From The Times
Even in the age of high-tech warfare, shifts in the world population give a military advantage to ‘underdeveloped’ countries.
But another factor that has had a huge bearing on our ability to wage war in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq has received much less attention.
For decades, strategists have maintained that raw numbers should no longer be a decisive factor in military thinking. In an age of high-tech warfare, professionalism, training and technology are supposed to be the keys to military success, not population. Yet in Iraq and Afghanistan none of this has helped anything like as much as the experts predicted — and demography has had a lot to do with it.
The problem has been that, even for a power as mighty and sophisticated as the US, occupying a Third World country with a fast-growing population means putting an uncomfortably large number of boots on the ground.
Britain discovered this 90 years ago when we occupied Iraq in 1918 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. Iraq’s population at the time was 2 million, compared to about 45 million in the United Kingdom. Even so we had to deploy more than 100,000 troops to hold the country in the face of tribal unrest and nationalist insurgency, and even with that many men we were hard pressed to keep control.
In terms of numbers the West still held the upper hand compared to the Middle East until well after the Second World War. In 1950 all the Arab countries together had a combined population of only 60 million, compared with nearly 160 million in the US and a combined total of 120 million for Britain, France, and Spain — the three European powers that then still ruled territory in the Arab world.
By 2000 the demographic balance had changed dramatically. The Arab world had increased fourfold to just over 240 million, not far short of America’s 284 million. Over the same period the population of Iraq increased even faster, from under 6 million in 1950 to 25 million in 2000 — and 30 million today. In Afghanistan (which is not an Arab country) it went up at a similar pace, from 8 million to 20 million by 2000, and approaching 30 million today.
Thanks to their high fertility, these countries are also now much younger than the West. Between 1950 and 2000, the average age in America rose from 30 to 35, and in Europe from 30 to nearly 38 — the oldest of any continent. In Iraq and Afghanistan the average age fell over the same period; in Iraq it was only 18 in 2000 and 16 in Afghanistan. The result, as America and Britain have discovered to their cost, is that both have disproportionately large reserves of fighting-age men.
In a region that is already unstable, fast-growing young populations — usually with plenty of time on their hands — are highly likely to spell trouble, even if Western nations steer clear of them. Across the Middle East, youth unemployment was estimated by the International Labour Organisation at 25 per cent in 2003, the highest in the world.
And, as elsewhere in the developing world, more and more of the population are concentrated into the slums of large cities. Within ten years more than 70 per cent of the region’s population will be urban, with a quarter living in cities with populations of one million or more. For any potential invader, demography like this is a nightmare.
Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq, it should be pointed out, is an especially large country by the standards of today’s developing world. Iran is two and a half times as numerous as Iraq, while Pakistan's population is nearly six times that of Afghanistan. And what goes for Middle Eastern demography is also true of Africa. In 1950 the countries that now comprise the EU had a combined population one and a half times that of Africa. Now Africa outnumbers the EU by more than two to one, and by 2050 the ratio is expected to be five to one.
Many Western leaders, however, still appear to think that they can hold sway over both regions, much as they did 50 or 100 years ago. What such thinking ignores is the enormous shift in the balance of world population that has occurred since the days of empire — and is still continuing. Europe began the 20th century with 25 per cent of the world’s population and finished it with 12 per cent. By the middle of the century that figure is projected to fall to only 7.5 per cent.
One of the most important lessons of both the insurgency in Iraq and the battle against the Taleban in Afghanistan is that not only is the power of numbers now on their side not ours, but in future the disparity is going to get only greater.

From The Christian Science Monitor and The Times
Teachers have been told how to spot cases of potential forced marriage as the summer holidays approach.
The guidelines, issued to schools, doctors and the police aim to to identify families in which girls are made to marry against their will while abroad in the summer.
Chris Bryant, the Foreign Office Minister, insisted that every school should be looking at the issue as he acknowledged some may have been “uncertain” about cultural sensitivities.
The summer break is a peak time for incidents of young people, usually girls, being taken to south Asia in particular and forced by their families to marry.
Seventy per cent of cases involve families of Pakistani origin, and 11 per cent from a Bangladeshi background, according to the most recent figures from the Forced Marriage Unit.
“It may be possible that some schools have been uncertain about the cultural issues here. But I should make it absolutely clear there is no culture and there is no religion in which forced marriage should be acceptable or indeed is acceptable.”
Mr Bryant said: “The most important thing is to spot the problem before it happens. There are key times of the year just as now when this is the case.”
The Christian Science Monitor has a case study to give a human face to the abuse.
But Britain's new efffort has its critics, who say that the tougher message will not be heard in the Urdu-, Punjabi-, and Sylheti-speaking corners of London, Birmingham, and Manchester until there is a specific criminal offense for forcing someone to marry.
Currently, judges can make an order under the Forced Marriage Act, which became law in November, to stop potential victims being taken abroad and married against their will. Orders can also release a victim from the control of their family. But no one has stood trial for forcing a marriage.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is also training its sights on perpetrators of other so-called honor crimes – which, in the extreme, include murder – and the communities that collude in them through silence.
Nazir Afzal, the lead lawyer for London's CPS, says the issue boils down to the power relations within male-dominated societies.
"It is not just the elders who may believe women are inferior," he says. "I met a 21-year-old Muslim boy, who told me 'man is a piece of gold, women are silver. If you drop gold in mud it can be cleaned; drop silver and it is worthless.'
"That's what we're up against, but we are heading in the right direction."

...as Franklin might have said. It’s John Messner from Lexcentrics Ltd. here – back at work after a slight, inconvenient but protracted, illness, and monitoring all you good folk who enjoy the Crossword at NER that we provide.

This Forward interview with ex-Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin confirms elements of what I wrote about back in January 2006 in a piece entitled, "Are we are all Jonathan Pollards, now?" posted here. Specifically, I accused  former FBI counter-intelligence chief, David Szady and others were part of a blatant anti-Semitic cabal intent on finding an "Israel Mole" and that Jews in our national intelligence echelons were suspect of "dual loyalties".

Contrast what I said in January, 2006 when Franklin was sentenced with  what Franklin has said in this Forward interview:

             GORDON -2006:

The harsh sentencing and jailing of former Defense Analyst Larry Franklin ordered by Federal Judge T.J. Ellis, III has shocked American Jews and Christian allies.

Are those of us who defend Israel all simply "Jonathan Pollards?"

Malcolm Hoenlein from the rostrum of the prestigious Herziliya conference in Israel this week has articulated what a lot of us here in the US are concerned about in the so-called Franklin "affair": the less than subtle official anti-Semitism in certain Washington "power corridors."<!--more-->

Listen to his comments:

"The very fact that this kind of climate can exist in the capital of the U.S. is unacceptable," he said at the Herzliya Conference.

Rosen and Weissman, he said, "are two patriotic American citizens working for a Jewish organization, who did nothing to violate the American security."

The April trial of Steve Rosen who created the successful AIPAC lobbying model and Ken Weissman one of their senior Middle East policy analysts has to be played out against the backdrop of FBI's drive led by associate director and counter intelligence chief David Szady and his hunt for "moles" in the American Jewish community whose divided loyalty in his view is" questionable."

As an example, we have the case of former CIA staff lawyer, Adam Cirelsky against the CIA and FBI that revealed Szady's alleged anti-semitic comments during an earlier 1999 investigation.

Szady probably believes that every American Jew is a closet "Jonathan Pollard." Fundamentalist Christians, too, by the likes of DoD analyst Larry Franklin's harsh penalty handed down by Federal Judge Ellis last week: 12.7 years plus a fine, unless he "squeals."

To those of us here in the US that smacks of the classic "Juden frage" or the "Jewish question" of 19th and 20th Century Europe where governments and citizenry alike accused Jews of "dual loyalties" - a dynamic "conflict" between being loyal citizens of countries in the Diaspora and being supporters of Zionism and the formation of the Jewish State, Israel.

Over the weekend, I got an email from Janet Levy in California who is active in Dr. Frank Gaffney, Jr.'s Center for Security Policy. She wrote about her questioning of FBI associate director and Counter Intelligence chief Szady at last year's Intelligence Conference held across the Potomac in Northern Virginia in the Washington, DC vicinity about Larry Franklin and AIPAC defendants, Messrs. Rosen and Weissman. Szady was adamant in his remarks about the "relentless" prosecution of fundamentalist Christian and loyal Americans Larry Franklin and the AIPAC Jewish officials, Messrs. Rosen and Weissman.

FORWARD/FRANKLIN-2009: 

Although charges against the two other key players, former lobbyists Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, were ultimately dropped in May, Franklin pleaded guilty early on as part of a plea agreement and is preparing to serve his reduced sentence of 100 hours of community service and 10 months in a halfway house.

Franklin’s narrative of his ordeal, which started off with him being described on national news as the “Israeli mole” in the Pentagon, reflects a mixture of naiveté, frustration with government bureaucracy and a deep belief that his views must be heard, even if it meant breaking the rules. In retrospect, it was a practice in humility for the devout Catholic military analyst.

“I’ve learned a lot by crawling on the ground,” the 62-year-old father of five said in his first interview since the affair began in 2004. The lessons that Franklin has learned from his experience include the capacity by his colleagues and partners for — as he sees it — betrayal, and the persistence, he has concluded, of deep-rooted antisemitic sentiment in certain quarters of America’s intelligence community.

Franklin in the Forward article believes that he was betrayed by Weissman and Rosen when they relayed some of the Iranian nuclear threat information to the two former AIPAC lobbyists.  In fact, as the circumstances behind the government dropping the case and questionable legal basis indicate they did nothing wrong.   

Here is what Franklin states and Steve Rosen's reply:

He said it was made clear to him by the FBI that Rosen, then AIPAC’s foreign policy director, was the target of the investigation and had been followed by the FBI for years. “The bureau told me Rosen was a bad guy,” he said. Believing that he himself had “done wrong,” Franklin agreed to cooperate with the FBI investigation.

This cooperation culminated in a June 26, 2003, meeting at an Italian restaurant in Arlington, Va., where Franklin was sent by the FBI to carry out a sting operation against the AIPAC lobbyists. Before his meeting with Weissman, agents wired Franklin with microphones and transmitters and provided him with a fake classified document alleging there was clear life-threatening danger posed to Israelis secretly operating in Iraq’s Kurdish region. Passing on the information would help seal the case against the AIPAC staffers.

“At the time, I believed they were guilty,” Franklin said of Weissman and Rosen. Yet he still came to the meeting with mixed feelings. He put the document on the table, but hoped Weissman would not reach out for it. “And when he did not take the document, I did breath a silent sigh of relief,” he recalled. In retrospect, Franklin sees that moment as “one I am not proud of.”

Though Weissman didn’t take the document, he read its content, which was allegedly classified, and the sting operation succeeded. Weissman hurried back to AIPAC headquarters with the supposedly classified information disclosed it to Rosen, who subsequently relayed it to an Israeli diplomat. Even without Weissman taking the actual paper, prosecutors, who were wiretapping all the players, felt they had enough of a case to press charges against both Rosen and Weissman for communicating national defense information.

Franklin said he felt betrayed by the two former AIPAC staffers. He believed that he was sharing information with them so that they could pass it to other government officials, and was disappointed to learn they conveyed it to Israeli diplomats and to the press. “I do think they crossed a line when they went to a foreign official with what they knew was classified information,” Franklin said.

Rosen told the Forward in response: “Franklin did not expect us to warn the Israelis that they would be kidnapped and killed? That’s like telling officials of the NAACP that there is going to be a lynching, but don’t warn the victims, because it is a secret.”

The unfortunate aspect of the AIPAC 'spy case' is that the FBI sting operation that ensnared Franklin, Weissman and Rosen in a four year long hellish nightmare was perpetrated by  anti-Semitic counter-intelligence 'experts' in our government searching for an Israeli mole. At the same time, our government was permitting Muslims to infiltrate our intelligence community after 9/11 and denying talented American Jews and Christians the opportunity to ferret out the real threat to our security that Rosen and Wiessman were seeking information about.

As I noted in my January, 2006 piece:

The FBI counterintelligence functions may be an important segment of our national security apparatus in the post 9/11 environment created by patent radical Islamic jihadists. But then, why has this same agency bent over backwards to engage in PC multicultural "benefits" for its Muslim staff that violate our civil rights laws vis a vis segregation of women staff? Or never followed up on reports of FBI Arabic translators "celebrating" 9/11 as reported by loyal non-Muslim Turkish American Sibel Dinez Edmunds in a FrontPageMagazine report by author Paul Sperry? Why are these same Muslim patently disloyal FBI workers given a free pass? Moreover, why has the FBI with a backlog of over 100,000 hours of intercept tapes not seen fit to hire both Middle Eastern Christians and Mizrahi and Iranian Jews who are fluent Arabic and Parsi speakers to assist in this translation effort?

The word we get back from those in both communities who applied as loyal American citizens immediately after 9/11 was rejection because of-you guessed it- "dual loyalties."

What is the careworn French expression:"Plus de choses changent, plus qu'ils restent les mêmes",  in English,  "the more things change, the more they are the same."

Roger Kimball writes:

What can I say? That Katharine Weymouth, publisher and CEO of the Washington Post, was shocked, shocked to discover that her marketing department was selling places to a series of “intimate and exclusive” political salons at her house? Or, rather, was she shocked and dismayed to discover that her marketing department had been discovered selling the spots?

Personally, I have a grudging admiration for the brass of Charles Pelton, the Post executive who came up with the idea. “Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table,” one of his fliers advised.

“Interact with key Obama Administration and Congressional leaders . . . Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it.”

The cost? $25,000 to “sponsor” one event (Maximum of two sponsors per “intimate and exclusive” event). Or get a bulk deal on all eleven: only $250,000 for the lot. The Washington Post, incidentally, lost $19.5 million last quarter.

The blogosphere naturally had a field day with the story. Every place from the Daily Kos to The Weekly Standard reacted with disgust (tempered, in many cases, with a dollop of humor: The Weekly Standard reports this “Twitter of the Day”: “i heard joe biden tried to pay the Post $25k to have access to the obama administration”).

My unofficial survey suggests that the word “pimp” has not made so many public appearances since the days of the Mayflower Madam. Once the egg had been thoroughly distributed across the collective countenance of The Washington Post, it was simply business as usual for Ms. Weymouth to step on to her oversized mare to express sorrow, disappointment, surprise (shock, shock, remember?) that such a thing could be going on at her newspaper. “Absolutely, I’m disappointed,” she said.

“This should never have happened. The fliers got out and weren’t vetted. They didn’t represent at all what we were attempting to do. We’re not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom.”

Marcus Brauchli, executive editor of the Post, got on to a horse of his to iterate this deep concern about journalistic integrity. Ms. Weymouth was “disappointed,” but Brauchli confessed himself positively “appalled” by the idea. “It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase,” he said, underlining the obvious...

The two Andies (Andys?), Murray and Roddick, have just gone out to play. May the best Andy win.

Question: when the crowd shouts "Come on Andy!" how will Andy or Andy know which Andy they mean?

Update: Rebecca has asked me not to say who wins, as they're delaying broadcast over there. Well, it's early days, but I'm pretty sure the winner is going to be Andy.

Faith McDonnell writes:

This weekend, as America celebrates its 233^rd birthday, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an unindicted co-conspirator in the U.S. vs. Holy Land Foundation prosecution, is celebrating “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Yes, the inalienable rights our Declaration of Independence calls “self-evident” are the theme of the Muslim Brotherhood-associated organization’s 46^th annual convention, in Washington, DC, July 3-6, 2009.

This comes to us from the Socialist Worker via the GMBDR:

Around 200 people attended the launch of Kafa (Arabic for “enough”) in east London on Friday of last week.

This timely campaign against Islamophobia was called by the Stop the War Coalition, British Muslim Initiative, Muslim Council of Britain and others.

The meeting featured speakers including George Galloway, Guardian journalist Seamus Milne , Lindsey German from Stop the War and others . The campaign was called by Stop the War, British Muslim Initiative, Muslim Council of Britain and others has brought together Muslims and non-Muslims.

Kafa intends to continue by holding events and activities up and down the country.

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report remarks:

The British Muslim Initiative is a U.K Islamic group led by long-time U.K Brotherhood leaders Anas Al-Tikriti and Azzam Tamimi, formerly leaders of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), another Brotherhood group.

The Kafa founding statement was signed by other individuals and organizations tied to the U.K Brotherhood including Mohammed Sawalha whose Hamas background was discussed in an earlier post.

I was reluctant to post about Andy vs Andy, as Rebecca said that transmission was delayed over there, and she did not wish to know the result ahead of watching the game. Now the game is over. The warm-handled racket is back in its press, and both Andys are pootling their separate ways in Hillmans and Austins by roads not adopted.

Andy won. It was the "wrong" Andy - American Andy Roddick, rather than Scottish Andy Murray, but it was the right Andy, because he played better - superbly, in fact. Andy Murray was nervous and simply lacked the power of his opponent, particularly on the serve. Murray put up a good fight, though, and what he lacks in power, he makes up in agility and astonishing accuracy. It was a cracking good match. Three sets to one looks bad, but each set was close - agonisingly so. I can't bear tie-breaks or penalty shoot-outs; we always lose them.

Murray is just twenty-two and will have his chances in future Wimbledons. Roddick seems to be a thoroughly good egg, and I wish him all the best on Sunday, as Federer has had his share of wins. I had the pleasure/good fortune of securing a ticket for Wimbledon - there is a ballot -  last year, and saw Roddick play early on in the tournament. If you think that serve is fast on TV, wait till you see it for real.

Both Andys were sportsmanlike and respectful of each other, just as it should be. Wimbledon is a very civilised occasion, and very British, even if the British are doomed never to win.

Reader Alan kindly alerted me to Mark Steyn's amusing piece from ten years ago on British Wimbledon failures. It seems we are a nation of subalterns, doomed forever to lose to a bunch of foreign upstart HunterDunskis:

June in south London, in a corner of an English field that is forever foreign: on Centre Court a surly Yank is whacking aces at a charmless Czech; across the languid haze of a perfect English summer afternoon (54 degrees and light drizzle) drifts the sound of simulated female orgasm from the two grunting Brazilian nymphettes on Court Number 1; far away, on Court Number 73, a British player is being knocked out in straight sets by a 12-year-old midget from the South Sandwich Islands; and, as if by clockwork, the air is suddenly rent by the traditional cry of "You cannot be serious, man!" as John McEnroe finds the strawberry tent expects him to pay £23.95 a punnet ("includes two to four actual strawberries and use of complementary serving utensil").

[...]

Wimbledon's Lawn Tennis Championship is now the last oasis of green in the blaring orange clay of the rest of the Grand Slam tournaments: sadly, Britain’s chaps aren't very good on clay, except when it comes to having feet of them. But, for this year’s competition, the nation's hopes are riding high, following last year's surprisingly good showing, when several British players achieved a personal best and made it through to the second day, due to rain postponing their opening matches.

[...]

"Always difficult for the British players here," as Barry Davies likes to say. "So much is expected..." Barry's note of wistful regret is all too genuine: after all, most failed British tennis players are hoping to parlay their cliffhanger 1-6, 0-6, 1-6 first-round match against Sampras into a lifetime gig as a Wimbledon commentator, and Des and Barry don't need any more of them grubbing around the BBC presentation box.

We are fortunate, though, that many of our tennis greats survived into the modern era. Until the early Nineties, at Wimbledon finals Dan Maskell could always be relied on to spot some 1920s Ladies' Champion in the crowd. "There's Kitty Godfree," he'd say. "Now 93 and still Britain's highest-ranked world player." Now, alas, even Dan is gone, the voice of Wimbledon stilled.

In a turbulent world he was reassuringly unruffled. Like a dowager on the Tube declining to catch the eye of the nutter across the aisle, he sailed serenely past the temper tantrums. McEnroe would be snapping his racket in two and shouting obscenities at the umpire, but Dan would confine himself to a few technical observations: "McEnroe will really have to work on his beckhend in this next set," he'd murmur, as the young champion roared "mutha------!" and stomped off, possibly to work on his beckhend.   

 Watch that Scot, though.

Around 200 people attended the launch of Kafa (Arabic for “enough”) in east London on Friday of last week. (From Rebecca's post.)

Or rather they tried to, but as they drew closer, east London got further away.

The next day, they awoke from troubled dreams to find themselves, to a man and in their beds, transformed into a gigantic, untranslatable Ungeziefer.

Although the point of this article is about how Saudis need to deal with culture shock when they travel overseas, it should be about the culture shock that people in Dar al-Harb suffer when dealing with the new visitors.  From Arab News:

JEDDAH: A 26-year-old Japanese exchange student was assaulted in February inside a YMCA co-ed student-housing complex in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

A man donning a mask turned out the lights of the laundry room and grabbed the woman from behind. She screamed and broke free. Other students came to the rescue and, according to local news reports, detained 19-year-old Khaled Al-Harbi. The student, who was in Canada on a Saudi government scholarship, was diagnosed with psychological problems and has been seeking counseling.  [Don't worry, women in Nova Scotia, he might decide to go see a counselor some day.]

In another case in Bournemouth, UK, earlier this month, another Saudi student was sentenced to 24 weeks in jail. His identity has been registered for seven years on a local law-enforcement list of sexual harassers, according to the Daily Echo newspaper. In that case, the student, 23, was found guilty of public intoxication, stripping naked and chasing a 36-year-old woman through the streets. The woman punched the man and fled.  [I simply LOVE British women]

While cases of criminal bad behavior may reflect just a few bad apples among an estimated 60,000 Saudi men and women studying in 26 countries under government scholarships, some are wondering if the Ministry of Higher Education should do more to pre-empt bad behavior through more intense pre-departure counseling.

“The Kingdom is spending more than half a million riyals for each student it sends abroad. It would be worth it to provide necessary orientations, which would only cost SR1,000 for a week or two, presenting some specifics about a certain country, its culture, its people, its traditions, its women, and so on,” said Loay Alfi, a 26-year-old currently studying in the US on the King Abdullah scholarships program.

Alfi said bad behavior among Saudi students abroad is “embarrassing” to the country, and he called on education officials to do more to discourage such incidents before they occur.

Many Saudis who study abroad must cope with culture shock and homesickness, and they can be easily tempted into bad behavior when faced with more liberal social mores, especially pertaining to alcohol and the mingling of the sexes that are banned back home.

Most reported cases of Saudi students behaving badly abroad involve men who abuse alcohol or drugs and cross boundaries when relating to women. When it comes to women, they perceive the law (and the women) to be more lax in these countries than they are in Saudi Arabia.

[...]

Bogari said Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal met his group and asked the men to take care of the Saudi women.  [Meaning they should stalk them and intimidate them to ensure that they do not "embarrass" their country or their family by going out to coffee with a kufir]  After Bogari arrived in Canada, he received an e-mail from Saudi Royal Embassy with a list of places to avoid and urging him not to get into trouble.

[...]

“What is happening here is sometimes embarrassing,” he said.

And of course when these attacks on non-Muslim women occur, the Saudi students' one and only concern in this article is that it will "embarrass" their country.

I know that Muslims are never responsible for Muslim behavior, whether it is due to "mental illness" or "public intoxication," but ... REALLY?  They need to have TRAINING from their government not to put on masks, turn out the lights, and grab women from behind?  It's the Saudi government's fault for failing to teach them that it is not acceptable to take off all their clothes and chase women through the streets?  Is there no limit to the excuse-making?

If the students falsely assumed that this is normal behavior in the West, from where did they pick up that assumption?  What is a two-week course in training about a specific country's culture and traditions going to do compared with a lifetime's training in the madrasses about how non-Muslim women are whores and non-Muslim men are corrupt heathens who must be slaughtered?

Let's not even get into the behavior of the Saudi students who came to the U.S. to study how to fly, but not land, jet airliners in 2001.  They could have really caused some embarrassment to the Saudi government, if not for the quick-thinking efforts at damage-control by the U.S. government.