Author: Tavleen Singh
Publication: The Indian Express
Dated: June 14, 2009
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/why-doesnt-the-us-hold-a-dialogue-with-osama/476101/0
Am I the only one shocked by an American official
daring to suggest 'dialogue' with Pakistan in the wake of the release of Hafiz
Mohammad Saeed? Why did nobody ask Under Secretary William Burns if his country
would be persuaded to have a 'dialogue' with Pakistan if Osama bin Laden were
similarly arrested and released? Not because of the due process of the law,
as some spokesmen of the Pakistani government claim, but because no charges
were brought against him. So there were no grounds for further preventive
detention according to the court that released him.
The vile Saeed is our Osama and if Pakistan
wants to talk peace with India the very least it must do is arrest him again
and close down the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. Then, we can begin to talk. Not only
are we certain that it was this ghastly conglomerate of jihadi killers that
was responsible for what happened in Mumbai but Lashkar's spokesmen admit
proudly their involvement in the 'jihad' in Kashmir. Speaking of which, Under
Secretary Burns got away with stating at a press conference in Delhi that
his government wanted a solution in Kashmir that took into account 'the views
of the Kashmiri people'. Did nobody tell him that there were free and fair
elections in that state not long ago? If by the 'Kashmiri people' he means
a handful of self-appointed leaders in the Valley who never dare to contest
elections, then perhaps the American President needs to do some more homework
on Kashmir.
As someone who thought Barack Obama really
was 'the one', I find myself increasingly disillusioned by his South Asia
policy. Is he so naïve that he believes Islamist terrorism can be fought
selectively? How is it possible to fight the Taliban in Swat and Waziristan
while continuing to support the Lashkar brand of jihad in Lahore and Karachi?
How can anyone believe that the Pakistan government
is sincere in its fight against jihadi terrorism when it releases the man
who started the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba? If you want to hear Hafiz Mohammed Saeed's
thoughts and feelings about India, go to You Tube and listen to the interview
he gave last week. He accuses India of being responsible for every act of
terrorism on Pakistani soil and of being behind the violence in Baluchistan.
The suggestion that India is responsible for sponsoring Islamist violence
is beyond bizarre. If our covert agencies were that good, we would have taken
the Taliban, the Lashkar and the evil Maulana Azhar Masood out long ago. Where
is Azhar Masood, by the way? Does the Pakistani government expect us to seriously
believe that he has vanished into thin air?
While I was writing this piece, bombs went
off in Lahore and Naushera. It is true that the jihadis have started to bite
the hand that nurtured them, but is this not the inevitable consequence of
two decades of breeding violent religious fanatics with the idea of making
them the sword arm of Pakistani foreign policy? And, now that Pakistan appears
to be coming apart at the seams, all that the new American President has come
up with by way of policy is to give Pakistan more aid. If financial aid was
the solution to Pakistan's problems then it should have been saved long ago
by the more than $11 billion that George W. Bush gave Musharraf to fight terrorism.
Our problem is not just American foreign policy
in the region but our own foreign policy, which is namby-pamby to the point
of being non-existent. For a start, our Ministry of External Affairs seems
to be linguistically challenged, so when Saeed was released all we could do
was use words like 'regrettable' and 'unfortunate' to state our case. When
will we realise that if we want to be heard, we need our Prime Minister to
state loudly and clearly that we cannot and will not talk to Pakistan as long
as it refuses to bring well-known terrorists to justice.
It is now more than six months since Mumbai
was attacked and there is no sign of Pakistan either handing over those who
were responsible or trying them. Unless this happens, what is there for us
to have a dialogue about? We would do better instead to strengthen our defences.
This newspaper has over the past weeks produced detailed analysis of what
went wrong on 26/11. Everything failed. The police, the commandos, our intelligence
agencies, our coastal defense. Everything. And, so far, there are no signs
that anything has been done to rectify this shameful state of affairs. What
are we waiting for? Another Indian city to be attacked? If this happens and
the response is as hopeless as it was on November 26, 2008, the honeymoon
with our new government will come to an abrupt and ugly end.
