathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms.



"We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed and not before


Thomas Jefferson 1775

Charge: The illegitimate election of Hamid Karzai means failure for any stepped up effort in Afghanistan.

Response: “Consider the analogous case of Iraq over the last three years,” write Richard Fontaine and John Nagl in the Los Angeles Times. “At the time [of the surge of forces to Iraq], Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Shiite-led government was widely viewed as weak and sectarian. An overwhelming number of Sunni Arabs -- who formed the center of gravity of the insurgency -- rejected its legitimacy and had boycotted the December 2005 elections that brought it to power.

The Maliki government had done little to allay these feelings; on the contrary, elements of its security forces participated in sectarian violence against Sunnis through 2006.” Yet Gen. David H. Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy was able to protect populations, restore order, and make room for the political reconciliation that would not have otherwise been possible.

“Prospects for such an outcome in Afghanistan actually look better now than they did in Iraq in early 2007,” write Fontaine and Nagl, “unlike Iraq -- where success hinged on persuading a critical mass of the Sunni Arab community to accept the bitter reality of a Shiite-led government -- no deep existential issue drives Afghans (primarily Pashtuns) into the arms of the insurgents.”

In fact, all polls and other data indicate that “the national government in Afghanistan almost certainly retains greater legitimacy among the people than did the Iraqi government before things began to turn for the better there.” -- Los Angeles Times

Charge: Afghanistan is too “naturally” tribal and backward for a COIN strategy to work.

Response: In reality, Afghanistan “has been a state since the 18th century (longer than Germany and Italy) and has been governed by strong rulers such as Dost Mohammad, who ruled from 1826 to 1863,” writes Max Boot, in Commentary. “Afghanistan made considerable social, political, and economic progress during the equally long reign of Mohammad Zahir Shah from 1933 to 1973.

The country was actually relatively peaceful and prosperous before a Marxist coup in 1978, followed by a Soviet invasion the next year, triggered turmoil that still has not subsided. . . . Afghanistan has not always been as unstable and violent as it is today. . . it is hard to know why Afghanistan would be uniquely resistant to methods and tactics that have worked in countries as disparate as Malaya, El Salvador, and Iraq.” -- Commentary

Charge: Al Qaeda is our real enemy. COIN focuses unnecessarily on defeating the Taliban and other related groups.

Response: “Al Qaeda does not exist in a vacuum like the -SPECTRE of James Bond movies. It has always operated in close coordination with allies,” write Frederick and Kimberly Kagan in The Weekly Standard. “The anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s was the crucible in which al Qaeda leaders first bonded with the partners who would shelter them in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden met Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose network is now fighting U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, as both were raising support in Saudi Arabia for the mujahedeen in the 1980s.

They then fought the Soviets together. . . Bin Laden and al Qaeda could not have functioned as they did in the 1990s without the active support of Mullah Omar and Haqqani. The Taliban and Haqqani fighters protected bin Laden, fed him and his troops, facilitated the movement of al Qaeda leaders and fighters, and generated recruits.

They also provided a socio-religious human network that strengthened the personal resilience and organizational reach of bin Laden and his team. Islamist revolution has always been an activity of groups nested within communities, not an undertaking of isolated individuals. . . There is no reason whatever to believe that Mullah Omar or the Haqqanis--whose religious and political views remain closely aligned with al Qaeda's--would fail to offer renewed hospitality to their friend and ally of 20 years, bin Laden.

Al Qaeda’s allies “provide them with shelter and food, with warning of impending attacks, with the means to move rapidly. Their allies provide communications services--runners and the use of their own more modern systems to help al Qaeda's senior leaders avoid creating electronic footprints that our forces could use to track and target them.

Their allies provide means of moving money and other strategic resources around, as well as the means of imparting critical knowledge (like expertise in explosives) to cadres. Their allies provide media support, helping to get the al Qaeda message out and then serving as an echo chamber to magnify it via their own media resources.” -- Weekly Standard

Charge: We can defeat our enemy in Afghanistan with a more limited counterterrorism strategy, using drones and increased intelligence gathering.

Response: “If the United States should adopt a small-footprint counterterrorism strategy, Afghanistan would descend again into civil war,” Frederick Kagan testified before the House Armed Services Committee. “The Taliban group headed by Mullah Omar and operating in southern Afghanistan (including especially Helmand, Kandahar, and Oruzgan Provinces) is well positioned to take control of that area upon the withdrawal of American and allied combat forces. The remaining Afghan security forces would be unable to resist a Taliban offensive.

They would be defeated and would disintegrate. The fear of renewed Taliban assaults would mobilize the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras in northern and central Afghanistan. The Taliban itself would certainly drive on Herat and Kabul, leading to war with northern militias.

This conflict would collapse the Afghan state, mobilize the Afghan population, and cause many Afghans to flee into Pakistan and Iran. Within Pakistan, the U.S. reversion to a counterterrorism strategy (from the counterinsurgency strategy for which Obama reaffirmed his support as recently as August) would disrupt the delicate balance that has made possible recent Pakistani progress against internal foes and al Qaeda.” -- House Armed Services Committee

In Commentary, Max Boot notes, “it is hard to point to any place where pure [counterterrorism] has defeated a determined terrorist or guerrilla group. This is the strategy that Israel has used against Hamas and Hezbollah. The result is that Hamas controls Gaza, and Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon.

It is the strategy that the U.S. has employed in Somalia since our forces pulled out in 1994. The result is that the country is utterly chaotic and lawless, and an Islamic fundamentalist group called the Shabab, which has close links to al-Qaeda, is gaining strength.

Most pertinently, it is also the strategy the U.S. has used for years in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The result is that the Taliban control the tribal areas of Pakistan and are extending their influence across large swathes of Afghanistan.” -- Commentary

Charge: Our army is already stretched too thin. A troops surge in Afghanistan is unsustainable.

Response: “This fear, heard often about Iraq in 2004-06, is no truer now than it was then,” writes Tom Cotton in the Weekly Standard. “At the 2007 peak, the United States had 200,000 troops deployed to Iraq (170,000) and Afghanistan (30,000). Currently, there are 110,000 troops in Iraq and 68,000 in Afghanistan, well below that peak. And 60,000 troops are expected to leave Iraq by next August as more troops flow into Afghanistan.

Thus, overall deployed troop levels in 2010 will remain the same or fall. The Army has also grown to accommodate repeated deployments. It expanded over the last two years from 512,000 to 547,000 soldiers and now plans to add another 22,000 troops by 2012. Further, it just exceeded its annual recruitment and retention goals, hardly the stuff of a broken Army.”

Charge: The American public believes we have no need to stay in Afghanistan after eight years of fighting.

Response: “Barack Obama has yet to talk about America or its ideals as being worth the fight. It's no wonder public support for our commitment in Afghanistan is lower today than at any point during the Bush administration,” writes Foreign Policy Initiative Policy Advisor Abe Greenwald at the American Spectator. “The disconnect between rhetoric and mission is stark.

Since taking office, President Obama has continuously spoken of the United States as a country that ‘all too often…starts by dictating,’ a place that ‘has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive’ toward allies, where ‘our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight, [and] all too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.’

America, in Mr. Obama's words, ‘is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history.’ What kind of dupe would rally behind that place? To make matters worse, while the situation deteriorated in Afghanistan and loose speculation abounded the president went silent on matters of war. . . If the president wants to boost morale on Afghanistan, he is going to have to drink from the well of American exceptionalism.” -- American Spectator

Charge: Dealing with the problems in Pakistan is more important than finishing the fight in Afghanistan.

Response: “The debate over whether to commit the resources necessary to succeed in Afghanistan must recognize the extreme danger that a withdrawal or failure in Afghanistan would pose to the stability of Pakistan,” writes Frederick Kagan in the Wall Street Journal. the fight against the Taliban must be pursued on both sides of the border.

Pakistan's successes have been assisted by the deployment of American conventional forces along the Afghanistan border opposite the areas in which Pakistani forces were operating, particularly in Konar and Khowst Provinces. Those forces have not so much interdicted the border crossings (almost impossible in such terrain) as they have created conditions unfavorable to the free movement of insurgents.

They have conducted effective counterinsurgency operations in areas that might otherwise provide sanctuary to insurgents fleeing Pakistani operations (Nangarhar and Paktia provinces especially, in addition to Konar and Khowst). Without those operations, Pakistan's insurgents would likely have found new safe havens in those provinces, rendering the painful progress made by Pakistan's military irrelevant.

Pakistan's stability cannot be secured solely within its borders any more than can Afghanistan's.” -- Wall Street Journal

Charge: Afghans view coalition forces as “occupiers” and want us to leave.

Response: “In fact repeated polls have shown that majority of Afghans want the U.S. and NATO there,” writes Brian Glyn Williams in Foreign Policy. “As they watch Indian soap operas on televisions the Taliban once smashed, send their girls to school, and drive on newly paved roads, millions of Afghans are experiencing the direct benefits of the U.S. presence in their country. This is the work we could have been doing in 1991 and, for all its obvious flaws, it is a tentative sign of progress in the long journey to rebuild civil society in this long suffering land.

In other words, compassionate, global-minded Democrats who supported President Bill Clinton's humanitarian interventions in places like Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti and Somalia owe it to the Afghan people to be patient and do the same for Afghanistan.” -- Foreign Policy

Charge: Afghanistan is the “graveyard of empires.”

Response: “This refrain belongs, as they say now in the military, in the graveyard of analogies,” writes Tom Cotton in the Weekly Standard. “The Soviets, in particular, teach us how not to win in Afghanistan. A heavily mechanized force, the Red Army was ill-suited for Afghanistan's treacherous terrain, and it was dependent on long, vulnerable supply lines.

It also discouraged innovative junior leadership, which is critical against an insurgency. To compensate, the Soviets employed vicious, massively destructive tactics that inflamed the Afghan people and still scar the country with depopulated valleys and adult amputees maimed as children by toy-shaped mines.

Our present way of war couldn't be more different. We deploy light and wheeled infantry to Afghanistan, making our tactics more flexible, our supply lines shorter, and our soldiers more engaged with the locals. We also radically decentralize decision-making authority to our junior soldiers and leaders, who increasingly can draw on years of combat experience.

In short, America has a counter-insurgency strategy, whereas the Soviet Union had a genocide strategy. Afghans I spoke with always recognized the difference, reviled the Russians, and respected our troops.” -- Weekly Standard

Max Boot makes a similar point in Commentary, “The two most commonly cited examples in support of this proposition are the British in the 19th century and the Russians in the 1980s. This selective history conveniently omits the military success enjoyed by earlier conquerors, from Alexander the Great in the 4th century b.c.e. to Babur (founder of the Mughal Empire) in the 16th century. In any case, neither the British nor the Russians ever employed proper counterinsurgency tactics.

The British briefly occupied Kabul on two occasions (1839 and 1879) and then pulled out, turning Afghanistan into a buffer zone between the Russian Empire and their own. In the 1980s, the Russians employed scorched-earth tactics, killing large numbers of civilians and turning much of the country against them. Neither empire had popular support on its side, as foreign forces do today.”

Charge: We can manage Afghanistan by focusing on the training of Afghans.

Response: “The Afghan Army is reasonably effective. It is too small, with roughly 90,000 total soldiers,” writes Michael O’Hanlon in the Wall Street Journal. “But by most accounts, the Afghan Army is fighting well, and cooperating well with NATO forces. Gen. McChrystal's new approach to training Afghan troops will greatly strengthen and deepen this cooperation.”

Here is the key point as it relates to a troop build-up. “Not only will NATO finally field enough personnel to embed with each Afghan unit in mentoring teams, but its combat units will partner with Afghans at every level on every major operation – living, planning, operating, and fighting with each other in one-to-one formal partnerships.” In order for that partnering to be fully implemented, a large troop surge is required. -- Wall Street Journal

Charge: There is no rush to get all of the requested resources to Afghanistan.

Response: “We face both a short and long-term fight,” wrote Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his comprehensive assessment of the war. The long-term fight will require patience and commitment, but I believe the short-term fight will be decisive. Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term (next 12 months) – while Afghan security capacity matures –risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

Many Americans are understandably resistant to the amplification of war after eight years of combat in Afghanistan and other taxing military deployments. But distaste for combat cannot supersede obligations of national security. Those who seek to sidestep those obligations must be challenged head-on, so that the illogical bases for their claims can be exposed and America can get about the business of winning a war and bringing our soldiers home in victory.

Foreign Policy Initiatives

Journey From The Land Of No

Journalist Roya Hakakian's beautifully written memoir of growing up in pre- and post-revolutionary Iran.

"Journey from the land of No" makes a striking contrast to another journalist's Iranian memoir, Azadeh Moaveni's "Lipstick Jihad," a contemporary portrait of Tehran from the viewpoint of a Californian-Iranian, looking for identity. While Moaveni battled her mother over Madonna's music, Hakakian rioted against a fanatical headmistress who found sin in a strand of female hair.

Hakakian describes a rather idyllic childhood in a quiet house in Tehran's "Alley of the Distinguished." She is the only daughter of a Jewish schoolmaster and scholar, beloved baby sister to three brothers. Her closest friend, Z, is a Muslim neighbor girl and her first inkling of the stirrings abroad were the political speeches Z's older sister and her devout Great-Uncle listened to in secret.

Though one by one her three older brothers are sent out of the country, Hakakian finds herself caught up in the heady togetherness of revolution. "Within weeks, Tehran seemed to have matured by years. Even drunkards stopped ranting about their personal misery. Neighbors did not fight. Cars honked constantly, but not in gridlock, only to announce the advance of the uprising, or the fall of another barracks."

She explores the child's perceptions: the jangly scariness of her parents' tense arguments and distressed uncertainty contrast unfavorably with the liberation let loose in the streets. But almost immediately anti-Semitic slogans appear on walls. The Hakakians sell their home and move into an apartment. Islamic dress is imposed and then the Jewish headmistress vanishes one day, and her Muslim replacement asks Hakakian why Jewish men customarily deflower their daughters.

Still, politics remains a youthful focal point and the young intellectuals exercise their idealism in dissent. Another moment of startling clarity comes when the group is caught with incriminating papers, and dismissed as irrelevant as soon as they are discovered to be Jewish.

As idealism fades and repression casts a dark gloom over daily life, Hakakian discovers that her old friend Z has grown grave and distant, Z's older sister, the fervent revolutionary, jailed and tortured, her mother's spirit broken.

Hakakian's story is a layered, nuanced remembrance of one girl's awakening to adulthood, a Jewish view of Iran's upheaval, and a chronicle of a country's nightmarish descent from liberation into a maelstrom of repression and fear.


submitted by Samantha

Pic "Living in the Land of No"

Chiorny Oriol

Does Commonwealth have a new panzer in the super secret panzer R&D shops?

"According to the Russian media, an early prototype of the Black Eagle was shown at an arms exposition in Siberia, in June 1999. It appeared to be based on a lengthened T-80U hull, and to have very thick front armor and new-generation Kaktus explosive reactive armor.

"However, recent reports in open sources suggest that the Black Eagle program has been halted due to the acceptance of the T-90, built by the Uralvagonzavod plant, into the Russian military in the mid-1990s.

Nyet so fast Tovarisch!

Russia has reportedly opted for Uralvagonzavod as the developer and manufacturer of a new-generation MBT, which will most likely have a designation as T-95.

Sergei Mayev, head of the Federal Service for Defense Contracts (Rosoboronzakaz) told a news conference in July 2008 that the Russian Armed Forces would start receiving new-generation panzers superior to the T-90 main battle tank after 2010.

The new tank will feature better firepower, maneuverability, electronics and armor protection than the T-90 MBT.

Its speed will increase from 30-50 kph to 50-65 kph (19-31 mph to 31-40 mph).

According to some sources, the new tank may be equipped with a 152-mm smoothbore gun capable of firing guided missiles with a range of 6,000-7,000 meters.

In comparison, the T-90 MBT has a 125-mm 2A46M smoothbore gun, which can fire AT-11 Sniper anti-tank guided missiles with a range of 4,000 meters.

pic "Black Eagle"

Palestinian Dependence Day!

Here's a quiz - ever heard of a cat named Saleem Fayad? No? It's cool - you will! As Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority Fayad recently coughed up the idea of declaring Palestinian statehood.

1st glance - it seems cool. At long last rowdy Strip Palestinians can take a break from building home grown rocket artillery, cranking out tunnels like doughnuts, and maybe even enjoying the 'new reality' that President Mazen/Abbas mentioned like West Bank has.

Dissolving UNRWA alone would awesome - all that wasted time, effort and money could be put to work elsewhere -- like the op to shed ancient, non productive (unless considering the death industry) endeavors, antique gripes about turf and beat their K'Ssams into laptops.

With the highest literacy rate in the entire Middle East (sans Little Satan!), Strip Palestinians could actually construct a Vegas style Riviera on the Med and West Bank could xform into a happy place - chock full of cutting edge industrial zones and colleges.

Hold up though - the flaw in the ointment is such a manuever would render all previous Oslos, Helsinkis, Sharm al Sheiks, Annapolis' Roadmaps and Quartets null and void.

Oathbreaking they calls it!

Great Satan and Europa both dissed the idea -- as Little Satan's BiBi mentioned ”there is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and any unilateral path will only unravel the framework of agreements between us and will only bring unilateral steps from Israel’s side.”


The bit about waiting for a negotiated settlement sounds fake believe. In fact - two of the planets most successful nation states sweetly achieved internat'lly recognized independence without the benefit of a negotiated agreement between conflicted parties, like Great and Little Satan - prob the most obvious - obviously.

If Palestinian nat'l aspirations were so magically legit and a 2 state solution the only answer, why wouldn’t the all the cats involved in the long years of on again off again 'peace process' proponents recognize the fact?

And in such a scenario, what unilateral retaliation could Little Satan reasonably get away with?

Rather, the real mix queering with Palestinian independence — — is that there is no viable Palestinian regime that can claim to run a sovereign country. Right now, the Palestinian territories are divy'd up, seperate fiefdoms ruled by 2 different Palestinian regimes.

And both may be illegit anyway - HAMAS won't hold elections in January - lucky for them! And Pres Abbas has stayed on way past his time without being re elected.

Stripstine is led by a death cult worshipping internat'lly recoged terror organization supported by Iran and Syria -- dedicated to war against Little Satan.

West Bank, is led by a revolutionary-style regime that is deeply corrupt and still sucks up to intolerant, murderous fan boys terrorist groups like the Fatah-Tanzim, HAMAS, and Islamic Jihad.

Efforts to negotiate a unification between the two sides have consistently sucked, maybe the only thing stopping Palestine from erupting into all out civil war betwixt HAMAS and Fatah is the tiny tiny taint of turf that divides them -- Little Satan herself.

The real issue is not so much Little Satan building apartments, roads, schools, shopping malls and karoke bars in disputed, occupied or illegal turf as it is with 2 diametrically opposed factions in Palestine.

That this is the real trouble seems to be hinted at by none other than the Palestinian prime minister, Saleem Fayad. According to Fayad, a declaration of independence is really just a “formality” — or at least, it will be, once the institutions of statehood are established.

It is not too hard to glean from Fayad’s statement, however, the hidden assumption that such institutions are not yet in place and may not be for the foreseeable future.

So it may be cool to consider if the Palestinians really were to hook up with a means of establishing a homeland: to build systems of government aimed at improving the Palestinians’ lives rather than tossing them away like grenades in an endless conflict; to build an economy that emphasizes good business rather than corruption; to craft an educational system and public culture that fosters a positive, life-affirming vision of Palestinian identity and coexistence with Little Satan rather than one created about “resistance” to “occupation.”

If that were to happen, wouldn’t Little Satan and world leaders have a really tough time denying Palestinian statehood? OTOH, would they even want to? Should they?

As it stands today - granting Palestine statehood could very well result in "3rd Infitadah" - another war. Consider - Palestinians and their rowdy rejectionist foreign enablers may indeed estab alliances, bases and military aid with a sovereign Palestine that starts another crises that could end up with Little Satan's Merkava panzers parked amidst smoking craters, a wrecked landscape as barren and desolate as the surface of the moon, in downtown Ramallah, Gaza City and Khan Younis.

And Little Satan may not be too interested in handing it off to anyone, as a new word debuts in the peace process.

Annexation.



Art - "Palestine will still be tiny and weak and Little Satan will still be tiny and mighty"

Land Of Pure Nightmare?

A government unable to control large parts of its territory, a military in disarray, loss of control over nuclear assets, radical Islamists intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction — that's the stuff nightmares are made of, at least for the West. Pakistan's current turmoil is causing jitters around the world precisely because this scenario might just come to pass as the Talibanization of the country drags it to the brink of collapse.

Pakistan has been reeling under a relentless wave of terror strikes, targeted primarily against security forces, police and government officials. But what is causing consternation in the global corridors of power are recent attempts by the extremists to target Pakistan's nuclear installations.

Recently a suicide bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint outside the maximum security Pakistan Aeronautical Complex reportedly linked to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program at Kamra near Islamabad, renewing concerns about the safety and security of its nuclear arsenal. This was the second attack on the base since 2007 when a similar attempt was made.

Other attacks on Pakistan's nuclear weapons facilities include an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility in Sargodha in November 2007 and an attack in August 2008 on the armament complex at the Wah cantonment, one of Pakistan's main nuclear weapons assembly sites.

U.S. President Barack Obama has made it clear that he remains gravely concerned about Pakistan, though he continues to project confidence that Pakistan's nuclear weapons will not fall to the militants. Even Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari sometime back raised the specter of Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban, albeit adding the caveat that nukes are safe as of now.

Though Pakistan's government is always quick to dismiss media reports that its nuclear weapons are in danger of falling into the wrong hands and stresses that Pakistan provides the highest level of institutionalized protection for its strategic assets, the credibility of such claims remains open to question.

Instituted in 2000, Pakistan's nuclear command and control arrangements are centered on the National Command Authority, which comprises the Employment Control Committee, the Development Control Committee and the Strategic Plans Division.

In addition, a small group of military officials apparently have access to the country's nuclear assets. These command and control arrangements continue to be beset with some fundamental vulnerabilities that underline the reluctance of the Pakistani military to cede control over the nation's nuclear assets to civilian leaders.

It is instructive to note that of all the major nuclear states in world, Pakistan is the only country where the nuclear button is in the hands of the military. That's not at all comforting when former civilian leaders, including the late Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, made clear at the height of various crises that the Pakistani military keeps civilian authorities out of the decision-making loop on the crucial issue of nuclear weapons.

Moreover, senior civilian and military officials responsible for these weapons have a problematic track record in maintaining close control over them.

A.Q. Khan was head of the Pakistani nuclear program (and a veritable national hero), yet was instrumental in making Pakistan the center of the biggest nuclear proliferation network by leaking technology to states far and wide including Iran, North Korea and Libya. Pakistani nuclear scientists have even traveled to Afghanistan at the behest of Osama bin Laden.

While it is true that Pakistani military has been a very professional and perhaps is the only the cohesive force in the country today, it is not clear if it would be able to continue to exert its control over the nation's nuclear assets if the militants continue to gain ground in the absence of institutionalized safeguards.

It is believed that Pakistan relies on separating the fissile core from the weapon to ensure that a usable weapon doesn't fall easily into wrong hands. But it would take little time for the command and control network to collapse if Pakistan slid toward greater anarchy. Sympathizers of radical Islamists within Pakistani military and intelligence agencies could then help terrorist groups acquire the wherewithal of a nuclear weapon.

Throughout the Cold War years, it was viewed as politically prudent in the West and especially in the United States to ignore Pakistan's drive toward nuclear acquisition as Pakistan was seen as an important ally of the West in countering the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Nuclear proliferation has never been a first-order priority for the U.S. when it comes to Pakistan.

Various U.S. governments have continued to go easy on the Pakistani military even while it claimed that it had no knowledge of the A.Q. Khan network. Now the chickens are coming home to roost as the Pakistani military seems unable and unwilling to take on the Islamist forces gathering momentum within the Pakistani territory on the one hand while, on the other, the nation's nuclear weapons seem within reach of extremist forces.

The international community needs to be aware of the potentially catastrophic implications of the collapse of governing authority in Pakistan. Irrespective of India's other problems with Pakistan, Indian decision-makers have had little doubt so far in trusting that their Pakistani counterparts would make rational decisions insofar as the use of nuclear weapons was concerned. That assumption might soon need to be revisited if current trends in Pakistan continue.

Art - "Nuclear Goddess"

submitted by Dr Harsh V. Pant

When Attorneys Ruled The World

Can't help but notice - attorneys have taken over the world!

Well, maybe on the League of Hot! Democrazies - seems the unfree world is attorney free.

Consider recent events:

Ft Hood massacre. Essentially the raison d'etre that Major Disaster never got booted out of the service on his booty, is that any mention of his violent, head chopping mohammedistic prejudices would unleash an airborne attorney brigade on hapless evil doer pointer outers.

Anyone pointing out how uncool the guy was would just be asking to be sued into bankruptcy for the rest of their days. They would have been ruined in any endeavor.

KSM's trial in NYC is another.

The 'mess' that 44 'inherited' about Gitmo, renditions, foreign torment experts, enhanced interrogation tech and casus belli was actually created by a lawyer liebstandarte - often queering the mix for years on Military Tribunals during 43's trip - now they are at Justice Dept - really pushing the envelope that foreign cats caught on foreign battlefields or rousted out of hidden lairs in the dead of night should be given the same rights as American citizens.

Drones Gone wild! A foreign aid program that skips arrest, indictments and a chance for bail or attorney client privileges is fixing to get scrutinized - by attorneys.

The domestic front is yet another example. Some kinda legalistic treat called 'tort' that perhaps could be reformed would solve tons of stuff about Nat'l Health Care. Yet no attorney will tolerate such legal unbinding of their livelihoods.

Attorney's are like Frat boys - always looking to protect and perpetuate the species.

Maybe Dick The Butcher's dangerous ditty from from King Henry VI, Part II, (Act IV), Scene 2 bears some scrutiny?

"1st thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."


Pic - "Dick the Butcher's Vision"

2nd Hand Buzz

Not off topic - there is a magical event perhaps best known as a 2nd hand buzz. Essentially, if certain elements in an AO ignite a blunt device (often aromatically blueberry'd) the pungent pungency can spread in enclosed places and annihilate or afflict everyone in the impact area.

Not unlike 44's Shang Hai Surprize. Hitting up a Student 'town hall', 44 fielded some quizes by China's future - her co eds.

And at moments - it was like enjoyable suffering of the afore mentioned 2nd Hand Buzz.

Aside from sincere blocks of sincere insincerity - like dodging the Taiwan quiz - to be fair -- it was a set up - 44 amazingly channeled some awesome avatars of the new millennium.

"That is why America will always speak out for these core principles around the world. We do not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation, but we also don't believe that the principles that we stand for are unique to our nation.

"These freedoms of expression and worship -- of access to information and political participation -- we believe are universal rights. They should be available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities -- whether they are in the United States, China, or any nation. "

"Indeed, it is that respect for universal rights that guides America's openness to other countries; our respect for different cultures; our commitment to international law; and our faith in the future.

Whoa!

Sound familiar? It dang well should - this a cliff note from Uncle Tony's open sexyful proclamation nom d'guerr'd "Universal Values of the Human Spirit"

"We are fighting for the inalienable right of humankind--black or white; Christian or not; left, right or merely indifferent--to be free--free to raise a family in love and hope, free to earn a living and be rewarded by your own efforts, free not to bend your knee to any man in fear, free to be you, so long as being you does not impair the freedom of others."

"There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values or Western values;

"Ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit, and anywhere--anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police."



Perhaps 44's 2nd hand buzz (from a wicked Anglodaemoneoconic herald - no less!) will shape and impact Red China's next generation.

Art "2nd Hand Buzz"