India-US Relations : News and Discussion

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 13 Nov 2014 20:07

I think she took home stuff for TSP to see or take a peek.
From the above article she was representing TSP in US govt circles.

kmkraoind · Post by **kmkraoind** » 13 Nov 2014 22:20

chetak wrote:Robin Raphel, 'the bird', who was disliked in USA

“Her ice queen act didn’t go down well with soldiers who were getting shot at, blown up and dying having no idea why any of it was happening,” the source commented. The anti-Pakistan feeling is intense among US veterans of the Afghan war.
-- Seema Sirohi is a senior journalist based in Washington, DC

Usually, the ladder in US military establishment is filled with war heroes and medal recipients. Iraq and Pakistan are 2 war theaters where future colonels and generals must have faced, so I bet in future whole US defence establishment must have a hostile feeling towards Pakistan. Pakis are really fukked in this regard.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 Nov 2014 22:21

Anybody who thinks Raphael was some non-state actor needs to take a kandle and stand at Wagah with their mush raised. Raphael is simply being used as a convenient scapegoat to signal to Modi how US is now serious about tackling this Paki menace, is pro India and all that BS. The fact that she was so dumb as to publicly have a love fest with Pakis is now being used for GOTUS benefit. US policy has neither changed nor will it change in the near future when it comes to mollycoddling tinpot dictatorships like Pakistan. The actual decision makers are still unscathed so let's not do a premature lungi dance. Only a strong leader like Modi who pays them back in the same coin will earn their respect and fear.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 13 Nov 2014 22:39

Saar I agree except that Raphel could have been sacked/removed from the scene if it was just to please India. Why launch a counter-intel probe against a well know DC figure? Even if nothing comes out of the probe it taint her lifetimes work. It has to be more than just a show.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 14 Nov 2014 01:04

pankajs wrote:Saar I agree except that Raphel could have been sacked/removed from the scene if it was just to please India. Why launch a counter-intel probe against a well know DC figure? Even if nothing comes out of the probe it taint her lifetimes work. It has to be more than just a show.

She is expendable at this time. Probably Doval told khan India wants to see action on the TSP front for khan to get anything from India.

So we have public demands from US to India balanced by private counter-demands from India. Investigating Raphel is a low cost, high payoff move for US, given India's dep hatred of her.

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 14 Nov 2014 01:15

Strobe Talbott of the Brookings Psychiatric Institution said something along the lines of "no sensible American will consider India an ally" in a recent interview -- that is in line with the US's actions w.r.t. India. The pro-paki crowd in US SD and associated think tanks are still alive and well. Uneven and Christine Fair are all part of the same crowd -- there may be some realigning away from pak going on, but no reason to plan a lungi dance flash mob at your local railway station on account such internal matters like RR's current plight. US support for leaders and events in Afghanistan that indicate a change in direction would be better indicators...not that the US has any more influence in that region than it did 10 years ago, influent that is not tied to Pakistan in someway.

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 14 Nov 2014 01:18

I think we are giving too much importance to the RR investigation. How exactly is this investigation beneficial to India, for some quid-pro-quo to apply? She is not even an active SD official at this point.

This investigation is internal to the US, and as far as India is concerned, nothing has changed. US will continue to support Pakistan to the same extent as before, and pressure us on WTO, pharma, etc. Let's not get distracted by these side shows.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 14 Nov 2014 03:02

Who dat - C-Ma C-Rohi? A super PiskOps article. The way she conjures theories on what US Afghan veterans feel etc is just superb.

I think they put Fai's ghulams in a vice with a 15-year jail term staring at him, and got him to spill the beans on the whole network. The arrest of a neurologist in DC who was funding the Kashmir Researcher Forum (Angana C aka "Mary", Akhila Ra(h)man, Robert Shapiro - Angana's Thesis Advisor-cum-otherthings, the Khalistanis, etc etc.) also happened recently. These things are linked. The wheels turn slowly, but I think they are rolling up the entire OLD ISI network in the US. Maybe time for the new ISI network.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 14 Nov 2014 03:24

UlanBatori wrote:Who dat - C-Ma C-Rohi? A super PiskOps article. The way she conjures theories on what US Afghan veterans feel etc is just superb.

I think they put Fai's ghulams in a vice with a 15-year jail term staring at him, and got him to spill the beans on the whole network. The arrest of a neurologist in DC who was funding the Kashmir Researcher Forum (Angana C aka "Mary", Akhila Ra(h)man, Robert Shapiro - Angana's Thesis Advisor-cum-otherthings, the Khalistanis, etc etc.) also happened recently. These things are linked. The wheels turn slowly, but I think they are rolling up the entire OLD ISI network in the US. Maybe time for the new ISI network.

Fai was going his work under the protection of Uncle ...
They know the network and let it work when they could get their geo political interest was taken care

After UBL elimination they have figured out that network does not serve the purpose
This lobby was very open in the establishment in supporting Pak mainly to make sure India does not get any attention.
South Asia is only Pak in State Dept

Now with TSP not giving much dividend and in the eyes of the families of the dead TSP has become a liability

THe secret about Pak was kept a secret for 30 years but cannot be kept like that with the death of the mil people

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 14 Nov 2014 03:27

Raja Bose wrote:Anybody who thinks Raphael was some non-state actor needs to take a kandle and stand at Wagah with their mush raised. Raphael is simply being used as a convenient scapegoat to signal to Modi how US is now serious about tackling this Paki menace, is pro India and all that BS. The fact that she was so dumb as to publicly have a love fest with Pakis is now being used for GOTUS benefit. US policy has neither changed nor will it change in the near future when it comes to mollycoddling tinpot dictatorships like Pakistan. The actual decision makers are still unscathed so let's not do a premature lungi dance. Only a strong leader like Modi who pays them back in the same coin will earn their respect and fear.

THey let the outspoken lobby to keep working even after UBL elimination.
That should give some indication about how these people are used by the establishment

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Nov 2014 03:50

pankajs wrote:Saar I agree except that Raphel could have been sacked/removed from the scene if it was just to please India. Why launch a counter-intel probe against a well know DC figure? Even if nothing comes out of the probe it taint her lifetimes work. It has to be more than just a show.

Taint her lifetime's work? er...what? Who gives a eff-eff about anything of hers getting tainted including her chaddis, hain? Massa is run by pragmatic dukaandaars. They give 2 hoots about removing somebody from this world if it suits their case, leave alone tainting some retiree's lifetime's work.

What will a quiet sacking accomplish? Rather Massa will take the smallest possible action which has the highest symbolic value in this regard...something which is inconsequential in the long-term but will appear on paper as a magnanimous gesture of a great ally and friend, something which produces a lot of smoke and noise but no substance. The whole counter intel tamasha by unkil is an attempt to show India how massa is "taking decisive action in India's interests". What better target than some has-been like Robin Raphael? She is very well known for what she did to India and her cosy relations with Pakis. Plus Raphael is retired, of limited effectiveness and someone ripe for halal'ing without upsetting the apple cart while at the same time looking good on paper on how massa is 500% serious about tackling the Paki menace and is India's best buddy ever. Also gives them something to tell India - hey look we did X as a favour, now how about you do Y? Except hopefully Doval & co will just go meh and say that massa "needs to do more" similar to how India is always told "to do more". And ofcourse that "more" will never be enough.

And for those who are going, what goes our father's, this is massa's internal affair onlee. We need to stop thinking that we live in some pissful ashram in an ivory tower where other country's internal affairs are sacrosanct and we should not be concerned with them. After all being all privacy conscious and considerate ain't preventing those countries from dipping their paws into India's internal affairs. In these things, either you are a predator or you are prey.

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 14 Nov 2014 04:12

^^Raja saar, I didn't mean 'to not interfere' in US' affairs, or respect their privacy - my point was what they are doing is not something we should take even cognizance of, and definitely not think US is doing us a favour. This entire investigation is to put on a show for us, and it is not worth India's time to give it any importance. RR is small fry in today's setup in Duplicity, and we shouldn't fall for the trap of 'they have done something for us' or changed their policy because Modi is here now. Nothing has changed on the ground. Hence my suggestion that we ignore this. I suspect nothing will come of this investigation, and RR will go on to be some beltway consultant.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Nov 2014 04:36

Oh absolutely. India should make no comment proactively even during closed door meetings with massa officials. And if massa officials bring it up, Doval should scratch his balls and go meh with an exaggerated yawn. I like this Modi-Doval tag team. Already in first few months they have upset the apple cart a bit with pakis and forefathers running around clueless.

Cosmo_R · Post by **Cosmo_R** » 14 Nov 2014 04:47

[quote="Tuvaluan"]Strobe Talbott of the Brookings Psychiatric Institution said something along the lines of "no sensible American will consider India an ally" in a recent interview ..."

No sensible Indian will consider the US an ally either. Everyone knows that India and the US will agree on stuff where their interests converge but disagree on where they don't."

Kissinger once said : "To oppose the US is dangerous but to ally with it is invariably fatal."

Cosmo_R · Post by **Cosmo_R** » 14 Nov 2014 04:50

^^^

RR needed the money. She was down to monetizing 'insider info'. Got caught. No more no less.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 14 Nov 2014 05:06

Its quite possible RR went too far. Nothing much more deep than that???

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 14 Nov 2014 06:07

While rediff sure is trying to be a think thank by getting many a retired IAS/IFS afsar to write columns, its not really a worthwhile source of news or information re. RR or the US/India dance in general. No different than General Duhtta pontificating to US post Ferguson in WaPo.

The luv of conspiracy theories and seeing what "we" need to happen creeps in starting first sentences. RR story or the NY news are all gone from limelight. No point in emphasizing them.

If anything see this in the context of 9800 ->5500 -> 0 timeline. Anything else is incidental so far.

2c onlee.

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 14 Nov 2014 06:25

UlanBatori:"Who dat - C-Ma C-Rohi? A super PiskOps article. The way she conjures theories on what US Afghan veterans feel etc is just superb. "

Old time Indian-american journo and a buddy of Ms. Fair (as I recollect from her teetar timeline a while ago -- had dinner at Fair's place a few times if I recall)...may be have been subjected to "deep insight" from the US think tank types in DC, IMO etc.

Also, RR violated some terms of employment by doing something she was not supposed to do...as if this was not noticed for 20 years until now. She is no longer going to work for the state dept. which is obviously very distressing for her given how she is well past retirement age. The very fact that Fai was initially arrested and charged etc. and is now back to his old game without a hitch, not to mention reactivation of the berkeley NGO crowd with worthies like harsh mander. smoke and mirrors.

habal · Post by **habal** » 14 Nov 2014 12:38

It may mean engagement with Pakistan will no longer be as deep as before, atleast not Robin Raphel deep.

Also, it could be indication that PA has outlived it's usefulness and is now more of a nuisance. So regime change likely. A new compliant regime, without meddling of PA will get more leeway in USA.

Roperia · Post by **Roperia** » 14 Nov 2014 13:07

Raja Bose wrote:Anybody who thinks Raphael was some non-state actor needs to take a kandle and stand at Wagah with their mush raised. Raphael is simply being used as a convenient scapegoat to signal to Modi how US is now serious about tackling this Paki menace, is pro India and all that BS. <snip>

Absolutely agree with your first line, not so much with the second though. Are you suggesting US hung Raphael out to dry to signal to Modi? Nobody in the press or analyst community is suggesting that. If she is facing a CI investigation she has probably done something against US interests (let me stress - not against interests of India).

I'd buy your line of argument if you can point me to some case where US punished one of it's own to please a foreign govt.

As somebody suggested on this thread, the diplomats are "allowed" to talk the language of their host country to a certain extent. When they go beyond a point, the WH/intelligence community reaffirms the redlines.

(I read somewhere Cameron Munter was eased out of his Ambassadorship in Pakistan because he was taking a different line to CIA on drone strikes.)

The US WH is like what INC would have us believe of Modi's PMO -overbearing.

habal · Post by **habal** » 14 Nov 2014 13:58

2 points:

USA is friend, father, philosopher of Sunni Islamic terrorism in the world and especially in Mid-east. You want proof of it, then just look at how ISIS was incubated in Guantanamo and Iraq. All US controlled.
USA may have been making plans along with conducive govts around the world and plans leaked by Robin Raphel to would-be-affected parties.

So no change in overall policy or direction of USA, but Robin Raphel was more loyal to Pakistan than her employer.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 14 Nov 2014 14:58

A lifetime of work in furtherance of stated and unstated US policy on India and Pakistan by a rather visible SD official and what does she get in return? A counter-intel probe i.e a public GUBO for implementing US policy to please a country that is neither an ally nor will ever become one.

What message does it send to retired and serving official in the SD? That you can and will be publicly GUBOed for implementing US policy to please a foreign country. That she or anyone in her position is expendable is understandable but it does not explain why she had to be GUBOed rather than sidelined/removed/eased out. Public GUBO for official doing their job to please Indians does not sound pragmatic to me.

The 3 explanations that I could think of are
1. She broke some norms related to handling classified documents (WaPO's report) that triggered a counter-intel probe. A technical fault if you will but seems like a coverup.
2. She did her own stuff on the side for money or out of conviction and somewhere along the line it came into direct conflict with the US policies and objectives in south-asia and beyond. A public example had to be made out of her and hence the GUBO.
3. Indians went to massa with a dossa on her with a lot of massala and something that could not be brushed aside, defended or explained away. Something that was explosive enough to force them to GUBO one of their own to protect massa against a future release of the massala. Note the GUBO is to protect massa and not to please Indians.

1st is a coverup and the 3rd unlikely. The 2nd one that she went rogue wrt some US policy and objective seems to me the most likely.

member_20317 · Post by **member_20317** » 14 Nov 2014 16:51

chetak wrote:Robin Raphel, 'the bird', who was disliked in USA

November 13, 2014
Robin Raphel, a former US diplomat now under a counter intelligence investigation, has spent much of her professional life dealing with Pakistan and defending it against criticism as she doled out billions in aid to the “frenemy”.

<snip>

People like Raphel were meant to get Pakistan to deliver the Taliban for the so-called ‘peace talks’ but they failed miserably while the Pentagon commanders faced defeat and have to explain the 2,350 dead soldiers. When she talked up Pakistan at think tanks in Washington, they were appalled.

“Her ice queen act didn’t go down well with soldiers who were getting shot at, blown up and dying having no idea why any of it was happening,” the source commented. The anti-Pakistan feeling is intense among US veterans of the Afghan war.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has collected $20 billion in US military and civilian aid since 2002, $7.5 billion of which under the Kerry-Lugar was overseen by Raphel. As with all large aid packages, there is patronage and lack of transparency.

<snip>
-- Seema Sirohi is a senior journalist based in Washington, DC

Something like paying $160 billion to India (considering 1:8 economic size difference).

And their MSM claims their Black Budget is $52.6 billion in 2014 even while their veterans are bitter at having lost 2350 of their own people.

Despite that they cannot manage to get out with a strategic benefit from it after slogging for 15 years.

Pakis and Amerikhans - rub di banayi jodi.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 14 Nov 2014 20:50

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20141114/main6.htm

Nostalgic Haley offers trade support to Punjab
Varinder Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 13
The youngest of current US Governors, Nikki Haley (42), today promised South Carolina’s support to Punjab in setting up aerospace, pharma, tourism and agro-processing industries.

“I always yearned to see Punjab — my motherland — and now I am so proud to be here after almost 40 years,” said Haley as she got nostalgic upon her arrival at the official residence of Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal this evening.

“My parents were also keen on visiting Punjab along with me, but they could not do so because of my busy schedule and their old age,” she told Sukhbir.

Haley was born as Nimrata Nikki Randhawa on January 20, 1972 to an Indian Sikh family. Her parents — Ajit Singh Randhawa and Raj Kaur Randhawa — are immigrants hailing from Amritsar district. She has two brothers and a sister. Haley is a graduate in accounting.

The South Carolina Governor told Sukhbir that her state was keen on supporting Punjab in setting up aerospace, pharma, tourism and agro-processing industries.

“South Carolina can help Punjab in getting business and the two states can exchange delegations to take this initiative forward. Education is another area where we can cooperate,” said Haley while extending a formal invitation to Sukhbir to visit her state.

Sukhbir said people of the state were proud of the fact that a person of Punjab origin had gone on to become a Governor in a US state. “We all are proud of you,” he told Haley.

Earlier, Haley said she was proud of having her roots in Punjab and also of her parent’s faith — Sikhism.

She highlighted how South Carolina had been able to create new jobs in the aerospace and hospitality sectors.

This had been done by training personnel to do skilled jobs. “Our success rate in skill training is 93 per cent and we will be glad to assist Punjab in this field as well,” she said.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 15 Nov 2014 08:31

The convoluted and anti India contours of amreki perfidy in pukiland are slowly beginning to unravel. The afghans could not have been more ill served. baboo(n)s seem to be the same the world over, venal, criminal, self serving and corrupt.

Robin Raphel: the female Philby?

Robin Raphel: the female Philby?

Is Ambassador Robin Lynn Raphel a modern-day female counterpart of Harry St John Philby, who converted to the cause of those she had been assigned to engage with diplomatically?

In November 1917, a British political agent, Harry St John Philby presented his credentials to Emir Ibne Saud of Nejd. Ibne Saud was to revive and/or found the present-day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In his book God’s Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad, Charles Allen notes, “Initially Philby toed the British line, but in the months that followed there grew within him an admiration for the Emir, coupled with a growing affinity for the culture to which he belonged, that developed into a state bordering on infatuation, and eventually led to a transfer of loyalties.” Allen describes Philby as “convert to the cause” who adopted Wahhabism, took on the title Sheikh Abdullah and believed that through the efforts of the “prince and the priest”, i.e. Ibne Saud and his Wahhabi cleric cohorts, “the true faith was purged of the dross ecclesiastical pedantry and the salient features of a moribund creed were made to shine forth again as beacons.”
Fast-forward to November 6, 2014 when The Washington Post reported that former US Ambassador Robin Raphel, “a veteran state department diplomat and longtime Pakistan expert, is under federal investigation as part of a counterintelligence probe and has had her security clearances withdrawn.” The New York Times subsequently wrote that Ms Raphel is “suspected of taking classified information home from the state department” and her residence had been searched. While no country had been named as the potential beneficiary of the alleged information transfer, certain Pakistani analysts and two former Pakistani ambassadors jumped to the ex-US diplomat’s defence. The lame and premature — Ms Raphel is yet to be charged with any wrongdoing — defence ranged from paeans to her diplomatic professionalism and prowess, an all-weather friendship with Pakistan, to her being a relatively small fish in the Washington DC pond to be of any material value to Pakistan. We have no reason to speculate about an ongoing investigation but what is known is that Ms Robin Raphel did help lay the foundations of death and destruction in Afghanistan by supporting the barbaric Taliban regime that was imposed by the Pakistani security establishment on the ill-fated Afghans.
If and when the probe proceeds further and broadens in scope, it may also shed light on whether Ms Raphel’s Pakistani interlocutors had anything to do with the positions she took in support of the Taliban in the 1990s. Is Ambassador Robin Lynn Raphel a modern-day female counterpart of Harry St John Philby, who converted to the cause of those she had been assigned to engage with diplomatically? We may never know. However, a look back at her stint as the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs from August 1993 to June 1997 clearly shows that her stance vis-à-vis Afghanistan and India was perilously close to the Pakistani security establishment’s standpoint. Whereas a diplomat’s job is to create a win-win situation between their home and the host country, Ms Raphel left behind a trail of lose-lose conditions in South Asia and Afghanistan. She pleaded within then President Bill Clinton’s administration for engagement with the savage hordes of Mullah Omar. But even more sinister was her advocacy for the Taliban regime at the United Nations.
Steve Coll accurately noted in his monumental work Ghost Wars that just three weeks after US Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright had condemned the Taliban’s inhuman decrees as “impossible to justify or defend”, “Robin Raphel outlined the Taliban’s claims to legitimacy before the UN Security Council and pleaded that they not be isolated.” The fact is that Ms Raphel was sacrificing the human rights of Afghans, especially women’s rights, at the altar of an oil pipeline that the Union Oil Company of California, aka Unocal, had planned from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. According to Steve Coll, Unocal’s Marty Miller had “asked Robin Raphel, Sheila Heslin and other Clinton administration officials for help in Islamabad. They agreed to pitch in.” That pipeline never materialised but yet another generation of Afghans was destroyed thanks to the machinations of Ms Raphel and her Pakistani counterparts who tried to portray the Taliban gangs as legitimate representatives of the Pashtun Afghans. The US suffered the tragic blowback from that disastrous policy on 9/11 while Pakistan continues to reap the jihadist whirlwind from the poisonous winds it sowed in Afghanistan along with Ms Raphel’s ilk. The latter’s shenanigans in the Kashmir imbroglio are another story that must be told in detail another time.
Ambassador Robin Raphel was not the last US diplomat eating out of the palm of their Pakistani interlocutors’ hand. The late Ambassador Richard Holbrook’s team, of which Ms Raphel was also a part, bent over backwards to accommodate the most ludicrous Pakistani position about Afghanistan. More recently, former Ambassador Cameron Munter parroted the Pakistani establishment’s line on the US drone attacks against terrorists and, by some accounts, was eased out due to that. Hospitality, including lavish meals and booze, English language skills and the liberal facade of the Islamabad-based coterie of analysts and the spooks who prop them up, has duped many a US diplomat. Even former CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote that he was impressed with then Director General Inter-Services Intelligence General Ahmad Shuja Pasha’s “moderation, sense of history and worldliness”. Mr Panetta writes in his recent book that General Pasha “inveighed against the number of madrassas (seminaries) in which poor Pakistani youth were being molded, and yearned to draw his country into the future. Yet for all of Pasha’s charm and sincerity [sic], what I did not know was how much he was willing to take on the militants within his own country.”
To gauge the willingness of the Pakistani security establishment to turn back the jihadist clock, US officials need not look farther than the Pentagon’s report ‘Progress towards security and stability in Afghanistan’, submitted to the US Congress last month. The report, which covers the period from April through September 2014, squarely blames the jihadist sanctuaries inside Pakistan for the resilience of insurgents in Afghanistan. It also charges that Pakistan continues to deploy jihadist proxies against India. The US has had limited success in containing the jihadist threat emanating from and to Pakistan itself. The US administration must candidly introspect whether it is the St John Philby type converts in its policymaking circles, sheer naiveté and skin-deep understanding of the regional dynamics or pure political expediency that the mother load of jihadists still survive and thrive in Pakistan. What the era after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan portends for that country and South Asia will depend a lot upon such soul searching.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 15 Nov 2014 09:41

Most likely India presented proof of SD insider maal which led to investigation leading to the Hurrirat midwife getting searched. If its matter of taking home classified materials there were many other stalwarts who just got dismissed. One Senator was removed from Intel committee and he is still Senating.

Counter-intelligence means consorting and mixing with foreign spies.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 15 Nov 2014 10:07

ramana wrote:Most likely India presented proof of SD insider maal which led to investigation leading to the Hurrirat midwife getting searched. If its matter of taking home classified materials there were many other stalwarts who just got dismissed. One Senator was removed from Intel committee and he is still Senating.

Counter-intelligence means consorting and mixing with foreign spies.

ramana,

the story is old/gone from the news. only baki newspapers/speculation in various informal fora.

the senate works the way it works. taking work home is a big no no, people have gone to the cooler for years even when it was just a technicality.

My readings could well be leading me wrong, but it seems a non-story to me. The system leans baki, one RR or another makes no difference.

There are way too many US constituencies benefitting from CSF. Those programs are not going anywhere in the next two years.

My last random ramblings on the issue.

tx.

K Mehta · Post by **K Mehta** » 15 Nov 2014 14:54

I think one of the guys that is pro-paki but doesnt seem that way is Bruce Reidel. He has a very clever by half way of agreeing to almost all the things that Indians point out then go around and advice to follow the regular program.
Below is my unpublished comment on his article
x-posting from STFUP thread
Let there be more Wagahs

This article by Bruce reidel sounds like a second opinion doctor, who sees and diagnosed the disease correctly, but then goes on and says take the old medicine at higher dose. Boss that medicine didn't work the first time.
Can you kindly explain how more wagahs are going to reduce confrontation? I sincerely want to know.
Is it going to change the fact that Pakistani establishment is nurturing terrorism in the Pakistani territory? Or their hatred towards India and their desire to avenge 1971?
Or the fact that the funding and/or training and/ or terrorists and/ or arms and ammunition and/ or guidance and command comes from Pakistan when there is a terror attack in India?
I can list why we should not have more wagahs
1 Polio: Why should we risk its reentry into India after its painstaking eradication from India?
2 Lack of security: terrorist groups can attack these places and the current atmosphere in Pakistan is not suitable for this.
3 Route for entry of drugs and money as well as arms.
4 Development of alternative route: even the US is bugging out of afpak and is trying to use alternative route for transit instead of pak.
I have to also say that its Pakistan that is holding up trade, by linking Kashmir to trade and not giving MFN.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 15 Nov 2014 19:00

^^^

pakis not according MFN may be a good stick to beat that shitty country with but what the fak are we going to do with a paki MFN??

More drugs and more non state actors flooding in??

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 15 Nov 2014 20:47

shreeman:"My readings could well be leading me wrong, but it seems a non-story to me. The system leans baki, one RR or another makes no difference."

Ditto. RR will be replaced with some new but with similar instructions as given to RR. Seems clear if we consider that US made a drama about "complete withdrawal from afghanisthan" but worked hard to ensure the BSA was in place before making the charade of withdrawal after ensuring that a paki-leaning Ghani was elected in Afghanisthan rather than someone who would have leaned towards India like Karzai?

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 16 Nov 2014 00:14

RR will be replaced with some new but with similar instructions as given to RR

True, let her retire to write her memoirs. A broad abroad?

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 16 Nov 2014 02:28

According to UBNC, u r all 400% in the pakistan on this.

Read the WaPo report carefully. They don't say WHAT country she is suspected of spying for. Think about it: why would she take Classified Documents home to show PAKIS? It was her JOB to be talking to Pakis and pay hajaar-hajaar karod to the Pakis. How the pakistan can the Ambassador to, say, Uzbekistan be accused of SPYING for Uzbekistan?

UBNC has a guess, but is not revealing it. u may want to google "Pollard" with the right combo of other search parameters.

Think about it: A whole career spent pretending to be the greatest friend of the Ummah and the PA. Probably know details down to the diameter of the mijjiles and the musharrafs of all the Paki Jarnails and D1ck-tators.

IOW, India has *N*O*T*H*I*N*G 2 do with this, just sit back, get the popcorn and enjoy.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 16 Nov 2014 04:34

^^^^
D1ck-tator(singular, noun): A mild snack enjoyed mainly in the east arapian nashun of bakistan. It is considered impolite to have too many in mixed company.

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 17 Nov 2014 19:40

Shreeman wrote:^^^^
D1ck-tator(singular, noun): A mild snack enjoyed mainly in the east arapian nashun of bakistan. It is considered impolite to have too many in mixed company.

Also bliss to be warned that azging for "tator-tots" iz illegal there zince "tot" imblies a very zmall zize.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 19 Nov 2014 07:26

Media reports today say that US elements are again trying to sabotage the Nuke deal by insisting on pre-conditions. History repeating itself.The anti-Indian attitude in the US is as strong as ever,borne out of its massive inferiority complex ,civilisational-being such a young country in comparison to India and the great civilisations around the world spanning millenia,and is displayed by an inverse sense of superiority,where the US sneers and looks down at the rest of the world.

habal · Post by **habal** » 19 Nov 2014 18:08

philip, India is a bellweather state that along with China, & Russia have the capability to upset the US applecart.

THE GLOBALIST WAR ON INDIA CONTINUES

This story combines two common NWO propaganda themes in one; India-bashing and Global Warming hysteria. As a developing economy with close business ties to the Russia-China bloc, India is good for about 12-15 front page New York Slimes hit-pieces per year. It's commitment to developing its coal resources has really got the Globalists seething.

It's not that Sulzberger's scribblers actually believe in the Global Warming fairy tale, let alone that India's development is going to drown us all in melted ice-cap water. The true concern is that as poor nations begin to develop, they will be less dependent and less subservient to the Global 'powers that be'. A nation of barefoot rickshaw drivers and penniless slum dogs is easy to keep down, push around and subvert. A nation with a growing educated middle class is not, especially if said nation is hooked up with the "evil" Mr. Putin and his BRICS organization. (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa)

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Why is the New York Times Waging a 'Dirty War' on India?

Owned by the same Jewish family since 1896 (Sulzberger-Ochs), The New York Times is the preeminent mouthpiece of America's Ruling Class. As leans The Times, so follows American policy.

India! Mr. Ochs-Sulzberger and friends have targeted you.

In addition to the above feature stories, there have been many lesser 'anti-Indian' smears contained within the inner pages of the Times (and many other America media sources).

What's up with the India bashing? Who is behind it? Why are 'they' doing it?

www.tomatobubble.com/id517.html
www.tomatobubble.com/id734.html

Yagnasri · Post by **Yagnasri** » 19 Nov 2014 18:18

Coal deal, Slavery Index, Sicular drama all these things will try to create a color revolution in India. Anna second time attempt failed. It was not even reported in press unlike lost time. Khejri will try his luck and Delhi voters are stupid enough to give me some seats he will be brought forward into limelight by prestitutes immediately. All around interesting times.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 19 Nov 2014 22:37

American officials put up hurdles, try to scuttle India-US nuclear deal
by Indrani Bagchi, timesofindia.indiatimes.com
November 19th 2014
NEW DELHI: A newly constituted contact group on civil nuclear issues between India and the US will meet for the first time in December, almost three months after it was announced. While the focus of the talks may be on nuclear liability matters, India is facing fresh obstacles from the US nuclear establishment.

The US is now demanding fresh bilateral safeguards to complete the final negotiations on the nuclear deal. These are in the nature of non-proliferation assurances, many of which have already been provided by India.

India and the US are yet to complete the administrative arrangements that are needed to operationalize the deal. This has taken over two years to complete, and despite a seemingly positive note from the Modi-Obama summit, Indians are hard put to find "problem-solvers" within the US system. In fact, there is a distinct feeling in India that elements within the US administration really don't want the nuclear deal to succeed. The Democrats in power now were at the vanguard of the opposition to the deal when it was being negotiated under a Republican administration.

READ ALSO: US holds the key to India's civil nuclear programme

While this may not be the approach at the very top, it's becoming a regular feature among mid-level US officials, making progress on the deal increasingly tough. The upshot is that the delays Indians feel are being deliberately built in, will have an adverse impact on US companies — Westinghouse and GE — seeking to build nuclear reactors in India.

It's not that the issues are not difficult to deal with. Certainly on the issue of nuclear liability, India has to do a lot of heavy lifting to make it easier for Indian and foreign companies to invest in the nuclear energy sector. Moreover, getting a low enough price for nuclear power will be a challenge when commercial deals are negotiated. But the Indian negotiators say both countries are streets away from that space yet.

Under the separation plan, India has voluntarily put barriers between its civilian and strategic programmes, with the civilian sector under full IAEA safeguards. India added on the additional protocol with the IAEA, another layer of more intrusive verification. All of these are part of the India-US nuclear deal.

However, the US is now asking for fresh bilateral verifications, particularly on tracking of nuclear fuel through the entire cycle. This has posed fresh hurdles in the nuclear deal. India is unwilling to go down this road, believing, correctly, that this would undermine an international institution like the IAEA, not to speak of opening the door to more unilateral action in the nuclear sphere by states.

The Modi-Obama summit declared that India had completed the procedures necessary for joining the global non-proliferation regime of the four groups - Australia Group, Wassenaar Arrangement, Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). India would now want this process to be completed as soon as possible.

READ ALSO: Chronology of the India-US nuclear deal

Although this issue is not on the new bilateral Contact Group's agenda, India is likely to highlight the US presidential commitment in the nuclear deal about facilitating its entry into these non-proliferation regimes.

When the green light flashes, India will be ready with a formal application. In the coming weeks, India is expected to push the Americans hard.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 19 Nov 2014 22:41

Coal Rush in India Could Tip Balance on Climate Change
by GARDINER HARRIS, nytimes.com
November 17th 2014

DHANBAD, India — Decades of strip mining have left this town in the heart of India’s coal fields a fiery moonscape, with mountains of black slag, sulfurous air and sickened residents.

But rather than reclaim these hills or rethink their exploitation, the government is digging deeper in a coal rush that could push the world into irreversible climate change and make India’s cities, already among the world’s most polluted, even more unlivable, scientists say.

“If India goes deeper and deeper into coal, we’re all doomed,” said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, director of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and one of the world’s top climate scientists. “And no place will suffer more than India.”

India’s coal mining plans may represent the biggest obstacle to a global climate pact to be negotiated at a conference in Paris next year. While the United States and China announced a landmark agreement that includes new targets for carbon emissions, and Europe has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent, India, the world’s third-largest emitter, has shown no appetite for such a pledge.

“India’s development imperatives cannot be sacrificed at the altar of potential climate changes many years in the future,” India’s power minister, Piyush Goyal, said at a recent conference in New Delhi in response to a question. “The West will have to recognize we have the needs of the poor.”

Mr. Goyal has promised to double India’s use of domestic coal from 565 million tons last year to more than a billion tons by 2019, and he is trying to sell coal-mining licenses as swiftly as possible after years of delay. The government has signaled that it may denationalize commercial coal mining to accelerate extraction.

“India is the biggest challenge in global climate negotiations, not China,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also vowed to build a vast array of solar power stations, and projects are already springing up in India’s sun-scorched west.

But India’s coal rush could push the world past the brink of irreversible climate change, with India among the worst affected, scientists say.

Indian cities are already the world’s most polluted, with Delhi’s air almost three times more toxic than Beijing’s by one crucial measure. An estimated 37 million Indians could be displaced by rising seas by 2050, far more than in any other country. India’s megacities are among the world’s hottest, with springtime temperatures in Delhi reaching 120 degrees. Traffic, which will only increase with new mining activity, is already the world’s most deadly. And half of Indians are farmers who rely on water from melting Himalayan glaciers and an increasingly fitful monsoons.

India’s coal is mostly of poor quality with a high ash content that makes it roughly twice as polluting as coal from the West. And while China gets 90 percent of its coal from underground mines, 90 percent of India’s coal is from strip mines, which are far more environmentally costly. In a country three times more densely populated than China, India’s mines and power plants directly affect millions of residents. Mercury poisoning has cursed generations of villagers in places like Bagesati, in Uttar Pradesh, with contorted bodies, decaying teeth and mental disorders.

The city of Dhanbad resembles a postapocalyptic movie set, with villages surrounded by barren slag heaps half-obscured by acrid smoke spewing from a century-old fire slowly burning through buried coal seams. Mining and fire cause subsidence that swallows homes, with inhabitants’ bodies sometimes never found.

Suffering widespread respiratory and skin disorders, residents accuse the government of allowing fires to burn and allowing pollution to poison them as a way of pushing people off land needed for India’s coal rush.

“The government wants more coal, but they are throwing their own people away to get it,” said Ashok Agarwal of the Save Jharia Coal Field Committee, a citizens’ group.

T. K. Lahiry, chairman of Bharat Coking Coal, a government-owned company that controls much of the Jharia region, denied neglecting fires and pollution but readily agreed that tens of thousands of residents must be displaced for India to realize its coal needs. Evictions are done too slowly, he said.

“We need to shift these people to corporate villages far from the coal fields,” Mr. Lahiry said during an interview in his large office.

With land scarce, Bharat Coking is digging deeper at mines it already controls. On a tour of one huge strip mine, officials said they had recently purchased two mammoth Russian mining shovels to more than triple annual production to 10 million tons. The shovels are clawing coal from a 420-foot-deep pit, with huge trucks piling slag in flat-topped mountains. The deeper the mine goes, the more polluting the coal produced.

India has the world’s fifth-largest reserves of coal but little domestic oil or natural gas production. The country went on a coal-fired power plant building spree over the last five years, increasing capacity by 73 percent. But coal mining grew just 6 percent, leading to expensive coal imports, idle plants and widespread blackouts. Nearly 300 million Indians do not have access to electricity, and millions more get it only sporadically.

“India is going to use coal because that’s what it has,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director of the Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment, a prominent environmental group. “Its strategy is ‘all of the above,’ just like in the U.S.”

Each Indian consumes on average 7 percent of the energy used by an American, and Indian officials dismiss critics from wealthy countries.

“I don’t want to use the word ‘pontificate’ when talking about these people, but it would be reasonable to expect more fairness in the discussion and a recognition of India’s need to reach the development of the West,” Mr. Goyal said with a tight smile.

One reason for the widespread domestic support for India’s coal rush is the lack of awareness of just how bad the air has already become, scientists say. Smog levels that would lead to highway shutdowns and near-panic in Beijing go largely unnoticed in Delhi. Pediatric respiratory clinics are overrun, but parents largely shrug when asked about the cause of their children’s suffering. Face masks and air purifiers, ubiquitous among China’s elite, are rare here. And there are signs Indian air is rapidly worsening.

“People need to wake up to just how awful the air already is,” said Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading intergovernmental organization for the assessment of climate change.

India’s great hope to save both itself and the world from possible environmental dystopia can be found in the scrub grass outside the village of Neemuch, in India’s western state of Madhya Pradesh. Welspun Energy has constructed what for the moment is Asia’s largest solar plant, a $148 million silent farm of photovoltaic panels on 800 acres of barren soil.

Welspun harvests some of the most focused solar radiation in the world. Dust is so intense that workers must wash each panel every two weeks.

Under Mr. Modi, India is expected to soon underwrite a vast solar building program, and Welspun alone has plans to produce within two years more than 10 times the renewable energy it gets from its facility in Neemuch.

The benefits of solar and the environmental costs of coal are so profound that India has no other choice but to rely more on renewables, said Dr. Pachauri.

“India cannot go down China’s pathway, because the consequences for the public welfare are too horrendous,” he said.

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 19 Nov 2014 23:02

^^Just another NYT hit job, trying to push solar tech, preferably US', nothing new in it. The reference to Welspun is only a red herring.

NYT article wrote:India’s megacities are among the world’s hottest, with springtime temperatures in Delhi reaching 120 degrees. Traffic, which will only increase with new mining activity, is already the world’s most deadly.

Springtime temp of 120F (May 1998). Over here, May is summer - lol. And in 1998, even going by the article, we weren't mining anything close to what we are today - nice attempt at linkage.