Abbottabad does not quite add up

The difference between 'civilized' West and 'barbaric' Islamic world. (Cartoon by John Cole; courtesy - caglecartoons.com). Click for original image.

Things go bump in the night

In the early hours of 2nd May, 2011, an obscure twitter-user started tweeting  about the US raid on Osama Bin Laden’s safe-house – 35 km from Islamabad, 200 miles south of the Afghanistan border, in Abbottabad. In a city, which houses Pakistan’s equivalent of Indian Military Academy.

But Pakistan’s police, para-military, military forces claimed ignorance, showed surprise, feigned outrage. Par for the course. Was it abject failure or a cover-up in Pakistan , by the powers-that-be?

US triumphalism is misplaced. But then Osama's death will surely get Obama many votes. (Cartoon courtesy - http://jeffreyhill.typepad.com). Click for larger image.

Afraid of the mullah-madrasa-mujahid combine, predictably, Pakistan started denying any role in the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Truly Pakistan ‘doth protest too much, methinks’. Secret deal or not, in the past or post-facto, a deal around killing Osama could have been easily hammered out between Pakistan and USA.

It suited both the leaderships.

It is election time in USA

Pakistan was not alone in using Osama. Osama alive was source of US funds for Pakistan. Osama dead is an election ticket and a feel-good factor for the a USA being battered by the Great Recession. As Rajiv Dogra points out, on the opposite side of the world,

The timing suited Obama well. It had long been speculated that Osama would be killed around the time Obama’s re-election campaign kicked off.

Predictably, the US made a song-and-dance about the annual aid of US$3 billion that they dole out to Pakistan. Compared to the US$3 trillion that the US Department of Defence is unable to account for, this talk of US$3 billion makes for poor form.

Pakistan's soldiers patrolling the tribal area of Ditta Kheil in North Waziristan for militants and al-Qaida activists in March.| Photograph by Mohammad Iqbal/Associated Press | Picture courtesy nytimes.com /Click for original image.

On a lighter – and logical side

Famous for the song केम छे ‘kem che, kem che’ from the film जिस देश में गंगा रहता है Jis Desh Mein Ganga Rahta Hain, a Bollywood songwriter confidently predicted, soon after 9/11, that Bin Laden would be found near the White House or Islamabad!

Coming to India

Memories dimmed, history forgotten, India draws wrong conclusions from these Western adventures in our neighbourhood.

After WWII, as British, French and Dutch colonialists were being thrown out of Asia, in country after country, the West was in real danger of losing markets and raw material sources.

To make war palatable, Desert Bloc invented religion. (Image source - http://loonpond.blogspot.com; artist attribution not available at image source).

A new power, fueled by a growing migrant population, USA, took the place of tired, old powers – Britain, France and the Dutch. Instead of the openly exploitative system of European powers directly running colonial governments in these Asian countries, the US installed an opaque system – which is equally exploitative. To impose its writ on the newly independent Asian countries, the US simply destroyed their  economies by war. The USA, then instituted the innovative USCAP Program and ‘helped’ these countries. These countries (Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, et al) were now ruled by overtly independent regimes – but covertly, client states of the USA.

US multinationals and home-grown oligarchs (keiretsus, chaebols, etc.) took over the economy – and sidelined British, French and Dutch companies. To impose this economic model, US armies, using nearly 1 million troops, killed 50 lakh Asians. The takeover of European colonial possessions by the USA was handled over 3 regimes of Eisenhower-Kennedy-Johnson seamlessly.

Between a rampant USA, behind biggest terror spots of the world, and a nuclear-armed, imploding Pakistan, India’s choices are difficult – and reactive policies inadequate.

Once more, Osama’s death and Obama’s antics bring out India’s policy inadequacy in sharp relief.

Related articles

• Cable: Pakistan military learn anti-Americanism (cbsnews.com)
• Bin Laden’s Pakistan villa: Tourist destination? (cbsnews.com)
• Osama bin Laden dead: Pakistan returns helicopter wreckage (telegraph.co.uk)
• You: Drones hurting national integrity (nation.com.pk)

‘Honest’ Broker – United States Foreign Policy!

The Buddhist Jataka that travelled to Victorian England!

India and Honest Brokers

There is this Buddhist Jataka story which we have all heard.

Two cats go to a monkey for help in dividing some eatable equally. End result – the monkey gets everything. The cats, nothing. ‘Honest’ brokers are the monkey which leaves nothing for the cats.

Hillary Clinton assured a nervous gathering of Foreign Policy analysts that the world is counting on the USA today as it has in the past. When old adversaries need an honest broker or fundamental freedoms need a champion, people turn to us. When the earth shakes or rivers overflow their banks, when pandemics rage or simmering tensions burst into violence, the world looks to us. (via Remarks on United States Foreign Policy).

In real life

What is left of Pakistan after US finished with brokering Pakistan’s future? After the West carved up the Ottoman Empire, and divided the Turkish possessions among their puppets, what is left of the Middle East? With oil, Big Oil, oil politics, oil-dollar, oil prices at stake, can the US be a honest broker.

Tell that to the birds.

With oil at stake, how 'honest' a broker can the US be? (Cartoon by Pat Oliphant). Click for larger image.

Can there be a ‘honest’ broker?

This idea that there cannot be ‘honest’ brokers, made Buddhism so popular all over the world. Not pretty statues and musical chants. In the last 200 years, भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra has gone into regression. But, in this period, the world has also learnt more about the limitations of the Desert Bloc ideology.

People get ready!

Related Articles

• Foreign Policy: Clinton’s Wake Up Call On Mexico (npr.org)
• United States is ‘best hope’ in a troubled world: Clinton (alternet.org)
• The Hill Poll: Most voters say Arab unrest bodes ill for the US – The Hill (news.google.com)
• A Salient Fact About US-Israeli Relations (Several Billion, in Fact) (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Barack Obama agrees to form joint national security body with UK (guardian.co.uk)
• A call for change – Obama has ‘failed,’ Pawlenty says (politico.com)

St.Barnum Computes The Cost Of Dining Alone

On April 29, 1962, John F. Kennedy, from the American Royal House of Kennedy, gathered 49 Nobel Prize winners at his palace, called the White House – to remind the Nobel Prize winners that it was “probably the greatest concentration of talent and genius in this house except for those times when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Many understood many unexplained chapters of American History – after reading this. John F. Kennedy was assassinated because he unveiled this secret.

St.Barnum Explains

St.Barnum of course, explained to me the importance of dining alone in American History. Each time Jefferson dined alone, he got some great ideas – and that St.Barnum explained to me, lucidly, is the secret of American Success.

All Men Are Created Equal

His first great idea was excluding the Native Americans (then called Red Indians) and African slaves from the ‘all men are created equal’ clause.

I am not even started on exclusion of women. This was a direct result of dining alone.

The Consent Of The Governed

Next time he dined alone, talk started about ‘the consent of the governed‘. He obtained ‘secret consent’ from Native Americans (then called Red Indians) – a result of dining alone. Of course, his great work of fiction, called the American Constitution, allowed his successors to continue with this. There was similar ‘secret consent’ also in the cases of Haiti, Philippines, Cuba, Grenada, Panama – and recently in Iraq also. Modern liberals, peaceniks and other such flotsam and jetsam, dont know anything about these ‘secret consents.’

His Greatest Idea – Liberia

Another time, he dined alone, the idea of sending freed slaves back – to Liberia. Never mind the cost to the local Africans – and the freed and transplanted slaves.

Sally Hemmings Was A Black Secret Agent

A cabal of African-American conspirators sniffed out Jefferson’s secret – his greatest ideas (listed above) came when he dined alone.

What followed was diabolical. To stop further such ideas, they recruited Sally Hemmings on a suicide mission. And thereafter, Sally Hemmings was assigned the role of ensuring that Jefferson was never alone.

I have secret papers which prove this. This talk about slavery is just that – it is talk.

The Death Of JFK

This Black conspiracy against my Aryan brothers was exposed when I shared these secret documents with JFK – based on which he made this famous comment. His subsequent death obscured this conspiracy.

I am today in a position to reveal this, because, I have been given 20 Marine Commandos by George Bush  – for my protection. This conspiracy has to be brought out in daylight.

I write this, safely, deep inside a cave, (which ‘Kikazaru’ Hillary Clinton cant bomb).
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