The Henderson Brooks Report on the Sino Indian Border War 1962 – Top Secret

Spent my Sunday afternoon reading this interesting Top Secret report on the Sino Indian Border War in 1962. The Indian Govt is still holding this report dearly as a top Secret document. Ever since the decisive defeat of the Indian Army, the Indians have been telling the world that China was the aggressor and started the war. And the western media with its hidden agenda simply sang along and made China the bad boy.

This document described fully, in details, the role of the Indians in starting this border war, how it prepared an army corp to evict the Chinese border guards from the disputed borders and how it made all the preliminary incursions and occupation of Chinese positions that ignited the war. It was highlighted the arrogant mindset of the Indians and how they belittled the Chinese with comments like firing a few shots into the air and the Chinese soldiers would fled, or if they advanced and occupied Chinese positions the Chinese would not fight back.

It all started with Nehru’s Forward Policy, a term coined so innocently but with the intent to occupied Chinese territories at the China Indian border. A 4th Corp was commissioned and built up to support this campaign. And for several months, with the forces being introduced into the border area and advancing and occupying positions in the Chinese held positions, the Forward Policy seemed very easy and successful until the Chinese launched a counter offensive to retake all their lost positions and to re-establish the status quo. The border situation has since been maintained till today without the Chinese making any advances into Indian territories that was hyped in 1962 as China nibbling into Indian territories and used as the justification to occupy Chinese territories.

The Top Secret report is a very engaging read and a must read for military officers to get a feel of how the Indian built up an offensive force to the scale of an army corp and how the war was fought, the logistics and how the withdrawal was conducted when they were overwhelmed. There were also many revelations and insights into the thinking, psychic and the Indian perception of the Chinese and how the Chinese would react to their advances.

Reading the report is like a case study of a real war, not war games, with real statistics involving brigades and divisions. The report is still available at http://www.indiandefencereview.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/TopSecretdocuments2.pdf

This report is still banned by the Indian Govt and it is not sure how long it would be available before it is removed from the net. This is what Wikipedia commented on the report. ‘The Henderson Brooks-Bhagat report, also referred to as the Henderson Brooks report, is a classified report prepared by two Indian Army officers, Lieutenant-General Henderson Brooks and Brigadier Premindra Singh Bhagat, on the Sino-Indian War of 1962. Bhagat later was promoted as a lieutenant general. Part I of the two-part report was leaked in 2014 by a retired left-wing Australian journalist. (The second part deals with the enduring lessons of the Chinese aggression.)
 
The Henderson Brooks-P.S. Bhagat report was supposed to be an "operations review" of the causes of the Indian Army's humiliating rout by the ‘invading’ People's Liberation Army. The two investigating officers, however, skirted the operations review by focusing on the political causes of the rout in the war….’
 
The comments in Wikipedia were likely to be posted by an India author that still flouted the PLA as the invading forces and blaming China for the war. The Henderson Brooks report is the raw data and proof and what really happened and who was the aggressor. It categorically dismisses the Indian myth that they were the angels and were invaded by the Chinese.

Kopi Level - Green

MH370 – Who did it?

15 days after the disappearance of MH370, everything is a blank. There is not a single trace of its where about. While the family members are griefing and in a state of desperation, the experts are still searching for an answer. Assuming that it is indeed a hijack, it can be expected that it is a professional job executed by a fairly big team of hijackers. With this as a basis, let me ask a few questions that hopefully could narrow down the list of suspects to a few possibles.

1. Who have access to the cargo bay of MH370?
2. Who have access to the ground crews loading the aircraft? These two items assume that there are many hijackers and weapons to be loaded into the plane. Remember the mangosteens and durians in the cargo manifest?
3. Who would be able to get the ground crews to work for them?
4. Who would know the flight plans and details of MH370?
5. Who would know the radar locations and their performance specifications including the air traffic procedures and location to handover from KLIA to HCM City?
6. Who could file imitation flight plans without being detected or cause suspicion. This would allow the aircraft to switch transponders and fly as another legitimate aircraft in the commercial corridors after it disappeared and reappeared. All flight plans of aircraft transiting through the spot MH370 was last seen at about the same time need to be investigated.
7. Who had the technical knowledge of the aircraft instruments?
8. Who had the knowledge to fly the aircraft to avoid radars?
9. Who could prevent the pilot and co pilot from transmitting emergency calls?
10. Who had the ability to silence 239 hostages from making a single call out?
11. Who would have access to remote airfields within the range of MH370 and could land stealthily and without arousing suspicion?
12. Who could secure the aircraft and passengers in a large and safe place undetected?
13. Who have the resources to keep 239 hostages alive and unseen?
14. Who knew the topography of the Antarctic Ocean and where to dump the aircraft and black boxes and with very slim chances of recovery?
15. Who had the facilities to refuel the aircraft and fly it to the Antarctics?
16. Who had the presence of mind or informed knowledge to search in such far off and remote area that was unreachable by MH370 without refuelling?
17. Who could bring the pilot and crews back to safety from the Antarctics after dumping the plane? Items 14 to 17 assume that the aircraft is dumped in the Antartics?
18. Who would have a reason to want to attack a Malaysian aircraft with mainly Chinese passengers?
19. Who had the logistics to hold the hostages for so long without making a demand?
20. Who could do all the above and successfully complete this hijack mission and keeping the whole world in the dark?

The answers to the above questions could point to a few possible suspects with such capabilities, knowhow and resources to pull it off. The whole exercise is a logistic nightmare.

Hugh White: A pinky lens

Hugh White, a professor of Strategic Studies from Australian National University, wrote an article on Asean published in the ST on 18 Mar 14.

His analysis has been fairly objective in most cases but one cannot detect, or he cannot escape from the western biased in his thought processes when discussing big power relations particularly between the USA and China. He talked about the rivalry between Washington and Beijing but sneaked in this comment.

‘Washington generally uses carrots, while Beijing has mostly used sticks but the aim is essentially the same.’ To him this is the truth, the western truth, that the USA has been a very peace loving superpower that does not use the stick, bully or coerce any country to have its way. The Arabs and muslim countries must be having carotene poisoning after being served with decades of carrots. Only China is the rogue superpower that has been using the stick to whack other countries. Westerners are blind to their actions and that is understandable. Even Asians or Africans that have been whacked by the American sticks, oops, I mean carrots, for decades still cannot see the American stick and those whacked would still believe they were not whacked by the Americans.

What were the Americans doing in the Vietnam War, in Iraq, in Libya, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan? Having a tea party and passing out carrots? And what were the Americans doing in the Korean Peninsula with their daily war games? And what were the Americans doing with all the military pacts, signing love letters? And what about the American pivot and all the Americans bases and the weapons of wars? Are they all toys, I mean carrots? Sure, they are not sticks, just weapons of mass destruction.

And what did the Chinese do? Where is the stick? The Chinese whacking the Vietnamese and the Pinoys? Do the westerners want to know why? It was the Vietnamese and the Pinoys that were whacking the Chinese first before the Chinese kicked their asses. As for the rest of the Southeast Asian states having territorial issues with China, how would they expect China to behave when they are claiming Chinese territories as theirs? How would the Americans react if another country would to claim a piece of American territories or some of the islands in the Pacific Oceans like Guam or Hawaii?

And wherever the Chinese go, what are they signing, military pacts or trade pacts? Now who is carrying the stick?

You tell me. But please first remove the pinky lenses.

Sinkies’ ‘chap cheng’ mentality

Heard that Singapore is promoting the Songkran festival at the Padang. Now which organization is spearheading this event? I think it is a good start for a ‘chap cheng’ city. The meaning of ‘chap’ is ten and ‘cheng’ is tribes, together they men ten tribes. With so many tribes here we should have more festivals. Now let’s see what China, India, the Philippines, Myanmar and the rest of the foreigners here have in their home countries. We can celebrate all their festivals here so that they don’t have to go home and can feel at home here.

We can have more holidays in our calendars as well. We can change our official languages from 4 to plenty to make our city more global. Please don’t complain about 6.9m. And please don’t complain about being Sinkies. Sinkies will no longer be called Sinkies if we keep globalizing in this way. We can proudly call ourselves the ‘Chap Cheng’ country and our citizens or residents be called, yes, you got it right, ‘Chap Cheng’.

We have nothing of our own to be proud of and we can keep coveting other people’s culture and festivals and even talents to make us feel better, to be more global and some self assurance that we are ok. After creating so many fakes for the locals and tourists, at least a festival like Songkran is real. We can have the colour powder festival of India and the bun festival of Hongkong. We can have bullock racing at the padang as well. And not to forget the smashing of tons of edible tomatoes on the streets for fun. Let’s celebrate, let’s party as the world in a chap cheng City, or a more marketable and sleek name like the City of Chap Chengs.

Kopi Level - Red

Little India riot COI – A voice of wisdom and reason

Finally we are hearing a voice of reason from not only a very experienced ex commissioner, but one who uses his wisdom to think before making a subjective assessment. If you are following the comments of experienced, so called experts in the MH370 case, you will know that many of them were just spouting nonsense. They may have the experience and in senior positions, but they were the proverbial one eyed jack during a time when everyone was blind. Intelligence and wisdom will show when one does not have them in the first place.

Back to the COI. We have several sessions when the COI was more about a contest of opinions between the police on the ground and the COI committee. It was about who is right and smarter in handling the riot. The police’s view was not using excessive force, waiting for the SOC to reinforce their position was the right thing to do as any wrong move could inflame the already bad situation that could be life threatening. The COI’s view, the police should have acted swiftly with a bit more assertiveness or use of force to disperse the crowd. It wasn’t life threatening and going after the rioters would prevent more violence or the burning of more vehicles. These two views were what I read from the media and the police or COI may want to dispute and say I am misreading the whole hearing. Just my view, feel free to disagree.

In this morning’s paper, ex Police Commissioner Khoo Boon Hui offered some very sensible and reasonable views of what he thought, and how the police handled the situation. He did not outrightly claim which side was right as the situation was fluid and volatile and could turn any way. Whatever actions the police could do otherwise, could lead to lowering the tension and lesser rioting, or it could be worse. Who could be wiser to claim for sure that doing A would end up with B or doing C would end up with D unless he is omniprescient. A mob is unpredictable.

Khoo Boon Hui also spoke about different times, different values and different methodologies. The old tactics of meeting force with force is less desirable in today’s context unless the situation warrants it. How the police handled the situation in Little India was in line with their new doctrine and a new reality. He wisely stayed away from committing himself into a ‘I am right and you are wrong’ situation. No one in his right mind should be making such a judgemental pronouncement without looking pompous and silly.

The COI would definitely benefit from Khoo Boon Hui’s statement of reasons.