Key Players – Page 242 – Public Intelligence Blog

Syria-Saudi Arabia-Lebanon: Syria and Saudi Arabia pledged to support efforts to stabilize Lebanon and preserve its security and unity, Reuters reported 29 July. A joint statement from Saudi King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al Asad also called for better inter-Arab relations, praised Turkey's support for the Palestinians and called for the formation of a government in Iraq to preserve the nation's Arab identity and security.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: The King has undertaken another strenuous trip through Arab lands to build an Arab front that blocks Iranian influence in Syria and inroads in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. The Syrian Alawites, the Sunni Palestinians of Hamas and the Shiite Arabs of Lebanese Hezbollah have afforded the Persians unprecedented access to Arab lands and business.

The Saudi King continues to try to limit or reverse the damage to what passes for Arab unity from Iranian subversion. Thus far his energies have been misspent. His initiatives have not weakened Iranian influence in any of the three target entities.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: Ambassador Mark Palmer has it right–the US should not be supporting dictators (nor, we would add, a genocidal Zionist movement that joins the Arabs against the Palistinians). See Review: Breaking the Real Axis of Evil–How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025. Will and Ariel Durant also have it right: morality is a strategic asset of incalculable value. See Review: The Lessons of History.

See Also:

Review: Palestine–Peace Not Apartheid

Review: Unspeakable Truths–Facing the Challenges of Truth Commissions (Paperback)

Review: The Health of Nations–Society and Law beyond the State

Review: The leadership of civilization building–Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century

and all the book lists.

2010/07/292010/07/29

Bringing Martin Luther King to China (and back)

01 Poverty, 02 China, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

Gandhi’s movement for non-violent social change challenged America. Can Martin Luther King, Jr. do the same for China?

Bringing King to China is a documentary film about culture, race and human rights. The film takes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream of equality and peace to China—and then brings it back to the U.S. It's the story of a young American teacher in Beijing, whose failed protests against the Iraq war inspire her to produce a play in Chinese about Martin Luther King, Jr. Her journey begins after worldwide demonstrations fail to stop the invasion of Iraq and she learns (mistakenly) that her father, an ABC journalist covering the war, has been killed by a suicide bomber.

Video Trailer

Continue reading “Bringing Martin Luther King to China (and back)”

2010/07/282010/07/28

NIGHTWATCH Extract: US “Strategic Decrepitude” vis a vis South China Sea–US Navy goes wee wee wee, Hilary Clinton Does the Gerbil

02 China, 02 Diplomacy

China-US-South China Sea: The Chinese government reacted angrily on Monday to the announcement by US Secretary of State Clinton that Washington might step into a long-simmering territorial dispute between China and its smaller neighbors over sovereign rights to the South China Sea.

Speaking Friday at a forum of Southeast Asian countries in Vietnam, Clinton apparently surprised the Chinese by saying the United States had a “national interest” in seeking to mediate the dispute, which involves roughly 200 islands, islets and coral outcroppings and the seabed that are claimed by China, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines. China claims all the South China Sea as its territorial waters.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: US “Strategic Decrepitude” vis a vis South China Sea–US Navy goes wee wee wee, Hilary Clinton Does the Gerbil”

2010/07/272010/07/27

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Korean POWs Alive Ergo VN?

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards

South Korea-China-North Korea: For the record. An 81-year-old South Korean prisoner of war from the Korean War is known to have been sent back to North Korea after having been arrested in China in August last year.

The POW fought in the Korean War in the 3rd division of the South Korean Army's 5th Corps and was captured by North Korean forces in 1952. After years in captivity, he managed to escape North Korea with the help of a South Korean group and a “refugee broker.” The refugee broker who had helped the soldier escape reported him to Chinese police after arguing with the South Korean group over money

The POW was arrested on 24 August last year, eight days after he fled North Korea, according to Dong-A Ilbo.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: Korean POWs Alive Ergo VN?”

2010/07/262010/07/26

Journal: What Revolution in Military Affairs? Shattering the illusion of bloodless victory

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends

It is not as if the disaster described below, in the Afghan war logs released by Wikileaks to the Guardian, the New York Times, and der Spiegle, was not foreseeable. Here, for example, is an op-ed I wrote for Defense Week in April 2001, well before we began the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And I was hardly alone or invisible. Readers familiar with the work of reformers Colonel John Boyd, Pierre Sprey, Colonel James Burton, Colonel Mike Wylie, Colonel GI Wilson, Colonel Bob Dilger, and Tom Christie, among others, will know that they have been highly visible canaries in the high-tech coal mine since the late 1960s. For those unfamiliar with their critical analyses, I refer you to James Fallows' National Defense (Random House 1981), and Robert Coram's Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (Little Brown, 2002), or The Winds of Reform, Time (7 March 1983). Emphasis below added. Chuck.

Afghanistan war logs: Shattering the illusion of a bloodless victory

Norton-Taylor, Guardian, 25 July 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/revolution-in-military-affairs-shock-awe

Real picture of a conflict longer than Vietnam, or either world war, refutes the idea of a ‘revolution in military affairs'

Continue reading “Journal: What Revolution in Military Affairs? Shattering the illusion of bloodless victory”

2010/07/262010/07/27

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Strategic Prisoners in AF…

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards

Afghanistan: Taliban militants said on 25 July they had killed one of two US military personnel captured on the 24th in Logar Province, south of Kabul, and that they are holding the other hostage, Reuters reported, citing an interview with a Taliban spokesman. The spokesman said the group has taken the living captive and the dead one's body to a “safe place” and that the group's leadership would decide the fate of the captive later.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: US authorities announced that two US Navy personnel have been missing since Friday. Taliban state they ambushed the two, killing one. The memory of Vietnam's handling of American prisoners of war is still fresh enough to revive horrible memories, but the Pashtun Taliban are more brutal and less organized than the Vietnamese and lack a French colonial-built prison system for hiding POWs. The leadership safe havens in Pakistan do not include access to provincial prisons or kidnappings would be much more frequent.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: Strategic Prisoners in AF…”

2010/07/25