Indira Gandhi Bunaam Bush!

Imam Ali shrine was bombed most recently by Saddam`s military trying to suppress the shia revolt. So the place is used to being attacked. But any attack on the shrine now would cast Alawi as a stooge of the americans and sovereignity of iraq as a joke. There was absolutely no reason to escalate the conflict as the americans have done. Al-Sadr, beyond some rhetoric, did not directly confront the occupation army until they came to his door.
The situation in Amritsar was very different. The Akal Takht had pretty much ceded control of the temple to Bhindranwale whose goons conducted executions in the premises of the temple. The temple was the head quarters of a rogue outfit. I remember a time when a high-ranking army officer offering prayers was shot dead on the steps of the golden temple and the public opinion all over india was decisively against it. What Indira did was absolutely right but its timing was off as it came too late. She did reap what she sowed by cultivating Bhindranwale.

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this is a classic middle-eastern politics. each faction is jostling for power, the govn. council, mainstrem shia (sastani), iran and its proxies, and offcourse the al-kidas. americans are naiive, leave it to the brits or the french, they are masters of this kind of games.

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Dost Mittar ji, as usual very nice article.

Americans value human lives much more than Indira regime did. The latest news as I write is that the troops will not go into the holy mosque after all.

There are many reasons why Indira could have used better judgment:

1. Indira created Bhindrawale. Bush did not create the guy in Najaf.

2. Bush is there to “civilize” those guys in democratic values. Sikhs didn’t need any such lesson from her. Punjab’s turbaned guys wanted economic power to be decentralized way ahead of the rest of the country had the courage to demand it. After Indira and Rajeev disappeared, every one became fan of more state powers.

3. Bush’s country was attacked by the turbaned guys due to their hatred for his country. Punjab’s turbaned guys had long history of being most protective of India starting from protecting Indira’s ancestors, the Kashmiri pundits.

Frankly, Sikh alienation did not occur so much from raid on Golden temple (at least Indira had some excuse with Bhindrawale inside the temple with guns and all that). The real blow was 1984 Central Government sponsored massacres and of course no subsequent inquiry. That really was meant to be a lesson for Sikhs to stay away from New Delhi’s rulers no matter how corrupt or unjust they might be.

Truth is that India is still paying for inaction after 1984. Rajeev became bold and ventured in Kashmir playing with state government machinery providing excuse to Jihadis. We also perhaps would not have had Gujarat riots if goons were punished after 1984.

I wish I can say – May Indira and Rajeev’s soul rest in peace. But I can’t. Let God be the judge.

So what is sadr going to do? People tend to under-estimate US fire power and will power. The world without sadr will be a much safer place, for every body.

With all due respect, this is a false analogy. There was a minor event that happened, called `the invasion/liberation` of irak, you seem to have forgotten. Or was punjab an independent country which was invaded by india ?

On the flip side, religious leaders have no business raising armies. So Bush has a point, just like IG, both sadr and bhindranvale are bad news and must/should have been defeated.

All in all, a rather silly comparison...

The implications of US invasion of Iraq are still unfolding. It remains to be seen if US succeeds in building a ``civilized`` nation. More likely it will be a lost cause as time drags on. In the case of Indira and Bhindranwale, I agree with Pardesi in general. The implications are already such that strong nationalistic Indians of old school can not be proud of. The overseas Sikhs have turned inward Sikh and Punjab issues with India coming in third for most and for die-hards India does not even come in third as Kaurasach posts indicate.

Bhindranwale was not a serious threat to Indian unity. He was more like a menace and a criminal according to Indian law. But instead of bringing him to justice, most likely many of his colleagues and possibly he too was executed without trail. Even his body was quickly cremated instead of traditional handing over to the family. Still the worst came afterwards in which tens of thousands with the crime of merely supporting him or associating with the people having sympathy for him were exterminated systematically including thousands of innocents killed after Indira was assassinated.

People who voted in Simranjit Singh Mann and the widow of Indira assassin are still there or moved to overseas. They have not switched back to ass-wipiing Nehru family members in the name of India or Indian nationalism. Although Congress rules India but that is more of dislike for the previous Akali rule of Badal. Recently the decision of Indian Supreme Court against Punjab about sharing Jamuna water did not go well in Punjab Assembly. Punjab did its part and dig up link canal since Jamuna river borders Punjab and Punjab agrees to deliver water to Rajisthan with rivers from Punjab not flowing into Rajisthan.

The point is that Bhindranwale has become an example of fighting for state rights above nation rights, which is like his dream coming true after his death. I know for sure that he is more mentioned in Punjabi songs than Indira, Nehru and Gandhi combined. The independence day is not a major event for media outlets owned by Sikhs in Diaspora. Turn on to any radio or tv show tomorrow and day after tomorrow and independece day will be mentioned alongwith Sikhs sacrifices during partition as well as during operation by India against Sikhs. More pro-Bhindranwale will totally ignore it.

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Dost-mittar, the Ali Mosque and Amritsar temple are similar examples. At the same time, the overall Sikh example has some similarities, but certain big differences with respect to Iraq, also.

Sikhs willingly and vountarily joined India. India did not invade Punjab and force the Sikhs to join India, against their will. The USA invaded Iraq for no rhyme or reason. The reasoning went from WMDs, to Al-Qaeda, and now to helping out the Iraqis. Obviously all are lies, as have been proven. The blanket reasoning of helping out someone by kiling them is the last resort of any invader who has no reason to give. This is exactly the reasoning USSR, finally used to invade Afghanistan.

Many of us had loudly argued, before the war, that this was going to turn into a mess, and that the USA had false motives, for invasion. It is a strange coincidence that Sadr`s father was killed by Saddam, and now Sadr is targeted by USA. And Alawi was an ally of Saddam for a long time. And he is now an ally of the USA.

USA is stuck big-time in Iraq now. It is fully in a lose-lose situation. If it leaves, it loses. If it stays, it loses. Unfortunately, Iraqis are in a lose-lose situation, also. If the USA leaves, they lose. If the USA stays, they lose. I think Iraq is an unsolvalbe mess, now. I had stated earlier, before the war, that it would turn into an Afghanistan with oil. Which is, unfortunately, what seems to be happening.

Iraq will eventually end up under a theocracy of some sort. This is exactly the opposite of what USA and Israel wanted. For Iraqis, it will not be an ideal solution, but it will be better than the USA and Saddam. Since Iraq, unlike Canada, is a country that has suffered under secular forces. Hence the secular forces in Iraq have lost all credibilty, through the action of Saddam and USA. And now, through the actions of the Iraqi secular leadership, which seems to have joined fully with the USA. While the religous leadership is leading the resistance against the USA. This is similar to what happened, in Afghanistan, when the USSR invaded.

I am not sure whether the USA will go into the mosque. If they do, no one can stop them. However, I am sure that Bush really needs a big win to get elected. The biggest win would be OBL. However, if he cannot be had, then Sadr`s scalp may push the vote in his favor. This is the reasoning behind the attacks on Sadr, once again.

The USA had to spend 85 billion or so, dollars to keep Iraq occupied this year. Around 65 billion or more of that went to its own forces. The remaining to Iraqis, which was around the same as they had when Iraq was under sanctions. It obviously cannot spend that much every year, to keep its forces there. So it will have to leave, or occupy it completely, so that Iraq`s oil can pay for the occupation. The resistancce seems bent upon ensuring the second option does not happen.

People have lots of hopes with John Kerry. However, his agenda is the same as Bush, with only slight differences, on Iraq. Only Ralph Nader has a clear cut solution, for USA`s foreign policy problems. He is the only one who is willing to outrightly criticize Israel, on occassion. And the only one ready to oppose USA` occupations.

To paraphrase Robert Fisk: How the USA went from being attacked by 15 men from Saudi Arabia, to fighting a war in one of the holiest Islamic sites, with Shias who had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, is unbelievable.......

Dear dost-mittarji:

An interesting take, but...

In one, there is unjustified occupation; in the other there was an attempt to break free.

Muqtada Sadr does not have the sanction of the general populace; Bhindranwalle could claim to have a good deal of support for Khalistan.

Bush has no business to be anywhere in the vicinity of Iraq anymore; it was Indira Gandhi`s job to intervene, whatever be the modus operandi and its merits.

The US and its chamchas have committed all manner of demeaning acts after `freeing` the Iraqis - they have nothing to lose; the Sikh militants were the biggest losers for their own actions -- what happened to the innocents was the complete breakdown of the establishment machinery.

Today, Punjab is not terribly unstable, though the wounds will remain; Iraq will always have to live with the fear of some Western power meddling in its affairs.

Just for this, I think India stands apart. At least we kill our own people and do not let the firangs do so...not an elevating thought, but just pointing out the difference.

Regards,
Farzana

In many ways Pakistan has been plain unlucky with the Sikhs. The Sikh conservatives would have, in retrospect, been much happier in Pakistan, if they could have come to some agreement with Jinnah, on absolute freedom of religion, guaranteed participation (rank and file and officer corp) in the Army, non-negotiable land rights (no sale of sikh property to non sikhs, muslims). Had all this happened, Sikhs would have been a lot more conservative (a little like Punjabi Muslims) today. One of the basic problems, Bhindranvale and many other Sikh conservative have with India, is the lure of mainstream indian society for sikh youth, weakening the bonds of Sikhdom in the vast fabric in India. In an Islamic pakistan, the bonds would have been woven even closer.

``Bush and his advisors should closely examine the events that followed the Indian army’s attack on the Golden Temple if they want to avoid a similar mistake. The repercussions of an attack on the shrine of Imam Ali will not be limited to Najaf or even Iraq. It will enflame the passions of all Muslims and the shock waves will be felt in the entire Muslim world, especially among the Shias.``

the ka`ba has been demolished at least once and violated a couple of times. the last incidence was in the early eighties when the saudis massacared scores of rebels within the walls of haram. the sanctity of ali`s shrine has also been violated in the past. there were no repercussions anywhere in the muslim world. these people hiding inside the tomb are quite baighairat to endanger the site in that manner.

meray dost dost-mitter ji sahib -- wanted to comment about that Texas Mongoloid`s invasion of Baghdad -- but I am tired -- tired of talking about the past FOUR horrible years of death destruction and deprivation -- that this war criminal president has brought upon a poor third world country Iraq -- that did not do one thing to us ......

to expect this dyslexic dimwit -- a sorry excuse for a president -- to learn anything from his OWN country`s history -- what to talk about other countries history -- is to expect a Chimp to write the history of the world from the alphabet soup of his monkey chow...

thank goodness this nightmare is about to be over..........great writing...btw

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re: farzana

{Punjab is not terribly unstable}

...how sad that must be for you....

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jang#1:
Americans may be kids at this game but why couldn`t the british put some sense into them, instead of becoming Bush`s poodle?

gujju#3:
After reading others` interacts, you must be wondering who is the deluded one here?
I have good contacts with sikhs both inside India and outside, especially those who opposed the khalistan movement. Believe me that the wounds are not healed yet. The alienation has become deeper; sikhs have now started their own calendar (nanak shahi), the calendar excludes hindu festivals and used different dates for the sikh festivals than those calculated by hindu calendar. They have now started openly celebrating the martyrdom of Bhindranwale and others killed in the Golden Temple and all this is happening in India.

soysauce#4:
Yes, the shrine was indeed attacked by Saddam but it was still a muslim army attacking a muslim shrine. And the closed Iraqi system ensured that the event didn`t get much international publicity.
Re. your reference to the DSP`s murder outside the Golden Temple, why did the police then not go after the murderers right away? There was so much anger even among sikhs in punjab that there would have been hardly any outcry against police going inside the temple to apprehend the culprits. But the dictator Indira had made the state govt. impotent. Chief Minister Darbara Singh, whose responsibility it was to maintain law and order, had to call Indira Gandhi to seek her permission to send the police inside the temple. Indira Gandhi denied this permission but had no problem sending the army with tanks to attack the temple a few years later.

kaura: (did you know that your name has double meaning - raw and bitter?)

When a number of factors are operating simultaneously, it is difficult to say which was the most important. This is what happened at that time.
-People were tired after 15 years of turmoil and were yearning for a return to normal lives;
-Narsimha Rao ended the Governor`s rule and held elections. Because of the militants` threat the turnout was low, just as was the case in Kashmir election last year; still the elected govt. was somewhat more responsive to people`s grievances;
-The law and order was handed to the police from the military/paramilitary people. The police had a better network of informants and local knowledge;
-KPS Gill totally ignored standard procedures and resorted to mass-scale ``encounter`` killings;
-The movement degnerated as simple goondas and thieves masquerading as separatists started to demand protection money from people, both with and without the cooperation of the police;
-Rajiv Gandhi made a pact with Benazir Bhutto denying the safe haven and other logistic support provided by Zia.
There may be other factors as well that I have missed.

nikki#6
``Surely, you must be delusional if you think you can sit in Canada and pontificate on these issues when you yourself may be a target very soon by the same society you swear by, if something like 9/11 happens in Canada.``

...and how will my security or that of other canadians be enhanced by the entire muslim world enflamed against the western world?

``Naturalization and residency is a privelege , not a right, and it is time immigrants realize that and act appropriately.``
...and pray how is one supposed to ``act appropriately``?

As regards Indira Gandhi being ``ballsy``, I wouldn`t deny that although I am not sure if India would not have been better without her ``balls``. Even the creation of Bangladesh has not been an unmixed blessing for India.

nasah,


............. it is difficult to buy the the ``mongoloid invasion`` line when the spiritual leader of the ridiculous iraqi people is having heart surgery in ulan bator, the summer capital of monglia, and iraqi olympians are marching around the cradle of mongoloid civilzation blowing kisses at their tormentors !

.......... i have always maintained that muslims in general, and the arabs inparticular, need to have some sense knocked into them by the civilized world even if it is led by a dimwit from texas ............mind you, i like bubba - he might not be the brightest bulb on the christmas tree, but the man knows what he wants, unlike the flip-flopper from boston.............. anyway, as they say, laton kay bhoot baton say nahin mantey ...............and iraq is the first kick on the bhoot`s behind ...............

Happy Independence Day India of Manmohan Singh...!...Dair Ayed Drust Ayed...

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halur:
``So what is sadr going to do? People tend to under-estimate US fire power and will power. The world without sadr will be a much safer place, for every body.``
In my opinion, a martyred Sadr will be a far more potent symbol than one alive.

Pardesi:
The differences you have pointed out are valid. And yes, the 1984 massacres at Delhi had a more lasting impact on moderate sikhs. And will continue to be so as long as people held guilty by the public continue to be rewarded by parliamentary seats and ministerships.

Sameer#12:
``The point is that Bhindranwale has become an example of fighting for state rights above nation rights, which is like his dream coming true after his death.``
The Anandpur Saheb resolution, I think, became the basis of Sarkaria Commission whose recommendations are now accepted by all parties. But the Akalis were not blameless either. They clearly wanted to pander to the sikh communal sentiments. When the Akalis passed their Anandpur Saheb resolution following their govt`s dismissal by Indira Gandhi, it was totally counched in communal terms. The resolution demanded the rights of sikhs, not of panjabis or panjab. So, even their coalition partners, the Jan Sanghis, could not support them. When a demand is based on communal grounds, one can guarantee that the reaction too would be along communal lines.
Regarding SYL, I am not sufficiently informed on the subject to make a comment. Generally, however, I would trust the Supreme Court over the politicians any time of either the state or federal types.

Romair#15:
I agree that both the US and Iraq are in a lose-lose situation. I am not so sure about Israel. I do not think that Iraq will be as strong or united as under Saddam. If I am right, you will soon see the pro-israeli lobby shifting its focus to Iran.

but hamidm these were the wrong Iraqi bhoots who got the wrong lats......the real latoN ka bhoot is getting his VIA (Very Important Ayatollah) arteries cleaned in the Poodle House in number 10 downing street -- so that he could Khomeinize Baghdad for 4 more years -- after General Abu Zaid leaves `democratized` Fallujah....

regarding that flip flopper from boston -- who cares -- ABB -- Anybody Butt Bush.......we shall overcome....Spain, India and now the United States...

dost-mittar

your secret discovery mission to india to uncover the khalistan movement that nobody else finds worth talking about anymore (other than farzana and some pakistanis) deserves a pulitzer

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hamidm unkil #27,

how could you support the same dumb ass president the dumb ass Bible thumping southerners support?

what`s wrong with kerry`s flip-floppiness, we`re all free to change our mind, the reason we`re ini the Iraqi mess is because Bush hasn`t changed his stupid mind.

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hamidm unkil #27,

how could you support the same dumb ass president the dumb ass Bible thumping southerners support?

what`s wrong with kerry`s flip-floppiness, we`re all free to change our mind, the reason we`re ini the Iraqi mess is because Bush hasn`t changed his stupid mind.

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Dear Farzana:
No two situations are completely identical, but I think that the similarities are there to draw appropriate lessons. Bhindranwale, too, came out of obscurity, as did Sadr though from a pedigreed family.

``The US and its chamchas have committed all manner of demeaning acts after `freeing` the Iraqis - they have nothing to lose``
I think that the US has lost a lot, its soldiers, money and, above all, international credibility. I agree with Romair that the US is stuck and there`s no easy way out. You may have noticed that while Kerry criticises Bush, he does not offer any solution. There isn`t any except to reap the harvest sown by them.

r.a.janjua:
I`m glad that the article brought you out of your slumber:-). Yes, both Kaaba and Ali`s shrine have been violated. But then the drama was not being played on the world stage, as is the case now. In both cases, it was an internal affair of mostly closed societies which drew very little outside attention. In case of Kaaba, the press did not even reveal the name of the mosque which was captured by the militants. And since the occupants and the attackers both belonged to the same religion, there was no communal dimension to it.

nasah bhaijaan:
``thank goodness this nightmare is about to be over``

Aapke munh mein ghee shakar, but how?

kkkandk:
You have to work a lot harder to bring credibility to your theories, although I know that stranger things have happened. I have never visited that website - sword-something - but it is true that very little is known about Rajiv`s father, let alone his grandfather, except that he was too independent to become a ghar-jamhai of Jawahar Lal Nehru.

rsaxena:
There is no khalistan movement to be uncovered by me or anyone else, only some deep wounds that are scraped every time they are about to heal, like the appointment of people like Jaggi Tytler to cabinet posts, and that too made incharge of NRIs of which the Sikh diaspora is a large part.

Pardais:

Good post.


DM:

I see your point if one looks at similarities only at a tactical level. The startegic implications and environment are quite different.

#20 by rsaxena

[re: farzana
{Punjab is not terribly unstable}

...how sad that must be for you....]

Back to your old games, I can see...reaching your own conclusions. I was responding to the article and the wounds....and I mentioned wounds in my post too. You missed that.

I think Hamidm has a very good point. Let us not forget that all wars are for elites benefit but are invariably fought by the poor. If the Sadams’ and the Shrubs of the world can pay some frenzied poor to die for them, then who is to be blamed?
Bush picks up poor, ships them in mean planes and these all American poor chanting “Arabs? Sand niggers? Threaten _US_? Hah! We`ve got really big phallic symb - er - cruise missles!” and the most poor in the US, civilians or in the military, take pride in killing almost similar with more toxic phallic symbols - minarets and tombs.

So some in the Arab world do need their behind whipped thoroughly. Since the Pak army has the most experience in flagellation of its poor in Pakistan, they should be allowed to go to Iraq and enlighten the Iraqis with their novel methods that the US army can’t even touch. (Now Arjun and his ilk- this is not meant to support your crackpot thesis)
Though I can’t predict that the whole ``Have Quran & Burial Shroud, Will Travel`` crowd will not take the next bus to Iraq soon.

Do we really think that the US did not think of Ali’s Shrine when it decided to go to Najaf? The Shrub and his cohorts may be boneheads but they are not deadheads.

They have a bearded one from the Sunni Muslims and now they will have another bearded one from the Shia-Muslims, who injured himself defending Ali’s dead body. Keep creating symbols to continue the war. Did anybody not hear Bush and the US congress, when they claimed that this war will continue for years? Hate to disappoint the Nasah’s and the Echobooms of this world, the ragtag or regheads, whatever they are called, will continue to be propped up by the US to continue the war.
Reinventing bogeymen is always helpful. First it was the tall one. The one who imitates the prophet Mohammed by staying in the caves for his pious struggle, and then we had the Sadman with a sword that was way heavier then his flat ass could support, and now we have the defender of the sacred land.
The real defender already left to get heart transplant in the holiest land -er- London.
Within a short period the US has gone thru three villains in Iraq. Sadman, Zarqawi and now it is Sadr guy’s turn. Let’s see how long he lasts. They have already set up Challabi, the fraudman in Iran to be the next bogeyman in case Sadr is too stupid.

The Emanuel Goldsteins’ from the Arab world…

re: farzana

don`t be so touchy...nobody insulted you

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Dost,
Gujju is absolutely right. India is putting the past behind it and moving on. What happened in 1984 was that we had two wrongs. Killing Indira Gandhi was a definite wrong and the Hindu mobs that slaughtered all those innocent Sikhs were not doing any favors to her spirit. Bhindranwale and his goons were Paki agents and the Indian government was forced to act. At that time, it was revealed that many of the dead ``Sikh`` terrorists in the temple were circumcised. There were too many fingers pointing at Zia and the Pakis.

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Aji baba kkkandk ji maharaj -- I was not one of those starry eyed gullible Muslims -- I knew this Kongenital Killer -- son of a killer father -- will be a born killer...

.....His father killed 6 thousands Panamanians -- without batting his hyperthyroid eyes -- just to catch his ex CIA agent gone rogue -- killed 100,000 Iraqis in first Gulf War -- buried alive thousands of Iraqi soldiers in sand trenches with bulldozers -- a crime against humanity -- massacred fleeing Iraqis from Kuwait on an open road from air -- talking about the Batan March of American POWs by the `uncivilized` Japanese......

I knew what is in store for the country by this geopolitically ignorant illiterate stupid moron -- who got elected` by a MINORITY of 500,000 votes (who says Minorities can`t win the Presidency -- only in my america folks -- only in MY america).....so I did not vote for this stupido -- so don`t blame me please .......

now lemme tell you the open secret -- u r right -- last time it was indeed -- 99% of the Muslims of Florida who got this least-deserving-to-be-a-President man -- his Presidency....

......this time on November 2 it wll again be the 99% Muslims of Folrida who will dethrone this krooked king.... of spade....from his throne in Washington DC that he got to sit by fluke....due to acts of omission and commision by quislings like Naders and El Arians -- and by Bores like Al Gores....and their Torah thumping Leprechauns -- like Liebermans.....

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notice how `mumbaichick`s` and kkkandk`s posts always appear at the same time...how many more nicks is this idiot going to adopt?

hahaha...kkkandk aka barachota and 5 other banned nicks is bitter as hell...and shameless creature threatens to leave chowk every other day but is still here

Re: dost-mittar
I live in India most of the year and travel to Punjab often. The Khalistan movement is dead in spite of what your contacts inside the country and abroad tells you. The wounds are genuine but most reasonable people understand that our democracy and judicial system is a work in progress.
You mentioned that some of your contacts are trying to keep Bhinderwale’s memory alive. What I see here is an attempt by some Sikhs to exploit other Sikhs nothing else. Indian Muslims have kept a lot of wounds raw and you are free to come to your own conclusion if that’s a good idea.

Regards,


Faruk

re: dost-mittar

{like the appointment of people like Jaggi Tytler to cabinet posts, and that too made incharge of NRIs of which the Sikh diaspora is a large part.}

why don`t you write a letter to the SIKH PM of india to complaint...except he may not respond too soon because unlike you he has more important things to worry about than dead movements from a decade ago

Dost mittar: ``I agree that both the US and Iraq are in a lose-lose situation. I am not so sure about Israel. I do not think that Iraq will be as strong or united as under Saddam. If I am right, you will soon see the pro-israeli lobby shifting its focus to Iran.``

I think the USA and specifically American Muslims should be thankful to the Iraq resistance. It is the Iraqi resistance that has given the Democratic party enough balls to finally start speaking up. Otherwise Kerry and Edwards both voted for the Iraq war, and the Patriot Act. In fact, I think only one Congressman voted against the Patriot Act.

So Pakistani-Americans should thank Sadr. He is the one guy who has forced America to rethink their policies, and has created room for dissent against Bush, within the USA. Had the USA run over Iraq completely, the neo-cons would be pushing their domestic agenda, with full force. Now they are all running for cover, due to the mess they have gotten America into. And thanks to Sadr, and other Iraqis, Bush may even get defeated in the local elections.

Deep down inside, I think even hamidm is rooting for Sadr.......

Now that the resistance is in full flow, all the critics within the Congress are finally speaking up. However, there is very little different between the Kerry and Bush plans. Neither wants to leave Iraq. I think the pro-Israeli influence, through AIPAC, etc. has reached phenomenal proportions. If these organizations had the same influence in Canada, Canadians would be targeted all over the world also.

However, I think the Arab-USA conflict has now developed a life of its own, independent of Israel. This is the best thing that could have happened for Israel. And the worse thing that could have happened to USA and Arabs. Having said that, Iraq will eventually have a maulvi govt. And if Saudi Arabia falls to a maulvi govt. also, then over 40% of the world`s known oil reserves (Iran, Iraq and Saudi) will be under very anti-USA maulvis.........

I don`t think the USA can target Iran now. It cannot even control Iraq. And Iraq was a pushover militarily. Iran has a standing organized Army, which is battle-hardened through a long war with Iraq, and has survived sanctions. In addition, Iran has the support of other countries like Russia.

The biggest impact of the Iraq fiasco on the USA is that the aura of invincibility has been broken. After the fall of USSR, the rest of the world sat in fear of the power of the USA. I don`t think that fear exists any longer. And I don`t think the American public has the stamina for another foreign policy escapades, even if the pro-Israeli neo-cons want one....

I wouldn`t be surprised if Israel launches a surgical air strike on Iran`s nuclear facilities, though............

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``Killing Indira Gandhi was a definite wrong ``

Shaheed Beant Singh and Shaheed Satwant Singh did the biggest favor to the country by killing the Daayan. That is a nationalist perspective.

From Sikh perspective, there was no alternative but to kill Indira Gandhi. However I disagree with Jinda killing the ex Chief of Army staff. He had no role. If anything, it should have been Buta Singh who also shpuld have been killed.

{Shaheed Beant Singh }

what in blue hell is that - `shaheed?`

Sorry for the long Cut & Paste Job, But it is enligtening, I assure you......

How Bush Got (and Lost) His Wings
Tracking the National Guard Career of the Fatuous Flyboy from New Haven
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

He mumbles a prayer and it ends with a smile
The order is given
They move down the line
But he`ll stay behind and he`ll meditate
But it won`t stop the bleeding or ease the hate
Sky pilot, Sky pilot
How high can you fly?
You`ll never, never, never reach the sky.

Eric Burden and the Animals

If a bullfrog had wings, it wouldn`t bump its ass.

Merle Haggard

The early winter of 1968 was a season of acute anxiety for the young George W. Bush. As his academic career at Yale sputtered to an inglorious denouement, the war in Vietnam was hurtling forward at full-bore with the onset of the Tet Offensive. In those perilous months, there were 350,000 US troops in Vietnam, dying at a rate of more than 350 a week. From Bush`s perch in New Haven, elite hamlet of his birth, the draft loomed, casting a chill shadow over his future.

Bush faced limited options. Unlike his warden-to-be Dick Cheney, this randy bon vivant wasn`t prepared to anchor himself down in early wedlock, which would have entitled him to a marriage deferment. There were too many oats yet to be sown. How many seeds in how many fields? Tough to say precisely, but in the ripe phrase of one of Bush`s drinking buddies from the 1970s: ``he bedded nearly every bimbo in West Texas, married or not.``

Alas, the remedial scholar`s grades at Yale, already puffed-up beyond all merit courtesy of his legacy admission, proved to be so paltry that the escape hatch of graduate school was out of the question, too.

Only one sure sanctuary remained: the National Guard.

In January of 1968, Bush sent enquiries to the National Guard. It seems Bush had had an epiphany: he wante to be a pilot, just like his dad. Well, not exactly like Pappy, who was shot down flying a fighter in World War II. Yes, Lil` Bush wanted to fly fighter jets, but not in dicey combat situations. That, naturally, would defeat the entire purpose of joining the Guard.

In 1989, Bush explained the coarse calculus behind his decision to a reporter from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, ``I`m saying to myself, `What do I want to do?` I think, I don`t want to be an infantry guy as a pilot in Vietnam. What I do decide to want to do [sic] is learn to fly.``

The National Guard commanders responded warmly to Bush`s initial probings, but noted, somewhat ominously for the fratboy flier, that before his application could be accepted he had to submit to a battery of physical and mental tests. Damn, Bush must have shivered, more exams and no helpful tutors from the egghead division of Skull and Bones to guide him through the intellectual shoals!

At the time Bush applied to the National Guard, there were 100,000 other young men in line before him, stalled on a crowded waiting list hoping their number would be called before they were sucked up by the draft and dropped onto the killing fields of the Mekong Delta. In Texas alone, there were 500 applicants frantically vying for only four open slots for fighter pilot-training in the Air National Guard.

At first blush, Bush didn`t seem to have much of a shot at landing one of those choice positions. First, he flunked his medical test. Then he flunked his dental exam. And finally, as Ian Williams reveals in Deserter, his merciless indictment of Bush`s disappearing act in the National Guard, he scores a rock-bottom 25 percent on his pilot aptitude examination. That`s one out of four correct answers, a ratio that is not even a credible mark in cluster-bombing class. To put this achievement in perspective, the average score of applicants taking the pilot aptitude test was 77 percent, a whopping fifty-two percent higher than the proud product of the Yale ancestral admissions program. More than 95 percent of the testers scored higher than Bush, the Ivy Leaguer.

Aptitude for piloting a fighter jet notwithstanding, on May 27, 1968, just nervy twelve days before the expiration of his student deferment, Bush the Younger was accepted into the Texas Air National Guard. On his application form under the heading ``Background Qualifications,`` Bush declares in a refreshing spurt of honesty ``None.``

Today the pipsqueak commander-in-chief has exploited the Guard and Army Reserve as a form of covert conscription to beef up troop numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in those days National Guard squadrons were generally not being sent off to the frontlines in Vietnam. But just to be sure, Bush checked the box on his enlistment form saying he was unwilling to do time overseas. That box was a comfy failsafe that is no longer available to young people seduced into signing up as weekend warriors in Bush`s National Guard.

Flush with excitement at his triumphal entry into the Air National Guard, Bush averred to one-and-all that he had caught the flight bug. He duly submitted to the Guard brass a ``Statement of Intent,`` pledging that he had ``applied for pilot training with the goal of making flying a lifetime pursuit and I believe that I can best accomplish this to my own satisfaction as a member of the Air National Guard as long as possible.``

This seems like boilerplate stuff. But it is a crucial document in at least one respect. Getting the dunderheaded Bush air-ready was going to take a lot of training and the Guard wanted to get a guarantee that it would get a minimal return on its investment-if not a special line-item in the appropriations bill, at least commitment from Bush that he would stick around as a pilot for the duration of his commitment, if not beyond. Ian Williams estimates that the Guard spent more than a million dollars training Bush how to fly. Bush was warned that any prolonged absence from the Guard would result in him being ordered to ``active duty`` for a period of two years.

What the commanders of the Guard may not have known at the time was that in Bush`s mind it was either the Guard or Canada. In 1994, the gunshy Bush, who tortured animals as teen-ager, fessed up to the Houston Chronicle that being sent to Vietnam was simply not an option for him: ``I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I choose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanesI don`t want to play like I was somebody out there marching when I wasn`t. It was either Canada or the service. Somebody said the Guard was looking for pilots. All I know is, there weren`t that many people trying to be pilots.``

As we now know, there were more than 500 people looking to be pilots in Texas alone, nearly all of them more qualified for the slots than Bush.

So how did this miraculous induction come about? Bush has long denied he got any favored treatment, which would seem unmanly. But there`s now little doubt that the draft evader benefited from at least three pairs of helping hands: Sid Adger, a Texas oilman and Bush family crony, Ben Barnes, then Speaker of the House in Texas, and Gen. James Rose, former commander of the Texas Air National Guard.

The truth began to trickle out in 1999, when Barnes, then a top lobbyist and political fixer in Austin, became a witness in a lawsuit by Laurence Littwin. Littwin was suing the State of Texas for firing him as lottery directory, which he claimed was politically motivated. The Littwin lawsuit is a complex and confusing affair that provides a glimpse at the baseline of corruption pullulating through the Texas political system.

In sum, Littwin claimed that he was forced to hire a company called GTech to run the Texas lottery in order to suppress the real story of how Bush won entry into the Guard-namely that Ben Barnes had pulled strings with Gen. Rose. In the 1990s, Barnes worked a lobbyist for GTech. Indeed, GTech had paid Barnes $23 million for his expert services.

In his deposition, Barnes denied blackmailing Littwin into giving GTech the lucrative contract. But he confessed, with the haughty sense of accomplishment that only an apex politico can impart, that he had indeed opened the backdoor for Bush into the Air National Guard. Barnes said that he responded to a distress beacon from Bush intimate Sid Adger, a now dead Texas oil tycoon, and prevailed on Gen. Rose to adopt the young Bush as a member of the Guard`s flying elite, which then included the war aversive sons of Gov. John Connelly and Sen. Lloyd Bentsen. It helped that Barnes`s chief of staff, Nick Kralj, also served as a top aide-de-camp to the general. Mission accomplished.

But the handouts didn`t stop there. Bush didn`t want to remain a lowly private or corporal in those drab uniforms. He saw himself as officer material. Yet, he had no desire to subject himself to the mental and physical rigors of Officer Candidate School. In his mind, he was a birthright officer. And so it came to be. After a mere six weeks of training, Bush was promoted to the rank 2nd Lieutenant. He didn`t even have his pilot`s license.

In the wake of this astounding achievement, Bush felt it was time for a breather. He abandoned his training with the Guard for two months, hightailing it to the beaches and bars of Florida, where he claimed to have occasionally lent the services of his agile political mind to the senatorial campaign of rightwing, neo-segregationist congressman Ed Gurney, a favorite of Richard Nixon. Gurney won, but his victory was short lived. Gurney was later indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of political corruption, bribery and perjury. He walked away a free man courtesy of a hung jury.


* * *

After the election, Bush headed for Moody Air Base in Georgia to complete his pilot training with the 3559th Student Squadron. Around Thanksgiving, Bush was once again whisked away from the monotony of life as a fighter-pilot-in-training, this time courtesy of Richard Nixon. The president sent a plane to Moody Air Base to pick up the young Bush so that the newly brevetted lieutenant could escort Nixon`s fabulously neurotic (and what progeny of Nixon`s wouldn`t at least be neurotic?) daughter Tricia out on a date. Sparks didn`t fly. The young officer made clumsy advances, which Tricia deftly deflected. She later described Bush as ``testy.``

And so the days and weeks of Bush`s service to the country, as commander-in-chief likes to put it, during the war in Vietnam rolled on. His instructors at the Moody Air Base assigned Bush the task of learning how to fly the F-102, an obsolete fighter soon destined for the scrap heap.

Finally, on June 23, 1971 Bush graduated from combat flight training school. Now he was ready to defend the airspace of Texas from hostile incursions from Mexico, Belize or the Virgin Islands.

Except that George the Younger apparently had formed other plans. Without informing the Guard commanders who had saved him going to Vietnam, Bush quietly applied for admission to study law at the University of Texas. For one of the few times in his life, Bush didn`t get immediate gratification.

The flying fratboy`s application to the University of Texas law school was ungraciously declined, despite the pleas of his father, who had just lost a fierce senatorial campaign against Lloyd Bentsen. Whatever its faults, apparently the University of Texas isn`t prone to handing out legacy admissions to New Haven-born whelps of the political elite. Even in Texas, you have to draw the line somewhere.

Sulking at this unfamiliar rebuke, Bush slunk off to Ellington Air Base near Houston to join the 111th Fighter Squadron. By most accounts, his drinking, already problematic, began to intensify. By other accounts, it was during this time in Ellington that Bush began to refamiliarize himself with his narcotic of choice at Yale...cocaine. In his college days, Bush not only snorted, he dealt. Among the haute monde at Yale, he was known as one of the top purveyors of primo Colombian powder in New Haven, dispensing the crystal snow from ounce bags.

Now we come to the crucial lost years of 1971 and 1973. Shortly after Bush arrived at Ellington, his political ambitions begin to percolate to the surface. He tells the Houston Post that he is considering a run for the Texas state senate. His testing of the waters doesn`t excite much interest and nothing comes of it.

So he continues flying, mainly on weekends, over the course of the next year. And he continues getting inebriated. On a trip back to Washington, DC at Christmastime, Bush treats his younger brother to a night cruising the bars of Georgetown. In the early hours of the morning, a shit-faced Bush crashes his car into a row of garbage cans in front of the family house. Roused from his slumbers by the racket outside, his father confronts him in the driveway about driving around drunk. Bush the Younger threatens to pummel his father with his fists, but Marvin, also drunk, intervenes and Bush is sent packing back to Texas.

In April of 1972, two important events coincide. The Air Force mandates drug testing for all pilots during medical exams and Bush takes what will turn out to be his last flight as a pilot for the Air National Guard.

Less than a month later, Bush flees his Texas Guard base for Alabama, where he signs up to work on the congressional campaign of Winton ``Red`` Blount, a friend of Bush`s father and Nixon`s postmaster general. He didn`t inform his superiors at Ellington that he had left Texas until two weeks later, when he requested a transfer to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron, a postal unit with no fighter jets. Initially, the transfer is granted.

No one recalls seeing Bush report for duty and there is no documentary record supporting his service there, which, in any event, was to consist primarily of reading flight manuals--an uninviting assignment for the quasi-literate airman. On July 6, Bush is scheduled to take his required flight physical, which will for the first time include a drug test. He fails to show up. Failure to take a flight physical is grounds for immediate suspension of his pilot`s license.

These days Bush claims that he simply blew off the physical because the Guard was phasing out the F-102 and he didn`t expect to be piloting any more flights. This excuse is circumspect for two reasons. First, although the F-102 was on its way out, the jet had not yet been mothballed and Bush still had the opportunity to learn to fly the new generation of fighter jets. Indeed, there was a fleet of them just down the highway at Dannelly Air Base in Alabama. Moreover, the flight physical was a mandatory requirement of service. This was not a matter of getting a permission slip to play intramural polo at Yale. For most Guardsmen, failure to abide by such orders resulted severe consequences, like being compelled to spend two-years in active duty, perhaps in Vietnam.

On July 31, Bush`s transfer to the Montgomery postal unit was overturned by the DC office, which deemed him ``ineligible for reassignment to the Air Reserve Squadron. He is ordered to return to Ellington. But Bush doesn`t pay any attention. Instead, he retreated to Miami with his father for the 1972 Republican National Convention, the last hurrah of Nixon.

Two weeks later Bush returns to Alabama, where he files a new transfer request, this time to the 187th TAC Recon Group in Mobile. The transfer is approved on September 5, 1972. The following day the Air Force officially revokes his flight privileges for ``failure to accomplish annual medical examination.``

Bush wasn`t alone in losing his wings. The other pilot suspended alongside Bush was none other than his close friend, James M. Bath. Yes, that James Bath, who would in just a few short years become the financial factotum for the Bin Laden family in Texas. In the 1980s, it was Bath, backed by the Bin Laden fortune, who bailed Bush out of the financial ruin he had made of Arbusto Drilling and Harken Energy. Old friends down there are not forgotten.

The de-winged pilot was ordered to report for duty to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, commander of the 187th Recon Group. The Colonel says he never meet Bush and there is no record that junior ever showed up at the base. ``Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,`` said Col. Turnipseed. ``I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered.``

On September 29, Bush was sent a letter commanding him to appear before the Flying Evaluation Board to explain why he had refused to take the medical exam. Bush never responded. At this point, Bush was not only AWOL, but in breach of two direct orders.

Meanwhile, back in Montgomery, Bush had apparently gone AWOL from the Blount campaign as well. He spent his nights carousing in the bars of Montgomery. He would arrive hung-over at the campaign office in the afternoon, prop his cowboy-booted feet on the desk and recount his night of debauchery. The women workers at the campaign headquarters called Bush the ``Texas soufflé." Full of himself and stuffed with hot air, the blue-haired ladies for Blount snickered.

Blount lost the election, but remained tight with the Bush clan. His company, Blount International, continues to benefit from it close association with the Bushes and their wars. In 1991, Blount International got a multimillion-dollar contract to reconstruct bombed out Kuwait City. Later, it won one of the largest private contracts ever awarded by the Saudi Royal family. Now, Blount`s firm is working as a subcontractor for Halliburton in Iraq.

In the fall of 1972, things began to look grim for the fatuous flyboy from New Haven. The National Guard was on his tail, demanding an explanation for why he had jilted them after they had saved him from Vietnam and had invested a million dollars in teaching him how to fly fighters.

Thanks to the investigations of the intrepid Larry Flynt, we now know that it was in this window of months that Bush apparently got a Houston woman pregnant and gallantly paid for her to have an abortion. It was also in this period that Bush, according to his biographer J.H. Hatfield, was arrested for possession of cocaine. Instead of landing in prison, the judge presiding over the case bent to the pleadings of Bush`s father, then US ambassador to the UN, and ordered the young derelict to perform six month`s worth of community service at PULL, a center for black youths in urban Houston.

Williams` book Deserter lends circumstantial credence to Hatfield`s account and raises even new questions. According to Bush`s autobiography (ghostwritten by his political au pair, Karen Hughes), A Charge to Keep, he met former Houston Oiler tight end John White in December of 1972. White, Bush claims, asked him to come work full-time at his Houston youth center, called Project-PULL. Bush, who until this charmed moment had never exhibited the slightest charitable instinct, agreed. He started work at PULL in January of 1973.

Now keep in mind that Bush supposedly already had a job, working for the National Guard. Yet over the next six months there`s not one confirmed Bush sighting by his Guard commanders. In the ornithology of the Air National Guard, Bush is the rarest and stealthiest of birds, passing through Guard air space like a ghostly passenger pigeon. Indeed, when his superiors tried to fill out an annual evaluation of Bush`s service they are unable to complete the form, writing on May 2, 1973: ``Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report.``

A month later, National Guard HQ in Washington sent Texas Guard commanders an official query about Bush. The DC brass instructed the Texas crew to prepare a Form 77a on Bush ``so this officer can be rated in the position he held.`` The Texas Guard, then run by Bush family cronies who now saw themselves implicated in the transgressions of the absconder fratboy, balks at the order. Indeed, they delay filing a response until November 12, 1973, by which time Bush has been honorably discharged from the Guard. Even then the response from the Texas HQ is coy, though ripe with nefarious possibilities: ``Not rated for the period 1 May 1972 through 30 April 73. Report for this period unavailable for administrative reasons.``

So it seemed that the bureaucratic vise beginning to squeeze young George. Then mysteriously Bush is recorded as having performed 36 days of duty between May and July of 1973. Bush doesn`t recall precisely what he did. There are no pay records to confirm his service. No one in the Guard witnessed him on the base. Indeed, Bush couldn`t have done the Guard service because by his own admission he was working full-time for John White at PULL-if he`d gone AWOL from that job he might have very well landed in jail. It now seems likely that the entry of those 36 days of service was post-dated by someone in the Texas office not only to protect Bush, but also to shield his retinue of enablers in the high command of the Texas Air National Guard.

In September Bush completed his tour of duty at PULL, applied to grad school, and despite being AWOL from the National Guard from May of 1972 through October of 1973, is granted an honorable discharge.

That fall Bush evacuated to Cambridge, making a soft landing at Harvard Business School, another reliable safehouse for the brattish scions of the ruling class. Fellow students at Harvard remember Bush prancing into lecture halls wearing his uniform. Even then, he had a taste for military cross-dressing, though no one in the Massachusetts National Guard ever recalls the tyro-in-a-jumpsuit showing up for duty at the base--although he did drop by once to have his choppers cleaned gratis by the Guard`s dentist.

Whenever Bush plays dress-up, as he does at nearly every photo-op on a military site from the USS Lincoln to torture seminar rooms at Ft. Bragg, he comes off as the missing member of the Village People, which mayy explains his enduring appeal to the latent types manning the controls of the Christian right these days.

In the mid-1990s, as Bush began to plot his run for the White House, the governor and his handlers (Dan Bartlett, Karen Hughes and Karl Rove) realized that Bush`s missing years in the Guard might prove problematic. After all, during the 1992 presidential campaign, Bush`s father assaulted Clinton for his deft manipulation of Col. Eugene Holmes, the commander of Arkansas`s ROTC, to sidestep the draft.

Bush`s dilemma was trickier and more unseemly than Clinton`s. In order to escape service in Vietnam, he had exploited his family`s political connections to secure a choice spot in the Texas Air National Guard, despite failing his pilot aptitude test. Though a blatant act of patronage, Bush was promoted to officer status before he earned his pilot`s license and without going to officer training school. He refused to take his mandatory flight physical and also refused to show up for a mandatory evaluation. He went AWOL for a year and a half and then requested and received an early discharge. All this after promising to ``serve as long as possible`` and to devote himself to a lifetime of high flying...flying planes, that is.

In the offices of the Texas Air Guard there were records documenting Bush`s dubious career and exposing the holes in his extravagent version of his military service to the country. The most potentially damning of those documents (Bush`s pay records) are now missing. Where did they go?

One intriguing explanation comes from Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a top aide to Maj. Gen. Daniel James, III, then commander of the Texas Air National Guard. In 1997, Burkett claims he was just outside the open door of Maj. Gen. James`s office when the general received a conference call from Joe Allbaugh, Bush`s chief of staff, and Dan Bartlett, Bush`s communications director. The conversation played out over James`s speakerphone, where Burkett claims he overheard Bush`s men order James to cleanse Bush`s military files. Burkett said he recalled Allbaugh`s saying: ``We certainly don`t want anything that is embarrassing in there.``

A few days later, Burkett says that he saw Brig. Gen. John Scribner dispose of Bush`s pay and performance records in a 15-gallon metal waste can inside the Texas Air National Guard Musuem. ``The files had been gone through over the years,`` Scribner quipped to Burkett, pointing to the garbage can. ``Not as much in here as I thought.`` Apparently, this was a mop-up operation to make sure that nothing had been missed in previous search-and-destroy raids on Bush`s files.

Burkett went public with his recollections in the spring of 2004 during the mini-tempest in the corporate press over Bush`s military record sparked by Michael Moore`s assertion that the president was a ``deserter.`` The president`s praetorian guard went into action, smearing Burkett as a disgruntled malcontent with an ax to grind against Maj. Gen. James, who Bush had elevated to the head of the Air National Guard for the entire country. Although the Burkett story quickly faded, phone records and other documents back up the circumstances of his claims. And Burkett himself hasn`t backed down despite the assaults on his character from Bush`s political mercenaries. ``If President Bush is going to be the first president in over one hundred years that puts himself in a uniform and uses taxpayer`s money for a photo opportunity to land on a flight deck and say hooray,`` Burkett told reporters. ``He`s put it on the table and we deserve to know.`` But the press bus had long since pulled away, never to return to the scene of the crime.

Given this vaporous record of service during Vietnam, it takes a perverse kind of hubris for Bush to assail the military careers of a POW (John McCain), a bona fide killing machine (John Kerry) and a triple amputee (Max Cleland). It`s the trademark of a pampered bully.


* * *

The moment George Bush refused to go spill blood in Vietnam may have been the moral Everest of his life. But he has long since buried that singular act of conscience beneath a stench-heap of warped psychological projection and ethical hypocrisy. The president remains a stunted brat and a coward at the core, dodging rules he forces others to abide by with unforgiving strictness. Festooned in a flight jacket he never deserved, Bush has ordered National Guard troops into a bloody desert war he and his chickenhawk cronies launched under fabricated pretexts. Then in order to hand out tax breaks to the super-rich and billion-dollar contracts to favored arms makers, Bush scrimped on the funding of his precious war itself: too few troops, under-armed, over-worked, operating with no occupation plan and no exit strategy.

In their quest to transfer every possible federal dollar to their fatcat base, the Bush regime even went so far as to try to slash combat pay and separation allowances and increase co-payments for the treatment of those maimed in battle. Although he opted out of the Guard early, Bush has now implemented (perhaps illegally) ``stop-losses`` orders, a kind press-ganging by Oval Office fiat that keeps National Guard and Reserve troops in Iraq far beyond their contracted tour of duty. In essence, they are war slaves.

When the Iraqi resistance surfaced with a vengeance after Bush made his premature declaration of victory, the faux-warrior taunted them by sneering, ``Bring it on.`` They did. And more than 700 American soldiers have perished since the delivery of that infamous sideline chant, tossed off as if the president were still a flighty cheerleader at Andover. To top it off, while Bush still refuses to attend funeral ceremonies for slain soldiers, he wasted no time in trying to slash death benefits for military families. And on and on it goes.

Explain his actions? Not then, not now, not ever.

Just as he stiffed the Flight Evaluation Board in 1972, Bush now refuses to offer an explanation for his illegal and unjust war that has killed and maimed tens of thousands. ``I`m the commander--see, I don`t need to explain,`` Bush brayed in his best Mafia capo syntax to Bob Woodward. ``I do not need to explain why I say things. That`s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don`t feel I owe anybody an explanation.`` That`s the distilled essence of George W. Bush from his very own mouth: a bellicose and imperious buffoon who has never once been held to account for the mayhem he leaves in his wake.

So yet again Bush has succeeded in doing the impossible: he has sullied the once heroic term ``draft evader.``

Shaeed = Martyr

faruk, rasaxena:
My communciation skills must be worse than I thought. I never said that Khalistan movement is still active or that it should be revived. Alienation and separatism is not one and the same thing.

mumbaichick:
Rose by another name. ...(Are you that desperate for support? )

re: dost-mittar

{Alienation and separatism is not one and the same thing. }

who is alienated?...that chutiya bhindranwale`s relatives?...those idiots in canada who funded the whole affair?...

Many weeks and months after army action in Golden Temple, stream of discoveries kept being made. One of these was how Bhindranwale had terrorized law abiding Sikh people who visited the temple. There were bodies of missing Sikh women found buried in temple land. These discoveries proved that Bhindranwale was a crook of first order and if captured alive deserved to die like Dhananjoy.

Indian and Pakistani regimes are very fortunate that the subcontinent was divided and there is almost permanent hostility between the two nations. The regimes can always hide their incompetencies, bad judgments and outright immoral activities by blaming the other country’s RAW or ISI.

For example, rather than looking at Sikh demand in 70s for more state powers for its content in terms of common sense, the powers to be looked at how it would affect their Quota / license raj. Rather than looking at merits of ideas even if it did not come from Oxbridge educated Harvard trained economists, it was painted as religious demand because the ideas came from the turbaned guys in Gurdwaras. Forget the fact that national father Gandhi wore only a langoti, prayed a lot and always used very common sense language that even common villager could understand. He however was fortunate that he was making a case to moral white people who fired Gen Dwyer after he butchered 500 brown people. Our modern Delhi Darbar masters not only sponsored, administered but even now bully those people who ask for any inquiry into massacre of 30,000+ of their own citizens. We always have one or the other excuse such as - Prime Babu (Yes sir, he is just a Babu of Sonia where the real power is. He can not even win his own seat without Sonia’s funds) is a Sikh or let’s not open the “healed wounds” etc. etc.

The question is - are we Indians always going to blame Pakistanis for all the problems or we are going to look at our own weaknesses and try to fix those things to realize our full potential? Is law and order for only ministers, rich and powerful? Are we going to learn anything that went wrong a few years back so that it does not happen again?

Let’s not get drunk on the fact that we now have some great software companies or that we are no less academic or inventive than white folks and therefore we can just roll over innocent lives of our own people if they disagree on something. Let’s never forget that for thousands of years, our ancestors were bright and inventive in terms of architecture, philosophical wisdom, mathematics and what not. The reason we suffered at the hands of few thousand invaders (white or Middle-eastern) for 1200+ years was that we never cared about justice for “other folks” who ultimately didn’t give a damn about who their rulers were.

Without knowing the aims of Khalistan movement, it is useless to say that Khalistan movement is dead or alive. The term Khalistan movement and its exaggerated aims are the creation of its opponents. No doubt that a handful of independece seekinf sikhs from overseas jumped on the bandwagon of this movement but Pardesi has eloquently defined its aims many times before. The movement was for the rights of small farmers, in essence. The prices of seed, water, fertilizer and tending the crops were rising but the prices of crops (mostly grains) in the market was state controlled. So the cost of agriculture was going up faster than the income through selling grain to the government. It was a legitimate and understandable concern. Not having any other skills, the small agriculture plots owners saw their livelihood and income declining. The government response of subsidizing water and electricity costs to farmers was greatly abused by elites and supporters of the government.

Bhindranwale took charge with the double aim of creating a more cohesive Sikh identity than they had. He felt Sikh distinct identity diluting due to various reasons, some directly the work of federal government. This created a sizeable alliance between conservative Sikhs and small farmers.

so it all boils down to the undertanding of the aims of the movement before awarding blank failure to it. Pakistan would be a failure if the stated aim of creating it was believed to be the imposing of Sharia and puritanical Islamic state. The Sikh movement actually succeeded in both of the above mentioned aims in post Bhindranwale environment. He ended up doing more by dying that he would have done by staying alive. The Sikh identity is more cohesive now. In USA, Canada and Britian, they have vibrant cohesive communities with all kind of services coming from with, be they religious, entertainment, economical or social. Their cohesiveness is now almost comparable with desi Ismailies and Gujjus in the USA. Once all needs from religion to music to dramas, to literature to groceries to gas to healthcare are met within the community, the needlessness of the attachment to a distant nationalism is reduced. They may not be anti-India but they are Punjabis first and Punjab is the land they talk about as watan (homeland), it is Punjabi culture they live by. The trend in Sikh Punjabi music as a result is less hindized than before and I dont know a single patriotis song by any of the famous Sikh singers during the last 20 years. The jokes against UPites, Biharis and India are common in stage comedy acts by most artists. Their cassettes are widely listened and enjoyed.

So how is Khalistan movement a failure after achieving the goals unless separatism is unnecessarily tied around its neck? Actually it is such a big success that its effects are being felt on the Pakistani side of Punjab. The rise of Jatts in politics and active promotion of distinct Punjabi identity among small number of literati and intellectuals can be traced to the awareness Khalistan movement brought to light. The rise of Chaudhrys of Gujrat is directly linked to the movement since Zia era.

Khalistan movement turned out to be bigger success than Bhindranwale might have ever achieved, thanks to stupid acts of Indira ann subsequent governments. The movement was not about creating Independent Khalistan but dreaming it alone has its positive influence on intra-Sikh cohesiveness as a distinct community.

dost-mittar,

How many air india jumbo jets do they need to blow up before the poor dears stop feeling alienated ?

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Thousands killed tortured in punjab and kashmir, shouldn’t states be given the option of opt out if they don’t want to be part of India, as is the case in Britain

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Either overseas indians [sikhs, hindus, muslims, christians] are idiots whose leaving the country has improved the gene pool, or india is doomed and every paki wet dream will be a reality.

#43 by rsaxena:
[re: farzana
don`t be so touchy...nobody insulted you]

Anyone implying that a part of my country being not so unstable would make me sad is insulting me. This is devious. As for being touchy, I have no qualms about admitting it. Thick skins are for rhinos.

PS: Why is there an emphasis on `Sikh PM` on this board? Looks like parochialism rules, even when you move out of your villages.

And whether anyone talks about Khalistan or not, it is a part of contemporary history. If we don`t want to rake it up, then let us also bury Babar, shall we?

farzana

funny how your patriotic bone wasn`t tickled when you wrote articles blaming kashmiri pandits for getting themselves killed by terrorists

barachota

how about : you`re an unwelcome kunt on chowk who keeps returning

SameerJB sahib, I wish I am even 10% as eloquent on my own community affairs as you are on so many topics. The fact is I am the least religious Sikh who rarely goes to Gurdwara and does not even sport beard or turban. In fact, some of my best friends happen to be Brahmins from Maharashtra and Bengal.

However, I deeply resent, and hate from the bottom of my heart, the way Indian elite (Congress or BJP) covered under the rug the massacres and successfully brainwashed otherwise pretty smart people into believing that:

a. All of Punjab problems were the handiwork of Bhindrawale – the bad guy
b. Akalis were the wannabe muslim-leaguies who have been plotting to unravel our dearly beloved union since 1960 Punjabi Suba days
c. If Indira had not taken the “bold action” on June 4, very next day Khalistan was going to be unveiled with Pakistan’s support and our brave Indian army would not have been able to stop this guy (holed up in the temple) from becoming our Mujeeb Rahman.
d. The temple had become a whorehouse for Bhindrawale and thank god for virtuous Indira (Sita / Savitri reincarnation) who saved the sanctity of the temple. Since we are so secular, we had to save poor Sikhs from their own rascals (I hope everyone has seen the movie “Wag the Dog”).
e. Sikhs as individuals are OK and hardworking people whatever they do – whether they drive taxis or fight for our regime. However, they can not be collectively trusted when good ideas come from Punjab because we the Indian elite know all about media power, economics and ruthless international politics.
f. Indira is India – Since she so successfully brought down mighty moguls to their knees in 71, trust the instincts of our new Bharatmata to take care of the turbans too.

After all this had been grilled in the heads of historically / culturally sycophant masses (educated or not), the logic given was that June raid on the temple was absolutely necessary and more importantly, butchering of 30000+ innocent Sikh civilians in Delhi, Haryana, UP and Bihar was OK too since it was necessary to teach “the enemies” a lesson.

And now if you talk about it, the smart alecs will tell you why open the old wounds? However, when they open Babar’s tomb (thanks FV) it’s considered reconnecting with 5000 year old Ram’s legacy. If they throw water standing in holy Ganges every year in honor of their dead