Comment by Riaz Haq on September 9, 2021 at 6:36pm

#India’s #Modi’s deepening love affair with #Israel . When #Indian intelligence agency #RAW was established in 1968, its first spy chief RN Kao was asked by PM Indira Gandhi to establish ties with Israel’s #Mossad. #Hindutva #Zionism #Islamophobia
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/9/9/indias-deepening-love-a...


Under Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, the strategic, military, and ideological ties between Israel and India are growing stronger.


The revelation that Pegasus – spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO – was used to surveil opposition politicians, activists, public officials and journalists in India, has once again confirmed that the right to privacy, freedom of speech and expression and freedom of the press are threatened under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

Dismissing the controversy, a member of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Basavaraj Somappa Bommai, declared, “It is a conspiracy involving foreign press where these kinds of misinformation campaigns have been done against India … Using digital platforms, they try to destabilise different countries. Now, the eyes are set on India.”


However, opposition politicians have accused Prime Minister Modi of “treason”. And, the Press Club of India (PCI) described this as an unprecedented attack on the Indian democracy. The PCI tweeted, “This is the first time in the history of this country that all pillars of our democracy – judiciary, parliamentarians, media, executives and ministers – have been spied upon.”

But it is not mere happenstance that technology developed by an Israeli company was used by the Hindu nationalist leadership in India. Over the years, the two countries have developed a robust strategic, military and technology partnership. Furthermore, there has long been an ideological alliance between the BJP and Israel that helps further the ambitions of both parties.

History of a fraught relationship
Relations between Israel and India have not always been as friendly as they are today. In 1938, Mahatma Gandhi had famously said, “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.”

Jawaharlal Nehru – who eventually became the first prime minister of independent India – expressed his sympathies for the Jewish population facing persecution in Europe. However, Nehru also insisted that “fundamentally the problem of Palestine is a nationalist one. The Arabs are struggling against imperialist control and domination. It is a pity, therefore, that the Jews of Palestine instead of aligning themselves with this struggle have thought it fit to take the side of British imperialism and to seek its protection against the inhabitants of the country.”

India remained invested in the idea of Arab freedom in Palestine in the lead up to its independence in August 1947 and thereafter. It was an elected member of the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). And, in September 1947, it was one of only 13 countries that voted against the United Nations’ Partition Plan for Palestine.

In a statement against the partition plan, the Indian representative and member of UNSCOP, Sir Abdur Rahman, said, “The people of Palestine have now admittedly reached a stage of development where their recognition as an independent nation can no longer be delayed. They are in no way less advanced than the people of the other free and independent Asiatic countries.” Rahman added that the failure to grant independence to Palestinians would lead to continued violence in the region.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 9, 2021 at 6:41pm

Beaten and humiliated by Hindu mobs for being a Muslim in India - BBC News

‏بھارت کے 20 کروڑ مسلمان کس اذیت کی زندگی گزارنے پر مجبور ہیں بی بی سی ویب پر شائع سب سے زیادہ پڑھے جانے والا مضمون جنونی ہندو شدت پسندوں کے ہاتھوں مسلمانوں پر ظلم کہانیوں پر مشتمل ہے مودی کا یہ بھارت خود کو دنیا کی سب سے بڑی جمہوریت اور مہذب ملک کہتا ہے

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58406194


Unprovoked attacks on Muslims by Hindu mobs have become routine in India, but they seem to evoke little condemnation from the government.

Last month, a video that went viral on social media showed a terrified little girl clinging to her Muslim father as a Hindu mob assaulted him.

The distressing footage showed the 45-year-old rickshaw driver being paraded through the streets of Kanpur, a city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, as his crying daughter begged the mob to stop hitting him.

His attackers asked him to chant "Hindustan Zindabad" or "Long Live India" and "Jai Shri Ram" or "Victory to Lord Ram" - a popular greeting that's been turned into a murder cry by Hindu lynch mobs in recent years.

He complied, but the mob still kept hitting him. The man and his daughter were eventually rescued by the police. Three men arrested for the attack were freed on bail a day later.

A few days later, another viral video surfaced showing a Muslim bangle-seller being slapped, kicked and punched by a Hindu mob in Indore, a city in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. The attackers could be heard abusing Tasleem Ali and telling him to stay away from Hindu areas in future.

In a police complaint, he later alleged that he had been "beaten by five-six men who hurled communal slurs at him for selling bangles in a Hindu-dominated area and robbed him of money, his phone and some documents".

But in a strange turn of events, Ali himself was arrested the next day after the 13-year-old daughter of one of his alleged attackers accused him of molesting her. His family and neighbours have strongly denied the accusation. They said it was inconceivable that the father of five would do something like that.

And eyewitnesses, quoted in the Indian press, said he was attacked because of his religious identity and the molestation accusation against him seemed to be an afterthought.

The two attacks were among several instances of anti-Muslim violence in August, but the last month by no means was cruellest for India's biggest religious minority group, with a population of more than 200 million.

Similar attacks were reported in the preceding months too - and many made headlines.

In March, a 14-year-old Muslim boy who had entered a Hindu temple to drink water was violently assaulted
In June, a vendor was beaten up in Delhi for trying to sell fruit in a Hindu locality
"The violence is overwhelming. It's rampant and common and also very acceptable," says Alishan Jafri, a freelance journalist who's been documenting attacks on Indian Muslims for the past three years.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 10, 2021 at 7:21am

Death threats sent to participants of "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference in #US which is co-sponsored by over 53 universities including Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley, University of Chicago, UPenn & Rutgers. #Hindutva #Modi #India https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/09/death-threats-sent-to...

Threats force several scholars to withdraw as ‘far-right fringe groups’ accuse event of being ‘anti-Hindu’

An academic conference in the US addressing Hindu nationalism is being targeted by rightwing Hindu groups, which have sent death threats to participants and forced several scholars to withdraw.

The conference, titled Dismantling Global Hindutva, which is co-sponsored by more than 53 universities including Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Rutgers, has come under attack after several groups in India and the US accused the event of being “anti-Hindu”.

The aim of the conference, which will begin online on 10 September, is to bring together scholars to discuss Hindutva, otherwise known as Hindu nationalism, a rightwing movement that believes India should be an ethnic Hindu state, rather than a secular nation.

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has pushed forward a Hindu nationalist agenda, under which India’s 200 million Muslims have faced discrimination and attacks.

The conference organisers said that in recent weeks, “far-right fringe groups have mobilised to attack the speakers at the conference”, falsely characterising the discussion of the political ideology of Hindutva as an attack on Hinduism itself.

In a statement, the organisers described how “immense pressure has been placed upon universities by fringe groups to back out of the conference” and emphasised the “sinister implications” of this “massive disinformation campaign”.

Several of the participants have withdrawn from the conference over fears it would lead to them being banned from returning to their families in India or being arrested on their arrival into the country.

Dozens of speakers and organisers involved have had violent threats made against their family members. Meena Kandasamy, a speaker, had pictures of her children posted online with captions such as “ur son will face a painful death” as well as casteist slurs. Other academics have been forced to file police cases after receiving death threats.

More than 1m emails were sent to the presidents, provosts and officials at universities involved in the conference pressuring them to withdraw and dismiss staff who were participating, pointing to an organised campaign by groups in India and the US. At Drew University in New Jersey, more than 30,000 emails were received in just a few minutes, causing the university server to crash.

“We are deeply concerned that all of these lies, taken together, will be used to incarcerate those who speak at the conference, or worse, inflict bodily harm, up to murder, upon those associated with the conference,” read the statement by the conference’s organisers. “Due to the variety of the nature of these threats, several speakers have had to withdraw from participating in this conference over the past two to three days.”

“The level of hate has been staggering,” said Rohit Chopra, an associate professor at Santa Clara University, who is one of the conference organisers.

“Organisers and speakers have received death threats, threats of sexual violence, and threats of violence against their families. Women participants have been subjected to the vilest kind of misogynistic threats and abuse and members of religious minorities associated with the conference have been targeted with casteist and sectarian slurs in the ugliest sorts of language.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 10, 2021 at 7:33am

What Comes After the War on Terrorism? War on China?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/opinion/china-us-xi-biden.html

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after a failed 20-year nation-building exercise has left many Americans and analysts saying, “If only we knew back then what we know now, we would have never gone down that path.” I am not sure that’s true, but it nevertheless raises this question: What are we doing today in foreign policy that we might look back 20 years from now and say, “If only we knew back then what we know now, we would never have gone down that path”?

My answer can be summed up in one word: China.

------------
Nader Mousavizadeh, founder and C.E.O. of Macro Advisory Partners, a geopolitical consulting firm, suggests that if we are now going to shift our focus from the Middle East to an irreversible strategy of confronting China, we should start by asking three foundational questions:

First, Mousavizadeh says: “Are we sure we understand the dynamics of an immense and changing society like China well enough to decide that its inevitable mission is the global spread of authoritarianism? Especially when this will require a generational adversarial commitment on the part of the United States, engendering in turn a still more nationalistic China?”

Second, says Mousavizadeh, who was a longtime senior adviser to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan: If we believe that our network of alliances is “a uniquely American asset, have we listened as much as we’ve talked to our Asian and European allies about the reality of their economic and political relationships with China — ensuring that their interests and values are embedded in a common approach to China? Because without that, any coalition will crumble.”

---------

The third question, Mousavizadeh argues, is if we believe that our priority after a 20-year war on terrorism must now be “repair at home — by addressing yawning deficits in infrastructure, education, incomes and racial equity” — is it more useful or more dangerous to emphasize the China threat? It might light a fire under Americans to get serious about national renewal. But it might also light a fire to the whole U.S.-China relationship, affecting everything from supply chains to student exchanges to Chinese purchases of U.S. government bonds.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 11, 2021 at 10:28am

9/11 in Islamabad: The First 72 Hours - War on the Rocks

By David O. Smith (was Army Attache at US Embassy at the time of 911 attacks) is a distinguished fellow with the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center.


https://warontherocks.com/2021/09/9-11-in-islamabad-the-first-72-ho...

Musharraf emphasized his concern that the longer any military campaign went on, the greater was the possibility of negative feelings. A quick action and extraction of U.S. troops was in both countries’ interests. It would also be good to have a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the operation, buy-in from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and diplomatic support from Islamic countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. When the ambassador interrupted to ask if he was setting conditions on Pakistani cooperation, he assured her that all seven demands were accepted unconditionally and that he wished only to point out things that perhaps were not fully understood in Washington about the risk Pakistan (and he personally) was taking. “We’re compromising a hell of a lot [for you]. This will undermine my personal standing.” As for India, “Tell the Indians to lay off and stay off,” was the blunt message he wanted conveyed to New Delhi. He ended their conversation by restating a third time that he accepted all U.S. demands and advised the ambassador, “We both need to review our

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 11, 2021 at 10:29am

"IN THEIR VERY first exchange after 9/11, Pakistan’s most senior leaders urged their American counterparts not to invade Afghanistan. Instead, they said, consider targeted action against al-Qaeda" #Afghanistan #US #Pakistan @LodhiMaleeha @P_Musharraf https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/09/09/maleeha-lodhi-on...

Maleeha Lodhi was Pakistan's ambassador in Washington when 911 terror attacks occurred.

This By-invitation commentary is part of a series by global thinkers on the future of American power, examining the forces shaping the country's global standing. Read more here.

IN THEIR VERY first exchange after 9/11, Pakistan’s most senior leaders urged their American counterparts not to invade Afghanistan. Instead, they said, consider targeted action against al-Qaeda. In several high-level meetings that I attended then as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Pakistani officials gave warning that military action would not work. America should distinguish between al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the terror attacks, and the Taliban, who needed to be engaged.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 11, 2021 at 10:30am

The United States and Pakistan After the Taliban Takeover by David O Smith who was Army Attache at US Embassy at the time of 911 attacks

https://warontherocks.com/2021/09/9-11-in-islamabad-the-first-72-ho...


With the Taliban now in charge in Kabul, where does this leave the United States and Pakistan? Both sides may indulge in a period of finger pointing for the social and humanitarian disasters sure to follow, and the temptation will be great to cut Pakistan adrift. The United States walked away from Pakistan before — in 1965 and 1971 after two wars with India and in 1990 after the Soviet Union left Afghanistan — but these were grave mistakes that should not be repeated.

U.S. officials should understand two key things going forward. First, the bilateral relationship with Pakistan needs to be confined solely to areas of agreed mutual interest. There is absolutely no basis for rebuilding the close military relationship that all but collapsed in 2011 after a series of events that alienated the Pakistani government and military: the special forces raid to kill bin Laden in Abbottabad which was considered to be a gross violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, a series of Wikileaks disclosures that embarrassed the Army chief, the shooting death of two Pakistanis by CIA contractor Raymond Davis, and the Salala border post incident in which U.S. airstrikes killed 28 Pakistani soldiers. Second, the United States has three key interests connected to Pakistan: the continuing risk of terrorism directed against the United States by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Afghanistan, the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, and preventing a future war between India and Pakistan that could escalate to the nuclear level. Prioritizing these interests will provide focus to a relationship that has often gone off the rails.

What then does a limited relationship look like? It means that the era of generous U.S. military and economic assistance is over. Future assistance should be limited solely to modest economic investments, humanitarian aid, and counternarcotics programs. The United States and Pakistan have a shared interest in stability in Afghanistan and limiting future Taliban excesses, and Pakistan might cooperate in leveraging its influence with the Taliban government to deliver humanitarian assistance to displaced Afghans. Intelligence sharing is possible if limited to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and groups like Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan on Afghan soil that attack the Pakistani state. And finally, there are abundant opportunities to stabilize Pakistan’s shaky economy because the last thing the region needs is another failed state possessing hundreds of nuclear weapons. To that end a constructive blueprint published last year by the Middle East Institute contains several initiatives that both sides can beneficially pursue.

No one could possibly have foreseen that the 20th year observation of the events of 9/11 would be bookended by Taliban governments in power in Kabul. What is needed now is less recrimination about the causes of this catastrophic outcome and more careful, somber — and humble — reflection on the limits of U.S. power and America’s inability to understand the social, political, and cultural dynamics in this and other volatile regions of the world.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 11, 2021 at 3:46pm

George W. Bush likens "violent extremists at home" to 9/11 #terrorists in "their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols — they are children of the same foul spirit.." #911Anniversary https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/11/george-w-bush-co...

On the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that changed his presidency, former president George W. Bush on Saturday warned there is growing evidence that domestic terrorism could pose as much of a threat to the United States as terrorism originating from abroad, and he urged Americans to confront “violence that gathers within.”

Without naming it, Bush seemed to condemn the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a pro-Trump mob overran the complex in a violent siege that resulted in the deaths of five people. Bush compared those “violent extremists at home” to the terrorists who had hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed them in New York City, Arlington, and Shanksville, Pa., killing nearly 3,000 people.

“There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home,” Bush said in a speech at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville. “But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols — they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.”

Bush, a Republican who was president when the 9/11 attacks happened, continually invoked “the nation I know” in his remarks Saturday, an echo of his previous rejection of the rhetoric of former president Donald Trump. Bush spoke of the difficulty of describing “the mix of feelings” everyone experienced on that clear September day 20 years ago.

“There was horror at the scale of destruction and at the bravery and kindness that rose to meet it,” Bush said. “There was shock at the audacity — audacity of evil — and gratitude for the heroism and decency that opposed it. In the sacrifice of the first responders, in the mutual aid of strangers, in the solidarity of grief and grace. The actions of an enemy revealed the spirit of a people. And we were proud of our wounded nation.”

As President Biden and Vice President Harris also did in remarks for the 20th anniversary of the attacks, Bush called on the nation to once again hold fast to its best qualities and shared strengths, to come together as many Americans felt the country had in the days after 9/11. Left unspoken — but alluded to plenty of times Saturday — was that the nation felt as divided as ever, and that former president Donald Trump was continuing to stoke those divisions.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 11, 2021 at 5:53pm

Mehdi Hasan
@mehdirhasan
There was no ‘right’ country to invade on 9/11. The response to a criminal attack by non-state actors shouldn’t have been a war or an invasion or an occupation. It should have been police work, special ops, diplomacy, humanitarian aid, peace in MidEast… none of which was done.

https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1436763084421537792?s=20

https://youtu.be/8eDzavorXyQ

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 11, 2021 at 9:26pm

Retired US General Wesley Clark interviewed in 2007 about military strategy after 9/11 attacks: "We are going to take out 7 (Muslim) countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing it off with Iran"

https://youtu.be/4cYCqf1LkAE

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