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War
Clouds On The Horizon As West Calls India's Bluff
By
Zafarul-Islam Khan, IOL South Asia Correspondent
NEW
DELHI, June 1 (IslamOnline) - Everyone knew that India would never go
to war against Pakistan as long as there were American soldiers on the
Pakistani soil and as long as Islamabad's nuclear deterrent was
intact. Not that the ruling party is not interested in war, but the
cost of a nuclear war and the displeasure of the new ally could be
ignored only at New Delhi's peril. These two factors have kept us safe
this far.
Yet
Vajpayee, Advani and Fernandes kept the world on tenterhook with a
daily doze of double-speak: there will be war; there will be no war…
This went on even as Musharraf gave clear signals that he was serious
in tackling the problem, which threatened him as much as it threatened
New Delhi.
Umpteen
visits, high level phone calls, public appeals, all failed to bring
down the war temperature in Delhi where the warmongers' B Team, the
very VHP and Bajrang Dal, who perpetrated the gory pogroms of Gujarat,
bayed for the eradication of Pakistan from the world map, day in and
day out, and for a very good reason: war is an all-time saviour of all
scoundrels at all times in history.
With
its popularity at its nadir as demonstrated by one state election
after another, its credibility in tatters after the state-sponsored
pogroms of Gujarat and with Sonia Gandhi clamouring in the wings to
step in, war cries came in handy.
In
no time Gujarat was forgotten, opposition parties rallied behind the
discredited rulers who presto became defenders and champions of the
motherland. They dream of a "limited war," "a surgical
strike" - a walkover into the Pakistani part of Kashmir, destroy
the fedayeen camps there and return for high tea in Delhi.
But
the general, on the other side of the border, refused to play ball.
While he promised to address all the grievances and set about tackling
the issues in earnest, he laced it with a bit of self-respect:
counter-threats that the Azad Kashmir picnic will not be a walk-over.
He demonstrated his intentions with a series of tests of already
tested missiles and rockets and started withdrawing soldiers from the
northern borders where they were fighting America's war on terror and,
to Uncle Sam's chagrin, sent them to the south. Yet the BJP ilk only
upped its belligerence while the whole world continued beseeching the
difficult customers in Delhi.
Now
White House patience has run out. While announcing that they will be
dispatching the heavyweight Rumsfeld in a week's time they also leaked
that preparations are under way in earnest to evacuate not only around
65,000 American soldiers and civilians in the two countries but even
all the westerners there who, at the last count amounted to around a
quarter of a million.
Britain,
France, Canada, Germany, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and
even the UN followed the Americans with advisories to their nationals
and non-essential workers to leave the two countries as quickly as
possible using any available means. In contrast, India's staunchest
ally and "strategic partner," Russia, refrained from issuing
such an advisory to its nationals in India and Pakistan.
The
message is clear: go and fight to your hearts' fill. Destroy yours
people and save your thrones. Now the tone changes in Delhi. Super
Hawk Fernandes says in Singapore that there is no immediate
possibility of a war. Ambassador Mansingh says in the U.S. that the
warning is "unnecessary."
It
is a war to help prolong the dying BJP. If allowed to erupt, it will
be a meaningless war, bereft of any noble meaning or great purpose,
like the war Saddam Husain unleashed on his neighbors, which left his
country penniless and world's pariah No. one. It'll be a terrible,
terrible war such as not only the Subcontinent but even the world has
not seen yet. A Pentagon official has cited a classified report as
saying that an all-out nuclear war between the two neighbors could
kill as many as 12 million people and injure as many as six million.
Lets all get ready to be slaughtered so that the BJP may continue to
rule… No price is too great to keep the RSS family of
super-nationalists in power. 
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