Implications for India

Kafir

Bajpai has no balls. He is a hijra. Only an old insane man like him will talk reason with Pakistani army. With US it is the same thing. He is losing all self respect India built over 50 years.

Re: mohajir

{{By Manjeet Kripalani

How Uncle Sam Is Alienating India

New Delhi offers the U.S. its support, yet Bush turns to Pakistan. Ignoring a friend to woo its foe is no way to build an alliance}}

``Manjeet Kriplani`` should stick to selling fake gold jewelry to unsuspecting Indians and leave journalism to more capable people. India has nothing to do with this mess...what is US supposed to do with India`s bases? We don`t share a border with Afghans and we are not buddies with Taliban. India is as relevant to this as Norway.

Further, why get involved in this fight of mullahs blowing each other`s brains out with America instructing them? India has enough problems to worry about.

COMMENTARY - Business Week

By Manjeet Kripalani

How Uncle Sam Is Alienating India

New Delhi offers the U.S. its support, yet Bush turns to Pakistan. Ignoring a friend to woo its foe is no way to build an alliance

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2001/nf20010920_4588.htm

In early September -- days before the terrorist strikes in New York and Washington, D.C. -- Robert Blackwill, U.S. ambassador to India, visited Bombay, India`s commercial capital. There he addressed an elite group of business leaders and journalists on the need for forging closer ties with India as an ally and partner. ``Gone are the off-putting days of Indo-U.S. relations,`` Blackwill declared. The audience cheered. The relationship, Blackwill added, should stress not just liberalized trade and support for economic reforms, but a new partnership against terrorism, as ``the international terrorist Osama bin Laden calls for a holy war against America and India in the same breath.``

With the attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, and impoverished Afghanistan`s Taliban leaders calling for a jihad against the U.S., the atmosphere on the subcontinent is now almost electric. After the attacks, India immediately offered Washington its complete cooperation -- an overture of friendship after years of friction between the two nations. Now you can almost feel Indians thinking: ``See how the Pakistanis have lent the terrorists support all these years against us, and now against you, mighty America.``

LOGICAL CHOICE. Little wonder, then, that many Indians now feel slighted that President Bush still hasn`t called India`s leaders for consultation, despite all their offers of assistance. Instead, his first overtures were to India`s perennial rival and America`s old ally, Pakistan.

For India, it was a slap in the face. It`s the old U.S. foreign policy trick -- mixing pragmatism with opportunism. Just as Indo-U.S. relations were beginning to improve, the friendship may again be in jeopardy. ``The U.S. has a good record of going with whoever suits its interests more,`` says Kanti Bajpai, professor of international affairs at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. ``It will look at the first enemy first, even if it means supping with the devil.``

Practically, of course, the best hope of hitting the Taliban is through Pakistan. India, with its Hindu-dominated, Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, remains a fragile democracy that takes ages to reach a consensus about anything. Fact is, India, a predominantly Hindu nation, can`t contribute as much in this situation as an Islamic nation like Pakistan, especially in the Arab world. And Pakistan is ruled by a dog-loving, nattily uniformed general perceived as a moderate -- not by a bearded mullah like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India`s shuffling, poetry-spouting, 77-year-old prime minister.

EXPENSIVE ALLY. And what a deal Musharraf is reported to have demanded of the U.S. in return for his support: a $30 billion aid and bailout package for his ravaged economy, easing of U.S. trade sanctions imposed on Pakistan in 1998, assurances that India and Israel would be excluded from Pakistani-based operations against the Taliban, and a pledge that the U.S. will seek to put an end to the unrest in Kashmir, territory that both Pakistan and India claim as sovereign territory.

There came immediate howls from New Delhi. Blackwill quickly huddled with Jaswant Singh, India`s foreign and defense minister, denying that any such deal had been struck and assuring him that Kashmir would not be used by the Americans as a bargaining chip. But many Indians had to admit that Musharraf`s negotiating ploy was clever. ``Pakistan looks good,`` says Subir Gokarn, chief economist at the National Centre for Applied Economic Research in New Delhi, who adds: ``It`s cut the feet from under India`s foreign policy.``

Just what deals have been struck between the U.S. and Pakistan remain a mystery. Musharraf will probably get a bailout package like the one the Egyptians received after their first meeting with the Israelis at Camp David in the `70s. Egypt has not looked back since -- though troubled by fundamentalist Muslim terrorists, Egypt has grown into one of the world`s most moderate Islamic states.

PAKISTAN`S POVERTY. Musharraf and Pakistan need the money badly, and India shouldn`t begrudge Pakistan a bailout. After all, a $30 million aid package could make the difference between a dangerous neighbor and one that could contribute to a growing regional prosperity. An impoverished Pakistan with a nuclear bomb -- and a history of border wars and hostility with India -- is far more dangerous to India`s security. And U.S. intervention would conceivably help counteract the effects of Muslim extremism in parts of disputed Kashmir, where extremist groups are demanding that young women wear the veil -- or have acid thrown on their faces.

But make no mistake: Many Pakistanis are worried. ``The U.S. will come and bomb and seek its retribution, but they will go away, and we will be left with the scars,`` says one Pakistani privately. The Afghans, it is feared, will then turn on Pakistan: ``They are cunning and merciless, and we are afraid.``

The U.S., in addition to updating its old alliance with Pakistan, would be wise to take a larger view of its engagement in central Asia -- and not forget India. Remember, it was Pakistan that aided and abetted the establishment of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan and India have quietly been building closer ties with China, a rival power whose interests the U.S. doesn`t always share. When the looming war is over, real bridges will still need to be built between India and the U.S. -- two democracies standing against terrorism, and for prosperity.

Kripalani is India bureau chief for BusinessWeek

Edited by Douglas Harbrecht

ANURAG TRIPATHITIMES NEWS NETWORK

YDERABAD: Computer institutes, who have either closed down or on the verge of closure are selling Post-Graduate Diplomas in Computer Applications (PGDCA) to anyone who is willing to pay.The PGDCA can be procured by paying as high as Rs 2,000 or as low as Rs 200 depending upon the negotiation skills of the prospective buyers.The prices also vary according to the reputation of the computer institutes. The fake certificates of big IT education players in the market cost more than Rs 5,000.The computer institutes are selling the certificates to cover up for the loss incurred by them after the slowdown in the IT sector. The slowdown left the institutes with no new admissions and the students enrolled are refusing to pay the remaining fee instalments.A computer institute in Secunderabad has sold as many as 100 certificates from August 22 to August 31 to the candidates who need the certificates to pad up their resume.Similarly another computer institute has given blank certificates to their staff as incentives. A blank certificate without the seal of the institute is sold for a price between Rs 50 and Rs 200. However, if a candidate needs a certificate with his name, the institute’s seal and signatures of the course coordinator and authorities, he has to pay up to Rs 1,000.Most of the candidates coming to these institutes for the certificates are those who have applied for jobs in sectors other than IT .The PGDCA certificates gives an advantage over other candidates applying for the same job.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=365270954

monasegal

I didn`t mean to upset up. I`m sorry.

hobbyty #105

Hey, can`t you recognise a compliment when its given. I was actually impresed by your earlier post.

As for baises, I may be wrong, but I believe everybody has it. Even the most liberal of all. Its very difficult to shrug it. Its like holding a soft corner for your family members despite what they are?

Don`t you think so?

Mona

Akash

Let`s leave the specifics to negotiating teams - What you and I can do is to support the notion of a negotiated settlement. The greater the support for this notion, the more likely that overt hostilities can be avoided.

kafir khan #80

….finally, someone focusing on the lighter side of things….and a big lol at # 11( so, as long as we don’t “vacate” kashmir, india won’t score centuries…..since the former isn’t plausible in the near future, i guess neither is the latter….not that it ever was ;)... and if imran ever does divorce jemima, madhuri will have stiff competition, mind you)

“10. Indian Silk Sarees in great demand in

Pakistan”

…..they always have been

B.M.-Bhartiya Mussalman,Zafar Al-Talib,Hasan(NASAH),Banjara,Naptune,Abdu Sattar2,The Model Secularist Indian muslims,Challenge the Democracy of India by Supporting OSAMA Bin Laden,Taleban & SIMI

Indian Muslims warn of backlash

From O P Verma

DH News Service

NEW DELHI, Sept 19

Urdu posters pasted this morning in a South Delhi Muslim colony warned of Muslim backlash in the country if US attacked Afghanistan to get Osama Bin Laden dead or alive. Pasted in Zakir Hussain Nagar and nearby Okhla, the posters, whose publishers are unknown, also warned of a jihad against India too if New Delhi gave full support to the US in its intended attack on Afghanistan.

The government is worried about the reaction of Muslim community which is quite sensitive to the Bin Laden issue which cropped up after the terrorist strike in New York and Washington on September 11. Like in Pakistan, some Muslim organisations are planning to start agitational programmes against Pakistan government, the Indian stand and US intentions, sources said.

Safdar Nagori, general secretary, Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) also warned of Muslim backlash in the country if the planned US attack on Afghanistan is carried out “without any solid evidence against Bin Laden”. It would be “unislamic”, he said. He criticised the terrorist strikes in US but said America is “super terrorist state”. Any attack on Afghanistan would be taken as an attack on the Muslim world, he added.

SIMI Chief Shahid Badra Falahi last week said the BJP-led NDA government wanted to enslave the Muslims with US support.

According to a report from Patna, Mr Falahi said the US has not been able to put up any concrete evidence against Osama bin Laden for attacks in New York and Washington. Without condemning the terrorsit attacks directly Mr Falahi said that the incident was a big one which had taken ‘humanity by surprise’.

Mr Falahi, who was in Patna today to participate in a function organised by SIMI, criticised Pakistan for extending support to the US and termed it un-Islamic. He urged the government of India not to act in a hurry and support the US, the report said adding that SIMI is also alleged to be a proponent of Osama bin Laden’s views.

The UP government has already apprised the Centre of SIMI activities in the state and recommended a ban on the organisation.

Yesterday the Imam of Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Shah Bukhari said any US attack on “innocent people” of Afghanistan “will be treated as an attack on the entire Muslim world” which would result in a severe backlash. He warned the government of allowing its soil to be used by the US for strikes against Afghanistan. He was critical of India’s “unconditional” support for the planned strikes against Afghanistan.

In another development, US ambassador to India Robert Blackwell today met a Sikh gathering at Banglasahib Gurdwara and Jama Masjid Imam Syed Ahmed Shah Bukhari. While Mr Blackwell assured the Sikhs that the community would be given full protection in the US from any backlash, he made it clear that Washington action is against terrorism and not against Islam or its followers.

Though the BJP has yet to react to the Imam’s statement, the Hindu Mahasabha advised him to migrate to Afghanistan along with his associates to support Bin Laden who is responsible for terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and killing of innocent people there. “What the Imam is saying amounts to sedition,” Vishwanath Khanna of the Sabha said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has predicted intensified terrorist activities in the state if US attacks Afghanistan.

Pelosi lays into minister for comments at service

Amos Brown`s `over the top` rant at tribute

Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross Wednesday, September 19, 2001







Even in San Francisco, where political controversy is the norm, former Supervisor Amos Brown`s blistering attack on U.S. foreign policy at the memorial service for last week`s terrorist victims set a lot of people`s teeth on edge.

In a performance that had the crowd cheering at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Monday but left the assembled politicians stunned, Brown -- pastor of the Third Baptist Church -- set his tone early when he asked, ``America, is there anything you did to set up this climate?

``America, America,`` the reverend went on. ``What did you do -- either intentionally or unintentionally -- in the world order, in Central America, in Africa where bombs are still blasting?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *``America, what did you do in the global warming conference when you did not embrace the smaller nations?`` Brown cried. ``America, what did you do two weeks ago when I stood at the the world conference on racism, when you wouldn`t show up?

``Ohhhh -- America,`` Brown said, drawing out the words, ``what did you do?``

As the crowd cheered, Paul Holm, former partner of terrorist victim Mark Bingham, got out of his chair on stage, went over to Sen. Barbara Boxer and said, ``This was supposed to be a memorial service.``

Holm was also overheard telling Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Gray Davis that Brown`s remarks were a disgrace.

``Mark died a hero,`` Holm said of his partner, one of those on United Airlines Flight 93, the plane where passengers apparently jumped their hijackers.

Whether by coincidence or design, after speaking with Holm, both Feinstein and Davis left while Brown was speaking.

``What can you say?`` said Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano. ``It was largely a lefty and pro-peace crowd, and Amos was playing to the house.

``Still,`` said Ammiano, no friend to U.S. foreign policy, ``it was over the top. He could have chosen another venue or a different way of saying it.``

And while many of those on stage may have shared Ammiano`s thinking, it was Rep. Nancy Pelosi who delivered the only rebuttal of the day.

Pelosi, one of the leading liberals on the national stage, broke from her prepared remarks and said, ``With all due respect to some of the sentiments that were earlier expressed -- some of which I agree with -- make no mistake (about it) . . . the act of terrorism on Sept. 11 put those people outside the order of civilized behavior, and we will not take responsibility for that.``

Later, Pelosi went up to Holm, and fighting back tears, told him how sorry she was for what had happened.

BRIDGE UPDATE: Our friends at Caltrans called to clarify the information they gave us about those workers cleared from the Bay Bridge after last week`s terrorist attacks back East.

Yes, the FBI did fear that the bridge might be a target. But it wasn`t the safety of the workers that everyone was worried about.

``We weren`t trying to favor our workers over motorists,`` explained Caltrans spokesman Jeff Weiss. ``Bridge workers were taken off the bridge because law enforcement was concerned about terrorists posing as bridge workers. And rather than police going through the time-consuming process of checking every bridge worker to make sure they were who they were supposed to be, they were sent home.``

CALL-UP: East Bay Rep. Barbara Lee has logged upwards of 20,000 phone calls and e-mails since her stand-alone vote Friday against President Bush`s call for a war on terrorism.

``It has been a mixed bag,`` said Lee`s press secretary, Andrew Sousa. ``But the outpouring of support we`ve received from all over the country is really amazing.``

But there have been plenty of angry threats as well -- which explains why Capitol Hill police reportedly have assigned Lee round-the-clock bodyguards.

HELPING HAND: Their boss might not know it, but a dozen San Francisco firefighters couldn`t stand being on the sidelines while the big rescue operation was under way in New York.

So during the weekend, a crew -- mostly from Station House No. 1 on Howard Street -- bought themselves airline tickets and jetted across the country Monday to take part in the effort.

After a quick meal with their counterparts from Station No. 1 in New York, they were dispatched right to the scene and put to work.

``Last night, they were up until 3 a.m. digging and searching -- on top of the pile and three stories below the pile,`` said Suzanne Gregg, girlfriend of one of the firefighters yesterday.

Meanwhile, colleagues in the Fire Department are covering their shifts back home.

By the way, the San Francisco firefighters union Local 798 has collected more than $30,000 for the families of the fallen firefighters in New York. Those interested in contributing can call (415) 621-7103.

Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. They can also be heard on KGO Radio on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Phil Matier can be seen regularly on KRON-TV. Got a tip? Call them at

September 21, 2001 atimes.com

India risks mistaking terror for civilization



By Sultan Shahin

NEW DELHI - Unmindful of a strong swell of opposition, and growing Hindu-Muslim tension, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government is continuing with its efforts to muscle into the United States war effort as a frontline state.

Even though no military plans have been firmed up by the US for retaliatory strikes, and Washington has not yet indicated whether it wants to use the offer of Indian military facilities, India has identified three air bases, one each in the states of Jammu and Kashmir (Avantipur), Punjab (Adampur) and Gujarat (Jamnagar), in addition to unspecified port facilities on the western seaboard, as a part of its offer for operational support to the US.

India`s largest circulated newspaper, The Times of India, quoted a security official as saying that the offer had been conveyed to the US after it was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) last week. The CCS approval came after consultations with the three service chiefs who unanimously agreed on the need to support the US action. According to the official, ``The chiefs felt that the Americans have joined our war against terrorism and we must naturally be the first to offer them help.`` He said that Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh`s articulation of the government stand was motivated by a desire to ensure that Pakistan does not gain through an Indian default.

The paper further quoted the official as saying that India had already begun the ``operational cooperation`` by providing US officials with the intelligence they have on Afghan camps and the Taliban. Over the years, India`s external security agency Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) has gathered a wealth of detail on the nature of the Pakistani military assistance to the Taliban. The official emphasized that the US has not yet indicated whether it wants to use the offer of military facilities. But he explained the rationale behind the offer in the following words, ``We have detailed our specific offer, which can then be factored into their planning.``

According to the paper, military officials say that their understanding is that the Indian ports could be used for unloading Diego Garcia and Guam-based marine pre-positioning ships. They are loaded with ready-to-use equipment for the marine forces that will fly in from their stations in the US. They could also be used for ``turning around`` or replenishing ships that are involved in the operations. According to the official, Indian air bases could be used by the US to provide depth to their deployment.

In its bid to curry favor with the US, the Indian government has been making other efforts too. It celebrated September 18 as a day of solidarity against terrorism and placed full-page advertisements in most mainstream newspapers expressing its cooperation with the US and asking people to observe two minutes of silence. The advertisement quoted Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee as saying, ``Every Indian has to be a part of this global war on terrorism. We must and we will stamp out this evil from our land and from the world.``

But what has jarred on some people`s minds and attracted much criticism, as reflected in the letters to the editor columns of most newspapers, is the fact that the advertisement appeared to associate terrorism with Muslims, even though most of the terrorism India faces in the northeast or the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, for instance, is from Hindu militants.

Meanwhile, Delhi police have been put on high alert in view of possible communal Hindu-Muslim tension in the city if the US attacks the Taliban. Authorities fear that the minority community across the country may be targeted after the attacks in the US last week. Officials down the ranks have also been sensitized to maintain communal harmony, authorities pointed out.

This situation has arisen largely because both Hindu and Muslim hardliners have taken stands along religious divides. The parent organization of the ruling BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), for instance, has pledged its solidarity to the US in its fight against what it described as ``Islamic terrorism``. Criticizing the US for its double standards, however, it regretted that ``while the US has set its own agenda of revenge against terrorist attacks, countries like India, facing terrorism for long, have to keep counting their dead, and hold peace talks too. No Indian leader had ever said that they would avenge the killings of innocent people by Pakistan terrorists,`` the RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya said in its latest issue.

Incidentally, this seems to support the Pakistani charge that India held the recent peace talks with Pakistan in Agra under American pressure.

Muslim extremist leaders are no less incendiary. ``Any attack on the innocent people of Afghanistan will be treated as an attack on the entire Muslim world,`` said the imam (prayer-leader) of a major Delhi mosque, Syed Abdullah Bukhari. Describing the US as a ``super-terrorist``, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) opposed any American attack on Afghanistan without clear evidence of its involvement in crime, saying ``such an action will be an act of terrorism``. Stating that SIMI was against all forms of terrorism, including the recent attacks in Washington and New York, SIMI official Safdar Nagori said, ``An independent and unbiased body should be instituted to investigate who is responsible for the terrorist attacks on America. No individual or nation should be held responsible without proof.`` Similar sentiments have been expressed by several other Islamic scholars.

Thus the battle lines are drawn along communal lines. But what is worrying observers is the attempt to resurrect the Ayodhya issue by the Sangh Pariwar (the extended Hindu fundamentalist family led by the RSS, the BJP and the VHP - Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Congress). Ayodhya is the name of the town in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where the Sangh Pariwar, led by the present Home Minister, L K Advani, demolished the Babri mosque in 1992 and which is now making an attempt to erect a Hindu temple on the exact site, even though the dispute is yet to be decided by the courts.

In an editorial expressing great apprehensions on this score, north India`s largest-circulated newspaper, the Hindustan Times, commented on September 19, ``The Sangh Parivar could not have chosen a more inauspicious time to resurrect their favorite cause. But what can they do? They seem psychologically incapable of thinking beyond the temple which they want to build in Ayodhya, at any cost, and come what may. In a perverse sense, they resemble the one-dimensional Taliban across the Khyber Pass. Like those bigoted warriors of Afghanistan, our trishul [a three-pointed weapon]-wielding Bajrangis, too, have their gaze focused on the mythical past, and a warped one at that.

``For them, the beginning and end of geography and history are marked only on three points on the Hindutva map: Ayodhya, Varanasi and Mathura [all towns in Uttar Pradesh with disputed mosque sites]. The world, and especially our subcontinent, can be pushed into a devastating war in the days to come, but the VHP remains oblivious of all that. Only Ayodhya remains its magnificent obsession. Obviously, the UP election is the reason for the Parivar`s frenzied behavior ... Ayodhya is the ultimate card to influence the voters in Uttar Pradesh. Add to this the prime minister`s declaration that the Ayodhya issue will be resolved by March, and the theater of the absurd in these times of terrorism and war becomes starker than ever.``

While the ruling party`s desperate need to do well in the impending elections in the state of UP does explain some of frenzy in the Sangh Pariwar, it doesn`t provide the full explanation. The desperation of the government seeking to force its way into the US war effort against ``Islamic`` terrorism and its party colleagues outside the government choosing this precise moment in seeking to start a divisive communal campaign within the country becomes more comprehensible viewed in the context of the firm belief of the Sangh Pariwar in Samuel P Huntington`s theory of the clash of civilizations. Perhaps the reason why it is facing difficulties in joining hands with the US is that Washington has not yet embraced this dangerous theory.

In an editorial entitled ``Clashing faultlines`` (September 19), the Pioneer newspaper, which best reflects the government and Sangh Pariwar thinking on most issues, says, ``The rules of confrontationist engagement have, after Terror Tuesday, altered sharply in the arena of geo-politics. They have brought into sharp focus how the world is being inexorably pushed towards the sharpest ever polarization between peoples of different beliefs and cultural practices.The scenario being etched across the world painfully reminds one of Samuel P Huntington`s 1996 thesis, outlined in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the remaking of the World Order. Huntington wrote how, in the post-Cold War era, Francis Fukuyama`s `end of history` thesis, wherein the latter spoke about the `universalization of Western liberal democracy`, would not hold. People would not, said Huntington, group along their political or economic identities, but along cultural lines, with greater emphasis on ethnic identities. The real conflicts of the future, he held, would result along the `faultlines` emerging from the confrontation among different civilizations dividing the world into various civilizational blocks. He believed that the primary conflict would be between the Sinic (Greater Chinese)-Islamic civilizations and Western civilization.

``At a seminar at Delhi University during his visit to India some years ago, Huntington aired the view that in such a conflict, India would have to choose sides, adding that he personally believed India`s rational choice would be to go with the West. Huntington has been pilloried by scholars and intellectuals from across the globe for his `simplistic` and `reductionist` polemics. But Terror Tuesday may finally have given the lie to his detractors.

``As events unfold in the near future, there will be an urgent need for countries to align with those against, and those with, the forces of global terrorism. That the scope of such terrorism transcends national boundaries or even nationalist affiliations is abundantly clear. After all, most of those who carried out Tuesday`s strikes were either American citizens or had lived in America, presumably long enough to have developed commonality with the American way of life. Yet, that was not strong enough to wear their commitment away from the civilizational affiliation they felt for far-away Osama bin Laden and his Al`Quaida, a multinational terrorist network. The expediency of the moment may have forced states like Pakistan to `play ball`, as it were, to George W Bush`s demands, but once the heat and dust settles down on the situation, the fault lines that separate civilizations will be clearly drawn. It is then when India will have to make its choice, limited that it is by its civilizational uniqueness. For India, the days of non-aligned geo-political engagement are truly over,`` the Pioneer editorial concluded.

Fortunately in India sensible people abound. Well-known social activists and spiritual leaders Swami Agnivesh and Reverent Valson Thampu, for instance, counter this thesis forcefully in an article carried by south India`s largest-circulated newspaper, The Hindu. ``The Huntington hypothesis emerges as a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. It is this very synergy between the emerging scenario and the US foreign policy predilections reflected in the Huntington hypothesis that makes us worry. But for Huntington`s patently fanciful and wilfully mischievous thesis, the US administration`s swagger of rooting out terrorism worldwide need not have evoked the intuitions of an impending holocaust.

``It is incredible and scary how facilely the so-called intellectuals see the present situation in terms of a civilization conflict between Islam and Christianity. Among other things, this outlook thrives on the idiocy of equating the madness of some terrorists with Islam. Even more objectionably, it equates American interests with Christianity, whereas the two are utterly incompatible. What is unfolding itself is not a civilizational conflict, but an uncivilized and anti-civilizational conflict between two dominant but unequal interest groups into the maelstrom of which the rest of the world is being dragged as partisan players. President Bush projects the war against terrorism as a war in defense of democracy.``

The two spiritual leaders of Hinduism and Christianity conclude on a sobering note, ``The growing cynicism about dialogue is complemented by the rising faith in terror. This, more than anything else, encapsulates our civilizational crudity. In real terms, the reigning creed at all levels is simply `might is right`. We shall ridicule ourselves by mistaking this clash of terrors for a clash of civilizations.``

Very interesting article at:

http://in.news.yahoo.com/010920/6/154jc.html

Ras

Very interesting article at:

http://in.news.yahoo.com/010920/6/154jc.html

Ras

Akash

There is only one negotiated settlement. Pakistan must immeidately vacate Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Pakistan must pay India a few billion dollars and surrender either Lahore or Islamabad for the crime of selling part of Kashmir to their Chinese masters. Also Pakistani army must disarmed and all officers tried for crime against humanity for their role in murdering 70000 innocent Kashmiris.

There is no other negotiated settlement.

Hobbyty

``. Perhaps a negotiated settlement in Captive Kashmir should be given serious consideration in India.

``

Okay, what kind of negotiated settlement are you talking about. Let me suggest you mine. India will forego any claims on PoK, stop any anti-Paki activity, and accept LoC as the permanent border. Kashmiris can fulfil their ambitions of self rule under the secular democratic system of India an Indians in other parts do. Are you game. If you start BS again,then all the best.

monasaehgal

YOur understanding of hobbyty is right. He mixes his hatred of India and Hindus with interesting liberal postings from islamic scholars and even Pakistani press to to score points. His hope is to establish his credentials by using these liberal posts to then say and spread his hatred.

He targets some specific groups on Chowk. Young Pakistani impressionables whom he tries to teach his brand of fundamentalism. Specially Indian muslims who he tries to trap by selling his `islam` and hatred of India in one basket. Most Indians are too smart to fall for him.

If anyone wants to understand what hobbyty is really saying they should read *all * his posts and they will notice is a clear pattern which is not about religion but about hatred. He is a snake oil salesman who can train people like urstrly.