By Raja Karthikeya
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH07Df04.html
Far from the headlines of the mainstream media, the border between Iran and Pakistan is heating up to epic proportions. In recent months, cross-border raids by a Balochistan-based terrorist group, Jundullah, targeting Iranian security personnel and civilians, has plunged bilateral relations to unprecedented depths.
But Jundullah isn't just the prime mover for the internal security crisis in southeastern Iran. It also threatens to become the key to the survival of the Taliban on the border between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
On May 28, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside the Ameer al-Momenin mosque in Zahedan, capital of Iran's Sistan-Balochistan province, killing 25 people and injuring 130 others. Since the attack took place during a Shi'ite festival, it incensed Tehran. It was carried out by a member of Jundullah (which is a Baloch insurgent group, not to be confused with Jundallah, a pan-Pakistan offshoot of Baitullah Mehsud's Taliban faction).
The Zahedan attack followed months of ever-bolder attacks by Jundullah inside Iran's Sistan-Balochistan province, including the kidnap of 21 Iranian truck drivers in August 2007 into Pakistan (later freed by Pakistani forces), the kidnapping of Iranian border troops, 16 of whom were executed on camera in December 2008, some gruesomely through decapitation, and the first suicide bombing in Iran's history in December 2008. In November 2008, Jundullah's hand or collaboration was suspected in the kidnap of an Iranian diplomat in Peshawar. Occupied by the war against the Taliban, Islamabad at times seemed intransigent to Iranian appeals to crack down on Jundullah activities in the Makran highlands that straddle the 1,000 kilometer border between Pakistan and Iran.
The Zahedan attack therefore proved to be a watershed of sorts in bilateral relations. Tehran apparently had alerted Islamabad in advance about the possibility of the attack and requested the latter's authorities crack down on Jundullah on Pakistani territory as a pre-emptive measure. Hence, when the Zahedan attack happened, Iran made unprecedented diplomatic maneuvers. It not only lodged a strong protest with Islamabad, but the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan called a press conference and lambasted the Pakistani authorities for inaction.
Within days, Iran closed its border with Pakistan. Bilateral relations plunged to unprecedented depths. For Pakistan, which has border disputes and hostile relations with two of its three neighbors - India and Afghanistan - the Iranian moves could not have come at a worse time.
Pakistan felt particularly misunderstood since, after the civilian government came to power in 2008, it had initiated some amount of internal action against Jundullah - although this action was largely confined to the urban areas in Pakistan rather than the border areas from where Jundullah operated.
The government of President Asif Ali Zardari had also handed over to Iran Abdel Hamid Rigi, the captured brother of Jundullah leader Abdel Malik Rigi. Some very deft diplomacy as well as the distraction of the Iranian elections arrested the crisis from deterioration. But it remains a fact that although there is some amount of understanding between Islamabad and Tehran in tackling the group, this cooperation is far from translating into effective intelligence-sharing or cross-border operational coordination.
On the other hand, Iran has been ruthless in cracking down on the group in Sistan-Balochistan, executing a number of Jundullah prisoners, including Abdel Hamid Rigi, this year, after a well-orchestrated confession by the latter. The Iranian state did not spare even relatives of the Rigi family living in the country. Yet, Jundullah only appears to have grown bolder and more reckless with every Iranian crackdown. In fact, a number of bold attacks and hostage-takings in Iran last year were expressly for the purpose of forcing Iran to free the group's activists.
Jundullah, which at times calls itself the "People's Resistance Movement of Iran", came into prominence around 2003. It was allegedly founded by Nek Mohammed Wazir, a former Pakistani Taliban leader. Its current leader, Abdel Malik Rigi, was educated in southern Pakistani port city of Karachi in the same madrassa (seminary) as a majority of the Pakistani Taliban leadership and he claims to have fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. The group says that it is fighting for the rights of Iran's roughly 4 million Balochs, which it claims have been suppressed by the Shi’ite regime in Tehran.
The group started by targeting important elements of the Iranian state presence in Sistan-Balochistan province, particularly the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, but has since carried out suicide attacks against civilian targets. Critics say that Jundullah is a sectarian Sunni-chauvinist group that claims an ethnic agenda. They also say that even as a Baloch insurgency rages inside Pakistan itself, Jundullah has shown little enthusiasm to join it so far, and has focused on fighting for Balochs only in Iran.
For instance, the group said that the Zahedan attack was done to protest a Tehran-imposed festival which the group alleges falsely attributed martyrdom to Fatima, the prophet's daughter - an ancient dispute in Islamic history. In contemporary Iran, where nationalism and sectarian loyalty have been conveniently entwined by Tehran, Jundullah's statement amounted to treason and heresy at the same time.
But in reality, a closer analysis of Jundullah propaganda suggests the group actually masquerades its ethnic struggle in a sectarian guise, perhaps to win greater support within Pakistan. Abdel Malik Rigi also tries to not endanger his sanctuary by stressing that he is not engaged in any anti-Pakistan activity and is solely focused on Iran.
But for all practical purposes, Jundullah's zeal has begun to translate into greater sectarian violence. The Shi’ite-Sunni sectarian divide between Pakistan and Iran, which was obvious during the Afghan civil war in which both sides ran/supported proxies (the Taliban by Pakistan and the Hazaras by Iran), persists to date and Jundullah is seen by Iran as an extension of it.
Tehran has alleged in recent years that Jundullah is being run by Pakistan on behalf of the US to destabilize the regime in Tehran. (In 2007, there were controversial reports in some Western media outlets that the George W Bush administration was funding Jundullah covertly to further the agenda of "regime change". One report said that the Bush administration's objective was to gain leverage over Tehran, given Iranian sponsorship of insurgent groups in Iraq. Yet another said that Jundullah had been helpful to the US in tracking movements of al-Qaeda in the notoriously dangerous Pakistan-Iran-Afghanistan border region)
But, Tehran has also alleged that Jundullah is allied with al-Qaeda. Tehran's continuing confrontation with the international community has contributed to its failure in mustering international support against Jundullah. This in turn has allowed Jundullah to solicit funding from sympathetic Baloch emigres in Europe and the Gulf.
In any event, Tehran's fears about a “Western conspiracy†against it have only gained ground in recent weeks, after Abdel Malik Rigi said in an interview that he received intelligence support from the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, an Iranian dissident group that has a history of terrorist acts against the Islamic republic (and was responsible for crippling Ayatollah Ruhollah Khamenei in a bombing in the early 1980s).
Apart from fomenting cross-border tensions with Iran, Jundullah has now become an active internal security threat for Pakistan. A raid mounted on a safe house by Pakistani police in January 2008 in their search for the Iranian diplomat who was kidnapped from Peshawar unexpectedly captured several cadres of the TTP and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a well-known anti-Shi’ite sectarian group. Jundullah has also been implicated in narcotics smuggling across the border.
Pakistani media recently quoted analysts who feel that given the Pakistani army's ongoing offensive against Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan, his cadres may flee into Balochistan and join forces with Jundullah to mount a stand there against Pakistani troops. In fact, of all the groups in Pakistan's border region, it is Jundullah which has the terrain knowledge, tactical capacity and ideological indoctrination that could even render true Pakistan's fears that the US-led operation in Helmand province of Afghanistan could lead to a spillover of some of the Afghan Taliban into Balochistan.
Jundullah has to be fought and defeated in Pakistan to avert the nightmare scenario of a tie-up with the Taliban and Balochistan becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda. Estimates of Jundullah's cadre range from 700 to 1,000, with up to 200 cadres fighting in the border region. While the group is comparatively small by itself, its ability to infiltrate urban environments in Pakistan cannot be underestimated. Nor can its propensity to use suicide bombing be taken lightly. Jundullah has also openly threatened the gas pipelines being built from Iran into Pakistan, which would imperil Pakistan's energy security.
Further, a repeat of the Zahedan attack inside Iran would almost certainly bring Iran and Pakistan to the brink of war. For the Iranian regime, which is still reeling from the post-election protests, such a causus belli (with all its sectarian connotations) would also help consolidate its control on the country. Hence, controlling Jundullah's cross-border movements is an urgent necessity for Pakistan and for the US. Going after Jundullah would indeed pre-empt a clear and rising threat to security of the region.
Raja Karthikeya is a freelance contributor.
(Copyright 2009, Raja Karthikeya)
August 07, 2009
Now, Kakodkar looks at nuclear aircraft carrier, warships
Mumbai (PTI): After the launch of the country's first indigenously built nuclear submarine, India has the "technical expertise and capability" to build nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and warships, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar has said.
"We have the technical expertise and capability to build nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and warships of global standards," Mr. Kakodkar said on the sidelines of a function here on Tuesday night.
"When the government asks us to build such ships, we will do it... we are confident that we can build even supply propelling energy for aircraft carriers," he said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while launching the nuclear-powered submarine 'INS Arihant' last month, had said that government would be sanctioning development of more such submarines.
Mr. Kakodkar said India will aim to set up 40GWe Light Water reactors between 2012 and 2020 and for that "we had to go for international cooperation."
"Once we do this, then the doubling of nuclear power generation capacity can be achieved through fast breeder reactors (FBRs) as these are important for our future thorium programme," he said.
"We cannot afford to hasten the thorium programme and we have to go step by step to get to use the thorium for the next 200 years," he said.
India is also planning to set up 20 units of indigenous 700 MW of pressurised heavy water (PHWR) type reactor and the Centre has already agreed in principle for four such units for which site and environment clearances have been done, Mr. Kakodkar said.
India has already developed 220MW, 540MW PHWR type nuclear reactors which are operating successfully and it is possible to have 20 units of 700 MW plants which can run with indigenous natural uranium as well as imported fuel, he said.
Since the uranium available in India could supply up to 10,000 MW of electricity, the ambitious 700MW PHWRs are part of the evolutionary development of indigenous design, Mr. Kakodkar said.
All these plant designs are export models and India has the equipment supply chain for these kind of reactors in place with its robust infrastructure, Kakodkar said, adding several countries have already shown interest to buy PHWRs from India.
The AEC Chairman, however, ruled out private sector participation in nuclear power programmes in the immediate future.
"It is a different ball game and cannot go the way Enron went. Here the issues of security and 'insider threat', fuel accountability are of great concern," he said.
"Therefore, we are evolving design features to provide adequate security and this is a challenge. Under the international convention for physical protection, nuclear materials, all of these things, are important and India is a signatory to it," Mr. Kakodkar said.
On financing of the nuclear power programme, Mr. Kakodkar said, "the state-owned nuclear power corporation is a cash rich company and joint ventures will be set up with NPCIL holding majority share."
"For the next 10 to 15 years, finance is not a big issue.By that time nuclear power will become competitive and business will propel itself," he said.
"We have the technical expertise and capability to build nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and warships of global standards," Mr. Kakodkar said on the sidelines of a function here on Tuesday night.
"When the government asks us to build such ships, we will do it... we are confident that we can build even supply propelling energy for aircraft carriers," he said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while launching the nuclear-powered submarine 'INS Arihant' last month, had said that government would be sanctioning development of more such submarines.
Mr. Kakodkar said India will aim to set up 40GWe Light Water reactors between 2012 and 2020 and for that "we had to go for international cooperation."
"Once we do this, then the doubling of nuclear power generation capacity can be achieved through fast breeder reactors (FBRs) as these are important for our future thorium programme," he said.
"We cannot afford to hasten the thorium programme and we have to go step by step to get to use the thorium for the next 200 years," he said.
India is also planning to set up 20 units of indigenous 700 MW of pressurised heavy water (PHWR) type reactor and the Centre has already agreed in principle for four such units for which site and environment clearances have been done, Mr. Kakodkar said.
India has already developed 220MW, 540MW PHWR type nuclear reactors which are operating successfully and it is possible to have 20 units of 700 MW plants which can run with indigenous natural uranium as well as imported fuel, he said.
Since the uranium available in India could supply up to 10,000 MW of electricity, the ambitious 700MW PHWRs are part of the evolutionary development of indigenous design, Mr. Kakodkar said.
All these plant designs are export models and India has the equipment supply chain for these kind of reactors in place with its robust infrastructure, Kakodkar said, adding several countries have already shown interest to buy PHWRs from India.
The AEC Chairman, however, ruled out private sector participation in nuclear power programmes in the immediate future.
"It is a different ball game and cannot go the way Enron went. Here the issues of security and 'insider threat', fuel accountability are of great concern," he said.
"Therefore, we are evolving design features to provide adequate security and this is a challenge. Under the international convention for physical protection, nuclear materials, all of these things, are important and India is a signatory to it," Mr. Kakodkar said.
On financing of the nuclear power programme, Mr. Kakodkar said, "the state-owned nuclear power corporation is a cash rich company and joint ventures will be set up with NPCIL holding majority share."
"For the next 10 to 15 years, finance is not a big issue.By that time nuclear power will become competitive and business will propel itself," he said.
Japan looks for zone boost in Pakistan
By Syed Fazl-e-Haider
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH04Df02.html
QUETTA, Pakistan - Japanese manufacturers, increasingly sidelined in Pakistan as consumers there turn to cheap Chinese products, are looking to boost their influence and market share in the South Asian country as development of a Chinese special industrial zone in Punjab province struggles to get off the ground.
Land acquisition and financing issues have slowed development of the China-Pakistan Economic Zone (CPEZ), at Kala Shah Kako, near Lahore, since a ground-breaking ceremony in December 2006 attended by Chinese President Hu Jintao and former Pakistan prime minister Shaukat Aziz.
Now a special economic zone is about to be established for Japanese companies in the south of Pakistan, only one part of the country where everything from motorbikes to refrigerators is more likely than not to carry the stamp of a Chinese manufacturer. Goods from both zones will be marketable within Pakistan as well as overseas.
The CPEZ followed a memorandum of understanding between Ruba Group of Pakistan and China's consumer electronics products giant, Haier Group, to set up the first overseas industrial zone established by China. The Haier-Ruba venture brought in an initial investment of US$35 million, and nearly two dozen Chinese companies have already committed to invest in the proposed CPEZ, which is being established exclusively for Chinese investors and Pakistan-China joint ventures.
Further development has been considerably delayed over the issue of sharing the cost of land, with Haier-Ruba refusing to pay for 1,700 hectares out of its own pocket.
Haier-Ruba insists that the land should be provided free, or at subsidized rates, according to Business Recorder. The Federal government plans to buy land from the Punjab government through National Industrial Parks (NIP), and if Haier-Ruba backs out, other investors would be invited to acquire land, the report says.
Citing official sources, the report claims that government has proposed the acquisition of about 1,200 hectares of land in the name of the federal government for leasing to Haier-Ruba. In a meeting held at the president's secretariat on February 14, it was decided that NIP, which is wholly owned by the Pakistan government, would buy about 1,700 hectares acres of land and develop it for use by Haier-Ruba as a special economic zone(SEZ).
The zone, established under the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed in 2006 between Pakistan and China, would comprise an industrial park, a science and technology park, supply chain industry, a skill development center and a research and development center. Under the FTA deal, China is selling Pakistan increasing amounts of goods ranging from household items to textile plants and sophisticated technology items, while getting in return cheap raw materials and easy access to Pakistani ports for onward export of its goods at reduced freight rates.
Local analysts consider the proposed CPEZ to be very important for Pakistan's ailing export sector, as all goods manufactured in the zone would have tariff-free entry into the Chinese market.
Islamabad has already announced a special package, including a five-year tax holiday, for projects in the proposed CPEZ. Machinery and accessories imported for development of the zone will be fully exempt from duties and taxes and the existing 50% initial depreciation allowance will be increased to 100%. Normal export incentives available to projects established anywhere in the country will be applicable to exports from the zone.
Haier, China's largest and the world's fifth-largest home appliance-maker, entered Pakistan with an initial investment of about $35 million to create a joint venture, called Haier Pakistan, with Ruba General Trading Company. During the past five years, the partnership has achieved impressive results, becoming Pakistan's top maker of air-conditioners, second-largest washing machine producer, and third-largest producer of refrigerators.
Haier Pakistan is expected to produce 900,000 pieces of household appliances per year and plans to export to the Middle East and Asia.
Undaunted by the delays in getting the Chinese special economic zone fully up and running, Japan plans its own SEZ for Japanese investors in Pakistan.
Construction of a tax-free Japanese SEZ is due to start next month at an initial cost of $5 billion in the southern port of Karachi, in Sindh province. It is hoped that its tax status and location will help to add to the 22 Japanese companies, including Suzuki Motor Corp and Toyota Motor Corp, operating in Pakistan after security concerns deterred more arriving in recent years.
Terms for potential investors in the new zone, which is targeted mainly at hi-tech and heavy industry companies, include 100% equity and the free flow of money with remittances of royalty and technical fees. Suzuki, Sony, Yamaha and Marubeni are among Japanese outfits that have reportedly shown interest in establishing units in the SEZ.
Japan and Pakistan are also considering a joint investment company to boost investment activities by providing soft loans to establish industries. Local analysts believe that establishment of an SEZ would help promote Japan's competitive edge with China within Pakistan.
Five years ago, Japan dominated the motorbike market in Pakistan but now Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki are losing sales to Chinese bikes. Out of 53 units now assembling two-wheelers in Pakistan, 50 are Chinese and only three are Japanese. The latter has been forced to slash prices to drive sales, with limited success.
In Karachi, the country's financial, industrial and commercial hub. Chinese bikes have secured more than 80% of the market.
The central Pakistan government has also offered Japan the opportunity of establishing an exclusive economic zone in Gwadar, a strategic port it is developing in Balochistan province and where China has so far been the biggest foreign investor.
Syed Fazl-e-Haider, sfazlehaider05@yahoo.com, is a Quetta-based development analyst in Pakistan. He is the author of six books, including The Economic Development of Balochistan, published in May 2004.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH04Df02.html
QUETTA, Pakistan - Japanese manufacturers, increasingly sidelined in Pakistan as consumers there turn to cheap Chinese products, are looking to boost their influence and market share in the South Asian country as development of a Chinese special industrial zone in Punjab province struggles to get off the ground.
Land acquisition and financing issues have slowed development of the China-Pakistan Economic Zone (CPEZ), at Kala Shah Kako, near Lahore, since a ground-breaking ceremony in December 2006 attended by Chinese President Hu Jintao and former Pakistan prime minister Shaukat Aziz.
Now a special economic zone is about to be established for Japanese companies in the south of Pakistan, only one part of the country where everything from motorbikes to refrigerators is more likely than not to carry the stamp of a Chinese manufacturer. Goods from both zones will be marketable within Pakistan as well as overseas.
The CPEZ followed a memorandum of understanding between Ruba Group of Pakistan and China's consumer electronics products giant, Haier Group, to set up the first overseas industrial zone established by China. The Haier-Ruba venture brought in an initial investment of US$35 million, and nearly two dozen Chinese companies have already committed to invest in the proposed CPEZ, which is being established exclusively for Chinese investors and Pakistan-China joint ventures.
Further development has been considerably delayed over the issue of sharing the cost of land, with Haier-Ruba refusing to pay for 1,700 hectares out of its own pocket.
Haier-Ruba insists that the land should be provided free, or at subsidized rates, according to Business Recorder. The Federal government plans to buy land from the Punjab government through National Industrial Parks (NIP), and if Haier-Ruba backs out, other investors would be invited to acquire land, the report says.
Citing official sources, the report claims that government has proposed the acquisition of about 1,200 hectares of land in the name of the federal government for leasing to Haier-Ruba. In a meeting held at the president's secretariat on February 14, it was decided that NIP, which is wholly owned by the Pakistan government, would buy about 1,700 hectares acres of land and develop it for use by Haier-Ruba as a special economic zone(SEZ).
The zone, established under the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed in 2006 between Pakistan and China, would comprise an industrial park, a science and technology park, supply chain industry, a skill development center and a research and development center. Under the FTA deal, China is selling Pakistan increasing amounts of goods ranging from household items to textile plants and sophisticated technology items, while getting in return cheap raw materials and easy access to Pakistani ports for onward export of its goods at reduced freight rates.
Local analysts consider the proposed CPEZ to be very important for Pakistan's ailing export sector, as all goods manufactured in the zone would have tariff-free entry into the Chinese market.
Islamabad has already announced a special package, including a five-year tax holiday, for projects in the proposed CPEZ. Machinery and accessories imported for development of the zone will be fully exempt from duties and taxes and the existing 50% initial depreciation allowance will be increased to 100%. Normal export incentives available to projects established anywhere in the country will be applicable to exports from the zone.
Haier, China's largest and the world's fifth-largest home appliance-maker, entered Pakistan with an initial investment of about $35 million to create a joint venture, called Haier Pakistan, with Ruba General Trading Company. During the past five years, the partnership has achieved impressive results, becoming Pakistan's top maker of air-conditioners, second-largest washing machine producer, and third-largest producer of refrigerators.
Haier Pakistan is expected to produce 900,000 pieces of household appliances per year and plans to export to the Middle East and Asia.
Undaunted by the delays in getting the Chinese special economic zone fully up and running, Japan plans its own SEZ for Japanese investors in Pakistan.
Construction of a tax-free Japanese SEZ is due to start next month at an initial cost of $5 billion in the southern port of Karachi, in Sindh province. It is hoped that its tax status and location will help to add to the 22 Japanese companies, including Suzuki Motor Corp and Toyota Motor Corp, operating in Pakistan after security concerns deterred more arriving in recent years.
Terms for potential investors in the new zone, which is targeted mainly at hi-tech and heavy industry companies, include 100% equity and the free flow of money with remittances of royalty and technical fees. Suzuki, Sony, Yamaha and Marubeni are among Japanese outfits that have reportedly shown interest in establishing units in the SEZ.
Japan and Pakistan are also considering a joint investment company to boost investment activities by providing soft loans to establish industries. Local analysts believe that establishment of an SEZ would help promote Japan's competitive edge with China within Pakistan.
Five years ago, Japan dominated the motorbike market in Pakistan but now Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki are losing sales to Chinese bikes. Out of 53 units now assembling two-wheelers in Pakistan, 50 are Chinese and only three are Japanese. The latter has been forced to slash prices to drive sales, with limited success.
In Karachi, the country's financial, industrial and commercial hub. Chinese bikes have secured more than 80% of the market.
The central Pakistan government has also offered Japan the opportunity of establishing an exclusive economic zone in Gwadar, a strategic port it is developing in Balochistan province and where China has so far been the biggest foreign investor.
Syed Fazl-e-Haider, sfazlehaider05@yahoo.com, is a Quetta-based development analyst in Pakistan. He is the author of six books, including The Economic Development of Balochistan, published in May 2004.
US shrugs off Pakistan-Taliban links
By Gareth Porter
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH06Df01.html
WASHINGTON - Despite evidence implicating current Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani in a major military assistance program for Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan over the past few years, senior officials of the Barack Obama administration persuaded the US Congress to extend military assistance to Pakistan for five years without any assurance that the Pakistani assistance to the Taliban had ended.
Those officials, led by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, have been arguing that Kiani is committed to ending support the Taliban and other radical Islamic movements receive from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, but that he is not yet able to control ISI operatives.
Late last year, US officials were reportedly pressing Kiani for far-reaching changes in the ISI that would end its role in support of
insurgents in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Democratic Senator John Kerry demanded that the ISI be put under civilian control and threatened to introduce legislation making military assistance to Pakistan conditional on evidence that the Pakistani military had ended such support to the Taliban.
But Kerry dropped his proposal for conditioning US military assistance to Pakistan on ending the ISI-Taliban program. In February, Kerry said conversations with Mullen and "other players" had persuaded him that Kiani and his choice for new ISI chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha, had "a willingness to engage in transformation" of the ISI.
The Kerry-Lugar legislation passed by Congress in June provides US$2 billion in military aid as well as $4 billion in economic assistance to Pakistan over five years and makes no mention of evidence of military aid to the Taliban. It merely requires the secretary of state to certify that the "security forces of Pakistan are making concerted efforts to prevent the Taliban and associated militant groups from using the territory of Pakistan as a sanctuary from which to launch attacks within Afghanistan".
Obama's national security team established a critical basis for its argument to Congress by leaking a story to the New York Times asserting that Kiani would not be able to control the activities of ISI in the short run.
The story, published March 26, acknowledged "direct support from operatives" of the ISI for the Afghan Taliban insurgency, but quoted anonymous US officials saying it is "unlikely that top officials in Islamabad are directly coordinating the clandestine efforts" - a carefully chosen formula that does not deny that they are presiding over a policy of aiding the Taliban.
The story said unnamed US officials "have also said that mid-level ISI operatives occasionally cultivate relationships that are not approved by their bosses". That statement diverted attention away from whether the Pakistani military leadership has approved military assistance to the Taliban.
Mullen has been suggesting that Kiani has demonstrated good faith by purging the ISI. He told Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer in early April that the new head was "handpicked" to change the ISI.
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 21, Mullen emphasized that Kiani had changed "almost the entire leadership of ISI" over the previous six months.
After a conversation with Mullen, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius quoted him in a June 29 article as saying that Kiani and his choice for ISI chief "have committed very specifically to change the culture of ISI", but that "that's not going to happen overnight".
Mullen has, however, carefully avoided saying that Kiani has given assurances he intends to halt the military assistance to the Taliban.
The historical evidence on Kiani's past relationship to the issue suggests that he has no intention of changing Pakistani policy toward the Taliban.
Kiani himself served as head of ISI from late 2004 to late 2007 and presided over the development of a major logistical and training program for the Taliban forces operating out of Pakistan's Balochistan province.
The ISI military assistance program was first revealed in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) report of a two-week battle by NATO forces against a determined Taliban offensive in Kandahar province in September 2006.
During the battle, NATO forces captured a number of Pakistani fighters who detailed the ISI role in supporting the Taliban offensive. The NATO account, reported in The Telegraph by Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid on October 6, 2006, described two ISI training camps for the Taliban near Quetta in Pakistan's Balochistan province. It also documented the provision by the ISI of 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 400,000 rounds of ammunition - just for that one Taliban campaign.
The size and scope of the program of support described in the report were hardly consistent with the idea that assistance to the Taliban is a rogue operation by ISI operatives.
Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates presumably know about Kiani's past support for the Taliban assistance program. Evidence of continuing ISI assistance to, and safe have for, Taliban forces after Kiani replaced Pervez Musharraf as the top army general was compiled in an intelligence assessment circulated to the top national security officials of the George W Bush administration in mid-2008, according by David Sanger's book The Inheritance.
Kiani was also overheard in a conversation intercepted by US intelligence referring to a high-ranking Taliban leader, Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, as a "strategic asset", according to Sanger's account. Haqqani was a Taliban minister during that organization's brief period in power during the late 1990s, and his network has been a key target for the US campaign of Predator drone strikes in Pakistan during 2008 and 2009.
Kiani is not the first Pakistani military leader to assure the US that he is purging the ISI of pro-Taliban elements. President Musharraf did the same thing to ease pressure from Washington to toe the line on Afghanistan in early October 2001.
Musharraf claimed he had made far-reaching changes in the ISI by removing its director, Mahmood Ahmad - who he said had been affiliated with Islamic extremists. But Musharraf never changed his pro-Taliban policy; despite his pledge to do so immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks.
The March 26 New York Times story reported Pakistani officials as portraying their Taliban policy as "part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan for the day when American forces would withdraw" leaving "a power vacuum to be filled by India".
After the Times story, Gates began arguing that the US must convince Pakistani leaders that it will not abandon the war in Afghanistan.
In a March 29 interview with Fox News, Gates said the Pakistanis had ties with the Taliban "partly as a hedge against what might happen in Afghanistan if we were to walk away or whatever". The US has to convince the Pakistanis that "they can count on us and that they don't need that hedge", Gates said.
Mullen and other US military leaders have an interest other than Afghanistan - which appears to driving their willingness to overlook Kiani's past and present support for the Taliban. They once had close ties with the Pakistani military, which they touted for decades as a basis for US influence in the country, despite persistent and sharp divergences in US and Pakistani strategic interests.
Those ties were cut off in the 1990s because of legislation requiring an end to military cooperation over Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Mullen and other military leaders now argue that close relations must be a top US priority.
As Mullen told the Inquirer's Rubin, "One of my strategic objectives is to close this gap in the relationship with the Pakistani military."
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.
(Inter Press Service)
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH06Df01.html
WASHINGTON - Despite evidence implicating current Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani in a major military assistance program for Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan over the past few years, senior officials of the Barack Obama administration persuaded the US Congress to extend military assistance to Pakistan for five years without any assurance that the Pakistani assistance to the Taliban had ended.
Those officials, led by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, have been arguing that Kiani is committed to ending support the Taliban and other radical Islamic movements receive from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, but that he is not yet able to control ISI operatives.
Late last year, US officials were reportedly pressing Kiani for far-reaching changes in the ISI that would end its role in support of
insurgents in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Democratic Senator John Kerry demanded that the ISI be put under civilian control and threatened to introduce legislation making military assistance to Pakistan conditional on evidence that the Pakistani military had ended such support to the Taliban.
But Kerry dropped his proposal for conditioning US military assistance to Pakistan on ending the ISI-Taliban program. In February, Kerry said conversations with Mullen and "other players" had persuaded him that Kiani and his choice for new ISI chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha, had "a willingness to engage in transformation" of the ISI.
The Kerry-Lugar legislation passed by Congress in June provides US$2 billion in military aid as well as $4 billion in economic assistance to Pakistan over five years and makes no mention of evidence of military aid to the Taliban. It merely requires the secretary of state to certify that the "security forces of Pakistan are making concerted efforts to prevent the Taliban and associated militant groups from using the territory of Pakistan as a sanctuary from which to launch attacks within Afghanistan".
Obama's national security team established a critical basis for its argument to Congress by leaking a story to the New York Times asserting that Kiani would not be able to control the activities of ISI in the short run.
The story, published March 26, acknowledged "direct support from operatives" of the ISI for the Afghan Taliban insurgency, but quoted anonymous US officials saying it is "unlikely that top officials in Islamabad are directly coordinating the clandestine efforts" - a carefully chosen formula that does not deny that they are presiding over a policy of aiding the Taliban.
The story said unnamed US officials "have also said that mid-level ISI operatives occasionally cultivate relationships that are not approved by their bosses". That statement diverted attention away from whether the Pakistani military leadership has approved military assistance to the Taliban.
Mullen has been suggesting that Kiani has demonstrated good faith by purging the ISI. He told Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer in early April that the new head was "handpicked" to change the ISI.
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 21, Mullen emphasized that Kiani had changed "almost the entire leadership of ISI" over the previous six months.
After a conversation with Mullen, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius quoted him in a June 29 article as saying that Kiani and his choice for ISI chief "have committed very specifically to change the culture of ISI", but that "that's not going to happen overnight".
Mullen has, however, carefully avoided saying that Kiani has given assurances he intends to halt the military assistance to the Taliban.
The historical evidence on Kiani's past relationship to the issue suggests that he has no intention of changing Pakistani policy toward the Taliban.
Kiani himself served as head of ISI from late 2004 to late 2007 and presided over the development of a major logistical and training program for the Taliban forces operating out of Pakistan's Balochistan province.
The ISI military assistance program was first revealed in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) report of a two-week battle by NATO forces against a determined Taliban offensive in Kandahar province in September 2006.
During the battle, NATO forces captured a number of Pakistani fighters who detailed the ISI role in supporting the Taliban offensive. The NATO account, reported in The Telegraph by Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid on October 6, 2006, described two ISI training camps for the Taliban near Quetta in Pakistan's Balochistan province. It also documented the provision by the ISI of 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 400,000 rounds of ammunition - just for that one Taliban campaign.
The size and scope of the program of support described in the report were hardly consistent with the idea that assistance to the Taliban is a rogue operation by ISI operatives.
Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates presumably know about Kiani's past support for the Taliban assistance program. Evidence of continuing ISI assistance to, and safe have for, Taliban forces after Kiani replaced Pervez Musharraf as the top army general was compiled in an intelligence assessment circulated to the top national security officials of the George W Bush administration in mid-2008, according by David Sanger's book The Inheritance.
Kiani was also overheard in a conversation intercepted by US intelligence referring to a high-ranking Taliban leader, Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, as a "strategic asset", according to Sanger's account. Haqqani was a Taliban minister during that organization's brief period in power during the late 1990s, and his network has been a key target for the US campaign of Predator drone strikes in Pakistan during 2008 and 2009.
Kiani is not the first Pakistani military leader to assure the US that he is purging the ISI of pro-Taliban elements. President Musharraf did the same thing to ease pressure from Washington to toe the line on Afghanistan in early October 2001.
Musharraf claimed he had made far-reaching changes in the ISI by removing its director, Mahmood Ahmad - who he said had been affiliated with Islamic extremists. But Musharraf never changed his pro-Taliban policy; despite his pledge to do so immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks.
The March 26 New York Times story reported Pakistani officials as portraying their Taliban policy as "part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan for the day when American forces would withdraw" leaving "a power vacuum to be filled by India".
After the Times story, Gates began arguing that the US must convince Pakistani leaders that it will not abandon the war in Afghanistan.
In a March 29 interview with Fox News, Gates said the Pakistanis had ties with the Taliban "partly as a hedge against what might happen in Afghanistan if we were to walk away or whatever". The US has to convince the Pakistanis that "they can count on us and that they don't need that hedge", Gates said.
Mullen and other US military leaders have an interest other than Afghanistan - which appears to driving their willingness to overlook Kiani's past and present support for the Taliban. They once had close ties with the Pakistani military, which they touted for decades as a basis for US influence in the country, despite persistent and sharp divergences in US and Pakistani strategic interests.
Those ties were cut off in the 1990s because of legislation requiring an end to military cooperation over Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Mullen and other military leaders now argue that close relations must be a top US priority.
As Mullen told the Inquirer's Rubin, "One of my strategic objectives is to close this gap in the relationship with the Pakistani military."
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.
(Inter Press Service)
NUANCED, NOT SIMPLISTIC---OBAMA'S NEW COUNTER-TERRORISM POLICY
B.RAMAN
John O. Brennan, a former career intelligence officer of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who now functions as President Barack Obama's Assistant for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism, has in two interactions on August 5 and 6,2009, unveiled the first details of what will be the counter-terrorism doctrine of the Obama Administration.
2. The first interaction on August 5,2009, was with a select group of Washington-based journalists. The second on August 6 was in the form of a presentation before the Centre For Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC. Salient points from his presentation at the CSIS are given in Annexure I. His bio-data as carried by Wikipedia is at Annexure II.
3. The new policy as outlined by him will be a mix of hard and soft power, the professional and political options and treating terrorism as a threat and at the same time as a phenomenon, which requires a multi-dimensional approach. He was critical of attempts to make the entire foreign policy hostage to counter-terrorism. It will no more be a war on terror as projected by the previous administration of George Bush. Instead, it will be a campaign against terrorism.
4. The "Washington Post" of August 6,2009, has quoted him as saying during his interaction with the media: "It (counter-terrorism) needs to be much more than a kinetic effort, an intelligence, law enforcement effort. It has to be much more comprehensive,.This is not a 'war on terror.' . . . We cannot let the terror prism guide how we're going to interact and be involved in different parts of the world."
5. The message, which he has sought to convey through his two interactions is: Counter-terrorism will continue to be an important priority of the administration, but not an obsessive priority. One cannot ignore other issues requiring attention under the pretext of preoccupation with counter-terrorism.
6. Speaking on a day when there were unconfirmed reports from Pakistan that Baitullah Mehsud, the Amir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) might have been killed in a strike by an unmanned aircraft of the CIA in South Waziristan,Brennan has made it clear that the new doctrine will not mean the slowing down of the operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorists operating from the Af-Pak area. What he means is that while continued military operations are necessary, military operations alone cannot eradicate terrorism. There is and there ought to be a role for other components of counter-terrorism.
7. Comprehensive counter-terrorism combining all facets of national power----political, economic and military---- will be the policy from now onwards. The "Washington Post" has quoted him as saying: "We are not saying that poverty causes terrorism, or disenfranchisement causes terrorism, but we can't mistake there are certain phenomena that contribute to it.Terrorism needs to be fought against and certainly delegitimized or attacked, but some of the underlying grievances that might in fact lead individuals astray to terrorism cannot be ignored."
8. He also reportedly told the journalists: "It's important to maintain the offensive against what are clearly terrorist training facilities and camps, and we're working closely with the Afghanistan and Pakistan governments to root out these facilities.. At the same time, the use of lethal force must be very focused, and ensure that we are not incurring any type of collateral damage."
9. In his presentation at the CSIS, he deplored the use of the expression 'jihadi terrorism" and said:"Describing terrorists in this way—using a legitimate term, “jihad,” meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal—risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve. Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself. " However, he did not indicate how else to characterise the terrorism of Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations. Just terrorism? Without saying Islamic or jihadi terrorism? He was not clear, but that is probably what he meant.
10.Obama's detractors describe the new approach to counter-terrorism as the Jesuit approach. Will it succeed? Obama and Brennan want to give the new policy a try.
11.Ultimately, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
12.It needs to be noted that the remarks of Brennan and the new policy as outlined by him related to the campaign against Al Qaeda and other pro-Al Qaeda organisations. He avoided any detailed remarks on the campaign against the Taliban.(7-8-09)
( 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 )
ANNEXURE I
Salient points from John Brennan's talk at the CSIS on August 6,2009, as collated from open sources
There is a need for “a new era of engagement with the world, including committing the United States to a new partnership with Muslims around the world—a partnership based on mutual interests and mutual respect.”
Keeping the American people safe is Obama’s most important responsibility. Other priorities include:Nonproliferation, food security, cybersecurity,repudiating torture and ending the Iraq war and “defeating al Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
“Tactics such as waterboarding were not in keeping with our values… and should not, and would not, happen again.”
The new policy would mean neither a “wholesale dismantling” of the Bush approach nor a “wholesale retention.” No “absolutist approach” nor “rigid ideology.” Obama’s views are “nuanced, not simplistic.”
Obama understands that preventing terrorists from slaughtering the innocent sometimes requires making very difficult decisions—deployment of military forces, authorization of sensitive intelligence activities, the handling and disposition of terrorists that we capture and detain; and the policies we make and the measures we take to protect our homeland.
Immediate “near-term” challenge is “destroying al-Qaeda and its allies."
Al Qaeda and its affiliates are under tremendous pressure. After years of U.S. counterterrorism operations, and in partnership with other nations, al Qaeda has been seriously damaged and forced to replace many of its top-tier leadership with less experienced and less capable individuals. It is being forced to work harder and harder to raise money, to move its operatives around the world, and to plan attacks.
Al Qaeda has safehaven in Pakistan’s tribal area, with its capabilities “leveraged” by allies in “the Arabian Peninsula, from East Africa to the Sahel and Maghreb regions of North Africa.”
“We have presented President Obama with a number of actions and initiatives against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.” Obama has encouraged his team “to be even more aggressive, even more proactive, and even more innovative, to seek out new ways and new opportunities for taking down these terrorists.”
"We are continuing to adapt and strengthen the intelligence community by expanding human intelligence; strengthening operations; enhancing the workforce with improved linguistic and cultural skills; filling intelligence gaps; improving collaboration across the intelligence community; and promoting greater coordination with foreign intelligence partners."
The long-term challenge: “the threat of violent extremism generally, including the political, economic, and social factors that help put so many individuals on the path to violence.”
"Rather than looking at allies and other nations through the narrow prism of terrorism—whether they are with us or against us—the administration is now engaging other countries and peoples across a broader range of areas. Rather than treating so many of our foreign affairs programs—foreign assistance, development, democracy promotion—as simply extensions of the fight against terrorists, we will do these things—promote economic growth, good governance, transparency and accountability—because they serve our common interests and common security; not just in regions gripped by violent extremism, but around the world."
"Why should a great and powerful nation like the United States allow its relationship with more than a billion Muslims around the world be defined by the narrow hatred and nihilistic actions of an exceptionally small minority of Muslims? After all, this is precisely what Osama bin Laden intended with the Sept. 11 attacks: to use al Qaeda to foment a clash of civilizations in which the United States and Islam are seen as distinct identities that are in conflict."
No more “war on terrorism.” It would focus on tactics & confusing ends and means. Self-defeating because you can’t win a war on a tactic. Similarly, no talk of a “global war” which “plays into the warped narrative that al Qaeda propagates. It plays into the misleading and dangerous notion that the U.S. is somehow in conflict with the rest of the world.” But global operations against al-Qaeda will continue.
"The counterinsurgency lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan apply equally to the broader fight against extremism: we cannot shoot ourselves out of this challenge. We can take out all the terrorists we want—their leadership and their foot soldiers. But if we fail to confront the broader political, economic, and social conditions in which extremists thrive, then there will always be another recruit in the pipeline, another attack coming downstream."
"It is people in these countries, not the United States, who ultimately will isolate these extremists: governments that provide for the basic security and needs of their people; strong and transparent institutions free from corruption; mainstream clerics and scholars who teach that Islam promotes peace, not extremism; and ordinary people who are ready to choose a future free from violence and fear. Still, the United States can and must play its part. For even as we condemn and oppose the illegitimate tactics used by terrorists, we need to acknowledge and address the legitimate needs and grievances of the ordinary people those terrorists claim to represent."
"The most effective long-term strategy for safeguarding the American people is one that promotes a future where a young man or woman never even considers joining an extremist group in the first place; where they reject out of hand the idea of picking up that gun or strapping on that suicide vest…”
There is a need for “negotiations to achieve the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security” .
“And at home, we know that we can rely on the extraordinary capabilities of the American people to be fully engaged in our shared effort to protect ourselves. We will not live our lives in fear, but rather in confidence, as we strengthen our ability to prevent attacks and reduce our vulnerabilities wherever they exist.”
ANNEXURE II
JOHN BRENNAN'S BIO (From Wikipedia)
John O. Brennan is the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. An "Assistant to the President" is the highest rank that any White House staffer can hold. He was interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center immediately after its creation in 2004 through 2005, and since 2005 has served as CEO of The Analysis Corporation. He advised Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues. Since 2007, Brennan has served as Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. It was assumed early on by some that Brennan would be appointed next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency by Obama. Brennan withdrew his name from consideration in November 2008, however, over concerns that his nomination would be a distraction, due to his previous associations with controversial harsh CIA interrogation techniques. Brennan's responsibilities as Deputy National Security Advisor include overseeing plans to protect the country from terrorism and respond to natural disasters.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
CEO of The Analysis Corporation
Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA)
Interim director, National Counterterrorism Center[6]
Director, Terrorist Threat Integration Center
Deputy Executive Director, CIA
Chief of Staff to Director of Central Intelligence, CIA
Chief of Station, Middle East, CIA (1996 - 1999)
Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, CIA
Deputy Director, Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis, CIA
Daily Intelligence Briefer at the White House, CIA
Deputy Division Chief, Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis, CIA
Chief of Analysis, DCI's Counterterrorism Center, CIA
Middle East Specialist and Terrorism Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
Political Officer, U.S. Embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Department of State
John O. Brennan, a former career intelligence officer of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who now functions as President Barack Obama's Assistant for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism, has in two interactions on August 5 and 6,2009, unveiled the first details of what will be the counter-terrorism doctrine of the Obama Administration.
2. The first interaction on August 5,2009, was with a select group of Washington-based journalists. The second on August 6 was in the form of a presentation before the Centre For Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC. Salient points from his presentation at the CSIS are given in Annexure I. His bio-data as carried by Wikipedia is at Annexure II.
3. The new policy as outlined by him will be a mix of hard and soft power, the professional and political options and treating terrorism as a threat and at the same time as a phenomenon, which requires a multi-dimensional approach. He was critical of attempts to make the entire foreign policy hostage to counter-terrorism. It will no more be a war on terror as projected by the previous administration of George Bush. Instead, it will be a campaign against terrorism.
4. The "Washington Post" of August 6,2009, has quoted him as saying during his interaction with the media: "It (counter-terrorism) needs to be much more than a kinetic effort, an intelligence, law enforcement effort. It has to be much more comprehensive,.This is not a 'war on terror.' . . . We cannot let the terror prism guide how we're going to interact and be involved in different parts of the world."
5. The message, which he has sought to convey through his two interactions is: Counter-terrorism will continue to be an important priority of the administration, but not an obsessive priority. One cannot ignore other issues requiring attention under the pretext of preoccupation with counter-terrorism.
6. Speaking on a day when there were unconfirmed reports from Pakistan that Baitullah Mehsud, the Amir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) might have been killed in a strike by an unmanned aircraft of the CIA in South Waziristan,Brennan has made it clear that the new doctrine will not mean the slowing down of the operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorists operating from the Af-Pak area. What he means is that while continued military operations are necessary, military operations alone cannot eradicate terrorism. There is and there ought to be a role for other components of counter-terrorism.
7. Comprehensive counter-terrorism combining all facets of national power----political, economic and military---- will be the policy from now onwards. The "Washington Post" has quoted him as saying: "We are not saying that poverty causes terrorism, or disenfranchisement causes terrorism, but we can't mistake there are certain phenomena that contribute to it.Terrorism needs to be fought against and certainly delegitimized or attacked, but some of the underlying grievances that might in fact lead individuals astray to terrorism cannot be ignored."
8. He also reportedly told the journalists: "It's important to maintain the offensive against what are clearly terrorist training facilities and camps, and we're working closely with the Afghanistan and Pakistan governments to root out these facilities.. At the same time, the use of lethal force must be very focused, and ensure that we are not incurring any type of collateral damage."
9. In his presentation at the CSIS, he deplored the use of the expression 'jihadi terrorism" and said:"Describing terrorists in this way—using a legitimate term, “jihad,” meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal—risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve. Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself. " However, he did not indicate how else to characterise the terrorism of Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations. Just terrorism? Without saying Islamic or jihadi terrorism? He was not clear, but that is probably what he meant.
10.Obama's detractors describe the new approach to counter-terrorism as the Jesuit approach. Will it succeed? Obama and Brennan want to give the new policy a try.
11.Ultimately, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
12.It needs to be noted that the remarks of Brennan and the new policy as outlined by him related to the campaign against Al Qaeda and other pro-Al Qaeda organisations. He avoided any detailed remarks on the campaign against the Taliban.(7-8-09)
( 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 )
ANNEXURE I
Salient points from John Brennan's talk at the CSIS on August 6,2009, as collated from open sources
There is a need for “a new era of engagement with the world, including committing the United States to a new partnership with Muslims around the world—a partnership based on mutual interests and mutual respect.”
Keeping the American people safe is Obama’s most important responsibility. Other priorities include:Nonproliferation, food security, cybersecurity,repudiating torture and ending the Iraq war and “defeating al Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
“Tactics such as waterboarding were not in keeping with our values… and should not, and would not, happen again.”
The new policy would mean neither a “wholesale dismantling” of the Bush approach nor a “wholesale retention.” No “absolutist approach” nor “rigid ideology.” Obama’s views are “nuanced, not simplistic.”
Obama understands that preventing terrorists from slaughtering the innocent sometimes requires making very difficult decisions—deployment of military forces, authorization of sensitive intelligence activities, the handling and disposition of terrorists that we capture and detain; and the policies we make and the measures we take to protect our homeland.
Immediate “near-term” challenge is “destroying al-Qaeda and its allies."
Al Qaeda and its affiliates are under tremendous pressure. After years of U.S. counterterrorism operations, and in partnership with other nations, al Qaeda has been seriously damaged and forced to replace many of its top-tier leadership with less experienced and less capable individuals. It is being forced to work harder and harder to raise money, to move its operatives around the world, and to plan attacks.
Al Qaeda has safehaven in Pakistan’s tribal area, with its capabilities “leveraged” by allies in “the Arabian Peninsula, from East Africa to the Sahel and Maghreb regions of North Africa.”
“We have presented President Obama with a number of actions and initiatives against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.” Obama has encouraged his team “to be even more aggressive, even more proactive, and even more innovative, to seek out new ways and new opportunities for taking down these terrorists.”
"We are continuing to adapt and strengthen the intelligence community by expanding human intelligence; strengthening operations; enhancing the workforce with improved linguistic and cultural skills; filling intelligence gaps; improving collaboration across the intelligence community; and promoting greater coordination with foreign intelligence partners."
The long-term challenge: “the threat of violent extremism generally, including the political, economic, and social factors that help put so many individuals on the path to violence.”
"Rather than looking at allies and other nations through the narrow prism of terrorism—whether they are with us or against us—the administration is now engaging other countries and peoples across a broader range of areas. Rather than treating so many of our foreign affairs programs—foreign assistance, development, democracy promotion—as simply extensions of the fight against terrorists, we will do these things—promote economic growth, good governance, transparency and accountability—because they serve our common interests and common security; not just in regions gripped by violent extremism, but around the world."
"Why should a great and powerful nation like the United States allow its relationship with more than a billion Muslims around the world be defined by the narrow hatred and nihilistic actions of an exceptionally small minority of Muslims? After all, this is precisely what Osama bin Laden intended with the Sept. 11 attacks: to use al Qaeda to foment a clash of civilizations in which the United States and Islam are seen as distinct identities that are in conflict."
No more “war on terrorism.” It would focus on tactics & confusing ends and means. Self-defeating because you can’t win a war on a tactic. Similarly, no talk of a “global war” which “plays into the warped narrative that al Qaeda propagates. It plays into the misleading and dangerous notion that the U.S. is somehow in conflict with the rest of the world.” But global operations against al-Qaeda will continue.
"The counterinsurgency lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan apply equally to the broader fight against extremism: we cannot shoot ourselves out of this challenge. We can take out all the terrorists we want—their leadership and their foot soldiers. But if we fail to confront the broader political, economic, and social conditions in which extremists thrive, then there will always be another recruit in the pipeline, another attack coming downstream."
"It is people in these countries, not the United States, who ultimately will isolate these extremists: governments that provide for the basic security and needs of their people; strong and transparent institutions free from corruption; mainstream clerics and scholars who teach that Islam promotes peace, not extremism; and ordinary people who are ready to choose a future free from violence and fear. Still, the United States can and must play its part. For even as we condemn and oppose the illegitimate tactics used by terrorists, we need to acknowledge and address the legitimate needs and grievances of the ordinary people those terrorists claim to represent."
"The most effective long-term strategy for safeguarding the American people is one that promotes a future where a young man or woman never even considers joining an extremist group in the first place; where they reject out of hand the idea of picking up that gun or strapping on that suicide vest…”
There is a need for “negotiations to achieve the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security” .
“And at home, we know that we can rely on the extraordinary capabilities of the American people to be fully engaged in our shared effort to protect ourselves. We will not live our lives in fear, but rather in confidence, as we strengthen our ability to prevent attacks and reduce our vulnerabilities wherever they exist.”
ANNEXURE II
JOHN BRENNAN'S BIO (From Wikipedia)
John O. Brennan is the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. An "Assistant to the President" is the highest rank that any White House staffer can hold. He was interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center immediately after its creation in 2004 through 2005, and since 2005 has served as CEO of The Analysis Corporation. He advised Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues. Since 2007, Brennan has served as Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. It was assumed early on by some that Brennan would be appointed next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency by Obama. Brennan withdrew his name from consideration in November 2008, however, over concerns that his nomination would be a distraction, due to his previous associations with controversial harsh CIA interrogation techniques. Brennan's responsibilities as Deputy National Security Advisor include overseeing plans to protect the country from terrorism and respond to natural disasters.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
CEO of The Analysis Corporation
Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA)
Interim director, National Counterterrorism Center[6]
Director, Terrorist Threat Integration Center
Deputy Executive Director, CIA
Chief of Staff to Director of Central Intelligence, CIA
Chief of Station, Middle East, CIA (1996 - 1999)
Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, CIA
Deputy Director, Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis, CIA
Daily Intelligence Briefer at the White House, CIA
Deputy Division Chief, Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis, CIA
Chief of Analysis, DCI's Counterterrorism Center, CIA
Middle East Specialist and Terrorism Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
Political Officer, U.S. Embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Department of State
LTTE chief KP knew Rajiv Gandhi was to be killed
Fri, Aug 7 12:22 PM
New Delhi, Aug 7 (IANS) The new chief of the Tamil Tigers who is now in Sri Lankan custody was one of the rare few outside the group's intelligence set-up who knew months earlier that former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was to be assassinated.
Without taking Gandhi's name, Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP told a Sri Lankan Tamil in Tamil Nadu in November 1990 that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) would soon target the 'Indian leadership'.
KP - as he is widely known - made the explosive revelation over telephone from a foreign country six months before a LTTE woman suicide bomber finally killed Gandhi at an election rally near Chennai May 21, 1991.
But KP, in contrast to a section of media reports, is not an accused in the Gandhi case and is not directly linked to the killing. He is merely a suspect in the eyes of the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Authority (MDMA), which is still probing the larger conspiracy angle related to Gandhi's killing.
KP's advance knowledge of the assassination has intrigued Indian security agencies.
Since secret decisions of the nature of Gandhi's killing were shared in the regimented LTTE on a strict need to know basis, questions have been asked how and why he came to know about the plot.
One logical explanation was the LTTE's absolute dependency on KP, who was the key international arms procurer for the Tigers, a role he performed with aplomb. He became the LTTE chief after the death of the group's founder leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in May this year.
The LTTE may have felt that KP needed to be told in advance since the international ramifications of Gandhi's killing might jeopardise the carefully laid out global network aimed at procuring arms and ammunition.
Another senior LTTE member outside its intelligence unit who too knew about the Gandhi killing in advance was Tiruchi Shanthan, who in 1990-91 was in charge of all Tiger operations in Tamil Nadu.
So, questioning KP could yield enormously useful information to India since the pellets, explosives and the Singapore Fragmentation Grenade (SFG) used in the assassination reached the LTTE courtesy the arrested man though they were meant for the war in Sri Lanka and not for the Gandhi killing per se.
However, if India decides to ask its security agencies to question KP, those picked for the task should be well clued into LTTE affairs.
There is a group of dominantly low-key officers in India, both serving and retired, who have followed the Tigers for decades. But it has been seen in the past that qualified people often get sidelined on such missions.
KP's link to the Gandhi case is a small part of the mammoth role he played in building up the LTTE since 1983. Just as there could have been no LTTE without Prabhakaran, there may have been no Prabhakaran minus KP.
KP never underwent military training. When he was in India, Prabhakaran decided in 1984 to set up an ultra secret group within the LTTE to buy and transport war material from around the world. KP was picked for the job.
KP rose to the occasion. A man with natural talent for forgery and disguises, he soon acquired multiple identifies as well as passports (including Indian) and slowly built up the LTTE's procurement division.
He set up several front companies (in which he was a master) in several countries to smuggle gold and narcotics. He used the money to buy war material. In India, he secretly operated a dairy farm in Tamil Nadu in the 1980s.
He also set up a secret shipping network for the LTTE that was used to transport weapons brought abroad to Sri Lanka. He operated in total secrecy, reporting only to Prabhakaran.
It is courtesy KP that the LTTE gained thousands of tonnes of arms and ammunition, including advanced defence systems, anti-tank weapons, sniper rifles, mortars, rocket propelled grenades, ammunition, night vision devices, metal detectors, fibreglass boats as well as sophisticated radio and wireless communications.
Except in the last few years when he was known to be mostly in Malaysia, KP was constantly on the move in the 1980s and 1990s, always a step ahead of all his pursuers. One Indian official said he was 'the most elusive of all pimpernels'.
Using several identifies, he visited Lebanon, the Thai-Cambodia border, France, Britain, Sweden, Greece, Cyprus, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Myanmar, Malaysia and Australia. He was known to have been in Britain in 2006 when LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham died.
It was due to KP that the LTTE got its first small aircraft.
However, KP's meteoric rise generated jealousy in the LTTE. Prabhakaran sidelined the man from 2003, bringing in place another loyalist known by his nom de guerre Castro, who was no match for KP's natural talents.
As the LTTE began to sink, Prabhakaran realised the folly and resurrected KP this year. It was too late. Many LTTE watchers believe that Prabhakaran might still be alive if only KP's wings had not been clipped six years ago.
M.R. Narayan Swamy
New Delhi, Aug 7 (IANS) The new chief of the Tamil Tigers who is now in Sri Lankan custody was one of the rare few outside the group's intelligence set-up who knew months earlier that former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was to be assassinated.
Without taking Gandhi's name, Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP told a Sri Lankan Tamil in Tamil Nadu in November 1990 that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) would soon target the 'Indian leadership'.
KP - as he is widely known - made the explosive revelation over telephone from a foreign country six months before a LTTE woman suicide bomber finally killed Gandhi at an election rally near Chennai May 21, 1991.
But KP, in contrast to a section of media reports, is not an accused in the Gandhi case and is not directly linked to the killing. He is merely a suspect in the eyes of the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Authority (MDMA), which is still probing the larger conspiracy angle related to Gandhi's killing.
KP's advance knowledge of the assassination has intrigued Indian security agencies.
Since secret decisions of the nature of Gandhi's killing were shared in the regimented LTTE on a strict need to know basis, questions have been asked how and why he came to know about the plot.
One logical explanation was the LTTE's absolute dependency on KP, who was the key international arms procurer for the Tigers, a role he performed with aplomb. He became the LTTE chief after the death of the group's founder leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in May this year.
The LTTE may have felt that KP needed to be told in advance since the international ramifications of Gandhi's killing might jeopardise the carefully laid out global network aimed at procuring arms and ammunition.
Another senior LTTE member outside its intelligence unit who too knew about the Gandhi killing in advance was Tiruchi Shanthan, who in 1990-91 was in charge of all Tiger operations in Tamil Nadu.
So, questioning KP could yield enormously useful information to India since the pellets, explosives and the Singapore Fragmentation Grenade (SFG) used in the assassination reached the LTTE courtesy the arrested man though they were meant for the war in Sri Lanka and not for the Gandhi killing per se.
However, if India decides to ask its security agencies to question KP, those picked for the task should be well clued into LTTE affairs.
There is a group of dominantly low-key officers in India, both serving and retired, who have followed the Tigers for decades. But it has been seen in the past that qualified people often get sidelined on such missions.
KP's link to the Gandhi case is a small part of the mammoth role he played in building up the LTTE since 1983. Just as there could have been no LTTE without Prabhakaran, there may have been no Prabhakaran minus KP.
KP never underwent military training. When he was in India, Prabhakaran decided in 1984 to set up an ultra secret group within the LTTE to buy and transport war material from around the world. KP was picked for the job.
KP rose to the occasion. A man with natural talent for forgery and disguises, he soon acquired multiple identifies as well as passports (including Indian) and slowly built up the LTTE's procurement division.
He set up several front companies (in which he was a master) in several countries to smuggle gold and narcotics. He used the money to buy war material. In India, he secretly operated a dairy farm in Tamil Nadu in the 1980s.
He also set up a secret shipping network for the LTTE that was used to transport weapons brought abroad to Sri Lanka. He operated in total secrecy, reporting only to Prabhakaran.
It is courtesy KP that the LTTE gained thousands of tonnes of arms and ammunition, including advanced defence systems, anti-tank weapons, sniper rifles, mortars, rocket propelled grenades, ammunition, night vision devices, metal detectors, fibreglass boats as well as sophisticated radio and wireless communications.
Except in the last few years when he was known to be mostly in Malaysia, KP was constantly on the move in the 1980s and 1990s, always a step ahead of all his pursuers. One Indian official said he was 'the most elusive of all pimpernels'.
Using several identifies, he visited Lebanon, the Thai-Cambodia border, France, Britain, Sweden, Greece, Cyprus, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Myanmar, Malaysia and Australia. He was known to have been in Britain in 2006 when LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham died.
It was due to KP that the LTTE got its first small aircraft.
However, KP's meteoric rise generated jealousy in the LTTE. Prabhakaran sidelined the man from 2003, bringing in place another loyalist known by his nom de guerre Castro, who was no match for KP's natural talents.
As the LTTE began to sink, Prabhakaran realised the folly and resurrected KP this year. It was too late. Many LTTE watchers believe that Prabhakaran might still be alive if only KP's wings had not been clipped six years ago.
M.R. Narayan Swamy
August 06, 2009
CHINESE-ALGERIAN CLASHES IN ALGIERS
B.RAMAN
According to belated reports, there were violent clashes between Chinese and Algerian retail traders in Algiers on the evening of August 3,2009, following a heated argument between a Chinese and an Algerian over the former wrongly parking his car outside the shop of an Algerian.
2. It is alleged that the Algerian and his brother beat up the Chinese owner of a shop. Following this, there were widespread clashes between Algerian and Chinese traders. A number of shops were destroyed. Ultimately, the police intervened and restored order. All Chinese shops have remained closed in Algiers since the clashes. The Chinese Embassy in Algiers has reportedly issued an advisory to the Chinese living and working in Algeria---- estimated to be about 25,000---- to stay at home till the anti-Chinese anger has subsided.
3. The Algerian traders affected by the riots have started a campaign to demand the expulsion of all Chinese from Algeria. They have accused the Chinese of not respecting Islam and of drinking in public and moving around in shorts. Muslims regard shorts as indecent. News agencies have quoted one of the Algerian traders as saying as follows: "The Chinese have taken advantage of the kindness of the Algerians. They were accepted despite their faults, today they are attacking us.They drink alcohol in front of their shops and in full view of the Algerians and often parade about in shorts in the area. This sort of behaviour is against our religion and our culture,"
4. The Algerian authorities and the Chinese Embassy in Algiers have been trying to reduce the anger in the two communities against each other. They have been trying to play down the clashes as isolated incidents. The "Global Times" of Beijing, an English daily of the "People's Daily" group of newspapers, admiited the violent incidents in a report dated August 5 carried by it on August 6,2009. The report said as follows:
"A fight involving about 100 people in the Algerian capital, Algiers, between Chinese workers and Algerian residents is under investigation, Chinese Embassy staff told reporters yesterday (August 4). The clash happened Monday evening in an area called Chnaoua (Chinatown). A Chinese resident allegedly tried to park his car in front of an Algerian shop but was prevented from doing so. The Algerian owner of the shop later admitted that he beat the Chinese after turning him away.The Chinese man then fought back, along with about 50 companions, triggering the brawl that resulted in dozens injured and five Chinese shops looted. There were about 60 locals involved.
“This is a typical criminal case that has nothing to do with anti-China sentiment or terrorism,” Shao Tian, an official of the Chinese Embassy, told the Global Times, adding that the Embassy is working on it and helping local investigation.
“We trust the Algerian police to shed light on what happened,” Ling Jun, another diplomat from the Chinese Embassy, told Reuters.
“Both sides made mistakes in this case, but the Chinese workers should have shown more class,” said He Wenping, research chief at the Western Asia and Africa Research Department of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
“They are representing China there, but what they have done is disgraceful. They should have used the local law to protect them, not violence,” she added.
"Depression-stricken Algeria has been hit hard by high unemployment, as seven out of 10 adults under 30 are out of work, according to Reuters. An analyst said that some jobless Algerians are blaming foreign workers for the conditions, especially the estimated 35,000 Chinese workers.
“Some Algerians are emotional under the harsh economic conditions,” he said. “Chinese workers there should show their sympathy and discipline themselves more. Behavior such as drinking in public, which is not welcomed by Muslim people, should be stopped.”
"China warned its citizens in Algeria last month about possible attacks by Al Qaeda’s North African wing after the July 5 riots in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
"Apparently there was no evidence of any direct link between the brawl and the infamous terrorist group. “China and Algeria will continue their friendly relations and overcome the financial crisis together,” he added. (End of the "Global Times report)
5. While there is no evidence so far to indicate any link between the North African wing of Al Qaeda and the anti-Chinese violence in Algiers, the Algerian outburst against the Chinese on August 3 came at a time when there is some anger against the Chinese in Turkey and North Africa over the violent incidents involving clashes between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese at Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang province of China, in the first week of July 2009. The action taken by the Chinese against the Uighurs is being seen as anti-Muslim. The Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan enjoys the support of Al Qaeda. It has called for attacks on Han Chinese wherever found in reprisal for the Urumqi incidents. (6-8-09)
(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 )
According to belated reports, there were violent clashes between Chinese and Algerian retail traders in Algiers on the evening of August 3,2009, following a heated argument between a Chinese and an Algerian over the former wrongly parking his car outside the shop of an Algerian.
2. It is alleged that the Algerian and his brother beat up the Chinese owner of a shop. Following this, there were widespread clashes between Algerian and Chinese traders. A number of shops were destroyed. Ultimately, the police intervened and restored order. All Chinese shops have remained closed in Algiers since the clashes. The Chinese Embassy in Algiers has reportedly issued an advisory to the Chinese living and working in Algeria---- estimated to be about 25,000---- to stay at home till the anti-Chinese anger has subsided.
3. The Algerian traders affected by the riots have started a campaign to demand the expulsion of all Chinese from Algeria. They have accused the Chinese of not respecting Islam and of drinking in public and moving around in shorts. Muslims regard shorts as indecent. News agencies have quoted one of the Algerian traders as saying as follows: "The Chinese have taken advantage of the kindness of the Algerians. They were accepted despite their faults, today they are attacking us.They drink alcohol in front of their shops and in full view of the Algerians and often parade about in shorts in the area. This sort of behaviour is against our religion and our culture,"
4. The Algerian authorities and the Chinese Embassy in Algiers have been trying to reduce the anger in the two communities against each other. They have been trying to play down the clashes as isolated incidents. The "Global Times" of Beijing, an English daily of the "People's Daily" group of newspapers, admiited the violent incidents in a report dated August 5 carried by it on August 6,2009. The report said as follows:
"A fight involving about 100 people in the Algerian capital, Algiers, between Chinese workers and Algerian residents is under investigation, Chinese Embassy staff told reporters yesterday (August 4). The clash happened Monday evening in an area called Chnaoua (Chinatown). A Chinese resident allegedly tried to park his car in front of an Algerian shop but was prevented from doing so. The Algerian owner of the shop later admitted that he beat the Chinese after turning him away.The Chinese man then fought back, along with about 50 companions, triggering the brawl that resulted in dozens injured and five Chinese shops looted. There were about 60 locals involved.
“This is a typical criminal case that has nothing to do with anti-China sentiment or terrorism,” Shao Tian, an official of the Chinese Embassy, told the Global Times, adding that the Embassy is working on it and helping local investigation.
“We trust the Algerian police to shed light on what happened,” Ling Jun, another diplomat from the Chinese Embassy, told Reuters.
“Both sides made mistakes in this case, but the Chinese workers should have shown more class,” said He Wenping, research chief at the Western Asia and Africa Research Department of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
“They are representing China there, but what they have done is disgraceful. They should have used the local law to protect them, not violence,” she added.
"Depression-stricken Algeria has been hit hard by high unemployment, as seven out of 10 adults under 30 are out of work, according to Reuters. An analyst said that some jobless Algerians are blaming foreign workers for the conditions, especially the estimated 35,000 Chinese workers.
“Some Algerians are emotional under the harsh economic conditions,” he said. “Chinese workers there should show their sympathy and discipline themselves more. Behavior such as drinking in public, which is not welcomed by Muslim people, should be stopped.”
"China warned its citizens in Algeria last month about possible attacks by Al Qaeda’s North African wing after the July 5 riots in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
"Apparently there was no evidence of any direct link between the brawl and the infamous terrorist group. “China and Algeria will continue their friendly relations and overcome the financial crisis together,” he added. (End of the "Global Times report)
5. While there is no evidence so far to indicate any link between the North African wing of Al Qaeda and the anti-Chinese violence in Algiers, the Algerian outburst against the Chinese on August 3 came at a time when there is some anger against the Chinese in Turkey and North Africa over the violent incidents involving clashes between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese at Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang province of China, in the first week of July 2009. The action taken by the Chinese against the Uighurs is being seen as anti-Muslim. The Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan enjoys the support of Al Qaeda. It has called for attacks on Han Chinese wherever found in reprisal for the Urumqi incidents. (6-8-09)
(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 )
Web 3.0: Installing the Plumbing
A set of behind-the-scenes technologies strives for real-time, automated intelligence gathering and analysis and could change the way we share information on the Web, writes Peter A Buxbaum for ISN Security Watch.
By Peter Buxbaum in Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch
It may not be as viscerally exciting as Web 2.0, but there are a set of technologies working behind the scenes that are beginning to make Web research and collaboration richer and more automated. These technologies are already being exploited by US military and intelligence organizations.
The semantic web, or Web 3.0, as it is sometimes called, adds capabilities supplied by software algorithms which allow machines to understand ordinary text and, by extension, to make connections among “entities”—people, places and things—encountered when searching a body of information.
Web 3.0 won't dramatically change the appearance of Web 2.0 phenomena such as social networking, wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, and mashups. But it will automate some of their functions and will make searching and researching more rewarding by providing greater numbers of links to context-relevant information.
The vision for semantic searching and researching goes back to the 1960s, according to Lewis Shepherd, a former official of the US Defense Intelligence Agency and currently chief technology officer at the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology and Government. In that sense, it has taken quite a long time for the semantic web to get up to speed, but that is exactly what is happening now.
“The semantic web will be a complex, boring, but very empowering set of capabilities,” Shepherd told ISN Security Watch. “It will provide people with a rich networked and hyperlinked dense array of semantically enabled text. It will change the way people collaborate and encounter information on the web.”
The US intelligence community already uses social software to form collaborative project groups. “Products like the President's Daily Brief are different than just five years ago because of the multi-agency input powered by social software,” said Shepherd.
With semantic capabilities, these groups will become self-forming and self-evolving. “The composition of the team will be drawn from the data itself,” said Shepherd. “You won't have to draw on databases to search for people using keywords. You could have communities dynamically self-forming for research projects with its composition changing automatically over time. It will still be controllable by users but they will have these tools as additional options.”
Similarly mashups - integrated presentations derived from multiple data sources - will automatically be linked to relevant material to provide richer context to the information being presented. Mashups are created by using middleware to extract data from databases and display them on internet browsers in a variety of formats.
In the military and intelligence environments, human intelligence feeds are combined with mapping and global positioning systems to create information visualization. The intelligence community uses mashups to display data provided by the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency from Google Earth and Arc GIS Explorer, according to Shepherd.
“The value of Web 2.0 mashups will be improved in Web 3.0 if semantic meanings are baked right into the data,” said Shepherd.
Real time, really quick
The US Defense Intelligence Agency has deployed a several different commercial metadata extraction and tagging services in order to inject greater semantic meaning into its data. This extraction and tagging “factory” works 24/7 on the Agency’s data traffic to produce semantically enabled markup of data and text.
The US Air Force Air and Space Intelligence Center, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, “makes heavy use of XML data and semantic cataloging of entities which they have built directly and organically into their analytic and production processes,” said Shepherd. The center uses that capability to “pull together disparate streams of data and visualize the information on the fly in a variety of impressive ways” which are customized to the needs of users such as analysts and policymakers.
Assembling custom-made and highly useful intelligence packages in real time - on the fly - is a recurring theme in the military and intelligence use of semantic capabilities. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently awarded a contract to software developer Modus Operandi to develop a system that will enable the military to quickly boil down large amounts of information and use it to support tactical operations.
The first phase of the project is designed to use advanced semantic techniques to automate the study of large amounts of textual data and discover patterns and clues that will provide warfighters with near real-time situational awareness, according to Richard Hull, the company's chief scientist.
Hull envisions the system to be used for missions such as hostage rescues, insurgent extractions and targeting, where a military unit must assess a tactical situation and act quickly.
"We now have the capability, through scalable semantic algorithms, to very quickly study large amounts of information,” he said. “It will provide far more actionable information to warfighters and give them more confidence in their decision-making during very difficult tactical operations.”
The Modus Operandi system will extract intelligence from the unstructured data of natural language texts such as news stories, blogs and press releases. Applying semantic algorithms, the system will automatically study large volumes of text almost instantaneously to offer insight into a particular tactical situation.
From fantasy to fact?
Another aspect of delivering real-time intelligence involves the Pentagon’s dream of a “push” information paradigm, in which analysts, decision makers and warfighters will automatically be provided the information and intelligence they need without having to search for it.
“We now still rely on the pull paradigm in which users are composing and performing complex queries in their hunting and gathering efforts,” Shepherd said. “What users prefer are systems smart enough to semantically understand raw text, to correlate multiple types of information, and to compose relationships across all sources of information.”
The semantic web will enable a system which would provide analysts, commanders and warfighters with prepackaged actionable intelligence packets. “Once the system understands peoples, places, things and events mentioned in texts and the relationships between them, it will be able to route real time information to where it is needed,” Shepherd said.
All of which is still a work in progress and has been since the 1960s fantasy of a semanticized universe. What the architects of the semantic web eventually realized, said Shepherd, is that it couldn't be formed with one big bang. Instead it required the lengthy building out of a “tremendous amount of plumbing.”
Peter Buxbaum, a Washington-based independent journalist, has been writing about defense, security, business and technology for 15 years. His work has appeared in publications such as Fortune, Forbes, Chief Executive, Information Week, Defense Technology International, Homeland Security and Computerworld. His website is www.buxbaum1.com.
By Peter Buxbaum in Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch
It may not be as viscerally exciting as Web 2.0, but there are a set of technologies working behind the scenes that are beginning to make Web research and collaboration richer and more automated. These technologies are already being exploited by US military and intelligence organizations.
The semantic web, or Web 3.0, as it is sometimes called, adds capabilities supplied by software algorithms which allow machines to understand ordinary text and, by extension, to make connections among “entities”—people, places and things—encountered when searching a body of information.
Web 3.0 won't dramatically change the appearance of Web 2.0 phenomena such as social networking, wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, and mashups. But it will automate some of their functions and will make searching and researching more rewarding by providing greater numbers of links to context-relevant information.
The vision for semantic searching and researching goes back to the 1960s, according to Lewis Shepherd, a former official of the US Defense Intelligence Agency and currently chief technology officer at the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology and Government. In that sense, it has taken quite a long time for the semantic web to get up to speed, but that is exactly what is happening now.
“The semantic web will be a complex, boring, but very empowering set of capabilities,” Shepherd told ISN Security Watch. “It will provide people with a rich networked and hyperlinked dense array of semantically enabled text. It will change the way people collaborate and encounter information on the web.”
The US intelligence community already uses social software to form collaborative project groups. “Products like the President's Daily Brief are different than just five years ago because of the multi-agency input powered by social software,” said Shepherd.
With semantic capabilities, these groups will become self-forming and self-evolving. “The composition of the team will be drawn from the data itself,” said Shepherd. “You won't have to draw on databases to search for people using keywords. You could have communities dynamically self-forming for research projects with its composition changing automatically over time. It will still be controllable by users but they will have these tools as additional options.”
Similarly mashups - integrated presentations derived from multiple data sources - will automatically be linked to relevant material to provide richer context to the information being presented. Mashups are created by using middleware to extract data from databases and display them on internet browsers in a variety of formats.
In the military and intelligence environments, human intelligence feeds are combined with mapping and global positioning systems to create information visualization. The intelligence community uses mashups to display data provided by the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency from Google Earth and Arc GIS Explorer, according to Shepherd.
“The value of Web 2.0 mashups will be improved in Web 3.0 if semantic meanings are baked right into the data,” said Shepherd.
Real time, really quick
The US Defense Intelligence Agency has deployed a several different commercial metadata extraction and tagging services in order to inject greater semantic meaning into its data. This extraction and tagging “factory” works 24/7 on the Agency’s data traffic to produce semantically enabled markup of data and text.
The US Air Force Air and Space Intelligence Center, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, “makes heavy use of XML data and semantic cataloging of entities which they have built directly and organically into their analytic and production processes,” said Shepherd. The center uses that capability to “pull together disparate streams of data and visualize the information on the fly in a variety of impressive ways” which are customized to the needs of users such as analysts and policymakers.
Assembling custom-made and highly useful intelligence packages in real time - on the fly - is a recurring theme in the military and intelligence use of semantic capabilities. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently awarded a contract to software developer Modus Operandi to develop a system that will enable the military to quickly boil down large amounts of information and use it to support tactical operations.
The first phase of the project is designed to use advanced semantic techniques to automate the study of large amounts of textual data and discover patterns and clues that will provide warfighters with near real-time situational awareness, according to Richard Hull, the company's chief scientist.
Hull envisions the system to be used for missions such as hostage rescues, insurgent extractions and targeting, where a military unit must assess a tactical situation and act quickly.
"We now have the capability, through scalable semantic algorithms, to very quickly study large amounts of information,” he said. “It will provide far more actionable information to warfighters and give them more confidence in their decision-making during very difficult tactical operations.”
The Modus Operandi system will extract intelligence from the unstructured data of natural language texts such as news stories, blogs and press releases. Applying semantic algorithms, the system will automatically study large volumes of text almost instantaneously to offer insight into a particular tactical situation.
From fantasy to fact?
Another aspect of delivering real-time intelligence involves the Pentagon’s dream of a “push” information paradigm, in which analysts, decision makers and warfighters will automatically be provided the information and intelligence they need without having to search for it.
“We now still rely on the pull paradigm in which users are composing and performing complex queries in their hunting and gathering efforts,” Shepherd said. “What users prefer are systems smart enough to semantically understand raw text, to correlate multiple types of information, and to compose relationships across all sources of information.”
The semantic web will enable a system which would provide analysts, commanders and warfighters with prepackaged actionable intelligence packets. “Once the system understands peoples, places, things and events mentioned in texts and the relationships between them, it will be able to route real time information to where it is needed,” Shepherd said.
All of which is still a work in progress and has been since the 1960s fantasy of a semanticized universe. What the architects of the semantic web eventually realized, said Shepherd, is that it couldn't be formed with one big bang. Instead it required the lengthy building out of a “tremendous amount of plumbing.”
Peter Buxbaum, a Washington-based independent journalist, has been writing about defense, security, business and technology for 15 years. His work has appeared in publications such as Fortune, Forbes, Chief Executive, Information Week, Defense Technology International, Homeland Security and Computerworld. His website is www.buxbaum1.com.
Moscow's Security Plans Face Reality Check
6 Aug 2009
Russia renews pledges to prop up its bilateral strategic partnership with China and strengthen a post-Soviet security alliance in a thinly veiled attempt to counter alleged western influence in Central Eurasia, writes Sergei Blagov for ISN Security Watch.
By Sergei Blagov in Moscow for ISN Security Watch
Russia and China have pledged to jointly combat extremists, separatists and counter other security threats in the region, a move that is the culmination of "Peace Mission 2009," a joint anti-terrorism military exercise held 22-26 July in Russia's Far East city of Khabarovsk and on China's Taonan training base, which borders the Russian region.
About 3,000 army and air force personnel from both sides took part in the exercise. The start of the drill, which acknowledged growing security ties between the two powers, was jointly announced by Chen Bingde, general staff chief of China's People's Liberation Army, and his Russian counterpart Nikolai Makarov, with the latter stating that Russia and China should develop military cooperation in the wake of North Korean missile tests that prompted intensified military preparations in Japan and South Korea. He also cited "complicated" situations in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan as rationales for bilateral military ties.
Both Russia and China have argued that the joint exercises, as well as similar drills in the past, were not intended to target any third country. However, the US’ growing engagement with Central Asia, as well as Japan and South Korea, may have sparked suspicions in Moscow and Beijing that the US is pursuing an encirclement strategy.
In the immediate aftermath of the Sino-Russian military exercises, Moscow moved to strengthen the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and its Rapid Reaction Force (KSOR). At a summit meeting in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on 1 August, the leaders of the Russian-led CSTO, which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, agreed to hold a two-month-long KSOR drill starting in August that would involve some 6,000 personnel.
On 14 June, CSTO leaders signed an agreement to form KSOR, although Belarus and Uzbekistan abstained. The CSTO currently has a collective force, KSBR, which includes 10 battalions (five from Russia, two from Kazakhstan and Tajikistan each and one from Kyrgyzstan). KSOR is planned to be KSBR’s larger, stronger replacement.
Belarus authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko opted to boycott the June summit meeting in Moscow, during which his country was scheduled to assume the CSTO rotating presidency. The boycott, which was prompted by economic disagreements with Moscow, forced Russia to assume temporary presidency. Following the August summit meeting in Kyrgyzstan, Russia continued its ‘technical presidency’ of the CSTO. Belarus’ demarche came as an unprecedented rift in the history of post-Soviet alliance-making.
Russian officials insisted their efforts to bolster security by setting up a rapid response task force remained on track. In Bishkek, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed an agreement to deploy an extra Russian battalion in southern Kyrgyzstan and create a joint training center. Russia already has one military base in the country.
The display of combined Russian and Chinese military might was apparently designed to send a signal to the region that both Moscow and Beijing would remain wary of western inroads into the strategically important Central Eurasia. However, Russian security plans are actually undergoing a reality check as the Russia-led CSTO faces an uncertain future.
Sergei Blagov is a Moscow-based correspondent for ISN Security Watch.
Russia renews pledges to prop up its bilateral strategic partnership with China and strengthen a post-Soviet security alliance in a thinly veiled attempt to counter alleged western influence in Central Eurasia, writes Sergei Blagov for ISN Security Watch.
By Sergei Blagov in Moscow for ISN Security Watch
Russia and China have pledged to jointly combat extremists, separatists and counter other security threats in the region, a move that is the culmination of "Peace Mission 2009," a joint anti-terrorism military exercise held 22-26 July in Russia's Far East city of Khabarovsk and on China's Taonan training base, which borders the Russian region.
About 3,000 army and air force personnel from both sides took part in the exercise. The start of the drill, which acknowledged growing security ties between the two powers, was jointly announced by Chen Bingde, general staff chief of China's People's Liberation Army, and his Russian counterpart Nikolai Makarov, with the latter stating that Russia and China should develop military cooperation in the wake of North Korean missile tests that prompted intensified military preparations in Japan and South Korea. He also cited "complicated" situations in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan as rationales for bilateral military ties.
Both Russia and China have argued that the joint exercises, as well as similar drills in the past, were not intended to target any third country. However, the US’ growing engagement with Central Asia, as well as Japan and South Korea, may have sparked suspicions in Moscow and Beijing that the US is pursuing an encirclement strategy.
In the immediate aftermath of the Sino-Russian military exercises, Moscow moved to strengthen the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and its Rapid Reaction Force (KSOR). At a summit meeting in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on 1 August, the leaders of the Russian-led CSTO, which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, agreed to hold a two-month-long KSOR drill starting in August that would involve some 6,000 personnel.
On 14 June, CSTO leaders signed an agreement to form KSOR, although Belarus and Uzbekistan abstained. The CSTO currently has a collective force, KSBR, which includes 10 battalions (five from Russia, two from Kazakhstan and Tajikistan each and one from Kyrgyzstan). KSOR is planned to be KSBR’s larger, stronger replacement.
Belarus authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko opted to boycott the June summit meeting in Moscow, during which his country was scheduled to assume the CSTO rotating presidency. The boycott, which was prompted by economic disagreements with Moscow, forced Russia to assume temporary presidency. Following the August summit meeting in Kyrgyzstan, Russia continued its ‘technical presidency’ of the CSTO. Belarus’ demarche came as an unprecedented rift in the history of post-Soviet alliance-making.
Russian officials insisted their efforts to bolster security by setting up a rapid response task force remained on track. In Bishkek, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed an agreement to deploy an extra Russian battalion in southern Kyrgyzstan and create a joint training center. Russia already has one military base in the country.
The display of combined Russian and Chinese military might was apparently designed to send a signal to the region that both Moscow and Beijing would remain wary of western inroads into the strategically important Central Eurasia. However, Russian security plans are actually undergoing a reality check as the Russia-led CSTO faces an uncertain future.
Sergei Blagov is a Moscow-based correspondent for ISN Security Watch.
Arrests of Terrorist Suspects in Australia
By B. Raman
The police authorities of Melbourne charged before a local court on August 5, 2009, four Muslims with "conspiring to commit an act in preparation or planning a terrorist act." The police alleged that the charged persons were planning to carry out an act of suicide terrorism on some barracks of the Australian Army located at a place called Holsworthy on the outskirts of Sydney. In addition to army units, the Holsworthy base, according to the Australian media. also houses an anti-extremism unit.
2. The names of the arrested and charged persons were given out as Nayef El Sayed, Saney Edow Aweys, Wissam Mahmoud Fattal and Yacqub Khayre. According to the police, a fifth suspect, who was already in custody in connection with some other offence, was also expected to be charged along with them. The arrested persons have been described as of Somali or Lebanese origin. Khayre has also been accused of travelling to Somalia to train and fight with the Al-Qaeda-inspired Al Shabab, which is fighting against the pro-government forces and controls large parts of Somalia.
3. Tony Negus, acting Chief Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, told the media: "The men's intention was to actually go into the army barracks and to kill as many soldiers as they could before they themselves were killed. Members of the group have been actively seeking a fatwa or religious ruling to justify a terror attack on Australia." A Victoria (provincial) police statement said that "police believe members of a Melbourne-based group have been undertaking planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia and are allegedly involved in hostilities in Somalia.' Peter Dein, the counter-terrorism chief of the New South Wales Police, said that the planning was probably getting to the point where the act of terrorism would have happened within weeks.
4. There are about 16,000 residents---many of them Australian citizens--- of Somali origin in Melbourne. Many of them came as refugees after civil strife broke out in Somalia in 1991. These Somalis belong to different Somali clans including the two principal Daarood and Hawiye clans which have been fighting for the control of Somalia. Somalia's transitional federal government (TFG), which drew its support mainly from the Daarood clan, was overthrown in 2004 by a pro-Al Qaeda group called the Islamic Courts Union, consisting largely of members of the Hawiye clan. The ICU was defeated by the TFG in late 2006 with the help of US-backed forces from Ethiopia. The defeated remnants of the ICU, emulated the Afghan Taliban, and formed a new organisation called al-Shabab, which has been fighting for the control of the country with the support of Al Qaeda.
5. As stated in the Chapter titled " Global Jihadi Terrorism As Seen by Al Qaeda" in my book titled "Terrorism---Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" ( www.lancerpublishers.com) , Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No.2 to Osama bin Laden in Al Qaeda, has been speaking of a global jihadi Intifada in which the Somali Muslims will play an important role. By jihadi Intifada he means a kind of a struggle in which the role of motivated individual Muslims will become more important than that of organisations so that the weakening or collapse of an organisation would not result in a collapse of the Intifada.
6. In a message of December 20, 2006, he said: " Brothers in Islam and Jihad in Somalia, know that you are on the southern garrison of Islam, so don't allow Islam to be attacked from your flank......Know that you are fending off the same Crusade which is fighting your brothers in Islam in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon."
7. In Al Qaeda's portrayal, among the alleged Crusaders fighting against the Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan are the 1550 Australian troops in Afghanistan and Australian personnel helping the US in its campaign in Iraq. Thus, Australia is a legitimate target for acts of reprisal for its role in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as for its earlier alleged role in helping East Timor break away from the Islamic Ummah. The targeted attacks on Australians in Bali and Jakarta since 2002 by terrorists allegedly belonging to the Jemaah Islamiyah are justified as legitimate acts of reprisal.
8. While pro-Al Qaeda elements have been able to carry out acts of reprisal against Australian nationals and interests outside Australia in Indonesia, they have till now not succeeded in mounting any act of reprisal in Australian territory itself for want of support in the local Muslim population. The present arrests indicate that Al Qaeda has succeeded in motivating individual elements of Somali and Lebanese origin in Australia to join the jihad through acts of reprisal mounted in Australian territory. Just as the Pakistani supporters of Al Qaeda in the diaspora in the UK were recruited during their visits to their relatives in Pakistan, the arrested persons from the Somali community in Australia would appear to have been motivated and recruited during their home visits to Somalia.
9. The Somali Muslims have had a long history of contacts with Pakistani jihadi organisations. Pakistani jihadi elements, to escape arrest by the police, often take shelter in Yemen or Somalia. The Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) of Pakistan has been very active among the Somalis in Somalia itself as well as among the Somalis residing abroad. In the early 1990s, Somalia had banned the TJ as an extremist organisation. Despite this, by taking advantage of the civil strife in Somalia, it continues to be active. It has been bringing a number of Somalis to Pakistan for studying in the madrasas controlled by different jihadi organisations. According to Pakistani sources, the Tablighi Jamaat is the only Pakistani organisation, which has an organisational presence in Australia. The February 1998, issue of the "Newsline", a monthly of Pakistan, had quoted workers of the TJ as saying that the TJ had many offices in the US, Russia, the Central Asian Republics, South Africa, Australia and France. Its active presence in Somalia was utilised by Al Qaeda for years to motivate and recruit Somalis for the jihad. If its presence in Australia continues, it could similarly help Al Qaeda in motivating and recruiting from the Somali community in Australia.
10. Sections of the Australian media have been drawing attention for some months to indications of a radicalisation of some sections of the Somali community. This radicalisation was seen more as an echo of the civil strife in Somalia and not as an echo of what was happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The arrests made by the Melbourne Police indicate that the radicalisation in the Somali community in Australia is acquiring a pan-Islamic momentum instead of remaining a purely Somalian sectarian phenomenon as it was till now. Another point of concern to the Australian security agencies since September last has been any contacts between members of the Somali community in Australia and the Somali pirates. These concerns were the result of the spurt in acts of piracy by Somalis and unrelated to the activities of Al Qaeda. With the arrest of these persons allegedly planning an act of suicide terrorism in Australia, there will be new concerns about the likelihood of a nexus between Somali radicals and Somali pirates, each helping and keeping the other sustained.
11. The following articles of mine may be of interest:
a. My article of 15-91999 titled "DAGESTAN: FOCUS ON PAKISTAN'S TABLIGHI JAMAAT" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers/paper80.html.
b. My article of 13.11.2003 titled "JIHADI ANGER: After Italy, Australia?" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers9/paper838.html
c. My article of 28-12-2006 titled "SOMALIA: JIHADIS EMULATING TALIBAN'S TACTICS" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers21/paper2075.html.
d. My article of 4-8-09 titled "Pro-Al Qaeda Elements Regrouping For Fresh Strikes" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers34/paper3329.html.
(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)
The police authorities of Melbourne charged before a local court on August 5, 2009, four Muslims with "conspiring to commit an act in preparation or planning a terrorist act." The police alleged that the charged persons were planning to carry out an act of suicide terrorism on some barracks of the Australian Army located at a place called Holsworthy on the outskirts of Sydney. In addition to army units, the Holsworthy base, according to the Australian media. also houses an anti-extremism unit.
2. The names of the arrested and charged persons were given out as Nayef El Sayed, Saney Edow Aweys, Wissam Mahmoud Fattal and Yacqub Khayre. According to the police, a fifth suspect, who was already in custody in connection with some other offence, was also expected to be charged along with them. The arrested persons have been described as of Somali or Lebanese origin. Khayre has also been accused of travelling to Somalia to train and fight with the Al-Qaeda-inspired Al Shabab, which is fighting against the pro-government forces and controls large parts of Somalia.
3. Tony Negus, acting Chief Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, told the media: "The men's intention was to actually go into the army barracks and to kill as many soldiers as they could before they themselves were killed. Members of the group have been actively seeking a fatwa or religious ruling to justify a terror attack on Australia." A Victoria (provincial) police statement said that "police believe members of a Melbourne-based group have been undertaking planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia and are allegedly involved in hostilities in Somalia.' Peter Dein, the counter-terrorism chief of the New South Wales Police, said that the planning was probably getting to the point where the act of terrorism would have happened within weeks.
4. There are about 16,000 residents---many of them Australian citizens--- of Somali origin in Melbourne. Many of them came as refugees after civil strife broke out in Somalia in 1991. These Somalis belong to different Somali clans including the two principal Daarood and Hawiye clans which have been fighting for the control of Somalia. Somalia's transitional federal government (TFG), which drew its support mainly from the Daarood clan, was overthrown in 2004 by a pro-Al Qaeda group called the Islamic Courts Union, consisting largely of members of the Hawiye clan. The ICU was defeated by the TFG in late 2006 with the help of US-backed forces from Ethiopia. The defeated remnants of the ICU, emulated the Afghan Taliban, and formed a new organisation called al-Shabab, which has been fighting for the control of the country with the support of Al Qaeda.
5. As stated in the Chapter titled " Global Jihadi Terrorism As Seen by Al Qaeda" in my book titled "Terrorism---Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" ( www.lancerpublishers.com) , Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No.2 to Osama bin Laden in Al Qaeda, has been speaking of a global jihadi Intifada in which the Somali Muslims will play an important role. By jihadi Intifada he means a kind of a struggle in which the role of motivated individual Muslims will become more important than that of organisations so that the weakening or collapse of an organisation would not result in a collapse of the Intifada.
6. In a message of December 20, 2006, he said: " Brothers in Islam and Jihad in Somalia, know that you are on the southern garrison of Islam, so don't allow Islam to be attacked from your flank......Know that you are fending off the same Crusade which is fighting your brothers in Islam in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon."
7. In Al Qaeda's portrayal, among the alleged Crusaders fighting against the Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan are the 1550 Australian troops in Afghanistan and Australian personnel helping the US in its campaign in Iraq. Thus, Australia is a legitimate target for acts of reprisal for its role in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as for its earlier alleged role in helping East Timor break away from the Islamic Ummah. The targeted attacks on Australians in Bali and Jakarta since 2002 by terrorists allegedly belonging to the Jemaah Islamiyah are justified as legitimate acts of reprisal.
8. While pro-Al Qaeda elements have been able to carry out acts of reprisal against Australian nationals and interests outside Australia in Indonesia, they have till now not succeeded in mounting any act of reprisal in Australian territory itself for want of support in the local Muslim population. The present arrests indicate that Al Qaeda has succeeded in motivating individual elements of Somali and Lebanese origin in Australia to join the jihad through acts of reprisal mounted in Australian territory. Just as the Pakistani supporters of Al Qaeda in the diaspora in the UK were recruited during their visits to their relatives in Pakistan, the arrested persons from the Somali community in Australia would appear to have been motivated and recruited during their home visits to Somalia.
9. The Somali Muslims have had a long history of contacts with Pakistani jihadi organisations. Pakistani jihadi elements, to escape arrest by the police, often take shelter in Yemen or Somalia. The Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) of Pakistan has been very active among the Somalis in Somalia itself as well as among the Somalis residing abroad. In the early 1990s, Somalia had banned the TJ as an extremist organisation. Despite this, by taking advantage of the civil strife in Somalia, it continues to be active. It has been bringing a number of Somalis to Pakistan for studying in the madrasas controlled by different jihadi organisations. According to Pakistani sources, the Tablighi Jamaat is the only Pakistani organisation, which has an organisational presence in Australia. The February 1998, issue of the "Newsline", a monthly of Pakistan, had quoted workers of the TJ as saying that the TJ had many offices in the US, Russia, the Central Asian Republics, South Africa, Australia and France. Its active presence in Somalia was utilised by Al Qaeda for years to motivate and recruit Somalis for the jihad. If its presence in Australia continues, it could similarly help Al Qaeda in motivating and recruiting from the Somali community in Australia.
10. Sections of the Australian media have been drawing attention for some months to indications of a radicalisation of some sections of the Somali community. This radicalisation was seen more as an echo of the civil strife in Somalia and not as an echo of what was happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The arrests made by the Melbourne Police indicate that the radicalisation in the Somali community in Australia is acquiring a pan-Islamic momentum instead of remaining a purely Somalian sectarian phenomenon as it was till now. Another point of concern to the Australian security agencies since September last has been any contacts between members of the Somali community in Australia and the Somali pirates. These concerns were the result of the spurt in acts of piracy by Somalis and unrelated to the activities of Al Qaeda. With the arrest of these persons allegedly planning an act of suicide terrorism in Australia, there will be new concerns about the likelihood of a nexus between Somali radicals and Somali pirates, each helping and keeping the other sustained.
11. The following articles of mine may be of interest:
a. My article of 15-91999 titled "DAGESTAN: FOCUS ON PAKISTAN'S TABLIGHI JAMAAT" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers/paper80.html.
b. My article of 13.11.2003 titled "JIHADI ANGER: After Italy, Australia?" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers9/paper838.html
c. My article of 28-12-2006 titled "SOMALIA: JIHADIS EMULATING TALIBAN'S TACTICS" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers21/paper2075.html.
d. My article of 4-8-09 titled "Pro-Al Qaeda Elements Regrouping For Fresh Strikes" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers34/paper3329.html.
(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)
THE ROLE OF INDIAN MEDIA IN PROXY WAR AND TERRORISM
By Dr. Subhash Kapila
Presentation made by the Author at a Seminar on ‘Role of Media in War and Terrorism' at University of Allahabad on July 31 to August 01, 2009.
INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS
The Indian media prides itself in galvanizing the nation in times of war with Pakistan and China with their print reportage and visual coverage. However, when it comes to covering Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India, the record of the Indian media is not all that promising and creditable.
This criticism applies more to the Indian TV media and less to the Indian print media. The Indian print media has the advantage of time in order to present a relatively more balanced reportage, which crystallizes in the time span between terrorist incidents and their reportage in print.
The Indian TV media laboring under the pressure of 24X7 competitive live coverage of terrorist incidents, absence of instant availability of Government releases and briefings on terrorism incidents and the prevailing confusion and fog on the developing situation tend to indulge in speculative reporting.
In the above process, national security considerations are lost and the Indian TV media ends up as an unwilling tool of exploitation of the Pakistani terrorist organizations disinformation strategies.
The Indian media, both print and TV, seem to be confused when it comes to covering Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India. This confusion becomes further confounded as the Indian media wrestles with itself as to what should be “The Role of the Indian Media in Proxy War and Terrorism”. Should it be “The Role of the Indian Media in Proxy War and Terrorism” or should the role of the Indian media be “The Role of the Indian Media Against Proxy War and Terrorism.”
Since India is being subjected to Proxy War and Terrorism by Pakistan for well over 20 years now, the Indian media should rightfully perceive its role as “The Role of the Indian Media Against Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism Against India.
The Indian media would additionally be able to add more clarity and objectivity to its reportage and visual coverage when it recognizes the ground reality that Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India is a state-sponsored product of the Pakistani Government, the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agencies and their surrogate Jihadi terrorist organizations adding the Islamic tinge.
Targeting these above Pakistani entities, the Indian media in its print and TV coverage would not only be serving India’s national security interests but also be assisting the cause of democracy aspirations of the Pakistani people.
The Indian media also needs to dispel from its mind that in espousing a vacillating Indian Governments “soft approaches” in its counter- terrorism approaches, war hysteria and jingoism is being generated.
In the coverage of Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India the two major failings of the India media, can be recounted as under:
Not adding “Context to Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism Against India"
Failing to “Frame Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorist Incidents in their Correct Perspective.
My presentation today would attempt to address these two major issues besides some others generally on the role of media in proxy war and terrorism.
The issues that would be covered by me today are:
The Constitution of India, Press Freedom and National Security
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism: The “Context” that Indian Media should Add in its Reportage
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism: “Framing” Pakistan’s Terrorism in the Correct Perspectives
Proxy War and Terrorism: Comparative analysis of Terrorists Exploitation of Media and India’s Expectations from the Indian Media
THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA, PRESS FREEDOM AND NATIONAL SECURITY
The Constitution of India, surprisingly, does not mention “freedom of the Press” specifically in the Chapter on Fundamental Rights. Dr. Ambedkar however clarified later that it was not necessary to stipulate it specifically as it is implicit in the guarantees of Freedom of Speech and Expression in Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution.
Notably, censorship is not covered in any provisions of the Indian Constitution.
However under the Constitution, during an emergency, Fundamental Rights including Freedom of Expression and Speech stand suspended. In Article 19 (2) of the Constitution of India, the freedom of the Press can be restricted for reasons of sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state and preserving democracy, besides some other contingencies.
Having said that, I would like to stress to the Indian media in their role while covering Proxy War and Terrorism that:
With freedom of Press, comes responsibility and accountability
In a Proxy War and Terrorism environment National Security imperatives and requirements should override any misguided journalistic impulses for scoops and sensation.
Proxy War and Terrorism participants indulge in acts of war against the Indian State and its Constitution. Such individuals cannot seek refuge in the Indian Constitution for Human Rights protection and legal processes guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.
In light of the above, in Proxy War and Terrorism situations, the Indian media is expected to exercise a large degree of self-restraint.
PAKISTAN’S PROXY WAR AND TERRORISM: THE “CONTEXT” THAT INDIAN MEDIA SHOULD ADD IN ITS REPORTAGE
India’s embattled security environment, both in terms of external security and internal security results from the decades of proxy war and terrorism that Pakistan has launched against it.
Proxy war and Terrorism have emerged as the state instruments of Pakistan and the main policy tools of the Pakistan Army in its asymmetric warfare against India. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons arsenal has additionally emboldened it to employ Proxy war and Terrorism more boldly against India.
Frustrated that Pakistan’s policy of bleeding India with a “thousand cuts” had not been successful, Pakistan’s Terrorism Warfare is no longer confined to Jammu and Kashmir, but now encompasses the main heartland of India from Guwahati to Mumbai and from Delhi to Bangalore.
India as a whole is now in the cross-hairs of Pakistan’s perfidious Proxy War and Terrorism. Unlike the India-Pakistan wars of the past, Pakistan’s Terrorism War against India is no longer confined to Western border-states. Every Indian state is now a battlefield for Pakistan’s Terrorism War.
India and its citizens across the board must become alive to this dangerous reality.
Mumbai 9/11, and this term is deliberately used by me as opposed to 26/11, should have become a defining moment for India’s combating Pakistan’s Terrorism War, like 9/11 was for the United States.
Mumbai 9/11 was Pakistan’s open declaration of war against India, when a handful of Pakistani terrorists trained by Pakistan’s Special Forces Group held the majesty of the Indian State to ransom for three days in the full glare of national and international media.
The United States response to 9/11 was the US military intervention in Afghanistan to destroy the Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist infrastructure there. India’s response has been appeasement of Pakistan.
India’s democratic traditions and liberal institutions have however not instilled in the Indian political leadership, unlike other democracies the will to use power to liquidate threats to India’s security. It is this national weakness of India that emboldens Pakistan’s incessant Proxy War and Terrorism against India. This contextual weakness needs to be highlighted incessantly by the Indian media.
India’s embattled security environment and the failure or reluctance to come to grips with Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism places an Indian national call on the Indian media to review and redefine its role in covering and combating Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India. It is this context that the Indian media needs to keep uppermost in its mind while covering Pakistan’s terrorism.
The Indian media, despite many short comings, is assessed by me, as a strong and valuable “pillar of state of the Indian Republic. Its scrutiny and oversight of India’s political leadership and policy has been an effective “check and balance” to ensure that India’s democracy is not endangered.
Imbued with the same spirit, the Indian media, both print and visual, should now look upon themselves as one more weapon of the Indian Republic in combating Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism which endangers India’s national security.
While the Indian Army battles the Pakistan menace with their weapons, the Indian media should battle Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism with the power of their pens and the impact of TV visuals.
PAKISTAN’S PROXY WAR AND TERRORISM “FRAMING” PAKISTAN’S TERRORISM IN THE CORRECT PERSPECTIVE
The role of the Indian media in covering the four major India-Pakistan Wars has been good. With each successive war there was a qualitative improvement in Indian Media’s performance.
The Kargil War of 1999 was for the first time in India covered extensively by the TV visual media and created impact on the Indian public mind considerably.
However, in the coverage of Proxy War and Terrorism which has abounded more frequently since 2004, there is much to be desired from the Indian media in terms of their coverage and the desired impact that they should have normally been expected to create.
Very briefly, the Indian TV media during the last five years seemed to err less on the side of national security imperatives and more erring towards “humanizing” the terrorists, their cause and in J & K falling prey to the disinformation propaganda campaign of the pro-Pakistan separatists against India.
Possibly, this arises from the Indian media’s lack of grasp of the main and true intents of Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India. Unless this is understood and recognized by the Indian media, and especially the visual media, they would be handicapped in playing an effective role in the coverage of Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism.
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against Indian needs to be framed by the Indian media in the following perspectives:
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism is no longer confined to Jammu & Kashmir aimed at the secession of the State from India.
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India is no longer militancy or terrorist activities, or insurgency arising from indigenous root causes.
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India is a full-fledged “War Against India” by applying all the instruments of asymmetric warfare against India by a combined and coordinated use of militancy, terrorism, insurgency and possibly tomorrow use of nuclear terrorism.
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism is no longer targeted at Indian security forces. Today, it targets the Indian Republic as a whole. It targets innocent civilian population and India’s economic, financial, scientific and other strengths including its social fabric.
The root causes of Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India, and which transcend any other root causes, is Pakistan’s unrelenting hostility towards India. India is Pakistan’s “Enemy No.1”. Pakistan could not cut down India to size in four wars. It now intends to down-size India strategically by asymmetric warfare which is akin to unleashing termites to eat into the very entrails of the Indian Republic.
The Indian media therefore has to breakout of the fixation that media coverage needs to be confined or viewed through the myopic lens of militancy and terrorism as some law and order problem. Further, that while covering these Pakistan threats, root causes have to be discerned and highlighted. Root causes should be explored by the Indian media in their political coverage and not of proxy war and terrorism.
India’s political leadership and its polity have not been able to rise up to meet this Pakistan challenge. Their political will to use power is conspicuously missing.
India’s flawed counter-terrorism approaches in neutralizing the Pakistani threat to India arises from the following causes and the Indian media should frame these perspectives in their reportage:
India’s divided polity which politicizes both national security and terrorism challenges.
Minority vote bank politics of the ruling party and its allies, leading to scrapping to anti-terrorism laws.
India’s judicial system which has not been restructured for speedy and summary trials and punishment of those who wage war against the Indian Republic.
The Indian media’s role in Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism therefore does not arise only as a “Force Multiplier” of the Indian Army and police organizations as they battle Pakistan’s continuing and incessant threats against India. More importantly Indian media’s role in Proxy War and Terrorism extends to fire “Tear Gas” at India’s political leaders so that they blink their eyes and see through the realities of Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism – stop them form politicizing such threats and prod them into effective counter-measures.
PROXY WAR AND TERRORISM: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TERRORISTS EXPLOITATION OF MEDIA AND INDIA'S EXPECTATIONS FROM THE MEDIA
At the outset of the analysis, one would like to quote excerpts from a US Congressional Report dealing with this subject, as they encapsulate the essence of the problems at issue, and these are:
“Terrorists, governments and the media see the functions, roles and responsibilities of the media covering terrorist events from differing and opposing perspectives.”
“Such perceptions drive respective behavior during terrorist incidents- often resulting in tactical and strategic gains or losses, to the terrorist operations and the overall terrorist cause.”
“The challenge to the Government and the press community is to understand the dynamics of terrorist enterprise and develop policy options to serve government, media and societal interests.”
The intents and dynamics of Pakistan’s Proxy War and terrorism against India stand amplified for the Indian media in the preceding discussion.
However, before the comparative analysis, one would like to quote some excerpts of studies made on the subject. These are from various sources and revealing in their content.
“Mainstream media shies away from the main actors in Terrorism and Proxy War- the victims of terrorism and the security forces who have to combat the invisible enemy targeting innocent civilians. Media needs to move beyond spin, ask questions because we don’t have all the answers and evaluate what we are told.”
“We must wake up to the harsh reality of the fact that low-intensity conflict or Proxy War has been unleashed against us by way of information aggression. Forces hostile to India have tended to occupy the vacuum created by the inadequate reach of Indian media.”
“Terrorists alter the uneven balance of power through the media metaphor which amplifies their horrific acts and demands with the publicity terrorists would never buy or afford.”
“What democracies cannot afford is to let the freedom of the Press continue to serve the forces that seek to undermine them.”
“It is an inexorable, if abhorrent axiom, that violent acts like terrorism increase print media readership and TV ratings thus terrorists and journalists are involved in an intricate. Symbiotic dance that professionally benefits both, despite protestations to the contrary.”
“Like it not, the media is still an integral, unfortunate and unavoidable part of achieving the terrorists aims and therefore be as judicious and responsible as possible in reporting.”
These excerpts make the follow-up task of comparative analysis that much simpler.
Media Exploitation By The Terrorists
The terrorist commit violent act looking to gain three universal objectives which they assess the media coverage facilitates. These are (1) Capture national and international attention (2) Gain recognition of their cause, and (3) Gaining recognition, the terrorists hope that with the attendant media publicity, some degree of legitimacy would accrue.
Media exploitation by the terrorists focus on the following expectations (1) Media will provide publicity of their deeds and cause (2) In the process, media coverage would facilitate spread of fear and amplify panic (3) Show up the impotence of the Government and security forces to combat Proxy War and Terrorism (4) Exploit media as a tool for their coordinated and calibrated disinformation strategies.
In case of the Indian media, Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and their Proxy War and Terrorism surrogates exploit the liberalist impulses and spin approaches for Human Right violations by engineering situations in which security forces would be forced to act firmly.
Proxy War and terrorism in India thrives on the “oxygen of publicity” provided by the Indian media.
Indian Media’s Role in Proxy War and Terrorism: The National Expectations
Combating Proxy War and terrorism is a challenging task for the security forces of the Indian Republic. The enemy is invisible, Pakistan has local sleeper cells and modules within India and the Indian security forces have to battle this menace with one hand tied politically.
In such an environment, the Indian media needs to exhibit “UNDERSTANDING, RESTRAINT, COOPERATION AND LOYALTY” and by thus doing act as a “Force Multiplier” for India's security forces. The Indian media should guard against becoming an unwitting “force Multiplier” for Pakistani Proxy War and Terrorism machine.
More specifically, the Indian media’s expected role should be to (1) Deny the terrorists a media platform for publicity (2) Avoid glamorizing terrorists and terrorism incidents (3) Project terrorists as “war criminals” and their terrorist act as Acts of War against India (4) Prevent use of media as a disinformation tool of terrorists strategy (5) Media should boost the morale of the security forces and so also their public image (6) Media should restrain themselves form building pressures on the Government and security forces for instant action or pressures to yield-in to terrorists demands especially in hostage situations
Time does not permit derailed case studies of Indian media’s role in coverage of the Proxy War and Terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir or Mumbai 9/11. However the analysis briefly outlined above would enable the Indian media to redefine its role in Proxy War and Terrorism that Pakistan continues to indulge against India.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism is not a passing phenomenon. These will continue as Pakistan’s instruments of state policy against India fuelled by Pakistan’s obsessive fixation of down-sizing India.
Peace dialogues and Confidence Building Measures are political expedients for both sides. These cannot emerge as India's weapons to neutralize or lessen Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India.
In the absence of visionary Indian political leadership imbued with strategic vision and conditioned in ‘strategic culture’ mindsets, to combat purposefully Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism Against India, the mantle falls on the Indian media to “Add Context” to Pakistan’s perfidious repeated terrorist attacks on India and so also to “Frame Pakistan’s Terrorist Attack Against India in the Correct Perspectives”. By doing so the Indian media could assist in galvanizing the Indian people to vociferously demand strong counter-terrorism policies against Pakistan’s calibrated and coordinated Proxy War and Terrorism against India.
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com)
Presentation made by the Author at a Seminar on ‘Role of Media in War and Terrorism' at University of Allahabad on July 31 to August 01, 2009.
INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS
The Indian media prides itself in galvanizing the nation in times of war with Pakistan and China with their print reportage and visual coverage. However, when it comes to covering Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India, the record of the Indian media is not all that promising and creditable.
This criticism applies more to the Indian TV media and less to the Indian print media. The Indian print media has the advantage of time in order to present a relatively more balanced reportage, which crystallizes in the time span between terrorist incidents and their reportage in print.
The Indian TV media laboring under the pressure of 24X7 competitive live coverage of terrorist incidents, absence of instant availability of Government releases and briefings on terrorism incidents and the prevailing confusion and fog on the developing situation tend to indulge in speculative reporting.
In the above process, national security considerations are lost and the Indian TV media ends up as an unwilling tool of exploitation of the Pakistani terrorist organizations disinformation strategies.
The Indian media, both print and TV, seem to be confused when it comes to covering Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India. This confusion becomes further confounded as the Indian media wrestles with itself as to what should be “The Role of the Indian Media in Proxy War and Terrorism”. Should it be “The Role of the Indian Media in Proxy War and Terrorism” or should the role of the Indian media be “The Role of the Indian Media Against Proxy War and Terrorism.”
Since India is being subjected to Proxy War and Terrorism by Pakistan for well over 20 years now, the Indian media should rightfully perceive its role as “The Role of the Indian Media Against Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism Against India.
The Indian media would additionally be able to add more clarity and objectivity to its reportage and visual coverage when it recognizes the ground reality that Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India is a state-sponsored product of the Pakistani Government, the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agencies and their surrogate Jihadi terrorist organizations adding the Islamic tinge.
Targeting these above Pakistani entities, the Indian media in its print and TV coverage would not only be serving India’s national security interests but also be assisting the cause of democracy aspirations of the Pakistani people.
The Indian media also needs to dispel from its mind that in espousing a vacillating Indian Governments “soft approaches” in its counter- terrorism approaches, war hysteria and jingoism is being generated.
In the coverage of Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India the two major failings of the India media, can be recounted as under:
Not adding “Context to Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism Against India"
Failing to “Frame Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorist Incidents in their Correct Perspective.
My presentation today would attempt to address these two major issues besides some others generally on the role of media in proxy war and terrorism.
The issues that would be covered by me today are:
The Constitution of India, Press Freedom and National Security
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism: The “Context” that Indian Media should Add in its Reportage
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism: “Framing” Pakistan’s Terrorism in the Correct Perspectives
Proxy War and Terrorism: Comparative analysis of Terrorists Exploitation of Media and India’s Expectations from the Indian Media
THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA, PRESS FREEDOM AND NATIONAL SECURITY
The Constitution of India, surprisingly, does not mention “freedom of the Press” specifically in the Chapter on Fundamental Rights. Dr. Ambedkar however clarified later that it was not necessary to stipulate it specifically as it is implicit in the guarantees of Freedom of Speech and Expression in Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution.
Notably, censorship is not covered in any provisions of the Indian Constitution.
However under the Constitution, during an emergency, Fundamental Rights including Freedom of Expression and Speech stand suspended. In Article 19 (2) of the Constitution of India, the freedom of the Press can be restricted for reasons of sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state and preserving democracy, besides some other contingencies.
Having said that, I would like to stress to the Indian media in their role while covering Proxy War and Terrorism that:
With freedom of Press, comes responsibility and accountability
In a Proxy War and Terrorism environment National Security imperatives and requirements should override any misguided journalistic impulses for scoops and sensation.
Proxy War and Terrorism participants indulge in acts of war against the Indian State and its Constitution. Such individuals cannot seek refuge in the Indian Constitution for Human Rights protection and legal processes guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.
In light of the above, in Proxy War and Terrorism situations, the Indian media is expected to exercise a large degree of self-restraint.
PAKISTAN’S PROXY WAR AND TERRORISM: THE “CONTEXT” THAT INDIAN MEDIA SHOULD ADD IN ITS REPORTAGE
India’s embattled security environment, both in terms of external security and internal security results from the decades of proxy war and terrorism that Pakistan has launched against it.
Proxy war and Terrorism have emerged as the state instruments of Pakistan and the main policy tools of the Pakistan Army in its asymmetric warfare against India. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons arsenal has additionally emboldened it to employ Proxy war and Terrorism more boldly against India.
Frustrated that Pakistan’s policy of bleeding India with a “thousand cuts” had not been successful, Pakistan’s Terrorism Warfare is no longer confined to Jammu and Kashmir, but now encompasses the main heartland of India from Guwahati to Mumbai and from Delhi to Bangalore.
India as a whole is now in the cross-hairs of Pakistan’s perfidious Proxy War and Terrorism. Unlike the India-Pakistan wars of the past, Pakistan’s Terrorism War against India is no longer confined to Western border-states. Every Indian state is now a battlefield for Pakistan’s Terrorism War.
India and its citizens across the board must become alive to this dangerous reality.
Mumbai 9/11, and this term is deliberately used by me as opposed to 26/11, should have become a defining moment for India’s combating Pakistan’s Terrorism War, like 9/11 was for the United States.
Mumbai 9/11 was Pakistan’s open declaration of war against India, when a handful of Pakistani terrorists trained by Pakistan’s Special Forces Group held the majesty of the Indian State to ransom for three days in the full glare of national and international media.
The United States response to 9/11 was the US military intervention in Afghanistan to destroy the Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist infrastructure there. India’s response has been appeasement of Pakistan.
India’s democratic traditions and liberal institutions have however not instilled in the Indian political leadership, unlike other democracies the will to use power to liquidate threats to India’s security. It is this national weakness of India that emboldens Pakistan’s incessant Proxy War and Terrorism against India. This contextual weakness needs to be highlighted incessantly by the Indian media.
India’s embattled security environment and the failure or reluctance to come to grips with Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism places an Indian national call on the Indian media to review and redefine its role in covering and combating Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India. It is this context that the Indian media needs to keep uppermost in its mind while covering Pakistan’s terrorism.
The Indian media, despite many short comings, is assessed by me, as a strong and valuable “pillar of state of the Indian Republic. Its scrutiny and oversight of India’s political leadership and policy has been an effective “check and balance” to ensure that India’s democracy is not endangered.
Imbued with the same spirit, the Indian media, both print and visual, should now look upon themselves as one more weapon of the Indian Republic in combating Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism which endangers India’s national security.
While the Indian Army battles the Pakistan menace with their weapons, the Indian media should battle Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism with the power of their pens and the impact of TV visuals.
PAKISTAN’S PROXY WAR AND TERRORISM “FRAMING” PAKISTAN’S TERRORISM IN THE CORRECT PERSPECTIVE
The role of the Indian media in covering the four major India-Pakistan Wars has been good. With each successive war there was a qualitative improvement in Indian Media’s performance.
The Kargil War of 1999 was for the first time in India covered extensively by the TV visual media and created impact on the Indian public mind considerably.
However, in the coverage of Proxy War and Terrorism which has abounded more frequently since 2004, there is much to be desired from the Indian media in terms of their coverage and the desired impact that they should have normally been expected to create.
Very briefly, the Indian TV media during the last five years seemed to err less on the side of national security imperatives and more erring towards “humanizing” the terrorists, their cause and in J & K falling prey to the disinformation propaganda campaign of the pro-Pakistan separatists against India.
Possibly, this arises from the Indian media’s lack of grasp of the main and true intents of Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India. Unless this is understood and recognized by the Indian media, and especially the visual media, they would be handicapped in playing an effective role in the coverage of Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism.
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against Indian needs to be framed by the Indian media in the following perspectives:
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism is no longer confined to Jammu & Kashmir aimed at the secession of the State from India.
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India is no longer militancy or terrorist activities, or insurgency arising from indigenous root causes.
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India is a full-fledged “War Against India” by applying all the instruments of asymmetric warfare against India by a combined and coordinated use of militancy, terrorism, insurgency and possibly tomorrow use of nuclear terrorism.
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism is no longer targeted at Indian security forces. Today, it targets the Indian Republic as a whole. It targets innocent civilian population and India’s economic, financial, scientific and other strengths including its social fabric.
The root causes of Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India, and which transcend any other root causes, is Pakistan’s unrelenting hostility towards India. India is Pakistan’s “Enemy No.1”. Pakistan could not cut down India to size in four wars. It now intends to down-size India strategically by asymmetric warfare which is akin to unleashing termites to eat into the very entrails of the Indian Republic.
The Indian media therefore has to breakout of the fixation that media coverage needs to be confined or viewed through the myopic lens of militancy and terrorism as some law and order problem. Further, that while covering these Pakistan threats, root causes have to be discerned and highlighted. Root causes should be explored by the Indian media in their political coverage and not of proxy war and terrorism.
India’s political leadership and its polity have not been able to rise up to meet this Pakistan challenge. Their political will to use power is conspicuously missing.
India’s flawed counter-terrorism approaches in neutralizing the Pakistani threat to India arises from the following causes and the Indian media should frame these perspectives in their reportage:
India’s divided polity which politicizes both national security and terrorism challenges.
Minority vote bank politics of the ruling party and its allies, leading to scrapping to anti-terrorism laws.
India’s judicial system which has not been restructured for speedy and summary trials and punishment of those who wage war against the Indian Republic.
The Indian media’s role in Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism therefore does not arise only as a “Force Multiplier” of the Indian Army and police organizations as they battle Pakistan’s continuing and incessant threats against India. More importantly Indian media’s role in Proxy War and Terrorism extends to fire “Tear Gas” at India’s political leaders so that they blink their eyes and see through the realities of Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism – stop them form politicizing such threats and prod them into effective counter-measures.
PROXY WAR AND TERRORISM: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TERRORISTS EXPLOITATION OF MEDIA AND INDIA'S EXPECTATIONS FROM THE MEDIA
At the outset of the analysis, one would like to quote excerpts from a US Congressional Report dealing with this subject, as they encapsulate the essence of the problems at issue, and these are:
“Terrorists, governments and the media see the functions, roles and responsibilities of the media covering terrorist events from differing and opposing perspectives.”
“Such perceptions drive respective behavior during terrorist incidents- often resulting in tactical and strategic gains or losses, to the terrorist operations and the overall terrorist cause.”
“The challenge to the Government and the press community is to understand the dynamics of terrorist enterprise and develop policy options to serve government, media and societal interests.”
The intents and dynamics of Pakistan’s Proxy War and terrorism against India stand amplified for the Indian media in the preceding discussion.
However, before the comparative analysis, one would like to quote some excerpts of studies made on the subject. These are from various sources and revealing in their content.
“Mainstream media shies away from the main actors in Terrorism and Proxy War- the victims of terrorism and the security forces who have to combat the invisible enemy targeting innocent civilians. Media needs to move beyond spin, ask questions because we don’t have all the answers and evaluate what we are told.”
“We must wake up to the harsh reality of the fact that low-intensity conflict or Proxy War has been unleashed against us by way of information aggression. Forces hostile to India have tended to occupy the vacuum created by the inadequate reach of Indian media.”
“Terrorists alter the uneven balance of power through the media metaphor which amplifies their horrific acts and demands with the publicity terrorists would never buy or afford.”
“What democracies cannot afford is to let the freedom of the Press continue to serve the forces that seek to undermine them.”
“It is an inexorable, if abhorrent axiom, that violent acts like terrorism increase print media readership and TV ratings thus terrorists and journalists are involved in an intricate. Symbiotic dance that professionally benefits both, despite protestations to the contrary.”
“Like it not, the media is still an integral, unfortunate and unavoidable part of achieving the terrorists aims and therefore be as judicious and responsible as possible in reporting.”
These excerpts make the follow-up task of comparative analysis that much simpler.
Media Exploitation By The Terrorists
The terrorist commit violent act looking to gain three universal objectives which they assess the media coverage facilitates. These are (1) Capture national and international attention (2) Gain recognition of their cause, and (3) Gaining recognition, the terrorists hope that with the attendant media publicity, some degree of legitimacy would accrue.
Media exploitation by the terrorists focus on the following expectations (1) Media will provide publicity of their deeds and cause (2) In the process, media coverage would facilitate spread of fear and amplify panic (3) Show up the impotence of the Government and security forces to combat Proxy War and Terrorism (4) Exploit media as a tool for their coordinated and calibrated disinformation strategies.
In case of the Indian media, Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and their Proxy War and Terrorism surrogates exploit the liberalist impulses and spin approaches for Human Right violations by engineering situations in which security forces would be forced to act firmly.
Proxy War and terrorism in India thrives on the “oxygen of publicity” provided by the Indian media.
Indian Media’s Role in Proxy War and Terrorism: The National Expectations
Combating Proxy War and terrorism is a challenging task for the security forces of the Indian Republic. The enemy is invisible, Pakistan has local sleeper cells and modules within India and the Indian security forces have to battle this menace with one hand tied politically.
In such an environment, the Indian media needs to exhibit “UNDERSTANDING, RESTRAINT, COOPERATION AND LOYALTY” and by thus doing act as a “Force Multiplier” for India's security forces. The Indian media should guard against becoming an unwitting “force Multiplier” for Pakistani Proxy War and Terrorism machine.
More specifically, the Indian media’s expected role should be to (1) Deny the terrorists a media platform for publicity (2) Avoid glamorizing terrorists and terrorism incidents (3) Project terrorists as “war criminals” and their terrorist act as Acts of War against India (4) Prevent use of media as a disinformation tool of terrorists strategy (5) Media should boost the morale of the security forces and so also their public image (6) Media should restrain themselves form building pressures on the Government and security forces for instant action or pressures to yield-in to terrorists demands especially in hostage situations
Time does not permit derailed case studies of Indian media’s role in coverage of the Proxy War and Terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir or Mumbai 9/11. However the analysis briefly outlined above would enable the Indian media to redefine its role in Proxy War and Terrorism that Pakistan continues to indulge against India.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism is not a passing phenomenon. These will continue as Pakistan’s instruments of state policy against India fuelled by Pakistan’s obsessive fixation of down-sizing India.
Peace dialogues and Confidence Building Measures are political expedients for both sides. These cannot emerge as India's weapons to neutralize or lessen Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism against India.
In the absence of visionary Indian political leadership imbued with strategic vision and conditioned in ‘strategic culture’ mindsets, to combat purposefully Pakistan’s Proxy War and Terrorism Against India, the mantle falls on the Indian media to “Add Context” to Pakistan’s perfidious repeated terrorist attacks on India and so also to “Frame Pakistan’s Terrorist Attack Against India in the Correct Perspectives”. By doing so the Indian media could assist in galvanizing the Indian people to vociferously demand strong counter-terrorism policies against Pakistan’s calibrated and coordinated Proxy War and Terrorism against India.
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com)
QUOTE OF THE DAY: B.Raman on Pakistani Leaders
"I admire one thing in Pakistani leaders and policy-makers, that is their consistency in adhering to what they perceive to be in their national interests. One finds this consistency in their political and military leaders. We lack such consistency. "
B.Raman
B.Raman
August 05, 2009
Pakistan's army: living in a state of strategic denial
By C. Uday Bhaskar,
http://www.newkerala.com/nkfullnews-1-86320.html
A two-day international conference on genocide that concluded in Dhaka July 31 exhorted the UN to recognise the mass killings and rape that the Pakistan Army had unleashed in the torturous and tumultuous events that preceded the birth of Bangladesh in December 1971.
Legal experts from Germany, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Britain and Canada joined their Bangladeshi counterparts in issuing a declaration that noted: "The conference calls upon the media and the civil society at home and abroad to focus on the (1971) genocide in Bangladesh, and launch a campaign so that this is recognized in the UN as Genocide."
Furthermore, the conference urged the Bangladesh government to begin the process of trying the perpetrators as war criminals and to seek international support in this regard.
But the sad truth is that as in the past 37 years, this earnest plea is unlikely to elicit any meaningful response from the powers that be at the global table.
The US, with Richard Nixon in the White House and his ace assistant Henry Kissinger actually calling the shots in 1971, was culpable by turning a blind eye to the genocide and mass rape that enveloped then East Pakistan. To their credit, the US mission in Dhaka tried to report the carnage to the DC Beltway and the US media, including some mainstream papers reported the events as accurately as possible. But in vain. And in keeping with the dictum that major powers shape the historical narrative in a selective manner by engaging in astute exclusion, this enormity has since been successfully relegated to the distant back-burner of the global record.
Four decades later, except for the victims and their traumatized families, recall of the genocide in Bangladesh outside of that country is hazy. The Pakistan Army, which was the principal institution engaged in attacking and butchering its own citizens - albeit of Bengali ethnicity, has since sought to play down the scale of the bloodshed and rape.
The official Pakistani version refers to 26,000 killed over a year but this is at considerable variance with other estimates which range from 300,000 to a staggering three million killed and between 200,000 to 400,000 women raped.
Two other estimates are illustrative of the disparity that exists about these gory figures. "Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900" by R.J. Rummel places the deaths at 1.5 million and other literature on the subject avers that East Pakistan of 1971 ranks as having the highest concentration or density of genocide by way of the numbers killed, the time involved and the geographical area in question. Yet another book, "Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape" by Susan Brownmiller estimates that the total number of women raped by Pakistan Army personnel along with their local support base - the 'razakars' - varies from 200,000 to 400,000. The majority of them were Muslim girls and women ranging from age eight to 70 plus.
These are appalling statistics by any yardstick and in a normative context, even one death or rape of a civilian non-combatant by any uniformed person is cause for the gravest concern. Paradoxically, where death becomes macro, cerebral distortions occur easily. In keeping with the Einstein formulation that in a stellar domain mass can deform space, it may be averred that where a whole state machinery is committed to mass killing, normal morality and ethics are warped and elite responsibility evaded. Most objective genocide studies point to this pattern.
However, the purpose of this comment is not to cast aspersions on the veracity of one study or the other - more qualified voices will have to address that - but to relate the events of 1971 with the current turmoil in Pakistan.
Currently, the Pakistan Army - which in the Zia years became the defender of the Islamic faith - is caught in deep strategic denial about its murky and blood-splattered past. The empirical reality is that this institution since the first war for Kashmir in October 1947 to Kargil of May 1999 has been tasked in covert operations that have used terror stoked by religious radicalism and sectarian xenophobia against the 'adversary' - whether the much reviled Hindu Indian or the fellow Pakistani, be it the Bengali Pakistani of 1971 or the Baluchi of current times.
Like Oscar Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Grey", the institutional face of the Pakistan Army is best exemplified by the chutzpah of General Pervez Musharraf is a visage of supreme confidence - now further bolstered by the nuclear firewall. But the ugly reality is of a once proud army - its track record in World War II as part of the erstwhile British Indian Army is lustrous - that has lost its moral compass. The result has been the ignominy of killing fellow citizens on an unprecedented scale and where arch enemy India has been engaged - not being able to acknowledge the deaths of its regular troops in battle or even claim their bodies. A la Lady Macbeth, this is a stain that cannot be wiped away.
The inflexible mindset of the Pakistan Army has to be radically altered and there is no historical precedent that this will occur by consensus and deep introspection. The military acquires its legitimacy to use proportionate force for a larger national objective from adherence to the rule of law and a distilled code of professional conduct. But when the deviant becomes the norm, the correlation between principle and power is subverted.
The Pakistan Army is caught in an inflexible mode of strategic denial about its past, which is why it appears both unable and unwilling to deal with its present internal security challenges. This is the 'truth' that President Asif Ali Zardari has been trying to reveal - but with limited success. The reverberations of the Dhaka genocide conference must be picked up by Pakistan's accomplished intellectuals - both in the media and academia - and a false narrative corrected. The army must finally confront its mea culpa moment through the bloody cross of East Pakistan.
--- IANS
http://www.newkerala.com/nkfullnews-1-86320.html
A two-day international conference on genocide that concluded in Dhaka July 31 exhorted the UN to recognise the mass killings and rape that the Pakistan Army had unleashed in the torturous and tumultuous events that preceded the birth of Bangladesh in December 1971.
Legal experts from Germany, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Britain and Canada joined their Bangladeshi counterparts in issuing a declaration that noted: "The conference calls upon the media and the civil society at home and abroad to focus on the (1971) genocide in Bangladesh, and launch a campaign so that this is recognized in the UN as Genocide."
Furthermore, the conference urged the Bangladesh government to begin the process of trying the perpetrators as war criminals and to seek international support in this regard.
But the sad truth is that as in the past 37 years, this earnest plea is unlikely to elicit any meaningful response from the powers that be at the global table.
The US, with Richard Nixon in the White House and his ace assistant Henry Kissinger actually calling the shots in 1971, was culpable by turning a blind eye to the genocide and mass rape that enveloped then East Pakistan. To their credit, the US mission in Dhaka tried to report the carnage to the DC Beltway and the US media, including some mainstream papers reported the events as accurately as possible. But in vain. And in keeping with the dictum that major powers shape the historical narrative in a selective manner by engaging in astute exclusion, this enormity has since been successfully relegated to the distant back-burner of the global record.
Four decades later, except for the victims and their traumatized families, recall of the genocide in Bangladesh outside of that country is hazy. The Pakistan Army, which was the principal institution engaged in attacking and butchering its own citizens - albeit of Bengali ethnicity, has since sought to play down the scale of the bloodshed and rape.
The official Pakistani version refers to 26,000 killed over a year but this is at considerable variance with other estimates which range from 300,000 to a staggering three million killed and between 200,000 to 400,000 women raped.
Two other estimates are illustrative of the disparity that exists about these gory figures. "Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900" by R.J. Rummel places the deaths at 1.5 million and other literature on the subject avers that East Pakistan of 1971 ranks as having the highest concentration or density of genocide by way of the numbers killed, the time involved and the geographical area in question. Yet another book, "Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape" by Susan Brownmiller estimates that the total number of women raped by Pakistan Army personnel along with their local support base - the 'razakars' - varies from 200,000 to 400,000. The majority of them were Muslim girls and women ranging from age eight to 70 plus.
These are appalling statistics by any yardstick and in a normative context, even one death or rape of a civilian non-combatant by any uniformed person is cause for the gravest concern. Paradoxically, where death becomes macro, cerebral distortions occur easily. In keeping with the Einstein formulation that in a stellar domain mass can deform space, it may be averred that where a whole state machinery is committed to mass killing, normal morality and ethics are warped and elite responsibility evaded. Most objective genocide studies point to this pattern.
However, the purpose of this comment is not to cast aspersions on the veracity of one study or the other - more qualified voices will have to address that - but to relate the events of 1971 with the current turmoil in Pakistan.
Currently, the Pakistan Army - which in the Zia years became the defender of the Islamic faith - is caught in deep strategic denial about its murky and blood-splattered past. The empirical reality is that this institution since the first war for Kashmir in October 1947 to Kargil of May 1999 has been tasked in covert operations that have used terror stoked by religious radicalism and sectarian xenophobia against the 'adversary' - whether the much reviled Hindu Indian or the fellow Pakistani, be it the Bengali Pakistani of 1971 or the Baluchi of current times.
Like Oscar Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Grey", the institutional face of the Pakistan Army is best exemplified by the chutzpah of General Pervez Musharraf is a visage of supreme confidence - now further bolstered by the nuclear firewall. But the ugly reality is of a once proud army - its track record in World War II as part of the erstwhile British Indian Army is lustrous - that has lost its moral compass. The result has been the ignominy of killing fellow citizens on an unprecedented scale and where arch enemy India has been engaged - not being able to acknowledge the deaths of its regular troops in battle or even claim their bodies. A la Lady Macbeth, this is a stain that cannot be wiped away.
The inflexible mindset of the Pakistan Army has to be radically altered and there is no historical precedent that this will occur by consensus and deep introspection. The military acquires its legitimacy to use proportionate force for a larger national objective from adherence to the rule of law and a distilled code of professional conduct. But when the deviant becomes the norm, the correlation between principle and power is subverted.
The Pakistan Army is caught in an inflexible mode of strategic denial about its past, which is why it appears both unable and unwilling to deal with its present internal security challenges. This is the 'truth' that President Asif Ali Zardari has been trying to reveal - but with limited success. The reverberations of the Dhaka genocide conference must be picked up by Pakistan's accomplished intellectuals - both in the media and academia - and a false narrative corrected. The army must finally confront its mea culpa moment through the bloody cross of East Pakistan.
--- IANS
Encircle The Dragon
Joshua Meah
5 August 2009, 12:00am IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion/edit-page/Top-Article-Encircle-The-Dragon/articleshow/4857193.cms
US engagement in South Asia since 9/11 is often understood through US security interests: defeating al-Qaeda, eliminating support for Islamic militancy in Pakistan and securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. But 9/11 was in 2001, almost eight years ago, and US security interests have changed drastically. The Iraq war cost the US upwards of $3 trillion in blood and treasure and enhanced Washington's perceived adversary Iran as the regional power. The financial crisis crippled the 'Washington consensus' endorsement for democracy and free markets while sending the US into a recession and assaulting the dollar's status as the global reserve currency.
The victor of US strategic failures is China, the 1.3 billion-strong nation with a near 40 per cent savings rate, $2 trillion in currency reserves, an unimpeded model of government-led development and a history of visible non-intervention in the internal affairs of nations that is welcomed by repressive, resource-rich regimes in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Central Asia and elsewhere.
At the dawn of the 'Asian century', the surge in US military activity in Afghanistan and the forthcoming $15 billion aid package to Pakistan may be an attempt to checkmate China as much as an effort to meet post-9/11 security objectives. By attaining military superiority in Central, South and East Asia, and ostensibly buying out Islamabad, the US would control China's most critical regional ally and energy-resource transport lanes and could potentially open China up to a bolstered secessionist movement in its Islamic and massive Xinjiang province.
With little in common culturally, Pakistan and China share an inimical view of India, Islamabad's eternal obsession and sole threat to Beijing's influence in South Asia. This is at the heart of their alliance. Pakistan's proximity to the Strait of Hormuz in Iran, through which 20 per cent of the world's oil passes, and ability to control radical Islamism make an alliance for China ideal as it seeks to secure energy resources and silence the Islamic Uighur outcry for secession in Xinjiang. To Pakistan, China means access to perhaps the world's foremost economic power with growing diplomatic strength in the UN Security Council and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Nuclear deals, joint military exercises and a free trade agreement signed in 2006 support the valued relationship.
Yet, with 98,000 troops split between South Korea and Afghanistan and joint US-India-Japanese naval operations being taken up, US military influence in China's immediate territory may offset China's aggressive military posturing along Arunachal Pradesh and decrease the value of Beijing's security blanket to Islamabad. Also, with Pakistani army activity, President Asif Ali Zardari's views and poll data on civilian opinion coinciding with US national security objectives, the US's $15 billion aid package to Pakistan may signal a rapprochement between Islamabad and Washington. As Beijing's influence on Islamabad dissipates, so may the ISI's watchful eye on Pakistani-based factions of China's Uighur secessionist movement, which is increasing in international profile with the violent Chinese crackdown on peaceful protests and each innocent Uighur released publicly from Guantanamo Bay.
US emphasis on the growth of Pakistan's civilian institutions threatens to wrestle away the military's control of relations with India, creating potential for healthier economic and political relations between the two countries and freeing up India's attention and resources to balance against Chinese regional influence. In the very long term, a prosperous Pakistan would reaffirm the Washington consensus that democracy and free markets are the way of the wealthy world, even in Islamic countries, placing pressure on the Chinese Communist Party to democratise.
In full congruence with the Af-Pak strategy, Barack Obama is attempting strategic rapprochement with Iran, the consequence of which would leave three of the most important energy powers (Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq) mostly within the US's purview and secure the US's closest allies in Asia (India and Japan) unfettered access to energy resources. The thawing of the Washington-Moscow relationship through a tentative agreement to reduce the size of nuclear arsenals and the actual consideration that Russia might join NATO only add to China's concerns about the threat of American-led encirclement.
Of course, the above may fail to actualise. US operations in Afghanistan could fail as have all previous efforts to control the Afghan people. Pakistan may continue a policy of selective counter-insurgency, leaving some groups affiliated to al-Qaeda and Kashmiri militancy untouched while focusing on those threatening the army's control of Pakistan, the result of which would be a net zero gain in positive Pakistani-Indian relations or US security. Given China's unique support for the Ayatollah's regime in Iran during the recent elections, Obama's hope for a special relationship with Iran may have already eluded him. The Russia 'reset' may be implausible as US missile defence policy in Poland remains a thorn in US-Russia relations. Nonetheless, these potential tactical failures do not deny an incredibly important strategic advance: through Af-Pak, the first checkmate of the Asian dragon has been attempted by the US.
The writer is with the Centre for International Relations, Observer Research Foundation.
5 August 2009, 12:00am IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion/edit-page/Top-Article-Encircle-The-Dragon/articleshow/4857193.cms
US engagement in South Asia since 9/11 is often understood through US security interests: defeating al-Qaeda, eliminating support for Islamic militancy in Pakistan and securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. But 9/11 was in 2001, almost eight years ago, and US security interests have changed drastically. The Iraq war cost the US upwards of $3 trillion in blood and treasure and enhanced Washington's perceived adversary Iran as the regional power. The financial crisis crippled the 'Washington consensus' endorsement for democracy and free markets while sending the US into a recession and assaulting the dollar's status as the global reserve currency.
The victor of US strategic failures is China, the 1.3 billion-strong nation with a near 40 per cent savings rate, $2 trillion in currency reserves, an unimpeded model of government-led development and a history of visible non-intervention in the internal affairs of nations that is welcomed by repressive, resource-rich regimes in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Central Asia and elsewhere.
At the dawn of the 'Asian century', the surge in US military activity in Afghanistan and the forthcoming $15 billion aid package to Pakistan may be an attempt to checkmate China as much as an effort to meet post-9/11 security objectives. By attaining military superiority in Central, South and East Asia, and ostensibly buying out Islamabad, the US would control China's most critical regional ally and energy-resource transport lanes and could potentially open China up to a bolstered secessionist movement in its Islamic and massive Xinjiang province.
With little in common culturally, Pakistan and China share an inimical view of India, Islamabad's eternal obsession and sole threat to Beijing's influence in South Asia. This is at the heart of their alliance. Pakistan's proximity to the Strait of Hormuz in Iran, through which 20 per cent of the world's oil passes, and ability to control radical Islamism make an alliance for China ideal as it seeks to secure energy resources and silence the Islamic Uighur outcry for secession in Xinjiang. To Pakistan, China means access to perhaps the world's foremost economic power with growing diplomatic strength in the UN Security Council and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Nuclear deals, joint military exercises and a free trade agreement signed in 2006 support the valued relationship.
Yet, with 98,000 troops split between South Korea and Afghanistan and joint US-India-Japanese naval operations being taken up, US military influence in China's immediate territory may offset China's aggressive military posturing along Arunachal Pradesh and decrease the value of Beijing's security blanket to Islamabad. Also, with Pakistani army activity, President Asif Ali Zardari's views and poll data on civilian opinion coinciding with US national security objectives, the US's $15 billion aid package to Pakistan may signal a rapprochement between Islamabad and Washington. As Beijing's influence on Islamabad dissipates, so may the ISI's watchful eye on Pakistani-based factions of China's Uighur secessionist movement, which is increasing in international profile with the violent Chinese crackdown on peaceful protests and each innocent Uighur released publicly from Guantanamo Bay.
US emphasis on the growth of Pakistan's civilian institutions threatens to wrestle away the military's control of relations with India, creating potential for healthier economic and political relations between the two countries and freeing up India's attention and resources to balance against Chinese regional influence. In the very long term, a prosperous Pakistan would reaffirm the Washington consensus that democracy and free markets are the way of the wealthy world, even in Islamic countries, placing pressure on the Chinese Communist Party to democratise.
In full congruence with the Af-Pak strategy, Barack Obama is attempting strategic rapprochement with Iran, the consequence of which would leave three of the most important energy powers (Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq) mostly within the US's purview and secure the US's closest allies in Asia (India and Japan) unfettered access to energy resources. The thawing of the Washington-Moscow relationship through a tentative agreement to reduce the size of nuclear arsenals and the actual consideration that Russia might join NATO only add to China's concerns about the threat of American-led encirclement.
Of course, the above may fail to actualise. US operations in Afghanistan could fail as have all previous efforts to control the Afghan people. Pakistan may continue a policy of selective counter-insurgency, leaving some groups affiliated to al-Qaeda and Kashmiri militancy untouched while focusing on those threatening the army's control of Pakistan, the result of which would be a net zero gain in positive Pakistani-Indian relations or US security. Given China's unique support for the Ayatollah's regime in Iran during the recent elections, Obama's hope for a special relationship with Iran may have already eluded him. The Russia 'reset' may be implausible as US missile defence policy in Poland remains a thorn in US-Russia relations. Nonetheless, these potential tactical failures do not deny an incredibly important strategic advance: through Af-Pak, the first checkmate of the Asian dragon has been attempted by the US.
The writer is with the Centre for International Relations, Observer Research Foundation.
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