[nukkad] Who cares about Rahmat Ali?

["kartoos" <>]

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Below is a article by Rajdeep Sardesai in the Mid-Day

I am completely in agreement with him. 

B'cos of its myopic policies in the middle east the US of A had this coming for a long time.
And as it happens all over the world its the man on the street who has lost his life.

The USA supported the Afghans against the USSR and after the work was done abandoned them or tried to shut them down. 

When fighting with a double edged sword one must remember that one edge always faces the swordsman.

For the US govt it is a time for introspection and change in their foeign policy as a whole.

They have openly stated that this a war against terrorism. 
When you fight terrorism as whole your targets cannot be selective. If the US fights against terrorism then it should support the Indian govt if they decide to bomb out the training camps in Pok.

It can no longer afford to stay aloof.
Terrorists are dangerous but a self centred and hypocritical superpower could be fatal for all.

Kartoos 

 Who cares about Rahmat Ali? 
 By: Rajdeep Sardesai
 
 September 17,2001 


Rahmat Ali died on September 11, the day of the worst ever-terrorist attacks. He wasn’t a sharp-suited banker working on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center. He had never heard of Morgan Stanley, Jardine Fleming or even Infosys. Working as a small-time electrician, Rahmat Ali lived thousands of miles away from the Big Apple in the town of Surankote in Jammu and Kashmir. But there was one important bond he shared with the thousands who died in New York: he too was a terrorist attack. Nothing quite as audacious as the attack on the twin towers and the Pentagon, Rahmat was killed in a landmine blast near Surankote. 

Like so many others, Rahmat had become yet another statistic in the low intensity conflict waged in the valley for over a decade. Like Rahmat, hundreds of civilians have died in Kashmir and across the world in terrorist attacks over the years. Unlike New York, their deaths won’t make headlines because in some parts of the world, terrorism has become a way of life. 

In Palestine, for example, hundreds of young people have died in attacks by Israeli forces. In Baghdad, on the very day that New York was torn apart, eight civilians were killed in a bomb blast in the heart of one of the city’s most crowded markets. In the Philippines in the same week, a group of tourists were targeted by terrorists. Egypt, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Iran, Kazhakstan: there is virtually no country in the world that has been untouched by the unseen hand of the terrorist. 

What New York and Washington did was to give it a face. The sight of hijackers ramming passenger planes into the heart of the world’s last remaining superpower was watched in horror by a global audience of literally millions. This was reality television in all its bloody, gruesome avatar. 
No one who saw even a fleeting glimpse of those few seconds of mayhem could have been untouched by the sight. Which is why there has seen such a rapid emergence of a global consensus on fighting terrorism. Twelve years ago, when the Americans wanted to refuel planes in this country during the Gulf war, there were voices of dissent that were not convinced that war was necessary or the right thing to do. Now, take any spot poll in the country, and you can be sure that the vast majority will support a joint Indo-US action. This is partly due to the fact that America is no longer some distant land, but for millions of middle-class Indians there’s both an emotional and a business connection. 

Terrorist strikes by a group which is believed to also be responsible for terrorism in Kashmir has made this connection even more durable. Osama bin Laden is not just Washington’s enemy number one, he is a symbol of the kind of terrorism which has confronted this country. And yet, once the emotional upsurge starts ebbing, and life and New York slowly returns to normal, some serious questions will have to be asked, those that will have the necessary shades of grey. 
Who, for example, created Osama bin Laden, armed and trained him for over a decade? Why has it taken more than a decade for the links between the Taliban and Islamabad to be exposed? 

Similarly, why has it taken America more than 10 years to start accepting that Pakistan-based militant groups operating in Kashmir have been beneficiaries of state-sponsored terrorism? For years, India has been demanding that Pakistan be declared a terrorist state, and groups like the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Taiba be banned. There has been much rhetoric, yet when it came to the crunch the US administration simply backed off from taking the hard decisions.

Hopefully, the events of September 11 will force the US to realise that the time has come to take those hard decisions. Washington must realise that flawed policies in several parts of the world from the Middle East to South Asia have played a critical role in creating shadowy terrorist outfits. The White House will have to realise that you can’t fight terrorism by taking a stand only when American citizens are attacked. America needs to accept that the life of Rahmat Ali is as precious as any other. Only then can the global fight against terrorism be won.


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