September 13th 2003 in Asia Times on line.
SPEAKING FREELY
Iraq is India’s war, not its battle
By Shubh Saumya
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The parched, eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil
Laughs without mirth
This is the death of earth.
T S Eliot resonates in Mesopotamia, whose mighty rivers now flank the valley of the shadow of death. The cradle of our civilization has become America’s desert of despair.
America’s appetite for the post-war is fast ebbing. Losing one soldier about every day and a billion dollars a week is a heavy burden. The wealthiest, mightiest nation on earth now seeks others to pitch in. It has India on its mind, among other nations.
We must be in a looking glass world if Indians are being goaded, with a straight face, to send soldiers to die in place of Americans. General John Abizaid, Commander, US Central Command, even clarifies that he doesn’t want more US troops, merely foreign troops.
Unless he bizarrely thinks that less-equipped Indians can outdo their techno-lethal US counterparts, he is brazenly asking Indians to serve as cannon fodder.
Following recent explosions in Mumbai, some in America opined that a freshly bloodied India should now see why crushing terrorism is so vital. Indian soldiers should join American GIs to create a safer Iraq, therefore a safer world.
Many Indians agree. To them, defanging terrorism in Iraq is a global imperative. Also, a partnership with America and Indian footprints in West Asia are of great strategic value.
They lobbied, unsuccessfully, to secure India’s diplomatic support for the war. Failing that, they want it to make amends by sending troops to Iraq. Some of us who joined them in support of the Iraq war consider this latter idea supreme folly. Let me explain.
As an Indian eyewitness to jihad’s temper tantrum in New York, this writer doubly understands the evil of terrorism. Nurtured by witchdoctors in mosques and dictators in palaces, terrorism’s evil rage is essentially apolitical. It’s only intent is destruction and death.
Terrorists even turn our “infidel” sense of fair play against us. Goebbelsian military dictators plead for “self-determination” across borders and suicide bombers talk up a futile “peace process” to play our naive, liberal instincts like violin strings.
Their real tune, alas, is mass murder and an imposed, self-interpreted Medievalism that amputates modernity and limbs. They seek murder, not political settlement.
This epiphany unifies the numerous battles on terror’s bloody borders and negates liberal cacophony about the so-called “root causes” of terrorist rage.
It also legitimizes the Iraq war. Like Pakistan and Palestine, Iraq professed moderation as camouflage for its extremist agenda. With Baghdad’s fall, the war was finally joined.
Inexplicably India, herself a victim of hideous terror, hid behind the UN’s tattered skirt and was reticent in extending diplomatic support to the war led by America, its natural ally. It sought to defend the faux ideal of multilateral diplomacy no matter what the cost.
Now, presumably for a few pieces of silver denied them by this blunder, some Indians want to send troops to Iraq. In geo-political chess, India cannot bring itself to abandon diplomatic snobbery but, with the UN’s consent, will apparently sacrifice the blood of its pawn soldiers. Leonard Cohen was right. The wizard of the world has indeed overturned the order of the soul.
When these Indians and their American friends exhort it to send troops to Iraq, they betray an unforgivable assumption that India is not already fighting this war. An intellectually honest person can only retch in despair.
Iraq is not the only battlefield in this war. So also are Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine, the Philippines and many others, each equally vital. Winning in Iraq at the expense of Kashmir, for example, would be winning nothing at all. Stalemate anywhere is stalemate everywhere.
America leads the Iraq battle with 150,000 soldiers in a nation of 25 million. India has an equal battle ongoing with 500,000 troops battling Pakistani terrorism against 10 million Kashmiris.
America lost 3,000 once in New York. India has lost 3,000 every year for a decade in the identical war.
Instead of being distracted in Iraq, India can best support the war by winning its proximate battle in Kashmir. Troops designated for Iraq are better unleashed against terrorists who kill and maim Indians at home. Indian victims of terror expect nothing less.
Likewise, victory in near battles of Russian troops in Chechnya, Israelis in Palestine, etc will bolster this global war of the brave and the cause of the free. As for Iraq, it is primarily America’s battle and, given sufficient political will, eventual victory is not in doubt.
If instead Washington goes soft in its responsibility to Iraq, its awesome power will be tarnished forever. Terrorists will portray American retreat, in the guise of internationalizing the Iraqi occupation, as a replay of Somalia and Lebanon. That would be catastrophic for the world.
Should India be an enabler of Washington’s strategic mind cramp that could lead us all down (in Eliot’s imagery) “rat’s alley where the dead men lost their bones” for no good reason at all?
Iraq may be India’s war, but is not its battle. Its troops are best deployed in the battle against Pakistani terrorism in Kashmir. Let India first win its slice of the global “war on terror”.
Shubh Saumya is a New York-based management consultant from India.
Washington Post
The Washington Post, another newspaper read with some care by the policymakers in the US capital was less enthusiastic about surrendering a great deal of authority to the UN and to the countries such as France and Germany that had not accepted America’s call to arms against Iraq. “Excessive concessions for the demand of those countries for UN control in Iraq could make a bad situation worse. It would be wrong, for example, to slow or reverse the assumption of authority by the Iraqi governing council or the speedy recruitment of Iraqi police and security force.”
The newspaper also advised the Bush administration not to beat a hasty retreat from Iraq. “The arrival of fresh foreign troops cannot become an excuse for US withdrawal – the forces now in Iraq will be needed for as long as there is a military threat from Iraqi guerrillas and terrorists. . . A new UN mandate might make the challenge more manageable, and success more likely – and yet this country must still prepare for a difficult, expensive and prolonged effort.”
| Vietnam demons still haunt US Army”™ | |||||
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| Washington, September 16: The US Military suffered an ”˜”˜institutional nervous breakdown”™”™ during the Vietnam War, vowing never again to get mired in a long-term fight against local insurgents, and that may have played a role in the failure to predict guerrilla attacks against US troops in Iraq, according to a US think tank. Andrew Krepinevich, an Army veteran who heads the independent think tank, Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said on Monday the US could score a major victory if it succeeded in stabilising Afghanistan and Iraq, but there would be a high price to pay if it failed. ”˜”˜If they fail, adversaries in the Islamic world will likely be encouraged to persist in their efforts to eliminate US influence, while Washington could find it increasingly difficult to act forcefully abroad to protect areas of vital interest,”™”™ he wrote. ”˜”˜The US military must reorient itself from its emphasis on conventional warfare and create a significant capability for conducting stability operations,” Krepinevich said, adding post-conflict operations in Iraq were more challenging than the war itself. ””Reuters |