An Opinion Poll conducted by a newspaper[none other than our New Indian Express,NIE] asked randomly chosen people of 4 Indian cities a series of questions regarding India's response to 26/11 terror attack.
To the question
How should India respond to the Mumbai attacks by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba ?
an overwhelming 79 percent were against any air or land offensive against Pakistan.
To the question
Was Israel correct in attacking Gaza?
only 18 percent Indians said yes.
To a question
Has aggressive military action over the years reduced the security threat to Israel?
63 percent said, No it has not changed much
The result of the poll according to the newspaper
"come as a surprise to policymakers, politicians and voices in the media which have been clamouring for “action” against Pakistan for the Mumbai attack".
It might have been a surprise for the war mongers in the print and visual media[like NIE] but not to ordinary people of India.
Let me congratulate the New Indian Express for being brave enough to publish the opinion poll even though it produced a different result to what they wanted.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
An open letter to Obama about Gaza massacre
This is an open letter to President elect Barack Obama regarding the Gaza massacre written by US academic David Lloyd and signed by thousands of teachers and other academics of USA and many all over the World.To endorse this send a mail to teachers.against.occupation@gmail.com
To see the names of the signatories click here
Dear President-Elect Obama
By David Lloyd
Once, in what was perhaps an unguarded moment, you stated that: "Nobody's suffering more than the Palestinian people". After days of relentless Israeli bombing in the Gaza strip that has already killed over seven hundred people, most of them civilians or policemen, and injured over three thousand, many of whom may yet die for lack of medical supplies and facilities, your words have never rung more true. And yet, so far, your signal response to this latest assault on the Palestinians, that the UN Secretary General diplomatically calls “disproportionate”, has been to defend Israel’s right to respond to rocket attacks that, while rightly condemned, are mere pinpricks in comparison to the horrific consequences of Israeli bombardment and of the ongoing blockade on Gaza.
Does this mean that on the long way to the White House you have trimmed your sails and, for the sake of securing the power you will soon assume, fear now to speak truth to power? Does this mean that, unlike Dr. King, your sense of justice is adjustable for the sake of political expedience? Those who supported you from the early days of your primary campaign did so not on account of your response to economic crisis, but because they believed in your sense of justice and your commitment to put an end to business-as-usual in Washington, and because they believed in your genuine desire to shape a new and different world order.
In 1981, while you were an undergraduate at Occidental College, you were among the first of a courageous group of students and faculty who, while the cause was still unpopular or unheard of, spoke out for divestment from the apartheid regime in South Africa. You knew then that it was imperative to place pressure on a racist regime which shamefully oppressed a black and coloured population that was discriminated against, subject to pass laws and control of its every movement, parceled into Bantustans, and subject to detention, torture and extra-judicial execution. When the black population protested, like the school children of Soweto, they could be summarily shot down by police or army. The ANC, under Nelson Mandela, was proscribed as a terrorist movement, its leaders were imprisoned, tortured or killed, its guerrillas faced the overwhelming power of the South African army, equipped and trained in part by the United States and its European allies. A regime that was so unafraid to use violence in the defense of its discriminatory and racist regime, and so unashamed to do so in the face of international condemnation, could only understand the language of force. The divestment movement in which you so actively participated understood that the euphemistically and cynically named policy of “constructive engagement” was a moral and practical failure and that only the non-violent force of a financial boycott on the South African regime had any hope of bringing an end to apartheid without an horrific bloodbath.
Public figures as diverse as Bishop Desmond Tutu and President Jimmy Carter have recognized that Israel too maintains an apartheid regime, in practice if not in name. South Africa, now a functioning multi-racial democracy, was a white state for a white people. Israel is a Jewish state for a Jewish people. Its non-Jewish, mostly Palestinian Arab citizens are discriminated against in numerous ways, economically and civilly. The dispossessed and ethnically cleansed Palestinian populations, dispersed in the diaspora and in the refugee camps of Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, are denied the internationally recognized right of return. They have had their lands and homes taken from them by armed and “legal” force, are subject to collective punishment, prolonged states of siege, the absolute and deliberately destructive control of their daily movements. Where South Africa instituted the pass laws, the checkpoints that have proliferated all over the West Bank and at the exits from Gaza prevent students from reaching their schools and hospitals, workers from reaching their places or work, keep farmers from their fields, the sick from the few hospitals that survive to serve them. The illegal settlements, that in contravention of all international laws regarding occupation have proliferated across the West Bank, are designed to be permanent “facts on the ground” and have divided recognized Palestinian territory into segmented islets, into besieged Bantustans, with the intent of preventing a contiguous Palestinian state. A so-called security wall, illegally built, as even the Israeli Supreme Court recognized, on Palestinian territory, has cut farmers from their lands and turned formerly prosperous villages into isolated prisons. Regular Israeli military incursions into Palestinian cities and refugee camps, and bombings from the air, have killed innumerable civilians, many of them children. Since the election of Hamas, in fair and open elections, Israel has subjected the civilian population of Gaza to a prolonged state of siege, designed to suffocate them into submission, depriving them at will of water and power, medical supplies and food, and of access to the outside world. The most recent, all-out assault on Gaza, the disproportionate and bloody use of excessive force, is no act of self-defense, but the dramatic extension of an insidious policy of extermination of a people that refuses to disappear.
Every one of these acts is a crime against humanity. In their ensemble, they constitute one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times. Almost alone among nations, Israel acts in flagrant violation of international law and UN resolutions and does so with impunity. That it can do so is in large part the consequence of the uncritical support offered to Israel by a succession of American administrations. Without the military and economic aid of the United States, which amounts to more than a third of all US foreign aid, Israel could not have mounted its violent offensives against the Palestinians or Lebanon, could not maintain its security apparatus, could not afford the illegal settlements that seek to expand Israel into what remains of Palestinian territory. The United States has supplied the F-16s that are bombarding the Palestinians, their schools, police stations and mosques, and the cluster bombs that continue to kill and maim children and farmers in southern Lebanon. America continues to support Israel to the tune of billions every year at the expense of US taxpayers and at the expense of its moral standing in the world.
You will continue to do so, according to your own web page, because “our first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel, America's strongest ally in the region.” You and your Vice-President, Joe Biden, not only “defend and support the annual foreign aid package that involves both military and economic assistance to Israel”, but moreover “have advocated increased foreign aid budgets to ensure that these funding priorities are met.” In doing so, you lend your support, in the name of the United States, to a regime no less criminal in its acts and in its policies towards its own minority population and its dispossessed Palestinian neighbors than South Africa was in the 1980s. Then, it was argued, South Africa was our strongest ally in the region, a bulwark in the war against communism, a crucial supplier of uranium and other minerals, a prosperous Western-style democracy, if not the only democracy on the continent. To bring down the South African apartheid regime, it was argued, would be to create chaos in southern Africa, unleash a bloodbath in which whites and blacks alike would suffer, and pave the way for a communist or dictatorial post colonial regime. The divestment movement, a non-violent coalition of students and academics, union members and churches, came together in the spirit of the Civil Rights movement to challenge those self-serving assumptions. It changed the direction of US foreign policy, disgracing its support of a racist regime, and placed effective pressure on the apartheid regime to begin serious negotiations with the ANC. Through a combination of diplomacy and divestment, we did end apartheid, making way for a functioning multi-racial democracy that confronts its challenges, indeed, but has not dissolved into chaos or tyranny.
It is time for the United States to place a similar pressure on Israel. That Israel has been America’s beneficiary, unchallenged in its war crimes and in its acts of terror, uncontested for its racist civil constitution and illegal occupations, has not been to the United States’ advantage. On the contrary, such unquestioning support of Israel has fuelled the legitimate anger of the Islamic world, supplied the justification for terrorism, and continually tarnished the United States’ reputation among the democracies of the world. That the United States has stood so often alone in defending Israel before the court of world opinion in the United Nations is not a sign of its virtue, but of the obstinacy and arrogance of its stance.
But it is not for the sake of the reputation or advantage of the United States that you should take a new path in relation to Israel. It is in the name of justice. It is not just to support the territorial ambitions, realized settlement by settlement, of a Zionist minority in the region. It is not just to continue to supply Israel with the most advanced weapons and the most deadly arms in order that it may murder civilians, children and policemen. It is not just that we should support Israel with all our diplomatic force and financial aid, while leaving Israel’s victims to die slowly for lack of food, medicine, water and power. It is not just that we should sacrifice a dispossessed people for the security of a state that discriminates and expropriates, continually and violently ignores UN resolutions and international appeals, collectively punishes those whose right to resist occupation is recognized in international law. There is no road to peace through such injustice.
It may be that the compromise in the end will be the establishment and security of two separate states. Almost certainly, the only hope of a lasting solution is a single state in Israel/Palestine, committed to the civil and human rights of all peoples within its boundaries, irrespective of religion or ethnicity. That is, after all, the standard to which we hold all other states in the world, Israel alone excepted. But no solution at all will be possible until we hold Israel accountable for its criminal violence and its illegal acts, until we cease to supply it with the means to pursue a course of domination and expansion, with arms and warplanes, with finance and diplomatic support. In wake of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, your recent expression of "deep concern" is not enough. It is time for constructive disengagement from Israel, financial, diplomatic, military. What worked in the case of South Africa, divestment and pressure, may finally work in the Middle East.
Without such justice, there will be no peace.
David Lloyd
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, January 1, 2009
To see the names of the signatories click here
Dear President-Elect Obama
By David Lloyd
Once, in what was perhaps an unguarded moment, you stated that: "Nobody's suffering more than the Palestinian people". After days of relentless Israeli bombing in the Gaza strip that has already killed over seven hundred people, most of them civilians or policemen, and injured over three thousand, many of whom may yet die for lack of medical supplies and facilities, your words have never rung more true. And yet, so far, your signal response to this latest assault on the Palestinians, that the UN Secretary General diplomatically calls “disproportionate”, has been to defend Israel’s right to respond to rocket attacks that, while rightly condemned, are mere pinpricks in comparison to the horrific consequences of Israeli bombardment and of the ongoing blockade on Gaza.
Does this mean that on the long way to the White House you have trimmed your sails and, for the sake of securing the power you will soon assume, fear now to speak truth to power? Does this mean that, unlike Dr. King, your sense of justice is adjustable for the sake of political expedience? Those who supported you from the early days of your primary campaign did so not on account of your response to economic crisis, but because they believed in your sense of justice and your commitment to put an end to business-as-usual in Washington, and because they believed in your genuine desire to shape a new and different world order.
In 1981, while you were an undergraduate at Occidental College, you were among the first of a courageous group of students and faculty who, while the cause was still unpopular or unheard of, spoke out for divestment from the apartheid regime in South Africa. You knew then that it was imperative to place pressure on a racist regime which shamefully oppressed a black and coloured population that was discriminated against, subject to pass laws and control of its every movement, parceled into Bantustans, and subject to detention, torture and extra-judicial execution. When the black population protested, like the school children of Soweto, they could be summarily shot down by police or army. The ANC, under Nelson Mandela, was proscribed as a terrorist movement, its leaders were imprisoned, tortured or killed, its guerrillas faced the overwhelming power of the South African army, equipped and trained in part by the United States and its European allies. A regime that was so unafraid to use violence in the defense of its discriminatory and racist regime, and so unashamed to do so in the face of international condemnation, could only understand the language of force. The divestment movement in which you so actively participated understood that the euphemistically and cynically named policy of “constructive engagement” was a moral and practical failure and that only the non-violent force of a financial boycott on the South African regime had any hope of bringing an end to apartheid without an horrific bloodbath.
Public figures as diverse as Bishop Desmond Tutu and President Jimmy Carter have recognized that Israel too maintains an apartheid regime, in practice if not in name. South Africa, now a functioning multi-racial democracy, was a white state for a white people. Israel is a Jewish state for a Jewish people. Its non-Jewish, mostly Palestinian Arab citizens are discriminated against in numerous ways, economically and civilly. The dispossessed and ethnically cleansed Palestinian populations, dispersed in the diaspora and in the refugee camps of Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, are denied the internationally recognized right of return. They have had their lands and homes taken from them by armed and “legal” force, are subject to collective punishment, prolonged states of siege, the absolute and deliberately destructive control of their daily movements. Where South Africa instituted the pass laws, the checkpoints that have proliferated all over the West Bank and at the exits from Gaza prevent students from reaching their schools and hospitals, workers from reaching their places or work, keep farmers from their fields, the sick from the few hospitals that survive to serve them. The illegal settlements, that in contravention of all international laws regarding occupation have proliferated across the West Bank, are designed to be permanent “facts on the ground” and have divided recognized Palestinian territory into segmented islets, into besieged Bantustans, with the intent of preventing a contiguous Palestinian state. A so-called security wall, illegally built, as even the Israeli Supreme Court recognized, on Palestinian territory, has cut farmers from their lands and turned formerly prosperous villages into isolated prisons. Regular Israeli military incursions into Palestinian cities and refugee camps, and bombings from the air, have killed innumerable civilians, many of them children. Since the election of Hamas, in fair and open elections, Israel has subjected the civilian population of Gaza to a prolonged state of siege, designed to suffocate them into submission, depriving them at will of water and power, medical supplies and food, and of access to the outside world. The most recent, all-out assault on Gaza, the disproportionate and bloody use of excessive force, is no act of self-defense, but the dramatic extension of an insidious policy of extermination of a people that refuses to disappear.
Every one of these acts is a crime against humanity. In their ensemble, they constitute one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times. Almost alone among nations, Israel acts in flagrant violation of international law and UN resolutions and does so with impunity. That it can do so is in large part the consequence of the uncritical support offered to Israel by a succession of American administrations. Without the military and economic aid of the United States, which amounts to more than a third of all US foreign aid, Israel could not have mounted its violent offensives against the Palestinians or Lebanon, could not maintain its security apparatus, could not afford the illegal settlements that seek to expand Israel into what remains of Palestinian territory. The United States has supplied the F-16s that are bombarding the Palestinians, their schools, police stations and mosques, and the cluster bombs that continue to kill and maim children and farmers in southern Lebanon. America continues to support Israel to the tune of billions every year at the expense of US taxpayers and at the expense of its moral standing in the world.
You will continue to do so, according to your own web page, because “our first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel, America's strongest ally in the region.” You and your Vice-President, Joe Biden, not only “defend and support the annual foreign aid package that involves both military and economic assistance to Israel”, but moreover “have advocated increased foreign aid budgets to ensure that these funding priorities are met.” In doing so, you lend your support, in the name of the United States, to a regime no less criminal in its acts and in its policies towards its own minority population and its dispossessed Palestinian neighbors than South Africa was in the 1980s. Then, it was argued, South Africa was our strongest ally in the region, a bulwark in the war against communism, a crucial supplier of uranium and other minerals, a prosperous Western-style democracy, if not the only democracy on the continent. To bring down the South African apartheid regime, it was argued, would be to create chaos in southern Africa, unleash a bloodbath in which whites and blacks alike would suffer, and pave the way for a communist or dictatorial post colonial regime. The divestment movement, a non-violent coalition of students and academics, union members and churches, came together in the spirit of the Civil Rights movement to challenge those self-serving assumptions. It changed the direction of US foreign policy, disgracing its support of a racist regime, and placed effective pressure on the apartheid regime to begin serious negotiations with the ANC. Through a combination of diplomacy and divestment, we did end apartheid, making way for a functioning multi-racial democracy that confronts its challenges, indeed, but has not dissolved into chaos or tyranny.
It is time for the United States to place a similar pressure on Israel. That Israel has been America’s beneficiary, unchallenged in its war crimes and in its acts of terror, uncontested for its racist civil constitution and illegal occupations, has not been to the United States’ advantage. On the contrary, such unquestioning support of Israel has fuelled the legitimate anger of the Islamic world, supplied the justification for terrorism, and continually tarnished the United States’ reputation among the democracies of the world. That the United States has stood so often alone in defending Israel before the court of world opinion in the United Nations is not a sign of its virtue, but of the obstinacy and arrogance of its stance.
But it is not for the sake of the reputation or advantage of the United States that you should take a new path in relation to Israel. It is in the name of justice. It is not just to support the territorial ambitions, realized settlement by settlement, of a Zionist minority in the region. It is not just to continue to supply Israel with the most advanced weapons and the most deadly arms in order that it may murder civilians, children and policemen. It is not just that we should support Israel with all our diplomatic force and financial aid, while leaving Israel’s victims to die slowly for lack of food, medicine, water and power. It is not just that we should sacrifice a dispossessed people for the security of a state that discriminates and expropriates, continually and violently ignores UN resolutions and international appeals, collectively punishes those whose right to resist occupation is recognized in international law. There is no road to peace through such injustice.
It may be that the compromise in the end will be the establishment and security of two separate states. Almost certainly, the only hope of a lasting solution is a single state in Israel/Palestine, committed to the civil and human rights of all peoples within its boundaries, irrespective of religion or ethnicity. That is, after all, the standard to which we hold all other states in the world, Israel alone excepted. But no solution at all will be possible until we hold Israel accountable for its criminal violence and its illegal acts, until we cease to supply it with the means to pursue a course of domination and expansion, with arms and warplanes, with finance and diplomatic support. In wake of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, your recent expression of "deep concern" is not enough. It is time for constructive disengagement from Israel, financial, diplomatic, military. What worked in the case of South Africa, divestment and pressure, may finally work in the Middle East.
Without such justice, there will be no peace.
David Lloyd
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, January 1, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Pre emptive strike....Killing Children to prevent them becoming ''Terrorists''
The massacre of Gaza continues with over 150 children killed out of a total of around 700 Palestinian deaths. Israel believes in the doctrine of preemptive strike
Preemptive strike....Killing Children to prevent them becoming ''Terrorists''
[The pictures of the dead and injured children of Gaza has been deleted from this post on 12th January as it may hurt the sentiments of viewers.You can view the pictures and blogs from Palestine at this site]
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES [MSF] the International Medical Aid Agency in a statement said
"Today, 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip — almost half of them children — are the victims of incessant shooting and bombing," said Franck Joncret, MSF's head of mission. "How can anyone believe that such a steamroller attack would spare civilians, who are prevented from fleeing, and are crowded in a densely-populated enclave?"
A report of the scene in Gaza Hospital from Sydney Morning Herald
Salah Samouni banged his head in grief against a wall inside the hospital morgue where the bodies of his three little nephews lay on the floor.
His relatives screamed at exhausted doctors, begging them to find people still buried under rubble.
After 10 days of a relentless Israeli assault, Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, is overwhelmed. Bodies are now crowded two to a morgue drawer, and some - like those of the Samouni children - are on the floor.
Many of the wounded are treated in hallways because rooms are full. Harried doctors and nurses run on little sleep, and the hospital is powered by emergency generators after shelling damaged power cables.
"Who ever comes with a head, we check his pulse. If there's no pulse, he's straight to the morgue. If there's no head, well, goodbye," said hospital official Raid Arini on Monday.
The hospital scenes have only worsened since Israel began a ground offensive on Saturday.
Most of the dead and wounded now arriving at Shifa are civilians, as Israel's offensive shifts from airstrikes to artillery shelling and ground fighting close to densely populated areas.
Israel it seems wants Palestinians to die with stomach full of food.That's why they agreed 2 days ago for a 3 hour truce every day to bring in convoy of trucks with relief materials.
But from now on Palestinians will have to die on empty stomach as United Nations [UN] have from today suspended Aid work in Gaza because 'four of its staff have been killed by Israeli army,'U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
>
To know more about the situation in Gaza before the massacre read this New york Times Op Ed article
While the killings were relentlessly continuing the Britain's high profile Middle-East peace envoy the former Prime Minister Tony Blair was not seen anywhere.In a weekend interview, Gordon Brown the current Prime Minister was asked if he had talked to his predecessor since the crisis began. He replied: 'Tony's on holiday at the moment.'
The leaders of US [the main ally of Israel in this cold blooded murders] were seen in a party in the White House as more and more toddler 'terrorists' were getting killed.
What will Israel achieve other than killing of thousands of Palestinians?
It will help in increasing the support for Hamas among Palestinians.
It will strengthen the Islamist fundamentalists all over the World.
It will increase terrorist strikes all over the World ensuring more innocent lives will be lost.
It will weaken the peace loving and moderate leaders in the Arab World
It will put to increased risk all Israelis and Americans travelling abroad.
more and more........like this.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Should we play in to the hands of the terrorist?
More than 6 weeks have passed after the Mumbai attacks. It seems that the Pakistani Government is still in the self denial mode. Press reports say that the investigations by Indian and American agencies have unearthed enough proof of the involvement of Pakistani based terrorist organisations.Pakistan Government know all this.
Then why it is still in the self denial mode?
Can Pakistan keep its house in order by destroying all the terror network present there?
Indians are impatient.There are calls for surgical strikes[meaning all out War], economic blockade and cultural blockade. Indian Government is urged by hawkish experts and pseudo-patriots to do an 'Israel'.
The Indian Government it seems is in two minds.Statements taunting Pakistan and proclaiming all options are open are coming daily from the External Affairs Ministry.The Cricket tour is cancelled and also most of the cultural contacts.Though Prime Minister said war is not an option, top level meeting with Military Chiefs lasting for hours are given good publicity.
Which is the best way forward for India so as to ensure there are no more Mumbai style attacks?
How can we ensure that our neighbour is stable, democratic and devoid of terror networks?
Let me go into little bit of history here.This is essential for better understanding of what is happening in Pakistan.
Partition and formation of Pakistan
Since its birth in 1947 Pakistan had an acute sense of insecurity and identity crisis.
Insecurity was there because the basis of formation of Pakistan is the premise that under Indian National Congress rule [which was the main force in the freedom struggle] Muslims in undivided free India will face severe hardships.
Pakistan was born as a Nation with the primary aim of protecting Islam from 'Hindu' Congress. Thus Pakistan could be easily turned in to a security state in which Army monopolised power and defined National interest as keeping 'Hindu' India at bay.
Identity crisis was there because the supposed to be unifying factor of the different provinces of Pakistan,Islam failed to unify it. This was evident from the breaking up of Pakistan with the formation of Bangladesh.In contrast Muslims in India could live the same way as their brethren in Pakistan while India survived and prospered as a secular Republic.
Islamisation of Pakistan
To overcome this identity crisis the army under Zia ul Haq in 1979 tried to Islamise the country even more with radical Islamist ideology. An ideological Islamic State was imposed on Pakistanis. To cement his rule he used Islam. He banned political Parties, censored Media, imposed laws targeting minorities and Women.He Islamised the legal system and Education.
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 made Zia USA's major ally.Zia allowed Americans to use the Inter Services Intelligence Agency[ISI] to act as a conduit for the arms and funds the CIA wanted to supply to the Afghan Mujahedin. In few years the CIA were able to build up the ISI into a formidable Agency. ISI managed to run the Afghan war.the Kashmir militancy and also the political process in Pakistan. Between 1982 and 1990 the CIA working with ISI and Saudi intelligence service funded the training,arrival and arming of some 35000 Islamic militants from 43 Muslim countries in Pakistan madrassas to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.This global jihad launched by Zia and Reagan administration was to sow the seeds of al Qaeda and turn Pakistan in to world centre of jihadism.
Pakistan and 9/11
With 9/11 attack carried out by al Qaeda, World's attention turned to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The US asked Pakistan army to switch sides and to join the battle against Taliban and al Qaeda.Pakistan army and the army controlled Government agreed in public.But that was only a show.The ISI continued to help Taliban and Islamist terrorists both in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kashmir.The Islamists in turn conducted big anti-US rallies but supported Musharraf's army rule.Musharraf was successful in making the US Government believe that only he and the army rule can prevent Talibanisation of Pakistan. Generous support by US helped Musharraf to consolidate his power and systematically weaken the Opposition political parties
Present situation in Pakistan
The Elections conducted in February 2008 was considered fair by Pakistani standards [with out much army interference]even though the ruling Musharaf's Party PML-Q had some unfair advantage. The Islamic Parties were trounced in the election with the relatively secular PPP becoming the single largest Party. This was a big setback for both the Islamists and the army.The election of Asif Ali Zardari as president of Pakistan has--at least theoretically--ushered in a new era in Pakistan's development. But can it control the army/ISI?
Monopoly of influence the Army enjoys in Pakistan continues today.It is estimated that the Military-Industrial Complex is worth around 20 billion dollars.The 3 armed services is running hotels.shopping malls,insurance companies,banks,farms and industries.Army owned factories make cornflakes,bread,cement,textiles and sugar.Two army run conglomerates,Fauji foundation and Army welfare trust controls a third of entire heavy manufacturing in Pakistan.Army owns about 12 million acres of Land.Almost all retired Generals are working in the Government under various capacities.At one point all the vice chancellors of Universities in Pakistan were retired Army officers.
The new civilian Government under Zardari is weak due to many reasons.PPP do not have absolute majority in National Assembly.It is having an uneasy relationship with Nawas Sherif's Party.Zardari lacks the following and reverence that Benazir Bhutto carried. In addition, Zardari does not have the political or army connections, which his major opponent Nawaz Sharif has.At the same time there is a feeling of aversion towards terrorists, Islamic extremist philosophy and the army among Pakistani public. They believe that it was the army/ISI in league with Islamist terrorists that killed Benazir Bhutto,the most popular leader of Pakistan.There is also a strong sentiment that only a strong civilian Government can reduce the terror attacks that is happening so regularly in Pakistani provinces.
What should be the Indian response?
India should try to utilise this anti-terror sentiment of Pakistani public by strongly supporting the Civilian Government's effort to control its non-State actors. Any taunting or war mongering on India's part will only help the Islamic Parties to whip up anti-India hysteria and unify the public sentiment in Pakistan against India,there by weakening the civilian Government and strengthening the army and Islamists.
It is in best interest of Indian people that we utilise this opportunity in a matured way, as an emerging World power and not as a bickering and taunting neighbour giving tit for tat statements to get some applause from the gallery. India's role should not be as a Teacher trying to discipline rogue students,but as a Neighbourhood friend helping the neighbour to set its house in order. India should not behave in such a way as to increase Pakistan's inferiority feeling
More and more evidences laid on the table of Pakistan in full view of the World will help Zardari Government to come out of its self denial mode. Hard evidences and diplomacy in all fronts will make it easy for the civilian Goverment to create a consensus to act against jehadi elements in the army and the terror networks.Instead of cutting off Trade,Sports and Cultural contacts, using such contacts judiciously to soak in Indian point of view on liberal section of Pakistan Civil society is very important in isolating the jehadis.
The terrorists wanted an increase in hostility between India and Pakistan.That's why so much evidences were left behind. Increasing tension between India and Pakistan and even an all out War will mean more support for ISI/army and for the Islamists in Pakistan. That will mean the weakening of Civilian Government and even an army take over.That will mean less democracy and less freedom for media in both countries.That will also result in more money and men in Terror networks.
Let us not play in to the hands of the terrorist.
Then why it is still in the self denial mode?
Can Pakistan keep its house in order by destroying all the terror network present there?
Indians are impatient.There are calls for surgical strikes[meaning all out War], economic blockade and cultural blockade. Indian Government is urged by hawkish experts and pseudo-patriots to do an 'Israel'.
The Indian Government it seems is in two minds.Statements taunting Pakistan and proclaiming all options are open are coming daily from the External Affairs Ministry.The Cricket tour is cancelled and also most of the cultural contacts.Though Prime Minister said war is not an option, top level meeting with Military Chiefs lasting for hours are given good publicity.
Which is the best way forward for India so as to ensure there are no more Mumbai style attacks?
How can we ensure that our neighbour is stable, democratic and devoid of terror networks?
Let me go into little bit of history here.This is essential for better understanding of what is happening in Pakistan.
Partition and formation of Pakistan
Since its birth in 1947 Pakistan had an acute sense of insecurity and identity crisis.
Insecurity was there because the basis of formation of Pakistan is the premise that under Indian National Congress rule [which was the main force in the freedom struggle] Muslims in undivided free India will face severe hardships.
Pakistan was born as a Nation with the primary aim of protecting Islam from 'Hindu' Congress. Thus Pakistan could be easily turned in to a security state in which Army monopolised power and defined National interest as keeping 'Hindu' India at bay.
Identity crisis was there because the supposed to be unifying factor of the different provinces of Pakistan,Islam failed to unify it. This was evident from the breaking up of Pakistan with the formation of Bangladesh.In contrast Muslims in India could live the same way as their brethren in Pakistan while India survived and prospered as a secular Republic.
Islamisation of Pakistan
To overcome this identity crisis the army under Zia ul Haq in 1979 tried to Islamise the country even more with radical Islamist ideology. An ideological Islamic State was imposed on Pakistanis. To cement his rule he used Islam. He banned political Parties, censored Media, imposed laws targeting minorities and Women.He Islamised the legal system and Education.
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 made Zia USA's major ally.Zia allowed Americans to use the Inter Services Intelligence Agency[ISI] to act as a conduit for the arms and funds the CIA wanted to supply to the Afghan Mujahedin. In few years the CIA were able to build up the ISI into a formidable Agency. ISI managed to run the Afghan war.the Kashmir militancy and also the political process in Pakistan. Between 1982 and 1990 the CIA working with ISI and Saudi intelligence service funded the training,arrival and arming of some 35000 Islamic militants from 43 Muslim countries in Pakistan madrassas to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.This global jihad launched by Zia and Reagan administration was to sow the seeds of al Qaeda and turn Pakistan in to world centre of jihadism.
Pakistan and 9/11
With 9/11 attack carried out by al Qaeda, World's attention turned to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The US asked Pakistan army to switch sides and to join the battle against Taliban and al Qaeda.Pakistan army and the army controlled Government agreed in public.But that was only a show.The ISI continued to help Taliban and Islamist terrorists both in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kashmir.The Islamists in turn conducted big anti-US rallies but supported Musharraf's army rule.Musharraf was successful in making the US Government believe that only he and the army rule can prevent Talibanisation of Pakistan. Generous support by US helped Musharraf to consolidate his power and systematically weaken the Opposition political parties
Present situation in Pakistan
The Elections conducted in February 2008 was considered fair by Pakistani standards [with out much army interference]even though the ruling Musharaf's Party PML-Q had some unfair advantage. The Islamic Parties were trounced in the election with the relatively secular PPP becoming the single largest Party. This was a big setback for both the Islamists and the army.The election of Asif Ali Zardari as president of Pakistan has--at least theoretically--ushered in a new era in Pakistan's development. But can it control the army/ISI?
Monopoly of influence the Army enjoys in Pakistan continues today.It is estimated that the Military-Industrial Complex is worth around 20 billion dollars.The 3 armed services is running hotels.shopping malls,insurance companies,banks,farms and industries.Army owned factories make cornflakes,bread,cement,textiles and sugar.Two army run conglomerates,Fauji foundation and Army welfare trust controls a third of entire heavy manufacturing in Pakistan.Army owns about 12 million acres of Land.Almost all retired Generals are working in the Government under various capacities.At one point all the vice chancellors of Universities in Pakistan were retired Army officers.
The new civilian Government under Zardari is weak due to many reasons.PPP do not have absolute majority in National Assembly.It is having an uneasy relationship with Nawas Sherif's Party.Zardari lacks the following and reverence that Benazir Bhutto carried. In addition, Zardari does not have the political or army connections, which his major opponent Nawaz Sharif has.At the same time there is a feeling of aversion towards terrorists, Islamic extremist philosophy and the army among Pakistani public. They believe that it was the army/ISI in league with Islamist terrorists that killed Benazir Bhutto,the most popular leader of Pakistan.There is also a strong sentiment that only a strong civilian Government can reduce the terror attacks that is happening so regularly in Pakistani provinces.
What should be the Indian response?
India should try to utilise this anti-terror sentiment of Pakistani public by strongly supporting the Civilian Government's effort to control its non-State actors. Any taunting or war mongering on India's part will only help the Islamic Parties to whip up anti-India hysteria and unify the public sentiment in Pakistan against India,there by weakening the civilian Government and strengthening the army and Islamists.
It is in best interest of Indian people that we utilise this opportunity in a matured way, as an emerging World power and not as a bickering and taunting neighbour giving tit for tat statements to get some applause from the gallery. India's role should not be as a Teacher trying to discipline rogue students,but as a Neighbourhood friend helping the neighbour to set its house in order. India should not behave in such a way as to increase Pakistan's inferiority feeling
More and more evidences laid on the table of Pakistan in full view of the World will help Zardari Government to come out of its self denial mode. Hard evidences and diplomacy in all fronts will make it easy for the civilian Goverment to create a consensus to act against jehadi elements in the army and the terror networks.Instead of cutting off Trade,Sports and Cultural contacts, using such contacts judiciously to soak in Indian point of view on liberal section of Pakistan Civil society is very important in isolating the jehadis.
The terrorists wanted an increase in hostility between India and Pakistan.That's why so much evidences were left behind. Increasing tension between India and Pakistan and even an all out War will mean more support for ISI/army and for the Islamists in Pakistan. That will mean the weakening of Civilian Government and even an army take over.That will mean less democracy and less freedom for media in both countries.That will also result in more money and men in Terror networks.
Let us not play in to the hands of the terrorist.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Why the New Indian Express is speaking in two Voices?
You may remember my criticism of New Indian Express[NIE] in the post titled Mr.Editor Why are you so blood thirsty?
Now the Newspaper has written an editorial about the Gaza massacre. Here are some excerpts.
"The brutal massacre of innocent Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli military needs to be condemned. It is an assault that has no justification, despite the efforts by Israeli government leaders to insist that the military attack was in response to rockets being launched by the Hamas.. . ......
. . .The UPA government has left it to the Congress to criticise the action, with some sections even drawing parallels between the situation in Israel and India.
This is absurd, to say the least, as there is just no comparison between the two countries. Israel is the aggressor against a proud people who have been turned out of their homeland, and have been struggling to regain a life of dignity and justice.
The world has turned away from the Palestinians struggle, including friends like India, leaving Israel with a virtually free playing field.
. . .India must recall its days as a leader of the non-aligned movement, a voice for the developing world, and take the lead now to condemn Israel and urge the United Nations to broker immediate peace. Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to burn and peace will remain elusive until the Palestinian issue is resolved.. . .
Oooh...... I rechecked to see whether I am reading the New Indian Express or The Hindu. Yes it is New Indian Express. The same newspaper which headlined [on first page of December 28 issue] Israel strikes as India dithers, there by implying Israel and India are in similar position and that India should attack Pakistan....!
Why this sudden change of mind on the part of NIE?
There was another report about Indian response to Gaza strike in the same newspaper. This was in line with the hawkish headline of December 28.
Most of the headlines and Op-ed articles in NIE after 26/11 was hawkish, anti-minority and baying for blood and war[see 1 2 3 4].
As far as I can make out, Indian Express editorials speaks in a different voice than most of its headlines and Op-ed articles.
Are they sure that the people they want to incite will only read the headlines and not the editorials?
Do they feel that by writing a more sober viewpoint in editorials NIE can escape criticism of war mongering?
Now the Newspaper has written an editorial about the Gaza massacre. Here are some excerpts.
"The brutal massacre of innocent Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli military needs to be condemned. It is an assault that has no justification, despite the efforts by Israeli government leaders to insist that the military attack was in response to rockets being launched by the Hamas.. . ......
. . .The UPA government has left it to the Congress to criticise the action, with some sections even drawing parallels between the situation in Israel and India.
This is absurd, to say the least, as there is just no comparison between the two countries. Israel is the aggressor against a proud people who have been turned out of their homeland, and have been struggling to regain a life of dignity and justice.
The world has turned away from the Palestinians struggle, including friends like India, leaving Israel with a virtually free playing field.
. . .India must recall its days as a leader of the non-aligned movement, a voice for the developing world, and take the lead now to condemn Israel and urge the United Nations to broker immediate peace. Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to burn and peace will remain elusive until the Palestinian issue is resolved.. . .
Oooh...... I rechecked to see whether I am reading the New Indian Express or The Hindu. Yes it is New Indian Express. The same newspaper which headlined [on first page of December 28 issue] Israel strikes as India dithers, there by implying Israel and India are in similar position and that India should attack Pakistan....!
Why this sudden change of mind on the part of NIE?
There was another report about Indian response to Gaza strike in the same newspaper. This was in line with the hawkish headline of December 28.
Most of the headlines and Op-ed articles in NIE after 26/11 was hawkish, anti-minority and baying for blood and war[see 1 2 3 4].
As far as I can make out, Indian Express editorials speaks in a different voice than most of its headlines and Op-ed articles.
Are they sure that the people they want to incite will only read the headlines and not the editorials?
Do they feel that by writing a more sober viewpoint in editorials NIE can escape criticism of war mongering?
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Once again I am happy that I am not a US citizen
A BBC producer in Gaza says people are desperately seeking refuge, but there are no safe places.
Cold blooded massacre of Palestinians by Israeli bombing is continuing in Gaza.
Israeli Tanks are waiting at the border to enter and kill anybody left behind. The World is reacting slowly.Most of the European Countries[with the obvious exception of UK ],
Russia,China,Latin American Countries,African Countries,Asian countries including India, and the Arab-Islamic countries has all called for an immediate halt to Israeli attacks.
But the only country in the World who have the power over Israel to halt the bombings in Gaza
But the only country in the World who have the power over Israel to halt the bombings in Gaza
is siding with the aggressor.
An injured Palestinian boy is being loaded on to an ambulance
An injured Palestinian boy is being loaded on to an ambulanceGordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said that Hamas, the group that controls Gaza, was responsible for the outbreak of violence and called its rocket attacks ”completely unacceptable. These people are nothing but thugs,” he said. “Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas.
”In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a statement that said: “The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza'.
An aide to President-elect Barack Obama, who is on vacation in Hawaii, said he had discussed events in Gaza with Ms. Rice in an eight-minute telephone call initiated by Mr. Obama.
In the campaign, Mr. Obama made statements that sounded similar to those issued by the Bush administration on Saturday.
”In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a statement that said: “The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza'.
An aide to President-elect Barack Obama, who is on vacation in Hawaii, said he had discussed events in Gaza with Ms. Rice in an eight-minute telephone call initiated by Mr. Obama.
In the campaign, Mr. Obama made statements that sounded similar to those issued by the Bush administration on Saturday.
The wounded were ferried to hospital in cars and ambulances,
while reports said the city's mortuaries were full
Contrast this with what the French President said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Israel of using disproportionate violence in its attacks on the Gaza Strip Saturday. The bombardment must stop immediately, Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said in Paris.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Israel of using disproportionate violence in its attacks on the Gaza Strip Saturday. The bombardment must stop immediately, Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said in Paris.
This was India's official reaction.
The Government of India has been closely monitoring developments that have been unfolding in the Gaza Strip. While India is aware of the immediate cross-border provocations resulting from rocket attacks particularly against targets in southern Israel, it urges an immediate end to the use of force against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip that has resulted in large numbers of casualties. India hopes that on-going efforts within the region to restore peace would be supported.May be little tame but at least we, India is asking for immediate stoppage of Israeli attacks.
Once again I am happy that I am not a citizen of United States of America.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Mr Editor, Why are you so blood thirsty?
Israel strikes as India dithers is the provocative headline in one of our so called National Newspaper, The New Indian Express [NIE] today.
205 killed,300 injured is the proud proclamation below the headline.
The report is about the massacre of Palestinians living in Gaza by Israeli bombings. Contrast the NIE headline with that of London Times or Washington Post from countries who are staunch allies of Israel. No other newspaper in the World it seems is as blood thirsty as NIE.
NIE wants India to do an Israel.That is to bomb Pakistan. Or the Editor may want us to bomb Bangladesh and Afghanistan as well. He may be pleased if we bomb Iran also.
Now is there any rational in this malicious comparison between the situation in the Middle East with that of Indian subcontinent?
Israel-Palestine issue is the fight for the same piece of land in the Middle East between the Jews and Palestinians. It has no similarities to the issues in Indian Subcontinent.
A hallmark of the Israel-Palestine conflict has been the level of violence witnessed for virtually its entire duration. Fighting has been conducted by regular armies, paramilitary groups, and terror cells. Casualties have not been restricted to the military, with a large loss of civilian life on both sides. Even after so many years and deaths of millions no solution is in sight.
Is the NIE so blood thirsty as to make Indian subcontinent another Middle-East?
What will happen if India bombs Pakistan?
What is the purpose of bombing Pakistan?
Has pre emptive strikes reduced the threat of terror anywhere in the World?
Such attacks will only play in to the hands of extremists.Such an attack will destabilise the Civilian Government in Pakistan and Army and Islamists will take over.
Have the editor of the NIE thought about the events that will follow dragging India to a never ending conflict with a Islamist Military Government?
Since Mumbai terror attacks the NIE is baying for blood in its war-mongering pseudo patriotic fervour. I hope the readers of NIE will realise it and reject such ideology.
205 killed,300 injured is the proud proclamation below the headline.
The report is about the massacre of Palestinians living in Gaza by Israeli bombings. Contrast the NIE headline with that of London Times or Washington Post from countries who are staunch allies of Israel. No other newspaper in the World it seems is as blood thirsty as NIE.
NIE wants India to do an Israel.That is to bomb Pakistan. Or the Editor may want us to bomb Bangladesh and Afghanistan as well. He may be pleased if we bomb Iran also.
Now is there any rational in this malicious comparison between the situation in the Middle East with that of Indian subcontinent?
Israel-Palestine issue is the fight for the same piece of land in the Middle East between the Jews and Palestinians. It has no similarities to the issues in Indian Subcontinent.
A hallmark of the Israel-Palestine conflict has been the level of violence witnessed for virtually its entire duration. Fighting has been conducted by regular armies, paramilitary groups, and terror cells. Casualties have not been restricted to the military, with a large loss of civilian life on both sides. Even after so many years and deaths of millions no solution is in sight.
Is the NIE so blood thirsty as to make Indian subcontinent another Middle-East?
What will happen if India bombs Pakistan?
What is the purpose of bombing Pakistan?
Has pre emptive strikes reduced the threat of terror anywhere in the World?
Such attacks will only play in to the hands of extremists.Such an attack will destabilise the Civilian Government in Pakistan and Army and Islamists will take over.
Have the editor of the NIE thought about the events that will follow dragging India to a never ending conflict with a Islamist Military Government?
Since Mumbai terror attacks the NIE is baying for blood in its war-mongering pseudo patriotic fervour. I hope the readers of NIE will realise it and reject such ideology.
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