EDITORIAL
A gubernatorial code
One and a half decades
after it was first made Sarkaria commission
recommendation about the gubernatorial appointments has
finally been cleared by the inter-state council to become
an active code for the appointment of governors in
future. The governors now would be barred from entering
active public life-political life that is- after they lay
down their office. They however can be appointed for a
second term. Accepting another of the commission’s
recommendations, the inter-state council has stipulated
that the appointment of governors would be in
consultation with the respective state government.
Governor's office has long been looked upon as an
interference of sorts by the state governments while it
has usually been used as an easily available tool by the
central government. Thus the office has come to be at the
center of controversy every time the issue of the
autonomy of the states arose. That issue has been raised
every time a state was in high conflict with the center
and the time came for appointment of a new governor
there.
But the conception of the
governor’s office has not been to give the central
government a handle on the government of a state. The
structure of the Indian polity is not that of a true
federation. Though it has federal elements it does have
strong centralizing or unionist tendencies. One of the
unionist instruments has been the appointment of the
governors. Governors in the states conceived as the
agents of the union government, and the constitution
plainly says so. The union authority over the residual
legislative powers and the overriding powers of the
central government in the concurrent list of matters of
legislation, have been the other important indicators
that ‘India is to be a union of states’. Though
the prerogative of the union government may have given
rise to moments of irritation, there have been several
occasions during these past fifty years of the working of
the constitution, which have proved that these unionist
provisions made by the founding fathers of the
constitution have been farsighted and apt. They may not
have foreseen that terrorism at one time would be a high
menace facing the country, but they did anticipate such
situations. They may also not have visualized that an
elected Chief Minister would get in as grossly as
Jayalalitha did but their insight provided a solution.
They certainly would not
have believed that a governor, a former judge of the the
Supreme Court at that, would not even blink at those
happenings. Yet the provisions that may be an anathema to
the Chief Ministers in office have demonstrated their
utility to the union of India as well as the states. It
may not be very wise, in the long run, to turn
‘India, the union of states’ into a federation
of states. The two recommendations accepted the other day
should remove some of the misgivings of the politicians
at the state level especially those of the regional
parties. The participation of the ex-governors in
politics was not fair. It was an embarrassment, a
practice that lowered the dignity of this high office,
too. It has rightly been banned. But the provision for
two-term appointment is not clear. Governors have
frequently held office for two or more tenns. Probably,
it is to make the two-term appointment a regular norm -an
assured two-term appointment, so to say -in lieu of the
incumbent’s further banishment from the public life.
And, that may not accord with the very function of this
crucial office. Otherwise, the move is right, though one
must caution the overzealous federalists against diluting
the unionist character too much. India lives as a union
of States and should remain so.
India in Afghanistan
There is a tide in the
affairs of the nations that none can predict. Fifteen
years ago fall of Soviet Union and the world getting
hopelessly unipolar to the extent that even the Russian
leadership would think of the American perception before
making a statement, was unthinkable. Two years ago, the
return of president Rabbani and the northern alliance to
the center of Afghan governance was highly unlikely. Why,
even a fortnight ago when America was high on pampering
Pakistan, India’s role in the future governance of
Afghanistan, was not easily visualized. Yet she is there
today, in the group of countries that would delineate a
course, the future polity of Afghanistan should take.
Yes, history like life goes forward by mutation-like
jumps and the intervening period between the consecutive
jumps gives no indication of where those jumps are going
to land. One could say that India’s inclusion in the
group was the most natural. It is. But that is not why
India is there. One could even say that with her
principled stands, India was just waiting to be the most
influential of the countries in the world. It should have
been. But it simply isn’t. Whatever prestige India
today enjoys in the comity of nations, is more because of
her economic strength than any sticking-to-principles
during those righteous NAM days.
The fact of ancient
contacts, from Gandhara mahajanpad, to Buddhism to that
famous Silk route is often invoked. Yet none of them gave
India an iota of influence with the yesterdays’
Taliban to save Bamiyan. Or, these very, northern fellas
in their earlier Mujahideen incarnation, when they hanged
Najibullah. Now that history has taken a quantum jump,
all has changed. The considerations and calculations that
were very indicative yesterday have become irrelevant and
new combinations have come to the fore. Pakistan that
till a couple of months ago, was the high patron of
Afghanistan via the Taliban, is fast becoming a country
non-gratis there. So was it unthinkable, then, that
Russia and America would become the dispensers of the
Afghan destiny. Yet that is the reality today, But
tomorrow ? Who knows’? There may be another mutatory
turn and the whole apple cart may overturn. That is why
the political commentators and the stock-market analysts
can only dissect the past not predict the future. Yes, it
is sometimes useful to muse that tomorrows are not always
birthed by todays. Was that why the sages always insisted
on Dharma, and Gandhi put the means before the end ?
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Tongue-rattling
in Washington
By K.N. Pandita
General
Musharraf has allowed himself to indulge
in tongue rattling. Instead of
highlighting the burning Afghan crisis,
the ground situation there, the probable
outcome of American aerial attacks, the
difficulties in the path of formulating a
representative Government, and the
crucial question of reconstructing
Afghanistan from the debris of war, the
General has harped on Kashmir. This is
his old tactics.
Obviously
the General received a boost from the
generous support promised by the US
President in terms of funds and armament.
Even on political level, what the US
President has said should give the
General much needed crutches.
Lavish
praise showered by the US President upon
his guest is a bizarre example of the
leader of the world’s strongest
democracy patting the world’s
strongest military dictator. This
explains to us the basics of American
democracy.
Perhaps
the General deserves it. Has he not
treacherously stabbed the Taliban in
their back? Has he not sold his country,
his conscience and his faith in order to
find support from the world’s
strongest democracy and the unipolar
power for the massacre of democracy in
his native land? Now he will rule over
the destiny of 120 million dumb-driven
cattle till his benefactors liquidate the
Taliban, fragment Afghanistan and scout
the Central Asian hydrocarbon booty.
How should
India look at the whole scenario shaping
in our neighbourhood? Indians have not
liked the tantrums of the General to the
US officials and at the UN General
Assembly. Even the Prime Minister has
come out with a rebuff he thought
befitted the occasion.
Anger and
sentiment are the enemies of astute
diplomacy. General Musharraf has changed
his country’s policy overnight.
But the cynics ask, "Has Pakistan a
foreign policy?" And for that
matter, has the USA a foreign policy? I
raise this question in a larger context,
which is best explained by a joke retold
by a friend. An American and an Indian
talked casually about their respective
countries, and the American said,"
Listen my friend, America has no past and
India has no future." As an American
he was very right in what he said. That
America has no past, is the crux of the
matter. If she had, she would also have a
principled political philosophy. If
Pakistan had a past, she too would have a
principled political philosophy. This is
where the two converge. Therefore, both
are right in making casual friendship and
extracting utmost they can from one
another with lightening alacrity. The
other part of the American’s
remark is also not devoid of truth in the
sense that he, having no past, is totally
unable to understand India, a country
bandaged in her past. That is typical
American thinking. Therefore we in India
should not jump at the conclusion.
We have
been the victims of cross-border
terrorism for more than two decades. We
have been telling the world and the US
about it and we have been fighting
against it all alone. The US began to
realise what we were saying only after 11
September and she took a concrete step to
protect her country and its people from
further attacks by the terrorists.
The
terrorists active against us in Kashmir
have their roots elsewhere and not in
Kashmir. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi
Arabia are the countries where the roots
lie. The US is directly involved in
fighting the roots of religious terror in
its most powerful stronghold, viz.
Afghanistan. Eventually, US’
ability to stem the tide in Afghanistan
will have its repercussions on Kashmir.
Thus she is fighting our battle.
The US is
aware of Pakistan’s complicity in
fomenting terrorist and fundamentalist
organisations in and outside Pakistan.
She has roped her in and made her support
anti-terrorist action. The hard-liners at
home have ganged up against the General.
They want his head and they will not rest
until they get it. That much is certain.
We find that our enemy is the worst enemy
of our worst enemy. Let them fight to
finish. This is the situation, which the
US brought about through money power.
This is the money she has amassed after
exploiting the oil riches of the Muslim
world: she utilises it in the Muslim
country to set a thief catch a thief.
This all goes in our favour. Why should
we be angry with the US? Do we have a
better friend in our travail than the US?
Perhaps not.
And
finally comes up the question of Kashmir.
What the US President has said is what
his country has been saying for years at
end. There is no deviation. Many US
officials and diplomats have expressed
that the US would like to help the two
antagonistic countries in South Asia to
come together. Yet they could not and
cannot move beyond this limit. They know
India is not going to succumb to the
blackmail of Pakistan though the US does.
President
Bush advises both India and Pakistan to
resolve the dispute through dialogue. Did
he do the same when confronted by the
Taliban? He lost about seven thousand
innocent Americans in the WTC attack.
India has lost civilians and security men
many times more in Kashmir terrorism. If
the US finds it rational to attack
Taliban, how come she advises India to
observe restraint? These are blatant
double standards, and we should not be
surprised. Our Prime Minister was very
right in saying it point blank that
Pakistan will never get Kashmir and the
only worry he has is to get back the part
illegally occupied by Pakistan. The best
response to American pressures on New
Delhi would be to keep her powder dry.
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Does
bin Laden pose nuclear threat ?
By Satyabrata Rai
Chowduri
Against
the background of the US-1ed
international coali-tion’s war
against terrorism, to many people, the
most frightening prospect is that bin
Laden’s Al-Qaeda network might use
weapons of mass destruction, specifically
nuclear weapons. Most attention is now
directed to the apprehension that some
form of nuclear materials have already
fallen into terrorist hands for possible
use in their war against the West.
According
to Western intelligence sources, the
mastermind of the September 11 attacks on
the US did not have the intention to
mount a nuclear attack, but could do so
if he wished. They believe that Laden
obtained enough nuclear materials not
only from Pakistan but also from other
sources. The knowledge that bin Laden has
components for a nuclear device is his
arsenal is believed to lie behind the
regular warnings from President Bush and
Prime Minister Tony Blair that he would
commit worse atrocities than the suicide
assaults on New York and Washington if he
were able to.
There are
a number readily conceivable scenarios.
One would involve the terrorist seizure
of a nuclear facility with a subsequent
demand that a government accede to
certain claims under the threat of having
the facility sabotaged, thus releasing
radioactive material over the
surroundings. The panic which followed
the release of radioactive gases during
the crisis at the Three Mile Island
nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in
1979 gives some indication of the
potential impact of such a demand on a
threatened population.
Given what
happened on September 11 in the US and
the level of security that has been shown
to exist at some nuclear power plants in
the past, it is not inconceivable that a
determined group of well-equipped and
well-organised terrorists could assault
and take over a nuclear facility.
Other
scenarios involve the acquisition of
nuclear weapons by a terrorist group. A
number of possibilities exist here. One
is that a nuclear weapons state may
supply a terrorist group with such a
weapon. However, it is difficult to see
in such a step a situation in which the
benefits accruing to a nuclear state
would outweigh the potential costs or
dangers of such a course of action.
Even then,
it may be recalled that George Tenet,
Director of the CIA, told the Senate
Intelligence Committee last year that
there were enough evidence to indicate
that bin Laden had obtained substantial
quantity of nuclear materials. Moreover,
some well informed sources are convinced
bin Laden has a nuclear capability.
According to a book about the terrorist
leader, The Man Who Declared War on
America, Chechen rebels facilitated the
sale of nuclear suitcase bombs in the
late 1990s from a range of former Soviet
republics including Ukraine, Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan and Russia.
Quoting
Russia and Arab sources, the author,
Yossef Bodansky, says that bin
Laden’s go-between paid the Chechens
$ 30 million in cash and gave them two
tonnes of heroin with a Western street
value of up to $700 million for a number
of bombs. it was after this deal that bin
Laden issued a statement saying "It
is the duty of all Muslims of the world
to prepare as much force as possible to
crush the enemies of God."
After this
statement intelligence sources in the US
voiced concerns about bin Laden obtaining
material for a "dirty bomb."
Rather than being used in an atomic
weapon, the material would be dispersed
in a way that would seriously contaminate
a large area. In an urban environment
thousands of people could die and
thousands more be exposed to radioactive
poisoning.
In 1993, a
senior bin Laden operative, Jamal
al-Fadi, met a Sudanese military
commander on Khartum to try to negotiate
the sale of a cylinder of enriched South
African uranium for a black market price
of $2.5 million. A separate Al-Qaeda
attempt to buy weapons-grade nuclear
material through a Russian mafia group
was foiled in Prague when several
kilograms of highly enriched uranium were
seized. The German government informed
the CIA about this incidents.
On October
12, two former government nuclear
scientists in Pakistan were detained in
the US amid suspicion about their close
links with the Taliban. Bashiuddin
Mahmood was project director in
Pakistan’s nuclear programme before
its 1998 tests. Since retiring from the
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission three
years ago, he ran a group which carried
out relief work in Afghanistan, and was
known to be supportive of the Taliban.
Chaudhary Abdul Majid was a director of
the Commission in 1999. Western
intelligence officials are convinced that
these two men were primarily responsible
for turning enriched uranium into atomic
"suitcase bombs" for the
Talibans under the instruction of bin
Laden. The easier outcome of this is a
radiological weapon - a conventional
weapon with a radioactive core -which has
the ability to contaminate large areas.
According
to Western intelligence officials there
have been clear evidences for several
years that bin Laden’s agents have
been trying to buy, steal or smuggle
nuclear systems in order to attack the
west. He said repeatedly that it was his
"religious duty" to seek to
acquire chemical , biological and nuclear
weapons of mass destruction. According to
an informed source, bin Laden appears to
have amassed a terrifying" of
nuclear weapons although he is insistent
that he does not have the capacity to
launch a nuclear attack.
It would
appear, then, that while some experts
disagree about the ease with which a
nuclear device can be acquired or
constructed which could be successfully
detonated, a dedicated and desperate
terrorist group like bin Laden’s
al-Qaeda does certainly pose a real
nuclear threat to its enemies. It will be
an egregious error of judgement to wish
away bin Laden’s capability to use
nuclear weapons. One must not forget that
much of the data needed to design a
nuclear bomb are now freely available, as
was documented by a highly publicised
television science programme which in
March 1975 featured a 20-year-old
undergraduate from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology who had designed
a technically conceivable nuclear bomb.
The question then arises, will bin Laden
use nuclear weapons as his last resort,
and if he does so, what will be its
consequences?
PTI
Feature
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Conflicting
interests in Afghanistan
By Gurmeet Kanwal
With a resurgent
United Front taking advantage of air strikes by
the United States (US) and its allies and going
on the offensive, Afghanistan is heading
inexorably for a prolonged civil war. While the
early fall of Mazar-e-Sharif to the United Front
now appears to be a certainty, the Taliban
militia can be expected to continue to hold out
much longer in Kabul, the Kandahar region and in
areas bordering Pakistan where the tribal
population on both sides of the Durand Line is of
the same ethnic origin. The Afghan civil war
will- inevitably spillover into Pakistan’s
NWFP and Western Baluchistan due to tribal
affinities, strong support for the Taliban in
these provinces, a long and porous border and
terrain that is excellent for guerrilla warfare.
Continuing
regional instability adversely affects
India’s national security and economic
interests. Hence, India has a major stake in
ensuring that eventually a strong and stable
government is installed in Afghanistan that is at
least neutral if not openly supportive of Indian
interests. it would be in India’s interest
to ensure that the new regime is moderate in its
religious leanings and that the repercussions of
the likely fallout of the ouster of the Taliban
are minimised. The Central Asian oil reserves are
of strategic interest to India. These reserves
can be optimally exploited by India only by oil
pipelines laid through Afghanistan and Iran. The
various other international contenders in
Afghanistan have widely conflicting interests.
The short-term
interest of the US in Afghanistan is limited to
its war against global terrorism. The US will
work towards driving the Taliban regime out of
power and installing a more representative and
moderate regime in its place, capturing Osama bin
Laden and destroying the infrastructure of his Al
Qaeda network for training and launching
terrorists. In the long-term, the US has larger
geo-strategic interests in the region, including
enlarging its influence to the Central Asian
Republics (CARs), both for their abundant oil
reserves and for ensuring that they do not get
too close to either Russia or China. Though the
US has been tacitly supporting the Northern
Alliance since the September 11 acts of
terrorism, it is wary of the Northern Alliance
leaning towards Russia and will not accept a
predominantly Northern Alliance regime as a
replacement for the Taliban.
The erstwhile
Soviet Union had fought a decade-long war in
Afghanistan to protect its soft underbelly and to
gain access to the warm waters of the Indian
Ocean. While those interests are no longer
relevant in the post-Cold War era, Russia has a
major Islamist fundamentalism problem in Chechnya
and, hence, a high stake in ensuring that
Afghanistan is cleared of all jehadi elements.
Russia still has approximately 20,000 troops
close to Tajikistan’s border with
Afghanistan but will not participate militarily
in the ongoing conflict. Russia will back the
Northern Alliance to form a new government so
that its interests are safeguarded. However,
Russia is likely to go along with the ‘US in
its quest to install a more representative
government in the interest of long-term stability
and will seek to, extract concessions on other
issues such as the NMD and the expansion of NATO,
though it would be uncomfortable with the
long-term presence of US troops.
In its anxiety to
contain the Uighur rebels in Xinjiang, China has
been assiduously engaging the Taliban. A
Pakistan- friendly regime in Kabul serves Chinese
interests, rather than a pro-US or neutral one,
and China would like to see the Taliban retain
power. The Taliban had allowed Chinese experts to
carry two unexploded Tomahawk missiles in 1998 to
Beijing for analysis. Although China has not
directly violated UN sanctions imposed against
the Taliban, past experience is a pointer that it
may be engaged in providing covert aid to Taliban
through Pakistan. Shiite Iran does not see eye to
eye with the Taliban that is dominated by Sunni
Pashtuns and supports the Northern Alliance,
which it has helped to arm. Iran is already
hosting a substantial number of Afghan refugees
and is apprehensive that the present turmoil will
add further to its burden.
On the issue of
the replacement of the Taliban regime, Iran is
not willing to accept a pro-US coalition being
installed in Kabul, even if King Zahir Mohammad
Shah heads it. Iran is also steadfastly against
the long-term presence of US troops either in
Afghanistan or in any of the CARs.
Pakistan has shown remarkable expedience in
jettisoning its decades old Afghan policy and in
abandoning its protigi, the Taliban. However, it
would be reasonable to assume that Pakistan would
continue to provide covert support to the
Taliban, including advance intelligence about US
strikes. Pakistan has always sought to ensure
that a regime favourable to it should be in power
in Afghanistan as it (mistakenly) believes that
Afghanistan provides it strategic depth. A
friendly regime in Afghanistan would also help
Pakistan to ensure that it can exercise effective
control over its border population that has
ethnic affinities with Afghan tribes. Demands for
Pakhtoonkhwa, in particular, have been growing
increasingly stronger.
While Pakistan may
accept the unseating of the Taliban regime, it is
not ready to accept its replacement by a hostile
Northern Alliance. Pakistan will seek to exploit
its newfound status as a frontline state against
Islamist terrorism by getting the US to endorse
the nomination of pliable Pashtun warlords on the
governing council when a new regime is installed
in power. Also, Pakistan will try to convince the
US that the Taliban must not be driven completely
out of Afghanistan so that the surviving hordes
of the militia do not become agents of
instability on its own territory. Almost all the
CARs, that are predominantly Muslim but
politically secular, have been affected by the
strident march of Islamist fundamentalism and
would like Afghanistan to be cleared of all
jehadi elements. Uzbekistan’s Pergana
Valley, that also borders Tajikistan, has been
affected the most by the Taliban brand of
militant Islam. Each of the five CARs (also
called ‘'the stans'') is ruled by a
strongman, with styles of governance ranging from
the mildly repressive to downright Stalinist and
they would all endeavour to protect their own
turf by cooperating with the US by providing
limited base facilities and the use of their air
space for strikes against the Taliban. All the
CARs except perhaps Turkmenistan (that is close
to Iran) will support the installation of a
broad-based, moderate regime in Kabul.
PTI
Feature
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Product
of echoes-in-the cave
By P K Joseph Dhar
George W.Bush has
so far remained tight lipped over trans-border
terrorisms, a concern voiced by India at the
International fora. It does not surprise anyone
in India. We in India envisage the American
foreign policy in terms of an alternation in the
past, a choice in the present between
"Isolationism" and
"Internationalism"This formula while
superficially plausible, is a product of
echoes-in-the-cave which tell us nothing as to
what American foreign policy is about.
In this backdrop
when judged, George W.Bush is justified in
maintaining a stoic silence over trans-border
terrorism that we have been facing over the
years. Here a very pertinent question surfaces my
mind. Who has been harboring terrorists and
terrorism? Is it not America herself? Is not the
Pakistani military might the product of the SEATO
and the Baghdad Pact? Are not the Terrorists
brandishing the guns supplied by the US to
Pakistan under the pretext of containing the
Communist advance? Are not the people who were
behind the "Black Tuesday" attacks the
products of America and her western and Eastern
allies, Pakistan included? In the time of proxy
wars between the super-powers, the US with the
help of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan hatched the
Taliban and Osama-bin-Laden. Like Saddam Hussain,
Osama was once the recipient of financial help
and military help from the US to fight the Red
Army of the Soviet Union. She gave million of
dollars worth of arms and ammunition to the
Taliban and the Mujahideen through the ISI. It
was the CIA, which in close collaboration with
the British M 16, trained and armed Mujahideen of
all hues.These are the mujahideen who are
performing blood dance in Kashmir these days.
When we say this George Bush’s blue eyes
dance somewhere than concentrating on the Indian
concern.
It is well
said:" All organised violence has political
roots. In 1999 alone,$12 billion worth of US made
hi-tech weapons were sold to 91 countries
world-wide. After the collapse of the USSR,with
no rival to question the USA. The USA re-wrote
the rules of global trade and finance to suit its
interests. It ripped the treaties that were
inconvenient to it. It has refused to pay its
dues to the United Nations, and cut its aid to
the developing countries. It sent its troops to
every corner of the world to brandish its
military might. It bombarded Sudan, Iraq, and
Yugoslavia defying the authority of the United
Nations.
How would anyone
who knows the World history agree with George
W.Bush when he claimed that September 11 attack
is an attack not just on America but on all the
people who love democracy.: The USA backed
tyrants like Pinochet in Chile by helping them
through CIA to overthrow the democratically
elected Government. It crushed democratic
people’s movements and propped up its own
stooges and several Latin American countries like
El salvador, Honduruas and Nicaragua. Even now
George Bush is helping with all his strength a
tyrant in the form of Parvez Musharraf who
overthrew a democratically elected Government in
Pakistan. America is one thing at home and quite
the other thing outside. Our Prime Minister has
done well in reminding him in the General
Assembly of he UN" Neither power nor
distance keeps a terrorist at bay". Let
George Bush know that India has sufficient pluck
and determination to land all the terrorists in
their graves without the US assistance. Our land
represents an ancient Civilization. What does his
land represent except playing one against the
other and earned soft money.
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The
biological threat
By Sharad Dixit
Recent events in
the USA and Afghanistan portend grave dan-ger to
humanity. The nature of the conflict is
fundamental, the manifestations are theological,
technological, economic, political and societal.
It is the element of ethnicity, however, coupled
with the enormous destructive power of modern
weaponry that makes this crisis so potentially
devastating. The discovery of a possible
biological agent in the US could therefore
trigger the catastrophe.
Chemical and
biological weapons are abhorred by the West
because they transcend the concepts of civilised
warfare. They are indiscriminate, unpredictable,
impossible to pre-empt and thus a potent threat
to the First World’s dominance. Biological
weapons are the more feared. Chemical agents are
fewer in number and their effects could be
contained after the initial damage, once they
have been identified. Their detection and
isolation is also easier since the impact would
be immediate and would alert all concerned. A biological
agent, on the other hand, is stealthy and
pervasive.,
It attacks
individuals who may be unaware of their
situation. The gestation period being variable,
the source of the infection, its time and
location of origin are difficult to establish.
Biological weapons
are those that attack the military, the
population, crops or livestock through disease.
They may be based on pathogens (living organisms)
like Anthrax, or on derivatives like Botulinum
Toxin. The concept is not new. The Tartars spread
the Bubonic Plague in Kaffa during 1346 A.D.,
which is believed to have killed twenty-five
million in Europe between 1347 and 1351. The
English used Small Pox pathogens against the
American Indians. Most advanced nations including
Britain, US, Canada, Germany, Japan and the
USSR/Russia have had biological weapons
programmes. They are also said to have used these
weapons in many countries. The culpability
however was never established.
Today, between ten
and twenty countries (including India) are
suspected of having ongoing programmes. This fear
was enhanced by the brain-drain from post-USSR
Russia. It does not appear to have materialised,
or at least is not overt. Nor would it be overt
in view of the severe antipathy of most
governments, which would result in near isolation
of the offending state.
The technology,
nevertheless, is not very difficult, and is
easily available. Saddam is said to have bought
the original Anthrax culture for his arsenal by
mail order from the US. Detection during research
and development, production, storage and
transportation is well nigh impossible. Witness
the years of futile search in Iraq by UNSCOM,
till the President’s son-in law spilt the
beans.
In the scenario of
a conventional war, biological warheads are much
more potent than chemical ones on a
weight-to-weight basis. They can also inflict
damage over a much wider area, but they pose
problems of storage and delivery. Dissemination
is difficult and the agents are susceptible to
environmental factors. The effectiveness cannot
be predicted as it would vary with local
conditions of health, sanitation, climate and a
host of other factors. Epidemics once started is
difficult to control and the perpetrators could
well fall prey to their own weapon. incubation
periods being variable, its efficacy in a
fast-paced war would be questionable.
The fear generated
amongst probable victims, however, is manic.
Israel was nearly paralysed when missiles started
striking it during the Gulf War. The war also
ended prematurely, forty- eight hours before all
coalition military objectives were expected to be
achieved, because Israeli intelligence forecast
an imminent biological/chemical strike. This was
considered unacceptable and Israel prepared for
nuclear pre-emption. Dick Cheney, the then
Secretary of State for Defence of the US, also
held out a thinly veiled threat of annihilation
if such weapons were used by Iraq.
The policy of
nuclear response to such attacks continues to be
the policy of capable states. Employment of
bio-weapons in a conventional war is thus
virtually ruled out (if a nuclear capable state
or an ally of one is involved). The threat of use
however, could be a decisive tactic. The proposed
hypothesis has a limitation in that it presumes
rationality.
Ethnic conflicts
are characterised by their irrationality. The
motivation is hatred. Nor is the hatred moderated
by education, culture, etc. Yugoslavias is a
mature society, yet the carnage during its
conflicts was unbelievable. Germany was hardly a
tribal state when it cleansed its minorities by
the millions.
Afghanistan on the
other hand continues to be a tribal society. It
is unclear whether its present leaders even
understand the implications of their actions.
They continue to chant slogane and slap their
thighs in challenge. They seem to await some kind
of a wrestling match if the western forces
physically enter Afghanistan. They quote
antecedents, their wars with the British, the
Soviets etc. They forget the developments in
technology, the erstwhile external support, the
constraints of former enemies who were limited in
their response by factors extraneous to
Afghanistan. These conditions no longer exist.
The rants of Osama bin Laden, calling for further
terrorist attacks and the use of Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WAMD) could thus lead to the
obliteration of the country and its people.
The possibilities,
unfortunately, do not end here. What if the urban
guerrillas wait until the coalition forces are
present in good numbers on Afghan soil before
they strike? The US and its allies could not
possibly use their arsenal in such a situation.
Assuming that the Taliban government is replaced
by some sort of a coalition, would such a
government be stable?
Would it be
pro-west? The likelihood is remote. Military
opportunism is a universal trait. So the problem
that the US is trying to address would not go
away. Would the West then have the stomach to
attack a people it has helped to
‘Liberate"?
The scenario
therefore transcends that of a conventional or
limited war. Employment of biological weapons (if
successful) would be covert. Culpability would be
hard to establish. There is no dearth of
volunteers who would be willing to ‘achieve
martyrdom’. Damage could be cataclysmic. The
target would be a prime vulnerability of the
developed world its populace. Frustration would
brew in Western society. The reaction may be
delayed, but it would be inevitable. The desire
for revenge would far outweigh reason and
justice. Perceived enemies would be
indiscriminately targeted. The world order, its
system of justice and consensus, concepts of
sovereignty, the state etc. could collapse. The
third world may no longer be considered fit to
rule itself. We could well revert to the period
of Empires, the rulers and the ruled, masters and
slaves. Those that survive.
The premonition is
that the West has bitten off more than it would
like to chew in taking on the Islamic
fundamentalists and their cohorts. It may have
the ability, but not the resolve to enforce
solutions. The immediate result may be limited to
the escalation in the levels of hatred. Future
situations could be more akin to the scenario
painted here ominous indeed.
PTI feature
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