Well, it’s reached the front page of the BBC World Service. It was bound to happen I suppose.

In other news, halfway down the article that I came to the rather interesting use of a term, one that I believe I coined in 1996…

‘Middle-class Gangsters’

Coincidence? Probably.

I did a search on the net and found something, well, interesting. No idea when these girls made this home video…

February 10, 2010

We begin today in London with something positive. Imagine that.

From there we travel back in time to Jon Stuart’s interview with John Yoo last night. Unfortunately, it was as about as exciting and purposeful as watching paint dry. Slimy torture advocates on television 1 – 0 Jon Stuart.

From there we jump back into the present and travel to Afghanistan where US General Stan McCrystal is declaring the Afghan ‘surge’ a success. Aren’t they always?

Meanwhile, in an attempt to ensure that the Shia block in Iraq doesn’t achieve an utterly overwhelming majority in that country’s upcoming elections, the CIA is reportedly holding secret talks in Yemen and Syria with the King of Clubs, former Iraqi Vice President Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the current leader of the now banned Ba’athist Party. Even more interesting is the fact that…

“Last week it was reported that the Yemeni government, at America’s behest, founded a new spy agency specifically to fill with former Ba’athists who fled Iraq during the 2003 US invasion.”

Just so you know, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri remains the 6th most wanted individual on Iraq’s 55 Most Wanted list. I suppose if the CIA is talking to him then that ‘reward money’ is out the window.

January 12, 2010

The following BBC report should be watched with regards to the healthcare debate that is currently happening in the United Sates – if you can even call it a debate.

How many Americans have real, first hand, experience with either the Canadian or British healthcare systems? How many Canadians and Brits do you believe would trade socialized healthcare for privatized healthcare given the opportunity?

August 16, 2009

A recent comment by the BBC’s world affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, that should not go overlooked…

“The military view of the Miliband proposal to talk to moderate Taliban is that nobody in the Taliban will talk unless it is significantly beaten on the ground.

The military priority right now is to clear ground, hold it and develop its civilian and governmental structures.

This is why Operation Panther’s Claw, to clear the Taliban from populated areas in north central Helmand (and a similar offensive conducted by US marines in the south), is seen as so important.”

Once again, Vietnam provides a lesson with regards to such logic. The North Vietnamese, even in the face of superior military power, never negotiated on the basis that they had been significantly “beaten”. The reason is because they hadn’t been, and that’s the wildcard – you have to “beat” your opponent into submission first. At the height of US involvement in Vietnam (in 1969) there were over half a million US troops in the country, vastly more than international forces currently have on the ground in Afghanistan. Were US deaths in Afghanistan to reach the levels sustained in Vietnam on a weekly basis, US domestic support for the war would most likely crumble. That’s the tightrope that is currently being walked – minimal force sizes reliant on superior technology to diminish the possibility of high casualty rates. Unfortunately, the Soviets tried the exact same thing in the 80’s and it didn’t work.

If there is one thing that, to this day, remains a fantasy, it’s the belief that force can be employed to accomplish both military and political goals simultaneously in an asymmetric conflict.

It is here, within the framework of the asymmetric conflict, that we find the lynch pin. Insurgents require the cooperation and support of the civilian population, whether that support is significant or limited. Therefore, conducting operations that cause despondency to manifest within the civilian population is counter productive and routinely leads to increased public resentment of occupational forces. This ultimately means that conventional forces have to find a way to ensure that public resentment isn’t increased while, at the same time, effectively combating insurgents. One of the ways to go about achieving that goal is to introduce a strategy steeped in the introduction of local stability and the promise of significant social changes in an attempt to assuage the public while still carrying out military operations against insurgents in the area.

Brass tacks?

It’s never worked.

The reason? Because despite those political promises made, the military ambitions of occupational forces always end up superseding them. In the end, it isn’t the concerns of the local inhabitants that have to be placated, it’s the opinion of a public on the other side of the world. And to ensure that domestic support does not wither, military successes, not political successes, are required not only to justify the loss of life, but to maintain the perception of the military establishment’s implacability.

In the end, the war in Afghanistan will become the longest in US history. And like America’s adventure in South East Asia decades ago, it will most likely end in much the same way.

July 27, 2009

Tuna with a delicious side order of live sidewinder missile.

June 9, 2009