Category Archives: Military

X marks the spot, more or less

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Abhi posted earlier about Sri Lanka objecting to high-res satellite imagery of sensitive government sites on Google Earth. At the time, Indian officials were also worried but had given up trying to block it. Ironically, the post came on one of India’s two biggest military parade holidays:

India agrees. Reuters quotes an anonymous security official there as confirming that “the issue of satellite imagery had been discussed at the highest level but the government had concluded that ‘technology cannot be stopped’…” [Link]

There’s apparently been a change of heart behind the red sandstone in Delhi. You can’t stop technology, but you can lean on companies. India has escalated the issue to the man who used to run India’s missile program:

Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam expressed concern Saturday about a free mapping program from Google Inc., warning it could help terrorists by providing satellite photos of potential targets… The Google site contains clear aerial photos of India’s parliament building, the president’s house and surrounding government offices in New Delhi. There are also some clear shots of Indian defense establishments… [Link]

India’s not the only one complaining:

The governments of South Korea and Thailand and lawmakers in the Netherlands have expressed similar concerns… South Korean newspapers said Google Earth provides images of the presidential Blue House and military bases in the country, which remains technically at war with communist North Korea. The North’s main nuclear facility at Yongbyon is among sites in that country displayed on the service. [Link]

This issue is similar to that of the deliberate error injected by civilian GPS satellites to prevent use by enemy missiles. On one hand, Google fuzzes out sensitive U.S. sites, so why not let other legitimate governments submit these requests as well? On the other, the public has a right to know, and foreign providers of satellite data will always step into the gap.

I come down on the side of consistency. As a private company rather than an extension of the U.S. government, Google should act even-handedly, no matter which approach it takes.

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Trespassing at Your Own Public University?

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When the basic AP article about the swearing in of the new Joint Chiefs of Staff has a lede that casually tosses off  May 2005 Doonesbury Storyline: "I can practically guarantee you'll be fighting terrorism from behind a desk!"“recruitment shortfalls” in the same breath as Iraq and disasters, you can be assured it’s one of the military’s biggest concerns. Ace mil-blog Intel-Dump frequently highlights the number crunch being faced by the army, and Armchair Generalist analyzed the recent lowering of the educational bar.  I sympathize with the recruiters greatly–we need a military, regardless of whatever goose-chase this or that administration might lead them on. It’s not really their fault that teenagers who don’t need a ticket out of town may question the extent to which the military is really about defending American freedom. That is, it’s not their fault until they start physically harassing a student-veteran for quietly protesting and then get him arrested on his own campus:

More than 100 George Mason University students and faculty members gathered on campus yesterday for a teach-in, six days after an undergraduate was arrested in a confrontation with military recruiters there.

Tariq Khan, 27, said he was standing near the recruiters’ table in the multipurpose Johnson Center at lunchtime last Thursday, holding fliers and wearing signs, including one on his chest that read “Recruiters Lie, Don’t Be Deceived.” One of the recruiters, plus another man who said he was a Marine, began yelling at him, he said, adding that the Marine ripped off his sign. Khan said that after a campus police officer asked for identification, which he didn’t have with him, he was arrested, taken to the Fairfax County police department and charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Khan, a Pakistani American who grew up in Sterling and served four years in the U.S. Air Force, said the recruiters, and later the campus police, made disparaging comments to him about Middle Easterners.

Daniel Walsch, a university spokesman, said that Khan “was considered to be distributing literature,” which requires a permit, and that he was asked to leave the building.(Link)

The ACLU of Virginia wryly notes that the arrest occurred “at a public university named after the person who may be most responsible for the Bill of Rights.” Whether or not recruiters lie, George Mason U. is being patently untrue to its namesake’s ideals if it fails to urge the Fairfax D.A. to drop charges against Mr. Khan. (Link.)

The ACLU is defending Khan, who has a court date of Nov 14. (Link). Last week he gave a speech at the rally:

First of all I want to say that what happened to me last Thursday is not an isolated incident. . At at least three different colleges in the last week alone – the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Holyoke Community College in Massachusetts, and here at George Mason University – students engaged in non-violent counter-recruitment were met with police repression. . .And here at GMU I was harassed and assaulted by police and right-wing vigilante wannabe’s simply for standing in the JC with an 8×11 sign taped to my chest that said “Recruiters lie. Don’t be deceived.” Then I was charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct. While the police and vigilantes were brutalizing me, other right-wing students were cheering them on and shouting “Kick his ass!” . .Officer Reynolds, the goon who arrested me told me that he had to handcuff me because of 9/11. He said, “I didn’t know who you were, and what with 9/11 and all, there’s no telling what you’d do.” So because he didn’t know me, he had to assume that I’m a terrorist. Another officer at the GMU police station shouted at me, “You people are the most violent people in the world! You’re passive aggressive!” What does that mean? Who are “you people”? 

Besides the fundamental issue of preventing a student from engaging in free speech on a public campus, which I thought was settled over 40 years ago, there is the issue Khan brought up, a crystalized example of why we need first amendment rights to debate public policy and government actions in the first place–do recruiters lie?

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Fault Lines can’t be controlled

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Every Geologist has the same macabre dream.  They want to be as close to the fault as possible when the big one hits.  Any geologist that tells you different is lying so as not to upset your sensibilities.  The first three months of this year I spent nearly every weekend camping in the rugged mountains near the San Andreas Fault while constructing a geological map of the area.  On every drive out the professor would smile devilishly and then say “maybe the Big One will hit this weekend.”

Previously I blogged about the extreme dangers of the world’s most unforgiving battlefield, high in the Siachen Glacier near the Line of Control in Kashmir (Manish followed up with some stats).  As if the hail of artillery rounds, machine-gun fire, and extreme cold weren’t enough, over the weekend the soldiers manning their outposts had to deal with a massive Earthquake almost directly beneath them.  How did those soldiers fair during the Earthquake?  That is a secret held close by both sides for good reason.  What men with guns can’t dislodge, an Earthquake can manage with ease.

ISLAMABAD: The Army General Headquarters has asked the Ministry of Water and Power to restore power to several sensitive military installations, which collapsed in the earthquake, along the Line of Control (LoC) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), a government official told Daily Times.

The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) was providing electricity to AJK from the Muzaffarabad Grid Station through a single point electricity provision system, while AJK Electricity Board was responsible for power distribution in the area.

The official said that the Muzaffarabad Grid Station supplied electricity to all sensitive military installations and pickets, but the earthquake has completely destroyed the system. [Link]

and on the Indian side:

Twenty-six security personnel, including 21 Army jawans, were killed and scores of others injured as the massive earthquake damaged bunkers and barracks along the Line of Control (LoC) in Baramulla, Kupwara and Poonch districts of Jammu and Kashmir today.

The Army has lost 21 soldiers due to bunkers caving in and damage to barracks along LoC in Rampur, Uri, Baramulla and Tangdhar sectors, a defence spokesman told PTI. [Link]

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The milk of Paradise

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… And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail…
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war! …

I would build that dome in air…
And all should cry, Beware! Beware! …
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

— Samuel Coleridge, ‘Kubla Khan‘

The Atlantic’s November issue has an excellent article on Abdul Quadeer Khan, the fat man behind Pakistan’s Little Boy. It’s the first in a two-part series about how Khan stole nuclear plans and procurement lists from a nuke lab in the Netherlands and turned funding from Pakistan, Libya and Saudi Arabia into a nuclear arsenal.

‘If your forces cross our borders… we are going to annihilate your cities.’

— Zia to Rajiv The full text isn’t online, so here are some key bits:

Khan had become something of a demigod in Pakistan, with a public reputation second only to that of the nation’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and he had developed an ego to match. He was the head of a government facility named after him–the Khan Research Laboratories, or KRL–which had mastered the difficult process of producing highly enriched uranium, the fissionable material necessary for Pakistan’s weapons, and was also involved in the design of the warheads and the missiles to deliver them… A. Q. Khan was seen to have assured the nation’s survival, and indeed he probably has–up until the moment, someday in a conceivable future, when a nuclear exchange actually occurs. [Link]

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The “Devils” Advocates

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This past week conservative John Roberts became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).  Within days Bush will nominate a second judge who will decisively tip the balance of the court. We can be sure that we will continue to see brilliant desi lawyers in front of the Robert’s court in the coming years.  Just a few days ago for example, ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh (see previous entries) successfully sued in federal court to compel the government to release more pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

On Thursday, a U.S. federal judge ordered the release of more images of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse – which may open up the American military to more embarrassment from a scandal that already has stirred outrage around the world.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein rejected government arguments that the images would incite acts of terrorism and violence against U.S. troops in Iraq, saying that terrorists “do not need pretexts for their barbarism.”

“Our nation does not surrender to blackmail, and fear of blackmail is not a legally sufficient argument to prevent us from performing a statutory command. Indeed, the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed,” he said. [Link]

My guess is that this decision may be appealed by DOD and DOJ and find its way in front of the Robert’s court, where hopefully Amrit will continue to argue it.

The judge gave the government 20 days to appeal before releasing the pictures, which are edited so the faces of prisoners are not shown.

Lt. Col. John Skinner, a Pentagon spokesman on detainee issues said the Department of Defense, “continues to consult with the Department of Justice on this litigation, to include additional legal options…”

ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said the ruling was a victory for government accountability.

“The United States government cannot continue to hide the truth about who is ultimately responsible for the systematic abuse of detainees from the American public,” she said. [Link] Continue reading →

GWOT In Pakistan… Updates

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Stratpage has a roundup of some interesting news from the Pakistan front –

September 16, 2005: Pakistan has compiled a list of 173 clergymen, believed to be active in supporting terrorist activity. Pakistan has lost patience with religious leaders who support terrorism, and is cracking down.

September 14, 2005: In Pakistan, troops raided an al Qaeda base, a religious school, arresting 28 terrorist suspects, most of them foreigners. Weapons, bombs and other equipment were seized, including a small Chinese UAV. That was unusual, and the terrorists were apparently using the UAV to scout routes for infiltrating people across the nearby Afghan border, and to spot troops or police operating near their base. That didn’t work, as the UAV was on the ground when the troops swooped in. The army had been tipped off by a local tribesman. The base was also used by the Taliban, to recruit local men for raids across the border in Afghanistan….

A friggin’ UAV? Sheesh. Makes you pause.

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Guerrillas in the Mizoram

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You always hear about our American special forces training the best of soldiers of foreign armies in the latest and greatest methods of killing terrorists and insurgents.  It turns out that one of the finest killing schools in the world is in the jungles of Mizoram.  MSN has a story about our troops attending the Counter Insurgency Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS):

An Indian army commander said Thursday the two-week training in unconventional warfare at the Counter Insurgency Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS) at Vairengte in Mizoram in northeastern India begins Sep 13.

“Apart from a rigorous drill on how to tackle an unconventional war or low intensity conflict, the training module would have a session of simulated anti-insurgency operations for the American soldiers,” a commander at the CIJWS told IANS requesting anonymity.

The school at Vairengte is considered as one of world’s most prestigious anti-terrorist institution with troops from several countries getting counter-insurgency training.

“The motto of this institute is to fight a guerrilla like a guerrilla,” the commander said. “The training module is non-conventional and once a soldier undergoes training here, he can face all deadly situations anywhere in the world.”

So what exactly will our American soldiers be faced with?  A quick Google search finds this article from April of last year:

US troops are being fed venomous vipers, dogs and monkeys as part of military exercises to sharpen skills in jungle combat in India’s insurgency-torn northeastern state of Mizoram.

Ummm.  Yeah.  In all seriousness though I think it would be cool to train there.  I couldn’t find any website for CIJWS, and that is probably how they like it.  I did however find this website by a reporter(?) who visited the school:

However, a school is just a school – it ain’t quite a story. Unless it has functioned as the premier and only institution of its kind in the country for 30 years – and hardly any reporter has heard of it, let alone visit it. Then, it becomes a scoop. When we got a whiff of it, our martial ears tingled; we put out feelers among our khakied friends, who said they had no clue what we were talking about.

Sure that we were being rebuffed, we became Ophelia, and brightened only after a CIJWS officer exclaimed, “How did you hear about the school? Hardly anyone in the army itself knows of us!” He immediately launched into we-are-completely-transparent-nothing-is-classified blah blah, but the point is, training in CI ops hinges on research, analysis, strategy and tactics. And therein lies the sensitive nature of this lean & mean institution.

Here is another interesting link.
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The funeral of Hatim Kathiria

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Per his wishes, slain U.S. citizen and Army soldier Hatim Kathiria was laid to rest in his home town of Dahod in the state of Gujarat.  The BBC reports:

Thousands of mourners have attended the funeral in India’s Gujarat state of an Indian-born US soldier killed in Iraq.

Hatim Kathiria, a 23-year-old Muslim, who died in a rocket attack in Baghdad on 22 August, was buried in his home town of Dahod.

I hate to sound cynical on such an occasion but this is the first time I’ve seen such a large public Muslim funeral reported in the media that was not for a “martyr” or an innocent victim of collateral damage.  I know this is because such “regular” stories are not as sensational and so the media is uninterested, but it’s good to see an actual soldier being honored for giving his life in battle. 

His mother, Shirin, said: “He was my only son. His ambitions took him to the US and then to Iraq. We lost him, but he died a martyr’s death.”

Damn, maybe I spoke too soon.  It sucks that the word martyr has been co-opted by terrorists to the point where it’s hard to distinguish a true martyr (and I’m not sure if I know what qualifies a true martyr).

Of course there was also some drama that took place at the funeral.  Kathiria’s parents apparently didn’t know he was married.  Probably because the girl wasn’t Indian:

The crowd fell over each other to catch a glimpse of his Anglo Indian widow Lisse Jean Pierre, who reached Dahod along with the body.

Amid rumours that Kathiria’s family was unaware about the marriage, which took place earlier this year, a jeans and T-shirt clad Ms Lisse – also a US army specialist – met her in-laws. However, sources said the women of the Bohra community were not allowed to talk to her. She was also kept away from the media, which was present in large number to cover the incident.

So tight was the security around the Hussaini Mosque, where the last rituals took place that not even his close relatives were allowed inside. “Normally, Bohra community is better known for its trading prowess but we are proud of Hatim as he joined the US Army and laid down his life for a cause,” Kathiria’s cousin Abuzar Mirchiwala said.

Sigh.  Some things never change.

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Lord I never drew first, but I drew first blood

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As I’ve watched the news over the past week I’ve started to consider if I should purchase a gun.  I hate guns.  I’ve only held one once.  I have had one too many dreams where I was not only shot, but mutilated by gunfire.  I’ve convinced myself that I must have died from a GSW in my past life and so I’ve wanted nothing to do with them.  Indian families don’t really own guns.  Am I wrong?  Maybe I am just sheltered but I just don’t know any Indian families that own guns.  Most of my first generation relatives have never even mentioned gun ownership.  In India my family didn’t own a gun…well except for an air gun which they used to shoot geckos off the wall.  I could imagine that South Asian hoteliers, convenience store owners, and wannabe thugs are probably packing, but outside of that I’d be surprised.  How many South Asians do you know that either hunt or are members of the NRA?  Not many I’ll bet.  Recently I tried to talk my younger brother into buying a weapon.  In the state in which he resides you aren’t a man without a piece.  People wear them in plain sight on their waist he tells me.  Two weeks ago a man in a pick-up truck pulled up beside him as he walked along the road and asked if he was packing.  “No,” my brother replied.  “You should be,” advised the man.  It isn’t only bears and wolves but some crazies (everyone tells him so) where my brother lives that makes a gun a good idea.

So why aren’t brown folk strapped?  Part of it must be that many South Asian immigrants (and even those born here) don’t understand the technical details of the U.S. Constitution and the 2nd Amendment.  They didn’t need a gun in India so why would they here?  Why does it seem like we have a “duty” to carry guns in America?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. [Link]

The founding fathers in their infinite wisdom and fresh from the Revolutionary War, wanted to make sure that the populace had armed state militias that could rise up against the federal government if it made a move toward autocracy.  The phrase “well regulated Militia” however, was a loophole as wide as a football field and has led to the largest rate of gun violence in the world (guns do kill people).  The founding fathers also worked in another rule into the Constitution that also has bearing on this past week’s events in New Orleans.  Many people don’t know that the U.S. military is forbidden by the Constitution from acting (using their guns) within the borders of the United States.  A friend of mine who spent 8 years in the U.S. Army (and who was born and lived in India until she was twelve) asked me earlier this week why the military didn’t just take over down there.  I explained to her about habeas corpus (which is incidentally my favorite Latin phrase).

The right of habeas corpus has long been celebrated as the most efficient safeguard of the liberty of the subject.

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How not to win a war

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The Indian military’s alleged human rights abuses, shielded by a heavy-handed anti-separatist law, are provoking resentment in Manipur:

… there is the seething grievance against the Indian troops and paramilitary forces that saturate the state, and particularly against the sweeping powers they are granted by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which allows them to search, detain and interrogate anyone suspected of guerrilla activity…

Manipur erupted in anger against the law after the killing of Thanjam Manorama in July 2004. Ms. Manorama, 32, was taken from her home in the dark of night, shot dead and left in a field. Semen stains were found on her underwear, according to reports in the Indian news media. The military said she was a militant and challenged a state government inquiry into her killing, citing the Special Powers Act. An army spokesman said in a recent interview that there was no conclusive evidence of rape.

The attack against Ms. Manorama set Manipur boiling. In one of the starkest acts of protest the country has ever seen, nearly a dozen elderly women stripped themselves naked, stood in front of the military base in Imphal and held up a haunting imperative on a homemade white banner: “Indian Army Rape Us…” [Link]

The alleged murder-rape reminds me of a similar U.S. army case in Okinawa. In classic repressive style, foreign journies are banned:

Foreign journalists must have permits to even set foot in the state, and those are only rarely issued. India’s home minister, Shivraj Patil, in an interview earlier this year offered this justification for the virtual prohibition against foreign journalists: “Because you are so interested…” [Link]

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