Managing Pakistan's failure

[Hari Seldon]

great job, ramay garu ji.

[Haresh]

Fitzgerald: What To Do About Pakistan's "Mistrust"

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/fitzg ... .html#more



Another day, another Donors' Conference, in downtown Kabul. Again, it will be the non-Muslim nations who will commit, and actually deliver, still more tens of billions to a place, Afghanistan, that was never a nation but always a collection of warring tribes - and even warring families, and individuals. Afghanistan is of no real consequence except as a land area where, for a time, the Taliban who were raised up and put in place by Pakistan, then gave refuge and succor to Al Qaeda. Because we are run by people who cannot think clearly, the idea seems to be that we are to spend tens of billions of dollars in this particular place, even though by now at least three things are clear.

To wit:

1) The government of Hamid Karzai, at every level, is hopelessly corrupt, and this corruption inflames the populace, and causes more to support the Taliban they once had grown to despise. But the corruption occurs because there is now something to be corrupt about - the very money that flows in from donor nations that do not know how to tell the Americans no, do not know how to analyze the situation correctly, and feel as though, if they did not send troops, or are refusing to send more troops, or are intending to withdraw the troops they have, then the least they can is send a few hundred million or a billion. It's madness. It makes no sense. Were no money to come from the outside, Karzai and Karzai's brother and all the other warlords would be disappointed, but at least the spectacle of their corruption - they would now have so little to be corrupt about - would be over, and the Taliban could not use that as a rallying cry.

2) There is no winning of Afghan hearts and minds. They are Muslims and we are Infidels. A handful of people may wish to cooperate with us, may sense that we wish them well, and are far more to be trusted than the sinister Pakistanis, but these people cannot possibly influence the mass of primitive Muslims who will always see us as what, in fact, we are - Infidels. That puts a limit, a very low limit, on any collaboration beyond temporary overlaps of self-interest. Money will not do it.

3) We must come to understand that what keeps Afghans economically down is a combination of things that all come from Islam - the habit of mental submission, the habit or duty of submission to authority, if that authority is Muslim; the hatred of Bid'a or innovation, the deep inshallah-fatalism; the insistence that women are an inferior species and must remain uneducated and be kept down; the deep belief that Muslim and Infidel can never be friends, that Muslims have a duty only to other Muslims, and cannot possibly be loyal to Infidels; and the deep belief that Muslims have a duty, the one that gives most meaning to their lives: to support, to defend, to protect, to lie for, and to tear down all obstacles that stand in the way of, Islam and the spread of Islam and the dominance of Islam.

But let's return to the country that matters more than Afghanistan, and that is Pakistan. Just this week, Hillary Clinton was visiting. She was there, the State Department trumpeted, to announce a "massive" package of aid, of very kind, at every level, from water treatment and supply plants, to projects to improve the Port of Karachi. Why, the Pakistanis needn't worry about all their problems, or about the diversion of billions to all kinds of other causes -- including that of producing the nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them - because the Americans were not content with having spent the last day or two, before the comic farce in Kabul opens and more billions are handed over from the Infidels to the Muslims, and went back to neighboring Pakistan.

And what was the purpose of Hillary Clinton's visit? Oh, it was to try to do things that would "minimize the mistrust." Which "mistrust" is that, you ask? Is it, by any chance, the mistrust that has formed in the minds of every sane American, at every level, of Pakistan's reliability as a "staunch ally" of the U.S.? Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Hillary Clinton has announced another half-billion dollars in aid in order, so we are told, to offer tangible evidence of our friendship -- apparently the last $30 billion, since 9/11/2001, has not been enough -- and, above all, to "overcome Pakistani mistrust" of the United States. It is we who have every reason to mistrust meretricious Pakistan, that has been leading on, inveigling, fooling, diddling the American government for the past fifty years.

But it is we -- you and I -- who are now contributing still more money so as to "overcome Pakistani mistrust." And, not incidentally, to relieve the rich Arabs -- Saudi Arabia in the lead -- of any requirement that they contribute to the wellbeing of fellow members of the Umma. Oh no, that's always and everywhere a task for Infidels, no matter how many trillions the Saudis and other rich Arabs pile up, and pile up, and pile up. It wouldn't do to have them share the wealth with Pakistan or other Muslims. That's a task for the Infidels, that's a task that calls for more and ever more Jizyah, pocketed without gratitude and a sense of entitlement beyond anything non-Muslims can possibly understand, and a craven willingness to give and keep on giving, that should be beyond anything non-Muslims should possibly tolerate.

But our ill-prepared rulers, who may have forgotten that among the responsibilities of rule is that of thoroughly informing themselves of what they need to know, nonetheless have never forgotten how to give away, almost on whim it sometimes seems, huge sums. $440 million here, to Mahmoud Abbas, pour ses beaux yeux, and now something more for Hamid Karzai, and of course how could we overlook Pakistan, whose government and people, it seems, mistrust us. And what better way to overcome that mistrust than to give Pakistan still more aid, aid that the papers described as "massive"?

It's fun to give away large sums. You feel important. You feel you've done good. You sometimes earn, if not any gratitude for the American people (the ones footing the bill) at least some gratitude toward you and your family. And that kind of thing can come in handy: how many countries helped contribute to Bill Clinton's accumulation of more than one hundred million dollars since leaving office? And even if Kuwait did not receive economic aid, Kuwaiti gratitude for the Gulf War's outcome was expressed later on, with million-dollar fees to George Bush, Sr. for a short lecture. It's fun to give away money, and if you don't have a carefully wrought and clever policy, then giving money away is the next best thing. Why, the American government has been giving vast sums away for more than sixty years. For some - for the countries of Western Europe and for Israel - this money has gone to organic allies, unshakable members of the West whose loyalty is not being bought because it need not be bought, it is already there. And there are some impoverished countries or peoples who do express gratitude to the Americans. But no Muslim country or people have demonstrated any gratitude to any Infidel donors. They take, as by right, whatever they can get, and keep trying to inveigle the Infidels into giving some more.

And one way to get more is to be displeased with what you have been given so far. Pakistan has no cause, and no right, to "mistrust" the American government. But the natural enmity, at times rising to hysterical hatred, felt for Infidels, as exhibited in Pakistan, is presented not as a result of Islam - no, Islam shall be the Great Unmentionable whenever Americans in high office worry about the attitude of Pakistanis - but as simply a result of American mishandling of this or that situation.

And thus it is, nearly a decade after the most fantastic, and fantastically heedless, transfer of American wealth to Muslim states and peoples, to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Pakistan, to Egypt, to Jordan, to the "Palestinians," nowhere in any of those countries can one find the slightest gratitude, or friendship, or anything like those feelings that we think we have a right to expect, because we keep applying understandings that have no application to the closed mental world of Islam. This American and other Western aid made, and makes, no difference. Indeed, it is likely that the more they think they can count on such aid, and want to inveigle more, the more likely it is that they will show displeasure - for it is displeasure that causes us not to re-examine the whole policy of aid to "win Muslim hearts and minds" but, rather, to think we've done wrong, we must do right, and the way to do right is with some "massive" aid projects that will help the "ordinary Pakistanis." But the ordinary Pakistanis will never like us, not as long as Islam retains its hold upon their minds. You can be sure that the Christians in Pakistan do not hate or fear or mistrust the American government; they wish it well. They only wish that that government would come to their rescue, would force the Pakistani government not to join in the anti-Christian persecution by letting malefactors off, but actually protect the Christians (and Hindus) of Pakistan.

But to give away money is fun and feels good, because you are not wasting money but Doing Good, when you are the Secretary of State, or the President, and you are Doing That Good in the easiest possible way, with someone else's money - with that of the long-suffering taxpayers who have no say, who cannot make themselves heard, though one doubts that Americans wanted to spend tens of billions on "reconstruction" in Iraq (when Iraq has all the oil, and thus all the money, in the world, and if it doesn't have those trillions yet, it could certainly have borrowed against that future flow), and Afghanistan, and hopeless primitive meretricious Pakistan. And there may be just a little gratitude, from the rulers at the top, who are good at skimming a lot of that American aid off for themselves and their families. And so, at a later date, when you are out of office and need to make "real money," you may find that you, and your spouse, and even your children, will be especially welcomed by the elites - still in power of course, since they never leave - in the Muslim lands you so benefitted. And of course, you can always justify the money you handed over, and convince yourself - you don't take much convincing, that it was worth the effort, that effort to "win" Muslim hearts and minds" by what are essentially bribes.

But we already have the evidence. We already know, we should have learned a long time ago, what Pakistan is all about. Pakistan has been the favored Third-World recipient of American military aid for the past half-century. It started to receive this aid beginning in the mid-1950s as part of that ill-fated - some, less charitable, would call it farcical -- military "alliance," CENTO, which was supposed to block the Soviet Union to its south as NATO did in Europe. CENTO was a military alliance without any value to us, in which the Americans and British supplied all the money and all the military equipment, and such supposedly true-blue unshakable Islamic allies as Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan stood by. They were regarded as allies because the Dulles brothers, John Foster and Allen, had so often been told that "Islam is a bulwark against Communism" that they came to deeply believe it.

After Qassem's coup in Iraq, with the death of the Prince Regent, Faisal, and the murder and mutilation of "strong man" Nuri es-Said, Iraq left CENTO and it became clear that CENTO was worthless. But Pakistan never lost its most-favored-nation status in Pentagon eyes. Pakistani generals, with their studied expressions of deep sincerity, their fly-whisking pukka-sahib fake-Sandhurst manner, always impressed American generals, who knew no better. And what was still worse, the State Department proved a pushover -- not least, perhaps, because of the suspicion that Nehru and his Foreign Minister, Krishna Menon, with more than a hint of the Faiban Society and Victor Gollancz's New Left Book Club, were entirely too Marxist, and didn't those steel mills the Indian government let the Soviets build prove it?

Pakistan has been inveigling weapons and money out of the Americans ever since. So outrageous, however, was Pakistan's behavior, that those who had been following it closely -- including Senator John Glenn and Senator Larry Pressler -- finally passed the Pressler Amendment, designed to force the Executive Branch (including the Pentagon and the State Department), to start to make Pakistan observe its solemn commitments as to the use of American weaponry. The Pressler Amendment passed, but the Executive branch continued to do as before. And Pakistan's rulers, the military (with occasional zamindars allowed to pretend to govern), continued to prepare for the One Cause That Mattered: aggression and war against India and Hindus.

We have all heard about General Zia ul-Haq. General ul-Haq is the man whom suave anglophone Pakistanis (and their children in private schools and universities in the West who have too often had such an influence on their impressionable roommates and classmates) always assure us was the one man responsible for bringing "fanaticism" to formerly nice, kind, peaceful, tolerant, Pakistan. This is utter nonsense, though no doubt found plausible by some of their unknowledgeable and unwary auditors. It's true, even among Pakistan's generals, that Zia ul-Haq was unusually fanatical, but fanaticism in Islamic Pakistan was always there, from the get-go. Even if Mohammad Ali Jinnah himself was not a fully observant Muslim (he drank wine, some say he even touched pork), Islam itself was never moderate, and that meant that the primitive Pakistani masses would always accept, and not veer from, Islam as we in the West have now come, haltingly and reluctantly, to understand. Their Islam was and is fanatical as all totalitarian Total Belief-Systems are fanatical. Since Pakistan was born as the "Land of the Pure," of, by, and for Muslims -- just look what happened to the Hindus who had been present at Partition, and what happens to the Christians now -- Zia ul-Haq was only an extreme example, one who hastened the madrasizaton of Pakistani education, such as it was.

But there are so many others. Who paid for the project, based on nuclear secrets stolen from Western labs by the thieving metallurgist A. Q. Khan, if not the Pakistani military? And where did they get the money? Well, directly or indirectly, the money came from American taxpayers, for it was our money that allowed the freeing up of other sums to be spent on special projects by Pakistan's military.

And A. Q. Khan did not limit himself to building, on the American dime, the "Islamic Bomb" that is the only thing in Pakistan that should matter to the American government - that is, who has possession of those bombs, and where they are stored, and whether they can be transferred, and what delivery systems the Pakistani military possesses or is developing. No, he also offered nuclear know-how, it appears, to North Korea, to Iran, and possibly to Libya. Which of those countries received his aid has not been made public, but it is known that offers were made. And what happened to A. Q. Khan? The answer is: He's a national hero. He's the Great Man of Pakistan, and the Americans have not been, despite endless entreaties - entreaties to those to whom they have given tens of billions of dollars - able to question A. Q. Khan. The Pakistani government gives him protection. The Pakistani public worships him. The only one who rivals A. Q. Khan in popularity is Aafia Siddiqui, the fanatical Muslimah who, after having been shown every kindness, having been admitted to MIT and then, for graduate work, to Brandeis (with generous scholarships at both places), became involved with Al Qaeda, and fled to Afghanistan, or Pakistan, where eventually the Americans found her. She, of course, has accused the Americans of torture, and has feigned innocence, and no matter what is carefully explained by the American authorities, it doesn't matter. Aafia Siddiqui is a heroine, a glorious example of how a Muslimah should treat the Infidels. By their National Heroes ye shall know them. In Pakistan, the National Heroes are A. Q. Khan and Aafia Siddiqui.

But none of this has stopped the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, from arriving in Islamabad on Sunday, and then on Monday proudly announcing all the "massive" new aid - part of the package of $7.5 billion that had been approved by Congress - that would now go to Pakistan. But why? The Pakistanis at this very moment are continuing to expand their nuclear arsenal. And that costs money. And they are demanding, and perhaps getting, new jet fighters from the Americans. And they continue to plan for war on India, their enemy - the word "hereditary enemy" might be tempting but even that would not adequately describe why India is the enemy. India is the enemy because India is largely Hindu, and India once was possessed by Muslims, and therefore should once again be possessed by them. It is not India that has been making war on Pakistan for the past fifty years, it is not India that has supported terrorist groups to set off bombs and to kill people all over Pakistan, but rather, Pakistan that has allowed to flourish, and its military even encouraged as a useful adjunct to its own anti-India campaign, all sorts of terrorist groups. Just yesterday an Indian minister announced that the terrorist attack in Mumbai had, from first to last, been under the control of Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Unit, or I.S.I.

But we are supposed to worry, while the Pakistanis keep us away from A. Q. Khan, and while they make a Pakistani Idol out of Aafia Siddiqui, and while their press continues to be full of the most astounding and absurd charges against the Americans, and while the I.S.I. continues to support the Taliban, save perhaps in one or two places - as Swat - where it seems that the economic interests of the zamindars and the generals are threatened. But there is no indignation, moral or otherwise, against Al Qaeda or against the Taliban when they stick to attacking Americans or other Infidels. There cannot be. Pakistan is Muslim; its people, or the people who count, are Muslim. The non-Muslims are non-persons, who can be used, as child labor (weaving rugs), as domestics who can be cruelly exploited, as the poorest of the poor, but who cannot be treated as citizens equal to Muslims. That would be impossible. And it would be impossible, too, for Pakistan's government to protect Christians and Hindus from Muslim wrath, from trumped-up charges, from extrajudicial killings by Muslims putting the Shari'a into practice on their own, or policemen determined to see Shari'a, not secular, justice done.

So here we are. It is Pakistan that "mistrusts" us. It is Pakistan that must yet again be given billions. Why? Because those who rule over us cannot do otherwise. They are not clever, they are not cunning, they lack the imagination to figure out what Islam means, and how to best weaken the Camp of Islam. They are going to try the mixture as before: handouts to Muslim states, which will become indefinite, a kind of Jizyah that the Americans do not dare end for fear of the reaction of the Muslim recipients.

That's where we are in the pitiful history of American efforts to deal with Pakistan. So as better to deal with Afghanistan. So as to keep this group in power. Yet they are far less significant, in the Muslim scheme of things, than they seem to be, with the dozens of terrorist groups that exist, and with the many other instruments, aside from terrorism and combat, or qitaal, through which Muslims worldwide are pursuing the struggle, or Jihad, to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam.

And we are funding them. And it has apparently not occurred to anyone in high office that we should demand that Pakistan apply for aid not from us, but from the fabulously rich fellow Muslims, that is the Arabs of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, U.A.E., Qatar, and so on. Where is the solidarity of the Umma? And since the Arabs will never come through as the endlessly generous and gullible Americans and Europeans do, the only result will be resentment, building in Pakistan, at those Arabs, and the theme may be introduced that is badly in need of introduction. To wit, that the Arabs see themselves as clearly superior to non-Arabs, and Islam itself, the realization may start to dawn if we help, just a little, to talk about it amongst ourselves, and let ourselves be overheard, that Islam has been, is, and always will be a vehicle for Arab supremacism.

And with that, possibly the Pakistanis, who won't stop for a minute "mistrusting" us until such time as the hold of Islam upon the minds of Pakistanis lessens, may at long last start to "mistrust" us less, and then Arabs who use Islam for their own purposes, a bit more.

Wouldn't that be good?

Wouldn't that save hundreds of billions or even trillions?

Isn't it, really, the only way to stop the endless squandering that has defined our policy toward Muslim states and peoples, based on ignorance and vain hopes, up to now?

If you understand Islam, and you wish Muslims well, what is it you wish for them if not to break the hold that this Total Belief-System has on so many of them? Does it make sense for Infidels to give money to support Muslim peoples and states, so that they will continue to hobble along, with Islam unweakened, but the West economically weakened by such endless aid, and such crazed attention to a problem -- the Jihad -- that requires other means, other ways to check the forces of Jihad in the countries of Western Europe, imperilled by an ideological assault, by the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest?

Given the fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan -- do we still need to wait to use that term? -- isn't what I suggest worth at least a try?
Posted by Hugh on July 20, 2010

[RamaY]

Thank you RajeshA, Ramana, Manishw, Atri, Hari Seldon garus for the kind words and encouragement.

Ramanaji - Will take your suggestion and start a blog. RahulM-ji too suggested it long ago!

[neeraj]

Moving beyond the Indo-Pak 'peace talks'

In particular, Pakistan is a State owned by an army, and the army would have no reason to exist if peace were, by some miracle, to break out with India. Survival instinct alone, therefore, suggests that the Pakistani army could not possibly afford peace. After all, the continuous state of covert war sustains a very comfortable living for the generals -- a story in the New York Times on July 19 talked about how parts of Islamabad look like a tidy, affluent Los Angeles suburb.

....There are those in India who say that a 'stable, prosperous' Pakistan is in India's best interests. Hardly. On the contrary, a weak, balkanised Pakistan is.

[brihaspati]

RamaY ji,
can you please put it online somewhere, so I can link from my blog? Will wait for the next stage of the analysis! Great work.

[ramana]

KS garu in Tribune

The fiasco in Islamabad

....
Implied in Pakistani formulation is the perception that India is not a friendly, cooperative and good neighbourly country, and Islamabad is initiating steps to bring about such a development. Given these different perceptions, for Pakistan the relations with India is a zero sum game, but it is not so for India. While India considers the Pakistani strategy of using terrorism as a state policy a self-destructive one, it does not have any animosity towards that country. It is obvious from the results of the Islamabad talks that Pakistan, as of now, is not prepared to give up terrorism as a state policy. Viewed in this background, the Islamabad talks were a tactical setback for India but a disastrous image-projection for Pakistan.

This came out clearly in Qureshi’s outburst against the Indian Home Secretary, who had referred to David Coleman Headley’s disclosures about the involvement of Pakistan’s ISI in the planning and execution of the 26/11 attack on Mumbai during a Press interaction. These disclosures were made during his interrogation under the supervision of the FBI and had been included in the dossier handed over to the Pakistani Minister of Interior by the Indian Home Minister weeks ago. Qureshi chose to equate this with the outbursts of LeT chief Hafiz Saeed and asserted that both he and Krishna considered such disclosure of the Indian Home Secretary was uncalled for.

Krishna did not choose to rebut this during his Islamabad Press conference, and Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao subsequently explained that this might nave been due to the pell-mell prevailing at that time. Subsequently, Krishna made it clear that he stood by the Home Secretary.
.......

The reason for Pakistan’s provocative behaviour is to be traced to their perception of the situation in the Af-Pak area and the validity of that perception. The Pakistan Army appears to have convinced itself that it has outsmarted the Americans and has succeeded in persuading Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to dismiss his anti-Taliban Interior Minister and Chief of Intelligence and enter into secret negotiations with pro-Pakistan elements in the Taliban. By allowing the use of Pakistani territory as safe haven by the Haqqani faction, they have increased US and NATO casualties in Afghanistan. They have also dodged the US pressure to take action against any of the terrorist organisations other than the Pakistani Taliban .

Therefore, they seem to be in a triumphant mood. It is very much like their over-confidence in June 1999 during the Kargil operation, in August-September 1971 in the aftermath of Sino-US rapprochement with China, during the 1971 East Bengal crisis and in August 1965 in the wake of Operation Gibraltar. The clever tacticians of the ISI and Pakistani Army Headquarters always have tended to ignore strategic aspects. Such an approach ended in disasters on three previous occasions. It looks as though they are likely to repeat past blunder, risking Pakistani integrity and internal security.

The Pakistan Army’s calculations are based on a totally erroneous perception, no doubt, widely prevalent even outside Pakistan that the US will withdraw from Afghanistan, starting in the middle of 2011. President Obama has made it clear a number of times that he has no intention of abandoning Afghanistan, and there will only be a beginning of a drawdown in mid-2011. Now Ambassador Blackwill has unveiled his plan of reordering the force deployment in Afghanistan to vacate Pashtun areas and concentrate on non-Pashtun areas and use air power to decimate the terrorist elements in Pashtun Afghanistan as well as Af-Pak tribal territory.

When the US vacates Pashtun Afghanistan there are distinct possibilities of the Afghan Taliban uniting with the Pakistani Taliban and establishing the long-cherished Pashtunistan. Secondly, there are reports in Pakistan of different jihadi groups combining to form a common network. In that event there is a high probability of that network with hundreds of conditioned suicide bombers at their disposal turning their anger against the Pakistan Army and State for their collaboration with the US. Such collaboration is absolutely essential to save Pakistan from bankruptcy.

If the Pakistan Army is not blundering again they will have a lot to worry about the future moves of the US in Af-Pak area, the future behaviour of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and the threat emanating from the ego-maniacal terrorist leaders with deadly arsenals of hundreds of conditioned suicide bombers. Since India has no animosity against the people of Pakistan and considers it in its interest to have a stable and prosperous Pakistan, it has every reason to be concerned about the reckless adventurism of their Army.

Please read between the lines of KS garu's assessment. Essentially he is endorsing the Blackwill plan to continue the US deployment in safe areas in Afghanistan for a long time. Blackwill plan allows Obama to maintain face of 'drawing' down US troops without jepoarding US interests in the region. This is part of managing the Pak failure.

What this could lead to is
- The uniting of Pashtuns in Southern Afghanistan with the Pashtuns in Pakistan while keeping the borders intact but have a Durand Line less Pashtun region
- The uniting of the Whabandis and TTP to carry out the kabila clean-up campaign of dislodging the impure guards (TSPA) for collobarating with the US
- Ab tere kya hoga kaaliya (kabilla)?

The net result of the TSPA tactical brilliance is that once again Pakjab will be subject to the terror of Pashtun maruders after three centuries (post Ahmed Shah Durrani/Abdali).

[ramana]

RamaY ji,
can you please put it online somewhere, so I can link from my blog? Will wait for the next stage of the analysis! Great work.

In Nukkad

Folks,
I entered blog-space: http://bharata-bhuti.blogspot.com/

[Manish_Sharma]

Is there a timeline for this implosion, even a vague one 8-10 or 20 years?

{The purpose of this thread is to see the indicators to get to that timeframe}

I am continuously seeing on " Pakistan arms sales, ops, doctrine, etc... " thread they are being fed F-16s, Harpoons, BVR missiles, artillery and the latest is Predator drones. I mean khan and see-eye-A can't be such ulloos that they are giving this state of art stuff which may end up in hands of some new Talib govt. headed by Aytollah k the 2nd?

{Could be case of propping up 4) Military to strengthen it to keep the state from imploding}

And Indian Govt. watching silently all this happening. Not only watching but financing part of it by buying C-17s and mrca etc.?

{GOI might be doing what it does best for its own reasons.}

Something doesn't add up

Plus the khan and UK on the verge of bankruptcy can't imagine to go on pumping in billions every year to save this growing "Dharti ka Bojh" porkiland?

{That is why all those talks/valks charade to let others carry the burden.}

We all are learning. No one is more expert than the others.

Thanks for the explanation Ramana.

[Manish_Sharma]

I would rather than porkiland survive suffer and and we raise a 2 million army to seal the border

The strength of Indian Army under the circustances should be fixed percentage of population. As the population increases the army should increase. Even retired Army men act as glue that cement the Indic culture.

The territorial reserve army and Home guards need to be armed, trained and made ready for rear guard actions.

On another note, an Indian guru had predicted in 1983 that Communism would have a sudden death, Islamism would have a violent death and Capitalism would have a slow death in that order and then East will rise(China?, India?).
It was unbelievable that time. But it is now 1.5 correct, 1.5 more to go.

Thanks Karna, for beautiful explanation. I would be very grateful if you can introduce me to this Guru's name, either on GD forum or on personal email : manishsharma_690 at yaoo dat cam

I would love to read up his work.

[Manishw]

Me Too Karna Ji
Group discussion or manishw123 at gmail dat com
TIA

[Manish_Sharma]

See all the garus here are confidant of absorbing porki population within india and secularise them.

Which garus? Where? Who has said this.

If you post bullshit as a starting sentence - anything you write after that will sound like the truth. Compared to your first sentence the rest of your paragraph is like Quran. You have a viewpoint. You want to keep Pakis out and kill them with nukes? That is a valid viewpoint. Why do you need to take a potshot at someone else?

All the garus here? Who the faque are you talking about?

You could have objected in a nice way without resorting to abusing. But still I made the point on basis of my discussion once with Sarvshri Brihaspati & RamaY in other threads on this subject + few posts in this thread by other garus. I was not even referring to you, still such a violent reaction?

First I agree it was a mistake to say all garus I apologise for that, secondly you were not at all referred in that as I don't consider you a garu. Namaste!

[Manish_Sharma]

RamaY ji,
can you please put it online somewhere, so I can link from my blog? Will wait for the next stage of the analysis! Great work.

Brihaspati ji, is your blog same "dikgaj on wordpress" where you were contributing or a new one, would be great if you let me know I would love to visit there.

[brihaspati]

Same as before!

[Prasad]

Reading that article from KS, I wonder that even if the pakis attempt another kargil and we gain the upper hand afterward, will we wipe out the TSPA in its current form and let democratic institutions get an upper hand. Given MMS' outlook and desire to see a stable pakistan, I'd say if and when we do win this hypothetical confrontation, we won't really see a somalia type pakistan ever. What we may see is an army-less country. If MMS works like that.

[kubhamanyu]

Pak's future is bright if the US leaves. So, will it get out of AF? They have reason to stay; exert geopolitical influence. They have reasons to leave too; there is “no military solution,” mildly put, and the economy is in tatters, etc.

The geopolitical agenda continues in AFPAK, esp. if they go “underground.” A recent Washington Post article said that 30% of US defense work is through contractors, largely unaccountable to the people. It is entirely feasible therefore to “draw down” and “maintain a presence” by turning "management" over to “client state,” drones, and “special contract forces,” albeit with a token presence at key places.

Then, by bringing in the “moderate Taliban” (i.e. TSPA) to the table, the continuum between USA<->TSPA<->Taliban is re-energised, as TSPA now enters in the picture for and against the US, i.e. an honest broker! Terrorism, “jihad,” and “freedom fighting” are then managed by TSPA, as they have been, as long as it don't reach the shores of the "west"...

In another sense, the overt presence of US and continued TSPA “embrace” is a source of radicalization. When the US "draws down," this radicalization too could become manageable for the land owners; the “commons” of Pak get screwed back into "moderate" shape with US money and aid. Whether the Taliban have grown too big for that kind of control to revert is an ambiguity, but by mixing up the Taliban, the purge of “bad taliban” can be on Pak's terms with sufficient funding and material from US and China, respectively. There's no rush there as long as money flows, body bags slow, and there are no bombs going off in “the west” that can be related to “the most dangerous place on planet.” There's Iran now and Korea, to pay attention to.

So the default solution here is just what was and is – prop TSPA as insurance "from terror" is desirable for the US. Having TSPA and its so-called “moderate Taliban” face is not undesirable for the Taliban. Having Taliban control AF is of interest to TSPA. The US public doesn't care as long as “we are going after Bin Laden, only.” China happy to be succha dost as long as TSPA gives it access, keeps India busy, and possibly keeps some weeger trouble out. All USA gotta do is keep talking Kashmir and ask India to be cool, pretty please.

The only guys who get screwed here are the Afghans and Indians, but no one cares for the former and “economic concessions” helps bring the latter to the table. What is happening now in AFPAK for US may be thought of as a way to negotiate to a “best settlement” above the “default solution.” The status-quo is a “win-win” for Obama. As needed, Kashmir becomes a "bilateral problem" or “solution coming closer via track 69 diplomacy,” as needed. Or another inch on "no-clear" or hey, a C-17 or few. Just a good tight economic partnership like good democracies ought to have. Then turn around and give some to partner in "war on terror" too.

What collapse of TSPA are we talking about managing, say within the next 20 years?

For us, the challenge has always been to maintain and connect with “ordinary Pakistanis” disenfranchised from the Zamindars holding power. Our hope has been that our common heritage is a strong foundation to build upon, in addition to the benefits of the freedom and democracy that we are. But the reach of the Mullah in to the ordinary Muslim is possibly deeper than our cultural connection to Pak (I am uncertain here). The chain of allegiance is only slightly disturbed with the arrival of the Taliban, and we are no competition with all that Wahabbi money. How do we win this then, by offering aid and trade, and movies? And if we've lost the connection, if only bit by bit to the people we thought of as ours, why not make border permanent as a negotiating stance as this AFPAK game unfolds, remove 370? If that causes TSPA to run east, US gotta stay and Talibunnies sprout fast? Is sitting back really the right strategy here?

[shiv]

First I agree it was a mistake to say all garus I apologise for that, secondly you were not at all referred in that as I don't consider you a garu. Namaste!

Namaste to you too sahib. Thank you for being gracious. I know I was not one of those garus, but i also know that there are no garus on BRF who are hoping to accommodate all Pakis in India. That was the strawman to which I was objecting.

[shiv]

Pak's future is bright if the US leaves.

<snip>

What collapse of TSPA are we talking about managing, say within the next 20 years?

In fact my view is that Pakistan will be "finished" (Taliban takeover+ splitting) if the US leaves. If you listen to Clinton (video linked from Pak thread) she says that the US cannot support all of Pakistan. So what is the US doing?

The US is funding the Pakistani government apparatus from collapsing and the US keeping the Pakistan army in check by giving them the funds they want to feel they are secure. Salaries etc are probably being paid from US aid.

If the US stps out - Pakistan's likely sinking into chaos will be faster (see K Subramanyam's article)

We are not talking about a collapse of the TSPArmy at all. It is the state is a problem. The US has every intention of keeping the Pakistan army happy because they control the nukes and the US has no intention (as far as the US can control events) of allowing anything that can damage the Pakistan army so badly that they will start moving teh nukes out of storage for mating - which is when those nukes can go missing.

And that means trying to avoid an India Pakistan conflict.

[RamaY]

Reading that article from KS, I wonder that even if the pakis attempt another kargil and we gain the upper hand afterward, will we wipe out the TSPA in its current form and let democratic institutions get an upper hand. Given MMS' outlook and desire to see a stable pakistan, I'd say if and when we do win this hypothetical confrontation, we won't really see a somalia type pakistan ever. What we may see is an army-less country. If MMS works like that.

This thought process assumes that the political leadership of Pakistan values democracy, secularism and denounces terrorism as state-policy.

There were four important (is there anyone else) political leaders in Pakistan's history -

1. Jinnah - Founder of Pakistan on the basis of religion (and religion only). Instigator of partition riots. Instigator of J&K terrorist invasion.

Jinnah served as leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan's independence on August 14, 1947 and Pakistan's first Governor-General from August 15, 1947 until his death on September 11, 1948.

On 20 October 1947, tribesmen backed by Pakistan invaded Kashmir.

2. Bhutto (the father) - Instigator of Bangladesh genocide. Declared 1000Yr war against India. Promised to make an Islamic nuclear bomb even if the whole nation had to eat grass.

3. Bhutto (the daughter) - Instigator of Punjabi Terrorism and J&K Terrorism

Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state,[3] having twice been Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988–1990; 1993–1996)

In the early 1990s, a number of militant groups tried to impose "codes of conduct" for journalists; these codes carried a death penalty for those who disobeyed. Sikhs belonging to non-orthodox minority sects were also murdered.

There were also indiscriminate attacks designed to cause extensive civilian casualties: derailing trains, exploding bombs in markets, restaurants and other civilian areas etc.[9] Many moderate Sikh political leaders were assassinated for opposing the militants, while several others were killed as a result of militant group rivalries. The extremists also kidnapped civilians for extortion, and frequently murdered them when the demands were not met. Threats were also made to the minority Hindu population so as to drive them out of Punjab

According to official figures released in Jammu and Kashmir assembly(Indian controlled), there were 3,400 disappearance cases and the insurgency has left more than 47,000 people dead till July 2009.

4. Nawaz Shariff - Who conducted nuclear tests and declared the advent of Islamic bomb. Supporter of Terror attacks in J&K and across India. Blind spectator of Kargil War. Supporter of talibanization of Pakistan.

12th Prime Minister of Pakistan, serving two non-consecutive terms, the first from 1 November 1990 to 18 July 1993 and the second from 17 February 1997 to 12 October 1999.

[Prasad]

saar, I'm not saying I subscribe to that idea. All i'm saying is that if we ever get to such a situation, we might still not chase the mlechhas and finish them off. I'm sure that there will be pressure to support democracy and help the pakistanis create a new nation now that the evil bad tspa has been vanquished. We should have a gameplan to ensure that democratically elected characters likes the bhuttos dont get another chance to push their evil designs into our country with the cover of democracy. How that is to be done, I do not know.

[Manish_Sharma]

Namaste to you too sahib. Thank you for being gracious. I know I was not one of those garus, but i also know that there are no garus on BRF who are hoping to accommodate all Pakis in India. That was the strawman to which I was objecting.

No thanks to you for not being gracious, using shielded four letter words against fellow posters while making a simple objection. If I were to make a statement "Shiv you are C*&%*($r" I may not get away with it. So enjoy your special status keep hurling shielded abuses around!

[shiv]

saar, I'm not saying I subscribe to that idea. All i'm saying is that if we ever get to such a situation, we might still not chase the mlechhas and finish them off. I'm sure that there will be pressure to support democracy and help the pakistanis create a new nation now that the evil bad tspa has been vanquished. We should have a gameplan to ensure that democratically elected characters likes the bhuttos dont get another chance to push their evil designs into our country with the cover of democracy. How that is to be done, I do not know.

Personally I see little hope for the creation of one single democratic entity called Pakistan. Broken into parts the fragments might be democratic.

Ironically (and this could be wishful thinking on my part) - Pakistan has scared India enough for India to play zero role in the break up of Pakistan. If Pakistan must break it will happen entirely of its own accord - and no credit to India.

In fact some of India's apparently meek reactions seem to be designed to say "No. Don't shoot me. I am innocent. I will shut up and behave. I am your biggest well wisher.I want to see a proud and prosperous Pakistan"

In other words India has no game plan for Pakistan other than a military response. there is no plan that I know of for a management of a chaotic Pakistan. Having said that I do believe that BRF really has been ahead of the curve wrt to Pakistan. The first decent Indian write up about Pakistan is that pdf linked by Sridhar on the first post a few days ago (that is linked above and speaks of Lebanonization of Pakistan) . In the same way - I suspect he Indian government will belatedly develop a plan for Pakistan over the next 2-3 years.

I mean that when many of us sit on BR and comment that India is a backward country it is no joke. India is backward technologically, politically and human development wise. Many of us as individuals have outstripped our own country in many ways.

[Brad Goodman]

R'ji, that was exactly my point....any leverage by India may get somewhat diluted owing to India's dependence on Saudi for oil.

Its not just oil, Saudi is the larged employer for expatriate Indians which also translates as jobs + remittances. Add to that Mecca and you have a population of 140 million + that will not take it lightly if they see any act of hostility. So we are going into a fight with one arm and one leg tied.

[svinayak]

[
Its not just oil, Saudi is the larged employer for expatriate Indians which also translates as jobs + remittances.

Nothing is permanent. These jobs and remittances can go one day and things will be clear one day.
Indi'a interest is not based on expatriates interest.

[ramana]

Desperate clutching at straws in death grip.

Op-Ed Pioneer, 23July 2010...

Islamist rant is music for some

Premen Addy

If Pakistan, bless its murderous soul, were to assume human form, it would have long been consigned to Broadmoor, Her Majesty’s special prison for the criminally insane, whose inmates usually remain incarcerated behind its forbidding walls until death do them part.

Irfan Hussain, doughty Dawn columnist, Pakistan’s principal English-language newspaper, relates a poignant tale of a Christian mother and her four children murdered in their home in Jhelum by an inflamed Muslim mob led by a fanatical mullah, while the husband and father, policeman Jamshed Masih, was away on duty. The family had apparently been told to move from the Muslim neighbourhood. When the youngest of the Masih boys, an 11-year old, went to a shop to make a purchase, he was refused service on the ground that he was an infidel. Thereafter, a mob led by one Maulana Mahfooz Khan entered the house and accused the youth of committing blasphemy and wanted him punished. His frantic mother pleaded with the intruders to await her husband’s return, but someone threw a stone at her head and all hell broke loose. The daughter managed to call her father, but the poor man arrived to the gory scene of a slain wife and four slain children. The local police chief would not register a case because of the Maulana’s connections in Islamabad.

Set against this was US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bearing an aid package to Pakistan worth $ 500 million, accompanied by honeyed words on a new beginning for US-Pakistan ties after years of mutual misperceptions. She hoped this would be a bridge to better mutual understanding between the nations. Jonathan Swift once observed: “When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in confederacy against him.” Truth is that US President Barack Obama and Ms Clinton and their colleagues in Government fall well short of the most perverse and eccentric definition of genius, nor are we, the hoi polloi, a confederacy of dunces. The Pakistan they court, the Land of the Pure, where blasphemy is punishable by death, it would appear, is an amphitheatre of *****. According to Internet provider Google, Pakistan is top dog in searches for *****, whether this involved men, women, children or a variety of animals from camel to donkey to horse. A Congressional hearing in Washington on the subject would surely be the most riveting show in town.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan-born, London-based revolutionary, Tariq Ali, has taken up another of his lost causes, namely the one pertaining to the ‘liberation’ struggle for a ‘Muslim Kashmir free of Indian rule’. His peroration in the lazy left-liberal London Review of Books was a desperate rant, a farrago of fact, fiction and poisonous half-truth leavened by craftily camouflaged silences in a bid to confuse readers uninitiated in sub-continental history and politics. It was a clever ploy to refer ritually to India as America’s regional ally, when it is Pakistan that is Washington’s and Beijing’s true surrogate. Mr Ali’s reference to 9/11 and its impact on India is well taken, but his cunning silence on Mumbai’s searing 26/11 experience with the Pakistan-incubated terror attack and the national trauma, coupled with similar lack of reference to the bombing of the city’s suburban trains in July 2006, and to the commando-style assault on India’s financial centre in March 1993, was clearly part of special pleading. Hundreds of innocent Indian lives were lost, but India is expected to accept such karmic loses without demur. This also appears to be the case with the ethnic cleansing of the Hindu Pandit community from their ancestral homeland in the Kashmir Valley. There was no mention either of Hindu Jammu and Buddhist Ladakh, both integral parts of the disputed territory. Indian opinion has visibly hardened against Pakistan and Islamism, but Tariq Ali refuses coyly to reason why. Most absurd of all, he claims that Pakistan’s rulers had offered India a swap: “Give us Afghanistan and you can have Kashmir.” This is post-modernist vaudeville, with Tariq Ali as impressario.

Mr Ali’s reach into the upper ends of an establishment he routinely censures is something of a mystery. The historian and novelist David Caute wondered how a play as trite as Iranian Nights, satirising the Ayatollahs, which Mr Ali co-authored, could have been staged at the West End’s Royal Court Theatre when serious playwrights had to struggle through the proverbial eye of a needle to get there. One of his fictions was memorably reviewed by the critic Maureen Freely as a “talking and ejaculating novel” with cardboard cutouts as characters. Nevertheless, Mr Ali has an enviable knack of finding willing publishers.

Not very long ago, an agent, tried circulating a chapter from a VS Naipaul work through a circle of publishers, without giving away the author’s name, and asked if they would consider publication. They turned him down, one and all. So is this damning evidence of a collapse of literary taste or is Mr Ali Houdini reborn? Truth is that Mr Ali has long been a creation of the British entertainment industry; as an avowed Marxist, he is a rude take on the Marx brothers, Groucho, Harpo and Chico.

The silly season almost being upon us, British media pundits, currently lodged in India, have been indulging in subtle and crude India-baiting. As usual Kashmir tops their agenda. There are pious lamentations on the decline of democracy in the valley under Indian pressure; how odd that when the place was being ethnically cleansed of its Hindu Pandits, the event passed them by, unworthy, no doubt, of their exalted attention.

The broadside came from Jeremy Page of The Times. Everything in the kitchen sink was thrown at the country, which he clearly loathes. He blasts Delhi’s lack of infrastructure, and the seeming lack of preparation fot the Commonwealth Games. Mr Page must be unaware of the travails of the London Underground. Habitual signal failures and a roster of suspensions of selected lines at weekends refract the network’s 19th century origins. Delhi’s Metro, on which I have travelled, is a 21st century marvel by contrast.

Meanwhile, oceans away, US Senators are aggrieved by the release of al Magrahi, the alleged Libyan Lockerbie bomber, on compassionate grounds (he is down with terminal cancer and is not expected to live) by the devolved Scottish Government in Edinburgh. They make no murmur about the 528 dead of the Air India plane, Kanishka, that exploded mid-air and came down over the Irish Republic in June 1985, the bomb planted by North America-based Khalistani terrorists. No arrests have as yet been made. What is sauce for the Herrenvolk goose is not sauce for Untermenschen gander.

[Kamboja]

Cross-posting something Chandragupta said in TSP thread:

The approach GoI & MMS are taking, of unhindered economic growth while letting Pigs spit on our faces is downright pathetic but realistic. ... It is a totally legitimate line of thought that India needs a decade of uninterrupted & accelerated economic growth to become a nominal $4-5 T economy & pull all those hundreds of millions of people above poverty line. But I would like to know what the gurus think about India's Pakistan policy once that happens. In 15 years, say India becomes a $5T economy, third largest in the world after China & US. In the same period, Pakistan becomes a degenerating cesspool of 250 million illiterate, brainwashed, madrassa educated jihadis with no food, no jobs & no future, but with an army that has nuclear weapons.

Now, for 15 years, we can try to buy time by talking, talking, appeasing & begging, but what are we buying time for? Hoping that in 15 years, these unwashed jehadis will kill each other & turn to 'big brother' India for help & then we, being a $5T economy, can keep throwing crumbs at them with a wicked smile on our faces? Sorry, that sounds like something that my grand father used to tell me about Islamic invasions of India, that when Islamic invaders attacked & destroyed temples, local Hindus would stand by the side, looking up in the sky for Lord Hanuman or Shri Ram to descend & slay the invaders. True or not, a fairly fitting analogy it is. It would be a waste if, 15 years later, we end up with much, much more to lose than Pakis with absolutely nothing to lose but with more teeth & a level of hatred growing exponentially for 15 years.

Chandragupta-ji raises an important point IMHO. I see so much talk of waiting 'till India is in the big league, in 2020 when we will be a serious global player, when we will have arrived. THEN we will deal with Pakistan'. But will things really have changed?

I feel confident that certain facts still will not have changed by 2020:
+ India will be doing better (economically, socially, politically, spiritually) than Pakistan
+ Pakistan will be violent, desperate, jealous of Indian progress, and internally wracked by civil war
+ The 'if we go down, we're taking the Yindoos with us' mentality so much in evidence in Pacquistan today will still be there
= Pakistan will have less to lose from a military, even a nuclear conflict, than India.
= India will still be playing at a delay/ throw scraps/ engage in meaningless talks/ take the occasional terrorist attack -- anything but open conflict, since there is 'too much to lose'.

Disclaimer up front: I almost fully endorse this attitude. IMO this value placed on human progress and development is a wonderful attribute that I like to ascribe to Indic culture.

That said, my question to gurus: so what if we have bigger guns and a (slightly) richer country in 2020? Getting richer and more powerful does not automatically translate into the political will to face down terrorist pigs like the Packee Army. We will always have more to lose, we are the civilized ones and they are the barbarians, this is the conundrum of civilization when faced with barbarism throughout time - the Western Romans with the Huns, the Eastern Romans with the Turks, the Chinese with the Mongols, the Indians with Central Asia. It's so much easier to buy them off than to defeat them once and for all... in the short run, anyway. But at some point we will have to stop bribing them to leave us alone, and will have to face them down. Otherwise we only embolden them, tempt them to demand more and push harder, all while acting as mirrors for them to reflect upon their own miserable state as they watch our progress... the only result will be conflict, and not conflict on our terms.

If there must be conflict (and is there any doubt about this?) then at least let it be on our terms. At least let us realize that at some point down the line, we might just have to risk more than talks and more than chai-biskoot, we might have to risk a lot more than we ever have so far, and stand down the Packee blackmail once and for all. And the will to do that will not automatically come from economic growth, from 2020, from a $4-5T economy.

[A_Gupta]

I see so much talk of waiting 'till India is in the big league, in 2020 when we will be a serious global player, when we will have arrived. THEN we will deal with Pakistan'. But will things really have changed?

India will be dealing with Pakistan every day till 2020 and beyond. Every single day. Over time though, as India becomes more of a global player inshallah, the current options that India has will be more effective; and new options will open up as well.

Regarding political will, etc., again, that is something India will increasingly develop.

[ramana]

After the non-victory at Vienna (~1685) it took the Ottomon Turks ~200 years to realize the failure and led to the Attaturk Revolution.

[RamaY]

Kamboja garu,

Think of this scenario -

Indian GDP grows to say $5T. China is $8-9T and USA is $16T. Indian defense budget is $100B and India has 5AC, 10 SSBNs. BMDs, PAKFAs and what not.

In 2020 India is lead by a PM who firmly believes in the preachings of Gandhi (and his/her family) and the concept of Vasudhaika kutumbam.

Also assume that in 2020 population of India is 1.4 billion and Pakistani population is 372 million. Recent UNDP-2019 report claims that at least 500 Indians live below poverty line (defined as $5.8 PPP per day)

Then on 11/26/2020 a team of terrorists hit few malls in Delhi killing say 786 civilians and police/special-ops personnel. In the process all terrorists are killed except a certain Gilaaa-nahi. A certain Kiya-nahi revealed that Geelanahi is a Paki citizen trained and equipped by TSPA and ISI under a plea-bargain with Communist Party of China.

What do you think India would do? Would it nuke Pakistan and reclaim all those territories? Will it launch a preemptive missile strike with say 15000 Brahmos mark II missiles? Will it attack ISI head quarters?

The moral of the story is - Even Allah can help the kufr only up to a point. Beyond that he has protect his self interests.

[Prem]

Lets not forget the old Khoosat politicans born before 50s will Allah ke Pyare by 2020 and new ones with kuffar upbringing have taken control of the helm. Since stakes are gonna be high, No need to get into fight till have all cards under sleeve , no loose end left and hammer can as well must be applied even on roach level of Poak.Practice and preparation for elimination round are always time consuming and require patience bekose complete victory calls for both physical and ideological eradication from the Indian land they occupy.

[RajeshA]

so what if we have bigger guns and a (slightly) richer country in 2020? Getting richer and more powerful does not automatically translate into the political will to face down terrorist pigs like the Packee Army. We will always have more to lose, we are the civilized ones and they are the barbarians, this is the conundrum of civilization when faced with barbarism throughout time
......
But at some point we will have to stop bribing them to leave us alone, and will have to face them down. Otherwise we only embolden them, tempt them to demand more and push harder, all while acting as mirrors for them to reflect upon their own miserable state as they watch our progress... the only result will be conflict, and not conflict on our terms.

If there must be conflict (and is there any doubt about this?) then at least let it be on our terms. At least let us realize that at some point down the line, we might just have to risk more than talks and more than chai-biskoot, we might have to risk a lot more than we ever have so far, and stand down the Packee blackmail once and for all. And the will to do that will not automatically come from economic growth, from 2020, from a $4-5T economy.

Kamboja ji,

Actually far more important than the gazillions that we will be having at some future date, would hopefully be some balls.

Simply put, we all are waiting for the current generation of power-brokers to ride into the sunset, so that the young brash nationalist Indians can take the reins of the government. Our octogenarian elders are not up to the task of taking care of Indian security and Pakistan. For them the call of the Punjab di tarti, especially from the other side, is still too vivid. {I have got a right to whine as well, once in a blue moon , right?}

More to the point, the hope is

• We could be having a functioning BMD
• We should have full preparation for a nuclear war, with both protective infrastructure, necessary stocks and medicine as well emergency protocols.
• We could have a far larger military than Pakistan, a better prepared military, a better equipped military
• We could have the resources to buy off some assets in Pakistan, some key people, some key groups
• We could have many countries of the world prepared to assist us, in neutralizing Pakistan, by then a pain in the ass for the whole world.

Time could give us the necessary material prerequisites for taking down Pakistan. The more important thing is to have a new generation of leaders in India aware of the security issues and willing to take down the animal.

[Kamboja]

Kamboja garu,

Think of this scenario -

Indian GDP grows to say $5T. China is $8-9T and USA is $16T. Indian defense budget is $100B and India has 5AC, 10 SSBNs. BMDs, PAKFAs and what not.

In 2020 India is lead by a PM who firmly believes in the preachings of Gandhi (and his/her family) and the concept of Vasudhaika kutumbam.

Also assume that in 2020 population of India is 1.4 billion and Pakistani population is 372 million. Recent UNDP-2019 report claims that at least 500 Indians live below poverty line (defined as $5.8 PPP per day)

Then on 11/26/2020 a team of terrorists hit few malls in Delhi killing say 786 civilians and police/special-ops personnel. In the process all terrorists are killed except a certain Gilaaa-nahi. A certain Kiya-nahi revealed that Geelanahi is a Paki citizen trained and equipped by TSPA and ISI under a plea-bargain with Communist Party of China.

What do you think India would do? Would it nuke Pakistan and reclaim all those territories? Will it launch a preemptive missile strike with say 15000 Brahmos mark II missiles? Will it attack ISI head quarters?

The moral of the story is - Even Allah can help the kufr only up to a point. Beyond that he has protect his self interests.

I think I am trying to say that we need a leadership that is willing to, for instance, mobilize Cold Start formations and actually demonstrate the desire to see a military operation through... if need be. If that sounds like I am recommending brinkmanship, then so be it. Pakistan will always have one gun pointed at our heads and the other at its' own head. Someday, someone will have to face them down and call their bluff once and for all. Once we destroy the credibility of that threat, things will never be the same (one way or another!).

That takes the willingness on the part of Indian leadership to risk losing a great deal, and that is where it gets complicated, I know. This will be a major debate (when can we say we have reached our Lakshman Rekha to justify a military response? How far to take it? Is it the leadership's call to engage in potentially nuclear war? What does it achieve? etc. etc. etc.)

But to pull the discussion back up to the broader point - do you and other gurus think that India is going to start demonstrating more of a willingness to seriously consider punitive measures like Cold Start, military incursions, airstrikes, assassinations - as the economy gets larger? Or will our range of options expand in other ways, for e.g. greater leverage with 3.5 friends of our rentboy neighbor, international community, and so on?

I see the latter set of options developing very clearly as a natural corollary of wealth - rich people are never short on friends - but of the former I see no sign... should that not concern us?

[brihaspati]

The transition of leadership nature need not be automatic. Where one party controls most of the strings of power in the rashtryia machinery for a very very long period, the system develops to ensure that any attempts at changing the status quo is filtered out at the early stages of ris through hierarchy. Submission of all and sundry to a dynasty implies that change does not happen in the type of leadership mindset that can be seen by the dynasty as potentially sufficiently talented to challenge dynastic power.

This type of filters ensure that at each and every level, the higher leadership only allows those who are not sufficiently qualified or have "weaknesses" that can be exploited to come up. This means gradually the quality of all levels goes down over time. Until and unless the dynasty proves itself incapable in facing up to a crisis [which it may very well succeed in doing by appealing to the patriotism and commitment of general pool of talent to safeguard their own continuity in power - but who will face liquidation once the crisis is over], the hoped fro change in leadership will not manifest at the helm.

However a similar process will also lead to Pak fail earlier than Indian crisis matures. Depends on who can exploit the situation better the Talebs or the dynasty.

[Kamboja]

More to the point, the hope is

• We could be having a functioning BMD
• We should have full preparation for a nuclear war, with both protective infrastructure, necessary stocks and medicine as well emergency protocols.
• We could have a far larger military than Pakistan, a better prepared military, a better equipped military
• We could have the resources to buy off some assets in Pakistan, some key people, some key groups
• We could have many countries of the world prepared to assist us, in neutralizing Pakistan, by then a pain in the ass for the whole world.

Time could give us the necessary material prerequisites for taking down Pakistan. The more important thing is to have a new generation of leaders in India aware of the security issues and willing to take down the animal.

Rajeshji, Absolutely agree, if I were religious I would pray fervently for this outcome. In particular the bolded part (which I know has been discussed before on this thread) is I feel essential to calling the Paki nuclear threat.

[A_Gupta]

After the non-victory at Vienna (~1685) it took the Ottomon Turks ~200 years to realize the failure and led to the Attaturk Revolution.

Life was much slower in those days.

[ramana]

Agree. Modernity will impose time and resource compression.

[Cosmo_R]

RajeshA wrote:
More to the point, the hope is

1. We could be having a functioning BMD
2. We should have full preparation for a nuclear war, with both protective infrastructure, necessary stocks and medicine as well emergency protocols.
3. We could have a far larger military than Pakistan, a better prepared military, a better equipped military
4. We could have the resources to buy off some assets in Pakistan, some key people, some key groups
5. We could have many countries of the world prepared to assist us, in neutralizing Pakistan, by then a pain in the ass for the whole world.

Good points. However,:

1. We wont know if it's functional until after the fact
2. Unrealistic. At the most, you're talking about keeping a couple of hundred 'leaders' alive to manage what remains. Given the fact they would have led us into the situation --they are not exactly the one that we (the dead ones) would wish (posthumously) to survive.

3. We could have already had a better prepared better equipped military than Pakistan and should have done so after Kargil. The IAF wanted to buy 126 Mirages in 2001 and nine years later we are still talking MRCA not to mention no artillery purchases etc.

5. No country in the world is going to care as long as the Pakis say their terror is India-specific. They will only care if we turn that capability towards the ROW. I like to suggest (controversially) that loose nukes in AQ hands are more of a threat to really high value targets in Oirope and Massaland and even Beijing (courtesy Uighurs). The battling monkeys argument fades...

But #4 is an interesting point albeit from a darker vantage. We've already heard (but probably not internalised) that 'soosais' are really (?) financially motivated (broker fee goes to mullah and remaining proceeds go to family). IOW, the soosais are really secular (:)) and can function as MIRVs. So, can they be usefully employed with plausible deniablity to convince Pakis that their 26/11s (as they like to portray it) are really going to happen with regularity? All this on top of being taller than mountain frendz to NA and Balochistan.

Will take balls (unknown metrics) for GoI to do this. Given track record, not likely. But we can dream...

[naren]

so what if we have bigger guns and a (slightly) richer country in 2020? Getting richer and more powerful does not automatically translate into the political will to face down terrorist pigs like the Packee Army. We will always have more to lose, we are the civilized ones and they are the barbarians, this is the conundrum of civilization when faced with barbarism throughout time - the Western Romans with the Huns, the Eastern Romans with the Turks, the Chinese with the Mongols, the Indians with Central Asia.

We're in a peculiar case. Pakistan-problem is unfortunately tied to the votebank of a certain political party. Dont expect any complete annihilation of the enemy. There needs to be change in political attitude first. For that, there needs to be change in the popular social attitude. It takes time.

Another angle is the preservation of status quo by those in power. When a problem persists for a long period of time, the problem becomes the status quo. The system evolves in such a way that it would ensure the continuation of the problem !

It may be a good idea to atleast decouple external affairs from democracy - make it the responsibility of armed forces and answerable only to the constitution, rather than the elected leadership.

[shiv]

Adding to Arun Gupta's comment that india has to deal with Pakistan every day - I would like to simplify the issue as follows

Today's Pakistan

a degenerating cesspool of 170 million illiterate, brainwashed, madrassa educated jihadis with food, no jobs & no future , but with an army that has nuclear weapons.

Pakistan in 7 years

a degenerating cesspool of 200 million illiterate, brainwashed, madrassa educated jihadis with a little food, no jobs & no future , but with an army that has nuclear weapons.

And Pakistan in 15 years

a degenerating cesspool of 250 million illiterate, brainwashed, madrassa educated jihadis with no food, no jobs & no future, but with an army that has nuclear weapons.

So we have to start thinking of dealing with Pakistan, its army and its Abdul's now.At elast let us start here on BRF so that with any luck something will wake of the government of India and they will stop throwing chairs at each other and start working on a policy of managing Pakistan

If any country in the world has successfully managed to control 200 to 250 million people with Army power alone, or even religion alone without trying to make the human condition (Those damned statistics!) of people better - I would like to know about it.

Even China did a downhill ski, bit the bullet and transformed its economy so that the average Chinese is better off and proud of his China. In general (and there is no need to believe my word on this) a country with happy and satisfied people is more easily manageable than a country will ill fed and dissatisfied people.

I am asking people on here (just for the heck of it) to visualize Pakistan as country that is already broken up, but is held together only by what the army controls and what the "international community" recognizes as "Pakistan"

In my view, I think there is no chance of a stable Pakistan unless Pashtunistan is created and perhaps Balochistan. This may cause happiness for the Balochis and Pashtus but it will cause civil war in the rump of Pakistan (Pakjab and Sindh).

But the choice is stark. There is civil war right now in the Pashtun lands and in Balochistan. The Paki army is unable to contain that civil war. If the Paki army is not going to contain it who will?

The Paki army is being asked to contain it by the US. They are unwilling to commit forces to do that citing the India threat. And suddenly the truth of ramana's "kabila" theory hits me in the face. The Paki army sees the "badlands" as the new site for a new kabila and does not want order there.

When we are faced with a seemingly insoluble problem like this it is worth asking if there is any other way of looking at it. And one way is to ask who is happy and who is unhappy in Pakistan. One general method of judging unhappiness is looking for statistics on population, jobs, poverty and hunger. A population that has all this can be instigated to revolt, or can (theoretically) be made to move in some other direction if they can be offered a better way out than simply dying. That is why need to see Poakistan as groups of people - some of whom are unhappy with their own army and think if there is some way of helping them break free peacefully.

I have no answers. Only theories.

[Prem]

Its a dirty job but whole civilized world know that Paki will go with bang onlee .Sad but true they will be asking for at least 20% pruning before Poaks can grow healthy ones among their midst. Before prunning the obsesive ideological rot must be exposed to the world and made example of for future sake. There is no harm in world watching experiencing the horrible truth witnessed by Indians for the last few hundred years.

[Pratyush]

SNIP...

The Paki army is being asked to contain it by the US. They are unwilling to commit forces to do that citing the India threat. And suddenly the truth of ramana's "kabila" theory hits me in the face. The Paki army sees the "badlands" as the new site for a new kabila and does not want order there.

When we are faced with a seemingly insoluble problem like this it is worth asking if there is any other way of looking at it. And one way is to ask who is happy and who is unhappy in Pakistan. One general method of judging unhappiness is looking for statistics on population, jobs, poverty and hunger. A population that has all this can be instigated to revolt, or can (theoretically) be made to move in some other direction if they can be offered a better way out than simply dying. That is why need to see Poakistan as groups of people - some of whom are unhappy with their own army and think if there is some way of helping them break free peacefully.

I have no answers. Only theories.

Shiv, reading you last few posts in conjunction with the kabila theory of Rammana, I get a suspicion that TSP is not really confident of the future of Punjab and Sindh. When I say not confident, I mean they fear that India can assimilate them with relative ease. In that event they need the badlands from where they can carry out the jihad against India in the event of the total collapse of TSP. I can think of no other explaination of TSP behaviour at present