India’s ‘Secular Terrorism’

Sajjad Shaukat

Political experts remark, "Terrorism comes in a variety of forms, but these days religious terrorism is the most common and leads to the most destruction. Not all terrorism is equal…there are significant differences between religious and secular terrorism."

Bruce Hoffman, in his book 'Inside Terrorism' writes: "For the religious terrorist, violence is the foremost divine duty executed in direct response to some theological demand or imperative. Terrorism thus assumes a transcendental dimension, and its perpetrators are consequently unconstrained by the political and moral constraints that may affect other terrorists."

On the other hand, Hoffman further explains: "The secular terrorist sense leads to a sanctioning of almost limitless violence against a virtually open-ended category of targets: that is, anyone who is not a member of the terrorists' religion or religious sect. This explains the rhetoric common to 'holy terror' manifestos describing persons outside the terrorists' religious community in dehumanizing terms as, for example, "infidels" or "mud people."

Judging in these terms, since the 9/11 tragedy, irresponsible attitude of Indian, Israeli and some Western politicians have introduced dangerous socio-religious dimension in their societies by equating the "war on terror" with "war on Islam" and acts of Al Qaeda with all the Muslims. Their media have also heightened the currents of world politics on cultural and religious lines with the negative projection of Islam. In this regard, reprinting of the caricatures about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and release of a Dutch film against the Holy Quran might be noted as an example.

In this context, on October 19, 2007, the real cause behind was revealed by the the special issue of South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, under the caption-'Working for India or against Islam? and it wrote: "In the past few years, Indian American community has gained an unprecedented visibility in the international arena and now constitutes influential ethnic lobbies in Washington. Among other factors, Hindu aligned with Jewish pressure groups in relation to the war against terrorism and to further the India-Israel-US strategic partnership play a major role in exaggerating Islamophobic overtones in the Indian American lobbies"

Particularly since 9/11, India which joined the vile propaganda campaign of Western countries in equating Muslims with fundamentalism and in creating Islamic phobia is itself practising terrorism under the shadow of secularism. This could rightly be called secular terrorism.

However, although terrorism has many meanings, but its main aim is to create fear in order to achieve political or social ends, while a terrorist is one who deliberately creates this climate of fear by employing violent means.

So either it is religious terrorism or secular terrorism, India which claims to be a secular state, has broken all the records of violence, genocide and massacre against various ethnic and religious groups, entailing the community of its own lower castes.

Hindu politics and culture, dominated by the fundamentalists parties such as BJP, RSS, VHP, Shiv Sena and other similar groups have been propagating Hindutva (Hindu nationalism). Provocative utterances of their extremist leaders result into more violence against the Christians and the Muslims including other minority groups.

Although violence against the other communities has been used by Hindu terrorists as a normal practice since partition, yet anti-Christian and anti-Muslim bloodshed in the last decade coupled with the dissemination of Hindutva has intensified.

Besides previous massacre of Muslims, more than 2500 Muslims were massacred in 2002 in the BJP-ruled Indian state of Gujarat where horrible scenes of arson, mutation and rape were perpetrated by the Hindu extremists against the unarmed Muslims. Regarding that massive genocide, both Human Rights Watch in 2002 and Amnesty International in 2003 charged the "Gujarat state administration" for involvement in "a massive cover-up of the state's role in that massacres" and pointed out numerous police officials-specifically ministers, high officials and leaders of the VHP, BJP and Bajrang Dal as participants.

Meanwhile, various investigations failed in indicating the real culprits of Hindu terrorism in Gujrat as they were high officials or police officers of the Indian government. Hence, the Supreme Court of India had ordered a fresh probe on March 25, 2008, but the same also remains inconclusive due to concealment of evidence against the culprits who are members of the dominating political parties of the country.

Besides Gujrat, on September 13, 2008, during the communal riots in Uttar Pradesh more than 200 Muslims were murdered. In the most tragic incident in Assam, Hindu terrorists burnt alive six members of a Muslim family.

In Maharashtra, non-Hindu communities have lived in constant fear and awe since the advent of the fundamentalist party, Shiv Sena whose Chief Bal Thackeray has organised army of hoodlums to beat up any religious minority, openly directing the Hindu terrorists to loot and stone any of their shop or house. Silence of the subsequent governments on every challenge of Shiv Sena and lack of serious action against Thackeray's vandalism have clearly defeated the secular echoes of India which is in fact a secular terroist state. More alarming point is that Bajrang Dal has also been imparting arms training to its members near Ayodhya where the fundamentalist Hindus want to build Ram Mandir on the site of Babri Masjid which was demolished deliberately in 1992 with the official backing.

Notably, a few weeks ago, a leakage of the report of the Justice Liberation Commission of India admitted the role BJP's leadership for the destruction of the Babri Masjid, and over other human rights violations in the Indian-held Kashmir including violence against the Muslim and Christian communities.

It is mentionable that after the BJP came to power in February 2006, unlike the previous similar tragic events, Christian persecution rose to new heights in the state of Karnataka. Attacks on Christian holidays became common in the state like other areas. On the Christmas Eve of 2007, Hindu extremists led a series of violent attacks on Christians and their property in the state of Orissa, killing six Christians and razing at least 800 houses and 100 churches.

According to a report of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), "in one of the events, in March, 2008, more than 150 intolerant nationalist Hindus stormed two Easter Sunday services and beat at least 16 Christians including two pastors in Bangalore and in Shimoga district…before almost every assault, the mob of the Hindu extremist of RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal, armed with bamboo poles, sticks and rods, while beating drums shout slogans in Hindi-he "who talks in favour of only Hindus will rule the nation."

Nevertheless, assaults on Christians and their property have continued by the Hindu mobs in Orissa, Assam, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Even the year of 2009 witnessed a number of incidents of religious intolerance. In this respect, at least 60 Christians have been assassinated in the recent past by Hindu fundamentalists in Orissa.

Recently more than 2,700 unmarked graves of the unidentified bodies were uncovered in villages of Indian-held Kashmir near the Line of Control (LoC). It is not the new event, in the past three years, the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice (IPT) has discovered unmarked bodies buried at various places. Last year, discovery of nearly 1000 graves of the unmarked Muslims in the Indian held Kashmir was also notable. Sources have suggested that these graves include bodies of extrajudicial executions committed by the Indian military and paramilitary forces.

In fact, the ideology of Hindutva is being encouraged by the government officials. Besides attacks on the other ethnic and religious communities including their establishments, appointment of extremist Hindus in top positions in various institutes, and alteration of courses in accordance with the Hindu ideology have reflected the intentions of the BJB and the Congress rulers.

No doubt, violence against the other communities has been used by Hindu fundamentalists as a normal practice since partition, but intensity of the anti-Muslim and anti-Christian bloodshed in the last decade coupled with the dissemination of Hindutva has displayed India's 'secular terrorism.'

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations.

Article Source : http://www.markthetruth.com/minority-issues-in-india/310-indias-secular-terrorism.html

--

India and Pakistan are Nuclear States—Let's Make it Official

>


Luv Puri

In May 1998, surprise nuclear tests by India and Pakistan transformed regional strategic calculations and added a dangerous new dimension to tensions between the two.

According to Taylor Branch, writing in The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, Indian officials who spoke with Bill Clinton were fully aware of the potential devastation a clash between the two nations could lead to, calculating that a doomsday nuclear volley would kill 300 to 500 million Indians while annihilating all 120 million Pakistanis (although the Pakistani side insisted its rugged mountain terrain would shield more survivors than the exposed plains of India).

But regardless of the accuracy of these numbers, and although the two countries' military strategies differ, (India's is based on conventional superiority, while Pakistan tends to emphasize nuclear deterrence to cancel out this advantage) one thing is clear-the threat of nuclear terrorism looms large over both.

In December 1998, Osama Bin Laden told Time magazine that acquiring weapons for the defence of Muslims is a religious duty. 'If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty,' he is reported as saying. Even if the statement was merely rhetoric, it demonstrates intent. However, a number of reports suggest that Bin Laden's statement was more than just talk.

In August 2001, two Pakistani scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudary Abdul Majeed, met Bin Laden and Mullah Omar in Afghanistan. The two scientists were detained on October 23, 2001, 'for questioning.' Majid was a retired nuclear fuel expert from the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, while Mahmood worked on the secret Pakistani gas centrifuge program that ultimately produced the highly enriched uranium used in Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

But even without acquiring access to weapons, there are other means of groups such as al-Qaeda engaging in nuclear terrorism. Radioactive dispersal devices, for example, are particularly suited to non-state actors as they are portable and can be used to meet one of the common aims of terrorism, which is to cause significant economic damage. Combined with an explosive device, RDDs can be used to create dirty bombs, which can cause both immediate casualties from their explosions and long-term health and psychological damages from radiation.

Many analysts see Pakistan, and specifically Punjab province, as the most likely source of materials for extremists to undertake such attacks, and the precision of the recent terrorist attacks in Punjab on several Pakistani military facilities suggest there has been some inside help for militants.

On October 10, for example, terrorists dressed as Pakistani soldiers entered the Pakistani Army's headquarters at Rawalpindi and killed six soldiers, including a brigadier. Subsequent investigations pointed to Illyas Kashmiri, who once served in the Army, as a potential suspect.

Back in 2003, meanwhile, there was a suicide assassination attempt on then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's convoy, from which he narrowly escaped. The investigation, as recorded in a book authored by Musharraf, led to the arrest of low-level army officers who had conspired with Islamists, and who were angry over his co-operation with the United States in cracking down on extremists in the tribal areas.

In India, though, the threats have been more recent, and point to the bigger danger of the link between nuclear facilities and militants. Earlier this month, it was reported that the Lashkar-e-Taiba, an extremist group, is planning to target nuclear scientists (security has reportedly been tightened around several of the alleged targets) while there have also been reports of plans to strike the country's nuclear infrastructure.

This all comes as India works to expand its nuclear capacity after receiving a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group's rules that allow its civilian nuclear deal with the United States to proceed, following strong US lobbying. India has signed treaties with several countries that will help it expand its nuclear infrastructure, but such an expansion needs to be matched by upgrades in security.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh is also working to establish a civilian nuclear power plant after signing a memorandum of understanding on peaceful use of nuclear energy with Russia. Like India and Pakistan, it also faces the challenge of dealing with radicalized groups.

Bringing India into the non-proliferation regime will be crucial if Pakistan is also to be drawn in, moves that would both help reduce the risk of nuclear conflict as well as the risk of nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands.

India and Pakistan made a good start in the field of nuclear cooperation when they signed an agreement in 1989 not to attack each other's nuclear facilities. And in a more recent positive sign, in November 2008, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari stated Pakistan was willing to commit to a no first-use policy for its nuclear weapons-a policy he said he could secure backing from parliament for. However, only 4 days after the suggestion terrorists struck Mumbai, killing 176 people and stirring up tensions between the two.

Pakistan's refusal to join the nuclear proliferation regime is also linked to India's rejection of the same system. Both countries are not bound by the conditions reached after the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was agreed, such as the 1997 Additional Protocol, to strengthen the non-proliferation regime. As a consequence, the continued exclusion of Pakistan and India from the non-proliferation regime is actually intensifying the nuclear arms race in South Asia.

Bringing India into the regime will mean addressing its objections to becoming part of the arrangement-it believes that the non-proliferation regime is discriminatory as it is rooted in the NPT, which only gives nuclear weapons status to five countries.

The United States has already taken a significant step toward accepting India through the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, the framework for which was agreed in 2005. Here, the US defended the exception for India because of its impeccable record in non-proliferation. But the move in turn upset Pakistan, which argued the exceptional treatment for India risked triggering an arms race.

It seems clear then that granting both countries official nuclear weapons state status through suitable amendments to the NPT would be the best way of curbing the on-going arms race and reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism by making it easier for the International Atomic Energy Agency to hold the nuclear infrastructures of both countries to the highest scrutiny.

Many nations may balk at such a move. But the stakes are too high to not let pragmatism be the guiding basis for policy.

Luv Puri is a Fulbright Fellow at New York University and has written on South Asian related issues for nearly ten years. A previous version of this essay appeared in The Diplomat.

Article Source : http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/india-and-pakistan-are-nuclear-states%E2%80%94lets-make-it-official

--

Is this The End Of India?

India with Blind govt, Deaf Army chief, militant groups and hushed masses battling to be a super power……

A.D.Khalid

Khuswant Singh- a renowned journalist world wide & recognized as Nom Chomsky of India, in his book "The End of India" predicted about the total destruction of India into diminutive parts. He cautioned not only govt but all stake holders of Indian so called secular society that they should not only forget the partition of India but also accept presence of Pakistan and all Muslims inside and outside of India with open heart .He further suggested that India must accept equal rights of others, do justice with minorities, discourage extremism grouped with militancy and forget to eliminate the low caste Hindus from the society by degrading and disregarding their presence in millions. But unfortunately, since the publication of his book all these evils have unprecedented increase in Indian society.

It was a few days back when two famous news publishing groups of Pakistan (The Jang) and India (Hindustan Times) hoisted a flag for peace in the subcontinent. It was really very lovely on their part because this is the time when poor masses of the region are looking for respite so that economic activities can burgeon in the area. Probably people are now fed up from wars and arms race. The masses now want that governments must spend money on their welfare, health, education and comforts of life. Each one having little knowledge and vision of future, looks towards European Union countries, how they have resolved their skirmishes and now are focused on scientific advancements and economic growth of their people. But when one of the two countries is India, in a peace dialogue with Pakistan, results are always pitiable as India never responds positively to peace process. The theme "Aman ki Aasha" is a good beginning. Peaceful people of Pakistan responded well and it received warm welcome in Pakistan side of the border but it was not acceptable for the militant minds and extremist groups having deep roots in govt, Indian army and society as well.

It was really interesting to see the influence of politicians getting lead from extremist groups on the sports event IPL, being conducted in India. At this time, Indian media kept quite and never pointed what all was happening. It was really terrifying to engulf that every one in India had gone bonkers. When poor people of the two countries just started dancing under the flag of "Aman ki Aasha", the Indian wise strategy makers same as of their previous record, stabbed the peace process by influencing IPL franchises for snubbing Pakistani players at auction. The mind planning this all, was really cunning and insightful that successfully pierced the hearts of ordinary cricket lovers. Actually, extremist elements of India being supported by Indian army and agencies want to escalate the war between two countries. This time they tried a way which is never used anywhere in the world ever. They polluted the sports which are always above politics and players are ambassadors of peace. But it was a typical Hindu mind who at one end never hesitates to damage Pakistan and on the other sabotaged the peace efforts. This was really a right move to hoist the public sentiments. Time and again, India by its actions has proved its enmity with Pakistan and people of Pakistan and govt must take a serious note of it. India showed its true colors with this one action when Pakistan cricketers were ignored and humiliated by IPL franchises at the player's auction in Mumbai, India on Tuesday. With this snub, no Pakistani cricketer will feature in the third edition of the IPL to be held in India in March 2010. It was not only players who went under the hammer but the hearts of millions of cricket lovers across the region. Let us see how this Aman ki Aasha floats in coming days with the Indian extremist's desperate efforts to interfere with it. As far as cricket is concerned, it is really funny on the cricket management part that no player of the world T20 champion team will be playing. It seems from the sports point of view that India has probably slapped its own secular face by showing this drama to complete world.

New Year is exposing India in front of the world with each passing day. New Year started with millennium statements of the Indian army chief who either talked of nuclear war or attacking two nuclear neighbors simultaneously and was boasting to defeat both. In the same month while visiting the test fire, the chief himself admitted Indian army's armored debacle and expressed concern about the force's night blindness in the area of armored corps and mechanized Infantry. As per Indian Tv, it also revealed during test fire that army chief was deaf from one ear and will be the first army chief to retire on medical grounds. Seeing the health, statements and action of the general, I am afraid that opinion of some other health check specialists may also be solicited. It's really high time for Indian people as their state apparatus is dancing into the hands of extremist groups and international power brokers. With its actions govt seems totally blind and dancing for the goals which are never achievable.

When Indian policy makers and highest officials are talking of wars with nuclear neighbors, humiliating the peace process and battling for becoming a superpower through short cuts; the situation inside country is alarming. India's Maoist rebels are now present in 20 states and have killed more than 900 security officials. People are coming on the roads for price hike and in a recent protest Malaiam Singh Yadev, the leader of Samaj Vadi Party was arrested by the police. Deepening stark inequalities and raucous role of militant elements are harnessing India towards a self triggered tragedy which will not only destroy India but the region also.

At this critical juncture of time, India requires a policy and leadership who can comprehend the future challenges. Other than falling into the hands of international power brokers and extremist groups from inside, India will have to hold firmly its secular image with real implementation. India will have to address the grievances' of people from with in and will have to regard the rights of its neighbors. Extremist militant groups have deepened their roots in Indian society and armed forces as well. India will have to eliminate them by discouraging such thought process. 21st century is an era of peace, prosperity and mutual trust where all nations can live with equal rights and comforts. If India does not regard the will of the people, none in this world be able to safeguard its integrity and she will break from inside. India at the moment is at the cross roads of its existence and any adventure will take it to turmoil.

Article Source : http://www.markthetruth.com/pakistan-a-the-world/301-is-this-the-end-of-india.html

--

Why Washington fears Islamic Iran?

General David Petraeus (a Jewish Lobby's choice), Head of US Central Command, during a recently interview with CNN threatened Islamic Iran by saying that in addition to crippling sanctions and international diplomacy, Washington is considering "contingency plans" against Iran's nuclear installations in parallel. Responding to the General's barking, Islamic Iran's Chief of staff of Joint Armed Forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi advised Petraeus to carry out consultations before making such warmongering threats: "The politicians' statement may not cost them dear, but the military men are expected to avoid making crude and emotional remarks".

Professor James Petras writing for the Global Research (May 4, 2008) called General David Petraeus Zionism\'s Military Poodle: "In pointing to Iran, Petraeus played the dangerous game of echoing the Israeli line and providing support for a military attack on Iran promoted by the leadership of major American Jewish organizations. Even while Petraeus was covering up his failure (in Iraq) by blaming Iran, (the US) Iraqi puppet government was praising the Iranian government for helping to stablize the country by using its influence on the Shia militias to hold their fire. Puppet Prime Minister Maliki invited Iranian President (Ahmadinejad) to Baghdad, signed trade agreements and praised their co-operation and efforts to stablize the country".

On January 22, Richard Haass, the Zionist Jewish president of the powerful Zionist think tank, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and an adviser to Obama administeration, made the pitch for the Zionist entity by calling for a (pro-Israel) regime change in Tehran. He called for western governments' continue help for the anti-Ahmadinejad movement, more sanctions against Tehran and more international pressure on Islamic regime to stop its nuclear program which could pose a threat to Israel's monopoly in that field (Tel Aviv has 240-400 nuclear warheads).

Last month, another Jewish Lobby puppet, US secretary of states Hillary Clinton, warned Venezuela and Bolivia to "think twice" about the consequences of their ties with the Islamic Republic.

Incidendtly, Israeli MEMRI has not translated any of Ahmadinejad's speeches in which he may have called for "Wipe the US off Map". So why the successive US administrations are so paranoid of the Islamic regime in Tehran? Ramzy Baroud, an author and internationally-syndicated columnist, in his recent essay, titled Iran and Latin America: The Media States Its Case, provides some background to Washington's paranoid behaviour.

Should the United States be concerned about Iran's determined efforts to reach out to Latin America? Or, as was suggestively described in the Economist, by the Ayatollahs' strategy of cozying up to Latin America?

The US continues to see the world as its own business. It gives itself and its allies, most notably Israel, the right to geopolitical maneuverability. Iran, on the other hand, is censured, derided and punished for even its own internal policies, within its own borders. Thus, an Iranian move into Latin America is naturally viewed as unwarranted, uncalled for and most definitely dangerous as far as the US is concerned.

But Iran is not invading America geopolitical space per se. It is neither financing a terrorist group, nor involved in the ongoing narcotic war. More, there is no historical connection between an interventionist Iran and the bloody past of Latin America, including its former dictators and brutal juntas. In fact, Iran's 'cozying up' to Latin American merely began in 2005. Since then, Iran has opened embassies in several Latin American countries and launched important joint projects that provided funds and work opportunities for thousands of ordinary people. There is no Iranian equivalent to the School of the Americas.

So why the alarm?

Paul McLeary of Aviation Week gives us a clue. Iran's move "has set off a proxy conflict between Iran and Israel in South America, with the presidents of both countries logging frequent-flier miles to win friends in the region. One cause for concern among many analysts is the weekly flight between Caracas and Tehran (with a stop in Damascus) that Iran Air has flown for two years."

He quotes Frida Ghitis: "Flight manifests are kept secret, so neither cargo nor passenger information is well known …one Israeli report suggested that Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying uranium to Iran."

Two questions emerge. One, is it required of Caracas and Tehran to provide a detailed report of the cargo and passengers to the US and Israel, and perhaps also cc-ed to a list of their friends and allies?

The second pertains to Israel itself. Why is the media most concerned by Iran's 'suspicious' behavior in Latin America, despite the fact that its presence is welcomed by various countries in the hemisphere, while Israel - whose bloody involvement has wrought much chaos to South America - is simply unquestioned, and even cited as a credible source? There is no evidence to link Iran to death squads, or any Iranian firm with "an archive and computer file on journalists, students, leaders, leftists, politicians and so on" to be hunted down, killed or simply made to 'disappear' under brutal regimes. Israel's own history in Latin America seems to inspire little commentary by the ever-vigilant 'many analysts'. McLeary, Ghitis and others need to do their homework before leveling accusations against others. The book Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship may be a good place to start.

Back to the lurking Ayatollahs in America's backyard, Susan Kaufman Purcell is also raising questions, this time about Brazil. In Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed his Iranian counterpart, president Ahmadinejad late November 2009. In the January 7 Wall Street Journal, Purcell claimed: "Until recently, the Obama administration assumed that Brazil and the United States were natural allies who shared many foreign policy interests, particularly in Latin America. Brazil, after all, is a friendly democracy with a growing market economy and Western cultural values." Purcell suggests that Brazil's various achievements - largely beneficial to the US - qualified the country to become "more like us".

Western media is indeed rife with all sorts of unfounded accusations, baseless speculations and superfluous insinuations. They evoke in the reader and viewer a dread and fear, based in this case on the doomsday scenario whereby fanatical Latin Americans and radical Muslims gang up on America, and ultimately Israel……….."

Article Source : http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/01...-islamic-iran/

--

Feed War, Starve Democracy

by Frank Scott

"While our consumer goods producing corporations have been emigrating to cheap labor markets abroad, our military industry has been - literally - booming at home. It's more than 100% greater than it was in 2000, doubling in size while the rest of the manufacturing sector has nearly vanished. We continue exporting jobs to foreign countries while importing cheap labor and increasing unemployment for American workers here in the USA."

The American public is borrowing trillions of dollars to finance private capital and a military industry that president Eisenhower warned about more than fifty years ago. In an historic speech he cautioned that we were in danger of domination by a "military-industrial complex" that could squander our wealth and threaten our democracy. Have we done anything to avoid the problem he identified? Since the 9/11 attack supplied an excuse to expand on the previous myth of a communist menace, the military frenzy of economic waste and bloody slaughter dubbed the "war on terror" makes what Eisenhower feared seem almost benign by comparison.

While our consumer goods producing corporations have been emigrating to cheap labor markets abroad, our military industry has been - literally - booming at home. It's more than 100% greater than it was in 2000, doubling in size while the rest of the manufacturing sector has nearly vanished. We continue exporting jobs to foreign countries while importing cheap labor and increasing unemployment for American workers here in the USA.

The military sector is nearly three times as large as it was at the beginning of the Bush administration and regime change has brought not just continuity but further growth in that malignant trend; with a military budget of more than 700 billion dollars things are getting worse and at a faster pace. Even true believers in total reliance on market forces for survival must acknowledge that war is ultimately bad for business in that it kills potential consumers. And producing bombs, tanks, and other mass murder weapons are not stacking shelves at the mall with goods to be consumed by America's shopping legions. Further, given that the crazed credit delirium propping up this economy for the past generation is at an end, a fundamentalist market minister would have to admit that the death business is draining resources from the sacred global mall where we are supposed to shop until we drop or file for bankruptcy.

While we rob our society of its human and productive wealth with this incredible spending binge for endless war, we also subsidize financial cathedrals and their banking clergy with hundreds of billions for corporate capital's further welfare. Both Bush and Obama say these prophets of profit are too big to fail so millions of citizens are paying for their private survival by taking on a public debt that threatens our future as a functioning society. This makes great sense to the wealthy who dwell at the penthouse levels of America's class structure. They have little concern for those living on the floors beneath them except that the underclass majority shores up the crumbling foundation of that wobbling structure. How does that minority compare to the rest of us in financial status?

As recently as 2006 the top 1% of Americans averaged incomes of more than 400,000 dollars a year. Even if the lower 99% were all watching news analysis on Fox TV and Masterpiece wrestling on PBS they would know they weren't included in that group. But wait. Even if they were, the top .1 of a percent - that's 1/10th of one percent - had more than one and a half million dollars in reported income. If the 99.9% were all stoned, drunk or otherwise sedated while watching TV, they might still know they were a majority that was reduced to a minority in this political economy. In fact that's why so many of them are angry, frustrated and in various ways saying we've had enough and we can't take it anymore. Unfortunately, because they watch too much fictional reality Fox and minority reality PBS, they tend to lash out at one another, foreigners, demon scapegoats and invisible phantoms that are a product of what passes for reality in our corporate dominated mass media culture.

When we lay out hundreds of billions of tax dollars as interest payments on the national debt and realize that this is money we created, loaned to the top of society and on which they are collecting interest from us since they "own" most of that debt, we should be angry. But our anger needs to be informed and focused on the source of the problem and not ignorantly attacking its results.

We are creating new enemies as we mobilize to fight old ones and that mobilization would make an old anti-communist cold warrior of Eisenhower's day drool. The profits pouring into the death machine increase as our society is impoverished, states and municipalities near bankruptcy and millions of our citizens are facing unemployment, un-payable debt and futures that are only seen optimistically by therapists, drug dealers and liquor stores that still take plastic.

We are faced with issues that cannot be dealt with by the political economic system that created them. Flip flopping from corporate republicans to corporate democrats and back again is part of that problem. The demonstrators at the UN conference in Copenhagen were speaking for all of humanity when they chanted that the focus should be "system change, not climate change". The social and environmental crisis faced by all the world's people is not to be blamed on an abstraction called "humanity". But a system by which humanity is dominated by minorities and organized to produce and distribute the means of sustenance and survival for the benefit of a relative few at an ever more deadly cost to everyone else is the problem. That system is capitalism and unless we deal with it, our military, financial and environmental problems will get worse. In order to transform reality for the benefit of all and not just some, we need democracy. Anyone who thinks we already have it is probably part of the .1 percent, or seriously drugged. Or both.

Article Source : http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/70814

--

Feed War, Starve Democracy

by Frank Scott

"While our consumer goods producing corporations have been emigrating to cheap labor markets abroad, our military industry has been - literally - booming at home. It's more than 100% greater than it was in 2000, doubling in size while the rest of the manufacturing sector has nearly vanished. We continue exporting jobs to foreign countries while importing cheap labor and increasing unemployment for American workers here in the USA."

The American public is borrowing trillions of dollars to finance private capital and a military industry that president Eisenhower warned about more than fifty years ago. In an historic speech he cautioned that we were in danger of domination by a "military-industrial complex" that could squander our wealth and threaten our democracy. Have we done anything to avoid the problem he identified? Since the 9/11 attack supplied an excuse to expand on the previous myth of a communist menace, the military frenzy of economic waste and bloody slaughter dubbed the "war on terror" makes what Eisenhower feared seem almost benign by comparison.

While our consumer goods producing corporations have been emigrating to cheap labor markets abroad, our military industry has been - literally - booming at home. It's more than 100% greater than it was in 2000, doubling in size while the rest of the manufacturing sector has nearly vanished. We continue exporting jobs to foreign countries while importing cheap labor and increasing unemployment for American workers here in the USA.

The military sector is nearly three times as large as it was at the beginning of the Bush administration and regime change has brought not just continuity but further growth in that malignant trend; with a military budget of more than 700 billion dollars things are getting worse and at a faster pace. Even true believers in total reliance on market forces for survival must acknowledge that war is ultimately bad for business in that it kills potential consumers. And producing bombs, tanks, and other mass murder weapons are not stacking shelves at the mall with goods to be consumed by America's shopping legions. Further, given that the crazed credit delirium propping up this economy for the past generation is at an end, a fundamentalist market minister would have to admit that the death business is draining resources from the sacred global mall where we are supposed to shop until we drop or file for bankruptcy.

While we rob our society of its human and productive wealth with this incredible spending binge for endless war, we also subsidize financial cathedrals and their banking clergy with hundreds of billions for corporate capital's further welfare. Both Bush and Obama say these prophets of profit are too big to fail so millions of citizens are paying for their private survival by taking on a public debt that threatens our future as a functioning society. This makes great sense to the wealthy who dwell at the penthouse levels of America's class structure. They have little concern for those living on the floors beneath them except that the underclass majority shores up the crumbling foundation of that wobbling structure. How does that minority compare to the rest of us in financial status?

As recently as 2006 the top 1% of Americans averaged incomes of more than 400,000 dollars a year. Even if the lower 99% were all watching news analysis on Fox TV and Masterpiece wrestling on PBS they would know they weren't included in that group. But wait. Even if they were, the top .1 of a percent - that's 1/10th of one percent - had more than one and a half million dollars in reported income. If the 99.9% were all stoned, drunk or otherwise sedated while watching TV, they might still know they were a majority that was reduced to a minority in this political economy. In fact that's why so many of them are angry, frustrated and in various ways saying we've had enough and we can't take it anymore. Unfortunately, because they watch too much fictional reality Fox and minority reality PBS, they tend to lash out at one another, foreigners, demon scapegoats and invisible phantoms that are a product of what passes for reality in our corporate dominated mass media culture.

When we lay out hundreds of billions of tax dollars as interest payments on the national debt and realize that this is money we created, loaned to the top of society and on which they are collecting interest from us since they "own" most of that debt, we should be angry. But our anger needs to be informed and focused on the source of the problem and not ignorantly attacking its results.

We are creating new enemies as we mobilize to fight old ones and that mobilization would make an old anti-communist cold warrior of Eisenhower's day drool. The profits pouring into the death machine increase as our society is impoverished, states and municipalities near bankruptcy and millions of our citizens are facing unemployment, un-payable debt and futures that are only seen optimistically by therapists, drug dealers and liquor stores that still take plastic.

We are faced with issues that cannot be dealt with by the political economic system that created them. Flip flopping from corporate republicans to corporate democrats and back again is part of that problem. The demonstrators at the UN conference in Copenhagen were speaking for all of humanity when they chanted that the focus should be "system change, not climate change". The social and environmental crisis faced by all the world's people is not to be blamed on an abstraction called "humanity". But a system by which humanity is dominated by minorities and organized to produce and distribute the means of sustenance and survival for the benefit of a relative few at an ever more deadly cost to everyone else is the problem. That system is capitalism and unless we deal with it, our military, financial and environmental problems will get worse. In order to transform reality for the benefit of all and not just some, we need democracy. Anyone who thinks we already have it is probably part of the .1 percent, or seriously drugged. Or both.

Article Source : http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/70814

--

India's Vision 2020 and the reality

by Sultan Ahmed

The government of India has come up with a Vision of what India is likely to look like or confront by the year 2020, particularly in its relations with major neighbors, its military prowess and relative economic strength.

The India Vision: 2020, officially released recently, says the economic and military strength of China may in 17 years from now pose a serious challenge to India's security unless measures are taken to fortify India's strength in these areas. The paper also says the Kashmir dispute may still remain unsettled.

The Vision prepared by the Chief of the Indian Planning Commission K.C. Pant, who is close to the Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee says not only the Kashmir disputes is likely to remain unsettled but also "the territorial disputes with neighbors that have defied solution for 50 years may not lend themselves to easy solutions." And that clearly includes India's territorial dispute with China which covers 40,000 square kilometers.

While the paper expects the Kashmir dispute to remain unsettled by 2020 it does not indicate any new line of action for a way out. Instead it says the conflict between India and Pakistan is unlikely to be resolved "without a major social-political change in Pakistan." To that extent the paper reflects the closed mindset of India which dismisses the wishes and aspirations of the people of Kashmir or their right of self-determination.

What the paper, in effect, means is India's tense or strained relations with its neighbors, big and small, would continue and India will have to learn to live with them. Which can be pretty costly and too distracting for the Indian leaders. At the same time the paper warned "religious extremism and radical politics" may continue to adversely impact on our core values. A reflection of that was visible in the state of Gujarat where about 2,000 Muslims were killed last year, and after that the ruling BJP had an overwhelming electoral victory in the state elections with the rampaging chief minister Patel ruling the roost ecstatically.

The dichotomy in the Indian approach to its neighbors is obvious, and it is a part of its game of strident power politics. Normally if India has fear of China's expanding strength all round it should come closer to Pakistan. It does not want to do that as it is in occupation of the valley of Kashmir and Jammu, and it does not want to surrender those territories to the people of Kashmir. But in the case of China, Beijing is charged by India with being in occupation of 40,000 square km of its territory, and that cannot be liberated militarily, as its failure in 1962 demonstrated. So it wants to be pragmatic in its approach to China and develop economic and cultural relations with it while seeking a settlement of the territorial dispute discreetly or patiently.

And India has also joined hands with the US which fears of the future role of China as its economy becomes the second largest in the world - with the US economy remaining the largest. India is also increasing its military cooperation with the US in addition to expanding its economic collaboration.

By increasing its cooperation with the US in various spheres it also hopes to make Washington less interested in Pakistan eventually and thereby weakening Pakistan's bargaining position. India has been looking for opportunities to weaken the close ties between the US and Pakistan, and it now feels it is gaining more ground now as the US quietly plans to isolate China to the extent possible over the time.

India has not been able to make great economic progress through socialist means earlier under Jawaharlal Nehru and its march forward economically has not been outstanding through the new market economy mode either. It has still 40 per cent of its people living below the poverty line of a dollar a day, if not more. And the poverty profile of India is not improving substantially following its half-hearted attempts, or because of its wrong priorities.

The poor masses are becoming more and more restive, particularly the lower caste orders.

India is trying to make up for its varied weakness by enhancing its military strength, as well by enlarging its range of nuclear armaments. It is obtaining a nuclear powered submarine from Russia as well as the latest bombers at a cost of three billion dollars. It is also signing a two billion deal with France to acquire Mirage fighter planes as well as submarines. And its billion dollars deal to acquire trainer planes has been under negotiations for long. And it has now been offered F-16 aircraft by Lockheed of the US. And it has a deal with Israel for a billion dollars worth of arms.

And its missile technology has been making steady headway with the varied ranges of its Prithvi and Agni missiles. And it is now said to be developing a nuclear-capable Agni-III missile.

Most of these fighter aircraft and submarines will be assembled in India to provide it with the capacity to develop such equipment by itself. Its armament-building capacity, is to be expanded steadily.

India is also becoming more and more of an arms exporter. It wants to follow Israel in this regard which will also enhance its diplomatic strength with the developing countries.

In such an environment it is not interested in talking to Pakistan to settle their disputes, particularly in respect of Kashmir. The fact is not that it is opposed to talking to Pakistan but it does not want to discuss Kashmir with Pakistan, while Pakistan insists that it is the core dispute between the two countries. So on one pretext or another, it wants to put off talking to Pakistan until Pakistan gives up talking of Kashmir in frustration. Hence, it has consistently opposed mediation in the Kashmir dispute by any other country, including the US and Russia.

The 12th SAARC summit scheduled for January last has been put off. And when the 11th SAARC summit took place in Katmandu last year Mr. Vajpayee refused to have a one-to-one meeting with President Pervez Musharraf. And so there is small hope of such a summit at Kuala Lumpur when the Non-Aligned Summit takes place there in May.

Despite the territorial dispute between China and India, New Delhi has been talking to China but the Indian leader refuses to talk to Pakistan arguing they cannot be talking as long as the cross-border infiltration in Kashmir takes place and Pakistan does not take adequate steps to check that. The US and the Western countries admit that the cross-border infiltration has come down to a considerable extent. But India insists on total stoppage which Pakistan may not be able to achieve in view of the difficult mountainous terrain. Pakistan has instead called for more UN observers along the Line of Control, but that is not acceptable to India which by now does not accept a UN role in Kashmir.

India's approach to the whole issue by now is more militaristic than diplomatic or political. India was on the point of going to war with Pakistan on two occasions last year, says the former army chief of staff Gen. Padmanabhan.

And recently the Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes threatened to completely wipe out Pakistan if it ever launched a nuclear attack against India. "We will suffer a little but there will be no Pakistan when we respond," he said. Such extreme language is a mark of the blood thirst of the Indian Defence Minister. What he does not realize is that in his attempt to wipe out Pakistan he would also be wiping out the peoples of Afghanistan, and parts of Iran and Central Asia, if not parts of India too if the fumes go there.

A report from New Delhi said that India intended to spend 95 billion dollars more on the most sophisticated arms in the next 15 years. It would do that following the 28.5 per cent increase in defence outlay it made in 2001.

India argues it could spend far more on defence as its defence spending is only around 3 per cent of its GDP, and it is now trying to be an arms exporter; but the real Indian strategy appears to be to force Pakistan spend more and more of its scarce financial resources on arms, and starve other sectors of the economy in the process. What the US did to the Soviet Union, which was over-armed but under-developed in other ways, India wants to do to Pakistan. Pakistan has to be wary of such a game. It has instead to develop as a wholesome country. And it has to rely more and more on the people of Kashmir to liberate themselves through their valiant freedom struggle. A people who have not given up their struggle for the last 13 years despite the loss of 80,000 lives and enormous loss of homes and hearth will not give that up now, and we have to have faith in them and support them politically and diplomatically.

India will never give up Kashmir, and Pakistan should give up its "futile policy" in respect of the disputed region, says the Indian Prime Minister. He says that India had accepted a long time ago the creation of Pakistan, but Pakistan had not accepted a united and secular India, he says.

He simultaneously called for improved economic and cultural ties to bring about an amicable settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

In such talk of the Indian leaders no thought is given to the aspirations of the people of Kashmir who have suffered for the last 50 years. If Pakistan forgets Kashmir, as the Indian premier counsels, that does not mean the people of Kashmir will forget their homeland and their rights within and let Delhi to rule them directly or through its proxies.

The Vision paper is not doing justice to the sub-continent with its 1.3 billion people when it says that India's 50-year-old disputes with its neighbours are not likely to be settled easily by 2020. Instead it should have suggested the means by which there could be more peaceful and less poor sub-continent. With greater economic cooperation between the states.

If India does not make earnest attempts in that direction more and more of the South Asian states with disputes with India would align themselves with China and seek its assistance, as Pakistan has been doing. And that may not be welcome at all to India.

The whole world wants India and Pakistan to settle their disputes peacefully. The US says the situation between India and Pakistan now is worse than the relations between the US and the Soviet Union in the days of the cold war. The minimum they want India and Pakistan to do is to talk to each other and try to solve their problem one after another or at least call for a freeze to their explosive disputes for a short while and then try to solve them. Several solutions are possible along with several approaches to them. But the first step is that leaders of the two countries meet. It is futile for India to argue the Kargil skirmish had made all talk between the two countries fruitless or dashed all hopes of success of such talks. Neighbouring countries cannot afford such a stance as they cannot cease to be neighbours ever.

P.S. Following President Musharraf's visit to Moscow the Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for talks between India and Pakistan to resolve their disputes, including Kashmir. Moscow realizes the importance of talks as the beginning of any kind of settlement between the two neighbors; but India refuses or wants talks excluding Kashmir which Pakistan rejects as that cannot break the ice between the two countries, when Pakistan holds Kashmir as the core dispute between them. Hence the stalemate continues.

Article Source : http://www.mediamonitors.net/sultanahmed3.html

--

Most of arms licences go to ministers, MPs

Wateen

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik has refused to disclose the identity of "four unknown persons" who were issued 713 licences of prohibited weapons by his ministry since 2008, while his deputy minister of Interior Tasneem Qureshi broke all previous records by issuing more than 250 such licences in his own name, enough to support a small private army of his own.

Guns on display

A list submitted in the National Assembly showed a total of 29,000 licences of both prohibited and non-prohibited weapons were issued by the interior ministry since 2008 when the PPP had come into power. Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira got about 135 arms licences.

Tasneem Qureshi had earlier come under fire in the recent meeting of the Senate body on interior after his involvement in the dubious issuance of licences was questioned by the participant of the meeting.

But, interestingly the government refused to give names of four persons who were issued over 700 licences of prohibited weapons. Under the rules, the government is bound to give details of names of each individual issued a prohibited bore licence but still the government kept mum over the identity of these four individuals. None of the parliamentarians also insisted upon knowing the identities of these individuals.

Following is the list of some of the powerful ministers and the MNAs who got licences of prohibited arms. The names of the minister and MPs will appear at different spaces in the following lines with different numbers of arms licences issued as they were taking licences from time to time.

MNA Saimina Khalid, 9; Rubina Sadaat Qaimkhani, 5; Naseer Bhutta, 20; Afzal Khokhar, 20; Minister of State for Interior Tasneem Qureshi, 70; Riaz Pirzada, 8; Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, 10; Roshan Din Juneo, 28; Bilal Yaseen, 18; Humaira Rokhri, 24; Nawab Ali Wasan, 18; Mir Ali Magsi, 18; Abdul Qadir Khanzada, 23; Water and Power Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, 26; Tourism Minister Attaur Rehman, 12; Anjum Aqeel Khan, 18; Petroleum Minister Naveed Qamar, 15; Senator Maulana Rahat Hussain, 68; Minister for Local Bodies Razzak Thaheem, 36; Environment Minister Hameedullah Afridi, 27; NWFP Chief Minister Amir Haider Hoti, 21; Ramesh Lal, 14; Defence Production Minister Abdul Qayyum Jatoi, 11; Noor Alam Khan, 8; Jam Yousuf, 11; Hina Rabbani Khar, 12; Parliamentary Secretary for Interior Ghulam Mujtaba kharal, 14; Minister of State for Interior Tasneem Qureshi, 42; Imran Hamid Shah, 39; Mian Javed Latif, 18; Senator Nasir Mengal, 33; Minister for Livestock Humayun Kurd, 25; MPA Nadir Magsi, 22; Amir Muqam, 21; Dost Muhammad Mazari, 36; Usman Khan Tarakai, 24; Nazar Gondal, 20; MPA Muhammad Amin Umrani, 50; Minister for Tourism Attaur Rehman, 37; Munir Orakzai, 24; Rana Tanveer Hussain, 59; Water and Power Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, 15; Raza Rabbani, 2; Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Farooq Sattar, 32; Maulana Fazlur Rehman, 10; Rukhsana Bangash, 17; Munir Orakzai, 16; Senator Lashkari Raisani, 24; Hameedullah Afridi, 38; Petroleum Minister Naveed Qamar, 15; Asfandyar Wali, 15; Minister for Local Bodies Razak Thaheem, 45; Malik Azmat, 68; NWFP CM Amir Haider Hoti, 27; Ramesh Lal, 25; Minister Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, 27; Minister of State for Interior Tasneem Qureshi, 42; Sheikh Waqas Akram, 26; Munir Orakzai, 30; Defence Minister Ch Ahmed Mukhtar, 25; Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, 23; NA Standing Committee for Interior Chairman Abdul Qadir Patel, 25; Qamar Zaman Kaira, 40; Minister for Railways Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, 32; Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, 15; Senator Saeed Hashmi, 37; Housing Minister Rehmatullah Kakar, 11; Senator Rahat Hussain, 85; Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, 44; Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, 46; Senator Faisal Raza Abidi, 30; Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar 26; Minister of State for Interior Tasneem Qureshi, 46; Minister for Labour Khurshid Shah, 15; Munir Orakzai, 26; Mahreen Bhutto, 24; Qamar Zaman Kaira, 23; Maulana Attaur Rehman, 56; Communication Minister Arbab Alamgir Khan, 40; Amir Muqam, 38; MNA Ayaz Amir, 29; Qamar Zaman Kaira, 48; Minister for Livestock Humayun Kurd, 26; Minister for Investment Waqar Ahmed Khan, 20; Health Minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin, 20; Tasneem Qureshi, 25; Labour Minister Khurshid Shah, 14; Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, 26; Jaffar Zaidi of Inter Risk (Pvt), 88; Maulana Fazlur Rehman, 20; Tasneem Qureshi, 39; Tasneem Qureshi, 33; Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, 39; Aftab Sherpao, 12; Makhdoom Amin Fahim, 16; Balochistan Governor Nawab Magsi, 33; MNA Faryal Talpur, 9; ex-Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah, 4; Wapda Chairman Shakeel Durrani, 100; the PPP president, 30; Ch Wajahat Hussain, 20; Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, 28 and others.

Article Source : http://news.wateen.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6277

-- 

India’s Controversial New War Doctrine

Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor has attracted much attention with his suggestion at a training command seminar that India is preparing for a 'two-front' war with Pakistan and China, Harsh V Pant comments for ISN Security Watch.

By Harsh V Pant for ISN Security Watch


Made in India sewer cover

General Kapoor underlined that this was being done as part of the larger process whereby the Indian army was revising its old war-fighting doctrine and bringing it in sync with the emerging strategic scenario so as to be able to successfully firm up its 'Cold Start' strategy.

After strengthening its offensive capabilities vis-à-vis Pakistan by creating a new southwestern army command in 2005, India is now concentrating on countering China effectively in the eastern sector. The Indian army chief said that there was now "a proportionate focus towards the western and northeastern fronts."

Pakistan reacted predictably by describing India's move as reflecting a "hegemonistic and jingoistic mindset" as well as accusing India of "betraying hostile intent," and urged the international community to take due notice of developments in India. Pakistani officials emphasized that their nation's "capability and determination to foil any nefarious designs against the security of Pakistan" should not be underestimated. Pakistan's reaction was expected, as the security establishment views this as an opportunity to once again press upon the Americans the need to keep Pakistani forces intact on the India-Pakistan border rather than fighting the Taliban forces on the border with Afghanistan.

China's response, on the other hand, was more measured, and it chose not to address the issue directly. The controversy arose at a time when the two states were beginning a new phase in their defense ties by initiating a dialogue at the level of defense secretaries. But Chinese analysts have expressed concerns in recent years about India's growing military ambitions and a purported shift in Indian defense strategy from a passive to an "active and aggressive" nature.

It was the Kargil conflict of 1999 that exposed Indian vulnerabilities as Pakistan realized that India did not have the capability to impose quick and effective retribution. The then-Indian army chief had famously commented that the forces would fight with whatever they had, underlining the frustration in the armed forces regarding their inability to procure the arms they needed. Only because the conflict remained largely confined to the 150-kilometer front of the Kargil sector did India manage to gain an upper hand by throwing the Pakistanis out of its side of the Line of Control (LoC). Then came the standoff between the Indian and Pakistani armies across the LoC after the Indian Parliament was attacked in 2001, and again India lacked the ability to impose any significant cost on Pakistan quickly and decisively because of the unavailability of suitable weaponry and night vision equipment needed to carry out swift surgical strikes.

The nuclear aspect is important because it is part of the reason that elements within the Pakistani security establishment have become more adventurous. Realizing that India would be reluctant to escalate the conflict because of the threat of it reaching the nuclear level, sections of the Pakistani military and intelligence have pushed the envelope on the sub-conventional front.

For India, this presents a structural conundrum: Nuclear weapons have made a major conventional conflict with Pakistan unrealistic, yet it needs to find a way to launch limited military action against Pakistan without crossing the nuclear threshold. Nuclear weapons have allowed Pakistan to shield itself from full-scale Indian retaliation as well as to attract international attention on the disputes in the sub-continent.

After Operation Parakram of 2001-02, the Indian army did try to evolve a new doctrine. This 'Cold Start' doctrine is basically an attempt to acquire the ability to fight limited wars under the nuclear umbrella. To resolve the dilemma confronting India post-1998, Indian strategists have focused on a military doctrine that might give them the ability to launch quick, decisive limited strikes against Pakistan to seize some territory before the international community could intervene, which can then be used as a post-conflict bargaining chip.

This doctrine is still evolving and its is not clear how effective it would be in making sure that the conflict remains limited as Pakistan might be forced to bring down its nuclear threshold to respond to this challenge. Moreover, the Indian army has found little support for this doctrine from the other two services, and the civilian government has shown no interest in this venture.

As a consequence, the 'Cold Start' doctrine has continued to be in the limelight as India's national security establishment has searched for policy options vis-à-vis Pakistan. Yet this doctrine remains a work in progress. Execution of this doctrine would need the right kind of equipment, something India will have to acquire on a priority basis.

The army will need to upgrade its capabilities significantly if it is to implement this approach. And to do this it will have to surmount a number of entrenched problems in the defense procurement system.

The 1999 and 2001 crises forced the government to react by boosting defense expenditures, but political compulsions re-asserted themselves soon after. When the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government came to power in 2004, it ordered investigations into several of the arms acquisition deals of the previous government. A series of defense procurement scandals since the late 1980s have made the bureaucracy risk-averse, thereby delaying the acquisition process. The labyrinthine bureaucratic processes involved in military procurement have left the defense forces unable to spend a large proportion of their budgets.

While Pakistan has rapidly acquired US technology over the last several years through involvement in the war on terror and China's military modernization has gathered momentum, the modernization of the Indian army has slipped behind by as much as a decade.

The Indian army chief stated the obvious recently when he talked of India preparing for a "two-front" war. It is the job of the Indian armed forces to prepare for such wars given the security threats that India faces from its neighbors, just as the Pakistani and Chinese military take into account the possibility of a future conflict with India. But it must be kept in perspective that unlike in Pakistan and China, strategic policymaking in India is the sole preserve of the political leadership and Indian policymakers are yet to sign on to this much talked about new doctrine.

Harsh Pant is a lecturer at King's College London. His research interests include WMD proliferation, US foreign policy and Asia-Pacific security issues. He is also presently a Visiting Fellow at CASI, University of Pennsylvania.

Article Source : http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=111662

--

Indian water theft

The Nation

A recent report, which warns that water theft by India on the river Chenab on a wide scale, involving diversion of thousands of cusecs of water could result in crop failure on 10 million acres of land on Pakistani soil, is alarming. This particular form of water theft is being carried out with the help of powerful pumps installed across the border along the rivers and their tributaries flowing into Pakistan. Basically, it speaks volumes about the cunning ways, which our archenemy can invariably conjure up when it comes to doing us harm. Reportedly, these pumps have cut off 48 thousand cusecs of water flowing into Pakistan and crops, including wheat and sugarcane, are at serious risk of getting spoiled. It goes without saying that if these Indian machinations succeed; we are in for a big trouble. The pity is that the government with its Indus Water Commission appears to be in a state of denial, not taking up the matter with the Indians in the manner it ought to be.

This is hardly the time for dithering. The possibility of destruction of crops on account of water theft on river Chenab means that a food crisis of elephantine proportions is heading our way. The country is still bearing the scars of last year's wheat crisis. Another one should be avoided at all costs as its effects would cripple the economy. What is worse, it is not just Chenab but all the rivers where India has reduced the water flowing into Pakistani territory by diverting and storing them in various dams built in contravention of the Indus Waters Treaty. Currently, it is building 50 more dams in the occupied valley so as to completely turn us into an agricultural wasteland. Already a number of important canals and tributaries acting as a lifeline to the country's agriculture have dried up because of these frequent water thefts. Farmers in the countryside are in a virtual catch-22 situation, unable to water their crops.

It is not just New Delhi whose nefarious designs would have to be foiled but our so-called ally the USA. With the latest US endorsement of its aggressive policies by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who declared that New Delhi wont stop from attacking Pakistan in case of a Mumbai-like attack in the future, our foe has been further emboldened to weaken us. Given all this trouble brewing up and the conspiracies being hatched, Islamabad must wake up from its slumber. The water crisis is no laughing matter. For the moment, Pakistan must answer New Delhi's dilatory tactics by seeking the arbitration of the World Bank.

Article Source : http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Editorials/26-Jan-2010/Indian-water-theft/

--

NATO head says Taliban will not win

Asia Times Online

In an interview with RFE/RL, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that he expected concrete results from this week's London conference on Afghanistan.

Speaking to RFE/RL correspondent Abubakar Siddique, Rasmussen also said that the NATO mission in Afghanistan was not an "occupation force". "We will stay as long as it takes to finish our job, but our ultimate goal is to hand over responsibility to the Afghan people," he said.

RFE/RL: The Afghan government is expected to present a detailed plan for reconciliation with the Taliban in London. Previous plans have failed to win international backing due to a lack of resources and political backing. Is there any reason to believe the situation is any different today?

Anders Fogh Rasmussen: Yes, I think the situation will be very different, firstly, because there is now political support, and secondly, because I would expect the international community to provide funds for a reconciliation-and-reintegration effort. Having said that, I also need to stress that this reconciliation-and-reintegration process must be led by the Afghan government and I take it for granted that the groups involved in that will accept and abide by the Afghan constitution and democracy.

RFE/RL: Is anyone in the Western coalition really talking to authoritative figures among the Taliban in Afghanistan in the run-up to the London conference? What have they indicated?

AFR: No, as I said before, it is crucial that a reconciliation-and-reintegration process is led by the Afghan government. We will and we can, of course, assist if the Afghan government so wishes. But I think it is crucial that there is an Afghan ownership to this process.

RFE/RL: Why would the Taliban buy into reconciliation while they claim to be winning the war?

AFR: Well, they will not win. We will prevail. They will not regain power in Afghanistan, first of all, because the Afghan people want freedom and democracy, they don't want the Taliban back, and secondly, because we have made very important decisions on the way ahead. We have increased the number of troops significantly. We will develop the capacity of the Afghan security forces. We will train Afghan soldiers and Afghan police and, gradually, Afghan soldiers and Afghan police will take over the responsibility for the security. And finally, the international community will provide more funds for development in Afghanistan and, in that respect, the Afghan government has also committed itself to a strengthened fight against corruption and the drug trade and, in general, committed itself to deliver better governance. So, for all these reasons, we will see new momentum and new progress in Afghanistan in 2010.

RFE/RL: Related to this topic, in an interview, General Stanley McChrystal [US military chief in Afghanistan] said that he believed any Afghan could potentially play a role in the future government of their country, if they focused on the future. Do you share his opinion? If leading Taliban are going to be brought into the government, is the definition of victory shifting in Afghanistan? How would you define victory in that country?

AFR: Well, I will speak about success, and success will be to hand over responsibility for security to the Afghan people, to the Afghan security forces. The ultimate goal should be that the Afghan people become masters in their own house and take responsibility for running and securing [their] own country.

We are there right now to protect the Afghan people. We are there to assist [them] in developing a stable society and a stable democracy. And I can assure you that we will stay committed as long as it takes to finish our job. NATO and ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] is not an occupation force. We will stay as long as it takes to finish our job, but our ultimate goal is to hand over responsibility to the Afghan people.

RFE/RL: Mr secretary general, shifting gears to another issue, media reports suggest that NATO is planning to create a top civilian post in Afghanistan. Why do you think it is needed and how will it affect the pace of reconstruction in the country given that NATO has had a senior civil representative in Kabul for years?

AFR: And that is exactly the point. We have already a civilian representative in Kabul. However, we do believe that there is a strong need for better organization and better coordination of the civilian assistance to Afghanistan. We would also like to improve our capability to cooperate with the Afghan government and with other international actors in Kabul. There is also a strong need for better coordination among the so-called provincial reconstruction teams that work locally in Afghanistan. And to that end, we need an enhanced office of our civilian representative. So we will ensure an enhanced office, and I will also, in the near future, appoint a new civilian NATO representative in Kabul.

RFE/RL: On the issue of training Afghan forces, while Western allies are pushing Afghan security forces to rapidly expand in number in order to take over security responsibilities, many Afghans do not feel enough is being done to equip the country with modern weaponry. Assuming NATO troops will, sooner or later, be leaving Afghanistan, what kind of military infrastructure do you envision leaving behind? Will NATO continue to provide air support for the foreseeable future?

AFR: All this will very much depend on the development in Afghanistan. As I said, our goal is to hand over the lead responsibility for security to the Afghan security forces, and therefore we will now train and educate Afghan soldiers and Afghan police. And we appreciate very much that the Afghan government has decided to increase the number of security forces to a level of around 300,000 by 2011. And of course we will ensure that the Afghan security forces are appropriately equipped. How this will take place in details will of course very much depend on the security challenges in the coming years."

RFE/RL: Continuing with the security theme, considering the presence of some questionable characters, including warlords and other powerbrokers, within the government, what challenges does arming Afghans and providing them with military training present?

AFR: Well, we know from experience that the Afghan security forces actually do a great job. The fact is that the Afghan security forces are in the lead of two-thirds of the planned military operations in Afghanistan and this fact testifies to the capacity and determination of the Afghan security forces. Afghan soldiers are good fighters and I don't think there's any reason to believe that they will not support the Afghan government and the Afghan democracy, because at the end of the day, it is also a support of the Afghan people.

RFE/RL: Moving on to a larger strategic question, everybody involved in the Afghan struggle has used President Barack Obama's troop-withdrawal deadline to advance their interests. The Afghan Taliban are clearly holding out. Sensing a loss of foreign forces, the Afghan government is trying to hold onto its power and gains while the Pakistani military is using it as a reason for not going after Afghan Taliban sanctuaries. Given that all this is not conducive to a peaceful resolution in Afghanistan, should Obama rethink his talk about deadlines?

AFR: But, actually, President Obama has not spoken about an exit from Afghanistan. What he has announced is an evaluation of our mission by 2011, which I think is reasonable. I mean, we have just decided to increase the number of troops significantly, and we do hope to see substantial progress in the coming 12 to 18 months. So in my opinion, it makes sense to take stock of the situation by mid-2011.

But President Obama has not spoken about a withdrawal from Afghanistan. As I said before, we will stay as long as it takes to secure the country. I can assure you that the international coalition will not leave Afghanistan until the country is able to stand on its own feet. [They] will not be left behind. So 2011 will be an important year to take stock of the situation, but it will be a condition-based approach. Hopefully the situation will allow us gradually transfer security responsibility to the Afghan security forces. But it will be based on the condition that Afghan soldiers and Afghan police are really capable to take care of their security."

RFE/RL: One brief question at the end, Mr secretary general. What concrete commitments and specific goals are you looking to walk away from London with?

AFR: Well, I would like and I also expect two concrete results from the London conference. Firstly, that we agree on the overall framework for a transition to lead Afghan responsibility for the security. We have to make sure that the transition for responsibility to the Afghan security forces takes place in a coordinated manner. And I think we will take a decision on it at the London conference.

And secondly I would expect that the international community as well as the Afghan government commit themselves to a reinforced civilian reconstruction and development in Afghanistan. So I think, the London conference will further contribute to the new momentum and progress we will see in Afghanistan in 2010.

Copyright (c) 2010, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC 20036

Article Source : http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LA27Df01.html

--

Al-Qaeda's shadow over Taliban talks

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - With an international conference starting in London on Thursday expected to lay down a framework for the Afghan government to begin taking charge of its own security, in line with a timetable set by United States President Barack Obama to start drawing down US troops in 2011, efforts for reconciliation with the Taliban are also being stepped up.

However, sources directly involved in backchannel negotiations with the Taliban tell Asia Times Online they are skeptical of the Taliban being reconciled as the militants scent victory in Afghanistan and hence are not prepared to show any flexibility in their demands, the key one of which is that all foreign troops leave Afghanistan.

At the conference in London, Afghan President Hamid Karzai will unveil a British- and United States-backed plan for "reintegration" of segments of the Taliban. He is also expected to seek international funding to offer jobs and inducements to bring insurgents into the mainstream political process - the amount of US$1 billion has been mentioned. To this end, parliamentary elections in Afghanistan have been postponed from May to September, although ostensibly because the Independent Election Commission said it needed more funds.

Karzai is also pushing for Taliban names to be removed from a United Nations blacklist that imposes travel restrictions and asset freezes. "[They should be] welcome to come back to their country, lay down arms and resume life as citizens of Afghanistan, enjoying the privileges and the rights and the guarantees given by the Afghan constitution," Karzai said.

He is also reported as saying that his Western allies fully back his plans for reconciliation with the Taliban - provided they are not "key members" of the movement, that they are not allied with al-Qaeda and that they renounce violence.

"The red line is links to al-Qaeda," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was quoted in the media this week as saying.

Herein lies the rub.

A December briefing prepared by the top US intelligence official in Afghanistan, Major General Michael Flynn, concludes that "the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is increasingly effective". With regard to al-Qaeda, the 23-page briefing quotes Taliban detainees as saying that the Taliban see al-Qaeda as a "handicap"; however, it adds that al-Qaeda "provides facilitation, training and some funding" to the Taliban and predicts that "perceived insurgent success will draw foreign fighters" into Afghanistan.

A former Arab mujahid who fought in Afghanistan and who claims to have been in direct communication with senior al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, has told Asia Times Online that the relationship between al-Qaeda and the Taliban is much deeper.

He said that following the leaking last year of a report by the US's top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, that tens of thousands more US troops would be sent into Afghanistan, bin Laden met with Taliban leader Mullah Omar in the Afghan province of Helmand in October - apparently their first meeting in a long time.

According to the Arab fighter, the meeting marked a watershed in relations between the Taliban and al-Qaeda as the leaders agreed on closer relations and better coordination in the war against the Western coalition in Afghanistan. Further, they agreed that any invitation for dialogue was a ploy to lure the Taliban into a trap.

While there was apparently some disagreement on the issue of carrying out attacks in Pakistan, the leaders agreed on a joint macro strategy until the "complete defeat" of the foreign forces in Afghanistan. Mullah Omar, the fighter claims, was particularly impressed that bin Laden made the risky journey over the Hindu Kush mountains into southwestern Afghanistan.

Preparing to talk

The Pakistan military is at the forefront of efforts to set up talks with the Taliban, and Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province, Quetta, capital of Balochistan province, and the national capital, Islamabad, have been scheduled as venues.

A next level of dialogue could then take place in the United Arab Emirates, where a former UAE ambassador is attempting to get Taliban representatives to meet with US, British and Saudi Arabian officials.

The Muslim Brotherhood is also expected to be involved in getting people to the dialogue table, as are various individuals. These include Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s. One of them is Iraqi Mehmood al-Samarrai, alias Abul Judh, who was previously wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for supporting the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. He currently lives in Pakistan and is working to get some Taliban commanders to talk to Saudi officials.

However, a senior Arab diplomat who has been directly involved in some backchannel negotiations with the Taliban told Asia Times Online that one of the problems any talks faced was that neither side had changed its basic position: the Taliban want an unconditional withdrawal of all foreign troops, while Western leaders want the Taliban to immediately stop all hostilities.

The diplomat also said he believed the Barack Obama administration was desperate to slow down the advances of the Taliban, given that the US Democrats had recently suffered a crucial setback in a senate election. Ahead of mid-term elections in the US in November, the party could not afford any more major embarrassments in Afghanistan, such as the suicide attack on a US spy base last year and the recent attacks in the heart of Kabul, the capital.

The dialogue initiative, whether or not motivated in part by the US's desire to buy time, could, however, turn out to be another embarrassment.

If, as the Arab fighter claims, the links between the Taliban and al-Qaeda now run deeper than is generally reported, it would rule out any chance of senior Taliban commanders being reconciled: firstly, they would not want to switch, given their newfound loyalty to Mullah Omar and al-Qaeda. And secondly, if some did conceivably seek reconciliation, they would presumably be "barred" anyway for having links to al-Qaeda.

Lower-level Taliban could well be lured from the movement, but it is doubtful they would leave in sufficient numbers, and the leadership would still be intact to drive the resistance.

Previous reconciliation attempts have also done little to affect the Taliban's leadership.

Within the Taliban, the institution of the ameerul momineen (commander of the faithful) plays a vital role. Any defiance towards ameerul momineen (Mullah Omar) means to become an outcast from the Taliban's ranks and the person immediately loses his following.

An example is former Taliban commander Abdul Salam Rocketi, who was powerful in the southern province of Zabul. Several years ago, he switched sides and he is now a member of parliament. He was quickly replaced by little-known youths, to whom the rank-and file immediately gave their full support. The same would happen now should any commander defy Mullah Omar: he will have to leave his region and move to Kabul.

The dialogue initiative has been started, though, and efforts in this direction can be expected to intensify following this week's meeting in London.

For the Afghan war theater, the claimed new coordination agreement between al-Qaeda and Taliban will see the Taliban stick to their guns, literally.

In the broader context, al-Qaeda says in the coming months it will concentrate on Saudi Arabia to put Riyadh under immense pressure to pull back from its support of the US-led "war on terror".

In Pakistan, meanwhile, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban), which has reorganized in Orakzai Agency after the military operations in the Waziristan tribal areas, will re-engage the army in an effort to force the political leadership not to become involved in the reconciliation efforts between Washington and the Afghan Taliban.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

Article Source : http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LA27Df02.html

--

India's cricket blunder

Snubbing Pakistani cricketers to make a point in Islamabad is not a clever deployment of Indian soft power

Kapil Komireddi

Cricket used to be a charmingly lazy sport which gave its players the illusion of activity. But since the advent of the Indian Premier League, cricket has been transmogrified into a vulgar event in which the centerpiece itself is often pushed to the periphery. The IPL's fixtures are sustained by fireworks, film stars, and blonde cheerleaders imported from America; there is even a beauty pageant, "Miss IPL", whose winner is promised a role in a movie opposite one of the owners of the franchises. At best, the IPL is glamorous circus, a kitschified form of cricket, not serious sport.

Last week, the ringmasters of the circus put on a nauseating display of discrimination. At an auction to pick the players for the eight franchises that compete in the IPL, not a single Pakistani player was recruited. Pakistan reacted furiously. Mobs mobilised quickly to burn effigies of Lalit Modi, the head of the IPL; charges were levelled against the Indian government for conspiring to keep Pakistan out; and a parliamentary delegation due to visit India abruptly cancelled its trip.

If Pakistanis are calling the exclusion of their cricketers a conspiracy, it is because it looks very much like one. The IPL initially claimed that a potential problem with visas was the reason why franchise owners did not bid for Pakistani players: as a profit-making business venture, the IPL could not afford to take risks by paying for players whose participation could not be underwritten by the state authorities. If that is the case, why were Pakistani players included in the auction pool in the first place? Besides, losses from the possible denial of visas could easily have been restricted with a clause subjecting the contract's activation to a successful visa application. Instead, 11 Pakistani players were cleared for auction on 6 January - only to be utterly humiliated at the on 19 January. Unknown abecedarians were acquired for hundreds of thousands of dollars, while the reigning world champions of 20-20 cricket were uniformly snubbed. The Indian government's role in this affair is rather murky. First came the official denial: New Delhi had nothing to do with the IPL's decision. This was promptly followed up with a gratuitous piece of advice - telling Pakistan to "introspect on the reasons" for its players' rejection - which seemed to suggest that New Delhi had something to do with it.

To conservative commentators, this development represents a dual triumph: not only was Pakistan tamed - it was tamed by the private sector. Rising to the IPL's defence, the journalist Ashok Malik argued that, given the focus on individual stars, the franchises' reluctance to recruit Pakistani players was reasonable. "If one of these [promotional campaigns] focused on a Pakistani cricketer," he wrote, "and happened to coincide with, say, a terror incident linked to Islamist groups across the border, it may become inconvenient." Malik here is grafting his own bigotry on to his compatriots: surely, Indian audiences can make a distinction between an "Islamist" terrorist and a Pakistani cricketer? And if they cannot, then they deserve to be condemned, not pandered to.

The belief that this boycott is somehow a clever deployment of Indian soft power is similarly misplaced. Far from forcing the Pakistani state into rethinking its policy toward India, it will serve merely to demoralise Pakistan's beleaguered civil society - a constituency whose support and goodwill India desperately needs. Consider the humiliation from ordinary Pakistanis' point of view. There will be over 70 foreign cricketers participating in the IPL - including, oddly, 26 from Australia, where Indian students have been subjected to endless attacks - but not even one from their cricket-mad country. Some of the world's best cricketers are being subjected to a cricketing apartheid for the failures of their state. To its neighbours in South Asia, India, with its newfound prosperity, looks increasingly like an arrogant giant that is keen to starve its opponents to extinction. The IPL has contributed to that image.

Article Source : http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/26/india-pakistan-cricket-auction

--

Muslim profiling is a recipe for insecurity

The profiling of ordinary Muslims loses the support of the very people we need to contain al-Qaeda

Ed Husain

Here we go again. Another botched terrorist attack, and a much-needed excuse for some agenda-driven American ideologues to demand opening "new fronts" in the "war on terror", with "profiling" of Muslims at airports expected to be at the core of the airport security review announced yesterday by Gordon Brown. I am sorry, but that thinking is wrong, flawed, and will make matters worse.

Yemen is not a willing home to al-Qaeda - it is victim to an ideology exported from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. In our desire to blame and, eventually, bomb, let us not forget the other Yemen: one of the last bastions of traditional, serene Islam. Yemeni Sufis have been imparting their version of normative Islam for centuries through trade and travel. Hundreds of British Muslims have been studying in Yemen's pristine Islamic institutions. They have returned to Britain connected to an ancient chain of spiritual knowledge and now lead several Muslim communities with the Sufi spirit of love for humans, dedication to worship, and service to Islam.

For me, empowering and supporting this Yemeni Islam against the rigid, literalist, supremacist Wahhabite ideology of our Saudi allies in Riyadh is a sure recipe for eventual victory. But will we dare upset the House of Saud? It seems unlikely. President Obama literally bowed before the Saudi king in London last year.

We are now being told that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) runs terrorist camps and this justifies "pre-emptive strikes" on Yemen. But what is AQAP except leading Saudi terrorists - Naser al-Wahishi and Said al-Shihri - who have now set up shop in Yemen, with a ragtag army of 200 men? Who is Osama Bin Laden except a Saudi who wanted political reforms in his own country, failed, and then turned his guns on the western backers of the Saudi regime?

Time and again, from September 11 to the attempted Detroit-bound airline attack last week, there are Saudi fingerprints - ideological and practical - on terrorist attacks and yet western powers stab in the dark in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now possibly Iran and Yemen with the unconvincing language of making us safer in our streets here.

In both Britain and America demands for profiling all Muslims at airports are increasing in volume. This mindset not only fails to understand that most Muslims around the world detest al-Qaeda, but this outlook also cannot comprehend how terrorists are always one step ahead of the game. If it is Muslim-sounding names that are to be stopped, would a name like Richard Reid - the infamous shoe bomber - have been detected? If it is Asian men that are to be stopped, then we will see an increase in white men recruited for terror?

After all, al-Qaeda's English spokesperson is Adam Gadahn, a white American. If it is men who are stopped, we will see women terrorists emerge. Let us not forget Palestinian groups' repeated use of single women as suicide bombers. Do not underestimate the power of terrorists to recruit serving airline pilots and other aviation personnel. Where there is a will, there will always be a way.

The profiling of ordinary Muslims not only opens other avenues for al-Qaeda, but results in the harassment and potential loss of support from the very people we need on our side to contain al-Qaeda: ordinary Muslims. Without mainstream Muslims on side, western powers cannot deal al-Qaeda and its associates the blow that it deserves. After all, it was the Muslim father of the Nigerian would-be plane bomber who alerted the US embassy in Lagos six weeks before last week's attempted attack. Muslim families are our first line of defence against terrorism. Can we afford to lose that unseen, unappreciated buffer against extremists?

In the end, this is a battle of ideas. No amount of drone attacks in Pakistan, troops in Afghanistan, occupation of Iraq and air raids in Yemen will stem terrorism. Violence breeds violence.

The strongest weapons available to our enemies are ideas of religious supremacy and perennial confrontation, backed with logistical networks, and repressive political conditions that help strengthen their narrative and network. Unless we in the west can combat their ideas with better ideas, puncture the alluring narrative of victimhood politics, question their self-assured martyrdom, and end perceptions of incessant enmity with non-Muslims then we will be confined to dealing with symptoms of terrorist attacks rather than healing the underlying causes. Nearly a decade after 9/11, when compared with military budgets, where is investment in these soft-power, counter radicalisation projects? The silence says it all.

Article Source : http://warincontext.org/2010/01/02/muslim-profiling-is-a-recipe-for-insecurity/

--