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The British ended Muslim domination gradually from 1757 to 1857 and, in 1947, handed power back to the Hindu majority, but not until they had split the country into Muslim-dominated Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. Now there are Muslims who want that process reversed. They want to rule over India once again, hence the issues involving Kashmir, the terror raids in India and the encouragement of the 10-percent minority of Muslims left in India to revolt.
U.S. politicians believe Kashmir is the core of the problem between India and Pakistan, which is not true. Only uninformed analysts – who unfortunately control U.S. foreign policy – would reach that conclusion. The United States also believes that, in order to succeed in Afghanistan and eliminate the recurring problems in the Pakistani frontier region, the Kashmir dispute must first be resolved. This is not true either. Ideologues in Pakistan want to overthrow democratic rule in India and will do anything to achieve that.
U.S. State Department officials began thinking about the Kashmir issue 50 years back, during the tenure of Dean Acheson as Secretary of State. This cold warrior was instrumental in writing a pro-Pakistan U.S. foreign policy, which continues to this day. The United States’ main aim was to cut India down to size by supporting Pakistan. Hence, Kashmir was made a central issue, with the United States knowing full well that the unfinished business of the 1947 partition lay mostly in building harmony between the two neighbors rather than encouraging one against the other.
The United States had no idea that supporting Pakistan would create a religious-fanatic monster. The matter hit home on 9/11, when the United States became the victim of this monster. Terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom, Spain, Indonesia, and now all kinds of bombings within Pakistan and India, are the works of Pakistan’s religious fanatics. Unmindful of this, the United States still made Pakistan a central partner in its war on terror.
How much more proof does the United States need? All the perpetrators of 9/11 and their leaders live in the Pakistani frontier region through conniving with Pakistan’s intelligence services. Retired army personnel routinely train the terrorists, making it easy for Pakistani politicians to disown responsibility.
But don’t be fooled. The Taliban are a product of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s 1991 order to form a para-religious organization serving Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan. The Taliban succeeded in capturing all of Afghanistan in 1996, then invited Osama bin Laden to set up shop there. All of this work was conducted through the much-feared military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.
Concurrent with the formation of the Taliban by the ISI, the organization Lashkar-e-Taiba was also formed for the purpose of instigating terrorist activities in Kashmir. Both of these groups were fully backed by the ISI through training, advice and materials. While the Taliban were successful in Afghanistan, LeT was met with an iron fist in Kashmir. Completely unsuccessful there, they turned their attention to the rest of India. Two major, though unsuccessful, acts of terror were attacks on the Red Fort in 2000 and on the Indian Parliament in 2001. Successful acts of terror include the Mumbai train bombing in 2006 and the recent Mumbai attacks in November.
The ISI as an organization is highly valued by Pakistani politicians, though at times it has acted against the interests of those elected officials. However, its ability to spread fear and terror in India is great. Fed by Muslim ideology, the ISI’s objective is to rule India. Capturing Afghanistan is part of that objective. Today, if you ask any Pakistani politician or senior diplomat, they will deny involvement with the ISI. It is for the sake of this deniability that organizations like LeT were formed.
The United States, fully aware of the ISI’s intention and capability, still decided to use the agency against the Soviets during their occupation of Afghanistan, and then again to hunt down al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, with limited success. The United States could not have made a bigger mistake than protecting the monster it had created. Therefore, the United States could not hope to catch bin Laden.
The training of the 10 terrorists who went on a rampage in Mumbai was conducted in Lahore and Karachi, the two major cities of Pakistan, as the sole surviving terrorist told Indian authorities. Training was imparted by former military men at LeT-designated sites. As soon as the surviving terrorist began spilling the beans, Pakistan began its denials and the ISI went into a tizzy, challenging all the evidence. When identity documents and captured cell phones were produced, Pakistani officials began questioning the evidence too.
The disinformation of U.S. and British investigating agencies, who were asked to review the methods of investigation and the evidence, began with Pakistan. CNN reported that the investigation was going painfully slow, although the siege had ended only three days earlier. Authorities were still counting the dead and helping the survivors. When everyone denies involvement, investigation goes slowly.
Stung by the immediate, harsh response of U.S. President George W. Bush, President-elect Barack Obama and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Pakistani analysts at home and abroad went into overdrive in an effort to offer background to the attacks. Here are some examples:
Rafia Zakaria, an attorney living in the United States and writing for the Daily Times of Lahore, advises India “to transcend the rapacious need for revenge.” She writes further, “While responsibility for the attacks has yet to be pinned on a definitive group, rumors and speculation abound…” She definitely missed the point. India is asking for justice and punishment of the perpetrators of this crime.
Mir Jamilur Rehman, writing for The News of Karachi, does not see the need to control terrorist headquarters in Pakistan, but instead tells India to cool down. “There has been enough anti-Pakistan drumbeating by India and its media. It is time for them now to cool down and do some damage control.” In other words, Pakistan neither wishes to close the terrorist network nor to hand over the perpetrators.
The owner of the Taj Hotel, Ratan Tata, gave a hastily arranged interview to CNN reporter Fareed Zakaria, a high-profile Mumbai-born Newsweek/CNN reporter, who is also a fellow Muslim. Tata concluded that the attacks were not directed at foreigners, missing the point. When they entered the hotel, the terrorists were looking for British and U.S. citizens; at Nariman House, they looked for Israeli citizens.
Tata went even further, telling the world the hotel had been warned of an attack a month before. Yet he did nothing to stop it. Even an indirect tip to the media before the attack could have stopped the terrorists, since their cover would have been blown. The fact that he did nothing to stop them makes him partly responsible for the carnage and liable for damages.
Worried that war would break out between India and Pakistan, the United States rushed Condoleezza Rice to both countries on an urgent mission. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, made an unscheduled visit to India on Dec. 3. These visits were to assess the possibility of a military confrontation.
The United States is also worried that a future nuclear or biological attack on its soil could originate from Pakistan. Terrorists in Pakistan have gone high tech and can do many things that the 2001 terrorists could not do.
The point should not be missed as to why India has come under attack over the last 10 years. India is not an enemy of Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida. It is the Pakistani ideologues, in and out of government, that are bent on implementing Muslim ideological rule from New Delhi and are responsible for all acts of terror in India. It seems that Fareed Zakaria also subscribes to this theory.
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(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)
