Duh, Trouble Between US, Pak?

Washington's war on terror may have taken an unscripted turn in the New Year. But the US media isn’t telling much. They’ve been no...

Washington’s war on terror may have taken an unscripted turn in the New Year. But the US media isn’t telling much. They’ve been noticeably reticent all through this week about the events on Sunday. When there was a shootout between US and Pakistani troops in a ‘gray area’ along the Afghan border, one US soldier was shot and wounded, at which point the US forces ‘requested close air support’. An F-16 warplane, in other words, which promptly dropped a 500-pound bomb on the Pakistanis.

But weren’t the two forces supposed to be cooperating in hunting down the remnants of Taliban and al Qaeda forces who move back and forth across that tense and loosely policed frontier? For the WASHINGTON POST, the shooting ‘‘raised again the question of whether some Pakistani soldiers and tribal leaders still sympathise with their Taliban neighbours…’’ While THE NEW YORK TIMES hinted elliptically at ‘‘frustrations among Pakistani officials in the border areas who have watched local tensions rise while the operations have produced little’’.

The British media was less tightlipped. The GUARDIAN reported ‘Pakistani fury at US bombing of border’. The DAILY TELEGRAPH was certain that ‘Relations between Pakistan and America deteriorated sharply’. The paper said that although US politicians insist that Pakistan is still ‘on side’ in the war on terrorism, the country’s military leaders are becoming less sanguine. Both papers quoted from the unanimous resolution passed by the North West Frontier Province assembly, condemning the incident as ‘a severe blow to our sovereignty and independence’.

Trading Terror Places

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They can hold that sigh of relief in Baghdad and Pyongyang. Washington’s war may have stumbled into newer territories, but Iraq and North Korea retain their place on top of the hit list.

Actually, that’s not quite correct. The jury is still out on whether North Korea fully makes the grade. Over this past week, the US media has buzzed with heated debate on the matter. Bush himself drew a sharp distinction between the nuclear standoff with North Korea and his confrontation with Iraq. ‘‘I believe this is not a military showdown, this is a diplomatic showdown’’, he told reporters on his way to get a cheeseburger in Crawford, Texas. The NEW YORK TIMES noted that the president’s tone and his warnings changed perceptibly when he turned to Iraq.

Last week, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asserted that the US military can fight two wars at the same time. In the NYT this week, Warren M. Christopher, former secretary of state, contended that no president could manage that feat. ‘‘Anyone who has worked at the highest levels of our government knows how difficult it is to engage the attention of the White House on anything other than the issue of the day’’.

Immigration Act, Scene Four

Economist Jagdish Bhagwati’s thesis on international migration is laid out in full in the latest issue of FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Bhagwati argues that borders are beyond control and governments attempting to stem migration are forced into retreat and accommodation by factors such as civil society activism and the politics of ethnicity; hence, governments must reorient their policies from attempting to curtail migration to working with it.

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Bhagwati’s words must have taken on a special resonance in Britain this week. Where, amid an unending debate on immigration, the new Asylum Act 2002 has just kicked up a furore. The act, the fourth in nine years, looks set to become as infamous as the immigration acts that denied asylum to persecuted British passport-holding East African Asians more than 30 years ago, wrote the GUARDIAN. It pointed out that the act is littered with ideas rejected by Labour earlier: from so-called white-lists of states from which any and all asylum applications would be presumed ‘clearly unfounded’, to the withdrawal of food, accommodation and clothing from applicants.

Why Naidu Loves Nytimes.com

In the NEW YORK TIMES, high praise for our Chandrababu Naidu. Who has ‘moved decisively’ to transform Hyderabad into a computer programming and pharmaceuticals hub. Whose ‘businesslike, long-term approach’ to public policy in a country teeming with ‘populists pursuing short term fixes’ has made him the ‘darling of western governments and corporations’. Who has emerged in their eyes as ‘one of the most promising local leaders not just in India but in the developing world’. Even though change has been ‘slow’ outside Hyderabad, in the villages where a two-year drought has brought ‘considerable suffering’… The immediate provocation for the rush of accolades was a visit by the NYT correspondent to a college for computer software engineers in Hyderabad. It was reportedly on Naidu’s initiative that an abandoned government building on the edge of the city has been turned into an institution of higher learning.

Words That Need To Go Silent

THE GUARDIAN compiled a list of words that should be banished in the new year for ‘mis-use, over-use and general uselessness’. In their list: words like ‘weapons of mass destruction’, ‘material breach’, ‘homeland security’. In our list, may we propose: ‘secularism’, ‘communalism’ and ‘Hindutva’?

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