Comment #214.
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 1st, 2009
9:22 am
US Bloodletting in MY South Asia
Yeah folks its my place, where I was born and raised. South Asia which the US has turned into hills of blood.
The US Govt. since the inception of the US nation-state, has been bloodthirsty and trigger happy. That's the incontrovertible evidence. This does not means the US has not stood, at times, for individual liberty, mostly for its own citizens at home. Freedom to shop, unlimited amounts of time to cruise the aisles to choose among 20 brands of toilet paper. Great. Whatever works for you.
But US state-sponsored violence and terror -- whether against Native American or Blacks or Vietnamese or Iraqis or Palestinians or now, Afghans or Pakistanis -- that's the name of the game for US loose cannon foreign policy.
General McChrystal, despite his name, lacks lucidity, acuity and clarity. More troops? when the US is already foolhardily pursuing a failing AfPak strategy.
Obama like every white male occupant of the Whites' (yes) House will predictably continue the bloodletting, just like his predecessors. To achieve "strategic depth" in South Asia, to further the US's continuing, unfulfilled fantasy of global dominance in an increasingly multipolar, diverse world that has highly differentiated regional and global strategic interests.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
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NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/asia/01military.html
Groundwork Is Laid for New Troops in Afghanistan
By PETER BAKER and DEXTER FILKINS
Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s revised strategy would invest the U.S. extensively in stabilizing Afghanistan.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Not India Inc. but India TLTL
SOCIAL JUSTICE is the paramount, imperative, immediate need in India.
Every Indian, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, is entitled to food and water security -- freedom from hunger and malnutrition, safe water for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing.
If we can get this right, other civil society benefits will likely accrue:
* Food and clean water will go a very long way to make disease prevention a reality and give us a better rate of return on investment in public health.
*I've always thought we need a Cabinet level post -- A Union Minister for Soap and Latrines, preferably Brahmin. Preferable a He.
What would this esteemed individual, paid out of public monies, do?
1.Install free public toilets nation-wide at the same frequency as STD kiosks. Learn from Pitroda.
Public defecation (usually male) would go out of fashion throughout India, every city and town would stop being a vast urinal.
2. Provide free soap to every household and school, to cut down on the proliferation of ecoli bacteria and GE-related ilnesses.
3. Conduct massive public health awareness campaigns on handwashing, inflict fines for spitting.
Ok, more to follow but you get my drift. We have to do this first b4 we can move onto questions like why Kerala and Cherapunji, and every district in the nation, has not yet been ordered by the Supreme Court to save ALL monsoon water runoff and send it underground aka rainwater harvesting. Of course, the Centre should pay for it. But the netas at the Centre have to first develop and implement a benchmarked National Water Policy. We don't have one. Our India does not have a National Food and Water Security Guarantee for every Indian. Shame on our netas.
Netas' heads must roll if the policy is not effectively implemented under their watch.
Enough India TLTL. Too Little Too Late serves only the cynical and dehumanized interests of the powerful in our unprecedented, flawed democracy.
SOCIAL JUSTICE is the paramount, imperative, immediate need in India. But is that a priority for our leaders? Recently, during the monsoon Budget session, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is quoted as having said " In order to distribute wealth we must first create it." Is Mukherjee arguing, without a shred of evidence, that India does not have sufficient created wealth that can be fairly redistributed, right now?
Spoken like an authentic privileged dominant caste Hindu. Which Pranab Mukherjee is.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
==================================================================================
Every Indian, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, is entitled to food and water security -- freedom from hunger and malnutrition, safe water for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing.
If we can get this right, other civil society benefits will likely accrue:
* Food and clean water will go a very long way to make disease prevention a reality and give us a better rate of return on investment in public health.
*I've always thought we need a Cabinet level post -- A Union Minister for Soap and Latrines, preferably Brahmin. Preferable a He.
What would this esteemed individual, paid out of public monies, do?
1.Install free public toilets nation-wide at the same frequency as STD kiosks. Learn from Pitroda.
Public defecation (usually male) would go out of fashion throughout India, every city and town would stop being a vast urinal.
2. Provide free soap to every household and school, to cut down on the proliferation of ecoli bacteria and GE-related ilnesses.
3. Conduct massive public health awareness campaigns on handwashing, inflict fines for spitting.
Ok, more to follow but you get my drift. We have to do this first b4 we can move onto questions like why Kerala and Cherapunji, and every district in the nation, has not yet been ordered by the Supreme Court to save ALL monsoon water runoff and send it underground aka rainwater harvesting. Of course, the Centre should pay for it. But the netas at the Centre have to first develop and implement a benchmarked National Water Policy. We don't have one. Our India does not have a National Food and Water Security Guarantee for every Indian. Shame on our netas.
Netas' heads must roll if the policy is not effectively implemented under their watch.
Enough India TLTL. Too Little Too Late serves only the cynical and dehumanized interests of the powerful in our unprecedented, flawed democracy.
SOCIAL JUSTICE is the paramount, imperative, immediate need in India. But is that a priority for our leaders? Recently, during the monsoon Budget session, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is quoted as having said " In order to distribute wealth we must first create it." Is Mukherjee arguing, without a shred of evidence, that India does not have sufficient created wealth that can be fairly redistributed, right now?
Spoken like an authentic privileged dominant caste Hindu. Which Pranab Mukherjee is.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
==================================================================================
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