Indian
Media
 
The Vajpayee administration seems
to have recognised the need for continued restraint in dealing with
Pakistan in the present international climate of rising sentiments against
the politics of terrorism. It is, therefore, a welcome turn in the articulation
of New Delhi's foreign policy objectives that the Union Home Minister,
Mr. L. K. Advani, has ruled out any intention of embarking on ``hot
pursuit'' of the Kashmir-related terrorists across the Line of Control
(LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir ``at this moment.'' Yet, the need for genuine
strategic restraint by India and a reciprocal gesture by Pakistan cannot
be adequately underlined in the emerging global context of complex uncertainties.
America's increasing military involvement in Afghanistan, which straddles
India's strategic neighbourhood, is the defining element of this volatile
international situation. New Delhi's dilemma centres on its apprehensions
about the nature and scope of the ``rewards'' that the U.S. might bestow
on Pakistan for a possibly sustained support of the ongoing American
action in Afghanistan. The U.S. wants to ``take out'' Osama bin Laden's
terror-network and unseat his Taliban ally, until recently Islamabad's
protege, in Kabul. Now, Osama's patronly sway over some of the terrorist
groups that operate in Jammu and Kashmir - Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba
in particular - is a matter of intelligence-profiling by India and the
West. Yet, as Pakistan continues to portray the separatist terror in
Jammu and Kashmir as an aspect of a ``freedom struggle,'' New Delhi
appears eager to ensure that theatre-specific definitions of terrorism
do not complicate the delicate interactions among India and Pakistan
as also the U.S.
This strategic environment accentuates the tactical
significance of Mr. Advani's new assurances that India will not consider
undertaking any hot pursuit into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir ``at this
point of time.'' As the acknowledged hawk among those shaping New Delhi's
Pakistan policy, Mr. Advani has signalled an apparent sense of moderation,
although he wants to reserve what he tends to project as India's arguable
``right'' under ``international law'' to go in ``hot pursuit'' of the
terrorists across the LoC. In a sense, the U.N. Security Council's recent
resolution on the mandatory steps to combat terrorism seems to have
lent itself to the interpretation of ``hot pursuit'' as the sovereign
``right'' of states. However, the resolution itself is in the process
of being interpreted as a nuanced aspect of ``international law.'' What
can be said at this stage about Mr. Advani's statement is that it can
enhance India's credentials as a responsible power. This will not be
negated by the reported suggestion from the Jammu and Kashmir Chief
Minister, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, for military action against Pakistan
despite Mr. Advani's note of restraint for the present.
Significant, too, is the Union Home Minister's tacit
reasoning that the restraint itself is linked to India's desire to see
the evolving ``global battle against terrorism'' succeed. His aim is
to turn the spotlight on the current U.S.' campaign in relation to Afghanistan
with Pakistan's tactical assistance. A possible scenario is that the
U.S.' efforts to strangulate Osama's terrorist superstructure may produce
a beneficial spin-off for New Delhi if the ruthless anti-India groups
targeting Kashmir are deprived of oxygen in the process. At another
level, India can legitimately expect that Pakistan discourage the various
Kashmir- related terrorist outfits that operate openly in the territory
under its control with or without Islamabad's official patronage. In
a sense, India wants to ride the crest of a rising tide of international
opinion against the politics of terrorism. Yet, New Delhi cannot afford
to ignore the distinction between the political dispute over Kashmir
and the challenge of terrorism. A suitable India-Pakistan re-engagement
will really be a logical corollary to the policy of restraint now indicated
by New Delhi even as the question of the degree of autonomy for the
people of Kashmir needs also to be addressed with a greater sense of
urgency.
-- Editorial, Hindu, Chennai, October 22,
2001
Even as the Americans begin their
ground offensive in Afghanistan, there is no certainty about how or
when the war will end.
The immediate objective is clear — get Osama bin Laden
dead or alive. But what if this goal proves elusive? Or, if it is reached,
what would be the fate of Bin Laden’s host, the Taliban? The present
replay of the Great Game, therefore, may prove to be even more messy
than its 19th century version. At that time, the two main players were
Czarist Russia and British India. Now, there are many pokers in the
fire. Apart from the US, which is the only major player, there are many
minor players — Pakistan, Iran, the Central Asian republics, Russia
and India. Perhaps China, too, would like to have a finger in the pie.
With so many interested parties focusing on Afghanistan,
the Great Game may well become a free-for-all. If the Americans made
the mistake of abruptly leaving the scene after the Soviet withdrawal,
there is every possibility that they will now make the other mistake
of overstaying their welcome. In fact, the belief in Washington that
the US should have continued the Gulf war till Saddam Hussein either
died or was ousted may now persuade them to remain in Afghanistan for
a long time. It is possible, of course, that the others may urge it
to do so although under the cover of the UN. At least in the short term,
the American involvement will not be a bad idea since it is unlikely
that the other players will be able to ensure any stability in Afghanistan
by themselves.
But even with the American presence, the post-Taliban
dispensation will be a hotbed of intrigue and animosity with the possibility
of occasional violent outbreaks. The reason is that all the neighbouring
countries will try to ensure that their own interests are safeguarded.
Pakistan would like the presence of a ‘moderate’ Taliban in the new
set-up although its preference sounds like a contradiction in terms.
India may favour the Northern Alliance, fractious as it is. However,
the difficulty is that Afghanistan has never had a tradition of democracy.
It is also surrounded by dictatorships. The suggestion, therefore, that
a government comprising all the major tribal groups can be constituted
will not be easy to implement. As the only multicultural democracy in
the region, India can set an example but perhaps do no more than that,
for any interventionist stance may be resented by the Afghans. Yet,
the crucial role which India can play in bringing Afghanistan into the
21st century is obvious. No other country in the region can replicate
this role.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, October 22, 2001
The U.S. President, Mr. George W.
Bush, has frequently spoken about his country's resolve to do what it
takes to win the ongoing military offensive against an identified axis
of terror that links Afghanistan's uncivilised Taliban regime and Osama
bin Laden, prime suspect behind last month's devastating terrorist strikes
against America. But the plight of innocent Afghan civilians reflects
a largely unspoken tragedy of this war, which the U.S. launched earlier
this month by carrying out aerial and missile strikes against what it
saw as a network of military and terrorist infrastructure facilities
inside Afghanistan. The United Nations, which might be expected to play
the lead role in a latter-day reconstruction of that hapless country,
has already lost several aid workers. They were killed during the initial
phase of America's raids. More recently, the fire-bombing of a Red Cross
warehouse, which contained humanitarian relief supplies, has brought
nothing but anguish to the civilised world. The Taliban officials have
also taken some international reporters round several sites of civilian
homes that seemed to have been destroyed in the U.S. military attack.
From America's own perspective, its tendency to quibble over the actual
causes of such civilian deaths and other collateral damage is not much
of a face-saver. Surely in this context, Washington has tried to underline
the objectives of this ``anti-terror'' war in some political terminology
of absolute idealism. However, the larger international community has
already begun to visualise the likely humanitarian burdens and economic
costs of this war as also its potential fallout in a vast geopolitical
context.
Indeed, the U.S. is increasingly coming under much
international scrutiny, if not also commensurate pressure at this stage,
for what is being perceived as another manifestation of a cavalier conduct
which America has historically come to be associated with. In prime
focus is Washington's penchant for an awesome high-tech war against
an intransigent regime and its terrorist allies in an utterly impoverished
country. The massive picture of a disproportionate use of deadly firepower
is not at all mitigated by America's own fanfare about its token air-drops
of food supplies and medicines. These humanitarian sorties are said
to be designed to enliven the spirits of the ordinary Afghans who have
known nothing but misery since the Taliban began exercising control
over their lives in 1996. However, America's argument about the benevolence
implicit in its pie-from-the-sky mission is simply lost in the din and
bustle of the roaring U.S. military machine. Moreover, it is anybody's
guess whether the inhuman Taliban has allowed the ordinary Afghans to
benefit from America's symbolic gesture of limited humanitarian relief
which is but a sop to soothe their frustrations.
If the looming humanitarian catastrophe has not blown
up in the face of the global community at this moment, the reasons vary.
At one end, there is the assortment of economic and other disabilities
that prevent the many affected Afghans from leaving the theatre of war.
At the other end of the spectrum, the United Nations does not yet appear
to have coordinated its policies with those of the U.S. in a bid to
provide the victims of the intensifying war with an escape route through
a reasonably safe corridor or the like. It is in this overall humanitarian
context that China, which is currently playing host to Mr. Bush at a
regional meeting, has pointedly asked him to avoid civilian casualties
and target only the terrorists. India, too, should take the initiative
to galvanise international action on such humanitarian issues. On a
different but related plane, issues of morality may come into play in
the emerging international debate about the political space that could
be assigned to the ``moderate'' elements of a notoriously cruel Taliban
in a future Afghan Government.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chennai, October
20, 2001
The world has become extremely cagey
about cracking jokes or enjoying them. Quite understandably so, one
might add. What would have left people in stitches before September
11 may no longer be deemed as tasteful comedy. (Certainly not the classic
sketch from a British comedy programme showing Muslims praying in a
mosque with the voice-over droning: "And the search goes on for
the Ayatollah Khomeini’s contact lens.")
But there has also been a flip side to this constriction
on the comic. British Home Secretary David Blunkett recently outlined
proposals to introduce a legislation to outlaw ‘incitement to religious
hatred’. In these surcharged times, what constitutes ‘incitement’ and
what doesn’t has become blurred. Some people like Rowan ‘Mr Bean’ Atkinson
fear that even when the fog has cleared, people will be liable to imprisonment
for performing parody — an integral part of any comedy routine.
In a letter to the The Times of London, the British
comedian stated his concern about the new laws being used to curb the
freedom of speech because of their highly subjective nature. If he is
worried about Britain taping the comic mouth shut, he should witness
the hysterics on display in India. Three students were arrested on Thursday
for distributing anti-war pamphlets in a Delhi college. A week before,
six others were charged with ‘sedition’. While the students opposed
the ongoing bombing campaign on Afghanistan, they had also condemned
the September 11 terrorist attacks on America. Clearly, they were not
guilty of sedition which, if the dictionary is to be believed, means
"conduct or speech inciting rebellion against the authority of
a State or monarch".
It is rather strange that the Indian government deems
a bunch of pacifist youngsters to be more threatening to the nation
than hoodlums forcing their way into a communally sensitive and a judicially
proscribed structure. The parallel with the possible advent of a new
British touchiness about jokes that poke fun at people (which, in essence,
is what comedy is all about) is not too forced. While desi Keystone
Cops are ‘doing their job’ by locking up dissenters of ‘the official
position’, their videshi counterparts may find it tough going to distinguish
between Ayatollah Khomeini jokes and the ranting of a mad mullah from
a Finsbury Park mosque. Mr Blunkett has called any fear of laws being
misused to gag free speech ‘wide of the mark’. One wishes that one could
have believed similar words of comfort in India.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi,
October 20, 2001
Every time the US drops a bomb and
it does not kill Osama, the image that comes to mind is of Big Moose
of Archies’ fame saying, "Duh!" Or rather, "Duh?"
which isn’t the same thing at all. For the average American has such
a limited vocabulary that those who try to fill that cloud of confusion
over their heads often resort to writing blurbs like ???? or #@&*$,
or even Kreeegaaah!
Like Big Moose, their response to every situation seems
to consist of giving every suitor of Big Ethel (Ms Freedom?) a big thwack
on the head. Pakistan, in this vein, would be like the ‘wascally’ Bugs
Bunny, forever raiding carrots from Elmer Fudd’s (India’s) fields. Fudd,
of course, keeps firing ineffectually in the air with his airgun. If
this image is too kind, make Pakistan Captain Haddock, forever firing
thousands of blistering barnacles at the whole world which he feels
does not understand him.
Following this drift, Bill Clinton was Dennis the Menace,
not quite grown up, pants perpetually at half-mast, playing all those
pranks with Mama Hillary cleaning up behind him. George W, although
it is early days yet, seems a bit like Donald Duck, whose face you see
frequently on TV, keychains, stickers etc., but whose claim to fame
you can’t quite remember, except being an ‘Unca SamDonald’ to his nephews
Tony Blair and Colin Powell and, of course, Condoleezza Rice. Sorry
George, you just can’t be cast as Superman, not till you start wearing
your CIA underwear over your pants, not till tall buildings are safer
in your reign.
Which brings us to the crucial question: Who is Osama
bin Laden? Dr No? Frankenstein’s monster? King Kong? More likely, he
is the cartoonist, the evil genius scripting a story full of violence
for the kids who adore such vicarious stuff. Just as writers and illustrators
have done for years with the forever warring pairs: Tom and Jerry, Sylvester
and Tweety Pie, Willie E. Coyote and the Road Runner...
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi,
October 20, 2001
A charm offensive by the U.S. Secretary
of State, Gen. Colin Powell, during his brief visit to South Asia at
this critical moment seems to have pleased India's leaders as also Pakistan's
military-political establishment. This cannot conceal, though, Washington's
anxiety about how to engage the two countries without aggravating their
suspicions about each other and presumably also about America's long-term
agenda behind its ongoing `campaign' against international terrorism
in the name of a grand alliance for that purpose. Now, Gen. Powell surely
does not appear to have encountered any insurmountable challenges in
either Islamabad or New Delhi. Yet, it will be naive to conclude that
the Indo-U.S. dialogue as also the Pakistan-America engagement have
been put on separate but definitive tracks in the uncharted context
of America's new doctrine of friends and foes in a war of sentiments
against international terror. It is indeed evident that the exuberant
bonhomie of Gen. Powell's latest encounter with his Indian interlocutors,
in particular, has had the quality of glossing over the unfulfilled
promise on the bilateral front. More significantly, the transparent
tendency of the Vajpayee administration to lean unduly on Washington
for waging New Delhi's own battles against terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir
may have also blurred the distinction between the myths and realities
of the presently-evolving Indo-U.S. equation.
In a substantive perspective, therefore, both India
and the U.S. can and should attempt to enhance their interactions to
a higher plane of well-defined purposes. Inviting the Prime Minister,
Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, for talks in Washington on November 9, the
U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, has reaffirmed America's interest
in building a broad-based partnership with India. Besides the promotion
of ``closer cooperation on a range of security and economic issues that
advance common objectives'', America's intentions encompass its call
to strengthen the emerging anti- terror coalition in the international
arena and to foster stability in South Asia. A plain fact is that the
U.S. is trying to convince India that its friendship is not being devalued
in the context of Washington's compulsions in having befriended Pakistan
as an ally in the current fight against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden
in neighbouring Afghanistan. India and the U.S., for long estranged
democracies, began a conscious process of engagement during the final
year of the previous Clinton administration. Yet, if the two countries
now find it necessary to make a virtual new beginning, the reason can
be traced almost entirely to Washington's radically changed perspective
of stability in South Asia in the totality of America's own sense of
an unforeseen urgency to insulate itself from the politics of terror.
For India, this offers a fresh opportunity to reassert
its strategic independence. Not long ago, New Delhi was leaning towards
endorsing the Bush administration's plans for a missile defence system.
Instead, the Vajpayee administration should now seek to retrieve and
salvage India's overall strategic autonomy in foreign policy and be
more conscious of the reality that the U.S. itself should not be given
room to play zero-sum games in regard to India and Pakistan. Surely,
Pakistan's President and Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, will
expect the U.S. to reciprocate his current support for its actions in
Afghanistan. He makes no secret of his eagerness to see the U.S. become
more cognisant of Islamabad's strategic concerns about the Kashmir `cause'
despite the recurring terrorist blots on that. Gen. Powell, on his part,
gave Pakistan something to smile about by affirming the salience of
the Kashmir issue. Not surprisingly, the External Affairs Minister,
Mr. Jaswant Singh, has characterised that as an example of an Indo-U.S.
disagreement that need not become disagreeable at the same time. If
this is any sign of maturity, New Delhi should sustain it by seeking
a more balanced engagement of the U.S. now.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chennai, October
19, 2001
COLIN Powell’s reputation as an
unruffled diplomat survives his trip to India and Pakistan. A minefield
of difficulties awaited him on Kashmir, terrorism and the future of
Afghanistan but he treated them, in public at least, as mostly semantic
problems. Having thanked Islamabad and New Delhi for their support and
told each capital what it wanted to hear, he emerged unscathed. Has
he left the coalition against terrorism in this part of the world in
robust health? For the most part, and despite the gunfire on the LoC,
yes. The crucial part of the trip was, ten days after the bombing of
Afghanistan began, to shore up Pakistan’s will as it continues its high-risk
stance of backing Washington. That seems to have been achieved. Lifting
sanctions on Pakistan and promising economic and military assistance
surely helped. Even more significant from Islamabad’s point of view
was the consultation on government-formation in Afghanistan after the
Taliban. A consultative process suggests Pakistan is recognised as indispensable
not only to the strike against Al-Qaeda but to the long-term stabilisation
of Afghanistan as well. Islamabad has certainly shown remarkable flexibility
and acted quickly in inviting former king Zahir Shah over for discussions.
Between Shah and the so-called moderate Taliban there could be two Pashtun
cards in play.
Powell made clear that Washington has no intention
of being dragged into the Kashmir quagmire at this time and will stick
with the formula that differences be resolved through bilateral dialogue.
That is a wise and well-considered stance. But India is no longer content
with a hands-off US posture. Ironically, it is New Delhi that seems
now, through diplomacy and military action on the LoC, to want Washington
to intervene albeit tangentially and in the context of cross-border
terrorism. Perhaps Powell’s broad public assertion that India’s battle
against terrorism was America’s battle was backed by more specifics
in private. But it is unreasonable to expect Washington to crack the
whip in Islamabad just now or Musharraf to open more fronts against
his government by taking on the jehadis head-on. India must not count
on a reduction of terrorist activities any time soon and will have to
be vigilant at all times everywhere.
A disturbing quality of ad hocism about the Vajpayee
government’s foreign policy in the new post-September 11 era is becoming
obvious. Carping about aid to Pakistan and an unbroken run of complaints
about its new importance in Washington’s scheme of things does not add
up to a policy. After recognising the terrorist assault on the US was
an assault on freedom and the rule of law everywhere, after boldly offering
to assist Washington’s campaign, the government is suddenly and unaccountably
racked by doubt and confusion. The Pakistan factor blots out all possibilities,
opportunities and requirements. By the time Vajpayee takes up the invitation
to visit Washington, the government should have a clear idea of what
it wants and how it is going to achieve those objectives. It makes sense
to look beyond the immediate picture and take a long-term view of the
south-Asian region.
Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi,
October 18, 2001
As Pakistan tries desperately to
preserve what it can from the broken fragments of its Afghan policy,
Kashmir was bound to come into the limelight again. Islamabad’s fear
is that its loss of control over Afghanistan will be compounded by the
end of its proxy war in Kashmir.
Hence, the equation yet again by Pervez Musharraf of
Kashmir with Palestine and his reference to the need for ‘self-determination’
to root out terrorism. If he is admitting in the process that there
is terrorism in Kashmir, it may be because the links between the jehadis
in his country and in Afghanistan are no longer a secret even to the
Americans. However, the plea for ‘self-determination’ from a dictator
cannot but sound ironical.
This is a time when India has to play its cards with
great care. Although the Americans have decided to intervene in the
matter of the Palestinian ‘State’, their policy towards Kashmir remains
largely unchanged. As before, the US wants the dispute to be resolved
through negotiations. However, it is the reference to the ‘aspirations’
of the Kashmiri people and to the state as a nuclear flashpoint which
must continue to worry India. Evidently, Colin Powell’s visit to the
subcontinent has made no change to these perceptions in the West. All
that has happened is that Islamic terrorism in Kashmir has been recognised,
but with a reluctance presumably because of the belief that India is
some kind of an occupying force in the state.
The best course for New Delhi is to act in a manner
which does not precipitate a crisis. The temptation to take advantage
of Pakistan’s present difficulties may be high, but forbearance may
yield better results. Clearly, it will take weeks, if not months, for
any kind of clarity to emerge about the future dispensations in Islamabad
and Kabul. In any case, the Taliban will no longer be in a position
to sponsor terrorism while its mentors in Pakistan will also be partly
subdued. So, even if terrorism remains a potent force, its virulence
will be checked, at least in the subcontinent. If so, it will be possible
for India to take more energetic steps to counter any sense of alienation
among the ordinary people.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi,
October 18, 2001
The intensive shelling of some Pakistani
military positions by the Indian Army on Monday night has exposed the
fragility of the Vajpayee administration's strategic thinking on the
Kashmir issue in the present volatile international situation. New Delhi
should first guard against making any move that might result in a dangerous
drift towards full-scale hostilities with Pakistan. To say this is not
to ignore or belittle the sense of outrage that the Indian Army in the
Mendhar and Akhnoor sectors of Jammu and Kashmir obviously felt as regards
the Pakistan-encouraged terrorist infiltration into the Indian side
of the Line of Control (LoC) in this particular instance. However, an
apparently trigger-happy response to the perception of a provocative
infiltration carried the elementary hallmark of routine ground- level
tactics. The available accounts indicate that India's field commanders
considered it prudent to target some Pakistani military infrastructure
in a ``punitive action'' that was aimed at pre-emptively discouraging
such terrorist infiltrations in the future. In a sense, there is nothing
very unusual about the latest infiltration or even the Indian response
except for their timing, but this reality is of critical importance.
There can be no two opinions indeed about the need for utmost vigil
by India's military forces. Not arguable, too, is the principle of sustaining
their morale at a very high pitch. However, New Delhi should move beyond
the threshold of statesmanship while meeting the suspected efforts by
Pakistan to raise the diplomatic- military stakes concerning Jammu and
Kashmir at this enormously sensitive stage.
The spiralling tensions in India's extended neighbourhood
are undeniably the direct consequence of Washington's ongoing war in
Afghanistan. Moreover, official Pakistan was among the first to make
common cause with the U.S. over what is now turning into an unpredictable
and messy adventure. The ongoing American military offensive in Afghanistan
is also beginning to cause considerable discomfort within the Islamic
bloc. In the books of the Vajpayee administration, Pakistan therefore
figures as an increasingly unstable state in quest of America's strategic
support over the Kashmir issue at this time. New Delhi's transparent
concern is that Islamabad may see the Kashmir `cause' as the political
glue that could keep Pakistan together in these circumstances. This
explains the External Affairs Ministry's denunciation of Pakistan for
``exaggerating'' Monday night's ``incidents along the LoC'' so as to
``misuse'' the U.S. Secretary of State's current visit to South Asia.
What New Delhi has so far failed to see in today's
nebulous international environment is the sagacity of adopting a policy
of strategic restraint in regard to Pakistan. Instead, some policy-
planners, such as Mr. L. K. Advani with no hands-on responsibility for
navigating India's foreign policy through uncharted but troubled waters,
have even advocated a ``hot pursuit'' of the Kashmir-related terrorists
behind the Pakistani lines along the LoC. Now, it requires no elaborate
reasoning to recognise that India's national interest will be best served
at this moment by a decision against imitating America's current ideas
and manoeuvres that include the notion of a hot pursuit of Osama bin
Laden, don of international terror. A policy of meaningful caution about
the U.S.' aims will indeed enable New Delhi to exercise strategic restraint
in respect of Pakistan too. It will be a foolhardy recipe at this juncture
if New Delhi were to shift its stance, unwittingly or otherwise, from
its own admirable record of military and political restraint as practised
with consummate ease at the height of the Kargil crisis not long ago.
In a sense, India's stature on the international stage rose dramatically
in that Kargil context. Those moral and political gains must not be
frittered away. Given also the inter-linked political destinies of India
and Pakistan, the two can and should seek to coexist through a continuous
process of dialogue before and after a settlement of the Kashmir issue.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chennai, October
17, 2001
The ‘punitive action’ taken by the
Indian army against Pakistani positions in Kashmir shows how the wheel
is coming full circle in the region. Although the shelling by the Indian
side cannot be put in the category of ‘hot pursuit’, an idea which has
long been aired on this side of the border, it nevertheless underlines
how India’s patience is wearing thin. This is for the first time since
the beginning of the proxy war by Pakistan that the Indians have decided
to hit at the staging posts on the other side of the Line of Control.
It undoubtedly represents an escalation of sorts and one hopes that
the government has taken into account all the implications of the move.
The provocation apparently was the infiltration of terrorists in the
Mendhar sector. But whereas India has preferred till now to deal with
the subversives after they had entered, it has now evidently decided
to target those Pakistani positions which help the militants to cross
over.
Considering that even during the Kargil conflict, India
had resisted the temptation of crossing the LoC, confining even the
air attacks to our side of the border, the latest action denotes a dramatic
departure from past policy. What may have paved the way for it is the
belief that, notwithstanding Pakistan’s preoccupation elsewhere, it
will not desist from persisting with its proxy war in Kashmir. As much
was evident from the fidayeen attack on the legislative building in
Srinagar by the Jaish-e-Mohammed. What is more, the links between this
terrorist outfit (now banned by the US) and the Al-Qaeda have since
come to light. The revelation that one of those released by India at
the time of the Kandahar hijack had sent money to Mohammed Atta, who
was involved in the attack on the twin towers in New York, emphasised
how wide the terror network is.
Evidently, India can no longer afford to make it easy
for the terrorists to enter Kashmir at will because of our respect for
the LoC. The need to remind Pakistan that, in future, it will have to
pay for its abetment of terrorism has become all the greater after the
Al-Qaeda included Kashmir as one of the areas on its agenda. For Pakistan,
the cosy period when it coddled the Taliban and fomented trouble in
India is clearly over. As the religious extremists turn on their former
patrons in Pakistan, the Musharraf regime must realise that it cannot
pretend to oppose terrorism in the West while encouraging it in the
East. To save itself from the monster which it has created, Pakistan
will have to disown — in word and deed — the proxy war it has waged
in Kashmir for over a decade. Otherwise, its present internal difficultiesc
will be compounded by external factors.
Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, October
17, 2001
It’s fear. The fear of flying and
high rise architecture. The fear of togetherness in private and public
spaces. The visible fear of an invisible enemy. It’s not a psychic disorder
in a clinical sense. Nor is it like the soliloquy of hi-tech horror
inside a dark theatre hall which you actually enjoy in its seductive,
cathartic fantasy. It’s tangible, this apocalyptic sense of a foreboding,
like a diabolical omen foretold, like a letter which arrives and you
want to open the envelope, but you still hesitate, not because it is
a hate-mail or carries an unhappy message, but in anticipation of a
powder which might kill.
If the millionth television image of the two aircraft
crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September
11 was like an action-replay of a dagger thrust deep into the heart
of ‘Free America’, the days that have followed have not been easy. It’s
difficult to build up a global coalition against terrorism when war
seems so fragmented and so infinite, and it does not really help even
if you are a superpower. Who knows when this nightmare will end, and
who knows which fanatical suicide bomber is waiting in which car or
high rise structure, thinking of nothing but that precise moment when
he will "open his heart to paradise".
This is precisely the American dilemma and, unlike
the movies, there is no end to this horrific reality. And it’s not even
the threat of a conventional war where the enemy is visible. Perhaps,
with fool-proof security and an alert civil society, one can eliminate
bio-terrorism aimed at innocent citizens. But how to cope with this
shadow which stalks the sleepless nights of an affluent society? New
York, for instance, is a dynamic and pulsating cosmopolitan entity.
This was proved by the resilience and quiet dignity with which the people
there coped with the aftermath of Terrible Tuesday. But this is one
Tuesday which has changed the remains of the day, for every day arrives
like a manuscript with several pages missing.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi,
October 17, 2001
After a lull of many months, the
Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir suddenly came alive on Monday
night with heavy fire from the Indian side destroying a dozen Pakistani
posts in the Mendhar and Akhnoor sectors. It appears that this marks
the start of a ‘‘pro-active approach’’ by the Indian army. Certainly
a military spokesmen describes it as such and for the army to take ‘‘punitive
action’’, in response to what it says are Pakistani army attempts to
send militants across the LoC, is a departure from recent practice.
The change of tactics, if indeed that is the case, will probably receive
popular support in India. It follows the worst-ever terrorist strike
in Kashmir of October 1 when 40 people were killed outside the Assembly
building by a suicide bomber and three accomplices. The Pakistan-based
Jaish-e-Mohammed initially claimed responsibility for the massacres
which caused widespread outrage in India.
A pro-active policy on the LoC may be designed to meet
domestic demands for a tougher Indian response to cross-border terrorism.
It may also be intended to send the kind of message Washington needs
to hear. The Bush administration is seen by many within the government
and in the country generally to focus exclusively on its own agenda,
to take India’s support for granted but not take sufficiently into account
terrorist assaults on India at present and over the last decade. Perhaps
the tension at the LoC will be a reminder that India is left with no
choice but to act on its own to mitigate the terrorist threat. It should
help to concentrate US secretary of state Colin Powell’s mind on these
issues. There is an obvious American dilemma in Pakistan’s importance
as a frontline state in the US-led campaign against terrorism and Pakistan’s
role in aiding terrorists who strike in India. Powell will doubtless
argue for putting objectives into sequence, getting Osama bin Laden
first and dealing with other forms of terrorism later. India’s fear
is that Washington will not pursue what some analysts in the US for
politically expedient reasons are already calling ‘local’ terrorism.
Because Pakistan is a potential long term US ally, a blind eye will
be turned to its activities as was the case throughout the 1980s.
Monday’s action on the LoC will sharpen all these issues
when Powell meets Indian leaders. Hopefully India’s concerns will be
thoroughly discussed. At the same time India’s expectations from the
Americans need to be moderated by a better appreciation of international
terrorism, by the fact that the elimination of Al-Qaeda will reduce
the terrorist threat in this region and that Pakistan will come under
some pressure to cut its links with jehadi groups. As for the LoC, the
risks attendant on a pro-active military approach are serious and call
for careful consideration. Monday’s action ended quickly, in a matter
of hours. Other border engagements may not be so short and swift but
could escalate tensions and lead to protracted action. Pakistan’s army
certainly needs to be deterred from taking advantage of Islamabad’s
present privileged position to send new batches of jehadis into Kashmir.
But risky military action should be avoided.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi,
October 17, 2001
The latest threats of possible,
but not yet definitively established, connections between germs and
terror tactics should not be allowed to cloud logical reasoning and
the preparedness of public health authorities across the world… Reports
from the U.S. of … anthrax only escalate long-felt fears of the possible
deployment of biological weapons in warfare… To effectively counter
the micro-agents of terror, urgent action in a coordinated manner through
exchange of information and sharing of resources is called for. [It]
is necessary as it would mark the commencement of an arduous engagement
of a hitherto untested dimension of warfare… the possibility of the
use of micro-organisms implies a wider spectrum of threat… none of which
should be exaggerated…
As public fear and panic… tend to stun systems into
inaction, the need of the hour is substantiated information on the source
of the latest anthrax attacks on individuals… the earlier occasions
of a somewhat similar tactic - the use of… sarin… [in Japan].… resulted
in less than intended fatalities, raising serious questions on the effectiveness
of delivery mechanisms. Reports of the possible involvement of states
… are indeed serious charges that require coordinated international
efforts in order to vaporise the possible space available to sinister-minded
terror groups. Such efforts gain a sense of urgency … given the close
network that non-state players tend to put in place, an `advance' made
available to one grouping is soon at the command of several others.
Curbing the possibilities of terrorist groups either developing or gaining
control over chemical and biological weapons is also important as such
a development will transform the striking powers of terrorist organisations
from that of limited damage to mass destruction. Given the complexities
involved in this operation, the role of intelligence agencies in collecting
and presenting unimpeachable evidence is vital, followed by strong international
action.
… the Union Government's recent alert to all State
Governments must be followed up with a serious appraisal of both the
possible threats as well as the current status of the nation's health
system - both public and private - to counter the possible infectious
agents listed… There is also the need to evolve contingency plans that
should form part of a larger and more comprehensive public health policy
… ad hoc approaches will not work in effectively checking mass casualties….
Maintaining vigil and infusing public confidence are important starting
points in countering man's vulnerability to methodically-planned carnage
by man.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chennai, October
16, 2001
The latest propaganda videotape
from Al-Qaeda is fresh proof of increasing desperation within the terrorist
camp. In bringing up Kashmir, the Al-Qaeda… [has made]… transparent
attempts to win over people …. and turn them against the US. It is also
very clearly intended to sow confusion in Muslim countries like Pakistan
which are supporting the military attacks on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
However, except for fringe elements, most people ought to be able to
see through the game and recognise it for the cynical self-serving exercise
it is … Today bin Laden focuses on Kashmir; tomorrow it may well be
Chechnya or Xinjiang or Nigeria. Anything will do as long as it provokes
reaction in the streets.
Vis a vis Kashmir, of course, matters are somewhat
more complex. There is no evidence that Kashmir has ever been a bin
Laden priority but the Al-Qaeda connection is both direct and long-standing
through the terrorist groups who have trained there and draw sustenance
from it. Was there a message for them in the latest tape? … In any case,
it would be wise to read the latest Al-Qaeda videotape as a bid to stir
up trouble within India. As the US closes in on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban
regime begins to implode, as desperation grows, India’s security forces
will have to stay on high alert. Above all, the propaganda on Kashmir
is meant to fuel suspicion among Pakistanis about the Musharraf government
which had agreed to make Pakistan the key frontline state… Those in
India who imagine there can be any movement forward with Islamabad on
the Kashmir issue in this situation, do not have their feet on the ground.
While guarding against fresh terrorist atrocities in Kashmir and elsewhere
in the country, New Delhi’s best policy would be to keep relations with
Pakistan on an even keel and wait out the immediate war on Al-Qaeda.
After that there should be less insistence on Washington doing the Vajpayee
government’s work for it and more effort on resuming the bilateral dialogue.
Bin Laden’s purpose is to turn the international campaign
against terrorism into a battle of Islam against the rest. That would
serve his fundamental objectives very well… to fashion, as it were,
a coalition against the forces of modernisation and globalisation. Washington
frequently reminds the world, it will be a long campaign against terrorism.
There should be no illusion either about the determination of those
who would drag their societies and countries backwards into the past.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi,
October 16, 2001
IS this to be the scent of terror?
This sickly sweet waft of baby powder that spills out of innocuous looking
envelopes? … Till just recently… it was widely held that biological
and chemical terrorism was still the stuff of sci-fi books… And in a
world where scares spread faster than the most deadly disease, it must
be a rare city indeed that is not witnessing a run on antibiotics.
Whether or not the senders of anthrax-laced letters
are in any way linked to the [attackers on the US] … September 11 …
transported the world into... an era of permanent alert. Terrorists
appear to have turned a rapidly globalising world’s means of connectivity
into sources of fear… Ethnic and spending profiles of passengers are
being carefully scanned by airlines and co-passengers alike — throwing
up cases of pathetic discrimination and xenophobia to gladden the hearts
of mischief-makers. Letters from near and afar are being scrutinised…
And television… is now being tracked for the next bombshell from Osama
bin Laden and his spokesmen. To the extent that an administration purportedly
fighting a war to preserve the ‘‘freedoms’’ America cherishes is seeking
censorship of the video missives from its adversary!
If this first war of the 21st century is a battle for
the mind, the terrorists appear to have the advantage. They appear to
have implanted in individual minds that most menacing of thoughts: ‘‘What
next?’’ A suicide ‘‘bomber’’ bearing small pox? A chemical attack? Something
we cannot even yet imagine? Is India up to it? … this is a battle that
cannot be fought from the brink… It needs to be restated that a biological
terror attack on a large scale requires immense resources and expertise…
That the Aum Shinrikyo chemical strike at a Tokyo subway in 1995 cost
the cult $30 million but left a death toll of 12. To be alert is a virtue,
but to be hysterical would amount to capitulation.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, October 16, 2001
It is difficult for the people of
a nation like the United States to accept that their country has erred
in the past. Whether it is overt support to Israel or the propensity
to side with non-democratic regimes across the world, the US has paid
scant attention to the growing resentment among peoples who have been
at the receiving end of one-sided American policies.
When this resentment snowballs into sheer hatred and
is criminally used as a ‘cause’ by terrorists, the sangfroid that has
so often taken the form of arrogance needs to be re-examined. The danger
is that Americans may think that by reappraising its attitude towards
the world, they will be giving in to terrorist blackmail. But what the
US has to appreciate is that a change in policy and terrorist demands
can be seen as having no link whatsoever.
… rejection of the $ 10 million donation by Saudi Arabian
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal is understandable. [With that was] attached
[a] news release which advised the US government to "re-examine
its policies in West Asia and adopt a more balanced stance towards the
Palestinian cause"… Talal … may have talked sense, but the timing
and context of his ‘advice’ was improper … while providing solace to
a battered nation, he was perceived as hinting that the US had reaped
what it had sowed... Americans must, for tactical and moral reasons,
learn to accept that one can critically view American foreign policy
and at the same time find no justification for terrorism.
One of the pitfalls of being a superpower is that its
status breeds hauteur … Arrogance of a more serious nature (trashing
treaties, hijacking international fora and bullying other nations into
economic and political submission) led to the false notion among Americans
that their country could do no wrong. The US must confront its errors
rationally and convince the world that acts of terror have not goaded
it to change its global outlook, but a consideration for the sentiments
of other nations.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, October
15, 2001
A week after the start of the bombing of Al-Qaeda
and Taliban targets, the coalition behind the US campaign against terrorism
is already fraying at the edges. As … civilian casualties are reported,
there are bound to be qualms everywhere …The weak links in the coalition
just now are in the Arab and Muslim world. Just how weak will be seen
over the next few days. Anti-American sentiment, as witnessed in several
countries after last Friday’s prayers, still brings a small, though
fierce and often violent, minority into the streets to burn effigies
of George W Bush and to hail Osama bin Laden as a hero. But that could
change.
The potential for a wider conflagration, for the coalescing
of other discontents in societies run by dictatorial governments with
the bombing in Aghanistan, is ever present. Whether that can be averted
will depend primarily on the efforts of Arab and Muslim leaders and
also on the kind of war the US wages. A short, sharp military response
risks less of a fallout than protracted, high-tech, televised bombardment
from the air … over time the predominant picture of this war will be
the mightiest country on earth pulverising the most impoverished. So,
the Pentagon, really has a limited time frame in which to finish its
job.
… Extending action to other countries, possibly Iraq,
could create more kinds of fissures in the coalition. Meanwhile, the
leaders of Muslim countries must somehow be persuaded that appeasing
the clerics and fundamentalists in their own countries is not good statesmanship.
It was encouraging that the … [OIC] … last week clearly condemned the
terrorist attacks on the US and backed the campaign against the Taliban
and bin Laden. American diplomacy and more especially their own vulnerability
to radical Islamist movements may account for this reasonableness. Nevertheless
there is a dichotomy in how many Arab and Muslim governments present
themselves to the world and to their own people. All the regimes in
West Asia surely recognise that curtailing Al Qaeda capabilities is
in their own interest. Even so equivocating noises come from Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, Indonesia and others. An awakening to reality, such as Pakistan’s
is still to take place.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, October
15, 2001
Truth is the first casualty in a
war while propaganda becomes the primary weapon. American criticism
of the way in which the Qatari satellite television channel Al-Jazeera
has been airing images of the war in Afghanistan may be seen as a blatant
call for censorship.
The US state department has launched a two-pronged
attack on the television station: one, that it is guilty of showcasing
inflammatory rhetoric; two, of carrying untrue stories …
If there has been another ‘asymmetric war’ that is
being conducted, it is on the media front… western channels have … all
taken recourse to the images provided by Al-Jazeera. As a result, for
the first time, American viewers are witnessing an American war courtesy
a non-American television channel. The inability to confirm the reliability
of these reports has made Washington paranoid enough to make many think
that the Bin Laden footage sent out coded signals for another terrorist
attack — apart from being inflammatory.
The state department has advised western television
stations to use edited footage in its broadcasts … television and newspapers
in America have blacked out any images of civilian destruction in Afghanistan
that could upset viewers. More distressingly, newspapers like the New
York Post have been resorting to some jingoism ("Kabulseye!"
goes one headline) of their own. That truth has to be filtered in a
time of war is acceptable. What is not is the knee-jerk reaction of
the West that anything reported by a non-American company has to be
suspect.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi,
October 13, 2001
It’s a good sign that several influential
Muslims have criticised the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid in Delhi for his
"irresponsible and anti-Islamic" statements. Syed Ahmed Bukhari
had earlier called for jehad in support of the Taliban.
… only an utterly insensitive person can support the
September 11 terrorist attacks which have been enacted by the same holy
warriors whom Mr Bukhari now wants to support. Will he then also support
the likes of Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba? What is the Shahi
Imam’s considered opinion on the suicide bomb attack in Srinagar in
which most victims were innocent Kashmiri Muslims? Besides, on what
basis can the Imam club the Taliban’s brand of oppressive Islam with
the entire Islamic realm of belief as it exists in its multiplicity
in a secular and democratic nation like India?
Besides, it is foolish to walk into the trap of Hindu
fundamentalists and Muslim-baiters who will now elatedly declare: Look,
this is the true face of Islam. Shabana Azmi and other distinguished
Muslims are right in pointing out, therefore, that the Imam, by his
irresponsible stance, is pushing the Indian Muslim community to the
wall.
By giving his blanket support to the Taliban, Mr Bukhari
is reinforcing the dangerous message that there is no difference between
Islam and jehadi terrorism… Mr Bukhari should realise that he does not
represent the viewpoint of the Muslim community in India… the least
that is expected from him is a bit of discretion and maturity. If he
so strongly identifies with the mullahs of Kandahar and Quetta, then
he will surely end up isolating himself not only from the Muslim community
in India, but also from the national mainstream. Indian Muslims don’t
need the likes of the Shahi Imam to prove their intrinsic faith in Islam
or their secular national identity.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi,
October 13, 2001
India has good reason to be concerned about what
shape a new post-Taliban regime will take… political developments in
Afghanistan have an impact on the regional security environment and
are, therefore, of legitimate interest here. [If the Taliban is removed]
… how will Afghanistan be governed? No one wants chaos in the interim
and beyond… there is no constitutional and widely acceptable successor
to the Taliban. A power vacuum, civil war and anarchy would pose a threat
to the stability of the whole Central Asian-South Asian region, provide
hospitable soil for more bin Ladens and Al-Qaedas, give free rein to
narcotics traders and gun-runners and set back plans for intra-regional
economic cooperation. Particularly worrying would be the politically
destabilising effect on Pakistan of protracted turmoil in Afghanistan.
Extremists would exploit such a situation and more Afghan refugees would
add to the numbers Pakistan is already struggling to cope with.
… Indeed as the only country in the region with a well-established
democratic, pluralistic system India is uniquely placed to recognise
the complexities of nation-building in multi-ethnic Afghanistan. However,
in order to play any kind of useful part, the Vajpayee government ought
to be more circumspect than it has been so far. Merely to insist on
a role … is to arouse suspicion not only in ultra-sensitive Pakistan
but further afield as well. This would defeat Indian objectives which,
it should be clearly asserted, are to support the emergence of a democratic,
stable and independent Afghanistan in the interests of its own people
and the region … The game should not be narrowly conceived as checkmating
Pakistan. Islamabad will doubtless manoeuvre to put in power a regime
it can influence … Iran, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China —may
have similar ideas. But if Afghanistan is going to be fought over by
outside powers who encourage this or that local faction, there is no
hope of that sad country gaining freedom from its bloody warlords.
From Afghanistan’s perspective long term UN involvement
is absolutely essential and India should advocate this strenuously.
There are multiple roles for the UN in peacekeeping and in political
and economic reconstruction. Even with Zahir Shah as titular head of
an interim government, a UN representative will be needed to hold the
balance between domestic groups and to forestall outside interference.
There is no alternative to law enforcement by UN forces for months,
perhaps years. Afghans need time to put thoughts of revenge behind them
and work out a power-sharing mechanism which gives the different ethnic
groups — Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks — a strong stake in peace
and stability.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, October
13, 2001
Ever since … the September 11 carnage,
India has been investing considerable energy in getting the Governments
worldwide, especially those in the West, to appreciate better its own
concerns in Jammu and Kashmir as the victim of `transborder terrorism'
… and enlist their support. It sought to impress on Washington and other
partners in the coalition the apparent incongruity in Pakistan being
coopted as the `key' player in the anti- terror campaign because of
Islamabad's perceived role as the `generator' and `promoter' of militancy
in the troubled Valley... [for] neutralising … Al-Qaeda and the Taliban
regime, Pakistan's active participation is indeed a geopolitical and
strategic necessity, but Washington has been reiterating its commitment
to root out the scourge of terrorism universally, even while acknowledging
India's concerns in J&K. If the daring fidayeen attack on the high-security
legislature complex in Srinagar … by the infamous Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad
was a big challenge to ... India and its authority, it became an acute
embarrassment for the Bush administration … Washington obviously did
not want to be seen as being utterly insensitive to India's concerns
… It has placed the JeM in the `watch' list, … It needs to be noted
that the outfit is still to be banned by … India.
The terrorism-related concerns voiced by New Delhi
are unquestionably genuine. …. India should have, in the post-September
11 context, unhesitatingly and without any reservation joined the international
campaign against terrorism and, in the process, sought to benefit …
A remarkable upshot is of course the U.N.'s most recent resolution that
binds member-states to taking stringent and specific legislative anti-terrorism
measures. But official India would be deluding itself if it thought
the U.S. or any other country … is willing to or is in a position to
fight its battle against militancy in J&K. [India’s response] …
in the past four weeks suggests a lack of a coherent perspective, as
was discernible for instance in the tone and tenor of the Prime Minister's
letter to the American President, Mr. George W. Bush, after the October
1…. attack in Srinagar. Secondly… terrorism especially of the type encountered
in J&K is rooted in a bewilderingly complex array of socio-political
and historical factors and no surgical intervention…. or hot pursuit
strategies can provide a permanent cure; and this is to assume that
such procedures are carried out successfully and without any negative
spinoffs.
… New Delhi's combative effort as part of the current
global anti-terrorism campaign will gain enormous moral weight if only
[it]… is seen as taking some quick and credible initiatives by way of
addressing the basic issues that have led to the alienation of the people
of J&K… Needless to say, the Farooq Abdullah Government also has
a crucial role and a substantial share of responsibility in this respect.
As has been repeatedly pointed out in these columns, the foremost among
the necessary initiatives is that of devolving more powers to the State
in keeping with the special status guaranteed to it under the Constitution
for historical reasons.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chennai, October 12, 2001
It is a matter of no little concern
that at a time when the Muslim world is facing a grave crisis, there
is no organisation representing their interests which can articulate
their viewpoints with some degree of credibility.
… the Organisation of Islamic Conference… has made
the customary noises condemning the terrorist attacks on the US but
also urging Washington not to extend the scope of its retaliation beyond
the perpetrators of the September 11 outrage… to dissuade the US from
targeting Iraq and Syria, both of which suspect that they may be singled
out ... However, the point [is the OIC] … reflects the views of only
the ruling oligarchies and is not representative of public opinion.
…. whatever the OIC may say or do really does not matter
on the ground in the Muslim countries. At the moment, the OIC may be
closer to the views of ordinary people in its condemnation of terrorism.
But no one can be sure because none of these countries is a democracy
in the modern sense. The rest of the world, therefore, will continue
to live in ignorance of what really is the response of the Muslim world
to Osama bin Laden’s espousal of insensate violence. … religious outfits
in support of [bin Laden] … too, are not representative of public opinion
and echo the views of only a small bigoted segment of the population.
Although there is not much possibility of these agitations
getting so far out of hand as to threaten any of the governments, whether
in Pakistan or elsewhere, the impression of the entire Muslim world
experiencing a period of severe strain will continue to persist. And,
yet, because all these are closed societies, there can be no reliable
assessment of how severe the strain really is. The uncertainty is all
the greater because of the involvement of religion in this confrontation,
making it far more volatile than a conventional skirmish over territories
or spheres of influence. Given these difficulties in understanding the
Muslim world, policy makers have to be extra careful in formulating
their war strategies. In this context, the OIC’s caution against widening
the conflict needs to be kept in mind even if it has been issued at
the behest of what the Americans regard as rogue States.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, October
12, 2001
… Kofi Annan, has aptly assessed
the worldwide mood of dismay over the killings of four U.N.-contracted
civilian workers during the ongoing American aerial and missile attacks
on Afghanistan. Describing the deaths as a ``hard blow'' for the U.N.,
Mr. Annan is hoping that ``precaution will minimise (further) civilian
involvement'' of such a tragic dimension. The U.S. too has regretted
the deaths... An alternative suggestion by Washington is that the ``ordnance''
from the Taliban's anti-aircraft batteries could have just as probably
killed the workers ... At best, the American statement will qualify
as a cosmetic argumentation, if not also a callous one at that, about
the reality of human casualties. The truth simply is that the U.S. has
not been able to stick to its virtual advertisement that the ongoing
raids over Afghanistan reflect a technologically precise exercise which
should not affect the non-combatants. On the wider international stage,
a more disturbing reality is the chain-reaction of political anxieties
that Washington's Afghan operations have triggered …
… These international worries relate to the letter
that the U.S. communicated … Now, the global community has by and large
acquiesced in America's contention that its initial targets are the
terrorist camps of Osama bin Laden and the military infrastructure of
his collaborator, the Taliban regime. Except for some sizable pockets
of fundamentalism, most Islamic states too have tacitly or openly acknowledged
America's rights… Now, the U.S., in its letter, drew the Security Council's
attention to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter that permits individual
or collective self-defence by the member-states that feel threatened
by external forces. Yet, what seems to have caused concern [is] … Washington's
parallel assertion that it might in course of time target unspecified
organisations and states other than the Afghan-Taliban regime and Osama's
Al-Qaeda. In a delicate interpretation at this moment, Mr. Annan tends
to think that the U.S. has neither predicted the inevitability of such
a follow-up action nor expressed a pointed intention to go after other
states and groups. However, the legitimate concerns of the international
community on this score must be fully addressed by the U.S. as it seeks
to sustain a `campaign' against terrorism with a global canvas.
Some Islamic nations, in particular, appear eager to
evaluate the possible outlines of an incremental U.S.' agenda. … some
other U.N. agencies, which are traditionally mandated to address humanitarian
issues, have begun to point out how the current American air offensive
is hampering relief supplies to the drought-stricken Afghan people …
Overall, the U.S. should therefore recognise the need to tread or fly
cautiously in the face of an increasingly volatile international situation.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chenai, October 11,
2001
It is gratifying that the United
States has begun looking at terrorism from a new angle. Its decision
to put the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed on the watch list for possible
listing as a "terrorist organisation" should be seen in this
light… The sooner the US Administration takes the next logical step
of declaring it a terrorist organisation, the better it will be for
the international fight against global terrorism. There is a surfeit
of evidence to show that Jaish-e-Mohammed is one of the most dreaded
terrorist organisations in the world. Its latest handiwork — the attack
on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly … proves beyond a shadow of doubt
that it has links with such terrorist bodies as Osama bin Laden’s Al-Queda.
What’s more, it has enjoyed Pakistan’s direct patronage… it had claimed
credit for the Assembly attack within hours of perpetrating it, only
to withdraw the claim later, perhaps at the prompting of Pakistan. Yet,
it is strange the US did not find it necessary to include it promptly
among the terrorist organisations whose funds stand frozen.
Lapses of this nature encourage organisations like
Jaish-e-Mohammed to get away with anything. … One of the terrorists
whose release was obtained through the hijacking — Ahmed Omar Saeed
Sheikh — is alleged to have transferred $100,000 to one of the kingpins
of the September 11 attack… In retrospect, if the hijack was not seen
as India’s own problem and there was coordination among countries… it
could, perhaps, have even averted Black Tuesday. If anything, this shows
how important intelligence-sharing is in fighting global terrorism.
Incidentally, it was the clinching evidence of the Pakistani ISI chief’s
links with some unholy groups that India provided to the US that forced
it to prevail upon President Musharraf to oust him from office.
The US… finds it difficult to antagonise Pakistan.
That is why US officials have been saying that organisations like Jaish-e-Mohammed
will receive their attention once bin Laden and his terrorist outfit
have been tackled. In fact, if the US is serious about fighting terrorism,
it has no option but to fight terrorism on all fronts and in all countries
from where it gets sustenance. Declaring Jaish-e-Mohammed a terrorist
organisation is a step in that direction from which the US should not
shy away.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, October
11, 2001
… persistent fears that the era of
biological warfare may have begun with two cases of Anthrax having been
reported in Miami and news that bombs are being rained day in and day
out on…. Afghan cities and towns, do not exactly make for a calming
environment… But behaving as if one’s tail is on fire is really no way
to respond to such a situation and will someone please tell our Keystone
Cops this?
From Jaisalmer comes the wondrous tale of … Osama bin
Laden lookalike… the Sumo was promptly intercepted … and its bin Laden-looking
occupant marched off for some rigorous questioning… Hilarious as [it]
… may seem, such zeal on the part of the police, unmarred as it was
by any substantive evidence, could have extremely disturbing, even tragic,
consequences for the people so detained. In Delhi, six young members…
were found distributing pamphlets protesting against America’s air strikes
[and] were promptly rounded up … and jailed for activity described as
‘‘inflammatory’’, ‘‘anti-national’’ and ‘‘seditious’’… a non-bailable
offence, [was] clamped on them.
If distributing pamphlets [is] … ‘‘anti-national’’,
if criticising the US for interfering in the internal affairs of various
countries can be seen as ‘‘seditious’’ activity, would it be too outrageous
to presume that the Delhi police have now begun to take their orders
directly from Washington? Or is this merely a case of our havaldars
having watched too many episodes of NYPD Blue? Ironically, as a news
report highlighting the case of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh … pointed out,
the same police have been singularly ineffectual in bringing those who
were involved in genuine anti-national and seditious activity to book.
What is needed here is a sense of proportion — and a sense of justice
and fair play too. Maybe somebody should remind our excitable policemen
that India is, despite their best efforts, very much a democracy. And
an independent one at that.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, October
11, 2001
Since it is now clear that India
has to fight its own battle against terrorism, it will be worthwhile
for it to ponder over the possible implications of the war in Afghanistan.
First, the positive features. There must be some satisfaction
in New Delhi that the emergence of, if not an overtly friendly, but
at least not a hostile regime in Kabul in the not too distant future
will mean a big setback to the jehadi enterprise run so far by Islamabad
and the Taliban. In addition, Pakistan, too, will not be able to give
as much free play to the terrorist outfits for some time. The arrest
of several clerics and the removal of hardliners from senior positions
in the army and the intelligence services suggest that Pakistan will
try to project itself as a moderate Islamic State to remain in the good
books of the US.
The irony, of course, is that this posture of restraint
is being adopted by none other than General Pervez Musharraf, the hero
— or anti-hero, in Indian eyes — of the Kargil misadventur … how much
can he be trusted… If he is now holding out the olive branch to India,
it is evidently because of American pressure. In addition, he may have
seriously expected India to take advantage of his current discomfiture
to launch an attack. As a master dissembler himself, it is not surprising
that he expected a stab in the back…
India had done well, therefore, … by assuring Pakistan
that it did not want to exploit its difficulties…
… New Delhi can never be sure how serious Islamabad
will be in the quest for peace… It is difficult to believe that Pakistan
will forsake its policy of terrorism in Kashmir …
Much will depend on the tussle between moderates and
hardliners… But it is a safe presumption that, where India is concerned,
they are all hardliners. India, therefore, will have to formulate its
policies with great care, reaching out to the more responsible sections
in Pakistan with the kind of various confidence-building measures which
the Vajpayee government had taken on the eve of the Agra summit. At
the same time, New Delhi has to remember that it is still the villain
of Kargil who is in charge in Islamabad.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, October
11, 2001
For a war that was billed as a struggle
between the 21st and earlier centuries, the images being piped into
the homes of millions have been of ‘unsatisfactory’ late 20th century
vintage.
… With the Gulf war providing the model of all future
‘prime time wars’, Operation Enduring Freedom was expected to notch
up better standards in terms of sophistication and imaging technology.
The reason for ‘audience disapproval’ this time round
is that it already knew what bombings and missile attacks look like.
It expected some new-fangled… But Operation Enduring Freedom is unlikely
to provide such sumptuous fare. For a start, it is slated to be a different
kind of war where the conflict is bound to shift to a more ‘invisible’
domain that lies beyond the reach of cameras … Perhaps Afghanistan,
too, will yield such disturbing ‘non-live’ images [as during the Vietnam
war] as the conflict grows.
Another major change from the ‘CNN war’ of the Eighties
is that the interest has shifted from the battleground to a more shadowy
region … the ‘enemy’ is a diffused entity called Osama bin Laden. Unlike
Saddam Hussein… during the Gulf war, we now have the ‘rare’ Al-Jazeera
footage of a terrorist overlord warning his enemies of forever living
in fear. What is most unsettling for the television viewer in New York
or Boston … is that he now sees a man who appears to threaten his lifestyle
and very existence over the screen. Television, for him, now seems to
provide an uncomfortable link between a war zone and his living room.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, October
11, 2001
The anthrax scare in Florida seems
to have spilled over into a tense world that is already on edge wondering
when, and where, terror will strike next …
This is just as well since bio-terrorism was never
a serious issue for [India’s] the country’s defence planners… the September
11 terrorist strikes… apparently jolted the government out of its complacency.
It is a chilling thought that scientists in biotech facilities around
the world are even now routinely souping up the next generation of terror
weapons: bacteria, viruses and pathogens that could be brewed and served
in aerosols to kill or disable at will.
… the lethality of bioweapons is usually overestimated.
People mistakenly believe that they work by triggering off epidemics,
when most actually kill by direct exposure… bioweaponry has been confined
to agents like anthrax spores that enter the lungs and hatch bacteria…
without infecting anyone els. …. such luck may not hold indefinitely
as any genetic engineer could devise contagious weapons at some point.
Of course, it’s very difficult to develop, say, an
anthrax strain since the spores must be just the right size… Nevertheless,
it is a disturbing thought that it is quite possible to design a virus
that would afflict only a particular ethnic group, thereby giving a
wide safety margin for the attackers…. genetic engineering could just
as easily fashion a vaccine to match such a killer virus so that the
aggressor could be immunised.
-- Editorial, Hindustan times, October 11,
2001
The Appalling September 11 terrorist strikes … have
raised questions about managing internal security in countries around
the world. Therefore, it is perhaps inevitable that India also embarks
on a process which increases its degree of preparedness against acts
of terrorism and which results in the acquisition of greater expertise
in disaster management. It is true that this country has been a victim
of the export of terror for many years. …The Union Home Minister, Mr.
L. K. Advani's warning that the threats from nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons can no longer be dismissed … draw[s] attention to the need of
learning the right lessons from the terrorist strikes on the United
States …
… the suggestion that a new Central agency be set up
to tackle crimes related to terrorism, hijacking and attacks on sensitive
installations is generally not a bad one… it is absolutely imperative
that any such mechanism contains the necessary safeguards to ensure
that the responsibility of the State Governments is not infringed. If
the idea of setting up such an agency finds wide acceptance, it will
only be on the condition that the delicate institutional balance between
Centre and States on questions relating to law and order is not skewed
inequitably. … for the proposal to set up a National Disaster Management
Agency… there can be few objections. The minimum action programme outlined
… which includes the setting up of State-level disaster management agencies
with sub-units in all district headquarters - is also well worth acting
upon. Recent experience suggests that systems and procedures alone can
never prevent terrorist strikes… but it is the duty of the Government
to do whatever it can to insulate the people from such attacks as well
as manage their horrendous aftermath.
Drawing up a list of vulnerable targets, equipping
the police for search and rescue work, establishing mechanisms of civil
defence, upgrading dog squads - the sooner such proposals are implemented,
the better. But such measures have to be clearly distinguished from
attempts to formulate new terrorist legislation… The bureaucracy and
the political executive of varying hues all suffer from the unfortunate
misconception that the lack of sharp legal teeth is an important reason
for the country's failure to make a quick meal of terrorism. This is
plainly false. The country's security forces are already armed with
wideranging powers under the existing laws to deal with terrorists.
Moreover, TADA-like laws can be put to horrible misuse and our experience
has clearly demonstrated that terrorism feeds off the human rights abuses
perpetrated under the legal cover such legislation provides. However
real or serious the threat of terrorism, nothing justifies the introduction
of draconian legislation which inevitably results in gross human rights
violations and which, at the end of the day, is likely be counter-productive.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chennai, October 10,
2001
India’s unfriendly neighbourhood dictator’s coup
has turned sour. General Pervez Musharraf is currently in the position
of a man who is having to pick up the broken pieces of his shattered
dream…
Nothing denotes his predicament more graphically than
the decision to remove the ISI chief and supersede some of the army
officers who had helped him to usurp power in 1999. The ISI chief’s
ouster is a highly significant development because this shadowy organisation
has been the Taliban’s friend, philosopher and guide for many years
and played a crucial role in fomenting terrorism in this part of the
world.
Of course, General Musharraf himself was very much
a part of this unholy conglomerate till September 11… It is worth recalling
that one of his first acts after grabbing power was to shoot down a
plan to capture Osama bin Laden prepared by the Nawaz Sharif regime
along with the Americans.
… like all opportunists who have to disown their former
friends, he must be aware of the dangers involved in such backtracking.
This is all the more so because his painful retreat harks back to the
halcyon days of Kargil …
In the process, General Musharraf had roused a lot
of hopes among the religious extremists. Now they are up in arms against
him, for they suspect that his betrayal is not only of the Taliban but
also of the holy cause of jehad, whether in Kashmir or elsewhere. At
the moment, his position at the helm may have enabled him to put the
Jamaat-e-Islami chief under house arrest and bring the ISI under control.
But, as a Pakistani commentator has said, he is walking a tightrope,
but the rope is rather slack.
His unenviable position is highlighted by his latest
habit of blowing hot and cold against India …
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, October
10, 2001
The opposition to terrorism — and support to the
current international mobilisation against it — springs from the belief
that people must be free to choose their way of life and be unafraid
to express themselves.
The crucial caveat here is that they must permit everyone
else to do the same. Terrorists, by definition, deny this privilege
to others, and threaten by their insane actions the very civil liberties
which guarantee the freedom of thought, expression and action. The police
authorities in Delhi too have once again shown how little regard they
have for the right of people to express themselves …
…. the police have arrested a group of young people
who were distributing pamphlets protesting against the bombing of Afghanistan….
the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid was spitting venom against the same bombing
raids … But, they didn’t nab Ahmed Bukhari as he is deemed to be a privileged
person. Nor should they, for that too would be wrong …
But if all those opposed to the ongoing war were to
be locked up, there could well be turmoil in the country. The Left parties
are campaigning against the war, although they are as opposed to terrorism
or the activities of the Taliban. It’s just that they don’t like the
idea of wars. That is as honourable a position as any, and is deserving
of respect. It is a dangerous mindset that will take the view that ‘those
who are not with us are against us’, so reminiscent of the McCarthy
era in the US when civil liberties became the first casualty. It may
be useful to remember that anti-war demonstrations are being held in
the US, the country which suffered so tragically at the hands of terrorists
recently.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, October
10, 2001
…General Pervez Musharraf... the specially convened
press conference on Monday … Here is a man who, even in these unstable
times, can smell opportunity in the acrid air. Having sold the Taliban
for a fistful of dollars and American backing — in Pakistan’s supreme
interest, as he put it — he continues to speak of himself as the most
dependable protector of Pashtoon interests. Having given his express
agreement to the strikes, he swears that they will be ‘‘short, sharp
and targeted’’.
The phone call he made to … Vajpayee, … must be seen
in this context. India would find it difficult to perceive his condemnation
of the attack on the Srinagar Assembly as an honest response. Consequently,
if his offer to inquire into the incident only causes cynicism in New
Delhi, this is because too much blood has flowed in the Valley and the
General’s infamous remark that those who cause terror and disaffection
in Kashmir are ‘‘freedom fighters’’ is difficult to forget… there is
little doubt that the stability of the region hinges crucially upon
the General’s ability to survive the sharp escalation of internal dissent
and the unstated ambitions of his colleagues in the army. It is for
this reason and this reason alone that India has to respond to the General’s
appeal that we cooperate in the fight against terrorism. Opening more
fronts at a stage when South Asia seems to be sitting on a powder keg
is not just inadvisable, it would be plainly dangerous … the US [not
using Pakistani soil for the attacks] … seems to be conscious of the
need to spare Pakistan the odium entailed in such operations.
… So resistant has the North West Frontier Province
been to the idea of a Punjab-centric Pakistan that even a relatively
simple operation like a national census has not been possible for years.
The Afghan air strikes have only added to the seething tensions… The
resistance raised by the pro-Taliban clergy… has actually served notice
on the Musharraf government for its support of the US — is so potent
because it combines religious conviction with ethnic frenzy. Clearly,
there is more than the future of General Musharraf at stake here.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, October
10, 2001
THERE is irony, yes, in those canary
yellow packets that have also been rained from Afghanistan’s night skies.
But those stop-gap, symbolic rations of beans, biscuit and jam can also
be seen to be carriers of a crucial political message: That this is
not a war against the Afghan people and, more importantly, that it must
not be seen as one. … As the US and Britain-led forces deploy high military
strategy against terrorist camps and hideouts in Afghanistan in days
to come, another war must be fully, deftly joined by other means — the
battle for the mind.
As if to counter the scores of bombers and Cruise missiles
striking targets across Afghanistan, the videotaped image of Osama bin
Laden… has been endlessly replayed on television channels across the
world…. This is a fight between Islamic and non-Islamic forces, he says,
and every Muslim must rise to defend his religion. As if on cue have
followed images of anti-US violence in parts of Pakistan and West Asia
and, closer home, in Srinagar. Smoke-filled gun battles in the western
Pakistani city of Quetta, noisy chaotic protests on the streets of Islamabad
and Rawalpindi, as well as Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi, and student
unrest in universities across Egypt — all protesting against the ‘‘war
against Islam’’. These images are real but the real danger lies in overestimating
their reach and ceding to them an authenticity and representativeness
they do not have. Osama bin Laden’s unholy jehad may have struck a raw
nerve in what is known as the Muslim and Arab world, it may have stirred
up long standing grievances on issues such as American military presence
in the Arabian peninsula and the Palestinian struggle against Israel.
But it is equally true that this vicious alchemy is not as successful
as many are now assuming it to be. Also, it can be countered, and is
already being countered, even from within that supposedly monolithic
Islamic world. These voices of reason need to be given a more encouraging
public space.
The Palestinian Authority has reportedly banned demonstrations
in support of Osama bin Laden, reiterating that they misrepresented
the true feelings of the Palestinian people. It has also rejected bin
Laden’s support to their cause. There will be many more such interventions
in days to come. Failure to heed and highlight these will only surrender
more space to bin Laden’s vile propaganda.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, October
10, 2001
The military offensive … launched against
Afghanistan is presumably the first overt aspect of a smart war against
the terrorists with a global reach and also their hosts. … a sensible
course at this early stage of this conflict in Afghanistan is to impress
upon the American-British coalition and its military allies in the wings
to recognise and avert the geopolitical risks as also the human costs
of a wider conflagration. This will be a difficult but humane choice.
… the U.S.-U.K. brains-trust … should take the initiative to scale down
the losses of human lives and of civilian assets to truly negligible
proportions. The latest war … had become inevitable in the context of
a chain reaction of events … since September 11. After a band of barbaric
conspirators struck horrendously … taking a heavy human and material
toll, Washington began sensitising the international community to a
discourse about an entirely new kind of war against terrorism… The array
of means outlined is impressive - patient diplomacy and the intelligence
war of secrecy, besides a new practice of forays across the cyberspace
to squeeze the finances of the terror- mongers and, if necessary, open
military conflicts with them.
However, as the U.S. and the U.K. started pounding targets
in Afghanistan on Sunday night, the stark horrors of a prospective war
triggered some equally predictable international concerns about the
likely humanitarian fallout. … the first waves of the Anglo-American
military intrusions … over Afghanistan have already forced its hapless
inhabitants out of their miserable homes. So, the global community cannot
simply ignore the conspicuous signs of a humanitarian catastrophe. A
fresh exodus of Afghan refugees, perhaps numbering over a million, may
have already been caused …
Among the states that have variously facilitated the
latest war on some suspected sources of terrorism…. Pakistan may be
the first to feel the shockwaves of a new humanitarian crisis. … Pakistan
is obviously wary of a new influx into its territory. On a different
plane, the U.S. also seems aware of the bad name that a humanitarian
disaster could bring to the global anti-terror `campaign' itself. The
U.S. is, therefore, air- dropping food and medical supplies…. Yet… the
battle for the hearts of the traumatised Afghan people is becoming equally
complicated. While the politics of a possible post-Taliban dispensation
cannot be the prime concern of the Afghan people at this particular
moment, the international community must brace itself for the humanitarian
tragedy in Afghanistan and act quickly.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chennai, October 9, 2001
… Did Sunday’s air strikes signal the
beginning of yet another global conflict against yet another deadly
doctrine? The worldwide nature of the present conflagration is obvious
… terrorism today has affected countries and regions extending from
the US … to Europe, North Africa, West Asia, Russia and India… The Americans
can derive some satisfaction from the fact that the coalition they have
sponsored has the backing of so many countries… it is no less important
to remember that a number of countries are also against the current
military offensive against the Taliban.
… the negative reaction from Malaysia and the demonstrations
in Pakistan are bound to cause concern. Even if these reflect the views
of extremists… the protests nevertheless show … that even the despicable
record of the Taliban and of Osama bin Laden’s gang of terrorists can
still elicit some support. Evidently, the savage repression which the
Taliban inflicts on the hapless people of Afghanistan, and especially
its women, has not given it much of a bad name in some parts of the
world. Nor has Osama’s mindless mustering of fanatics in his mountain
caves.
… the best course would be for the Americans to use their
overwhelming firepower to bring down the Taliban quickly or at least
cause enough dissension in its ranks so that the moderates … part company
….Then, the Northern Alliance can move in along … The emphasis, therefore,
should be on a short and swift action because a prolonged offensive
will not only help the Taliban but also cause minor upheavals in the
Muslim world. The contours for a post-Taliban dispensation… should also
be outlined even as the war is on. As in the last century, there is
no doubt that the forces of democracy and open society will win this
war. But the great suffering which the earlier wars inflicted on the
ordinary people has to be avoided.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi October 9,
2001
Nothing shatters consumer confidence like
the dark clouds of war. …Now that a war has started in our neighbourhood,
the Indian economy is going to face a difficult external environment
…
More crucial will be the impact on the rupee, which has
lost 57 paise since Black Tuesday due to the frantic demand for dollars
from importers. If the supply of dollars is not adequate, it will lead
to a weaker rupee. This will make imports costlier and input costs will
see a steep rise. There could also be a major hike in the government’s
oil import bill. Besides, the services sector… will be badly hit. The
hotel and tourism industry is reeling under cancelled bookings and a
much reduced tourist inflow. In the software sector also, due to the
decline in orders from the US, even strong firms like the Infosys may
not be able to meet their export targets. The computer hardware industry
too will be affected by the higher cost of imported components.
In this depressing scenario, it will be hard for the
stock market to recover from an erosion of investor wealth. Much will
depend on how the stock markets around the world react to the war. If
it is brief, the American economy might bounce back. Americans can start
spending on imports again in response to the full range of incentives
announced by the Bush administration to bolster incomes. But a long-drawn
war will mean global recession and hard times for India.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi October 9,
2001
Imagine soldiers of enemy kingdoms refusing
to fight, chasing Bengali sweets air-dropped from the sky… Huntington’s
mad mullah is an innocent half-adult, steering a static car.
The irony is stark: there are no sweets falling from
paradise. Instead, it’s a barrage of bombs, Tomahawk missiles, and the
fire and brimstone of hell. And a throne which Omar just can’t abdicate
… Mysterious doctors have said that Omar is a paranoid schizo. He suffers
from brain seizures and hysterical fits. He is scared of travelling.
And he locks himself up for days in a bomb-proof house built for him
by his millionaire son-in-law Osama.
But Omar is no Greta Garbo. His fits of juvenile delinquency,
if it is true, could well be the syndrome which has stalked many dictators
… Only a mad man could have destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas. But dictators
are made of such insane stuff. General Saw Maung of Myanmar, who had
much blood on his hands, became raving mad. Idi Amin, with a bit of
‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ ritual thrown in, was never considered really
sane. Stalin was so mentally insecure that he got rid of almost all
his top guns in the Red Army and politburo. Hitler in his last days
hid in a basement. Yes, it’s the shrapnel of history. Mullah Omar needs
a doc. As things turn more crazy, the TV-savvy Generalissimo in our
neighbourhood might soon need one too. And a get-away car with a real
engine.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi October 9,
2001
Hopes that a war would be averted have
been belied with US and British forces mounting an attack on Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan. The Taliban has only itself to blame for what happened
on Sunday night when Cruise missiles fired from ships, submarines and
munitions from sea-based and land-based aircraft rained on Kabul, Kandahar,
Jalalabad and Mazar-e-Sharif, among other targets. The exact toll in
these attacks, which have caused immense damage to vital installations
like airports, radars and communication facilities, is not known. The
Taliban cannot claim to have been taken unawares by the attack as the
US has been warning it to hand over Osama bin Laden, who is alleged
to have masterminded the attacks of September 11. That it has not been
truthful about the whereabouts of the Al-Queda chief is obvious, going
by its shifting stand. Sometimes it had claimed that it had no clue
about his whereabouts, at other times, it had hinted that he had already
left Afghanistan. In any case, it was apparent that the Taliban had
no intention of betraying its ‘guest’, one who believes the Taliban
government is the ideal form of government. That the Taliban cares two
hoots for world opinion was borne out by what it did to the Bamiyan
Buddhas. Small wonder then that few nations are sympathetic to the regime
and what it stands for.
Nonetheless, questions will be asked whether the missile
attacks on Afghanistan will serve the US purpose of nabbing bin Laden
and destroying his Al-Queda network. Since the US strategy is yet to
unfold, the duration and nature of its intervention in Afghanistan is
difficult to discern. The risks of targeting a single person, who enjoys
a measure of public support in so vast and hostile a territory as Afghanistan,
are too well known to need elaboration. Though the Taliban is not in
a position to square up to an aerial attack, its capacity for guerrilla-type
operations and sustained ground war is hardly in doubt. The hardy Afghanis
are known to have defeated every army they faced down the centuries.
The US and its allies cannot be oblivious of the dangers of some of
their missiles falling in the wrong places. Given the fractious nature
of the coalition the US has put together, a mishap like this is sufficient
to sound its death knell. The consequences of such an eventuality are
too frightening even to imagine. It is for this reason that sane people
everywhere want the war to end quickly.
Since terrorist training camps anywhere are an anathema
to world peace, nobody will shed tears if they are pounded out of existence.
India knows only too well the havoc they can cause to countries the
religiously surcharged perceive as inimical to them. However precisely
targeted such surgical operations are, the death of innocent citizens
is a reality that cannot be wished away. Destroying the terrorist camps
is only one aspect of the global fight against terrorism, which requires
greater pooling of intelligence resources among all nations. And for
this to happen, it is necessary that the coalition remains strong so
that it can continue the campaign until terrorism is defeated. This
is possible only if the war is not a prolonged affair and causes the
least damage to the innocent people of Afghanistan.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, October
9, 2001
The United Nations Security Council has enthusiastically
spelt out a comprehensive framework of do's and don'ts to promote a global-scale
campaign to combat terrorism. … a virtual directive to all the U.N. members
on how they should tame the terrorists by starving them of funds and assets
and by denying safe havens ... Significant, … is the constitution of a
monitoring committee. The Council's call for enhanced international cooperation
is suitably aimed at preventing the spread of terrorism across state boundaries.
Two other salient features … are … First, the U.N. members have been asked
to treat terrorist acts as criminal offences under their respective national
laws. Second, all countries are enjoined upon to refrain from providing
any form of support, active or passive, to the financiers as also the
actual and potential perpetrators of the terrorist crimes. However, the
moral force of the resolution might make a materially positive difference
to the current international clamour for action against terrorism only
if a truly global consensus could be generated about the very definitions
of various forms of trans-border terrorism.
… The U.S. must … act, as far as possible, in conformity
with the parameters and principles enunciated under all the relevant
U.N. resolutions now and later. …. the latest resolution marks a definitive
leap forward by the global organisation in addressing the intricate
web of connections between the terrorists and their sponsors as also
state-protectors. However, the many distortions of the existing international
political order may still act as a constraint on the U.N.'s proactive
impulses. Overall it is true that the U.N. has not been particularly
effective in promoting multilateral coalitions to deal with issues of
critical importance to the world at large and not just the U.S. and
the other major powers. Yet, Washington can usefully interact with the
U.N. as a collective forum …
Even as Pakistan agreed to cooperate with the U.S. …
Islamabad pointedly kept the U.N. in focus as the moral authority for
possible multilateral operations in this regard. More specifically,
Pakistan drew attention to the resolution that the U.N. Security Council
had passed in the immediate context of the terrorist attack on America
on September 11. An avid … interpretation … seemed to suggest that the
U.S. was already armed with the U.N.'s authority to wage a war against
the terrorists with a global reach. Nonetheless, the relevant question
now is how far the U.S. will actually take the U.N. into confidence
on intricate aspects of Washington's strategic offensive against terrorism….
Washington … will do well to explore the possibilities of forming a
broad-based international coalition against the politics of terrorism,
conforming as much as possible to the framework of a U.N.-led consensus.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chennai, October 1,
2001
Has the war begun already? … it now appears
that special commando units of the US have already moved into the country
[Afghanistan].
It is possible, therefore, that these elite groups of
specially trained soldiers are enacting in real life some of the most
gripping thrillers that fiction writers can dream of… [N]othing can
prepare a man for the many imponderables … in a confrontation with deadly
enemies in a harsh terrain like that of Afghanistan. The reports that
some of the commandos have been captured by the Taliban only enforces
this point.
…. the US was far more prepared for a response than anyone
thought...The only difference between its earlier experience and the
present one is that the roles of friends and foes have changed. … It
will probably never be known if the Americans even bothered to inform
Pakistan before sending in the commando units… prompt action has enabled
the Bush administration to … to keep the hawks … in check while the
government makes an elaborate attempt to build up a worldwide coalition
against the Taliban.
The urgency about the formation of such an alliance and
the launching of a formal military offensive may be diluted, however,
if the commandos achieve their objective, which is to get Osama bin
Laden, dead or alive… In this case, it is doubtful if Afghanistan can
be considered to be a State at all while there is no doubt that Osama
is a terrorist. While the Americans hunt for him, the rest of the world
will wish them success if only because it may prevent the outbreak of
a war in the conventional sense. But even afterwards, persistent determined
action will be needed to put out the fire of terrorism in Afghanistan
as well as in Pakistan.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, October 1,
2001
Having been dragged against its will to join the battle
against terrorism, Pakistan is now trying to make the best of a bad
bargain.
[Pakistan] is presenting various preconditions to the
Americans… it is clearly the only country which is promising to oppose
terrorism on certain terms … such a stand is not surprising. As a first
step, Pakistan wants that the Northern Alliance (NA) should not supplant
the Taliban. … it is possible that the US will lose interest in it [the
NA] soon enough. In addition, the NA’s record in the pre-Taliban period
is pretty dismal. The anarchic conditions under it in Afghanistan enabled
Pakistan to install the Taliban … there is a future for it as a part
of a larger conglomerate.
The return of … Zahir Shah is the other alternative…
But he cannot be anything other than a titular head. The question… is
which party or parties will assume real power... in this context … the
moves to exploit the differences within the Taliban are of importance.
… Pakistan … will obviously opt for the next best alternative, which
is to have a moderate version of the Taliban rule the roost. However…
how moderate is a moderate Taliban? …
Pakistan’s other precondition… is that the ‘freedom struggle’
in Kashmir should not be equated with terrorism. This is going to be
a real test of American intention. It is unlikely that the US will accept
this outrageous term... But terrorism cannot be treated in a piecemeal
manner. The camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan trained terrorists not
only for specific targets like Kashmir or Chechnya, but to prepare for
a worldwide jehad. Unless this poisonous plant is totally uprooted,
the danger will remain.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, September
29, 2001
The American response to the September 11 carnage has
shown a remarkable level of maturity… the way it is proceeding demonstrates
that it is fully aware of the pitfalls of hasty action.
For instance, while intensive bombing raids could have
released pent-up American fury, there was every possibility of such
action proving to be counter-productive in the long run… it would have
compounded the present uneasiness among the governments of Islamic countries
about a direct assault on Afghanistan… it would have highlighted the
suffering of the ordinary Afghans without having a perceptible impact
on the terrorists themselves.
Given these imponderables, the Americans are obviously
making sure that their tactics and strategies coalesce in a manner which
will have the maximum impact… After all, the fact that Saddam Hussein
is still around shows that overwhelming firepower is not always enough
to eliminate an enemy… therefore, the Americans are engaged in the undramatic,
but ultimately indispensable, task of coalition-building. Since the
focus in this effort is to rally the Muslim countries, the US has first
ensured that at least Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres will shake hands...
It doesn’t really matter to the US if Iran and Iraq make
a few nasty observations or Pakistan tries to ensure that its adversaries…
do not gain ground... What Washington would like to ensure is that a
very large part of the Muslim world would approve of its objective.
Given the horrendous nature of the September 11 outrage, this wasn’t
too difficult to achieve. But what the US is now aiming at is to prepare
the world for a long campaign… As has been said, this first war of the
21st century will resemble the long-drawn war of the last century against
drugs... Similarly, this conflict, too, may drag on for years, without
identifiable frontlines and definite signs of success. There may even
be occasional setbacks, for the world is dealing here with insane people
driven by religious frenzy. As against drugs, only America can fight
this battle against terrorism, for no other country can equal it in
resources and dynamism.
There is also no doubt that its campaign will be crowned
with success. But only after a prolonged struggle.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, September
28, 2001
… American journal New Republic [prescribed]…
Let the UN ‘‘wither away into irrelevance’’… Now… it is time to announce
verdict: the UN has indeed withered away into irrelevance... A war is
on the anvil. Global consensus has to be confirmed every other day...
Blueprints are being drawn up for a post-Taliban dispensation in Kabul…
A decade ago the task ahead would have been instantly entrusted to the
UN... A count of Blue Berets would have been undertaken with far greater
urgency than of the B-2 bombers revving up for action...
None of that has transpired… its well-intentioned peacekeepers
drifted into luxurious inertia on the Indo-Pak border and in Western
Sahara, caught in a time warp while events rendered their fraying resolutions
absolutely obsolete. Since it so effectively kept the chaos in Cambodia,
in Rwanda, in Bosnia. Since its interventions in Iraq were finally scoffed
at by the US (impatient with the UN’s notion that it could do a better
job of monitoring Saddam Hussein’s weapons programme) and by countries
like Russia (convinced that its sanctions regime makes little sense).
None of this, of course, implies that the UN’s bloated
bureaucracy is sitting idle… the UN moved on to a new kind of diplomacy...
Persistent international problems may have proved too resistant to solutions…
the UN has of late found ever newer problems to tackle... Take its recent
Durban jamboree on racism... Perhaps we are being unkind. Perhaps the
UN would better serve humanity as a talking shop, than as an eager participant
in a changing world order.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi,
September 28, 2001
… Pakistan today remains the only friend
of Taliban…
Now, with the world ranged against Taliban, Riyadh has
decided that even that slender bond had to be snapped. Pakistan’s retention
of the link, however, is not born of neighbourly concerns alone… The
Taliban, after all, is virtually Pakistan’s creation…
The objective was to turn their wrath outwards — towards
Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia. It was a cosy arrangement till September
11. Now, however, that entire jehadi enterprise is falling apart. Even
then, Pakistan is trying to preserve what it can of this conglomerate
of unholy warriors. First, it has dubbed its present alliance with the
US as an unavoidable step… Secondly, Islamabad is trying to lay down
conditions for its support to the campaign against the Taliban... Pakistan’s
objection to the purported use of the Northern Alliance as the spearhead
of the campaign against Taliban is based on the fear that the control
of Afghanistan will pass into the hands of Islamabad’s enemies, among
which it undoubtedly counts India.
Apart from the fact that its plaintive pleas in this
regard are unlikely to be heeded either by the US or the Russians… what
Pakistan’s efforts show is that it still wants to prop up either the
Taliban or a close replica of it… it confirms yet again… that Pakistan
has no qualms about the nature of the Taliban, which has so antagonised
the world because of its savage repression of women and the boost it
has given to fundamentalism. The possibility of such a regime being
replaced by elements who are expected to abjure the fostering of terrorism
in favour of rebuilding their benighted country is anathema to Pakistan.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, September 27, 2001
THE tragedy that engulfed the United
States… is now being played out in the most unlikely corners of the
globe among people who have been rendered prisoners of forces far beyond
their control… Operation Enduring Justice [plans] are being worked out
in Camp David and the NATO headquarters…
In a sense Afghanistan’s civilian population has been
rendered refugees several times over... They had fled military action
in the wake of the Russian… fled a brutal civil war… fled to the riverbanks
and towns during the severe drought... Today, they are fleeing once
again... The world is confronted with nothing less than a gigantic tragedy
and if it doesn’t bestir itself it could witness an unprecedented human
disaster… Pakistan and Iran… have now sealed their borders, even as
the numbers looking for refuge continue to swell. Soon the impromptu
camps of hungry, homeless people bunched along the borders could be
the sites of raging epidemics which could wipe out the most vulnerable...
To add to this scenario… there will be the harsh conditions of winter
to reckon with… the situation even [is] more uncertain [with] … the
breakdown of communication between the world and the tyrannical Taliban
regime. The World Food Programme… recently had some of its food stocks
confiscated… things will only get worse.
How much longer then can the world ignore Afghanistan’s
refugees? It may be useful… to recall Article 14 of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights… the situation calls for is a coordinated international
response even if this requires the opening of hitherto sealed borders
and the airlifting of people to safer destinations… The only way people
like us can sleep comfortably every night… is because those men and
women out there are just blips on a TV screen, which can be made to
disappear at the press of a button. It’s time they entered the consciousness
of the world.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi,
September 27, 2001
The Diabolical Taliban may have now suffered
an almost irreversible isolation except for a singular jarring note
of indirect support from Pakistan… the Taliban regime has found itself
in the dock since September 11… With the United States losing no time
to call upon the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden... the renegade
Afghan regime's residual lifeline of sorts is the one that Pakistan
might choose to sustain or snuff out in a rapidly changing international
environment. The traditional cross-currents within the Islamic bloc
have had much to do with the Taliban's diplomatic alienation from 1996
... Now, it is plain logic that the UAE and Saudi Arabia have broken
ranks with the Taliban in the specific context of America's newly internationalised
concerns. Moreover, it is doubtful whether the larger international
community will shed any tears over the Taliban's downfall... Yet, if
Pakistan appears to have sounded a discordant note, the U.S. may indeed
find that it has something to mull over.
… Abdul Sattar, is of the view that any external support
for the anti-Taliban factions … might only prove to be a recipe for
disaster… His warning … is being interpreted … as the sign of a possible
rift in the nascent strategic understanding which the U.S. reached with
Pakistan... the international community's suspicions regarding Islamabad's
benevolent links with the Taliban have virtually been confirmed by the
circumstances in which Pakistan joined hands with the U.S. ... Now,
it is obvious that Islamabad… wants to ensure that no regime inimical
to Pakistan's interests comes to power in Kabul… This certainly is of
much strategic salience to Pakistan which is still not sure about how
a U.S.-India equation might evolve in line with Washington's pledges
of a truly international campaign against universal terrorism.
In all, Pakistan still draws the distinction between
a campaign to trace the trail of Osama bin Laden as a suspect and an
all-out strike against the Taliban.... But the U.S. seems to keep its
options open at this stage about any move to dislodge the Taliban. This
may not be due to the apparent differences between Pakistan and the
U.S. over the Taliban's culpability. More important is America's new
refrain about an aversion to ``nation- building'' (the search for an
alternative to the Taliban in this case). This certainly has nothing
to do with the dubious claims of the Afghans about having defeated the
Soviet superpower on their own. Yet, if … Northern Alliance seems to
be the only relevant existing alternative … within the Afghan spectrum,
a note of caution will be in order. The Alliance, made up mostly of
Afghan minorities, should first be seen to live up to the pan-Afghan
credentials of its recently assassinated leader, Ahmad Shah Masood.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chennai, September
27, 2001
After the Taliban, what? … post-Taliban
dispensation in Afghanistan is getting the attention of key members
of the coalition against terrorism. It shows world leaders recognise
they have a special responsibility towards the people of that country.
It is not too early to ask who or what will follow the Taliban... For
humanitarian reasons and to permanently deny terrorists a home, Afghanistan
should not be abandoned, after ‘‘the war on terrorism’’, to political
chaos and economic devastation. That was what happened in 1989... Left
to the… Mujahideen, Pakistan’s ISI and eventually radical seminary students
and a mullah completely out of touch with the modern world, the Afghan
people went through another decade of hell. It should never happen again.
The complexities of taking out terrorists and their bases
pale beside what will be involved in government formation. Afghanistan
has not had a properly constituted, representative government for two
decades. Neither the Northern Alliance nor … the Pashtuns … will welcome
outside interference. But some degree of external involvement is essential
to restore peace and stability... With its institutions destroyed, professional
elite in exile or decimated, millions … as refugees… cities and infrastructure
ravaged by war, Afghanistan has turned into a wilderness … even before
US anti-terrorist military action begins. The task in Afghanistan is
nothing less than state-building.
... The basic aims will be to restore law and order,
rebuild the physical infrastructure, establish a democratic political
order using … the local jirgas and the Loya Jirga … and integration
with the outside world... Perhaps the best way [is] to… set up a UN
trusteeship similar to the one in Cambodia after its years of horror.
Any interim arrangement will need the approval of as many Afghan groups
as possible. Former King Zahir Shah… has initiated the ‘‘Rome process’’
to restore political order... In any case, without functioning law and
order institutions, and surrounded by neighbours and regional powers
with vital interests in the political outcome, Afghanistan will need
international peacekeeping forces to be based there for a long time.
Economic construction will call for international financial and technical
aid on a massive scale. It could take decades before a strong, cohesive
and democratic state emerges.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, September
26, 2001
Black Tuesday has been a tragedy in two
senses: first, in terms of loss of thousands of innocent human lives
and resources; second, in terms of a long-term damage to the American
way of life. Perhaps the quintessential trait of that phrase [salad
bowl] which defined community relations in the US was the mosaic of
multi-culturalism. The primary value … was … freedom [and] tolerance
of diversity … the terrorists managed to unleash nativist elements within
the boundaries of the US, who were largely lying dormant. These bunch
of red necks have simply gone berserk, attacking minority immigrants...
Despite President Bush’s cautions... the number of attacks against Sikhs
and Muslims have simply quintupled. Initially, it seemed… Sikhs were
targeted simply because of misidentification with followers of Osama
bin Laden. Increasingly as pulp patriotism raised its ugly head, all
Asian minorities have become targets …
… Indian diaspora have been particularly racked by such
hate crimes. They have been forced to wear ‘‘I love US’’ T-shirts, caps
and badges, in the hope that such attempts would shield them from the
ugly backlash on the streets and also from the subtle prejudices that
have sown dissensions in the workplace. Confined to their homes and
their ghettos, most of them feel insecure in the golden land of opportunity
increasingly turning hostile. The fact that the single largest minority,
more than 250 of those killed in New York, were of Indian origin is
completely lost on a large number of Americans blinded by anger and
seething with rage.
A country of immigrants, the US symbolised a classic
melting pot... By the middle of the last century with greater immigration…
the metaphor of a salad bowl replaced that of a melting pot [because]
… the salad bowl better represented the distinct cultural identities
of the immigrants from all over the world… sheer grit and competitiveness
made the Asian Americans a model community compared to all other immigrants.
Today as an angered America comes to terms with itself, the veneer of
cosmopolitanism has been ripped apart with multi-culturalism fraying
at the margins. Unless this enemy within is nipped in the bud, the American
way of life may be a thing of the past.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, September
26, 2001
… we must remind ourselves that the painful
record of terrorism in Kashmir coincides exactly with the entrenchment
of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The reality is also acknowledged that it was Islamabad
that called the shots in Kabul. It is a matter of record that the ISI
actively built up the Taliban fighting machine from scratch, providing
weapons, training and funds. Once the edifice was up, terrorism in the
guise of ‘Islamic jehad’ was ready for launch as an instrument of Pakistani
policy against India … to wrest…Kashmir. The rest… is history.
[After the Soviet’s withdrew] … India made the plea [for]
… a broad-based, non-aligned and representative government … in Kabul.
This was not to be… After the events of September 11, life appears to
be coming full circle. The difference is that now India is not alone
in seeking a post-Taliban dispensation in Afghanistan that would represent
all of its people, and would not kowtow to Pakistan.
The issue is believed to have figured in diplomatic dialogues
involving India, Iran, Russia and the US. It is clear to each that the
matter concerns them all, as they have all suffered at the hands of
Talibanised Afghanistan. The process of configuring a Taliban replacement
will demand patience and the true spirit of multilateralism… The politics
and economics of energy may be expected to impinge on the exercise since
Afghanistan provides key transit routes for the Caspian Basin storehouse
of gas. As the world’s only superpower, the US would no doubt wish to
dominate the proceedings. The steps towards an eventual settlement will
be of considerable interest to all countries of the region, including
Pakistan. India will need to exert itself as a key political player
since events in Afghanistan have always impacted on its concerns.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, September
26, 2001
India and Pakistan have rightly welcomed
the latest U.S. decision to lift the similar sanctions it imposed on
both of them in the context of their competitive nuclear weapons testing
in 1998… it is the timing of the latest American move that appears to
have induced official India to be less enthusiastic than Pakistan. Now,
Islamabad too is keen that many of its other concerns be addressed by
the U.S. But … Musharraf, seems eager to sustain the strategic understanding
… struck with the U.S. … to join its avowed new fight against globalised
terrorism. Such a significant updating of an old and chequered U.S.-Pakistan
alliance has already dealt a seismic blow to Islamabad's original links
with the Taliban... Washington is cognisant of Islamabad's perceived
ability to help solve the basic riddle of the Taliban... Nonetheless,
these geopolitical dynamics appear to have come as a rude shock to official
India…
There is more to the timing of the latest U.S. move on
sanctions… Bush… asked … Congress to empower him to waive in his discretion
all the existing sanctions on America's military assistance and weapons
exports in respect of any country for a period of five years from now…
Vajpayee, and his advisers will do well to move on by making the most
of the latest development. At one stage … it surely looked as if the
U.S. might lift the India-oriented sanctions before pleasing Pakistan
likewise... A truism, valid then and more so in today's surcharged international
environment, is … a stable Pakistan is in India's intrinsic interest.
The latest removal of most U.S. sanctions can contribute to Pakistan's
stability. A heartening episode prior to the new turn … was that … Jaswant
Singh, assured … Sattar, that India would not seek to complicate Islamabad's
present troubles.
For India, a sanctions-free economic relationship with
the U.S. can be quite rewarding mutually and in the multilateral domain.
India can expect a beneficial spin-off effect, inclusive of access to
the American dual-use knowhow, in the military and scientific sectors
too. Yet, given some unclear signals from Washington about its pre-1998
embargo, the fine print … will need to be combed carefully. In the case
of Pakistan, Mr. Bush has consciously kept in place the sanctions that
were clamped in 1999 [because] of that country's deviation from a democratic
dispensation. Yet, the prospects for Pakistan cannot be exaggerated,
more so if a range of sanctions traceable from the Symington Amendment
of 1978 is indeed removed.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Cheenai, September 25,
2001
[Pakistan’s] … U-turn under American pressure
… is understandable. But the volte face on Afghanistan and the conditions
it has specified as a basis for supporting America, including one on
Kashmir, underline such crass cynicism that Pakistan may never quite
be taken seriously in future. … while all other countries have offered
prompt and unconditional support to the US … Pakistan has not only dithered
but agreed to join the battle only if its outrageous terms are met.
… it is not the menace of terrorism which is of any concern
to Pakistan. Instead, it wants to use this opportunity … to extract
concessions relating to its own despicable terrorist manoeuvres. A major
reason for this effort is perhaps the realisation that a close American
involvement in the Afghan offensive will expose the training camps for
terrorists which it had been operating with the Taliban’s help. Since
[it] … will explode the myth of a ‘struggle for self-determination’
in Kashmir and buttress India’s position, Pakistan wants to secure an
assurance from the US that the Kashmir issue will not be allowed to
fade away.
… Washington must be convinced about the heinous role
which Pakistan has played in this region… such preconditions, including
the one about keeping India and Israel away from an anti-terrorist coalition,
show how necessary it is for Pakistan to cater to the bigots who constitute
the entire jehadi enterprise. … neither Saudi Arabia nor the United
Arab Emirates… has laid down any conditions for their support. Having
played the jehadi game in Kashmir, Chechnya and elsewhere, however,
Pakistan has no option. The irony is that these gestures to the militants
will not mitigate their wrath against Islamabad, which has betrayed
their cause for a pot of gold.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, September
18, 2001
After a decade of failing to persuade the
United States of Pakistan’s role as a sponsor and initiator of terrorism
in India, we now have the perfect opportunity to reassert our case.
The US must recognise that the Taliban is Pakistan’s
creation, that Afghanistan is Pakistan’s backyard storehouse of terror
and heroin and that the same camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan that
have been used to train Osama bin Laden’s men have also been used to
manufacture the terrorist mercenaries infiltrated into Kashmir. Given
its culpability on this issue, it is no surprise that Pakistan has reacted
with hesitation …
The general will walk a tightrope over the next few weeks.
He will probably call in his jehadis and tell them to lie low because
Pakistan’s very survival is at stake … India should fear any success
— even short-term success — in the advancement of Pakistan’s foreign
policy goals. We should not let an opportunity to put Pakistan in the
dock to be transformed into a situation where the US is beholden to
Islamabad … for its help in straightening out the mess in Afghanistan.
… If the government is to offer comprehensive support
in the war against terrorism then it can only do so on the basis of
a consensus. And India has enough petty politicians, with no conception
of the country’s long-term interests, to wreck any consensus. … We should
have wasted no time in identifying ourselves with the tragedy ... We
should have responded symbolically — a declaration of national mourning
and flags at half-mast would have been a thoughtful gesture — and the
prime minister should not have waited for three days to address the
nation.
Instead, the government has taken too long to speak…
Jaswant Singh … jumped the gun causing the MEA to issue a clarification
the next day — has been premature; it should have come after consultations
with all parties. … Vajpayee must know that it is always politically
difficult to offer bases to the US to launch attacks against the Islamic
world. If… the US response is framed as a UN action ... and clearly
directed at terrorism, not Islam itself, then most of the political
establishment would have no difficulty in supporting it.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, September
17, 2001
… Vajpayee rightly stated that last Tuesday's
terrorist strikes were against not just the United States but also humanity
and civilisation. What makes them so is … the nature of the forces of
Islamic fundamentalism that are behind it.
These forces, particularly those constituting the Taliban
in Afghanistan, which have risen under Pakistan's patronage in both
Pakistan and Afghanistan, believe in a creed that is a perversion of
Islam and an insult to Muslims the world over …
Contemporary Islamic fundamentalism poses a serious threat
to the modern civilisation based on the humanist revival which followed
the European Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. … Should
the forces of Islamic fundamentalism come to prevail, the world would
be transported to the darkness of the medieval age. … these forces cannot
be moderated by discourse and dialogue. Those constituting them are
fanatics ever ready to kill and maim for what they perceive to be their
cause. For more than two decades, they have waged a relentless proxy
war against India through cross-border terrorism … [and] have killed
hundreds of people in Russia, in Xinjiang in China, in Algeria and Egypt
in West Asia, and in Philippines...
While all this … had caused uneasiness in many capitals
of the world, there was not enough awareness of the enormity of the
evil fundamentalist Islamic terrorism represented and the magnitude
of the threat it posed. Tuesday's dramatic attacks … underlined precisely
this and of the urgent need to wipe it out. They constituted the turning
point. Since Islamic terrorists have supporters and training camps in
many countries, and the Governments of some of these ––Pakistan and
Afghanistan, for example –– have been providing them with covert or
over assistance, there is need for a coalition of nations to strike
at them. The Prime Minister was right in calling for the formation of
such a coalition and in stating, "The world must join hands to overwhelm
them militarily, to neutralise their poison." The task should not be
left half-finished.
-- Editorial, Pioneer, New Delhi, September 17,
2001
Amid the smoke and flame hiding the Manhattan
skyline, there are many memories and much pain which are still unfolding,
not only in the United States, but in every corner of the globe which
shares the angst and anger of the American people.
… In that fleeting threshold between life and death,
the people who were inside, or those who jumped from the towers in a
suicidal pact with death, or those who waited, looking out of the windows
for that desperate miracle which did not happen, it was a final testimony
of faith, of a condemned humanity’s struggle with fate…
… the shadow of Osama bin Laden and his Islamic jehadis
… is acquiring shape and contour. The democratic world, in any case,
was under attack from his fundamentalists scattered across… The most
ardent appeals from the Taliban to leave them alone cannot take away
the truth that it is this medieval outfit which has played happy hosts
to Bin Laden, and to all the mad mullahs and mercenaries who have the
blood of innocents on their hands, from Kashmir to Manhattan … the world
community feels nothing but revulsion against these ‘freedom fighters’
who celebrate the massacre of people who have nothing to do with politics.
… we must not lose our sense of rationality. We simply
cannot afford to become like their mirror images, masked or unmasked.
A bunch of bigoted lunatics, however motivated, cannot ever aspire to
become the representative of any community, religion or nation ... whatever
they propagate has no place in any holy book. That is the reason why
the Muslims in the US feel as much repulsed by this brand of religious
dogma as do the Muslims in India and all over the world. That is why
Muslims have opposed the perverted goons who carry acid bottles in the
Valley to push women back into the dark ages. Therefore, despite the
intensity of anger and pain, and the smoke and flame in the background,
we must learn to see the truth. Between ordinary people who have faith
in their religions and those who pursue their bloody cause with the
politics of hate.
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, September
14, 2001
"Terrorists are suddenly a poignant part
of life. Not that they have ever been away from life … Terrorism has
been there trivializing life, throwing all the values and principles
of freedom into jeopardy. Terrorism continued to proliferate even as
countries threw away the shackles of enslavement, foreign and local
and got independent…
The import and export of violence in one form or the
other continued even as the world got a stable UNO, saw the declaration
of various charters of human rights accepted and came to focus upon
bilateral, multilateral regional even continental approaches to problems…
… terrorist groups bring large nations to knees as it
is seen in Egypt; where stark intolerance is sought to be rationalized
as an 'aspiration' as Pakistan is doing in Kashmir. Once upon a time
the communists claimed it as a right to send in men, money and materials
to modulate the local struggles in many places as a flowering of their
own ideology. Today the Muslim fundamentalist outfits and individuals
are claiming a similar right to enforce its visions of world and ethics
upon whole nations, societies and men and women. Everything from Egypt
to Afghanistan to Kashmir is their target area for enforcing their particular
vision upon the people there. And the wide world, particularly the countries
that are perceived as the greatest obstacles in this pogrom of reining
in peoples, have become 'rightful targets' for them.
When it was not actively promoting the violences, intolerances
and instabilities in the name of 'correction' and 'emancipation', the
world just looked on as societies came to be ruled by impetuosities
of the highest order... The terrorists, rights activists, rebels of
all hues, found themselves aided and abetted by sources they would not
have imagined. While sundry tribes in Africa found fond godfathers in
the communist powers, the capitalist America saw an 'opportunity' in
the budding Taliban. Of course, it was not called Taliban then, but
the idea that was propped diplomatically, materially and logistically
by the Americans in Afghanistan was crying to erupt into a Taliban force.
It did in due course, to the lasting woe of America and others too.
What has struck America in the early hours of Tuesday
is a sum total of the violences that have been ravaging the world all
these years. One wrong act births a thousand abuses. One negative signal
throws dark shadows all over the world. Betimes they group to cast a
long shadow over the very fate of humans. The attack on America is a
longish shadow that has visited the total picture of humanist endeavors
of the whole mankind. Whether a nation, nations or a highly organized
group, something, some entity has decided that it must trash everything
human within sight. The megalomaniac notion to decimate thousands of
human lives is 'justified' when a single inhuman act is condoned, as
being right from a certain perspective. The America that bombed Vietnam
for years may not have visualized that its society and people too would
be visited by a similar catastrophe on a near day, but that is a logical
corollary. The people who are condoning terrorism on one pretext or
the other are actually paving the way for a larger more comprehensive
devastation that may not spare them. It will also not spare the humanity,
but will take innocent, undeserving lives with it. That is why it is
a heinous crime against all humanity. Here no country may say it is
immune. Nor can anyone presume that violence, intolerance and fanaticism
can advance the tenets of humanism in any fashion, by any justification."
-- Editorial, Daily Excelsior, Jammu, September
13, 2001
… Hardly concealed is the dastardly political
motive of the criminals, but it has not been easy to determine the physical
and psychological magnitude of a truly phenomenal tragedy. … The terrorist
blitzkrieg may indeed mark the beginning of a new defining war on civilised
humanity itself. ... Those who plotted these suicidal missions could
not have planned for more on a clear day of sunshine that turned into
darkness for the entire civilised world.
… With the borderless terrorists having struck at the
heart of American power and pride, Mr. Bush should respond in a manner
that will not at all aggravate the escalating instability of the global
strategic and political order. He should in fact endeavour to enhance
worldwide security in conjunction with all major and responsible countries.
For the immediate present though, even as Washington struggles to accurately
identify the masterminds and sponsors of this mass-terrorism, the Bush
administration must first address the gigantic failure of the American
intelligence services to foresee a political calamity of such vast proportions…
In a larger international perspective, the image of the
U.S. as a Fortress America has come under a huge question mark… Yet,
the apparent helplessness of the U.S. authorities at the height of the
latest saga of grief is a manifest testimony to the limits of America's
present-day power in the face of terrorists driven by a suicidal `zeal'
that may or may not owe its origin to a political or religious crusade.
In one sense, commendable indeed is the remarkable ease with which the
American military and political authorities swung into action to take
some well- conceived preventive measures to protect the President and
the other chief functionaries of the world's most powerful democracy
as Tuesday's terror strikes began. Yet, at another operational level,
the chinks in America's armour have never been worse exposed on a day
of terrorist mayhem.
… American politicians and opinion-makers have lost no
time to reaffirm their belief in a sustainable tryst with democracy
and racial-ethnic pluralism. It is uniquely imperative that the Bush
administration must not diminish or discount the political liberties
and other freedoms of the ordinary Americans in its search for an effective
defensive shield against the terrorists of any description. It is to
be welcomed that Mr. Bush has also warned the terrorists that they would
not be able to blast the democratic foundations of America even if they
manage to shake the seismic foundations of its stately buildings...
The ease with which the hijackers managed to hoodwink the security agencies
at three major U.S. airports at this time can only weigh heavily on
the human psyche.
A firm pledge by Mr. Bush to track the culprits of Tuesday's
evil and bring them to justice is unexceptionable. More problematic
in a geopolitical sense is his assertive goal of launching military
strikes against the terrorists to be identified and the states that
might be harbouring them. While no definitive conclusions have yet been
reached… Osama bin Laden… is a prime suspect. … Saddam Hussein, may
also figure in the U.S.' analysis, given their protracted hostilities
with Washington. The enormity of hate as also the logistical thoroughness
behind the latest attack on America raise the possibility, too, that
two or more anti-U.S. forces had joined hands. Yet… as Henry Kissinger…
has argued, a systemic approach may be called for to deal with the terror
tactics being directed against the U.S. Now, as the U.S. is not alone
in having to face the calculus of terror by external forces (India,
too, being a state concerned), Washington should explore the feasibility
of suitable consultations and cooperation with other key countries.
On an altogether different plane, the proven vulnerability of the U.S.
to some unorthodox terrorist strikes, which do not involve weapons of
mass destruction, has brought into a sharper focus the debate about
a futurist American missile defence system. It is to be designed only
to deal with a more sophisticated delivery of the means of terror than
a commandeered passenger aircraft.
-- Editorial, The Hindu, Chennai, September 13,
2001
… Since Osama is believed to be in Afghanistan
and is an accomplice in Pakistan's cross-border terrorism against India-a
victim of terrorist attacks for more than two decades –– it would be
foolish for New Delhi to take chances. While, however, it is imperative
to be on the alert and beef up security, the wider target must be wiping
out terrorism and its practitioners. Identifying the enemy is the first
requirement... It is no secret that cross-border terrorism is the work
of fundamentalist Islamic terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Toiba,
Harkatul Mujaheedin, Hizbul Mujaheedin, Jaish-e-Mohammad and a host
of smaller organisations, based in Pakistan, and trained, armed and
financed by Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The ISI, which operates with impunity in Nepal and Bangladesh, has set
up an extensive network of modules and agents throughout India. It is
imperative to take firm action against not only foreign mercenaries
but the ISI's local agents. This underlines the second requirement-a
national will to fight terrorism. In a democracy, this means giving
the matter the highest priority in the national agenda by all political
parties and refusal to allow partisan considerations to interfere with
the fight against terrorism. There should, for example, be a consensus
that the security forces have every right to enter places of worship,
to whichever community these may belong, and engage terrorists using
them as shelters and arsenals. Equally, vote bank politics must not
come in the way of closing down those madarsas which have become centres
of sedition and anti-national activities.
… efforts to persuade the governments of Nepal and Bangladesh
to curb ISI activities on their soil, must be stepped up... The problem,
however, lies in the fact that Nepal is a soft state. The same applies
to Bangladesh where there was a large gap between the tough anti-terrorist
pronouncements of the Awami League Government, headed by Sheikh Hasina,
and action on the ground. … India needs to redouble its vigil along
its porous borders with both countries while coming down hard on subversive
elements at home … this will require strong anti-terrorist legislation.
The Government must act fast to enact a law to take the place of the
Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act which has lapsed-ignoring
with contempt such protests as may be lodged by local human rights mercenaries.
-- Editorial, Pioneer, New Delhi, September 13,
2001
… Tuesday’s attack … no conclusive evidence
has surfaced as yet on the identity of those who perpetrated the worst-ever
terrorist attack in history. This would make any retaliatory action
by the United States appear as wayward as the one it took in the wake
of the bombing of the US embassies… The search for a character like
Osama bin Laden, reportedly hiding in a mountainous area in Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan, could be as pointless as the search operation President
Woodrow Wilson mounted in Mexico to capture Pancha Villa, dead or alive,
before the First World War. Whoever had masterminded the diabolic act
… with minimal cost to themselves, they can wreak havoc on a nation
of the size and stature of USA … US intelligence and defence agencies
were … caught unawares by the audaciousness of the September 11 attack.
Simply put, conventional norms of warfare prove meaningless when the
enemy does not play by the rules and … even remains unidentified… it
shows how difficult it is to fight terrorism.
But the war should not be lost … In the fight against
terrorism, countries like India — which have been suffering at the hands
of terrorism on a daily basis for over a decade — must join hands with
all those who lay great store by democracy. It involves cooperating
with one another by sharing intelligence and taking coordinated action...
Bush’s statement that his country will not spare the terrorists and
those harbouring them is significant. One reason why India has been
hamstrung in meeting the terrorist onslaught is the moral, material
and logistics support terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir has been receiving
from across the border. Despite conclusive evidence of such support,
the US has so far been reluctant to act. This has, in turn, emboldened
the Pakistanis to equate terrorism with a ‘‘jehad’’. Despite its unabashed
support to the Taliban and involvement in drug trafficking, the US has
been extremely reluctant to respond to India’s charge that Pakistan
is guilty of sustained terrorist action against it. As a consequence
of such a reluctance, terrorism has assumed monstrous proportions in
the subcontinent.
The fight against terrorism can succeed only if it is
sustained, coordinated and on a global scale. Whenever the US found
itself at the receiving end of terrorism, it made some noises about
it, only to put the issue on the backburner. Such a fate should not
befall its determination this time to hunt down the terrorist. At the
same time, conflict resolution is as central to the fight against terrorism
as are military raids against terrorist training centres and economic
and political sanctions against the countries hosting them. Washington
may now realise how costly it was to encourage the Taliban to contain
‘‘Soviet expansionism’’ in the bad old days. At the end of the day,
any distinction between ‘‘good’’ terrorism and ‘‘bad’’ terrorism is
untenable. Terrorism of any kind is evil.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, September
13, 2001
Even as the international community regards
with shock and horror the barbarous terrorist assault on America, what
will seem all the more frightening is how dangerous the world has become
in the post-Cold War period.
… the outlook is even more scary because virtually all
the countries will have to be on guard against zealots driven by religious
bigotry who think nothing of killing themselves in the aid of their
dubious cause …
… Even if the countries involved in aiding and abetting
the attack on America can be identified, they may still like to remain
in the background and even formally deny any role in the dastardly crime.
The real perpetrators in this case are shadowy groups of marauders who
may not belong to a single country… they may be a motley gang of mercenaries
from varying backgrounds who happen to have been brainwashed by someone
with a messianic zeal to support a specific cause … Since no single
country is formally involved, it will be extremely difficult for the
US — or any other country which may be targeted by these terrorists
— to strike back with precision. True, suspected instigators like Afghanistan
or Iraq can be dissuaded from harbouring these lunatics through punitive
action. But the lunatics themselves may set up base elsewhere since
their loyalty is not to a country but to a cause.
What is even more frightening is that the medieval nature
of the cause makes its supporters the denizens of a world which the
modern mind cannot comprehend. … The terrorists of today, however, are
beyond the pale of civilisation ... They are so blinded by their religious
frenzy that they seem to be devoid of all normal human emotions. The
insensate killings of innocent civilians… are of no concern to them
… these crazed mercenaries may find cause for exhilaration in the numbers
they murder or maim.
In the earlier centuries, their depredations may have
comprised the slaughtering of innocent civilians after overrunning an
enemy stronghold. Since such full-scale onslaughts are no longer possible,
they have taken recourse to sneak attacks. But the scope for inflicting
damage on a vast scale has been increased by the deadly nature of modern
weapons. It is evident enough that if these insane groups are to be
stopped, the intelligence agencies of all the countries, especially
those which are targeted by the terrorists, have to step up their levels
of cooperation. The US has to take the lead in this matter, not only
because it is the latest victim of an horrendous attack, but also because
only it has the resources in men and material, not to mention in expertise,
to tackle this menace head-on.
It will be futile to deny that the terrorist outrages
point to some kind of a civilisational conflict between contrasting
world-views — one forward-looking and enlightened and the other dark
and primitive. Like the threat posed by fascism to the cherished values
of modern life before World War II, Islamic fundamentalism presents
the world today with a similar peril. Even a cursory look at the social
and political conditions from Afghanistan westwards through Saudi Arabia
and Iran to Iraq and even Egypt will underline the oppressive nature
of the regimes, an aspect of life which even Edward Said had noted with
regret. It is that deadly regimentation, made all the more heavy and
burdensome by religious dogma, which the terrorists want to impose on
the rest of the world.
The attempt by … Kashmiri militants to compel women to
wear burqas is [an] endeavour to impose the rule of the mad mullahs.
If left unchallenged, these elements will ring the death knell of modern
civilisation. The attack on America was a warning that they are becoming
bolder. If they can dare to take on America, one can imagine how vulnerable
India is. …
-- Editorial, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, September
13, 2001
Safety and security are two words that
will be redefined in the wake of Tuesday’s terrorist attacks on the
United States… the message was clear that there was nothing called safe
and secure in this world … there is no mistaking that it involved the
planning and execution by one of the most diabolic terrorist organisations
in the world with enormous monetary, technological and logistics resources.
The world’s mightiest nation… could do nothing but watch in horror as
a few terrorists struck at the most sacred of the US establishments
… Bush has given expression to the American determination to "hunt down
and find those folks who committed these acts" even as the identity
of the terrorist organisation that perpetrated the worst-ever incidents
of their kind remains hazy…
As a country at the receiving end of terrorism for over
a decade, India’s sympathies for the Americans in their hour of crisis
are indeed genuine. In fact, the synchronised manner in which the terrorists
struck at the US has a lot in common with the serial blasts in Mumbai
in the early nineties although the latter was on a much smaller scale.
… for the Americans, terrorism is no longer a distant problem affecting
Third World countries, for the terrorists have penetrated every one
of the US’s own vital security establishments. The precision with which
some of the attacks were made underlines the fact that technology is
no longer the preserve of the government and the civilised society.
The world has woken up to the reality of the terrorists having access
to sophisticated technology… the spectre of a terrorist organisation
wielding the ultimate weapon [nuclear weapon] will haunt the world for
ever.
Nonetheless, the world cannot adopt a defeatist attitude
and let the terrorists have their way. Now that it has a clearer idea
of what the evil forces can perpetuate … it has to unite in its determination
to fight these very forces. Terrorism — whether it is in New York’s
Manhattan or Kashmir’s Srinagar — is the same everywhere and has to
be fought with all the might of all those who believe in a civilized
way of life. In other words, terrorism has to be fought wherever it
exists. There is no room for complacency for what is at stake is the
very survival of mankind and all that it considers precious and sacred.
-- Editorial, Indian Express, New Delhi, September
12, 2001
|
