Rumsfeld set for Kashmir mission (Rumsfeld to try to drag both back from the abyss)

US President George W Bush is to send his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to India and Pakistan region in an attempt to quell rising tensions over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Mr Rumsfeld is expected to travel to the region next week as part of continuing efforts by the international community to prevent all-out war between the two nations.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell also announced that he is to send his top aide - Richard Armitage - to the region to help in peace efforts.

Calling on Mr Musharraf to "live up to his word", Mr Bush said that incursions across the line of control with India must stop as war "will not serve their interests".

Troop movement

The move comes as Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said he was considering moving troops from Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan to its eastern border with India.

Officials said troops were on the move, and witnesses near the Afghan border said they had already seen trucks heading east.

The troops have been helping United States forces in their search for al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters.

Rashid Qureshi, General Musharraf's chief spokesman, said the movements would not affect Pakistan's relations with the US-led coalition and Islamabad would continue to give the "best possible support".

"The task of sealing the western border still continues to be done," he told AFP.

"Some extra troops have been moved to the eastern border."

However the US earlier expressed concern about reports of plans for the redeployment, saying it could hurt the effort to stop Taleban and al-Qaida fighters moving in and out of Afghanistan.

Correspondents say that without the troops' presence the coalition has little chance of complete success against al-Qaeda, many of whose leaders are thought to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal regions.

Witnesses in Pakistan's northwest frontier region said they had seen scores of army trucks moving troops.

Iqbal Khan, a storekeeper on the road near Miran Shah - a town on the Afghan border - told The Associated Press he had seen trucks moving towards Punjab from the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan.

An Indian army spokesman, meanwhile, said he was in "full knowledge" of the troop movement and "in complete control of the situation".

Sruti Kant told the AFP news agency that the troops were moving to areas bordering the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan.

Border build-up

The news came as three Indian policemen and two suspected Islamic militants were killed in an attack on a police base in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Tension has been increasing since two weeks ago, when three men India says were Pakistani-based Islamic militants attacked an army camp in Kashmir killing 31 soldiers and their families.

Since that attack, India and Pakistan have amassed a million men between them along their border, backed by missile batteries, tanks and fighter planes.

The continuing build-up follows a speech to Pakistani troops on Wednesday, in which General Musharraf said he would counter-attack if India started a conflict.

"The defence forces of the country are fully prepared... in case of any aggression from across the borders," General Musharraf told soldiers at an Pakistani air force base.

What a waste of time. Sad that even Rumsfeld is beholden to a demonstrated failing doctrine of foreign policy initially hatched by Kissenger and amplified by successive waves of appeasers, believers in Fukuyamaian logic of exception to historical and geopolitical processes, and, the almighty US based, but utterly non-nationalistic and non-patriotic "global" corporate community. The time for us to return to a policy of DEFINITE allies and taking DEFINITE sides in geopolitical struggles that will ultimately force us to take the sides we now avoid, was yesterday. Like the UK 1919 - 1939, we foolishly believe in temporary constructs such as the UN (just like the unltimately failed League of Nations) to allow us to shirk our responsibility to CONTROL to the maximal level of our capability factors that shall ultimately coalesce into the next great powers conflict. With the forgoing set into place, does anyone care to give me an opinion regarding which country, India or Pakistan, we must take the side of immediately?

I think this brewing war is fully preventable and I wish Rumsfeld well in stopping it. I have some suggestions about how that might be brought about. Two levels - immediate security matters and linked longer term political ones.

Pakistan for its part should not only agree to police camps inside its territory, but should allow third party observors in that process. Whoever seems appropriate - Turks or Indonesians or Canadians or some mix. The idea is to reassure India that the actions being taken are not just window dressing, and to give credibility to Pakistani claims that they are trying seriously. India for its part should cease its provocative moves along the border and drp the present war threat. Again, observed doing it by third parties.

But those will not be enough. They do not address the real problem, of private parties in Pakistan and in Kashmir trying to bring about a war and conducting their own foreign policies, trying to foist them on the Pakistani state. The principle involved in stopping that must be that states determine control of territories according to international security concerns, and specifically that they are not determined by identity group politics, populist local sentiment, or campaigns of violence. However, when violence is not used, populist concerns deserve to be heard. Which in this case means -

For its part, Pakistan should renounce all territorial claims to Indian-occupied Kashmir. Seeking control of the territory of a foreign state is a belligerent act, whatever slogans are used to justify it and by whatever means it is pursued. Since Pakistan transparently does not want war with India, it should stop acting belligerently in this respect by leaving open a claim to territory controlled by India. The basis of every maintained peace is the recognition of the existing military facts on the ground, instead of trying to change those facts.

In return, India should renounce its claims to Pakistan controlled Kashmir. And it should also state a willingness to deal with any local Kashmir political groups that renounce violence, while retaining the right to use force within its territory - including Indian-occupied Kashmir - against any political groups that resort to violence. Nothing to violence, any reasonable degree of local autonomy to peaceful political processes.

The real test in all of this is whether rational states planning their foreign policies according to their real interests - including their powerful interest in maintaining peace between states - are really in control of their foreign policies. Because the terrorist idea is essentially that of "privatizing" foreign policy, subsuming it under identify group politics that operate without any rational control, on blind passion. Which is not a livable idea in a nuclear world, whatever pieties of populism and nationalism peddled over the last 200 years say about it.

"Self determination" is only compatible with civilization if pursued by peaceful political means exclusively. Pursued via privatized terrorist violence, it leads directly to an anarchic war of all against all - and in this technological era and even more so in future ones, to the destruction of all who engage in it.

Can the US bring about such mutual concessions? I think so, if we are willing to bring our full power to bear. We can deter India, if Pakistan cannot. Especially so when Europe and Russia entirely agree with us in the matter. It would be madness for India to persist in a war policy if we organize all the great powers against that course, and back it up with a real willingness to make India pay if they persist in their present course to war. Great powers cannot make war on allies of other great powers lightly.

There is comparatively little difficulty with Pakistan, where our leverage is enourmous. If we insist, and threaten to let India proceed if the Pakistani's do not follow our lead in the matter, then Pakistan would be crazy to turn us down. Especially when we can offer real benefits in return for renouncing claims to Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The passions of a crazies who want Islam to be at war with the world (there are such crazies on both sides of this one, Islamicists allied to Bin Laden, and Islam-haters who want Ragnorok) need not control the foreign policies of nuclear powers. They cannot be allowed to substitute their murderous passions for reason.

Pakistan should renounce all territorial claims to Indian-occupied Kashmir. [...] In return, India should renounce its claims to Pakistan controlled Kashmir.

Indian leaders have said that they are willing to consider the option of declaring the LoC the International Border. They have not done so officially (in Parliament) yet, however. The Pakistanis, OTOH, dismiss the notion outright.

And it (India) should also state a willingness to deal with any local Kashmir political groups that renounce violence

India has officially said any former-terrorist organization (i.e. any organization that has disarmed) may contest elections in Jammu and Kashmir. The only problem is, the current J&K administration (the National Conference) has been in power for decades, and the bureacracy is saturated with NC loyalists, thus creating (plausible) allegations of electoral fraud every time an election is held and the NC wins. They seem to always win, which would indicate that elections in J&K are not free and fair. The current government in New Delhi at one point indicated that they'd like to appoint a caretaker government to conduct elections, but the NC threatened to pull political support at the Federal level, which the BJP needs.

They have been very quiet. Of course they are a traditional ally of Pakistan and enemy of India. But they have been somewhat shoved aside in Pakistan by its post 9-11 shift to a pro-US line. They certainly have not pledged to aid Pakistan to protect it from India.

China probably likes the fact that the US is worrying about Islam, not Taiwan or Korea. The basic story seems to be they stir up trouble for us at long distance and stay out of the resulting fracas. They have supported Sudan, Pakistan, and Syria in particular for those sorts of reasons. But they have avoided any direct "crossing" of the US over such things, reserving that for Taiwan.

I doubt they relish the prospect of India defeating Pakistan in a conventional conflict, or the prospect of a nuclear exchange. But they probably don't mind us being worried and busy over it, and divided between Pakistan and India. The whole thing undoubtedly helps them sell missles. But the bottom line is they don't want India to just win outright, but don't appear ready to jump in to help Pakistan and prevent that - so I doubt they want an actual shooting war.

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The India-Pakistani Conflict... some background information-