Life After Bin Laden (The Diplomat)

By M. D. Nalapat

The Diplomat speaks with Indian Decade contributor and UNESCO Peace Chair Madhav Nalapat about the implications of Osama bin Laden's death and the future of islamic extremism.

You've written before about alleged links between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and terrorists, specifically in relation to the Mumbai attacks in 2008. Do you expect the attention focused on Pakistan's intelligence services following the killing of Osama bin Laden to bring sufficient pressure for change?

Days after the Mumbai attack, sources tracking events in Pakistan told me that the ISI was behind the carnage, and that the Pakistan military had assisted in the training and logistics of the attack. Because of this information, I was the first to write authoritatively on the ISI's involvement, which was denied by the United States for more than a year after the terrorist outrage happened.

Successive US administrations have, for the previous 60 years, believed that they can use Pakistan for their own purposes. Military assistance given since the 1950s to ‘fight communism’ was used solely against India, with Pakistan joining hands with China since 1963 -- nine years before President Richard Nixon established a strategic partnership with Beijing. Even the CIA can’t believe that the Pakistan establishment was unaware of A.Q. Khan's activities, yet it acts otherwise, exactly as it has over the bin Laden execution.

Yes, the Pakistani military can be forced to support rather than sabotage US interests. However, this will come about only when carrots get replaced by sticks, and when officers known to be assisting groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba get sanctioned by the United States the way the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been, and prosecuted in the International Court the way the Serbians have been.

Thus far, there’s no sign of this happening. Indeed, the United States is rapidly losing the very ability to alter the behaviour of the Pakistan military. For the past decade, I’ve pointed to the growing influence of China within the Pakistan military. By around 2005, I’d say, Beijing had overtaken the US in overall influence, and is now far ahead. The Pakistan military is becoming like the Burmese military, a tributary of the People’s Liberation Army. Hence, to expect change post-bin Laden is to live on illusions.

Do Pakistan’s protestations that they didn't know bin Laden was there have any credibility?

Osama's hidden supporters in India: UPA protecting the culprits of terror on India (Org.)

By M D Nalapat

DAYS after the terror attack on Mumbai that took place on 26-28 November 2008, this columnist was informed by elements in the intelligence community that the operation had been conducted by the ISI, and that serving—in addition to retired—officers of the ISI and other military formations in Pakistan had provided the training and logistics for the youths recruited to carry out the attack. The US-approved Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, had demanded of the ISI that the organisation “do something” to reduce the rate of growth of the Indian economy. In particular, Kayani wanted to reduce the growing commerce between India and the US-EU combine.

The ISI's reply was the Mumbai terror attack, which was carried out in collusion with elements in the Maharashtra establishment and with the help of sleeper cells within the hotel industry that had been activated in the months prior to the assault. That there was high-level complicity in the 26-28/11 attack became clear when none of the many leads that pointed to the involvement of local Al Qaeda-ISI supporters was ever followed up.

A check of flight records would have shown the number of visits made by friends and relatives of senior police and other officials in Maharashtra to Dubai and London (the two locations favoured by the ISI for meetings with their agents in India). None of this data was ever examined. Indeed, despite clear evidence that the ISI was behind the attack, incoming Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram meekly followed the Washington line (that the Pakistan state was not involved) and the Maino line (that there was zero local involvement in the planning and execution of the crime. It was only after the Obama administration gave permission to Chidambaram via the Headley confession that the Home Minister became more outspoken about the ISI hand. In contrast, on December3, 2008 itself and subsequently, this columnist revealed details about ISI involvement in his column in www.upiasia.com and elsewhere, to indifference from the Union Home Ministry which then—as now—was (and is) more intent on identifying and taking action against threats to the primacy of Sonia Gandhi than it is about national security.

Geelani and US must realise terrorists are not true Muslims (Sunday Guardian)

By M.D. Nalapat

Police officers watch over pro-Bin Laden protesters during a demonstration led by radical cleric Anjem Choudary, outside the US embassy in London on Friday. AP/PTI lthough Syed Ali Shah Geelani may disagree, the fact is that Osama bin Laden forfeited his claim to being a Muslim by engaging in activities contrary to the tenets revealed to Prophet Muhammad. However, rather than confirming this fact, the US action in "giving a proper Muslim burial" to Bin Laden (albeit at sea) is among the many steps taken by that country to legitimise Bin Laden and other terrorists as members of the Islamic Ummah. If the Muslim world has seen a steady flow of recruits to terror organisations across the globe, including in India, one reason has been the consistent US narrative that Wahhabism represents the "pure" form of Islam, in contrast presumably to Sufism (which in the view of this columnist, adheres far more closely to the tolerance and compassion that suffuses the Quran). A reading of history would show that the golden age of Islam occurred precisely when locations where the faith was dominant became oases of learning and multi-faith harmony. The Jewish populations of the globe were, for example, far safer in Muslim-majority than in Christian-majority countries. Indeed, Wahhabism spread across the globe since the 1980s, fuelled by the petrodollars made available by ruling elites in the Gulf Cooperation Council states who were apprehensive of a repeat of Iran in their own countries. During this time, and despite their immense God-given wealth, innovation and initiative have been largely absent in the petrodollar states. Within the region, Israel accounts for nine times more patents and twice as many book titles as all the GCC countries combined, a sorry result for a people that for a time were among the most advanced in the world. { US action in “giving a proper Muslim burial” to Bin Laden (albeit at sea) is among the many steps taken by that country to legitimise Bin Laden and other terrorists as members of the Islamic Ummah. After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the local Muslim community in Mumbai refused to allow the terrorists who had been killed during the operation to be buried in local graveyards, pointing out — correctly — that they no longer qualified as Muslims. Each time the religious factor is brought into a discussion on terrorism, such as in the case of the rituals carried out on the remains of Osama bin Laden, those who claim to be waging a "War on Terror" blur the distinction between practicing Muslims (or those who follow the precepts of the Quran) and apostates such as Bin Laden, who use Islam as a cloak for actions that are wholly contrary to its spirit. Unfortunately for the Muslim world, the "liberal" elites in the US and the EU seem unwilling to admit that Wahhabism and its cousin, Khomeinism are in no way related to Islam, but are in fact separate faiths. Fortunately for the world, after decades of pandering to Wahhabism by the Sudairy branch of the Al Saud ruling family of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah has worked hard since 2005 to bring the practice of Islam back to the moderate precepts that characterised the golden age of the faith. Apart from the error of considering Bin Laden and others of his ilk to be Muslims, the Obama administration has distanced itself from the democratic ethos of transparency by concealing most important details of the 2 May operation that resulted in the death of the Yemeni. The public have a right to know the truth about that day, even if it is that the man was shot down in cold blood. By covering up the reality, the Obama administration has created a vacuum that in time may get filled by fanciful accounts of the last moments of Bin Laden, including stories that he escaped alive. The best way of stilling such speculation would have been to release at least a portion of the tapes witnessed by President Obama and others in the White House situation room. Or does the US administration believe that its own people — not to mention the rest of the world — do not deserve the privilege of knowing the facts, and need to be kept in a state of ignorance, the way the lower castes were in India in past eras?