[DAWN] TWO attacks in India-held Kashmire have sent tensions in the region soaring and prompted an extraordinary verbal attack by Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, against Pakistain. Before Ms Sitharaman’s bellicose statement, the Pakistain Foreign Office had already issued a statement suggesting that India should not presumptively blame Pakistain for violence in IHK, as in the past such accusations have been created as an excuse for India to attack across the LoC and Working Boundary. The attack on an army camp in Jammu on Saturday and another on a Central Reserve Police Force camp in Srinagar yesterday have so ratcheted up tensions between the two countries that IHK Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, has been forced to speak out. Ms Mufti has said on Twitter, "Dialogue with Pakistain is necessary if we are to end bloodshed. I know I will be labelled anti-national by news anchors tonight but that doesn’t matter. The people of J&K are suffering. We have to talk because war is not an option."
Her words should be heeded by the Indian government. The strident response of Ms Sitharaman may satisfy anti-Pakistain hawks in India, but such sentiments can only pave the way to greater conflict, not less. The events of September 2016 should serve as a reminder of unrestrained rhetoric leading to unmanageable consequences. An attack on a military brigade headquarters in Uri that India blamed on Jaish-e-Mohammad ...literally Army of Mohammad, a Pak-based Deobandi terror group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000, after he split with the Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. In 2002 the government of Pervez Musharraf banned the group, which changed its name to Khaddam ul-Islam and continued doing what it had been doing before without missing a beat... led to a clamour for action against Pakistain. Less than two weeks later, the Modi government, which itself appeared to fan the flames of war, launched so-called surgical strikes across the LoC. While the details have been disputed by Pakistain, the propaganda unleashed by India dangerously increased the possibility of conflict between the two states. The claim of surgical strikes was clearly meant to placate the Indian public, which had been whipped up into a nationalist frenzy, but it also threatened a cycle of violence, propaganda and counter-propaganda that could have spun out of control.
Interventions by IHK politicians such as Ms Mufti may help calm tensions in the short term, but the chief minister’s advice squarely addresses the underlying problem. Dialogue is essential between India and Pakistain because in its absence, hardliners will hijack the discourse and push agendas of self-interest that could have disastrous consequences for the people of both countries. The past five years have proven that waiting for the right time to attempt dialogue is futile. Elections in one country or the other, change of governments and the ebb and flow of violence will always be an excuse to delay dialogue when neither side is sincere. But without dialogue, the threat of violence can only grow. The Indian and Pak states owe it to their people to find peaceful solutions to seemingly intractable disputes.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#2
The attacks were sponsored, and no doubt managed, by Pakistan’s ISI, which is a branch of the Pakistani army and therefore an arm of the Pakistani government. Now they don’tt want to experience the embarassing and painful Indian response they know they thoroughly deserve.
[PJ] A Palestinian diplomat, speaking to Canadian college students visiting the United Nations headquarters in New York, said that Palestinians are proud of their history of throwing stones at Israeli forces.
Further, they will continue teaching their children to do just that:
Israeli news outlet Ynet obtained the recording of Abdallah Abushawesh, a member of the Palestinian delegation to the UN, making the comments to international relations students from McGill University. Abushawesh serves as a senior adviser to the UN's Development Group, Ynet reports.
[NYP] It was inevitable. Russian "mercenaries" attacked a forward base in Syria where they knew American advisors were stationed. It was a test. And our military passed.
Let’s hope the administration passes, too.
The core of the attacking force came from the Wagner Group, Russia’s version of the American thugs who worked for the company formerly known as Blackwater. But while the media refers to the Russians as mercenaries, the Wagner Group functions as an auxiliary of the Russian military ‐ it previously gave command performances in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. It exists to give Moscow (barely) plausible deniability.
It also allows the Kremlin to avoid reporting formal military casualties. Putin remembers the popular disaffection in the 1980s because of the "zinky boys," the young Russian soldiers returning home in zinc coffins in large numbers.
But the bottom line is that these killers ‐ primarily ethnic Russians, but also recruited regionally ‐ work for Putin. Russian suggestions that this was a rogue operation are ludicrous: An armored task force including hundreds of Russian citizens doesn’t attack US troops and blindside Putin. Doesn’t work that way, comrade.
Weird thing for Peters to say about his fellow veterans, especially when they chose to continue serving in combat roles and he went on to the dangerous realms of op eds and green rooms.
Blackwater's mistake was not realizing State would hand them to the wolves the moment they were in a bind.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/14/2018 8:32 Comments ||
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#4
...I don't always agree with COL Peters, but when the man's right, he's right.
I would also point out that there's been no ranting about this from Washington, which leads me to believe that Chaos Actual is out in front on this one. We sent a message, too: "Go for it. Otherwise, we're prepared to forget this unpleasant accident."
There's also two variables at work here, both on the Soviet Russian side: First, the desire to get even. But the other is a little more difficult to assess - the fact that there are now a lot of Soviet Russian soldiers who have just seen, far more up close and personal than they would have liked, what the US military can do when the gloves are off. The last time they got a good look at this was during Desert Storm, and the report the Soviet Defense Ministry gave to the Politburo afterwards pulled no punches - they no longer felt capable of defeating the Americans conventionally, and whatever edge they had in nuclear weapons was being eroded even faster. That report is considered to be an important cog in the process that led to the Soviets giving in.
Do they try to double down? If so, they will be risking an appreciable fraction of Russia's out-of-the-backyard deployable strength just to get to a level where they can safely take a shot at it again. And losing that - or even a fair amount of it, even if they could somehow claim a 'win' would be worse than just walking away and dropping the subject.
Interesting times.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/14/2018 8:37 Comments ||
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#5
Although he never claimed to 'shoot anyone in the face' or write books about his exploits whilst in uniform......the author's service was entirely commendable I assure you.
State Department and Klingon betrayal is a given within the community. They routinely bugger their own. Everyone is a potential source. The buggering of contractors goes without mention.
#7
So do you people know or not know our intelligence community is trying to start a war with Russia? This kind of bullshit is how they do it. And here you are cheering them on. Shame!
#8
The question is whether Trump had to personally approve the response. My inclination is to say yes, given that everyone knew this was a Russian unit in drag.
#9
We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do
We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too
We've fought the Bear before, and while we're Britons true
The Russians shall not have Constantinople.--Jingoism
Does Colonel Peters want to escalate our involvement in the ongoing Syrian Civil War to outright hostilities with a Soviet Russian Proxy? What is our Grand Strategy in this mess?
#11
Besoeker, they don't want a grubby little 'land bridge'... They want the return of the Persian Empire from the Indus River to the Hellespont. Of course Turkey has its own fantasies, too...
#13
The Iranians want a 'land bridge' to the Med. The pesky Kurds stand in the way.
A Kurdistan including northern Iraq and northern Syria, stretching all the way to the Med is probably the only feasible viable state that wouldn't be Uncle Sam's permanent ward.
h/t Instapundit
[OmbreOlivier] As the regular reader of this blog (Hi Sarah) knows, I’m not an American. When it came to the 2016 election I was a NeverHillary who had low expectations for a Trump presidency. It wasn’t that I didn’t like some of the things Trump said, but I was intensely skeptical that he would try to do any of them, let alone succeed. Over the last year I’m very happy to say that my skepticism has been proven wrong. Not that he’s perfect by any means and yes in part as far as I’m concerned he benefits from the bigotry of low expectations, but he’s so far exceeding those initial low expectations that I now judge him as a president in his own right as opposed to being #NotHillary.
...It is the acts that will be his real legacy and an honest NeverTrumper should take a look at them and admit that he (or she ‐ coff Jennifer Rubin coff) was wrong. But sadly (and Ms Rubin is a great example) they don’t. Instead they twist themselves into a pretzl and claim that policies that they were once in favor of are now bad because they are implemented by Trump or worse they point out that Trump’s actions in a particular policy area are not the ideal ones they would prefer in a perfect world and use that as a cudgel to assail the fact that Trump has made a change which was previously unthinkable.
...Trump, on the other hand, is combining the "art of the possible" with his "art of the deal" and getting results that are moving the goalposts ‐ the Overton Window ‐ of potential policy options back from the progressive/statist side that Obama moved them. Indeed in some areas he seems to be moving them back to the same sort of area that they were last seen under President Reagan (PBUH). Moreover, some of the areas that he’s moving back are surprising.
Contrary to all the lefty cries about "Dictator" and "Tyranny", Trump is actually trying to get congress to do its job. Witness the whole DACA thing, or earlier the way that he enabled congress to roll back most of Obama’s last minute regulations. If you are a conservative NeverTrumper it is pretty much guaranteed that you are in favor of the US Constitution as originally written ‐ three branches of government, federalism, states rights etc. ‐ so maybe you ought to look at how Trump is devolving power, reining in the unelected 4th branch ‐ the administrative state ‐ and so on. In much the same way, indeed as a continuation, Trump wants to reform the civil service hiring practices:
...He may fail but I wouldn’t count on it. And any conservative NeverTrumper who isn’t a total hypocrite should look at this and consider whether they should continue to stand in front of the Trump train shouting STOP. If they do, I trust the train will do what real trains do and squash them into paste
#1
Never Trumpers were never classical conservatives. They were con people running a racket in a niche political environment. The emperor has no clothes.
#2
There were, at the time, many good reasons to be NeverTrump. Among the good ones - he had never run a campaign or won political office, he had spent most of his life as a New York liberal Democrat, he was good friends with the Clintons, he had supported assault weapons bans, etc. It was entirely reasonable to decide, as I did, that Trump would govern as a Democrat.
As a conscientious conservative, I opposed Trump for these reasons.
There were also many bad reasons to oppose Trump. I generally lump these in with the Establishment, GOPe, "Tame" Republican sitzpinkler types. He was not one of them, hadn't put in his time and could not be relied on with regard to immigration, climate change, etc. It's OK to promise these things to people, because that's a great way to get votes. But under no circumstances can you actually deliver them.
I would think that those of us in the first category have largely changed their minds. I have. Trump is proving to be the most conservative president in at least a generation. For those in the second group, Trump is fulfilling all their worst nightmares, and it makes sense that they would continue to oppose him.
Excerpt:
[Townhall] Ginsburg also recounted her own story of harassment that she experienced when she was a student at Cornell.
She said she asked a chemistry professor for additional help and he gave her what he called "practice exam." Ginsburg learned the next day that the practice exam he had given her was the real exam. She said she was outraged.
"I knew just what he expected in return," she said, saying she went back to him and asked "how dare you?"
"There were many incidents like that," she added, "but in those days the attitude was, 'what can we do about it? Nothing. Boys will be boys.'"
#9
It strains credulity that any man would want anything from her.
Posted by: B. Thater9743 ||
02/14/2018 9:05 Comments ||
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#10
Give him a break, the guy was blind.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/14/2018 9:06 Comments ||
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#11
She asked her instructor for additional help, and she got exactly what she asked for. Decades later she puts a PC compatible spin on it in a bid for public attention. What a crock!
#14
It was a psychological ploy by the professor to put her at ease, as is the case with students having trouble with a course. I was down this road a few times, and I don't go whining to a fucking journalist about it.
Perhaps he expected to help a female student in need of help in an age when the law was male dominated.
Perhaps he grabbed the wrong test by accident.
Since he didn't actually demand anything she is guessing and besmirching his character. I had no opinion about Judge Ginsburg but now I think she's a bad person, slandering a teacher just to join up in the victim brigade.
I forget (and am too lazy to look it up with a popular Internet search engine), but wasn't this scag all for lowering the age of consent or something like that?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
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[DAWN] TWO attacks in India-held 
