Natwar Singh is the victim of a report that may be unreliable
WE LOVE ourselves to distraction when a foreigner, especially if he is white and preferably rich, praises us. We hate ourselves with equal vehemence if a similarly endowed foreigner criticises us. Ever since the West started saying that India is the emerging superpower (they actually mean emerging supermarket, but we do not notice or care) we have been preening. Yet when the UN independent inquiry committee headed by Paul Volcker mentioned K. Natwar Singh twice in the tables of his more than 1,500-page report, our collective pride got hurt -- though this did not seem to have happened to the Russians or the French, who have been mentioned liberally in the report. Considering that the central cabinet has a minister with criminal charges against him, Natwar's mistake, if that is what it was, was that his was an `external' misdemeanour as against Lalu's `domestic' misdemeanour.
Our politicians bayed for Natwar's blood and our media suddenly discovered new investigative skills. We went into the Great Indian Catharsis on the tube, where being in the right depended on the decibel power of the voice. At power dinners in the capital, knowledgeable persons clicked their tongues, shook their heads and whispered about dark conspiracies. We all forgot that this was India's foreign minister we were talking about. We owed him an opportunity to explain himself and we owed him a modicum of support as Indians. As we invariably always do, we praise and flatter a man when he occupies a chair but kick and stab him when his chips are down. That Natwar blew the half chances through misplaced bravado is another matter.
Paul Volcker is not exactly a favourite of the Neo-Con Cabal in Washington. In fact, the conservative right wing doubted the sincerity and the intention of the committee. By September 2004, journals like those of the Heritage Foundation were doubting his sincerity, his motives and his methods of working. They felt Volcker was not pursuing the incumbent UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and his predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, strongly enough in the inquiry into the oil for-food scandal. Many of us would recall that Boutros-Ghali had become a persona non grata with Washington because he dared to think independently of the US.
This inquiry had been initiated in March 2004 by Kofi Annan, largely at the US's insistence once they found that all their plans in Iraq, based on concocted evidence and ill-conceived assumptions, had gone hopelessly awry and Annan had to be tamed. There were no WMDs, no alQaeda and the Iraqis had not welcomed the Americans as their liberators. They also did not want democracy delivered at the end of a bayonet. It was, therefore, ironic that the US wanted this UN-led inquiry report for redemption at home after having ignored the same UN when it decided to invade Iraq. Ultimately, the prime target of the Volcker committee, Kofi Annan, withstood the inquiry and instead, Natwar Singh has landed with a soft dismissal.
Natwar's departure could lead to greater consistency in our foreign policy pronouncements as well as voting patterns at the IAEA meet later this month. It could also put some distance between India and organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which, with China and Russia as its biggest members, is shaping itself as an Asiatic Warsaw Pact arrangement against an advancing Nato. If we as a nation are unable to see the way situations are evolving in our neighbourhood then maybe Natwar alone stood on the burning deck. And it was his blunt manner and sometimes rather strong language that may have upset quite a few people.
Like his mentor, Indira Gandhi, Natwar was never popular with the Americans. His views on various international issues, including those on Russia, Iraq and Iran, have become irritants in the present context to many, both at home and abroad. But to say that this was a great CIA conspiracy designed to bring about regime modification, if not regime change, is to stretch things a bit. Even the Americans would have been surprised at the spectacular success of this elaborate conspiracy! Yet there is a marked similarity between the targets of Christopher Andrew's book, Mitrokhin Archives II, published a few months ago, and the Volcker report. This may be a coincidence. But what if it is not?
There are quite a few unanswered questions in the entire episode. The mere listing of names in a table is not enough unless a notice has been sent and a reply obtained. Natwar Singh says he never got this. We need to know what kind of records the Iraqi government handed over to the American occupying forces which were, in turn, handed over to the Volcker Committee after these were vetted by Ernst and Young, an American company. We need to know the authenticity and the circumstances under which Natwar Singh's name appears in the two tables. One should not forget the absolute unreliability of persons like Ahmed Chalabi, now the US oil point man in Baghdad, as also of the Niger documents that formed a major basis to launch a futile and brutal war in Iraq, which has killed 30,000 Iraqis so far, with things only getting worse for the US. At the end of the day, the question that must be answered is how independent and reliable was the evidence with the Volcker Committee, on the basis of which it drew its conclusions.
So while we quarrel among ourselves in our Tower of Babel, and think only of the next election, the Chinese, taking a much longer view of things, have asked the Russians to build an oil pipeline to China. Not only this, China will also invest US $ 180 billion to increase use of renewable energy in the next 15 years. Or look at how the Argentinians stood up for their own interests. The Americans offered them a trade agreement during Bush's just concluded visit, which the Argentinians found unfair and refused. They did not bother about how they would look when they refused or whether their guest would be annoyed. This was because they knew that their guest, too, did not care if his host got upset. Bush ultimately left in a sulk.
We simply cannot get our priorities right. We chase the largely unimportant and forget the hugely important. We treat our own shabbily but expect others to treat us like kings. We are like this only.
Source : The Hindustan Times, November 10, 2005
WE LOVE ourselves to distraction when a foreigner, especially if he is white and preferably rich, praises us. We hate ourselves with equal vehemence if a similarly endowed foreigner criticises us. Ever since the West started saying that India is the emerging superpower (they actually mean emerging supermarket, but we do not notice or care) we have been preening. Yet when the UN independent inquiry committee headed by Paul Volcker mentioned K. Natwar Singh twice in the tables of his more than 1,500-page report, our collective pride got hurt -- though this did not seem to have happened to the Russians or the French, who have been mentioned liberally in the report. Considering that the central cabinet has a minister with criminal charges against him, Natwar's mistake, if that is what it was, was that his was an `external' misdemeanour as against Lalu's `domestic' misdemeanour.
Our politicians bayed for Natwar's blood and our media suddenly discovered new investigative skills. We went into the Great Indian Catharsis on the tube, where being in the right depended on the decibel power of the voice. At power dinners in the capital, knowledgeable persons clicked their tongues, shook their heads and whispered about dark conspiracies. We all forgot that this was India's foreign minister we were talking about. We owed him an opportunity to explain himself and we owed him a modicum of support as Indians. As we invariably always do, we praise and flatter a man when he occupies a chair but kick and stab him when his chips are down. That Natwar blew the half chances through misplaced bravado is another matter.
Paul Volcker is not exactly a favourite of the Neo-Con Cabal in Washington. In fact, the conservative right wing doubted the sincerity and the intention of the committee. By September 2004, journals like those of the Heritage Foundation were doubting his sincerity, his motives and his methods of working. They felt Volcker was not pursuing the incumbent UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and his predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, strongly enough in the inquiry into the oil for-food scandal. Many of us would recall that Boutros-Ghali had become a persona non grata with Washington because he dared to think independently of the US.
This inquiry had been initiated in March 2004 by Kofi Annan, largely at the US's insistence once they found that all their plans in Iraq, based on concocted evidence and ill-conceived assumptions, had gone hopelessly awry and Annan had to be tamed. There were no WMDs, no alQaeda and the Iraqis had not welcomed the Americans as their liberators. They also did not want democracy delivered at the end of a bayonet. It was, therefore, ironic that the US wanted this UN-led inquiry report for redemption at home after having ignored the same UN when it decided to invade Iraq. Ultimately, the prime target of the Volcker committee, Kofi Annan, withstood the inquiry and instead, Natwar Singh has landed with a soft dismissal.
Natwar's departure could lead to greater consistency in our foreign policy pronouncements as well as voting patterns at the IAEA meet later this month. It could also put some distance between India and organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which, with China and Russia as its biggest members, is shaping itself as an Asiatic Warsaw Pact arrangement against an advancing Nato. If we as a nation are unable to see the way situations are evolving in our neighbourhood then maybe Natwar alone stood on the burning deck. And it was his blunt manner and sometimes rather strong language that may have upset quite a few people.
Like his mentor, Indira Gandhi, Natwar was never popular with the Americans. His views on various international issues, including those on Russia, Iraq and Iran, have become irritants in the present context to many, both at home and abroad. But to say that this was a great CIA conspiracy designed to bring about regime modification, if not regime change, is to stretch things a bit. Even the Americans would have been surprised at the spectacular success of this elaborate conspiracy! Yet there is a marked similarity between the targets of Christopher Andrew's book, Mitrokhin Archives II, published a few months ago, and the Volcker report. This may be a coincidence. But what if it is not?
There are quite a few unanswered questions in the entire episode. The mere listing of names in a table is not enough unless a notice has been sent and a reply obtained. Natwar Singh says he never got this. We need to know what kind of records the Iraqi government handed over to the American occupying forces which were, in turn, handed over to the Volcker Committee after these were vetted by Ernst and Young, an American company. We need to know the authenticity and the circumstances under which Natwar Singh's name appears in the two tables. One should not forget the absolute unreliability of persons like Ahmed Chalabi, now the US oil point man in Baghdad, as also of the Niger documents that formed a major basis to launch a futile and brutal war in Iraq, which has killed 30,000 Iraqis so far, with things only getting worse for the US. At the end of the day, the question that must be answered is how independent and reliable was the evidence with the Volcker Committee, on the basis of which it drew its conclusions.
So while we quarrel among ourselves in our Tower of Babel, and think only of the next election, the Chinese, taking a much longer view of things, have asked the Russians to build an oil pipeline to China. Not only this, China will also invest US $ 180 billion to increase use of renewable energy in the next 15 years. Or look at how the Argentinians stood up for their own interests. The Americans offered them a trade agreement during Bush's just concluded visit, which the Argentinians found unfair and refused. They did not bother about how they would look when they refused or whether their guest would be annoyed. This was because they knew that their guest, too, did not care if his host got upset. Bush ultimately left in a sulk.
We simply cannot get our priorities right. We chase the largely unimportant and forget the hugely important. We treat our own shabbily but expect others to treat us like kings. We are like this only.
Source : The Hindustan Times, November 10, 2005
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