Refusing to cooperate
Pakistani government officials have refused to cooperate with the American CIA in joint operations to hunt down Islamic terrorists inside Pakistan. U.S. officials believe that this is retaliation by Pakistani military and the ISI (Pakistani equivalent of our CIA) for the embarrassment of the bin Laden raid and the implication that the ISI had helped hide bin Laden, which is something the military denies.
Bin Laden’s successor
As expected, al Qaeda named Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s longtime deputy, as his successor and head of al Qaeda. In the last decade, al Zawahiri was running al Qaeda more than bin Laden. The U.S. military believes Zawahiri is hiding out in Pakistan near the town of Bajaur on the Afghan border.
Blind to reality
The UN, which is largely controlled by countries that are hostile to Israel, has demanded an end to the blockade of Gaza so that the economy there might revive; however, the UN will not do anything about the terrorist threat to Israel. Rockets and mortars are still fired into Israel from Gaza and the terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank still recruit and plan attacks against Israel. Israeli raids into the West Bank regularly arrest active terrorists. Only this and the blockade keep the terrorists out of Israel.
Tipped off
U.S. government officials accused Pakistani intelligence (ISI) of working with al Qaeda in two recent cases where American intelligence provided Pakistani military leaders with the location a terrorist bomb-making facilities in North Waziristan. In both cases, the terrorists had packed up and left by the time Pakistani police showed up. The Pakistanis then denied they had leaked the information to the terrorists.
Rape, pillage and kill
Defecting Qaddafi forces and those captured confirm that Qaddafi had ordered terrorism to be used in order to persuade rebellious populations to give up the fight. The terror attacks included deliberately firing artillery into residential neighborhoods and raping any civilian women encountered.
U.S. Navy frustrated
The U.S. Navy is frustrated in its efforts to come up with a new affordable destroyer design and has now decided to continue building upgraded versions of the DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class ships for the next 20 years. This means that this destroyer design will stay in production for over half a century. The Navy hopes in that in the next two decades it can come up with an affordable destroyer design to replace the Burke class. It is likely that the last Burke-class destroyer won’t be retired until sometime in the 2070s, nearly a century after the first of its class entered service.
Hostile to terrorists
Many Russians are very hostile to Muslims in general, and Islamic terrorists in particular. This has caused the security forces to be all over the Caucasus this year to interfere with and stop any attacks Islamic terrorist groups might be planning. So far this is working, with a lot of gun battles as Islamic terrorists try to get by checkpoints and sweeps of urban and rural areas.
No good deed goes unpunished
The Americans have also accused Pakistani investigators of arresting those who helped provide information about bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan, and naturally the Pakistanis deny the accusations. Within Pakistan there is some popular support for identifying and punishing Pakistanis who cooperated with the American effort to locate bin Laden and the raid that killed him which exposed Pakistani cooperation with the Islamic terrorists and embarrassed Pakistan.
Imposing lifestyle rules
The Iranian government has ordered over 20,000 lifestyle police to impose new restrictions on all Iranian citizens. From now on, men cannot wear necklaces, ties, or sport Western-style haircuts. Women cannot wear loose headscarves or tight jeans, and it is now also forbidden to keep dogs as pets. Violators can be arrested, fined or imprisoned. While these restrictions are very unpopular, the lifestyle police serve to keep many Iranians intimidated and fearful.
Too difficult to kill
This year’s Taliban Spring and Summer Offensive was aimed mainly at Afghan security forces leadership. This recognizes the fact that Afghan troops become too difficult to kill because of better training, equipment and leadership. There are now over 250,000 Afghan soldiers and police in the country.
Hanging by a thread
The Greek government survived a no-confidence vote (155 to 143) in the Greek parliament, meaning that the Greek Socialist Party remains in control of the government. Resistance to the government-imposed austerity budgets led to the no-confidence vote.
Upsetting the Ruskies
In a move that is certain to upset some Russian nationalists, the Polish government signed an agreement allowing the U.S. Air Force to base warplanes and transports in Poland. Within two years, the U.S. plans to have F-16s and C-130s stationed there. The Polish government sees this move as further protection from Russian threats and pressure. For more than two centuries Russia has regularly threatened and often seized parts of Poland, and now the Russians aren’t happy with anything that might prevent such moves in the future. Since the U.S. is a nuclear power, the Russians will be constrained from attempting to invade Poland as long as American troops are stationed there. The Russians aren’t too happy about the situation and this pleases the Poles very much.
Shared interest
The UN would like to condemn Syria for human rights violations but China and Russia oppose such a move based, partly, on general principal. Many Russians are still fighting the Cold War and China is still run by a communist dictatorship which could also be condemned for some of its security measures. Both China and Russia want to do business with Iran so they appreciate efforts to block UN criticism of client state Syria. It’s all about shared interests.
Meddlesome Iranians
Despite the many Arab uprisings in the Middle East this year, the new governments continue the old Arab unity when it comes to opposing Iranian interference in Arab affairs. For this reason, Arab countries are not happy with how Iran continues to meddle in Iraq, Bahrain, Gaza, Syria and Lebanon.
U.S. pulls the weight
The retiring U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has done something unusual: he has openly questioned the ability of NATO to survive after its very mixed performance in Afghanistan and the general unwillingness of member countries to pull their weight. Gates also pointed out that the U.S. supplies 75% of the NATO budget and is constantly called to do the majority of the fighting. Basically countries joined NATO to obtain protection from the U.S. military without making any contribution in proportion to the size of each members’ economy and population.
Anger toward corruption
Russian government officials took note of an opinion survey that showed 34% of Russians always feel like killing their corrupt officials, with 38% sometimes feeling that way. This has led to increasing efforts to find and prosecute corrupt government officials, but it has also found that many prosecutors were being bribed to be lenient on those prosecutions.
Still building nukes
The Iranian government said it would triple its uranium enrichment operations. While denying that it is developing nuclear weapons, the government has increased nuclear fuel operations far beyond what is needed for a nuclear power program. The UN is now openly accusing Iran of running a clandestine nuclear weapons program.
Russia buys French ships
French and Russian government officials finally signed a deal that sold two French Mistral-class amphibious ships for $1.7 billion. This is the largest purchase by Russia of Western military weapons since WWII. The deal was delayed for a long time because the Russians demanded the transfer of shipbuilding and electronics technology, which French officials finally caved into giving them.
Prison camps expand
As can be seen from satellite imagery, North Korean prison camps are expanding. Relatives of prisoners, or those released, bring with them horrific details of life in those awful camps. More North Koreans are being arrested for economic crimes and espionage, such as using an unauthorized cell phone or listening to foreign news reports. Currently about 1% of the North Korean population is in these labor prison camps and 5% to 10% do not survive their time there.
Hypocritical critics
In the West, Israel receives lots of criticism for its decades-long campaign against key terrorist operatives. Critics consider this action assassination and murder; Israel considers it war, and justified by the tactics their enemies use. Palestinians, and Arabs in general, call the dead terrorists martyrs and heroes, including the ones who have carried out attacks in Western countries. However, many of those same countries continue to condemn Israel for what the U.S. and other Western nations have been doing. The Israelis consider this hypocritical, and continues to fight the war by rules that the terrorists understand.
Organized crime hub
According to a Europol crime assessment report, Turkey has emerged as a major hub for organized criminal gangs smuggling people, goods and narcotics into the rest of Europe. The report acknowledges that modern criminal syndicates use advanced communications to keep their operations extremely mobile.
A disaster plan
The U.S. and South Korean governments have plans for the eventual collapse of the North Korean government. Called Operational Plan 5029, it lays out who will do what when things in North Korea do collapse. The plan calls for the U.S. to mainly take care of securing North Korea’s nuclear weapons while South Korea gets to deal with the flood of refugees and sending military forces north to restore some kind of order. Details of the plan are obviously classified, so it isn’t known what role China is expected to play. It is believed the Chinese have their own ideas about how to handle the collapse, which might involve Chinese troops going in to make sure a communist government emerges from the rubble. The Chinese do not want to see North Korea absorbed into South Korea, although most Koreans would prefer a united Korea. China does not want a prosperous democracy on its border.
Cold War mentality
The Russian government continues to oppose American efforts to build an anti-missile system in East Europe in order to protect Europe from any Iranian ballistic missiles. The problem is that senior Russian diplomatic and military officials simply don’t believe that the Iranians would ever do this and that the American’s plan is actually intended to weaken the Russian ability to attack Europe with ballistic missiles. This is mistakenly believed by many Russians, and even among many leftists in Western Europe as well. To most Americans it doesn’t make any sense.
Another bailout
The EU has reported that Greece’s debt load is rising much faster than anticipated. The EU has already provided Greece with loan guarantees of around $150 billion, but it appears that Greece may need a second bailout.
A culture of killing
Encouraged by NATO politicians pledging to get foreign troops out of Afghanistan over the next few years, the Taliban are targeting Afghan government leaders who could not be bought. In general, the loss of territory to foreign and Afghan troops in the last few years has left the Taliban with no alternative but to either surrender or become terrorists. Since the drug gangs are willing to pay for terrorism in order to remain in business, some Pushtun tribesmen might consider becoming paid killers. Afghan culture doesn’t consider this a uniformly bad thing.
Sanctions working
The Iranian government is having problems obtaining spare parts for their existing weapons and other components to build new weapons. Over the past decade, the UN and American economic sanctions against Iran have become more effective; sending more smugglers to jail and discouraging new prospects the Iranians try to recruit to keep the flow of material going.
400,000 landings
In May, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) had its 400,000th aircraft landing after having been in service for 36 years. Only three other U.S. aircraft carriers have handled 400,000 landings. The first to do so was the USS Lexington (CV-16), a WWII Essex-class carrier that served 48 years (1943-91) but spent 30 of those years as a training carrier; next was the USS Independence (CV-62), serving 39 years, followed by the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), serving for 48 years (1961-2009).
Totally delusional
The Iranian government has explained its support for the Syrian government against protestors demanding democracy, by pointing out that Iran opposes protest movements believed to be sponsored by the U.S. and Israel. The Iranians outrightly accuse the U.S. and Israel of causing the uprisings in Syria, but not in any other Arab country. This is an attempt to explain away Iranian support for one of most brutal Arab dictatorships, mainly because Syria has been an Iranian ally since the 1980s.
An al Qaeda goal
The files captured from Osama bin Laden revealed that he was trying to organize the seizure of one or more supertankers in order to strangle the world economy. It turns out, though, that several intelligence agencies already believed that this was a major goal of al Qaeda. No details were available as to how far bin Laden and al Qaeda had gotten in their plans, but the efforts of the Somali pirates in grabbing these large ships had been carefully studied; many supertankers now have more security measures and equipment installed on them.
Paranoid?
The Russian Supreme Court agreed with the government and ordered the Center for Islamic Studies to be shut down, allowing for a government-controlled organization to be the supreme Islamic clerical council in the country. This is just another example of how Russia returns to the old centralized government-controlled ways of the communist and, before that, the czarist periods.
Army beret gets boot
After a decade of complaints and poor morale, the U.S. Army has decided to get rid of the hated beret headgear. Elite troops, such as the Army Rangers, Special Forces and Airborne, who had been wearing the beret before the rest of the Army changed over, will continue wearing the beret. This change took effect immediately and will save money, too. The beret will be replaced with patrol caps that cost half as much as the beret.
Laughable conspiracy theory
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is blaming Western countries for a drought that is devastating large parts of Iran, claiming that the West is using special technology to control the weather over Iran. This sort of thing plays well with many Iranians, as conspiracy theories are very popular in the country.