Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Did the world escape Armageddon during US –Russia Stand off on Syria!

 

Did the world escape Armageddon during US –Russia Stand off on Syria!

Perhaps even closer than the 1962 Cuban Crisis because of Rogue Generals & perhaps an irresponsible Israel !

 

"When there is a general change of conditions, it is as if the entire creation had been changed and the whole world been altered." - Ibn Khaldun

"History is ruled by an inexorable determinism in which the free choice of major historical figures plays a minimal role", Leo Tolstoy 

 

"History is but glorification of murderers, criminals and robbers." - Karl Popper

(Note; this is a very important in depth essay of recent scary developments written after search and long experience as a diplomat and analyst of international affairs.

 

http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2012/09/a-short-history-of-decline-of-american.html

 

http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2011/12/50-articles-on-us-led-illegal-war-on.html

 

Please spend some time perusing it .Very little in Indian media .Amb (Retd) K.Gajendra Singh, 30 October, 2013 http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2011/08/amb-rtd-k-gajendra-singh-cv-post.html  )

 

The news trickling out from various sources in September and October about the standoff on Syria in Eastern Mediterranean appeared confused and sometimes even simplistic and looked like a table top nuclear war exercise with lurking Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) if it was played out.

 

But it marked and proclaimed a historic and epochal watershed between US led West and Russia-China led East and anti- Sunni Iran led allies against Saudi led Gulf Council members .The third dimension was for control over energy and its routes and strategic space .It was perhaps a touch and go moment which could have initiated Armageddon as is being revealed now in layers of information coming up from various sources.

 

The October 1962 Cuban Crisis between USSR and USA

 

In many ways September 2013 crisis resembled the 1962 Cuban crisis when US stopped USSR in its tracks to encroach into American strategic space by installing missiles in Cuba to counter US missiles against USSR in Turkey and Italy (this strategic conflict ie Washington installing missiles against Russia remains a major bone of contention even now).

 

We need not go into the details of the 13 day confrontation in October 1962 between the USSR and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other side. The crisis is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict and is also the first documented instance of mutual assured destruction (MAD) being discussed as a determining factor in a major international arms agreement.

 

The confrontation ended on October 28, 1962, when US president Kennedy and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with Soviet leader Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement never to invade Cuba. Secretly, the US also agreed that it would dismantle all US-built Jupiter IRBMs, armed with nuclear warheads, which were deployed in Turkey and Italy against the Soviet Union. The tense negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union , which were carried out through intermediaries , pointed out the necessity of a quick, clear and direct communication between Washington and Moscow. As a result, a direct telephone link between the leaders of the two countries was established.

 

Who saved the world in 1962; Vasili Arkhipov !

 

Arguably the most dangerous moment in the crisis was only recognized during the Cuban Missile Crisis Havana conference in October 2002. Attended by many of the veterans of the crisis, they all learned that on October 27, 1962 the USS Beale had tracked and dropped signaling depth charges (the size of hand grenades) on the B-59, a Soviet Project 641 (NATO designation Foxtrot) submarine which, unknown to the US, was armed with a 15 kiloton nuclear torpedo. Running out of air, the Soviet submarine was surrounded by American warships and desperately needed to surface. An argument broke out among three officers on the B-59, including submarine captain Valentin Savitsky, political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and Deputy brigade commander Captain 2nd rank (US Navy Commander rank equivalent) Vasili Arkhipov. An exhausted Savitsky became furious and ordered that the nuclear torpedo on board be made combat ready. Accounts differ about whether Commander Arkhipov convinced Savitsky not to make the attack, or whether Savitsky himself finally concluded that the only reasonable choice left open to him was to come to the surface. During the conference Robert McNamara stated that nuclear war had come much closer than people had thought. Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, said, "A guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world."

 

This Soviet-American confrontation was synchronous with the 1962 China-India war with the USA's military blockade of Cuba. Historians speculate that the Chinese attack against India was meant to coincide with the Cuban missile crisis to draw attention away from the Himalayan War.

 

Before proceeding further , let me reiterate an observation , which needs verification ,that in US and even in Israel (specially in 2006 war with Hezbollah) some of the top military commanders come from the air force , who easily seduce political leaders and strategic experts with their computer generated power point presentations .How bombings and missiles would neutralize enemy defenses and forces and ground troops can then easily mop up the enemy remnants .During similar discussions at India's National Defence College in 1976 , after the air force , gunnery and tank brigadiers had their say , infantry officers would say ; ok, yes , but who and how would the ground troops fight , defeat and take over the ground and then defend it .

 

This point was clearly exposed in US led 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq and its brutal occupation , when expected fierce resistance for which the Iraqi leadership had drawn up plans made late decorated US Marine Col John Murtha bemoan that US military was broken in Iraq and a political solution must be explored .In the 2006 war in south Lebanon  between the famed Israeli Commandos , highly motivated and trained Hezbollah cadres beat the hell out of Israelis and destroyed many of their so called invincible tanks .An investigation in Tel Aviv headed by a former Judge concluded that Israel , so called the best fighting force in the region did not win the war .

 

Crisis over Use of Chemical weapons in Syria and US threat to punish Damascus!

 

During the chemical weapons use crisis in Syria ,I was called quite a few times as an area expert by Indian Doordarshan and NDTV TV channels for panel discussions on the situation in Syria and its northern neighbor Turkey .I had reiterated that forgetting the advice of the creator , consolidator and modernizer of the secular republic of Turkey from the ashes of the decayed Ottoman empire , Kemal Ataturk , one of all time great strategic thinkers and implementers , who had after decades of war fare , had summed the liet motif of his policy ;"Peace at home and Peace abroad " , but the duo of Islamist prime minister Erdogan and his foreign minister Prof  Davutoglu have got Turkey into a horrible mess because of the megalomaniac and retrograde Islamist thinking and policies of taking back Turkey to Ottoman era glory and influence over former Arab subjects in provinces of Syria, Egypt ,Libya etc . Fortunately President Abdullah Gul, a moderate and sober leader has tried to distance himself from such harmful policies.

 

As for the Syrian standoff, most other participants were confident that US will bomb Syria and get away (as elsewhere ) with Russia only making noises and protesting , while I was quite emphatic that I did not visualize US bombing Syria unlike Libya , in view of Russian, Iranian, Chinese interests and support and determination to oppose any such attempt with tacit support from other Brics members and non-aligned nation states. In Libya Moscow only lost investments but Syria is vital for MAD balance.

 

Let me also quote from my 24 September article;

 

America's place in the world shifted, few Americans noticed it- The Economist 

 http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2013/09/americas-place-in-world-shifted-few.html

 

 " To a student of history , who has served in Cairo and Algiers ( 1960s ) ,in Paris (1970s) and Bucharest (1980s) , ten years in Turkey ( 1969-73 and 1992 to 1998 ) , with a ringside view in Amman ( 1989-92) of 1991 US led coalition war on Saddam Hussain over Kuwait and posts in Baku ( on the Caspian ) and lectures and travel in central and west Asia , the sudden end of the US- Russian standoff with naval armadas and other military hardware on alert and in attendance , the quickly choreographed solution with US Sec of State John Kerry's public offer of forgoing a US attack on Syria which itself was not clearly defined and, lo and behold an immediate positive response by Syrian foreign minister Muallam, who conveniently happened to be in Moscow besides Russian FM Lavrov , would remain a moment of historic turn around perhaps , perhaps like the turnaround of  the Ottoman troops twice from the gates of Vienna in 16th century .

 

To a skeptic diplomat and political analyst , it appeared to be a done deal , when under pressure from US hawks and military-industry complex , Obama drew a red line last year of ban on use of Chemical weapons by Syria against anyone including rebels .The weapons are an insurance against at least a hundred Israeli nukes and other WMDs .Let us see what alternative Russia provides for Syrian security since keeping its military profile and presence in Syria , renewed in 2005 during Bashar Assad's visit to Moscow is matter of strategic life and death for Russia.

 

It may be recalled that soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, under a naive Gorbachov and a drunk or drugged Yeltsin, U.S.-led West sent in a large number of so-called experts on capitalism, democracy and globalisation and transferred from half to one trillion dollars from the former Soviet Union territory to banks and other organisations in the West, in the process creating seven oligarchs in Russia out of which six were Jews. Some of them have left Russia and one who wanted to take over the country is in prison in Siberia.

 

Under the pretext of war against terror, following the September 11 attacks on the US symbols of power, Washington obtained rights to place its military aircraft and troops in Central Asian states like Uzbekistan, Kyrgizstan and Tajikistan in order to occupy strategic pods in the region to threaten the countries of the region including Russia and China.

 

Then it began the process of encroachment on the Russian near abroad by organising what I call US franchised Street revolutions for regime change to bring in pro- Washington rulers. It got rid of Milosevic in Serbia after having destroyed multiethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-religious Yugoslavia. Without proper medical aid Milosevic died as a result of a biased ICC ruling. US also succeeded in changing the Presidents in Georgia and also in Kyrgyzstan but it failed in Belarus .It also succeeded in Ukraine although the election remained contested.

 

When US tried a rebellion in Uzbekistan, its ruler Islam Karimov expelled US military aircrafts and troops from its base there. Since then the position of Georgia ruler has been weakened with a new parliament opposed to him. When Georgia encouraged by USA and Israel tried to snatch some disputed territory from Russia, it was punished very severely. Situation in Ukraine is still in flux although it's totally pro-US President was removed, because of enticement by the NATO and European Union. Ukraine is the home of the concept of Russian nationhood and eastern part is populated by Russian speaking Ukrainians, with Russia's Caspian and Mediterranean fleets anchored there.

 

I had written a number of articles on these franchised revolutions, which are given below;

Articles by Mr. K. Gajendra Singh from Security Research Review-(Volume 1(4) August 2005)

·        After Non-Franchised Andean Uprising East Closes Ranks

·        Baku-Cayman Pipeline: Another East-West Fault line

·        Central Asian Backlash Against US Franchised Revolutions

·        Contribution of Turkic Languages in the Evolution and Development of Hindustani Languages

·        Georgia in Turmoil: A Gambit in the Eurasian Great Game

·        Strategic Chess Moves across Eurasia

·        Ukraine: Another Key Stage in East-West Strategic Battle

 

Western attempts to take over Central Asian states resulted in the strengthening of Songhai Corporation Organization (SCO), which warned NATO by organizing military drills and execises.

 

During the last few weeks I've been to various TV channels and have been pleasantly surprised that Doordarshan and Parliament channels are much more open and free from bias than India's so-called main corporate channels which are pro-American on foreign affairs. During one of the discussions, one participant claimed that if USA attacked Syria, Russia will make a lot of noise and do nothing. Another participant said that what Russia can do when its GDP is almost that of India's GDP. The differences in the nuclear and missile assets. It is because of such assets that US dare not attack North Korea."

 

Below are three interesting and important articles related to use of Sarin gas, which it appears now  was clearly used by Al Qaeda related or other extremist groups and perhaps supplied by Saudi Arabia or brought over from Libya after the destruction of the state by USA ,Britain and France and Italy .Libya has been damaged almost completely. There's no rule of law. A year ago the American Amb Stevens and three of his aides were killed in Benghazi by terrorist groups .Libya's oil was the main attraction for the Western powers, its production has been reduced to one fifth. Before the bombing of Libya reportedly 5000 people had been killed but since then it is reported that almost 100,000 Libyans have died and there is complete chaos. Weapons supplied by West and paid for by the Gulf oil monarchies and stolen from Libya's military stores have brought about mayhem and chaos in neighboring countries like Mali, Algeria and an even beyond. Such is the result of humanitarian intervention which British, French and US leaders with support from Turkey, Jordan and GCC countries wanted to bring about in Syria.

 

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21586553-it-may-not-look-it-barack-obamas-presidency-tied-syria-style-and-substance

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36312.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/world/middleeast/seeking-credible-denial-on-poison-gas-russia-and-syria-turn-to-nun.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

Let me quote from an article American Hegemony is Over by Israel Shamir (fully reproduced at the end) at the Rhodes Forum, on October 5, 2013. Shamir, a very well informed and independent analyst of international affairs is a very dear friend.

 

"The most dramatic event of September 2013 was the high-noon stand-off near the Levantine shore, with five US destroyers pointing their Tomahawks towards Damascus and facing them - the Russian flotilla of eleven ships led by the carrier-killer Missile Cruiser Moskva and supported by Chinese warships. Apparently, two missiles were launched towards the Syrian coast, and both failed to reach their destination. 

 

It was claimed by a Lebanese newspaper quoting diplomatic sources that the missiles were launched from a NATO air base in Spain and they were shot down by the Russian ship-based sea-to-air defence system. Another explanation proposed by the Asia Times says the Russians employed their cheap and powerful GPS jammers to render the expensive Tomahawks helpless, by disorienting them and causing them to fail. Yet another version attributed the launch to the Israelis, whether they were trying to jump-start the shoot-out or just observed the clouds, as they claim

 

Whatever the reason, after this strange incident, the pending shoot-out did not commence, as President Obama stood down and holstered his guns. This was preceded by an unexpected vote in the British Parliament. This venerable body declined the honour of joining the attack proposed by the US. This was the first time in two hundred years that the British parliament voted down a sensible proposition to start a war; usually the Brits can't resist the temptation.

 

After that, President Obama decided to pass the hot potato to the Congress. He was unwilling to unleash Armageddon on his own. Thus the name of action was lost. Congress did not want to go to war with unpredictable consequences. Obama tried to browbeat Putin at the 20G meeting in St Petersburg, and failed. The Russian proposal to remove Syrian chemical weaponry allowed President Obama to save face. This misadventure put paid to American hegemony, supremacy and exceptionalism. Manifest Destiny was over. We all learned that from Hollywood flics: the hero never stands down; he draws and shoots! If he holsters his guns, he is not a hero: he's chickened out.

 

Afterwards, things began to unravel fast. The US President had a chat with the new president of Iran, to the chagrin of Tel Aviv. The Free Syrian Army rebels decided to talk to Assad after two years of fighting him, and their delegation arrived in Damascus, leaving the Islamic extremists high and dry. Their supporter Qatar is collapsing overextended. The shutdown of their government and possible debt default gave the Americans something real to worry about. With the end of US hegemony, the days of the dollar as the world reserve currency are numbered.

 

World War III almost occurred as the banksters wished it. They have too many debts, including the unsustainable foreign debt of the US. If those Tomahawks had flown, the banksters could have claimed Force Majeure and disavow the debt. Millions of people would die, but billions of dollars would be safe in the vaults of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. In September, the world crossed this bifurcation point safely, as President Obama refused to take the fall for the banksters. Perhaps he deserved his Nobel peace prize, after all."

 

Finally let me quote from

"Dismemberment of Command: America's Military Shakeup"

By Gordon Duff and New Eastern Outlook of 24 October, 2013.

 

 http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/10/24/dismemberment-of-command-americas-military-shakeup/

 

"We all knew the military was being "cleaned up." Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General "Marty" Dempsey, when he assumed America's top military command, filled a position that had been virtually vacant for over a decade.

 

That decade and more had been filled with failures of command, dozens of them, at the highest levels, numerous inexplicable and often senseless violations of good order and discipline. Moreover, many of those violations bordered on or exceeded the necessary prerequisites to qualify as war crimes or treason.

 

There had always been a "revolving door" in Washington, carefully groomed military careers could propel "armchair generals" to weighty positions with defense contractors, think tanks or mysteriously funded "chairs" at prestigious universities.

 

Thus when General Richard Myer *, a predecessor of Dempsey, while testifying before the 9/11 Commission, when unable to explain the many failures of command structures and defense protocols that allowed the attacks to proceed surprised none.

*A four star air force general

 

In fact, he had only assumed the chair of the Joint Chiefs a few days before 9/11. His tenure, until 2005, saw two illegal wars, a drug empire built in Afghanistan, trillions of dollars disappear in defense funding and the military itself purged of all commanders who failed to pass a political "purity test" established by Vice President Cheney.

 

Dempsey's role as "house cleaner" has reached into the pinnacle of America's nuclear command structure at a critical time, and not by coincidence.

 

There has been no reporting in the mainstream media regarding the 180-degree turnabout in American policy over both Syria and Iran in the past few weeks. In fact, those policies changed overnight.

 

The reason was never given and, even more curiously, never questioned. One day, the US was ready to rain missiles onto Syria. Anything Russia said, no matter how much supporting documentation was offered, was discarded. America had returned to the unilateralism of the Bush presidency.

 

Secretary of State Kerry announced to the world that the Assad government in Syria was responsible for large-scale chemical warfare in the environs of Syria's own capitol city. Kerry had exact numbers of casualties, details on radio intercepts and full satellite data on the attacks themselves.

 

Then he didn't

 

It was found that the radio intercepts came from "Group 8200," identified by Colonel James Hanke, former Defense Attaché to Israel as a Mossad psychological operations unit. The "intercepts" were invented.

 

What follows is worse; if the intercepts were invented and the intercepts established whose forces were in control of the areas the chemical weapons were launched from, then data on the launchings was not just erroneous but totally wrong.

 

This began in investigation. There were also HUMINT (HUman INTelligence) sources that filled in Kerry's "intelligence mosaic." When a process was initiated to verify those sources, they simply disappeared "in a puff of smoke."

 

The result of this investigation, one that will never be made public, is that, within both the Pentagon and White House, individuals responsible for collating and reporting intelligence to cabinet members, members of congress and even the president were, in actuality, espionage agents.

 

They were and are "moles." Washington is reliving the fictional reality of a John Le Carre novel.

 

Further examinations of policy documents submitted covered intelligence on Iran. National Intelligence Estimates and reports from the IAEA had found that Iran had accounted for all nuclear material. Claims that Iran had diverted material for "high level enrichment" were, in fact, not just insubstantial but purposefully so.

 

In fact, the pattern is slowly tracing back to 9/11 and before, including any and all intelligence that led to the attacks on both Iraq and Afghanistan but much more.

 

As an aside, we take a second to look at Afghanistan. The former First Secretary of the Soviet and Russian embassies in Kabul was Colonel Eugene Khrushchev, a longtime friend. Gene, an expert on the region and co-editor at Veterans Today, is deeply suspicious of US involvement in the sudden and inexplicable growth in narcotics production in Afghanistan.

 

"Gene" as I call him, cited pronouncements by former US Envoy, Richard Holbrooke that demonstrated somewhat more than "passive support" for what had been a very small opium production issue and what had now become a massive heroin production and distribution industry.

None of this would have been possible, not under America's military occupation of Afghanistan, without full complicity of American commanders.

 

Similarly, in Iraq, hundreds of billions of dollars of dollars, aid funding, military supplies, weapons, disappeared, all under close military scrutiny.

 

Prior to that, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld had unearthed over two trillion dollars in defense accounting "errors."

 

Our question is a simple one; what happens when we take a military command authority whose normal good order and discipline is impacted by political extremism and an "unreliable" electoral process to which you throw billions of dollars of potential bribes and payoffs into the mix?

 

Then take this military command, now little more than a "street gang," and arm it to the teeth, stoke it up on race hatred and religious bigotry, tell it that it is above any rule of law and loose it on half the planet.

 

How then does the context change, when top nuclear officers are removed, commanders of the most devastating weapons arsenals imagined?

 

One more thing to add into the mix, missing nuclear weapons. When Fox News today reported the firing of General Michael Carey, they were careful to cite that his removal was not over missing nuclear weapons.

 

One might ask; when is a denial an accusation?

 

Over the past six years, there have been two major command shakeups with American strategic nuclear forces. In 2007, Minot Air Force Base, a leading American nuclear defense facility accidentally misplaced an unknown number of thermonuclear warheads, ostensibly "mistakenly" shipping them to another base without authority or necessary record keeping.

Six weapons were listed as recovered. The launch/storage device used was designed to hold nine.

 

The American form of government was intended to not only separate "church and state" but put the military under civilian control. What does one do when those lines are blurred?

 

How does one restore accountability?

 

Moreover, based on recent events, there is an undeniable pattern that something out of the world of fiction, perhaps "Dr. Strangelove" or "Seven Days in May" has or nearly may have transpired.

Many feel an inexplicable relief that we have all come very close to a great catastrophe and are now pulling back. Those who express such inexplicable beliefs may well is justified."

 

The Cape of Good Hope  -

American Hegemony is Over
By Israel Shamir
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36668.htm


October 27, 2013 "Information Clearing House - First, the good news. American hegemony is over. The bully has been subdued. We cleared the Cape of Good Hope, symbolically speaking, in September 2013. With the Syrian crisis, the world has passed a key forking of modern history. It was touch and go, just as risky as the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The chances for total war were high, as the steely wills of America and Eurasia had crossed in the Eastern Mediterranean. It will take some time until the realisation of what we've gone through seeps in: it is normal for events of such magnitude. The turmoil in the US, from the mad car chase in the DC to the shutdown of federal government and possible debt default, are the direct consequences of this event.

Remember the Berlin Wall? When it went down, I was in Moscow, writing for Haaretz. I went to a press-conference with Politburo members in the President Hotel, and asked them whether they concurred that the end of the USSR and world socialist system was nigh. I was laughed at; it was an embarrassing occasion. Oh no, they said. Socialism will blossom, as the result of the Wall's fall. The USSR went down two years later. Now our memory has compacted those years into a brief sequence, but in reality, it took some time.

 

The most dramatic event of September 2013 was the high-noon stand-off near the Levantine shore, with five US destroyers pointing their Tomahawks towards Damascus and facing them - the Russian flotilla of eleven ships led by the carrier-killer Missile Cruiser Moskva and supported by Chinese warships. Apparently, two missiles were launched towards the Syrian coast, and both failed to reach their destination.

 

It was claimed by a Lebanese newspaper quoting diplomatic sources that the missiles were launched from a NATO air base in Spain and they were shot down by the Russian ship-based sea-to-air defence system. Another explanation proposed by the Asia Times says the Russians employed their cheap and powerful GPS jammers to render the expensive Tomahawks helpless, by disorienting them and causing them to fail. Yet another version attributed the launch to the Israelis, whether they were trying to jump-start the shoot-out or just observed the clouds, as they claim.

 

Whatever the reason, after this strange incident, the pending shoot-out did not commence, as President Obama stood down and holstered his guns. This was preceded by an unexpected vote in the British Parliament. This venerable body declined the honour of joining the attack proposed by the US. This was the first time in two hundred years that the British parliament voted down a sensible proposition to start a war; usually the Brits can't resist the temptation.

 

After that, President Obama decided to pass the hot potato to the Congress. He was unwilling to unleash Armageddon on his own. Thus the name of action was lost. Congress did not want to go to war with unpredictable consequences. Obama tried to browbeat Putin at the 20G meeting in St Petersburg, and failed. The Russian proposal to remove Syrian chemical weaponry allowed President Obama to save face. This misadventure put paid to American hegemony , supremacy and exceptionalism. Manifest Destiny was over. We all learned that from Hollywood flics: the hero never stands down; he draws and shoots! If he holsters his guns, he is not a hero: he's chickened out.

 

Afterwards, things began to unravel fast. The US President had a chat with the new president of Iran, to the chagrin of Tel Aviv. The Free Syrian Army rebels decided to talk to Assad after two years of fighting him, and their delegation arrived in Damascus, leaving the Islamic extremists high and dry. Their supporter Qatar is collapsing overextended. The shutdown of their government and possible debt default gave the Americans something real to worry about. With the end of US hegemony, the days of the dollar as the world reserve currency are numbered.

 

World War III almost occurred as the banksters wished it. They have too many debts, including the unsustainable foreign debt of the US. If those Tomahawks had flown, the banksters could have claimed Force Majeure and disavow the debt. Millions of people would die, but billions of dollars would be safe in the vaults of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. In September, the world crossed this bifurcation point safely, as President Obama refused to take the fall for the banksters. Perhaps he deserved his Nobel peace prize, after all.

 

The near future is full of troubles but none are fatal. The US will lose its emission rights as a source of income. The US dollar will cease to serve as the world reserve currency though it will remain the North American currency. Other parts of the world will resort to their euro, yuan, rouble, bolivar, or dinar. The US military expenditure will have to be slashed to normal, and this elimination of overseas bases and weaponry will allow the US population to make the transition rather painlessly. Nobody wants to go after America; the world just got tired of them riding shotgun all over the place. The US will have to find new employment for so many bankers, jailers, soldiers, even politicians.

 

As I stayed in Moscow during the crisis, I observed these developments as they were seen by Russians. Putin and Russia have been relentlessly hard-pressed for quite a while.

 

* The US supported and subsidised Russia's liberal and nationalist opposition; the national elections in Russia were presented as one big fraud. The Russian government was delegitimised to some extent.

 

* The Magnitsky Act of the US Congress authorised the US authorities to arrest and seize the assets of any Russian they deem is up to no good, without recourse to a court.

 

* Some Russian state assets were seized in Cyprus where the banks were in trouble.

 

* The US encouraged Pussy Riot, gay parades etc. in Moscow, in order to promote an image of Putin the dictator, enemy of freedom and gay-hater in the Western and Russian oligarch-owned media.

* Russian support for Syria was criticised, ridiculed and presented as a brutal act devoid of humanity. At the same time, Western media pundits expressed certainty that Russia would give up on Syria.

 

As I wrote previously, Russia had no intention to surrender Syria, for a number of good reasons: it was an ally; the Syrian Orthodox Christians trusted Russia; geopolitically the war was getting too close to Russian borders. But the main reason was Russia's annoyance with American high-handedness. The Russians felt that such important decisions should be taken by the international community, meaning the UN Security Council. They did not appreciate the US assuming the role of world arbiter.

 

In the 1990s, Russia was very weak, and could not effectively object, but they felt bitter when Yugoslavia was bombed and NATO troops moved eastwards breaking the US promise to Gorbachev. The Libyan tragedy was another crucial point. That unhappy country was bombed by NATO, and eventually disintegrated. From the most prosperous African state it was converted into most miserable. Russian presence in Libya was rather limited, but still, Russia lost some investment there. Russia abstained in the vote on Libya as this was the position of the then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev who believed in playing ball with the West. In no way was Putin ready to abandon Syria to the same fate.

 

The Russian rebellion against the US hegemony began in June, when the Aeroflot flight from Beijing carrying Ed Snowden landed in Moscow. Americans pushed every button they could think of to get him back. They activated the full spectre of their agents in Russia. Only a few voices, including that of your truly, called on Russia to provide Snowden with safe refuge, but our voices prevailed. Despite the US pressure, Snowden was granted asylum.

 

The next step was the Syrian escalation. I do not want to go into the details of the alleged chemical attack. In the Russian view, there was not and could not be any reason for the US to act unilaterally in Syria or anywhere else. In a way, the Russians have restored the Law of Nations to its old revered place. The world has become a better and safer place.

 

None of this could've been achieved without the support of China. The Asian giant considers Russia its "elder sister" and relies upon her ability to deal with the round-eyes. The Chinese, in their quiet and unassuming way, played along with Putin. They passed Snowden to Moscow. They vetoed anti-Syrian drafts in the UNSC, and sent their warships to the Med. That is why Putin stood the ground not only for Russia, but for the whole mass of Eurasia.

 

The Church was supportive of Putin's efforts; not only the Russian Church, but both Catholics and Orthodox were united in their opposition to the pending US campaign for the US-supported rebels massacred Christians. The Pope appealed to Putin as to defender of the Church; so did the churches of Jerusalem and Antioch. The Pope almost threatened to excommunicate Hollande, and the veiled threat impressed the French president. So Putin enjoyed support and blessing of the Orthodox Patriarchs and of the Pope: such double blessing is an extremely rare occasion.

 

There were many exciting and thrilling moments in the Syrian saga, enough to fill volumes. An early attempt to subdue Putin at G8 meeting in Ireland was one of them. Putin was about to meet with the united front of the West, but he managed to turn some of them to his side, and he sowed the seeds of doubt in others' hearts by reminding them of the Syrian rebel man flesh-eating chieftains.   

 

The proposal to eliminate Syrian chemical weapons was deftly introduced; the UNSC resolution blocked the possibility of attacking Syria under cover of Chapter Seven. Miraculously, the Russians won in this mighty tug-of-war. The alternative was dire: Syria would be destroyed as Libya was; a subsequent Israeli-American attack on Iran was unavoidable; Oriental Christianity would lose its cradle; Europe would be flooded by millions of refugees; Russia would be proven irrelevant, all talk and no action, as important as Bolivia, whose President's plane can be grounded and searched at will. Unable to defend its allies, unable to stand its ground, Russia would've been left with a 'moral victory', a euphemism for defeat. Everything Putin has worked for in 13 years at the helm would've been lost; Russia would be back to where it was in 1999, when Clinton bombed Belgrade.

 

The acme of this confrontation was reached in the Obama-Putin exchange on exceptionalism. The two men were not buddies to start with. Putin was annoyed by what he perceived as Obama's insincerity and hypocrisy. A man who climbed from the gutter to the very top, Putin cherishes his ability to talk frankly with people of all walks of life. His frank talk can be shockingly brutal. When he was heckled by a French journalist regarding treatment of Chechen separatists, he replied:

 

"The Muslim extremists (takfiris) are enemies of Christians, of atheists, and even of Muslims because they believe that traditional Islam is hostile to the goals that they set themselves. And if you want to become an Islamic radical and are ready to be circumcised, I invite you to Moscow. We are a multi-faith country and we have experts who can do it. And I would advise them to carry out that operation in such a way that nothing would grow in that place again".

 

Another example of his shockingly candid talk was given at Valdai as he replied to BBC's Bridget Kendall. She asked: did the threat of US military strikes actually play a rather useful role in Syria's agreeing to have its weapons placed under control?

 

Putin replied: Syria got itself chemical weapons as an alternative to Israel's nuclear arsenal. He called for the disarmament of Israel and invoked the name of Mordecai Vanunu as an example of an Israeli scientist who opposes nuclear weapons. (My interview with Vanunu had been recently published in the largest Russian daily paper, and it gained some notice). 

Putin tried to talk frankly to Obama. We know of their exchange from a leaked record of the Putin-Netanyahu confidential conversation. Putin called the American and asked him: what's your point in Syria? Obama replied: I am worried that Assad's regime does not observe human rights. Putin almost puked from the sheer hypocrisy of this answer. He understood it as Obama's refusal to talk with him "on eye level". 

 

In the aftermath of the Syrian stand-off, Obama appealed to the people of the world in the name of American exceptionalism. The United States' policy is "what makes America different. It's what makes us exceptional", he said. Putin responded: "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal." This was not only an ideological, but theological contradistinction.

 

As I expounded at length elsewhere, the US is built on the Judaic theology of exceptionalism, of being Chosen. It is the country of Old Testament. This is the deeper reason for the US and Israel's special relationship. Europe is going through a stage of apostasy and rejection of Christ, while Russia remains deeply Christian. Its churches are full; they bless one other with Christmas and Easter blessings, instead of neutral "seasons". Russia is a New Testament country. And rejection of exceptionalism, of closeness is the underlying tenet of Christianity.

 

For this reason, while organised US Jewry supported the war, condemned Assad and called for US intervention, the Jewish community of Russia, quite numerous, wealthy and influential one, did not support the Syrian rebels but rather stood by Putin's effort to preserve peace in Syria. Ditto Iran, where the wealthy Jewish community supported the legitimate government in Syria. It appears that countries guided by a strong established church are immune from disruptive influence of lobbies; while countries without such a church – the US and/or France – give in to such influences and adopt illegal interventionism as a norm.

 

As US hegemony declines, we look to an uncertain future. The behemoth might of the US military be able to still wreck havoc; a wounded beast is the most dangerous one. Americans may listen to Senator Ron Paul who called to give up overseas bases and cut military expenditure. Norms of international law and sovereignty of all states should be observed. People of the world will like America again when it will cease snooping and bullying. It isn't easy, but we've already negotiated the Cape and gained Good Hope.

 

 Presentation at the Rhodes Forum, October 5, 2013 - http://new.livestream.com/World-Public-Forum/Rhodes-Forum/archives (Language edited by Ken Freeland) - Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net   

 

Monday, October 21, 2013

Re: Uncle Sam has already defaulted; Decline of US Hegemony






Uncle Sam has already defaulted; Decline of US Hegemony

 

I have been writing since over a decade about the end of American century and decline of its hegemony .Brainwashed or bought or just dumb, the so called Indian intelligentsia and corporate media and others remain convinced that US will always rule as from 1991 till their first misadventure in Iraq which hastened its decline and fall.

 

Remember US being thrown out of airbases in Uzbekistan and its puppets being changed in Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and weakened in Georgia after US had occupied the Eurasian space after the fall of the Berlin Wall .Now in the game of Brinkmanship, Putin has seen off Obama in Eastern Mediterranean and Syria.

 

Below is an article on US default since 1944 itself by a US based economic expert and URLs of my ten articles from 2000 onwards on the end of American century and decline of its hegemony

 

Cheers K.Gajendra Singh, 15 October, 2013, Mayur Vihar Delhi-91

 

US debt debate is hogwash: Uncle Sam has already defaulted

by Shanmuganathan Nagasundaram Oct 15, 2013

http://www.firstpost.com/world/us-debt-debate-is-hogwash-uncle-sam-has-already-defaulted-1173125.html

 

The US debt limit has been the focus of the entire world markets for the last few weeks, with dire forecasts coming from all and sundry in case the debt limits are not increased. To me, the debate between the Republicans and Democrats is ludicrous. Much like an atheist listening to a debate between Shia and Sunni, or followers of Shiva and Vishnu. These debates are very passionate, with deeply held convictions, but there is very little to choose between them. To paraphrase a recent colourful quotation from a game-changing personality, I would have to state that the entire debt limit debate is "complete nonsense and should be torn up and thrown out". The truth is the US government has already defaulted – but we are unwilling to recognise it as such (of which more later). So whether the US will raise the debt ceiling or not so that the government does not go into default is immaterial. The argument between Democrats and Republicans over the US debt ceiling is really meaningless: it is guns versus butter as against guns versus margarine. Nothing significant. AFP Before proceeding further, I have very little doubt that the debt ceiling will be raised. Not only from the current $16.7 trillion, but also when that number reaches $20 and $25 trillion a few years down the line – albeit with a high voltage drama every time the debt reaches the ceiling. It really doesn't matter who is in power and who controls the house or the senate in the future. With the net present value of the US's unfunded liabilities running north of $200 trillion and with neither party prepared to cut back on either warfare or welfare spending, there is no real "self imposed" ceiling as to how high the debt ceiling would be raised. But then there is always an external market ceiling, but more on that later. Despite all the grand standing by President Obama and the Republican leadership on their respective positions, there is really no principle involved here – just a question of how the principal (and a borrowed/printed one at that) would be spent. Both sides have demonstrated a readiness to increase military spending (which incidentally is very different from defence spending) without limits and social programmes such as Medicare/Social Security are sacrosanct as well. All that the Republicans are demanding is a postponement by one more year of "Obamacare" and I really cannot see how it's even relevant in the grand scheme of things. So it's pretty much impossible to envisage a situation of how the increases in debt ceiling will ever be stopped to effect real meaningful cuts. But would the US government really default if the limits were not to be raised? At the present condition of near zero interest rates, payments on the outstanding debt account for less than 10 percent of national revenues and so what a refusal to increase the debt ceiling would really do is force the government to cut back on its expenses. Of course, it's only a matter of time before Mr Market forces the hand of incoming Fed Chairperson Janet Yellen to raise interest rates (much against her wishes, I should add. She had vociferously argued for negative interest rates just a few years back). At that time, a "transparent" default would be on the cards without accompanying increases in the debt ceiling. But why "transparent"? Because the US government has been surreptitiously defaulting for almost all of the last 70-plus years. First, there was a default to its own citizens when they refused to redeem the dollars for gold through the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944. The default to other central banks happened in 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window. And, of course, subsequently the US has been defaulting through inflation continuously by debasing the currency. So this will certainly not be the first default by the US government – though for much of the world citizenry that have turned into sheep, this would be the first exposure of the wolf in stark terms. The real debt ceiling for all of us is the one imposed by Mr Market and it is no different for the US government. Instead of the self-imposed charade being any real barricade to the amount of debt that the US government can afford, it will be runaway inflation that will end this mindless increases in government spending. Till such point, it's going to be a series of dramas for the consumption of the gullible public, but with a pre-defined outcome. There will be a supposed meeting of minds in the greater interest of society and the world economy and we will be back to business-as-usual before long. How long will Mr Market tolerate all this nonsense without mayhem in the currency and treasury markets? Who knows? But with trillion dollar deficits becoming the norm, the day of reckoning cannot be far into the future.

 

Shanmuganathan "Shan" Nagasundaram is the founding director of Benchmark Advisory Services – an economic consulting firm. He is also the India Economist for the World Money Analyst, a monthly publication of International Man. He can be contacted at shanmuganathan.sundaram@gmail.com


                                  FOUNDATION FOR INDO-TURKIC STUDIES                     

Tel/Fax; 43034706                                                                  Amb (Rtd) K Gajendra Singh                                                      

Emails; Gajendrak@hotmail.com                                                   A-44, IFS Apartments

KGSingh@Yahoo.com                                                                     Mayur Vihar –Phase 1,

http://tarafits.blogspot.com/                                                                Delhi 91, India.

                                                                                                          5 September .2012

 

A Short History of the Decline of the American Century & Its Hegemony (2000 -12)

 

"Keynes's collective work amounted to a powerful argument that capitalism was by its very nature unstable and prone to collapse. Far from trending toward some magical state of equilibrium, capitalism would inevitably do the opposite. It would lurch over a cliff," --- Hyman Minsky.

"Capitalism has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, that it is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells"- Karl Marx

 

"When there is a general change of conditions, it is as if the entire creation had been changed and the whole world been altered." - Ibn Khaldun

"History is ruled by an inexorable determinism in which the free choice of major historical figures plays a minimal role", Leo Tolstoy 

"History is but glorification of murderers, criminals and robbers." - Karl Popper

The author has kept a watch and written about the decline of the American Century and its hegemony since the first anniversary of 11 September, 2001                               

1. CAPITALISM IN CRISIS AND FAILURE OF GLOBALISATION 12 July 2000 http://tarafits-archives-usa-eurasia.blogspot.in/2009/11/capitalism-in-crisis-and-failure-of.html

2The decline of the American Century   Sept 11, 2002 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DI11Ak06.html

3. The US Empire –Beginning of the End Game   24 Nov, 2006 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15729.htm

4. The Decline and Coming Fall of US Hegemony March 30, 2008 http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m42600&hd=&size=1&l=e

5. Western Military-Capitalist Civilization in Disarray September 25, 2008 http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m47513; http://www.boloji.com/analysis2/0386.htm

6. Corporate Culture and Greed Sink the American Republic 17 May, 2009 http://www.boloji.com/analysis2/0442.htm

7. Confirmation of Pressure on Dollar and US Decline 8 October, 2009 http://www.boloji.com/analysis2/0493.html

8. The Looming Mother of all Economic and Social Crisis 11 May, 2010

http://www.mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/2405-k-gajendra-singh.html, etc

 

9. Post Sept 2008 Crippled Economy & US Strategic Decline

Smoke and Storm Signals, 4 July.2011

http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=11174

 

10. Post Bretton Woods; Emerging Outlines of New International Monetary Order

http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/16527-new-international-monetary.html

 

Amb (Retd) K Gajendra Singh

 http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2011/08/amb-rtd-k-gajendra-singh-cv-post.html

 

 



Fwd: Fw: For Dilip Lahiri; Black is Beautiful & Michelle Obama



Black is Beautiful & Michelle Obama 
by K. Gajendra Singh   
"How good-looking +- my wife?" Obama's compliment to Michelle before one of 12 inaugural balls. --No one -- could doubt that glamour has returned to the White House. It was like a scene from a Hollywood movie and created images of fashion and celebrity to rival anything that emerged from JFK's vaunted "Camelot". 
' The Guardian, UK.
After almost exuberant expressions of joy among India's chattering class at Barack Obama's election, the first ever brown US President, the black complexion of his intelligent and beautiful wife, a real Afro-American, became a subject of discussions on some Indian TV channels; if black would now become beautiful and fashionable. It is unlikely to create any change in the deeply ingrained fair color obsession of India's higher castes. This ancient Brahminical belief and order was further strengthened by two centuries of British colonial rule based on the so called superiority of the white race. A few weeks ago, when Ashwaria Rai Bachchan refused to promote whitening creams it made news, since many mercenary Bollywood stars and models pander to such racist ideas.

The white vs black debate reminded me of 1978- 81 summers I spent in Dakar, Senegal's capital city on the peninsula jutting out into the Atlantic ocean, with many excellent beaches along its coast with hundred percent sun guaranteed throughout the year. The cold ocean currents make for cool climate from December to July. Then the warm hot weather attracts a large number of wealthy holiday makers specially from the north Europe, with many taking a second winter tanning vacation in November 'December at beaches of Senegal and down south in Gambia and Ivory Coast.

From mid July to end September, the Senegalese elite following the practice of their erstwhile rulers, the French, led by President Sedar Senghor, with his French wife and a villa in Normandy in France absented themselves from the country, with the government functioning on a skeleton staff. Most diplomats followed suit, except some like pauvre moi made to do what we could in the hot humid climate. We got together in the evenings, had a few drinks, played some bridge, I even taught 'Scrabble' to some. Even with the release of a new Indian film every week in Dakar's cinemas, with little to do even during normal times and visits to 4 neighboring capitals, I was concurrently accredited to, the summer afternoons were difficult to pass. 

How ever there was one pleasant escape. For some reason, perhaps to add glamour and international flavor, Ambassadors were permitted free entrance to French Club Mediteranne holiday resort at Dakar, otherwise restricted only to customers. So after lunch we would some times drive over to the Club, to watch as I would say exhibition of mammary glands; tourists there went around topless to soak in the sun and at a secluded spot even in their birthday suites to acquire some bronze tint, which is recognized in Europe as a sign of having had a vacation , a done thing. Of course there are nudist clubs in many places. In general taking off the tops is considered a sign of advanced civilization by many Westerners.

I had a way to describe these sun starved white or pink creatures from Sweden, Denmark, Germany and elsewhere. Those who had spent a few days looked liked grilled lobsters, a week stay gave them Tandoori chicken tintage. Those nearing two weeks stay or so looked like Sami kebabs, real dark brown black, almost. Mischievous Indian writer Khuswant Singh, although an anglophile, once compared the European complexion to the bottoms of the Rhesus monkeys. Among people of Europe, whose hair are generally straight, limp and lifeless there is a tradition, almost a craze, to curl and wave them, ruining them by the time women reach their 40s and 50s. 

While white or pink Europeans in the resorts were curling their straight hair or tanning themselves even at the risk of skin cancer, outside the resorts, black Senegalese, specially women, were ruining their beautiful dusky skins by using whitening creams. It is quite an effort for Afro-American women including Condi Rice or Michelle Obama to straighten their hair and then impart mild curls to conform to the au courant hair do. To straighten out real crinkly hair and make pleats say like the Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds would easily require many hours by a coiffeur or a friend to accomplish the feat. Therefore many men including Obama sport shaven heads with a few days growth. As for baring of breasts if not almost everything; women go topless not far from the cities, in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa. African dance troupes which performed regularly at cultural centres in Dakar were always a joy to watch; full of abandon, rhythm, melody conveying ecstasy and permeated with spiritual fervor. When the dancers were bare breasted, they were a great hit among Westerners as if the advanced civilizations merged with each other. 

There fore it is a matter of sadness, when Indians blessed by nature with curly hair and clear brown skins, from one spectrum to another should hanker after whitening creams. Of course the model or ideal concept of beauty as disseminated and popularized by Western beauty care industry and fashion houses is the so called Caucasian model. Indian models suddenly became popular with this western industry a few years ago, not because there was any genetic change in India but to cash on the rising affluence of India's rich and middle classes, brainwashed into Western mores and values .So there has been an increase in Indians being crowned Miss World and Miss Universe.

Curiously, most of these young Indian aspirants when questioned by the judges at beauty parades cite Mother Teresa as their ideal and proclaim to follow in her footsteps. But from day one of their strenuous preparations for the pageants their sites are firmly fixed on Mumbai's film and modeling industry and associated activities. Yes rising incomes and leisure has made Indian women and even men more conscious of cosmetics use and designer dresses. Ironically till 1970s we all wore tailor stitched shirts and suits as readymade clothes were imported and very expensive.

To enter Nigeria, Africa's largest market based on its oil riches, when a Nigerian model fitting the Western concept of thin slim model was selected Miss Universe, among ordinary Nigerians it was met with derisive laughter as the local ideal is a healthy buxom figure.

Having grown up in small towns with vacations in ancestral villages and at Banaras, Patiala and Delhi before being posted out in early 1960s as a diplomat to Cairo, I encountered the usual bias for fair /wheat complexioned females. And even for males, to improve the progeny's whiteness, unless they were rich or earned fat salaries. In Patiala, a friend's mother was in raptures over the beauty of a bride. When I enquired, she said," she is Angrez vargi gori - fair like the English. (In my view the West European women in general are generally very ordinary looking even by the Caucasian parameters. On this subject some other time) Not being fair, I would be consoled that as I was educated and would get a good job, so what if I am dark. After all many Indian Gods like Rama, Krishna and Shiva were dark and black .

In Egypt my first foreign post, like many Arab countries they were not too hot on darker hues, even though some of their ancient rulers the Pharaohs from Upper Egypt and Nubia bordering Sudan were dark complexioned with curly hair and thick lips. In Islamic culture the concept of slave or ghulam is quite different from Western civilization specially Anglo-American, as manifested by the ill treatment of natives by the British and other Europeans in their colonies; of African slaves in America being the ugliest and the most inhuman. In USA, the children born out of White 'Black union were meted out the worst treatment, verily a crime against the innocent. This strong cultural divide exists in USA with the Blacks evolving their own subculture in arts and social interaction. The trial of former American Black football star O. J. Simpson for murdering his white ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her white friend exposed the racial divide in USA (Simpson was acquitted in 1995 but a civil suit was filed.)This divide is unlikely to be bridged. In fact some people believe that a volcano is bubbling underneath which could erupt if the coming collapse of US economy creates social unrest.

Slave girls in Muslim society, many came down from Caucasus to Ottoman Istanbul, but once they bore children became part of the family. Slaves could rise on merit and even become rulers like the those from Turkestan or from the Caucasus and Balkans in Ottoman empire and elsewhere. In the Saudi dynasty, children from black mothers now occupy key posts. In India rulers like Balban, ltutmas and many others were slaves. 

It was while traveling on an Italian boat from Alexandria to Algiers in 1964 that I was pleasantly surprised at the coiffeur and his woman assistant on board admiring my black hair. However it was in Turkey during late 1960s and early 1970s that one saw unabashed appreciation of black; hair and complexion. Many visitors, specially women form India were thrilled when they got admiring glances or compliments for their dark complexion and black hair. The ambassador's two daughters were the cynosure for their dark skin; described beautiful like black satin. Members of a Turkish delegation, which went down to Madras just could not stop talking enough the beautiful dusky saleswomen of an emporium they went for shopping. 

Unfortunately when I returned to Ankara in 1992 after 20 years, in their urge to join the Europe Union, the Turkish elite had gone blonde. In fact so many women in big cities sported blonde hair that I joked with my old friends if they had abducted blondes from northern Europe. Their embarrassed answer was, no we have taken to manufacturing blonde dyes. With little chance of making to the EU, I hope the Turks will revert to their preference and pride for the black. 

For some decades after India's independence the new ruling elites bias for white color with Kashmiri Brahmins ruling the roost, remained ascendant. I heard an apocryphal story by a south Indian victim from a group selected for the diplomatic service by the Union Public Service Commission. With many of being of darker complexion they were presented by the establishment on a muggy afternoon, to a tired Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, who was also the External Affairs Minister. The UPSC merit list was set aside and those selected instead were described by a magazine as illiterate cavalrymen, dispossessed princelings and well connected knitwits. 

The color bias was also popularized by Hindustan's mainstream cinema located in Bombay, now Mumbai, with many leading stars hailing from Frontier province and united Punjab before the partition of India. With the ruling elite becoming more defused, many actors, not white chocolate complexion struggled up in this rough field. Some of them being Smita Patil, Rekha, Shabana Azmi and among males Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha, the two not even good looking in the conventional sense. It was hoped that the era of fair complexion prejudice would disappear but evils of globalization including whitening creams is a negative development. In any case in matrimonial advertisement for brides and grooms the preference is still for fair spouses.

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy right with the author. E-mail: 

28-Jan-2009 More by :  K. Gajendra Singh