Uncle Sam in Subcontinent
Back home in subcontinent, they say you should stay away from the cops as much as possible. Their friendship and animosity are both injurious to your health.
America often reminds me of those cops back home. Its friendly hug and angry adversity are equally deadly. It ends up inventing new problems for its friends and allies, even as it ostensibly tries to resolve the existing ones.
What do you make of Robert Gates shenanigans in the subcontinent? As if India and Pakistan do not have enough of their issues and problems, Americans are now poking their nose into the subcontinent affairs.
In Delhi, in his characteristic understated tone, the US Defence Secretary delivered a bombshell, warning of an Al Qaeda plot to spark a new war between India and Pakistan. An alliance of Al Qaeda and Taleban working with groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba that claim to champion an independent Kashmir! It seems our worst nightmare has just come true.
Praising Indias restrained response to the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, suspected to be carried out by Lashkar, the Pentagon chief warned: I think its not unreasonable to assume Indias patience would be limited were there to be further attacks.
Of course, given the recent history of the region, its not possible to dismiss the defence secretarys warning lightly. The threat to the subcontinents peace and stability has never been greater. And who is more qualified to comment on the issue than Mr Gates?
No one else in the Obama administration has been mired in the ****** quagmire as long as Gates has been for more than quarter of a century.
After all, as the CIAs No. 2, Gates had been the pointman for the US during the 1980s in channeling financial and military aid to the US allies at the time: Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation. Lest we forget many of those US allies or mujahideen leaders are today part of Taleban and Al Qaeda leadership, including a certain sheikh called Osama bin Laden.
So Gates obviously knows what he is talking about when he warns of a gathering Al Qaeda storm over South Asia. And given his understanding of the region, the Pentagon boss should also know that if Al Qaeda has joined hands with ****** Taleban and pro-Kashmir groups based in Pakistan, the credit goes to the US policies in the region.
Lets face it. This is just another unintended consequence of Americas morally bankrupt and politically disastrous policies and wars in the Islamic world.
I agree with Secretary Gates when he urges India and Pakistan to recognise the magnitude of the threat that the entire region faces. This is a serious threat. And as an Indian who loves his country and desperately wants lasting peace and normal relations, if not thick friendship, between India and Pakistan, the US warning is deeply disturbing.
This is especially disturbing to me as an Indian Muslim. Because we go through hell every time there are tensions between India and Pakistan. Imagine our plight when there are attacks on India, ostensibly carried out by some lunatics based in Pakistan.
I know, as many of my fellow Indian Muslims would say, this has nothing to do with us and we do not have to be apologetic for terror attacks on India originating in Pakistan. But this isnt how things work in the real world out there. Our friends in Pakistan do not seem to have a clue how much we suffer for the actions of a lunatic fringe across the border. Recently, barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, the hero and leading light of Pakistans celebrated lawyers movement, stunned many in India by claiming at a peace conference in Delhi that at least 40, 50, 60 locals had helped a handful of Pakistanis execute the 
Mumbai attacks.
When some angry Indian Muslims confronted Ahsan, he wriggled himself out by saying he was merely toeing the official Pakistani line of diverting Indian attention back to the so-called Muslim factor in India. I dont know what is official Pakistani line on Indian Muslims but I must tell our friends across the border that we have already suffered enough on account of Pakistan.
As Indian journalist Seema Mustafa poignantly wrote in a recent piece: Indian Muslim is a direct victim of terrorism in that he has been made to pay a heavy price for the terror attacks in India. He has been arrested, interrogated, tortured at will by the police with the help and support of the ruling governments in the states and the centre. He has been made to respond to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, as if he is responsible for the violence. He finds new suspicion and distrust in the eyes of those around him, and is made to feel guilty for terrorism he barely understands and definitely does not support.
I am absolutely on the dot with Seema Mustafa on this. Pakistan would do Indian Muslims a huge favour by not involving us in its mess. We have enough of our own problems, thank you very much! Returning to the US warning and the combined threat of Al Qaeda and other terror groups, the issue cannot be seen in isolation of the US policies in the region, especially its dual standards in the Middle East.
If Afghanistan and Pakistan are burning today, you do not have to look far for the answers. Yet another OBL tape this week reminded all of us once again about the origins and causes of this long festering conflict. But the more things change for the self-styled coalition of the willing, the more they remain the same. As if the unravelling of one nuclear state was not enough, Americans are now looking to drag India into this widening, deepening mess. With Kashmir continuing to simmer, its growing strategic ties with the US and Israel and its increasing role in Afghanistan, India may already be an inviting target for the Al Qaeda-Lashkar-Taleban combine although you cant treat them as a 
single behemoth.
The consequences of India unravelling, just as Pakistan has been unravelling, are too horrific to imagine. Remember this is the worlds largest democracy and a nation of 1.3 billion people. It has a myriad problems of its own but it has largely remained an oasis of peace and stability in a troubled neighbourhood, largely thanks to its pluralistic society and the strength of its democratic institutions.
The US war in Afghanistan already has Pakistan in a dangerous, existential turmoil. And now it is threatening India, the regions biggest economy and a pillar of strength in an unstable region. If India gets involved in this mess, the whole region will unravel.
India and Pakistan can prevent this by joining hands and taking on the shared challenges they face in extremism, extreme poverty and backwardness. They must start talking with each other at the earliest. Because when they do not talk to each other, the extremists speak on their behalf and big boys of this world get a perfect excuse to exploit the situation.
If the US wants to really help India and Pakistan incidentally both its allies now it should help them bridge their gulf and help them take on the hurdles they face on the road to peace and progress. But that may be too much to ask of the Americans who have been the biggest beneficiary of India-Pakistan tensions. The South Asian neighbours are amongst the biggest buyers of the US made weapons.
During Gates visit to Pakistan this week (after India) he was confronted by a senior official at the National Defence University in Islamabad: Are you with us or against us? To which a shaken Gates retorted: Of course were 
with you.
When it comes to strategic interests though, Americans are on nobodys side. The only thing that matters is their national interest.
Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor
of Khaleej Times.
Back home in subcontinent, they say you should stay away from the cops as much as possible. Their friendship and animosity are both injurious to your health.
America often reminds me of those cops back home. Its friendly hug and angry adversity are equally deadly. It ends up inventing new problems for its friends and allies, even as it ostensibly tries to resolve the existing ones.
What do you make of Robert Gates shenanigans in the subcontinent? As if India and Pakistan do not have enough of their issues and problems, Americans are now poking their nose into the subcontinent affairs.
In Delhi, in his characteristic understated tone, the US Defence Secretary delivered a bombshell, warning of an Al Qaeda plot to spark a new war between India and Pakistan. An alliance of Al Qaeda and Taleban working with groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba that claim to champion an independent Kashmir! It seems our worst nightmare has just come true.
Praising Indias restrained response to the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, suspected to be carried out by Lashkar, the Pentagon chief warned: I think its not unreasonable to assume Indias patience would be limited were there to be further attacks.
Of course, given the recent history of the region, its not possible to dismiss the defence secretarys warning lightly. The threat to the subcontinents peace and stability has never been greater. And who is more qualified to comment on the issue than Mr Gates?
No one else in the Obama administration has been mired in the ****** quagmire as long as Gates has been for more than quarter of a century.
After all, as the CIAs No. 2, Gates had been the pointman for the US during the 1980s in channeling financial and military aid to the US allies at the time: Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation. Lest we forget many of those US allies or mujahideen leaders are today part of Taleban and Al Qaeda leadership, including a certain sheikh called Osama bin Laden.
So Gates obviously knows what he is talking about when he warns of a gathering Al Qaeda storm over South Asia. And given his understanding of the region, the Pentagon boss should also know that if Al Qaeda has joined hands with ****** Taleban and pro-Kashmir groups based in Pakistan, the credit goes to the US policies in the region.
Lets face it. This is just another unintended consequence of Americas morally bankrupt and politically disastrous policies and wars in the Islamic world.
I agree with Secretary Gates when he urges India and Pakistan to recognise the magnitude of the threat that the entire region faces. This is a serious threat. And as an Indian who loves his country and desperately wants lasting peace and normal relations, if not thick friendship, between India and Pakistan, the US warning is deeply disturbing.
This is especially disturbing to me as an Indian Muslim. Because we go through hell every time there are tensions between India and Pakistan. Imagine our plight when there are attacks on India, ostensibly carried out by some lunatics based in Pakistan.
I know, as many of my fellow Indian Muslims would say, this has nothing to do with us and we do not have to be apologetic for terror attacks on India originating in Pakistan. But this isnt how things work in the real world out there. Our friends in Pakistan do not seem to have a clue how much we suffer for the actions of a lunatic fringe across the border. Recently, barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, the hero and leading light of Pakistans celebrated lawyers movement, stunned many in India by claiming at a peace conference in Delhi that at least 40, 50, 60 locals had helped a handful of Pakistanis execute the 
Mumbai attacks.
When some angry Indian Muslims confronted Ahsan, he wriggled himself out by saying he was merely toeing the official Pakistani line of diverting Indian attention back to the so-called Muslim factor in India. I dont know what is official Pakistani line on Indian Muslims but I must tell our friends across the border that we have already suffered enough on account of Pakistan.
As Indian journalist Seema Mustafa poignantly wrote in a recent piece: Indian Muslim is a direct victim of terrorism in that he has been made to pay a heavy price for the terror attacks in India. He has been arrested, interrogated, tortured at will by the police with the help and support of the ruling governments in the states and the centre. He has been made to respond to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, as if he is responsible for the violence. He finds new suspicion and distrust in the eyes of those around him, and is made to feel guilty for terrorism he barely understands and definitely does not support.
I am absolutely on the dot with Seema Mustafa on this. Pakistan would do Indian Muslims a huge favour by not involving us in its mess. We have enough of our own problems, thank you very much! Returning to the US warning and the combined threat of Al Qaeda and other terror groups, the issue cannot be seen in isolation of the US policies in the region, especially its dual standards in the Middle East.
If Afghanistan and Pakistan are burning today, you do not have to look far for the answers. Yet another OBL tape this week reminded all of us once again about the origins and causes of this long festering conflict. But the more things change for the self-styled coalition of the willing, the more they remain the same. As if the unravelling of one nuclear state was not enough, Americans are now looking to drag India into this widening, deepening mess. With Kashmir continuing to simmer, its growing strategic ties with the US and Israel and its increasing role in Afghanistan, India may already be an inviting target for the Al Qaeda-Lashkar-Taleban combine although you cant treat them as a 
single behemoth.
The consequences of India unravelling, just as Pakistan has been unravelling, are too horrific to imagine. Remember this is the worlds largest democracy and a nation of 1.3 billion people. It has a myriad problems of its own but it has largely remained an oasis of peace and stability in a troubled neighbourhood, largely thanks to its pluralistic society and the strength of its democratic institutions.
The US war in Afghanistan already has Pakistan in a dangerous, existential turmoil. And now it is threatening India, the regions biggest economy and a pillar of strength in an unstable region. If India gets involved in this mess, the whole region will unravel.
India and Pakistan can prevent this by joining hands and taking on the shared challenges they face in extremism, extreme poverty and backwardness. They must start talking with each other at the earliest. Because when they do not talk to each other, the extremists speak on their behalf and big boys of this world get a perfect excuse to exploit the situation.
If the US wants to really help India and Pakistan incidentally both its allies now it should help them bridge their gulf and help them take on the hurdles they face on the road to peace and progress. But that may be too much to ask of the Americans who have been the biggest beneficiary of India-Pakistan tensions. The South Asian neighbours are amongst the biggest buyers of the US made weapons.
During Gates visit to Pakistan this week (after India) he was confronted by a senior official at the National Defence University in Islamabad: Are you with us or against us? To which a shaken Gates retorted: Of course were 
with you.
When it comes to strategic interests though, Americans are on nobodys side. The only thing that matters is their national interest.
Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor
of Khaleej Times.
.
