Untold Facts

Afghanistan may tip the balance against the US like it did for the USSR

US strategy in Afghanistan is under review. India and Pakistan have interests in the region and both are offering advice. If the US took India’s advice, Afghanistan would remain a pariah state and a menace to peace. Not just that, Obama may become a one term President resulting in proliferation of wars and collapse of the world socio-economic order.

Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan was orderly and under a UN sponsored agreement. Yet it led to the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. Surely the defeat in Afghanistan alone could not have caused the dissolution of an empire put together over many centuries. When the Soviet Union broke up it was still one of the two super powers with military power unparalleled in history. Afghanistan played the role of the last ounce that tipped the balance. While several generations had overextended Soviet role and power the perestroika generation discovered that the Russian standards of living was well behind that of the rest of Europe. They decided they did not want an empire; they wanted prosperity.

The defeat in Afghanistan also revealed that the military prowess of the Soviet Union was just as hollow as its prosperity. The display of its powerlessness tipped the balance. All the structural weaknesses of the state and the society which had been kept out of sight of the people to maintain a semblance of power and prosperity all showed up. At one time it appeared that it might be difficult to even hold Russia together. But wise leaders and rise in oil prices saved the day and Russia is back in robust good health as a society and a country.

The US is in a much worse position in Afghanistan than the Soviet Union was when it withdrew in 1985. The USSR was contiguous to Afghanistan and therefore had a secure LofC. The US started with the disadvantage of a very long and a very insecure LofC to the war theatre of Afghanistan. To make matters worse, the US Government and the press portrayed the war in Afghanistan as one between Islam and the West. Co-operating with the ‘US War on Terror’ was seen as collaboration. Any Muslim country that committed itself to war on the side of the US in Afghanistan was bound to be unpopular.

Pakistan, which had been a US ally of long standing, was faced with Hobson’s choice. Its troops fight alongside the US whose US drones and helicopters have killed thousands of Pakistanis. The US objectives are murkier than ever. The benign view is that the USA does not know who the enemy is. A more realistic view is that different power centres have different enemies and in the peculiar situation of Pakistan all of those are able to strike at their favourite targets usually unsuccessfully. Pakistan has two power centres – the military and the political class. The political class want money and support for their unpopular rule; the military wants to see the war end early. All the factions of the political class want US support. Until now the US was satisfied with the situation in Pakistan as it did not have to commit it to any side. But obsequiousness to the US has now begun to affect the prospects of success in Afghanistan where the Taliban keep extending their control despite the cruelty of their methods. Clearly, fear has proved to be a more powerful weapon than the battle for hearts and minds.

A review of the objectives and strategy is going on in Pakistan as well. Although Pakistan’s objectives continue to be early withdrawal of US and NATO forces; it fears that the longer the ‘targets’ are present the Afghans would keep shooting at them. Judging by its conduct in the past, the USA might turn on Pakistan at any time. Some in the US see Pakistan’s fear as ‘helpful’ because it precludes Pakistan denying the US vital land access to Afghanistan. But such views sustain suspicion, undermine military operations and make it impossible to evolve common objectives and strategies. The only country which is gleeful about the present situation in Afghanistan is India. Under American protection, India can engage in clandestine operations against Pakistan – particularly in Baluchistan – with impunity. Pakistanis view the situation with concern and suspect that it is the US that drives its joint efforts with India and Karzai’s Afghanistan against Pakistan.

The lingering air of suspicion in US Pakistan relations has undermined America’s efforts to leave the Bush era behind and build bridges with the Muslim World. During his election campaign and his first year in office President Obama showed awareness that he must convince the Muslim World that America is not its enemy. His efforts appeared genuine in intent and honest in content. But the ease with which Israel and its lobbies in the US were able to frustrate him on the minor issue of moratorium on new settlements in occupied Palestinian territories has not only discredited President Obama but also dwarfed the institution of the US President. His supporters are unhappy that he has not pursued his agenda with resolve. In any case his strategy in Afghanistan was founded on a misconception from the outset. The ‘surge’ to win a few battles spectacularly did not work. Afghan resistance which controls 75% of the territory does not appear to be eager to rush to the negotiating table. Any agreement with Hamid Karzai would not be worth the paper it is written on. As things stands now whenever the American leave they would leave it in the control of war lords and there will be a repeat of what happened after the Soviet Union withdrew.

The question is why should the Americans care and what can they do even if they did care. The conventional wisdom is that the US merely wants to ensure that Al-Qaeda did not find a safe haven in Afghanistan once again. That objective has been achieved. The USA has no way of ensuring they do not return but the neighbours of Afghanistan have the will and the ability to ensure that. America can and should work with them. But if America’s real aim is something else it would soon be evident as India takes its seat as a member of the UN Security Council for two years. Actually it is no secret what India wants. It wants the USA to remain entangled in Afghanistan and be viewed by the Muslim World as an enemy. If the Obama Administration adopted the Indian recommendation that would have huge implications for the United States as well as the wider world.

America has two choices in Afghanistan. One is to accept what Pakistan’s military has been saying for a long time i.e. it is the best interest of America to withdraw early and work for a peace agreement with the neighbours of Afghanistan and the war lords Taliban as well as non-Taliban. The other option is to dig in for a long haul in Afghanistan with defeat and ignominious withdrawal a certainty.

Polls in the USA are predicting that the elections in the US due to be held in November may result in the Democratic Party losing control of the Congress. That would set President Obama on course for being another one tern President. The nightmare of America would not end with that. By present trends, the Republican who would win the presidential election would be so right wing and belligerent that he/she could strike many more Muslim countries. The Republican successor of Obama would be real wrecker – a Boris Yeltsin who got his instructions from Tel Aviv. That would be a dream come true for those who aspire for Armageddon in their life time.

It may be already too late for the Democratic Party to win the mid term elections. But it is still possible for President Obama to win a second term if he presented clear choices to the American people who are sick and tired of war. He must stand out as the candidate for peace. To be that he must deliver on complete withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan before the end of his first term in office. US military victory is well nigh impossible but a defeat would be deadlier for Pakistan than Afghanistan which is already devastated by three decades of war. If the Americans accepted the recommendation of Pakistan, our country would have a stake in its success. Pakistan and the USA working together for America to maintain a benign civil presence in the region is an objective all Pakistanis can be comfortable with. But that entails a huge challenge.

The challenge is two-fold. On the one hand it would entail a public information effort to drive home the point that the Taliban had control over more than 75 % of the territory including Kabul and Kandhar but their legitimacy was based on ‘conquest’ alone. If the Americans left Afghanistan without an agreement with the ‘resistance’ the Taliban prospects of ever gain power would evaporate. They might be able to conquer somewhat less of Afghanistan at huge cost but they would still be without legitimacy and international recognition. As a land locked state put together by conquest would a pariah state. A landlocked pariah state can play no role other than being a menace to its people and the region. The Americans are offering the resistance a negotiated peace. That would give them international recognition and legitimacy. If they did not accept the offer Afghanistan would indeed be a menace for all its neighbours. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been the supporter and well wishers of the resistance in Afghanistan. But if it did not accept the advice of its sincere friends, Afghanistan would be on its own condemned to perpetual civil war.

The other challenge comes from the ineffectiveness of the corrupt governments in Pakistan and Afghanistan. America now has two unpopular governments – Zaradri and Karzai regimes - that it cannot dump or support wholeheartedly. There is still hope in Pakistan where the robustness of its judiciary and the military may prevent excessive damage to other institutions of the state. But one hesitates to make a recommendation for Afghanistan. The Soviet Union resorted to assassination of its erstwhile lackeys - Hafizullah Amin Babrak Karmal - in similar circumstances. What would the US do?

A wrong decision in Afghanistan may not just result in Obama becoming another one term President. He may be followed by Netanyahu as President albeit with a different name; Sarah Palin or Joe Lieberman would do just as well as wreckers of the world. ++

Author: Usman Khalid

(The writer served as Brigadier in the Pakistan Army. He is the Chairman of London Institute of South Asia)

Isn’t it time we call ourselves blind?

Many of my fellow human beings can see this beautiful world with plain eyes, but I need the help of spectacles to enjoy the scenic beauty of what is around me. So people call me myopic.

All these days I used to envy those who can clearly see the wonders of this world without any external, optical aid. But recently I have started to think otherwise. Maybe it’s not only me after all.

I admit I can’t see without specs, but still I am not blind. I see when I need to — even if that is through my specs.

But the nation to which I belong seems to be completely blind and does not see anything happening around it. I wonder, how can we, as a nation, be so blind and yet we are not worried about our loss of sight!

If we had been able to see, then how could we have let all these glitches and gremlins happen around us — and yet, we remain silent?

About four years back on 28 October 2006, we saw on the TV screen our fellow humans being beaten to death in broad daylight like snakes by some elements carrying the badge of ‘humans’ in the most brutal fashion that we ordinary people dread to imagine! Many of us will admit that we “saw” that. Yes, we did, but if we really did, how could we have voted for the killers of that day to rule our nation in just two years’ time at end of 2008? Yet we claim we can see! Or, did we really vote for them? Was the election really fair? Was the counting done in the normal way we count votes? No doubt, these are extremely perplexing and bewildering questions.

And what do we see today? Through which eyes do we see the killing of the upazila Chairman Mr. Sanauallah Noor Babu in Natore? Wasn’t it equally brutal as the incident of 28 October 2006? Are we becoming immune to such atrocities? Are we losing our essential human sensitivity and human values, let alone religious and moral teachings?

How do we keep our eyes open when the members of the pro-government student organization throw each other from a building? How could we remain normal when our Prime Minister’s boys torture ordinary students at public universities for their refusal to join political rallies including her birthday procession?

Can’t we see every day in the news how our fellow Bangladeshis in the border regions are being killed by the security forces of a ‘big and friendly’ neighbor? Can’t we see how our lands and waters are being used unlawfully by that neighbor? Can’t we hear how our ‘friends’ of that country are continuously branding us as ‘terrorists’ in the international forums only to keep the world in the dark about what they are doing to us?

Where is our nation going? Where are we as citizens heading? How long shall we keep quiet when our democratic and human rights are being violated, our media being silenced, and our sovereignty being slowly eroded?

If we can, then how come we as a nation are not rising to the occasion? And if we can’t do that and if we remain blind to our surroundings, then let’s be forthright and call a spade a spade. To be more precise, let us call ourselves blind! Or, has our conscience died? Has the fountain of our human compassion dried up?

To cover my myopic eyes, I use spectacles. To conceal our dried conscience, what can we use?

Author: Mrinmoyee Rahman

Are Indian Nuclear Assets Safe!

An Indian nuclear scientist, Lokanathan Mahalingam, disappeared from the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Karnataka on June 8, 2009 and his dead body was found from Kali River on June 13. The Kaiga plant is located near one of the biggest naval bases, Project Seabird and the scientist was working on the atomic plant since last eight years. He was involved in training apprentices on a replica of the actual reactor and was in possession of highly sensitive information.

According to media reports Mahalingam went on morning jogging and got disappeared. As per his family members, he did not carry money or his cell phone with him and went for walk whereas the security guards on duty said that they didn’t see him leaving the campus. It is worth mentioning here that he also disappeared 10 years back when he was working at the Kalpakkam Atomic Station. On his return, after five days, Mahalingam expressed that he had gone to seek spiritual consolation.

A DNA test was performed just to ascertain the identity of the dead body. But that also raised the question: why was he cremated in such a hurry even before the results of the DNA test and the post-mortem report? The presence or absence of air in his lungs, any signs of torture on his body and the level of decomposition could have pointed to the circumstances in which he met his final end.

It is also questionable that shortly after his body was found the police announced its verdict that the scientist had committed suicide. The conclusion was premature since Mahalingam left no suicide note. Even if this version of Mahalingam’s death is accepted, the suicide of an Indian nuclear scientist who worked in a sensitive field is not an ordinary event. It points to the shaky human and personnel reliability in the Indian nuclear complex.

It must be a matter of global concern that killing of the Mahalingam is not only the first case of murder. Earlier, this year, another NPC non-technical employee Ravi Mule was found dead in the township on April 7. He too had gone for morning walk. Before that, on November 11, 2006, Director of Uttaranchal Space Application Centre, Dr Anil Kumar Tiwari, was also shot dead by an unidentified person near his residence. Police have not cracked the earlier cases and similarly are clueless in the current case of scientist. Moreover, in addition to financial corruptions, 152 theft cases of uranium have also been reported and registered with the police since 1984.

The fact of the matter is that Indian top listed companies have remained engaged in illegal importing and exporting of nuclear equipments. For example Berkeley Nucleonic Corporation (BNC), an American company was fined US $ 300,000 for exporting a nuclear component to the Bhaba Atomic Research Center in India and also in December 2005, United States imposed sanctions on two Indian firms for selling missile goods and chemical arms material to Iran in violation of India’s commitment to prevent proliferation. In the same year, Indian scientists, Dr Surendar and Y. S. R. Prasad had been blacklisted by the US due to their involvement in nuclear theft. Again, in December, 2006 a container packed with radioactive material had been stolen from an Indian fortified research atomic facility near Mumbai.

The above incidents confirm that the security of Indian nuclear programme is highly questionable. It is evident that the world’s most treacherous nuke proliferation is going on in India. The Hindu extremists with the help of Indian nuke scientists belonging to the Hindu fundamentalist organization Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sang (RSS) have been found involved in illegal transfer of nuclear technology to Israel and some western countries through underworld organizations to generate the funds for the completion of “Maha Baharat agenda”.

The recent release of US document on the internet is another security concern in the serious circles of the Washington. The list includes both government and civilian nuclear facilities and covering the details and location of nation’s 103 commercial nuclear power reactors. The equipment useful in preparation of nuclear device is available in the open American markets and reportedly being sold to Indian organization illegally.

The release of US nukes document, selling of equipment in local American market, theft cases of Indian Uranium, disappearance and abduction of Indian Nuke Scientist seem to be correlated to each other.

Two of India’s most important nuclear installations are located near Mumbai. Tarapur’s two 160 MW nuclear plants are already functioning near Trombay while two more 500 MW power plants are under construction near Mumbai itself. These two plants are designed to work as fuel fabrication facilities and are not safeguarded under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nor effectively protected. India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and a number of other nuclear plants and uranium conversion facilities are also not part of IAEA safeguards. A fuel fabrication facility is also not far from the city and is considered unsafe by most accounts.

If one is to believe the Indian claim that ten young militants engaged more than 3000 of India’s top commandoes, intelligence and police officials for 60 hours and killed 200 people in Mumbai city, then we must seriously be worried about the safety of India’s nuclear arsenal, radioactive material, and nuclear power plants. Experts are of the view that if ten gunmen can hold a city of 15 million people, which houses a number of sensitive nuclear and radio-active plants, then how safe are India’s nukes?

Intriguing Role of Western Media
It is intriguing that not a single major American or British media outlet covered the story of the kidnapping and murder of a man that holds the key to the Indian nuclear arsenal with proper analysis. There are no scare stories on CNN, BBC, Fox etc about Indian nukes falling in the wrong hands. There are some reasons behind all this fact. One is that the Am-Brit media spent much of its energy in the last two years trying to scare the world about Pakistan’s nukes and how the Pakistanis are unable to protect them. Suddenly a major nuclear security breach in India surfaced. One of the reasons can be that the Americans have just broken all proliferation laws and decided that India is such a responsible nuclear power that it deserves to be given advanced nuclear technology.

Imagine if this incident had happened in Pakistan. The entire Am-Brit media would have been beating the drums of war, reminding the world how dangerous and unstable Pakistan is. Isn’t it deliberate that the western media is silent about the basic questions: Who kidnapped and later killed the Indian nuclear scientist and what was the purpose? What would happen if one of the 14 separatist movements or the Hindu fundamentalist groups in India had kidnapped the scientist to gain access to Indian nuclear bombs? What if the terrorists who have actually gained access to an Indian nuclear facility, killed the scientist and are now waiting to carry out a major terrorist act? What if any one of those Indian separatist groups fighting for the independence in 14 out of the 28 Indian states have used the scientist to sell information or nuclear designs to groups or countries that end up attacking the United States? These are the questions that not only need answers but also put the peace and security of the whole world at stake.

Author: M Raza Malik
Source: Kashmir Media Service