Speaking through the translator, the commander assures the sheik that everything possible is being done to improve the situation and he and his men will treat him with the utmost respect.
This situation could take place in any number of towns in Iraq or Afghanistan today. The only difference here is that the temperature is hovering near freezing, a far cry from the stifling heat typical of many parts of the Mideast.
This is counterinsurgency training for the 1st Stryker Brigade, 25th Infantry Division stationed at Fort Wainwright. From Sept. 10, and continuing through today, more than 600 Strykers are participating in training exercises with 100 members of the Indian Army at the Donnelly Training Area near Fort Greely. [Fairbanks Daily News-Miner] [Via:Soldier’s Dad]
It is good to see the increasing interaction with the Indian military. India is the world’s largest democracy, has an enormous and well trained military of 1.3 million active duty soldiers, and it’s own Islamic extremist threats. Considering this, it only seems natural that our two countries would begin to gravitate towards one another.
I found the comments of the commander of the Indian contingent interesting:
Military officials touted the training as a rare opportunity for India and the United States to share tactics in dealing with the global war on terror. Indian Col. Birender Singh Dalal said the training allowed his men to learn more about the United States’ mobility and firepower, but there are few differences between them.
“All militaries in the world think alike,” he said. “We are 90 percent similar.”
Some members of the 1-25th will be going to India in the next few weeks to train in counterinsurgency exercises there.
I think he should add that well trained militaries in the world think alike because I have seen some militaries that think nothing like what we in the US would consider a competent military force. I have never worked with the Indian Army before but from everything I hear and read they are a well trained and disciplined force that I hope I get a chance to work with in the future.
Some people may find this surprising but if you have been following what has been happening on America’s college campuses lately this shouldn’t be surprising at all:
In fall 2005, researchers at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy (UConnDPP), commissioned by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s (ISI) National Civic Literacy Board, conducted a survey of some 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges and universities. Students were asked 60 multiple-choice questions to measure their knowledge in four subject areas: America’s history, government, international relations, and market economy. The disappointing results were published by ISI in fall 2006 in The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education’s Failure to Teach America’s History and Institutions. Seniors, on average, failed all four subjects, and their overall average score was 53.2%. [Civic Literacy Report]
Make sure you read the entire link because the findings are astounding. Harvard University showed their eliteness by having their seniors score the highest on the test by barely passing with a D+ average of 69.6%. I agree totally with JD Johannes view of these findings:
The universities defended themselves on the grounds they teach analysis rather than facts but there is problem with their defense–without a grounding in facts, what good is the ability to engage in proper analysis?
The failure of graduates of elite universities to understand the most basic and established facts explains much of the current debate on Iraq and the war on terror. [Outside the Wire]
Make sure to read the rest because he makes some excellent points about education in America’s colleges and how that relates to opinions made about the war in Iraq.
You can take the test yourself and see how you compare to America’s so called academic elite at Harvard. Just for the record I scored a 83.33% and a couple of the questions I missed I shouldn’t have if I read the questions more carefully.
The United States on Friday announced it would spend up to $25 million to pay for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil for North Korea — part of an agreement the communist regime made with the U.S. and other nations pushing it to dismantle its nuclear program.
Under a February agreement, the U.S. and other participants in the six-party negotiations with Pyongyang agreed to provide North Korea with 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil, or the monetary equivalent in other aid and assistance.
In return, North Korea agreed to shut down its main nuclear reactor, which it did in July, and then declare and ultimately dismantle all its nuclear programs. [Deb Reichmann, AP]
Under the deal, the North will receive initial aid equal to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil for shutting down and sealing its main nuclear reactor and related facilities at Yongbyon, north of the capital, to be confirmed by international inspectors.
For irreversibly disabling the reactor and declaring all nuclear programs, the North will eventually receive another 950,000 tons in aid.
North Korea has shut down the Yongbyon reactor and let in the IAEA inspectors which meant they are owed 50,000 tons of oil according to the agreement which the South Koreans have already sent to North Korea along with extra oil from China:
South Korea provided 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil in July. Earlier this month, China said it had delivered a shipment of oil to North Korea amid a series of efforts to keep talks on disabling North Korean nuclear programs on track.
So why is the US sending them even more oil than what they owed since they have not fully implemented their side of the agreement by not coming clean on all their nuclear programs, not to mention being involved in proliferation with Syria? The answer is actually quite simple. The Six Party Charade is being used to keep the continuing Myth of Progress on the Korean peninsula alive. This is just another example of US appeasement of North Korea by meeting demands not in the agreement in order to keep the appearance of diplomacy being used to resolve the nuclear issue.
This apearance of successful diplomacy is needed in order to set conditions for the eventual confrontation with Iran over their nuclear program. Basically the current US nuclear policy is to appease the lesser of two evils to confront the greater one. Only the future will tell if the sell out of a sound Korea policy will be worth the trade off when the confrontation with Iran occurs.
This past week has been a historic period for the fight for democracy and freedom in Burma. Here is a good video report that highlights the events that led to the uprising against the ruling military junta:
In what started out as massive peaceful protests for the restoration of democracy in Burma that drew up to 100,000 people, has now turned violent as the expected crackdown by the Burmese military has descended on the Buddhist monks and civilians leading the protests.
The shootings by the Burmese military has left scores of civilians dead including the Japanese journalist pictured below:
Video footage of the shooting has been smuggled out of Burma and it appears the Japanese journalist was intentionally shot by the military. The Japanese government is sending an envoy to investigate the killing and Japanese sanctions for the killing are not being ruled out:
"Mr [Mitoji] Yabunaka of the foreign ministry will go to Myanmar tomorrow and push for the government to find out the facts," he said.
No decision has been made on sanctions, Mr Fukuda added, saying that the results of the envoy’s investigations would be taken into account in deciding the best course of action. [Guardian]
Al Jazeera has also been able to smuggle out of Burma footage of the monks fighting back against the military with slingshots and demands from the people for the restoration of democracy:
News and footage of the crackdown is becoming increasingly hard to get as the Burmese military has cut off the nation’s internet thus making webpages based from Burma such as Burma News inaccessible.
Criticism is growing against the Burmese military crackdown, the international body ASEAN has issued a some what strong statement against the violence:
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ chief urged Burma’s authorities on Sunday to avoid any “strong action” against growing anti-government protests, in hopes of avoiding violence.
About 20,000 Buddhist monks and citizens were demonstrating against Burma’s military junta in the country’s largest city, Rangoon, with many shouting support for detained pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, witnesses said.“I hope the relevant authorities in [Burma] will not take any strong action and turn the protests into a big confrontation,” Asean Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong told The Associated Press by telephone from Poland. [AP]
The international body that you would expect would do nothing has met expectations:
The United Nations Security Council has issued a statement of concern about the violent response to demonstrations in Rangoon yesterday, according to press reports.
“Members of the council have expressed their concern vis-à-vis the situation, and have urged restraint, especially from the government of Myanmar,” the statement said. [DVB]
"Concern"? How about outrage at the killing of civilians? This is just another example of the complete irrelevance of the UN in solving international problems. The UN Security Council is being blocked from taking any strong action against the killings in Burma due to the obstruction of China which seeks to keep its hegemony over Burma by ensuring the military junta survives this fight for democracy in the country. Despite this obstruction, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon could still show moral courage by strongly condemning the killings yet he does not.
However, of all people Jim Carrey has launched a Youtube campaign to pressure Ban Ki-moon to take action against the Burmese military:
I hope Jim Carrey’s efforts work but I doubt it will have any effect on the weak and corrupt UN. It tells you something when Jim Carrey is able to do more for the people of Burma than the United Nations.
Some late breaking news is that a coup has been launched by the nation’s second ranking general and negotiations with Aung San Suu Kyi are currently being held:
Military sources in Rangoon are claiming that the regime’s number two, General Maung Aye, has staged a coup against Than Shwe, and that his troops are now guarding Aung San Suu Kyi’s home. A meeting between him and Suu Kyi is expected. Maung Aye is army commander-in-chief and a renowned pragmatist.
Our diplomatic sources are also telling us that Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved to a police academy compound outside Rangoon, where she is expected to meet Maung Aye. As yet, though, we have no independent confirmation of this development.
Other reports of troops marching from central Burma to Rangoon are being reported along with fighter jets being scrambled. We may be seeing the beginning of an internal civil war among the Burmese military. One thing is for sure, more blood is going to flow before it is all said and done.
I for one hope that this news of a coup is true, that the fight for democracy in Burma is successful, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is restored to power reflecting the will of the people of Burma.
For more coverage of Burma’s Fight for Freedom read the following sites below:
If this disenfranchisement happened to any minority section of the US population does anyone doubt there would be outrage?:
Overseas military voters had less than half of their votes counted in last year’s congressional elections, according to data released by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on Monday.
“One thing is clear: At every level of government, we need to do a better job,” said Donetta Davidson, chair of the commission. “We must make sure all eligible voters are getting their opportunities.”
The figures, released at the commission’s annual conference on ways to improve and troubleshoot the absentee voting process, showed that only about 992,000 of the nearly 6 million eligible overseas citizens requested ballots for the 2006 general election.
That included about 119,000 military personnel stationed outside the United States. Of those, only about 57,000 — less than 48 percent — had their votes successfully cast or counted.
EAC officials said that’s roughly the same percentage that were counted for expatriates and domestic military filing absentee ballots. The major failures were on the ballot delivery side, with about 72 percent of those who failed to vote never receiving any of their requested election materials. [Stars & Stripes]
This is nothing new. I blogged over two years ago about how Washington State was aledgedly intentionally disenfranchising military voters:
Washington state election officers and military officials say they have found no evidence of problems with overseas military absentee ballots, despite allegations that many may not have been delivered or counted.
“We’re seeing allegations made that large numbers of military voters did not get ballots, but we think that’s partisan rhetoric over a close election,” said Pam Floyd, assistant elections director for the state. “And we believe all military ballots signed by Washington voters and received were counted.”
But state Republicans believe that hundreds of overseas servicemembers never received their ballots, and that may have stolen the election from their gubernatorial candidate, Dino Rossi.
“We’re getting tons of calls and e-mails from troops overseas who didn’t receive their ballots, or who got them weeks after the election,” said Mary Lane, spokeswoman for Rossi. “We’re looking at a lot of disenfranchised military voters.”
Lane provided Stars and Stripes with complaints from 14 family members who have loved ones in the military, most deployed overseas, who did not receive absentee ballots. The Rossi campaign said it has heard from 260 voters who claim not to have received ballots, though not all of them are military.
Department of Justice officials would not comment on news reports that the federal government is investigating whether state elections officials broke the law by sending out the ballots too late. Republicans have filed suit to mandate a new election because of the military issues and other supposed voting irregularities.
In November, Rossi was named the winner of the general election by 261 votes and won a machine recount by 42, but a second, manual recount last month showed Democrat Christine Gregoire with a 129-vote margin of victory.
I was one of the people who complained because I am registered to vote in Washington State and never received an absentee ballot in 2004. Rossi lost the election by 129 votes after a dubious recount and Washington State possibly intentionally did not send out military absentee ballots because they know the military votes overwhelmingly Republican.
Here we go again two years later where we find the same problem in the 2006 Congressional elections. Once could be an accident, but twice is a trend of disenfranchisement. There was a number of close Congressional elections and it would be an interesting statistic to see by state the number of disenfranchised military voters. So remember this the next time you hear someone say that they are a disenfranchised voter. What sector of the US population besides the military has less than 48% of their votes count?
I’m sure the ACLU will be all over this any day now.
More details are coming out now in the international media about the Israeli airstrike in Syria three weeks ago that provides details about how the attack was carried out and further explains the Syrian and North Korean reactions to the airstrike:
Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.
The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.
They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
Israeli special forces had been gathering intelligence for several months in Syria, according to Israeli sources. They located the nuclear material at a compound near Dayr az-Zwar in the north. [Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter, Times of London]
The seizing of nuclear material by Israeli commandoes would explain the muted reaction by Syria to being bombed by Israel. The typical ploy after a bombing strike such as this is to claim a wedding party was bombed and to roll out a few corpses from the morgue for the eager international media to bash Israel with. Syria did none of this because Israel must have obtained something extremely sensitive in order to receive such a muted reaction from the Syrians and the world community at large.
What is also interesting is that the Bush Administration which has so much invested in "diplomacy" with North Korea that whatever evidence the Israelis had was enough to get the President to give his blessing for the raid:
Evidence that North Korean personnel were at the site is said to have been shared with President George W Bush over the summer. A senior American source said the administration sought proof of nuclear-related activities before giving the attack its blessing.
Diplomats in North Korea and China believe a number of North Koreans were killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials.
Syrian officials flew to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, last week, reinforcing the view that the two nations were coordinating their response.
After reading this report the probability that some kind of nuclear material was captured by the Israelis is more likely. However, lets go through the possible scenarios. Some reports have claimed Israel bombed weapons going to Hezbollah in Lebanon. If that was the case Syria would have rolled out the wedding party bombing defense plus the raid happened no where near Lebanon. Additionally this raid was conducted with the approval of Turkey since it appears the Israelis may have used Turkish airspace during the raid and there has been no protests from Turkey. Bombing an arms shipment to Hezbollah probably would not have been enough justification for the Turks to give Israel use of their airspace. Thus I think a Hezbollah arms shipment can pretty much be ruled out.
Next is that a ballistic missile program supplied by North Korea was taken out. The fact that North Korea has been supplying missiles to Syria as well as Iran and Pakistan is well known. Four years ago a North Korean ship was intercepted smuggling missiles to even Yemen. So why would the Israelis want to bomb Syria over ballistic missiles when they have been living for years with the ballistic missiles Syria already has? Plus would bombing a missile program be enough to get the Turks to give approval to use their airspace? I doubt it. Also would the Syrian reaction be so muted to bombing a ballistic missile site? Once again I doubt it.
The only other scenario I can think of besides some kind of nuclear material is that maybe some chemical and biological weapons facility is what was raided. Possibly the Israeli raid captured some of these weapons as evidence and then bombed the place afterwards. The Syrians probably wouldn’t need the North Koreans to aid them with making these weapons however the North Korean engineers might have been there to help them mount the weapons on to their missiles. If the Israelis captured chemical and biological warheads that would cause the muted reaction we have seen from the Syrians so far. Could it be possible if WMDs were captured that they could be linked to being from Saddam Hussein’s former regime in Iraq? That would definitely have the Syrians squirming.
Whatever was raided three weeks ago I think the odds are pretty good that if it wasn’t nuclear material taken as evidence then it was some kind of other WMD program that was raided instead. What is clear is that the ambiguity the US and Israel have been keeping with this story is being used to maximize negotiating leverage against Syria and North Korea. I’m sure Israel would use the leverage to get Syria to stop sending arms to Hezbollah while the US would want Syria to quit funneling foreign jihadis into Iraq. In regards to North Korea the US is going to want to maintain the illusion of "progress" with the six party talks as much as possible. Despite all the ambiguity one thing that is clear is that however this whole issue unfolds it is going to be interesting.
North Korea and Syria held high-level talks Friday in Pyongyang, the North’s state media reported, amid suspicions that the two countries might be cooperating on a nuclear weapons program.
The talks took place between Choe Tae Bok, secretary of the Central Committee of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, and Saaeed Eleia Dawood, director of the organizational department of Syria’s Baath Arab Socialist Party, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
The two sides discussed ways of improving friendship and cooperation and other issues of bilateral interest, KCNA said, without elaborating.
I think we all know what their bilateral interests are.
____________________________________
I just saw on Fox News that the US government is going to impose increased sanctions on North Korea in regards to proliferating missiles as well as possible nuclear technology in regards to the Israeli’s airstrike in Syria two weeks ago. No links yet available on the internet but I will update when some are available.
I did find this report with more details about the Israeli strike in Syria:
Israel reportedly warned the United States that North Korea might be sharing nuclear know-how with Damascus before it carried out an air strike deep inside Syria.
Washington was "deeply troubled" by the Israeli intelligence showing North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria, but US President George W. Bush decided against an immediate response out of concern it could derail delicate talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to abandon its own nuclear program, the Washington Post said, citing unnamed US officials.
After Israel shared its intelligence with the Bush administration in recent months, which included satellite imagery, the United States provided Israel with some confirmation of the original information before Israel went ahead with the night air raid on September 6, the Post reported.
The quality of the Israeli intelligence, the nature of North Korea’s assistance and the seriousness of Syria’s atomic activities remained uncertain, the Post wrote. [AFP]
If this report it is true it shows that Israel warned the US government but in order to keep The Myth of Progress and the Six Party Charade alive on the Korean peninsula the US government ignored the warning. The Israelis must have some very good evidence to now get the US government to implement increased sanctions on North Korea which will threaten the "progress" of the Six Party Talks.
US President George W. Bush said today he expects North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program and not allow other countries to gain its know-how on producing such technology and weapons.
"We expect them to honour their commitment to give up weapons and weapons programs," Mr Bush said. "To extent that they are proliferating, we expect them to stop their proliferation."
Mr Bush’s comments came after he declined to answer questions about reports from the US intelligence community of concerns that North Korea may have helped Syria with nuclear activities.
North Korea said on Wednesday that such allegations were groundless conspiracy fabricated by those who oppose the North’s improving ties with Washington. [Herald-Sun]
"To the extent that they are proliferating, we expect them to stop their proliferation"? WTF? President Bush admits the North Koreans are proliferating and yet this does not affect all the aid and compromises the US government is giving to North Korea? It appears that the Syrians and North Koreans calculated correctly that the world community and the United States would not respond in any meaningful way even if they were caught proliferating nuclear technology. The world community simply does not care because after all a nuclear Iran or Syria would only be used to threaten Israel which many in the world community would not mind.
The United States is now to invested in keeping the appearance that the diplomatic process has been successful on the Korean peninsula before confronting Iran on their nuclear program. The US governments desperation to perpetuate the "Myth of Progress" is truly astounding. I really hope the "Six Party Charade" and the sell out of a sound North Korea policy is worth the setting of conditions to bomb Iran.
“It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers. In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I am readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I will, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials – after the fact.”
