Geopolitical thread

[Jarita]

Saw some tweets

New Zealand, Austria & Ireland, so critical of the India-US nuclear deal, have not voiced objections to the Sino-Pakistan nuke deal (1/3)

U will notice a pattern in the cntries providing aid to stone pelters & supporting Pakis-Sino nuke deal.. All catholic.. (2/3)

Given that ANtonia represents this cabal, it is little wonder that so many compromises r being made to the Jihadis (3/3)

[paramu]

Remember I am not focusing on the religious aspects.

I think you need to look at that too. Abrahamic religions have the capability to control the society in a top-down way.

[SwamyG]

^^^
Seriously, if you have been following the discussion you would know who should do what

[paramu]

Not been following seriously, but what I figured out was that you were thinking that corporations are trying to control to create more consumers, and not really for religious reasons. What I am saying is that organized religions help one control society to achieve desired goal. If so, why can't corporations work with religious organizations to achieve mutually beneficial goal?

[Sanjay M]

South Korean Report on Cheonan Sinking Awaiting Release

[Sanjay M]

European Right-wing Politicians Visit Japan's Yasukuni War Shrine

I find it interesting that European nationalist politicians are visiting a Japanese nationalist shrine, and furthermore holding talks on how to pursue common interests.

Perhaps some Indian nationalists could also join the party.

[Neshant]

^^^ Don't think its a good idea, given the evil these guys have engaged in.

Lets not roll in the mud with pigs so to speak.

[Sanjay M]

^^^ At some level, there should be some dialogue. Otherwise, in the absence of that, it only gives the Left a freebie. The Left shouldn't get any freebies. Notice that even Cameron's Tories in the UK were dialoguing with other rightist parties in the European parliament.

The Left is the bigger enemy. The Left is aligned with Islamism, and notice how their popularity hasn't suffered for it one bit.

Nationalists from various countries have many things in common, and their disagreements on most things are comparatively minor. If the points of disagreement can be submerged or shelved, then it could lead to more effective alliances against the common threat posed by the Left/Islamists.

[shyam]

Yasukuni Shrine has the photo of Indian member, Radhabinod Pal, of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East's trials of Japanese war crimes committed during the second World War.

While finding that 'the evidence is still overwhelming that atrocities were perpetrated by the members of the Japanese armed forces against the civilian population of some of the territories occupied by them as also against the prisoners of war', he produced a judgment questioning the legitimacy of the tribunal and its rulings. He held the view that the legitimacy of the tribunal was suspect and questionable as the spirit of retribution, and not impartial justice, was the underlying criterion for passing the judgment.

He concluded

"I would hold that every one of the accused must be found not guilty of every one of the charges in the indictment and should be acquitted on all those charges."

He never intended to offer a juridical argument on whether a sentence of not guilty would have been a correct one. However he argued that the United States had clearly provoked the war with Japan and expected Japan to act (Zinn, 411).

He believed that the Tokyo Trial was incapable of passing a just sentence. He considered the trial to be unjust and unreasonable trial, contributing nothing to lasting peace. According to his view, the trial was the judgment of the vanquished by the victors; such proceedings, even if clothed in the garb of law, resulted in nothing but the satisfaction of the desire for vengeance. In his lone dissent, he refers to the trial as a "sham employment of legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge." While he fully acknowledged Japan’s war atrocities — including the Nanjing massacre — he said they were covered in the Class B and Class C trials.[1]

Further, he believed that the exclusion of Western colonialism and the use of the atom bomb by the United States from the list of crimes, and judges from the vanquished nations on the bench, signified the "failure of the Tribunal to provide anything other than the opportunity for the victors to retaliate." [2] In this he was not alone among Indian jurists of the time, one prominent Calcutta barrister writing that the Tribunal was little more than "a sword in a wig". Fear of American nuclear power was widespread among foe and friends following Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Judge Pal's typewritten book-length opposition to the decision was formally prohibited from publication by the Occupation forces and was released in 1952 after the occupation ended and a treaty recognizing the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trials was signed by Japan. Pal's publication had also been prohibited in Great Britain, and it remained unpublished in the United States as well.[citation needed] However, a portion of his "original" judgment and copies of the original text in modern editions are available for sale online.

The American occupation of Japan ended in 1952, after Tokyo signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty and accepted the Tokyo trials' verdict. The end of the occupation also lifted a ban on the publication of Judge Pal’s 1,235-page dissent, which Japanese nationalists brandished and began using as the basis of their argument that the Tokyo trials were a sham by selectively choosing passages from his dissent.[1] Even though Pal believed that the Japanese committed atrocities during World War II, his dissenting opinion has been used by Japanese nationalists as evidence that the crimes had never happened.[3][4]

[SwamyG]

Rama garu:
Nenu edho raasannu....meeru artham cheskondi. I hope you are able to discern the patterns and reasons for the relationship. Remember, I am simple IT coolie, and not even an amateur arm-chair strategist; I tried to keep it simple and informal - numbered points ityadi so that we can explain the thought patterns and relationship to our parents, siblings, offspring, friends and enemies in zimple english and they understand the 'matter'. {ps - this is my longest post in BR , felt like I was writing a paper }

I popped it on Stan saar's blog as well: http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.com/2010 ... story.html

I am interested in your thoughts, counter questions ityadi. I have not given my views yet - what is there to give onlee no?. So I just regurgitated what I read. I will be interested to hear your arguments for your case. If you don't convince me, I declare myself the winner

All for the sake of gyan onlee.

***********************
Prior to WWII
1.America’s disinterest towards India was primarily because the countries did not share history. However the American missionaries were interested in India. Missionaries were a prime source for uninformed information about India.
2.Katherine Mayo projected India as either opulent or having pervasive poverty. Mayo’s India resembled British and Missionaries’ India. {ref 14}. School textbooks, the media, and the academic writings depicted India as a backward society. Hence the public opinions were predominantly negative. Indian immigrants were considered undesirable. Read more under section ‘American images of India’.
3.A few New England philosophers admired and sought solace in some Indian sacred texts. They came to know about India from 18th century European missionaries and writers.
4.American Isolationism {ref 12}
a.America felt, by participating in the European wars, it would be weakened thereby reducing survival chances of America or that America would cease to exist as a free republic.
b.WWI had left a bad taste in America’s mouth – Europe, except Finland, did not pay America its war debts. The horrors of war had reduced the appetite to support European wars. In addition Americans perceived Britain & France did not nurture democracy in Europe at Munich. Some thought Britain and France to be the destroyers of democracy.
c.Isolationism did not mean America did not seek new territories or strong defense and seek economic spheres of influence. America would pursue all of them for the sake of the republic’s survival, and helping capitalism & corporations flourish. Geography & natural resources helped America to achieve isolationism.
d. Some scholars point out America was not isolationist but expansionist all the time. They point to the history of America.

1940s and 1950s
1.After 1946, America hoped India will emerge as the stabilizer in Asia. In order to do this America hoped India will open its commerce, investment and raw materials to America and the West. USA considered India and Nehru as an unofficial spokesman for most of South East Asia.
2.Jawaharlal Nehru had a different view of the World as he had just witnessed the birth of a new country – India, and understood the horrors of WWI and WWII. He chose to remain neutral and nationalistic. Nehru chose to see the World, rightly in my opinion, in terms of communism and anti-communism. Nehru’s nationalism butted India and America’s head in the Cold War. V.K.Krisna Menon saw America as attempting to be the next Great Britain in Asia.
3.The “tragic holocaust of Hindu-Muslim massacres” overshadowed a sympathetic image of Indians fighting for their freedom. India was a fanatic and violent mob.
4.Norman A. Graebner argues that until the defeat of Chinese Nationalism in 1949, India mattered little to Washington. Norman concludes Nehru was the winner as he understood the power of Nationalism in Asian affairs better than America.
5.American invited Nehru and attempted to convince him & India regarding the matters of Communism; Nehru visited but did not dance to the tunes of Washington. Nehru, who WAS India in those years, and America viewed the growing Communism in Asia differently.
6.Eisenhower rubbed India the wrong way by having Defense agreements with Pakistan. America embraced Pakistan and India tilted towards USSR. This made the American elite hostile and dismissive of India.
7.As years went by America became more stringent against Communism, leading to more criticism from India. Nehru was convinced that Communism did not pose a danger to India. India and America exchanged rhetoric, long story short America began to consider India to be anti-American.
8.In 1949, after deciding to make India central to its Asian plans, America disengaged from this strategy. Truman’s administration downplayed India and set the containment policy – emphasized military aid but no economic assistance. America, instead, decided to increase defense capabilities in Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, French Indo-China and the pacific.

Between 1950s and 1960s
1.“India became an experimental laboratory for American backed development” {ref 15}. America strove to indirectly control India’s future by making India a model for capitalistic economic growth.
2.After Indo-China war, and ambivalence from JFK, Indo-US ties improved. JFK objected to Dulles Doctrine, which was: ‘non-alignment was neutrality between right and wrong and a sign of anti-Americanism’. JFK engaged neutral countries more and American-Indian relations turned less hostile.
3.Lyndon Johnson thought Indians were weak and indecisive. {ref. 9}.John Lewis, a former AID official, describes majority of White House personnel, State Department and Congress to be anti-Indian, in the 60s. {ref. 9}
4.In 1965, INS reversed decades of discrimination and initiated preferred admission of skilled Asian workers. The ensuring impact was arrived only in 1980s.

1970s
1.Nixon had a long-standing dislike for India and Indians. Nixon’s tilt towards Pakistan in 1971 sent the relationship south. Cold-war fears and prejudices against India were key factors in dispatching the Enterprise in 1971. {ref. 9}
2.Carter accepted Asia’s version of nationalism, and the Indo-US relationship improved. Carter administration ratified the decision to treat India as the dominant state in South Asia, rather than build Pakistan’s military. Reagan continued the pleasant relationship but continue to also work with Pakistan.
3.America began to build strategic alliance with China against USSR. Though India disliked the alliance, India saw reasons in America’s actions.
4.Academic scholars still considered India to be backward {see prior to WWII section}.
5.“The Asia Society, in a review of some 300 school textbooks, found that the presentation of India was the most negative of all Asian countries”. American attitudes concerning India focused on disease, death, and illiteracy more than for any other place in the World. {ref. 9}
6.After the 1974 nuclear tests, India lost support from American activists and disillusioned the liberals.

1980s
1. With the collapse of Communism, American interests and outlook towards international order changed.
2. India was bothered by American and Chinese help to Pakistan in the context of Afghanistan. But India still saw a reason.

1990s
1.In 1993, Congressmen Frank Pallone (D) and Bill McCollum (R) created the Indian Caucus in the House of Representatives. 96-97 saw improved relations.
2.Cold-war habits hung over America even after the end of USSR. However, American businesses began to warm up; but the American elite nursed the cold-war ideologies – they still were dismissive or hostile towards India. India did not like the cold-war like behavior in the 90s – especially Clinton’s views on strategic alliance with China.
3.Indian Nuclear tests caused sanctions against India, but USA began to look at India more seriously. America began to think it terms of India’s security concerns and capabilities.
4.In ’99 USA blamed Pakistan for initiating the Kargil crisis.
5.Ayoob feels America courted China, in the post cold-war to counter Japan. America did not want East Asia to be under any one dominant or regional power. {ref 3}
6.China alone now stands in the American path to spread democracy across the World. China’s support to Pakistan emboldens Pakistan to defy American pressures.

Ideologies, beliefs, thoughts espoused by American Elite over centuries:
1.Open Door – a policy of commercial and political expansion to extend American influence in the World.
2.American Capitalism needed ever expanding markets to make the World more democratic.
3.Favored private enterprises over state owned enterprises to remedy social ills.
4.America provides benevolent leadership and international system to the World – representative democracy and market capitalism.
5.America could achieve economic hegemony by supporting IMF, World Bank and GATT; and political hegemony by becoming a great power in the UN.
6.“Free trade and the free flow of capital and, along with it, privatization and deregulation have become the order of the day. Policies consistent with this strategy are supported with varying degrees of enthusiasm, by most elite state and by nearly the entire political class, Democrat as well as Republican.” {ref. 6}
7.It is against American global interest for any one power to dominate Europe, hence America dropped its tradition of isolation to counter USSR.{Kissinger}.
8.Democrats and Republicans both have displayed ethnocentrism & appalling ignorance of “third world” countries. Superior & patronizing attitude and the insistence that America knows what is best for these countries. Liberalism or Conservatism might throw its weight little more than the other at times, but over a long period they have behaved the same.
9.America has power over the globe because of its power to move ships and aircraft. Michael Lind views that India could translate its economic power into naval, air and space power. India is expected to challenge America in South Asia in the years to come {ref. 11}
10.Michael Lind thinks India & China’s ascension will hurt Europe more than America. He also thinks the affluent Indian population offers a good market for America.
11.India’s poverty so repulsed many Americans that India represented to them the “living end” of mankind. {ref. 13}. India and Indians were viewed as deep and peculiarly concerned with religious life. India because associated with mysticism in Asia.
12.South Asian, that included India, was spoken in terms of potential value to America’s economic and security interests.
13.Olaf Caroe’s geo-strategic ideas found grounds to grow America’s role as an offshore balancer in South Asia. This act actually destabilized the region. Caroe worried about ‘wells of power’. Pakistan was used by America to balance Indian hegemony in South Asia. {ref 16}
Note: The American ideology has two components Economic and Political, as seen above.

Nehru’s beliefs:
1.The key to eradicating differing standards of living was in economic development and industrialization.
2.American model was not the only one to follow, and that Socialism offered a viable model too (probably a better one per Nehru)
3.Wanted to avoid the errors of Capitalism and Communism. However, he criticized Capitalism harsher.
4.Sought American aid, but did not want India to become dependent on America.

Kissinger’s beliefs:
1.Hinduism is a religion of endurance and not a religion of personal salvation. Considers Islam and Christianity as egalitarian religions.
2.India maintained identity, for centuries, without a specific Indian state. Considers Britain to have brought homogeneous administration, law and government to India.
3.Thinks India survived because of its cultural imperviousness and psychological skill in dealing with foreigners.
4.Opines that India under Nehru, correctly, like the Founding Fathers of America, chose to stay aloof from quarrels not affecting its vital interests.
5.Considers India a major player in South East Asia and expects India to dominate from Singapore to Aden.

India underrated, unimportant, hostility and not taken seriously by America:
1.Ayoob feels it was because of two reasons: 1) USSR & China. All other policy concerns took back seat when it came to Cold War concerns. 2) India’s non-alignment policy. Ayoob feels the historical baggage is carried by both the countries. {ref. 3}
2.India did not have natural resources vital to American economy. Unlike Latin America, there was no serious American private investment. Geo-politics of India posed no danger to America. India did not have cultural or historic ties to America, unlike China. Unlike Western Europe, Israel, Greece no significant population of India settled in India {ref. 9}
3.Apart from lacking natural resources that interested West, India was not seen vital in terms of communication routes. America did not see any gains from large scale support of India’s development. India’s economic growth mattered little to America’s economy{ref 13}
4.America believed India was on the wrong side during WWII and Cold-War. Though millions of Indians fought in WWII, INC refused to support against the Axis. As far as Cold-war see Nehru and the 1940s-1950s section.

Role of race, ethnicity & religion
1.Benjamin Franklin wished the number of White people was more than the others; he termed his partiality as only natural to mankind. His racism, contributed to his opinion on acquisitions and opening of new lands.
2.In the 1800s, race still was a factor in “external affairs” especially to the people in the Southern USA. Race contributed to the feeling of “American Greatness” and reflected in American foreign policy.
3.The Southerners hated the “African Americans”, while the Frontier people hated the “Native Americans”.
4.In the early part of the 20th century all Indian immigrants were deemed Hindus and subjected to prejudice against Asia & India that existed in USA in those times. Supreme Court in 1923 ruled Indians, being Hindus were “not whites” and hence were ineligible for citizenship. India retaliated in 1924 {gone are those days, right when India had the spine to retaliate} passing the Indian Naturalization Act.
5.Apart from Indians considered as dark skinned, owing to white racist prejudice, Indians were always associated with caste system and untouchability. Indians were deemed to have strong color feeling and race prejudices and people who hated each other.

American images of India:
Types of Images: {ref 14}
1.Visual: “sacred cows roaming the streets; mobs of religious fanatics hurling themselves into the Ganges; naked ascetics, scrawny fakirs on nails; the multiarmed goddess; the burning ghats; the skull-laden figure of Kali; Benares; obscene Hindu sculpture, phallic symbols and erotic carvings on the temples…”
2.Judgment: “a debased, hopeless sort of religion; a complicated, alien mess; mystic nonsense; stupid taboos; horrible practices in a clutter of cultural dead weights; a benighted, superstitious, fatalistic philosophy; fanatical, barbarous religiosity; the elevation of animal life above the human…”
3.Social commentary: “caste system; untouchability; child marriage, purdah, suttee; religion as a dragging burden on growth and development; terrific waste from the animal cult, cows and monkeys sacrosanct amid starvation; oppression of ignorance, of religious and caste prejudice; a ridiculous idealization of poverty; religion as a sanction for barriers between people between clean and unclean, making for crippling social differences and divisions…”

Some of the entities involved in shaping Indian image in America
1.Missionaries
2.Katherine Mayo
3.Time magazine
4.Ripley’s cartoons (was seen by millions)
5.National Geographic
6.Sunday supplements
7.Rudyard Kipling
8.Olaf Caroe’s ideas

Between 1947 and 1956: {ref 13}
1.“Geographically remote, culturally exotic, psychologically unfathomable, lacking in religious or philosophical exactitude, socially disunified, economically inefficient, oppressive in physical environment, its people poor, non-aggressive, oppressed, keen-minded but in large numbers uneducated, morally sensitive but difficult to deal with personally.”
2.Hollywood propagated several stereotypes, notably highlighted tribesman rising against British forces.
3.America was perceived as the richest country, India the poorest. India was filled with poverty and spiritualism was a panacea. India was a land of contrast, ethnic differences and POVERTY.
4.The term “Indian Mind” equated to “Hindu Mind” and this was perceived as a reason for the non-aligned movement. The term ‘Muslim’ was associated with Pakistan (after 1947).
5.India was perceived as a country that did not ask the right questions to solve problems, and hence reached wrong conclusions. “Hindu Mind” was attributed the cause.
6.American humanitarianism, liberal internationalists create a new ‘love affair’ that ended in 1960s. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru made favorable impressions among the American Liberals. They looked upon Nehru and the liberated Indian upper class upon which Asian democracy would rest.

In 1960s: {ref 13}
1.Under Kennedy administration, image of India as a permanent friend grew.
2.In the minds of the public, America was still a generous patron and India was a needy client. India was the petitioner calling upon American charity. Indians were depicted as destitute, sleeping on the city streets or starving in the villages. After self-interest American sense of humanitarianism led to the aid. Indian representatives nurture this sentiment.
3.India’s poverty was a key in policy making, but there was still a sense of an enlightened democracy struggling out of poverty; and India could be won over to the West my massive economic support.
4.Popular writers and editors in America sought sensational formats to sell their products, and Katherine Mayo’s grisly portrayal of India still lingered in the publishing field.
5.Some Americans spread the image of India awakening and controllable in the future and thus portrayed India eligible for American support.

Between 1960s and 1970s {ref 13}
1.India was still exotic, but now a land of despair, political institutions were faltering, economic growth stagnating, and social tensions leading straight towards chaos.
2.Doubts began to creep in about the effectiveness of the earlier aids to India; an image of complacent India entered into the minds.
3.India, Nehru & NAM began to increase the negative image.
4.The image of India being a non-ally caused Nixon to perceive the 1971 crisis from Pakistan’s point of view. He saw a friendly nation being dismembered; and ordered Kissinger to tilt policies towards Pakistan.
5.Americans saw India as ungovernable force and ‘biological multiplication’ beyond American capacity to influence; India became an enemy from a “threat to human survival” perspective.

References:
1. http://books.google.com/books?id=URSAgR ... &q&f=false
2. http://www.indianembassy.org/policy/For ... /namer.htm
3. http://www.twq.com/winter00/231Ayoob.pdf
4. http://books.google.com/books?id=95bJwl ... &q&f=false
5. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/curprob.htm
6. http://books.google.com/books?id=5Z2vc_ ... &q&f=false
7. http://books.google.com/books?id=LXgSgV ... &q&f=false
8. http://books.google.com/books?id=rJYmir ... &q&f=false
9. http://books.google.com/books?id=hWjDSV ... &q&f=false
10. http://books.google.com/books?id=4SmMvq ... &q&f=false
11. http://books.google.com/books?id=AMIQLE ... &q&f=false
12. http://mises.org/journals/jls/6_3/6_3_1.pdf
13. http://books.google.com/books?id=4mNBog ... &q&f=false
14. http://books.google.com/books?id=Y1ka7r ... &q&f=false
15. http://books.google.com/books?id=2JdfzA ... &q&f=false
16. http://rempost.blogspot.com/2006/03/why ... inked.html

[brihaspati]

SwamyG,

Its an excellent collection of observations. But what is not clear to me is the real bone of contention:

What is the actual dispute about : is it whether "religion/faith" or "perceptions of faith" has a significant/dominant driving/underlying role in US foreign policy or not?

The question is tricky if we ask for observed data to test this out. Observed data need not indicate actual psychological drives in policy makers, and the data has to be then gleaned indirectly by deconstructing outcomes.

This can be done - but it will mean analyzing the possibly subconscious underpinnings of the comments by various authors which you have paraphrased. High-level policy-makers may not always be consciously aware of the fundamental psychological underpinnings of their attitudes, beliefs, opinions, values, perceptions, and behavior, especially how these may affect a particular decision or policy intiative. Therefore this would not necessarily be reflected in their responses to interviewers' questions or public and private writings. High-level policy-makers and others who may influence policy are not always entirely candid about their roles, especially in retrospective writings about possible misperceptions or mistakes.

Many of the comments that you have cited are themselves ripe for a psychoanalytic exploration. In fact have you noticed that certain presumed values - with solid connections to early Puritanical beliefs and its adaptations with advancing time, are encoded in many of the comments you cite?

[SwamyG]

Bji: I have no problem in accepting that more analysis of the observed data needs to be done. I think by reading these observations, it should be clear to any newbie or individual on American or Indian street to see what America did in the last 100 years. So the next time a nuna brfite asks "Are you kidding me?"; we point him to these posts. It is the job for us to convert the skeptics.

Now I invite more learned people to lay the analysis out in such a way that all the dots are connected for the different layers of people: the elite and the Ram-Rabert-Rahims should be able to understand all the analysis. If skeptics can be convinced then India could probably do what America did - condition its people, media and policies? Dharma is our underlying heart.

Though the discussion started of based on the Stratfor guy's observations. The discussions took off based on the following two posts of Rama: http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 42#p920142
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 30#p919730

The question Rama will probably answer is the religious angle of breaking up India.

[Sanjay M]

South Korean President Proposes Tax for Reunification with North Korea


Hah, this should be interesting - let's see how the shrill South Korean Left react to this. Why doesn't India do an Indo-Pak reunification tax for Wagah candle-wavers?

[brihaspati]

SwamyG,

On second reading :
Many of the claimed motivations by these various authors are presumed values or attributions that do not stand actual behaviour.

For example if it was a supreme or core value for USA to spread democracy around then the actual behaviour does not match it. Not in Africa, not in Latin America or Meso America, not in Asia. Outside the Western European block, USA has landed up collaborating more with non-democracies and more with authoritarian regimes. Every act of collaboration with a military junta or an authoritarian and non-democratic regime actually strengthens anti-democractic trends in the regions and actually postpones advent of democracy in the region.

There are six or seven basic facets of the American paradigm for foreign policy as is derivable from actual behaviour, with a fundamental underlying value system that is directly traceable to Puritan-Anglican Christian doctrine. I will wait for what RamaY ji has to say on this before I list out those facets.

One direct consequence for India's potential dismemberment which is apparently the current debate is about, as far as the 20th century apparent paradigm for US FP is concerned, is a two-pronged move :

On the one hand, collapse of India as a nation/state may mean penetration of Islamism to a greater extent, and the resources of the dismembered part falling into the hands of Jihadis which is used against USA and its interests in Asia. This is undesirable for US gov. The measures of undesirability are determined by the US underlying paradigm and values system which again derives from Puritan-Anglican worldview.

This is closely related to another value-system within the paradigm in which dismemberment is a preferred policy if the region or entity had proved neutral or anti-US interests in the past, or neighbours to an entity which is still perceived by USA as anti-USA. If such an entity has potentially explosive ethnic or religious antagonisms which can be used to keep the dismembered parts at the neck of each other and therefore not usable by anti-US forces - then this is the FP objective. However, if such entities had proved willing to play along with US interests, the very same explosive divisive factors will be ignored and the entity will be propped up to the very last moment in complete contravention of all other touted high principles mentioned in your list as claimed by various authors. Consider, the Balkans scene and Pak - both have explosive divisions, but one was dismembered and the other desperately preserved.

On the other hand, a more reliable framework of sympathy for US interests is that of the US version of Christianity taking hold in India to as great an extent as possible. Therefore while not acting towards dismemberment in the short term, it is worthwhile as part of strategy to encourage and facilitate Evangelist spread in as much of India as possible in preparation for a better grip and handle in controlling larger portions of Indian landmass and people. A similar outcome could have been achieved by encouraging the pre-existing "Hindu" to become expansive and integrative. But it is here that the Christian and racial values system of the paradigm works - in which spread or strengthening of the "Hindu" cannot be allowed because it is a rejectable system and Christianity has the right to intervene to "supplant it" [this is taken from a 1907 Baptist Mission statement and which has appeared in various forms throughout 20th century].

One consequence of these two divergent directions is a compromise solution by which immediate dismemberment of India is ruled out but a slow sympathization and greater reliability of social control can only be ensured by pushing through greater Christianization. At a certain point this may lead to dismemberment but then it would be dismemberment into parts which has a mixture of Christian and Islamic components and therefore neutralized - at least in the paradigm view.

The indications will manifest as continued blocking of the "spread of the Hindu" within legal framework, continued flow of funds into Christian evangelism in India, regional consolidation of Christian populations in India and entrenchment in the regional political frameworks, academic campaign to delegitimize the Hindu in all spheres which may compete with the political goals of Evangelists, all the while US Gov will play an apparently unifying and positive role in gov to gov interactions. This is preparation for the future in case dismemberment becomes desirable or feasible or unavoidable. The first reactions will come from Islamists in the same region because they are working also along similar lines and will immediately recognize the underlying long term goals.

[SwamyG]

The actual behavior is tempered by the reality under which governments function. It seems America's paramount interest is survival of itself (rightly so). No country has escaped the condition in which there are domestic differences on foreign policies, and America is no exception.

If you say America is spreading Christianity in India, I like to read evidences. No, I am not talking about again missionaries and NGOs; I know the scale of money flowing into India. I like publicly verifiable sources On the other hand it is ironical if America is spreading Christianity in India, while more Americans are leaving that religion. If democracy and science continue to shine, then the hold of Abrahmic religions will reduce by the day until everybody is reduced to a state where the practices/beliefs look pagan (or Hindu) in nature.

I do not know understand why you think Indians could be better controlled as Christians. Do Corporations really care if they make profit of a Hindu vs a Christian? I have not seen anything to convince me otherwise.

Reading some of the available literature I list the following phases of American fp towards India:
1) World Wars phase: The public opinion shaped by missionaries and media. Lack of interest at the GOTUS level.
2) Cold War phase: No change in public opinion, GOTUS trying to keep India in its sphere of influence. India rejects it.
3) Post Cold War phase: No major change in public opinion, GOTUS still nursing cold-war thoughts.
4) Post Liberalization (1991) phase: Still no major change in public opinion, GOTUS thoughts shaped by Corporations and trade.
5) Post 2000 phase: With Indian economy growing and exposure to more Indians over the century, some public opinion in America has changed for good. GOTUS thoughts continued to be shaped by Corporations and trade.

With 2+ million Indian origin people in USA, and continues streams of positive news about Indians, Indians are no longer just spiritual or mystic; but they are now intelligent and hard working as well. Neither the American public or GOTUS is a static homogeneous entity. Different periods and level & kinds of exposures continue to shape the image and public policies. If one focuses only on the early religious background, then one is missing the rest of the story.

[Sanjay M]

As a kid, I used to love watching ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley" on Sunday mornings. The show isn't quite what it used to be, but here's their round table discussion on the Ground Zero mosque:

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/ro ... s-11404657


Now that Americans will have their very own Babri Masjid at Ground Zero, it will be easier for them to identify with sentiments in India over the Ground Zero mosque in Ayodhya.

[brihaspati]

SwamyG,

just because formally the USGOV and NGO's+missions are not seen or known to be legally extensions of each other does not mean that none of their interests and motivations overlap. Once again you are assuming that what public figures say in public or on record accurately and honestly reflect what their underlying motivations and drives are.

The corporate and trade interests definitely are a prime motivator, but they could be behind both USGOV and NGO's missions. Source of private contributions and funding to NGO's and missions are not always easy to trace, even if they are legal.

Why is it difficult to allow the possibility that a "third party" hedges its interests by funding both political parties or candidates as well as NGO's and missions, so that different parts of its multifaceted interests are served by different agencies according to their scope and legitimacy?

I mentioned the greater "control-ability" "if Christian" as a potential line of thinking motivating the "missions", not in the context of such ideas being realistic. There are well known international interaction models that take into account perceived cultural similarities and their role in FP.

As was evident of in the California Text Book controversy, mere presence of millions of Indians on US soil does not necessarily change establishment views. Yes a greater number of non-Indian origin Americans are looking at certain aspects of Indian/Hindu culture favourably, but concrete studies are yet absent about how far that "favourable" change is due to a perception of "them following/adopting our values and way of life" and how far is that change based on a genuine awareness of actual Indian/Hindu values and way of life. Indians in USA tend to adopt and integrate into existing "way of life" in their outward interactions even if holding on to their inner "desi life".

Even when adopting certain practices, say "Yoga", authors and proponents fall into two distinct consciously carried out representations - one stresses that it should be looked upon as a biological and psychological training regime having nothing to do with "Hindu religion" [the need to socially disassociate, and the second stresses the sexual aspect which would align with dominant memes of US society.

Things change in a nation - definitely - but here things are not monolithic and different sections have different rates of inertia. I think I raised this point before. Looking only at the group that changes the fastest is as erroneous as looking only at the group that changes the slowest.

[SwamyG]

just because formally the USGOV and NGO's+missions are not seen or known to be legally extensions of each other does not mean that none of their interests and motivations overlap. Once again you are assuming that what public figures say in public or on record accurately and honestly reflect what their underlying motivations and drives are.

The onus is to prove the assertion or theory. No I am not assuming anything. In tamil they say "velluthadhu elam paal illai" {all white things are not milk}. I am very much aware. But then the onus is on people to convince others of the motivations. I am saying "I am open, now convince me". I value public sources of information because that is the one thing we could use to convince the people on the street.

Why is it difficult to allow the possibility that a "third party" hedges its interests by funding both political parties or candidates as well as NGO's and missions, so that different parts of its multifaceted interests are served by different agencies according to their scope and legitimacy?

I am not disallowing third or n parties playing their games. Again we have to show who are in the driving seat. You stay in the West, I do not know if you are in America, do you see the hold of the Christian religion on the people, as strong as say 20 years ago? Reading the literature one can see science and democracy has made inroads, they have actually tilled the field so to say. The conditions might be right to sow some dharmic seeds.

As was evident of in the California Text Book controversy, mere presence of millions of Indians on US soil does not necessarily change establishment views.

But the same controversy also showed that it was because of the existence of the millions of Hindus, truth be told by the action of very good Hindu parents that a battle was waged in the courts. Now roll back the time to say 1920s, would this even have happened?

Yes a greater number of non-Indian origin Americans are looking at certain aspects of Indian/Hindu culture favourably, but concrete studies are yet absent about how far that "favourable" change is due to a perception of "them following/adopting our values and way of life" and how far is that change based on a genuine awareness of actual Indian/Hindu values and way of life.

The word "opportunity" screams at me. Any good scholars and professors in this field browsing this thread ?

Even when adopting certain practices, say "Yoga", authors and proponents fall into two distinct consciously carried out representations - one stresses that it should be looked upon as a biological and psychological training regime having nothing to do with "Hindu religion"

I don't see why Christians have no rights to protest their way of life. If they 'perceive' Yoga to threaten them, so be it. How many Americans in the late 19th century impressed with Indian spirituality, philosophy and practices? Henry Thoreau comes to mind. Probably there are few more here and there. Count how many in the 20th and 21st century? Don't you see changes?

I am not impervious to the battle in the public even when it comes to a movie - Eat Pray Love. Where was Gunga Din and where is Eat Pray Love (book or movie). I read objections, protests, disdain towards India and Hinduism still, but there are plenty of support even among the Americans.

[brihaspati]

Fellow BRfites, I know that Tehelka is sometimes accused of sensationalism : here is a link
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main.asp?f ... shashi.asp
which specifically accuses a political-gov-CIA-missionary nexus specifically with respect to India. Can anyone give publicly available reasons and data as to why this report should not be dismissed as the fevered imagination of a conspiracy theorist out to blame religion neutral US government at least far as FP is concerned?

There was also the small 1996 controversy about the CIA admitting that a loophole in the legalities of its self-imposed ban on using missionaries for intelligence work [under G.Bush as CIA supremo in 1976] allows the CIA to waive the ban on its discretion. Probably another CT. Nothing has been hear about this since - banning of such waivers I mean.

Can anyone enlighten?

[SwamyG]

Bush's connection with Joshua Project has been making rounds on the internet, and the Republicans' siding with Christian missionaries is well known. Christianaggression.org has several articles too

Yes, it will be nice if someone 'engligtens' us with the broad picture.

[svinayak]

If you say America is spreading Christianity in India, I like to read evidences. No, I am not talking about again missionaries and NGOs; I know the scale of money flowing into India. I like publicly verifiable sources On the other hand it is ironical if America is spreading Christianity in India, while more Americans are leaving that religion. If democracy and science continue to shine, then the hold of Abrahmic religions will reduce by the day until everybody is reduced to a state where the practices/beliefs look pagan (or Hindu) in nature.

There will be no verifiable sources for such news. By now it must be understood that the information about the western people and what their govt policies are completely controlled by western media. There is completely different information and communication among the christian missionaries which is not open to the global public and westerrn media will never carry this.
This is a massive undertaking and the entire world is considered as a place for change socially.

[svinayak]

As was evident of in the California Text Book controversy, mere presence of millions of Indians on US soil does not necessarily change establishment views.

But the same controversy also showed that it was because of the existence of the millions of Hindus, truth be told by the action of very good Hindu parents that a battle was waged in the courts. Now roll back the time to say 1920s, would this even have happened?

But the question is why in the first place would they want to give false information about India and Indians/Hindus for the last 50 years. Or Even for 100 years

[Manishw]

As was famously said 'There are known unknown's and unknown unknown's'. This is a known unknown but will not be able to find a trail of fingerprints and D.N.A samples.
JMT

[SwamyG]

But the question is why in the first place would they want to give false information about India and Indians/Hindus for the last 50 years. Or Even for 100 years

As I understood based on my reading, Americans inherited their views of Indians from the British and the Missionaries. You are one of the very well read BRFites and would have a good grasp of the entire relationship. It would be tough to get something worthy of say Wikileaks, but the Liberals/progressives/ultra leftists who scorn at the religious right could (or would have) unearth some of the information. There should be no room for doubt that there has been and still is an institutional bias against India. We have material to support that conclusion. As you are aware, all countries have been changing or evolving; so which direction is USA heading and how much role does religion play and how does it affect India are issues that some of BRF members, who have the ability to see further than people like me, could (and have been) analyze or elaborate to us.

In my younger days, when I had even less info on hand, I knew USA aligned with Pakistan. I would think if anything were to happen to India, USSR would step in to help. I never knew the background information or the "whys". Now with the information available on the Internet and days at BRF, I have been able to read some of the reasons and actions. Knowing the underlying motives would be very interesting and informative.

[Sanjay M]

NRIs debate Barabari Masjid:

Indians in America debate over mosque near 9/11 site

[Rudradev]

But the question is why in the first place would they want to give false information about India and Indians/Hindus for the last 50 years. Or Even for 100 years

As I understood based on my reading, Americans inherited their views of Indians from the British and the Missionaries. You are one of the very well read BRFites and would have a good grasp of the entire relationship. It would be tough to get something worthy of say Wikileaks, but the Liberals/progressives/ultra leftists who scorn at the religious right could (or would have) unearth some of the information. There should be no room for doubt that there has been and still is an institutional bias against India. We have material to support that conclusion. As you are aware, all countries have been changing or evolving; so which direction is USA heading and how much role does religion play and how does it affect India are issues that some of BRF members, who have the ability to see further than people like me, could (and have been) analyze or elaborate to us.

In my younger days, when I had even less info on hand, I knew USA aligned with Pakistan. I would think if anything were to happen to India, USSR would step in to help. I never knew the background information or the "whys". Now with the information available on the Internet and days at BRF, I have been able to read some of the reasons and actions. Knowing the underlying motives would be very interesting and informative.

Swamy,

Congratulations on your scholarship... your write-up is definitely a keeper and goes some way towards illuminating possible connections between the West's civilizational attitude to India, and the foreign policy practiced by the pre-eminent Western power towards modern India.

Going on to root causes, though... I have only glimpsed scattered evidence of what may lie beneath all of this. I don't claim to be an expert at all... with all humility, let me say that the search is only beginning for me, and that I feel privileged to belong to BR, a community with several individuals who may contribute to its advancement.

Here is what I think I have uncovered so far. No citations, references etc. yet... those are a long way off. But just to begin with.

When we think of Western schools of thought in the modern world, many of us are wont to group them into essentially two categories. The Capitalist and the Socialist is what we could call these in the context of social, political and economic outlook. The Anglo-American and the Slavic, (loosely speaking) in terms of ethnic or civilizational perspective. The Judeo-Christian and the Post-Orthodox, (again loosely speaking) in terms of religious perspective.

The Anglo-American school of thought we all know very well... it is what most of us refer to as the "West" in terms of primary civilizational identity. Their economic attitudes were shaped by the likes of Alexander Hamilton and Adam Smith; their political attitudes by such figures as Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill; and their ideological attitudes by a compact between Protestant Christianity and Judaism (not always easy, but it hangs together well enough for most purposes.) The Roman Catholic Church is largely aligned with the Anglo American school, and its adherents have considerable influence especially in the United States; however, we must needs see the RCC here as a sort of subsidiary power. Since the days of German and Italian reunification, the Papacy lost any semblance of real political or military power; a decline in fortune that began with the collapse of Spain under Philip II, and continued to completion with the wars of Garibaldi (the Pope was the most fervent opponent of Italian reunification, and prevailed upon all manner of monarchs from Napoleon III of France to the Austrian Hapsburgs to fight the unificationists on his behalf, but failed to retain any temporal power for the Vatican eventually.)

The other school is in disarray following the end of the Cold War, but easy enough to recognize. Its economic attitudes in the last century were shaped by Marxist dialectical materialism; its political attitudes by Leninist Bolshevism; and its ideological perspective by a series of thinkers from Engels to Mao. There is currently a struggle within this camp as to how to redefine itself and its purposes for a new century, but its key ideology-- socialism-- is very much alive in Europe as well as in present-day Russia, though it takes variously libertarian and authoritarian forms in different societies and political entities.

These schools are both well known to us, and broadly occupy the "right" and the "left" of the Western economic, political and ideological spectrum today. It's easy to forget that in the modern era, there had ever been any other.

However, at the turn of the last century, there were in fact three schools of thought in the West. The third "school" was still inchoate at the time it was bludgeoned into comatose hiatus by the other two around the middle of the last century; it still had not consolidated itself, indeed it had never found a powerful enough state to speak for it until the 1930s, and when it did, that state turned out to be on the wrong side of history for a variety of political reasons.

In this third school I include parties that were given neither to the ways of the Anglosphere nor the Russosphere; and more importantly, had limited if any ideological affinity to either Judeo-Christianity or Socialism. I include movements as diverse as Norse Paganism, Gardnerian Wicca, the Order of the Golden Dawn and the Theosophical Society. All these movements hinged around the search for a deeper, lost truth and source of identity that had been suppressed by the post-Constantinian rise of Christian Imperialism. Yet many remained on the fringes of their respective societies, marginalized and trivialized as occult absurdities by the far more powerful adherents of Judeo-Christianity or Socialism. Even today, anyone bandying these names around is considered to be some kind of conspiracy theorist... so I list them here with the utmost temerity. Hear me out though.

As it happened, there was a time when this third alternative to the two pre-eminent schools of thought, began to acquire the degree of ideological momentum required to coalesce into a materialistic or political philosophy. Importantly, this process was driven by the work of several German thinkers of the 1800s and early 1900s... Nietzsche, Hegel, Heidegger... all of whom were influenced to some degree by the writings of Friedrich Max Muller.

Max Muller began as an orientalist of the pre-Modern colonial tradition, but soon found himself genuinely fascinated by the living body of knowledge represented in Dharmic civilization. It is important to note that many other "third-school" movements also looked to Indic traditions as a source of inspiration, wisdom and even memetic/civilizational ancestry, including the Theosophists and the Golden Dawn.

What emerged from this...and this is why I consider it a distinct, third school set apart from either Judeo-Christian Anglo-Americanism or Socialism...was a realization among sections of Western society that Sanatan Dharm might indeed be the key to the further evolution of human society; and that they, in the European West, had ancestral links to the civilizational cradle of Sanatan Dharm that far predated either the ideological tyranny of Judeo-Christianity or the historical negation innate to Socialism.

In other words, the Third School I am referring to looked neither to Jerusalem nor to Rome as the ideological urheimat of the West... much of it looked, instead, to India.

This was complete anathema to both the Anglo-American Judeo-Christians, and the Marxists. As long as these third-school movements remained scattered at the fringes of society, they were easy to malign and ridicule. However, as it happened, the third school came to influence a political movement powerful enough to gain mastery over a pivotal European country.

A very extreme form of third-school ideology, albeit highly distorted through the prism of an autocratic cult of personality, found a dramatic political manifestation in the National Socialist Workers' Party.

It is not easy to trace the connections between Indic civilization and Hitler's Nazism. For one thing, both the Judeo-Christians and the Socialists of the West have relentlessly bludgeoned Hinduism with the threat of demonization by association... so that we have become fearfully apologetic of even trying to draw a connection. That is not our Swastika, we say; those are not our Aryans. For another, India was not in a position to assert herself politically or even ideologically over those European movements that might have looked to her for inspiration; we were abject, a British colony. So it was only prudent, if ironic, that we sent our strongest and brightest to fight against the National Socialists on behalf of our British oppressors.

Nonetheless, the connections do exist. Read Savitri Devi's "The Lightning and the Sun" for clues.

Following the utter destruction of Nazi Germany at the end of the Second World War, the two victorious schools of thought... Anglo-American and Russian Socialist... took every measure to ensure that nothing resembling Nazism would ever gain enough ideological currency to become a serious contender for Western political power again. The Holocaust of Jews proved a useful pretext for the stamping out and systematic demonization of everything Nazism was associated with... it enabled the Anglo-Americans to claim moral superiority, implicitly by virtue of a solidly Judeo-Christian and "democratic" ethic, over the crazy mass-murdering occultists who had dared to venerate heathen symbols and ideas in righetously Christian Europe. For their part, the Russian Communists went about negating the historical context of everything associated with Nazism just as Communists and Socialists will distort and negate any piece of history inconvenient to their worldview to this day.

Ultimately, the philosophical contribution of Germany to Western thought was cauterized and summarized by the elegant and non-threatening trifecta: "Godel, Escher, Bach." A sanitized version for the Anglo-Americans to appreciate in the twentieth century; though the Russian Communists even rejected these three figures as elitist emblems. Meanwhile, the industriousness, innovation, and genius of the German people are ascribed (in the Judeo-Christian narrative) to their "Lutheran work ethic." Period. No hint that they ever had any other civilizational influences besides.

Today everyone remembers Hitler the jew-hater, the madman, the warmonger. That is the legend that has been drummed into worldwide public consciousness at the behest of WWII's victors. Everyone thinks of Hitler as somehow especially evil, notwithstanding the fact that his Holocaust was dwarfed by the Americans in the process of seizing their continent from its natives; by the British many times over, in India and their other colonial possessions; and by an array of twentieth-century Socialist despots from Stalin to Pol Pot.

Hitler may have been a warmonger and a racist; but he was also a lover of animals and a vegetarian. These ideas did not come from any Bible or Torah. They came from something the Judeo-Christians and the Socialists alike fear far more terribly than they do one another (for indeed, Marxism is no more than an extension of Abrahamic/Semitic ideology, another "reformation" of Western social and political thought ultimately contrived to justify brute-force imperialistic expansion and the subjugation of other peoples.) They come from Dharma.

Was Hitler Dharmic? To some degree he was, although he did many Adharmic things and paid the price for them. It is true, of course, that much of WWII German military tradition remained imbued with Christian symbology, the Iron Cross and so on, hearkening back to the Holy Roman Empire and more recently reinforced after German unification under a Kaiser with quasi-spiritual "divine right". But that may only be because the full import of Nazi ideology, specifically its third-school aspects, had not had a chance to sink in to German civil society before the Germans went out to war. It is also true that the Church, specifically the Roman Catholic Church, collaborated with his Holocaust; but let us remember that the RCC had been more or less a rentier power since the reunification of Italy, with the Pope hanging his hat on whichever power seemed pre-eminent in Europe in the hope of patronage.

But none of that is the issue here.

The issue here is
1) that a third school of thought existed in the West at the turn of the last century, distinct from both Anglo-American Judeo-Christianity and from International Socialism;
2) that the adherents of this school explored ideological foundations for European civilizational identity in Dharmic civilization... ideas that were extremely threatening to both Judeo-Christianity and Communism;
3) and that, with the end of the Second World War, it was demonized by association with Nazism and consigned to ideological oblivion. For the next several decades, at least.

When India became independent, it could not have been far from the minds of both the Anglo-American and Communist thinkers, how tremendous a fascination Indian civilization had exerted on their fellow White Europeans, not very long ago at all. It escaped the notice of neither the Christian Church nor the Jewish international business elite that even in an absence of temporal power, while India herself suffered the throes of slavery and misery, the power of Dharmic civilization to shape the imagination of the West had remained profound.

What would happen now if India were allowed to re-establish the social, the political, the economic power of that Dharmic civilization as well? Merely on the strength of her ancient philosophical wisdom and devoutly preserved spiritual traditions, India had managed to influence the West in the early modern age while still under the British jackboot. Now suppose she gained what the Capitalists and Communists alike understood to be *real* power... material power?

It has never been a secret to any sincere student of History that Dharmic civilization has been the pre-eminent cultural foundation of Asia, its influence immediately perceptible from Tibet to Indonesia to the Philippines and Japan, and historically discernible in regions of West and Central Asia despite the best efforts of Islamic marauders to scour it away.

The real secret that the West has been keeping from us is the degree to which Dharmic civilization had influenced a great diversity of spiritual, philosophical, social and even political institutions in the West itself... from the Theosophical Society of Blavatsky and Annie Besant to the National Socialist Workers' Party of Adolf Hitler. Western "right" and "left", Anglo-American and Slav alike have no greater fear than that this will happen again; and that this time, there will be a Civilization-State with real temporal power seizing the helm of her destiny.

The Third School still has its adherents today... such intellectuals as Koenraad Elst, Francois Gaultier and David Frawley continue the tradition, though they are little known outside their circles of scholarship. If the Third School ever re-asserts itself in the West, it will be thanks to the tireless and dedicated efforts of men and women such as these, who carried the torch through the decades of obscurity.

I hope this begins to suggest the possibility of an answer for you, as it has for me. If you arrive at one, let me know... I'm a very long way from learning the whole truth myself.

[svinayak]

Congratulations
Please x post it in the Non western World view

[kmkraoind]

US says China's military has seen secret expansion

Worth reading full, so posted full article. To come out the current economic mess, US needs a strong enemy to awaken its full energy and China perfectly suits the bill. Now global balance of powers shifts its focus to Asia. The only question comes to mind is when pushed to corner, which side Pakistan will turn. If they turn to any side completely expect its a bakis Armageddon.

This is dangerous, the Pentagon report says, as it gives rise to misunderstandings and raises the risks of potential conflict.

The annual study notes that China has extended its military advantage over Taiwan.

The report contains no dramatic new data but confirms US concerns about the rapid growth of China's military might.

According to the Pentagon report, China has been upgrading its land-based missiles, expanding its submarine force and modernising nuclear forces.
Frictions

It says China has 1,150 short-range ballistic missiles and an unknown number of medium-range missiles.

The billions of dollars in expenditure has been conducted largely out of the public eye, the report alleges.

"The limited transparency in China's military and security affairs enhances uncertainty and increases the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation," it says.

Recent commentaries from the Chinese military establishment have complained about large-scale military exercises held by the US and South Korea.

They have spoken of an alleged policy of US "encirclement" that threatens China's core interests.

China has also criticised what it sees as unwarranted interference by the US in one of those core interests, China's claim to much of the South China Sea.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told a regional summit in Vietnam that it supported non-Chinese claimants to the sea.
US commander Jeffrey Kim (R) and his crew are greeted by Vietnamese naval officers at Tien Sa port in the central coastal city of Danang The training marked 15 years of normalised relations between the US and Vietnam

The US also recently held a week of visits and training exercises with Vietnam.

The US is embarking on a new round of exercises with South Korea which it describes as purely defensive.

Military-to-military contacts between the US and China have been suspended and China refused to meet US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

"It's been ambiguous over the past several months," a senior defence official told the AP when asked about the Pentagon view of its relationship with China.
Far reach

The Pentagon suggests that China's purchases show a growing military reach beyond its borders, and beyond Taiwan.

"The balance of cross-Strait military forces continues to shift in the mainland's favour," the report said, regardless of improving political and business ties with Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou.

And China was "already looking at contingencies beyond Taiwan," it says, citing work on longer-range missiles that could reach the Pacific.

"Current trends in China's military capabilities are a major factor in changing East Asian military balances and could provide China with a force capable of conducting a range of military operations in Asia well beyond Taiwan," it said.

The report alleges this reach could go beyond traditional boundaries of Okinawa in Japan and the South China Sea to Guam, mainland Japan and the Philippines.

In March this year, China said it would increase its defence budget by 7.5% to 532.1 billion yuan ($77.9bn, £50bn), less than the usual double-digit increases.

The US annual military budget is about $700bn (£448bn).

The Pentagon said it wanted dialogue with China to avoid any "miscalculation" between the two militaries.

[Pratyush]

Rudradev,

It is posts such as yours that bring me to BRF day in and day out.

[Hari Seldon]

^^^ I second that.

[SwamyG]

Rudradev ji: Those words from a member like you means much to me. I have read your post once, I need to read it several more times to understand let alone even remember. Please give me a day or two to digest that. I will respond.

Meanwhile....
Source:Democratic Underground Dirty truth about who controls American University Curriculum

[Rudradev]

Thanks for your kindnesses, gentlemen.

[brihaspati]

Rudradev ji,
excellent pointer! I had thought about raising the issue but thought that it would perhaps be too disturbing for many.

My tentative conclusion has been that the "west" has been permanently kept insecure in its ideological grounding by a sense of loss of the "uhrheimat" which was the "sacred geography" and ideology of SD, and a search to rediscover it. In a way, all its dynamics, its strength, violence, and weaknesses and defeats - all have happened because it is "homeless" and it acutely feels so.

I will outline-explain as a full explanation perhaps will go OT.

(1) Note that the underbelly and the dominant elite - of Europe, came from early expansions from Asian east. The Iberians - trapped in Ice-age refugia in then southern Europe stretching from Med to Spain to southern England to Ireland, forming the bulk of the non-elite now. Most of the current elite in European history since the Roman period, stem from various Germanic tribes - including almost all of the traditional elite in Western Europe. Both originate in the great waves of migrations originally starting from the Indian subcontinent.

(2) The strongest proponents of European ideologies came from one of these groups, be they Greeks or the Roman patricians, coming from the "east" by their own origin myths. Or the Germanics who spread around to dominate Italy, France, Spain, and England - and from there - to the Americas. in all their origin myths, or their religions there is an underlying thread of bidirectional conflict. On the one hand they are conscious of their "original homeland" from which they have come - "expelled", one which was home - origin, and better - heavenly/paradise [para-desha]. On the other they were faced with the challenge of land-claims of those who had come before them - the locals - who now claimed the right of "bhumiputras". To which the response had to be some sort of local origin claims to.

(3) The trace of the original - SD - developed in an universalist, natural environment compatible, framework could allow adoption of the still forested landscape into the pre-Christian "pagan" memes. But the compromise, was never satisfactory. So apart from the imperial motivation needing a non-pagan and therefore external meme to overrule the pre-existing pagan - Christianity found some degree of acceptance in the sense that it perhaps appeared partially to satisfy the vacuum left by the loss of SD. It was eastern in origin, and early Christianity - especially the Arrian form adopted by the Germanics was more Gnostic than the later imperial Catholic form. Gnosticism was widespread in Christianity of the eastern Med and is uncannily similar in memes to certain interpretations within SD.

(4) That European Christianity was never really happy with itself is proved by the constant schisms, intense religious wars, and factional reformulations. It was the Germans again who broke in a major way under Luther. Protestants found a new tool in the newly obtained scientific thought of the East and India which percolated back through Islamic hands - rarely acknowledged by the Islamics as to the SD roots of such knowledge. Probably the process had started already through the Templars and other pre-modern contacts with the East. This trend culminated in the 19th century German Romantics. The search for the "Uhrheimat" began in earnest. Nietzsche's critic of Christianity is superbly revealing in the underlying problem.

(5) Colonial, imperial considerations interposed in the process and created race and other superiority-inferiority complexes. But the constant search for fulfillment, through material satisfaction, through trying to lose individuality in a greater whole, through emphasizing individual quest and salvation and transcendence, the constant agonizing over choosing between and how far within the spirituality-materilaistic spectrum, the resulting aggression and imperialistic tendencies all show different aspects of the awareness of the loss of SD memes. At various stages it has produced organized church based congregational trends, or communist congregational trends, or atheistic trends, or mysticism, and even naturalism.

Think of it, carefully, Europeans show in a broad sweep all the debates and schools of solutions or methods proposed in applied SD. It is their search for the root, which they are aware that they have lost. But the burden of history stands in the way of acknowledgment.

The search for the "Uhrheimat" is a deeper, ideological one. The sense of loss is what drives the violence.

[Mauli]

SD=???

[SwamyG]

excellent pointer! I had thought about raising the issue but thought that it would perhaps be too disturbing for many.

I think the bold part is insulting.

[brihaspati]

SD=???

Within the GDF, we often use SD as an abbreviation for Sanatana Dharma. Sorry, if this has been a source of confusion.

[brihaspati]

excellent pointer! I had thought about raising the issue but thought that it would perhaps be too disturbing for many.

I think the bold part is insulting.

Don't know why or to whom that is insulting. It was natural for me to expect it to be disturbing to many, because academic sociologists I have encountered mostly associate the German search for "Uhrheimat" to be an early precursor of all the ingredients that led to "National Socialism".

[AKalam]

I thought this discussion was going to start in Non-Western Worldview, but since it is here, I will go ahead and jump into this interesting debate:

brihaspati ji,

Excellent post. The general consensus in the West, which could very well be wrong, is slightly different:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo ... hypotheses

In the 1970s, a mainstream consensus had emerged among Indo-Europeanists in favour of the "Kurgan hypothesis" placing the Indo-European homeland in the Pontic steppe of the Chalcolithic period. This was not least due to the influence of the Journal of Indo-European Studies, edited by JP Mallory, that focused on the ideas of Marija Gimbutas, and offered some improvements. She had created a modern variation on the traditional invasion theory (the Kurgan hypothesis, after the kurgans (burial mounds) of the Eurasian steppes) in which the Indo-Europeans were a nomadic tribe in Eastern Ukraine and Southern Russia and expanded on horseback in several waves during the 3rd millennium BCE. Their expansion coincided with the taming of the horse. Leaving archaeological signs of their presence (see battle-axe people), they subjugated the peaceful European Neolithic farmers of Gimbutas's Old Europe. As Gimbutas's beliefs evolved, she put increasing emphasis on the patriarchal, patrilinear nature of the invading culture, sharply contrasting it with the supposedly egalitarian, if not matrilinear culture of the invaded, to a point of formulating essentially feminist archaeology.

Her interpretation of Indo-European culture found genetic support in remains from the Neolithic culture of Scandinavia, where bone remains in Neolithic graves indicated that the megalith culture was either matrilocal or matrilineal, as the people buried in the same grave were related through the women. Likewise, there is a tradition of remaining matrilineal traditions among the Picts. A modified form of this theory by JP Mallory, dating the migrations earlier to around 4000 BCE and putting less insistence on their violent or quasi-military nature, essentially replaced the version of Gimbutas.

The Kurgan hypothesis seeks to explain the Indo-European language expansion by a succession of migrations from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, or, more specifically and according to the revised version, to the area encompassed by the Sredny Stog culture (ca. 4500 BC). This hypothesis is compatible with the argument that the PIE homeland must have been larger,[5] because the "Neolithic creolisation hypothesis" allows the Pontic-Caspian region to have been part of PIE territory.

The main competitor of the Kurgan hypothesis is the Anatolian hypothesis advanced by Colin Renfrew. It states that the Indo-European languages spread peacefully into Europe from Asia Minor from around 7000 BCE with the advance of farming (wave of advance). But this theory is contradicted by the fact that ancient Anatolia is known to be inhabited by non-Indo-European people, namely the Hattians and Chalybes.

I am guessing that Out of India theory is the premise behind your previous post:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_India_theory

It is not well accepted because of the following reasons:

Criticism

* The linguistic center of gravity principle states that a language family's most likely point of origin is in the area of its greatest diversity. Only one branch of Indo-European, Indo-Aryan, is found in India, whereas the Italic, Venetic, Illyrian, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Thracian, and Greek branches of Indo-European are all found in Central-Eastern Europe. Because it requires a greater number of long migrations, an Indian Urheimat is far less likely than one closer to the center of Indo-European linguistic diversity.[13][76][77]

* The Indic languages show the influence of the Dravidian and Munda language families. No other branch of Indo-European does. If the Indo-European homeland had been located in India, then the Indo-European languages should have shown some influence from Dravidian and Munda.[78][79]

* To postulate the migration of PIE speakers out of India necessitates an earlier dating of the Rigveda than is normally accepted by Vedic scholars in order to make a deep enough period of migration to allow for the longest migrations to be completed.(Mallory 1989)[page needed]

[Sanku]

Sadhu, Sadhu -- SwamyG, RD and Bji

[svinayak]

excellent pointer! I had thought about raising the issue but thought that it would perhaps be too disturbing for many.
I think the bold part is insulting.

Don't know why or to whom that is insulting. It was natural for me to expect it to be disturbing to many, because academic sociologists I have encountered mostly associate the German search for "Uhrheimat" to be an early precursor of all the ingredients that led to "National Socialism".

Not to worry