The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Shah Mehmood Qureshi  yesterday betrayed the Kashmir cause and in turn the state of Pakistan by legitimising the Indian occupation of Kashmir. Moreover, as an important leader of the PPP, Qureshi also betrayed his party and its founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was the most vocal voice since the Quaid in his support for the Kashmir cause and never legitimised nor recognised Indian occupied Kashmir. Kashmir for him was never a part of India as the now legendary video below shows:

In contrast the Zardari-led PPP seems timid and foreover on the back foot vis a vis Kashmir and relations with India. A video of the full press conference in which Qureshi uttered his offensive words  has not been made available however Pakistani TV channels have focused on the key aspects.

Indeed the disgraceful remarks of betrayal made by our very own Foreign Minister were missed on the whole except by Talat Hussain it seems who drew his viewers attention to them on Live with Talat aired on 16 July (35 min 35 sec -38 min 34 sec). The cowardly comments of Qureshi have been noted by me verbatim and they were as follows:

‘The Jammu and Kashmir issue and the recent developments in Jammu and Kashmir were taken up in the parleys that we had today. In fact three organisations, Kashmir based organisations wrote to me and wanted me to highlight and discuss these issues, and I did.

Issues of human rights and violations, issue of the imposition of curfew in a number of cities, the issue of the use of the Indian armed forces for the maintenance of law and order and the loss of life are issues of concern of everyone, including the elected government in Jammu and Kashmir. You must have seen a statement, of the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in which he has welcomed this engagement and is of the view that progress’

The words in bold refer to the offending remarks which legitimise the Indian occupation of Kashmir no less. Never before has any Pakistani official invested with executive authority uttered even a single word that recognised the Indian occupation of Kashmir.

Qureshi went further than that by recognising the ‘elected government of Jammu and Kashmir’, a so-called government that Pakistan has never recognised since its very creation. Furthermore Qureshi adds fuel to his own funeral pyre by quoting the so-called Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir to substantiate his points on engagement.

In summary, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan recognised the legitimacy of the Indian occupation of Pakistani land and then waxed eloquent of its occupiers, all whilst hosting the occupying state’s own Foreign Minister! I am sure that no Bollywood director nor any other Indian enjoying a wet dream could have scripted a better choice of words for the Pakistan Foreign Minister to utter in a press conference with his Indian counterpart.  

Qureshi’s words are I hope, a slip of the tongue and not the new Kashmir policy of the Zardari-led PPP. If it is Pakistan’s new Kashmir policy then it is akin to dancing on the graves of the Kashmiri and Pakistani dead. I await a retraction and a public apology from Qureshi himself, for anything less will be a betrayal of the Kashmir cause and a gross betrayal of the Pakistan’s People Party’s founder and Kashmir’s most vocal voice, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Source: Shaheed Tufail Ahmed Matoo Facebook Page/AP

‘The Killers’ are a popular American rock band to some, but for Kashmiris the term is reserved only for the occupying state of India. In the past month alone, India has unleashed a wave of terror against the people of Kashmir with Kashmiri civilians being targeted at will with heavy-handed policing and state oppression amounting to a death tally of 15 deaths.

It all began on 11 June with the martyrdom of Tufail Ahmed Matoo, a young boy who was shot dead by the police. Since that day, 15 innocent civilians have spilled their blood for the Kashmir cause. The significance of recent events can be gauged by a report on the situation available on the BBC Website which reports that ‘even the pro-India People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the government of declaring war on its own people’.

No friend of Pakistan, the Hindustan Times  has understood the significance of recent events and has reported of Kashmir that the situation has led to Omar Abdullah’s government formally asking for  support from the Centre to use the army as “deterrent” and to “assist in imposing curfew and maintaining basic law and order”. Crucially the Hindustan Times reports that ‘It was after more than 15 years that the army columns were patrolling both uptown and downtown Srinagar. Flag marches were also held in several other districts like Budgam and south Kashmir’s Anantnag districts’. The headline is thus that Indian forces are patrolling Srinagar again after a gap of nearly twenty years.

The fact that the Kashmiri leadership remain behind bars proves that the Kashmiri public remain steadfast in their struggle,  indeed Mirwaiz Umar Farooq an important Kashmiri leader has said of the recent events that ’the baton of the freedom struggle has now been passed on to the next generation who by sacrificing their precious lives have reinforced the universally accepted fact that it might be possible to annihilate the body by killing it but no power on earth can subjugate the yearnings of a nation for freedom into submission’.

Meanwhile while Kashmir burns, Pakistan fiddles. It is criminal that Pakistan seems preoccupied with issues galore at the cost of the Kashmir cause. Moreover it is the great betrayal given that the Pakistani state has unilaterally chose to ‘switch off’ its focus on Kashmir except for empty sloganeering relating only to the pathetic and apathetic Pakistan-India composite dialogue.

It seems that the people of Kashmir and their struggle is no longer newsworthy in today’s troubled Pakistan. That the Pakistani love for Srinagar and Sopore has dissapeared it seems at least from the Pakistani state who seem unmoved on Kashmir’s recent events with not one word uttered from President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and even Nawaz Sharif.

Very few forceful statements have been issued from Pakistan, indeed it seems Kashmiris are on their own and that Pakistan has become both deaf and mute to the plight of ordinary Kashmiris . However a timely reminder to the Pakistani state and Pakistani citizens of the importance of the Kashmir cause is necessary and I seek to use this post as a rallying cry. The reminder comes in the form of a video of Sher-e-Kashmir Syed Ali Geelani, the video below says it all:

The message is clear that Kashmir is the life vein of Pakistan, it can never be ignored nor forgotten for Kashmir is Pakistan and vice versa. 

Kashmir Banega Pakistan, Kashmir aur Pakistan Zindabad

A post on India’s ‘water terrorism’ against Pakistan will not sit well amidst the supposed Pakistan-India love fest a la Shoaib Malik and Sania Mirza. It needs to be stated at the very start that Other Pakistan strongly supports peace and friendship between Pakistan and India, indeed a recent post detailed our support for the Aman ki Asha initiative as shown here.

That said it is fact that India has been far from a friend and more of a foe to Pakistan since 1947. A history lesson in Pakistan-India relations is not necessary for the scars of wars and water theft to name two irritants are still raw and painful today. It is the latter that is the subject of this post and relates to the Pakistani consensus regarding India’s water terrrorism against Pakistan. Water is no small or side issue, indeed water will make or break both Pakistan and India, even the much celebrated shining India!

Ayub Khan the first khaki king and dictator of Pakistan and India’s Jawaharlal Nehru signed the Indus Water Treaty in 1960 in Karachi as the photo above shows. The Indus Water Treaty is essentially a water-sharing treaty that mainly gave Pakistan rights to the Western rivers along the Indus River and the Eastern rivers to India. Since then the treaty has been violated unilaterally by India time and time again with violations to many to mention, Baglihar to Kishanganga being only two .

Many of the key aspects and disputes concerning India’s violation of the Indus Treaty are complex and technical. However an independent and expert analysis written by John Briscoe who is an World Bank water expert has recently been published in The News and I share it with a view to beginning a debate on this key issue and it is shared below:

War or peace on the Indus? by John Briscoe

Anyone foolish enough to write on war or peace in the Indus needs to first banish a set of immediate suspicions. I am neither Indian nor Pakistani. I am a South African who has worked on water issues in the subcontinent for 35 years and who has lived in Bangladesh (in the 1970s) and Delhi (in the 2000s). In 2006 I published, with fine Indian colleagues, an Oxford University Press book titled India’s Water Economy: Facing a Turbulent Future and, with fine Pakistani colleagues, one titled Pakistan’s Water Economy: Running Dry.

I was the Senior Water Advisor for the World Bank who dealt with the appointment of the Neutral Expert on the Baglihar case. My last assignment at the World Bank (relevant, as described later) was as Country Director for Brazil. I am now a mere university professor, and speak in the name of no one but myself.

I have deep affection for the people of both India and Pakistan, and am dismayed by what I see as a looming train wreck on the Indus, with disastrous consequences for both countries. I will outline why there is no objective conflict of interests between the countries over the waters of the Indus Basin, make some observations of the need for a change in public discourse, and suggest how the drivers of the train can put on the brakes before it is too late.

Is there an inherent conflict between India and Pakistan?

The simple answer is no. The Indus Waters Treaty allocates the water of the three western rivers to Pakistan, but allows India to tap the considerable hydropower potential of the Chenab and Jhelum before the rivers enter Pakistan.

The qualification is that this use of hydropower is not to affect either the quantity of water reaching Pakistan or to interfere with the natural timing of those flows. Since hydropower does not consume water, the only issue is timing. And timing is a very big issue, because agriculture in the Pakistani plains depends not only on how much water comes, but that it comes in critical periods during the planting season. The reality is that India could tap virtually all of the available power without negatively affecting the timing of flows to which Pakistan is entitled.

Is the Indus Treaty a stable basis for cooperation?

If Pakistan and India had normal, trustful relations, there would be a mutually-verified monitoring process which would assure that there is no change in the flows going into Pakistan. (In an even more ideal world, India could increase low-flows during the critical planting season, with significant benefit to Pakistani farmers and with very small impacts on power generation in India.) Because the relationship was not normal when the treaty was negotiated, Pakistan would agree only if limitations on India’s capacity to manipulate the timing of flows was hardwired into the treaty. This was done by limiting the amount of “live storage” (the storage that matters for changing the timing of flows) in each and every hydropower dam that India would construct on the two rivers.

While this made sense given knowledge in 1960, over time it became clear that this restriction gave rise to a major problem. The physical restrictions meant that gates for flushing silt out of the dams could not be built, thus ensuring that any dam in India would rapidly fill with the silt pouring off the young Himalayas.

This was a critical issue at stake in the Baglihar case. Pakistan (reasonably) said that the gates being installed were in violation of the specifications of the treaty. India (equally reasonably) argued that it would be wrong to build a dam knowing it would soon fill with silt. The finding of the Neutral Expert was essentially a reinterpretation of the Treaty, saying that the physical limitations no longer made sense. While the finding was reasonable in the case of Baglihar, it left Pakistan without the mechanism – limited live storage – which was its only (albeit weak) protection against upstream manipulation of flows in India. This vulnerability was driven home when India chose to fill Baglihar exactly at the time when it would impose maximum harm on farmers in downstream Pakistan.

If Baglihar was the only dam being built by India on the Chenab and Jhelum, this would be a limited problem. But following Baglihar is a veritable caravan of Indian projects – Kishanganga, Sawalkot, Pakuldul, Bursar, Dal Huste, Gyspa… The cumulative live storage will be large, giving India an unquestioned capacity to have major impact on the timing of flows into Pakistan. (Using Baglihar as a reference, simple back-of-the-envelope calculations, suggest that once it has constructed all of the planned hydropower plants on the Chenab, India will have an ability to effect major damage on Pakistan. First, there is the one-time effect of filling the new dams. If done during the wet season this would have little effect on Pakistan. But if done during the critical low-flow period, there would be a large one-time effect (as was the case when India filled Baglihar). Second, there is the permanent threat which would be a consequence of substantial cumulative live storage which could store about one month’s worth of low-season flow on the Chenab. If, God forbid, India so chose, it could use this cumulative live storage to impose major reductions on water availability in Pakistan during the critical planting season.

Views on “the water problem” from both sides of the border and the role of the press

Living in Delhi and working in both India and Pakistan, I was struck by a paradox. One country was a vigorous democracy, the other a military regime. But whereas an important part of the Pakistani press regularly reported India’s views on the water issue in an objective way, the Indian press never did the same. I never saw a report which gave Indian readers a factual description of the enormous vulnerability of Pakistan, of the way in which India had socked it to Pakistan when filling Baglihar. How could this be, I asked? Because, a journalist colleague in Delhi told me, “when it comes to Kashmir – and the Indus Treaty is considered an integral part of Kashmir — the ministry of external affairs instructs newspapers on what they can and cannot say, and often tells them explicitly what it is they are to say.”

This apparently remains the case. In the context of the recent talks between India and Pakistan I read, in Boston, the electronic reports on the disagreement about “the water issue” in The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Hindu, The Indian Express and The Economic Times. (Respectively, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Water-Pakistans-diversionary-tactic-/articleshow/5609099.cms, http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/ article112388.ece, http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/india/River-waters-The-next-testing-ground/Article1-512190.aspx, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Pak-heats-up-water-sharing/583733, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Pak-takes-water-route-to-attack-India/articleshow/5665516.cms.)

Taken together, these reports make astounding reading. Not only was the message the same in each case (“no real issue, just Pakistani shenanigans”), but the arguments were the same, the numbers were the same and the phrases were the same. And in all cases the source was “analysts” and “experts” — in not one case was the reader informed that this was reporting an official position of the Government of India.

Equally depressing is my repeated experience – most recently at a major international meeting of strategic security institutions in Delhi – that even the most liberal and enlightened of Indian analysts (many of whom are friends who I greatly respect) seem constitutionally incapable of seeing the great vulnerability and legitimate concern of Pakistan (which is obvious and objective to an outsider).

A way forward

This is a very uneven playing field. The regional hegemon is the upper riparian and has all the cards in its hands. This asymmetry means that it is India that is driving the train, and that change must start in India. In my view, four things need to be done.

First, there must be some courageous and open-minded Indians – in government or out – who will stand up and explain to the public why this is not just an issue for Pakistan, but why it is an existential issue for Pakistan.

Second, there must be leadership from the Government of India. Here I am struck by the stark difference between the behaviour of India and that of its fellow BRIC – Brazil, the regional hegemon in Latin America.

Brazil and Paraguay have a binding agreement on their rights and responsibilities on the massive Itaipu Binacional Hydropower Project. The proceeds, which are of enormous importance to small Paraguay, played a politicised, polemical anti-Brazilian part in the recent presidential election in Paraguay. Similarly, Brazil’s and Bolivia’s binding agreement on gas also became part of an anti-Brazil presidential campaign theme.

The public and press in Brazil bayed for blood and insisted that Bolivia and Paraguay be made to pay. So what did President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva do? “Look,” he said to his irate countrymen, “these are poor countries, and these are huge issues for them. They are our brothers. Yes, we are in our legal rights to be harsh with them, but we are going to show understanding and generosity, and so I am unilaterally doubling (in the case of Paraguay) and tripling (in the case of Bolivia) the payments we make to them. Brazil is a big country and a relatively rich one, so this will do a lot for them and won’t harm us much.” India could, and should, in my view, similarly make the effort to see it from its neighbour’s point of view, and should show the generosity of spirit which is an integral part of being a truly great power and good neighbour.

Third, this should translate into an invitation to Pakistan to explore ways in which the principles of the Indus Waters Treaty could be respected, while providing a win for Pakistan (assurance on their flows) and a win for India (reducing the chronic legal uncertainty which vexes every Indian project on the Chenab or Jhelum). With good will there are multiple ways in which the treaty could be maintained but reinterpreted so that both countries could win.

Fourth, discussions on the Indus waters should be de-linked from both historic grievances and from the other Kashmir-related issues. Again, it is a sign of statesmanship, not weakness, to acknowledge the past and then move beyond it. This is personal for me, as someone of Irish origin. Conor Cruise O’Brien once remarked, “Santayana said that those who did not learn their history would be condemned to repeat it; in the case of Ireland we have learned our history so well that we are condemned to repeat it, again and again.”

And finally, as a South African I am acutely aware that Nelson Mandela, after 27 years in prison, chose not to settle scores but to look forward and construct a better future, for all the people of his country and mine. Who will be the Indian Mandela who will do this – for the benefit of Pakistanis and Indians – on the Indus?

The Briscoe article and its conclusions are clear, Pakistan and India can make peace or war over the Indus. The drumbeats of war over water in South Asia are becoming louder as Pakistan suffers from an acute shortage of water thanks to India. Therefore it is vital that Pakistan and India act as per the Indus water treaty as war will serve no purpose for both countries, for the Pakistani government it is high time they deal with the India’s water terrorism as priority number one, anything less will be a betrayal to the nation.

Aman ki Asha is a worthwhile peace initiative by The Jang Group and the Times of India, the leading media houses of both nations. Destination peace is its singular aim and it is an initiative that Other Pakistan is happy to support for we too support peace between Pakistan and India. 

The use of doves to signify peace is a good omen we hope and the slogan’Aman ki Asha’ and the choice of  those words deserves a mention too. Aman means peace and is an Urdu word from Pakistan, ki is a word used in both Pakistan and India and serves as the the link for bringing the slogan together and a metaphor for bringing the countries together too. Lastly the word Asha means hope and is a Hindi word from India ensuring both countries can claim one word each in a three-worded slogan.

The joint-statement by the editors of The Jang Group and the Times of India sets out the aims of the initiative as shown below:

Aman Ki Asha

Peace between India and Pakistan has been stubbornly elusive and yet tantalizingly inevitable. This vast subcontinent senses the bounties a peace dividend can deliver to its people yet it recoils from claiming a share. The natural impulse would be to break out of the straitjacket of stated positions and embrace an ideal that promises sustained prosperity to the region, yet there is hesitation. There is a collective paralysis of the will, induced by the trauma of birth, amplified by false starts, mistrust, periodic outbreaks of violence, suspicion, misplaced jingoism and diplomatic doublespeak. Hypnotized by their own mantra, the two states are reluctant to move towards normalization until certain terms and certain promises are kept.

In this perennial season of inertia and zero-sum calculations prejudices continue to fester, stereotypes are entrenched and myth replaces reality. Tragically, opportunity knocks unheard on doors bolted on the inside. Opportunism, that appeals to atavistic passions, elicits an instant response to every single knock. It is one of history’s ironies that a people who share so much, refuse to acknowledge their similarities and focus so avidly on their differences. We believe it is time to restore the equilibrium. Public opinion is far too potent a force to be left in the hands of narrow vested interests. The people of today must find its voice and force the rulers to listen. The awaam must write its own placards and fashion its own slogans. The leaders must learn to be led and not blindly followed. Skepticism about the given is often the genesis of faith. This skepticism has been brewing. It can be unleashed to forge a new social compact between the people of this region. A social compact based on a simple yet powerful impulse – Aman ki Asha. A desire for peace.

The media in India and Pakistan speaks directly to the hearts and minds and stomachs of the people. It can help in writing a final chapter, adding a happy twist to a story that seemed headed for tragedy. It can do so by shaping the discourse and steering it away from rancour and divisiveness. It has the maturity to recognize the irritants and obstacles to peace and will not take a timid stance towards the more intractable and contentious issues – whether relating to Kashmir, water disputes or the issue of cross-border terrorism. It can offer solutions and nudge the leadership towards a sustained peace process. It can create an enabling environment where new ideas can germinate and bold initiatives can sprout. The media can begin the conversation where a plurality of views and opinions are not drowned out by shrill voices. It can cleanse polluted mindsets and revive the generosity of spirits which is a distinctive trait of the subcontinent. It can help cool the temperature and wean away the guardians from fortified frontiers. It can argue the case for allocating scarce resources where they are needed the most. It can begin the process of converting swords into plough shares.

The Times of India Group and the Jang Group have come together to energize the process of peace between our two countries. We believe that this is an intervention whose time has come. We recognize that set backs will occur but these should not derail the process. We will need to reach out and pluck the low hanging fruit in the beginning before we aim higher. Issues of trade and commerce, of investments, of financial infrastructure, of cultural exchanges, of religious and medical tourism, of free movement of ideas, of visa regimes, of sporting ties, of connectivity, of reviving existing routes, of market access, of separated families, of the plight of prisoners, will be part of our initial agenda. Through debates, discussions and the telling of stories we will find commonalities and space, for compromise and adjustment, on matters that have bedevilled relations for over 60 years.

When the two neighbors meet they move almost seamlessly into the shared cultural and human ethos. They talk to each other about food, about music, about poetry, about films, about theatre and about the prolonged absences spawned by lost years. They share anxieties, discuss rising prices, seek advice on their children’s education, gossip about their in-laws, trade anecdotes and laugh at the foibles of politicians. We want to lower the walls so that the conversation continues. We have to nurture the seeds of peace that have nestled, untended, for decades in hostile soil.

We owe our unborn generations the right to rise out of the depths of poverty, and squalour. It is embarrassing to read the statistics confirming our resistance to positive change in the fields of education, health and poverty alleviation. All social indices are stacked against us and will remain so unless we scatter the war clouds that menace our skies. There are external elements at work in the region that thrive on the animosity between the two neighbours. They have a stake in keeping the region in turmoil. We need to combat them by making them irrelevant.

A surge of goodwill and flexibility on the part of civil society and the media will push these forces back by denying them the raw material that manufactures hate.

Our subcontinent needs to follow the footprints left behind by the great poets, sufi saints and the bhakts who preached and practiced love and inclusiveness. This is the land of Tagore and Ghalib, of Bulleh Shah and Kabir, of Nanak and Moinuddin Chisti. It is their spirit that will guide us in this journey. The one and half billion people of this region await the dawning of an age where peace, equality and tranquility prevails. This will happen when every heart beats with Aman ki Asha.

The statement does well to chart the history of Pakistan-India relations and sets out the untapped but Himalayan potential for improved Pakistan-India relations. On the crucial issues such as Kashmir the statement can only promise that  they will ‘recognize the irritants and obstacles to peace and will not take a timid stance towards the more intractable and contentious issues – whether relating to Kashmir, water disputes or the issue of cross-border terrorism’.

Other Pakistan’s hope for peace  or ‘Asha’ is minimised when the statement laters warn that  ’we will need to reach out and pluck the low hanging fruit in the beginning before we aim higher. Issues of trade and commerce, of investments, of financial infrastructure, of cultural exchanges, of religious and medical tourism, of free movement of ideas, of visa regimes, of sporting ties, of connectivity, of reviving existing routes, of market access, of separated families, of the plight of prisoners, will be part of our initial agenda’. The words in bold italic are done so deliberately with a view to drawing readers attention to the fact that these are the traditional areas of interest for the Indian government over many decades.

The fear is that a focus on trade and commerce, reviving existing routes, and of market access as recently trumpeted via the seedy backdoor of a Pakistan-Afghanistan transit trade agreement that is currently being considered with whispers of benefitting India will be the main focus at the cost of the core issues of Kashmir. It is feared that this focus on market access and trade is deliberate as per a covert Indin aim aimed at putting to the backburner the Kashmir issue amongst others, a campaign that does not involve of the media houses it needs to be said.

It needs to be stated that my position remains the same on India’s evil in destabilisng Pakistan and her occupation of Kashmir, the blatant stealing of our waters and I can go on and on for the list of evil deeds is endless. Thus my support for ‘Aman ki Asha’  is a personal endeavour to support peace even though the Indian government is only planning for war, death and destruction just take Gen Kapoor’s warmongering talk of recent days as an example.

In the end let us say it again Other Pakistan supports Aman ki Asha, for our destination too is peace.

March is a historic month and the ides of March in particular is legendary. For Pakistan this March has lived up to its billing, as March 2009 has been a defining month with the Chief Justice being restored along with his brother judges. In the same March, President Obama announced his new strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, drones included free of course!

March’s B-side has a key focus on Pakistan-US-Afghanistan policy with alternative futures discussed. March’s B-side will be a prelude to April’s B-side which will focus entirely on US policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan as by then the NATO Summit will have decided on concrete steps and will be worthy of comprehensive debate and denigration more likely from commentators across the political divide.

March’s B-side contents are:

•    A Race Against Time in Afghanistan by JOHN KERRY
•    The Best Ally Against Extremism by PAULA NEWBERG
•    Pakistan Hone Se Bachao by VARUN GANDHI

The first article is written by the present Chairman of the  US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former Presidential candidate John Kerry. John Kerry is a respected voice in foreign policy circles and his article will shock readers as it has that unique quality missing till now amongst key American policy makers- words of wisdom.

A Race Against Time in Afghanistan by John F. Kerry

No foreign power has remained welcome in Afghanistan for a sustained period, and the British and the Soviets paid a bitter price for trying. Our goal has never been to dominate Afghanistan but, rather, to eliminate al-Qaeda’s haven and to empower Afghans to govern their country in line with their best interests and our national security.

We shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking that we are in anything but a race against time in a region suspicious of foreign footprints. The United States is not in Afghanistan to make it our 51st state — but to make sure it does not become an al-Qaeda narco-state and terrorist beachhead capable of destabilizing neighboring Pakistan.

We must renew our original mission — and President Obama has rightly pledged to recommit to Afghanistan as the center of our global counterinsurgency campaign, beginning with the deployment of as many as 30,000 additional troops. In 2006, I argued that more troops were needed. I still believe that. But troops alone will not bring victory. Our military commitment must be matched with realistic goals, beginning with a comprehensive new bottom-up strategy acknowledging Afghanistan’s history of decentralized governance and recognizing the capabilities of our NATO and Afghan allies.

Last year was the deadliest since we arrived in Afghanistan in 2001. A senior U.S. commander warned recently that “it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” We will succeed only by maintaining bipartisan support and public backing at home and winning back the Afghan people through a sustained commitment of additional civilian personnel, reconstruction funds and diplomatic engagement. Equally important, we need to execute this commitment without raising the stakes and turning Afghanistan once again into a magnet for the world’s jihadists.

Our NATO allies have to shoulder a bigger burden, and we should continue to seek more combat troops with fewer restrictions. Jawboning reluctant allies has its limits; we will need to persuade countries unwilling to take on expanded combat roles to contribute more toward other aspects of the mission, including development and police training.

Afghanistan is not Iraq, and we should not expect the same results from a troop increase as occurred in Iraq. There, a broad Sunni tribal awakening was crucial. In Afghanistan, decades of war have weakened tribal structures, and the Taliban — unlike the brutal foreigners who comprise al-Qaeda in Iraq — have deep roots in Pashtun society. More troops, however, can create the conditions for enhanced reconstruction efforts and increase our leverage for the political solution sought by Gen. David Petraeus. Over time, increasing the number of reliable Afghan forces will be vital to maintaining security.

Corruption remains a powerful obstacle to progress. President Hamid Karzai promises to get tough on this chronic problem. But we need to insist on results — where more is given in blood and money, more is expected in return. Afghanistan lacks judges, lawyers and an effective and honest police force. An illegitimate and isolated central government in Kabul would doom our efforts and drive the people into the clutches of the Taliban. We need to expand our reach beyond Kabul, empowering women and working more closely with trusted provincial leaders to ensure that funds reach the people.

Real progress must start at the local level. One promising model is the National Solidarity Program, which employs Afghans in reconstruction projects requested by village elders. A similar approach in Wardak province helps the district government hire tribal members as community guards.

One of our biggest challenges is eradicating narcotics cultivation, a major source of financing for the Taliban. We need to provide greater subsidies and technical assistance for farmers who abandon poppies, as we have done in Nangahar province. But we must also crack down on drug lords and reduce production, employing sustained force when necessary — particularly in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand province.

Our strategy must also reflect the interconnectedness of the region. This requires redoubled efforts to strengthen Pakistan’s civilian government and support its efforts against militants in the lawless border areas and the factions that would sabotage its relations with India.

We went to Afghanistan to deny sanctuary to al-Qaeda and to replace the Taliban rulers who harbored it with a legitimate government strong enough to avoid destabilizing a vital and volatile region. Our goal hasn’t changed. Achieving it requires a more robust commitment of coalition troops and reconstruction aid. It is not too late to turn the tide, but only a comprehensive strategy, sufficient resources and bipartisan resolve will lead to success in Afghanistan.

The writer, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Published in The Washington Post

WASIM VIEW- John Kerry’s article is full of no-brainers. John Kerry is right in reminding us all that America has been the graveyard of foreign occupiers like the British, Soviet and American too I believe should they remain any longer.

Kerry’s choice of words are indicative when he warns that the US should not ‘delude ourselves into thinking that we are in anything but a race against time in a region of suspicious of foreign footprints’. The race analogy is quite apt as the Afghan people including the Taliban are very much long distance runners in this duel up against an American and NATO presence only equipped for a sprint at best.

John Kerry is no dove and not a new kid on the block either. Kerry is only too right in his words of warning that the war in Afghanistan runs the risk of destabilising Pakistan. In that context the new Obama strategy of dollars for drones is never going to be the answer, and is akin to fiddling while Pakistan burns.

The second article by  Paula Newberg proves that US  policymakers are not all neo-cons and that good sense exists and can even prevail in the States.

The Best Ally Against Extremism by Paula R Newberg

Last week, Pakistan turned its political clock back to the year 2007. Its lawyers’ movement forced President Asif Ali Zardari to reinstate judges dismissed by his predecessor, General Pervez Musharraf. After many broken promises and nasty personal politics, Pakistanis now confront the same governance problems that dogged them in the waning days of Musharraf’s rule.

This may not seem like progress. But the fact that the courts can now hold government to account is an enormous step for a state engulfed by terror and fear. Just as the United States is ready to unveil a new strategy for the region, Pakistan may finally begin to marshal a democratic response toward the Taliban and Al Qaeda that neither Islamabad nor Kabul could muster until now.

Why should a domestic dispute matter to the US-led war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda? Politics and a deep need for justice. The Supreme Court can certainly make life uncomfortable for Zardari, whose tenure is coloured by allegations of his corruption and the shadow of Musharraf’s policies. Before the dismissals, the Supreme Court was prepared to take up contentious cases concerning the security and intelligence services, the disappearance of hundreds of Pakistanis swept up in anti-terrorism campaigns and US rendition practices, Musharraf’s abuse of presidential powers to support US policies and state corruption.

Were the court to rule now, these cases could alter the balance of power within Pakistan and the direction of its foreign policy. Each also strikes at the heart of Pakistan’s misled governance. The courts will undoubtedly keep a close eye on diminishing parliamentary prerogatives and rising presidential powers as Pakistan wades into the new depths of the American-led war. This time around, the United States may have to deal with Pakistan, and if it were smart, Afghanistan, on terms set, at least in part, in the region itself.

The most pressing issue is negotiating with insurgents. The Taliban’s strength lies in border regions, but this is not a peripheral problem. Zardari’s decision to reach an agreement with them in the Swat valley – exchanging peace for the imposition of Islamic law – has infuriated Pakistanis who believe it trades constitutional principle for tactical expediency, and land for peace, bringing militancy close to the heartland without regard to public opinion.

The idea that there is a “moderate” Taliban has circulated since the movement’s rise in the 1990s, when the government of Pakistan formally recognised and international organisations engaged with its members in order to secure humanitarian supplies for Afghanistan. Who these moderates are, and how strong they might be, remains hazy.

Then, as now, even limited talks with the Taliban raised fears that talking conferred legitimacy. And then, as now, negotiation was a quick fix without a clear sense of its consequences for the future of either Afghanistan or Pakistan. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto did little to stop the Taliban, her successor Nawaz Sharif gave them formal sanction, Musharraf and Zardari treated them as bargaining partners – and today the Taliban’s rise has raised anew the question of Sharif’s claim to a close relationship with those the US has spent seven years trying to destroy.

None of these efforts diminished the Taliban’s terror campaign, and attempts to cope with this challenge by acceding to its demands raise serious questions about the country’s future. Some Pakistani terror victims now ask if negotiation with insurgents might turn out to have been the right course. Others worry that such bargains might end Pakistan as they know it. All worry about the government’s alliance with the US, including its tacit permission for pilot-less drone attacks against insurgents inside Pakistan that undercuts its sovereignty and political legitimacy.

These are not questions about military decisions, but about political judgment, and affect the kind of political society that Pakistan can become. While the US debates Zardari’s utility, it’s worth remembering that neither Pakistan’s nor Afghanistan’s president has, or should have, sole authority to decide these questions. In both countries, much-ignored parliaments and courts have constitutional roles that could ease the future of future decisions for the region and foreign powers alike.

Like so many questions about legitimacy in a purportedly democratic state, these turn out to be about popular franchise. One year ago, Pakistanis voted against the parties and politicians who wanted to fight terrorism with authoritarian tools – an implied vote against both the Taliban and military decision-making. Now that Zardari has backed down and restored the authority of the judiciary, many Pakistanis are likely to hope that their government will think much harder about the consequences of handing territory and political power to anti-state insurgents.

The same can be said for Afghanistan, where an election is slated for later this year. Its security environment differs from Pakistan’s even if its enemies appear similar. The country’s history with its own Taliban and the profound weakness of the Afghan state may lead Kabul and Islamabad to take different decisions. The Karzai government allowed talks with the Taliban for several years when the US didn’t want them and continues them now, perhaps with US sanction. Few in Afghanistan have complained.

The primary lesson remains a critical one: Afghans need confidence in their own government, in its decisions about war and, ultimately, peace. Their votes need to be respected within the country and outside – not only when they suit the US and its allies.

Politicians don’t always take the right military decisions; neither do military leaders. The problems that trouble Afghanistan and Pakistan today began politically and remain political. Those politics are not solely national. Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to host transnational groups like Al Qaeda and cross-border movements like the Taliban.

But the region’s travails are both a cause and a consequence of long-standing problems of governance. Terror is not an overlay, but a part of the governance environments of both states, and will not disappear until each state can govern itself fully, representatively and justly. This is not about buying allegiance or manufacturing aid projects to stem extremism – it is about the legitimacy of political leaders and institutions.

The US has difficulty reconciling democracy with foreign policy in this region. It pushed Pakistan to send troops into the tribal areas to fight Al Qaeda, gained permission to fight directly on Pakistani soil and merged anti-insurgency activities across the Durand Line – all without the support of the Pakistani electorate.

In Afghanistan, the US and NATO control a war on the territory of an otherwise sovereign state whose elected leader has virtually no say in its conduct and, when he finally complained publicly, was derided by Washington.

This is one way the Obama administration’s policies can stem the tide of failure in the region: by ensuring that its own policies are supported in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not just by officers, presidents and technical experts, but by the electorates themselves. Only then can both countries can take hard decisions and hold them as their own. It’s called democracy, and deserves a chance. -yaleglobal

Paula R Newberg is the Marshall B Coyne Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University

Published in the Daily Times

WASIM VIEW- Paula Newberg’s article is a refreshing read as its full of  that elusive beast missing in Pakistan- good news. The article is the equivalent of an oasis of hope against a sea of pessimism in terms of recent news stories in Pakistan and is the first that has championed the lawyers movement and their struggle namely ‘that the courts can now hold government to account is an enormous step for a state engulfed by terror and fear.

Later in the article, Newberg highlights the folly of present US and NATO policy in the region. Indeed who can doubt that US Afghanistan policy was and still is dreamed up and executed by leaders living in the comfort of their drawing rooms and power corridors  be it in Washington, London, Kabul, Islamabad and is bereft of public backing in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The masses or electorate in Pakistan and Afghanistan must own the war conducted in their name via Parliament and other institutions is Newberg’s central point. The one-man show of Musharraf yesterday, Zardari today and whoever tomorrow is  doomed to fail.

As I said before dollars for drones is not the answer Mr Obama and this is not the change Pakistan can believe in. Indeed President Obama needs to think again his Afghanistan policy and work to formulate a respectable and regionally negotiated US withdrawal that secures US interests in the region. Ignoring such advice promises only defeat and ignomy- Vietnam style.

I finish with  a video clip showing up Varun Gandhi whose recent hate speech included a warning to his Hindu extremist supporters about Indian Muslims ’Pakistan hone se bachao’. I have chose to include the video, not to give oxygen to sickos like Varun Gandhi but as a reminder this March on why the dream of Pakistan was dreamt in 1940, namely to rid the Muslims of India from Hindu hegemony. Thank you Varun Gandhi for proving Pakistan was right.

Pakistan Hone Se Bachao by Varun Gandhi

Varun Gandhi’s communal remarks against Muslims and Sikhs have landed him in jail and created a furore in not so shining India and the wider region. The following video from an Indian media outlet shows the up till now forgotten fakir both naked and bare:

In addition to the video clip, Indian Express has published excerpts from the speeche with translation and they are shown below:

•    Yeh panja nahi hai, yeh kamal ka haath hai. Yeh kat** ke galey ko kaat dega chunaav ke baad. Jai Shri Ram! Ram ji ki jai! Varun Gandhi kaat daalega! Kaat denge us haath ko, kaat denge, kaat daalega! This is not the (Congress symbol) ‘hand’, this is the hand of the ‘lotus’. It will cut the throat of the (derogatory reference to a Muslim) after the elections… Varun Gandhi will cut… Cut that hand, cut it, cut it.
•   Apne jao, apne gaon mein jao aur halla karo ki saara Hindu ek tarfa ho jao, chhetra ko Pakistan hone se bachao, aur saara Hindu ek tarfa ho jao! Go to your villages and give the call that all Hindus must unite to save this area from becoming Pakistan..
•   Kya yeh sach nahin hai… ki usko bola gaya ki mataji aapka naam kya hai… agar usne bola ki Bimla Devi, to usko kahaa ki dekhenge, sochenge… pehle paanch hazaar rupaye do… aur agar uska naam hai Saira Bano ya jo bhi Begum Hukum Begum… hum to jaante nahin hain… badey daraawne naam hotey hain inke… Karimullah… Mazharullah…. agar raat ko kabhi dikh jaayen… to darr rahen hain…Is it not true… that if (a woman) is asked her name and she says Bimla Devi, she is told we’ll see, we’ll think (about giving Government aid), give us Rs 5,000 first… But if her name is Saira Bano or whatever begum Hukum Begum… I don’t even know… These people have such scary-sounding names… Karimullah, Mazharullah… If you ever encountered them at night, you’d be scared…
•   Meri ek behan hai… to ek pamphlet chhapa tha jisme saare pratiyashiyon ka picture likha hua hai… toh meri behan… us bitiya ne kaha… Bhaiya mujhe nahi pata tha ki aapke chhetra mein Osama bin Laden chunaav lad rahein hain… Maine kaha beta Osama bin Laden ko to America pakad nahi liya lekin Varun Gandhi ke to pakad mein bahut aane waale hain chunaav ke baad! I have a sister… there was a pamphlet with pictures of all the candidates… so this child told me, ‘I didn’t know that Osama bin Laden is contesting from your area.’ I told her, ‘America couldn’t get Oma, but Varun Gandhi is going to get a lot of people after the elections.’

WASIM VIEW- As I said at the start, I thank Varun Gandhi for proving Pakistan was right in demanding partition and freedom from Hindu hegemony. I feel I need not say anymore as this is a case where the less said is the more said.

I am lost for words.

I am so livid at the satanic attack that targeted the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore.  It is act of pure evil and I am sorry for my language here but the bastards who did this to our guests will pay. They will rot in hell in the afterlife and in this life too I assure you, if I get my hands on them.

This post says sorry and asks for forgiveness from the Sri Lankan cricket team who graced Pakistan with their presence ignoring at their peril, as it now seems the perilous security situation. And so here is a message from the Pakistani people to the Sri Lanka cricket team, please forgive us for not providing you the security you deserved. As a nation we are heartbroken that we could not protect our guests.

Like the image of our two flags together Pakistan and Sri Lanka must not let this evil act stand in the way of an enduring friendship. Pakistanis stand with Sri Lankans today and forever as friends.

I will leave the politics and the implications of today’s tragedy to another post except to say that the Indian glee evidenced by the Congress Party branding Pakistan as the ‘epicentre and fountainhead of terror’ has not escaped me. Neither has the comment from Nabeel Gabol escaped my attention that this was a revenge attack for Mumbai and that it was a ‘declaration of open war from India to Pakistan’. Let us not forget the history involved and that RAW created and sustained the Tamil Tigers  whilst Pakistan has supported successive Sri Lankan governments.

Regardless of the motives and the politics of today’s evil, this post must serve as a clarion call to the conscious of the Pakistani nation.  I for one cannot see Pakistan go to the dogs.  I cannot do more than ask the nation to reclaim our collective soul and rise against the militants and our client  puppet governments alike who seek to divide us . Let us together extinguish this fire.

Sri Lanka and Pakistan Zindabad.

- WRITTEN UNDER MARTIAL LAW (My thanks to cowards Tariq Pervez. Sabihuddin, Sardar Raza & Co for selling out)

The Gaza genocide is made the key focus of January’s B-side. Imran Khan’s letter to President Obama is the second key focus with Kashmir becoming the third key focus for this month’s B-side.

January’s B-side contents are:

• The Gaza Genocide by WASIM ARIF
• Imran Khan’s Open Letter to President Obama by IMRAN KHAN
• David Miliband’s Kashmir Comments by WASIM ARIF

The Gaza genocide … need I say more?

The Gaza Genocide by Wasim Arif

Other Pakistan’s unwritten rule and remit is that it focuses strictly on Pakistan. However as a lifetime supporter of the Palestinian people I cannot go on without passing comment on the recent genocide of Gaza.

In calling the collective punishment and massacre of innocents a genocide I echo the words of the President of the UN General Assembly Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann who condemned Israel’s killings of Palestinians in its Gaza offensive as “genocide”.

Israel’s evil since its bastard birth (meant in its true form as an illegitimate entity) can be taken as a given. However the Gaza genocide broke its previous records in evil for it was a massacre engineered as a crude electioneering exercise to show a strong Israel to the brainwashed Israeli masses.

However the fools of Israel have only won a battle and not the war as today Israel stands isolated in the world. Even Israel’s arch-supporters namely Uncle Sam stand disgraced and degraded with their words of support today. However the best comment of condemnation has come from the legendary British parliamentarian Sir Gerald Kaufman.

For your information Sir Gerald Kaufman is a British Member of Parliament, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew. In the House of Commons he delivered a blistering attack on the evil of Israel declaring that Israel was taking advantage of the guilt many non-Jews feel over the Holocaust to ruthlessly press ahead with its offensive in Gaza.

In a thundering speech Sir Gerald Kaufman spoke the raw truth saying that “the present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.” The full speech can be seen below:

Imran Khan’s open letter to President Obama is analysed in detail.

An Open Letter To President Obama by Imran Khan

Dear President Obama,

Your extraordinary ascent to the U.S. Presidency is, to a large part, a reflection of your remarkable ability to mobilize society, particularly the youth, with the message of “change.” Indeed, change is what the world is yearning for after eight long and almost endless years of carnage let loose by a group of neo-cons that occupied the White House.

Understandably, your overarching policy focus would be the security and welfare of all U.S. citizens and so it should be. Similarly, our first and foremost concern is the protection of Pakistani lives and the prosperity of our society. We may have different social and cultural values, but we share the fundamental values of peace, harmony, justice and equality before law.

No people desire change more than the people of Pakistan, as we have suffered the most since 9/11, despite the fact that none of the perpetrators of the acts of terrorism unleashed on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, were Pakistani. Our entire social, political and economic fabric is in a state of meltdown. Our sovereignty, dignity and self-respect have been trampled upon. The previous U.S. administration invested in dictators and corrupt politicians by providing them power crutches in return for total compliance to pursue its misconceived war on terror.

There are many threats confronting our society today, including the threat of extremism. In a society where the majority is without fundamental rights, without education, without economic opportunities, without health care, the use of sheer force and loss of innocent lives continues to expand the extremist fringe and contract the space for the moderate majority.

Without peace and internal security, the notion of investing in development in the war zones is a pipe dream, as the anticipated benefits would never reach the people. So the first and foremost policy objective should be to restore the peace. This can only be achieved through a serious and sustained dialogue with the militants and mitigation of their genuine grievances under the ambit of our constitution and law. Since Pakistan’s founding leader signed a treaty in 1948 with the people of the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas and withdrew Pakistani troops, they had remained the most peaceful and trouble-free part of Pakistan up until the post-9/11 situation, when we were asked to deploy our troops in FATA.

Even a cursory knowledge of Pushtun history shows that for reasons of religious, cultural and social affinity, the Pushtuns on both sides of the Durand Line (which marks the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan) cannot remain indifferent to the suffering of their brethren on either side. The Pushtuns are proud of their history of resisting every invader from Alexander onwards, to the Persians, Moghuls, British and the Russians (all superpowers of their times) who were all bogged down in the Pushtun quagmire. So, no government, Pakistani or foreign, will ever be able to stop Pushtuns crossing over the 1,500-kilometer border to support their brethren in distress on either side, even if it means fighting the modern-day superpower in Afghanistan. Recent history shows how the mighty Soviet Union had to retreat from Afghanistan with its army defeated even though it had killed over a million Afghans.

To an average Pushtun, notwithstanding the U.N. Security Council sanction, the U.S. is an occupying power in Afghanistan that must be resisted. It is as simple as that. Therefore, the greatest challenge confronting U.S. policy in Afghanistan is how to change its status from an occupier to a partner. The new U.S. administration should have no doubt that there is no military solution in Afghanistan. As more innocent Pushtuns are killed, more space is created for new Taliban and even Al-Qaida recruits-revenge being an integral part of the Pushtun character. So, as with Iraq, the U.S. should give a time table for withdrawal from Afghanistan and replace NATO and U.S. forces with U.N. troops during the interim period.

The Pushtuns then should be involved in a dialogue process where they should be given a stake in the peace. As the majority’s stake in peace grows, proportionately the breeding ground for extremists shrinks.

The crucial lesson the U.S. needs to learn-and learn quickly-is that you can only win against terrorists if the majority in a community considers them terrorists. Once they become freedom fighters and heroes amongst their people, history tells us that the battle is lost.

Terrorism worldwide is an age-old phenomenon and cannot be eliminated by rampaging armies, no matter how powerful. It can only be contained by a strategy of building democratic societies and addressing the root causes of political conflicts. The democratization part of this strategy demands a strategic partnership between the West and the people of the Islamic world, who are basically demanding dignity, self-respect and the same fundamental rights as the ordinary citizen in the West enjoys. However, this partnership can only be forged if the U.S. and its close Western allies are prepared to accept and coexist with credible democratic governments in the Islamic world that may not support all U.S. policies as wholeheartedly as dictators and discredited politicians do in order to remain in power.

The roots of terror and violence lie in politics-and so does the solution. We urge the new administration to conduct a major strategic review of the U.S.-led war on terror, including the nature and kind of support that should realistically be expected of Pakistan keeping in mind its internal security interests. Linking economic assistance to sealing of its western frontier will only force the hand of a shaky and unstable government in Pakistan to use more indiscriminate force in FATA, a perfect recipe for disaster.

The stability of the region hinges on a stable Pakistan. Any assistance to improve governance and social indicators must not be conditional. For the simple reason that any improvement in the overall quality of life of ordinary citizens and more effective writ of the state would only make mainstream society less susceptible to extremism.

However, if the new U.S. administration continues the Bush administration’s mantra of “do more,” to which our inept leadership is likely to respond to by using more force, Pakistan could become even more accessible to forces of extremism leading to further instability that would spread across the region, especially into India, which already faces problems of extremism and secessionist movements. Such a scenario would benefit no one-certainly not Pakistan and certainly not the U.S. That is why your message of meaningful change, Mr. President, must guide your policies in this region also.

Imran Khan is chairman and founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (Movement for Justice), and served as an elected member of Pakistan’s parliament from 2002-08. The captain of the Pakistan team that won the cricket World Cup in 1992, he founded the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center, the biggest charitable institution in Pakistan. He is chancellor of the University of Bradford, in the U.K.

Published in Forbes

WASIM VIEW- Imran Khan’s letter to President Obama is spot-on. The references to the history of the passionate Pashtuns who have and never will cow in to occupiers is essential reading for the new American administration and must frame their policies in the region. Obama promised change within and without, however the newest drone attacks ordered by him alone do not provide me with any hope and I fear worse.

Indeed if not careful Afghanistan could become Obama’s Vietnam. In his urge to prove his strongman credentials his sanctioning of drone attacks could just be a trailer of the feature film and the beginning of another Vietnam of another American century.

Instead of listening to wise advice and counsel from regional experts who denounce the present US strategy I believe Obama could commit Uncle Sam to more ignomy in Afghanistan and Pakistan by opting for a gung-ho option that will bring only more turmoil. The continuing drone attacks need to stop, the Taliban need to be brought into the electoral arena and a regional strategy to stabilise Afghanistan can only be the solution. Afghanistan and Pakistan desire a change in US policy, remember President Obama change we can!

And I finish January’s B-side with some praise for David Miliband because of his ‘the-truth-hurts’ statement on Kashmir that riled India.

David Miliband’s Comments on Kashmir by Wasim Arif

The British Foreign Secterary David Miliband and I have not always seen eye- to-eye in terms of Pakistan-UK relations. However David Miliband’s recent comments on Kashmir have knocked me for a six.

In an article for The Guardian newspaper David Miliband wrote that the ‘”resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders”.

Furthermore good old Dave even had the tenacity to discuss the Kashmir issue with his Indian hosts during his trip to India. The truth hurts and the absolute truth hurts absolutely with the Indians not best pleased expressing displeasure at the “aggressive style, the tone and manner in which David Miliband conducted himself during talks with the prime minister and the foreign minister”

The Indians then went in overdrive in rubbishing Miliband as “a young man, I guess this is the way he thinks diplomacy is conducted,” said an unidentified official. The Hindu newspaper quoted an Indian official saying the two government meetings with Miliband were “pretty awful”. Even when Miliband was in India, the government made its displeasure known. “We do not need unsolicited advice on internal issues in India like Kashmir,” said the foreign office spokesman Vishnu Prakash.

Since the Mumbai massacre, India has been seeking to rally the international community to pressure Pakistan to become subservient to Indian hegemony and how they have failed! The fact that David Miliband discussed Kashmir in India face-to-face proves Indian pretensions of becoming an emerging global player are delusions of grandeur.

What the Indians ignore or rather choose to ignore is that what David Miliband said is the truth and that until the Kashmiri people are free from occupation they will never sit easy. This truth hurts and the cumulative effect has been that the Indian’s chief cheerleader midget Mukherjee has grown even smaller on the world stage after the world shunned their blame game, and his boss Manmohan Singh is bed-ridden, need I say more….

- WRITTEN UNDER MARTIAL LAW (My thanks to cowards Tariq Pervez. Sabihuddin, Sardar Raza & Co for selling out)

The Monster in the Mirror by Arundhati Roy

We ‘ve forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching “India’s 9/11?. And like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we’re expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it’s all been said and done before.

As tension in the region builds, US Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that if it didn’t act fast to arrest the ‘Bad Guys’ he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on ‘terrorist camps’ in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India’s 9/11.

But November isn’t September, 2008 isn’t 2001, Pakistan isn’t Afghanistan and India isn’t America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

It’s odd how in the last week of November thousands of people in Kashmir supervised by thousands of Indian troops lined up to cast their vote, while the richest quarters of India’s richest city ended up looking like war-torn Kupwara-one of Kashmir’s most ravaged districts.

The Mumbai attacks are only the most recent of a spate of terrorist attacks on Indian towns and cities this year. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur and Malegaon have all seen serial bomb blasts in which hundreds of ordinary people have been killed and wounded. If the police are right about the people they have arrested as suspects, both Hindu and Muslim, all Indian nationals, it obviously means something’s going very badly wrong in this country.

If you were watching television you may not have heard that ordinary people too died in Mumbai. They were mowed down in a busy railway station and a public hospital. The terrorists did not distinguish between poor and rich. They killed both with equal cold-bloodedness.

The Indian media, however, was transfixed by the rising tide of horror that breached the glittering barricades of India Shining and spread its stench in the marbled lobbies and crystal ballrooms of two incredibly luxurious hotels and a small Jewish centre. We’re told one of these hotels is an icon of the city of Mumbai. That’s absolutely true. It’s an icon of the easy, obscene injustice that ordinary Indians endure every day.

On a day when the newspapers were full of moving obituaries by beautiful people about the hotel rooms they had stayed in, the gourmet restaurants they loved (ironically, one was called Kandahar), and the staff who served them, a small box on the top left-hand corner in the inner pages of a national newspaper (sponsored by a pizza company I think) said ‘Hungry, kya?’ (Hungry eh?). It then, with the best of intentions I’m sure, informed its readers that on the international hunger index, India ranked below Sudan and Somalia.

But of course this isn’t that war. That one’s still being fought in the Dalit bastis of our villages, on the banks of the Narmada and the Koel Karo rivers; in the rubber estate in Chengara; in the villages of Nandigram, Singur, Lalgarh in West Bengal; in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa; and the slums and shantytowns of our gigantic cities. That war isn’t on TV. Yet. So maybe, like everyone else, we should deal with the one that is.

There is a fierce, unforgiving fault line that runs through the contemporary discourse on terrorism. On one side (let’s call it Side A) are those who see terrorism, especially ‘Islamist’ terrorism, as a hateful, insane scourge that spins on its own axis, in its own orbit and has nothing to do with the world around it, nothing to do with history, geography or economics. Therefore, Side A says, to try and place it in a political context, or even try to understand it, amounts to justifying it and is a crime in itself.

Side B believes that though nothing can ever excuse or justify terrorism, it exists in a particular time, place and political context, and to refuse to see that will only aggravate the problem and put more and more people in harm’s way. Which is a crime in itself.

The sayings of Hafiz Saeed, who founded the Lashkar-e-Toiba (Army of the Pure) in 1990 and who belongs to the hardline Salafi tradition of Islam, certainly bolster the case of Side A. Hafiz Saeed approves of suicide bombing, hates Jews, Shias and Democracy, and believes that jehad should be waged until Islam, his Islam, rules the world. Among the things he has said are:

“There cannot be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy.”

And, “India has shown us this path. We would like to give India a tit-for-tat response and reciprocate in the same way by killing the Hindus, just like it is killing the Muslims in Kashmir.”

But where would Side A accommodate the sayings of Babu Bajrangi of Ahmedabad, India, who sees himself as a democrat, not a terrorist? He was one of the major lynchpins of the 2002 Gujarat genocide and has said (on camera):

“We didn’t spare a single Muslim shop, we set everything on fire…we hacked, burned, set on fire…we believe in setting them on fire because these bastards don’t want to be cremated, they’re afraid of it…. I have just one last wish…let me be sentenced to death…. I don’t care if I’m hanged…just give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have a field day in Juhapura where seven or eight lakhs of these people stay…. I will finish them off…let a few more of them die…at least twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand should die.”

And where, in Side A’s scheme of things, would we place the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh bible, We, or Our Nationhood Defined by M.S. Golwalkar ‘Guruji’, who became head of the RSS in 1944. It says:

“Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening.”

Or:

“To keep up the purity of its race and culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races-the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here…a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.”

Of course, Muslims are not the only people in the gun sights of the Hindu Right. Dalits have been consistently targeted. Recently in Kandhamal in Orissa, Christians were the target of two-and-a-half months of violence which left more than 40 dead. Forty thousand people have been driven from their homes, half of whom now live in refugee camps.

All these years, Hafiz Saeed has lived the life of a respectable man in Lahore as the head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which many believe is a front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Toiba. He continued to recruit young boys for his own bigoted jehad with his twisted, fiery sermons. On December 11, the UN imposed sanctions on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the Pakistani government succumbed to international pressure, putting Hafiz Saeed under house arrest.

Babu Bajrangi, however, is out on bail and continues to live the life of a respectable man in Gujarat. A couple of years after the genocide, he left the VHP to join the Shiv Sena. Narendra Modi, Bajrangi’s former mentor, is still the chief minister of Gujarat. So the man who presided over the Gujarat genocide was re-elected twice, and is deeply respected by India’s biggest corporate houses, Reliance and Tata.

Suhel Seth, a TV impresario and corporate spokesperson, has recently said, “Modi is God.” The policemen who supervised and sometimes even assisted the rampaging Hindu mobs in Gujarat have been rewarded and promoted.The RSS has 45,000 branches, its own range of charities and seven million volunteers preaching its doctrine of hate across India. They include Narendra Modi, but also former prime minister A.B. Vajpayee, current Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani, and a host of other senior politicians, bureaucrats and police and intelligence officers.

And if that’s not enough to complicate our picture of secular democracy, we should place on record that there are plenty of Muslim organisations within India preaching their own narrow bigotry.

So, on balance, if I had to choose between Side A and Side B, I’d pick Side B. We need context. Always.

In this nuclear subcontinent, that context is Partition. The Radcliffe Line which separated India and Pakistan and tore through states, districts, villages, fields, communities, water systems, homes and families, was drawn virtually overnight. It was Britain’s final, parting kick to us. Partition triggered the massacre of more than a million people and the largest migration of a human population in contemporary history.

Eight million people-Hindus fleeing the new Pakistan, Muslims fleeing the new kind of India-left their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Each of those people carries and passes down a story of unimaginable pain, hate, horror, but yearning too. That wound, those torn but still unsevered muscles, that blood and those splintered bones still lock us together in a close embrace of hatred, terrifying familiarity but also love. It has left Kashmir trapped in a nightmare from which it can’t seem to emerge, a nightmare that has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

Pakistan, the Land of the Pure, became an Islamic republic, and then, very quickly a corrupt, violent military state, openly intolerant of other faiths. India on the other hand declared herself an inclusive, secular democracy. It was a magnificent undertaking, but Babu Bajrangi’s predecessors had been hard at work since the 1920s, dripping poison into India’s bloodstream, undermining that idea of India even before it was born. By 1990, they were ready to make a bid for power.

In 1992, Hindu mobs exhorted by L.K. Advani stormed the Babri Masjid and demolished it. By 1998, the BJP was in power at the Centre. The US War on Terror put the wind in their sails. It allowed them to do exactly as they pleased, even to commit genocide and then present their fascism as a legitimate form of chaotic democracy. This happened at a time when India had opened its huge market to international finance, and it was in the interests of international corporations and the media houses they owned to project it as a country that could do no wrong. That gave Hindu Nationalists all the impetus and the impunity they needed. This, then, is the larger historical context of terrorism in the subcontinent, and of the Mumbai attacks.

It shouldn’t surprise us that Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Toiba is from Shimla (India) and L.K. Advani of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is from Sindh (Pakistan).

In much the same way as it did after the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2002 burning of the Sabarmati Express and the 2006 bombing of the Samjhauta Express, the Government of India announced that it has ‘incontrovertible’ evidence that the Lashkar-e-Toiba backed by Pakistan’s ISI was behind the Mumbai strikes. The Lashkar has denied involvement, but remains the prime accused. According to the police and intelligence agencies, the Lashkar operates in India through an organisation called the ‘Indian Mujahideen’.

Two Indian nationals-Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmed, a Special Police Officer working for the Jammu and Kashmir Police, and Tausif Rehman, a resident of Calcutta in West Bengal-have been arrested in connection with the Mumbai attacks. So already the neat accusation against Pakistan is getting a little messy. Almost always, when these stories unspool, they reveal a complicated global network of foot-soldiers, trainers, recruiters, middlemen and undercover intelligence and counter-intelligence operatives, working not just on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, but in several countries simultaneously. In today’s world, trying to pin down the provenance of a terrorist strike and isolate it within the borders of a single nation-state is very much like trying to pin down the provenance of corporate money. It’s almost impossible.

In circumstances like these, air strikes to ‘take out’ terrorist camps may take out the camps, but certainly will not ‘take out’ the terrorists. And neither will war. (Also, in our bid for the moral high ground, let’s try not to forget that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE of neighbouring Sri Lanka, one of the world’s most deadly terrorist groups, were trained by the Indian army.)

Afghan revenge: America’s debris, our headache

Thanks largely to the part it was forced to play as America’s ally, first in its war in support of the Afghan Islamists and then in its war against them, Pakistan, whose territory is reeling under these contradictions, is careening towards civil war. As recruiting agents for America’s jehad against the Soviet Union, it was the job of the Pakistan army and the ISI to nurture and channel funds to Islamic fundamentalist organisations.

Having wired up these Frankenstein’s monsters and released them into the world, the US expected it could rein them in like pet mastiffs whenever it wanted to. Certainly it did not expect them to come calling in the heart of the Homeland on September 11. So once again, Afghanistan had to be violently re-made.

Now the debris of a re-ravaged Afghanistan has washed up on Pakistan’s borders. Nobody, least of all the Pakistan government, denies that it is presiding over a country that is threatening to implode. The terrorist training camps, the fire-breathing mullahs and the maniacs who believe that Islam will, or should, rule the world is mostly the detritus of two Afghan wars. Their ire rains down on the Pakistan government and Pakistani civilians as much, if not more, than it does on India.

If at this point India decides to go to war, perhaps the descent of the whole region into chaos will be complete. The debris of a bankrupt, destroyed Pakistan will wash up on India’s shores, endangering us as never before. If Pakistan collapses, we can look forward to having millions of ‘non-state actors’ with an arsenal of nuclear weapons at their disposal as neighbours. It’s hard to understand why those who steer India’s ship are so keen to replicate Pakistan’s mistakes and call damnation upon this country by inviting the United States to further meddle clumsily and dangerously in our extremely complicated affairs. A superpower never has allies. It only has agents.

On the plus side, the advantage of going to war is that it’s the best way for India to avoid facing up to the serious trouble building on our home front.

The Mumbai attacks were broadcast live (and exclusive!) on all or most of our 67 24-hour news channels and god knows how many international ones. TV anchors in their studios and journalists at ‘ground zero’ kept up an endless stream of excited commentary. Over three days and three nights, we watched in disbelief as a small group of very young men armed with guns and gadgets exposed the powerlessness of the police, the elite National Security Guard and the marine commandos of this supposedly mighty, nuclear-powered nation.

While they did this, they indiscriminately massacred unarmed people, in railway stations, hospitals and luxury hotels, unmindful of their class, caste, religion or nationality.Part of the helplessness of the security forces had to do with having to worry about hostages. In other situations, in Kashmir for example, their tactics are not so sensitive. Whole buildings are blown up. Human shields are used. (The US and Israeli armies don’t hesitate to send cruise missiles into buildings and drop daisy cutters on wedding parties in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.) But this was different. And it was on TV.

The boy-terrorists’ nonchalant willingness to kill-and be killed-mesmerised their international audience. They delivered something different from the usual diet of suicide bombings and missile attacks that people have grown inured to on the news. Here was something new. Die Hard 25. The gruesome performance went on and on. TV ratings soared. Ask any television magnate or corporate advertiser who measures broadcast time in seconds, not minutes, what that’s worth.

Eventually the killers died and died hard, all but one. (Perhaps, in the chaos, some escaped. We may never know.) Throughout the stand-off, the terrorists made no demands and expressed no desire to negotiate. Their purpose was to kill people and inflict as much damage as they could before they were killed themselves. They left us completely bewildered. When we say ‘Nothing can justify terrorism’, what most of us mean is that nothing can justify the taking of human life. We say this because we respect life, because we think it’s precious. So what are we to make of those who care nothing for life, not even their own? The truth is that we have no idea what to make of them, because we can sense that even before they’ve died, they’ve journeyed to another world where we cannot reach them.

Gujarat ’02: The elephant in the room

One TV channel (India TV) broadcast a phone conversation with one of the attackers, who called himself ‘Imran Babar’. I cannot vouch for the veracity of the conversation, but the things he talked about were the things contained in the ‘terror e-mails’ that were sent out before several other bomb attacks in India. Things we don’t want to talk about any more: the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the genocidal slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, the brutal repression in Kashmir. “You’re surrounded,” the anchor told him. “You are definitely going to die. Why don’t you surrender?” “We die every day,” he replied in a strange, mechanical way. “It’s better to live one day as a lion and then die this way.” He didn’t seem to want to change the world. He just seemed to want to take it down with him.

If the men were indeed members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, why didn’t it matter to them that a large number of their victims were Muslim, or that their action was likely to result in a severe backlash against the Muslim community in India whose rights they claim to be fighting for? Terrorism is a heartless ideology, and like most ideologies that have their eye on the Big Picture, individuals don’t figure in its calculations except as collateral damage.

It has always been a part of-and often even the aim of-terrorist strategy to exacerbate a bad situation in order to expose hidden fault lines. The blood of ‘martyrs’ irrigates terrorism. Hindu terrorists need dead Hindus, Communist terrorists need dead proletarians, Islamist terrorists need dead Muslims. The dead become the demonstration, the proof of victimhood, which is central to the project.

A single act of terrorism is not in itself meant to achieve military victory; at best it is meant to be a catalyst that triggers something else, something much larger than itself, a tectonic shift, a realignment. The act itself is theatre, spectacle and symbolism, and today, the stage on which it pirouettes and performs its acts of bestiality is Live TV.Even as the Mumbai terrorists were being condemned by TV anchors, the effectiveness of their action was magnified a thousand-fold by TV broadcasts.

Forgotten man: Former PM V.P. Singh’s death passed without a mention

Through the endless hours of analysis and the endless op-ed essays, in India at least there has been very little mention of the elephants in the room: Kashmir, Gujarat and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Instead, we had retired diplomats and strategic experts debate the pros and cons of a war against Pakistan. We had the rich threatening not to pay their taxes unless their security was guaranteed (is it alright for the poor to remain unprotected?).

We had people suggest that the government step down and each state in India be handed over to a separate corporation. We had the death of former prime minister V.P. Singh, the hero of Dalits and lower castes and villain of upper-caste Hindus, pass without a mention.

We had Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City and co-writer of the Bollywood film Mission Kashmir, give us his version of George Bush’s famous ‘Why They Hate Us’ speech. His analysis of why “religious bigots, both Hindu and Muslim”, hate Mumbai: “Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.” His prescription: “The best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever.” Didn’t George Bush ask Americans to go out and shop after 9/11? Ah yes. 9/11, the day we can’t seem to get away from.

Though one chapter of horror in Mumbai has ended, another might have just begun. Day after day, a powerful, vociferous section of the Indian elite, goaded by marauding TV anchors who make Fox News look almost radical and left-wing, have taken to mindlessly attacking politicians, all politicians, glorifying the police and the army, and virtually asking for a police state. It isn’t surprising that those who have grown plump on the pickings of democracy (such as it is) should now be calling for a police state. The era of ‘pickings’ is long gone. We’re now in the era of Grabbing by Force, and democracy has a terrible habit of getting in the way.

Dangerous, stupid television flash cards like the Police are Good, Politicians are Bad/ Chief Executives are Good, Chief Ministers are Bad/ Army is Good, Government is Bad/ India is Good, Pakistan is Bad are being bandied about by TV channels that have already whipped their viewers into a state of almost uncontrollable hysteria.

Tragically, this regression into intellectual infancy comes at a time when people in India were beginning to see that the business of terrorism is a hall of mirrors in which victims and perpetrators sometimes exchange roles. It’s an understanding that the people of Kashmir, given their dreadful experiences of the last 20 years, have honed to an exquisite art. On the mainland we’re still learning. (If Kashmir won’t willingly integrate into India, it’s beginning to look as though India will integrate/disintegrate into Kashmir.)

It was after the 2001 Parliament attack that the first serious questions began to be raised. A campaign by a group of lawyers and activists exposed how innocent people had been framed by the police and the press, how evidence was fabricated, how witnesses lied, how due process had been criminally violated at every stage of the investigation. Eventually the courts acquitted two out of the four accused, including S.A.R. Geelani, the man whom the police claimed was the mastermind of the operation. A third, Shaukat Guru, was acquitted of all the charges brought against him but was then convicted for a fresh, comparatively minor offence.

The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of another of the accused, Mohammad Afzal. In its judgement, the court acknowledged that there was no proof that Mohammad Afzal belonged to any terrorist group, but went on to say, quite shockingly, “The collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender. ” Even today we don’t really know who the terrorists that attacked Indian Parliament were and who they worked for.

More recently, on September 19 this year, we had the controversial ‘encounter’ at Batla House in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, where the Special Cell of the Delhi police gunned down two Muslim students in their rented flat under seriously questionable circumstances, claiming that they were responsible for serial bombings in Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad in 2008. An Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mohan Chand Sharma, who played a key role in the Parliament attack investigation, lost his life as well.

He was one of India’s many ‘encounter specialists’, known and rewarded for having summarily executed several ‘terrorists’. There was an outcry against the Special Cell from a spectrum of people, ranging from eyewitnesses in the local community to senior Congress Party leaders, students, journalists, lawyers, academics and activists, all of whom demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident. In response, the BJP and L.K. Advani lauded Mohan Chand Sharma as a ‘Braveheart’ and launched a concerted campaign in which they targeted those who had dared to question the integrity of the police, saying it was ‘suicidal’ and calling them ‘anti-national’. Of course, there has been no inquiry.

Only days after the Batla House event, another story about ‘terrorists’ surfaced in the news. In a report submitted to the court, the CBI said that a team from Delhi’s Special Cell (the same team that led the Batla House encounter, including Mohan Chand Sharma) had abducted two innocent men, Irshad Ali and Moarif Qamar, in December 2005, planted 2 kg of RDX and two pistols on them, and then arrested them as ‘terrorists’ who belonged to Al Badr (which operates out of Kashmir). Ali and Qamar, who have spent years in jail, are only two examples out of hundreds of Muslims who have been similarly jailed, tortured and even killed on false charges.

This pattern changed in October 2008 when Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which was investigating the September 2008 Malegaon blasts, arrested a Hindu preacher, Sadhvi Pragya; a self-styled godman, Swami Dayanand Pande; and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, a serving officer of the Indian army. All the arrested belong to Hindu Nationalist organisations, including a Hindu supremacist group called Abhinav Bharat.

The Shiv Sena, the BJP and the RSS condemned the Maharashtra ATS, and vilified its chief, Hemant Karkare, claiming he was part of a political conspiracy and declaring that “Hindus could not be terrorists”. L.K. Advani changed his mind about his policy on the police and made rabble-rousing speeches to huge gatherings, in which he denounced the ATS for daring to cast aspersions on holy men and women.

On November 25, newspapers reported that the ATS was investigating the high-profile VHP chief Praveen Togadia’s possible role in the Malegaon blasts. The next day, in an extraordinary twist of fate, Hemant Karkare was killed in the Mumbai attacks. The chances are that the new chief, whoever he is, will find it hard to withstand the political pressure that is bound to be brought on him over the Malegaon investigation.

While the Sangh parivar does not seem to have come to a final decision over whether or not it is anti-national and suicidal to question the police, Arnab Goswami, anchorperson of Times Now television channel, has stepped up to the plate.He has taken to naming, demonising and openly heckling people who have dared to question the integrity of the police and armed forces. My name and the name of the well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan have come up several times.

At one point, while interviewing a former police officer, Arnab Goswami turned to the camera; “Arundhati Roy and Prashant Bhushan,” he said, “I hope you are watching this. We think you are disgusting.” For a TV anchor to do this in an atmosphere as charged and as frenzied as the one that prevails today amounts to incitement as well as threat, and would probably in different circumstances have cost a journalist his or her job.

So according to a man aspiring to be India’s next prime minister, and another who is the public face of a mainstream TV channel, citizens have no right to raise questions about the police. This in a country with a shadowy history of suspicious terror attacks, murky investigations, and fake ‘encounters’.

This in a country that boasts of the highest number of custodial deaths in the world and yet refuses to ratify the International Covenant on Torture. A country where the ones who make it to torture chambers are the lucky ones because at least they’ve escaped being ‘encountered’ by our encounter specialists. A country where the line between the Underworld and the Encounter Specialists virtually does not exist.

How should those of us whose hearts have been sickened by the knowledge of all of this view the Mumbai attacks, and what are we to do about them? There are those who point out that US strategy has been successful inasmuch as the United States has not suffered a major attack on its home ground since 9/11.

However, some would say that what America is suffering now is far worse. If the idea behind the 9/11 terror attacks was to goad America into showing its true colours, what greater success could the terrorists have asked for? The US army is bogged down in two unwinnable wars, which have made the United States the most hated country in the world. Those wars have contributed greatly to the unravelling of the American economy and, who knows, perhaps eventually the American empire. (Could it be that battered, bombed Afghanistan, the graveyard of the Soviet Union, will be the undoing of this one too?)

Hundreds of thousands of people, including thousands of American soldiers, have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The frequency of terrorist strikes on US allies/agents (including India) and US interests in the rest of the world has increased dramatically since 9/11. George Bush, the man who led the US response to 9/11, is a despised figure not just internationally but also by his own people. Who can possibly claim that the United States is winning the war on terror?

Homeland security has cost the US government billions of dollars. Few countries, certainly not India, can afford that sort of price tag. But even if we could, the fact is that this vast homeland of ours cannot be secured or policed in the way the United States has been. It’s not that kind of homeland.

We have a hostile nuclear weapons state that is slowly spinning out of control as a neighbour, we have a military occupation in Kashmir, and a shamefully persecuted, impoverished minority of more than a hundred and fifty million Muslims who are being targeted as a community and pushed to the wall, whose young see no justice on the horizon, and who, were they to totally lose hope and radicalise, end up as a threat not just to India, but to the whole world. I

If 10 men can hold off the NSG commandos and the police for three days, and if it takes half-a-million soldiers to hold down the Kashmir Valley, do the math. What kind of Homeland Security can secure India?

Nor for that matter will any other quick fix.Anti-terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists; they’re for people that governments don’t like. That’s why they have a conviction rate of less than two per cent. They’re just a means of putting inconvenient people away without bail for a long time and eventually letting them go. Terrorists like those who attacked Mumbai are hardly likely to be deterred by the prospect of being refused bail or being sentenced to death. It’s what they want.

What we’re experiencing now is blowback, the cumulative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds. The carpet’s squelching under our feet.

The only way to contain (it would be naive to say end) terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We’re standing at a fork in the road. One sign says ‘Justice’, the other ‘Civil War’. There’s no third sign and there’s no going back. Choose.

Published in the Guardian

- WRITTEN UNDER MARTIAL LAW (My thanks to cowards Tariq Pervez. Sabihuddin, Sardar Raza & Co for selling out)

I begin by saluting the Pakistan Air Force which saw off the inferior Indians yesterday. The Pakistan Air force is as their own website says ‘a symbol of pride for the nation’

It is fact now that the immoral and crooked nation of India yesterday strayed into Pakistani territory in Kashmir and Lahore. Irrespective of the diatribe peddled by Sunglasses Sherry and Mr 10% today, the fact is that India has crossed the rubicon.  Even a banana republic of a government would take immediate notice of this scare tactic which can be construed as an act of war. However Pakistan is blessed (cursed more like) with a PPP government of name alone which has cowed in to every whim of India.

Given the Pakistani government is incapable of even words that condemn India, let it be said at least by me that Pakistan does not fear India, we never have and never will. The Pakistani masses want peace and prosperity for both countries and I know that many good Indians want the same.

The mumbai movie I talked off before is obviously going strong still and it seems the poor and uneducated Indian masses are being drumbeated into a misadventure.  But inferior India is warned here and now of such adventures.

The Pakistani nation will never cow to the paper tiger of India and we stand ready as a nation for every sacrifice. Peace or war, Pakistan is ready so bring it on!

- WRITTEN UNDER MARTIAL LAW (My thanks to cowards Tariq Pervez. Sabihuddin, Sardar Raza & Co for selling out)

The fallout from the vile attacks in Mumbai is all too predictable. As per usual Pakistan is to blame and needs to be taught a lesson by the paper tiger that is India. The Indian media have gone into a frenzy each outbidding the other in their quest to win Olympic Gold in twisted journalism.

Opinions have replaced facts whilst independent inquiry and balanced reporting have been thrown out of the window in an India pumped up by its media. The scent not of a woman but of Pakistani blood keeps the media circus entertained as they concoct one story after another. And so a daily dose of sexed up news befalls the Indian nation via NDTV and the like.

Rambo-like rhetoric has become the new staple diet of Indians with self-congratulatory diatribe disguised as strong statements and raw emotion making the news. It is all very movie-like with splendid scenes of tears and anguish played out on the world stage.

For peace-loving Pakistanis like myself, the Mumbai massacre is a major setback. Dithering Delhi which never needs an excuse to dither some more is grinning with glee, for they have stumbled upon a new excuse to keep peace in South Asia at bay.

The Indian government has blamed Pakistani elements for the carnage. The media scrum or scum rather have clearly proved their Mumbai mettle in egging on their government in a blatant demonstration of media cheerleading to focus Indian ire at Pakistan. Indeed I expect that sooner rather than later New Dithering (read New Delhi) will threaten Pakistan with a suspension of the non-entity and joke that is the peace (more likely the procrastinating) process.

As expected dishonest Delhi has chosen to blame Pakistan by looking without and not within. In doing so they are only addressing the menace of terrorism at the very best at a cosmetic level ignoring to their eternal cost, the root causes of the problem. Ignored is the treatment metered out in Kashmir over sixty years which is a case study of oppression and evil, an entire people occupied and degraded ‘democratic’ Delhi-style.

The treatment of Indian muslims by a so-called ‘secular’ India needs not even be stated or debated. Indeed India’s secular success in the recent burning of churches and oppression against the Christian minority is another case in point if one was needed of their bogus secular credentials.

The Hindu fundamentalists as ever are trigger happy and are having a field day with the butcher of Gujrat Narendra Modi and others reveling in the delight of blaming Pakistan. This is all deliberate on the part of the Indian government as per its hidden hindu script to destabilise a weak Pakistan.

But the Pakistani response has been vigourous with the all parties conference proving a masterstroke, after Prime Minister Gillani had sunk to a new low in choosing to disgrace our famed ISI by agreeing to dispatch the DG ISI to report to Delhi.

Like the original movie Bombay directed by Mani Ratnam, the present Mumbai movie directed by the media is providing to be a runaway success. For an angry India it has provided them the ammunition to unleash a monster desperate for revenge. Like the movies, action scenes are promised with war on the cards, that will cover the screens amidst showboating scenes from a would-be superpower that is in truth a paper tiger at best.

Let there be no confusion, Pakistan will not and should now cow to the whims of India. India is warned here and now for Pakistan will stand tall against the lies of India, the hidden hindu script to destabilise Paksitan will not succeed.

WRITTEN UNDER MARTIAL LAW (My thanks to cowards Tariq Pervez. Sabihuddin, Sardar Raza & Co for selling out)