W’end Reading: Pakistan, Muslims and Bleeding Heart Liberals

Start this weekend with 12 steps to shock-and-awe Pakistan’s economy.

Next, read 5 things Muslims should have done in response to the terror attacks in Mumbai

Then have a look at the Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack

and finally, consider 8 things India Inc, govt must do against Pakistan

Bonus: An interesting exchange of views between Nitin (Editor of “Pragati”) and Ahsan (in Pakistan) following the attacks.

Excerpts from all these articles below. 

*** Excerpts from 12 steps to shock-and-awe Pakistan’s economy ***

…A stable Pakistan is not in the interest of world peace, leave alone India. Army controls the country and owns its economy. A significant portion of its GDP is due to army-controlled entities (See Military Inc Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy by Ayesha Siddiqa; OUP; 2007). One can easily say that Pakistan Economy and its Army/ISI are synonymous. Unless this elementary fact is internalised, we are not going anywhere. This implies we should stop talking of a stable Pakistan since a stable Pakistan means multiple attacks on many more cities of India by that rogue organisation ISI, which is the core of the Pakistan Army and the heart of Pakistan’s economy.

…India should take the following steps to destabilise the economy of Pakistan:

1. Identify the major export items of Pakistan (like Basmati rice, carpets etc) and provide zero export tax or even subsidise them for export from India. Hurt Pakistan on the export front.

2. Identify the major countries providing arms to Pakistan and arm twist them. Tell Brazil and Germany (currently planning to supply massive defense items to Pakistan) that it will impact their ability to invest in India. Tell Germany that retail license to Metro will be off and other existing projects will be in jeopardy.

3. Tell American companies that for every 5% increase in FDI limit for them, their government needs to reduce equipping Pakistan by $5 billion. That is real politics, not whining.

4. Create assets to print/distribute their currency widely inside their country. To some extent, Telgi types can be used to outsource this activity. Or just drop their notes in remote areas.

5. Pressurise IMF to add additional conditionality to the loans given to them or at least do not vote for their loans.

6. Create assets within Pakistan to destabilise Karachi Stock market – it is already in shambles.

7. Chase the D-company money in cricket/ Bollywood and punish by burning D-assets in India instead of trying to have them auctioned by the IT department when nobody comes to bid for it.

8. Provide for capital punishment to those who fund terror and help in that.

9. Encourage and allow scientists/ academicians/ elites of Pakistan to opt for Indian passport and widely publicise that fact since it will hurt their self-respect and dignity. There will be a long queue to get Indian passports — many will jump to get our passport — since they will not be stopped at international airports. It is rumoured that Adnan Sami wants one. Do not give passports to all — make it a prized possession. Let it hurt the army and ISI controlled country. This one step will destroy their identity and self-confidence.

10. Discourage companies from India from investing in Pakistan, particularly IT companies, till Pakistan stops exporting its own IT (international terrorism).

*** End of Excerpts ***

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*** Excerpts from 5 Things Muslims Should Have Done! ***

The attacks are a direct result of radicalisation of Islam and hatred for anyone who does not share your belief. …The terrorists must have definitely had some form of local support to get such precise details about their target. They could have got it either through criminal gangs, corrupt people in India or through radicals in our own community. A muslim in India, has the same responsibility to protect his country as any other citizen. Not burying the terrorists is not good enough. Here is a list of things they should have done or at least should do from now on.

1. As attacks took place one after another in various cities, Muslim leaders and imams should spend enough time to calm the hatred and distrust between the two communities. It is not enough to give fatwas that suicide is haraam in Islam. We should educate muslims, that hindus are our neighbours and that in spite of certain events we should not carry hatred for another Indian….Even at a family level, we should spend time to educate those radicals who have hatred for non-muslims. “They are kafrs, they will go to hell anyways”, is not what you teach your kids. After all it is Allah who decides our fate.

2. We should have engaged other communities in constant dialogue to reduce the hatred…Mosques should guide young muslims to contribute towards secular orphanages and public bodies in their neighbourhood…Disputes like Babri masjid need to resolved. One innocent life is more important than any piece of land.

3. It is high time, we took pride in our country. How many Indian muslims died fighting terrorists in Mumbai? One reason for this is that there aren’t that many muslims anyways in police, NSG and the navy. We should have been there to take the shots. We should urge more muslims to join the public sector especially police and defense.

4. Root out the terrorists amongst us. Indian Muslims are the worst affected due to any of these events. If there are retards who cause harm or intend to cause harm, we need to fight them for the sake of our own survival. We should report suspicious activities and get more involved as true citizens.

5. We should not have voted to those partys that fulfill the petty needs of our muslim leaders. We have to make individual choices and vote for that party which is willing to work towards our development.

*** End of Excerpts ***

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*** Excerpts from Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack ***

…More important than the question of the exact group that carried out the attack, however, is the attackers’ strategic end. ..In the highly politicized atmosphere of Pakistan’s radical Islamist factions, however, terror frequently has a more sophisticated and strategic purpose. Whoever invested the time and took the risk in organizing this attack had a reason to do so.

Let’s work backward to that reason by examining the logical outcomes following this attack.

An End to New Delhi’s Restraint

The most striking aspect of the Mumbai attack is the challenge it presents to the Indian government — a challenge almost impossible for New Delhi to ignore. A December 2001 Islamist attack on the Indian parliament triggered an intense confrontation between India and Pakistan. Since then, New Delhi has not responded in a dramatic fashion to numerous Islamist attacks against India that were traceable to Pakistan. The Mumbai attack, by contrast, aimed to force a response from New Delhi by being so grievous that any Indian government showing only a muted reaction to it would fall….

The U.S. and the Indo-Pakistani Crisis

The United States used this crisis for its own ends. Having just completed the first phase of its campaign in Afghanistan, Washington was intensely pressuring Pakistan’s then-Musharraf government to expand cooperation with the United States; purge its intelligence organization, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of radical Islamists; and crack down on al Qaeda and the Taliban in the Afghan-Pakistani border region.

…In 2001-2002, the Indo-Pakistani crisis played into American hands. In 2008, the new Indo-Pakistani crisis might play differently. The United States recently has demanded increased Pakistani cooperation along the Afghan border. Meanwhile, President-elect Barack Obama has stated his intention to focus on Afghanistan and pressure the Pakistanis.

Therefore, one of Islamabad’s first responses to the new Indo-Pakistani crisis was to announce that if the Indians increased their forces along Pakistan’s eastern border, Pakistan would be forced to withdraw 100,000 troops from its western border with Afghanistan. In other words, threats from India would cause Pakistan to dramatically reduce its cooperation with the United States in the Afghan war.

…We expect the United States to pressure India not to create a crisis, in order to avoid this outcome.

Dilemmas for Islamabad, New Delhi and Washington

At that point, Islamabad will have a serious problem. The Pakistani government is even weaker than the Indian government. Pakistan’s civilian regime does not control the Pakistani military, and therefore does not control the ISI. The civilians can’t decide to transform Pakistani security, and the military is not inclined to make this transformation.

Add to this the reality that the ISI and security forces — even if they are acting more assertively, as Islamabad claims — are demonstrably incapable of controlling radical Islamists in Pakistan. If they were capable, the attack on Mumbai would have been thwarted in Pakistan. The simple reality is that in Pakistan’s case, the will to make this transformation does not seem to be present, and even if it were, the ability to suppress terror attacks isn’t there.

…The Indians will be sympathetic to Washington’s plight in Afghanistan and the need to keep Pakistani troops at the Afghan border. But New Delhi will need something that the Americans — and in fact the Pakistanis — can’t deliver: a guarantee that there will be no more attacks like this one.

The Indian government cannot chance inaction. It probably would fall if it did….

Setting the Stage for a New Indo-Pakistani Confrontation

That will set the stage for another Indo-Pakistani confrontation. India will push forces forward all along the Indo-Pakistani frontier, move its nuclear forces to an alert level, begin shelling Pakistan, and perhaps — given the seriousness of the situation — attack short distances into Pakistan and even carry out airstrikes deep in Pakistan. India will demand greater transparency for New Delhi in Pakistani intelligence operations.

Naturally, the Pakistanis will refuse that. There is no way they can give India, their main adversary, insight into Pakistani intelligence operations.

But without that access, India has no reason to trust Pakistan. This will leave the Indians in an odd position: They will be in a near-war posture, but will have made no demands of Pakistan that Islamabad can reasonably deliver and that would benefit India. In one sense, India will be gesturing. In another sense, India will be trapped by making a gesture on which Pakistan cannot deliver. The situation thus could get out of hand.

In the meantime, the Pakistanis certainly will withdraw forces from western Pakistan and deploy them in eastern Pakistan. That will mean that one leg of the Petraeus and Obama plans would collapse. Washington’s expectation of greater Pakistani cooperation along the Afghan border will disappear along with the troops. This will free the Taliban from whatever limits the Pakistani army had placed on it. The Taliban’s ability to fight would increase…U.S. forces, already stretched to the limit, would face an increasingly difficult situation, while pressure on al Qaeda in the tribal areas would decrease.

Now, step back and consider the situation the Mumbai attackers have created.

First, the Indian government faces an internal political crisis driving it toward a confrontation it didn’t plan on. Second, the minimum Pakistani response to a renewed Indo-Pakistani crisis will be withdrawing forces from western Pakistan, thereby strengthening the Taliban and securing al Qaeda. Third, sufficient pressure on Pakistan’s civilian government could cause it to collapse, opening the door to a military-Islamist government — or it could see Pakistan collapse into chaos, giving Islamists security in various regions and an opportunity to reshape Pakistan. Finally, the United States’ situation in Afghanistan has now become enormously more complex.

By staging an attack the Indian government can’t ignore, the Mumbai attackers have set in motion an existential crisis for Pakistan. …Almost every evolution from this point forward benefits Islamists. Strategically, the attack on Mumbai was a precise blow struck to achieve uncertain but favorable political outcomes for the Islamists.

…So it is up to Rice, in one of her last acts as secretary of state, to come up with a miraculous solution to head off a final, catastrophic crisis for the Bush administration — and a defining first crisis for the new Obama administration. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said that the enemy gets a vote. The Islamists cast their ballot in Mumbai.

*** End of Excerpts ***

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*** Excerpts from 8 things India Inc, govt must do against Pakistan ***

…It is no more about bombs being thrown at bus stations or trains getting blasted. It is no longer about only Nagpada or Govindpuri residents losing limbs and lives. Terror has now climbed up the value chain.

As the new age entrepreneur Kiran Majumdar Shaw told a Bangalore newspaper, “So far, the terrorists targeted common people. Now the society’s elite, the business sector, is the target. What happened in Mumbai is a loud wake-up call for all of us to do something to protect ourselves.”

Corporate India did not bat an eyelid when Mumbai train blasts took place, or when Sarojini Nagar was burning on a Diwali day, or Hyderabad was weeping two years before.

But today, every corporate captain is angry, and so are the celebrities who people Page 3 of newspapers, due largely because the attacks on the three top hotels were directly aimed at those who frequent these places, for business or pleasure (contrast this with the scant coverage of the carnage at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, for example, where commoners were involved).

All the same, the bleeding-heart liberals would be back to their routine ways after a few days. They will lament that the captured terrorist has not been given his favourite food and not allowed to watch TV or use his cell phone; they will say his human rights are violated. Just wait for the chorus.

Of course, this time it will be between Page 3 and the jholawalas (activists) and that should be an interesting match to watch, but that’s another story.

…Now, at least, terrorism is being realised as a problem facing the country.

Let us summarise what the real situation is and what the corporate sector should do if we are serious in fighting terrorism on our soil.

1. Recognise and treat Pakistan as a terrorist state. The state policy of Pakistan is terrorism and their single-point programme is to destroy India. This needs to be internalised by every business baron including the owners of media.

2. Now, the elite of Pakistan are more angry, since India is growing at 7% and they are given CCC rating and stiff conditions for borrowing from the IMF.

3. Pakistan is the only territory in the world where an army has a whole country under its control. This is an important issue since studies have found that a large number of corporates in Pakistan are ultimately owned by the Fauji Foundation (FF), Army Welfare Trust (AWT) Bahria Foundation (BF), Shaheen Foundation (SF) all owned by different wings of armed forces (See paper presented by Dr Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha on ‘Power, Perks, Prestige And Privileges: Military’s Economic Activities In Pakistan’ in The International Conference on Soldiers in Business — Military as an Economic Actor; Jakarta, October 17-19, 2000). Hence, do not try to think of Pakistan without its army, irrespective of who rules that country temporarily and nominally. At least 70% of the market capitalisation of the Karachi stock exchange is owned by the army and related groups.

4. There are three groups in India, who are obsessed with friendship with Pakistan. One is the oldies born in that part before partition and who are nostalgic about the Lahore havelis, halwas and mujras. The second is the Bollywood and other assorted groups, who look at it as a big market. The Dawood gang has financed enough of these useful idiots. The third is the candle light holding bleeding heart liberals (BHLs) who cannot imagine India doing well without its younger brother taken care of. All three have been proved wrong hundreds of times, but they are also opinion makers. Shun them, avoid them and ridicule them.

5. We should categorically, unambiguously, unequivocally boycott Pakistan in all aspects for a decade or more. Be it art, music, economy, commerce, or other hand-holding activities. That army-controlled state has to realise that it has done enough damage to global civilisation. More than 100 acts/attempts of terror recorded in the world since 9/11 have had their roots in Pakistan. More than 40% of the prisoners in Guantanamo are Pakistanis.

6. We should recognise that it is our war and nobody in the world is going to wage it on our behalf. What the Americans are thinking, or what the Britishers are going to do, will not help. A determined country should have a sense of dignity and independence to fight its war.

7. We should realise that a united Pakistan is a grave threat to the existence of India. Hence, we should do everything possible to break up Pakistan into several units. This is required to be done not only for our interest, but for world peace.

8. We have made a grave blunder by suggesting in the international fora that “Pakistan is also a victim of terror.” That is a grave error and it will haunt us for decades. If we want the world to treat Pakistan for what it is, then we should start practising it. Always call it the ‘terrorist state of Pakistan’ and never have any illusion that it is going to be any different.

*** End of Excerpts ***

Related Posts:

Tackling Terrorism: One Step at a Time 

The nonsense about “non-state actors” 

Pakistan: A State-sponsor of Terrorism? 

All roads lead to Pakistan (once again)