Why is Bashar Assad silent? (PO)

M D Nalapat

Friday, June 21, 2013 - Old habits die hard. There is something about the atmosphere in London that changes the willpower of an individual and makes him or her more susceptible to looking at events from an alien viewpoint. Saif Kaddafy, now being daily taunted in a prison cell in Zintan, Libya, fancied that those in the UK who clustered around him and grabbed his father’s cash would stand by him in a crisis. Instead, they joined those who formed the lynch mob which finally ensured that the Libyan dictator died in the same manner as former President Najibullah of Afghanistan was in 1996,publicly and in painful and humiliating circumstances.

Those familiar with Kaddafy’s policymaking groups know that it was Saif who planted false confidence in Muammar Kaddafy that he could escape from the predicament that NATO had created for him by making concessions to that alliance. What took place was that each concession was immediately followed by a demand for more, until there was nothing left to give. The examples of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Kaddafy demonstrate NATO’s penchant for going after regimes, but only after it has been ensured that they cannot fight back. The UN was used as cover to gain what extra intelligence input was needed to launch attacks, that organisation’s “peacekeeping” mechanism being dominated by NATO member-states. In a final burst of irony, it is precisely the country that most relies on brute force to enforce its will on former colonies, France, that leads the UN’s “peacekeeping” efforts.

Like Saif Kaddafy, President Bashar Assad of Syria too has spent long and happy years in London, which is presumably why the man who has been marked by his foes for a Kaddafy-style execution still protects the interests, not of the population within NATO member-states, but of the very policymaking groups that are thirsting for his head. Years ago, when his government had evidence of several dozen UK nationals being among those engaged in acts of violence across West Asia, President Assad kept silent when British Prime Minister Tony Blair passed off such involvement as limited to a single individual. Had Assad released the details in his posession of the UK nationals active in Wahabbi terror groups, it would have shown the people of the UK - who share with their other European peoples an overwhelming commitment to fair play and to honesty - that Tony Blair was a liar, the same man who led them to a disastrous war in Iraq on the back of obvious untruths.

But Assad kept silent, just as he does now when his government has within its prisons dozens of nationals of EU countries, all captured as a result of the ongoing war between the NATO-backed Ankara-Doha-Riyadh coalition and Damascus-Teheran-Moscow.

Releasing information about these prisoners and the circumstances of their capture would demonstrate the unpardonable manner in which David Cameron and William Hague are bending before Ankara, Doha and Riyadh in backing groups that contain individuals to whom Bashar Assad’s regime is just the appetizer. The main course, once Syria gets subdued, will be the countries whose passports they flash. The Baath Party, whether in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s time or in Syria during the long reign of the Assad family, is known for its administrative incompetence and its obsessive secrecy. Releasing information is anathema to Baathists, even when such transparency can serve their cause. In the chronicles of conflict between NATO member-states and Third World militaries, it was only Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam that succeeded in defeating its enemy in Infowar.

Of course, Ho had a powerful taliwind assisting him, which was the Draft. Had the US military been an all-volunteer force the way it is now, it is unlikely that campuses across the US would have risen up in anger against the war in Vietnam. However, such advantages do not detract from the fact that “Uncle Ho” came across as what he was, a gallant nationalist and indomitable fighter, who defeated first the French and later the US itself, this during an era when the US military had not yet been defeated by a small band of thugs in Afghanistan. What is being witnesssed in that country is the retreat of a superpower, anxious to make whatever compromise is needed in order to prevent the killing of more of its soldiers, no matter that the dance of Barack Obama with Mullah Omar is pushing back the prospect of the Afghan people themselves defeating the designs of the Taliban to once again take over power in Kabul on the back of a terrified US administration.

Had India been gifted the good fortune to have a government led by those not in thrall to NATO, by now both Julian Assange and Edward Snowden would have found homes in this country. However, rather than making India a haven of free speech and of internet freedom, the Manmohan Singh administration, dominated as it is by World Bank logic that sees obedience to US dictates as the natural course to take, has sought to throttle internet freedom. And as for connectivity, India has the lowest percentage of people who are internet-enabled among all major powers, while bandwidth and speeds are derisory. India’s Information Superhighway is as creaky and dysfunctional as its road network.

However, Manmohan Singh and his political superior Sonia Gandhi are not the only individuals dancing to the tune of NATO. The Assad family is in danger of losing not only their liberty but their lives as a consequence of NATO actions, the most recent being the Kerry-Cameron-Hollande plan to give weapons to the Al Nusra front through the fiction of routing it through rootless wonders with zero influence on the ground.

Bashar Assad has to get the people of the US and the EU to understand the forces that their governments are unleashing. The only way this can be achieved is by full transparency on the composition of the so-called “freedom fighter” groups.In particular, the nationalities of the Al Nusra front who have been captured by the Syrian army (and which include citizens of India) need to be revealed. So far ,however, Bashar Assad seems determined to follow the example of Saif Kaddafy, who tailored his actions to suit the needs of his tormentors. Going public with details on his prisoners would go against the Baath code of secrecy and backroom deals, but would serve the interests of the people of the globe, who seek a stable and prosperous future free of the violence that extremists inflict on them with support from governments who should know better, and who in course of time (when it is too late), will.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=210403

Snowden storm stains US (People's Daily)

By M.D. Nalapat  (China Daily)

08:20, June 19, 2013

There has been a growing disconnect between the inherent qualities of US citizensand the actions of their government. The election of Barack Obama to the Oval Officefive years ago demonstrated the essentially liberal spirit of the American people. Butthe same cannot be said of the US governance structure, which very often pursuespolicies designed to help the few who are major contributors to political candidatesthan the millions who vote for them. 

Because of the immense influence of powerful interest groups over the corporationsthat control much of the media in the US, the people of that country are seldom givenan informed choice about events, especially those relating to foreign affairs. 

To this day, many Americans believe that Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadhafisupported al-Qaida leaders. The reality is, Saddam and Gadhafi both were targets ofal-Qaida assassination plots for a long time because, whatever their other faults mighthave been, both subscribed to moderate theologies rather than the extreme version ofIslam. 

For years, the US has been lecturing China on hacking Internet accounts. It is almostcertain that some entities, individuals or groups, in China do hack Internet accounts.But then all - repeat all -major powers do the same and make China the scapegoat. 

The US has escaped any attention concerning its state-sponsored hacking programs.In fact, the US as well as the European Union member states have been silent aboutthe fact that they have the maximum number of surveillance cameras per thousandpeople. 

That's why former CIA agent and National Security Agency specialist EdwardSnowden's exposure of some of the details about the NSA's gargantuan program toclandestinely scoop up information from across the world should be considered apublic service. Were the sole purpose of such theft of data the prevention of terroristacts, as is being claimed by the Obama administration, the world would not have beenas angered by Snowden's revelations as it is now. It's clear the US has used Osamabin Laden and his fanatic band of followers as a pretext to snoop around the world. 

Using the cover of the "war on terror", the US has given itself untrammeled access toinformation that can be used to further not only security, but also commercial interests.

For example, take the case of a policymaker in a major developing country - say, India- who adopts a policy to protect domestic interests. In case such a policy threatensAmerican goals, the US could get dubious entities to call the policymaker over thephone or send him/her some e-mails. Using such communications, the US officials canthen launch a phishing expedition across offshore banking centers to see if thepolitician has illegal accounts. And if the officials get any incriminating evidence, theycan simply blackmail the policymaker into complying with the dictates of the USadministration or destroy his career by leaking information about his/her ill-gottenwealth. 

The unfettered access of the US to offshore banking data means that policymakersacross the globe, many of whom are corrupt, are at the constant risk of exposure ifthey refuse to play ball with the US at the cost of their domestic industries. 

Since major international Internet service providers are based in the US, the private e-mails and phone calls of more than 2 billion people across the globe can be madeavailable to US authorities and their NATO allies. This could include details about theirpersonal lives, which could be leaked to the media whenever they take a firm stance toprotect their countries' interests against the diktats of the US or its NATO allies. TheIraq "Oil for Food" scandal was an apt example of how a so-called independentcommission (headed by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker) foundonly those people guilty of malpractice who were known to be resisting US pressure. 

The Volcker report reportedly preferred not to name a prominent Indian politician,considered close to the US, even though she was one of the suspected beneficiaries ofthe scandal. But the report didn't show a similar forbearance toward former Indianforeign minister K. Natwar Singh, who is a life-long proponent of non-alignment, amovement that the US and NATO detest. Ultimately, a lobby within the Indiangovernment forced Natwar Singh to resign from the federal cabinet, much to the reliefof those who found his adherence to nonpartisan principles irksome. 

How many independent-minded politicians across the globe have fallen prey to theinformation gleaned by the NSA? How many companies based in the US and otherNATO member countries have benefited from illegally collected data on theircompetitors in other countries? 

Since politicians in the US and other NATO member states can pretend to be actingagainst potential terrorist funds to hack the accounts of individuals and companies inother countries for the benefit of their local enterprises, it would be naive to think thatthey have not used such information to also promote their political interests. 

Therefore, the use of the NSA as a phishing net, designed to get information fromhundreds of millions of individuals and companies wholly unrelated to terrorism, neednot merely be condemned, but also subjected to penalties. 

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90777/8289812.html

Advani has done a huge favour to the UPA (Sunday Guardian)

ROOTS OF POWER MADHAV NALAPAT www.sunday-guardian.com/profile/madhav-nalapat

Hindu Sena members celebrate outside senior BJP leader L.K. Advani’s residence in New Delhi on 9 June after Narendra Modi’s elevation as BJP campaign chief. PTI anish Tewari must be delighted. L.K. Advani has confirmed in writing what he has been claiming for years, that the BJP has now become a party of opportunistic individuals chasing not the public interest but their own (presumably selfish) agendas. Indeed, that the merest flicker of idealism is no longer to be found within the party. The Advani Letter is well on the way towards becoming a prominent plank of the Congress and UPA campaign against the BJP and its allies. Thereby, Advani has done an immense favour to the UPA, and hopefully they will reciprocate the gesture, perhaps by awarding him a Bharat Ratna. Certainly Advani must be sincere when he portrays the BJP as a party of time-servers that, by implication, no decent individual could possibly be a member of. Which is why it is surprising that Advani forgot to resign from the BJP itself or from the chairpersonship of the BJP parliamentary party. A man as honourable as Advani would surely not want to lead those whom he has so excoriated in the letter. But when exactly did Advani discover the rot within his party? It must have been very recently, for a man as honourable as himself would never have remained in the party — sorry, some party committees — once he saw it as a gang of opportunists. Which is why admirers of Advani are a trifle bewildered at his forgetting to resign from the BJP itself and, even more surprisingly, by his withdrawing his resignation from some party committees the next day itself, without at all repudiating his letter. Ram Jethmalani was expelled from the BJP for casting a smidgen of doubt on the integrity of selected leaders of what passes itself off as the country's main Opposition party. However, instead of doing the same to Advani, six members of the Parliamentary Board trooped to his residence and begged him not to leave. Clearly, although they are each in their sixth or seventh decade of life, the Delhi Six feel as helpless as little children should Papa walk away. Now that it is clear that at least six within the highest body in the BJP lack the confidence to function without constant guidance from their ageing hero, what kind of a message does that send to voters soon to judge whether they can be entrusted with authority over the governance of the country? By his letter, Advani has severely hurt the BJP. By their desperate plea for him to reconsider, the BJP's Delhi Six have harmed the party's image even more. As for Narendra Modi, who is being opposed within not only the Congress but in his own party not because he may fail — as they claim — but that he may shock the pundits by actually securing 175 or more seats for the BJP. He is certainly a polarizing figure, and because of his caste background (important in a country where this social scourge refuses to disappear) may cut deeply into the vote banks of the SP, the RJD and the JDU, should Nitish snap links with the BJP. Samizdat (the invisible information system) may catch fire with anticipation of the possibility of India's first Backward Class Prime Minister. Add to that the fact that his first job was as a teenager making tea for his father to sell on railway platforms in clay pots, as well as the fact that his relatives still live in extremely moderate circumstances, unlike for example the families of Lalu Yadav or Mulayam Singh Yadav. Stir within the mix support from that Yadav stalwart, Baba Ramdev, and the swelling tide of majoritarian pride that a Narendra Modi nomination for the nation's top job (till Manmohan Singh took over in 2004 and adopted the Chinese system of the party being superior to the government) would be likely to cause, and there are rational grounds for believing that the analyses of psephologists that the BJP cannot reach even close to double figures may prove to be wrong. Narendra Modi in 2013 is a force in Indian politics of such uniqueness that the only parallel which comes to mind is Indira Gandhi during 1969-71, which is why the BJP's leaders are wary of his ascendance, while everybody else in the party is euphoric. Should the public rallies that the newly anointed Campaign Committee chairperson is planning materialise, and should they be a success, he may be unstoppable even should Nitish Kumar, Naveen Patnaik and others join with Ahmed Patel and L.K. Advani in seeking to block him. The BJP's oldest leader must be hoping that Modi will get sidelined well before the Gujarat CM hits the campaign trail and shows who really counts: the dozen at the top or the millions lower down.

http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/advani-has-done-a-huge-favour-to-the-upa

Video: Prof Nalapat on CCTV's Dialogue special on the 'Chinese Dream' (Broadcast 14 June 2013)

US policy-makers ignore the Bible

M D Nalapat

Friday, June 14, 2013 - Among the many valuable tips to civilised human behaviour found in the Bible is the precept to “do unto others what you would have them do unto you”. Looking at the shrill US reaction to reported Internet hacking by Chinese entities, it is clear that the US is allergic to any country doing to it what it routinely does to others. Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee, has revealed in a British newspaper, The Guardian, that the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US has daily been collecting details of voice calls and email from countries across the world. Both India and Pakistan figure in the list of the countries most affected by such activity. India, where both the intelligence agencies as well as strategic analysts almost always follow the line set for them by the major NATO member-States, has thus far ignored the reality of hacking by the US and by its allies, following the script given to them, which is to focus exclusively on China as the sole source of internet hacking. Certainly Beijing will be guilty of such activity, but nowhere on the scale of Washington.

Given the stakes involved, the pressure on The Guardian must be enormous, so as to either present only a vetted version of the rest of the data that Snowden would have supplied them, or stopping the revelations altogether. Hopefully Snowden will ensure that other publications too gain access to the data he has submitted to The Guardian, including newspapers in India as well as China and Russia, three countries outside the constraints that invisibly operate within NATO member-states. Within the bloc, it is axiomatic that whatever the military coalition does is just, while their targets are evil. Hence the relative silence of the Kerry-Cameron-Hollande trio to the manner in which Recip Tayyip Erdogan is dealing with protestors in Ankara and Istanbul.

The “human rights” groups, which promote the agenda of NATO, such as Human Rights Watch, are passing off the police action in Turkey as inconsequential from the view of stifling democratic dissent. A Human Rights Watch official helpfully suggested on CNN that as the police were not actually shooting at the protestors, what was there to complain about? Thus, discrimination against the Shia in Bahrain or some other GCC states is ignored, it being effective NATO policy to punish the Shia community in West Asia for the fact that Iran is overwhelmingly Shia. The consequence of the defiance of the mullahs in Tehran of NATO has been a steady rise in attacks on Shia and discrimination against them, all to silence from NATO member-states who daily lecture other countries about “justice” and “freedom”.

Turning to cyber-snooping, credible individuals in Washington say that the NSA program is not simply about security but about commerce as well. They say that in the name of security, snooping takes place on companies in Asia and that data from them is stolen and finally passed on to US and EU corporates. Because of the trove of sensitive information they secure through officially sponsored cyber-interception programmes, US and EU companies often succeed in prevailing over their rivals from countries such as India, the country which is the fifth biggest target of the NSA’s snooping. Interestingly, this using of cyber-interception for purposes of commerce is precisely what the US accuses China of doing. Clearly, being itself the predominant player in the game, Washington knows the value of hacking to the success of local companies.

Indeed ,Osama bin Laden’s terror attack of 9/11 has turned out to have some positive spinoffs for Washington. Using the excuse of the “War on Terror”, Swiss and other offshore banking entities have been forced to reveal details of the secret bank accounts of VIPs across the globe. It is difficult to believe that US authorities will resist the temptation to trawl offshore banking systems for data on policymakers in other countries. This data can then be used to blackmail such policymakers to introducing measures which harm their own enterprises for the benefit of US and allied entities. 

This columnist has always been a bit nonplussed about the manner in which successive governments in India have fashioned policies which discriminate against locals in favour of outsiders. Now that the Snowden revelations have become public, it is clear as to some of the possible reasons behind such reprehensible behaviour. India’s policymakers, several of whom have secret bank accounts abroad as well as other assets, are most likely nervous of disclosure and therefore eager to please US authorities. The NSA ha clearly got data on VIPs across the world, including -almost certainly - details about their personal lives that could prove embarrassing if made public. It is clear that those policymakers who annoy US interests face the risk of having salacious as well as financial details revealed to media, thereby terminating their careers. Use of technical means to run a global snooping program on the scale revealed by the Snowden revelations indicates that the US has become the single biggest hacker in the globe, most likely bigger than the next three hacker countries put together.

It is amusing therefore that it is Washington that most loudly complains against the very behaviour that it itself egregiously engages in. Even India, a country whose policymakers go to extremes to ensure compliance to NATO directives, to the extent of allowing US and EU corporates crucial advantages over domestic enterprises, is targeted by Washington for so-called “unfair trade practices”, when in fact the reverse is the case. Clearly, for US policymakers (most of whom daily and loudly swear by the Bible), it is not a case of doing unto others what they wish others to do to them, but doing unto others exactly what they seek to prevent others from doing unto them. The next time those responsible for actions such as those described by Edward Snowden go to church, they need to ponder over the gap between what the Bible teaches and what they themselves practice.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=209839

Nitish went so far backward, he can’t go forward (Sunday Guardian)

ROOTS OF POWER MADHAV NALAPAT www.sunday-guardian.com/profile/madhav-nalapat

Lalu Yadav greets Prabhunath Singh (right) after the latter’s victory in Maharajganj Lok Sabha bypoll, in Patna on Thursday. PTI hat do Nitish Kumar and Recip Tayyip Erdogan have in common? Both have been in power for long stretches of time, and perhaps as a consequence, both have begun to see themselves as infallible. Erdogan's embrace of Doha and Riyadh has meant that Ankara has followed them in seeking to remove Bashar Assad from power in Syria. That an Alawite — a sect known for its ultra-liberalism — is in charge of a largely Sunni state is anathema to Qatar, Justice and Development Party (AKP)-ruled Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and they have not hidden the fact that all three have been pumping in weapons and cash to whomsoever takes up arms against Assad. Émigrés, who dream of revolution in their native lands, seldom have the courage to actually participate in actions on the field. India's Khalistan movement was funded not only by the ISI but also by a clutch of affluent citizens of Canada, the UK and the US, who delighted in the mayhem which followed. Surprisingly, the very individuals who donated so generously to Bhindranwale's boys were subsequently welcomed back to India both by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh governments, not to mention that run by Parkash Singh Badal. Clearly, both Manmohan Singh as well as Parkash Singh Badal are forgiving folk, willing to set aside any memory of the havoc caused in Punjab by Khalistan protagonists. There are lists available with both the Central as well as the state government of those citizens of the UK, US and Canada who funded extremism in the past and who are doing so once again. Rather than send such lists to London, Washington and Ottawa with a request that these individuals be prosecuted for encouraging acts of terror, reports concerning their activities and their cash gifts are being quietly buried, even as Central and state dignitaries shower hospitality on such elements in India and in return get feted by them, especially in London, a capital which tolerates — when not enthusiastically encouraging — those who work at creating mayhem in countries other those inhabited by what is termed by themselves as the "civilised" part of the globe. Both in Punjab as well as in Kashmir, citizens of the US, the UK and Canada gave generous help to those engaged in war not only against the Indian state but against the very people of this country. Being a state Chief Minister or a Central Cabinet minister for more than two dozen years has clearly had an impact on Nitish Kumar. Having toadies around to sing hosannas is pleasant indeed, but actually believing in the bilge they utter is dangerous to one's political health. Clearly, Nitish thought that it was entirely because of him that the JD(U)-BJP alliance had done so well in successive elections in Bihar, and that he could therefore show the BJP just who was the boss. The best hope of the many within the Delhi-based leadership of the BJP to stop the Narendra Modi cavalcade, Nitish has played the role scripted for him by these leaders with aplomb. So successful has he been in conveying his contempt for the BJP that the workers of that party in Bihar decided that enough was enough, and that they would in effect cease to campaign for a JD(U) candidate. In like fashion, BJP-oriented voters clearly abstained from backing Nitish Kumar's candidate in the Maharajganj Lok Sabha bypoll. This was enough for Lalu Yadav to get resurrected, albeit for what is certain to be a very short time. Now that the voters have shown him that he is just Nitish Kumar and not King Kong, the Bihar CM has the choice of either accepting the BJP to get back "forward" support or walking out of the alliance and striking out on his own. Should he adopt the latter course, Nitish is likely to get reduced to irrelevance in the coming Lok Sabha polls. And given a choice between Narendra Modi, a "backward caste" leader who is far more successful than Nitish was in the past in winning "forward" support, and Lalu Yadav of extreme maladministration fame, the odds are that Lalu too will end up with a low tally, leaving the bulk of Bihar's seats to the BJP. In seeking to follow Lalu Yadav in his policy of ignoring the "forwards" in pursuit of knitting together the "backwards" and the minorities, Nitish Kumar may script his own doom, the way Congress CM Ramrao Gundu Rao did in 1983 in Karnataka, when he took backward caste support for granted and concentrated instead on winning the forward castes. Tinkering with a winning formula is the precursor to losing an election, and a Laluised Nitish seems on track for such an outcome.

http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/nitish-went-so-far-backward-he-cant-go-forward