India mulls preemptive strike

[renata]

The world is going straight into the crapper

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030411/wl_sthasia_afp/india_pakistan_030411095309


JODHPUR, India (AFP) - Defence Minister George Fernandes reiterated Indian warnings that Pakistan was a prime case for pre-emptive strikes.

"There are enough reasons to launch such strikes against Pakistan, but I cannot make public statements on whatever action that may be taken," Fernandes told a meeting of ex-soldiers in this northern Indian desert city on Friday.

.....

Fernandes said he endorsed Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha's recent comments that India had "a much better case to go for pre-emptive action against Pakistan than the United States has in Iraq (news - web sites)."

Sinha also argued that Pakistan was "a fit case" for US military action, because it had weapons of mass destruction and terrorists.

Fernandes also rejected Pakistani allegations that India had breached United Nations (news - web sites) Security Council resolutions from 1948 to 1957 which call for a plebiscite among Kashmiris to choose rule by India or Pakistan.

"Pakistan has a habit of lying and the issue of cross-border terrorism is a serious issue," Fernandes said.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training Muslim militants in Kashmir (news - web sites). Islamabad denies the charge but says it offers moral and political support to what it describes as Kashmiris' legitimate struggle for self-expression.

Around 38,000 people have died in Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, since the launch of the armed insurgency by Islamic guerrillas in 1989 in the Himalayan territory.

Pakistan and India both claim the scenic region, which is divided between them by a ceasefire line known as the Line of Control, with Pakistan controlling the northern part and India the south.



How many countries will use this excuse now? I think (although it is a very scary thought) that India does have as much or more of a reason to invade Pakistan than US had to invade Iraq. They do suffer cross border incursions, Pakistan does support Muslim militants that attack India, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons that might be used against Pakistan.

[clk]

You see, that's the beauty of the Bush Doctrine! Everyone can use it! It's very user friendly...
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/doctrine.html

[Supercharts]

Kashmir is historically a muslim country taken over by India.

[clk]

Originally posted by Supercharts
Kashmir is historically a muslim country taken over by India.

Wait a minute....didn't India create Pakistan in the first place?

[renata]

Originally posted by Supercharts
Kashmir is historically a muslim country taken over by India.

Is there an independent source for history of Kashmir? I admit to knowing relatively little about the history of this conflict.

[WildCat]

Originally posted by clk
You see, that's the beauty of the Bush Doctrine! Everyone can use it! It's very user friendly...
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/doctrine.html
I think the difference between US/Iraq and India/Pakistan will become apparent once the nukes star flying and the sub-continent becomes uninhabitable for a few hundred years.

[hgc]

renata:

Is there an independent source for history of Kashmir? I admit to knowing relatively little about the history of this conflict.
I have only a sketchy notion of the history:

When India (British colony) was splitting up between India (new country) and Pakistan (another new country), the various provinces decided which way they would go by various means. In Jammu and Kashmir (the full name of the province in question) the local rulers decided to go with India. Many provinces decided in this way, as opposed to plebecite.

[clk]

Originally posted by WildCat

I think the difference between US/Iraq and India/Pakistan will become apparent once the nukes star flying and the sub-continent becomes uninhabitable for a few hundred years.

I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that if Iraq had nuclear weapons, then we should not have attacked them?

[WildCat]

Originally posted by clk


I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that if Iraq had nuclear weapons, then we should not have attacked them?
Absolutely!!! Having nukes raises the ante quite a bit, doesn't it? I think India should look up the word "pre-emptive". It's a little too late if they have their sights set on Pakistan.

[Agammamon]

Wait a minute, I thought the reason that we went in was that we "knew" that Iraq had at the very least chemical and biological weapons and were well on there way to developing nuclear ones.

[WildCat]

Originally posted by Agammamon
Wait a minute, I thought the reason that we went in was that we "knew" that Iraq had at the very least chemical and biological weapons and were well on there way to developing nuclear ones.
Which is why we invaded when we did, despite pleas to give inspections a few more years. Why do you think we're not invading North Korea?
The "pre-emptive" part is most imprtant here. Once they have them its too late to do anything about them, unless you're willing to see millions die. Hasn't this all been hashed out here before?

[jj]

Originally posted by clk


Wait a minute....didn't India create Pakistan in the first place?

Unh... Who was running India at the time?

[fishbob]

Wildcat sez:The "pre-emptive" part is most imprtant here. Once they have them its too late to do anything about them, unless you're willing to see millions die. Looks like your definition of pre-emptive varies somewhat from the Indian definition. This distinction will make diddly-squat of a difference to many nations.

JODHPUR, India (AFP) - Defence Minister George Fernandes reiterated Indian warnings that Pakistan was a prime case for pre-emptive strikes.

"There are enough reasons to launch such strikes against Pakistan, but I cannot make public statements on whatever action that may be taken," Fernandes told a meeting of ex-soldiers in this northern Indian desert city on Friday.
We may be about to hear the Indian version of an old Randy Newman song:
Boom goes London, Boom Paree
More room for you, more room for me.
They don't like us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now

[clk]

Originally posted by jj


Unh... Who was running India at the time?

I'm rusty on my history, but I thought that after the British gave up India, the Indians decided to make a separate state for Muslims, so the tensions between the Hindus and Muslims would be minimized. I could be wrong, though.

[John Bryce]

India History (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0858782.html)

Kashmir History (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0859099.html)

Pakistan History (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0860200.html)

[corplinx]

Originally posted by renata
How many countries will use this excuse now?

It will just be an excuse also. Remember, we were still at war with Saddam technically. There was no preemptive strike.

What I see is countries like India doing what they were going to do already and then using the partisan grumbling from America as an excuse.

[jj]

Originally posted by corplinx


It will just be an excuse also. Remember, we were still at war with Saddam technically. There was no preemptive strike.

What I see is countries like India doing what they were going to do already and then using the partisan grumbling from America as an excuse.

Try again.

You mean "use the real, actual actions of the USA as justification".

Your attempt to dishonestly blame the people pointing out this issue for the effect puts you right into the Jedi Knight lunatic-fringe camp, matey.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by jj


Try again.

You mean "use the real, actual actions of the USA as justification".

Your attempt to dishonestly blame the people pointing out this issue for the effect puts you right into the Jedi Knight lunatic-fringe camp, matey.


Alright Mister "whatever I say abot republicans or right wingers must be true because Im a registered republican", your trying really hard to get on my ignore list tonight.

[c0rbin]

tensions between the Hindus and Muslims

G*ddamn f*cking religion.

[RichardR]

Brief history of Kashmir, according to "The Economist": (http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=S%26%2BH%3C%2CPQ%2B%2A%0 A&CFID=6675098&CFTOKEN=14d8fb6-e8fcbdf0-abfe-463a-b901-eb1e9f3910dc)

Despite Pakistan's claims, Muslim Kashmir was not fated to rebel against mainly Hindu India. It opted for India in 1947 because, 100 years before, India's British rulers sold rulership of the Muslim state to a Hindu maharajah for 7.5m rupees ($50m at current prices). When India and Pakistan were split apart, the then-maharajah tried to dodge the obligation of the 562 princely states of the Raj to join one of the two countries. An invasion by Pakistani tribesmen forced his hand: the maharajah acceded to India in return for military help. Pakistan held on to what it had conquered.

Almost everything about the accession is disputed. Did the maharajah persecute his Muslim subjects? Did the tribesmen leap spontaneously to their defence, or were they agents of Pakistan's new government? Were the British in cahoots with Jawharlal Nehru, Indian's first prime minister, to obtain accession?

These questions might not have mattered so much if India had continued the policies it started with in Kashmir. In acceding, the maharajah surrendered to India powers in just three areas: defence, foreign affairs and communications. Until 1965 the leader of the state's government was allowed to call himself prime minister. Nehru was eager to get popular ratification for the accession. It was he who brought Pakistan's invasion of Kashmir to the notice of the United Nations, which subsequently called on Pakistan to withdraw its forces in preparation for a plebiscite, which would allow Kashmiris to choose between joining India or Pakistan.

Nehru had reason to believe that India would win such a plebiscite. Kashmir's pre-eminent leader at the time was Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, a Muslim who opposed the maharajah's rule but preferred the secular socialism of Nehru's India to the Muslim ideology of Pakistan. He became Kashmir's prime minister in 1948, and could surely have swung a plebiscite India's way. It never happened, partly because the Pakistanis never withdrew and partly because Nehru, feeling that Kashmir was India's anyway, did not see why he should put accession to a vote.

In 1953, just six years after accession, Sheikh Abdullah was dismissed as prime minister and sent to jail for 11 years on ill-founded suspicions that he was consorting with Pakistan and the United States. Thus began a five-decade fall from grace, during which India progressively integrated Kashmir and alienated it at the same time. In 1957 Kashmir accepted most of the Indian constitution; in 1964 the Indian president's right to dismiss state governments was extended to Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah made his peace with integration and came back as chief minister in the 1977 elections, the state's first genuinely free ones. But in 1984 his son and successor, Farooq Abdullah, was ousted from power by Indira Gandhi, India's prime minister and Nehru's daughter.

Kashmiris thus came to associate the central government in Delhi and India's brand of democracy with the thwarting of the popular will. Anti-government groups contested the 1987 state elections under the banner of the Muslim United Front. In some areas their victories were annulled with Delhi's help, returning to power a tamed Farooq Abdullah. The cheated victors became founders of the insurrection. Succour came from Pakistan, which now looked a friendlier partner than India. Although Pakistan does not share Kashmir's culture and has fewer adherents to its Sufist version of Islam, it does profess support for self-determination.

Sumit Ganguly, who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin, has argued that the insurgency stems from democracy's success in raising popular expectations and its simultaneous failure to build institutions to meet those expectations. This points to the nub of the problem. Most Indians think their democratic constitution, applied faithfully, could provide the liberation Kashmiris seek; to most Kashmiris, that constitution is a prison.

[jj]

Originally posted by corplinx



Alright Mister "whatever I say abot republicans or right wingers must be true because Im a registered republican", your trying really hard to get on my ignore list tonight.

Since I didn't say that, you might as well ignore me. You have yet to reply to what I said, instead of something you can imagine a half-hearted riposte to.

In fact, you'd probably be better off ignoring me, you wouldn't embarrass yourself as much.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by jj


Since I didn't say that, you might as well ignore me. You have yet to reply to what I said, instead of something you can imagine a half-hearted riposte to.

In fact, you'd probably be better off ignoring me, you wouldn't embarrass yourself as much.

Its the attitude you've shown in several posts. I guess you'll have more time for introspection when your spending less time argueing with me because I have you ignore. Goobye troll.

[crackmonkey]

Is some nation asserting that the US invented the idea of pre-emption? I don't understand this argument at all... you're afraid that preemption can now be used as an excuse by any nation to go to war with impunity? Who cares what counerfeit reasons are given for their actions. I don't care if they cite the Constitution... if their war is illegitimate, it's illegitimate, regardless of our actions.
If you see our preemptive war as giving other nations the right to go to war preemptively, then I'd say Israel preemptively attacked the Arabs in 67. Therefore, we were justified in preempting Saddam.

[fishbob]

corplinx sez:What I see is countries like India doing what they were going to do already and then using the partisan grumbling from America as an excuse. The excuse that India and others will use is that:
"America whacked Iraq without approval from the UN so we are justified in whacking our enemies." If the only thing stopping them before was uncertainty about the effect of international disapproval, the uncertainty has been removed and they can go ahead with their strikes (pre-emptive or otherwise).

Partisan grumbling is irrelevant, except for a little hissy fit back up the thread.

[EvilYeti]

Originally posted by fishbob
corplinx sez: The excuse that India and others will use is that:
"America whacked Iraq without approval from the UN so we are justified in whacking our enemies." If the only thing stopping them before was uncertainty about the effect of international disapproval, the uncertainty has been removed and they can go ahead with their strikes (pre-emptive or otherwise).


The big India/Pakistan title fight is going to happen sooner or later, regardless of anything America does.

I really have to ask you this, do you really think mutually assured destruction is LESS of a motivator than world opinion?

The best outcome is one of them manages to disable the nuclear capability of the other in a pre-emptive strike, enabling the war to be fought and won/lost with conventional weapons.

The worst case is mutual nuclear destruction of both countries. A tragedy to be sure, but one hellevuh lesson about the perils of nuclear conflict, eh?

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Supercharts
Kashmir is historically a muslim country taken over by India.

It was not taken over by India, it was handed to India by Great Britain when they partitioned off the mostly Muslim areas from the mostly Hindu areas. The rationality of their divisions can be seen in the disaster that was the creation of East and West Pakistan.

[a_unique_person]

India is a democracy. They are subject to terrorist attacks. They know that their neighbour is developing nuclear weapons. Criteria all met, attack to begin when desired.

As for the Indians, they not only have one god on their side, they have multiple gods on their side. That should auger well for the conflict.