Indira Gandhi being escorted around Pokhran, the site of India’s first nuclear test
Throughout its development, the device was formally called the “Peaceful Nuclear Explosive”, but it was usually referred to as the Smiling Buddha… as a signal to China… [It] was scheduled to occur on May 18, 1974 [on] Buddha Jayanti, a festival… marking the […]
Finally finished the book Charlie Wilson’s War, a sprawling, 500-page work about the Soviet war in Afghanistan published in ‘03, and the tale it tells is wild.
The war
The most successful Islamic jihad in modern history, Afghanistan vs. the Soviets, was run by the CIA, which along with the Saudis pumped in up to ~$800M/year over […]
Sen. Joe Biden grilled ambassador Ryan Crocker on the Khamkha War in hearings afternoon. He said something like, ‘If… Lord almighty came down and sat in the middle of the table there and said Mr. Ambassador, you can eliminate every Al Qaeda source in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or every Al Qaeda personnel in Iraq, which […]
Steve Coll’s story on Pakistan in the latest New Yorker is a must-read. Here’s the abstract — check it out at the newsstand. What stood out:
It would be cheaper to fund Pakistan’s courts than to buy weapons against the Taliban, because people come to the Taliban to swiftly settle disputes where courts do not. It’s […]
MiG-29 clone: $20 million. Pimping the paint job: priceless.
Mmm, Tatooine. Putting into the sky a second moon is the stealthiest camouflage pattern since the 101st Flying Targets
Pakistan and China on Tuesday began joint production of the JF-17 multi-role fighter at a facility in Punjab province, with the Pakistan Air Force chief saying that by […]
Tahmima Anam, who like the artist formerly known as Prince has her own first-name domain, read from A Golden Age tonight at Harvard Book Store. She says she intended to do the Bangladeshi War and Peace, but realized she was much more interested in writing about the impact of the war on ordinary people […]
All right, Bostonists: Tahmima Anam is reading tonight in Harvard Square. Show your face. Be fashionably late. But come for the ironically-named A Golden Age – one of the first Bangladesh war novels I’ve heard of, nominated for a Guardian book prize — and samosas afterwards in one of the many desi restaurants which litter […]
Those who cannot remember the past…
The book Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile makes it clear that very little has changed in American policy towards Pakistan in the last 30 years. The U.S. still backs the dictator du jour:
… without Zia running Pakistan by martial law, there could be no Afghan war. Officially there was […]
Somewhere amidst the strippers, cocaine and Emily Blunt’s micropanties in Charlie Wilson’s War lies the faintly-beating heart of a good political movie. That the film is entertaining, I don’t deny. That it will double Kite Runner sales is doubtless. But this T&A-centric movie is more West Wing than Syriana, fictionalizing history, soft-pedaling 9/11 blowback and […]
India’s military recruiting ads are earnest beyond belief:
Japan’s parade of quality seamen is a little less somber and a lot more ‘In the Navy’:
One of the big problems with the [U.S.] military is that you do all this cool stuff and learn a lot of great skills that most often times are absolutely useless in the civilian world… someone came up with a few organizations that might just pay for those unique abilities. [Link via Sullivan]
Yes, it’s a […]
The Wagah border closing ceremony between India and Pakistan is like the staged bellicosity of the WWE (thanks, Ashish). The tallest men are recruited and topped with cockatoo frills which would make Carmen Miranda blush. The ridiculous marching is a relic of the British military, but the jingoism? That’s pure desi ghee, baby:
CBS reported in ‘02 that Osama bin Laden was in a Rawalpindi military hospital in Pakistan getting dialysis the night before 9/11 went down. The report cites unnamed Pakistani intelligence officers and hospital workers:
… CBS Evening News has been told that the night before the Sept. 11 terrorists attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. […]
Upon hearing about atrocities during the First War of Indian Independence, novelist Charles Dickens reportedly urged that Indians be ‘exterminate[d]’ and ‘raze[d]… off the face of the earth’ (hat tip, indianoguy):
“I wish I were a commander in chief in India. The first thing I would do to strike that Oriental Race with amazement… I should […]
Hamara Bourne
In The Bourne Ultimatum, a reporter from the Guardian is targeted by a CIA assassin at Waterloo Station. Director Paul Greengrass (United 93) evokes the shooting of an innocent man by cops on the Tube. Black hoods and waterboarding are repeatedly shown and implicitly condemned. The thriller is a stinging indictment of not just […]
A Purdue University professor is helping the DoD predict what happens in case of tsunami, anarchy or war (via Reddit):
The DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual “nodes” to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR.
Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), […]
Delhi’s Rapid Action Force, staging here in front of Lal Qila, is probably made up of some badass commandos. But they need to stop using K.Jo as their designer. Purple fatigues are only acceptable in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory
No disrespect intended, but these are some funny billboards:
I really think this Army ad outside the Delhi Cantonment would work better if it didn’t look quite so much like a homicide waiting to happen
The first all-female unit of United Nations peacekeepers has arrived in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia.
The group of more than 100 police women from India will stay in Liberia for six months, helping to train the local police force.
They will also carry out security duties in forthcoming local elections.
The UN currently has 15,000 peacekeepers deployed in Liberia, […]
The snapshots of India’s Republic Day on Flickr are far more interesting than the photos of marching columns in the papers. It’s much like the vitality of good blogs vs. staid mainstream news.
Related posts: Beating Retreat, Fanaa […]