Author: M. Rajendra, Houston
Publication: The Wall Street Journal
Date: October 22, 2001
The Oct. 12 page-one article "As
Pakistan, India Join U.S. in Fighting Terror, Kashmir Gets in Way " by
Peter Fritsch is one of the few in the mainstream media highlighting the
role of Pakistan in promoting terrorism and the danger of any long-term
strategic relationship with that country in the fight against terrorism.
Administration officials and media
pundits are falling over each other to express their gratitude to Pakistan,
never mind the fact that the Taliban is a creation of Pakistan. President
Bush and his coalition may want to ignore all this, like the mad wife in
the attic, but when has ignoring a problem ever made it go away? It would
be foolish, not to mention hypocritical, to hope that Pakistan-supported
terrorists will focus on Kashmir and ignore the West. Looking at the virulence
of anti-American protests in Pakistan, no one should have any doubts that
if the terrorist camps in Pakistan are left untouched as a reward for Pakistan's
support, they will be the breeding ground for more bin Ladens. Their agenda
has always been, and will always be, based on hatred of America.
In 1990 there was a thriving Hindu
community of about 200,000 in Kashmir. Now there are none, having been
killed or intimidated into leaving by the Pakistani-based terrorists. This
is ethnic cleansing, no different from what happened at Kosovo. How many
of your readers know or care about that?
So let there be no illusions: Terrorism
in Kashmir is not a noble freedom struggle, it is essentially an Islamic
fundamentalist movement whose goal is to have a "pure" Islamic society.
Like the Taliban in Afghanistan.
I would be very interested in seeing
if President Bush really means it when he says we will go after terrorism
everywhere, or will he fall back on the old "I know he's an SOB, but he
is our SOB" theme that has characterized past U.S. foreign policy in such
countries Iran, Chile and the Philippines etc.
In the 1990s we helped create a
monster in Afghanistan to meet the immediate short-term objective of driving
out the Soviets. On Sept. 11 we saw the tragic consequences of that short-sightedness.
Now, to meet another short-term objective, this time to remove al Qaeda,
let us not create another monster.
