For later reading: Pakistan

StrategyPage has a long article on Pakistan

The U.S. has provided Pakistan with $33 billion in aid since 2001 and is fed up with Pakistani refusals to shut down Islamic terror groups that operate against Afghanistan and India but not Pakistan. 
China doesn’t provide free stuff but has become the major supplier of military gear to Pakistan and the largest foreign investor. China has been threatening to cancel over $50 billion of much needed investments if Pakistan does not improve the security situation and that is mainly about Islamic terrorism.

Lots of the usual stuff about how Saudi money sends missionaries to teach the hateful form of religion with the support of the local military...

The Sufi sect of Islam used to be dominant in Pakistan, but since the 1980s more militant forms of Islamic have proliferated with the support of the military. This was fostered by missionaries and money from Saudi Arabia, who preached intolerance and violence against non-Moslems and Moslems who are not extreme enough. This extremist form of Islam has been a major factor in preventing India and Pakistan from making peace.

true for many countries, alas. But this was a bit new to me:

According to Islamic radicals, Hindus are the worst kind of infidel (non-Moslem) because, unlike Christians and Jews, they have no common religious roots with Islam. Actually, Hindus do, as there was a lot of Hindu influence in Arabia when Islam was founded 1,400 years ago, but the founders of Islam choose not to openly recognize their Hindu roots. Thus the harder line on Hindus.

I am reading up on the Silk road and trade in the ancient world, and India has links with the middle east for 4000 plus years.

I am not sure, but I suspect the "hindu" idea was that people need a personal relationship to God... something both Jesus and the prophet pointed out.

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related item: ISIL is threatening China with attacks.

alJ says the religious repression led to 100 people joining ISIS. Uh, not a large number.

China worries about nationalism and schism of the country in their ethnic enclaves, so tends to send lots of Han Chinese into these areas to take over.

But if ISIL cuses trouble, expect a harder clamping down on the locals in western hina.
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Related item: The abus beheaded a German. Not a lot of publicity, but the backstory is that no one was going to pay ransom for the guy. You see, he ignored warnings and was held by the Somali pirates and a huge ransom was paid for him. So he again ignored warnings and got kidnapped by the Abus and it was too much even for the Germans. No ransom was paid this time, hence he was killed and the murder posted on the social media.

however, one does wish the Germans would have instead given a small gift to the families of the Philippine soldiers who died trying to rescue this idiot. 

Sigh.
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unrelated item: What will you do when your GPS system goes down?

un, read the map?


the military is restarting training on map reading etc.

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yes, I saw the end of President Trump's speech (it was streaming on C Span when I checked my Youtube subscriptions yesterday) and it was good.

The press sort of agrees.

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