In the novel Murder on the Orient Express, detective Hercule Poirot concludes that since the death of a man on the fabled train could not have been caused by a single suspect, yet involved all of them, that all the suspects were probably in league. If Poirot really existed, what would he make of Indian Prime Minister Mamohan Singh’s accusation that Pakistan “must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan”?
A dossier handed to Pakistan’s high commission in Delhi included interceptions of telephone calls made between the ten Mumbai gunmen and their alleged handlers in Pakistan during the attacks. “The commanders in Pakistan are following events on television and are issuing real-time instructions; telling the gunmen to target certain nationalities and religions; to maximise casualties; not to touch Muslims. This is hands-on direction,” a senior Indian government official told The Times.
The commands included the order to execute six foreign Jews held at Nariman House, an orthodox Jewish outreach centre, during the Mumbai atrocities, which claimed more than 170 lives in all.
Poirot might have wondered why the accusation was not accompanied by the traditional ultimatum. Maybe that’s because — and here’s the tricky part — the information is really intended, not to support a declaration of war which is so yesterday, but to pressure the Pakistani government to act against itself. “Key parts” of the dossier came from the FBI and Pakistan, according to the news reports, already knows it is behind the attack. The Times Online continues:
India expects the dossier to increase international pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the support network used by Islamist militants within its borders, much of which dates back to the CIA’s backing of Pakistan-based jihadists against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the Cold War.
India is also demanding that Pakistan hand over several terror suspects linked to the Mumbai attacks. However, Islamabad has already said it would not comply to such a request and may settle for access being given to them by the FBI, which helped compile key parts of the Indian dossier.
However, the file is unlikely to contain much that Pakistan’s security services are not already aware of, analysts said. Ajit Doval, a former director of India’s Intelligence Bureau, said: “It will not carry anything spectacular; more likely it will contain refinements of information already widely known. In any case, Pakistan already has more than enough evidence to act upon if they are willing.”
So what gives? Here’s one theory which may loosely cover some of the facts.
The US already knows the Pakistani government — if such an entity can be collectively referred to — was guilty of the Mumbai attacks. But since the “international community” can’t nerve itself to use force and Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons, the plan is to support the international community’s Pakistani guys fight al-Qaeda’s Pakistani guys. Because only Pakistanis are actually going to be allowed to act directly in this situation.
But they need help. To strengthen their political hand the US has conveniently slipped signals intelligence into the hands of the Indians, because although the al-Qaeda Pakistani guys know they have nothing to fear from the US, for reasons we must pass over here, they may still have something to fear from India next door. And that fear may give the international community’s Pakistani guys the edge in what comes next.
But what comes next? That’s the rub. Unless anyone really believes the Indian demarche will fix things on its own, then what will follow should be on everybody’s mind. That can logically only be some kind of shadow proxy war within the Pakistani government for ultimate control. And it’s far from clear who will win, because Singh’s statement, which is intended to sound intimidating, paradoxically weakens the anti-terror Pakistani’s hand: it’s a signal of what the US and India will not do: they will not get directly involved. We’ll parachute in suitcases with radios in false bottoms, Sten guns and those nifty-looking maquis berets; but D-Day is off the table.
At this moment, Israel is dealing with the aftermath of a failed proxy war in Gaza. We can only hope the good guys win. If the good guys lose in nuclear armed Pakistan, astride the logistical route to NATO forces in Afghanistan, there won’t be much of a market in second-hand maquis berets.
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40 Comments
1. trangbang68:Obama and team are stepping into a buzzsaw in the world. W had a few months before 9/11 even though he was hounded by the Gorebots. Obama appears to have almost no wiggle room in the world. Hold on tight.
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:29 am 2. cjm:india could use covert terror against pakistan. and go after the families of terrorists.
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:41 am 3. F:Obama is indeed stepping into a buzzsaw. The urgent question now is how nuanced his appreciation of international relations (and that of his staff) really is. Ironic — Bush was criticized (among other things) for lacking appreciation for nuance, but Obama appears to lack the historical background so essential to working through precisely the kind of problems he will inherit in two weeks. Wretchard’s analysis of the problem facing the US and India is precisely what I would like to see being pondered in the new White House and State Department. Is there anyone coming into the administration who will bring this kind of historic understanding to the process, or will the White House be guided by left-wing nostrums: “no water-boarding, close Guantanamo, talk to Chavez and Ahmedinajad”? The good news is Obama appears to learn quickly. The bad news is he’s tapped folks with a lot of policy baggage. It would be encouraging to see Hillary follow Bill Richardson out the door. Any more information on the financial scandal that she might be embroiled in would be of interest. F
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:49 am 4. programmer:Wretchard asks:
But what comes next?
programmer ponders:
Something different, that’s for true! Even though President-Almost Obama says politely, “One president at a time!”, all the government agencies and ancillary support groups depending on government largesse for funding know the baton has changed hands. The upcoming change of command ceremony just confirms this (yeah, I know, no ‘duh, programmer).
I have many friends and associates who are liberal and support Obama. In many respects, they are similar to the group that Obama brings with him. They are very intelligent and well educated. They really like America, they just want to fine tune and tweak it (frickin’ constantly, it seems).
I liked President Bush’s approach because, to an extent, it is how I like to think I would have handled things were I president (All my solutions end with the phrase, “…and then God sorts out the innocent). However, the people moving into power do not want to kill everyone AND they do not want to get killed) to achieve their goals. They are willing to try negotiation, “diplomacy”, trickery, underhandedness, game playing, trickery, legalisms, sharp practice, all sorts of nuanced (and I do not mean that in a derogatory sense [this time, anyway]) approaches. Well, guys, it’s their turn.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:06 am 5. PapaBear:The problem with democracies is that politicians have an incentive to try to kick problems into the future, where hopefully they will be some other administration’s problems, even if doing so will cause the problem to grow.
No politician wants a nuclear war during his administration. This is what Pakistan is counting on, with respect to India.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:06 am 6. Lifeofthemind:The argument that the Democrats rely upon is the force of incumbency. As the permanent government staffing the agencies, the foundations, media and academia, with recent inroads into corporate boardrooms, they are supposed to have a bench so deep that there is simply no alternative to their vision. The Republicans were supposed to be so marginalized and cut off from the oxygen of experience that even after years in possession of the White House they would have no lasting footprint. Instead it is the Democrats who are showing a shockingly shallow bench. A collection of corrupt retreads and proven failures are all Obama has been able to produce. At this point I am hopeful that America is lead into a period of navel gazing that permits Israel and India the freedom to act in their own interests. Benign neglect may be the best that Washington can offer in the coming year.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:18 am 7. DW:The face I would like to most to disappear from Obama’s entourage is that of John Podesta, of the Center for American Progress. His is an extremely radical and dangerous mind.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:22 am 8. programmer:LoTM observes:
Instead it is the Democrats who are showing a shockingly shallow bench. A collection of corrupt retreads and proven failures are all Obama has been able to produce.
programmer asks:
I wonder who is advising/directing him on his selections?
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:23 am 9. Robert Speirs:The Obama admin is Clinton’s third term. They will do exactly what Clinton did, kick the can down the road. We are still in Bosnia and Somalia is still a mess. What reason is there to think the Clintonians will finish now what they couldn’t back then? At least Bush did something effective about the crises that arose on his watch.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:24 am 10. Anton:One must hope that the Indians are not afraid to covertly go after the source of the problem. They have the proximity to, and knowledge of, their lunatic neighbor to do so effectively if they choose. If they send several dozen terrorists and their friends to Allah (or reincarnation) maybe the Paki “Good Guys” will do a little house-cleaning of their own.
I think one of the biggest problems is that there is a large amount of support for the terrorists in the Pakistani population and any half-hearted measures against AQ or their sub-groups will look weak while a powerful move may provoke a civil war. This stems from the fact that Pakistan is not a real country, just a bunch of ethnic groups that did not wish to be ruled by India. A sort of Palestine writ large, not a nation based on a set of common values and ideas or even ethnicity, but based on a set of common hatreds.
I cannot suggest that this will end well, even if both the US and India play their cards carefully and well. There are too many people involved that are looking for this to end up as a conflagration, and they seem to care little as to who is consumed.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:29 am 11. Anton:Of course the president-elect wants to go after the AQ elements in Pakistan, with or without Pakistan’s permission. Oh, wait, no, he didn’t mean that. He meant that he …ummm…..ahhh…. would like it if the Pakistanis did it uhhh, like you know.
Being smart isn’t every thing, a computer without a program cannot do math. A genius without knowledge and training is little better than a simpleton. Obama has never stayed at any job long enough to learn it much less master it, now he is playing in a field of high-stakes back-stabbers who cannot be bought off or leveraged out by his political patrons, this will be a long four years.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:38 am 12. F:Programmer #8: I’m guessing Rahm Emmanuel is Obama’s closest adviser — Chicago connection, smart, persuasive, and bloodthirsty. Not without his own baggage: Clintonista and caught on tape negotiating with Blagojavitch over the sale of Obama’s Senate seat. He probably doesn’t have any interest in international affairs, so that leaves Hillary (whose first interest is shaking down Saudis and others for whatever money can come her way) and Madeleine Albright, whose first interest is in defending her own weak performance as Secretary of State (like her approaches to Kim Jong Il, for example). So the real question becomes, how quickly can Obama come to appreciate the fact that a US president’s first responsibility/agenda needs to be foreign policy? F
Jan 6, 2009 - 10:02 am 13. RWE:Obama has one advantage that Bill Clinton did not, if he chooses to use it.
Clinton was always clearly in sympathy with the street protestors, the anti-war, anti-globalization, anti-racist, anti-deJour, “All we are saying…” “We shall overcome…” “1,2,3,4 we don’t want your racist war… types. He even said so. After all, he used to be one.
Obama may have gotten that crowd’s enthusiastic support, but he ain’t one of them and has no real reason to feel that he owes them anything. In fact, I have little doubt that he chuckles when he thinks of them.
The question is, who does he owe? And given the Chicago Way and his long history of tossing “friends” and causes aside, why would that ultimately be anyone but himself?
Jan 6, 2009 - 10:19 am 14. LarryD:Five Reasons Why India Can’t Do a Gaza…
1. India doesn’t have enough of a military advantage, and Pakistan has nukes.
… 5. Israel’s “pariah” status actually gives it more leeway.
Jan 6, 2009 - 10:43 am 15. whiskey:Wretchard I think you underestimate the Indian response.
First, unless the current government gets reprisals, they WILL be tossed out in favor of the BNP. So they must act.
Second, Obama as a matter of record spent a summer in a Madrassa in Pakistan. This was at the height of anti-Soviet Jihad.
He is not trusted by the Indians.
Third, this factor, i.e. pro-Pakistan US sentiment along with Obama’s predilections for making pro-Muslim deals, that betray allies, creates a powerful incentive for an Indian first-strike surprise attack. It’s clear that a general mobilization cannot be hidden, but an Air Force, Navy, and possibly nuclear attack certainly CAN.
The weakness of Pakistan is that it is a series of squabbling tribes with nukes. It’s military operations are capable of terrorist strikes but have sacrificed through internecine struggles the ability to wage large-scale conventional wars.
Will India wage a large conventional war of occupation? Probably not, but it might settle for striking first at Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, it’s ability to construct more nukes, and it’s major cities, giving Pakistanis a taste of Bombay right back at them.
In fact, considering the ability and willingness of Pakistan’s factions to stage Bombay, India might desire this action to forestall the next logical step which is a nuclear version and considering how vulnerable they are to that attack, it’s logical for them to simply destroy Pakistan’s ability to deliver the nukes.
The weakness or trade-off of Pakistan and other tribal societies is that once limits and restrictions by Western style nations come off, they can’t fight them: Israel vs. Syria or Jordan or Egypt, the US vs. Saddam, etc.
Jan 6, 2009 - 10:46 am 16. Gordon:#15–where is the record of Obama’s summer at a madrassa in Pakistan? I haven’t seen that.
Jan 6, 2009 - 11:27 am 17. Brock:The best thing the “international community Pakistani guys” could do to strengthen their hand is to hand over the keys of Pakistan’s nukes to India (or the USA). Counter intuitive, I know, but as long as the nuke card is on the table the Indians can’t threaten to invade if they don’t get their way. Once the nukes go away the Indian threat becomes credible, and then the Al Qaeda Pakistani guys start feeling lonely. Most of Pakistan is probably like most of Iraq – pro-status quo, independent and more interested in beer than ideology. Those guys have little stomach for Al Qaeda, and once it’s perfectly clear to them that they have to choose between Al Qaeda and India, they’ll learn the lesson the Iraqis learned, only faster.
Jan 6, 2009 - 11:31 am 18. Brock:Whiskey is right that a first-strike by India would also take the nuke card off the table, as well we provide super-credible evidence of India “meaning business.” But it’s also incredibly risky since it only takes them missing one of Pakistan’s nukes to make a really bad day in Delhi. I don’t think they’ll try that unless they’re rock-solid certain they know 100% where every nuke is AND that they can take out every nuke in the first round.
Jan 6, 2009 - 11:36 am 19. Matthew Goggins:Whiskey:
I found this description of President-elect Obama’s trip to Pakistan:
“Apparently, according to the Obama campaign, In 1981 — the year Obama transferred from Occidental College to Columbia University — Obama visited his mother and sister Maya in Indonesia. After that visit, Obama traveled to Pakistan with a friend from college whose family was from there. The Obama campaign says Obama was in Pakistan for about three weeks, staying with his friend’s family in Karachi and also visiting Hyderabad in Southern India.”
[from Jake Tapper’s “Political Punch” of April 8, 2008, ABC News, http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/obamas-college.html
Do you have any further information about what he might have done on this trip?
Jan 6, 2009 - 12:04 pm 20. Herb:F @ #12
As long as she draws breath, Madeline Albright is a clear and present danger to the security of the United States.
Brock @ 18 “I don’t think they’ll try that unless they’re rock-solid certain they know 100% where every nuke is AND that they can take out every nuke in the first round.”
Can I hope we do if they cant?
Has anybody read anything on the capability and competence of the Indian military?
Jan 6, 2009 - 12:08 pm 21. Gringo:Gordon:
#15–where is the record of Obama’s summer at a madrassa in Pakistan? I haven’t seen that.
Obama did visit Pakistan when an undergrad, but most likely did not spend an extended period of time at a madrassa. Perhaps he visited one.
http://www.mikefrancesa.com/wordpress/?p=1190
Jan 6, 2009 - 12:09 pm 22. Mike Sylwester:I haven’t seen any evidence that Obama attended a madrassa in Pakistan.
During the summer of 1981 he visited Pakistan for about three weeks, visiting mostly the Karachi family of his college mate Mohammed Hasan Chandoo. He then traveled to Hyderabad, India, where (as I recall) another college mate’s family lived.
Jan 6, 2009 - 12:30 pm 23. Alexis:The more “pacifist” any future Obama administration appears to be, the more likely it is that “front line states” such as Israel and India will elect bellicose political parties if only to counterbalance the power of Obama.
Also watch the European Union elections later this year. Precisely because EU elections amount to a beauty contest, there is a higher likelihood that Europeans will vent on atmospheric issues. Chances are that immigration will be a major concern.
Some of Obama’s followers may regard him as God Emperor of the Universe, but he will not be all-powerful. And thank goodness he won’t be all-powerful!
Jan 6, 2009 - 12:31 pm 24. Peter Boston:India and Pakistan will be at war by June. The governing party will not cede its legitimacy to its political opponents by demonstrating an inability to protect (avenge) its citizens.
A war does not mean a nuclear war. Kashmir is far enough removed from the population centers of both countries to accommodate some division size engagements without anybody feeling the necessity to hit a nuclear trigger.
The USA is SOL on transportation routes through Pakistan. I think Iran will be the accomodater in return for a hands off pledge from the USA and Israel. The Mullahs are crazy but they are not stupid.
Jan 6, 2009 - 12:48 pm 25. Nomenklatura:The reference to the ‘maquis’ is more appropriate than you may realize.
The French resistance has been said with some justice to have consisted of a few hundred people the day before liberation by the US and its allies, and several hundred thousand the day after. France was not just held hostage during the occupation, much of French society and particularly its leadership chose to go along with its ‘oppressors’ to wherever the adventure was going to lead. Any trace of real or dependable allied elements was hard to find in France at any stage of World War II.
It has taken two thirds of a century since then for the French to settle down to become a more or less normal country, and even then they will poke us in the eye pretty much any time they see a chance to do so and get away with it. This behavior has much more to do with diverting attention away from the flaws and corruption in their own political culture than with any coherent critique of ours, but that hasn’t made it any easier to put up with their posturing and pandering to our enemies.
All of which suggests that even though we may be able to achieve a successful resolution in a place like Pakistan, we should also probably expect them to continue being a pain in the ass for another 100 years.
Jan 6, 2009 - 1:05 pm 26. John Work:programmer # 4 – “AND they don’t want to get killed.” Ah, there’s the rub. For the first time in a long time (and at a particullary dangerous time) the Dems are fully in control. Who or what is to stand between them and the reality they consider so “relative”? Do choices really have consequences? We’re about to find out.
Jan 6, 2009 - 2:24 pm 27. dan:pakistan is so tiresome. i think pakistan is a piece of geography that needs a nuclear political reboot. or something like that. delete me if you must but you and i both know that that place is FUBAR and infecting everything else in the world. do people in that reason like pakistanis? something tells me they’re the Palestinians of the South Asians.
Jan 6, 2009 - 3:03 pm 28. dan:*region, not reason.
weird.
Jan 6, 2009 - 3:04 pm 29. Doug:Big Hollywood
Jan 6, 2009 - 3:46 pm 30. You can’t be accused of playing a double game if your honest » The Ethereal Voice:Makes it’s Debut.
[...] Wretchard has a good point….. The US already knows the Pakistani government — if such an entity can be collectively referred to [...]
Jan 6, 2009 - 4:00 pm 31. MarkJ:I’m already getting weary of “smart” being constantly used in referring to politicians, in general, and the incoming Obama administration in particular.
Given the miserable track record of ostensibly “smart” politicians and bureaucrats over the last 100 years, I’m given to think that “smart” will be the death of all of us.
Jan 6, 2009 - 4:00 pm 32. Cannoneer No. 4:Are Americans sure there are Good Guys in Pakistan? Given the level of taqqiya and maskirovka and our inability to really know if what they’re saying in English matches what they say in Urdu. Governments are chiefed by the double tongues, and Muslim “governments” by the triple tongued, and Pakistanis by slick, cricket-playing, whiskey-drinking, quadruple-tongued Anglophone muhajir> and Sindhi feudalists they put up as front men to impress the infidels.
Musharraf had many faults, but at least he carried out his end of the deal. I don’t recall the Khyber Pass being closed very often in his day. I think we should start deducting the cost of our stuff destroyed on the road to Bagram from the aid we give their military.
Let’s see their 40 torched uparmored humvees, and raise them some F-16’s.
Jan 6, 2009 - 4:33 pm 33. Wadeusaf:One of the elements within India that I do not know enough about is the familial relations between the Pakistani Muslims and the Indian Muslims. It is very complex I think and has been troublesome and violent for India since before statehood. Despite any lingering the animosity between Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan)and Islamabad the question would pop up as to the reaction of Bangladesh to an Indian Pakistani war, although I doubt they could officially be more than an irritant, like individuals aiding Pakistani TalQaeda, the BAL has a history of supporting Islamists. Whatever move is made politically it does not bode especially well for the party in Power in India.
Jan 6, 2009 - 5:02 pm 34. Doug:The Podium and the Odium – Mark Steyn –
Jan 6, 2009 - 5:13 pm 35. Wadeusaf:“If conservatives don’t figure out popular culture soon, the movement will die a deserving death. … Liberalism is the default mode of the culture – to the point where the left-of-center position is so pervasive it’s no longer a position at all, but rather something uncontentious, received wisdom, part of the air we breathe…“
Cannoneer No. 4,
Point made re-Musharraf, and taken. However I think he was loosing whatever influence or control of the TalQaeda he once had. Given the red mosque and the rise of open opposition in the NW Frontier and the erosion of what little support he once had amongst the middle class he had already become expendable. I don’t think things would be much different today with or without Musharraf.
Jan 6, 2009 - 5:14 pm 36. Subotai Bahadur:#10 & 11 Anton, #15 Whiskey, #32 Cannoneer No. 4:
I tend to agree with your analyses’ with the exception of Whiskey’s statement about the Madrassa. I yield to no one in my contempt for Hussein Pasha, and I do think he is by Sharia definition a Muslim based on his childhood, but the problem with the trip to Pakistan was the question of what country’s passport he used, not any Madrassa visit that I have heard of. All in all, this is not going to end quietly. Pakistan is in it up to their ankles [noting that they are in head first]. India, governed as it is, has no choice but to push. The Demarche was not there immediately, but the implication is there that it can come in a hot Mumbai-minute. The Paks have one chance to get it right. Looking a Muslim extremists worldwide, their track record of getting it right is not good.
#18 Brock, the necessity of knowing where every Pakistani nuke is, is limited by the degree to which the Indians believe that the Pakistani government, or more precisely the Jihadist factions therein, are likely to order a nuclear strike on India. The higher that degree of belief, and knowing the level of damage that they would sustain in that first strike [they have no defensive capability against the missiles and a very limited one against the aircraft carried nukes], the more risk of missing one or two they might be willing to endure. That last especially if they believe that their first strike will destroy totally Pakistan as an entity capable of mounting a strike with the remaining weapon(s). Keep in mind that this is not a truck full of ANFO explosive. Nuclear weapons built by a nation state have fairly sophisticated safeguards against unauthorized detonation. While the Paks may not have PAL’s like ours, I assume that it takes something more than a smart rap on the nose of the thing to make it go bang. It may not seem to be a unreasonable risk, balanced against the assumed Pakistani first strike; that they can block the delivery and detonation of any orphan Pakistani nukes.
#24 Peter Boston. I agree that they will likely be at war before June, but I contend that this situation is sui generis compared to what has happened before. Skirmishes and even major combined arms battles in a thinly populated area relatively distant from both national centers are one thing. A state sponsored attack on civilians in the homeland is something else. Kashmir may be a theater of operations in the aftermath, but the Schwerpunkt is elsewhere. Once again referring to Clausewitz, I find myself referring to his ON WAR, Book 1, Chapter 1, #24 about the relationship between war and politics more and more on both foreign and domestic matters. In this case, India’s political goals about Kashmir have been subsumed in a greater one involving a proximate strategic existential threat to the Indian nation.
They now have to revise their calculations about the nature of the Pakistani government in the wake of its sponsorship of the Mumbai attacks. Deterrence only works when both sides are rational and each believes that the opponent is rational. The blatancy of the Mumbai operation is such as to cause a massive re-evaluation of both the rationality of Pakistan’s government, and of how much actual control it has over policy versus the amount of actual control wielded by Muslim extremists. It is kind of like a geopolitical equivalent of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
As to your prediction of an Iranian-American rapprochment on the terms described …. Hussein Pasha would probably love to wave that piece of paper and declaim peace in our time. And he would have the same results as the last time that happened. There is nothing that can be said, promised, threatened,or offered to Iran that will prevent their launching a nuclear strike on ourselves, Israel, or both at the first opportunity. If we have a Munich moment; remember that it was not far from September 1938 to September 1939.
#26 John Work:
“But Grey Tribe reality is so-o-o boring. If it doesn’t go well, they can shoot another take, right? It isn’t like anything they do will be real or anything. And if the worst should happen, the media will cover it up, see.” [ Can't do this anymore. The exposure to their mindset is too numbing.]
This is going to be real painful to real people. And it will be terminal to many. Both in the foreign countries where the Democrats try to play out their fantasies, and here.
Subotai Bahadur
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:34 pm 37. ledger:Cannoneer No 4 (post 32) summed it up well. I cannot add much more.
I will say the India probably knew it was Pakistan with in hours.
India has the men and the materials to deliver a punishing blow – if not – fatal blow to Pakistan.
Why they have not done so is either lack of spine or a wish for more death on their soil. The Paki-terror factory is like training a dog. The longer you wait to punish a misdeed the more the dog thinks it can get away with his actions. This leads to more torn-up property and dog crap in the house. Sooner or later the dog has to be whipped or put to sleep.
The US can take care of itself in Pakistan. The Pakistan military has proven to be of little or negative use to the US.
India should get on with the protection of their citizens and administration of justice.
Jan 7, 2009 - 4:34 am 38. Cannoneer No. 4:Neither lack of spine nor a wish for more death on their soil, but a high level of tolerance for Pakistan’s crap due to not wanting to become responsible for governing it after they break it. Same reason South Korea props up Kim Jong Ill’s regime. Suddenly becoming responsible for millions of dysfunctional, unemployable, hostile people is a worse fate than suffering the annoyances these regimes inflict.
West Germany was a great place in the ’80’s.
Jan 7, 2009 - 1:22 pm 39. NahnCee:Isn’t India made up of a bunch of Hindu’s, as in Gandhi, as in peaceful protest, as in keep turning the other cheek, as in won’t even kill a cow?
So you’ve got one country of nutso Muslims determined to blow up shit, and you’ve got another country of peaceful Hindu’s determined to sit quietly in a lotus position an drive around the animals wandering in their streets … why are we surprised India as a government doesn’t fight back but leaves reprisals to the Indian man on the street and his spontaneous riots?
Jan 7, 2009 - 10:30 pm 40. Cannoneer No. 4:Have you never seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Who did you think those guys were, Mormons?
The
Jan 8, 2009 - 9:02 amJettis don’t fit your stereotype at all.
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