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.