T2K Today

[Raellus]

Seems like 2009 has already brought us some troubling geopolitical developments.

Israel looks poised for an "invasion" of the Gaza strip.

Russia has cut off its gas pipeline to the Ukraine.

In Iraq, the U.S. has apparently turned over control of the "Green Zone" to the Iraqis while in Afghanistan, the U.S. looks to be about to innitiate a large-scale offensive in the south.

Not to mention that the recent trouble in Nigeria and Zimbabwe as well as the ongoing conflicts in the Congo region and the Sudan/Darfur.

The Iranians are still working on their reactor and god knows what else. Israel has made no secret of its preparations to put an end to that.

So many threads (or fuses) which could lead to a not-so-ditant future armageddon.

Happy New Year!

[General Pain]

Seems like 2009 has already brought us some troubling geopolitical developments.

Israel looks poised for an "invasion" of the Gaza strip.

Russia has cut off its gas pipeline to the Ukraine.

In Iraq, the U.S. has apparently turned over control of the "Green Zone" to the Iraqis while in Afghanistan, the U.S. looks to be about to innitiate a large-scale offensive in the south.

Not to mention that the recent trouble in Nigeria and Zimbabwe as well as the ongoing conflicts in the Congo region and the Sudan/Darfur.

The Iranians are still working on their reactor and god knows what else. Israel has made no secret of its preparations to put an end to that.

So many threads (or fuses) which could lead to a not-so-ditant future armageddon.

Happy New Year!

Reality is usually the most disturbing story.

[bigehauser]

Which is why I deny your reality, and substitute it with my own! HURRAY!

[Mohoender]

You forgot about the slow military build up on the Indo-Pakistanese border right before christmas and the increasing threat on NATO supply road by Talibans. Our media are more interesting by the loss of soldiers but something like 230 trucks destroyed in early december might be more threatening. True, this is not strictly speaking 2009.

[LAW0306]

In my view I dont see anything big here. We have won the war In Iraq and are about to leave. My unit might be one of the last ones there. Israel and the arabs will fight for another 1000 years just like they have the last 1000 years. Russia always blows it own horn but they dont have the ass too do much. It took all they had logisticly to take on Georgia for gods sake and they were using 50 year old gear with troops wearing western athletic shoes! Israel will hit Iran in all due time and they wont get it all,But they will set them back long enough to make them feel safe. Africa is always a shit storm and there is nothing we can do too fix it. I have handed out rice there and gave away aid and have also done combat action there. The place wont change until the kill themselfs off. Very sad have friends there and they try but as I was told by one"It like swimming in quick sand Law". On afghanistan well the spring will tell we are by offical news sending in 4 brigades of light and Medium Infantry (Army) about 5,000 to 7,000 each.Also one Marine Brigade about 12,000. so the surge there will swamp the south. I was there in 2001 and we clamped the place down with 600 infantry and some SF types. So I dont have much fear if you look to the past this year will be more of the same. Just pray for all the Afghanistan men that will die this spring and summer. Because Mother green and her killing machine are coming, and they are hungry!

[ChalkLine]

Israel will in all likelihood not make a ground entrance into the Gaza, as they have Hamas nicely bottled up and can pound them there with minimal risk. Their absolute indifference to global opinion means they don't need a quick resolution, and they can continue to victimise the Palestinians until after the February election. Hamas can't get out, Egypt hates them just as much as they have strong ties to the Egyptian 'permanent opposition' (so much for Egyptian democracy) so they'll do whatever they can to fight back, which unfortunately translates to more crappy home made rockets blowing up farmland. Followed by IDF jets dropping 2000lb bombs.

Iraq may well turn into an utter shit hole when the last foreign forces pull out, but that was going to happen anyway. It remains to be seen if the parliamentary system will hold, because unlike many other Persian areas tribalism isn't as strong in Iraq and there are far less familial ties to tear the country apart. The lull you see now is the stockpiling of munitions and the gathering of strength for the big test when it's just Iraqis duking it out. Iran has a lot to fear, and may have to move troops up to the border when it all flies apart, which is bound to be misinterpreted in the west.

Russia and Ukraine are playing their old game. Ukraine wants a settled Afghanistan and points south so they can import their fuel, and Russia is getting in some kicks now while they can. Don't be quick to paint Ukraine as the underdog, they pull a lot of shitty stuff in Russia. For instance, most heroin in Russia comes through the Ukrainian organitskya, rumoured to have official help.

The UN is compartmentalising Congo and Sudan, and have managed to actually try one of the Sudanese alleged war criminals (yay UN!). Unfortunately, the Congo is going to be an utter hell hole for another century at least because the warring tribes are all proxy funded by international mining companies (a' la 'Dogs of War'). There is no political or military solution there, but the fighting is usually limited to the capital and the resource areas. Yes, another ugly year for the Congolese on top of the last three hundred.

Iran's not in a good place. Israel is having an election soon and often gets very feisty militarily around then - it's been noted that nearly every recent conflict the IDF has had has been around an election. Iran is going to be out of oil within fifty years and needs a new power infrastructure before then, and would like nuclear parity with the IDF if possible (but then, so does everyone in the Middle East). Iran is having Kurd troubles again and is making quiet talks with Turkey, which is having the usual problems of theocracy/democracy hurdles. Iran's moderate faction really wants stable borders, but with Afghanistan, Iraq and de facto Kurdistan all hopping its playing right into the extremist's hands.

Mexico isn't having much fun, thier economy's tanking bad as more developed economies are venting pressure into it and unemployment is going up again. The border provinces are experiencing severe law and order breakdown, and the recent anti-Mexican rhetoric used to their north has made them unlikely to help out with the drug smuggling problems except where it suits themselves. The president has moved troops into the northern provinces to wrest control back and an insurgency is starting up via the drug barons. Looks nasty.

Asia's looking rather stable as the big powers have found other things to dick with, leaving the pace primarily to Chinese investors. Thailand's a bit unstable, but that's just the usual domestic stuff and not military. Jihadism seems to be down at the moment with the new US president having Indonesian history, which really is appreciated there.

South America is fairly quiet, and even that painful wound in the Caribbean - Haiti - seems to be keeping the lid on. From what I hear though it's only held together by the troops there.

Zimbabwe is a nightmare, and Bob's certifiably bug-fuck insane. However, the ZANU-PD machine is almost entirely military now and is not letting go. South Africa isn't about to set a match to that, but there's rising demands that 'something be done' (usually the precursor to something disastrous) from everyone. The Zimbabwe soldiers are the sole beneficiaries of any money in Zimbabwe, and their kit and skills aren't bad on sub-Saharan scale. The Zimbabwian people know better to try an insurgency, it'd make the Rwandan massacres look tame - but something has to give.

[Targan]

Israel and the arabs will fight for another 1000 years just like they have the last 1000 years.

Umm, with respect, that isn't the case. Before the state of Israel was carved out there just wasn't that level of wholesale violence in that area between Muslims and non Muslims, not since the time of the crusades. At the risk of upsetting my Jewish friends, the nation of Israel has brought the violence there upon themselves. I'm not about to justify the shocking things the Palestinians and jihadist Arab groups have done (I don't think anyone can except maybe Palestinians and jihadist Arab groups) but they are terrorists and that is what terrorists do. Israel is a sovereign nation and should know better. Time and time again the Israeli military engages in wholly disproportionate levels of slaughter and seem quite happy to butcher 20 women and children to kill one terrorist. The Israeli government makes placating noises to the rest of the world with statements like "Of course we regret the deaths of civilians but we reserve the right to defend our citizens" but it sounds pretty hollow to me. And it is all for what Because God supposedly told the Jewish people millennia ago that the Holy Land was theirs and theirs alone Yeah, right.

Everything Chalkline said in his last post is (as always) absolutely correct.

In my personal opinion Robert Mugabe should be tried in the Hague and failing that one bullet would solve Zimbabwe's biggest problem.

I wish Australia had a military ten times its current size. The Australian Army has been doing good work in Afghanistan and if there were more Aussies there we would be able to kick the shit out of the Taliban right alongside out American, UK, Canadian and other NATO friends.

[pmulcahy11b]

Don't forget Somalia in the s**thole department -- that place is a country only in name. I have a friend who was with 10th Mountain during our ill-fated intervention that has loads of horror stories about that place -- I'm glad I didn't have to go there.

[pmulcahy11b]

You forgot about the slow military build up on the Indo-Pakistanese border right before christmas and the increasing threat on NATO supply road by Talibans. Our media are more interesting by the loss of soldiers but something like 230 trucks destroyed in early december might be more threatening. True, this is not strictly speaking 2009.

Northern Pakistan is so out of control from the Pakistani government that it's like it's not actually a part of Pakistan. It's largely lawless, mountainous, full of poor rural folk and a few fatcats that basically decide whether the ordinary folk live or die -- and the resurgent Taliban and Al Qaida. The Pakistani government doesn't control Northern Pakistan, and the Pakistani Army would prefer not to set foot up there -- and when they do, they are more likely to make a deal with the warlords, Taliban, and Al Qaida to leave each other alone.

[LAW0306]

I guess we just see history a different way Targen (read the Bible; Jews and arabs fighting.the crusades,Ottaman empire and the time of terror 1920-and 30's in Israel) . Lets just leave it at that.

I was in somalia in 93 Oct with Charlie 1/8. We got there right after Blackhawk down. Clinton was too pussy to let us do our job thats why we fight now. we had Two MEU's about 5,000 marines a small brigade of tenth mountian and a bunch of SF. We could have cleaned that place up in a Quarter. But we leave and another 100,000 die.

[pmulcahy11b]

I'll have to go with Law on this one. The Middle East, and in particular the "Holy Land," is perhaps the bloodiest region on the planet -- as one of our "Cradles of Civilization," they've been slugging it out over there thousands of years before there were any Muslims and Jews. Neither the Arabic peoples or the Jews can say they were there first -- because neither one of them were. All the people in that area most likely came to settle there from somewhere else -- and they've been slugging it out ever since.

But I only partially agree with Law. Once the oil runs out (or hopefully, we have enough alternate energy sources to make oil superfluous), nobody's going to give a rat's ass about the Middle East anymore. Even Israel is going to become irrelevant to most of the world; it's primarily value to the Western world is as our one strong ally in the Middle East (Turkey's becoming less and less reliable by the day). The OPEC countries don't have any more foresight than the fossil fuel industry -- they'd be smart to invest in alternate energy and become energy companies and not just oil companies.

[Mohoender]

Shoot I didn't want to go into that one.

Sorry, the middle east has not been subjected to war over the past thousand years, except of course for the one brought upon them by Europeans, and now Americans.

In fact, it has been among the most stable area of the world until the 19th century when the Otoman Empire started to really lose control. However, it had always been a pain for the western world and that was always for economical reasons. They put taxes on our imports from Asia, control the spice trade until the 15th century, backed the pirates (in fact, privateers) that were operating off Al Djazair.

While we were killing people all over Europe for so called religious reasons (that's why US exist today), they were tolerant toward all sister religions (Christians and Jews).

They were not all saints, of course, and brought quite some war against us as well: ask the Spanish and the people in the Balkans, they know.

[LAW0306]

Paul lets hope the oil runs out then my girls wont have to fly F-35's over the area some day.

[Mohoender]

Paul lets hope the oil runs out then my girls wont have to fly F-35's over the area some day.

I hope for them too. However, they might fly them over some other areas for any other reasons (or even that one). I might be idiealistic and constantly hope for the better, but the pragmatic side of me mutters me that it still looks like a never ending story.

[bigehauser]

In all honesty, I think this is just a big ploy(Israel situation) to test the waters as far as America's new president. Now that the game spitting, and mud raking is over, and he is inaugurated in a few weeks, there is no reason why he can't speak his mind 100% I think Israel is just stirring up the pot to see what ol Prez will say, and what stand he will take as far as the sectarian violence over there.