Insider notes from United Press International for Jan. 3 ...
Pakistan's strategic dependence on China, which provided the nuclear and missile technology that made Pakistan into a nuclear power, has shrouded the fact that India has quietly been assembling its own band of allies. Russia remains the most valuable, and even as Chinese ships are unloading the latest consignment of F-7PG fighters in Pakistan's port of Karachi, the first models of Russia's far more advanced Su-30 warplane and T-90 tanks are being delivered to New Delhi. Equally useful is India's discreet new friendship with Israel, which has supplied the advanced Green Pine radar system (along with Israeli military technicians teaching the Indians how to use it) now deployed in the vale of Kashmir. Israel is also supplying India with its Rafael version of the 800-mile range cruise missile, and looks like getting approval from the Bush administration to sell India its Phalcon AWACS plane.
As well as Israel, India has cozied up to another small and often beleaguered state. Although Taiwan and India have no formal diplomatic ties, a clandestine military cooperation agreement was reached when an Indian air force mission (in civilian clothes) visited Taipei two years ago as guest of Taiwan's air force commander Chen Chao-Min. This goes beyond routine order of battle intelligence sharing, on which Chinese air force units are stationed where, unit rotations and training schedules and the like, to include far more sensitive items -- like the claims by Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes about China's new missile and air bases in Tibet. Taiwan, which has by far the best human intelligence inside China, is getting in return some of the take from India's new Technology Experimental Satellite, which India's own PSLV-C3 rocket put into sun-synchronous orbit from the Sriharikota space center last October. With onboard cameras capable of 1-meter resolution, this put India into the elite of spy satellites. Only the United States and Russia have anything as good. Taiwan is helping develop an upgrade. What makes China (and the United States) nervous about this blossoming friendship is India's nuclear status. If China can turn Pakistan into a nuclear power, why should not India do the same for Taiwan?
It seems like only yesterday (in fact, it was one month ago) that State Department veteran (and ex-Ambassador to the European Union) James Dobbins was named special envoy to Afghanistan. And now he's back and awaiting a new assignment. His on-base mission lasted three days after his arrival in Kabul to welcome the interim government on Dec. 21. Apparently he did not fancy the idea of staying much longer.
In Dobbins' place, Ryan Crocker, the current Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Near East Bureau for Gulf Affairs, arrives in Kabul next week as the charge d'affaires, to run the embassy until the White House nominates a new ambassador. Zalmay Khalilzad also arrives next week as a special representative of the White House. Crocker's absence from NEB may be good news for the Iraqi opposition that locked horns with him last year over their budget. Crocker refused to allow the Iraqi National Congress to spend any U.S. money inside Iraq. One State Department source said that this decision may be reconsidered now that Congress has started pressuring Foggy Bottom to release the funds meant for "information collection missions." That's a phrase that covers a multitude of options.
Is there something to astrology after all? In June 2000, Lynne Palmer, a 69 year-old Las Vegas practitioner of the ancient art, published her Astrological Almanac for 2001. On page 95 was the notation, "avoid terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001."
At last we can explain why Osama bin Laden is crazy. It's his eye makeup. Professor Roger D Masters, who runs the Dartmouth Foundation for Neuroscience and Society, directed a major research project for the U.S. government's Environmental Protection Agency on the social dangers of lead poisoning. In an unusually assertive claim, Masters concluded: "High blood lead at age 7 predicts juvenile delinquency and adult crime." Cut to a posting on the Daily University Science News Web site UniSci by Dr. Karl Simanonok, a space physiologist: "When I managed the blood lab at a northern California clinic for the poor, Pakistani children were often found to be contaminated with lead from the black makeup called 'kohl' that their mothers applied around their eyes. Middle Eastern mothers use it on their boys just as much as their girls. ... Beside the fact that many Arab cultures have a history of prolonged lead exposure through kohl. Lead poisoning should especially be considered a possible factor in recent events because many Arab fighters, including some of the Taliban, traditionally use kohl around their eyes. Some pictures of Osama bin Laden certainly suggest he might be wearing kohl." Of course, may New Yorkers might think another form of lead poisoning would be entirely suitable for Osama bin Laden. ...
