'Indians are bastards anyway'

Asia Times ^ | Debasish Roy Chowdhury

[robowombat]

http://www.atimes.com

'Indians are bastards anyway' By Debasish Roy Chowdhury

HUA HIN, Thailand - Indians are "a slippery, treacherous people", said president Richard Nixon. "The Indians are bastards anyway. They are the most aggressive goddamn people around," echoed his assistant for national security affairs, Henry Kissinger. The setting: a White House meeting on July 16, 1971, during the run-up to the India-Pakistan war which ultimately led to the birth of Bangladesh, erstwhile East Pakistan.

The US State Department recently declassified some of the Nixon White House tapes and secret documents that bring to light the way in which the Nixon administration went about the Bangladesh saga, reflecting the potential of mindsets and personal equations taking precedence over ground realities in White House decisionmaking.

In 1971, some 3 million people are estimated to have been killed in the genocide unleashed by Pakistan's military government on East Pakistan, leading to a rush of refugees into India, drawing India into a swift and decisive war that eventually forced Pakistan's hand. But all along, the Nixon administration sided with the military establishment of Pakistan over democratic India because of Nixon's "special relationship" with Pakistan's handsome military dictator, General Yahya Khan, and his uncontrolled revulsion at the "old witch" Indira Gandhi, India's then prime minister.

Despite the avowed goal of containing war, the US administration, in its zeal to put India in a spot, even went to the extent of pleading with the Chinese to initiate troop movements toward the Indian border in coordination with Pakistan, and assured it support in case the Soviet Union jumped into the fray. Near the end of the war, in a highly secret meeting on December 10, 1971, Kissinger pitched the idea to Chinese ambassador to the UN, Huang Ha. The declassified documents reveal that China took a couple of days to think about it and finally said it was not game, much to Kissinger's disappointment.

The seeds of the Bangladesh war were sown in India's freedom in 1947, which came with a bloody partition, with India keeping the Hindu-dominated areas of British India and Pakistan the Muslim-dominated ones - to the extent they were geographically divisible. The Pakistan that was born as a result had two flanks - East and West. East Pakistan comprised the Muslim-majority Bengali-speaking areas, while West Pakistan consisted of primarily Urdu-speaking Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and North-West Frontier Province.

Separated by 1,200 miles, East and West Pakistan were hardly comfortable in the compact. Though the East was more populous, West Pakistan cornered the bulk of the Pakistani budget. The West was given more representation in the legislature than the East, and further fueling Bengali sub-nationalism, Urdu was made the official language. West Pakistan, with a 97% Muslim population, was also far less liberal than the East, where at least 15% of the population did not practice Islam. With Pakistan mostly under military rulers - all from West Pakistan - since 1958, any scope for political accommodation was limited. Successive military regimes tried to deal with the problem the only way they knew how - savage repression, adding to the spiral of hatred and tyranny.

The relationship between the two Pakistans became progressively more neo-colonial, with the protest against the West's domination growing shriller by the day in the East. The tension reached a flashpoint when in 1970, the Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman swept the national elections, winning 167 of the 169 seats allotted for East Pakistan, giving it a majority in the 313-seat National Assembly and the right to form government at the center. Neither West Pakistani political leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto nor General Yahya Khan would accept this Bengali ascendancy in national politics, and the convention of the newly elected National Assembly was postponed indefinitely. The Awami League, now convinced that there could never be any political cohabitation between the East and the West, called for "full regional autonomy" and Mujibar Rahman announced that he was taking over the East's administration.

The military now decided enough was enough. At a meeting of the military top brass, Yahya declared: "Kill 3 million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands." Accordingly, on the night of March 25, 1971, the Pakistan army launched "Operation Searchlight" to "crush" Bengali resistance in which Bengali members of military services were disarmed and killed, students and the intelligentsia systematically liquidated and able-bodied Bengali males just picked up and gunned down. Death squads roamed the streets of Dacca, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. "Within a week, half the population of Dacca had fled. All over East Pakistan, people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April, some 30 million people were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military," writes Robert Payne in Massacre. Mujibur Rahman was arrested and the Awami League - which should have been ruling Pakistan - banned.

Then began the rapes. In Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller likens it to the Japanese rapes in Nanjing and German rapes in Russia during World War II. "... 200,000, 300,000 or possibly 400,000 women (three sets of statistics have been variously quoted) were raped." Reporter Aubrey Menen describes an incident targeting a just-married couple: "Two [Pakistani soldiers] went into the room that had been built for the bridal couple. The others stayed behind with the family, one of them covering them with his gun. They heard a barked order, and the bridegroom's voice protesting. Then there was silence until the bride screamed. Then there was silence again, except for some muffled cries that soon subsided. In a few minutes one of the soldiers came out, his uniform in disarray. He grinned to his companions. Another soldier took his place in the room. And so on, until all the six had raped the belle of the village. Then they left. The father found his daughter lying on the string cot unconscious and bleeding. Her husband was crouched on the floor, kneeling over his vomit." (Quoted in Brownmiller's Against Our Will.)

As East Pakistan bled, refugees began to pour into India, some 8-10 million over the period of the genocide. India repeatedly pleaded with the US administration that it could not cope with any more refugees, and appealed that it use its influence over Pakistan and rein in Yahya. But Nixon continued to condone the repression. To a Pakistani delegation to Washington, DC, he said: "Yahya is a good friend. I understand the anguish of the decisions which Yahya had to make." Strangely, in his eyes, the military dictator was the victim - one forced so much against the wall that he had to conduct mass murders and rapes.

Even American consul general Archer Blood couldn't take his administration's position any more. In an act of open rebellion, he sent a telegram through the "dissent channel", condemning his country for failing "to denounce the suppression of democracy"; "to denounce atrocities", and for "bending over backwards to placate the West Pakistan-dominated government". "We, as professional public servants express our dissent with current policy and fervently hope that our true and lasting interests here can be defined and our policies redirected in order to salvage our position as a moral leader of the world," the telegram read. Nixon's answer: "Don't squeeze Yahya at this time." Both the consul general and the head of the United States Information Service were subsequently transferred out for their anti-Pakistan views to prevent "any further negative reporting on the situation".

In India, US ambassador Kenneth Keating also made it clear that "military aid to Pakistan is just out of the question now while they are still killing in East Pakistan and refugees are fleeing across the border". He told Kissinger on June 3, 1971: "We are on the threshold of better relations with the one stable democracy in that part of the world. They are making real progress and want to be more friendly with us." Replied Kissinger: "In all honesty, the president has special feelings for Yahya. One cannot make policy on that basis, but it is a fact of life."

Nixon had a simple explanation for the wayward behavior of his ambassadors. At a meeting with members of the Senior Review Group in August 1971, he said: "Ambassadors who go to India fall in love with India. Some have the same experience in Pakistan, though not as many because the Pakistanis are a different breed. The Pakistanis are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious, sometimes so smart that we fall for their line."

Even as the refugee situation was escalating, the Nixon administration kept playing politics. Sample this conversation at the White House a day after George Harrison and his soul mate, Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, held the "Concert for Bangladesh" to raise money for the refugees. "So who is the Beatle giving the money to - is it the goddamn Indians?" asks Nixon. "Yes," says Kissinger, adding that Pakistan had also been given $150,000 in food aid, but the major problem "is the goddamn distribution". Nixon butts in: "We have to keep India away." Agrees Kissinger: "We must defuse the refugee and famine problem in East Pakistan in order to deprive India of an excuse to start war. We have to avoid screwing Pakistan that outrageously ... We should start our goddamn lecturing on political structures as much as we can, and while there will eventually be a separate East Bengal in two years, it must not happen in the next six months."

By now India had completely given up on the US. In August 1971, it ended its non-aligned stance and signed the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union to safeguard itself against any American intervention. At the end of October, Indira Gandhi embarked on a tour of Moscow, Washington and several Western capitals to assess the international mood. It is widely believed that she had already planned to attack East Pakistan before this public relations tour.

Nixon and Kissinger met at the Oval Office on the morning of November 5 to discuss the president's conversation with Indira on the previous day. Kissinger's assessment: "While she was a bitch, we got what we wanted ... She will not be able to go home and say that the United States didn't give her a warm reception and therefore in despair she's got to go to war." Replied Nixon: "We really slobbered over the old witch." After she got home, the "old witch" wrote to Nixon: "I sincerely hope that your clear vision will guide relations between our two democracies and will help us to come closer. It will always be our effort to clear any misunderstanding and not to allow temporary differences to impede the strengthening of our friendship."

Within a day of Gandhi's return on November 21, Indian forces attacked East Pakistan at five key areas. Yahya's 70,000 soldiers deployed in the East were hopelessly outnumbered against the 200,000 Indian troops and the Mukti Bahini, Bengali guerrilla freedom fighters. Within 10 days, India had completely taken over the East. On December 16, after a final genocidal burst, Pakistan surrendered unconditionally. Awami leader Sheikh Mujibar Rahman was released and returned to establish Bangladesh's first independent parliament.

The US government supplied military equipment worth $3.8 million to the Pakistani dictatorship after the genocide started, even after telling Congress that all shipments to the regime had ceased. Throughout the war, the US government tried everything in its power to hinder India. The US policy included support of Pakistan in the United Nations, where it branded India as the aggressor, and putting pressure on the Soviets to discourage India, with the threat that the US-Soviet detente would be in jeopardy if Moscow did not play ball. When war broke out, Nixon promptly cut off economic aid to India, and at one point dispatched the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal to "intimidate" India. When nothing worked, it pleaded China to join the war to scare off India.

As millions suffered in East Pakistan, the only focus, an obsessive one, of the Nixon administration continued to be China. One of the reasons why Nixon sided with Yahya - apart from "he has been more decent to us than she [Indira] has" - was that the general was his conduit with China. In a personal letter of thanks to Yahya for his role in Sino-American rapprochement, Nixon wrote, "Those who want a more peaceful world in the generation to come will forever be in your debt." Yes, indeed. But once the war ended, the same US policy changed overnight. It quickly spotted a regional hegemon in India, and began to respect it. Though it had made it clear before the war that it would never have anything to do with Bangladesh, ever, it advised Pakistan to accept India's ceasefire offer, recognized the new country, and went about building bridges with India.

In that sense, this war was the turning point in Indo-US relations, triggering a slow and long process of engaging Delhi - a policy that picked up steam under Bill Clinton and accelerated further under George W Bush. Testifying before the House International Relations Subcommittee for Asia and the Pacific, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Christina Rocca, last week said: "We are accelerating the transformation of our relationship with India, with a number of new initiatives." With India "this is a watershed year", she said, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh scheduled to visit the US next month and President Bush promising to go to India some time later this year".

Seen as a possible counterweight to the same China for which it sacrificed the lives and honor of millions of Bangladeshi men and women three decades ago, the US is even said to be tilting to India as a possible permanent UN Security Council member. Even Kissinger has come out strongly in favor of a permanent seat for India. "I'm known as a strong advocate and one of the originators of close relations with China. I believe that today I am also a strong advocate of close relations with India," he was recently quoted as saying. Bring home the bastards, such are the compulsions of geopolitics.

This is the same India whose nuclear tests a few years ago drew sanctions from the US. But as in the Bangladesh war, it has lost little time in reversing its position. Now it conducts military exercises with India and offers to make fighter jets with it. In addition to US Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns' agenda when he reaches India on Friday is, curiously, a deal on civilian nuclear energy, which may be unveiled during Manmohan Singh's trip. This serial policy infidelity has only one explanation: the US understands power, and respects power. That's why it pounces on Iraq and engages North Korea. Manmohan Singh would do well to remember this when he embarks on his trip to the US to chase India's UN dream. Groveling won't help, growling might.

And yes, he might also consider coloring up his staid beard a tad lest a declassified UN document 30 years hence finds him mentioned as an "old fogey".

Debasish Roy Chowdhury is a Correspondent for Asia Times Online based in Thailand.

[Gengis Khan]

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Pakistan's Mega-Genocide -- A Docudrama

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[NOTE: In yesterday’s blog I mindlessly kept calling Kim Jong II by his father’s name, Kim Il Sung, and Julie Kelleher Stacy kindly brought this to my attention. Kim Il Sung died in 1994. I tried to correct the blog as soon as possible, but blogspot’s editing and posting subprogram was not working. It now has been corrected and my apology for any problems I caused]

I have given a lot of statistics about democide in this blog. But, who can digest my mention of a 1,000,000 murdered here or there. It is near impossible to empathize with the human catastrophy such statistics dimly reflect when we have difficulty getting a feel for numbers greater than six or seven. A murderer tortures and kills three people, and that gets into our gut – three loving, feeling, human beings killed in agony. We can imagine this happening to our family or circle of close friends. But mention 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000, and that is beyond imagination and feeling; they are only a numbers.

So, to do something more than just provide statistics, I’m going to present a docudrama about one democide you probably know nothing about. It will demonstrate how much of democide is unknown—not hidden, but put away like all unwanted memories, and in the particular case I will relate, for political reasons. I’m going to tell you what Pakistan’s military rulers did in 1971—not the present government, but a previous one. Its genocide is still unmentionable, since Pakistan is an ally of the United States and a part of its coalition in the war against terrorism.

Pakistan is India’s neighbor to the west. And squeezed into the lower southeasern side of India is Bangladesh. Until 1971, that country was part of Pakistan, and was called East Pakistan. Its major ethnic group was Bengali, and their religion, as in West Pakistan, was Islam, although a slightly different variant.

Leading up to 1971, East Pakistan had been working politically and nonviolently toward independence from West Pakistan, almost a thousand miles away. It was on the verge of success after Pakistan’s 1969 national election, when the Bengali Awami League gained an absolute majority in the national legislature.

However, the ruling generals of Pakistan were absolutely opposed to East Pakistan gaining independence, so in 1971 General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan, the self appointed president of Pakistan and commander-in chief of the army and his top generals, prepared a careful and systematic military operation against East Pakistan. They planned to murder that country’s Bengali intellectual, cultural, and political elite. To reiterate what is hard to believe, at the highest level of this regime, the rulers planned, prepared, and executed the cold-blooded murder of the best and brightest Bengalis in East Pakistan, and murdered indiscriminately many of its Hindus, driving the rest into India. This despicable and cutthroat plan was outright genocide.

Now, imagine that you were a student there. Before going to bed one night, you may have been in the library studying, working on your term paper, or doing a lab assignment. You may have written home or been out in Dacca with some friends. You may have given your friend a secret kiss before parting, already looking forward to seeing each other the next day. You go to bed that night with a future for which you are studying hard, with a future of loved ones and children, with a future of hope and bright dreams. You have not the slightest hint that the next day will be any different than the last; you close your eyes without any thought that you will be lucky to see the dawn, or if you do, that you will not live through the day.

So students the world over have gone to bed, to be destroyed there by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, tornadoes, and fire. But these are nature’s doings. What would happen this night was done by fellow human beings. Intentionally.

In the middle of the night, with no warning, West Pakistani tanks began shelling the dormitories of the University of Dacca, where students like you were sleeping.

Visualize it: you are blasted awake by tank shells suddenly bursting through the dorm walls and windows to explode throughout the dorm amongst your beds, your study rooms. Red-hot shrapnel flies, randomly seeking out those who will die, lose a leg or arm, or have their belly slit open so wide, their guts tumble out. Then the trembling fear, wild panic, and screaming; the mute dead, the crying wounded, the smoke and fire, destruction and blood, everywhere. And the forever unknown courage and heroism as you and others help the wounded and try to escape the flames and explosions.

You try to run or crawl out of the dorm, and help others to escape. You’re shaking. Your heart is beating wildly. You can’t get your breath. But you finally climb over smoking debris and make it outside.

But outside, the West Pakistan troops are waiting, and you are rounded up at bayonet point to stand or sit in trembling shock. You don’t know what happened or what they will do to you. You can’t believe it. You think this must be a nightmare as you watch the dormitories burn down with your fellow students still screaming inside or jumping from windows. If you have only minor injuries or none at all, you may try to help the crying, moaning wounded on the ground around you.

Dawn slowly shows through the smoke, and soldiers begin pushing and prodding all of you through the haze toward a grassy area near a parking lot. The soldiers bayonet those who resist, or who are too wounded to move. You are stunned and trembling -- you cannot believe what you just saw. Students are being murdered, some you know, and as they are repeatedly bayoneted their screams and pleas for mercy rip through your mind.

Self-preservation takes over and you allow yourself to be herded along with the other survivors toward the grassy area, where you see a pile of shovels, hoes, and digging sticks that a small truck nearby has dumped. You are jabbed and shoved toward the pile and then the soldiers form a tight ring around all of you. An officer shouts, ‘Dig a trench. Dig it deep. Or be tortured to death.’

Your knees are almost knocking together, your heart thudding in your ears, and tears drip from your face as, in utter, mind-devastating terror, you pick up a hoe and begin hacking at the ground where one soldier is pointing. Through your fear, through your shock, through the terror, you have only one impossible realization—this trench is for you. For your dead body. You are going to be killed.

You hack away; you pull the loose dirt out with the hoe; you hack again and again. You stop crying. You don’t hear the cannon in the distance or the shooting nearby. You hear but barely recognize the scream of the girl who was digging near you, but made a break for it. She is tripped by one of the soldiers, and then is stabbed in the leg—you refuse to look as she writhes on the ground and shrieks and screeches while being stabbed in the other leg, and then in one arm, then the other, and finally in the stomach. It’s a calculated lesson for you, which you dimly recognize, and you blank out the girl’s moans and cries for her mother.

Now you’re resolute and focused. You hurry up your digging. You want to get it over with. Your body has grown cold. You shiver. Your mind closes down as you hack and pull the dirt, and deepen the trench with the others. Your soft hands, used to books and pencils, are bleeding and sore; your body is getting heavy and fatigued. But you feel nothing.

You and the others have dug three feet down. You are on automatic. Four feet. Then five. Several of the girls and two of the boys have collapsed in heaps at the edge from the unaccustomed labor, or have fainted from fear.

Someone yells, “Stop. Enough. Get out of the trench and line up on the edge.” This is it, but your mind refuses to recognize it. Your body obeys and lines up with the others. You see soldiers standing about twenty feet away with automatic rifles, but it means nothing.

You stand. You think of nothing. There is no passing time. You don’t see that the fire in the dormitories has nearly burned out, or that the smoke is drifting away, leaving the beautiful morning to prize. You don’t see the robin’s egg-blue of the sky, the gentle white clouds; you do not register the sound of birds chattering. You don’t even think of your loved ones, of your lost future, of your lost hopes, of your dead dreams. Of all your wasted study and effort.

Then, Brrrttt! Brrrttt!

Your body twitches from the impact of bullets ripping across your chest, blowing your last breath out the holes in a red mist. Now your body is as dead as your mind; you fall backward into the trench to be covered with dirt.

And how was your death received? The actual messages between the soldiers that killed you and army headquarters were intercepted. We know what was said. Your soul might be happy to know that you contributed to a prized well done.

The message was this:

“What do you think would be the approximate number of casualties at the university—just give me an approximate number in your view. What will be the number killed or wounded or captured. Just give me the rough figures”.

“Wait. Approximately three hundred.”

“Well done. Three hundred killed? Anybody wounded or captured?”

“I believe in only one thing—three hundred killed.”

“Yes. I agree with you that is much easier. No, nothing asked. Nothing done, you do not have to explain anything. Once again well done. Once again I would like to give you shabash and to tell all the boys . . . for the wonderful job done in this area. I am very pleased.”

The Pakistan military ultimately went on to murder about 1,500,000 Bengalis and Hindus. Only India’s invasion stopped them. The Indian army rapidly defeated them, and midwifed the formal independence of East Pakistan, which promptly named itself Bangladesh.

---

Link of Note

”Statistics of Pakistan’s Democide: Estimates, Calculations, And Sources” Chapter 8 of Statistics of Democide By R.J. Rummel

After a well organized military buildup in East Pakistan the military launched its campaign. No more than 267 days later they had succeeded in killing perhaps 1,500,000 people, created 10,000,000 refugees who had fled to India, provoked a war with India, incited a counter-genocide of 150,000 non-Bengalis, and lost East Pakistan.

This is the equivalent of a Rwanda in duration and murdered. Yet, it is Rwanda’s genocide that has gotten the publicity.

---

posted by R.J. Rummel @ Permalink   2 comments   

2 Comments:

At 7:52 PM, The PhAnToM said...

I am always amazed at the intese hatred that Hindus have towards the "Pakis"--- I work with many Indians. Now I understand it better. 

At 6:26 AM, Dave Schuler said...

Pakistan is barely a country at all. As you certainly know PAKIstan is an acronym: Punjabi, Afghani, Kashmiri, Iranian dreamt up by a waggish English map-drawer. If it's easy to kill your own people (as the Chinese have illustrated), it's that much easier to kill the other guys and Pakistan seems to have been constructed with the express intent of fostering that kind of inter-ethnic warfare. 

Post a Comment

[monday]

" If it had, then the Soviets wouldn't have needed to invade Afghanistan. IIRC, the Soviets were desperate for a warm water naval base, in the Indian Ocean."

IIRC, Afghanistan is landlocked. The country they should have invaded was Pakistan.

[Destro]

This is really very interesting, but the question is why bring up ancient US-Indian enmities

Ancient? How American - where ancient history was last week. This was in our lifetime, Lady.

[Destro]

I loved his stance toward the hate America crowd, here at home.

Demagoguery is effective. Nixon used that like a stage magician to distract them and avert their eyes.

[Destro]

That was decades ago and India was virulently anti-capitalist and anti-western back then

Yea, Nixon's pal China looooooved the West and Capitalisim back then.

[Destro]

If any post crystallizes the situation it is yours - Hats off to you, Mate.

[ZULU]

Yea, Nixon's pal China looooooved the West and Capitalisim back then.


They still do. Thanbks to our capitalist system and their combination of it with state-run slave operations euphamistically termed "factories" they continue to drain American dollars to invest in military expenditures while ignoring the living standards of their own people and crushing political dissidents and religious movements.

Some of Nixon's decisions were absolutely brilliant and some were dumb-@$$ stupid. Recognizing Red China was one of the latter, and Bush I's business as usual with the Red Chinese thugs after Tieneman Square was another knuckle-headed decision.

[CarrotAndStick]

In the game of world-atlas dominoes, Afghanistan falls first, then Pakistan. You get your warm-water ocean as a result. The Russians had a border with Afghanistan. A warm-water port without rail and road links is pretty much useless. The land route had to be through Afgnaistan and then onto Balochistan, a province of Pakistan, because the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush mountains cannot be surpassed by any rail or road, except at a handful of almost useless 15-foot wide passes.

[Destro]

See Greece and Cyrpus for example of what emotions towards America such policies produce.

[dervish]

So how do you view the solution given that Musharaf is sitting tight on Pakistan's nukes and the alternative to him is radical Islam since the army and ISI are chock full of crazies?

Please give me a plan that would make the situation better for the US, not India.

[Destro]

Well said.

[dervish]

Not quite.

First, per the Nixon Papers, the killing in East Pakistan started as a matter of the Easterners seeking autonomy, ie provoking a civil war if the West wanted to keep their control of the country intact. I am in no way excusing genocide, but there appeared to be a seccessionist conflict created by the East. Is that innacurate?

Second, US in Iraq had many reasons. Given the timing, and statements, it is clear that the largest one related to fears for US security following a terrorist attack by a group hosted by a rogue regime. Iraq was another such rogue regime.

Did India have a precipitating act of a mass killing of its civilians on its soil by Pakistan?

GK's explanation about saving their own rings truer. However by the time India went in what was the status of the genocide? Per the article 3 million were already dead.

He also admits the possibility of seeking domination over Pakistan. I believe that was Nixon's point -- that this was opportunism.

By the way, how do Hindus and Christians fair in Bangladesh today?

[dervish]

"as for Nixon the man knew how to play sides against one another"

Kissinger was the master of Triangulation.

[Destro]

What a grand strategic thought. The USA in a joint operation with India and help from Russia and the 'Stans should have moved in and taken out Pakistan and Afghanistan (ruled by the Paki backed Taliban). India has historic links to Afghanistan so they are not ethnic strangers. Pakistan is a failed state - period. It should be granted autonomy within India. Many Pakistanis would welcome Indian rule - some Pakis are Shia and being killed through Sunni Paki jihadists.

[Destro]

look i am no fan of ChiComms but Nixon used the split between China and the Soviets to our advantage

Like most Americans sadly, we look to the short term goal not the long term one.

When Nixon went to China the ChiComms and Soviets were shooting at each other. Nixon GAINED NOTHING from allying with Red China - the Chinese were already hostile to the Soviets. His feat was not great diplomacy at all then.

What would have been great diplomacy would have been to ally with India. Soviets and Red Chinese were like oil and water - let them fight it out. Soviets would be allied with Muslim Pakistan? Doubtful it would have produced anyhting - oil and water again.

[DM1]

Well China did put pressure on the Soviets from the rear giving them two fronts to look at as opposed to just Europe. Also you forget India was still under the whole anti-Western Imperialism and saw the US as a bigger version of the British Colonialism they just left. They actively courted the Soviets for friendship as well

[Destro]

I rather we wooed India away from Russia (and they were not real allies just friendly) with said dollars.

[ZULU]

I think it would be possible to get India on our side today.

We both face the same threat from Islamic fanatics, India must be uncomfortable with a growing Red China on its doorsteps.

Russia itself is a disappointment. I think part of the problem is our fault.

When Reagan successfully started the Evil EMpire tottering and it collapsed during Bush I's term - despite all his efforts to prop it up, we should have been more pro-active with economic help and guidance and tried to wean them away from socialism. I believe Russia under the right leadership could become a true economic powerhouse and, along with Ukraine and Eastern Europe, better allies for freedom and democracy and progress and even resistance to Islamic Terror.

I really believe the average Russian doesn't dislike America or Americans. I don't think you can say the same thing for the average Frenchman or German or western European, who have become for the most part, true socialist farm animals. They want the state to feed, cloth and rear them and are perfectly willing to sacrifice their freedom or even cultural and religious identity in that effort. And I certainly believe the average Frenchman hates and envies us - they always have.

[Destro]

We are of course dealing in hindsight - we can't change the past - these excercises do help with helping analysis development.

[Wiz]

I don't understand why he's giving the pakis those F16s though.

Nor do Americans understand why India would create a trilateral relationship with China while it was at war and took some territory and killed some Indians as a result.