So good to know that you are back :-) — nice post and I am 100 % with you on the Raman Case

Thanks, @mit - I hope to blog more from now on :)

It is only by the greatest coincidence that I came across this blog again as I had nearly forgotten my last post here. I was surfing Indian blogs and came across your had posted here when I saw your comment on the blasts.


Btw, your blog is very picky about accepting posts. I make it a habit not to swear or use inappropriate words online and yet, your blog refused my comments many times though I couldn’t find any offensive words. Thus, I remember I was forced to leave out one important paragraph about the IMF/WB.

I have left my e-mail address this time in the rather unlikely event that you would wish to e-mail me ;).

At any rate, let me now turn my attention to your comments on my comments :beam:. In response to this statement, “…something that I said by personally attacking me…”, I would like to say that I don’t believe that I have attacked you though I humbly apologize if I came off sounding as rather cold. Although you could have been referring to the two other people who you made special reference to.


To clear matters up, yes, I’m Indian. But I currently live in Canada. Not that it makes me any less Indian.

Now to the meat of the matter. I realize that my comments were off-topic as I had posted them in the comments section of your thoughts on the London bombings. But I did that because for a good reason.

Looking at your comments, I see an obsession with the Islamic terrorism. I’m sorry ma’am, but I do. You do mock the Indian government and Muslims as not being hard enough on Islamic terrorism etc. and so you come across as being rather hardline.

I’m not Muslim and I’m not an Islamic terrorist sympathizer by any stretch of the imagination. First of all, there is no easy way of fighting Islamic terrorism and secondly, using violent means is not really a viable option. This is because of the human tendency to react with equal or greater anger to an act of criticism or violence, especially in the case of fanatics.

I’m no expert on the matter, but terrorists are fanatics, and using greater force only provides them with more recruits. I will need to study the matter more before I can recommend good policies to use in this war. Because this is not a conventional war. Fighting this war is like wielding a double-edged sword - the least imbalance can result in severe setbacks. This is not like WWII, with well-defined enemies and objectives but an ideological war in which land gained and lost is of little consequence. Of course, I have no idea about your inclinations and thoughts on the matter and I will leave it up to you to decide.

My main reason for posting all my comments on America is primarily because I am concerned (as I mentioned before) that your priorities are wrong. Far be it for me to dictate your priorities, but I should just like to elaborate on why I believe your inclination to criticize terrorism more than America is a mistake.


First of all, as low, cowardly and difficult-to-fight as terrorism is, remember that you and I, being humans, are prone to do the same under various circumstances. Secondly, terrorism (usually) results in a low-intensity war like Kashmir that (though extremely disruptive of the livelihood and peace of the locals) that can be contained. In short, terrorists rarely possess the means to engage countries in full scale combat. They can do significant amounts of damage but in the end, they are only mosquito bites, not the claws of a tiger ripping you apart. There are exceptions of course, but this is generally the case.

This is not the case with America. America is an established country that has used state-sponsored terrorism, assasinations, bribery, threatening etc. on a worldwide scale. They are quite enamoured of Machiavellian thinking and would take steps to put themselves on top. This involves creating proxies like the IMF/WB that keep poor countries perpetually in debt, violations of the sovereignty of other countries and the like.

On a global scale, no country or organization keeps so many others in poverty, suppresses as many people or interferes and threatens so many countries as America. In terms of the number of INNOCENT people killed through secret wars alone, America’s confirmed kills are so high that all the Earth’s terrorist organizations would have to work overtime for the next 100 years before they could even begin to equal this number.

Given this kind of Machiavellian thinking espoused by the US government, the number of people who have suffered at their hands and the fact it is beginning to hit home because Indian customs might soon be manned by American officials (a fact that I have not been able to confirm but a complete violation of our sovereignty and betrayal by our leaders if true), then I would be more worried about India falling under the American spell than about terrorists.

In the long term, it is more than likely that terrorists will still be around but I highly doubt if they would have accomplished much more than kill more people. In the case of America, I’m not so sure. America is a definite threat to Indian interests, as 50 years from now, we can expect conflict to break out. In this conflict, America will be seeking to dominate and though I can’t be sure of who the foe will be (probably China), it is clear that India must oppose America if it wants to continue to rise. Go to conservative American websites and read the comments (freerepublic.com)about India or Indians.

At best, we are viewed as a loyal country (a recent poll showed that Indians were only one of two countries to view America as friendly, and the only country whose inhabitants ranked America as a top place they would like to settle down, a fact that disgusted me to no end) to be thrown a bone as opposed to evil China that refuses to comply with American wishes and at worst, we are mocked for our accents, our bindis, our poverty etc.

Some of the patronising comments really set me off such as “indications are that India has thrown off its flirtation with socialism and is now becoming fully capitalist” as though capitalism is something worth supporting and as though we are their sidekicks. Another comment was to the effect that India was finally showing sense in not buying ‘Red’ equipment but was finally sticking to buying ‘Western’ goods - as though our role is to sit here, nice and compliantly, buying whatever they sell us.

No, it is my view that we have to walk a very thin line in dealing with them. Already Manmohan appears to have sold out our nuclear program by drawing up lines between civilian and military facilities making it very easy to calculate our fissile material production capabilities for some measly and vague future ‘assistance’. Conflict with America is inevitable and is a much greater threat than Islamic terrorism and something for us to worried about. America


I’ll end with quoting you ma’am, “When you focus on peripheral issues to the detriment of the issue at hand in a debate, you have already lost”. This is very true. Ignoring the fact that the discussion was about the London bombings, the question is: What is the REAL ‘issue at hand’? I define it as the issue/event/organization that will have the highest impact and poses the greatest threat to us, India. Terrorists are little more than pin-pricks if one will be cold and calculating and ignores all the innocent dead and the temporary conflict. I look into the future ma’am, and I ignore the present because there is little we can do to influence the present. The future promises conflict on a scale that has not been seen since the time of WWII and perhaps even greater. And this time around, India will play a powerful role. It is up to us to choose to turn our backs to the terrorists who are evil, and to the American government and its evil, Machiavellian machinations that are so much more evil. We cannot condemn one act of terrorism without condemning them all. Even if it is carried out under the banner of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ and behind the legitimizing shield of the fact that no individual is responsible - that it is done by a state, for the protection of the state.

I think that’s it for now. Please be aware that it is 4 AM here ma’am and I so if you detect any unconventional grammar usage, spelling, brusqueness, insulting language or any other mistakes or inconsistencies, it can be attributed to the fact that I have been sleeping on the keyboard for half of the night :tongue3:. Please forgive these shortcomings.

Thanks for hearing me out. Good day to you ma’am.

Jerryl as someone who supports capitalism over socialism, I am sure we are not going to agree much there. In any case, this was a good post and I am going to think about it a little more before I post a fuller comment. Thanks for writing :)