World Sitrep Roundup via the Strategy Page

[Guest]

What you don't see in the mass media is often very interesting - mh

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Coping With The Starving Masses

January 26, 2007: While China is shipping the same amount of oil to North Korea, in 2006, as it did in 2005, food exports are down by about half (some 210,000 tons less). A lot less food is getting into North Korea, and because last year's crops were below average, the population is expected to come through this Winter in very bad shape. Planners in South Korea now fear a flood of three million starving refugees (headed into China and South Korea), if the North Korean government collapses in the near future. Plans are being made on how to deal with such large numbers of malnourished refugees.

January 22, 2007: In response to U.S. accusations, the UN has halted transfers of hard currency to North Korea, and begun an audit of how UN aid money is spent in North Korea. The UN acted so promptly largely because North Korea has an extensive history of government sponsored, and directed, criminal behavior.

January 21, 2007: South Korean and American commanders are beginning to make plans for the possible collapse of the North Korean government. There is increasing Chinese diplomatic and political activity inside North Korea, and many rumors that officers from the North Korean security forces, backed by China, are plotting to overthrow the government. Interestingly, even with all these stories going around, there have been no arrests in the north. There is, however, a growing unease on the streets, among the North Korean people.

January 19, 2007: The U.S. presented the UN with evidence that North Korea has stolen up to $10 million in UN aid using a large number of scams (the most obvious ones involve overcharging for rent and services obtained in North Korea).

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Commandos Go After Taliban Leaders

January 26, 2007: In Western Afghanistan, Iran is pouring millions of dollars a year into Shia schools, mosques and social organizations. Naturally, the Shia have been a large minority in this area for centuries. But during the Taliban era of the late 1990s, the Shia were persecuted, tortured and killed. To make matters worse, most of the Shia were Hazara, descendents of the Central Asian troops the Mongols brought with them when the conquered the areas eight centuries ago. Other Afghans continue to hate the Mongol "invaders." Now, because of the Iranian aid, the Shia are better armed, and more determined to resist any new Taliban persecution. The Taliban believe the Shia are heretics, and in Islam, the punishment for heresy is death.

In the south, NATO commandos are having success in finding out where Taliban commanders are, and killing or capturing them. There are about three dozen Taliban commanders in the south, and if enough of them can be taken out of action, this year's Taliban offensive will collapse.

January 25, 2007: There are daily incidents around Kandahar, as Taliban begin to move people in from Pakistan, and try to establish base camps. The police and army are running patrols in areas where the Taliban are trying to establish freedom of movement. But the pro-Taliban tribes are not as pro-Taliban as they were last year, and less enthusiastic about fighting the police and army constantly.

January 24, 2007: Sensing weakness, more warlords are publicly denouncing the Taliban, and urging young men not to join up.

January 23, 2007: The NATO commander believes that the Taliban cannot survive another defeat in 2007. That may be overly optimistic, given the tribal basis of the Taliban, and their fight against "outsiders." While the Taliban continue to make themselves more unpopular, they will always have some diehard support up in the hills.

In southeast Afghanistan, a Taliban suicide bomber set off his explosives outside a NATO base. The bomber detonated his explosives when it was clear he was not going to get into the base. Ten people were killed, most of them local civilians. This sort of failure just makes civilians angrier, and more willing to inform on Taliban activities.

January 22, 2007: The Taliban announced that, when they return to try and conquer southern Afghanistan this spring, they will spend at least a million dollars in building proper religious schools to replace the 200 secular schools they destroyed last year. Burning or trashing those schools was very unpopular, and the Taliban noted that many villagers would defend their schools from Taliban attacks. The Taliban also said they had changed their minds about educating girls, and would eventually have religious schools for girls. The Taliban believe that a basically religious education is all you need. While the Taliban love to use gadgets and modern technology, they don't seem to grasp how all that stuff comes about.

January 21, 2007: In the last week, eleven Taliban suicide bombers were arrested before they could carry out their attacks. Several suicide bomb teams were uncovered, and their operations disrupted. The suicide bomb attacks have not been skillfully carried out, and most of the casualties have been Afghan civilians. As a result, there have been more tips from civilians.

January 20, 2007: While the U.S. believes that Afghanistan is turning into another Colombia (where prosperous drug gangs ally with other rebel groups to fight the government), an important difference is the tribal organization in Afghanistan. Because of the tribal chiefs, there has been no use of aerial spraying to destroy poppy crops. The chiefs oppose it, fearing side effects. The government wants to try other methods (tearing up the crops) for one more year and, if that continues to fail, use the spraying.

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January 24, 2007: Estonia caused an uproar in Russia by planning to move a war memorial (a bronze statue of sad looking soldier, with inscription in Russian and Estonian saying; "to the fallen of the Second World War") from the center of the capital, to a less conspicuous place. What it comes down to is this. Estonians, and many other Russian neighbors, who used to be part of the Soviet Union, see the Russians as conquerors, while the Russians consider themselves liberators. It's that attitude that has fueled the growth of the Russian empire for centuries. That empire largely (but not completely) fell apart in 1991 when the Soviet Union disappeared. But many Russians want their empire back, which is why many Russian neighbors rushed to join defense organizations like NATO. To make matters worse, about 25 percent of Estonia's population are ethnic Russians, who came to Estonia when it was part of the Soviet Union. These Russians are much better off economically than Russians in Russia, but there is friction because the Russo-Estonians resist learning Estonian (a difficult, Asian, language related to Finnish).

To make matters worse, Russia's democracy is turning into a highly centralized police state, with elections. This kind of centralizing of power often leads to the disappearance of the elections. Russians say that won't happen.

January 23, 2007: For reasons unknown, Russia is not cooperating with the United States and Georgia in attempts to find where three ounces of weapons grade uranium, a Georgian man tried to sell last year, came from. It probably came from a Russian facility.

January 22, 2007: An American proposal to put an ABM (anti-ballistic missile) radar in the Czech Republic, and ABM missiles in Poland, to stop missiles from Iran or North Korea, caused Russia to protest, and insist that the ABM system was there to stop Russian missiles. To Russian thinking, the ABM system could render some Russian missiles impotent, thus reducing Russian military power and making Russia weaker. The East European nations back the ABM plan, especially because it can stop Russian missiles as well. Russia does not like to be reminded how unpopular it is in Eastern Europe.

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The Iranian War With The Arabs

January 23, 2007: Saudia Arabia and Iran are getting ready for war with each other. And it's not over oil or ethnicity, as much as it is over theology. Saudi Arabia, by dint of its vast oil wealth and role as protector of Islami's holiest places, sees itself as the leader of the Moslem world. Not a leader in the sense of giving orders that-will-be-obeyed. No, leader more in the rich uncle sense. Especially if the uncle was also a rather religious fellow.

The Saud family gained control of most of Arabia back in the 1920s, mainly via a long time relationship with the most conservative religious sect in Arabia, the Wahhabis. Thus equipped, the Saudis could be both mightier, and holier, than any other clan in region. It was a winning combination. But there are some problems when you read the fine print. The most obvious hassle was the Wahhabi desire to resist modern technology, and ideas. So Saudi women can't drive cars, although back in the 1920s they could ride horses and camels. The Sauds got the power, but the Wahhabis got the right to decide how people live. Another bit of fine print has to do with the Shia sect of Islam. There are dozens of sects in Islam, and the largest, besides the mainline Sunnis, are the Shia. Most of the Shia are Iranians, who aren't even Arabs. That's important for Arabs, who consider all non-Arabs as, well, if not sub-human, certainly not the best they could be. The Iranians look like the hated Europeans (one of the few peoples able to halt the spread of Islam), and often act like Europeans. But the worst thing about Iranians are that they are Shia. According to the Wahhabi clergy, Shia are heretics. The Saud family was always good at countering the nasty habits of the Wahhabi clergy, and has managed to keep the preachers quiet (or at least off the mass media) about those Shia heretics. At the same time, the Sauds have kept things reasonably friendly with Iran. All that is coming to an end.

For all those decades Saddam Hussein was in power, American suggestions, or attempts, to overthrow the dictator of Iraq were always met with resistance from the Saudis. Most Americans could not understand this, even when the Shia angle was mentioned. It must have been something to do with oil. It actually has little to do with oil. It's all about which form of Islam is more "correct." Since 1979, Iran has been run by conservative clergy, and these guys wanted to rule the world. To the Saudis, only Iraq, and its ruthless leader Saddam Hussein, stood in the way. The 1980-88 war between Iraq and Iran was seen as a desperate fight to contain the Shia menace. It was thus, with much sadness, that Arabs viewed the defeat, and recent demise, of Saddam Hussein. For many Sunnis in the region, Saddam was their champion.

The Sunnis see America as being stupid, or greedy to control Iraqi oil, or both, in their overthrow of Saddam. Because of this U.S. action, the Shia, and thus, Iran, controls Iraq. The Sunni control of Islams holy places is now threatened. This seems certain once Iran gets nuclear weapons. Note that, during the thirty years Israel has had nuclear weapons, there was no great effort in the Arab world to do the same. But now that Iran is going nuclear, there's all this talk of developing (or buying from the Pakistanis) the "Arab bomb." Believe it, because the Arabs do.


mh

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"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[ryoder 1,590]

What is the source of this?

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[SpeedRacer 1]

I am not convinced that North Korean government will be overthrown any time soon.

For a communist autocrat like Kim Jong Il, it actually HELPS him if the people are kept in poverty. As long as people are poor & helpless, they can remain in thrall to the state. After all, everything they receive comes from the state. And Kim Jong Il can look like a hero whenever he throws a few scraps to the people. The people are convinced that they would starve if the State didn't take care of them.

When the people's standard of living gets above a certain level, they become too "uppity" & start to believe that they can make a living on their own terms.

North Korea is run like a giant cult, and I don't think the populace will "snap out of it" any time soon.

Speed Racer
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[warpedskydiver 0]

I would wager you did not expect the fall of the Soviet Union either, no worry, alot of people didn't.

[ryoder 1,590]

Quote

I am not convinced that North Korean government will be overthrown any time soon.

For a communist autocrat like Kim Jong Il, it actually HELPS him if the people are kept in poverty. As long as people are poor & helpless, they can remain in thrall to the state. After all, everything they receive comes from the state. And Kim Jong Il can look like a hero whenever he throws a few scraps to the people. The people are convinced that they would starve if the State didn't take care of them.

When the people's standard of living gets above a certain level, they become too "uppity" & start to believe that they can make a living on their own terms.

North Korea is run like a giant cult, and I don't think the populace will "snap out of it" any time soon.

In a place with such an extreme gov't as NK, the people aren't the ones in a position to initiate the change. The change must come by a military revolt. Crackpot dictators always have periodic purges of the top military brass. It is the military leadership at the top who is close enough to realize the leader is a nutcase, and have the power to solve the problem. The dictator must have the purges before the current generals have wised up and started making plans. Once the purge has been done and new generals brought in, they will appreciate their new power, and have the fresh memory of what happened to the last people in their position. The dictator will has some time to breathe easy before the new generals have had their fill of him.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[Alias 0]

Sources? Kind of important in digesting apparent news , not included in the "mass media"

Curious on why you did not offer that up when this was posted.

Carpe Diem

[mnealtx 0]

First link on Google, with an input of "strategy page"

www.strategypage.com

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706