From the Telegraph….

Pakistani hauliers are refusing to transport supplies to coalition forces in Afghanistan following a series of attacks on their vehicles.

The decision follows a deterioration in law and order along the 35-mile stretch between Peshawar, where the military supplies are stored, and the Khyber Pass which links Pakistan with Afghanistan.

Hundreds of Nato and US-led coalition vehicles have been destroyed in the last two weeks after depots were targeted by hundreds of militants in northwest Pakistan.

Mohammad Shakir Afridi, president of the Khyber Transport Association, in the northwestern city of Peshawar said: “We have stopped supplies to foreign forces in Afghanistan from today.

“We have around 3,500 trucks, tankers and other vehicles, we are the major suppliers to Afghanistan, transporting about 60-70 per cent of goods.”

A lot of this is just bluster. These dudes don’t have a lot ways of making money short of driving truck for the US. They just want someone to take their security seriously. At most, they may go so far as cut off supplies for a day or two to make their point.

Still, in the broader context this is a serious issue. War is not just a matter of how many of the enemy you can kill. It is also a matter of how well you can protect your friends. It does no good to win every stand up engagement if your enemy can melt into a population that fears them more then you. This simple idea forms the basis behind any sane counterinsurgency doctrine.

Now the truck drivers probably don’t have a deep love for the US. But if US does not do its best to take care of the truck drivers, the US can forget about getting any other Pakistani to give them a hand. More to the point, without a working supply line, the US can forget about doing anything in Afghanistan.

And don’t tell me that it is the job of the Pakistani government to protect the truckers. Should cuts no ice when your troops are the ones at the end of a shaky supply line. If the US government really believes that the Pakistani government is competent they should stop flying predators over the border every other week. If the US government does not believe the Pakistani government to be competent (and what sane person does?) they should realize that the security of their supply lines is ultimately their problem.

From the Times of India….

Striking yet another blow at the very heart of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, Indian warship INS Mysore and its marine commandos thwarted a hijack attempt on an Ethiopian merchant vessel on Saturday and captured 23 pirates and a large arms cache in the operation.

The arrest of the 23 pirates (12 Somali and 11 Yemeni) and the arms haul is the largest such seizure in the ongoing anti-piracy operations off Somalia. The confiscated arms and equipment included seven AK-47s, three other assault rifles, 13 loaded magazines, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher with two rockets, several grenades, a GPS set and a mobile phone.

Have the Yemenis really started joining up with the Somalis to commit acts of piracy? I have read accounts of Yemenis being rescued from Somali pirates, but this is the first time I have heard that they were joining up with them.

From an interview that Spiegel did with Greece’s Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis…..

SPIEGEL: Why have the police reacted in such a restrained and passive manner?

Bakoyannis: The police have not reacted passively, rather they have sought to de-escalate the situation. The government decided that it would rather accept material damage than new casualties and victims.

Earlier in interview Spiegel characterized the material damage this way..

The protests have been more than just an outpouring of anger and grief. In Athens alone, block after block has been devastated.

Accepting this kind of damage in the name of de-escalating the situation strikes me as paying the Dane-geld to a bunch of punks.

Ilya Somin has trouble with the distinction between mass murder and Genocide.

We like to talk about all the shoddy products that come out of China. We like to talk about the poison that can be found in the milk. But what we don’t talk about is all the perfectly healthy organs that China provides for those that need them. This essay attempts to rectify that oversight.

From the Washington Post…

As Ford and Staff Sgt. John Wayne Walding returned fire, Walding was hit below his right knee. Ford turned and saw that the bullet “basically amputated his right leg right there on the battlefield.”

Walding, of Groesbeck, Tex., recalled: “I literally grabbed my boot and put it in my crotch, then got the boot laces and tied it to my thigh, so it would not flop around. There was about two inches of meat holding my leg on.” He put on a tourniquet, watching the blood flow out the stump to see when it was tight enough.

Then Walding tried to inject himself with morphine but accidentally used the wrong tip of the syringe and put the needle in this thumb, he later recalled. “My thumb felt great,” he said wryly, noting that throughout the incident he never lost consciousness. “My name is John Wayne,” he said.

9 men received the silver star as a result of their actions during that battle. That is the most given to single unit for one battle since the Vietnam War.

From the Telegraph….

Greece has issued an international appeal for more tear gas after supplies ran low because police fired so much of it during a week of violent protests across the country.

Officers released 4,600 capsules of tear gas during confrontations in Athens and nearly a dozen other cities since riots erupted over the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old schoolboy by a policeman last Saturday.

The Greek government is urgently seeking fresh supplies of tear gas from Israel and Germany, the police said.

From Spiegel….

The rocks are lying everywhere in the streets. Thousands and thousands of them. Iron rods are also littered about, as are makeshift wooden clubs and spent cartridges. The sharp stench of teargas floats through the air, mixed with the acrid odor of melted plastic. Flames shoot out of trash bins; a Japanese compact lies on its side. And from behind the fence surrounding the Athens Polytechnic, black clad rioters are chanting as loud as they can:

“Pigs! Swine! Murderers!”

“Pigs! Swine! Murderers!”

Facing them, around 10 or 20 meters away, is a unit of riot police, armed with truncheons and armored with shields and white helmets. Earlier, the police had spoken of following a strategy of de-escalation — but by late Tuesday night, that, apparently, had been discarded. “Come on out you cowards! Come out and get us,” yells the police commander. He bends down to grab a rock and hurls it at the demonstrators. His men do the same. It’s a revolt in reverse.

It is the fourth night since 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos died after being shot in the breast by a policeman. And still, peace refuses to return to the Greek capital.

From a different article in Spiegel….

The two seem enthusiastic as they chat to each other, smiling and cracking jokes. Perhaps they’re related. At the same time, the mates of a rioter standing next to him are busy ripping apart the sidewalk. The woman says goodbye, kissing both of his cheeks, before gracefully tottering away. Then one of the rioters turns around, picks up a large rock and throws it down into the street where the police are standing.

It’s the daily dose of anarchy in Athens, that entered into its fifth day on Wednesday.

The Greek riots are a textbook example of how deep a country can sink if it lacks democracy’s most important element, the support and acceptance of its people. The scales of democracy have tipped here, and one inevitably gets the impression these days that there are few left who still trust the government to find the right path. Their experiences with its scandals, cronyism and corruption are too deeply seated. And it is in their unanimous rejection of the elite that both business people and the Black Bloc anarchists have found common ground.

Spiegel almost makes it sound heroic to destroy the sidewalk and throw it at the police. Granted, the Greek political elite is pretty corrupt, but the people of Greece are hardly oppressed. If they were being oppressed, there would be a lot more then just one punk dead. Heck, the police are barred by law from entering the universities. This gives the rioters a place to rearm and regroup unmolested by the evil forces of authority. How is that for oppression? Whats more, the protesters have been rioting for almost a week without have any clear idea of what they hope to accomplish. I guess they just want hope and change.

Greece has the government that it deserves but that government has no authority.

From the Telegraph….

Taliban militants launched a second raid in as many days on Nato supplies in Pakistan setting fire to nearly 100 more vehicles destined for coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The latest attack on a container terminal near the northwest city of Peshawar came a day after Taliban militants launched the biggest such raid to date, destroying nearly 200 vehicles in the area.

This time, the attackers set nearly 100 vehicles alight including jeeps and 20 supply trucks after dousing them with petrol, police said.

“It was almost the same type of attack as the one conducted by 200 armed militants” on the previous night, said a police official. “The militants fled from the scene when police arrived.”

Speaking of trends, Pakistan has moved against Lashkar-e-Taiba. From the Guardian…..

Pakistan launched its first major operation against the militant group accused of carrying out the Mumbai attacks, raiding a camp of Lashkar-e-Taiba and capturing a man identified by India as one of the masterminds behind the terrorist strike.

According to local reports, 12 members of the banned group including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, accused by Delhi as being one of the planners of the carnage in India’s financial centre, were arrested in Sunday night’s raid in the hills above Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. A helicopter gunship hovered overhead and gunfire was heard.

Sounds great don’t it? But we have been down this road before. From later on in the article….

In the past, Pakistan has arrested the founder of LeT, Hafiz Saeed, but then quietly let him go weeks later.

Lashkar-e-Taiba has been banned for years now. But that has not stopped it from operating.