Posted June 7, 2002

Davids Not Alone

[Regarding Justin Raimondo's column of June 3, "In the Shadow of Shiva":]

Thank God for Justin Raimondo. Somebody understood the predicament the minorities of the subcontinent are in! Labels of vegetarianism, shanti, democracy, etc. didn't fool us all. Let us all work together to meet or beat a simple rule: Injustice against one is equivalent to injustice against all.

I have started to love this site. Davids of this world are not alone against the Goliaths.

~ Saeed K.

Kashmir

[Regarding Justin Raimondo's column of June 3, "In the Shadow of Shiva":]

I have to commend you for the numerous articles you have written for Antiwar.com that made me appreciate the role of an independent thinker. Your last article does disturb me. Have you forgotten that Musharraf is a military dictator who took power by usurping a democratic government? I too am scared of the BJP and the fanatics on the fundamentalist Hindu minority, but they do have legitimate points about the Kashmir struggle. Kashmir was allocated to India by a Hindu prince who was then the king, but does that give the right for Muslims funded by groups (maybe the federal government) to precipitate blatant terrorism on India. An attempt was made on the parliament in New Delhi. If this argument comes down to what America should do, then I would recommend being as nonpartisan as possible. Be a sounding board and communicator, a pacifist (you should appreciate the term), in this debate.

~ Krishnan N.

Olive Branch for Google

I am a regular reader of Antiwar.com. I have seen the article "Gagged by Google" on both workingforchange.com and alternet.com. The article is junk. It describes a situation which was resolved a full six days prior to Ms. Flanders writing her story. For more on this, please go to the webpage of Anita Roddick, the woman described in the story. Read the story "An Olive Branch for Google."

~ Scott B.

Webmaster Eric Garris replies:

Thank you. We were not aware of the resolution of this. I have removed the story from our site.

Pakistan's Military

Justin Raimondo's column "In the Shadow of Shiva" was an excellent piece of journalism. I have one quibble. Mr. Raimondo refers to Pakistan's "largely US-trained-and-equipped military."

Although Pakistan has been receiving more US military aid of late, most of their military equipment is still Red Chinese. In all categories: tanks, APCs, aircraft etc. , most of their military assets are Chinese made and not American.

~ Ken Schmidt

India/Pakistan

I would like to reply to Mr. Raimondo's article titled "In the Shadow of Shiva," which addresses the India-Pakistan war.

Mr. Raimondo clearly has never spent time in the region, nor does he now of the finer details of the region's politics. His article is clearly based on on isolated packets of information; he also has no idea of nuclear strategy doctrine, and in specific the nuclear strategy of the subcontinent.

Mr. Raimondo claims that India has specifically stated it wants to invade Pakistan. That is simply not true. If India truly had a goal of invasion, they would have done it in their earlier wars (1947, 1965, 1971). In 1965, the Pakistani army walked quite far into unguarded Indian territory in the state of Rajasthan. Indian forces were diverted from Kashmir and beat the Pakistani forces back to the border, and the Indian forces entered Pakistani territory. They stopped a few kilometers into Pakistan, as their goal had been to expel the Pakistanis from Indian territory. If the Indians wanted to invade Pakistan they would have already done it with their huge conventional supremacy.

Second, Mr. Raimondo talks of the Hindu bomb, claiming it is more a threat than the Islamic bomb. Is he aware the Indians successfully tested a nuclear weapon in 1974? However they did not weaponize and test until 1998? In addition, is he aware that the Indian nuclear arsenal is directed towards an anti-China policy and not a anti-Pakistan policy? Finally India has agreed to a no-first-use policy, something that Pakistan has not done. Again Mr. Raimondo conveniently forgets this.

Mr. Raimondo also makes out President Musharraf to be this great guy fighting a hard war. Mr. Raimondo forgets -- in 1999 during the Kargil conflict, who was the army chief of staff that ordered the Pakistani army to cross the Line of Control? Who then ousted then democratically elected prime minister Nawaz Sharif? Who is a dictator who held rigged elections prolonging his stay by more than 5 more years? In a country that loves democracy and freedom, how can one blindly embrace a power-mongering dictator? The US can use his help for the war on terror, but to propose that he is a great hero fighting large monsters is preposterous.

As for the "occupation" in Kashmir, this is a hotly debated topic that will not be settled by a discussion between a journalist and a graduate student. That being said, perhaps if the militants who are being sponsored by Pakistan stopped, India could restore some sense of normalcy in the region.

Finally Mr. Raimondo makes no mention of the huge history shared by both countries. No mention of Partition, a key source of this bitter rivalry. Indians and Pakistanis are the same race, the same people who share virtually the same culture. Yet the fight so viciously and with so much hate towards each other -- why? This conflict is not something that started a few years ago. This conflict has been raging on since 1947.

~ Venk Kambhampati

Government Bribery

RE: "CIA Weapon: A Fist Full of Dollars" by Rone Tempest and Bob Drogin:

If it is illegal for US companies to bribe foreign officials, why is it legal for US government officials to bribe foreign officials? It seems to me that the government should be setting a good example.

Congress should pass laws to prevent bribery, directly or indirectly, by the CIA and any other US government organization. Furthermore, the President should be required to certify compliance of all executive branch departments with the law, as is required of US companies. US government officials, employees, and agents should face criminal penalties for bribery of foreign officials, just as do US corporate officials, employees, and agents.

If such laws were enacted and properly enforced, they would "bring a halt to the bribery of foreign officials and to restore public confidence in the integrity of the American" government system.

~ L. J. Lamb, Taiwan

Musharraf/Nambiar

[Regarding Justin Raimondo's column of June 3, "In the Shadow of Shiva":]

I agree with Justin on one important premise: Hindu fascism. Left unchecked, this will have disastrous consequences to South Asia. I don't agree with Justin that the Hindu society as a whole has gone bonkers. In fact, the Hindutva movement has been losing steam, judged by the fact that the BJP has lost several state elections recently. They are in power or have influence in power in only 3 states in the entire country. A silent majority do not buy the Hindutva card anymore, though a vociferous minority is making a lot of noise and try as much as they can to take the country towards fascism. The "Akhand Bharat" people are a tiny minority among a billion people and their equivalents can be found in the US, Israel, and other western countries as well. I believe they will be stopped in the next election in India, though constant vigil is needed. I this context, I would like to point out Indira Gandhi imposed a nonexistent"internal emergency" to keep her in power in 1975. The Indian electorate would have none of these authoritarian/dictatorial nonsense and threw her out of power in 1977.

On the other hand, General Musharraf has zero credibility even among the secular forces in India. It all started with the Kargil episode. The ailing Prime Minister Vajpayee, one of the few moderates in BJP, had his legacy in mind, so initiated the Lahore bus diplomacy with the then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif. At the same time, Musharaff was busy initiating an armed offense at Kargil, even to the extent of deploying nuclear weapons. There was no Indian army massed in the border at that time and Musharaff was not playing a nuclear "defensive" game at that time. This was a General playing with nuclear fire, testing how far India would escalate the conflict in its response. The US pressure forced Pakistan to back down to ignominious retreat, and later Sharif lost power to Musharaff in a coup. Vajpayee later made another "Nixon goes to China" style attempt: a summit at Agra with Musharaff, which ended in a disaster, with both sides blaming each other. The Indian consensus is that Musharaff has back stabbed them twice. Trust is a hard political currency and once you lose it, is hard to get it back. I would point out that the Pakistani armed forces, despite having fought three wars with India with negative results, are still trained with the maxim that "one Muslim warrior is equivalent to ten Hindu warriors" and capturing Kashmir. Musharaff is pro-US now because of September 11 and the subsequent arm twisting by the US. Absent of September 11, he would still be nurturing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Justin might be a bit harsh on retired general Satish Nambiar. On other matters Mr. Nambiar could be somewhat in agreement with your site and Justin: "The fatal Flaws underlying Nato's Intervention in Yugoslavia."

Regarding Kashmir, the 1948 UN resolution requires the withdrawal of armed forces from Indian held Kashmir and Pakistan held Kashmir, then conducting a referendum. Neither the Indian politicians, nor the Pakistani politicians (and Generals since they actually have the say there) are interested in an independent Kashmir. One section in India believes in linking Jammu and Ladakh, and creating some kind of an autonomous entity in the Kashmir valley, and that could be a basis for talks with Pakistan.

(By the way, the Trishul is associated with Shiva, not Vishnu.)

~ Kuppusamy R.