Just indifferent to Paris

Yesterday there was a lot of watercooler talk at work. Given I don't have any social apps on my phone since the "Vrath" and I stopped listening to the radio while driving to and from work, was living in my own world. A few of my coworkers broke the news to me that 50 plus people were dead in Paris and there were multiple co-ordinated terror attacks and a hostage situation. 

When I came home Jr. asked me "Appa, do you know that there is a terror attack in Paris?" and I responded "yes". The little one chimed in with "Good thing your friend is back in the USA!" 

Somehow, I did not feel like reacting to this last night, with the usual :

- change my profile picture with a superimposed French flag

- write a one line status update to say how I feel for the French

- go like those new profile pictures 

etc. etc.

Those things don't do diddly squat towards a root cause fix.

My friends who are living in a parallel universe with exclusive news from Fox are quick to point out how "all muslims are terrorists" yet again. 

I am no saint. I have my share of bigotry, when looking up to my gun owning friends for an answer, everytime some idiot or deranged person goes on a rampage killing a few dozen people at some college or school or movie theater. Why should every gun owner apologize for the doings of some "deranged person"? It is not fair, because not all gun owners are mass shooters,  much the same way every muslim doesn't need to apologize for what happened in Paris because all muslims or not terrorists. 

We live in a world which is very well connected but we are also numb and immune to a lot of things because they are "out of sight and out of mind". We as a people need to understand that what goes around comes around. 

Have not seen many friends change their profile pictures to make a statement that said, what was happening in Syria to hundreds of thousands of innocent people was wrong, even when that four year old floated onto the european coast. When we are expected to feel so strongly for a 120 Parisians compared to 120,000 Syrians, there is something wrong with this world. 

The potential of human beings is not ratio'ed out based on their nationality or religion. 

Some of my friends have actually come out and said  "terrorism has a religion, it is called Islam"!

Well, show me a religion and I will show you a terrorist who claims he belongs to that religion and he is doing whatever he is doing, because of his religion. There are even buddhist terrorists in today's world! Religion is a means to an end. When the means become the end, we have a problem.

Also, nut job is a nut job in any part of the world, irrespective of religion. If folks are willing to blow themselves up or willing to be blown to bits in the name of defending god and country, it is time to rethink the solution to the problem. It is unlikely that we will eliminate religion. We can eliminate socio economic and political divides that are created by religious differences.

We need to see everyone the way we expect others to see us. If we are indifferent to the world, sooner or later the world will be indifferent to us. 

Can see that happen to me already. I have closed my window to the world. There was a time when I used to meet friends for lunch on a regular basis, meet old collegues, have tea with friends at home, call my family in India, on a more regular basis and stay in touch. Those things have dwindled down in favor of bowing down to my new god, the almighty USD!  In my attempt to reach his potus feet as fast as possible (it is an American god, pretty sure, it is a very male chauvinistic HIM.. because if it was a HER, the god will be worth only 65 cents..), I have changed a lot of priorities. 

Also given that every 15 -20 days there is a terror attack, drone strike, mass shooting and the occasional natural calamity in the form of earthquakes, tsunamis and heavy rain or floods, one feels the need to automate the obligatory condolence and solidarity messages on social media to say "I am with the crowd". 

What really gets me more than the terror attacks, is the quick response of the media in the US, to justify their phobias and their previous propaganda. This is specially true of Fox news clips that folks are sharing with me on Facebook.

Going forward, you will not see me post solidarity messages for anything. Yours truly will be happy to be one with himself and be able to not flinch, the next time someone says "terror attacks in abc or xyz". 

It is time for us to show that the USA, IS the greatest country in the world, not because it can proclaim itself so, based on the value of the USD and the number of weapons it has, but because it is able to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. 

If you can proclaim "non-violence" you don't even have to enforce "non-violence". If you proclaim violence, you will only be enforcing more violence in a vicsious never ending cycle. 

When I wrote that the US should not go to war in Iraq after 9/11 a lot of folks were upset with me. That vendetta war and the destabilization of the middle east has left us scars that will last a long time. Now there is a call for war with the middle east without knowing who we are fighting.

All the rhetoric that pits people against people in increasing numbers, is not going to help. 

Both Obama and Hollande are saying "Unity" will help us get through this. 

I agree.

It is time to Unite with the folks in the middle east and share their pain. It will help us get through this, not tomorrow or the day after, but maybe in this lifetime! It will get us to resolve all that is wrong with the world, much faster than another dozen drone strikes or by sitting in the comfort of our living room changing profile pictures.

It is time to spread some peace people! 

ps. See myself right now as part of the problem, not part of a solution. The solution is peace, not war. So if I don't speak up for peace now, I am just fueling the fire. You cannot fight fire with fire. You fight violence with peace, not with more violence. 

India, Pakistan, Iraq, USA, gooooo Wikileaks! *

Finally got to a mirror site to read some Wikileaks. For some reason the links would not work on the sites or Firefox would scare me. Tonight the stars aligned and this site let me in..

This was nice reading. Was hoping to have a laugh at what came out of Delhi but found this one from Islamabad and it was interesting..

These two paragraphs really made it interesting..

Pakistan/India
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¶8. (C) Petraeus said the most important threat to Pakistan was on the western border and internally. Terrorists were an existential threat to Pakistan. Kayani agreed. However, Kayani observed that he had postponed a missile test. The Indians, he said, in contrast, had conducted one just a few hours before. Kayani said he had no intention to resume missile testing as long as the current tensions persisted. He promised to be transparent with allies about his plans and had briefed us about his move of 6000 troops to the Indian border. Kayani said he was determined to exercise restraint in his actions with India. He recounted that he had taken no
ISLAMABAD 00000155 003 OF 003
action the evening that Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had supposedly called President Zardari and threatened to declare war. Kayani asked to be alerted if the U.S. had any warning of another attack - he understood that the Indians had been warned about the Mumbai attack. He mentioned that discussion of the consequences of a follow-on attack made both India and Pakistan hostage to extremists and increased the likelihood of an attack. “If there is any clue about another attack,” he said, “please share it with us.”

and

Swat Valley
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¶5. (C) Kayani was clear that the GOP had lost control of the Swat valley. He said the police had no ability to come in after the army to “hold” territory. He recounted that half of the 600 police officers, supposedly from the NWFP’s elite police units, destined for Swat had deserted, largely because there was no command structure. Petraeus replied that the U.S. had confronted this same issue in Iraq, describing it as a “clear and leave” strategy, requiring the retaking of the same ground multiple times. Petraeus observed that the police are the most vulnerable, since they are exposed in communities. Petraeus noted that increased measures to control population movements would probably have to be put in place throughout the country, which would require considerable manpower.

Pakistan has similar issues like Iraq when it comes to controlling extremists.

The military leadership is patient enough to not go for war. That is great. Maybe, maybe there will be a lasting peace when India and Pakistan jointly fight extremists.

The USA for its part is playing both sides. Well, that is to be expected!

India could have hastily gone to war and would be in the same boat as the USA. Thankfully there was no war. Looks like India was warned by the US about the attacks and the Pakistanis could not do anything about it either.

Just go through this stuff.. you might even find out who in India was warned about the attacks and what they did when they were warned!

This is one treasure trove of information which shows you that inspite of all that press and google and facebook being ubiquitous and in our face.. the hows and whys are always wrong!

Educated folks react to information thrown at them by the "in your face" media. We assume so many things, sway to popular opinion or in cases where we think we are better than the person who gets their news from facebook friends because we read and read a lot.. well, we read garbage!

If the press did what Wikileaks exposed on a daily basis, a lot of war, bloodshed would have been averted! A lot of politicians would have been exposed and their true colors come to light. People, countries might be more civil towards each other...

Well, maybe..

Go read it!

*.. this one is equally interesting..

Where is GWB?

GWB seems to have gone missing much like old Tamil TV actresses!

Eight years of prime time and then he is not there to defend things like this or this.

The whole thing is depressing.

So many people are losing their jobs here and we all work our tails off trying to make ends meet. A significant part of tax money goes into fighting unnecessary wars instead of ensuring a decent future for us or our kids..

Is it possible that GWB is now a part of the rendition program?

Is it possible that he is in some unnamed eastern European country going through interrogation on how he let all this happen and for what?

Every time I used to see or hear Bush speak about "war on terror" or "winning" the image of Dhritarashtra from the Amar Chitra Katha's flashed in my head!

There were so many ministers in his court who were wise but none wanted to speak up and let the blind king know how Draupathi was being humiliated and wronged in front of everyone..

Looks like the Iraqi vasthra haran was done in front of 100 senators as they all watched as Cheyneyodhana and Rumshasana did their thing.. even the wise Vidhura types like Powell watched out of loyalty for the blind King?!

For the longest time my thought was that the dark complexioned Krishna.. err Obama will finally come to rescue Draupathi.. He is a long time coming!

I do not want to go further with the analogy. Tharoor already did this context switch with the Great Indian Novel!

Strongly recommend Rajaji's Mahabharatha (or even the Amar Chitra Katha version for that matter) to American readers who want to see how the Mahabharata ends.

Tragic really!

One thing is for sure. No point in recapping the Vastra Haran or having to watch reruns of it. So Censoring the images is a good move.

Will try to do our best as a family when it comes to doing some kind of Prayachitam by raising two American kids who believe in peace and not in War, who believe it is possible to serve your country loyally and sincerely without picking up a weapon!

There are people out here who are proud to be American and associate being American with speaking our minds, being able to believe in "the American dream" and be able to speak up. It is a crying shame that we are all tacitly complicit in the Iraq war, because we didn't push our representatives to reason enough before going to war, pay good tax money to fund the war and the troops or not help take this up when the American press failed to do their job!

We are now the Kauravas!

Somehow that does not have a nice ring to it..

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Caution

There are some reports which are now suggesting that the latest terror attacks in Mumbai is "India's 9/11" and there are some extrapolated suggestions to use this justification for war with Pakistan.

We all know what the Iraq war did, not just to Iraq and the USA, but to the rest of the world.

If these attacks in Mumbai are the outcome of "home grown terrorism", then a lot will be lost if such extrapolations are made.

The American media (and some of the prominent Indian media - apparently the video clips are all from sites like NDTV, CNN-IBN etc) need some fact checking. When you market horseshit in the name of reportive journalism with total abandon for facts, consequences, in a time when tensions are high, it should be considered a criminal offense and these folks should be tried for inciting instabilty.

The press seems to want to one up saadhus and mullahs on brining out the worst in people!

My mother almost had a heart attack on 9/11 because the local headline in the newspaper was "Americave paththi erigiradhu" (whole of America is in flames). I was on a plane that day (not anywhere in harms way), but from where she was, the picture that was painted was very different. Some person who had a 3rd cousin in the USA would have offered his expert opinion on 9/11 that day to local TV channels.

We get so used to seeing neighbours of homicide victims talk about people they hardly know in the local news channels. Same thing, different circumstance, different people, different countries.

The outcome of this always is bad!

Read Kavi's post and was very comforted by it.

For those of you here in the USA who read this blog, happy thanksgiving.

Think happy thoughts. Be thankful for what we have and take for granted!

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History

This post is about a thought provoking comment letter that was read out in the local radio news this week.

A listener had written in to compare today's Iraq to pre-independence India in the 1940's!

My intitial reaction was "bah"! After some thought, I realized that the comment was right on!

Both the countries were/are in a state of unrest caused by civil disobedience.
Both countries plagued by attacks on the occupiers (Brits/Americans).
Both countries dealing with separatists within, thanks to divide and rule policies and a furthering of various local interests (in India it was Hindus vs. Muslims and in Iraq it is the different Muslim sects!)

The point that was made based on these similarities was :

1. The British decided India was no longer a place they could occupy!
2. They came up with an EXIT STRATEGY!!!!
3. They got out a few weeks ahead of schedule and Lord Mountbattern just pulled out and handed over control to the Indians.

This resulted in the following :
1. Indians were forced to react!
2. They formed a govenment and learnt to embrace democracy and developed a system realtime.
3. They did go through a painful partition with a lot of bloodshed to appease the separatists.

It took a few decades, but finally, they got their act together and are a major player in the modern world!!

So, an exit strategy today might not be a bad idea after all!

Who knows, history might do the one thing she is best at doing.

Repeat herself !?

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