Re: Iran, a regional power in history coming into its own

 

 

Iran, a regional power in history coming into its own

 

Indian media has referred to from time to time about the heinous activities of ISIL active in parts of Iraq and Syria .An extremist Sunni Arab organisation, it has been created by US and some NATO powers, including Turkey and Jordan and financed and supplied with arms by Saudi Arabia, Qatar , Kuwait and some other Gulf monarchies .

 

Indian media has also covered to some extent the deadly and dangerous conflict going on between Moscow on one side and men eating Bhasmasur Washington with its military industrial complex trying to weaken Russian Federation and bringing NATO right up to its borders. Let us hope that the latest ceasefire signed between US created and US supported regime in Kiev and the Ukrainian Russian speaking people of the East will hold and not lead to further dangerous resumption of warfare which only kills poor citizens.

 

In the process the slow and steady emergence of Iran as a regional power which it was throughout history has been lost sight of. Palestinian killing Israeli regime which has American political leaders by short hair is being opposed to any reconciliation between USA and Iran. In spite of many false starts and threats it would appear that Washington and Tehran are close to come to an agreement on the vexed question of enrichment of uranium by Iran .In spite of threats by US leaders, the author has always felt that the year 2003-04 was possibly the time when led by a witless Pres George Bush with those crazy neo-cons, the chances of an attack on Iran was unlikely as it would have led to a much greater regional war involving great powers.

 

The news of bloody carnage and inhuman activities of ISIL have been highlighted in the media and participation in it by thousands of Sunni Muslims, not only from Muslim countries, but even from Europe and some from India .The increasing participation of Iran and its personnel and Shia Arabs of Iraq and Shias of Lebanon has not been fully noticed. The second article below brings out the increased role of Iran as a power with growing regional influence .It was stupidity of Indian government to have voted against Iran in Vienna .Iran should have been used as a card against Sunni Pakistan, but the Indian leader's diplomats are so beholden to Washington.

 

Amb Rtd K. Gajendra Singh .17 February 2 015, Delhi

  

 

The US administration assesses that the odds of reaching an Iran nuclear deal have increased in recent days, after apparently significant progress was made in recent talks, experts briefed by the administration say.

.

Author Laura RozenPosted February 14, 2015 From Al-Monitor

 

"It is clear that an agreement is within reach, [that] many of the differences have been resolved," Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, told Al-Monitor Feb. 13.

 

"If we get a deal that is close to the terms the administration has set out, and I believe we will, it is going to be a very good deal," Cirincione said. "One that will surprise and please even many of the critics."

 

Progress was made at talks held in Munich on Feb. 6-8 between US and Iranian negotiators, experts briefed by the administration deduced. The uptick in administration optimism about a deal suggests that there has been progress, possibly a breakthrough, on the enrichment capacity issue, among other factors.

 

US negotiators had previously presented Iranian negotiators with a few different ways an acceptable enrichment capacity could be achieved in a final deal that would meet Washington's requirements for a minimum one-year "breakout" — the amount of time it would hypothetically take Iran to produce enough fissile material for a weapon, Al-Monitor previously reported.

 

From the US perspective, prospects for reaching a deal in the near term largely hinged on whether the Iranians would be able to come back and agree to work with one of the proposed formulas.

The United States also assesses Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's remarks Feb. 8 that he would be willing to accept a good deal to be mostly positive, experts briefed by US administration officials the week of Feb. 12 said.

 

They also see as a good sign that top US and Iranian leaders have publicly asserted the shared conviction that another extension of the deadline is not an option, and if they are to get a deal, they need to get it done in the current time frame.

 

The Munich "meeting itself coincided with the decision in both the US and Iran that they needed to get this deal, and could get this deal, and that an extension is not an option," Cirincione said.

"They are a few items away from an agreement [that would] substantially limit Iran's enrichment capability, plutonium production capability and block pathways to a bomb," Cirincione said, adding that the key outstanding issue now is sanctions relief, and how to phase it in. "But we are getting there."

 

The signals from Iran also suggest the Iranian regime may be making a concerted push to sell a deal at home, and warning hard-liners against attacking it.

"I want to say that first of all, I consent to an agreement that is workable," Ayatollah Khamenei told Iranian air force commanders in a speech Feb. 8. "Of course, I do not mean a bad agreement."

If Iran's negotiators "make a good agreement, it is fine by us," Khamenei said. "I myself agree with that and I'm sure that the people of Iran are not opposed to an agreement that preserves their dignity, respect and interests."

Tehran's Friday prayers leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ahmad Khatami, praised Iran's nuclear negotiations as "children of the nation" at prayers Feb. 13, and warned hard-liners against criticizing nuclear negotiations that have been endorsed by the supreme leader.

Former Islamic Guidance Minister and Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps adviser Saffar Harrandi also weighed in Feb. 13, saying that some 72% of the Iranian people support a nuclear accord that preserves Iran's rights, Iranian media reported.

Notable from Khamenei's Feb. 8 remarks is that he for the first time used the words "possible accord," when previously he spoke about "agreed to talks," an Israeli analyst on Iran, speaking not for attribution, said Feb. 14.

 

 

Shiite militias mixed blessing in Iraq, Syria

WASHINGTON — A plethora of new and old Shiite militias is dominating battlefields in Iraq and Syria, US experts say, raising concerns about growing Iranian influence that could exacerbate sectarian divisions and ultimately weaken the fight against the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS).

Summary

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/shiite-militias-mixed-blessing-iraq-syria.html

 

 US experts warn about the "Hezbollization" of Iraq and Syria but there is little alternative now to Iranian-backed Shiite militias to push back the group that calls itself the Islamic State.

Author Barbara SlavinPosted February 9, 2015

 

The growth of these groups — known as popular mobilization units — poses a conundrum for the Obama administration and the coalition of about 60 countries it is leading against IS. For the time being, Iran-backed groups are providing most of the "boots on the ground" that are pushing back IS forces from key areas near Baghdad, including Diyala province. These militias are also preventing IS from overrunning even more territory in Syria. But there are disturbing reports of massacres of Sunni civilian populations by Shiite fighters, some of whom have killed Americans in the past.

 

At his confirmation hearing Feb. 4, Ashton Carter, the nominee to replace Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, went so far as to equate Iran and IS as the biggest threats to US national security, in part because of spreading Iranian influence in Iraq. "I have concerns about the sectarian nature of Iran's activities in Iraq," Carter explained to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"The United States must continue to make clear to the Iraqi government that Iran's approach in Iraq undermines the needed political inclusion for all Iraqi communities, which is required to ultimately defeat [IS]," he said.

 

US room for maneuvering may be limited, however.

 

Iran-backed militias have played a pivotal role in Iraq since the US invasion overthrew the Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003. His removal facilitated the return of thousands of Iran-trained Shiite fighters. They included members of the Badr Brigades, which was created in Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War as the military arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of post-Saddam Iraq's main political parties. The leader of what is now called the Badr Organization, Hadi al-Ameri, is Iraq's minister of transportation and has been spotted among militiamen in recent battles as has the head of Iran's Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani.

"How can we control Iran's influence in Iraq considering that the parties in control of the Baghdad government are Shiite parties?" Alireza Nader, a Middle East analyst at Rand, told Al-Monitor. "The Iraqi government is so vulnerable at this point that it has little choice but to turn to Iran which, unlike the US, has people on the frontlines [in Iraq] taking casualties."

 

In the aftermath of Saddam's overthrow, Iran made overtures to the United States for a broad-based dialogue but was spurned. Iran began organizing new militias, known as "special groups," such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the League of the Righteous, which attacked US forces. When the United States ended its combat mission in Iraq in 2009, militia leaders who had been jailed or blacklisted were freed and rehabilitated and some are now prominent in the fight against IS.

 

Among them is Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, leader of the group Kataib Hezbollah, which is on the US State Department's terrorism list.

 

Even US experts on Iraq who are critical of Iran's role concede that the militias are providing an essential service while efforts continue to reconstitute the Iraqi army and to organize national guard forces that can fight more effectively in Sunni areas, such as Mosul. The Iraqi Cabinet has agreed to the creation of a national guard but the parliament — dominated by Shiites and ethnic Kurds — has yet to approve.

 

As US forces pound IS from the air, however, concerns are increasingly being expressed in Washington, as well as among Sunni Arab members of the anti-IS coalition, that Iran will be the ultimate beneficiary. For some critics, these concerns are compounded by the prospect of a nuclear deal between the United States and Iran.

 

"What if we defeat [IS] but lose Iraq in the process?" asked Michael Knights, a leading US expert on the Iraqi military. Referring to what he called "a Hezbollization of the Iraqi security sector," Knights told an audience at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Feb. 6 that this was a "Yalta moment" similar to the 1945 conference in Crimea where the United States acquiesced to Soviet control of post-war Eastern Europe.

 

The United States needs to step up its security cooperation with the Baghdad government and "outperform the Iranians" to prevent Iraq from becoming an Iranian satellite, Knights suggested. That will require "a visionary decade-spanning relationship" with the Iraqi government, he said, that will include a larger US military presence.

 

Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias, sketched an even bleaker and more complicated picture of the situation in Syria, where scores of new groups have emerged in the past year and a half to fight on the side of the Iran-backed government of President Bashar al-Assad.

While attention has focused on the high number of foreign fighters flocking to Syria to join IS and other Sunni jihadist groups, "one of the largest foreign fighters' contingent is Shia," Smyth said. Most of the fighters are members of Lebanon's Hezbollah or of Iraqi militias but he said there are also recruits coming from as far as India, Afghanistan and Africa — many of them answering ads on social media. Smyth said these foreign Shiite fighters numbered in the "tens of thousands" and that more than a thousand may have already died in the war.

 

US officials contacted by Al-Monitor said they had no figures for Shiite foreign fighters in Syria. Foreigners estimated to have joined the Sunni side are about 20,000, larger than the number that joined the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

 

Many of the Shiite groups in Syria associate themselves with the defense of the Damascus shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, a granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad and sister of Hussein, whose martyrdom in the seventh century was a defining event in the schism between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam. However, Smyth said the defense of the shrine was a cover for more extensive activities in Syria.

 

"They have secured the rule of Bashar al-Assad and constructed a new Golan front" on the border between Syria and Israel, Smyth said. Last month, Israel bombed and killed a contingent of Hezbollah fighters in Syria that included an Iranian general and Hezbollah retaliated with a missile strike that killed two Israeli soldiers in a disputed area on the border of Israel, Syria and Lebanon.

Some analysts say that fears of a new "Shiite crescent" running from Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut (with a side trip to Sanaa in Yemen where Iran-backed Houthi rebels have recently seized control) are exaggerated.

 

Iran has significant internal economic problems, and popular support for what is viewed as "Arab" causes is minimal, while many of the foreign Shiite groups have their own agendas and grievances, which they would pursue even without Iranian help.

 

Still there is no doubt that IS and other Sunni jihadist groups — which reject Shiites as apostates — have stirred up pan-Shiite feeling in countries with substantial Shiite populations, just as the US replacement of Saddam by a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad fueled the rise of IS' precursor, al-Qaeda in Iraq.

 

"It's not new and we've seen it in Lebanon and Syria before," said P.J. Dermer, a former US Army colonel with long service in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Given Iran's proximity to the battlefields and long ties with Arab Shiite populations, "we're going to have a tough time" trying to reduce its influence, Dermer said.

Re: A Government of the people, for the people and by the people for Delhi; Kejriwal

 

A Government of the people, for the people and by the people for Delhi; asserts Kejriwal after massive majority

 

A physically ill, but determined and focused Arvind Kejriwal took the oath of office of Chief Minister of Delhi again after exactly one year and promised to deliver a corruption free, people responsive , stable government without diverting his energies to other states for his five-year term. He confessed that it was a mistake to have left Delhi and to spread the wings of the fledgling new party into other states for the central parliament elections .He may be right about it, but as his deputy leader Sisodia said in an interview that Aap party has 400 leaders who stood on its ticket for the parliamentary elections in May last year and the country knows about the aims and objectives of this party. The party also won four parliamentary seats from Punjab.

 

Kejriwal speech was along well-known lines, and he came out very convincingly about his honesty, his dedication and is integrity. The author has seen and met with many international leaders during his 35 a long diplomatic career, beginning with Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, Nasser, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Ben Bella, Che Guevara, Indira Gandhi,( who took the author out for a walk after the successful visit to Romania in October 1981.Other leaders include  president of Senegal Sedat Senghor, revolutionaries leaders and presidents of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands, followed by Communist leader Ceausescu of Romania , King Hussein of Jordan and Turkish leaders like Demirel, Turgut Ozal and Azerbaijan's Aliev .

 

Kejriwal is only 46 years old, but has amazing presence, conviction and integrity, even playfulness, if necessary and honesty of purpose with genuine humility, qualities which are very rare among political leaders. He is not a political leader in the normal sense of the word, which most of the present leaders  are .In this era of neoliberal capitalism majority of the political leaders are puppets in the hand of robber barons and capitalists .Eighty rich people control 50% of the world wealth . This is certainly not the destiny of the human beings and they must rise up against it.

 

Apart from Cuba under Castro since end 1950s, in a number of countries recently ,specially in Latin America, Venezuela, Bolivia and few others, including Brazil have followed a pro-people policy in the teeth of total opposition and intrigues and international pressure from the leaders of military-industrial complex other corporate interests and basically warmongers, led by USA, UK, Israel and other NATO members.

 

In the subcontinent and the region of Delhi, the capital of India of  12million will be watched not only in India but all over the world. Kejriwal is peaceful revolutionary and the contrast of the way his government works will be resisted politically and even otherwise by all general run of political parties. Just see outside your house poor people transporting human beings by cycle rickshaws from one place to another for Rupees 10, while those who have benefited from spectrum sale or coal blocks auctions have made billions of rupees without doing anything at all.

 

Modi with his 1 million Rs suit

 

Preacher Modi with his 1 million Rs suit and false promises and his party thought that perennial Diwali ( festival of Lakshmi –Goddess of wealth -has come for loot and dividing the country. Kejriwal's victory has exposed them .Very little has been done .BJP party president Amit Shah has a very unsavory reputation and past life  and Modi is almost nothing without his hatchet man . BJP, which won a majority in the central Parliament with only 31% of votes, is already jittery with the performance of Kejriwal win and will try its best to put obstacles to stop his mission. BJP's abysmal performance in Delhi has emboldened its coalition partner Shiv Sena in Mumbai .Scared Modi who during elections called Sharad Pawar corrupt is now making up with him. Modi's reputation has been smudged and tarnished.

 

If the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi has any sense of dignity and pride, he should resign .He was a puppet in the hand of first Congress government and then Modi's government. He did his best to make things difficult for Aap party and delayed the elections as long as possible, which in any case benefited Kejriwal .Still on principle; he should resign and go away.

 

Modi's reputation of the poor man's Prime Minister across India and of all sections of people has been exposed. He turned out to be a petty small-minded person calling Kejriwal names. He will do his best to see that Kejriwal program is not implemented. He should be aware of the people power in Delhi and if Modi and his government are irresponsible you can expect in spite of Kejriwal, people's anger getting out of hand. India is a very big country where people are living in different centuries with different religions, castes, ethnicities and languages and in my opinion, barring small percentage living in feudal time warp with mediaeval outlook. Because of illiteracy and the caste system even stupid people have become not only members of Parliament, but even members of the Cabinet Central government.

 

I reproduce  below two articles from today's Indian express .The first on philosophy, policy and possibilities of success and failure of Aap party. This is a good article and needs to be studied. The second article is by a recently retired Indian diplomat Katju , who was reportedly close to LK Advani .So his philosophy is well-known and is quite different from Justice Katju's views on Brahmins. But Katju is quite right in pointing out the impact on India's international relations, especially relations between prime minister Modi and leaders of USA, Russia, China and Japan, with whom Modi has established close relations .But they now find that there is a more acceptable leader to Indians in the heart of the capital who will challenge Modi's economic and political policies and it will not be easy for neoliberal capitalists to exploit the poor in India. India's might have slower rate of growth, but with equitable distribution and less inequality. Inequality has become the bane of human history since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

 

As I have repeatedly written about the pressitutes in Delhi, Kejriwal was constrained to bring up the subject of the Media against him and his party .

 

K.Gajendra Singh 15 Feb., 2015,Mayur Vihar, Delhi

http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2014/02/amb-rtd-k-gajendra-singh-cv-post.html

 

Left, right, AAP

Written by Harbans Mukhia | Posted: February 13, 2015

Indian Express  Oped

 

Has Arvind Kejriwal altered the paradigm of India's politics? What rubbish, many of us would say. Politicians of this brand come and go and are soon forgotten. One serious charge that is constantly levied against the Aam Aadmi Party in general and Kejriwal in particular is that they lack a clear ideological perspective to guide their actions, which then acquire an ad hoc character. And the charge does not originate in hostility to them, even as it is not even firmly denied by them.

But then the charge itself arises from certain ideas about what constitutes ideology. We have grown up with ideology being cast in terms of binary opposites of class, gender and, in India specifically, caste. Its purported "scientific" schema was laid down by Marx and Engels. In this schema, society, economy, state, politics, culture, religion — everything — imbibed a class character in a general context of irreconcilable class antagonism. Change, in this scenario, could occur only with the overthrow of one class by another and the replacement of an entire structure dominated by one class with an alternative one. There was no shared space in between. It had a sense of deliberate abolition of the past, as it were. The French Revolution was the first such moment of transition, which "abolished feudalism" through a law passed by the Assemblée Nationale one fine morning in August 1789. The 20th century saw several more changes which overthrew either feudal or bourgeois regimes. The socialist revolution of Russia was to mark the arrival of the penultimate stage of class antagonism, prior only to the end of all class struggle as humanity marched into the stage of communism, which would eradicate all trace of class difference among human beings. A dream-like prospect.

 

If the failure of the Soviet experiment does not nullify the concept of class difference in existing societies, it points to alternative modes of resolving social and other tensions. The concept of liberal democracy, which has virtually come to be equated with periodic, multi-party free and fair elections or representative democracy — very inadequate, in effect, for meeting the aspirations of the common masses — is a working alternative, and the only one available at present. The other option is to boycott it and wage revolutionary class war outside its framework, an option no longer viable.

 

It is true that the working of liberal democracy has almost universally been characterized by a gap between its promises and its delivery. The promises made to "we the people" in idealistic constitutions drafted in grand constitutional assemblies, made up of the most highly educated elites, have been denied to the people in real life. We have now reached a stage where about 80 individuals own half the world's wealth and they have acquired it largely in the most advanced democratic set-ups.

 

Yet, the option of delivering the promises made by the same liberal democratic constitutions is opening up. Several experiments in Latin American states and societies, in Iceland and, most recently, in Greece have demonstrated the feasibility of looking after the interests of the poor and the downtrodden — and of the ecology — within the available framework of "democracy". In other words, the ideology that has guided these experiments is redefining Marxism itself by drawing it away from the premise of irreconcilable class antagonism. The objective here is not to do away with the capitalist system but to compel it to fulfill the promises made by the "bourgeois" constitutions. Honesty of purpose seems to have replaced the ideological commitment to class antagonism.

 

This appears to be the guiding perspective of the AAP. It is not as if Kejriwal and his friends have sat down to deliberate these issues, even though it has eminent intellectuals steeped in the social sciences, such as Yogendra Yadav, Anand Kumar, Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Rajmohan Gandhi and others, in the higher echelons of the party leadership. But then, perspectives do not evolve through deliberations among intellectuals. They evolve through interactions with the people and a deliberate as well as intuitive understanding of their problems and aspirations. It would be interesting to investigate how many epoch-making leaders, like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, developed their perspectives by reading learned treatises. As recent exciting experiments in direct democracy, in Iceland and earlier Venezuela, have demonstrated, perspectives traverse many diverse and complex terrains as they evolve.

 

Thus, what the AAP is experimenting with is not a grand theory of overthrow or revolution but one of enlarging the public space within the existing structures. It is not premised on upheavals of one sort or another, but on an incremental claiming of rights that have, in practice, been denied to the common people, the aam aadmis.

 

Will this experiment evaporate into thin air? There is no guarantee that it will survive the expected onslaught of vested interests. But there is no guarantee that it will succumb to threats or temptations held out by vested interests either. Kejriwal has always laid stress on the sincerity of intentions and shown no sign of wavering from them, although it is too early to decide and power has the habit of corrupting. But if it is important to keep one's scepticism alive, especially when it comes to leaders, it is equally important to grant them honesty and commitment to a cause until such time as they belie it. It is the simple principle of "innocent until proven guilty".

 

But the success of the AAP experiment in Delhi will, even if not in full measure but substantially, in Nehru's memorable words, galvanise other areas of public and political life in India. It is easy to envisage its cascading effect if it works out. That is its real message. That is our hope.

The writer is national fellow, Indian Council of Historical Research

express@expressindia.com

 

 

 

The Delhi fumble

Written by Vivek Katju | Posted: February 13, 2015

 

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-delhi-fumble/99/

 

THE Delhi assembly election has attracted the keen attention of foreign diplomats, India-watchers and the international media. Mostly because the BJP leadership chose to invest it with significance that it intrinsically did not deserve. The complete rout of the BJP has also raised questions about the election's impact on national politics.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's spectacular and decisive victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections convinced the international community that he had emerged as the country's tallest political leader, without a real rival. As Modi's star rose in national politics, many countries shed their earlier inhibitions and started to engage with him. After his electoral success last year, important foreign leaders displayed eagerness to accept him as a peer and do business with him. Modi, in turn, showed great interest in foreign affairs and met his international counterparts with ease and a sure touch.

The international community only truly respects heads of government who have real power and are politically durable. It recognizes that only they can actually deliver on assurances and implement decisions. It swiftly realised that Modi was the first such leader to emerge in India in over two decades — his political success exceeds Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi's. This view was confirmed as the BJP won state elections in Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra as well as vastly improved its performance in Jammu and Kashmir. Modi's decisions to change the land acquisition law and allow greater foreign investment in critical sectors like insurance were signals of his intent to move purposefully to overcome the impediments to implementing his vision for India. But he still has to navigate the ordinances through Parliament.

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But international observers and Modi's peers will now pause to assess the impact of the Delhi election on the Indian political scene, especially on Modi. They are likely to focus attention not only on what led Modi to stake his reputation against Arvind Kejriwal, who was in no way his political equal, but also, more importantly, on how he would absorb this reverse and move ahead. Will it bring changes to his economic and foreign policies? Will he move to a more collegial style of functioning? Will he seek to curb the sharp rhetoric and actions of Hindutva elements in the Sangh Parivar? If, in the coming months, they conclude that Modi has taken this defeat in his stride and not allowed it to change his economic and development agenda, they will continue to actively engage with him. But they will focus, in particular, on his moves to ensure the maintenance of social harmony. If these happen, the Delhi elections would be considered as no more than a blip in his five-year prime ministerial term.

Kejriwal evokes intense curiosity among Delhi-based foreign diplomats and India-watchers. They would have been impressed with his remarkable ability to overcome crippling political reverses in a very short time. They would also feel his party had the potential to appeal to vast sections across India, depending on its ability to deliver on electoral commitments in Delhi.

But the international community has great interest in a political party's economic policies, approach to global issues and national security concerns. It is on these matters that countries spar or cooperate. Governance issues that directly impact people's lives and domestic economic policies win or lose elections but are not of direct interest to global players. But Kejriwal has not spelt out his views on these international matters and would need to do so before the world can form an opinion of him.

The Congress party seems to have fallen into the political precipice. Rahul Gandhi has failed every significant electoral test in the past few years. The party is so closely identified with the Gandhi family that it seems not to have a future without them at the helm. Will the international community write off the Congress — in the Delhi election, it did not win a single seat and its vote share fell below 10 per cent? This is unlikely. Global leaders know the Congress party well and have, in the past, been comfortable dealing with it. Besides, let's not forget, it is still the single largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha.

The Delhi election will make India-watching more interesting and complex for the international community.

 

The writer is a former diplomat
express@expressindia.com

 

Re: Havoc created by Madarsa education in Pakistan

 

 

Havoc created by Madarsa education in Pakistan

Does RSS want to replicate such a situation in Hindustan?

 

After a lecture in end 1998, on India's relations through millennia with Central Asia at the University of Bukhara, a major stop on silk Route between East and West, a student asked me that Hindus worship gods made out of clay and other such material. I explained to him that the Hindu religion as such is not like Judaism, Christianity or Islam, where everything is written in the Books. Hindu religion is a collection of total beliefs and systems from very simple ways of worship to highest level of spiritual and philosopher thinking.

 

I explained to them how Hindus describe the Almighty as neither this nor that because it is impossible to comprehend the Reality by rational thinking or mind. While intelligent and philosopher  minds might comprehend Hindu philosophy and its various aspects, illiterate, uneducated and very ignorant minds find it difficult to comprehend God. Muslims have found a simple solution by saying that it is beyond comprehension and no one tries to define Allah. Therefore, such people who worshipped their tribal or folk gods through pictures or idols continue to do so.

 

I then countered with a question. After all, God can understand Quran in any language and Turkey's leader Ataturk tried to convince his people to recite Quran in Turkish, but it was reverted back to Arabic after his death. After all, God can understand if prayers to him are in Arabic or Turkish. And if unlettered Indians worship statues and figures then the same can be said about the caligraphied words Allah, Mohammad, Ali etc written in Arabic. Any desecration of these words, not only in Arabic, but in any language would bring upon the whole indignant might of the Muslims.

The word Hindu comes from river Sindhu known as Indus in the West. Scylax, a Greek origin Persian subject from Asia minor was commanded by Emperor Darius to navigate river Indus , then under Persian rule , from Kabul to its delta on the Arabian Sea, from whose records Herodotus and West learnt about India.  Many names of the countries in the past were based on their rivers like Senegal, Niger or Congo; India came to be so known. The Arabs named the country Al Hind in Arabic and in Turkish it is Hindustan.

Mr Bhagwat of the walrus moustache sitting in Nagpur is trying to put the complex collection of beliefs, philosophy and systems and its followers called Hindus into a rigid narrative. This is dangerous, counter-productive and will not be tolerated by the people of India. Mr Bhagvat  and Mr Modi have still not seen the truth that people of India and most of the Hindus do not like the kind of philosophy and religion BJP and RSS are trying to impose on them .They have been given a body blow from which it will take quite some time for them to recover in Delhi. Still, they keep on misguiding people and creating tensions.

 

I first give some extracts from what Mr Bhagvat has said and at the end an article by Khaled Ahmad on how retrograde obscurantist teachings in madarsas have destroyed Pakistan. There are daily killings and fights between majority Sunnis and Shias .Ahmediyas have been declared as nonbelievers/ kefirs and regularly killed .Does BJP and its leaders specially RSS want to create havoc in this country, something like in Pakistan.

 

K.Gajendra Singh 16 Feb., 2015, Delhi

 

 

According to media reports

 

"Noting that the time has come when the entire society wants RSS and has expectations from it, Sangh Chief Mohan Bhagwat today said the organisation's job was to "unite the Hindu society" and this cannot be only through 'bhashans (lectures)'.

 

"The time has come when the entire society wants RSS and has expectations from it. To fulfil these expectations, the organisation must be expanded," the RSS chief said at 'Rashtra Raksha Sangam' here. "The job of RSS is to unite the Hindu society and make it fearless, self-reliant and selfless, and the one which is ready to live and die for the country," he said, adding that this cannot be done only through 'bhashans'.

 

"It has to be brought into practice... What is the meaning of RSS shakhaa? We come together and forget everything else. Only 'bhagwa (saffron) flag' is in front of us and that is the symbol of pride," he said. Bhagwat said, "Often the word 'show of strength' crops up. When we organise such programmes, it is said that these are show of strength by RSS. Those who do not have strength need to show it. We don't need to do that. We have our own strength. RSS moves ahead on the basis of its own strength. It is our 'atma darshan'."

 

When madrasa challenges state

 

Written by Khaled Ahmed | Posted: February 14, 2015 4:00 am | Updated: February 14, 2015 7:54 am

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/when-madrasa-challenges-state/99/

 

After the adoption of a National Action Plan and a constitutional amendment to tackle terrorism through military courts, the clerics in Pakistan are worried. Records show many terrorists with a madrasa background, some used also by a state that has lost several essential attributes of normality.

The Nawaz Sharif government says madrasas are sacrosanct and will not be investigated, but a growing body of facts in the media says madrasas are involved in terrorism through the training of killers and "excommunication" (takfir) of the Shia community. The state itself apostatises Ahmadi Muslims but balks at takfir of the Shia counted as

Muslims in the census. Most madrasas have gone on record — they may deny it — in calling the Shia kafir. Their fatwas have been used as handbills prior to Shia massacres.

 

The document that arraigns the madrasas of Pakistan comes from India in the shape of a collection of fatwas for apostatising the Shia. The compiler was the head of the Lucknow madrasa Nadwatul Ulema, the late Manzur Numani. The compilation is titled Khumeini aur Shia kay barah mein Ulama-e-Karam ka Mutafiqqa Faisala (Consensual Resolution of the Clerical Leaders about Khomeini and Shi'ism), al-Furqan, Lucknow, 1988. Numani was funded by Saudi Arabia to write a book against Imam Khomeini and collect fatwas of takfir of the Shia.

A number of clerical leaders of Pakistan cosigned or confirmed the fatwa against the Shia in 1986. Among them were two well-known names: Muhammad Yusuf Ludhianvi and Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai. Both were to die in the sectarian upheaval that overtook Pakistan during the Afghan civil war of the 1990s and the jihadist reaction to the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Fatwas of apostatising are on record as having been issued from time to time from all the prominent madrasas of Pakistan. Darul Ulum Haqqaniya Akora Khattak of Maulana Samiul Haq issued its own fatwa apostatising the Shia in 1986, saying that eating foodcooked by them, attending their funerals and burying them in Sunni graveyards stood banned. Another fatwa from Jamia Ashrafia, Lahore, whose leader Maulana Muhammad Malik Kandhalwi, known to be a relative of General Zia-ul-Haq, declared the Shia kafir because "they held that the Quran had been tampered with and gave Hazrat Ali a status equal to Prophet Muhammad, claiming that angel Jibreel had made a mistake while taking wahi (sacred verse) to the Prophet".

 

The above fatwas were circulated in Quetta, Balochistan, in 2003 before the massacre of the Hazara Shia there on two occasions. Since no madrasa is required by the state to register all the fatwas it gives out to the people, the information given by the Hazara leaders on TV fell on deaf ears. However, the compilation of all the Shia-related Pakistani fatwas in Lucknow in 1987 is available for scrutiny by the military courts.

 

There are more than 25,000 officially accepted madrasas in Pakistan — they may be double that number — not all of them registered with the government. According to one source, Balochistan alone has 10,000 madrasas! The big killers that Pakistan wants to catch and hang belonged to these madrasas at one time or another.

 

The biggest challenge for the government and the military courts is the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) madrasa, whose head Maulana Abdul Aziz was under summons in January from a court that he defied. In 2007, al-Qaeda owned up links to it and created the Ghazi Force, which savaged the military personnel of Islamabad-Rawalpindi with suicide attacks.

 

The killer behind the Ghazi Force, named after the founder of the Lal Masjid, was Qari Husain Ahmad Mehsud, who had graduated from madrasa Jamia Faruqia of Karachi, which was founded by Mufti Shamzai, who went on to found Jamia Banuria too, the biggest factory of sectarian killers, till Shamzai himself was killed. And Mehsud was killed by a drone because he trained the son of an air force officer to attempt blowing up Times Square in New York.

 

Many terrorist organisations now banned by Pakistan were born in madrasas. Jaish-e-Muhammad was founded by a graduate of madrasa Jamia Banuria of Karachi, Maulana Masood Azhar, the same man who was caught in India but was "exchanged" for a hijacked Indian airliner. He was the disciple of Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, the terrorist mullah who was murdered in the sectarian war between 1980 and 1990. Now, terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is headed by another disciple of his, Malik Ishaq, who was bailed out by a scared judiciary and is now being kept in jail by the government.

 

Pakistan tells the world it doesn't know where Azhar is today. (His madrasa in Bahawalpur is flourishing as one of the watering holes of Taliban killers roaming in Pakistan.) Another Banuria graduate, Maulana Azam Tariq, was gunned down by rivals after he was "mistakenly" elected to the National Assembly. The headquarters of the biggest killer outfit, Sipah-e-Sahaba, is in Jhang. It is banned, but is alive and kicking in southern Punjab, where you can win elections only after a pact with the Sipah. Jhang has been the epicentre of sectarianism in Pakistan and Jhang was where Syeda Abida Hussain, a Shia farmer, won elections against the founder of the Sipah-e-Sahaba, Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. In 1990, Jhangvi was murdered, and Hussain thought she could meet and condole with his widow. The widow replied: "No need for you to come. You can recite Sura Fateha on the phone; I do not need your assistance. My brother Osama bin Laden looks after all my needs. You must have heard of him. He is a very famous rich Saudi, much richer than all of you kafirs put together." (From Hussain's memoir, Power Failure).

 

No one knew bin Laden in 1990. He left Peshawar after 1991, when the Afghan warlords tilted into their internecine war, and returned from Sudan only after Pakistan had installed the Taliban in Kabul in 1996. It was in Afghanistan that the various Pakistani madrasas touched base with him and swore allegiance to the "Shaikh", including the Lal Masjid clerics of Islamabad and sundry Islamist nuclear scientists and doctors of Pakistan, which then led to the killing of Shia doctors all over the country.

 

Nobody ever thought that madrasas in Pakistan would become powerful enough to challenge the state itself. In 2015, they have become the most powerful civil society element capable of challenging the state to self-correction. The ideology of Pakistan has finally wrenched the "monopoly of violence" from the state and established the clergy as the arbiter of state behaviour. Lawyers, military personnel, doctors, teachers serving in the state sector, journalists and the unemployed, supplement the power of the seminarian boys, who form the frontline against the state without knowing it.

 

The state today is too weak to enforce the Action Plan against terrorism. Like the Middle East, it is no longer able to undo the textbook biases drilled into the common man's mind. Education is heavily tilted in favour of irrational conduct. Spending on education — the Islamic world neglects education, from Pakistan to Algeria — is of no use unless the state ideology is changed.

 

The writer is consulting editor, 'Newsweek Pakistan'

 

 

Indians Discover Uncivilised State of America (USA) Aap's Yadav Defangs Poisonous Grilling by Karan Thapar

 

Indians Discover Uncivilised State of America (USA)

Aap's Yadav Defangs Poisonous Grilling by Karan Thapar

 

Supreme Court stays arrest of activist Setalvad; there is something rotten in the state of Gujarat.

 

Lawyer: Indian citizen out for a walk left paralyzed by Alabama police

Sureshbhai Patel was allegedly slammed to the ground by police after they responded to a 'suspicious person' call

 

by Renee Lewis 10 Feb, 2015

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/2/10/Alabama-India-police.html

 

Police in a northern Alabama city severely injured a 57-year-old Indian citizen after slamming him to the ground, leaving him temporarily paralyzed, according to the man's lawyer.

 

"He was just out for a walk, and apparently someone made a suspicious person call … This is a grandfather who came to help his son and daughter-in-law with their 17-month-old son who was premature and developmentally delayed," Henry F. Sherrod, a civil rights attorney from Florence, Alabama, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

 

Sureshbhai Patel, a permanent resident of the U.S., arrived in the U.S. only one week before the incident occurred. His son Chirag Patel, an engineer, flew him from the small Indian town of Pij to live with them in Huntsville, a suburban town next to Madison, according to Sherrod, who described the neighborhood as affluent.

 

Most police forces all over the world, whether in India, Turkey, or France, are brutal and anti-people. But they are the worst in USA .They represent the white establishment in USA. They are particularly violent and brutal against blacks and browns. There has been a lot of noise on India's TV channels about this incident. In some ways it is now possible because India is a power which matters. It comes after the ill-treatment of India's Acting Consul General in New York last year and the recent statements by US Pres Obama that India must watch out for disruptive elements who can fracture its heterogeneous polity.

 

USA remains a very divided polity and as an American professor once remarked that the US elite has transmuted from genocide of Red Indians and inhuman treatment of blacks brought from Africa to work as slaves and in their plantations into modern high-tech devastation and destruction. One can see these all over the world, beginning with Vietnam in 1960s and then to of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine, to name only a few

 

I am glad that even the Indian worm is turning. However, the Indian police are no better the way they treat Dalits and poor people. If US polity is fractured into whites and blacks than Indian polity is fractured by the Brahmin created and regularly enforced caste system, which is worse than apartheid. Let us see how far this debate goes.

 

Let me quote a passage from my travel through USA in end 1980. Since then, with the arrival of well-educated engineers, doctors and other professionals from India, who dominated and dominate InfoTech profession in major cities and universities in US these Indians, have acquired some respect and dignity. But I am told that outside major cities the prejudice against browns and blacks still exists in USA. There are daily reports of basically white police going after blacks in various states and cities in America like Ferguson .Brown Indians being the latest addition.

 

Let me also reproduce my article about the Uncivilised State of America (at the end).

 

Ugly Grilling of Aap leader Yogendra Yadav by Karan Thapar

 

Most  Indian TV channels , controlled by robber barons and fat cats act as communication houses for them in advocating their viewpoint during the elections for Delhi assembly, in many crude and not so subtle ways .The anchors and others tried all ways till the last moment to persuade voters not to vote for Aap but for BJP. Associated with the media as assistant press attaché since early 1960s in Cairo and having seen the transition of this noble profession into commutations of interest of establishment and fat cats, it is sickening to watch India's TV debates or for that matter, CNN and BBC.

 

Among these wretched programs Karan Thapar's is possibly the most bearable, but he strives to be establishment man. Tell us why he was transferred from CNN-IBN reportedly owned by Mukesh Ambani to Headlines Today. Thank God, he does not allow participants, especially the party spokesman to go on reading out the manifestoes and talking rubbish. He cuts them short. But he tries to imitate sometimes BBC's hard talk where they get hold of some namby-pamby corrupt leaders from Africa or Balkans to be grilled.

 

I think because of his very aggressive and even offensive style, a gentleman Comptroller & Accountant General of India, RK Rai, preferred to be interviewed by Arnab Goswami, an expert in verbal kickboxing.

 

In today's program "To the point", Thapar was absolutely offensive, unbearable and uncivilized the way he went after Yogendra Yadav. It was a pitiable performance by Thapar. Fortunately, as usual Yogendra Yadav kept his cool and gave him detailed and suitable reply. Mr Thapar, are you fronting for BJP as Yadav tried to politely point out .And Yadav is quite right.

 

Supreme Court stays the arrest of civil rights' activist Teesta Setalvad

 

Those interested in the rule of law in this country, and who watched the 2002 pogrom carried out under Chief Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat have admired and praised the courage of activists like Teesta Setalvad , who have been trying to expose the criminal acts of the police officers, politicians and others in Gujarat. In spite of pro-government investigators and prosecutors and the state judiciary, which can be pressurized by many ways (Why even Supreme Court judges were pressurized in the case of Sahara), it appears that after Modi becoming prime minister the High Court in Gujarat has gone out of the way not to grant a stay of arrests ie anticipatory bail in order to avoid embarrassment, ill treatment and torture of Teesta Setalvad and 3 other activists    .

 

Some years ago the Gujarat govt had filed a false case against a very reputed dancer and activist Malikka Sarabhai, because she had stood against BJP candidate in elections from Ahmedabad .She was even stopped from going abroad and the Supreme Court had to intervene .She is being blackballed  after Modi's majority in Delhi parliament with 31% votes .BJP govt has been going almost haywire and aggressive against political opponents ,But Capital Delhi's voters have given a body blow to Modi and his hatchet man Amit Shah , against whom cases till are pending

 

In spite of tall talk by all political parties there is no law to protect whistleblowers in this country and unlikely any time soon. Let us hope that Aap party in Delhi enacts Lok Pal Bill, Whistleblower and other pro-people bills in Delhi at least. .But it will be tough and people will have to be out in the streets like the times of Nibhaya brutal murder .

 

Media report on Teesta Setalvad case

 

The Supreme Court on 12February stayed the arrest of civil rights' activist Teesta Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand and three others in an alleged misappropriation case.

 

Earlier on Thursday, the Gujarat High Court refused to grant anticipatory bail to Ms. Setalvad and Mr. Anand.A bench headed by Chief Justice H.L. Dattu agreed to hear Ms. Setalvad's anticipatory bail plea on Friday.

 

A Gujarat Crime Branch team had reached Ms. Setalvad's residence in suburban Mumbai after the High Court in Ahmedabad rejected her anticipatory bail application.

 

The case pertains to a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch last January, which alleged that Ms. Setalvad, Mr. Anand, former MP Ehsan Jafri's son Tanvir and two office bearers of the society -- Salimbhai Sandhi and Firoz Gulzar -- had embezzled funds to the tune of Rs. 1.5 crore meant for the construction of a memorial for riot victims.

 

The high court granted anticipatory bail to Tanvir Jafri, Salimbhai Sandhi and Firoz Gulzar.

 

'No cooperation'

"The money which should have gone to the poor and the needy appears to have been prima facie misused for their personal pleasure and comfort. Although in the course of lengthy arguments it was vehemently submitted that the applicants are ready and willing to cooperate with the investigation, yet I have noticed that there is no cooperation worth the name," Justice JB Pardiwala observed in his order.

 

From the responses given by Ms. Setalvad and Mr. Anand to the questions posed to them by the police, the court said, that "there is no cooperation at all."

 

"It is at that stage and in such circumstances that the custodial interrogation becomes very important."The court did not find any merit in the "serious allegations of malafides" levelled by the duo against the State.

 

As per the police case, the NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), and the Sabrang Trust run by Ms. Setalvad and Mr. Anand, had embezzled the funds.

 

Scathing indictment

In a scathing indictment, Justice Pardiwala described the two organisations as "a one-woman and one-man show" and drove home the misuse of funds by NGOs.

 

"The facts of this case are quite shocking and disturbing. How can one seek materialistic pleasure and happiness at the expense of the poor and needy persons. The facts of this case reflect the sorry state of affairs of the NGOs. While giving freedom to the civil society to function with the flexibility is positive, too much freedom can lead to abuses by certain groups or individuals calling themselves an 'NGO', thus giving civil society a bad name. It is, therefore, very important to have strict laws regulating accountability and monitoring of the NGOs so as to maintain a high trust level and good functioning," the order states.

 

While Ms. Setalvad and Mr. Anand were "well-renowned persons of great repute," the "hard reality" could not be ignored, the court said.

 

Ms. Setalvad and Mr. Anand could not be reached for comment. The Crime Branch here denied reports of their arrest and said they were "absconding."

 

 

UNCIVILISED STATE OF AMERICA (Still Uncivilized)                                                          

http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2013/12/uncivilised-state-of-america-still.html

 

16 Dec2013

In 2011 Krittika Biswas, the daughter of Indian diplomat Debashish Biswas, in Indian Consulate General in New York City was handcuffed and locked up for more than 24 hours after a shoddy probe by administrators into alleged obscene e-mails sent to two teachers in her school. Her claims of diplomatic immunity were ignored. Krittika has sued New York city for a whopping USD 1.5 million, alleging that she was falsely arrested in violation of her diplomatic immunity, with the Indian consulate here also backing her claims. 

 

Recently Indian Deputy Consul General  Devyani Khobragade was arrested and handcuffed in public in New York for allegedly lying on a visa application of an Indian national who worked for her. The US has said Indian Deputy Consul General in New York has immunity from jurisdiction only for her actions in an official capacity and hoped that the incident will not affect bilateral ties with India.

 

Indian ambassador to UN was asked to remove his turban and the lady ambassador to Washington in saree was searched while touring on her duty.

 

The great revolutionary leader George Fernandez, while on official duty as minister was searched twice .He kept mum .He should have returned to India by the next flight.

 

It is a matter of regret and shame that the Indian government and people let US diplomats escape when they commit real violations of diplomatic and international law (which Washington has destroyed in last few decades)

 

USA; A people born with little culture and full of savagery.

 

What else to expect from a people (of USA) whose history is a narrative of landmarks like the Massacre at Wounded Knee, who have morphed from feudal savagery to high-tech savagery and gave to the last generation, Mai Lai massacre, and now, Guantanamo, Abu Garb, Fallujah. Nevertheless, instead of looking at themselves, they pontificate to the rest of the humanity, with their uncivilized discourse.

 

To a large extent the fault is of Indians , starting with PM MMSingh, who cannot be elected to Lok Sabha , said that Indians loved George Bush deeply .Congress spokesman stated that George Bush should be awarded Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award .

The author who maintained close relations with a swathe the honest media professionals all over the world during his diplomatic career and even now feels great pain and anguish at the turn of events .USA's corporate media has led the way and subverted media in other countries too. Washington has created in India dalals (trumpets or pimps) in media, civil and military bureaucracy, academics and political parties to promote its policies at India's expense.

A prominent example of US dalals or shameless trumpet is the Indian Express, once edited by the likes of Frank Moraes and Arun Shourie and now described by some diplomats as the American Express, led by editor one Shekhar Gupta. Let us go back to what Gupta said in 2003.

Indian Express, (1^st Feb, 2003) .Welcoming the imminent illegal US led invasion, named, operation Iraqi freedom, Gupta wrote under title 'Saddam, Snooker's first frame '--"–for the Bush team –process of change (is)–to modernize and democratize and restructure the Islamic world – into Saudi Arabia and then every other part of the region where militant Islam breeds ---Musharraf is not laughing –does that work to our benefit or detriment? This war will not be about oil but about militant Islam and everybody's future. This is the bigger picture –"

 

The worst among the Express's Washington dalals is one Raja Mohan, allegedly once a leftist, but sold out and now shameless in his pro-US outpourings. Of course he is compensated and occupies some US endowed University chair or the other .Prof Kanti Bajpayee is another example , also equally well compensated .He even spent some years as the Headmaster of a well known Public School –catch them young and make them dalals Washington .

The Washcon Syndrome http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2010/03/washcon-syndrome.htmla k rds

From an article from 'Hindu' of 13 December, 2010.by Rahul Bedi

Patronage as a U.S. force multiplier

From scholarships and training programmes for officers to promises of Green Cards and jobs for family members, America is doing whatever it takes to build a lobby for itself in India.

The loquacious charm employed by United States President Barack Obama during his India trip is merely one of the many force multipliers exercised by an economically beleaguered Washington seeking to sell New Delhi varied military equipment for billions of dollars, and affirming bilateral strategic ties as a hedge against a resurgent China.

The other more protracted and consequently effective inducements are the raft of scholarships to American universities handed out to the offspring of top Indian politicians, civil servants and defence and intelligence officers, and the patronage extended to Service officers under the long established Military Education and Training (IMET) programme.

So blatant, widespread and generous is Washington's largesse to the students — facilitating and financing, as it does, their pursuit of eclectic disciplines like the liberal arts, English literature and, even, art and history in leading U.S. institutions — that it is worth asking to what extent Indian policy on a range of issues of interest to America remains 'hostage' to the children of a growing number of Delhi's powerful decision-makers. The scholarship recipients' list is embarrassingly revelatory.

It is also not unknown for senior Indian intelligence, security and military officials travelling to Washington to negotiate sensitive bilateral issues and agreements to ask their obliging hosts, who by now have a measure of their Delhi counterparts, for favours like Green Cards, extension of student visas and even employment prospects for their brood in the U.S.

Needless to say, negotiations the following morning become significantly compromised by the promises of the night before.

Leading Indian journalists too have been asked to write their own itinerary on either whistle stop lecture tours of U.S. universities and think tanks — all paid for, of course, or alternately to opt for study curricula which were fully facilitated. Many have been known to frequently avail themselves of this bounty by a patron that does not believe in free lunches and admits as much.

The IMET programme under which Washington organises visits to the U.S. and training courses for Indian military personnel inside it for periods varying from a few weeks to several months or more is yet another subtle effective force multiplier with regard to Delhi's materiel procurement decisions.

As the U.S. State Department clearly enunciates on its website, the IMET programme is an "instrument of national security and foreign policy and a key component of U.S. security assistance to personnel from allied and friendly nations," a euphemism for trying to profitably expand American areas of influence and win over important friends who can influence lucrative decisions.

In essence, the IMET, whose estimated allocation for India was $1.2 million in 2010, allows its personnel to attend courses from the 2000 offered annually at some 150 U.S. military schools, receive observer or on-the-job training in addition to orientation tours.

So on and so forth.

Below is an old article on USA. Since then things have gone from bad to worse

Amb (Retd) K.Gajendra Singh, 16 December, 2013 Mayur Vihar, Delhi.                                               

UNCIVILISED STATE OF AMERICA                                                            

By K Gajendra Singh       Mwcnews.net                                               14 October, 2005 http://mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1775&Itemid=26             

http://cms.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=10318

'It would be a good idea.' Mahatma Gandhi, when asked about his views on western culture.

George W .Bush, "You are with us or against us "after 911= End of pluralism, liberty and democracy

"I did not know how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as I saw them with eyes still young. In addition, I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream..." Black Elk on the aftermath of the Massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, December 1890.
 
The United States Army Seventh Cavalry used battling guns to slaughter 300 helpless Lakota children, men and women. Less than 3 decades later, the alleged Armenian Genocide during First World War, remains on US lawmakers agenda.

On 4 November 1971,Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi met with US President Richard Nixon in Washington to build support against Pakistan military's genocide against the people of Bangladesh. Next day, when Nixon and his aide Henry Kissinger met at the Oval Office, the later said: "The Indians are bastards anyway. They are starting a war there." The President agreed, saying: "We really slobbered over the old witch." "You slobbered over her in things that did not matter, but in things that did matter, you did not give her an inch," Kissinger said.

Earlier in a White House conversation with Nixon on June 4, Kissinger said [about Indians]: "Those sons-of-bitches, who never have lifted a finger for us, why should we get involved in the morass of East Pakistan—"And on July 16, Nixon said the Indians were "a slippery, treacherous people". He felt the Pakistanis "are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious." These are the words of those who claim superior culture and claim to defend democracy against dictatorships.

Indira Gandhi's chief aide then, Dr. P.C. Alexander, expressed satisfaction that few in India reacted to that uncivilized discourse .Unfortunately polite and courteous discourse is considered by even many educated Americans as a sign of weakness and cowardice.  

However, what else to expect from a people whose history is a narrative of landmarks like the Massacre at Wounded Knee, who have morphed from savagery to high-tech savagery and gave to the last generation, Mai Lai massacre, and now, Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, Fallujah. Nevertheless, instead of looking at themselves, they pontificate to the rest of the humanity, with their uncivilized discourse.
 
As part of annual ritual, Congressman Christopher Smith, New Jersey Republican, Chair of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Global Human Rights and International Operations, convened the hearing titled 'India's Unfinished Agenda —Equality and Justice for Victims of Caste System', said, "The Dalits and tribal peoples are treated as virtual non-humans, and suffer pervasive discrimination and violation of their human rights." 

Welcoming the 'global partnership between USA and India, he argued that "there is still a long road to travel," while "most observers have focused on the nuclear proliferation implications of our announced agreements as potential stumbling blocks to a true strategic partnership between the US and India," he believed that "we must not lose sight of India's serious human rights problems." "To keep nearly a quarter of one's population in subhuman status is not only a grotesque violation of human rights, but it is a formula for economic and political stagnation as well," he added.

Apart from its annual lecture to the world, where US policies are hated and its people increasingly detested, it has an element of arm-twisting to influence the Indian vote against Iran in November at International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna. US succeeded by insulting and bullying India by another US lawmaker Tom Lantos' ugly utterances .India's vote went against its own stated policy and could harm its long term strategic and energy interests.

Smith acknowledged that "once in America, we deprived African Americans of the most basic rights and opportunities. This was especially true in our southern states, which were once a byword for poverty and backwardness among people of all races." "For a long time we refused to act at a national level to stop lynching, often arguing that it was a local problem," he said. "Yet we all suffered the consequences of shutting off a huge segment of our population from equality and justice."

Lynching have been barred only now .But would Christopher Smith stop being an ostrich and go to New Orleans and the region, white America's putrid underbelly and see the real truth, to see how American Africans were treated and are still being treated .Those who visited the region even last year say that there has been no change in the pitiable conditions of the Blacks and poor in USA for the last two centuries.

Following the Katrina hurricane, when the truth could not be hidden, US corporate news networks soon started a cover up, with boring repeat visits of the President and statements. However, it has fooled no one except the usual suspects, info-challenged US population. Even they are learning the truth.

Inequalities of class and race;

Le Monde noted, "Bush initially said that "the storm didn't discriminate", a claim he was later forced to retract: every aspect of the catastrophe was shaped by inequalities of class and race. Besides unmasking the fraudulent claims of the Department of Homeland Security to make Americans safer, the shock and awe of Katrina also exposed the devastating consequences of federal neglect of majority black and Latino big cities and their vital infrastructures.

"The incompetence of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) demonstrated the folly of entrusting life-and-death public mandates to clueless political appointees and ideological foes of "big government". The speed with which Washington suspended the prevailing wage standards of the Davis-Bacon Act and swung open the doors of New Orleans to corporate looters such as Halliburton, the Shaw Group and Black water Security, already fat from the spoils of the Tigris, contrasted obscenely with Fema's deadly procrastination over sending water, food and buses to the multitudes trapped in the stinking hell of the Louisiana Superdome.

"But if New Orleans, as many bitter exiles now believe, was allowed to die as a result of governmental incompetence and neglect, blame also squarely falls on the Governor's Mansion in Baton Rouge and especially on City Hall on Perdido Street. Mayor C Ray Nagin is a wealthy African-American cable television executive and a Democrat, who was elected in 2002 with 87% of the white vote. [Uncle Tom]

"He was ultimately responsible for the safety of the estimated quarter of the population that was too poor or infirm to own a car. His stunning failure to mobilize resources to evacuate car-less residents and hospital patients, despite warning signals from the city's botched response to the threat of Hurricane Ivan in September 2004, reflected more than personal ineptitude: it was also a symbol of the callous attitude among the city's elites, both white and black, toward their poor neighbors in back swamp districts and rundown housing projects. Indeed, the ultimate revelation of Katrina was how comprehensively the promise of equal rights for poor African-Americans has been dishonored and betrayed by every level of government."

London's Observer on Katrina;

London's Observer noted "Perhaps nothing else so encapsulates the endless paradoxes of being black in America. Never have blacks had so much legal freedom, yet there are record numbers in jail.

Traditional black neighborhoods have collapsed into drug-ridden crime strongholds, even as the black middle class is the biggest in history.

"It is now 40 years since the Voting Rights Act that secured the black vote. [In Florida 2000!] It is 10 years since hundreds of thousands of blacks came to Washington in the Million Man March to demand a way out of poverty. It is a single month since Hurricane Katrina exposed the racial fault lines that fracture the big cities.

"Almost four decades after King was killed, there are still two Americas. One is largely white and wealthy, one largely black and poor. They live cheek by jowl in the same country yet in separate worlds. The shocking thing about the TV pictures from New Orleans was not black poverty; it was the reaction of whites. 'Most whites were shocked about the amount of poverty in New Orleans, but black media have talked about poverty for the past 20 years,' said David Canton, professor of history at Connecticut College.

"Bare statistics tell the story. Black life expectancy is six years shorter than that of whites. Black unemployment is twice as high. Blacks are twice as likely as whites to die from disease, accident or murder at every stage of their lives. About 24 per cent of black families live below the poverty line, compared with 8 per cent of the white population."

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Last year about 3.2% of US population was imprisoned , 41% Blacks were on parole and 40% white. More than 37 million people are officially classified as poor and their numbers increasing every year  according to government statistics, 1.1 million Americans fell below the poverty line last year . Since 2000, their ranks have increased year by year by almost 5.5 million in total. Even optimists see little prospect that the number will shrink.'  Where is the trickle down effect of Globalisation?

Black neighbour hoods and populations have also been neglected by the Bush administration because they vote Democrat. If an Indian government neglected Dalit areas, there would be a furor .While a lot can be done and is being done in India ,there are reservations in educational institutions and State and Federal Assemblies for Dalits. Two Dalits have adorned the office of the President of the Republic of India as well as three Muslims including the current incumbent. It is so in other positions of responsibility eg State chief Ministers, Ministers, diplomats, governors and other senior officials. USA is never likely to reach that level for Blacks and Latinos or other minorities. The only Catholic President, John Kennedy, was assassinated with many questions still unanswered

Would Christopher Smith go down south and see for himself 'real America.'

Genocide in Americas;

 

Have you ever wondered why, when Attila the Hun and then later Ghenghis Khan "discovered" Europe, that was called an "invasion", but when Christopher Columbus led Europeans into an invasion of the Americas, that was called a "discovery"? David E. Stannard called his book "American Holocaust", (Oxford University Press) published to coincide with the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus' "discovery" of America. The genocide of indigenous inhabitants of America was begun by the Spaniards and Portuguese, carried on by the English and other Europeans and completed by the Americans.

It was accurately summarized by Barry who said that, 'Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight -- as no age can parallel....' "The Spanish cut off the legs of children who ran from them. They poured people full of boiling soap. They made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. They loosed dogs that 'devoured an Indian like a hog, at first sight, in less than a moment.' They used nursing infants for dog food." This was not occasional violence — it was a systematic, prolonged campaign of brutality and sadism, a policy of torture, mass murder, slavery and forced labor that continued for CENTURIES. "The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world," writes historian David E. Stannard.

Eventually more than 100 million natives fell under European rule. Their extermination would follow. As the natives died out, they were replaced by slaves brought from Africa. To make a long story short, Columbus established a pattern that held for five centuries — a "ruthless, angry search for wealth," as Barry Lopez describes it.

"It set a tone in the Americas. The quest for personal possessions was to be, from the outset, a series of raids, irresponsible and criminal, a spree, in which an end to it — the slaves, the timber, the pearls, the fur, the precious ores, and, later, arable land, coal, oil, and iron ore — was never visible, in which an end to it had no meaning."

According to Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, the reduction of the north American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a "vast genocide . . . , the most sustained on record."

A similar pattern was continued in Philippines, Vietnam, Afghanistan and now in Iraq.

 

British MP Galloway shuts up the US senate;

 

All the US law makers can do is to spin and spew untruths which are faithfully reproduced by captive US media  .The U.S. Senate committee released documents that said that Saddam Hussein gave British MP George Galloway the rights to export 20 million barrels of oil under the humanitarian program .Smoking a Havana cigar inside the Capitol building , he described the accusations as the mother of all smoke screens and claimed the Committee's report had falsehoods and wrong facts .He accused that the Senate had little sense of fairness or rule of law .He made fun of Donald Rumsfeld 's two visits ( the same as his )  to sell arms to Saddam Hussein .He delivered  a broadside against US policy and its system, challenged them to back up their claims against him. He condemned the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in a brilliant and riveting performance. The Senators like jackals had runaway form their so called lions den, self styled as "the world's greatest deliberative body". In fact, proceedings only served to underline the average senator or congressman's ignorance of the world beyond America, be it the underlying realities of the Middle East or elsewhere.

Next day the US corporate media was miffed."Brit Fries Senators in Oil" said one headline that also noted the "stunning audacity" of Galloway's performance, how he had caught Mr Coleman (Chairman of the Committee) and his colleagues "flatfooted" (only one of whom was left when the chairman brought the embarrassment to an end). The Post's Andrea Peyser excoriated Galloway as a thug and a bully, "a lefty lackey for butchers". Coleman and his subcommittee had let the side down, she wrote. "Our Senators did not pipe up. Rather, they assumed the look of frightened little boys, caught with their pants around their ankles, nervously awaiting punishment." She concluded: "It's time to take the gloves off, senators. Kick this viper where it hurts." Lady, such civilized discourse!

Tom Lantos's utterances ;

There was another performance ,`of a different kind ,obviously planned to browbeat and humiliate India as Tom Lantos ,a California Democrat was allowed to speak for as long as he wished by US Congressman Henry Hyde, chairman of the panel,  while strict time limits were imposed on others.

"My concern does not relate to the administration. My concern relates to the insensitive thinking that I see coming out of New Delhi," declared Lantos, "It was incomprehensible to me that people as sophisticated and knowledgeable as our Indian counterparts should not be aware of how significant their position, vis-a-vis Iran is to this Congress, and, I hope this hearing will make them aware at least tangentially that this may be destroying far more significant relationships than they are having with Tehran unless they become sensitive to our view on that subject."

"Only an imbecile would believe that they are developing a nuclear program for peaceful purposes and it is an insult to the intelligence of Congress that they keep repeating this." [only the imbecile Americans believed the US reasons for the illegal US invasion of Iraq]

"They do what they do, but to have the Indian foreign minister with respect to his recent meeting with the Iranians to say they really don't care what we think, shows the real denseness that occasionally very intelligent people are burdened with."

"They are brilliant and they are dense. They are brilliant, which is obvious, but they are simply dense because they are incapable of comprehending that other countries have their important concerns."

"we offer, at least some of us offer our services to help you make the Indians aware of the fact that nothing will fly in this body unless they become as sensitive to their concerns as we have been to theirs."

Lantos said he found Indian foreign minister Natwar Singh's reported statement in Iran -- "literally sickening, this Stalinist rhetoric which we don't accept." And "if New Delhi did not support Washington's efforts to ostracise Iran, "the goodwill will dissipate."

"They will pay a heavy price for a total disregard of US concerns vis-a-vis Iran. It just will not fly in this body and they need to be told that in plain English, not in diplomatic English and I know there are people in this room who will carry this message."

Indian response;

India termed the tirade as "crude" and "unparliamentary" that Lantos unleashed against K Natwar Singh. "The language used by Congressman Lantos while referring to India's foreign minister during a Congressional hearing is, to say the least, unparliamentary," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said. "It is discourteous and crude and reflects negatively only on the US Congressman himself," he added.

It is a pity that Indian Parliamentarians and media let such gross insults pass.

Nazi Camps and Jewish rage;

 

Poland is demanding the extradition from Israel of a Jew Solomon Morel, 86, to face charges of "crimes against humanity" in relation to more than 1,500 German inmates at a post-war detention camp Swietochlowice in Poland. Morel, who fled to Israel from Poland in 1994 is hiding in Tel Aviv .He was held in Auschwitz as a young man where more than 30 members of his family were wiped out .After the 1945 Soviet 'liberation' of Poland he was one of many Jews appointed by Stalin to supervise the brutal "de-Nazification" camps, where up to 80,000 ethnic Germans are believed to have died as a result of torture, starvation and typhus.

 

John Sack, himself a Jew , who wrote ' An Eye for An Eye: The Untold Story of Jewish Revenge Against Germans in 1945, said in a TV interview that Morel made his desire for revenge clear: "On the first night at Swietochlowice, when the first contingent of Germans arrived, he told the Germans, 'My name is Morel. I am a Jew. My mother and father, my family, I think they're all dead, and I swore that if I got out alive, I was going to get back at you Nazis. And now you're going to pay for what you did.' "

The book, describes in detail the alleged atrocities committed at the camp: "The guards put the Germans into a doghouse, beating them if they didn't say `bow-wow'. They got the Germans to beat each other; to jump on each other's spines and to punch each other's noses, and hit the Germans so hard that they once knocked a German's glass eye out." Guards also raped German women and trained dogs to bite off German men's genitals on command, he said.

A request for Morel's extradition by Poland in 1998 was rejected by Israel on the grounds that the statute of limitations on the charges had run out. Prosecutors claim to have built up a stronger case, and upgraded the charges to crimes against humanity, on which there is no time limit.

The Polish public prosecutor Eva Kok, insisted that : "The Israelis are extremely efficient in pursuing people they have accused of such crimes - and they must accept that other nations want to do the same."

It is quite clear from the example that many people who suffered in terrible Nazi camps became deranged and remain disoriented. Israel's Menachim Begin , who only spent years in Soviet labour camp in Siberia  ,  when he cornered Yasser Arafat in Beirut in 1982 likened him  to Hitler in his bunker. But it were the Jews who had taken Palestinian land and made them refugees.

One fully sympathizes with Lantos, a Hungarian born Jew, who was in a concentration camp. Reportedly his wife, also a Holocaust survivor, and two daughters left the Jewish faith and are practicing Mormons. But Lantos's outburst against India shows more than symptoms of suffering as he believes that Iran might be a threat to Israel , to which country he has a right of return and apparent loyalty . Israel reportedly has over 100 nuclear bombs and terrorizes the region. Ariel Sharon's policies in Gaza have been repeatedly described as 'state terrorism' by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayep Erdogan.

One wonders if people like Lantos represent USA, or look after Israel's interests. But then neo-cons and Israelis have joined in an unholy axis. In any case Israelis and Jews have even the non-Jewish lawmakers by their braces or bracelets .Any one who speaks against Israel is defeated in next elections with Jewish money .Verily the tail is wagging the dog. But it is sad situation for the proud  people of America.

Lantos' venomous brand of politics has earned him scorn from many of his House colleagues, especially those in the Congressional Black Caucus. Always quick to accuse those who don't stand with Israel of being anti-Semitic, Lantos is intolerant of African-American members who have accused the international diamond industry of responsibility for a large share of Africa's bloody civil wars and torment. Lantos has, in some cases, made no secret of his disdain for people of color who dare question his competency to lord over human rights issues from his Capitol Hill perch

It was not very wise of Chairman Henry Hyde to let Lantos speak on. It has brought disrepute to the dignity of the US Congress .But many say that it was all at the behest of the White House. Seeing what this administration has been doing, including leaking names of a CIA operative because her husband exposed the lies about false US claims about Iraq's nuclear program, it is quite possible.

Many a times when US law makers are scrutinized for higher posts, it is discovered that they had employed Hispanic and other illegal aliens , without paying social security .From time to time there are reports of unpaid bills and dalliance with page boys or interns. When Republicans had wanted to probe Bill Clinton's activities with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval room, a few selected to look into it  were not above board from such dalliance. The Clinton drama and display of dirty linen was not to improve the morals but for electoral gains.

Amnesty wants Rumsfeld and others tried for Human right violations;

In its annual report in May on "The State of the World's Human Rights," Amnesty International (AI) described  the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, " the gulag of our times" and accused U.S. officials of flouting international law in their treatment of detainees.

AI also called on foreign governments to use international law to investigate Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other alleged American "architects of torture" at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and other prisons where detainees suspected of ties to terrorist groups have been interrogated for violations of the Geneva and torture conventions.

"If those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them," said William Shulz, executive director of the U.S. branch of the international human rights agency.

There is no statute of limitations on crimes such as torture, Shulz added. "The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998," warned Shulz. Gen Pinochet was arrested on an international warrant issued by a Spanish judge.

If the United States "continues to shirk its responsibility" of investigating allegations of abuse to the top of the chain of command, Shulz said, foreign governments should uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior U.S. officials involved. In addition to Rumsfeld and Gonzales, the list covered former CIA Director George Tenet; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq; Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo; and Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy.

Shulz said the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment legally bind the countries that have signed them to exercise "universal jurisdiction" on people suspected of violations. Certain crimes, including torture, amount to offenses against all of humanity so all countries have a responsibility to investigate and prosecute people responsible for such crimes, he said.

"Absurd "defence by US Administration !;

As expected , Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, called the charges "unsupported by the facts."

President Bush said at a White House press conference ,"I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world," he said, and added that Washington had "investigated every single complaint against [sic] the detainees." "It seemed like [Amnesty] based some of their decisions on the word and allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people [who] had been trained in some instances to disassemble [sic] - that means not tell the truth," Bush went on. "And so it was an absurd report. It just is." [Except that few in the world believe Bush]

Earlier Vice President Dick Cheney in an interview with CNN, said "For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously," the vice president said in response to the Amnesty's report.

"There's been a real drumbeat since Amnesty published the report. It seems like there's an attempt to silence critics," said AI. While the corporate media like Washington Post, normally a defender of independent human-rights groups, objected to the characterization as counter-productive, the Wall Street Journal's neo-conservative editorial staff jumped on it as "one more sign of the moral degradation of Amnesty International"," whose latest accusations "amount to pro-al Qaeda propaganda".

But then Cheney maintains that there were WMDs in Iraq, Iraq was allied with Al Qaeda and it was trying to get Uranium form Niger . All these claims have been proved to be wrong, by USA's own Weapons inspectors. His own office is reported to have leaked the name of a CIA operative to revenge on former US ambassador , who had exposed the Niger claim. Such leaks are a criminal act.

Amnesty stands firm;

But the Amnesty stood its ground. "At Guantanamo, the US has operated an isolated prison camp in which people are confined arbitrarily, held virtually incommunicado, without charge, trial or access to due process. Not a single Guantanamo detainee has had the legality of their detention reviewed by a court," despite a Supreme Court ruling last year that provided grounds to do so.

"Guantanamo is only the visible part of the story. Evidence continues to mount that the US operates a network of detention centers where people are held in secret or outside any proper legal framework - from Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond," Amnesty added, noting that Bush had failed to respond to these "longstanding concerns".

"It is also worth noting," stressed Schulz, "that this administration never finds it 'absurd' when we criticize Cuba or China, or when we condemned the violations in Iraq under Saddam Hussein."

Bush's and Cheney's insistence that the detainees themselves concocted the reported abuses also drew criticism.

Immigrant workers;

The torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other places is not an aberration after 119. The external concentration camps established as part of the "war on terror" reproduce longstanding practices of the US prison system.

A network of prison facilities in which detainees are held indefinitely without charges, denied access to attorneys and family, terrorized by dogs, and subjected to abuse tantamount to torture, as well as sexual humiliation are another "gulag" of jails and detention facilities strung across the United States in which tens of thousands of immigrant workers are being held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE, a branch of the Homeland Security Department, deported a record 198,000 detainees in 2004 and on average has 22,814 immigrants languishing in jails, nearly four times than 1994. The ICE contracts out the detentions to county jails who are often housed alongside violent criminals, where they face verbal abuse, overcrowding, and denial of medical attention, as well as physical beatings, solitary confinement and the psychological torture of not knowing if they will ever be released

Many of the abuses were caught on the jail's surveillance tapes. US media reported that 'These tapes substantiated many of the detainees' allegations.' Furthermore, the officers were not just a few bad apples but 'a significant percentage of those who had regular contact with the detainees.'

The federal government, farms out immigrants to county jails for whom it is a profitable enterprise. "A growing number of counties across the nation are renting space in their jails to the US government to house foreigners arrested for immigration violations. The 'revenue population,' as one official called the detainees, can help counties defray the cost of running jails and even lower property taxes." [Economic reforms!]

Use of depleted Uranium (DU)- another crime;

U.S. forces first used depleted uranium (DU) in the 1991 Gulf War, when some 300 tons of depleted uranium—the waste product of nuclear power plants and weapons facilities—were used in tank shells and shells fired by A-10 jets. It was also deployed by U.S. and NATO forces during the Serbia conflict but less. But in the wars in Afghanistan and, especially, Iraq, DU has become the weapon of choice, with more than 1,000 tons in Afghanistan and more than 3,000 tons used in Iraq. And while DU was fired mostly in the desert during the Gulf War, in the current war in Iraq, most of DU munitions are exploding in populated urban areas.

Uranium is a highly toxic heavy metal. According to Mt. Sinai pathologist Thomas Fasey, who participated in the New York Guard unit testing, the element has an affinity for bonding with DNA, where even trace amounts can cause cancers and fetal abnormalities.

Dr. Doug Rokke, a health physicist at the University of Illinois who headed up a Pentagon study of depleted uranium weapons in the mid '90s after concerns were raised during the Gulf War, concluded there was no safe way to use the weapons. Rokke says the Pentagon responded by denouncing him, after earlier commending his work. "DU is a war crime. It's that simple," Rokke says. "Once you've scattered all this stuff around, and then refuse to clean it up, you've committed a war crime."

At the war's start, the United States refused to allow U.N. or other environmental inspectors to test DU levels within Iraq. Now the United Nations dare not to Iraq because of security problems.

Of course the concern has been raised only when many returning US soldiers were found to be contaminated .Who cares for the poor Iraqis, who have and will keep on suffering.

China exposes US Human Rights record;

When US State Department accused China of Human Rights violations, Beijing exposed US hypocrisy because Washington remains silent on its own violations.

"In 2004, the atrocity of U.S. troops abusing Iraqi POWs exposed the dark side of human rights performance of the United States. The scandal shocked the humanity and was condemned by the international community," said the Chinese report on USA. "It is quite ironic that on Feb. 28 of this year, the State Department of the United States once again posed as the 'world human rights police,"' it said.

China accused the American military of committing "wanton slaughters," killing thousands of foreign civilians and torturing detainees. "The atrocity of U.S. troops abusing Iraqi POWs exposed the infringement of human rights of foreign nationals by the United States," said the report .The report said that racism was deeply entrenched in the United States. It said politics were manipulated by the wealthy and dismissed the U.S. electoral system as a "contest of money."

China also accused US of interfering in its internal affairs, and covered various US domestic issues relating to labor conditions, homelessness, race relations, crime and firearm use, civil liberty concerns about the US Patriot Act -- even the amount of money spent in political campaigns.

A section called "Infringement upon Human rights of Other Nations" dealt with military conflict, foreign policy and arms sales. It accused the US of "military aggression around the world and brutal violation of sovereign rights of other nations." US waged a war against Iraq "without authorization by the United Nations," and carried out "wanton and indiscriminate" bombing, including such targets as "residential areas, shopping malls and civilian vehicles."

It said that more than 10,000 Iraqi civilians (it is now over 100,000 as last reported in London's The Lancelet) had been killed in the war, attributing the statistics to Britain's Independent newspaper. It comes from Iraq Body Count, a grouping of US and British academics and peace activists which bases its numbers on "corroborated media reports."[Very conservative estimates] Of course WE and UK do not do body counts for other nationalities. (Why is it not in itself a human rights violation, when Iraq is under US led occupation?)

China quoted writer William Blum, "Since 1945, the United States has attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, suppressed over 30 national movements, in which millions of people have lost their precious lives and many more people been plunged into misery and despair." China also cited US of incarcerating terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and US violation of human rights of local people .It controls and dominates the world' conventional arms trade , thus increasing violence all around .

While China certainly does not have a great human rights record but it is justified in questioning the self appointed US role to be "the judge of human rights in the world." It criticizes every one "Meanwhile, it has turned a blind eye to its own human right problems."

(K Gajendra Singh, served as Indian Ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan in 1992-96. Prior to that, he served as ambassador to Jordan (during the 1990-91 Gulf war), Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies, in Bucharest. - Email-Gajendrak@hotmail.com)