London Wallpaper: Lonely in the region

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From: gajendra singh <kgajendrasingh@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 7:36 PM
Subject: Lonely in the region
To: Gajendra Singh <kgajendrasingh@gmail.com>

Lonely in the region

T.V. Rajeswar Indian Express 30July 2010

At the end is piece by TV Rajeswar , former director of the Intelligence Bureau and governor of Sikkim, West Bengal and UP, and very close to the dynasty, moaning after the Wikileaks that US must have known about the attack on Indian Embassy in Kabul and did not take corrective reaction and even perhaps knew about 2611.( emphasized).

Misleading friends and allies is usual policy with Washington.During the Iraq-Iran war in 1980s , when West and its Arab allies sided with Baghdad to stop the Iranian revolution from over whelming the latter ,US granted loans of billions to Baghdad and supplied many times misleading info about Iran's military dispositions

.Two days before Saddam Hussain sent his troops to Kuwait, US amb April Galspie told him that Iraq -Kuwait dispute was bilateral affairs .Next day State department said something similar .Galspie disappeared from public scene for some times .The rest is terrible history for Iraqis which continues .

After the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Washington told ally Riyadh with doctored aerial photographs that Iraqi troops were posed to invade Saudi Arabia , which was false .

A Turkish deputy PM told me that," Mr Ambassador, you can not trust the Americans even on what they give you in writing ."

But we trust Washington since we love US presidents deeply .British colonial rule was beneficial to India , which was devastated and looted.

Washington might make up with Iran , but at US insistence we have burnt most boats with Tehran.If US or Israel or together bomb Iran, west will decline very fast .Moscow will gain , China will lose its energy wells .

China is trying to give Nuc power stations to Pakistan, to get that Delhi compromised its future strategic options .Where are the bought out Indian strategic writers or former Indian diplomats to US who were trotted out at Rs 5000 per pirouette to promote US interests by our celebrity and trivia obsessed TV channels

I have been asserting this since 2611 and even earlier that US knows about these attacks and is happy to let India and Pakistan squabble and damage each other .India goes running to Washington , becoming more reliant on it and US exercises more pressure on Islamabad for its objectives in Afghanistan .Where are Indian interests .Who will protect them ?

Looking around , it appears that India is becoming a ' Banana' Republic. Look at our parliament, state assemblies, Judiciary and other state organs and their decline .

Take care Gajendra

INDIA'S FATAL SOMNATH SYNDROME

"--Mahmood reached Somnatha in the middle of January, 1025, and found there a strongly defended fortress on the seashore. The Hindus, who assembled on the ramparts of the fort, were passing their time in merrymaking, fondly believing that Somnatha had drawn the Muslims there only to annihilate them for the sins they had committed in demolishing idols elsewhere. Their morale was high even though their leader had fled away in cowardice with his family to a neighbouring island. The following day the Sultan began the assault--Next day-- the brave resistance offered by Hindus was of no avail-- Bands of Hindus in succession entered the temple to pray with all their hearts for victory, and then coming out of it rushed against their enemies, only to be killed. In this way more than 50,000 Hindus sacrificed their lives to defend the honour of their deity. The Sultan made a triumphal entry into the temple, broke down the Sivalinga into pieces and took possession of vast wealth. The temple was then razed to the ground. The fragments of Sivalinga were –serve as steps at the gate of Jami mosque (in Gazni)--"

Page 20 ,The Struggle for Empire, The History and Culture of the Indian people ,Volume five (1966), Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay.Ed.K.M.Munshi

Through out Indian history many Indian rulers and its elites have remained fascinated with the idea that a supernatural power would save them. Now they believe that a super power would come to their rescue and resolve their problems. Most of the problems are created by them or have been aggravated by their not acting in time .Many times by their not acting at all in the hope that the problems would sort themselves out or just disappear. Why take hard decisions or say bitter truths.

So after 11 September, like those assembled on the ramparts of the Somnatha fortress , Indian policy makers , analysts , media pundits and politicians went on an orgy of celebrations. 'We had told you so '. Now that the infernal terrorists had attacked New York and Washington , the centre of supreme power on the earth, USA would rescue India too. With open support from Pakistan , terrorists had been hitting India in Jammu and Kashmir or where ever they wanted to. Now that they had attacked the sole super power in the universe, Lord George Bush would decimate them and India would be saved .After all India and USA were the biggest and the richest democracies and terrorists were now their common enemies, so went the argument.

An unthinking ruler is an absentee ruler

There is little institutionalized policy formulation in India , only rituals .Ad hocism is the new mantra. So without much thought or weighing pros and cons, Indian leadership went overboard and offered India as the frontline state against terrorism in Afghanistan (and Pakistan. ). Perhaps all intelligence material was passed on to USA , without much in return!. Forget about strategic thinking, even recent history is not a strong point with the Indian leadership. How had the Americans fought for democracy in South Vietnam and elsewhere. How their support in Afghanistan to protect the democratic world against ungodly and communist Soviet Union has led to catastrophic consequences for Afghanistan and others in the region . Even for Pakistan with its short sighted policy of cutting the nose to spite the face ie India . It were the CIA funded and ISI trained Jihadis who had stunned the world by attacking New York trade towers and the Pentagon --

Amb (Retd ) K. Gajendra Singh 28 December, 2002 .Bucharest

Lonely in the region

T.V. Rajeswar

Indian Express 30July 2010

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/lonely-in-the-region/653803/

The numerous documents put out by WikiLeaks, extending over a period of six years and now available to the world at large, have posed several crucial lessons. These lessons are for India as well as the United States.

That terrorism has been practiced as an instrument of state policy by Pakistan over the years is known to India all along. It started with General Zia-ul Haq in 1979 and has gone on unabated. We have had several serious instances such as the Kargil military misadventure in 1999, the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001 and the Mumbai attack in November 2008. The man responsible for planning the Kargil war, General Pervez Musharraf had started preparing for the Kargil attack even as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was visiting Lahore in early 1999 for peace talks with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan. After Musharraf subsequently took power in Pakistan after a military coup, India was magnanimous enough to invite him for parleys at Agra in the summer of 2001. His arrogance was evident during his surprise press conference where, inter alia, he referred to India's intervention in East Pakistan resulting in the birth of Bangladesh. The Agra talks failed, as they were bound to.

The subsequent efforts to hold constructive dialogue with Pakistan at places like Sharm el-Sheikh and the recent efforts by the foreign secretaries, home ministers and foreign ministers of both the countries were bound to fail for the simple reason that Pakistan was not prepared to take any constructive steps to end terrorism, much less punish those involved in terrorism. The WikiLeaks disclosures have proved that the ruling force of Pakistan, which is the army led by General Ashfaq Kayani and its dominant wing, the ISI, are only interested in promoting conflicts against India, Afghanistan and even the American-led coalition.
David Headley's disclosures are far more important from the Indian point of view than all the WikiLeaks documents put together. Though formally affiliated to the Lashkar-e-Toiba, he was in fact being handled by the ISI, the Pakistan army and the navy. Senior army officers as well as retired ones from the ISI were guiding the potential Mumbai attackers in a thoroughly professional manner. Money was given by the ISI and the Pakistan navy also trained them. The numerous trips that Headley made and the targets he mapped were meant for a large-scale unofficial war. While India and Pakistan were negotiating through various back channels and also holding formal talks, Headley's mission went on undisturbed.
The most important aspect of Headley's disclosures is that they were subsequently made available to Pakistan and India by the US. The dossier given to the Pakistan home minister by his Indian counterpart was possibly redundant. The reference made by the Pakistan foreign minister to these disclosures by the Indian home secretary was possibly meant to mislead the Pakistanis. India need not have reacted to it at all at any level.
A thought may occur to someone analysing Headley's disclosures and his antecedents in Pakistan and the US, whether his activities and the project he was entrusted with by the LeT were not known to his original handlers, who were none other than the FBI and the CIA? In short, did these agencies have a hint, if not full awareness of the planned attack on Mumbai in November 2007? Deniability is an easy instrument available to intelligence agencies all over the world and presumably they would deny any such knowledge. India should realise that at the end of the day it has to depend upon its own resources and strength. To expect the US to ensure that Pakistan would not resort to terrorist attacks against Indian targets would be unrealistic. It has not happened all these years. A simple example will explain this: the US knows all about the numerous training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for training jihadis to infiltrate Kashmir and possibly other parts of India. The satellite maps and ground intelligence reports were all with them, and yet the US had never spoken about them openly, nor had it ever announced that it would hold Pakistan responsible if any terrorist activities were mounted from these camps against India.
After specific intelligence was available regarding the ISI's role in planning the attacks on the Indian embassy in Kabul in 2008 and 2009, there was no report of the US sternly warning Pakistan to desist from such activities. The sad fact is that whatever Pakistan had done, or is doing against India covertly or overtly, the US would ignore and only express sympathy and support to India. Even after the WikiLeaks documents, the American national security advisor has talked about having close cooperation with the Pakistan army. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed over a cheque for $500 million for developmental activities in Pakistan and at the same time, held that some people in the Pakistan army knew about the exact location of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, but would not do anything to help nab them.
The Pakistan government has pre-empted a military takeover by General Kayani by giving him a three-year extension and thereby conceding indirectly that the army and Kayani in particular will guide and direct the government in Pakistan. A former ISI chief who continues to employ people like ex-ISI chief Hameed Gul could not be expected to think in terms of any peaceful settlement with India on pending issues.
India should, therefore, be prepared for all eventualities and set its own house in order. The Kashmir issue should be sorted out after purposeful talks with the Kashmiri people, the National Conference, the PDP, the Hurriyat and others. A solution is not difficult to arrive at if sincere efforts are made at all levels. And as for terrorist attacks from across the border, India has to anticipate them and be prepared and alert.
The writer is former director of the Intelligence Bureau and governor of Sikkim, West Bengal and UP.
express@expressindia.com

London Wallpaper

Friday, July 30, 2010

Lonely in the region

Indian Express 30July 2010

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