Category Error: Attacking Norway for Pearl Harbor

Bahukutumbi Raman, in a recent dispatch labeled “PAK ARMY & ISI: DANGEROUS MIX OF HUMILIATION & DESPERATION”, warns that Pakistan may be planning to redeem itself by orchestrating a successful strike against India, especially in the contentious Kashmir region.

No doubt, Pakistan’s citizens are seriously concerned about the ability of their government and armed forces to protect them. No doubt there has been talk on the streets of intelligence failure at best or illicit collusion with the Americans at worst.

Yet, all this follows a familiar pattern. Most military incursions into sovereign territory for any reason are done in stealth. The inevitable questions and accusations follow. Did Roosevelt know about Pearl Harbor in advance? Did Bush know about 9/11? And in her column in yesterday’s Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick accuses Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defense Minister of failing to anticipate trouble along the country’s Syrian border on Nakba Day.

The truth is, no government can promise ironclad security to its citizens. A successful strategy, however, must involve the threat of consequences for anyone intending such a move. If Pakistan were to attack India in the wake of its so-called ‘humiliation’, such redemption would be short lived. For one thing, India had nothing to do with the bin Laden raid.

President Bush underwent a hell of tortures for his decision to attack Iraq in the wake of 9/11. His opponents constantly labeled it as “the wrong war”. In the end, rightly or wrongly, it proved to be his undoing.

My own sense of Pakistan’s leadership is that it is too mature to attack India as a direct consequence of the U.S. bin Laden raid. It has far better options: Turning its focus away from Washington to cooperating more with China is one. If India is attacked, it will not be because of anything that happened in Abbottabad.

I wish I had a similar degree of confidence in America’s foreign policy.

Cornered Dogs Bite

Every human thought leaves an imprint. When I look across my front lawn in the morning after a freshly fallen snow, I see it crisscrossed with animal spoors. Each one is different. It is not the difference in the appearance of the tracks that is significant; rather, it is the fact that there was movement: each animal wanted to get from one place to another. It is doubtful that two or more animals ever met because each track was likely made in its own time. If there had been some threat, all the tracks would show the animals running in one direction – away from the danger. In the absence of a threat, the pattern is quite random.

Reading this morning’s headlines, we find that the stampede against the U.S. dollar continues, now with the IMF chiming in. We read that long-standing alliances are rupturing with nations fleeing U.S. entanglements and influence, seeking something more stable, more predictable. They do not make a value judgment as to what’s right, wrong or fair. They simply look to attach themselves to what they perceive as power that would serve to protect them.

The USS America is sinking – whether by benign neglect, sabotage or by deliberate design – and the whole world is running away from the disaster that has become rap America. The pattern in the snow is now discernible. Argentina is now embracing the Venezuelan model. Venezuela has adopted the Tehran model (as have Turkey, Syria, Egypt, etc.) Israel remains undecided. She finds herself cornered. What Israel is likely to do remains a mystery. India too is at a loss to know which way to turn. China faces internal problems. She is keeping her powder dry, knowing that chaos will arrive at her doorstep soon enough. She is doing her best to shore up her defenses (while the West views it as aggression). Japan has her own problems.

We can sit here and evaluate each turn of the screw within its own frame. Every happenstance is quite worthy of a tome or two – even an entire library of tomes. We can go back in history and learn what has happened before, how it developed and the ultimate result - all of it, simply to keep the blogs pumping out words like the ash from a volcano that obscures its source.

The source is America’s continuing disintegration. It’s not true, as some would proclaim that America’s sinking would leave nary a ripple. It has and will produce wave after wave and the result is all but certain: chaos, dislocation and bloodshed. Cornered dogs have been known to bite. We all will be tempted to bite in a last-ditch effort as we dig deeper and deeper down into our emptying pockets to appease those with tyrannical intent - the ones with the biggest clubs and the willingness to use them. Thoughts of freedom and liberty – even dignity - will become subservient to our will to survive.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

WORSENING VIOLENCE IN SYRIA

by B.RAMAN

"Good Friday" on April 22,2011, saw violent protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad all over Syria . For the first time since the protest movement started in the southern city of Daraa bordering Jordan five weeks ago, simultaneous, partly spontaneous and partly well-orchestrated protest rallies were held in all major towns such as Damascus, Daraa, Douma, Hama, Jabla, Kamishli and 14 others. The 44-year-old President has been in power for 11 years.

2.Barring the ruling Alawite minority, members of all ethnic, religious and sectarian groups in the country ---the Sunnis, who are in a majority, Christians , Kurds, Ismailis, Duruz and Palestinian and Iraqi refugees (one million each)--- participated in the "Good Friday" protest rallies. Muslims of different sects gave shelter to injured Christians in their mosques and Christians of Daraa gave shelter to injured Muslims in their churches. At the end of the day of protests, seventy-two people were reported to have been killed due to firing by the security forces on the protest rallies.

3. " God , Syria and Freedom" and "Daraa is Syria " were among the slogans shouted in the protest rallies. The protesters were keen to counter the propaganda by the security agencies, which sought to project the protest movement, which has been continuing relentlessly for over a month, as an armed insurrection by pro-Al Qaeda Salafis and other Islamic extremists. They, therefore, avoided shouting slogans of an Islamist kind.

4. The reference to Daraa in the slogans was to highlight the role played by the people of Daraa--- many of them reportedly Christians----- in igniting the protest movement. Daraa is now described as the epi-centre of the anti-Assad movement. Whereas in Egypt , the protest movement started in Cairo and radiated to the other provinces, in Syria , it started in the bordering region of Daraa and from there moved towards Damascus . Protest rallies were reported from some suburbs of Damascus on Good Friday.

5. According to a post in Wikipedia, Daraa is a city in southwestern Syria , near the border with Jordan , with a population of approximately 75,000. It is the capital of Daraa Governorate, historically part of the ancient Hauran region. The city is located about 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of Damascus on the Damascus-Amman highway, and is used as a stopping station for travelers.

6. The protest movement in Daraa did not start as a pro-democracy movement. It started as a movement to express the anger of the residents of the area over the perceived failure of the local administration to deal with acute water scarcity in the region. The mishandling of the protests and the use of repressive measures against the protesters by the security agencies led to a purely local phenomenon assuming a pan-Syrian dimension, with demands for the end of emergency laws, the release of political prisoners and reforms.

7. During the first protest rally in Daraa on March 15, the residents accused the then Governor Faysal Kalthum of postponing the acquisition of property rights and preventing farmers from drilling water wells for irrigation. Yussef Abu Rumiyeh, the Member of Parliament from the area, accused the security forces of opening fire "without mercy" on the protesters and criticised the President for not offering condolences to the families of those killed. Bashar sacked Faysal Kalthum on March 23 and appointed Khaled al-Hannus as the new Governor. This did not pacify the people and the protest movement spread to the port city of Latakia . A spokesman of the protesters was quoted by the “Guardian” of the UK as saying: "The residents of Daraa want more than a switch in Governor -- they want the security services to stop oppressing them, the emergency law lifted, property rights respected, the detained freed and freedom of expression guaranteed."

8. President Bashar, who showed signs of being confident till about a fortnight ago of his ability to bring the situation under control, is no longer so. The more the concessions he makes, the more the protests gather momentum. His action in repealing the hated emergency laws --- a major demand---has not pacified the protesters. It is becoming evident that the protesters now want no less than his exit from power and the end of the ruling Alawite minority regime.

9. President Bashar co-operated with the USA 's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its anti-Al Qaeda operations. As a result of this co-operation, Syria allegedly became a favourite rendition centre of the CIA where Al Qaeda suspects were brought for interrogation by Syrian interrogators who had no qualms over the use of torture.

10.The US is now trying to mark its distance from the regime. In a statement after the Good Friday protests, President Barack Obama called for a halt to the "outrageous" violence. He said : "This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now."

11. According to the BBC, in their first joint statement since the protests broke out, activists co-ordinating the mass demonstrations have demanded the establishment of a democratic political system. The demands issued by "Syrian local organising committees" include:

* An end to torture, killings, arrests and violence against demonstrators
* Three days of state-sanctioned mourning for deaths so far
* An independent investigation into the deaths of protesters and judicial proceedings in the light of evidence revealed
* Release of all political prisoners
* Reform of Syria's constitution, including a two-term presidential limit

12.The protest movements, which started in Tunisia in January, and then spread to Egypt , Libya , Yemen and Bahrain , show no signs of abating. In Egypt , the movement has been re-kindled by anger over the ruling military junta’s perceived reluctance to act against the remnants of the Hosni Mubarak regime. The re-ignited movement does not have the secular unity of the earlier movement. The Muslims and the Christians seem to have come to a parting of the ways. The protests against the military junta have been accompanied by protests against the appointments of some Christians as Governors of interior provinces.

13. Apart from proforma statements of support and instigation, Al Qaeda has been adopting a cautious line avoiding any statements or action that could be exploited by the security agencies of the affected countries to demonise the pro-reform/democracy movements as Al Qaeda-directed and crush them. (23-4-11)

(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India , New Delhi , and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)

Blowing Up Bridges

It’s on! The trash talking has begun. And make no mistake, it’s being encouraged by the White House. Expect one of the dirtiest campaigns in recent history.

We are all the same. It should be easy to find common ground. It is not. Enter ideology. Ideology forces us into templates that do not fit well. It tends to pervert our true natures - to live and let live - and puts the accent on confrontation. This is generally needed in times of war - in the face of threat. In peacetime it seems a silly way to behave.

Since Barack Hussein Obama has been in office, there has been no peace. It’s almost as if, while we were living our lives, draft notices began arriving in the mail. We’ve been forced to take sides - one side being America.

Obama is a warrior alright, even if Libya doesn’t quite speak to the issue. Warriors do not compromise. They dismiss the broad range of the painter’s palette and divide the world into black and white. Again, this is only appropriate to war.

“You’re either for us, or against us.” No shades of gray even.

Who is POTUS fighting? America, of course. This has been hard for Americans to swallow. They thought he was on their side.

Similarly, it’s been difficult to square POTUS’ color scheme. The white hats have traditionally been ‘good’; the black hats, ‘bad‘. We’ve been taught this from watching John Wayne westerns. POTUS is black and tells us he’s white - while he paints us black as sin.

Something does not add up here. We’ve known it from the start. Now we’re starting to feel uncomfortable with it. We read about the soldiers in Syria who are refusing to shoot protesters being shot by their own - the worst of all fates. We wonder about how the term ‘conscientious objector’ might fare in this climate.

Voting for a black president was supposed to solve all this. We thought it would bridge the eternal divide. Instead, we find the existing bridges blown up and not enough shovel-ready jobs to build new ones. Sources tell us that China is building bridges like crazy - while we are tearing ours down. Some of us are trapped behind enemy lines.

Carlos Castaneda tells us that each life represents a complete, self-contained universe; that two people standing side by side must be seen as two such universes; that these cannot be commingled, except by event affecting both. Ideology disregards the deeper meaning of this lesson. It seeks to bridge chasms (that cannot be bridged) by hostile rhetoric, fomenting non-existent threat and, finally, by outright aggression. Thereby, the individual is lost and replaced by ordinance.

Love lost in the ashes of ritual (s)laughter.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

At The Roman Colosseum

As we agonize about all the various groups and tribes that might or might not emerge from the upheavals throughout the Middle East, we tend to lose sight of the central issue. What we are seeing is basically a food fight among the lions. Our interference in it essentially amounts to ‘the kiss of death’ for whichever side we are seen as favoring. Any fallout will be magnified exponentially should ‘our’ chosen party end up losing.

I’ve noticed that from the very beginning of what started with the so-called ‘Twitter revolution’, there has been virtually no mention of Israel; arguably, a nation that has the most to lose should things turn sour. Israel has remained largely silent while murder is raging all around it. This is because virtually any outcome can only serve to compromise Israel’s security further. Even regime change within its long-time nemesis, Syria, is fraught with danger for Israel which has over time amassed a great deal of data detailing the strength and weakness of the Assad regime. A new hand in Syria would represent the wiping clean of that slate.

The one issue uniting all the disparate factions of the Arab Street is its hatred for Israel. Even as we try to pick winners and do our best to demonstrate our support, the central conflict that puts us at odds with the Ummah is not apt to go away. Our status, even if we should get lucky and pick a winner, will not be enhanced as long as we claim to support Israel (which we don’t). The barb remains: We have supported Israel in the past. That alone condemns us in Arab eyes.

The only way to redeem ourselves (again, as far as Arabs are concerned) is to bomb Israel ourselves, which is not yet politically possible. And although we have done everything just short of that, it has not been enough to convince the ‘Arab Street’. Besides, it will still be advantageous for them to maintain an adversarial relationship with us for purposes of cohesion.

Oil has already been jettisoned as an incentive for good relations between us. Indeed, we have gone to great lengths to show that we are no longer interested. As such, Arab oil will be flowing primarily to the east. This theme has further crystallized in the willingness of Mahmoud Abbas to forego U.S. aid entirely in favor of unifying the factions under his supposed control.

What we are watching unfold in the Middle East will never touch us directly. For us, any outcome is as good as any other. Israel, on the other hand, is not so lucky. Any outcome for them is likely to be dire. The status quo was the best they could ever have hoped for. It’s crunch time for Israel. She will soon have to decide whether or not to stand and fight to defend her modern-day version of the Alamo.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

The House Always Wins

The fever of revolution is sweeping the world. Syria, UK, U.S. (tea parties), China – you name it. Nobody is immune. There’s a restlessness loose on the globe. It’s born out of a growing intransigence on all sides; a failure to cooperate. Walid Phares is right: Every uprising has its own stamp; its own individual character.

It might always have been so. It’s in embedded in our DNA: sons rebelling against fathers; fathers rebelling against the State. What is different now is that the chucks have been jettisoned – America has turned coat - and the festooned chariot, carrying the idol, is hurtling madly through the madas (streets around a Hindu temple), mowing down worshippers and rogue priests alike in its pitiless path. There’s no telling where it all ends.

With no chucks to stop it, the chariot will tip over or crash into a building, tallying more victims. The ghee and curd soaked idol will lie shattered in the dusty street for all to see. Like it or not, the chucks were important – as is the law and leadership. With the idol lying broken in the dirt, the time will have come to begin again - from scratch. It’s not that we’re not capable of it, but it’s a long hard road.

It’s foolish to say that leadership has always to be a certain way. Bush was wrong to insist on ‘democracy' everywhere. It works for Switzerland, but you can’t say it’ll work for Zimbabwe.

Even Switzerland is restless now. For the first time in Swiss history, the celebration of its Independence Day on historic Ruetli Meadow was threatened with cancellation. Switzerland - as most nations - is struggling with the issue of immigration. They fear disturbances by neo-Nazi groups and were unwilling to pay for additional security. In the end, private enterprise promised to donate the money needed to keep order and reassure folks.

What struck me about the video in John's post (Daraa, Syria uprising) is that people spoke English. They were clearly distressed. Why did they speak English? Answer: for American TV, of course; to let Obama know that they are in trouble. The news obviously hasn’t reached them yet. They may also have been preparing themselves for jobs in America – where the streets are paved with ...debt. And, again, the news hasn’t reached them yet – that America has become a ward of the same system that Syria has.

The rich, the powerful, and the bored use the world’s grievances like dice at a crap table, hoping to best their friends and walk off with the prize. But time and time again we learn what every Las Vegas pauper already knows: that the house always wins.
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Watch episode# 2; parts 1 and 2 (Temple Cart) of Louis Malle’s “Phantom India” on You Tube to see what I’m talking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIGodDxlnVo ('cut and paste' into your browser.)

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/