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| India-Pakistan | |
| India doesn't rule out military option against Pak | |
| 2008-12-03 | |
| Yikes! This appears to directly contradict an earlier statement from the foreign ministry that military action was not under consideration. Any of you Sub-continent mavens care to take a swing at which statement is more likely to reflect a real position? Is it possible that something came to light during the few hours between the statements to harden the Indian position? NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday said that it would not rule out military option to deal with continued terror threat emanating from Pakistan, in what marked a significant toughening of posture in the wake of the Mumbai attack. Highly placed sources in the government said India was contemplating putting on hold the peace process if Pakistan didn't respond adequately to India's demand for verifiable action against those behind the attack on Mumbai and on a list of wanted terrorists. Significantly, official sources stressed the military option was on the table, contradicting reports that the foreign minister had earlier in the day ruled out such a course of action. The assertion came on a day when Pakistan proposed a joint probe into 26/11 even as it has threatened to withdraw troops from the Afghan border for redeployment on the border with India -- a ploy to get US to lean on New Delhi not to ramp up tensions. While the jury may still be out on whether or not India can exercise the military option in response to the Mumbai attack, the assertion indicated that the government, facing angry public opinion, wants to keep Pakistan on tenterhooks regarding any plan to attack terrorist camps in PoK. Sources said that Pakistan needed to act quickly on the demarche to prevent the peace process from derailing. "We are waiting for Pakistan's response before we take the nexy step. All we can say now is that if Pakistan doesn't respond, it will jeopardise the peace process," said a senior official, adding that a conducive atmosphere was required for dialogue and that this was lacking now. Speaking at a functionn, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday that sovereign nations had the right to protect their territorial integrity by taking appropriate action even though he refrained from stating directly that India was contemplating military strikes. While Mukherjee tried to strike the right balance by stating that he did not want to talk about the military option yet, senior officials were soon deployed to quell the perception that it had been taken off the table. In an interview to a news channel, Mukherjee too admitted that the Mumbai attack had proved to be a setback for the Indo-Pak peace process. "There was the Kabul attack and now there is Mumbai. It has vitiated the atmosphere. We have no intention of not carrying forward the peace process, but when sentiments of the people are affected it creates an atmosphere in which business cannot be carried out as usual. These incidents, if not adequately addressed, create an atmosphere in which normal business including peace process cannot be carried out," he said. Sources added that things had actually started to look up before the Mumbai attack. In the month after the Kabul blast, infiltration had gone down in J&K and so had the number of men killed in the Valley.
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| Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy |
| #5 WAFF/FREEREPUBLIC/TOPIX > US SETS STAGE FOR STRIKES [UNO/Internat-approved mil strikes led by India] IF PAKSITAN DOES NOT ACT [to arrest and dismantle Pak-based Terror Camps]. Also, MUSLIM ACTIVISTS DEMAND AUTONOMOUS HOMELANDS, COMPENSATION FOR BRITAIN's FAILURE TO RETURN INDIA TO MUSLIM RULE IN 1947. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-12-03 22:15 |
| #4 #3: As bad as this attack was, I don't think it was serious enough to start a war. were it an isolated incident, sure, but the Pakis have a laundry list of bad provocative behavior and no real inducements for teh carrot approach. They have routinely lied and supported India's internal and external enemies. They have done their best to harbor/train/arm/direct those enemies. They have absolutely no credibility. War may start to seem like the lesser damage from the thousand cuts |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-12-03 19:58 |
| #3 As bad as this attack was, I don't think it was serious enough to start a war. Perhaps I am being naive, but I think India will chalk this one (and earlier ones) up to experience and wait to see what happens. Will it make them look weak? Perhaps, but in either denying India's call for justice or being unable to effectively respond to that call, the Pak government is going to look very weak or very complicit in state-supported terrorism. Neither of these is good for the Paks. Both give India clear justification to attack the next time around. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2008-12-03 17:22 |
| #2 So now we have a nuclear game of chicken. Thanks, Paks. Both sides are now in a position where they will lose face and credibility if they back down. If the Pak government actually hands those wanted terrorists to the Indian government they will be in serious trouble with their own people. Most likely they are not even capable of doing so even if they wanted to. But if they don't and the Indian government is seen to do nothing about it they will be in serious trouble with their people. They would also lose credibility with their other neighbors in that region. They would begin to look like a big, soft target. Where is the diplomatic solution when dealing with a country like Pakistan where the government is powerless over its terrorists if not actually complicit with them? This could get really ugly. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-12-03 12:42 |
| #1 Mumbai attacks are the real revelation. ItÂ’s good to see citizens on the streets at this massive scale. However, weÂ’ll have to see how long we, the common citizens, can stick together and find concrete solutions to the immediate problems. Please check the video to see the reactions. http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha_O14M081A |
| Posted by: Bigfoot Gleart9402 2008-12-03 05:12 |