The Clash Of Un-Civilizations And Osama-ism

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Well researched! I haven`t read ``the clash of civilizations`` unfortunately. I would have followed better otherwise, but some of Noam Chomsky`s conclusions in ``Classless War`` in Interviews with David Barsamian are similar.

``The last sentence summarizes it all. It is necessary to mention a myth that is perpetuated by West to the rest of the world. The myth is that the freedom and liberties are a virtue of Western Civilization alone. Especially, a common person in West is thoroughly convinced about the truth of this ‘myth’. In his worldview (created by media) the non-West is incapable of handling or producing the notions of freedom and liberty.``

True, I have never felt this more than Sep 11th, when Bush and the rest constantly made these comments, ``freedom attacked, they don`t like us because we believe in liberty.``

I don`t think there is any thinker in this world who doesn`t want these basic principles for his/her people no matter what era or circumstance. It is so demeaning to claim that. But nonetheless, everything becomes a layer and ``what you are`` determines your size and hence where you factor in the sedimentary layers. Each class is happy in its own notions enforced and reinforced by the groups language and practices. I can`t help bring the utopian Aldoux Huxley`s, `Brave New World`, where the Alphas are grateful for not being Gammas and the Betas thankful for not having the responsibilities of the Alphas. Each group knows only its strengths and weaknesses are only visible relative to ones own kind.

Perhaps it is dangerous to think like that, maybe its naive to divide into civilizations on any basis. All it does is give rise to conspiracy theories, suspicion and no solutions.

http://www.davidduke.com/writings/howisraeliterror.shtml

Later.

-Aisha

http://www.msnbc.com/news/664935.asp

The ‘airlift of evil’



Why did we let Pakistan pull ‘volunteers’ out of Kunduz?



A convoy of several hundred Taliban soldiers evacuate their northern foothold of Kunduz to surrender to opposing Northern Alliance forces earlier this week.



By Michael Moran

MSNBC



NEW YORK, Nov. 29 — The United States took the unprecedented step this week of demanding that foreign airlines provide information on passengers boarding planes for America. Yet in the past week, a half dozen or more Pakistani air force cargo planes landed in the Taliban-held city of Kunduz and evacuated to Pakistan hundreds of non-Afghan soldiers who fought alongside the Taliban and even al-Qaida against the United States. What’s wrong with this picture?



THE PENTAGON, whose satellites and drones are able to detect sleeping guerrillas in subterranean caverns, claims it knows nothing of these flights. When asked about the mysterious airlift at a recent Pentagon briefing, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, denied knowledge of such flights. Myers backpedaled a bit, saying that, given the severe geography of the country, it might be possible to duck in and out of mountain valleys and conduct such an airlift undetected.

But Rumsfeld intervened. With his talent for being blunt and ambiguous at the same time, he said: “I have received absolutely no information that would verify or validate statements about airplanes moving in or out. I doubt them.”





Western reporters actually in Kunduz in the days after it fell this week found much to dispel that doubt. Reports first appeared in the Indian press, quoting intelligence sources who cited unusual radar contacts and an airlift of Pakistani troops out of the city. Their presence among the “enemy” may shock some readers, but not those who have paid attention to Afghanistan. Pakistan had hundreds of military advisers in Afghanistan before Sept. 11 helping the Taliban fight the Northern Alliance. Hundreds more former soldiers actively joined Taliban regiments, and many Pakistani volunteers were among the non-Afghan legions of al-Qaida.

Last Saturday, The New York Times picked up the scent, quoting Northern Alliance soldiers in a Page 1 story describing a two-day airlift by Pakistani aircraft, complete with witnesses describing groups of armed men awaiting evacuation at the airfield, then still in Taliban hands.

Another report, this in the Times of London, quotes an alliance soldier angrily denouncing the flights, which he reasonably assumed were conducted with America’s blessing.

“We had decided to kill all of them, and we are not happy with America for letting the planes come,” said the soldier, Mahmud Shah.



IN DENIAL



The credibility gap between these reports from the field and the “no comments” from the U.S. administration are large enough to drive a Marine Expeditionary Unit through. Calls by MSNBC.com and NBC News to U.S. military and intelligence officials shed no light on the evacuation reports, though they clearly were a hot topic of conversation. “Oh, you mean ‘Operation Evil Airlift’?” one military source joked. “Look, I can’t confirm anything about those reports. As far as I know, they just aren’t happening.” Three other military and defense sources simply denied any knowledge.

Something is up. It certainly appears to any reasonable observer that aircraft of some kind or another were taking off and landing in Kunduz’s final hours in Taliban hands. Among the many questions that grow out of this reality:

Was the passenger manifest on these aircraft limited to Pakistani military and intelligence men, or did it include some of the more prominent zealots Pakistan contributed to the ranks of the Taliban and al-Qaida?

What kind of deal was struck between the United States and Pakistan to allow this?

What safeguards did the United States demand to ensure the evacuated Pakistanis did not include men who will come back to haunt us?

What was done with the civilian volunteers once they arrived home in Pakistan? Where they arrested? Debriefed? Taken to safe houses? Or a state banquet?



WHY NOT ADMIT IT

The answers remain elusive. If the passengers were simply Pakistani military and intelligence men, and not civilian extremists, what possible motive is there for concealing the truth about their evacuation? Pakistan may believe that no one has noticed the warmth of its intelligence ties to the Taliban and even al-Qaida, but surely the Pentagon isn’t operating under this illusion, is it? This news organization has quoted U.S. intelligence sources as far back as 1997 as saying that ties between Pakistan’s intelligence service and al-Qaida, and links to the Taliban — a movement nurtured by Pakistan — are undeniable.









Furthermore, the United States can easily explain why it would have allowed a military ruler under intense pressure at home to adopt an unpopular pro-American stance in this war to evacuate some elite intelligence and military forces from a chaotic battlefield. But only if, in fact, the planes were limited to evacuating those people.



The lack of a forthright answer to this question suggests otherwise, and that is a great shame. The history of American policy in Southwest Asia, from the shah of Iran to Saddam Hussein to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is marred by one example after another of short-term decisions that stored up enormous trouble for later. We failed for decades to find common ground with the world’s largest democracy, India. We failed to temper the shah’s domestic abuses in Iran in the name of anti-communism and wound up with the ayatollahs. We decided not to rile our Gulf War coalition allies by pushing onto to Baghdad and find ourselves a decade later wondering how to deal with Saddam Hussein. We pumped Afghanistan and Pakistan with billions of dollars worth of weapons and military know-how to fight the Soviet invasion, but then adopted the Pontius Pilate approach in victory, washing our hands of these struggling nations as soon as Moscow withdrew.

Now, are we careening down the same road with a nuclear-armed Pakistan? Are we allowing an army of anti-American zealots to live and fight another day for the sake of our convenient marriage with Pakistan’s current dictator? I wish I could quote Rumsfeld. I wish I could say “I doubt it.” I can’t.

Urstruly:

BaRi mahnat kee hai article pay. Shabaash bacha!

Laikan bahut lamba hai aur point nazar nahi ara.

Osama, Taliban & Co. kee phaintee lag rahee hai- Aap ko koi takleef ? Yaar lagtay hain kya ?

Final question (asked a couple of times before): What is alternative ? (for US, for Osama)

Thanks and enjwaay the weekend.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Interesting timing....

Islam’s clash with modernization

Advertise Here



TFT-Project Syndicate Service









Francis Fukuyama



argues that Samuel Huntingdon is wrong in saying that September 11 is evidence of the clash of civilizations just as much as he is wrong in suggesting that universal human rights are simply an outgrowth of European culture









Sir V. S. Naipaul, recently awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, once wrote an article entitled “Our Universal Civilization.” How appropriate. Naipaul is, after all, an author of Indian descent who grew up in Trinidad. He argued not only that Western values are applicable across cultures, but that he owes his literary achievements to precisely that universality afforded by crossing Huntington’s putative civilizational boundaries





en years ago, Samuel Huntington argued that the fault lines of world politics in the post-Cold War era are mainly cultural — a “clash of civilizations” defined by five or six major cultural zones that can sometimes co-exist but will never converge, because they lack shared values. One implication of this argument is that the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the US-led response, should be viewed as part of a larger civilizational struggle between Islam and the West. Another is that what we in the West regard as universal human rights are simply an outgrowth of European culture, inapplicable to those who do not share this particular tradition.

I believe that Huntington is wrong on both counts. Sir V. S. Naipaul, recently awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, once wrote an article entitled “Our Universal Civilization.” How appropriate. Naipaul is, after all, an author of Indian descent who grew up in Trinidad. He argued not only that Western values are applicable across cultures, but that he owes his literary achievements to precisely that universality afforded by crossing Huntington’s putative civilizational boundaries.

Universality is possible in broader terms as well, because the primary force in human history and world politics is not cultural plurality, but the general progress of modernization, whose institutional expressions are liberal democracy and market-oriented economics. The current conflict is not part of a clash of civilizations in the sense that we are dealing with cultural zones of equal standing; rather, it is symptomatic of a rearguard action by those who are threatened by modernization, and thus by its moral component, respect for human rights.

Virtually any right that is or has been asserted historically relies on one of three authorities: God, man, or nature. The original source of rights, God or religion, has been rejected in the West since the beginning of the Enlightenment. John Locke’s “Second Discourse on Government” begins with a long polemic against Robert Filmer’s argument for the divine right of kings. In other words, the secularism of the Western conception of rights lies at the root of the liberal tradition.

Today, this seems to be the major dividing line between Islam and the West, because many Muslims reject the secular state. But before we endorse the idea of an irreducible clash of civilizations, we should consider why modern secular liberalism arose in the West in the first place. It is no accident that liberal ideas emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries, when bloody sectarian struggles between Christian sects throughout Europe exposed the impossibility of a religious consensus on which to base political rule. Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu reacted to such horrors as the Thirty-Year War by arguing that religion and politics must be separated in the interest, first and foremost, of ensuring civil peace.

Islam now confronts a similar dilemma. Efforts to unite politics and religion are dividing Muslims just as they divided Christians in Europe. Our politicians are right (and not merely expedient) to insist that the current conflict is not with Islam — an extremely heterogeneous faith that recognizes no authoritative source of doctrinal interpretation. Intolerance and fundamentalism form one choice for Muslims, but Islam has always had to contend with the question of secularism and the need for religious tolerance, as is evident from the ongoing reformist ferment in theocratic Iran.

The second source of rights — the essentially positivist view that whatever a society declares by some constitutional means to be a right becomes one — likewise provides no guarantee for liberalizing tendencies, for it leads to cultural relativism. If, as Huntington implies, the rights that we claim in the West emerged uniquely from the political crisis of European Christianity after the Protestant Reformation, what is to stop other societies from appealing to their own local traditions to deny these rights? The Chinese government is very adept at wielding this question.

The final source of rights is nature. In fact, the language of natural rights — advanced most emphatically in 18th century America — continues to shape our moral discourse. When we say, for example, that race, ethnicity, wealth, and gender are all non-essential characteristics, this obviously implies that we believe that there is a substrate of “humanness” which entitles us to equal protection against certain types of behavior by other groups or states. This belief is the ultimate reason to reject cultural arguments that would subordinate some — women, for example — within a society. Moreover, the spread of democratic institutions in non-European contexts during the last decades of the 20th century suggests that we in the West are not alone in this belief.

But if human rights are indeed universal, should we demand their implementation everywhere and at all times? Aristotle argues in his Nicomachean Ethics that natural rules of justice exist, but that their application demands flexibility and prudence. That insight remains valid today. We must distinguish between a theoretical belief in the universality of human rights and the actual practice of supporting human rights around the world, for our shared “humanness” is shaped in varying social environments, such that our perception of rights differs.

In many traditional societies, where life choices and opportunities are limited, the Western, individualistic view of rights is very jarring. This is because the Western conception cannot be abstracted from the larger process of modernization. To argue otherwise is to put the cart before the horse. For our commitment to the universality of human rights forms but one part of the complex context of a universal civilization, from which an understanding of the other elements of modern societies — economic justice and political democracy — cannot be excluded.

Francis Fukuyama, author of “The End of History and the Last Man,” is professor of politics international political economy at Johns Hopkins University

``still neither Osama has taken credit for the 9/11 attacks nor US has been able to provide a credible proof against Osama to the community of nations. Anyway the objectives Osama or his network Al-Qaeda had stated were:

1. To put an end to the inhuman sanctions on the people of Iraq.

2. To find a peaceful and honorable solution to the Palestinian issue.

3. To achieve a peaceful and honorable agreement between Arabs and Israelis.``

-Are these the EXACT words of Al-Qaeda or is it your own interpretation? If it is indeed your own interpretation then i must appreciate your understanding and usage of the word peaceful.

Please provide the necessary reference if you claim that these are purely Al-Qaeda`s words.

(snoring)

heard that, read that, seen it on tv, enough already. big freaking deal. you can`t do anything about it. there will be injustices in this world ALL THE TIME....there have been throughout history, some group of people gets thrashed about, and the whole cycle repeats itself with another group of people in another hundred years or so. christians, jews, hindus, now muslims....all have been `wronged` somewhere sometime.

you can use all your pseudo-intellectual jargon to analyze it, but you won`t get anywhere, so why waste your precious time. go carry groceries for an old lady and do other little good things for people around you. do what you can, what`s in your power to help humanity, and quit with the analyses.

Urstruly, have not read your article yet, but thought post this in your board. We should be aware of all the evil designs that are obstructing peace in our two countries.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/nov/30inter.htm

Goldsteen #9 ``Muslims were very violent. Muslims could not adjust to changing world after the collapse of Muslim domination verywhere...Muslims are mixed up.You have written from the pakistan point of view which is still looking for some kind of identity.``

I see you have the muslims all figured out - all 1.2 billion muslims of the world (presumably after a lifetime of scholarly research). Your views and that of people like urstruly - generalizations, hatreds for other people - are in fact quite similar. If you have a problem with what urstruly writes, by all means post your views. Just dont drag the rest of us into it simply because we happen to be muslims as well. (Personally, I havent read urstruly`s article since I simply dont think he has anything intelligent to say).

Re: Urstruly

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the American Civil War was not fought to get rid of slavery. The American civil war was fought over the representive rights of the south verus the political rights of the industrialized north. According to an agreement, for every state that entered the Union as a free state, there had to be a slave state.

Lincoln fought the war to prevent the political dissolution of the Union and not to end slavery and in 1863, he ended the slavery to keep the British from entering the war, on the side of the Confederate states. The slavery was effectively ended by the British Royal Navy, whose aggressive interdiction of the slave shipping lanes end the ``middle passage`` - the trans-Atlantic voyage.

If you doubt me, please read Shelby Foote; the noted civil war historian. Read Bruce Catton, whose books argues the same conclusion. If you have the time, I would highly recommend Ken Burn`s documentary The Civil War and Burns argues the same; politics and not morality ended the slave trade.

In this instance, this war has nothing to do with morality or the universalism of western ideals over Islam injunctions. I disagree with Sam Huntington and those who argue against him, are merely validating his thesis by lending it credence.

The case of civil liberties being traded for security is an old in the history of the United States. There were no civil liberities during the Second World War and hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans were imprisoned. However credit must be given the United States from learning from its mistake and admiting its transgression, which was more than most countries have done. During the Vietnam War, the United States maintained its liberities and in some cases even increased them. During that war, which perhaps posed the greatest threat to American internal cohesion, due to its protests, civil liberities were touched upon.

Right now, the United States has, granted, moved to an exterme, but in due course the balance would be regained and these civil liberities will be restored. Secondly, the new measures of curtailing the civil liberities and the legislation pertaining to it has a sunset cluse. These laws would be reviewed in 5 years and it would be decided then whether to continue with them or end them. Hence, these laws will not be always around as some laws are in certain countries - there were no retro-active laws imposed in the United States.

Even if these laws do curtail the civil liberities, the American legislators are still countable to their people. Even during this crisis, there was an election for the mayor of the New York and power was transferred from one person to another without any storming the state supereme court. This proves that the electorate system is still viable in the United States and it is from this, that the bedrock of American civil liberities springs from, and which more than can be said about most countries in the world.

Ciao

Where to begin?
The author begins with the premise that Osama is rightthinking and representative of the aims of `Muslim civilization`. After that everything has to be twisted and turned to support this premise. The author`s simplistic device of avoiding introspection doesnot work, because the facts donot support his thesis.

The current conflict is infact NOT about any clash of civilizations, its about a amalgam of problems, in which neither the West NOR the so-called `Muslim world` comes off well. But ignoring finer details and overextended `logic` seems to be the only way to defend Osamaism.

In summary, the author says:

1. The US is guilty of destroying a country, Osama and the Muslim world are only interested in their problems being solved, and anyway Osama is innocent of plotting terrorist attacks.

Those sitting in Bonn, in barber shops and celebrating the end of Taliban rule are aliens or sellouts to Muslim civilization. The bombing has gotten rid of the Taliban, far from feeling their country is destroyed, Afghans seem happy to get a chance to start again and undo the depradations of past years, including the Taliban. Loss of life through bombings was regrettable, but what is the author talking about?

Osama has talked of killing Jews and Christians and the Muslim wolrd being under threat, did you miss all those speeches, tsk tsk. Nothing objective about Osama, he talks of Palestine and Iraq, but there wasn`t a single Palestinian or Iraqi named as Al Qaeda operative.

2. US has the selfish motive of grabbing control of Central Asian Oil and supporting despotic regimes, Osama/the Muslim world have unselfish motives of solving West-created problems in the Muslim world. Muslim world doesnot support Osama`s methods, but still Osama is innocent.

Well, everyone had their eyes on Central Asia, including Pakistanis like Hamid Gul and Aslam Beg and those who ran training camps for Central Asian fundamentalists in Afghanistan, and Al-Qaeda.

Osama had the selfish motive of making a illgoverned country of poor people fight the whole world to protect the base of his activities. What has Osama done for Afghans, the Muslims closest to him geographically?

He has prevented Afghans from capitalizing on their unique geogrpahical position in a way which benefits ALL Afghans and other Central Asians and on their own terms. If it hadn`t been for him, the Taliban and Pakistan and their `unresolved political issues`, Afghans would have had a multiethnic stable government, and would been benefiting 10 years ago and would have been well on their way to developing-country status instead of starving or suffering the humiliation of having to wait for airdrops.

3. Afghanistan is in bad shape only because of the post-Sept 11 conflict, Afghans are becoming refugees, its children are malnourished. `4-5 million` have become refugees since Sept 11, infact.

Which 4-5 million refugees, the largest figure is a few hundred thousand since Sept 11.

``If Afghanistan was in bad shape earlier, its only because of the West.``

Read 2.

4. The Western world `responded` in using clash-of-civilizational terms, on the other hand Osama/Muslim world are very objective, they want no part of all this talk of `attack on our way of life`, noone in the Muslim world ever uttered `attack on Muslims`, no never. Jihad is all about objective issues, with which the unified Muslim civilization objectively goes about solving its valid problems and unresolved political issues.

Its like a snake biting a man and the man dying. The snake says, I was only solving a unresolved problem of your standing close to my tail.

Excuse me, but even the subcontinental struggle against the British became all about Muslim civilization being under threat. EVERYTHING in your article is an argument about Muslim civilization being under threat. Malaysians travelling to PoK for training to fight in Afghanistan post Sept 11 is about defending Muslims under threat.

5.The Western media and Western public was very subjective before Sept 11, unlike the Muslim world`s media and Muslim public, which is very objective about unresolved political issues(unresolved by the West, there is nothing for the Muslim world to resolve).

Recommending that Al-Jazeera be `taken out` is blasphemous, knocking down all the TV broadcasts from the TV tower on WTC is `objectively stating uunresolved political issues`, supporting the Taliban regime which smashes all TVs in Kabul is what the Muslim civilization is forced to do for Islam AND because of unresolved political issues with the West, it quite cannot decide which.

6. Madarassa education is the only thing that prevents me from being a slave, but if I am unemployed after I graduate from moral education, its because of the West`s post colonial colonialism aka globalization. Hence I have to turn my attention to unresolved political issues. If only Palestine was a state and the Russians pulled out of Chechenya, I would be able to find a job.

Yeah right. The skills the world pays for, even the Muslim world, need modern education. Noone prevents `morals` being taught too. The other skills, namely being a responsible responsive citizen able to live eaceably with others of different views can be learned only if you stop obsessing about solving problems in Iraq and Palestine and start talking about solving problems in your neighbourhood.

7. Obsessing about infringement of civil liberties in the US is fighting post-colonialism and promotion of universal Islamic values. Obsessing about civil liberties in Muslim countries particularly under the Taliban is unIslamic. All Muslim countries are waiting for is the West to stop persecuting its citizens, before surpassing the West in civil liberties, democracies and freedom.
Iran is more democratic than India, for two reasons a. its Islamic unlike India and b. because its Islamic its under threat from the West.
Yeah right. The West is standing in the way of Pakistan being the most free country in the world, and preventing passing of laws to promote justice, equality and democracy like the inspired Taliban.

8.The Muslim world is full of diversity. Unlike the West, its been able to institutionalize its support of diversity. Lets not ask why Sunnis couldnt build a mosque in Tehran and nonWahabbis get a thin time in S. Arabia(oh S.Arabia is all the West`s fault, even their funding of Al-Qaeda) and Coptic Christians and Kurds are beleagured. Diversity of political opinions, on secularism,thats godlessness, its an injury to my religious sentiments, modern education, well thats slavery, an injury o my religious sentiments, fiscal discipline and encouragement of foreign investment, well unless thats interest-free Saudi money going into Muslim banks, thats godless expolitaive globalization and injurious to my religious sentiments.

9.If Osama`ism is the same as `Islamic political ideology`, well they couldnot even institutionalize `freedom justice equality` in a itsy-bitsy 50000 -man militia. Many deserted, others abandoned their Muslim brothers from the Muslim civilization next door without as much as a `pahle aap`.

The question I have is, how is Osama`ism going to be expressed in future( WTC willnot be rebuilt for a while, if at all).

Clintons aby STOOD UP by u.s. Ambassador leaving Advani & Yashwant Sinha JILTED :(

Saturday, December 01, 2001





BOTTOMLINE: EX-ENVOY DUCKS APPOINTMENTS, KEEPS MINISTERS WAITING, GETS TOUG

Undiplomatically yours, by Frank Wisner



Rohit Bansal

Ambassador Frank Wisner, former US envoy to New Delhi, has upset some important people in his visit this time. The evidence:



* The ex-envoy, who is heading a non-descript group of US investors in New Delhi under the US-India Business Council (US-IBC), did not show up for his appointment with home minister LK Advani, sources in North Block said. A similar treatment awaited finance minister Yashwant Sinha too.

* His team has done no better. Because none of them were big-ticket investors already present in India, Mr Sinha tried to win ’em over by giving them a peek into the new growth figure, 4.5-5.0 per cent. An unimpressed delegate (read cultural misfit) told him

that they have been hearing a figure of 5.5 per cent, and in the interest of

credibility, they would like to know where India really stood on the

subject. No guesses, the FM could do no better than move on to another subject.

* Then petroleum minister Ram Naik rather kindly gave Mr Wisner a slot that he protects for his lunch. But Mr Wisner appeared on the scene 45 minutes late. Ministry officials were surprised to find the diplomat unapologetic, and even willing to call the whole thing off, if the minister was so upset.

Mr Naik did end up having the meeting, though only for a couple of minutes.

Naturally, there was nothing substantive about it.

* The meeting with commerce minister Murasoli Maran went slightly better, partly because of former US trade representative (USTR) envoy Susan Esserman. Ministry insiders said the two, particularly Mr Wisner, delivered such a terse lecture on “India’s stalling tactics at the World Trade Organisation” that the otherwise excitable Mr Maran ended up being amused!

* Earlier in the week, Mr Wisner droned on so for 35 minutes on the Indo-US economic relationship that it left disinvestment minister Arun Shourie to observe, tongue firmly in cheek, “The (ex) ambassador speaks with such authority on US policy... as a minister in the Union of India, I speak just for myself!”

* Four economists, Rakesh Mohan, Bibek Debroy, Onkar Goswami and Isher J Ahluwalia, were invited to join Mr Wisner and his troops, soon after sectoral presentations were made on the tax regime, power, telecom, automobiles, and so on.

Suddenly, they were asked if they would make a presentation. None of them agreed.

This turned out to be a good decision because Mr Wisner remained preoccupied in an earlier meeting, and when he did reach the Taj, he was famished. The four economists left to pursue their own personal engagement

© 2001: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the world.