panduranghari wrote:
Will Trump be as bad as Nixon? Nixon was probably the worse one out there, wont you agree? Trump can be as bad but I do not know at the moment he will be. And neither do you.
Panduranghari ji,
I am not sure what your argument is here. You are arbitrarily saying Nixon was the "worse one out there"... do you mean that Nixon is some eternal low-water mark, and no US president could ever be worse for India than him? I see this as a rhetorical assertion at best, because it is not only of questionable relevance in the present day, but completely impossible to validate one way or the other. The world and India are both different now than at Nixon's time, so with what yardstick will you measure whether Trump is "worse than" Nixon? And even if Trump cannot be conclusively described as "worse" than Nixon, does that mean India should not be wary of Trump?
Worse than Nixon or better than Nixon, worse than Hillary or better than Hillary, doesn't matter... what seems pretty clear is that Trump will be much worse than Obama. That is all that matters for India... the expected trend in US-India relations is downward, possibly dramatically downward. Exactly how much worse, we will find out.
And what signals have been given? What makes you believe Mattis is Pak pasand? I have not yet encountered anything which suggests this. Please do post some information that you have that could prove this.
Originally posted by Brar_W
https://youtu.be/SCD5zHBNWG8
Watch Mattis' answer to the Pakistani journalist at 54:00
-He praises Pakistan Army to the skies for their role in the war in Afghanistan.
-He advances Pakistani propaganda ("more Paki soldiers than NATO soldiers have given their lives in the war on terror"). He does this in a public forum, the Heritage Foundation, giving Paki propaganda the weight of his authority. This is in 2014, LONG after the truth about Pakistan's duplicity in backing the Taliban and Haqqani Network had been publicly revealed, and after the OBL strike in Abbotabad had occurred.
-He applauds the election of Ashraf Ghani, who had newly come to power at the time of this lecture, as someone who will "finally be willing to work with" Pakistan. This needs to be understood in light of Paki propaganda to the effect that Hamid Karzai's alleged intransigence was the chief problem standing in the way of resolving Af-Pak. The American godfathers of Pakistan strongly favoured Ghani to replace Karzai, because they assumed that he would be amenable to a pro-Pakistan dispensation in Afghanistan following the US withdrawal.
Mattis' attitude in this matter makes it clear enough that he is one of these godfathers... or at any rate, a willing conduit of the political attitude cultivated by Pakistani propaganda regarding Karzai and Ghani.
-On intervening in negotiations between Pakistan and India, Mattis virtually suggests US help to mediate on Sir Creek and "the glacier" (i.e. Siachen). He says Kashmir would be too much for the US to try to mediate, but he departs radically from the Obama administration policy in even mentioning these two other border conflicts. Needless to say, India has never countenanced and would never tolerate third-party foreign intervention in ANY India-Pakistan border dispute.
It is highly noteworthy here that Sir Creek and Siachen were part of a formula, advanced by the George W Bush administration, as a basis for the "talks" which they pressurized the MMS government to hold with Musharraf. Once Obama came in, all these formulae melted away and the pressure on New Delhi to talk to Islamabad decreased. However, the very fact that Mattis revisits Sir Creek and Siachen as potential issues of US mediation shows that he was far more Pak-pasand than anyone else in the Obama administration at the time.
(OT: By the way, can we also admit that David Coleman Headley's anti-India terrorist activities took place 100% during the Republican George W Bush era? Yes, the Obama administration denied the GOI unlimited access to Headley, but which offense was worse? Denying us unlimited access after putting Headley in jail for life, or allowing/facilitating Headley to set up the 26/11 attack under cover of working as a DEA operative? Just saying. /OT)
-Finally, Agnimitra ji has reported:
viewtopic.php?p=2083045#p2083045
Agnimitra wrote:GShankar wrote:Any insights on what are sec. Mattis' opinions on pakis?
At least on one occasion, he declared that the Pakis were innocent of Osama's presence in Abbotabad.
I will let you ask him directly for links to his sources, but given his stature on the forum, Agnimitra ji is a credible enough source for me!
If that's not enough here is another article detailing the cosy relationship between Mattis and the TSPA/ISI jernails:
http://thewire.in/84193/trump-defence-s ... -pakistan/
Other signals?
A_Gupta ji, earlier in this thread, has linked the NBC "Meet The Press" transcript where Mike Pence doubles down on Trump's offer to "mediate" in Kashmir.
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/m ... 16-n691726
This is further corroborated in the Washington Post report linked by Prem ji:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor ... 11287b1af5
And finally Paul Manafort, a paid lobbyist for Pakistan's ISI, who was involved with the Ghulam Nabi Fai-led Kashmiri separatist propaganda effort, is now in a position of influence over Trump's transition team once again.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/politics/ ... ransition/
All of this is more than enough for me to believe that Trump administration will be highly pro-Pakistan, and by extension anti-India in nature. Comparisons to Nixon, as I said, are meaningless.