India-US Strategic News and Discussion

[panduranghari]

The situation calls for the infusion of well-trained Islamic troops from a US MUNNA. The Pakistan Northern Flight Infantry is waiting for the call.

A Iraqi woman interviewed on BBC radio said the militants looked like Pakistanis with Paki clothes and long hair. I could not help but chuckle at this description.

[Cosmo_R]

A Iraqi woman interviewed on BBC radio said the militants looked like Pakistanis with Paki clothes and long hair. I could not help but chuckle at this description.

Maybe it's the plural of ISI as in ISIS and their Ossiris

BTW, as foretold ^^^:

"Iranian forces joined Iraq's battle against insurgents taking over a growing swath of the country as the Baghdad government girded to protect the capital and the U.S. weighed direct military assistance, including possible airstrikes."

http://online.wsj.com/articles/islamist ... TopStories

Sorry pay wall.

[Shanmukh]

Rudradev-ji (and other gurus),
Do you know if the old Eyerackee Air Force under Saddam had trained Shia pilots or were only Sunnis being trained as pilots? If there are enough trained Shia pilots available, it will be interesting to see to whom the Eyerackees rush to get a new Air Force on a priority basis. On a purely technical point of view, the old Saddam air force was heavily Russian, so getting a few MiGs might be the best way to go (and there will also be a technical maintenance staff available for it). But let us see. I still have plenty of popcorn left.

Added to what Rudradev-ji has written:
There is a grand total of 1 F16 Block 52 Aircraft in the Eyerackee Airforce delivered on June 7 (Yay! Direct Combat for the first trainee pilot). Here is the link.

http://www.airrecognition.com/index.php ... force.html

[Karan M]

Rudradev, US has sold Iraqi AF 18 Block 52 F-16Ds which are getting built at LM facilities...doubt whether they can do much against dispersed guerillas

[ramana]

This collapse of the Iraqi army is not good news for India. This same scenario will be repeated in afghanistan when the US troops leave.

The Pakis must be licking their chops.

More likelt TTP is licking their chops at the prospect of meeting the TSPA or Pak Apostate Army (the TTP definition not ours) in the field without US drones support.

[Philip]

Ramanna,"history indeed repeating itself as farce!"

Truly there must be a huge,huge,Q mark about US military training.For decades it has been one disaster after another.From Vietnam onwards we've seen that when the US leaves/..sorry ,retreats,its superbly trained ally ends up in a jiffy as dog meat. So what did Uncle Sam do to solve the problem? He hired "contractors",aka "contract killers",who would be ruthless in the extreme,follow no Geneva Convention and also train the local forces in the dark arts of warfare,internal security,ad nauseum.All this at huge cost enriching the coffers of the shady handpicked quasi-military entities,with close links oto the establishment like Blackwater.

Replacing all the existing mil. eqpt. ,which may have formerly been obtained from the Soviets or Russians were replaced again at huge cost by US/Western,again enriching the mil-industrial complex back home.All this funding comes out of the so-called "aid" supposedly being given to the endangered country so that it can usher in "democracy"! As in the case of Iraq,its oil w as used to pay for the m assive mil. eqpt. supplied,which has beggared it for decades in repaying its debts.With the oil fields now in the hands of the ungodly ISIS,which is gorging itself on the booty it has captured,like the Yellowstone caldera,this eruption with its magma and ash will spread all over the region destabilising the established supposedly "secure" monarchies (Saudis alleged to be bankrolling the ISIS) and sheikdoms.How ironic that Iraq can now only be saved by the Persians of Shiite Iran and Baathist "Basher" Assad! One can see the midnight oil being burned in Jerusalem too at the eruption of this frightful catastrophe.

As I said earlier,the newly appointed US ambassador may have little time to unpack his bags and repack them again before fleeing from the embassy rooftop a la Saigon,with the collapse of the Iraqi army and the ungodly tribe racing towards Baghdad!

Battle for Baghdad: Islamist militants vow to take Iraqi capital as regular army disintegrates

Iraq is breaking up. The Kurds have taken the northern oil city of Kirkuk that they have long claimed as their capital. Sunni fundamentalist fighters vow to capture Baghdad and the Shia holy cities further south.

Government rule over the Sunni Arab heartlands of north and central Iraq is evaporating as its 900,000-strong army disintegrates. Government aircraft have fired missiles at insurgent targets in Mosul, captured by Isis on Monday, but the Iraqi army has otherwise shown no sign of launching a counter-attack.

The nine-year Shia dominance over Iraq, established after the US, Britain and other allies overthrew Saddam Hussein, may be coming to an end. The Shia may continue to hold the capital and the Shia-majority provinces further south, but they will have great difficulty in re-establishing their authority over Sunni provinces from which their army has fled.

Read more: Robert Fisk: Sunni caliphate bankrolled by Saudi Arabia
Patrick Cockburn: ‘Do not fall prey to your vanities’ - the philosophy of Iraq’s new conquerors
Iraq crisis: Islamist militants attack Tikrit and near Baghdad after 500,000 are forced to flee Mosul
Iraq crisis: Capture of Mosul ushers in the birth of a Sunni caliphate

It is unlikely that the Kurds will give up Kirkuk. “The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga [Kurdish soldiers],” said the peshmerga spokesman Jabbar Yawar. “No Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk.”

Foreign intervention is more likely to come from Iran than the US. The Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would act to combat “the violence and terrorism” of Isis”. Iran emerged as the most influential foreign power in Baghdad after 2003. As a fellow Shia-majority state, Iraq matters even more to Iran than Syria.

Iran will be deeply alarmed by the appearance of a fanatically Sunni proto-state hostile to all Shia in western Iraq and eastern Syria. Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, the Isis spokesman, said today that the Shia, 60 per cent of the Iraqi population, “are a disgraced people”, accusing them of being “polytheists”.

Iraq’s Shia may well conclude that their army has failed them and they must once again rely on militias like the Mehdi Army which was responsible for the slaughter of Sunni in 2005 and 2006. At that time, much of Baghdad was cleansed of Sunni. The loss of Baghdad has never been forgotten or forgiven by Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia, which has long hoped to reverse the Shia dominance in Iraq.

In pictures: Attacks by Islamist militants cause thousands to flee Mosul

In Mosul, Isis has so far been careful not to alienate the local population which on the west bank of the Tigris River is Sunni. There are large Kurdish neighbourhoods in the east of the city. Refugees are finding it difficult to enter the Kurdistan Regional Government zone because of stringent checks and single men, suspected of being insurgents, are not allowed entry.

Inside Mosul people reached by The Independent say they are afraid. One woman described how a local petrol station was burnt down by looters though Isis tried to protect it. She said her younger brother had gone to repair it. She says that when her two brothers came back from doing the repair job, “I was horrified that they might have been photographed, their names known and they might be punished when the defeated forces come back.” A reason why many people are fleeing Mosul or are terrified by the prospect of a successful counter-attack by the government is that all the Sunni population is liable to be mistreated as Isis supporters, regardless of their sympathies.

Isis has tried to show that it can run Mosul and the electricity supply has improved to six hours a day since the Iraqi army left. The Isis spokesman Abu Mohamed al-Adnani has told victorious fighters “not to bother those who do not bother you”. But other proclamations announce the full application of Isis’s fundamentalist creed.

The Kurds are taking advantage of the disarray of the government in Baghdad to seize territories along the “trigger line”. This stretches from north-east of Baghdad to the Syrian frontier west of Mosul. The Iraqi Kurds have advanced further towards establishing an independent state, but it is unclear how far they will commit troops to rescue the Baghdad government.

Iranian intervention would probably come through massively strengthening Shia militias. But the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will find it very difficult to reverse the defeats of the last week.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ira ... 33396.html
Robert Fisk
Thursday 12 June 2014
Iraq crisis: Sunni caliphate has been bankrolled by Saudi Arabia
Bush and Blair said Iraq was a war on Islamic fascism. They lost

[devesh]

how does this affect Syria?

what we're seeing is an all out attach by the Sunni legions to consolidate their hold. after this, the momentum might turn against Assad, if indeed the plan is to use the Iraqi base to squeeze and stretch Assad's force on multiple fronts.

even in 21st century the Islamics are still fighting medieval style wars in country after country. a lesson for India. the medieval times and ways have not disappeared entirely. "modernism" has not been able to solve the Islamic problem as we hoped it would.

[shiv]

even in 21st century the Islamics are still fighting medieval style wars in country after country. a lesson for India. the medieval times and ways have not disappeared entirely. "modernism" has not been able to solve the Islamic problem as we hoped it would.

This is a fascinating insight which actually merits discussion in the mil forum because it illustrates how wars can be fought with a combination of small and medium arms, asymmetric warfare tactics and geopolitical support (funding/training) from other states/kingdoms/sultanates.

F-22s and F-35s cannot win this type of war. Even tanks and APCs per se may not be game changers - but it is OT here

[UlanBatori]

The pictures do show tanks. So soon the ISIS will have tanks and they will turn the guns around.

Reminds me of 1968 Tet Offensive. The NVA/VC overran Hue, parts of Saigon, but then tried to attack the bases themselves. I think at Da Nang they brought the artillery to max. depression and fired at point blank range at the advancing NVA in a desperate last stand, but Da Nang held. The US soldiers did not have the option of discarding uniforms and melting into the general population, as the Iraq Army is doing. So as long as the ISIS does not launch head-on attacks on the US bases, they can overrun the whole of Sunni Iraq inside a week.

[UlanBatori]

My question is, why can't the TTP do the same to TSPA if they bring a few truckloads of "tribesmen" from FATA, Swat etc? How long will TSPA fight? It would be so sweet to see Lahore and 'Pindi fall, with the lampposts all taken up with TSPA Jarnails.

The key is speed: u have to appear all over, while the locals still think u are 200 miles away. That triggers all-out panic and then it's a walkover.

[Vayutuvan]

There is no question that the US for all its nation-building promises has contrived to keep the Iraqi Air Force absolutely toothless.

RD: The oft repeated phrase in US by the commander of armed forces aka president is that US is not in the business of nation building. I never understood the logic behind this policy statement - make no mistake it is a policy statement since it is stated by POTUS himself and repeated ad nauseam in MSM. So is it our policy to destroy but not rebuild? What a travesty of priorities.

Now you say that we have promised to build nations.

[Vayutuvan]

Maybe it's the plural of ISI as in ISIS and their Ossiris

good one and quite apt all the threads lead to munna.

[symontk]

I think all of you guys missed the point, its simply the backlash from Syria. Assad is doing good and ISIS is now looking for a territory to regroup

It could be wink wink nod nod from certain quarters too

[Vriksh]

So the simplest explanation is that Sunni-ISIS is supported by USA/KSA/Pakistan against Shia-Iranian interests in the region.

[UlanBatori]

Interesting. Aren't these ISIS types as bad/worse than the ones who tried taking over Mali? The Froglanders put an end to that quite promptly and definitely by killing most of them. How is the C-inC (BO) going to explain to the public that half of Eyerak, 2 b precije the oil-generating half, is now under the Al Qaeda, while the Free World is firmly holding on to the useless deserts?

So the Syria Policy is that not only Syria, but now also Iraq, are taken over by ppl who love the US?

[UlanBatori]

Add one more to the CNN Rape Army Roster:

Hilary Whiteman, CNN

[symontk]

Interesting. Aren't these ISIS types as bad/worse than the ones who tried taking over Mali? The Froglanders put an end to that quite promptly and definitely by killing most of them. How is the C-inC (BO) going to explain to the public that half of Eyerak, 2 b precije the oil-generating half, is now under the Al Qaeda, while the Free World is firmly holding on to the useless deserts?

So the Syria Policy is that not only Syria, but now also Iraq, are taken over by ppl who love the US?

Ok. I will tell the entire script. After some time, ISIS has regrouped and ready one more attempt on Syria, their forces will start vacating Iraq. Then the King khan in shining knight armour will come retake all the cities. Instant hero among all people of the world

Zimple only

The drama can continue ad infinitum. Quite similar to the drama played by Pakistan and Taliban. Afghan involvement is not waste after all. Americans are learning from Pakistan

There was a joke about Lalu and Japan. Japanese thought when Lalu is in Japan, he would learn Japanese culture. But it was Japanese who learned Lalu's culture

[ramana]

So the simplest explanation is that Sunni-ISIS is supported by USA/KSA/Pakistan against Shia-Iranian interests in the region.

From quo bono, who benefits aspect yes. However its a big loss of face for US.

It left Iraq before it was ready.
It spent lots of money training Iraqi forces.
It will have US domestic fallout in 2014 & 2016 elections
KSA will fall to jihadis.
This is the blowback of not succeeding in Syria.

Old Testament in Bible says "Sow the wind reap the whirlwind!"

Not the ISIS leader/s name Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi
His real name is something else.
But he is invoking the Rightly guided Caliph the first one. By calling himself Baghdadi he is also claiming Iraq like the Abbasid Caliphs.

[Rudradev]

Rudradev, US has sold Iraqi AF 18 Block 52 F-16Ds which are getting built at LM facilities...doubt whether they can do much against dispersed guerillas

Karan ji... but they're not dispersed, are they.

Insurrectionist forces behave quite differently depending on their strategic environment.

In Phase I, when the State has a strong grasp on governance, infrastructure and security, and enjoys the confidence of a majority of the population... that's when Insurrectionists essentially operate in dispersed guerilla bands employing disruptive hit-and-run tactics. They do not have any chance of wresting strategic initiative (which is entirely with the State) so their offensives are limited to seizing tactical initiatives when the opportunity presents itself: plant an IED here, attack a police outpost there etc. The rest of the time they win merely by surviving. Here they rely on the belief that the State lacks the political will to go after them in unfamiliar, remote hideouts and exterminate them, because the State does not believe that losses to government troops or collateral damage to innocents will be worth it. I would say 90% or more of Insurrectionists in the world operate at Phase I; from our own Northeast, J&K and Maoist groups to the ETA, FARC, Shining Path, FALN etc. all over the world.

Phase II is quite different, and this is where ISIS is operating now. This occurs when the State has only a tenuous grasp on governance/infrastructure/security and has lost, or is vulnerable to losing, the confidence of a large mass of people. When an Insurrectionist group smells the blood, it goes in for the kill by seizing the strategic initiative. It is no longer dispersed, but very much consolidated as it embarks on a strategic offensive. You can't be dispersed and follow hit-and-run tactics if you're besieging cities, marching on the capital and dominating arterial infrastructure. In Phase II the Insurrectionist group behaves very much like a regular army (though it moves faster for lack of bureaucracy, and also depends very much on sustaining a momentum of serial victories in order to maintain discipline). This is typically seen in the final moments of regimes against which insurrectionist groups were arrayed: Mao's PLA marching on Beiping in 1948-49, Castro's Libradores rolling into Havana on commandeered Sherman tanks 10 years later, Taliban fanning out across Afghanistan in 1996.

In Phase II the Insurrectionist group is very much vulnerable to air attack and concentrated firepower, just as a regular land force is. They have heavy equipment, captured tanks and artillery pieces; they have logistical tails to worry about; and they have to (at least temporarily) ditch cover and fight in the open, on terrain where they don't have the advantage of intimate familiarity. This is where a functional Iraqi Air Force, had it existed, would have found the opportunity to crush the ISIS. So many things to hit from the air as the jihadis march in the open, carrying crucial supplies behind them.

Even if the IQAF had a squadron of F-16s, they could have restrained the advance and made serious dents in the ISIS' numbers and morale. But as Nagesh ji writes they have only ONE F-16. So the US' claim to have "sold F-16D Block 52" aircraft is worth absolutely nothing. Did anybody seriously think ISIS types were going to wait around while an Iraqi Air Force was slowly cobbled together at MMS speed? Frankly, the entire decimation of Iraq's security armature has been preposterous. Compare the situation in which the US left South Korea after withdrawing the majority of its troops in the 1960s, or Taiwan after the communist takeover of the mainland... those nations were given more than sufficient capacity to defend themselves against known threats.

Even if the US didn't have that level of resources to commit to the post-withdrawal defence of Iraq and Afghanistan, there were many effective steps they could have taken. The Iraqi Army and Iraqi Air Force could have been reconstituted after purging the top leadership of hardline Saddam loyalists... as institutions, they had defended the country for decades and had the expertise, background and commitment to do it. Note that even the much-demonized Khomeini freed pilots of the Shah's air force from jail and reinstated them in their cockpits to counter Saddam's air raids in the Iran-Iraq war. By contrast, under Bush's viceroy Paul Bremmer, the US followed a deliberate policy of completely shutting down the Iraqi army and air force, with NO attempt to reconstitute them or leverage their human resources. Lakhs of willing, capable officers and soldiers were suddenly told they had no jobs and no way to feed their families. Unsurprisingly, most of them either turned to organized crime or joined militant groups, adding to the troubles of both the US occupation army and the new Iraqi government.

So this business about "selling F-16D Block 52s" is just for show (and to fatten up Lockheed Martin's GOTUS contract account). It's already proven 100% useless when needed. It's more important to consider the more commonsensical, less expensive things that were NOT done. The urgent refurbishing of even Soviet-era Floggers and Flankers, and consolidating a force of career servicemen to fly and maintain them, would have been enough to deter Phase II ops by the likes of ISIS.

What we will soon see, instead, is ISIS moving to Phase III: the establishment by an insurrectionist group of a para-state with its own administration. As with Dudayev in Chechnya, Pirabhakaran in Jaffna, and even Baitullah Meshud in Swat for a while. This changes the State vs. Insurrectionist equation once again. The Insurrectionists now have to hold AND govern territory, trying to win (by fear or favour) the confidence of the mass population that was once reposed in the State. This, typically, is where many Insurrectionists falter: they no longer have the freedom to pick and choose tactical opportunities as in Phase I, and they can't focus all their resources onto a single strategic initiative as in Phase II, but are stuck halfway to becoming a real nation-state with all the distractions of that undertaking.

Accordingly, since the 1979 Iranian revolution I don't think there's been a single case of insurgency successfully winning total control of a nation state by effectively destabilizing the regime and holding on to power on a national level. It remains to be seen whether ISIS can actually achieve this.

***

Nagesh ji, unlike the $hitish for example, Saddam was actually quite egalitarian and merit-based in determining the composition of his armed forces officer cadre. Yes, some units of the elite Republican Guard were composed nearly exclusively of not only Sunni arabs but people of his Tikriti tribe... they were his "insurance" against a coup d'etat from the ranks. But on the whole, he did not do the $hitish thing of elevating favoured "martial races" and discriminating against others. There were Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and even Christians holding high office in his government and military.

That said, I don't think there's much hope of reconstituting a "last minute Air Force" quickly enough to fight off ISIS advances towards Baghdad. The Iraqis are going to have to rely on either the Americans or the Iranians (I believe there are already Iranian units fighting against ISIS in norther Iraq) for that sort of help.

***

Symontk ji, I have my doubts. No Insurrectionist group in its right mind is going to vacate oil-rich Northern Iraq in lieu of occupying relatively useless territory in Syria (that can always be done using Northern Iraq as a base for attritive warfare, FATA style, but it isn't going to be at the cost of the big prize). From the US/KSA/GCC point of view, the whole exercise of destabilizing Assad was directed at preventing the construction of an Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline that would rival the planned South Pars-GCC-Turkey pipeline as a conduit for energy to the EU market. If ISIS takes control of much of Iraq, the pipeline is scuttled anyway, and deposing Assad becomes a sideshow.

[disha]

So the simplest explanation is that Sunni-ISIS is supported by USA/KSA/Pakistan against Shia-Iranian interests in the region.

And with a blowback clause.

[UlanBatori]

Abu Bakr ul Bag-Daddy.
If they had tried they couldn't have come up with more phony name. Even I could do better.

[Kakkaji]

How is the C-inC (BO) going to explain to the public that half of Eyerak, 2 b precije the oil-generating half, is now under the Al Qaeda, while the Free World is firmly holding on to the useless deserts?

UBji:

I think most of the oil in Iraq is in the Shia and Kurdish parts. It is the Sunni area that is the useless, baking desert.

[Hari Seldon]

^ yeah, but its mosul, capital of kurdish region that fell to isis, no?

[chetak]

How is the C-inC (BO) going to explain to the public that half of Eyerak, 2 b precije the oil-generating half, is now under the Al Qaeda, while the Free World is firmly holding on to the useless deserts?

UBji:

I think most of the oil in Iraq is in the Shia and Kurdish parts. It is the Sunni area that is the useless, baking desert.

May be for the first time the kurds are in control of their own oil.

Amrekis are freaked. loss of control over the oil.

get out of afghanistan and get back directly into eyraq again?? good going obama.

[Shanmukh]

^ yeah, but its mosul, capital of kurdish region that fell to isis, no?

Ehh - no, Hari-ji. The capital of Iraqi Kurdistan is Irbil. Mosul is a mixed city, on the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. It has Kurds, Sunnis and even a decent number of Christians (including EJs - now that is a thought). There are also a bunch of Yezidis (these follow a Zoroastrian related religion). But on the whole, it is a Sunni majority city, I think, but there are a significant number of Kurds. It is the poor Assyrians, native Christians, and most importantly, the Yezidis, whose fates worry me. The rest - pfeh. They can take care of themselves.

[Shanmukh]

UBji:

I think most of the oil in Iraq is in the Shia and Kurdish parts. It is the Sunni area that is the useless, baking desert.

I think you are right, Kakkaji. The biggest oil fields are in the south in hardcore Shia territory, and the ISIS is nowhere close to them. The other big oilfield is near Kirkuk, well within the Kurdish territory.

Here is an article that describes the current situation, and what could happen if the conflict spreads.

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/12/5805282/th ... oil-supply

[Prem]

delete

[KLNMurthy]

...

Accordingly, since the 1979 Iranian revolution I don't think there's been a single case of insurgency successfully winning total control of a nation state by effectively destabilizing the regime and holding on to power on a national level. It remains to be seen whether ISIS can actually achieve
...

Outstanding exposition.

This may be OT but with regard to insurrectionists forming a state post-1979, what about Eritrea, South Sudan, East Timor, kosovo, even Nepal?

[habal]

remember Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri, Saddam's right hand man and fellow tikriti who is still missing. Apparently holed up inside some Qatari hospital he requires blood transfusion every 6 months since he suffers from leukemia. No wonder he is left alone and never caught, because he is in the Saudi/Qatari/NATO camp and may also be closer to Saudi royalty since he was interlocutor with them on behalf of Saddam. He was in charge of the Republican Guards. Now read this.

"The three generals who Nouri al-Maliki (the Iraqi prime minister) had put in charge of Mosul had served under Saddam Hussein. So it is normal that they would not want to fight against Sunni Ba'athists there," he said.

When jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) stormed Mosul last week, they met almost no resistance.
- See more at: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/mi ... cmx8o.dpuf

IIAD also leads this group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_th ... andi_Order comprising of mostly Sunni ex Iraqi Army types. Saudi/NATO have used IIAD's contacts with these old ex-Iraqi army types to sway their loyalties. So what has happened is that this is an Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) + ex-Iraqi Army Sunni operation. These men may well have not crossed any borders and were present in Iraq itself, and they are gaining easy victories on account of Shia-Sunni split in Iraqi army engineered through the good offices of IIAD.

In Mosul, ISIS was quickly joined by the Naqshabandi army, Islamist fighters believed to be former Iraqi army officers who served under Saddam Hussein.

- See more at: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/mi ... cmx8o.dpuf

&

Cpl Naser said he saw Generals Ghraidan and Gamber escape. "I watched them change into civilian clothing and get into a civilian car and be driven away," he said.

Some former officers even joined the insurgents, according to one army officer from Mosul who has fled to Doha. Asking for his name to be withheld, he said he had seen his former commanding officer in Mosul on a television news report, introducing himself as a member of ISIS.

All three deserters admitted to leaving their posts "without firing a single shot". The closest they came to insurgent fighters was within about 30 miles.

While unclear how many Iraqi soldiers have deserted their posts in recent weeks, the figures are likely to run into the tens of thousands.

In Kirkuk, previously a city heavily defended by the Iraqi military, not a single Iraqi army soldier was to be found.

[UlanBatori]

Warning: horrible images

Iraq crisis: ISIS battles for Baghdad - live

[Agnimitra]

Earlier this year, in January, Iran came out with its human rights report on the US in 2013.

Full Farsi text here

Full English version available here (PDF)

Given the abused of subversive NGO's heavily funded by the US - some of which have been actively spreading propaganda about "slavery" in India among other things, it would be interesting if India joins up with several developing nations such as BRICS, etc. to come out with human rights reports on certain countries including the US.

[Jarita]

This is creepy

I never trusted a polygraph again': Hillary Clinton LAUGHS in 30-year-old interview as she recalls how she helped a suspected child rapist walk free after the prosecution lost crucial evidence

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z34oHOsJNx
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[schinnas]

A while ago I speculated that there is a possibility for civilizational bond between Americans and Indians based on shared civilizational values which needs to be nurtured. I contended that the Dharmic paths of Hinduism and Buddhism that put salvation an individual pursuit giving full freedom and control to individuals are more in tune with the fundamantal civilizational values of US which places emphasis on search for Truth and purpose and individual freedom and liberty. I also said that the guilt inducing mores of Abrahamic religions were not consistent with cultural values of US which derive from Greeks and US founding fathers.

I was ridiculed even though Indian concepts such as Karma and re-birth are now accepted by either a majority of or a sizeable percentage (ex: > 33%) of Americans.

Hinduism and Buddhism are the second most popular religion in 15 states. This is remarkable because unlike Islam, it is through educated adoption of these Dharmic paths by educated Americans. Islam is the fastest growing religion in US but that is primarily due to immigration from Africa and middle east and high rate of breeding. The converts to islam are primarily from under-educated black community and amongst prisoners who view embracing islam as a rebellion against Christian white. Buddhism and Hinduism on the other hand are capturing the imagination of educated spiritually inclined Americans even though they dont have the notion of conversion. We should encourage this trend and form a good cultural exchange with this section of US population.

There is significant opportunity to increase high quality, affordable Buddist tourism in India along with extended stays in Ashrams and monasteries. So far it has been happening with little to no support from government, but I hope Government can be more active in this respect. The Americans inspired by Dharmic paths are among the forefront in fighting prejudice and ignorance prevalent in US against pagan yindoos.



And proof that high following for Hinduism in some states is not due to immigration of Indians:

[Prem]

'Soft' Power and the Failure of U.S. Foreign Policy

http://www.thestreet.com/story/12744860 ... olicy.html

Soft' Power and the Failure of U.S. Foreign Policy
BY Peter Morici |

Russia is pushing into the Ukraine and threatening Eastern Europe; China is bullying Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in the East and South China seas; and terrorist groups in the Middle East and Africa are displaced in one place, only to multiply and create more lethal threats in others. Since the end of the Cold War, both Democratic and Republican administrations have in varying measure premised policy on the notion that economic incentives and other soft power can cultivate peaceable democracies throughout the world and friendly societies adhering to Western liberal values.The U.S. and Western Europe have offered China, Russia and developing countries access to markets, investment, foreign aid and technical cooperation, but in many places, those have yielded few results other than to finance threats to our common security. China remains an authoritarian regime led by an oligarchy -- the Communist Party -- with a poor human rights record. Its superior economic performance, greatly assisted by trade with the U.S., and the material gains enjoyed by its citizens virtually ensure the party's continued grip on power. Beijing, however, sees American influence in the western Pacific as a threat and is actively challenging U.S. naval superiority. Russia President Vladimir Putin and his loose coalition of oligarchs appear to be more interested in restoring a lost empire and amassing wealth at the top than genuinely improving the lot of ordinary citizens. They are happy to sell natural gas to Europe to finance those ambitions, but don't count on international commerce to make Russia a benign actor. If the U.S. doesn't match China's navy and Russia's army with resources and forceful actions when challenged, those rivals will prevail in their regional ambitions. Still President Obama is correct to warn flexing military muscle is not a stabilizing solution everywhere, especially the Middle East and Africa.
Perhaps Iraq best epitomizes the dilemmas terrorism poses. If the U.S. provides air support or puts troops on the ground to defend Bagdad, it may halt the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, but it can't defeat it. The ISIS is a curious hybrid of a terror organization and a brutal organized army that can hold territory and potentially topple a government, but does not regularly mass forces that can be destroyed in the field by a Western army. If stymied, its fighters will simply move to other conflicts, like the civil war in Syria. Western democracies long ago assigned religion a subordinate role. The state claims sovereignty from citizen consent, not by appealing to divine right. For many Muslims, religion and state legitimacy are inseparable, and throughout the Middle East and Africa, many are willing to die to destroy democratic governments that could subordinate the authority of Islam to secular governments. Radical Islam is premised on widely held ideas, and ideas are tough to destroy with armies. In the end, the U.S. must recognize it is in for a long slog fighting terrorism in the Middle East and Africa. No amount of national building and economic aid will change that, but sometimes it can make matters worse. Sadly, armies and navies still trump economics. Americans will have to pay the price or face menacing threats to their security at home and interests abroad

[Cosmo_R]

UBji:

I think most of the oil in Iraq is in the Shia and Kurdish parts. It is the Sunni area that is the useless, baking desert.

You are right. The Sunnis get the desert and the Kurds and the Shias get the oil. Suspect the Sunnis are going to wind up in an enclave contiguous to KSA.

[gandharva]

UBji:

I think most of the oil in Iraq is in the Shia and Kurdish parts. It is the Sunni area that is the useless, baking desert.

You are right. The Sunnis get the desert and the Kurds and the Shias get the oil. Suspect the Sunnis are going to wind up in an enclave contiguous to KSA.

Even in Saudi Arabia oil is in southern part where Shia's outnumber Sunnis.

[Cosmo_R]

@Jhujar ^^^: from your quoted text:

"Radical Islam is premised on widely held ideas".

Poor choice of words. Islamic ideas are not widely held meaning they are embraced by a plurality. Islam has a ~20% share of the market for religion globally and widely dispersed.

The real failure of US foreign policy has been in its contradictions.

"He's an SOB but our "SOB" (59 dictators spanning the alphabet from A to Z)

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/AlphaD.html

There are many takers for the 'A'--name your own.

The true failure is in the enunciation of universal values selectively applied for political expediency.

But then that's DC for you. And that applies universally.

[Prem]

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/l ... s-pakistan
the-republican-party-as-pakistan

( IFF for both Friends and Foes , Tea Part= Talibans, Repubs as Pakistan , Shaeds of Indian Congi, Dhongi, NGOngi)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-Va.) spectacular primary trouncing last week by a rival who hailed from a place no one had thought to exist — viz., Cantor's right — made for high drama even by Washington standards. For those who know places beyond American shores, however, Cantor's fate likely brought little surprise. It is just one more instance of that "blowback" which seems to burn all who exploit atavistic passions in pursuit of immediate political gains.
The most familiar recent example of this phenomenon probably is Pakistan, with which many Americans have become more familiar since 2001 than most were before then. Although its executive leadership, often supplied by the military, turned over with sometimes surprising suddenness during its first 50 years as a nation, Pakistan until recently had a more or less stable state structure and was on a trajectory toward more or less stable democracy. Its deep pool of first-rate, often British-trained lawyers and judges, committed as they were both to Pakistan's constitution and to the rule of law, played a critical role in this healthy development. During the later 20th and early 21st centuries, however, Pakistan's intelligence services became more and more involved with long-bearded, traditionally clad right-wing extremists in the nation's hinterlands and in neighboring Afghanistan. In time, it helped arm these elements, permitted them to establish and operate indoctrination schools and training camps on Pakistani soil, and ultimately played a critical role in organizing them into that political movement which we now know as the Taliban.
This cynical exploitation of violent back-country traditionalists whose ideological commitments they did not actually share seemed initially to constitute good strategy in the eyes of Pakistani officials. It supplied them with a reliable stock of impassioned insurgents and "shock troops," whom they could deploy against rival India in ongoing competition over Kashmir and other disputed territories.
The problem, however, is that once you stoke these sorts of passions, and once you provide those who act on them with the one thing they've typically, and thankfully, lacked in the past — organizational infrastructure and advanced technologies — it takes little time for them ultimately to reach back and bite the same hands that have nurtured them. For they invariably learn that their "handlers" do not really share the same putatively "traditional" values as prompt their own passions.This is of course precisely what has happened to Pakistan over the past decade or so, as its own creations increasingly have come to direct their energies against Pakistan itself. Things have now reached the point that nuclear-armed Pakistan is actually faced with the distressing prospect of becoming a "failed state" lacking in any effective central governance. Entire territorial swathes of the nation are now governed, not by the Pakistani government, but by self-appointed shadow states.Now consider today's Republican Party here at home. but of former Reps. Bob Barr (Ga.) and Newt Gingrich (Ga.) — and began characterizing their president from the other party not as their president from the other party, but as some sort of "Great Satan" to be demonized, hounded and "investigated" throughout his tenure. These parvenus even shut down the government, briefly, in 1995. And their new organ of ideological propagation, Fox News, celebrated and cried out for more such moves as the decade progressed, as did a surprising number of self-styled "Christian" radio networks.. But there was much worse to come.As the 2010 midterm elections approached, operatives who had been instrumental in changes to Republican tactics in the late 1990s and early 2000s — not to mention in organizing "flash mobs" who attacked polling stations during the 2000 Florida ballot recount — began funding and organizing frightened provincials into hysterical, sometimes even armed groups of self-styled "traditionalists." Many of these people wore 18th-century knee breaches and tricorn hats, all while purporting to wish to "restore" the Constitution notwithstanding their complete ignorance of the document's contents or court-derived legal consequences. More and more Republican politicians pandered to these self-styled throwbacks even as more and more frightened rural Americans joined them, with the ultimate result that the House reverted to Republican — but now much more reactionary Republican — rule in 2011.

Thereupon Cantor and his associates were off to the proverbial races. They converted the House into little more than an administration-harassing, recovery-preventing, and even would-be bankruptcy-inducing device that went so far as to threaten default on the U.S. national debt. This they did all while daily repeating empty and seditious Fox News and "Tea Party" slogans to the effect that our now twice-elected president is somehow simultaneously "weak" and "a king," "socialist" and "secretly Muslim."Against such a backdrop, is it any wonder that armed groups of "traditionalist" cattle ranchers who deny U.S. sovereignty now occupy federal lands in the U.S. southwest, rather as self-styled traditionalists who deny Pakistani sovereignty now occupy Pakistan's northwest? And is it any wonder that Cantor, who has done more than any member of Congress to bestow mainstream credibility upon Tea Party extremism, now is brought low by that movement itself?We must all now hope that Republicans draw the right lesson from Cantor's pitiable fate. The right lesson is that the American way is not that of Pervez Musharraf, but that of Atticus Finch

[ramana]

Mixed up metaphors. The Tea Party is still a democratic entity still beliveing in elections. The terrorists nurtured by TSP are murderers.

So Cantor is no Mushy.


he may gloat at Cantor's loss but he should not make wrong comparisons which reduce the severity of the TSP perfidy.
Instead of all the pretzel logic to bring in TSP and its terrorists, why not just stick to schadenfrude at Cantor's loss.

And to think he teaches at Cornell Law School!!!!

I would dismiss him with costs for making wrong arguments.

[CRamS]

RamanaGaru,

I'll delete this mail soon after you acknowledge, but could you kindly send me an e-mail at: .....