Fouad Ajami Remembers Samuel Huntington, Dead at Age 81

I had plenty of things say regarding Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations - a book I brought promptly as soon as I came across it and read it cover to cover (unlike few other books I buy or borrow). Suffice it say much of his thesis regarding the clash between Christian west and Islamic lands has borne out.

Unfortunately Sri Huntington didn't know much about India, so he had little to say about the clash that was already underway between Islamists, and their apologist pseudo-secularists, and the reviving Hinduism nationalism, even if in fits and starts. At best he could come up with an interaction of civilizational clash in the lands of subcontinent. But Islamists and jihadists take him seriously because they know exactly what they are trying to revive - the pre-ideological battles that were routine in the world before Marxism, Communism, and Capitalism came along. And they know Islam (along with Christianity) was at the forefront of all those battles. It's unfinished business for the jihadists.

And the people, such as Amartya Sen, who deride Sri Huntington ignore the Islamic jihadists and are blinded by their own superiority of intellect, despite ample proof - the latest being Mumbai Islamic terror massacres. But the Islamic terror and jihad will not go away by intellectual arguments. The secularists will surely succumb, as they are wont to, as evident in Europe. Will other civilizations fight back?

Here is one thinker of Islamic lands and people who crossed over to Sri Huntington's side after being the first to stand against him. Fouad Ajami's obituary of Sri Huntington.

In an article first published in Foreign Affairs in 1993 (then expanded into a book), Huntington foresaw the shape of the post-Cold War world. The war of ideologies would yield to a civilizational struggle of soil and blood. It would be the West versus the eight civilizations dividing the rest -- Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox, Buddhist and Japanese.

In this civilizational struggle, Islam would emerge as the principal challenge to the West. "The relations between Islam and Christianity, both orthodox and Western, have often been stormy. Each has been the other's Other. The 20th-century conflict between liberal democracy and Marxist-Leninism is only a fleeting and superficial historical phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflictual relation between Islam and Christianity."

If I may be permitted a personal narrative: In 1993, I had written the lead critique in Foreign Affairs of his thesis. I admired his work but was unconvinced. My faith was invested in the order of states that the West itself built. The ways of the West had become the ways of the world, I argued, and the modernist consensus would hold in key Third-World countries like Egypt, India and Turkey. Fifteen years later, I was given a chance in the pages of The New York Times Book Review to acknowledge that I had erred and that Huntington had been correct all along...

He had been a source of great wisdom, an exemplar, and it had been an honor to write of him, and to know him in the regrettably small way I did.

We don't have his likes in the academy today. Political science, the field he devoted his working life to, has been in the main commandeered by a new generation. They are "rational choice" people who work with models and numbers and write arid, impenetrable jargon.

More importantly, nowadays in the academy and beyond, the patriotism that marked Samuel Huntington's life and work is derided, and the American Creed he upheld is thought to be the ideology of rubes and simpletons, the affliction of people clinging to old ways. The Davos men have perhaps won. No wonder the sorrow and the concern that ran through the work of Huntington's final years.

Bhishmapitamaha is 85

Atal Bihari Vajpayee is 85 today

Purple Pig-Nose Frog

Nasikabatrachus sahyadrenis

Does batrachus stand for pig? At 8 cm and 142 gm, it's decent size. I wonder why it's so hard to find.

A purple frog with a pig-like snout, thought to be near-extinct, has been found alive in a field close to the Kerala Forest Research Institute at Peechi near Thrissur town in Kerala.

First reported in India eight years ago, the rare frog species is closely linked to a similar frog found only in the island group of the Seychelles — suggesting the affinity between the Western Ghats and the Indian Ocean archipelago. Just over 8 cm in length and weighing 142 gm, the frog, which lives mostly under soil was found by a farm worker planting tuber crops. The KFRI researchers brought the frog to their campus and identified it as the species Nasikabatrachus sahyadrenis, never before reported in the district.

Only Nine More to Go!

When Bush attacked Iraq, his main justifications was apparent Iraqi WMD and UN resolutions that Iraq had been flouting since 1991, when the first Gulf war was waged. There were a total of 17 resolutions that Iraq ignored or didn't act on before US decided to act. Even then the Europeans and everyone else who matter didn't go along with Bush. Now Americans themselves think the war is illegal!

Now we hear that Manmohan Singh is creating a dossier of UN resolutions that Pakistan ignored. Apparently are eight resolutions. So only nine more to go!

New Delhi: Not satisfied with Islamabad’s “token action” on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), India has prepared a “detailed dossier” of Pakistan’s “violations” of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. The violations, on at least eight counts, range from non-extradition of the Terror outfit’s leaders to non-prosecution of the group and its members.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said outside Parliament on Tuesday, “We would like an objective effort from Pakistan to dismantle the terror machine. The Government of Pakistan knows what it implies. We expect them, as a member of the United Nations, to comply with the resolutions passed over the years, not just ‘1267’. We want the international community to use its power of persuasion to persuade Pakistan to comply with these resolutions.”

This is not quite what chacha Nehru did when Pakistan send jihadis to take over the Kingdom of Kashmir in 1947. Instead of evicting the jihadis and Pakistan regulars, Nehru went to UN to mediate the so-called "dispute" thanks to the British advisor Mountbatten. The British and Americans then ate Nehru naivete for lunch. Manmohan is getting there, it seems. But first a dossier is made. I am sure the world will be with Bharat if and when it wants to pursue action against Pakistan, just like it was with US and Bush in 2003 when he enforced UN resolutions in Iraq.

Nonsense About Terrorist State Stability

For years I have argued that stability of Pakistan and territorial integrity - the epicenter of global Islamic jihad and Islamic terrorism against Bharat - is not in our interest. Bharat Verma takes the same stand forcefully while talking of the danger of Pakiland Islamic jihad on Bharatiya democracy and secular majority.

Another falsehood perpetuated by the eternally helpless breed of Indians is that a stable Pakistan is in India's interest. It is not, stable or otherwise. Pakistan is a failed State. It is on the brink of disintegration. It simply needs to be helped to remove itself and the map redrawn. Otherwise, the cost to India will keep increasing disproportionately.

To take this war to the enemy, New Delhi needs a deliberate, graded and escalating response with a clear political and military objective to help Islamabad disintegrate:

Snap diplomatic relations immediately.

Declare Pakistan a terrorist State.

Discontinue all trains and bus services as well as trade and business transactions.

Announce renegotiations of the Indus Water Treaty as the terms unduly favour Pakistan.

Begin a process to regulate the water supplies and build new mechanisms to activate water flow controls.

Cancel permissions for over flights.

Seal the Nepal and Bangladesh borders on a priority basis.

Build a grand alliance of democracies by increasing their stakes in the burgeoning economic pie of India, to leverage their support against authoritarian regimes on our border including Pakistan.

Increase immediately FDI in the defence sector from 26 percent to 49 percent. This will help India to emerge as the most modern technology driven defence industry hub in Asia while making it profitable for Western companies to invest.

Five Years of Congress I Misrule - From an Insider

We already know how corrupt Congress I politicians have been and continue to be. Until now there were no major corruption scandals exposed because the ministers in Manmohan's cabinet scratch each others back while donating a small cut to Sonia/Rahul duo and the party coffers.

Here is an IAS officer disgusted with the corrupt and incompetent Manmohan's government laying it all out in an open letter to PM after the recent Mumbai Islamic terror massacres.

Economic reforms stopped long ago, for your allies didn’t want them; there are many ministers in your cabinet who have perfected Wal-Mart’s cash-and-carry model and you can’t do a damn about it. You have failed on all counts as a leader. So, at least now, when India is under attack on its own soil, please act. And if you can’t act, please get out of the way and allow someone more effective to run the country....

You have personally demonstrated integrity, but what use is that alone, when almost every key minister in your cabinet is treating every file as an opportunity for cash flows? Are you telling us you don’t know that your telecom, environment and shipping ministries are the home of organized mafias looting the exchequer?

We know from The Pioneer expose that the telecom minister, A. Raja, and his wife, M.A. Parameswari, made 755 crores in one year - that's an average of 2 crores per day! We are told Central Vigilance Commission (sic), TRAI, finance ministry, and others could not stop the corruption of the humble dalit from Tamil Nadu!! Of course, the apparently clean prime minister does not act.

Apparently there are no checks in the great Indian democracy.

We haven't heard anything about the environment ministry - but one can only guess, with the growing economy and expanding industrial sector, how the environment minister could wave the world class environment protection laws on the books, which are never implemented anyway, to stuff his pockets.

Also, I am curious about the former underworld dealer from Bombay, the current minority affairs minister, A. R. Antulay's recent dupliticity on Mumbai Islamic terror massacres and the murders of top ATS officials including chief Hemant Karkare.

Antulay, who was present in the Lok Sabha, was seen smiling at the opposition members, gesturing them to continue with their protest. At one point, he even displayed the 'thumbs up' sign.

Apparently the rest of the psec media and liberals/progressives didn't get his memo because they appear confused and wondering why Antulay is doing what he is doing.

But not the Congress I party. Why? Because they know who Antulay is before Sonia, the queen, made him minister in Manmohan's cabinet. He was part of Bombay underworld providing services to the likes of Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Menon and probably continues to be a conduit for Dawood's money funneling into Congress I party funds. So Antuley can provide cover for Dawood revenge killers, who ended up, I think by luck, killing Karkare and the rest of top ATS officials, with impunity. It took Antuley about three weeks to get in touch with his former mentors in Pakistan and come up with a story to create outrage and plausibility of alternative narrative and, of course, Hindu -Zionist conspiracy which for some reason plenty of, otherwise sane, desi Muslims seem to gobble up. He is doing his work well for terrorist supporters in Pakiland and India. Congress I is playing along with the probable top fund raiser and possibly to get political mileage from anti-Hindu vote bank politics.

So all the tough talk from Manmohan, Sonia, and Pranab Mukherjee is a show because they can't even fire a lowly minister who has contacts with terror supporters across the border. Of course more and more Muslims jumping on Antulay's band wagon makes their show easier.

It is classic Congress I party that Nehru built which is now even deeper in the sewer.

Sucking Up to The Clintons

Lakshmi Mittal made the news in most headlines on Clinton donors by giving over $1millon. Of course Amar Singh, who bought the opposition MPs to keep the incompetent Manmohan government floating for few more months and of course exonirated by self-proclaimed august body of parliment, gave more than a $1millon. One remembers the high profile visit that Bill Clinton made to UP with Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh at his flank. There are a few more. Entire list is here.

There is a stronger-than-expected Indian presence in the donor list. In the $1 million to $5 million category --- specific amounts are not mentioned in the list --- three Indian names appear: steel tycoon Laksmi Mittal, wind power company Suzlon Energy and Samajwadi Party politician Amar Singh.

The Confederation of Indian Industry has given between half a million and a million dollars. Ajit Gulabchand of Hindustan Construction and the late hotelier Lalit Suri wrote Clinton cheques of between $250,000 and $500,000 each. Vinod Gupta, NRI businessmen and an old "Friend of Bill" did likewise.

Between $100,000 and $250,000 was the contribution of at least three Indian companies --- Ranbaxy, Reliance Europe and the India Today Group. Also in this category are Lata Krishnan, a California-based technology fund manager and member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), and Mike Patel, former chairman of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association.

Having given the Clinton Foundation between $50,000 and $100,000 are the Hinduja Foundation and New York-based lawyer Bal G Das, who was active in Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) politics in the early 1990s.

How Taking Back of PoK Was Thwarted, At Least Once

Anuj Dhar's new book goes into the background of 1971 war of liberation of East Pakistan. It throws additional light on what was already suspected for a long time - that Indira's cabinet was penetrated by CIA operative. One still does know who it is. FISD reviewed CIA’s Eye on South Asia, published by Delhi-based Manas Publications, that Sri Dhar wrote using CIA's archival material that opened up in the past few years.

Records and telecons declassified recently - but not properly explained up till now - show that a dramatic turnaround came on December 6 when a CIA operative, whom Dhar pins down as a minister of the Indira Cabinet, leaked out India’s “war objectives” to the agency. Prime Minister Gandhi told Union Cabinet that apart from liberating Bangladesh, India intended to take over a strategically important part of the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and go for the total annihilation of Pakistan’s armed forces so that Pakistan “never attempts to challenge India in the future.”...

The CIA went on assess that fulfillment of India’s “war objectives” might lead to “the emergence of centrifugal forces which could shatter West Pakistan into as many as three or four separate countries.”

As a direct result of the operative’s information, the Nixon administration went on an overdrive to save West Pakistan from a massive Indian assault. Because the President felt that “international morality will be finished - the United Nations will be finished - if you adopt the principle that because a country is democratic and big it can do what the hell it pleases.”

Nixon personally threatened the USSR with a “major confrontation” between the superpowers should the Soviets failed to stop the Indians from going into West Pakistan. Kissinger secretly met Chinese Permanent Representative at the UN to apprise him of the CIA operative’s report and rub in that what India was planning to do with Pakistan with the Soviet backing could turn out to be a “dress rehearsal” of what they might do to China.

Dhar quotes in the book the official records showing that USSR’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Kuznetsov visited Delhi after Nixon’s threat and told the “Indians to confine their objectives to East Pakistan” and “not to try and take any part of West Pakistan, including Azad Kashmir” as “Moscow was concerned about the possibility of a great power confrontation over the subcontinent.” Kuznetsov also extracted a guarantee from Prime Minister Gandhi that India will not attack West Pakistan. This decision was promptly conveyed to Nixon. On 16 December 1971 when Nixon was told that India had declared a ceasefire, he exulted: “We have made it… it’s the Russians working for us.” Kissinger congratulated him for saving West Pakistan - India’s main target, as per the operative’s report to the CIA.

Dhar repudiates recent assertion by a former Indian Navy chief that showing up of America’s biggest nuclear powered carrier into the Bay of Bengal during the war had something to do with the accidental destruction of a US plane in Dhaka during an Indian strafing. “Declassified records make it unambiguously clear that the month-long show of strength by the USS Enterprise and accompanying flotilla was a byproduct of the CIA operative’s reports,” he writes, reproducing chunks from official records detailing how Nixon ordered a naval task force towards the subcontinent to “scare off” India from attacking West Pakistan.

In subsequent years, former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, and two deputy PMs - Jagjivan Ram and Y B Chavan - were alleged to be the CIA operative active during the 1971 war. However, all such charges lacked any substantiation because there was no confirmation whether or not such an operative ever existed....

More pertinently, Dhar quotes from the declassified record of a 5 October 1972 meeting between Indian Foreign Minister Swaran Singh and US Secretary of State William Rogers. During the meeting, Singh asserted that “CIA has been in contact with people in India in ‘abnormal ways.’” and that India had information that “proceedings of Congress Working Committee were known to US officials within two hours of meetings”.

Beyond a listening device in the cabinet room, I suspect it was Morarji Desi because he followed the peculiar tradition of moral equivalency of M.K. Gandhi. It would have been for him, with this peculiar intellectual demeanour, to think that Indira's plan to take back PoJ&K by force and destroying LoP army was morally wrong. Of course, I have nothing to back my suspicion.

US Buying Weapons - A Win-Win Proposition

Bret Stephens, of WSJ, thinks US should buy Pakistan's nuclear weapons while providing an umbrella to the country against Bharat.

This is the deal I have in mind. The government of Pakistan would verifiably eliminate its entire nuclear stockpile and the industrial base that sustains it. In exchange, the U.S. and other Western donors would agree to a $100 billion economic package, administered by an independent authority and disbursed over 10 years, on condition that Pakistan remain a democratic and secular state (no military rulers; no Sharia law). It would supplement that package with military aid similar to what the U.S. provides Israel: F-35 fighters, M-1 tanks, Apache helicopters. The U.S. would also extend its nuclear umbrella to Pakistan, just as Hillary Clinton now proposes to do for Israel.

Nitin, at Acorn, thinks it won't happen because Pakiland is milking the weapons for all their worth, monetarily and geopolitically.

Because it can get the same money by keeping the nuclear weapons—by playing up the risk of these weapons falling into the hands of rogues and terrorists in case of widespread turmoil. So why sell the goose that lays the golden eggs? And we are not even talking about whether the ordinary and the elite would accede to a trade-in deal.

At first glance one would probably agree with Nitin and wonder what was Sri Stephens thinking. But more one thinks about it, it is actually a great deal - for Pakiland and its elites.

As basic finance says, a rupee is worth more now than a rupee next week, why doesn't Pakiland hand over the weapons to America for $100billion (may be haggle for a few free items - a dozen fighter jets and a few tanks to keep the talking heads on their side) and then start rebuilding the weapon system over a decade or so with Chinese help, as they did the first time. This way the elites can divide the monies now. Who knows where Zardari or Kalyani will be in 5-6 years from now to continue drawing the trickle that keeps coming from Washington or Beijing.

Of course, the Chinese will have to play long, which I am sure they will as they always have. Meanwhile, Pakiland will have a guaranteed American umbrella (come to think of it, Pakiland bombs may apparently be newer then America's) against Bharat and they can continue with their Islamic terror and death and destruction.

I think the proposition is a win-win for Pakiland.

Giving it to Beebs, For What It's Worth

M.J. Akbar has apparently expressed outrage at the ultra-lefty beebs coverage of Mumbai Islamic terror massacre. I am not sure where Sri Akbar has been over the, say, past decade when Beebs has been sliding the down the path quite openly. But maybe it's worth a try to poke at lefty media. Europe has been following beebs path when it comes to issues related to Islam and its aggressive practioners. Just don't expect any change in behaviour from beebs or, as matter of fact, the rest of Europe.

Incredible: We Are Fighting By Doing Nothing, Seriously, Says PM

Even as western news agencies provide cover for Pakistani's inaction,

India pressed to share Mumbai evidence with rival
By SAM DOLNICK, Associated Press Writer

India demanded that Pakistan crack down on militants, shutter charities linked to extremists and jail suspected plotters.

With a flurry of raids, Pakistan took many of those steps this week. Now it's up to India to do what it likes least: share intelligence with its archrival about what it knows and how it knows it.

Keeping the alleged plotters in jail will require unprecedented investigative cooperation across a border mined with distrust and suspicion, and the onus has shifted to India.

Pakistani authorities say they will prosecute in their own courts anyone linked to the three-day siege in Mumbai that left 164 dead — they just need the proof.

India names Pakistani masterminds, date plot to 07
By SAM DOLNICK, Associated Press Writer

NEW DELHI – A Pakistani militant group apparently used an Indian operative as far back as 2007 to scout targets for the elaborate plot against India's financial capital, authorities said Thursday, a blow to Indian officials who have blamed the deadly attacks entirely on Pakistani extremists.

the tough talking Pranab Mukherjee is giving interviews to TV stations saying we may act but closes options on coercive actions,

Mukherjee asserted that the government will take all steps to protect the territorial integrity of the country but ruled out war as a solution to the problem.
(Did we miss something? Mumbai Islamic terrorists or any number of terrorists acts, in the past few years, were about separating Mumbai or other cities from Bharat? Is that what these acts of Islamic terrorism are about?)

and the nice talking Manmohan says he wants peace with the country the trained, armed, and funded the Mumbai massacre.

“It has always been my view that both countries (India and Pakistan) need to build their relationship together through mutual understanding. We want to make our relations normal with Pakistan,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is playing its role as tough-to-get - on the one hand it claims to the victim and on the other letting go of perpetrators of terrorism, that it just put in "house arrest" - meaning free to travel to TV stations to give interviews.

The fault is not the pressure from US or UK, or presence of nuclear weapons in Pakistan, or even the Islamic terrorists who openly roam in that country, it is us and the so-called government in charge. Apparently recently held state elections gave the signal, to the psec media and Congress I lead government, that terror is not an issue any more, just days after Mumbai massacres, with the electorate. The inaction is probably the result of the presiding queen hasn't approved any action against the Land of Pure. I am sure there is a way to deal with enemy nations and enemy actors, but this is not it.

So it is back to business as usual as far as Manmohan and his apparent government is concerned.

Hope Next $1000 Will Be Much Faster

I hadn't looked at Bharatiya macro economic data in a long time. I knew the GDP crossed a $1 trillion sometime last year. But here is some data, I think, that should be celebrated, except for population growth rate.

Annual data 2007(a)
Population (m) 1,130
GDP(US$bn; market exchange rate) 1,132(b)
GDP(US$bn; purchasing power parity) 3,094(b)
GDP per head (US$; market exchange rate) 1,000
GDP per head (US$; purchasing power parity) 2,740
Population growth (5-year average) 1.7

(a) Economist Intelligence Unit estimates. (b) Actual.
Source: Economist.com Country Briefings

Sure there is a long way to go before poverty is controlled under a manageable 5-10% of population. One hopes the next $1000 GDP per capita will be achieved much much faster, say, in 7 years, if we can hit the real Hindu Rate of Growth of 10%.

I also worry about population growth rate of 1.7 because it is below 2.1 replacement level. To be sure, I don't consider India's populations to be excessive. Silly people (and politicians who get nothing done) blame population for the sins of bad governance and non-management of urban and rural living spaces. If low population was only key to development, African nations with much smaller populations would be highly developed and Japan with a population density larger than Bharat would be poorer. The answer to degraded infrastructure and scare resources is better governance and better management of both, not shrinkage of population. I think the huge land of Bharat can easily sustain a 100 or 150 crore (1-1.5 billion) people. So population growth should be at least at a replacement level to make the country productive and balanced for the foreseeable future.

How Islamic Terror is Linked to Islam, as a Religion

It's true vast majority of Muslims don't practice violence - they are like regular non-Muslims people. They see right and wrong. They enjoy beauty and art. They worry about their loved ones and care for humanity. But Islam as a religion provides authority to the nuts within Muslims to terrorize people of other religions. And, more importantly, regular Muslims generally haven't being fighting Muslim terrorists. Unless and until regular Muslims fight back their terrorizing coreligionists, the whole think will get really dicey, across the globe.

So when one says Muslims are by and large peace loving, it's true. Also when one says Islam is religion that sanctions terror, it's true. Both statements are true at the same. It doesn't mean Islam as religion has exclusivity over terror. Surely secular religions such as Communism and Fascism have a claim to terror. And it is surely true historically Christians also terrorized other religions and non-true Christians. But Christian religious terror has by and large ceased to exist (although non-christian soul harvesting continues full pace). Also, Hinduism doesn't do terror. It doesn't mean there is no evil amongst Hindus, but Hinduism as religion doesn't sponsor terrorizing non-Hindus for any purpose.

Here is an excellent scholarly video that explains why Islam as a religion can officially be used to terrorize non-Muslims. It's from a western perspective and is about hour and half (see around 53-54 minutes why September 11 is an important date; around 55-56 minutes to references to Hindu Holocaust that our pseudo-secular historians have tried to cover up or pass it off as recent divide and rule policy of British colonialism; the last 7-10 minutes shows the challenge India, and the non-Muslim world, faces) and is very informative.

Why Pakistan Behaves the Way it Does

Two articles give a somewhat different perspective on why Pakistan does not behave like a normal country - that is, taking care of its own people and having a defensive posture rather than playing too smart for its own good without a care for its people. Both go back to the Two Nation Theory that was used by Islamists and Muslims elites to create the Land of Pure in the first place.

K. Subrahmanyam writes for the Reuters in terms of LoP's obsession with military parity with Bharat.

A section of Pakistani establishment had always claimed parity with India going back to the British colonial days when the British in pursuance of the Divide and Rule policy equated the two parties -- the Congress and the Muslim League.

Sections of Pakistani establishment therefore desired parity militarily, in nuclear arsenal and missiles. For such elements in Pakistan the Indian unity was artificial and they did not expect India with its enormous diversities to survive as a united nation. They have talked about bleeding India through a thousand cuts....

Long before Professor Samuel Huntington formulated his 'clash of civilisations' thesis Mohammed Ali Jinnah and his followers had formulated the two-nation theory and argued that Hindus and Muslims could not coexist in a nation and therefore the Muslims must have a separate nation of their own.

Elaborating this to the US media in 2002, the Delhi-born General Pervez Musharraf pointed out that while the Hindus venerated the cows the Muslims ate them. While Hindus worshipped thousands of gods the Muslims worshipped only one God. Therefore he argued they belonged to different civilisations.

It is the same argument which make Pakistanis believe that Kashmir should have gone to them though it was Jinnah, the constitutional lawyer who insisted that with lapse of British paramountcy each princely ruler was entitled to accede to the dominion of his choice or become sovereign.

This clarification is necessary to explain that there are significant elements in Pakistan which subscribe to the 'clash of civilisations' thesis and for them it is natural to accept that the westerners (the crusaders), the Zionists (Israelis) and the Hindus are the enemies.

M.J. Akbar writes in the Times of India about the origins of Two Nation theory and links it to the then impending post-independence Nehru socialism. Sri Akbar is true in that jagirdari is still the bane of ordinary Pakistanis. (Apparently positions in Agriculture Department are the most sort after for officers from Pakistani Army because they can get their hands on land.) One of few things that Indira did during her long tenure as prime minister that I approve of was the dismantling of the jagirdari system in Bharat although her motivation was not altruistic. Sri Akbar also talks about J&K troubles and relates it back to current Mumbai Islamic massacers.

Neither history nor theology could have sustained such a slogan, but Muslim elites in British India, particularly landlords and capitalists, manipulated the incipient ideology of the Muslim League, and fuelled it with incendiary sentiment in order to create a state where they could protect their vested interests. They were not really afraid of "Hindu Raj"; they were terrified of land reform and socialism - however pale a version it might be - that the Congress would enforce. It is no accident that till today there has been no serious land reform in Pakistan. Gandhi's honest faith in Hinduism was maliciously exploited to spread the perfidy that India would never offer an equal place to Muslims.

The idea of Islam being in danger was particularly attractive to a section of the ulema - but not to all of them; the Jamaat-e-Ulema- e-Hind (now led by Maulana Mahmood Madni), unlike the Jamaat-e-Islami, was very clear-headed about the potential pitfalls and opposed the creation of Pakistan. The pro-partition ulema, however, discovered a unique opportunity for power. If Islam was going be the raison d'etre of the new nation, then who else could be its true guardians? The elites took control of the economy and politics; the upper middle classes dominated the administration; and the two shared authority in the armed forces. The clergy gradually took control of educational and legal space.....

Kashmir became the implicit sanction for the emergence, under Zia's beneficial watch, of terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, or the Army of the Pure. Zia's successors, starting with Benazir Bhutto, did little to contain these terrorists. When India protested, Pakistani diplomats were polite across the table, and probably had a good laugh behind Delhi's back. Since Zia's time Pakistan has been asking for "evidence" or proof, and encouraging skepticism or conspiracy theories (dutifully lapped up by sections of the Indian media). Well, this time there is a canary singing in custody, and a satellite phone abandoned by terrorists with five logged calls to members of the Lashkar. Just in case you did not know, it is the declared intention of the Pure Army to fly the Pakistani flag on top of the Red Fort. Its plans are not secret. They are on its website. Its leader, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, certainly gets a wink if not a nod from the Pak establishment.

Mumbai Islamic Terror In Drawing

Some of the best political cartoons (of US politics) I have ever seen are done by Ramirez of New York Post. The message of the cartoon is concise, but more than that, the colours are vivid and the cartoon is elaborate. Here is Ramirez on Novermber 29, 2008.

Warning and Execution

Few days ago, I said ATS (and everyone else in law enforcement) had adequate warning about the terror group but failed to prepare for the onslaught.

In the email, the IM stated, "You ( the ATS) should know that your acts are not at all unnoticed; we are keeping an eye on you and just waiting for the right time to execute bloodshed. We are aware of your recent raids at Ansarnagar, Mograpada in Andheri and the harassment and trouble you created for the Muslims."

Now Maverick thinks, ATS top tier seems to have been deliberately targeted by the two terrorists, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman, captured, and, Mohammad Ismail, killed, with the help of satellite phones, live TV and internet inputs on ATS top tier coordinates (and the make and model of their vehicle).

A rough sketch is that Ajmal Qasab and Mohd. Ismail were on the roof. They shot Addl. CP Date on the way down the staircase and then repositioned to ambush the Qualis. Why did they reposition to intercept the Qualis?

Were they instructed to do that? or were they simply pursuing an evasion strategy. The grenades changed the balance in the stairwell - that is what led to Addl. CP Date's position being exposed, but then there is a gap between there and the point that Qasab and Ismail were ready to ambush the Qualis.

TimesNow has Sri. Karkare on camera as he leaves CST. You can see him get a few words with DCP Korgaonkar and other Railway Police officials. I imagine there are media people who knew where he was going and while no footage of Cama Hospital is available - there is no reason to believe that there was no media presence there.

We understand very little about Qasab and Ismail's path. Why did they choose to wander in that way? - who were they in contact with while they were walking? were they directed to move in a particular way?

They were intercepted just short of teen batti - if you take a left at teen batti - you end up on Walkeshwar road - straight towards Governor's house - so where were these two going?

An employee of the J&K government has been picked for questioning because he was phoned by an LeT operative in Muzzafarabad and asked to watch local TV channels. There were continous updates of the situation via Twitter and Pakistani led blogs and fora in UK.

Admiral's Disgust With Media

On Navy Day, Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, expresses his disgust with the media coverage of Islamic death cult Mumbai terror attacks and the recent INS Tabar destruction of pirate mother ship. He also talks of how media endangered soldiers lives during Kargil war. Of course, here the media are English language TV channels - the silly media.

The competition among news channels to score brownie points reminded him of the “famous shot” during the Kargil War that led to the destruction of an ultra-powerful artillery gun of the Army. Three soldiers died and the Colonel, who yielded to a woman reporter’s entreaty to fire the gun for the camera’s benefit was dismissed from service...

Admiral Mehta said he was disturbed by the “extra heavy reporting” on the attacks. “When operations are taking place, you are reporting that two commandos are going inside. They [terrorists] were in live contact with their masters, who were telling them what the channels were reporting. I think it requires a certain amount of restraint in ongoing operations. Do you really have to give minute-by-minute coverage? Media is an enabling instrument. Today it is a disenabling instrument.”...

For the media, more “eye catching” was the owner’s claim that was unquestionably accepted.

“The Thai vessel was a pirated trawler. The ship was operating there for a long time. The ship was doing what it should not be doing. You went to his house to interview him. Those reports are now floating worldwide. The media should have asked what the trawler was transporting between Yemen and Oman for such a long time. What cargo was it carrying? If it was low on fuel, how come the fireball was so bright? It was because of all the ammunition that was lying on the ship. There is nothing wrong your Navy has done,” asserted Admiral Mehta...

The silly media in this case is CITV - Congress I TV, meaning CNN-IBN, and the so-called journalist that ended up causing the death of three soldiers is the famous psec talking head Barkha Dutt that works for another CITV.

Back to Old Script, And the Movie Replays

One thing to understand is US doesn't care about any nation other than US. Even if it does, it has to matter to US at least in a secondary way.

So US Secretary of State Condi Rice makes her way to India to pacify the already pacifist Nandi prime minister Manmohan. A day before, the recent presidential candidate John McCain stopped by New Delhi, because he was in Bangladesh on an unrelated matter, to pacify the establishment, "India and Paki are in this together," he says - whatever that means.

Also Shiv Shanker Menon, Foreign secretary, is in US to talk to the new US president Obama and his team, and get access to better intelligence that NSA and CIA may have. I am almost positive he's getting the run around in Washington, because evidence that US provides to India will only bolster India's case, which the Americans do not want to do. Because they have a different, and to them - a more important role, for Pakistan. The Americans cannot have Pakistan stop doing what ever little they are doing on the western border fighting the Taliban and al qaeda types.

Reading the tea leaves, Pakistan PM Zardari backs off from any encouraging statements he made earlier of sending ISI chief to Delhi to answer questions or of joint investigation, and goes back to an old Pakistani script.

Zadari also suggested no one found to be involved would be turned over to India.

"If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts, we would try them in our land and we would sentence them," he said.

So India falls for the Americans again, looking for its approval in doing things it should be doing on its own.

It's an old movie which keeps on playing.

Do Something About Live Advantage to Terrorists

Like most people I was appalled at the live intrusive TV coverage of the Mumbai Islamic death cult murderous rampage. One never knows, but it is likely a few people lost their lives because their whereabouts were broadcast to the Islamic terrorists live. And I am sure the various counter-terrorists operations were impacted by the live broadcast.

Composer Vishal Dadlani of the Vishal-Shekhar duo is trying to do something about.

...he believes will protect the lives of the security forces during anti-terrorism operations.

He has taken a stand against the live telecast by news television channels, which he says, exposed the plans of the military and National Security Guard as they tried to overwhelm the terrorists and rescue hostages.

Please sign his petition.

Calling It Everything Except Terrorism!

Here is an excellent op-ed in European Wall Street Journal, taking European media to task on why they won't call terrorism by its name. Even a casual observer would know what's going on with the so-called secular media by now. But it bears repeating. One already knows the conservatives in Europe are more leftists then left in US and Asia. Unfortunately they seem to be even when it comes to terrorism and religion of death cult. Of course the less said about ultra-lefty nutcase media like BBC, an Islamic death cult apologist funded by British tax payers, broadcasted through out the world.

Here is the entire article.

If this Isn't Terrorism, What Is?
By TOM GROSS | From today's Wall Street Journal Europe

Last week in Mumbai we witnessed as clear a case of carefully planned mass terrorism as we are ever likely to see.

The seven-venue atrocity was coordinated in a highly sophisticated way. The terrorists used BlackBerrys to stay in touch with each other during their three-and-half-day rampage, outwitting the authorities by monitoring international reaction to the attacks on British, Urdu and Arabic Web sites. It was a meticulously organized operation aimed exclusively at civilian targets: two hospitals, a train station, two hotels, a leading tourist restaurant and a Jewish center.

Reuters

Murder in Mumbai: The work of 'practitioners.'

There was nothing remotely random about it. This was no hostage standoff. The terrorists didn't want to negotiate. They wanted to murder as many Hindus, Christians, Jews, atheists and other "infidels" as they could, and in as spectacular a manner as possible. In the Jewish center, some of the female victims even appear to have been tortured before being killed.

So why are so many prominent Western media reluctant to call the perpetrators terrorists? Why did Jon Snow, one of Britain's most respected TV journalists, use the word "practitioners" when referring to the Mumbai terrorists? Was he perhaps confusing them with doctors?

Why did Britain's highly regarded Channel 4 News state that the "militants" showed a "wanton disregard for race or creed" when exactly the opposite was true: Targets and victims were very carefully selected. Why did the "experts" invited to discuss the Mumbai attacks in one show on the state-funded Radio France Internationale, the voice of France around the world, harp on about Baruch Goldstein (who carried out the Hebron shootings in 1994), virtually the sole case of a Jewish terrorist in living memory?

Unfortunately in recent years we have become used to leftist media burying their heads in the sand about the threat that Islamic fundamentalism poses, in much the same way as they once refused to report accurately on communist atrocities. But now even conservative media may be doing it too.

What is the motivation of journalists in trying to mangle language -- such as going out of their way to refer to terrorists as "militants," as one Mumbai story on yesterday's Times of London Web site seemed to do? Do they somehow wish to express sympathy for these murderers, or perhaps make their crimes seem almost acceptable? How are we going to effectively confront terrorists when we can't even identify them as such?

But then the terrorists in Mumbai didn't need to make any public announcements. They knew that many deluded Western journalists and academics will do that job for them, explaining that the West is to blame, especially the Zionists.

We have started seeing this already on the BBC -- the world's largest TV and radio network, which broadcasts in dozens of different languages around the world and is lavishly funded by the British taxpayer.

You would be hard pressed to find any talk of radical Islam on the BBC in recent days, or mention of the fact that Islamists think India should be a Muslim country. Instead the BBC continues to try to persuade its massive global audience that "it is a local Indian problem," that "the subcontinent has a history of unrest," and so on.

Even the Pakistani angle has been presented as some kind of local Pakistan-India dispute rather than as a problem with radical Islam -- this despite the fact that according to numerous reports the Mumbai terrorists themselves were screaming "Allah Akbar" (Allah is the Greatest) as they murdered "the Jews and the infidels" in line with bin Ladenist ideology.

For some time, many have argued that an element of anti-Semitism has distorted the way the BBC covers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But now, following the Mumbai events, we can perhaps see that anti-Semitism may even be at work in the way the BBC covers foreign news in general. For much of the Mumbai siege, the BBC went out of its way to avoid reporting that the Jewish community center was one of the seven targets. At one point viewers were told that "an office building" had been targeted (referring to the Jewish center as such).

Then on Friday morning, TV pictures of Indian commandos storming the besieged Jewish center were broadcast by networks around the world. Heavily armed commandos, their faces covered by balaclavas, rappelled from helicopters onto the roof while Indian sharpshooters in buildings opposite opened fire and a helicopter circled overhead. Huge crowds of onlookers could be seen looking aghast as they watched from nearby streets. While Sky News and other channels were gripped by these dramatic pictures, BBC World was not, almost pretending there was no siege at the Jewish center -- even though by then it was one of only two sites that remained under attack in Mumbai. Had the terrorists chosen to besiege a church or mosque instead, can you imagine the BBC ignoring it this way?

Meanwhile -- perhaps even more disgracefully -- a New York Times report on the last day of the siege stated: "It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."

Has the New York Times learned anything since the Holocaust, when, even after the war ended in the spring of 1945, the paper infamously refused to report that the Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Germans and so on killed in the camps had been Jews, and killed as Jews?

Dozens of eyewitness accounts by local Indians said the gunmen shouted "Allah Akbar" from the Jewish center. It is housed in a nondescript block and is not obviously marked from the outside as a Jewish center. It is the one Jewish building in a densely crowded city of millions. And the Times, the self-proclaimed paper of record, wants to let readers think it might have been an accidental target?

Even the Times's British equivalent, the Guardian, began its news story: "The inclusion of the headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group was obviously intended to send its own message." Does the New York Times think that the seeking out and murder by Muslim terrorists of the only New York rabbi in Mumbai and his wife was "an accidental target"?

There was nothing accidental about any of the seven sites that the terrorists attacked. And it was no accident that Mumbai was hit. It is the most multireligious city in India -- with Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsees and Jews living in relative harmony.

Mr. Gross is a former Middle East correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph.

Israelies Will Avenge Before Us

Even If We Ever....

Even as Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon flies to US to get Obama on our side, and make him get over his silliness of handing over J&K to Pakistan as appeasement (and apparently appointing Bill Clinton - the idiot who didn't do anything about Islamic terror when he was president) and get some help from NSA signal intel to get intel on those satellite telephone conversions going on during the terror and destruction between the terror masters in the Papistan and lunatic Islamic terror perpetrators, the outgoing US Secretary of State Condi Rice will visit Delhi to apparently cool India off from what ever little heat it now emits.

One has to understand that US doesn't care about any country's national security other than its own. If and when it does care, it has to be related directly to its own national security. So even if Sri Menon has Obama's ear, don't expect the new president come to our side. Afghanistan is his problem and he'll do what ever it takes to deal with it - irrespective of what we want him to do. Sure they may help us for a few days or weeks, on one issue or the other, but ultimately Pakistan will make the rules as to what US can and cannot do. The western media already started playing the tune to enable this to happen. In fact most western print and television media have started Mumbai terror cover by blaming Hindus for the Islamic death cult murderous rampage. So the western people have been vetted and confused. It's easy for the political leadership to make the switch to appeasement policies if we don't play ball.

Compared to own confused reaction by the gutless prime minister, who invited ISI chief to collect evidence on Islamic terror - how funny is that; it's like asking a murderer to collect evidence at the scene and investigate the case! Luckily the head of the LoP terrorist group doesn't plan to come.

But the guys are who are coming are the Israelis. And they are coming prepared because eight Israelis and few other desi Jews were tortured and killed.

Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.

Corroborating the doctors' claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. "During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis," an IB source said.

And I am willing to wager that the Israelis will avenge the deaths of Israelis and desi Jews with speed and precision then our own criminally negligent Congress I run government.

And When the Police Did Shoot the Terrorists

The real action of Mumbai police was in another jurisdiction. Senior Police Inspector Nagappa Mali of DB Marg police station acted with his colleagues to capture or kill the terrorists, who had just killed top ATS officers, entering his jurisdiction. They did both.

The duo identified as Abu Ismail (25) and Ajmal Amir Kasab, abandoned the police vehicle which they had been driving after killing its occupants, Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar and went on to carjack a Skoda Laura when they neared a police picket.

“On that night, I was about to go home when I got to know that some terrorists were headed towards my jurisdiction. I immediately formed two teams, one of which was posted at Girgaum Chowpatty and the other at the Tribhovandas Zhaveri Lane. When the Skoda neared the barricades that we had erected at Girgaum, the two men sitting inside turned their head lights to full beam, squirted water on their wind-shields and turned on the wipers in an attempt to hide their faces.

However, as we had information about the colour and make of the car, we signalled them to stop and demanded that they emerge from the car with their hands raised. Kasab who was sitting in the passenger seat came out with his hands raised but then immediately started firing from his AK-47 which he had hidden between his knees.”

When the firing started, ASI Tukaram Umble got hit even as the rest of the team pounced on Kasab and subdued him. In the meantime, Inspector Vinod Sawant who had gone to the driver’s side saw that the driver, Ismail, was also firing with his weapon and Sawant and his associate immediately opened fire on him, said Mali.

The murdering Islamic lunatic Ajmal Amir Kasab was captured and proved to be an invaluable source of information corroborating and filling in gaps missing from the intelligence already available.

Incredible: Shivraj Resigned. But Why?

The home minister named after the brave Maratha warrior finally resigns. I haven't seen his resignation letter, so I am curious what reasons Shivraj gave for his resignation.

But why now? We are told by the press that he has become too hot even for maharani Sonia to handle. Apparently the sleeping queen just woke up to realize that he wasn't doing his job for the past four and half years and that we have had terrorists incidents every two months for past few years killing thousands of innocent children, women, and men. Of course, the brave fellow soldiers of socialist Congress I brought out their own knifes to finish of dead body. Are we supposed to believe this nonsense!

Now the sleeping queen has new taxi driver too. That's nice. Apparently having a full time taxi driver is more important then having a full time finance minister to deal with current global financial crisis. Won't it better if Manmohan himself retained home ministry because the intelligence agencies report directly to him anyway. Also, any reformation of intelligence agencies and new agencies that would sprout from the Mumbai Islamic death cult massacre would have be handled by the prime minister and his office anyway. But surely a prime minister cannot be a full time taxi driver for the sleeping queen. The cabinet shuffle makes perfect sense.

Why Didn't the Police Shoot The Terrorists

Photographic editor of Mumbai Mirror, Sebastian D'Souza, describes how he got close up pictures of perpetrators of Islamic death cult murderous rampage at Chhatrapati Shivaji Station, on November 26, in Mumbai. He was curious of one fact about the horror he saw. The much vaulted and exulted Mumbai police, who were taking cover from blood thirsty Islamic terrorists fire, won't shoot the terrorists, who were walking openly on the platform, although they had fire arms with them!!

But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

As the gunmen fired at policemen taking cover across the street, Mr D'Souza realised a train was pulling into the station unaware of the horror within. "I couldn't believe it. We rushed to the platform and told everyone to head towards the back of the station. Those who were older and couldn't run, we told them to stay put."

The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach. Mr D'Souza added: "I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."

Why would that be? Surely some police were cowards. But none of them returned fire to take down the free roaming terrorists!

My guess is they were carrying the vintage bolt action rifles - .303 SMLE No.1 Mark III. (The vintage rifle was discarded much before the World War-II by every major country, except one, of course, in the world.) These rifles are standard issue to police in India, and the police also, probably, didn't have ammunition loaded. It another symbol of antiquated laws and bureaucratic procedures that Indian government follows. (Some company, probably owned by a minister's son, still makes them, just like the ambassador cars, the classic symbol of desi socialism, are still made and bought by the government).


The rifles were just show pieces. The best the much vaulted Mumbai police could have probably done was to physically throw those rifles at the AK47 carrying Islamic terrorists. One could say, stones would have been better arms for the vaulted Mumbai police.

Incredible: Why is Shivraj Still the Home Minister?

The fundamental rule of politics anywhere is a politician should always worry about getting to, or keeping existing, power. Else he or she does not make a good politician. Because there is no other incentive for people in politics. Surely the pay scale is minuscule. (In India, there are other reasons for some, like enriching themselves using socialist bureaucratic rules - but that still comes from being in power.) It's hard work to campaign and election competition for powerful positions is intensive and expensive.

So the question is why does an utterly incompetent, incomprehensible, and useless Shivraj Patil continues to be power. That too in charge of the security of the nation - for more than four years despite repeated failure. Surely Congress I and maharani Sonia (and yuvaraj and yuvarani) want to remain in power as long as possible. So what explains the lack of apparent and logical choice of Congress I sending Shivraj away - either asking him to resign or firing him. Shivraj, based on his demeanor, will not resign. He is just that type of a person. He cares more about a bit of dirt on his shirt then his job as Home Minister.

One could understand why he got the job despite not winning his seat during the last election. Maharani was obviously rewarding him for his loyalty to the latest Indian royal family. But the reward for loyalty to power usually doesn't undermine the power itself. He could have been gently pushed aside after two or three years at the ministry. Why is he still the home minister after four years of non-performance?

After the latest gory Islamic death cult terror in Mumbai, the prime minister doesn't invite the home minister of the country to an extremely important high level national security meeting. But the prime minister does not fire Shivraj. Surely maharani Sonia would do that. But why doesn't she? What is going on here?

The only explanation that I can think of is, Shivraj has some powerful hold on the royal family. He knows a secret of, probably, maharani Sonia that she doesn't want revealed. So he gets his way despite his high profile and repeated failure. Nothing else explains the incredible insanity of what is going on with Shivraj Patil.

Warning and Preparation

I realize the top tier of Maharasthra/Mumbai Anti-Terror Squad (profile of the chief: Sri Hemant Karkare) died last night in the battle with terrorists who are still rampaging Mumbai. (I noticed that while the terrorists were carrying AK47s, few policemen had semi-automatic rifles while most had old WWI-type single/double shot rifles - standard issue to police in India. While terrorists probably practice everyday, how often do the police, even the ATS, practice shooting?) Surely they were brave to lead their police corp from the front. But what exactly did they do to mitigate the increasing and aggressive threats after each attack, five so far (until the current carnage) this year, from the terrorist group Indian Mujahideen?

Here was the warning:

The IM, in an email sent out in September, had warned the ATS against harassing Muslims in Mumbai and said that it was closely watching every move made by the squad.

In the email, the IM stated, "You ( the ATS) should know that your acts are not at all unnoticed; we are keeping an eye on you and just waiting for the right time to execute bloodshed. We are aware of your recent raids at Ansarnagar, Mograpada in Andheri and the harassment and trouble you created for the Muslims."

"You threatened to murder them and you even misbehaved with the Muslim women and children," the email alleged.

"If your arrogance has reached this degree and if you think that you can scare us by your stunts, then let the IM warn the people of Mumbai that the ATS will be responsible for the deadly attacks on Mumbaikars in the future."

Here is how Mumbai/Maharasthra Anti-Terror Squad prepared to deal with those threats:

Mumbai : The Anti-Terrorist Squad on Wednesday said its failure to get police custody of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur among other accused in the Malagaon blast case from the MCOCA court is a setback which will slow down the investigation.

"Police custody would have helped investigations to proceed faster but still we will see how best to deal with it in a legal way," ATS Chief Hemant Karkare said in a TV channel....

The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) unit on Wednesday searched the residential premises of the Malegaon blast accused Lt Col Srikant Prasad Purohit, booked under the MCOCA, in Pune.

"It was a routine search," an ATS officer said but declined to elaborate on the purpose behind the move.

If there was ever a case to show how reactionary Indian law enforcement and political establishment is, this has to be it.

It's War

Mumbai is in an all out War. Things like this don't happen in a normal nation.

Nation's intelligence bodies are missing in action. Maharashtra ATS is busy torturing Sadhvis, Swamis, and Army men.

If India doesn't go to war now to put an end to this, it is time to give up on India for a long time.

How LTTE Gets Its Weapons

By Air!

London: Analysis of high-resolution commercially available satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe and GeoEye has allowed Jane’s Intelligence Review to verify that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) constructed two 1,000 m paved runways between 2002 and 2007. One of these runways is currently being extended to 2,000 m.

That's more than a mile!! Usually used by 747s to take off and land at an international airport!

According to a news release by Jane’s, these airstrips are unnecessarily long for the light aircraft that the LTTE uses for aerial attacks and are probably intended to handle larger cargo planes delivering weapon shipments...

The construction of a highly visible runway could be seen as part of the LTTE’s ambitions to develop the trappings of an independent political state, complete with an airport.

Life in China

I know we are no better. I remember the days when Ashok Jain was tortured, under FERA, by the central agency, Enforcement Directorate, in late 90s. Of course, we know the torture cases of recent detainees of a Sadhvi and a lieutenant colonel belonging to military intelligence.

But at least we know where they are. Not so apparently in China. And the person missing is the second richest man in China!!

Hong Kong media on Monday cited Chinese financial publication Caijing as reporting that Huang was recently detained by the police over the alleged manipulation in shares of Shandong Jintai Group, a Shanghai-listed pharmaceutical company run by Wong's elder brother...

Huang is China's second-richest man with a net worth of $2.7 billion, according to a Forbes magazine ranking cited in The Wall Street Journal.

Huang's whereabouts has become a matter of intense speculation among China watchers.

The Closest Thing One Will Find

Last week I had an incredible but possible, behind the scene, plot of a combined Maharashtra ATS, presumably by ruling state Congress I and its allies, the psec media, and Congress I action to overcome Congress I's failure to tackle extended Islamic terrorism in the country and at the same time to keep the marginal political vote, meaning majority of Muslim vote, in its column.

This is the closest evidence will find actions of the media and Congress I working in tandem. One can already see the hunt by Maha's ATS to pin any and every unsolved terror incidents on the recently detained so-called Hindu terrorists. One has to remember, when actions like these are launched, few people in Congress I party itself and in the media actually know what is unfolding and why.

Here is Praveen Swami of The Hindu doing some legwork to connect what the psec media is saying with what ATS is saying.

NEW DELHI: Late on Monday, a national television channel broke the latest in the series of prime-time exclusives that have characterised the unfolding of the investigation into September bombing in Malegaon.

Five Army officers, the television station announced, were being investigated for their connections with the Hindutva terror group Abhinav Bharat. Later, it claimed that a team of the Maharashtra Police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad was in New Delhi to discuss the issue with top military officials and National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan.

But as Tuesday wore on, Ministry of Defence officials insisted they had received no list of officials wanted for investigation by the ATS, while it turned out the NSA was not scheduled to hold meetings with Maharashtra Police officials. Indeed, two ATS officials separately told The Hindu their only representative in New Delhi was Deputy Inspector-General Parambir Singh and he was there to attend a wedding.

And this from Congress I spokesperson, Verrappa Moily

"The internal security of the country is today threatened by two 'A's--Advani and Abhinav Bharat," senior party leader M Veerappa Moily, told reporters alleging that the outsourcing of terror has become the "new cult with some of the outfits of BJP".

The Debate on J&K Needs to be Turned

Few facts of anything significant related to Bharatiya national interest or security are actually take up in the western media. So it's no surprise that following the new US president lead to intervene in Bharatiya border issue in J&K , the US media has taken to his call. NYT's Sri Kristoff has written that US needs to intervene to deliver J&K to the Land of Pure. Nitin's Acorn has something to say about it which are followed by some uninformed comments.

Before we talk about the issue, we first need to put a stop the debate on Sri Kristof's (and his type) terms. We need to put an end to his human rights abuse falsehood. People take it as truth, without question, that J&K people's, meaning apparently only Muslim's, rights are abused by a Hindu majority nation. What could be more absurd than this!

For a start, which group of people were ethnically cleansed, because of their religion, from Kashmir valley? We already Hindus don't count for very much India, and clearly they don't count for much with the NYT types. So even if we ignore Hindus that were forced to flee their homeland, how are Muslims living in this side of J&K border worst off then living in the Pakistani side of the border? I am sure the supposedly democratic human right activist Kristoff can tell us when was the last Muslims in PoJ&K voted for their own government? I am sure he can't tell the voter turnout during the current state elections in J&K. In fact, I am sure he doesn't even know that normal elections are being held in J&K at this very moment.

So even if one takes the bogus notion of human rights as expounded by Kristof types, that Tibetans should not fight for independence from commie China - well because China is a big fast growing economy and that Tibetans are better economically under the Hun commies, even if their freedoms, culture, language and religion are destroyed by the commies and by the mass migration of Huns into the Tibet plateau. Why shouldn't the people of J&K have the access to another big and growing economy? Such as an Infosys or Reliance or a Tata or an IIT. What exactly do the people living in PoJ&K look forward to? A few years in a madrasa?

The dubiousness of these human right groups and their spokespersons in the media is how shall we put it.....

Missed Rescue Operation

Shishir Gupta reveals in IE that Navy sought permission for a mission to rescue kidnapped Indians by Somali pirates before it started naval patrol in Gulf of Aden and along coast of Somali to thwart piracy. Unfortunately, UPA government did not agree to the mission. The strategic implication of a successful extraction mission of kidnapped desis by Bharatiya Navy, from eastern African coast, thousands of miles away from the country would have been unthinkable compared to the response INS Tabar's action has enabled.

The Tabar action appears to have been carefully calibrated; the foreign ministry had earlier shot down a navy proposal to launch a commando mission to rescue the largely Indian crew on board the Stolt Valor, a Japanese merchant ship hijacked by pirates on September 15. South Block apparently did not agree with the navy on intervention; it was a case, after all, of a Japanese ship in Somalia’s territorial waters. However, that same day in October, Defence Minister A.K. Antony cleared the navy’s twin proposals: patrolling international waters from Salalah in Oman to the Gulf of Aden, and urgently exploring the possibilities for joint patrols with other countries.

Negotiation - Saudi Style

After India blow up a "mother boat", every major navy is rushing the Gulf of Aden to show off how strong they are militarily - the Russians want to replace leaving war ship; Britain wants to lead NATO forces (which are also a replacement); and the Chinese want in on the action. A dramatic headline helps!

Those with no big navies or those with economic interests in the area, such as hijacked merchant ships are negotiating with the hijackers paying on average $1-2 million in ransom money per ship and crew. The Somalia coastal economy is booming with about $150 million pumped into the economy in recent months.

Life was good until some hijackers made a wrong move. They hijacked a $100million worth Saudi oil supertanker. Hijackers want a quarter of tanker's economic worth as ransom money. But they didn't expect this:

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port on Friday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world's biggest hijack, a local elder said...

"Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country and hijacking its ship is a bigger crime than other ships," Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Adow, an Islamist spokesman, told Reuters. "Haradheere is under our control and we shall do something about that ship."

If anyone had any doubts as to who is funding Islamic terrorists groups, this episode should clarify those doubts.

Incredible: We Have Ours, You Have Yours - We Are Even

Based on the master craftsman of the corrupt and incompetent Congress I's Veerappa Moily's incredible statements and how the secularists are predictably reacting to what BJP said in reaction to Moily, here is a plausible theory of recent events, however implausible it may sound.

They dug themselves into a deep pit by not acting when Islamic terrorists stuck repeatedly. They were, of course, calculating the marginal political cost of acting against terrorists. They had stuck down POTA, they had asked police and other law enforcement, where they could, to go easy on terror investigations, and they had Sachar Commission to buy out ordinary Muslims with sops and reservations and even offering first dibs at "all resources of the nation."

But the Islamic terrorists have their own mind. The terror didn't stop. It kept going at predictable intervals at populated locations - bombing by trains, cars, scooters, bikes, and cycles.

The terrorists loved killing innocent people by the hundreds. And watch the carnage along with psec debates and news thamsha on television while smoking and eating home delivery pizza.

Suddenly one of the law enforcement group made a breakthroughs, locates one of the terrorist cell, and goes to their residence with guns blazing. Islamists and their buddies in psec media screams bloody murder. More revelations come out on the extent of terror cells and how wide spread the disease is in the country.

Then comes the political heat from the opposition. It's getting really hot because people aren't buying their stories on Islamic terrorism anymore. And parliamentary elections are only few months away. Elections in various states showed none of the socialist welfare schemes seem to be working. What to do?

Former CM of Madhya Pradesh, a rising star in the party, has an idea! He has knowledge of ultra nationalists who tried to set off bombs when he was the CM in 2002. A plan was made to turn tables on opposition and neutralize terrorism as election issue. Which was the organization to carry out the plan forward - it has to be a state that is in their control and has to have a pliable head? Which media groups to engage? They have done this many times. Just give them leads and they will run with it.

The key to the plan is not to incur the marginal political cost - for themselves and their partners in crime in the cabinet and ministries few months from now. Have to keep those Muslims on their side. If the plan worked, there are plenty of idiot secularists and gullible Hindus who would have plausible doubt about Islamic terrorism thanks to the good work of the media. That would be enough of these people to push them over the finish line - five more years of power!

They have after all done this before.

Beleaguered Governments have made a habit of trying to bolster their electoral prospects through dirty tricks. In 1989, there was the elaborate attempt to discredit V P Singh through the discovery of fictitious accounts in St Kitts. Both the agencies and senior journalists were part of the plot. In 1996, there was the Jain hawala case which neither secured convictions nor won the Congress the election.

It might even work now!

It's worth a try. People have short memories - remember Indira's come back in lesser period than the emergency itself! The unchanged party that massacred thousands of Sikhs is now "the" secular party! Sometime it's easier then some people think.

And so the die is cast - the plan rolled out predictably, at least so far. Congress I reads its prepared remarks: we have our (Islamic) terrorists, you have yours'; we are even.

Depending on how many dumb idiots are around, and there are plenty, it just might work.

A Shooting War That Could Turn Worst

INS Tabar, patrolling the seas near Gulf of Aden and Somalian north coast, engaged in shooting match with Somali pirates! Few weeks ago, commandos, flying in a military helicopter, shot at and drove away speed boats trying to board merchant ships carrying Indian and Saudi flags. Now INS Tabar guns fired at and destroyed the so-called mother ship, a ship that tows speed boats close to their target ships while providing food, ammunition, and space for pirates.

"This pirate vessel was similar in description to the 'Mother Vessel' mentioned in various piracy bulletins. INS Tabar closed in on the vessel and asked her to stop for investigation," a Navy spokesperson said.

But the pirates threatened to blow up the warship if it sailed closer to their mother ship, despite repeated calls from INS Tabar to stop and let the Navy personnel to inspect the ship, he said.

The Navy noticed that pirates were roaming on the upper deck of the vessel with guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers in hand, and they continued the threats and subsequently fired upon INS Tabar.

In their retaliatory action in "self-defence," INS Tabar opened fire on the mother vessel of the pirates. "As a result of INS Tabar's guns booming, fire broke out on the pirate vessel and explosions were heard, possibly due to exploding ammunition that was stored on the vessel," he said.

Almost simultaneously, Indian Navy said, two speed boats were observed breaking off to escape. The ship chased the first boat, which was later found abandoned. The other boat made good its escape into darkness, he added.

While some of the pirates could have escaped in the speed boats, a few on board the destroyed mother ship perished, he said.

The Somalian pirates have become more and more brazen capturing tens of ships in the past few weeks including a huge crude oil tanker worth around $100million in the seas of Somalia pumping up Somalian economy. Also, we know Islamic terrorists have a role in Somalia gangs. This piracy business could be related to terror financing. That's what could turn things for the worst for Indian Navy in the near term.

It was clear that the pirates were fighting back before turning tail. It is possible, in future, they will get bold and attack Indian naval ships preemptively, like what they did to USS Cole near Yemen. What would be the response of Bharatiya government be? Will it stay and complete the task of bringing piracy under control in the area or will it cut and run? This would be the first time Bharatiya military would be challenged outside its boundaries, although by irregulars. The response to future attacks will have long term implications to the strategic direction of the country.

Potential Impact to India's Image Due to Obama's Presidency

I was looking at some of the American news magazines and newspaper coverage after Barack Obama's victory in US presidential elections and was taken aback by the comparison he is already drawing. Obama is already compared to the top American presidents of its more than 200 years history - on par with Lincoln, who won the American Civil War and ended slavery in the country, and Roosevelt, who defeated Hitler's Germany along with Japan in World War II. What exactly are Obama's achievements to compare him to the well known and respected former American presidents is a mystery.

Then you hear that American TV media thinks that it is its obligation to make Obama's presidency a success. One has to wonder why the adoration and adulation for an unproven and unknown person? One obvious answer would be because Obama is the first black US president, a failure would cause American electorate to think twice before electing another black president in the near term - a valid fear for some. But the hype of Obama seems so high, even before he is in office, any slip up will be devastating for his presidency. That's where I see potential danger to India's image.

Meghnad Desai describes the contrast between European and Asia reaction to Obama's election:

But the Europeans are panting to be first in line when he takes up office. Sarkozy has boasted that he talked to Obama for 30 minutes after he was declared President-elect. Gordon Brown as Prime Minister of the UK, which boasts of a ‘special relationship’ with the US, got only 10 minutes but he is plotting to travel to the US soon after Obama’s Inauguration Day on January 20 and be the first European leader to meet him.

In contrast, the response of India and China to Obama’s election has been fascinating. Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh missed Obama’s call at first and Obama called him again. The Chinese are not hotfooting to Washington after January 20 to see Obama. While the Europeans are competing to be the new puppy that Obama can take to the White House (while his two daughters get a real one), the Asians are being cool. What’s going on here?

In order to keep Obama's presidency perfect, any country that may seem opposed to Obama's world view may be in for a pummel by American media, and there by the world media - which tend to follow American lead in any news coverage. We already know about Obama's take on Pakistan's relationship to India and India's strategic matters. If Obama pursues this line of thinking and India pushes back, I am afraid India image in the world will take a severe beating. And this would especially be true if BJP/NDA comes to power next year with a role for Narender Modi in the center because we know there are already plenty of centers of powers in US that control governmental actions towards Sri Modi.

I warned many months ago, in another forum, that relation between Bharat and US is excellent because of only one person - George Bush. Others disagreed. Now it'll be interesting to watch how the relationship changes with Bush gone and potential difficult issues between the two nations come front and center.

Bits of Real Nehru

November 14th was the 120th birthday of the man who casts a long shadow on Bharat even to this day. It may take another 60 years to clear the cobwebs hiding in the shadow along with the myth that was created around Jawaharlal Nehru during his prime ministership, and especially, since. We usual get the sycophants, such as S. Gopal, take on Nehru. Mohandas Gandhi was probably stung by that same sycophancy when he, being a non-democratic leader he was, choose to impose Nehru on the yet to be independent nation.

Swapan Dasgupta reminds us of the real Nehru, as written by his contemporary, Walter Crocker, the Australian High Commissioner in the 60s.

Even as Sri Crocker talks of Nehru who had little care for children, as opposed to that carefully crafted Chacha image by his sycophants, since Nehru's death, he talks about the various prejudices of Nehru, to put it mildly, which ended having huge lasting social, economic, and foreign policy implications.

Less publicised was the strong impression that his enlightenment was often offset by blind hates. Among Nehru’s ‘prejudices’ Crocker records were ‘‘maharajas, Portugal, moneylenders, certain American ways, Hinduism, the whites in Africa...’’ ...

Nehru, it was said, ‘‘could be emphatic on a basis of insufficient knowledge’’. He may have begun with a caricatured hatred of moneylenders but it soon extended into distaste for the entire private sector. Like the fellow travellers of Stalin, he juxtaposed science with what he considered religious mumbo-jumbo and came to view everything Hindu with utmost wariness...

From such parodies were the three pillars of the Nehruvian order, secularism, non-alignment and socialism, crafted.

I am constantly amazed at how Nehru's sycophants cover up his hatred for the people of Bharat - vast majority of whom are Hindus and extremely religious. How exactly does that make Nehru a great prime minister and how does that make our so-called founding fathers great, as Ramachandra Guha argues in his recent book. It seems to me the greatness of these leaders, especially the usually quoted ones, is more a myth then reality. The greatness belonged to the ordinary people who stuck to democracy and their way of life, despite having leaders who were ignorant, incompetent, and, unsurprisingly, hateful of those ordinary people.