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Vijay Prashad, obviously a good human being of Indian origins has written this article exposing the machinations of the Indian lobby and providing some action items for good people all over the US to do.

CALL TO ACTION: Take a few minutes of your day and call the White House (202-456-1111), Gary Ackerman (202-225-2601), Jim McDermott (202-225-3106) and Mike Honda (202-225-2631). Tell them to ignore a strategy that creates tension in the subcontinent, and to dig deeper, to pay attention to a strategy that calls for the creation of confidence between its countries and the creation of trust between its peoples.

On January 27, 2009, a newly formed task force of Indian American organizations is set to overrun Capitol Hill. The Indian American Task Force will take their message to Congress and to the new administration, asking them to be much tougher on Pakistan. The impetus for this new combine and its lobbying is the Mumbai attacks of December 2008. But this is not just about justice for the victims of Mumbai. There is another dynamic involved, which is to walk the Jewish American road, to create a “India Lobby” that resembles the “Israel Lobby.” The investment among these Indian Americans is to follow the remarkable success of the Israel Lobby, which has been able to leverage its relatively small numbers (7 million, only 2.5% of the U. S. population) into considerable political power. An even more impressive story is that of the Cuban Americans (1.6 million; 0.5% of the U. S. population), but these Indian Americans are less enthused by them. After the Bay of Pigs and a few isolated terrorist acts, the Cubans have been rather unimpressive, the Embargo notwithstanding. The Jewish American dominated Israel Lobby, on the other hand, has made the United States into “Israel’s attorney” (according to former U. S. State Department official Aaron David Miller). This is what impresses the new Indian American Task Force.

Islamic Terrorism.

To prepare for the January 27 day of action, the Task Force released its “information document.” The primary author of the document is the US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC), a group founded in the aftermath of 911 with the close support and encouragement of the American Jewish Committee (AJCommittee) and the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). At a meeting of Jewish American and Indian American partisans of the right, Charles Brooks of the AJCommittee said, “We’re fighting the same extremist enemy. We want to help [the new Indian group] become more effective in communicating their political will.” Who is this “enemy”? Sue Ghosh Stricklett, who was then with USINPAC, told a conservative publication in 2003, “the terrorism directed against India is the same as that directed against the United States and Israel. We would like to see closer ties between the United States and Israel [with India].” Stricklett urges this alliance to deal with what these organizations often call “Islamic militancy” or “Islamic extremism,” or what the late Congressman Tom Lantos called it at an Indo-Jewish forum, “mindless, vicious, fanatic Islamic terrorism.” The USINPAC document on the Mumbai attacks argues, “We believe the problem of Islamic terrorism is global and requires an urgent global approach and solution.”

To render terrorism and terrorists as the enemy fails to distinguish between the tactics that a people use and the social and political conditions that generate their hostility. To defeat those who use terrorism, one has to understand and deal with the conditions that produce those who take to terror. All this is irrelevant to USINPAC, and to its cousins, AIPAC and the AJCommittee. From a security policy or even military standpoint, avoiding a broad analysis of the roots of terror is a serious error of judgment.

To ignore the local origins of the attackers is myopic. It allows groups like USINPAC and AIPAC to make quick common cause with the anxiety within the US in the post-911 period. Half-baked assumptions about the terrorists (or what that distant memory of a person once called “evildoers”) generate fear, but not analysis and certainly not a strategy to deal with the problem. Ariel Sharon took advantage of the post-911 intellectual chaos in the US to “change the facts on the ground” (as the Israeli Higher Command likes to say) in both the West Bank and Gaza; his assaults in 2002-03 opened a dynamic that is ongoing in Gaza today. The Hindu Right, in power till 2004, wanted to mimic the Israeli strategy by bombing some madrassas and known terrorist camps in Pakistan, but neither the Indian military nor would Indian public opinion countenance such belligerence (I remember a breezy chat with an Indian army man, long known to my family, who proudly told me how the mid-level officers like himself bristled during the 2001-02 mobilization along the Indo-Pak border, called Operation Parakram, or Operation Strength). After the Mumbai attack, the media tried to carry the standard, joined breathlessly by the Hindu Right, whose parliamentary leader, L. K. Advani said, “This is not an attack. It is war,” and the government must take “whatever action [is] necessary,” a. k. a. bombardment of Pakistan. The government held fast, pressured in large part by a very large march organized by a hundred organizations and held in Mumbai in mid-December, and by the anxiety in Washington over the diversion of Pakistani troops from its Afghan border to its Indian one. The Israeli road was ignored for the moment.

It is this road that USINPAC and its kin groups wish to create, not by lobbying the Indian government (a task already taken in hand by the Indian Right) but by moving Congress. If the US government would be more resolute with its friends in Islamabad, the bromide goes, all would be well, or else India will have little choice but to go to war. The demands made on the Congress are, on the surface, quite bland, but also purposely naïve. For instance, USINPAC demands that Pakistan extradite the suspects in the Mumbai attacks to India. However, India and Pakistan do not have an extradition treaty, a result of the deep distrust between the two countries. Confidence needs to be built that could enable mutual security. Making a demand that cannot be met is both deceptive and dangerous: it deceives the citizenry with its simplicity, and yet it pushes adversaries into corners. Another demand is that Pakistan must shut down “all radical madrassas which preach nothing but hate.” This is also a reasonable demand, particularly if they “preach nothing but hate.” The problem is that under IMF pressure, Pakistan has clumsily cut-back on its state funded and run education and health infrastructure. Into this empty space came the Saudi/CIA/Pakistani elite funded “faith-based” organizations, who provide a dual function. They are the only schools for the lower middle class and working-class, as well as the disposable poor, and they are their only dispensary and hospital, at the same time as many of them harvest young people into organizations committed to armed action in Kashmir and terror operations around the sub-continent (in India, yes, but also within Pakistan, viz. the assassination of December 2007 Benazir Bhutto and the September 2008 bombing of the Islamabad Marriott). Pakistani state and society are entangled in these organizations; to demand that these groups be taken care of on a short time-frame is unrealistic.

USINPAC’s document does not acknowledge the deep influence of the United States in some of this mayhem. It was during the Afghan Wars of the 1980s that Pakistani society was deeply scarred, as the US-Saudi funded jihad produced a social force that committed itself to religious war. Those “irregular troops” were never demobilized, and it is here that one finds the core leadership of the terror outfits. They have then built on the grotesque inequality of Pakistan to draw their cadre, many of whom are inspired not only by their poverty, but also by the rise of the Hindu Right in India (whose riots are a spectacular example of terrorism in their own right) and by the virtual occupation of Kashmir (what else to call a situation where 700,000 troops police a state with a population of nine million?). Washington has never taken any responsibility for its role in the creation of these outfits. The recent, and ongoing Afghan war, has only heightened the tension, with the US moving to a nuclear treaty with India that has only stiffened the resolve of the Pakistani military to fear its neighbor. None of these moves have done anything to create confidence in South Asia, and nor will the demands made by USINPAC, the putative Indian Lobby.

The India Caucus.

USINPAC and others will move, on Tuesday, around a Congress already receptive to them. In 1992, Frank Pallone of New Jersey gathered six other Democrats and one Republican into a hastily formed India Caucus. Pallone’s 6th District includes Edison, which is one of the capitals of Indian America (20% of the population in the town is of Indian origin). Pallone recognized that this bloc needed to be cultivated, and he proceeded with finesse. The Indian government had recently begun to “liberalize” its economy, it had opened its arms toward Israel and it had signaled that it wanted a new relationship with the United States. Pallone became the go-to guy, and in under a decade he brought in a fourth of the House to the Caucus. It helped, of course, that the Indian American community had money in its pocket, and its “leaders” (those with the money) wanted to be players in DC. The India Lobby tested its mettle by destroying the annual move by Indiana’s Dan Burton to end US assistance to India. Burton eventually said that the India Lobby “beat me into the ground.” No loss there, really. In 2002, Pallone won India’s highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan. Winning the award with Pallone was Gary Ackerman of New York, the current chair of the India Caucus.

Ackerman helped coordinate the links between AIPAC and the AJCommittee and the USINPAC. Israel, he said, is “surrounded by 120 million Muslims” whereas “India has 120 million” Muslims within. In 1999, Ackerman was in Atlanta at an Indian American event, where he celebrated the “ancient civilizations” of Hindus and Jews, pointing out that “Strong India-Israel relations is very critical to ensuring peace and stability in a part of the world that is characterized by instability, fundamentalist religious bigotry, hatred toward the West and its values and murder and mayhem spawned by acts of cross-border terrorism.” Ackerman is not only one of those who believes that Israel is the 51st state of the United States, but he is also one of the major proponents of the Indo-US nuclear deal. In 2001, Ackerman’s legislative aide, Narayan Keshavan (who was otherwise a journalist, and who died very young, at 53, in 2003), said, “There are scores of congressmen and dozens of senators who clearly equate the growing Indian American political influence to the ‘Hindu Lobby’ – very much akin to the famed ‘Jewish Lobby.’” The aspiration to become like AIPAC and to move India in the direction of Israel is strong among many of those who want to build this India (or Hindu) Lobby, geared as it is against Pakistan and without deference to the fact that the 120 Indian Muslims are Indians too and not simply Muslims. A senior Democratic Senator said in 2003, “All of us here are members of Likud now.” In 2009, if USINPAC succeeds, they’d say, “We’re also members of the Hindu Right now.”

The South Asia Caucus.

President Obama has appointed Richard Holbrooke as his representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. India is not in the equation. What South Asia needs is a regional policy, with all the players in a regional organization that is committed to human security in its widest sense. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation could become that organization if it were taken seriously, better funded and not used as a venue for self-interested grand-standing. The regional organization could coordinate the demobilization of the forces of reaction in India, Pakistan and perhaps Afghanistan. But this is only the first step; there are others. Groups like USINPAC are incapable of finding the dynamic toward genuine peace, trapped as they are in the tired rhetoric of belligerence. We need a new vision for South Asia, a new commitment to the peace that is possible.

Take a few minutes of your day and call the White House (202-456-1111), Gary Ackerman (202-225-2601), Jim McDermott (202-225-3106) and Mike Honda (202-225-2631). Tell them to ignore a strategy that creates tension in the subcontinent, and to dig deeper, to pay attention to a strategy that calls for the creation of confidence between its countries and the creation of trust between its peoples. In 1947, as Indian and Pakistani generals added an extra pomade to their moustaches before setting off to war, Gandhi told his prayer meeting, “If we cannot keep our freedom without the sword, then I shall think that India has done nothing for the world. Today we have an army. Attempts are being made to strengthen it. I declare that in this way we are not really strengthening ourselves. We shall be doing no good to the world in this way. And if the world learns this kind of thing from us it is not going to gain anything, rather it will be doomed” (December 4, 1947). The India Lobby Drunk with the Sight of Power By VIJAY PRASHAD

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu

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Pakistan looks towards its sons and daughters in the US and Europe for help and advise. It has been promised many times, and each time this sort of plan to give overseas Pakistanis a say in Pakistani politics falters. Now Dr. Farooq Sattar has promised it again. Let us see if he can fulfill his promise

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Overseas Pakistanis, Dr. Farooq Sattar said on Wednesday that the government would take steps to ensure the participation of overseas Pakistanis in country’s parliamentary process.Overseas Pakistanis should have a voice in parliament: Farooq Sattar Updated at: 1525 PST, Wednesday, January 28, 2009  

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during his short stint in power had passed a law which allowed all those with place of birth in Pakistan access to the homeland without a visa. That law was rescinded by the PPP and never revived. Other governments have introduced the expensive card for overseas Pakistanis which has been a dismal failure.

Addressing a news conference here, Sattar said that Pakistanis residing abroad have been playing a pivotal role in country’s socio-economic development and they should have a voice in the democratic process, he said the government would initiate debate in the National Assembly for a reserved seat of overseas Pakistanis.
The minister further said that new OPF educational institutes would be established in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, the government would set up more OPF hospitals. “Overseas Pakistanis’ quota in various housing schemes will also be increased”, he added.Farooq Sattar expressed hope that remittances worth seven billion dollars would come into Pakistan in the current year. Overseas Pakistanis should have a voice in parliament: Farooq Sattar Updated at: 1525 PST, Wednesday, January 28, 2009  

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Many claim that Fareed Zakaria is e member of "The Trilateral Commission" an ephemeral group of Islamphobes who have an ax to grind against the Muslim world. Whether the "trilateral Commissions exists or not is a matter of conjecture. This much is certain, Fared Zakaria uses his position as editor of Newsweek and host of Fareed Zakaria GPS to malign Pakistan and Pakistanis on a regular basis.

General Hamid Gul, the former head of the Pakistani ISI, informed CNN yesterday that both the Mumbai attacks and 9/11 were “inside jobs,” much to the chagrin of host and CFR luminary Fareed Zakaria, who told viewers that Gul’s opinions were “absolutely wrong and thoroughly discredited”.

“When you look at the full spectrum of possibilities, who could have done it, then one knows that Samjhauta Express was a similar case, in which Pakistan ISI was accused. But it turned out that it was the militant Hindus themselves who had killed 68 passengers in that train, and that it was an inside job,” said Gul.

“Now Colonel Srikant Purohit, who is a serving army officer, he has been caught in this particular case. And the whole thing has turned around.”

“So, obviously, there is an inside job.”

The revelation that Mukhtar Ahmed, a “counterinsurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission” working for Indian authorities was arrested for illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the Mumbai gunmen, allied with the numerous intelligence warnings proving that the method, arrival and targets of attack were all known well in advance, proves Gul right in his assertion that the terrorists could not have achieved such carnage without help from people on the inside.

Asked by Zakaria, “What is your hunch as to who did - who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks?,” Gul responded, “Well, I have been on record, and I said it is the Zionists or the neocons. They have done it. It was an inside job.”

“And they wanted to go on the world conquerors. They were looking upon it as an opportunity window, when the Muslim world was lying prostrate. Russia was nowhere in sight. China was still not an economic giant that is has turned out to be.”

“And they thought that this was a good time to go and fill those strategic areas, which are still lying without any American presence. And, of course, to control the energy tap of the world.”

“Presently, it is the Middle East, and in future it is going to be Central Asia,” added Gul.

Gul told Zakaria that the evidence for 9/11 being planned by Osama Bin Laden and executed by Al-Qaeda has not emerged and that the events are still “shrouded in mystery”.

“A lot of people have a lot of misgivings about that. And it’s not only me. I think a lot of people in America would be thinking the same way. There are scientists, there are scholars, who have written articles on it,” added Gul, calling for President elect Barack Obama to set up a new commission to investigate the attacks.

Gul said the attacks were planned inside America by people with a dangerous agenda who have “turned the world upside-down”.

Returning from a commercial break, Zakaria, editor of Newsweek, Council on Foreign Relations kingpin and also a Trilateral Commission board member, told his viewers, “Some of General Gul’s views are simply false. There is a mountain of evidence about 9/11 that refutes his assertions,” but Zakaria failed to cite any of it.

Zakaria was then joined by counter-insurgency expert David Kilcullen who said that the Mumbai attacks bore all the hallmarks of a “clandestine operation or a covert operation style activity,” but when pressed he refused to directly implicate Pakistan in the attack. by Paul Joseph Watson, from Prison Planet

http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/former-isi-chief-mumbai-and-911-both-“inside-jobs”/

Mr. Zakaria hates Pakistan with a passion and is never fair in his reporting. Mr. Zakaria uses the Neocon and Delhi rhetoric to blame all evil on Pakistan and makes a case for Akhand Bharat. 

WASHINGTON: America is believed to be considering declaring more than four retired officials fo the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), including its former chief Hamid Gul, international terrorists through the UN Security Council, media reports have said.

US State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood told a briefing in Washington Friday that details of the list of names to be submitted to the Security Council would be revealed when the document is sent to the UN.
The reports, citing sources, said that the names of Hamid Gul, Lt-Gen Javed Nasir, Major-General Zahirul Islam Abbasi (r), associated with the ISI during the Afghan war with the USSR, and Gen Aslam Beg (r), former Army Chief of Staff, were believed to be on the list.

However, when asked to confirm if the US had sent the names of some Pakistani individuals, Wood said he was not going to comment on names that the administration may or may not submit to the UN for imposing sanctions against them for alleged links to terrorist activities.

Meanwhile, Gul, a harsh critic of the US military presence in Afghanistan and who continues to be a vocal supporter of Jehadi groups, said Pakistani foreign ministry officials had confirmed to him the Washington was trying to put him on the UN list.

Stating that he said he had asked his government for support, he said, "I don't know why America is so much after me."
Gul claims the United States wants him on a UN list of people and organisations linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban.
ISI is currently under scrutiny because of its past links with Lashkar-e-Tyyiaba, the Kashmir Jihadi organisation that India and US officials suspect supplied the gunmen who killed at least 171 people in a horrifying attack on Mumbai last month.

Gul said he had asked his government for support. "I don't know why America is so much after me," said Gul from his home in the military cantonment area of Rawalpindi. Lou Fintor, spokesman for the US embassy in Islamabad said he had no information, and added it was government policy not to comment until action had been taken either by the United Nations or the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Pakistani officials could not be contacted.

Gul says he supports the Afghan resistance to Western forces at a moral and academic level, but no more than that.
A regular guest on Pakistani news channels, Gul maintains the Sept 11 attacks in the United States were more likely the work of a neo-con/zionist conspiracy than al Qaeda.

An old ISI colleague of Gul, Khalid Khawaja, said he suspected his was another name the United States aimed to add to the UN list. Khawaja said he kept up with old Taliban and militant contacts, but denied those ties extended to anything illegal. "I openly say I have links with these people," he said.

The News reported that an unsigned two-page document purported that Gul had recent links to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Gul was ISI chief during benazir's first government in 1988-1990. In a letter to then president Pervez Musharraf shortly before her death, Benazir named Gul among a short-list of enemies who should be investigated if she was killed. Gul said Bhutto had assured him that she was pressured to put his name in the letter, but she did not say by whom. Ex-Pak servicemen on UN terror list? Hamid Gul, Javed Nasir, Zahirul Islam Abbasi and Aslam Beg among them, The Post Monitoring

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The Pakistani civilization is as old as time itself. 150,000 years ago Pakistanis roamed the Soan river around the Potohar region. 7000 years ago the Mehargarh Pakistanis worked on the first agricultural site in South Asia (religious dogma notwithstanding). 5000 years ago Pakistanis of the Sukkur ditrict were building brick cities unequaled in the world. 3500 years ago the Moenjodaro and Harrapa Pakistanis were trading with Sumer, and Ur with the Mesopotamians, and with the Egyptian pharos. The Indus Valley and its precedents of course existed only on along the banks of the Indus. The Pakistanis of that time were not vegetarian, buried their dead, ate beef, lived in unstratified housing (no caste system), used a pictographic language in vogue during that era in Phoenicia etc., ate beef, wrote right to left, and did not worship the current Bharati pantheon of Gods.

SUKKUR, Jan 22: An archaeological site, about 5,500 years old, has been found in Lakhian Jo Daro near Goth Nihal Khoso in the district of Sukkur.
The find is said to be of the era of Kot Diji.

A team of 22 archaeologists headed by the chairman of Shah Abdul Latif University’s archaeology department and Lakhian Jo Daro project director Ghulam Mustafa Shar found some semi-precious and precious stones and utensils made of clay, copper and other metals during excavation on Thursday. The remains are said to be older than those of Moenjodaro.

Mr Shar told Dawn that remains of a ‘faience’ mirror factory had been found at the project’s second block. It was believed to be of the era of mirror factories of Italy which dates back to some 9,000 years.

He said a painting had also been found and discovery of more such items could establish the site as 9,000 years old, like the remains found at Mehar Garh in Balochistan and Jericho in Palestine.

“At present, we can say that it is older than Moenjodaro,” he said. Mr Shar said that archaeology professors and students from Punjab University, Peshawar University and Islamabad would join the team in a couple of days.

He said the work on the second block would continue for a month and more items could be found. Sukkur District Nazim Syed Nasir Hussain visited the site on Thursday and asked the project director to prepare proposals for a museum. Dawn. Site older than Moenjodaro found in Sukkur By Waseem Shamsi

The land East of the Indus was jungle roamed by lions and tigers and monkeys. Around 1500 BC part of the Pakistani civilization's Indus Valley sections moved Eastwards to conquest territory in Western Gujarat. They built some minor settlements but abandoned it soon after.

The Ganges Plains were inhabited later, centuries later when the incoming Aryan hordes destroyed the IVC and moved Eastward. The news about new cities being discovered in the Punjab will help us further define the breadth and depth of the Pakistani civilization

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We will be updating this article later.

Steven Cohen the consummate Pakistanphobe using Israeli techniques helped Bharat put together a "Cold Start Strategy:. We have written several articles on this strategy and preparations and response to it.

There is a lot of good information in the article (Cold-starting Pakistan by Ikram Sehgal), We will attempt to improve the article with maps. Mr. Sehgal's ideas are a bit dated-vintage 80s. He does not discuss the instantaneous Pakistani missile response to any Bharati "surgical strike".

we have request Mr. Sehgal to republish or update this informative article with maps and with clear sections on strategy, tactics, weaknesses, history and current realities on new bases etc. Mr. Sehgal has brilliantly identified the fallacy of  "Defense of he East lies in the Defense of the West": concept. That strategy was flawed. I would like to learn more about the North South strategies so that we don't fall in the same trap again. Please do elucidate this "defense of the North" doctrine.

The value of the excellent military analysis is slightly diminished because Mr. Sehgal's opinionated political statements in which he tries to score points against governments and individuals. We totally disagree with Mr. Sehgal's mantra on "strategic depth". He should realize that a large number of Pakistanis believe in denying Bharat access to Afghanistan so that it is unable to threaten Pakistan from the West.His criticism of Pakistan's Afghan policy reeks of the Neocon version of history, as well as the "Surka" version of political science which is still mad at Islamabad for fighting their lords in the Kremlin.

Perhaps Mr. Sehgal can get together with Ms. Mazari and come up with a appropriate response to the Cold Start Strategy.
Editor Rupee News
http://www.rupeenews.com
Moin Ansari

Cold-starting Pakistan Thursday, January 22, 2009 Ikram Sehgal

"Cold Start" is the Indian military doctrine meant to allow rapid deployment Special Forces units "to strike Pakistan within hours of any terrorist attack on Indian soil. It assumes that militants from Pakistan, and not home grown Indian radicals, are responsible for any actions". Such a rapid response would not allow time for diplomacy, Stephen Cohen, who helped India in the formulation process, maintains "cold start" was developed with the help of external strategists, borrowing heavily from Israeli tactics, notably from the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

The assumptions of the new Indian Doctrine are: (1) to act offensively against Pakistan for any perceived acts of strategic destabilisation of India, proxy war and terrorism (2) move away from India's defensive mindset of last 50 years (3) prepare to undertake offensive military operations at the outset (4) undertake offensive operations short of the nuclear threshold (5) vast majority of Indian public will support any war putting Pakistan into place and forces it "to desist from proxy war and terrorism against India."

Pakistan's assumptions about cold start are: (1) offensive operations commencing without giving Pakistan time to bring diplomacy into play and (2) such offensive operations will not cross the nuclear threshold or prompt Pakistan into crossing it. India implies that, should Pakistan opt for crossing the threshold, the onus would lie squarely on Pakistan. The assumptions by New Delhi are dangerous: (1) the ability to hold limited portions of Pakistan with military might and (2) use this for political leverage against Pakistan. Holding of Pakistani territory will be unacceptable, triggering a ground war as well as a possible nuclear exchange.

Exercise Vajra Shakti further developed the cold start doctrine. "Against the backdrop of a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare threat from Pakistan, Special Forces were employed in pre-emptive strikes for furtherance of offensive operations by a Pivot Corps employing an infantry division, armoured regiments and an independent mechanised brigade from its own resources. Envisaging swift, day and night operations, offensive strikes were supported by advanced C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence) network and systems, including establishment of a Force Multiplication Command Post for integration and flow of real-time information to combat units, collected by satellites, UAVs, aerial reconnaissance, radar networks, communication intercepts etc. Digital photographs of "the enemy areas" were transmitted real time to forward combat units, facilitating speedy decision-making by Commanders, the commencement of network-centric warfare in the Indian Army. Information-dominance of the battlefield was practiced by use of electronic warfare systems.

The Indian Aerospace Force (IAF) role was paramount, providing 130 sorties for this Exercise in reconnaissance, fighter aircraft strikes, attack helicopter and Special Forces operations. "With lessons learnt in Ex Vajra Shakti, the other pivot corps of the Indian Army were similarly exercised."

Rumours are afloat about a game plan where India will conduct surgical strikes against "known" terrorist camps, and Pakistan will helpfully turn the other cheek. Our rather helpless response to daily "Predator" attacks, bluster rather than any substance, has given weight to this belief. Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War" describes how, agonising over how to convince Pakistan, the US hierarchy was nonplussed by Pervez Musharraf's "ready and willing" acceptance of all seven US demands without even a murmur. Was diplomatic pressure recently brought on Pakistan to fall in line in the "supreme" interest of the "war against terrorism," the logic being that since only "terrorist" targets were to be engaged this was in "Pakistan's interest"? Wonder of wonders, for once we did not roll over and play dead! Our rulers probably calculated that the people of Pakistan would give them short shift.
Initiating preliminary actions of their "Cold Start" Doctrine, the IAF was geared into a "first strike" mode.

Picked up by our intelligence, the PAF responded by a "show of force" on "high alert." A dense fog then engulfed most areas of the likely military options. During this time-lag some strategic reserves were extricated from FATA and rushed eastwards, that "window of opportunity" for India passed. Mere coincidence that three Strike Corps are in "winter collective exercise" mode in the Rajasthan Desert? That too carrying their first- and second-line ammunition? Movement of their Amphibious Brigade and dumping of fuel for forward deployment of troop-lifting helicopters has also been detected.

Pakistan's history is replete with strategic blunders of monumental stupidity, we have only been saved by tactical successes achieved by the great sacrifices and outstanding bravery of our soldiers, sailors and airmen, those who have actually taken part in action, and not just talked about it. Some morons thought up the "Defence of the East lies in the West," and we left East Pakistan defenceless. Subsequently some more morons came up with the "Afghanistan gives us strategic depth" concept and we are now in trouble up to our eyeballs on our western borders. Those who think that "the defence of the South lies in the North," i.e., putting the bulk of our Armed Forces protecting our main population centres and communication in the Punjab and AK, may be theoretically correct in a long-drawn-out war, in the short Indo-Pak version it is stupid, monumentally stupid, particularly in the face of the known Indian deployment.

To quote my article on the 2002 crisis, "Talk of a limited Indian offensive across the LoC in "hot pursuit" or the targeting of Mujahideen training camps in Azad Kashmir means to contain the battleground to Kashmir, the premise being that all the other Strike Corps are then positioned to go on the offensive if Pakistan does not opt for limited war and goes on an all-out offensive. With all 3 Armoured Divisions and 4 RAPID Divisions, with 2 out of 5 Independent Armoured Brigades concentrated in Rajasthan, the resource allocation makes the offensive targets obvious, either along the Jaisalmer-Rahimyar Khan axis or along the Barmer-Mirpurkhas axis. No ground offensive being possible in the desert without heavy air cover, their air deployment suggests that the focus of attack could well be in the deep south (Western and Southern Commands), the same principle applying for a combined heliborne, para and/or amphibious operation. Both the Indian Strike Corps have been reinforced with additional Divisions with integral Helicopter Attack Squadrons, Engineer, Artillery and Air Defence Brigades. Jodhpur has a concentration of heavylift MI-8/M-17 helicopters, could be supplemented by the 50th Independent Parachute Brigade air-lifted by AN-32s from Agra, attempting helicopter troop transportation/amphibious LST landings with XXI Strike Corps going for a link-up. The Indians have been practicing this. The area between Badin and Sajawal east of the Indus thus becomes vulnerable."
My recent article was based on their 2002 ORBAT, a number of my friends corrected me that this was outdated, the Indians had restructured their ORBAT in 2005. Not surprisingly, the "South-Western Command" was created at Jaipur, in line with the IAF's existing South-Western Command. Western Command has an additional 9 Corps created at Yo1 and RAPID Divisions have increased from 4 to 5, all concentrated in the Rajasthan Desert. Furthermore a new Artillery Division has been raised. Their likely main thrust remains the deep South Barmer-Mirpurkhas axis with secondary effort in the Jaisalmer-Rahimyarkhan area. The "COLD START" Doctrine is in keeping with the likely fulcrum of their offensive.

As night turns into day, the Indians will put their main effort in the deep South. 18 Div was almost overwhelmed in 1971. Two brigades of 33 Div were force-marched from the Rahimyarkhan area to stem the rot. Only the outstanding courage of individual unit commanders like Lt Col (later Brig) Mohammad Taj, S J & Bar (44 Punjab now 4 Sindh), saved Pakistan when "the barbarians were at the gate" in Chhor and Umerkot on Dec 12, 1971. Taj was symbolic of many brave officers who went up and down the line in the Thar Desert exhorting the rank and file, the line held. It was touch and go for a couple of days! Later, no one did more than Lt Gen Lehrasab Khan as Commmander 5 Corps for improving our defences in the area but even his soldierly persistence did not succeed penetrating military obduracy to get the resources in men and material required for the Chhor-Badin-Sujawal area. Kayani must ensure that this time around we have enough in the Thar Desert and the adjacent coast. Our existence is a zero-sum situation, can we afford to take chances?
The writer is a defence and political
analyst. Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.com

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According to news reports filtering in, there was constipation in the Bharati diplomacy as well the armed forces. Egged on by the right wing BJP and the war frenzy created by the sensational and irresponsible Bharati media, the Indian National Congress wanted to execute its much herladed "Cold Start Strategy" and attack Pakistan will full force. Steveen Cohen the much quoted Pakistanphobe hinted about this and most Bharati analysted boasted about it. As they say, the devil is in the detail. When it was time for Bharat to attack the army wimped out, informing the Prime Minsier of Bharat that it could not undertake a war with Paksitan. The Bharati army was scared of a resounding defeat by Pakistan and was scared that it would cede territory to Pakistan which would cause a huge embarrassment to Delhi.

Following the Mumbai attack, New Delhi's inclination was to launch a quick strike against Pakistan to impress domestic opinion, and then be prepared for a short war, given the pressures that would be exercised by international powers for a ceasefire to prevent nuclear war breaking out.

The expectation of New Delhi was that the war would go beyond the traditional skirmishes involving artillery fire that take place at the Kashmir border, essentially to check infiltration by militants, or the brief but bloody exchanges at Kargil in 1999.  Kapoor said. Asia Times. Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist. He can be reached at sidsri@yahoo.com.

Pakistan thus won the war without firing a single shot. Now Bharat is going to put more emphasis on covert actions--stuff that RAW is already doing in Baluchistan and FATA.

The bottom line is that Bharat despite spending billions of Dollars on defense does not have conventional military superiority over Pakistan. All this without bringing in the nuclear equation.

Various experts, former generals and independent reports have voiced concern over the past few years about the state of preparedness of the Indian army.

For example, the Bofors gun scandal of the 1980s stymied the army's artillery modernization plan, with no induction of powerful guns since the 1986 purchase of 410 Bofors 155mm/39-caliber howitzers. The army has been trying to introduce 400 such guns from abroad and another 1,100 manufactured domestically, without success.

The latest report by the independent Comptroller and Auditor General said the state's production of 23mm ammunition for Shilka anti-aircraft cannons and 30mm guns mounted on infantry combat vehicles lacked quality. Further, supply was nearly 35% short of requirements.

India's huge tank fleet is in bad shape due to a shortage of Russian spare parts, while indigenous efforts, such as the main battle tank Arjun, have failed.

Signs of trouble emerged during the Kargil war when it was revealed that India's defense forces were dealing with acute shortages in every sphere.

In remarks that underscored the problems, the then-army chief, V P Malik, said his forces would make do with whatever was in hand, given the fears of a full-scale war that was eventually avoided due to pressure by America, then under president Bill Clinton.

The Kargil review committee report noted, "The heavy involvement of the army in counter-insurgency operations cannot but affect its preparedness for its primary role, which is to defend the country against external aggression."

Although there have been attempts to hasten India's overall defense modernization program, estimated at over US$50 billion over the next five years, gaping holes need to be plugged, including corruption and massive delays in the defense procurement processes. Kapoor said. Asia Times
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist. He can be reached at sidsri@yahoo.com.

It was in this context that the army made it apparent that it was not equipped to fight such a war, given the military's presence along the eastern Chinese borders, and that India was at risk of ceding territory should an instant cease fire be brokered with Pakistan.

Indian army 'backed out' of Pakistan attack By Siddharth Srivastava

NEW DELHI - Reluctance for battle by an ill-prepared army could have resulted in India not launching an attack on Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pakistan-linked terror attack in the Indian city of Mumbai on November 26 in which nearly 200 people died.

High-level government sources have told Asia Times Online that army commanders impressed on the political leadership in New Delhi that an inadequate and obsolete arsenal at their disposal mitigated against an all-out war.

The navy and air force, however, had given the government the go-ahead about their preparedness to carry out an attack and repulse any retaliation from Pakistan.

Over the past few weeks, it has become increasingly apparent from top officials in the know that the closed-door meetings of top military commanders and political leaders discussed the poor state of the armory (both ammunition and artillery), and that this tilted the balance in favor of not striking at Pakistan.

According to senior officials, following the attack on Mumbai by 10 militants linked to Pakistan, India's top leadership looked at two options closely - war and hot pursuit.

Largely for the reasons cited above, the notion of an all-out war was rejected. Hot pursuit, however, remains very much on the table.

The government sources say that a framework for covert operations is being put in place, although India will continue to deny such actions. Crack naval, air and army forces backed by federal intelligence agencies will be involved. The target areas will be Pakistan-administered Kashmir and areas along the Punjab, such as Multan, where some of the Mumbai attackers are believed to have been recruited.

The coastal belt from the southern port city of Karachi to Gwadar in Balochistan province will also be under active Indian surveillance.
Thumbs down to war

Following the Mumbai attack, New Delhi's inclination was to launch a quick strike against Pakistan to impress domestic opinion, and then be prepared for a short war, given the pressures that would be exercised by international powers for a ceasefire to prevent nuclear war breaking out.
The expectation of New Delhi was that the war would go beyond the traditional skirmishes involving artillery fire that take place at the Kashmir border, essentially to check infiltration by militants, or the brief but bloody exchanges at Kargil in 1999.

It was in this context that the army made it apparent that it was not equipped to fight such a war, given the military's presence along the eastern Chinese borders, and that India was at risk of ceding territory should an instant ceasefire be brokered with Pakistan.

This would have been highly embarrassing, not to mention political suicide for the Congress-led government in an election year. So instead, New Delhi restricted itself to a strident diplomatic offensive that continues to date, and the option of hot pursuit.

The air force, on the other hand, was confident that it was prepared to take on the first retaliatory action by Pakistan, expected at forward air force bases along India's borders in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Indian-administered Kashmir. The role of the navy in the operations was not clearly defined, but it was to cover from the Arabian Sea.

Not ready to fight

Various experts, former generals and independent reports have voiced concern over the past few years about the state of preparedness of the Indian army.

For example, the Bofors gun scandal of the 1980s stymied the army's artillery modernization plan, with no induction of powerful guns since the 1986 purchase of 410 Bofors 155mm/39-caliber howitzers. The army has been trying to introduce 400 such guns from abroad and another 1,100 manufactured domestically, without success.

The latest report by the independent Comptroller and Auditor General said the state's production of 23mm ammunition for Shilka anti-aircraft cannons and 30mm guns mounted on infantry combat vehicles lacked quality. Further, supply was nearly 35% short of requirements.

India's huge tank fleet is in bad shape due to a shortage of Russian spare parts, while indigenous efforts, such as the main battle tank Arjun, have failed.

Signs of trouble emerged during the Kargil war when it was revealed that India's defense forces were dealing with acute shortages in every sphere.

In remarks that underscored the problems, the then-army chief, V P Malik, said his forces would make do with whatever was in hand, given the fears of a full-scale war that was eventually avoided due to pressure by America, then under president Bill Clinton.

The Kargil review committee report noted, "The heavy involvement of the army in counter-insurgency operations cannot but affect its preparedness for its primary role, which is to defend the country against external aggression."

Although there have been attempts to hasten India's overall defense modernization program, estimated at over US$50 billion over the next five years, gaping holes need to be plugged, including corruption and massive delays in the defense procurement processes.

India's defense expenditure has dipped below 2% of gross domestic product for the first time in decades, despite experts pegging 3% as adequate.
Other defense arms are in dire need of enhancement. Fighter jet squadrons are much below required strength, while the bidding process for medium fighter planes has only just begun and may take a few years to complete.

Meanwhile, the prospects of an India-Pakistan conflict are not over. India's army chief, General Deepak Kapoor, said last week that Pakistan had redeployed troops from its Afghan border to the western frontier with India. "The Indian army has factored this in its planning," Kapoor said. Asia Times. Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist. He can be reached at sidsri@yahoo.com.

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Pakistan Targets $10 Billion Overseas Investment in 12 Months By Khalid Qayum and Khaleeq Ahmed

Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan plans to raise a record $10 billion in overseas investment this year as companies from the Middle East build power plants and pour money into fuel exploration, helping revive an economy hurt by poor security.

“It’s calculated, it’s not an ambitious target” to achieve till December, Investment Minister Waqar Ahmed Khan said in an interview in Islamabad late yesterday. “Cash-rich” Arab Gulf states are looking to invest where they’ll get the highest returns, he said.

Khan, a 45-year-old Senator who took charge of the ministry in November, is tasked with boosting investment in South Asia’s second-biggest economy, which is forecast to grow at the slowest pace in seven years. Growth and investment have slumped as Pakistan contends with Taliban militants on its western border and strained relations with India in the east.

“Getting half this target is more realistic,” said Muzzammil Aslam, an economist at KASB Securities Ltd. in Karachi. “There is definitely overseas interest in the energy sector but the government will have to improve security.”

Gulf states, which have boomed on the back of record oil prices, are now struggling after prices tumbled. Still, the oil-rich countries will cope better than many large economies because of their public and private wealth, Gulf Finance House said in a report yesterday.

Pakistan’s economy, which expanded by an average annual pace of 6.8 percent in the past five years, is predicted to grow 3.5 percent in the year ending June 30, according to the government. Total foreign investment fell to $5.19 billion in the year ended June 30, from a record $8.43 billion in the previous 12 months, missing the government’s target of $6.5 billion.

New Law

The investment ministry is drafting a law to give legislative cover to all future investments and ensure the continuity of policies, Khan said. The law will be presented to the cabinet and the parliament for approval soon, he said.

The government plans to attract investment in thermal, coal-run and wind-power generation to meet the electricity shortfall by the end of the year, Khan said. Pakistan faces an electricity shortfall of an average 3,500 megawatts a day, which has led to riots in several cities.

Pakistan has signed agreements for producing 2,500 megawatts of electricity, or one-fifth of the total capacity, and plans to add another 15,000 megawatts by 2020, Khan said.

The nation needs to boost fuel exploration to reduce its oil import bill, which accounts for a fifth of total shipments from overseas. Natural gas production of 4 billion cubic feet a day won’t meet demand next year.

Textile makers, which account for two-thirds of exports, are threatening to shut down because of gas and electricity shortages this month.

Special Force

Khan said he is part of talks within the government to raise a special police force of 400,000 personnel to improve security in the country and provide protection to investors.

Pakistan is facing a stand-off with India since the Nov. 26-29 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militant groups. Pakistan’s government has denied its agencies backed the militants and says it is investigating the involvement of “non-state actors.”

Terrorist attacks that the government blames on Taliban militants based in the tribal areas along the Afghanistan border have killed thousands of people in Pakistan in the past two years.

Since taking charge in March, the government led by the Pakistan Peoples Party of assassinated leader Benazir Bhutto, is tackling rising inflation and a record current account deficit. Foreign-exchange reserves held by the central bank fell 75 percent to $3.5 billion in October, raising concerns the country may default on its debt.

Reserves have surged to $6.65 billion this month after the country received $3.1 billion as the first installment of a $7.6 billion bailout loan by the International Monetary Fund. To contact the reporters on this story: Khalid Qayum in Islamabad at kqayum@bloomberg.net. Khaleeq Ahmed in Islamabad at paknews@bloomberg.net.

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Sometimes Delhi is hard of hearing. Milliband reiterated the opinion of almost all concerned--that Pakistan was not involved in the Mumbai militancy. This was probably stated after the ridiculous "dossier" submitted by Bharat (aka India). The "dossier" contained shaving cream and toothpaste with "Made in Pakistan" written on it.

As if the militants on a suicide mission would be worried about dental hygiene and looks.

Pakistan not linked to Mumbai attack: Britain

* British foreign secretary, however, calls on Pakistan to bring perpetrators to justice
By Iftikhar Gilani
NEW DELHI: Visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in India on Tuesday he believes the Mumbai terror attacks were not directed by Islamabad – contradicting Indian statements that the South Asian rival’s state agencies were ‘involved’ – but called on Pakistan to ‘act properly’ in bringing the perpetrators to justice.
“I have said publicly, I don’t believe the attacks were directed by Pakistani state ... and I think it is important to restate that. What is important is the approach of Pakistani state towards the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LT),” Miliband said while addressing a joint press conference with his Indian counterpart, Pranab Mukherjee.
Need to do more: Indicating, however, that Pakistan needed to do more and referring to the arrest of LT leaders, Miliband said, “You know there is a history of people being arrested and then not being prosecuted or brought to justice.” He also apparently differed with India’s demand that Pakistan hand over wanted people.
Earlier during hour-long talks, both sides discussed the terrorism threat at length. Mukherjee said that concerted international pressure was needed to ‘force Pakistan to take action’.

Miliband said his country was clear about the origins of the Mumbai attackers and the responsibilities of the Pakistani government, saying the Pakistani judicial system is independent.

“Our engagement with ... the Pakistani state is dedicated to say that the threat to their country comes [from] within its own borders,” said the UK official.
Miliband also believes that President Asif Ali Zardari is sincere in his efforts to tackle terrorism.

“The difficult thing in counter-insurgency is not to write a strategy ... the difficult thing is to put in practice a strategy. All friends of Pakistan should take forward ... [Pakistani’s] multi-pronged agenda,” he said.

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War is inevitable in South Asia. Pakistan has no choice but to fight. Bharati (aka Indian) intransigence and insistence on war mongering will inevitably lead to war which surely will escalate to a nuclear exchange. Bharti insistence on punitive sanctions on Pakistan and a host of boycotts is not reverberating with Washington or London. While both capitals are empathetic to towards Delhi, both capitals are unwilling and unable to take action against Islamabad. Bharat's military strategy banks on archaic and pre-1998 philosophy does not take into account the new realities in South Asia.

Bharat has superiority in numbers in aircraft and men. However, there are huge issues with the aircraft. Bharat's Flying Coffins make up the bulk of the air force and these are unreliable. In a pre-1998 conflict Bharat would utilize  planes to bomb targets. The IAF would then wait for the PAF and then engage it on Pakistani soil and in Bharati air. The would send waves of air craft to disable the PAF. The strategy would be to gain superiority in the air and then take out any army that is advancing towards Bharat to engage the advancing Bharati army.

This conventional wisdom has been made obsolete by three factor:

1) Pakistan has a very large of potent arsenal of short, medium, long range and cruise missiles.

2) Pakistan has more than 150,000 reserve soldiers that are trained to go deep into Bharati territory and cause mayhem and chaos in Bharat.

3) Pakistan has a very large inventory of Nuclear Bombs which will surprise many experts.

The Conventional wisdom dictates that Pakistan will respond with planes. This may not be what will actually happen. Pakistan may simply respond to Bharati attacks with missile attacks on Bharati bases of Udhampur (near Jammu)  Leh, Srinagar, Udhampur, Jammu, and Pathankot (total 96 aircraft). Oher targets for Pakistan Hataf 3 and Hataf 4 missiles are the Bharti bases in the Punjab at Amritsar, Adampur 17, Halvara, Chandigarh, Ambala, Bathinda, Sirsa and Suratgarh (Total 332 Aircraft).

The Shaheens may also land on Rajasthan and Maharshtra. where the Bharti Its fighting units are based at Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Agra, Jodhpur, Uttarlai, Jamnagar and Pune (total 263 aircraft). The Shaheen can also reach Bharat's two Squadrons of Mirage 2000H at Gwalior which could be a threat to Pakistan (36 aircraft). Within minutes of the strikes against Pakistan 753 of Bhaarti combat aircraft, almost the entire IAF would be in jeopardy.

Pakistan can also take out the Bharti tanks and infantry of the following Bharti corps:

• XI Corps at Jullunder,
• 7th Infantry Division (Ferozepur)
• 9th Infantry Division (Chandimandir)
• 15th Infantry Division (Amritsar)
• 23rd Armoured Brigade
• 55th Mechanised Brigade
• two Strike Corps being two Corps and X Corps at Ambala and Bhatinda, respectively.
• The 2 Corps has 1st Armoured Division, 14th RAPID Division, 22nd Infantry Division and 14th Independent Armoured Brigade while X Corps has the 18th and 24th RAPID Divisions, 16th Infantry Division and 6th Independent Armoured Brigade.
  

Pakistani missiles can also reach:

• A new naval base that has been built between Mumbai and Cochin at Binaga Bay
• An advance base at Dwarka.
• and the Navy's Missile Boat HQ is at Colaba.

The Indian Navy, which focuses on anti-ship capabilities with an emphasis on attack submarines, has the capacity to support a multi-service heliborne-cum-para-cum amphibious operation, provided it has adequate air cover. This amphibious capability is built around 304th Army Independent Brigade at Vizagapatam. Their Marine Commando Force (Marcos for short) is based at Mumbai, Cochin and Vizagapatam.

The world has already seen the incompetence of the MARCOS commandos who fell like frozen Turkeys on top of the Chabad Center in Mumbai--and it took them three trop to get lifted to the Chabad rooftop and small building three stories high.

Given Pakistan's counter-riposte potential this could end up being "a bridge too far." The Indian Navy cannot blockade Karachi Port with the same impunity they did in 1971, our Exocet-armed Mirages and enhanced submarine fleet will keep them well off-shore, even outside our 200 miles territorial limit. Our Navy would love to get the Indian aircraft-carrier within combat aircraft range.

A lot of water has flown down the Indus since 2002 the last Bharat-Pakistan conflagration. Pakistan has a fully operational Port Qasim as well as Gwader sea port which allows Pakistan access to the sea routes without any interference from Bharat. Pakistan also has missiles that can keep the Bharti Army at bay

In 2002 Indians moved Directly Reporting Unit 333rd Missile Group consisting of 3 Prithvi Batteries with 4 launchers each to the border areas. Their two Strike Corps in the Rajasthan Desert (2 and XXI) provide a better target for a possible Pakistan tactical nuclear strike. If at anytime our conventional forces lose ground threatening our North-South communications, we will use the weapons at our disposal.

Bharati brinkmanship banks on the fact that Pakistan will not use Nuclear weapons and destroy 250 Bharati cities ending life for South Asia. This calculation may be misplaced. Pakistan under attack will use Nuclear weapons.

One must look at the India's possible deployment vis-à-vis Pakistan, based mostly on the Indians' Order of Battle (ORBAT) during the 2002 crisis. The Indian Army has five Commands. The Northern Command at Udhampur near Jammu looks after Kashmir, the Western Command, at Chandimandir, looks after Punjab and Rajasthan with the borderline at Bikaner, the Southern Command at Poona looks after Gujarat and Maharashtra, the Central Command at Lucknow has a Strike Corps, including the 31st Armoured Division meant for the western border and the Eastern Command at Calcutta looks after Counter-Insurgency in Assam and the NEFA border with China. The Pakistani Armed Forces essentially face India's Northern, Western and Southern Commands. India has troops earmarked against Pakistan as Army Reserve in both the Central and Eastern Commands.

The Northern Command consists of three Corps: XV Corps at Srinagar comprising the 19th Infantry Division (at Baramula) and the 28th (Gurais). XIV Corps at Leh comprising 3rd Infantry Division (Leh) and 8th Mountain Division (Nimer). XVI Corps at Nagrota (Jammu) is a Corps plus with five Infantry Divisions, the 10th (Akhnur), the 25th (Rajauri), the 26th (Jammu), the 29th (Pathankot) and the 39th (Yol). It also has three Independent Armoured Brigades, the 2nd, the 3rd and the 16th. There is an Artillery Brigade with each Corps. The 39th Infantry Division and the three Armoured Brigades are engaged in Counter-Insurgency duties and form the Command Reserve. The other Divisions are all deployed at the Line of Control (LoC).

The Western Command consists of three Corps, XI Corps at Jullunder, deploying 7th Infantry Division (Ferozepur), 9th Infantry Division (Chandimandir) and 15th Infantry Division (Amritsar), 23rd Armoured Brigade and 55th Mechanised Brigade, the two Strike Corps being two Corps and X Corps at Ambala and Bhatinda, respectively. The 2 Corps has 1st Armoured Division, 14th RAPID Division, 22nd Infantry Division and 14th Independent Armoured Brigade while X Corps has the 18th and 24th RAPID Divisions, 16th Infantry Division and 6th Independent Armoured Brigade.

The Southern Command consists of the XII Corps (Jodhpur) with 11th and 12th Infantry Divisions deployed at Ahmedabad and Jodhpur and the XXI Strike Corps (Bhopal) with 33rd Armoured, 36th RAPID and 54th Infantry Division. There are three Direct Reporting Units, 30th Artillery Division, which usually moves to Western Command. The 50th Independent Parachute Brigade and 333rd Missile Groups (India's nuclear artillery unit having Prithvi missiles) are meant to be deployed from the Southern Command Area to Punjab and Rajasthan. During the 2002 crisis some formations moved from the Eastern Command to areas facing Pakistan, 57 Mountain Division, 2nd Mountain Division and 27 Mountain Division.

The Indian Aerospace Forces (IAF) consists of five operational commands, Western Air Command (New Delhi) controlling air operations from Kashmir to North of Rajasthan, Southwestern Air Command located at Gandhinagar controlling air operations from Rajasthan to Maharashtra, Central Air Command at Allahabad, Eastern Air Command at Shillong and Southern Air Command at Trivandrum. Pakistan is primarily concerned with Western Air Command and Southwestern Command, with 8air deployments from the other Commands.

Western Air Command has an Air Operation Group at Udhampur (near Jammu) dedicated to occupied Jammu & Kashmir. Its fighting units are based at Leh, Srinagar, Udhampur, Jammu, and Pathankot (total 96 aircraft). In Punjab its bases are at Amritsar, Adampur 17, Halvara, Chandigarh, Ambala, Bathinda, Sirsa and Suratgarh (Total 332 Aircraft).
Southwestern Air Command was previously under operational control of Western Command, it now controls air operations in Rajasthan and Maharshtra. Its fighting units are based at Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Agra, Jodhpur, Uttarlai, Jamnagar and Pune (total 263 aircraft). To back these Central Air Command has two Squadrons of Mirage 2000H at Gwalior which can be switched to the other Commands facing Pakistan (36 aircraft). Total deployment against Pakistan in 2002 was in excess of 753 combat aircraft, almost the whole of the IAF.

India's Navy has three Naval Commands. Western Naval Command at Mumbai provides naval defence of the Arabian Sea. A new naval base has come up between Mumbai and Cochin at Binaga Bay, with an advance base at Dwarka. The Navy's Missile Boat HQ is at Colaba. Eastern Naval Command, is based at Vizagaptam with a submarine base, it provides naval defence of the Bay of Bengal. The Southern Naval Command at Kochi is mainly a training base. Both the Western and Eastern Naval Commands will be involved in operations against Pakistan. Their surface fleet consists of one aircraft-carrier, 7 guided-missile destroyers, 7 guided-missile frigates, 3 frigates, 4 corvettes, 10 large patrol craft, 5 fast patrol boats, 3 fast-attack missile boats and 18 minesweepers. They have 1 nuclear-powered submarine and 13 diesel-powered submarines in service (1 Foxtrot Class, 9 Sindhughosh Class and 3 Shashikumar Class). India's Naval Air Arm with HQs at Goa consists of a squadron of Jaguars and Sea Harriers each, other than 6 Sea-Kings and 20 Cheetak helicopters. The Jaguar squadron (at Poona) is operated by the IAF.

The Indian Navy, which focuses on anti-ship capabilities with an emphasis on attack submarines, has the capacity to support a multi-service heliborne-cum-para-cum amphibious operation, provided it has adequate air cover. This amphibious capability is built around 304th Army Independent Brigade at Vizagapatam. Their Marine Commando Force (Marcos for short) is based at Mumbai, Cochin and Vizagapatam. The Indian Navy has a heavy lift capacity with 2 new 5,600-ton Magar Class Landing Vessels with 4 Landing Craft Vehicles and Personnel (LCVP). Four Polnochny-class vessels have helicopter platforms. They also have 7 locally built 500-ton Landing Craft Utility (LCU). They also have 11 Cosmos midget submarines of Italian origin that can ride the back of Foxtrot-class submarines.

The Indians can deploy four Strike Corps against Pakistan, one each against the Southern part of Azad Kashmir, Central Punjab, Southern Punjab and one against Sindh. They have the necessary balance to focus their attack in a combination of two or even three corps but time and space dictate they cannot move more than one strike corps on any axis and they have to cater for our counter-offensive. Since no ground offensive is possible in the desert without heavy air cover, their air deployment in 2002 suggested that the focus of their strike corps could well be in the south (Western and Southern Commands). One should expect a combined heliborne, para and/or amphibious operation. Both the Indian Strike Corps, 2 Corps from Western Command at Jaisalmer and 21 Corps at Barmer from Southern Command could be reinforced with additional Divisions from Eastern Command (moving through Jodhpur) and have integral Helicopter Attack Squadrons, Engineer, Artillery and Air Defence Brigades. The deployment of the Army's Direct Reporting Unit, 30th Artillery Division will give the fulcrum of the lines of attack. Jodhpur in 2002 had a concentration of heavy lift MI-8/M-17 helicopters, supplemented by AN-32s at Agra, Gwalior and Chandigarh. Agra is the peace station for another Direct Reporting Unit, the 50th Independent Parachute Brigade.

With all 3 Armoured Divisions and all 4 RAPID Divisions and at least 2 out of 5 Independent Armoured Brigades concentrated in Rajasthan, the resource allocation makes their offensive targets obvious, along the Jaisalmer-Rahimyar Khan axis or along the Barmer-Mirpurkhas axis, most probably both. They could also possibly attempt helicopter troop transportation/amphibious LST and launch XXI Strike Corps for a link-up. They practiced this in 2002. The area between Badin and Sujawal east of the Indus thus becomes vulnerable. Given Pakistan's counter-riposte potential this could end up being "a bridge too far." The Indian Navy cannot blockade Karachi Port with the same impunity they did in 1971, our Exocet-armed Mirages and enhanced submarine fleet will keep them well off-shore, even outside our 200 miles territorial limit. Our Navy would love to get the Indian aircraft-carrier within combat aircraft range.

In 2002 Indians moved Directly Reporting Unit 333rd Missile Group consisting of 3 Prithvi Batteries with 4 launchers each to the border areas. Their two Strike Corps in the Rajasthan Desert (2 and XXI) provide a better target for a possible Pakistan tactical nuclear strike. If at anytime our conventional forces lose ground threatening our North-South communications, we will use the weapons at our disposal.

Pakistan has no desire for war but it may be forced on us. We will certainly have grievous casualties and horrific damage in a conventional war even without a nuclear exchange. Unfortunately, we have no option but to fight.

The writer is a defence and political analyst. Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.com. India's possible war deployment, Thursday, January 15, 2009 Ikram Sehgal

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ZAB's 81st birth anniversary today

ISLAMABAD: The 81st birth anniversary of country's first directly elected Prime Minister and founder of Pakistan People's Party Zulfikar Ali Bhutto will be observed in the country on Monday.

The birth anniversary of former prime minister of Pakistan will be observed with simplicity due to Muharram-ul-Harram and first death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto observed on December 27. No cake-cutting ceremony will be held while Quran Khawani will be held in party headquarters for the departed soul.

Zulfqar Ali Bhutto was born on January 5, 1928 in Larkana and completed his education in the US and Europe. He laid the foundation of PPP in December 1967.

In a message on the 80th birth anniversary of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on Monday, PPP Co-chairman and President Asif Ali Zardari has said that by undoing an iniquitous status quo and snatching power from the elite and giving it into the hands of the masses, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had become a legend in the history of Pakistan.

He said that Z A Bhutto was a colossus who towered over national politics for more than four decades.

"At a time when dictatorship had brought disintegration and defeat to the nation in 1971, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto picked up the pieces of a truncated Pakistan to build it anew, raised the morale of a defeated and demoralised people, recovered five thousand square miles of territory and brought back tens of thousands of prisoners of war," he said.

"It is a measure of his greatness that today the politics of the country revolves round his name. A brave and dauntless leader that he was, he walked to the gallows rather than accept the military dictatorship" he said.

Zardari said that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto helped the people shape their own destiny. "The unanimous federal, democratic and representative constitution of 1973, the nuclear programme, the OIC summit of 1974 at Lahore, the Karakoram Highway, Port Qasim, Kamrah Aeronautical Complex and Heavy Mechanical Complex, fundamental rights through habeas corpus, passport to every Pakistani and land reforms today stand as silent monuments to his memory."

"It was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who established Azad Kashmir as an autonomous area with its own president, prime minister and judiciary and gave Balochistan provincial status," he said.

"Tens of thousands of people were arrested, thousands killed, hundreds whipped and tortured who rallied around Quaid e Awam in a bid to save his life and then carry on his struggle for a modern, democratic and developed Pakistan free from exploitation and obscurantism."

He said that Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a beacon light for the peasants and the workers, the youth and the women and indeed to all those dispossessed and disadvantaged.

"As the nation pays tribute to one of its greatest sons, let us join hands to defeat militancy and extremism and move forward in the spirit of Federalism, Democracy, and Egalitarianism which he lit through his example of courage in the defence of principles and ideals".

Meanwhile, in a message on the birth anniversary, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani has said the government is striving for the welfare and prosperity of people in light of the guiding principles articulated by Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Gillani said January 5 would always be remembered as a day of great historical significance as a courageous and towering personality like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was born.

He said the PPP leader set the guiding principles for political, social and economic spheres, foreign relations, non-violence and religious tolerance.

And these same principles were adopted as manifesto by Benazir Bhutto Shaheed who laid down her life in the struggle to turn Pakistan into a democratic, progressive and welfare state, he noted.

He said Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has left lasting and indelible imprint on the pages of world history which will not only guide the students of politics of coming generations but will also be a lesson adding to social consciousness.
The prime minister said Zulfikar Bhutto gave strength to the oppressed, poor, exploited and backward people of Pakistan so that they can secure their rights and gain political and social consciousness.

The emergence of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) will be remembered as an important turning point in the political history of South East Asia, he said adding PPP is the only party which gave socially deprived people consciousness and taught them how to get their snatched rights.

He recalled that the people of Pakistan were wandering in the darkness of frustration and disappointment after the tragedy of fall of Dhaka in 1971.

Zulfikar Bhutto came to the front and with his dynamic personality and leadership took the people out of darkness and sense of desperation through his political insight and put them on the path filled with hope.

Calling Shaheed Zulfikar Bhutto the first democratic and popular leader, he said the martyred visionary gave Pakistan its first unanimous federal and democratic constitution and played a central role in the economic and social progress of the country.

In his government, the road to industrial progress was paved and educational, literary, research and cultural institutions were set up.

National Council of the Arts, Academy of Letters,Pakistan Lok Virsa, National Book Foundation, Quaid-e- Azam University and Allama Iqbal Open University were established which improved image of Pakistan in the outside world and gave it a cultural identity, he added.

He said a network of basic industries were laid down by their leader and these units are playing an important role in meeting the commercial and defence needs of the country.

Pakistan Ordnance Factory, Heavy Mechanical Complex are some of its shining examples, he added.
He said the late leader made it easier for citizens to acquire Pakistani passports allowing millions of them to get jobs abroad, earn precious foreign exchange for the country and introduce Pakistan to the wider world.

The prime minister said Pakistan emerged on the map of the world as a nuclear power and its credit goes to the charismatic leadership of founder chairman of PPP. Today this technological achievement has made us prepared for keeping the country safe from all kinds of external aggression.

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We have been interacting with Bhartis (aka India) for over the best of a quarter of a century. The Indian narrative is based on the temple education that augers well for Brahmanism and defies the facts on the ground. The narrative goes as follows:

1) India is the oldest civilization on planet earth. It is 10,000 years old and it encompasses the country from Kabul to Indonesia.

Notwithstanding the fact that there was an ice age which only melted in 6000 BC. Also it totally contradicts the archeological evidence which places the Indus Valley Civilization at about 3500 BC which is in modern day Pakistan

2) Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal are temporary anomalies that will revert back to "Mother India".

Notwithstanding the fact that "Bharat Mata" never existed as a unified state expect during the mythical reign of an emperor concocted by Pandit for James Prince in 1783. Before that there is no mention of "Ashoka". The Subcontinent has been a conglomeration fo more than 570 states--that's what it was when the British landed in Bengal and that was the way they left it in 1947. 

3) The Indus Valley Civilization was Hindu and extended on the entire Subcontinent called India.

The Indus Valley Civilization was not "Hindu" and never extended across the Subcontinent. Iwas along the Indus" almost all of it in present day Pakistan.

4) Islam is a violent religion and Muslims are intruders in Hindustan.

The inter-Aryan and intra-Aryan wars called Mahabharta and the Koray -Panday war claim more than 333 million deaths. The Aryans are as much intruders into the Subcontinent as the Muslims are.

5) Hinduism is indigenous to India and Buddha was a Hindu

Bharti secularism (Hinduism Light) tries to preach that Brahmanism is God's gift to mankind and that Jainism and Buddhism were part of Hinduism. Of course historical records as well as well the religious beliefs of Buddhists around the world in Korea, Japan, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

6) Muslims in India are actually wayward Hindus.

Many Muslims are converted Dalits and Hindus. Most Hindus fail to recognize them as Muslims or Christians and think of them as wayward Hindus that need to be reconverted back

7) The Caste system does not exist in India.

Mohandas Gandhi bet his life on the Caste system. Most Bharris are deaf and blind to the atrocities against the Dalits and Muslims.

8) Indian Muslims are fat dumb and happy.

Even according to Bharti official reports the Muslims of Bharat are discriminated against, the general Bharti populace sees the Bollywood version of reality in Bharat rather than facing the reality of Bharati Muslims--discriminated against, rebuffed in jobs and simply alienated. Tokenism is propagated to unbelievable levels

9) Dalits take advantage of Indians.

The numbers for the Scheduled Classes and the Dalits is about 450 million. There are 150 million Muslims. All alienated and hate the status quo (read Central government). No! read most of the people in Bharat.

10) India is a Superpower.

Country that is below Barkino Faso on the hunger index and lower than Pakistan on the per capita GNP has huge cavities that Bollywood influenced pundits cannot or will not see.

11) There is no poverty in India.

Bharat has 75% of the population linving under Sub Saharan levels of penury. On the human misery index, Bharat is at the lowest tier. The graduates of the "Computer Coolie College" can type but cannot see the reality of Bharat where more than 50% of the residents of Lucknow, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkoa etc sleep on the sidewalks.

12) Pakistan and Bangladesh are poor, produce nothing and live off the Americans.

Those Bhartis who have visited Pakistan cannot believe their eyes and blame their Bharti programming on their perception of Pakistan

13) The Founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah was solely responsible for "partition" of the country that was "India" and this is a temporary "partition".

The text books of Bharat eulogize Gandhi and demonize Quiad e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The textbooks blame on e man for the so called "partition" of the Subcontinent. Actually the Subcontinent was a conglomeration of more than 570 states and never actually was one country ever. Despite the BJP rhetoric Bharat was never united. Ashoka was a mythical figure who may have never existed. Ahoka's name never appeared in history books before James Princep mentioned it on the advice of the Pandits.

14) All Muslims are invaders and aliens to the Subcontinent and should be reconverted back to their original religion or repatriated back.

The bigots of hinduunity.org and the BJP perpetuate a myth that the Hindus are the original inhabitants of Bharat and that all other religions are encroachments that need to be removed. They hide the fact that Hinduism itself is an import and that the IVC was not Hindu in any sense

15) All states on the periphery of Bharat are failed states.

Nehru perpetuated this myth,  but Villibhai Patel executed it and took over Hydrabad etc. Nehru proclaimed that all of the 570 states in the Subcontinent would be considered enemy states if they did not join Bharat. Most did, but there is rebellion in almost all states of the Indian Union

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Concerns grew Tuesday that the conflict in Gaza would spill over in an increasingly violent way into Europe, where attacks were reported in several countries against Jews, synagogues and related targets.

In southwestern France, assailants on Monday night rammed a burning car into the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse, but no one was injured. A Jewish congregation in Helsingborg, in southern Sweden, was also attacked Monday night by someone who "broke a window and threw in something that was burning," a police spokesman said. On Sunday, slogans, including "murderers. ... You broke the cease-fire," were daubed on Israel's Embassy in Stockholm.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been on a peace mission to the Mideast, warned that France "cannot tolerate letting international tension translate into sectarian violence." France has large Muslim and Jewish populations.

FOREIGN PRESS

ON SIDELINES

Israel has not allowed hundreds of foreign journalists to enter Gaza to cover the conflict, citing the danger to the journalists and their potential for interfering with military operations.

Beyond such tactical considerations, there is a political one. Daniel Seaman, director of Israel's Government Press Office, said that "any journalist who enters Gaza becomes a fig leaf and front for the Hamas terror organization, and I see no reason why we should help that."

In a protest Tuesday, the Foreign Press Association accused Israel of trying to manage the story and said: "The unprecedented denial of access to Gaza for the world's media amounts to a severe violation of press freedom and puts the state of Israel in the company of a handful of regimes around the world which regularly keep journalists from doing their jobs."

EGYPT BLOCKS SOME DOCTORS

A number of doctors and other medical personnel trying to get into Gaza from Egypt have been turned back at the border.

=================================================

Mauritania, Venezuela recall ambassadors

January 7, 2009

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- One of three Arab countries that maintains full diplomatic relations with Israel recalled its ambassador.

Mauritania, which has had relations with Israel since 1999, recalled its Israeli envoy on Monday, according to reports.

The action is said to be a protest over Israel's current operation in the Gaza Strip.

Students in Mauritania have been protesting daily against the operation and there have been calls for the country to break its ties with Israel, the French Press Agency reported.

On Tuesday, Venezuela expelled Israel's ambassador and embassy personnel, Reuters reported, hours President Hugo Chavez called Israel's actions in Gaza a "holocaust."

Israel's Foreign Ministry was considering whether to respond in kind, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

================

Venezuela expels Israel envoy over Gaza attacks

Tue Jan 6, 2009 4:40pm EST

(Recasts with ambassador expulsion, adds Chavez, quote, background)
CARACAS, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Venezuela expelled the ambassador to Israel on Tuesday in protest over the offensive in Gaza only hours after leftist President Hugo Chavez called the attacks a Palestinian "holocaust."

The socialist Chavez, a harsh critic of Israel and the United States, in recent years has frequently withdrawn Venezuela's diplomatic envoys amid bilateral disputes and last year kicked out the U.S. ambassador over a conflict involving allied Bolivia.

The OPEC nation's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Israel's campaign constituted "flagrant violations of International Law" and the use of "state terrorism."

"For the reasons mentioned above, the government of Venezuela has decided to expel the Ambassador of Israel and part of the personnel of the Embassy of Israel," the statement said.

The Israeli embassy did not respond to phone calls requesting comment.
Chavez in 2006 threatened to break ties with Israel over its military campaign in Lebanon in a war of words that led both nations to withdraw their envoys.

On Monday he accused Washington of poisoning the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to destabilize the Middle East and justify U.S.-backed Israeli incursions into Arab countries.
Israel is under international pressure to reach a ceasefire with Hamas militants and halt an offensive that has killed nearly 600 Palestinians, including more than 40 in a U.N. school sheltering civilians.
"The Holocaust, that is what is happening right now in Gaza," Chavez said in televised comments earlier on Tuesday.

"The president of Israel at this moment should be taken to the International Criminal Court together with the President of the United States."

The United States, which Chavez describes as a decadent empire, firmly backs Israel -- its principal ally in the region.
(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Sandra Maler)

========================================

Israeli envoy banished from Venezuela: Chavez' door closed

Ambassador to Venezuela talks to Ynet after being declared persona non grata
Roi Mandel

Israel's Ambassador to Venezuela Shlomo Cohen has begun preparing for a swift departure from the country Tuesday after President Hugo Chavez declared he was a persona non grata because of Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"This is the first time I'm being dismissed," Cohen told Ynet on Wednesday. "We're getting the paperwork together and preparing to close down the embassy as quickly as possible. We don't have much time to waste, since the government has ordered us to leave the country within 72 hours.

"I don't remember anything like it. This is a new low in the relations between the countries," he lamented.

A telegram sent by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry to the Israeli embassy in Caracas informed the Israeli diplomats that the country has decided to expel the mission in light of the situation in Gaza, which President Hugo Chavez characterized as "genocide."

In a speech delivered by Chavez later in the day he declared that the presidents of Israel and the United States should be tried for war crimes in an international court.

Shortly after receiving the telegram and updating the Israeli Foreign Ministry on the diplomatic crisis, Cohen started packing. "Since yesterday I've been receiving many calls from friends of Israel here, expressing their sympathy and support in light of the president's decision," he said.

According to Cohen, the possibility that the government may decide to expel the mission was recently discussed in view of the president's conduct during the Second Lebanon War.

"During the Second Lebanon War I was summoned for consultations and Chavez threatened to sever the ties with Israel, but didn't follow through with the threat. This time he did.

"I estimated that something like this could happen. After all, he is an ally of Iran who maintains very close relations with the government in Tehran," Cohen explained.

Cohen believes that the decision to shut down the Israeli embassy was made solely by Chavez. "Although the parliament lauded the decision and supported it, it's clear to everyone that he is the only one making the decisions. He regularly supports radical states and organizations, and his door is closed to us.

"Even if the media in Venezuela understands why we embarked on the Gaza operation, the regime is simply uninterested. It supports one side and that's that."

Turning his attention to future ties between the two countries, Cohen said: "I hope the economic and cultural ties continue despite the crisis, and I'm hopeful that one day the friendship that characterized the ties in the past will return. I no longer believe I will be back here as an ambassador; after all, I was declared a persona non grate. Perhaps I shall return in the future as a tourist."

Meanwhile, officials at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem are mulling the possibility of explling Venezuela's diplomatic staff in response to the dismissal of Israel's ambassador to Venezuela. Senior officials estimate that Israel is left with no other in the wake of Venezuela's harsh move. ynetnews from israel

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Pakistan has basically dismissed the Bharati (aka Indian) "dossier", repudiated the claims made in it and rebuffed Mr. Boucher during the meeting when he said "Pakistan would act only or credible information".

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Monday his government remained committed to punishing Pakistani nationals accused of taking part in the Mumbai attacks if "credible" evidence is given against them.

Gilani made the comments during talks with Richard Boucher, the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, who arrived in Islamabad early on Monday in a bid to defuse simmering tensions between Pakistan and India.

Gilani spoke of "Pakistan's persistent efforts to defuse the current tensions with India, and his government's commitment to take action against any Pakistani national in case credible evidence is provided," his office said.

Earlier on Monday, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee said that New Delhi had handed over to Islamabad what it said was evidence linking the Islamic militants who carried out the late November attacks to "elements in Pakistan."

Pakistan said it had received the dossier and was reviewing it.
Boucher discussed the regional security situation in the wake of the Mumbai attacks with Gilani and Qureshi.

Bilateral relations, the situation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and an anti-militancy operation launched by Pakistani security forces in the Khyber tribal region also reportedly figured in the discussions.

Qureshi was initially scheduled to participate in Boucher's meeting with the premier but stayed back in the foreign office to study the information provided by India on the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan will act if proof 'credible': Gilani 5 Jan 2009, 1819 hrs IST, AGENCIES

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The begriming of Mr. Asif Zardari's Prime Ministership began with a very docile and compromising attitude towards Bharat (aka India). The PPPP came under a barrage or fire for its conciliatory attitude towards Delhi. However the events of the past several weeks brought about a fundamental change in Mr. Asif Zardari who was under the impression that if he was nice to Delhi, Bharat would be nice to him

The exact opposite has happened. Mr. Asif Zardari on the advice of Mr. Haqqani let Bharat extract its pound of blood by allowing the UN to pass a resolution against Pakistan. There was a tacit understanding that this would be enough for Bharat and this pound of flesh would enable the Indian National Congress to appease its war mongering media.

Indian authorities ...have expressed the suspicion that the good intentions of Pakistan's civilian leaders are not necessarily shared by its military and intelligence establishments, which were forged in a decades-long rivalry with India and have sponsored armed Islamist groups in Indian Kashmir and in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet conflict there.

But Qureshi and Pakistan's intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, said Wednesday that the country's security forces are subservient to civilian authority and committed to supporting democratic rule. "It is completely clear to the army chief and I that this government must succeed," Pasha said of Zardari's administration. "I report regularly to the president and take orders from him."Washington Post. Rondeaux reported from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

The PPPP government was shocked to discover that even after ascertaining the truth of the matter the Bharti government not only continued to hide the internal connections in Mumbai, it escalated the war of words by directly blaming the Pakistani government and the ISI (which was now working under the PPPP appointed General).

ISLAMABAD: In a bizarre drama, Pakistan's National Security Adviser Maj Gen(retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani was sacked on Wednesday night for having indicated days ago that Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist arrested for the Mumbai terror attacks, may have been a Pakistani, a fact ironically confirmed by the government earlier in the day. ( Watch )

A brief statement issued by the Prime Minister's House said Yousuf Raza Gilani had sacked Durrani "for his irresponsible behaviour (of) not taking Prime Minister and other stakeholders into confidence and lack of coordination on matters of national security".
Gilani was quoted by Geo News channel as saying that he had sacked Durrani for commenting on the issue of the nationality of Iman alias Ajmal Kasab without taking him (Gilani) or the government into confidence.  The premier told the channel that Durrani's "irresponsible" comments had affected Pakistan's image and went against the government's policies. Times of India

The dynamics of the Bharat-Pakistan relationship has now permanently changed. Mr. Zardari was peeved at the stoppage of Pakistani waters by Bharat. He is now livid and will bank on the more conservative hawks.

In an interview with CNN, Mahmud Ali Durrani said there appeared to be proof that all 10 gunmen had Pakistani roots. Officials from the Foreign and Information ministries confirmed that assertion, but the Foreign Ministry later retracted its statement, and within hours, government officials and national TV channels reported that Durrani, a former intelligence chief, had been dismissed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani.Washinton Post

It remains to bee seen what actions if any will be taken against Ms. Sherry Rehman and Mr. Rehman Malik

The move came soon after Information Minister Sherry Rehman and Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq both told reporters that an investigation by Pakistani security agencies had confirmed that Kasab was a Pakistani national.

Rehman also said Pakistan's investigation into the Mumbai attacks was continuing. Some reports suggested that Durrani's sacking would have to be endorsed by President Asif Ali Zardari. Pak NSA Mahmud Ali Durrani sacked 7 Jan 2009, 2312 hrs IST, PTI. Times of India

Both US and Pakistani officials appear to be taking actions to lower the tensions.

Neither Qureshi nor Boucher spoke about the new evidence that India says it has found -- and delivered to Pakistani authorities -- linking Pakistan to the Mumbai assault. Qureshi said he was "disappointed" that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had made such an accusation, and he noted that on the day the Mumbai siege began, he had been in New Delhi trying to improve bilateral relations.

"Suddenly, as I returned to my hotel, Mumbai took place," he said. "I did not allow this to obstruct my vision, but unfortunately, some Indian politicians succumbed and became obsessed by it." Qureshi said he had offered "from day one" to cooperate in the investigation into the attacks and that Pakistan's only desire was to "bring the perpetrators to justice." Washington Post. Rondeaux reported from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

The US wants a joint Bharat (aka India) investigation commission where all facts about the case would be bared.

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday charged Pakistan with using “terrorism as an instrument of state policy” and indicted that its state agencies were a party to the attacks, Islamabad offered a “joint investigation commission to be supervised by the respective national security advisers” and the dispatch of a high-level delegation from New Delhi to Pakistan.

Although this offer was rejected in biting accents by the Indian government, the US appears to have plumped for it. Stopping short of calling for a joint investigation, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who was on a visit to Pakistan earlier this week, appreciated the steps taken by Islamabad so far. He said as more information was uncovered, sharing and follow-up mechanism should also be enhanced. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported that the US wanted a joint investigation commission on which it is a member along with India and Pakistan.  Mumbai attacks: US moves in to calm down India, Pak.  KS Manjunath / New Delhi January 08, 2009, 0:31 IST

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This is the most disgusting Pakistani medal given to anyone anywhere.

To see Richard Boucher being given the Hilal-e-Quaid-e-Azam was to see our leaders slapping the Pakistani nation on its face. After all, Boucher represents the US administration that has all but destroyed the Pakistani polity through daily killings of our people in drone attacks and through consistent demands to 'do more' even as we have seen the fallout of the insane 'war on terror' bring suicide bombings, terrorism and polarisation into Pakistan as never before. Yes, we had had our share of sectarian terror much before 9/11, but it was limited and on the wane before the US struck Afghanistan with its deathly military might.

So what is Boucher being rewarded for? Killing Pakistanis in the tribal belt? Pushing forward a debilitating agenda for Pakistan? Putting Pakistanis into Guantanamo Bay and other US prisons? Getting our military political leadership to participate in renditions and torture of Pakistani citizens? Or getting our civilian political leadership to give in to the new round of Indian histrionic demands post-Mumbai? Are all these what our rulers see as the furtherance of US-Pakistan ties? What a shame and disgrace to this long-suffering nation of Pakistan. Our rulers repress their own, kowtow to outsiders Wednesday, January 07, 2009 Shireen M Mazari

Award to Boucher for what? For installing AZ in power!   

Asif Zardari just thanked his bosses in Washington and celebrated Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's 81st Birthday by presenting them with the Highest Civilian Award. This comes when Boucher repeated that drone attacks will continue, two days after the latest drone attack in Pakistan, and WHILE the US vetoed UNSC resolution condemning Israel and contined to support Israel in the Genocide in Palestine. The people of Pakistan know very well what Boucher has done throughout for the people of Pakistan that they need no introduction.

Such events only confirm the news items that Zardari is really not mentally stable.
This reminds us of another disgusting event when the prime suspect of Benazir's assassination and defacto Prime Minister, Rehman Malik, was awarded a Human Rights Award by an NGO run by a PPP worker.

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• The president-elect's silence on the Gaza crisis is undermining his reputation in the Middle East (Simon Tisdel)
• People recall his campaign slogan of change and hoped that it would apply to the Palestinian situation," Jordanian analyst Labib Kamhawi told Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune.
• "So they look at his silence as a negative sign. They think he is condoning what happened in Gaza because he's not expressing any opinion

The world is linked. A butterfly flutters in the Hindukush and the reverberations are felt in the Ruse Garden on Pennsylvania Avenue. Blood is flowing in the Gaza and one of the most important men in the world is ignoring it with stone edged silence. The world is bewildered. Is this the "the change we can believe in"?

The world celebrated the election of Barack Husein Obama. There was euphoria in Germany, and happiness in Manila. Sweets were distributed in Karachi and the air was pregnant with audacious hope in the Middle East. Hamas and Tel Aviv have poured water on the enthusiasm and the exuberance. The Prophet of hope is slient--beholden to the same interests that forced George W. Bush to wage the Crusades on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and threaten Iran, Syria and Somalia.

Simon Tisdall in a prodigiously effulgent article correctly says that "Obama is losing a battle he doesn't know he's in"

Barack Obama's chances of making a fresh start in US relations with the Muslim world, and the Middle East in particular, appear to diminish with each new wave of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza. That seems hardly fair, given the president-elect does not take office until January 20. But foreign wars don't wait for Washington inaugurations.

Obama has remained wholly silent during the Gaza crisis. His aides say he is following established protocol that the US has only one president at a time. Hillary Clinton, his designated secretary of state, and Joe Biden, the vice-president-elect and foreign policy expert, have also been uncharacteristically taciturn on the subject.

But evidence is mounting that Obama is already losing ground among key Arab and Muslim audiences that cannot understand why, given his promise of change, he has not spoken out. Arab commentators and editorialists say there is growing disappointment at Obama's detachment - and that his failure to distance himself from George Bush's strongly pro-Israeli stance is encouraging the belief that he either shares Bush's bias or simply does not care.

The Al-Jazeera satellite television station recently broadcast footage of Obama on holiday in Hawaii, wearing shorts and playing golf, juxtaposed with scenes of bloodshed and mayhem in Gaza. Its report criticising "the deafening silence from the Obama team" suggested Obama is losing a battle of perceptions among Muslims that he may not realise has even begun.

"People recall his campaign slogan of change and hoped that it would apply to the Palestinian situation," Jordanian analyst Labib Kamhawi told Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune. "So they look at his silence as a negative sign. They think he is condoning what happened in Gaza because he's not expressing any opinion."

Regional critics claim Obama is happy to break his pre-inauguration "no comment" rule on international issues when it suits him. They note his swift condemnation of November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Obama has also made frequent policy statements on mitigating the impact of the global credit crunch.Simon Tisdall guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 January 2009 15.55 GMT | larger | smaller

The world is not stupid. It knows why the White House run by Rahm Emanuele is silent. The world knows the lobbies that are important in Washington. The world is watching. President Elect Obama is impotent. He dare not say anything to antagonize his masters.

"I will make clear that we are not at war with Islam, that we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future, and that we need their effort to defeat the prophets of hate and violence," he said. Barack Obama

The world now knows that he is but an ordinary politician whose campaign promises were just empty words to come to power.

Obama's absence from the fray is also allowing hostile voices to exploit the vacuum. "It would appear that the president-elect has no intention of getting involved in the Gaza crisis," Iran's Resalat newspaper commented sourly. "His stances and viewpoints suggest he will follow the path taken by previous American presidents... Obama, too, will pursue policies that support the Zionist aggressions."

Whether Obama, when he does eventually engage, can successfully elucidate an Israel-Palestine policy that is substantively different from that of Bush-Cheney is wholly uncertain at present.

To maintain the hardline US posture of placing the blame for all current troubles squarely on Hamas, to the extent of repeatedly blocking limited UN security council ceasefire moves, would be to end all realistic hopes of winning back Arab opinion - and could have negative, knock-on consequences for US interests in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf.

Yet if Obama were to take a tougher (some would say more balanced) line with Israel, for example by demanding a permanent end to its blockade of Gaza, or by opening a path to talks with Hamas, he risks provoking a rightwing backlash in Israel, giving encouragement to Israel's enemies, and losing support at home for little political advantage.

A recent Pew Research Centre survey, for example, showed how different are US perspectives to those of Europe and the Middle East. Americans placed "finding a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict" at the bottom of a 12-issue list of foreign policy concerns, the poll found. And foreign policy is in any case of scant consequence to a large majority of US voters primarily worried about the economy, jobs and savings.

On the campaign trail, Obama (like Clinton) was broadly supportive of Israel and specifically condemnatory of Hamas. But at the same time, he held out the prospect of radical change in western relations with Muslims everywhere, promising to make a definitive policy speech in a "major Islamic forum" within 100 days of taking office.

"I will make clear that we are not at war with Islam, that we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future, and that we need their effort to defeat the prophets of hate and violence," he said.

As the Gaza casualty headcount goes up and Obama keeps his head down, those sentiments are beginning to sound a little hollow. The danger is that when he finally peers over the parapet on January 21, the battle of perceptions may already be half-lost. guardian.co.uk Limited 2009. Simon Tisdall guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 January 2009 15.55 GMT | larger | smaller

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On Sunday, Indian media began reporting that the only attacker captured alive, a Versace-T-shirted 21-year-old by the name of Ajmal Amir Kamal, was Pakistani, and that he had identified all his fellow militants as being trained by the banned Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba. Pakistanis are suspicious of these claims. "There is simply not enough evidence at this point to blame Pakistan," says Najam Sethi, editor of the English political weekly, the Friday Times. "No statement made under duress can be counted as 100% fact, and you can imagine the conditions under which this confession was made."

Most Pakistanis reacted with horror to news of the Mumbai killing spree starting Wednesday, having lived through equally devastating attacks on their own soil. But that initial sympathy quickly gave way to hostility as the focus of blame landed on Pakistan — a knee-jerk first reaction, rather than one based on any solid evidence. "It is a tragic incident, and we also felt bad about it as Pakistan is going through the same problem," says Abdur Rashid, a 67-year-old retired government servant in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. "But it was really unfortunate to see that even before the operation [to clear out the attackers] was finished, the Indian government stated that Pakistan is involved. It sounds that the entire incident was concocted to punish Pakistan."

Amir Rana, an expert on Pakistani terrorist groups with the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, says he has heard some troubling reports, but says that no accusations should be leveled before a thorough investigation is completed. He cites several recent terrorist attacks in India that were initially blamed on Pakistan, only to have investigations later reveal that the perpetrators wereaggrieved Indian Muslims, and in at least one case, Hindu extremists. Early accusations such as these, he worries, may only impede the close cooperation between the two countries necessary to resolve the issue.

"What we may actually be seeing here is an incident of transnational terrorism," he says. "The ideology is shared across borders, from Pakistan to India to Bangladesh." Terrorists these days are just as likely to meet in Dubai to discuss logistics, or in Katmandu to plan strategies. Training can take place not only in the ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan, but also in Bangladesh, which also faces a mounting challenge from Islamic extremism. Weapons, distributed by a network of arms dealers that supply Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, Indian separatists groups and even Nepal's Maoists, are in easy reach. Neither the weapons, nor the tactics, of the Mumbai attackers point to any one country, says Rana. "For these kinds of attacks there is no need for training camps. There were no heavy weapons or guerilla tactics. The kind of training they needed could have been done in a single room."

Both Rana and Sethi agree that the Indian accusations are more likely to be driven less by evidence than by political imperatives. India is to hold elections in the coming months, and the ruling Congress party has taken a beating over the attacks — rival parties are saying the government was poorly prepared and had not cracked down hard enough on previous terrorist activities. "Elections are coming," says Rana, "So there are internal pressures to blame someone, and to show that it is not the government's fault. Pakistan is the obvious scapegoat."

The scapegoating of Pakistan may backfire, Sethi fears. Up until now, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has taken a keen interest in normalizing relations between the two countries, at great risk to his own standing. India and Pakistan are closer now to an enduring peace than at any point in their 61-year history together. "If anything happens, if India moves troops to the border, or threatens an attack, it could destabilize his government and derail everything," says Sethi.

Still, he hopes that calmer heads prevail, and that the Indian government response is little more than posturing, unlike in 2001 when a December attack on the Indian parliament was attributed to Pakistan, and the two nuclear-armed countries nearly went to war. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has threatened to send Indian troops to the border with Pakistan if solid evidence emerges of Pakistani involvement. In that case, Pakistan would be required to move its own troops from the border with Afghanistan, where they are making headway in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants, to the Indian frontier. "That would play into the hands of these terrorists," says Sethi. "If Pakistan and India start fighting, then the whole focus on the war on terror would be lost, and those militant groups would succeed. That would be tragic."

Asim Javeid, a 23-year-old student in Rawalpindi, agrees. "The Mumbai attack shows that terrorism is a common threat to both India and Pakistan. Unless both countries join hands and take measures to combat terrorism, we will not be able to defeat this curse." Time Magazine.  Mumbai: The Perils of Blaming Pakistan By ARYN BAKER Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008. — With reporting by Ershad Mahmud/Rawalpindi

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PM demands immediate repatriation of Dr.Afia,release of five Pakistani nationals from Guantanamo Bay

ISLAMABAD, Jan 5 (APP): Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani Monday demanded immediate repatriation of Dr. Afia Siddiqi and release of five of its nationals from Guantanamo Bay. Talking to US Assistant Secretary of State for South & Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher at the PM House, the Prime Minister said Dr Afia needs to be repatriated on humanitarian grounds.

Boucher assured to take up the cases of Dr. Afia and five Pakistani nationals in Guantanamo Bay prison with the concerned authorities for their expeditious repatriation.

Prime Minister Gilani informed Boucher on Pakistan’s persistent efforts to defuse the current tension with India and his government’s commitment to take action against any Pakistani national in case credible evidence was provided.

He hoped the new US government would pursue President elect’s initiative to appoint a special envoy to help resolve the outstanding issue of Jammu & Kashmir for lasting peace in the region.

Richard Boucher agreed with the Prime Minister on the need for an early resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

He said once the present crisis was defused and situation normalized, the US Government would move ahead with its initiative to help the two countries find solution of the Kashmir dispute.

Gilani condemned Israeli attack on Gaza that has led to hundreds of innocent civilian casualties and urged the US and the world to play its role for bringing an end to Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.

Boucher apprised the Prime Minister that US Secretary of State was in contact with the important countries as well as with the Middle Eastern leaders to find an early solution to the Gaza crisis.

The Prime Minister also discussed holding of Friends of Pakistan meetings and Donors Conference in the immediate future to help Pakistan overcome its economic difficulties to strengthen government in countering the menace of extremism and terrorism.

He noted that despite the lapse of about three years, the promised legislation by the US Congress on reconstruction opportunities Zones (ROZs) was yet to materialize and hence needs to be expedited.

Similarly the pledged assistance for building the capacity of Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies and Foreign Military Funding for Pakistan’s defence forces need to be fast tracked.

He hoped that Biden-Lugar Bill would be taken up by the new Congress for its swift passage without any conditionalities.

Boucher highlighted the importance of cross border cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan and said the US fully appreciated Pakistan’s difficulties in fight against terror.

He assured the Prime Minister that the US government remained committed to assist Pakistan economically and efforts would also be undertaken to help Pakistan militarily through the new US Congress.

Advisor to PM on National Security, Secretaries Foreign Affairs, Defence and Interior also attended the Meeting.

US Ambassador Ms. Anne W. Patterson was also present in the meeting.

hlhlhk

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Mumbai: Intoxicated India deaf & blind to internal terror. Unable to introspect, resolve its huge race, caste & religious problems

What Are India's Options? "Bomb Islamabad!" That's what a representative of the Samajwadi Party suggested at one of the UPA meetings. But are there serious options that one could look at as a credible response to these terror attacks?   

The terrorist struck just a week after the Al Queda number two, Al Zawahiri, released his latest audio tape saying the election of Barack Obama made no difference to the aims and intent of the Islamists.

That doesn't mean this was an Al Queda operation, but it is possible the response to the attack will benefit AQ and that this was part of the wider agenda of the attackers.

After 9/11 many people said 'We're all Americans now', but for those of a certain bent the phrase was 'We're all Al Queda now'. The franchise of ideas and modus operandi has spread thoughout the wider jihadist movement.

The timing of the attack was perfect. It came just before local elections and during an economically important cricket tournament, and during the American transition period - between the Bush years and Obama's time.

The Indian government cannot afford to be seen to be weak in its response to Mumbai. If so it will be wiped out by the Hindu Nationalist BJP at the next election. But if they can restrain themselves, what happens if there is another attack in the next few weeks? National outrage would be so great - the government would likely fall amid rioting in major cities.

So as well as various diplomatic responses such closing border crossing, cancelling cricket tours and reducing trade - another option open to New Delhi is to move troops to the Pakistan border. This is what happened in 2001/2002 after the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament.

Pakistan responded in kind and a crisis quickly developed with cross border artillery battles and the rattling of nuclear sabres. A powerful Bush administration moved to calm things down but it was a close call, it was almost a full scale war.

If, over the next few weeks, India moves tens of thousands of extra troops to the border Pakistan would be forced to respond. The Pakistani troops would be moved from the North-west Frontier region bordering Afghanistan where they are currently engaged in anti terrorist operations against the Taliban. The USA wants them to stay there as part of its strategy in Afghanistan. So, enter Washington DC. The American government is desperate to restrain India from going too far, whilst at the same time trying to pressure Pakistan to keep taking on the Taliban.

Pakistan is under enormous pressure from America and India, but the diplomatic climate has changed since 2001. Then General Musharraf was President and in almost full control of his military and intelligence officers. Now there is a weak civilian ggovernment in Islamabad, led by President Zardari, and a military and intelligence community which believes it should be calling the shots on issues of national security.

This all adds up to a very dangerous situation in which the American government has to play a calming role at a time when it is in transition and has many other problems to deal with. The young men who carried out the mass murder ion Mumbai may niot have worked all of this out in advance, but its quite possible, those who sent them to kill intended this to end up in a crisis which impacts on America ability to fight Al Queda and the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mumbai, Terrorism And Strategy, Tim MarshallDecember 1, 2008 11:12 AM  

Indian Gujarat woman raped, killed & burned by mobs along with 2000 other innocents under direction of Mr. Modi. The US has refused a via to Mr. Modi the Chief Minister of Gujarat supported by Governo Bobby Jindal Women Genocide in "Incredible India": Women harassed. GENDER MURDER:-10 million baby girls killed before & after birth in India India worse than Barkino Fason on World Hunger Index and

• RAW role in fake India hijacking dramas: Why did India release hijacker Azhar?
• Is Mumbai terror retaliation to India’s Hindu Talibanization or is it part of Hinduist strategy? By Farzana Shah
• Media: Islamabad Marriot vs Mumbai Oberoi terrorism
• Indian threats bring Peace? Militants to fight alongside Pakistan Army

Writing in a post for his blog on The New Yorker, Steve Coll, an old and much respected hand on security affairs in South Asia had something interesting to say about the terrorist attack in Mumbai and the likely reaction from Pakistan. His argument is that the options for India are limited. Simply because the Pakistanis know that they are blessed when it comes to its relevance in geo-politics:

"The Pakistan Army understands this international equation thoroughly and exploits the gaps—it is careful not to expose its direct fingerprints, and yet it is brazenly persistent in pursuit of its objective of military pressure against India in Kashmir and political-military pressure on India more broadly."

So what are the options that India can exercise in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack?

If the politicians are to be believed, there was a lot of sabre rattling at two meetings held by the government on Sunday, November 30 night. While the all-party meet called by the government was a more sedate affair, an earlier meeting organised exclusively for the UPA and its allies, held in Parliament was more telling. A representative of the Samajwadi Party is said to have suggested that this was a good time to "bomb Islamabad!"

Fine. Let's bomb Islamabad, assuming we have the capability to do so and that the frontline aircraft of the Indian Air force are all serviceable, the MiG-21s ready to escort the bombers, and we can launch a full-scale military attack by penetrating the secure skies over Islamabad and then bomb it back to the stone age. 

But are we really ready for a war? 

Are we ready for the fallout when two nuclear nations go to war? Are we ready for destroying everything that we have built in the last decade and a half? Are we prepared for rolling back our consistent 9 percent growth story and undertake hardships that several generations of Indians have never seen?

All this must be weighed before we take on the job of rattling our sabres. We did that once, post December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament. What did we really achieve from that 11-month old stand off with the Pakistanis? We stood on the border and they stood on the border, eyeball to eyeball, and we finally sent the forces back to the bunkers after that. But not before we had spent something to the tune of Rs 6000 crores (the official figures put it at a much lower figure pegging it a few hundred crores) and lost many precious lives of our soldiers, who stepped on mines not mapped, or tried to clear mines with bare hands while our bureaucrats held back critical mine clearing equipment.

Our air force, sanctioned 39.5 combat squadrons, is down to 30 off squadrons, our armoured corps doesn't have the tanks to roll in, our infantry is horribly tied up in counter-insurgency operations, our soldiers and officers are poorly paid and cheated in pay commission after pay commission, while we talk about "bombing Islamabad."

But there are options that one could look at as a credible response to these terror attacks. 

.....

The international outrage that has emerged after the terrorist attack is an opportunity that rarely presents itself in a nation's history. This is the time to forge partnerships with all those willing to work with us.

Intelligence cooperation has already been ramped up (the first warning for the current attack came from the Americans) and there are other diplomatic measures that are already underway. But, this is also the time to build partnerships with those elements in Pakistan who recognise the fact that the idea of Pakistan is in greater danger than from these terrorists than its declared enemies.

This is the time to look for partnerships in intelligence gathering -- not just the non-functional anti terror mechanism that was set up earlier, but a mechanism that produces hard, actionable intelligence that can be put to good use. This is the time to look at joint covert operations against terrorists and their infrastructure simply because this is a job that the Pakistanis cannot do on their own. The Americans, the British and the NATO forces are already in the region and this is as good a time as any to build partnerships with them.

Perhaps a partnerships sounds too utopian and unrealistic, a diplomatic impossibility in times of rhetoric. But look at the facts. There is no terror attack that can bend a nation as resilient as India. It has an innate strength that will ensure that the good news story, that India was, will continue to hold true.

A lot will have to be done to weed out the systemic failures in our security apparatus. It is not about "intelligence failure" and as this case has shown, our intelligence actually produced good stuff. By calling it "intelligence failure" we are trivialising the discussion to a level that is insulting to our counter-terror mechanism as well as security apparatus. Instead, we have to realise that systemic faults have to be addressed systematically. The overhaul, if the political leadership is willing, will have to happen over months, and perhaps years. But if politics goes back to the usual set of empty promises, the usual rhetoric and the usual coteries, that will be an attack on the very idea of India itself. And the time to act, is now. Saikat Datta

India is slightly better than Haiti. It is the hungriest in South Asia
Red Nepal: Clear and present danger to India
Chilled Urine drinking hot in India. Gandhi to PM Desai. Fareed Zakaria on the farce of Indian "Democracy"
Why did Buddhism disappear from South Asia? Reviving Hinduism in Budhdist lands: The Hindu extremists use the Safron Swastika flag instead of the tri-colored flag of India. (see Hindu unity dot org)

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- India blamed “elements” from Pakistan for last week’s deadly Mumbai terror attacks and told its neighbor to match its words of cooperation with “strong action” to build a “qualitative new relationship.”

The attacks that began Nov. 26 and ended three days later have threatened to derail peace talks between the two nuclear- armed neighbors. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Nov. 27 said India will “go after” individuals and organizations behind the assault, while Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said his government will act, provided there’s evidence.

“It was conveyed to the Pakistan High Commissioner that Pakistan’s actions needed to match the sentiments conveyed by its leadership,” Vishnu Prakash, India’s foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters today in New Delhi.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over the Kashmir region, which is divided between them and claimed in full by both countries. The two nations came to the brink of a fourth war in 2002, though some analysts said the latest incident may not bring tensions to that level.

“Indian and Pakistan political leaders are wiser after the experience of 2002,” said New Delhi-based C. Uday Bhaskar, a defense analyst and former director of the Institute for Defense Studies & Analyses. Statements by the Indian officials are “carefully nuanced where attention is drawn to elements in Pakistan” without “casting aspersions on the Pakistani state.”

The assault on two luxury hotels, a cafe, a rail station and a Jewish center killed 195 people, including 22 foreigners, and was the deadliest in 15 years in Hindu-majority India.

Pakistan Training Alleged

The outlawed Lashkar-i-Taiba, a Kashmiri guerilla group alleged to have carried out the attacks, still operates training camps for militants inside Pakistan and has expanded its membership, the Washington Post reported yesterday, citing Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only suspected terrorist caught by the police, told interrogators that 24 people were trained in Pakistan over the course of a year, 10 of whom were picked for the Mumbai operation, the Times of India reported today, citing unidentified people.

Kasab said the terrorists were trained by a former soldier in seven phases, including the use of weapons and ammunition and such physical activity as diving, running and swimming, the newspaper reported, citing the unidentified people.

The two nations ended their fifth round of talks between home secretaries in New Delhi on Nov. 26, just before the attacks began that evening. They resolved to cooperate with each other to combat terrorism and take “severe action” against any elements.

Peace Talks

India says the success of the peace talks that started in 2003 depends on Pakistan ending alleged support for cross-border terrorism in the part of Kashmir under Indian control and taking steps to combat militants.

Pakistan and India should work together in the wake of the terrorist attacks and not allow the incident to spur new antagonism between them, Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, told CNN yesterday. “Non-state actors” were forcing their agenda and Pakistan’s government “will cooperate with India in exposing and apprehending the culprits” behind the attacks, Zardari said on Nov. 28.

The U.S. doesn’t believe Pakistan’s government was involved in the attacks, and the Bush administration trusts Pakistan to investigate the issue, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters today. “We have no reason not to” trust Pakistan “right now,” she said.

Pakistan Meeting

Pakistan’s political leaders will meet tomorrow to discuss security policy. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will head the meeting to assess the regional situation, according to Zahid Bashir, the Pakistani premier’s press secretary.

The biggest opposition group, the Pakistan Muslim League faction headed by former premier Nawaz Sharif, which split from the Pakistan Peoples Party-led coalition government in August, will attend the meeting, party spokesman Siddiq-ul-Farooq said.

Gilani canceled a trip to Hong Kong, where he was to attend the Clinton Global Initiative summit starting tomorrow, to focus on addressing growing tensions with India, Bashir has said.

The 60-hour killing spree by less than a dozen terrorists underscores the failure of India’s police force to keep pace with better armed, equipped and trained militants, a former intelligence agent said.

“That system has collapsed,” said Vikram Sood, former director of India’s foreign intelligence agency, known as the Research and Analysis Wing. “Police are overworked, understaffed and undertrained.”

At least 20 officers, including the head of the Maharashtra state Anti-Terrorism Squad, were among almost 200 people killed in the gun and grenade attacks. India Tells Pakistan to Match Its Words With ‘Action’ on Terror By Bibhudatta Pradhan and Pratik Parija  To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net; Pratik Parija in New Delhi at pparija@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: December 1, 2008 12:01 EST

Indian penury: The reality vs. the Bollywood marketing gloss:
India as World Power 1 Extremist Hindus show power using the Swastika in triple entendre--as an ancient Hindu symbol, reverence for Hitler and sign of Anti-Western Indian power Superpower India Pt 2 Extremist Hindus revere Hitler and use the Swastika as the Indian flag
How long to extripate penury from india? 300 years!India's budget-- fit for a superpower Murder of 10 million Indian girl babies:Before or right after birth. The media is silent.

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After Truce: Israel Gambles with Palestinian Blood

Today the global terrorist nations, pretending to be the democracies, have pounded the Islamic world. Israel does not want to give up the stolen lands of the Palestinians and hence it keeps killing them. After celebrating the 60 anniversary of Israel on Palestinian lands, Israel has also celebrated the New Year 2009 with terrorist bombardments in Palestine.

In the globalizing world, the external war mongers for domestic political purposes are feeling quite safe and comfortable. UN and UNSC, the ICJ in The Hague are silent about US genocides in Afghanistan, Iraq and else where, Indian genocides in Kashmir and Israeli genocide in Palestine; in stead of pulling out by force the Israeli political and military leadership, and members of armed forces to bring the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, the world bodies play silent observers role with occasional comments. This promotes state terrorism by anti-Islamic nations, world wide.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire in June. Israel wants the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and is extremely wary of becoming embroiled in a military operation in Gaza with no clear exit strategy. Hamas needed the truce to relieve the catastrophic economic strain imposed by the Israeli siege and to consolidate its control over Gaza. And so, for very different reasons, the two sides found themselves negotiating — not directly, because neither side recognizes the other — but through an Egyptian mediator. But in the past few weeks the cease-fire has all but broken down.
The violence began days after a six-month truce expired between Israel and Hamas, and as Israel was preparing for a general election in February. The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, has called for a new intifada, or uprising, against Israel, while the movement's Gaza leader, Ismail Haniya, called the attack an "ugly massacre".  Earlier, a raid destroyed a science building at the Islamic University in Gaza.Analysts said this was the single deadliest day in Gaza since Israel's occupation of the territory in 1967; although no independent confirmation is available of the numbers killed.

State Terrorists do Justify

As the truce came to an abrupt end, as per the US-Israel agenda, the two leading candidates to become Israel's next prime minister, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu have vowed if elected to topple the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, in Gaza. And the Israeli tanks and infantry have entered Gaza after nightfall on Jan 3 Saturday, launching a ground offensive that the military said would be “lengthy operation” in a widening war on Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Iran or any other Islamic nation cared not to stop the Israeli misadventure by force, but only try diplomatically. 

The Israeli government is actively misleading the public, since Israel could have put an end to the rockets a long time ago. Indeed, there was relative quiet during the six-month truce with Hamas, a quiet that was broken most often as a reaction to Israeli violence: that is, following the extra-judicial execution of a militant or the imposition of a total blockade which prevented basic goods, like food stuff and medicine, from entering the Gaza Strip.

Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu, whose right-wing Likud party is currently ahead in the polls, meanwhile called for a more "active policy of attack", accusing the current government of being too "passive" and he wants quick wars in Palestine and finish off Hamas.  "In the long-term, the toppling of the Hamas regime is inevitable." Israeli security officials said the operation was likely to go on for several days, but that the objective was not to reoccupy Gaza. Israel has massed forces along the border and has declared the area around the narrow coastal strip a "closed military zone". The US refused to back a Libyan-drafted demand for an immediate truce.

The US terror ally, Israel has warned that its "all-out war" on Hamas could last for weeks. It has massed tanks on the Gaza border, authorized the call-up of 9,000 reservists and warned of a ground invasion. The Jewish state has called up tens of thousands of reservists and the military's chief spokesman estimated the operation in the Hamas-run territory could take "many long days". Humanitarian agencies said the plight of the 1.5 million Palestinians crammed into the Gaza Strip is growing more desperate. People have taken shelter in their homes for days and water, food and medical supplies are running short. Palestinian president & PLO chief Mahmud Abbas threatened to abandon peace talks with Israel so as not to support its deadly "aggression" against Gaza.

It is no surprise that USA supports another state terrorism in Islamic world, but what is stunning is the fact the Islamic world, especially the Arab nations, have taken the greatest Israeli terrorism in Palestine as a usual thing and carry on with their usual business with the western countries. On Jan 03 at least 10,000 people packed London's Trafalgar Square in the biggest of a series of rallies at home and abroad demanding an end to the military action. French President Nicolas Sarkozy will travel to Egypt, Israel and the West Bank on Jan05.

Perpetual terrorism

It has become a routine matter that Palestinians are killed according to a US-Israel scheme so that the Jews continue to occupy and expand it stolen territories in Palestine.. As Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Western-backed Palestinian president Abbas are on the way out of office, both Israel and Palestine are going to have poll to elect their respective leaders soon.

Actually, an ally of all-powerful Israel does not need any specific cause to terror attack Palestine. Now Israel talks about a hidden mission. Israeli general elections are likely to be held on 17 February 2009. With foreign minister Tzipi Livni sitting on his right and defence minister Ehud Barak on his left, he declared: "It may take time, and each and every one of us must be patient so we can complete the mission." Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Israel was not fighting the people of Gaza but was in "a war to the bitter end" with Hamas, which has ruled it since 2007. Livni insisted that Israel does not intend a wholesale takeover of Gaza, which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. "Our goal is not to reoccupy" the strip, she said.

Rather than continuing the truce, the Israeli government has once again chosen to adopt strategies of state terrorism, very akin to India terrorism in Kashmir or US terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Only, the Israeli ones are much more lethal. In just three minutes and 40 seconds, sixty Israeli F-16 fighter jets bombed 50 sites in Gaza, killing more than 200 Palestinians, and wounding close to 1,000 more.

Olmert has never publicly disclosed the terms he discussed with Abbas, but sources say he went well beyond what Israel agreed to at the Camp David talks of 2000, previously the closest approach to a deal. I'm told Olmert offered to support the groundbreaking concession of allowing thousands of Palestinian refugees to "return" to Israel over a period of years; he also agreed to divide Jerusalem between Israel and Palestine. Abbas, like Yasser Arafat at Camp David, refused to sign on to a compromise that the world would have hailed.

Earlier, Olmert badly miscalculated in launching the 2006 offensive against Hezbollah. Gaza has cost many lives and subject Israel to another round of international opprobrium while distracting attention from the more serious threat of Iran. Despite his bold intentions, Olmert proved unwilling or unable to stand up to the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank; his government failed to dismantle even those outposts it has repeatedly declared illegal. Israel's new battle with Hamas in Gaza means that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be remembered for fighting two bloody and wasteful mini-wars in less than three years in power. The first one, in Lebanon during the summer of 2006, punished but failed to defeat or even permanently injure Hezbollah, which is politically and militarily stronger today than it was before Olmert took office. This one will probably have about the same effect on Hamas, which almost certainly will still control Gaza, and retain the capacity to strike Israel.

As it stands now, Israel considers its prerogative to terror attack Palestine and kill innocent people there, including old people, women and children. None has the authority to halt the anti-Islamic brutality.

Islamic Tragedy?
Today Muslims are seen no better than their counterparts in other religions, Christianity, Judaism or Hinduism. They lie, cheat, terrorize, kill, torture, engaged in all sorts of nefarious activities as other shameless do in democracies and autocracies.

Today the anti-Islamic forces, cutting across their religious colors, have placed a perpetual siege of Muslims and threatened Islam. There are so many Islamic nations under foreign occupation and brutality culminating in regular genocide and UN and UNSC are controlled by non-Muslim states that also behave like anti-Islamic nations. Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya are most important among them.

Israeli terrorism in Palestine showcases the will of anti-Islamic nations to attack and kill innocent Muslims freely. It vindicates the notion that neo-imperialist trends dictate terms to the divided Muslim world. The way the UN, UNSC watch the show by getting information form Tel Aviv about the emerging political trends in Israel.

Muslim countries, their governments, their leaders, officials, other agents take bribes and promote that malicious practices quite voluntarily. Tony Blair lost his premiership mainly owing to serious corruption scandal involving Saudi officials in dealing with contracts. Look at this! Saudi Arabia is the land from where Islam originated and many sacred valuables including Two Holy Mosques. They also promote corruption against equality of opportunities against Islam. They promote the occupation of anti-Islamic forces in Makkah and Madina.
Only difference is that many Muslims do pray to gain God’ sympathies and support as well for whatever atrocious things they perform, on their own or under pressure from other religious forces on payment basis. They don’t even know their prayers have been spoiled by the anti-Islamic forces by taking their bribes.

Arabs seem to be playing some hidden game. Hamas called on Arab and Islamic countries "to unite and stop this aggression, lift the siege, open the crossings and rebuild Gaza." Meanwhile, UK premier Gordon Brown has called for an urgent ceasefire amid the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza. Britain is donating £5 million towards humanitarian aid in the crisis-stricken region. The Quartet of Mideast peacemakers - the United States, the United Nations, the EU and Russia - has called on Israel and Hamas to implement an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and southern Israel.

The Israeli action has sparked anger across the Arab world. Protests have been held in countries including Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, as well as in a number of European capitals. At the UN, the Security Council joined international calls for restraint by urging an end to all violence between Israel and Gaza. Israel remains undeterred. Hamas government has vowed to fight "until the last breath" if Israel makes good on threats to send ground troops into Gaza after rejecting calls for a truce and pressing on with its air assault. In a defensive and defiant televised speech, the head of the Hamas government, Ismail Haniya, vowed Israel would be defeated. "We in Hamas are ready for all scenarios and we will fight until the last breath," senior official Mushir al-Masri said as warplanes pounded Gaza for a fifth day and the Palestinian enclave's Islamist rulers hit back with rockets.

Islamic world is yet to take common stand, if at all they want, on the issue foreign invasions and genocide of Muslims. Islamic world is yet make an honest attempt to ensure food security for every Muslims in the world. Unfortunately, Muslims seek guidance and solace in other religions around. It is not a surprise that all anti-Islamic nations, their media re against Muslims, but what is shocking is the fact, rather crude, that even many Muslims are also against Islam. That is problem the Islamic world is facing now.

Not by Resolutions alone

All these years of UNSC resolutions and peace efforts have only made Israel a state terrorist with Western support and aids. The recent Israeli terrorism was also well timed because of the political vacuum in the U.S. In Washington, officials have been urging Israel to refrain from an invasion or other operations in Gaza during the White House transition. The air attack on Gaza has shattered that hope. The saddest aspect of all this is that Olmert, a former hard-line believer in a "greater Israel," was more committed than any previous Israeli prime minister to ending the country's conflicts with Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians. Thrust into office in January 2006 by the incapacitation of Ariel Sharon, Olmert won his own mandate by promising to unilaterally withdraw Israeli soldiers and settlers from most of the West Bank. In the end all Olmert got was U.N. Resolution 1850, passed Dec. 16, that endorsed a two-state solution without any specifics. Olmert may well go to prison on the corruption charges that have forced him from office. In order to gain sympathy of the hawkish Israeli politicians Olmert has launched, perhaps the last, terrorist operation on defenseless Palestinians.
However, Olmert is doing exactly what other Jewish leaders have done in the past; genocides in Palestine. The first round of latest attacks took the toll of five days of air strikes to 400 plus, mostly civilians, and nearly 2,000 wounded. The UNSC draft resolution "strongly condemns all military attacks and the excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by Israel, the occupying power, which have led to the death and injury of scores of innocent Palestinian civilians, including women and children." It also "calls for an immediate ceasefire and for its full respect by both sides.."

International criticism of the offensive has increased steadily, but Israel maintains the offensive is aimed at stopping the rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza that have traumatized southern Israel. On Jan 03, Arab nations once again demanded that the UNSC, a known notorious organization, call for an immediate cease-fire following Israel's launch of a ground offensive in Gaza, a view echoed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. observer told reporters. Mansour said 3,000 Palestinians have been killed and injured since Israeli warplanes starting bombing Gaza a week ago. More than 480 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and four killed in Israel.. Ban reiterated his call for an immediate cease-fire and urged regional and international partners "to exert all possible influence to bring about an immediate end to the bloodshed and suffering”. The secretary-general said the Israeli ground operation is complicating efforts by the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the U.N., the U.S., the European Union and Russia — to end the violence. France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert who is also the incumbent president of UNSC since Jan..1 echoed Ban asked to go back to the political track. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delayed his arrival until Tuesday so he can meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the West Bank.
The bombardment has raised concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, a tiny, aid-dependent territory of 1.5 million people that has been crippled by Israel’s blockade. The Red Cross said a breadline queue in driving rain at the only bakery in a refugee camp at Gaza’s Jabalya stretched back 300 meters (yards). Since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, some 6,500 tones of aid have been transferred at the request of international organizations, the Palestinian Authority and various governments, the defense ministry said. Several Arab (Islamic) countries cancelled New Year's Eve festivities in solidarity with Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, celebrations, low-key at the best of times, were particularly subdued.

The 15-member council then met behind closed doors to discuss a proposed presidential statement that would also call for all parties to address the humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza, including by opening border crossings. The five permanent council members — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China — along with Libya, the only Arab nation on the council, then met privately to discuss possibly issuing another press statement. Ban telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and said he was disappointed that Israel launched a ground offensive and "alarmed that this escalation will inevitably increase the already heavy suffering" of Palestinian civilians, "We need to have from the Security Council reaction tonight to bring this latest addition of aggression against our people in Gaza to an immediate halt."

Israeli leaders bluff. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni justified Israel’s rejection of a truce in the fighting in Gaza because the humanitarian situation is not dire. In an interview with the US television channel ABC, she said the overthrow of Hamas "is not the goal of the current operation, but at the end of the day, Gaza controlled by Hamas is a problem to Israel, a problem to the Palestinians and a problem to the entire region." Defence Minister Ehud Barak underlined that Israel was "determined to enlarge and deepen" the scope of its military operation "until we have achieved the objectives we have set for ourselves." As a result, there was no let-up in the violence in Palestine. Israel said that among the targets hit was a mosque in Gaza City.
But Olmert is not the only one to blame. President Bush hosted a Mideast peace meeting in Annapolis last year but never fully invested himself in Olmert's attempt to negotiate with Abbas. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to the region 16 times in 21 months but proved feckless as a broker. Arab states proclaimed their commitment to peace with Israel as part of a two-state settlement but were unwilling to take any tangible action to make it happen. Then, a dramatist Bush quickly kept himself away for the state resolution and slammed Hamas in order to dislocate the mission.

Why terrorism now?

Pressed by USA, Israel sent terror troops into Gaza, killing thousands already. Emphasizing the mere three minutes and 40 seconds it took to bomb 50 sites is just one of the ways the Israeli military aims to restore its international reputation. Of course, Israel has demonstrated efficacy of its weapons systems and in a way invited global quotations for orders. From 1967 Israel's military occupied the Gaza Strip and Jewish settlers built communities within the territory. Israel withdrew in 2005 but has kept tight control over access in and out of Gaza and its airspace. Attacks over the Gaza-Israel border regularly put the truce under strain with both sides blaming each other for unprovoked violations.

Even after killing about 3000 innocent Palestinians, Israel still has dismissed international calls for a 48-hour halt to its Gaza offensive as unrealistic, even as French diplomats had called for the suspension to give Hamas a chance to halt their rocket fire. Thousands of ground troops, backed by tanks and artillery, were in position along the border and Israeli aircraft have kept up a relentless string of air-strikes with the most recent raids smashing a government complex, security installations and the home of a top militant commander.

But what exactly is Israel's mission? USA and government officials in Tel Aviv just bluff claiming the attempt to halt the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel's southern towns as the only objective and the USA supports that argument. If the Israeli government really cared about its citizens and the country's long term ability to sustain itself in the Middle East, it would abandon the use of violence and talk with its enemies.

Reasons could several but all point to the killing of Palestinians. Ever since the ratings of the Kadima fell low against the Likud party, Tel Aviv was preparing for Gaza operation since June 08. Supported by the Republican Party, Israel is keen to have Obama sucked in the new problem in Mideast.  In terms of election-politics, Israeli attack on Gaza may have boosted politicians’ ratings in Tel Aviv but has left President Abbas a political orphan. Israeli terrorism has exposed the nasty behavior of the western world preaching respect for human rights and international law.
It appears, the "mission" includes a few distinct objectives. The first is the destruction of Hamas, a totally unrealistic goal. Hamas is a robust political movement with widespread grassroots support, and it is unlikely to surrender or capitulate to Israeli demands following a military assault. Ironically, Israel's attempt to destroy Hamas using military force has always ended up strengthening the organization, thus corroborating the notion that power produces its own vulnerability.

Israel does not want the new Obama administration to continue with Palestine issue, supporting its genuine cause. His failure represents another missed opportunity for Middle East peace -- and probably means that the incoming Obama administration, like the incoming Bush administration of 2001, will inherit both a new round of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed and a new Israeli government indisposed to compromise. The front-runner for prime minister in the Israeli election scheduled for February is Binyamin Netanyahu, who aspires to indefinitely postpone Palestinian statehood -- and to use military force against the Iranian nuclear program. If Netanyahu is elected, Barack Obama will be more likely to preside over a crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations than a Middle East peace.

Another objective has to do with Israel's coming elections. Kadima Party wants to project itself as the terrorist party dealing with Hamas sternly. This would send out signals needed for poll prospectus of the party trailing behind the Likud leader Netanyahu in the opinion polls. Livni and Barak would gain upper h and in the population for a PM's slot. The assault on Gaza is also being carried out to help Kadima and Labour defeat Likud and its leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who is currently ahead in the polls. It is not coincidental that Netanyahu's two main competitors, Livni and Barak, were invited to the press conference – since, after the assault, it will be more difficult for Netanyahu to characterize them as "soft" on the Palestinians. The third objective involves the Israeli military. After its notable humiliation in Lebanon during the summer of 2006, the IDF has been looking for opportunities to re-establish its global standing. Last spring it used Syria as its laboratory and now it has decided to focus on Gaza.
If US-Israel combine challenges the Islamic or other UNSC-5 members to fight with Israeli forces, there is some point; Islamic world will not and cannot fight with USA. UNSC won’t support any Islamic nation.
If the US-Israel are trying level best to provoke Iran to retaliate to Israeli terror strikes on Palestine, that makes some sense, but Iran can wait for a few more weeks now in stead of sending scuds to Israel now.

Also, Hamas and Fatah have not yet reached any agreement regarding how to proceed when Mahmoud Abbas ends his official term as president of the Palestinian National Authority on January 9. One of the outcomes of this assault is that Abbas would remain in power for a while longer since Hamas will be unable to mobilize its supporters in order to force him to resign.

Post-script

India has been watching the Israeli brutalities to learn new tactics to kill Kashmiris. If a country has power and enough weapons and the support of UNSC-5 members, it can do any havoc on any nation, not necessarily Islamic. Israel has al these three favors and it terrorizes Palestinians, adding more casualties every day, while USA fuels the conflict with anti-Palestine and pro-Israeli statements.
Israel is one of those countries amazing weapons arsenals at the cost of living standards of the people. Some 40 percent Israelis are living below one dollar a day, but Israel has amazed weapons toilets at their expense and kill the innocent Palestinians to keep the Jews in good humors, as India has been doing in Kashmir. Indian strategists keenly observe the development possibly to apply the Israeli logic in Kashmir.
Expansionist Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will have left office in month’s time with thousands of new homes for Jewish settlers under construction in occupied territories belonging to Palestine. Olmert, like Ehud Barak eight years ago, will end his term as prime minister by bombing rather than liberating Palestinians. Another Israeli terror attack and another set of mass funerals for Palestinians demanding their lands now occupied illegally by US friend Israel.

But the powerful world is unserious. A stubborn and arrogant Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet conditions were not yet ripe to halt the bombardment, launched in response to persistent rocket fire from the territory that Hamas has run for a year and a half. It looks Israel has embarked on a veritable adventure and it would be deadly for the Jews if Israel decides to invade Gaza. All efforts by various sources to obtain peace in Mideast have ended in a draw with abetting Israeli terrorism in Palestine. Indeed, even as the Israelis say the operation is continuing, Egypt was among the diplomatic casualties. Cairo had played host to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Dec. 25. Like Bush, she took the opportunity only to criticize Hamas for its rocket attacks. The silence of her Egyptian hosts is now being seen by Palestinians as indirect collusion with Israel, damaging Cairo's ability to play mediator.

Furthermore, although in the contest for primacy between Hamas and Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas, as the victim of this episode, emerges as the victor in the eyes of Arabs and Palestinians. Already, elements of Abbas' own Fatah Party, the bulwark of the PA, are campaigning against the security cooperation with Israel and talking about boycotting meetings with the Jewish state. But one cannot take their assertions seriously enough.
It is high time UN and UNSC and other relevant world bodies come out with a proposal to separate polls from state terrorism. UN and UNSC prove themselves to be the most notorious of all organizations and nations.  It would be a challenge for Obama to uphold his election promises of resolving Palestine and Kashmir issues for permanent peace in the regions. Tel Aviv following Delhi’s Kashmir policy is on its way to deprive 1.3 million Gazans caged in 328 square kilometers of their legitimate rights. However, history shows that like Bush-Olmert Georgia misadventure, Gaza will also fail because following Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir and FATA world wants change. Gaza will liberate Palestine. Israel perhaps thinks Palestinian blood is very cheap. Perhaps it will soon realize that it very costly and it will have to pay a heavy price for Islamic blood.

The Arab peace plan remains a document only for references. Bush has made a mockery of his own peace efforts by denouncing Palestinians and praising Jews in Israel last year celebrating the 60 anniversary of Israel, sincewhen thousands of Palestinians have been killed. This writer had put forward a suggestion for the Islamic world in general and Arab nations in particular, to consider establishing an Islamic Security Organization ISO), or Arab Security Organization (ASO) with the participation of all like-minded Muslim nations to defend the genuine interests of Muslim world and global Muslims. It is shocking that Islamic world has not yet comprehended the truth that they are under seige of a very serious nature from anti-Islamic forces, and the terrorism plank they ahve promoted thus far could ruin them all, if the Muslims still refuse to wake up.     DR.ABDUL RUFF Colachal Columnist & Independent Researcher in World Affairs