Bharat Rakshak

Karan M ji,

Irrespective of your (1) and (2), all Shiv and I said was US sleeps with the Pakistan and works against India's benefits.

and you are giving apologies for US actions and trying to throw them back on XYZ because....

Reread what I posted.

I never said we cannot criticize massa because we are bad. Instead, the subtler point I was hinting, which I shall put bluntly is:

Our ability to influence others solely rests on two aspects.
1. Stating what we want
2. How far we are willing go to get it*.

The reason I chose Russia instead of massa was deliberate.

1. Have we made it clear to Russians (through our words and deeds) that we hate Pakistanis?
2. How far are we prepared to punish/reward Russia for toeing our line on Pakistan?

Unkil looks after unkil's interest. We look after unkil's interest. And when I point that out, people hyperventilate saying that I am looking after unkil's interest because I said we look out for unkil's interest and not our interest. If this is not lahori logic, I don't know what is.

My point is if all we can do is to yell jeeeeehhhaaaaarrrrd on unkil appeasement to Pakistan instead of understanding why it is so and what we can do to change it, I am afraid that largesse to Pakistan is going to continue.

More insidious is the suggestion that trying to understand the state of affairs without reducing it to absurd simplicity is somehow unpatriotic and supportive of our opponents.

*one practical suggesting was to blacklist LM for supplying f16 to Pakistan for MMRCA.

KLNMurthy wrote:Your frustration with the Indian rulership is widely shared and merits discussion elsewhere. But in this context, shiv is on the right track and I am afraid you are missing the point.

Without US support, Pakistan would be like Voldemort without the body, a pathetic and harmless if malevolent creature. All of Indians' character defects would not matter in this context--TSP would simply be the cancerous gene that never has the conditions to express itself.

KLN, you are sadly mistaken here. Even if the US was NOT there, Pakistan would still be cancerous and an existential threat to India. The Americans did not give them the N capability or delivery capabilities. A handful of F-16s are pyrrhic at best versus the missiles they built up DESPITE being broke.

Do take a look at Ajai Shuklas travelogue as well. Pakistan is not as broke as it appears to be either, since its local economy is still existent, albeit low tech. The average Pakistani Pakjabi just wont pay taxes, and the Pakistani Govt does not have a salaried middle class to thrive off of.

Point is, you folks have somehow managed to think of the US as being the driving force behind Pakistan being an severe challenge to India, it is not so. Small nations, when run by despotic apparatus can end up being highly militarized.
Like it or not, the Americans think twice when it comes to picking a fight with the NoKo's and this despite the fact the NoKos don't even have a fraction of the Chinese support the Pakistanis have!

In the 60's, Israel was all alone. Expats brought in everything from lathes, to scrap metal and the rag tag Israeli army was enough to hold off much better armed and equipped Arab units, drilled per the best British traditions!

The Pakistanis would be MUCH weaker if not for the Americans, but they would remain vipers, and very dangerous at that!!

The Chinese, as one sage put it, are willing to fight India down to the last Pakistani. That means, Pakistan will continue to get transfers of select systems to offset Indian conventional superiority and when that fails, it will get nuclear technology! As the balance of conventional forces tips towards India, the latter will predominate!

The only solution for India is to actively seek its own path, by aggressively modernizing and building up in return. Right now, our solution is a) ad hoc modernization - take a look at the Army shortfalls versus the plans f.e., clearly a political angle exists with regards to the INC go slow on Cold Start b) pappi-jhappi c) run to the US to keep Pakistan in line

Its a disaster.

To my unserstanding, Shiv asserted a clear intent of wanting to remove US support to Pakistan, with no regard whatsoever for India having to jump through any hoops a priori, in terms of correcting its own character defects, which may well include dhimmitude or servility. The Russians, Mongolians, Klingons and whoever can simply go to hell if they mock us for being servile to pakis while demanding that they--klingons et al--stop strengthening the pakis.

The point is that no matter what India wants or does not want, Pakistan will ALWAYS have a sugar daddy! Where is the realization that India has to fight its battles and cannot keep requesting the sugar daddies to cease and desist! And when they don't, label folks as A rakshaks or so forth, when they exhibit frustration at the sheer venal manner in which the GOI is callously ignoring its responsibilities and running to that very same sugar daddy to save its skin! This is what is ironic! If GOI did its job in even a tenth of a serious fashion, all this talk of the US would be irrelevant!

The US gave the Pakistanis a few Harpoons. One way or the other India needed hard kill countermeasures - even the Chinese have CJ-8XX a plenty. So we bought the Barak-1. Now we need more, and guess what Saint AK has sat on the purchase citing ongoing investigations. So tell me, tomorrow, in a shooting war, if a subsonic missile is headed our way, what do we do a) Ak phyrr - outrage if its a Harpoon or b ) ok, if its CJ-XX.
Point is its our own incompetence which puts us at risk!!
At Kargil - MiG-21s flew without chaff & flares. Procurements were held up because MOD did not sanction them. So when MiGs were targeted by Anzas and Stingers, does it make sense to have outrage when the missile was a Stinger, and sleep otherwise if it was an Anza?
Who was to blame for the state of affairs?

Seriously, some of the stuff talked here is from an alternate dimension! Do you think the guys who fought the NSG in 26/11 had Colt M-4s? They had Chinese gear & scratchbuilt Pakistani copies. Still sufficient to hurt our guys in CQB. Where were the NSGs through the wall imaging radars (available OTS), hands free comms (do read up sometime on how Sandeep Unnithan died) and even impact resistant glasses (yes, Maj Singh who lost his eyesight during that op didn't even have those!). That's GOI!

I am afraid, a lot of you gentlemen look at India through very rose tinted glasses. Please live in India. See the rampant corruption & c*rap the GOI does, despite ample support from the public - and then consider whether the rope given to them is enough. All this stuff about "rakshak" is all very well, I am afraid - but it only lasts to an age! Unfortunately, I am too old to not call a spade a spade now.

Yes, the US has given the Pakistanis a LOT. It has effectively rearmed them to tier-1 standards over the past decade, but even it hadnt, the Pakistanis would still find a way. They are a militarized state & would compensate. The RAAD - is apparently a South African MUPSOW modified to local requirements. Can be fitted with Nukes in all probabibility (latter tech from China). So the threat would remain.

The solution for this is not to sit and gripe about the US or China. But to serve notice on the venal GOI that Indian security is GOIs responsibility for which it bears full responsibility, as versus buck passing, corruption, delays and sending dossiers!! I am no fan of the Chinese Govt & their MIC, its hamfisted, wasteful & corrupt. But guess what, they are designing their forces to face off against the US. You know the side effect? They can actually face India as well. Here in India, the GOI is unable to decide whether to even raise a force to defend India against the Chinese!

Now try & understand my point! Its NOT about the US or China! Its India which has been always reactive, unable to define what its core interests are, and then reacts with angst when others come & make hay.
What prevented India from attempting to sabotage the Pakistani nuke program & preventing it from expanding? Nothing - analysis paralysis. End result, even if China had transferred a few, they would never have been at the scale Pakistan has today or is developing. You know how India decided to weaponize? His highness RG visits an IAF firepower demo in the 1980s (note China had nukes for decades by then) and decides, ok and everyone scrambles to comply. This is the sum total of our strategic experts, some of whom are deified on this forum as Bhishmas and what not. Point is the standards have been so low, that even the mediocre shine! Harsh words, but the truth. The great hawk Shri Karnad would have been considered a centrist (or slightly touched) in other places. He wanted to disband the Indian strike corps (perhaps our one remaining negotiating chip against Pakistan in the conventional space!). Such is the state of affairs.

If we had been halfway as organized as we should have been, we would have so many centers of influence that it would be the US begging us to work with them to contain the Pakistanis and offer them a face saving exit from Afghanistan. Instead, it is we who run to the Americans (the guys who couldnt even tell Mush was lying) to help us out..

Think about it. Can there be a more liberated declaration of intent to look out for India with no ifs or buts?

Please think about what I wrote. Consider where we are today, and whether it is even a fraction of where we should be. A few thousand Harris radio sets from the US, a few squadrons of F-16s, a dilapidated OHP are peanuts versus what we can do - but we havent. Why? The answer is clear. The money is being siphoned off to line nest eggs in the tens of thousands of crores.

Do you love India like you love your mother? If so, wouldn't you make it an absolute commitment to defang outside attackers by hook or crook, even if, so to speak, your mother somehow presented a vulnerable face, or your siblings were facilitating the attacker?

Y'know what - I am an adult. My mother would be one too. If my mother chooses to deliberately facilitate outside attackers or let conditions be so that outside attackers can easily enter the family premises (despite there being options to contain the attackers outside), then its high time somebody explained the facts of life to my mother.

A civilization or a nation state which decides to abrogate the right of self defence, whose elite become so corrupt so as to ignore all & every threat to the nation, and the rest of the nation lets that happen - well that nation will suffer. That is what is happening now.

It may be quixotic in the real world, but everything starts with intent. Even in the real world, see how S. Korea is servile to the North but has no problem checking it militarily plus expecting the US to participate in its defense. So, the contradiction matters only if you think it should matter.

South Korea is a client state of the US. Are we a client state of the US? If so, let us be open about it & be done with it. Including offering our population as harvest for the missionaries (not that we havent already done a fair bit there as well).
And may I suggest that South Korea has fared far better with even the loonies from the North than we have? Sure - no devastating war to kick it off, but we had partition. Thereafter, apart from their military taking a few hits now and then, their population has suffered nowhere near the sustained terror campaign that we have.

There is something called the idea of a nation state. People believe in it, because they believe it will protect them. India is thoroughly failing on that front. Emotional ties apart (motherland etc), frank fact of life is the GOI has chosen to abdicate its responsibilities, because a significant chunk of what constitute GOI -politicians-bureucrats - are venal, self centered and thoroughly corrupt. Money making & elections (to make more money) matter. That is NOT how a nation works, and this is NOT something we can blame any other nation for

Virupaksha wrote:Karan M ji,

Irrespective of your (1) and (2), all Shiv and I said was US sleeps with the Pakistan and works against India's benefits.

Actually, the point is that whenever somebody brings up GOI's incompetence, which allows the US to get away with what it does, Shiv calls them America rakshaks & ends up on a tangent...I find it germaine to point that the US actions could be countered by India if it chose to do so.

and you are giving apologies for US actions and trying to throw them back on XYZ because....

The fact that you choose to deliberately misconstrue my posts as apologies for US actions, despite my clear clarifications above....speaks volumes about your thought process. Either that you lack reading comprehension or that you have chosen to be dishonestly obtuse in order to score some points, any points. A very interesting thought process, the kind that reflects the mess that is Indian polity today....do you even live in India or are you one more of our super patriots observing from afar?

Don't know what all this confusion here is. India would like others to stop selling lethal military hardware to Pakistan, period. This is in NO contradiction with GOI policy of monkey tamasha or anything else since none of those GOI policies are about India selling arms to the Pakis. So it *is* a problem when outsiders strengthen the Paki army by giving them hardware that enables them to maintain their terrorist ways. There is no GOI initiative I have seen that appears to strengthen the Paki army.

As far as covert warfare etc., frankly I think that is a dangerous road for India to embark on. I mean if India can set off bombs in pakistan, and assassinate their various people, they can do the same, probably more lethally since they have less to lose, and India is an easy soft target. So to combat that now you have to spend a huge amount of your energy and resources on becoming an efficient security state, all the while having 200 million muslims, 1% of those could easily be stirred up anyway. And at the end of the day, it seems that then you are letting the outside world dictate the type of solution you want, which mostly involves a lot of violence and collateral damage that you are ill equipped to handle. So it is perfectly reasonable for India to insist that foreign *military* interference end in Pakistan, regardless of what "incompetence" GOI stands accused of.

MurthyB wrote:Don't know what all this confusion here is. India would like others to stop selling lethal military hardware to Pakistan, period. This is in NO contradiction with GOI policy of monkey tamasha or anything else since none of those GOI policies are about India selling arms to the Pakis. So it *is* a problem when outsiders strengthen the Paki army by giving them hardware that enables them to maintain their terrorist ways. There is no GOI initiative I have seen that appears to strengthen the Paki army.

Each & every GOI engagement with the Pakistani state, that props up the Pakistani economy, props up the Pakistani Army! Period. All this stuff about engaging with different sections is all hogwash! Pakistani politicians are in bed with the Pakistani Army & change colors easily.

Second, the confusion is yours unfortunately - because nobody disagrees that we don't want Pakistan to get any hardware! Point is to make this a consistent theme, we ourselves have to be consistent regarding Pakistan. Blowing hot and cold does not help us!

Third - asking the world to stop selling arms to Pakistan is a mugs game! It will never succeed. The examples have been given before. China is always there, besides which even during isolation Pakistan was getting everything from FLIRs to frequency hopping radios and even cruise missiles from South Africa! A country with every desire to spend on defence will always get tech through. The point is to strengthen India so much so to counter any and every such effort! That is the GOI's job - one which it has singularly avoided doing in a consistent fashion.

As far as covert warfare etc., frankly I think that is a dangerous road for India to embark on. I mean if India can set off bombs in pakistan, and assassinate their various people, they can do the same, probably more lethally since they have less to lose, and India is an easy soft target. So to combat that now you have to spend a huge amount of your energy and resources on becoming an efficient security state, all the while having 200 million muslims, 1% of those could easily be stirred up anyway. And at the end of the day, it seems that then you are letting the outside world dictate the type of solution you want, which mostly involves a lot of violence and collateral damage that you are ill equipped to handle. So it is perfectly reasonable for India to insist that foreign *military* interference end in Pakistan, regardless of what "incompetence" GOI stands accused of.

Ah sure, the usual concerns of what the dangerous road/200M muslims would result in. Perhaps an issue. if it hadn't been done already to begin with, first during IG's time (she was training Sindhis in Rajasthan when she was killed!) and during PV Narasimha Rao's time ( go look up what Ravinder Singh was involved in!) - which resulted in the Pakistanis running to the negotiating table & the Khalistan support tap drying up!
Net - truly, we Indians are condemned to forget our own history and suffer from it!
What we can do - we won't! What we cannot influence, we will run after! Please, US become our best buddy and do what we hope for!

Anujan wrote:Reread what I posted.

I never said we cannot criticize massa because we are bad. Instead, the subtler point I was hinting, which I shall put bluntly is:

Our ability to influence others solely rests on two aspects.
1. Stating what we want
2. How far we are willing go to get it*.

The reason I chose Russia instead of massa was deliberate.

1. Have we made it clear to Russians (through our words and deeds) that we hate Pakistanis?
2. How far are we prepared to punish/reward Russia for toeing our line on Pakistan?

Unkil looks after unkil's interest. We look after unkil's interest. And when I point that out, people hyperventilate saying that I am looking after unkil's interest because I said we look out for unkil's interest and not our interest. If this is not lahori logic, I don't know what is.

My point is if all we can do is to yell jeeeeehhhaaaaarrrrd on unkil appeasement to Pakistan instead of understanding why it is so and what we can do to change it, I am afraid that largesse to Pakistan is going to continue.

More insidious is the suggestion that trying to understand the state of affairs without reducing it to absurd simplicity is somehow unpatriotic and supportive of our opponents.

*one practical suggesting was to blacklist LM for supplying f16 to Pakistan for MMRCA.

Exactly!!

KLNMurthy wrote:^^^
indeed, RD.

Let us reiterate that this is bharat rakshak forum, not bharat vimarshak or bharat sudharak.

Whats the difference? Such rhetoric is besides the point. India defence or Bharat rakshak is all very well, but somewhere along the way, reality has to set in. That to defend India, you have to reform the system as it exists! Going by your rhetoric, after Kargil, there would have been no Kargil Review Committee - after all, there was no sudharna to be done! Raise a few more regiments and all iz well. Fact of the matter is that reform is an ESSENTIAL part of getting things done. Its something which is long overdue in the Indian context and all the successes that we have enjoyed in the defence arena, whether it be the IAF thumping the PAF in 1971 or dropping LGBs in Kargil-2 came from a hard headed reappraisal aka "bharat sudharak".

Karan M wrote:
Each & every GOI engagement with the Pakistani state, that props up the Pakistani economy, props up the Pakistani Army! Period. All this stuff about engaging with different sections is all hogwash! Pakistani politicians are in bed with the Pakistani Army & change colors easily.

That is your assertion. There is strong belief in some quarters that strengthening the economy, encouraging people-people contacts is going break their irrational hatred. You can disagree with it, but it is a consistent policy, and it does require overt and covert military assistance to stop. So there is no "hypocracy" on GOI's part. They are trying a different approach. May not work. But there hasn't been much success by selling arms to the Pakis, has there?

Karan M wrote: Third - asking the world to stop selling arms to Pakistan is a mugs game! It will never succeed. The examples have been given before. China is always there, besides which even during isolation Pakistan was getting everything from FLIRs to frequency hopping radios and even cruise missiles from South Africa! A country with every desire to spend on defence will always get tech through. The point is to strengthen India so much so to counter any and every such effort! That is the GOI's job - one which it has singularly avoided doing in a consistent fashion.

They are broke. They get arms essentially without paying for them. And the US is the biggest enabler of that; others don't have the wherewithal to do that. As far as the Chinese, sure let them buy the Chinese junk, like the locomotives that break after a few years, or are too wide for the platform. And who knows what carcinogenic junk their armaments have that will make the pakis die of cancer sooner then there is war where it will be used.

In any case, US support has been constant for the last 70 years. A scientific approach would demand that we try the next 70 *without* that support to fully evaluate what might happen, instead of assuming that you will get the same result. It is insanity when you try the *same* thing and expect different results.

Karan M wrote:
Ah sure, the usual concerns of what the dangerous road/200M muslims would result in. Perhaps an issue. if it hadn't been done already to begin with, first during IG's time (she was training Sindhis in Rajasthan when she was killed!) and during PV Narasimha Rao's time ( go look up what Ravinder Singh was involved in!) - which resulted in the Pakistanis running to the negotiating table & the Khalistan support tap drying up!
Net - truly, we Indians are condemned to forget our own history and suffer from it!
What we can do - we won't! What we cannot influence, we will run after! Please, US become our best buddy and do what we hope for!

Sure it's been done, but with also a cost of assassinations, unrest, secessionist movements etc. I think most people would agree that India appears far more stable and at peace today then it did 20 or 30 years ago, notwithstanding the occasional Paki fart that goes off.

In any case, it's a bit of an oxymoron to have a discussion of "covert warfare" since we have no clue about what is actually happening. After Mumbai 08, 2009 was the worst year for the Pakis insofar as their internal terrorism. Did RAW have a hand in it? We learnt that all those bombs and killings in Kraachi in the 80s and 90s were due to RAW. Well there are killings there now. Is that RAW? After the Pune blasts this time, a week or so later there was the airbase attack that made one of the Eyeries not so Irie. Was that RAW behind the bad taliban? I mean I don't know. And I can see why every Indian leader would strenuously deny it too. Fact is India is in Afghanistan, there is plenty of NA afghans who are friendly to India, including the former intelligence chief, so it could be that there is penetration of the bad taliban. It would all be speculation though, I don't see how one can know at this point.

My only point is that you may disagree with GOI's strategy/policy, but I see no "hypocracy" or anything there. It is a different approach that is largely internally consistent. And it has a reasonable assertion that the Paki army should not be given free military hardware.

Didn't we say that we don't have any objections to US supplying arms to the pakis? It is the official GOI position.

Forget the conspiracy theory of US doing India containment. A more credible conspiracy theory in my mind is India is doing India containment. Artillery and yank procurement certainly point at this. Read the Kargil docs. A major reason why they attacks is because of lack of guns on our part. What offensive capability does India have against pakis? GOI seems to actively blunt it. Be it IBG or cold start or SP artillery or Heavy MBT.

I'd like to see someone refute this CT that the objective of GOI India and Hindu containment.

MurthyB wrote:That is your assertion. There is strong belief in some quarters that strengthening the economy, encouraging people-people contacts is going break their irrational hatred. You can disagree with it, but it is a consistent policy, and it does require overt and covert military assistance to stop. So there is no "hypocracy" on GOI's part. They are trying a different approach. May not work. But there hasn't been much success by selling arms to the Pakis, has there?

Yeah, some quarters. Wouldn't be the same quarters that watched while 26/11 happened, umpteen attacks before that happened, right? You clearly see nothing wrong in the perpetrators of those attacks getting by & nothing happening to them, in the hope that peace will come....but where is the evidence! India has been turning the other cheek for how many decades now?

And where is the accountability if this policy does not work? Who loses their freedom & gets sent to jail for incompetence when the next terror strike occurs? Do tell us!

Lets see - India offers liberalized visas to Pakistanis. They come, they disappear. No accountability. We are set to repeat the process.

Umpteen attacks. No redressal. No culpability from GOI, functionaries continue on their merry way.

So yes, I disagree - and until the day the GOI puts its @rse on the line, with various ministers giving up all their Z class security, and using public transport & being subject to the same constraints the common citizen is, they are being thorough and absolute hypocrites.

They neither risk life, or limb or any economic incentive by playing around with citizens lives in such a cavalier manner.

They are broke. They get arms essentially without paying for them. And the US is the biggest enabler of that; others don't have the wherewithal to do that. As far as the Chinese, sure let them buy the Chinese junk, like the locomotives that break after a few years, or are too wide for the platform. And who knows what carcinogenic junk their armaments have that will make the pakis die of cancer sooner then there is war where it will be used.

The Pakistanis don't always get arms without paying for them!! They get both free arms from the US & also pay for several items - and the payments for those will impact the Pakistani economy! The Chinese Arms - they pay for those as well. And while I admire your dismissals about how worthless Chinese "junk" is, I am afraid the Indian Armed forces don't share your confidence!

Lets see Chinese derivative junk in 26/11 was enough to kill two highly trained NSG soldiers & blind another.

Chinese made junk in the 50's was enough to kill thousands of US servicemen. Chinese made junk is enough to kill NATO troops today, when it gets to the hand of the Taliban.

Seriously, do you even believe this stuff about carcinogenic and what not? You expect this to be taken seriously?

The Chinese are supplying the Pakistanis with whatever they have - and its not all "junk", some of its functional & does concern India. They are getting radars, missiles, guns, artillery - pretty much everything & nuclear weapons. You might want to look up what an Indian DRDO official said about far more primitive NoKo missiles seized in Indian waters. "Its grandma;s tech, but grandma still has a kick".

Yes, its the same Chinese junk against which we are spending tons to develop a BMD system, wrung out of a tightfisted GOI.

So much for that..

In any case, US support has been constant for the last 70 years. A scientific approach would demand that we try the next 70 *without* that support to fully evaluate what might happen, instead of assuming that you will get the same result. It is insanity when you try the *same* thing and expect different results.

Ah, so I see - its not insanity when we turn the other cheek to Pakistan, as we have been doing the same thing all throughout (and then getting wars in return) and then expect something different, but somehow we have to hope for the US support disappearing for the next 70 years, when there is no evidence whatsoever that the US (or any other country for that matter) will change its stripes...

Net - its not insanity when India conveniently suborns its security interests to the claims of peaceniks and doves (the same way Pakistan would have made peace in 1971 if we just gave up 93K troops...) again & again. And nor is it insanity to expect that the US will somehow give up supporting Pakistan during the next 70 years...

Sure it's been done, but with also a cost of assassinations, unrest, secessionist movements etc. I think most people would agree that India appears far more stable and at peace today then it did 20 or 30 years ago, notwithstanding the occasional Paki fart that goes off.

Read it again. The assassinations, unrest, secessionist movements were hogtied by paying the Pakistanis back in their own coin.

As regards India "appears far more stable and at peace today" - the folks living in the Maoist heartland & those who suffered through the terror strikes would disagree with you.

That you dismiss these as "Paki farts" is amazing. Your words just show the fake bravado that outright minimizes the human cost of these attacks. Wonder whether you'd still say the same if you were kin to the kids were the ones who died in the Pune attack, or if you were one of those who lost limbs during any of these "farts".. amazing, just bloody amazing..

Seriously, where do you guys come from? Which country are you in?

And please don't attempt to justify this rubbish with giving a "big picture" view of how these are "pinpricks" to the "vast Indian democracy" and the "resilience of the indian people"...have heard similar callous rubbish from our GOI before...very easy to play that screed, as long as their skin is safe

My only point is that you may disagree with GOI's strategy/policy, but I see no "hypocracy" or anything there

You may not see any hypocrisy (& your consistent highlighting of a casual typo is amusing at best!) but I sure do when I see GOI functionaries go around in their gilt plated security with nary a care about what their idiotic policies bring about!

Of course, to your eyes, these may all be "Paki farts", but unfortunately, for us flesh & blood mortals, those "farts" from "Chinese junk" actually matter.

It is a different approach that is largely internally consistent.

Yeah, internally consistent in that politicians (and their chamchas) ensure that their posteriors are safe. To the level that even their relatives are protected....very very consistent!

And it has a reasonable assertion that the Paki army should not be given free military hardware.

From whom? When was the last time the Indian Govt actually pursued this matter seriously? As versus offering lucrative contracts to the very same Govts that offered freebies to Pakistan...
Seriously, all very well to be a loyal GOI rakshak, but they hardly follow the consistent line you have scripted for them..

venkat_r wrote:
If you think my position comes from being patriotic to America, then please get off that weed!

<snip>

Well, not sure why is it generating so much takleef on this one?

<snip>

I would also love to see no financial gain to Pak Military from USA, but such expectations are not based on reality and border on delusion. If this engagement has survived the American financial crisis, then nothing is going to stop it and would only be more in the future.

You have answered your question yourself

Why do I have taqleef? Read your own post minus all the fluff I have removed. I have taqleef because too many Indians, including you (in your post above) act as if you are being realistic and have no taqleef from the US arming Pakistan and take a stand that appears like patriotism towards the USA. Your "understanding and realism" of the US position is totally indistinguishable from US-rakshakism, although you have to make a long post to try and cover that up and deny it in exactly the same way that the US has always denied that its aid to Pakistan is inimical to India.

If your attitude as an Indian, and that of the US are one and the same, why do you want me to suck it up and imagine even for a minute that you are not a mouthpiece of the US. Your words sound exactly like that to me. And your repeated defence of the US couched in the incredible excuse that you are real and I am delusional only confirm to me what you are merely denying to yourself.

Because Ram has cold, he should not point out that Sam is rolling with pigs and destroying Ram's court yard.

I am sorry, I cannot agree to that logic.

Ooh! the takleef that people here get when somebody points that Uncle Sam is nanga.

Karan M wrote:
KLN, you are sadly mistaken here. Even if the US was NOT there, Pakistan would still be cancerous and an existential threat to India. The Americans did not give them the N capability or delivery capabilities. A handful of F-16s are pyrrhic at best versus the missiles they built up DESPITE being broke.

I don't think so. They would be a manageable nuisance. pakis don't have the ethical framework to build anything of consequence.

...
Like it or not, the Americans think twice when it comes to picking a fight with the NoKo's and this despite the fact the NoKos don't even have a fraction of the Chinese support the Pakistanis have!

In the 60's, Israel was all alone. Expats brought in everything from lathes, to scrap metal and the rag tag Israeli army was enough to hold off much better armed and equipped Arab units, drilled per the best British traditions!

invalid comparisons. I buy ramana's kabila model. Pakis are a glorified band of robbers / beggars and don't have a sense for civilizational apparatus which is required for making a modern economy and war machine.

...

The Chinese, as one sage put it, are willing to fight India down to the last Pakistani. That means, Pakistan will continue to get transfers of select systems to offset Indian conventional superiority and when that fails, it will get nuclear technology! As the balance of conventional forces tips towards India, the latter will predominate!

chinese, americans,... any outside help to pakis is objectionable.

The only solution for India is to actively seek its own path, by aggressively modernizing and building up in return. Right now, our solution is a) ad hoc modernization - take a look at the Army shortfalls versus the plans f.e., clearly a political angle exists with regards to the INC go slow on Cold Start b) pappi-jhappi c) run to the US
...

Papi jhapi, incompetence in modernizing etc. are due to national character defects. Quite irrelevant to asking the US to stop arming pakis.

...

The point is that no matter what India wants or does not want, Pakistan will ALWAYS have a sugar daddy!

Sugar daddies should be told to stop.

Where is the realization that India has to fight its battles

irrelevant to telling sugar daddies to stop.

and cannot keep requesting the sugar daddies to cease and desist!

cannot? Is there a law?

And when they don't, label folks as A rakshaks or so forth, when they exhibit frustration at the sheer venal manner in which the GOI is callously ignoring its responsibilities and running to that very same sugar daddy to save its skin! This is what is ironic! If GOI did its job in even a tenth of a serious fashion, all this talk of the US would be irrelevant!

i didn't label you, but if the shoe fits...
Why is it ok for you to be frustrated that people insist on making demands on america despite India's shortcomings but not ok for other people to be frustrated at your obtuseness and say you are being an america rakshak? Anyway, I consider myself an america rakshak most of the time and don't find it disturbing when someone calls me that.

The US gave the Pakistanis a few Harpoons. One way or the other India needed hard kill countermeasures - even the Chinese have CJ-8XX a plenty. So we bought the Barak-1. Now we need more, and guess what Saint AK has sat on the purchase citing ongoing investigations. So tell me, tomorrow, in a shooting war, if a subsonic missile is headed our way, what do we do a) Ak phyrr - outrage if its a Harpoon or b ) ok, if its CJ-XX.
Point is its our own incompetence which puts us at risk!!

boring details. If the US gave pakis a cap gun, it is still unacceptable.

Seriously, some of the stuff talked here is from an alternate dimension! Do you think the guys who fought the NSG in 26/11 had Colt M-4s? They had Chinese gear & scratchbuilt Pakistani copies. Still sufficient to hurt our guys in CQB. Where were the NSGs through the wall imaging radars (available OTS), hands free comms (do read up sometime on how Sandeep Unnithan died) and even impact resistant glasses (yes, Maj Singh who lost his eyesight during that op didn't even have those!). That's GOI!

irrelevant.

I am afraid, a lot of you gentlemen look at India through very rose tinted glasses. Please live in India. See the rampant corruption & c*rap the GOI does, despite ample support from the public - and then consider whether the rope given to them is enough. All this stuff about "rakshak" is all very well, I am afraid - but it only lasts to an age! Unfortunately, I am too old to not call a spade a spade now.

irrelevant.

Yes, the US has given the Pakistanis a LOT.

US should give pakis nothing.

It has effectively rearmed them to tier-1 standards over the past decade, but even it hadnt, the Pakistanis would still find a way. They are a militarized state & would compensate. The RAAD - is apparently a South African MUPSOW modified to local requirements. Can be fitted with Nukes in all probabibility (latter tech from China). So the threat would remain.

the threat is there only because the US gave pakis weapons and connived at their getting nukes and missiles. Pakis by themselves don't have the ethic to build the apparatus to do it by themselves.

The solution for this is not to sit and gripe about the US or China. But to serve notice on the venal GOI that Indian security is GOIs responsibility for which it bears full responsibility, as versus buck passing, corruption, delays and sending dossiers!! I am no fan of the Chinese Govt & their MIC, its hamfisted, wasteful & corrupt. But guess what, they are designing their forces to face off against the US. You know the side effect? They can actually face India as well. Here in India, the GOI is unable to decide whether to even raise a force to defend India against the Chinese!

is it the solution to gripe about GOI and make everything conditional on all character defects of Indians magically disappearing?

Y'know what - I am an adult. My mother would be one too. If my mother chooses to deliberately facilitate outside attackers or let conditions be so that outside attackers can easily enter the family premises (despite there being options to contain the attackers outside), then its high time somebody explained the facts of life to my mother.

There you have it. Me, I would swallow my frustration at my mother's folly and still keep working to defang the enemy.

South Korea is a client state of the US. Are we a client state of the US? If so, let us be open about it & be done with it. Including offering our population as harvest for the missionaries (not that we havent already done a fair bit there as well).

what is a client state? I only see my taxes going to pay for S. korea's defense while they do papi japi with the north.

And may I suggest that South Korea has fared far better with even the loonies from the North than we have? Sure - no devastating war to kick it off, but we had partition. Thereafter, apart from their military taking a few hits now and then, their population has suffered nowhere near the sustained terror campaign that we have.

Probably because my taxes are paying to keep my troops there.
Anyway, didnt they have some war or something there when people died?

There is something called the idea of a nation state. People believe in it, because they believe it will protect them. India is thoroughly failing on that front. Emotional ties apart (motherland etc), frank fact of life is the GOI has chosen to abdicate its responsibilities, because a significant chunk of what constitute GOI -politicians-bureucrats - are venal, self centered and thoroughly corrupt. Money making & elections (to make more money) matter. That is NOT how a nation works, and this is NOT something we can blame any other nation for

serious question. If India is so disappointing to you, why do you bother with brf?

I remember the incident from long back when some student (from BC/SC/ST I dont remember which) from Bihar scored 1 mark out of a total of 900 and was given a medical seat. Since reservation was (and is) a touchy subject* in India. The argument wen this way:

People: This is outrageous, fellow who got 1/900 is getting a medical seat.
Lalu Yadav (or Mulayam, I forget): So you are anti-Backward class.
People: No, thats not what I said, BCs should be given opportunities like scholarship and increased training. But giving them a seat when they score 1/900 is a bit absurd.
Lalu Yadav: So you want only forward castes to become doctors.
People: No, but even BCs should score some marks to qualify
Lalu Yadav: If you are anti-BC why dont you come out and say it? Why dont you openly accept you are pro oppression, pro FC and totally anti BC
People: YOU MORON! THATS NOT WHAT I SAID!!
Lalu Yadav: Look at these people getting angry when I pointed out their hypocrisy!!

The solutions, dear friends is not to play the game.

*I feel it is less touchy now than it was in the 90s when I was growing up. Bulk of employment then used to be from the government and not private sector as it is now. People self immolated in droves during VP Singh administration when he committed to implement Mandal commission reforms. I even remember protests break out against Nelson Mandela who visited India then and was supportive of Mandal commission recommendations, equating it with affirmative action for black people in South Africa, post apartheid.

bahut garmi hai yahan...better to stay away..

Rudradev wrote: Are you saying that this intention on the part of the US does not exist? If you are (which is what I understand from "the answer is yes")...then you haven't substantiated that contention with anything else in your post.

You are correct. That's exactly what I am saying. I believe that there is no US grand plan to contain India.

I am sure you are well aware that the US polity is not monolithic and various factions are beholden to different special interests and constituencies. That is one of the reasons why we have the spectacle of Secretary Panetta striking a discordant note or Nabi Fai being tolerated (or even encouraged) or the Exim bank denial of the guarantee followed by a retraction after President Obama's pandering to the vote bank. It would be impossible to believe that the US policy makers are not calculating the opportunity costs of an alliance with Pakistan. Absent a great outcry from the US public, the status quo will be maintained due to the US being under the thumb of Pakistan vis-a-vis access to Afghanistan. In 1971, the public sentiment was certainly against Pakistani atrocities in E. Pakistan and hence the easy birth of Bangladesh. If the Pakistanis were not all out brazen at that time and have not lost the support of US public (the truth came out due to the reports from the late Ambassador Blood) , it would have been a drawn out war with an uncertain final outcome.

Once the US pulls out of Afghanistan, we should see US distancing itself from Pakistan. If that doesn't happen, then I would agree with you in toto.

I think you are confusing collateral damage and lukewarm attempts at improving relations on the part of US with some grand plan of containment. I certainly agree that the US should not pander to the terrorists but do they have a choice? The answer is they do not and we do not have the leverage to change that. Nothing to do with Indian leadership.

MurthyB wrote: There is strong belief in some quarters that strengthening the economy, encouraging people-people contacts is going break their irrational hatred.

You mean strengthening "our" economy or "Pakistani" economy? If it is the former, how does that automatically imply people-to-people contact with Pakistan? One can support one without supporting the other.

To rehash an old discussion, what will the US lose if it stops giving aid to the Pakistani military?

The US gives aid to the Pakistani military in the belief that the Paki military are old allies of the US and will, in the ultimate analysis, take the side of the US against the Taliban. The Pakistani military has, in decades gone by, taken the side of the US against the Soviet Union. The Pakistani military, with US aid, created the Taliban and helped crush the evil Soviet empire.

But now the Taliban are no longer doing the US's job. The Taliban are fighting the US and are harboring the Al Qaeda and other anti-US elements. So the US takes the position that the Pakistani military as a US ally and deserves aid so that they (the Pakistani army) can remain loyal to the United Sates of America and fight off the Taliban that the US no longer likes. The same Taliban that the US and Pakistan army set up together need to be disbanded as they are no longer needed by the US.

The US is telling the Pakistani army, "You stay by us. Stick with us. We will ensure your safety and survival and please eliminate the Taliban." And US governments are telling Americans that this is a good policy that is bound to work despite glaring evidence to the contrary. One has to be a great admirer (or apologist) of the US government to believe this story and anyone who pushes that story on here is no different from a US government mouthpiece even if he believes that he is not.

To me it seems more likely that the US does not know what to do. It does not have the power to coerce the Pakistani army and cannot (or will not) take on the Taliban on its own. The US is convinced that the Taliban will win if the US and Pakistan do not fight it together and the US is acting as if it does not want the Taliban to win and that victory can be had by paying the Pakistani army.

All of us, who observe these developments are individually free to reach our own conclusions. Indian political weakness has no bearing on anything I have posted above. What I have posted is a weak, failing US policy that seeks to arm the biggest supporter of the Taliban to fight the Taliban.

All I am saying is that the US should stop funding and arming the Pakistan army which is not only India's most dangerous adversary, it is the most staunch supporter of the Taliban

As a minor digression, just ask yourself, why should the US arm and fund the biggest supporter of the Taliban if the US really does not like the Taliban? Is it possible that the US will reach accommodation with the Taliban that they will be left alone if US interests are not harmed? Are US promises to stay engaged with Pakistan a promise of continued support to the Pakistan and Taliban as long as the US is not touched? To me this sounds like a realistic policy goal of the US. And it bodes ill for India.

KLNMurthy wrote: I don't think so. They would be a manageable nuisance. pakis don't have the ethical framework to build anything of consequence.

Illogical hand-wave. The Pakistanis require no ethical framework to do weapons engineering, especially with the Chinese around. A point which you have avoided. Kindly do some actual research on Pakistani capabilities. Net, they can be unethical, boastful b****** with no honesty whatsoever, but still have the basic capability to repurpose technology acquired from others.

invalid comparisons. I buy ramana's kabila model. Pakis are a glorified band of robbers / beggars and don't have a sense for civilizational apparatus which is required for making a modern economy and war machine.

Huh? Those kabilas ended up forming their own mini nation states within larger India! What matters are the facts!! The Pakistanis today manufacture enough munitions to supply a large portion of their military! Your casual dismissal of their capabilities based on hypotheticals....

chinese, americans,... any outside help to pakis is objectionable.

Agreed, but the larger point is it will not stop, because India cannot stop it. So we have to build up our own capabilities..

Papi jhapi, incompetence in modernizing etc. are due to national character defects. Quite irrelevant to asking the US to stop arming pakis.

You missed the point. Kindly point out where I said we should stop asking the Americans to do xyz. I just said its a fools folly because they wont, and we have to prepare anyhow...

Sugar daddies should be told to stop.

And what if they dont?

irrelevant to telling sugar daddies to stop.

Very relevant, as sugar daddies wont stop unless you have leverage. Whats yours?

cannot? Is there a law?

Cherrypicking statements out of context? LOL...how the mighty fall..
If your position is that India should sit & be the perpetual complaint machine...be my guest...
I disagree..

i didn't label you, but if the shoe fits...

Did I say it was you? Thin skin & your frustration is showing....as evident from your response...

Why is it ok for you to be frustrated that people insist on making demands on america despite India's shortcomings but not ok for other people to be frustrated at your obtuseness and say you are being an america rakshak? Anyway, I consider myself an america rakshak most of the time and don't find it disturbing when someone calls me that.

LOL, I merely posted on this topic the once because it was tiresome to see the same old same old about America rakshaks...if you like that label so much, wear it with pride. I post about India's shortcomings because I have earned the right to do so...I live in India, and can see the issues first hand. Do you?

As regards obtuseness...hmmm...just shows you can't carry a debate..I am not the one coming up with facile analogies of "kabila model" and similar handwaves about other folks theorizing....without even looking into the actual details..

boring details. If the US gave pakis a cap gun, it is still unacceptable.

Boring details....or details that punctured your claims and are hence, to be dismissed?

irrelevant.

Quite relevant..

irrelevant.

Relevant

US should give pakis nothing.

Then work for it, as versus asking the Indian Govt or others to whine for it...

the threat is there only because the US gave pakis weapons and connived at their getting nukes and missiles. Pakis by themselves don't have the ethic to build the apparatus to do it by themselves.

Yes, the Pakistanis are very incompetent & each time we fight them, its our incompetence (we fall off mountains, have accidents etc) that we suffer casualties..

Spare me this please....the Pakistanis are nowhere near us...but they have significant military capabilities...you are in plain & simple denial.

[/quote]
is it the solution to make everything conditional on all character defects of Indians magically disappearing?
[/quote]

So you agree there are national issues...good, its a start..

There you have it. Me, I would swallow my frustration at my mother's folly and still keep working to defang the enemy.

Real life please...what you'd actually do. Not in the movies.

what is a client state? I only see my taxes going to pay for S. korea's defense while they do papi japi with the north.

Your Govt has decided that SoKo will follow the US diktat when push comes to shove and ends up following the US line more often than not. Thats a client state. Your taxes, your problem. Not mine..

Probably because my taxes are paying to keep my troops there.
Anyway, didnt they have some war or something there when people died?

Right..

serious question. If India is so disappointing to you, why do you bother with brf?

Because I choose to. If I didn't care about India, I wouldn't.

matrimc wrote: Absent a great outcry from the US public the status quo will be maintained due to the US being under the thumb of Pakistan vis-a-vis access to Afghanistan.

Which US are you referring to? The US I know and live in, or some other US in mars where there will be "great outcry from the public" on an international issue about which they independently draw conclusions about and not as a result of brainwashing by CNN/Fox? 1000s of US troops killed by TSP barbarians is not enough to elicit a public outcry? And do you think there would have been a public outcry about the slaughter of Ambassador Stevens (who incidentally was a "liberal") in Libya had this not been an election season and somebody found it convenient to make a big deal about it without actually having to do anything different, and as a result there is a massive public outcry from his supporters? I'd like to know which US you are referring to.

Karan M wrote:
Yeah, some quarters. Wouldn't be the same quarters that watched while 26/11 happened, umpteen attacks before that happened, right? You clearly see nothing wrong in the perpetrators of those attacks getting by & nothing happening to them, in the hope that peace will come....but where is the evidence! India has been turning the other cheek for how many decades now?

Calm down guy. When did I say that I don't want to see it avenged? And what does that have to do with the assertion that the Paki army should not be armed?

Karan M wrote: And where is the accountability if this policy does not work? Who loses their freedom & gets sent to jail for incompetence when the next terror strike occurs? Do tell us!

Lets see - India offers liberalized visas to Pakistanis. They come, they disappear. No accountability. We are set to repeat the process.

Umpteen attacks. No redressal. No culpability from GOI, functionaries continue on their merry way.

So yes, I disagree - and until the day the GOI puts its @rse on the line, with various ministers giving up all their Z class security, and using public transport & being subject to the same constraints the common citizen is, they are being thorough and absolute hypocrites.

They neither risk life, or limb or any economic incentive by playing around with citizens lives in such a cavalier manner.

All that is fine, and is a different topic than one insisting that paki army should not be armed. Again, you seem to think, that since in your estimation the GOI has no credibility as the representative of the Indian people, it is reasonable for anyone to do anything. Looks like a self-goal to me.

Karan M wrote:
...Chinese junk is not Chinese junk...

Look, each country has to be dealt with separately. China is a problem, that needs to be dealt with. The US is a problem that also needs to be dealt with. The US claims to be a friend of India's so the nature of the dialog is different. Even if the Pakis get their arms from the Chinese, that in no way absolves the US of doing harm to Indian security by selling pakis arms. Again, your "all or nothing" argument is a strange one that appears as a self-goal to me.

Karan M wrote:
Ah, so I see - its not insanity when we turn the other cheek to Pakistan, as we have been doing the same thing all throughout (and then getting wars in return) and then expect something different, but somehow we have to hope for the US support disappearing for the next 70 years, when there is no evidence whatsoever that the US (or any other country for that matter) will change its stripes...

Net - its not insanity when India conveniently suborns its security interests to the claims of peaceniks and doves (the same way Pakistan would have made peace in 1971 if we just gave up 93K troops...) again & again. And nor is it insanity to expect that the US will somehow give up supporting Pakistan during the next 70 years...

Those are your assertions. I do not believe that India has consistently turned the other cheek to Pakistan. It has dealt with it using military force when necessary, maybe in not the quantity or ferocity that many of us here would like to see, being armchair soldiers and all... This idea that India consistently turns the other cheek is like the assertion that muslims ruled hindus for 1000 years and hindus did nothing about it. Anyway, all OT.

Karan M wrote:

Read it again. The assassinations, unrest, secessionist movements were hogtied by paying the Pakistanis back in their own coin.

Not sure what that means. At the end of the day, as terrible as Mumbai 08 was, it does not compare to khalistani terrorism and the resultant instability it created, culminating with an assassination of a sitting PM, followed by a pogrom against the sikhs in delhi, and creating a semi-permanent disgruntled subset of that population susceptible to foreign influence. So that required stronger counter measures, which India undertook according to your own assertion. But that was because it was all far more destabilizing than the Mumbai attack, notwithstanding the terrible loss for the individuals who experienced it. Unfortunately, while it would be nice to have an India that is able to avenge even 1 Indian death by killing 10 of the adversary in return, I don't think that is currently realistic.

Karan M wrote: As regards India "appears far more stable and at peace today" - the folks living in the Maoist heartland & those who suffered through the terror strikes would disagree with you.

That you dismiss these as "Paki farts" is amazing. Wonder whether you'd still say the same if your kids were the ones who died in the Pune attack, or if you were one of those who lost limbs during any of these "farts".. amazing, just bloody amazing..

It needs to be kept in perspective with the costs of escalation, and over the general state of violence and security over a period of decades. In that sense, yes, it is a Paki fart, compared to the mayhem of a few decades ago. And I don't say that because I like pakis or anything (my posting history here should disabuse you of that), but I am just looking at it realistically. Sure I would like a small army of agent Vinods to be running around pakistan making 'em feel the pain. And as I said in my post on covert warfare above, how do I even know that India has not had a role in all the mayhem that has happened in Pakistan since 08? It's all speculative.

Karan M wrote: Seriously, where do you guys come from? Which country are you in?

Ok, so if you defend the US, then you are a US rakshak. If you defend India, and criticize the US, then you want to know which country I come from

Karan M wrote: And please don't attempt to justify this rubbish with giving a "big picture" view of how these are "pinpricks" to the "vast Indian democracy" and the "resilience of the indian people"...have heard similar callous rubbish from our GOI before...very easy to play that screed, as long as their skin is safe

But that's not inconsistent with demanding the US or Russia not give arms to the Pakis. Unless your strategy is to "shame" the GOI by inviting others to come in and have a go.

Karan M wrote:
You may not see any hypocrisy (& your consistent highlighting of a casual typo is amusing at best!) but I sure do when I see GOI functionaries go around in their gilt plated security with nary a care about what their idiotic policies bring about!

Of course, to your eyes, these may all be "Paki farts", but unfortunately, for us flesh & blood mortals, those "farts" from "Chinese junk" actually matter.

Didn't realize you had made the typo; thought it was all mine...

Also, you are confusing the end weaponry in the hands of a kasab with the entire posture that enables the paki army to engage in that type of behavior. And for that, I do believe the US has significant responsibility. I think shiv has put that well in many of his previous posts, so I won't repeat it.

karan M wrote:

Yeah, internally consistent in that politicians (and their chamchas) ensure that their posteriors are safe. To the level that even their relatives are protected....very very consistent!

Again, that's a different argument. Still ok to insist that US stop selling arms though.

Karan M wrote:

From whom? When was the last time the Indian Govt actually pursued this matter seriously? As versus offering lucrative contracts to the very same Govts that offered freebies to Pakistan...
Seriously, all very well to be a loyal GOI rakshak, but they hardly follow the consistent line you have scripted for them..

Well, that's a different matter.

"How should GOI *effectively* ensure that others do not sell arms to the Pakis"?

I don't know. The GOI is ineffective at many things including providing toilets to people. So their ineffectiveness in this regard is not surprising. But again, that does not detract from the requirement of an end of military interference though. More effective strategies for ensuring that would certainly be welcome, as would a general improvement in the quality of governance provided to Indians.

The book "Obama's wars" (which I reviewed it is in the book review dhaaga), presents a pretty pathetic and funny state of affairs vis-a-vis afghanistan. Without going into details, it reminded me of the fable/story where a man is searching for his ring under the streetlight. Another guy helps him search and finally asks him "Which part of the road did you drop it" the man says "I dropped it at home". The fellow who is helping gets frustrated and asks "Why are you searching here then?" The man replies "Oh, because there is no light at home and there is light here".

US doesnt know who to talk to and what to do in Afghanistan. US got itself into trouble in Afghanistan. However they know who to talk to in Pakistan. So they give them money. They also know that it wont solve the afghan problem, but they give them money anyway, because they can give them money and pretend they are solving the problem -- like the man searching for his ring and looking busy.

Going from this reality of an inept and clueless US taken for a ride by Pakistanis (heck they even take Indians -- land of Banias according to the Pakis --- for a ride, take a look at the MFN carrot that they dangle. What to say of goras who dont understand the subcontinental cultural nuances), and US being generally inept and ham handed at solving problems (take a look at their record in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and Egypt) and taking a leap towards "Hindu containment" is a bit of a stretch IMHO.

Forget Pakistan and hidden motives and taliban and afghanistan, which is all hard to analyse. Take the Musharraf regime. US was harping "There is no alternative, if this fellow goes, a bearded taliban nuclear missile wielding fellow will take over!!!" And India was "Yes!! yes!! there is no alternative!!" and invited him to Agra -- the mastermind of Kargil and Kandahar hijacking. MKN went so far to declare his regime to be stable and a person India can and should deal with, because there is no alternative -- 2 month before his regime came crashing down.

My point is: US is an idiot when it comes to untangling the mess in Afghanistan. We are compounding it by being an idiot ourselves. Pointing this out does not make one an american apologist -- rather it has to do with pointing out and taking on problems which we can and are able to solve: Indian policy muddle vis-a-vis Pakistan. I will repeat this: Everyone knows US supplies arms to the Pakis. People know China props them up. People also know whole of Middle east props them up. So does Japan. We can yell from rooftops about this, call them all bad people. Ascribe conspiracy theories to it. Speculate hindu containment. Come up with cultural theories as to how it is the only thing that prevents a 10000 year Hindu supremacy over the world.

Or we can fix our policy muddle. That will be a good start. We fixed the issue in 1971 over the world's opposition -- what is holding us back now? It is our own idiocy.

India must be the local don of the region -- anyone wanting to come in should give us a salaam and take our permission. It is possible: This policy was enforced by the British using Indian muscle. It is us who have abandoned this policy with all talk of pappi--jhappi and bhaichara. Absent that everyone will try to screw us and Pakistan (and use Pakistan to screw us), and even use Srilanka to screw us and Bangladesh too.

We can discuss, identify and fix the basic problem: Indian policy muddle. Or we can run self gratifying self congratulatory pisko experiments and gloat about it.

There are two questions I ask myself

1. Can the US be wrong?
2. Can US Presidents tell lies?

Whether Indian governments are weak or stupid or traitors have no connection at all with the above questions.

If either of the above questions can be answered with a "Yes" the same questions need to be asked about US policy in Pakistan.

To my mind a lot of the support that the US position gets seem like the position of an average Joe inside the US who believes that the US can do no wrong and that the US President can tell no lies. People who talk like this on BRF sound like average Joe US citizens to to me.

If the US is wrong and/or US presidents are lying it doesn't affect the life of average Joe in Utah or wherever. They are welcome to put up a robust defence of the US position. But on here it sounds like US rakshakism. All this has no bearing on how stupid or incompetent Indians might be.

An argument that stems from this is "What else can the US do?"

The grinning cynic in my mind tells me "The US is a superpower no? It can do rolling thunder and highway of death to Taliban no? It can send in the marines no"

But the realist inside me tells me that the US is itself stuck between a rock and a hard place. It wants to avoid rolling thunder and Highway of death because those options are so expensive that US voters will vote against that. Even Pakistan understands this problem that the US faces. So the US is trying to take the cheap option of bribing its way out by paying off the prime sponsor of the Taliban to try and change the Taliban's mindset. Pakistan is enjoying the fruits of US political and economic weakness.

To my mind inability to admit US weakness is itself an inability to get real. It is a denial of Pakistani strength. Pakistan is staying alive and is stronger than it was in 1999 because a weak US is paying and bribing Pakistan to help US governments off the hook. Average Joe in the US does not want to hear about US weakness in Pakistan. He wants a job and a good life. He will suport whatever lis his government might tell him as long as he has a job, health care and a good life.

But if average Joe comes to BRF and tells me his government is doing the right thing in Pakistan I will tell him to go stuff it and if he gets angry with that he will have to "suck it"

1. Can the US be wrong?
2. Can US Presidents tell lies?

Whether Indian governments are weak or stupid or traitors have no connection at all with the above questions.

Yes it does! I am not sure if I am making myself clear:

My point is -- there is a perfectly legitimate explanation, centered around policy paralysis, lack of imagination, short term objectives, idiocy, gullibility, general lack of alternatives and punishment for bad behavior that perfectly explains US behavior vis-a-vis Pakistan, without resorting to Hindu containment conspiracy theory.

My evidence to support this hypothesis is: The people who have suffered the most, which would be us, have similar approach to Pakistan as the US (appeasement) and the same combination of policy paralysis, lack of imagination, short term objectives, idiocy, gullibility, general lack of alternatives and punishment for bad behavior explains our behavior.

If there is some CT centered around India containment explains US behavior, then it perfectly explains Indian behavior too! Attempting to disprove CTs using our behavior as a vehicle to explain things, does not make one an American apologist.

ofcourse, you can pull out the Lalu Yadav-esque attacks calling it lahori logic.

CRamS wrote:Which US are you referring to? The US I know and live in, or some other US in mars where there will be "great outcry from the public" on an international issue ...

Why do you ask? You should know after living here for a long time - 25 years isn't it - that the US public is apathetic about the rest of the world unless the situation anywhere comes to a breaking point as it did in 1971. By the way, why are ignoring that particular historical event? In the absence of draft, outcry over Afghanistan deaths would never reach the level that was there over Vietnam.

>> there is a perfectly legitimate explanation

Of course, there are many explanations. The problem lies in finding the most likely explanation given the entire history of three countries. There is no reason to believe that you are offering the most plausible/likely explanation.

>> If there is some CT centered around India containment explains US behavior, then it perfectly explains Indian behavior too!

No, it does not. However, some other CT might explain Indian paralysis.

Anujan wrote: India must be the local don of the region -- anyone wanting to come in should give us a salaam and take our permission. It is possible: This policy was enforced by the British using Indian muscle. It is us who have abandoned this policy with all talk of pappi--jhappi and bhaichara. Absent that everyone will try to screw us and Pakistan (and use Pakistan to screw us), and even use Srilanka to screw us and Bangladesh too.

This would require Bharat to define itself, in clear terms. That would undo the secular-socialist Indian nonsense. That would also undo the current political dispensation & NBPJRE

Anujan wrote: India must be the local don of the region -- anyone wanting to come in should give us a salaam and take our permission..

That is why we need to oppose US policy on arming Pakistan. Indian and US policy are in fundamental opposition here.

On the other and, when it comes to being friendly with Pakistan, there is no difference between Indian and US policy. It is only on the question of arming Pakistan and making its military stronger is there any difference of opinion.

MurthyB wrote:Calm down guy. When did I say that I don't want to see it avenged? And what does that have to do with the assertion that the Paki army should not be armed?

Your post implied that the "consistent policy" of peace with Pakistan, as currently pursued by GOI in a ham handed manner, was ok . That in itself meant that everyone who terrorized India gets a wave & a kiss ..lets just say I am not a fan of that approach.

All that is fine, and is a different topic than one insisting that paki army should not be armed. Again, you seem to think, that since in your estimation the GOI has no credibility as the representative of the Indian people, it is reasonable for anyone to do anything. Looks like a self-goal to me.

Sorry, you didnt follow the conversation? I am saying that the GOI lacks any credibility or rather its rakshaks do as well, when they make the claim that Pakistani Army should not be armed and that there is a policy to this effect. When the GOI is busy engaging in lovey dovey with Pakistan, who will take them seriously on not arming Pakistan? Where is the evidence that such a diplomatic effort is even being undertaken with any degree of seriousness? Please see Anujans posts about the contradictions in such a claim

And lets not bring up...the Russians...would take them seriously if the JF-17 engines were stopped...!

Look, each country has to be dealt with separately. China is a problem, that needs to be dealt with. The US is a problem that also needs to be dealt with. The US claims to be a friend of India's so the nature of the dialog is different. Even if the Pakis get their arms from the Chinese, that in no way absolves the US of doing harm to Indian security by selling pakis arms. Again, your "all or nothing" argument is a strange one that appears as a self-goal to me.

Isnt that changing the goalposts? First, it was don't worry about China...now its, deal with each separately? Fine.
But deal with them how? Where is the evidence that GOI is doing this?
Dont see any.
All we see is pro Paki lovemaking from GOI
Its a serious contradiction.

Those are your assertions. I do not believe that India has consistently turned the other cheek to Pakistan. It has dealt with it using military force when necessary, maybe in not the quantity or ferocity that many of us here would like to see, being armchair soldiers and all... This idea that India consistently turns the other cheek is like the assertion that muslims ruled hindus for 1000 years and hindus did nothing about it. Anyway, all OT.

Out of context. I clearly said India keeps turning the other cheek. Pakistan reciprocates with aggression (and its obvious we defend). When was the last time, we initiated a conflict to teach Pakistan a lesson, pray tell?
India does consistently turn the other cheek - that has less to do with hindus and more to to do with socialist kumbaya idiots who rule/d us. Akin to "hindu rate of growth" which has nothing to do with hindus!

Not sure what that means. At the end of the day, as terrible as Mumbai 08 was, it does not compare to khalistani terrorism and the resultant instability it created, culminating with an assassination of a sitting PM, followed by a pogrom against the sikhs in delhi, and creating a semi-permanent disgruntled subset of that population susceptible to foreign influence. So that required stronger counter measures, which India undertook according to your own assertion. But that was because it was all far more destabilizing than the Mumbai attack, notwithstanding the terrible loss for the individuals who experienced it. Unfortunately, while it would be nice to have an India that is able to avenge even 1 Indian death by killing 10 of the adversary in return, I don't think that is currently realistic.

Clearly, my point missed you. Mumbai'08 was preceded by umpteen attacks, each of which was equally savage to those who experienced them.
Khalistani terrorism was stopped by methods which included a covert war - again, please follow up the details I provided you prior! PVNR - talk, talk, hit, hit!

It needs to be kept in perspective with the costs of escalation, and over the general state of violence and security over a period of decades. In that sense, yes, it is a Paki fart, compared to the mayhem of a few decades ago. And I don't say that because I like pakis or anything (my posting history here should disabuse you of that), but I am just looking at it realistically. Sure I would like a small army of agent Vinods to be running around pakistan making 'em feel the pain. And as I said in my post on covert warfare above, how do I even know that India has not had a role in all the mayhem that has happened in Pakistan since 08? It's all speculative.

These so called Paki farts are making people doubt the idea of India. I know of this first hand. They also cause a terrific human cost. Something which is ignored with talk of perspective etc. You don't need Agent Vinods - there are enough Rehmans, Mahmoods, and Balochs to disabuse the Pakjabi cabal that a covert war is a one way street.

Ok, so if you defend the US, then you are a US rakshak. If you defend India, and criticize the US, then you want to know which country I come from

If you are not in India, you can dismiss terror with statements of perspective & Paki farts, because sir you don't run the risk of facing these "Farts", thats my point. It has nothing to do with you as a person, but just a pointer towards some of the more rah-rah stuff I see sometimes about projections versus reality when we talk of "superb growth rate/booming Indian economy" versus the reality that is India today (nature of infrastructure/limitations therein/ corruption at all levels) & the easy pass they give to the GOI which is full of fat cats

But that's not inconsistent with demanding the US or Russia not give arms to the Pakis. Unless your strategy is to "shame" the GOI by inviting others to come in and have a go.

But are they demanding this? I am afraid this too might be a BRF exclusive. Because, if a GOI has elements which are thoroughly corrupt & can routinely rig arms deals - expecting them to be consistent on this, in a serious fashion - well, thats a bit much.
Remember David Headley & the manufactured outrage over the US stonewalling Indian requirements? Wikileaks noted that PC told the USG that they'd just raise a bit of bluster to assuage Indian opinion..
Sorry, but this is GOI...

Didn't realize you had made the typo; thought it was all mine...

Also, you are confusing the end weaponry in the hands of a kasab with the entire posture that enables the paki army to engage in that type of behavior. And for that, I do believe the US has significant responsibility. I think shiv has put that well in many of his previous posts, so I won't repeat it.

The posture is because of the Chinese. The US gave Pakistanis F-86s. The French gave them Mirages. We still whupped them in 1971. They sat still for a decade till they got nukes. From the Chinese. That is what changed them & made them thoroughly a PITA. Unless of course, like friend KLNM you believe the Pakistanis are congenital idiots & lack the ethical framework to somehow make weapons..(disclaimer: I do believe they are congenital idiots - but even idiots can make weapons)

Again, that's a different argument. Still ok to insist that US stop selling arms though.

See prior. Nobody will listen/take you seriously, if you hug country x & then ask others not to work/sell stuff to country x

Well, that's a different matter.

That is the crux of the matter.

"How should GOI *effectively* ensure that others do not sell arms to the Pakis"?

I don't know. The GOI is ineffective at many things including providing toilets to people. So their ineffectiveness in this regard is not surprising. But again, that does not detract from the requirement of an end of military interference though. More effective strategies for ensuring that would certainly be welcome, as would a general improvement in the quality of governance provided to Indians.

Their ineffectiveness has more to do with the fact they don't care, because not caring is acceptable to the GOI. When was the last time any GOI minister was sued or sent to jail for failing at his job?

Also going by prior facts - GOI doesnt seem to be doing much in this regard either. Its we folks debating this.
More likely, judging by the manner of the DH case, GOI just plays the smoke & mirrors game & didnt even raise this issue in a serious fashion with the US...

Unless we inflict pain and consequence on anyone who arm Bakis, anyone WILL arm Bakis, whatever be the reason. i.e. It is in our interest to inflict pain/damage/consequence on anyone who works against our interests. It does not matter what others interest are or are not, our interest should have paramount importance.

If we pray/whine/complain against anyone arming Bakis, nothing is going to happen. Its like giving your balls to someone else and saying pleej dont squeej, its in my interest that you dont squeej them. The only way to save your balls in that case, is to get a firm grip on the balls of the people holding your balls, and squeej them harder than they squeej your balls.

RamaY wrote:

Anujan wrote: India must be the local don of the region -- anyone wanting to come in should give us a salaam and take our permission. It is possible: This policy was enforced by the British using Indian muscle. It is us who have abandoned this policy with all talk of pappi--jhappi and bhaichara. Absent that everyone will try to screw us and Pakistan (and use Pakistan to screw us), and even use Srilanka to screw us and Bangladesh too.

This would require Bharat to define itself, in clear terms. That would undo the secular-socialist Indian nonsense. That would also undo the current political dispensation & NBPJRE

That is fundamentally the truth. Pakistan has defined itself as an Islamic state. For Indian policy makers to actively understand, and then propagate the idea that this evil concoction needs to be taken down or dealt with (by any means necessary), they have to accept this fact that an Islamic state needs to be dealt with. That runs counter to the holy grail of Indian secoolar-dom that is led by the grand poobah-of secoolar-dom that is the INC, with selectively handpicked PC folks at all levels.

I recall an online discussion where some NRI and Indian retired folks attended. NRI bhaisaab first attacked Pakistan and then criticized India for being more PC and over secoolar. Indian rtd folk attacked NRI bhaisaab for being yindoo fundamentalist.

It would be comic, but it was tragic. Because these experts are the ones supposed to be protecting India. Asking them to take hard measures against the jihadi combine that is modern day Pakistan...nahin saab, that is not secoolar.

Ultimately, there is no accountability
If these fat cats all had heaters under their butts and had to protect Indians come what may, to justify their private perches, their large empires with huge budgets, and uncounted perks - all these fake trappings of this ism, that ism would fall off.

Instead, they can sit and do nothing. Later, a second inning as newspaper commentators or bloggers always awaits.

Karan M wrote:
That is fundamentally the truth. Pakistan has defined itself as an Islamic state. For Indian policy makers to actively understand, and then propagate the idea that this evil concoction needs to be taken down or dealt with (by any means necessary), they have to accept this fact that an Islamic state needs to be dealt with.

Karanji, how should India deal with an Islamic state?

India is not equipped to deal with an Islamic state. Only Bharat does.

Bharat would deal with an Islamic state the same way it did with a Ravana or Mahishasura or Tarakasura.

Bharat is not only equipped to deal with one Asura, it is equipped to deal with Tripurasuras all at one time.

That is why Islamists do not fear India, they fear Hindustan/Bharat.

Please read Khan Abdul Gafar Khans interview in a new way of looking at pakistan thread.

lakshmikanth wrote:
If we pray/whine/complain against anyone arming Bakis, nothing is going to happen. Its like giving your balls to someone else and saying pleej dont squeej, its in my interest that you dont squeej them. The only way to save your balls in that case, is to get a firm grip on the balls of the people holding your balls, and squeej them harder than they squeej your balls.

If we become friendly with Pakistan, then Pakistan should have no need to attack us and it can do the US's job of defeating the Taliban and US arms will not harm us. The US has reassured us that arms to Pakistan are not meant to be used against India and India needs to go a long way to reduce Pakistani fears of India

However, if we oppose Pakistan, the Pakistan army has to fight both India and the Taliban and will find it difficult and it will make things difficult for the US also.

So under the circumstances, good relations with Pakistan is a great idea. The US also maintains good relations with Pakistan, so we can be good neighbors and give them electricity, trade and visas and sporting links and talk to them about everything under the sun. That would be a sensible course that harms the least number of people no?

What is wrong with that policy?

shiv wrote:
......
If we become friendly with Pakistan, then Pakistan should have no need to attack us and it can do the US's job of defeating the Taliban and US arms will not harm us. The US has reassured us that arms to Pakistan are not meant to be used against India and India needs to go a long way to reduce Pakistani fears of India
.....

What is wrong with that policy?

Nothing wrong except two things:

1) How do we ensure the stuff in bold above? How do we enforce it? What are the steps that can be taken to make sure that the chance of the baki attack on us is near 0%(excluding the possibility of giving cashmere in a platter, paying Jizya tax, or having green flag on red fort)??

2) How do we know that there wont be a Baki itch, in the future, to attack us?

shiv wrote: So under the circumstances, good relations with Pakistan is a great idea. The US also maintains good relations with Pakistan, so we can be good neighbors and give them electricity, trade and visas and sporting links and talk to them about everything under the sun. That would be a sensible course that harms the least number of people no?

According to my very limited understanding of human piskology, humans respond better to pain than increased pleasure. Infact, anyone would trade a slight comfort to get rid of a slight discomfort. Hence our focus should be on building capability to inflict severe pain/discomfort on Baki and 3.5

Boy, the pisko-doc is woken up

Sir, please drop the ji (ironic I know)

My point is we should deal with it, with the realization that

a) It does not merit special mollycoddling on account of being Islamic (which means ZERO regard given to internal votebank groups, politicians) - this is our biggest weakness in dealing with Pakistan IMO. We cant even begin to accept the fact that the common Pakistani is often, a bigot. Its a big surprise. Because they are "people like us" (have to be) and the "Taliban are extremists". Because "there are extremists in every religion".

Once we accept this fact, that yeah they are Islamic (and it doesnt matter!) and are willing to war to the knife, and knife to the hilt, then

b ) Absolute ruthlessness in exploiting each & every sectarian difference in Pakistan. Shia versus Sunnia. Sunni Salafi versus Barelvi etc. Point is to keep them at each others throats & off of India's. If scruples are still around, use these useful idiots against military targets - PA, paramils and each other, class warfare, all against the feudals etc and vice versa. Dont let any group get too big, or too powerful. Help the PA actually bring down some which are too uppity, grow the rest against the PA. Rinse, lather, repeat.

C) Propaganda war. While B is going on, to deny that we are doing B, and second, to use any and every mean at our disposal to bring out the true Pakiness of Paks to the wider world. Basically, bring out the point that hey, you are Muslim? The Indians are doing a favor by taking on the Pakistanis - they give every Muslim a bad name, which is anyhow true. Also build up the PA versus civil society versus jihadis divide. All of them against each other. Thats a good thing. Pakistanis are venal, bombastic, boastful people with a tendency to go for the easy money. Spread some money, and see how they end up attacking each other. The US bought off the Republican Guard. We have Corps Commanders to purchase.

D) Economic sanctions & building up MIC pressure. One of the key ways Reagan bled the Soviets was to build up the US MIC. We need to do so anyhow. We spend our valuable money on imports. We need to engage with each and every nation out there and be unremitting in our message - deal with us, not Pakistan. Deal with Pakistan, you get tarred. Over a period of time, you will see folks get the message. So by building up our MIC, we maintain our offensive edge, and also put sustained pressure on Pakistan. We also try to sabotage their economy wherever possible

Point is though - we don't need to collapse Pakistan. We don't want a hundred million jihadi wannabes settling in Indian cities. We just need them in enough turmoil to accept, however gracefully, that playing the covert war game with India is a bad idea. Meanwhile we keep developing our assets. No more pappi jhappi -people like us hainji rubbish of sacrificing capabilities.

A thing is that US is very frustrated with Pakistanis but cannot admit it. It needs the ISI to (snicker) figure out what the Taliban is doing. This per books, articles etc. Shows how out of their depth they are. We build up our own capabilities in Pak. Thats a leverage point for us to again put more pressure on Pak.

Basically get the job done, forget all this rubbish of, we dont do this, we are a democracy, it will brutalize us. This country has no issues brutalizing civilian protesters, ill equipped policemen by sending them into mined roads - but gee, suddenly develops "scruples" when dealing with Pakistan. Yeah right

None of this is rocket science. India can do it. All it needs is a leadership that acknowledges this needs to be done, as versus pappi jhappi idiots.

lakshmikanth wrote:

shiv wrote: ......
If we become friendly with Pakistan, then Pakistan should have no need to attack us and it can do the US's job of defeating the Taliban and US arms will not harm us. The US has reassured us that arms to Pakistan are not meant to be used against India and India needs to go a long way to reduce Pakistani fears of India
.....

What is wrong with that policy?

Nothing wrong except two things:

1) How do we ensure the stuff in bold above? How do we enforce it? What are the steps that can be taken to make sure that the chance of the baki attack on us is near 0%(excluding the possibility of giving cashmere in a platter, paying Jizya tax, or having green flag on red fort)??

2) How do we know that there wont be a Baki itch, in the future, to attack us?

1) How do we ensure the stuff in bold above? How do we enforce it? What are the steps that can be taken to make sure that the chance of the baki attack on us is near 0%(excluding the possibility of giving cashmere in a platter, paying Jizya tax, or having green flag on red fort)??

We can trust and believe what the US tells us about Pakistan in good faith, and become realists and understand the US position and realize that if we reassure Pakistan and become less threatening, Pakistanis will automatically become normal and the US will not have to provide extra arms for Pakistan's extra security needs against India

2) How do we know that there wont be a Baki itch, in the future, to attack us?

We need to stay prepared, and we need to do whatever we can to ensure that Pakistan's sponsors do not arm them against India using the lame excuse that arms to Pakistan will be used only against Tliban

Karan M wrote:Sir, please drop the ji (ironic I know)

My point is we should deal with it, with the realization that
<snip>
A thing is that US is very frustrated with Pakistanis but cannot admit it. It needs the ISI to (snicker) figure out what the Taliban is doing. This per books, articles etc. Shows how out of their depth they are. We build up our own capabilities in Pak. Thats a leverage point for us to again put more pressure on Pak.

Basically get the job done, forget all this rubbish of, we dont do this, we are a democracy, it will brutalize us. This country has no issues brutalizing civilian protesters, ill equipped policemen by sending them into mined roads - but gee, suddenly develops "scruples" when dealing with Pakistan. Yeah right

None of this is rocket science. India can do it. All it needs is a leadership that acknowledges this needs to be done, as versus pappi jhappi idiots.

Karanji, it is disrespectful to address people without the ji unless they are close friends.

We can do a lot of things to Pakistan if we had the political will. But Pakistan is sure to hit back. I would like to see a weak Pakistan hit back so it can be defeated more easily.

Pakistan would be much weaker without US arms and monetary aid to the military.

We could go to war with the US over this if we had political will. But call me a coward, I don't think that is a good idea.