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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Islamist militants suspected in slaying of professor in Bangladesh
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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Africa Subsaharan
Why is Africa so poor while Europe and North America are so wealthy?
[WAPO] A few years ago, two economics professors, Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor, published a paper, "The Out of Africa Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development," that drew inferences about poverty and genetics based on a statistical pattern.
Is Darwin to be believed? Well yes, but only when convenient.
The world’s most genetically diverse countries (using their measure of what counts as genetically diverse) are in sub-Saharan Africa, which is the world’s poorest region. The least genetically diverse countries are in places like Bolivia, which have low incomes but not as low as in that region of Africa. There’s an intermediate level of genetic diversity among the residents of the middle-income and rich countries in Asia, Europe and North America.

Genetic diversity arises from migratory distance of populations from East Africa. Countries in east Africa have the highest genetic diversity because this is where humans evolved. Populations that settled in other parts of the world descend from various subgroups of people who left Africa at different times. Thus, these groups are less varied in their genetic profiles.

Ashraf and Galor put this together and argued that this is "reflecting the trade-off between the beneficial and the detrimental effects of diversity on productivity." Their argument was that a little bit of genetic diversity is a good thing because "a wider spectrum of traits is more likely to be complementary to the development and successful implementation of advanced technological paradigms," but if a country is too genetically diverse, its economy will suffer from "reduced cooperation and efficiency." Thus, they wrote, "the high degree of diversity among African populations and the low degree of diversity among Native American populations have been a detrimental force in the development of those regions."
Gets one to thinking of three bowls of porridge...
Any claim that economic outcomes can be explained by genes will be immediately controversial. It can be interpreted as a justification of the status quo, as if it is arguing that existing economic inequality among countries has a natural, genetic cause. See this paper by Guedes et al. for further discussion of this point.

When the paper by Ashraf and Galor came out, I criticzed it from a statistical perspective, questioning what I considered its overreach in making counterfactual causal claims such as:
The mind-worm will die, but only if you stop reading NOW !
As someone who works with geneticists and who (tries to do) does genetics a little himself, it's more than a bit of a stretch to blame the differences between Africa, Europe and Bolivia all on genetics. There's a couple thousand years of culture to account for, and we know the environment modifies genetics (that's a whole field of 'epigenetics', and it's real). So my retort to this is that it's culture, environment, genetics, and human behavior all wrapped together, and good luck trying to sort out the relative contributions of each. Focusing on one part exclusively means one ignores the contributions of the other parts; and that's going to be a major error.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/24/2016 12:02 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think it has to do with culture and weather. Cold weather climates promote a work together or freeze to death culture. Hot weather cultures do not.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 04/24/2016 12:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Good points at the salmon. With due respect to your acknowledged expertise and study, I'd love to hear your comments on the 40,000 to 80,000 year (by some estimates) head start on civilization and progress.

There has got to be more to this story than environmental impacts.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/24/2016 13:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Yep, that's why civilization started in freezing Messopotamia, and why sweltering Eskimo never amounted to anything.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/24/2016 13:05 Comments || Top||

#4  Obama hasn't finished yet?
Posted by: Bobby || 04/24/2016 13:06 Comments || Top||

#5  Tribal Crab Mentality
Posted by: Frank G || 04/24/2016 14:12 Comments || Top||

#6  The disparaging of the lowly crab. Must you go there Frank ;-)
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/24/2016 14:14 Comments || Top||

#7  I recommend reading "The Bell Curve".
Posted by: Pholulet Chusomble5802 || 04/24/2016 14:29 Comments || Top||

#8  Does this paper come with a complimentary bottle of snake oil?
Posted by: Betty Hitler2611 || 04/24/2016 14:51 Comments || Top||

#9 
Posted by: 3dc || 04/24/2016 14:55 Comments || Top||

#10  I once read an interesting paper about the absence of domesticable animals in sub-Saharan Africa. There were no horses or dogs or cattle that easily supported the growth of Animal Husbandry. No pigs or chickens to speak of made it extremely hard to move off the hunter gatherer plateau.

Can't critique the argument but it seemed to make sense as something to add into the picture. Of course there is no single answer as so many always want.
Posted by: AlanC || 04/24/2016 17:15 Comments || Top||

#11  Up till about 1700, Europe was a bunch of tribes just getting their national identity together. Meanwhile, China had been the real world power in size and whatever passed for GDP back then and had been for centuries, minus the cyclic breakups and reunifications. They could have asked back then, why is Europe poor and China so wealthy? Once you understand the operative elements to Western ascendency, then you can critique from perspective the whys for the differences.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 04/24/2016 17:47 Comments || Top||

#12  I would venture to say it is a combination of many factors. But rarely discovery out of Africa was ever popular. While Europe and Asia continuously innovated, explored, expanded... To improve their way of life. How far underdeveloped would Africa be without the evil colonialists?
Posted by: airandee || 04/24/2016 17:59 Comments || Top||

#13  Perhaps freezing wasn't the best term. Some weather promotes agriculture and civilization, others like tropical islands provide and civilization doesn't seem to from the same way.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 04/24/2016 19:33 Comments || Top||

#14  The problem is, no one wants to talk About the Northern Protestant explosion, so they have to talk about race and genetics, but they can't talk about that, really, either, because Nazi, sooo... You get mush like this paper.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 04/24/2016 20:14 Comments || Top||

#15  Sub-Saharan Africans are the only genetic population lacking Neanderthal DNA.

There have been and will be many great civilizations. But Indo-European's seem to have produced the largest and most successful of those consistently throughout known history.
Posted by: jefe101 || 04/24/2016 21:17 Comments || Top||

#16  There's also the element of 'private privilege and ownership'.

The early European feudal systems made it difficult for an individual to innovate. There were no individual incentives to expand or progress, unless your ruler deemed it so. In fact, individual incentive was usually met with less than desirable results.

Modern civilization in Europe didn't really take off until the breakup of the feudal system, with the result being that mere individuals could own property and work for themselves. The Dutch and British were the first to really implement this in the 1300-1400's (some locations earlier), other northern European countries followed with the Mediterranean states (Italy, Spain, Greece) lagging till much later.

Whereas early North American colonization (NOT Mexico) was of the Dutch/British notion that individuals could work their own jobs and own property, Mexico, Central and South America were still of the old 'Padron' feudal system until the 1800's.

The African tribal systems ran along the 'feudal' mindset that there was no individual property rights and you were born to your life's work. Again, there was no individual incentive to expand or progress, unless your ruler deemed it so.

East Asian systems were 'feudal', but had extremely strong (and large) family components AND Confucian philosophies. They succeeded until the ruling classes were so interbred that they became physically unable (and unwilling) to continue any progress. The civilizations there stagnated until the late 20th century.

Culture stagnation and the repression of individual incentives may have a part to play with the answer to this question, too.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 04/24/2016 21:49 Comments || Top||

#17  Another interesting point with regards to genetics is the "mix". For example, we have empirical evidence for successful civilization development if we look at Japan and Germany, both culturally unrelated, both monolithic and both very warlike. Germany having followed the natural progression of development and Japan "jump starting" in the mid 1800's. Both industrialized relatively quickly and despite annihilation, were able to become world economic powers within a short time. Yet these two civilizations are totally unrelated in every aspect. It would be interesting to see if therein is a certain genomic mix which both genetic groups share.
Personally I think warfare, it's type, frequency and duration plays a huge role in a civilization's success and development. Mainly, being the culling of those unsuccessful in contributing to war and it's losers. Intense generational warfare over hundreds of years, as experienced in Europe, certainly produces a genetic "type" of European, whether serf or King, the successful one.
Posted by: jefe101 || 04/24/2016 22:43 Comments || Top||

#18  It's the genes.
End of story, period.
Posted by: jvalentour || 04/24/2016 22:45 Comments || Top||

#19  Also an interesting aspect of Sociobiology could be displayed in modern terrorism. So the classic example is a father and son are drowning, who does the grandfather save? Sociobiology will dictate he saves the grandson because at the genetic level the grandfathers actions are dictated that his own genes are most likely to succeed through the grandson.
Contrast this with a civilization where you encourage your son or grandson to become a suicide bomber. To Eurpoeans/Americans this is anthema. Is this genetic? Does some aspect of their genomic makeup allow for this? I'm not saying parents don't love their kids. I'm saying this could be an example of a difference in outcome at the genetic level due to genetic make-up of the different population which, for some reason, devalues the necessity to select the best option to perpetuate the genes.
Posted by: jefe101 || 04/24/2016 23:05 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Sen. Grassley: FBI investigation of Beest could leak if there is '˜political interference'
[Hot Air] "Is there going to be political interference? If there's enough evidence to prosecute, will there be political interference?" Grassley wondered aloud during a breakfast meeting with the Des Moines A.M. Rotary club on Friday. "And if there's political interference, then I assume that somebody in the FBI is going to leak these reports and it’s either going to have an effect politically or it's going to lead to prosecution if there's enough evidence."

"I wouldn't be encouraging it because if it's a violation of law, I can't be encouraging a violation of law," he said. "This is kind of my own opinion, this is something I've heard."
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/24/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, we already know that and we don't pay you for leaks. Democrats do not care how horrible, idiotic, or murderous their leaders are. Look at lennin and hitler.
All "democrats" are is non-democratic fascist cultural marxists with nothing but critical theory in their empty heads.

They will vote for that horrible skankles bitch if for nothing else, to feel better having solved the rampant poverty in this Nation because 3 obama phones, free housing, and 9 paid for Fatherless Children in a ghetto school they cannot get out of is not enough.

Show democrats how much they care every day by cutting them out of anything you do and life becomes better for everyone... even the welfare state.
Posted by: newc || 04/24/2016 3:13 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Why American Fails to Win Wars
A conundrum: Today's American soldier is by common consent the world's finest, even history's finest, but the United States doesn't win its wars. Time and again, the mission - the overall aim of the exercise - goes unaccomplished, while the war itself continues as if on autopilot. Why?
Politics? Liberals? Progressives? Nah!
Instinctively, and not entirely without reason, Americans hold politicians responsible for failing to deliver victories promised and expected. For many, it's all George W. Bush's fault. For others, it's Barack Obama's. Dig a bit deeper, however, and the American people themselves share in the culpability.
But it's Bush's fault Obama was elected, so it's all his fault anyway. And Truman's. Johnson's. Nixon's. Carter's.
Put simply, the nation's military system is out of sync with its military ambitions. That system, euphemistically known as the All-Volunteer Force or AVF, employs a mix of patriotic appeals and material blandishments to induce young Americans to go fight in distant lands. Yet those responding to these inducements are too few in number to get the job done.
That's the reason? There are not enough? I wonder why there are not more? American's young people aren't political enough? They need more blandishments?
This is notably the case in the greater Middle East, for decades now the epicenter of U.S. military activity. Ironically, the very doggedness of those who do serve - nursing the hope that one more deployment on top of the last three or four might finally close the deal ‐ provides a handy excuse for ignoring the futility of the larger enterprise on which the United States has embarked.
Ahh, so it's futile, anyway. But the politicians aren't the problem, it's the military!
Numbers tell the story. Opinions may differ on how many troops it would take to secure the population, territory, and borders of Iraq and Afghanistan, the former larger than California and the latter roughly the size of Texas. But as a rough estimate, let's posit a half-million - for each. Taken at face value, that's a very considerable figure. In the context of previous large-scale American wars and relative to the current population, it's not.
So we could have won both wars? But for the military's failures? And the expensive contractors. Don't forget them!
Even so, in neither theater did the United States ever came close to meeting that requirement. The Pentagon's commitment to Iraq topped out at 158,000 during the so-called "Surge." In Afghanistan, U.S. troop strength peaked at 98,000 during President Obama's first term. We can gauge the shortfall in U.S. troops by tallying up the number of "defense contractors" - another misleading euphemism ‐ hired to perform (typically at exorbitant prices) duties traditionally assigned to soldiers. Astonishingly, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, contractors equaled or outnumbered U.S. uniformed personnel.
If only the Pentagon had assigned the correct number of troops!
So as measured by the number of troops putting their lives on the line, historians will not enshrine Iraq or Afghanistan alongside the Civil War, the world wars, or Vietnam on the roster of this nation's Big Wars.
So this amazing rationale does not consider Vietnam?
Iraq and Afghanistan do, however, head the list of our Long Wars. At least in part, they ended up being long because they were not big. That is, the insufficiency of boots on the ground imposed constraints on the commanders charged with waging them.
A nugget.
Not that the views of U.S. commanders or even the commander-in-chief himself carry much weight on that score. Under the terms of the AVF, the issue is not theirs to decide.
Or the Congress, for that matter. The same Congress that abandoned Vietnam in 1975.
The bargain implicit in the All-Volunteer Force from the moment of its inception redefined military service as choice rather than obligation. This bargain leaves it to ordinary Americans to decide how much wars such as Iraq and Afghanistan should matter. Their limited willingness to volunteer suggests their answer: Not much.
Ordinary Americans. setting the Pentagon budget. Who knew?
Crucially, this indifference toward wars in which Americans as a whole are so little invested allows policymakers to continue those wars in perpetuity, with few questions asked. War thereby becomes a normal condition, with peace at best a theoretical proposition.
Policymakers? Who are those guys/gals? In the Pentagon? The Military-Industrial Complex? Secretary of Defense? Nancy Pelosi?
The complaint here is not that in a time of protracted armed conflict a mere 1 percent serve. Rather, the complaint is that the other 99 percent find the arrangement and ensuing results tolerable. A conspiracy of silence, or perhaps a clamor of hollow cheerleading, shields our prevailing military system from critical scrutiny. Political and military leaders collaborate in ignoring its shortcomings. The great majority of Americans finds it expedient to go along.
Only because the author considers the great majority of Americans to be Democrats, or Independents, but not conservatives. Clearly, the author is unaware of Rantburg.
The solution lies in ensuring that priorities and values align. At present, they do not. Stripped to its essentials, the prevailing definition of U.S. interests requires the United States to exercise global leadership, relying on superior military might to punish, pacify, and police. Meanwhile, the prevailing definition of American values, emphasizing the uninhibited pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, increasingly centers on personal self-actualization.
This guy may be on to something. The military is at war, the nation is at the mall.
To fulfill its self-imposed obligations as sole superpower, the United States would need a citizenry that subscribes to the warrior-patriot's code: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. How sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country. Most Americans are far more likely to subscribe to the code vividly displayed each weekend in Style sections of newspapers. There, the appeal of dying for one's country takes a backseat to the latest tips on relationships, restaurants, recipes, street wear, household furnishings, and places to be seen.
And when the next government blandishment gets deposited.
Thus does the AVF persist. It does so not because it works but because Americans choose to ignore its defects, thereby turning a blind eye to the sacrifices exacted of the troops and the outcomes of the wars we charge them with fighting. Painful as it may be to acknowledge, those sacrifices have been largely pointless and the outcomes uniformly disappointing. When will anyone take notice?
When we find another Ronald Reagan.
Andrew J. Bacevich is the author of the new book America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History
Posted by: Bobby || 04/24/2016 13:29 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It doesn't take lots of troops.
It simply takes acknowledgement that war is something you engage in when legal and diplomatic means don't work.
That being the case lawyers (including JAGs), politicians and diplomats and rules should be kept away from the successful use of weapons and troops to implement a conclusion to the need for the war.
Posted by: 3dc || 04/24/2016 14:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Or more simply, a successful war is the application of Darwin's laws to a region that doesn't acknowledge them.
Posted by: 3dc || 04/24/2016 14:48 Comments || Top||

#3  It can be as simple as "Fire Purifies" no questions allowed.
Posted by: 3dc || 04/24/2016 14:49 Comments || Top||

#4  It probably helps to have clearly defined goals.
Posted by: james || 04/24/2016 14:57 Comments || Top||

#5  Why America Fails to Win Wars Surrenders

There, fixed that for you. (The next president Americans elected after Bush was a muslim who changed his name Hussein.)
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 || 04/24/2016 15:00 Comments || Top||

#6  We are too eager to believe the perfectability of every foreign nation, culture, and/or religion (guess who?) exposed to our ideals. Spmetimes you need to go in and break shit, then leave, as an example for others. It is not worth another American life to nation-build for the ignorant ungrateful goatfuckers
Posted by: Frank G || 04/24/2016 15:08 Comments || Top||

#7  The writer is a fucking idiot. Blame the troops, blame the pentagon, don't blame to politicians that set the ROE, wanted to nation build across Afghanistan, never really wanted to win a hard war. So blame the easy ones, the troops that are fighting America's battles.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 04/24/2016 15:11 Comments || Top||

#8  Because we stick our noses into others people's business in places where we don't belong.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 04/24/2016 15:30 Comments || Top||

#9  Ditto #7.

#8 sort of.

The problem is two fold and both sides belong to the politicians.

A) Define the enemy.
B) Define what victory looks like.

The troops will gladly then answer the call and achieve the desired results.
Posted by: AlanC || 04/24/2016 17:07 Comments || Top||

#10  This may have something to do with the author's perspective:

On May 13, 2007, Bacevich's son, Andrew John Bacevich, was killed in action in Iraq by an improvised explosive device south of Samarra in Salah ad Din Governorate.[8] The younger Bacevich, 27, was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army,[9] assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/24/2016 17:14 Comments || Top||

#11  possible reasons are our poor ROE, our political duplicity, our lack of will to kill all enemy until they beg to surrender, engaging in wars without American strategic imperative...
Posted by: airandee || 04/24/2016 18:08 Comments || Top||

#12  Too many individual wars run within the war. SOF goes one direction, White House runs drone zapp program and focused on EXFIL. Big green Army and USMC go another direction chasing bad guys. US Embassy and Foggy Bottom focused on diplomacy. Klingons focused on Klingons. Host Nation focused on the 'conflict after' and survival.

Nobody talking to one another. No unity of effort. No leadership.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/24/2016 18:34 Comments || Top||

#13  Besoeker, One would think after losing a son he would go after the confused policy, lack of strategic coordination, and constraining ROE.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 04/24/2016 18:39 Comments || Top||

#14  As a society our politicians (democrats) seem to have developed a willingness to lose for partisan game. Since they aren't held accountable for the duplicity in the fall of Vietnam or the fall of Iraq they will continue.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 04/24/2016 19:36 Comments || Top||

#15  Because they try to fight a 'clean and pretty' war.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 04/24/2016 19:38 Comments || Top||

#16  The following TED talk addresses one very interesting way to look at the challenges that face the American military - and offers one approach towards dealing with those challenges:

http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_barnett_draws_a_new_map_for_peace#t-1405062
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 04/24/2016 22:30 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Army dismissals
[DAWN] IT had all the potential of a public relations coup. A day after army chief Gen Raheel Sharif
..Pak chief of army staff, meaning he pulls the strings on the Nawaz Sharif puppet to make it dance and sing and not do much at all....
waded into the anti-corruption debate by calling for across-the-board accountability, he provided a compelling example of his commitment to the cause when it emerged that he had unprecedentedly dismissed from military service a three-star and a two-star general, three brigadiers and a colonel.

News of the dismissals was sure to dominate the political discourse -- and it did. But there appeared to be a breakdown, perhaps deliberately so, when it came to the communications of the otherwise superbly well-oiled ISPR machine.

Rather than official comment, the media was given inaccurate early information by a clutch of unnamed military officials.

Even after clarification was offered about the number of officers acted against -- earlier reports had suggested a larger number of officers had been found guilty of corruption -- there were no details shared regarding the charges that the officers faced or the findings of the court.

Nevertheless, it is a beginning -- the guilty being found guilty by their own institution suggests a new willingness to focus on professionalism and probity.

Consider that the officers involved were serving in a province where the military has insisted that a range of unprecedented threats -- state and non-state, internal and external -- are undermining the security and stability of the country itself.

With the vast security responsibilities that the military has arrogated to itself in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
and the life-and-death policy and operational decisions that senior officers routinely make, the quality of officers serving in the province ought to be second to none and their reputations impeccable.

Perhaps GHQ ought to conduct a more wide-ranging probe about the various streams of corruption, both along the border and when dealing with local populations, that are widely rumoured in the province.

To fight external enemies and win over disaffected local populations, surely the military’s reputation must be above reproach in every respect.

Inevitably, however, there are lessons here for the politicianship of the country. The military dominates the civil-military relationship for many reasons, historical and institutional.

But perhaps one of the greatest assets of the military is its understanding of the public mood -- and willingness to align with it and exploit it. For weeks now, the fallout of the Panama Papers has dominated the political discourse in the country -- and yet absolutely nothing whatsoever has been done to prove that the civilians are serious about combating corruption.

Meanwhile,
...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment...
an internal military investigation that appears to stretch back at least a year has suddenly been unveiled and offered as the centrepiece of the military’s own efforts to cleanse itself.

The political class needs to understand that legitimacy does not just flow from elections -- it also flows from the quality of democracy and governance that the politicians deliver.

Sadly, it is the military that time and again has demonstrated a more sophisticated understanding of politics than the politicians themselves.
Posted by: Fred || 04/24/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  This comes at a time of the most hateful administration and political attack dogs I have ever seen. Speak your mind and your history(PC crowd). Morale of our military as with our law enforcement is at an all time low. Well, I know it is for law enforcement. I would think retirement would be the best way out. Perhaps there is corruption but in my opinion its coming from our politicians. Perhaps I am old fashioned but I am reluctant to criticize our Military or Law enforcement. Eager to criticize our politicians however.
Posted by: Dale || 04/24/2016 19:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Yes, I am referring to our country. Just set me off.
Posted by: Dale || 04/24/2016 19:26 Comments || Top||


Pity the police
[DAWN] AFTER seven cops were killed in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
the other day, the usual condolences and pra­yers were offered, and we have already moved on.

A week or so ago, another six were killed by gangsters in the Rajanpur face-off in southern Punjab. Their deaths were quickly buried under the media coverage of the army operation in the area. In the same disastrous attempt to neutralise the Chotoo gang, 24 cops had also been captured.

In Karachi, hundreds of coppers have been murdered in broad daylight over the last four years. So common are these deaths that unless it’s a particularly bloody incident, they seldom make the front pages or the breaking news on TV. And of late, Rangers patrolling Karachi’s streets are being similarly targeted.

While earlier, MQM hitmen were widely suspected of carrying out this bloody campaign, now it’s the jihadists of various stripes. So despite the ongoing Rangers-led operation to clean up Karachi, and the many staged encounters that have eliminated suspected bully boys, it would appear that the city has become a vast nest of vipers where Islamist Lions of Islam can pick off cops and Rangers at will.

Clearly, our well-resourced intelligence agencies have failed at penetrating and identifying these groups and their hideouts. Accor­ding to forensic evidence, the weapons used to kill the seven cops in Orangi were also em­plo­yed in the killing of over a score of victims over the last two years. The gang remains untraced.

Obviously, policing a city of 20 million is no easy task, especially with only around 25,000 coppers available. Out of these, nearly a third are assigned to protect public buildings and so-called VIPs. And even those who are supposed to protect us are poorly trained, underequipped and paid peanuts for risking their lives every day.

It is true that the public has a very poor perception of our police for their corruption and incompetence. At independence, we inherited a force that was trained to protect the colonial state, and not ordinary citizens. Since then, its orientation has not changed.

Despite three decades of militancy in Karachi, successive governments have been unable to train and equip an effective force to tackle this menace. With good reason, our cops are demoralised, serving under a rotten provincial administration. All too often, they have to pay bribes to get inducted into the force. So once they don their uniforms, there is every incentive for corruption to recover their investment.
Posted by: Fred || 04/24/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Is legal reform possible?
[DAWN] AT various stages of Pakistain’s history, something or the other (perhaps an institution) has been identified as the solution to all Pakistain’s chief ills. Over the last couple of years, a new candidate has emerged. This new narrative is as follows: if there was rule of law, implementation of the Constitution and speedy justice administered by the courts, then terrorism, corruption and various forms of societal injustice would be drastically reduced. In short, the new superman in town is the ’law and courts’. Hence, the constant talk about legal and judicial reforms.

With the above emerging narrative of the new legal superman and in the background of the continuing guilt of parliament for having allowed the establishment of military courts (ie impliedly accepting the failure of the civilian justice system), the Senate in Islamabad has, in recent history, undertaken the biggest attempt to reform the Pak legal system by converting the entire membership of the Senate to the Committee of the Whole. The result is a report of the committee titled Provisions of Inexpensive and Speedy Justice in the Country.

The Senate report is commendable in many respects. Firstly, it has identified the key problem of the legal justice system ie expensive and delayed justice. The absence of inexpensive justice leads to access to justice being denied to the majority of Pak citizens, while excessively delayed justice is actually injustice to the victims. Secondly, there is the realisation that no legal reform is possible without simultaneously reforming the laws, government justice bureaucracy (police reforms, prosecution system etc.), and the judiciary and without the provision of free legal aid for the poor, weak and powerless.
We share the same problem with Pakistain. A big part of it is the proliferation of lawyers who need at least $200 an hour to make a phone call. When I was growing up we had people who were known as "justices of the peace." They could marry people and most traffic stops ended up with them rather than with having to go to court. You paid your fine and if there was a record kept it wasn't a serious record. If they were brought back I'll betcha they could handle virtually all misdemeanor judgments, without waiting for a court date four or five months down the road. The $200 an hour lawyers could go on salary and learn to scale back their appetites a little. The expense to the state of maintaining them would be offset by the fines collected. The courts could be reserved for actual felonies, and the definitions of same could be refined.

But nobody listens to me. I'm just an old crank.
Posted by: Fred || 04/24/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Pakistan was actually a Nation that had a chance after the Brits left. It was modern enough to handle true law. But then Islam shit and it turned into the turnbuckle of satans army. I do not know what to do with them.

So, I shall look on in horror as idiot liberals and idiot islamists beat them up until it spills over like the dead carcus of the lost Mongol Empire - with entrails spoiling food in every surrounding country and ruining the taste around the world.
Posted by: newc || 04/24/2016 3:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Texas has Justice of the Peace for this very purpose as part of the judiciary system. Constables too.
Posted by: Ulereter Ulose6097 || 04/24/2016 10:16 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel, Golan Heights and the Syrian endgame
[Aljazeera] As the beginning of the endgame on Syria commences, Israel is signaling its intention to join in the feasting on Syria's decaying sovereignty - demanding international recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights captured from Syria in the June 1967 war.

The occasion for this demand was an extraordinary cabinet session in on the Golan plateau - the first ever - where, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reckoning, 50,000 Israeli settlers reside.

"I chose to hold this festive cabinet meeting on the Golan Heights in order to deliver a clear message," Netanyahu declared at the outset of the meeting. "The Golan Heights will forever remain in Israel's hands. Israel will never come down from the Golan Heights."

This Israeli message bears repeating, particularly now when the parties to the war in Syria are jockeying for advantage in the first stages of the diplomatic battle to end the war and to design Syria's future.

Netanyahu, no less than the multitude of players circling around the decimated Syrian state, is determined to place its maximal demands on the diplomatic agenda now being fashioned in Washington and Moscow.
"Maximal demands" for survival. Is that too much to ask ?
It is significant that Netanyahu set out this demand for international recognition of the Golan Heights' annexation without addressing the larger question of a peace treaty with Damascus, which has always been part of the broader diplomatic context in which negotiations over the Golan Heights have been held.

Syria, of course, is hardly able to consider engaging in negotiations over the Golan Heights' future. Nor is there much evidence that any Syrian party to the war is prepared to recognise Israeli sovereignty. Both opposition leader Riad Hijab and Syria's Bashar al-Jaafari found themselves in unusual agreement on their adamant rejection of Netanyahu's provocative declaration.
Swiftly moving from hopeless blathering to closing paras and yes of course, the obligatory blame game:
This shortcoming is all the greater because of the spectacular failure of the Obama administration's initial demand for a complete settlement freeze.

The patent first established during the Obama administration's diplomatic offensive on Palestine - grandiose American statements lacking any real strategic sense or commitment to their implementation - is now playing out in Syria, as well.
Brain check? Ahg! I find myself agreeing with Aljazeera. I too blame the indolent, petulant Champ, but not simply for the situation in the Golan.
One need not connect the settlements in the West Bank to Syria to understand what Champ has been doing with regard to Syria. In fact, it's easier if you don't...
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/24/2016 11:25 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Don't blame the author. A brain eating protozoan has systematically devoured any recollection of history and facts. An empty shell and dogmatic Islamic chants are all that remain. He writes reasonably well however, which provides valuable insights into the larger group think, as if any additional insights were needed.

The 'dog bites feeding hand' blame line is chocolate mousse to the soul. More please, with much wider dissemination and fact-filled examples.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/24/2016 11:51 Comments || Top||

#2  If you capture strategic territory from which an attack was launched on your nation you are under NO obligation to return it.

Moral of the story: don't start fights and lose
Posted by: Frank G || 04/24/2016 12:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Ditto Frank. Since 1947 or so, an unending serious of wars, terrorism and conflict aimed at finishing the work begun by a deranged Austrian house painter. Who could fault the push-back ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/24/2016 13:03 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
This Week in Books - April 24, 2016
D-Day
Stephen E. Ambrose
Simon and Shuster, 1996

There are a number of works covering the events leading up to and through June 6, 1944, known as Operation Overlord, or commonly known as D-Day. There are also a number of misconceptions, such as D-Day being a generic term for the beginning of a military operation, so in pop culture D-Day refers to this spectacular event instead of the numerous other landings and operations during World War II, really all other D-Days.

Even people with little interest in history have at least a passing understanding of events, mostly due to the popular movie Saving Private Ryan, the classic movie The Longest Day, the bit obscure movie Ike, television shows, and a slew of video games. Untold numbers of books and works also cover Operation Overlord. So why does this book stand out? First, it is written by Stephen Ambrose.

I am sure many Rantburgers have read or at least know of Mr. Ambrose. His ability to insert survivors' accounts into the sequence of events and not lose the story is top notch. Mr. Ambrose's prose is simultaneously casual and serious, and he is able let the story happen without personally overshadowing events.

A reader does not necessarily have to have a good, or even passing knowledge of events leading up to Operation Overlord; the book stands on its own. Mr. Ambrose does a fine job describing both the Allies and the Axis history up-to-then and their respective order of battle. (Pages 101-102)

The Germans built a four-gun battery on the cliff just west of Port-en-Bessin. Big fortifications, big guns - 155mm. Beautifully camouflaged with nets and dirt embankments, they could not be seen from the air.

The farmer on whose land they were built was furious because he could not graze his cattle or grow crops on the field. He paced off the distances between the bunkers, from the bunkers to the observation post on the very edge of the cliff, from the cliff to the bunkers, and so on. He had a blind son, eight or nine years old. Like many blind people, the boy had a fabulous memory. Because he was blind, the Germans paid little attention to him.

One day in early 1944, the boy hitched a ride to Bayeux. There he managed to get in touch with Andre Heintz, an eighteen year old in the Resistance. The boy gave Heintz his information; Heintz sent it on to England via his little homemade radio transmitter (hidden in a Campbell Soup can; today on display in the Battle of Normandy Museum in Caen); thus the British navy, on D-Day, had the exact coordinates of the bunkers.

Mr. Ambrose's accounts really coil a spring leading up to the actual invasion. Included in the book are maps and photographs to assist the reader with both where things are and what they looked like. Mostly though it is the accounts of the survivors which really bring the amazing, brutal events to life. (Page 247)

"Everything is wrecked, Herr Leutnant! The stores are on fire. Everything's wrecked!"

Shaking his head, he added, "We've got to surrender, Herr Leutnant."

"Have you gone out of your mind, man?" the twenty-three-year-old Jahnke replied. "If we had always surrendered in Russia in this kind of situation the Russians would have been here long ago."

He called out a command, "All troops fall in for entrenching!" Just as they were getting into the work, here came another wave of Marauders. The men huddled in the sand. Jahnke sent a man on a bicycle to report to battalion HQ, but he was killed by a bomb.

The tension is palatable, and events graphic. (Page 322)

All along the bluff, German soldiers watched the landing craft approach, their fingers on the triggers of machine guns, rifles, artillery fuses, or holding mortar rounds. In bunker 62, Frerking was at the telephone, giving the range to gunners a couple of kilometers inland: "Target Dora, all guns, range four-eight-five-zero, basic direction 20 plus, impact fuse."

As this book is based upon the individual soldier's experience, Mr. Ambrose lets them speak for themselves, and the horrors they witnessed. Not for the faint of heart, as the recollections make the now famous opening to Saving Private Ryan look like Care Bear Adventure Time. Really, not going to quote those sections. I will note that something which surprised me, and I considered myself fairly knowledgeable about Operation Overlord, was the work of the Destroyers. I knew of the Rangers, the Airborne, Omaha Beach, even flail tanks. Never anything about the Destroyers: they did their part. (Pages 387-388)

Frankford fired away from shoal water 800 meters off the beach. Gunnery Officer Keeler recalled: "A tank sitting at the water's edge with a broken track fired at something on the hill. We immediately followed up with a 5-inch salvo. The tank gunner flipped open his hatch, looked around at us, waved, dropped back in the tank, and fired at another target. For the next few minutes he was our fire-control party. Our range-finder optics could examine the spots where his shells hit."

A bit later McCook had the perhaps unique experience of forcing German troops to surrender. As "Rebel" Ramey was firing at a cliff position, German soldiers appeared waving a white flag and attempting to signal the ship by semaphore and flashing light. For nearly an hour Ramey's semaphore man tried to establish communications, he using broken German, and they using poor English.

When Ramey tired of the game and signaled that he was resuming fire, a prompt answer came back - "Ceize fire!" Ramey had his man signal to the Germans that they should come down the bluff and surrender themselves. They understood and did, coming down single file with hands up to turn themselves over the GIs on the beach.

This book greatly improved my understanding of Operation Overlord, greatly enhancing my appreciation of The Longest Day and Ike, and in a way diminished the opening to Saving Private Ryan even with all of the Hollywood Magic. To be fair, they likely could not have accurately portrayed the landing to most audiences.

Along the pop culture references to Operation Overlord is the board game Axis and Allies: D-Day which is officially a two or three player game (USA, Commonwealth, and Germany) though with little work the Germans could be split for a four player game. What is interesting is the designers added the unit names/designations so a person who knows their stuff, like reading Ambrose's D-Day, can see how the designers balanced history with game balance. It is a good game, with a fair amount of setup time, usually not lasting more than two hours with setup, play, and post-game trash talking. The units are stylized according to the player. I do see that the game is a couple dollars now, and board games are a bit passe, but it is a good time getting friends/family around the battle board, moving the realistic pieces about, hearing the dice drop, and thinking "Yes. I do need to send some Marauders against that blockhouse."

Link is to Amazon's D-Day.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/24/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not for the faint of heart

That counts me out, then. I appreciate the warning, swksvolFF. Fortunately, that leaves more copies for the rest of you. ;-) But at least I got to learn from the review.
Posted by: trailing wife || 04/24/2016 11:34 Comments || Top||

#2  TW,
The first about half of the book is mostly academic and very informative. When the shooting starts, well, what I understand is Mr. Ambrose was the real deal and it could be that many of the interviewees were sharing their experience for the first time in however many years, with understandable detail.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/24/2016 14:15 Comments || Top||



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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2016-04-24
  Islamist militants suspected in slaying of professor in Bangladesh
Sat 2016-04-23
  Mali arrests suspected criminal mastermind of hotel terror attack
Fri 2016-04-22
  U.S. Ups Pressure on IS with first B-52 Bomber Strike
Thu 2016-04-21
  Taliban military commission chief killed in Afghan intelligence operatives raid
Wed 2016-04-20
  Chotoo gang surrenders to Army, releases hostages
Tue 2016-04-19
  Hundreds wounded in Kabul suicide attack
Mon 2016-04-18
  Ivory Coast Attacks 'Number Two' Arrested in Mali
Sun 2016-04-17
  Dozens of Hezbollah militants 'accidentally' killed in chemical attack
Sat 2016-04-16
  UK police arrest 5 in terror probe
Fri 2016-04-15
  Sharia police preacher faces terrorism charges
Thu 2016-04-14
  SSS announces arrest of another ‘top Boko Haram terrorist’
Wed 2016-04-13
  Belgian police arrest 3 in Paris terror attacks investigations
Tue 2016-04-12
  Saudi FM: Red Sea islands have returned to the kingdom
Mon 2016-04-11
  Ahrar al-Sham commander slain in Aleppo clashes
Sun 2016-04-10
  Four Brussels suspects charged with terror offenses

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