Thursday, March 14, 2019

Terrorism - what is it?

Terrorism is a form of warfare and is one of the steps in irregular warfare. It is also a warfare that is used by the weaker side and consequently, the perpetrators do not follow any set methods.

Warfare is warfare - brutal, violent, stomach-churning mish-mash of flesh, bones and blood. Ther is nothing called a "regular war". No nation sets out to wage a war that's "regular" or "irregular". It's a war.

Recall the words of General VP Malik during the Kargil Operations - "We will fight with what we have. Similarly, weaker nations and non-state actors fight with what they have. Powerful nations, however, want their battles and wars to be tidy and faught in a manner that suits them. Thus, when the weaker side adopts unconventional methods, which we are unable to combat, we call it "terrorism."

What was the "resistance" in World War II? The partisans, guerillas, the assassination of Germans by Britain's LDGR/predecessor of the SAS and the US' OSS(The predecessor of the CIA). Was it "regular" warfare? Or was it irregular warfare and terrorist activity?

Muslim terrorism is the outcome of US meddling in other countries commencing with the beginning of the Cold War. Iran - legitimately elected democratic government was toppled to bring in the Shah. Saudi Arabia - Pakistan - Afghanistan : mujahideen. US sponsoring of an extremely repressive, midieval-minded, Wahabi-espousing regime. The toppling of the stable government in Iraq led by Saddam Hussein. Syria - the US intervened to try and topple Assad - because it felt that he wasn't democratic by their standards.

And then we ask why there is so much violence.

Perhaps, we expect people there to be like us - in the face of violence and injustice, do the Labrador act - lie down, roll over, while uttering the words, "Inko Bhagwan marega!"

My take.

Our security forces have come a long way, learnt their lessons and the way, they go after the terrorists now is a step in the right direction!

And a word about our attitude.

The current flavour is "Defence experts" who castigate everything about Pakistan and abuse everything Pakistan without bothering to discern and understand even the most basic reason as to why that nation does things it does.

Sometime in 2016, a senior retired General of the British Army talked about the troubles in Ireland. He, like a cerebral soldier said that although the Irish were fighting the British and he had vehemently opposed them, they were capable fighters fighting for a cause they believed in. Now, compare this opinion to what our defence experts say - and one can discern the level of of mental competence - a lack of ability to see beyond blind nationalism and jingoism.



Tailpiece.

Were up with the alarm, went through our chores and were ready well in time. Was off to the dentist to get the permanent filling done on my tooth - an extension of the temporary filling of last week! Returned and after about half an hour, Vishnu from Kollam had fetched up to collect my signatures on certain documents. He was late because the train that he came by was late!  

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