Friday, April 14, 1944. Indian drama.

The Bombay Explosion occured at Mumbai, India) when the British SS Fort Stikine caught fire and exploded, creating mass destruction and killing around 800 to 1,300 people.

Kohima was relieved with a British breakthrough.

Col. Shaukat Ali Malik of the Indian National Army entered Moirang with his troops and raised the flag of the Azri Hukumat e-Azad Hind for the first time on Indian soil.

The stories above illustrate the complicated nature of India and the Indian people in World War Two. Col/ Sjailat Ali Malik was a Muslim Indian who had previously served in a British Indian police force, the latter being quite militarized.  The INA was a collaborationist army in combat against the Allies, while of course the British Indian Army was an Allied Army, but subject to the British Empire and therefore not really a "free" army.  

Following the war, the INA would be regarded with sympathy by many Indians.  I don't know what happened to Col. Malik, but the Muslin portions of Indian broke off from it immediately with independence, forming Pakistan. Today, what had been East and West Pakistan are Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The Red Army reached the Carpathian foothills.

Gen. Nikolai F. Vatutin died of wounds received in an ambush by Ukrainian partisans on February 29, 1944.

The U-448 was sunk off of the Azores.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 13, 1944. Soviet advances in Crimea.

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Saturday, March 21, 1942. The "last" British cavalry charge.

On this day in 1942 the last British "cavalry" charge. . . maybe . . .  occurred at Toungoo Burma.

This is sort of a well known historical footnote, which means that it's often not really very well understood.  The unit conducting the charge was a Sikh element of the Burma Frontier Force and was part of the Indian Army, although it's sometimes asserted that this unit was in the nature of paramilitary police.  The Frontier Force still exists today as part of the Pakistani Army.  That categorization, however, is probably improper, and the various unis of the Frontier Force did see extensive combat during the war.

The officer in command of the charge, Cpt. Arthur Sandeman, was an officer of the Central Indian Horse.  The battle at Taungoo itself was actually principally between the Chinese Nationalist Army, which had been given the task of defending Burma, and the Japanese.  Indeed, the charge occurred when the unit, which was actually a column of mounted infantry, not cavalry, mistook a Japanese unit for a Chinese one while on patrol.  The patrol accordingly went to close with what they thought were their Chinese allies when it turned into a charge by necessity.  Sandeman and most of his men were killed in the ensuing charge.

The Frontier Force was not the only cavalry unit involved in the battle, which would prove to be a Chinese defeat, as the Chinese had committed a motorized cavalry unit to the action.

It could well be argued, of course, that this charge was not a British one, although it was British led.

Malta, which had been besieged from the air for months, suffered its heaviest air raid today.

Entrapped German troops at Demyansk attempt a breakout.

Friday, February 10, 1922. Idle guns?

On this day in 1922 a photographer toured the Navy Gun Shop, no doubt for a story on armaments now deemed to be somewhat unneeded.

ON this day, President Harding, hoping to keep them unneeded, appeared in the Senate to personally appeal for the ratification of the treaties.

Of course, many of these tubes were replacement tubes for barrels that became worn in use, and therefore some would go on to use anyhow.  And indeed, battleships, the heaviest of all surface warships, would continue to be built through the end of the Second World War.   And some of these guns would go on to serve in Army coastal batteries.

One thing that was also occurring, of course, is that technology was moving on.  The recent Great War had seen the full scale deployment of submarines, whose danger was appreciated, and the introduction of aircraft carriers, whose danger was not.

And radio was coming in.  Above we see the Secretary of the Navy on this day with a radio-telephone, a new thing.

Of course, aspects of the old world hung on.

Muslim woman in India (probably Pakistan), on this day in 1922.

The Irish Republican Army attacked an Ulster Special Constabulary patrol in County Tyrone.  The civil war, and the terrorist war, was arriving.

December 4, 1971. Smoke On the Water

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

This day in history is recalled for a tragedy, that being the destruction of the Montreux Casino in Switzerland during a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention concert. 

The event was the topic of Deep Purple's song, Smoke on the Water.

We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn't have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground

Smoke on the water
A fire in the sky
Smoke on the water

They burned down the gambling house
It died with an awful sound
Uh, Funky Claude was running in and out
Pulling kids on the ground
When it all was over
We had to find another place
But Swiss time was running out
It seemed that we would lose the race

Deep Purple in 1968.

Deep Purple had planned to record there, but had to find another venue.

On the same day, McGurk's Bar, a Catholic tavern in Belfast, was bombed, killing fifteen people, including two children.  And the Indian Navy attacked the Pakistani Navy at Karachi.

What about Pakistan?

 

As the Biden Administration conceded, whether it needed to or not, defeat in Afghanistan, there's been a lot of talk, here and elsewhere, about could we have won the war.

Hardly any of it has touched on Pakistan.

As pointed out on a list I subscribe to elsewhere, it needs to be considered.  

And the reason is that Pakistan effectively operated as a Taliban ally over the past twenty years, whether we wished to openly acknowledge that or not.

Indeed, Osama bin Laden, is well known, was killed in Pakistan, not Afghanistan, and was living in a compound only two miles from a Pakistani army base.  Maybe the Pakistani government didn't know that.  We won't know for years.  There's some suggestion that the location of Bin Laden's compound may have come from a Pakistani army source.  Indeed, it's not unreasonable to assume that the Pakistani army was actually complicit in arranging for the raid that killed Bin Laden.  Indeed, its not unreasonable to believe that Bin Laden's whereabouts were known and tolerated, and that they tipped the US off as well.

What the heck?

Well, Pakistan is following Pakistan's interests, not the US's. The problem is that its really hard to figure out exactly what those are.  Whatever they are, what is clear is that Pakistan was a safe harbor for the Taliban for the past 20 years, and for Al Queada to some extent as well.  Members of the Taliban, moreover, were educated in Pakistani Islamic schools, not Afghani ones.

And all that does mean that over the past 20 years, while we were fighting the Taliban, Pakistan was at least operating as a safe harbor for them, and even fostering their recruitment by tolerating it.

Looking at the Central Intelligence Agency map from above probably helps explain Pakistan's point of view, and its cynical game, to an extent.  And what it shows is that Pakistan is, essentially, a false country.

Indeed, Afghanistan is as well, and so is nearby neighbor Indian. That is, none of these countries are nation states, but rather assembled nations that were put together by the British.  There really are no "Afghanis" any more than there are Pakistanis.  India is practically the exception to the rule as British colonialism was so successful that the enormous number of tribes in India did in fact come together, form a national identity, and emerge with a functioning democracy.

Even at that, however, its notable that Indian once included Pakistan and Bangladesh.  However, upon independence the Muslim regions of India rebelled and successful separated.  East Pakistan later rebelled against Pakistan, in 1971, and became its own country.  Pakistan is a democratic country with Islam as the state religion, but it's a shaky one with the army always in the background as a potential power broker, or power seizer.

Pakistan has never really accepted the demarcation line that was drawn between it and India, and frankly India hasn't either.  Pakistan's problem, however, is that some of its people have latent loyalties that do cause it concern.

The entire region bordering Afghanistan is one of those areas.  Its really popular to believe that the British "lost" both of their wars with Afghanistan, but the British were really good at constructing defeats to their advantage.  In reality, after the Second Anglo Afghan War, the British incorporated what is really part of Afghanistan into Pakistan, and that makes up about 1/5th of Pakistan today.  The demarcation was geographic, not ethnic, as that suited the British.  Added to that, the Punjab people are ethnically related to the Pashtuns, which doesn't make them the same people, but which does create complications.  Pakistan has never accepted that the Punjab region of Indian shouldn't be in Pakistan, but when making an argument like that, you nearly have to concede that the Pashtun region of Pakistan should be part of Afghanistan.

Now, nobody is arguing the latter, as far as I know, but it does mean that if you are the Pakistani government you really don't want to anger the Pashtuns too much. The majority of the Taliban are Pashtuns, even if most Pashtuns aren't supporters of the Taliban.

And the government is also an Islamic parliamentary democracy.  Indeed, the only reason for Pakistan's existence is Islam, as that's why it and Bangladesh didn't want to be part of India.  So you also don't want to be suppressing Islamic schools, if you are the Pakistani government.

And you don't really want the US in the neighborhood either.

The US generally wants countries to get along.  It wants India to get along with Pakistan, and Pakistan to get along with India, and China to get along with both.  None of those nations is really willing simply to lay down their claims to the territories they view as theirs across each other's borders. The US, from their prospective, is really annoying in this regard.

And indeed, both Pakistan and India, traditionally, regard themselves as the major regional power broker, not the US, and not Russia (or the USSR in former days).  The Indians don't get along with the Chinese either, and the Pakistani's sometimes don't, and sometimes do, depending upon how it suits them.  And their major countries, not third world backwaters, whose opinions really have to be taken into account.  All of them possess nuclear weapons, for that matter.

So, cynically, from Pakistan's point of view, harboring the Taliban made some sense.  It served to push out of the region, ultimately, and they emerge, in some ways, the real victor.  At the same time, however, they can only go so far, as they don't want a Pashtun insurgency either.

So could we have won under these circumstances?

I think so yes, but it's a real difficulty, to say the least, as the examples of this prove.

Indeed, in a way, this is what the Germans faced in 1940 as the US operated as a sort of safe harbor for the British war effort.  The Germans were not really able to do anything about.  This example, of course, isn't really perfect, but as we've been discussing it here, I've noted it.

A better example would be the situation faced by France in the Franco Algerian War.  Algerian insurgents had refuge in recently independent Tunisia.  The French tried to address it by fencing and patrolling the border and conducting air raids near it, that sometimes accidentally crossed over the border, all of which proved completely ineffective.

The United Nations faced this to a degree as well during the Korean War, with China being the safe harbor.  This proved so frustrating to the US that there were repeated suggestions that the US Air Force raid China, something the Chinese apparently feared, but which the Administration, wisely, wouldn't allow.

And for the US, the classic example is the Vietnam War, during which North Vietnam was the safe harbor that expanded that harbor into Laos and Cambodia.  The US conducted covert operations in Laos as a result in and in 1971 it invaded Cambodia to attempt to end it.  The Republic of Vietnam invaded Laos later that same year and again later, all to no avail.

So the examples are not great.

Now, invading Pakistan would be out of the question, so that's off the table.  The US did conduct drone strikes over Pakistan, and the raid on bin Laden.  Much more than that, openly, would have been far to risky.

So what could we have done.

Well, weathering the storm for another 20 years probably would have accomplished things.  At some point really reinforcing the border, with Afghan troops, would have been necessary.

And perhaps leaning more towards India.

Indeed, India, for really the first time in its history, was pretty friendly to the US during the Trump administration as its leader is also a populist.  The US has no real interest in Central Asian border disputes, so leaning towards the country, simply as a country, would have to be in that fashion, but leaning pretty hard would have created a problem for Pakistan.  And as we can see, at the point that something becomes too big of a problem for Pakistan, it tends to act in its own interest.

None of that would have been quick, however.

Sunday June 13, 1971. Strife

On this day in 1971 the New York Times began publishing "the Pentagon Papers", the same being an internal report smuggled out by Daniel Ellsberg who had worked on the report.  The documents demonstrated an early involvement in the Vietnam War that differed from the one that the Johnson Administration had boosted.

The documents were one more step towards a disillusionment on the part of the public with the war, and indeed helped achieve a permanent distrust of the Federal Government that has never been restored. 

On the same day the London Times broke a story regarding Pakistani massacres of the Bengal Hindu population in East Pakistan.

The Italians advance at high altitude. The Battle of San Mateo. August 13, 1918.

On this date in 1918, the Italian Army launched a small scale, but very high altitude, assault on Austrian positions in the Italian Alps.

Italian mountain troops, Alpini, launched a company sized attack on Austrian Jägers at San Mateo, taking the 3678 meter high peak (the Austrians would take it back a few weeks later on September 3). In doing this, they managed to seize a position that was used for artillery to control nearby passes.

The battle was the highest battle on record until a 1999 conflict between India and Pakistan would surpass it. 

The battle is interesting for a variety of reasons, including the use of specialized troops on both sides, and featuring an Italian assault that is a monument to mountaineering.  While it was a small scale battle, the loss of face to Austria was significant and they dedicated an inordinate amount of forces to take it back, even though the Italians regarded holding the position as impossible and didn't really attempt to do so.  The September 3, 1918 recapture of the peak is regarded as the last successful Austrian operation of the war, but it was a Pyrrhic one both because Austrian fortunes in the war, now that the 1918 German Spring Offensive had failed, were becoming increasingly and obviously rather poor, and because the Italian counter bombardment was so bloody that losses to the Austrian forces were excessive.

The battle serves as a grim reminder of the war to this day. As recently as 2004 the bodies of a few Austrian soldiers were recovered from a nearby glacier.

Lex Anteinternet: Islamic Violence, Islamic Silence and Western Rela...

Lex Anteinternet: Islamic Violence, Islamic Silence and Western Rela...: This past week the world has been witness to another outrage committed by those who claim devotion to Islam.  If this event were unique, a ...

Of note, on this matter, in the past week protests, some pretty heated, have broken out in Pakistan, Algeria and Jordon.

Protesting violence in the name of Islam?  No.

Protesting Charlie Hedbo's post assault cover showing a crying Mohammed.

Most would think this a pretty innocuous cartoon, perhaps even slightly reverent, but  Muslim crowds have not in those locations, demonstrating the nature of the problem here.

Even more demonstrative, the paper, which in my view is not at all admirable in general, as I made clear in my Je ne suis pas Charlie post, attacked Christianity and the Catholic church viciously in the same issue, and proclaimed itself to be atheist.  Taking pride in that status, it took vicarious credit for the large crowds that came out in Paris, perhaps failing to understand that sympathy for victims, which in this case is perceived as the French Republic as much as anything else, does not really equate to sympathy with the papers crude cartoons and sometimes crude text.

But was there a violent Christian or Catholic reaction?  No, not at all.

There was a reaction, with even the Pope commenting, but of note it tended to once again find sympathy with the victims and also plead for all Faiths to be treated with respect.  This too highlights the nature of the problem the West faces here.  In the West, most agree with the Christian view of turning the other cheek.  In Islam, it seems that a large percentage of the faithful do not agree with that view at all.  As that's the case, this problem can't be regarded as minor, or isolated.