[Reader-list] "Terrorism dilemmas come down to Kashmir"

[Rahul Asthana]

This article seems something straight out of the propaganda department of the Pakistan Army. Only Arundhati Roy fanboys can take this seriously,but then there are no dearth of those types on this list.

"> But the bulk of the Pakistani military remains tied down in
> the
> Punjab, protecting the heartland from an Indian invasion;
> according to
> Farukkh Saleem, executive director of Pakistan’s Centre
> for Research
> and Security Studies, 80 percent to 90 percent of
> Pakistan’s military
> assets are in use countering the Indian threat."

Sure,the poor Pakistan military is so scared of India and Indian military that it has to foster so called non state actors and send terrorists in India to kill Indian civilians.That will show them!

"> Leaving aside the strategy of COIN for the moment, Lalwani
> — comparing
> the terrain, population size, language difference and a
> range of other
> factors — contends that an effective campaign will
> require 370,000 to
> 430,000 more troops than presently involved. It’s a
> redeployment
> that’s unconscionable to the Pakistani military; such a
> move would
> leave Pakistan vulnerable to its vicious rival.
"

Neither Brian Till nor Sameer Lalwani seem to have read reports coming from Pakistan by Pakistani journalists in Pakistani newspapers how the Pakistani Army has allowed the Talibans to fester under its very nose. They have refrained to take even the slightest of action against them and the poor locals have been left to fend for themselves.There have been cases where Army has been stationed quite close to Taliban strong holds but have turned a blind eye.


Particularly, the Pakistani military — with whom
> power
> ultimately resides and which has the capacity to undermine
> any
> progress — is well steeped in distrust of the U.S.

Lol! This has to be the most hilarious line in the article. The Pakistani army is so steeped in distrust of the US that it allows them to carry out drone attacks on their own soil in exchange of billions of dollars of aid. I wonder what would have happened if they had trusted the US.


--- On Wed, 10/28/09, Sanjay Kak <kaksanjay at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Sanjay Kak <kaksanjay at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Reader-list] "Terrorism dilemmas come down to Kashmir"
> To: "Sarai Reader List" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 12:01 AM
> Terrorism dilemmas come down
> to Kashmir
> 
> Brian Till
> 
> Sun, Oct 25, 2009 (2 a.m.)
> 
> http://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/oct/25/terrorism-dilemmas-come-down-kashmir/
> 
> The most vital region in this world today, for U.S.
> interests at
> least, remains a maze of cloud-shearing piles of rock and
> sweeping
> valleys, both checkered by impoverished towns and men
> clutching AKs —
> but this pile is hundreds of miles from Kabul.
> 
> So the logic follows: One can not tolerate an unstable
> Afghanistan for
> fear that it will become the Mecca of a perverted Islam
> once more;
> and, one cannot hope to stabilize Afghanistan without also
> addressing
> Pakistan; and Pakistan, we must understand, has almost no
> hope of
> winning its internal battle with a radicalized Pashtun
> militia known
> as the Taliban unless it engages its entire military in the
> exercise.
> 
> But the bulk of the Pakistani military remains tied down in
> the
> Punjab, protecting the heartland from an Indian invasion;
> according to
> Farukkh Saleem, executive director of Pakistan’s Centre
> for Research
> and Security Studies, 80 percent to 90 percent of
> Pakistan’s military
> assets are in use countering the Indian threat.
> 
> Sameer Lalwani, a colleague of mine at the New America
> Foundation, has
> put forward a net assessment of the nation’s capacity to
> wage a
> counter insurgency (COIN) campaign in the Federally
> Administered
> Tribal Areas and the Northwest Frontier Province.
> 
> Leaving aside the strategy of COIN for the moment, Lalwani
> — comparing
> the terrain, population size, language difference and a
> range of other
> factors — contends that an effective campaign will
> require 370,000 to
> 430,000 more troops than presently involved. It’s a
> redeployment
> that’s unconscionable to the Pakistani military; such a
> move would
> leave Pakistan vulnerable to its vicious rival.
> 
> Thus, Kashmir, the dispute at the center of the bloody
> fissure between
> India and Pakistan, remains the most important region to
> the U.S.
> interests — and, ironically, it exists as one of the few
> conflicts
> over which we cannot wield significant influence.
> 
> There has not been a call for U.S. mediation, the
> boisterous Indian
> population likely won’t stomach American pressure, and
> there is no
> need to reiterate the loathing Pakistanis feel toward the
> United
> States. Particularly, the Pakistani military — with whom
> power
> ultimately resides and which has the capacity to undermine
> any
> progress — is well steeped in distrust of the U.S.
> 
> The conflict was born from the bloody partition of India
> and Pakistan
> as the queen’s bankrupted empire sought to liquidate
> following World
> War II. Though it receives less attention than the sister
> conflict
> born from the death of the British realm —
> Israel/Palestine — it is
> likely the more severe of the pair. Between 35,000 and
> 50,000 have
> died since 1989, when the Mujahadeen victors in Afghanistan
> sought to
> make the princely state into the next theater of holy war.
> 
> Kashmir is the most important example of why the U.S.
> cannot afford to
> accept the anarchy we find and allow to simmer in many
> parts of the
> world. Somalia, Juarez, Haiti: We have become too
> globalized and are
> combating problems too transmittable for the humble foreign
> policy
> that George W. Bush espoused as a candidate.
> 
> Indeed, the defining struggle of our time — unlike those
> of previous
> generations, which pitted competing imperial aggressions
> and ambitions
> and competing capitalist and communist ideologies against
> one another
> — our challenge and foe exists outside the state system;
> it is the
> battle against lawlessness, backwardness and
> statelessness.
> 
> One can’t help but think: Had John F. Kennedy’s attempt
> to negotiate a
> solution with Prime Minister Harold McMillan for Kashmir in
> 1963
> proven fruitful, we might be living in a substantially less
> terrifying
> world. Perhaps it ought to be a lesson to us. Mediate and
> assist more,
> even if interests do not appear to be at stake — who
> knows when they
> might be.
> 
> Brian Till, a columnist for Creators Syndicate, is a
> research fellow
> for the New America Foundation, a think tank
> in Washington.
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