Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

1st Battalion, Norfolk Regiment, on parade in Dacca, Bengal 1933 (from the photo collection of Brian Harrington Spear)
On the phone with my grandfather back in England today he brought up Obama's election in the context of the Rememberance Day commemorations he'd watched this morning.

"He wants to send more troops to Afghanistan, doesn't he? He'd better have a plan to do more than bomb them (the Taliban): your great-great uncle Charlie was on the North West frontier with the Norfolks in the thirties doing the same thing our boys are now. Nothing changes."

I suppose this is my grandfather's version of Vizzini's advice to the Dread Pirate Roberts: "never get involved in a land war in Asia".

75 years later, British airmen parade at Kandahar airfield: fighting the great-grandsons of their great-grandfathers' adversaries.

It Tells a Pilot if He Can Fit Through a Gap

From the BBC: RAF pilot wins moustache battle
"An RAF fighter pilot has won his battle with the United States Air Force over the size of his handlebar moustache.

Flight Lieutenant Chris Ball, who is on an exchange posting with the USAF in Afghanistan was told to trim his distinctive moustache.

The pilot, who is usually based at RAF Lossiemouth, turned to the Queen's Regulations and found the moustache's width did not breach RAF guidelines...."

Quite right. Someone had to stand firm in the face of USAF inflexibility or else the Australian exchange pilots would no longer be allowed to fly drunk and the Dutch exchange pilots would have had to remove their nipple rings.

All this handlelarbra lead inexorably to this bunch. Enjoy.

Operation Mersey Trout

From the British Ministry of Defence website, via my father Squadron Leader R.P. "The Bodger" Biggles-Weasel (Rtd):

"A member of Delta Company, 40 Commando Royal Marines, at Gibraltar Forward Operating Base in the heart of the 'Green Zone' in the Upper Gereshk Valley, Northern Helmand, (Afghanistan-ww) uses the open air ablutions [Picture: LA (Phot) AJ MaCleod]"
All hail President Hamid Kharzi.

Will Somebody Buy These Idiots Atlases?

Picture via Passionate America

On Friday night I saw Democratic presidential candidate Christopher Dodd interviewed on ABC News. In the course of the interview empty suit/fake journalist Charles Gibson asked Dodd about the birth of his daughter on September 13th, 2001. Dodd hit us with the revelation that one of the doctors attending the birth was Pakistani and the other from Afghanistan. He pointed out that this meant that there is good in everyone, even people from a region that had "just attacked us". Dodd is running on the back of his "extensive foreign policy experience".

Setting aside the stunningly casual racism implied by this remark, do we really consider someone who lumps terrorists from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Lebanon, and Egypt with doctors from Pakistan and Afghanistan qualified for the office of president? If this bonehead said that he'd met nice Greeks despite the fact that they elected Hitler and invaded Poland he'd be rightly pelted with mud in the village square. But because he's talking about brown people he's still taken seriously as an outside shot for the White House. Breathtaking.

At least he has the excuse of being a mere politician. National Public Radio maven Linda Wertheimer on the other hand is described as an experienced and knowledgeable journalist with 3 decades of reporting around the world under her belt. With that in mind, I wonder then why she asked veteran political commentator Daniel Schorr on Saturday if President Bush would be making time during his upcoming swing through the middle east to "visit Pakistan".

To his credit, Schorr barely disguised his amazed snort that this question provoked. He concentrated on the security implications of taking the president of the United States to a country where one of the leading politicians had just been assassinated, potentially by Al Qadea, but you could sense that he was itching to get out a map and sit Wertheimer down to show her that a body of water called the Indian Ocean seperates the Arabian penninsula from Pakistan. If she didn't understand that, perhaps he could have used a parallel, something like:

"Linda, the American equivalent of what you just suggested would be Air Force One landing in Chicago and George Bush deplaning and deciding that he'd just pop down the road to see how reconstruction was going in New Orleans."

And yet she is regarded as a wise voice of experience and rare sagacity. Jesus.

Dodd and Wertheimer- dick for brains and empty vessel.

Peace and Historically Themed Disco Tunes

Proof, if proof were needed, that my love of Boney M is not just a kitsch affectation but rather based in my admiration of novel geo-political stratagems:

Boney M' on Georgia's frontline

Georgia has hired a member of 1970s pop group Boney M, famous for songs like Daddy Cool and Rasputin, in its fight for control of breakaway South Ossetia. Marcia Barrett played a concert in a small frontline village not far from the rebel capital Tskhinvali.

Thousands of people came in cars, buses, trucks and on foot through a mountain pass skirting separatist territory to hear her sing.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told the BBC he hoped the music would persuade people to lay down their arms.

"We hope that we'll lure out people from their trenches, force them to drop [their] Kalashnikovs, come here and dance with the others and understand that nothing is as nice as peace, nothing is as nice as reconciliation," Mr Saakashvili said.....

Ms Barrett said she did not know much about the situation in this remote region of the former Soviet Union but said she wanted to promote peace.

"Because it's a peace festival I really feel honoured to be invited to come and take part," she told the BBC.

The concert took place in Tamarasheni, a village of around 500 people that remains loyal to Georgia. Our correspondent says the event was planned by the Georgian authorities to show the South Ossetian separatists that life would be better and more fun if they returned to government control.... (the rest, courtesy of the BBC).

How can anyone think of succession when Boney M is in town? They were and are disco diplomats, spreading the message of dialogue and discussion through German produced Caribbean mid-tempo dance numbers. As the following video shows, they were easily as instrumental in bringing peace to Northern Ireland as Ahern, Blair, Paisley, and Adams. They were just 20 years ahead of their time:



Now if only there was an easily available and affordable US pressing of any of their greatest hits collections on CD...

Operation Constant Vigilance

As noted in the comments in the previous post, more people seem comfortable with cakes than espionage but I did want to mention one thing from the Milton Bearden lunch the other day before heading into the weekend. Asked how (Hindu) Bollywood movies and (Arab) Al Jazeera news broadcasts were changing the conservative culture of Afghanistan, Bearden demured but did note that President Bush was so obsessed with the idea that the Al Jazeera news crawl was sending coded messages to Al Qadea that he ordered the text to be constantly run through an NSA Cray super computer to dry to crack the code. It was such a big deal to him that in Bearden's words it resembled "Captain Queeg and the strawberries".

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Bush then insisted that if you played the audio book of Knights Under the Prophets Banner backwards it says "death to America, kill George Bush". Nevermind that it says that going forwards, but still, eh?

Dear Diary...

Had lunch Monday (along with about 80 others) with Milton Bearden, the former CIA chap who was head of station in Islamabad, Pakistan and who delivered the war-changing Stinger missiles to the Afghan Muj during their war against the Soviets. He later served as Eastern Europe honcho during the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. It can be said that he did his bit to hasten the demise of the ol' Evil Empire, but yesterday his comments over the caesar salad were mostly directed as to why the current lot running US foreign policy were about as much use as tits on a nun (I paraphrase). Most interesting, all told.

Its fascinating to me, who wanders past the transom when one stays moored to a spot long enough.

Another Slam Dunk?

From today's New York Times:

Bush Declares Iran's Arms Role in Iraq Is Certain

It does seem a little odd however that Iran- while no doubt supportive of the Shia extremists blamed by Bush for the death of around 170 US troops- would be named as the prime cause of violence while the external supporters of Sunni insurgents who killed most of the remaining 2,800 dead Americans get a pass.

I wonder why no fingers are being pointed at Sunni states terrified of Iranian- and by extension, Shia- power like Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It has been credibly alleged by various intelligence agencies that Saudi Arabia has been arming and training Sunni extremists so that they have to fight the Shia in Iraq, not at home (and more credibly than any allegation leveled at Iran). That sounds like a familiar justification, doesn't it? The Saudis also recently made overtly bellicose noises at the time of the Baker Hamilton Report about intervening in Iraq should the Americans withdraw. I wonder why we aren't pointing fingers across Iraq's southern border rather than it's eastern one?

I dare say Iran is meddling in Iraq. It is in their interests to do so, as anything that keeps the Americans flustered and in reactive mode keeps the Americans out of Tehran. But as for the very specific charges made by the President against them, I'm not so sure. How would such easily traceable, amateur tactics be in their interest?

I'm going to hear Bush out in the vain hope that he's learned his lessons and is playing with a straight bat this time, but foremost in my mind when assessing his arguments will be the following:

1) With the Shia in control of the most important arms of government- including the ministries responsible for the police and army- why do they need home-made IEDs when they have access to government munitions dumps? Many of the unofficial militias and death squads seem to have no problems getting their hands on the latest uniforms for disguises and they are always armed to the teeth.

2) Did anyone reference Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's (himself a Kurd) recent visit to Tehran where offical promises of defense supplies were made to him by the Iranians? An event so un-cloak and dagger that it was reported in a profile of the man in the New Yorker? Are legitimately supplied weapons- some Iranian, some old Iraqi, some even American- being syphoned off by the insurgents? And if so, are we going to declare war on ourselves for losing track of weapons and money that found their way into the hands of the various insurgencies?

3) The number of references to Iranian-Al Qadea links that are ideologically unlikely to exist. First hint: when the adminstration flacks start referring to "Al Qadea leaders under house arrest" in Iran while deemphasizing the key word, "arrest".

4) The dispositions of the various Iraqi Shia groups, from the more mainstream Iraq-for-the-(Shia)-Arabs-not-Iranians followers of Ayatollah Al Sistani, through the more gangsterish Mahdi Army of Sadr, to the explicitly pro-Iranian Badr Brigades found mostly in the south. Who feels imune from the security crackdown? Who is reacting the most boldly? Whose actions most closely mirror official Iranian pronouncements?

5) Do members of Bush's administration appear to be speaking from a script? Sycronized references to "smoking guns" etc should be a real tip off that they are full of it. Again.

UPDATE: Alexander Cockburn in a similar vein, with more on the alleged Iranian weapons technology, here.

Farsi Fission Freakout

WEASEL UNIVERSITY ONLINE: THE PERSIAN PROBLEM, OR JUST WHERE ARE THOSE IRANIAN MISSILES GOING TO BE POINTED?
Sit down class. Question one: why are the Iranians allegedly chasing a nuclear bomb? No Bush the Younger, not because they are 'evildoers'- you haven't been paying attention at all these past four years, have you? Well, for all of you who want to know more about the subject but don't have the time to wade through acres of paper or megabytes of websites, Professor Wisdom W. Weasel is here with his own highly speculative and mildly researched Q&A on the Iranian nuclear program. Read on at your own peril.

Q. Why is your map funny colors?
A. Because good maps that show the specific part of the world we are talking about are hard to pinch off the net.

Q. So why this map then?
A. Well, if you look in the bottom left-center, you'll find Iran. Look left and there's Iraq. Further left but off the map is nuclear armed Israel. To the right is Afghanistan and to the north the former central asian republics of the old Soviet Union. Further to the right of the map are three nuclear armed powers; Pakistan, India, and China. To the north is nuclear armed Russia, but you have to get through Chechnya and a couple of other unstable crazy towns to get there. Oh, and not shown on the map but stradling northern Iran, Iraq, and Turkey are the largest ethnic group in the world without a dedicated country, the Kurds.

Q. So what?
A. Well, the key to understanding Iran's desire to become a nuclear power can be found in the geo-political situation it finds itself in. Hence the map.

Q. Gigga-wha?
A. No, geo-politics. What makes Iran unique?

Q. Now you are asking me questions?
A. Yes.

Q. The wine 'Chardonnay' is named after its former king?
A. Nice guess, but wrong spelling of 'shah'. No, Iran is the only majority shia muslim country in the world governed by members of that sect. Iraq is majority shia, but should they ever finish writing a constitution in that poor, benightened country the shia will most likely have been pressured into playing nice with their kurdish and sunni compatriots resulting in a tripartate government structure about as stable as the one enshrined in the Lebanese constitution (but that's another Q&A).

Q. Big whupp.
A. Sarcasm does not suit you. Iran has a justifiable degree of paranoia about being surrounded by sunni dominated countries, given that no less an authority than the wahabbi sect of sunni Islam that predominates in our 'ally' Saudi Arabia, the Pakistani military intelligence arm, and Al Qadea condemns shi'ites as apostates. Between the 16th and the mid 18th century England faced similar challenges and fears as the most prominent Protestant nation adrift on a sea of militant and armed Catholicism, so the world has seen this kind of thing before.

Q. So the Iranians want nukes to protect themselves from the sunnis?
A. In part, but that would be too easy and explanation.

Q. -Groan-
A. Iran is on the periphery of the upcoming superpower tug-of-war of the 21st Century-

Q. The USA and China?
A. Actually, China and India. Now bitter economic rivals, with ideological differences in spades, India and China have already had a couple of shooting run-ins up around their shared border (back in the 60s or 70s China siezed control of a chunk of disputed territory from India; a sub-continental Alsace-Lorraine a la France's beef with Germany from 1870 to 1918). Both seek to be the voice of Asia in this new century and have aspirations to punch in their weight class in international institutions. China's concerns about India run deep- to the extent of maintaining a strategic relationship with India's blood enemy Pakistan (Pakistani arms shipments into their 'strategic depth' neighbor Afghanistan during the war with the Soviets ran along the 'Sino-Pak' highway over Chinese laid asphalt. The Pakistani military supported the Afghan muj for religious, ethnic, and security reasons; the Soviets were arming India, the muj trained Kashmiri militants to bleed India, and a stable, fundamentalist Afghanistan ruled by Pakistan's Pashtun kin gave Islamabad room to retreat and still fight if attacked by Indian conventional forces. This is why Pakistan backed the horrifically stabilizing Taleaban). India and China are nuclear powers, as is China's potential ally Pakistan.

Q. So Iran wants nukes in order to join the aspirant superpower dance?
A. Well, maybe. But more likely its in order to force its eastern neighbors to think about Iran when carving up the map and before they decide to throw their weight around like European powers in the late 19th century. For some reason the mullahs believe that Iran, its oil, and its quirky version of islam will be at risk should China and India start jockeying for position, or should Pakistan's current government be replaced by sunni extremists, or should the Taleaban continue their rebirth.

Q. But isn't Iran an extremist supporter of terrorism? What do they have to fear from other islamic extremists?
A. Undoubtedly. But the weird thing is- and I never thought I'd have to say this kind of thing- a state sponsor of terrorism is a much less dangerous beast than an ideological franchise like Al Qadea. Along with spreading the islamic revolution laid out by Kohmeni (more akin actually to Stalin's 'Socialism in One Country' concept than the internationalism of Leon Trotsky), the mullahs have a country to run, an economy to grow, and a population to keep quiet. To the latter end, a nuclear program appeals to Iranian nationalism and deflects attention from internal woes onto external enemies, but the post-Shah Iran is a mature society lacking the white heat of revolution (their war with Iraq put paid to much of that). Like everywhere else, Iranians are more concerned with their economic well being than with continuously emulating the prophet's march on Mecca. With my suposition that their desire to aquire nuclear weapons is a form of insurance, I dont see them giving a suitcase nuke to their proxy Hizbollah to use on Israel or America- something tells me that Tehran would be vaporized in response. Non-state actors like bin Laden don't have those worries. Also, when you operate out of a cave paying for things from your own private fortune you can expend energy on multiple enemies- the USA, Europe, Israel, and those you consider deviants from your own religion. Now, bin Laden wouldn't worry about an Iranian nuclear strike, but the governments or tribal leaders who shelter him most certainly would.

Q. So you are suggesting that an nuclear armed Iran would make us safer from Al Qadea?
A. Not for a second. But the Iranian government believes it would make them safer from a multitude of threats, That they believe that doesn't make them right, but nobody said world leaders had a monopoly on clear headed rationalism.

Q. What about the threat to us or to Israel?
A. First, I refer you to the last but one answer. They could try to hit Israel, but won't for the same reason the Soviets never nuked us- MAD. Also, the Iranians lack a suitable delivery system to hit the USA, or even Europe. Like Iraq, the best they will be able to muster is a homegrown variant on the Scud, or some piece of shoddy North Korean or Chinese missile kit. Do you think a North Korean missile delivery technology is going to make it undetected through the espionage cordon around the penninsula? China could be a problem- they need access to oil and might be induced to trade. But should an Iranian missile be seen atop a Chinese delivery system in a parade or spy-photo be prepared for a distinct cooling of cooperation economically and over Taiwan, China's priority number one. As for weakening our interests and friends, the Iranians have pretty much had a free ride for their proxy terrorism since the eighties (in Lebanon, Kofar Towers, Hizbollah, hijackings, etc) and have calmed things down since the end of the first Iraq War. As for Iraq itself, the Iranians don't need nukes- they have a carefully built and deep running connection with significant elements of the shia majority that means they can conduct policy subtly and through third parties in order to try and look out for their interests.

Q. So why are we freaked out?
A. Because any new country getting nukes is a serious issue. Things go wrong; coups happen. And limiting nukes is generally considered to be a good idea. Besides (and can you really claim to be surprised?) Iran appears to be talking out of both sides of its mouth claiming to negotiate to the outside world while telling Iranians it was only playing for time; suggesting that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei issued anti-nuclear weapons fatwas and loudly protesting their innocence while not really offering any convincing reasons as to why they need nuclear power.

Q. So what can we do? Are we going to go to war with Iran?
A. Part one of your question- there is a real case for the USA to step back and to pressure China into using its economic leverage and assumed regional clout (given their increasing economic relationship with Iran and their energy resources; relationships the USA chose to forgo through sanctions. Additionally, the Chinese aren't seen as responsible for maintaining the repressive regime of the Shah for decades. Imagine the British asking George Washington to not to build warships in the aftermath of the American Revolution while calling him an evil arsehole and you can imagine how well received American overtures are in Terhan. Notice they called America alone the "Great Satan", not western culture in general). Indeed, this week's The Economist suggests the very same thing, with the added bonus that a nuclear negotiator China could probably squeeze North Korea. As for part two, it all depends on what those maniacs in the Bush Administration had for breakfast.

Q. Is that it then?
A. I guess- you are the one asking the questions. Are you done?

Yeah, Sportscenter is on.

Professor Wisdom W. Weasel welcomes further questions and peer review (especially by his esteemed colleague Brooklyn Jim). That is if you read this far, you ADHD sport obsessed, insular bastards. Elk nipples! Just checking to see if you made it to the bottom