since everyone and his uncle is offering an opinion - here goes
I don't know why we keep crying Uncle Sam and running to America. As B Raman has noted elsewhere - this is futile. America is not interested in wiping terror aimed at india. they are looking for a facing-saving withdrawal from Afghanistan. what happened in iraq is going to be repeated here. petraeus has already started bribing the taliban to stop firing at NATO "troops" so that they can "Declare Victory and run" - to paraphrase the memorable George Aiken.
lesson -1 Do not look to others to do your Karma; specially do not look to losers
some bloggers have proposed troops to afghanistan. this is not only error but folly, principally because this will ensure quick NATO withdrawl with India left holding the bag of doggy-poop that the Afghan nation has become - not to mention the "offence" it will cause to peace-loving minorities and the Jamia University in India. We should be sending all the troops we can to the north-east. the hans are going to attack - they are softening us up using pakistan on the western border. Our strategy should be use Tajik-Uzbek-Iran trio to keep the pressure on Pakistan in the Afghan theatre.
lesson -2 Do not go climbing on someone else's Hamburger Hill.
we should recognise that both the Yanks and Chinese have an interest in keeping Pakistan going - so as to keep a watch on what each other is doing in Central Asia. Pakistan is not an international condom - it is a whore (I said it). This whore has two pimps. what is more the whore keeps playing one pimp against the other while pretending to work for both.
the core indian strategy should be to get Pakistanis fighting each other - and make sure it stays that way. We should fund the baluchis, sindhis and both sides of the Durand-line Pakhtoons to achieve their legitimate aspirations. If they do one Kashmir to us - we should do four Kashmir's to them. Instead of manning 100,000 troops on the western border - we should be paying "militants" within Pakistan to blow up critical installations (bridges, ports, army barracks). Specially they should blow up things that chinese engineers are working on - and also terror-training camps. Break up Pakistan - do it all with plausible deniability. we should also harden our defenses with the knowledge that some attacks are inevitable.
this should be a strategic objective that we should work for - even if it takes many years. even if we have to - to quote Papa Bhutto - "eat grass"
if we break up Pakistan - it opens up an energy corridor between us and the middle east. it undermines both uncle sam and the hans - to the gain of India. we should lie to uncle sam that we are prepared to be his client after this happens (a little al-taqqiyah of our own). we can even drop the demand of reconsidering the nuclear deal as a gesture
the mantra is - strengthen defense and start an offense
finally - i am simply appalled by Chidambaram being handed the home ministry. was it not enough for him to wreck the indian economy with money-for-sonia schemes like NREGS or money-for-Kingini schemes like allowing-disallowing- reallowing p-notes. the growth projections have already been lowered to be close to 7% (govt. of Manmohan statistics - you can give that a 2-3% haircut). now we can get ready to hand over parcels of india to various parties. Bangladesh gets the North east, Nepal gets it's Pasupati-Tirupatti corridor and kashmir can be given away to Zardari. all this will be done while giving the appearance of a wise Buddha and waving a "peace in our time" paper. i am afraid it may be curtains for our modern state (The First Republic of India - as Jerry Rao calls it)
so the first step should be to give this portfolio to somebody else.
sigh!
16 comments:
I certainly don't agree with Ghost writer.
I am pro America and Israel for multitudinous reasons.
Also the self congratulatory , smug, sovereigntysooperpowerdom chasing india HAS to defend itself.It is NOT America's job.
How ludicrously stupid of us to plan outsourcing of washing of our own dirty laundry to America playing me the victim boohoo game.
If not, let India be governed by Israeli Jews/America or whoever it is who will spare our Temples , protect them and ensure good governance.
I don't see any indian competent enough to do that.Once San rightly observed , Indians are simply incapable of functioning as a "cohesive force".
Absolutely.Not just that. Most of them are criminals.Despicably dispensably putrefying criminalscheatsthugs.
Who does not love America & Israel among Hindus? Enough of this demonacracy.
Spare me fuddyduddies like bramans, mknarayans, kuldipnayyars,karansinghs,mvkamaths,ksubrahmanyams etc whatever who just cannot calibrate their thinking.Who write as they have got so habituated into wrting some tripe.
Rajeev Sreenivasan (Nizhal Yodhha) is far more sensible , pragmatic and has his heart in the right place.He knows both America & India having lived and living in both places.
sigh! wishful thinking rajiv, nothing is going to happen. U know it, we all know it. The signs are already their. lets prepare ourselves for the next blast.
I like your analogy of Pakistan as a Whore and China & America as her Pimps. But, are you not forgetting Saudi Arabia's relationship and role in propping up the Jihadi state? Or do you see a picture of Saudi Arabia in an incestuous relationship with the whore called "Pakistan"?
Slo-mo commandos of superpower-fantasizing India:
Quote:
At the Jewish center, commandos rappelled from a helicopter onto
the roof and slowly descended the narrow, five-story building in a
10-hour shooting and grenade battle with the two gunmen inside.
From his home in Israel, Assaf Hefetz, a former Israeli police
commissioner who created the country's police anti-terror unit
three decades ago, watched the slow-motion operation in disbelief.
The commandos should have swarmed the building in a massive,
coordinated attack that would have overwhelmed the gunmen and
ended the standoff in seconds, he said.
"You have to come from the roof and all the windows and all the
doors and create other entrances by demolition charges," he said.
The slow pace of the operations made it appear that the commandos'
main goal was to stay safe, Hefetz said.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081130/D94PG9I81.html
GW, I'm not suggesting that India hold up the fort walls in Afghanistan. I'm saying that we should find ways to step up the pressure on Taliban/AlQaeda, rather than sitting around waiting to be slaughtered by them in our own cities.
We have to find a way to take the fight to the enemy. I was thinking that by our going to Northern Afghanistan, we can help the West focus their troops on Southern Afghanistan, which is Taliban country. This would help to intensify pressure on Pak.
Pak is looking for ways to de-escalate the war on terror, and we should be looking for ways to intensify it.
I am not sure what we will accomplish by sendng forces to Northern Afghanistan - NATO does not want any troops there. why? simple - its not where the fighting is
seems like we will send troops to fight no one, hold no territory (northern afghanistan is NOT under taliban assault) and defend no one - the territory needs no defending. The Panjshir valley is a very hard place to capture even if the taliban tried - as the great Ahmed Shah Masood showed us.
I repeat - America is looking to "declare victory and go home" - the old zest for nation building has dried out. We do not want to be left holding the bag, believe me. We should focus on Pakistan - specially breaking ISI's back
I am not sure what we will accomplish by sendng forces to Northern Afghanistan - NATO does not want any troops there. why? simple - its not where the fighting is
seems like we will send troops to fight no one, hold no territory (northern afghanistan is NOT under taliban assault) and defend no one - the territory needs no defending. The Panjshir valley is a very hard place to capture even if the taliban tried - as the great Ahmed Shah Masood showed us.
I repeat - America is looking to "declare victory and go home" - the old zest for nation building has dried out. We do not want to be left holding the bag, believe me. We should focus on Pakistan - specially breaking ISI's back
"We should focus on Pakistan - specially breaking ISI's back
"
And how should we do it without getting into a war with Pak. Some of my friends in India fear that it may escalate into a nuclear war. Are you willing to lose 1/2 big cities in return for complete anihilation of Pakistan.
Rajan,
I read a report, also from Israel, that criticized NSG for attacking right away... they said they shd have waited and gathered intelligence.... exact opposite of the report u r quoting
Tambidude - "And how should we do it without getting into a war with Pak." obviously you have not my read my prescription of a covert war / proxy war on them. We have actually done this before with the Muhajir movement. It pays richer dividends than you think
GW, that's exactly why I'd like Indian troops in Northern Afghanistan -- because that's not where the fighting is. Let the NATO troops go to Southern Afghanistan, to fight the Taliban. India can take the North off their hands.
Pak would never tolerate our presence in Southern Afghanistan anyway. So there's no sense in our going there, to be sitting ducks yet again for more Pak attacks.
It would be more in our interests to set up a presence in the North, to help guide them away from the future prospect of Talib domination.
In this way, we can kill multiple birds with one stone:
We can help to get more military pressure put on Taliban
We can strengthen anti-Talib ethnic groups in Afghanistan
We can put Pakistan on the ropes, in the long run, strategically
India should begin by capturing all the people who have attended terrorist training camps on Indian territory (like those in Kerala) and put them in a Gitmo-type camp (cages for housing, etc.) in the Andamans and extract every gram of intelligence they possess using narco-analysis to take further covert action against other fifth columnists hiding in the Muslim ghettoes in Indian cities.
If the Indian security forces have the capability then they should use unmanned drone planes to drop bombs on terrorist training camps on Pakistani & Bangladeshi territory. Anyone in a terrorist training camp should be deemed culpable.
san - now you are beginning to frustrate me
It would be more in our interests to set up a presence in the North, to help guide them away from the future prospect of Talib domination.
Let me repeat once again - the Panjshir valley and most of the North cannot be put under "Talib Domination" as easily as you think. They are militarily defensible - even without Indian troops.
Also - putting out troops in the North will not free up any troops for the south - for the simple enough reason that there are no NATO troops in the North. it is country governed by the old warlord security architecture.
You keep asking to "put troops in the north" without the defining logic for the move (in fact there is no logic - there is only you personal desire to see Indian soldiers giving tuition's to Afghans) - the Indian army's finishing school for these people need not be located there. We are already providing military training to them - much of it I understand in India.
I repeat - you put troops in a place to
1- fight over an objective
2- defend an objective
3- pressure an opponent into committing forces to where your troops are - so you can weaken him elsewhere
none of the objectives are being met based on what you have specified. I am rather tired of this thread and will end this here - you are welcome to keep the chatter going!
GW, let me point out that Afghanistan was cobbled together by brute force in the past, and as the Algerian student fidayeen showed, even Masoud could be brought down by a wider international effort.
If Panjshir was that impregnable, its people would still be Hindus today.
Furthermore, inability to conquer Panjshir wasn't stopping Taliban from setting up their Kilafat in the rest of the country, with Pak using it to terrorize us. I don't feel much consolation over Indian Airline 814 hijackers being unable to land their the plane in Panjshir Valley.
And yes, European NATO forces are mainly in the North of the country, which is why the US is complaining so much to these countries. By having our own troops in the North, we can strengthen a parallel political architecture that consolidates the North against the Pashtun-dominated South.
What I'm saying is that revival of the Pashtun nationalism is the most dangerous threat to Pakistan's existence, which is why it has invested so heavily in Islamizing the Pashtuns, even at the cost of antagonizing the West.
We need to play some judo here, and utilize the physics of the situation to our advantage.
If we exploit the natural ethnic fault lines of Afghanistan, then it's easier to separate the non-Pashtuns from the Pashtuns. That's the easiest route for us.
This would then leave a Pashtun rump-state in Southern Afghanistan, which would naturally dissolve the Durand Line (Pak-Afghan border) to reunify with NWFP.
The only way that PakiPunjab can exert control over the Pashtuns is thru Islamism, and that would put them directly at odds with the US interests in fighting AlQaeda.
Those physics would work in our favour and against Pak.
By putting our forces in Northern Afghanistan, it would put Pak in a situation where it would have to fight its way past the Western military forces in order to get to us. They would likely ruin their relations with the West in the process, not to mention their economy.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTM1Y2MyZjMwZTM1ZmM2N2Y5ODdmZWNjMWFkYjZiM2Q=#more
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