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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Date: Sun May 18, 2003 2:15 pm
Subject: The Lessons America Teaches

http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp...politics&show=0&cid=55033

I was browsing through Hindunet.org, and came across the following
article. I want to share it with Sulekha readers and see what you
think.
- Sitaram
=================
Hindunet.org
Defence
Defence Policy

submitted by Mukund Kher
04/07/2000

LESSONS TO BE LEARNT BY OBSERVING THE AMERICAN BEHAVIOUR:

The USA attacks its enemies at will. It does not wait for explicit UN
authorization before using military force against its enemies like
Iraq, Bin Laden and Sudan. It does all this in the name of stopping
the spread of weapons of mass destruction. While USA is the only
country to have actually used nuclear weapons on another country, it
expects others to refrain from developing nuclear weapons and
missiles.

The USA talks about human rights. It talks about promoting democracy.
It tries to squeeze out smaller nations like Cuba on these issues.
But it continues to engage in trade with an authoritarian Communist
country like China. While the Chinese people are being crushed, the
USA earns big bucks from China by selling it dangerous military,
nuclear and missile technology which destabilizes the democratic
countries in the region.

The USA captures Serb leaders to try them on charges of human rights
abuses. It kidnaps them and transports them to another country. While
the USA sheds crocodile tears about human rights, it bombs innocent
civilians in Sudan and Iraq, and colludes with the Chinese
government, the worst human rights abusers on this planet. The past
USA record of installing dictators of its liking in Latin America,
Africa and other parts of the world comes back to haunt it in the
form of the arrest of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet on human
rights charges.

The USA swears by NPT and CTBT. But it has been a wilfull accomplice
in the Chinese proliferation activities. China has openly sold
nuclear material, nuclear bomb design and nuclear training to
Pakistan. The Pakistani nuclear bomb was tested in the Chinese test
range at Lop Nor. China has supplied ready-made M-11 missiles to
Pakistan, flouting the MTCR openly. The USA has knows about all these
Chinese activities, but has deliberately done nothing about it.

The USA asks India not to develop its missiles. The USA wants India
to roll back and cap its nuclear program. But USA continues to
develop Theater High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile and other
components of Star Wars. It continues to brazenly flout the spirit of
CTBT - which it has signed - by conducting 5 sub-sritical nuclear
tests in the past 2 years. The USA remains the only country in the
world which maintains nuclear weapons even outside its borders.

In spite of its overwhelming superiority in conventional weapons over
any combination of nations in the world, the USA zealously retains
its "right" to use nuclear weapons first in case of any conflict with
any adversary. What hypocrisy!! What right does the USA have to ask
other weaker countries like India who face a powerful enemy like
China - an enemy with stockpiles of nuclear weapons and long range
missiles - to let go of their own nuclear umbrella?

The USA does everything for its selfish interests in the name of
human rights, international community and world peace. Conveniently
ignoring the UN Security Council, it does as it pleases on the world
stage. At every stage the USA interferes in another country's affair
under the guise of vital US national interest.

As a recent Canadian Parliamentary report has stated, the USA
continues to 'speak from both sides of its mouth' on all these issues.

Conclusions:

1. India must never come under foreign pressure or blackmail on any
issue. We do not need to be apologetic or defensive about our
national interests. If the USA can claim 'vital national interest' at
places thousands of miles away, we can genuinely - and should
forcefully - claim our own national interest around our borders.
While talking about India's nuclear doctrine, our leaders do not have
to justify it in terms of 'minimal credible deterrence'. This idea of
minimalist deterrence may be a practical one for discussing within
internal fora, but has no place in discussions with foreigners. We do
not have to hobble ourselves for any reason. For that matter, we do
not need anybody's permission to do what is right for our country.

2. India must never sign CTBT, FMCT or any other treaty without being
in a superior position vis-a-vis China, Pakistan and USA.

3. India must accelerate its Integrated Guided Missile Development
program. We need to develop the range of Agni upto at least 4500
kilometers very soon.

4. India must not accept any linkage between foreign investment and
its economic development Do things your own way, not because somebody
forces you or blackmails you into doing something. Just look at the
Chinese. They violate all possible human rights. They bribe USA
government. They proliferate nuclear weapons and missiles. But still
China is considered by the Western businesses as a 'stable
government' and a 'booming economy'. This tells you what the real
priorities of the West are. They dont really care about any human
rights. All they want is to earn dollars from any source: be it a
proliferator, a murderous dictatorship, an ethnic-cleansing regime
like the Chinese in Tibet, a terrorist-training and supporting
country like Pakistan, etc.

Its time that India woke up to the realities of the world. India has
barely taken the first step towards protecting itself from future
aggression. From now onwards, it has to be on a permanent state of
alert, always ready to defend its interests in every field. Any slack
or give-away would cost us dearly.

==================
mukund khur
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/apr13/netchat.htm

How does Islam fit within secularism?

Democracy is a political system where more than one political party
competes based on the agenda. That is to say, one-party system is
anathema to a true democracy.

Secularism implies living space for all religions. No religion would
be expected to dominate and eventually eliminate other religions,
just as in a democracy no political party is expected to achieve
power and ban other parties.

But the whole basis of secularism is undermined by the main theme of
Islam, which states that it alone is the true religion, and all other
religions are false! Islam, based on teachings of Holy Kuran,
actively seeks to gobble up other religions one way or another.

Clearly, secularism and Islam are incompatible.

Prof Satvinder Singh

==============

So who teaches hatred?

M.G. Vaidya

This is with reference to the one-sided piece written by Amulya
Ganguli (`University' of hate, September 3). Being a pen-pusher for
the last 35 years, I could make a distinction between a
propagandist and a journalist.

A propagandist has to be selective in choosing his material and very
universal in his comments based on that selectivity. A journalist is
expected to view the subject in its entirety and then pass his
judgment.

I know I cannot impose my theory of this distinction, but I would
like to implore the readers to judge whether Ganguli's piece is cheap
propaganda or reasoned argument.

There have been a number of riots in pre- and post-independence
period in India. And who triggered these riots? In more than 90 per
cent cases, the Muslims stared the riots. Ganguli quotes 1947.
Surely, the pre-Partition and post-Partition days were
extraordinarily abnormal. To remember 1947 and forget 1946, when
thousands of Hindus were massacred in Calcutta during the `direct
action campaign', is an instance of selective memory unbecoming of
any rational analyst. Ganguli must be from Bengal. Who, Mr Ganguli,
were killed and who were the killers at that time?

In 1947, we witnessed a holocaust, trains full of dead bodies of
Hindus came to Delhi. As a reaction, passions were raised from this
side also and there were a few heinous killings here too.
But is it fair to put the action and reaction on the same plane?

The Pakistani attack on Kashmir in October 1947 and Indian reaction
of driving away the marauders have to be weighed on the same scale. I
hope Ganguli is not an apologist for Pakistan's attack and critical
about the Indian reaction. Every sensible person would justify
advance preparation to meet any potential attack.

I have some information about the Venugopal Commission. The
commission investigated the riots at Mandaiakdu in Kanyakumari. The
commission had clearly stated that the riots were triggered by the
conversion activities of Christian missionaries that were resented
and resisted by the Hindus of that area. Ganguli appears to have
taken a brief on behalf of the minorities. For his information, the
Hindus there were in a minority. But they are Hindus, and secular
Ganguli's conscience cannot be stirred by atrocities on Hindus,
because they are destined to be tortured,
persecuted and killed. What can the likes of Ganguli do about that?

I will not quote the judicial verdicts that umpteen times held the
Muslims responsible for engineering the riots.

Ganguli has quoted me and I am thankful to him for quoting me
correctly. Before joining journalism, I was a teacher in a Christian
college in Nagpur, where a senior Christian colleague
asked me, "Mr Vaidya, when you believe in the equality and validity
of all faiths and religions, why are you against conversion?" I
replied, "Because you do not believe in the validity of other
religions, so I am against conversion."

In this connection, I had said at that time that to allow a Hindu to
get converted to Islam or Christianity is to allow a tolerant person
to become intolerant. I need not quote the verses from the holy Koran
or the holy Bible in justification for the killings of kafirs and
heathens. I also need not elaborate on the inhuman brutalities which
the Muslim invaders, from Mohamed bin Kasim to Aurangzeb, inflicted
on the kafirs to make them faithful; nor the inquisition trials that
lighted the pyres not for burning corpses but living human beings.

We can ignore them as products of the barbaric Middle Ages. So I come
to the last decade of the 20th century. Will Ganguli enlighten the
readers why 5 per cent Hindus living in the Kashmir
Valley had to leave their ancestral homes to save their lives and
honour? What were they doing to the 95 per cent Muslims there?
Abducting their womenfolk, raping them, burning their houses or
demolishing their mosques?

And why were four RSS workers murdered in Tripura just a few months
back? What were they doing? Pulling down the churches? Mr Ganguli,
you should have shed at least one tear (may be of the crocodile
variety) for the despicable murders.

Ganguli must be a knowledgeable person. So, what I am writing here is
like carrying coal to New Castle. I want to remind the readers that
the governments of Madhya Pradesh and Orissa had passed a law
declaring conversion by fraud, force or allurement a crime. Every
well-intentioned person or institution would have welcomed this. But
no. The Christians rushed to the high courts to get the legislation
ultra vires of the Constitution. What does this signify?

Islam and Christianity are not alien religions simply because they
were born outside India. They are qualitatively foreign, because they
are intolerant of other faiths and religions. So, who teaches hatred?
The intolerant semitic religions or the Hindus? Is it a crime to be
intolerant of intolerance?

The likes of Ganguli should be grateful to the Savarkars and
Golwalkars who were born in almost every century in our country
which, as fate would have it, was ravaged by invading plunderers.
Sometime his name was Nanak and Ramdas or Vidyaranya and Harihar
and Bukka, or later on Vivekananda and Dayanand, and recently
Golwalkar and Savarkar. Otherwise the name `Amulya Ganguli' would
have to be written as Abdulla or Allauddin.

I know, for a secularist this may not make any difference. But don't
forget, when Abdullas, Allauddins or Ladens abound, there is no
secularism; and women have to put on a burqa lest they are targets of
acid-spraying terrorists.

I can understand the solicitude for the minorities for the likes of
Ganguli, but will they dare to go and live in either Srinagar or
Lahore, Dhaka or Noakhali, and enjoy the rights of the minorities
there?

SFG75 · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:08 pm Post subject:

I do agree that the U.S. is not exactly the best role model in regards to carrying out the values we espouse to others. Many in this country are disappointed in President Bush who has allowed many treaties and agreements to lapse. Whether it is arms reduction, nuclear test bans, or concerns about the environment, this administration has single-handedly undone decades of work that many previous presidents worked so hard to accomplish. The neocon vision of the world is that the U.S. should lead and not follow. What is not taken into their consideration is that leaders, by their actions, become admired and then are desired to lead by example. We haven't understood that-hence our present troubles in relation to our allies and the situation in Iraq.
_________________
To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching

Thunder · Joined: 29 Dec 2005 Posts: 24 Location: US

I think any and all political systems carry their own agenda regardless of the main advertised mission and aims they claim to portray. In a sense, the majority of the public, including me have been brainwashed into believing this, that and the other thing, via television, radio and advertising. It is money that is the big mover and shaker, followed by politics, power and the desire to "win". I quote "win" because everybody ahs their own interpretation of what winning is all about. For example, in the US, a classic example of how people view reality is a football game. In fact, you do not need to study the rituals of football to see the majority of the US society exemplified in 3 or four hours of interactive competition, and the rest of the attributes and characteristics that such a game generates...Big money, state against state...player against player...freedom of expression of emotions in a socially acceptable manner, rules, rules, rules and more rules...Time, an important factor at stake...Physical looks, strength and mastery, alongside mental logistics, planning careful scenarios management style, and basic gambling with those scenarios, (risk taking)
Most recently, I watched a movie that really inspired my idealistic and Utopic way to look at life and living: A movie that births th ebiginning of an attempt to listen to the Spiritual nature of reality and accomodate the possibility that, perhaps science is not th ecomplete answer to our current global or local problems, that there is a reality that has existed perhaps paralel to or even older than the pursuit of knowledge via the senses, that, apparently can be challenged and even changed, providing we have enough faith and belief in the process and have a mind open enough to explore the possibility...
Anyway, that is enuff from me for now...

_________________
Christ in my heart...Buddha in my mind...

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