တရုတ်ကြီး အဟုတ်တီး ခံရတော့မည်လော….. knock-out II အမေရိကန်ကာတွန်းဆရာများရဲ့အမြင်

36 comments

• 

  zoe

  December 18, 2011 at 11:34 am

  ဟာသ ရသ အင်မတန်ပြောင်မြောက် တဲ့ ကာတွန်းလေး တွေ နော ခိခိ 😀

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  • 

    Kyaemon

    December 20, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    ဇိုး ရေ

    အားပေးပြီးဘတ်သွားတာရယ် ဇောဂျီ ဝမ်း အကြောင်း အကြံပေးတာရယ် ကျေးဇူးအများကြီတင်တယ်နော်

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 18, 2011 at 11:59 am

  …We must cultivate the science of human relationships – the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.
  –Franklin D. Roosevelt

  America and China: Yet Another Power Struggle Takes Shape
  Written by Lydia Seidler

  http://pculpa.com/liberalprogressive/36-blog-entry/403-america-and-china-yet-another-power-struggle-takes-shape.html

  Liberal/Progressive – opinion

  I am weary of the endless struggle between nations – be it political or militaristic — over who has the most power.  The degree of the strength of a country does not constitute a legitimate reason for it to exercise unlimited access in and authority over other regions. 

  Being a world power for decades, America seems to have this notion that it can interfere in other countries’ affairs with impunity. For a superb exampe of this behavior, one need look only to this past week’s news regarding America’s recommitment to the Pacific. 

  Despite a troubled economy and budget cuts to the military, President Barack Obama has expanded American military presence in Australia and is taking a more active role in challenging China’s growing clout in the Pacific.

  Within the past two decades, China has indeed made serious efforts towards modernizing its military, as well as reasserting territorial claims to disputed islands that would give it broad sway over oil and gas rights in the East and South China Seas.  It appears that the American government sees these steps as a challenge.  On November 16th, Obama stated that 2,500 Marines will be sent to Australia to shore up alliances in Asia.

  In a speech made to the Australian parliament, President Obama announced that “the United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.”  Obama sees Asia-Pacific nations as the key to the world’s future because it contains “most of the world’s nuclear powers and some half of humanity.” By increasing its presence, the American government hopes to make this region a place of progress. 

  Obama claims, under some skepticism from analysts, that America’s larger and long-term role in the region is not to check China’s power.  Be it a political tactic or a true hope, Obama has announced that he wants China as a partner in shaping the region and resolving tensions.  However, some analysts in China worry that America’s moves could lead to a cold war-style standoff with China.

  As these two superpowers tussle over economic, political, and military prestige, what is to be made of smaller Pacific regions? Are they merely pawns in titanic power struggle, or will China and America use their for the benefit of the rest of the Pacific Rim?

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 18, 2011 at 12:21 pm

  ခြေထောက်တွေ က ဒဏ်ရာဒဏ်ချက်နဲ့ ထော့နဲ့ ထော့နဲ့ လျှောက်ရ ကာ
  စစ်ပွဲကြီးနှစ်ပွဲ ကနေ ခွါ ထွက်ရင်း (အမေရိကန်အဘို့) ရှေ့ ရှောက် ပြီး အလားအလာ တွေလဲ မရေရာ မသဲကွဲ ပါချေ

  Prospects unclear as U.S. hobbles away from 2 wars

  http://www.timesca.net/index.php/m-news-by-category/78-politic-a-opinion/1682-prospects-unclear-as-us-hobbles-away-from-2-wars

  14/12/2011 – Prospects unclear as U.S. hobbles away from 2 wars
  Parent Category: News Category: Politics, Analyses & Opinions

  Published on Wednesday, 14 December 2011
  Written by Xinhua

  WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) — The United States is shifting its focus to the Asia-Pacific region as it pulls out of Iraq and Afghanistan, ending the chronic wars that have sapped the country’s political strength and international influence. 

  
The two costly, bloody wars reflect America’s contradicting “must win” but “cannot stand the loss” mentality, exposing the vulnerability of the strongest military force in the world. 

They also underscored the country’s persistent effort to maintain its global hegemonic position, a foreign policy that has not changed for decades. 

If it continues to seek global predominance at the expense of other countries’ interests, the United States perhaps will face a more humiliating collapse of its power and prestige.

  

LOSING MORE THAN IT GAINS IN TWO WARS 

Launched in 2001 and 2003, respectively, to topple down the Taliban and Saddam regimes, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been painfully expensive in money and lives. More than 6,300 U.S. troops have been killed, with another almost 40,000 severely injured. 

Meanwhile, 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars has been spent in the two wars, with the number still increasing, according to a recent estimate by the Congressional Research Service.

  

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the U.S. defense budget climbed from 304 billion dollars to 616 billion in 2008, with another 75 billion dollars spent annually on domestic anti-terror measures. 

Aggravated by the recent global financial crisis, the country is now mired in debt. Federal debt soared from 5.6 trillion dollars in 2001 to the current 15 trillion dollars-plus. 



  Some people say the two wars have dealt a blow to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups and spared the United States from another major terrorist strike. 

But as Melvyn Leffler, history professor of U.S. foreign policy at the University of Virginia, told Xinhua, the United States “has suffered more than it has gained” at least in the short to intermediate terms.

  

The U.S. inability to execute its goals in Iraq and Afghanistan has put the two wars into question and damaged the country’s prestige. 

It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that both wars are kind of humiliation for the world’s biggest power. 

”They are not as bad as the one from Vietnam in the 1970s, but it is bad enough in terms of a blow to U.S. prestige,” Ted Carpenter, a senior fellow with the Washington-based Cato Institute, told Xinhua. 

Meanwhile, the two wars also upset the regional strategic balance. Anti-American sentiment among Muslims has been inflamed, while Iran’s influence has expanded in the Middle East.

  The number of terrorist attacks has not decreased in a measurable way globally, and the world’s security situation has not improved significantly. 

Americans seem to have a conflicting view of war. With the world’s most powerful military, the country is ready to defeat any rival, but as losses grow heavy, citizens and political elites alike become increasingly impatient with what they see as military “black holes.”

  

WITHDRAWALS INEVITABLE

  

As more and more policymakers see the two wars as a heavy burden to U.S. strength and international status, the public’s anti-war sentiment grows and, amid economic recession and high unemployment, more and more Americans demand a speedy end to the wars. 

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a speech in Washington D.C. last month: “We selected objectives beyond the capacity of the American domestic consensus to support over the period required to implement them,” citing the U.S. military interventions on the Korean peninsula, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

  
The two “unwinnable” wars, plus economic difficulties, made troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan inevitable, analysts say. 

On June 22, President Barack Obama announced that 10,000 U.S. troops would leave Afghanistan by the end of this year and another 23,000 would head home by September 2012. The ultimate goal is to transfer leading security responsibility to Afghan forces by 2014. 

On Oct. 21, Obama said the U.S. troop pull-out from Iraq would be completed by the end of the year, ending the almost nine-year war. 



  Despite substantial troop cutbacks and the end of U.S. involvement now in sight, troubles in the two countries continue. 

Iraq is now a weak country with fragile stability and unity. This does not fulfill the U.S. goal of turning it into a stable and pro-West democracy. Recently, America could not even strike an agreement with Iraq to allow its military trainers to stay.

  

The endgame in Afghanistan may be worse. After 10 years of fighting, there are few lasting benefits apparent. Increasing signals suggest Afghanistan could return to its fractious nature. 

The two countries are likely to remain America’s headaches. 

CLOSER EYE ON ASIA 

While drawing troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States is in the meantime looking to expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific region, as Obama’s recent Asia trip suggested.

  Analysts say U.S. foreign policy is moving its focus toward Asia Pacific in a strategic adjustment. 

The history of U.S. foreign policy reveals a consistent pattern of the country making significant policy changes after setbacks from wars and economic difficulties, as it seeks to pull itself out of the mire and regain global dominance.

  

Professor Leffler cited the example of the 1970s, when the U.S. suffered defeats in Vietnam, and experienced high inflation, soaring unemployment, and an oil crisis. 

He said America then “recalibrated its capabilities,” including improving relations with China and re-configuring its military posture. 

”Ultimately, in the 1980s, it emerged as a hegemonic power in the international system,” he said. 



  Similarly, after taking office in 2009, Obama indicated he would end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while unveiling his “Back to Asia” policy. 

”When President Obama came into office, he came in with the idea that the U.S. has diverted too many resources and too much attention to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Kenneth Lieberthal, former White House senior director on Asian affairs and current director of the John Thornton China Center at Brookings Institution, told Xinhua. 



  Indeed, Asia has become the world’s most dynamic region in the past 10 years, with roughly 50 percent of the world’s economic output. Just as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed out in her recent speech at the APEC summit, “It is becoming increasingly clear that in the 21st century, the world’s strategic and economic center of gravity will be the Asia Pacific.” 

America’s Back-to-Asia policy reflects a changing global geopolitical and economic reality.

  As Asia has become more and more important in the global economy, the United States, of course, does not want to miss this “grand banquet.” 

But more than that, another obvious reason behind this back-to-Asia effort is America’s concerns about the rapid growth of China. 

Undoubtedly, there is a sense of uneasiness among Washington’s political elites about a rising China. Carpenter says these concerns will remain because “part of that is simply the dynamic that exists between an incumbent hegemony and a rising great power.”

  

Nevertheless, the United States should draw lessons from its successive foreign policy failures of the past. Amid a changing global strategic and economic landscape, if it continues to care only about its own interests and tries to get its way on everything, while ignoring or even clamping down upon other countries’ legitimate interests, it will only face more failures or humiliation in the future. 

U.S. leaders must accept the realities that China will play a more active role in Asia as its power grows, Carpenter said. 


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• 

  ကြောင်ကြီး

  December 18, 2011 at 12:29 pm

  ဟား ဟား ဟား ဟီး ဟီး ဟီး ဟိုး ဟိုး ဟိုး….. သိပ်ကို ရယ်ရတဲ့ ကာတွန်းတွေပါပဲ ကြေးမုံလေးရယ်…. ခွိခွိခွိ ခစ်ခစ်ခစ် (ကြေးမုံလေးနှင့်ဇိုးတို့၏ ကနွဲ့ကလျ ရီသံဖြစ်သည်။ အမျိုးထိ ငါးပိမနံဆိုသော စကားပုံကို သတိရမိသည်။) ထို့ကြောင့် ဟား ဟား ဟား ဟီး ဟီး ဟီး ဟိုး ဟိုး ဟိုး..နှင့် ကြောင်ကြီးမှ ထပ်မံရယ်ပေးလိုက်ရသည်။ (ပါးညောင်းလိုက်တာ 🙁 အသံထွက်မငြီးရဲ၊ သူတို့ လက်စွမ်းကို သိ၍ဖြစ်သည်)။
  သူတို့ကျေနပ်အောင် ရယ်ပြပြီးနောက် မရှင်းလင်းသည်ကို မေးရပြန်သည်။
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  ကြောင်ကြီး။။ အမေရိကန်တွေကို ရေးထားတဲ့ ကာတွန်းတွေက ထိထိမိမိ ရှိလိုက်တာ ကြဇိုးရယ်။ (ထပ်မရယ်ပါနဲ့တော့၊ ကြောင်ကြီး ဘိုက်နာလွန်းလို့ပါ၊ တောင်းပန်သဖြင့် ၍တကြိမ်တွင် သူတို့ ထပ်မရယ်ကြတော့)…
  ကြေးဇိုး။။ ဟဲ ဟဲ ညှင်း ညှင်း…… 😎
  ကြောင်ကြီး။။ ဒါနဲ့ တရုတ်ပြည်အကြောင်း ဆွဲထားတဲ့ ကာတွန်းတွေရော မရှိဘူးလား။ ကိုကြောင်ကြီး ငိုချင်လို့ပါ…… 🙁
  ကြေးဇိုး။။ ဒါ..ဒါကတော့ မ..မပြောပါရစေနဲ့။ ကြဇိုးတို့က ပိုငိုချင်တယ်။ ဘယ်သူမှ အရေးလုပ် မရေးကြဘူး။ 😡
  ကြောင်ကြီး။။ ဟား ဟား ဟား ဟီး ဟီး ဟီး ဟိုး ဟိုး ဟိုး…. 😆
  ကြေးဇိုး။။ အီး..အဲ…ရွှတ်ဖတ်….ဝါး….အဟင့် အဟင့်… 😥

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 18, 2011 at 12:38 pm

  Obama is provoking China into a trade war: Expert

  Obama is provoking China into a trade war: Expert – CNBC –

  http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/obama-is-provoking-china-intotrade-war-expert_625926.html

  But many in China do not view Obama`s recent assertiveness as a display of power but weakness. They view the President as desperate to find scapegoats to get votes in next year`s 2012 presidential election.

  A rising chorus in China also thinks America is determined to keep China down, so they are pushing the government to respond forcefully. Obama runs the risk of precipitating a trade war or worse as a response.

A politically influential person from Beijing told me, “Obama`s actions demonstrate he is trying to divert attention away from his inability to jumpstart job growth.” He continued to say, “Aside from pandering for votes, Obama is trying to contain China`s rise. We need to stand up to America. Military action is the last resort but we need to show we are strong and won`t be pushed around anymore.” 

The state-owned China Daily ran a similar line underscoring China`s unease with American intentions. Tao Wenzhao, a professor of China-US relations at Beijing`s Tsinghua University, wrote of Obama`s recent moves, “Such a move by Washington is to contain a fast-growing China and to maintain its ebbing dominance in the region.”

  Unlike in previous US election years when American politicians criticized China for easy votes and the Chinese responded with words only, there are differences this time that increase the risks of a trade war or worse.

  First, China is undergoing a leadership transition in 2012. For the first time both China and America is having a leadership change in the same year. To cement power, leaders on both sides might appeal to factions calling for muscular responses, which could quickly spiral out of control.

  Second, many Chinese feel China`s economic strength warrants the end of American hegemony. They bridle that global economic woes stemmed from America`s irresponsible financial and regulatory system yet Obama and the Senate continue to criticize China`s currency policy for the world`s economic ills.

  Going forward, Obama needs to focus more on jumpstarting the American economy than blaming China. China respects power, but power that derives not just from military but economic strength as well. Obama should also engage in more bilateral, constructive discussions at the highest levels.

  American businesses need to account for rising political risks in China and either look to other markets for investment or lobby Congress to take a calmer approach. It is likely that the Chinese government will make it more difficult for western businesses to get licenses or will crack down harder than normal when an American firm errs, as in Walmart`s case with the mislabeling of pork, to send clear messages to Washington. Already Chinese state-owned airlines have upped buying of Airbus planes over Boeing`s
  .
  A trade war or worse won`t benefit China or the US. In order for America to get out of a recession and ensure global stability, economic not military engagement with China is the answer. Cooler heads need to prevail on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

  Shaun Rein is the founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group (www.cmrconsulting.com.cn) a strategic market intelligence firm, and is based in Shanghai.

  He is the author of the upcoming book “The End of Cheap China: Economic and Cultural Trends that will Disrupt the World” published by John Wiley and Sons in the US. He does not own shares in any company mentioned.

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 18, 2011 at 12:40 pm

  Washington’s Clumsy China Containment Policy

  Washington’s Clumsy China Containment Policy | The National Interest Blog

  http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/washington’s-clumsy-china-containment-policy-6202

  Although U.S. officials have insisted for years that they do not regard China’s rise to great-power status as a threatening development, Washington’s statements and actions increasingly belie those assurances. Any doubt on that point disappeared following President Obama’s November 17 speech in Canberra, Australia. In his address to the Australian parliament, Obama boldly asserted that “the United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.” Observers in Australia and throughout the region interpreted that comment as sending a message to China that the United States was not about to quietly relinquish its hegemony in East Asia and let the PRC become the leading power.

  The Canberra speech was not the only measure that suggested that Washington was adopting a harder line toward Beijing on security issues. Just hours before his address to parliament, Obama announced that the United States would send military aircraft and as many as 2,500 Marines to northern Australia over the next few years to develop a training hub to assist allies and protect American interests throughout the region.

  The next day, while attending an East Asian economic summit in Bali, the president went out of his way to emphasize the importance of the U.S. defense alliance with the Philippines and pledged to strengthen that relationship. His comment followed a blunt statement from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding the ongoing dispute between China and several of its neighbors (including the Philippines) over territorial claims in the South China Sea. “Any nation with a claim has a right to exert it,” Clinton stated during a visit to Manila on November 16, “but they do not have a right to pursue it through intimidation or coercion.” She added that “the United States will always be in the corner of the Philippines and we will stand and fight with you.” Although the latter remark could be interpreted merely as a restatement of the rationale for the six-decade-old mutual-defense treaty, given the secretary’s comments about the South China Sea dispute Beijing could certainly view her statement as a specific warning regarding that issue.

  Those moves, along with previous efforts to strengthen cooperative military ties with other traditional allies such as South Korea and Japan and one-time U.S. adversaries such as Vietnam, have all the earmarks of a rather unsubtle containment policy directed against China. It is a foolish strategy that will complicate and perhaps permanently damage the crucial U.S.-China relationship. Perhaps even worse, it is a containment strategy that is long on symbolism and short on substance, thereby managing to be simultaneously provocative and ineffectual.

  Take the U.S. decision to send 2,500 Marines to Australia. It is hard to imagine a scenario in which such a small deployment would be militarily useful. If there is a security contingency somewhere in East Asia, it is likely to be decided by air and naval power, not a meager force of Marines. Yet, while militarily useless, such a deployment conveys a hostile message to Beijing, thereby managing to antagonize the Chinese.

  A similar conclusion is warranted with regard to the Obama administration’s transparent effort to revitalize the nearly moribund alliance with the Philippines. That chronically misgoverned, third-rate military power would hardly make a good security partner in any crisis. Yet by siding with a country that is deeply embroiled with China over territorial claims in the South China Sea, the United States once again appears to be going out of its way to antagonize Beijing.

  That would be an ill-advised approach under the best of circumstances. But to embrace a containment policy—especially one that is primarily bluster and symbolism—when Washington badly needs China to continue funding the seemingly endless flow of U.S. Treasury debt verges on being dim-witted. It’s never a good idea to anger one’s banker. And one can assume that Beijing is watching U.S. actions, not just the pro-forma assurances that the United States wants good relations and does not regard China as a threat. Those assurances ring increasingly hollow, and one can assume that Chinese leaders will react accordingly. That does not bode well for the future of the U.S.-China relationship.

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 18, 2011 at 12:45 pm

  Obama says ‘America is all in’ in the Pacific. The Middle East and South Asia? Not so much. « The Enterprise Blog

  http://blog.american.com/2011/11/obama-says-america-is-all-in-in-the-pacific-the-middle-east-and-south-asia-not-so-much/

  In a speech to the Australian parliament yesterday, President Obama delivered a powerful message of America’s commitment to the region:

  This is the future we seek in the Asia Pacific—security, prosperity, and dignity for all. That’s what we stand for. That’s who we are. That’s the future we will pursue, in partnership with allies and friends, and with every element of American power. So let there be no doubt: In the Asia Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in….

  We will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region. We will preserve our unique ability to project power and deter threats to peace. We will keep our commitments… Our enduring interests in the region demand our enduring presence in the region. The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.

  But when it comes to the Middle East and South Asia, he had a very different message:

  In just a few weeks… the last American troops will leave Iraq and our war there will be over. In Afghanistan, we’ve begun … a responsible transition—so Afghans can take responsibility for their future and so coalition forces can begin to draw down…. So make no mistake, the tide of war is receding, and America is looking ahead to the future that we must build. From Europe to the Americas, we’ve strengthened alliances and partnerships. At home, we’re investing in the sources of our long-term economic strength—the education of our children, the training of our workers, the infrastructure that fuels commerce, the science and the research that leads to new breakthroughs.

  We’ve made hard decisions to cut our deficit and put our fiscal house in order—and we will continue to do more. … Our new focus on this region reflects a fundamental truth—the United States has been, and always will be, a Pacific nation.

  So when it comes to the Pacific, America is “all in,” “here to stay,” and will pursue a future of “security, prosperity, and dignity for all” with “every element of American power.” But when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan, “American troops will leave” and the United States is “looking ahead to the future we must build” by shifting our focus to Europe, the Americas, domestic challenges, and—yes—the Pacific. The message to the people of the Middle East and South Asia could not be clearer—or “MORE TROUBLING.”

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 18, 2011 at 12:50 pm

  Obama asserts U.S. presence in Pacific – USATODAY.com
  http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-11-16/obama-asserts-us-pacific-power/51247376/1

  ….”Words count. Our words are parsed by everyone with great care throughout the region,” says Jonathan Pollack, an expert on China at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t think we’re looking for a confrontation, but we ought to be asking ourselves, what is it that we are specifically trying to do here.”….

  …..”It’s definitely not saber-rattling,” says Ernest Bower, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noting the United States has invited China in the past to join in military training and exercises.

  The risk, however, is that China perceives the U.S. move as an effort at containment, says Michael Swaine of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who just completed a book on U.S.-Chinese engagement.

  “The Obama administration is in danger of overplaying this shift and really creating more alarm, particularly in China, that is certainly necessary,” Swaine says. “The region does not want to see the situation … evolve into a new Cold War.”

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 19, 2011 at 1:44 am

  Obama’s Criticism of China is About Politics, Not Policy

  http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs/141381-obama-s-criticism-china-about-politics-not-policy.html

  In a news conference at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, President Barack Obama forcefully called for China to behave like a “grown up” on economic matters. The president insisted the world’s second-largest economy needs to cease its protectionist policies. For someone who has yet to show a determination to act against China’s trade and currency manipulation in his three years in office, Obama’s sudden criticism of China is more about politics than policy.

  Coming out swinging against highly unpopular political targets appears to be the core strategy of the president’s re-election campaign. In the last couple of months, Obama has criticized Wall Street, Republicans and Bank of America. It is only natural that China — the bogeyman in American politics — is his next political target. Unfortunately, it is important to separate Obama’s rhetoric from his action.

  The president has had three years to take actions against China’s currency manipulation. Yet, his administration has taken no meaningful step to stop this unfair trade practice. Obama’s first order of business with regard to China was to send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the communist state to plead its leaders to continue to buy U.S. debt.

  The administration also initiated the so-called U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which unsurprisingly has not done much to create or save American jobs. In fairness to the president, it is tough to take real actions against the U.S. biggest foreign creditor.

  To combat the country’s high inflation, China has actually been allowing the Yuan to appreciate slightly in the last few quarters.

  China’s inflation is partly caused by the U.S. ultra-loose monetary policy and elevated government spending. How can the U.S., with a straight face, criticize China for “gaming” the system while it is essentially doing the same thing?

  According to the BBC, China’s inflation moderated considerably in the past three months. It won’t be long before the country returns to its currency-manipulation way. In the meantime, President Obama will continue to tout how bailouts have saved the U.S. economy and the Federal Reserve will carry on its zero-interest-rate policy.

  Obama

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 19, 2011 at 3:21 pm

  Obama’s China Syndrome
  Michael T. Klare November 22, 2011   |

  http://www.thenation.com/article/164763/obamas-china-syndrome

  In a move that could prove as momentous—and dangerous—as President Truman’s 1947 decision to initiate a cold war with the Soviet Union, President Obama has chosen to commence a military buildup in the Asia Pacific region aimed at reasserting US primacy and constraining China. Announced in Canberra, Australia, on November 17, the buildup will include deploying 2,500 US marines at Darwin, on Australia’s north coast, and an expanded naval presence in the South China Sea. Along with this shift is a fresh US drive to bolster alliances with countries on China’s periphery, including Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. None of this is explicitly aimed at China—indeed, Obama insists he still seeks good relations with Beijing—but it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the White House has decided to counter China’s spectacular economic growth with a military riposte.

  The policy, described by Deputy Secretary of State William Burns as a “strategic pivot toward the Pacific,” rests on several key precepts. First is a belief that the Pacific has become the “center of gravity” of global economic activity and that the United States must remain the dominant actor in this region if it expects to retain its status as the world’s paramount power. Second is the realization that China has taken advantage of America’s ten-year obsession with Iraq and Afghanistan to establish powerful economic ties with the nations of Southeast Asia, supplanting the United States as the dominant regional actor. And third, there is the conviction that the United States must make up for lost time and contest China’s recent gains by any means necessary. And because Washington lacks Beijing’s economic clout, it must rely on its one remaining strength: military power.

  “As we end today’s wars,” Obama declared in Canberra, “I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority…. Our enduring interests in the region demand our enduring presence in this region. The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.”

  This strategic shift has several key features, some announced during Obama’s trip to Asia, others still being formulated. Most specific is the decision to establish a base at Darwin, on the Timor Sea, a strategic body of water connecting the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. The administration also seeks to bolster US military ties with Indonesia and the Philippines, which both adjoin the South China Sea. While Obama was in Australia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in the Philippines to sign the Manila Declaration, a joint statement pledging closer US-Philippine cooperation in military affairs, especially in the maritime arena.

  These moves and others—including a new regional trade pact that purposefully excludes China—are part of what the administration describes as a “redistribution” of US military capabilities in the region, placing somewhat less emphasis on the northwest Pacific and the areas around Japan and more on the southwest Pacific and the South China Sea.

  The South China Sea has had increased prominence in Washington’s strategic calculus in recent years as China has asserted its interests there and as its importance as an economic arena has grown. Not only does the sea sit atop major oil and natural gas deposits—some being developed by US companies, including ExxonMobil—it also serves as the main route for ships traveling to and from Europe, Africa and the Middle East to China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The Chinese say the South China Sea is part of their national maritime territory and that the oil and gas belongs to them; but Washington is insisting it will fight to preserve “freedom of navigation” there, at whatever cost. Whereas Taiwan once topped the list of US security challenges in the western Pacific, Hillary Clinton said on November 10 that “ensuring freedom of navigation in the South China Sea” is now Washington’s principal challenge.

  Focusing on the South China Sea achieves several White House goals. It shifts the emphasis in US security planning from ideological determinism, as embedded in the increasingly unpopular drive to impose American values on the Middle East and fight a never-ending war against Islamist jihadism, to economic realism, as expressed through protecting overseas energy assets and maritime commerce. By dominating sea lanes the United States poses an implied threat of economic warfare against China in any altercations by cutting off its access to foreign markets and raw materials. And, through its very location, the South China Sea links US strategic interests in the Pacific to its interests in the Indian Ocean and to those of the rising powers of South Asia. According to Secretary Burns, a key objective of the administration’s strategy is to unite India with Japan, Australia and other members of the emerging anti-Chinese bloc.

  Chinese officials following these developments must see them as a calculated US effort to encircle China with hostile alliances. How, exactly, Beijing will respond to this onslaught remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that it will not be intimidated—resistance to foreign aggression lies at the bedrock of the national character and remains a key goal of the Chinese Communist Party, however attenuated by time. So blowback there will be.

  Perhaps the White House believes that military competition will impede China’s economic growth and disguise US economic weaknesses. But this is folly: China has far greater economic clout than the United States. To enhance its position vis-à-vis China, America must first put its own house in order by reinvigorating its economy, reducing foreign debt, improving public education and eliminating unnecessary overseas military commitments.

  Ultimately, what is most worrisome about the Obama administration’s strategic shift—which no doubt is dictated as much by domestic as foreign policy considerations, including the need to counter jingoistic appeals from GOP presidential candidates and to preserve high rates of military spending—is that it will trigger a similar realignment within Chinese policy circles, where military leaders are pushing for a more explicitly anti-American stance and a larger share of government funds. The most likely result, then, will be antagonistic moves on both sides, leading to greater suspicion, increased military spending, periodic naval incidents, a poisoned international atmosphere, economic disarray and, over time, a greater risk of war.

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 20, 2011 at 4:51 am

  အများကိုထုတ်ဖော်မပြောသေးတဲ့ အမေရိကန်က ရှုံးနှိမ့်လို့ အီရတ် နိုင်ငံမှ ဆုတ်ခွါသွားရ ခြင်း အကြောင်း

  (ဆောင်းပါးရှင် M K Bhadrakumar မှာ အိန်ဒိယနိုင်ငံရဲ့ ဝါရင့်တဲ့ သံအမတ်ဟောင်း ဖြစ်ပြီး နိုင်ငံမျိုးစုံတို့မှာ နှစ်ပေါင်းများစွာ တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်ခဲ့တာ
  အငြိမ်းစားယူပြီးနောက်မှာ သူကနိုင်ငံရေးလေ့လာသူ ပါရဂူအဖြစ်လည်ကောင်း၊ နိုင်ငံရေးအကြံပေးအရာရှိအဖြစ်လည်ကောင်း၊ လုပ်ကိုင်လျက် ရှိတယ်)

  The untold story of US retreat from Iraq

  http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2011/12/18/the-untold-story-of-us-retreat-from-iraq/

  The plot was believed to be as follows: Washington wanted to keep long-term US military presence in Iraq but the popular opinion in Iraq militated against it, which ultimately left the Barack Obama administration no choice but to comply with the Status of Forces Agreement [SOFA] and to withdraw all the troops by the stipulated deadline of December 2011. 

  The US of course has given the spin that the withdrawal has been of its own accord. And the Republicans have been berating Obama for not doing all he should have done to keep the US military bases in Iraq as the US’s regional strategy.

  Now comes the plot within the plot. Even as there was vehement opposition amongst the Iraqi people to the US military bases, it seems there was also a 3-way conspiracy involving Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki (who George W. Bush had thought to be his man in Baghdad), Iraqi Islamist leader Moqtada al-Sadr and Tehran to hoodwink the Americans into believing that they were going to be in Iraq forever.

    Tehran apparently cleared much cloud cover for Maliki by playing up a story that Maliki and al-Sadr were sworn enemies out to vanquish each other – although all three were secretly collaborating in the anti-US project.  Bush and Condoleeza Rice bought Malik’s spin and walked into an Iraqi trap to sign the SOFA.

  Only to get the shock of their lives that Maliki was going to insist on the withdrawal deadline in the SOFA. No wonder Bush failed to show up at the ceremony last week, attended by Obama, observing the victorious “homecoming” of the US army from Iraq. 

  Can there be a repeat in Afghanistan? Washington will be very alert that there is no replay. In any case. for such a thing to repeat in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai and Mohammed Fahim should work out a deal with Pakistan and Iran to get rid of the US and NATO military presence, while pretending they were Obama’s best pals in town. Seems a difficult proposition. The Iraqis seem to be better nationalists than the Afghans.  The moral is of course that the jury is still out in Libya where the US and NATO may presently believe they have everything under control. 

  By the way, imagine the mixed feelings racing through Obama’s inner world as he received Maliki in the White House last week. Gareth Porter’s breathtaking account of how Maliki, al-Sadr and Iran conspired together and hoodwinked Bush and Rice makes great reading. It is here. 
  ——————————-
  Comments:

  Johan says

  “Tehran apparently cleared much cloud cover for Maliki by playing up a story that Maliki and al-Sadr were sworn enemies out to vanquish each other – although all three were secretly collaborating in the anti-US project.”

  Love this!

  Others may follow. It is about time everyone saying, “the school bully has no clothes.” The sage Chinese have already observed, half a century ago, it is “a paper tiger.”

  I do have a couple of questions though.

  One is, what will be the real function of that monstrously large fortified compound, aka the American “embassy” in Baghdad?

  Another, isn’t part of the “withdrawal deal” that a huge number of the notorious “Blackwater” (“Xe”?) paramilitary thugs will stay behind?
  Or am I missing something?…
  ,
  smako says

  The Americans lack the British finesse at divide and conquer; a grunt swinging a club.
  Afghanistan will just prove there is more than one way to skin a cat.

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 20, 2011 at 6:48 am

  Iraq အီရတ်နိုင်ငံကနေ ခွါထွက်ရအောင် အမေရိကန်ကို ဘယ်လိုဉာဏ်ဆင်ပြီး”လူလည်” လုပ်ခဲ့ကြသလဲ?
  အမေရိကန်က ဘယ်လို “နှပ်ချ” ခြင်းခံလိုက်ရသလဲ?

  ဆောင်းပါးရှင် Gareth Porter က အသေးစိတ် ရေး

  How Iran outsmarted the US on Iraq
  By Gareth Porter

  Dec 20, 2011

  WASHINGTON – United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s suggestion that the end of the US troop presence in Iraq was part of a US military success story ignores the fact that the George W Bush administration and the US military had planned to maintain a semi-permanent military presence in Iraq.

  The real story behind the US withdrawal is how a clever strategy of deception and diplomacy adopted by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in cooperation with Iran outmaneuvered Bush and the US military leadership and got the US to sign the US-Iraq withdrawal agreement.

  A central element of the Maliki-Iran strategy was the common interest that Maliki, Iran and anti-American Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr shared in ending the US occupation, despite their differences over other issues.

  Maliki needed Muqtada’s support, which was initially based on Maliki’s commitment to obtain a time schedule for the US troops’ withdrawal from Iraq.

  In early June 2006, a draft national reconciliation plan that circulated among Iraqi political groups included agreement on “a time schedule to pull out the troops from Iraq” along with the build-up of Iraqi military forces. But after a quick trip to Baghdad, Bush rejected the idea of a withdrawal timetable….

  …….The Bush administration was in a state of shock. From July to October, it pretended that it could simply refuse to accept the withdrawal demand, while trying vainly to pressure Maliki to back down.

  In the end, however, Bush administration officials realized that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who was then far ahead of Republican John McCain in polls, would accept the same or an even faster timetable for withdrawal. In October, Bush decided to sign the draft agreement pledging withdrawal of all US troops by the end of 2011.

  The ambitious plans of the US military to use Iraq to dominate the Middle East militarily and politically had been foiled by the very regime the United States had installed, and the officials behind the US scheme, had been clueless about what was happening until it was too late.

  Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

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• 

  htoosan

  December 20, 2011 at 11:23 am

  မနေ့က နေပြည်တော် လေယာဉ်ကွင်း ဖွင့်ပွဲလုပ်တယ် ။
  ကမ္မည်းမော်ကွန်း မှာ မြန်မာအလံ နဲ့ တရုတ် အလံနဲ့ ။ တရုတ်ထောက်ပံ့ကြေးနဲ့ဆောက်ပုံရပါတယ် ။
  ဖွင့်ပွဲမှာ တရုတ်နိုင်ငံတော် ကောင်စီဝန် မစ္စတာ တိုက်ပင်းကော်နဲ့ ဒေါက်တာစိုင်းမောက်ခမ်းတွဲဖွင့်တာ ဆိုတော့ ထိပ်ဆုံးက ပုံလို ဘဲ Just call me land lord လေးက ….အင်း……

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  • 

    Kyaemon

    December 20, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    ထူးစန်ရေ

    နေပြည်တော် လေယာဉ်ကွင်းသစ် နဲ့ပတ်သက် လို့ ရွာသား များ အတွက် ရှာဖွေ ရရှိ လာ တဲ့ You tube ယူကျူ့ ဗီဒီယို နဲ့သတင်း တွေ ပါ
    ———————-

    ကြုံလို့ပြောရရင်၊ “Landlord” နဲ့ “Banker/Lender” ကွာ ခြား ပါ တယ်

    Banker တရုပ်သွင်းကုန်ထုတ်ကုန်ဘဏ် မှ (financial assistance) lend ငွေချေးပြီး ဆောက်လုပ် တာဆိုထားတာ တွေ့လို့ “Landlord” မြေပိုင်ရှင် မဟုတ်ပါ

    “Banker/Lender” ကြွေးရှင် ပါ

    ဆောက်လုပ်ရေးစက် ကြီးတွေကိုလဲ Rent ငှါး (သုံးပြီးရင် ပြန်ပေး စနစ်) လို့ရေး ထား တာတွေ့ရ တယ်

    နိုင်ငံခြား သား ကုမ်ပဏီတွေ ကို မြေ မရောင်း နိုင်ပါ (အမေရိကန်နိုင်ငံလိုမဟုတ်ပါ)

    အတိုးနဲ့အရင်းတော့ တဖြေးဖြေး ပြန်ဆပ်ရမှာပါ

    ဒါကြောင့်မို့ မြေပိုင်ရှင် မဟုတ်နိုင်ပါ

    ဆင်းရဲတဲ့နိုင်ငံ တွေ က အာရှဘဏ် တို့ ကမ်ဘာ့ဘဏ် တို့ အခြားနိုင်ငံ တို့မှ ငွေချေး ပြီး မိမိတို့လုပ်လိုတာကိုလုပ်ကြတာရှိတယ်

    တရုပ် ကြီးအပြင် ကုလား ကြီး ထိုင်း တို့ဆီ ကလဲချေး ပြီးလုပ်ကြတယ်လို့ကြားမှာပါ

    ———————

    Myanmar opens international airport in new capital

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/19/uk-myanmar-airport-idUSLNE7BI02D20111219

    (Reuters) – Myanmar opened a new international airport in its capital Naypyitaw on Monday, with regional leaders the first to use the new facility that will handle up to 65,000 flights per year.

    Naypyitaw International Airport will be Myanmar’s third international facility after Mandalay and the commercial capital Yangon.

    The airport was developed by Burmese construction company Asia World with technical assistance from Singapore engineering firm CPG Consultants Pte. Government sources said China provided financial assistance for the project, the cost of which has not been disclosed.

    It was opened to coincide with the staging in the city from Tuesday, of the fourth summit of the Greater Mekong Subregion, made up of Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and China.

    Construction began in April 2007, two years after the then military government announced it was switching the capital from Yangon to Naypyitaw, a city built in secret on a mountain plateau about 390 km (240 miles) further north.

    According to the Transport Ministry, the airport has a 3.6 km runway, a control tower 69 metres high and 10 passenger boarding bridges and can take 50,000 to 65,000 flights annually.

    The main airport in Yangon has a capacity of 2.7 million passengers a year.

    (Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Editing by Martin Petty and Ron Popeski)

    ———————————-

    Naypyitaw International Airport Project – YouTube
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEYXnCAsqbQ

    ———————————–

    International airport dedicated in Naypyitaw

    http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/6291-international-airport-dedicated-in-naypyitaw.html

    (Mizzima) – The Naypyitaw International Airport was inaugurated on Monday, the Xinhua news agency reported.

    The new international airport was put into operation in a bid to ensure accommodation of what is hoped to be a sharp increase of tourists from around the world in the years ahead, said Xinhua.

    Located 16 kilometers south of Naypyitaw and next to the old Ayelar Airport, the opening was attended by Vice President Sai Mauk Kham and visiting Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who is in Naypyitaw to attend the 4th Summit of the six-country Greater Mekong Subregion-Economic Cooperation (GMS) which opens Tuesday.

    The new airport was partly designed to accommodate events such as the Southeast Asian Games and Asean summit to be hosted in Naypyitaw in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

    The project involved a credit of nearly US$ 200 million financial aid extended by the China Export-Import Bank and a supply of construction equipment from the China Machinery Engineering Corporation and China Harbour Engineering Company, according to Xinhua.

    Burma has two other international airports, in Rangoon and Mandalay.

    ——————————–

    Myanmar’s Nay Pyi Taw int’l airport put into operation—ASEAN—China Center

    http://www.asean-china-center.org/english/2011-12/19/c_131315250.htm

    NAY PYI TAW, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) — A new international airport in Myanmar’s capital of Nay Pyi Taw was put into operation Monday in a bid to ensure accommodation of sharp increase of travelers from across the world in the years ahead.
    Located 16 kilometers south of Nay Pyi Taw and next to the old Ayelar Airport in the new capital, the opening of the Nay Pyi Taw International Airport took place ceremonially and was attended by Myanmar Vice-President Sai Mauk Kham and visiting Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo who is in Nay Pyi Taw to attend the 4th Summit of the six-country Greater Mekong Subregion-Economic Cooperation (GMS)which is to kick off Tuesday.

    The commission into service of the Nay Pyi Taw International Airport was also arranged ahead of some other international events such as Southeast Asian Games and ASEAN summit to be hosted by Myanmar in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
    Built since 2009 through Sino-Myanmar companies’ cooperation, the airport,which covers a terminal floor area of 1.2 million square feet (111,480 square meters) and has a runway of 3.6km long, will be able to handle 20 million passengers per annum on full completion.

    The project involved a credit of nearly 200 million U.S. dollars financial aid extended by the China Export-Import Bank and supply of construction equipment from the China Machinery Engineering Corporation and China Harbour Engineering Company.
    The Nay Pyi Taw international airport is the third international airport of its kind in Myanmar after Yangon’s and Mandalay’s.

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    • 

      htoosan

      December 21, 2011 at 11:55 am

      ကျေးဇူးပါ ကြေးမုံ ရေ။ အခုတော့ ကြွေးရှင် .နောင်တော့ ပိုင်ရှင် တွေ တဖြေးဖြေး ဖြစ်လာတော့ မယ်ဆိုတဲ့ သဘောနဲံ့ .. အင်း….ဆိုပြီး ရေးထားတာပါ ။
      သတင်းများအားလုံးအတွက် လည်း ကျေးဇူးပါ . ရှာ ပြီးတင်ပေးရတာလည်း အချိန်ကော လူကော စိုက်ရတာပါဘဲံ။ တစ်ဘက်ထဲ မြင်နေရတာထက်စာရင် နှစ်ဘက်မြင်ရပြီး ပိုမို ချင့်ချိန်သုံးသပ်နိုင်ကြတဲ့ အတွက် အားပေးပါတယ်။

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 20, 2011 at 5:22 pm

  သမတဟောင်း ကာတာ နဲ့ သီးသန့်တွေ့ဆုံမေးမြန်းခြင်း

  မကြာခင်က သမတ အိုဘားမာ ရဲ့အာရှပစီဖိသမုဒ်ဒရာ နဲ့ပတ်သက်တဲ့ ကျေညာချက်၊
  အမေရိကန် နဲ့တရုပ်ဆက်ဆံရေး၊
  အမေရိကန်နဲတရုပ်ငွေကြေးလဲလှယ်နှုန်း၊
  မိမိအဖွဲ့ နဲ့တရုပ်တို့က အာဖရစ်ကတိုက် မှာ ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်နေကြတဲ့ ကယ်ဆယ်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းတွေ
  မိမိရဲ့ကိုယ်တွေ့ တရုပ်ပြည် အတွေ့အကြုံ တွေ

  အကြောင်းစုံပါဝင်တယ်

  သဘောထားခြင်းအနည်းငယ်ကွဲလွဲတာ ရှိမှာပါ၊ သို့သော် အရေးကြီးစိုးရိမ်လောက်တဲ့အဆင့်မဟုတ်ပါ၊ သေးတိမ် တာဖြစ်ပါ တယ်၊
  ရွေးကောက်ပွဲအတွက်မဲဆန်ဒ ရဘို့ ပြော ကြတာ စိုးရိမ်စရာမရှိပါ

  စသည်စသည်…. ပြောသွားတယ်

  Exclusive interview with Jimmy Carter
  (chinadaily.com.cn)
  Updated: 2011-12-15 15:59

  http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/video/2011-12/15/content_14272473.htm

  Carter recalls his lifelong fascination with China
  Updated: 2011-12-15 08:05

  By Mike Peters (China Daily)

  http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-12/15/content_14268224.htm

  Click for the video clip of the interview

  BEIJING – When a 7-year-old farmboy in Plains, Georgia, opened a package from his seafaring uncle nearly eight decades ago, he found a delicate model of a wooden Chinese junk – and at that moment a lifelong fascination with China was born.

  “My uncle was in the US Navy here,” former US president Jimmy Carter told China Daily on Wednesday, “and he would send me souvenirs from seaports where his ship visited. I got that package from Hong Kong, and others from Shanghai and from Qingdao. I still have that ship, it’s in the bedroom of my boyhood home
  .
  “Then later when I was in the submarine force in 1949, I came here as a young naval officer to visit the same seaports, and I was intrigued with the people of China,” he said, noting that when he became president he began the process of normalizing relations with China that began in the Nixon administration.

  “So it’s been a long process in my life, involving China and my love for the Chinese people.”
  That sort of exchange was the reason Carter has been in China for the past week, marking the 40th anniversary of Ping-Pong Diplomacy at a series of events.

  At a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People that he attended with Vice-President Xi Jinping, Carter said: “It was a very historic moment. But it was that breakthrough just with ping-pong players – that is people-to-people – that was really more important than the decisions of political leaders. And I think that is a stability that is going to prevail in the future.”

  On Wednesday morning the former president was taping a television spot at the US embassy to support President Barack Obama’s campaign for 100,000 Strong – a push to have 100,000 US students studying in China four years from now.

  “Now we have 165,000 Chinese students in American universities, and about 13,000 American students in Chinese universities. And in the future, they will be the leaders of our two countries. And they will also be knowing more about each other and the reasons for harmony and cooperation and mutual respect.”

  Carter said that despite his decades of interaction with China, he’s learning about it all the time.
  He said one reason for his current visit is China’s interest in working with the Carter Center in Africa, for instance, in healthcare programs.

  A meeting with a Chinese official, who is in charge of healthcare assistance to Africa, informed Carter of the many programs that China has in Africa to improve healthcare there, involving malaria and many other diseases.

  “This was a surprise to me, and I think this is one thing that the rest of the world doesn’t acknowledge – or know about – is how extensive China’s programs are in improving the quality of lives of people in Africa and in poor countries elsewhere.”

  Carter is not overwhelmed by issues of discord between the two countries, from regulating the value of the renminbi to US arms sales to Taiwan.

  He noted that rhetoric gets ratcheted up from time to time, “especially during US election years”. And while some in Congress want to punish China for not moving as far as the United States would like on currency revaluation, Carter said flatly that such a bill would not pass both houses of Congress. “And if it did, President Obama would veto it.”

  “I think the more rational people in the US Congress – and in the White House – understand that this slight difference of opinion over the value of the Chinese currency is relatively insignificant. I’ve observed this very closely myself. Five years ago, it took about eight RMB to equal one US dollar. Now it just takes six of them. That’s a 22 percent change in the value of the Chinese currency just in the last five years. So change is taking place – not because of comments from Washington but because the Chinese leaders in politics and economics agreed this is best for China.

  “Decisions about the US currency should be made in Washington, and decisions about the Chinese renminbi, the yuan, should be made in Beijing.”

  “We’ll always have differences, with our cultural approaches and our political backgrounds, our ancient histories,” Carter said.
  “But still, the ties that bind us together are much more important than any differences that might arise.”
  China Daily

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 21, 2011 at 7:33 am

  အာရှနိုင်ငံတွေ အပေါ် “သွေးခွဲပြီး အုပ်ချုပ်တဲ့နည်းတွေ” ကို သုံးစွဲလာတာ သတိမထား လစ်လျူရှူနေကြတယ်

  (ဆောင်းပါရှင်မှာ India အိန်ဒိယ နိုင်ငံ Manipal တက်ကသိုလ် က ပထဝီနိုင်ငံရေး ပါမောက်ခ ဖြစ်တယ်)

  အမေရိကန် သမတ Franklin Roosevelt က အာရှအရေးဆိုရင်၊ အာရှနိုင်ငံတွေဘက်မှ ရပ်တည်ခဲ့တယ်၊ သမတ Truman လက်ထက်က စပြီး အမေရိကန်က ဥရောပ နယ်ချဲ့နိုင်ငံတွေဘက်သို့ ကူးပြောင်းကာ ရပ်တည်ခဲ့တယ်၊

  ဥရောပ နိုင်ငံတွေက အာရှမှာကြီးစိုးခဲ့ပြီးနောက် အမေရိကန်က ဆက်ခံ လွှမ်းမိုး လာခဲ့တယ်၊ အာရှတခွင်မှာ ကြီးစိုးတဲ့ အင်အားကြီးနိုင်ငံအဖြစ်ရပ်တည်ခဲ့တယ်၊

  အမေရိကန်က အာရှတိုက်တို့ရဲ့အကျိုးထက် မိမိ နဲ့ဥရောပ တို့ရဲ့ အကျိုး ကို ဖြစ်ထွန်းမဲ့ လမ်းစဉ် မူဝါဒတွေ လုပ်ရပ်တွေ ကိုလုပ်ဆောင်တယ်၊ အာရှနိုင်ငံတွေ အပေါ်အတင်းအဓမ်မ လုပ်ခွင့်ရှိတယ်လို့(အမေရိကန်တို့က မှားယွင်းစွာ)ထင်မြင်ယူဆလာတယ်၊

  ခုလဲ တရုပ်ကြီးက တက်လာပြီး တချိန်ကျရင်သူတို့ထက်တောင် သာလွန်နိုင်စွမ်း အလားအလာရှိလို့၊ ခုနေကပင် တရုပ်ကြီး နဲ့ဆန့်ကျင်ရအောင် တရုပ်ကြီး ရဲ့အိမ်နီးနားချင်းနိုင်ငံတွေကို အသုံးချနေတယ်၊ တောင်ပိုင်းတရုပ်ပင်လယ် အငြင်းပွါးမှုကိုအာရုံပြုပြီးအသုံးချနေတာကိုပြောတာ

  ဒေသခံအာရှနိုင်ငံတို့က စိတ်ဝမ်းကွဲပြီး တကွဲတပြဲဖြစ်စေမဲ့ ဒီကိစ်စကိုဘဲ စူးစိုက်ကာ အငြင်းပွါးနေကြမယ်ဆိုရင် အပြင် ပယောဂ အင်အားစုတွေရဲ့ အစီအစဉ် (ထောင်ချောက်) ထဲသို့ ဝင်သွား မှာဖြစ်တယ်၊ အာရှနိုင်ငံတွေက ကျယ်ပြန့်တဲ့မဟာမိတ်အဖွဲ့ ကို ဖွဲ့စည်း နိုင်မယ် ဆိုရင် ပြင်ပအင်အားစု တို့က ခုလို အာရှနိုင်ငံတွေကို အနှစ် ၄၀ဝ လောက် ဆက်လက်ပြီး မစိုးမိုးနိုင်တော့ပါ၊

  ခုနေ တရုပ်ကြီးကအကြီးဆုံးဖြစ်နေတော့ကာ ”Divide Asia” “အာရှနိုင်ငံတွေကိုတကွဲအပြဲဖြစ်အောင် ဖြိုခွဲရေး” ဝါဒဖြန့်နေတာတွေက တရုပ်ကြီး ပေါ်မှာဘဲ စုပြုံတိုက်ခိုက်နေကြတာ၊

  သူ့ကို “နယ်ချဲ့သူခိုးဒမြ” “ခေါင်းပုံ ဖြတ်သမား” “အညွန့်ခူးစားသူ” ဆိုပြီး အသွင်ဆောင်ရအောင် လုပ်နေကြတယ်၊ဒီလို“အမှောင့်”လုပ်တာ(လိမ်လည် ဝါဒဖြန့်တာ)ကလဲ အောင်မြင်နေတယ်၊

  ၁၉၆၂ ခုနှစ် အိန်ဒိယ နဲ့တရုပ် တို့ရဲ့နယ်ခြားစစ်ပွဲမှာ တရုပ်ကနိုင်ထားတဲ့ မြေတွေကို မော်စီတုံးက ပြန်ပေးခဲ့တယ်၊ အိန်ဒိယနဲ့ချစ်ကြည်ရေးဟာ မိမိအတွက် ရေရှည်အကျိုးရှိမှာကိုမြင်လို့အနစ်နာ်ခံခဲ့တာ ဖြစ်တယ်၊

  ဒါကြောင့်မို့ အိန်ဒိယ နဲ့တရုပ်ပြည်မှာရှိတဲ့ အစွန်းရောက်သမားတို့ ရဲ့တောင်းဆိုချက်တွေဟာ NATO နာတိုအင်အားစုတို့ရဲ့ထောင်ချောက် ထဲရောက်သွားအောင် လုပ်တယ်လို့မြင်တယ်၊

  အာရှနိုင်ငံတွေအချင်းချင်းတင်းမာပြီးရန်ဖြစ်နေမယ်ဆိုရင် ပညာရေး ကျန်းမာရေး ဆင်းရဲခြင်းဘဝမှလွှတ်မြောက်ရေး တို့ကို မဖြေရှင်းနိုင်ဘဲဖြစ်သွားမှာ၊

  ကျနော်က ACM ဆိုတဲ့ “အာရှ စီးပွါးရေးဘုံ” (ဥရောပ EU ယူရိုဇုံလို) ကိုဖွဲ့စည်းဘို့လိုလားတာ အာရှနိုင်ငံတွေရဲ့ ငွေစက်ကူတွေကိုလွတ်လပ်စွာ ဖလှယ်နိုင်မှာ၊

  ရန်တွေ့ဘို့သင်ခန်းစာများသင်ယူနေမဲ့အစား အချင်းချင်းပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်ဘို့ ဥရောပတိုက်မှ သင်ခန်းစာကောင်းများကို သင်ယူသင့်တာ၊

  အပြင်အင်အားစုတို့က ငါတို့အာရှရဲ့အစီအစဉ် စီမံချက်တွေကို လာပြီး သတ်မှတ် စီမံ ပြီး၊ ငါတို့အာရှနိုင်ငံတွေကိုသွေးခွဲပြီး ဖြိုခွင်းဘို့ အခွင့်အလမ်း မပေးကြ နဲ့

  ————————————————-

  Asia ignores ‘divide and conquer’ tactics
  Global Times | December 19, 2011 19:23
  By M.D. Nalapat

  http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/689031/Asia-ignores-divide-and-conquer-tactics.aspx#Comment16167

  In 1945, then US President Harry S. Truman, guided by his Europhile Secretary of State Dean Acheson, reversed former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s correct policy of aligning the US in Asia with Asians, rather than with their European colonizers.

  The US replaced Europe in Asia as the dominant power, and thereafter regarded itself as having the right to force Asian countries into following policies that benefit US and NATO interests rather than their own.

  With the 21st century rise of China, the US has a challenger in Asia that has the potential to be bigger than itself. Hence the effort to concentrate on the issue that can turn its Asian neighbors against China, which is the South China Sea dispute. By concentrating on this divisive issue, people in the region are playing into the divisive agenda of outside powers.

  If the Asian countries come together in a broad alliance, such a development will leave no space for outside powers to continue to dominate the region, the way they have been doing for about 400 years. China being the biggest, the concentration of such “Divide Asia” propaganda is on China, to seek to portray it as a predatory power. Such disinformation has been successful.

  Former Chinese leader Mao Zedong disregarded the advice to hold on to the territory won by the PLA in the 1962 border conflict with India, and made his troops withdraw from all the area that the PLA had taken over in those 10 weeks of fighting. Mao knew that friendship with India was crucial to China’s long-term interests and hence he made this sacrifice.

  Those in China and India who are demanding a more aggressive policy are falling into the trap laid by the NATO powers, who seek to portray China as the new hegemony.

  Tension and conflict would hurt the war against the main enemies of the people of Asia, which are disease, poverty and lack of education.

  I would like to see an Asian Common Market, where the currencies of each country are freely traded in other Asian countries. We should learn from Europe’s lessons in cooperation, rather than their lessons in conflict. We must not allow outsiders to set our agenda and divide us.

  The author is director and professor of the School of Geopolitics at Manipal University in India. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

  Common security can calm turbulent sea
  Soft power better than fierce island battles

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• 

  ကြောင်ကြီး

  December 21, 2011 at 12:47 pm

  ကြေးကြေးပေါတာ ထောက်ခံပါတယ်။ တရုတ်(မ) မြန်မာ ချစ်ကြည်ရေးအသင်းကို ဦးကြောင် ဥက္ကဌလုပ် ဖွဲ့စည်းပါမယ်။ အတွင်းရေးမှူး ကြေးမုံ၊ အပြင်ရေးမှူး ဇိုး၊ အဖွဲ့ဝင်များ…… အားလုံးကို တရုတ်မလေးများ ဖြစ်စေချင်ပါတယ်။ မြန်မာတွေကတော့ ဦးကြောင် တယောက်လုံး ဥက္ကဌတာဝန်ယူထားပြီးပြီမို့ ကျေနပ်ကြမှာပါ။ ဒေါ်စုကလည်း ကြားဖြတ်ရွေးကောက်ပွဲမှာ အမျိုးသမီးအမတ်လောင်းတွေကို ဦးစားပေးရွေးမယ်ဆိုထားတာမို့ သူ့ှဆန္ဒကို မဆန့်ကျင်ချင်တာလည်းပါတယ်။ ဖြစ်နိုင်ရင် အခုပဲ အဖွဲ့စဖွဲ့လိုက်ရအောင်နော်။ ကြေးမုံလေးနဲ့ဇိုး ဦးကြောင်အနားလာ၊ နဖူးတိုက်ဒူးတိုက် အစည်းအဝေး ကျင်းပလိုက်ရအောင်။။။ ဆွေးနွေးပွဲ အသေးစိတ် အချက်အလက်များကိုတော့ ဒေါ်စုမှ စစ်အစိုးရနှင့် ဆွေးနွေးချက် အသေးစိတ်ကို ထုတ်ပြန်ပြောဆိုမှသာ ကျနော်တို့ကလည်း ထုတ်ပြန်ပေးသွားမှာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။။။။ အခုတော့ ဆွေးနွေးပွဲဖြစ်မြောက်ကြောင်းနဲ့ နောင်လည်း မကြာမကြာ တွေ့ဆုံဖို့ရှိကြောင်း သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်နဲ့ပဲ ကျေနပ်ကြပါ။။။ 😛

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• 

  pooch

  December 21, 2011 at 2:57 pm

  ကြေးမုံရေ အခုလို သတင်းတွေကို စုံနေအောင် ဖော်ပြတဲ့အတွက် ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်…
  ဗဟုသုတတွေ ရော ကိုယ်မဖတ်မိ မသိမိတာတွေရော အများကြီး ဖတ်လိုက်ရတဲ့ အတွက်ပါ…

  “အာရှနိုင်ငံတွေအချင်းချင်းတင်းမာပြီးရန်ဖြစ်နေမယ်ဆိုရင် ပညာရေး ကျန်းမာရေး ဆင်းရဲခြင်းဘဝမှလွှတ်မြောက်ရေး တို့ကို မဖြေရှင်းနိုင်ဘဲဖြစ်သွားမှာ၊”

  ဆိုတာလေးကို ထောက်ခံပါတယ် .. ………

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 21, 2011 at 4:08 pm

  မီးနဲ့ကစားခြင်း

  အိုဘားမားကဓာတ်ဆီကို ကိုင်ပြီးခြိမ်းခြောက်နေတာက အန်တရယ်ရှိတယ်

  အိုဘားမား အစိုးရရဲ့ တရုပ်ကြီးပေါ်သဘောထားဆက်ဆံပုံက အန်တရယ်ကြီးတယ်၊

  ဆူပွက်နေတဲ့ ဒယ်အိုးဆီပူမှတောက်လောင်နေတဲ့မီးအုံ ထဲသို့ခုန်ဆင်းတာနဲ့အတူတူဘဲ၊

  အာရှအလယ်ပိုင်းမှာ စစ်ပွဲကြီးနှစ်ပွဲအကြီးအကျယ် ရှုံးနှိမ့်ခဲ့ထာကို ရာဇဝင်သင်ပုန်းကြီး ကိုခြေပြီး
  စာမျက်နာသစ်အဖြစ် အာရှမှာ စစ်အေး တိုက်ပွဲ အသစ်တခုကို စတင်တော့တာ

  ကမ်ဘာ့စိုးမိုးရေးအတွက် ဓာတ်ဆီဟာသော့ချက်ဘဲဆိုပြီး ထပ်မံပြီးယူဆပြန်တယ်

  …….တိုင်းပြည်ကိုဦးဆောင်ပေးမှု ကောင်းမွန်မှန်ကန်တာမဟုတ်ဘဲ၊ နှုံ”အ” ပြီးချီတက်နေတာလို့ယူဆတယ်

  Michael T. Klare: Playing With Fire

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-t-klare/china-us-oil_b_1131582.html
  Posted: 12/ 6/11 11:41 AM ET
  Obama’s Risky Oil Threat to China
  Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com
  When it comes to China policy, is the Obama administration leaping from the frying pan directly into the fire?  In an attempt to turn the page on two disastrous wars in the Greater Middle East, it may have just launched a new Cold War in Asia — once again, viewing oil as the key to global supremacy.
  The new policy was signaled by President Obama himself on November 17th in an address to the Australian Parliament in which he laid out an audacious — and extremely dangerous — geopolitical vision.  Instead of focusing on the Greater Middle East, as has been the case for the last decade, the United States will now concentrate its power in Asia and the Pacific.  “My guidance is clear,” he declared in Canberra.  “As we plan and budget for the future, we will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region.”  While administration officials insist that this new policy is not aimed specifically at China, the implication is clear enough: from now on, the primary focus of American military strategy will not be counterterrorism, but the containment of that economically booming land — at whatever risk or cost.
  The Planet’s New Center of Gravity
  ..
  …

  Playing With Fire: Obama’s Risky Oil Threat to China | The Nation
  http://www.thenation.com/article/164995/playing-fire-obamas-risky-oil-threat-china
  Michael Klare – Profile – Al Jazeera English

  http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/profile/michael-klare.html

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 22, 2011 at 9:05 am

  Iraq အီရတ် ပြန်လည်ထူထောင်ရေး ရံပုံငွေ

  ဒေါ်လာ သန်း ခြောက်သောင်း တစ် ထောင် (၆၁,၀၀၀,၀၀၀,၀၀၀) မှ နေပြီး

  ဒေါ်လာ သန်း ခြောက် ထောင် (၆,၀၀၀,၀၀၀,၀၀၀) ကနေ
  သန်း ရှစ် ထောင် (၈,၀၀၀,၀၀၀,၀၀၀) အထိ

  ပျောက်ဆုံး တဲ့အကြောင်း အထူး inspector general Stuart Bowen က ထွက်ဆို
  ——————————
  [အခြားနိုင်ငံများမှ ဒေါ်လာTrillion တြီလီရံ (သန်းပေါ်သန်းဆင့်)(သန်းတစ်သန်း)(1,000,000,000,000) နဲ့ချီပြီး ချေးယူ ရတဲ့အခြေမှာ ဒီလိုအလေအလွင့်တွေရှိတာ၊

  စစ်မျက်နှာပြင် ထပ်မံတိုးချဲ့ ဘို့မလွယ်]
  ——————————-
  Iraq: At Least $6 Billion Gone Missing Due To Overlooked Oversight

  By Mark Thompson | @MarkThompson_DC | December 21, 2011 | 4

  http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/12/21/iraq-at-least-6-billion-gone-missing-due-to-overlooked-oversight/?iid=bl-article-latest

  Now that the U.S. military has left Iraq, it’s time to tally how much the nation wasted putting it back together. Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, bluntly calls it a “disorganized American occupation” that frittered away at least $6 billion.

  He rattles off the numbers like a machine gun set on automatic fire: his auditors have documented at least $6 to $8 billion of the $61 billion the nation spent reconstructing Iraq was wasted in sloppy contracting and inefficiencies. A total of $170 million in fraud has been found and recovered from 61 convicted contractors. All told, Bowen’s band of green-eyeshaded bean-counters has collected close to $1.7 billion in mal-spent – or maliciously-spent – federal funds inside Iraq.

  “It was abnormal and unnecessary,” he tells Battleland, “but certainly unsurprising given the fact that we were not structured in 2003 to carry out an overseas rebuilding operation that cost tens of billions of dollars.” Bowen, who has been on the job for an amazing eight years, recalls that the original U.S. mission in Iraq was “liberate and leave” = something that was supposed to be wrapped up in three months. But the looting and lawlessness that happened following the 2003 invasion – and the lack of U.S. troops to deal with it – turned that modest mission into a far longer and more costly one.

  “An ad-hocracy was created to manage this occupation,” Bowen says. It was, he says, plagued by three major shortcomings:

  1. There was no “unity of command in post-war reconstruction,” he says. “We do not have a structure in place that has the capacity to carry out inter-agency stabilization operations.” The haphazardness led to waste on a massive scale. “Six to eight billion, minimum,” Bowen says, “was wasted.”

  2. The lack of military contracting experts let contractors get away with monetary murder. “We didn’t have enough contracting officers to oversee these huge, $100 million contracts,” Bowen argues. “We were unable to effectively manage cost-plus contracts, which I call an open checkbook for the contractors. They were unmanaged, and were wasting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money.”

  And given the Wild West atmosphere that existed in Iraq following the invasion, Bowen suggests recovering even $170 million was pretty remarkable. “There’s a lot more out there,” he says simply, when asked how much fraud took place. “Trying to catch crooks in a war zone that’s entirely cash-driven has been very difficult,” he says. “We catch most fraud in the United States through electronic means, but in a war zone – where everyone has a weapon – there aren’t many people willing to come forward and say `He stole the cash.’”

  3. The churn among U.S. contract-overseers, both military and civilian, and the resulting lack of sustained oversight of contractors, made waste all but inevitable. “How do you do an eight-year rebuilding program when no [U.S. government contracting officer] stays in the country, from top to bottom, virtually longer than a year?” Bowen asks. Even normal, year-long tours boiled down to six months of effective oversight once contract managers figured out what they were supposed to be doing, and how to do it. “There’s this flux of variously qualified individuals moving in and out of Iraq at an extraordinary pace trying to manage one over-arching rebuilding program,” Bowen says. “I’ve just described something that’s impossible to do.”

  Iraq is littered with costly American good intentions gone sour, including “spending $40 million on a prison that will never hold an Iraqi prisoner in Diyala province, one of the still most dangerous provinces in the country,” Bowen notes. “The Iraqis call it the `whale in the desert.’”

  He repeats a refrain heard before: the nation needs to have a standing force of reconstruction specialists ready to go before the next major war. It’s as vital a part of the war-making toolkit as troops and tanks. “Stabilization operations are part and parcel of protecting our national security interests around the globe – we’ve been in one every year but two since 1980,” Bowen says. Absent a better way of fixing what’s broke, “perhaps that’s the largest lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan – don’t engage in $60 to $70 billion 10-year stabilization operations.”

  ————————————————————–
  Comments

  “[P]erhaps that’s the largest

  lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan – don’t engage in $60 to $70 billion 10-year stabilization operations.

  No, there’s an even bigger lesson: Don’t engage at all!
  ————————–

  Only $6 billion? That’s petty cash to the Pentagon.

  Headline from last July:
  “$70 Billion Of U.S. Money Missing In Afghanistan; Could Be With Insurgents”
  ————————–

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 23, 2011 at 3:34 pm

  အီရတ်စစ်ပွဲမှရရှိလာတဲ့ဝမ်းနဲဘွယ်ရာသင်ခဏ်းစာဆယ်ခု
  ————————————-

  အိုဘားမားအစိုးရပိုင်းကအားတက်သရောပြောဆိုနေကြပေမဲ့၊ဒီအပတ်ကပြီးဆုံးသွားတဲ့ရှစ်နှစ်ကြာခဲ့တဲ့အီရတ်စစ်ပွဲဟာ
  အီရတ်နိုင်ငံရောအမေရိကန်နိုင်ငံရော နှစ်နိုင်ငံစလုံးကိုနှစ်ပေါင်းများစွာ ဆိုးကျိုးပေးနေအုံးမှာ
  ဒီစစ်ပွဲကနောင်အတွက်စဉ်းစားစရာသင်ခဏ်းစာတွေကိုပါ ပေးအပ်ခဲ့ပေပြီဖြစ်တယ်

  ————-

  စစ်အင်အား ဟာ နိုင်ငံ ရေး ဩဇာ နဲ့မ တူညီ ( စစ်အင်အား နဲ့ မနိုင် နိုင်)
  အာရပ် နိုင်ငံတွေက အီရတ် ရဲ့ နိုင်ငံရေး ပုံစံ ကို မ လိုလား (မကြိုက်ကြ)
  အများ သေစေတဲ့လက်နက် – မေးစရာလို
  အီရတ်ပြည်တွင်းစစ်ထပ်ဖြစ်နိုင်၊ အမေရိကန်လဲ မတတ်နိုင်
  သတင်းမီဒီယာ ကိုမျှော်လင့်အားကိုးရမှာ
  အခြားနိုင်ငံတွေကအမေရိကန်ရဲ့ရာဇဝင်ကိုအထင်မကြီး (အထင်ကြီးပြီး အတုယူ လက်ခံတာမဟုတ်)
  အမေရိကန် ဟာ အီရတ် နိုင်ငံ မှာသူငယ်ချင်းမရှိ (မကြိုက်ကြ)
  အာရပ်တွေက အမေရိကန်ထောက်ခံတဲ့လူတွေကို မဲဆန်ဒ မပေးပါ ပေးခဲ တယ်
  စစ်ပွဲ တွေ လွယ်ကူလိမ့် မယ် ကုန်ကျ စာ ရိတ် သက်သာလိမ့် မယ် လို့ဂတိ ပေးတဲ့နိုင်ငံရေးသမား ဆိုရင်မယုံနဲ့

  Ten Grim Lessons Learned From the Iraq War
  Despite the upbeat talk of the Obama Administration, the eight-year war that ended this week has done plenty of long-term damage to both Iraq and the United States. And it has bequeathed lessons worth considering ahead of future conflicts
  The Iraq War Weakened the U.S. in the Middle East
  By TONY KARON | @tonykaron | December 16, 2011 |
  210

  Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/12/16/ten-grim-lessons-learned-from-the-iraq-war/#ixzz1hLDxGhdz

  http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/12/16/ten-grim-lessons-learned-from-the-iraq-war/#the-iraq-war-weakened-the-u-s-in-the-middle-east

  The no-show by Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at Wednesday’s departure ceremony that officially closed the U.S. military mission in Iraq spoke volumes: Chairs with name cards reserving them for the two Iraqi leaders were quickly occupied by U.S. soldiers, but the fact that the Iraqi leaders failed to show up to publicly thank the Americans for “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was a painful reminder of the limits of what the war had achieved.

  Saddam Hussein has gone, but at a cost to his own people of almost nine years of war, civil strife, terrorism and occupation that left more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead and millions displaced from their homes, infrastructure destroyed (water and electricity supplies in Iraq remain patchy even now) and the country’s social fabric torn apart. Of the 1.5 million American soldiers that cycled through Iraq, 4,487 were killed and tens of thousands left with debilitating physical and psychological scars. And the war has cost the United States some $1 trillion and counting.

  Yet for all that horror and sacrifice, the Iraq that American forces leave behind is not especially stable, riven as ever by dangerous ethnic, political and sectarian fault-lines. Nor can the Iraq that the U.S. invasion has created be counted as a U.S. strategic ally in a wider Middle Eastern context. Iraq’s elected government is closer to Tehran than it is to Washington, although it is a puppet of neither, and in all likelihood uses the rivalry between them to enhance its own independence. But the Iraqi government is on the wrong side of U.S. policy throughout the region, from its attitude to Israel and its efforts to oust Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, to its rejection of the U.S. effort to isolate Iran over its nuclear program. It’s an open secret in Baghdad that a key reason for Maliki’s government declining the agreement needed to keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond this month was deference to Iran’s wishes.

  Tehran’s strategic position, on the other hand, has been vastly enhanced by the elimination of its most dangerous enemy, Saddam Hussein (who had waged a brutal eight-year war against Iran with Saudi backing), and has used its close political and religious ties with the Shi’ite majority to ensure that the democratically elected government in Baghdad is a friendly — and Shi’ite — one. Whenever intra-Shi’ite disputes have threatened to allow anti-Iran elements to regain power, Tehran has intervened to broker compromises.

  The combination of the horrors visited upon Iraq under U.S. occupation, and the failure of the massive show of American military force to bend the Iraqis to their will, havesharply diminished U.S. influence throughout the region. The year of the Arab Spring has shown that Washington’s ability to persuade its allies and intimidate its foes into compliance is dramatically reduced from what it had been in 2003. (Important to note, however, is the fact that the Arab Spring has also reduced Iranian regional influence: The zero-sum view Iran vs. the U.S. view of the Middle East has little traction with the Arab public.)

  The architects of the Iraq war had promised a “demonstration effect” that would intimidate challengers and subdue the troublesome region, enabling the construction of a “new Middle East” on terms favorable to America. Instead, the U.S. departure sees American influence diminished, with Islamist Parties the likely inheritors of the fall of the dictatorships of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and the rest of the region — notably such U.S. allies as Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority — acting independently of Washington’s preferences. A new Middle East, indeed; one that has relinquished Pax Americana and is writing its own history on terms that hardly fit the vision that drove the Iraq invasion. The demonstration effect of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” then, has been to show the limits of American military power to shape events.

  Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/12/16/ten-grim-lessons-learned-from-the-iraq-war/#ixzz1hLEBgtIf

  Next: Military Power Doesn’t Equal Political Influence

  Next: Iraq is a Model – Of What Arabs DON’T Want

  Next: WMDs: Asking the Wrong Questions

  Next: Iraq’s Civil War Could Erupt Again, But Resolving its Conflicts is Beyond
  U.S. Capability

  Next: Expect More From the Media

  Next: American History Means Nothing Overseas

  Next: The U.S. Has No Friends in Iraq

  Next: When Arabs Vote, They Seldom Choose America’s Candidates

  Next: Don’t Trust Politicians Promising Cheap and Easy Wars

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• 

  Kyaemon

  December 23, 2011 at 10:50 pm

  ဒီဆောင်းပါးရဲ့ခေါင်းစဉ်ကိုဘာသာပြန်ပြီးတင်လိုက်တယ်
  (ရှေ့ကွန်မန့် Comment မှာ)

  ပဌမပိုဒ်

  စစ်ပွဲရုပ်သိမ်းပွဲအခမ်းအနားကို အီရတ်သမတ Jalal Talabani ရော ဝန်ကြီးချုပ် Nouri al-Maliki ရော နှစ်ဦးစလုံးမတက်ပါ၊ ဒီလိုတက်ရောက်ပြီးလူသိရှင်ကြား ကျေးဇူးတင်ဘို့ရှောင်လိုက်တာက အဓိပ်ပါယ် လေးနက် တယ် (မကြိုက်တာကိုပြတာ)

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• 

  Kyaemon

  January 11, 2012 at 6:26 am

  အီရပ် နဲ့ အာဂန်နစ်စတန် စစ်ရှုံးရခြင်းနဲ့ ထိုစစ်ပွဲတွေမှရရှိတဲ့ သင်ခဏ်းစာများ

  ကောက်နှုတ်ချက်များ (၁)

  DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
  Lessons from lost wars
  By Tom Engelhardt

  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA11Ak01.html

  Extracts:

  It was to be the war that would establish empire as an American fact. It would result in a thousand-year Pax Americana. It was to be “mission accomplished” all the way. And then it wasn’t. And then, almost nine dismal years later, it was over (sorta)….

  In a final flag-lowering ceremony in Baghdad, clearly meant for US domestic consumption and well attended by the American press corps but not by Iraqi officials or the local media, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spoke glowingly of having achieved “ultimate success”. ….

  And then the last of those troops really did “come home” – if you define “home” broadly enough to include not just bases in the US but also garrisons in Kuwait, elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, and sooner or later in Afghanistan.

  On December 14 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the president and his wife gave returning war veterans from the 82nd Airborne Division and other units a rousing welcome. With some in picturesque maroon berets, they picturesquely hooahed the man who had once called their war “dumb”.

  A consumer society at war

  …..Even the president mentioned it. After all, having seemingly moved much of the US to Iraq, leaving was no small thing. When the US military began stripping the 505 bases it had built there at the cost of unknown multibillions of taxpayer dollars, it sloughed off $580 million worth of no-longer-wanted equipment on the Iraqis. And yet it still managed to ship to Kuwait, other Persian Gulf garrisons, Afghanistan, and even small towns in the US more than two million items ranging from Kevlar armored vests to port-a-potties. We’re talking about the equivalent of 20,000 truckloads of materiel…

  In 2012 alone, it is slated to spend $3.8 billion, a billion of that on a much criticized police-training program, only 12% of whose funds actually go to the Iraqi police. To be left behind in the “postwar era”, in other words, will be something new under the sun….

  Doubling down on debacle

  ….Talk about learning curves: ……..The result has been another chapter in a history of American defeat – this time of a power that, despite its pretensions, was not only weaker than in the Vietnam era, but also far weaker than its leaders were capable of imagining. 

  You would think that, after a decade of watching this double debacle unfold, there might be a full-scale rush for the exits. And yet ….

  Similarly, yet more resources are being poured into an endless effort to build and train Afghan security forces. Almost $12 billion went into the project in 2011 and a similar sum is slated for 2012, and yet those forces still can’t operate on their own, nor do they fight particularly effectively (though their Taliban opposites have few such problems).

  Afghan police and soldiers continue to desert in droves and the US general in charge of the training operation suggested last year that, to have the slightest chance of success, it would need to be extended through at least 2016 or 2017. ….

  And if US forces in Iraq didn’t trust their local partners at the moment of departure, Americans in Afghanistan have every reason to be far more nervous. Afghans in police or army uniforms – some trained by the Americans or NATO, some possibly Taliban guerrillas dressed in outfits bought on the black market – have regularly turned their guns on their putative allies in what’s referred to as “green-on-blue violence”.

  As 2011 ended, for instance, an Afghan army soldier shot and killed two French soldiers. Not long before, several NATO troops were wounded when a man in an Afghan army uniform opened fire on them.

  In the meantime, US troop strength is starting to drop; NATO allies look unsteady indeed; and the Taliban, whatever its trials and tribulations, undoubtedly senses that time is on its side.

  Depending on the kindness of strangers

  Weak as the several outfits that make up the Taliban may be, there can be no question that they are preparing to successfully outlast the greatest military power of our time. …

  If you want to judge the full folly of the American war (and gauge the waning of US power globally), don’t even bother to look at Afghanistan. Instead, check out the supply lines leading to it.

  ကောက်နှုတ်ချက်များ (၂) သို့ ဆက်ကြည့်ရန်

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• 

  Kyaemon

  January 11, 2012 at 6:32 am

  [ကောက်နှုတ်ချက်များ (၁) ရဲ့ အဆက်]

  ကောက်နှုတ်ချက်များ (၂)

  DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
  Lessons from lost wars
  By Tom Engelhardt

  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA11Ak01.html

  Extracts: (Continued)

  After all, Afghanistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. The US is thousands of miles away. No giant ports-cum-bases as at Cam Ranh Bay in South Vietnam in the 1960s are available to bring in supplies. For Washington, if the guerrillas it opposes go to war with little more than the clothes on their backs, its military is another matter.

  From meals to body armor, building supplies to ammunition, it needs a massive – and massively expensive – supply system. It also guzzles fuel the way a drunk downs liquor and has spent more than $20 billion in Afghanistan and Iraq annually just on air conditioning….

  Of all the impractical wars a declining empire could fight, the Afghan one may be the most impractical of all. Hand it to the Soviet Union, at least its “bleeding wound” – the phrase Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev gave to its Afghan debacle of the 1980s – was conveniently next door….

  In other words, simply to fight its war, Washington has made itself dependent on the kindness of strangers – in this case, Pakistan and Russia. It’s one thing when a superpower or great power on the rise casts its lot with countries that may not be natural allies; it’s quite a different story when a declining power does so. Russian leaders are already making noises about the viability of the northern route if the US continues to displease it on the placement of its prospective European missile defense system.

  But the more immediate psychodrama of the Afghan War is in Pakistan. There, the massive resupply operation is already a major scandal. It was estimated, for instance, that, in 2008, 12% of all US supplies heading from Karachi to Bagram air base went missing somewhere en route. In what Karachi’s police chief has called “the mother of all scams”, 29,000 cargo loads of US supplies have disappeared after being unloaded at that port.

  In fact, the whole supply system – together with the local security and protection agreements and bribes to various groups that are part and parcel of it along the way – has evidently helped fund and supply the Taliban, as well as stocking every bazaar en route and supporting local warlords and crooks of every sort.

  Recently, in response to American air strikes that killed 24 of their border troops, the Pakistani leadership forced the Americans to leave Shamsi air base, where the CIA ran some of its drone operations, successfully pressured Washington into at least temporarily halting its drone air campaign in Pakistan’s borderlands, and closed the border crossings through which the whole American supply system must pass. They remain closed almost two months later. Without those routes, in the long run, the American war simply cannot be fought.

  Though those crossings are likely to be reopened after a significant renegotiation of US-Pakistani relations, the message couldn’t be clearer. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in those Pakistani borderlands, have not only drained American treasure, but exposed the relative helplessness of the “sole superpower”. Ten (or even five) years ago, the Pakistanis would simply never have dared to take actions like these.

  As it turned out, the power of the US military was threateningly impressive, but only until George W Bush pulled the trigger twice. In doing so, he revealed to the world that the US could not win distant land wars against minimalist enemies or impose its will on two weak countries in the Greater Middle East. Another reality was exposed as well, even if it has taken time to sink in: we no longer live on a planet where it’s obvious how to leverage staggering advantages in military technology into any other kind of power.

  In the process, all the world could see what the United States was: the other declining power of the Cold War era. Washington’s state of dependence on the Eurasian mainland is now clear enough, which means that, whatever “agreements” are reached with the Afghan government, the future in that country is not American.

  Over the past decade, the US has been taught a repetitive lesson when it comes to ground wars on the Eurasian mainland: don’t launch them. The debacle of the impending double defeat this time around couldn’t be more obvious. The only question that remains is just how humiliating the coming retreat from Afghanistan will turn out to be. The longer the US stays, the more devastating the blow to its power.

  All of this should hardly need to be said and yet, as 2012 begins, with the next political season already upon us, it is no less painfully clear that Washington will be incapable of ending the Afghan War any time soon.

  At the height of what looked like success in Iraq and Afghanistan, American officials fretted endlessly about how, in the condescending phrase of the moment, to put an “Afghan face” or “Iraqi face” on America’s wars. Now, at a nadir moment in the Greater Middle East, perhaps it’s finally time to put an American face on America’s wars, to see them clearly for the imperial debacles they have been – and act accordingly.

  Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute’s TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. …

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• 

  awra-cho

  January 11, 2012 at 12:58 pm

  သိုးဆောင်း စကားတွေ နဲ့ ချည်းပါပဲ လား။ ဆ ဝါး နိုင်ဖို့ မ လွယ်ပါ လားနော်။ ဂလိုဘယ် အဆင့် တက်ဖို့
  အားငယ် လိုက်တာ။

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• 

  Kyaemon

  January 12, 2012 at 5:24 am

  (ပြည်တွင်းကငွေကြေးပြသနာတွေကို ဦးစားပေးဖြေရှင်းဘို့ အမေရိကန်လူထုကလိုလားတယ်)

  Michigan ပြည်နယ် Detroit မြို့ကြီးရဲ့ဘတ်ဂျက်ရံပုံငွေတွေ(၄)လအတွင်းကုန်ခန်းနိုင်

  PBS NewsHour  As Detroit Budget Crisis Deepens, Is State Takeover Nearing?

  http://video.pbs.org/video/2174182456/#

  Program: PBS NewsHour

  Episode: As Detroit Budget Crisis Deepens, Is State Takeover Nearing?
  With Detroit on track to completely run out of cash in four months, Michigan is beginning a 30-day review of the city’s beleaguered finances. A move that could lead to a state takeover. Special correspondent Desiree Cooper of Detroit Public Television reports.
  ——————

  Looking Up, Detroit Faces a New Crisis

  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/us/detroit-budget-crisis-may-lead-to-outside-manager.html?pagewanted=1&ref=michigan

  DETROIT — For a city that some have declared dead again and again, the talk of late here was of renaissance — of auto industry jobs growing, new companies moving into empty buildings downtown, urban gardens blooming in vacant lots.

  Then came the revelation that Detroit is poised to run out of money by April and fall deep into debt by June. Now a place that had seemed to be finding its balance is reeling once more. ….
  ——————–

  California ကာလီဖိုးနီးယားပြည်နယ်ဘတ်ဂျက်ရံပုံငွေတွေလဲ သန်းပေါင်း(၉)ထောင်ကျော်လိုနေ၊
  ဟိုလုပ်ဒီလုပ် မဖြတ်ခင်က သန်းပေါင်း(၂)သောင်း(၅)ထောင်ကျော် အနီပြခဲ့တယ်

  California budget plan sees $9.2 billion deficit

  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-economy-california-budgettre80424f-20120105,0,2287872.story

  Reuters

  4:36 p.m. CST, January 5, 2012

  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California Governor Jerry Brown will project a $9.2 billion deficit in the state’ budget plan he will unveil on Thursday, a source familiar with the budget said.

  Details of the budget plan will be made public at 5:30 p.m. EST after it was inadvertently posted online, a spokesman for Brown said. The budget originally had been planned for release on Tuesday.

  The state’s independent budget analyst had been expecting a shortfall of nearly $13 billion.

  Brown’s plan will balance the budget with spending cuts and tax increases that he expects voters will approve in November, the source said.

  Brown aims to put a measure on the ballot that will increase the sales tax and raise income taxes on those earning at least $250,000 a year.

  The governor’s measure would raise $7 billion a year and provide him and fellow Democrats who control the legislature a way to raise revenue without having to appeal to minority Republicans to support tax bills.

  Brown last year failed to win over a handful of Republicans to gain the two-thirds majority needed for tax increases, requiring a budget thick with spending cuts to close a deficit of about $10 billion.

  —————

  California Budget Deficit Grows To $25.4 Billion

  JULIET WILLIAMS 11/10/10 09:32 PM ET

  SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s nonpartisan legislative analyst says the state’s budget deficit has grown to $25.4 billion and is now more than a fifth of the general fund.

  The gap reported Wednesday includes a $6 billion shortfall in the $86.6 billion general fund spending plan signed Oct. 8 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a $19 billion gap for the upcoming year. The deficit is for the 2011-12 budget year that runs through June 2012.

  Gov.-elect Jerry Brown will be forced to confront the problem when he is sworn into office in January. He faces a constitutional deadline to present a budget just a week later.

  Legislative analyst Mac Taylor said he expects California to face annual budget problems of about $20 billion each year through 2015-16.

  The massive deficit comes after successive years of deep cuts to California’s government.

  ——————

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• 

  Kyaemon

  January 13, 2012 at 10:51 am

  မကြာမီက မြန်မာပြည်မှာ ဓာတ်ဆီဈေး ၃ဝ % တက်တယ်လို့ ကြားတယ်၊

  နောက်ထပ်တက်နိုင်တယ်လို့ ခန့်မှန်းရတယ်၊

  အကြောင်းမှာ အီရန် နဲ့ အမေရိကန် စစ် “အေး” “အကြီးအကျယ်” တိုက်နေကြတယ်၊

  ရေနံပို့ ရေလမ်းကြောင်း ထွက်ပေါက် “ဝ” ဖြစ်တဲ့ Strait of Hormuz ကို အီရန် က ပိတ်ဆို့ မယ်လို့ခြိမ်းခြောက်တယ်၊

  အမေရိကန်က အီရန်ဗဟိုရ်ဘဏ် နဲ့မဆက်သွယ်ဘို့ အခြားနိုင်ငံတွေကိုလိုက်ပိတ်တယ်၊

  ဒိအပြင် အမေရိကန်က အီရန်ထံ မှ ရေနံ လျှော့ဝယ် ဘို့ ဖောက်သယ် နိုင်ငံ တွေကိုလိုက်ပြောတယ်၊
  ဆော်ဒီအာရေဗျ စတဲ့ ရေနံထွက်နိုင်ငံတွေ က ဖြည့်စွက်လိုက်ပေး ပြီးတိုး ရောင်းမယ်ပြောတယ်၊

  ဒါပေမဲ့ ကြာရှည် မလိုက်နိုင် ကြောင်း ကျွမ်းကျင်သူ OPEC အကြီးအကဲ ကပြောတယ်၊ ……

  In Standoff With Iran, U.S. Allies Offer Oil for Asia
  By MARK LANDLER and CLIFFORD KRAUSS

  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/world/asia/asia-buyers-of-iran-crude-get-assurances-of-alternate-supply.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

  WASHINGTON – Pressure on Iran mounted on Thursday, with the United States saying it was determined to isolate the country’s central bank, and three of Iran’s largest oil customers – Japan, South Korea and China – getting assurances that Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf producers would help make up any gap in supplies if they curtailed oil purchases from Iran.

  The Obama administration said its campaign to choke off Iran’s oil exports was making headway, amid signs that Japan, South Korea and even China were seeking alternatives to Iran, in order to comply with American sanctions on Iran’s central bank, through which most purchases are made.

  “We do mean to close down the Central Bank of Iran,” said a senior administration official, adding that oil purchases were the key to that effort because oil “is the largest source of their revenue.”

  Delegations from the State, Energy and Treasury Departments are fanning out to Iran’s major customers, as well as to rival oil producers, to enlist them in an ambitious project: to effectively cut off one of the world’s largest oil producers without driving up oil prices.

  In the early days of that effort, the administration is getting crucial help from Persian Gulf nations. They have offered assurances to China, Japan and South Korea – which together buy about half of Iran’s oil – after each expressed concern that a loss of energy resources could undermine their own economies.

  “China and Japan and South Korea are looking for assurances that there will be additional supplies from the Arabian Gulf producers,” said Sadad Ibrahim al-Husseini, former head of exploration and development at Saudi Aramco, the national oil company. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, he added, “are all saying: “We will do whatever it takes. Yes, we will support you.” ”

  The United States, and Europe, have moved aggressively to block Iran’s ability to sell oil, hoping to create enough economic pain and social instability that Iran’s leaders will abandon a nuclear program that the West says is aimed at building nuclear weapons, but that Iran says is for peaceful purposes.

  China, Iran’s largest buyer, has said that it will not impose any new sanctions against Iran. But it has already begun to reduce its purchases of Iranian crude, and this weekend its prime minister, Wen Jiabao, will begin a five-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, perhaps to explore the prospect of increased energy imports.

  Oil analysts say these exporters, all allies of the United States in confronting Iran, would be able to replace up to two-thirds of Iran’s 2.2 million barrels a day of oil exports that anchor the Iranian economy with annual revenue of roughly $75 billion a year. But the analysts caution that these countries could sustain the additional output only for a limited amount of time through increased production and the tapping of stored reserves estimated at 30 million barrels.

  They also warn that eventually oil prices would rise, threatening the shaky global economy. ……..

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• 

  Kyaemon

  February 4, 2012 at 6:37 am

  “အဟုတ်တီး ဆိုတာမျိုး” ထက်……..

  ———————————

  အမေရိကန် ဘဏ်ဋာရေး ဝန်ကြီး Geithner က အီရန် ကို စီးပွါးရေးအရ ပိတ်ဆို့ဘို့ တရုပ်ကိုအကူအညီတောင်း၊

  (အီရန် မှရေနံတွေလျှော့ဝယ်ဘို့သွားဆွယ်တာ၊)

  Geithner in Beijing seeking support on Iran sanctions

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16501086

  US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is in Beijing meeting Chinese leaders to seek support for sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.

  He met counterpart Vice Premier Wang Qishan on Tuesday night and is meeting Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Li Keqiang today.

  Both countries pledged to work together to boost global economic recovery.

  But, watchers say, it remains unlikely that China will support sanctions. ….

  —————————–

  အမေရိကန် ကာကွယ်ရေး ဝန်ကြီး ဟောင်း Robert Gates က

  “တရုပ်ကို မတက်နိုင်အောင်ဆွဲထားဘို့ ကျွန်နုပ် တို့က မကြိုးစားပါ၊
  တရုပ်နိုင်ငံဟာ ကမ်ဘာ့တန်ခိုးကြီးဩဇာလွှမ်းမိုးတဲ့နိုင်ငံ အဖြစ် နှစ်ပေါင်း ထောင်ချီပြီး ရပ်တည်ခဲ့ပြီး၊ရပ်တည်ဆဲ၊ ရပ်တည်လိမ့်အုံးမှာပါ၊”

  Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates:

  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gates-general-20110602,0,1976528.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29

  China’s military modernization remains a source of concern to the U.S., but the two nations’ military relationship is on the upswing, Gates said.

  “We are not trying to hold them down,” Gates said. “China has been a global power for thousands of years. It is a global power and will be a global power.”

  —————-

  အမေရိကန် အာရှရေးရာ အကြီးအကဲ ဌာနမှူး Kurt Campbell က
  တရုပ်ကြီးနဲ့နက်ရှိုင်းစွာ လက်တွဲလုပ်ကိုင် ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက် သွားမယ် ဖြစ်ကြောင်းထုတ်ဖော်၊

  Kurt Campbell

  US seeks to work with China in SE Asia

  http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/05/31/general-us-us-southeast-asia_8492610.html

  WASHINGTON — The United States says it wants to work more closely with China in Southeast Asia despite the two powers’ competition for influence in the region…..

  The top U.S. diplomat for east Asia, Kurt Campbell, downplayed U.S. differences with China and said on Tuesday the U.S. this year will seek to deepen cooperation.

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• 

  ကြောင်ကြီး

  February 8, 2012 at 11:40 am

  လူထောင်ပေါင်းများစွာ သေဆုံးခဲ့ရပြီးဖြစ်တဲ့ ဆီးရီးယားနိုင်ငံ အာဏာရှင်ဆန့်ကျင်ရေး လှုပ်ရှားမှုမှာ ကြေးမုံလေးတို့အမျိုး တရုတ်ကြီးဘယ်လို ခြေဝင်ရှုပ်နေတယ်ဆိုတာ သိရလို အလွန်တရာ စိတ်မကောင်း ဝမ်းနည်း ခံပြင်းဒေါသကြေကွဲ ပူဆွေးသောကရောက် အံ့ဩတုန်လှုပ် နာလိုခံခက် ဖြစ်ရပါကြောင်း မန်းလေးဂေဇက်တွင် မှတ်တမ်းတင်ပါသည်။

  စနေ, 04 ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ 2012
  ဆီးရီးယားဆိုင်ရာ ကုလဆုံးဖြတ်ချက် တရုတ်၊ ရုရှား ဗီတိုသုံး ပယ်ချ

  By ဗွီအိုအေ (မြန်မာဌာန)

  ဆီးရီးယား နိုင်ငံသားတွေအပေါ် တနှစ်နီးပါးလောက် အကြမ်းဖက် နှိပ်ကွပ်နေတဲ့ သမ္မတ ဘက်ရှာအယ်လ်အာဆဒ် (Bashar al-Assad) ကို ပြစ်တင် ရှုတ်ချထားတဲ့ လုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီရဲ့ အဆိုပြုချက်ကို ရုရှားနဲ့ တရုတ်နိုင်ငံတို့က ဗီတိုအာဏာသုံးပြီး ပယ်ချလိုက်ကြပြန်ပါပြီ။

  ဆီးရီးယားနိုင်ငံအတွင်းက အကြမ်းဖက်မှုတွေကို ပြစ်တင် ရှုတ်ချထားပြီး သမ္မတ အာဆဒ် ရာထူးက ဆင်းပေးဖို့ တောင်းဆိုထားတဲ့ အနောက်အုပ်စုနဲ့ အာရပ်နိုင်ငံတွေရဲ့ အဲဒီ အဆိုပြုချက်ကို လုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီ အဖွဲ့ဝင် ၁၅ နိုင်ငံက စနေနေ့က မဲခွဲ ဆုံးဖြတ်ခဲ့ကြတာမှာ အမေရိကန်ပြည်ထောင်စု၊ ဂျာမဏီနဲ့ ပြင်သစ် အပါအဝင် ၁၃ နိုင်ငံက ထောက်ခံခဲ့ကြပါတယ်။

  သမ္မတ အာဆဒ် အစိုးရက သွေးထွက်သံယိုမှု အများဆုံး အကြမ်းဖက် တိုက်ခိုက်မှု ထပ်မံ ပြုလုပ်ပြီးနောက်မှာ လုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီမှာ မဲခွဲ ဆုံးဖြတ်ကြတာပါ။ ဆီးရီးယား လုံခြုံရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့တွေက စနေနေ့ အစောပိုင်းမှာ ဟုမ်းစ် မြို့ကို အမြောက်တွေ၊ မော်တာတွေနဲ့ အပြင်းအထန် တိုက်ခိုက်ခဲ့တာကြောင့် အနည်းဆုံး ၂၀ဝ လောက် သေဆုံးခဲ့ပါတယ်။

  လုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီက ဆုံးဖြတ်ချက် မချနိုင်တဲ့အပေါ် အတွင်းရေးမှူးချုပ် ဘန်ကီမွန်းက ပြစ်တင် ရှုတ်ချလိုက်ပြီး ဆီးရီးယား ပဋိပက္ခ အဆုံးသတ်နိုင်အောင် တညီတညွတ်တည်း ဝိုင်းဝန်း လုပ်ဆောင်နိုင်မယ့် အခွင့်အရေး လုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီ အနေနဲ့ ဆုံးရှုံးသွားပြီလို့ သူက ပြောပါတယ်။ ဆီးရီးယားနိုင်ငံနဲ့ ဆိုင်တဲ့ ပြတ်သားတဲ့ ဆုံးဖြတ်ချက် မချနိုင်တာဟာ ကုလသမဂ္ဂရဲ့ အခန်းကဏ္ဍကို သေးသိမ်သွားစေတဲ့ အကြောင်းနဲ့ သမ္မတ အာဆဒ် အစိုးရအနေနဲ့ ပြည်သူတွေအပေါ် အကြမ်းဖက် နှိပ်ကွပ်နေတာတွေ ရပ်တန့်ဖို့ ကုလသမဂ္ဂ အတွင်းရေးမှူးချုပ် ဘန်ကီမွန်းက တောင်းဆိုလိုက်ပါတယ်။

  သမ္မတ အာဆဒ်အစိုးရရဲ့ လူမဆန်စွာ အကြမ်းဖက် နှိပ်ကွပ်မှုတွေကို ဆန့်ကျင်ပြီး လုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီအနေနဲ့ ရပ်တည်ဖို့ အမေရိကန်သမ္မတ ဘရက်အိုဘားမားက တောင်းဆိုပြီး နာရီပိုင်းအကြာမှာပဲ ရုရှားနဲ့ တရုတ်နိုင်ငံတို့က လုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီမှာ အခုလို ဗီတိုအာဏာသုံး ပယ်ချလိုက်ကြတာပါ။

  ဆီးရီးယား အစိုးရဟာ ပြည်သူတွေကို အကြင်နာကင်းမဲ့စွာ ရက်ရက်စက်စက် သတ်ဖြတ်နေတာတွေအပေါ် သမ္မတ အိုဘားမားက အပြင်းထန်ဆုံး စကားလုံးတွေသုံးပြီး ဝေဖန် ရှုတ်ချထားတာပါ။

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• 

  Kyaemon

  April 27, 2012 at 6:21 am

  ဆောင်းပါးရှင် Nick Turse ရေး

  Tet “တက် ” ၁၉၆၈ (ဗီယက်နမ် စစ်ပွဲ) နဲ့ Kabul “ကာဘူ” ၂၀၁၂ (အက်ဂန်နစ်စတန် စစ်ပွဲ) —
  ၎င်း စစ်ပွဲတို့မှ ကျနော်တို့က ခုထိ သင်ခဏ်းစာ မယူတတ် နားမလည် သေးပါ

  ဗီယက်နမ် စစ်ပွဲ က နှစ်ပေါင်း ၄ဝ ကျော် ခဲ့ပြီ ၊
  အက်ဂန်နစ်စတန် စစ်ပွဲ ၁ဝ နှစ် ကြာ တိုက် နေ ရပြီ ဖြစ်သော်လည်း
  ယူအက်စ် စစ်ဌာန က စစ်ပွဲ ကိုနားမလည် သင်ခဏ်းစာ မယူတတ် သေးပါ၊

  ဆောင်းပါးရှင် ပြော ချင် တာက
  အမေရိကန်ပြည်သူကို
  “….နိုင်နေတယ်၊ အက်ဂန်စစ်သား ဘက် သို့ အောင်မြင်စွာ
  လွဲပြောင်းပေးနေတယ်”…ဆိုပြီး၊

  လိမ်ညာ နေတာ၊

  ဗီယက်နမ် စစ်ပွဲ တုန်း က လဲ ဒီလိုဘဲ ဖုံးဖိ လိမ်ညာ ခဲ့ တယ်၊

  အမေရိကန်ပြည်သူ တို့က အက်ဂန်နစ်စတန် မှာဖြစ်နေတဲ့
  နှစ်ရှည် လများ ရေရှည်စစ်ပွဲ ကို သီးမခံနိုင် မထောက်ခံနိုင် တာ
  မကြိုက် နှုန်း ဟာ ၆ဝ % သို့ တက်သွား တာ

  မကြာမီ Haqqani သူပုန် တွေ က Kabul ကာဘူး မြို့တော် ကိုဝင် စီး တာ ဆို ရင်
  ယင်း နှုန်းထား ဟာ ဒိထက် မ က တက်သွားမှာပါ
  ————————————
  (ဗီယက်နမ်၊ အီရတ်၊ အက်ဂန်နစ်စတန် တို့မှသင်ခဏ်းစာ

  လက်နက် ကောင်း အင်အားကောင်း သော် လည်း
  စစ်ရေးနဲ့မနိုင် နိုင်

  ရေရှည် ကြတော့ အမေရိကန် ပြည်သူတွေက
  အားမပေးနိုင်၊ စိတ် ဓာတ် မ ကြံ့ခိုင်နိုင်၊
  ငွေအင်အား မစွမ်း နိုင်တော့ တာ

  အမေရိကန် ဆင်းရဲ သွား ပြီး ဟိုနိုင်ငံကလေးတွေ လဲ
  တော်တော် ပျက်စီးသေကြေ ကြ တာ)

  Tet ’68, Kabul ’12: We still don’t get it

  More than 40 years after the Vietnam War’s Tet offensive and after more than a decade of war in Afghanistan, the U.S. military still doesn’t get guerrilla warfare.

  http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-turse-afghanistan-and-vietnam-20120424,0,23947.story

  By Nick Turse

  April 24, 2012

  Recently, after Afghan militants unleashed sophisticated, synchronized attacks across Afghanistan, including in the capital, Kabul, the Pentagon was quick to emphasize what hadn’t happened.

  “I’m not minimizing the seriousness of this, but this was in no way akin to the Tet offensive,” said George Little, the Pentagon’s top spokesman. “We are looking at suicide bombers, RPG [rocket-propelled grenade], mortar fire, etc. This was not a large-scale offensive sweeping into Kabul or other parts of the country.”

  Defense Secretary Leon Panetta weighed in similarly.

  “There were,” he insisted, “no tactical gains here. These are isolated attacks that are done for symbolic purposes, and they have not regained any territory.”

  Even granting the need to spin the assaults as failures, the official American reaction to the coordinated attacks reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of guerrilla warfare in general and of the type waged by the Haqqani network in particular. It’s a lesson the United States should have learned decades ago.

  But more than 40 years after the Vietnam War’s Tet offensive, after more than a decade of war in Afghanistan, theU.S. military still doesn’t get it….

  In the Vietnam years, Westmoreland and other top U.S. officials were forever seeking an elusive “crossover point” — the moment when their Vietnamese foes would be losing more fighters than they could replace and so would have to capitulate. America would win by fighting a war of attrition.

  But that didn’t work in Vietnam, and it’s not working in Afghanistan. More than a decade after U.S. forces swept into Kabul, what began as a ragtag remnant insurgency has grown stronger and continues to vex the most destructively powerful, best-funded military on the planet. All of America’s tactical gains and captured territory, especially in the Taliban heartland of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, haven’t brought the country anywhere near victory….

  The attrition of U.S. support for the war is unmistakable. As late as 2009, according to a poll by ABC News and the Washington Post, 56% of Americans believed the Afghan war was still worth fighting. Just days before the Haqqanis’ coordinated attacks, that number had dropped to 35%. Over the same span, the number of Americans who are convinced the war is not worth fighting jumped from 41% to 60%. The latest Haqqani offensive is likely to reinforce these trends…..

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• 

  ကြောင်ကြီး

  April 27, 2012 at 9:52 am

  ရန်ကုန်တိုင်းတွင်း လျှပ်စစ်မီး ပြည့်ဝစွာ ရရှိစေရေးအတွက် ယခင်က တရုတ်နိုင်ငံသို့ ရောင်းချ ထားသော လျှပ်စစ်ဓါတ်အားများထဲမှ မဂ္ဂါဝပ် ၁၀ဝ ကို ပြန်ဝယ်ရန် ဆောင်ရွက်နေကြောင်း ရန်ကုန်တိုင်း ဒေသကြီး အစိုးရအဖွဲ့ လျှပ်စစ်ဝန်ကြီး ဦးဉာဏ်ထွန်းဦးက လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်များကို ဖြေကြားလိုက်သည်။ (သစ်ထူးလွင်ဆိုက်မှ)
  စစ်ထွက်ကြံ့ဖွံတွေ ၂၀၁ဝ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲမှာ ၉၀% အနိုင်ရသဒဲ့.. သူတို့ မိတ်ဆွေ တရုတ်ကြီးဂလည်း မြန်မာပြည်အတွက် အကောင်းဆုံး အိမ်နီးချင်းဆိုပဲ…။ လိမ်နေဂျဒါများလားဗျာ…။ ကြောင်ကြီးဂတော့ မလိမ်ဘူး.. ကြေးမုံဂျီးကို အားပါးတရ ခြစ်ချင်ဒယ်…။

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• 

  Kyaemon

  April 28, 2012 at 3:14 am

  CNN စီအင်အင် မှသတင်း
  April 23, 2012 — Updated 1728 GMT (0128 HKT)

  ဘိန်းနဲ့မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါး တွေ အလွန်အကျွံ မှီဝဲ မိလို့
  အမေရိကန် စစ်သား ၈ ဦး သေဆုံး

  အမေရိကန် စစ်သား ၅၆ ဦး ဘိန်းစွဲတာကို စုံစမ်းရင်း
  ယင်း ၅၆ ဦး အနက် မှ ၈ ဦး က လွန်ကျွံ လို့သေဆုံးကြောင်း
  အစီရင်ခံစာ မှာ ဖော်ပြထား တာ

  စစ်တပ်ကအချက်အလက်များအရ ဘိန်းဖြူ သုံးစွဲတဲ့အမှုတွေ
  ဆိုရင် ၂၀၀၂ မှာ ၁ဝ မှု ကနေ ၂၀၁ဝ ကျတော့ ၁၁၆ သို့ တက်လာတာ
  စစ်တပ်မှာ ဘိန်း ပိုပိုပြီး စွဲနေတာကို ပြနေတာလို့ မြင်ရတာ

  စစ်တပ်ကမေးတာကို မ ဖြေ သော်လည်း Judicial Watch အဖွဲ့က
  CID ရာဇဝတ်မှုအထူးစုံစမ်းရေးဌာန မှ
  ရရှိလာသောမှတ်တမ်းတွေကနေ တစေ့တဆောင်း မြင်နိုင် တာ

  ကလေးလူငယ်များ၊ဘာသာ ပြန်သမား များ၊
  ကန်ထရိုက်တာ များရဲ့အလုပ်သမား
  တို့မှတဆင့်ဝယ်ယူခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရတာ

  Judicial Watch အကြီးအကဲ Tom Fitton က
  ဗီယက်နမ် စစ်ပွဲတုန်းမှာလဲ ဒီလိုဘဲ အမေရိကန်စစ်သားတွေ
  ဘိန်းစွဲတဲ့ပြသနာရှိခဲ့လို့ စိုးရိမ်တာလဲ တကြောင်းပါဝင်တာ

  စစ်တပ် က ဒီ ဘိန်း ပြသနာကို ရင်ဆိုင်ကုစားဘို့ ရယ်၊
  စစ်သားတို့ရဲ့မိသားစုတွေကိုလ ဲအသိပေးဘို့ရယ်၊
  နိုင်ငံခေါင်ဆောင် အကြီးအကဲတွေ ဒီ ပြသနာကို
  ပွင့်ပွင့်လင်းလင်း ဆွေးနွေးဘို့ရယ်၊
  Tom Fitton က လိုလားတာ

  ဒီဘိန်း တွေအပြင် ဆရာဝန်လက်မှတ် ပါမှသုံးရတဲ့
  Percocet “ပါကိုစက်” မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါး ကို
  တော်တော် များများ(အလွဲသုံးစား) သုံးနေကြတာ

  “ပါကိုစက်”၊ မော်ဖင်း၊ကိုဒင်း စ တဲ့ မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးတွေကို
  (ဆေးလက်မှတ်မပါဘဲ) အချင်းချင်းဝေငှ သုံးစွဲနေတာ လို့
  အစီရင်ခံစာများမှတွေ့ရတာ

  အမျိုးသမီးစစ်သူ တဦးက စစ်စခန်းကဆေးသိုလှောင်ခန်းကိုဖောက်ထွင်းပြီး
  ရက်လွန် morphine, Percocet, Valium, fentanyl and lorazepam, မူးယစ်
  ဆေးတွေခိုးယူခဲ့တာ

  အမေရိကန်စစ်သားများက Afghan အက်ဂန် စစ်သား နဲ့
  Afghan အက်ဂန်ပုလိပ် တို့မှ လဲ steroids and marijuana,
  and even hashish ဆေးခြောက်များကို ဝယ်ယူသုံးစွဲကြောင်း
  အစီရင်ခံစာများမှတွေ့ရတာ

  Opiates killed 8 Americans in Afghanistan, Army records show
  By Michael Martinez, CNN

  http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/21/us/afghanistan-soldier-drug-overdoses/?hpt=wo_c2

  (CNN) — Eight American soldiers died of overdoses involving heroin, morphine or other opiates during deployments in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011, according to U.S. Army investigative reports.

  The overdoses were revealed in documents detailing how the Army investigated a total of 56 soldiers, including the eight who fell victim to overdoses, on suspicion of possessing, using or distributing heroin and other opiates.

  At the same time, heroin use apparently is on the rise in the Army overall, as military statistics show that the number of soldiers testing positive for heroin has grown from 10 instances in fiscal year 2002 to 116 in fiscal year 2010.

  Army officials didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment on Saturday. But records from the service’s Criminal Investigation Command, obtained by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch, provided glimpses into how soldiers bought drugs from Afghan juveniles, an Afghan interpreter and in one case, an employee of a Defense Department contractor, who was eventually fired.

  The drug use is occurring in a country that is estimated to supply more than 90% of the world’s opium, and the Taliban insurgency is believed to be stockpiling the drug to finance their activities, according to a 2009 U.N. study. While the records show some soldiers using heroin, much of the opiate abuse by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan involves prescription drugs such Percocet, the Army documents show.

  Judicial Watch obtained the documents under the Freedom of Information of Act and provided them to CNN. Spokesman Col. Gary Kolb of the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO-led command in Afghanistan, verified the documents to CNN on Saturday.

  One fatal overdose occurred in June 2010 at Forward Operating Base Blessing, after a soldier asked another soldier to buy black tar opium from a local Afghan outside the base’s entry control point. The first soldier died after consuming the opium like chewing tobacco and smoking pieces of it in a cigarette, the documents show.

  The reports even show soldier lingo for the drug — calling it “Afghani dip” in one case where three soldiers were accused of using the opiate, the Army investigative reports show.

  The United States has 89,000 troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. death toll since the September 11, 2001, attacks that triggered the war has risen to more than 1,850, including 82 this year, according to the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Central Command.

  Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said his group was interested in soldiers’ drug use partly because the risk was present during the Vietnam War.

  “You never want to see news of soldiers dying of drug use in Afghanistan,” Fitton said. “Our concern is, will the military treat this as the problem that it is, and are the families of the soldiers aware of the added risk in this drug-infested country?

  “There is a dotted line between the uses. Prescription abuse can easily veer into heroin drug use,” Fitton added. “Afghanistan is the capital of this opiate production and the temptation is great there and the opportunity for drug use all the more.”

  The group is concerned that “there hasn’t been enough public discussion, and we would encourage the leadership to discuss or talk about this issue more openly,” Fitton said.

  In one case, a soldier bought heroin and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax from five “local national juveniles at multiple locations on Camp Phoenix, Afghanistan, and consumed them,” one report states. Soldiers also distributed heroin, Percocet and other drugs among themselves, according to the reports.

  Another soldier fatally overdosed in December 2010 after taking several drugs, including morphine and codeine, though the drugs were not prescribed for him, the Army documents show.

  One female soldier broke into the Brigade Medical Supply Office at Forward Operating Base Shank and stole expired prescription narcotics including morphine, Percocet, Valium, fentanyl and lorazepam, the documents show.

  The investigative reports show soldiers using other drugs, including steroids and marijuana, and even hashish that was sold to U.S. servicemen by the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police personnel, the reports state.

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• 

  Kyaemon

  May 19, 2012 at 3:43 am

  Greece ဂရစ် နဲ့ Spain စပိန် နိုင်ငံ တို့ကြောင့် ဥရောပ ဈေးကွက် တွေမှာ အလှန့်တကြား ချောက်ချား နေကြတယ်

  ဒီအပါတ်က G8 ဂျီ (၈) အစည်းအဝေးမှာ သမတ Obama အိုဘမား က ဒီကိစ် စ ကို UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the European Union ထိပ်သီး နိုင်ငံ တွေ နဲ့ ဆွေးနွေး မယ်

  Market jitters over troubles for Greece and Spain

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18113600

  European markets suffered a jittery session on Friday as concern continued over Greece and Spain…

  After European markets closed, ratings agency Fitch revealed it had downgraded five Greek banks.

  Fitch cut the ratings of National Bank of Greece, Efg Eurobank Ergasias, Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank and Agricultural Bank of Greece from B-minus to CCC.
  The move came a day after the agency cut Greece’s sovereign rating.

  On Thursday, fellow agency Moody’s downgraded 16 Spanish banks and cut the debt rating on Santander UK, a subsidiary of the Spanish banking giant…

  Despite rising bad debts and downgrades, and reports of large withdrawals by worried savers from troubled banking group Bankia, the Spanish government does not expect a run on the country’s banks…

  Speculation is increasing that Greece may have to leave the eurozone.

  The challenges facing Greece and Spain will be under discussion this weekend at the Group of Eight (G8) summit at the US Presidential retreat Camp David in Maryland.
  President Barack Obama will host leaders from the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the European Union.

  “The G8 meeting in Camp David today and tomorrow will be used to pressure eurozone politicians to take immediate and decisive action to stop contagion ripping the region apart,” said the Dutch bank Rabobank in a research note on Friday….

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• 

  Kyaemon

  July 11, 2012 at 4:38 am

  နံမယ်ကြီး “တိုင်း” စာစောင်မှ
  ဇူလိုင် ၉

  အက်ဖဂန်နစ်စတန်မှာ ကျန်ရစ်ခဲ့တဲ့ရုရှာရဲဘော်ဟောင်းတွေက
  လက်ရှိနိုင်ငံရေး အခြေအနေကို နှိုင်းယှဉ်ရင်း ရင်တုန်နေကြတယ်
  ====================

  
  ကောက်နုတ်ချက်များ

  “အမေရိကန်ခွါထွက်လို့လစာကို မ ရတာနဲ့ တပြိုင်နက်ထဲ
  အက်ဖဂန် စစ်သား နဲ့ ပုလိပ် တွေ ပျောက်ဆုံး(ထွက်ပြေး)သွားကြမှာ”

  “ရုရှားတုန်းကလဲ ဒီအတိုင်းဘဲ၊
  ရရှားစစ်သားတွေခွါထွက်ခဲ့တုန်းက ယင်းအက်ဖဂန်စစ်သား နဲ့
  ပုလိပ်တွေလဲ လုံးဝ ပျက်စီးပြိုကွဲ(ထွက်ပြေး)ခဲ့ကြတာ၊”

  “ငွေကြေးလစာ (အသပြာ) အတွက် သာ “တိုက်နေ” ကြတာ၊”

  “သူတို့တတွေ က သူခိုးဒမြတွေ သာသာ လောက်ပါဘဲ”

  (တိုင်းပြည်ချစ်လို့၊ တာဝန်သိလို့ တော့ မှုတ်ဖူး)၊

  (တနည်းဆိုရင်၊ စိတ်ဓာတ် ကြံ့ခိုင်မှု မှ မရှိတာ
  မှန်ကန်မျှတ တရားတယ်လို့ မ ယုံကြည်ကြဘူး ဆိုရင်
  စစ်ရေးနည်းနဲ့မ နိုင် နိုင်။

  အင်အားကြီးနိုင်ငံတွေက အင်အားနဲ အက်ဖဂန်နိုင်ငံက
  တာလီဘန် အဖွဲ့ “ငချွတ်လေး ပေါက်စ လေး” ကိုဘဲ
  ၁ဝ နှစ် လောက် ကြာအောင်လက်နက်ဆန်းတွေနဲ့ ဝိုင်းဖွဲ့ပြီး
  အပြုတ်ချတာတောင် နောက်ဆုံး ဆုတ်ခွါရတော့တာ ပါဘဲ၊

  ကြုံလို့ပြောရရင်၊

  အင်အားကြီး မြန်မာ စစ်အစိုးရ စစ်အာဏာရှင်တွေက
  မဟာလူမျိုးကြီးဝါဒကို လက်ကိုင်ပြုပြီး မြန်မာလူမျိုးစုတွေကို
  နှစ်ပေါင်း ၆ဝ ကျော်အောင် စစ်ရေး နဲ့နှိမ်နှင်း သော်လည်း
  မရနိုင်ခဲ့သလိုပါဘဲ)

  Hidden in Afghanistan: Soviet Veterans of a Previous War Compare and Tremble

  http://world.time.com/2012/07/09/hidden-in-afghanistan-soviet-veterans-of-a-previous-war-compare-and-tremble/?xid=newsletter-daily

  By John Wendle / Kunduz | July 9, 2012

  There are only a few of them left — deserters and MIAs of the huge Soviet Red Army divisions sent in to control Afghanistan. But they still remember how it all ended — and worry that the American war will end the same way…

  ….“Now you can’t understand who is working with the government and who is not — who is on which side is impossible to understand,” the Russian tells TIME in a crackly phone interview. “Even in the city, government power is not strongly felt. You can kill two or three people and jump on a motorcycle and that’s it. No one will say anything or come after you.” Even from his village point of view, he reflects widely held fears that the Afghan army and police will evaporate once foreign funding dries up — an idea denied by the U.S. and NATO. “Those [soldiers and police who] are paid, they simply do not fight. They do nothing. When the month ends, they take their next pay and that’s it. They are not on any side — only on the side of the money.” His take on the current government is just as harsh, saying: “Corruption here isn’t very clear. I only understand right now what the government doesn’t do — they do nothing. They only take bribes and kill people. The government here is a joke. If the Americans weren’t here right now, there would be no power at all, it would just be a bunch of robbers.”

  Back in Kunduz, Alexander Levenets, another of the shuravi, sees similar problems. After the Soviets left, he says, “the Afghan National Army was completely destroyed, but now we have an army and police. However, those people get their salary from America. If America leaves, they will also be destroyed. There will be nothing of them left. There will be nothing here to control them and pay them.”

  …In the end, he says, “The people will suffer. That’s what will happen. All of those people who work with the Americans, who work in the offices — when the Taliban comes, those people will be in danger, those people will be killed, because everybody wants power. Everyone will want revenge.” As for the Afghan government, he is of the same mind as the other vets. “

  ……Possibly the most chilling comparison of all is made by Ahmad, the taxi driver, who reaches back into the history he has seen in Afghanistan, saying: “When the Soviet army left it was peaceful until the Soviet government stopped giving the Afghan communist government money. When the money stopped, the war started. Everyone only fights and works for money. People do everything for money.”….

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