Naya vs Purana Pakistan?

Beep-beep. Early morning. Text message from a friend in Karachi. So, bleary-eyed, I read that “My party has won. It is 5 am here and I am going to sleep!" Big smile. But before that there was a swipe about the fate of Musharraf — he knows I do not dislike the former president, which is of course putting it subtly.


Since Pakistan broke my sleep, I jotted down a few quick thoughts on the election results:


1. For all talk of democracy, it boiled down to the Punjabi, Sindhi, Mohajir, Pathan votes, and Balochi, Ahmadi non-votes.


2. There is always talk about a sympathy wave. If that were the case then the ANP that lost quite a few members to murderous devils would not have been routed.


3. Imran Khan is now a leader, so it's time he behaved like one. And not a tribal chief, even though Khyber Pakhtunkwa gave his party the votes.


4. I can already see the gleam in a certain Indian anchor's eyes as his voice quivers while screaming, "The nation wants to know if Nawaz Sharif will take action against Pervez Musharraf for crossing over to Kargil during the war"!


5. Nawaz Sharif has inherited a huge problem - his brother, Shahbaz.


6. Asif Ali Zardari has too many opponents within the PPP, including his son Bilawal. One of them will grow up.


7. Pakistan will continue to be important to the United States, China, Afghanistan and India for the same reasons as it has been for many years.


8. Imran Khan's slogan of 'Naya Pakistan' was the most potent one. Good varnish job, as happens in almost every country.


Let me end with an appropriate couplet by Faiz Ahmed Faiz:


"har chaaraagar ko chaaraagari se gurez tha
varna humein jo dukh the bahut laa-davaa na the"

(The healer avoided healing, but my troubles were incurable anyway)


© Farzana Versey

Sunday ka Funda

"We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.”

- Jim Morrison

Some places are doomed to both. But, where there is life, there is light.

Here's an Afghan song:

- - -

I am aware of the attacks by the Taliban in Kabul today. There are many aspects to life. If you want the news story, go here

Rehman Malik and Ghulam Nabi Fai: A Tale of Two

A mourner in Afghanistan

Is Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, insensitive or stupid? Neither. He is trapped in a controversy for saying:

"I had appealed to the Taliban that they should respect the Muharram. I am grateful to them that they respected the Muharram this time. This is a good thing."

What is so shocking? He is in charge of the home department in the country. It is no secret that the Taliban do target people in religious places, however absurd this may sound. So, when there is mass mourning during Ashura by the Shias with 177 processions and 900 gatherings, and 7000 security personnel are deployed, it is obviously a matter of some concern.

You talk to people, and that includes non-Shias, and they will tell you how the community has been targeted for years, even when the Taliban was not active.

Why, then, you might ask, does the minister have to thank the Taliban? Does it not amount to being grateful to an extremist group and therefore accepting its role in politics? If the Taliban is everywhere today in Pakistan, it is akin to appealing for peace in a difficult situation. He is not known to use language very well, but there is no way Pakistan can go along by alientating the Taliban completely.

Why is no one talking about the fact that he also lauded the role of the cops?

The fact that there were blasts in Afghanistan killing 59 people is a sad reminder that the two countries have been divided. In fact, there are murmurs that the attacks were orchestrated from Pakistan’s border areas. At one time, the whole Pashtun community was one.

This is not only about shrines or even minorities anymore than it has been for a long time. Countries that have the misfortune of outsourcing their security will have to deal with insurgencies that damage their own society and people.

- - -

Ghulam Nabi Fai has admitted that the ISI was funding him “to influence US policy on Kashmir”:

“For the last 20 years, Mr. Fai secretly took millions of dollars from Pakistani intelligence and lied about it to the US government,” said US Attorney Neil MacBride. “As a paid operative of ISI, he did the bidding of his handlers in Pakistan while he met with US elected officials, funded high-profile conferences, and promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington.”

Right. Now, what will the US do about those policy makers after they pronounce the verdict on Mr. Fai on March 9?

Will they do the boogey-woogey with Pakistan? Will we know how the innocent policy makers were taken for a ride? And will they show us the money and tell us just how they were influenced and how did they act upon it?

We seem to excel at looking at the curst and not reaching the core. Here are two bits from my earlier piece:

Did the ISI do it? Possible. Did Mr. Fai use this money? Possible. Was the FBI unaware about it all these years? Not possible.

and

It would be a pity if due to the ISI angle, the real issues will be pushed aside. America has the arsenal to deal with the ISI, but does it have the will? If Mr. Fai is a front, then why only name the ISI people and not the Congressmen who knew what they were expected to lobby for? Culpability in this case lies across the board. It is utterly ridiculous to make this sound like a terrorist plot when the monies have been traced and people of some stature have been consistently raising the Kashmir issue, not just abroad but at home.

From Surely they’re joking, Mr. Fai?

A South Asian Parliament: Killing Us Softly

When was the last time that SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) nations made any significant contribution to solve issues in the neighbourhood? It has not been possible because there is way too much bad blood between us. Besides that, all the nations are internally fractured; some have western troops stationed within their borders. Is idealism, then, a practical solution?

At the current SAARC Conference of Speakers and Parliamentarians in Delhi, Pakistan's National Assembly Speaker Fehmida Mirza came up with a suggestion that sounds good at the coffee table:

“I would like to propose that this forum graduates to the next level where eventually the idea of a South Asian Parliament becomes a reality. Through this idea, I am envisioning a Parliament that commands the trust of 1.7 billion South Asians —- the largest forum of its kind anywhere in the world. I am envisioning a body of legislators, which enables our respective countries to negotiate sustainable solutions to our numerous bilateral and multilateral problems. I am envisioning a forum that will, in fact, infuse a new life into SAARC exactly in the same manner as the European Parliament remains the driving force behind the European Union.”

This is pretty much a repetition of the echoes of “If Berlin can do it then why can’t we?” It is true that Germany has managed to coalesce and the European Union is the tangible face of such a possibility. However, while their histories reveal animosity, there were alignments with other nations during the two major world wars. Their independence, when it happened, was complete. We are still tied to the apron strings of the Commonwealth and run to the UN, where not all the South Asian nations have a say.

Ms. Mirza’s optimism about the 1.7 billion chooses to ignore that India will be the superpower by sheer dint of numbers. Together with this, we also have an India that is significantly more stable and has greater clout. It is also an India that is not particularly interested in its neighbours except as nuisance value, and with sound reason. In such circumstances, when one nation is protecting its borders from three sides, how will it play an important role without keeping in mind its own delicate position?

We have always negotiated bilaterally. Are we ready for Nepal or Bangladesh to pipe in with their views, given that we have problems with them, too?

Ms. Mirza is looking at the future through rose-tinted glasses:

“The lessons of past help us plan our future. In Pakistan, we learnt these lessons the hard way. So when democracy made a comeback in 2008 in our country, the democratic forces pledged to protect and consolidate it by building a strong Parliament, capable of delivering on decades old promises.”

Again, democracy is a pennant that is held up. It does not change the ground realities. Since she has mentioned Pakistan’s example, has there been any attempt to build a strong Parliament? Is democracy about a group chattering away when there are bomb blasts killing civilians every other day? Who has stopped the countries from being “vibrant democracies”?

There is internal strife and there are forces among these countries that try to cause problems for the other. The South Asian Parliament may confabulate but it will be a nice whitewash job while the dirt remains under the carpet. It can also prove to be a sneaky means of scoring points and diverting attention from the backdoor moves being made. Moreover, it will certainly not replace each nation’s government and its policies, so there could be a conflict of interest built into this white elephant Parliament itself.

Interestingly, Ms. Mirza quoted from Nandan Nilekani’s book ‘Imagining India’ to discuss our common shanties and school dropouts. Seriously, it was an ironic moment when she said:

“And when he lamented the tendency of the governments towards repression, I found answers to our people’s disenchantment with the entire democratic process.”

Perhaps it is time to send her a dossier on how the Manmohan Singh government hired Mr. Nilekani to tag people in a manner that Rupert Murdoch would have liked to take tips from.

There are kinds and kinds of repression and right now all the SAARC nations need to put their own houses in order and throw shoes, break chairs and scream in the well of their respective parliaments. We cannot afford fireside chats and legislators who work like comfort men and women. Open travel, open trade, open doors are wonderful but we know what happens and even if it does not the ghosts stalk and doubts are raised. We cannot manage bus services without running metal detectors and security personnel, so all this talk amounts to nothing.

What we need to examine and get into our dense heads is that apart from the electoral process, none of our countries is a practising democracy in the truest sense.

(c) Farzana Versey

Fearless Obama?

The American president, who has been talking about democracy, did not have the basic courtesy to inform another democratic president that he planned to visit his country. Barack Obama made an unscheduled visit to Afghanistan, skirted the capital Kabul and landed straight at the Bagram Air Base where his increasing number of troops are stationed.

Forget what they say, and I mean American commentators, about his concern following the Wikileaks. His comments are enough to raise questions even if they are taken within the context. Here are a few quotes deconstructed:

1. “I know it’s not easy for all of you to be away from home, especially during the holidays. But here’s what I want you to know. As President of the United States, I have no greater responsibility than keeping the American people secure. I could not meet that responsibility, we could not protect the American people, we could not enjoy the blessings of our liberty without the extraordinary service that each and every one of you perform each and every day.”

How many Taliban fighters have been knocking on the doors of the US? Are they a security risk to the American people? There was an act of terror committed on 9/11. It wasn’t the Taliban. Not the Taliban that is at war with its own people. Americans need to be protected from the policies of their government – policies that have taken away their jobs, their homes, their welfare schemes, their healthcare facilities. Many Americans would not know where the heck Bagram is. Check with Sarah Palin.

2. "We said we were going to break the Taliban's momentum and that's what you're doing, you're going on the offense, tired of playing defense."

There are several soldiers lying wounded in the hospitals. Why? Were they not supposed to defend themselves? I know that’s not what he meant. I am just flipping the argument. Soldiers may 'tire' of defensive tactics if they get orders from above or their job clearly states so. They do not attack on their own. Later, there could well be tremendous psychological pressure and they may indulge in forms of offense beyond the front, especially with prisoners.

3. “America is not defined by our borders. We are defined by a common creed. And this holiday season, it’s worth remembering that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are the right to life, and liberty and pursuit of happiness.”

If America is not defined by its borders, then why does Mr. Obama want to secure the US borders, even due to imagined threats? What common creed is he talking about when social and racial disparities exist in the land of opportunity and political opportunism, as in lands all over the globe? What about the right to life, liberty and happiness of the civilians killed in air strikes in those lands? Oh, of course, this was to ensure that democracy prevailed.

One reads that the US-propped Hamid Karzai regime is terribly corrupt. It is not sponging on American money, but the money of its own citizens. The US Ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, said: "The meeting with AWK highlights one of our major challenges in Afghanistan: how to fight corruption and connect the people to their government when the key government officials are themselves corrupt.”

This should clearly indicate that it is failed US foreign policy. Obama should have met those government officials instead of the PR exercise of three hours with the troops.

4. “So we may face a tough enemy in Afghanistan and we’re in a period of tough challenges back home, but we do not become the nation that we are because we do what’s easy, as Americans, we’ve endured and we’ve grown stronger, and we remain the land of the free only because we are also home of the brave.”

How tough is it to send other people’s fathers, brothers, husbands, sons out to fight an enemy they don’t care about in a place they may barely have any interest in? It is a pity, Mr. President, that you believe the freedom of your people is possible only by the bravery of spreading your armed forces wide.

And, there are other lands that are free in their own way and it is not nice, really, to just drop in to meet your troops without saying hello to the guy who makes it possible for you to be ‘brave’.

No citizenship please, we're phirangs

Actress Katrina Kaif, supposedly the queen bee of Bollywood and one of the highest earners, is not an Indian national. And she does not even wish to be an Indian citizen.

Today’s TOI had an interesting report that talked about how most of the prominent people are on work permits. Some are earning in crores. What are the tax liabilities? Whenh they shoot overseas, don’t they need to get visas from their home country? Since most of them are from places that are exempt from many struictures, it might not pose a problem, but one wonders about the lenient policy of our government.

Yana and Katrina

Among those who have been staying in India and working on an employment visa include UK national and actress Katrina Kaif, US national Dipti Nawal, UK national Salma Agha and Yana Gupta from Czech Republic. “Most of the actors and other foreigners working in Bollywood prefer staying here on an employment visa. Sometimes they come asking for an extension in visa period. We consider whatever is correct as per the law,’’ said a police official from the immigration department.

Deepti Naval is not doing much work, perhaps out of choice. How does the employment visa apply to her? What is Salma Agha doing? Yana Gupta was married to an Indian, but it appears she chose an employment visa. She is a model. It is a freelance job as are films. What are the strictures for such cases where there is no employer and contracts can change with every assignment?

As per the bilateral treaty between India and the US on tourist visa, an American national can stay in India on a tourist visa for as long as 10 years and the same tenure is applicable for Indian citizens in America as well.

I think this is not correct. One can get a 10-year visa, but it is multiple entry. Indians can live there upto six months and then return.

Pakistani singer Adnan Sami is staying in Mumbai along with his German national wife.

Adnan and new wife

Adnan Sami and his wives at different times seem to get some special treatment. He is of Pakistani origin; his ex-wife was from the UAE; his current wife is half-Afghan. He works here, buys properties, fights divorce cases here, buys dogs, the spouse fights for custody of the dog. Great. And then Indians have the audacity to questions Muslims in their own country.

I could not resist that. The important point is none of these people want to become Indian citizens. It is not only those from the glamour world, though. I know people working in NGOs who do the same.

Do Indians get the same treatment abroad? No. If the UK and US are now worried about their jobs, then India isn’t really flush with employment vacancies that Indians cannot fill. It is pretty disgusting that even the dancers in the background in our films are now whites, and don’t tell me that our girls are shy. We have seen item numbers and know they can jiggle and wiggle and bare as much as anyone else.

And just in case you did not know, to counteract the policies of these countries and due to our foreign obsession some of our prominent Indians make sure that their offspring are born abroad so that they become naturalised citizens. These are people we respect as Indians. Go figure.

Is Dr. Aafia Siddiqui insane?

Why are the defence lawyers in the Dr. Aafia Siddiqui case pleading that her sentence be reduced due to mental illness? Is it a strategy or is it a cop-out?

She was tried in the US District Court in Manhattan and convicted on two counts of attempted murder. As a US-trained scientist, her ‘victims’ were American agents and military officers.

It wasn’t even a plot. She was being interrogated at an Afghan police station when she snatched an unattended rifle and shot at them, yelling, "Death to Americans!"

They fired back and she was wounded. If she was such a huge threat why was she left loose and why was there an unattended rifle around? Why was she taken to the US to face trial? These questions have been posed at different times.

However, the case has always had an undercurrent of the criminal’s instability playing in the background. Now the lawyers have joined in:

"While the degree and extent of Dr. Siddiqui's mental illness has been the subject of much discussion in this case, one thing stands perfectly clear: the victim of Dr. Siddiqui's irrational behaviour is — first and foremost — none other than herself.”

I am not sure whether it will help matters other than to reduce her sentence. The larger issue of whether what she did was a criminal act, whether the FBI and the US agents were authorised to hound her and why, is she being made an example of will remain.

Dr Aafia’s boycott of the trial need not be an instance of mental illness but a genuine need to protest. I understand that her lawyers know how things work and are probably trying to protect her. There are clear divisions in her case and while there are supporters many within her own society, especially the expatriate community, would rather wash their hands off her. Not only has she attempted to kill the good Americans, but it was abuse of authority after the US gave her an education. This is the sort of apologetic stance we have been increasingly seeing.

It is back to the liberal Americans against those lumpens.

I had put forth another view regarding demonisation of violence, and that is not something one can probe but remains at the crux of how certain societies get the boot while others wear the boot straps.

Pissed off over a Wikileak

The most amazing aspect about the Wikileaks scandal is that it talks about an Afghan War. I am afraid, but where has it been documented as a war?

The information in short based on reports:

• 92,000 documents dating back to 2004 were released by the whistle-blowers’ website Wikileaks.

• They allege that Iran is providing money and arms to Taliban.

• There are details about how widespread corruption is hampering a nine-year war.

• New York Times becomes the keeper of morals and analyses “in mosaic detail why, after US spent almost $300 billion on the war, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001”.

• The Guardian paints “a devastating portrait of the failing war”.

Formally, the US says it is concerned about the safety of its soldiers. If that were the case, it would not have sent them in the first place. How many strikes have been conducted by the Taliban against the US and how many against its own people? How many civilians have died in the drone attacks and how many militants in the American war on terror? If the reports are to be believed, then the money the US is spending is not going to the right place for the right cause. What sort of corruption is taking place? It has to be within the establishment.

Iran’s role has to be considered with some degree of scepticism. The US has been gunning for Iran for a while now and needs a strategic reason to attack it.

According to the Times, Pakistan agents and Taliban meet regularly “in secret strategy sessions to organise networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.”

The ISI works on its own most of the time, therefore what worries the White House is that its partnership with Pakistan’s democrats and Afghan democrats, both set up by Big Brother, have not been as successful as it had hoped. Clearly, American foreign policy makers do not understand that the Pathan belt and people are not Zardaris and Karzais.

Pakistan’s envoy to US, Husain Haqqani, said the leaks consisted of “unprocessed” field reports that “do not reflect onground realities”.

It just does not matter. There is bound to be a slip between the cup and the lip but they aren’t too far from each other. The fact is that despite elections and an elected government in Afghanistan, there are documents pertaining to an Afghan war. The question is: whose war is it and why?

The White House Whitewash Job

Mind your language
The White House Whitewash Job
by Farzana Versey
Counterpunch, April 9-11, 2010

Forked tongues are part of the political arsenal, therefore what the White House says and what the White House does rarely meet even the facile “Read my lips” dictum.

Hamid Karzai was the fattened cat of American foreign policy that intervened to transform their version of a tribal society into their feudal Afghan version of a democracy. As strategies go, it worked as well as LSD.

Cut to the new airbrushed initiative. While the Bush Doctrine underlined National Security Strategy in the document that stated, “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century,” it was upfront about its limited idea of ideology. It meant ‘Attack’ and it did. George W. Bush had no clue about history and no vision for the future. He was not even attempting ‘change’ and was rather complacent about the status quo as much as Bill Clinton was with the blue dress.

All was not well and the world knew it. They had put Islamic nations, which included those who were beleaguered, being forced out of their own land or battling internal strife, into a shoebox to consecrate their febrile memory.

The shoebox was a metaphor for beneath the boots, unshod, in short of as much value as skeletons in the cupboard.

Tagged along with it was Islamophobia. We fell for it, at least the term. No one seemed to realise that phobias are about fears. If you are phobic, then you hide away. You do not taunt, tease or challenge unless you want to exorcise that fear.

Now Barack Obama is attempting the first two. He, like the aggressors, knows that there never was any fear. The Islamophobia construct was not the doing of Islamists but their opponents. It was to create the fear of fear.

Obama's band of boys has decided that phrases such as “Islamic radicalism” should be deleted from the shoebox. A report states that there will be a "new version to emphasize that the US does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counterterrorism officials say...The revisions are part of a larger effort to change how the US talks to Muslim nations."

Notice how counterterrorism officials are issuing such statements and how it is about the US talking to Muslim nations. One wonders whether there will be any real attempt at altered perspective. If the idea is not to get trapped in linguistics, then it does not qualify as a diplomatic manoeuvre and need not be emphasised. However, it is being dangled as a huge carrot not only of political correctness but empathy, and therefore is too cunning a ploy for Obama to be anointed as statesman. For, had there been any genuine intent, then there would be no need for the use of the words ‘Muslim nations’.

This is mere playing with terminology. What the United States and a large section of the western world wishes to engage with is not Muslim nations, but to create a fear so that the demons can be exorcised, and exorcised only partially. If you do so completely then there will be no shoebox.

They wanted to bring peace and democracy to Iraq? Rubbish. Besides the hallucinations and the ground level war, they managed to get local insurgents to fight the Al Qaida in Iraq. Was there any Al Qaida in Iraq, to begin with? A group of Sunnis, members of Sahwa, Awakening Councils, thought they were on to become big-time US allies. It did not work that way. Last week, gunmen dressed as Iraqi officers killed 25 people in a Sunni village; the victims were handcuffed and shot dead.

The forked tongues work wonderfully to prop up this idea of internal turmoil as a ruse for ‘preventive war’. Hamid Karzai announces that he might join the Taliban, as though it is like signing up at the local gym, and there is concern. This is fake. Quoting a minister, Farooq Marenai, who mentioned that the President said “rebelling would change to resistance”, the report helpfully added that he was “apparently suggesting the militant movement would then be redefined as one of resistance against a foreign powers rather than a rebellion against an elected government”.

Karzai works best under pressure; in fact, that is the only way he works. The Taliban has always been a resistance to foreign powers or puppets of foreign powers. Their method of resistance may be questioned but Karzai’s grouse is personal, that Parliament reduced his powers over the electoral process. Since he cannot hold the Taliban responsible, he accused foreign powers. The simple fact is that it is true. He is making noises with the purpose of gaining extra rights for himself within the US-controlled system he heads.

His comments should not have alarmed anyone. They have. Peter Galbraith, a former UN envoy to Afghanistan, appeared on television and said, “He’s prone to tirades. He can be very emotional, act impulsively. In fact, some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan’s most profitable exports.”

Since President Obama is on language, he ought to make note of this. Forget what alterations are made on paper, this buffers the image of backward societies. If Karzai accused the US of fraud in the Afghan elections, then why is Mr. Galbraith out to limit his powers to appoint officials until he proves himself to be a reliable partner to the US? It just does not make sense. Wanting to reduce his clout is in effect an admission that it is possible to do so and might have been done since Galbraith himself states that the US had got him a second term!

One wonders who is tripping on what.

And while talking about reliable partnerships, is America going to decide the nature of it alone? Is a partnership not about two sides?

The CIA Chicks?

Would you like to sell your story to help promote war? Do you believe that troops marching into terrain that has abused women would truly help them?

The CIA plans to use women to market the war.

“Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing” the mission for Europe, according to the CIA analysis, posted on WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website. Afghan women could express “their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban victory”.

Isn’t there a difference between humanising and being humane? True, many of these women have suffered, but how will a war solve their problems, their social status, their gender roles, their subjugation? Who will help them realise their dreams once the war is over and there are many left dead, including their fathers, their husbands, their sons? What if they want a future that includes family?

The analysis, dated March 11, says “outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their stories with French, German, and other European women could help to overcome pervasive scepticism among women in Western Europe”.

This is too conniving. You get women under Taliban rule (from where will they get real women or will they be westernised spokespersons?) to talk to women in the west and convince them that a war is essential. This is blackmail that is planned by one set of patriarchy to subvert another. Both kinds of women are being used.

Even if the Taliban loses, we already know the cost of such wars – in economic as well as psychological terms. The woman in the west perhaps understands that besides those being sent off to fight a futile war, the immense tragedy is of bringing back a baggage of guilt.

Those plotting such efforts simply reveal another dimension of machismo. This isn’t much different than keeping women in an intellectual harem and expecting them to send off the men to slay the lions while they wait for them to return, bloodied and victorious.

Neither woman gains anything. The memorandum is subtitled, “Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough.” The PR exercise is itself apathy, using a tragedy as a soap opera.

Heil Obama, the War President

The Obama administration is turning up the pressure on Pakistan to fight the Taliban inside its borders, warning that if it does not act more aggressively, the US will use considerably more force on the Pakistani side of the border to shut down Taliban attacks on US forces in Afghanistan.

Superb. The US sends its troops inside Afghanistan to help the regime to fight the Taliban.

There is fighting and US forces are killed too.

Pakistan is fighting its own Taliban.

The US is now saying it will use force to shut down those attacks on its soldiers in Afghanistan.

What are we missing here?

It is a truly duh moment.

If his troops are there to fight the Taliban, then why can they not take on the ones that come from the border?

- - -

As you already know Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel peace prize. He is set to receive it later this week. Guess what?

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “He is accepting the Nobel Peace Prize as a war President.” After the decision to send 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan he will also mention it in his speech.

I have no clue what a war president is. One waging war or one waging war against war or one who has been caught in a war or one who has inherited it? Does this not reduce the very idea of the peace prize? True, precedents are there of people at war receiving the prize, but to go there and say, look, I am sending troops, however, it is all good and yet I take responsibility, so I accept this award as the war president on behalf of the American people – is this okay?

Should he be speaking on behalf of the American people at all? I know this is a hypothetical scenario. He may accept it on his own. And the American people will be left with the baby and the bathwater and those plastic duckies.

And the US hawks are warning us...

Do we need an American to deliver a lecture on “terrorism and threat to India”?

Michael Chertoff, US security expert and former secretary of Homeland Security from 2005-2009 when the US was the biggest threat to many nations, is sounding alarm bells about Mumbai-like attacks.

“In Mumbai attacks, we have seen evolving the tactic of using weapons and bombs together in a commando like operation. Such attacks are likely to happen more and the challenge before everybody is to be able to deal with them.”

If they are likely to happen before anybody is able to deal with them, then why is he barfing about it? I honestly don’t get it. You know how it is going to work and yet you cannot deal with it?

“There are safe havens which are being used by terrorists to plan and organise strikes. Afghanistan was one such haven after 9/11. The frontier areas of Pakistan and Somalia too are proving to be such havens for terrorism.”

If that is so, then what about the local boys who bomb tube stations?

Chertoff admitted that while al Qaida is a much weaker force now than it was in 2001 and that it no longer has its earlier “command and control system’’ it has been able to rebuild itself to an extent in Pakistan. He said that it also coordinates with groups like LeT. He, however, said that India had to exercise extreme caution in dealing with terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

Great. Now Al Qaeda is weaker and it has found a new home. You know why? Because he is complimenting Singapore and Saudi Arabia for checking “elements of radicalisation and alter the conditions on the ground”. I have said it before: America will not touch Saudi Arabia.

And then he has the audacity to warn India about Pakistan – something we do not need to be told – but, please note, there is no mention of Kashmir. None. He harps on the Mumbai-like attacks because he is connecting it to 9/11 and 9/11 is all that the US will remember.

Apparently, they have now developed the capability “to detect radioactive and other dangerous substances”. Had they possessed this earlier “at least 15 of the 19 who executed 9/11 would have been caught in the planning stage”.

I don’t know what the other four would have been doing for Mr Chertoff and his apparatus not to be able to get to them. Like are those blokes one up, have more radioactive thingies? The biggest superpower’s big security man is saying this. And then he is lecturing us? Those terrorists in their Versace tees must be laughing their heads off in those radioactive substances.

What the real deal here is to enlist the private sector. From all accounts it is only the private sector that knows how to use biometrics. Very cunningly he is talking about “layered defences”, which means outsourcing security. What private sector is he talking about? Indigenous?

Like we have a company that is really smart and detects this stuff and when some attack is about to take place, what happens? The Intelligence Bureau gets a whiff of some radioactive substance, calls up Private Sector and says, hey, we got a problem, get all your equipment quick and we will find those guys? Or it just buys off the stuff from the private companies, which means kickbacks, and the luxury to lay the blame on them and the government can say it was all faulty. A case will go on for years and years, by which time the attacks would have taken place, and I am only quoting Mr. Foreign Security Top Guy Who Lectures Us.

Or, does the United States want to play parddnerr and set up some franchise here of its biometric department so we can get those fellows?

Why do we have to listen to all this? It sounds like some latest designer trends that we follow blindly…like purple is the colour of the season when we don’t even have that goddamn season in this country. Get real. And quit India if you are lookin' for a stake here.

We are full up. So, thanks, but no thanks.

Excuse me, Mr. President

Barack Obama’s plans are those of a man in a hurry to divert attention from issues back home. Clinton did it. Bush did it. He is doing it. The American tax payer will be shelling out $30 million in the first year for something s/he has no clue about. Is this revenge for 9/11? Prevention of another 9/11?

No. 30,000 more troops will go into Afghanistan so that Americans forget about their problems and feel good. There is more:

The President vowed to start bringing American forces home from the strife-torn country by mid-2011, saying the US could not afford and should not have to shoulder an ‘‘open-ended commitment’’.

Has anyone asked the United States of America to send troops? Is this a UN initiative? How does America know that by 2011 it will be fine to move out? What are its plans? It is time Mr. Obama stopped talking as though it is a magnanimous gesture and the US will suffer. Cannot afford? Of course, it cannot. It has to take care of its own economy, but since that is a problem area the word ‘afford’ married to ‘strife-torn’ works like magic.

It cannot be a close-ended commitment and has to be open-ended unless there are specific plans. How can he promise to bring “this war to a successful conclusion”? Which war is he talking about? The one that has US drones? Or the one that is a civil war in which the US has no place? Or the one it is fighting in its mind?

Obama set out a strategy seeking to reverse Taliban gains in large parts, increase pressure on Afghanistan to build its own military capacity and an effective government and step up attacks on the Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The Taliban is also in Pakistan, which he does not speak about. The Al Qaeda is all over the place, but Pakistan is good enough. So, what is this talk about helping Afghanistan build its military capacity?

Defence secretary Robert Gates has done the defence job:

“It is neither necessary nor feasible to create a modern, Western-style Afghan nation-state. Nor does it entail counterinsurgency from one end of Afghanistan to the other. We will not repeat the mistakes of 1989, when we abandoned the country only to see it descend into civil war, and then into Taliban hands.”

Just who does Mr Gates think he is? Does he know that Afghanistan has a long history and has survived many marauders? What does modern mean? I have said it before. Iraq was a modern state. Iran was a modern state. Until the interference started and the religious guys decided to take over control. The insurgency is not from Afghanistan but from outside, so the counter-insurgency will come from them.

The US abandoned the country and left it in the hands of the Taliban? Geez. The Afghans were fighting alongside the Russians against the Mujahideen, the holy warriors, who had the help of the United States of America!

Please, Mr. Obama, history is inconvenient truth. We just have to live with it.

The killing fields within America

Take this. An Army psychiatrist. Frustration. Opposes war in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he was being sent off.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is not somebody one would have heard about. Today, as news comes in about him going on a shooting spree at the Fort Hood Texas Army base killing 13 people and wounding 31, his act is being called madness. Not any old madness, but with the subtext of madness with a method to it.

Retired Col. Terry Lee who had worked with him said:

“He would make comments to other individuals about how we should not be in the war in the first place.”

He also made “outlandish” comments:

“He said maybe Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor. At first, we thought he meant help the armed forces, but apparently, that wasn't the case.”

I am afraid but there are many soldiers and civilians who believe the United States of America should not be in this war. And no American officer would publicly sound so naïve as to suggest that a mental health professional would talk as a Muslim about fighting the aggressor and mean helping the armed forces. What aggression have Iraq or Afghanistan displayed towards the US, until provoked? Their lands are being occupied by outside forces.

If Hasan got poor reviews in his previous posting, had “difficulties” that “required counseling and extra supervision”, why was he in the army?

Texas US Rep. Michael McCaul said that he “took a lot of advanced training in shooting”, and this helped him.

If he had made outlandish comments, had difficulties, and now they say he was a “devout Muslim”, which is enough to brand him, then who permitted him to get this training? What do the rule manuals say about it? Did he get a personal trainer as though this was some private gym?

It is clear that he opposed the wars, that is the reason he fired at his colleagues at the military base shouting out to civilians to move out of the way, something that the US establishment does not do when it uses drones.

His two handguns are said to be not “military-issued”, which raises the question about gun culture.

And what does President Barack Obama have to say?

It's "difficult enough to lose" soldiers in battles abroad, he said, but "it's horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil." The president promised a sweeping investigation of the worst soldier-on-soldier attack ever to take place on US soil.

He might like to consider trying to understand the thinking of his troops. The ones who kill at the army base on US soil or who abuse prisoners in lands they have been sent to under the guise of saviours.

I do hope Maj. Hasan survives (he is on ventilator), appears before the courts and is tried for his crime. There is no doubt about that. It will also open up a few cans of worms for this man dealt with the minds of soldiers. It must have affected him deeply.

The madness lies in the system. He is a cog in the wheel. It is unfortunate that he killed his colleagues. They probably hate the wars as much as he does. Though, one must ask: whose war is it anyway?