Drums of war

[suraju06]

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//If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die.//

How True!! This is exactly what happened in Bombay on 26/11.Only who was going after and who was gone after are different here!!

//Leaving the moral angle aside for the moment, utter disregard for collateral damage like the above is the reason today's hardliners are turned into future terrorists.//

Hardliners are produced not from the ruins of a city but more from the classrooms of mushrooming madrassas where indoctrination goes on after catching them young.Living example Ajmal Kasab.

//Counter insurgency is not an end, it is a means to achieve certain goals. My fear is this measure will only exacerbate long term stability. This is why we must look at history and learn.//

Long term stability at what cost? Yeah, we must learn from history. How many times Hitler was pardoned? Even when Poland was raped there were those who advocated long term stability of Europe and appealing to the reasonableness of Nazi leader. History is useful. But if allowed to repeat itself it can land every one in a mess.

//Is Indian counter insurgency in Kashmir a success? May be it is, only time can tell. Yesterday there was a news item about discovery of a mass grave that included civilians. New thinking for solving Kashmir is necessary.//

A success without any parallels. Elections have been conducted and people have elected Governments in a free expression of choice.No sham elections because there were international observers monitoring these elections. If this is not success what else is? In all insurgencies the initiative for mischief always rests with the insurgents and Government only responds. The discovery of graves, reports of molestation/rape of innocent girls are all charges which fly in the face of determined effort to put down insurgency. For that reason they have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

//The so called surge in Iraq came after ethnic cleansing of the provinces was already mostly complete, and the Sunni war lords were already bought and paid for. Nothing of that sort has happened in Afghanistan.
Protecting population centers means patrolling cities. Just the very sight of foreign forces entering their villages and towns with their guns drawn is enough to send even the most docile of brahmins to rise up with anger, let alone fiercely militaristic Afghans. Nothing good is likely to come out of this.//

In Afghanistan it is not as easy as Iraq. Iraq had already alienated all its neighbours under Saddam. When US army landed there Saddam was alone to defend himself. Afghanistan is a different ball game. You have an old enemy Iran on one side,a mercinery Pak on another side just waiting for an opportunity to double cross and the cat-on-the-wall Uzbek on the northern border. None of these are friends of US but all of them had contributed to the warlord population of Afghanistan liberally in the past. Winning a war is not just a victory on the battlefield. It becomes immensely complex while moving to the phase of holding territory. Only with time fatigue sets in and with fatigue comes good sense and control of territory. So we have to wait out. There are no quick fixes.
//After sending 30,000+ additional troops into a nation that can never be a threat to the U.S. and a depleted Al Qaeda of around 100, an estimate given by none other than the Chief of the joint staff Adm. Jones, president Obama is headed to Oslo to accept the peace prize. Reality is stranger than fiction!!!//
Peace is the fruit of constant vigil. Obama and the US deserves the prize.




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[Nara]

Hello my friend Raju, greetings!

How True!! This is exactly what happened in Bombay on 26/11.Only who was going after and who was gone after are different here!!

I hope you are not drawing moral equivalence between Ajmal Kasab and his cohorts on the one hand and the great shining city on the hill that is U.S.A.

My heart is heavy tonight. After listening to our great Obama giving his acceptance speech at Oslo, I reread the Vietnam speech by MLK, who also received the peace prize, which has been repeatedly defied by many a great statesmen, the latest of which is Obama. Let me just quote a few passages from that great speech greater than the well known "I have a dream" speech.

In the following substitute "Afghanistan" for Vietnam, and "Islam" for communism. How prescient this speech is, is eerie.

I have distilled a long speech to its essentials here. I beseech everyone to read the following, word for word. These words are not mine, but that of one of a very few great men/women that lived on this earth.

• If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam.
• another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1954; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man."
• We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
• I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, ......, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now.
• All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy.
• We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village.
• Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.
• How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent communist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name?
• Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than eight hundred -- rather, eight thousand miles away from its shores.
• Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted.
• This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:
  
  
  "Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism".
  ​
• I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors.
• Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.
• When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
• True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
• A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just."
• A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
• War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons.
• we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

 

[KRS]

Dear Professor Nara Ji,

Would non violence methods have succeeded in turning back either the Nazi regime or the fascist regime of Mussolini?

Is there any proper role to use force in your view of the world?

Regards,
KRS

 

[suraju06]

My dear Mr. Narayan,
Greetings. In the eternal struggle between good and evil there had been long intervals of peace and tranquility. It is a fact that in these intervals of peace and tranquility human civilization has flourished and had reached new heights of glory. But these periods of tranquility were made possible in the first place because just preceding these periods evil was atleast temporarily vanquished. But evil always came back to fight its wars another day. We have not been able to find a final and complete solution to this problem.Mr. King was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and his love for nay yearning for peace is well reflected in his speech quoted by you. In a war the ends always justify the means. The question is not whether this is right or wrong. But whether we need peace and tranquility or not. Even for Mr. King to stand before the lecturn and deliver the impassioned lecture and for the audience to listen to it and nod in appreciation and applaud, peace was needed. When you have bullets flying in all directions around you and grenades exploding right on the stage, you will have no choice but to grab a gun and start shooting. What I am saying is practical wisdom and what you are harping on is idealised lecture from the pulpit. What you say is that the terror and the threat is just storm in a tea-cup and what i say is we are all very much inside the tea-cup and so the storm is real. Cheers.

 

[kunjuppu]

i would like to bring to the public's attention, the editorial from new york times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/opinion/11fri1.html?_r=1&hp

pray, permit me, to paste last paragraph: We also know that there is no chance at all of winning it, and the broader fight against terrorism, unless the United States hews to international standards and upholds its own ideals. That is Mr. Obama’s promise and his challenge going forward.

this is a telling statement and admission of the fact, that the war is unwinnable. obama, and i am quite sure, the wise advisors around him, are aware of history and the lessons learned from vietnam.

but what to do? do they have any other alternative?

bearing india's interest in mind, manmohan singh is reported to have advised obama against any hasty retreat out of afghanistan. a consolidation of taliban there would endanger the already endangered borders within india.

i do not know, if the indian media reports the numbers of people killed either in afghanistan, pakistan or iraq by the ever omnipresent suicide bombers.

i shudder to think, if this becomes a reality in india. we had the shock of 2611. but a proliferation of suicide bombings is equivalent to having a rajiv gandhi like assassination on a regular basis.

that will put strains on our society that we have never experienced since independence.

so, purely as an indian, i say, that it is good that the u.s.a remains in afghanistan. after all, the taliban are using the same weapons, which the americans gave them freely and in plentiful, to create havoc on the soviet troops there.

the chickens have come home to roost.

but, having said all of the above, i credit obama, with above average insight into world affairs. hopefully, he will make the last sentences of the times editorial come true.

now, THAT would deserve another nobel prize

 

[Nara]

Dear Shri KRS, Greetings!

Would non violence methods have succeeded in turning back either the Nazi regime or the fascist regime of Mussolini?

Gandhi was asked the same question and I think he advocated non-violence.

I think whatever answer I give will be self-serving or speculative. I don't know the answer to this question. May be, may be not, we will never know. If I have to answer I would say, no.

In many cases we create the conditions for these regimes to take power and then we refuse to examine the history -- let bygones be bygones, what do we do now, is the refrain.

With population behind you, oppressive regimes can be brought down through non-violent civil disobedience. It requires tremendous courage, discipline and willingness to sacrifice.

Violence is a blunt instrument, it may provide easy and quick answer, but has tremendous side effects. Non-violence transforms the oppressors as well and heals.

Is there any proper role to use force in your view of the world?

Yes, as a last resort self-defense. IMHO, this is not the case for the two ongoing wars.

In previous times, the destructive power of the armies was limited, the wars were relatively short, the battlefield was away from population centers. But now, all these three work against innocent civilians.

Cheers!

 

[Nara]

...... In a war the ends always justify the means. The question is not whether this is right or wrong. But whether we need peace and tranquility or not.

[....]

What I am saying is practical wisdom and what you are harping on is idealised lecture from the pulpit.

Dear Raju,

I hope you are not saying practical wisdom is for nation states to adopt the logic and methods of Ajmal Kasab.

We refuse to examine the policies that create the conditions where extreme voices find resonance, and then, when the bullets start flying we have to take the gun and shoot indiscriminately so that peace and tranquility returns for pursuing the same policies that will lead to another episode of flying bullets. It is madness, doing the same thing and expecting different results, it is madness.

Leave all this aside, we may never agree as to what is moral in this case. Let us focus just on the decision to escalate. Is this a wise policy?

The stated goal is to target the insurgency and secure key population centers. This is supposed to keep the Taliban at bay and take away a sponsor of Al Qaeda. This will never be achieved. The only sensible approach is to divide the Taliban by bringing the willing among them into the government. Support this coalition government and ensure Al Qaeda does not get into Afghanistan. Make sure Al Qaeda does not find safe havens in Somalia or Yemen. Only such a multifaceted approach can succeed if managed well.

 

[hariharan1972]

Yes, as a last resort self-defense. IMHO, this is not the case for the two ongoing wars.

In previous times, the destructive power of the armies was limited, the wars were relatively short, the battlefield was away from population centers. But now, all these three work against innocent civilians.

i am shocked professor sir, when you implicitly say that we have not reached the 'last resort'. imho it is now or never sir.

i do agree that this war is "unwinnable" as you rightly wrote. i dont think that this war is anything about "winning" but i think it is about containing and creating a system of self-management.

we can never see the last of cockroaches can we ? but we continuously monitor and kill them.

till there is a system in afgan to handle these extremists, there is a need for a war-like intervention.

i also think that shri kunjuppu is not completely fair in his appraisal of obama as having "above average insight". i mean, considering the intellectual pygmies such as the ones in pakistan that he has to deal with, he has acquitted himself quite well, thus far.

prof sir, i agree with you that civilians are affected. it is because of the fact that these enemies of humanity use the civilians as their shield. it is not as if those 'waging the war' against terrorism are trigger-happy.

and these terrorists are not some rodents that you can gas them out of their holes.

i agree that the iraq war is unjustified but the stabilizing impact of u.s's afpak action cannot be brushed aside.

 

[kunjuppu]

....i also think that shri kunjuppu is not completely fair in his appraisal of obama as having "above average insight". i mean, considering the intellectual pygmies such as the ones in pakistan that he has to deal with, he has acquitted himself quite well, thus far.

.

hari,

you are saying the same thing as me.

by 'above average', i meant pretty good insight. which means having hopes of acquitting himself well.

how did you understand 'above average'.

this is the quirk of english language i think. understated admiration, is another way of providing praise, without the superlatives.

did it come to you differently messaged?

thanks.

 

[hariharan1972]

by 'above average', i meant pretty good insight. which means having hopes of acquitting himself well.

i understand sir.

i have also mentioned that you are not 'completely fair' which suggests that you are somewhere in the quadrant of fairness without being completely into it.

quibbling aside, i think, obama in my view is an "outlier" (vis-a-vis gilani, zardari and hamid karzais) in terms of his insight atleast on his afpak policy.

 

[Nara]

....i also think that shri kunjuppu is not completely fair in his appraisal of obama as having "above average insight".

Yes Hari, Obama's deliberate and careful approach is quite reassuring. So I hope there is a parallel diplomatic track for triangulating Taliban. Do you think that will not yield results?

If I understand the goals of the present escalation, it is not about Afpak, it is about patrolling cities and building up Afghan security forces. The second goal is worthy, but the first is foolhardy, I think.

Cheers!

 

[Nara]

.... i think, obama in my view is an "outlier" (vis-a-vis gilani, zardari and hamid karzais) in terms of his insight atleast on his afpak policy.

Absolutely, they are not in the same league or even the adjacent league. In this respect, our own Singh is a pretty good cool customer, equal to Obama in intellect and temperament.

More than Afghanistan it is Pakistan that is very worrying. Already they are getting terror bombed to smithereens. More radicalization will be disastrous. As we kill the cockroaches, we must carefully avoid gassing the children in the house.

Cheers!

 

[suraju06]

//The stated goal is to target the insurgency and secure key population centers. This is supposed to keep the Taliban at bay and take away a sponsor of Al Qaeda. This will never be achieved. The only sensible approach is to divide the Taliban by bringing the willing among them into the government. Support this coalition government and ensure Al Qaeda does not get into Afghanistan. Make sure Al Qaeda does not find safe havens in Somalia or Yemen. Only such a multifaceted approach can succeed if managed well.//

The idea and sentiment are good. But will they work? Are they feasible? Taliban is taliban there are no good taliban. Even if you can identify such good ones, they will not agree to the scheme of Americans. They are too independent and committed to do that. They will try to use their position in the Government only to undermine it to prove a point or two to the Afghan public. They will exploit their position to their maximum advantage to help al quaida and in the process come directly in conflict with US again. Somalia and Yemen are quite different and can be taken care of with half the effort and at less than half the cost of what is applicable to Afghanistan. So Obama right on track.

 

[pvraman]

Taliban- basically a student's islamic hard liners and not an ordinary citizens of Af. Their ideology is the thing which should be wiped out. In this week they have "discovered" 4 American students in Pakistan who are interested in terrorist operations.

Luring poor cadets like Kazab, who are "under the bottom of the society" may be easy, and expected, but Luring American citizen in the name of ideology!?!, Indeed Islam is marketing the thing very effectively nowadays.

 

[Nara]

Dear Raju and PVR,

It is very easy to say there are no good Taliban, it is free, no cost attached to making these statements. But the reality is much more complex. The actual price is paid mostly by the underprivileged. This is why I think bringing back the draft is a good idea, it will bring home the realities of war close to home like nothing else to the armchair warriors.

Please read this for a glimpse of what US troops are facing.

 

[kunjuppu]

Dear Raju and PVR,

It is very easy to say there are no good Taliban, it is free, no cost attached to making these statements. But the reality is much more complex. The actual price is paid mostly by the underprivileged. This is why I think bringing back the draft is a good idea, it will bring home the realities of war close to home like nothing else to the armchair warriors.

Please read this for a glimpse of what US troops are facing.

nara,

what you are saying, if i understand it, once the white middle class and above are forced to put on the uniform, and this time, no loopholes like the vietnam war (YESSSS), the u.s troops in iraq and afghan will be gone within 24 hours.

correct me if i am wrong.

thank you.

ps. i have a very close friend, who grew up in time of draft. while in the u.s.a, he kept on going to universities, and when completed moved to canada. avoided the draft. all legal.

 

[Nara]

correct me if i am wrong.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying, well you know, not in 24 hours, but there will be huge calls for end to the war from everyone, not the least of all the military establishment itself, they hate draftees.

Yes, lots of them tried to dodge the draft by even illegal means. But of course if you are rich and powerful and know the right people you get to do it legally, and not even show up for the so called national guard duty.

Oliver Stone also was in the same class as W in Yale. He dropped out and volunteered to go to Vietnam as a lowly PFC. Everyone pushing for war must see his Vietnam trilogy.

Cheers!

 

[Nara]

Read this article in Washington Post about a Taliban insurgent defecting to the side of Afghan government on promises of a job and land for his family which the government promptly reneged on.

Here is a telling passage from the article,

The men who recruited Mohammed to the government's side said they feel sorry for him, and for the dozens of other insurgents they have persuaded to stop fighting this year through promises they knew to be false.
​

With friends like this who needs enemies?

The first order of business for the U.S. is to keep Karzai's feet to the fire. Make sure the lure to Taliban minions, who are most likely no more terrible than the average Afghan on the street, are real and worthwhile. I read in another report that the Taliban are paying their fighters more than the Afghan government!!

Painting all the Taliban as mindless killers to be eradicated at all cost, even including the cost we also becoming mindless killers, is not a wise approach. Hope the new Obama escalation includes keeping promises made to Taliban too tired to keep on fighting.

 

[Nara]

......
Luring poor cadets like Kazab, who are "under the bottom of the society" may be easy, and expected, but Luring American citizen in the name of ideology!?!,

Hello PVR, here is an article from NY Time that tries to answer this very same question.

Some highlights below:

• Robert S. Leiken, who studies terrorism at the Nixon Center, said, [..] the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the American operations like drone strikes in Pakistan, are fueling radicalization at home
• “Just the length of U.S. involvement in these countries is provoking more Muslim Americans to react,” Mr. Leiken said.
• Muslim organizations in the United States, [...] have renewed pledges to campaign against extremist thinking.
• Mahdi Bray, the head of the Freedom Foundation of the Muslim American Society, told reporters that YouTube and social networking sites had become a dangerous recruiting tool for militants.
• “We are determined not to let religious extremists exploit the vulnerability of our children through this slick, seductive propaganda on the Internet,” said Mr. Bray
• “Silence in cyberspace is not an option for us,” he said.
• Bruce Hoffman, who studies terrorism at Georgetown University, [..] pointed to the United States’ combat in Muslim lands as the only obvious spur to many of the recent cases, especially those with a Pakistani connection.
• “The longer we’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, “the more some susceptible young men are coming to believe that it’s their duty to take up arms to defend their fellow Muslims.”
• A few analysts, in fact, argue that Mr. Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan — intended to prevent a terrorist haven there — could backfire.
• Robert A. Pape, a University of Chicago political scientist, contends that suicide attacks are almost always prompted by resentment of foreign troops, and that escalation in Afghanistan will fuel more plots.
• “This new deployment increases the risk of the next 9/11,” he said.
• “It will not make this country safer.”
• Audrey Kurth Cronin of the National War College in Washington said, “To me, the most interesting thing about the five guys is that it was their parents that went immediately to the F.B.I.,”

I hope we make an effort to understand the complexity and not just have a visceral reaction.

 

[KRS]

Dear Professor Nara Ji,

These terrorists get attracted to extremism not because of the presence of foreign troops in various lands. Their call to action was originally based on capturing the past glories of the sultanate pan muslim lands (which they forcefully occupied in the first place). They started with the original grievance of the USA having troops in the 'holy land' of Saudi Arabia. Of course they use all these issues to inflame the passions of their cadre. Al Qaeda did not even mention about the Palestinian issue originally as a reason to fight the west, till Hamas came in to power with a radicalization agenda.

It has always been a refrain from some quarters that if only the USA remove their troops from Afghanistan, less people will be radicalized. This assertion fails to recognize that radicalization happens because of identification with the conservative philosophy like Wahabism. The US presence in these countries are only used to recruit more at the present time. If USA is not there, the recruitment will go on, using other issues to inflame muslim passions and their end objective still would not change. This objective is to destroy modern civilization as we know it and for this they would still want to destroy the powers of countries like the USA, UK and India first and then go after other infidel countries. This is their strategic vision that will never change irrespective of our actions. In fact, withdrawing from fight with them only will embolden them as their underlying Arabic culture makes their thinking this way. They respect only strength.

This is a defensive war and should be won regardless.

Regards,
KRS

 

[Nara]

...These terrorists get attracted to extremism not because of the presence of foreign troops in various lands.

Dear Shri KRS,

For long the U.S. Muslim youth seemed to be immune to the kind of radicalization that was prevalent in Europe. U.S. troops went to Saudi Arabia almost 20 years ago. Yet, the Islamic radicalization in the U.S. is a very recent phenomenon and experts including those from conservative think-tanks like the Nixon Center think the ongoing and seemingly endless wars are fueling this trend.

This is a defensive war and should be won regardless.

This is probably what Taliban are also saying. For Taliban a win is simply throwing out those they consider occupiers. But a win for the U.S. and NATO countries is quite nebulous.

Cheers!

 

[kunjuppu]

nara,

here is something that i personally experienced. the year was 1986, paris france, summer.

we spent a week in france and stayed in a small privately owned hotel.

the front desk was manned by people who looked white. but chatting with them, found that they were tunisians.

one night, there were four of these 'white' looking men, who were arguing loudly. we had just come in from a day of sightseeing, and i was surprised at the vehemance of my normally cool desk clerk.

he pointed out to one of his friends, and told me that guy was crazy. apparently this guy wanted to create a 'caliphate' surrounding the mediterranean, just as it was at the height of islam.

i pointed out to the friend that he was in paris, and was there, because life in tunisia was all poverty and ignorance. he replied me that it does not matter, that as a muslim he did not owe anything to the west.

furthermore, he refused to integrate, inspite of his white skin and features (i figured his ancestors were one of those spanish converts driven out by 1492 by ferdinand/isabella - yes, those who financed christopher columbus!).

the other two friends watched quietly wondering which way to jump. i told him about muslims who were peaceful and integrated, as in 1986, kashmir was not yet a time bomb.

this radical, scoffed, and said that though they had muslim names, they were not real muslims (very similar, to some of us are 'real brahmins' query that sometimes raises its head here).

so, i can tell you, atleast since 1986, and in all probabilities, much earlier than that, the radicalization process of muslims has started.

in the 1950s, 60s, somerset maugham, spent long time in the malay peninsula. though they were nominal muslims, the malays were a gentle race, and the women friendly. he wanted to convert to malay islam, homosexual as he was, he found himself accepted there.

but, in his memoirs, he has written that somewhere, he detected a random radical streak, that frightened him off, and hence he backed off.

in toronto in the 1980s, there used to be these mullahs visiting from pakistan, and used to be heavily advertised in the local ethnic papers.

apparently, these guys used to scoff and challenge the muslims of toronto - pointing out the sikhs, who proudly displayed their religion in the symbols of the turban, kirpan etc etc.

the muslims were challenged to wear their cap, grow beard and take time off during work hours for their 5 times a day prayer. this radicalization started over the years.

nowadays, my organization, has a prayer room, and i have heard it happen, though i have not experienced it, during meetings, muslims used to to quietly slip out claiming it to be prayer time.

the city state of singapore, is forever paranoid, not only about its malay neighbours, but its 15% muslim population are increasing at a higher percentage than other ethnic groups.

this has worked to the benefit of TBs who are among the preferred communities of india to immigrate to singapore.

it is not by accident that singapore projects about 4.5 million people in a few years. this has to keep the other ethnic groups in balance proportionate numbers to the muslim malays.

not to give you all negative stories and stereotypes.

so a break here. about 35 years ago, a TB girl from bombay whom we know, married a muslim. they emigrated to the u.s. just a few days ago, accidentally i saw their facebook album.

a thoroughly westernised family, celebrating thanksgiving with turkey, and bottles of wine, and two westernised children. it was thanksgiving dinner in the usa, and the crowd from the names were all muslim names.

but these folks have a rough time, due to their religious compatriots, who swear by the barrel of gun known as islam.

i do not have any answers nor do i take a public stand.

but, it is good, whatever maybe your position, keep it to yourself, to keep your eyes open, watch your back and lie low, in any muslim neighbourhood.

this is just a survival skill. i think so atleast.

 

[Nara]

so, i can tell you, atleast since 1986, and in all probabilities, much earlier than that, the radicalization process of muslims has started.

There is an endless list of horror stories when it comes to Islamic radicalism. It was 1988 I think when the Ayatollah passed death sentence on Salman Rushdie. It was actually a two pronged attack one coming from Iran, which in fact was not all that menacing compared the other prong, emanating from the U.S.'s stalwart ally, Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabism is a Faustian bargain that the Saudis/U.S. made, and now the entire world is paying the price.

Sometime back I saw a documentary on a Tamil Hindu boy in Malaysia falling in love with a Muslim girl. The girl converted to Hinduism and married the boy and happily lived, alas not ever after. As you know, once a Muslim, always a Muslim. Apostasy is a capital crime. Apparently, a marriage between a Muslim and a non-Musilm is illegal. The girl was forcibly removed from the boy and sent to reeducation camp. I don't know what finally happened, perhaps Renu can fill us in.

I am not oblivious to the facts of life when it comes to Islam. But I also feel, there are moderate Muslims, even in Pakistan, who are as much appalled and scared with what is going on today as any of us. In fact they have more stakes in this than any of us.

Anyway, I think we are probably talking about two different things. You are citing radicalism in Europe and Asia. The NY Times article was referring to radicalism in the U.S.

From all the reports I have read radicalism among the U.S. Muslims is on the rise only recently. Perhaps we are on different tracks, the NY Times article is about U.S. Muslims.

All religions one way or another offer more pain than enlightenment. Islam is but an extreme example.

All this aside, there is enough reasons to be concerned about U.S. escalation policy and hope Obama is perusing a parallel secret diplomatic track.

Cheers!

 

[KRS]

Dear Professor Nara Ji,

Because only after 9/11 it is widely known by the disaffected muslim youth in USA about the islamic radical movement through internet, they are getting more and more radicalized reading all the propaganda on the net. This is not surprising. The extremists populate the teaching ranks in some universities and their job is to brain wash an affluent but lost muslim youth here. Please read the story on Holy Land Foundation trial:
American Thinker: Homeland Security Implications of the Holy Land Foundation Trial

The causes of such a radicalization here are quite different from those in Europe. While in Europe poverty and other discrimination are the reason, brodly speaking, I can say the disaffected American muslim youth is a rebel, probably bored with the mechanical life here, looking for a cause. I remember my younger son who went through a phase of wearing only black clothes, coloring his hair shocking orange and perhaps dabbled in the drug culture too. Now when I talk to him (he is quite successful in life in traditional terms now), he says that he did all that because he was bored being a kid living in the suburbia! Of course you know about the peer pressure here and that may influence the muslim youths too to take this path. I do not think that they turn in to terrorists, reading about the way USA is dealing with the Talibans.

Please read this article:
US warns of accelerated radicalization among American Muslims | EUTimes.net

As I have said, even if USA withdraws from Afghanistan, such radicalization will go on. The matter of fact is that there are muslim youths in this country who in the name of understanding their religion, do read the vicious propaganda out there and believe it.

The taliban may 'think' that there 'defending' themselves, but let us not forget these incidents:
1. Hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814
2. Not turning over the Al Qaeda culprits to the USA (after they gave them a home and facilities to train)

To me such actions deprive them of claiming that they are 'defending' themselves, in the moral sense of the word.

Regards,
KRS

Dear Shri KRS,

For long the U.S. Muslim youth seemed to be immune to the kind of radicalization that was prevalent in Europe. U.S. troops went to Saudi Arabia almost 20 years ago. Yet, the Islamic radicalization in the U.S. is a very recent phenomenon and experts including those from conservative think-tanks like the Nixon Center think the ongoing and seemingly endless wars are fueling this trend.


This is probably what Taliban are also saying. For Taliban a win is simply throwing out those they consider occupiers. But a win for the U.S. and NATO countries is quite nebulous.

Cheers!

 

[pvraman]

Dear Sri Nara,

Dear Raju and PVR,

It is very easy to say there are no good Taliban, it is free, no cost attached to making these statements. But the reality is much more complex. The actual price is paid mostly by the underprivileged. This is why I think bringing back the draft is a good idea, it will bring home the realities of war close to home like nothing else to the armchair warriors.

Please read this for a glimpse of what US troops are facing.

Its very sad to read and gripping, i had the same feelings when the Kargil fight, the Indian solders were tortured and vital organs were mutilated and handed over to India despite fighting a war, the ethics were not followed. The causality due to the IEDs shall be attributed to the better Guerrilla war skills of Taliban who are experts in Guerrilla fights.

A layman's thinking: why a mighty country like US can not employ unmanned automobile before the vehicles with soldiers?. The enemies are not engaged in a conventional war.

Thanks for the link