Blog Archives
Time to get Cozy, Bear Life as a Russian Vassal State
Can you grin and bear it?
The debate about whether Russia is running the Pervert Orangutan White House Reality Show Zoo along with the entire Gutless Orwellian Party (GOP) from top to tail is entirely moot. It’s over. Done. The takeover is complete. There’s nothing to debate, for anyone with half the IQ of a fancy bear. Which apparently is not too many of us. Our dumb, misinformed, and uneducated asses have been ripe for a rapacious takeover for a while now, and the descent towards authoritarianism shockingly took as long as 242 years before we exchanged the Tory Loyalists of King George III for the Trump #MAGAts of Comrade Putin I. And if we are to be the least bit honest with ourselves, the only real questions ever were whether Russia or China took us over first, and how long that would take- for all that needed doing was easily exploiting above all our glaring inability to protect ourselves in the cyber arena. Because, you know, we isn’t don’t be so good at math and computer stuff, and stuff, or even English, and we sure as hell wouldn’t allow enough Asian immigrants into the country in time to save ourselves. Thanks, decades of retrograde anti-immigrant GOP! Enjoy your gulags of borscht, #MAGAts.
We are at least fortunate that the suspense is finally over. The answers to the takeover race questions are: Winner/2016/Russia. It’s all because to most Americans, science, technology engineering, & math (STEM) are as foreign a concept as shitting into a latrine hole in the ground in the sticks of Djibouti while pirates stand around and watch. We are inured to the realities of the outside world, foolishly thinking that an excessive, clumsy, and creaky 20th century military machine of nukes, ships, tanks, jets, drones, helos, and broken toy soldiers were going to forever protect us when foreign countries’ bad hombres actively lurk in our social media, emails, power grids, military systems, corporate servers, and political party infrastructure in a dystopian tentacle porn equivalent of ass rape. America is super well prepared to fight the next great war using 1973 technology, and decimate all comers! Thanks so much, GOP! Gracias for the trillions of dollars in debt-exploding defense spending, eroding our privacy and freedom, bogging us down in Afghanistan and surrounding countries into year 17 with no mission, no plan, and no end in sight. All the while remaining highly vulnerable to penetration by hostile countries and terrorists while screaming about Muslims. Because, America!
The Obama-Modi Hotline Goes Live
This comic and others can be found on cool Indian satire site unrealtimes.com
Mahanth S. Joishy is Editor of usindiamonitor
As was widely reported in Indian media in recent weeks, a “hotline” or 24/7 secure line of telephone communication has been operationally inaugurated between President Obama and Prime Minister Modi. “This is a secure line between two very, very close partners so that they can exchange views at the heads of state level…exchange views and co-ordinate approaches to solving real problems,” said Peter Lavoy, Senior Director for South Asian Affairs at the US National Security Council, to the Times of India.
On the face of it, this might not seem like such a big deal. Obama and Modi, thanks to their undeniably strong personal rapport, could already find a way to reach one another on the phone if they really urgently wanted to prior to the hotline. They’ve met personally twice already, and will be doing so again in New York later this month when Modi comes back to the United States for the UN General Assembly and to address the powerful brown community in Silicon Valley.
However, a hotline denotes several advances. First of all is prestige. It symbolically represents the two nations coming closer together, for India has never had a head of state hotline with any other country before, while only three other nations- China, Russia, and Great Britain- have a hotline to the president. In the cases of China and Russia, the hotlines clearly exist to diffuse a suddenly emerging crisis, such as nuclear conflagration or quite possibly World War III. Meanwhile the US has a hotline with UK because they are publicly acknowledged best friends. The Obama-Modi hotline seems to be closer in scope to the latter than the former- though crisis mode is never far when it comes to South Asia. We can now expect more frequent contact between the two leaders and their national security staff. This can only be a good thing, and should be seen as a welcome gesture after a long history of mistrust between the two countries.
Long Battle Ahead: US-India Defense Cooperation
I’ll trade you my spaghetti for some of your chicken curry at 1900 hours; deal?
We live in a world that feels like it’s swirling in conflicts or emerging ones. As usual the United States as the sole military superpower is forced into the lonely role of security guarantor of last resort. If Russia were to over-run Ukraine, ISIS to over-run Iraq, Ebola to over-run any teetering West African regime, or China to make a move on Japan, the United States would likely step in, if reluctantly. The threat of US force is still a powerful deterrent around the world.
Very much to the contrary, India is quiet when it comes to global conflicts. This is not just a question of desire, but also capability. India’s military is relatively unsuited for power projection and cannot operate effectively beyond South Asia. The nation’s homeland defenses are unacceptably vulnerable themselves. Just 10 determined men from Pakistan boated right over and brought Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, to a near standstill in 2008. Not much has changed since then. Read the rest of this entry
Sunday Masala 9/14/14: This Week in US-India Relations
Courtesy India Defense Research Wing
Sunday Masala is a unique resource, and the only one you will need to stay well-informed of the fast moving, always interesting action in US-India relations. We added a traffic light image to show if developments are positive (green), negative (red), or yellow (unknown) for the relationship. So what is going on right now? Turns out, there is plenty going on, much of it involving third parties such as Al-Qaeda (pictured, left). Read the rest of this entry
ANALYSIS: US-India Relations Under P.M. Modi
“You don’t need a gym. Pull water out of your well, then repeat for 30 mins.”
Congratulations to Narendra Modi and the BJP on winning the largest democratic election in human history. And what style. Modi won by a roaring landslide, fair and square. A listless Rahul Gandhi, the Congress Party, and all other comers were obliterated in 2014, quite possibly breaking the Nehru/Gandhi dynasty’s iron grip on national politics for good after 70 years and four generations- although many Indians believe that talk of the dynasty’s demise is premature.
The BJP arrives to power with an unquestionable mandate from the people of India. Now comes the hard work of governing the world’s largest democracy, and among the messiest ones at that. Today we are going to contemplate what may come from this historic moment while Modi takes the helm of India’s gigantic bureaucracy, including the halls and apparatchiks of a foreign ministry that will be spending much of its time working with and against the United States.
As my grandmother often said, we are knee-deep in the Kali Yuga, or age of destruction. We live in Summer 2014, a moment in time when it feels as if things are falling apart all around the globe. The world will be watching to see what happens with India’s latest experiments with truth, not least because India is a rising power in an uncertain terrain. Read the rest of this entry
VIDEO: President Obama Discusses US Terrorism Policy
Must-watch: Obama’s speech today on terrorism and the actions of the US government to counter it. An intelligent and thoughtful speech on complex and highly controversial matters.
There was some drama as an activist heckler continuously interrupted the speech beginning at minute 49. It is very interesting to see how Obama handles the situation, going off-script.
Also of interest were talking points on Islam and partnerships with countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. My favorite part was the discussion on bringing America’s longest war to an official end.
