Author: Chidanand Rajghatta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: October 2, 2001
Although the U.S. has condemned
the latest terrorist outrage m Kashmir, there seems to be no sign m the
administration of any misgivings on Washington's support to a military
regime I Pakistan that is committed to a militaristic agenda against India.
News of the Monday afternoon massacre
in the Srinagar legislature reached Washington even as external affairs
minister Jaswant Singh arrived here from New York for talks with the Bush
administration. But it barely caused a ripple in the administration or
in the news media, now in the throes of a planned attack on the Taliban
in Afghanistan with Pakistani help.
The State Department condemned the
attack, but deferred immediate statement. The mandarins in the department's
South Asia bureau went into a huddle to discuss the implications of the
incident on the U.S. plans for the region.
Mr Singh is expected to meet national
security adviser Condoleezza Rice at the White House. He will meet vice-president
Dick Cheney, secretary of state Colin Powell and defence secretary Donald
Rumsfeld on Tuesday.
Administration officials admitted
privately that the Kashmir outbreak had come at an awkward time for the
U.S. and, in a sense, had complicated things. While on the one hand, Washington
needs Pakistan's help at a practical and logistical level to undertake
its mission in Afghanistan, on the other, the administration is fully cognizant
of Pakistan's complicity in the violence in Kashmir. The administration
has to reconcile itself with the incongruity of allying with a military
regime at a time when the terrorists that the latter calls freedom fighters
are undermining democratic institutions in Kashmir, through violence. Somehow,
it doesn't sit well, an official conceded.
In its eagerness to co-opt Pakistan,
the U.S. has so far not publicly linked the Pakistan backed terrorist groups
operating in Kashmir to the Taliban, although officials admit privately
that all the groups are inter-linked. The administration's first priority
appears to be to gain a clear handle over the Musharraf regime and finish
off Osama bin Laden and the Taliban before turning its attention to other
problems.
So, for now at least, India is on
it own, and can expect little from Washington other than lip sympathy.
