The following PIL is worth mentioning here
1
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
AND
EXTRAORDINARY JURISDICTION UNDER ARTICLE 226
OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
PUBLIC INTEREST PETITION NO. OF 2008
In the matter of Articles 21 and 355 of the Constitution of India;
And
In the matter of Article 226 of the Constitution of India;
And
In the matter of the terror attacks in the City of Mumbai on November 26 to 28, 2008 and other terror attacks and security threats faced by the City of Mumbai and other places in India from time to time;
And
In the matter of e-security measures to anticipate, prevent and mitigate the occurrence in future of such terror attacks and security threats in the City of Mumbai and other places in India.
1. Sarla S. Parekh ]
of Mumbai Indian Inhabitant ]
residing at 5th Floor ]
Bharatiya Bhavan ]
72, Marine Drive, Mumbai ]
2. Vijay Mukhi, ]
C/o. DSK Legal, 4th Floor, ]
Express Towers, Nariman Point, ]
Mumbai 400 021 ] …Petitioners
Versus
1. Union of India ]
through the Secretary, Ministry of ]
Home Affairs, North Block, ]
Jailsalmer House, Lok Nayak ]
Bhavan, New Delhi 110 011 ]
And through the Secretary, ]
Ministry of Defence, South Block, ]
New Delhi 110 011 ]
2. State of Maharashtra ]
through its Chief Secretary and ]
through its Home Secretary ]
Mantralaya, Mumbai 400 032 ] …Respondents
TO
THE HON’BLE CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE HON’BLE PUISNE JUDGES OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE PETITIONERS ABOVENAMED
MOST RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH
1.
By the present Public Interest Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the Petitioners herein seek implementation of specific e-security measures which can be taken to anticipate, prevent and mitigate further terror attacks, like the recent attack on November 26-28, 2008, and organized crime in the City of Mumbai and other places in India under the directions of this Hon’ble Court.
2.
Petitioner No. 1 is the mother of the late Sunil Parekh, and mother-in-law of his wife the late Reshma Parekh, two of the unfortunate victims of the recent terrorist attack on November 26-28, 2008 in Mumbai (hereinafter referred to as “the said attack”). Petitioner No. 1 has personally suffered a tragedy on account of the said attack, losing her only son and daughter-in-law, who have left surviving them two young children. Petitioner No. 1 is filing the present petition as a concerned citizen of India and of Mumbai with the view and hope that, with the intervention of this Hon’ble Court, and the assistance of experts, improvements can be brought about in the manner in which such attacks are dealt with so as to ensure that there is a better capability in anticipating and preventing or mitigating such attacks.
3.
Petitioner No. 2 is an expert in the field of information technology. Petitioner No. 2 (i) is a co-founder of the Internet Users Community of India and the Bombay Technology Club; (ii) was appointed on the Bombay High Court Committee on issues regarding pornography; (iii) is a committee member / member of various industry associations including FICCI, IMC, AIAI, TIE, NACT; and (iv) is founder of the Foundation of Information Security & Technology (FIST). Petitioner No. 2 has written and published over 80 books on e-security and related subjects, which are published in English, Japanese and Portuguese languages. Petitioner No. 2 has been involved in training various people, in the use and application of software technology since the past 25 years.
4.
The Petitioners state that the City of Mumbai, and the entire nation, has, from time to time in the past few years, faced terrorist attacks and security threats and the most recent and glaring example of such an attack is the said attack on the City of Mumbai from November 26, 2008, which was not only extremely brutal in its nature but was also well planned and calculated to create maximum physical and psychological damage. The Petitioners are seriously concerned about the lack of safety and security of the citizens against such attacks by terrorist organizations, and organized crime, which operate at a very high level of efficiency and are very well trained in the use of technology for the purpose of carrying out such attacks. Such attacks have time and again caused severe loss to lives and damage to property and have disrupted normal activity, and wreaked havoc on the minds of Indians, many of whom are now feeling a sense of complete insecurity. Such terror attacks also affect the psychology of citizens and youth and children through the extensive media coverage.
5.
As per the information gathered by the Petitioners, since 2005, there has been a substantial increase in terror attacks in India resulting in vast numbers of casualties and injured persons and also causing colossal loss and damage otherwise. A datewise summary of some of the attacks which have been carried out by terrorist organisations in recent years in Mumbai is annexed hereto and marked Exhibit “A”. A datewise summary of some of the attacks which have been carried out terrorist organizations in other parts of India is annexed hereto and marked Exhibit “B”.
6.
The Petitioners submit that terrorist attacks are very well coordinated and terrorists are highly trained in the use of technology and are also dependant upon it for carrying out coordinated attacks and causing maximum damage. Any mechanism for capturing the perpetrators of such attacks before they can take place or for preventing recurrence of such attacks requires sophisticated technology and a very high level of coordination between the concerned authorities. The Petitioners state that the present security capabilities of the State machinery are inadequate to anticipate, prevent and mitigate such attacks and there is an urgent need to introduce fresh technology and upgrade the existing technology. The Petitioners state that, such measures, if not initiated forthwith and in a time bound manner, would leave the nation and its citizens at the mercy of terrorists and would undermine the faith of the people in the capabilities of the authorities and the law enforcement machinery to preserve and uphold the sovereignty of our nation and ensure the safety of its people.
7.
The Petitioners are therefore constrained to file the present petition in the larger public interest in order to place before this Hon’ble Court and the Respondents some of the measures which can be undertaken in order to anticipate, intercept and prevent or mitigate further terror attacks and to seek appropriate orders for implementing these measures in a timebound manner.
8.
The Petitioners state the series of terror attacks that have occurred in various parts of India in the past few years clearly show that much needs to be done by way of prevention and mitigation of such events. Concerned citizens with experience and expertise in relevant areas should come forward and offer to assist the Respondents in the larger interest of our country and all its citizens. Petitioner No. 2, being one such citizen, having vast knowledge and experience in the field of information technology, is by way of the present petition, offering his knowledge and recommendations on how such terror attacks can be prevent or mitigated by the use of software technologies initially in Mumbai which suffered the recent terrible terror attacks in which Petitioner No. 1 lost her son and daughter-in-law. These recommendations can be implemented through appropriate departments of Government, preferably under monitoring by this Hon’ble Court through a small specialist committee of representatives of Government, police and experts from industry. Specialist organizations like NASSCOM can be involved in the process of implementing the recommendations, initially, and then, on an on-going basis, if deemed necessary, by seeking the aid and advise of such organizations on latest technologies which can be used for the purpose of e-security and the manner in which such technologies can be set up and utilized.
9.
The Petitioners state that, faced with serious threats of terror attacks, many western countries have implemented various measures including application of upto date software technologies. An example of this is the United State of America (USA) which has effectively used technology to prevent further terror attacks after the terror attacks which took place on September 11, 2001 in USA. USA has set an example and high standards as to what can be done to prevent recurrence of such events that not only take innocent lives but adversely affect citizens and indeed the civilized world. By the use of technology, USA has managed to prevent further terror attacks on its soil till date. Much of the technology that USA and other countries use is available for purchase, and some of it is free. There is no current need to, nor benefit in, creating new software to address the existing circumstances except to the extent identified below. Actual steps that can be taken, and the broad costing involved, is given below. In certain cases local costs per city will have to be borne and hence, the Petitioner has, in the present petition, given, by way of illustration, the cost for the City of Mumbai in this regard. Without prejudice to the submission that costing cannot be a factor to avoid providing for human life and safety, the purpose of giving the costing herein is to pre-empt being faced with an answer that all the suggestions below are too expensive and that there isn’t a budget available. References herein to information about the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai are gained from the media, and are assumed to be correct.
10.
Following are some of the measures (along with estimated costs) which can be taken with the help of technology in order to anticipate and prevent or mitigate such attacks in Mumbai in the future:
1.
Internet and E-Mail surveillance
1.
All advanced nations capture and store all Internet, e-mail and other forms of e-traffic. The laws of every country in the world provide that all data flowing though an Internet Service Provider (ISP), an entity that offers Internet access, must be captured, and handed over to the Government. This is part of the service conditions of ISPs. Thus, the Government has access to all data passing in and out of the country.
2.
However, such e-surveillance involves not just the capturing of data, but analysing the large amounts of data that are generated. The amount of internet traffic that a city like Mumbai creates cannot be manually looked at by people. The monthly internet traffic of one user could exceed 3 Giga Bytes (1 Giga is 1,000,000,000 Bytes and 1 Byte is a single English letter of the alphabet) So, while it may be possible to capture all data, an automation of the process is then required for finding relevant information amongst the vast volumes that are captured.
3.
E-surveillance software is readily available. As this is required to process large volumes of data, the searches need to be extremely fast. The system involves searches not just of simple keywords but also of the context in which these are used. Thus, a search for “sense” should not find “sensex”. The search must be very intelligent or else the findings will again be too voluminous to be of any use. On the other hand, the system should not miss out on even one relevant piece of information. These are called false positives and false negatives.
4.
A large number of systems actually have a programming language associated with the search that allows the user to build very complex queries. These queries enable searches for words in e-mails only or web pages or chat or any other electronic data. The systems also have an entire workflow system built in so that a record can be maintained of the cases being worked upon. These cases can be linked with each other to find patterns. These patterns can help detect terror and crime plots, and once identified, it is relatively simple to track down those who have generated and are involved in this data traffic.
5.
Thus, the authorities can save all Internet traffic for months, and can conduct offline searches as required, in addition to online scans in real time of all traffic coming from a certain site, an Internet Protocol (IP) address (An IP address is akin to a phone number and every computer that wants to communicate with another computer on the Internet needs an IP address) or a certain e-mail address. Due to the falling cost of hardware and hard disks, it is inexpensive to store a country’s e-traffic for many years. Most security agencies in other countries store internet and telephone communication data for a long period of time – this is technically called data retention, or DR, in security parlance.
6.
A lot of traffic on the Internet is encrypted. Encryption means that the traffic is unreadable unless the reader has a password, or a “key”. A “key” is a password that cannot be remembered by the human mind. The authorities must be able to decrypt traffic as it flows either in real time or offline if the password used is complex, e.g. having 20 or more characters. Also, most of the time while sending or receiving large files, such large files are compressed and sent. This makes the file size smaller for easier transmission. Compression is very different from encryption as no password or key is involved.
7.
There are many different forms of traffic that move on the Internet. These include E-mail, Web Traffic, File Transfers, Chat, Picture Files, Sound Files, Video files, telephone calls etc. All this traffic effectively moves as single bytes of data. Thus all Internet traffic looks the same viz. single bytes of data. The surveillance system must be able to make sense of this traffic and display E-mail in an appropriate program like Outlook Express and web traffic as a web page. It must be able to distinguish Web based e-mail like Yahoo or Gmail from Outlook or SMTP based e-mail. Thus, it must recognize traffic flows and show them in a form that is understandable by a lay user. This intelligence can make or break the usability of the system. At times, data is hidden within other pieces of data – for example a technique called stegenography makes it possible to hide text within a picture or image and this image itself could be compressed and encrypted. To extract the hidden text the image file could have to be first decompressed, then decrypted and finally, once the image is visible, the hidden text would have to be extracted from within the image. The intelligence of a system can make it usable and such technical understanding and planning can make it actually useful.
8.
The system must have capabilities to allow people at multiple locations to work with each other with multiple data sources, without changing or losing any primary data. This is what the system must enable for better intelligence gathering.
9.
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) have made the world of intelligence gathering very different, and surveillance systems must interface with a GPS system for better clarity. There are multiple groups in the world that have digitized the world as maps. It makes for better understanding if one can see the place or location with Latitude and Longitude superimposed on a map where the data is coming from.
10.
The reporting capability of such systems must allow for very complex reports and they normally interface with an external report writer and save all the data in a database for easier access. Terrorists do not use pencil, pen and paper anymore to communicate. Terrorists use technology and hence the Government’s technology systems must be up to date and must be constantly updated. Earlier, intelligence agencies could read a letter without opening that letter. Now intelligence agencies must be able to read Internet traffic without arousing suspicions.
11.
A surveillance system needs many more features which would also allow it to interface with external systems to track and monitor telephone conversations. These two systems may be different, but the investigator is not interested in Internet traffic and phones as separate entities, he is interested in the suspect and does not want to work with two different systems. The surveillance systems must interact and interface with other systems as and when the time arises. Such interaction and integration would mean that the phone conversations, email & internet traffic would interface with other types of surveillance systems such as anti-money laundering systems used by banks and financial institutions. Surveillance should include effective monitoring of all possible activities of a suspect, rather than monitoring of just his communications.
Cost for Internet and E-Mail surveillance
While the price depends on the complexity of the systems, a sum of about Rs. 10 crores can procure a state of the art system. There would also be the cost of physical premises and training.
2.
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)
A computer can be used as a phone. When we use Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP), our analog voice gets converted into digital bits and then sent across using the same Internet technology that is used to send an e-mail or a web page. Our telephonic conversations become internet traffic. Thus, it is easy to capture this traffic as it is an Internet stream of data. However, most VOIP or Internet Phones use encryption to send the data. It is therefore critical to have the ability to generate passwords in real time, or the police will have no idea what the conversation is. One of the most common Internet Phone implementations is Skype which offers its services these days not only on a PC, but also on a mobile phone. Many mobile phone models have fast Internet access, and thus a VOIP connection.
Cost for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) surveillance
There are many VOIP providers in the world and hence it is necessary to identify which IP phone provider they are using and then start decrypting the conversation in real time. Some of these VOIP providers have no encryption. The Government can maintain a database of VOIP providers and the manner in which they encrypt the electronic traffic. The cost would be approximately Rs. 5 crores, including for Research and Development in this area.
3.
Mobile Phone Forensics
1.
The mobile phones of today are not as powerful as computers, but are getting very close. The Windows Mobile Platform from Microsoft can run most software that is written for the desktop. They share the same programming model. Many people, including terrorists and criminals, use mobile phones for communication, not just for voice communication, but also e-mail, sms and messaging. The law enforcement authorities require a laboratory to take apart a mobile phone and read its contents and piece together whatever a particular mobile phone was involved in and used for. There are different types of information available on a mobile phone.
2.
SIM cards have large memory capabilities, and hence it will be necessary to have programs that can read the contents of a SIM card which can contain enormous amounts of relevant data. The SIM card can be placed in a SIM card reader and analysed using the USB port of a computer, and then software would print out a report of the data contents of the SIM card. Thus, it would be necessary to have software that can read or download everything that is present in the memory of the phone which includes all logs, contacts, call details, SMS’s etc, etc. The software would have to take into account the differences between the different phone and SIM card manufacturers. The Windows Mobile Phones are very different to work with compared to Linux based mobile phones, which are different from the Symbian OS used by the high end phones, to the Palm OS, the newer IPhone. Also, every company has a large number of variations within its own product range. Also, CDMA phones work very differently from the GSM phones.
3.
Standard software lacks a very important capability. It basically allows one to see on a PC whatever one can see using one’s mobile phone. However, one big difference in Mobile phones and PC’s is the type of memory used. On switching off a PC, the contents of the RAM memory are erased, but not so in Mobile phones. They use more of a type of memory called “static memory” over dynamic memory. For example, an SMS that is deleted on the Mobile phone is normally marked for deletion, but is not really deleted. The memory that it uses will be reused only if another SMS needs the same memory. It is likely to remain in the memory for a long time. The same applies to any other information that is deleted from the Mobile phone, including log entries, missed calls, contacts, e-mails send, calendar entries, notes written, anything on the Mobile phone.
4.
The same general principles also apply for matter deleted from a computer hard drive. Particular software is required to read deleted matter. As a practical case, in the last bomb blasts in Mumbai, missed calls were used as a signaling device. If the person received one ring only, it was meant as a signal to chat on one chat site, whereas, two rings meant a signal to chat on another chat site and so on. The phone company does not store missed calls as they do not generate any revenue for the company. Since received missed calls are stored on the phone and can provide valuable evidence, it is necessary to have a method of recovering all the missed calls received on a phone, even if deleted by the user.
5.
At times special software is written that would read the actual memory of the phone and obtain deleted or other information that is needed. This is a big cottage industry in the Windows world as Microsoft has not documented a lot of things it does including how it stores certain information on both hard disk as well as memory. This is called “Undocumented Windows”. There is much more undocumented data in mobile phones and these raw memory structures need to be read and deciphered. This requires both special hardware that would allow reading memory directly, as well as programmers who can write software and who can read and make sense out of this mass of data.
6.
SIM cards allow the user to write very useful programs embedded within them. The Government can make it mandatory that every SIM card sold in India must have a program on it that monitors what people do with their phones and can send back this information to the home station. This can stop misuse of mobile phones in a big way by terrorists. SIM cards currently used in India have at least 32KB of storage space and such programs will easily fit into the SIM cards. Initiatives can also be taken to mandate hand-set manufacturers to have similar programs running on phones sold in India.
Cost for Mobile Phone Forensics
1.
Software - Companies like Paraben Software, MobilEdit, Oxygen, etc offer a full featured suite of such software, which costs about Rs 50,000 each. It would be advisable to buy at least three of these softwares so that the authorities can cover as many mobile phones manufacturers and brands as possible. It is sensible to run multiple brands of software to check that the results are consistent. This would cost about Rs. 1.5 lakhs.
2.
People for upgradation - A lot of software is also open source (free) and would need a person who would make sure that the laboratory is kept up to date with the latest software.
3.
Hardware - About 10 laptop computers would be adequate for the laboratory, plus cabling, different types of mobile phones to be checked for experimentation and learning, special equipment like Faraday cages for shielding the phones and other specialized equipment. This would cost approximately Rs. 25 lakhs.
It would be necessary to have custom software written. A budget of about Rs. 48 lakhs every year for four programmers for software to be written would suffice, at current market rates.
The total cost would be about Rs. 1 crore for a state of the art mobile forensic lab.
4.
Mobile Phone Interception
1.
Terrorists use mobile phones to communicate with their base stations where their “handlers” are situated. Law enforcement agencies can inform mobile phone companies that they want to listen into certain calls and, after necessary approvals, this is done by the operator.
2.
Vans with special equipment are needed since the police would have no knowledge of the phone numbers that the terrorists would use, and hence cannot inform the service providers. Also the terrorists could take phones of hostages and use these. The only way to intercept these calls is a system by means by which the police can scan all mobile phone conversations within a certain area, and record the conversation as well as disclose which part of the world the person is in with whom the conversation is taking place. These systems must be familiar with GSM, CDMA and 3G. A further issue that would be faced is if these conversations are encrypted, then decrypting them in real time would add to the complexity and costs. The Government can require that all mobile phones and providers should not be allowed to encrypt conversations within India’s geographical boundaries. This could mean that companies like Blackberry may have some issues in operating in India as e-mails sent via Blackberry are encrypted, and hence interception is a problem.
Cost for Mobile Phone Interception in Mumbai
Two vans with equipment that can intercept mobile phone conversation in real time would cost about Rs. 1.5 crores.
5.
Satellite Phone Interception
Satellite phones can be tapped and are being tapped. Their range also covers a wide area and such equipment is already available in India.
Cost for Satellite Phone Interception in Mumbai
Even though India must have equipment to intercept satellite phones, it is better to have all equipment under local control and not under the control of some other agencies since, in a terror situation, all equipment must be under the control of one agency. The cost is about Rs. 8 crores.
6.
Mobile Phone jamming
In the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai the terrorists were able to communicate at will for 60 hours since the police had no way to intercept the mobile phones or VOIP conversations. It would have been more prudent to jam the mobile phones of the terrorists so that they could not work at all. The flip side of doing so is that no one in the area including the hostages would be able to communicate at all with their families but the process for ending the terrorist attacks could have been shortened if jamming was implemented. The police have mobile phone jammers that will guarantee that no mobile work works in an area of size that they choose.
Cost for Mobile Phone jamming equipment in Mumbai
Approximately Rs. 2 crores for portable mobile phone jammers for Mumbai.
7.
Writing Keystroke Loggers and Stealth Software and hacking into computers
1.
Several countries have ceased to be passive and defensive about terrorists and organized crime and have taken the war to the other side by “infiltrating”. The first part of infiltration is intelligence gathering i.e. finding out what the criminal is doing. The second part is to actually access the criminal’s data by hacking or breaking into his computer and networks. The standard tool for intelligence gathering is a Keystroke Logger. This monitors every keystroke he types. This tool also monitors on screen keyboards used by clicking on the mouse, by capturing mouse clicks. This is how the activities on the terrorist’s computers can be monitored – Emails, web sites visited, chats and VOIP calls made, including saving a recording of his voice. Thus, the terrorist’s computer is actually controlled by the police, and he has no idea of this. One more reason a keystroke logger is very important is because of encryption. Emails which are encrypted may not be easily decrypted. If keystrokes are monitored, then interception happens before encryption.
2.
The keystroke logger also allows complete remote control of the other person’s computer. Scanning of his hard disk and accessing important files and monitor everything that the computer does is possible, thus potentially preventing such crimes and attacks.
3.
There are tools like Metasploit Framework which are free and open source and allow the user to hack into or take over or break into other computers without the other computers knowledge or approval. There is a concept of a “zero day exploit” which means that one can take over a computer and there is no vaccine or deterrent that is available to stop this. There are many zero day exploits and the time window to use them is small. Once Microsoft and other software vendors know about a zero day exploit against them, they quickly create a “vaccine” or “deterrent”.
4.
Metasploit Framework is the most common tool used by hackers and its original purpose was to find out how vulnerable a company’s network is. It is written in a programming language called “Ruby” and has many ways of taking over a computer and getting it to do one’s bidding. The Government would need hackers to learn Ruby and create zero day exploits. Once the software is installed the police would need to ensure that it is not detected by antivirus or anti spyware or any other software that checks for alien software on a machine.
5.
Advanced programmers or hackers or “gifted programmers” need to be employed by the Government. It is commonplace in the technology industry to write such software, but nobody mentions it. Many countries have fully fledged laboratories that do this.
Costs for writing Keystroke Loggers and Stealth Software, and employing experts for hacking into computers
At current levels, each of these hackers would charge about Rs. 2 lakhs per month. A core group of 10 hackers would add up to Rs. 2.4 crores. Educating them and providing state of the art machines to work with would take the total cost for the first year to about Rs. 3.5 crores.
8.
Creating a virtual cyber police
Conventional Intelligence gathering has changed since the written word is no longer written down on files but is present on a computer. All conversations now use technology. Terrorists are often amongst the first to adapt to a new technology. It is important for police officers to stay live online. The hackers can actually roam around the internet making friends with diverse people, looking for relevant information. Hackers would be the eyes and ears for the police in the virtual word and would keep checking for suspicious activity and signs when chatter increases on the Internet which could mean a terrorist attack somewhere. Hackers could also check for links to terror sites and then join them for surveillance. Hackers remain active on e-mail groups checking for suspicious activity. A group of hackers must be created to fulfill this function, who can roam around the Internet, most of them apparently aimlessly, and check for suspicious activity. This is a long drawn strategy.
Cost of virtual cyber police
At current levels, each of these hackers would charge about Rs. 75,000 per month. A core group of 10 hackers, with education and providing state of the art machines to work with would take the total cost for the first year to about Rs. 1 crore.
9.
Computer Forensics Laboratory
1.
Terrorists now often carry laptop computers with them with a lot of relevant information. This information can be used as evidence in court when the police seize these laptops. Thus, before analyzing the seized computers for evidence, the police must make a forensic copy of the hard disk. Otherwise, the terrorist could accuse the police of planting the evidence.
2.
There are international best practices in place which clearly lay down how digital evidence must be seized and presented in court. A forensic back up of the evidence is to be made using a physical copying device. Then work can be carried out on the copy of the hard disk only, not on the original. Scanning the computers hard disk to make sure that all the evidence is found involves various steps. Some of them are documented, but lots of them are not documented. The police need tools that would automate this process and search in all the places that evidence can be hidden. There is an entire body of knowledge devoted to just hiding things on a hard disk when even the seasoned investigators may not be able to find it. These tools must be continuously upgraded, as new hiding places are being found all the time. These places include slack space on the hard disk, creating partitions within partitions, within a normal file or picture, in memory structures, etc. At times a hard disk is found partially destroyed and needs to be read vide the platters of the hard disk. At times even though files have been deleted multiple number times yet it is possible to read the file contents using advanced techniques.
Cost of a Computer Forensics Laboratory
The cost of a good laboratory, with hardware, software and trained people would be about Rs. 3 crores in the first year.
10.
Breaking Encryption and creating one’s own Algorithms
1.
The Government needs to hire experts to create unbreakable encryption and break encryption created by others. If people communicate by encrypting the communication channels, there is no way of knowing what they are planning. The Government needs to create a cadre of mathematicians who can break these codes. India has them in good numbers but they not been given the respect and money they need.
2.
There are lots of free tools available to identify all sorts of passwords in various products. Nearly every product that offers password access including Windows, Oracle, Word, Excel etc have tools that allow breaking of passwords. These tools range from using rainbow tables, which are a DVD of all known passwords, to actually exploiting the vulnerabilities in the encryption used.
Costs for Breaking Encryption and creating one’s own Algorithms
This would cost an estimated Rs. 2 crores per year. This is both a research and practical activity.
11.
Installing CCTV’s in public places
1.
Cameras in public places with appropriate software can act both as a deterrent, as criminals and terrorists do not want their images to be available to law enforcers, and as a tracking device to follow criminals and terrorists from the scene of the crime.
2.
Thousands of cameras sending live feeds need software that can scan these feeds and report anomalies. This software recognizes entities and also learns from patterns what is being looking for. It should be able to recognize a gun when it sees one and then send out an alert. This software uses a technology called AI or Artificial Intelligence. Every major city in the world has been covered with cameras, and at the same time also uses satellites to cover the entire city as backup. The camera feeds must also be stored for some time and this would also reduce, and help detect, crime on the streets.
Costs for installing CCTV’s in public places
The cost of a camera would range from Rs. 10,000/- to Rs. 12 lakhs. Small by lanes would require a web camera at times which costs approximately Rs 1,000/- and at very important places a camera worth Rs. 1,00,000/-. Total cost would be about Rs. 13 crores to start with.
12.
Future Threats and Technologies - a think tank as future technologies emerge
A factor of technology is that vectors keep changing all the time. Thus it is very important that updation for the police forces happens all the time, with the assistance of experts.
11.
The Petitioners submit that the following are some of the measures which can be taken to prevent and mitigate future terror attacks in Mumbai:
1.
The Respondents can be directed to:
i. Identify suitable vendors, agencies and personnel for procuring the hardware, software, equipment and persons required for implementing the recommendations/initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove, and procure such hardware, software, equipment and persons in a timebound manner;
ii. Identify and acquire a suitable location where the said hardware, software, equipment and persons can be housed and made operational;
iii. Implement the recommendations/initiative mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove in a time bound manner, and oversee and monitor the operation and implementation of the recommendations/ initiatives including imparting training to persons employed for the purpose of implementing the recommendations/initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove;
iv. To take further and other necessary steps and do all things necessary to implement prayers i to iii above.
2.
In the alternative to the above, following directions can be given:
i. Appointing a committee of experts to implement the recommendations/ initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove in Mumbai;
ii. Directing the Respondents to grant necessary authority and powers to the said committee of experts to:
3.
Identify suitable vendors, agencies and personnel for procuring the hardware, software, equipment and persons required for implementing the recommendations/initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove, and procure such hardware, software, equipment and persons in a timebound manner;
4.
Identify and acquire a suitable location where the said hardware, software, equipment and persons can be housed and made operational;
5.
Implement the recommendations/initiative mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove in a time bound manner, and oversee and monitor the operation and implementation of the recommendations/ initiatives including imparting training to persons employed for the purpose of implementing the recommendations/initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove;
iii. Directing the Respondents to take further and other necessary steps and do all things necessary to implement prayers (a) to (c) above.
(c) Directions can be given to the Respondents to implement the recommendations/initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove, on an on-going basis, and, from time to time, maintain and upgrade, on an on going basis, suitable hardware, software, equipments, for this purpose.
The Petitioners respectfully submit that it is just, necessary and in the interest of justice that the aforesaid e-security measures be implemented in a time bound manner and that suitable directions be given by this Hon’ble Court to this effect which are utmost essential necessary to protect the lives and properties of the citizens pursuant to the guarantee contained in Articles 21 and 355 of the Constitution of India.
12.
The Petitioners respectfully submit that, thus, at a total cost of approximately Rs. 50 crores, Mumbai city could set up state of the art e-security software, equipment and personnel. Out of this some expense would be an annual expense and some would be useful beyond Mumbai, in other parts of India as well.
13.
The Petitioners submit that the implementation of the above steps can be very useful, and, if updated by the Respondents, can stay relevant for the entire nation. It is clear that the Respondents lack the technology necessary to intercept terrorist activity which may lead to vital information with regard to possible terror attacks and to prevent or mitigate such attacks in the country. The Respondents need the technology to enable the Respondents to effectively perform their duty to protect this country and its citizens against external aggression and internal disturbance. The Petitioners therefore submit that the aforesaid measures are required to be implemented by giving suitable directions to the Respondents.
14.
The Petitioners submit that, on account of the inability of the Respondents to prevent or mitigate such terror attacks, there is a violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of India since the people of India are deprived of their life or liberty on account of such attacks.
15.
The Petitioners submit that no loss or prejudice will be caused to the Respondents if the reliefs prayed for in the present petition are granted and, in fact, grave loss and injury is being cause to the nation and its people on account of the lack of proper infrastructure and technology and hence if the reliefs as prayed for are refused, grave and irreparable loss will continue to be caused to the citizens of India including the people of Mumbai.
16.
The Petitioners therefore submit that it is necessary and in the interest of justice and in the public interest that the relief prayed for in the present petition be granted.
17.
The Petitioners crave leave to add to, alter, amend and/or delete any facts, grounds or reliefs herein.
18.
Respondent No. 1 is the Union of India and Respondent No. 2 is the State of Maharashtra. The recent terror attacks took place in Mumbai from November 26 to 28, 2008. There is a serious threat and fear in the minds of the people of the City of Mumbai with regard to the possibility of future attacks in Mumbai. The Respondents are required to carry out their duties to protect the City of Mumbai. The entire cause of action has arisen in Mumbai and this Hon’ble Court has jurisdiction to entertain, try and dispose of this petition.
19.
The Petitioners have no other efficacious alternative remedy available to them under law and the reliefs sought herein, if granted, would be full and complete.
20.
The Petitioners have not filed any other petition either in this Court or in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in respect of the subject matter of this petition.
21.
In the aforesaid premises, the Petitioner prays as under:
1.
This Hon’ble Court be pleased to issue a writ of or in the nature of mandamus or any other writ, order or direction directing the Respondents to:
i. Identify suitable vendors, agencies and personnel for procuring the hardware, software, equipment and persons required for implementing the recommendations/initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove, and procure such hardware, software, equipment and persons in a timebound manner;
ii. Identify and acquire a suitable location where the said hardware, software, equipment and persons can be housed and made operational;
iii. Implement the recommendations/initiative mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove in a time bound manner, and oversee and monitor the operation and implementation of the recommendations/ initiatives including imparting training to persons employed for the purpose of implementing the recommendations/initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove;
iv. To take further and other necessary steps and do all things necessary to implement prayers i to iii above.
2.
B. In the alternative to prayer A hereinabove, this Hon’ble Court be pleased to issue a writ of or in the nature of mandamus or any other writ, order or direction:
i. Appointing a committee of experts to implement the recommendations/ initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove in Mumbai;
ii. Directing the Respondents to grant necessary authority and powers to the said committee of experts to:
1.
Identify suitable vendors, agencies and personnel for procuring the hardware, software, equipment and persons required for implementing the recommendations/initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove, and procure such hardware, software, equipment and persons in a timebound manner;
2.
Identify and acquire a suitable location where the said hardware, software, equipment and persons can be housed and made operational;
3.
Implement the recommendations/initiative mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove in a time bound manner, and oversee and monitor the operation and implementation of the recommendations/ initiatives including imparting training to persons employed for the purpose of implementing the recommendations/initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove;
iii. Directing the Respondents to take further and other necessary steps and do all things necessary to implement prayers (a) to (c) above.
3.
This Hon’ble Court be pleased to issue a writ of or in the nature of mandamus or any other writ, order or direction directing the Respondents to implement the recommendations/initiatives mentioned in paragraph 10 hereinabove, on an on-going basis, and, from time to time, maintain and upgrade, on an on going basis, suitable hardware, software, equipments, for this purpose.
4.
For interim and ad interim reliefs in terms of prayer A or prayer B hereinabove.
5.
For such other and further reliefs as this Hon’ble Court may deem fit;
AND FOR THIS ACT OF KINDNESS THE PETITIONERS SHALL AS IN DUTY BOUND FOREVER PRAY.
SARLA S. PAREKH
VIJAY MUKHI
[Petitioners]
Messrs DSK Legal
Advocates for the Petitioners
VERIFICATION
I, Vijay Mukhi, of Mumbai, Indian inhabitant, Petitioner No. 2 herein, having my office at C/o. DSK Legal, 4th Floor, Express Towers, Nariman Point, Mumbai 400 021, do hereby solemnly declare that what is stated in the aforesaid paragraphs is stated on knowledge, information and belief and I believe the same to be true.
Solemnly declared at Mumbai )
this ___ day of December 2008 )
Before me
Messrs DSK Legal
Advocates for the Petitioners
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
AND
EXTRAORDINARY JURISDICTION UNDER ARTICLE 226
OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
PUBLIC INTEREST PETITION NO. OF 2008
In the matter of Articles 21 and 355 of the Constitution of India;
And
In the matter of Article 226 of the Constitution of India;
And
In the matter of the terror attacks in the City of Mumbai on November 26, 2008 and other terror attacks and security threats faced by the City of Mumbai and other places in India from time to time;
And
In the matter of e-security measures to envisage, prevent and mitigate the occurrence in future of such terror attacks and security threats in the City of Mumbai and other places in India
1. Sarla S. Parekh ]
of Mumbai Indian Inhabitant ]
residing at 5th Floor ]
Bharatiya Bhavan ]
72, Marine Drive, Mumbai ]
2. Vijay Mukhi, ]
C/o. DSK Legal, 4th Floor, ]
Express Towers, Nariman Point, ]
Mumbai 400 021 ] …Petitioners
Versus
1. Union of India ]
through the Secretary, Ministry of ]
Home Affairs, North Block, ]
Jailsalmer House, Lok Nayak ]
Bhavan, New Delhi 110 011 ]
And through the Secretary, ]
Ministry of Defence, South Block, ]
New Delhi 110 011 ]
2. State of Maharashtra ]
through its Chief Secretary and ]
through its Home Secretary ]
Mantralaya, Mumbai 400 032 ] …Respondents
To
The Prothonotary & Senior Master
High Court
Bombay
Madam,
We, Sarla S. Parekh and Vijay Mukhi, Petitioner Nos. 1 and 2 abovenamed, do hereby appoint Messrs DSK Legal, Advocates and Solicitors, to act, appear and plead for us and on our behalf in the above matter.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have set and subscribed our hand to this writing on this _____ day of December 2008.
SARLA S. PAREKH
PETITIONER NO. 1
VIJAY MUKHI
PETITIONER NO. 2
Accepted:
Messrs DSK Legal
Partner
Advocates for the Petitioners
4th Floor, Express Towers
Nariman Point
Mumbai 400 021
Regn. No. 6989
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
AND
EXTRAORDINARY JURISDICTION UNDER ARTICLE 226
OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
PUBLIC INTEREST PETITION NO. OF 2008
Sarla S. Parekh and Anr. … Petitioners
Versus
Union of India and Anr. … Respondents
MEMORANDUM OF REGISTERED ADDRESS
The address of Sarla S. Parekh and Vijay Mukhi, the Petitioners herein, for the purpose of service of proceedings in the above Petition is that of its Advocates:
Messrs DSK Legal
Advocates & Solicitors
4th Floor, Express Towers
Nariman Point
Mumbai 400 021
Messrs DSK Legal
Advocates for the Petitioners
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
AND
EXTRAORDINARY JURISDICTION UNDER ARTICLE 226
OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
PUBLIC INTEREST PETITION NO. OF 2008
Sarla S. Parekh and Anr. … Petitioners
Versus
Union of India and Anr. … Respondents
LIST OF DOCUMENTS ON WHICH THE PETITIONERS WHICH RELY
1.
A date wise summary of some of the attacks carried out by terrorist organisations in recent years in Mumbai.
2.
A date wise summary of some of the attacks which have been carried out by terrorist organizations in other parts of India.
3.
Any other document, if any, shall be relied upon with the permission of this Hon’ble Court.
Messrs DSK Legal
Advocates for the Petitioners
EXHIBIT “A”
DATE WISE SUMMARY OF SOME OF THE ATTACKS
CARRIED OUT IN RECENT YEARS IN MUMBAI
1.
March 12, 1993 – A series of 13 bomb blasts killing about 260 persons and injuring 713 perons.
2.
1997-1998 – 3 separate incidents of bomblasts in which 9 people die and 4 are injured.
3.
December 2, 2002 – A powerful explosion in a bus outside the crowded Ghatkopar railway station and another in Mumbai Central station killing 2 persons killed and injured about 56 persons.
4.
December 6, 2002 – 2 people killed and about 25 people injured in a bomb blast at McDonalds fast food restaurant at Mumbai Central station.
5.
January 27, 2003 - At least 30 people injured when a bomb planted on a bicycle went off throwing splinters of sharp nails outside Vile Parle railway station.
6.
March 13, 2003 – A powerful bomb blast shattered a bogie of a local train at Mulund station killing 11 people and injuring more than 65.
7.
July 28, 2003 – Bomb planted in a bus explodes killing 3 and injuring about 31 persons.
8.
Aug 25, 2003 – Two bombings at the Gateway of India and the Mumba Devi temple killed about 52 persons and injured 167 persons
9.
July 11, 2006 – Seven explosions ripped through crowded commuter trains and stations in Mumbai, killing at least 180 people and leaving about 890 people injured.
10.
September 8, 2006 – Series of explosions in Malegaon killing atleast 32 people.
11.
November 26-28, 2008: Synchronised attacks in two hotels, the CST station and Nariman House at Colaba. About 200 persons killed and over 330 persons injured.
EXHIBIT “B”
DATE WISE SUMMARY OF SOME OF THE ATTACKS
CARRIED OUT IN OTHER PARTS OF INDIA
1.
February 14, 1998 - 13 blasts ripped through Coimbatore killing about 46 persons and injuring more than 200 persons.
2.
December 24-31, 1999 – Militants hijacked an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi with 189 people aboard, kill 1 passenger and force the release of 3 jailed militants in exchange.
3.
December 22, 2000 - Militants attacked the Red Fort in Delhi leaving 2 Army personnel and 1 civilian dead.
4.
October 1, 2001 - Militants attacked Jammu-Kashmir assembly complex, killing about 21 persons.
5.
December 13, 2001 – Terrorists attack the Indian parliament, killing 12 people including 6 policemen. An unprecedented attack on the seat of power in the world's biggest democracy.
6.
January 22, 2002 - 4 people were killed in an attack on the American Center, Kolkata by militants.
7.
March 30, 2002 – 7 persons were killed in an attack by militants on the Raghunath Temple in Jammu.
8.
May 14, 2002 - More than 30 Army men killed in a terrorist attack on an Army camp near Jammu.
9.
September 24, 2002 – Terrorist attack on the Akshardham temple near Gandhinagar killing about 31 persons.
10.
May 14, 2003 – Militants attacked an army camp near Jammu killing more than 30 persons.
11.
July 5, 2005 – Terrorist attack in Ayodhya killing 1 person.
12.
October 29, 2005 – Three blasts in New Delhi killed about 65 people and wounded about 210 more.
13.
March 7, 2006 - Triple bombings in Varanasi killed about 23 people and injured about 68 others.
14.
June 1, 2006 - Three heavily armed terrorists were killed in an encounter with the police when they tried to drive through the security cordon guarding the RSS headquarters in Nagpur
15.
July 11, 2006 – Five hand grenade attacks in Srinagar where at least 8 people, including tourists and pilgrims, killed.
16.
May 21, 2006 – Militants’ attack at political rally at Srinagar killing 7 people.
17.
May 25, 2006 – Powerful explosion at Batpora on killing 4 tourists.
18.
February 19, 2007 – About 66 people killed after two firebombs went off on the Samjhauta Express.
19.
August 25, 2007 - About 42 people killed in two blasts, at a popular eatery and a public park.
20.
November 23, 2007 – Serial blasts in Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi killing about 4 persons.
21.
May 13, 2008 – Nine serial blasts at Jaipur killing about 68 people.
22.
June 1, 2008 – Low intensity blast at Honey Park in Surat.
23.
July 25, 2008 – Eight blasts in Bangalore where at least 2 persons killed and about 20 injured.
24.
July 26, 2008 – About 20 synchronised bombs went off within 2 hours in Ahmedabad killing about 54 people and injuring nearly 200.
25.
July 27, 2008 – Explosion in Surat. In the next few days, around 28 bombs including 2 car bombs were found in Surat, which possibly did not explode due to faulty mechanism.
26.
September 13, 2008 – About 26 people killed and about 110 people injured in six blasts across New Delhi.
27.
September 27, 2008 – 3 people killed after a crude bomb was thrown in a busy market in Mehrauli.
28.
September 29, 2008 – 1 person killed and several injured after a low-intensity bomb kept on a motorcycle went off in Modasa, Gujarat.
29.
October 14, 2008 – A bomb planted on a rented bicycle went off in Kanpur injuring 8 persons.
30.
October 21, 2008 – A powerful blast took place near the Manipur Police Commando complex in Imphal killing 17 persons.
31.
October 30, 2008 – At least 45 persons killed and over 100 persons injured in 18 terror bombings across Assam.
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
AND
EXTRAORDINARY JURISDICTION UNDER ARTICLE 226
OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
PUBLIC INTEREST PETITION NO. OF 2008
Sarla S. Parekh and Anr. … Petitioners
Versus
Union of India and Anr. … Respondents
I, Vijay Mukhi, Indian inhabitant, Petitioner No. 2 herein, having my office at C/o. DSK Legal, 4th Floor, Express Towers, Nariman Point, Mumbai 400 021, do hereby solemnly affirm and state on oath as under:
1.
I say that I am Petitioner No. 2 herein and am as such conversant with the facts of the case and have verified the petition. For the sake of brevity, I repeat, confirm and reiterate all that is stated in the petition as if the same were set out herein extensor.
2.
As more particularly set out in the petition, the Petitioners have filed the above petition for reliefs as more particularly described therein.
3.
In the facts and circumstances more particularly set out in the petition, it is absolutely just, convenient and expedient that the reliefs prayed for therein be granted in favour of the Petitioners.
4.
In the circumstances, the Petitioner No. 2 prays that the petition be allowed and the reliefs prayed for be granted.
Solemnly affirmed at Mumbai )
this ____ day of December 2008 )
Before me,
Messrs DSK Legal
Advocates for the Petitioners
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
AND
EXTRAORDINARY JURISDICTION UNDER ARTICLE 226
OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
PUBLIC INTEREST PETITION NO. OF 2008
Sarla S. Parekh and Anr. … Petitioners
Versus
Union of India and Anr. … Respondents
INDEX
Sr. No.
Particulars
Page Nos.
PROFORMA
I - III
1.
Synopsis
2.
Petition dated December 12, 2008
3.
Vakalatnama dated December 12, 2008
5.
Memorandum of Registered Address
5.
List of documents
6.
Exhibit “A”
A date wise summary of some of the attacks carried out in recent years in Mumbai.
7.
Exhibit “B”
A date wise summary of some of the attacks carried out in other parts of India.
8.
Affidavit of Mr. Vijay Mukhi in support of Petition
9.
Petitioners’ Advocates’ Certificate as per Rule 636 (1)(b) of the Bombay High Court (Original Side) Rules, 1980
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
AND
EXTRAORDINARY JURISDICTION UNDER ARTICLE 226
OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
PUBLIC INTEREST PETITION NO. OF 2008
Sarla S. Parekh and Anr. … Petitioners
Versus
Union of India and Anr. … Respondents
SYNOPSIS
Sr. No.
Date
Events
1.
March 12, 1993
A series of 13 bomb blasts in Mumbai killed about 260 persons and injured 713 perons.
2.
1997-1998
3 separate incidents of bomblasts took place in Mumbai in which 9 people died and 4 people were injured.
3.
December 2, 2002
A powerful explosion took place in a bus outside the crowded Ghatkopar railway station and another in Mumbai Central station in Mumbai killing 2 persons and injuring about 56 persons.
4.
December 6, 2002
2 people were killed and about 25 people were injured in a bomb blast at McDonalds fast food restaurant at Mumbai Central station in Mumbai.
5.
January 27, 2003
At least 30 people were injured when a bomb planted on a bicycle went off throwing splinters of sharp nails outside Vile Parle railway station in Mumbai.
6.
March 13, 2003
A powerful bomb blast shattered a bogie of a local train at Mulund station killing 11 people and injuring more than 65 people in Mumbai.
7.
July 28, 2003
Bomb planted in a bus exploded in Mumbai killing 3 and injuring about 31 persons.
8.
Aug 25, 2003
Two bombings at the Gateway of India and the Mumba Devi temple in Mumbai killed about 52 persons and injured 167 persons
9.
July 11, 2006
Seven explosions ripped through crowded commuter trains and stations in Mumbai, killing at least 180 people and leaving about 890 people injured.
10.
September 8, 2006
Series of explosions took place in Malegaon killing atleast 32 people.
11.
November 26-28, 2008
Synchronised attacks were carried out in two hotels, the CST station and Nariman House at Colaba in Mumbai. About 200 persons were killed and over 330 persons were injured.
12.
The City of Mumbai, and the entire nation, has, from time to time in the past few years, faced terror attacks and security threats and the most recent and glaring example of such an attack is the said attack on the City of Mumbai from November 26, 2008, which was not only extremely brutal in its nature but was also well planned and calculated to create maximum physical and psychological damage. Terrorist organizations, and organized crime, which carry out such attacks, operate at a very high level of efficiency and are very well trained in the use of technology for the purpose of carrying out such attacks. Such attacks have time and again caused severe loss to lives and damage to property and have disrupted all activity and wreaked havoc on the minds of Indians, who are now feeling a sense of complete insecurity. Such terror attacks also affect the psychology of citizens and youth and children through the extensive media coverage.
13.
Terrorist attacks are very well coordinated and terrorists are highly trained in the use of technology and are also dependant upon it for carrying out coordinated attacks and causing maximum damage. Any mechanism for capturing the perpetrators of such attacks before they can take place or for preventing recurrence of such attacks requires sophisticated technology and a very high level of coordination between the authorities. The present security capabilities of the State machinery are inadequate to anticipate, prevent and mitigate such attacks and there is an urgent need to introduce fresh technology and upgrade the existing technology. Such measures, if not initiated forthwith and in a time bound manner, would leave the nation and its citizens at the mercy of terrorists and would undermine the faith of the people in the capabilities of the authorities and the law enforcement machinery to preserve and uphold the sovereignty of our nation and ensure the safety of its people.
14.
It is therefore imperative that suitable software technologies be set up by the authorities so as to enable them to intercept activities of terrorist organizations, anticipate terror attacks in the future and take appropriate steps to capture the perpetrators of such acts and to prevent or mitigate such attacks in the future.
POINTS TO BE URGED:
1. It is imperative that suitable software technologies be set up by the authorities so as to enable them to intercept activities of terrorist organizations, anticipate terror attacks in the future and take appropriate steps to capture the perpetrators of such acts and to prevent or mitigate terror attacks in the future. The Petitioners seek directions of this Hon’ble Court to the Respondents to set up and updating software technologies which can be used in intercepting, anticipate and prevent terror attacks.
2. As more particularly mentioned in the petition.
ACTS TO BE RELIED UPON:
1.
The Constitution of India.
2.
Any other Act, Rule or Regulation.
AUTHORITIES TO BE CITED
As may be required at the time of arguments.
Messrs DSK Legal
Advocates for the Petitioners
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
AND
EXTRAORDINARY JURISDICTION UNDER ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
PUBLIC INTEREST PETITION NO. OF 2008
Sarla S. Parekh and Anr.
… Petitioners
Versus
Union of India and Anr.
… Respondents
PETITION
Dated this ___ day of December 2008
Messrs DSK Legal
Advocates for the Petitioners
4th Floor, Express Towers
Nariman Point
Mumbai 400 021
March 14, 2009
Kayani readying for military coup in Pakistan
, by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Published in Hindustan Times, Wed 11 March 2009 “All The General’s Men”
Published in Hindustan Times, Edit Page, issue of Wednesday, 11 March 2009
All The General’s Men by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Copyright: Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, 2009
International Publishing Rights in all media with Hindustan Times
Reproduction or forwarding in any format, in any jurisdiction, strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Tel: {91} 9990 265 822, 98 118 36 331, 987 12 45678, 98 10 91 12 34
p@r67.net r@50g.com rp@k.st
Published in Hindustan Times, Edit Page, issue of Wednesday, 11 March 2009
All The General’s Men by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
The warnings issued by Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari to clear up the political mess by March 16 has led to speculation that the Army may again seize power. Even though Kayani has long been perceived to be apolitical, he has actually been preparing since September 2008 to launch a coup.
According to military experts, an Army Chief would require the close cooperation of three key officers in order to carry out a coup – the Commander of the X Corps at Rawalpindi, the Chief of General Staff at General Head Quarters, and the Director General of the Inter Services Intelligence. In a reshuffle carried out on 29 September 2008, Kayani had placed his trusted loyalists in these three key positions.
Significantly, these three officers were all promoted from major generals to lieutenant generals only on that date. They therefore owe their posts to Kayani and not to Pervez Musharraf. Even though they are the most junior of the 31 lieutenant generals in terms of age and length of service, being due to retire only in September 2012, they hold the three most powerful positions.
Major General Tahir Mahmood, Commander of the Special Services Group, was promoted and posted as Corps Commander of the powerful X Corps at Rawalpindi. Operations along the Line of Control, Siachen and Kargil come under him.
Major General Mohammad Mustafa Khan, who was in the ISI, was promoted and appointed as the Chief of General Staff at General Head Quarters, a post which traditionally acts as the eyes and ears of the Chief of Army Staff. The Military Operations and Intelligence Directorates function under him.
Most importantly, Major General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who was Director General Military Operations, in charge of anti-militant operations in the North West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas, was promoted and posted as Director General of the ISI.
Significantly, Kayani had himself held these crucial posts earlier, where he had gained the trust and admiration of his junior officers due to his professionalism and discipline, as well as the fact that he had risen from a humble background, his father being a Naib Subedar in the army. Regard for him rose when he declined to promote the careers of his younger brothers – two retired as majors and one as a brigadier.
When he was promoted as lieutenant general in September 2003, Kayani was entrusted as Corps Commander of the powerful X Corps at Rawalpindi, in spite of his relative lack of seniority. He was in this post till October 2004, when he was transferred as Director General of the ISI. He headed ISI till October 2007, when he was promoted as a full general, and made the Vice Chief of Army Staff, superseding Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai who was in charge of the nuclear weapons programme. Kayani is the only officer who held the position of DG of ISI and then went on to become the Chief of Army Staff. It is a measure of his control over the army that none of the dozen major generals who were superseded in the September 2008 restructuring raised any protest.
Zardari’s refusal to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhary as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and his vendetta against the Sharif brothers have nullified the moral and intellectual arguments against the regime of Pervez Musharraf. Indeed, Musharraf has indicated his willingness to become president again. Zarari’s nickname has changed from “Mr Ten Per Cent” to “Mr Hundred Per Cent Liability”, in contrast to the financial rectitude of Kayani and Musharraf.
It is reported that Kayani’s warning to Zardari was issued with the encouragement of USA – he had just returned from a visit there where he met USA’s National Security Adviser General James Jones and Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke. This is a significant change of direction for USA, which had recently accused Kayani of maintaining links with Islamic militant groups after telephone intercepts revealed that he had referred to Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani as a “strategic asset”. But Kayani is a better bet for the USA compared to an incompetent, corrupt and vindictive Zardari.
Even though Kayani has been perceived as apolitical, it is worth keeping in mind the words of a serving US general: “But the elevation to the post of army chief has been known to change Pakistani officers…All the military dictators so far – Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zia ul Haq, Pervez Musharraf, had a reputation of being apolitical before they actually seized power…”
What is most worrisome for India is that within a few years, the Islamic fundamentalists who joined the army during the days of Zia ul Haq will rise to the lieutenant general levels. India will then be subject to more terrorist attacks from Islamic militant groups sponsored by Islamist generals.
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon and IIT
Kanpur, heads a group on C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications and
Computers Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting) in
South Asia.
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Tel: {91} 9990 265 822, 98 118 36 331, 987 12 45678, 98 10 91 12 34
p@r67.net r@50g.com rp@k.st
Mailing Address
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
19 Maitri Apts, CIS Off Soc # 19
A – 3, Paschim Vihar
New Delhi 110 063
Published in Hindustan Times, Edit Page, issue of Wednesday, 11 March 2009
All The General’s Men By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Copyright: Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, 2009
International Publishing Rights in all media with Hindustan Times
Reproduction or forwarding in any format, in any jurisdiction, strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Published in Hindustan Times, Wed 11 March 2009 “All The General’s Men”
Published in Hindustan Times, Edit Page, issue of Wednesday, 11 March 2009
All The General’s Men by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Copyright: Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, 2009
International Publishing Rights in all media with Hindustan Times
Reproduction or forwarding in any format, in any jurisdiction, strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Tel: {91} 9990 265 822, 98 118 36 331, 987 12 45678, 98 10 91 12 34
p@r67.net r@50g.com rp@k.st
Published in Hindustan Times, Edit Page, issue of Wednesday, 11 March 2009
All The General’s Men by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
The warnings issued by Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari to clear up the political mess by March 16 has led to speculation that the Army may again seize power. Even though Kayani has long been perceived to be apolitical, he has actually been preparing since September 2008 to launch a coup.
According to military experts, an Army Chief would require the close cooperation of three key officers in order to carry out a coup – the Commander of the X Corps at Rawalpindi, the Chief of General Staff at General Head Quarters, and the Director General of the Inter Services Intelligence. In a reshuffle carried out on 29 September 2008, Kayani had placed his trusted loyalists in these three key positions.
Significantly, these three officers were all promoted from major generals to lieutenant generals only on that date. They therefore owe their posts to Kayani and not to Pervez Musharraf. Even though they are the most junior of the 31 lieutenant generals in terms of age and length of service, being due to retire only in September 2012, they hold the three most powerful positions.
Major General Tahir Mahmood, Commander of the Special Services Group, was promoted and posted as Corps Commander of the powerful X Corps at Rawalpindi. Operations along the Line of Control, Siachen and Kargil come under him.
Major General Mohammad Mustafa Khan, who was in the ISI, was promoted and appointed as the Chief of General Staff at General Head Quarters, a post which traditionally acts as the eyes and ears of the Chief of Army Staff. The Military Operations and Intelligence Directorates function under him.
Most importantly, Major General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who was Director General Military Operations, in charge of anti-militant operations in the North West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas, was promoted and posted as Director General of the ISI.
Significantly, Kayani had himself held these crucial posts earlier, where he had gained the trust and admiration of his junior officers due to his professionalism and discipline, as well as the fact that he had risen from a humble background, his father being a Naib Subedar in the army. Regard for him rose when he declined to promote the careers of his younger brothers – two retired as majors and one as a brigadier.
When he was promoted as lieutenant general in September 2003, Kayani was entrusted as Corps Commander of the powerful X Corps at Rawalpindi, in spite of his relative lack of seniority. He was in this post till October 2004, when he was transferred as Director General of the ISI. He headed ISI till October 2007, when he was promoted as a full general, and made the Vice Chief of Army Staff, superseding Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai who was in charge of the nuclear weapons programme. Kayani is the only officer who held the position of DG of ISI and then went on to become the Chief of Army Staff. It is a measure of his control over the army that none of the dozen major generals who were superseded in the September 2008 restructuring raised any protest.
Zardari’s refusal to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhary as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and his vendetta against the Sharif brothers have nullified the moral and intellectual arguments against the regime of Pervez Musharraf. Indeed, Musharraf has indicated his willingness to become president again. Zarari’s nickname has changed from “Mr Ten Per Cent” to “Mr Hundred Per Cent Liability”, in contrast to the financial rectitude of Kayani and Musharraf.
It is reported that Kayani’s warning to Zardari was issued with the encouragement of USA – he had just returned from a visit there where he met USA’s National Security Adviser General James Jones and Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke. This is a significant change of direction for USA, which had recently accused Kayani of maintaining links with Islamic militant groups after telephone intercepts revealed that he had referred to Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani as a “strategic asset”. But Kayani is a better bet for the USA compared to an incompetent, corrupt and vindictive Zardari.
Even though Kayani has been perceived as apolitical, it is worth keeping in mind the words of a serving US general: “But the elevation to the post of army chief has been known to change Pakistani officers…All the military dictators so far – Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zia ul Haq, Pervez Musharraf, had a reputation of being apolitical before they actually seized power…”
What is most worrisome for India is that within a few years, the Islamic fundamentalists who joined the army during the days of Zia ul Haq will rise to the lieutenant general levels. India will then be subject to more terrorist attacks from Islamic militant groups sponsored by Islamist generals.
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon and IIT
Kanpur, heads a group on C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications and
Computers Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting) in
South Asia.
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Tel: {91} 9990 265 822, 98 118 36 331, 987 12 45678, 98 10 91 12 34
p@r67.net r@50g.com rp@k.st
Mailing Address
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
19 Maitri Apts, CIS Off Soc # 19
A – 3, Paschim Vihar
New Delhi 110 063
Published in Hindustan Times, Edit Page, issue of Wednesday, 11 March 2009
All The General’s Men By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
Copyright: Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, 2009
International Publishing Rights in all media with Hindustan Times
Reproduction or forwarding in any format, in any jurisdiction, strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
South American Nations Form Regional Defense Council
March 12th 2009, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com
Defense ministers from Venezuela and eleven other South American nations formed the South American Defense Council Tuesday at a summit in Chile. The council will be a diplomatic forum to diffuse regional conflicts, increase transparency in military expenditures, and to promote military cooperation for the fulfillment of regional security needs.
Chilean Defense Minister José Goñi said the new council will “give life to an alliance that strengthens mutual confidence through integration, dialogue, and cooperation in defense matters.”
A declaration signed by the ministers at the summit said the council aims to construct a “zone of peace” on the South American continent, and “a South American identity in defense matters that contributes to the strengthening of Latin American and Caribbean unity.”
The declaration also establishes a commitment by each member nation to respect the territorial sovereignty of other member nations, and to the protection of democratic systems of government.
The council will meet at least once per year, and among its tasks will be the identification of common security risks, including potential natural disasters, and to prepare a means of immediate consultation among regional security chiefs to plan joint responses.
The council will also build a network for sharing military knowledge, policies, and technological innovations. This includes linking up military training academies and founding a new “South American Center of Strategic Defense Studies.” And, the council will promote bi-lateral and multi-lateral investment in the region’s defense industries.
The new defense council is an arm of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a political integration organization that began informally in 2004 and was formally constituted last May. Its member countries are Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Surinam y Guyana.
The United States is not included in the defense council, but the council discussed the possibility of the U.S. participating as an observer if the U.S. changes its policy toward Cuba.
“The entire international community is against the blockade and other arbitrary U.S.-imposed measures against Cuba,” said Venezuelan Vice President Ramón Carrizalez, who was recently appointed defense minister in accordance with a new law that separates military administration from operations.
Brazil, Latin America’s biggest arms producer, has been the most active promoter of the defense council over the past year. Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim went on a tour of South American countries and visited Washington, D.C. last year to promote the idea.
Jobim has consistently emphasized that the council does not propose a common army or any military operations against third parties, and should not be viewed as a southern equivalent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Jobim’s tour came in the aftermath of Colombia’s attack on guerrilla rebels in Ecuadoran territory last March, which set off a regional diplomatic crisis and gave impetus to the idea of a regional defense council.
Upon joining UNASUR, Colombia at first declined membership in the defense council, but this week Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos signed the council’s founding document.
Nonetheless, Santos’s declaration last week that justified Colombia’s cross-border attacks on rebel adversaries indicates that Colombia’s civil conflict could become a regional security issue again in the near future.
The twelve ministers at the summit in Chile agreed to meet again in Quito, Ecuador, within half a year to evaluate the progress of the agreement signed Tuesday in Santiago.
Defense ministers from Venezuela and eleven other South American nations formed the South American Defense Council Tuesday at a summit in Chile. The council will be a diplomatic forum to diffuse regional conflicts, increase transparency in military expenditures, and to promote military cooperation for the fulfillment of regional security needs.
Chilean Defense Minister José Goñi said the new council will “give life to an alliance that strengthens mutual confidence through integration, dialogue, and cooperation in defense matters.”
A declaration signed by the ministers at the summit said the council aims to construct a “zone of peace” on the South American continent, and “a South American identity in defense matters that contributes to the strengthening of Latin American and Caribbean unity.”
The declaration also establishes a commitment by each member nation to respect the territorial sovereignty of other member nations, and to the protection of democratic systems of government.
The council will meet at least once per year, and among its tasks will be the identification of common security risks, including potential natural disasters, and to prepare a means of immediate consultation among regional security chiefs to plan joint responses.
The council will also build a network for sharing military knowledge, policies, and technological innovations. This includes linking up military training academies and founding a new “South American Center of Strategic Defense Studies.” And, the council will promote bi-lateral and multi-lateral investment in the region’s defense industries.
The new defense council is an arm of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a political integration organization that began informally in 2004 and was formally constituted last May. Its member countries are Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Surinam y Guyana.
The United States is not included in the defense council, but the council discussed the possibility of the U.S. participating as an observer if the U.S. changes its policy toward Cuba.
“The entire international community is against the blockade and other arbitrary U.S.-imposed measures against Cuba,” said Venezuelan Vice President Ramón Carrizalez, who was recently appointed defense minister in accordance with a new law that separates military administration from operations.
Brazil, Latin America’s biggest arms producer, has been the most active promoter of the defense council over the past year. Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim went on a tour of South American countries and visited Washington, D.C. last year to promote the idea.
Jobim has consistently emphasized that the council does not propose a common army or any military operations against third parties, and should not be viewed as a southern equivalent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Jobim’s tour came in the aftermath of Colombia’s attack on guerrilla rebels in Ecuadoran territory last March, which set off a regional diplomatic crisis and gave impetus to the idea of a regional defense council.
Upon joining UNASUR, Colombia at first declined membership in the defense council, but this week Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos signed the council’s founding document.
Nonetheless, Santos’s declaration last week that justified Colombia’s cross-border attacks on rebel adversaries indicates that Colombia’s civil conflict could become a regional security issue again in the near future.
The twelve ministers at the summit in Chile agreed to meet again in Quito, Ecuador, within half a year to evaluate the progress of the agreement signed Tuesday in Santiago.
Is talibanised South the Swat Valley of India?
Source: VijayaVani
B R Haran
14 Mar 2009
After Islamabad’s peace deal which allowed Taliban to takeover Swat Valley, the latter took out a massive two-day rally, openly denigrating democracy and establishing Sharia. As a mark of things to come, a Geo TV journalist was murdered in the immediate aftermath of the takeover. While the connection between Al Qaida and Taliban is no secret, India’s most wanted criminal, Dawood Ibrahim, has also reportedly struck a deal with the Taliban.
The spread of Taliban into the interiors of Pakistan and its nexus with extant terror outfits is confirmed by the latest ambush on Sri Lankan cricketers. The attack exposed the failure of intelligence and security, the complacency of the Army, and the incapacity of the security forces to meet surprise challenges by terrorists.
The rogue state of Pakistan, the most potent breeding ground for terrorists, is now experiencing terror attacks on its own soil. The present government, which came to power on a ‘sympathy wave’ following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, is wanting in all areas of governance. It can neither control the ISI, nor the terror outfits, and in fact surrendered the Swat Valley to the Taliban. Pakistanis in general have been too willing to accept the Wahabi order and Sharia. In a nutshell, Pakistan is a failed state!
Pakistan’s talibanisation has evolved slowly since Partition. Having declared itself an Islamic State, it ensured that the minorities were driven out, liquidated, or converted. At times, even Shiites, Sufis and Ahmadiyas were not spared as Wahabi Sunnis took control of the country. While clandestinely supporting Taliban and Al Qaeda, Islamabad enjoyed American patronage on the pretext of assisting the latter in Afghanistan, and used US largesse in its machinations against India, from the Kashmir Valley to all corners of the nation.
Jihadi attacks
Successive Indian governments, committed to minority appeasement, have failed to realize that this breeds separatism and that “indoctrinated” elements are working against the nation. The fundamentalists have increased and jihadi “sleeper cells” have come up in several states in concert with Pakistan’s ISI.
The advent of the UPA government led to a sharp rise in sleeper modules and the rejuvenation of SIMI under different names, such as ‘Indian Mujahideen’ (IM), and a plethora of terror attacks on Indian soil. UPA’s inefficacy in tackling terrorism resulted in two dozen ‘major’ terror attacks (excluding Kashmir) – from a bomb blast on 15 August 2004 in Assam to the Mumbai carnage of 26 November 2008. Major cities and towns such as Ayodhya, Varanasi, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Malegaon and others were affected, and thousands of innocents lost their precious lives, while many more were injured, some maimed for life.
Yet the UPA was naïve enough to withdraw thousands of troops from the borders and facilitate terrorist infiltration through buses and trains in the name of Confidence Building Measures (CBM). It also almost surrendered the Siachen post, but timely intervention by the Chiefs of Armed Forces and BJP top brass staved off this calamity.
Pakistan as co-victim
The UPA inexplicably dubbed Pakistan as a “victim” of terrorism and proposed a “joint mechanism” against terror, when Pakistan is the main “perpetrator” of terror against India. Its concern for Muslim votes not only tainted its Pakistan and Kashmir policies, but also the anti-terror policy and decisions on national security. The Prime Minister did not blush saying he lost sleep over the plight of terror suspects.
Most astonishingly, the UPA invented something called “Hindu Terror’ and “Saffron Terror,” which served only to dilute the fight against jihad. At the fag end of its term, it took the grim carnage at Mumbai and the deaths of hundreds of innocents for UPA to sober up.
But is it awake?
Dr. C. I. Issac, delivering the P.A. Ramakrishnan Memorial Lecture in Chennai on 8 March 2009, dwelt extensively upon the fast-breeding Talibanisation faced by Kerala. He cited various instances over a period of time and exposed the aiding and abetting of Talibanisation by political fronts. This writer had a short discussion with Dr. Issac regarding a similar trend in Tamil Nadu. As both states share a vast border from Nilgiris and Gudalur to Coimbatore and from Theni to Thirunelveli and Kanyakumari, it is not a surprise that both have become a breeding ground for fundamentalist elements.
There has been a surge in the growth of Jihadi elements in Tamil Nadu in the last two decades. When a countrywide ban was enforced on SIMI, the Tamil Nadu unit took the avatars of “Al Umma” and “Jihad Committee” and Al Umma made its first major strike at the RSS HQs in Chennai in November 1993, killing 11 swayamsevaks.
The Jihad Committee, which has been regularly indulging in communal riots in the state, disintegrated when its leader Palani Baba was murdered. Thereafter the TMMK (Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam) was launched in 1995, giving a political colour to Islamic fundamentalism. It was founded by Hyder Ali, a SIMI activist and former associate of Palani Baba in the Jihad Committee, who left Al Umma after a tiff with its president Basha.
When Al Umma was banned for the Coimbatore blasts in February 1998, it changed colour as ‘Manitha Neethi Paasarai” (MNP). Thus, neither the banning of SIMI and Al Umma, nor disintegration of the Jihad Committee, reduced Islamic fundamentalism in the state. In fact, it started growing in different avatars with the support of Dravidian parties, which go to any extent for the sake of votebanks.
There is a general feeling outside the state that Tamil Nadu is normally peaceful and that terror attacks are confined to the RSS HQs attack of 1993 and the Coimbatore blasts of 1998. The reality is that between 1993 and 1998 there have been several terror attacks, to cite but a few:
1] Wife of a Dalit-Hindu activist died in a blast in Nagore on 4 July 1995.
2] Blast in Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple on 18 May 1996; TMMK leader Naina Mohammed and Sait Saheb, Raja Hussain and Fakrudin (cadres) arrested.
3] Bomb attack on Doordarshan Kendra’s Thanjavur office on 6 June 1997.
4] Scores of bomb explosions occurred within 20 months prior to the Coimbatore blasts.
5] On 6 December 1997 bombs exploded in Coimbatore-bound Cheran Express, Madurai-bound Pandiyan Express and Allepey Express in Trichur.
6] On 10 January 1998, a bomb exploded on Anna Flyover in the heart of Chennai city.
7] On 18 September 1997, five Hindu activists murdered in different places; three fundamentalists arrested.
8] On 9 December 1997, a cycle bomb exploded in Coimbatore suburb killing three women; Sultan Nazar and Abdul Quayum arrested.
The growth of Islamic fundamentalism was apparent during the DMK regime between 1996 and 2001. Though the law and order was comparatively better during AIADMK rule between 2001 and 2006, clandestine operations continued and sustained fundamentalism. This became evident when five MNP cadres were arrested on 22 July 2006 in Coimbatore (DMK came back to power in May 2006) on charges of plotting serial bomb blasts similar to the 1998 blasts. The five were acquitted on 9 February 2008 on grounds of being arrested on false charges!
Besides, half a dozen cadres of Al Umma were suddenly released from Palayamkottai prison in May 2006, within days of the present DMK government taking charge. During the Ganesh Chaturthi festival and visarjanam (immersion) processions, the TMMK habitually creates hurdles in many places. The worst incidents occurred in 2007 in Thammampatti near Attur in Salem district, where hundreds of innocent Tamil Hindus were arrested on false charges and it was alleged that state police committed human rights violations against arrested Hindus.
Regarding the release of Islamic fundamentalists by the DMK, Indian Express (8 August 2006) reported, “senior Policemen in Thirunelveli were shocked by what they termed the DMK Government’s ‘blatant sympathy’ for the Muslim fundamentalists.” This misplaced sympathy for the sake of votebanks is allegedly the reason behind the government’s refusal to appeal against the acquittal of Abdul Nazar Madani in the Coimbatore blasts case.
With the release of these fundamentalists from various prisons, Muslim pockets have begun to be Talibanised. A good example can be seen in Muslim-dominated ‘Melvisharam’ in Vellore district, where the dominant community refused civic amenities to non-Muslims of ‘Keezhvisharam,’ who have to depend on Melvisharam for anything. Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy approached the Madras High Court and later the Supreme Court to order a separate Panchayat status for Keezhvisharam, to save non-Muslims from dependence upon the oppressive Muslims of Melvisharam.
Dr. Swamy commented, “Islamic theology does not classify nations according to percentage of Muslim population, but according to the nature of the majority - whether it is united and aggressive or divided and passive. India is in the latter category, and hence even where Muslims are less than five percent as in Tamil Nadu, in pockets in the state where Muslims are in majority such as Thondi in Ramanathapuram district or Melvisharam in Vellore district, Muslims have established Dar ul Islam where Hindus are denied all civic amenities and live de facto as dhimmis.”
With Talibanisation comes the oppression of women. A woman running a tea shop and another working in a local beedi factory were waylaid and murdered in broad daylight in Thirunelveli, for trivial reasons, in the name of religion. Indian Express (26 March 2007) reported, “the police spoke of Al Umma, the fundamentalist outfit which had become weak after the arrest of more than 100 of its members in the Coimbatore case, which under the DMK regime had been rejuvenated and was trying to enforce edicts on the Muslim community in the districts of south Tamil Nadu.”
Recent events in Pakistan, particularly after Mumbai 2008, pose a real threat to India. Fundamentalists took out a huge rally in Calicut, Kerala. Though ignored by mainstream print and electronic media, the Tamil daily, Dinamalar, reported (19 February 2009) that the Popular Front of India (PFI) organised a massive “National Political Conference” in Calicut from 13-15 February 2009. Whether coincidence or planned, the Taliban simultaneously took out huge rallies in Swat Valley. The conference was attended by members of PFI from 16 states including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa and Delhi. Its ‘theme’ was “Power for People”!
At the conference, seminars for students and NRIs were conducted separately. Leaders from various politics-oriented Islamic outfits participated; one seminar was titled “Political power and Alternatives.” A seminar “against” terrorism was inaugurated by Magsaysay Award winner and Human Rights (sic) activist Sandip Pandey, and attended by ‘secularists’ like Swami Lakshmi Sankaracharya from Kanpur, advocate Prashant Bushan and Chennai-based Prof. Arunan. Secularist Kavitha Srivatsava, president, PUCL-Rajasthan, inaugurated the seminar on “Women power in politics”. National Ulemas organised a seminar on “Religion in granting power”. Sri Goya, editor, ‘Tejas’ chaired a meeting of media persons. A seminar on “Reservations” was also held. PFI’s National Political Conference culminated with a massive rally and public meeting attended by over two lakh people.
On 17 February 2007, The New Indian Express, Chennai, reported: “The ‘Q’ branch of the state police is now concerned about the formation of a new Islamic outfit, ‘Popular Front of India’ (PFI), a coordinated effort between three organisations – Karnataka For Dignity (KFD), Karnataka; Manitha Neethi Pasarai (MNP), Tamil Nadu; and National Development Front (NDF), Kerala. The new organisation was launched on Friday (16th February 2007) in Bangalore, ‘to coordinate & strengthen grassroot level developmental activities throughout the country,’ followed by an ‘Empower India’ conference in the garden city. Though the organisation’s agenda has been well spelt out – democracy & social justice, the state police fear that the organisation had been set up to propagate hardliner ideology. A ‘Q’ branch official had said, ‘What is worrying us is the fact that a majority of the leaders of this new front belonged to the now banned SIMI’. The decision to launch Popular Front of India (PFI) has been taken at a conference of KFD, MNP & NDF held on 22 November 2006 at Calicut. The leaders of PFI include K.M. Shareef, President of KFD, Gulam Muhammed, leader of MNP and Abdur Rahman Baqari of NDF and they have decided to confine their activities to South India’.
A close look at the choice of words in their nomenclatures tells us how cleverly they are getting into mainstream politics! Soft and gentle words like Dignity, National, Development, Manitham (Humanity), Neethi (Justice), Popular and Munnetram (Improvement or forwarding), have replaced hardline words like Jihad and other Arabic or Urdu words. They claim to work for Democracy, Social Justice and Development! Similar nomenclatures were used in the just-concluded Calicut conference. The MNP attempted to take out a rally in Madurai last Republic Day; wall advertisements put out by the outfit allegedly carried the figure of the JKLF-Flag. MNP is also alleged to be the new name of banned organisation Al Umma, just like the TN unit of SIMI changed itself to Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam after the Centre banned SIMI.
On 26 July 2006, Indian Express carried a report on MNP indulging in ‘conversion’ and conducting classes in the name of 'Arivagam' to brainwash new converts, especially scheduled castes, to train and recruit them to Jihadi squads. The MNP is reportedly active in places close to the Kerala border (Theni, Coimbatore, etc), so it can connect with Kerala-based NDF easily. Investigations of Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Mumbai blasts reveal that Kerala has been a permanent and save haven and a training ground for Islamic terrorists who have been sent on Jihadi missions from Kerala to Kashmir. Just last month, the TMMK inaugurated its political wing in the name of “Manithaneya Makkal Katchi” meaning “Humane People Party”! The leaders of these outfits have also participated in the Calicut conference.
There seems to be a sudden surge of Islamic outfits to capture or share political power in India. While pseudo-secular politicians use the term ‘Talibanisation’ for utterly irrelevant episodes and outfits, Muslim-dominated spaces are getting increasingly Talibanised. This is an ominous sign and the next government has a heavy responsibility on its shoulders.
The author is a senior journalist; he lives in Chennai
B R Haran
14 Mar 2009
After Islamabad’s peace deal which allowed Taliban to takeover Swat Valley, the latter took out a massive two-day rally, openly denigrating democracy and establishing Sharia. As a mark of things to come, a Geo TV journalist was murdered in the immediate aftermath of the takeover. While the connection between Al Qaida and Taliban is no secret, India’s most wanted criminal, Dawood Ibrahim, has also reportedly struck a deal with the Taliban.
The spread of Taliban into the interiors of Pakistan and its nexus with extant terror outfits is confirmed by the latest ambush on Sri Lankan cricketers. The attack exposed the failure of intelligence and security, the complacency of the Army, and the incapacity of the security forces to meet surprise challenges by terrorists.
The rogue state of Pakistan, the most potent breeding ground for terrorists, is now experiencing terror attacks on its own soil. The present government, which came to power on a ‘sympathy wave’ following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, is wanting in all areas of governance. It can neither control the ISI, nor the terror outfits, and in fact surrendered the Swat Valley to the Taliban. Pakistanis in general have been too willing to accept the Wahabi order and Sharia. In a nutshell, Pakistan is a failed state!
Pakistan’s talibanisation has evolved slowly since Partition. Having declared itself an Islamic State, it ensured that the minorities were driven out, liquidated, or converted. At times, even Shiites, Sufis and Ahmadiyas were not spared as Wahabi Sunnis took control of the country. While clandestinely supporting Taliban and Al Qaeda, Islamabad enjoyed American patronage on the pretext of assisting the latter in Afghanistan, and used US largesse in its machinations against India, from the Kashmir Valley to all corners of the nation.
Jihadi attacks
Successive Indian governments, committed to minority appeasement, have failed to realize that this breeds separatism and that “indoctrinated” elements are working against the nation. The fundamentalists have increased and jihadi “sleeper cells” have come up in several states in concert with Pakistan’s ISI.
The advent of the UPA government led to a sharp rise in sleeper modules and the rejuvenation of SIMI under different names, such as ‘Indian Mujahideen’ (IM), and a plethora of terror attacks on Indian soil. UPA’s inefficacy in tackling terrorism resulted in two dozen ‘major’ terror attacks (excluding Kashmir) – from a bomb blast on 15 August 2004 in Assam to the Mumbai carnage of 26 November 2008. Major cities and towns such as Ayodhya, Varanasi, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Malegaon and others were affected, and thousands of innocents lost their precious lives, while many more were injured, some maimed for life.
Yet the UPA was naïve enough to withdraw thousands of troops from the borders and facilitate terrorist infiltration through buses and trains in the name of Confidence Building Measures (CBM). It also almost surrendered the Siachen post, but timely intervention by the Chiefs of Armed Forces and BJP top brass staved off this calamity.
Pakistan as co-victim
The UPA inexplicably dubbed Pakistan as a “victim” of terrorism and proposed a “joint mechanism” against terror, when Pakistan is the main “perpetrator” of terror against India. Its concern for Muslim votes not only tainted its Pakistan and Kashmir policies, but also the anti-terror policy and decisions on national security. The Prime Minister did not blush saying he lost sleep over the plight of terror suspects.
Most astonishingly, the UPA invented something called “Hindu Terror’ and “Saffron Terror,” which served only to dilute the fight against jihad. At the fag end of its term, it took the grim carnage at Mumbai and the deaths of hundreds of innocents for UPA to sober up.
But is it awake?
Dr. C. I. Issac, delivering the P.A. Ramakrishnan Memorial Lecture in Chennai on 8 March 2009, dwelt extensively upon the fast-breeding Talibanisation faced by Kerala. He cited various instances over a period of time and exposed the aiding and abetting of Talibanisation by political fronts. This writer had a short discussion with Dr. Issac regarding a similar trend in Tamil Nadu. As both states share a vast border from Nilgiris and Gudalur to Coimbatore and from Theni to Thirunelveli and Kanyakumari, it is not a surprise that both have become a breeding ground for fundamentalist elements.
There has been a surge in the growth of Jihadi elements in Tamil Nadu in the last two decades. When a countrywide ban was enforced on SIMI, the Tamil Nadu unit took the avatars of “Al Umma” and “Jihad Committee” and Al Umma made its first major strike at the RSS HQs in Chennai in November 1993, killing 11 swayamsevaks.
The Jihad Committee, which has been regularly indulging in communal riots in the state, disintegrated when its leader Palani Baba was murdered. Thereafter the TMMK (Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam) was launched in 1995, giving a political colour to Islamic fundamentalism. It was founded by Hyder Ali, a SIMI activist and former associate of Palani Baba in the Jihad Committee, who left Al Umma after a tiff with its president Basha.
When Al Umma was banned for the Coimbatore blasts in February 1998, it changed colour as ‘Manitha Neethi Paasarai” (MNP). Thus, neither the banning of SIMI and Al Umma, nor disintegration of the Jihad Committee, reduced Islamic fundamentalism in the state. In fact, it started growing in different avatars with the support of Dravidian parties, which go to any extent for the sake of votebanks.
There is a general feeling outside the state that Tamil Nadu is normally peaceful and that terror attacks are confined to the RSS HQs attack of 1993 and the Coimbatore blasts of 1998. The reality is that between 1993 and 1998 there have been several terror attacks, to cite but a few:
1] Wife of a Dalit-Hindu activist died in a blast in Nagore on 4 July 1995.
2] Blast in Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple on 18 May 1996; TMMK leader Naina Mohammed and Sait Saheb, Raja Hussain and Fakrudin (cadres) arrested.
3] Bomb attack on Doordarshan Kendra’s Thanjavur office on 6 June 1997.
4] Scores of bomb explosions occurred within 20 months prior to the Coimbatore blasts.
5] On 6 December 1997 bombs exploded in Coimbatore-bound Cheran Express, Madurai-bound Pandiyan Express and Allepey Express in Trichur.
6] On 10 January 1998, a bomb exploded on Anna Flyover in the heart of Chennai city.
7] On 18 September 1997, five Hindu activists murdered in different places; three fundamentalists arrested.
8] On 9 December 1997, a cycle bomb exploded in Coimbatore suburb killing three women; Sultan Nazar and Abdul Quayum arrested.
The growth of Islamic fundamentalism was apparent during the DMK regime between 1996 and 2001. Though the law and order was comparatively better during AIADMK rule between 2001 and 2006, clandestine operations continued and sustained fundamentalism. This became evident when five MNP cadres were arrested on 22 July 2006 in Coimbatore (DMK came back to power in May 2006) on charges of plotting serial bomb blasts similar to the 1998 blasts. The five were acquitted on 9 February 2008 on grounds of being arrested on false charges!
Besides, half a dozen cadres of Al Umma were suddenly released from Palayamkottai prison in May 2006, within days of the present DMK government taking charge. During the Ganesh Chaturthi festival and visarjanam (immersion) processions, the TMMK habitually creates hurdles in many places. The worst incidents occurred in 2007 in Thammampatti near Attur in Salem district, where hundreds of innocent Tamil Hindus were arrested on false charges and it was alleged that state police committed human rights violations against arrested Hindus.
Regarding the release of Islamic fundamentalists by the DMK, Indian Express (8 August 2006) reported, “senior Policemen in Thirunelveli were shocked by what they termed the DMK Government’s ‘blatant sympathy’ for the Muslim fundamentalists.” This misplaced sympathy for the sake of votebanks is allegedly the reason behind the government’s refusal to appeal against the acquittal of Abdul Nazar Madani in the Coimbatore blasts case.
With the release of these fundamentalists from various prisons, Muslim pockets have begun to be Talibanised. A good example can be seen in Muslim-dominated ‘Melvisharam’ in Vellore district, where the dominant community refused civic amenities to non-Muslims of ‘Keezhvisharam,’ who have to depend on Melvisharam for anything. Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy approached the Madras High Court and later the Supreme Court to order a separate Panchayat status for Keezhvisharam, to save non-Muslims from dependence upon the oppressive Muslims of Melvisharam.
Dr. Swamy commented, “Islamic theology does not classify nations according to percentage of Muslim population, but according to the nature of the majority - whether it is united and aggressive or divided and passive. India is in the latter category, and hence even where Muslims are less than five percent as in Tamil Nadu, in pockets in the state where Muslims are in majority such as Thondi in Ramanathapuram district or Melvisharam in Vellore district, Muslims have established Dar ul Islam where Hindus are denied all civic amenities and live de facto as dhimmis.”
With Talibanisation comes the oppression of women. A woman running a tea shop and another working in a local beedi factory were waylaid and murdered in broad daylight in Thirunelveli, for trivial reasons, in the name of religion. Indian Express (26 March 2007) reported, “the police spoke of Al Umma, the fundamentalist outfit which had become weak after the arrest of more than 100 of its members in the Coimbatore case, which under the DMK regime had been rejuvenated and was trying to enforce edicts on the Muslim community in the districts of south Tamil Nadu.”
Recent events in Pakistan, particularly after Mumbai 2008, pose a real threat to India. Fundamentalists took out a huge rally in Calicut, Kerala. Though ignored by mainstream print and electronic media, the Tamil daily, Dinamalar, reported (19 February 2009) that the Popular Front of India (PFI) organised a massive “National Political Conference” in Calicut from 13-15 February 2009. Whether coincidence or planned, the Taliban simultaneously took out huge rallies in Swat Valley. The conference was attended by members of PFI from 16 states including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa and Delhi. Its ‘theme’ was “Power for People”!
At the conference, seminars for students and NRIs were conducted separately. Leaders from various politics-oriented Islamic outfits participated; one seminar was titled “Political power and Alternatives.” A seminar “against” terrorism was inaugurated by Magsaysay Award winner and Human Rights (sic) activist Sandip Pandey, and attended by ‘secularists’ like Swami Lakshmi Sankaracharya from Kanpur, advocate Prashant Bushan and Chennai-based Prof. Arunan. Secularist Kavitha Srivatsava, president, PUCL-Rajasthan, inaugurated the seminar on “Women power in politics”. National Ulemas organised a seminar on “Religion in granting power”. Sri Goya, editor, ‘Tejas’ chaired a meeting of media persons. A seminar on “Reservations” was also held. PFI’s National Political Conference culminated with a massive rally and public meeting attended by over two lakh people.
On 17 February 2007, The New Indian Express, Chennai, reported: “The ‘Q’ branch of the state police is now concerned about the formation of a new Islamic outfit, ‘Popular Front of India’ (PFI), a coordinated effort between three organisations – Karnataka For Dignity (KFD), Karnataka; Manitha Neethi Pasarai (MNP), Tamil Nadu; and National Development Front (NDF), Kerala. The new organisation was launched on Friday (16th February 2007) in Bangalore, ‘to coordinate & strengthen grassroot level developmental activities throughout the country,’ followed by an ‘Empower India’ conference in the garden city. Though the organisation’s agenda has been well spelt out – democracy & social justice, the state police fear that the organisation had been set up to propagate hardliner ideology. A ‘Q’ branch official had said, ‘What is worrying us is the fact that a majority of the leaders of this new front belonged to the now banned SIMI’. The decision to launch Popular Front of India (PFI) has been taken at a conference of KFD, MNP & NDF held on 22 November 2006 at Calicut. The leaders of PFI include K.M. Shareef, President of KFD, Gulam Muhammed, leader of MNP and Abdur Rahman Baqari of NDF and they have decided to confine their activities to South India’.
A close look at the choice of words in their nomenclatures tells us how cleverly they are getting into mainstream politics! Soft and gentle words like Dignity, National, Development, Manitham (Humanity), Neethi (Justice), Popular and Munnetram (Improvement or forwarding), have replaced hardline words like Jihad and other Arabic or Urdu words. They claim to work for Democracy, Social Justice and Development! Similar nomenclatures were used in the just-concluded Calicut conference. The MNP attempted to take out a rally in Madurai last Republic Day; wall advertisements put out by the outfit allegedly carried the figure of the JKLF-Flag. MNP is also alleged to be the new name of banned organisation Al Umma, just like the TN unit of SIMI changed itself to Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam after the Centre banned SIMI.
On 26 July 2006, Indian Express carried a report on MNP indulging in ‘conversion’ and conducting classes in the name of 'Arivagam' to brainwash new converts, especially scheduled castes, to train and recruit them to Jihadi squads. The MNP is reportedly active in places close to the Kerala border (Theni, Coimbatore, etc), so it can connect with Kerala-based NDF easily. Investigations of Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Mumbai blasts reveal that Kerala has been a permanent and save haven and a training ground for Islamic terrorists who have been sent on Jihadi missions from Kerala to Kashmir. Just last month, the TMMK inaugurated its political wing in the name of “Manithaneya Makkal Katchi” meaning “Humane People Party”! The leaders of these outfits have also participated in the Calicut conference.
There seems to be a sudden surge of Islamic outfits to capture or share political power in India. While pseudo-secular politicians use the term ‘Talibanisation’ for utterly irrelevant episodes and outfits, Muslim-dominated spaces are getting increasingly Talibanised. This is an ominous sign and the next government has a heavy responsibility on its shoulders.
The author is a senior journalist; he lives in Chennai
WebLab : A platform aiming at providing intelligence (business, strategic, military...)
EADS in Major Intelligence Play
According to IntelligenceOnline.com "French military intelligence and European security agencies appear keen to acquire WebLab, a platform designed by EADS to extract and disseminate all types of information"
According to IntelligenceOnline.com "French military intelligence and European security agencies appear keen to acquire WebLab, a platform designed by EADS to extract and disseminate all types of information"
WebLab : http://weblab-project.org/weblab-core/weblab/
The WebLab is a platform aiming at providing intelligence (business, strategic, military...) solutions and any other applications that need to process multimedia data (text, image, audio and video).
It is composed of several layers:
WebLab Core: An open source technical baseline (and free to use in any commercial application) acting as a runtime environment for unstructured information processing services. It has been developed by the Information Processing Competence Center of EADS Defence and Security and its partners in the following projects:
WebContent: The Semantic Web Platform, French ANR Project 2005,
VITALAS: Video & image Indexing and Retrieval in the Large Scale, European Project 2006,
e-Wok Hub: Environmental Web Ontology Knowledge Hub, French ANR Project 2006.
WebLab Services: A set of multimedia processing services and GUI either open source or commercial developed by EADS or its partners (among other, the one of the submentionned projects) to build specific applications.
WebLab Applications: A set of business specific applications either open source or commercial developed by EADS or its partners (among other, the one of the submentionned projects) to build specific applications.
One of this existing application is the EADS WISE application (WebLab Intelligence Solution by EADS) dedicated to the military domain.
Russian mathematician 'calculated' crisis, prepared for it
16:32 | 12/ 03/ 2009
MOSCOW, March 12 (RIA Novosti) - A prominent mathematician, known for his accurate predictions on Russia's 1998 financial crisis and the breakup of the U.S.S.R., 'calculated' the current credit crunch and prepared for it, Russia's government daily said on Thursday.
Viktor Maslov, a member of Russia's Academy of Sciences, who helped make calculations for a protective shelter over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant reactor after the 1986 disaster, said the processes now taking place in economics are similar to certain phenomena in physics, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.
"I am referring to what is known as phase shifts, when a situation worsens abruptly, not gradually, and transforms into a different state, like an avalanche," Maslov told the daily. "Such processes are well known in physics, and are laid out in formulas of mathematical physics. They can also be applied to economics."
"Whether a crisis will break out or not, and even when this will happen, can be predicted," he told the paper.
Maslov said he had sold his apartment and country house in the summer, and sent the money to his children living abroad, advising them on how to invest it to survive the crisis.
Asked what advice he has for the administration of the United States, where the crisis originated, Maslov said they should not rescue large banks whose debts have long exceeded the "critical level," but focus on helping smaller banks that service individuals.
However, he was short on recommendations for Russia: "Our economy is too closed, and a large share of it is a shadow economy. It is therefore impossible to calculate critical figures and have a clear picture."
MOSCOW, March 12 (RIA Novosti) - A prominent mathematician, known for his accurate predictions on Russia's 1998 financial crisis and the breakup of the U.S.S.R., 'calculated' the current credit crunch and prepared for it, Russia's government daily said on Thursday.
Viktor Maslov, a member of Russia's Academy of Sciences, who helped make calculations for a protective shelter over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant reactor after the 1986 disaster, said the processes now taking place in economics are similar to certain phenomena in physics, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.
"I am referring to what is known as phase shifts, when a situation worsens abruptly, not gradually, and transforms into a different state, like an avalanche," Maslov told the daily. "Such processes are well known in physics, and are laid out in formulas of mathematical physics. They can also be applied to economics."
"Whether a crisis will break out or not, and even when this will happen, can be predicted," he told the paper.
Maslov said he had sold his apartment and country house in the summer, and sent the money to his children living abroad, advising them on how to invest it to survive the crisis.
Asked what advice he has for the administration of the United States, where the crisis originated, Maslov said they should not rescue large banks whose debts have long exceeded the "critical level," but focus on helping smaller banks that service individuals.
However, he was short on recommendations for Russia: "Our economy is too closed, and a large share of it is a shadow economy. It is therefore impossible to calculate critical figures and have a clear picture."
Russia shows concern over Chinese weapons piracy
19:07 | 13/ 03/ 2009
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - Several years ago, the media reported plans to sell between 30 and 50 Russian-made Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker-D carrier-borne fighters to China, which in turn planned to deploy them aboard its advanced aircraft carriers.
Subsequent media reports mentioned only 14 Su-33s and the mandatory purchase of two fighters for "familiarization" purposes.
But several wire services recently said the Su-33 deal did not go through.
China has already copied the hard-hitting Su-27 Flanker fighter and its engine parts, re-designating the plane as the Shenyang J-11 (JianJi-11), an advanced fourth-generation fighter now serving with the Chinese Air Force.
Russia was not very happy about such developments and probably got the impression that Beijing could copy the Su-33 after comparing its specifications with those of the T-10 prototype version.
After it had been receiving stockpiles of Soviet weapons and production equipment from the 1940s and until the 1960s, Beijing continued to manufacture their own technologically Soviet weaponry and equipment even after its relations with Moscow had gone sour in the 1960s.
China produced and upgraded all types of weapons, namely, firearms, mortars, artillery systems, armored fighting vehicles (including tanks), air defense systems and aircraft (including the famous Tupolev Tu-16 Badger intermediate-range bombers, which were re-designated as the Xian H-6s).
Beijing actively exported copies of Soviet weapons to the Third World, Albania, the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and to other countries that were unable to buy Soviet or Western weaponry for political reasons. These types of weapons are still in use today.
From 1979 to 1989, China supplied 90% of mortars to Mujahedin insurgents battling Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
However, Beijing continued to copy Soviet weaponry even after relations with Moscow had normalized in the late 1980s. China displayed copies of modern cruise missiles, aircraft engines, the aforesaid Su-27 fighter and many other military-equipment models.
The signing of contracts for the delivery of large weapon batches that would meet Chinese demand in specific areas could serve as a guarantee against unauthorized copying. However, Beijing is no longer interested in such purchases. What's more, this option does not rule out the copying of previously supplied weapon systems and their subsequent exports to third countries.
Such exports can only be prevented by signing a legally binding Russian-Chinese intellectual property protection agreement.
But the experience of the last few years shows that very few countries pirating Russian weapons are inclined to respect Moscow's copyright.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - Several years ago, the media reported plans to sell between 30 and 50 Russian-made Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker-D carrier-borne fighters to China, which in turn planned to deploy them aboard its advanced aircraft carriers.
Subsequent media reports mentioned only 14 Su-33s and the mandatory purchase of two fighters for "familiarization" purposes.
But several wire services recently said the Su-33 deal did not go through.
China has already copied the hard-hitting Su-27 Flanker fighter and its engine parts, re-designating the plane as the Shenyang J-11 (JianJi-11), an advanced fourth-generation fighter now serving with the Chinese Air Force.
Russia was not very happy about such developments and probably got the impression that Beijing could copy the Su-33 after comparing its specifications with those of the T-10 prototype version.
After it had been receiving stockpiles of Soviet weapons and production equipment from the 1940s and until the 1960s, Beijing continued to manufacture their own technologically Soviet weaponry and equipment even after its relations with Moscow had gone sour in the 1960s.
China produced and upgraded all types of weapons, namely, firearms, mortars, artillery systems, armored fighting vehicles (including tanks), air defense systems and aircraft (including the famous Tupolev Tu-16 Badger intermediate-range bombers, which were re-designated as the Xian H-6s).
Beijing actively exported copies of Soviet weapons to the Third World, Albania, the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and to other countries that were unable to buy Soviet or Western weaponry for political reasons. These types of weapons are still in use today.
From 1979 to 1989, China supplied 90% of mortars to Mujahedin insurgents battling Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
However, Beijing continued to copy Soviet weaponry even after relations with Moscow had normalized in the late 1980s. China displayed copies of modern cruise missiles, aircraft engines, the aforesaid Su-27 fighter and many other military-equipment models.
The signing of contracts for the delivery of large weapon batches that would meet Chinese demand in specific areas could serve as a guarantee against unauthorized copying. However, Beijing is no longer interested in such purchases. What's more, this option does not rule out the copying of previously supplied weapon systems and their subsequent exports to third countries.
Such exports can only be prevented by signing a legally binding Russian-Chinese intellectual property protection agreement.
But the experience of the last few years shows that very few countries pirating Russian weapons are inclined to respect Moscow's copyright.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
Fair trade is an interesting phenomenon--- LISTEN TO BBC Report
BBC GLOBAL BUSINESSLISTEN
Fair trade is an interesting phenomenon. It may be even more interesting than its supporters think it is.
The Fair Trade movement is an attempt to address the guilt rich world consumers feel about farmers and other raw material suppliers who are paid a tiny fraction of what the end user pays in western shops for the goods, and are subject to the hectic booms and busts of the international commodity markets, moving from feat to famine on a constant roller coaster.
I suppose the roots of this sort of uncomfortableness go back to the campaigns for the abolition of slavery in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Progressive thinkers such as Quakers had a lot to do with it.
Fair Traders trace the developing awareness of conditions on colonial plantations to the Dutch novel Max Havelaar by the author who called himself Multatuli: Eduard Douwes Dekker; it was published in 1860.
Education
Based on first hand observation of the conditions among coffee pickers in Dutch Indonesia or Java, the novel had a huge impact.
Shaken by the book, the Dutch government started putting money into selective education in Indonesia; some commentators trace the eventual anti colonial independence movements in many countries to the impact of that education.
Max Havalaar’s resonance continued into contemporary Holland. Max Havelaar was the first Fair Trade brand; coffee launched in the Netherlands in 1988, which soon became available in other parts of Europe, encouraging the founding of other local brands.
But Fair Trade had been developing on other fronts since the end of WW2. Then known as Alternative Trading, campaigners started shops in rich world countries selling craft good produced in the poor world.
In the 1960s and 70s, student activists and trade unionists waged war on apartheid in South Africa by boycotting banks and companies that traded there.
And there was similar activism form the Max Havelaar foundation in the Netherlands, which established fair trade standards and certification. The movement grew fast in power and plausibility in the 1990s.
Preference
Eventually, even sceptical conventional food companies had to acknowledge it by starting their own fair trade brands.
Fair Trade bananas appear to have been particularly successful, as demand grew in Europe for Caribbean bananas following a battle between the USA free traders (the big traditional banana companies with vast plantations in Central America) and the European Union with its preference for Caribbean fruit grown in former colonies.
The World Trade Organisation ruled that the EU preference was illegal; Fair Trade certified bananas became a way of continuing the battle by other means.
Most important, perhaps, the big retailers woke up to Fair Trade, too, moving it off the shelves of the campaign stores and into conventional retailing.
In places such as Britain, Fair Trade fruit, beverages and chocolate now have a significant foothold in the marketplace. Fair Trade gold is on the way next year. Fair Trade footballs have been on sale for some time.
Certified
But there are also objectors to the idea of paying farmers and producers a bit more than the open market price. Free market economists argue that Fair Trade tends to create an oversupply of products that pushes down market prices in general for other producers.
Often the Fair Trade premium is paid not direct to farmers as the rich world consumers are led to believe but goes to cooperatives and collectives who derive an organisational power base from the fair-trade premium they have to dispense to members.
And supporting local cooperatives may divert attention from energetic but conventionally capitalist local poor world companies trying to develop their own international brands without the benefit of a Fair Trade label. There are many ways of building economies.
It is also still a minority interest; there is more Fair Trade certified coffee than demand for it.
But Fair Trade has now reached the interesting commercial stage where it is becoming a useful way for retailers to differentiate themselves from rivals by showing they “care”. They are busy adding Fair Trade goods to free-range, organic, reduced chemicals in prepared food and cutting carbon emissions in stores and distribution.
Identity
They must feel it gives them an advantage; but will the spirit survive the great global recession?
I think it will. Fair Trade and the corporate conscience activities associated with it are part of the way increasingly wealthy consumers in many parts of the world will want to buy genuine products with a story, a place and an identity attached to them.
They will move beyond the mass-produced brand towards individuality that matches their own sense of themselves.
Fair Traders seem to realise now that Fair Trade certification is not enough. The interesting next step is to establish potent brands in their own right that tell individual Fair Trade stories, not just convey an aura of general goodwill.
By getting even more professional about it, Fair Traders may be able to grab back from the supply chain a portion of the profits that have traditionally gone to the big company brand owners.
And Fair Trade foods will also, of course, have to taste good. Better than the very familiar brands we have grown up with.
CONTRIBUTORS
Kate Sebag
Co-founder Tropical Wholefoods
Dyborn Charlie Chibonga
CEO National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi
Katie Stafford
Sustainability and Climate Change, Consultant, Price Waterhouse Coopers LLP
Pauline Tiffen
Independent Consultant
Co-founder of Cafe Direct and Divine Chocolate
Fair trade is an interesting phenomenon. It may be even more interesting than its supporters think it is.
The Fair Trade movement is an attempt to address the guilt rich world consumers feel about farmers and other raw material suppliers who are paid a tiny fraction of what the end user pays in western shops for the goods, and are subject to the hectic booms and busts of the international commodity markets, moving from feat to famine on a constant roller coaster.
I suppose the roots of this sort of uncomfortableness go back to the campaigns for the abolition of slavery in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Progressive thinkers such as Quakers had a lot to do with it.
Fair Traders trace the developing awareness of conditions on colonial plantations to the Dutch novel Max Havelaar by the author who called himself Multatuli: Eduard Douwes Dekker; it was published in 1860.
Education
Based on first hand observation of the conditions among coffee pickers in Dutch Indonesia or Java, the novel had a huge impact.
Shaken by the book, the Dutch government started putting money into selective education in Indonesia; some commentators trace the eventual anti colonial independence movements in many countries to the impact of that education.
Max Havalaar’s resonance continued into contemporary Holland. Max Havelaar was the first Fair Trade brand; coffee launched in the Netherlands in 1988, which soon became available in other parts of Europe, encouraging the founding of other local brands.
But Fair Trade had been developing on other fronts since the end of WW2. Then known as Alternative Trading, campaigners started shops in rich world countries selling craft good produced in the poor world.
In the 1960s and 70s, student activists and trade unionists waged war on apartheid in South Africa by boycotting banks and companies that traded there.
And there was similar activism form the Max Havelaar foundation in the Netherlands, which established fair trade standards and certification. The movement grew fast in power and plausibility in the 1990s.
Preference
Eventually, even sceptical conventional food companies had to acknowledge it by starting their own fair trade brands.
Fair Trade bananas appear to have been particularly successful, as demand grew in Europe for Caribbean bananas following a battle between the USA free traders (the big traditional banana companies with vast plantations in Central America) and the European Union with its preference for Caribbean fruit grown in former colonies.
The World Trade Organisation ruled that the EU preference was illegal; Fair Trade certified bananas became a way of continuing the battle by other means.
Most important, perhaps, the big retailers woke up to Fair Trade, too, moving it off the shelves of the campaign stores and into conventional retailing.
In places such as Britain, Fair Trade fruit, beverages and chocolate now have a significant foothold in the marketplace. Fair Trade gold is on the way next year. Fair Trade footballs have been on sale for some time.
Certified
But there are also objectors to the idea of paying farmers and producers a bit more than the open market price. Free market economists argue that Fair Trade tends to create an oversupply of products that pushes down market prices in general for other producers.
Often the Fair Trade premium is paid not direct to farmers as the rich world consumers are led to believe but goes to cooperatives and collectives who derive an organisational power base from the fair-trade premium they have to dispense to members.
And supporting local cooperatives may divert attention from energetic but conventionally capitalist local poor world companies trying to develop their own international brands without the benefit of a Fair Trade label. There are many ways of building economies.
It is also still a minority interest; there is more Fair Trade certified coffee than demand for it.
But Fair Trade has now reached the interesting commercial stage where it is becoming a useful way for retailers to differentiate themselves from rivals by showing they “care”. They are busy adding Fair Trade goods to free-range, organic, reduced chemicals in prepared food and cutting carbon emissions in stores and distribution.
Identity
They must feel it gives them an advantage; but will the spirit survive the great global recession?
I think it will. Fair Trade and the corporate conscience activities associated with it are part of the way increasingly wealthy consumers in many parts of the world will want to buy genuine products with a story, a place and an identity attached to them.
They will move beyond the mass-produced brand towards individuality that matches their own sense of themselves.
Fair Traders seem to realise now that Fair Trade certification is not enough. The interesting next step is to establish potent brands in their own right that tell individual Fair Trade stories, not just convey an aura of general goodwill.
By getting even more professional about it, Fair Traders may be able to grab back from the supply chain a portion of the profits that have traditionally gone to the big company brand owners.
And Fair Trade foods will also, of course, have to taste good. Better than the very familiar brands we have grown up with.
CONTRIBUTORS
Kate Sebag
Co-founder Tropical Wholefoods
Dyborn Charlie Chibonga
CEO National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi
Katie Stafford
Sustainability and Climate Change, Consultant, Price Waterhouse Coopers LLP
Pauline Tiffen
Independent Consultant
Co-founder of Cafe Direct and Divine Chocolate
Galileo's Contribution to European Security
27 Apr 2009, Brussels, Belgium
This event aims to trigger a discussion on the Galileo global navigation system which, once it becomes operational in 2010, is poised to transform European intelligence gathering. Issues the event addresses include: Can Galileo be made available to both civilian and encrypted military operations? What are the likely benefits in terms of improving counter-terrorism intelligence at home and equipping ESDP missions around the world? And, what improvements in intelligence gathering does Galileo offer over US military-controlled GPS technology?
Contact:
Security and Defence agenda
Send email
Registration:
By invitation (invitations possible on request)
Registration required
More information:
Event website
Organizers:http://www.securitydefenceagenda.org/
Security & Defence Agenda (SDA)
This event aims to trigger a discussion on the Galileo global navigation system which, once it becomes operational in 2010, is poised to transform European intelligence gathering. Issues the event addresses include: Can Galileo be made available to both civilian and encrypted military operations? What are the likely benefits in terms of improving counter-terrorism intelligence at home and equipping ESDP missions around the world? And, what improvements in intelligence gathering does Galileo offer over US military-controlled GPS technology?
Contact:
Security and Defence agenda
Send email
Registration:
By invitation (invitations possible on request)
Registration required
More information:
Event website
Organizers:http://www.securitydefenceagenda.org/
Security & Defence Agenda (SDA)
March 13, 2009
India Elections 2009 - Here come the Modi baiters
Source: Offstumped
It is clear that the man the Congress spin meisters in the media fear the most on the campaign trail is Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
In what is a highly questionable opinion piece Ashok Desai, who this blogger used to respect for his intellectual acumen, has made a cheap attempt at Modi baiting. Being the managing editor at Telegraph this cheap attempt should come as no surprise for the Telegraph has become the Congress’ primary media vehicle for spin.
The piece titled “What made Narendra Modi what he is makes a bold tell-you-all claim, but is really shallow on facts and highly subjective in its opinions.
For someone who probably has never met or never spoken to Narendra Modi, Mr. Desai claims have to be taken with deep skepticism. His only source being a book Mr. Modi wrote on his experiences during Emergency.
It is a reflection of the lopsided morality practised by intellectuals like Ashok Desai that a Narendra Modi who has taken the hard path of contesting and winning democratic elections should be called an “autocrat”. One doesnt remember Mr. Ashok Desai expressing outrage over electile dysfunctional surrogates like Manmohan Singh getting “selected” to the office of Prime Minister.
Be that as it may, here is where Mr. Desai’s piece is really shallow and subjective.
Mr. Desai first claims that Mr. Modi’s prejudices were acquired during Emergency and then goes on to charge that his book on Emergency in Gujarat was bereft of any thought or reflection.
So how pray did Mr. Desai conclude that Mr. Modi’s prejudices were acquired during Emergency if as Mr. Desai claims Mr. Modi does not reflect any thoughts not even the stereotype prejudices of an RSS man ?
Mr. Desai exposes himself as being trapped in the same petty prejudices that he accuses Mr. Modi of when he tries to malign Mr. Modi for having made tasteless and vulgar remarks on Sonia Gandhi.
While Mr. Narendra Modi is known to be one not to hold back his punches, there is no record of him ever having made any vulgar remarks on Sonia Gandhi. But that doesnt stop Mr. Desai from his below the belt assault on Mr. Modi.
Mr. Desai’s lack of moral certitude becomes even more clear when one observes that while he is troubled by Mr. Modi’s visceral hatred against followers of Indira Gandhi for her having imposed Emergency and deprived the nation of Democratic freedom he has no compunctions in repeatedly calling Mr. Modi an autocrat despite his being a democratically elected leader.
Mr. Desai’s piece stands out less for its intellectual worth and more for its petty, shallow and subjective opinions making it rather ironic for Mr. Desai concludes his piece calling Mr. Modi’s “intellectual equipment” limited.
In closing, the following question must be posed
If the Congress spin meisters in the media like Ashok Desai want to have a debate on “limited intellectual equipment” of Narendra Modi
then
perhaps a public debate on “the electile dysfunctional political equipment” of the Congress’ candidate for Prime Minister is fair game ?
March 12, 2009
India suggests integrated approach for peace in Afghanistan
Washington (IANS): India has suggested an integrated approach involving simultaneous action on three fronts - development, security and governance - to bring peace and stability to war torn Afghanistan.
"If they do it together, they can create space for Afghans to make a choice to lead a normal life," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said at a press conference here Wednesday after the first high-level dialogue with the new Obama administration.
The Indian official said he had spent "considerable time" discussing the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan with US officials including special representative for the two nations Richard Holbrooke.
He also met acting principal undersecretary of defence for policy Peter Verga, Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the US Pacific command, and Gen David Petraeus, commander of the US Central command.
Menon said he had shared India's perception and its experience in reconstruction in Afghanistan, where it had spent over $1.5 billion on community projects and big schemes like roads and power projects.
"We spoke of successful bits that we have done and shared our ideas on how to move forward to bring some level of peace and prosperity to Afghanistan."
Menon said he found "great degree of convergence on how we look at the situation and what we need to do".
Asked about Obama administration's hint of negotiating with the "good" Taliban, Menon said: "There are no good or bad Taliban. They are all Afghan. The question is what they want."
"It's not a question of negotiating with Taliban, who have no inclination. But for individual Afghans who wish to there is space," Menon said suggesting an integrated approach encompassing development, security and governance.
He suggested a similar approach for Sri Lanka as well. Besides restoring normal life, rehabilitating and reconstructing economic life, political steps, including devolution, were also needed.
"That's important. Unless this is done, a sense of alienation would prevail," he said, adding that US and India had "very similar approaches" to the situation.
"If they do it together, they can create space for Afghans to make a choice to lead a normal life," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said at a press conference here Wednesday after the first high-level dialogue with the new Obama administration.
The Indian official said he had spent "considerable time" discussing the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan with US officials including special representative for the two nations Richard Holbrooke.
He also met acting principal undersecretary of defence for policy Peter Verga, Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the US Pacific command, and Gen David Petraeus, commander of the US Central command.
Menon said he had shared India's perception and its experience in reconstruction in Afghanistan, where it had spent over $1.5 billion on community projects and big schemes like roads and power projects.
"We spoke of successful bits that we have done and shared our ideas on how to move forward to bring some level of peace and prosperity to Afghanistan."
Menon said he found "great degree of convergence on how we look at the situation and what we need to do".
Asked about Obama administration's hint of negotiating with the "good" Taliban, Menon said: "There are no good or bad Taliban. They are all Afghan. The question is what they want."
"It's not a question of negotiating with Taliban, who have no inclination. But for individual Afghans who wish to there is space," Menon said suggesting an integrated approach encompassing development, security and governance.
He suggested a similar approach for Sri Lanka as well. Besides restoring normal life, rehabilitating and reconstructing economic life, political steps, including devolution, were also needed.
"That's important. Unless this is done, a sense of alienation would prevail," he said, adding that US and India had "very similar approaches" to the situation.
March 11, 2009
80+ Church Burglaries In 400 Days. Can You Help? (Crowdsourcing Analysis)
Source: SourcesAndMethods.Blogspot.com
St. Paul, Minnesota has a problem. Over the last year or so, 80+ churches have been burglarized. The St. Paul Police Department has asked anyone with any information on the burglaries to call them and has, apparently, released some of the data regarding the thefts -- which gives us all an opportunity to help.
I was first alerted to this opportunity by the blog Entropic Memes, which has done quite a bit to get the word out. The success of Jeff Carr's Grey Goose project and Mercyhurst's students own effort with the DNI's Open Source Challenge suggested that this was also a project that was perfect for some sort of "crowdsourcing" effort (i.e. giving it to lots of people and seeing what they could do with it).
The only piece missing seemed to be a platform around which the information and analysis could congregate. I contacted a couple of people at Dagir Co. to see if they could help. Dagir is a new company that is in the business of providing solutions to tactical and operational analytic problems for business and law enforcement. I had seen some of Dagir's custom analytic tools and knew they had the skills to pull a collaborative analytic platform together quickly.
Full disclosure: Dagir is run by Mercyhurst grads. I had many of them in my classes while they were here. I thought I was calling in a favor but when they heard the reason why, they were more than happy to contribute their time and expertise.
The guys at Dagir actually built two platforms for us to use. The first is a loosely structured wiki where anyone who has a few minutes to spare can help. Simple things like plotting the location of a church that HAS NOT been burglarized or reading and commenting on the one of the ongoing analytic discussions would add value to the product.
More sophisticated analysis is also possible through the second tool, an interactive geospatial analysis tool that permits the user to play with the data in a variety of interesting ways (the picture above is a screenshot of the tool). Want to search for only those burglaries that involved forced entry through a window? You can do that. Want to see how the pattern of burglaries emerge across time? You can do that, too. The Dagir team has even put up a "How-to" section on the wiki for those that really want to explore the power of this geospatial analytic tool.
The wiki platform also allows people who want to contribute to the project to upload any analysis (sophisticated or otherwise) or just plain information that might be of use to the rest of us. It really is a flexible set of tools (I was also glad to see the Dagir guys settled on Wikispaces as the wiki platform of choice. It is a very easy to learn wiki platform).
Even if you can't find the time to help analyze the data, watching the project evolve from this point should be an interesting case study in how these kinds of efforts work and how they might be improved in the future. It could also be an interesting classroom extra credit assignment for those who are interested in crime mapping or collaborative analysis.
Space: Final Frontier or Financial Folly?
The race for space - particularly during a global economic crisis - is a colossal waste of government resources, driven by patriotic propaganda, egotistical folly and misaligned national priorities.
by Gerard DeGroot
Long before the launch of Sputnik in 1957, American defense analysts were preoccupied with the value of satellites as propaganda beacons in the sky, rather than with the practical benefits they might bring. “Considerable prestige … will accrue to the nation which is successful in launching the first satellite,” proclaimed a US Department of Defense paper in 1955. From this logic came a proposal to detonate an atom bomb on the lunar surface, purely for dramatic effect. Another starry-eyed strategist proposed crashing two rockets into the moon, one filled with blue powder, the other with red, thus redecorating the celestial body in American colors.
The same emphasis on propaganda pollutes today’s space policy.
In 2004, President George W Bush announced plans to return to the moon, as a prelude to a mission to Mars. The project, priced at $400 billion, was inspired primarily by the need to stay ahead of the Chinese in the new space race. Just as was the case in the 1960s, the ability to make shallow gestures in space is still assumed to be an indicator of a nation’s vitality.
Unfortunately, these enormously expensive missions inevitably mean that practical, earth-based science suffers, as does genuinely valuable satellite research. It’s no wonder that the most forceful and articulate opposition to the Apollo mission came from scientists who objected to the way their budgets were bled in order to fund an ego trip to the moon. The same complaints were heard after Bush’s Mars plans were announced.
Justified expenditures?
Space enthusiasts are nevertheless always ready with justifications for spending taxpayers’ money. Most rely on the old adage: ‘Man must explore.’ This is perhaps true, but why must we go to worthless rocks in the sky in order to satisfy our need? Exploration need not involve physical movement, as any good scientist will attest. Surely there are plenty of frontiers worthy of exploration here on earth: hunger, poverty, peace.
A slightly more practical rationale for returning to the moon relates to an isotope called Helium-3. It might prove useful as a second generation fusion source and, as such, solve the earth’s clean energy needs. But the operative word is ‘might’. The technology has not yet been developed, and Helium-3 is scarce. The isotope exists in greater concentration on the moon’s surface than on earth, but ‘greater’ is relative. To extract one ton of Helium-3, around 200 million tons of lunar soil would have to be processed. That would require a massive strip mining facility on the Moon, complete with support facilities necessary to keep workers alive, all for an energy process which has not yet been shown to work.
Recently, Stephen Hawking has been arguing that we must colonize other planets in order to ensure the long-term survival of the human race. Much as I admire Hawking, that’s nonsense. The Earth is indeed doomed, but where precisely might refugees eventually go? The solar system certainly offers no habitable alternative.
And what of distant galaxies? Suppose a spacecraft capable of traveling one million miles per hour – or 20 times faster than Apollo - could be developed. In order to reach the nearest star system theoretically capable of harboring hospitable planets, that craft would take 4,000 years to reach its destination. In other words, at our current rate of development (or, rather, disintegration), we will have turned the Earth into a parched and smoking ruin long before we figure out the problems of reaching distant planets.
One final justification for manned space missions has been provided by Joan Johnson-Freese of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. She sees space travel as ‘soft-power’ – the sort of power that doesn’t hurt anyone but still makes a point. Returning to the moon, she feels, would constitute an assertion of cultural superiority. As evidence to support her contention, Johnson-Freese points to the worldwide admiration for the Apollo lunar landing in 1969. “Admiration and respect,” she argues, “can buy as much, if not more, security as a rifle can.”
This, quite frankly, is daft. Granted, a billion people watched Neil Armstrong’s small step, but quite a few of them then went back to fighting one another in Vietnam, Palestine, Biafra and Alabama. The excitement of the landing was indisputable, but it was also indisputably ephemeral. A year afterwards, even Armstrong was questioning whether it was indeed a “giant leap” for mankind. While the prospect of a Chinese astronaut walking on the moon might produce a brief flurry of excitement, another American doing so would meet with little enthusiasm.
A problem of prioritiesIn fact, a mission to Mars might produce precisely the opposite reaction Johnson-Freese predicts. It might suggest that the US is a shallow, egotistical country disengaged from world problems and intent on frivolous display. We need to remind ourselves that while Apollo was popular among white, middle class men, it was distinctly unpopular among blacks, women and the poor, who overwhelmingly disapproved of the expense.
Clearly, space spectaculars are not admired by the dispossessed, and the enemies of America count themselves in that group. And an expensive mission to the moon - especially at a time of global recession - will inevitably provoke condemnation by those crying out for money to be spent on global warming, starvation and drought.
Pointless gestures in space would add credence to fundamentalist allegations of American spiritual vacuity.
Not long after Armstrong landed on the moon, NASA proposed a trip to Mars. Richard Nixon, however, killed that idea. “We must realize,” he argued, “that space expenditures must take their proper place within a rigorous system of national priorities.” His budget office produced a devastating critique of manned space travel, pointing out that “[manned] missions … have little demonstrable economic or social return to atone for their high cost.” New York congressman Edward Koch put the argument in blunter terms: “I just can't for the life of me see voting for monies to find out whether or not there is some microbe on Mars, when in fact I know there are rats in Harlem apartments.”
The future of American space policy
The Obama administration, with its emphasis on all things new, has pledged a complete overhaul of government spending. We are told that funding of government projects will be submitted to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, that ‘sacred’ projects will not receive money simply because they always have. Let us hope this prudence is applied to NASA.
So far, Obama has sent mixed signals. A year before the election, he said that an $18 billion hike in funding to education would be paid by cutting the moon mission. Then, three months later, he started courting NASA, perhaps out of a need to woo voters in Florida. By last August, he’d gone full circle: expressing full support for Bush’s pledge to put Americans back on the moon by 2020. For a man who got to the White House on a promise of change, that sounds depressingly familiar.
While it is not Obama’s habit to revere old Republicans, he would do well to study what Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower had to say about space. Nixon was the first president to recognize the NASA trick of using past expenditure to justify future investment. In other words, as NASA argues, a mission to Mars will make what was spent going to the Moon worthwhile. That is a clever way of endlessly spending money without ever producing anything. Eisenhower, who vetoed funding for Apollo, once reminded Americans that “every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
During a recent radio program on manned space travel, a NASA astronaut asked me how the American people might react if the next man on the moon was Chinese.
I replied that the question itself implied a worrying level of American insecurity which, applied to space, has dangerous and costly implications. I reminded him of something Eisenhower said in 1964. Bemoaning the vast resources wasted on a pointless race to the moon, he predicted that one day historians would judge that “here was where the US, like Rome, went wrong – here at the peak of its power and prosperity was when it forgot those ideals which made it great.”
Gerard DeGroot is Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews. He has published eleven books, his latest being The Sixties Unplugged
Leadership: Learn to laugh through good, bad
Commentary by Chief Master Sgt. Sean Meenagh
3rd Aerospace Medical Squadron superintendent
3/10/2009 - ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (AFNS) -- I was born in New York. I was raised by an Irish cop, and went to Catholic School. I have four sisters and one brother. Sounds like a stereotypical Irish Catholic family, and it is. We yelled, prayed and laughed a lot in my family.
The yelling was because there were eight of us. The praying because my parents had six children (I believe my mother did most of that praying). Moreover, we laughed a lot, because it came very natural in my family.
Anyone who knows me knows that I love to laugh. However, I never realized how important laughing was until August 1999. You see, I had to go home on emergency leave that August because my mother lay on her death bed. I flew home, was picked up by my brother and went straight to the hospital.
Upon arriving at the hospital, I learned the simple rule of the intensive care unit; no more than two family members at a time in the room with my mother. While the one or two of us were visiting with that wonderful lady, the rest of her family was in the waiting room. We would go in and out every so often.
The person or persons returning to the waiting room would be crying as you might expect, while the rest of us were reminiscing about "remember when this happened or when that happened." We would laugh and laugh about the memories. The laughing never bothered the family member who just returned from visiting with my mother. They would sit there, compose themselves for a few minutes, and the get back into the conversation. This went on for four days.
While examining my conscience each night after returning home from the hospital, I would sit there and say, "How can we be laughing at a time like this?" I finally realized that laughter is a gift from God. I believe that God placed my mother's bed right by the wall of the ICU waiting room so she could hear the laughter of her husband of 54 years, her children and her grandchildren. What better way to leave this world then to know that you raised a loving and happy family?
I also believe that laughter fits right into leadership. I saw it in the leadership of my father and mother all my life, as well as many of my mentors throughout my Air Force career.
We cherish the ideal of having a sense of humor in America. At the same time, we're highly suspicious of anything not serious. We are living in challenging and serious times today. We must laugh just as I did when my mother was dying.
Choosing the humor is another matter. We live an era of the put-down, the snide remarks, and the unruly comeback. These comments don't have a place in our Air Force, because they make us laugh at someone else's expense. Good, nourishing humor enables us to laugh at ourselves for being human.
Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done."
So I ask you, who would you rather work for and with: a person who you can laugh with; or a person who is serious and tense all the time?
Humor can even be used at the most tense of times. During the Korean War, Col. Lewis "Chesty" Puller, the most decorated Marine in American history was visiting a hospital tent where a priest was administering last rites to the dying. Then a Marine burst in with an urgent message:
"Sir," said the messenger. "Do you know they have cut us off? We're entirely surrounded."
Colonel Puller replied, "All right, they're on our left. They're on our right. They're in front of us. They're behind us. They cannot get away this time."
That bit of humor might just have given his troops the will to fight harder.
I'm not telling you to be a standup comedian. I'm also not telling you to be a court jester. After all those things don't fit in to our workplaces, nor should they. Humor is a great leadership tool. It will strengthen bonds between co-workers, and create rapport with customers. It will make communications less awkward, thus reducing tension, frustration and anger. Humor will also reduce burnout.
It's good to laugh, and in my eyes, it's necessary. I love this country very much, because we believe we have certain unalienable rights life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Happy people laugh, it's just that simple.
As I heard it said before, "There are only three things that are certain: God, human foolishness and laughter." There is no way you are going to fully comprehend the first two; so do the best you can with the third: laughter.
We have a very serious duty and that is to serve each man, woman and child in this great nation of ours. It can be an overwhelming task, very demanding and unfortunately, at times, fatal. I believe that humor and laughter are essential to being a good leader.
Author Joseph J. Mazzella once said, "God gave us this glorious gift of laughter. It would be wrong not to accept it and enjoy it every chance we get."
I, for one, totally agree.
3rd Aerospace Medical Squadron superintendent
3/10/2009 - ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (AFNS) -- I was born in New York. I was raised by an Irish cop, and went to Catholic School. I have four sisters and one brother. Sounds like a stereotypical Irish Catholic family, and it is. We yelled, prayed and laughed a lot in my family.
The yelling was because there were eight of us. The praying because my parents had six children (I believe my mother did most of that praying). Moreover, we laughed a lot, because it came very natural in my family.
Anyone who knows me knows that I love to laugh. However, I never realized how important laughing was until August 1999. You see, I had to go home on emergency leave that August because my mother lay on her death bed. I flew home, was picked up by my brother and went straight to the hospital.
Upon arriving at the hospital, I learned the simple rule of the intensive care unit; no more than two family members at a time in the room with my mother. While the one or two of us were visiting with that wonderful lady, the rest of her family was in the waiting room. We would go in and out every so often.
The person or persons returning to the waiting room would be crying as you might expect, while the rest of us were reminiscing about "remember when this happened or when that happened." We would laugh and laugh about the memories. The laughing never bothered the family member who just returned from visiting with my mother. They would sit there, compose themselves for a few minutes, and the get back into the conversation. This went on for four days.
While examining my conscience each night after returning home from the hospital, I would sit there and say, "How can we be laughing at a time like this?" I finally realized that laughter is a gift from God. I believe that God placed my mother's bed right by the wall of the ICU waiting room so she could hear the laughter of her husband of 54 years, her children and her grandchildren. What better way to leave this world then to know that you raised a loving and happy family?
I also believe that laughter fits right into leadership. I saw it in the leadership of my father and mother all my life, as well as many of my mentors throughout my Air Force career.
We cherish the ideal of having a sense of humor in America. At the same time, we're highly suspicious of anything not serious. We are living in challenging and serious times today. We must laugh just as I did when my mother was dying.
Choosing the humor is another matter. We live an era of the put-down, the snide remarks, and the unruly comeback. These comments don't have a place in our Air Force, because they make us laugh at someone else's expense. Good, nourishing humor enables us to laugh at ourselves for being human.
Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done."
So I ask you, who would you rather work for and with: a person who you can laugh with; or a person who is serious and tense all the time?
Humor can even be used at the most tense of times. During the Korean War, Col. Lewis "Chesty" Puller, the most decorated Marine in American history was visiting a hospital tent where a priest was administering last rites to the dying. Then a Marine burst in with an urgent message:
"Sir," said the messenger. "Do you know they have cut us off? We're entirely surrounded."
Colonel Puller replied, "All right, they're on our left. They're on our right. They're in front of us. They're behind us. They cannot get away this time."
That bit of humor might just have given his troops the will to fight harder.
I'm not telling you to be a standup comedian. I'm also not telling you to be a court jester. After all those things don't fit in to our workplaces, nor should they. Humor is a great leadership tool. It will strengthen bonds between co-workers, and create rapport with customers. It will make communications less awkward, thus reducing tension, frustration and anger. Humor will also reduce burnout.
It's good to laugh, and in my eyes, it's necessary. I love this country very much, because we believe we have certain unalienable rights life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Happy people laugh, it's just that simple.
As I heard it said before, "There are only three things that are certain: God, human foolishness and laughter." There is no way you are going to fully comprehend the first two; so do the best you can with the third: laughter.
We have a very serious duty and that is to serve each man, woman and child in this great nation of ours. It can be an overwhelming task, very demanding and unfortunately, at times, fatal. I believe that humor and laughter are essential to being a good leader.
Author Joseph J. Mazzella once said, "God gave us this glorious gift of laughter. It would be wrong not to accept it and enjoy it every chance we get."
I, for one, totally agree.
Undue Diligence: How banks do business with corrupt regimes
Report – 11/03/2009
Global Witness' new report Undue Diligence names some of the major banks who have done business with corrupt regimes. By accepting these customers, banks are assisting those who are using state assets to enrich themselves or brutalise their own people.
This corruption denies the world's poorest people the chance to lift themselves out of poverty and leaves them dependent on aid. The report sets out what governments, regulators and banks need to do in order to tackle this complicity with corruption.
Download the report:
LONDON: Embargoed until 11 March 2009, 00:01 GMT
Major banks facilitate corruption in world's poorest countries;
government regulation is not working
As G20 finance ministers meet in London to discuss how to rescue the global financial system
and prevent the next disaster, a new report by anti-corruption NGO Global Witness shows
how some of the world’s biggest banks have been dealing with some of the world’s most
corrupt regimes.
By doing so they have facilitated corruption and looting of natural resource revenues, denying
some of the world’s poorest people a chance to escape poverty.
‘The same lax regulation that created the credit crunch has let some of the world's biggest
banks facilitate the looting of natural resource wealth from poor countries,’ said Gavin
Hayman, Global Witness Campaigns Director. ‘If resources like oil, gas and minerals are to
truly help lift Africa and other poor regions out of poverty, then governments must take
responsibility to stop banks doing business with corrupt dictators and their families.’
The facts
Global Witness’s report, Undue Diligence: How banks do business with corrupt regimes,
presents evidence that:
• Barclays kept open an account for the son of the dictator of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea
long after clear evidence emerged that his family were heavily involved in substantial
looting of state oil revenues.
• A British tax haven and a Hong Kong bank helped the son of the president of
Republic of Congo, another oil-rich African country, spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars of his country’s oil revenues on designer shopping sprees.
• Citibank facilitated the funding of two vicious civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia
by enabling the warlord Charles Taylor, now on trial for war crimes in the Hague, to
loot timber revenues.
• HSBC and Banco Santander hid behind bank secrecy laws in Luxembourg and Spain
to frustrate US efforts to find out if Equatorial Guinea’s oil revenues had been looted
and laundered.
• Deutsche Bank assisted the late president Niyazov of Turkmenistan, a notorious
human rights abuser, to keep billions of dollars of state gas revenues under his
personal control and off the national budget.
• Dozens of British, European and Chinese banks have provided Angola’s opaque
national oil company, Sonangol, with billions of dollars of oil backed loans, though
there is no transparency or democratic oversight about how these advances on the
country's oil revenues are used, and they have a recent history mired in corruption and
secret arms deals.
What needs to be done
No bank should be, or should want to be, involved in business such as this, whose real costs
are borne by the people of some of the world’s poorest countries.
Anti-money laundering laws require banks to do due diligence to identify their customer and
turn down illicitly-acquired funds, but these laws need tightening to make them globally
effective. The following four reforms to the financial regulatory system are essential:
• Banks must change their culture of ‘due diligence’ – the process by which they check
that a customer is legitimate. This isn’t about box ticking. Banks should only take the
business if they have identified an ultimate beneficiary who does not pose a
corruption risk. Other business should be turned away.
• Governments must ensure that anti-money laundering laws in each jurisdiction are
absolutely explicit that banks must do this due diligence properly, and financial
regulators must actively enforce these laws.
• Cooperation between governments has to improve to ensure that national bank
regulations become globally compatible, accountable and transparent, and are not
hindered by bank secrecy laws. This must begin with reforms to the intergovernmental
body that oversees the anti-money laundering regime, the Financial
Action Task Force.
• Governments must ensure that new global rules are put in place to help banks avoid
corrupt funds. The most important change is to ensure that every country produces
full public online registers of the ultimate beneficial ownership of all companies and
trusts under its jurisdiction, to help banks identify and avoid business with a
corruption risk.
‘The G20 leaders must act on their promises to help the world's poor. A key element of
making poverty history is to stop the money being stolen or kept off-budget in the first place.
Ducking this issue now leaves the global financial system open not only to further corrupt
money flows, but to the destabilising influences that have caused such damage to the
developed world’s economies,’ said Hayman. ‘The developing world cannot afford a return to
business as usual.’
Copies of the report can be downloaded after the embargo date from
www.undue-diligence.org. For advance copies, more information and interviews, call:
In the UK
+44 (0)20 7561 6382, +44 (0)20 7561 6360 or +44 (0)7872 620 855
In the US
+1 202 380 3583 or +1 202 725 8705
Global Witness exposes the corrupt exploitation of natural resources and international trade systems to
drive campaigns that end impunity, resource-linked conflict, and human rights and environmental
abuses. Global Witness was co-nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for its leading work on
conflict diamonds and awarded the 2007 Commitment to Development Ideas in Action Award,
sponsored jointly by Washington DC based Center for Global Development and Foreign Policy
magazine. For more information, please see www.globalwitness.org.
Global Witness' new report Undue Diligence names some of the major banks who have done business with corrupt regimes. By accepting these customers, banks are assisting those who are using state assets to enrich themselves or brutalise their own people.
This corruption denies the world's poorest people the chance to lift themselves out of poverty and leaves them dependent on aid. The report sets out what governments, regulators and banks need to do in order to tackle this complicity with corruption.
Download the report:
LONDON: Embargoed until 11 March 2009, 00:01 GMT
Major banks facilitate corruption in world's poorest countries;
government regulation is not working
As G20 finance ministers meet in London to discuss how to rescue the global financial system
and prevent the next disaster, a new report by anti-corruption NGO Global Witness shows
how some of the world’s biggest banks have been dealing with some of the world’s most
corrupt regimes.
By doing so they have facilitated corruption and looting of natural resource revenues, denying
some of the world’s poorest people a chance to escape poverty.
‘The same lax regulation that created the credit crunch has let some of the world's biggest
banks facilitate the looting of natural resource wealth from poor countries,’ said Gavin
Hayman, Global Witness Campaigns Director. ‘If resources like oil, gas and minerals are to
truly help lift Africa and other poor regions out of poverty, then governments must take
responsibility to stop banks doing business with corrupt dictators and their families.’
The facts
Global Witness’s report, Undue Diligence: How banks do business with corrupt regimes,
presents evidence that:
• Barclays kept open an account for the son of the dictator of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea
long after clear evidence emerged that his family were heavily involved in substantial
looting of state oil revenues.
• A British tax haven and a Hong Kong bank helped the son of the president of
Republic of Congo, another oil-rich African country, spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars of his country’s oil revenues on designer shopping sprees.
• Citibank facilitated the funding of two vicious civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia
by enabling the warlord Charles Taylor, now on trial for war crimes in the Hague, to
loot timber revenues.
• HSBC and Banco Santander hid behind bank secrecy laws in Luxembourg and Spain
to frustrate US efforts to find out if Equatorial Guinea’s oil revenues had been looted
and laundered.
• Deutsche Bank assisted the late president Niyazov of Turkmenistan, a notorious
human rights abuser, to keep billions of dollars of state gas revenues under his
personal control and off the national budget.
• Dozens of British, European and Chinese banks have provided Angola’s opaque
national oil company, Sonangol, with billions of dollars of oil backed loans, though
there is no transparency or democratic oversight about how these advances on the
country's oil revenues are used, and they have a recent history mired in corruption and
secret arms deals.
What needs to be done
No bank should be, or should want to be, involved in business such as this, whose real costs
are borne by the people of some of the world’s poorest countries.
Anti-money laundering laws require banks to do due diligence to identify their customer and
turn down illicitly-acquired funds, but these laws need tightening to make them globally
effective. The following four reforms to the financial regulatory system are essential:
• Banks must change their culture of ‘due diligence’ – the process by which they check
that a customer is legitimate. This isn’t about box ticking. Banks should only take the
business if they have identified an ultimate beneficiary who does not pose a
corruption risk. Other business should be turned away.
• Governments must ensure that anti-money laundering laws in each jurisdiction are
absolutely explicit that banks must do this due diligence properly, and financial
regulators must actively enforce these laws.
• Cooperation between governments has to improve to ensure that national bank
regulations become globally compatible, accountable and transparent, and are not
hindered by bank secrecy laws. This must begin with reforms to the intergovernmental
body that oversees the anti-money laundering regime, the Financial
Action Task Force.
• Governments must ensure that new global rules are put in place to help banks avoid
corrupt funds. The most important change is to ensure that every country produces
full public online registers of the ultimate beneficial ownership of all companies and
trusts under its jurisdiction, to help banks identify and avoid business with a
corruption risk.
‘The G20 leaders must act on their promises to help the world's poor. A key element of
making poverty history is to stop the money being stolen or kept off-budget in the first place.
Ducking this issue now leaves the global financial system open not only to further corrupt
money flows, but to the destabilising influences that have caused such damage to the
developed world’s economies,’ said Hayman. ‘The developing world cannot afford a return to
business as usual.’
Copies of the report can be downloaded after the embargo date from
www.undue-diligence.org. For advance copies, more information and interviews, call:
In the UK
+44 (0)20 7561 6382, +44 (0)20 7561 6360 or +44 (0)7872 620 855
In the US
+1 202 380 3583 or +1 202 725 8705
Global Witness exposes the corrupt exploitation of natural resources and international trade systems to
drive campaigns that end impunity, resource-linked conflict, and human rights and environmental
abuses. Global Witness was co-nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for its leading work on
conflict diamonds and awarded the 2007 Commitment to Development Ideas in Action Award,
sponsored jointly by Washington DC based Center for Global Development and Foreign Policy
magazine. For more information, please see www.globalwitness.org.
As Afghanistan depends on US air power, it’s deja vu
March 11th, 2009
By Arthur Keller AS President Obama moves to ramp up the United States’ presence in Afghanistan, he might benefit from the lessons learned by one of the CIA’s legends of covert operations, Bill Lair. Mr Lair ran the CIA’s covert action in the 1960s in Laos, which at its height included 30,000 Hmong tribesmen battling Communist insurgents.
I met Bill Lair when he came to the CIA’s training centre in Virginia in 2000 to speak at the graduation ceremony for my class of trainees.
His agency career had started in the 1950s in Thailand, where he trained an elite force called the Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit. By the early ’60s, Mr Lair was in neighbouring Laos, trying to build an anti-Communist resistance.
Corruption was endemic, poppy cultivation was widespread and the poorly educated Hmong tribesmen of northern Laos were barely out of the Stone Age. Yet Mr Lair and his unit quickly taught the Hmong to resist the Communist tide using guerrilla tactics suited to their terrain and temperament.
By 1966, his CIA bosses looked to tap into this momentum and started throwing more men and money at Mr Lair — personnel and funds he felt only bloated the operation.
He knew his initial successes with the Hmong came because his Thai troops were the perfect people to train the Hmong: they looked like the Hmong, spoke their language and understood their culture. Mr Lair didn’t want or need more white guys from headquarters who couldn’t speak Laotian and lorded it over the locals. When he resisted, his superiors overruled him.
As the 1960s progressed, the fighting in Laos intensified. Unfortunately, as United States involvement escalated, the Hmong came to rely more and more on American air power to support their missions. Over time, this dependence on foreign aid eroded the will of the Hmong to fight their own battles. Along the way, tiny Laos became the most heavily bombed country in the world, and the overuse of American air power led to untold civilian deaths and tremendous resentment of the United States.
Eventually it became clear that no amount of bombing would be sufficient to stem the Communist tide. America cut and ran from Laos, and the Communists swallowed up the little kingdom, just as they did neighbouring Vietnam.
Flash forward 40 years. United States forces scramble to train Afghan Army and police units to take on the Taliban forces crossing the border from Pakistan. Many of these raw Afghan recruits come from poorly educated Pashtun tribes. Corruption is endemic. Drug trafficking is flourishing. Complaints that indiscriminate use of American air power is killing civilians are routine.
As they say, déjà vu all over again.
The counter-insurgency lessons that Bill Lair tried to impart to us young spies are relevant today: Keep your footprint small. Don’t use trainers who don’t know the language or culture. Don’t let the locals become dependant on American air power.
Train them in tactics suited to their circumstances. Don’t ever let the locals think mighty America will fight their battles or solve all their problems for them; focus on getting them ready to fix their own problems. Keep the folks in Washington out of the way of the people doing the work in the field.
This is why President Obama’s plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan should be seen as a mixed blessing. In fact, it may be equally significant that the Pentagon has announced it is sending 900 new special operations people to Afghanistan over the spring and summer, including Green Berets, Navy Seals and Marine special operations forces. Ideally, these troops will be well trained in Afghan languages and culture, and prepared to fight in the dry, mountainous terrain the Taliban occupy.
The goal, one hopes, is that these forces will work alongside and train the fledgling Afghan Army commando battalions. Since early 2007, some 3,600 Afghan Army troops have been put through Army Ranger-type training at a former Taliban base six miles south of Kabul. With American help, they have proved adept at such tasks as capturing Taliban leaders, rescuing hostages and destroying drug-smuggling rings.
This is not a war we can win ourselves; the Afghans are going to have to win it by fighting to retake their own country from both Taliban thugs and corrupt government officials. While additional American troops may be an unavoidable necessity to provide security in the short and medium term, we should never forget that doing too much for a weak ally can be just as bad as doing too little.
* Arthur Keller is a former CIA case officer in Pakistan
By arrangement with the New York Times
By Arthur Keller AS President Obama moves to ramp up the United States’ presence in Afghanistan, he might benefit from the lessons learned by one of the CIA’s legends of covert operations, Bill Lair. Mr Lair ran the CIA’s covert action in the 1960s in Laos, which at its height included 30,000 Hmong tribesmen battling Communist insurgents.
I met Bill Lair when he came to the CIA’s training centre in Virginia in 2000 to speak at the graduation ceremony for my class of trainees.
His agency career had started in the 1950s in Thailand, where he trained an elite force called the Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit. By the early ’60s, Mr Lair was in neighbouring Laos, trying to build an anti-Communist resistance.
Corruption was endemic, poppy cultivation was widespread and the poorly educated Hmong tribesmen of northern Laos were barely out of the Stone Age. Yet Mr Lair and his unit quickly taught the Hmong to resist the Communist tide using guerrilla tactics suited to their terrain and temperament.
By 1966, his CIA bosses looked to tap into this momentum and started throwing more men and money at Mr Lair — personnel and funds he felt only bloated the operation.
He knew his initial successes with the Hmong came because his Thai troops were the perfect people to train the Hmong: they looked like the Hmong, spoke their language and understood their culture. Mr Lair didn’t want or need more white guys from headquarters who couldn’t speak Laotian and lorded it over the locals. When he resisted, his superiors overruled him.
As the 1960s progressed, the fighting in Laos intensified. Unfortunately, as United States involvement escalated, the Hmong came to rely more and more on American air power to support their missions. Over time, this dependence on foreign aid eroded the will of the Hmong to fight their own battles. Along the way, tiny Laos became the most heavily bombed country in the world, and the overuse of American air power led to untold civilian deaths and tremendous resentment of the United States.
Eventually it became clear that no amount of bombing would be sufficient to stem the Communist tide. America cut and ran from Laos, and the Communists swallowed up the little kingdom, just as they did neighbouring Vietnam.
Flash forward 40 years. United States forces scramble to train Afghan Army and police units to take on the Taliban forces crossing the border from Pakistan. Many of these raw Afghan recruits come from poorly educated Pashtun tribes. Corruption is endemic. Drug trafficking is flourishing. Complaints that indiscriminate use of American air power is killing civilians are routine.
As they say, déjà vu all over again.
The counter-insurgency lessons that Bill Lair tried to impart to us young spies are relevant today: Keep your footprint small. Don’t use trainers who don’t know the language or culture. Don’t let the locals become dependant on American air power.
Train them in tactics suited to their circumstances. Don’t ever let the locals think mighty America will fight their battles or solve all their problems for them; focus on getting them ready to fix their own problems. Keep the folks in Washington out of the way of the people doing the work in the field.
This is why President Obama’s plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan should be seen as a mixed blessing. In fact, it may be equally significant that the Pentagon has announced it is sending 900 new special operations people to Afghanistan over the spring and summer, including Green Berets, Navy Seals and Marine special operations forces. Ideally, these troops will be well trained in Afghan languages and culture, and prepared to fight in the dry, mountainous terrain the Taliban occupy.
The goal, one hopes, is that these forces will work alongside and train the fledgling Afghan Army commando battalions. Since early 2007, some 3,600 Afghan Army troops have been put through Army Ranger-type training at a former Taliban base six miles south of Kabul. With American help, they have proved adept at such tasks as capturing Taliban leaders, rescuing hostages and destroying drug-smuggling rings.
This is not a war we can win ourselves; the Afghans are going to have to win it by fighting to retake their own country from both Taliban thugs and corrupt government officials. While additional American troops may be an unavoidable necessity to provide security in the short and medium term, we should never forget that doing too much for a weak ally can be just as bad as doing too little.
* Arthur Keller is a former CIA case officer in Pakistan
By arrangement with the New York Times
300 Iranian intelligence operatives entered Bosnia between 2004-2007
Source: necenzurirano.com
Mar 06, 2009 at 04:57 AM
Translated from Croatian. Back to Translate View original web page click http://www.necenzurirano.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1274&Itemid=1
Strictly confidential documents on the approval of visa the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Tehran, point to serious security failures in the work of BiH diplomacy. Secret documents, which we held, prove that in BiH in the time since 2004. year until 2007. there was three hundred Iranian intelligence operatives, on the basis of visas issued at the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Tehran. For people with a list that have not spent the prescribed security clearance, the BiH Embassy in Tehran has been approved by the iranskim resident visa by the usual security procedures in such cases.
Operativci came under krinkama athletes, scientists, writers, cultural workers
__________________________
What makes the article particularly interesting is that it makes the list of 300 "agents" publicly available for download
_____________________________
Particularly interesting is the fact that the list includes some Iranian scholars, employees of state departments and ministries, which are under various formal matters traveled from Iran to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
However, as found out from our sources, the actual reason for their travel is determined by the Ministry of Security of Iran, or in VEVAK-the Iranian Ministry in charge of operation and coordination of work and activities of Iranian intelligence and security services.
On the list and so far unknown operativci Qodsa
Many of them had passed through intensive training in iranskoj kontraobavještajnoj services zaduženoj for foreign intelligence operations, called "Qods" in Bosnia-Herzegovina came under krinkama athletes, scientists, writers, cultural workers, tourists, representatives of religious, educational workers.
This is how these documents for the first time to reveal the identities of the unidentified Iranian intelligence operatives, which until now because of their public professions and jobs that are nominally engaged in is not directly led to the connection with iranskim intelligence services.
I have a close associate Homeinija Fatemeh Tabatabaei regular guest in BiH
So the list is, for example, former close associate Imam Homeinija, Fatemeh Tabatabaei, which is in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the past ten years, according to the available data stayed several times, following the orders of top Iranian intelligence community, under tobožnjim justification that comes to Sarajevo present and speak about the book on the constitution, in which one of his close associate of the details about his life and work.
Tabatabaei, as found out, however, traveling to BiH as operative Iran's Ministry of Security, with the special task of co-ordination with associates Iranian intelligence network in BiH.
Elementary School Đulistan in Lješevu screen Iranian intelligence services?
It is interesting that on this list and found Feghhi Hamid, Director General Đulistan schools in Sarajevo Canton, the Municipality of Ilijas in place Lješevo between Ilijas and High.
This elementary school was founded by Feghhijev colleague Mohamed Jafer Zarean, and the fact that the school director Hamid Feghhi, as the established and suspected operative of Iran "Qodsa", speaks for how Iranian intelligence services this school used as a screen, or koordinancijsko intelligence desk in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Since 2004. Iranian intelligence services intensified activities in the Balkans
Concerned, however, the fact that since 2004. The Iranian intelligence service, obviously, the intensified activities in the Balkans, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and documents which we have held shows in fact that is most likely in the time since 2004. year until 2007. The reorganization occurred Iranian intelligence infrastructure in the Balkans, and how the new reorganization infrastructure Iranian intelligence centers in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, are now included people who previously were not known as operativci Iranian intelligence community.
Reorganization and personnel restructuring Iranian intelligence terrorist centers in the Balkans
Another important fact is that this intentziviranje activities of Iranian intelligence services in the Balkans, occurred simultaneously with the reorganization of international terrorist networks, as well as immediately before any terrorist attacks that are either completed or being conducted in Europe and the world.
So, certainly we can talk about how to documents which we have held to prove Iran is the first time after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina comes to a new intelligence reorganization project personnel and restructuring of intelligence centers in the Balkans, which in future will obviously play a key role in the global strategy and iranskoj intelligence activity of a terrorist Iranian intelligence cell in Europe.
Lists of Iranian operatives who are granted visas for BiH in the time since 2004. year until 2007. year, you can read in full here.
Domagoj Margetic
Mar 06, 2009 at 04:57 AM
Translated from Croatian. Back to Translate View original web page click http://www.necenzurirano.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1274&Itemid=1
Strictly confidential documents on the approval of visa the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Tehran, point to serious security failures in the work of BiH diplomacy. Secret documents, which we held, prove that in BiH in the time since 2004. year until 2007. there was three hundred Iranian intelligence operatives, on the basis of visas issued at the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Tehran. For people with a list that have not spent the prescribed security clearance, the BiH Embassy in Tehran has been approved by the iranskim resident visa by the usual security procedures in such cases.
Operativci came under krinkama athletes, scientists, writers, cultural workers
__________________________
What makes the article particularly interesting is that it makes the list of 300 "agents" publicly available for download
_____________________________
Particularly interesting is the fact that the list includes some Iranian scholars, employees of state departments and ministries, which are under various formal matters traveled from Iran to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
However, as found out from our sources, the actual reason for their travel is determined by the Ministry of Security of Iran, or in VEVAK-the Iranian Ministry in charge of operation and coordination of work and activities of Iranian intelligence and security services.
On the list and so far unknown operativci Qodsa
Many of them had passed through intensive training in iranskoj kontraobavještajnoj services zaduženoj for foreign intelligence operations, called "Qods" in Bosnia-Herzegovina came under krinkama athletes, scientists, writers, cultural workers, tourists, representatives of religious, educational workers.
This is how these documents for the first time to reveal the identities of the unidentified Iranian intelligence operatives, which until now because of their public professions and jobs that are nominally engaged in is not directly led to the connection with iranskim intelligence services.
I have a close associate Homeinija Fatemeh Tabatabaei regular guest in BiH
So the list is, for example, former close associate Imam Homeinija, Fatemeh Tabatabaei, which is in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the past ten years, according to the available data stayed several times, following the orders of top Iranian intelligence community, under tobožnjim justification that comes to Sarajevo present and speak about the book on the constitution, in which one of his close associate of the details about his life and work.
Tabatabaei, as found out, however, traveling to BiH as operative Iran's Ministry of Security, with the special task of co-ordination with associates Iranian intelligence network in BiH.
Elementary School Đulistan in Lješevu screen Iranian intelligence services?
It is interesting that on this list and found Feghhi Hamid, Director General Đulistan schools in Sarajevo Canton, the Municipality of Ilijas in place Lješevo between Ilijas and High.
This elementary school was founded by Feghhijev colleague Mohamed Jafer Zarean, and the fact that the school director Hamid Feghhi, as the established and suspected operative of Iran "Qodsa", speaks for how Iranian intelligence services this school used as a screen, or koordinancijsko intelligence desk in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Since 2004. Iranian intelligence services intensified activities in the Balkans
Concerned, however, the fact that since 2004. The Iranian intelligence service, obviously, the intensified activities in the Balkans, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and documents which we have held shows in fact that is most likely in the time since 2004. year until 2007. The reorganization occurred Iranian intelligence infrastructure in the Balkans, and how the new reorganization infrastructure Iranian intelligence centers in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, are now included people who previously were not known as operativci Iranian intelligence community.
Reorganization and personnel restructuring Iranian intelligence terrorist centers in the Balkans
Another important fact is that this intentziviranje activities of Iranian intelligence services in the Balkans, occurred simultaneously with the reorganization of international terrorist networks, as well as immediately before any terrorist attacks that are either completed or being conducted in Europe and the world.
So, certainly we can talk about how to documents which we have held to prove Iran is the first time after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina comes to a new intelligence reorganization project personnel and restructuring of intelligence centers in the Balkans, which in future will obviously play a key role in the global strategy and iranskoj intelligence activity of a terrorist Iranian intelligence cell in Europe.
Lists of Iranian operatives who are granted visas for BiH in the time since 2004. year until 2007. year, you can read in full here.
Domagoj Margetic
The disappearance of the Vikings in Greenland in the fifteenth century or the logic of deception in survival
Source: Infoguerre.fr
11-03-2009 in Culture and Influence
The survival of a society depends not on its military or economic power but also on the attitude of opponents and the response that the company brings its own challenges. This analyze Jared Diamond in "Collapse, how societies decide their disappearance or their survival in 2006. The most striking example of the book is the Viking company installed for over three centuries in Greenland who died between 1300 and 1400 AD and which the Inuit have deliberately contributed to the disappearance.
Since the end of the eighth century AD, the Vikings led a strategy of expansion from Scandinavia, settled in Britain, Ireland, Russia, Iceland, around the Rhine and the Loire, Spain, Italy ... According documents of the time, Erik the Red was exiled from Norway successively in Iceland and in Greenland, where he founded the Viking settlement in 984 AD This colony, located 2500 km from Norway, consisting of 250 farms clustered around 14 churches. Around the year 1000, four thousand people lived in the Establishment of the East, south of Greenland and a thousand people in the establishment of the West, located 500 km further north. The company imports its Viking cultural model she repeated the same in Greenland: dress in European construction of churches along the Norwegian style, diet ... However, climatic conditions were not the same as those of Norway: the climate was colder and more windy, the fragile environment. Wanting at all costs maintain the same type of food in Norway, the Vikings of Greenland a lot of resources dedicated to the breeding of animals that were not adapted to the local climate such as food for cows or horses for transport. Duplication of the cultural model at all costs led to a weakening and destruction of the environment. Consequently, the Vikings of Greenland had quickly import of Norway iron, timber and tar for the construction of homes, furniture and tools. They exported objects low volume high value such as skins of seals, polar bears and cattle, ivory tusks of walrus, Greenland at that time being the only source of ivory for Europeans ... The Vikings were therefore highly dependent on Europe to survive.
Inuit, as the Vikings, to a strategy of expansion, from the Bering Strait in the Canadian Arctic. They arrived in Greenland in the North-West to AD 1200 and reached the region of the Establishment of the West in 1300 and the Establishment of the East in 1400. They mastered life in the Arctic environment, including the techniques of whaling and seal that enabled them to food, lighting and heating (use of animal fat) and the construction of kayaks (use skins on a wooden structure instead of a boat while wood as the Vikings) and the sled dogs that were conducive to rapid transport of goods. The Vikings rejected the "sraeklings (poor Old Norse) they regarded as inferior and non-Christians as invaders. The contacts between the two peoples were absent or hostile, but by no means peaceful for a long time. The Inuit do not therefore shared with the Vikings their techniques for hunting and fishing, however, far more effective in an Arctic environment.
Around 1300, early Little Ice Age, Greenland experienced a sudden cooling, leading to depletion of food resources and placing the Viking and Inuit peoples in situations of survival. Because of ice, ships from Europe could not get to Greenland and deliver cargoes of wood and iron expected from Scandinavia. The direct consequence of this phenomenon was the loss to the Vikings to their military advantage and a reduced efficiency in their business since they could make more tools. The Inuit, who were previously in a report to the small fort, returned the situation to their advantage. Best hunters, they could continue to feed and heat through to whales and seals. They went so far as to attack the Establishment of the East in 1379. Norsemen, camped on the European model of life, found themselves destitute before the decrease of pasture and thus food for their animals, game hunting and the lack of wood for fuel from Europe. Without resources, the Viking company declined and disappeared around 1400 AD.
In conclusion, the strategy of power of a people is expressed not only in direct confrontation and fast. It may also be indirect and last several decades. This was the case for confrontation between the Vikings and the Inuit between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD. Viking civilization in Greenland did not die from a direct confrontation with the Inuit people, but a confrontation where indirect techniques of survival in a hostile environment were the main issue. While the Inuit were seen as weaker, militarily, they do not master the technique of iron, they returned the situation to their advantage through their control of the lifestyle in the Arctic.
Virginia Monthioux
11-03-2009 in Culture and Influence
The survival of a society depends not on its military or economic power but also on the attitude of opponents and the response that the company brings its own challenges. This analyze Jared Diamond in "Collapse, how societies decide their disappearance or their survival in 2006. The most striking example of the book is the Viking company installed for over three centuries in Greenland who died between 1300 and 1400 AD and which the Inuit have deliberately contributed to the disappearance.
Since the end of the eighth century AD, the Vikings led a strategy of expansion from Scandinavia, settled in Britain, Ireland, Russia, Iceland, around the Rhine and the Loire, Spain, Italy ... According documents of the time, Erik the Red was exiled from Norway successively in Iceland and in Greenland, where he founded the Viking settlement in 984 AD This colony, located 2500 km from Norway, consisting of 250 farms clustered around 14 churches. Around the year 1000, four thousand people lived in the Establishment of the East, south of Greenland and a thousand people in the establishment of the West, located 500 km further north. The company imports its Viking cultural model she repeated the same in Greenland: dress in European construction of churches along the Norwegian style, diet ... However, climatic conditions were not the same as those of Norway: the climate was colder and more windy, the fragile environment. Wanting at all costs maintain the same type of food in Norway, the Vikings of Greenland a lot of resources dedicated to the breeding of animals that were not adapted to the local climate such as food for cows or horses for transport. Duplication of the cultural model at all costs led to a weakening and destruction of the environment. Consequently, the Vikings of Greenland had quickly import of Norway iron, timber and tar for the construction of homes, furniture and tools. They exported objects low volume high value such as skins of seals, polar bears and cattle, ivory tusks of walrus, Greenland at that time being the only source of ivory for Europeans ... The Vikings were therefore highly dependent on Europe to survive.
Inuit, as the Vikings, to a strategy of expansion, from the Bering Strait in the Canadian Arctic. They arrived in Greenland in the North-West to AD 1200 and reached the region of the Establishment of the West in 1300 and the Establishment of the East in 1400. They mastered life in the Arctic environment, including the techniques of whaling and seal that enabled them to food, lighting and heating (use of animal fat) and the construction of kayaks (use skins on a wooden structure instead of a boat while wood as the Vikings) and the sled dogs that were conducive to rapid transport of goods. The Vikings rejected the "sraeklings (poor Old Norse) they regarded as inferior and non-Christians as invaders. The contacts between the two peoples were absent or hostile, but by no means peaceful for a long time. The Inuit do not therefore shared with the Vikings their techniques for hunting and fishing, however, far more effective in an Arctic environment.
Around 1300, early Little Ice Age, Greenland experienced a sudden cooling, leading to depletion of food resources and placing the Viking and Inuit peoples in situations of survival. Because of ice, ships from Europe could not get to Greenland and deliver cargoes of wood and iron expected from Scandinavia. The direct consequence of this phenomenon was the loss to the Vikings to their military advantage and a reduced efficiency in their business since they could make more tools. The Inuit, who were previously in a report to the small fort, returned the situation to their advantage. Best hunters, they could continue to feed and heat through to whales and seals. They went so far as to attack the Establishment of the East in 1379. Norsemen, camped on the European model of life, found themselves destitute before the decrease of pasture and thus food for their animals, game hunting and the lack of wood for fuel from Europe. Without resources, the Viking company declined and disappeared around 1400 AD.
In conclusion, the strategy of power of a people is expressed not only in direct confrontation and fast. It may also be indirect and last several decades. This was the case for confrontation between the Vikings and the Inuit between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD. Viking civilization in Greenland did not die from a direct confrontation with the Inuit people, but a confrontation where indirect techniques of survival in a hostile environment were the main issue. While the Inuit were seen as weaker, militarily, they do not master the technique of iron, they returned the situation to their advantage through their control of the lifestyle in the Arctic.
Virginia Monthioux
China's Economic Opportunity
While western commodity giants rethink investment strategies in light of commercial constraints, China will continue to use the downturn as a 'perfect storm' to invest on strategic grounds to fuel long term domestic growth, Matthew Hulbert writes for ISN Security Watch.
By Matthew Hulbert for ISN Security Watch
The contrast could not be starker: Governments and companies across the developed world are in a state of financial shock, desperately trying to reel themselves back from overextended positions. Although China has belatedly shared in this shock once the myth surrounding economic "decoupling" was debunked, rather than licking what will inevitably remain open wounds, Chinese leaders and CEOs have been much busier touring the Middle East, Australasia and Latin America in search of vital natural resources to sustain China's longer term economic growth. This is a smart move on a number of levels.
Economic Woes Open Opportunity for China
For one, most analysts expect that once the world economy rebounds (or merely shows signs of recovery) commodity prices will soar once more as supply-demand fundamentals rapidly close in due to a lack of investment in the lean times. China will be well placed to lay claim to a greater share of the world's natural riches once this happens – not least because its own track record of turning concessions into production has been circumspect.
Secondly, with a number of resource rich emerging markets being badly affected by credit constraints and weakening fundamentals, China has been able to buy political capital by drawing on some of its US$2 trillion reserves to throw crucial financial capital at oil and gas producers ranging from Venezuela, Iran, Russia and Brazil in exchange for long-term supply deals. In metals and mining Beijing has been even bolder; forget long term supply agreements, Beijing has maneuvered itself to buy direct stakes in zinc, iron and steel producers in Australia while closing in on copper producers in Chile.
For those au fait with international energy and commodity markets, such developments are not entirely new, but what is striking is the degree to which credit has been made available to overseas M&A and resource acquisitions from China - not only in terms of its national champions - but also through investment vehicles such as the China Investment Corporation. This is not because domestic demand has picked up in China (far from it), but because Beijing is interested in investing in its longer term interests.
Cheaper assets and dwindling resource nationalism across producer states as economic panic sets in are both useful breeding grounds for China to incubate its natural resource portfolio. If anyone needed confirmation, the fact that Chinese aluminum company Chinalco has been able to acquire a strong stake in mining company Rio Tinto underlines the fact that the commodities game, like global finance, is being changed by state interests as much as those of the market.
Picking Off the Easy Fruit First
Unsurprisingly, Caracas and Moscow have both gladly accepted US$12 billion and US$25 billion in loans from China in return for long term oil supplies heading "East." Their current account balances couldn't really allow for much else.
In Venezuela this included extended credit lines first made available to Chavez in 2007, topped up with a fresh US$12 billion amid ongoing lending from China's Development Bank to the Venezuelan development bank, Bandes. In return, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) is to sell China between 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) and 200,000 bpd of crude to cover the loans and underpin the credit line. Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), two major Chinese petroleum companies, will be the gleeful recipients.
Yet this deal was easily topped by a long-awaited US$25 billion oil export-backed loan agreement with Russia to help state-run entities Rosneft and Transneft supply 300,000 bpd of crude to China over 20 years. The deal starts in earnest in 2011 once the East-Siberia Pacific Ocean pipeline is completed, but it still constitutes the largest trade financing agreement between the two countries and alleviates the massive refinancing needs of Russia's energy giants in the midst of the credit crisis.
Although the project could well be subject to delays, it clearly underlines strengthened energy links between Russia and China and is unlikely to be dogged by the same political risk factors that taint Russian supplies to European markets. If anything, Russia could start to put a premium on ensuring Chinese supplies at the expense of its European custom to 2010-2011; Chinese consumption is simply too important for Moscow to let slip.
Eyeing New Prizes
But China has not confined its efforts to states deemed to be on the "critical list" of resource mismanagement. Chinese leaders also dropped in on Brazil, where they signed a memorandum of understanding with Petrobras for a US$10 billion loan to help the company finance its US$174.4 billion five-year strategic plan in return for 60,000-100,000 bpd of oil for Sinopec and 40,000-60,000 bpd to be delivered to CNPC.
Mexico also featured on Beijing's destination in the Americas, while in Africa, Mali, Senegal and Tanzania were among the latest string of states where China is looking to increase its presence beyond pre-existing strongholds in Sudan, Angola and other commodity producing states.
Yet what will come of most concern to western players are China's latest overtures to the Middle East. Beijing signed a US$1.7 billion oil deal with Iran (bypassing international sanctions on the nuclear issue) to develop part of the North Azadegan oil field between CNPC and National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in January 2009.
CNPC is due to produce 75,000 bpd over a four-year period with options to develop the second phase of the field, a deal with follows on from Sinopec's US$2 billion contract in 2007 to develop the enormous Yadavaran oil field with initial outflow of 85,000 bpd by 2012. The Iranian economy certainly needs a shot of adrenaline ahead of the presidential elections in June 2009; China remains the most obvious source to provide it as the electoral clock ticks down.
Even Saudi Arabia has come onto the Chinese radar alongside Egypt, Yemen and Syria. Although energy deals inked with Riyadh in February were general in nature by pledging greater future cooperation, this builds on a steady stream of agreements signed between the two countries since 1999 designed to forge closer linkages between the energy value chain in terms of upstream development in Saudi Arabia (notably the Empty Quarter) and downstream refining capabilities in China.
Completion of the Qingdao refinery (in which Aramco, Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, holds a 25 percent stake) should see the Saudi company provide 1 million bpd, mirroring broader trends of allowing Middle East national oil companies to invest in downstream refining and marketing in China for greater Asian security of supply. This is a relationship that will continue to grow stronger, not only within oil, but broader trade, infrastructure and defense linkages across China and the Middle East to ensure that oil supplies increasingly flow east. Similarly, few analysts would bet against Chinese players being the first to raise the stakes in Iraq by signing whatever options Baghdad put before them.
A Rising Challenge: To Whom, From Whom?
This is not to say that western oil and mineral majors have seen a growing Chinese presence as a long-term threat for a number of years, but the key difference was that Beijing had previously spent vast sums of money (around US$7 billion) while only netting around 400,000 bpd on the oil front. For some, China's interest in new and marginal producers in Africa and Latin America was even seen as beneficial to boosting energy and commodity production while satisfying greater global demand in areas where western companies couldn't credibly venture due to operational risks. China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) operations in Somalia offer the most obvious of many possible examples. Yet this narrative is rapidly changing, and it is changing as a result of the economic downturn. China is not only looking toward marginal producers now, but is increasingly gaining stakes in the world's largest commodity producing countries and companies which, depending on the longevity of the economic downturn, will continue to put them at a strategic advantage to the West as boardrooms fail to leverage balance sheets and keep pace with Beijing's acquisitions policy.
If anything, China's greatest competition for resources in the short-to-medium term is unlikely to come from Washington, Brussels or indeed Moscow, but from other emerging market economies such as India who are similarly trying to invest in natural resources for the longer term by supporting national champions such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). India has never quite worked out whether they share a cooperative or antagonistic relationship with China in pursuit of natural resources, nor indeed have Southeast Asian players.
Mutual Cooperation vs Mutual Antagonism
However, given that demand for commodities will continue to slacken across the OECD for the foreseeable future alongside greater rhetorical emphasis being placed on renewable forms of energy, resource contestation from developed and emerging markets is unlikely to hit the headlines any time soon. But international oil companies are already painfully aware that one of their greatest difficulties is that they are only able to vie for around 10 percent of global reserves due to heavy concentration of proven reserves residing in a handful of countries.
Once the global economy picks up, they may find that this percentage has shrunk even further as the energy and commodities balance of power incrementally shifts to the East. If this proves to be the case, governments will be similarly quick to sharpen their attitude toward resource contestation in the Middle East, Central Asia, Latin America and Africa.
Indeed, resource contestation and international relations has always been a combustible mix; the economic downturn may have extinguished the "western fuse" for now, but at the same time, it has acted as a catalyst for Chinese engagement that see the economic downturn as a crucial window of opportunity to invest in global resources.
Once global demand picks up, western players will undoubtedly rejoin the race, but China will similarly redouble their efforts. Whether this dynamic will play toward mutual cooperation or antagonism remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure, it will continue to rewire international relations away from the role of the market towards that of the state for those who want to sit at the top of the resource acquisition tree.
Matthew Hulbert is a Senior Researcher as CSS/ETH. He previously worked in the City of London advising on energy markets and political risk and headed up the Global Issues Desk at Control Risks Group, specializing in political risk and security analysis for multinational companies and institutional investors. Prior to this, he held political consulting positions at Weber Shandwick Worldwide and worked in a number of parliamentary and think tank positions writing policy papers for the UK government (DfID), World Bank and Commonwealth of Nations. He holds a BA in History & Politics from Durham University and an MPhil International Relations from Cambridge.
By Matthew Hulbert for ISN Security Watch
The contrast could not be starker: Governments and companies across the developed world are in a state of financial shock, desperately trying to reel themselves back from overextended positions. Although China has belatedly shared in this shock once the myth surrounding economic "decoupling" was debunked, rather than licking what will inevitably remain open wounds, Chinese leaders and CEOs have been much busier touring the Middle East, Australasia and Latin America in search of vital natural resources to sustain China's longer term economic growth. This is a smart move on a number of levels.
Economic Woes Open Opportunity for China
For one, most analysts expect that once the world economy rebounds (or merely shows signs of recovery) commodity prices will soar once more as supply-demand fundamentals rapidly close in due to a lack of investment in the lean times. China will be well placed to lay claim to a greater share of the world's natural riches once this happens – not least because its own track record of turning concessions into production has been circumspect.
Secondly, with a number of resource rich emerging markets being badly affected by credit constraints and weakening fundamentals, China has been able to buy political capital by drawing on some of its US$2 trillion reserves to throw crucial financial capital at oil and gas producers ranging from Venezuela, Iran, Russia and Brazil in exchange for long-term supply deals. In metals and mining Beijing has been even bolder; forget long term supply agreements, Beijing has maneuvered itself to buy direct stakes in zinc, iron and steel producers in Australia while closing in on copper producers in Chile.
For those au fait with international energy and commodity markets, such developments are not entirely new, but what is striking is the degree to which credit has been made available to overseas M&A and resource acquisitions from China - not only in terms of its national champions - but also through investment vehicles such as the China Investment Corporation. This is not because domestic demand has picked up in China (far from it), but because Beijing is interested in investing in its longer term interests.
Cheaper assets and dwindling resource nationalism across producer states as economic panic sets in are both useful breeding grounds for China to incubate its natural resource portfolio. If anyone needed confirmation, the fact that Chinese aluminum company Chinalco has been able to acquire a strong stake in mining company Rio Tinto underlines the fact that the commodities game, like global finance, is being changed by state interests as much as those of the market.
Picking Off the Easy Fruit First
Unsurprisingly, Caracas and Moscow have both gladly accepted US$12 billion and US$25 billion in loans from China in return for long term oil supplies heading "East." Their current account balances couldn't really allow for much else.
In Venezuela this included extended credit lines first made available to Chavez in 2007, topped up with a fresh US$12 billion amid ongoing lending from China's Development Bank to the Venezuelan development bank, Bandes. In return, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) is to sell China between 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) and 200,000 bpd of crude to cover the loans and underpin the credit line. Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), two major Chinese petroleum companies, will be the gleeful recipients.
Yet this deal was easily topped by a long-awaited US$25 billion oil export-backed loan agreement with Russia to help state-run entities Rosneft and Transneft supply 300,000 bpd of crude to China over 20 years. The deal starts in earnest in 2011 once the East-Siberia Pacific Ocean pipeline is completed, but it still constitutes the largest trade financing agreement between the two countries and alleviates the massive refinancing needs of Russia's energy giants in the midst of the credit crisis.
Although the project could well be subject to delays, it clearly underlines strengthened energy links between Russia and China and is unlikely to be dogged by the same political risk factors that taint Russian supplies to European markets. If anything, Russia could start to put a premium on ensuring Chinese supplies at the expense of its European custom to 2010-2011; Chinese consumption is simply too important for Moscow to let slip.
Eyeing New Prizes
But China has not confined its efforts to states deemed to be on the "critical list" of resource mismanagement. Chinese leaders also dropped in on Brazil, where they signed a memorandum of understanding with Petrobras for a US$10 billion loan to help the company finance its US$174.4 billion five-year strategic plan in return for 60,000-100,000 bpd of oil for Sinopec and 40,000-60,000 bpd to be delivered to CNPC.
Mexico also featured on Beijing's destination in the Americas, while in Africa, Mali, Senegal and Tanzania were among the latest string of states where China is looking to increase its presence beyond pre-existing strongholds in Sudan, Angola and other commodity producing states.
Yet what will come of most concern to western players are China's latest overtures to the Middle East. Beijing signed a US$1.7 billion oil deal with Iran (bypassing international sanctions on the nuclear issue) to develop part of the North Azadegan oil field between CNPC and National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in January 2009.
CNPC is due to produce 75,000 bpd over a four-year period with options to develop the second phase of the field, a deal with follows on from Sinopec's US$2 billion contract in 2007 to develop the enormous Yadavaran oil field with initial outflow of 85,000 bpd by 2012. The Iranian economy certainly needs a shot of adrenaline ahead of the presidential elections in June 2009; China remains the most obvious source to provide it as the electoral clock ticks down.
Even Saudi Arabia has come onto the Chinese radar alongside Egypt, Yemen and Syria. Although energy deals inked with Riyadh in February were general in nature by pledging greater future cooperation, this builds on a steady stream of agreements signed between the two countries since 1999 designed to forge closer linkages between the energy value chain in terms of upstream development in Saudi Arabia (notably the Empty Quarter) and downstream refining capabilities in China.
Completion of the Qingdao refinery (in which Aramco, Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, holds a 25 percent stake) should see the Saudi company provide 1 million bpd, mirroring broader trends of allowing Middle East national oil companies to invest in downstream refining and marketing in China for greater Asian security of supply. This is a relationship that will continue to grow stronger, not only within oil, but broader trade, infrastructure and defense linkages across China and the Middle East to ensure that oil supplies increasingly flow east. Similarly, few analysts would bet against Chinese players being the first to raise the stakes in Iraq by signing whatever options Baghdad put before them.
A Rising Challenge: To Whom, From Whom?
This is not to say that western oil and mineral majors have seen a growing Chinese presence as a long-term threat for a number of years, but the key difference was that Beijing had previously spent vast sums of money (around US$7 billion) while only netting around 400,000 bpd on the oil front. For some, China's interest in new and marginal producers in Africa and Latin America was even seen as beneficial to boosting energy and commodity production while satisfying greater global demand in areas where western companies couldn't credibly venture due to operational risks. China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) operations in Somalia offer the most obvious of many possible examples. Yet this narrative is rapidly changing, and it is changing as a result of the economic downturn. China is not only looking toward marginal producers now, but is increasingly gaining stakes in the world's largest commodity producing countries and companies which, depending on the longevity of the economic downturn, will continue to put them at a strategic advantage to the West as boardrooms fail to leverage balance sheets and keep pace with Beijing's acquisitions policy.
If anything, China's greatest competition for resources in the short-to-medium term is unlikely to come from Washington, Brussels or indeed Moscow, but from other emerging market economies such as India who are similarly trying to invest in natural resources for the longer term by supporting national champions such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). India has never quite worked out whether they share a cooperative or antagonistic relationship with China in pursuit of natural resources, nor indeed have Southeast Asian players.
Mutual Cooperation vs Mutual Antagonism
However, given that demand for commodities will continue to slacken across the OECD for the foreseeable future alongside greater rhetorical emphasis being placed on renewable forms of energy, resource contestation from developed and emerging markets is unlikely to hit the headlines any time soon. But international oil companies are already painfully aware that one of their greatest difficulties is that they are only able to vie for around 10 percent of global reserves due to heavy concentration of proven reserves residing in a handful of countries.
Once the global economy picks up, they may find that this percentage has shrunk even further as the energy and commodities balance of power incrementally shifts to the East. If this proves to be the case, governments will be similarly quick to sharpen their attitude toward resource contestation in the Middle East, Central Asia, Latin America and Africa.
Indeed, resource contestation and international relations has always been a combustible mix; the economic downturn may have extinguished the "western fuse" for now, but at the same time, it has acted as a catalyst for Chinese engagement that see the economic downturn as a crucial window of opportunity to invest in global resources.
Once global demand picks up, western players will undoubtedly rejoin the race, but China will similarly redouble their efforts. Whether this dynamic will play toward mutual cooperation or antagonism remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure, it will continue to rewire international relations away from the role of the market towards that of the state for those who want to sit at the top of the resource acquisition tree.
Matthew Hulbert is a Senior Researcher as CSS/ETH. He previously worked in the City of London advising on energy markets and political risk and headed up the Global Issues Desk at Control Risks Group, specializing in political risk and security analysis for multinational companies and institutional investors. Prior to this, he held political consulting positions at Weber Shandwick Worldwide and worked in a number of parliamentary and think tank positions writing policy papers for the UK government (DfID), World Bank and Commonwealth of Nations. He holds a BA in History & Politics from Durham University and an MPhil International Relations from Cambridge.
The US and the Gray Arms Market
A US soldier shows an Afghanistan National Police officer how to correctly hold a 9 mm M9 Pistol during weapons training in Sar Hawza, Afghanistan. American mismanagement of arms flow inhibits its ability for success in Afghanistan and provides a steady supply of weapons for insurgents, writes Jody Ray Bennett for ISN Security Watch.
By Jody Ray Bennett for ISN Security Watch
After nearly eight years in Afghanistan, US forces have failed to effectively oust the Taliban regime and are now confronted daily by insurgent forces that carry out suicide bombings, IED attacks and fire on coalition personnel.
To the extent that western intellectuals still believe that a victory can be achieved in the "Graveyard of Empires," the perception of a resilient insurgency has catalyzed debate and discussion over what such a victory would entail. In the pursuit of its definition, international relations scholars, security professionals, military personnel and independent journalists have attempted to identify insurgent successes where US and coalition forces have weakened or failed.
Indeed, US President Barack Obama's additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan begs the question as to why a larger and more technologically advanced military is seemingly unable to quell an insurgency considered to be under financed, less experienced and lacking any sign of a majority of support by the general public in comparison. It must further cause one to wonder from whom the insurgency garners financial and political support, from where it obtains arms and how it sustains a continued challenge for the US forces.
The Bush administration had repeatedly blamed various Iranian elements for harboring and supporting the insurgency in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2007, NATO claimed to have intercepted a shipment of weapons sent from the government of Iran directly to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Even after the Department of State later retracted some of its argument, Tony Blair soon followed up in an issue of the Economist stating that "In Afghanistan it is clear that the Taliban is receiving support, including arms from [...] elements of the Iranian regime." Last year's release of the US Country Reports on Terrorism asserts that:
"Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism [and the] IRGC-Qods [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] Force continued to provide weapons and financial aid to the Taliban to support anti-US and anti-[C]oalition activity in Afghanistan. Since 2006, Iran has arranged a number of shipments of small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107mm rockets, and plastic explosives, possibly including man-portable air defense systems (MANPADs), to the Taliban."
Similarly, the Iranian government has been accused of fueling some of the insurgency in Iraq. Reports were surfacing as early as February 2004, just short of a year after the fall of Baghdad, highlighting US concerns of Iranian influence in Iraq. While evidence remains unsubstantiated with regard to Iranian influence in Iraq, little critique has been made concerning the bureaucratic structure of the US military in general, specifically how mismanagement in Afghanistan has fueled the growth of regional gray and black market for arms, possibly to its own detriment.
According to a report issued the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), between the summers of 2005 and 2008, the Department of Defense "did not establish clear guidance for US personnel to follow when obtaining, transporting and storing weapons for the Afghan National Security Forces," resulting in the failure to "maintain complete records for about 87,000, or 36 percent, of the 242,000 US-procured weapons shipped to Afghanistan." The 87,000 weapons include shotguns, rifles, pistols, machine guns, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and grenade launchers that are unaccounted for.
The GAO found that of the 87,000 weapons, the US military is unable to provide 41,000 serial numbers of weapons included in the transfer. The report indicates that while the weapons are transported and audited by coalition forces, some US military personnel have attempted to shift the blame to the nature of the developing Afghani force. The GAO notes that the reasons it was given for these massive oversights were that Afghani forces remained unsuccessful in guarding weapons' caches due to "cultural and institutional problems, including illiteracy, corruption, and unclear guidance."
A similar instance occurred in Iraq last when reports released last August found that the US military lost track of 110,000 AK-47s and 80,000 glock pistols between 2004 and 2005. In one report, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information noted that "the Bush administration frequently complain[ed] that Iran and Syria are supplying insurgents but […] paid little attention to whether U.S. military errors inadvertently play a role." Again, US forces blamed the debacle on "clerical errors" made by the Iraqi authority. By summer 2007, federal criminal investigations began after "inquiries by federal oversight agencies […] found serious discrepancies in military records of where thousands of weapons intended for Iraqi security forces actually ended up."
Growth of the Gray Arms Market
Wherever these weapons have ended up, they might now be considered to be in a "gray area." The gray market trade refers to sanctioned, legal and approved munitions transfers that become lost or stolen while in transit. That is, the arms are not "born" illegally per se, until they are accessed or acquired for non-appropriated use. Transactions of arms between the US and other "friendly governments" occur regularly, increasing the chances for arms to be acquired in transit, especially given the recent inability or unwilling behavior of the Department of Defense to regulate and control its flow of arms.
A new internal report from the inspector general (IG) of the Department of Defense criticizes the Pentagon for not only failing to track weapons sent to Afghanistan and Iraq, but even failing to track weapons sent to 19 other "friendly" states. The report further criticizes the Pentagon for "accidentally" sending arms and munitions to governments that were "not authorized to have such weaponry."
The report states that between 2001 and 2006, "As many as 7,259 weapons, including M-16 rifles, M-60 machines, and armored personnel carriers were not properly tracked, safeguarded, accounted for, or reconciled […] as many as 291 weapons or parts were shipped to foreign governments not authorized to have such weaponry; and as many as 960 weapons or parts were shipped without the correct information regarding their demilitarization." Most striking is that the Department of Defense is required by law to transfer any excess military equipment to foreign governments under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976. If the lack of oversight and loss of arms is indicative or systemic to the nature of a military bureaucracy, it could be argued that a legal mandate exists that ultimately creates a gray market for arms that eventually end up being traded or sold illegally.
So where do gray market arms and equipment wind up? In the street markets on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, everything from 19th century British field rifles to Soviet military uniforms are still bartered and sold. In the village of Peshawar, one reporter witnessed the newest product on the market among weapons and garb: US military technology. The report states, "U.S. military laptop[s][cost] $650 from a small kiosk, which is known as the 'Sitara Market'" and contain "restricted U.S. military information, as well as software for military platforms, the identities of numerous military personnel and information about weaknesses and flaws in American military vehicles being employed in the war in Afghanistan."
The lost weapons and other munitions by the US military over the last eight years just might be found in the back alleyways and market shop cupboards of Peshawar, thus fueling an underground economy that arms the very insurgent forces that are presenting challenges to the Americans in Afghanistan. If this is the case, even the most hardened of cynics might expect an endless cycle of violence in which the Americans indirectly arm the very enemy it seeks to suppress.
Jody Ray Bennett is an ISN Security Watch correspondent based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Tibet: Romanticism vs Reality
The Western view on Tibet is constructed around the fascination for Buddhism, but according to visual anthropologist Luc Schaedler, there is a need to present a more complex image of the Tibetan culture and cause.
Film website: Angry Monk
PODCAST
Film website: Angry Monk
PODCAST
March 10, 2009
Iran cannot be swapped for missile defense
17:29 | 05/ 03/ 2009
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - The Obama administration made no attempt to offer Russia a deal: to make concessions over the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe in exchange for Russia's cooperation on the "Iran issue."
President Obama himself drew a line under the issue at a press conference held on Wednesday following his meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
What could this deal, or "tradeoff," have looked like? The media supposed that the United States would "forget" about deploying interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe on condition that Russia "formed a common front with the U.S." in the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear and missile problem.
The proposal looked meaningless and crudely simplistic from the very start. Russia's security interests call for a comprehensive discussion of a vast region comprising Iran, the Caspian, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iraq. In all these situations, many of which affect Moscow's interests, Iran plays the key role.
For the U.S., Russian support on the Iran issue is very important, because as it loses leverage over the situation America needs the support of a country that commands authority in the Middle East to preserve its levers of influence. At the same time it hardly makes sense for Russia to give up its authority: by directly supporting the U.S., Russia risks to lose much of its political clout built up in recent years in the relations with the Middle East and Central Asian countries. Granted, these issues can and must be discussed, but not in terms of "supporting" the U.S., but in terms of a new American policy in the region.
The missile defense problem has nothing to do with Iran, but it cannot be separated from Russia's relations with NATO countries. It is impossible to pluck the issue of missile defense out of the whole range of security issues in Europe.
The U.S. promise not to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe is not an adequate replacement of talks on the security system in Europe. At the end of the day the possible deployment of American bases with strike weapons in the new NATO member countries is no less of a threat than the deployment of a missile defense system or the possible accession of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO.
Finally, the problem of missile defense is closely linked with the issue of preserving the nuclear and missile parity between the two countries, which has been the subject of a lively discussion in connection with reports about the U.S. initiative on drastic cuts of nuclear arsenals. The agreement between Russia and the U.S. on further nuclear arms cuts must include limitations on the development of missile defense systems, and not only in Eastern Europe but throughout the world. Ideally it should impose a total ban on the development of strategic missile defense systems and allow only the creation of theatre missile defense.
One should also bear in mind that in the current situation the "price" of the missile defense system as a bargaining chip has diminished significantly. In the pre-crisis times such expenditure for the U.S., though significant, was not unmanageable, and the prospects of creating a massive missile defense deployed in key points in the world looked quite realistic. But tomorrow it may very well happen that the U.S. will have to scrap its plans of a missile defense system without any negotiations disguising the fact with fine words about "additional tests" and "development of a more sophisticated system." The real reason would be simply that there will be no wherewithal to pay for such a huge project. That is a circumstance to be borne in mind too.
On balance, an Iran-missile defense deal plucks both problems out of the political and economic context without solving either.
To repeat, the two issues can and must be discussed between Russia and the U.S., but each in the framework of its range of problems. Iran, as part of the overall range of issues in the Middle East and Central Asia, and missile defense as part of the issues of European and world security. The current situation objectively favors an agreement between the two countries as both the Russian and American administrations have shown a readiness to negotiate, including on key issues.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - The Obama administration made no attempt to offer Russia a deal: to make concessions over the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe in exchange for Russia's cooperation on the "Iran issue."
President Obama himself drew a line under the issue at a press conference held on Wednesday following his meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
What could this deal, or "tradeoff," have looked like? The media supposed that the United States would "forget" about deploying interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe on condition that Russia "formed a common front with the U.S." in the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear and missile problem.
The proposal looked meaningless and crudely simplistic from the very start. Russia's security interests call for a comprehensive discussion of a vast region comprising Iran, the Caspian, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iraq. In all these situations, many of which affect Moscow's interests, Iran plays the key role.
For the U.S., Russian support on the Iran issue is very important, because as it loses leverage over the situation America needs the support of a country that commands authority in the Middle East to preserve its levers of influence. At the same time it hardly makes sense for Russia to give up its authority: by directly supporting the U.S., Russia risks to lose much of its political clout built up in recent years in the relations with the Middle East and Central Asian countries. Granted, these issues can and must be discussed, but not in terms of "supporting" the U.S., but in terms of a new American policy in the region.
The missile defense problem has nothing to do with Iran, but it cannot be separated from Russia's relations with NATO countries. It is impossible to pluck the issue of missile defense out of the whole range of security issues in Europe.
The U.S. promise not to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe is not an adequate replacement of talks on the security system in Europe. At the end of the day the possible deployment of American bases with strike weapons in the new NATO member countries is no less of a threat than the deployment of a missile defense system or the possible accession of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO.
Finally, the problem of missile defense is closely linked with the issue of preserving the nuclear and missile parity between the two countries, which has been the subject of a lively discussion in connection with reports about the U.S. initiative on drastic cuts of nuclear arsenals. The agreement between Russia and the U.S. on further nuclear arms cuts must include limitations on the development of missile defense systems, and not only in Eastern Europe but throughout the world. Ideally it should impose a total ban on the development of strategic missile defense systems and allow only the creation of theatre missile defense.
One should also bear in mind that in the current situation the "price" of the missile defense system as a bargaining chip has diminished significantly. In the pre-crisis times such expenditure for the U.S., though significant, was not unmanageable, and the prospects of creating a massive missile defense deployed in key points in the world looked quite realistic. But tomorrow it may very well happen that the U.S. will have to scrap its plans of a missile defense system without any negotiations disguising the fact with fine words about "additional tests" and "development of a more sophisticated system." The real reason would be simply that there will be no wherewithal to pay for such a huge project. That is a circumstance to be borne in mind too.
On balance, an Iran-missile defense deal plucks both problems out of the political and economic context without solving either.
To repeat, the two issues can and must be discussed between Russia and the U.S., but each in the framework of its range of problems. Iran, as part of the overall range of issues in the Middle East and Central Asia, and missile defense as part of the issues of European and world security. The current situation objectively favors an agreement between the two countries as both the Russian and American administrations have shown a readiness to negotiate, including on key issues.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
March 09, 2009
OBAMA: GOOD-BYE TO DALAI LAMA & AUNG SAN SUU KYI, HAIL HU JINTAO
B.RAMAN
"There is a common interest in the US as well as in China in maintaining and strengthening the present economic linkages without letting them be damaged seriously by what a Chinese analyst has called the tumours in the otherwise healthy organism of Sino-US relations which keep appearing from time to time such as the Taiwan, the proliferation, the Tibet and the National Missile Defence (NMD) issues. The political leaderships and the business class in the two countries would see to it that these tumours do not become malignant. One saw that during the Clinton Administration and one would see that during the Bush Administration too. After the present phase of rhetoric and confrontation, moderation would again set in at Washington as well as in Beijing. It would be unwise and short-sighted for India to think that the present confrontation would last for long and that it could strategically take advantage of it."
2.So I wrote on May 14,2001, in an article titled SINO-US RELATIONS: THE ECONOMIC ASPECT available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers3/paper241.html . That article was triggered off by a surge in US rhetoric in relation to China after President George Bush assumed office on January 20,2001.
3. There has been no surge in US rhetoric vis-a-vis China after Barack Obama assumed office on January 20,2009. On the contrary, the focus of his advisers has been on identifying and expanding the mutual comfort features in the bilateral relations rather than on those features, which tended to cause friction in the past. The references from Washington DC to human rights issues---- whether they be in relation to Tibet, Myanmar or the Chinese role in the Sudan--- have been muted. Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, hardly mentioned them in public during her visit to Beijing from February 20 to 22,2009. She attended a Church service at Beijing apparently to underline continuing US interest in the question of religious freedom in China, but avoided any comments on allegations that the Chinese authorities, while welcoming her visit to a church, took care to prevent any Christian dissenters from having interactions with her at the church. The normal expressions of concern over China's military spending too were equally muted.
4. The focus was on the role which the US and China could play in jointly halting the unrelenting slide-down in the global economy and how the two economies could sink together if they don't swim together. She underlined in benign words the increasing mutual dependence of the two economies----- with the Chinese dependence on the US consumers for a quick recovery of its exports-dependent manufacturing sector and with the US dependence on continued Chinese purchases of US Treasury Bonds to provide the cash flow to fund Obama's stimulus packages.
5. The transformation of the US perceptions of the mutual economic dependence is remarkable if only one recalls that in the 1990s when her husband, Bill Clinton, was the President, US policy-makers and many Congressmen lost no opportunity to express their concerns over the increasing trade surplus in favour of China and over the national security implications of the Chinese cash flow for investment in the US Treasury Bonds and in US stocks. The advisers of Obama do not articulate these concerns. On the contrary, the concern now is, not that the Chinese are buying the US Treasury Bonds, but that they are showing signs of slowing down their purchase because of their own economic difficulties.
6. Mrs. Clinton did not hesitate to openly express the hope on more than one occasion that the Chinese would continue to invest in the bonds. Speaking at the US Embassy in Beijing on February 22,2009,shortly before her departure from China, she said: "By continuing to support American Treasury instruments, the Chinese are recognizing our interconnection.It would not be in China's interest if we were unable to get our economy moving.We are truly going to rise or fall together. We are in the same boat and, thankfully, we are rowing in the same direction." Responding to her comments separately , Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, said that China wanted its foreign exchange reserves - the world's largest at $1.95 trillion - invested safely, with good value and liquidity. He said that future decisions on using them would be based on those principles, but added that China wanted to continue to work with the US.
7. Mrs. Clinton's open acknowledgement of the benign aspects of the increasing economic inter-dependence between the two countries was music to the ears of the Chinese. The Chinese policy-makers chose to interpret it as indicating that the Obama administration did not view China as a potential adversary, but it viewed it as a potential partner. Mrs.Clinton said that she felt during her discussions in Beijing it was like the beginning of "a new era" of bilateral relations characterized by "positive cooperation". Addressing a joint press conference on February 21,2009, Mrs.Clinton and Yang said that the two countries would build a "double-track" strategic and economic dialogue mechanism to discuss concerns of either politics or the economy. She added that she and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner would be involved in it. According to her, a decision on this was expected to be announced when Obama and Hu meet at the G20 summit in London in April. She also said that the US and China would build "an important partnership" to develop clean energy technologies and speed up the transition to low carbon economies.
8. As I had been pointing out in the past, whereas Mao Zedong believed that power grew out of the barrel of the gun, Deng Xiaoping believed that power also grew out of the money purse. Money speaks as eloquently as the gun, if not more eloquently. The bulging Chinese purse at a time when the rest of the world is facing a cash flow problem spoke repeatedly during Mrs.Clinton's visit. Good-bye to the Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi, Hail Hu Jintao----- that is the message from the Obama administration .
9.A spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced in Bejing on March 7,2009, that Yang Jiechi would pay a working visit to the US from March 9 to 13, 2009, as a guest of Hillary Clinton. The spokesman added that the two sides would exchange views on the growth of Sino-US relations in what he described as the new phase and on regional and global issues of common concern.
10.The visit comes less than a month after the visit to Beijing by Mrs. Clinton, which has given immense satisfaction to Chinese policy-makers as marking the beginning of the process of the US coming to terms with the reality of a four-polar world----with the US, China, the Europen Union and the developing world constituting the four poles of the new world order as seen by China. In the Chinese perception, India's place in this four-polar world is as an important member of the developing world but not as a power by itself on par with the US and China. Japan has no prominent place in this new world order. China projects itself as a developing country despite its galloping economy and huge foreign exchange reserves. At the same time, it views itself as a newly-emerged world power on par with the US and the EU.
11.This Chinese perception of itself and the world became evident in the articles and commentaries of Chinese analysts on the strategic significance of the US economic melt-down and of the US dependence on China for preventing an economic collapse. An article by the "People's Daily" of February 23,2009, said: "China has grown to be a new heavyweight player and stepped into the limelight on the world stage. And its role in salvaging the plummeting world economy from hitting bottom looms large and active, as the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during her just wrapped-up Asian tour, 'the U.S. appreciates the continued Chinese confidence in the U.S treasuries.' If the Cold War was 'a tug of war' between East and West, and a showcase of hard power, what we have today, for the first time in history, is a global, multicivilizational and multipolar competition, and a display of smart power. To be the winner, one has to seek more cooperation rather than confrontation."
12. The two defining characteristics of the Obama administration are opportunism and pragmatism. Its main priorities for some time to come will be restoring the economic health, preventing another 9/11 in the US homeland by going after Al Qaeda's sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal belt and any kind of peace in Afghanistan which would avert a Vietnam type disastrous withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan. For achieving these objectives, the US relations with China and Pakistan would have greater importance for Obama than its relations with India.
13. It should not, therefore, be a matter of surprise that India figures less and less in the short and medium-term strategic calculations of the Obama administration. The only interest of the Obama Administration in India will be in ensuring that it does not take any military action against Pakistan for its continued sponsorship and use of terrorism against India.
14. The Obama Administration is not going to be interested in building up India as a counter to China. In continuing to develop the USA's military-military relationship with India to which the Pentagon continues to attach importance, it will avoid features which could cause concern to China just as the Kevin Rudd Government in Australia is doing.
15. All India can expect from the Obama Administration is soothing words from time to time to tickle India's vanity. Nothing more. After the euphoria created by the policies of the Bush Administration among policy-makers and in the community of wishful-thinkers in New Delhi euphemistically called strategic thinkers, we are in for a mood correction. (10-3-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
"There is a common interest in the US as well as in China in maintaining and strengthening the present economic linkages without letting them be damaged seriously by what a Chinese analyst has called the tumours in the otherwise healthy organism of Sino-US relations which keep appearing from time to time such as the Taiwan, the proliferation, the Tibet and the National Missile Defence (NMD) issues. The political leaderships and the business class in the two countries would see to it that these tumours do not become malignant. One saw that during the Clinton Administration and one would see that during the Bush Administration too. After the present phase of rhetoric and confrontation, moderation would again set in at Washington as well as in Beijing. It would be unwise and short-sighted for India to think that the present confrontation would last for long and that it could strategically take advantage of it."
2.So I wrote on May 14,2001, in an article titled SINO-US RELATIONS: THE ECONOMIC ASPECT available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers3/paper241.html . That article was triggered off by a surge in US rhetoric in relation to China after President George Bush assumed office on January 20,2001.
3. There has been no surge in US rhetoric vis-a-vis China after Barack Obama assumed office on January 20,2009. On the contrary, the focus of his advisers has been on identifying and expanding the mutual comfort features in the bilateral relations rather than on those features, which tended to cause friction in the past. The references from Washington DC to human rights issues---- whether they be in relation to Tibet, Myanmar or the Chinese role in the Sudan--- have been muted. Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, hardly mentioned them in public during her visit to Beijing from February 20 to 22,2009. She attended a Church service at Beijing apparently to underline continuing US interest in the question of religious freedom in China, but avoided any comments on allegations that the Chinese authorities, while welcoming her visit to a church, took care to prevent any Christian dissenters from having interactions with her at the church. The normal expressions of concern over China's military spending too were equally muted.
4. The focus was on the role which the US and China could play in jointly halting the unrelenting slide-down in the global economy and how the two economies could sink together if they don't swim together. She underlined in benign words the increasing mutual dependence of the two economies----- with the Chinese dependence on the US consumers for a quick recovery of its exports-dependent manufacturing sector and with the US dependence on continued Chinese purchases of US Treasury Bonds to provide the cash flow to fund Obama's stimulus packages.
5. The transformation of the US perceptions of the mutual economic dependence is remarkable if only one recalls that in the 1990s when her husband, Bill Clinton, was the President, US policy-makers and many Congressmen lost no opportunity to express their concerns over the increasing trade surplus in favour of China and over the national security implications of the Chinese cash flow for investment in the US Treasury Bonds and in US stocks. The advisers of Obama do not articulate these concerns. On the contrary, the concern now is, not that the Chinese are buying the US Treasury Bonds, but that they are showing signs of slowing down their purchase because of their own economic difficulties.
6. Mrs. Clinton did not hesitate to openly express the hope on more than one occasion that the Chinese would continue to invest in the bonds. Speaking at the US Embassy in Beijing on February 22,2009,shortly before her departure from China, she said: "By continuing to support American Treasury instruments, the Chinese are recognizing our interconnection.It would not be in China's interest if we were unable to get our economy moving.We are truly going to rise or fall together. We are in the same boat and, thankfully, we are rowing in the same direction." Responding to her comments separately , Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, said that China wanted its foreign exchange reserves - the world's largest at $1.95 trillion - invested safely, with good value and liquidity. He said that future decisions on using them would be based on those principles, but added that China wanted to continue to work with the US.
7. Mrs. Clinton's open acknowledgement of the benign aspects of the increasing economic inter-dependence between the two countries was music to the ears of the Chinese. The Chinese policy-makers chose to interpret it as indicating that the Obama administration did not view China as a potential adversary, but it viewed it as a potential partner. Mrs.Clinton said that she felt during her discussions in Beijing it was like the beginning of "a new era" of bilateral relations characterized by "positive cooperation". Addressing a joint press conference on February 21,2009, Mrs.Clinton and Yang said that the two countries would build a "double-track" strategic and economic dialogue mechanism to discuss concerns of either politics or the economy. She added that she and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner would be involved in it. According to her, a decision on this was expected to be announced when Obama and Hu meet at the G20 summit in London in April. She also said that the US and China would build "an important partnership" to develop clean energy technologies and speed up the transition to low carbon economies.
8. As I had been pointing out in the past, whereas Mao Zedong believed that power grew out of the barrel of the gun, Deng Xiaoping believed that power also grew out of the money purse. Money speaks as eloquently as the gun, if not more eloquently. The bulging Chinese purse at a time when the rest of the world is facing a cash flow problem spoke repeatedly during Mrs.Clinton's visit. Good-bye to the Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi, Hail Hu Jintao----- that is the message from the Obama administration .
9.A spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced in Bejing on March 7,2009, that Yang Jiechi would pay a working visit to the US from March 9 to 13, 2009, as a guest of Hillary Clinton. The spokesman added that the two sides would exchange views on the growth of Sino-US relations in what he described as the new phase and on regional and global issues of common concern.
10.The visit comes less than a month after the visit to Beijing by Mrs. Clinton, which has given immense satisfaction to Chinese policy-makers as marking the beginning of the process of the US coming to terms with the reality of a four-polar world----with the US, China, the Europen Union and the developing world constituting the four poles of the new world order as seen by China. In the Chinese perception, India's place in this four-polar world is as an important member of the developing world but not as a power by itself on par with the US and China. Japan has no prominent place in this new world order. China projects itself as a developing country despite its galloping economy and huge foreign exchange reserves. At the same time, it views itself as a newly-emerged world power on par with the US and the EU.
11.This Chinese perception of itself and the world became evident in the articles and commentaries of Chinese analysts on the strategic significance of the US economic melt-down and of the US dependence on China for preventing an economic collapse. An article by the "People's Daily" of February 23,2009, said: "China has grown to be a new heavyweight player and stepped into the limelight on the world stage. And its role in salvaging the plummeting world economy from hitting bottom looms large and active, as the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during her just wrapped-up Asian tour, 'the U.S. appreciates the continued Chinese confidence in the U.S treasuries.' If the Cold War was 'a tug of war' between East and West, and a showcase of hard power, what we have today, for the first time in history, is a global, multicivilizational and multipolar competition, and a display of smart power. To be the winner, one has to seek more cooperation rather than confrontation."
12. The two defining characteristics of the Obama administration are opportunism and pragmatism. Its main priorities for some time to come will be restoring the economic health, preventing another 9/11 in the US homeland by going after Al Qaeda's sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal belt and any kind of peace in Afghanistan which would avert a Vietnam type disastrous withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan. For achieving these objectives, the US relations with China and Pakistan would have greater importance for Obama than its relations with India.
13. It should not, therefore, be a matter of surprise that India figures less and less in the short and medium-term strategic calculations of the Obama administration. The only interest of the Obama Administration in India will be in ensuring that it does not take any military action against Pakistan for its continued sponsorship and use of terrorism against India.
14. The Obama Administration is not going to be interested in building up India as a counter to China. In continuing to develop the USA's military-military relationship with India to which the Pentagon continues to attach importance, it will avoid features which could cause concern to China just as the Kevin Rudd Government in Australia is doing.
15. All India can expect from the Obama Administration is soothing words from time to time to tickle India's vanity. Nothing more. After the euphoria created by the policies of the Bush Administration among policy-makers and in the community of wishful-thinkers in New Delhi euphemistically called strategic thinkers, we are in for a mood correction. (10-3-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
PAKISTAN - Us and Them
Times of India
Terrorists and such have to be militarily defeated before states can sit across the table and deal with them; at best this can be started when the terrorists are on the run. What the Pakistanis have done in the Malakand division is inexplicable. They have not defeated the Islamic radicals militarily nor subdued them in any way. This deal was possible only because the Pak Army approved of this or actually encouraged it. This means that they have been either forced into this, wanted to do this anyway as they believed in it or the militants were so strong and the Army so weak that the militants could not be defeated.
In conceding ground to the radicals in FATA and Malakand as well as Kohistan in the Hazara Division, Islamabad has ceded sovereignty, although we may call it something else. There are fears that this maybe the tipping point for Pakistan’s eventual conversion into a Talibanised state.
Over the years Pakistan has come to believe that the world is beholden to it that it exists. This notion of indispensability allows them to be wild, delinquent and dangerous. Like the spoilt brat of a rich and doting parent, Pakistan either becomes petulant when it is not granted what it unjustifiably demands or becomes belligerent when it is granted that wish by its benefactor. Today, Pakistan is embellished by a begging bowl economy with terrorism as its main export, unending bitter unrest in Balochistan, sectarian violence in Dera Ismail Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan, a creaking law and order system and a judicial system that evokes little confidence.
There are many in India who are forever ready to give Pakistan another chance saying they are like us but the poor souls are stuck with rotten governments and they need our help to get them out of their predicament. It is incredibly naive of us to build policies for our future and security on fond nostalgia which is mostly one way. One has never heard any Pakistani leader talk lovingly of the India they left behind. And they teach their children mostly how to hate India with a warped form of history, even at the mainstream schools.
It is strange that we still keep saying to Pakistanis that we are all alike and have a common culture and so on. The truth is that they do not want to be like us and quite honestly, we have nothing in common with them. Not anymore. First of all, our minority population is more Indian than theirs is Pakistani and our majority too is different from theirs. Pakistanis have never understood, therefore never accepted, the concept of accepting and accommodating minorities. Not that we do it perfectly but we do a fairly good job. In Pakistan, you are either a Shia,Bohra or an Ismaili and worse -- an Ahmediya; being a woman, a Baloch, a Pushtun, a Sindhi or a Mohajir or a Hindu hari is a curse. Only a Sunni Punjabi is a true blue Punjabi. Arguments with minorities are settled with a bullet. It is difficult for a Pakistani to understand that minorities can also dominate and they are really minorities if you call them so. Our latest success story – the cricket team – symbolises our diversity. Pakistan does not have an equivalent of Bollywood and if they did, it would never be dominated by Hindus.
There are other fundamental differences. They deny history and even geography, we seek our roots in our civilisation. They say jihad in the name of God. We have room for all faiths at the Dargah in Ajmer Sharif, in Darbar Sahib (where the foundation stone was laid by Mian Mir), San Thome or Gyanvapi Temple. Fewer and fewer Pakistanis understand that it is easy or natural for an Indian to listen to Jafar Hussain Badayuni’s rendering of Amir Khusro’s Bahut Kathin Hai Dagar or Ek Pita Ekas Ke Hum Baarek by Bhai Maninder Singh and Bhai Jitender Singh or Jai Madhav Madan Murari by Jagjit Singh on any morning. This is what makes us unique in the world. God by any other name means the same and He does not seem to mind.
In Pakistan today we see images of black turbaned long haired mullahs leading a march to medievalism, in India we see the young and exuberant marching to the 21st century. We are still behind the rest of the privileged world but determined to catch up. Over there they wallow in their sense of victimhood and blame everyone else for their plight. Over here we exult in our rainbow culture. They put their women in abayas suspicious of them and diffident about their own ability to handle them. In India we are proud of our women (except, unfortunately, for the lunatic fringe). In Pakistan they shoot and kill journalists; here, we merely grimace. Over there the majority would want to destroy the minority within their own religion. Over here in my country, should a section of the majority deviate, as it does now and then, it is the rest of the majority that defends the rights of the minority.
Let us not forget that the largest number of Muslims that has ever lived in a democracy anywhere in the world for such a long time is in India. In Pakistan they are now saying that Islam and democracy are incompatible. The word secularism does not exist in the mullah’s vocabulary, not even in the minds of some self proclaimed moderates like General Musharraf. Let us remember that Pakistanis have killed more Muslims in East Pakistan (where at its height of barbarity, the Pakistan Army killed 6000 to 12000 Hindus and Muslims per day). They are still doing that in Balochistan, Sindh, the Frontier, what they call the Northern Areas, the Punjab and Afghanistan. Muslims are no longer safe in Pakistan.
So what do we have in common with them that we yearn for? The answer – nothing. We are two different countries with two different kinds of people on two different trajectories and we are happy with that. Our only request should be -- please do not mess with us and we promise we will not mess with your country.
Pakistan will do deals with Al Qaeda, will encourage Lashkar-e-Tayyaba to carry out raids in India and will appease the Taliban. They will take their country to medieval times. They will do anything to try and wrest Kashmir from India. It would seem that they have a death wish. It would be prudent for us to take measures now in case Pakistan’s wish is granted.
Vikram Sood
Gurgaon,
February 23, 2009
(Former Secretary Research and Analysis Wing)
1098 words
Terrorists and such have to be militarily defeated before states can sit across the table and deal with them; at best this can be started when the terrorists are on the run. What the Pakistanis have done in the Malakand division is inexplicable. They have not defeated the Islamic radicals militarily nor subdued them in any way. This deal was possible only because the Pak Army approved of this or actually encouraged it. This means that they have been either forced into this, wanted to do this anyway as they believed in it or the militants were so strong and the Army so weak that the militants could not be defeated.
In conceding ground to the radicals in FATA and Malakand as well as Kohistan in the Hazara Division, Islamabad has ceded sovereignty, although we may call it something else. There are fears that this maybe the tipping point for Pakistan’s eventual conversion into a Talibanised state.
Over the years Pakistan has come to believe that the world is beholden to it that it exists. This notion of indispensability allows them to be wild, delinquent and dangerous. Like the spoilt brat of a rich and doting parent, Pakistan either becomes petulant when it is not granted what it unjustifiably demands or becomes belligerent when it is granted that wish by its benefactor. Today, Pakistan is embellished by a begging bowl economy with terrorism as its main export, unending bitter unrest in Balochistan, sectarian violence in Dera Ismail Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan, a creaking law and order system and a judicial system that evokes little confidence.
There are many in India who are forever ready to give Pakistan another chance saying they are like us but the poor souls are stuck with rotten governments and they need our help to get them out of their predicament. It is incredibly naive of us to build policies for our future and security on fond nostalgia which is mostly one way. One has never heard any Pakistani leader talk lovingly of the India they left behind. And they teach their children mostly how to hate India with a warped form of history, even at the mainstream schools.
It is strange that we still keep saying to Pakistanis that we are all alike and have a common culture and so on. The truth is that they do not want to be like us and quite honestly, we have nothing in common with them. Not anymore. First of all, our minority population is more Indian than theirs is Pakistani and our majority too is different from theirs. Pakistanis have never understood, therefore never accepted, the concept of accepting and accommodating minorities. Not that we do it perfectly but we do a fairly good job. In Pakistan, you are either a Shia,Bohra or an Ismaili and worse -- an Ahmediya; being a woman, a Baloch, a Pushtun, a Sindhi or a Mohajir or a Hindu hari is a curse. Only a Sunni Punjabi is a true blue Punjabi. Arguments with minorities are settled with a bullet. It is difficult for a Pakistani to understand that minorities can also dominate and they are really minorities if you call them so. Our latest success story – the cricket team – symbolises our diversity. Pakistan does not have an equivalent of Bollywood and if they did, it would never be dominated by Hindus.
There are other fundamental differences. They deny history and even geography, we seek our roots in our civilisation. They say jihad in the name of God. We have room for all faiths at the Dargah in Ajmer Sharif, in Darbar Sahib (where the foundation stone was laid by Mian Mir), San Thome or Gyanvapi Temple. Fewer and fewer Pakistanis understand that it is easy or natural for an Indian to listen to Jafar Hussain Badayuni’s rendering of Amir Khusro’s Bahut Kathin Hai Dagar or Ek Pita Ekas Ke Hum Baarek by Bhai Maninder Singh and Bhai Jitender Singh or Jai Madhav Madan Murari by Jagjit Singh on any morning. This is what makes us unique in the world. God by any other name means the same and He does not seem to mind.
In Pakistan today we see images of black turbaned long haired mullahs leading a march to medievalism, in India we see the young and exuberant marching to the 21st century. We are still behind the rest of the privileged world but determined to catch up. Over there they wallow in their sense of victimhood and blame everyone else for their plight. Over here we exult in our rainbow culture. They put their women in abayas suspicious of them and diffident about their own ability to handle them. In India we are proud of our women (except, unfortunately, for the lunatic fringe). In Pakistan they shoot and kill journalists; here, we merely grimace. Over there the majority would want to destroy the minority within their own religion. Over here in my country, should a section of the majority deviate, as it does now and then, it is the rest of the majority that defends the rights of the minority.
Let us not forget that the largest number of Muslims that has ever lived in a democracy anywhere in the world for such a long time is in India. In Pakistan they are now saying that Islam and democracy are incompatible. The word secularism does not exist in the mullah’s vocabulary, not even in the minds of some self proclaimed moderates like General Musharraf. Let us remember that Pakistanis have killed more Muslims in East Pakistan (where at its height of barbarity, the Pakistan Army killed 6000 to 12000 Hindus and Muslims per day). They are still doing that in Balochistan, Sindh, the Frontier, what they call the Northern Areas, the Punjab and Afghanistan. Muslims are no longer safe in Pakistan.
So what do we have in common with them that we yearn for? The answer – nothing. We are two different countries with two different kinds of people on two different trajectories and we are happy with that. Our only request should be -- please do not mess with us and we promise we will not mess with your country.
Pakistan will do deals with Al Qaeda, will encourage Lashkar-e-Tayyaba to carry out raids in India and will appease the Taliban. They will take their country to medieval times. They will do anything to try and wrest Kashmir from India. It would seem that they have a death wish. It would be prudent for us to take measures now in case Pakistan’s wish is granted.
Vikram Sood
Gurgaon,
February 23, 2009
(Former Secretary Research and Analysis Wing)
1098 words
March 08, 2009
SHOULD IPL TOURNAMENT-2009 GO AHEAD AS SCHEDULED?
B.RAMAN
Should the Indian Premier League (IPL) Cricket tournament for 2009 go ahead as scheduled or should it be postponed due to security considerations?
2. The national debate on this question is sought to be influenced more by commercial considerations arising from the profit-making urge of the corporate entities owning the participating teams and the money-making urge of different sections of the media and the advertising community than by security considerations, which have assumed added importance in view of the recent terrorist strikes in Mumbai and Lahore. The importance of ensuring the security of the life and property of the common citizens is sought to be subordinated to catering to the money-making urge of these sections with a vested interest in seeing that the IPL tournament goes ahead as scheduled.One has also valid reasons to suspect that electoral considerations----- the anxiety of the Congress (I) not to step on the toes of Shri Sharad Pawar, who apart from being an influential member of the Union Cabinet, wears a second hat as the czar of the commercialised cricket world-- are also playing a role in preventing a totally professional judgement on the issue.
3. The organisers of the IPL should have known that the general elections to the Indian Parliament were due before May,2009. This is a constitutional requirement, which has to be fulfilled. Making security arrangements for the elections in the rural and urban areas is always a very difficult task. This is going to be even more difficult this year in the wake of the wave of terrorist strikes since May,2008----in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Assam and Mumbai. Shri P.Chidambarm, Minister for Home Affairs, was quoted in a TV interview as saying that one has to be prepared for a possible terrorist strike as the elections approach.
4.In view of this, one would have expected that in getting a window of dates for the IPL tournament approved by the concerned international cricketing authorities, the IPL organisers would have seen that the dates for the tournament did not clash with the likely dates for the elections. Even if there was no terrorist threat, making simultaneous security arrangements for two major events such as the general elections and a cricket tournament of tremendous public interest would have been an uphill task for our security agencies, the police and the para-military forces.
5. Even in the absence of possible threats from terrorists, there would have been a tremendous pressure on their manpower resources. It is not just a question of finding the required manpower. It is also a question of giving adequate rest in between polls and cricket matches to the forces that would be deployed to provide security. A tired member of the security forces cannot reasonably be expected to be alert enough to prevent a threat to security.
6. The security arrangements are likely to be more difficult and complex this year due to the recently-emerged threat from terrorists. Before the attempt by a group of terrorists to blow up the New York World Trade Centre in February, 1993, the conventional wisdom among terrorism analysts was that terrorists would not indulge in mass casualty terrorism as that could antagonise public opinion. The February 1993 attempt disproved this and showed that a new group of terrorists has arrived who are not bothered about the impact of their actions on public opinion.
7. Before the Lahore terrorist attack of March 3,2009, the conventional wisdom was that the terrorists would not target a cricket match in the sub-continent because that could antagonise millions of the cricket-loving public of the sub-continent. This too now stands disproved. The terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan team without bothering about the impact on public opinion and on the cricket-loving public. Shockingly, the cricket-loving public of Pakistan too has not condemned the attack. It has chosen to keep quiet. The terrorists have seen, firstly, how their actions have not had an adverse impact on the minds of the cricket-loving public and, secondly, what kind of publicity they got all over the world.
8. Any sensible member of the security community anywhere in the world would take the lessons from Lahore into consideration while drawing up plans for security arrangements for sports events. The first lesson from Lahore is that it is more difficult to make route security arrangements than security arrangements at the hotel of stay and in the stadium. The second lesson is that even the best of security can break down in the face of determined commando style attacks. This is a modus operandi to which an appropriate response by the security forces is yet to be found.
9. By their totally unwise action in fixing the dates of the tournament at the same time as the elections, the IPL organisers have placed the Government and its security bureaucracy in a cruel dilemma. If the authorities suggest a postponement of the tournament, they might give the impression that they have allowed themselves to be intimidated by the terrorists. Such an impression could give added oxygen to the terrorists. If they go ahead with the tournament, despite its clashing with the general elections and despite the deterioration in the security situation, , they could be playing with the security of the lives and property of the citizens of this country.
10. Faced with this dilemma, it is important that the Government goes purely by the professional assessment and advice of the security bureaucracy in deciding whether the IPC should go ahead as scheduled. Unwarranted arguments such as "national pride" etc should not be allowed to influence the decision. Commercial and electoral considerations should not be allowed to prevail over security considerations. Professional views are more important than the views of vested commercial interests. (8-3-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Should the Indian Premier League (IPL) Cricket tournament for 2009 go ahead as scheduled or should it be postponed due to security considerations?
2. The national debate on this question is sought to be influenced more by commercial considerations arising from the profit-making urge of the corporate entities owning the participating teams and the money-making urge of different sections of the media and the advertising community than by security considerations, which have assumed added importance in view of the recent terrorist strikes in Mumbai and Lahore. The importance of ensuring the security of the life and property of the common citizens is sought to be subordinated to catering to the money-making urge of these sections with a vested interest in seeing that the IPL tournament goes ahead as scheduled.One has also valid reasons to suspect that electoral considerations----- the anxiety of the Congress (I) not to step on the toes of Shri Sharad Pawar, who apart from being an influential member of the Union Cabinet, wears a second hat as the czar of the commercialised cricket world-- are also playing a role in preventing a totally professional judgement on the issue.
3. The organisers of the IPL should have known that the general elections to the Indian Parliament were due before May,2009. This is a constitutional requirement, which has to be fulfilled. Making security arrangements for the elections in the rural and urban areas is always a very difficult task. This is going to be even more difficult this year in the wake of the wave of terrorist strikes since May,2008----in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Assam and Mumbai. Shri P.Chidambarm, Minister for Home Affairs, was quoted in a TV interview as saying that one has to be prepared for a possible terrorist strike as the elections approach.
4.In view of this, one would have expected that in getting a window of dates for the IPL tournament approved by the concerned international cricketing authorities, the IPL organisers would have seen that the dates for the tournament did not clash with the likely dates for the elections. Even if there was no terrorist threat, making simultaneous security arrangements for two major events such as the general elections and a cricket tournament of tremendous public interest would have been an uphill task for our security agencies, the police and the para-military forces.
5. Even in the absence of possible threats from terrorists, there would have been a tremendous pressure on their manpower resources. It is not just a question of finding the required manpower. It is also a question of giving adequate rest in between polls and cricket matches to the forces that would be deployed to provide security. A tired member of the security forces cannot reasonably be expected to be alert enough to prevent a threat to security.
6. The security arrangements are likely to be more difficult and complex this year due to the recently-emerged threat from terrorists. Before the attempt by a group of terrorists to blow up the New York World Trade Centre in February, 1993, the conventional wisdom among terrorism analysts was that terrorists would not indulge in mass casualty terrorism as that could antagonise public opinion. The February 1993 attempt disproved this and showed that a new group of terrorists has arrived who are not bothered about the impact of their actions on public opinion.
7. Before the Lahore terrorist attack of March 3,2009, the conventional wisdom was that the terrorists would not target a cricket match in the sub-continent because that could antagonise millions of the cricket-loving public of the sub-continent. This too now stands disproved. The terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan team without bothering about the impact on public opinion and on the cricket-loving public. Shockingly, the cricket-loving public of Pakistan too has not condemned the attack. It has chosen to keep quiet. The terrorists have seen, firstly, how their actions have not had an adverse impact on the minds of the cricket-loving public and, secondly, what kind of publicity they got all over the world.
8. Any sensible member of the security community anywhere in the world would take the lessons from Lahore into consideration while drawing up plans for security arrangements for sports events. The first lesson from Lahore is that it is more difficult to make route security arrangements than security arrangements at the hotel of stay and in the stadium. The second lesson is that even the best of security can break down in the face of determined commando style attacks. This is a modus operandi to which an appropriate response by the security forces is yet to be found.
9. By their totally unwise action in fixing the dates of the tournament at the same time as the elections, the IPL organisers have placed the Government and its security bureaucracy in a cruel dilemma. If the authorities suggest a postponement of the tournament, they might give the impression that they have allowed themselves to be intimidated by the terrorists. Such an impression could give added oxygen to the terrorists. If they go ahead with the tournament, despite its clashing with the general elections and despite the deterioration in the security situation, , they could be playing with the security of the lives and property of the citizens of this country.
10. Faced with this dilemma, it is important that the Government goes purely by the professional assessment and advice of the security bureaucracy in deciding whether the IPC should go ahead as scheduled. Unwarranted arguments such as "national pride" etc should not be allowed to influence the decision. Commercial and electoral considerations should not be allowed to prevail over security considerations. Professional views are more important than the views of vested commercial interests. (8-3-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Is Advani the only friend of Baluch in India?
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Posted by mustikhan.blogspot.com
Almost all Baluch love India. Unlike the Punjab, where India is viewed as an enemy and Hindus portrayed as beasts wanting to sleep with Punjabi Muslim women, most Baluch think the British should never have created Pakistan and Muslims would have been better off in a United India than in Pakistan.
As far as Baluchistan goes, even at the time of its forced annexation the two questions that were before the Baluch public was whether to chose between an independent Baluchistan or become a part of India.
According to an Indian analyst, "On August 15, 1947 the Khan of Kalat addressed a large gathering in Kalat and formally declared the full independence of Balochistan, and proclaimed the 15th day of August a day of celebration. The Khan formed the lower and upper house of Kalat Assembly, and during the first meeting of the Lower House in early September 1947, the Assembly confirmed the independence of Balochistan. Jinnah tried to persuade the Khan to join Pakistan, but the Khan and both Houses of the Kalat Assembly refused. The Pakistani army then invaded Balochistan on April 15th, 1948, and imprisoned all members of the Kalat Assembly. India stood by silently. Lord Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru or Maulana Azad, then the president of India’s Congress Party said nothing about the rape of Baluchistan or later of N.W.F.P."
There is no doubt in my mind almost all Baluch leaders, the De Jure ruler of Baluchistan Suleman Daud Ahmedzai, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, Sardar Attaullah and Akhtar Mengal, Nawab Brahamdagh Bugti, Dr. Malik Baloch and Hasil Bizenjo, Ghulam Mohammed Baloch, Jumma Khan Baloch and Dr. Jumma Marri all have deep respects and loves for India.
I personally joke with Americans how can Kashmir be a part of Pakistan when Pakistan is itself a part of India.
When people here in the US ask me where I am from, my reply is India. And when they ask which part, my reply is "The broken part which the British named Pakistan."
Unfortunately, Indian leaders have lacked the vision and statesmanship to grasp the hands of friendship extended towards them by the Baluch. One exception was Indira Gandhi, who is much loved by the Baluch and Sindhi people for her role in the liberation of Bangladesh.
One of the main leaders of modern Baluch nationalism, the father of Baluchistan Mir Ghous Bakhsh Bizenjo, told me about the futile visit Baluch leaders had with the head of the Indian National Congress Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1947.
Maulana Azad was a true patriot and knew more about Islam then the alcoholic British stooge Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Unfortunately, Azad advised Bizenjo and leaders of the Kalat State National Party that visited India to accept the tyranny of Pakistan.
Bizenjo, who later spent many years behind bars and was sodomized in prison, became so dejected by the Indian response he gave up the independence slogan and settled for provincial autonomy the rest of his life.
I have had an opportunity to speak on phone with the honorable Sree L.K. Advani, whose family like mine were Old Karachites, and at this point of time he seems to be the only leader who really cares about Baluchistan and who can really canvass international support for the liberation of Baluchistan.
To date, it is clear India has not stepped up to the plate when it comes to Baluch slavery.
Posted by mustikhan.blogspot.com
Almost all Baluch love India. Unlike the Punjab, where India is viewed as an enemy and Hindus portrayed as beasts wanting to sleep with Punjabi Muslim women, most Baluch think the British should never have created Pakistan and Muslims would have been better off in a United India than in Pakistan.
As far as Baluchistan goes, even at the time of its forced annexation the two questions that were before the Baluch public was whether to chose between an independent Baluchistan or become a part of India.
According to an Indian analyst, "On August 15, 1947 the Khan of Kalat addressed a large gathering in Kalat and formally declared the full independence of Balochistan, and proclaimed the 15th day of August a day of celebration. The Khan formed the lower and upper house of Kalat Assembly, and during the first meeting of the Lower House in early September 1947, the Assembly confirmed the independence of Balochistan. Jinnah tried to persuade the Khan to join Pakistan, but the Khan and both Houses of the Kalat Assembly refused. The Pakistani army then invaded Balochistan on April 15th, 1948, and imprisoned all members of the Kalat Assembly. India stood by silently. Lord Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru or Maulana Azad, then the president of India’s Congress Party said nothing about the rape of Baluchistan or later of N.W.F.P."
There is no doubt in my mind almost all Baluch leaders, the De Jure ruler of Baluchistan Suleman Daud Ahmedzai, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, Sardar Attaullah and Akhtar Mengal, Nawab Brahamdagh Bugti, Dr. Malik Baloch and Hasil Bizenjo, Ghulam Mohammed Baloch, Jumma Khan Baloch and Dr. Jumma Marri all have deep respects and loves for India.
I personally joke with Americans how can Kashmir be a part of Pakistan when Pakistan is itself a part of India.
When people here in the US ask me where I am from, my reply is India. And when they ask which part, my reply is "The broken part which the British named Pakistan."
Unfortunately, Indian leaders have lacked the vision and statesmanship to grasp the hands of friendship extended towards them by the Baluch. One exception was Indira Gandhi, who is much loved by the Baluch and Sindhi people for her role in the liberation of Bangladesh.
One of the main leaders of modern Baluch nationalism, the father of Baluchistan Mir Ghous Bakhsh Bizenjo, told me about the futile visit Baluch leaders had with the head of the Indian National Congress Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1947.
Maulana Azad was a true patriot and knew more about Islam then the alcoholic British stooge Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Unfortunately, Azad advised Bizenjo and leaders of the Kalat State National Party that visited India to accept the tyranny of Pakistan.
Bizenjo, who later spent many years behind bars and was sodomized in prison, became so dejected by the Indian response he gave up the independence slogan and settled for provincial autonomy the rest of his life.
I have had an opportunity to speak on phone with the honorable Sree L.K. Advani, whose family like mine were Old Karachites, and at this point of time he seems to be the only leader who really cares about Baluchistan and who can really canvass international support for the liberation of Baluchistan.
To date, it is clear India has not stepped up to the plate when it comes to Baluch slavery.
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