This isn't posturing - we're on the brink of a nuclear war

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 05/31/2002 | Ahmed Rashid

[DoughtyOne]

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Am I the only one who doesn't care if the Indians and the Pakistanis all kill each other?

I care about the killing of millions of people anywhere it occurs. It concerns me even more that there is a finite chance that they could take us with them.

[FlyVet]

The scenarios I've seen talk of limited nukes hitting cities close to the border. Sorry, but I see new Dehli and Islamabad as much more likely targets.

City Populations: New Delhi - 11,680,000 (2000 estimate, Source: United Nations Population Division, 1996) Islamabad: 5,800,000 (source unknown).

This would indeed be ugly. I'm surprised the numbers aren't much higher.

[Dog Gone]

For the first time in Pakistan's history, and with the experience of three wars with India, people are not rallying around the army to defend the motherland, but are demanding Gen Musharraf's resignation.

I think most of this article was pretty accurate, but I don't think that statement is correct, unless it's referring to a pretty small minority. Musharraf had nowhere near the 96% (or whatever it was) vote claimed in the election, but every indication I've seen shows that he's still popular, editorials by former PM Benazir Bhutto notwithstanding.

But, this is also an article which implies that if Jack Straw can't solve the problem, it can't be solved and nuclear war can happen any second.

Let's set the record straight. Jack Straw is an idiot, and he's a British idiot trying to intervene in a country that just threw the British out 50 years ago.

Let's wait until Boucher and Rumsfeld visit there before tossing in the towel and heading for the fallout shelters.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

It is also clear that there is little that we can do except urge these countries to think clearly, and otherwise wring our hands.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Let's wait until Boucher and Rumsfeld visit there before tossing in the towel and heading for the fallout shelters.

So that means we need to have fallout shelters available next week. Where are we supposed to get them?

[Dog Gone]

Now China does have a chunk of Kashmir themselves which isn't often noted.

Yeah, what the heck is up with that? How is it that China claimed something that was a dispute between India and Pakistan, and nobody really cares?

Is it basically uninhabited but useful as a defensive boundary for China?

[aruanan]

Where's Ghandi when you need him? :p

In this situation Ghandi would be completely and totally irrelevant. You need a British Empire to respond to a Ghandi. Neither India nor Pakistan has the philosophical presuppositions that would allow either to be manipulated as Ghandi manipulated the British. Both Pakistan and Hindu India would squish Ghandi like a bug and not give him a second thought.

[DoughtyOne]

Imagine upwards of 15 million people gone in a matter of minutes. I hope these two nations give this a lot of thought.

[Davea]

I posted this as a separate thread but thought it would fit here also...

Conflict Spirals As Pakistan Begins Troop Reinforcment

AFP | 05/31/02

Posted on 5/30/02 5:12 PM Pacific by Davea

Friday May 31, 3:03 AM

Conflict spirals as Pakistan begins troop reinforcement

AFP

Conflict escalated sharply along the Indian-Pakistani border with Islamabad bolstering its military presence as the US said it would send a top level diplomatic mission.

The Indian army reported the heaviest shelling since relations between the hostile neighbours plummeted two weeks ago following a massacre in Kashmir India blames on Pakistan.

US President George W. Bush said he was dispatching Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to India and Pakistan "early next week" in a bid to defuse the situation.

"Yes he's going there. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is going this week and then Secretary Rumsfeld is going ... next week, yeah, early next week," Bush told reporters.

But tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals continued to mount Thursday with Pakistan redeploying troops from its western border with Afghanistan to the eastern flank with India.

Pakistan's military said in a statement read out on state television that the redeployment from the Afghan frontier was made "in view of the adverse posture of the Indian armed forces".

An Indian army spokesman said India was aware of the troop movements amid US warnings that "irresponsible elements" in the two nuclear-armed countries could spark a war.

"We are in full knowledge of the situation and Pakistani troop and tank mobilisation," spokesman Colonel Sruti Kant told AFP. "We are in complete control of the situation."

Kant said India had information that the Pakistani troops were being moved to areas flanking India's western border states of Rajasthan and Punjab, the theatre of previous wars between the two arch-rivals.

Musharraf said war between India and Pakistan would only break out if India initiates the conflict.

"We will try to avoid a conflict. Conflict will only take place if it is initiated by India," he said at a press conference.

Earlier in the day, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee called an unscheduled meeting with his three key advisers on security matters -- Defence Minister George Fernandes, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

Singh afterwards said "various issues" had been discussed, without elaborating, although the chiefs of the Indian army, navy and air force did not attend.

Fernandes later said Musharraf has told British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that he would end support to Kashmiri Islamic separatists.

"The stated intention of Musharraf is that within a certain period cross-border terrorism will come to an end," the defence minister said, citing Straw's talks on Wednesday with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in New Delhi.

"But the point is how does one believe it? Cross-border terrorism is at the hands of Pakistan army, backed by the ISI and other such elements," he said of Pakistan's military intelligence which India blames for all its troubles in turbulent Kashmir.

Fernandes was to late Thursday leave for Singapore where he would attend a regional security conference that would enable India to brief world leaders on its stance with Pakistan, the defence ministry said.

A defence spokesman in Jammu, southern Kashmir, said heavy shelling, mortar and gunfire had raged across the Indian-Pakistani borders overnight into Thursday.

At least seven people were killed in a fierce artillery duel in Poonch district that continued deep into the night, Indian police said.

Tension was raised even higher when, according to police, two Muslim rebels attacked a police post at Doda, 172 kilometers (106 miles) north of Kashmir's winter capital Jammu, late Wednesday and killed three policemen on duty.

Another five police were wounded after the militants hid inside a two-storey building with 250 rooms and exchanged fire with Indian soldiers, a police spokesman said.

The guerrillas were finally shot dead Thursday afternoon by soldiers and paramilitaries, the spokesman said.

[Standing Wolf]

Frankly, I believe we'd be living in a saner, safer, much happier world today if we'd nuked the capitals of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia as soon as we discovered our nation was attacked by Muslim terrorist savages. The war against terrorist savagry would be won by now, and the entire Islamic world would finally have understood there's no future in attacking the civilized world.

[backhoe]

So that means we need to have fallout shelters available next week. Where are we supposed to get them?

Actually there is info here:

Nuclear, Biological, & Chemical Warfare- Survival Skills, Pt. II

Look for the links to "Nuclear War Survival Skills" by Cresson H. Kearney, available online or hard copy.

FWIW, I don't think we'd get a *lot* of fallout, depending on airbursts vs. surface bursts, and the "dirtiness" of the warheads- but we'd get some. There are maps showing fallout from a 1958 Chinese 300 kiloton test here:

The India-Pakistani Conflict... some background information-

[AM2000]

Yeah, what the heck is up with that? How is it that China claimed something that was a dispute between India and Pakistan, and nobody really cares?

Chinese Kashmir was the part of Kashmir the Pakistanis had taken right before the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession to join India back in '47. The Pakistanis awarded that piece of Kashmir to the Chinese later, as a gesture of friendship. India doesn't care because they don't want to take on China yet. They need to fry the smaller fish in their neighborhood first.

[swarthyguy]

One nit: PakistanKashmir has a contiguous border with China. The Karakoram highway was built as a physical expression of the ties between Pakistan and China. Not much trade takes place over the road but it's a symbolic connection.

You may remember the much derided reports of Chinese troop movements in that area last fall. Probably not the numbers reported by D****, but possibly a move by China to stop Jihadis fleeing Northern Afghanistan/Kashmir entering China if the US had taken a whoopa** strategy to the region.

Recently, pakistani papers reported that a Uighur Leader, fighting with the Taliban, had been turned over to the Chinese by the Pakistanis.

Dog_Gone, i think China took over that part, called Aksai Chin when it invaded and occupied Tibet in 1959.

[swarthyguy]

But what would the French have said?

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

This could be like the opening of World War One.

I think you are right. Serbian nationalist terrorists killed an Austrian leader. (Bosnia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Serbia claimed it). Austria demanded that Serbia make concessions, and Serbia refused. Austria and Serbia started shooting, then the system of alliances committed all of Europe to the fight. There are no alliances involved here, but it is a regional dispute that could get totally out of hand.

[shaggy eel]

,,, this situation is serving very well to keep the heat off the middle eastern countries you mentioned in post # 31. Islamic militants, remotely controlled, are at work and their leverage is being applied quite efficiently.

[null and void]

But what would the French have said?

Same as always: "We SURENDER!"

[timydnuc]

They, as in both India and Pakistan, will be forced to hit large civilian targets. The idea of nuclear weapons is to inflict enough damage to have the other side "stand down". Niether side has enough warheads to make sugical first strikes an option. The casualties will be huge, on both sides. The on going contamination could reduce the population of both countries by as much as 50 to 60 percent. Pakistan has the most to lose in the exchange because their population is so much smaller that India, but the Islamic, 14th century attitude won't let them back down from this. The above facts combined with the fact that both countries are severly lacking in health care that could help in a devastating nuclear attack, and the fact that most of what little modern technology that both have will be knocked out by the strike (communications, computers, transportation, energy) will be gone as well, makes this a scary deal.

I have noticed that the UN is very quiet, in their caves, about this. As a matter of fact, I see only one nation trying to drench the fire....that would be the good old United States of America. Big surprize, huh? The UN is worthless!

The only bright spot here is, if India does go to launch mode many rag heads of Al Quaida (sp) will be chimney soot as well. India has many more warheads than do the Pakistanis.

[AM2000]

According to indiainfo.com-

• In 1962, China attacked India and thus began the Indo-China War
• China occupied Aksai-Chin (part of the Ladhak region in Kashmir), in the 1962 Indo-China War and overran Arunachal Pradesh.
• In 1963, the Indian Territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was ceded illegally to China under the so-called Sino-Pak 'boundary agreement'

---

At this point, I'm confused. I always thought the Pakistanis gave the Chinese their part of Kashmir, but now it would seem they got atleast some part of it during the '62 war.