Indian Support for the War

“First pro-US rally in city on April 8”:http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=307154
bq. A few professionals in the city and outside have come together to express their solidarity with the coalition forces led by the US and UK under the banner of Alliance Against Terrorism (AAT). The members of AAT have organised a rally on Tuesday to demonstrate their support to US-led war on Iraq. It is the only such initiative taken by any organisation in India.
Way to go!

Become Politically Active

Indian Americans, Speak Now and Be Heard!
bq. There are nearly 2 million Indian Americans in the United States. We are among the most highly educated, and affluent ethnic groups. Our diverse community would like to see progress on a number of political issues: US-India relations, trade, business and equal opportunity, just to name a few. Yet, because we lack a political brand that can collectively represent us in Washington, we have no influence on Capitol Hill. By contrast, the Jewish, Hispanic and African-American communities are much better organized, and are able to effectively influence U.S. policy.

The article is about “USINPAC”:http://www.usinpac.com/ (US India Political Action Commitee), an organization started in 2002 to represent Indo-Americans at Capitol Hill. There have been lot of questions on the agenda of this
organization. The basic question that everyone has about Indian groups
in US is this (which was asked by “Rajiv Malhotra”:http://www.sulekha.com/memberpages/profile.asp?shortcut=/rajiv_malhotra)
* What is the organization?s stand when India?s interests clash against Pakistan?s, and hence, the ?South Asian? identity compromises what we can assert?
* What is the stand concerning Indian Americans who, under the rubric of human rights, or academic studies, or whatever logic, publicly hit against India or its culture, justifying this as a way to ?cure? India?
The stand of this organization is pro-India. Now why would we be suspect of any Indian organization. ? The answer is the various South Asian “neocolonists”:http://www.sulekha.com/column.asp?cid=218625 and sepoys who have been bad mouthing India in the American media. They think degrading India in the eyes of the world is the only way to cure India of its ills. They conveniently ignore the fact that India is a democracy and still has a judicial system (however bad it is)
So please go through the “discussion”:http://www.sulekha.com/allcomments.asp?pg=7&Cid=305794&type=column of this issue at Sulekha.

Goddess of Small Brains

In her latest imagination of fantasy Arundhati Roy (no link, don’t want to increase ranking) wrote another article (Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris and Euphrates at The Guardian) which is short on facts and large on imagery:
bq. It is unlikely that British and American troops fighting in Iraq are aware that their governments supported Saddam Hussein both politically and financially through his worst excesses.

This one grew over time, but when Iraq was on it’s weapons spending spree from 1972 (when its oil revenue quadrupled) to 1990, the purchases were quite public and listed over $40 billion worth of arms sales. Russia was the largest supplier, with $25 billion. The US was the smallest, with $200,000. A similar myth, that the U.S. provided Iraq with chemical and biological weapons is equally off base. Iraq requested Anthrax samples from the US government, as do nations the world over, for the purpose of developing animal and human vaccines for local versions of Anthrax. Nerve gas doesn’t require technical help, it’s a variant of common insecticides. European nations sold Iraq the equipment to make poison gas.
(Link via “StrategyPage”:http://www.strategypage.com/fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=topten.htm)
bq. President George W Bush, commander in chief of the US army, navy, airforce and marines has issued clear instructions: “Iraq. Will. Be. Liberated.” (Perhaps he means that even if Iraqi people’s bodies are killed, their souls will be liberated.) American and British citizens owe it to the supreme commander to forsake thought and rally behind their troops. Their countries are at war. And what a war it is.
Let us see what her pal, Saddam was doing:
* Saddam Hussein launched about 40 gas attacks against Iraqi Kurdish villages and targets in 1987-88 with thousands killed, including the largest attack in March 1988 on Halabjah, a Kurdish town of 45,000 in northern Iraq, causing 3,500 to 5,000 deaths, according to Human Rights Watch
* According to Human Rights Watch, “senior Arab diplomats told the London-based Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat in October [1991] that Iraqi leaders were privately acknowledging that 250,000 people were killed during the uprisings, with most of the casualties in the south.” Refugees International reports that the “Oppressive government policies have led to the internal displacement of 900,000 Iraqis, primarily Kurds who have fled to the north to escape Saddam Hussein’s Arabization campaigns (which involve forcing Kurds to renounce their Kurdish identity or lose their property) and Marsh Arabs, who fled the government’s campaign to dry up the southern marshes for agricultural use. More than 200,000 Iraqis continue to live as refugees in Iran.”
And this is the kind of person Arundhati is crying for. As per Arundhati, liberating people from an opressive regime would be a crime.
bq. After using the “good offices” of UN diplomacy (economic sanctions and weapons inspections) to ensure that Iraq was brought to its knees, its people starved, half a million of its children killed, its infrastructure severely damaged, after making sure that most of its weapons have been destroyed, in an act of cowardice that must surely be unrivalled in history, the “Allies”/”Coalition of the Willing”(better known as the Coalition of the Bullied and Bought) – sent in an invading army!
Even after years of sanction she is not surprised that Saddam and his cronies are still living in lavish palaces. Why did he not sell his palaces, offer his food to his people.
bq. Operation Iraqi Freedom? I don’t think so. It’s more like Operation Let’s Run a Race, but First Let Me Break Your Knees.
I think she is talking about the people who suffered in the “Torture Chamber”:http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-12278787,00.html that we found recently.
Arudhanti has one weakness. A love with brutal dictators. She prefers them over democracies. And this is not the first time she has shown her hatred of democracies. In 2002 she visited Pakistan, (a country which sends terrorists to kill Indians and has a dictator as the President) and made comments against a democratically elected Govt. of India. Now she loves Saddam Hussein. Coming soon from her will be an article on why Fidel Castro is a saint.
As an Indian, I am sad that that our sacred soil has produced such a -thing- homo-sapien.

Happy Birthday, Field Marshal

Today is the “90th birthday”:http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/apr/04sam.htm of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. He commanded the Indian Army which liberated Bangadesh.
!http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/apr/04sam.jpg!
(Picture courtsey: Rediff)
“The Courage to Say NO”:http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/apr/03sam1.htm
bq. Indian troops won their last great victory against a foreign army of importance in 303 BC when Chandragupta Maurya’s army defeated Seleucus Nicator. After 2,300 years of unremitting defeats of Indian armies against every invading army, Sam Manekshaw made the country experience the glow of a stunning victory against the Pakistan army in what is now Bangladesh. That will remain Field Marshal Manekshaw’s unique position in Indian military history.
(Link via “Ashwini”:http://www.ashoo.org/blog/archives/cat_security.html#000092)

Dinosaurs of Kerala

In his blog What is wrong with CPI? VS Babu writes about how the Communist Party of India is hell bent on denying livelihood to many Malayalees citing moral reasons, and resorting to physical violence.
The communist party sanctioned a Coke bottling plant when they were in power. Now they are attacking the same plant in the guise of an anti-war movement. This is what makes Kerala the favourite destination for investors.
These morons like “Achyutanandan”:http://www.keral.com/celebrities/vsachud/ make a living destroying the businesses of other people.
In 2000 many school children in Kerala “missed “:http://www.sulekha.com/articledesc.asp?cid=104277 the most important examination of their lives, the Secondary School Leaving Certificate, because of a strike called by these Idiots. The reason was to protest the visit to India by Bill Clinton.
Since farming is not yeilding much returns these days many farmers are converting their farm lands to real estate and selling it. When I was in Kerala at that time, these folks under the leadership of Achutanandan went around destroying the harvest of the exisiting farmers (logic for this was beamed to his head from the aliens you see in Simpsons). At that time, the ruling party was the Communists.
So if you boil down the Communist Manifesto reads
* ruin the lives of children by blocking their education
* prevent anyone from doing business
* call bandhs regularly, so that daily wage workers will starve
These are the lunatics that are trying to come to power in the state which calls itself 100% literate.

Going Home

I am planning to go to India in June. The “usual/cheaper route”:http://www.sulekha.com/column.asp?cid=235877 is via
Singapore/Hong Kong/Malaysia. Right now we have, what the media calls,
“Mysterious Disease”:http://www.fumento.com/disease/sars.html going on in those places.
Mysterious disease sounds much better than pnumonia. When people ask, how did you die, it is more cool to say, “Mysterious Disease”. People walking in Hong Kong airport with masks on their faces look more depressed than people who
have eaten airline food.
Then I thought we would go via the middle east. There are lots of flights to Kerala from there as many Malayalees work in those countries. But there is a war going on there.
The best option would be to fly to South Africa and row from there. “Vasco da Gama”:http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1497degama.html did it many years back and reached Kerala. Should work now also.

Dialogue with terrorists

“Yesterday”:http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=20016 in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir
bq. In a pre-dawn strike, militants on Monday gunned down 24 Kashmiri Pandits, including 11 women and two children, at a hamlet in Pulwama district of South Kashmir, dealing a blow to state government’s plan to bring back Hindu migrants.
and here is what “Richard Boucher”:http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_221254,0008.htm , the state department spokesman had to say
bq. Boucher said “violence will not solve Kashmir’s problems. Dialogue remains a critical element in the normalization of relations between India and Pakistan,”
How come you did not invite Saddam Hussein or Osama to the white house and engage in a dialogue ? Indians have even done that. Our Prime Minister “went to Pakistan”:http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/feb/20bus1.htm, asked for peace. Musharraf sent his troops to “Kargil”:http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/may/26kash2.htm. We invited “Musharraf to India”:http://www.punjabilok.com/musharraf_visit/main_page1.htm. We got more terrorists after that. So please, don’t insult the Indians by asking for dialogue. You look ignorant and stupid in the eyes of 1 Billion people.
Update: “The real tragedy of Kashmir”:http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=305233
Suman Palit as always puts it “more eloquently”:http://www.palit.com/2003_03_23_tkl_archive.asp#200044764.

National Interest

TVR Shenoy tells us why this war is fought

Iraqi oil and the US war

The bottomline is that every nation is looking to its own interests. The Jordanians worry about rising oil bills. The United States and Britain are concerned about their own security. France and Russia are protecting their commercial interests. When will Indian foreign policy makers learn to be equally cold-blooded?

India is slowly changing. The two obvious things
that I can come up with is the strong stand taken against Malaysia and
the pact with Iran. We are looking after our interests and asserting our authority in a small way. Now only if we could assert it against activities like this

Should India be part of UNSC.

  • I agree with Suman
    when he says that we will have to toe US line as it is the only
    remaining hyperpower. But in the future, there may come some issues
    before UN where the US is not terribly interested but has direct
    relation to Indian security, like Kashmir. Our position could be an
    advantage in influencing world opinion to our favor. It is only US and
    France which ignores UN. Even in UK, people are asking
    Tony Blair to get UN approval. Our issues in the near future are not
    going to be with the major powers, but with the tiny ones in our
    neighborhood, where the voice of United Nations still has some effect.

  • We are currently caught up in the stupid “South Asian” tag,
    losing our identity. As Opinionated
    Indian
    says, the view of the world is that of India and Pakistan
    as two equals involved in ‘medieval religious warfare’. We need to get
    involved in global issues and get out of trying to be a leader of a
    bunch of loser nations (SAARC)

The UN may even become extinct by the
time the next Lord of the Rings is released. But if it is around, then
we should be a part of it.