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What started as whispers of suspicion in Islamabad and then became a cacophony of skepticism has now become a crescendo of accusations. The triumphalist Bharati (aka Indian) press has islands of unbiased journalism. Those islands have been obsequiously quiescent.

The enigma of Mumbai: Some questions

It is amazing that after several weeks of the militancy, the Bharati government has been unable or unwilling to produce a man that they claim is called “Ajmal Kassab”. The man is supposed to have belonged to Faridkot. Amazingly this man from a village is Punjab was able to write a letter to the Pakistani High Commission in Hindi in the Sanskrit script.

Mumbai terror: No links to Pakistan’s ISI-US official

Islamabd rejects any involvement of Pakistanis in Mumbai terror: No proof given

India testing Pakistani defenses: Nuclear War tension not over!

..so far so good…but what about the next attack? Indo-Pakistan on the edge!

Is Mumbai terror an inside job? *

No solid proof or any evidence has been provided to Pakistan except for toothpaste and cell phone pictures.

Mumbai False Flag? Some inexplicable questions for India

The question that many are asking, “is the only surviving militant” now dead? What earthly reason could there be for not producing Bharat’s star witness in front of the glare of international cameras. If Mr. “Kassab” is singing like a bird and accusing Pakistan, then what better diplomatic coup for Bharat then to put him in front of CNN?

The reluctance of Bharat to produce Mr. “Kassab” in front of Interpol, the FBI or Pakistani investigators is not only appalling it fuels the conspiracy theories that are floating around South Asia.

If Bharat wants to come clean on the Mumbai militancy it should agree to a joint India-Pakistan investigation with American participation. The US wants a joint Bharat (aka India) investigation commission where all facts about the case would be bared.

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday charged Pakistan with using “terrorism as an instrument of state policy” and indicted that its state agencies were a party to the attacks, Islamabad offered a “joint investigation commission to be supervised by the respective national security advisers” and the dispatch of a high-level delegation from New Delhi to Pakistan.

Although this offer was rejected in biting accents by the Indian government, the US appears to have plumped for it. Stopping short of calling for a joint investigation, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who was on a visit to Pakistan earlier this week, appreciated the steps taken by Islamabad so far. He said as more information was uncovered, sharing and follow-up mechanism should also be enhanced. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported that the US wanted a joint investigation commission on which it is a member along with India and Pakistan.  Mumbai attacks: US moves in to calm down India, Pak.  KS Manjunath / New Delhi January 08, 2009, 0:31 IST

Some are now speculating that Mr. “Kassab” who is already dead will “die” while trying to escape from police custody or simply be killed by a fellow prisoner. Another favorite Bharatiexcuse is “accidental death” in the prison.

Whether Mr. “Kassab” is alive or not the Bharti diplomatic misinformation is surely dead. Overtaken by Gaza news clips, the usual world propensity for ADD (Attenttion Deficit Disorder) and the end of the media news cycle with rarelylasts more then 36 hours no one is interested in Delhi griping about the ISI–something it has been doing for the past several decades. It may be the case of “crying wolf” too many times. Many remember 1971 when Bharat made a huge hullabaloo about the the hijacking of the Ganga (an Indian airliner ostensibly hijacked by “Kashmiris). The entire event was stage managed by RAW to give Bharat an excuse to stop Pakistani overflights over Bharat. Bharat also made a huge fuss over the Samjohta Express. It later turned out that an active member of the Indian armed forces was responsible for blowing the Pakistani train to bits killing dozens of Pakistanis on board. The list of Indian deception is long.

Much of the Mumbai militancy has been hijacked by the political parties in both Bharat and Pakistan. In Bharat there is a game of one-up-manship between the Congress and the “government in waiting” the BJP. The BJPs accuses the Congress of not doing enough against Pakistan and the Congress like pumped up like a blimps has taken a minor incident and madeit into an international Pakistan bashing event–complete with bongo drums and the dogs of war. Analysis of Delhi’s bigoted “Bomb Islamabad” syndrome

Taken aback by the ferocity of Delhi’s propaganda blitz, some fissures are apparent in Pakistan also. A section of the political spectrum wants to use the Mumbai militancy to malign the army and settle old scores with the ISI which they blame for many of ills in Pakistan. Hence the firing of Mr. Durrani who wanted to make hay for his personal benefitby appearing to be unbiased. His firing may also have something to do with the tensions between the office of the Prime Minister and the President. Pakistan: Hawks reign. Doves wane. Durrani Fired for misstatement on Kasab

Pakistan Senate wants to dump pro-US policy

All this happening when the US couldn’t be bothered with the squabbling in South Asia. All Washington cares about is the war in Afghanistan and its “East India Company” (American multinationals) selling a lot of goods. This mercantile behaviour labeled “strategic partnership” and “natural alliance” has made a mockery of Bharat’s traditional support for third world issues. Blame Game: Blaming Pakistan is perilous

Mr. Fareed Zakari’as pontification aside, Bharati prestige has been hurt internationally. Its squabling with Islamabad has shown the worth the internal fractures within the country, internationalized the Kashmir issue and brought focus to the plight of the Indian Muslims

Bharat on the wrong side of history during the USSR occupation of Afghanistan is now caught again on the wrong side of history by supporting the American occupation of Kabul and beyond. Like yesteryear, as soon as the puppets leave Kabul Bhaarti diplomats and businessmen will be sent packing.

Recent press reports circulating in Washington state that the USA has planned a “surge and talk” strategy which includes bringing back the “moderate” elements of the “Taliban”. Chagrined Delhi is scared of this outcome and many speculate the the Mumbai drama or at the very least, the drama after the event, was staged to try to change the mind of the new administration.

The most recent statements by the closest advisors of President Obama seem to suggest that Mr. Obama’s policy shall remainunaltered in the aftermath of the Mumbai militancy.

South Asia Obama to unveil new policy: Marshal Plan & end to bombing raids in Pakistan

Posted in Current Affairs, India CA, Pak CA   Tagged: Ajmal Kassab, India, Mumbai militancy, Pakistan   

Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | RUPEE NEWS | Janauary 6th, 2009 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ |

Robert Dreyfuss has written a very interesting article.  Apparently Joseph Biden, Bruce Riedel, Wendy Chamberlin and the other members of the Obama team have been doing their homework. Amazingly the new Barack Obama plan continas many of the elements suggested by Rupee News over the past few years on our pages. Peek into Obama’s brains: Bruce Reidel on Pakistan.Dryfuss’ commentary in the liberal “The Nation” and many others like it have the following main themes.

1) Bring Peace to Afghanistan by a variety of means. Question the reason for being in Afghanistan. Increase the number of soldiers. Bruce Riedel: Much of Pakistan’s problems originate in Afghanistan 

2) Support Democracy in Pakistan. Increase aid and convince the Pakistanis that supporting America’s war is to benefit them. Pakistanis to USA: We want “Friends Not Masters” 

3) Create peace between Bharat (aka India) and Pakistan by convincing the Pakistan army that the threat is on the Western border not the Eastern border. Is Delhi preventing the 4th Battle of Panipat or instigating it?

Afghanistan Lost? Barnett Rubin & Maleeha Lodhi et al answer at Harvard. It is crystal clear that the US is pursuing a strategically flawed policy and therefore all peace efforts come unstuck at the end of the day. Most of the analysts have consensus on one point: the peace in Pakistan is indispensable for peace in Afghanistan. The support from Pakistan can be secured only when the latter feels secure. In the presence of air strikes on Pakistan’s tribal areas and the increasing clout of India along border of Pakistan, we have legitimate grounds to feel threatened and thus the US risks the alienation of Pakistan’s support. Moreover, the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil reinforces the impression of puppet government about the Karzai administration and it proves grist to the Taliban. New US strategy in Afghanistan Nauman Asghar

India is not blameless here. It was pursuing a two-pronged strategy - making the argument that all was well in Kashmir (a blatant lie) and supporting ethnic confrontation in Pakistan. Violent intelligence wars between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) have become a brutal reality in South Asia. Guatemala Times. South Asia at War. WEDNESDAY, 07 JANUARY 2009 09:39 HASSAN ABBAS

The lengthy article by Robert Dryfus makes the following salient points about the new policy of President Barack Obama. http://www.zimbio.com/World+Politics/articles/1951/Obama+wants+build+long+lasting+friendship 

 

• repudiation of the strident “global war on terror”. Can Obama use his diverse background to build a better world? 
• Campaign sloganeering aside, Obama may try to curtail the indiscriminate use of air power in Afghanistan against often ill-defined targets (”just air raiding villages and killing civilians” was how he put it in 2007. Pakistani-Americans ask Obama to ease rhetoric about bombing targets in Pakistan.  Establishing parameters in the US-Pakistan relationship
• slow down, if not halt, the provocative cross-border attacks into Pakistani tribal areas. ts over before the lady sings! Impact of Obama on GWOT 
• a central part of a new US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan must be to facilitate a peace process between Pakistan and India, its giant neighbor to the east. Battle of Panipat’s impact today: Are the Taliban part of the perpetual wave of invasions from the Khyber Pass? 
• surging troops into Afghanistan would be akin to sending the fabled 600 into the valley of death
• What began as a punitive raid aimed at beheading Al Qaeda and chastising its Afghan household staff has somehow morphed–with no real discussion or debate–into a prolonged effort to pacify Afghanistan and transform its society,”
• Pakistani state is being pushed to the breaking point by the Bush administration. Since August, nearly two dozen CIA Predator missile attacks in tribal areas have inflamed much of the country against the United States. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MUSHARRAF: Beyond the headlines
• Already, before the spate of attacks, public opinion polls showed that 86 percent of Pakistanis say the goal of the United States is to “weaken and divide the Islamic world,” 84 percent say the United States is a greater threat than Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and 89 percent oppose Pakistan’s cooperation with the US “war on terror.”
• Many Pakistanis blame the United States for its fifty-year record of propping up military dictators, which makes it hard for the United States to support even its allies, such as President Zardari. “Right now, we’re kind of the kiss of death,” says Marvin Weinbaum, a scholar at the Middle East Institute who was part of Obama’s Pakistan task force.
• Part of the solution, stressed by all of Obama’s aides, is more economic support to both countries, targeted toward building infrastructure, improving agriculture, providing microcredit for small business and constructing schools and clinics. http://www.zimbio.com/World+Politics/articles/1161/Marshall+Plan+Pakistan+will+eliminate+insurgency 
• Obama calls a Marshall Plan-style mobilization, is also under way. Obama threats kills Pakistani stock market. Billions lost. Foreign capital leaves in respone to Obama claptrap
• “What the insurgents do seem to agree about is that foreigners shouldn’t run their country, and that the country should be run according to the principles of Islam
• “We need to recall the reason we went to Afghanistan in the first place,” he says. “Our purpose was…to deny the use of Afghan territory to terrorists with global reach. That was and is an attainable objective. It is a limited objective that can be achieved at reasonable cost. We must return to a ruthless focus on this objective. We cannot afford to pursue goals, however worthy, that contradict or undermine it. The reform of Afghan politics, society and mores must wait.”

Washington should end its over reliance on air force that is millstone around its neck as it results into innocent civilian killings, thus occasioning estrangement of civilian population. It also provides the Taliban space to spread their extremist ideology among the desperate population. The revised strategy should also include serious reconstruction efforts with the founding of robust state institutions and initiating economic projects. At present Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of opium that enters the global market and is used in preparation of heroine. In order to eradicate poppy cultivation, the rejuvenation of agricultural system is necessary enabling the destitute farmers to eke out their living by growing food crops. The local farmers must be ensured return of proper prices, but this cannot be accomplished without curtailing the influence of warlords. There is need to launch a marshall plan aimed at overhauling the economic structure, exploiting the country’s resources and return the benefit to the local population. The US should invest in building a strong economic base instead of spending more and more on military deployment. New US strategy in Afghanistan Nauman Asghar

One of the most interesting revelations of the Bush Administration’s policy was to exacerbate the tensions between Bharat (aka India) and Pakistan. Wendy Chamberlain was an excellent ambassador to Islamabad, and had to leave in a hurry. There was much speculation on the reasons that she left, but the secrets are out in the open now.

“Wendy Chamberlin, US ambassador to Pakistan on 9/11 and a member of Obama’s Pakistan task force, is a strong supporter of efforts to forge a Pakistan-India accord. “I argued for it [in 2002],” she says. And I got dismissed.”"

The Obama Administration will need to be convinced on the following counts.

1. Enmity between India and Pakistan is not based on Pakistani “paranoia” (Hilary Clinton’s word). There are deep rooted issues that need to be resolved. These are: Kashmir, Sir Creek, Siachin, Kargil, Water. 107 Indian “Consulates” in Afghanistan spreading terror to Pakistan 
2. Peace between India and Pakistan is welcomed in Pakistan but not on Indian terms. The current status quo and conversion of the Cease Fire Line in Kashmir into the defacto border are non starters. Bharat (aka India) will have to make border adjustments. The Chenab Solution to Kashmir is the best option.
3. Pakistan can and will join the South Asian Economic Union if the border disputes with Bharat are amicably resolved to the satisfaction of Pakistanis
4. Pakistan will not convert its Army into a “Counter Insurgency Force“. The Frontier Constabulary can be built into a counter insurgency force. The Bush Administration for all its talk about the war on terror has refused to build up the FC to carry out the assignments. It needs 100,000 M-16s, 100,000 night vision glasses, 100 Cobra and Chinook choppers, 20,000 Armored Carriers, 100,000 Bullet Proof Vests, 5 AWACs, and a contingent of F-35s,  to monitor the border.
5. Pakistan will not accept Bharat’s hegemony in South Asia.
6. The Marshal Plan for Pakistan will not survive the test of time with the miserly $1.5 billion ten year program. Pakistan immediately needs its $42 billion loan eliminated (As was offered to Egypt) plus is needs $150 Billion to build the infrastructure that would eliminate the insurgencies.
7. Pakistan must push for a FTA with the USA and the EU so that it can export about $16 Billion of textile goods to the States and about $10 billion worth of textile goods to the EU. This would be engine that will send money, warm meals and shelters to the heart of the Punjab and Sarhad and build long term relationships between Pakistan and Americans. The children of the Textile merchants will go to American schools and to the USA and be pro-American

President-elect Barack Obama says that Afghanistan is “the right war.” “It’s time to heed the call from General [David] McKiernan and others for more troops,” Obama said in late October, referring to the US commander in Afghanistan. “That’s why I’d send at least two or three additional combat brigades to Afghanistan.” He’s coupled that with tough talk about hitting Al Qaeda anywhere, including next door in Pakistan. “If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out,” Obama said in the second of his three debates with John McCain. “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda.”

Despite such rhetoric, however, nearly two years ago Obama began assembling a cast of experts steeped in the intricacies of South Asian affairs, and they have provided him with a far richer and more sophisticated view of the Afghanistan-Pakistan tangle than emerged in the campaign. “The format of presidential debates does not lend itself to a nuanced discussion,” says Bruce Riedel, wryly. A former CIA specialist on South Asia who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Clinton and Bush, Riedel led an advisory task force on Afghanistan-Pakistan for Obama. Interviews with Riedel and other Obama advisers–who made it clear they were not speaking for the president-elect–suggest that Obama intends to reorient US policy in the region significantly, and a key plank in that reorientation includes negotiations with the enemy. But assertions by the US command and the Obama team that we can both “surge” and negotiate overlook the glaring reality that sending more troops into the Afghan quagmire and urging the Pakistani government to escalate the war it is fighting against its own people will make the crisis worse, not better.

The outlines of Obama’s strategy, which aren’t likely to be articulated fully until after the inauguration, include a repudiation of the strident “global war on terror” rhetoric that marked President Bush’s years and that only inflamed Muslim attitudes toward the United States. Campaign sloganeering aside, Obama may try to curtail the indiscriminate use of air power in Afghanistan against often ill-defined targets (”just air raiding villages and killing civilians” was how he put it in 2007), though how he’ll do that while adding more troops and escalating the war isn’t clear. He’ll slow down, if not halt, the provocative cross-border attacks into Pakistani tribal areas against insurgent bases, even as he reserves the right to hit bin Laden. The incoming administration will take steps to strengthen the fledgling civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari in Pakistan against the machinations of the Pakistani army and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), which maintains covert ties to a wide range of extremist groups, including the Taliban. And it will support a major boost in economic aid to both countries.

Nearly all of Obama’s advisers–along with members of a parallel task force at the Center for American Progress, a think tank likely to be the source of many Obama appointees–insist that a central part of a new US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan must be to facilitate a peace process between Pakistan and India, its giant neighbor to the east. For decades, Pakistan’s military and the ISI have lent covert support to Islamist terrorist groups, in Afghanistan and in the disputed territory of Kashmir, as part of a strategy of asymmetric warfare against India. A Pakistan-India accord would strengthen Pakistan’s civilian government and undercut the rationale for the army and ISI’s ties to the Taliban, allied Afghan Islamist warlords and Kashmiri Islamist militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, suspected of involvement in the Mumbai terror attack. Wendy Chamberlin, US ambassador to Pakistan on 9/11 and a member of Obama’s Pakistan task force, is a strong supporter of efforts to forge a Pakistan-India accord. “I argued for it [in 2002],” she says. And I got dismissed.”

Many of Obama’s advisers are open to the notion of bringing Iran into the mix, pointing out that Iran was helpful in 2001 in building the original coalition behind Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Iran’s role was also highlighted in a September report by a private working group led by Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, and Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the 9/11 Commission. They suggested connecting Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Iran in a regional economic community, concluding, “The U.S. should…reconsider its opposition to the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline project.” Tariq Ali, a British-Pakistani scholar and author of The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power, has called for creation of a South Asian Union to facilitate a regional economic resurgence.

Even as they favor eventual talks with “reconcilable” elements of the Taliban movement, some of Obama’s advisers and Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander, defend their call for a surge by arguing that their first priority is to stabilize Afghanistan militarily. “Trying to divide your enemy is always a smart thing to do,” says Riedel. “But until we break the momentum that the Taliban has today, where they feel that they’re the winner, I don’t see that you have any credible chance of persuading even a small number of Taliban to break. They think they’re winning, and if you look at the numbers, you can make a pretty convincing case.”

In the first ten months of this year, 255 US and NATO troops were killed in Afghanistan, more than all those who died in the first four years of the war in Afghanistan put together. Entire swaths of southern Afghanistan, in provinces along the Pakistan border south and east of Kabul, are controlled by the Taliban and their allies. Lately they have been able to strike with impunity even within Kabul, the Afghan capital. The CIA has been warning for more than two years that Afghanistan was spinning out of control. A forthcoming National Intelligence Estimate, representing the views of sixteen US intelligence agencies, warns that Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral” and, according to the New York Times, “casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban’s influence there.” The enemy has also evolved as a fighting force. Already by 2006, according to a report for West Point by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the Taliban were fielding battalion-size units of more than 400 fighters. In some provinces the Taliban and their allies are creating a parallel state, appointing governors and provincial officials and establishing Sharia-style courts.

The counterinsurgency is made all the more difficult by the nature of the enemy, an exceedingly complex, multiheaded Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It goes far beyond Mullah Omar’s Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. “Calling it the Taliban is a failure to understand what’s going on,” says Seth Jones, an expert on Afghanistan and terrorism at the RAND Corporation. “It’s a movement, not an organization,” explains Chas Freeman, president of the Middle East Policy Council and a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. “What we conveniently have been labeling ‘the Taliban’ is a phenomenon that includes a lot of people simply on the Islamic right.” In all, the US military has identified at least fourteen separate insurgent organizations in Afghanistan, and according to Riedel, there are as many as fifty separate Islamist formations in neighboring Pakistan [see Anand Gopal, page 17, for more on the insurgency].

At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Anthony Cordesman, a sober-minded, conservative military analyst, sounded the alarm. “We are running out of time,” he wrote. “We currently are losing, and the trends have been consistent since 2004…we face a crisis in the field–right now.” The situation, he said, is far more urgent than anything that can be solved by economic aid or nation-building efforts. “At least during 2009-10, priority must be given to warfighting needs.” McKiernan, the US commander, has called for at least four more brigades, perhaps as many as 25,000 troops. He warned that the mission in Afghanistan will require a “sustained commitment” lasting many years, and the United States has announced plans to help more than double the size of the Afghan National Army (ANA), to 134,000 troops. “This is a decades-long project,” says Ashley Tellis, a former National Security Council specialist on South Asia, who adds that it will take at least ten years before the United States can withdraw and let the ANA fight its own battles. “The transition alone will take a decade, until you can switch to the ANA,” he says.

But surging troops into Afghanistan would be akin to sending the fabled 600 into the valley of death. As in Vietnam, tens of thousands more troops will only provide the Taliban with many more targets, sparking Pashtun nationalist resistance and inspiring more recruits for the insurgency. Advocates of sending additional US forces into this maelstrom have yet to articulate exactly how another 25,000 can turn the tide. Tariq Ali says that pacifying the country would require at least 200,000 more troops, beyond the 62,000 US and NATO forces there now, and that it would necessitate laying waste huge parts of Afghanistan. Many Afghan watchers consider the war unwinnable, and they point out that in the 1980s the Soviet Union, with far more troops, had engaged in a brutal nine-year counterinsurgency war–and lost. British Ambassador to Afghanistan Sherard Cowper-Coles has warned against precisely the escalation that Obama and Petraeus advocate. Sending more troops, he says, “would have perverse effects: it would identify us even more strongly as an occupation force and would multiply the targets [for the insurgents].” A top British general, Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith, says, “We’re not going to win this war…. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat.”

“What began as a punitive raid aimed at beheading Al Qaeda and chastising its Afghan household staff has somehow morphed–with no real discussion or debate–into a prolonged effort to pacify Afghanistan and transform its society,” says Freeman. “This moving of the goal posts gratified neoconservatives and liberal interventionists alike. Our new purpose became giving Afghanistan a centrally directed state–something it had never had. We now fight to exclude reactionary Muslims from a role in governing the new Afghanistan.” Freeman suggests that this is an untenable goal, and that it is time to co-opt local authorities and enlist regional allies in search of a settlement.

Those who insist the war is winnable, including US and NATO commanders, also say that it can’t be won without taking the war across the border to Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan’s tribal areas, an escalation that’s already under way. But this poses a whole new set of problems. The situation in Pakistan is only slightly less dire than in Afghanistan. The country emerged this year from nearly a decade under a US-backed military dictatorship and faces a daunting set of challenges. A multipronged insurgency based in the tribal areas is spreading its influence into the neighboring North-West Frontier Province, and it has reached all the way to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, where assassinations and suicide bombings occur regularly. The new government is weak and divided, with little or no control over the Pakistani army and ISI. And its economy is virtually bankrupt: with inflation at 25 percent and vast unemployment, the country is desperately seeking $10 billion to $15 billion in immediate financial aid.

Yet the fragile Pakistani state is being pushed to the breaking point by the Bush administration. Since August, nearly two dozen CIA Predator missile attacks in tribal areas have inflamed much of the country against the United States. Already, before the spate of attacks, public opinion polls showed that 86 percent of Pakistanis say the goal of the United States is to “weaken and divide the Islamic world,” 84 percent say the United States is a greater threat than Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and 89 percent oppose Pakistan’s cooperation with the US “war on terror.” Many Pakistanis blame the United States for its fifty-year record of propping up military dictators, which makes it hard for the United States to support even its allies, such as President Zardari. “Right now, we’re kind of the kiss of death,” says Marvin Weinbaum, a scholar at the Middle East Institute who was part of Obama’s Pakistan task force.

Since 9/11, Pakistan has received more than $11 billion in US aid, but almost all of it has flowed into the coffers of Pakistan’s army and ISI, with little or no oversight. According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, between 2002 and 2007 only 10 percent of US aid was devoted to development and humanitarian assistance. That avalanche of cash to the military has allowed the ISI free rein to support its network of Islamist extremists, which it has built up systematically since the 1980s. As long as ISI helped nab an occasional Al Qaeda bigwig, even as it tolerated or supported the Afghan Taliban and other Islamist radicals, the United States went along. “We’ve got to put an end to this dirty game, where Pakistan uses surrogate terrorist groups,” says Chamberlin.

Even those fighting the war have difficulty distinguishing friends from enemies. Michael Vickers, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflicts, who oversees a Pentagon anti-terrorism force, isn’t sure. Asked if ISI is on our side or not, he pauses. “It’s complicated. I’ll put it that way,” he says finally. “It’s not black and white.” Last summer Zardari attempted to bring ISI under the control of the civilian-run Interior Ministry, but the idea was quickly shot down. “That lasted eight hours,” says Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars, a book about the CIA and Afghanistan that Obama was recently seen carrying. “Somebody told the ISI about the announcement, and they said, ‘No, that won’t be happening.’” Then, in the fall, Pakistan’s army chief of staff installed a new set of generals atop the ISI, though there was widespread skepticism that the move reflected a real policy change by the army.

Yet Pakistani attitudes are slowly changing, even inside the military, analysts say. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto a year ago and the massive bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad in September alarmed many generals about the threat to Pakistan from its Islamist creations. “Pakistan has had a tolerance and a see-no-evil attitude toward the Taliban,” says Riedel. “But the Afghan Taliban has also created a Pakistani Taliban, which is a Frankenstein the Pakistani army can’t control. So it still has relations with parent Taliban, but the infant Taliban is now increasingly a threat to the cohesion of the Pakistan state, and it’s a physical threat to the Pakistani army and even to the ISI. This is the classic case of a covert action program getting out of control.”

As a result, of late the army is scrambling to control a crisis of its own making, without much success. It has launched a three-pronged military offensive in the tribal areas and nearby districts, but–having spent a half-century preparing for a tank war with India–the Pakistani army is not well equipped to fight a counterinsurgency war. And in the tribal areas the Pakistani army, which is mostly Punjabi, is seen as a foreign force by local Pashtuns, while many Pakistani officers and enlisted men are loath to fight against their compatriots in what they see as America’s war. Both the military and the Pakistan government have tried to build tribal militias to combat the Taliban, but so far this effort hasn’t paid off. And the government has tried to encourage the holding of tribal jirgas, or councils, to generate grassroots opposition to the dominance of Taliban-like elements in and around the tribal areas. That, too, hasn’t worked well, since the Taliban have engaged in murderous counterattacks, including gruesome killings and suicide bomb attacks aimed at the jirgas. Many in Pakistan are operating under outdated assumptions about the tribes in the northwest, says Christine Fair, an independent expert on South Asia who took part in the Center for American Progress study. “The jirgas used to be made up of secular tribal leaders,” she says. “Now, they meet in mosques and madrassas.” Since the US-backed anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, madrassas, or religious schools, have become factories and recruiting areas for militant Islamists.

Part of the solution, stressed by all of Obama’s aides, is more economic support to both countries, targeted toward building infrastructure, improving agriculture, providing microcredit for small business and constructing schools and clinics. One member of Obama’s task force on Pakistan is Jonah Blank, a senior staff member at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is a key aide to Vice President-elect Joe Biden. Blank was a driving force behind the Biden-Lugar-Obama bill to provide $1.5 billion a year for ten years in economic support to Pakistan. A parallel effort for Afghanistan, including what Obama calls a Marshall Plan-style mobilization, is also under way. “Call it a democracy dividend,” says Blank. “The civilians can say, ‘See? We deliver.’”

But economic development takes a long time to be felt, and the crisis is now. If the wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan aren’t going to be resolved militarily–and they won’t be–the solution to both crises, now inextricably linked, must be a diplomatic one: first, negotiations with many of the forces opposing the two governments and the US presence in the region, and, second, progress toward a Pakistan-India accord.

In Pakistan, the Zardari government and the Parliament have strongly endorsed talks with the Taliban, better organized than the faltering accords announced in 2004 and 2006. In Afghanistan, Karzai declared in mid-November that he is open to direct talks with Mullah Omar. And in late October, tribal elders and dozens of Pakistani and Afghan officials convened a two-day “mini-jirga” intended to be the start of a dialogue with the Taliban. Owais Ghani, governor of the North-West Frontier Province and a leader of the secular, nationalist ANP party, said at the mini-jirga: “We will sit, we will talk to them, they will listen to us, and we will come to some sort of solution.”

Karzai’s offer to Mullah Omar, which was unprecedented, followed two years of quiet discussions in South Asia, Europe and the Middle East among Pakistani and Afghan officials, former leaders of the Taliban and members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family, including King Abdullah. Among the participants: Karzai’s brother and Nawaz Sharif, a Pakistani politician with close ties to the religious establishment who spent years in exile in Saudi Arabia. According to news reports, London and Paris provided logistical and diplomatic support for the contacts. The Pakistani daily Dawn reported that French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner is supporting talks between Karzai and “moderates within the Taliban,” and he has invited Iran and Pakistan to Paris to participate in talks on Afghanistan.

So far, Mullah Omar has rejected Karzai’s offer of direct talks, and the Taliban continues to insist on the withdrawal of US and NATO forces before any deal. A deal with the Islamist insurgency, or at least enough of it to make it stick, is an exceedingly difficult undertaking, and most of Obama’s advisers are skeptical that it can work. India, Iran and Russia, which supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in the decade before 9/11, won’t look with favor on a US-Saudi effort to allow the Taliban back in power, so their concerns will have to be taken into account. The fragmented nature of the Taliban movment makes it hard to figure out whom, exactly, to negotiate with. And though parts of the movement may be pragmatic enough to strike a deal, other parts are likely to fight to the bitter end.

The Obama team is far more supportive of an urgent diplomatic initiative to bring Pakistan and India toward an accord. But after the Mumbai attack, with its potential to bring the two countries back to the brink of war, that is a task that has just become far more difficult. “This requires great subtlety and a degree of sophistication that, I have to say, is not the norm in American diplomacy,” says Riedel. “It calls for a stretch. I think the way to start is with very, very quiet conversations between the United States and India, and I think that the new relationship that we have with India gives us a better platform than ever before.” India, Riedel says, is worried that the United States will seek a deal with Pakistan at India’s expense. But closer US-India ties, cemented by a recent deal over India’s nuclear program, give Washington new credibility to assure New Delhi that its interests in Kashmir and Afghanistan, where India is worried about a Taliban resurgence, will be protected.

India is deeply involved in Afghanistan now, and its role there is causing a degree of paranoia in Pakistan. India, along with Iran and Russia, helped oust the Pakistan-backed Taliban in 2001. India has provided $1.2 billion in aid to Afghanistan since then, and it has opened consulates in four Afghan cities that, Pakistan fears, could be bases for Indian intelligence. It is against that threat, historically, that Pakistan has supported right-wing Islamists. …..

The opportunity for a dialogue with elements of the Taliban and the possibility of a peace process between Pakistan and India constitute the true exit strategy for the United States in Afghanistan. But to nail down a deal with the insurgents, the United States will have to offer them what they most want, namely, a timetable for the withdrawal of US and NATO forces.

“What the insurgents do seem to agree about is that foreigners shouldn’t run their country, and that the country should be run according to the principles of Islam,” says Chas Freeman.

“We need to recall the reason we went to Afghanistan in the first place,” he says. “Our purpose was…to deny the use of Afghan territory to terrorists with global reach. That was and is an attainable objective. It is a limited objective that can be achieved at reasonable cost. We must return to a ruthless focus on this objective. We cannot afford to pursue goals, however worthy, that contradict or undermine it. The reform of Afghan politics, society and mores must wait.”

Meanwhile, the stage is set. The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan want peace talks with Islamist insurgents and the Taliban. Outside powers, led by Saudi Arabia and quietly supported by Britain and France, are facilitating behind-the-scenes contacts between the Taliban and key Afghan and Pakistani leaders. Neighboring states, including India, Russia and Iran, while hardly enamored of the Taliban, might underwrite a truce. And the possibility of a regional economic pact linking Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India could tie it all together.

Al Qaeda, pushed into remote redoubts in Pakistan’s mountains, is most certainly still plotting against the United States. But many, perhaps most, of its fair-weather allies on the Islamic right, including the Taliban, might very well be persuaded to make a final break with Osama bin Laden and his like if they can get a better deal, including a share of power in Kabul. Will President Obama seize the moment? Will he have the courage to offer an end to US occupation of Afghanistan if the Taliban-led movement abandons its ties to Al Qaeda? Hey Obama, Don’t Let Afghanistan Be Your Quagmire By Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation. Posted January 7, 2009.

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***UPDATE*** 11:10PM Coulter was a guest on the Fox News show “Hannity and Colmes” tonight, where she harshly criticized NBC for canceling her planned appearance on the “Today” show. The controversial author accused the network of orchestrating a “set up to block me from other TV shows.”

Coulter was reportedly offered a spot on Wednesday’s show but she shrugged off the offer: “I think I’ll accept and then cancel at the last minute.”

EARLIER: Ann Coulter’s appearance on the “Today” show has been canceled.

NBC had come under fire for booking Coulter, who had been scheduled to promote her new book,Guilty, on the “Today” show Tuesday morning.

But on her website, Coulter announced that the appearance had been “cancelled” (via):

TODAY SHOW AND TODAY SHOW FOURTH HOUR: CANCELLED!

I guess this ends the “they just want to get ratings” argument about liberal media bias.

The liberal media watchdog group Media Matters launched a campaign last week asking, “Is NBC going to help Coulter sell this book?”

In the book, Coulter repeatedly refers to President-Elect Obama as B. Hussein Obama, andmocks Michelle Obama’s style while praising Cindy McCain’s.

Coulter will appear on CBS’ “Early Show” Tuesday morning to promote the book, according to her website.

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The begriming of Mr. Asif Zardari’s Prime Ministership began with a very docile and compromising attitude towards Bharat (aka India). The PPPP came under a barrage or fire for its conciliatory attitude towards Delhi. However the events of the past several weeks brought about a fundamental change in Mr. Asif Zardari who was under the impression that if he was nice to Delhi, Bharat would be nice to him

The exact opposite has happened. Mr. Asif Zardari on the advice of Mr. Haqqani let Bharat extract its pound of blood by allowing the UN to pass a resolution against Pakistan. There was a tacit understanding that this would be enough for Bharat and this pound of flesh would enable the Indian National Congress to appease its war mongering media.

Indian authorities …have expressed the suspicion that the good intentions of Pakistan’s civilian leaders are not necessarily shared by its military and intelligence establishments, which were forged in a decades-long rivalry with India and have sponsored armed Islamist groups in Indian Kashmir and in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet conflict there.

But Qureshi and Pakistan’s intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, said Wednesday that the country’s security forces are subservient to civilian authority and committed to supporting democratic rule. “It is completely clear to the army chief and I that this government must succeed,” Pasha said of Zardari’s administration. “I report regularly to the president and take orders from him.”Washington Post. Rondeaux reported from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

The PPPP government was shocked to discover that even after ascertaining the truth of the matter the Bharti government not only continued to hide the internal connections in Mumbai, it escalated the war of words by directly blaming the Pakistani government and the ISI (which was now working under the PPPP appointed General).

ISLAMABAD: In a bizarre drama, Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Maj Gen(retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani was sacked on Wednesday night for having indicated days ago that Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist arrested for the Mumbai terror attacks, may have been a Pakistani, a fact ironically confirmed by the government earlier in the day. ( Watch )

A brief statement issued by the Prime Minister’s House said Yousuf Raza Gilani had sacked Durrani “for his irresponsible behaviour (of) not taking Prime Minister and other stakeholders into confidence and lack of coordination on matters of national security”.
Gilani was quoted by Geo News channel as saying that he had sacked Durrani for commenting on the issue of the nationality of Iman alias Ajmal Kasab without taking him (Gilani) or the government into confidence.  The premier told the channel that Durrani’s “irresponsible” comments had affected Pakistan’s image and went against the government’s policies. Times of India

The dynamics of the Bharat-Pakistan relationship has now permanently changed. Mr. Zardari was peeved at the stoppage of Pakistani waters by Bharat. He is now livid and will bank on the more conservative hawks.

In an interview with CNN, Mahmud Ali Durrani said there appeared to be proof that all 10 gunmen had Pakistani roots. Officials from the Foreign and Information ministries confirmed that assertion, but the Foreign Ministry later retracted its statement, and within hours, government officials and national TV channels reported that Durrani, a former intelligence chief, had been dismissed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani.Washinton Post

It remains to bee seen what actions if any will be taken against Ms. Sherry Rehman and Mr. Rehman Malik

The move came soon after Information Minister Sherry Rehman and Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq both told reporters that an investigation by Pakistani security agencies had confirmed that Kasab was a Pakistani national.

Rehman also said Pakistan’s investigation into the Mumbai attacks was continuing. Some reports suggested that Durrani’s sacking would have to be endorsed by President Asif Ali Zardari. Pak NSA Mahmud Ali Durrani sacked 7 Jan 2009, 2312 hrs IST, PTI. Times of India

Both US and Pakistani officials appear to be taking actions to lower the tensions.

Neither Qureshi nor Boucher spoke about the new evidence that India says it has found — and delivered to Pakistani authorities — linking Pakistan to the Mumbai assault. Qureshi said he was “disappointed” that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had made such an accusation, and he noted that on the day the Mumbai siege began, he had been in New Delhi trying to improve bilateral relations.

“Suddenly, as I returned to my hotel, Mumbai took place,” he said. “I did not allow this to obstruct my vision, but unfortunately, some Indian politicians succumbed and became obsessed by it.” Qureshi said he had offered “from day one” to cooperate in the investigation into the attacks and that Pakistan’s only desire was to “bring the perpetrators to justice.” Washington Post. Rondeaux reported from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

The US wants a joint Bharat (aka India) investigation commission where all facts about the case would be bared.

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday charged Pakistan with using “terrorism as an instrument of state policy” and indicted that its state agencies were a party to the attacks, Islamabad offered a “joint investigation commission to be supervised by the respective national security advisers” and the dispatch of a high-level delegation from New Delhi to Pakistan.

Although this offer was rejected in biting accents by the Indian government, the US appears to have plumped for it. Stopping short of calling for a joint investigation, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who was on a visit to Pakistan earlier this week, appreciated the steps taken by Islamabad so far. He said as more information was uncovered, sharing and follow-up mechanism should also be enhanced. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported that the US wanted a joint investigation commission on which it is a member along with India and Pakistan.  Mumbai attacks: US moves in to calm down India, Pak.  KS Manjunath / New Delhi January 08, 2009, 0:31 IST

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Mumbai: Intoxicated India deaf & blind to internal terror. Unable to introspect, resolve its huge race, caste & religious problems

Indian hatred for Pakistan knows no bounds. It existed in 1947 and in the 60s and it has exponentially grown as Pakistan got stronger.

It is a level of frustration gone amok. India would like to treat Muslims of Pakistan the way it treats Muslims in Gujarat. Alas it cant!

Thus the had wringing, the name calling and the media blitz to demonize Islam and all Pakistanis

Indians want Pakistan to disappear so that they can spread their tentacles into the heart of Central Asia and transport their goods and services to Europe and beyond. Pakistan is the only impediment to their growth.

it is also considered the Dalits that got Away. How dare the malich challenge the Brahmans?

What Are India’s Options? “Bomb Islamabad!” That’s what a representative of the Samajwadi Party suggested at one of the UPA meetings. But are there serious options that one could look at as a credible response to these terror attacks?   

Reasons Bharat cannot bomb Pakistan.

Over the last week, many Americans (and not a few Indians) have asked me why India does not “do a Gaza” on Pakistan, referring, of course, to an emulation of Israel’s punitive use of force against Hamas-run Palestine, a territory from which rockets rain down on Israeli soil with reliable frequency (if not reliable destructiveness … but that is not for want of Hamas intent).

My answer, given with the heavy heart that comes always with a painful grip on reality, is simple: India does not because it cannot.

Here are five reasons why:

1. India is not a military goliath in relation to Pakistan in the way Israel is to the Palestinian territories. India does not have the immunity, the confidence and the military free hand that result from an overwhelming military superiority over an opponent. Israel’s foe is a non-sovereign entity that enjoys the most precarious form of self-governance. Pakistan, for all its dysfunction, is a proper country with a proper army, superior by far to the tin-pot Arab forces that Israel has had to combat over time. Pakistan has nukes, to boot. Any assault on Pakistani territory carries with it an apocalyptic risk for India. This is, in fact, Pakistan’s trump card. (This explains, also, why Israel is determined to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran.)

2. Even if India could attack Pakistan without fear of nuclear retaliation, the rationale for “doing a Gaza” is, arguably, not fully present: Israel had been attacked consistently by the very force–Hamas–that was in political control of the territory from which the attacks occurred. By contrast, terrorist attacks on India, while originating in Pakistan, are not authored by the Pakistani government. India can– and does–contend that Pakistan’s government should shut down the terrorist training camps on Pakistani soil. (In this insistence, India has unequivocal support from Washington.) Yet only a consistent and demonstrable pattern of dereliction by Pakistani authorities– which would need to be dereliction verging on complicity with the terrorists–would furnish India with sufficient grounds to hold the Pakistani state culpable.

3. As our columnist, Karlyn Bowman, writes, Israel enjoys impressive support from the American people, in contrast to the Palestinians. No other state–apart, perhaps, from Britain–evokes as much favor in American public opinion as does Israel. This is not merely the result of the much-vaunted “Israel lobby” (to use a label deployed by its detractors), but also because of the very real depth of cultural interpenetration between American and Israeli society. This fraternal feeling buys Israel an enviable immunity in the conduct of its strategic defense. India, by contrast–while considerably more admired and favored in American public opinion than Pakistan–enjoys scarcely a fraction of Israel’s “pull” in Washington when it comes to questions of the use of force beyond its borders.

4. Pakistan is strategically significant to the United States; the Palestinians are not. This gives Washington scant incentive to rein in the Israelis, but a major incentive to rein in any Indian impulse to strike at Pakistan. However justified the Indian anger against Pakistan over the recent invasion of Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists, the last thing that the U.S. wants right now is an attack–no matter how surgical–by India against Pakistan-based terror camps. This would almost certainly result in a wholesale shift of Pakistani troops away from their western, Afghan front toward the eastern boundary with India–and would leave the American Afghan campaign in some considerable disarray, at least in the short term. So Washington has asked for, and received, the gift of Indian patience. And although India recognizes that it is not wholly without options to mobilize quickly for punitive, surgical strikes in a “strategic space,” it would–right now–settle for a trial of the accused terrorist leaders in U.S. courts. (Seven U.S. citizens were killed in Mumbai: Under U.S. law, those responsible–and this should include Pakistani intelligence masterminds–have to be brought to justice.)

5. My last, and meta-, point: Israel has the privilege of an international pariah to ignore international public opinion in its use of force against the Palestinians. A state with which few others have diplomatic relations can turn the tables on those that would anathematize it by saying, Hang diplomacy. India, by contrast, has no such luxury. It is a prisoner of its own global aspirations–and pretensions. Five Reasons Why India Can’t ‘Do A Gaza’ On Pakistan Tunku Varadarajan, 01.05.09, 12:00 AM ET . Tunku Varadarajan, a professor at the Stern Business School at NYU and research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, is opinions editor at Forbes.com, where he writes a weekly column.

The terrorist struck just a week after the Al Queda number two, Al Zawahiri, released his latest audio tape saying the election of Barack Obama made no difference to the aims and intent of the Islamists.

That doesn’t mean this was an Al Queda operation, but it is possible the response to the attack will benefit AQ and that this was part of the wider agenda of the attackers.

After 9/11 many people said ‘We’re all Americans now’, but for those of a certain bent the phrase was ‘We’re all Al Queda now’. The franchise of ideas and modus operandi has spread thoughout the wider jihadist movement.

The timing of the attack was perfect. It came just before local elections and during an economically important cricket tournament, and during the American transition period - between the Bush years and Obama’s time.

The Indian government cannot afford to be seen to be weak in its response to Mumbai. If so it will be wiped out by the Hindu Nationalist BJP at the next election. But if they can restrain themselves, what happens if there is another attack in the next few weeks? National outrage would be so great - the government would likely fall amid rioting in major cities.

So as well as various diplomatic responses such closing border crossing, cancelling cricket tours and reducing trade - another option open to New Delhi is to move troops to the Pakistan border. This is what happened in 2001/2002 after the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament.

Pakistan responded in kind and a crisis quickly developed with cross border artillery battles and the rattling of nuclear sabres. A powerful Bush administration moved to calm things down but it was a close call, it was almost a full scale war.

If, over the next few weeks, India moves tens of thousands of extra troops to the border Pakistan would be forced to respond. The Pakistani troops would be moved from the North-west Frontier region bordering Afghanistan where they are currently engaged in anti terrorist operations against the Taliban. The USA wants them to stay there as part of its strategy in Afghanistan. So, enter Washington DC. The American government is desperate to restrain India from going too far, whilst at the same time trying to pressure Pakistan to keep taking on the Taliban.

Pakistan is under enormous pressure from America and India, but the diplomatic climate has changed since 2001. Then General Musharraf was President and in almost full control of his military and intelligence officers. Now there is a weak civilian ggovernment in Islamabad, led by President Zardari, and a military and intelligence community which believes it should be calling the shots on issues of national security.

This all adds up to a very dangerous situation in which the American government has to play a calming role at a time when it is in transition and has many other problems to deal with. The young men who carried out the mass murder ion Mumbai may niot have worked all of this out in advance, but its quite possible, those who sent them to kill intended this to end up in a crisis which impacts on America ability to fight Al Queda and the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mumbai, Terrorism And Strategy, Tim MarshallDecember 1, 2008 11:12 AM  

Indian Gujarat woman raped, killed & burned by mobs along with 2000 other innocents under direction of Mr. Modi. The US has refused a via to Mr. Modi the Chief Minister of Gujarat supported by Governo Bobby Jindal Women Genocide in “Incredible India”: Women harassed. GENDER MURDER:-10 million baby girls killed before & after birth in India India worse than Barkino Fason on World Hunger Index and

• RAW role in fake India hijacking dramas: Why did India release hijacker Azhar?
• Is Mumbai terror retaliation to India’s Hindu Talibanization or is it part of Hinduist strategy? By Farzana Shah
• Media: Islamabad Marriot vs Mumbai Oberoi terrorism
• Indian threats bring Peace? Militants to fight alongside Pakistan Army

Writing in a post for his blog on The New Yorker, Steve Coll, an old and much respected hand on security affairs in South Asia had something interesting to say about the terrorist attack in Mumbai and the likely reaction from Pakistan. His argument is that the options for India are limited. Simply because the Pakistanis know that they are blessed when it comes to its relevance in geo-politics:

“The Pakistan Army understands this international equation thoroughly and exploits the gaps—it is careful not to expose its direct fingerprints, and yet it is brazenly persistent in pursuit of its objective of military pressure against India in Kashmir and political-military pressure on India more broadly.”

So what are the options that India can exercise in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack?

If the politicians are to be believed, there was a lot of sabre rattling at two meetings held by the government on Sunday, November 30 night. While the all-party meet called by the government was a more sedate affair, an earlier meeting organised exclusively for the UPA and its allies, held in Parliament was more telling. A representative of the Samajwadi Party is said to have suggested that this was a good time to “bomb Islamabad!”

Fine. Let’s bomb Islamabad, assuming we have the capability to do so and that the frontline aircraft of the Indian Air force are all serviceable, the MiG-21s ready to escort the bombers, and we can launch a full-scale military attack by penetrating the secure skies over Islamabad and then bomb it back to the stone age. 

But are we really ready for a war? 

Are we ready for the fallout when two nuclear nations go to war? Are we ready for destroying everything that we have built in the last decade and a half? Are we prepared for rolling back our consistent 9 percent growth story and undertake hardships that several generations of Indians have never seen?

All this must be weighed before we take on the job of rattling our sabres. We did that once, post December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament. What did we really achieve from that 11-month old stand off with the Pakistanis? We stood on the border and they stood on the border, eyeball to eyeball, and we finally sent the forces back to the bunkers after that. But not before we had spent something to the tune of Rs 6000 crores (the official figures put it at a much lower figure pegging it a few hundred crores) and lost many precious lives of our soldiers, who stepped on mines not mapped, or tried to clear mines with bare hands while our bureaucrats held back critical mine clearing equipment.

Our air force, sanctioned 39.5 combat squadrons, is down to 30 off squadrons, our armoured corps doesn’t have the tanks to roll in, our infantry is horribly tied up in counter-insurgency operations, our soldiers and officers are poorly paid and cheated in pay commission after pay commission, while we talk about “bombing Islamabad.”

But there are options that one could look at as a credible response to these terror attacks. 

…..

The international outrage that has emerged after the terrorist attack is an opportunity that rarely presents itself in a nation’s history. This is the time to forge partnerships with all those willing to work with us.

Intelligence cooperation has already been ramped up (the first warning for the current attack came from the Americans) and there are other diplomatic measures that are already underway. But, this is also the time to build partnerships with those elements in Pakistan who recognise the fact that the idea of Pakistan is in greater danger than from these terrorists than its declared enemies.

This is the time to look for partnerships in intelligence gathering — not just the non-functional anti terror mechanism that was set up earlier, but a mechanism that produces hard, actionable intelligence that can be put to good use. This is the time to look at joint covert operations against terrorists and their infrastructure simply because this is a job that the Pakistanis cannot do on their own. The Americans, the British and the NATO forces are already in the region and this is as good a time as any to build partnerships with them.

Perhaps a partnerships sounds too utopian and unrealistic, a diplomatic impossibility in times of rhetoric. But look at the facts. There is no terror attack that can bend a nation as resilient as India. It has an innate strength that will ensure that the good news story, that India was, will continue to hold true.

A lot will have to be done to weed out the systemic failures in our security apparatus. It is not about “intelligence failure” and as this case has shown, our intelligence actually produced good stuff. By calling it “intelligence failure” we are trivialising the discussion to a level that is insulting to our counter-terror mechanism as well as security apparatus. Instead, we have to realise that systemic faults have to be addressed systematically. The overhaul, if the political leadership is willing, will have to happen over months, and perhaps years. But if politics goes back to the usual set of empty promises, the usual rhetoric and the usual coteries, that will be an attack on the very idea of India itself. And the time to act, is now. Saikat Datta

India is slightly better than Haiti. It is the hungriest in South Asia
Red Nepal: Clear and present danger to India
Chilled Urine drinking hot in India. Gandhi to PM Desai. Fareed Zakaria on the farce of Indian “Democracy”
Why did Buddhism disappear from South Asia? Reviving Hinduism in Budhdist lands: The Hindu extremists use the Safron Swastika flag instead of the tri-colored flag of India. (see Hindu unity dot org)

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) — India blamed “elements” from Pakistan for last week’s deadly Mumbai terror attacks and told its neighbor to match its words of cooperation with “strong action” to build a “qualitative new relationship.”

The attacks that began Nov. 26 and ended three days later have threatened to derail peace talks between the two nuclear- armed neighbors. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Nov. 27 said India will “go after” individuals and organizations behind the assault, while Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said his government will act, provided there’s evidence.

“It was conveyed to the Pakistan High Commissioner that Pakistan’s actions needed to match the sentiments conveyed by its leadership,” Vishnu Prakash, India’s foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters today in New Delhi.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over the Kashmir region, which is divided between them and claimed in full by both countries. The two nations came to the brink of a fourth war in 2002, though some analysts said the latest incident may not bring tensions to that level.

“Indian and Pakistan political leaders are wiser after the experience of 2002,” said New Delhi-based C. Uday Bhaskar, a defense analyst and former director of the Institute for Defense Studies & Analyses. Statements by the Indian officials are “carefully nuanced where attention is drawn to elements in Pakistan” without “casting aspersions on the Pakistani state.”

The assault on two luxury hotels, a cafe, a rail station and a Jewish center killed 195 people, including 22 foreigners, and was the deadliest in 15 years in Hindu-majority India.

Pakistan Training Alleged

The outlawed Lashkar-i-Taiba, a Kashmiri guerilla group alleged to have carried out the attacks, still operates training camps for militants inside Pakistan and has expanded its membership, the Washington Post reported yesterday, citing Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only suspected terrorist caught by the police, told interrogators that 24 people were trained in Pakistan over the course of a year, 10 of whom were picked for the Mumbai operation, the Times of India reported today, citing unidentified people.

Kasab said the terrorists were trained by a former soldier in seven phases, including the use of weapons and ammunition and such physical activity as diving, running and swimming, the newspaper reported, citing the unidentified people.

The two nations ended their fifth round of talks between home secretaries in New Delhi on Nov. 26, just before the attacks began that evening. They resolved to cooperate with each other to combat terrorism and take “severe action” against any elements.

Peace Talks

India says the success of the peace talks that started in 2003 depends on Pakistan ending alleged support for cross-border terrorism in the part of Kashmir under Indian control and taking steps to combat militants.

Pakistan and India should work together in the wake of the terrorist attacks and not allow the incident to spur new antagonism between them, Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, told CNN yesterday. “Non-state actors” were forcing their agenda and Pakistan’s government “will cooperate with India in exposing and apprehending the culprits” behind the attacks, Zardari said on Nov. 28.

The U.S. doesn’t believe Pakistan’s government was involved in the attacks, and the Bush administration trusts Pakistan to investigate the issue, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters today. “We have no reason not to” trust Pakistan “right now,” she said.

Pakistan Meeting

Pakistan’s political leaders will meet tomorrow to discuss security policy. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will head the meeting to assess the regional situation, according to Zahid Bashir, the Pakistani premier’s press secretary.

The biggest opposition group, the Pakistan Muslim League faction headed by former premier Nawaz Sharif, which split from the Pakistan Peoples Party-led coalition government in August, will attend the meeting, party spokesman Siddiq-ul-Farooq said.

Gilani canceled a trip to Hong Kong, where he was to attend the Clinton Global Initiative summit starting tomorrow, to focus on addressing growing tensions with India, Bashir has said.

The 60-hour killing spree by less than a dozen terrorists underscores the failure of India’s police force to keep pace with better armed, equipped and trained militants, a former intelligence agent said.

“That system has collapsed,” said Vikram Sood, former director of India’s foreign intelligence agency, known as the Research and Analysis Wing. “Police are overworked, understaffed and undertrained.”

At least 20 officers, including the head of the Maharashtra state Anti-Terrorism Squad, were among almost 200 people killed in the gun and grenade attacks. India Tells Pakistan to Match Its Words With ‘Action’ on Terror By Bibhudatta Pradhan and Pratik Parija  To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net; Pratik Parija in New Delhi at pparija@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: December 1, 2008 12:01 EST

Indian penury: The reality vs. the Bollywood marketing gloss:
India as World Power 1 Extremist Hindus show power using the Swastika in triple entendre–as an ancient Hindu symbol, reverence for Hitler and sign of Anti-Western Indian power Superpower India Pt 2 Extremist Hindus revere Hitler and use the Swastika as the Indian flag
How long to extripate penury from india? 300 years!India’s budget– fit for a superpower Murder of 10 million Indian girl babies:Before or right after birth. The media is silent.

Pakistani response to “India’s Cold start strategy”: Limited strikes against targets vs Hot War leading to Nuclear Armageddon

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The terror attacks in Mumbai have heightened tensions between India and Pakistan as Indian officials blame a Pakistan-based militant group for the attack. As Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi, the attacks could reverse the gains from a five-year peace process between South Asia’s nuclear armed rivals.

Indian Muslim girl takes part in candle march to condemn terrorist attacks and in memory of those killed, in Mumbai, 30 Nov 2008

Indian investigators say that a gunman captured during the attacks on Mumbai admits he was trained in a camp in Pakistan by the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group blamed for previous attacks in India.
In recent days, top Indian officials have blamed Pakistan-based terrorists for the well planned assault. About 10 to 15 heavily armed gunmen attacked different targets across India’s business hub, killing and wounding hundreds of people.

Pakistan has denied any involvement by its state agencies and vowed to cooperate in the investigation.
A strategic analyst at New Delhi’s Center for Policy Research, Bharat Karnad, says the terror attacks could strain the improving ties between the countries.  

But he says New Delhi is unlikely to do what it did following a deadly assault on its parliament by Pakistan-based militant groups in 2001 when it massed troops along its border, bringing the two countries to the brink of war.
“I doubt very much whether this government has the will to get into a punitive mode, and order any kind of military counteraction or something of the kind,” he said. “That won’t happen. But yes relations are in tatters for the moment and that will be the case for a while now.”

Pakistan has already warned that if tensions with India escalate, it will have to move troops from its Afghan border to the Indian border.

Some domestic reports say that the Indian government is considering suspending the peace process that began in the aftermath of the 2001 standoff. 

Foreign policy experts say talks with Islamabad may be put on hold temporarily, but rule out any “overreaction” on New Delhi’s part.

Former Indian foreign secretary, Lalit Mansingh, says New Delhi is unlikely to turn its back on “enormous progress” made in relations with Pakistan in recent years.

“Yes, there is a sense of disappointment that despite very categorical assurances by Pakistani leaders we have not seen the terror tap switched off as we had expected,” Mansingh noted. “I think it is going to be taken up bilaterally with Pakistan and it is going to bet taken up through other friendly countries like the United States, Britain and other. But do we suspend normal links with Pakistan? I don’t think so.”

U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is expected to discuss the terror attacks during a visit to India on Wednesday. 

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence from Britain. India blames Pakistan-based groups for training and arming Islamic militants to conduct terror strikes in India and to foment a separatist insurgency in Indian Kashmir. Mumbai Terror Attacks Heighten Tensions Between India, Pakistan By Anjana Pasricha, New Delhi, 01 December 2008

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New Delhi - Pakistan’s High Commissioner Shahid Malik was called to India’s Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi Monday and informed that the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai were carried out by elements based in Pakistan, the Indian Foreign Ministry said.

‘The government expects that strong action would be taken against those elements, whosoever they may be, responsible for this outrage,’ the ministry said in a statement.

The terror attacks by heavily armed gunmen in India’s financial hub left 188 dead and over 300 injured.

The victims included 30 foreigners, who hailed from countries including Israel, Germany, Japan, United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, France, Italy, Singapore and Japan.

Shah Zaman Khan, minister for press affairs in the Pakistan Embassy, described the meeting as routine. He said it was fixed after the Mumbai attacks and these were discussed.

India reportedly has hard evidence that shows that those behind Mumbai terrorist attacks were based in neighbouring Pakistan.

The findings are supported by the testimony of the only terrorist arrested during the three-day massacre in which heavily armed men targeted two luxury hotels, a railway station, a hospital and a Jewish centre.

The arrested militant, Ajmal Amir Kasav, 21, who admitted being a member of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba militant group, had provided evidence that attacks were planned in Pakistan, Indian investigators told local newspapers.

Kasav, who belongs to the Pakistani province of Punjab, told interrogators that he was among the 10 picked for the mission after 24 youths underwent year-long training at a militant camp in Mansera and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan, the Times of India newspaper reported.

The LeT (Army of the Pure), the main militant group operating in India-administered Kashmir, has been suspected of being behind several daring attacks on Indian soil, including a 2001 raid on the Indian parliament.

The LeT has been fighting Indian forces with then aim of creating an Islamic state covering Pakistan and Kashmir and is believed to have close links with Pakistan’s spy agency the Inter-Services Intelligence.

Islamabad has denied involvement in the Mumbai attacks, a charge which threatens to jeopardize a bilateral peace-process launched in 2004.

It has also promised in the past that it would not allow terrorists operating against India to use its territory.

‘It was conveyed to the Pakistan high commissioner that Pakistan’s actions needed to match the sentiments expressed by its leadership that it wishes to have a qualitatively new relationship with India,’ India’s Foreign Ministry said in the statement after the meeting between its officials and the high commissioner.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, in an interview with the CNN- IBN news channel, had earlier urged India against ‘over-reaction’.

A previously unknown group, calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the attacks - the deadliest in Mumbai since 1993, when a series of bombings killed over 250 people and wounded 700.

Earlier on Monday, Washington announced that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be visiting India on Wednesday to show solidarity with India after the attacks.

Ahead of her visit, Rice told reporters in London that Islamabad must ‘follow evidence wherever it leads’ and lend ‘absolute’ and ‘transparent’ cooperation in the probe, the PTI news agency reported.

Meanwhile, a US Federal Bureau of Investigation team was in Mumbai to assist Indian agencies in the probe. The FBI team met with Mumbai police officials and later visited the scenes of fighting between the terrorists and the Indian forces.

As the quest for accountability continued in the aftermath of the attacks, Maharashtra deputy chief minister RR Patil, who was in charge of the interior ministry which looks after intelligence issues, resigned.

Patil’s resignation followed that of India’s federal home minister Shivraj Patil on Sunday. Former finance minister P Chidambaram has taken charge of the Home Ministry while the Finance Ministry will be overseen by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has also offered to quit and reports said his resignation was likely to be accepted once the ruling Congress Party to which Deshmukh belongs pinpoints a successor.

Soon after taking office as home minister, Chidambaram said India would respond with determination and resolve to the grave threats posed to the nation.

‘This is a threat to the very idea of India, the very soul of India that we know, that we love - secular, plural, tolerant and open society. I have no doubt that ultimately the idea of India will triumph,’ he said. http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1445954.php/India_tells_Pakistani_envoy_that_probe_points_to_links__Roundup__

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Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) — India blamed “elements” from Pakistan for last week’s deadly Mumbai terror attacks and told its neighbor to match its words of cooperation with “strong action” to build a “qualitative new relationship.”

The attacks that began Nov. 26 and ended three days later have threatened to derail peace talks between the two nuclear- armed neighbors. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Nov. 27 said India will “go after” individuals and organizations behind the assault, while Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said his government will act, provided there’s evidence.

“It was conveyed to the Pakistan High Commissioner that Pakistan’s actions needed to match the sentiments conveyed by its leadership,” Vishnu Prakash, India’s foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters today in New Delhi.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over the Kashmir region, which is divided between them and claimed in full by both countries. The two nations came to the brink of a fourth war in 2002, though some analysts said the latest incident may not bring tensions to that level.

“Indian and Pakistan political leaders are wiser after the experience of 2002,” said New Delhi-based C. Uday Bhaskar, a defense analyst and former director of the Institute for Defense Studies & Analyses. Statements by the Indian officials are “carefully nuanced where attention is drawn to elements in Pakistan” without “casting aspersions on the Pakistani state.”

The assault on two luxury hotels, a cafe, a rail station and a Jewish center killed 195 people, including 22 foreigners, and was the deadliest in 15 years in Hindu-majority India.

Pakistan Training Alleged

The outlawed Lashkar-i-Taiba, a Kashmiri guerilla group alleged to have carried out the attacks, still operates training camps for militants inside Pakistan and has expanded its membership, the Washington Post reported yesterday, citing Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only suspected terrorist caught by the police, told interrogators that 24 people were trained in Pakistan over the course of a year, 10 of whom were picked for the Mumbai operation, the Times of India reported today, citing unidentified people.

Kasab said the terrorists were trained by a former soldier in seven phases, including the use of weapons and ammunition and such physical activity as diving, running and swimming, the newspaper reported, citing the unidentified people.

The two nations ended their fifth round of talks between home secretaries in New Delhi on Nov. 26, just before the attacks began that evening. They resolved to cooperate with each other to combat terrorism and take “severe action” against any elements.

Peace Talks

India says the success of the peace talks that started in 2003 depends on Pakistan ending alleged support for cross-border terrorism in the part of Kashmir under Indian control and taking steps to combat militants.

Pakistan and India should work together in the wake of the terrorist attacks and not allow the incident to spur new antagonism between them, Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, told CNN yesterday. “Non-state actors” were forcing their agenda and Pakistan’s government “will cooperate with India in exposing and apprehending the culprits” behind the attacks, Zardari said on Nov. 28.

The U.S. doesn’t believe Pakistan’s government was involved in the attacks, and the Bush administration trusts Pakistan to investigate the issue, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters today. “We have no reason not to” trust Pakistan “right now,” she said.

Pakistan Meeting

Pakistan’s political leaders will meet tomorrow to discuss security policy. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will head the meeting to assess the regional situation, according to Zahid Bashir, the Pakistani premier’s press secretary.

The biggest opposition group, the Pakistan Muslim League faction headed by former premier Nawaz Sharif, which split from the Pakistan Peoples Party-led coalition government in August, will attend the meeting, party spokesman Siddiq-ul-Farooq said.

Gilani canceled a trip to Hong Kong, where he was to attend the Clinton Global Initiative summit starting tomorrow, to focus on addressing growing tensions with India, Bashir has said.

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The 60-hour killing spree by less than a dozen terrorists underscores the failure of India’s police force to keep pace with better armed, equipped and trained militants, a former intelligence agent said.

“That system has collapsed,” said Vikram Sood, former director of India’s foreign intelligence agency, known as the Research and Analysis Wing. “Police are overworked, understaffed and undertrained.”

At least 20 officers, including the head of the Maharashtra state Anti-Terrorism Squad, were among almost 200 people killed in the gun and grenade attacks.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net; Pratik Parija in New Delhi at pparija@bloomberg.net . Last Updated: December 1, 2008 12:01 EST. India Tells Pakistan to Match Its Words With ‘Action’ on Terror By Bibhudatta Pradhan and Pratik Parija

Posted in Current Affairs      

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Strains of Conflict

Israeli forces have widened their attacks in the Gaza Strip and expanded their targets. As its terrorism spell continues unabated, Israel ignored mounting international calls for a cease-fire and said it won’t stop its crippling 11-day assault until “peace and tranquility” are “achieved” in southern Israeli towns. Israeli forces seized control of high-rise buildings and attacked several mosques in a relentless campaign against Hamas militants that took an increasing toll on civilians. Hundreds of dead bodies and wounded ones are on Palestinian streets. The UN says at least 25% of those are civilians. The Jewish smear campaign has several reasons and targets. Tel Aviv talks about fresh attacks. The ugly faces of anti-Islamic world are seen in global media.

The heaviest fighting in the Gaza Strip since the 1967 Six Day War is taking an enormous toll on the territory’s civilians. The territory’s fragile medical system was already facing key shortages of equipment, spare parts, specialists and some medicine due to the international sanctions against Hamas-ruled Gaza. The problem has only gotten worse during the war. The crowded, chaotic and bloodstained hallways of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City are now makeshift operating areas. The hospital was overwhelmed with civilians. Bodies were two to a morgue drawer, and the wounded were being treated in hallways because beds were full. The medical system is particularly strained. Doctors, nurses, field medics and ambulances drivers are struggling under increasingly dangerous conditions to care for the wounded. The innocently looking UN says at least one-quarter of the more than 600 people officially killed in Gaza so far have been civilians. At least 20 Palestinian children were killed during the day Monday, said Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, a health official. Most confirmed deaths have been civilians.

Israel invaded Palestine and killed innocent Palestinians, but the USA just as usual blames Hamas, the so-called “Islamist terrorists” for Israeli terrorism. Israel also says Hamas is responsible for the current terrorism on innocent Gazans. India, a former Non-aligned leader keeps sits mouth and other parts shut.

Israel has allowed several tons of medical aid to enter Gaza since the fighting began, and for now, the U.N. says, there are enough of most medicines. But getting the supplies safely distributed from the warehouses to the hospitals and clinics, aid groups say, has been nearly impossible. Ground fighting is raging across the territory. Gaza has been cut in two by Israeli infantry and tanks.

A European Union delegation met with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. “The EU insists on a cease-fire at the earliest possible moment,” said Karel Schwarzenberg, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, which took over the EU’s presidency last week from France. Rocket attacks on Israel also must stop, Schwarzenberg told a news conference with Livni. The EU brought no truce proposals of its own because the cease-fire “must be concluded by the involved parties,” he added.

Israel’s operation has sparked anger across the Arab world and has drawn criticism from countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, which have ties with Israel and have been intimately involved in Mideast peacemaking. In Beirut, Lebanon, protesters tried to pull away barbed wire blocking their path to the U.S. Embassy. They were driven back with heavy blasts of water. Some Egyptian ambulances have been allowed into the embattled Gaza Strip, presumably to pick up badly wounded civilians for treatment in Egyptian hospitals. Israeli warplanes and drones remain active along the frontier, drawing fire from Hamas militants.

Arab delegates met with the U.N. Security Council in New York, urging members to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate end to the attacks and a permanent cease-fire. At the same time, diplomats and European leaders traveled the region in an effort to stop Israel’s expanding ground and air offensive. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was due to attend a UN Security Council meeting, along with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France and Britain, in an attempt to put pressure on the Security Council to act decisively.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who unsuccessfully proposed a two-day truce last week, met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost control of Gaza to Hamas in June 2007. Europe “wants a cease-fire as quickly as possible,” Sarkozy said after meeting Abbas, urging Israel to halt the offensive, while blaming Hamas for acting “irresponsibly and unpardonably.” Sarkozy is in the Middle East trying to gather support for a ceasefire and Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country holds the EU presidency, is also in the region.

It seems Israel tries to cover up its terrorism and says it has three main demands: an end to Palestinian attacks, international supervision of any truce, and a halt to Hamas rearming. Hamas demands an end to Israeli attacks and the opening of border crossings to vital cargo. The State Department said the U.S. was pressing for a cease-fire that would include a halt to rocket attacks and an arrangement for reopening crossing points on the border with Israel, said spokesman Sean McCormack. A third element would address the tunnels into Gaza from Egypt through which Hamas has smuggled materials and arms. President George W. Bush emphasized “Israel’s desire to protect itself.” The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas,” he said.

Children are at risk from hypothermia, they are malnourished, there is not enough food, and the situation is getting desperate. Thousands of Gazans are reported to have fled their homes, despite the dangers of moving around outdoors in the territory. Living conditions in Gaza are reported to be deteriorating sharply, with supplies of fuel and food not getting to where they are needed. Many in Gaza are also without running water or electricity.

UN and other bodies just keep talking while innocent Palestinians get killed by the Jewish terror state. India used to condemn such terror attacks of Israel before, but now, realizing that world has comprehended Indian’s own terrorism in Kashmir, does not criticize a fellow terrorism any more. However, no Islamic nation or any other nation caring for universal humanism or stands for humanitarianism has come forward so far to stop the Israeli terrorism by forces. The deputy head of Hamas’ politburo in Syria, Moussa Abu Marzouk, rejected the U..S. proposal, telling the AP the U.S. plan seeks to impose “a de facto situation” and encourages Israel to continue its attacks on Gaza. But world has made Israel a powerful country now and pleads Israel to end hostilities.

That is tragedy of humanity, not just of the Palestinians. Gaza will free Palestine..

———————–

Yours Sincerely,

DR.ABDUL RUFF Colachal

Posted in Current Affairs      

Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | RUPEE NEWS | January 6th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ |

Ann Coultor is the comedienne that never made it to the Senate. She is provocative, well spoken and admittedly pretty and possibly sexy. She is a loudmouth and probably has the worst ideas about anything and everything. The Right loves her and the Left hates her. She made fun of Mrs Obama not to insult the Obamas but for selfish reasons.

She takes the most preposterous positions in politics and finds fans that support the imbecilic theology that she vocalizes.

More details of Ann Coulter’s next book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America are out revealing how Coulter slams Michelle Obama for her style while applauding that of Cindy McCain.

The Daily News