Government — The Perspective

Himalayan Conflict Centres On Tibet

September 28, 2009 By adminclyd

A resurgent dispute over an Indian state that China claims as its own is threatening to explode into a bloodier fight. There is perhaps no country more feared and less understood in India than China. In recent weeks Delhi newspapers and television have been awash with stories about the People’s Liberation Army crossing the Himalayas to daub rocks with Chinese characters, making daredevil helicopter raids to drop (stale) tinned food on hapless farmers and trading fire with Indian soldiers.

India’s Kashmir state government, apparently, said its territory was being taken “inch by inch” through such incursions. Ominously, authorities last week in Kolkata impounded a plane carrying arms from the Middle East to China.

While the foreign ministries in both countries play down the reports, there are concerns that left unchecked, things could spiral out of control.

The spat began in June. Chinese bloggers vented their fury when India abruptly announced that it would be sending 60,000 troops to bolster tens of thousands of soldiers to Arunachal Pradesh – an Indian state that Beijing claims as its own. One online poll in China claimed that 90% of respondents thought Delhi’s actions posed a “threat”.

At the heart of this dispute lies the Tibetan question. Historically, China says Arunachal Pradesh’s 35,000 square miles was part of “outer Tibet”. In a short bloody war, Chinese troops overran Indian positions in the Himalayas in 1962 before retreating. Since then the two sides have tried to discuss their way out of a problem. More than dozen rounds of talks have yielded little.

For years the dispute has rumbled on, attracting little international attention. However, that changed this summer with the arrival of fresh troops – and an Indian airforce squadron of advanced fighters – which analysts say were needed to cope with China’s rising military might, especially in Tibet.

The Indian defence magazine Force points out that the PLA could mobilise four divisions – about 50,000 men – in 24 hours to the Sino-Indian border. “Awesome military projection capability by any standards,” says the magazine in its latest edition.

To get a taste of how difficult things might be for India, in a diplomatic first, China “internationalised” the issue of Arunachal Pradesh, highlighting its disputed status in July. Beijing formally objected to a $60m loan for India because it would fund irrigation projects in Arunachal Pradesh. Although the loan was later approved, Chinese experts say there is still “room to change” the project.

Arunachal Pradesh has been slowly integrated into the Indian state since Delhi sent troops in 1950 carrying papers signed by the Tibetan government in Lhasa, which transferred 35,000 square miles of the Himalayas to India. Beijing rejects Delhi’s claim, saying the region was subject to a crafty piece of real estate theft by British imperialists in 1914 when China was in chaos.

A solution has always been in sight: Beijing relinquishes its claim to Arunachal Pradesh and Delhi gives up its demand for 15,000 square miles of stragetically important Chinese-held mountainous land bordering Kashmir.

But Arunachal Pradesh for China is not just a territorial issue but an existential one. The state is home to the town of Tawang, birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama, where Tibetan Buddhism’s biggest monastery, after the Potala palace in Lhasa, sits.

Tawang is also the repository of perhaps the last vestige of a Tibet submerged by China’s rise – sustaining the idea of religious freedom for the diaspora and keeping alive a centuries-old culture and language. In conversation, the Monpa people who dominate the local area will tell visitors that Tawang could be Tibetan Buddhism’s new Rome, a base from where to spread the faith.

China is alarmed by such talk. Beijing sees Tawang not as a place of serenity but as a spiritual spy camp – ultimately challenging the ruling Communist party’s control in Tibet. These feelings were heightened when the Indian government said this week it would allow the Dalai Lama to travel to Tawang, adding he was “free to go anywhere in India”.

The present Tibetan leader has not been a regular visitor to the town. He passed through when he fled Tibet in 1959 but he has only been allowed back twice since: once in 1982 and then again 2003. This time around he will open a hospital he funded.

The Indian backing to the Dalai Lama comes at a critical time. The Obama administration said this week that the president would not meet the Tibetan leader during his upcoming trip to Washington – a break with tradition. George Bush and Bill Clinton met the Dalai Lama when he arrived in the American capital. Afraid that the White House was now kowtowing to Beijing before the president’s visit this November to China, Tibet’s government in exile openly said even the US was now “appeasing” China. This is a breakthrough for China – which is unafraid of criticising any head of state for meeting the Dalai Lama, who they see as a man determined to “split the motherland”. So far 170 countries out of 193 in the United Nations have acceded to China’s demands.

This leaves India in a difficult, lonely position. It already sees Chinese ports and military bases strung across the Indian Ocean – the so called “string of pearls” strategy designed to check Indian influence in its backyard. Delhi has been outbid for vital oil and gas resources by its bigger, richer neighbour. On most measures of hard power – number of nuclear weapons, economic size, population – India lags behind.

China is not afraid to flex its muscles: it blocked India’s bid for a UN security council place and tried to shoot down a groundbreaking US-India nuclear deal.

Delhi says it is in the nature of development for the two large Asian nations to compete and co-operate for resources, cash and technology. China is India’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade volumes crossing $50bn in 2008. The two countries, which are both home to millions of poor people, have worked together in trade and climate change – fending off advances from the advanced nations.

For both, Tibet makes it easier to be antagonists rather than collaborators. Unless both manage to work together to resolve their differences there is a chance the two populations will get bogged down in adversarial nationalism. The media war could then explode into bloodier conflict on the roof of the world. By Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian.

Filed Under: Government, News & Media Tagged With: Documentary, Foreign News, Foreign Policy

Karzai Backers Wants Troops

September 26, 2009 By adminclyd

Senior Afghan officials, alarmed by the Obama administration’s reappraisal of its Afghanistan strategy, said an increased U.S. military commitment is needed to roll back an emboldened insurgency.

They also cautioned about what they said would be dire consequences of any U.S. attempts to edge out President Hamid Karzai. Results from a presidential election last month gave Mr. Karzai a majority, but allegations of widespread ballot-stuffing have stalled the confirmation of his victory and undermined his credibility in the eyes of many Afghans.

These admonishments come after the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, warned that the war here may become unwinnable unless troop levels are raised and the momentum of insurgents is reversed in the next 12 months.

The Obama administration has yet to endorse these findings, and has called for a review of the U.S.-led war effort before making a decision on troop levels. Vice President Joe Biden in particular has expressed skepticism about the proposed troop increase. Senior administration officials said the review was necessary because the war plan that President Barack Obama announced in March was based on the assumption that the election would give Mr. Karzai new legitimacy.

As the war in Afghanistan becomes increasingly unpopular in the U.S. and Europe, one policy option under review in Washington advocates reducing ground forces and relying instead on surgical airstrikes against Taliban and al Qaeda targets on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

This would be a recipe for failure, warned one of Mr. Karzai’s senior associates, Education Minister Farooq Wardak. “Airstrikes alone cannot be a strategy to defeat the insurgency and the Taliban. If the air attacks are not followed up by ground operations, they do not yield the results one expects,” he said. “We need additional troops — but not forever.” According to Mr. Wardak, it will take five years before the Afghan army and police can fight mostly on their own.

Parliament member Mohammed Mohaqeq, a powerful former warlord representing the Hazara ethnic minority who backed Mr. Karzai’s re-election bid, offered a similar assessment.

“The current number of soldiers is not enough to defeat the Taliban,” Mr. Mohaqeq said. Should the U.S. start reducing its forces in Afghanistan — currently over 60,000 — “the country will go back to civil war,” he added. “The Taliban are capable of recapturing the capital and the government.”

Mr. Karzai’s spokesman welcomed Gen. McChrystal’s report and said he had no comment on the Obama administration’s review of policy options.

The Taliban’s recent advances to previously secure areas of northern and western Afghanistan were made possible, in part, by growing public anger over the incompetence and graft in Mr. Karzai’s administration, many analysts say.

This anger was reinforced by reports of large-scale fraud in favor of Mr. Karzai in the election on Aug. 20. According to a preliminary count, he won with 54.6% of the vote. That tally can change depending on a review of results from 12% of Afghanistan’s polling stations that was ordered by the Electoral Complaints Commission, a United Nations-sponsored watchdog.

On Thursday, representatives from the ECC, the Afghan government’s electoral commission, and the presidential candidates met in Kabul to choose a random 10% sample from the disputed polling stations. Recounting this sample is expected to take a couple of weeks, compared with months needed for a full recount.

If Mr. Karzai’s final vote tally falls below 50% he will face a runoff against the leading challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister.

Time is of the essence: Such a runoff election will be virtually impossible after snowfall makes many rural roads impassable in early November.

Some Western officials called for flanking Mr. Karzai with a powerful chief executive who will run the government, while others have pushed for a unity government that would include Dr. Abdullah.

But the president’s allies cautioned that any foreign effort to disempower Mr. Karzai could plunge the country into more bloodshed. “Let’s be practical — what is the alternative to Karzai?” said Mr. Wardak. Any U.S. move against Mr. Karzai, he said, “will be seen by the Afghan population as no different from the U.S.S.R. occupation” — and trigger a similar response. By Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal.

Filed Under: Government, News & Media Tagged With: Foreign News, Foreign Policy

Israel Must Be Made To Pay Gaza War

September 24, 2009 By adminclyd

The ramifications of Israel’s war on Gaza have to be highlighted and addressed by the international community. Israel’s leaders should be questioned and held accountable for the atrocities perpetrated during the war.

Of late, additional reports on the war have been released, all of which highlighted the tragic human civilian cost endured by the Palestinians. The most recent was released by the Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem, which estimates that 1,387 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive on Gaza, of which 320 were minors. Children were targeted, because 252 of those who died were under the age of 16, while 68 were aged between 11 and 18.

In addition, the Israeli human-rights group concluded that almost all of those killed did not take any part in the fighting. “The extremely heavy civilian casualties and the massive damage to civilian property require serious introspection on the part of the Israeli society,” said a statement released by B’Tselem. It further called for an independent and credible investigation into the war.

Undoubtedly, the war in Gaza and Israel’s culpability should not be swept under the carpet – it is the responsibility of the international community to place it high on the agenda as a matter that requires immediate attention.

In addition to the lives lost, basic infrastructure was destroyed on a massive scale. The United Nations has estimated that the losses incurred by the Palestinian economy as a result of the attack is in the region of $4 billion (Dh14.7 billion), which is almost three times the size of the economy of Gaza.

The human losses in the war were immeasurable because Israel followed a blind policy of hitting targets despite the presence of civilians. It is high time that Israel is made to pay for its aggression. Gulf News.

Filed Under: Education, Government, Society & Culture Tagged With: Foreign News, Foreign Policy

The Formidable Foe

September 24, 2009 By adminclyd

The war in Afghanistan began a few weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with U.S. and international forces quickly overrunning the Taliban government that had sheltered Bin Laden and his network. But despite early military successes, the continued presence of U.S. forces and a heavy commitment by the NATO alliance, the Taliban regrouped. After the Iraq war begins in 2003, Afghanistan became the second most priority for U.S. troops. The Taliban-led insurgency hardened in 2006 and 2007, but NATO refused to greatly expand its fighting force despite U.S. pressure.

By 2008, the insurgency controlled significant territory and the war stalemated. Eight years after al-Qaeda attacked Americans at home and the United States invaded Afghanistan in response, liberals, conservatives and moderates alike say they don’t know what American forces are fighting for. They doubt that the U.S. will be successful and question what winning even means. Many also no longer seem to view the war through the prism of Sept. 11, 2001; few mention the attacks but many – rightly or wrongly – draw parallels to Vietnam.

Meanwhile, questions arouse either is it really appropriate to let the military carry the political burden of selling the war? To reminisce, Americans lost the war in the living rooms of America and not the battlefields of Vietnam. Now, most of them are conscious enough and sounded – Can’t we learn this lesson? Public support does not just happen, it must be worked at. The two wars are very different; the War in Afghanistan resulted from an attack on the United States; while Vietnam didn’t. The draft has been replaced by voluntary military service, meaning far fewer Americans are directly affected; the government drafted people to Vietnam by lottery, making the war central to the lives of most young Americans.

What is perhaps the only thing that could succeed in conquering the unconquerable piece of dirt and rock known as Afghanistan? Bombs and bullets kill Afghanistan’s people and in doing so create Taliban martyrs. Books, schools, free lunch and grassroots social assistance bring comfort and opportunity to enable Afghanis to think about a future that could be. The Taliban and fundamentalists want the future to consist only of the past, and the Taliban will accept nothing less than a strict Islamic state, stuck in the past and stuck in the narrow mind-set of a theocratic Islamic state.

Even more depressing is the reality that there is no guarantee of success, in fact, far from it, considering history is against the U.S. Counterinsurgency experts have calculated historical win rates at 25%, not to mention these types of engagements usually last on average between 10 and 15 years. According to the U.S. military counterinsurgency doctrine they should have 1 troop on the ground for every 50 civilians. Thus, in order to win the battle, the U.S. would have to expand the size of its footprint from 100,000 to 650,000 troops depending on the number of troops sent by NATO and the size and caliber of the Afghan national army.

Be that as it may, however, the soldier’s mission after 9/11 was supposed to be the capture of Bin Laden and hunt down those responsible for the attacks against the World Trade Center and not in the business of nation building. Soldiers have successfully removed an oppressive regime but it is now time to hand back the responsibility of securing the nation to its people. While those who commit acts of terrorism must be brought to justice, one must realize that terrorism is a product of an imperialistic foreign policy.

Filed Under: Government, Society & Culture Tagged With: Documentary, Foreign Policy

Japan’s New Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama Seeks Change – But Will He Fade Away?

September 16, 2009 By adminclyd

Even without his academic background, his bizarre nickname — “the Alien” — and his eccentric wife, Yukio Hatoyama would be a bracingly unusual Japanese leader.

There is his political platform based on welfare spending and free education. There is his visionary foreign policy and his dream of an Asia united under a single currency. Above all, there is his massive parliamentary majority and his status as the first Japanese opposition leader to win an election outright.

But in other regards, Mr Hatoyama represents much that is regressive in Japanese politics. He was born into a life of wealth and privilege and, in a parliament notorious for the number of “hereditary” family dynasties, he is the most hereditary of all. He is not only the son and grandson, but also the great-grandson, of senior Japanese politicians.

Today Mr Hatoyama will be formally elected Prime Minister by the Diet, posing the urgent question: does such a man have what it will take to see through Japan’s transformation from a “one-party democracy” to a genuine multiparty system?

His great-grandfather was parliamentary Speaker, his father was Foreign Minister and his grandfather was Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). His mother is the heiress to the fortunes of the Bridgestone Corporation, the international tyre company. This summer a Japanese magazine estimated Mr Hatoyama’s personal wealth at 8.6 billion yen (£57 million).

His education, an engineering degree at the University of Tokyo, followed by a PhD at Stanford in California, was as expected for a young man of his background.

Friends confirm the impression, and the inspiration for his “Alien” nickname, of an earnest, cerebral and unimpassioned man who does not naturally connect with the Earthlings around him.

Even after being elected to the Diet as a member of the LDP, he seemed a diffident politician. “I always had the feeling he was a Hamlet character,” said Gerald Curtis, of Columbia University, who has known Mr Hatoyama for 25 years. “ ‘To be or not to be? Should I be a politician or should I have stayed an academic?’ ”

Mr Hatoyama formed the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 1996. The party was generously endowed by his mother and the Bridgestone fortune. He led the party from 1999, but stepped down after three uninspiring years.

His second chance came unexpectedly this year when his predecessor, Ichiro Ozawa, was felled by a scandal. But the scale of Mr Hatoyama’s victory — 308 out of 480 seats — reflected his steady leadership in the final months.

His political platform has been laid out in detail: slash spending on bureaucracy and public works, spend the savings on education and child allowances, cultivate closer relations with China and an “equal” relationship with the US. He defines his philosophy as one of yuai, or “fraternity”.

Such talk has earned him the mockery of one tough former Prime Minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone. “Hatoyama only talks about friendship and love,” he said famously. “He’s just like Mr Whippy ice cream.”

Tomorrow Japan will begin to learn whether Mr Whippy will refresh Japanese politics or melt in its harsh sun.

Japan’s new cabinet

Hirohisa Fuji, 77, is reported to be the new Finance Minister. He held the same post in 1993-94

Katsuya Okada, 56, is set to be Foreign Minister, charged with building stronger links with Asia

Shizuka Kamei, 72, is tipped to be the Financial and Postal Services Minister. He is leader of Mr Hatoyama’s coalition partners, the New People’s Party

Naoto Kan, 62, is likely to oversee the National Strategy Bureau. The former DPJ leader is also expected to be named Deputy Prime Minister

Mizuho Fukushima, 53, is to oversee consumer and family affairs. The Social Democrat Party leader will be the only woman in the Cabinet. By Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo

Filed Under: Business & Economy, Government Tagged With: Foreign News, Foreign Policy

Troops ‘Too Fat’ To Fight In Afghanistan

August 3, 2009 By adminclyd

Tom Morgan – Britain’s war effort in Afghanistan is being hindered by a number of frontline troops too fat to fight, according to a leaked Army memo.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed today it had directed military chiefs to ensure units are following Army fitness policy after concerns were raised over a “worrying trend of obesity”.

The Army needs to “reinvigorate a warrior ethos and a culture of being fit”, according to the leaked memo apparently sent to all Army units and obtained by the Observer newspaper.

The memo from Major Brian Dupree, of the Army physical training corps in Wiltshire, said basic fitness policy “is not being carried out”.

Units were routinely failing to fulfil the Army’s basic fitness regime of two hours of physical exercise a week, he added.

The memo leaked to the paper said: “The numbers of personnel unable to deploy and concerns about obesity throughout the Army are clearly linked to current attitudes towards physical training.”

There are 3,860 Army personnel classified as PUD – personnel unable to deploy – with a further 8,190 regarded as being of “limited deployability” for medical reasons, it was reported.

Major Dupree added: “The current Army fitness policy states that to be fit to fight requires a minimum of two to three hours of physical activity per week. It is clear that even this most basic policy is not being implemented.

“To cope with the demands of hybrid operations in Afghanistan and future conflicts the Army needs personnel with that battle-winning edge that sustains them through adversity. It is clear this message has been diluted recently and this attitude must change. “The increasing PUD list and concerns over obesity in the services are clearly linked to this indifferent attitude.”

An MoD spokesman said: “Following a review of recent evidence, direction has been given to the chain of command to take action to ensure units are following the Army’s fitness policy.”

The revelations came on the day a hard-hitting report on British efforts in the war-torn country by a committee of MPs was published.

Since deploying to Afghanistan in 2001, the UK has suffered from “significant mission creep” with an ever-growing list of responsibilities, including drugs, human rights and state-building, which have made it more difficult for the Government to explain the purpose of Britain’s mission, said the report by the cross-party House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.

Filed Under: Government Tagged With: Documentary, Foreign Policy

Suspected In Web Attack

July 10, 2009 By adminclyd

Tabassum Zakaria – More than two dozen Internet sites in South Korea and the United States, including the White House, were attacked in recent days by hackers that South Korea’s spy agency said may be linked to North Korea.

The attacks began on July 4, the U.S. Independence Day holiday, and were widespread, but government websites were now up and running and day-to-day operations at the White House and Pentagon had not been affected, officials said.

U.S. officials also said it was premature to say who was responsible and that these types of Internet attacks happen everyday on government networks.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said in a statement that an organization and possibly a state were behind the attacks in South Korea, the world’s most wired nation, and there were signs of “meticulous preparations” for the act.

South Korean media, including Yonhap news agency, quoted parliament members as saying after an intelligence briefing that the spy agency believed “North Korea or pro-North elements” were behind the attacks that targeted 26 U.S. and South Korean websites.

In the United States, the NASDAQ stock market said its website and business were unaffected by the attack and the White House said all federal websites were “up and running.”

The attack on websites had “absolutely no effect” on day-to-day operations at the White House, spokesman Nick Shapiro said.

“The preventative measures in place to deal with frequent attempts to disrupt WhiteHouse.gov’s service performed as planned, keeping the site stable and available to the general public, although visitors from regions in Asia may have been affected,” he said.

Other public websites affected included the State, Treasury and Transportation Departments, the Secret Service and the Federal Trade Commission, officials said.

The State Department said the attack against its state.gov website started on July 5. “It’s still ongoing, but I’m told that it’s much reduced right now,” spokesman Ian Kelly said.

SPECULATION ABOUT NORTH KOREA

Rodger Baker, director of East Asia analysis at Stratfor, said the timing of the cyber attacks raised suspicions about North Korea because it was around the U.S. Independence Day holiday and Pyongyang conducting missile tests.

But the attack was more about nuisance and harassment and was “very low in the sophistication scale,” he said. “Over the holiday weekend I’m not sure how many people were surfing the Treasury site.”

If North Korea was responsible, it would mark an escalation in tensions already high due to the reclusive communist state’s nuclear test in May, its firing of seven ballistic missiles in July and repeated attacks on longtime foes Seoul and Washington in its official media.

Access to the Internet is denied to almost everyone in the impoverished North, but intelligence sources in Seoul have said the secretive state has stepped up a unit that specializes in cyber attacks.

Mark Rasch of SecureITExperts said while the cyber attacks were not novel, the targets and coordinated nature of the activity were different.

“This is not something that your average script kitty can do on the one hand. On the other hand it doesn’t require it to be state-sponsored,” he said.

Tim Stevens, a technology expert at King’s College in London, said if North Korea was a source of the attack it was largely symbolic because most of the targets were not critical infrastructure and the stock exchange was closed at the time.

The “denial of service” attack was designed to disrupt rather than penetrate a system to obtain data, he said.

The websites of South Korea’s presidential office, Defense Ministry, and the National Assembly were saturated with access requests generated by malicious software on Tuesday, crippling server response to legitimate traffic, South Korea’s Communications Commission said in a statement.

News of the attack pushed shares of some online security companies higher on Wednesday, with Ahnlab Inc up by the 15 percent daily limit on the junior Kosdaq market, which ended trading down.

Filed Under: Government, Technology Tagged With: Foreign Policy, Technology