|
The Chenab River And U.S. Pressure on Pakistan
There is again conflict heating up between India and Pakistan. There are two well known political issues between these countries. Yesterday a major economic issue was added by India that may well lead to unrest or even war. I suspect that the U.S. has a hand in this.
One political conflict is over Kashmir, the north western state of India that has a Muslim majority and borders Pakistan. Kashmir does want independence from India, but does not want to become a part of Pakistan.
While Pakistan generally supports anti-Indian activities in Kashmir it does not want Kashmir to become independent but would like to incorporate it. Unrest is Kashmir is often a proxy war that Pakistan traditionally stokes whenever it has interior political trouble.
This time though trouble in Kashmir seems to be indigenous. The state government gave a patch of land near a Hindu temple in Kashmir to some Hindi charity. The 6 million Muslims in Kashmir protested over this in large rallies. Hindu protesters then blocked the only road connecting Kashmir with India for several weeks. This led to big losses for Kashmir fruit farmers who now plan to reopen the silk road to Pakistan.
Saturday five bombs exploded in New Delhi and killed 21 people. A group called Indian Mujahideen took responsibility and referred to the conflict in Kashmir. Some accuse Pakistan of supporting the Indian Mujahideen which I find unlikely.
While the recent conflict might not have been activated by Pakistan, India has other grievances too. Last month the Indian embassy in Kabul was bombed and India as well as the U.S. accused Pakistan’s military secret service ISI to be behind this. Pakistan feels threatened by any Indian activity in Afghanistan. (Why do the U.S. and NATO allow Indian activities in Afghanistan at all? These practically guarantee a never ending trouble with Pakistan supported Taliban.)
In a rather harsh step India yesterday added a big economic issue to the already problematic situation:
India has closed Chenab water flow and as a result the shortage in Pakistan has become more severe.
Sources told Dawn on Sunday that the water blockade by India could adversely affect the Kharif crops, particularly cotton and sugarcane which were in maturity stage and required final watering, and the sowing of Rabi crops early next month.
…
The water shortage could force Pakistan to import more wheat next year, adding to the foreign exchange pressure and worsening its balance of payments crisis.
The authorities are already estimating more than 35 per cent shortage of irrigation water during the next Rabi season following a decline in the melting of snow in Northern Areas, higher withdrawals by provinces during Kharif and increased hydropower generation.
The sources said India’s unilateral decision to stop the Chenab flows had put additional pressure on the irrigation system of Pakistan, which used to receive more than 23,000 cusecs a day until last week, but it had now been brought down to almost zero.
(Chenab is a river (map) of the Indus system that flows from Kashmir to Pakistan. Kharif is the autumn harvest and Rabi the spring harvest period. A cusec is a cubic foot of water flow per second.)
The flow of water from the rivers of the Indus system is essential for Pakistan’s electricity generation and for irrigation. Karachi already sees daily long electricity outages and the government recently raised electricity prices by 31%.
India stopping the flow of the Chenab is a violation of the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan.
It is possible that the U.S. has a hand in this and asked India to close the flow. Bush has quite some leverage with New Delhi through the recent nuclear deal. On Friday Syed Saleem Shahzad wrote about the conflict between the U.S. and Pakistan over alleged Taliban support and reminded us:
In this delicate situation, the balance could be tipped by India, on US instigation, mobilizing forces on the Line of Control that separates the Indian- and Pakistan-administered sections of Kashmir, as happened in December 2001. And as happened then, Pakistan will be left with no option but to surrender to America’s will in both letter and spirit.
Instead of war at the Line of Control between Kashmir and Pakistan, the threat to Pakistan this time is famine and/or financial ruin. It might fold under this threat or it might get violent over this breach of the international treaty on the river flow.
The new Pakistani president Zardari is visiting London this week and then New York. He will be offered some water. He will also be asked to give the U.S. a free hand to hunt Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal eastern areas and to stop firing at U.S. helicopters over Pakistan.
It will be difficult for Zardari to reject the drink.
As usual, Debs paints a scaringly realistic picture – the smouldering conflict between Pakistan and India.
Since India seems unlikely for a dose of honest self examination, peeps in amerika who don’t see Armageddon as a positive would be wise to try and engage pols on the stupidity of the current course of action.
I think the same can be said about Pakistan. Both nations have huge numbers of dirt poor citizens, but manage to spend incredible amounts on their military (money they actually don’t have). India doubled its defence budget to almost $40 billion, making military expenditure 3% of the annual gross domestic product (GDP), and Pakistan is spending in excess of 4% of its GDP. In other words, as much as the US in relative terms. That is crazy stuff.
Although in the last 30 years India managed to reduce the number of people having to live below the poverty line from over half the population to about a third, because of its sheer number of people, the number of poor souls suffering from pretty much everything one can suffer is still massive. By Indian government standards the poverty line is at 21 cents a day, and even assessed on this incredibly low par, India still has approx 300 million people living on income below this pittance. That’s about a spoonful worth of Ol’Roy dog food. 7 out of 10 Indians are on less than $2 a day, which means they can afford a whole can. And yet, they plan to spend $40 billion per year on their military, which by today’s norms would catapult them ahead of Russia into the list of top ten military spenders.
TOP 15 MILITARY SPENDERS
1. United States $US696.30 billion
2. United Kingdom $US79.27 billion
3. France $US65.74 billion.
4. China $US58.07 billion
5. Japan $US48.10 billion
6. Germany $US43.55 billion
7. Saudi Arabia $US38.32 billion
8. Russian Federation $US36.73 billion
9. Italy $US31.40 billion
10. South Korea $US28.30 billion
11. India $US27.21 billion
12. Brazil $US24.62 billion
13. Australia $US19.74 billion
14. Spain $US19.37 billion
15. Canada $US16.19 billlion
TOP 15 MILITARY SPENDERS – PER CAPITA
* The top 15 military spenders, reorganised by their military spend per head of population
1. United States $US2291.78 per head of population
2. Saudi Arabia $US1360.72
3. United Kingdom $US1300.70
4. France $US1026.26
5. Australia $US958.21
6. South Korea $US574.81
7. Italy $US540.02
8. Germany $US528.71
9. Canada $US487.46
10. Spain $US478.37
11. Japan $US377.88
12. Russian Federation $US261.04
14. Brazil $US128.29
15. China $US43.66
16. India $US23.70
The arc Debs described, from North East Africa right across to Oceania, in other words nearly along the entire Indian Ocean, the regional arms race is shifting gears. Australia’s government has just announced a further increase in its military budget line, largely in response to India’s rapid renewal and expansion of its hardware. I mean I understand that India doesn’t want to end up in China’s growing sphere of control, but it is foolish to squander such large sums on aircraft carriers and other late model fighter planes, seeing that with the present rate of experimental arms development in 10 to 15 years that gear will be near to obsolete. Compare that with investments in civil infrastructure such as water filtration, highways, schools and hospitals, outlasting a tank by many decades.
As a non-militarist I feel like spewing, the waste of money is beyond belief. The top 15 spenders above added together come close to $1’300’000’000’000.00. Tendency: Increasing until X-mas and Easter fall on the same day.
India is nuclear armed, should war break out with China (which it won’t), it wouldn’t stand a chance with its conventional force. Whilst China builds its own fighter jets, India needs to buy them, it has no arms industry to speak of. Yet. Its starting to develop one, but will always be miles behind China. Or Russia for that matter. That’s what the whole going nuke thingy was all about. So why now this shift of funding priorities to arms upgrades? Especially when people have hardly anything to eat, wear or sleep under. Imho a disgrace and misuse of funds. Same with Pakistan. Plain stupid.
Both nations need to confront home grown insurgents and radicalisation, but prefer to focus on the hated neighbours. In doing so they spend precious resources on arms that are pretty much useless in the fight against radical activists. Militancy, fed by mostly inconspicuously looking young men living amongst the civilian population, requires improved means of policing and better methods of infiltrating the groupings. No aircraft carrier in the world will be able to do that. From where I stand both nations need to come to their collective senses and reprioritise their spending. Having said that, this observation applies to all countries on this planet.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Sep 17 2008 13:12 utc | 28
this is just wild speculation by the indian media
how do you know it wasn’t carefully planted?
how facts are made from rumors.
in fact, at that time the president, prime minister and the army chief were at an iftar dinner at the prime minister house which is around 300 meters from the site of the blast. the bomber could not penetrate the security thus blew himself outside.
any links to support this?
the blast happened hrs after Zardari was making his first major address since being elected president, vowed to ‘fight terrorism’.
i just googled news ‘pakistan’ and this has top billing. Pakistan hotel bombing ‘likely’ al Qaeda
here is some interesting commentary out of india timesofindia
A measure of its collapsing faith in the Congress is the fact that these theories finger government agencies as frequently as they do traditional adversaries like the RSS and Bajrang Dal. Indian Muslims are relieved if anyone ascribes terrorism to Pakistan’s ISI or America’s CIA. The one Indian Mujahideen email that was traced to an American missionary resident in Mumbai was, for a while, the subject of much internet-advocacy.
Dissection pares arguments down to the bone in the search for any consolation: for instance, one of the two who signed the Mujahideen email signed himself as Al-Arabi; but Arabi was the name of a bridge-builder to other communities, unlike others who were aggressors. Would a terrorist have used such a ‘peace-loving’ pseudonym? Was this a mistake made by a non-Muslim mastermind?
however this morning as soon as i heard the news after posting #39 i googled pakistan and there were hardly any links, i googled news by date, not reference. the cia story was there (Newstrack India, India – 7 minutes ago ) directly after the first reported story of the blast on google at the time was from teletext.co.uk11 killed in hotel blast 12 minutes ago
i thought this was very curious. here was the other story from india, posted almost simultaneously, and the 2 after that (although i did not copy paste those minutes) and i thought the chronological report directly on its heels was revealing. after copying these stories i went back to google, it couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 minutes later, and that is when there were several dozens of reports and sandwiched before and after these links. perhaps i happened to check google at a time they were rearranging the links or something, i found it very odd. obviously there must have been more reports prior to my checking for raw story had the ‘developing’ story. sometimes checking ‘news by date’ is interesting, altho i’m not sure how relevant it is. here are the three stories in succession on google news prior to the onslaught of reports, all from india.
Four deposed Pak judges reinstated into Supreme Court
The ruling Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition on Saturday continued to selectively reinstate judges deposed during last year’s emergency by inducting four judges into the Supreme Court even as it virtually ruled out the restoration of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to his earlier position.
AQ in india
New Delhi (PTI): A week after the serial blasts in Delhi that left 24 dead, police on Saturday claimed to have uncovered the conspiracy behind the attacks in the capital and in Jaipur and Ahmedabad, saying they were carried out by terrorists of Indian Mujahideen and SIMI in league with Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Atif alias Bashar, the “main man” of the Indian Mujahideen who was killed in the encounter with police yesterday, was the mastermind behind the Delhi blasts and was inspired by the “philosophy” of Al-Qaida, Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police (Special Cell) Karnal Singh told a press conference.
He said Pakistan’s ISI has lately “changed strategy” to rope in Indians to strike terror as it had “problems” internationally after LeT cadres were arrested.
“So, they approached SIMI and Indian Mujahideen. They asked Tauqeer (one of top men of SIMI) and Atif to coordinate. Indian Mujahideen received funding and operational support from SIMI and both got support from LeT,” Singh said.
A day after it killed two terrorists and arrested two others, he said the Indian Mujahideen and SIMI had jointly carried out the September 13 serial blasts here as also the explosions in Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Varanasi and Faizabad over the last one year.
Atif and 12 others, all from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, were involved in the bomb blasts in Delhi and Ahmedabad, Singh said, adding they had utilised local support in carrying out the strikes.
LeT was the “vital link” of banned SIMI and Indian Mujahideen. “LeT was providing total support to SIMI and Indian Mujahideen… LeT is at the back of both the groups… it is the joining point of SIMI and Indian Mujahideen,” Singh said.
After the encounter at a house in Jamia Nagar in South Delhi yesterday, police seized a laptop of Atif which contained material about Al-Qaeda and photographs of Osama bin Laden, the Joint Commissioner said.
Asked whether Atif was in touch with the Al-Qaeda, he said that nothing could be said at this stage.
Citing interrogation of Saif and Zeeshan, who were arrested after the encounter, Singh said. Two terrorists, who had managed to escape during the encounter, were identified as Junaid and Shahzad.
Besides them, seven are at large and police has “trails” about them, he said.
Among those at large is one Sajid, who had made the bombs used in Delhi and Ahmedabad.
Atif had “lured” 12 others, who were his seniors or juniors in school in Azamgarh, into Indian Mujahideen and SIMI had organised training for them.
On the blasts in Delhi, Singh said the terrorists undertook a recce and identified their target spots on September 11. On September 13, the bombs were placed between 5.45 pm and 6 pm.
Explosive used in the blasts here was brought from Karnataka, he said.
chonology CHRONOLOGY – Recent bomb attacks in Pakistan.
cnn’s earliest report included this about the hotel hmm
Located near the diplomatic section of the city and heavily guarded by police and military, the facility is popular among tourists. Any car entering the facility is searched, its underside scrutinized for bombs, before it is allowed to pass through heavy steel gates.
ps, my comment @ the bottom of 41 was snark.
Posted by: annie | Sep 20 2008 19:22 utc | 45
this is just wild speculation by the indian media
how do you know it wasn’t carefully planted?
how facts are made from rumors.
in fact, at that time the president, prime minister and the army chief were at an iftar dinner at the prime minister house which is around 300 meters from the site of the blast. the bomber could not penetrate the security thus blew himself outside.
any links to support this?
the blast happened hrs after Zardari was making his first major address since being elected president, vowed to ‘fight terrorism’.
i just googled news ‘pakistan’ and this has top billing. Pakistan hotel bombing ‘likely’ al Qaeda
here is some interesting commentary out of india timesofindia
A measure of its collapsing faith in the Congress is the fact that these theories finger government agencies as frequently as they do traditional adversaries like the RSS and Bajrang Dal. Indian Muslims are relieved if anyone ascribes terrorism to Pakistan’s ISI or America’s CIA. The one Indian Mujahideen email that was traced to an American missionary resident in Mumbai was, for a while, the subject of much internet-advocacy.
Dissection pares arguments down to the bone in the search for any consolation: for instance, one of the two who signed the Mujahideen email signed himself as Al-Arabi; but Arabi was the name of a bridge-builder to other communities, unlike others who were aggressors. Would a terrorist have used such a ‘peace-loving’ pseudonym? Was this a mistake made by a non-Muslim mastermind?
however this morning as soon as i heard the news after posting #39 i googled pakistan and there were hardly any links, i googled news by date, not reference. the cia story was there (Newstrack India, India – 7 minutes ago ) directly after the first reported story of the blast on google at the time was from teletext.co.uk11 killed in hotel blast 12 minutes ago
i thought this was very curious. here was the other story from india, posted almost simultaneously, and the 2 after that (although i did not copy paste those minutes) and i thought the chronological report directly on its heels was revealing. after copying these stories i went back to google, it couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 minutes later, and that is when there were several dozens of reports and sandwiched before and after these links. perhaps i happened to check google at a time they were rearranging the links or something, i found it very odd. obviously there must have been more reports prior to my checking for raw story had the ‘developing’ story. sometimes checking ‘news by date’ is interesting, altho i’m not sure how relevant it is. here are the three stories in succession on google news prior to the onslaught of reports, all from india.
Four deposed Pak judges reinstated into Supreme Court
The ruling Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition on Saturday continued to selectively reinstate judges deposed during last year’s emergency by inducting four judges into the Supreme Court even as it virtually ruled out the restoration of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to his earlier position.
AQ in india
New Delhi (PTI): A week after the serial blasts in Delhi that left 24 dead, police on Saturday claimed to have uncovered the conspiracy behind the attacks in the capital and in Jaipur and Ahmedabad, saying they were carried out by terrorists of Indian Mujahideen and SIMI in league with Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Atif alias Bashar, the “main man” of the Indian Mujahideen who was killed in the encounter with police yesterday, was the mastermind behind the Delhi blasts and was inspired by the “philosophy” of Al-Qaida, Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police (Special Cell) Karnal Singh told a press conference.
He said Pakistan’s ISI has lately “changed strategy” to rope in Indians to strike terror as it had “problems” internationally after LeT cadres were arrested.
“So, they approached SIMI and Indian Mujahideen. They asked Tauqeer (one of top men of SIMI) and Atif to coordinate. Indian Mujahideen received funding and operational support from SIMI and both got support from LeT,” Singh said.
A day after it killed two terrorists and arrested two others, he said the Indian Mujahideen and SIMI had jointly carried out the September 13 serial blasts here as also the explosions in Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Varanasi and Faizabad over the last one year.
Atif and 12 others, all from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, were involved in the bomb blasts in Delhi and Ahmedabad, Singh said, adding they had utilised local support in carrying out the strikes.
LeT was the “vital link” of banned SIMI and Indian Mujahideen. “LeT was providing total support to SIMI and Indian Mujahideen… LeT is at the back of both the groups… it is the joining point of SIMI and Indian Mujahideen,” Singh said.
After the encounter at a house in Jamia Nagar in South Delhi yesterday, police seized a laptop of Atif which contained material about Al-Qaeda and photographs of Osama bin Laden, the Joint Commissioner said.
Asked whether Atif was in touch with the Al-Qaeda, he said that nothing could be said at this stage.
Citing interrogation of Saif and Zeeshan, who were arrested after the encounter, Singh said. Two terrorists, who had managed to escape during the encounter, were identified as Junaid and Shahzad.
Besides them, seven are at large and police has “trails” about them, he said.
Among those at large is one Sajid, who had made the bombs used in Delhi and Ahmedabad.
Atif had “lured” 12 others, who were his seniors or juniors in school in Azamgarh, into Indian Mujahideen and SIMI had organised training for them.
On the blasts in Delhi, Singh said the terrorists undertook a recce and identified their target spots on September 11. On September 13, the bombs were placed between 5.45 pm and 6 pm.
Explosive used in the blasts here was brought from Karnataka, he said.
chonology CHRONOLOGY – Recent bomb attacks in Pakistan.
cnn’s earliest report included this about the hotel hmm
Located near the diplomatic section of the city and heavily guarded by police and military, the facility is popular among tourists. Any car entering the facility is searched, its underside scrutinized for bombs, before it is allowed to pass through heavy steel gates.
ps, my comment @ the bottom of 41 was snark.
Posted by: annie | Sep 20 2008 19:23 utc | 46
|
