The vanished Austrian pistols in Iraq

According to a GAO report, 80.000 out of 125.000 Glock Austrian made pistols given by the US to the Iraqi security forces are missing.
Many of them are now in the hands of militiamen, gangsters and criminals, in Iraq and all around the region (including thousands that are being used by a branch of the Turkish mafia).
I made this TV report in a police station of a Shiite neighbourghood of Baghdad. It was aired by Arte on the 20th of April 2008.
Enjoy your viewing.

Should French troops stay in Afghanistan?

Nicolas Sarkozy should announce in the coming days in Bucharest an increase by 1,000 troops of the French military force in Afghanistan.

The idea is bad. The timing is bad.

The war in Afghanistan can no longer be won considering the basis on which it started. Every single aspect of it was communautarized. And the hunt for Al-Qaeda quickly became a hunt for Pashtuns. Targetting a community, as we have seen in Iraq, can only damage the relation between the army and the population. To some extend, the Taliban movement has legitimacy from the people. Rather than making the confusion between Talibans and Al-Qaeda, one should rather adress the reasons for this popular support.

Among those who doubt of the efficiency of the military operations, many US observers and officials (read my previous post on Afghanistan) as well as the Afghan president Hamid Karzai himslef (CBS’ 60 Minutes produced a great story on the subject).

Increasing the military presence in the country is not only dangerous for the troops. It is also costly, at a time the French governement requires a budget diet. And it is a show of support to a Bush administration that even a large majority of the American public no longer supports. It weakens also the European position, while countries like Germany are facing pressures to increase their troop level.

Pledging that ‘the solution is not only military’ is a fake excuse.

Not only cannot the solution be military. But it must be merely Afghan as well. And as free as possible of foreign influence.

Iraq boycotts South Korea!

It may sound incredible, but Iraq boycotts a member state of the coalition. According to the Korean ministry of Energy, quoted by AFP, Iraq has cut off oil supplies to Seoul (accounting to some 3% of the Korean imports).

This decision was made by the Iraqi ministry of Oil, run by an Arab shia, after a deal contracted by South Korea’s top refiner SK Energy and the regional governement of Kurdistan, the de facto autonomous northern region of Iraq.

An amazing decision, considering that Seoul has 600 troops stationed in the Kurdish region and is a major part of the US led coalition.

The dispute reveals the tensions between the Iraqi central governement and the Kurdish local authorities, especially for the control of oil resources.

Has George Bush heard a Filipino Monkey ?

Last Monday, on his final State of the Union address, George Bush was quite tough against Iran, saying : «America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf.»
This speech clearly refers to the US-Iran naval dispute, when an Iranian Revolutionary guards speed boat allegedly threathened US Navy ships (read my previous post).

The US Navy official paper Navy Times published a story explaining that this radio engagement may very well have been hijacked by a heckler nicknamed by the crews of the Gulf region «Filipino Monkey». The entire article is available on the Navy Times website.

Like often in this kind of situation, this last information was virtually not reported in the press. For the media, it is  much more exciting to tell about the dangers of Iran or the threat of war that the facts that contradict this scenario are not given as much importance as the bellicist statements coming from the administration.

It confirms a very old rule : «si vis bellum, para bellum».