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Topic: A battlefield like no Other Posted: 14-Apr-2008 at 11:47 |
Siachin the roof of the world.
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Al Jassas
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Posted: 14-Apr-2008 at 14:19 |
Hello Sparten
I read about this strange conflict in Time magazine:
Now these are truely worriors.
Al-Jassas
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Maharbbal
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Posted: 14-Apr-2008 at 17:38 |
These are truly idiots. Not the poor guys on the frontline nor the civilians but the sons of bitches who can't agree on a bloody frontier. Pointless killing.
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Posted: 14-Apr-2008 at 17:52 |
Its a bit more complicated than that. Kashmir has the headworks of all the rivers of S Asia, on whoich this region depends.
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Brian J Checco
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Posted: 14-Apr-2008 at 17:52 |
That's a hellish combination of the doctrines of arctic warfare and mountain warfare, pushed the extremes for God only knows what reason.
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My Name is Eli Manning. Ponce owns my soul.
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pikeshot1600
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Posted: 14-Apr-2008 at 22:12 |
Sparten may have articulated the reason in regard to the headwaters of the rivers. There is more here than just some remote conflict that nobody knows about. The costs alone must justify military operations, and the abandonment of control may result in unfavorable circumstances long term.
Nature and geography don't care about politics. Control of geographic features and their influence over resources, or potential resources, are often necessary for global or regional supremacy. It is a human need.
The effort to control such geography is helped by professional military forces. It is their job. Does anyone seriously believe the large, and very expensive, US presence in the Gulf/Iraq has to do with anything other than influence over the only resource there that is important?
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Paul
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Posted: 14-Apr-2008 at 23:17 |
But 21st century and India and Pakistan still behaving like it's the dark ages.
What relevance do borders even have in the age of global corperations.
Shame on India, who at least should know better.
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Posted: 15-Apr-2008 at 05:59 |
Originally posted by Paul
But 21st century and India and Pakistan still behaving like it's the dark ages.
What relevance do borders even have in the age of global corperations.
Shame on India, who at least should know better. |
Why should India know better. Its they who attempted to occpy the glacier in the first place?
Anyway, those glaciers feed the rivers that sustain the population, agriculture and industry. If they other guy controls them you are dead. Its also the route to China,the Karakorum Highway passes only a few kms from the posts shown in the video.
Shame on Paul who should at least know better.
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Maharbbal
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Posted: 15-Apr-2008 at 17:08 |
I think Paul's right (gosh I need to see a doctor urgently).
Ultimately, who gives a shit about a bloody road and a handful of bloody rivers? It is not the Middle Age anymore when controlling a pass was essential for the fiscal survival of a state. If it was still the case Switzerland would rule Europe
Now resources are important, but international treaty are designed to regulate their use for every one to benefit from them. Israel itself is getting ready to retreat from Golan despite decades of speeches about how strategically important it was.
What are the Indians gonna do anyway? Prevent the ice from melting during the summer? Build a dam on the K2?
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Posted: 15-Apr-2008 at 17:41 |
Build a dam on the Indus.
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Al Jassas
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Posted: 15-Apr-2008 at 18:04 |
Israel will retreat after it guarantees it controls the flow of the river ( and of course assumes full control on the lake) and it allocates to quotas like the Yarmouk river which though rises from Jordan Israel gives the Jordanias the water not the other way around. Israel even controls the water on the west bank and Gaza. Last month they distoryed several wells because it affet the water supply of Jerusalem. Any sane country will never let it water be controlled by it neighbour and that goes to India and Pakistan, 400 million depend on this region, Kashmir and Northern territories, for their water during the long dry season and in an age of global warming with rain below average for several years, these abandoned areas are even more imortant.
Al-Jassas
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pikeshot1600
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Posted: 16-Apr-2008 at 00:56 |
There seems to be some reluctance to acknowledge that the battlegrounds of the 21st century may well be wherever the most basic resources are to be found:
Oil; water; minerals to keep industrial output going; food (re: riots over food prices due to shortages), etc.
The long understood conventional wisdom that advancement has to be based on industrialization, and the "progress" of health and nutrition in increasing population are going to have to be reconciled with the conflicts resulting from finite resources and from the increasingly dangerous carbon effect of modern life.
It is gonna be a tough century.
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Seko
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Posted: 16-Apr-2008 at 01:00 |
You are most likely 100% correct in your predictions Pikeshot. There has got to be a way we could get you on CNN or other news channels to talk some sense into the rest of the masses. I would watch.
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pikeshot1600
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Posted: 16-Apr-2008 at 02:10 |
Me on CNN....I don't think so. They have Katie Couric coming aboard I hear. I have no credentials and no standing, so that is a non starter.
These things cannot be talked about openly anyway. It isn't fashionable to discuss such issues, and there are no votes to be gained, so it becomes a series of puzzling news stories that get disseminated on YouTube. That may be the only way the next generation will get to know about it since they don't read newspapers or much other print media anymore.
The auditorium for these knotty issues is in the war colleges and the back rooms of foreign offices. Those two groups don't often get along, and the media in general have made it unacceptable that a professional military person should lose his life over anything, much less a conflict concerning state interests.
I am at a loss on this one.
Edited by pikeshot1600 - 16-Apr-2008 at 02:31
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Workhorse 61
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Posted: 15-May-2008 at 02:26 |
I think Pikeshot is on time and on target with his predictions. We have made a whole doctrine out of rivers and seas and the littoral areas. Be forwarned though, it reads like stereo instructions!
I have to be careful when I talk about the media. I have this annoying tendancy to get up on my soapbox and not get down for a while. I agree with Pikeshot (again) that the media has made it unacceptable that we should lose our life over anything. They don't realize that we do not kill and die for Mom, Apple Pie, Chevrolet, and Baseball. We do it for the man on our left and right. I guess the concept is foreign to them.
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Posted: 15-May-2008 at 06:47 |
The media is disinterested either way. They exist to make a profit, if the story that sells is "the tragic loss of life" thats what is put up, if its about "brothers in arms" yeah thats whats going to be on.
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