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Two Years and Counting - No Closure
Editorial Team
Two books have recently been released, "Why America Slept" by Gerald Posner
and "Who Killed Daniel Pearl" by Bernard-Henri Levy. Anyone who believes
the "war on terror" is going in the right direction, and that the tens of
billions being spent by the war's leader, America, are being wisely spent, would
do well to pick up these two books and read them cover to cover. These books,
and many other pieces of the terrorism puzzle that are yet to be stitched
together, bring two nagging questions come to mind. Has sufficient effort really
been made to determine who were all the actors and what were all the funding
sources behind and attached to 9/11? And are the forces that acted as enablers
for Bin Laden and his henchmen being sufficiently neutralized to make sure that
they do not enable another 9/11?....More...
Where Angels Fear to Tread
Sreeram Chaulia
The August 19
terrorist attack against the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad has
reopened old wounds and dilemmas in the international humanitarian
community. By its sheer scale of devastation and brutality - more than
20 killed, including UN special representative to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de
Mello - it was the biggest single atrocity committed against
humanitarians and the culmination of a decade-long trend of worsening
insecurity for field personnel working in relief and rehabilitation
operations......More...
Hizbul Mujahideen and the Pandits
Pt.
Kashi Nath Pandita
In a statement appearing recently in national
newspapers, militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen says that it will allow
the Kashmiri Pandits to return to their homes in the valley if they join
the anti-India separatist movement and fight against the Indian troops
side by side with the Hizbul cadres.
We may remind our readers that following the gunning down of BOP leader
Tikalal Taploo on September 14, 1989 by the Jammu Kashmir Liberation
Front gunmen in front of his house in Srinagar, this writer published a
letter in The Kashmir Times asking the JKLF leadership to spell out its
policy towards the Pandit minority of Kashmir.....More...
J&K: The Hurriyat Splits
Kanchan
Lakshman
Internal
fissures within All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC),
the main overground secessionist syndicate in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K),
culminated in a formal split on September 7, 2003, with at least 12 of its 25
constituents 'removing' Chairman Maulana Mohammad Abbas Ansari and 'replacing'
him with Massarat Alam as its interim chief. A five-member committee has been
formed to review the Hurriyat's constitution and suggest amendments to reverse
what the dissenters perceive as 'autocratic' decisions taken by the executive
committee.....More...
J&K : WINDS OF CHANGE OR A BIG DECEPTION
Dr. Ajay Chrungoo
The spate of 'Fidayeen' attacks on
the Army in Jammu, terrorist assaults on pilgrims at Qazigund and
Vaishno Devi (Katra), or the Nadimarg massacre, should in the
normal course, put to rest any doubts about the internal security
scenario in the state. However, given the pattern of government
responses to the 'War of Attrition' in the state, we may see the
continuance of the attitude of self-deception through a blatant denial
of reality. How many statements, coming from those at the helm in the
Centre as well as the state, have we seen in recent days, which
proclaimed the 'Return of Normality'?....More...
Learning from History
Francois Gautier
The massacre of six million Jews by Hitler and the persecution they
suffered all over the world in the last 15 centuries has been
meticulously recorded after 1945 and has been enshrined not only in
history books, but also in Holocaust museums, the most famous of these
being the one in Washington DC. It has not been done with a spirit of
vengeance: Look at Israel and Germany today, they are in the best of
terms; yet, facts are facts and contemporary Germany has come to terms
with its terrible actions during Second World War.....More...
The Secularists
and the Ayodhya Excavations Report
Dr. Koenraad Elst
In India, frequent political
incidents pit Hindu nationalism, or even just plain Hinduism and plain
nationalism, against so-called “secularism”. But what passes for
secularism in India is often the diametrical opposite of what goes by
the same name in the West. Recent incidents over the Ayodhya
temple/mosque controversy confirm the disingenuous character of Indian
secularism.....More...
Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right - Part II
Vinod Kumar
This month we are at the other common theme – Muslims of today are not
responsible for the crime of their ancestors! I am willing to agree with
it but before I do so let us look at it little more closely......More...
No
Endgame in Sight
Ajai Sahni
Two years after the horror and the
tragedy, the events of
9/11 appear distant, and the
intensity and urgency of the 'war against terror' has been diluted by a
complex of compromises, of selective or misdirected responses, and by a
failure to consolidate the gains that have been secured at extraordinary
cost in resources, courage and sacrifice. There have, over these two
years, been many victories over terrorists; yet terrorism seems no
closer to defeat.......More... |
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