Wage peace, not war
Conflict in Kashmir could vaporise millions, but the world's 'moral leaders' are looking away

There is something dreamlike about our contemplation of the drift to war in Kashmir. While India and Pakistan move their missiles into position, in Britain our concerns are focused on the evacuation of our own citizens, the destination of the likely refugees, and the possibility that the Indian cricket team might be prevented from visiting England at the end of this month. That 12 million people could be vaporised if the war begins in earnest is viewed as regrettable, but nothing to do with us.

In the United States, the sense of detachment is even more palpable. On Sunday, President Bush told the nation that "we cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign non-proliferation treaties, and then systematically break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialise, we will have waited too long." But he was talking not about India or Pakistan, but about rogue states which might one day attack the US. He mentioned "South Asia" once, but only as an example of a region whose leaders had been recruited to his cause.

In waging war, Bush and Blair were tumid with moral leadership and purpose. In waging peace, they display only vapidity and irresolution. Deputies are dispatched on half-hearted missions to ask the two governments to negotiate, but no one is proposing the measures necessary to prevent what could become the most lethal conflict since the second world war. The "moral imperatives" so often invoked during the bombing of Afghanistan turn out to be nothing more than old-fashioned power politics. Now, with few clearly formulated domestic interests at stake, the new world order's moral leaders are looking the other way.
[read more]

thanks to Cursor

----------

The Most Dangerous Place in the World
By SALMAN RUSHDIE

The present Kashmir crisis feels like a déjà vu replay of the last one. Three years ago a weak Indian coalition government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party had just lost a confidence vote in India's Parliament and was nervously awaiting a general election. At once it began to beat the war drums over Kashmir. Now another coalition government, still led by the B.J.P. and deeply tainted by B.J.P. supporters' involvement in the massacre of hundreds of Muslims in Gujarat State, may be about to lose another general election. So here goes the government again, talking up a Kashmiri war and asking India to stand firm behind its leadership.

Three years ago in Pakistan, the equally weak government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had bankrupted the national economy and was facing well- documented corruption charges. Mr. Sharif, too, had much to gain from war fever — fed by the various Muslim terrorist groups operating in Kashmir. The hawkish Pakistani general then responsible for communicating with and training those terrorist groups was one Pervez Musharraf. (By the way — just so we're clear on who Mr. Musharraf, now Pakistan's president, really is — some of these groups were almost certainly sent by Pakistan's intelligence service to Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.) When Nawaz Sharif succumbed to American pressure and promised to rein in the terrorists, General Musharraf was furious. A few months later he overthrew Mr. Sharif in a coup and seized power.

Will the outcome also be a replay of three years ago? Will the conflict be contained again?
[read more]

thanks to Cowlix