My NYT Comment #103.
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/world/asia/30mumbai.html?sort=oldest&offset=5
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 30th, 2009
9:52 am
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 30th, 2009
5:34 am
Restraint & Containment against LeT
India has followed a policy of Restraint and Containment against the LeT, JuD, LeJ and other Terror (yes NYTimes Terrorist, not Militant) Groups operating from bases in Pakistan.
This continues to be the wisest and most astute policy. Slow and steady wins the race. Attrition is better than the nuclear non-option.
While this policy of restraint and containment is frustrating to hawks in the Indian establishment, as well as within India's aggrieved polity, the ground reality for the past 60+ years is that the REGION of South Asia has functioned as a theatre for various conflicts --
1. The Cold War that the US invented and deployed mainly in Eastern Europe against the Soviets but fought on the ground in Afghanistan. The US trained and deployed the Mujahideen that partly now is the Taliban and provided a training ground for Al Qaeda.
So did the US create Al Qaeda? Hmmmmm...er, yes.
And let's not forget the US-Saudi nexus in West Asia (aka the \"Middle East\") and in Afghanistan.
2. The US subjugation of Pakistan as part of State Department policy beginning in the '50s.
3. Various internal factionalist/separatist movements WITHIN India, Pakistan, Bangladesh Sri Lanka, and Nepal in which terror is an instrument.
4. The US has sought and succeeded in gaining \"strategic depth\"
in the western part of South Asia. The US presence and its hold on Pakistan will continue to destabilize any confidence-building measures undertaken by India and Pakistan.
Within this context, India must continue to practice Restraint while proactively containing Terror.
How?
Through implementing Social Justice within her borders, while deploying the most effective and proven intelligence at her disposal to keep Pak-based terror out.
India is cognizant of the US menace in South Asia. The US is a state sponsor of Terror.
Pakistan is also cognizant of the US menace but her successive governments have been too weak to act, either against her own US-trained ISI or to call for the US to desist. US 'aid' is too attractive to Pakistan's military-feudal-terror complex.
The bottom line is ordinary Indians and Pakistanis are sisters and brothers.
They are not terrorists.
Restraint & Containment make practical sense in ETHICAL Democracy, which is a wholly attainable ideal for India's civil society and for the Greater Collective Good (GCG) for ALL of South Asia's fragile, yet resilient civil societies.
Satyameva Jayate.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/world/asia/30mumbai.html?_r=1
Network of Militants Is Robust After Mumbai Siege
By LYDIA POLGREEN and SOUAD MEKHENNET
Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba has persisted, even flourished, since 10 recruits killed 163 people in a rampage through India’s financial capital.
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