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In response to requests by readers for a search box, its probably good to point out that there's already a search box on the top left hand corner of this blog.

Shorts

• A mapgame
  by Thomas P.M. Barnett, author of The Pentagon's New Map.


• The Private
  Military Industry by P. W. Singer of Brookings.


• Preventing
  a War Over Taiwan, a Clinton-era Senior Director for Asia on the staff
  of the National Security Council.

Hat tip: the incomparable MIG

Cries and Whispers

Bizarre news from Sweden. (Hat tip: M.S.) A preacher in Stockholm is under
police protection after being threatened with death for calling the prophet
Mohammed a pedophile. The newspaper Aftenposten
reports:

Celebrity Pentecostal preacher Runar S�gaard is under protection by
Swedish police after receiving death threats. A high-profile sermon where
S�gaard called the prophet Mohammed "a confused pedophile" has
triggered fears of religious war. ... "Even if I see Runar while he has
major police protection I will shoot him to death," a radical Islamist
told Swedish newspaper Expressen. Persons connected to the Kurdish group Ansar
al-Islam claim to have received a fatwa, a decree from a Muslim religious
leader, to kill S�gaard.

Swedish experts claim that S�gaard is at fault.

Islam expert Jan Hj�rpe at the University of Lund told Expressen that such
an assassination is a real risk, and he wondered if conflict was the motive
for the sermon. ... "It was a statement from an odd man in an odd sect but the effect is stronger antagonism between different groups. It becomes a pure religious polemic and is extremely unpleasant," Hj�rpe told the newspaper.
Hj�rpe saw the incident as a type of beginning of a religious war in Sweden. "It (S�gaard's sermon) has power and influence. It seems to have been Runar's intention to provoke and promote antagonism," Hj�rpe said.

Blogger The
Fjordman takes a different view. He regard's the S�gaard incident as part
of a wider breakdown in the civility between Muslim immigrants and native
Swedes. He paints a bleak picture.

Rock throwing and attacks against buses and trains are increasing problems
in some suburbs. In Malm� the bus lines in the area of Roseng�rd have been
cancelled. In Stockholm, the authorities went even further and stopped both
the bus traffic in the Tensta suburb and the train to Nyn�shamn. Head of the
bus company in the city of Uppsala, Claes-G�ran Alm, is considering doing the
same, as the harassment is costing too much money and is putting their
employees at risk. Benny Persson is selling window glass in the areas south of
Stockholm. According to him, they sometimes have to jump into the car and
leave the spot, as they are met with the harassment that some of the bus
companies in the suburbs are experiencing: Stone throwing and threats. The
same thing is reported from Gothenburg, Sweden�s second largest city. The
company Hemglass are now attempting to run double crews in their cars to face
the problems, but they still have had to completely abandon an area outside
S�dert�lje. If you get stuck in an elevator outside Stockholm, you risk
staying there for a long time. The repair personnel now demand security guards
present when they arrive, since several of their employees have been
physically attacked. The most serious problem, however, is the delay of
ambulances and the fire department. According to the Emergency Central,
attacks against them have become commonplace in the cities. Every Saturday, at
least five to ten times emergency personnel are asking for police escort to be
able to do their job.

Quoting a New York academic now living in Sweden, The Fjordman
believes part of the problem is that Swedish public figures have been studiously
avoiding noticing the elephant in the living room. "No debate about
immigration polices is possible, the subject is simply avoided. Sweden has such
a close connection between the various powerful groups, politicians,
journalists, etc. The political class is closed, isolated."

These are powerful accusations. Part of the challenge facing the new Internet
media is to find a robust method for collaterally confirming such reports, which
are sparsely covered in the regular media. The Fjordman's post is
liberally sprinkled with links (many of which are unfortunately, for me at
least, in Swedish) so there is little doubt that many of the individual
incidents he refers to are true. So it's a good start. But in order to really
gauge the magnitude and severity of the situation there is really a need for
more investigative blogging. It's a fair bet that the MSM, which still provides
the bulk of primary reporting, has gaps in its coverage and there are some --
such as this one -- which are too important to miss.

Freedom for the Bali Bomber?

American
Expat in Southeast Asia reports that Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the spiritual head
of the Jemaah Islamiyah, may be released early -- before the end of the year --
as a consequence of increasing domestic pressure to absolve him of culpability.

Back on 3 March 2005 CNN reported that Abu Bakar Ba'asyir would recieved a
jail term of 30 months for his involvement in the bombing. What they didn't
cover or tell you then were the details of the case and what led to such a
lenient sentence including captured members of Jemaah Islamiyah retracting
statements and the testimony of an American citizen. ... by the name of Fred
Burks who had been working as a translator for the State Department and had
attended a meeting together with the CIA and the NSA at the residence of
Indonesia's president Megawati Sukarnoputri.

This seems to be the same Fred Burks who authored a glowing review in Al
Jazeerah of the BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares. Burks wrote:

This revealing BBC documentary digs deep into the roots of the war on
terror, only to find that much of the widespread fear in the post 9/11 world
has been fabricated by those in power for their own interests. The intrepid
BBC team presents highly informative interviews with top officials and experts
in combating terrorism who raise serious questions about who is behind all of
the fear-mongering.

This eye-opening documentary shows that, especially after 9/11, fear has
been used to manipulate the public into giving up civil liberties and turning
over ever more power to elite groups with their own hidden agendas.

In my own experience as an interpreter for US and foreign presidents, I
have personally witnessed some of the manipulations mentioned in the above
documentary. Having worked as an Indonesian interpreter with the US Department
of State for over 18 years, I recently testified to this in the widely
publicized trial of Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir. Among other
things, Mr. Ba'asyir is accused by US authorities of being the mastermind
behind JI (Jemaah Islamiah), which is alleged to be a sister organization of
Al Qaeda. Many Indonesians are quite skeptical of these allegations. Like me
and the BBC video, they question whether JI was largely fabricated by powerful
elite groups with hidden agendas.

At the trial, I testified about a Sept. 2002 secret meeting at which I
interpreted for President of Indonesia Megawati Soekarnoputri, US Ambassador
Ralph Boyce, National Security Council representative Karen Brooks, and a
special assistant sent personally by President Bush (who revealed privately to
me that she was a CIA agent). The "special assistant" pressured
President Megawati to secretly capture and turn over Abu Bakar Ba'asyir to the
United States. Yet US authorities have continually denied ever putting any
pressure on Jakarta to act against Ba'asyir.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Paul Volcker has asked the UN to instruct a former investigator probing the
Oil For Food Program not to comply with a Senate subpoena to provide it with
information on the Oil for Food program . Fox
News reports:

Volcker said Friday that Congress has to restrain itself from requiring
certain acts and information from current or former IIC members as it conducts
hearings into Oil-for-Food. "It is essential that it also protect the
integrity and the confidentiality of the independent investigating
committee," Volcker told reporters in New York, saying the probe involved
"highly sensitive matters."

"Lives of certain witnesses are at stake," he added. "We're
not playing games here, we are dealing, and let me just emphasize this, in
some cases, with lives." In a later question-and-answer session, Volcker
did not elaborate too much on who may be threatened if too much information
about who has cooperated is publicized, saying, "I couldn't tell you
specifically who was threatening witnesses."

The two reports so far issued by Paul Volcker have dealt with the formal
remit of the Oil For Food Program; the procedures under which bids were let; the
dubious relationship between Kojo Annan and Cotecna and the possible but
isolated malfeasance of Benon Sevan. By his own account, Vocker found ineptitude
but not criminality. While he cannot exonerate the Secretary General, nothing in
the Volcker reports so far can put a smoking gun in Kofi Annan's hands. So far,
it has been a story of incompetence without a crime or a criminal mastermind; of
people who resemble conspirators without being members of a conspiracy.

Volcker's implicaton that the "lives of certain witnesses are at
stake", though he would not name who specifically "was threatening
witnesses" clearly indicates that despite his first two reports, something
criminal, indeed murderous lies within the Oil for Food
universe. Something that could get people killed. Having excluded the
possibility of a criminal conspiracy in his first two reports, Volcker now wants
to prevent former investigator Robert Parton from divulging certain undisclosed
details to the US Congress because he fears that the "lives of certain
witnesses are at stake". That which was denied is now invoked.

There are two possible scenarios at this juncture. The first is that Volcker
himself intended to uncover the criminal elements he now warns against in his
final report and fears that Parton will jeopardize his careful strategy. The
second is that Volcker considered these criminally-related aspects irrelevant to
investigation.

Volcker's appeal to the United Nations to prevent the Parton from testifying
does not look good since he is asking Kofi Annan, the very man under
investigation to prevent the release of information that is part of the probe.
Was not the very purpose of the IIC to uncover possible criminal activity in the
Oil for Food Program? The UN has only accepted the charge of incompetence, but not
criminality in the management of the Oil For Food Program. At a UN
press conference following the second Volcker report, Kofi Annan's chief of
staff Mark Malloch Brown had this exchange with journalists, after Annan had
left the room.

Question: Since you keep raising the �he�s-no-crook� defence, let me
ask you about management. By now, the guy that he handpicked to run
oil-for-food was found totally discredited; his Chief of Staff was cited in
this latest report for doing something that the report finds not credible --
his explanation is not credible; the head of OIOS was found to be lacking in
his investigation of oil-for-food; his son was found to be lacking; and his
relatives were found to be lacking. Is the circle closing, and is it time --
is Mr. Annan, indeed, as Richard asked, the man to lead this huge undertaking
of reform at the UN?

Mr. Malloch Brown: Let�s first agree: I�ll answer the question �Is
the circle closing?� if you�ll answer the question �Has the ground
moved?� Are you giving up on what I would characterize as the �he�s-innocent-so-lay-off�
defence? He�s not a crook.

Question: That�s what Richard Nixon said, too.

Mr. Malloch Brown: Well, that�s why I�m saying -- in other words, let�s
first agree that the story has probably moved decisively on today, from
probably a final slaying of the ghosts on �there was corruption in this by
the Secretary-General� to a second issue, which is, was the management
effective enough? And on that, he�s the first to acknowledge it evidently
wasn�t. A number of individuals have now been cited in ways which are
enormously damaging to the Organization and to all of us who work for it.

But hence, again, the important bit of Volcker, which is the
forward-looking bit of Volcker, which is, having disposed of any charges of
criminality and corruption against the system as a whole and against the
Secretary-General, but having pinpointed failings by others, how do we,
moving forward, put in place the management reforms that address that? And I
would argue, the kind of things we�re doing on more open, high-quality
selection of senior staff, the reform of procurement and audit, the
strengthening of OIOS going forward -- all of these issues are a very serious
response to the issues raised and show that the Secretary-General takes this
very seriously.

We have Annan's and Malloch Brown's categorical assurance on that Volcker
found nothing criminal in combing through the UN system. What is there in
Parton's box of documents that may be worth killing witnesses for?

Yalta

The United States has apologized for several of its Second World War actions,
most notably the internment of Japanese-Americans. However, George Bush's
apology for the 'sellout' at Yalta is bound to rekindle debate over one of the
foundational moments of the post-war world. ABC
news reports:

Second-guessing Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Bush said Saturday the
United States played a role in Europe's painful division after World War II a
decision that helped cause "one of the greatest wrongs of history"
when the Soviet Union imposed its harsh rule across Central and Eastern
Europe. ...  "Certainly it goes further than any president has
gone," historian Alan Brinkley said from the U.S. "This has been a
very common view of the far right for many years that Yalta was a betrayal of
freedom, that Roosevelt betrayed the hopes of generations." Bush said the
Yalta agreement, also signed by Britain's Winston Churchill and the Soviet
Union's Joseph Stalin, followed in the "unjust tradition" of other
infamous war pacts that carved up the continent and left millions in
oppression. The Yalta accord gave Stalin control of the whole of Eastern
Europe, leading to criticism that Roosevelt had delivered millions of people
to communist domination. "Once again, when powerful governments
negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable," the
president said. "Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of
stability left a continent divided and unstable."

Yalta marked the moment from when Winston Churchill first openly called the
Soviet Union a menace to the Free World. With Nazi Germany clearly dying, Stalin
had replaced Hitler as the principal menace to Britain. Interestingly enough,
the United Nations was created at Yalta. It is the only one of the four major
conference decisions whose writ history has not yet rescinded or made moot. The four
decisions were:

• divide Germany into four �zones�, which Britain, France, the USA and
  the USSR would occupy after the war.


• hold elections in the countries of eastern Europe.


• set up a government in Poland which would contain both Communists and
  non-Communists.


• set up the United Nations.

Roosevelt was to die shortly afterward and Churchill would be evicted from
office by Britain weary of war. Yet Stalin remained. But from his position as a
private person, Churchill had one final word of warning to utter. At a speech
in Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Churchill said:

"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "iron
curtain" has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the
capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin,
Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous
cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet
sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet
influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control
from Moscow."

When the Yalta conference was held, US forces were still West of the Rhine.
Roosevelt was extremely sick. Britain all but exhausted. Yet so was the Soviet
Union. And the United States was soon to be the sole possessor of the atomic
bomb. Whether it was possible to prevent Stalin from taking over Eastern
Europe without devastating it will always be an open question. In one sense, it
is always futile to apologize for history. But George Bush's apology is really
addressed toward his perception of American historical intent. He seems to be
saying 'yes my predecessor intended to carve up the world with Josef Stalin. He
had no right to deliver people into bondage and we will never do it again.' It
is a moral apology, no less futile than regrets over slavery or the
dispossession of the Indian tribes.

Back to the Future

Max Boot describes on vision of 21st century US forces: the 19th century
British Army. In Foreign
Affairs article (hat tip: MIG), Boot argues that while Iraq has shown US
forces to be masters at blitzkrieg, they were less than adept at handling
guerilla war. To remedy that, he suggests looking to the past.

Whether or not the United States is an "empire" today, it is a
country with interests to protect and enemies to fight all over the world.
There is no finer example of how to do this cheaply and effectively than the
British Empire. In 1898, it maintained only 331,000 soldiers and sailors and
spent only 2.4 percent of its GDP on defense, considerably less than the 3.9
percent the United States spends today. This puny investment was enough to
safeguard an empire that covered 25 percent of the globe. ...

The old British Army, he says enjoyed four advantages: a technological edge
over their native opponents; an army optimized for colonial fighting; a system
of native auxiliaries; and "an unparalleled group of colonial
administrators, intelligence agents, and soldiers--many of whom would, in their
spare time, double as linguists, archaeologists, or botanists. Adventurers such
as Richard Francis Burton, Charles "Chinese" Gordon, T. E. Lawrence
("of Arabia"), and Gertrude Bell immersed themselves in local
cultures, operating to advance the empire's interests on their own, with scant
guidance from Whitehall." One way to pay for the transformation, Boot
suggests, is to abandon certain highly expensive weapons programs -- like the
F-22 -- an investing in more and better ground troops and equipment,
understanding that these ground troops will be better not merely as fighters,
but as linguists and nation builders.

The immediate objection that comes to mind is the fate of the 19th century British
Army itself. The splendid colonial force was shredded by its first encounters
with a technologically equal enemy as it went to war against the Boers at the
turn of the century, then later against the Germans in the First and Second
World Wars. The British Army could not in the end prepare itself to fight
against opposite ends of the spectrum with equal success. The close order
tactics developed in the colonial wars (for force protection) were to spell
their doom when confronted by the Mauser rifles and automatic cannon of the
Boers. The real challenge is to transform the US military in ways that will make
it effective both against terrorist tactics and a conventional threat, like
China's, where an F-22 may have some worth.