Posted on 01/29/2006 3:31:54 AM PST by kronos77
The political balance sheet between India and Saudi Arabia is what makes the recent state visit befuddling. For decades the repressive House of Saud has been buying loyalty at home by diverting terrorism towards external targets and financing the spread of rabid Wahhabi ideology of holy war. Pick a place on the geographical map of modern jehad - Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, Tajikistan, the Philippines, Kosovo, Algeria, Sudan, Thailand, Indonesia or Bangladesh - and a Saudi connection will automatically surface. Worldwide, Saudi-financed Islamic institutions and schools have come under the scanner for spreading religious hatred and destabilising multicultural states.
India has been at the receiving end of Saudi governmental and citizen initiatives to bankroll terrorist outfits active in Kashmir. In December 2005, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), where Saudi Arabia is a principal player, declared solidarity with Pakistan on Kashmir for the umpteenth time. King Abdullah did say on his Delhi trip that he favours India getting observer status at the OIC, but the catch was that the nomination be put forward by Pakistan! The unwavering military and economic support Saudis have given to Pakistan soured ties for a long time between Riyadh and Delhi. It is an open secret that the Saudis funded the Pakistani nuclear programme.
In the light of deep-rooted evangelistic foreign policy orientations of the custodians of Makkah and Madinah, the Agreement on Combating Terrorism and Crime inked in Delhi between Saudi and Indian officials appears fanciful and empty. It does give Riyadh brownie points with the US as an indicator of sincerity in cleaning up its act as the fountainhead of global terror. The 'Delhi Declaration' obviously has some mutually beneficial features in the economic realm, but warrants healthy wariness on the counter-terrorism front.
(Excerpt) Read more at newkerala.com ...
Arabian nights in Delhi
By Sreeram Chaulia, : The dynamic needs of statecraft and the changing texture of international politics generate the strangest of bedfellows. The world has been amazed by the coming together of diametrically opposed and diehard adversaries when circumstances warranted it. Images of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shaking hands with PLO leader Yasser Arafat in Washington in September 1993 or of British Prime Minister Tony Blair doing the same with Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli in March 2004 are living proofs of the old aphorism that diplomacy is the art of the possible.
Closer to home, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee having a cheerful tête-à-tête with Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of Pakistan's fundamentalist nerve-centre, Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Islam, in Delhi in July 2003 was another bizarre deed attesting to the pragmatism that governs the conduct of foreign policy. The just concluded historic trip to India of the Saudi Arabian ruler, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's protocol-defying personal reception at Delhi airport, and the visiting dignitary being honoured as chief guest for the Republic Day parade fall within a similar category of events - unimaginable absurdities until they were turned into reality.
The economic balance sheet between India and Saudi Arabia conveys a normal, even healthy, relationship. The latter is India's biggest supplier of crude, accounting for almost a quarter of its fuel imports, and host to 1.5 million Indian migrant workers who send back remittances worth an estimated $4 billion per annum. Indian petrochemical, pharmaceutical, IT and telecom companies are licensed operators in the desert kingdom, generating annual business worth $360 million.
The Bilateral Investment Promotion Agreement and the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement that were signed by the two sides in Delhi carry forward the expansive vision of the February 2004 'Mumbai Declaration' between leading businessmen of India and of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), of which Saudi Arabia is the bellwether. Nearly identical economic pacts were signed by Abdullah's entourage in China a few days ago, bold moves to ensure that GCC member states do not slip out of Saudi hands and strike out bilateral bargains independently.
Abdullah's goal of ensuring complete mastery and shepherding authority over the slippery GCC is being well served through this new 'Look East' foreign economic policy.
The political balance sheet between India and Saudi Arabia is what makes the recent state visit befuddling. For decades the repressive House of Saud has been buying loyalty at home by diverting terrorism towards external targets and financing the spread of rabid Wahhabi ideology of holy war. Pick a place on the geographical map of modern jehad - Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, Tajikistan, the Philippines, Kosovo, Algeria, Sudan, Thailand, Indonesia or Bangladesh - and a Saudi connection will automatically surface. Worldwide, Saudi-financed Islamic institutions and schools have come under the scanner for spreading religious hatred and destabilising multicultural states.
India has been at the receiving end of Saudi governmental and citizen initiatives to bankroll terrorist outfits active in Kashmir. In December 2005, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), where Saudi Arabia is a principal player, declared solidarity with Pakistan on Kashmir for the umpteenth time. King Abdullah did say on his Delhi trip that he favours India getting observer status at the OIC, but the catch was that the nomination be put forward by Pakistan! The unwavering military and economic support Saudis have given to Pakistan soured ties for a long time between Riyadh and Delhi. It is an open secret that the Saudis funded the Pakistani nuclear programme.
In the light of deep-rooted evangelistic foreign policy orientations of the custodians of Makkah and Madinah, the Agreement on Combating Terrorism and Crime inked in Delhi between Saudi and Indian officials appears fanciful and empty. It does give Riyadh brownie points with the US as an indicator of sincerity in cleaning up its act as the fountainhead of global terror. The 'Delhi Declaration' obviously has some mutually beneficial features in the economic realm, but warrants healthy wariness on the counter-terrorism front.
A behind-the-scenes American role in propelling the Saudi-Indian Strategic Energy Pact cannot be ruled out because of the Iran connection. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has often reiterated that Washington wants to help India explore "alternative sources of energy" so that the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is stymied and Tehran is completely cornered into conceding on its nuclear programme. The language of the Energy Pact - "reliable, stable and increased volume of crude oil supplies through evergreen long-term contracts" - offers India an alternative that could have repercussions on the Iran pipeline's future. The economist in Manmohan Singh's shoes has already set the cat among the pigeons by worrying aloud that the Iran pipeline is fraught with risks and difficult to find insurers.
Saudi Arabia has for long been engaged in a fiercely competitive rivalry with Iran for the post of the Middle East's great power. Riyadh and Tehran wage an all-out battle for influence and power by arming antagonistic terrorist groups and proxy zealots. Frequent Iranian opposition to Saudi oil price setting at the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and recent Iranian gains in Iraq through the 'Shia victory' rankle greatly with King Abdullah.
The race for who corrals the ravenous energy appetites of rapidly industrialising China and India is not merely one between Saudi Arabia, the largest OPEC oil producer, and Iran, the second largest producer but also between America's staunchest ally and most inveterate foe.
(Sreeram Chaulia is a commentator on international affairs. He can be reached at sreeramchaulia@hotmail.com)
<< India has been at the receiving end of Saudi governmental and citizen initiatives to bankroll terrorist outfits active in Kashmir. In December 2005, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), where Saudi Arabia is a principal player, declared solidarity with Pakistan on Kashmir for the umpteenth time. >>
India has long been on the front lines of the islamists' relentless, barbaric and murdeous assaults upon all of the rest of us and deserves our every encouragement and if it asks our every assistance. We might start with seeing to it that the Pakistanis' aggressions against Kashmir are reversed and Kashmir and its people are restored to India's stewardship.
These 4 babies were among 30 killed by Pakistani Islamic terrorists in their attack on a Hindu temple in Gandhinagar. As usual, the Pakistani terrorists only had the balls to kill unarmed kids and civilians, and were eventually exterminated by security personnel. This picture and others of the dead victims never made it on western news reports or sites; most likely a ploy to surpress the backlash against its terrorist ally, Pakistan.
I am aware of Islamic terror upon Hindu and Pakistani agressiveness towards India.
Being Serb, I can say that Serbia allways sympathysed with India, from 1947 onwards.
And, Im too aware that "Allah`s" fighters have balls only to kill women and children and when they are faced with well-trained army, they becom "poor civilians" and cry for West`s help.
Also I know that India sucessfully destroyed all Pakistani attacks.
But entire world must unite to defeat Islam, call it War On Terror, or WWIII, it must be done.
Troughout New York, Bosnia, Kosovo, Paris, Chechenia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, India.
<< This picture and others of the dead victims never made it on western news reports or sites; most likely a ploy to surpress the backlash against its terrorist ally, Pakistan. >>
You're very confused. Let me help you straighten yourself out a little.
That the murders of innocents is obscene is a given.
There a hundreds of thousands of "Western news reports or sites," every one of them autonomous and independent of all the others. "Western news reports or sites" is not an homogenius organism, entity or force.
In any case, none of the bastards have ever published pictures of the islamafascist atrocities perpetrated against America, either.
Their individual "ploys" are as numerous as are the "western news reports or sites." There is no single "ploy," let alone one to favor Pakistan. Most of the ignorant, semi-literate bastards who staff most of the "western news reports or sites" can't even spell "Pakistan" or find it on a map.
And even if they could spell Pakistan or locate it, the only way any of them would favor it was if he was sure it was our enemy and its potential to cause harm to us and to our allies would be enhanced by their favor.
Oh - and while I have your attention - how're you getting along with your islamanazi terrorist friends in Saudi Arabia these days? As well as ever, is it? And what about your Iranian mass-murderer pals? Things coming along nicely for you there, are they - and with the mad mullahs' nuclear armaments?
Good point
I will wait till you get back to your original self. That is your raving anti-Indian self. Untill then I will reserve my comments.
Only a matter of time.
Fighting in Jammu and Kashmir was always seen by the west as a struggle for freedom but now i believe the outlook has changed slightly and the fighting is now seen as a war between islamic terrorists and India's desperate resolve to protect its citizens and its national intergrity and soverignity.But the world has a long way to go before it can condemn this war as a pakistan sponsered islamized proxy war.Unfortunately President George W Bush himself has spoken of the US pursuing tolerance and freedom in several contentious areas of the world, including Kashmir.
He vowed "we will pursue a world of tolerance and freedom. From Kosovo to Kashmir.(BUT THIS WAS BEFORE 9/11)
We are forced to get along well with our islamanazi "friend" primarily because we need their oil badly and because we dont want to be isolated.None of the world nations (that includes the USA an UK) will stand with us to condemn Saudi Arabia.
They're two faced dogs, and we should have attacked them the same time we attacked Iraq. They're not friends of ours, and they never will be.
L
finally we have got a true ally.
<< Fighting in Jammu and Kashmir was always seen by the west as a struggle for freedom but now i believe the outlook has changed slightly and the fighting is now seen as a war between islamic terrorists and India's desperate resolve to protect its citizens and its national intergrity and soverignity.But the world has a long way to go before it can condemn this war as a pakistan sponsered islamized proxy war.Unfortunately President George W Bush himself has spoken of the US pursuing tolerance and freedom in several contentious areas of the world, including Kashmir.
He vowed "we will pursue a world of tolerance and freedom. From Kosovo to Kashmir.(BUT THIS WAS BEFORE 9/11)
We are forced to get along well with our islamanazi "friend" primarily because we need their oil badly and because we dont want to be isolated.None of the world nations (that includes the USA an UK) will stand with us to condemn Saudi Arabia. >>
Ah-Hah - a reasoned voice. Thank God. [That's two of you]
Blessings - Brian
BUMPping
See post # 7.
And stop trying to see the world only by way of a drinking straw poked through the distorting smokescreen you've created of your own rather tawdry racist bigotry, hesperophobia and prejudices. It's not working for you and your mind, your inherent decency, which despite yourself always shines through your smokescreen - and your potential for greatness as a full-blown member of the Family of Man are all tied up, shackled and handicapped.
Please G-d you will go to America and do your PhD there, if for no better reason than to in future have a clearer world view from a wider perspective than that you are presently self-limited to. If you do go, I will be at home for most of the next six months and hope to meet you there and break some nan and drink some chai with you.
Blessings - Brian
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