US-Indian Relations in the Post-bin Laden World

This morning's FT reports that Osama bin Laden's neighbors in Abbottabad knew his house contained highly conservative residents, among them both Afghan refugees and Arabic-speakers. Moreover, locals knew that the house's residents bought food in large quantities at a time, had a taste for foreign beverages, burned all their trash and refused to allow their servants to hold second jobs with other employers. How did this not raise red flags? One neighbor, Jehangir Khan, reports that security in the area is heavy: “People are frequently asked to produce their national identity cards.” The case that Pakistan's intelligence is incompetent or complicit grows ever stronger.

Meanwhile, the discovery of Osama bin Laden deep in Pakistan, far from the Afghan border, is likely not only to sour US-Pakistani relations, but also - by extension - to strengthen US-Indian relations. Relations between the world's two largest democracies, though sometimes rocky (as in the case of India's recent rejection of US fighter planes), have general been positive in themselves; complications have primarily arisen from US support to Pakistan. If (or when) that support tapers off, US relations with India will likely continue to improve.

So where might we expect, or hope, for future US-Indian cooperation? Four areas come to mind:

• Anti-piracy operations. We have already seen the Indian Navy take strong actions against Somali pirates. Likewise, the Indian Navy is already active in the Strait of Malacca. The US takes keen interest in the freedom of the seas, particularly in these two regions. Look for growing collaboration between US and Indian forces here.


• Burma. The US has long tried to isolate the Burmese military junta, but a shift in US strategy and signs of possible change in the regime mean we can expect greater engagement in the future. India, by virtue of its border with Burma, has historically taken a more pragmatic approach to the Burmese junta. As American and Indian views converge, expect greater diplomatic and development cooperation.


• Terrorism. India's single greatest terrorist enemy is Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), whose primary aim is to drive India out of Kashmir. While the US is more interested in al-Qaeda, particularly Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), LeT is connected to the international network of Islamic terrorists, and thus the US and India have a common interest in fighting these forces. That Pakistan's ISI has often been a link in this chain complicates US-Indian cooperation, but if American ties to Pakistan decline, the door is opened for greater counterterrorism coordination.


• Africa. India has strong ties to Africa, particularly with such important nations as Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa. Given its historic participation in the Non-Aligned Movement, India enjoys a degree of trust on the African continent which is rarely afforded to the United States. India will be careful to safeguard that status, but the US would do well to support Indian efforts, as a means of aiding African development and as a counterweight to Chinese penetration of Africa. The US presence in UN peacekeeping operations is currently all but non-existent. With the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, however, expect US involvement in peacekeeping to rise somewhat in the coming years. Much of this will be in Africa, where India already participates in peacekeeping missions in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Côte d'Ivoire.

Al-Qaeda on the Defensive

Today the Financial Times has an excellent article titled "Down but dangerous: How al-Qaeda has been pushed on to the defensive." The FT provides some encouraging evidence that the terrorist organization does not enjoy the level of international popularity it once held.

In the second half of the last year, Pakistani support for al-Qaeda has dropped by half. In Saudi Arabia, those who view al-Qaeda unfavorably now outnumber those who view it favorably by a margin of more than six to one. Moreover, over 60% of Saudis believe the Saudi military should pursue al-Qaeda fighters.

Such victories in the popularity polls do not necessarily translate into victories on the battlefield or in wilderness of mirrors that is the intelligence world. However, these numbers do indicate that al-Qaeda and its mufsidun allies are losing the battle for hearts and minds. And that is a good thing indeed.

Anti-Blackwater Attorneys Slammed

"A legal group with a four-decade record of aiding and abetting terrorists, spies and cop-killers is suing" Blackwater for the September 16 Nisoor Square tragedy in Baghdad, according to an op-ed in the New York Post. "Joining it is an Egyptian attorney who has been representing what the US Treasury Department calls a fund-raising operation for al Qaeda."

That's some pretty shady stuff...


The column, by Center for Security Policy Vice President Michael Waller, takes a look at the checkered past of the Center for Constitutional Rights and its president, Michael Ratner, to show their decades-long efforts on behalf of terrorists, murderers of FBI agents and police officers, and Communist spies.

The column also links pro-terrorist attorney Ratner to Jeremy Scahill, author of an inflammatory if partially accurate book about Blackwater, showing how the lawyer and writer worked together to try to keep Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic in power. For folks who claim to be interested in human rights, that's an odd line to take...

US Captures al-Qaeda Propagandists

For all the failures that my have occurred in Iraq, US officials have realized the importance of the political dimension of the war. USA Today reported that a half dozen al-Qaeda media centers have recently been captured, with twenty propagandists arrested. The insurgents understand the crucial role of the media in this fight and have used it to strong effect. In 2005, Ayman al-Zawahiri (pictured), Osama bin Laden's deputy, said that most "of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media."

USA Today reports that these "new offensives [are] aimed at al-Qaeda sanctuaries and [have] an emphasis on blunting the terrorist group's extensive propaganda operations." Air Force Col. Donald Bacon explains that "one of our goals is to target these propaganda networks, and we've had more success over the past three months." These seizures have sharply reduced the quantity of videos and other items posted to the internet.

Art and Culture in the War of Ideas

Supporters of the Iraqi insurgency have begun producing Hollywood-style movie posters, most based on horror or action movies, satirizing the American military. While the precise origin of the posters is unclear, Britain's Sky News, the only media outlet to cover the matter, reported this summer that the images are proliferating on Islamic extremist websites, which attribute them to the insurgents themselves.

One blogger who picked up the story noted that the insurgents "show a native fluency in American popular culture." This indeed raises a variety of questions about culture, popular or otherwise.

Is culture the type of thing that can be used or abused?

Is art merely techne, the ability to craft something well? In that case, might we call this latest propaganda campaign by these mufsidun "good art"? Or does art necessarily have a moral dimension?

Finally, do cultures have an innate value, or are all equal? As a practical matter, should we be studying the enemy, in order to bring this sort of propaganda to his camp, or is there something inherently wrong with this, if his culture is intrinsically disordered? Is his culture so disordered?