[Reader-list] Chomsky acknowledges 'Kashmiri Terrorism'

Wed Apr 27 15:12:27 IST 2011

'Rigging' anywhere, is a blot on democracy & can not be condoned. All democratic means must be used to seek redressal. But in case of Kashmir,principal argument in favour of  the unleashing of anti India jihad remains  alleged  ballot- rigging & it  goes unchallenged.Otherwise, how is it that terror commanders who deserve to be tried for crimes against humanity are roaming free & practicing now politics?
America's Mobilisation of  'mujahidin' against Soviets in Afghanistan has lead to the jihadists today posing threat to the whole world,Iraq has only seen death & destruction since American intervention there,Libya may soon become Yugoslavia,wonder if Chomsky's urge to see America playing the Global Policeman's role  in "the resolution of conflict in South Asia" deserves attention.RgdsLA------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:21:40 +0530
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Chomsky acknowledges 'Kashmiri Terrorism'
From: c.anupam at gmail.com
To: lalitambardar at hotmail.com; reader-list at sarai.net

Allegations of electoral malpractices are serious especially in context of Kashmir, North East, or any conflict prone area. I guess Chomsky was speaking about the Americans trying to skirt the issue of Kashmir, "which is central to the resolution of

conflict in South Asia". I am not sure by citing electoral malpractices, one would try to justify acts of violence which has been labelled as Pan Islamist Inspired terrorism. Allegations of electoral malpractices shows a country having a democratically elected government in the poor light. It cannot by any means, logically be used to justify extremism of any kind.

Thanks 

On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 11:38 AM, Lalit Ambardar <lalitambardar at hotmail.com> wrote:

If allegations of electoral malpractices justify unleashing of pan Islamism inspired terrorism in Kashmir that saw ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits at its advent then most of India & the rest of democratic world should be in perpetual state of civil war.
Rgds allLA-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 14:22:00 +0530
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Chomsky acknowledges 'Kashmiri Terrorism'
From: c.anupam at gmail.com

To: lalitambardar at hotmail.com; reader-list at sarai.net

Thanks for this illuminating piece. Surprisingly, Chomsky is also saying:  “India has a very ugly record in Kashmir – horrible atrocities, fraudulent elections, most militarised place in the world. You can’t just ignore it,” he says.

I couldn't ignore this one.  

On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 1:37 PM, Lalit Ambardar <lalitambardar at hotmail.com> wrote:

Chomsky’s admission

that  Pakistan  patronised Kashmiri terrorist groups &

India centric terrorism should come as a disappointment to the ‘peace loving’

azadi mongers in Kashmir who lamented at a conference in Srinagar this week

that they don’t have a ‘CHOMSKI in India’ (...to supplement Arundhati Roy &

co’s endeavour to propagate their pan Islamic agenda…????...).

May be it is also time

for the protagonists of the macabre drama of death & destruction being played

in the streets of Kashmir at the behest of their Pakistani masters for the past

two decades to acknowledge their role……

Rgds all

LA

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE

WITH THE International Herald Tribune

The unflattering perspective -

Part I: ‘The US does not care about Pakistan’

By Rabia Mehmood

Published: April 19,

2011

NEW YORK:

Professor Noam

Chomsky sits on the eighth floor of the quirky-looking Stata Center of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, US.

Former head of the linguistics department, the author and intellectual now

serves as Professor Emeritus at the university.

The man is known

worldwide for his incredibly popular and polarising criticism of American

foreign policy.

“The US doesn’t care about Pakistan,

just like the Reagan administration didn’t care about either Afghanistan or Pakistan,”

says Chomski, when asked how he sees the relationship between Pakistan and the US. “They supported Zia, the worst

dictator in Pakistan’s

history, and pretended they didn’t know that Pakistan was developing nuclear

weapons. So basically they supported Pakistan’s nuclear weapon programme

and radical Islamisation in their bid to defeat the Russians. And that has not

helped Pakistan.”

According to

Chomsky, the reason the Pak-US relationship hasn’t worked is because the concern

of US planners is not the welfare of Pakistan, it’s the welfare of their

own constituency. “But it’s not the people of US either, just the powerful

sectors within the US,”

he said. “If the US policy

towards Pakistan happens to

benefit Pakistan

it would be kind of accidental. Maybe it will to some extent, but that is not

the purpose.”

Chomsky believes Pakistan

has serious internal problems but says there are solutions. But, he insists,

these problems have to be solved from within instead of from outside. “These

problems have to be dealt with inside Pakistan,

and not by the US;

providing them with massive military aid, carrying out drone strikes, which

enrages the population rightly,” he says. “Drone attacks are target

assassinations and therefore a crime. Whether they are militants or not, these

people are being targeted because the US doesn’t like them. Targeted

assassination is an international crime. United Nations’ special rapporteur

Philip Alston, a very respected international lawyer, came out with a report

which simply says that it is a criminal act.”

He also supports the

1973 constitution and believes it is suitable for Pakistan. “It looks sensible on

paper. It provided a degree of autonomy within a federalised system, which

makes sense for a country like Pakistan,”

he says. “Devoting resources to education, development and not military will

help.”

Relationship with India

Speaking about Pakistan’s relationship and outlook towards India, he said that the Pakistani military has a

strategic doctrine that they have to have a military presence in Afghanistan to counter India. “That’s a losing proposition

because Pakistan cannot

compete with India

in terms of military force. Besides, the strategic position in Afghanistan

doesn’t really mean anything in case of a war,” he says. “Pakistan

has undoubtedly supported terrorist groups in Kashmir and terrorism in India,

which has made the situation worse.”

The Americans are

avoiding the Kashmir issue, he says, which is central to the resolution of

conflict in South Asia. “India has a very ugly record in Kashmir – horrible atrocities, fraudulent elections, most

militarised place in the world. You can’t just ignore it,” he says.

US-India relations

Professor Chomsky

says that it is a “joke” when US talks about giving aid for civilian nuclear

facilities in India.

“The aid for the civilian nuclear use can be easily transferred to military

use. By granting India the

right to import US nuclear

technology, it has not only allowed India

to freely develop nuclear weapons, the US has also violated the nuclear

non-proliferation treaty,” he says.

Afghan war’s future

“It is a complicated

situation but I think there is good evidence that the US military and political

structures recognise that they cannot have a military victory,” Chomsky says.

However, he says,

they [US]

can conquer whatever they like, but the Russians also won every battle in the

1980s but eventually lost the war. “The Americans are therefore trying to find

a way to extricate themselves in some fashion, that it can be presented as a

victory. They don’t want to admit they’ve lost the war, like the Russians.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 19th,

2011.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/152219/the-unflattering-perspective-part-i-the-us-does-not-care-about-pakistan/--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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