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| India-Pakistan |
| The Fountainhead |
| 2008-10-08 |
| Despite some evidence of a minimal policy response to the crisis generated by the latest spate of terrorist attacks across India -- in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi -- the reality remains that the reaction is still largely confined to shrill and partisan denunciation of largely symbolic policy proposals. What has been missed is a progressive marginalisation in our calculus of what Pakistan's Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI), the prime mover in all this, is trying to do. The overwhelming discourse has now focused on the supposed 'indigenisation' of so-called jihad, and on a range of measures, including harsher laws and the creation of new agencies for their implementation, which would be directed principally against our own citizens. An incoherence of ideas continues to advance a false construct of 'Islamic' or 'Islamist' terrorism, while the reality is that, in both Afghanistan and India, what we are experiencing is, quite simply, ISI terrorism. This reality is, in no way, diluted by the fact that some of the perpetrators of terrorism are Indian citizens, with affiliation to extremist organisations created on Indian soil. It is crucial that this reality be factored into our policy framework. While the improvement of security and intelligence on Indian soil is necessary, it is useful to recall the Irish Republican Army's admonition: "Remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always." Unless the fountainhead of terror is capped, there will always be a module that gets lucky, especially when the targets they seek are the softest and most vulnerable. |
| Posted by:john frum |