Pakistan closes U.S.-NATO supply routes to Afghanistan to fight militants

Finally! Pakistan takes some tough action against the Taliban militants who’ve been raiding supply depots and attacking convoys!

AFP reports:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistan on Tuesday cut off supplies to NATO and US forces in Afghanistan via the Khyber Pass as security forces launched a major operation against militants there, officials said.

The offensive comes after a series of spectacular raids by suspected Taliban militants on foreign military supply depots in northwest Pakistan earlier this month in which hundreds of NATO and US-led coalition vehicles were destroyed.

Pakistani security forces backed by tanks, helicopter gunships and artillery units poured into the lawless Khyber tribal region on the Afghan border before dawn, the area’s administrator Tariq Hayat told reporters in Peshawar.

The tribal administrator said the operation was aimed at putting a stop to both attacks on NATO supply vehicles and a spate of kidnappings for ransom in the tribal badlands, where Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants are active.

Click here for full story.

China’s espionage threat: a Frontline panel discussion

PBS Frontline’s website, From China With Love, has hosted an online panel discussion on the threat of Chinese espionage:

The FBI ranks China as one of the greatest potential espionage threats over the next decade. What’s the nature of that threat? What are China’s goals? Former FBI counterintelligence experts Edward Appel and T. Van Magers, author Dan Stober, former U.S. Ambassador to China James Lilley, and criminal defense attorney Brian Sun discuss China’s threat and whether the U.S. counterintelligence community can defend America’s interests.

Click here for website and substantive text.

East German open records prompt Stasi lawsuits

PRI’s The World reports:

After the East German communist regime fell in 1989, German authorities began to open records compiled by the Stasi secret police. But some former Stasi officials and informants are now suing, saying the revelations violate their privacy. Brett Neely reports from Berlin.

Click here for link to radio broadcast.

A “Miss Constitution” pageant? Sign me up…

…but only if it is for America – this one is being held by a pro-government youth group in Russia.

I’m not quite familiar with their constitution and can’t imagine who they’ll elect. Qualities they suggest include attractiveness, talent, wit, and symbolizing Russia’s constitution.

I would imagine the latter would involve being about 16 years old (the Contemporary Constitution of the Russian Federation was adopted in 1993), open to interpretation (or not), and demanding obedience to her authority?

Reuters reports:

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The winner of a new Russian beauty contest must be attractive, talented and witty.

But never mind wanting to help children. She should also symbolize Russia’s constitution.

Russia’s main pro-government youth group, Nashi, is to stage the “Miss Constitution 2008″ contest as the Kremlin is pushing for changes to the constitution that critics say aims to let Prime Minister Vladimir Putin become president again.

“This constitution is a state brand and today we want to choose a girl worthy of its image,” a Nashi spokeswoman.

Nashi will crown Miss Constitution on December 12 to celebrate the document’s 15th anniversary. Other Russian youth groups will also take part.

“The girls must prove they are gifted in many ways,” the spokeswoman said. “Talented, clever, erudite, artistic, witty, graceful, flexible and most important of all not without sparkle.”

The Kremlin wants to extend the Russian presidential term to six years from four, a change critics say could be designed to allow Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to reclaim the top job.

Parliament has already approved the changes which now must be approved by Russia’s regional legislatures.

Last year thousands of Nashi protesters marched to support Putin in parliamentary elections and demonstrate against his opponents but in 2008 the group has adopted a far lower profile.

Miss Sinaloa arrested with gang members, guns, and money outside Guadalajara, Mexico

Associated Press reports:

Miss Sinaloa 2008 gets ready for her close up...

A reigning Mexican beauty queen from the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa was arrested with suspected gang members in a truck filled guns and ammunition, police said Tuesday.

Miss Sinaloa 2008 Laura Zuniga stared at the ground, with her flowing dark hair concealing her face, as she stood squeezed between seven alleged gunmen lined up before journalists. Soldiers wearing ski masks guarded the 23-year-old model and the suspects.

Zuniga was arrested shortly before midnight on Monday at a military checkpoint in Zapopan, just outside the colonial city of Guadalajara, said Jalisco state police director, Francisco Alejandro Solorio.

Zuniga was riding in one of two trucks, where soldiers found a large stash of weapons, including two AR-15 assault rifles, .38 specials, 9mm handguns, nine magazines, 633 cartridges and $53,300 in U.S. currency, Solorio said.

View rest of pictures and story here.

Abduction of U.S. security expert illuminates criminality in Mexico

Washington Post reports:

The December 10 kidnapping of Felix Batista, an American expert in corporate security who has “successfully negotiated the release of hundreds of kidnapping victims in Latin America” has “sent tremors through the expat community” in Saltillo, Mexico, where the kidnapping took place, as well as the rest of the region and “highlights how bold organized criminals have become in Mexico. The case is also an embarrassment for Mexican officials, who must explain not only how such crimes are possible but also how rarely they are solved.”

“Though Batista, a former Army major, has never worked in federal law enforcement, many of his colleagues are comparing his disappearance to the kidnapping of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a fabled undercover DEA agent snatched in broad daylight off the streets of Guadalajara in 1985. His body was found a month later. He had been tortured and beaten to death.”

Batista had been having lunch with friends, and upon receiving a series of cell phone calls he left the restaurant and willingly entered an SUV which pulled up to a nearby curb. Before he left the restaurant, he “gave the well-heeled businessmen he was meeting with his laptop, shoulder bag and a contact. ‘If I’m not back,’ he told his companions, according to one of them, ‘call these numbers’”.

His is probably the highest-profile kidnapping of a U.S. citizen in Mexico in years. A fellow security consultant described the abduction as ‘highly professional, sophisticated, very slick. The work of people who did not fear being caught, which is the most disturbing element.’

View full story here.

Defending the homeland against Santa Claus…

Wired’s DangerRoom reports:

As I write, Santa Claus is reportedly dropping Christmas presents on Madagascar. This according to the NORAD Santa tracker, operated each year by the North American Aerospace Defense Command. This marks the 50th year that the U.S.-Canadian air defense command has tracked Santa’s journey. According to the official press release from Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.:

NORAD Tracks Santa (NTS) program began on Dec. 24, 1955, after an errant phone call was made to the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The call was from a local youngster who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a local newspaper advertisement. The commander who answered the phone that night gave the youngster the information requested – the whereabouts of Santa Claus. This began the tradition of tracking Santa Claus, a tradition that was carried on by NORAD when it was formed in 1958.

Wired’s Autopia blog has an excellent rundown on how NORAD pulls this off. It begins when St. Nick trips the North Warning System; infrared satellites then track his journey. The program also draws on images from Santa Cams, and Google Maps and Google Earth.

Seriously, the Santa tracker is sponsored by NORAD and is OOC. Okay, you need to download Google Earth first, then the “NORAD tracks Santa” file, but it’s worth it. Click here for screen shot. If not, you can also track NORAD Santa’s whereabouts via Twitter, here.

I myself need none of these trackers, having just located a well-nourished, bearded man dressed in a red robe, pilfering the plate of goodies from around the Christmas tree and staring at me in bewilderment. Wait, that’s my dad.

…And to all, a good night! Merry Christmas.

Turkish inmate mails himself out of jail in cardboard box, apparently taking cue from Metal Gear Solid

Apparently a 42-year old Turkish inmate of a German prison decided he’d had enough and mailed himself out of incarceration using “a five-foot by four-foot cardboard box set aside for stationary shipment.”

Joystiq’s Griffin McElroy commented that the guy must’ve been a Metal Gear Solid fan, as his mode of choice for escape seemed to imitate Solid Snake’s cardboard box disguise. I’d have to agree.

Separatists clash as polls close in Indian Kashmir vote

Al Jazeera reports that polls have closed in both Srinagar, the Muslim-majority summer capital of Indian Kashmir, and Jammu, the province’s Hindu-majority winter capital, where elections were held on Wednesday amidst clashes between police and separatists against Indian rule.

The Pakistani-controlled region of Kashmir to the north-west is allegedly where many members of the militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba have operated.

“Fort Dix Five” convicted of plotting to kill soldiers

AP reports:

CAMDEN, N.J. – Five Muslim immigrants accused of scheming to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix were convicted of conspiracy Monday in a case that tested the FBI’s post-Sept. 11 strategy of infiltrating and breaking up terrorist plots in their earliest stages. The men could get life in prison when they are sentenced in April.

Via Instapundit.

H/T Rhetorican.com: view his site for further commentary on the Fort Dix Five and Bill Ayers.

China to send warships after pirates….

Via CNN.com, here:

Two Chinese destroyers and a supply ship will set sail for the Gulf of Aden on Friday to protect Chinese merchant ships from an increasing number of pirate attacks in the waters off the coast of Somalia, navy officials said Tuesday.

Two helicopters and special operations forces will also head to the region, the Chinese officials said.

Chinese media reported the plans last week. It will mark the first time that the country’s naval vessels have left Chinese waters in centuries.

I expect a take-no-prisoners attitude towards the pirates from the PRC.  During y2K, recall how as a matter of national pride,  the Chinese government allegedly mandated that their high level airline execs be on board one of China’s commercial airliners and midflight at the stroke of midnight, Jan. 1, 2000. Brutal.

Twitter a tool for terrorists?

Via switched.com:

A new report by the military identifies several technological tools that terrorists and extremist organizations could use to help organize, communicate, and target. The presentation names GPS-enabled cell phones, video and camera phones, voice changing software and Twitter.

“Charting the psychology of evil”: accomplice liability in the Holocaust and Rwanda

Update: Decades after the original Milgram experiment, recent research confirms his finding that “any person, when placed in a particular situation, may do harm when told.”

It confirms the Stanford Prison Experiment as well, not to mention lending credibility to the theory that the German populace were all accomplices in the Holocaust (the wiki page on Milgram claims that “three months after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiments to answer this question: ‘Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?’”).

This is absolutely fascinating from a behavioral science perspective.

I also imagine how these findings would have been used by the defense in the recent trials (and subsequent convictions) by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where Theoneste Bagosora (the “mastermind” of the action) and his cronies-in-arms were found guilty of committing genocide in Rwanda, 1994.

I’m sure any attorney worth his salt would argue that thrust of the experiment and subsequent findings by Milgram seem to suggest mitigating circumstances, if not exculpation, in the culpability of some who participated in the Holocaust and other genocides like Rwanda.

I find Milgram’s findings hard to accept as a defense for those who participated in the Holocaust, or genocides like Rwanda, and cannot apply to the high-level perpetrators like Eichmann, Bagosora, Aloys Ntabakuze, and Anatole Nsengiyumva.

In light of the legions of individuals who have died horrible deaths for what they believe in, I think that any strength of will and character, if it is to be had, can triumph over this “obedience” to authority commanding execution of such atrocities (needless to say, in such cases, your own life may be sacrificed, but isn’t it worth it?).

Having said that, I wouldn’t be surprised if some interrogators worth their salt would disagree with me.

Click here for CNN story on the Milgram experiment.

Click here for CNN story on Rwanda tribunal convictions.

New ATV hybrid armored MRAP vehicles for U.S. troops in Afghanistan

Via Military.com:

AP reports that the Pentagon is fast-tracking a multibillion-dollar competition to outfit ground forces in Afghanistan with new, off-road terrain vehicles that protect against rocket-propelled grenades and explosive devices.

The military says it needs hybrid armored vehicles to provide the same type of protection as mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, while being far more agile, lighter and providing increased maneuverability to handle Afghanistan’s rocky terrain, according to a request for bids released late Monday.

View full article here.

Somali pirates vs. Chinese crew, armed with homemade weapons…

PRI’s The World featured a “Pirates Update,” where anchor Marco Werman “tells of a battle at sea between the crew of a Chinese ship and Somali pirates. The Chinese crew defended itself using homemade weapons.”

Click here to access the online radio broadcast.

Afghan police need to refocus on crime, not jihadis?

CNN: according to a independent report by the International Crisis Group, Afghan police (ANP) are routinely drafted by the U.S. military into fighting the Taliban insurgency, a role which it is “ill-equipped for.” Furthermore, it exposes the ANP to being targeted by the Taliban, “with 1,200 killed in 2007 and a similar toll expected in 2008,” the group added.

Instead, the ICG suggests, the ANP should focus on enforcing the law. Apparently, Afghanistan is no stranger to organized crime and lawlessness, as well as jihadis. The independent report suggests that Afghani law enforcement faces a tough task in cleaning up the corruption both on the streets and within it’s ranks as well, as the National Police force is suffering from “corruption and lack of political will.”

View story here.

200,000 turn out in support of Hamas on anniversary in Gaza

Israel Today reports:

Belying Western assertions that Hamas is a fringe movement unsupported by the vast majority of Palestinians, some 200,000 out of the 1.5 million people who live in the Gaza Strip turned out to celebrate the terror group’s 21st anniversary on Sunday.

Addressing the throngs in Gaza City, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that Hamas had used its swelling popularity among average Palestinians to go much further than the rival Palestinian Authority ever had in establishing an independent Palestinian state.

Click here for full article.

LAPD to travel to Mumbai to study terrorist attack

Via rediff.com:

“Los Angeles Police Department Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Commanding Officer — will lead a small delegation, including executive, investigative, and tactical officers to Mumbai, ‘to learn, observe, and bring back best practices to LAPD,’ and to disseminate to other major cities to help guard against Mumbai-like terrorist attacks on American soft targets.”

I’m excited this is happening.