Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

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Tuan
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by Tuan »

periaswamy wrote:
Well, if you read the article fully and summarize it you might get the point, instead of extracting bits and pieces from it..ha ha.
What you imagine the article is saying is not at all what the article says. But confirmation bias is obviously at play here: you believe strongly this concept of "soft power" and place more emphasis on the limited success of soccer in a war zone. For "soft power" to be put on the same plane as "hard power", I expect to see obvious outcomes that were purely a result of soft power, and the article has nothing to offer on that front. Not just this article, but all the other ones you have linked.
It is research in progress. I believe that the platform like BRF provides & substitutes tremendous source of a quasi-qualitative research tool. Thus, I am not anymore arguing for "soft power" as the only means to combat terrorism or advance a nation's political ambitions. Rather, I am of the understanding that it is the "smart power", a combination of both soft and hard power, as the ultimate tool to achieve desired outcomes.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by periaswamy »

IMO, it makes more sense to consider that hard power has a tangible "power" component, and a less tangible "psychological" component that optimizes the application on hard power more focussed. separating it as "soft power" and "hard power" seems like a false dichotomy, since hard power can exist without soft power, but soft power is essentially useless without hard power. Trying to write something coherent to see if it makes sense to me -- clarity begins at home and all that.
chetak
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by chetak »

periaswamy wrote:

So let me get this straight. The plan is: 1) We first lose ground and lose influence in maldives and allow a military coup backed by outside powers to gain control of the country 2) we the give up and say there is nothing to be done now that the Chinese coopt this hostile regime 3) then, we "make an example of them" for cosying up to China. Perhaps we can avoid step 1 so that steps 2 and 3 are unnecessary?

OK, lets hear how you would have stopped this especially when the previous el presidente was corrupt and the new one is even more corrupt??. Our soft power has been on constant display for the longest time when we provided and still continue to provide easy access to thousands upon thousands of maldivian citizens who have mostly overstayed their visas and settled down in kerala and the rest of India, especially in the south and thousands more continue to pour in under the guise of "medical treatment".

a lot of maldivians have deeply imbibed the anti India jehadi coolaid and many are active supporters and many are also participants in the ISIS fighting and yet we let them into India.



Yes, and your point is?

The issue here is that allegedly friendly govts. in the neighbourhood must cooperate with India to help secure India's borders, and in return India can be a security guarantor and help with creating a common market etc., which is exactly what the GoI is doing. The point of contention here is that India could have very easily intervened and stopped the islamist thugs supported by the Gayoom loyalists from overthrowing the elected India-friendly govt. under PM Nasheed. If Indian military power cannot ensure that nearby tiny countries don't fall victim to military coups engineered by faraway power, why bother with all the military spending for threats in the future, when we cannot deal with these easily resolvable issues to stave off security problems that will cost a lot more to resolve down the line?

Yeah, we tried it in lanka under the able "leadership" of an idiot gandhi and look at how many body bags came back after all the mismanagement. We also tried IL76 diplomacy and cowboy tactics and looked foolish doing it in male.

Indian "fishermen" intrude into lankan territory on a daily basis because of drug smuggling, human trafficking, illegal weapons, gold smuggling and illegal fishing using a type of banned fishing net considered as against the law and declared illegal in Lanka. The lankans kick their "fisherman" butts every single day. rohingiyas also come to India via this route




This is irrelevant hyperbole. Of course, India cannot hand over capabilities to nearby states that can cause problems for India if the intentions of these "friendly states" change down the line. However, if India has the capability to ensure that these state remain friendly to Indian interests, then perhaps it should use such capabilities.
hyperbole for you maybe. Its a security concern for the rest of us, especially when the beedis think of India as their lebensraum.

there is no friendly as far as India is concerned, there is only jealousy and envy and the resentment that India has facilities, opportunities and means to provide a living and why they should not be allowed to freeload and pile on.

Why did we not build a strong border fence and defence against these interlopers?? Is it because there is a great deal of money to be made from the "border trade"??

do we not know intimately the history, culture, cultural perversions and the malsi ambitions of the beedis since before independence and partition??
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by periaswamy »

OK, lets hear how you would have stopped this especially when the previous el presidente was corrupt and the new one is even more corrupt??.
Why is that even relevant? Nasheed was India-friendly, and the current bunch of islamist thugs are not. having an India-friendly govt. is the point. I think you do not understand the basic premises of power politics, given your irrelevant responses. The whole point is to reduce the number of power centers in the neighbourhood that are aligned with India's interests and not with China's interests (for example), security and otherwise. Giving up early and often is not an option.
there is no friendly as far as India is concerned, there is only jealousy and envy and the resentment that India has facilities, opportunities and means to provide a living and why they should not be allowed to freeload and pile on.
Nonsense. The Hasina Govt. has been far more friendly and helpful and has executed all the paki mullahs in BD who were also causing India trouble. Let the perfect not be the enemy of the good. The goal should be to have govts. that are willing to cooperate with India in furthering India's security agenda in the neighbourhood.
Why did we not build a strong border fence and defence against these interlopers?? Is it because there is a great deal of money to be made from the "border trade"??
Law and order is a state subject -- how do you suggest the rest of the planet convince Mamata Banerjee to stop being a communal-minded dolt and do her job? Hypnosis?
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by chetak »

periaswamy wrote:
OK, lets hear how you would have stopped this especially when the previous el presidente was corrupt and the new one is even more corrupt??.
Why is that even relevant? Nasheed was India-friendly, and the current bunch of islamist thugs are not. having an India-friendly govt. is the point. I think you do not understand the basic premises of power politics, given your irrelevant responses. The whole point is to reduce the number of power centers in the neighbourhood that are aligned with India's interests and not with China's interests (for example), security and otherwise. Giving up early and often is not an option.
there is no friendly as far as India is concerned, there is only jealousy and envy and the resentment that India has facilities, opportunities and means to provide a living and why they should not be allowed to freeload and pile on.
Nonsense. The Hasina Govt. has been far more friendly and helpful and has executed all the paki mullahs in BD who were also causing India trouble. Let the perfect not be the enemy of the good. The goal should be to have govts. that are willing to cooperate with India in furthering India's security agenda in the neighbourhood.
Why did we not build a strong border fence and defence against these interlopers?? Is it because there is a great deal of money to be made from the "border trade"??
Law and order is a state subject -- how do you suggest the rest of the planet convince Mamata Banerjee to stop being a communal-minded dolt and do her job? Hypnosis?
An international border fence is a state sugject.??

and is that why mamta banoo has deployed her private (bangla security force) BSF at the border?? :mrgreen: cashmere border fence is run by another crazy lady and the tooth fairy is real, no??

watch hasina turn once she gets the teesta waters, which is why she has been kept dangling and on the hook. Her party is just as friendly as the opposition party is. they have identical paki sympathies, covert, and not overt though.

isn't the WKK brigade enough for you or do you also want to start the bangla kandle kissers group too??

what exactly is the threat to the beedis that they need submarines?? or is it just to transport the hilsa??
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by periaswamy »

How is the govt. going to fence a border in west bengal if the state govt. does not want that to work? Say the BD govt gets it submarine, with India on one side and Myanmar on the other, and BDs having issues with Myanmar, what exactly do the BDs think they can achieve? What does WKK or whatever have to do with any of this? This is about the GoI securing its borders at the least cost to itself, which requires cooperation of the BD govt.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

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periaswamy wrote:IMO, it makes more sense to consider that hard power has a tangible "power" component, and a less tangible "psychological" component that optimizes the application on hard power more focussed. separating it as "soft power" and "hard power" seems like a false dichotomy, since hard power can exist without soft power, but soft power is essentially useless without hard power. Trying to write something coherent to see if it makes sense to me -- clarity begins at home and all that.
Let me repeat this one more time. In higher academia, it is the “Realist” school of thought that tend to emphasize hard power, especially the hard power of states, while “Liberal” institutionalist scholars emphasize soft power as an essential resource of statecraft. To illustrate, President Obama’s administration had a smart strategy via the realm of soft diplomacy throughout the world, which was backed by America’s hard power during his time in office and we saw a world order, although it was not perfect. Alternatively his successor, who claims that he is a realist and solely believes that might is right, in other words he “will destroy all his enemies completely” kind of leader, has also set a new world order.

Now you go figure who was/is better for international peace and security.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by SSridhar »

Soft power may work in certain spheres of statecraft. But, not against terrorism. Yeah, one or two individuals might get swayed by soft-power and decide to renounce violence. But, normally, Islamists or Naxalites or LTTE-types are thoroughly brainwashed and would rather fight to death than reform because of hearing Ilayaraja's or Rehman's music. In fact, the contrary can also work. I get steeled up by listening to some chosen songs, whenever I felt tired otherwise doing my regular running early in the morning, which help me finish the course. The same may happen to hardcore terrorists (of course, music is haraam for Islamists).

In a nutshell, IMHO, counter-terrorism requires hard power, very hard, merciless, unremitting and tremendous hard-power.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

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SSridhar wrote:Soft power may work in certain spheres of statecraft. But, not against terrorism. Yeah, one or two individuals might get swayed by soft-power and decide to renounce violence. But, normally, Islamists or Naxalites or LTTE-types are thoroughly brainwashed and would rather fight to death than reform because of hearing Ilayaraja's or Rehman's music. In fact, the contrary can also work. I get steeled up by listening to some chosen songs, whenever I felt tired otherwise doing my regular running early in the morning, which help me finish the course. The same may happen to hardcore terrorists (of course, music is haraam for Islamists).

In a nutshell, IMHO, counter-terrorism requires hard power, very hard, merciless, unremitting and tremendous hard-power.
It is dreadful to see Indians, who traditionally follow the footsteps of Gandhism for their way of life, are justifying violence can only be countered by violence, or terrorism can only be neutralized by terrorism kind of rhetoric. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth discourse that would leave all of us blind and toothless.

Moreover, terrorism is a type of ideology. An ideology is best fought with a better counter-ideology, rather than by swords and guns alone. In the context of ‘war on terror’, one could technically eliminate some terrorist groups, religious extremists, and hard-core individuals by military might. In the long run, however, you will never be able to destroy ambiguous Islamic ideologies, such as Wahhabism, Salafism, or Jihadism, because an ideology is better subsumed progressively than destroyed violently.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by shiv »

Tuan wrote: Moreover, terrorism is a type of ideology. An ideology is best fought with a better counter-ideology, rather than by swords and guns alone. In the context of ‘war on terror’, one could technically eliminate some terrorist groups, religious extremists, and hard-core individuals by military might. In the long run, however, you will never be able to destroy ambiguous Islamic ideologies, such as Wahhabism, Salafism, or Jihadism, because an ideology is better subsumed progressively than destroyed violently.
Terrorism is a language of communication

Ideologies are communicated in different languages. It could be the language of love. The language of non violence. The language of giving gifts and assuaging. The language of accepting and accommodating.

Or the language of violence.

"Language" is for communication. Communication requires a minimum of two parties to communicate. If one party is eliminated, there is no need for communication or language.

There will be no terrorism once the entire world is converted to Islam. There is only one party and there is no need to use the language of terrorism.

This is one well known method of negotiation. Anyone who dislikes this message will have to communicate his dislike to the person who is speaking the language of violence. Love and accommodation are different languages that are not spoken by the violent. The language of violence understands violence. Counter violence in response to violence forces opponents to learn more languages. Terrorists who speak the language of violence need to learn other languages. But that learning can only be conveyed to them by a language they understand.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

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Tuan wrote: It is dreadful to see Indians, who traditionally follow the footsteps of Gandhism for their way of life, are justifying violence can only be countered by violence, or terrorism can only be neutralized by terrorism kind of rhetoric. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth discourse that would leave all of us blind and toothless.
We are told terrorists are a minuscule fraction of the population. An eye for an eye will not leave us blind. The eye for an eye will leave us blind is valid when it is a significant fraction of the world involved (e.g., as in World War 2).
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by chetak »

periaswamy wrote:How is the govt. going to fence a border in west bengal if the state govt. does not want that to work? Say the BD govt gets it submarine, with India on one side and Myanmar on the other, and BDs having issues with Myanmar, what exactly do the BDs think they can achieve? What does WKK or whatever have to do with any of this? This is about the GoI securing its borders at the least cost to itself, which requires cooperation of the BD govt.
The border fence is a defence and foreign relations issue. The state has no jurisdiction in the matter. The centre's view is overarching and per the constitution, the center will prevail. The commies+congi govt at the centre has had a large part to play in the slow progress of the fence due to appeasement and vote bank politics and also the non resolution of the border enclaves, which the Modi govt has now addressed. The fence is getting built without vote banks predominating.
The Constitution divides legislative authority between the Union and the States in three lists- the Union List, the State List and the Concurrent List. The Union list consists of 99 items. The Union Parliament has exclusive authority to frame laws on subjects enumerated in the list. These include foreign affairs, defence, armed forces, communications, posts and telegraph, foreign trade etc
time for the so called soft power business with the beedis is long past. The die has been cast by the beedis with the active help of the hans and the beedis are very cleverly playing off the hans against the Indians. the attack subs can only be against India. I do not know if the han crews still help to operate the subs but the subs were initially crewed by the hans and mostly operate very close to Indian missile and other test facilities/assets.

re submarines, the beedis already have two of them (attack subs (Type 035G (Ming-class) Submarines)) todate, BNS Nabajatra (S161) and BNS Joyjatra (S162).
The Modi government has remained mum on the submarine transfer itself. Meanwhile, Indian analysts have been less sanguine. Probal Ghosh of the Observer Research Foundation warns that the transfer “greatly enhances the mistrust between Delhi and Dhaka,” and advocates steps to “prevent Bangladesh from playing the China card repeatedly.” The sale’s strategic importance, he says, “cannot be understated in any way.”
so all the wkk type lovey dovey, pappi jhappi sentiments about hasina should be seen in the light of the hard evidence of what she has done. A piss poor, two bit country acquiring attack submarines and where only India qualifies as the recipient of beedis angst and people here are talking soft power??

If hasina has executed paki pasand "jehadis" in her country, it is to protect her own skin and should not ever be seen as evidence of "support" to India which does not really care about which beedi is hanged as per their law.

Why should India worry about who hasina executes, isn't it an internal matter of the beedis?? The jehadi beedi public will anyway blame India for it, irrespective of who kills the beedi jehadi. Are we now getting into the classifying of terrorists as "good" or "bad"??

Her cheap hilsa politics has major beefy, human trafficking, jehadi and counterfeit currency implications for India besides having a major national security implication
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by Tuan »

A_Gupta wrote:
Tuan wrote: It is dreadful to see Indians, who traditionally follow the footsteps of Gandhism for their way of life, are justifying violence can only be countered by violence, or terrorism can only be neutralized by terrorism kind of rhetoric. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth discourse that would leave all of us blind and toothless.
We are told terrorists are a minuscule fraction of the population. An eye for an eye will not leave us blind. The eye for an eye will leave us blind is valid when it is a significant fraction of the world involved (e.g., as in World War 2).

Guptaji - While I agree with your point that terrorists are a minuscule fraction of any given population, your statement, nonetheless, contradicts with what I have I noticed in BRF. Majority of members here, including forum moderators are degrading and humiliating Pakistan by opening threads such as this:
Link to previous Terroristan - Land of Pure Terror - thread: Terroristan - June 20, 2017
The following links are background material on Pakistan.
I neither defend Pakistan’s role in global terrorism, nor I attempt to overlook the obvious that Pakistan is a long-time archrival of India. I am also a Hindu who was born and bred in the Indian subcontinent. And I tirelessly work towards mitigating Islamic extremism, and terrorism.

That said, I suppose, if your statement is right, only a minuscule fraction of Pakistan’s population, including its military-backed secret service ISI support and sponsor terrorism. However, you are labeling an entire nation as Terroristan.

Therefore, please don’t paint the entire Muslim population of Pakistan with a broader brush that they are terrorists. By doing this, in a reputed platform like BRF, you are trying to paint a picture on Muslims, who live within the Indian subcontinent as scums, criminals, and terrorists. Consequently, BRF is losing its credibility and increasingly becoming a dubious Indian propaganda and fake news site, rather than an unbiased and reputed medium, such methods an Indian mainstream civics class might not condone. More importantly, you are perpetuating a stereotypical version of Muslims which will continue their oppression in India and in Pakistan, which will backfire eventually.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by A_Gupta »

The Pakistani state is terrorist, and the leading lights there all justify it or turn a blind eye to it. There is widespread state sponsorship of jihadi Islam. A now deleted piece on Pakistan's Daily Times described growing up in jihadi Pakistan of the 1980s and 1990s.

As to extrapolating from Pakistan to India's Muslims blindly that would be a mistake. I think the BRF moderators are aware of the problem.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by A_Gupta »

Tuan, I advise you to read, with as skeptical an eye as you can, the links in the first post of the Terroristan thread. Try to refute any of them. You will get your answer. The characterization of Pakistan as Terroristan is accurate. This doesn't mean that every Pakistani is a terrorist. It does mean every Pakistani who supports their government, Constitution, legal system needs to be aware they are supporting a terrorism-creating system.

PS: this is no different than reminding Englishmen upto post-World-War-2 that they supported a bloodsucking colonial system.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by A_Gupta »

A_Gupta wrote:Tuan, I advise you to read, with as skeptical an eye as you can, the links in the first post of the Terroristan thread. Try to refute any of them. You will get your answer. The characterization of Pakistan as Terroristan is accurate. This doesn't mean that every Pakistani is a terrorist. It does mean every Pakistani who supports their government, Constitution, legal system needs to be aware they are supporting a terrorism-creating system.

PS: this is no different than reminding Englishmen upto post-World-War-2 that they supported a bloodsucking colonial system.
PPS: Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, in 1940: "So far as I have understood Islam, it does not advocate a democracy which would allow the majority of non-Muslims to decide the fate of the Muslims"

This is, until Jinnah and two-nation theory is repudiated by a majority of Pakistanis, the basis of the Pakistani nation. How can Pakistani ideology be admitted as valid, and simultaneously have Muslims in a democratic India with a non-Muslim majority? Such absurdities cannot happen. Practical full citizenship for Indian Muslims with no suspicions on the part of non-Muslims can happen only with the eradication of Pakistani ideology from this earth. Otherwise, there is the constant fear that any change in demographics will give rise to yet another Jinnah.

We have this crap still going on in today's India, e.g., Syed Ali Shah Geelani: “It’s as difficult for a Muslim to live in a non-Muslim society as it is for a fish to live out of the water.”
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by shiv »

Tuan wrote: Therefore, please don’t paint the entire Muslim population of Pakistan with a broader brush that they are terrorists. By doing this, in a reputed platform like BRF, you are trying to paint a picture on Muslims, who live within the Indian subcontinent as scums, criminals, and terrorists. Consequently, BRF is losing its credibility and increasingly becoming a dubious Indian propaganda and fake news site, rather than an unbiased and reputed medium, such methods an Indian mainstream civics class might not condone. More importantly, you are perpetuating a stereotypical version of Muslims which will continue their oppression in India and in Pakistan, which will backfire eventually.
Nonsense. Kindly cut this pseudo-emotional crap

In 2007 I uploaded an ebook called "Pakistan-Failed State" that owes its existence to BRF and I included in the first chapter these words: A whole bloody decade ago.

http://pakistanfailedstate.blogspot.in/ ... istan.html
There are a few things that Indian readers should keep in mind while reading this book.

First, referring to Pakistan does not mean that we are obliquely referring to Indian Muslims. Indians often become embarrassed or angry in discussions about Pakistan and Pakistanis. Indians who talk about Pakistan or Islam are often considered to be opponents of secularism and tolerance, and are sometimes called saffron sympathizers. For this reason Pakistan and Islamic extremism emanating from Pakistan have almost been taboo subjects in India, not to be discussed by secular non-Muslim Indians, lest they should hurt the sentiments of Muslims in India. An automatic and needless mental connection is made between the subject of Pakistan and the Muslims of India. This is both unfortunate and unfair to Indian Muslims. Today, Indian Muslims are quite different from Pakistanis, and it is an insult to Indian Muslims to refer to them as being associated with Pakistan.

Vir Sanghvi, the managing editor of the Hindustan Times has written about this (1):
  • At a sub-conscious level, some Indians make the simplistic assumption that because (nearly) all pakistanis are Muslims, so all Muslims must be Pakistanis in their hearts. This is an obvious logical fallacy and it is also deeply insulting to all Indian Muslims - including Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan who are setting out for Pakistan, determined to keep the Indian flag flying on the cricket field, to say nothing of the thousands of Muslims who have died fighting Pakistan.
It requires a deliberate act of mental re-orientation for non-Muslims in India to learn to talk about Pakistanis without equating them with Indian Muslims. This vestigial thought process remains in many Indian minds like a dark cloud, a hangover from partition, and that is unfortunate. Pakistan is Pakistan, a separate nation, and Pakistanis are Pakistanis, not Indians. Pakistanis are no longer Indians. Indians are Indians, not Pakistanis. Muslims in India are not Pakistanis, they are Indians. Confusion and misunderstanding in Indian attitudes more than five decades after independence are certainly a factor in the Indian inability to develop a coherent Pakistan policy.

Another point to note is that no discussion or description of Pakistan can even begin to be meaningful without considering the role that Islam plays on the mind of the Pakistani. Here again, we must remember that when we speak of Pakistan and Islam we are not referring to Indian Muslims and the vastly different way in which Islam has evolved in India since independence. One of the purposes of this book is to show precisely what has been done with Islam in Pakistan. The situation and attitudes of Muslims in India are no longer comparable to those in Pakistan. There are many assumptions and misconceptions that need to be reviewed, and these will become clear in subsequent chapters.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by SSridhar »

Tuan wrote:I am also a Hindu who was born and bred in the Indian subcontinent. And I tirelessly work towards mitigating Islamic extremism, and terrorism.
Tuan, indeed *you* are stereotyping by claiming you are a Hindu. It doesn't matter to us here in this forum what your religion is or isn't. We Indians have been discussing the issues that afflict us. I know who you are. We have no time here for the theories you are spewing out. If you think we are dubious here and lack credibility, you are advised to withdraw because you do not bring anything worthwhile to discuss/debate based on the line of reasoning you are suggesting. I am being polite.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by periaswamy »

Tuan: To illustrate, President Obama’s administration had a smart strategy via the realm of soft diplomacy throughout the world, which was backed by America’s hard power during his time in office and we saw a world order, although it was not perfect.
That's an utter load of unmitigated nonsense. ISIS increased in power and spread under Obama and Hillary, and this was acknowledged by people in the DIA at that time -- you really think that is "combating islamic terrorism"?? What is this snake oil you are selling out here? :roll:
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by periaswamy »

chetak: The border fence is a defence and foreign relations issue. The state has no jurisdiction in the matter. The centre's view is overarching and per the constitution, the center will prevail.
Implementation wise, all of these are less relevant if the local govt. has no intention of cooperating with the center and has every intention of working against it, like Mamata's regime.
The die has been cast by the beedis with the active help of the hans and the beedis are very cleverly playing off the hans against the Indians. the attack subs can only be against India.
This is OT. We can take this to the BD thread if you want -- only relevant point to this thread is that just treating BD as a hostile state is liable to get less results than maintaining points of leverage and using them effectively. BD absorbing the Rohingya populace would have bad consequences if BD was unfriendly and decided to use them against India. India being a provider of energy security to Bangladesh is likely to create a friendlier BD in the long term, than fencing BD and allowing an islamist regime to come to power in BD. If you do not see the logic behind that line of reasoning, we should probably stop with this pointless conversation.
Last edited by periaswamy on 16 Oct 2017 18:33, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

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so all the wkk type lovey dovey, pappi jhappi sentiments about hasina should be seen in the light of the hard evidence of what she has done. A piss poor, two bit country acquiring attack submarines and where only India qualifies as the recipient of beedis angst and people here are talking soft power??
Maybe you should pay more attention to the qualitative difference between Khaleda's pro-paki regime and the current one, before BS-ing about hard evidence. There is enough evidence to suggest that in relative terms, this govt. is more cooperative than Khaleda's regime. This is just a realistic assessment -- I am no phappi jappi WKK candle holder. far from it.
Why should India worry about who hasina executes, isn't it an internal matter of the beedis?? The jehadi beedi public will anyway blame India for it, irrespective of who kills the beedi jehadi. Are we now getting into the classifying of terrorists as "good" or "bad"??
The fact you are asking a silly question like this, suggests that you do not have a clue about the paki elements in BD and how they were operating against Indian interests working with the pakis. Hasina's govt. is determined to take them down as they pose a threat to her and were working to islamize the BD army -- there is a convergence with India's interests here and that is what is being put to good use by the GoI.
Last edited by periaswamy on 16 Oct 2017 20:14, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by periaswamy »

Tuan: Alternatively his successor, who claims that he is a realist and solely believes that might is right, in other words he “will destroy all his enemies completely” kind of leader, has also set a new world order.
Nothing new. The cold war was entirely premised on this mindset and it managed to end because all sides held exactly his POV, which ensured that a stalemate was the most acceptable solution in a game theoretic sense, and so it remained until the weaker system of governance crumbled under its own weight. No "soft power" nonsense was at play ever, and the Beatles singing and dancing to the Russian masses had nothing to do with the end result.
Tuan: Now you go figure who was/is better for international peace and security.
so let's get this straight: downplaying islamic terrorism and the psychopathy of the religious, fascist, violent, and nihilist ideology that drives its brainwashed supporters, and otherwise singing and dancing and playing football with terrorists will bring them down in the long term because of "soft power". sheer genius. Maybe it is time to let all the violent criminals and sociopaths in the prisons loose, and play them AR Rahman CDs.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by chetak »

periaswamy wrote:
so all the wkk type lovey dovey, pappi jhappi sentiments about hasina should be seen in the light of the hard evidence of what she has done. A piss poor, two bit country acquiring attack submarines and where only India qualifies as the recipient of beedis angst and people here are talking soft power??
Maybe you should pay more attention to the qualitative difference between Khaleda's pro-paki regime and the current one, before BS-ing about hard evidence. There is enough evidence to suggest that in relative terms, this govt. is more cooperative than Khaleda's regime. This is just a realistic assessment -- I am no phappi jappi WKK candle holder. far from it.
Why should India worry about who hasina executes, isn't it an internal matter of the beedis?? The jehadi beedi public will anyway blame India for it, irrespective of who kills the beedi jehadi. Are we now getting into the classifying of terrorists as "good" or "bad"??
The fact you are asking a silly question like this, suggests that you do not have a clue about the paki elements in BD and how they were operating against Indian interests working with the pakis. Hasina's govt. is determined to take them down as they pose a thread to her and were working to islamize the BD army -- there is a convergence with India's interests here and that is what is being put to good use by the GoI.
why should India take any position on whom the beedis execute?? Whose father what goes in India??

islam is the state religion of the beedis. There is no Hindu state anywhere in the world.

understand these four words before you ever again reach for the candle .....

Taqiyya, Tawriya, Kitman and Muruna

how lies and deceptions are integral to their survival and prosperity while dealing with the non muslim, so much so that it is hard wired into the ideology lest someone forget even momentarily.

...Takiyya is defined as dissimulation about one's Muslim identity...

...Tawriya is defined as concealing, and it could be called “creative lying”...

...Kitman is characterized by someone telling only part of the truth. The most common example of this is when a Muslim says that jihad really refers to an internal, spiritual struggle...

...Muruna means using “flexibility” to blend in with the enemy or the surroundings...

which of the four above are the beedis under hasina or any other beedi to follow/followed in the past/future haven't/are/will not be using against India??
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by periaswamy »

chetak ji, try not to teach your grandfather how to raise children, metaphorically speaking. I am not a peacenik and if you have not figured that out from my responses to you, you should try reading what I wrote again, assuming I am not a peacenik.

I am well aware of all the shenanigans of islamists and their ilk, and my point is that when dealing with other nation-states is that it is always about managing the relationship and working on aligned interests and negotiating on points of contention, and using and creating any and all leverage on the adversary to reduce to cost of managing the relationship in the long term. Just painting all sides of the political spectrum with the same brush, and not recognizing the differences between the different power poles in BD politics is not to India's advantage in managing its relationship with Bangladesh. Using and creating political capital when opportunities arise, while not relinquishing instruments of hard power and leveraging such power seems to be the optimal option.

Note that the above does not hold for overtly hostile enemy states like Pakistan where the govt. is implacably disposed to have a hostile relationship with India -- that is a lot more difficult. Which also means, that as long as there is quasi-friendly govt. in BD, it maybe better not to turn the relationship to a completely hostile one, as that is a net security loss for India. This is probably one place where "soft power" by schemes like Operation Insaaniyat allows India to not compromise on its red lines while keeping the narrative positive about Indo-BD relationship.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by chetak »

periaswamy wrote:chetak ji, try not to teach your grandfather how to raise children, metaphorically speaking. I am not a peacenik and if you have not figured that out from my responses to you, you should try reading what I wrote again, assuming I am not a peacenik.

I am well aware of all the shenanigans of islamists and their ilk, and my point is that when dealing with other nation-states is that it is always about managing the relationship and working on aligned interests and negotiating on points of contention, and using and creating any and all leverage on the adversary to reduce to cost of managing the relationship in the long term. Just painting all sides of the political spectrum with the same brush, and not recognizing the differences between the different power poles in BD politics is not to India's advantage in managing its relationship with Bangladesh. Using and creating political capital when opportunities arise, while not relinquishing instruments of hard power and leveraging such power seems to be the optimal option.

Note that the above does not hold for overtly hostile enemy states like Pakistan where the govt. is implacably disposed to have a hostile relationship with India -- that is a lot more difficult. Which also means, that as long as there is quasi-friendly govt. in BD, it maybe better not to turn the relationship to a completely hostile one, as that is a net security loss for India. This is probably one place where "soft power" by schemes like Operation Insaaniyat allows India to not compromise on its red lines while keeping the narrative positive about Indo-BD relationship.
periaswamy ji,

The fallacious premise of "No requirement of teaching" anybody's grandfather how to raise children, teaching anybody's grandmother how to suck eggs and/or teaching someone's father how to reproduce is all old hat, tried and tested in the lootyens generated, traitor Indian practised and completely failed paki policy of decades which has failed mainly because it uses very liberal doses of Indian "soft" power, without any diplomatic or national security ROI.

We ourselves make the thousand cuts on our own body polity and bleed joyfully for the enemy. Any and everyone who deals with India knows this weakness very well and they all shamelessly and brazenly exploit it, depending on some "stoopid", paid and sold out presstitute + wkk types to carry the paki's perfidious standard/flags of deception to befool the Indian public.

Our grandfathers/grandmothers/fathers would have immensely benefitted from such an education and they would not have brought us to this sorry pass, depending, as they did, solely on "soft" power and desperately hoping that someone somewhere in the world would approve and applaud us for our civilizational forbearance.

The israelis got at least one thing right. Kick the buggers right in the b@!!$, softly of course, soft power is vital (varna, log kya kahenge, na??), using steel toed combat boots.

There are so many actual paki citizens in lootyens dilli, actively running this "paki serving" foreign policy of India that we don't need enemies in islamabad. Guys like Fai were some of the many who had and continue to have a deep reach into the corridors of power in dilli via the lootyens goondas, snacking off caviar, champagne and single malt before moving on to more tastier uzbeki delicacies.

Most of these well heeled paki/beedi scoundrels operate with SAARC visas granted to them by virtue of their "journalistic" prowess. They represent the track thoo underbelly of the piss process and big time offshore NGO interests, among other things and are welcome gift bearing guests in many an "exclusive" lootyens drawing room circuit.

Hugely successful Indian muslim actors have/have had blood relatives running the PA and ISI and we still use "soft" power with them. Just look at how our bollywood soft power is being used against India, by "Indians", if you are able to understand and appreciate the demeaning mechanics and the overt profiling of Hindus in it, (without involving grandfathers and by logical extension, grandmothers/fathers in it)

Its exactly what the pakis want, what they need and what they depend upon to rape us. This lootyens run wkk racket is the equivalent of the pakis having several full army divisions deployed against us even before any war has begun and these "soft power" divisions are commanded by "generals" from across the border.

We have no such "forces" deployed in pakiland, now or ever at any time in the past and we will not deploy such forces even in the future.

If we had also smartly deployed Taqiyya, Tawriya, Kitman and Muruna in equal measure as deployed against us since partition we would have been much better off today. This is what patel would have done had not some treacherous and treasonous idiots prevented him from doing so and also, after independence, the vital education portfolio would not have been stolen away from us under our very noses.

Why make the same fatal mistake all over again with the beedis??

Like I said put your candle away and smell the rotting hilsa that is being gleefully served to you and don't ask who the education minister of WB is.

Soft is certainly not the way to go and I know that the kandle kissers will never agree with me.

My last on this.
Last edited by chetak on 17 Oct 2017 19:37, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by Tuan »

A_Gupta wrote:Tuan, I advise you to read, with as skeptical an eye as you can, the links in the first post of the Terroristan thread. Try to refute any of them. You will get your answer. The characterization of Pakistan as Terroristan is accurate. This doesn't mean that every Pakistani is a terrorist. It does mean every Pakistani who supports their government, Constitution, legal system needs to be aware they are supporting a terrorism-creating system.

PS: this is no different than reminding Englishmen upto post-World-War-2 that they supported a bloodsucking colonial system.
Guptaji, I am reading one by one with great interest and respond promptly once I am done .
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by Tuan »

shiv wrote:
Tuan wrote: Therefore, please don’t paint the entire Muslim population of Pakistan with a broader brush that they are terrorists. By doing this, in a reputed platform like BRF, you are trying to paint a picture on Muslims, who live within the Indian subcontinent as scums, criminals, and terrorists. Consequently, BRF is losing its credibility and increasingly becoming a dubious Indian propaganda and fake news site, rather than an unbiased and reputed medium, such methods an Indian mainstream civics class might not condone. More importantly, you are perpetuating a stereotypical version of Muslims which will continue their oppression in India and in Pakistan, which will backfire eventually.
l
Nonsense. Kindly cut this pseudo-emotional crap

In 2007 I uploaded an ebook called "Pakistan-Failed State" that owes its existence to BRF and I included in the first chapter these words: A whole bloody decade ago.

http://pakistanfailedstate.blogspot.in/ ... istan.html
There are a few things that Indian readers should keep in mind while reading this book.

First, referring to Pakistan does not mean that we are obliquely referring to Indian Muslims. Indians often become embarrassed or angry in discussions about Pakistan and Pakistanis. Indians who talk about Pakistan or Islam are often considered to be opponents of secularism and tolerance, and are sometimes called saffron sympathizers. For this reason Pakistan and Islamic extremism emanating from Pakistan have almost been taboo subjects in India, not to be discussed by secular non-Muslim Indians, lest they should hurt the sentiments of Muslims in India. An automatic and needless mental connection is made between the subject of Pakistan and the Muslims of India. This is both unfortunate and unfair to Indian Muslims. Today, Indian Muslims are quite different from Pakistanis, and it is an insult to Indian Muslims to refer to them as being associated with Pakistan.

Vir Sanghvi, the managing editor of the Hindustan Times has written about this (1):
  • At a sub-conscious level, some Indians make the simplistic assumption that because (nearly) all pakistanis are Muslims, so all Muslims must be Pakistanis in their hearts. This is an obvious logical fallacy and it is also deeply insulting to all Indian Muslims - including Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan who are setting out for Pakistan, determined to keep the Indian flag flying on the cricket field, to say nothing of the thousands of Muslims who have died fighting Pakistan.
It requires a deliberate act of mental re-orientation for non-Muslims in India to learn to talk about Pakistanis without equating them with Indian Muslims. This vestigial thought process remains in many Indian minds like a dark cloud, a hangover from partition, and that is unfortunate. Pakistan is Pakistan, a separate nation, and Pakistanis are Pakistanis, not Indians. Pakistanis are no longer Indians. Indians are Indians, not Pakistanis. Muslims in India are not Pakistanis, they are Indians. Confusion and misunderstanding in Indian attitudes more than five decades after independence are certainly a factor in the Indian inability to develop a coherent Pakistan policy.

Another point to note is that no discussion or description of Pakistan can even begin to be meaningful without considering the role that Islam plays on the mind of the Pakistani. Here again, we must remember that when we speak of Pakistan and Islam we are not referring to Indian Muslims and the vastly different way in which Islam has evolved in India since independence. One of the purposes of this book is to show precisely what has been done with Islam in Pakistan. The situation and attitudes of Muslims in India are no longer comparable to those in Pakistan. There are many assumptions and misconceptions that need to be reviewed, and these will become clear in subsequent chapters.
Shivji, fascinating read of the first chapter. I would appreciate if you could provide a link for the entire book. So far, I read the all three chapters you have uploaded. Many thanks!
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by Tuan »

periaswamy wrote:
Tuan: To illustrate, President Obama’s administration had a smart strategy via the realm of soft diplomacy throughout the world, which was backed by America’s hard power during his time in office and we saw a world order, although it was not perfect.
That's an utter load of unmitigated nonsense. ISIS increased in power and spread under Obama and Hillary, and this was acknowledged by people in the DIA at that time -- you really think that is "combating islamic terrorism"?? What is this snake oil you are selling out here? :roll:
Periaswamiji, a senior western intelligence official recently told me that when it comes to special operations amateurs do analysis and professionals do logistics. His point was that these entire war on terror is a hoax.

Like I mentioned here before, it will take only matter of weeks to obliterate ISIS if the US wanted; however, the West including the US uses ISIS as a catalyst to speed up the process of balancing their economic equilibrium, that is, they pursue "cost-benefit analysis" whereby the US engages a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. Cost-benefit analysis is used to determine options that provide the best approach to achieve benefits.

Further more, economic equilibrium is a condition or state in which economic forces are balanced. Economic equilibrium may also be defined as the point at which supply equals demand for a product, with the equilibrium price existing where the hypothetical supply and demand curves intersect.

In other words, the West is orchestrating a commercial warfare under the guise of counterterrorism, in my opinion.

You will soon figure out to whom and what the US is supplying and to whom and what the GCC nations in Middle East are demanding, and vice versa.

This was the grand strategy of the Middle East program by the Obama administration and ISIS was a byproduct and exploitation of regional sectarian divide, IMHO.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by periaswamy »

Tuan: Like I mentioned here before, it will take only matter of weeks to obliterate ISIS if the US wanted; however, the West including the US uses ISIS as a catalyst to speed up the process of balancing their economic equilibrium, that is, they pursue "cost-benefit analysis" whereby the US engages a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives.
Yet it was Russia and Syria that obliterated these terrorists, and not the "soft power" of Obama's administration or anything of that sort. So please make up your mind, is this "soft power" of Obama that allowed the ISIS terrorists to grow in strength part of the problem or part of the solution? All of the above sounds like self-justifying BS by this so-called US govt. official seems to be in line with the kind of sh*t-for-brains thinking that passes for "strategy" in the US state dept. these days. The same "advanced strategery" that brought ISIS to power in Iraq and parts of Syria before the Russians crushed these ISIS scum. Anyway, all of this is OT.

If you are going to start giving a litany of excuses for why this "soft power" of the US that threw footballs from airplanes to Iraqis also allowed the ISIS to flourish as some part of economic warfare, then perhaps you should explain why soft power is even relevant if these "soft power" guys are pretending to fight the fire, while feeding the flames.
In other words, the West is orchestrating a commercial warfare under the guise of counterterrorism, in my opinion.
What kind of utter nonsense is this? How is allowing ISIS to flourish "counterterrorism"? Do you go around changing the meaning of words whenever you feel like it?
You will soon figure out to whom and what the US is supplying and to whom and what the GCC nations in Middle East are demanding, and vice versa.
Yes, you are the only genius to figure this out while the rest of us are sitting on our palms. This kind of condescending nonsense is not proving your point -- in fact, so far you have completely trashed your own point of view by claiming that ISIS taking control of Iraq and parts of syria is part of US "counterterrorism", and this is effective use of "smart power" by the stupor-power USA. It is pretty clear that you are just regurgtitating some nonsense you read somewhere about "soft power" without bothering to think through it all.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by Tuan »

Well, I guess Gen. Panetta wanted to supply weapons for ISIS, whereas Gen. Mattis decided to supply soccer balls; either way ISIS is crumbling as we speak. How do you know for sure that the Russian and the Syrian bombing did the trick?
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by periaswamy »

Well, I guess Gen. Panetta wanted to supply weapons for ISIS, whereas Gen. Mattis decided to supply soccer balls; either way ISIS is crumbling as we speak. How do you know for sure that the Russian and the Syrian bombing did the trick?
Well, perhaps you should follow the levant thread and the news reports for the past year from the ground to see how Russia crushed ISIS rather than make up nonsense about how soft power and footballs are defeating ISIS. Pay attention to reality before cooking up silly theories about the effectiveness of "soft power" in combating terrorism.

The US and EU are part of the problem when it comes to ISIS and islamist terrorism, and have supported Qatar and KSA and other states when they supplied money and arms to these ISIS terrorists, and provided propaganda cover to these ISIS terrorists as "syrian rebels" and "white helmets" and also spreading bogus news about chemical weapons attacks by Assad on syrian sunnis.
Last edited by periaswamy on 17 Oct 2017 20:12, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by shiv »

Tuan wrote: Shivji, fascinating read of the first chapter. I would appreciate if you could provide a link for the entire book. So far, I read the all three chapters you have uploaded. Many thanks!
Thank you

Here is the whole book. Freely distributable. Copyleft licence
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3JNY ... 2MwUnBRb3c
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by Tuan »

shiv wrote:
Tuan wrote: Shivji, fascinating read of the first chapter. I would appreciate if you could provide a link for the entire book. So far, I read the all three chapters you have uploaded. Many thanks!
Thank you

Here is the whole book. Freely distributable. Copyleft licence
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3JNY ... 2MwUnBRb3c
Many thanks for providing a free copy of your book so generously. I will read it with great interest.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by ramana »

Please read and spread the knowledge.

Soft power doesn't work with Islamist jihadists.
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by shiv »

Tuan wrote:
shiv wrote: Thank you

Here is the whole book. Freely distributable. Copyleft licence
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3JNY ... 2MwUnBRb3c
Many thanks for providing a free copy of your book so generously. I will read it with great interest.
There is no generosity involved. You seem to know nothing about Hindu attitudes to information sharing and are applying a pecuniary transactional standard where "free" means sacrifice. It was needed for public information and your own ignorance shows that that information still has to reach tens of millions of people
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by SSridhar »

If a person comments about Pakistan without knowing its 'manufactured' paranoia, its duplicity, terrorism and is unaware of the long list of wonderful analysis right at the beginning of each of the 'Terroristan' thread, which we have accumulated assiduously, then what can one say ?
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by Kashi »

SSridhar wrote:Then what can one say ?
...perhaps the mods could mandate filling out a quiz before enrolling for BRF?
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by Tuan »

Talk about the power of music that today our PM was shedding tears in emotional tribute to a Canadian singer.

Justin Trudeau can't hold back tears in emotional tribute to Gord Downie: 'We are less as a country'
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/pri ... e-it-hurts
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by periaswamy »

Tuan: Talk about the power of music that today our PM was shedding tears in emotional tribute to a Canadian singer.
Don't you think you are being *deleted* when you make such statements, Mr. Analyst? Do you not understand the basic principle that geopolitical events that are propelled by the actions of power centers cannot be influenced by the emotions of the prime minister of some low grade power like canada? You really need to pull your head out of whatever dark hole it is in, and pay attention to reality. If this drooling moron Trudeau was the President of the US and he had this teenage-girlie moment, then it may be of interest (mostly because the fate of the world would be decided by the hormonal imbalance of one human being), but Canada is nothing in the global scale of things. Perhaps you are unaware of that singular factoid.

Geopolitical power politics is an abstraction of power centers and their interests, usually involving money and control and mass destruction, pushing and pulling all the time to produce some sort of unstable stability. This stupid cretin Trudeau having his emotional breakdown on hearing some song has no influence on such matters.
Last edited by SSridhar on 19 Oct 2017 14:37, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: periaswamy, mind your language
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Re: Combating Terrorism Using Soft Power

Post by SSridhar »

Tuan wrote:Talk about the power of music that today our PM was shedding tears in emotional tribute to a Canadian singer.

Justin Trudeau can't hold back tears in emotional tribute to Gord Downie: 'We are less as a country'
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/pri ... e-it-hurts
What has it got to do with countering terrorism and why 'our PM' when you are referring to a Canadian PM?

BTW, music is banned in Salafi, Wahhabi, Deobandi Islam and therefore we can't win their 'hearts & minds' through music.

There was another earlier reference here to 'winning hearts & minds' by American soldiers. Before suggesting anything like that to India, one should know what the Indian State does in J&K. I am increasingly getting frustrated by the woolly headed suggestions flowing here.

I will lock this thread, if it continues like this.
Locked