PAKISTAN - THE MAIN SOURCE OF ISLAMIC TERRORISTS - NEEDS TO BE KICKED HARD TO COOPERATE MEANINGFULLY!

The recent terrorist attacks in Indian city of Mumbai has clearly brought out that Islamic terrorists not only find safe haven in Pakistan, they are also being trained and deployed by Pakistan's ISI. This has been put beyond any shade of doubt by Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone captured terrorist in Mumbai.

This terrorist has written a three-page letter to the Pakistani High Commission, stating that as a citizen he was entitled to seek legal help from his own country to fight his case in Indian courts. The document finally settles the debate about the origins of Kasab and his fellow terrorists, and also establishes that the Mumbai attack was planned and launched from Pakistani soil.

US is rightly worried about threats to its own citizens from such attacks, Why? Because, these terrorist acts are supported and abetted by ISI - Pakistan's intelligence agency. This is the same agency which helped, in concert with CIA, in creating and training Taleban to fight the Russians during their occupation of Afghanistan.

It is no secret that ISI has factions which still sympathises with Taleban, Al-Qaida and the Islamic terrorists. One of the main reasons why US and NATO forces have not been successful to that extent in Afghanistan, and there is resurgence of insurgency is because the Taleban supporting faction of ISI provides necessary intel and logistics to the adversaries of US/NATO forces.

The reason for American worry is that the pro-Taleban faction of ISI may be covertly supporting some Taleban operation to strike within US. There seems to be some warnings already to this effect. One may ask, why this faction of ISI would support such an act to take place in US? The answer is simple: As long as the Al-Qaida remains alive, ISI would continue to have some leverage with US. Musharraf used this leverage very effectively for his survival.

ISI virtually acts as an autonomous organisation reporting only to the Army chief of Pakistan. This agency is rarely in control of democratically elected Prime Minister or President of Pakistan. Former President Musharraf could control ISI by virtue of having the Army Chief's post at the same time.

Also, the continuance of Taleban and Al-Qaida assures unmitigated flow of funds for ISI, these funds are used by ISI bosses to amass their personal wealth and also to carry out it covert operations in various countries, including India. These covert operations are used by ISI bosses as bargaining cards vis-a-vis their political masters for furthering their own careers.

However, whenever Pakistan is asked to cooperate in actions meant to take out the Taleban/Al-Qaida, it enthusiastically responds but only through glib verbiage. But what happens on ground actually depends on what the controlling factions of ISI decide to do. Generally, the action on ground is just a sham to show to the American masters that Pakistan is cooperating.

Moreover, Pakistan is also the breeding ground of new terrorists - they are created in the hundreds of madrassahs operating in that country. These institutions are providing a steady supply of half-mad radical Muslims ready to die for any 'jihad'. They just need to be brainwashed as the captured terrorist in Mumbai calls it "I was misled, Lashkar's devils ensnared me." (Lashkar is a terrorist outfit supported by ISI).

These madrassahs produce jihadis with newer ideas to operate, the recent one being termed as 'asymmetric tactics'. This tactics was in evidence in the killing of 3 British soldiers in Afghanistan by a 13-year old suicide bomber.

If US, Britain and other west European powers want to be safe from potential Islamic terrorist attacks, they will need to kick the ISI real hard to make it kneel and cooperate in fighting Islamic terrorism. The kicking needs to be done literally using the booted foot, and in the form of most uninhibited tongue lashing through to turning the screws militarily and economically.

Pakistan cooperates best when it is kicked with hobnailed boots. History testifies to this. Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his commander-in-chief Hari Singh Nalwa used this philosophy to subjugate and stamp out any potential opposition from the then areas of what constitutes today's Pakistan and Afghanistan (including the border areas between the two countries). It appears this truth has finally dawned on Bush administration but only too late.

As well, it seems President-elect Obama knows a bit of the history, that's why he did tough talking saying "we will stamp out any attempt to repeat Mumbai-like killings." May be he knows the Pakistanis better than the previous American presidents.

So, in summary if US and its western allies want to see an end to the Islamic terrorism in the world, they got to kick Pakistan in to submission and force it to cooperate in real sense in war against terror. But if US continues to allow itself to get fooled by sweet-worded assurances of Pakistani leadership and the ISI, there will be more American blood to be shed - whether in Afghanistan or on the US soil itself. One hopes this will not happen because US would have seen through by now the Pakistani sham and its habit of lying shamelessly.

MR. OBAMA, PLEASE HANDLE INDIA (AND KASHMIR ISSUE) WITH CAUTION!

This is a open letter to President-elect Barack Obama on the above subject.

Dear Mr. Obama,

Hearty congratulations to you on your election to the presidency of United States of America!

Many, including me, heard your comments on your first press conference with great interest. The media is also reporting about your team formation process and the 'deliberate haste' that you are proposing to exercise. So far so good.

However, there are some media reports that suggest that you are considering to bring in former President Clinton to act as a mediator for resolving Kashmir issue. You are reported to have said during your luncheon meeting with Clinton in New York recently, “We should probably try to facilitate a better understanding between India and Pakistan and try to resolve the Kashmir crisis so that Pakistan can stay focused not on India, but on the situation with those militants (on Pak-Afghan border).”

The news is also rife that Gen David H Petraeus, who took over as commander of the US Central Command on October 31 and visited Pakistan and Afghanistan soon after that, has reportedly nominated Ahmed Rashid and Shuja Nawaz, author of the recently published book on Pakistani Army called "Crossed Swords", as members of a brains trust to advise him on a new strategy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Ahmed Rashid (along with Barnett Rubin) in an article in Foreign Affairs called for a “grand bargain” in which the Pakistani state trades a course correction on its western front with a more sustained international effort at resolving the Kashmir dispute with India. Former Pak president Pervez Musharraf justified abandoning the Taliban regime in September 2001 as a legitimate price Pakistan had to pay in order to keep up its support for militants in Kashmir.

But the outgoing US administration rightly found it difficult to accept such a trade-off, especially, after the brutal murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl which highlighted the fact that there are no walls that separate the terrorists operating in different parts of Pakistan.

Mr. President-elect, the foregoing, which I tried to keep as brief as I could, is meant to provide a background so that I could make a sincere request to you: In your administration's eagerness to deal with anti-American forces in Afghanistan/Pakistan please do not push anything on India regarding Kashmir.

Mr. Obama, American interests will be best served if your administration can get Pakistani military to forswear involvement in politics for all time to come. Once that step is taken in earnest, the policy of building alliances with or tolerating terrorists in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Pakistan itself would naturally come to an end.

Instead of achieving the above, if your advisers get launched on the so-called “grand bargain” trajectory, it will be like trying to address the surface rather than trying to hit the root cause. And, in the process the strong partnership which got built between US-India during the last four years can potentially get undone.

Mr. President-elect, India has unhappy memories of some of your foreign policy advisers — Anthony Lake, Strobe Talbott, Robert Einhorn and Richard Holbrooke. Please tell your State Dept folks to DELINK Kashmir from any US strategy on Afghanistan. It doesn't require much brain to understand that support to any terrorist elements, be it in Kashmir or in any part of the world by any govt (in this case Pakistan) is totally unacceptable.

What I am trying to say, if your policy advisers tell you that to incentivize Pakistan (read Pak military & ISI) to help US in winning against Taleban, US has to mediate and 'solve' Kashmir issue (in some way that would please Pak), there is nothing more foolish, illogical, unethical, unprincipled than this.

If YOU didn't subscribe to anything Bill Ayers purportedly said about radicalism, how can you let your judgement be clouded by any "grand bargain" strategy which predicates itself on pleasing one set of radical elements (i.e. the militants in Kashmir) to almost beg support from a govt (Pakistan) to serve US interests.

If you don't handle the Kashmir issue from moral, logical grounds you may end up screwing up an excellent alliance that got built up between US and India - an alliance which has far more strategic spin-offs for US than one could imagine.

My suggestion to you would be that before embarking on any US-Pak-Afghan policy that potentially impacts India, please have a chat with your running mate, Joe Biden. He will have a lot to contribute in finding a strategy that on one hand will get US its desired outcome, but at the same time it will not seek to bulldoze India in some uncomfortable situation which will have immense potential negative knock-on effect.

You may also like to consult Karl Inderfurth, one of your foreign policy advisers.

I hope you will handle India (and Kashmir issue) in a 'deliberate' and sensible manner. Please remember it takes a long time to build a mutually advantageous alliance; and it takes a far shorter time to weaken and/or destroy that alliance!

With warm regards.