John Batchelor on Wal-Mart's ominous barometer of U.S. economy, plus Wal-Mart's new urban-centric expansion strategy

7:40 PM ET UPDATE
I sent the following post to The Glittering Eye's Dave Schuler, who closely tracks U.S. economic issues, for his comment. Dave replied:

See also the Consumer Metrics Institute's measures of economic activity. They differ somewhat from the reports we're getting from government agencies and the NBER. They work from real-time measurements rather than estimates, interpolations, or extrapolations.

Here's a partial quote from the institute that summarizes the chart activity they show:

"Looking ahead, should the 2010 event recover from its bottom exactly like the 2008 event did, it would still experience another 466 percentage-days of contraction before ending -- resulting in a grand total of 1058 percentage-days of contraction for the 2010 event, fully 33% more severe than the "Great Recession of 2008."

This, of course, assumes that stimuli comparable to those seen in 2008-2009 will be available to cause such a recovery during 2010-2011 -- and that unemployment quickly returns to the levels that helped consumer demand start to rebound in late August of 2008: about 6.1%. Absent fresh consumer stimuli and dropping unemployment rates, the consumer demand contraction we are witnessing could very well linger." [...]

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Wal-Mart Shoppers

Notes:
See the post at John's blog for accompanying video and the WABC-77 radio archive for the podcast (link) of his discussion with Miller. The CNBC mention and link relate to Velma Hart's headline-making question to Barack Obama.

Wal-Mart Growth
By John Batchelor on September 20, 2010

Spoke Rich Miller, Bloomberg, to learn the new explanation for the sluggishness we see in the malls and at the markets is that this is a growth recession. The GDP will rise to 2.5% and higher in 2011, but joblessness will also climb over 10% again, and the housing market will remain a blackhole for consumers and a drag on the recovery. There are 7-8 million homes with mortgages that are in some process of foreclosure. One quarter of the people who have stopped paying on their mortgage are still living rent free in their forceclosed home -- and most of these folk have jobs and are just making a practical decision to keep their money for the future and not pour it into an underwater hole.

The center of the trouble remains the joblessness. Am told it will last years, and that many people over 50 who lose their jobs will never work fully again.

Wal-Mart tells the tale that many of its customers are depending upon government assistance: the last day of each month, the stores fill up with shoppers at midnight who are waiting for their government debit cards to regain cash so they can buy food and baby formula.

The poverty rate for 55-64 is climbing quickly. Growth recession. POTUS was on CNBC in a defensive shell. POTUS does not evidence an understanding that his vastly expensive programs have retarded recovery by heaping on debt. Study shows that debt discourages growth because folk anticipate sensibly that there will be higher taxes.

POTUS trusts taxes. POTUS does not trust private investment -- which is why he thinks raising cap gains and taxing the rich will not deter growth. Wrong foot, wrong brain, wrong direction: and the White House is about to be spanked at the polls. The day after, the panic will begin. Wal-Mart growth recession.

Source Document
Bloomberg: Escaping Double Dip to Growth Recession Means No Unemployment Relief Seen
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John added a report to his comment section that's a 'must read' about Wal-Mart's new urban-centric expansion strategy:

Wal-Mart sets sights on San Francisco
by Andrew S. Ross
San Francisco Chronicle
September 21, 2010

As part of its new "urban strategy," the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is looking to open two dozen stores in the Bay Area, I'm told.

Most of them are in the East Bay, but also on the Peninsula, in San Jose, and in the city that has always said, "No way, Jose" to the Bentonville, Ark., big-box giant.

But these aren't big boxes.

Instead, they are the "smaller format" stores favored by the likes of Trader Joe's Co., Whole Foods Market Inc. and the British supermarket chain Tesco PLC, whose Fresh & Easy "neighborhood markets" are coming to the Bay Area, including San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood.

And, like these others, they'll be primarily grocery stores, with plenty of fresh foods and prepared takeout.

"Wal-Mart is throwing out their old playbook," said Garrick Brown, vice president of research at Colliers International, a global real estate brokerage. "They're going after the urban market, which they haven't been able to penetrate, mostly because of their size."

"That's where the money is"

Wal-Mart has not disclosed details, but Brown said a company source put the nationwide number of planned new, city-centric stores between 300 and 400.

"Smaller designs, in the 20,000 -square-foot range, and mostly groceries - that's where the money is," said Brown, who noted that 51 percent of Wal-Mart's U.S. revenue came from groceries last year. [...]

Hands down, the best summary of Afghanistan's political problems

Abdullah Abdullah was Ahmad Wali Massoud's protege, but there's always been a problem with Abdullah, as the following report indicates. Is Amrullah Saleh the solution to the problem? We'll soon find out.
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Why the next parliament won't check Karzai's power
By Ben Arnoldy
The Christian Science Monitor
September 19, 2010

The results of Saturday's Afghanistan election aren't expected for days, but because the parliamentary candidates ran as individuals, not as party members, they are unlikely to unite in opposition to President Hamid Karzai.

Kabul - Afghanistan's election on Saturday was tarnished by attacks that killed at least 12 people, reports of fraud, and a light turnout. Still, whichever parliamentary candidates end up victorious once results finally trickle in will play a role in the coming scrum for power as international forces draw down over the five-year term ahead.

Specifically, President Hamid Karzai could try to dodge his term limit or step up negotiations with the Taliban in an effort to retain power. Also in the mix will be a decision over long-term basing rights for American troops.

These issues are of intense interest to fractious opposition forces and outside governments alike, many of whom have serious doubts about fully trusting Mr. Karzai's judgment. They are hoping that the next parliament – which won't be sorted out and seated for months – will become a more effective check on Afghanistan's executive branch.

But the new parliament is unlikely to be a strong check on Karzai, because the candidates mostly ran as individuals rather than under the banner of parties or the disorganized opposition movement.

"I believe that the next parliament, unfortunately, will be even weaker than the current one," says Sabrina Saqib, a member of Parliament from Kabul. "Because we are all running as individuals, it's very easy to buy MPs, to deal with them, when we are individuals."

She decided not to stand for the new parliament because it would once again be 249 members each working alone, thereby getting little done.

Afghan political parties are mostly irrelevant, having been largely discredited during the initial decades of the Afghan conflict.

Karzai, meanwhile, has no party but has the apparatus of government, with which he could influence votes – legally and illegally. His family also controls major businesses like the troubled Kabul Bank, allowing him indirect avenues through which to financially support pliant MPs.

To be sure, other players put money into the election for disparate reasons.

Iran appeared to be actively donating to candidates, probably looking for help opposing permanent US base agreements on its doorstep, says Ms. Saqib.

Businessmen are not all in league with Karzai – some are apparently frustrated with his family's control of the business landscape. Malalai Ishaq Zai, a vocal critic of Karzai's half-brother in Kandahar, says she is receiving support from various businessmen there.

But broader-based unhappiness with the government and its secretive outreach to the Taliban have so far not been effectively channeled into a coherent opposition movement.

Saqib supported Abdullah Abdullah during his challenge to Karzai for the presidency last year. When he lost, Dr. Abdullah promised to work for a national opposition movement.

But Saqib became disillusioned.

"I said goodbye to Abdullah," says Saqib. "I told Dr. Abdullah that 'I joined your team because … we know where we are going to, with whom, how.' That was for [the presidential] election. The election is over, and I can't see such plan. I don't know where we are going."

She says that a European government had been interested in financially supporting Abdullah's movement as a way to foster healthy democratic opposition.

But a diplomat from that country told her privately that interest faded when Abdullah failed to offer any plan or goals, but said he could do little since he had no money.

In a press conference before the Sept. 18 election, Abdullah said his movement supported around 300 of some 2,500 candidates. He said his group could not support them financially, but did help them fundraise and organize.

"We have just laid the foundation for the National Alliance for Change and Hope. That's very young," he said.

His deputy, Homayoun Shah Assefy, emphasized that the young movement was not a political party with narrow ideologies, but a big tent for everyone wanting change. "It will take time to have all of our friends vote in the same way," says Mr. Assefy.

The slow pace of Abdullah's movement is spawning competitors for the opposition mantle.

"There is no address for political opposition in Kabul," says Haroun Mir, an analyst-turned-candidate from Kabul. "A year has passed. Can we afford to wait another year or two when we all know the fate of Afghanistan will be decided in the next couple of years?"

Mr. Mir is running under the umbrella of Amrullah Saleh, the former head of Afghanistan's intelligence agency. Mr. Saleh fell out with Karzai over the president's warming relations with Pakistan and the Taliban leadership, and is trying to start his own opposition movement.

Mir says such opposition needs to be built before international forces pull out so that there will be some group with a real political base to sit down opposite the Taliban.

"If tomorrow the international community decides we will move toward a political settlement, who would be able to represent the majority of Afghan people who are opposed to the Taliban? There is no voice for them," says Mir.

"Are we offering an exit strategy for the Taliban," he asks, "or are the Taliban offering an exit strategy for President Karzai or the US?"

At the moment, Western governments are signaling they want a stronger check on the president – a change from their initial preferences, codified in the Constitution, for a strong executive.

"The argument that it's good to have one person to deal with is how the Constitution was set up in 2004," says William Maley, an Afghanistan expert at Australian National University in Canberra. "The problems with having Karzai be that person have become palpable at this point."

Additions to Pundita blogroll, Part 1

It is a scurrilous lie, started by one of my enemies on the Tory backbench, that the only way to get on my blogroll is to say nice things about Pundita essays. But it is true that often I've discovered a blog because it discussed a post of mine. One of my regrets is that the volume of research and essay writing I do, along with my attempts to have a life, prevent me from spending more time reading other blogs. It's partly from a sense of guilt about that situation that I'm doing this post to accompany the addition of some blogs to the blogroll or to reinstate them.

Fausta's Blog
Ignore the cartoon of the ominous-looking woman on the blog's banner.
<---- This is the 'real' Fausta (the one on the left) in what she calls not one of her better photographs. But it's enough to convey the charming woman who runs the blog, which accompanies her blogosphere radio show.

Although her blog features many posts related to U.S. political conservative views, which frankly I don't bother to read, her weekly Latin American 'carnival' of links to blog posts/news items about Latin America, and her frequent posts about Latin American matters, is why the blog is long overdue for addition to the Pundita blogroll.

It goes without saying that U.S. citizens of voting age desperately need more news about Latin American/Caribbean issues. One of the greatest failings of the U.S. mainstream media and even the U.S. blogosphere is how little attention they give to Latin America and the Caribbean.

The El Paso Times and Mexico in Focus blog
Last week a blogger sent me a news item from the El Paso Times about a car bomb in Ciudad Juárez, in a day-care center parking lot (which the police were able to deactivate).

Right next to the report on the car bomb, which was was filed by Alex Hinojosa, was a linked list of news reports from sources such as The Washington Post and the (U.K.) Guardian under the title Fighting the Border Drug War. That's when it hit me: Juárez, Mexico, 'murder capital of world,' is a stone's throw from El Paso, Texas. So of course an El Paso newspaper would be tracking daily news reports on the drug-related violence in Mexico. Duh.

Mexico Slogger it ain't but the list is better than nothing, if you can't read Spanish but you're trying to scrape together a picture of today's Mexico.

It was by scanning the comment section in a Guardian report linked to at the El Paso Times then zipping to Wikipedia's article on the Sinaloa Cartel that I found U.S.-based National Public Radio's stunning investigation, published in May of this year, of the cartel. There had been many accusations over the years that the cartel had gained influence in Mexico at the federal level, and in 2009 NPR had carried a series of reports about them. But such accusations had never been backed by forensic evidence.

In 2010, in an approach that evoked the one used by the Mexican detective in Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil," the NPR investigative team plowed through thousands of police reports and found a clear pattern in the arrests of different cartel members. While not necessarily indicative of corruption (police and prosecutors will often favor one criminal syndicate to help them take down others) the pattern indicated that the Sinaloa cartel had indeed been given preferential treatment by the Mexican authorities.


The El Paso Times even has a Mexico in Focus blog (link is found next to the list of reports). The blog, run by Mexican journalist Lourdes Cardenas, was a great disappointment to me -- but then readers who saw my "Mexico Insurgency" post can imagine what I was hoping to find when I clicked on the link: Mexico Slogger.

However, Ms. Cardenas, who has "over 20 years of experience working as an editor, producer, correspondent and reporter for Mexican and American media in Mexico and the United States," does make a stab at following news out of Mexico and these discussions are in English, so again they're better than nothing.

If more Gringos and Gringettes from around the USA (and around the world) visited the section and added polite questions and comments to the comment section, this might encourage the paper's editorial board to expand the section and even give Ms Cardenas an assistant. Then we might eventually have a right proper English-language Mexico version of the late, great Iraq Slogger, which Americans desperately need beep this is a recording.

Armchair Generalist
From the blog's "About" section:

Jason Sigger is a defense policy analyst in the Washington DC area. I discuss general military topics and specific chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) defense issues, in addition to general day-to-day military issues. I could be described as left of center, a moderate or progressive voice, and a proud member of the reality-based community. One of the main issues I will be working on is to identify progressive positions on military affairs.

Certainly there are lots of conservative positions on military affairs, and many seem to think all progressives are pansy ass anti-war demonstrators. I believe that the key is really articulating a progressive national security strategy and promoting a non-partisan military strategy. Hopefully this blog will broaden the discussion. See the glossary under "Core Issues" on the left side for decrypting any military acronyms, brevity codes, or abbreviations (ABCAs). ...

Just for the glossary this milblog is valuable, but every time I visit the site I find discussion of books, scholarly articles and news items that slipped through the cracks of the mainstream press, yet which are important for those trying to make sense of U.S. defense/foreign 'policy' -- although policy is too imprecise a word to describe the cacophony of foreign and domestic lobbies that have turned official Washington into an extension of the Washington National Zoo.

This is not to say I don't have disagreements with the Generalist's opinions on many matters; we have agreed to disagree in the past. And I will take this opportunity to mock his apology for the Afghanistan Study Group Report, which Joshua Foust at Registan shredded into confetti before incinerating it.

So thoroughly did Foust's analysis discredit the study group's scholarship that in an attempt to save his think tank's reputation Steve Clemons crawled on his belly in Registan's comment section to rationalize the report. The study group wasn't trying to do an actual study, Clemons explained; they were just trying to raise the level of debate in Washington about Afghanistan.

That's what's out there, folks.

Where was I?

The Marmot's Hole
Things are heating up on the Korean peninsula again, so it's time to restore Marmot to the blogroll, although I can't remember for the life of me why I dropped the blog in the first place. The blog's Korean-speaking American author, native Long Islander and Georgetown University grad, Robert J. Koehler, has lived in Korea since 1997; his day job is editor of a Korean cultural affairs magazine.

He is careful to explain that The Marmot's Hole is his very personal view of Korea. ("If you’re using this blog as your primary window on Korea -- and I pray to God you aren’t -- then I beg you to reconsider.") But he writes of matters Korean with the mixture of affection and exasperation that marks someone who's developed a 'feel' for a country -- in this case, two countries: North and South Korea -- and its people:

The blog represents a rather poor attempt to mix “hard” news and intellectually enriching discussion of “serious” topics such as Korean history, Korean politics, North Korea, the U.S. troop presence in Korea and regional geopolitics with less-serious fare -- Korean tabloid crap, booby pics, “dumb foreigner” stories and the like.

The Marmot's Hole, which is graced with Koehler's droll sense of humor, helps keep my feet on the ground when I study U.S. policy toward the peninsula.

The one caveat that Koehler does not mention in the "About" section of his blog might be intuited by noting the glaring omission of The North Korean Economy Watch blog from Marmot's extensive blogroll listing of Asian/Korean blogs.

All expats who live in a country they blog about are working under certain constraints when the country's government is on the authoritarian side.

North Korean Economy Watch
This blog's author, an American named Curtis Melvin, is under no such constraint because he's based in the USA. Melvin has a MA in economics and is working on his PhD.

Using "public maps, interviews, innovative analysis, and elbow grease" Melvin created the most comprehensive Google Earth mapping of North Korea available to the public. Which I doubt has endeared him to Pyongyang. And his enthusiasm for tracking and analyzing North Korea's economic prospects probably hasn't endeared him to Seoul's defense hardliners, either -- or the USA's.

Amrullah Saleh lights a fire under David Petraeus and Hamid Karzai

"We do not want the Taliban to come and cut the noses off our women. We don't want the Taliban to destroy what is left of our historical heritage. We think if we do not rise today, our rights, our very basic rights in a deal with Taliban, will be violated fundamentally." - Amrullah Saleh

MORDOR ASCENDENT, THE OPERA
The lords move to quash an uprising

OVERTURE

By 2004, the US had filmed Pakistani army trucks delivering Taliban fighters at the Afghan border and recovering them a few days later; wireless monitoring at the US base at Bagram picked up Taliban commanders arranging with Pakistani army officers at the border for safe passage as they came in and out of Afghanistan. Western intelligence agencies concluded that the ISI was running a full training programme for the Afghan Taliban, turning a blind eye as they raised funds in the Gulf and allowing them to import materiel, mainly via Dubai. By 2005 the Taliban, with covert Pakistani support, were launching a full-scale assault on Nato troops in Afghanistan and being given covering fire as they returned to their bases in Pakistan.
-- William Dalrymple, 23 August 2010

ACT I

It's had a 100-point inspection. My wife drives one just like it.

On September 15, 2010 Chris Brummitt reported for AP on meetings that day in Islamabad between Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi (photo above) and President Asif Ali Zardari. Brummitt wrote in the lead paragraph:

Pakistan's intelligence services are willing to work more closely with Afghanistan to fight Taliban militants, [Zardari] said Wednesday after talks with the Afghan leader focussed on allegations Islamabad is harboring Afghan insurgents.

Brummitt went on to report that although Karzai and Zardari discussed ways to tackle the Afghan Taliban sanctuaries and training grounds inside Pakistan, they did not say whether any formal agreements had come out of the conversation. A few paragraphs later, after observing that for several weeks Karzai and other Afghan officials had been stepping up their calls for Pakistan to go after the Afghan Taliban, Brummitt got down to brass tacks:

"We need more security cooperation between our intelligence and their intelligence, which Pakistan is willing to offer," said Zardari.

It was not clear, however, if the offer was endorsed by Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment, which dictates the country's foreign and security policies, especially in regard to Afghanistan and arch enemy India. Many analysts say it wants to keep Afghan insurgents as proxies to secure its interests in Afghanistan when the Americans withdraw. ...

ACT II

"Petraeus lauds Pakistan in Surprise Visit" -- July 12, 2010

It's had a 100-point inspection. My wife drives one just like it.

The next day, September 16, General David Petraeus popped into Islamabad to join Karzai; Rahmatullah Nabil, chief of Afghanistan's NDS (intelligence agency); and unnamed "top" U.S. intelligence officials in a meeting with Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani (photo above) and Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency.

As to what emerged from the meeting, which was termed "unprecedented" for the number of key players, the ISI spokesperson and the U.S. embassy would not comment. State wouldn't comment because first of all it wasn't an official meeting, despite all the officials involved. But more to the point State wouldn't comment because Petraeus & Co. got nothing -- zero, zip, squat -- out of the meeting.

I think only one major English-language Western press outlet, the Express Tribune, bothered to report on the meeting, which from the report was spun by unnamed officials as signaling Pakistan's agreement to back 'Karzai's plan' to reintegrate Taliban into Afghanistan's government. Pakistan's agreement on any such matter is worthless, as everyone knows; Rawalpindi will slip as many Taliban as they want into Kabul's regime.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who carries more clout than Zardari, managed to squeeze time into his schedule to meet with Karzai and "assured" him that he had "Pakistan’s full support to the Afghan reconciliation plan." Beyond that:

Both leaders agreed to strengthen the tripartite dialogue between Afghanistan, Pakistan and Isaf forces and pre-empt efforts by vested interests to poison the cordial relations between the two neighbours.

In short, "top" U.S. intelligence officials ran up a fuel bill on the taxpayer dime to jet into Islamabad for the buffet at the five-star hotel where the unprecedented meeting took place.

ACT III

We don't sell used cars in this dealership

The only meetings of importance about Afghanistan will occur shortly, when Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin Bin Abdul Aziz (photo above) arrives in Pakistan. He will be negotiating with high-level Taliban leaders on behalf of Karzai and ISAF. In meetings at various 'safe houses' Aziz will start to hammer out power sharing deals between the Taliban leaders and Karzai's regime.

As to how a Saudi prince landed in the thick of negotiations -- the Asia Times Online, which couldn't resist rubbing it in, chose the date of September 11 to reveal that high-level Pakistani sources had told their bureau chief in Islamabad, Syed Saleem Shahzad, that Pakistan's military and the Saudi government had the central role in the backchannel negotiations with the Afghan Taliban -- and with al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Some of the statements Shahzad passed along are more probably items on Kayani's wish list, such as getting the Saudis to repatriate Osama bin Laden, but the gist of the revelations in his report is accurate.

So if it was a foregone conclusion that the September 15-16 meetings in Islamabad were worthless, why put on the show?

ACT IV

Amrullah Saleh (middle) in 2010 at a lunch prior to a speech he gave warning against re-Talibanization of Afghanistan

The above photograph of Saleh was taken by the Washington Post's Joshua Partlow in July, little more than a month after Saleh's resignation on June 6 as NDS chief. From Partlow's accompanying report:

The man who served as President Hamid Karzai's top intelligence official for six years has launched an urgent campaign to warn Afghans that their leader has lost conviction in the fight against the Taliban and is recklessly pursuing a political deal with insurgents.

In speeches to small groups in Kabul and across northern Afghanistan over the past month, Amarullah Saleh has repeated his belief that Karzai's push for negotiation with insurgents is a fatal mistake and a recipe for civil war. He says Karzai's chosen policy endangers the fitful progress of the past nine years in areas such as democracy and women's rights.

"If I don't raise my voice we are headed towards a crisis," he told a gathering of college students in Kabul. ...

On September 17, the day after the two-day gabfest in Islamabad, The Australian's Amanda Hodge reported from Kabul on the fruit of Saleh's summer of barnstorming:

World's Afghans fund new voice

A push to establish Afghanistan's first formal political opposition out of the ashes of the old Northern Alliance is gaining momentum. The campaign is being led by the country's former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, who resigned this year in protest at President Hamid Karzai's plans to negotiate with the Taliban and to pardon up to 400 insurgents.

With the US-led NATO alliance flagging a drawdown of troops from July next year, Mr Karzai is pushing for negotiations with the Taliban that will end the crippling and bloody nine-year insurgency.

Afghan analyst turned parliamentary candidate Haroun Mir told The Australian yesterday a core group of Karzai opponents were committed to establishing an opposition that could speak for ordinary Afghans who opposed the Taliban.

He outlined a global fundraising strategy that would draw on contributions from Afghans across Australia, Europe, Canada, the US and Britain, along similar lines to that which fuelled the separatist ambitions of Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for more than three decades.

Unlike the money Tamil separatists collected from the Tamil diaspora, funds raised by the Afghans will go toward the creation of a true opposition political party -- something that Afghanistan's fledgling democracy has lacked:

While Afghanistan's constitution allows for political parties, a combination of traditional tribal divisions, the non-transferable vote system and restrictive electoral regulations introduced by the Karzai administration have hurt attempts to form functioning political parties.

After last year's fraud-tainted election, failed presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah promised to establish a credible opposition party under the banner of National Alliance for Hope and Change.

Dr Abdullah said [on September 16] he was backing more than 300 of the 2580 candidates running for the 249 lower house seats this Saturday and had helped many fundraise for their campaigns.

But Mr Mir said Dr Abdullah's opposition party was still little more than a promise.

"If, by the summer of next year there's no tangible progress (in the war against the Taliban), then everybody will start moving towards a political settlement and then who would be able to represent the majority of Afghans who are opposed to the Taliban?" Mr Mir told The Australian.

"There's no voice for them. Our hope is that this movement cuts across the country and includes all Afghans. Politics until now has been based on ethnic and geographic affinities. I hope this time it will be broader.

It will be broader, with Amrullah Saleh leading the effort. No one knows that better than officials in the Pentagon and the Obama administration -- and the Saudi and Pakistani regimes.

Thus, the U.S.-orchestrated dog and pony show in Islamabad last week, and the haste with which Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief is being dispatched to Pakistan.

CURTAIN

The stage falls dark. Then a small spotlight; The Fool appears and asks mockingly, So, children of the Allies, how did you travel in the space of one generation from Middle Earth to Mordor?

Related Pundita Posts
Amrullah Saleh versus Mordor
NO COMPROMISE
Alden Pyle in Pakistan Part 1 and Part 2
Caste in Pakistan ...
He ain't heavy, he's my genocidal, hallucinatory, two-faced ally
David Petraeus might study Kashmir ...
How to kill a lot of Taliban
Why General Stanley McChrystal is going straight to hell

Additional Readings
Taliban intimidation tactics, murders, kidnappings worked against election monitors as well as Afghan voters in Saturday's election: The New York Times: Light Turnout in Afghan Parliamentary Election as Violence Deters Voters by Elisabeth Bumiller and Rod Nordland; Sept. 19, 2010

Massive, Saudi-funded madrassas across rural Bengal creating Muslim extremism in the region: Fox News Cable: Muslim Persecution of Hindus In India ... by Phyllis Chesler; Sept. 9, 2010

The New York Times: Lacking Money and Leadership, Push for Taliban Defectors Stalls by Rod Nordland; Sept 9, 2010

Pepe Escobar remembers his adventures in Talibanistan
Part 1: Throw these infidels in jail
Part 2: The degree zero of culture
Part 3 Married to the Mob

BREAKING NEWS: DNC DUMPS OBAMA

And they have the new logo to prove it. No wonder Uppity (a Democrat until the DNC stabbed Hillary Clinton in the back) is in such a good mood. As to whether the logo might be a joke -- doesn't look like it to me. The Democrats are big on 'messaging.' Short of saying 'The DNC dumps Obama' the logo gets the message across. This is an interesting turn of events.

Speaking of Uppity Woman, the business with the lobsters went on and on yesterday. The last update to the conversation was at 11:40 PM for those who wouldn't want to miss even one thrilling installment. I guess this means I lost my bid to get the kitties reinstalled on her blog's banner. But the silliness pulled me out of my rotten mood, which had worsened over the last few weeks with each fresh news report on Afghanistan.

Why I love Uppity Woman

Uppity Woman asks, "Where oh where is Barack's huge army?" then breaks into fits of laughter. Very undignified behavior for a blogger, yet I must say there's just something so satisfying about watching sheer, unabashed gloating. But I wish to register a protest with Comradess Uppity. How did a lobster replace the kitties in the Uppity Woman banner? This is an outrage.

UPDATE 9:00 AM ET
Dear Comradess Pundita,
Please be advised I was NOT gloating. I was....I was....I ......
Hahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Oh........Oh...........
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Now as to the lobster situation. We felt that, due to the ingesting of masses numbers of Lobby's friends and relatives by Imelda Obama, we would allow Lobby the opportunity to protest with a waterproof sign. He is very concerned about the future of his species and that of similar crustaceans. The truth is, two more years is a long time, and plenty of time to deplete Lobby's species to near-extinction. Lobby can only hope that his attacker acquires gout first, but barring that possibility, we felt a prominent header opportunity would stimulate awareness as to the plight of all lobsters among the environmental crowd.
Comradess Uppity
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Pundita's sotto voce aside to the reader: Either I missed a news item about Michelle Obama's visit to Spain or Uppity might be better off in a rest home for the remainder of Obama's term in office.
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UPDATE 5:10 PM ET
Pundita Pundita!!! Comradess, have you been working in the potato fields too long? Comradess Imelda is depleting America's lobster supply. Everywhere she goes, lobsters scurry!
Comradess Uppity
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UPDATE 5:45 PM ET
Comradess, This has gone far enough. I am going to have to report you to the Central Committee. Comradess Imelda was nowhere near the Waldorf when that phony receipt for lobster was signed. All of this talk about lobster is clearly a counterinsurgency on your part. Yet you're being paranoid to assume your cats are taking over your blog.



UPDATE 11:40 PM ET
Comradess, the Waldorf is old old news. Michelle has been seen eating lobster everywhere, from Spain to Cape Cod. Sometimes several days in a row! The species is under attack! Attack I tell you! Many recent links, Comradess. Lobby worries for his family!

Peaceful sneaking, Part 3: China and the Cuba connection. And a few words about China's role in the slave trade

¡Estamos aquí ayudar!

September 2009, McClatchy:

When a Chinese legislative delegation flew to Havana earlier this month, among the reported $600 million in aid and loans — a figure reported by the Agence France Presse wire service that officials in Beijing wouldn't confirm — were promises to update Cuba's traffic signal system and dispatch technicians to a vegetable canning factory. ...

China is now Cuba's second-biggest trading partner, and there are hopes in Beijing that as Havana opens its markets, Chinese companies will get a big chunk of industries such as cell phones and consumer goods. China has made a $500 million deal to invest in Cuban nickel, a key component in the steel needed by China's construction boom.

Cuba has been hit hard by the global recession, which dampened the price for its biggest export, nickel. So pardon my cynicism about the September 13 announcement from Havana that they were slashing up to a million government jobs -- half of them to be gone by March 2011 -- and taking moves to encourage small business ownership. Much of that business will be bankrolled and owned by Chinese using Cuban frontmen.

As to Raul Castro's announcement in August that 52 imprisoned political dissidents would be released -- Beijing wants Havana's continued support for its stand on Tibet and Taiwan. Yet it's been hard for China to cite Cuba's support given the regime's human rights abuses. So Castro's slight easing up on political dissent and the issue of prisoner releases, which has been in the works for months, is not a surprise.

As to whether China's increased presence in Cuba will have a positive side -- China's foray into quasi-imperialism has been a mixed blessing.

In his speech in August (see link above) Raul Castro said, "We have to end forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where you can live without working."

They're going to leave that notion behind very fast once more Chinese start running businesses in Cuba. The Chinese have zero tolerance for lazy people -- and they have a very low threshold for what constitutes laziness.

Those who complain, 'We're so hungry we can't put in a good day's work' can save that line for aid organizations, unless they'd like to hear Chinese tell them how much they had to starve to get to where they are today.

One of America's top experts on Mexico, George Grayson, said a few years ago that if Taiwan led Mexico, within 20 years the country would be an economic colossus. Mexicans could shave five years off that estimate if Mainland China's government did the leading.

So it's all to the good that peoples who'd taken on the airs of emperors are getting a big dose of the work ethic. The downside is that China's government brings in its own workforce rather than hiring 'natives,' which has caused great anger in countries where people looked at the entry of the Chinese as an employment bonanza. Well, the Chinese have their own employment needs. Their position (usually spoken behind closed doors) is that there's nothing to prevent the natives from adopting China's business model.

And you know what? The Chinese are right.

Cuba, as with Mexico and many other countries, is caught in a vicious cycle. Many Cubans actually do know how to put in a good day's work -- but they work in Cuba's huge black market.

There are different reasons for the black markets in various countries but the result is always the same: the government can't collect enough taxes to support good public education and 'safety-net' social programs, leading to more desperate poverty, leading to more black market activity, leading to further erosion of the country's tax base.

I have talked about this cycle several times over the years and spelled it out in detail in 2005 in an essay I titled Paw, a Revenuer's at the door. "Quick Abdullah, put on your tribal headdress!", in which I poked fun at tribes who'd claimed nomad status to avoid paying taxes in Iraq.

However, there's nothing funny about the consequences of the cycle, which entrenches the "deviant" economies, as Nils Gilman refers to them. Black-market or deviant globalization is the scourge of modern civilization, yet Cubans will soon have a fighting chance to bust out of the cycle that fuels it.

As to the strategic considerations for the United States of China's Peaceful Sneaking in our part of the Western Hemisphere -- what can I say that President George Washington hadn't already said in the foreign policy section of his farewell address? He warned the fledgling American nation against thrashing around the world in the name of national defense. That the Chinese are now padding around the world in the name of trade and being helpful -- they'd do that under any circumstances but the United States doesn't have a leg to stand on in the debate.

My greatest concern at this point about China's padding around the Caribbean and Latin America is that wherever the Chinese go in this century the slave trade burgeons. And I do mean burgeon. From Neshani Jani's 11 January 2010 report, Gender Imbalance and Human Trafficking in China

... According to humantrafficking.org “Chinese women and children are trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation in Malaysia, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Europe, Canada, Japan, Italy, Burma, Singapore, South Africa, and Taiwan. Many Chinese are recruited by false promises of employment and are later coerced into prostitution or forced labor.”

If you ask why so many Westerners have taken to owning slaves -- these are rarely Westerners, when you set aside the sex slave trade. For the most part they're expats and immigrants living in the West who come from countries where even the economic middle class is so lazy it doesn't want to wash a dish, and where picking up after oneself is only for slaves and servants.

I add that this is institutionalized laziness -- more a matter of culture than character, although that excuse has been crumbling fast in the globalized era of communications and travel. To return to Neshani's report:

China also has a significant amount of internal trafficking of children for sexual and labor exploitation. Estimates on the number of victims range from 10,000 to 20,000 each year.

Human trafficking has also increased in the Asia periphery, as there has been a sharp increase in trafficking women from other Asian countries into China in order to fill the gender void. ...

I interject that it's past time to start calling a spade a spade instead of using the sterile and misleading term 'human trafficking.' There is smuggling of immigrants and bonded labor, and there is the slave trade. While these activities often converge, lumping them together as 'human trafficking' helps mask the fact that the slave trade, while it never fully ended, has resurfaced with a vengeance in this era of globalized trade.

Beijing, under severe pressure from many governments and the United Nations, has finally gotten serious about trying to break up Chinese slave trading gangs, but at this time in history the effort is like trying to empty the ocean with a sieve. (See Neshani's report.) That's because the preference among families for male children in China (and many countries) has resulted in population 'gender imbalances' that have made kidnapping of females, including female children, a highly lucrative aspect of the slave trade. (This says nothing about the gangs outright purchasing female children for forced marriages.)

But once the internal kidnapping rings are set up it's pretty easy to expand the business into an external slave trade. The Chinese gangs have had the edge in this era over other globalized slave traders. That's because as China's global presence has expanded, the gangs have come into countries on the backs of legitimate Chinese businesses.

So my message to Cuban parents, as their country prepares to enter the brave new world of liberalized globalized trade with help from the Chinese, is "Best of luck -- and keep a close eye on your daughters."

Peaceful Sneaking, Part 1

Peaceful Sneaking, Part 2

Basel III: Uh oh. Are the Lords of the Craps Table pulling a fast one on Tea Partiers?

Bank for International Settlements, Basel

Jack Ewing at the New York Times reports today on the agreement reached at the summit known at Basel III:

BASEL, Switzerland — Top central bankers and bank regulators agreed Sunday on far-reaching new rules for the global banking industry that more than triple the amount of capital banks must hold in reserve as a shield against financial disasters. But the new requirements could also dampen bank profits and strain weaker institutions.

Financial authorities from 27 countries reached agreement on rules that require banks to raise the amount of common equity they hold to 7 percent of assets from 2 percent, part of a series of measures intended to help avert crises of the kind that nearly plunged the world into depression in late 2008. ...

Rumors were flying before the summit that the requirement could be fixed as high as 9 percent; bankers are so sick with relief that it was settled lower that right now, at least, nobody's doing much grumbling about the host of new regulations.

However, a curmudgeon who blogs under the name "Gary A" set up such a howl about an aspect of the proposed Basel III regulations that it reached the ears of John Carney, Senior Editor of the CNBC financial website, who agreed with Gary that Basel III was pulling a fast one on Americans and that Tea Partiers didn't seem to grasp the issue:

(September 6) - Last week we pointed out that the Basel committee's changes to the definition of regulatory capital that result in the inclusion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac obligations threaten to saddle us with a permanent government guarantee of those failed mortgage giants.

Our concern was mostly with the financial effects of the permanent guarantee. We think the government guarantee stifles market processes in a way that encourages risk taking by Fannie and Freddie and blinds them to market signals that would indicate when to become more cautious. And we think the dominance of Fannie and Freddie is stifling innovation in housing finance. Everyone keeps doing conforming mortgages, rather than innovating, because that's the only game in town.

Over at Seeking Alpha, Gary A. points out that even those who do not totally condemn the guarantees of Fannie and Freddie should be worried about this development out of Basel. The problem: it takes away the option of the US government to decide whether or not the guarantees are a good idea. It's an attack on American sovereignty.

From Seeking Alpha:

"The way that they would do this would be to allow the big TBTF ["too big to fail"] banks to buy massive amounts of GSE securities, and place them as part of the mandatory tier 2 capital. Once the banks were in this position, congress and the taxpayer would no longer have the choice to overturn the guarantees. Once the mortgage bonds were a part of tier two capital, any effort to overturn the guarantees would result in an immediate bank crisis.

"It is my view that these shenanigans would result in more ponzi easy money loans, as the government guarantee would erase any fear of making a bad loan. And worse yet, this exposes Basel 3 and the central bankers as the threat to sovereignty. I have been screaming about this attack on national sovereignty by a conspiracy of international bankers for months and even years now. Few listen. If there was any doubt in anyone's mind that the conspiracy of the new economic order was real, they should never have those doubts ever again!

"... The Tea Party is playing into the hands of these international bankers. They are, unless something changes, supporting Taxation without Representation, which is at the root of this Basel 3 push. The Tea Party wants to cut mainstreet spending which plays into the hands of the IMF and the international bankers. And one wonders if they realize that taxpayers will be on the hook for bailouts that they cannot ever reject, as Basel 3 intends to make the international financial system, as a whole, too big to ever fail. ..."

Carney cut off Gary's rant before it wound up but the above is the meat of his argument -- although you might want to read the entire thing and follow the links to some of his earlier writings, which include handy tips for spotting what he calls a housing loan bubble 'ponzi' scheme. Gary A claims that he spotted the last housing market bubble as early as 2005 -- the one that led to the present financial crisis. I don't have time to check his claim but it should be easy to verify if he was blogging that far back.

(Update: Gary replied to my question: "I was not blogging back in 2005, however I live in a [housing market] bubble city, and inventory was through the roof second half of 2005. My real estate buddy warned me and thanks to others, I found that it was a problem in many areas of the country." )

As to whether his dire predictions about the Fred-Fannie loan guarantees will come to pass -- I would have to plow through the entire agreement before I could begin to estimate how the new regulatory regime would play out for Americans. But the regulations are only recommendations at this point.

The agreement won't be ratified until the G-20 summit later this year. Then Tea Partiers will have until January 1, 2013 to figure out the maze of new regulations; the date is when individual G-20 member nations will vote on whether to adopt the regulations.

Of course the vote will not be put to individual voters. So if Gary A is right, Tea Partiers had damn well better hope they control the Congress come January 2013.

Finally, some good news from Mexico: On Thursday only 25 slain in one border city and only 85 prison inmates escape in another border city

But first some good news from the U.S. side of the border: President Barack Obama has taken bold, decisive action in response to Mexico's drug-related violence by publicly contradicting his secretary of state. On Wednesday Hillary Clinton asserted that the violence was showing signs consistent with an insurgency and "looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, where the narco-traffickers control certain parts of the country."

Now see how useful it is whenever a lawyer becomes an American president:

"Mexico is vast and progressive democracy, with a growing economy, and as a result you cannot compare what is happening in Mexico with what happened in Colombia 20 years ago," Obama told Los Angeles-based Spanish language newspaper La Opinion.

That's a neat way to dodge the question of whether standard definitions of an insurgency can be applied to the grip that Mexico's narco lords have on Mexico's state and local governments.



Moving along, Olivia Torres reported for AP on Sept. 10 around 11:45 PM ET:

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Gunmen killed 25 people in a series of drug-gang attacks in Ciudad Juarez, marking the deadliest day in more than two years for the Mexican border city.
[...]
The toll in Thursday's attacks in Ciudad Juarez included 15 people killed when attackers stormed four homes in three hours, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office of Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is located.

In the worst of those attacks, gunmen burst into a house and killed two young men — then killed four others for being witnesses.
[...]
In the border city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, 85 inmates — 66 of whom were convicted or on trial for federal charges like weapons possession or drugs — scaled the Reynosa prison's 20-foot (6-meter) walls using ladders, said the Tamaulipas state public safety secretary, Jose Garza Garcia.

Garza Garcia said 44 prison guards and employees were under investigation. Two were missing.

"The guards evidently helped in the escape," he said. So far this year a total of 201 inmates have escaped from prisons in Tamaulipas.

Friday's escape was the largest single mass prison breakout in recent years. In 2009, armed assailants believed to be working for the Zetas drug gang broke 53 inmates out of a prison in the northern state of Zacatecas while guards stood by and did nothing to stop them. [...]

Mexico's President also sprang into executive action in response to the latest round of violence:

[...] President Felipe Calderón hotly disputed a statement this week by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying Mexico resembled Colombia two decades ago.

"These kind of comments like the ones made by Secretary of State Clinton ... so careless, so lacking in seriousness, are very painful for Mexico, because they damage Mexico's image terribly," Calderón told the Spanish-language network Univision.

"I think the main thing we have in common with Colombia is that both of our countries suffer from U.S. drug consumption," Calderón said. "We are both victims of the enormous American consumption of drugs, and now the sales of weapons."

He left out the part about Americans being racists -- oh but wait; he only plays the race card against Americans when he's Mau-Mauing us about Mexican immigration.

Did you know he managed to Mau-Mau the Chinese over race? That feat should have earned him mention in the Guinness Book of World Records. I forget how many millions of dollars he pried out of Beijing last year by accusing the government of racism. That was when China's health ministry quarantined a planeload of Mexicans during the early days of the swine flu epidemic.

But enough praise for Calderón's talent as a fundraiser. He's not doing nearly so well with the project he announced in June, which was to hire the best PR firms in the world to improve Mexico's global image. Perhaps his advisors got him to abandon the project on the argument that not even the best PR firm can make a tourist attraction out of decapitated bodies.

Stephen F. Cohen, author of "The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin," talks with John Batchelor about today's Russia

Sergei Venyavsky's report for AP on the terrorist attack yesterday at a crowded central market in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, is a good introduction to WABC-77 radio host John Batchelor's interview last night with Russian expert Stephen F. Cohen.

The podcasts are at the WABC website; if you missed the live interview they're your only chance to obtain the most informative up-to-date analysis of Russia available to the general public.



The interviews are in four 10-minute segments; the first segment (link) is at the end of the 10-11 PM podcast, after John's interview with Ann Marlowe. The rest of the segments are found on the 11 PM-midnight podcast (link).

Segment 1
Russia's response to terrorism in the North Caucasus and the particular challenges the government faces in dealing with terrorism.

Segment 2
President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: their political relationship and spheres of power.

Will Putin go for a third term as Russia's president?

Challenges to Russian federalism and modernization of the country's political system.

Segment 3
Oil pipeline politics.

Russia's geopolitical realities: relationship with Iran and attempts to balance the relationship with the U.S. relationship.

Russia's weapons sales to Iran and work on the Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor.

Segment 4
Russia and Europe.

Russia's rapprochement with Germany; Germany's preeminent position in the European Union, and the impact of the Russo-German relationship on the EU.
*****************
Two clarifications:
> The name of the oil pipeline that Dr Cohen couldn't clearly remember is Nabucco; yes, named after the opera, and what an opera it turned out to be. Reference the discussion.

> The opening discussion about the terrorist attack in Vladikavkaz is misleading if you assume it's the first such attack in the city or the region. See the AP report for details on earlier attacks. The point Dr Cohen wanted to emphasize is that the latest attack is a troubling sign that Islamic/separatist terrorism is growing in an Orthodox Christian region.
*****************
For readers who're not familiar with Dr Cohen's work, he's the best analyst on matters Russian I've come across. The following quote from Alexander Rabinowitch, author of The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, elaborates:

Stephen F. Cohen is far and away the most original, creative, informed, and insightful observer writing on Russian affairs today. A pioneering historian and a fine political scientist and journalist with a tireless commitment to ferreting out elusive evidence, Cohen has had extensive, first-hand experience in both Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, close contacts among contemporary Russian leaders, and a unique following among Russian intellectuals. Known for his bold, independent, passionately held, and often provocative ideas, he is respected even by many who strongly disagree with him. Cohen writes with clarity, elegance, and power.

Rabinowitch's comments were his introduction to Dr Cohen's book, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War.

Steve Cohen has been a guest on several different news shows over the years but in my view his appearances on John Batchelor's show are special. What sets the Cohen-Batchelor interviews apart is that the men are old friends who've been talking on the radio together for years about Russia and that John, unlike other mainstream American news analysts, is very knowledgeable about Russia, Central Asia, and Europe. The result is always an illuminating discussion shorn of superfluous questions, during which Dr Cohen's personality shines through. Praise about his literary and scholarly achievements never mentions that he was born and raised in Kentucky, which explains the hint of a southern drawl in his Manhattan accent and the wry common sense leavening his scholarly opinions.

John Batchelor's listeners are very fortunate to have the benefit of Dr Cohen's scholarship brought to them, for free, on what is arguably the best daily news show in the world. Over the decades the tendency in Washington has been to listen to Dr Cohen's advice on Russia too late to avert very costly and tragic miscalculations; I hope that this time it will be different.

I'll close with a few words about Dr Cohen's latest book, The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin, which will be available at Amazon starting September 13, 2010. The book was a labor of love; from the Publisher's review at Amazon:

Joseph Stalin's reign of terror in the Soviet Union has been called "the other holocaust." Over the course of 24 years, more innocent men, women, and children perished than died in Hitler's murder of European Jews. This book originated 30 years ago when Stephen F. Cohen, a professor of Russian studies and history at New York University, first began researching the lives of those victims released after Stalin's death. There was precious little information available, and many of the victims were still afraid, but Cohen persisted and through the years accumulated the remarkable stories of their return to society.

Just obtaining the photograph for the cover of the book, which shows a survivor before he was placed in the gulag and what he looked like after leaving, proved difficult. The next Batchelor-Cohen interview, not yet scheduled, will discuss the book.

Two reasons to take up Buddhism

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, 'Ground Zero' Islamic Cultural Center

Reverend Terry Jones, Dove World Outreach Center

BREAKING NEWS: U.S. State Department finds Mexico on a map

You remember Mexico; right? That place on the far side of the moon? Will wonders never cease; the United States Department of State has not only discovered Mexico's exact location on a map of the solar system, it's also learned there's an insurgency going on in the country. From the Guardian report today:

In a speech in Washington, [SecState] Clinton said drugs gangs were "morphing into, or making common cause with, what we would consider an insurgency in Mexico and in Central America".

"It's looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, where the narco-traffickers controlled certain parts of the country." ...

The US secretary of state pointed to the use of car bombs, a tool once favoured by cartel-allied rebels in Colombia, as evidence that Mexican drugs gangs "are now showing more and more indices of insurgency". Her remarks came as the third mayor in a month became the latest victim of violence in Mexico. ...

The Beeb reported today that although similarities have been noted between Colombia's drug cartel problem and Mexico's "never before has a senior member of the US administration made such an explicit comparison."

So we're all very excited here in Washington that State has located another country on the moon. The bad news is that Mrs Clinton is behind the times; as this map clearly shows it's actually Mexico's President and the troops loyal to him that are the insurgency because the drug cartels already control the country:


But the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. At this fast clip it'll only be a quarter century before State discovers it's a bad idea to pander to Mexico's regime, which is not taking the Secretary's remarks lying down, I might add:

Her comments were dismissed in Mexico, but raised fears there that Clinton was preparing the ground to implement a Mexican version of Plan Colombia – a controversial anti-drug programme in the late 1990s involving US troops working with the Colombian army against the dominant Medellin drug cartel. ...

Mexico is strongly opposed to US troop involvement in dealing with the violence.

"We are not going to permit any version of a Plan Colombia," said Santiago Creel, a Mexican senator and member of Calderón's National Action party. Opposition politicians agreed. Senator Ricardo Monreal of the Labour party said US aid to Colombia hadn't stopped drug trafficking there.

"Whoever thinks Colombia is a cure-all, and if the United States thinks it is necessary to apply the same model to us they applied to Colombia, they are mistaken," he said.

Mexico's senior national security official, Alejandro Poire, said: "There are very important differences between what Colombia faced and what Mexico is facing now."

He suggested that US demand for drugs was the root of the problem. Both Colombian and Mexican drug gangs were "nourished by the enormous, gigantic demand for drugs in the United States", he told a news conference. ...

Just how successful is Plan Colombia and can it really be applied to Mexico? The Christian Science Monitor reported in January:

As Mexico struggles to contain ever-more-powerful traffickers, analysts say it could adopt lessons from Colombia. No one is claiming that Colombia has vanquished its drug cartels or stopped them from corrupting government officials. But its practices may provide a useful guide to Mexico’s own battles.

For example, says Edgardo Buscaglia, an organized-crime expert and professor at Mexico’s Autonomous Institute of Technology, Colombia has gone after the drug lords and their assets.

“Regardless of how many thousands of organized crime members you detain, the end result will always be determined by how much of the economic structure of organized crime you destroy,” he says. “This is exactly what you’ve seen in Colombia in the past five years. ... In Mexico, nothing like that has even started.”

Today's CSM, in reporting on Clinton's remarks, points up the extent to which corruption has stymied Mexico's war against the cartels:

US frustration has been mounting as authorities allege that corruption is a major hurdle in working with their Mexican counterparts to curtail the drug trade. In the Los Angeles Times today, Alonzo Pena, deputy director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Mexican authorities do not always act on intelligence provided to them by the US. Though Mexican law enforcement agencies may not always be responsive to such leads due to a more cautious approach, Mr. Pena says that often times the delay is “completely corruption” at work.

Shlok Vaidya, who has noted similarities between Naxalite tactics and those used by Mexico's drug cartels, has good advice for dealing with one aspect of the corruption:

Mexico, in an attempt to regulate its struggling police forces, fired 9% of its officers for various degrees of corruption. While this is easy to do on paper (and a short term PR victory) it is not a sustainable strategy.

Pakistan tried to do the same thing with ISI. (In that instance, however, the spectre was radicalism rather than an allegiance to the drug cartels.) All it managed to do was turn loose a bunch of experienced operatives with the training, inclination, and imperative to take advantage of the opium money in Western Pakistan.

A better option is to keep those dirty cops on the books; at least that way you can monitor them to some degree, shape their actions, and use them in disinformation operations. By throwing them out, you lose the entire incentive/disincentive structure altogether, creating a huge void within which these actors thrive.

And Zenpundit has put in a few words about the Narcos Copycat Global Guerrilla Playbook.

Meanwhile, President Calderón is trying to push through a 'conservative' budget while the opposition howls that he needs to reduce the V.A.T. You'd think they were calling for the end of the world but they're just trying to get that crazy sales tax down by one percentage point -- from 16 to 15% -- in a slapdash pass at helping Mexico's poor. Calderón is viewing the idea with horror: what would happen to social services? If he'd collect the regular taxes he wouldn't have to ask that question.

Mexico's political class is not stupid; they know exactly what needs to be done but they won't do it. The upshot? Bloomberg, in their review today of Mexico's economic situation, reported:

Mexico needs to increase spending on security in order to train more policemen, fight corruption and more effectively take on drug cartels that pose a threat to governability, said Jorge Chabat, a political science professor who specializes in security issues at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City.

“Given the magnitude of the problem, they need to increase spending in a substantial manner,” Chabat said. “The government is overwhelmed at all levels.” ...

The government is going to stay overwhelmed until it gets serious about cracking down on tax evasion beep this is a recording.

Er, in case you haven't noticed, Sri Raman, the USA is at war with India

Wolves in panda drag

My only complaint about B. Raman's excellent analysis of China-India relations is that it studiously overlooks the bald fact that the United States is aiding and abetting Pakistan's covert war against India -- something it's been doing since the two countries became independent. So I don't think President Barack Obama is, as Raman suggests, sending confusing signals. I myself find nothing confusing about the message when a government supports a covert war.

I understand the Indian government's willingness to overlook much in hopes that Obama's visit will produce more cooperation in checking China's Peaceful Sneaking. But India's habitual refusal to deal with the present in favor of maneuvering for a future gain has made it child's play for China to surround India -- in Sri Lanka, Burma, Nepal, and Pakistan. This has left India with no cards to play in the region to offset China's actions in Tibet.

Of course the U.S. regime would like to rattle the bars in its debtor's prison by using India as a wedge against China. If that suits India's government, fine; but before agreeing to a visit from President Obama it should have bargained much harder than it did about the issue of America's continued financing of Pakistan's terrorism. And it should have gotten results, not promises delivered behind closed doors.

Afghans are not broken toys, Mr Blankley

In his September 7 editorial for the Washington Times titled Bring the Troops Home Tony Blankley repeats the earlier call he made:

In November [2009], with the Johnson presidency in mind, I penned "An Exit Strategy to Die For." In that column, I argued that we are better off bringing our troops home now than to ask them to risk their lives fighting for time until July 2011 rolls around and a politically expedient withdrawal commences.

Mr Blankley reiterated his point in yesterday's essay, attacking the July 2011 date that President Obama named for the start of U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan as one chosen for political rather than military reasons.

Now let me see if I understand this correctly. No, I've just decided I can't understand.

And the American Right stands silent

It was cleverly done. Team Obama knew that the American Right would not want to make an issue about the prosecution of the Afghanistan War while heading into the mid-term election campaign battles, during which the Republicans hope to regain control of the House and the Senate. They also knew the Right would be reluctant to criticize General David Petraeus because they were hoping he might consider running for presidential office on the Republican ticket.

So by the middle of August Petraeus and the Obama team were preparing the American public for the capitulation to Pakistan's military that NATO's command had been working toward for years. Of course the capitulation was not described in such terms but as reconciliation with the Taliban.

On August 20 the head of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry -- the same man who decades ago had played a role in the U.S. exit from Vietnam that led to a bloodbath in Cambodia -- announced that there was a "very active" effort under way to reach a negotiated political settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan:

"I can report without being specific that there are efforts under way. They are serious, and I completely agree with that fundamental premise — and so does General [David] Petraeus and so does President Obama — there is no military solution," he told NPR. "And there are very active efforts now to seek an appropriate kind of political settlement."

U.S. officials have acknowledged that some sort of political settlement must be reached with the Taliban — a loosely affiliated group of Islamic insurgents that control large swaths of territory in Afghanistan — in order to bring an end to the almost nine year-long U.S. war there.

The beginning of settlement negotiations represents a significant development in terms of Western involvement there.

The announcement also comes at a time when a growing number of U.S. politicians and the public are becoming war weary.


Kerry was asked if negotiations are underway between either between the Afghan government or NATO and a specific portion of the Taliban.

Allied forces in Afghanistan have fought Taliban insurgents since 2001, when the war began. The group, which once governed the mountainous Central Asian nation, was booted from power, but has since regained control of several key areas of the country.

Kerry said any "appropriate" settlement would have to include "a renunciation of al Qaeda," a "reduction of violence," a "recognition of the constitutional rights of both Pakistan and Afghanistan and greater efforts to reduce sanctuaries for insurgency." ...

On August 25 Petraeus took Fox News Cable's audience by the hand and gently explained that the betrayal of Afghanistan was a good thing and something that was always the ultimate goal, while Fox reporter Jennifer Griffin tried to arrange her facial features to look as if she didn't want to vomit.

During the interview Petraeus chattered on about how the Taliban were really the same as the IRA and the Iraqi Sunni tribes that had once fought Americans and then fought al Qaeda and the home-grown insurgents.

On September 4 the Associated Press announced the exit plan for "some" U.S. troops from Afghanistan was already drafted and that Hamid Karzai's reintegration plan for the Taliban was proceeding apace. Karzai's plan? Karzai does what he is told. He rarely leaves the presidential residence; he lives in fear of assassination by the Americans.

And somehow, in the face of such an enormous betrayal, I am supposed to go on supporting the U.S. military, my government, and my country. Somehow I am supposed to carry on as an American blogger, even though I can no longer bear to say I'm an American.

Peaceful Sneaking, Part 2

Do we look like we can pronounce "Gilgit-Baltistan?"

B. Raman is having fun with this.

6. Under the heading “China Withdraws Reference to Gilgit-Baltistan as “northern Pakistan”, the correspondent of “The Hindu” of Chennai in Bejing reported as follows on September 5:

“A day after India voiced concerns to China over its reference to the disputed Gilgit-Baltistan region as a 'northern part of Pakistan', the Chinese Government withdrew its statement from its official Xinhua agency as well as from the Foreign Ministry’s web site ..."

On Saturday (September 4) the statement appeared to have been removed from the Xinhua’s web site. The link to the statement, headlined “China refutes reports of sending troops to Pakistan”, did not open. The Chinese Foreign Ministry, which in a regular briefing on Thursday (September 2) had repeated the reference to Gilgit-Baltistan as “ a northern part of Pakistan” in response to a question on the presence of Chinese troops, deleted records of both the question and its response from its official transcript, which was posted on its website on Friday (September 3)“

If the issue about semantics confuses you: Gilgit-Baltistan is in Indian territory, but Pakistan occupies it. So India doesn't like to hear China referring to the territory as "northern Pakistan."

This situation is a big mess, which can be blamed in great measure on Selig Harrison. Bad Selig! Bad for embarrassing China, Pakistan, United States, and NATO -- and India -- by blowing the whistle on Chinese troop activity in GB! These are not 7- to 11,000 Chinese soldiers in GB, Pakistan explained. These are Chinese humanitarian aid and construction workers.

At least on the surface, part of the mess is New Delhi's doing because they didn't respond when GB begged them for help during the recent flooding, which hit GB hard.

The Chinese did race in with some aid and to rebuild washed out roads and bridges -- work that's still ongoing. They did not help out of the goodness of their hearts but to protect work they were doing on large construction projects in GB.

The questions are why New Delhi sat on their hands instead of providing aid and why they had to pretend they were learning from Selig's report that thousands of PLA troops were in GB. The U.S. Department of State and the NATO command in Afghanistan might have the answers but if so I doubt they'll share them with the public.

Sorry to break this news to New Delhi but if they think Americans have turned over a new leaf since the end of the Cold War -- did they get that idea from our actions, or from hearing State jabber at them for hours on end?

Americans can't turn over a new leaf. That's because one side of the U.S. flag is stamped "Property of Saudi Arabia" and the other side is stamped "Property of China." And the fine print on the flag reads, "United States of NATO."

Haven't PM Singh and his government seen what the U.S. did to the Afghans? Stabbed those people in the back so many times they look like pin cushions. We'll do the same to the Indians if the Saudis or Chinese snap their fingers. For that matter, look at what we've done to our own troops. Yesterday, in the process of skewering Paul Krugman's economic advice, Rajeev Srinivasan observed:

[T]he US war in Afghanistan is the most Kafkaesque war I have ever seen. They pay the Pakistanis to kill Americans, in effect. Following up on Yossarian in Catch-22 I ask: "Why have the intermediary?" Why not just have the Americans shoot their own soldiers?

And this is the government India wants to take defense guidance from? Do they really think the weapons and nuke technology they buy from Americans are worth it?

Peaceful Sneaking, Part 1

On the need to replace Washington's defense hawks with defense Peregrines

This is nothing against hawks -- or humming birds. But when a raptor takes on the qualities of a humming bird, which sustains itself by flitting from flower to flower, this is a problem and in one sentence this is the problem with Washington's approach to war. The wide scope of the Cold War bred a defense establishment in Washington that while ostensibly hawkish in outlook is incapable of concentrating on any one task. Thus the bizarre mutation, the humming hawk.

And thus the Afghanistan War has dragged on for close to a decade as increasingly perplexed Afghans note that the Taliban are easy for the U.S. military to dispatch. The American war journalist Ann Marlowe reported last week to John Batchelor's audience that U.S. failure to achieve victory over the Taliban had caused many Afghans to suspect Americans have ulterior motives for being in the country. The Afghans can stand in line with their complaint. Consider:

> There cannot be rapprochement between North and South Korea not because there's no route to reunification but because a united Korea would mean the U.S. would lose a foothold on the Korean Peninsula, and that can't happen because the humming hawks want troops there in case of a flare-up between Taiwan and China. However, the U.S. is deeply in debt to China and must factor that into every defense posture toward the country.

> While it's been clear for many months that the Mexican government's military approach to dealing with the drug cartels has failed, the humming hawks continue to back the approach with weapons and training because of their concerns that Venezuela is a growing threat to Mexico and the United States. However, the U.S. continues to purchase oil from Venezuela because the humming hawks are concerned that shutting off that means of revenue will further destabilize the country.

> After years snubbing Russia's offers of help in Afghanistan because they wanted to trim Russia's sails in Eastern Europe, the humming hawks have finally turned to Russia for help. This was after admitting that Pakistan is not their friend in Afghanistan. However, they don't want to let go of Pakistan because they refuse to accept they bought a lemon and so they keep trying to find a use for it -- if not against Russia, then maybe against Iran or maybe China, or maybe as a counterbalance to India in case India gets cozy with Iran.

> However, India and Iran could be a useful wedge against Pakistan's military, although on the other hand, the U.S. getting too close to India could alarm China more than humming hawks want at this time. And cooperating with Iran any more than the U.S. is already doing with drug shipment interdictions would alarm Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states and interfere with the U.S. defense posture against Iran.

I'll halt the litany before you reach for the Dramamine but the above is just the short list. Laid end to end, the instances of Washington's inability to focus on a task at hand would surely circle the globe.

Several reasons can be offered to explain the enduring power of Washington's humming hawks even after the Soviet Union dissolved; among them: the great influence of foreign lobbies on Congress, which jerk the priorities of legislators in a thousand directions; lobbies for the U.S. weapons industry, which exercise a similar jerking motion on the Pentagon's attention span; and the academic culture underpinning modern U.S. defense policy, which has elevated the prosaic task of writing a term paper into an industry sustaining thousands of PhDs, and which can find in the wheeze of an asthmatic rat a U.S. security concern.

Humming hawks have long defended their scattered approach to warfare by calling themselves hawks and pointing to the difference between hawks and doves; i.e., those who are more inclined to use military force than those who prefer the exercise diplomacy over war. This is a false argument when one considers there's a world of difference between waging a war and winning it; the latter a feat well nigh impossible to accomplish without the ability to focus on winning.

To put all this another way, when a country's domestic medium of payment is also the world's reserve currency its government can perpetually stave off being instructed by failure. The downside is that failure's lessons are Nature's last-ditch warning to revise course or tactics. The warning not heeded can produce situations such as the Janus-faced horror of today's Pakistan and Washington's refusal to halt the murder of its own troops by Pakistan's military.

As to whether Washington can voluntarily change its ways, I don't know. I've become increasingly concerned that the U.S. Department of State, which played an integral part in the U.S. counterinsurgency in Iraq, is trying to build on that success by redefining war to mean counterinsurgency. State needs to be escorted, nudged or shoved back to their side of the line -- not an easy task because the department acquired great expertise at line crossing during the Cold War.

But the journey of a thousand miles starts with naming a thing for what it is. The term "hawk" is worked so deeply into the defense lexicon that I think it would have no effect to ask the defense establishment to stop giving hawks a bad name. I prefer to make a clean break and call for those people who evince more the qualities of a Peregrine Falcon to step up to the task of directing U.S. defense policy.

Why the Peregrine? The most immediately striking characteristic of that particular raptor is its speed during the hunt. It's considered the world's fastest creature, although some argue Peregrines don't deserve the title because they achieve their amazing speeds during dives or 'stoops' with the help of gravity.

The argument doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The stoop involves the bird soaring to a great height and then diving steeply at speeds that can exceed 200 mph. Of all living creatures only the Peregrine Falcon is built to survive sustained motion at such high speeds. The holes on either side of the bird's beak act as baffles to slow incoming air so it can breathe during high-speed descent. The fastest recorded time for a Peregrine stoop was clocked in 2005 at 242 mph. Yet according to Wikipedia's article:

A study testing the flight physics of an "ideal falcon" found a theoretical speed limit at 400 km/h (250 mph) for low altitude flight and 625 km/h (390 mph) for high altitude flight.

(See this video to witness a stoop.) Peregrines deserve the title of the world's fastest creature, even though the Swift's horizontal flight, at 106 mph, beats their 90 mph cruising speed.

(Although it's a convention to refer to both the male and female falcon as a Peregrine, technically only the females are accorded the honor because they're much larger and thus, faster in dives, than the males.) 

There is another notable quality about the Peregrine and that's the one I'd like to emphasize: her powers of concentration. During the hunt the Peregrine performs mid-air maneuvers that require the mental focus of a professional stunt driver staging a high-speed car crash. She aims to either stun or disable the in-flight prey by breaking one of its wings, but done with a glancing blow from her body so as not to injure herself from full impact at high speed with the prey. Then she has brake her speed  while adjusting course and catch the prey in her beak as it plummets.


I can attest to the concentrative powers of those birds. Once I came almost nose to beak with one when I leaned over a rooftop ledge and looked down. There was a Peregrine right under the ledge on the building face. The unexpected sight of the bird so close to my face caused me to start in surprise. My sudden appearance at close quarters must have been just as surprising to the bird but she didn't flinch a muscle, blink an eye or ruffle a feather. Instead she studied me with such unwavering focus that later I remembered the All-Seeing Eye of Horus, the falcon-headed god of the ancient Egyptians, the lord of the sky, war and hunting. I could appreciate why the gaze of a falcon had inspired a symbol of omniscience. (See a depiction of the all-seeing eye, above.)

It's not necessary for Washington's defense establishment to acquire the Zen-like focus of a Peregrine. But I venture the idea during war is to settle near midpoint on the concentrative scale between the Mexican jumping bean and the lord of the hunt.

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