The Duck of Minerva

Hey, y'all... Here's your linkage... Enjoy. Kapil Patel argues that a growing awareness of India's declining conventional deterrence vis-a-vis China has led it to create a new mountain strike corps of 40,000 men. Alec Metz at Registan reviews this year's Eid message from the sub-literate but charismatic Mullah Muhammad Omar. Ajit Sahi argues that despite the very significant flare-up in Indo-Pak tensions last week along the Line of Control, India needs to engage more, not less, with Pakistan to end the conflict. Buddhist-Muslim violence has flared in Sri Lanka as the Myanmar conflict...

Good morning... Aileen Blanley writes about Nisha Pahuja's attempt to film a camp run by Durga Vahini, the women's wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).  Through physical combat training and lectures, the group aims to transform girls in to "tigers."  The camp girls tigers sing: "Ask for milk, we’ll give you kheer, ask for Kashmir, we’ll slit your throats."   Blanley argues that Pahuja's film "... succeeds in showing the camp’s ironic function as a safe house for adolescent minds and bodies at war with gender expectations—a space in which oppressive domestic and gender protocols are...

Good morning!  Here's your linkage... Atul Gawande asks why do some medical ideas (i.e. norms) spread quickly and others slowly? Thomas Rutig re-examines whether lessons can be learnt between the conflicts in Afghanistan and Mali. Udai Bhanu Singh assesses the Bodh Gaya terrorist attack. If you thought Bangladesh's garment industry had problems, perhaps you ought to look at its ship breaking industry.  Life expectancy in this industry is apparently 20 years less than in others in Bangladesh.   Vidhyapati Mishra wrties from the Beldangi II refugee camp that Bhutan is no Shangri-La, especially...

Good morning... Salman Adil Hussain reviews Deepa Kumar's Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire.  Hussain writes, "Kumar shines a bright light on liberal Islamophobia, and shows how the Obama administration’s emphasis on homegrown terrorism generated a lot of talk about ‘terrorists in our midst’ in the mainstream American media and presented right-wing Islamophobes with the opportunity they needed to (re-)popularise the old ‘Islamic peril’." David J. Morris asks: "How much does culture matter for P.T.S.D.?"  The following quote from the article is powerful and worth contemplating: "The...

Good morning... Jarrod Hayes discusses his new book, Constructing National Security: US Relations with India and China. Mark Safranski (i.e. zen of Zenpundit) points us to Lt. General Prakash Katosh's "Optimising the Potential of Special Forces." [Original Article] Shyam Saran argues that India's new role as an observer on the Arctic Council should be used to restrain the headlong rush into an ecological catastrophe. Steve Aftergood notes that the Obama Administration does not disclose most Presidential Policy Directives even when they are not classified.  A reason for the lack of...

Good morning ducks... Here's your linkage... The Jerusalem Post reviews World War Z.  Is this the most pro-Israeli film ever made?  ... Probably not - even the trailer shows the wall being breached.  A Majinot mentality can't work in a film whose motto is: "movement is life." The terrorist attack on Sunday in Bodh Gaya is a big deal, even if the Western press is slow on the uptake.  This isn't just the holiest Buddhist site in India; it is the holiest Buddhist site in the world without a doubt.  (I've been there twice in the last twelve months and the security was pretty lax even though...

Hi Duck friends. Here are some links to start your week... Liao Yiwu served four years in prison for reciting his poem "Massacre" in memory of the 1989 Tienanmen Square protests.  His horrifying prison memoir reminds us that "China remains a prison of the mind: prosperity without liberty."  More importantly, the memoir show the ways in which the Leninist-capitalist Chinese system of government and economy is replicated inside the prison.  The poet's memoir is a portrait of China painted in shit, but it is a rather telling portrait nonetheless. Mong Palatino argues that the trans-boundary...

Hey.  Here's your linkage... Data Mining No, I don't care where Snowden is going next... but I am happy to see that Hong Kong used the opportunity to request clarification about US hacking of their computer systems. (h/t E. Webb) Drones Paradoxically, there's something about James Bridle's outline of a reaper drone on the steps of the Corcoran Gallery that makes the idea of drones more tangible and murderous. Of course, the drone pilots actually spend much of their time being bored.  Luckily, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University is willing to supply thousands of "Christ-centered aviators" to...