Beheading of Indian Soldiers in Aug 2011 and Aman ki Asha

[Lalmohan]

the last thing that the PA wants is progress in the piss talks, so whenever there is pressure for them to reach a waypoint, the PA throws a spanner in the works, usually by a calculated act of brutality - they just can't imagine that the yindus soak it up and come back with amankiasha - which no doubt confuses the hell out of em at the corpse kammanus chai biskoot sessions

[Anujan]

Pakistan army has no desire for peace. Think about it from their perspective:

1. Conflict with India justifies their existence, Jihadi fistula and all that
2. If they dont bomb India, the Jihadis have a bad habit of bombing Pakistan
3. If a big fight erupts with India, they can run from Afghan border where they are getting GUBO'ed and come over to LoC
4. It is almost idealogically impossible for them to run an army where they tell their soldiers that their raisin dieter is to protect the constitution and not to be soliders of Islam and fight against India.

The civvies on the other hand want peace

1. They want baksheesh from Unkil and IMF which comes with the condition of piss with India
2. Their dekhonomoney is down the Pakistan. They need to cut costs, get electricity, rail locos, petrol, ToT for mining whatever from India. Possibly even on a credit/currency swap basis. 3.5 friends are getting tight fisted (Let me make a prediction. If they grant MFN, they are going to demand currency swap, whereby they Pay in pakistan rupees, which we can use to buy stuff from Bakistan. And then print fake currency and/or inflate their currency away)
3. Reducing the influence (and size) of the army is the long term insurance against Army meddling. Army meddles overtly (going over in a tank to the presidency) and covertly (propping up duffer-e-bakistan, immy and numerous others)

Now if Piss process is at a far along advanced stage without any goodies for the Army (give away Siachen, Sir Creek ityadi), why do they have any incentive in supporting it? They will keep torpedoing it, till we offer something for everyone.

And frankly it is not our obligation to offer anything.

[member_22872]

Can they have the cake and eat it too? :

1. Through Track-II they take Siachen, Sir Creek, may be anything else they can get from Kashmir. This is facilitated by GoI may be with a naive assumption that peace can usher in stability in South Asia.
2. Once 1 is achieved, back to the normal programming, get the rest of Kashmir.

So they get concessions and goodies, and still can use their strategic depth and all. Everyone is happy, back home, Cong gets minority votes forever perhaps, once Siachen and Sir Creek go, MMS will get nobel peace prize. Every one lives happily then on.

[ramana]

Government played no role in sending back Pakistani hockey players: Salman Khurshid

A record in downhill skiing by MEA
Within 8 days he issues clarification.

New Delhi: In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said that the government played no role in sending back Pakistani sportspersons and cancelling plays to be performed by artists from the neighbouring country following the killing of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistan army at the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

Is this Government responsible for anything? This is confirmation of the do nothing government. Everything happens without its knowledge and cognizance.



To paraphrase Lincoln,

"UPA government is for do nothings
UPA govt works by doing nothing
UPA govt is of do nothings"

[Prem Kumar]

Anujan & LalBrofessor: thanks for the replies. Dekhonomoney needs to go into the BRF lingo site!

But my point is the one that Venug made quite succinctly. Baki army can have their cake & eat it too & claim credit for getting the cake. The way the piss process is working, they just got to show up when/if called for. They can continue supporting the "AMonkeyAsha is the continuation of jihad by other means" philosophy. Their raisin dieter wont stop till the flag is hoisted atop Lal Quila anyway

So, if the Baki army torpedo'ed the piss process, then we need to look at why?

[pentaiah]

The most dangerous thing is the Resident Indian Pakistanis (RIP) in Media, Politicos, Artists aka Bollywood goons,

These evil force will unravel India and balkanize its already taken a firm root and fissures are visible to the one who care to notice.

MMS and the Congress president have introduced all the potent viruses to destroy us

[member_22872]

Signals to keep in context:
1.SeS capitulation.
2. half hearted 26/11 investigation, dossier give and take, finally past is past, time to move on.
3. Birth of "Hindu terror" from thin air
4. Softening of stance on "No negotiations" rule
5. visas, MFN status, birth of South Asia and cricket matches.
6. fast tracking visas to Hurriyat, so they can meet prof. Hafiz PBUH.
7. Aman ki Asha, hand swings, hip joining and head banging with Paki "artists"
8. Indian Media going nuts over any thing that has Paki scent on it.
9. Hindu Terror going official, prof Hafiz thanking GoI for acknowledging, for what TSP has been saying all these years, SeS redux.

So GoI is working for India or TSP? or grand Chanikian in play and we lost the plot long back?

[Prem Kumar]

What we actually have in New Delhi is a Government of South Asia. Only the narrow minded Hindus think of this as Government of India.

[member_22872]

Yes, I am worried . Where is this opposition when you need it? looks like 2/3 majority is guaranteed. TSP, give the nod now! or just a wink and you will get anything.

[Prem Kumar]

Key trait of GOSA (Govt of South Asia) - "secular inclusiveness"

1) Electoral fortunes of Assam and West Bengal is determined by Bangladesh. They are awarded land in return for their services

2) Hina Khar and MEA Salman Khurshid issue joint declaration that beheadings are a South Asian problem. Everyone does it

3) Hafiz Sayeed and Sushil Kumar Shinde issue joint statement that Hindu terror is the biggest problem facing South Asia

[SSridhar]

India-Pakistan, Back to the Past - An Indian author in DT

The Taliban are trying hard to make a return and keep the region further disturbed. Instead of paying heed and trying to meet future challenges in the region {Can a person be dumber than this ? Astounding} , once again, India and Pakistan have immaturely engaged in skirmishes on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

For the present skirmishes, the story carried by Praveen Swamy for The Hindu, dated December 10, 2012, seems logical and truthful. Furthermore, on both sides of the border, there are stakeholders who benefit from the persisting enmity between the two countries.

In Indian politics, Pakistan plays an important role. Ongoing cross-border firing — which given their decades-old rivalry is a routine affair between India and Pakistan — has been used by the present government to pacify the people who were angered at the government’s attitude over the December 16 gang rape incident in Delhi. It has also stopped the much needed, ongoing debates in the Indian media over steps to empower women and to stop such barbaric incidents from happening. In a nutshell, the UPA spin-doctors have managed the situation well for their government. Then there are groups in India who have always had a problem with the India-Pakistan peace process. The ongoing India-Pakistan peace and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) must have been bothering many anti-Pakistan hawks in India. The cross-border firings have given a chance to many Indian ‘experts’ on Pakistan to come out from their forced-hibernation. Now they have occupied spaces in the Indian media and are chanting their stale hypothesis: India and Pakistan cannot be friends.

Let us have a decade of friendship and then compare the result. If that does not pay — which it certainly would — then there is always an option to return to the antagonistic past. Strategically, tensions and skirmishes will be harmful and provide reasons for the strengthening of radical forces. The Islamic radicals have already done a great deal of damage to Pakistan. If Pakistan faces problems, India cannot save itself from the spillover effects either. Hence, both countries must try to be mature and behave rationally.

The writer is an assistant professor (guest) at the Delhi University, New Delhi. He can be reached at amitranjan.jnu@gmail.com

[ramana]

Three relevant posts and my thoughts later.....
First....

LoC Trouble: PM Should Have Reacted Earlier: CCS - Economic Times

Tension in Indo-Pak ties may have eased now but during the height of the diplomatic row, some members of the Cabinet Committee on Security expressed strong reservations about the 'delay' in the prime minister's response. {In his 'Devil's Advocate programme last night in CNN-IBN, Karan Thapar asked Kurshid along similar lines whether there was some dissension within the cabinet on this issue}

CCS has the prime minister and ministers of finance, home, defence, external affairs and the National Security Advisor as members. Last Monday, when it met to discuss the best possible response to an escalating rhetoric with Pakistan, some members argued that given the nature of the provocation - mutilation of bodies of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani troops who crossed the Line of Control - absence of a substantive intervention by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was a 'weak link' in India's approach, a senior minister told ET.

Significantly, the prime minister's statement that it can't be business as usual with Pakistan came a day after last Monday's CCS meeting, a week after the incident first captured headlines.

The senior minister said that last Monday's CCS meeting strategised on the prime minister's response in terms of timing and content, with members making the point that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) should have intervened just as defence minister AK Antony and P Chidambaram, in his capacity as head of Group of Ministers, Media, did.

ET has learnt that the members of the Cabinet Committee on Security had also made the point that with certain kinds of incidents provoking quick and widespread critiques from multiple-media platforms, the speed of high-value government response needed to match the speed of information dissemination. Senior government officials, who did not want to be identified, said the Pakistan incident has strengthened the case for revisiting the government's communication strategy, with both speed and content having been found wanting on many recent occasions. {But, in the end, the PMO did a splendid job through planted stories that accused its own Army and helped draw the equality with a barbaric terrorist nation. This PM, Man Mohan Singh, for all appearances acts as a stooge of the US Government.The US is ensuring that a US-compliance is maintained in the line of succession by ensuring the elevation of the Princeling. We used to mock at Pakistan for exraordinary US intereference but I am increasingly sure that a similar thing is happening in India too. It is only so overt in TSP.}

PMO officials told ET that keeping the prime minister out of the statement war was deliberate since early intervention may have escalated matters. They, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said NSA Shiv Shankar Menon, was in continuous touch with all senior ministers and there was coordination in framing the government's strategy.

IOW the unilateral piss process is not fully endorsed by the CCS. PMO is solely driveing it. MEA is just a mouthpiece and a decoration for UP votebanks just as Shinde is for Maharastra votebank. Shivraj Patil & SM Krishan were earlier versions.

CRS, first GoI planted stories through its sarkari journalists to malign our own army and now it has used the next higher asthra, that of Hindu terrorism. The consequences of this in the context of TSP are going to be enormous for us. Not only this GoI but also future governments will be like emperors without clothes. The desperate INC is behaving extremely tactically like the US without realizing the consequences. Of course, for a country that practises hard realpolitik like the US, such a behaviour might not matter, but that is not the case with Indian leaders or p-secs or Indian liberals or WKKs or journalists because they will continue to insist on moral equivalence and concede all the advantages we have had. There is a serious attempt to undermine Indian advantages vis-a-vis TSP both internally (through Indian agents of a foreign power or other Indians who want to destroy a particular community in India) and externally. This is the only way a mouse and an elephant can be made to appear similar. And, these forces are furiously at it because the US plans in Af-Pak and the INC's plans for the 2014 election dovetail nicely.

We will restrict ourselves here to aspects involving TSP only.

and

NDTV Timeline blog...

Shows clearly that IA was again quiet and did not deserve the public upbraiding from the GOI ministers.


I think something big was cooking. On Indian side its clear to note who the players are: PMO, many in the Cabinet, IA leadership, Hurrirats and select sarkari media minions.

On TSP side its the Dus Percenti government, Hafiz Suar and TSPA top leadership.

Someone in TSPA realized piss process is self-limiting move for them and went ahead with a beheading incrusion.

GOI was shocked and expected Ind Army to roll over and play dead.

And Ind Army did so initially till the soldiers families demanded accountability.

The GOI went on overdrive and marshalled all its resources reaching out to even BK type of opinion makers to pillory Ind Army.

So what was this prize that GOI tars and feathers its own soldeirs?

[vishvak]

More from link, manorama online

Some tidbits:link1 and link2.

[ramana]

Can you post them for the benefit of others? Thanks

[vishvak]

Posting in full
BUTCHERS IN THE FOG
Buddies Hemraj and Sudhakar Singh, lance naiks in the 13th battalion of the proud Rajputana Rifles, were on a routine area domination patrol in Mendhar sector, 200km north of Jammu. The daybreak of January 8 was still several hours away; the night was dark, the fog thick, and visibility almost zero.
Patrolling here involved ‘walking around' over a stretch that was beyond the fence that protected Indian-held territory from insurgents. Most of the fence on the 770km line of control (LoC) lay like this—far inside the Indian-held territory—since Pakistan had objected, with words and firepower, to erecting the fence on the mutually agreed LoC. The Indian Army has static posts on the stretch beyond the fence and closer to the LoC, but patrols, which are small mobile units of 6 to 10 troopers led by young officers or subalterns, are often launched from this side of the fence.
Crossing the fence, a double-row (triple, in certain places) of concertina wire wall 12ft high and 4 to 9ft wide, is easy for the Indian trooper. His thermal imaging devices and alarm systems tell him how to find his passage through the electrified wires, sharp metal tapes and glass pieces on the ground, which make infiltration, from the other side, nearly impossible. The pickets beyond the fence look out into Pak-held territory for signs of military activity, as well as insurgent movement.
The difficult part lay there, in the stretch between the fence and the LoC. No one can say exactly where the LoC lay; there is nothing on the ground to delineate it. You could stray across and be shot at; you could step on a landmine the enemy had laid in his territory, lose your limbs and be accused of having intruded.
Every border sector is divided into grids, each under a commanding officer. There are four to seven forward posts (beyond the fence) every kilometre, with five to eight soldiers in each. The posts are alerted about the patrols; while on patrol, the scouts do not talk, smoke, use flashlight or carry cellphones. They do not even use aftershave, the smell of which could be picked up by dogs accompanying insurgents.
The patrol that included Hemraj and Sudhakar was playing safe, by not venturing far beyond the fence. They mostly remained nearly half a kilometre short of the LoC. The party had seven troopers and, as per the decades-old practice, had divided themselves into three pairs with the commander attaching himself to one. Each pair was to remain within the line of sight of another, but that was impossible in the thick fog and the thick woods. The result: the pair that was to keep Hemraj and Sudhakar in their line of sight did not see who were shooting at them in the fog; they only heard reports of automatics firing away.
As the second pair leapt for cover, before rushing to reinforce Hemraj and Sudhakar, they, too, came under fire. This fire, they realised, was not coming from the woods, unlike the bullets that had felled Hemraj and Sudhakar. This was cover fire, coming from the hilltops on the Pakistani side. Very unlike militants, and verily military. Militants would have fired at everyone in sight. Here, the enemy was killing only two; the cover fire was being provided only to keep the rest of the patrolmen away. The intention was to kill two, and only two, and then seize their bodies.
Indian posts returned fire; the exchange lasted several hours, well past daybreak. As the fog cleared, a couple of remaining patrolmen saw the enemy—clad in dark black, the uniform of Pakistan's dreaded Special Services Group known as the Black Storks. The cover fire, the patrolmen knew, was being provided by the 29th battalion of the Baloch Regiment, which had been there for several months.
As the firing finally ended at 11:32, the sight in front froze them. Hemraj and Sudhakar lay dead and frozen in pools of blood, far away from each other. Sudhakar's head was missing; Hemraj had deep slashes on his neck, indicating a failed beheading bid. “The raiders carried the head back across the border as trophy,” an officer told THE WEEK later.
But, why the SSG? The group, headquartered at Cherat in Peshawar on the Afghan frontier, and commanded by Major-General Farrukh Bashir, has never revealed its actual strength. Its troopers have, through long association with bloodier-minded militants, acquired a few notorious non-militaristic practices, such as torturing captured enemy and dishonouring corpses, (like beheading them) which regular troopers are loath to indulge in.
Regular troopers, even in Pakistani regiments, adhere to certain norms of military honour. Less than three months ago, an Indian Army Cheetah helicopter had strayed into Pak-held airspace. The four crew members, who were captured, were subjected to interrogation, but extended all kinds of soldierly courtesies, and sent back. In fact, straying across the LoC used to be quite frequent in the pre-1990s, and ‘strayers' were more often than not sent back with a warning, but after being treated to tea and biscuits.
Not so with SSG men, who have been long exposed to the dirty tricks of the Inter-Services Intelligence and their militant cohorts. It is believed that the SSG had been deployed around the Kargil heights in 1999 and that the patrol led by the young Captain Saurabh Kalia had fallen into their hands. Even the doughtiest soldier in India shudders at the thought of how Kalia's mauled body was returned to India.
The Indian Army headquarters now believes that the January 8 incident was well planned. Though there had been several attempts at insurgent intrusion and occasional violations of the 2003 ceasefire agreement, there has been no ‘military' intrusion into Indian territory and no attempt at such scale of violence. The ceasefire was established in 2003 as a prelude to the undertaking given by President Pervez Musharraf to Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee in 2004 that Pak-held territory would not be allowed to be used for terror against India.
There had been around 75 ceasefire violations in 2012, and eight soldiers had been killed. But these have been downplayed as part of the hazards of manning a non-delineated border. There had even been a couple of beheadings, one in 2010, and one in Karnah sector in 2012, but even they were attributed to non-military or non-state actors.
There is also a historical reason for this. In 2000, Al Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri attacked a Nowshera post, beheaded Sepoy Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry, and displayed the head to his followers in Kotli. Newspapers published photos of the incident, which gained Kashmiri instant notoriety. Kashmiri was killed by a US drone on the Afghan frontier in 2011. So beheading has all along been considered a terrorist and very un-military practice.
This time, the Indian Army is convinced, it was not a rogue mission by militants, but an attempt that had been blessed by the General Headquarters at Rawalpindi. So, within minutes of getting the report from the Northern Command, Army chief General Bikram Singh spoke to Defence Minister A.K. Antony and National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon at night on Tuesday, January 8. Menon called up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who was in Kerala to inaugurate the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.
For the political leadership, the problem was manifold. Regimental troops would demand blood for blood; and middle-level commanding officers in the field would find it difficult to keep up the morale of the troops. The Army as a whole would demand retaliation. Even those military veterans who have been advocating military-to-military talks with Pakistan and withdrawal from Siachen urged the government to get tough. “We should have blasted that Pakistani post to dust,” said Brigadier (Retd) Gurmeet Kanwal, referring to the post that had provided cover fire to the SSG raiders.
The option was there, but strangely, the field commanders, too, remained restrained. “Only for artillery firing you need clearance these days from the headquarters,” explained an officer. “We could have used mortars, which are infantry weapons, and blasted the post, inflicting a few casualties.”
That was not done. The weekly Tuesday call between the DGMOs, a practice started in the early 1990s, was called off so as to respond with the full picture in hand. The call was made on Wednesday morning. Lt-Gen. Vinod Bhatia's words to his counterpart Maj.-Gen. Ashfaq Nadeem were precise and tough. He gave Nadeem the exact location, the timing and the gruesome nature of the incident. Bhatia did not mention the SSG, but put the blame on the entire Pakistan Army for the beheading, which was against the established rules of engagement. Nadeem, in denial mode, offered to get the incident investigated by the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). A meaningless offer, since the UNMOGIP had been derecognised by India since 1972!
The Army is convinced that the outrage has been carried out with a specific ‘military' aim, unlike militant actions which are done more for propaganda. Pakistan had been objecting to the rebuilding by the Indian Army of a forward ‘ambush post' in Churunda village, high above Uri town, atop the desolate mountains overlooking the strategic Haji Pir area. India's argument has been that the construction is part of its publicly announced border infrastructure development plan of 2009. “It is not a new post; we are renovating an old one,” said Army spokesman Colonel Jagdish Dahiya.
As part of the 2009 plan, the government suddenly increased the fence-building fund from 0380 crore to 01,201 crore. The hike was towards raising an all-weather fence capable of withstanding heavy snowfall, which damages around 80km of fencing every season. “The damaged stretches provide a window to the militants to sneak into India,” pointed out former Army chief General N.C. Vij, during whose tenure the fencing commenced.
Pakistan had been objecting to the fencing all along, and so India had erected the fence mostly deep within Indian territory. But, the posts are closer to, or right on, the LoC. Indian commanders concede that ‘construction' per se is in violation of the terms, but it did not actually threaten Pakistani positions on the LoC.
As the Army went ahead with the construction, the Pakistan side used loudspeakers to threaten action. Finally on October 16, Pak troops fired mortar shells, killing a pregnant woman and a class 9 student. The villagers protested; the outside world heard little. Then on January 6 night, Pak troops opened fire again. The general officer commanding India's 19th Infantry Division ordered retaliation. But, “we responded only with small arms,” said Colonel Dahiya, in contrast to heavy mortar fire from the Pakistani side.
However, Pakistan maintains that Indian troops had raided their Sawan Patra checkpost in the Haji Pir in which a naik, Aslam, was killed and another badly wounded. The Indian Army has denied the charge. “We never crossed the LoC,” said Dahiya, pointing out that the Pakistan posts were located at such heights that it was impossible for Indians to cross the dry rivulet that separated the Indian and Pak posts, climb the mountain and return to their bunkers without being hurt. “We just retaliated to Pakistan's unprovoked firing,” said Dahiya. “It is Pakistan which had been violating the ceasefire since October,” apparently to abet infiltration. There have been around 150 infiltration bids last year, many of them in Uri and Poonch.
Many in the security circles feel that Pakistan would now try to punch holes in the fence to restart the infiltration with all the vigour of the 1990s. Before the three-tier fence was built, “over 1,000 militants used to infiltrate into our side,” said Gen. Vij. “The fence has made it almost impossible for militants to sneak into Kashmir. Today, infiltration is below 150 attempts a year.”
The portions of the LoC which come under the Kashmir-based 15 Corps and Jammu-based 16 Crops are fenced, but there are stretches where fencing is not possible. In Mendhar and Churunda, the fence is built deep—500m to 2km—within Indian territory. There are Indian posts in the stretch of land between the fence and the LoC, and these posts are now found to be too vulnerable. It was in one such stretch that Hemraj and Sudhakar were killed.
What is worrying Delhi is the steady increase in the ceasefire violations not only along the LoC, but also the demarcated International Border (IB) in Jammu. There were 117 violations (93 on the LoC) in 2012, as against 61 in 2011, and 57 in 2010. Infiltration attempts, too, have increased. A multi-security agency assessment obtained by THE WEEK puts the total number of infiltration bids to 121 in 2012, against 52 in 2011.
The Army has been extremely cautious, fearing that the beheading incident was designed to provoke India, and make Pakistan return to its old India-centric military doctrine. The new doctrine, yet to be formally adopted by the Pak army, suggests that the primary military threat to Pakistan is from the internal insurgencies and the Pak army needs to be equipped and trained to combat this threat. This would mean scaling down the build-up on the Indian border, buying fewer tanks, cannons and fighter jets, but investing more on small arms, infantry training and small-ticket purchases.
A large section of traditionalists within the Pak army are reportedly upset with this. The fear now is that there could be more such provocations directed against India, forcing India to rattle its sabres. “These ceasefire violations could be the decision of a brigade commander or a local area commander who is not happy with the India-Pakistan thaw,” says Lt Gen (retd) Prakash C. Katoch. “In the last two years, the Pakistani army has moved a good number of soldiers from the Indian border to the Afghan border to defend the country from the growing Taliban and militant attacks. Many within the Pakistan army do not think this is in Pakistan's best interest.”
For the moment, there is a lull at the LoC. The message from the government to the military is not to escalate border tension, but there is anger in the ranks. In fact, brigade commanders who gathered for a briefing at the 25 Division headquarters in Rajouri, under which Mendhar falls, bluntly told their general officer, Major General V.P. Singh, that their immediate challenge was to keep the morale high. “The attack was carried out not only to kill our soldiers, but to shame us,” said one of them. “The battalion has to regain its honour. They have to hit back. That is the nature of this battle.”

Notice all the pics too.

[ramana]

So now will INC go after Manorama also as a saffron organization?

[Sushupti]

[RamaY]

I am trying to understand this issue from different angles..

Who could have started the issue?

1. Indian Army - If IA attack the paki posts firsts, it could be of two varieties
1.1 - GoI authorized attack - This is not plausible given the aman-ki-asha, cricket games, visa regime and so on.
1.2 - IA rogue commander - Possible, but GoI would have court marshaled the commander and made an == between IA/PA. Nothing of this sort happened so this is not the reason.

2. Safforn Terrorists - Possible. But why IA, that too in the borders. Why take the head of the soldier to Pakistan? Doesn't make sense unless Taliban is nothing but Yindu-terrorist outfit.

3. Paki Army
3.1 - Planned attack - WHY?
3.2 - Rogue commander - Who is behind this?

4. Paki Non-State actors
4.1 - How did they come into indian side? Who in Paki army support this?

***

We all know there is no incentive to talk peace in the times of peace. Would the Indian public want to talk to Pakistani Army, Govt or terrorists or any Paki for that matter if there were no terror attacks in India? Would Indian public compromise on JK or Sircreek or Siachen or you name it, if there were no terror attacks, Pakistan gives MFN status and so on?

Why would I compromise on what I already have if there is no real/perceived pain from my opponent? I would be willing to let say 25% of what I have go IF AND ONLY IF that I cannot enjoy what I have and there is a possibility that I might lose what I have. Giving up a part of what I have would at least leave the rest for me to enjoy.

That means without a visible and continuous threat of terror attacks and gory details of beheadings, the GoI cannot sell its peace deals with pakistan to Indian public.

Now add 1+1 together.

[member_22872]

That is sad and pathetic ain't it? with 80+% of population, we have no say in anything. Leaders pander to minorities bending backwards, get labeled as terrorists if you talk anything about nation and nationalism. And yet Hindus have no plan.

[JohnTitor]

What the hell is happening to our country?? Theres a beheading and now ministers are lining up to blame non-existant terrorist, labelling it after the majority in this country. Doesnt anyone in the electorate actually see any of this??

Are these ministers tryign to imply these imaginary terrorists had something to do with the beheading?? Why is shu$hitkumar tryign to malign the majority suddenly?

[hnair]

Couple of points here:

Pakistan's dreaded Special Services Group known as the Black Storks. The cover fire, the patrolmen knew, was being provided by the 29th battalion of the Baloch Regiment, which had been there for several months.

Dreaded by whom? I wish the writers won't go with this sort of adjectives to what are nothing but a crazed, out of control outfit with a recorded history of violence against civilians and non-ethical behavior against soldiers of various countries. Such adjectives as "dreaded", feared etc are like crack to these types and they love it.

But, why the SSG? The group, headquartered at Cherat in Peshawar on the Afghan frontier, and commanded by Major-General Farrukh Bashir, has never revealed its actual strength. Its troopers have, through long association with bloodier-minded militants, acquired a few notorious non-militaristic practices, such as torturing captured enemy and dishonouring corpses, (like beheading them) which regular troopers are loath to indulge in.

If this is the perception, then declare that any SSG trooper caught by India as outside Geneva convention. Anyway, they are not treating our soldiers as per Geneva conventions. So what more can they do?

It is time to bury the "professional and highly trained" adjectives bestowed upon the SSG by clowns like Cloughly and Margolis and which get repeated by the lazier of the Indian journalists

[ArunK]

Today, Najam Sethi talked about India Pakistan skirmishes in his Aapas Ki Baat Progarm. He was apprantly in India when this story broke. He says that Barkha Dutt ambushed him as soon as he landed in New Delhi. In any case, he talks about going back to his hotel and searched the net for "Indian Army be-heading Pakistani soldier". He found an article published by Barkha Dutt where she claims that in 2001 she met an Indian Army Colnel who showed Barkha Dutt a trophy of a Pakistani Soldier's head. Her confessions were published in a Nepali Magazine.

I did a search and found the article.

http://www.himalmag.com/component/conte ... porter.htm

[ramana]

Anyway how relevant is that to current crisis?

BTW doesnt open in browser

[Rudradev]

Highly relevant, I think. It reinforces the track record of how long and intently Barkha Dutt has been issuing propaganda that is deeply damaging to Indian interests. On whose behest is she working? Well, apart from "journalism", the Neera Radia episode provided the whole country with a close look at Barkha's second career as a "fixer" for the Congress GOI. Who do we suppose must have sent her to contact Najam Sethi with this gift of anti-Indian Army propaganda, the very moment he landed in Delhi?

Every piece of evidence we can marshal will be useful one day.

[ArunK]

How is it relevant in the current crisis? They are using this to make everything as == without even bothering to deny the beheading. Also, it appears our media jumped the gun and the Pakis are poking holes because our so called journalists have not done their homework.

http://www.himalmag.com/component/conte ... orter.html

Listen to aapas ki bath here --> http://www.zemtv.com/2013/01/23/aapas-k ... uary-2013/

[ramana]

Ashok Mehta in Pioneer op-ed:

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/ ... sense.html

When a flood of mass hysteria drowns sense

Author: Ashok K Mehta

Whatever may have been the motivation for the Pakistani Army's heinous act, it is the first time that a local incident has got blown out of proportion due to the beheading of an Indian jawan along the LoC

An anonymous tweet from the Mendhar sector on the beheading of Lance Naik Hemraj Singh has resulted in unintended consequences with several firsts: A ceasefire violation of the Line of Control has joined the threshold-breaking red line of cross-border terrorism incidents like the attack on Parliament and the Mumbai assault; Chief of Army Staff Gen Bikram Singh was forced to visit the families of the two killed soldiers in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and acquiesce to the demands of one — return of Hemraj’s severed head and revenge in the same vein as Sushma Swaraj’s ‘ten heads for one’; a tactical error on the part of the ill-fated patrol might lead to the recognition of the martyred soldiers on Republic Day.

Whatever may have been the motivation for the Pakistani Army’s heinous act, it is the first time that a local incident has got blown out of proportion due to the bestial act of beheading, disclosed by the tweet and its high octane reaction by the electronic media. Ambushed by the event, the Government’s response was shaped by the media-driven public opinion: Relocating the visiting Pakistan’s women’s cricket team; sending back their hockey players; cancelling of a show to stage Manto’s plays; and freezing the liberal visa regime. On its part, Pakistan pressed the pause button on the Rawlakot-Poonch trade exchange and called off the visit of Commerce Minister Amin Fahim, while offering ministerial level talks.

A local incident spurred infinite righteous indignation and exchange of recrimination including Indian sermons on Geneva Convention, Torture statutes, civilised soldiering and human rights. It is public knowledge now that severing body parts as proof of revenge, manhood and war trophies has been practised by both sides since 1949 when the ceasefire line was established. It was left to a Pakistani commentator to point out last week during a television debate that an Indian writer had cited in Pakistan’s English daily Dawn that Indian soldiers had also indulged in decapitation. So taut was the network of nationalism that no Indian defence expert had the courage to admit the habit of tit- for-tat. At least in one incident in 2011, our media was persuaded to keep our losses under wraps, which prevented public outrage and heads from rolling.

The power of the media in shaping public mood, the image of the establishment and its responses was best illustrated through the 1999 Kandahar hijack and the recent rape case. The Mendhar incident, now blown away, will become part of the 65th volume of violations of the notional lines of truce in Jammu & Kashmir. To avoid such incidents on November 26, 2003, as part of the Confidence Building Measures, former Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf offered an olive branch in the run up to the historic agreement between him and then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in January 2004.

The first ever ceasefire agreement on the LoC, once promulgated, was a boon for civilians living on both sides of it. It was observed scrupulously as long as Gen Musharraf was around till mid-2007. It resulted in the two Armies saving up to Rs800 crore annually in ammunition and wear and tear costs, not to mention the colossal relief for habitation near the LoC. For Pakistan, it meant it could not use the cover of artillery, mortars and small arms fire to push in infiltrators. In between 2003 and 2004, brushing aside internal and Pakistan objections, COAS Gen NC Vij, revived the idea of fencing astride the LoC and had it ready in a record nine months, using Army engineers. Smartly, the Union Ministry of Defence was informed only after a quarter of the 740 km LoC had been fenced.

Fencing is an obstacle system integral to the new anti-infiltration grid. In 10 years, its effectiveness has been proven beyond doubt. Coupled with the ceasefire, the fencing has shrunk the space for infiltration.

This led to a dramatic drop in levels of violence and casualties in Jammu & Kashmir. From a high of nearly 3,400 incidents involving 2,500 casualties, including 800 civilians killed, by 2007, it has declined to 1,100 incidents and 480 casualties with 135 civilian deaths. In 2012, just 25 civilians were killed in Jammu & Kashmir from roughly 120 incidents. Further, the terrorist population has been put down from 2,500 in 2003 to just a little over 100 today.

The call in anguish for the abrogation of the ceasefire during the LoC fiasco was patently misplaced and reflected ignorance of the dynamics of the LoC and infiltration. Many theories were attributed to the Mendhar incident, ranging from the internal turbulence in Pakistan, the post-2014 scenario in Afghanistan and the Pakistani Army limbering up for a takeover, when in reality it was a local but well-planned reprisal attack accruing from tension on the LoC. The insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir is in its terminal stage after the attrition of its top leadership. Reviving insurgency by boosting infiltration is the present gameplan, and not opening a new front against India. Still, it is not as cut and dry as this.

What this tragic incident reveals again is the persisting deficiency of a usable option in India’s arsenal of responses which will cause pain and hurt to the jehadis and the military establishment and will deter cross border misadventures. We heard the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee and Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne speak about ‘considering other options if provoked again’ and the political leadership repeat the routine charade of ‘do not test our patience’ and ‘there will be costs and consequences’, when most of them know that coercive and covert capabilities of Special Forces relying on deniability are half-baked and unsustainable without an adjunct intelligence network. These require to be urgently developed along with the demonstrative political will to use them.

We have not found an antidote for Pakistan’s non-state actor. Union Minister for Home Affairs Sushil Kumar Shinde’s recent statement on domestic terrorism will not help. At the moment, our capacity for tit-for-tat is confined to the LoC. The covert sword arm has to strike deeper when required and with deniability. This will ensure the dialogue process can continue uninterrupted. Talk we must. But armed with a big stick. The Director General Military Operations of the two countries should revisit the 2003 ceasefire agreement and plug loopholes in the rules of engagement.

But for the tweet whose source is being investigated, the intrusion and beheading would not have become public and resulted in the pause in the peace process. Equally, the Indian Army would have quietly taken ‘badla’ and nobody would have been the wiser.

Something odd is at work. Now they want to blame a tweet from the border. Earlier it was a grandmother's tale.

Mehta does not note the increase, from 2009 thru 2012, in the LoC cease fire violations reported in other stories.


Essentially the process of appeasing the terrorist state has failed and they are not willing to admit it and want to push it further.
Mehta counts Rs 800 crores savings, which is a drop in the bucket and is five mintues worth of INC scam!
Maye the real gain is that the US pressure on India is reduced due to the unilateral piss process?

[ramana]

RD and ArunK, The story is circa Kargil where a war was going on and TSP had brutally tortured and killed Lt. Saurabh Kalia and his troop of five soldiers.
So her == is wrong and misguided.


Hajam Sethi jumping in to clutch at the straw, she threw shows how tenous the equal eqaul argument is.

[krithivas]

The runaway Grandmother story is now totally dead and severely dented Praveen Swami's credibility as a journalist. Other than a few odd references even TSP press has by an large ignored the stupid concoction. Hence it would not be surprising that even some of his close family members have began to distance away from him. When stakes are high, the costs are enormous.

[ArunK]

RD and ArunK, The story is circa Kargil where a war was going on and TSP had brutally tortured and killed Lt. Saurabh Kalia and his troop of five soldiers.
So her == is wrong and misguided.


Hajam Sethi jumping in to clutch at the straw, she threw shows how tenous the equal eqaul argument is.

You don't have to convince me. At the moment this is being spun as --

1. India is responsible for this entire incident. They are claiming it was all started by 161 Brigade crossing the border and killing a paki soldier.

2. They are claiming Pakistan has acted very maturely. India has indulged in jingoism.

3. Najam Sethi is talking about how the "balanced" section of Indian Media stepped forward and gave examples

Shivam Vij
Sarkarshan Thakhur
Harinder Baweja

I did a little digging and here is one article from Vij that provides links to all three above

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?283606

Buried inside a report by Shishir Gupta in the Hindustan Times was the claim that two Indian soldiers were beheaded in July 2011 and “three months later, heads of three Pakistani soldiers went missing, with Islamabad lodging a protest with New Delhi.” Don’t you love it that while Indian soldiers are beheaded, Pakistani soldiers’ heads go “missing”—as though they detach themselves from the bodies of the soldiers and just disappear? The report also claimed that similar beheadings (of Indian soldiers) and heads going missing (of Pakistanis) had taken place in 2000, 2003 and 2007. When Admiral Lakshminarayan Ramdas (retd), former chief of the Indian navy, tried to say on Barkha Dutt’s show on NDTV that the Indian army has also beheaded Pakistani soldiers, he was cut short by Dutt. But in 2001, Dutt had herself written that she had seen a head displayed as a war trophy by the Indian army during the Kargil war in 1999. Two other journalists were not shy of recalling similar experiences: Sankarshan Thakur of The Telegraph (on his website) and Harinder Baweja of the Hindustan Times on Twitter.

Read how badly the Army managed the media announcements. Is it too much to ask to provide a consistant, coherant message? Imagine how much anguish they have put the families of those soldiers' through.

[Sushupti]

moved.

[SSridhar]

As I said before, IA's reaction (after countless provocations), if at all, is being touted as the moral equivalence. What these anti-nationals are saying is that it is all right for the PA to do the beheading but India cannot retaliate in anger and pay Pakistan back in the same coin.

They are citing each other conveniently and it is a circular argument they are putting forth.

The IA should identify these desh drohis and should not allow them access to its briefings or facilities at all in future because they twist the information for their own needs.

One of Man Mohan Singh's lasting legacies, among many others, is going to be the rift he created between the armed forces and the GoI. His has provided the worst governance India has ever seen. It is doubtful if there can be any future government that can plumb such low levels (even assuming the Princeling somehow comes to power and MS Ayyar becomes his Aasthana advisor)

[SSridhar]

I did a little digging and here is one article from Vij that provides links to all three above

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?283606

Buried inside a report by Shishir Gupta in the Hindustan Times was the claim that two Indian soldiers were beheaded in July 2011 and “three months later, heads of three Pakistani soldiers went missing, with Islamabad lodging a protest with New Delhi.”

Look at the bolded portions above. First of all, there were never any reports of Pakistan lodging complaints with GoI on such a matter at all. I went back to archives of Pakistani newspapers October & November, 2011 but could not find any reference at all. One can be sure that TSP would have made a huge hue and cry had that indeed been true. Here in BRf, we follow TSP very closely and such an issue was never reported or discussed.

Secondly, TSPA has integrated LeT and JeM in these areas, JeM certainly specializes in beheading, So, TSPA would have to do internal investigation before lodging a protest even if such an incident had taken place.

Thirdly, the important point is "three months later".

[sum]

OW the unilateral piss process is not fully endorsed by the CCS. PMO is solely driveing it. MEA is just a mouthpiece and a decoration for UP votebanks just as Shinde is for Maharastra votebank. Shivraj Patil & SM Krishan were earlier versions.

This article by MMS's ex-media adviser says that out pretty clearly:

Decoding Manmohan Singh’s red lines

Many eyebrows were raised in Delhi and around the world when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asserted that “it cannot be business as usual” with Pakistan after the recent incident on the Line of Control (LoC). Merely because these remarks came after the National Security Adviser briefed Opposition leaders about the government’s approach to the issue, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha took credit for the Prime Minister’s tough stance, while welcoming it. That Dr. Singh adopted a more nuanced approach and not the sledge-hammer response that the Bharatiya Janata Party and hotheads in the media had sought has since become clear.

The many expressions of surprise, accompanied by gratuitous remarks about Dr. Singh’s ‘uncharacteristic’ toughness, ignore the fact that on vital national security and foreign policy issues, the Prime Minister has always drawn red lines and stuck to them. These red lines have been drawn both with respect to political parties and ministerial colleagues at home and foreign governments. When it comes to foreign policy, Dr. Singh has jealously guarded Prime Ministerial turf and defended the national interest.

The most dramatic event occurred when the Left Front government informed the Centre that it would not be able to ensure law and order at the Kalaikunda air force base where a group of CPI(M) protesters had planned to gather to disrupt joint air exercises between the Indian Air Force and the United States Air Force. Reminding Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya that no State government can prevent the Centre from conducting defence and foreign policy, Dr. Singh threatened to impose President’s rule in West Bengal if the State government failed to discharge its constitutional responsibility of maintaining law and order, especially near a defence installation. Not only did Mr. Bhattacharya fall in line, the CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat called on Dr. Singh and gave his personal assurance that there would be no disruption of the exercises.

One can give several other examples where Dr. Singh may have initially stepped back in the face of opposition at home but eventually walked the talk. Faced with criticism at home, even from his own party, for the famous India-Pakistan joint statement at Sharm-el-Shaikh, in July 2009, Dr. Singh not only defended his initiative twice in a month in Parliament but also continued his dialogue with his Pakistani counterpart.

Externally also, Dr. Singh has not shied away from drawing red lines. When President Barack Obama sought to send Richard Holbrooke to India as a special envoy to discuss Kashmir, the U.S. was told in no uncertain terms that Mr. Holbrooke would not be welcome.

On another occasion, when the Chinese government publicly warned India against permitting the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, Dr. Singh made bold to let China know that it cannot dictate which part of India the Dalai Lama can or cannot travel to. A similar red line was drawn on the issue of the attendance of the Indian ambassador at the ceremony where a Chinese dissident was to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize and on China stamping its version of India’s map on Indian passports.

Any analyst of foreign affairs can list several such examples, based on media reports, where Dr. Singh has jealously guarded prime ministerial turf and the national interest in the conduct of foreign and defence policy.

With Pakistan, Dr. Singh has adequately demonstrated his ability to overcome domestic opposition to his peace initiatives. If the Pervez Musharraf-Manmohan Singh dialogue reached a dead end it was not for want of resolve on Dr. Singh’s part. Rather, it was because of the turn that the domestic situation in Pakistan had taken in 2007. Despite the November 2008 attack in Mumbai, Dr. Singh has shown consistency and determination in taking the dialogue process forward.

But, even Pakistan has to respect Dr. Singh’s red lines, just as President Obama and President Hu Jintao were required to. That thinking appears to have triggered the ‘no business as usual’ remark and it has had the intended impact.

TSP policy==MMS policy!

[SSridhar]

Even at Sharm-el-Sheikh, it was MMS who had his own policy which resulted in a mini-revolt even within the docile and not so nationalistic INC. He is clearly acting at the behest of US. This PM is not working for India's interests. One shudders at what extensive damage he is going to do in the next 18 months. It would be better even if an idiot takes over from him. This man is plainly dangerous.

[sum]

^^ really didn't want to believe that that now but the article from such a close source of MMS leave no-one in doubt as to which country is being favoured by almost all of big-ticket MMS decisions.

The US folks at Foggy Bottom must be having a ball getting to dictate what next policy they want to see implemented in India

[sum]

X-post:

Ajai Shukla-ji conforming that the Track-2 is going well for him:

Mapping the changes in Pakistan

During my travels in Pakistan last week, I could hardly miss the stark difference between Indian and Pakistani reactions to the killing and mutilation of two Indian soldiers on the Line of Control (LoC) in J&K. Oblivious to Indian jingoism, the Pakistani press covered, minute-by-minute, the Anna Hazare style reality show that was Canada-based cleric Tahir ul-Qadri’s challenge to that country’s political establishment.

This is a metaphor for a changing Indo-Pak dynamic. For decades, India looked inward while Islamabad tom-tommed the looming India threat. Today as Pakistan, while lurching toward a form of democracy focuses mainly on its burgeoning internal challenges, India increasingly obsesses about the terrorist threat from across the border. This even as the tide of Pakistan-fomented violence recedes and Indian police and intelligence officials shift focus to disaffection within the country.

But the fortuitous outcome of Pakistan’s single-minded focus on Tahir ul-Qadri’s so-called Long March was that New Delhi’s tough response to brutality on the LoC went almost unnoticed in Pakistan, allowing Islamabad (which has little appetite for roiling the waters) to settle for a pro-forma response. This avoided an acid exchange of tit-for-tat statements that would have united Pakistan’s divided anti-India constituency.

But that was luck, not design. New Delhi, which views Pakistan in the context of an outdated and intellectually lazy narrative of implacable hostility, needs a clearer understanding of a rapidly changing Pakistani playfield. The most important transformation relates to Pakistan’s most powerful organisation, the army; and the evolving relationship between Pakistan’s five key institutions, viz the army, the polity, the judiciary, civil society and the media.

This apprehension provides a crucial window for an Indo-Pakistan dialogue on Afghanistan. While both sides regard Afghanistan as a zero-sum game that has no winners, this gloomy outlook on a post-2014 Afghanistan could be brightened through a political initiative, preferably through back channels, to address both sides’ concerns. An agreement between New Delhi and Islamabad could backstop a mutually beneficial stabilization of Afghanistan.

Interestingly, even as Pakistan’s military dims its public profile, New Delhi has taken to citing the Indian Army as the basis for its policy positions. In choosing not to sign a Siachen Agreement (wisely, but that is another debate!), New Delhi holds up the army’s objections as a fig leaf. In hardening its condemnation of Pakistan after initially soft-pedalling the recent LoC incident, the government took its cue from the army. A disempowered Indian military probably basks in this show of concern, but it would do well to remember that in the aspects that really matter --- e.g. long-term strategic planning; equipment modernisation; and soldiers’ welfare --- the military remains out in the cold.

Astounded at the bolded part.
So aggressor==victim even in terms of reactions shown?

[Prasad]

So MMS squealed only when the army chief told nuh-uh ?
http://www.sunday-guardian.com/investig ... his-stance

[Sanku]

This man is plainly dangerous.

And it took some of us 3 bans over 5 years for saying the basically the same.

[SSridhar]

So MMS squealed only when the army chief told nuh-uh ?
http://www.sunday-guardian.com/investig ... his-stance

Very scary indeed. If this is correct, our assessment of Man Mohan Singh have after all been accurate right from the start, then. Indian integrity and sovereignty faces a grave danger.

On anther point, why do Indians marry Pakistanis, of all people, especially children of top officers of the Indian armed forces ? There is certainly security risk through such marriages, even if only inadvertently. Is this a form of 'love jihad' ? Anyway, that is OT here.

[member_23629]

Even at Sharm-el-Sheikh, it was MMS who had his own policy which resulted in a mini-revolt even within the docile and not so nationalistic INC. He is clearly acting at the behest of US. This PM is not working for India's interests

I got banned here some months ago for saying exactly this. Well, people who can look further ahead than others are the first ones to suffer ridicule.