NightWatch

For the Night of 13 October 2009

China-India: China on Tuesday expressed anger over a recent visit by Indian Prime Minister Singh to a border region that China also claims. "China is strongly dissatisfied with the visit to the disputed region by the Indian leader, who disregarded China's serious concerns," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement.

"We demand the Indian side address China's serious concerns and not trigger disturbances in the disputed region so as to facilitate the healthy development of China-India relations."

The irony of this is that Prime Minister Singh visited Arunachal Pradesh on 3 October to campaign for his party in anticipation of state elections. During his visit he said nothing about the border dispute or about China.

The lesson for the West and India is that China is now watching every Indian official action in eastern India with the same intensity that it watches any outside measures that Chinese authorities judge as enhancing the independence of Taiwan.

Afghanistan: NightWatch comments on the Frontline Report on PBS. The one-hour special is important more for its visual images than for any words in the script or from interviews. The visual images add dimensions to understanding.

The script is about protecting people and establishing local rapport. The interviews with generals reinforce those messages. The video and audio of a local village encounter show that young US Marines are clueless. Even the more reflective Marine captain, with all the best intentions in the world, comes off as clueless, far too young and inexperienced for the task his superior set for him to establish rapport with the Pashtuns of Helmand Province.

The language of the script is that of Western academic study of insurgency. The ironic reality is that very young American men presume to preach about survival to Afghans old enough to be their grandfathers. There is no respect for age shown in any of the local encounters PBS filmed. The videos showed the Americans to be afraid, unprepared and ill-informed and the Afghans were uniformly defiant, in the NightWatch view. One wondered whether the young officer knew the clan of the men he was addressing?

The most startling segment of the telecast was a scene in which a Marine officer tried to persuade locals that the village was now safe because the Marines arrived. They wanted the locals to help them. The Afghans challenged how could the Afghans help the Marines? They did not even own a sword.

The setting was a village that was empty of inhabitants who fled when they learned the Marines were coming to save them from the Taliban. Nevertheless, inexplicably and in an empty village, the Marine officer was interrogating a dozen or so Afghan men, using an interrogator who did not speak the local dialect.

The US officer got impatient with the Afghans because they were not being cooperative, the script indicated. He could not speak the language and his interpreter was not qualified but he directed his anger at the Afghans … and the insanity of the situation, no doubt. Th4e video showed him to be arrogant and disrespectful of the residents and especially of the elders in the group. He probably was mostly scared and maybe a little embarrassed.

Neither PBS nor the Marine officer noticed that a significant portion of the men wore black turbans, the signature headdress of the Taliban. Who can know for sure, but experience suggests any men found in a Helmand village without children or women are Taliban. These facts raise a significant probability that the Marine officer was issuing orders to and expressing frustrations with the actual rulers of the village, who were Taliban or Taliban sympathizers and apparently was not aware. It was like watching films from the early period of the Vietnam War all over again.

And when did governance, or more accurately government, become so important in Afghanistan? A significant portion of the video focused on this issue in interviews and commentary.

This is an American obsession. Louis Dupree, the foremost US expert on Afghanistan before he died, never thought good government was important. His writings and experience indicate that Afghans prefer no government outside the local shura. What westerners call corruption Afghans call survival.

The message of the Frontline special is not in the script, but rather in the images which invariably put the lie to the words. The take away is that US words to not match US actions. That is the fundamental Afghan gripe against the US: it promised a lot and did not deliver. The Pashtuns judge they were better off under their own leaders, after waiting eight years for some benefits from having ousted the Taliban.

Note: this comment is not a criticism of the American soldiers and Marines. It is a criticism of those who prepared them, or rather failed to prepare them. Watching US helicopters sweep across the broad expanses of Helmand Province, the words from officials in Kabul about progress, protecting people, development and governance seemed otherworldly.

At the risk of repetition, the US Army and probably all the NATO armies are not large enough to protect the villages, were they entirely deployed in Afghanistan. That is a key NightWatch takeaway from the Frontline special.

Iran: Opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi faces an investigation by a special clerical court, IRNA reported 13 October, citing a prosecutor. Karroubi, a presidential candidate in the June elections, has accused security forces of rape and other offenses. No charges have been filed against Karroubi.

The only point that is noteworthy is the role of a religious court in suppressing honest dissent. Iran’s legal system is stuck in the medieval era, as the West measures progress.

Russia-US: After hours of discussion with US Secretary of State Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov clarified Russian policy towards Iran. He told a press conference, "Our position is that at this stage all efforts should be made to support the negotiating process. Sanctions and the threat of pressure in the current situation are counter-productive in our view," he added.

Lavrov’s statement contradicts President Medvedev’s statements Russian willingness to consider new sanctions. Lavrov’s statements are consistent with Prime Minister Putin’s views. Russia will not support new sanctions against Iran.

Gabon: The Constitutional Court rejected opposition challenges to the results of the August presidential election and confirmed on 12 October that Ali Ben Bongo had won the election with 41.8 percent of the vote, allowing him to replace his father as president, Reuters reported 13 October, citing a televised announcement by the Court's president.

Witness the creation of another African dynasty through the instrumentality of elections -- not the same as democracy. The voters did not vote out democracy in Gabon, it never existed. This is a study in democracy in which a dominant tribe uses the ballot to perpetuate and legitimate, in Western terms, the power it exercised before the colonial era.

Venezuela: The government announced today that it seized the Hilton Margarita and Suites hotel complex located on Margarita Island, Globovision reported, citing the official publication La Gaceta. The buildings will become property of the national tourism company, Venetur, S.A.

Venetur is the Venezuelan version of the Soviet Inturist.

Too good to omit. President Chavez banned golf from Venezuela because it is an elitist sport. Hmmm…

End of NightWatch for 13 October.