South Asia Is Going To Hell

Pashtun's doing what they do best

So, Pakistan's army is completely useless. At least the entire world knows it now. Pakistan lost 3 wars against India and it's losing its war against the Pakistani Taliban too. Only something like this could happen in a pseudo-country like Pakistan. How ironic would it be if a country founded on being Islamic winds up being TOTALLY Islamic theocracy. I find that hilarious. What's even funnier is that the Islamic movements that Pakistan funded up towards 9/11 are now the ones running its Pashtun territories. Anyways, lets take a look at the mess that constitutes Pakistan.

Once again, the British Empire's state-building legacy rears its head. Whether its in Iraq, Zimbabwe, Nigeria or French Canada the lack of ethnic understanding the Anglos had is legendary. Now, the US Army has to pay for it. The only thing that kept the Pakistans (Now Bangladesh and.. Pakistan) together was religion. Of all things, religion. The best way to kill a person is over religion. Everyone knows this! Ask any 17th century German speaker who was lucky enough to live through the Thirty Years War without starving or losing at least half their family to mercenary Swedes.

But Pakistan ain't jolly Germany. Oh no. It's Punjabi, it's Sindhi, it's Baluchi, it's... Pashtun. Pashtun! You get one of the most war-like tribes on earth (Besides the Highland Papua New Guineans) and stick them in a religious fake country. Why? Oh Lord why? It's like giving a Semite a One-God religion and asking the Semite to play nice with the other guys in the neighbourhood.

The Sindhi's are somewhat normal if you're thinking about normal in Western standards. Compared to our culture, it's them and the Punjabis who're most like us. The Baluchis are desert tribesman who've been fighting Anglos since the late 1800s and are fighting in Iran and Pakistan for independance. It's the Pashtuns that are scary. Those boy lover, women hating crazy warriors would make any Spartan feel proud. Gave Churchill a run for his money too, read his book about the Malakand expedition if you feel like it.

Now these Pashtuns are running a theocracy in their homeland, running from Southern Afghanistan to Islamabad. Now that I think of it, it's not a bad idea to drop a couple neutron bombs on them. Who would notice? We'd let the Tajiks and Uzbeks run Afghanistan. Paying off Afghans ain't gonna work. They're no Iraqi. Its akin to paying off Lakota Sioux to leave the Black Hills.

Now, the crappy Pakistani army can't even fight some 15,000 jihadis. I mean, didn't the US give them billions to fight? I've seen the Al Jazeera clips, they run away just from the report of Taliban fighters nearby. Pakistan is over. The Baluchis will leave, so will the Sindhis when they see that Pakistan is shit and the Punjabis, God help them. All 150,000,000 of them are fucked. How can the US win or gain any peace in Afghanistan while Pakistan is training young Pashtuns to cross the border to die for Allah.

If the Brits had any feeling of sympathy for the Yanks, they'd send a division or two to Pakistan and to wage a violent, brutal campaign to purge North-West Province of Taliban and/or Pashtuns. Or, they can follow the ways of their ancestors and agree to pay them yearly in order to obtain peace in precious India and the better parts of South Asia.

Oh India, the only semi-functioning country there. Hinduism holds its peoples together too and that's why an ultra Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gaining power along with the Maratha party Shiv Sena. The Hindu Taliban are well on their way to gain power in India and woe betide the 100 million Indian Muslims who're still there. Still, the Marxists are fighting to gain power in Orissa and of course the Sikhs are biding their time, sharpening their kirpans for Khalistan.

Sri Lanka's Civil War is almost over. The Tamil Tigers, the only terrorist group with an airforce and navy are about to surrender or wage a guerilla campaign. The Buddhist Sinhalese have won. Don't know how they did it, I'll discuss the latest Tamil Eelam War later but it's one of the greatest post-Falkland War conflicts out there. The Tamils are now using old men and children to fight, reminescient of Nazi Germany in '45. All the Norwegians telling Sri Lanka to stop should fuck off and go an launch a raid on Essex or something.

Bangladesh is still God's Practical Joke with great farmland but because of it's low-lying territory its prone to cyclones and flooding every single year and Burma is still every heroin-junkie's 2nd favourite Source for the Horse. (Afghanistan is still #1)

So that's South Asia. Among the most fucked up places on Earth besides Central Africa. If World War III were to start anywhere, it's there.

Chinese Civilization: Constant Renewal or Constant Faliure?

Everyone wants a piece of China

The History of China is an long one. Very long and it can be confusing unless using the right resources. Nevertheless it IS interesting and it serves to guide the modern Chinese leadership to this very day about the ancient country they're trying to run. I just want to lay out some facts first.

1) There's only one continuous history of China. If we were going by dynastic terms, this would be the Communist Dynasty or Period.

2) Despite what the People's Republic of China's government tells you, it's just acting in the same way other Chinese governments have acted. You're just too young to remember it.

3) Unlike other world histories, Chinese history does repeat itself.

China today is lucky however. It doesn't have to deal with the threat of nomadic Turco-Mongol horsemen ransacking Northern China for silk and silver. Especially of the Mongol variety. In the whole entirety of Siberia and North East Asia there's less than 40 million people excluding the Korean peninsula. China does have to deal with events it can and cannot control.

Plague coming from the teeming millions which compose the Chinese population, diseases like SARS aren't a new phenomenon. As long as the Chinese peasants dwell with pigs and other rodents we can expect a new infectious disease every 20-30 years or so. Ethnic unrest especially in the Far West homeland of the Uighurs and the Tibetan plateau since Communist China is an empire ruling over a polygot of peoples but this time around, at least the Han Chinese are over a billion strong. Of course, the natural problem of droughts, desertification, floods and earthquakes never cease to kill large amounts of the Chinese.

However, the most dangerous threats the Chinese had to face before and now come from within their own borders. There's no warring-states period but one could argue such a state of affairs existed when the Nationalist Chinese were in power prior to the Japanese Invasion. The Chinese are getting religion (again) and it's Christianity (again). The last time the Chinese got this Jesus crazy 20 million of them died and the British/Manchus had to fight a river-campaign to kill the Jesus-Freaks. This reminds me of the time after the epidemic of 161 AD...

3 out of every 10 Chinese dead. "The Way of Peace" or Yellow Turbans (a sect of Taoism) helped people the same way the early Christians helped Romans after the Antonine Plague. Healing the sick and offering hope to survivors. Of course the Yellow Turban fanatics were defeated but this had come at a terrible cost. The Han dynasty collapsed and was replaced by the Three Kingdoms period where again, millions of Chinese died. Religion is bad for China and that's why the Chinese leadership fears it. It can excite and motivate people the same way Mao's Cultural Revolution did.

Keeping out outside influences appears to work well for any Chinese government which is why the Great Firewall of China exists to keep out the modern barbarism of democracy, representative government and human rights for Tibetans, Uighurs and others at bay. Democracy, is a strange thing. Even the US founders feared it and opted for a Republic instead (whatever that really means). I can easily forsee China being a Republic but I can't forsee any political parties other than the Communist party. Unity keeps China strong and foreigners weaken China.

Every Chinese schoolchild can recall the humiliation their country faced in the 19th century. Especially the Opium Wars in which the United Kingdom had to push British India opium onto Chinese addicts to keep the "Jewel of the Crown" profitable. Or the Taiping religious rebellion where a man claiming to be the Chinese son of Jesus Christ killed millions of Chinese. Or where France defeated the Chinese navy and conquered Indo-China and finally those cultural-copycats Japan who defeated the Manchus by the late 1890s. All of these things stem from foreigners and their devilish influences. Another time period where this was self-evident was during the "Fullness of Tang".

Chinese ingenuity and creativity exploded during the 700s after the Sui Dynasty was replaced by the Tang. Civil servants running a good bureaucracy helped more than 52 million Chinese live in a prosperous Empire. Then, the foreigners came in to get some profit from this rich China. Things started getting real bad after the Turks rebelled an western China and a Arab-Persian-Turkish army crushed the Tang Dynasty at the battle of Talas River and stole the Chinese recipe for making paper. A Central Asian general named An Lu-Shan rebelled against the Tang. It got so bad that the Uighurs had to help out the Tang Emperor's son get back his Empire.

Soon after this trouble, the peasants struggled to pay taxes. The Tang's tax base collapsed due to inability to pay cash-money instead of crops or livestock. The Tang blamed it on foreigners and they had to melt down precious bronze Buddhist statues. Then came drought, locusts, famine and peasant revolt in 870 in which 100,000 foreigners died. The Fullness of Tang gushed out by 906 AD during chaos and civil war.

Not like that's going to happen right?

Plague is a greater worry. If Bird Flu becomes epidemic, I could easily see the ChiCom's getting the boot just like the Mongols did around 1360 leading onto the Ming Dynasty. The Ming had it going on for a bit, they tried to bring back China's power through treasure fleets that didn't rape, enslave and pillage for a profit unlike the Iberian Europeans but they still profited from our Spanish friends due to a trade imbalance that saw Mexican-Spanish silver going to the Philippines ending up in China's coffers allowing the Ming to build a mighty empire but earthquakes and foreign invaders too brought it down. Not to mention the direction of that silver going to Spain to help pay for Spain's reconquista of the Netherlands.

So, China's history is like a revolving door. The question is, the is the Chi-Com's on the way in.. or out?

The Recession In Numbers

I just thought I should do this considering how terrible 2009 shall be financially.

Jobs: 51 million jobs could be lost this year due to the Global Recession

Financial Growth: The World Economy grew by 0.5% this year, the lowest since the end of World War II

Stimulus: The US Congress has passed a $ 819 billion dollar stimulus package with these key points - Tax cuts: $27bn
Spending: More than $540bn including:
Increased federal funds for Medicaid: $87bn
Moves towards clean, efficient energy: $54bn
Rebuild roads, bridges and buildings: $90bn
Modernise education: $141bn
Help for workers, unemployment benefit and training: $102bn

The Number of Countries Potentially at Risk to Collapse due to the Recession (excluding Iceland): 5

The United Kingdom - Relies heavily on financially sector and possesses 4 billion in debt although the economy is only 2.1 billion.

Latvia - A halt in European investment shall slow down growth in their economy to contract 6.9% this year.

Greece - It's massive debt and lack of control over it's own monetary policy could force Greece to default on its debt or worse... leave the Eurozone.

Ukraine - Steel dominates it's economy and steel is one of the commodities that have been hit hardest during the recession because country wish to buoy their own steel industries. Ukraine was only saved from economic collapse by a 20 billion dollar loan from the IMF. This year, it'll get ugly.

Nicaragua - Heavily dependant on remmittance which has gone down in countries like Mexico and the Philippines already. Also, the price of coffee has gone down.

California's Bankruptcy - A state that has a higher GDP than Canada is bankrupt, 42 billion dollars is it's budget deficit. It has to issue IOU's to taxpayers.

Unemployment - This year, US unemployment rates shall hit 8.9 percent. . 524,ooo jobs were lost this January. Tens of millions of people out of work.

Greed - Wall Street Bankers payed themselves 20 billion dollars in Bonuses even after the original 700 billion dollar payout and the fact that banks like Citigroup and AIG cut thousands of employees.