Failed state das.

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Its a peculiar type of skewered perverse arrogance which on the one hand will not accept the minuscule Indian aid offered for the recent flood victims, but does officially desire dialogue with India on all matters of regional bilateral coexistence. But surely this little gesture of hostility towards an act of generosity by India tells us enough....enough to state to us that there is little point in engaging with such a state.

Finally the Firingi Kafir master run by Jews orders Pakistan to accept the Indian aid, and Pakistan immediately complies......the indignity and stupidity of these Punjabi Harijans who run Pakistan.

The "Strategic depth" Harijan Punjab military is the main fault for all this mess. The mess of the economy. The mess of Zardari in power. The mess of terrorism which creates instability and a poor perception of the state. The mess of endless wars against its own people by the Pakistani military, and a by an alien power from the other side of the world.

In his dream for "Strategic Depth" The stupid Harijan military have forgotten all the other essentials of the state, and thus Pakistan in all matters is both a failed State and wholly neglected. The Harijan Punjab military failed to notice where the dream of "strategic Depth" originally came from.......Firingi Kafir USA. They never gave it a second thought why the USA would suggest such a fine idea to Pakistan. Just as India never wonders why the USA would wish to make India into the next "Superpower".

HOW CAN BOTH BE COMPATIBLE, IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN, BACKED BY THE USA? Harijans chasing after elusive unattainable dreams.

No Harijan led power has dominated Afghanistan. It was part of Ashoks empire, and the Mughals, but never dominated by Harijans from the Punjab. This historical fact will not change. Iran, Russia along with India will not allow the Taliban to gain ascendancy in Afghanistan, and they have far greater resources than Pakistan ever will. The Americans after 10 years of fighting are not interested in seeing the Taliban back into power in Afghanistan.......for them it would rightly be seen as a defeat. Morally and rationally the medieval Taliban should not be allowed back into power in Afghanistan, pulling the country bizarrely backwards.

The only country Pakistan can rely on supporting its "strategic depth" policy through the Taliban is the UK. But the UK is a country with limitations, who thus single handedly can't deliver a Taliban Afghanistan for Harijan Punjabis to Lord over.

And so the Harijan Punjabi military must force himself to be more realistic, after playing the imperial game for 2 decades, wasting billions of $. In the pursuit of elusive dreams the Harijan Punjabi military must not destroy Pakistan in the process.

The alliance with the USA is hurting Pakistan at many levels.

Abdul Qadir the barber in Sargodha, with no "Strategic Depth" knowledge can grasp this simple fact by applying simple village common sense, and by looking around him as a common everyday Pakistani.

Jewish America throws $10-15 billion at Pakistan, but the real cost to the country of participating in America's wars could be between $50--70 billion since 2001. This alliance with the USA is illogical. Pakistan has alternative options with China, and even India. Does not make sense for more and more military bases in Baluchistan and Sindh being handed over to the Americans....what for?

The Harijans in the Punjab military must find courage to stand up for their country and ultimately their military.

The old Iraqi military from 1921, and the old Afghan military from the Durranis of Ahmed Shah Abdali from 1750 do not exist anymore.......they are disintegrated. The Afghan military is a Tajik military now, and in Iraq it is a Shia military with very little effective power UNDER AMERICAN OCCUPATION.

In Pakistan, under American occupation there will be a Pashtun military linked to Afghanistan, a Baluch military, a Sindhi military and a rumb Punjabi military excluded from the other provinces........this is what the crystal ball says...the eventuality under the guidance of the Kafir, Jewish dominated USA.

The USA is in many respects a revolutionary power with no deference to history or TRADITION. It moulds the world according to its wishes and perception, as the sole hyper power....be it through a Jewish lens or otherwise. This is interesting and can be beneficial depending on your point of view. Cultivating Nasser and Saddam Hussein in the late 1940's and 1950's....and the mullahs of Iran in the 1950's.....Ho Chi Min in Vietnam from the 1940's......and Fidel Castro from the 1950's.......the Jewish Soviet Bolsheviks from 1917 in the former Imperial Russia.

I look at the Raj Punjab Police force (Pakistan military) with its British colonial heritage, and am certain it too will be "remoulded" by the Americans, but in the process they may well destroy the state of Pakistan created by the departing British Raj. The USA is not beholden to British Raj policy, it has its own perceptions. But the irony lies in the fact that it is the Pakistan military which is assisting in the destruction of their own country, pure and simple.

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Who Really Controls Shahbaz Air Base?(Question: who controls Pakistan?....the Pakistan military)

From therearenosunglasses.com

• Both US And PAF Are Responsible For Flood Relief Hurdles
• Aid workers confirm they can’t reach half a million victims due to a US-related security cordon
• Jacobabad cut off from the rest of the country

Pakistan Air Force arranged a hurriedly organized media tour yesterday to prove that the base is not under US control. But this does not appear to be the whole truth. Over the past eight years, PAF offered and withdrew different types of facilities to US military at the base. The Americans used the base mostly for logistical purposes and not to stage direct attacks against targets in Afghanistan or inside Pakistan’s northwestern region. But there were times when the number of US personnel at the base crossed 200, including special-forces operatives. According GlobalSecurity.org, Pakistani newspaper Daily Times claimed on 10 March 2004 that the airbase was under US control, “with an inner ring of facilities off-limits to Pakistan’s military,” according to the paper. But in August 2010, there is credible information that new special residential barracks for US personnel have been constructed. Unfortunately, Pakistan has accepted to house US personnel who will ensure the country’s doesn’t ‘misuse’ the new F-16s. So despite PAF’s – and US Embassy’s – sharp reaction, it is clear there is some merit to the statement of Federal Health Secretary Kamran Lashari that US presence at the base is preventing using the base for flood relief operations. Another related issue is the level of Pakistani involvement in CIA drone attacks inside Pakistan that have killed a huge number of innocent Pakistanis and turned Pakistani citizens against their country. [PakNationalists.com]

By: Kaswar Klasra | Published: August 20, 2010
The Nation.

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan–The floods have not only shown the ineptitude of the Pakistan government but also the confusion that prevails within government institutions.

(No it is not civilian ineptitude. The Pakistan military is the ultimate controller of this situation. The civilians don't have the power or the authority to challenge this, so the federal minister resorted to the only avenue he could think of to expose this.......he revealed the truth to the public)

On Wednesday the Federal Health Secretary informed a Senate Panel that Jacobabad air base was under the US control so health relief operations could not be provided.

On Thursday, the PAF through APP issued a strange press release stating that “certain sections of the print and electronic media have wrongly reported that the PAF Base Shahbaz (Jacobabad) is under the control of the US. This has been spread by uninformed people”. So was the PAF referring to Federal Health Secretary Khushnood Lashari as “uninformed? After all, it was he who gave out the information about the Base being under the US control and to a Senate Panel.

(Exactly.....clear case in point )

While the PAF stated that Shahbaz Base was under complete command and control of the PAF and was being used extensively for providing relief and medical care to the affected people of the area, the US embassy had already issued another interesting response to the Khshnood Lashari’s claim. On Thursday, the US press note issued from Embassy of US in Islamabad stated that Shahbaz Air Base in Jacobabad is a Pakistan Air Force Base and is commanded and operated by PAF forces. The base is home to Pakistan’s newest F-16 Block 52s, which arrived this summer. PAF personnel maintain high security standards there to ensure that the technologically advanced aircraft can be securely maintained and operated from the base. On August 18, at the request of the Pakistan government, US Air Force C-130 aircraft flew to Shahbaz Air Base from the Pakistan Air Force Base in Rawalpindi bringing urgently needed relief supplies for Jacobabad.

What was left unsaid was that it was the PAF that was denying all manner of access to the airbase because of the presence of US personnel who had come along with the Block 52 F-16s, which were delivered at this base and had US conditions attached to the delivery of the planes, including the presence of US personnel to “keep an eye” on how the planes were used by the PAF. While the PAF was responsible for the security of the base, it was the pressure from the US on security grounds that was preventing access to the base-even for Pakistanis who had been involved in carrying out building work at Shahbaz.

So, it appears that both the US military and the PAF together are responsible for the relief work hurdles as news from the ground shows that the hurdles are very much there. Hopes are fading away to provide food and clean drinking water to 500,000 to 700,000 people who have been displaced from Jacobabad, Thul, Kandhkot, Kashmore Ghouspur and Karumpur (currently camping in Dera Allah Yar) as Jacobabad was still no-go area for choppers or C-130 due to security concerns to the American personnel deployed at the Jacobabad air base, well-informed sources told TheNation on Thursday. Organisers of national and international NGOs told TheNation on condition of anonymity, when contacted on telephone, that they could not reach Jacobabad to provide food and drinking water to as many as 500,000 to 700,000 flood victims due to strict security conditions adopted for Shahbaz Air Base. Although Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman has ordered PAF to form an air bridge of relief supply for Jacobabad which has been cut off from the rest of the country and make operational an airfield near Sibi for immediate supply of relief goods to flood-hit areas in the vicinity, however, Jacobabad is still the only location in Pakistan where rescue choppers of PAF have no access to carry out relief operations.

The sources told this scribe that foreign health teams could not start their relief operations in remote areas because there are not airstrips close to several areas, including Jacobabad.

The town has been evacuated and 500,000 to 700,000 people have been affected. The people displaced from Jacobabad, Thul, Kandhkot, Kashmore, Ghouspur and Karumpur are camping in Dera Allah Yar.

Earlier, it was reported that Shahbaz Air Base was under control of American personnel who were guarding the air base while monitoring the operations of F-16s against militants and extremists in FATA and Waziristan. As one seeks to discover the reality on the ground, the flood-stricken people of this devastated area of Sindh continue to suffer.

Pay rises for crooks

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And so the Indian MPs are clamoring for a pay hike from the current 16,000 rupee salary to 50,000, and perhaps even 80,000.

There is an indecency about all this for a variety of reasons.

1. If performance related pay is anything to go by, Indian MPs notorious for being absent on the job, pursuing other careers and interests certainly don't deserve such a significant pay rise. The toiling masses of India aren't getting their value for their money as far as the MP's are concerned.

2. A good percentage of MPs are crooks on the run from the Law who only entered politics because there is a perception that by being MP's it will put them above the law........beyond the reach of the law. As many cases have shown they would be right.....well known high criminals become ministers even. Crooks giving themselves a massive pay rise does not sound quite..."Shining India"......it sounds more like banana republic opportunism, grasping and blatant corruption....sort of thing you'd find in the USA, and Haiti.

3. On the one hand you have ALL these initiatives by Sonia et al to be more humble, frugal and less extravagant, flying economy class as she did, staying in budget hotels.......missing out on the 15 course meals at trendy restaurants for free, so that the ruling elite can show that they are with the aam admi, spiritually and physically......BUT NOW she says a massive pay hike for MP's is perfectly acceptable. Where is the consistency in all this?

4. There are 840 million Indians living on 20 rupees a day, and one meal a day consisting of white rice and nothing else........in such a nation where near 80% of the population live in abject poverty, how dare these criminals as MP's award themselves such a huge pay hike. On what moral basis do they award themselves such a huge pay hike? Excellent service of elevating the masses for the nation?

5. To be an MP in India is to like a huge business opportunity. As a person of power influencing contracts, and spending money for the state, and finally lobbying for various groups, one can if one so desire make huge amounts of money as an Indian MP. Indeed many MP's of humble background have subsequently become croreputis. Their salary is not their sole income, or even their main income......if it were they would never be elected. So given this huge off the books income, why this public display of greed all of a sudden?

Pay hikes are fine in an increasingly affluent country, where the shackles of Socialism are shed finally into awarding people a more realistic pay which reflects their real worth. I am therefore happy to see pay rises of 20% or even 30% annually and incrementally for DESERVING GROUPS.

On the other hand if the pay of the average soldier was hiked to 20,000 rupees; Police constable 20,000 rupees; average government workers to 12,000 rupees.........that would be a wonderful method of greater income distribution in a nation of stark income differentiation which WILL ultimately effect the long term steady growth of India. A few people getting rich will merely move their surplus income to Swiss, and other off shore accounts as is the current fashion, AND thus will in no way help the long term Savings/growth ratio that India must and can achieve. If greater numbers of people in India have the ability to earn above subsistence levels of income, which are then later saved in Indian banking institutions then this will generate the future 10% growth that is much touted.

In that sense criminal politicians awarding themselves massive pay rises sets a bad president, and is an example of poor leadership for a group of people who are never short on cash......otherwise they wouldn't have been elected in the first place. Then why not award railway workers 500 pay hikes, or employees in state enterprises, or the babus all across the board?

An excellent article from TOI posted below

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With pay hike, an MP to cost Rs 37L a year

By Atul Thakur, TNN

Not satisfied with a three-fold hike in their basic salary, many MPs stalled Parliament proceedings on Friday, saying that the "low" hike was an insult to the country's legislators. But do these MPs have a case? TOI did some calculations to help our MPs do a reality check on how their pay packet compares with countries around the world.

In comparison with legislators from the developed world, Indian MPs may appear to be poorly paid when we compare basic salaries at normal forex rates. However, this can be misleading.

(The classic problem of many Third World nations where real income of government, and of course private individuals are hidden off the books, which thus becomes a nightmare for tax assessment)

It's well known that basic salary is only a small part of the overall compensation given to an MP. Hence we did some calculations to get a rough estimate of the overall cost of an MP to his or her country by finding out the approximate monetary values of various perks and allowances. Converting this into international dollars in terms of purchasing power parity (the same benchmark that makes India the world's fourth largest economy...$15 trillion USA, $10 trillion China, $4.5 trillion Japan...$3.8 trillion India),

..........it works out that Indian MPs cost more to the country than their counterparts in Singapore, Japan and Italy — nations globally known for their highly paid politicians.

Without including accommodation, travel, medical facilities and water charges, and taking 151 Parliament session days (from June 1, 2009 to June 1, 2010) as the annual average, it works out that the new salaries and allowances (constituency allowance, office, telephone, internet, furniture, electricity, daily allowances) given to an MP is worth more than Rs 20 lakh annually.

Now, consider the accommodation provided free or at nominal rates to MPs at some of the most upscale localities in the country — places like Lodhi Estate, Aurangzeb Road, Tughlak Lane, Akbar Road and Ferozeshah Road in Lutyens Delhi — where rent for a two or three BHK flat can go up to Rs 2 lakh a month. We can safely assume that an MP living at these places gets an additional perk of Rs 1 lakh per month by way of saving rent.

To calculate the average cost of air travel of an MP, we considered Kolkata as a point of reference (some constituencies may be farther or nearer) and assumed that an MP travels by Air India booking the ticket one week in advance. By that count, the 34 single air journeys that each MP is entitled to in a year, costs Rs 5 lakh. This brings an MP's compensation to more than Rs 37 lakh annually.

When converted to PPP dollars, each MP's pay and perks work out to 2.2 lakh PPP dollars — higher than the salary plus perks of MPs in Singapore (2.1 lakh) Japan (1.9 lakh) and Italy (1.9 lakh). In comparison, the cost to country of an MP in Pakistan — at 46,000 PPP dollars — makes legislators in that country appear positively poor.

There's another way of looking at the pay packets of our MPs — by comparing it with the people they claim to represent. India's per capita GDP being $ 3,176 (PPP....2009), it works out that after the hikes our MPs will cost the country 68 times more than what an average Indian earns annually. That makes the disparity in India between the citizen's average income and an MP's cost to country, among the highest in the world. Kenya is an example of an even higher disparity, with its MPs earning 180 times the average population. The ratio is 35 for the US while for most of western Europe and Japan, the cost of an MP doesn't exceed 10 times the country's per capita income.

Changing Pakistan.

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This indeed is good news if the USA which bankrolls the ISI, and works very closely with it has finally managed to persuade the most important policy making establishment within the Pakistan military that domestic Sunni Islamic fundies pose the greatest threat to the viability of the country and not India.

This is logical, self evident and what I have been arguing in a away. The 4000---10,000 Pakistanis that have died since 2001 through domestic terror ops were nothing to do with India, but the result of blow back when Pakistan from the 1970's started training upwards of 500,000 Pakistanis and Afghans for holy war in the neighborhood. It must have sounded clever then for a nation in the habit of using proxy armies in Kashmir from 1948, to 1965 and in East Pakistan in 1971, but now the chickens have come home to roost as the cliche goes, and the Pakistani military have finally come to terms with this reality, or have been made to comes to terms with the reality through America.

Most Third World nations which fancy themselves as powers have proxy forces. India also runs some small proxy armies, but the thing with such entities is that they should always be small and manageable. Brought out of the pocket when needed, and put back in when not. Training by Pakistani state entities upwards of 500,000 Sunni Islamic fundies for over 30 years who in turn pass on their skills to many others (1,500,000-2,000,000) are by no stretch of the imagination manageable forces. These people ranked mostly by illiterate desperado zealots...often guided by retired generals with an agenda must inevitably clash with state interests and or with themselves given their myraid policy positions.

There is absolutely no question that the 300 odd terrorists incidents in Pakistan since 2001 were ALL carried out by Pakistan state entities using proxy armies, but the issue is to what extent the Washington trained Kiyani and Suja Pasha guided and were involved with such incidents....AND to what extent the USA is also responsible in its quest to weaken Pakistan for Israel, in order to secure its nukes for Israel.

We know for a fact that the Pakistan military set up the Swat Taliban, which they then were subsequently forced to confront and remove in 2009 by Washington. It is a known fact that Pakistan runs the Afghan Taliban, LeT, and HuJi.

It would be a wonderful brief thought if one was to believe that Pakistani "Intelligence" had finally made the strategic leap in accepting that mad Sunni Islamic fundies are a risky tool to use/rely on when implementing delicate state strategic policies which are further funded to the tune of billions of $ by the state and its allies, only to come up short because of the obvious short comings of the mad Sunni Islamic allies make such strategic state policies unworkable.




Would it have been the end of the world if Abdul Haq led Pakistani interests in Afghanistan; in many respects a balanced rational man, whose family may have been killed by the ISI, and who was probably eventually betrayed by the same ISI when he tried to fight the Pakistan backed Taliban just after the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Instead they went for the one-eyed religious teacher, Mulla Omer who would bring infamy and shame to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and failure. Perhaps one should not be to harsh on the ISI, which after all is a slave entity funded by the USA. That would explain why such faggotty adolescent games were played in relying on such an unique individual with such unique traits.

And we wonder why Pakistan is failed state number das

Perhaps Kuda has expressed his displeasure during Ramadan against this failed state. May Kuda fail it even more, until the vile slaves within the country are run out, just like many of its former leaders to the West.

This latest ISI intelligence assessment is mere pronouncement written by GOD knows who. In order for it to be credible....Pakistan there after needs to take clear steps, led by the all powerful military in showing that it is sincere in reigning in its Sunni Islamic terror outfits, and making a clear concerted effort, approved by the Pakistani military, in building more positive relations with India.

Otherwise its mere words.


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ISI sees Islamist militants, not India, as main threat to Pak

Press Trust of India via TOI.

Shedding its India-centric phobia, Pakistan's main spy agency ISI has in its new threat assessment determined that Islamist militants, and not India pose the main threat to Pakistan.

In a recent internal assessment of security, the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's most powerful military spy service has determined for the first time in 63 years that it expects a majority of threats to come from Islamist militants, Wall Street Journal reported quoting a senior ISI officer.

The assessment, WSJ said, a regular review of national security allocated a two-thirds likelihood of a major threat to Pakistan coming from militants rather from India or elsewhere.

"It's earth shattering. That's a remarkable change," Bruce Hoffman, a counter terrorism specialist and professor at Georgetown University was quoted as saying.

"It's yet another ratcheting up of the Pakistanis' recognition of not only their own internal problems but cooperation in the war on terrorism," he said.

The paper said it was unclear whether the assessment of the ISI, largely staffed by active military officers, was fully endorsed by Pakistan's military and civilian government.

"The report's impact on troop positioning and Pakistan's war against militants remains to be seen," the daily said.

The assessment reflects the thinking in the mainstream of the ISI, The Wall Street Journal said.

"But US officials worry that elements of Pakistan's military establishment, which they say includes retired ISI officers, continue to lend support to militants that shelter in Pakistan's tribal regions, an effort these people say is aimed at building influence in Afghanistan once the US pulls out," it said.

The paper quoted Major Gen Athar Abbas, the chief Pakistan military spokesman, as saying he hadn't seen the ISI report.

He said India remained a threat but confirmed that it is the ISI's role to draw up security assessments, the daily said.

While the jostling for influence in Afghanistan between India and Pakistan isn't likely to diminish, WSJ said, the ISI assessment could push Islamabad into taking stronger action against Pakistani and Afghani militants operating from its porous mountainous travel region. The paper claimed that US has been playing behind-the- scene role to dial down tensions between the two nations as Washington wants Pakistan to redeploy more troops from its eastern frontier with India and send them to Pakistan's western border region.

The paper said India believes that ISI retains its ties with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which New Delhi blames for carrying out the Mumbai attacks.

But the paper quoted Gen Athar Abbas as saying that Pakistan plans to mount a campaign against the Haqqani network in North Waziristan.

But the operation has been delayed as the Pakistan's Taliban have recently staged a comeback in other tribal areas that the military had earlier secured.

Failed state das

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Do we really still have doubts here?

I suppose if you are an opinion writer for Dawn newspaper you can't have too radical a view can you? Then you might get demoted to just writing blogs hey? You have to say that from Pakistan the sun rises in the East, sets in the West. That the country has a President, and a fully functioning government within a Democracy. That rumors that the USA ambassador sets the daily agenda for the government are totally nonsense. That the Pakistan military is the best in the world, filled with men devoted to protecting the country.

But in reality you see as a ordinary person that your country is totally fucked up and getting worse playing Washington's various games. Washington gives you $10 --$15 billion depending on whose audit you believe, but your country has lost $45--$65 billion playing their games since 2001.

You are bewildered because common sense tells you what needs to be done, but the various leaders of the country are doing quite the opposite, making things worse quite quite patently, whilst smiling ear to ear.

You know the army is the main source of the problem again, as it was 38 years ago when it caused the breakup of the country, but YOU JUST CAN'T GATHER YOURSELF TO IDENTIFY THE MAIN EFFING CULPRIT IN ALL THIS.....because you are frightened, confused and bewildered.....enough not to notice the dangers of American servicemen flooding into the country as "rescuers" into the country, in their Christian Fundamentalist thousands. Further weakening the country.

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Pakistan’s rulers or Western puppets

Yusuf Nazar

Asif Zardari’s callous and indifferent attitude to his country’s woes has reached ”Neroic” proportions surpassing even the worst reputation of Yahya Khan during 1971. He appearance in a designer suit and pink tie with David Cameron served to reinforce the image of a hedonist completely unmindful of the misfortunes of a poor and debt-ridden country whose 51 percent people live in poverty and whose lives are nothing more than a daily struggle to survive often at the risk of their lives.

(He is a certified big league crook with $3 billion stashed away in secret accounts, with low levels of education, and prison time for his misdemeanours and crimes. He is in power due to the backing of the Americans who with the help of the ISI fixers made him President through rigged elections----he is a front of the Americans, hence the weird out of this world insensitive antics, at a time of serious national crisis.

But this clown is not the main problem. The main problem for Pakistan is the Pakistan military and behind them the Crusading for Israel Americans)

Zardari’s attitude and persona is typical of that of Pakistan’s corrupt and westernized elites who have looted the country and accumulated ill-gotten wealth locally and abroad. By going around in Paris and London like he did when around 12 million Pakistanis have been affected by the worst floods in history, he has personified the tragedy of Pakistan – its selfish elites who would sell anything to pursue their personal interests. His escapade’s to Manoir de la Reine Blanche (Manor of the White Queen) — a 16th century chateau he reportedly owns in France, before he visited UK highlighted how out of touch Zardari is with the sentiments and lives of the people. Pakistan is a hollowed state where much of the fortunes and future of its most prominent political leaders are tied to the West. Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz too own luxury apartments in London besides other interests abroad and MQM’s Altaf Hussain has been long beholden to the British for providing him a sanctuary and also their citizenship.

(Its a bit of a canard and a cliche to talk of corrupt elites. Elites given their money, privilege and power ARE corrupt every where, even in the West, not just in Pakistan. We all can have a good laugh about what they get up to with their money and power.

But the fundamental question is about POWER. Who in Pakistan exercises ultimate power? It must be the Pakistani military numbering unofficially at 800,000 men with their ISI, backed by 300,000 paramilitary, 500,000 reserves, and 500,000 Jihadis trained since the 1970's......Huji's, LeT, TTP, Afghan Shura and so forth.

But the Pakistan military is not an elitist organisation, its officer corp is made up primarily of middle class, lower middle class men from the Punjab.....though on the other hand the 120 odd generals and retired generals are all guaranteed millionaires through the system of military patronage and foreign donations)

But let us not delude ourselves to believe that our Army leadership is any different when it comes to serving western interests and dancing to the tunes of the puppeteers in Washington and London. Zia and Musharraf were American puppets (In Mush's case more likely MOSSAD). Zia and his ISI Chief left fortunes for their families. Musharraf has been leading a comfortable life in London – the same Musharraf who mocked Benazir and Nawaz for living luxurious lives abroad.

One of Pakistan’s main causes of failure is similar to those experienced by many developing countries in the past. The nexus between corrupt local leaders and the West to serve their mutual interests at the cost of the often poor and impoverished masses and their future. Pakistanis will have to break this unholy alliance between the elites and the West if they want their country to be a self-respecting sovereign state that works to promote the interests of its people and not its Army or its corrupt and selfish elites.

(I SUPPOSE THAT MEANS REVOLUTION WHICH IS NOT MANAGED BY THE ISI FOR THE AMERICAN'S)

The biggest mistake committed by our establishment and “moderately educated and enlightened” English-speaking chattering classes has been their refusal to see that military aggression by the US has been a major contributor to the radicalisation of public opinion in the Muslim countries, destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the destabilisation of Pakistan that could lead to its Balkanisation. Anyone who points that out is labeled as a Taliban sympathizer. This myopia will ensure that we are doomed.

(American policies are not good for Pakistan...what more needs to be said)

Non-violent political solution means not only Pak Army should not use militants as a policy tool but also the US stops playing the Great Game in Afghanistan simply because it can no longer afford to, as it belatedly seems to be realising. US policy and Pak Army’s “wonderland” view of the strategic depth constitute the core of the problem. Both the US and Pakistani establishments are in it together.

(It is past pointless lecturing what the Americans should do, or their Pudee servants in the Pakistan army)

ISI acts as an extension of the CIA at a very high level in the Great Game, notwithstanding disagreements and turf battles. In view of the long history of close ties and cooperation between the Pentagon and Pakistan Army, particularly since 1980, The ISI-CIA conflict appears to be largely a charade for the world to justify the expanded military presence in the region otherwise why would the US Congress earmark one billion dollars for “new and larger” US Embassy facilities in Islamabad. Does anyone really can believe with a clear head that a weak country like Pakistan (that is so heavily dependent on the US Aid and the IMF) can carry on this double game for nearly a decade until and unless it also is part of the bigger game of the US. Such a belief would be a silly assumption in realpolitik.

The US officials were saying not too long ago that there was no difference between al Qaeda and the Taliban. Now they seem to be eager to reach out to the Taliban for a political settlement. If that was the objective, what was the fuss about al Qaeda being the biggest threat to the global security? Or was it not really but an excuse to build a military presence in Central Asia and Pakistan?

Baitullah Mahsud of TTP was guided by Mullah Omar as there was no difference between Afghan and Pakistani Talibans, claimed many US and Pakistani officials. But was it ever a secret that Omar was part of the Quetta Shura protected by the ISI. Who is trying to fool whom? Most Pakistani and Western analysts – many fed disinformation by the officials – can’t seem to think straight and see through the huge contradictions in the official positions of US and Pakistan.

How come Kayani (ISI Chief from 2004 to 2007) who presided over the resurgence of the Talibans on both sides of the Durand line during 2004 to 2007 and the worst violence during 2008 – 2010 during his tenure as Army Chief is so close to and favored by the Pentagon and not just that; the top US officials also supported the extension in his tenure.

This is nothing new or a conspiracy theory. Kayani has been favoured by the US for a long time. The Startfor, an influential US global intelligence company, reported on October 2, 2007 that “with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf due to step down as army chief by Nov. 15, Kayani will emerge as his successor, and given Kayani’s strong leadership credentials, Musharraf as a civilian president will be forced to share power with him.”

The New York Times ran a story “US is Looking past Musharraf in Case He Falls” on November 15, 2007 concluding that “at the top of that cadre is Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, General Musharraf’s designated successor as army chief. General Kayani is a moderate, pro-American infantry commander who is widely seen as commanding respect within the army and, within Western circles, as a potential alternative to General Musharraf.”

Given that Kayani’s rise had been well anticipated and he was the ISI Chief and Vice Chief of Army Staff during 2004-2007 before he became the Army Cheif, it is difficult and almost incredible to believe that he had no hand in Zardari’s rise to power. He must therefore share part if not the whole blame on thrusting upon Pakistan someone who is nothing but an embarassment to the country. If he did it under American pressure, that is even worse.

(The main problem for Pakistan is the Punjabi dominated Pakistani military, and its Western appointed and trained top brass......Kiyani was appointed by the Americans, and his extension was approved by the Americans...he is thus a American backed Pudee sala.

The main problem for Pakistan is that these Western trained pudee sala think they know what is best for Pakistan when actual history over 63 years states quite the opposite, ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE NON-Punjabi, and at the receiving end of their love. Their confidence comes from their military might, and the encouragement from Washington whose agents visit them every day........some of these pudee sala ONLY become enlightened at old age, when out of service such as Hamid Gul, whilst a good deal of the rest become professional businessmen, counting their $/rupees. All retired generals in the Pakistan military become millionaires, and yet in no other professional force does this happen. )

The crux of the matter is that we must disengage ourselves from fighting US’s proxy wars and battles in the region, which have cost us more than the all the aid that we received. We need a national debate on a fundamental shift in our foreign policy.

I have tried to provide a framework for a basic and fundamental shift in our strategic and defense priorities in articles written for DAWN since 2006. This shift will have to start from the foreign policy. We are heavily dependent on the West and this must change in recognition of the reality that it is not a unipolar world and China is financially the strongest country in the world.

(PAKISTAN can survive purely on Chinese help, with additional help from India or Saudi Arabia. Pakistan does not need the USA. Only the Pakistan military are the only ones obsessed with America in a coolie like manner. The Pakistan military strategically are destroying Pakistan)

We cannot afford to pursue policies that cause tensions with all of our immediate neighbours – India, Afghanistan, and Iran – and are viewed with skepticism and unease by the Chinese. They support us and put up with our “too close for comfort” relationship with Washington because they also need us, but they never liked our support for the Islamic militants nor our very close ties with Washington. Hence, while they gave us a token amount during the financial crunch in 2008, they in effect told us to get the money from the West (US/IMF) because that’s how Pakistan is perceived in Beijing; an old friend who is sleeping with a global adversary – America.

We can no longer afford to fancy that we have a role to play in the “Great Game” or that we need to control Afghanistan to protect our strategic interests from Indian designs. Let us face it. We cannot fight a war for even a short while – few weeks at best – because we will go bankrupt and we would have to accept humiliating cease-fire conditions dictated by Delhi and Washington. Kargil provided a miniature sample of this scenario.

(FALSE analysis: Mush cooked up Kargil to scuttle the peace initiatives between India and Pakistan in 1999. It was a limited war investing lightly armed units of the NLI, with a few of Mush's SSG'S. However overall the USA has dictated what Pakistan does at war since 1965, both through the Pakistan military hardware the USA has supplied, AND through the close relations developed with the top brass of the Pakistan military as close allies)

Most of the arguments advanced by our so-called strategic and military analysts, who support the establishment, are based on ill-informed and short-sighted considerations and half-baked notions about security threats. Indian hawks may talk tough sometimes but there is no question, whatsoever, of a military aggression from India because she is a rising global economic power and would never jeopardize its economic growth and billions of dollars in investment flows to have a fight with Pakistan – which is a small but troublesome neighbour.

(Pakistan is a failed state number das..........that sir is the strategic reality)

Given the periodic episodes of Pakistan-linked terrorist attacks in India, it does play games in Afghanistan – with the full US support – and along the border but their significance is overplayed by our establishment to justify wasteful spending on F-16s. In any event, F-16s or nuclear bombs do not provide security but economic development does and that we must learn from China. The Army must re-evaluate the balance between our relations with the US and China. For starters, its leadership should try to have as close a relationship with the top Chinese leaders as it has developed with Admiral Mullen.

Kashmir.

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India needs to keep a decisive military presence "Up in the mountains" of Kashmir, because the next big war WILL be in the mountains, despite what the defense minister AK-47 Anthony thinks with his big ticket Jew coded naval purchases which make very little strategic sense. India needs to maintain at least 600,000 regular army in Kashmir. It simply does not make sense for a poor logistics based Third World military moving slowly, lacking significant transport planes, and helicopters to station it self in the plains of India, and then in a time of WAR for the 5TH time move slowly through the Choak points of Himachal/Jammu towards the theater of action in Kashmir................Does not make sense.

On the other hand security people by their nature are a breed apart. We hear stories of what American soldiers do to locals in Korea or Japan near their bases, and that the same must apply to Indian soldiers in Kashmir. Young men pumped up for war and violence, leading extremely monotone lives, poor food, lonely not seeing their wives & families for years........drawn largely from the common man of Indian society which is not particularly sophisticated at many levels, from the right of Indian society with perhaps RSS tendencies with some (Major Pirohit is an abberation ? As a serving fully paid military officer into 2010?).

These types of animals should not be stationed near civilians, especially in "sensitive" areas, but should be brought out from their remote camps in Kashmir ONLY when the needs arises. Kashmir is a big country, with many remote spots for military installations, but not near civilians.

One is not suggesting Indian soldiers should be pink underwear wearing Gandhis. Most emphatically they should be drawn from the "marshal races" of Indo-Aryan stock fighting aggressive wars in the defense of India.

But I do not favor using the Indian military in civilian areas. I do not favor using the Indian military in the Naxal/Maoist problem. It politicizes the military. Such problems should be dealt with by the police only, along with RAW, and more resources for the civilian population and local security.

The current Kashmir Valley problem dates back to 1989 when the victorious Pakistani military (ISI) in Afghanistan seeing the flight of a Kafir Superpower at the behest of the Afghan Mujaheddin which they had armed, trained and supported decided to divert some Jihadis to the Kashmir theater from Afghanistan. An estimated 80,000 people have died since, BUT the GENERAL TRAJECTORY over the last few years is a slow down of violence. Until very recently.

Leh is fine, Jammu is fine. The problem is the small Kashmir valley. Here India needs to show a little love and sensitivity to its own people. More money from the center, and a cutting of some slack. NO MILITARY in the area, no paramilitary BSF etc..........local Kashmiri police armed with AK-47 is sufficient to deal with any security problems. The Kashmiri insurgency is not armed with tanks and heavy stuff. There does not need to be highly provocative parades of Indian military through the Valley a day or two after yet another hapless civilian has been killed.........not good.

In Northern Ireland covering the 20 years 3,500 people died. 10,000 British troops were stationed there, and what the reality of the conflict was (Catholics 43% being discriminated against; poor job opportunities, economic opportunities, treated as second class citizens by Protestants 57% many of them Scottish/English settler descent) A lot of the deaths and violence were committed by..........BRITISH SECURITY.....ARMY/MI/INTELLIGENCE. I wrote about it at university. Rather than dealing with the fundamental grievances of the Catholics who were being treated as second class citizens in their own country, the British security system waged war against the Catholics and were the cause of most of the deaths in that province and the UK....MAYBE even 80%. YES stone throwing youths shot by British troops; youth had too much to drink, been to a party and did not slow down at the numerous....too many check points...killed by troops. There were even sinister hints that the IRA and Real IRA were in fact run by British Intelligence through their USA network.

Of the 40 odd resistance outfits in Kashmir many are run by RAW, for sure.

Majority of Kashmiris want peace. Most Valley Kashmiris don't want to join failed state Pakistan with its even greater levels of STATE instigated internal terrorism through the American run AND FUNDED ISI...........Huj and LeT are not independent entities operating on their own, BUT run by the ISI, which in turn is funded and run by the USA. Huj and LeT must not be seen as isolated aberrations but must be put in the context of the bigger picture.

A few people frustrated and angry shouting anti-India slogans in the Valley MEANS NOTHING, fundamentally. They are reacting to their natural situation, and India psychologically and quickly needs to separate them from the LeT/ISI menace through a variety of measures as hinted at.

Man Mohan Singh with his rather child like passion for the USA, is not the leader who is going to solve this problem in a million years. He is in fact going to let it fester as the night watchman keeping the seat warm for playboy Rahul.

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We, the bad guys

Indrajit Hazra of the Hindustan Times.

Oh, it’s not nice to be treated like a perpetrator. Especially when you’ve been weaned on tales of you being the victim. If the Shoah (Holocaust) has provided the Jews a protective sheath against any guilt for the Nakba (Catastrophe) of the Palestinians, it would be fair to say that India — victim of colonialism, victim of global capitalism, victim of terrorism, victim of plain old bad luck — is gobsmacked to even think that it could be the bad guy.

Right on top of every Kashmir pundit’s priority of worries is the concern that he may be seen as naive. So in a perpetual attempt to not be caught as a simpleton, we hear him say things that make the Kashmir problem complex. The very term ‘Kashmir problem’ itself is a giveaway. The pundits will yank things back to 1947, when the monarch of Jammu and Kashmir Hari Singh hastily gave into Nehru-Patel’s Princely State stamp-collecting spree to protect his independent kingdom from Yusufzai raiders sent by Pakistan to expand its two-nation theory eastwards into Muslim-majority Kashmir. The pundits will talk about Pakistan, the anachronistic diplospeak of ‘plebiscite’, the need or not for ‘tripartite talks’, the Simla Accord, Pakistan, terrorism, Kargil, the Agra summit, ‘vested interests’ and, for good measure, more Pakistan.

But never in their living daylights are they able to realise the wisdom of that old chestnut of William of Occam: the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. And in the context of what’s happening in Sopore, Srinagar and other parts of the Kashmir Valley since July, the simplest explanation — a.k.a. a simple observation — is: people are protesting against police forces killing people who are protesting against police forces killing people who...

This isn’t a chicken-and-egg cycle. It’s a variation of Newton’s third law of motion: every police action of death or disappearance has an opposite, if hardly equal, reaction of stones hurled at policeman and violent mobs beating them up and burning down police stations.

It’s difficult to think that the stones being hurled at security personnel have been smuggled in from Pakistan or that their hurlers, overwhelmingly teenagers but most visibly younger kids, are all being mobilized or goaded on by nefarious agents of the ISI. When you see the corpse of an eight-year-old boy, killed in a stampede caused by police firing on protestors, wrapped in white funereal cloth being carried by crowds, you come to either of the two conclusions: that the people who think that the policemen and their bosses are the victims must be mad; or, that by simply hurling stones at those who have, since July 11, regularly killed civilians — just to underline the fact that these people haven’t yet morphed into ‘terrorists’ or ‘insurgents’ — Kashmiris are mad to have stopped at stone-throwing, police-beating and burning down police stations. We can think of doing those kind of things in helpless anger when stuck in bad traffic.

You don’t have to be a Kashmiri pundit to realise that a new generation of Kashmiris are thrashing out against a high-handed ‘shut up or we shoot’ force. To think that all this is being orchestrated by a Geelani or an Alam or an Andrabi is like believing that the anti-Soviet mujaheddin in 80s Afghanistan were working solely for an American purpose. It’s one thing to make hay while the sun shines and quite another to be the sun shining.

You do have to be a proverbial Kashmiri pundit to figure out why on earth New Delhi is not pulling out of the Valley. But surely you don’t have to be the (strangely quiet?) prime minister to know who are the victims here. A week away from India’s Independence Day and 79 days away from Jammu and Kashmir’s Dependence Day (J&K acceded to India on October 26, 1947), young Kashmiris with forceful and angry bowling actions don’t much care for history like they did some 20 years ago. All they care for is not one of their own to be shot dead by what any fool can see to be an occupying force.

Chasing after elusive grandeur.

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You would think that with the tragic floods of Pakistan which has killed 1500 people, and many more to follow, that the Indian government would take the opportunity to show solidarity with the Pakistani people in their hour of need.

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But NO!.....strangely silent ....eerily silent.......nothing!

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The World has jumped in to help Pakistan with its flood problems. The world is helping because it is morally right. It is an act of humanity. Whilst other countries are helping because it makes strategic, symbolic, and political sense.

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The Pakistan military backed and armed by the USA, and China may be a problem for India, but this problem for India has nothing to do with the ordinary aam Admi of the Pakistani people..........Pashtun's and now South Punjabis, and eventually Sindhis.

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But the worthless Indian policy makers in the MEA are wholly inactive. Because that is what they are good at.

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The best strategy for India over failed state das Pakistan is to WIN OVER THE AFFECTION OF THE aam admi, in countering the disinterest of the elites of Pakistan in clearly pursuing a more India friendly policy, and the out right hostility of the Pakistani military.

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CLEARLY current slow policies of engaging Pakistan is failing. They fail over quite minor matters, just like that. Engaging the elite of Pakistan, though strongly suggested in previous blogs is a futile slow endeavor. However there is nothing to stop the Indian government building relations with the ordinary people which bears fruit in the years to come.

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Giving $100 million immediately for the flood victims of Pakistan with the Indian flag all over the tents, food and medicine would have had a far significant effect psychologically on the aam admi that would have moved India closer to the Pakistani people, over the few anti-India top brass of the Pakistani military trained in the West.

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But as with most opportunities/challenges IN INDIA, AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD, the Indian state has remained inactive and silent.

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As the article below quite clearly shows, Indian foreign policy lacks cohesion and priority. Because of this Indian foreign policy is fundamentally failing whilst appearing to succeed (Every Western leader tells India how important India is, and that they back India's right to a security council seat etc). In pursuing a Great Power status originally set by the USA, India must NEVER neglect her neighborhood. The neighborhood comes first.

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Home Alone in the Neighbourhood

ARATI R JERATH, TOI

INDIA was once the undisputed big power in the south Asian region, wielding substantial influence over its smaller neighbours. But, over the years, New Delhi's strategic and diplomatic clout in its own backyard has weakened.

(I would put that down to many factors, but not insignificantly to the legacy of Mrs Indira Gandhi from the 1970's when she became mesmerized by RAW, and the concept of covert ops in many countries in the region.......covert ops by themselves do not build strong nation to nation relations in the long term, but things like economic cooperation via FTA's, strong cultural exchange, soft power thingy's make good SOLID state to state relationships last beyond and the travails of time, and politics.........India has been slow to use her soft power muscle, but instead has relied on classic unimaginative diplomatic negotiations between civil servants, which by their very nature, and babu culture means that they can go on forever without actually achieving any results.

Bringing the neighborhood in closer requires a political decision, backed by a clear concerted strategy, using soft power only, and spending a lot of money....there is no other way)

In April this year, a high-pitched anti-India campaign by the Maoists in Nepal forced President Ram Baran Yadav's government to cancel a passport deal that had important security implications for us. The deal was a contract with India's government press to print four million machinereadable passports for Nepal to stop misuse and forgery by suspected terror agents. New Delhi was perturbed enough by the cancellation of the deal to lodge a formal protest with the Nepalese government through its ambassador in Kathmandu. The contract has now gone to a French firm, Oberthur Technologies.

(India obviously should have won that contract, but for the poor performance and maybe arrogance of the MEA officers in dealing with that contract)

Maldives turned not to India but to the United States and Sri Lanka for help when a political crisis this month plunged the Indian Ocean island nation into turmoil with angry street protests and a constitutional impasse that saw the entire cabinet resign. Where once upon a time India used to rush special envoys at the first sign of trouble, this time it was Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapakse, who played mediator along with the US ambassador to Colombo, Patricia Butenis, and US assistant secretary of state Robert Blake.

(Oh Christ all this time I've been writing that the only sure allies India has in South Asia are Bhutan and the Maldives........so that only leaves Bhutan then)

Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have no qualms about using China as an outside balancer to India's dominance in South Asia. Both buy arms from Beijing and are recipients of whopping sums of money from China for the development of infrastructure like ports, roads and airports in their countries. Bangladesh prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, candidly admitted during her New Delhi visit in January this year that there is an anti-India mindset in her country and she cannot change it.
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(This above paragraph ALONE represents the stupidity of the Indian MEA, and its foreign policy.
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Great nations like China, and the USA are generous and offer huge amounts of soft loans and aid, both militarily and economically.....since the early 1990's in China's case, and since the 1940's in the case of the USA---lend lease originally to the UK/Soviet Union......it was American trucks which exclusively carried logistics and soldiers of the Soviet war machine/Kuomintang China etc........then it went bigger into the Marshal Plan. As a result the USA was looked upon with great admiration by many nations especially from 1945....which has since been degraded through wars against many Third World nations. The beautiful American full of hope, inspiration and promise became the ugly American.....an allegory of all that is wrong with America now.
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NOW instead of complaining about the generosity of other nations towards neighbor countries, which OBVIOUSLY will be well received by poorer nations, INDIA HAS TO SERIOUSLY JOIN THAT GAME..........India has $280 billion FCR, and $1500 billion in offshore accounts held by Indians. The Indian government needs to tap into that vast wealth and in a measured way direct that to neighbor countries development in a way they don't forget.......Nehru/Mujib super highway between Calcutta and Dhaka for example.
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China since the early 1990's has provided Bangladesh with munitions/arms factories; power stations, bridges, factories and other such REAL strategic help through cheap loans/credits. In defense they have provided tanks, artillery, ships and jet fighters at cheap preferential rates. The military equipment from China within the Bangladesh military is 80/90%........now ALL China has to do is block the sending of top military cadets to the UK for training, and instead train them first in China. This will give China complete control over the Bangladesh military/security.
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OF COURSE countries like Bangladesh or Sri Lanka will look to China favorably, not because they are playing a devious game with India, but out of simple necessity. It would be a bit of a stretch to expect the Sri Lankan's and the Bangladeshis to say to the Chinese, "Hold on their old bean with your generous non-conditional help offer, because we are going to hold ourselves out until the Indian's come up with a better offer say in the next 30 years."

Yes India helped liberate Bangladesh 38 years ago, but this is 2010. Time moves on. A new basis of solid relationships have to be created.
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What has India provided to Bangladesh strategically since the 1990's........Fuck All. You give fuck all...you get fuck all.
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Diplomatic meets between netas/babus make good pictures, but does not in themselves amount to an effective foreign policy of seriously engaging neighbors.......there also has to be some masala and baksheesh)

Last year, Myanmar decided to divert to China gas that India had been eyeing. Although ONGC and GAIL helped to develop the gas fields, located in the resource-rich Arakan province of that country, and own equity in some blocks, India couldn't get its act together on transportation issues. Tired of New Delhi's shuffling, Myanmar offered the gas to China, which accepted it with alacrity and has already started constructing a pipeline from Arakan to feed its booming, energy-hungry western provinces of Yunan and Guizhou.
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(Tragi-comedy......what about the high quality gas from Bangladesh? Or is that impossible too. Strategically...can I use that word? Strategically it makes more sense to secure your energy supply from neighbor countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Iran etc......besides coal which India has ample amounts, gas and oil will still be a significant source of fuel and energy, beyond the much touted, but not yet seen commercially viable green energy.)
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Despite receiving a reconstruction and rehabilitation package worth over $800 million from India, Afghan president Hamid Karzai has decided to ignore New Delhi's objections and do business with Pakistan and the Taliban. He has received Pakistan's avowedly anti-India army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, twice in Kabul this year and also visited Islamabad to seek assistance in building bridges with the Taliban.
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(The Taliban is a problem which India must come to terms with. The Taliban is backed by the Pakistan military through the ISI, which in turn is backed by the USA......as a "controlled opposition". So we may surmise that the Taliban puppets whilst having some popularity with some Pashtuns have powerful backers in Pakistan and the USA.

THE USA created the Taliban through the services of the ISI........the USA covertly likes the Taliban as the USA engages the Taliban in a fake punch and Judy "war" which allows the USA military to harvest the enormous amounts of Afghan Heroin money...$50---$80 billion annual profits from the Afghan Heroin business. The Taliban acts as the justification for the USA to maintain itself in Afghanistan as "Controlled Opposition".
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So long as the USA is in Afghanistan, harvesting the Afghan heroin and using the "Controlled Opposition" of the Taliban, India's real interests aren't going to get a lookin in that country. In the wider sense then for India the problem is ultimately the USA......using and creating the Taliban from 1994, AND funding, training, arming the Pakistan military since the 1950's.
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The problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan is the USA for India ultimately.)
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All of these developments point to the fact that over the years, India's ability to win friends and influence people in its neighbourhood has taken a massive hit. Call it benign neglect. Or put it down to thrills from the first flush of romance with the United States and the tantalising prospect of joining the international high table. Despite a rapidly growing economy, a flourishing democracy, the unrivalled soft power of its popular culture and an army that boasts of being the third largest in the world, India's geopolitical influence across south Asia falls sadly short of expectations. As a rising China, with an economy poised to become the world's largest by 2025, casts its giant shadow over Asia and as Beijing eagerly fills the gaps New Delhi has unthinkingly left in its backyard, the question being asked in strategic and diplomatic circles is this: is India dealing itself out in south Asia?

"Yes," is the emphatic response from Observer Research Foundation analyst Sameer Saran. "Clearly, we are. We should be creating more robust integration with our neighbourhood. But are we devoting enough time to this? I don't believe we are." Says a retired senior diplomat who wished to remain unidentified, "The concepts are all there and they are bandied around regularly. It's important for our security and economic growth that we manage our periphery. But to do this, we need to be continuously engaged with our neighbours. The trouble is we keep taking our eyes off the ball."

Today, with the exception of Bhutan, India cannot count a single all-weather friend in the region. From tiny Maldives in the west to Bangladesh and Myanmar in the east to Sri Lanka in the south, national interest need not converge with Indian interests and a little bit of China on the side adds heft to smaller nations when dealing with big brother India. As for Pakistan and China, former national security advisor Brajesh Mishra believes that both are jointly following a containment policy designed to keep India embroiled in tensions with all its neighbours.

"China's presence has grown all around us. It shows the paucity of India's influence in her neighbourhood," Mishra says.

Analysts are perplexed and concerned by the apparent disinterest of successive governments in developing and nurturing an intense engagement with the neighbourhood, especially the south Asian nations that comprise SAARC. Consider these facts: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not paid a bilateral visit to a single SAARC country during his six years in office. Nor did his predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee, save for one famous trip to Lahore when the India-Pakistan bus link opened in February 1999.
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(As I have maintained Man Mohan Singh is an International Banker appointed ex-Babu whose job is to implement THEIR program into India, with a nicey smile. So now India has 55 $ billionaires and 840 million starving Indians living day to day on 20 rupees. It is sheer astonishing that this so called non-elected "leader" has never visited a neighbor country. Just shocking......but has visited Washington many times)
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A secret note prepared by the external affairs ministry four years ago lists countries in order of strategic importance to India. The US tops the list, followed by the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Russia, in that order. Surprisingly, China, a budding superpower and a neighbour with which we share a disputed border, ranks sixth, while Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka round off the top ten. Despite Bhutan being India's closest ally in the immediate neighbourhood, the ministry put it way down on the list along with countries like Belgium and Australia. Bewildering?
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(VERY! looks like a late adolescent studying International relations at Nehru University looked at the map of the world, the night before his paper submission date, who then after looking at the map on the wall just jotted down on an adhoc basis what he thought were the most important countries in the entire Dunyia from a post-Colonial Anglocentric Macauley's "Brown sahib" point of view, WITHOUT thinking about their real impact and importance to India in the immediate to long term.

Hello undergrad......International strategic relations for your country isn't merely about engaging countries you happen to like in a rather collie way........visiting and gawping at NY/London/Paris doing the duty free shopping, BUT as important if not more its about engaging countries which you don't like.
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Sad and rather basic for mighty India.
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Here's my list:

1.PAKISTAN: rather obvious since India has fought 4 wars against them, and is a constant source of much trouble, and percieved trouble as a failed state neighbor. It is currently run and directed by the USA, and this influence given history and actual events is not good for India. India must work to neutralize American power in Pakistan, and bring Pakistan into India's fold. That is not an easy challenge, but it must be grasped first and foremost by the Indian establishment. Then you think about SAARC, then spending several billion $ on the country.....and then FTA's.
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2. USA: The country is at present the lone superpower, still and therefore needs to be watched.

Trade between the two countries is $40 billion and rising fast, on a mutually balanced basis. There are 2 million Indians in the USA who are aggressively pushing for greater Indo-USA ties for understandable reasons. India potentially can gain enormous benefits from the USA, if the USA seriously begins to invest in India in the manner of China, Europe and South Korea, which were all done not through sheer chance of course, but government initiatives. In the USA Trade is not purely a free economic activity CLEARLY, it is also a political tool most starkly expressed in the way the USA imposes sanctions against Cuba still after 50 odd years rather pedantically, and more recently Iran rather feverishly based on false information and assumptions courtesy of Israel.(reliving old desert fairy tales like Purim.......absolutely NO evidence it took place, but these creatures have worked themselves up around it; the non-existent nuclear program in Iran is thus the alibi to relive Purim in the 21st century for these creatures)

Obama is an unknown quantity for India, groomed by the neo-liberal wing of Wall street and ushered into power through American intelligence since the late 1970's. It is encouraging that he is visiting India after 23 months of his inauguration, since it could have been worse, as in the case of Bill Clinton who came at the very end of his second term, posed a lot, said all those neo-liberal things and left without doing anything seriously important for India that would matter. Now if Obama comes and clearly elevates Indian trade with the USA significantly, where it matters, offers MFN status, FTA which allow trade between the two nations to reach $200 billion by 2015 then India can be content, and relieved. On the other hand if Obama does a "Bill Clinton" 2000 then India should become grimly serious about the USA as the backers of the Pakistan military, and the Taliban via the ISI. India should never accept promises of a "Great Power" status from an actual Empire, at war in several theaters. It is insulting and absurd.

On a darker note the USA as an Empire with 800 bases around the world and the sole superpower needs to be watched by India with attentive attention and concern. 63 years ago India came out of British colonialism which shall we say was not that beneficial for the Indian sub-continent, resulting in the loss of 30 million Indians dead, enormous Capital flight to London, de-industrialisation, a sharp decline in living standards especially between 1820---1920....the land of adject poverty was a cliche that did not exist before the British arrived, quite the opposite. India was the center of the unofficial global gold reserve. India must watch with concern the building up of the Pakistani military machine with American arms, and funds out of the books yet again (a % of the supplies that go to the forces in Afghanistan via Pakistan are taken by the Pakistan military with full American approval as it bypasses Congress and media attention.....so....for example lets say $80 billion worth of supplies go to the American/NATO forces in Afghanistan via Pakistan annually......the Americans give the Zardari crooks a transit fee of maybe $500 million, BUT of real concern to India should be the "fell off the back of the lorry" military hardware Pakistan gets.......what is ones guess? $4 billion annually or $8 billion annually....unofficial aid which does not benefit Pakistan the country, but enriches the Pakistan military and its current bloated self. Which in turn encourages the Pakistan military to fight its wars in FATA, and when that ends the military will look to India again, sure in the knowledge that they are backed by the USA, and China)

The solution of the Pakistan problems lies through the USA, either through friendly initiatives or unfriendly ones.
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3. Russia: Sacred bonds can exist between nations without government initiatives. The Iranian race developed in Russia over thousands upon thousands of years. There are Iranians in "Slavic" Russia as there are Iranians in India....150--200 million perhaps.

Since 1945 the Soviet Union became very close to India diplomatically. The Soviet Union was India's best ally. India's strategic base built up in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's were purely the result of help from one country primarily, the USSR. Without this help India would be nothing today. Post 1991 Russia still matters to India strategically. Russia's Jewish leadership is doing its best to steer the country towards the West, which means less attention for the East. To be sure Russian tourists don't flood India now. To be sure since the heydays of the Soviet Union the relationship between the two is a little bit more business like, and in some cases abusively commercial (aircraft carrier deal)......BUT RUSSIA WILL ALWAYS BE AN IMPORTANT COUNTRY FOR India.
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4. China:
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5. Bangladesh:
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6. Nepal:
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7. Iran/Afghanistan/Central Asia:
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8. Myanmar:
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9. ASEAN:
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10. UK:

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It's inexplicable, certainly. Just as India's Pakistan's policy is, with its diminishing returns. This is the one neighbour in which every prime minister since Independence has invested personal time and energy. And ironically, it has proved to be our most troublesome, with sections of the Pakistani establishment pursuing a policy that is downright hostile. "Somehow, we always seem to forget that the first task should be to secure our neighbourhood. This is an imperative if we want to play a global role," says Mishra.

Analysts believe that India's neighbourhood conundrum is largely self-created, thanks to our fatal fascination for the West, particularly the United States. While they acknowledge that it was necessary to mend fences with Washington to remain relevant in the new world order that emerged with the end of the Cold War, they feel that policy-makers in New Delhi lost sight of priorities in the chase for a seat at the high table. The last five years were a turning point, as the Manmohan Singh government locked up all its capital in pushing the Indo-US nuclear deal through.

"In our excitement at being feted by Western powers and joining the G-20, the East Asia Summit and so on, we've ended up ignoring our traditional constituencies. We seem to see our neighbours as pesky countries rather than important strategic partners in our growth trajectory," said a former diplomat who did not want his name disclosed.

A senior official in the Prime Minister's Office downplayed warning notes about the hiatus that has crept into relations with neighbouring countries. He also pooh-poohed the China factor in south Asia, pointing out that Beijing is very cautious about its activities in India's neighbourhood. For instance, although it built the Gwadar port in Pakistan, a Singapore company is running the facility, he said, adding that the US put pressure on Pakistan to take the port out of the Chinese ambit. "So, you see, there are natural balancers in every country," he insisted.

Explaining the dip in engagement levels, he said that virtually all the neighbouring countries have been in political turmoil for the past several years, making it difficult for India to build longterm assets in the region. While Nepal is still in crisis, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have stabilised and the Manmohan Singh government is trying to repair ties with both by loosening its purse strings. Economic assistance to the two countries has been stepped up several times. Rajpakse returned to Colombo after a state visit to India in June with an assistance package amounting to $1 billion.

But the elephant moves slowly. Although India-friendly Sheikh Hasina's victory in the Bangladesh elections last year presents New Delhi with just the opportunity it needs, signs of strain are already there. A recent article in a leading Bangladesh newspaper carried a report that blamed India for non-implementation of trade agreements concluded during Hasina's January visit to India. In a goodwill gesture to Hasina, India had conceded a long-standing demand from Dhaka on the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers on Bangladeshi goods. The newspaper report said that bureaucrats on both sides were holding things up.

"It's unfortunate," says former diplomat G Parthasarathi. "If India doesn't deliver to Bangladesh in the next five years, it will weaken Hasina and the price will be paid by us. I don't know why we can't be more generous with our neighbours. China sees all its neighbouring countries as an extension of its market and places no restrictions on the movement of goods. We demand reciprocity with every neighbour instead of adopting a larger philosophical approach like China."

Saran puts this niggardly attitude down to an inability to shake off old mindsets. "We worked in poverty mode for so long that we haven't come out of it yet, although our economy is growing at 8-9 per cent every year. We need to realise that not only has the world changed, so have we," he says.

Mishra warns, however, that economics alone cannot give India the clout it should have as an emerging power. It is equally important to develop military muscle. "We must be able to defend our borders by building up our military strength. There is an impression that India can be taken for granted because it's a soft state. We've neglected our military for too long," he says. He acknowledged that the Vajpayee government was as much to blame as the Manmohan Singh government for going slow on the much-touted fighter aircraft deal under which the Indian Air Force is slated to acquire 126 war planes as part of its modernisation plans.

While agreeing with Mishra, Parthasarathi laments that emotions get in the way of India's dealings with its neighbours. "We make a mistake when we ask them to love us. No big country can have a comfortable relationship with smaller neighbours. We will have to learn to be realistic and ignore anti-India sentiments around us. Our neighbours should respect us. We need to create long-term assets everywhere to give them a stake in maintaining good ties with us, everywhere, that is, except Pakistan. That needs to be put in a different basket," he declares.

PLAYING CATCH-UP

Since last year, India has tried to correct the imbalance in its neighbourhood diplomacy by welcoming almost all the heads of south Asian governments. And in an uncharacteristic show of generosity, it has also loosened its purse strings by offering unprecedented assistance packages


SRI LANKA

Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse returned home from his June visit to India with promises of approximately $1 billion in credit lines for various projects. This almost equals China's $1.2 billion worth of loans to Sri Lanka for development projects across the island nation. Most of the Indian-aided projects are in Tamilpopulated northern Sri Lanka. They include: Construction of 50,000 houses in the northern and eastern provinces for Tamil refugees displaced during the war against the LTTE Reconstruction of at least four railway lines Construction of a new signalling and telecommunication network Rehabilitation of Palaly airport and Kankesanthurai harbour Renovation of the Duraiappah stadium Construction of a cultural centre in Jaffna Construction of a coal-fired power plant in Trincomalee.

BANGLADESH

A range of assistance measures were announced during Bangladesh president Sheikh Hasina's Delhi visit in January this year. They include: A $1 billion credit line for infrastructure development such as construction and upgradation of railway lines and supply of BG locomotives, passenger coaches and buses Removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers and port restrictions on Bangladeshi goods and reduction of items on India's negative list Supply of 250 MW of electricity from India.

MYANMAR

While India's assistance to Myanmar does not in any way match China's , the country's military leader, General Than Shwe, found New Delhi more responsive when he visited in July this year. The agreements include: Assistance totalling around $200 million for construction of roads, electricity transmission lines and a microwave link as well as procurement of railway and agriculture equipment from India New impetus to stalled power projects on the Chindwin river basin in Myanmar Numerous HRD projects such as setting up centres for English language training, entrepreneurship development and industrial training Restoration of the historic Ananda temple in Bagan by the Archeological Survey of India.

NEPAL

With the political crisis in Nepal continuing amid Maoist allegations of Indian interference, New Delhi has been reluctant to be generous with Kathmandu despite hosting Nepalese president Ram Baran Yadav in February this year. It did, however, promise $250 million in credit for the following: Setting up a railway link Building a polytechnic institute Construction of a new convention hall near the India-Nepal border Supply of 80,000 tonnes of food grains.

AFGHANISTAN

Although there were no announcements of assistance during Afghan president Hamid Karzai's April visit to New Delhi, India has pledged over $800 million in reconstruction and rehabilitation projects. The projects are almost in every part of Afghanistan and include the following: Construction of a new parliament building in Kabul Construction of transmission lines to bring power from neighbouring countries to Kabul Construction of roads Supply of high protein biscuits for school feeding programmes Reconstruction of a dam project in Herat province Building a national TV network Skill development and training programmes in a variety of sectors including civil services and medical missions in at least five cities.