You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
-Short Attention Span Theater-
UNITED STATES NEEDS TO RE-INVENT ITS GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM: An Analysis
2005-07-22
South Asia Analysis Group (Indian intel?)

Global War on Terrorism Cannot Be Exclusively United States- Centric:

...


The international community was led to believe initially that once US military operations in Afghanistan were completed, it would tackle global terrorism threats elsewhere sequentially. India , China and Russia waited patiently for the above to happen.

It never emerged. On the contrary, Pakistan which was the “ Mecca ” of global Islamic Jihad was kept out of the purview of the “4- Ds strategy” on the pretext that tactically it was required for Afghanistan operations.

Even when the American military operations were over in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s strategic utility in relation to it ceased, the United States continued to keep Pakistan out of any punitive reach for its direct role not only in 9/11 but also the Islamic Jehad it launched in India and the world over.

This approach greatly devalued United States ’ commitment to the global war on terrorism in the perception of other countries that otherwise would have normally supported US efforts.

To the people of countries which stood victimized by Islamic Jihadi terrorism, it was galling to see that because of US- centric policies, Pakistan as the main protagonist of global terrorism stood condoned.

As long as the “4- Ds strategy” remains United States- centric, the international community less Britain would be disinclined to actively cooperate with the United States despite the rhetoric and Joint Working Groups established with some countries to combat terrorism.

The United States has to visibly display its commitment to wage a war on global terrorism by active assistance in restructuring it whether it is in Jammu and Kashmir ( India ), Chechnya (Russia) or Xingjian (China) or for that matter anywhere else.

...

You get the flavor but still some interesting points are made... with far too much whining ..
Posted by:3dc

#12  Obviously the writer doesn't read about the Bush Doctrine. Moreover, it is not just a US play world cop situation but a universal threat to be address by numerous countries (so invested).

I do agree that the scale has flipped on the Paki situation. What was once barely tolerable is entirely intolerable in Pakiland.

Suggest that the Coaltion of the Willing should be enlarged by all the countries afflicted by Al Qaeda & Company.
Posted by: Captain America   2005-07-22 23:08  

#11  IOW, another article demanding the USA show the money and pay for modernizing the Islamic world, etal. besides of course also justifying/saving Islam for the Islamists while the latter reserves it right to attack and destroy America and American interests. As with Leftism-Socialism, parity and co-existence no longer suffices for any of the enemies of America, Westernism, andor Democapitalism. Its no longer enough for the Burqua Boyz/Islamikazes/Spetzlamists to contain themselves merely with the ME or those nations already under Islam. Someone has to pay and provide for their cradle-to-grave State/Govt-based $$$ dependencies and it t'aint gonna be them!? Both the Commies-Socies and Islamists are fighting for Super-Regulated, Super-Govt based or prioritized local, National, and Global world: POWER = relevancy/meaningfulness even iff its over a perennially poor and regressed OWG and Globalist-Unitarian World. WHat matters is that they rule and control, even as the lights start going out like NK or CUba, or the sun goes nova, ................................@etc.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2005-07-22 22:31  

#10  There is also the matter that India can defend itself from whatever Pakistan can throw at it.
It has faced down Islamic terrorism for almost twenty years. It has been attacked three times by the Pakistan military (a quite formidable force in tis own right).
There is no need to make concessions.

There is a lot of nonsense written about India needing peace with Pakistan to develop economically or to become a great power.
Economic develpment depends on things like infrastructure and labor reforms (totally internal matters). Pakistan is no market for India.
India needs Walmart and Microsoft not Pakistan.

The example of China shows that territorial conflicts are no bar to great power status.
Posted by: john   2005-07-22 20:15  

#9  There is no question of a buffer state. Such an entity would encourage the further breakup of India.
No Indian state has the right of secession.

Any independent Kashmir would be nothing but a tool to be used by outside powers (China and Pakistan) against India.

It would be a staging ground for attacks on the plains of India. Indian history has shown what happens when the plains are vulnerable. There is an entire mountain range in Afghanistan called the Hindu Kush - "The Killer of the Hindus" because of the hundreds of thousands of captured Indians who died crossing it as captives of the muslim armies of central asia.

India will not trust Pakistan again.
India has made many agreements with Pakistan. The Indus water treaty was favorable towards Pakistan, granting it the total output of three major Indian rivers. Nehru thought this might bring friendship.
Pakistan attacked in 1965.

In the 1971 Tashkent accords, Indira Gandhi gave to Pakistan what she could not get on the battlefield - the return of captured territory and 90000 POWs. There was an understanding that Kashmir would finally be settled with the LOC as border.
In 1988, Pakistan launched the jihad in Kashmir.

Finally Kashmir contains the Himalayas. No Indian can imagine their country minus the mighty Himalayan peaks.

Posted by: john   2005-07-22 20:04  

#8  Kashmir was also a great Led Zeppelin song - defend it to the death
Posted by: Frank G   2005-07-22 19:45  

#7  Anonymoose: If India wants to end the Kashmir problem quickly, why doesn't it just give that fly speck to Pakistan and withdrawl?

Indian Kashmir is the size of the great state of Georgia.

john: Kashmir is the high ground of the Indian subcontinent. It guards the northern frontier (against China). If Kashmir falls then the gangetic plains (the Indian heartland - the "cow belt") is under threat. This is why an entire Indian armored corps and a mountain warfare division guards Kashmir (besides the counterinsurgency troops).

What if India could reach agreement with Pakistan over the establishment of an *independent* Kashmir, as a kind of buffer state?
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2005-07-22 19:31  

#6  Kashmir is not a fly speck. It is a large chunk of territory of great strategic value.

Kashmir is the high ground of the Indian subcontinent. It guards the northern frontier (against China). If Kashmir falls then the gangetic plains (the Indian heartland - the "cow belt") is under threat. This is why an entire Indian armored corps and a mountain warfare division guards Kashmir (besides the counterinsurgency troops).

It is not a fight about nothing. Kashmir holds the headwaters of major Indian rivers. The very lifeblood of Pakistan (- its rivers) originate in Indian Kashmir.

If 5 million Kashmiris cannot live in India because they are muslim, then the other 145 million muslims in India have no place there. A loss of Kashmir would cause bloodletting on a horrifying scale.

Musharraf has said that even if Kashmir was settled, the subconventional warfare (read terrorism) would continue. There are other bits of Indian territory that Pakistan covets.

Even if they were given these bits, there would still be jihad. The problem is not Kashmir, it is Paistan itself and the very ideology of pakistan - muslim extremism.

Posted by: john   2005-07-22 18:42  

#5  They do not grasp the big picture. How many Paks have the US led to the slaughter already in Afghanistan? How many of them would have eventually snuck into Kashmir, otherwise? The US *is* engaging the bad boyz everywhere in the world simultaneously, but doing so using great strategy and tactics, not fussing with some local situation where both sides (Pak and India) are stubbornly insisting on maintaining the status quo. If India wants to end the Kashmir problem quickly, why doesn't it just give that fly speck to Pakistan and withdrawl? No skin off their nose. It would cost them nothing more than a little pride and to admit that it is stupid to fight over nothing.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-07-22 18:29  

#4  So now that the Russians have had SO much time to screw up Chechnya, it's now our turn to come in and make everything better?
Posted by: Phil Fraering   2005-07-22 18:08  

#3  Look what happened in the Philippines. We gave them arms, equipment and training (while they whined even about our trainers being inside their borders). And they piss it away in 'peace talks' with people who (according to the ongoing attacks) can't enforce any agreement anyway while the MILF busiliy rearms itself.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2005-07-22 18:07  

#2  Article: The United States has to visibly display its commitment to wage a war on global terrorism by active assistance in restructuring it whether it is in Jammu and Kashmir ( India ), Chechnya (Russia) or Xingjian (China) or for that matter anywhere else.

The authors want Uncle Sam to make it a global war on Muslim separatists. First off, their separatists are not our problem. Even if we wanted to solve their problems firsthand, these guys aren't going to let American troops within their borders to root out the problem. So what do they really want? Money. And free equipment. Nice try, but no cigar.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2005-07-22 17:51  

#1  4-d?
Posted by: raptor   2005-07-22 17:43  

00:00