"me no big chief …

but we first learn to differentiate between friend and foe.

In the present day world order, it is a dangerous game.
But there is one chilling underlying truth.
America is nobody’s friend.

If America extends hand in friendship, accept it today, pay with your lives tomorrow.

To many Indians,
who are itching to sign on the dotted line of the 123 Indo-US Agreement,
and blaming the communists for disrupting our chance at becoming America’s friend,

I say think again.

America is in debt, the Chinese are the loan sharks.
America needs to buy mercenaries to wage a war with China.
And who best than their age old enemy, the nuclear capable Indians.
Give them more nuclear fuel, let them destroy China
and themselves in the process.

With one signature, America will remove the threat of two emerging superpowers.
So sign today,
be prepared to fight America’s proxy war against the Chinese tomorrow.
But there is one certainty; for us, there will be no day after tomorrow.
Forget we will ever be one of the leading nations in future.

Melodrama? Look at Afghanistan.

On a day we see President Musharraff, “America’s ally” in their “War against Terror”,
fighting for his life, let us look at this document.
Who is responsible for this so called terror?

Title/Description: How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen:

Interview with Zbginiew Brzezinksi
Author/Source:
Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski Le Nouvel Observateur (France)
Date: Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76*

This is a SHORT interview with Zbginiew Brzezinksi, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, in a French newspaper in 1998. Under Brzezniski and Carter, the US supported the covert funding of the mujahadeen, the Taliban’s precedessor, and also, to a lesser degree, Osama bin Laden.

Brzezinksi with Osama Bin Laden – Photograph: Geocities.com

Everyone now knows that — but what is amazing about this interview is that:

1) Brzezinski now admits that the US started funding the mujahadeen a full six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan (the previous justification for funding the mujahadeen was that it was to stop the Soviets AFTER they had invaded Afghanistan);

2) The explicit purpose of funding the mujahadeen was to draw the Soviets into Afghanistan so that they would get bogged down in a long, unwinnable war — “their Vietnam”;

3) Brzezinski believes that funding the mujahadeen — even at the price of unleashing Islamic fundamentalism (“some stirred-up Moslems”) as a force throughout the Middle East and Central Asia — was well worth the price of defeating the Soviet Union. Of course, he said all this a full three years before the World Trade Center attack.

Now, as we give $100 million to the Northern Alliance to topple the Taliban, we might want to think about who our new found friends are in the war against terrorism because they most assuredly will be our future enemies. All this makes George Orwell’s vision in 1984 look like a pleasant fantasy.

How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen

Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski Le Nouvel Observateur (France),

Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76*

Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.

________________________________________________________

* There are at least two editions of this magazine; with the perhaps sole exception of the Library of Congress, the version sent to the United States is shorter than the French version, and the Brzezinski interview was not included in the shorter version.

The above has been translated from the French by Bill Blum author of the indispensible, “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II” and
“Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower”
Portions of the books can be read at: http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm

When the nuclear dust settles be prepared to see the back of America, as
“without any regrets” they leave us to die in a radioactive India we help create.
The blood of our mutated future generations will be on our hands, so help me god.

Melodrama? Look at President Musharraff.

It has all happened before, so many have fallen for the American carrot
yet we are rushing forward, blind with our eyes wide open.

AmericaRussiaIndiaChina123AgreementHyde’s Act

Marcus – said in Babylon 5

“I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair.
Then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?
So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.”

he never had any shoes, yet happily runs around in his bare feet,
walking on dirt and dust and mud, never hurt by the cold pavements

he never can lift a cup or a bowl, he struggles to grasp, to hold,
he gives up to grip with his teeth; he eats on the floor for
he is unable to sit at a table

he never learnt to get his own food,
he never complains of hunger or thirst
he will eat only if I give him food, if I forget, he will suffer the pain in silence,

if I give him a little food, he will pick it up and take it away
to hide somewhere to eat the tiny morsel,
so little yet so precious that he is scared to lose
perhaps a distant memory of losing out to someone bigger or stronger or less generous

he sits beside me, looking at my laptop screen,
I can see his head move, following the movement of the cursor,
that is all he can see, the words and the pictures means
nothing
he will never know
the wonders of electronics, the computer, the internet,

the world around us will perhaps never mean the same to him,
the vastness of the universe
the stars at night, the sky, the sun and the moon,
the wind and the rain, the seasons, the falling leaves
just an existence of living by the minute, no past no future

so many times,
he will look at me, about to say something, wanting to say something,
perhaps a few words forming in his tiny mind, trying so desperately to articulate,
he speaks with his eyes, his words remain unspoken, maybe soon forgotten
only if I knew what goes on in that little mind,

I have everything I want, and certainly more than I need
and so I will take it all for granted, my little companion
will never be able to share with me
my world, my reality

Sorry Ruffyboy. Life is unfair.

continuing from kashmir myths: india refuses a plebiscite – 2

It was exactly 60 years ago,
on the 26th October, the princely State of Kashmir was invaded.
On the 27th, the ruler Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession.
By the 28th, Indian troops had landed to stop the invadors and the indiscriminate
looting, rape and plunder.

As is obvious that some Indians are STILL under ILLUSION
that Kashmir may indeed become independent one day.
And lend their “weak voice” in support.
There are some Kashmiris,
who may believe that Pakistan will help them become independent.
The world has been led to believe, Pakistan “morally” supports the Kashmiri
violence in the name of a fight for freedom.

The reality, unfortunately for Kashmiris, is very different,
For there is only ONE reality set out in the UNCIP Resolution of January 5, 1949.

India, at the time of accession had promised that the future of Kashmir,
as set out in the UNCIP Resolution of August 13, 1948,
would be determined by the will of the Kashmiris.
Even if that meant complete independence.

But by January next year,
Pakistan had that amended to UNCIP Resolution of January 5, 1949
By which, there never was a third option; no choice for complete independence.

There was only TWO choices for the Kashmiris.
To exercise their “democratic” rights to,
EITHER lose those right in an ISLAMIC and MILITARY DICTATORSHIP
OR retain those rights in a SECULAR and DEMOCRATIC republic
for it was always a myth there would ever be an INDEPENDANT Kashmir

For the Kashmiri HINDUS and BUDDHISTS the choice was even more chilling,
EITHER spend THE rest of their lives
in an ISLAMIC STATE under a MILITARY DICTATORSHIP.
OR be ETHNICALLY CLEANSED out of their homeland Kashmir.

It has been sixty long years.
And nothing has changed. There is no third option.

KashmirIndiaPakistanpropagandademocracydictatorship

To be continued

Ms Benazir Bhutto returns to her homeland to meet the powers of destruction.
In an interview with the BBC,

Ms Bhutto said she was lucky to be alive.
“I don’t believe the state or the government was involved in the attack on me at this stage,” she said. “But I do believe that the sympathisers of the militants had managed to infiltrate some of our agencies… to give covert support to the militants.” Ms Bhutto says she has sent President Musharraf the names of three former military officials she accuses of involvement in the attack.

Photo: Washington Post

The truck of Pakistan former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is parked after an explosion in Karachi, Pakistan on Thursday, Oct 18, 2007. Two explosions went off near the vehicle carrying former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto, killing or wounding dozens of people. Party workers and police said Bhutto was unhurt. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

It must be painful to see one’s own homeland being destroyed from within.
To have to blame one’s own country’s people for the murder of one’s motherland.

Pakistan was “born” 60 years ago. It didn’t exist before then.
The founding fathers of Pakistan had a clean slate to write on.
The story of Pakistan shapes from that moment.
But somewhere it has all gone wrong.

I only see a series of wrong decisions.
I cannot call it mistakes,
for I am sure they were made convinced they had the best of Pakistan at heart.
But in 1947, no one could have envisaged what the world would be like 60 years on.
If in 1947 the world was in black and white, in the ensuing sixty years it has got all swirled up in shades of greys.
Today there are too many grey areas.

Just the division of the British India itself, was a tragedy.
It led to mass migration of millions, leaving them homeless and penniless.
Death estimated to be around more than half a million.

Both countries came to existence with million paupers born overnight
who needed to be accomodated and looked after.

1956: Pakistan decided to ditch secularity to become Islamic.
The very reason it was formed, to protect “a minority” was lost.
Instead of protecting “any minority”, it chose to make other religions feel alienated.
Every other religion in Pakistan perceived themselves as an unwanted community.
It only weakens the country if their own citizens feel they do not belong.

The letter K in paKistan represent Kashmir.
As early as 1933, the Muslim League created the name Pakistan on an acronym.

Mr Jinnah and his fellow founders, I believe, became obsessed with Kashmir.
They could not accept their new found country without having Kashmir.
The Kashmir conflict led to three wars, and two major confrontations with India.
No other issues. Just Kashmir. And that war never died out. It still goes on.

Whenever the Pakistani military has felt threatened in an internal power struggle,
Kashmir was an issue that could be relied on to stoke up public passion, public support.

Pakistan lost a bigger area of land in the East, but did it stop the country functioning.
It did not cause the country to disintegrate or collapse.
Yet Pakistan could not give up on a smaller piece of land, Kashmir.

Instead of building the infrastructure of their new homeland, improve law and order, health and education, she spent time efforts and more of all a fortune
to fight wars and to strengthen her Military.

This inevitably led to:
Shift of disproportionate power to the Military and not the State.
And in doing so, she lost her democracy.
Yes, some of their politicians were corrupt, and lined their own pockets, but the country had her voice. But they have also had military dictators, has one now, who may or maynot be honest we will never know, but the people of Pakistan have lost their voice.

The race for a nuclear bomb.
Pakistan’s military successfully convinced the government, that to counter India’s “aggression”, Pakistan needed a N-bomb to survive.
India has never showed any aggression towards Pakistan.
India’s N-programme was aimed against China’s N-arsenal against who we had fought a war over disputed territories.
India didn’t need N-deterrent against non-nuclear Pakistan, she needed against China.
No country develops N-bomb, to invade another country for occupation.
No life is known to survive in a radio-active wasteland.

What did it cost Pakistan. To become an ally of China.
1963, Pakistan signed over a tract of Kashmir to China “as a gesture of goodwill”.

A tract of land that did not belong to Pakistan to handover.
No plebiscite was held in that piece of land to determine what its people wanted.
Soon after, Pakistan had a N-programme with China’s help. And America’s knowledge.

Aligning themselves with any state that were India’s enemy, ie China and America.
Once aligned to dishonest superpowers, they were left at the mercy of these States.

If America wanted to fight “commies” in Afghanistan, they had Pakistan’s soil to form its base for a proxy war. Arms were flown in. The country became a military training ground; was flooded with foreign fighters and firearms.

Dollars and support to the Pakistan Military and America had everything they wanted.
The Pakistan military wanted money and weapons, they got what they needed.
Their Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was entrusted to train mujahedins,
and support the Talibans to fight and kill the Soviets…only for being communists.
In turn, the ISI became intensely powerful, the islamic fanatics got arms and weapons.

The Americans turned a blind eye when Pakistan diverted some of that money and weapons to create training camps for militants, to fight their own proxy war in Kashmir.

America invaded a sovereign state to remove a “dictator” and introduce “democracy”. Two countries away, their “biggest ally” has a military dictator.
America has done nothing to bring democracy to Pakistan.

In 1933, when the concept of Pakistan was floated,
had the intelligent men behind it realised 60 years on she would be a military State.
Deeply indebted to China on one hand and America on the other.
Playing the dangerous game of playing one against the other.
Two superpowers, that has traditionally been enemies.

I try to imagine a situation where Kashmir had been allowed to choose for themselves.
No invasion by Pakistani army assisted tribals, no loots or rapes or plunders.
No need for signing an Accession, no need to ask India for military help.
I am certain, Kashmir would have gone for a secular democracy.
The third sibling of our independence.
And a painless birth.

I try and imagine Pakistan and India, instead of fighting wars over Kashmir, spending their resources to build; to give their citizens better life, better living.

I even try to imagine an undivided India.

The mind boggles with the hindsight, with only the ifs without any of the buts.

PakistanKashmirIndiahistorynewsdemocracy

Environment?
Like the pale blue dot
insignificant in the vastness of the cosmos.
Millions of years, and we still do not know who we really are.

But we all have learn’t what each and one of us wants.
We have learn’t how to get those wants, at all costs, at any cost.
And only a single lifetime to chase after it, and still never have enough.

So give me a reason why we should worry about our planet?
Why should we make time to care for our environment?
What is it worth anyway?

It has always been there,
we didn’t ask for it, we didn’t have to pay for it,
we didn’t have to fight for it, we didn’t have to suffer not having it.
Yet.

How long will I be here, what is a lifespan compared to the eternity?
So why should I bother? The environment is melting down,
I will be gone before it turns too hostile to support life.

Someday, oneday, we will all have to die, won’t we?
The dreams we had, most will stay unfulfilled
the ambitions we had may stay unachieved
desires we had, not all fulfilled,
promises broken, perhaps
or unkept.

Just like those
unfulfilled dreams and desires, and unachieved ambitions
we will leave behind a half scorched planet, dying in an environment
so evil with the poisons that we have generously filled it over the years.

I know, for every one of us who will today promise to save our planet
there will be hundreds if not thousands who will not, or
many whose promise will be empty and worthless.

So why should I join a battle, that has already been lost?