Terrorists innovate, but Govt response is unchanged

THE terror attack in Delhi on Saturday was the 14th such incident — among both big and small – since April 1999 ( about the time Kargil was taking place). It was also the 12th attack on a major urban civilian target since the Mumbai train blasts on July 11, 2006. Other bomb attacks have taken place in Mumbai, Malegaon, the Samjhauta Express, Hyderabad ( twice), Ajmer Sharif, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Varanasi, Faizabad, Jaipur, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad. In the last three years more than 600 persons have been killed in various terrorist attacks.

Democracies are supposed to react to terrorism with determination and sensitivity. In India, however, each terrorist act brings forth the same tired clichés, the same repetitive promises and compensations, the same gory pictures on front pages, the same breathless TV channel reporting in shrill horror, the same allegations of intelligence failure in a trial- bycamera.

Yet nothing is done to strengthen intelligence, the counterterrorist mechanisms or to enhance the quality of the police force. There is no apparent determination to take this battle to the enemy.

Vote-banks

Each time there is an incident we are that much closer to what the terrorists want to achieve — fissures in the Indian community. And today, terrorism in India, thanks to our soft policies, is more or less on autopilot. Terrorism is about murder, not about any great cause or freedom struggle. But for years our leaders have played the Muslim card in vote bank politics, whether it was the Shah Bano case or the Babri Masjid issue. Even in our dealings with Pakistan we have let this feeling creep into our sub- conscious.

We have not realised that the Indian Muslim does not want to be linked with Pakistan in that manner.

All he wants is his place in the sun and not promised quotas at election time.

The terrorists have learnt this game and now it is play back time for them just a few months before elections.

What has happened in Delhi or in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and other cities before is not mindless violence.

It has been carefully planned, executed to perfection and almost at will. They either want to terrorise and get the majority to react or to drive away prospective investors.

Some of the messages that the terrorists have been mailing are distinctly Islamic in character and are thus more inspired by the Al Qaeda mindset than with ethnic or regional aspirations. Of course seeds for all this were sown all these years in the nursery of terrorism — in Pakistan.

Pakistan

Years ago the ISI would have started placing “ sleepers” in India as saboteurs and talent- spotters for new recruits. Many of the Pak- sponsored terrorist groups like the Lashkar- e - Tayyaba and Harkat ul Jehadi ( Bangladesh) are signatories to Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front. HUJI’s contacts with the ISI are well known and so also the fact that Bangladesh has been the conduit for arms and terrorists operating in India. HUJI volunteers have been trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There have been reports indicating linkages between SIMI, HUJI, LeT and ISI and this could be a reworking of the Afghan Jehad in another place and another time. The Indian Mujahedeen could be a surrogate for any one of these organisations but nothing can be said until the identity of the leadership is established.

Unfortunately, we gave this battle away to glib talk by agreeing that Pakistan too was a victim of terrorism.

We did not point out that Pakistan was a victim of its own terrorism.

The truth is that we have misread Pakistan’s leaders. They need India as an enemy for their survival and Kashmir is the excuse not the cause. Even if Kashmir were solved to Pakistan’s “ satisfaction” they would invent other causes for continued animus. Make no mistake; Kashmir is important for its water that irrigates the Punjab. The will of the people is not important either in Kashmir or Pakistan.

The questions are why is it that we let it happen again and again and can we not do anything to win this war against an unscrupulous and invisible enemy? Why do we give the impression of being soft and confused? There is no short cut to improving the intelligence and security apparatus of the country. Spare no cost and accept no compromises on this. If the country has a well- endowed and trained intelligence apparatus acting without political interference ( as distinct from accountability) it could provide preemptive intelligence that could abort terrorist acts and lead to arrests. It would also prevent indiscriminate arrests and all that follows. We could learn from the Americans — not completely but suitably — they tightened their laws to the extent that they were draconian, spent billions of dollars and improved intelligence collection and surveillance, making them intrusive, and outsourced certain aspects of the work to maximise use of talent.

Policing

This would not be enough. The state apparatus up to the thana level have to be similarly educated and strengthened and placed on the same grid as the national agencies. We need a rapid action force located in the states to follow intelligence trails. We need political will to sustain this campaign over years and changes in governments.

Above all, we need a lot of luck because there is no certified method of spotting a would- be terrorist.

Nearly three years ago in an article, I wrote: “ Many in India are given to wishful thinking that peace between India and Pakistan is possible and .... that this would lead to an end to terrorism in India. It will not, given the mindset that prevails in Rawalpindi and Islamabad along with the madrassa culture which collectively dreams of a destabilised, if not balkanised, India. If Pak- inspired terrorism in India were to come to an end where would all these jehadis be sent? To the rest of India, perhaps? Or to Afghanistan, Central Asia or even further into Europe? Keeping them in Pakistan would be suicidal for the Pakistani establishment. Islamic radicals and terrorists may not have yet developed a replica of the Comintern but they do seem to have a Jehad’s Rapid Deployment Force as a counter to Centcom.” And so it came to pass.

The war is long, arduous and also ruthless. It is a war we cannot afford to lose. Ultimately there is no real choice between security and liberty — for a people to have the second they must have the first.

Source : Mail Today, 18 September 2008

Georgia Lessons : Do not fight for others

Normally there would be very little reason for Indians to lose sleep over events in Georgia other than the knowledge that Georgians won three gold medals at the recently-concluded Beijing Olympics. But there have been other reasons that Georgia has been making the headlines in Russia, Europe and, sporadically, in the United States. Important lessons in statecraft flow from this.

Things had been brewing in the Caucasus for some time as the Americans played their game of encircling Russia. A regional summit of Guam (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) was held in Batumi, Georgia, in July 2008. Guam is ostensibly an organisation for democracy and economic development, but in reality it is a military agreement and a de facto appendage of Nato to be used to extend its zone of influence into the Russian heartland. A US-Guam summit was also held on the sidelines, with Poland participating.

While the world awaited inauguration of the Beijing Olympics, the Georgians, following Washington-injected adrenalin, pushed their troops into South Ossetia, a region within Georgia that has been demanding independence and merger with North Ossetia in Russia. This happened a week after extensive US-Georgia wargames.

The Russians reacted the only way they could — with speed and force. The message for the outside world was that the Russians would do anything to protect their national interest and global opinion was not going to deter them. Lesson one: If a state wants to be recognised as a regional/global power, it must be willing and able to do what it must in national interest in its neighbourhood.

Georgia was not a helpless little country trying to defend itself against the giant next door as has been reported in the Indian press, drawing its information from Western mainstream media. In reality, Georgia was provoking Russia through a mixture of effective media management and Western sympathy. When the Russians reacted with force, there was very little the Americans could do except shake their heads, wring their hands and ask the European Union to join them in admonishing the Russians. Neither the Americans nor Nato was about to go to war with Russia on behalf of Georgia, and certainly not after Iraq and Afghanistan. They had encouraged Georgian adventurism, but had not anticipated Russian reaction. Lesson two: Adventurism, at the behest of distant powers against the local power, can be suicidal.

The third lesson is for the Americans. Intent on creating American clones in Russia's periphery, they systematically induced various colour revolutions in what was once Soviet territory. The Georgians were promised democracy as a solution to all their problems and as redemption from all their socialist sins. After some initial upheavals, Washington grafted an American citizen, Mikheil Saakashvili, as Georgia's President. They equipped the Georgian armed forces, Nato trained their men and the US pushed for Nato membership for Georgia, alarming the Russians.

In the 1990s, the Russians had watched helplessly after they dismantled the Warsaw Pact only to find Nato extending its eastern frontiers and the energy giants moving in as Boris Yeltsin and his groupies sold off national assets on the cheap. This was till Vladimir Putin arrived on the scene to reclaim history and geography. Obviously, there are limitations to power and Russia is not yet a write-off. Lesson three, therefore, is: Do not meddle around and do not promise if you cannot deliver. Finally, a lesson for all those involved in realpolitik.

Mr Saakashvili had led an effective media campaign personally and, in the initial days, the Georgians were portrayed by western TV and press as the innocent victims of Russian bullying. There were no takers for the Russian narrative of events. There is no Russian version of the BBC or CNN; nor, for that matter, is there an Indian version. The Russians accused CNN of telecasting footage of Georgian attacks in South Ossetia as Russian attacks in Georgia.

So, if you want to assert yourself, make sure the media is on your side; make sure your voice is heard far and wide and initial imagery is vital too. Soft power is as important as hard power. The question one might ask is why EU, Nato and the US are so keen about a tiny little Republic tucked away in the Caucasian mountains, between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, whose unnatural borders had been created by another Georgian, Joseph Dzhughasvilli, better known as Stalin. The real issue is not democracy or human rights. The real issue is pinning Russia down and freeing energy resources from Russian control.

The conflict in Georgia is not about its resources (it has few) but about its geographical location. The struggle is for control of energy and transport corridors from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia to bypass Russia and thus reduce Western dependency on Russia. The gas and oil pipelines from the Caspian and Central Asia have to go through the Caucasus to reach Europe if consumers want to avoid crossing either Russia or Iran.

The Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline, from Azerbaijan on the Caspian coast to the Eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey, has been an expensive and a controversial project that was completed in 2006 and has been disrupted by Kurdish separatists. The Russian response has exposed Georgia's vulnerability and more pipelines through Georgia are unlikely. With winter around the corner, a West Europe that is dependent on Russian gas supplies would want a quick settlement of the dispute. Georgia could thus be the choke point.

Meanwhile, Turkmenistan, on the eastern coast of the Caspian, has offered more gas to China (40 billion cubic metres per year, instead of 30 bcm) through another pipeline. The Kazakhs are constructing a pipeline all the way from the Caspian Sea into China. The pipes, when completed, will stretch more than 7,000 km from Turkmenistan, cross Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and enter China's Xinjiang province. The Russians plan to hold a conference of gas exporters in November, possibly to discuss the creation of a gas charter similar to Opec. Gas and oil, instead of flowing westward through routes the West wants, could end up flowing eastward. It could be a long hard winter and a Cold War, Version 2, in George W. Bush's fading months and Dmitry Medvedev's early days.

Source : Deccan Chronicle , 5th September 2008