Former Pakistani ISI Chief: US Likes to Kill the Enemy

Predator - US Unmanned Recon and Attack Drone

So maybe I'm missing something, or maybe I don't know the intricacies of other military cultures - but doesn't it make sense to destroy your enemy?

"A former head of the ISI said that ruthlessly destroying potential threats is part of U.S. military culture. "If they suspect the enemy is there, then they go for it," said the former Pakistani spy chief, retired Lieutenant-General Asad Durrani."

OK. Sounds fair enough. But I have to ask - do other militaries fall into the Rodney King "Can't we all just get along?" school of tactics and strategy? Now don't get all Sun Tzu on me - I know there are many ways to defeat an enemy, and you're most successful when you beat them without even meeting them on a field of battle.

But does that mean avoiding a chance to take out the leadership? Or is he saying the American military culture is headstrong and proud which drives demands for quick strikes without accurate intel?

His quote is from a Reuters wire story regarding unmanned drone attacks on ground targets, after the recent case a solid-intel shot at "Al Qaeda's number two man" that went wrong. At least they know who the man is, even if they can't find him. The identity of AQ #3 isn't so clear.

CIA's Correa Gets Cover Blown in Venezuela

FROM SOUTH AMERICA: The Venezuelan government says a US diplomat is a CIA spy. Joseph Correa,the US Naval Attache at the embassy in Caracas, is accused of inciting rebellion during a failed coup and working through Venezuelan naval officers to steal top secret documents.

Venezuelan VP Jose Vincent Rangel (no relation to US Sen. Charlie) says Correa skipped town - after first spiriting his assets to Miami - when he got called to a "meeting" by the Venezuelans. Sounds like he smelled a rat. The reports say he was the CIA's top dog there - which seems doubtful to me. A station chief personally running low-level assets? From an attache desk? With no cutouts? C'mon. But maybe it's a small shop, I don't know.

This, of course, feeds into Presidente Chavez's persecution complex brilliantly, and helps him to explain to his people why he is stockpiling weapons for, well, a war. Oh wait - a glorious effort to repel a capitalist, imperialist invader.

Despite Pat Robertson's assasination order, the boys at the Pentagon say the US simply doesn't have the troops to spare. Even though their boss disagrees.

US Government Learning to Play to the Crowd?

I'm just finishing a brand new book on the new media landscape in the Arab world,as originally crafted by Qatar-based satellite news channel Al Jazeera. It's good stuff, but an essay that really caught my eye evaluated the difference between what seems credible on Western channels, and what "sells" an idea in the Arab world. The piece looked at everything from expressions, to differences in underscoring a message (Arab "arm-waving expressions" vs. Western "sarcasm and repetition"). The piece makes a great deal of sense, and made me wonder how much training US politicians get for interviews on Arab TV channels. Based on what the book is saying, you'd doubt they get much.

But, that may not be the case everywhere in the world. An AP piece out today says the US has turned a new leaf in public relations with Japan by beating the "apology masters" at their own game in the aftermath of two recent crises.

"I figured the U.S. side would come up with some kind of excuse, but since they admitted it so honestly, it makes me think that the United States values relations with Japan," said Hisao Iwajima, political scientist at Tokyo's Seigakuin University.

Read it all.

The Mysterious Shop on Maraashly Street

I live on Maraashly Street in Zamalek. The AUC dorm isn't far up the street. I walk this street all the time, so I know pretty much every shop and store. But there is one place I've never dared enter - this one really small antique shop.


It's not like I'm afraid, really. I just don't really have any reason to shop for antiques -- especially at a creepy-old-building, hole-in-the-wall, open-at-strange-hours, never-see-anyone-there shop.

I'm not kidding. It seems like this shop, this strange one with the French name above the door, is never open. And when it is open, it's the middle of the night. But I never see anyone inside, going in or going out.

Well, there was this one time. She was very large, possibly Egyptian - but her red hair and garish old-lady applique track suit effectively masked her nationality . . . I can't recall even looking at her in the face. She came out the door, and was gone. Aha, I thought, mortals do shop there. Strange mortals, to be sure, but mortals nevertheless.

It got me to thinking . . . maybe this shop, maybe it's by appointment only. Maybe it's so exclusive you call ahead and they give you a password. Maybe you have to know someone who knows someone. Maybe it's an antique secret society.

So now I have even more reasons to not step foot in the door. What if I did?

"Mr. Lopez-Garcia?"
"Um, no, I'm just looking."
"Do you know the secret handshake?"
"Not really, no. I just thought I'd take a peak..."
"Get out!"

And I'd get the bum's rush, with nothing to do but wipe my pride off the Maraashly Street asphalt.

Zamalek is a posh, wide-open, foreigner-type place. I really shouldn't feel hesitant. But I just keep walking by, slowing a bit when the place is lit up -- old chairs and bureaus silhouetted in the yellow light spilling out the open door.

Big Brother and an old Arab's garden

An old Arab lived close to *New York* City for more than 40 years. One day he decided that he would love to plant potatoes and herbs in his garden, but he knew he was alone and too old and weak. His son was in college in Paris, so the old man sent him an e-mail explaining the problem:

"Beloved son, I am very sad, because I can't plant potatoes in my garden. I am sure, if only you were here, that you would help me and dig up the garden for me. I love you, your father."

The following day, the old man received a response e-mail from his son:

"Beloved father, please don't touch the garden. That is where I have hidden 'the *THING*.' I love you, too, Ahmed."

At 4pm the FBI and the Rangers visited the house of the old man and took the whole garden apart, searching every inch. But they couldn't find anything. Disappointed, they left the house.

The next day, the old man received another e-mail from his son:
"Beloved father, I hope the garden is dug up by now and you can plant your potatoes, that is all I could do for you from here; Your loving son Ahmed.

This is a great joke. Nothing like laughing at life under a shadow of suspicion. At the same time, it's tremendously sad that this joke even exists. Thanks to US-supporting (it's true) Egyptian blogger Big Pharaoh.

Life as a Novel

"One should lead one's life as if one were the protagonist of an epic novel, with the outcome predetermined and chapter after chapter of edifying, traumatic, and exhilarating events to be suffered through. Since the end is known in advance, one must try to experience as much as possible in the brief time allotted. Writing is a way of ensuring that you pay enough attention along the way to understand what you see."

Jeffrey Tayler - Travel writer and Moscow correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, interviewed at rolfpotts.com

Purpose

"In these times, any one of you who feels inclined to risk a little and learn a lot should travel to an Islamic country to make friends and to learn, not to teach. . . . You should get to know them well enough to understand why what they believe is plausible to them, and you should explain their views to other Americans as sympathetically and as accurately as you can."

--William T. Vollmann, from "Some Thoughts on the Value of Writing During Wartime," a lecture given in November 2002
From vagablogging.net

Egypt #1 for Adventure! (AKA "Driving")

Egypt is the top destination for adventure travellers according to a recent poll. In some places, adventure means scuba diving or rock climbing. Maybe safaris or ancient ruins.

In Egypt, it means riding a bus.

Six Aussies recently died here when their tour bus driver "lost control." And according to statistics, it happens a lot. Egypt travel, while cheap, is often deadly.

Not for me though, right?

I read somewhere that having a child makes you realize your own mortality. For me, I knew I was mortal when I stared down a Red Lodge ski slope and suddenly realized I wanted to live. In times past, I'd look the Devil in the eye and cannonball down without a moment's pause. It was after Alaina was born, so maybe that was it. Maybe I just got older.

Either way, I might not sleep quite so easily (?) during my next trip on a Upper Egypt Bus. Co. cruiser. I want to live.

Earthquake

This afternoon - about 1pm or so. I was sitting on the floor and it suddenly felt like I was rocking side to side. "Curious," I thought. So I stopped perfectly still and realized it was the building moving, back and forth. It was over in 15 seconds, and I didn't even mention it to M (We were gorging on McD's), but I was curious about the cause. Turns out it was an underwater earthquake off Greece, magnitude 6.7-6.9. Here I am, 750 miles south, and I felt it. That's just plain cool.

Apparently it was also felt in Israel and Jordan. No worries - no injuries reported here, and only moderate damage to a some places in Greece.

Hurghada and Knuckle-Draggin' Russians

With unusual aplomb for Americans, M, her bro T and I cruised down the Red Sea highway to Hurghada. It’s a bustling tourist location at the westside base of the west finger of the Red Sea. It’s a tourist location for a reason: the desert blows its warm breath over hotels and villas that front a calm sea with some of the best scuba diving in the world.

This isn’t a typical American destination; even less so than Cairo and Giza’s pyramids. Generally unfounded worries of Islamic terrorists keep Americans out and Egyptian tourist security tight.

But that doesn’t stop the Euro-tourists from flocking to the sun, sand and sea. All shapes, all sizes, bussed in, flown in. Czechs, Germans, Austrians, Poles, Russians. And the Egyptians are glad to welcome them all, despite the westerners' shocking taste in clothes and bottomless thirst for Islam-forbidden booze. Many of the Egyptian workers at Hurghada come from the economically-troubled region in Southern Egypt. South Egypt is something like the Indian reservations in South Dakota: the last place in the world you’d go to find good doctors or good jobs. And people from the area often mocked and derided for where they come from, just like “the Rez” jokes you hear back home.

So it’s worth putting up with the trashy tourists that infest the hotels and bars. To Egypt, they’re solid-gold bank.

But that doesn’t mean they have to like it.

“I don’t go out with Russians anymore,” says the divemaster on one of the boats we scuba-ed from on the first day. He’s originally from Germany, close to Hamburg. But that life is his no longer. “I have nothing there,” he says, “only friends. And they come to visit me here.” He smiles.


During lunch, the German expat divemaster explains the ways of Russians to Me and M

He hates Russians, and not just because they commit the typical tourist sins. He tells of a trip to the reefs with some Russians who packed vodka in water bottles—the easier to smuggle the booze on the boat. For them, the break between dives—usually a lunch and rest break—was a chance to get happily sloshed.

It rubbed the expat German divemaster the wrong way, mostly because alcohol and scuba diving simply do not mix. Your life is on the line every time you trust yourself to a couple of hoses sprouting from a bottle of air. He didn’t like Russians personally either – “no culture,” he says, but the vodka was the last straw.

He choice could also affect his pocketbook – he estimated half of tourists in Hurghada hailed from the Great White North. Americans were a species he hadn’t seen in over a year.


Me and M on the stern of the dive boat - leaving Hurghada's port


Saying hi to Nemo - All the clownfish were curious about the strange bubbling ones invading their home

Neither had the owner of a restaurant we went to the second night. To celebrate, he brought us a free appetizer on the house. I wondered if maybe the Americans he remembered were the same ones the divemaster recalled as well. I made a note to be on my best behavior. For once, I felt like I could make a fundamental difference in the relations between Egypt and the US.

So I smiled a lot, and avoided the vodka.

Princely Living and King of Kings Whiskey

In some ways, I’m living the Egyptian Dream: A snazzy apartment, with dark wood furniture, a king-sized bed and a balcony that overlooks the backyard of the US ambassador’s home in the exclusive Zamalek Island neighborhood in Cairo. I’ve got a doorman, a maid, a washing machine.

But all is not jasmine and daffodils: Egyptian décor can run from childishly playful to Style de Palace Saddam Hussein. Full length mirrors often reflect both gold-painted gilt furniture and kitschy “I LOVE You”s painted on fabric hearts – like prized disasters from summer camp art hour.

Want style sanity? Get a hotel room.

My apartment is fairly sane – blue and white paint in the living room, peach in the bedrooms. Some overwrought furniture in the bedrooms and the dining room, but not bad overall.

But the dining room cabinet/curio thing simply has to go. Two shelves of impossibly confusing tackiness stare out over my forlorn table. Top shelf features a fake jug of “King of King Whiskey” guarded by two demon-eyed angels. Bottom shelf houses the clash of religions: two outdated calendars – one features “Allah” spelled out in Arabic, the other stars the ground zero of Roman Catholicism, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. What would the Pope say?

Surrounding all this: Knick-knacks, fake flowers, gold camels and a two-inch Santa Claus statue. In the cabinet on the left a life-sized porcelain dog peers through the glass, its mouth permanently fixed in a sloppy grin, tongue out.

Some nights, it’s hard to sleep.

Words of Wisdom from Egypt blogger Baheyya

When approaching social analysis, assume sparingly, observe carefully, listen intently, think clearly, write lucidly, be on the lookout for the unexpected and improbable, don’t twist the facts to suit your preferences, and always, always, ask: what would prove me wrong?

Excellent advice for travel writers and journalists, too. Read the rest here.