As the fallout of the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai leads to the inevitable war-mongering and baying for Pak blood from the hardliners, (and of course from 98% of the commenters on rediff.com) it would do us no harm to take a deep breath and act rationally- something that actually seems counter-intuitive right now.
There are two major gung-ho schools of thought drawing 'inspiration' from our new partners in the war on terror ie. the US and Israel.
DANGEROUS ARGUMENT No.1: We need to emulate the US' (supposed) hardline response to 9-11.
Answer: Absolutely not! The US has been drawn into two wars that it is losing, an economic quagmire and global isolation. Sure, it has prevented attacks on its own soil but at the cost of countless lives in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as losing moral authority with Guantanamo et al.
Prof Juan Cole has a great piece on his blog, exhorting us not to go down that path:
"Most Indian observers, however, were critical in 2001 (and after) of how exactly the Bush administration (i.e. Dick Cheney) responded to September 11. They were right, and they would do well to remember their own critique at this fateful moment" ... FULL ARTICLE
DANGEROUS ARGUMENT No.2: We need to become a 'hard state' like Israel where every citizen is a commando and which (supposedly) crushes terror.
Answer: What has it got them? The Jewish state is no safer than it was in the last 60 years and in fact risks nuclear annihilation from the likes of Iran and possibly even Pakistan.
And would you believe it, one of their most hardline, right-wing political icons, Ehud Olmert has done a stunning U-turn on his way out as Israeli Prime Minister and admitted that there is no military solution to the Middle-East crisis.
“We could contend with any of our enemies or against all our enemies combined and win,” Olmert said. “The question that I ask myself is, what happens when we win? First of all, we’d have to pay a painful price. And after we paid the price, what would we say to them? ‘Let’s talk.’ ” ... FULL ARTICLE
So should we line-up troops on the borders once again like the last time around or think about this with some amount of pragmatism? Heck, maybe even re-open the 'debate' started a few months ago by the nation's top columnists (links to both pieces at PressTalk) on 'gasp' considering a trifurcation of J&K and thus finding a real solution to the Kashmir issue.
absolutely abhi, most people are coming from some sort of supposed rational and asumably corporate style strategy . The thing is we have marginalized so many people based first on caste and religion, and increasingly on the basis of money and "class", there are bound to be mosters created. Of course not all mrginalised people become terrorists. If we hate, we are doing no better than the terrorists, their acts are converting us into the hate mongers they became due to perceived and real acts of hatred towards them. The world will get more polarized, everone hating the other, until eventually we become them and in that they will succeed. And all this in a country that boasts of faith in God, Spirituality and divine intervention. Of course we must take active steps to protect, but hatred and suspicion of every muslim and paksitani etc is not the solution.
ReplyDeleteAbhi,
ReplyDeleteDon't agree with you mate. I dont care about global isolation, security of citizens should be first criteria. For all the recession talks, US is still a wonderful place to live in.
Plus, I am disgusted that all people are talking about is how to prevent such attacks in future, which I agree is the top priority. But what about punitive action for this bloody act. Every single individual who was involved needs to be traced and killed without mercy. And if locals are involved, the punishment has to be severe. Something we have never seen in the past
Well said and thanks, cause it's really tough to 'keep your head when all about you are losing theirs'(without the blaming it on you part)
ReplyDeleteThe real issue of course is figuring out how to eliminate the causes for terrorism- an issue that's that's probably too large for people to have the time and energy for at this point in history.
So, focusing on the task of just keeping folks alive- one of the things that struck me is the need for some centralised intelligence, which seems lacking given that a coast guard officer being shot off the coast of Gujarat did not trigger any sort of heightened security along the coast.
Oh, and any opinions on politician-bashing?
@Anuj
ReplyDeleteI don't see the disagreement ... Nowhere do I say that punitive acts aren't crucial. All I am saying is that we must not confuse punishing the guilty with waging full-scale war on other nations like the US and Israel did (and kashmir for all practical purposes is a war).
Our Netas will use our emotions to build a case for war on a COUNTRY when, as you're correctly saying, INDIVIDUALS need to be punished.
I agree that we shouldn't go in for a war but instead find a solution to the root of the problem which in this case is Kashmir. it's been going on for the last 60 years. considering the time, money and most importantly the number of lives lost as a result of this single issue we need to find a solution soon.
ReplyDelete