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SPEAKING FREELY
Iraq is India's war, not
its battle
By Shubh Saumya
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click here if you are
interested in contributing.
The
parched, eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of
toil
Laughs without mirth
This is the death of
earth.
T S Eliot resonates in Mesopotamia,
whose mighty rivers now flank the valley of the shadow
of death. The cradle of our civilization has become
America's desert of despair.
America's appetite
for the post-war is fast ebbing. Losing one soldier
about every day and a billion dollars a week is a heavy
burden. The wealthiest, mightiest nation on earth now
seeks others to pitch in. It has India on its mind,
among other nations.
We must be in a looking
glass world if Indians are being goaded, with a straight
face, to send soldiers to die in place of Americans.
General John Abizaid, Commander, US Central Command,
even clarifies that he doesn't want more US troops,
merely foreign troops.
Unless he bizarrely thinks
that less-equipped Indians can outdo their techno-lethal
US counterparts, he is brazenly asking Indians to serve
as cannon fodder.
Following recent explosions in
Mumbai, some in America opined that a freshly bloodied
India should now see why crushing terrorism is so vital.
Indian soldiers should join American GIs to create a
safer Iraq, therefore a safer world.
Many
Indians agree. To them, defanging terrorism in Iraq is a
global imperative. Also, a partnership with America and
Indian footprints in West Asia are of great strategic
value.
They lobbied, unsuccessfully, to secure
India's diplomatic support for the war. Failing that,
they want it to make amends by sending troops to Iraq.
Some of us who joined them in support of the Iraq war
consider this latter idea supreme folly. Let me explain.
As an Indian eyewitness to jihad's temper
tantrum in New York, this writer doubly understands the
evil of terrorism. Nurtured by witchdoctors in mosques
and dictators in palaces, terrorism's evil rage is
essentially apolitical. It's only intent is destruction
and death.
Terrorists even turn our "infidel"
sense of fair play against us. Goebbelsian military
dictators plead for "self-determination" across borders
and suicide bombers talk up a futile "peace process" to
play our naive, liberal instincts like violin strings.
Their real tune, alas, is mass murder and an
imposed, self-interpreted Medievalism that amputates
modernity and limbs. They seek murder, not political
settlement.
This epiphany unifies the numerous
battles on terror's bloody borders and negates liberal
cacophony about the so-called "root causes" of terrorist
rage.
It also legitimizes the Iraq war. Like
Pakistan and Palestine, Iraq professed moderation as
camouflage for its extremist agenda. With Baghdad's
fall, the war was finally joined.
Inexplicably
India, herself a victim of hideous terror, hid behind
the UN's tattered skirt and was reticent in extending
diplomatic support to the war led by America, its
natural ally. It sought to defend the faux ideal of
multilateral diplomacy no matter what the cost.
Now, presumably for a few pieces of silver
denied them by this blunder, some Indians want to send
troops to Iraq. In geo-political chess, India cannot
bring itself to abandon diplomatic snobbery but, with
the UN's consent, will apparently sacrifice the blood of
its pawn soldiers. Leonard Cohen was right. The wizard
of the world has indeed overturned the order of the
soul.
When these Indians and their American
friends exhort it to send troops to Iraq, they betray an
unforgivable assumption that India is not already
fighting this war. An intellectually honest person can
only retch in despair.
Iraq is not the only
battlefield in this war. So also are Kashmir, Chechnya,
Palestine, the Philippines and many others, each equally
vital. Winning in Iraq at the expense of Kashmir, for
example, would be winning nothing at all. Stalemate
anywhere is stalemate everywhere.
America leads
the Iraq battle with 150,000 soldiers in a nation of 25
million. India has an equal battle ongoing with 500,000
troops battling Pakistani terrorism against 10 million
Kashmiris.
America lost 3,000 once in New York.
India has lost 3,000 every year for a decade in the
identical war.
Instead of being distracted in
Iraq, India can best support the war by winning its
proximate battle in Kashmir. Troops designated for Iraq
are better unleashed against terrorists who kill and
maim Indians at home. Indian victims of terror expect
nothing less.
Likewise, victory in near battles
of Russian troops in Chechnya, Israelis in Palestine,
etc will bolster this global war of the brave and the
cause of the free. As for Iraq, it is primarily
America's battle and, given sufficient political will,
eventual victory is not in doubt.
If instead
Washington goes soft in its responsibility to Iraq, its
awesome power will be tarnished forever. Terrorists will
portray American retreat, in the guise of
internationalizing the Iraqi occupation, as a replay of
Somalia and Lebanon. That would be catastrophic for the
world.
Should India be an enabler of
Washington's strategic mind cramp that could lead us all
down (in Eliot's imagery) "rat's alley where the dead
men lost their bones" for no good reason at all?
Iraq may be India's war, but is not its battle.
Its troops are best deployed in the battle against
Pakistani terrorism in Kashmir. Let India first win its
slice of the global "war on terror".
Shubh
Saumya is a New York-based management
consultant from India.
Speaking Freely
is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say. Please click here if you are
interested in contributing.
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