World Threats

While the Arab League and Western nations are pushing a U.N. Security Council vote to oust Syrian strongman Bashar Assad from power peacefully, Russia – along with China, and India – are defiantly standing against any plan to interfere on the behalf of anti-Assad protesters as the country nears civil war.

Reportedly 10 of 15 Security Council members are onboard with the plan, but both Russia and China have veto power over any proposed resolution, and considering the alliance Moscow has with Syria’s government on military matters (arms purchases and naval bases) that veto would definitely be used.

But the real story isn’t Russia and China defending human rights abuses in Syria, which they do on a fairly regular basis, but India, who is supposedly allied with the West on democracy and economics, opposing the United States for the second time this week in regards to Middle Eastern instability.

India has announced, despite the European Union and United States increasing sanctions on the Iranian regime, that they will continue, along with China, to import oil from the belligerent Persians, who have threatened to shut down the Straits of Hormuz, and are moving towards obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Their reasons are supposedly based on economics, but Europe’s going to take a massive hit for uniting with America on this very important issue, so do they prefer cheap oil to a nuclear armed Iran gunning for war with Israel? Apparently so, and they didn’t support the Western world when we went to war in Libya, either.

I don’t understand the Indians on this. Are they trying to remain neutral with potentially the greatest threat to mankind right now for the continuing sale of cheap oil? I hope not, considering they might secure a seat on the U.N. Security Council one day and could use that position to veto action against Iran someday to benefit their own needs.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has signed an accord with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. The two countries have cooperated in the fight against Islamic extremists and India is very wary about what will happen if NATO withdraws from Afghanistan. Both countries also lay blame at Pakistan’s doorstep for fomenting much of the inter-border violence.

India has played a role in training Afghan police and military forces. Prime Minister Singh has cooperated with NATO and Afghanistan for years:

He said that the people of India sympathised with Afghanistan as it sought to cope with “acts of terrorism… particularly the assassination of [peace envoy] Burhanuddin Rabbani”.

President Karzai said that he was “grateful” for India’s help as his country strives to overcome “violence and extremist activities”.

India would likely send troops to the country except for fears it could spark a conflict with Pakistan. Pakistan would be loathe to have Indian forces on both sides of its border.

Burma is a rogue state that has not received much attention on the world stage. The military dictatorship has at least polite ties with both the People’s Republic of China and India and has largely stayed to itself, even while oppressing its own population. However, there has been more talk of the mineral-rich nation (called Myanmar by its leading junta) building a nuclear program with the help of North Korea.

Now we see that the relationship goes even deeper. Two weeks ago the United States turned back a North Korean vessel apparently carrying missile technology going to Burma.

Gary Samore, special assistant to President Barack Obama on weapons of mass destruction, told South Korean media that the ship may have been bound for Burma carrying small arms or missile-related items.

North Korea is subject to United Nations sanctions designed to curb its missile and nuclear programmes.

Of course, the North will deny sending anything but toys and medicine but this is just another provocation made by the North.

Some terrible news has just broken out of Afghanistan. There have been jailbreaks in Afghanistan and Iraq during the wars there but it appears that this could be one of the worst.

More than 400 escapees have fled the prison, including Taliban commanders, according to the reports.

Prison supervisor Ghulam Dastagir Mayar said Monday that they estimate about 476 prisoners escaped through a tunnel they had dug to the outside. He says the jailbreak happened about 11 p.m. on Sunday and that many of those missing were held for working for the insurgency.
Kandahar prison holds about 1,200 inmates.
Police and government officials also confirmed the jailbreak but said they did not have details.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said about 100 of those who escaped are Taliban commanders and many of the others are fighters with the insurgency.

This could be a bad, bad sign.

The Washington Post is reporting that Pakistan may be building another plutonium reactor. This could complicate both relations with the United States and Pakistan’s rival India. There are no other uses for plutonium except for the use in nuclear weapons. This also comes as Pakistan is thought to have doubled its nuclear arsenal over the past decade to about one-hundred weapons.

Pakistani officials in Washington, asked about a fourth reactor at Khushab, declined to comment. A U.S. counterproliferation official who reviewed the images declined to comment on the ISIS analysis but said that U.S. intelligence agencies have been monitoring Khushab for years and are “aware of this facility.”

This could be a nervous development. The only reason to build this reactor is to build more nuclear weapons faster or use as a nuclear deterrent to India. Both would be a destabilization of the region.

Rivals of the subcontinent India and Pakistan have decided to return to discussions on a peace agreement. This comes as the two countries have had slightly improved relations after the lows after the Mumbai massacre in 2008.

“They have agreed to resume dialogue on all issues following the spirit of the Thimpu meeting between the two prime ministers,” a joint statement said, referring to weekend talks in the Bhutanese capital.

BBC correspondents say no-one is expecting swift progress on issues at the heart of the dispute.

Of course, any solution is down the road. But both countries are very concerned about what will happen to Afghanistan.

As though the world did not need word that there are more nuclear weapons, we have received this word from Pakistan. Apparently Pakistan, the only Muslim nation with nuclear warheads, has a larger arsenal than previously estimated. This would represent a doubling of their stockpiling over the last five or so years.

And the US does not seem to have a firm policy on how to deal with it:

“The administration is always trying to keep people from talking about this knowledgeably,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a leading analyst on the world’s nuclear forces. “They’re always trying to downplay” the numbers and insisting that “it’s smaller than you think.”

Not only does this add to potential future instability, it also shows that Pakistan is becoming more nervous with its neighbor and archrival India. This also comes at a time over the last several years when the country transfered power from an autocracy to a quasi-democracy. Naturally, a coup or Taliban takeover (however unlikely) represents the fate of tens of millions of people.

A Taliban regional commander was reportedly killed in Western Afghanistan in a fight against NATO forces. The commander was killed along with two Taliban fighters.

Provincial spokesman Sharaf Uddin Majidi confirmed NATO’s account.

“Jamaluddin was a very important person who received support from much of the local community,” Majidi told The Associated Press. “His death will certainly lead to increased peace and stability.”

Pakistan has opened up the border crossing into Afghanistan for NATO forces to use. This comes after the Taliban attacked NATO convoys three separate times last week. Of course, the closure came due to a NATO airstrike which accidentally killed Pakistani forces. Despite of the difficulties, NATO is able to keep itself supplied:

Throughout the Torkham closure, NATO said the blockade did not affect its ability to keep troops supplied because hundreds of trucks still crossed into landlocked Afghanistan every day through Central Asian countries to the country’s north and through one border crossing in Pakistan’s southwest that remained open. But the reopening does reduce strain on the supply line.

Reminds me of the Paris Peace Talks, except without varnish.

I do not believe that these supposed talks are going anywhere. But I do believe that they are being played up because they hold two important promises for the future of Afghanistan. If there is any form of agreement, even one that makes the fighting worse and does not actually help the country, it will provide the White House with the cover that it needs to say that the United States’ mission to that country is either done or ending. We can withdraw to Kabul, Herat, and Mazar-i-sharif and say that whatever happens in the southern part of the country is out of our hands and in the hands of the “elected national government.”
Further, it gives President Hamid Karzai the cover he needs to actually start substantive talks with the Taliban to be prepared for the likely scenario of American withdrawal. By forging some kind of deal with the Islamists he can retain some nominal power and hopefully for him would not be shot if the Taliban take Kabul again. Karzai can act as a sort of mediator, selling out the Tajiks, Aimaks, and Hazara for the 45% of the country that is Pashtun.

So I expect slow but steady “progress” in the peace talks, maybe with a few suspensions. Eventually there will be some sort of semi-miraculous sounding deal struck that will enable President Obama to give a muted “Mission Accomplished but not really” speech in which he talks about the “mess I’ve inherited” but ultimately gave straight to Mullah Omar.

Afghan officials are claiming that culitvation of poppy seeds has decline about 50% in the last six months. Furthermore they claim that over 20 tons of narcotics and chemicals have been seized.

He also said that police had seized a large amount of drugs in Herat and Kunduz provinces last week.

“We had a big achievement a week ago in which the counter-narcotics police seized1018 kilograms of opium in Rabat-e-Sangi village of Herat province,” Mr Ahmadi told reporters.

Naturally this would be good news– anything that helps defund the Taliban is a step in the right direction. However it also appears that the moves may anger farmers who rely on poppy cultivation for a living. In the article it also mentions that the police are seizing alcohol– something that the Taliban would do.

Another regional leader of al Qaeda has been killed in a drone strike on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. This comes after the latest number three in al Qaeda was killed earlier this year. Sheikh Fateh al Masri (the Egyptian) was killed– and it comes during a new spate of drone attacks.

Fatah replaced Mustafa Abu Yazid, al Qaeda’s former leader in Afghanistan, who was killed in the May 21 Predator airstrike in Datta Khel in North Waziristan. Yazid served as al Qaeda’s chief financier and paymaster. Al Qaeda has not publicly named Yazid’s replacement for its top financial official, nor is it likely to do so given the job’s importance, intelligence officials said.

Some more excellent news but it is unclear how much this will hurt al Qaeda operationally. Speculation s that the Pakistan floods have caused a lack of mobility among the Taliban and their allies and that more intelligence is rolling in.

The Muslim-majority nation of Bangladesh is considering a US proposal to send combat troops to Afghanistan. This comes as the nation on the Subcontinent is a major contributor to various UN forces around the world including various African nations and Kosovo. Bangladesh, however, turned down a chance to send troops to Iraq during that conflict.

The request was made during meetings in New York between Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and the United States Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.

Holbrooke said the US needed the “help of friends like Bangladesh” to ensure security in Afghanistan, according to a government statement released in Dhaka.

There are no specific numbers regarding the deployment, but likely that number would be at least 1,000 and maybe as much as 20,000 which would be a great boost in international forces in that country. Naturally this has not pleased the Taliban, who warned against intervention.

Last week’s elections in Afghanistan are again stained with accusations of voter fraud. While it appears that the fraud is not as bad or as widespread as during last year’s Presidential race any significant or state-engineering of the race is troubling and unacceptable. The Afghan Electoral Commission is recounting votes and may be able to isolate and remove most of the fixed ballots.

Barakzai said an investigation had been launched to determine who was involved in the possible vote fraud in the seven provinces — Kunduz, Balkh, Takhar, Badakhshan and Parwan provinces in the north and northeast, Logar to the south of Kabul and Khost in the east.

The final results, originally set to be declared on October 30, may face more delays because of the recount, Barakzai said.