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The Frontier Post, Updated on 3/9/2002 10:33:47 AM
The post September 11 Indian designs -- I
Asad Omar Cheema
The events of September 11, 2001, are etched in the whole
world’s mind and every understanding human would have a
vivid picture in his mind, thanks to the media, of the horrific
and horrendous loss of live and property perpetuated by the
hijacked aircraft slamming into the world Trade Centre buildings
and the Pentagon.
The fallout of the devastation has literally dumped billions down
the drain.
The loss of thousands of priceless lives can never be gauged or
explained away by anyone.
The economic loss, the fall in stock markets, the loss to the
airline industry, the increase in the recession and the loss of
thousands of jobs would have far reaching effects, more than what
most are evaluating or professing now.
The geo-political situation in the unipolar world has started
shifting and I estimate that in a year’s time from now, we
would see a new world order, which very few can foresee now and
others have not been able to look beyond the immediate future.
Pakistan, due to its geo-strategic location and geo-political
situation has suddenly became an essential requirement of the in
its “war against terror”.
This situation, almost God sent, has put Pakistan back in the
headlines and a key player in the whole game.
Thanks to the pragmatic and courageous decision by President
Musharraf, Pakistan has been accepted by the whole world as a
moderate, tolerant and progressive Islamic country.
The extremists or fanatics have sidelined and the whole
population stands firmly behind the president sans a very minor
or negligible group of ignorant religious zealots, who have been
gaining both monetarily and politically for throwing in their lot
with the Taliban and have lost their self esteem.
This American war on terror is far from over, however, the base
camp of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda has been uprooted from
Afghanistan and most of these Taliban have melted away in the
local populace, from where they could re-emerge.
The headlines of the major media channels have gradually started
covering other stories in the world also.
This approaching end of the war in Afghanistan had been very
heavy on the Indian mind since the middle of October.
Before I go further, let me explain the Indian mindset and what
has been going on in there since September 11.
The Indians had been investing heavily, both in monetary terms
and politically, in its design to undermine Pakistan in almost
every field since the last decade or so.
Their strategy was to sideline Pakistan in as many aspects as
possible to project it as a failed state.
Economically, they were trying their best to wrest all the
markets from us in the world, where they could compete with our
exports.
The Indian government gave incentives to their exporters to
undercut Pakistani products everywhere in the world and promised
up to 25% subsidy to all exporters to sell at a lesser price than
the cost price and be compensated by the Indian government.
Politically, they had been trying hard to get Pakistan declared a
terrorist state and get the condemnation of the world.
They were gloating at Pakistan being strangled by the IMF and
getting crushed under its insurmountable debt.
They were talking of further sanctions against Pakistan for
having gone nuclear, being a non-democratic country and one,
which abetted terrorism military.
Since the unpleasant shock of being caught off guard in Kargil,
they had gone to improve their arsenals of all three services to
have a clout, which it found itself seriously lacking then.
Externally, since the demise of the erstwhile Soviet Union - its
trusted ally and benefactor, India had been almost shamefacedly
harping the tunes that the USA preferred to hear and been trying
very hard to get as close to America as possible, primarily to be
accepted as a regional power and also to edge out Pakistan of any
favour worth the name it had with the USA since the imposed
sanctions and to literally get it cornered as a failed state in
all international world forums.
They even managed to oust Pakistan from the Commonwealth for
having a military government led by their nemesis of the Kargil
days.
They were succeeding quite well in their grand strategic plans
and were quite happy with the progress they were making for
having carved out a very special relationship with the USA in the
days of President Clinton.
Then came September 11 and suddenly they were having a nightmare,
which was worse in reality.
The Americans needed Pakistan to assist them in their war against
terror.
We were suddenly a frontline state and the closest partner with
the USA in the coalition of the whole world against terrorism.
The almost failed state, which was about to default on its loan
repayment schedule and was at the mercy of all the financial
institutions of the world, was being given a chance to recover
itself with rescheduling and write-offs worth millions of
dollars.
This cozying up of relations of Pakistan must have sent shivers
down the Indian government spine.
The Indians were very fast in realising that Pakistan would gain
from this new situation and were quick to offer everything they
could to the USA so that the war against terror was fought from
their soil and they hoped that the border would be their western
border instead of the Durand Line in America’s war against
terror.
Suddenly, a nation which used to have so must of chauvinism that
they would not even allow a foreign multi-nation commercial
company to have independent stakes or base in India, were
offering their ports, airfields and what ever else was required
to the Americans.
But they were really disheartened when their offers were not
accepted by the USA and they found the new relationship forming
between the USA and Pakistan as very distasteful.
The Indian crooked psyche started working overtime from then
onwards.
They put their best minds together and came up with a policy to
kill two birds with one stone.
That was to sour the relationship between Pakistan and the USA
with anything which would go against the American mindset, which
at the moment is fight against terrorism and religious extremists
like Osama and his Al Qaeda network.
They worked out a plan similar to one they had hatched
immediately after the Kargil episode, which was, to blame the
Pakistan government for abetting terrorists and that the Kashmiri
freedom fight was an act of terrorism by the mujahideen.
They had some loose ends left unattended since December 1999 due
to their own “faux pas” or shoddy planning and they had
watered down the whole affair then to avoid further embarrassment
which they are now trying to tie together.
The Frontier Post, Updated on 3/10/2002 10:43:59 AM
The post September 11 Indian designs -- II
Asad Omar Cheema
The Indians had staged and managed a drama of hijacking one of
their own airline IC-814 from Katmandu.
This aircraft had gone to Amritsar, Lahore, Dubai and finally to
Kandhar, where the hijacking was “resolved”.
They had then released two Indian occupied Kashmiri natives and a
jailed Pakistani, who had been under detention for almost two
years without being charged of any offence.
Maulana Azhar, whom they now say as being a terrorist, was lying
in their jail for having entered India with no papers.
At that time, he was a religious leader who was inciting the
Kashmiris to stand for their right of self-determination.
The masked hijackers, who were paid Indian intelligence
operative, after enacting the whole drama, returned the next day
in an Indian aircraft sent to collect the crew and passengers of
the hijacked aircraft.
The Indians are now recapping about this maulana as being behind
the Indian parliament attack of 13 December.
Now after two years since that hijacking, the Indians new plan to
implicate Pakistan is becoming clear.
One thing that has always been very clear is that Indians are
masters of deceit and Machiavellian schemes.
They had been enacting all kind of dramas at the opportune times
when they could derive political mileage out of such incidents,
where even killing its own citizens has never mattered to them,
as long as they can convey or bring home a point to their
advantage; they even staged and massacred almost three dozen
Sikhs, just before President Clinton’s visit to Agra, but
luckily the would be perpetuators were caught by the locals and
identified as members of the Indian Border Security Force.
Such dastardly acts can be expected from the Indians anytime they
need an excuse to get one up.
The Indians have been losing a lot of sleep since the September
11 incident on how to implicate Pakistan into anything that would
distant us from our new found friendship with the USA.
The ‘in’ word is terrorism and that is what the Indians
are trying to do since then.They want the freedom struggle in
Kashmir to be put under the heading of terrorism and the best way
is to blame Pakistan for assisting terrorist, thereby proving to
the USA and the world that we are sending terrorist to Kashmir,
therefore, we should be equated with countries which harbour
them.
To paint the freedom struggle in Kashmir as terrorism, the
Indians first engineered the attack on the Kashmir Assembly
building in Srinagar itself, and conveniently made sure that no
one was left alive to tell the true tale of who was behind it.
All Kashmiri freedom fighters denied any hand in such cowardly
acts.
The Indians were shamefully rejected by the world.
Then, they tried the melodrama of an aircraft hijacking, and
started blaming Pakistan about being the mastermind behind it,
before the aircraft had even landed at Lucknow.
Now the Indians are trying to go further with their deceitful
attempts by painting the 13 December attack on their parliament
as an act of terrorism abetted by Pakistan.
The Indian media had started harping on this whole incident as
being the handicraft of ISI and jaish-e-Muhammadi even before the
shooting had stopped in the parliament.
This was a similar pattern as they had done during the IC-814
hijacking, when the Indian media had started showing the demands
of the hijackers almost twelve hours before they had talked to
any one at all about their demands, and surprisingly, the media
had read their mind, before they had opened their mouths.
As the handouts had already been passed to the media by the
agencies which had masterminded the whole episode, similarly,
this time also.
Jaish-e-Muhammadi and Lashkar-e-Taiba were already on the mat,
while the so allied terrorist were still alive and kicking around
the parliament building.
The freedom fighters have always restricted themselves inside or
outside Kashmir.
The unsuccessful attempts by the Indians to taint them terrorist
have always boomeranged.
This war mongering is basically to put pressure on Pakistan to
desist from even providing diplomatic, political and moral
support to the Kashmiri freedom fighters.
So where are we going from here.
Let us look at what is the Indian strategy now after seeing the
failure of their earlier attempts at wooing the world to see
Kashmiri freedom fight as terrorism.
They have embarked on a highly irresponsible and costly gamble of
threatening us with war and other dire consequences for not
toeing their line.
All the rhetoric by the Indians and putting all the troops and
other war machinery into action to threaten us would actually
backfire for them soon.
Their war mongering and trying to browbeat Pakistan into
submission has failed.
They are naïve enough to think that Pakistan would give up its
principled stand of favouring the Kashmir struggle for freedom
because of fear or awe of the Americans.
The Indian strategy is to put so much pressure of going to war so
that we would buckle in and accede to all their demands.
The fact is that they are having too myopic a view because of
their own short sightedness President Musharraf has taken the
challenge very bravely and while vying for peace through dialogue
has mobilised our own armed forces to be ready for any
eventuality, including war.
So will we have a war soon? Let us see the perspectives of the
Americans, Indians and Pakistan about the whole affair and the
success expected militarily or otherwise to each.
The Americans obviously do not want a war because it presently
needs Pakistan for its war in Afghanistan and does not want India
to sabotage its own plans in the region.
Secondly, it does not want any cracks in the coalition as both
India and Pakistan are on the same side of the fence.
Thirdly, they know that the present government of President
Musharraf has managed to draw a line and differentiate between
the extremist and religious zealots who are in very less numbers
and the general public, the majority of which favours his policy.
If a war breaks out, the dividing line would vanish and the whole
nation would unite in its fight against India, thereby leaving
the Afghan war in the lurch and having a jihadi population of
almost 140 million people to deal with especially when these
would have fairly potent conventional and nuclear arsenals.
Lastly, if the present showdown leads to a war, the American
operations and their people in Pakistan, including over 1000
personnel in Jacobabad and other associated places would be in
danger to getting caught in the crossfire, which is the last
thing the Americans would want.
What does India gain or lose in this confrontation.
The only thing that they think they would gain is that they will
manage to break our will and see us backing off.
Here they are sadly mistaken.
The other extreme is their present mindset that they can win a
war with Pakistan.
What would be the political objective of such a war? To take some
part of Pakistan’s territory and then to negotiate a deal in
their favour? They are sadly mistaken in this premise.
And if they have a military objective, their planners are grossly
overestimating themselves.
The reason being that while they think that can use their armour
to wrest any chunk of land in area known as south of Sutlej, they
do not realise that they would also have to forsake some of very
vital territory somewhere else, which would be of more value to
them when in our hands.
If they believe that they can mount a 1.3 ratio in their favour
for an offensive to succeed, they would have to de-induct troops
from Kashmir, which is highly unlikely.
If they believe that they can succeed in Kashmir, they know how
difficult it is to fight in snow covered terrain and that too
when the local population is hostile to the troops there.
What advantage they had in East Pakistan in 1971 about the local
population and immediate access will not be available to them
this time.