NightWatch

For the Night of 21 October 2009

Australia: Update. Defense Minister John Faulkner on 21October said his country has been trying to come up with a plan to complete the mission of its 1,550 troops in Afghanistan in the "shortest time frame possible," Agence France-Presse reported. Faulkner said no date has been set for the withdrawal of Australian troops. However, he added, "there will be impacts on the approach that NATO and ISAF" take in Afghanistan.

Australians are reliable Allies, but much of the electorate and some Senators are persuaded the allies lack a strategy for Afghanistan that is worth the lives of Australia’s “sons and daughters.”

Japan: Follow-up. Mainichi’s analysis of the Gates visit was bitingly critical of the new government. The Democratic Party coalition government had worked out a strategy for building trust between the allies by offering increased assistance in Afghanistan in return for US agreement to delay a final decision on the relocation of Futenma base on Okinawa. It backfired.

Secretary Gates was unmoved by his hosts’ appeals for consideration of Japanese internal politics. He accepted the offer of assistance and rejected vague proposals to reopen the Okinawa force restructuring agreement and to reconsider the Status of Forces Agreement. At the end of the visit, Prime Minister Hatoyama reportedly told Gates that security relations with the United States continue to be important to Japan.

Alliance politics is always hard ball. The Democratic Party’s expectation of American sympathy for its goal of a more equal security partnership was turned against it by Gates’ insistence that the new government must honor the commitments of the old government or come up with a specific, practical set of alternatives, as a sign of its maturity. Mainichi wrote the Democratic Party strategists misjudged the situation, at least for now. This round went to the US, and that is good news. But, there will be more engagements.

Cambodia: Prime Minister Hun Sen has offered residence to former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Kyodo reported, citing Cambodian state-run television. Hun Sen made the comments during talks with former Thai Prime Minister General Chavalit Yongchaiyud, and just before Hun Sen's scheduled visit 23 October to Thailand for a regional summit.

Hun Sen apparently anticipates significant political changes in the event the Thai King dies. In offering asylum to Thaksin, Hun Sen has positioned Cambodia to have unusual influence in the next stage of Thai political development.

India-Bangladesh: For the record. Indian officials today denied press reports that they offered Bangladesh a defense treaty. Hunh? More on this later.

Pakistan-India: Interior Minister Malik told India “enough is enough,” according to the Daily Times account on 22 October. “India should not perceive our offer for negotiations as a sign of weakness ... we can engage in threatening rhetoric just as well, or even better, than India. Pakistan is not a weak country and is capable of responding (to India),” he told journalists.

Replying to a question on Indian Interior Minister P. Chidambaram’s claims that Pakistan was incapable of tackling issues related to terrorism, he said India should bring order “to its own house” before blaming Pakistan

Comment: Pakistani authorities are under pressure from Iran as well as India for allowing terrorists to operate from Pakistani soil. It shows in Malik’s outburst which parallels the Army’s rejection of criticism. Relations with India are turning down again.

The facts are not on Pakistan’s side. Anti-Iranian, anti-Indian, anti-US, anti-UK, anti-Afghan, even anti-Chinese and Central Asian Muslim terrorists all have proven to be trained in Pakistan. The Pakistanis do not appear capable of controlling their own national space so that it is not used to threaten its neighbors. That is one of the UN-authorized justifications for self-defensive war.

Pakistan: Pakistani helicopter gunships attacked Taliban bases near the Afghan border, as the Army urged NATO forces to seal the frontier to stem cross-border movement of militants and weapons, Reuters reported 21 October.

Security officials said government forces attacked militant strongholds in Makeen and Ladha with helicopter gunships and artillery. As government forces pressed ahead with the Waziristan offensive, Pakistan Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) Chairman General Tariq Majid called for synchronization of effort and sharing of real-time intelligence in ongoing operations. Majid issued the statement during talks with Britain's Chief of Defence Staff Sir Jock Stirrup.

Note: Reading between the lines, the Pakistan military leadership seems to be accusing NATO of leaving gaps along the border through which Pakistan Taliban fighters can flee Waziristan. True or not, this sets up a public condition for blaming NATO in the event the Pakistan security forces fall short in their South Waziristan operations.

Schools across Pakistan remained closed on 21 October because of the terrorist threat. Universities in Sindh Province opened on 22 October. NightWatch suspects Karachi, the capital of Sindh, is overdue for another big blast.

Kuwait: Tonight’s good news. The constitutional court has granted women the right to obtain their own passports without the consent of their husbands and guardians. The court issued the ruling on Tuesday, abrogating an article in a 1962 law that required women to gain their husband's prior approval before traveling.

The court said the article was a violation of several provisions in the constitution that guarantee personal freedom and gender equality. "It undermines her free will and compromises her humanity," the court said, according to a copy of the decision provided by a lawyer involved in the case.

A NightWatch hypothesis: The slowly developing and, for now, separate national Muslim women’s movements in demanding education, dignity and equal rights offer the best, long term hope for suppressing male-instigated terrorist violence.

Lebanon: Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that less than a week after a still-unexplained explosion at the house of a Hezbollah member in Teir Felsay, residents of Houla near the Israeli border were shaken by a series of blasts Saturday night and this morning, 21 October.

A military official told AFP today that the explosions were caused by the detonation of three Israeli spy devices attached to Hezbollah's telecommunications network. The Israelis allegedly blew up the first two, fearing discovery, and the Lebanese army found the third and destroyed it.

Israel dismissed the allegations in a statement, saying they were not worth a comment. Nevertheless, degradation of Hezbollah’s autonomous telecommunications systems benefits Israel even more than the government in Beirut.

Honduras: Update. Interim Cabinet minister Rafael Pineda said Honduras will lodge a protest against Venezuela over suspected drug-smuggling flights originating from that country, El Nacional reported today. Pineda said three Venezuelan-registered aircraft had landed in remote parts of Honduras over the last week. The Honduran government will present the protest to the United Nations and Organization of American States.

This is payback for Venezuela’s hostility to the Michiletti administration. Thus far, despite international pressure, Honduras still is on track to elect a new president on 29 November and Zelaya is still in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

Questions for follow-up: What happened to the US soldier captured in Afghanistan and supposedly taken to Pakistan? What happened to the three US backpackers taken to Iran? Did the other French security man manage to escape from his Somali captors? Stay tuned.

End of NightWatch for 21 October.