Mumbai 26/11 should be the last Pakistani game: Home Minister P. Chidambaram, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Mumbai 26/11 should be the last Pakistani game: Home Minister P. Chidambaram

The Challenges Of Maximum Terror

Editorial in The Hindu, New Delhi, 26 Nov 2009

“I have been warning Pakistan,” Home Minister P. Chidambaram said in a speech early this month, “not to play games with us. The last game should be the Mumbai attacks. Stop it there…If terrorists from Pakistan try to carry out any attacks in India, they will not only be defeated but will be retaliated against.” Today India and the world will mourn the 166 children, women, and men who died in the carnage executed by a Lashkar-e-Taiba assault squad on November 26, 2008. It will honour the sacrifice of the 18 police and National Security Guard personnel and the dedicated staff of the hotels who gave their lives fighting the terrorists. Mr. Chidambaram’s strong words underline the challenge that stares us in the face. Unfortunately, India’s response to the challenges thrown up by Mumbai has been limited. For our cities and their citizens to be protected from future mass-casualty attacks as best as possible, a dispassionate assessment of two issues becomes imperative. First, how well has the country done in meeting the internal challenge of ensuring that its cities are better protected against large-scale terrorist attack than Mumbai was a year ago? Secondly, how much has been achieved in the diplomatic and political effort to ensure that Pakistan dismantles the infrastructure of jihadist groups operating against India from its soil? The answer to both questions, sadly, is less than heartening.

http://newageislam.com/mumbai-26/11-should-be-the-last-pakistani-game--home-minister-p.-chidambaram/war-on-terror/d/2154

Palestine: No Temporary Nightmare, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Palestine: No Temporary Nightmare

By Seema Sirohi

14 Sep 2009

The question of settlements goes to the heart of the issue who has the right to live where and why. The settlements are deemed illegal under US policy, UN resolutions and international law and Palestinians obviously demand they be dismantled. But in Israel there is ambivalence and an entirely separate vocabulary to handle this hot potato. Using the Bible as a diplomatic hammer and occupation as cover, Israel over decades has allowed the slow but sure expansion of Jewish settlements in what the world hopes would be the future state of Palestine. Israel does not want to reverse a policy that bolsters its diplomatic muscle, effectively increases its land mass and pushes the Palestinians to fight for a smaller and smaller state. It is war by other means.

With overt and covert assistance from the state, Jewish settlements have sprouted in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, protected by an elaborate and confusing bureaucratic web of policies and controversial court decisions. The sprawling, concrete apartment blocs, complete with schools and shopping centres, stand on land snatched by a variety of means discriminatory laws, subterfuge, subsidies, pure muscle and intimidation. There is nothing transitory about them. Israel supplies water and electricity, builds roads and parks and engages with them as if they were legal entities. The Jewish blogosphere offers daily justifications ranging from the obvious to the obscure.

http://newageislam.com/palestine--no-temporary-nightmare/islam-and-the-west/d/1742

Obama vows Iraq pullout, promises not to seek permanent US military bases, Islam and Politics, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Politics

Obama vows Iraq pullout, promises not to seek permanent US military bases

We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

In carrying out this strategy, we would inevitably need to make tactical adjustments. I would consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government to ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected. We would move them from secure areas first and volatile areas later. We would pursue a diplomatic offensive with every nation in the region on behalf of Iraq’s stability, and commit $2 billion to a new international effort to support Iraq’s refugees.

http://newageislam.com/obama-vows-iraq-pullout,-promises-not-to-seek-permanent-us-military-bases/islam-and-politics/d/231