A RESPONSE TO 'MILITARY RULE IN GLOBAL CONTEXT'

WEDNESDAY 18 JULY 2012

Let Me Dream

A Response to ‘Military Rule in Global Context’

Hameed Abdul Karim

Kazim Anwarul Masud’s article (Ceylon Today Saturday 14 July, 2012) titled ‘Military Rule in Global Context’, though thought provoking in some aspects, gives you the impression that the writer is championing America’s globo cop role and using Pakistan chronic state of affairs to justify his stand. This, among other pro-American and pro-India statements, is made clear when he repeats the American claim that it was Al-Qaeda who carried out the 9-11 attack in the heart of the Empire’s financial hub. 

Up until today no impartial inquiry has been conducted to establish this claim beyond any doubt, as is required in civilized society. When Barack Obama parroted this spurious claim saying that Osama bin Laden had claimed responsibility for 9-11, no lesser a person than the much respected Prof. Noam Chomsky called Obama a liar because he said Osama bin Laden had made no such claim.

What is needed is an impartial international inquiry into the 9-11 attack. To bolster this demand all you have to do is check how building No. 7 collapsed in a heap, all of 47 floors, within a short time after the collapse of the Twin Towers when not even a shot was fired at it. More than 1300 US engineers and architects believe the collapse of Building No. 7 was due to a controlled demolition job. Not many in the world know that a third building collapsed in its feet on that fateful day which only goes to show where the loyalties of the West’s media lie. And if Osama bin Laden was actually the mastermind behind 9-11, why is it that Bagram Airbase in Kabul and the Green Zone in Baghdad are still standing? Should we take the empire’s word without question, as has Kazi Anwarul Masud, when we know for a fact that the empire is headed by a bunch of lying and thieving plutocrats? There’s more to 9-11 than what meets the eye.

INDIA AND KASHMIR

It is true that Baluchistan is on a secessionist campaign. But what KAM doesn’t tell us is that India and the American empire are heavily involved in the subterfuge backing the secessionists to the hilt. The Pakistanis know this full well. And so do the Baluchis. But to think that all Baluchis are for a separate state is to get carried away by India’s propaganda. I have had chats with Baluchis and all of them have told me the problem is not as big as projected to the outside world. And yes Baluchistan is filthy rich in mineral wealth, which suggests why India, the empire’s hatchet man in the region, is so concerned about Baluchistan’s independence. Besides, it’s not only Baluchistan that’s rocked by violence. The whole of Pakistan is, with the ‘Pakistani Taliban’ playing the role of useful idiots.

This brings us to a vital question. What about Kashmir. Why doesn’t India – the Great Brahmin Empire that it actually is – show the same consideration for Kashmir which it has occupied and colonised since its independence as it does for Baluchistan? In comparison the strife in Baluchistan could be accounted as a brawl among thugs both in uniform and those out of uniform when compared to the tragedy that Indians have inflicted on a hapless people they say are theirs for keeps. Since 1983 more than 60,000 Kashmiri’s have been killed by India forces. I am not mentioning the many rapes and murders of Kashmiri girls by the Indians.

India’s occupation of Kashmir is the largest in the world with 500,000 troops. Not even the Israeli occupation of Palestine or US led NATO forces in Afghanistan or Iraq have such large forces as compared to India’s in Kashmir.  

Now move your thoughts to violence ridden states of Chhattisgarh, Assam and Arunchal Pradesh where corporate India is exploiting the mineral resources found in the land where tribal people have lived since time memorial. In one incident, it is reported, that nearly 600 tribal people were done to death by India’s state sponsored thugs to clear the way for conglomerates. Nearly 1/3^rd of India is up in open revolt against the ‘Great Brahmin Empire’. Sadly India is not the socialist state that Jawaharlal Nehru dreamed about.

HINDU EXREMIST GROUPS

Kazim Anwarul Masud statement that Western nations were quick to respond to the conflict in former Yugoslavia is not factually correct. The Western nations took over two years to react and after over 200,000 Bosnian Muslims had been killed. Srebrenica shall haunt the world’s conscience like do Deir Yassin, Shabra and Shatilla, My Lai and Fallujah not to mention the genocide of Australia’s Aborigines, for all time to come. Switch on your TV, Mr. Masud!

KAM’s statement that ‘the White House rightly won’t give up drone attacks (on Pakistani soil) because of ‘terrorists’ like Saeed’ only goes to show his close affinity to the empire which suggests he might be yet another of those ‘Rand Corporation Muslims’. It would be a good idea if KAM goes over to the families of those little children who had been shattered to smithereens at weddings and other family gatherings by America’s drone attacks and explains his pro American logic to them.

Talking of ‘terrorists’ might I remind Mr. Masud that the Malegaon, Nanded, Ajmer and the Samjhauta bombings were blamed on ‘Muslim terrorists’ but it later transpired that these terror attacks were the handiwork of Hindu extremist groups like the Sangh Parivar, Vishva Hindu Parishad and the Abhinav Bharat gangs. The idea was to pin the blame on ‘Muslim terrorists’ from Bangladesh and Pakistan along with the ‘Indian Mujahideen’ so that the institutionalised riot squads could go into action and slaughter Muslims like they slaughtered hundreds of Sikhs in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. As expected the ‘disturbances’ did occur and more than 2000 Muslims men women and children were butchered in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat alone.

The man who discovered the Hindu extremist’s hand behind the bomb attacks was none other than the very brave and courageous police inspector Hemant Karkare. His tragic death in the Mumbai terror attacks remains a mystery.

On one point, however, KAM has made sense and that is that ‘polls show Pakistanis see America, not India or al Qaeda as their mortal enemy’. It’s not only the Pakistanis who harbour such sentiments. The Europeans too believe that the US Empire and Israel are a threat to world peace and not Iran or al-Qaeda. Anyway isn’t such a thought nice of the Pakistanis? Shouldn’t India take a cue from this and mend its fences with Pakistan so that we can eliminate the threat of nuclear war in the region? But I am dreaming, aren’t I? So what? Let me dream.