The Failed State: India most at risk

This year, Bharat (aka India) has achieved the ignominious and unenviable distinction of being the state most at risk of failure. In many ways, Bharat has failed already, as the government lacks control of large tracks of the country. The loose coalition of various parties has led a corrupt and incompetent cabal of politicians that controls capital. Large tracks of Bharati territory are not in control of the Federal government. The government is not in control of the Naxalites, Kashmir, Assam and the states known as “The Seven Sisters“. The government troops have been routed and cannot control various states. The fighting has produced a clear victor–and it is not the Indian government. The country’s caste ethnic, and religious chaos continues unabated in the unruly states, while militants stalk the jungles and remote areas. The fighting has successfully produced is a refugee nightmare, with thousands homeless in Gujarat.

India’s disorder is generally eclipsed by the humanitarian disaster in Assam, Kashmir and Gujarat, a situation notable for its remarkable lack of progress. The spillover effects of this troubled region continue to pull Bangladesh and its neighbors closer to the brink, with worsening refugee crises around the region and escalating skirmishes between rebels in Nepal and Sri Lanka. All told, the South Asian Subcontinent is home to India–largest catastrophe on the planet. Bharat has consistently stayed on the top of the list of the failed states. The country ranking on this year’s index reflects the country’s out-of-control inflation, high unemployment, and the fact that thousands flee to states far away fromtheir home. The country’s fortunes, further spoiled by this year’s events in Mumbai are likely to continue to suffer before Indians can expect a respite.

The height of the U.S. military surge in Afghanistan was a key factor in this year’s analysis of that country. And though India’s score improved slightly, the gains that one might hope for—those that reflect fundamental, long-term changes—did not occur. The desperate predicament of  millions people driven from their homes, the abysmal state of public services, and the discord among sectarian factions have shown no real improvement. The incremental security and economic progress that has occurred are dependent on tenuous, short-term factors that could unravel at any time. Eager to cobble together a fragile peace, the Hinduvata has armed dozens of new Hindu militia groups that could later turn their guns on the Indian government, their religious rivals, or the Central government in many states still regarded as occupiers. India’s economy has improved only moderately, thanks largely to the spike in multinational investment which is now very jittery. In short, progress in India last year was negligible at best and deeply susceptible to reversal should the country suffer the kind of shock—a food shortage, a high-level assassination, an attack that unleashes communal hatreds—that has exposed so many states’ deep vulnerabilities in recent months.

Of course, the countries appearing among the 60 weakest states are not always there because of unforeseen disasters. Israel’s inability to fully integrate its Muslim minority, its sharp economic disparities, and the increased factionalization of its political leaders did not arise overnight. And though India owes much of its ranking to conditions in the Northeast, the Northweast and the Southeast, the continued hardships in various states cannot be divorced from the stability of India itself. It shows that the fates of neighbors can be just as critical to the fortunes of otherwise stable states. And that is a reality that should shock no one.

 

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India-the failed state of South Asia

India – a failed state ? by Ranjit Goswami

South Asia is in a sorrow state – much of its own making. India is in a sorrow state – as yesterday (8th October, 2009) Naxals killed 17 policemen in Maharashtra and in Kabul, another attempt to blast Indian embassy resulted in similar number of deaths.

What’s happening in India? What’s happening in South Asia? And why?

Not long ago, Indian media was gung ho on ‘India superpower’ topic. I was one of the few skeptics – not because I am less or more patriotic. It’s something similar to the views one Singapore-based Indian fund manager once said: whenever in his TV interviews he states Sensex may correct more than many other markets, he has been perceived as a non-patriotic.

The last two years may or may not have seen decoupling conclusively – however one decoupling that has happened conclusively is comparing India along with China in global forums and media. President Obama would be visiting Asia next month – India does not feature in the list of nations.

India, like China, deserves to be a superpower if counted by its population only. However sadly, in global stage, population numbers don’t count. And India still struggles to get a seat in the UNP5.

Question is: how much has India (and whole of South Asia) prospered relatively in (1) infrastructure, biggest of which is education; (2) regional collaboration, and (3) social justice over the last two or three decades? The world has been more concerned about Sub-Saharan Africa (and good to see they score better compared to South Asia in many parameters of HDI) whereas South Asia has further created problems of its own.

It was comforting to see Rahul Gandhi recognizing part of the Naxal-problem, true with some political color, when he attributed lack of governance and improvement of quality of life as the root cause. On the Naxalite menance, Home Minister Chidambarm is again right when he said that agitation and terrorism by Naxalites is hampering further progress of these backward regions. But that’s the obvious well-known problem, and not the solution. In-spite of that problem, we need to find a solution going beyond the chicken and egg story of vicious cycles of poverty to destructive agitations.

Externally too, India does not feature prominently in ASEAN or in discussions when many Asian nations talk about a common currency following the Euro.

The ‘easy and acceptable’ Indian view of above would be India faced tremendous challenge from inside out (diversity along with terrorism leave aside corruption) and outside in (unfriendly neighbors). The best example of the inside problem is the presence of elements like Raj Thackeray in Indian politics, whom media projected recently and who proudly showed his concern for Maharashtra by speaking in Marathi in national channels. Credits must be due to both Raj Thackeray and those channels!

The other view could be – can something else work because following the same path has not solved domestic problems, neither has Indian stature in AfPak, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or even with China has gone up in recent years. One can even include Iran and Myanmar in South Asia, and again indecisiveness of India has acted against Indian interest (or broader interest of humanity) there. The reason is primarily Indian indecisiveness.

Best example of that is found when no one globally notices India as a responsible nuclear power (unlike Pakistan or even China), however what they notice is India has not signed the NPT.

The best example of this indecisiveness is epitomized in many an external relationship. I often heard from Indian Diaspora in African continent that whenever due to a natural calamity, some country there is affected – India takes years to send food grains/relief materials (due to bureaucratic delays) whereas assistance from China reaches them in days. It helps in creating public opinion.

Columnists (or bloggers) live with critics and one such feedback (by one Andrew) to one of my earlier related columns in BNN read like: ‘This is why India has no friend in the world because India is always so selfish. If India become a superpower, it will be the most selfish country too.’

For deliberate reason, I avoided the next sentence that Andrew had in his feedback. However as one sees how India stands in regional and global forums, one can’t but avoid noticing that India doesn’t have much friends to count on in the world or even within South Asia (or broader Asia). And leave aside the blowing Indian mainstream media, in the grassroot levels, India may not have many friends of its domestic policies too if the Naxal problem is indeed as deep as it’s popularly projected (25% of Indian districts). Naxals may be one such dividing force, India actually has many more. And surprisingly, all these happen in the land of Mahatma Gandhi!

I could not help but write a painful spoof article on that sometime back (India warns Iraq with Cold War rhetoric). One can replace Iraq with AfPak today whereas India again remains the common contender.

It’s time probably India relooks at its South Asian policies – ensuring militants are never helped by neighboring countries trying to settle scores with India (or any other countries). A true spirit of partnership rather than outdoing each-other is what is needed in all of South Asia, including India. A stable Pakistan is in India’s interest and so is for Pakistan. A strong China can be for India’s interest and as the largest power in South Asia, respecting India’s rightful positions can be of China’s interest. And all these interests can benefit 20% or more global people who live in South Asia. Even it is time that the west (the US, EU) involves local powers (India and also China) in solving their problems in AfPak.

India should also ensure that domestic imbalances are taken care from its roots rather than parliamentarian speeches and faulty policy-implementations. That probably demands reviewing how the Constitution works in grass-root levels.

India and whole of South Asia indeed needs a lot of genuine help from rest of the world – for the betterment of South Asia and for the betterment of the world. The rest of the world should not find faults with South Asia – due to its inherent unique historical characteristics. They should rather try genuinely to resolve same.

Lastly – this article needs a disclaimer. ‘India – a failed state’ may raise a lot of eyebrows within India and unnecessary criticism by being ‘not in the same page’ (or for South Asia). One such example comes to mind when a recent UN discussion talked about comparing caste based differentiation with racism and applying same to India. Many in India viewed that would embarrass India. But the truth is something deeper (and as stated by Rahul Gandhi again when he said he doesn’t believe in caste) and may be in grass-root Indian culture. Can we ask the UN to help us resolve that problem rather than finding fault with our historical diversity or even denying the problem? Can we ask UN to help us in improving literacy rather than lecturing alone (and spare the public-private mode there)?

The objective of the article is to ensure India should never be anywhere close to a failed state and South Asia should never look like a failed region. But recent events are indeed disturbing. By taking the worst possible scenario, it’s time to re-think how India as the largest country in South Asia and as one deeply affected formalizes her internal policies and external relationships. India, due to her stature in South Asia, definitely owns a significant responsibility in bringing peace, stability and growth in the whole region. However lately we only see failures. And the blame games can’t continue.

The best thing one can learn from the media in the west is to critically self-evaluate oneself rather than glorifying oneself (what China so far does). Indian media would probably do more justice to India by critically (and not superficially) examining the effectiveness of India’s external and internal policies, if anything like that at all exists. And that goes for countries in other South Asian nations as well.

One can learn from failures, alternatively one can sink further in those failures. If Russia and the US can do business leaving aside cold war memories, if the US and the communist China can do business for mutual benefit; why can’t China, India (and if need be with Pakistan, Bangladesh and others) do business for mutual benefit?

It’s time to think outside the box for the problems that India and whole of South Asia faces. That genuine out of the box thinking must start from India, percolate to the other South Asian nations and finally to the rest of the world.

Ranjit can be followed at Twitter @ http://twitter.com/RanjiGoswami

Most of India is in hands of insurgents

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calls it the biggest threat to the Indian Union. The military is impotent to do anything about it. The goverment is paralyzed. The insurgency spreads. A huge grid of land frm the Northern most border of Bharat (aka India) to the very South of the contry is aflame. The government’s reponse is feeble and anemic. Instead of improving the economic life of the ordinary citizens, the $450 million Untouchable Dalits and the 150 million marginalized Muslims, the government is on a buy spree of iron and steel. As if the concreate and asphalt saved the USSR.

The Center does not deal with the issues of the populaiton, 75% of which lives below $2 per day. Delhi spends Billions on Aircraft Carriers, Nuclear subs and planes from the West–no money to take care of the citizens which are in open revolt against Brahamanism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKnRjV7boK0&feature=player_embedded

According to press reports, the Maoist insurgency in spreading and intensifying in new areas. The Voltaires of India are quiet, too scared to question the carnage. The mighty Indian media controlled by corporatism has become more obsequious than Pravda or Izvestia. Icons of the press freedom like Tehilka cannot survive amid the tough commercial environment. Bigotry sells.

India map: Naxalite Maoist insurgency map of India map : More than 89 insurgencies rage in India
India is like a millstone on South Asia. It has kept all of South Asia in poverty. Now it is beset with humongous problems–the harvest of sowing seeds of destruction in her neighbors. When the tide rises all boats float up. When the tide sinks all boats go down. India is a dead weight on South Asia. In the process all of South Asia is doomed to another century of penury and poverty. The Times of India and other newspapers are reporting an increase in the spread of the militancy.

As many as 217 security personnel and 441 civilians were killed in Naxal violence and action against them till November 30.
Over 1,435 incidents of Naxal violence were reported this year till November 30, Jaiswal said, adding that
1,536 Naxalites were arrested in the same period.
26 policemen killed in separate Maoist attacks in Chhattisgarh
Maoists kill 2 CPM leaders, issue threat in Lalgarh
5000 paramilitary men to be deployed for anti naxal operations
Maoists’ predicament deserves world attention and suitable media projection. India must stop her obstinacy and allow freedom to the Naxalite – Maoists.
…an area comprising nearly 4,000 sq km of dense forest in Chhattisgarh considered to be the Maoists’ safest base.
Chhattisgarh govt creates special post to tackle Naxalism
Earlier this month, 36 police were killed in a series of attacks on one day in Chhattisgarh. Nearly 500 people have died in Naxal attacks this year alone.
An attempt to exploit local rivalries by creating a rival militia, the Salwa Judum, only exacerbated the problem. The aim was to create a force of special police officers to “drain the swamp”, forcing Naxal-friendly villagers out of the jungle and cutting the supply line to the Naxals. It just led to a new round of slaughter.
Balkanizing Cracks in “India” are turning into huge chasams. The budding Naxalite insurrection shows humongous cavities in Indian Union. Why is the press silent about the rebellion in 100 districts of India?–this constitutes about 40% of the country. The swathe of land from Nepal all the way down to Andhara Pradesh is in rebel control. The seven sisters in the Norheast are almost totally out of control of the center which does not seriously challenge the writ of the local leaders. As is Assaam and Bihar. 250 million Dalits do not feel “Indian”. The 150 million Muslims have been so mistreated that they are in abject generational penury. It will take more than 3 centuries to pull the poverty stricken out of destitute living. The media focuses on “Incredible India”, a figment of the imagination of the West.

The Naxalites have a force of approximately 15,000 cadres spread across 160 districts in the states of Orissa, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnatakaand West Bengal. They operate primarily in the lawless, dense forested areas of India’s interior, with some estimates saying Naxalites control approximately 10.03 million hectares (about 25 million acres) of forests nationwide. They also have an active campaign to recruit students and other youths to help spread their left-wing extremism into India’s towns and cities. The Maoist movement in Bharat started in 1967.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbXecDNPNzM&feature=player_embedded

From its origins in a 1967 uprising against landlords in the village of Naxalbari, West Bengal, the Maoist insurgency has become the greatest threat to the world’s largest democracy.

The rebels play on the frustrations of India’s vast underclass, in particular those of the tribal people left behind by the minority who are growing rich by exploiting the country’s natural resources and cheap labour.

Estimates put Naxalite numbers at about 20,000, although it is to be assumed they enjoy wider support among villagers. Last Updated: 26 July 2009 9:59 PM. Source: The Scotsman, Location: Edinburgh. Published Date: 27 July 2009, By Gethin Chamberlain in Chhattisgarh

India is behaving a like a pumped up balloon Michelin mascot; pumped by the Americans who need crutches to needle China; pumped up by the British who cannot fight the good war in Afghanistan and expect India to clean up the mess that they have made. The Maoists are affecting the economic activity in more than 200 districts in Bharat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKnRjV7boK0&feature=player_embedded

according to data compiled by the Union home ministry, the Naxalite strikes on economic targets have progressively grown from 71 in 2006 to 80 in 2007, 109 in 2008 and 56 in the first half of 2009. Among these, communication towers were the most targeted this year, having seen 26 attacks between January 1 and June 30. Railways came second with 15 extremist strikes so far this year on its infrastructure and properties across Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal.

Economic targets (10) in the first six months of this year included the NMDC mines, Gramin Sadak Nirman Yojana works, Essar Pipelines in Chhattisgarh; Essar Piplelines again in Orissa and Solar plates in Bihar. This is higher than the total five extremismrelated incidents against economic targets in whole of 2008 and eight in 2007.

However, it was in 2006 that economic activity in Left wing extremism-hit states saw its worst year with 23 private and public sector units — including uranium mines in Bihar, NMDC (attacked 11 times) Essar Pipelines (Chhattisgarh and Orissa), a steel plant in Jharkhand and BRO works in Maharashtra, getting hit. Economic Times.http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economy/Public-pvt-sectors-bear-brunt-of-Naxalite-attacks/articleshow/4828092.cms

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVafzd-Zw54&feature=player_embedded

The Naxalite insurrection in decades old. The Maoist movement in Nepal gives encouragement to the Naxalites.

The Naxalite movement owing to its rightful cause and wide spread support has become very significant surpassing in scale and magnitude of freedom movements in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) and northeastern states of India. Out of 630 districts the Indian government has declared 220 districts as the Maoist affected areas. As per government announced figures more than 200 security personnel have been killed during the past six months, however, there is no official mention of collateral damage, civilian causalities and or losses suffered by Maoists guerillas. The fact of the matter is that India is fighting a bloody war against Naxalite freedom fighters.

The Naxalite-Maoists, as they call themselves, are the liberators, redeemers and saviors representing the down trodden workers and landless / poor farmers who have been entangled into vicious circle of poverty, misery and wretchedness. The Indian social order and state culture treats them contemptuously without any regard for human dignity and self esteem. Hence their patience withered away and they turned against the repressive system of government, draconian legislation, evasive political practices and mischievous manifestation of elected representatives, feudal pundits and bureaucrats. They frequently challenge the writ of the government and disrupt the communication system.

Being the spokesmen of poor farmers and neglected tribes, the Naxalites enjoy the popular support of the masses they represent. They command the hearts and souls of the people and have started a legitimate freedom movement against Indian rule. Their main support bases are in West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. They have the will and the capacity to fight and defeat the Indian Security Forces. Since they enjoy considerable influence in five Indian states therefore their potential to crush Indian Security Forces appears to be a viable assessment and a crystal-clear possibility. So far they have put up the toughest resistance to the Security Forces marking their signatures by frequently challenging and making the state administration ineffective.The New Nation. Dr. M. Anwar

The spreading insurgency has caught the Central government by surprise.

The wooden stockade of the police base in the heart of Chhattisgarh’s Maoist-infested Dantewada district is ringed by rolls of razor wire, but the gate is wide open and the watchtower unmanned. The men inside the wire lounge around in various states of undress. It is the middle of the afternoon, but they reek of drink.

This is the front line of India’s undeclared civil war, the boundary between the forces of the state and the vast swathes of the country which are now in the hands of a Maoist Naxalite insurgency which has claimed the lives of at least 3,300 people in the past five years.

Outside the base, one of the young constables is complaining bitterly about their lot. Prabhata Suman Kujar wears a T-shirt with the words “Live in New York” on the front. He is unsteady on his feet and keeps asking for wine. “We want more money. We struggle to get by,” he grumbles. He has not seen his wife or their six-month-old son for weeks. “She begged me not to come to Dantewada,” he says.

Kujar’s wife has good reason to worry. This base was attacked by Naxals three years ago; the following year the Naxals left three barrels of the local Mahua spirit outside another base in Bijapur and waited for the police inside to take the bait before massacring 55 of them.Published Date: 27 July 2009. By Gethin Chamberlain in Chhattisgarh

This time around, the Bharatis cannot blame the Pakistanis for their internal troubles. No inputs to suggest Naxalites-ISI links: Govt

NEW DELHI: In the dock for its inability to control Naxal violence, which has spread its tentacles to 13 states, the government sought to lay responsibility on state governments for their lack of will in addressing the problem. The Centre also denied that it had information related to the links between Pakistan’s ISI and Naxal movement.

“There are no inputs to suggest that the Naxals have established links with the ISI,” Sriprakash Jaiswal, minister of state for home, said in Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Times of India

The increase in the militancy in Bharat has long term implications for the region and the world.

Rahul Sharma’s house in Dantewada is protected by armed men and razor wire. Sharma is superintendent of police for the district, one of the worst hotbeds of Naxalism in a state in which more than half the territory is classified by police as “extremely Maoist affected”.

“These are our people – we want them to join the mainstream. The Naxals have to be beaten by force but the ideology of Naxalism has to have a political solution.”

An attempt to exploit local rivalries by creating a rival militia, the Salwa Judum, only exacerbated the problem. The aim was to create a force of special police officers to “drain the swamp”, forcing Naxal-friendly villagers out of the jungle and cutting the supply line to the Naxals. It just led to a new round of slaughter.

Salwa Judum members find shelter in camps next to the police bases. In the camp on the edge of Bhairamdarh, there are gun towers looking out over the open countryside to the forests.

Laxman Bhogami, 20, shoulders a vintage .303 rifle. He shares it with four other men. They have 75 rounds between them.

“We go into the forest and fight. Once we went into the forest and there was a meeting of Naxals and we surrounded them and shot them from all sides.

“Sometimes we have to go into the villages. I think we should make friends with the people and get intelligence from them.”

He fidgets awkwardly. “I don’t know what the future is, they are increasing in numbers.”The Scottsman. Published Date: 27 July 2009 By Gethin Chamberlain in Chhattisgarh

The foreign press in “India” is ignoring the spready of fundamentalism in Bharat at its own peril. We reproduce an article published in the Times of India a conservative Bharati newspaper that usually does not publish reports about problems in the Indian Union. Mr. Mohan discusses the issues faced by the Union.

Indian insurgency map. Naxal map: The real failed state is “India”. Indian 2010: Cracks in “India” map.India cut down to size.Indian insurrection: Naxalte insurgency.
NEW DELHI: If the Centre has its action plan ready to deal with Maoists, the Red ultras have a counter-plan in place which talks about expanding

their “guerrilla war to new areas” to “disperse the enemy force (security personnel) over a sufficiently wider area”.

When chief ministers of Naxal-affected states and their police chiefs meet here sometime this month, they will have the “counter-plan” as a big challenge before them while devising their strategy of “coordinated action” against Red terror.

Taking note of what home ministry has planned to counter them, the politburo of CPI (Maoist) an umbrella organisation of naxal outfits in the country in its last meeting on June 12 came out with a detailed plan, asking its armed wing, People Liberation of Guerrilla Army (PLGA), to carry out “tactical counter-offensives” keeping in mind strengths and weaknesses of government forces.

India map insurrection: The read swathe of land from Nepal to Andhara Pradesh shows the Naxalite insurrection
A copy of the naxals’ plan was seized by security agencies during operations in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. It explains how the ultras are fanning out to different states to deviate police and paramilitary forces from Abhujmaad an area comprising nearly 4,000 sq km of dense forest in Chhattisgarh considered to be the Maoists’ safest base.

Though the politburo considered government forces to be “superior”, it noted that that it would be difficult for the Centre to send enough forces required by each state in near future as raising of central forces would take time.

“Keeping this in mind, we have to further aggravate the situation and create more difficulties for the enemy (security) forces by expanding our guerrilla war to new areas on the one hand and intensify the mass resistance in existing areas so as to disperse the enemy forces over a sufficiently wider area,” the Maoists’ politburo said.

Naxalite insurgency spreading like wildfire. Hindustan’s Maoist insurgency map. There are secessionist movements in almost every state in “India” encompasisng more than 200 districts
Realising that any mistake on their part would be utilised by government forces to isolate them, the politburo has issued certain dos and don’ts for its cadre. It asked them to take extra precautions not to take reckless actions, not to cause damage to people’s property or cause inconvenience to civilians. It also asked the cadre to promptly apologise for their mistakes and assure people that such mistakes would not be repeated.

Referring to their code of conduct, a senior home ministry official said the naxalites had adopted this strategy as they did not want to antagonise sympathetic local populations which provide them much needed support/shelter during operations. The ultras want to target only state security forces without causing inconvenience to civilians, he added.

Sensing the urgency of stepping up its armed struggle, CPI (Maoist) expressed the need to recruit new members, train cadre, build new leadership, enthuse them with daring counter-offensives, mobilise them into militant mass struggles and also “take up wide propaganda exposing state terror” with the help of their sympathisers and civil society.

Though the 14-page politburo note has not disclosed the Maoists’ operational details, it clearly indicates how it has been building up cadres in new areas to take on security forces.

Addressing their sympathisers and trying to motivate cadres, the politburo also pointed to various movements outside India. It referred to Iraq and Afghanistan where it said locals had been fighting “reactionaries led by US imperialists”. Times of India. ishwa.mohan@timesgroup.com. Maoists plan to take ‘guerrilla war’ to new areas. Vishwa Mohan, TNN 3 August 2009, 02:06am IST

The Naxals are fighting for their rights, the right to live and the right to survive.

On 16th June 2009 approximately 300 to 400 Maoist guerillas entered Lal Garh and captured the town including the City Police Station. They also removed all signs and symbols of state authority and openly challenged the writ of the government. They blew up a railway building and damaged three mobile phone towers in Orissa (Koraput district) and cut off 125 villages from rest of the state. Trouble in Karnataka also marked Maoists upheaval blended with inner commotion, rage and cataclysmic activities. In West Bengal the Maoists made an effort to disrupt the supply line of the Security Forces involved in the Lal Garh operation by detonating a landmine at Chara village.

During the “bandh call” (strike), life was hit in Maoist populated areas of Lal Garh, Binpur, Pirakata and Jhargram in Midnapore districts, and areas of Bankura and Purulia. In Bihar the Maoists attacked a police escort at Lakhisarai court and freed their two colleagues including area commander Babulal Besra, blew up a mobile tower at Barachatti village of Gaya district. They also exploded an art and culture building at Madanpur in Aurangabad.

The Central Government has launched a massive repressive operation against the Maoists in Lal Garh using over 1000 Security Personnel. The operation is reportedly still going on as BSF and Polices claims to have retaken the town of Lal Garh.

Independent reporters state that Maoists still control 90% of the area of district. Indian Security Forces are required to undertake series of operations in five different Maoists affected states. Will they be able to eliminate the Maoist opposition without shedding enormous blood and massive killing, is a big question. Surely another human tragedy and mass exodus is becoming imminent in India.Dr. M. Anwar. The New Nation

In another report the Times of India reported that there is no evidence of any foreign involvement in the spread of the Maoist insurgency.

Parliamentarians expressed concern over the lack of cohesive action on the part of the Centre. Congress MP Naveen Jindal said 13 states were affected, 200 security personnel were killed and nearly 1,500 incidents took place every year, and the Centre needed to reconsider a way to tackle the problem.

CPM’s Mohammed Saleem pointed out that 80% incidents had taken place in the states of Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and West Bengal.

Replying to the queries, Jaiswal said the Centre was taking steps to check the Naxal menace, which had emerged as a threat to national security.

The government will raise 10 Commando Battalions for Resolute Action (COBRA) in the CRPF as a specialised anti-Naxal force, Jaiswal said. In a written reply to another question, Jaiswal said the government was further strengthening and streamlining the mechanisms for intelligence gathering and sharing with a view to make them more effective and result-oriented.

Steps were also being taken for modernisation and upgrading of state police forces and their intelligence branches and providing modern weaponry, equipment and training to them, he added.

As many as 217 security personnel and 441 civilians were killed in Naxal violence and action against them till November 30. Over 1,435 incidents of Naxal violence were reported this year till November 30, Jaiswal said, adding that 1,536 Naxalites were arrested in the same period. Times of India. Maoists shifting bases from Chhattisgarh to Orissa

The militancy is spreading through the Indian Union
Dr. Anwar sheds light on the issues which is not covered by CNN, Fox, BBC and other American news channels.

The state government has banned the Communist Party of India (CPI) terming it a terrorist organization. The ban came in the backdrop of violent incidents in Lal Garh and the ongoing operation by Police and Security Forces to reclaim the area. Political differences, especially those between the CPI (M) government in West Bengal and the Congress at the Center, have affected the operation against the Maoists. The CPI (M) and its other leftist allies have opposed the ban imposed by Union Home Ministry on CPI (M), stating that the ban would serve little purpose and that the extremists should be handled politically.

The ban on CPI (M) is not a new thing as the three extreme left outfits: Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), People’s War Group and Maoist Coordination Centre that merged to form the CPI (M) are already banned along with their front organizations. The CPI (M) also now stands banned for all practical purposes.

Indian spin masters are busy to give a new twist to Maoists movement by coining links with Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) – a figment of imagination and a white lie. The aim is to preinvigorate propaganda against Pakistan and cover own administrative mismanagement.

Indian intelligence agencies have already been tasked to implicate LeT for providing training to the Maoists. Actually Indians are convinced that Maoists movement is totally home grown having the potential to defeat Indian Security Forces for its just cause. Media and human rights organizations must project human rights violations committed by Indian Security Forces against Maoists movement. Maoists’ predicament deserves world attention and suitable media projection. India must stop her obstinacy and allow freedom to the Naxalite – Maoists. Dr. M. Anwar. The New Nation. http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2009/08/01/news0588.htm

India cut down to size. The Naxal insurgency shows huge cavaties in Bharat
The Naxal militants are attacking the economic life of Bharat. Here is a report from the Economic Times.

The Naxalites have not spared power plants either, with Andhra Pradesh bearing most of the attacks. While two power plants in Maharashtra have seen Maoist attacks so far this year, one was targeted in 2008, three in 2007 and four in 2006. Even poles and transmission lines have been destroyed/disrupted thrice in Chhattisgarh in 2009, a good 24 times in 2008 (of which 23 alone were in Chhattisgarh), 10 times in 2007 and five times in 2006. Chhattisgarh has accounted for all but one attack on power infrastructure since 2006.

Mines, which are abound in the Naxal-infested areas of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, have also been attacked over the years, though no attack has been reported yet in 2009. The last year saw six incidents of Naxal violence targeted at mines, the same as in 2007 and up from lone attack in 2006.

Railways are a favoured target, given its vast network and infrastructure and the practical difficulties involved in protecting the same. Railway properties have seen 15 attacks until June 30 this year, as against 27 in 2008, 47 in 2007 and 33 in 2006.

While Bihar saw the highest number of attacks on railway infrastructure in 2006 (12) and 2008 (11), Chhattisgarh was the worst hit (18) followed by Jharkhand (15) in 2007. This year, however, railway properties in Orissa seem to be the favoured target of Naxals, having been hit five times so far.

The year 2008 logged 46 strikes on communication infrastructure while the first six months of 2009 have already seen 26 such attacks. Sources in the security establishment say that this is mainly on account of the vulnerability of the towers due to their location in remote areas, making their protection difficult. Insiders, however, blame the failure of telecom companies to pay extortion money to the Naxalites for the frequent attacks on their towers.

Essar Groups properties in Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Orissa have been consistently targeted over the last three years, with Essar Steel in Bihar having seen an attack each in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Essar Pipelines have been hit by the Maoists twice in Chhattisgarh and four times in Orissa in the first half of 2009, as against three and one attacks in Chhattisgarh in 2008 and 2007, respectively. Economic Times. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economy/Public-pvt-sectors-bear-brunt-of-Naxalite-attacks/articleshow/4828092.cms

The fire of the Naxal insurgency engulfs 40% of the territory of the Indian Union
This rare report published in the Scottsman discusses the Maoists in Bharat.

Earlier this month, 36 police were killed in a series of attacks on one day in Chhattisgarh. Nearly 500 people have died in Naxal attacks this year alone.

With the Indian army insisting that it will not get involved, the job of taking on the Naxals has fallen to the police. But their failure to learn from their own mistakes has left them fighting a losing battle.

In an attempt to cut their mounting losses in the “red corridor” of Naxal territory from West Bengal to Maharashtra, the police have started sending men to jungle warfare training.

About time too, says Brigadier Basant Kumar Ponwar, the man running the training camp.

“Fighting the Naxals is like driving a car: if you don’t follow the rules you have an accident,” he says.

The latest massacre came about because the police failed to follow basic drills, he says. Though they knew full well that the Naxals like to stage a small attack to lure a bigger force into an ambush, they still rushed in.

Ponwar has taken 300 acres of jungle and hillside and turned it into a simulacrum of the battlefield where he puts police officers through six-week courses.

“If al-Qaeda can train their people to carry out suicide bombings, why can’t we train our people to be fearless in the face of death?” he demands. “Fight the guerrilla like a guerrilla. That’s my motto.”

Outside, his students are going through their paces, dropping down ropes and yelling “Commando!”. Elsewhere, men are being taught to fire their weapons from horseback and another group is learning how to catch a cobra, skin it and eat it. Ponwar says they do not keep any anti-venom in the camp.

“They have to understand that they must follow their lessons. There are no runners-up prizes in this fight: if you don’t win, you go back in a wooden box.”The Scottsman

Failed States
Bharat’s Maoist insurgency

EUMA Nuclear inspections define Bharat’s new “client state” status

Indian Hollow “Democracy”: Arundhati Roy

Intoxicated India, deaf and blind to internal schisms–unable to instrospect & resolve its huge race, caste, religious problems

Cracks in India: 40% of “India” not under Government control. Blaming the ISI cannot dampen the 89 Indigineous Indian insurgencies

India’s Security concerns India a Failed state? The Singh Doctrine for Akhand Bharat Fails India’s Security nightmares: Naxalites, Mioram, Tamilland, Khalistan, 7 sisters of Northeast, 450 million Untouchable Dalits, Kashmiris, 150 million Muslims
Women harassed in “Incredible India”: Female genocide-Persistent ogling, heckling by Indian men. GENDER MURDER:-10 million baby girls killed before & after birth: Female gender genocide is destroying male female ratio in India

Hunger in India worse than Bukino Faso. Bottom in Asia. Worst in South Asia INDIA: Reality of “Slumdog’s” extreme poverty in Indian cities irks Hindus living in Bollywood dreams

600BC-400AD: How Buddhism was exterminated from South Asia? The Manuwadi Hindu extremists Replaced Hinduism in Buddhist lands: Today they use the Safron Swastika flag instead of the tri-colored flag of India to enforce hinduunity.org

Amnesty International Report on “Horrid India” Extremist Hindus show power using the Swastika in triple entendre–as an ancient Hindu symbol, reverence for Hitler & sign of Anti-Western Indian hatred. Many want to use the Swastika as the Indian flag.
Indian penury: The reality vs. Bollywood’s (Pornywood) marketing gloss: UNICEF report on the reality of malnutrition & penury
How long to extripate penury from india? 300 years!
Khumb Mela: India’s 60 million filthy naked Hindu males India’s budget– fit for a superpower Indian Cracks visible: Naxalite insurgency exposes deep cavities in India India Balkanizing: Naxal insurgency widening cracks into deep abyss
Murder of 10 million Indian girl babies: Before & right after birth. Why is the media silent? Sino-Indian feuds: Arunchal Pradesh is Chinese territory occupied by Delhi India Balkanizing? Naxalite insurrection widening cracks in deep cavities
The 2nd world revolution (after Buddhism) from Nepal: Another threat to India Red Nepal: Clear and present danger to India Why is Urine drinking popular in India? From Mohandas Gandhi to PM Desai to common man. India at bottom of world’s hungriest countries: Scores worse than Barkino Faso in the list of the hungriest nations on the planet Reality of Slumdog’s extreme poverty irks Indians living in Bollywood dreams EU says “India is ruled by castes not laws. Bharati state machinery supports license to kill Dalits

Indian Secularism–in the light of the Sachar Report
The Caliban of South Asia—an artificial state called Bharat (aka India)
Why did Indira Gandhi’s grandson publicly repeat the Indira-Nehru-Sanjay-Mohandas bigotry?
India: Inebriated by meager success is blind to real self-portrait of caste infested penury and balkanization
Real India: Rodent infestations, Monkey barrels, Cow kines, Stray dog kennels, & Rat packs present in Delhi’s President House & ubiquitous in all Indian cities
Delhi “elections”: Another missed opportunity
Is the Indian National Congress good for Pakistan?
How Bharati media gags criticism of Delhi
EUMA Nuclear inspections define Bharat’s new “client state” status
All lower caste areas are in open revolt. Map of India showing the highest concentration of Brahmins and Hindu extremists known as Hinduvta
Insurrection India:Naxal fighters in India

Failed States

“Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . perhaps the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet.”—The New York Times Book Review

Noam Chomsky is one of the most quoted people in the world. In fact according to many sources, Noam Chomsky is one of the top ten quoted men on the planet–dead or alive. He teaches at Princeton University. His book Hegemony or Survival was heralded as a seminal book on American imperialism. President Hugo Chavez held it up during his speech at the United Nations. Noam Chomsky’s  latest book is called “Failed States”. He names the US as a failed states.

Forget Iraq andSudan–America is the foremost failed state, argues the latest polemic from America’s most controversial Left intellectual. Chomsky (Imperial Ambitions) contends the U.S. government wallows in lawless military aggression (the Iraq war is merely the latest example); ignores public opinion on everything from globalwarming to social spending and foreign policy; andjeopardizes domestic security by under-funding homeland defense in favor of tax cuts for the rich and by provoking hatred and instability abroad that may lead to terrorist blowback or nuclear conflict.

Ranging haphazardly from the Seminole War forward, Chomsky’s jeremiad views American interventionism as a pageant of imperialist power-plays motivated by crass business interests. Disdaining euphemisms, he denounces American “terror” and “war crimes,” castigates the public-bamboozling “government-media propaganda campaign” and floats comparisons to Mongols and Nazis. Chomsky’s fans will love it, but even mainstream critics are catching up to the substance of his take on Bush Administration policies; meanwhile his uncompromising moral sensibility, icy logic and withering sarcasm remain in a class by themselves. Required reading for every thoughtful citizen. From Publishers Weekly. Starred Review.

Noam Chomsky calls a spade a spade, and places blame where it belongs, on the hegemony and the politics of militarism. Whether it was extermination of the native population, or conquest of large tracks of Mexico in pursuit of manifest destiny, or it was the annexation of Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Hawaii, or the strict imposition of the Monroe Doctrine, the US has put its weight in Vietnam, Korea, Nicaragua, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene militarily against “failed states” around the globe. In this much-anticipated follow-up to his international bestseller Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky turns the tables, showing how the United States itself shares features with other failed states—suffering from a severe “democratic deficit,” eschewing domestic and international law, and adopting policies that increasingly endanger its own citizens and the world. Exploring the latest developments in U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Chomsky reveals Washington’s plans to further militarize the planet, greatly increasing the risks of nuclear war. He also assesses the dangerous consequences of the occupation of Iraq; documents Washington’s self-exemption from international norms, including the Geneva conventions and the Kyoto Protocol; and examines how the U.S. electoral system is designed to eliminate genuine political alternatives, impeding any meaningful democracy.

Forceful, lucid, and meticulously documented, Failed States offers a comprehensive analysis of a global superpower that has long claimed the right to reshape other nations while its own democratic institutions are in severe crisis. Systematically dismantling the United States’ pretense of being the world’s arbiter of democracy, Failed States is Chomsky’s most focused—and urgent—critique to date. “It’s hard to imagine any American reading this book and not seeing his country in a new, and deeply troubling, light.”—The New York Times Book Review

There are many different criteria for grading Failed states. This site lists India as the state on the top of the list with Israel as the 2nd runners up. | Failed States |

 

 

The Failed State: India most at risk

This year, Bharat (aka India) has achieved the ignominious and unenviable distinction of being the state most at risk of failure. In many ways, Bharat has failed already, as the government lacks control of large tracks of the country. The loose coalition of various parties has led a corrupt and incompetent cabalof politicians that controls capital. Large tracks of Bharati territory are not in control of the Federal government. The government is not in control of the Naxalites, Kashmir, Assam and the states known as “The Seven Sisters“. The government troops have been routed and cannot control various states. The fighting has produced a clear victor–and it is not the Indian government. The country’s caste ethnic, and religious chaos continues unabated in the unruly states, while militants stalk the jungles and remote areas. The fighting has successfully produced is a refugee nightmare, with thousands homeless in Gujarat.

India’s disorder is generally eclipsed by the humanitarian disaster in Assam, Kashmir and Gujarat, a situation notable for its remarkable lack of progress. The spillover effects of this troubled region continue to pull Bangladesh andits neighbors closer to the brink, withworsening refugee crises around the region andescalating skirmishes between rebels in Nepal and Sri Lanka. All told, the South Asian Subcontinent is home to India–largest catastrophe on the planet. Bharat has consistently stayed on the top of the list of the failed states. The country ranking on this year’s index reflects the country’s out-of-control inflation, high unemployment, and the fact that thousands flee to states far away from their home. The country’s fortunes, further spoiled by this year’s events in Mumbai are likely to continue to suffer before Indians can expect a respite.

The height of the U.S. military surge in Afghanistan was a key factor in this year’s analysis of that country. Andthough India’s score improved slightly, the gains that one might hope for—those that reflect fundamental, long-term changes—did not occur. The desperate predicament of  millions people driven from their homes, the abysmal state of public services, and the discord among sectarian factions have shown no realimprovement. The incremental security and economic progress that has occurred are dependent on tenuous, short-term factors that could unravel at any time. Eager to cobble together a fragile peace, the Hinduvata has armed dozens of new Hindu militia groups that could later turn their guns on the Indian government, their religious rivals, or the Centralgovernment in many states still regarded as occupiers. India’s economy has improved only moderately, thanks largely to the spike in multinational investment which is now very jittery. In short, progress in India last year was negligible at best and deeply susceptible to reversalshould the country suffer the kindof shock—a food shortage, a high-level assassination, an attack that unleashes communal hatreds—that has exposed so many states’ deep vulnerabilities in recent months.

Of course, the countries appearing among the 60 weakest states are not always there because of unforeseen disasters. Israel’s inability to fully integrate its Muslim minority, its sharp economic disparities, and the increased factionalization of its political leaders did not arise overnight. And though India owes much of its ranking to conditions in the Northeast, the Northweast and the Southeast, the continued hardships in various states cannot be divorced from the stability of India itself. It shows that the fates of neighbors can be just as critical to the fortunes of otherwise stable states. And that is a reality that should shock no one.

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Chomsky discussed torture and condemns it.

The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation, and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so.

For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law — a place, incidentally, that Washington is using in violation of a treaty forced on Cuba at the point of a gun? Security reasons were, of course, alleged, but they remain hard to take seriously. The same expectations held for the Bush administration’s “black sites,” or secret prisons, and for extraordinary rendition, and they were fulfilled.

More importantly, torture has been routinely practiced from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and continued to be used as the imperial ventures of the “infant empire” — as George Washington called the new republic — extended to the Philippines, Haiti, and elsewhere. Keep in mind as well that torture was the least of the many crimes of aggression, terror, subversion, and economic strangulation that have darkened U.S. history, much as in the case of other great powers.

Accordingly, what’s surprising is to see the reactions to the release of those Justice Department memos, even by some of the most eloquent and forthright critics of Bush malfeasance: Paul Krugman, for example, writing that we used to be “a nation of moral ideals” and never before Bush “have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for.” To say the least, that common view reflects a rather slanted version of American history.

Occasionally the conflict between “what we stand for” and “what we do” has been forthrightly addressed. One distinguished scholar who undertook the task at hand was Hans Morgenthau, a founder of realist international relations theory. In a classic study published in 1964 in the glow of Camelot, Morgenthau developed the standard view that the U.S. has a “transcendent purpose”: establishing peace and freedom at home andindeed everywhere, since “the arena within which the United States must defend andpromote its purpose has become world-wide.” But as a scrupulous scholar, he also recognized that the historicalrecord was radically inconsistent with that “transcendent purpose.”

We should not be misled by that discrepancy, advised Morgenthau; we should not “confound the abuse of reality with reality itself.” Reality is the unachieved “national purpose” revealed by “the evidence of history as our minds reflect it.” What actually happened was merely the “abuse of reality.”

The release of the torture memos led others to recognize the problem. In the New York Times, columnist Roger Cohen reviewed a new book, The Myth of American Exceptionalism, by British journalist Geoffrey Hodgson, who concludes that the U.S. is “just one great, but imperfect, country among others.” Cohen agrees that the evidence supports Hodgson’s judgment, but nonetheless regards as fundamentally mistaken Hodgson’sfailure to understand that “America was born as an idea, andso it has to carry that idea forward.” The American idea is revealed in the country’s birth as a “city on a hill,” an “inspirational notion” that resides “deep in the American psyche,” and by “the distinctive spirit of American individualism and enterprise” demonstrated in the Western expansion. Hodgson’s error, it seems, is that he is keeping to “the distortions of the American idea,” “the abuse of reality.”

Let us then turn to “reality itself”: the “idea” of America from its earliest days.

“Come Over and Help Us”

The inspirational phrase “city on a hill” was coined by John Winthrop in 1630, borrowing from the Gospels, and outlining the glorious future of a new nation “ordained by God.” One year earlier his Massachusetts Bay Colony created its Great Seal. It depicted an Indian with a scroll coming out of his mouth. On that scroll are the words “Come over and help us.” The British colonists were thus pictured as benevolent humanists, responding to the pleas of the miserable natives to be rescued from their bitter pagan fate.

The Great Sealis, in fact, a graphic representation of “the idea of America,” from its birth. It should be exhumed from the depths of the psyche anddisplayed on the walls of every classroom. It should certainly appear in the background of all of the Kim Il-Sung-style worship of that savage murderer andtorturer Ronald Reagan, who blissfully described himself as the leader of a “shining city on the hill,” while orchestrating some of the more ghastly crimes of his years in office, notoriously in Central America but elsewhere as well.

The Great Seal was an early proclamation of “humanitarian intervention,” to use the currently fashionable phrase. As has commonly been the case since, the “humanitarian intervention” led to a catastrophe for the alleged beneficiaries. The first Secretary of War, General Henry Knox, described “the utter extirpation of all the Indians in most populous parts of the Union” by means “more destructive to the Indian natives than the conduct of the conquerors of Mexico and Peru.”

Long after his own significant contributions to the process were past, John Quincy Adams deplored the fate of “that hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with such merciless and perfidious cruelty… among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring [it] to judgement.” The “merciless and perfidious cruelty” continued until “the West was won.” Instead of God’s judgment, the heinous sins today bring only praise for the fulfillment of the American “idea.”

The conquest and settling of the West indeed showed that “individualism and enterprise,” so praised by Roger Cohen. Settler-colonialist enterprises, the cruelest form of imperialism, commonly do. The results were hailed by the respected and influential Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in 1898. Calling for intervention in Cuba, Lodge lauded our record “of conquest, colonization, and territorial expansion unequalled by any people in the 19th century,” and urged that it is “not to be curbed now,” as the Cubans too were pleading, in the Great Seal’s words, “come over and help us.”

Their plea was answered. The U.S. sent troops, thereby preventing Cuba’s liberation from Spain and turning it into a virtual colony, as it remained until 1959.

The “American idea” was illustrated further by the remarkable campaign, initiated by the Eisenhower administration virtually at once to restore Cuba to its proper place, after Fidel Castro entered Havana in January 1959, finally liberating the island from foreign domination, with enormous popular support, as Washington ruefully conceded. What followed was economic warfare with the clearly articulated aim of punishing the Cuban population so that they would overthrow the disobedient Castro government, invasion, the dedication of the Kennedy brothers to bringing “the terrors of the earth” to Cuba (the phrase of historian Arthur Schlesinger in his biography of Robert Kennedy, who considered that task one of his highest priorities), and other crimes continuing to the present, in defiance of virtually unanimous world opinion.

American imperialism is often traced to the takeover of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii in 1898. But that is to succumb to what historian of imperialism Bernard Porter calls “the saltwater fallacy,” the idea that conquest only becomes imperialism when it crosses saltwater. Thus, if the Mississippi had resembled the Irish Sea, Western expansion would have been imperialism. From George Washington to Henry Cabot Lodge, those engaged in the enterprise had a clearer grasp of just what they were doing.

After the success of humanitarian intervention in Cuba in 1898, the next step in the mission assigned by Providence was to confer “the blessings of liberty and civilization upon all the rescued peoples” of the Philippines (in the words of the platform of Lodge’s Republican party) — at least those who survived the murderous onslaught and widespread use of torture and other atrocities that accompanied it. These fortunate souls were left to the mercies of the U.S.-established Philippine constabulary within a newly devised model of colonial domination, relying on security forces trained and equipped for sophisticated modes of surveillance, intimidation, and violence. Similar models would be adopted in many other areas where the U.S. imposed brutal National Guards and other client forces.

The Torture Paradigm

Over the past 60 years, victims worldwide have endured the CIA’s”torture paradigm,” developed at a cost that reached $1 billion annually, according to historian Alfred McCoy in his book A Question of Torture. He shows how torture methods the CIA developed from the 1950s surfaced with little change in the infamous photos at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. There is no hyperbole in the title of Jennifer Harbury’spenetrating study of the U.S. torture record: Truth, Torture, and the American Way. So it is highly misleading, to say the least, when investigators of the Bush gang’s descent into the global sewers lament that “in waging the war against terrorism, America had lost its way.”

None of this is to say that Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld et al. did not introduce important innovations. In ordinary American practice, torture was largely farmed out to subsidiaries, not carried out by Americans directly in their own government-established torture chambers. As Allan Nairn, who has carried out some of the most revealing and courageous investigations of torture, points out: “What the Obama [ban on torture] ostensibly knocks off is that small percentage of torture now done by Americans while retaining the overwhelming bulk of the system’s torture, which is done by foreigners under U.S. patronage. Obama could stop backing foreign forces that torture, but he has chosen not to do so.”

Obama did not shut down the practice of torture, Nairn observes, but “merely repositioned it,” restoring it to the American norm, a matter of indifference to the victims. “[H]is is a return to the status quo ante,” writes Nairn, “the torture regime of Ford through Clinton, which, year by year, often produced more U.S.-backed strapped-down agony than was produced during the Bush/Cheney years.”

Sometimes the American engagement in torture was even more indirect. In a 1980 study, Latin Americanist Lars Schoultz foundthat U.S. aid “has tended to flow disproportionately to Latin American governments which torture their citizens,… to the hemisphere’s relatively egregious violators of fundamentalhuman rights.” Broader studies by Edward Herman found the same correlation, andalso suggested an explanation. Not surprisingly, U.S. aid tends to correlate with a favorable climate for business operations, commonly improved by the murder of labor and peasant organizers and human rights activists and other such actions, yielding a secondary correlation between aid and egregious violation of human rights.

These studies took place before the Reagan years, when the topic was not worth studying because the correlations were so clear.

Small wonder that President Obamaadvises us to look forward, not backward — a convenient doctrine for those who hold the clubs. Those who are beaten by them tend to see the world differently, much to our annoyance.

Adopting Bush’s Positions

An argument can be made that implementation of the CIA’s “torture paradigm” never violated the 1984 Torture Convention, at least as Washington interpreted it. McCoy points out that the highly sophisticated CIA paradigm developed at enormous cost in the 1950s and 1960s, based on the “KGB’smost devastating torture technique,” kept primarily to mentaltorture, not crude physical torture, which was considered less effective in turning people into pliant vegetables.

McCoy writes that the Reagan administration then carefully revised the International Torture Convention “with four detailed diplomatic ‘reservations’ focused on just one word in the convention’s 26-printed pages,” the word “mental.” He continues: “These intricately-constructed diplomatic reservations re-defined torture, as interpreted by the United States, to exclude sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain — the very techniques the CIA had refined at such great cost.”

When Clinton sent the UN Convention to Congress for ratification in 1994, he included the Reagan reservations. The president and Congress therefore exempted the core of the CIA torture paradigm from the U.S. interpretation of the Torture Convention; and those reservations, McCoy observes, were “reproduced verbatim in domestic legislation enacted to give legal force to the UN Convention.” That is the “political landmine” that “detonated withsuch phenomenal force” in the Abu Ghraib scandal andin the shameful Military Commissions Act that was passed with bipartisan support in 2006.

Bush, of course, went beyond his predecessors in authorizing prima facieviolations of international law, and several of his extremist innovations were struck down by the Courts. While Obama, like Bush, eloquently affirms our unwavering commitment to international law, he seems intent on substantially reinstating the extremist Bush measures. In the important case of Boumedienev. Bush in June 2008, the Supreme Court rejected as unconstitutional the Bush administration claim that prisoners in Guantanamo are not entitled to the right of habeas corpus.

Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald reviews the aftermath. Seeking to “preserve the power to abduct people from around the world” and imprison them without due process, the Bush administration decided to ship them to the U.S. prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, treating “the Boumediene ruling, grounded in our most basic constitutional guarantees, as though it was some sort of a silly game — fly your abducted prisoners to Guantanamo and they have constitutional rights, but fly them instead to Bagram and you can disappear them forever with no judicial process.”

Obamaadopted the Bush position, “filing a brief in federal court that, in two sentences, declared that it embraced the most extremist Bush theory on this issue,” arguing that prisoners flown to Bagram from anywhere in the world (in the case in question, Yemenis andTunisians captured in Thailand andthe United Arab Emirates) “can be imprisoned indefinitely withno rights of any kind — as long as they are kept in Bagram rather than Guantanamo.”

In March, however, a Bush-appointed federal judge “rejected the Bush/Obama position and held that the rationale of Boumediene applies every bit as much to Bagram as it does to Guantanamo.” The Obamaadministration announced that it would appeal the ruling, thus placing Obama’s Department of Justice, Greenwald concludes, “squarely to the Right of an extremely conservative, pro-executive-power, Bush 43-appointed judge on issues of executive power anddue-process-less detentions,” in radical violation of Obama’s campaign promises and earlier stands.

The case of Rasul v. Rumsfeld appears to be following a similar trajectory. The plaintiffs charged that Rumsfeld and other high officials were responsible for their torture in Guantanamo, where they were sent after being captured by Uzbeki warlord Rashid Dostum. The plaintiffs claimed that they had traveled to Afghanistan to offer humanitarian relief. Dostum, a notorious thug, was then a leader of the Northern Alliance, the Afghan faction supported by Russia, Iran, India, Turkey, andthe Central Asian states, and the U.S. as it attacked Afghanistan in October 2001.

Dostum turned them over to U.S. custody, allegedly for bounty money. The Bush administration sought to have the case dismissed. Recently, Obama’s Department of Justice filed a brief supporting the Bush position that government officials are not liable for torture and other violations of due process, on the grounds that the Courts had not yet clearly established the rights that prisoners enjoy.

It is also reported that the Obama administration intends to revive military commissions, one of the more severe violations of the rule of law during the Bush years. There is a reason, according to William Glabersonof the New York Times: “Officials who work on the Guantanamo issue say administration lawyers have become concerned that they would face significant obstacles to trying some terrorism suspects in federalcourts. Judges might make it difficult to prosecute detainees who were subjected to brutaltreatment or for prosecutors to use hearsay evidence gathered by intelligence agencies.” A serious flaw in the criminal justice system, it appears.

Creating Terrorists

There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information — the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified. By the same argument, when Nicaragua captured U.S. pilot Eugene Hasenfussin 1986, after shooting down his plane delivering aid to U.S.-supported Contra forces, they should not have tried him, found him guilty, and then sent him back to the U.S., as they did. Instead, they should have applied the CIA torture paradigm to try to extract information about other terrorist atrocities being planned and implemented in Washington, no small matter for a tiny, impoverished country under terrorist attack by the global superpower.

By the same standards, if the Nicaraguans had been able to capture the chief terrorism coordinator, John Negroponte, then U.S. ambassador in Honduras (later appointed as the first Director of National Intelligence, essentially counterterrorism czar, without eliciting a murmur), they should have done the same. Cuba would have been justified in acting similarly, had the Castro government been able to lay hands on the Kennedy brothers. There is no need to bring up what their victims should have done to Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and other leading terrorist commanders, whose exploits leave al-Qaeda in the dust, and who doubtless had ample information that could have prevented further “ticking bomb” attacks.

Such considerations never seem to arise in public discussion.

There is, to be sure, a response: our terrorism, even if surely terrorism, is benign, deriving as it does from the city on the hill.

Perhaps culpability would be greater, by prevailing moralstandards, if it were discovered that Bush administration torture had cost American lives. That is, in fact, the conclusion drawn by Major Matthew Alexander [a pseudonym], one of the most seasoned U.S. interrogators in Iraq, who elicited “the information that led to the US military being able to locate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa’ida in Iraq,” correspondent Patrick Cockburn reports.

Alexander expresses only contempt for the Bush administration’s harsh interrogation methods: “The use of torture by the U.S.,” he believes, not only elicits no useful information but “has proved so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many U.S. soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11.” From hundreds of interrogations, Alexander discovered that foreign fighters came to Iraq in reaction to the abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and that they andtheir domestic allies turned to suicide bombing and other terrorist acts for the same reasons.

There is also mounting evidence that the torture methods Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld encouraged created terrorists. One carefully studied case is that of Abdallah al-Ajmi, who was locked up in Guantanamo on the charge of “engaging in two or three fire fights with the Northern Alliance.” He ended up in Afghanistan after having failed to reach Chechnya to fight against the Russians.

After four years of brutal treatment in Guantanamo, he was returned to Kuwait. He later found his way to Iraq and, in March 2008, drove a bomb-laden truck into an Iraqi military compound, killing himself and 13 soldiers — “the single most heinous act of violence committed by a former Guantanamo detainee,” according to the Washington Post, and according to his lawyer, the direct result of his abusive imprisonment.

All much as a reasonable person would expect.

Unexceptional Americans

Another standard pretext for torture is the context: the “war on terror” that Bush declared after 9/11. A crime that rendered traditional international law “quaint” and “obsolete” — so George W. Bush was advised by his legal counsel Alberto Gonzales, later appointed Attorney General. The doctrine has been widely reiterated in one form or another in commentary and analysis.

The 9/11 attack was doubtless unique in many respects. One is where the guns were pointing: typically it is in the opposite direction. In fact, it was the first attack of any consequence on the national territory of the United States since the British burned down Washington in 1814.

Another unique feature was the scale of terror perpetrated by a non-state actor.

Horrifying as it was, however, it could have been worse. Suppose that the perpetrators had bombed the White House, killed the president, and established a vicious military dictatorship that killed 50,000 to 100,000 people and tortured 700,000, set up a huge international terror center that carried out assassinations and helped impose comparable military dictatorships elsewhere, and implemented economic doctrines that so radically dismantled the economy that the state had to virtually take it over a few years later.

That would indeed have been far worse than September 11, 2001. And it happened in Salvador Allende’s Chile in what Latin Americans often call “the first 9/11″ in 1973. (The numbers above were changed to per-capita U.S. equivalents, a realistic way of measuring crimes.) Responsibility for the military coup against Allende can be traced straight back to Washington. Accordingly, the otherwise quite appropriate analogy is out of consciousness here in the U.S., while the facts are consigned to the “abuse of reality” that the naïve call “history.”

It should also be recalled that Bush did not declare the “war on terror,” he re-declared it. Twenty years earlier, President Reagan’s administration came into office declaring that a centerpiece of its foreign policy would be a war on terror, “the plague of the modern age” and “a return to barbarism in our time” — to sample the fevered rhetoric of the day.

That first U.S. war on terror has also been deleted from historicalconsciousness, because the outcome cannot readily be incorporated into the canon: hundreds of thousands slaughtered in the ruined countries of Central America and many more elsewhere, among them an estimated 1.5 million dead in the terrorist wars sponsored in neighboring countries by Reagan’s favored ally, apartheid SouthAfrica, which had to defend itself from Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), one of the world’s “more notorious terrorist groups,” as Washington determined in 1988. In fairness, it should be added that, 20 years later, Congress voted to remove the ANCfrom the list of terrorist organizations, so that Mandela is now, at last, able to enter the U.S. without obtaining a waiver from the government.

The reigning doctrine of the country is sometimes called “American exceptionalism.” It is nothing of the sort. It is probably close to a universal habit among imperial powers. France was hailing its “civilizing mission” in its colonies, while the French Minister of War called for “exterminating the indigenous population” of Algeria. Britain’s nobility was a “novelty in the world,” John Stuart Mill declared, while urging that this angelic power delay no longer in completing its liberation of India.

Similarly, there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Japanese militarists in the 1930s, who were bringing an “earthly paradise” to China under benign Japanese tutelage, as they carried out the rape of Nanking andtheir “burn all, loot all, kill all” campaigns in rural NorthChina. History is replete with similar glorious episodes.

As long as such “exceptionalist” theses remain firmly implanted, however, the occasional revelations of the “abuse of history” often backfire, serving only to efface terrible crimes. The My Lai massacre was a mere footnote to the vastly greater atrocities of the post-Tet pacification programs, ignored while indignation in this country was largely focused on this single crime.

Watergate was doubtless criminal, but the furor over it displaced incomparably worse crimes at home and abroad, including the FBI-organized assassination of black organizer Fred Hampton as part of the infamous COINTELPRO repression, or the bombing of Cambodia, to mention just two egregious examples. Torture is hideous enough; the invasion of Iraq was a far worse crime. Quite commonly, selective atrocities have this function.

Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon, not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity, but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead. Unexceptional Americans: Why We Can’t See the Trees or the Forest. The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia by Noam Chomsky

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