Tag: Southeast Asia

Oops! They Are At It Again

Remember a few m0onths back when Thailand and Cambodia are at each other’s throat and supposedly Donny intervened and a ceasefire was established between the two….and one of the prime ministers even nominated Donny for the Peace Prize because he helped end the conflict….hold the phone!

Thailand launched airstrikes along the disputed border with Cambodia on Monday as both sides accused the other of breaking a ceasefire that halted fighting earlier this year, the AP reports. Longstanding border disputes erupted into five days of combat in July that killed dozens of soldiers and civilians. US President Trump pushed the Southeast Asian neighbors to sign a truce agreement in October, but tensions have continued to simmer. The Thai ministry of defense said that more than 35,000 people have left areas near the border for shelters and more are believed to have fled to stay with relatives elsewhere, while Cambodia’s Information Minister Neth Pheaktra said that residents of several villages near the border have been evacuated.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said in a televised speech that military operations would be carried out as necessary to defend the country and protect public safety. “Thailand has never wished for violence. I’d like to reiterate that Thailand has never initiated a fight or an invasion, but will never tolerate a violation of its sovereignty,” he said. The ceasefire was strained in early November after Thai troops were injured by land mines, leading Thailand to announce that it would indefinitely suspend implementation of the agreement. Both sides continue to trade accusations over responsibility, even as they are supposed to be cooperating in getting rid of the mines.

Well it looks like smooth talking Donny can smooth over this old grudge and the PR ceasefire he brokered has gone by the way of a cow turd….the sh*t has hit the road….again.

Seems nothing Donny harps on has much of a shelf life.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Covid-19 And Southeast Asia

A friend and fellow blogger, Caleb of United States Hypocrisy brought the report up that there are NO reported deaths in Vietnam and got me to thinking that I had not seen much info coming out of Southeast Asia……so the old Professor decided to do something about the lack of info.

Plus I have several visitors from the region….Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia……I want these visitors to know that they are much appreciated…..thank you.

ASEAN coronavirus updates (Live updates by country)

Brunei

  • The total number of cases reaches 135.
  • The number of cases has increased to 133.
  • 131 COVID-19 cases in Brunei as of April 1
  • The number of cases has reached 129.
  • Brunei reported its first coronavirus death on Saturday.
  • There are 115 cases in Brunei.
  • Cases in Brunei increase to 91.
  • The number of cases in Brunei has reached 88. Two patients have recovered.
  • Brunei said its citizens and foreign residents in the country are barred from leaving the nation. The number of cases has risen to 50.
  • Brunei said five more people had tested positive for the coronavirus.
  • Brunei has reported its first case of COVID-19, a 53-year-old local man returning to the Sultanate from Kuala Lumpur with three friends.
  • Visitors from the Chinese provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu are barred from entering Brunei with the exception of Brunei citizens and permanent residents.

READ ON……

The Coronavirus in Asia and ASEAN – Live Updates by Country

Further Reading:

The Consequences of the Pandemic for Southeast Asia

Most Read of 2020: Southeast Asia’s Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic

This illustrates just how wide spread this pandemic is and how this disease is effecting us all the same…..then there is an interesting take on the news that NO ONE has died from the virus in Vietnamhttps://www.liberationnews.org/why-has-no-one-in-vietnam-died-from-coronavirus/…..

Be Well And Be Safe

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Vietnam Is A Prime Example

Our wars should be examples to our leadership so that we do not make the same mistakes time after time…..the France had a long war and then the US came by and thought it would be a good idea to make same mistakes France did in Vietnam….oh sorry….Indo-China.

The First Indochina War…….

Ho’s efforts during this period were directed primarily at conciliating both the French themselves and the militantly antiFrench members of the ICP leadership. The growing frequency of clashes between French and Vietnamese forces in Haiphong led to a French naval bombardment of that port city in November 1946. Estimates of Vietnamese casualties from the action range from 6,000 to 20,000. This incident and the arrival of 1,000 troops of the French Foreign Legion in central and northern Vietnam in early December convinced the communists, including Ho, that they should prepare for war. On December 19, the French demanded that the Vietnamese forces in the Hanoi area disarm and transfer responsibility for law and order to French authority. That evening, the Viet Minh responded by attacking the city’s electric plant and other French installations around the area. Forewarned, the French seized Gia Lam airfield and took control of the central part of Hanoi, as full-scale war broke out. By late January, the French had retaken most of the provincial capitals in northern and central Vietnam. Hue fell in early February, after a six-week siege. The Viet Minh, which avoided using its main force units against the French at that time, continued to control most of the countryside, where it concentrated on building up its military strength and setting up guerrilla training programs in liberated areas. Seizing the initiative, however, the French marched north to the Chinese border in the autumn of 1947, inflicting heavy casualties on the Viet Minh and retaking much of the Viet Bac region.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/vietnam1.htm

The Vietnamese dealt a final blow with the battle of Dien Bien Phu…..a short video to explain what happened during this battle…..

After the France gave up the region the US thought it would be a good idea to get involved…..keep in mind the old “Domino Theory” fear mongering…..and then an incident gave the US its excuse for an all out invasion (not called that but a rose by another name thing)…..thinking Gulf of Tonkin incident….

Here in the US we have a selective memory and what they show on the tube as history of that war is not much that I saw during my 2 and half years in country….that is the key…selective memory……

The Vietnam War was obviously one of the most disastrous of this country’s past mistakes – and the Pentagon’s “50th Vietnam War commemoration” is a near-perfect example of how both national and military leaders and a willing public have avoided facing important truths about Vietnam and American wars ever since. That’s not just a matter of inaccurate storytelling. It’s dangerous because refusing to recognize past mistakes makes it easier to commit future ones. For that reason, the selective history the Pentagon has been putting out on Vietnam for more than six years, and what that story tells us about the military leadership’s institutional memory, is worth a critical look.

https://original.antiwar.com/Arnold_Isaacs/2018/11/08/misremembering-vietnam/

MY point is (I finally got there, huh?) we have made the same mistake in Afghanistan and Iraq that the French and then the US made in Vietnam….they, the leaders, did not learn from the history and we have repeated it…..

Make Mine Dirty!

I wish I was talking about a martini….but something a bit more potentate……..

I am always looking at the news from around the world trying to see what could be the next ‘big’ attack from a group of deranged terrorists…..to me I believe it is going to be a dirty bomb of some fashion….

A few of my posts on the subject of a dirty bomb….

https://lobotero.com/2016/03/07/in-search-of-a-poor-mans-nuke/

https://lobotero.com/2016/02/22/nuke-material-update/

Over the weekend when I was reading my correspondence I found another piece about the subject of a dirty bomb this time in Southeast Asia….

In August 2018, Malaysian authorities reported the disappearance of an industrial device containing radioactive material. The device was lost while being transported from Negri Sembilan to Selangor by two technicians employed at a company that provides testing, calibration and inspection services to heavy industries. There are concerns that the unknown amount of radioactive iridium contained in the device could cause radiation exposure or be used as a weapon, otherwise known as a ‘dirty bomb’. The incident was a reminder that nuclear security demands attention in Southeast Asia.

While nuclear security is often understood to be about securing nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons, it is also very much about the security of radioactive materials that are under the state’s regulatory, export and licensing control. As defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), nuclear security is ‘the prevention and detection of, and response to, theft, sabotage, unauthorized access, illegal transfer or other malicious acts involving nuclear material, other radioactive substances or their associated facilities’. Although there are no nuclear power plants in Southeast Asia, radioactive sources are widely used for civilian application in medical, industrial, agricultural and scientific research fields. For instance, radioactive sources are present in 17 hospitals in Thailand and seven hospitals in the Philippines.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2018/12/04/stopping-dirty-bombs-in-southeast-asia/

These types of devices are a poor man’s nuke…..Hell one can make a dirty bomb out of smoke detectors…..we need to be ever vigil for it is only a matter of time before some knuckle-head gives this a try.

Is South China Sea Lost?

The region in question has no less than 5 countries claiming the region for their own…..

It is a dispute over territory and sovereignty over ocean areas, and the Paracels and the Spratlys – two island chains claimed in whole or in part by a number of countries.

Beijing says its right to the area goes back centuries to when the Paracel and Spratly island chains were regarded as integral parts of the Chinese nation, and in 1947 it issued a map detailing its claims. It showed the two island groups falling entirely within its territory. Those claims are mirrored by Taiwan.

Vietnam hotly disputes China’s historical account, saying China had never claimed sovereignty over the islands before the 1940s. Vietnam says it has actively ruled over both the Paracels and the Spratlys since the 17th Century – and has the documents to prove it.

The other major claimant in the area is the Philippines, which invokes its geographical proximity to the Spratly Islands as the main basis of its claim for part of the grouping.

Both the Philippines and China lay claim to the Scarborough Shoal (known as Huangyan Island in China) – a little more than 100 miles (160km) from the Philippines and 500 miles from China.

Malaysia and Brunei also lay claim to territory in the South China Sea that they say falls within their economic exclusion zones, as defined by UNCLOS – the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Brunei does not claim any of the disputed islands, but Malaysia claims a small number of islands in the Spratlys.

(bbc.com)

Just to get my reader up to date on the regions problems……

  • In 1974 the Chinese seized the Paracels from Vietnam, killing more than 70 Vietnamese troops.
  • In 1988 the two sides clashed in the Spratlys, with Vietnam again coming off worse, losing about 60 sailors.
  • In early 2012, China and the Philippines engaged in a lengthy maritime stand-off, accusing each other of intrusions in the Scarborough Shoal.
  • Unverified claims that the Chinese navy sabotaged two Vietnamese exploration operations in late 2012 led to large anti-China protests on Vietnam’s streets.
  • In January 2013, Manila said it was taking China to a UN tribunal under the auspices of the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea, to challenge its claims.
  • In May 2014, the introduction by China of a drilling rig into waters near the Paracel Islands led to multiple collisions between Vietnamese and Chinese ships.

Now that you are caught up…keep in mind that China has pretty much built islands and staffed them with military personnel….so now the question should be is the South China Sea lost?

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has spoken out against China’s strategy of ‘intimidation and coercion’ in the South China Sea, including the deployment of anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missiles and electronic jammers, and, more recently, the landing of nuclear-capable bomber aircraft at Woody Island. There are, Mattis warned, ‘consequences to China ignoring the international community’.

But what consequences? Two successive US administrations—Barack Obama’s and now Donald Trump’s—have failed to push back credibly against China’s expansionism in the South China Sea, which has accelerated despite a 2016 international arbitral tribunal ruling invalidating its territorial claims there. Instead, the US has relied on rhetoric or symbolic actions.

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/who-lost-the-south-china-sea/

This is a situation that most of DC these days want to avoid thinking about…for they have taken their eye off the deal and the situation is going to crap before their eyes.

And Yet More News From The Battlefront

I know today is the big day…the New York Primary and that all eyes will be on the Big Apple….I wish I could muster a little enthusiasm but sadly it eludes me about now…..

I like to keep my readers focused when I can…..our many wars is a point that needs a lot more focus…..and that is why I am here…..

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity”  Eisenhower

I recently reported about the troops increases that have gone under the MSM radar…..more troops for Syria and Iraq…..and it appears that my reports were just the tip of the poison spear……

Over the weekend, US officials reiterated that the Obama Administration has designs on dramatic escalation of the ground wars in Iraq and Syria, with near-term plans to send as many as 200 more ground troops into northeastern Syria to “train” the Kurds.

There are also plans for a significant escalation in Iraq, though the timing of this is less certain because of the ongoing political row over Prime Minister Hayder Abadi’s cabinet. The US and Iraq made a deal to cap ground troops in Iraq at 3,870, and the US is believed to be “closer to 5,000” at this point, with more coming all the time.

A “dramatic escalation”?  Those words would weigh over on the American mindset.  But will it?

After reporting that more troops were headed to the Middle East……it has been dismissed as “advisers”……and that is a lie!

The US will deploy more than 200 additional troops to Iraq—upping the number from 3,870 to 4,087—and send Apache helicopters for the first time into the fight against ISIS in Iraq, the first major increase in US forces in nearly a year. The uptick in US forces—and the decision to put them closer to the front lines—is designed to help Iraqi forces retake the key northern city of Mosul, and help retake Raqqa, the extremist’s group self-proclaimed capital in Syria, the AP reports. Last June the Obama administration announced hundreds of troops would be deployed to help the Iraqis retake Ramadi—a goal accomplished at the end of the year. Of the extra troops, most will be Army special forces, who’ve been used throughout the anti-ISIS campaign to advise and assist the Iraqis. The remainder will include some trainers, security forces for advisers, and maintenance teams for the Apaches.

The advise-and-assist teams—made up of some dozen troops, each accompanied by security forces—will embed with Iraqi brigades and battalion, likely putting them closer to the front lines. The proximity to the battlefront will allow the US teams to provide more tactical combat advice as Iraqis move toward Mosul, still under ISIS control. Until now, US advisers have worked with the Iraqis at the headquarters level, well back from the front lines. A senior defense official told reporters that while Iraqi leaders have been reluctant to have a large number of US troops in Iraq, they also need certain capabilities that only more American or coalition forces can provide. Iraqi leaders back the addition of more US troops if their work is coordinated with Iraqis and directed toward retaking Mosul. Anonymous US officials have said that the number of special operations forces in Syria would be increased at some point, but Defense Secretary Ash Carter, speaking to US troops in Baghdad, didn’t mention that.

And ….so it begins! (again)

Back in the 1990’s the USA took its forces out of the Philippines…all army, navy and air force….all gone….now that China is flexing its muscle in the South China Sea the US is returning to the island nation……

US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter today announced the US will be escalating its “regular rotations” of troops and warplanes into the Philippines, though despite a growing number of troops in the country at any given time, he insisted this was not an increased “permanent footprint.”

300 Air Force commandos, along with a number of additional US combat aircraft are heading to the Philippines this go around, with an eye on escalating tensions with China over maritime claims in the South China Sea.

Despite officials making no secret that the deployments directly target China, Carter insists they aren’t meant to provoke any sort of conflict with China, and that his policy is to “tamp down” tensions with them.

Oh goody…a further expansion on a limited amount of troops…..that should work out good, huh?

The big news over that last year…..even tough the media tries hard not to notice it….is the war between Saudis and the Yemen Houthi rebels…..the country is bombed into the dark ages….but wait it may not be over……

Already involved in the Saudi war in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Obama Administration are in talks to launch a completely separate conflict in Yemen, this time focused against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Details are still scant, and US officials declined to offer specifics because of “operational security,” but the UAE has apparently sought US air support and logistics help for the offensive, knowing the administration is eager to go after AQAP.

Cool….yet more action for our troops.  BTW, what does “backing” actually mean?

Finally, in my last report I told my readers that the Taleban had issued its warning of a massive Spring offensive….and……..

Armed militants in Afghanistan staged a coordinated assault on a key government security agency in Kabul Tuesday morning, killing at least 28 people. The Taliban has claimed responsibility. The attack appears to have targeted an agency similar to the US Secret Service, providing personal protection for high-ranking government officials, the AP reports. Kabul Police Chief Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahimi told reporters that another 327 people were wounded in the assault, which began with a powerful suicide car bomb attack on the agency compound gates. A group of armed militants then entered the compound and waged a prolonged battle with government security forces, which officials say has now ended.

Dozens of civilian apartment buildings, houses, and shops, as well as several government buildings, were damaged by the car bomb blast. Taliban insurgents have stepped up their attacks since announcing the start of their spring offensive last week, though the Guardian notes that the winter was unusually violent, with multiple attacks in the capital and elsewhere. President Ashraf Ghani issued a statement condemning the latest attack, saying it “clearly shows the enemy’s defeat in face-to-face battle with Afghan security forces.” (The Taliban claimed to have just missed John Kerry with a rocket attack during his recent visit to Kabul.)

Afghanistan is America’s forgotten war….but if you would like an inside look at what we cab expect from the Taleban this Spring then I offer…….

Source: Afghanistan Partial Threat Assessment: April 12, 2016 | Institute for the Study of War

Finally….in the category of…..Ya Think?

A bipartisan pair of lawmakers are worried that President Obama’s recent decision to deploy 217 more forces to Iraq is mission creep.

“Yesterday’s announcement that the U.S. will deploy more than 200 additional troops to Iraq to assist in the fight against ISIL is textbook mission creep,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said Tuesday.

Lee was Congress’ lone dissenter in granting then-President George W. Bush authority to go to war in Afghanistan.

Source: Lawmakers see ISIS war ‘mission creep’ | TheHill

Sorry to say……none of our wars are looking like a success in any stretch of the imagination……