Condoleezza Rice is visiting India to express solidarity with the Indian people in the wake of the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Americans are worried that any armed conflict between India and Pakistan at this point of time will be a setback to their efforts to finish off Al Qaida and Taliban.
It is a wake-up call for them. Not only to them, but to the entire civilized world. A similar thing can happen in future anywhere in the world. The terrorist training camps churning out terrorists by hundreds are not India-specific. They have visceral hatred for Americans as well as all the people who are not Muslims. It is in the long term American interests to destroy the training camps in Pakistan. India can do it also, but that may lead to war between the two nations with unpredictable consequences.
India should immediately ask for a meeting of the Security Council and demand immediate dissolution of the terrorists training camps in Pakistan. India and the USA should try that the Security Council pass a resolution authorizing a consortium of the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China to take all measures, including military if necessary, to wipe off the terrorist training camps in Pakistan. In the present political climate, none of the Security Council members are likely to oppose the resolution. China, the best friend of Pakistan, is unlikely to veto it. In fact, they may support it enthusiastically. They have been having sufficient trouble with the Uighur separatists in their Xinjiang province. Uighurs are Muslims. A Chinese foreign ministry warned sometime back of the danger of an Islamic terror network. "These people have links with the Bin Laden clique and have been infected with the jihad mentality. We should regard cracking down on these terrorists as part of the international struggle against terrorism" it said in a statement.
A strongly-worded resolution will send an appropriate message to Pakistani defense establishment, which is training terrorists with or without the support of its government. It is possible they may dismantle the entire training network. If they do not do it they stand serious risk of being bombed out by the consortium of big powers.
Pakistan has already rejected the demand of Indian government to handover to them a number of criminals who are directly or indirectly linked to the recent carnage at Mumbai. Political temperature in the subcontinent is rising. It certainly calls for a meeting of Security Council. If India does not call for it somebody else will do it. It is not in the American interests that their plan to eliminate Bin Laden and his gang gets knocked out because of a needless war in the Indian subcontinent.
1 comment:
Is it not true that acts of terror similar to the Mumbai carnage have occur at a fairly constant frequency in India?
The difference this time was that foreigners were attacked and hence the media attention.
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