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Sunday, 9 October 2011
If, and when, the mighty fall (Sunday Guardian)
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Why the US Fumbled Afghanistan (The Diplomat)
A decade after the Afghan War began, it’s clear the US made a mistake in not working more with India. The missteps then have haunted it since.
India was one of the first countries to offer the United States unconditional support after September 11 for its ‘War on Terror.’ Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh called up key policymakers in Washington, offering logistical and other support against the Taliban-al-Qaeda axis headed by Mullah Omar.
Yet the full offer was seemingly rebuffed by a US administration that saw Pakistan as the key to defeating the Taliban. By September 13, the adoption of the 1979-89 play book, and the outsourcing of much of the 2001 campaign to the Pakistani military, became US policy. The United States seemed to look deep into the soul of Pervez Musharraf and accept his claim that Pakistan would turn on the militia that had been nurtured since 1993. As a result, they lost the battle against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The day after 9/11, I was on the phone from a hotel in New York pointing out to friends in policy circles the dangers of relying on the Pakistani military, and the consequences of discarding the first Indian initiative to forge a military alliance with the United States since the 1962 Chinese invasion (when the putative partnership was aborted because of US-UK pressure on Delhi to surrender Kashmir to Pakistan as a precondition for the alliance).
The responses to my remarks ranged from scorn to amusement. After all, Pakistan was a long-term ally of the United States, while India ‘had sided with the Soviets.’ Implicit in such reactions was the memory of the Churchillian perception of India's majority Hindu population as unreliable, and, in Churchill's florid prose, ‘beastly.’ That India had as many Muslims as Pakistan, some of whom were serving with distinction in the uniformed services, and that India’s military had more than two decades of experience in dealing with terrorists of the same chemistry as the perpetrators of 9/11, seemed not to matter in the headlong rush of the Bush team into the waiting embrace of Musharraf's men.
Subsequently, several grave errors were made by US policymakers wedded to the theorem of reliance on Pakistan. Media reports at the time suggest that the Inter-Services Intelligence was allowed to evacuate 3,000 Taliban-al-Qaeda members, most notably from Kunduz. Had they been captured, the organisation would have been decapitated.
Next, assistance was provided to ‘moderate’ Pashtuns and ‘reformed’ Taliban by NATO. However, these were identified by elements within the ISI, which, unsurprisingly, eyed fighters it regarded as reliable for its campaigns against India and others, rather than those who genuinely opposed the Taliban. For some time, I wasted much effort trying to bring to the attention of US policymakers the fact that the Pashtun elements they were lavishing treasure on would in time become the very force that challenged NATO, as indeed began to happen with growing frequency from 2005 onwards.
Although the US sought to prevent the Northern Alliance from actually entering Kabul, the Alliance did so anyway. But when it sought to enter southern Afghanistan and clear out the Taliban-al-Qaeda there, they were discouraged from doing so in the belief that the job could best be done by Pakistan. This decision to ‘bar’ the Northern Alliance from entering southern Afghanistan created the sanctuary that enabled the Taliban-al-Qaeda to challenge NATO in subsequent years.
Meanwhile, the 2001 brushoff by Washington weakened the lobbies within India that sought a firm alliance with the United States, so much so that in 2003, Vajpayee refused a US request that 20,000 Indian troops be deployed in the Kurdish zone of Iraq. This columnist was then – and is now – of the view that such a deployment would have been of immense strategic benefit to India, not least in terms of better access to the petroleum reserves in the Kurdish zone.
Also, the Indian military's counter-terror and counter-insurgency tactics are worlds apart from the ‘all guns blazing’ approach of NATO. The adoption of India’s alternative tactics in Iraq could have served as a lesson to other militaries on how to conduct operations without alienating the local community. Indeed, from 2003 onwards, during infrequent visits to the Pentagon, I would tell officials that US troops should ‘secure the borders and keep out of sight of the population’ and leave policing to the Iraqis. It seems no coincidence that conditions on the ground grew markedly better in Iraq once coalition forces stepped aside and allowed Iraqi elements to take over the responsibility of ensuring security. In Afghanistan as well, only the withdrawal of NATO from population centres and the creation of a well-equipped Afghan Army can rescue the situation from the present war of attrition between the alliance and the Taliban-al-Qaeda.
Now that Admiral Mike Mullen has made public the actual role of the ISI in Afghanistan, the Manmohan Singh government (which has been more deferential to US-EU wishes than any previous administration in India) has stepped forward to sign a strategic agreement with Afghanistan that will ensure that India train the Afghan police and military. The culture blind way in which various NATO partners have been seeking to train the Afghans has resulted only in huge costs – and in training that’s visibly unsuited to local conditions.
Rather than seeking to change the Afghan uniformed services into clones of the Germans, the Poles or the Australians, it would be both cheaper and more effective to have such training carried out by a nearby military that shares several cultural and historical links with the people of Afghanistan. ‘Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job’ ought to have been the Afghan plea that NATO acceded to, rather than entering into an expensive campaign using troops that ought never to be based outside Europe.
Now that India has entered the ring, perhaps Afghan President Hamid Karzai will escape the fate of President Najibullah, who succeeded in beating back extremist militias until Boris Yeltsin cut his supply lines to zero in 1993. Recovering from the errors of Cheney-Powell in 2001 – and ones made subsequently – will take time. But, unlike the strategy of relying on the Pakistan Army, it at least has a decent chance of success. That is, of course, assuming that another US policy disaster doesn’t come by to gift victory to the Taliban.
http://the-diplomat.com/2011/10/09/why-the-us-fumbled-afghanistan/?all=true
Friday, 7 October 2011
Racist ‘justice’ in Berlo’s Italy (PO)
By M D Nalapat
Nearly fifty years ago, courts in India did away with the jury system, after a jury in Mumbai had acquitted Cawas Manekshaw Nanavati of the murder of Prem Ahuja. The naval officer had come across his undressed wife and Ahuja at the latter’s flat,and almost involuntarily, his hands reached for the servce revolver at his side, and pressed the trigger. His UK-born wife Sheila was a woman
known in the naval colony where she lived as both being very beautiful as well as a great flirt. Clearly, the English girl was not happy at the low salary of her husband,and was swept up by the much wealthier Ahuja, with whom she soon began spending afternoons. After months, word of such trysts reached Commander Nanavati, who went to Ahuja’s flat to investigate, a visit that ended in the businessman’s death.
India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, did not trust the people of India, although he spoke and wrote in words of praise for them. This mistrust resulted in him insisting in retaining the colonial system of law, complete with codes and procedures. He also retained the entire civil service mechanism that had been perfected by the British as an instrument of control. Indeed, so complete was Nehru’s admiration for British-oriented Indians that he gave the top job in the External Affairs Ministry to Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, who had passionately argued in numerous world capitals that the people of India were unfit to govern themselves, and that rule from London should continue indefinitely. In a country truly committed to change, this would have earned Bajpai either prison or exile. But in Nehru’s India, he and all others who fought against freedom were honoured and given top jobs. When Nehru heard of the verdict of innocence in the Ahuja murder case, he lost his temper and saw to it that the jury system was cast overboard across the country. From then onwards, the sole responsibility for ascertaining the guilt or innocence of an accused would lie with the magistrate or judge, with the general public reduced to the status of observers. This was in line with Nehruvian ideology, which gives all powers to the governmental authorities, even in matters that in a democracy ought to be within the discretion of the citizen. Even to this day, the colonial structure of governance retained by Nehru ensures that a citizen has to petition the government in myriad ways throughout his or her lifetime, petitions that usually get granted only after bribes get paid. Not surprisingly, corrupt officials and politicians swear by the Nehruvian system, as it guarantees them riches. To take just one example, much of the family of Sheikh Abdullah, the “Lion of Kashmir” spend vast stretches of time in London, living there on a scale that can only be described as luxurious. Given that Sheikh Abdullah’s son Farooq has been a full-time politician for more than three decades ( on a measly salary) as is the case with his own son Omar, it is difficult to guess how a family with such low salary incomes can afford to live so luxuriously in London and Dubai.
The Abdullah family is not alone. Almost every family that is linked to top political leaders enjoys a similar standard of living, that too in the most expensive cities of the world. Small wonder that they – and the officials who join in the spoils - are refusing to surrender the colonial powers that they enjoy more than six decades after the country became independent. Even in a matter such as trial by jury (which ought to be the right of any citizen), the public has been removed from any say. Of course, it must be admitted that in the Nanavati case, the jury’s verdict of “not guilty” was wrong. Clearly, emotion got the better of reason. However, this was not reason enough to abandon the entire system of Trial by Jury. Now Italy has given another example of how a jury can be influenced by subjective factors and give a verdict that flies in the face of the evidence. Four years ago, a mixed-race woman, Meredith Kircher, was brutally attacked and murdered by a set of pathological individuals. Despite a media campaign in the US to free her, suspect Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Solecito were sent to jail for a term of 26 years. With a viciousness belied by her innocent looks, Amanda Knox sought to implicate an innocent black man of the crime. In Italy, people are trained by history and by tradition to look upon people of a dark hue with suspicion, so on the word f Knox, the man was arrested. However, after he was jailed on the false evidence provided by Knox, the truth came out and he was released. A second black man was jailed as an accomplice to Knox and Solecito. Now, four years later, only the black man is in jail. Solecito and Knox are free, even though he was only found guilty of being their helper in the heinous torture, rape and murder of the mixed-race Meredith Kircher. Clearly, the Italian judges and jury do not see the absurdity of finding Knox and Solecito not guilty, but their presumed accomplice still guilty. If only the jailed man looked First World, the way the other two do, perhaps he too would be free.
Italy is a society where racism exists in strong doses. Some time ago, a gypsy girl drowned off a beach in that country. There were more than three thousand onlookers sunning themselves on the beach and even inthe water. However, because the girl was a gypsy, not a single person swam up to her and saved her. Instead, several taunted her from the seashore, hurling abuse at her and at gypsies in general. Had India a government less dominated by an exaggerated respect for its former colonial masters and their lands, it would have focussed on the Roma people of Europe and given them the $2 billion that was donated recently to the very European financial institutions that lent recklessly to countries only because they were European. However, not a euro has gone to the Roma, who remain persecuted and discriminated against in a Europe obsessed with ethnicity. Here in India, the Italian relatives of a prominent family take care to remain as far apart from Indians as possible on their visits to the country, mixing mostly with Europeans from embassies and business houses. Thus far, although they visit the country often and use government-provided facilities liberally, they have not given a single interview to an Indian publication. Of course, given the fear that the Indian media have of offending VVIPs, neither have they been bothered by any papparazzi.
India is no Europe Each time television cameras panned to where the mother of Meredith Kircher was standing, viewers could see that she had a Third World appearance, unlike the two defendants and their families. all of whom were First World and looked it. Small wonder that the judges and the jury gave the two First Worlders the benefit of the doubt, ignoring the Third World unfortunate still jailed as an accessory (to culprits found innocent) as well as the pain and suffering of Meredith Kircher’s mother. The parents of Knox and Solecito must know the truth about their children, and neither has lost a child the way the mother of the victim has. By its perverse judgment, based on “evidence” helpfully supplied to it by the well-paid defense team, the judges and the jury in Perugia that acquitted Knox and Solecito have once again shown that the ideological foundation of the European Union is built on the principle of ethnicity. And as this columnist has pointed out since the early 1990s,this is the precise reason why the “Europeans Only” experiment will fail, in a world where multiculturalism is a must for human advancement
By their frank adherence to racism, the authorities in the EU do an injustice to their citizens. Even in the 1930s, there were hundreds of thousands of Britons who wanted to see India free, just as slavery was defeated by millions of Americans guided by Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, it can be said that the peoples of Europe are - on balance - the most liberal in the world, and the group least prone to the sort of nihilism that has been seen in places such as Ruwanda, with Bosnia being the exception. Unless the EU adopts a policy on migration and on trade that is based on the universality of humankind rather than the exceptionalism of the European, it will fail, the way Italian justice has in the tragic case of Meredith Kircher.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=118289
Nearly fifty years ago, courts in India did away with the jury system, after a jury in Mumbai had acquitted Cawas Manekshaw Nanavati of the murder of Prem Ahuja. The naval officer had come across his undressed wife and Ahuja at the latter’s flat,and almost involuntarily, his hands reached for the servce revolver at his side, and pressed the trigger. His UK-born wife Sheila was a woman
known in the naval colony where she lived as both being very beautiful as well as a great flirt. Clearly, the English girl was not happy at the low salary of her husband,and was swept up by the much wealthier Ahuja, with whom she soon began spending afternoons. After months, word of such trysts reached Commander Nanavati, who went to Ahuja’s flat to investigate, a visit that ended in the businessman’s death.
India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, did not trust the people of India, although he spoke and wrote in words of praise for them. This mistrust resulted in him insisting in retaining the colonial system of law, complete with codes and procedures. He also retained the entire civil service mechanism that had been perfected by the British as an instrument of control. Indeed, so complete was Nehru’s admiration for British-oriented Indians that he gave the top job in the External Affairs Ministry to Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, who had passionately argued in numerous world capitals that the people of India were unfit to govern themselves, and that rule from London should continue indefinitely. In a country truly committed to change, this would have earned Bajpai either prison or exile. But in Nehru’s India, he and all others who fought against freedom were honoured and given top jobs. When Nehru heard of the verdict of innocence in the Ahuja murder case, he lost his temper and saw to it that the jury system was cast overboard across the country. From then onwards, the sole responsibility for ascertaining the guilt or innocence of an accused would lie with the magistrate or judge, with the general public reduced to the status of observers. This was in line with Nehruvian ideology, which gives all powers to the governmental authorities, even in matters that in a democracy ought to be within the discretion of the citizen. Even to this day, the colonial structure of governance retained by Nehru ensures that a citizen has to petition the government in myriad ways throughout his or her lifetime, petitions that usually get granted only after bribes get paid. Not surprisingly, corrupt officials and politicians swear by the Nehruvian system, as it guarantees them riches. To take just one example, much of the family of Sheikh Abdullah, the “Lion of Kashmir” spend vast stretches of time in London, living there on a scale that can only be described as luxurious. Given that Sheikh Abdullah’s son Farooq has been a full-time politician for more than three decades ( on a measly salary) as is the case with his own son Omar, it is difficult to guess how a family with such low salary incomes can afford to live so luxuriously in London and Dubai.
The Abdullah family is not alone. Almost every family that is linked to top political leaders enjoys a similar standard of living, that too in the most expensive cities of the world. Small wonder that they – and the officials who join in the spoils - are refusing to surrender the colonial powers that they enjoy more than six decades after the country became independent. Even in a matter such as trial by jury (which ought to be the right of any citizen), the public has been removed from any say. Of course, it must be admitted that in the Nanavati case, the jury’s verdict of “not guilty” was wrong. Clearly, emotion got the better of reason. However, this was not reason enough to abandon the entire system of Trial by Jury. Now Italy has given another example of how a jury can be influenced by subjective factors and give a verdict that flies in the face of the evidence. Four years ago, a mixed-race woman, Meredith Kircher, was brutally attacked and murdered by a set of pathological individuals. Despite a media campaign in the US to free her, suspect Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Solecito were sent to jail for a term of 26 years. With a viciousness belied by her innocent looks, Amanda Knox sought to implicate an innocent black man of the crime. In Italy, people are trained by history and by tradition to look upon people of a dark hue with suspicion, so on the word f Knox, the man was arrested. However, after he was jailed on the false evidence provided by Knox, the truth came out and he was released. A second black man was jailed as an accomplice to Knox and Solecito. Now, four years later, only the black man is in jail. Solecito and Knox are free, even though he was only found guilty of being their helper in the heinous torture, rape and murder of the mixed-race Meredith Kircher. Clearly, the Italian judges and jury do not see the absurdity of finding Knox and Solecito not guilty, but their presumed accomplice still guilty. If only the jailed man looked First World, the way the other two do, perhaps he too would be free.
Italy is a society where racism exists in strong doses. Some time ago, a gypsy girl drowned off a beach in that country. There were more than three thousand onlookers sunning themselves on the beach and even inthe water. However, because the girl was a gypsy, not a single person swam up to her and saved her. Instead, several taunted her from the seashore, hurling abuse at her and at gypsies in general. Had India a government less dominated by an exaggerated respect for its former colonial masters and their lands, it would have focussed on the Roma people of Europe and given them the $2 billion that was donated recently to the very European financial institutions that lent recklessly to countries only because they were European. However, not a euro has gone to the Roma, who remain persecuted and discriminated against in a Europe obsessed with ethnicity. Here in India, the Italian relatives of a prominent family take care to remain as far apart from Indians as possible on their visits to the country, mixing mostly with Europeans from embassies and business houses. Thus far, although they visit the country often and use government-provided facilities liberally, they have not given a single interview to an Indian publication. Of course, given the fear that the Indian media have of offending VVIPs, neither have they been bothered by any papparazzi.
India is no Europe Each time television cameras panned to where the mother of Meredith Kircher was standing, viewers could see that she had a Third World appearance, unlike the two defendants and their families. all of whom were First World and looked it. Small wonder that the judges and the jury gave the two First Worlders the benefit of the doubt, ignoring the Third World unfortunate still jailed as an accessory (to culprits found innocent) as well as the pain and suffering of Meredith Kircher’s mother. The parents of Knox and Solecito must know the truth about their children, and neither has lost a child the way the mother of the victim has. By its perverse judgment, based on “evidence” helpfully supplied to it by the well-paid defense team, the judges and the jury in Perugia that acquitted Knox and Solecito have once again shown that the ideological foundation of the European Union is built on the principle of ethnicity. And as this columnist has pointed out since the early 1990s,this is the precise reason why the “Europeans Only” experiment will fail, in a world where multiculturalism is a must for human advancement
By their frank adherence to racism, the authorities in the EU do an injustice to their citizens. Even in the 1930s, there were hundreds of thousands of Britons who wanted to see India free, just as slavery was defeated by millions of Americans guided by Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, it can be said that the peoples of Europe are - on balance - the most liberal in the world, and the group least prone to the sort of nihilism that has been seen in places such as Ruwanda, with Bosnia being the exception. Unless the EU adopts a policy on migration and on trade that is based on the universality of humankind rather than the exceptionalism of the European, it will fail, the way Italian justice has in the tragic case of Meredith Kircher.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=118289
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Rescuing NATO in Afghanistan (Gateway House)
NATO’s poor strategy in Afghanistan has failed to quell the Taliban. Now, India will begin to train the Afghani military, and has proven with its light force tactics in Kashmir that it is better suited for the role than NATO forces.
After Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, the bureaucracy that oversaw NATO faced an existential crisis. The alliance had been set up to counter the menace of the Red Army, and that force had melted away. Was it possible that the careers of the Cold War specialists were over? Would NATO be downsized or disbanded, to be replaced with other security mechanisms that were of greater relevance in an evolving situation? Nothing of the kind happened. NATO simply broadened its sphere of operations to include the entire globe. Given that, it was obvious that its strength had to be enhanced - even as its Soviet-focussed analytical and military leadership searched for another enemy to confront. China was too big and too much a part of the economic DNA of the US and the EU to take the place of the USSR.
Osama bin Laden solved that problem for NATO by bringing down the WTC Twin Towers in New York. From then onwards, the alliance had its foe: the jihad against "unbelievers" and "crusaders" conducted by the more militarised segments of the Wahhabi International. NATO planners are known to have the same degree of depth as French military planners in the 1930s , who passed up three chances to launch a pre-emptive strike against Hitler-run Germany (once when he occupied the Rhineland in 1936; and in 1938, when Germany threatened Czechoslovakia; and finally in 1939, when the Wehrmacht's invasion of Poland left it almost defenseless against strong French and other forces on the western front.) All three opportunities were passed aside even as vast amounts of money got spent on static defenses, rather than on the mobile armoured forces suggested by Brigadier DeGaulle. Hitler acted upon these suggestions in the creation of his Panzer (Tank) Corps.
Battling groups of jihadis is very different from fighting a conventional force; as the USSR discovered in Afghanistan and the US in Vietnam where it was defeated by lightly-armed guerrillas. Fighting a terrorist force united by religious fanaticism calls for a concentration of attention on mind war, and on ensuring that local populations do not fall victim to the siren call of the extremists. This cannot be achieved by conventional military forces. It requires resorting to the setting up of schools and camps where curricula is taught that show the young to become productive citizens in the international marketplace and the fatal effects of future lives as Jihadists. However, schoolteachers are in short supply within NATO while ordinary troops are not. Hence, the tactics adopted were designed so as to fit the mix of assets already available within NATO, rather than on the re-configuring of priorities that is essential if a military is to win an unconventional war. It is no accident that the very Israel Defense Forces that made such short work of multiple Arab armies in 1948, 1967 and finally even in 1973 are still struggling to overpower insurgencies in Gaza and the West Bank, after having withdrawn in defeat from Lebanon in 2000. Indeed, the very instruments of conventional war - tanks, heavy artillery, aircraft – become counter-productive in a context in which the strategic objective has to be not the subduing by force of a population, but winning it over.
About the only military that has understood this lesson is India’s, which has avoided the use of air power, heavy artillery or tanks to fight the Pakistan-fuelled insurgency in Kashmir. When 9/11 made the War on Terror the central theatre of operations for NATO, the alliance needed to acquire the skills and mindsets needed to battle such an elusive foe. Instead its commanders soldiered on in the way that they had been taught at military school - thereby once again proving that its generals are best at fighting the last war while helpless in the present. After a decade fighting the Taliban, and at an expenditure of more than $1 trillion, that ragtag force has regained effective control of at least 48% of the land area of Afghanistan, and has brought NATO to silent hysteria that is manifested in repeated efforts to locate "good" or "moderate" Taliban from within the ranks of Mullah Omar's followers. If such is the expenditure of time and effort spent on fighting a numerically small force in a mid-sized country, it would be difficult to underestimate the problems that NATO would face were the GCC Sheikhdoms to get convulsed by the same unrest that the alliance has stoked in Libya and Syria. Now that NATO has shown the way, it is a realistic prediction that Syria, Lebanon and Iran will decide that attack is the best form of defense and stoke tensions and turmoil in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait in order to divert NATO's attention away from themselves.
Osama bin Laden solved that problem for NATO by bringing down the WTC Twin Towers in New York. From then onwards, the alliance had its foe: the jihad against "unbelievers" and "crusaders" conducted by the more militarised segments of the Wahhabi International. NATO planners are known to have the same degree of depth as French military planners in the 1930s , who passed up three chances to launch a pre-emptive strike against Hitler-run Germany (once when he occupied the Rhineland in 1936; and in 1938, when Germany threatened Czechoslovakia; and finally in 1939, when the Wehrmacht's invasion of Poland left it almost defenseless against strong French and other forces on the western front.) All three opportunities were passed aside even as vast amounts of money got spent on static defenses, rather than on the mobile armoured forces suggested by Brigadier DeGaulle. Hitler acted upon these suggestions in the creation of his Panzer (Tank) Corps.
Battling groups of jihadis is very different from fighting a conventional force; as the USSR discovered in Afghanistan and the US in Vietnam where it was defeated by lightly-armed guerrillas. Fighting a terrorist force united by religious fanaticism calls for a concentration of attention on mind war, and on ensuring that local populations do not fall victim to the siren call of the extremists. This cannot be achieved by conventional military forces. It requires resorting to the setting up of schools and camps where curricula is taught that show the young to become productive citizens in the international marketplace and the fatal effects of future lives as Jihadists. However, schoolteachers are in short supply within NATO while ordinary troops are not. Hence, the tactics adopted were designed so as to fit the mix of assets already available within NATO, rather than on the re-configuring of priorities that is essential if a military is to win an unconventional war. It is no accident that the very Israel Defense Forces that made such short work of multiple Arab armies in 1948, 1967 and finally even in 1973 are still struggling to overpower insurgencies in Gaza and the West Bank, after having withdrawn in defeat from Lebanon in 2000. Indeed, the very instruments of conventional war - tanks, heavy artillery, aircraft – become counter-productive in a context in which the strategic objective has to be not the subduing by force of a population, but winning it over.
About the only military that has understood this lesson is India’s, which has avoided the use of air power, heavy artillery or tanks to fight the Pakistan-fuelled insurgency in Kashmir. When 9/11 made the War on Terror the central theatre of operations for NATO, the alliance needed to acquire the skills and mindsets needed to battle such an elusive foe. Instead its commanders soldiered on in the way that they had been taught at military school - thereby once again proving that its generals are best at fighting the last war while helpless in the present. After a decade fighting the Taliban, and at an expenditure of more than $1 trillion, that ragtag force has regained effective control of at least 48% of the land area of Afghanistan, and has brought NATO to silent hysteria that is manifested in repeated efforts to locate "good" or "moderate" Taliban from within the ranks of Mullah Omar's followers. If such is the expenditure of time and effort spent on fighting a numerically small force in a mid-sized country, it would be difficult to underestimate the problems that NATO would face were the GCC Sheikhdoms to get convulsed by the same unrest that the alliance has stoked in Libya and Syria. Now that NATO has shown the way, it is a realistic prediction that Syria, Lebanon and Iran will decide that attack is the best form of defense and stoke tensions and turmoil in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait in order to divert NATO's attention away from themselves.
Qatar and other regional players who have sown the wind by facilitating insurgencies in Libya and Syria could soon be reaping an Iran-Syria-Lebanon whirlwind within their territories - in the shape of the latter countries backing the significant opposition groups within the GCC US allies.
Initially, the US was content to operate from the skies, ensuring the softening up of Taliban defenses that led to the Northern Alliance victories of 2001-2. However, quickly the pernicious effects of the Cheney-Powell policy of outsourcing much of the planning and operations in the Afghan theatre to the Pakistan army began to manifest themselves. The Northern Alliance was even warned from entering Kabul by the US. When its commanders nevertheless did so, there was consternation within the Powell-led State Department at the anguish felt by Islamabad over such a development. Soon afterwards, the ISI succeeded in ensuring that the US halted the Northern Alliance from entering South Afghanistan ( from Kandahar and beyond),by informally warning them that such a forward thrust would be met with US bombing of their positions. Because of this disastrous policy, of refusing permission to the NA to clear out Taliban nests in the south, the Taliban were enabled to create a sanctuary in the region with the help of Cheney-Powell's regional ally of choice against the militia - the Pakistan army. Subsequently, the US funded numerous Pashtun warlords (identified by the ISI) who used the help provided to strengthen the Taliban.
A final blow in support of the Taliban was the 2003-5 NATO policy of winnowing out Northern Alliance commanders from positions of authority in Afghanistan, and replacing them with Pashtuns chosen by the ISI - almost all of whom were Taliban sympathisers. Several of the latter were also inducted into newly-created Afghan military units. Looking at the record of NATO in its pacification campaign, it is clear that this was doomed from the start by the alliance policy of seeing Pakistan as the fire brigade rather than as the arsonist who needed to be countered. The Taliban have once again become a potent force precisely because of the help given to their leading elements by NATO, the same military that allowed the ISI to exfiltrate more than three thousand Taliban commanders from Kunduz and other theatres during 2001-2. Had there been any real accountability within the US, both Dick Cheney and Colin Powell would have faced trial for the catastrophic mistakes that they were directly responsible for in the Afghan theatre. These errors were continued by their successors; Granted Admiral Muke Mullen has had his moment of enlightenment. However, this has come after a delay that has been immensely painful to the Afghan people and very advantageous to the Taliban and their benefactors in Pakistan.
There is much chatter on BBC, CNN and other NATO media about the "corruption" of the Hamid Karzai administration. Given that less than 17% of the funds spent in Afghanistan are under the control of the Karzai administration, the rest being disbursed by NATO through its own channels, this is a ridiculous charge. The fact is that it is overwhelmingly the personnel from within NATO that are guilty of padding expenses and squandering money on protection and other charges for individuals whose only "contribution" has been to exacerbate the situation. The only way the Taliban can be fought is to (1) take steps to stanch the support given to it by the ISI (2) be ruthless in going after key elements in the militia (in the manner of the Sri Lankan army against the LTTE) (3) ensure that the Afghan uniformed services get cleansed of the Taliban elements that have been inducted into it courtesy of Pakistan and (4) arm and equip enough of the Afghan people to ensure the creation of a 350,000 -strong army that can take on the Taliban. Only Afghans can win this war, certainly not NATO.
After a decade of disasters, that seemed to be propelling Hamid Karzai towards the same fate as befell former president Najibullah in 1996, the Afghan administration is finally showing the independence needed to free itself from the clutches of the disastrous policies of NATO. It would be laughable - if it were not so painful - to watch Germans, Poles, Australians and sundry others attempt to fit the Afghans into the procrustean bed of their own experience and institutions. In contrast, India offers a framework far better suited to the country, as well as personnel who are culturally close to the Afghans and can be expected to deal with them without the condescension and cultural insensitivity shown by NATO personnel. Now that India has entered into the task of training the Afghan uniformed services, there appears to be hope that the errors caused by Cheney-Powell policies may yet prove to be less than terminal to a moderate and democratic Afghanistan.
Initially, the US was content to operate from the skies, ensuring the softening up of Taliban defenses that led to the Northern Alliance victories of 2001-2. However, quickly the pernicious effects of the Cheney-Powell policy of outsourcing much of the planning and operations in the Afghan theatre to the Pakistan army began to manifest themselves. The Northern Alliance was even warned from entering Kabul by the US. When its commanders nevertheless did so, there was consternation within the Powell-led State Department at the anguish felt by Islamabad over such a development. Soon afterwards, the ISI succeeded in ensuring that the US halted the Northern Alliance from entering South Afghanistan ( from Kandahar and beyond),by informally warning them that such a forward thrust would be met with US bombing of their positions. Because of this disastrous policy, of refusing permission to the NA to clear out Taliban nests in the south, the Taliban were enabled to create a sanctuary in the region with the help of Cheney-Powell's regional ally of choice against the militia - the Pakistan army. Subsequently, the US funded numerous Pashtun warlords (identified by the ISI) who used the help provided to strengthen the Taliban.
A final blow in support of the Taliban was the 2003-5 NATO policy of winnowing out Northern Alliance commanders from positions of authority in Afghanistan, and replacing them with Pashtuns chosen by the ISI - almost all of whom were Taliban sympathisers. Several of the latter were also inducted into newly-created Afghan military units. Looking at the record of NATO in its pacification campaign, it is clear that this was doomed from the start by the alliance policy of seeing Pakistan as the fire brigade rather than as the arsonist who needed to be countered. The Taliban have once again become a potent force precisely because of the help given to their leading elements by NATO, the same military that allowed the ISI to exfiltrate more than three thousand Taliban commanders from Kunduz and other theatres during 2001-2. Had there been any real accountability within the US, both Dick Cheney and Colin Powell would have faced trial for the catastrophic mistakes that they were directly responsible for in the Afghan theatre. These errors were continued by their successors; Granted Admiral Muke Mullen has had his moment of enlightenment. However, this has come after a delay that has been immensely painful to the Afghan people and very advantageous to the Taliban and their benefactors in Pakistan.
There is much chatter on BBC, CNN and other NATO media about the "corruption" of the Hamid Karzai administration. Given that less than 17% of the funds spent in Afghanistan are under the control of the Karzai administration, the rest being disbursed by NATO through its own channels, this is a ridiculous charge. The fact is that it is overwhelmingly the personnel from within NATO that are guilty of padding expenses and squandering money on protection and other charges for individuals whose only "contribution" has been to exacerbate the situation. The only way the Taliban can be fought is to (1) take steps to stanch the support given to it by the ISI (2) be ruthless in going after key elements in the militia (in the manner of the Sri Lankan army against the LTTE) (3) ensure that the Afghan uniformed services get cleansed of the Taliban elements that have been inducted into it courtesy of Pakistan and (4) arm and equip enough of the Afghan people to ensure the creation of a 350,000 -strong army that can take on the Taliban. Only Afghans can win this war, certainly not NATO.
After a decade of disasters, that seemed to be propelling Hamid Karzai towards the same fate as befell former president Najibullah in 1996, the Afghan administration is finally showing the independence needed to free itself from the clutches of the disastrous policies of NATO. It would be laughable - if it were not so painful - to watch Germans, Poles, Australians and sundry others attempt to fit the Afghans into the procrustean bed of their own experience and institutions. In contrast, India offers a framework far better suited to the country, as well as personnel who are culturally close to the Afghans and can be expected to deal with them without the condescension and cultural insensitivity shown by NATO personnel. Now that India has entered into the task of training the Afghan uniformed services, there appears to be hope that the errors caused by Cheney-Powell policies may yet prove to be less than terminal to a moderate and democratic Afghanistan.
http://gatewayhouse.in/publication/gateway-house/features/rescuing-nato-afghanistan
Monday, 3 October 2011
Building one’s way to the top (Sunday Guardian)
By M D Napalat
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Ashwani Kumar
n 2 August 2008 a dapper man looking the polar opposite of Silvio Berlusconi was appointed director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, the agency which is so proficient in catching scapegoats while enabling the truly powerful to escape the consequences of their actions. The lucky find was Ashwani Kumar, then Director-General of Police in Himachal Pradesh, who in his progression to the top shunted aside M.L. Sharma, his senior by a year within the IPS. Sharma had, till the final hour before the farewell dinner for outgoing chief Vijay Shankar, been told that he was to get the job. That Kumar had little experience in the sort of investigation hat the CBI is legally presumed to carry out, while Sharma was immensely proficient in such tasks, counted for as little in the decision as the embarrassment of the Prime Minister's Office, which had told him weeks before that he would be the successor to Vijay Shankar.
The media in India being house-trained to perfection, none bothered — or dared — to informally meet up with Kumar's colleagues in Himachal, who were directly aware of the officer's political clout. According to them, Kumar was a special favourite of the ruling branch of the Nehru family (that segment comprising Sonia, Rahul, Priyanka and Robert). Indeed (if they are to be believed), Kumar had spent nearly two years on a very special task, one that must certainly have been related to the law and order situation in Himachal Pradesh, although this link is opaque to all except individuals of the evolved calibre of Digvijay Singh and other frank worshippers of India's Ruling Family. This super-important job was — again if Kumar's former colleagues are correct — the supervision of the construction of Priyanka Vadra's mansion in a forest area of Himachal Pradesh (which location, fortunately for the lady, escaped the attention of Jairam Ramesh and the numerous NGOs cosseted by The Family).
The ensuring of clean toilets and airy bedrooms cannot have been the only service rendered by Ashwani Kumar to the Maino branch of the Nehrus, for it by itself cannot explain the noiseless intervention by an official even closer to the Maino-Nehrus than Kumar — at literally the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute — to get the PMO and the Cabinet Secretariat to switch from Sharma to Kumar for the Director CBI post. Of course, the former was promptly given a sinecure, that of a five-year term in the Central Information Commission, presumably to reflect on the need to oblige the powerful in more active ways than he had done thus far.
Priyanka Vadra
Although Kumar — after a convenient extension in service — had finally to make way for Amar Pratap Singh on 30 November 2010, there is scant doubt that he will soon occupy a gubernatorial mansion, if not take over as National Security Advisor, both jobs where his experience in house construction will come in handy. Ironically, one of his first statements on being gifted the CBI assignment was to promise to protect the CBI against "illegal political interference". Wisely, he was silent on exactly what interference is considered to be "legal".
Given the way that its key officials are selected, is it any wonder that the CBI is less an agency to prosecute graft than it is a "Schuetz Staffeln", a protective force for the well-connected? Its gyrations before the Supreme Court over the matter of the involvement of the Union Home Minister (then the Finance Minister) in the gifting of 2G spectrum to a few players is evidence — if such be needed — of the organisation's subversion from within, to the promotion of private interest at the detriment of public interest.
But why belabour Ashwani Kumar? He is hardly alone. Months ago, the Manmohan Singh government cleared a proposal for grafting optical payloads onto a Boeing aircraft. This venerable workhorse had been purchased in advance by the foreign supplier of the optical payloads, so sure was this entity on landing the contract. This despite the National Security Advisor of the US giving his Indian counterpart (then the legendary M.K. Narayanan) murky details of the way in which Indian officials were being persuaded to give the contract to the foreign supplier. Both R.D. Pradhan as well as the present Cabinet Secretary had turned down the proposal to award the contract, convinced as they were of irregularities. Interestingly, while Secretary Seth found the contract untenable, Cabinet Secretary Seth has had a change of mind, and approved the same proposal that he had earlier rejected.
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he reasons for such a change of heart may remain obscure, for the reason that crucial minutes relating to the deal have been "lost", with no one getting punished for such a lapse.
Another individual who eagerly gave the green light to a controversial proposal is the present Central Vigilance Commissioner, Pradip Kumar, who as Defence Secretary had been responsible for clearing mega-deals that involve billions of dollars without the kind of benefit to indigenous technology that China, for example, insists on. Surprisingly, Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj found nothing in Kumar's record as Defence Secretary to blow the whistle about, not even his participation in numerous procurement decisions of the Defence Ministry. Of course, a Kumar is hardly the same as a Thomas.
And so the caravan moves on! If only everyone — especially some of the judges of the Supreme Court — were as understanding as Pradip Kumar and Ajit Seth about the importance of house-building in Himachal and in the Aviation Research Centre buying out of secret funds equipment never tested to Indian specifications.
http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/building-ones-way-to-the-top
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Saturday, 1 October 2011
At last, a truthful minister (PO)
By M D Nalapat
Whatever be the situation in other countries, in India it is assumed that whenever a minister speaks to the public, he or she is lying. Once, an educationist known to this columnist spoke for more than an hour to a Cabinet minister on the phone. His comment was that “The minister called up and gave his name. That was the only truth he uttered. The rest of what he spoke were lies”. Although the United Progressive Alliance government advertises itself as being a representative of the “common man”, the reality is that the Manmohan Singh Cabinet has more billionaires in it than any previous team. As for UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, although on record she and her two children are middle class (with Sonia Gandhi not being able to - according to her written statements - afford even a car or a television set), the reality is that one or two or all of them travel abroad almost once a week, and while sojourning in expensive locations in Europe, do not lack for comforts that only money can buy, and that too, a lot of it.
Of course,the media in India is terrified of Sonia Gandhi ( who has her protection squad headed by Political Secretary Ahmed Patel and including heavyweights such as Home Minister P Chidambaram, a team that can be relied upon to ensure that media outlets who go against Sonia Gandhi very soon realise and accept the error of their ways). Hence no report of any such travel ever appears in the local press, not to speak of a photograph. This is in contrast to genuine democracies, where photographs and news reports of leaders and their families going abroad are common.
Because of the awesome power of patronage that is theirs to command, the ruling branch of the Nehru family ( now comprising of Sonia Gandhi, her bachelor son Rahul and daughter Priyanka and her husband Robert Vadra) can boast of numerous senior officials who are proud to flaunt the fact that they are servitors. B V Wanchoo, for long head of the Special Protection Force and one of the seniormost police officers, has been shown on television running alongside vehicles conveying Sonia and her close family members. He has repeatedly been promoted and given extensions as a reward for such loyalty. Another police officer, Ashwani Kumar, became a talking point among police officers in Himachal Pradesh because of the time he is reported to have spent in ensuring proper construction of Priyanka Vadra’s mansion in that state.
Kumar too was rewarded for his fierce loyalty by being appointed Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), one of the most lucrative posts in the Government of India. Or to give another of numerous examples, Pulok Chatterjee ( who will next week take over as the all-powerful Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister) has distinguished himself for the dedicated way in which he looks after the desires of India’s ruling family.Indeed,officials say that it was Chatterjee who conveyed to the Cabinet Secretariat that “Madame” ( as Sonia was known) wanted Kumar to be the new CBI chief. In the process, the individual who had already been slotted for that post, M L Sharma, was bypassed at the last minute in a humiliating manner. This although Kumar dis not have even a fraction of the investigative experience of Sharma, although it must be said to his credit that he certainly knows how to construct a beautiful home.
Now that Pulok Chatterjee will take charge of the Prime Minister’s Office, the writ of Sonia Gandhi will run there unfettered. However, the problem facing the public is that few of the political and personal linkages of favourite officials ever comes to light in a media that is very, very careful not to upset the truly powerful and the very vindictive. Not merely that, these officials and their political masters usually lie through their teeth, so as to mislead the public. It was therefore a surprise to see Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee stand by a truthful officer in his department who had - for once within the “committed to political control” senior bureaucracy - told the truth in an official memorandum about the involvement of high-ups in the case of 2G spectrum. This in the face of immense pressure from Congress Party bigwigs to disown the officer and protect the guilty. It may be remembered that the Government of India lost a minimum of $12 billion because of its refusal to auction spectrum instead of practically giving it away to a few favored companies. Since the Supreme Court started taking an interest in the matter, the Central Bureau of Investigation has worked overtime to convince both the court as well as the public that the ruling Congress Party had nothing to do with the allocation of 2G spectrum. The CBI has thus far sent only those who are allies of the Congress Party to jail, such as former Telecom Minister A Raja and MP and poetess Kanimozhi. Next week, the CBI looks set to send yet another Cabinet Minister to jail, this being Dayanidhi Maran, again belonging to an ally of the Congress Party.
Although they are too frightened of the consequences to go against the Congress leadership in public, despite the fact that it is this group that has made them the sole scapegoats for the scam, yet senior allies of the Congress claim in private that “60% of the bribes received in the 2G allocation went to the Congress Party”. They even allege that Attorney-General Goolam Vahanwati ( a close friend of Political Secretary Ahmed Patel) was the individual who pushed for a particular company to be given spectrum. Of course, there is no proof for such a claim, and friends of the Attorney-General say that he does not even know anyone connected with the acquiring of 2G licenses, and hence could not have recommended any company for the same. The CBI, of course, will not investigate the Attorney-General, for exactly the same reason why it has refused to investigate Union Home Minister P Chidambaram. The CBI is staffed by draftees from the Indian Police Service ( IPS) and Vahanwati and Chidambaram have the clout to damage careers of those within that cadre, hence they are kept outside the ambit of investigations. Usually, only scapegoats are proceeded against, with the masterminds escaping. So slack is the CBI that it routinely loses legal cases against influential people,most recently against Abu Salem, who is wanted in India for terror offenses. A court in Portugal threw out the CBI’s case a few days ago, because of legal technicalities that seem to have been deliberately planted so as to ensure that Salem escape. Either that, or the lawyers advising the CBI in the case ( who were chosen by the Attorney-General’s office) are among the worst in the country.
In such a murky atmosphere, it has come as a welcome relief to find a Cabinet minister who is not afraid to speak the truth,even if in the process, he may annoy UPA Supremo Sonia Gandhi and lose his job. Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has declined to whitewash facts relating to the decision-making process involving 2G spectrum, even if in the process he exposes the role of P Chidambaram, a Cabinet appointee who is a favourite of Sonia Gandhi. Unfortunately for Mukherjee, his formal boss, the Prime Minister, is not known to have the backbone needed to stand up to the fund collectors in the Congress Party, and hence may agree to toss Mukherjee aside to satisfy party VVIPs. The period since 2004 has been a sad one for those who admire Manmohan Singh. The PM is either unable or unwilling to stand up for principles that he believes in, such as integrity. True, neither he nor his family members have made any money out of government decisions, but can this excuse the fact that he has allowed several scams to take place under his watch? Only for the past year has there been a change in his See No Evil attitude. For the first time, the PM is enforcing accountability, although as yet not to those from within his own party, a party where fund-collectors have huge influence at the expense of sincere party workers.
The example of Pranab Mukherjee will hopefully get followed by the PM himself, and by all the others who are honest and disgusted at the way the administration is run by those who seek only personal gain. Even within the police or the other branches of the administration, the majority of officers are honest and sincere.Sadly, they have almost always been pushed aside by dishonest colleagues who pander to the wants of key politicians. The more the honest among them raise their voice, and the more they get political support the way Mukherjee has backed his officials, the sooner will India get free of the quagmire that graft and selfishness have pushed it into…
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=117068
Whatever be the situation in other countries, in India it is assumed that whenever a minister speaks to the public, he or she is lying. Once, an educationist known to this columnist spoke for more than an hour to a Cabinet minister on the phone. His comment was that “The minister called up and gave his name. That was the only truth he uttered. The rest of what he spoke were lies”. Although the United Progressive Alliance government advertises itself as being a representative of the “common man”, the reality is that the Manmohan Singh Cabinet has more billionaires in it than any previous team. As for UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, although on record she and her two children are middle class (with Sonia Gandhi not being able to - according to her written statements - afford even a car or a television set), the reality is that one or two or all of them travel abroad almost once a week, and while sojourning in expensive locations in Europe, do not lack for comforts that only money can buy, and that too, a lot of it.
Of course,the media in India is terrified of Sonia Gandhi ( who has her protection squad headed by Political Secretary Ahmed Patel and including heavyweights such as Home Minister P Chidambaram, a team that can be relied upon to ensure that media outlets who go against Sonia Gandhi very soon realise and accept the error of their ways). Hence no report of any such travel ever appears in the local press, not to speak of a photograph. This is in contrast to genuine democracies, where photographs and news reports of leaders and their families going abroad are common.
Because of the awesome power of patronage that is theirs to command, the ruling branch of the Nehru family ( now comprising of Sonia Gandhi, her bachelor son Rahul and daughter Priyanka and her husband Robert Vadra) can boast of numerous senior officials who are proud to flaunt the fact that they are servitors. B V Wanchoo, for long head of the Special Protection Force and one of the seniormost police officers, has been shown on television running alongside vehicles conveying Sonia and her close family members. He has repeatedly been promoted and given extensions as a reward for such loyalty. Another police officer, Ashwani Kumar, became a talking point among police officers in Himachal Pradesh because of the time he is reported to have spent in ensuring proper construction of Priyanka Vadra’s mansion in that state.
Kumar too was rewarded for his fierce loyalty by being appointed Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), one of the most lucrative posts in the Government of India. Or to give another of numerous examples, Pulok Chatterjee ( who will next week take over as the all-powerful Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister) has distinguished himself for the dedicated way in which he looks after the desires of India’s ruling family.Indeed,officials say that it was Chatterjee who conveyed to the Cabinet Secretariat that “Madame” ( as Sonia was known) wanted Kumar to be the new CBI chief. In the process, the individual who had already been slotted for that post, M L Sharma, was bypassed at the last minute in a humiliating manner. This although Kumar dis not have even a fraction of the investigative experience of Sharma, although it must be said to his credit that he certainly knows how to construct a beautiful home.
Now that Pulok Chatterjee will take charge of the Prime Minister’s Office, the writ of Sonia Gandhi will run there unfettered. However, the problem facing the public is that few of the political and personal linkages of favourite officials ever comes to light in a media that is very, very careful not to upset the truly powerful and the very vindictive. Not merely that, these officials and their political masters usually lie through their teeth, so as to mislead the public. It was therefore a surprise to see Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee stand by a truthful officer in his department who had - for once within the “committed to political control” senior bureaucracy - told the truth in an official memorandum about the involvement of high-ups in the case of 2G spectrum. This in the face of immense pressure from Congress Party bigwigs to disown the officer and protect the guilty. It may be remembered that the Government of India lost a minimum of $12 billion because of its refusal to auction spectrum instead of practically giving it away to a few favored companies. Since the Supreme Court started taking an interest in the matter, the Central Bureau of Investigation has worked overtime to convince both the court as well as the public that the ruling Congress Party had nothing to do with the allocation of 2G spectrum. The CBI has thus far sent only those who are allies of the Congress Party to jail, such as former Telecom Minister A Raja and MP and poetess Kanimozhi. Next week, the CBI looks set to send yet another Cabinet Minister to jail, this being Dayanidhi Maran, again belonging to an ally of the Congress Party.
Although they are too frightened of the consequences to go against the Congress leadership in public, despite the fact that it is this group that has made them the sole scapegoats for the scam, yet senior allies of the Congress claim in private that “60% of the bribes received in the 2G allocation went to the Congress Party”. They even allege that Attorney-General Goolam Vahanwati ( a close friend of Political Secretary Ahmed Patel) was the individual who pushed for a particular company to be given spectrum. Of course, there is no proof for such a claim, and friends of the Attorney-General say that he does not even know anyone connected with the acquiring of 2G licenses, and hence could not have recommended any company for the same. The CBI, of course, will not investigate the Attorney-General, for exactly the same reason why it has refused to investigate Union Home Minister P Chidambaram. The CBI is staffed by draftees from the Indian Police Service ( IPS) and Vahanwati and Chidambaram have the clout to damage careers of those within that cadre, hence they are kept outside the ambit of investigations. Usually, only scapegoats are proceeded against, with the masterminds escaping. So slack is the CBI that it routinely loses legal cases against influential people,most recently against Abu Salem, who is wanted in India for terror offenses. A court in Portugal threw out the CBI’s case a few days ago, because of legal technicalities that seem to have been deliberately planted so as to ensure that Salem escape. Either that, or the lawyers advising the CBI in the case ( who were chosen by the Attorney-General’s office) are among the worst in the country.
In such a murky atmosphere, it has come as a welcome relief to find a Cabinet minister who is not afraid to speak the truth,even if in the process, he may annoy UPA Supremo Sonia Gandhi and lose his job. Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has declined to whitewash facts relating to the decision-making process involving 2G spectrum, even if in the process he exposes the role of P Chidambaram, a Cabinet appointee who is a favourite of Sonia Gandhi. Unfortunately for Mukherjee, his formal boss, the Prime Minister, is not known to have the backbone needed to stand up to the fund collectors in the Congress Party, and hence may agree to toss Mukherjee aside to satisfy party VVIPs. The period since 2004 has been a sad one for those who admire Manmohan Singh. The PM is either unable or unwilling to stand up for principles that he believes in, such as integrity. True, neither he nor his family members have made any money out of government decisions, but can this excuse the fact that he has allowed several scams to take place under his watch? Only for the past year has there been a change in his See No Evil attitude. For the first time, the PM is enforcing accountability, although as yet not to those from within his own party, a party where fund-collectors have huge influence at the expense of sincere party workers.
The example of Pranab Mukherjee will hopefully get followed by the PM himself, and by all the others who are honest and disgusted at the way the administration is run by those who seek only personal gain. Even within the police or the other branches of the administration, the majority of officers are honest and sincere.Sadly, they have almost always been pushed aside by dishonest colleagues who pander to the wants of key politicians. The more the honest among them raise their voice, and the more they get political support the way Mukherjee has backed his officials, the sooner will India get free of the quagmire that graft and selfishness have pushed it into…
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=117068
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