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Recent
Stories
April
15, 2003
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Robert
Jensen
Self-Determination in Iraq? Then the
US Must Leave
Dr.
Susan Block
The Rape of Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Aiming at Syria: Stop Them Before They Kill Again
Robert
Fisk
The Final Sacking of Baghdad
Col. Dan
Smith
Post-War Iraq: Asking the Right Questions
Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish
A Cycle of Chaos and Confrontation: Misadventures of the NeoCons
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/15
April
14, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush's War Without End
Uri Avnery
Gunboat Democracy: This is Only the Beginning
Wayne
Madsen
Americans: The New Mongols of the Mideast?
Shahid
Alam
Iqra: Iraq is Free
Hani
Shukrallah
Day of the Chicken Hawks
Terry
Jones
The Iraq Gravy Train
John
Chuckman
The Iraq War's Trashiest Piece of Propaganda
Patrick
Cockburn
US has a Lot to Answer For: Violence,
Misery and Poverty in Iraq
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/14
April
12 / 13, 2003
Carol
Lipton
Wag the Kennel: the Kenneth Joseph
Story
Wayne
Madsen
Meet the New Butcher of Baghdad: Maj.
Gen. Buford Blount III
John
Brown
"They Got It Down": the Toppling
of the Saddam Statue
Kathy and
Bill Christison
Final Thoughts from Palestine
William
Blum
Our Vulnerable Warmongers' Rush to Justify Devastation
Wallace
Gagne
Let the Stealing Begin
Ann
Harrison
Rosenthal Update: Judge Delays Ruling in Medical Pot Mistrial
Case
Henry Miller
What is the Greatest Treason?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Render Unto Cesar
Zeljko
Cipris
Mocking Militarism: On Ishikawa Jun's Song of Mars
Ishikawa
Jun
The Song of Mars
Jamey Hecht
Chairman of the Sandwich Board
Adam
Engel
Hell of a Town: Mayor Bloomberg and
the News
Poets'
Basement
Chang Yang-Hao, Adam Engel and Hammond Guthrie
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/12
April
11, 2003
Omar
Barghouti
From Saddam to Uncle Sam
Ron
Jacobs
Greed is Rewarded
David
Vest
The Corporate War on Iraq
Paul
de Rooij
Propaganda Stinkers: Fresh Samples from the Field
Anthony
Gancarski
Foreign Aid: Embezzlement as Public Policy
Mas'ood
Cajee
Franklin Graham: Spiritual Carpetbagger
Michael
Neumann
Now What?
Michael
Berry
The Neo-Cons Have a Dream
Stew Albert
Oh Freedom
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/11
Website
of the Day
About Those Dancing Crowds
April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
April
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
the War Is About Oil
Doug
Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and
War
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
David Vest
Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
John
Chuckman
America's Sovereign Right to Do
as It Damn Well Pleases
Akiva
Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
with the Christian Right
Ray
Hanania
Suicide Bombers without the Suicide:
Racism, Hypocrisy and the War on Iraq
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/9
April
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Killing the Messengers: It Doesn't
Matter If It's Deliberate or Accidental
Richard
Lichtman
Dr. Phil in the Trenches
John
Brown
Why Uncle Ben Hasn't Sold Uncle Sam:
a Former Foreign Service Staffer on Bush's Policy Failures
Ben
Terrall
Report from the Oakland Docks: "The
Cops Had No Reason to Open Up on Them"
Jason Leopold
FERC and Wall Street: Conversations
May Have Violated Federal Law
Anthony
Gancarski
Conyers Heeds the Call on Perle
Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
Ahmad
Faruqui
Wallowing in Hypocrisy
Wallace
Gagne
Baghdad Babble
Harry
Browne
Report from the Protests at the Bush/Blair
Summit
Larry Kearney
I Understand There's a Boy in
a Baghdad Hospital
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/8
M. Shahid
Alam
The Israelization of America
April
7, 2003
Todd
Chretien
Wooden Bullets & Grenades: Oakland
Cops Attack Peace Protesters and Dock Workers
David
N. Gibbs
Spying, Secrecy and the University:
The CIA is Back on Campus
Harry Browne
War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
Gideon
Levy
America is Not a Role Model
Diane
Christian
A Scene from an Obscene War
Jules
Rabin
Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
Oddsmaking in Dublin: Will Bush
Shake Gerry's Hand?
Robert
Fisk
The Twisted Language of War
Patrick
Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
John
Mackay
War and Art
Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
in Shambles
Anne
Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem
Uri
Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
Floyd
Hell for Leather: Bombs, Bullets, Bibles and Bush
William
Cook
Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
Svirsky
A Busy Day for Bulldozers
Mike Ferner
Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?
Joanne
Mariner
Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
John Stanton
Bush Takes His Killing Orders
from the Lord
Romi
Mahajan
Learning to Count the Dead
Aluf Benn
After Iraq, US Vows to Deal with
Other Mideast Regimes
Mary
Ellen Peterson
Gay Marine Refuses to Fight
William
MacDougall
Country Music and the Crimes of Patriotism
Ron
Jacobs
War and Occupation
Bernie
Pattison
Aborigines and the Different God
Mark
Engler
Iraq War as Arms Expo
Adam Engel
Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini
Poets'
Basement
Tripp, Albert, Katz
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud
Norman
Madarasz
Canada and the War
April
4, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
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April 16,
2003
India's
Middle Path Through Iraq War
A Devious Route
to the Bush Camp
by
NINAN KOSHY
India's political leaders' responses to the U.S.-led
war in Iraq are notable for what they say about the country's
willingness to sacrifice traditional concerns regarding nonalignment
and international law for the opportunity to raise its profile
and power on the world stage. They have, in all but words, chosen
to side with empire.
A Middle Path
Neither supporting the United States
nor openly criticizing it for its aggression against Iraq, India's
government has taken what it calls the "middle path,"
an indirect route to the U.S. post-war camp. But the policy is
based on a misguided perception of strategic and economic interests,
which is shaped by Indian authorities' obsession with what they
view as "Pakistan-sponsored terrorism."
For its part, the United States would
have liked to have received India's support in the war against
Iraq, but it recognizes that the middle path in effect endorses
the U.S position. On the eve of the war, U.S. Ambassador to India
Robert Blackwell claimed in a statement that the U.S. and Indian
positions were the same.
Even after the United States defied the
UN, international laws, and the international community with
its massive military campaign against Iraq, the Indian government
stuck to the middle path. The government of Prime Minister Shri
Atal Bijari Vajpayee rejected opposition demands for a parliamentary
resolution on the crisis. The prime minister scrupulously avoided
mentioning the name of the United States in any of the war-related
statements made inside or outside the Parliament. Advocates of
the middle path claimed that through it the Indian government
was gaining space to defend its long-term interests in Iraq and
the Persian Gulf.
India did not even support the position
the 114-member-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) adopted at its
recent summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in which Vajpayee had
participated. The NAM, endorsing the concerns expressed by "millions
in our countries as well as in other parts of the world,"
affirmed that it "rejected war" and declared "the
war against Iraq would be a destabilizing factor for the whole
world with far-reaching political and economic consequences."
Meanwhile, the prime minister took advantage of the summit to
lecture Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on the need to disarm
and spoke not a word of criticism against those who--in violation
of the UN Charter--were resorting to the threat of force to carry
out their will.
During a visit with Ali Akbar Veliyati,
the special envoy of Iranian President Mohammed Khatami on March
23, three days after the war had started, members of the Indian
government made it clear that India was not willing to take any
initiative on Iraq, through NAM or otherwise, that could jeopardize
its ties with the United States. By making the fear of U.S. displeasure
the operative factor in dealing with the most critical international
issue of our times, India has totally abandoned principles. The
threat posed by the war on Iraq to the integrity of the international
legal order established at the end of World War II is apparently
of no concern to the rulers in New Delhi.
The Centrality of
Kashmir
It appears that the Indian foreign policy
establishment looks at the world solely through a prism of Kashmir
terrorism made in Pakistan. "India seems to be drawing a
link between American support for its position on Pakistan and
Kashmir with its statements on the ongoing military invasion
of Iraq," wrote Amit Baruah in the national daily The Hindu
on March 28. "India seems to be drawing connections between
what the U.S. says on India-Pakistan-Kashmir issues and India's
formulation on the Iraqi issue. The message coming from official
circles is that India's concerns in the immediate neighborhood
are far more important than simply sticking to principles as
far as the war on Iraq is concerned."
In fact, Vajpayee had given this message
unambiguously to the All-Party Meeting on March 22. "We
should be careful that neither our internal debate nor our external
actions deflect our attention, or those of the world, away from
the real source of terrorism in our neighborhood," he said.
India is Washington's closet strategic
ally in the region. It is not known what assistance India has
given to the United States in the war. There are reports that
permission has been granted to use Indian airspace for the flights
of U.S. military aircraft from Diego Garcia Navy Support Facility
in the Indian Ocean to the Gulf region. It is also likely that
several U.S. naval vessels engaged in joint patrols with the
Indian navy in the Indian Ocean have gone to join the fleet in
the Gulf region. One of Washington's most senior Army officers
visited New Delhi in the beginning of February and had discussions
with the chiefs of the Indian army and navy. Indian officials
did not provide any details about the visit by U.S. Army Chief
of Staff General Eric Shinseki, though they hinted that the issue
of Kashmir had topped the agenda. The timing of the meeting,
six weeks prior to a war anticipated by the United States, raises
questions.
A Rising India
It was not without significance that
on March 26, the very day the UN Security Council was discussing
the U.S. attack on Iraq, Christina Rocca, U.S. assistant secretary
of State for South Asia, in her testimony before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee hailed India as a "rising global power"
and said the United States was expanding security cooperation
with New Delhi through military exercises. The middle path, it
was evident, was within the framework of the role assigned to
India.
The Indian leadership hopes that in the
new world order being fashioned by the military might of the
United States, which will transform institutions such as the
UN and NATO as well as strategic and nuclear orders, it will
have a more prominent place than at present, and for that it
is important to be on the winning side. There is no apology in
New Delhi for the replacement of principles with pragmatism.
But is there a middle path between war
and peace, between occupation and freedom, between foreign military-established
rule and sovereignty of a nation? The misguided policymakers
in New Delhi want us to believe there is. The people of Iraq
know better: There is none. It is therefore not surprising that
in trying to explain such an untenable and unethical policy,
the Indian prime minister utters inanities bordering on nonsense
only to be parroted by spokespersons and emissaries.
The middle path is a euphemism for a
Washington-approved policy that India has adopted with the clear
intent of attaining a prominent position in the new imperial
world order made in the name of the War on Terror. The United
States knows full well that India is with the empire, not against
it.
Dr. Ninan Koshy
is a political commentator based in Trivandrum, Kerala, India,
author of The War on Terror: Reordering the World (DAGA Press,
2002), and a regular analyst for Foreign
Policy in Focus. Dr. Koshy can be reached at: knkoshy@vsnl.com.
Today's
Features
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Robert
Jensen
Self-Determination in Iraq? Then the
US Must Leave
Dr.
Susan Block
The Rape of Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Aiming at Syria: Stop Them Before They Kill Again
Robert
Fisk
The Final Sacking of Baghdad
Col. Dan
Smith
Post-War Iraq: Asking the Right Questions
Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish
A Cycle of Chaos and Confrontation: Misadventures of the NeoCons
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/15
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