World Trade Center Attack - Prelude and Repercussion

 Nineteen years ago on 09 September 2001, a group of 19 men working in four groups hijacked commercial aircraft in USA, in early morning and used these planes as weapons in suicide missions that successfully targeted the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York city and the Pentagon (headquarters of the United States of America’s Department of Defense) near Washington D.C, while the fourth flight crashed into rural areas killing all abroad. Of the 19 hijackers; 15 were Saudi Arabian nationals, 2 were from United Arab Emirates and 1 each from Lebanon and Egypt. The attacks killed 2,606 people in and around WTC towers, 125 people working in the Pentagon and 265 fatalities on-board the four airplanes; the total fatalities being approximately 2,996.

This was not the first attack on the WTC. On 26 February 1993; a truck bomb was detonated in the basement parking of the North Tower of the WTC; killing seven people and injuring over a thousand. The attackers were a mix of Middle-eastern men who had immigrated to the United States from diverse countries like Kuwait, Egypt, and West Bank of Palestine; and were funded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani national who was a member of the terrorist group, al-Qaeda.

Within hours of the 9/11 attack, it was clear that Western leaders specially from USA and UK were going to use the attack to justify war in Middle-East and Central Asia. The President of USA, George “Dublya”Bush declared ‘war on terror’, an ambiguous policy that had no defined enemy, thereby giving the USA to declare anyone and any organization that they “deemed to be against the interests of the United States of America”, as the enemy.

Robert Gates, who served as the Secretary of Defense in both the George Dublya Bush and Barak Hussein Obama administrations made it clear when he stated that, “ the message that we are sending to everyone, not just Iran, is that the United States is an enduring presence in this part of the world. We have been here for a long time. We will be here for a long time and everybody needs to remember that - both our friends and those who might consider themselves our adversaries."

 Gates was merely quoting the doctrine of 39^th President of USA, Jimmy Carter; who in his 1980 State of the Union Address had stated clearly that "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

The Carter Doctrine was formed after the disastrous U.S. policy of regime change in Iran; that led to the then Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi being deposed by the Iranian Revolution of 1979, leading to Iran being transformed into an Islamic Republic under the control of the radical Shia clerics. Historically, in the years following World War 2, USA became a global force with its foreign policy structured to extend around the world, especially in the strategic and oil-rich middle-east, which also allowed it to monitor events in Asia, and to contain and restrict any attempts by Asian countries to pursue an agenda for development outside the influence of the U.S., or to challenge its dominance.

The policy of “war on terror” was an extension of this thought process. The policy was not based on critical thinking or logical international strategy; but on displaying the American ‘military might’ in a war that by all standards was both immoral and illegal. As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are still dragging on for almost two decades, its clear that Dublya’s vision of quick military victory was merely an illusion, and the attempts of political domination have failed miserably. The same U.S. that had gone to war against the Taliban (‘students’ in Pashto language) for harboring the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden; have been dragged to the peace talks with them in 2020.

In Iraq, the fall of Saddam Hussein did not lead to a western style democracy, but to the rise of successive Shia governments loyal to Iran and its clergy. Lack of political strategy in Iraq led to the formation of ISIS (Islamic State in Syria and Iraq) aka Daesh in 2006, which not on defeated the U.S. backed Iraqi military but also destabilized Syria. Daesh went on to form a new country; the ‘Islamic State’ that, at its peak in 2014 controlled 100,000 square kilometers of land area, which has now been reduced to less that 4,000 sq/kms surrounded by Iraqi and Syrian Army forces. However, Daesh is still active and operational in 18 countries, prominently in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Nigeria.

The role of Saudi Arabia in sponsoring the WTC attacks in 2001 has always been a matter of serious consideration. Around 13^th May 2020, the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) accidentally disclosed the name of a Saudi diplomat suspected of directing support to two al-Qaeda hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, as reported by Yahoo News. Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah was a mid-level Saudi foreign ministry official who was assigned to the Saudi embassy in Washington, DC in 1999 and 2000. He was in charge of supervising the activities of Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees at Saudi-funded mosques and Islamic centers in the U.S. A partially declassified 2012 FBI report about an investigation into possible links between the al-Qaeda hijackers and Saudi government officials initially focused on two individuals, Fahad al-Thumairy, a cleric, and Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi agent.

A redacted copy of a three-and-a-half page October 2012 FBI "update" about the investigation said that FBI agents had uncovered "evidence" that al-Thumairy and al-Bayoumi had been "tasked" to assist two hijackers by a person whose name was blacked out and was referred to as the ‘third man’, an accredited Saudi diplomat, who has now been identified as al-Jarrah. Currently, all the evidence gathered by the FBI against al-Jarrah remains sealed, but it does indicate that successive U.S. Governments from 2000 till date have covered up the involvement of Saudi Arabia in the WTC attacks. While the Saudi government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the 9/11 attacks, the fact that 15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens and that the U.S. government has consistently prevented internal investigative documents of its own FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) from becoming public raises questions about collusion and conspiracy between the two countries leaders. 

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Vice President of the United States -Irrelevant to Powerful!

 In a press conference in 1960, the then President of the United States of America, General (Retd) Dwight Eisenhower was asked to give any example of any major idea from his then Vice-President Richard Nixon that he (Eisenhower) had adopted fully as a policy. Eisenhower’s response made history when he stated that, “If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don’t remember”.

 While the position of the Vice-President is considered as “a heart-beat away from the presidency”, the actual role of the VP has evolved throughout the years from being irrelevant to being a potential position of power in current times.

 The position of vice-president was created at the very end of the 1787 Constitutional Convention of the U.S. ; almost as an after-thought to have someone to lead committees that handled unfinished government business. The U.S. Constitution gave little power to the Vice Presidents. They would preside over the U.S. Senate, serve as tie-breaking vote in case of a dead-lock in issues before the Senate, and supervise the counting of the Electoral College’s vote.

 In general VPs are considered as politically expedient during elections to gain critical votes and to balance the appeal of the presidential candidate across the country. Post-elections, most were ignored by the presidents they helped to get elected, and their duties were never defined clearly and fully. By the 1960s, it was clear that the U.S. Congress needed to clear-up the vague profile of the Vice President. In 1963, then President John Kennedy was assassinated and his VP Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency. However, this led to the office of the Vice President laying vacant for months. In response; the Congress legislated the 25^th Amendment, which lays out the procedure for acquiring a replacement VP and also resolved in this same amendment that, if a president dies or becomes incapacitated, the VP becomes the president instead of just taking over the presidential duties. (Prior to the 25^th Amendment, the U.S. Constitution was vague on this issue).

 In recent times, the selection of the VP has been transformed into a media frenzy, and predictably into an event supported by a ‘friendly press’, becoming a part of the campaign’s media strategy. As a result, Vice Presidents now-a-days have higher profiles and are often tasked to balance out the presidential candidate’s political deficiencies. In the role of elected VP, some like Al Gore (who served as VP to President Bill Clinton) took on the role as a powerful advocate for the environment; while others tried to reinvent the position by involving themselves into policy developments.

 Interestingly, to date only white men have been elected to serve in the position of vice-president; while only two white women, Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Sarah Palin in 2008, and one mix-race woman Kamala Harris in 2020, have been nominated to fight elections for the office of the Vice President. VPs still attempt to use their role as a springboard to get elected in future as president, but in the last 250 years since the creation of the USA, only 14 out of 48 VPs have managed to become presidents.

Here are some memorable quotes from former Vice Presidents that defined their understanding of the role of the vice-president.

- "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there's still a 30% chance we're going to get it wrong," former Vice President Joe Biden, and the current nominee of his party for the 2020 Presidential election.

- "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure," former VP Dan Quayle who served under then president George HW Bush.(1989-1993)

- "Once there were two brothers. One went away to sea; the other was elected vice president. And nothing was heard of either of them again," former VP Thomas R Marshall. (1913-1921)

- And the final word from former VP Joe Biden: “It’s easy being vice president—you don’t have to do anything.”

 

Originally published in RITAM app...Thanks

 

 

 

 

The great American (political) Circus.

 The upcoming 2020 elections for the President of the United States of America seems to have caught the wild imagination of Indians across the world, with many believing that a Indian-American woman has been elected as the Vice-President of USA. Indians seem to have this rather pitiful habit of co-opting the success of others, based purely on that person’s connection to our great heritage.

 There are two points that we, in India; have to understand and accept. The first is that the President and Vice-President of USA are elected solely by the citizens of their country; and secondly, that the process of election for these top positions is complex, with the “electoral college votes”deciding the winners and not necessarily the “popular votes”- which are the votes cast by voters directly in favor of either candidates.

 The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors who cast votes to decide the President and Vice-President. When voters cast their votes, they will choose which candidate receives the support of their state’s electors. The number 538 is the total sum of USA’s 435 Representatives, 100 Senators and 3 electors of the District of Columbia (the capital of USA). The candidate who receives the majority of the electoral votes (270 or more) wins. In all but two states, the candidate who wins the majority of the popular votes in a state wins that state’s electoral votes. However, in the states of Nebraska and Maine, electoral votes are assigned by ‘proportional representation’, meaning that the candidate who wins the most votes in these states wins two electoral votes (due to the two senators) while the remaining electoral votes are allocated congressional district-by-congressional district, thereby making it possible for both candidates to receive electoral votes from Nebraska and Maine, unlike the winner-takes-it-all system in the other 48 states.

 Electors are usually state-elected officials, party leaders, or individuals with strong affiliation to the Presidential candidates. In some states; political parties nominate electors at their state conventions, or by a vote of the party’s central committee. Interestingly, neither the U.S. Constitution nor their election laws compel electors to vote for their party’s candidate. However, 27 states have laws that require electors to vote for their party’s candidate IF that candidate get a majority of the state’s popular vote. In the other 24 states, there is no such law that’s applicable, but the common practice is for electors to vote for their own party’s nominee. If neither candidate gets a majority of electoral votes, the election process goes to the U.S. House of Representatives for electing the President of the United States, with each state casting one vote. Whoever wins the majority of states wins the election. In an identical process, the Vice-President is elected by the U.S. Senate.

 Many factors influence the voter turnout as well as voter support for the contesting candidates. Since the elections are held in November, the winter weather affects voter turnout. Those who do brave the chill of a particularly bad winter would then cast their vote based on any or all of the following factors; religious beliefs and its effects of freedom of individual actions (e.g. rights of abortion / or lack of enough rights), social beliefs (e.g. acceptance of homo-sexual marriages), the strength / weakness of the economy, and the perceptions of rights of minorities (African-origin blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc), to name a few. Most Americans vote more on the basis of religious-social beliefs and state of the economy, rather than the ethnicity of the candidates.

 Given all of the above and other factors not mentioned herein due to their  variables and complexities, its best to leave the U.S. elections to the voters of that country and just enjoy the drama as it unfolds. In essence, “leave unto the Americans that which belongs solely to them”.   

 Originally published in RITAM app.. with Thanks .

 

 

 State of Affairs - The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

 As a matter of choice, it’s always better to refrain from any opinion on the election process or candidates in the fray in foreign countries, to preserve our neutrality regarding the electoral process of another sovereign nation.

 The issue of Kamala Harris; a politician of USA who has been selected by the local Democratic party as their Vice-Presidential candidate for the 2020 election has generated interest in some quarters of Indian citizens who are of the opinion that, Harris as an Indian-American “órigin” candidate, if she wins, will be in a position to influence better relations between India and USA.

 So, who is this Kamala Harris? Kamala was born in California to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father. A professional lawyer, she started her career as a prosecutor for a local county (district), and succeeded to becoming the first female district attorney of San Francisco and in 2010, was elected as the State of California’s first female attorney general, a position to which she was re-elected in 2014.

 Harris is a Senator representing California since 2017. In the Senate, she is a member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on the Judiciary.

 As a U.S. Senator, Kamala Harris has spoken publicly against the revocation of Article 370 from Kashmir. In October 2019, she stated as follows:”We have to remind the Kashmiris that they are not alone in the world. We are keeping a track on the situation. There is a need to intervene if the situation demands.” The last sentence reeks of the political arrogance that most American law-makers think as their undisputed prerogative, interference in the matters of another nation.

 She further went on to criticize the decision of India’s External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar on his refusal to meet another U.S. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal when he was visiting the USA. (For the uninitiated, Pramila Jayapal is a Chennai-born,naturalized citizen who was elected to the U.S. Congress in 2017. She is a member of the Democratic Party and a avowed leftist in her political views). The reason for this refusal from the Minister was the political resolution H.Res.745 of December 6, 2019; introduced by Jayapal, “urging the Republic of India to end the restrictions on communications and mass detentions in Jammu and Kashmir as swiftly as possible and preserve religious freedom for all residents”. In this resolution Jayapal has blatantly lied on two counts, the first being that there were mass detentions in Kashmir (which there weren’t) and the second being that freedom of religion was curtailed (which it wasn’t). Surely, Kamala Harris is not a novice who cannot differentiate facts from blatant lies; yet she did not hesitate to support her fellow member of the Democratic party; thereby supporting the lies against India in the United States highest chambers of politics, the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate.

 Also, her partner in the coming U.S. Presidential election Joe Biden has publicly criticized the Indian Citizens Amendment Act (CAA), stating on March 12 that ”In Kashmir, the Indian government should take all necessary steps to restore rights for all the people of Kashmir. Restrictions on dissent, such as preventing peaceful protests, or shutting down or slowing down the internet, weaken democracy”. This lie is a part of Biden’s agenda (published on Biden’s own campaign website) for keeping the Muslim-American communities happy and to gain their support in the forthcoming elections. So, basically Biden is not averse to public lies in an effort to attract the Muslim vote while interfering in the internal policies of a sovereign democratic nation. And now, Kamala Harris is a full partner in this wicked activity.

 Till her being nominated as the Vice-Presidential candidate to the forth-coming elections she has defined herself as a “black person” (referring more to her  paternal Jamaican heritage) and has not said much about her maternal Indian heritage. Now, of course; the main stream media is pushing across the agenda of her “Indian” heritage, maybe in an effort to attract American voters of Indian origin.

 There is no real reason for Indians outside the USA to celebrate anything about Kamala Harris or have favorable expectations from her regarding India - U.S. relationships if she and Biden win the Presidency of the United States. As Indian citizens of the Republic of India, we have no power of influence over elections in America, and nor should we try to assert any influence.

 Whatever are the results of the elections to the positions of the President and Vice-President of the U.S, we should always focus on the priorities of our own Nation and the benefits of our own country.

 

Originally published in RITAM app ....