Archive for category Asia

Pervez Musharraf Speaking in Bellevue Amidst Protests (and Hypocrisy)

1:20 pm, March 3rd, 2010 on Asia

Mushy

Mushy

Pervez Musharraf, the former President of Pakistan who now earns six to seven figures for his lectures, is coming to Bellevue, Washington, on March 14th.

The organization that is sponsoring him claims:

We are a local chapter in Seattle, Washington; consisting of local Ex-Pat Pakistanis who support the democratic institutions within Pakistan by offering our help in several areas that will promote the on going transition that has been occuring in Pakistan for a few years now.

We are an apolitical organization that is committed to support any leader or personality from Pakistan belonging to any political party (or not) who is genuinely committed to help flourish and promote democratic values in the country.

Musharraf, of course, is the very embodiment of democracy. This is the man who toppled a democratically elected government and stalled democratic reforms for many years in the name of national security, but, he was doing it all merely to promote “democratic values.”

(Protests after the jump)

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Russia’s SE Asian Client States and Chinese Counterbalancing

4:31 pm, February 2nd, 2010 on Asia

Russia has been actively selling arms to whoever wants to buy its antiquated technology. The most recent addition to its client list is Vietnam, which wants to balance against Chinese supremacy in the region and Chinese claims to the Spratly Islands off the coast of Vietnam…

For Hanoi, this deal [also] involves … the construction of naval infrastructure in Vietnam, including a naval base, repair and maintenance facilities, and a communications center, as well as the training of specialists … Vietnam’s leadership has been traveling the world seeking military sales from the US, Canada, and France …  it has clearly made a major gesture to Moscow to upgrade bilateral relations also to counter China.

… the Vietnamese government is soliciting a large-scale Russian presence in its country to balance Chinese economic and political power, and ensure its energy security, even as it also seeks to check Chinese naval power in the South China Sea.

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Turkmenistan: Ready For The New Dictator’s Statues

10:53 pm, January 18th, 2010 on Asia

Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, President of Turkmenistan, has ordered the removal of a “giant arch topped by a gold-plated statue of Turkmenistan’s late leader, Saparmyrat Niyazov” from Ashgabat, the capital.

Turkmenistan is finally ready to move and accept its new dictator. One lucky sculptor is gonna have a nice new payday coming up soon.

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Afghanistan: Where’s the Stability?

3:03 pm, January 18th, 2010 on Asia, Terrorism

The Taliban launched a brazen attack on the capital, Kabul yesterdays leading to fire fights close to the Presidential palace. The terrorists detonated a bomb in front of the Central Bank and then took over a shopping complex.

The fact that with 84,150 foreign troops and an additional 100,000 Afghan army troops in the country, the Taliban was still able to breach the regional headquarters, where you would imagine the security to be a bit tighter, doesn’t bode well for the international mission to stabilize Afghanistan.

Obama will have to re-think his plans for the country. A simple troop surge will not do the job. Afghanistan is vastly different from Iraq and the same plans will not work.

Afghanistan has not been stable for almost 30 years now. Iraq, on the other hand, was quite stable under Saddam Hussein. The Taliban, which is mostly Afghan with some foreign fighters, is used to long wars of attrition. In Iraq, most of the militants were outsiders. Afghan fighters have a clear source of revenue in the country’s poppy plantations; Iraq’s didn’t.

It may be time to sit down and talk with the Taliban. That is the only way left out of this mess.

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Martha Coakely: Afghanistan Has No Terrorists

3:48 pm, January 12th, 2010 on Asia, Democraps

U.S. Senate candidate from Massachusetts feels:

I think we have done what we are going to be able to do in Afghanistan. I think that we should plan an exit strategy. Yes. I’m not sure there is a way to succeed. If the goal was and the mission in Afghanistan was to go in because we believed that the Taliban was giving harbor to terrorists. We supported that. I supported that. They’re gone. They’re not there anymore.

The Taliban wasn’t “giving harbor to terrorists” … the Taliban were the terrorists. I suppose Afghanistan has somehow been magically cleansed of all the Taliban, at least in Coakely’s mind.

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Afghanistan: Obama Wants To Finish in 1 Year What Hasn’t Happened in 30

5:35 pm, December 1st, 2009 on Asia, Foreign Policy, Terrorism

President Barack H. Obama has vowed to fight the “Al Qaeda Cancer” by denying it a safe haven in Afghanistan. And, he has vowed to do so within a year of his 2010 troop increase.

Obama says:

[The new troops] will increase our ability to train competent Afghan Security Forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight…And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans.

Hopefully, the “conditions” for transfer of responsibility would include some form of political and socio-economic stability and security across the nation. As such Obama has barely 12-18 months to achieve this noble goal.

Unlike some of his other herculean goals, Obama has bitten off more than he can chew with Afghanistan. The country hasn’t had anything close to stability for 30 years now – since the 1979 Soviet invasion. Coalition troops haven’t even brought the nation close to stability during the 8 years since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban government.

What no one else has been able to achieve in 3 decades, Obama will surely do it in a year – just as he shut down Gitmo within a year and just as he had restored American prestige across the world.

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Tata Shows How to Make Money by Selling Cars

3:08 pm, December 1st, 2009 on Asia, Economy

The All New XJ

The All New XJ

Unlike the previous American owners of Jaguar and Land Rover, Tata Motors of India is showing us how to raise sales and even make money with the marquee brands.

Sales of both Jaguar and Land Rover have increased by 23% in the latest quarter after Tata introduced various updated models.

Fueling the improvement in the sales is the introduction of higher end versions. For instance, the all new 2010 XJ starts at $72,000, unlike the 2008 version which you could buy for as cheaply as $58k.

While Ford was moving both Land Rover and Jaguar towards the cheap, American luxury model, epitomized by Buick and Mercury, Tata seems to be taking both back to their roots as truly high end luxury automobiles.

American car makers have a lot to learn from their foreign counterparts, even such upstarts as Tata.

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No More Window of Opportunity for Karzai

11:25 am, November 18th, 2009 on Asia

Hamid Karzai has failed miserably over the past 7 years. He hasn’t done a thing to convince his fellow Afghans to trust his leadership abilities.

Hilary Clinton, however, still thinks:

There is now a clear window of opportunity for President Karzai and his government to make a compact with the people of Afghanistan to demonstrate clearly that they’re going to have accountability and tangible results that will improve the lives of the people

Karzai lost the “clear window of opportunity” way back in 2004, when he wouldn’t work with Americans to find reasonable solutions for the Poppy problem.

Karzai doesn’t care about Afghanistan. He only cares about keeping his office and making enough money to finance his retirement.

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Their Problem to Solve?!

3:19 pm, October 27th, 2009 on Asia, White House

Mr. Matthew Hoh, a US diplomat posted in Afghanistan, resigned from his job claiming:

“We want to have some kind of governance there, and we have some obligation for it not to be a bloodbath.

“But you have to draw the line somewhere, and say this is their problem to solve.”

Their problem to solve?!

The United States attacked Afghanistan in a just war to root out the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, who, by the way, had attacked us on our soil. The Afghans hadn’t even attacked us – their government was harboring the people who attacked and wouldn’t give them up.

This problem can never be theirs. This problem was ours and will remain ours.

Now that that job has become tough, Hoh (and the Obama team) wants us to just quit and run away. This would be the second time we have left Afghanistan in tatters.

The last time we just quit Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal in the ’80s, Al Qaeda and the Taliban emerged to fill the power void. What will emerge this time?

This whole Hoh resignation bullshit just stinks of political manipulation.

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What Did You Expect in Afghanistan – Free and Fair Elections?

2:39 pm, September 16th, 2009 on Asia

Karzai is “condemning” the EU for pointing out irregularities in his recent “re-election.” Afghanistan has never had a tradition of democracy, which includes peaceful transfer of power. It was a bit of a stretch to expect an honest electoral process in that country.

If Karzai loses an election, how long will he last, especially with the Taliban after him?

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Everybody Run – Japan’s Invading Somebody Again!

11:56 pm, September 5th, 2009 on Asia

63

Not really, but I like the newly assertive “self defense” forces of our Asian ally.

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The Book Banning Phenomena

9:32 am, August 20th, 2009 on Asia, India

Gujarat, a western Indian state, has banned a book, merely because the author praised Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the so-called founder of Pakistan, and criticized Vallabbhai Patel, a Hindu nationalist leader. This is the same place that just re-elected a genocidal maniac as its Chief Minister.

Freedom of speech ought to be a cherished ideal of any pluralistic democracy. Banning books goes against the very principles of democracy.

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Intolerance in Indian Politics: Praise a Pakistani Leader; Get Expelled From Your Party

12:48 pm, August 19th, 2009 on Asia, India

Former Minister; Now Persona Non Grata

Former Minister; Now Persona Non Grata

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a right wing Hindu nationalist party in India, just cannot get over the fact that Jaswant Singh wrote a book praising Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a freedom fighter and first President of Pakistan.

It had to go and expel Singh from the BJP. Despite the fact that Singh has been a party stalwart for well over 30 years; he is a founding member; he has served as a cabinet minister in all BJP central governments till date.

This is the kind of democracy we have in India. Praise somebody, criticize your party, write a book and you’re on your way out.

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Afghanistan: You Can Starve Your Wives For Sex

10:07 am, August 16th, 2009 on Asia

Afghanistan has just passed a law whereby Shia men can starve their wives, if they refuse to satisfy their needs. It gets even better:

The original version obliged Shia women to have sex with their husbands every four days at a minimum, and it effectively condoned rape by removing the need for consent to sex within marriage.

The best part is that the law is applicable to Shias and doesn’t even have majority support.

This is the government that we’ve been promoting all this while.

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North Korean Nuclear Materials Being Peddled on Indian Streets (Already)

5:25 pm, August 10th, 2009 on Asia, Humor, India

Indian scientists and police searching a North Korean ship detained near the Andaman and Nicobar islands have not found any nuclear materials aboard, according to a home ministry spokesman.

The vessel, MV Mu San, dropped anchor without permission on Wednesday, but attempted to flee when contacted by the Indian coastguard. The ship was later  detained after a chase and escorted to Port Blair, the capital of the islands.

“We have been checking the ship for any radioactive material, but I must say we have found nothing like that so far,” senior Andaman police official Ashok Chand said. “But we will continue checking it until we are satisfied there is nothing wrong with the consignment.”

Meanwhile, your correspondent was able to get quotes on several North Korea-made nuclear weapon components and raw materials, and other weaponry, at a street market in Port Blair.

The market is awash with illicit armaments that have been brought ashore since Wednesday, according to a street peddler selling Chinese-made hand grenades.

“We buy weapons from police. Big cargo come Korea,” he said. “Very cheap – 10 grenades for 100 Rupees. China grenades. No like? Plutonium – only 1000 Rupees a kilo. Special price for you. Special price. Ok, only 900 Rupees a kilo just for you. Very good price. No beat.”

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Mehsud Dead: Progress or None?

9:14 pm, August 7th, 2009 on Asia, Terrorism

Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Taliban, has finally been sent off to hell. But does it mean that the Taliban in Pakistan will falter or will they merely move on?

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Plague + Swine Flu Scourge the Chinese

7:30 pm, August 2nd, 2009 on Asia, China, Health

In addition to the swine flu that’s still causing concern for health officials in China, we now have another unpleasant addition to the scene - plague:

Thousands of people have been placed in quarantine in north-western China after a man died of pneumonic plague.

Chinese authorities say the man who died was a 32-year-old herdsman from a sparsely populated area mostly inhabited by Tibetans.

Most of the other 11 people infected with the disease are relatives of the dead man.

This is the first case of plague that comes to mind since the ‘94 outbreak in western India.

This episode also points to the terrible health and sanitation conditions in western China, especially in Tibetan and Uyghur areas.

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Why Do Dictators Feel the Need to Justify Their Actions?

10:49 pm, July 28th, 2009 on Asia

Burma has been keeping up the farce of legality and democracy for the past many years, especially in relation to Aung San Suu Kyi:

The court presiding over the trial of Burma’s detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will deliver its verdict on Friday, her lawyer has said.

Ms Suu Kyi faces five years in jail if she is convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest by letting a US man stay in her home uninvited.

…a guilty verdict is expected.

Prosecutors argue that Aung San Suu Kyi must be held responsible for the midnight swim to her home by the American well-wisher John Yettaw in early May.

What’s the idea behind the fake trial? Everyone already knows the outcome.

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Bali Bomber Might Be Behind Jakarta Suicide Attacks

5:11 pm, July 18th, 2009 on Asia

Indonesian authorities are now claiming that Noordin Mohamed Top may be behind the recent suicide attacks on the Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta.

Top is wanted for plotting the Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005 and other Indonesian attacks.

It’s been 7 years since the ‘02 attacks and the Indonesian authorities haven’t caught him yet. I guess their record is almost as bad as the Allies in Afghanistan.

Why can’t we catch these terrorists already? (rhetorical question)

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Just Breaking: American Hotels Hit in Jakarta Blasts

7:35 pm, July 16th, 2009 on Asia

BBC is just reporting that a series of blasts in Jakarta have hit the Ritz-Carlton and Marriott, both luxury hotels owned by American hotelier Marriott International.

Destruction in Jakarta

Destruction in Jakarta, courtesy BBC

Up to 6 are reported dead. According to the article:

Television footage showed the facade of one of the hotels had been torn off by the blast.

… ambulances are present and security is extremely tight.

Over the past few days, personnel at a US-owned mines in the Indonesian province of Papua have also been attacked, resulting in 3 fatalities.

No suspects have been found for either set of attacks nor have any groups taken responsibility. The Indonesian government, however, claims that foreign NGOs may be behind the Papua killings.

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