Pakistan: unending betrayal

Why India must humiliate Pakistan!

Pakistan openly continues sponsoring terrorist activities against India. Why should India even talk with Pakistan then?

“The P word!” TIME magazine’s Bobby Ghosh quotes a top counterterrorism official, “When I hear of a terrorist plot, I can count back from 10, and before I get to zero, someone will bring up the P word.” P stands for Pakistan, a country, as Fareed Zakaria confirms, is “terrorism’s supermarket” –  70% of terror plots identified by the UK government have been “traced back” to Pakistan. Yet, US advises India to resume its diplomatic talks with Pakistan. How more churlish could that be?

The acrimony between India and Pakistan is decades old, and it doesn’t require a rote numbskull Jane’s defence analyst (or the sophomore upstart Ms. Clinton, if you please) to understand that Pakistan is no Castro loving Trotskyite bent on ensuring India’s social betterment. Pakistan is what Pakistan has been for the past many years – an incendiary anarchist nation, which unfortunately has a like-minded arsonist government establishment that promotes, funds and implements well-planned terrorist and extremist activities against India, and of late, the West too. While India for ages had pleaded with the international community to recognise Pakistan as a terrorist state, the West had daftly rejected the proposition time and again – and more because they were not the addressed recipients of Pakistan’s loving infatuation communiqués. They are now.

Given that, it is extremely wrong that India can be forced by the US to resume talks with Pakistan. In fact, this should have been the moment when India – and the international community – should have openly humiliated the Pakistani establishment, bringing them to task in the same manner as has been done in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

India has received a spate of betrayals and hollow promises from Pakistan. After nearly every other attack within India by Pakistan-backed terror groups, the Pakistani government has come up with highly promising compendiums of support, with a specific objective of buying time for the next attack. Some nuggets:

February 1999: Pakistan signs the ‘historic’ Lahore Declaration, promising to work towards a peaceful and bilateral solution to the Kashmir issue.

May 1999: Pakistan army clandestinely attacks and takes over Kargil. India retaliates and takes back lost territory.

July 2001: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (considered the Kargil mastermind) comes to India for the Agra Summit, peddled by Pakistan as peace talks.

December 2001: The Indian Parliament is attacked by a well trained set of terrorists, funded by agencies within Pakistan. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf promises to crack down on terrorist groups. It is found  that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) was the one funding the attack.

January 2002: Musharraf promises again that “no organisation will be allowed to indulge in terrorism in the name of Kashmir.” This is immediately followed by several terror attacks, topped in May 2002 by a terrorist attack on an army camp in Kashmir, which kills at least 30 people.

July 2006: Terror strikes in Mumbai local trains in July 2006. Prime suspects – SIMI, Lashkar-e-Toiba and ISI.

July 2008: Indian embassy destroyed in Kabul by terrorist attack, killing 58. New York Times confirms ISI involvement. Pakistan denies all accusations.

November 2008: Terrorists land on Mumbai shores from Pakistan and randomly fire at and bomb various targets, killing 173. One terrorist captured alive confirms Pakistan establishment’s complete involvement. Pakistan denies everything, and promises (again) to handover gangster Dawood Ibrahim and terrorist leader Masood Azhar if India provides “evidence.” India does, Pakistan doesn’t!

The list of Pakistan’s hellhound extremist orientation is clearly unending, yet what remains unbelievable is America’s continued financial support to this failed state – on December 2009, in the latest tranche,  Pakistan received a $7.5 billion US aid package to ostensibly strengthen counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. Much of this will be used against India; some against US too.

If US representatives, on May 3, 2010, can humiliate Iran (a country that has no intentions of becoming a nuclear armed state; and one that openly denounces terrorist activities) by walking out of the UN assembly when Iranian President Ahmedinejad starts speaking, then why shouldn’t India too openly humiliate Pakistan (a certified nuclear armed state, openly supporting terrorism) by walking out of nonsensical peace talks? On May 7, 2010, Hillary Clinton commented, “Somewhere in the Pakistan government are people who know where Osama bin Laden is.” Good morning Ms.Clinton, the Ambien seems to be wearing off finally. 

Putin

Quit to fight another day!

Putin should resign to change his perception as a ruthless power hungry political leader; and then (rightfully) reclaim the throne a few months later – that’s a sleight Putin knows too well and has practised well in the past

“Putin is Stalin! Putin is Brezhnev! Russia without Putin!” The protest slogans broke the calm across Moscow’s streets on the occasion of May 1, 2010 – International Labour Day. What made this protest uniquely different from past protests was that this protest – ostensibly in criticism of Putin’s abuse of media freedom and democratic rights – was supported by around 1.7 million people in 1,000 cities across Russia over eight time zones. More than 40,000 people signed a petition demanding Putin’s resignation. One has to realise that in Russia, where Putin’s ruthless power wielding (and stymieing of opposition dissent – sometimes suspiciously violently or through undemocratic jailing) is compared often to mafiosi behaviour, for protestors to come out in the open en masse like this is an ocean of a change. Among the frontrunners in the protests was chess wizard and now political opponent Gary Kasparov.

Putin’s decisions regarding utilities prices, increased taxes on imported cars and environmental initiatives have provided a snowball effect for the wave of discontent. Of late, there have been many more such incidents. Starting from 2007, numerous “Dissenters’ Marches” were organized across various cities like Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod. On January 30, 2010 in Kaliningrad, around 10,000 people came together to protest against Putin’s decision to increase the transportation tax. And in March 10, 2010, Russian opposition activists started an online campaign.

Undeniably, there have been several incidents of human rights abuses and shocking assassinations, purportedly sponsored by the State. Particularly during the second Chechen War, corruption flourished and strengthened its roots and a new group of business lobbyist came into being (Gennady Timchenko, Vladimir Yakunin, Yuriy Kovalchuk and Sergey Chemezov) with personal linkages with Putin. The recent killings of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and newspaper reporter Anastasiya Baburova have further added fuel to fire and led to tensions with the EU President. Amnesty noted with grave concern in 2007 how Putin was rolling back civil rights in Russia. Another critical blot has been the continued trial of Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, because he allegedly financed Putin’s opponents, apart from committing corporate fraud – he’s now serving an eight year sentence.

But then, there is a flamboyant other side to Putin too. Truly, Russia has enjoyed one of the most prosperous periods of growth under Putin after Boris Yeltsin left the country in a sorry state. Between 2000-2008, GDP growth peaked at 10% (2000) and saw 5 years of GDP growth over 7% (APEC). He devised strong policies in fiscal reforms, oil prices, and external financing. Russia experienced a PPP growth of 72%, poverty rates dropped by 50% and average salaries increased by eight times. So Putin’s enduring popularity, by far the highest in the world, isn’t surprising (In 2007, Putin’s approval rating was 81%; even in late 2009, post recession, it was still 65%; Levada Center public opinion surveys). Various surveys revealed that Russians felt the country was “more democratic” under Putin than during the Yeltsin or Gorbachev years.

Given all that, there can be no denying that for all it matters, there is no better choice than Putin that Russia currently has for a leader. Then how does one handle the increasing protests? The solution is pretty simple – and one that Putin has practised well in the past. Putin should resign from his position (for a few months perhaps) and let the protest brigade run out of steam. Once that happens, he should quietly step back and reclaim the throne. Well, it has been rightfully his for years...

US: Nuclear Security Summit

START for 2, a finish for 45!

President Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit is actually a long term ‘only nuke country’ strategy

On April 13, 2010, 47 heads of state met in Washington to attend the much hyped Nuclear Security Summit (NSS). It was seen as one of Obama’s most noteworthy foreign policy initiatives, especially after his most momentous domestic accomplishment – passage of the health care reform bill. This summit finds its roots in the speech given by Obama, last year at Prague, on his vision for a nuclear weapon-free world. But the summit was more like a cliché, wherein the 47 heads of state simply sat and discussed the risks of nuclear terrorism and plausible options to prevent the trafficking of nuclear materials; and thus a future nuclear terrorist attack.

Just a few days before the NSS, Obama had also concluded the new START – in other words, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (held historically between US and Russia). Under this ‘new’ START treaty, Russia and the US would apparently reduce their respective operational nuclear warheads by one-third of their present levels.  This news has been forwarded by the Obama camp as “a very exciting news!” Fortunately for us, there’re few political commentators who believe likewise. To consider the news “exciting” is as ludicrous a proposition as can be imagined. Neither US nor Russia mean a word of what they’ve “agreed” upon. An ultra brief review of history and current statistics would be enough for us to persuade you to join our camp.

US and Russia control about 90% of the 27,000 nuclear weapons being strutted around today. Even if one considers – for the sake of the argument – that there would be 1/3rd reduction, the arsenal both these countries would be left with would be, surprise surprise, still what was there previously. Where’s the catch? The new START talks about reducing “operational warheads” (thus reducing their total to 1550) and does not refer at all to the total nuclear stockpile. Further, the irascible issue of Highly Enriched Uranium has been conveniently swept under the carpet. Out of over 1,670 tonnes of Highly Enriched Uranium available globally, over 95% is in US and Russia.

If US was trying to pull a fast one through the new START, the recent US federal budget did something that we would call ‘perfectly American in nature.’ The new budget for research and development into nuclear weapons is estimated to be more than $7-8 billion. The Nuclear Posture Review (released on April 06, 2010 by the US government) plunders on, giving US the scope of “first using” nuclear weapons in any war against a nuclear nation (including Iran and North Korea).

Compare this with the similar hogwash that was the Nuclear Security Summit. All the commitments made by the heads of state (some of them openly nuclear) were termed “non-binding!” While Obama commented strongly that he would move towards ensuring sanctions against Iran to ensure its compliance, no one felt it gravely concern-worthy that Israel chose to simply give the event a miss.

In fact, we should have too...   

Natural Disaster: Impact on Politics

Can we have a quake?

Natural disasters interestingly have created huge political legacies (in some cases, destroyed them); an easy read on why some politicians perhaps desperately wait for a natural disaster to come back to power

If Moses had the plagues to help him reserve his following, if Noah played to the end of the world tune to deliver his Ark to fame, then modern day politicians have had various brilliantly timed natural disasters to catapult up their political fortunes; and in some cases, even destroy them due to their lack of tactical intent. The more intelligent ones have used disasters to not only cleanse their corrupt and tainted pasts but to decimate opposition too. Presenting a cross-continent easy read correlation review.

On December 23, 1972 an earthquake in central Managua, in Nicaragua, helped reveal the social rifts of the Somoza family dictatorship, who reportedly embezzled a huge pie of the foreign aid. This quake became the key excuse for people (underpinned by Sandinista revolution) to come together to topple down the Somoza dictatorship. Likewise in 1976, in China, Mao’s successor Hua Guofeng converted the earthquake to his benefit. He popularised the Tangshan earthquake as a symbolic event and used it as an image-building exercise to eventually destroy the opposition’s hold in the region. During the same period, in Guatemala, the military dictatorship overlooked the rehabilitation of rural areas (and only concentrated on the capital city) after a major quake, and this led to one of the biggest uprisings in the country’s history. Although in this case dictatorship was somehow able to crush the revolution using brute force, some years down the line, in 1985, the self help groups of Mexico ignited the independence movement post the infamous 1985 Mexico quake and succeeded in putting a full stop to the one party system of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional.

While tectonic shifts on the surface have done a lot to make or mar political fortunes, similar tremors below the sea level have been equally omnipresent on making or marring political fortunes. The tsunami, which occurred a few days before the eve of 2005, killed over 220,000 people in 11 countries across the Indian Ocean; but the way it fired up the destiny of Thailand’s embattled Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra is mind-boggling to say the least. For the uninitiated, the disaster happened a few months before the scheduled national parliamentary elections in Thailand. Thaksin – facing ignominious corruption charges – grabbed this opportunity. He did everything possible to make his voters believe that he was capable of handling the calamity. In the course of that endeavour, he denied the need for any international aid and executed a near-effective recovery plan. This bold effort of Thaksin decoded itself into greatly improved rating points.

His disaster reaction timing made him win the forthcoming polls too, despite his near to worse track record (He was overthrown a year later by military, but his party again won the elections in the post-coup elections). The tsunami also led to the concept of Wave Diplomacy in Indonesia. The tsunami reduced the city of Aceh,

in the island of Sumatra, to ruins. Historically, Aceh had been at war with the government for almost 29 years, but thanks to the tsunami, the Indonesian government and the separatist groups cracked an unexpected peace agreement. Separatist rebel groups gave up their demand for independence as they didn’t want any destruction.

Even Peru’s quake came as a silver lining for the President-in-term, Alan Garcia. A devastating 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck Peru’s central coast on August 15, 2007, just a year after Garcia was elected as the president. The president spent four straight nights sleeping by candlelight in Pisco, the most affected region. He moved to an air force base in the vicinity of the quake’s epicentre, and had all his cabinet meetings there itself. This act of his paid him well instantly as his approval ratings skyrocketed like never before. Garcia’s approval ratings, which had dropped from 63% to 35% by the end of his first year in office, post his quake efforts reached a resounding 76%.

However, some – it’s quite evident – don’t learn. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005. Katrina almost destroyed the whole of New Orleans. George Bush, who had a golden opportunity to redeem his Iraq misadventures and his administration’s WMD lies, flopped without recourse. Not only was he unable to provide an immediate and effective response to the affected zones, his administration failed in various areas of post disaster work too. In January 2005, while Bush’s approval ratings among Republicans was 91%, it fell to 78% right after Katrina. And overall, across America, Bush’s ratings collapsed to 41% in October 2005 and a worse 38% in November 2005. Bush’s dismal ratings, for information, never recovered throughout his term – that is how long lasting the impact of one mismanaged disaster can be. But a Black man, it seems, is leading the learning curve pretty well. The recent Haiti earthquake gave the US president Barack Obama a fantastic opportunity to shore up his crashing ratings. Obama had earlier implemented an extremely strict policy of banning immigration from Haiti and had called for deporting back all such immigrants. To start with, he has temporarily cancelled this deportation program (Around 60% of Haiti’s budget depends on foreign aid and thus they need the remittances of those 30,000 people who work in the US). Secondly, Obama has pledged $100 million and many US troops for post quake relief efforts. Obama’s approval ratings have mystically started improving as if on cue, from 46% before the quake to 50% (CBS News Poll).

Evidently, for politicians who understand the correlation coefficients well, natural disasters are boom times to build on popularity, but only through a committed and sincere focus on altruistic development. During such times, words matter, actions most. It’s a miserable irony that politicians have never understand that even poverty is a kind of natural disaster resulting in hunger, illnesses and millions of deaths globally

India: Road Safety

120,000 dead!

In road accidents; now, why doesn’t that rankle you?

On the one hand, Indian government recently gave a green signal to the draft legislation which will facilitate setting up of a national-level body that would recommend standards for design, construction and maintenance of highways, road safety standards for motor vehicles and trauma centres for the country. Then, on the other hand, the recent Global Status Report on Road Safety, released by the World Health Organisation, reveals that India leads a group of ten countries with a horrendous road safety record.

Massive road accidents are not a one time event in India but daily affairs. As per most recent government figures, about 1.2 lakh people lost their lives in 2007 due to road accidents. On an average, more than one lakh people lose their lives due to road accidents in India every year. This is in spite of the government allocating crores of rupees towards road safety every year. But like most projects, a large pie of this amount remains unused and unspent. Talking in numbers, in 2004-05, out of Rs.40 crore meant for road safety, only around Rs.35 crore was actually utilized; in 2005-06, Rs.30 crore of the Rs.43 crore allocated was used; while in 2006-07, only Rs.43 crore of the Rs.47 crore was used.

What’s most remarkable is that among those dying of road accidents, pedestrians and cyclists make up the majority. In spite of having a very low population to vehicles ratio, the mortality rate in India in road accidents is 8.7 per 100,000, compared to 5.6 in the UK and 6.7 in Japan. Going by an official report, the social cost of accidents in India is estimated to be around Rs.55,000 crore (in the years 1999-2000), which constituted 3% of the GDP for the year.

 In the last few decades, a large part of the investment was directed towards making flyovers and better roads for motorists, but not much heed was given to pedestrians and cyclists. In short, every possible policy measure was adopted to make lives of motorist much safer. It’s only the recent years that have seen subways and dedicated cycle paths. More, of course, needs to be done.      

The US-Israel relationship: is in trouble

The feast of love

Is the romance saga between US and Israel finally over?

If life never ceases to surprise, then geo-politics would go a step further. Going by past trend of US-Israel romance, no prophecies would have predicted a fissure to appear between them. But then, this six-decade old relationship is all set to get sour, especially after the recent remarks from Israel’s end. Recently, Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s brother-in-law, Hagai Ben-Artzi, in a radio interview called Barack Obama an anti-Semite. This remark of Hagai Ben-Artzi has its roots in the near past. During the US Vice President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel, Israel had announced their proposal to built 1600 Jewish houses in Ramat Shlomo in east Jerusalem (as approved by Israel’s interior ministry). This announcement offended many top officials of the US to an extent wherein Hillary Clinton expressed this act as an ‘insult’.

On hindsight, it seems that Israel is getting stronger both economically and politically. The Israeli economy is improving and is now neck to neck with economies like Singapore, Hong Kong and a few other fast developing nations. And of course, there seems to be no match to Israeli nuclear and defence development initiatives and technology. Israel today can boast about their high tech research and advance defence system. On the political front, of late, the Hizbullah and Hamas activities also have gone down to a large extent.

But the grimness of the whole issue gets highlighted when seen in context to the Israel-Iran conflict. Netanyahu has had fantastic support from the Republican regime, with consecutive US Republican Presidents looking the other way to Israel’s excesses, sometimes correctly too, given Israel’s extremely sensitive geo-location. George Bush had taken this support to a new level with his straightforward attacks on Iraq and threats to Iran. The anti-Israel open-rhetoric of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his intentions (later denied) to “wipe Israel off the map” only helped increase tensions between Israel and Iran. As recent as February 7, 2010, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the destruction of Israel was assured.

But the Democrat camp, led by Obama and Hillary, is another walk altogether. It may be noted that last year’s Israeli bombing of Gaza was stopped just a handful of days before Obama assumed office – clearly due to a straightjacketed warning from the Democrat quarters. Not only do Democrats not appreciate Israel’s belligerent claim to territory, they also are forcing it to reach a settlement with Palestine. However, this is not for the first time that Obama is upset with Israel’s act. Last year too, Obama came down hard on Israel’s settlement activities in the region. (Despite this, pro-Israeli representatives still played a noteworthy role in the passage of Obama’s health care bill; many US politicians are members of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee or the so-called Israeli lobby). Obama is getting tough on Israel because if another Israel-Palestine live conflict flares up, Obama’s attempts to stabilize the situation in both Afghanistan and Iraq would get magnanimously disturbed. A newly confident (and nuclear ambition loaded) Iran would necessarily step up the verbal onslaught, leading to sure-shot military manoeuvres. And as Iraq and Afghanistan share borders with Iran, the issue would have a domino effect in these countries.

On a bigger front, Obama’s posturing also has an intended positive effect – of mollycoddling the slighted Muslim groups and of reassuring them that US is not the enemy. So is the Israel-US infatuation over? To say that would be a figment of one’s imagination. Israel is a key fixture in American foreign policy – and people from that nation have supported America in its various exploits without questions. To that past, present, and future allegiance, America is indebted. Obama knows that too. And he won’t allow current posturing to destroy decades of committed resource building for the US by Israel. And you don’t need to be an Einstein to know that...