Well know one knows or can predict the future, we can and do project the future based on past performance. India’s past military engagements with Pakistan have not ended well for Pakistan, including the last one in Kargil which brought in its wake Musharraf to power and the one in 1971 which resulted in the formation of Bangladesh.

When I said the Indian army was strong, all I meant was strong enough to defend itself from any threat from Pakistan to its sovereignty if the occasion arises, we don’t have any reason to believe otherwise I don’t think.

MM, I do agree with you about India’s experience in Sri Lanka. It was an unmitigated disaster. It was a war of choice, and India/Rajiv Gandhi had no business meddling there. He did however pay with his life for that mistake.

nala,

barking up the wrong tree here. The IPKF, which is what the comment referred to, could neither defeat the LTTE militarily nor make inroads with the subject population to achieve some sort of ‘hearts and minds’ victory. They couldn’t even keep the peace either, which judging from the second letter of the acronym, was certainly part of their mission. You can certainly argue that tactical decisions were made which limited their effectiveness in either objective, but they didn’t get anything done other than earn the eternal enmity of JVP fodder down south and the people they screwed over in the north.

besides, they haven’t been tested in an all-out conventional war in ages. How can anyone say the Indian army is ‘strong’ without a test?

I’m in complete agreement with you. A rational reason other than the government’s connivance with the attack is the government’s unwillingness to reveal how poor or lax security was at this event. In other words, they didn’t want to be shown as incompetent. Therefore, leading to further support to the idea that Musharraf is unable to contain the insurgents within his country. It is a bit of skewed logic to think its better to have her assassination be the result of a blast into a lever rather than having someone shoot her at close range. That’s the only thing I can come up with. Once again, if the Pak government did not have anything to do with her death, their lack of transparency post attack does nothing to disprove the conspiracy theorists.

Things are getting really weird. More videos from more angles

Oliver Stone must be working on a script as I type this…It was not one bullet, but two bullets – the second one hit the lamppost, recoiled back to the roof, turned 32 degrees…

More on how this event will skew the 2008 US elections in the favor of hawkish candidates…Considering that Madrid bombings influenced the Spanish elections in favor of liberal candidates, such events within the mid-east will bound to have the opposite effect of elections going in favor of hawkish candidates in the US/India/Britain etc. If that hypothesis is indeed true (and OBL benefits from the rest of the world becoming more hawkish), we may see more of this.

Globalisation works in strange ways.

M. Nam

Hope everyone has a great 2008, happy new year to all.

Signing off now.