The US Department of Defense considers Mexico one of the two governments in the world most likely to suffer a “rapid and sudden collapse” that could require military intervention.  A section on “weak and failing countries,” of a report recently released by the US Joint Forces Command says that narcotraffic and organized crime could generate a chaotic scene and the army would be obligated to respond for reasons of national security.  At the end of 2008, the US government declared the Mexican drug cartels to be the greatest threat to its territory.

In their meeting Monday, President-elect Obama and President Calderon agreed to establish an alliance to work bilaterally in combating drug and arms traffic, commerce and migration.  This is Obama’s first meeting with a president of another country since his election.  He also promised to collaborate with the Mexican government in matters of security.  

President elect Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, continuing a longstanding tradition by which new American presidents meet with their Mexican counterparts.

Emerging from a private lunch at the Mexican Cultural Institute that lasted over an hour, President-elect Obama expressed his commitment to advance cooperation on a range of issues, including security, the economy and immigration.

“On security, President-elect Obama underscored his interest in finding ways to work together to reduce drug-related violence.  He applauded the steps that President Calderón has taken to improve security in Mexico and expressed his on-going support for the valuable work being done under the Mérida Initiative.  Obama said he believes the cooperation under the Mérida Initiative can be a building block for a deeper relationship. 

Obama expressed support for President Calderón’s pet project for the United States and Mexico to eradicate drug-related violence and stop the flow of guns and cash into Mexico.  He told President Calderón that he intends to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to lead an effort to increase information sharing to strengthen those efforts. 

Calderon, whom U.S. officials have praised for deploying troops to fight cartels and capturing top drug kingpins, helped him win a multimillion-dollar, anti-drug aid package from the Bush Administration late last year. Interestingly Obama supports that plan, known as the Merida Initiative.

Obama further said he is an admirer of Calderon’s stewardship of Mexico’s economy, as well as his efforts to fight deadly drug violence.

 According to the U.S. Joint Forces Command there is one dynamic in the literature of weak and failing states that has received relatively little attention, namely the phenomenon of “rapid collapse.” For the most part, weak and failing states represent chronic, long-term problems that allow for management over sustained periods.

The collapse of a state usually comes as a surprise, has a rapid onset, and poses acute problems. The collapse of Yugoslavia into a chaotic tangle of warring nationalities in 1990 suggests how suddenly and catastrophically state collapse can happen – in this case, a state which had hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics at Sarajevo, and which then quickly became the epicenter of the ensuing civil war.

In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world is Mexico a large and important country bordering the United States and could be facing a rapid and sudden collapse.

The Mexican possibility of a failed state may seem less likely to many, but the

Government, its politicians, police, and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and wealthy Mexican drug cartels. How that internal conflict of which many experts believe is actually a civil war turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state and therefore the U.S.  Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.

Mexico poses a real threat to the national security interests of the Western

Hemisphere. In particular, the growing assault by the warring Mexican drug cartels and their many gangs of thugs on the Mexican government over the past several years reminds one that an unstable Mexico represents a homeland security problem of immense proportions to the United States.

U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) is one of DoD’s nine combatant commands and has several key roles in transforming the U.S. military’s capabilities.

Headquartered in Norfolk, Va., the command oversees a force of more than 1.16 million dedicated men and women, spanning USJFCOM’s service component commands and subordinate activities. The command is comprised of active and reserve personnel from each branch of the armed forces, civil servants and contract employees.

Preface

A country India where millions have no guarantee of living like a human being, where only Indian styled glorified titled public servants enjoy the free loot of national exchequer, NOTHING IS PEOPLE/USER FRIENDLY.  Be it Government run banking sector, IT sector, or whatever, it is just a big screw up.  Public servants as experienced for years are at liberty to extort the people and are at liberty to throw the people away from their work place.  And, this is India in 2009.

In India, in old age, my father had no pension, had no guarantee of living like a human being.

 “Freedom fighter”, fighters’ pension was refused by him.  By this time by leaving a glorified titled public service in India,  I had opted to live in civilized countries to prove myself and had come to see him almost every two or three years.  On such a visit, I found an envelope boldly marked O.I.G.S…

 Since our relations were like friends, I enquired about this letter.  “find it out yourself”- was the reply.  Little did I know it was a letter for offer of pension as “freedom fighter” and in line with many other Indian glorified titled papers and it was dated about four months back?  “Why didn’t you sign and send it back”- I asked.  He replied “we struggled for independence on principle, not for money.  Whatever the foreign ruler was, they did not beat us up in lock up or in jail. They did not provide garbage as food.  At least they had some humanitarian feeling”.

 He also added, after all, these rulers were from a foreign country. Naturally, they would like keep themselves above the locals and in history, this is quite natural. In so called independent India, members of Parliament, (some of them with criminal charges) devised VIP, VVIP, Gazetted etc., for their own identity to keep themselves separated from the people being ruled, making them free to loot the national exchequer.. Look at the present India. Sons of the soil are killing each other in one name or the other.  So called elected glorified titled public servants enjoy/loot the people, at the same living like “Raja” and “Maharajas” so are their stooges, all at the cost of “have nots”  whereas for the rest of India have guaranteed are starvation, deprivation, anarchy, lack of security what not,  and have turned poor to poorer  Are these people human being- he growled. You’re my pension.

 In the process the present generation of India most of whom have degenerated to self centered foot lickers of these glorified titled public servants elected and/or appointed perhaps will call my father a “mad cap”.

 I respect my dad from my heart. In my teenage I had found him working on lacks of rupees of cash completely in-charge of a business operation of a devotee of Shri Shri Ma Anandamoyee.

 His salary was INR90.00 per month.

 Surprisingly, people with high priced cars used to visit him at the slums we used to live and touch his feet with reverence and used to enjoy the food with us, that we had lintel and gourd creepers.

 Fortunately for me, as long as I was working in India with foreign oil companies there were no scope of cheating me for financial gain or otherwise, for the fact it was open expense account, and I could help the needy also.  All my employers wanted work.  It was best of my career in India.

 Having achieved a ripe age, I’ve nothing to regret for my deeds.

 What are the deprivations and consequently degeneration to criminal activities taken for granted in the shadow of so called Indian politics named as VVIP, VIP and their stooges, amass wealth definitely disproportionate to known earnings, and the rest who can’t tow the line, sufferings, torture, even life threats are daily affair, killings, are the granted conditions of billions of people of India?

 Millions have given their life to achieve freedom for India.  To my knowledge, most are forgotten.  But, did they want this India where only glorified titled public servants elected and or appointed resort to all unscrupulous means to amass wealth even killing hundreds or thousands of their own people!

 If there is something known as God, how long will he/she tolerate this unabated torture of the sons of the soil, mass, including foreign visitors?

 Today my father did not have to witness the worsening situation of the society and that of the so called Government.  He is gone to eternity. When in India, I find myself mentally pauper.

 The way it is now, where people feel pleasure of doing damages to others,

criminals in disguise of public servants are the VIP and VVIP and what not enjoy on the fats of have nots –

“emon larak kothayo khujey pabey nako tumi,  Criminaleyr swarga setaa Bharatbhumi.”  I sing, meaning, you will not find a better hell than this, this is the paradise for the criminals.  Some predicts this land India which had been subjected to be slave of others for centuries, will soon be once again.

 Disclaimer:  Whatever seen, suffered, torture imposed upon me and likewise millions of sons of the soil even to foreigners are written here.  Any personal similarities are purely coincidental.  Exceptional if any, are like my father.

 -1-

Common scenario

“Raja” the Chief Minister of an Indian province in Indian terms is known as VVIP of a country number wise the biggest democracy in the world  with red beacon and screaming sirens is having a ride with a chauffer driven car, escorted by tens of cars of Police forces, paramilitary forces all having automatic killing weapons.  Even the personal bodyguard has automatic killing machine. And the cyclist who happened to be on the way was beaten up mercilessly by the police and left on the road. 

The so called ambulance does not have any right of way and press reports indicate that these are used to carry arms of weapons for the hired goons locally called “cadres”.

 Raja lives in a house at the cost of national exchequer near a forest conservatory.  One pregnant jackal started howling at night and immediately a Superintendent of Police (these people head the police force in a District) shot the jackal.  Little did the pregnant jackal know that Raja is living there and she will be shot on expressing her happiness?  One wonders, what little good this Superintendent of Police he did for the mass of have nots?

 Surprisingly, the Constitution of India says that all are equal before the eye of the law.

 The so called law has been circumvented by few elected people by raising their hands in the Parliament  and these people are called VIP, VIPs and what not.

 Although a local High Court in Delhi has ruled that these people are not national assets, hence such luxuries, pomp and grandeur at the cost of national exchequer must stop.  But who cares?

After all, these people are VVIPS, VIPS in Indian terms, law of the land, and, in practice ruling of the court, is not applicable to these people.

People get charged for falsely by the police if opportune arises and/or if ordered by the so called VVIP, VIP and their stooges.

 Incase a criminal is caught most of whom are patronized by the so called VVIP, VIP and or stooges, the police let him free on order from higher ups.  Of course, there is no documentation or record for such orders.  What poor policemen are going to do?  After all they salute these people for reasons best known to them. Besides, criminals caught intimidate the witnesses with dire consequence if they dare tell the truth before the court of law.  Police is there to protect the public servants known as VVIP, VIP and many other local glorified titled public servants.  In reality, they’re not to provide protection to the common people.

 “You fool don’t you realize that “Raja” and his stooges will be at the top luxurious conditions and will have assets so that next fourteen generations all at the cost of national exchequer so that they can have the same life is the accepted practice here”- somebody retorted.  This is unbelievable in a democratic society.  But, this is the fact of life, here in India. Who cares if some die in starvation, who cares if somebody gets killed by the so called stooges of these VIPs, VIPs, who cares if you get robbed right in front of police station/s, who cares if one gets raped?  When asked by the press “Raja” answers these do happen everywhere.  Accepted, but where is the law and order and justice, financial compensation for these losses. “We can’t afford” is the reply of “Raja”.  But Raja and their stooges can blow away billions from national exchequer for their own ends to meet.

 Who cares about accountability? Who cares about the stinks raised by the Comptroller and Auditor General?

 Raja and their stooges have luxurious foreign trips in one pretext or other, be it medical ground, be it sons/daughters schooling, be it in name of foreign investments and the pretences are endless, all of course, at the cost of national exchequer.

 Raja and their stooges all glorified titled public servants have endless expenses for their telephones, colonial style living, colonial style guest houses free meals and who pays for all these, the billions who gets practically nothing from the national exchequer.

 Of course there are endless commissions set up, normally headed and/or members by the political parties (the fact states, hardly there are politics over here, rather “criminalitics” a word based on the reality) supposed to find the facts and most of the findings of these commissions are not law binding.  Everything is national secrets, even the expenses of these Rajas and their stooges. And, very recently there had been a law “Right to freedom of Information”.  Like all laws here, who cares? And, which judge in India is going to put on trial the Rajas.  Most likely, he’ll not be a judge in the same court next day. And the next judge taking over the hearing will find nothing wrong and exonerate the Rajas and their stooges with honor.

 And, if there are proofs that are hard to be refuted by the judge, the case will be never ending and meanwhile Rajas and stooges with all criminal charges hold public offices continue having free lunch and luxuries until the case is disposed of by the court which may take 30 years if not more.  What a justice! In name of fundamental right glorified titled disguised criminals can go up to Supreme Court of the country even for getting a bail. There’s no non appeal able ruling of the court, even in case of Consumer court. Imagine the condition of a daily wage earner, can they afford to fight for injustices in stages to Supreme Court of the country!  Of course, in law books it is written that these people will be provided with free legal service.  As the people say, it’s not that simple.  Even here, the bosses of “criminilitics” and their stooges have the final say, people tell me. 

 District level and or state level or even in national level what services are provided to the people is “god’s guess” but definitely all services are guaranteed to VIPs, VIPs and their stooges.  This is the practice and reality in today’s India.

Even a Municipal Chairman enjoys the same luxuries and free lunch and dare sanction all kinds of illegal activities such as violating all national building codes, in violation basic principle of engineering digging up the roadside soil for the water to log for mosquito breeding, Environmental Pollution with immunity and people say, either by the orders of the higher up of practitioners of “criminalitics” and or by greasing the palms.

 By international pressure many new laws have been implemented by the Government of India and insiders say all on the pressure of civilized nations who grant aids and or loans to India.  Among these is the centralized provident fund for all industrial workers, Human Rights, Consumer protection, Environmental Protection act, Right to Information, and so on.

 Dhop Dhop Ram Fatfatwala (fictitious name) owns jute mills manned my hundreds of worker.  And Mr. Fatfatwala has not deposited the fund of the workers to the Central Provident fund and consequently the central provident fund commissioner issues an arrest warrant.  Rajas come in the picture and orders police not to arrest him.  The jute mill was closed and Mr.Fatfatwala is out of the province to devise another scheme to loot the national exchequer and or cheating the common people. The workers die in starvation or forced to enlist themselves in the “goon squad” of the Rajas in name of politics. This scenario is taken for granted by the mass of India for the fact they have no other choice.

 Excepting few tenacious and right doing and thinking people who can fight forever even in some cases 20 or 30 years and meanwhile if one is not dead by natural process and/or get killed, may be there may be some justices and/or remedies.  The rest suffer in mute.

 One Central Police Officer had the guts to arrest one of the Rajas of a province and put him in jail with umpteen numbers of criminal charges.  Of course, for the Raja the jail was an air-conditioned government bungalow with all luxuries as enjoyed and this Raja was set free by the court on bail.  Who knows what happened to criminal charges, but this provincial Raja has a cozier place in the Central Cabinet Ministry.  It had been years. 

 Local papers state that this man is a management guru and goes to lecture to Harvard University and what not.

 Once a clerk of a biscuit manufacturing company, the nincompoop son of a Raja had a desire to go into business to enlist him as industrialist a fancy name coined the local political personnel and their stooges. Nationalized banks granted him billions of local funds and god only knows what happened to those funds and what industry had been set up.  This Rajputra (son of Raja) is now known to be in UK with all legalized paper to stay there.

 After all, as claimed, this is biggest democracy in the world!

 Hearsay is that one of the Raja had a Barrister-at-law title from UK.  But the local competition is tough to gain any ground in the legal sector.

He opted to wear a torn shirt got some followers and used to move in slums claiming he is the savior of the poor.  He taught his followers the slogans like “break it down, grind it down”, “it will not work”, “our demands must be met” at the same he taught to burn the buildings, transports, and what not!

 And, this savior of the poor had been Raja, freeloading and luxuries for more than 30 years.

 Another Raja who was dethroned manipulated to put her nearly illiterate (as I had seen, and heard, university degrees with right connections are for sale and or offered) wife as Chief Minister of the province.

 These so called democratic Rajas had been reigning at least for last 60 years.  And, India’s freedom had been for 60 years.

 In all other democratic countries that I had lived, visited, I did not see any VIPs, VIPs and did not see anybody being escorted by Armed Police and paramilitary forces.  Even a police constable can arrest anybody found breaking laws, irrespective of Ministers, Secretaries, Janitors.

 After all, India is the biggest democracy in the world they claim!

 Is it the biggest anarchy of the world?

As I have heard the definition somewhere, I quote, “for the criminals, by the criminals of the criminals….”.

 -2-

How it had been working so long!

The so called political parties (better stated in reality, criminal parties) have infiltrated in all spheres of administration having a parallel political administration with that of established machinery of public service set by British Raj. These are so called elected (some elected at gunpoint, coercion, intimidation, and what not, and other unfair means, a locally acceptable methods) parallel administration is termed as administrative reforms in disguise to provide service, even criminal (as had been reported in the press) to meet need of the every members of the party, including hiring unlicensed armed goons in name of party workers, who massacre innocent people who do not tow the line of “criminalitics”, in front of the police forces where police is a silent spectator.

 After all, the way it is, Police is the stooges of Rajas and police dare not intervene.  Police will extort, harass, and lay false charges who oppose the activities of Rajas and their stooges and or to people who hardly make even one time food/day.

 If Rajputras (Rajas’ son) is pick-pocketed police will definitely recover the purse within an hour. It’s guaranteed.  In anybody else’s case who cares?

After all, police have won the right to form union from the Rajas and like local appointed public service have guaranteed pay cheque for life, without providing safety and service to the mass.

 And, this is the largest democracy of the world!

 This is the scenario in every sphere of Public Service. They are there to salute the Rajas and their stooges and provide service in a flick of a moment to them even if it is criminal.

 Al Capone, the criminal king of the then USA, Gestapo of Germany’s Hitler, a cobbler’s son, Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, (by mass uprising he and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad)  Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who was hanged to death, are perhaps the most nearest examples one can find equivalent to scenario in India.

 The so called political parties have established network of party workers some call “goon squads” with illegal automatic killing weapons from village level to top hierarchy of the administration.  These all have fancy local names with immunity to all criminal activities from the state police and only the unfortunate ones get identified by the individual exemplary Central Police.

 Again, the funny thing is that Central Police can not take up any criminal investigation until and unless it is blessed by the Rajas and/or one goes through the High Court procedures and in some cases, these are objected to by the state administration of Rajas.

 Again, hearsay is that Central Police is also not beyond the scope of the all unethical practices of local public service. Exceptions if any, are there but, statistically they don’t count.

 All the laws of the land are meant to be ignored with immunity by the so called political workers some term them as “goon squad” who has the patronage of the law and order and of course administration.

 Rajas party is having a public meeting.  Children from primary schools, teachers, local professors, farmers, and who not, all the members are shipped by “goon squads” of the Rajas commonly known as cadres/leaders and their stooges the public meeting at the order of Rajas and their stooges.

Who cares about the schooling and suffering of children and other functions of public service?  Who cares about the inconvenience of the public, who cares about the noise level generated?  Who cares about gathering of millions of people in already overcrowded city. Of course, there are laws for it.  Who will implement it, as long as it is done by the “goon squad”/cadres of the Rajas and their stooges? Who cares about the Environmental Pollution, right to leave in peace and whatever fancy words are printed in the constitution of the country.

 And, changing the constitution of the country, India, is very easy. For the convenience of the so called elected they’ll raise their hands to change the constitution for their own free looting and luxuries.

 In other civilized countries, as I had observed, once the national parliament approves a change in the constitution of the country it must be approved unanimously by all provincial assemblies.  Even one objection from the provincial assemblies makes the proposed change null and void.

If the central government feels that it is for the betterment of the mass it has option to put on referendum for the people to give their “yes” or “no”. The constitution can only be changed and the law can only be changed if it is accepted by the referendum, not held at gun point, or intimidation or whatsoever.

 In reality, public service is there to salute and provide services to the VIPs, VIPs and their stooges.  Run around for months, years, and being thrown out of office and or police station are very common scenario.  And, the way it is people has no choice to avoid the public service and the public servants, either elected and or appointed in general, are habitual liars, extortionists, procrastinated, and it appears that these people are there to harass the public, not to provide them service until and of course their unwritten conditions are met.  Even if you grease the palm of these public servants, there is no guarantee that your needs will be taken care of. Exceptions do exist and they don’t count and hardly allowed to get things done.

 There hardly exists any humanitarian feeling and helping fellow humans. Those who are still left with human qualities are scorned and barrage of slang are thrown upon them and, if police finds a scope to extort or to implicate the innocents they’ll also show their color.

 Procedural law and order:

There are no securities for the people. Even the odd balls police officer take a humanitarian view, he has nothing to go by.  He/She has one stick his hand. He can not shoot to protect your life, that’s the practice not the police Act enacted by the British Raj and modified by the present rulers, as it appears, to use the police as their slave.

 There are reports in the press in state run government hospitals for granted reasons Autopsy reports are fabricated, so are the Forensic reports. This science only exists in the book, so is the DNA reports.  To get these tests done from reliable source is a highly expensive affair for the individual. One is lucky enough to get a person or persons with integrity.

 In summary, lawlessness and looting of the national exchequer is an accepted way of life.  People are beaten to death by the mob (goon) squad in public anybody objecting to it, subject to face the same situation. If one can afford the prohibitive cost and dares to go to judiciary, it is experienced that highest judiciary of the Province locally known as High Court, overlook the proven points in the judicial application and let the applicant go in circles a never ending process which may not materialize in one life’s term.  JUDICIARY IS A NIGHT MARE IF YOU DON’T HAVE BILLIONS.  If one does not have billions, can not get justice if it is against the state machinery, irrespective of violating all the rules and laws of the land.

 And as per the World Bank data, per capita income is $1.06/day.

 Humanity was the backbone of Indian Culture from Vedic era.  That’s history. After all, this is the largest democracy of the world!

-3-

-Public service and or Public undertakings.

Few examples:

 Food and food supplies:  There is a food rationing system by the state governments by providing ration identity cards.  Even if you’ve one, there is nothing in the ration shop for your family.  As per the press reports supplies from the government storages are distributed to retailers in the market with the market price.  As the ration shop keepers claim that they have to do this to satisfy the greed of local members of the “goon squad” in name of “criminalitics”. Even to get a ration card identity it is a process of never ending but by the members of “criminalitics” and their stooges have a way with it with no time lost.

 With IT catching up with the rest of the world, I was told by a IT professional that they’ve discussions with the Rajas’ stooges to have the ration card issued digitized and at the same, they’ve been told that there are more than 20 million false cards and these have to be accommodated in the IT system, to be legalized.

 Adulteration of all food products, it appears is an accepted way of life.

Be it milk, edible oil, whatever.  As experienced, and as per the press reports life saving medicines are also adulterated. Even rotten fish, uncertified live animals are butchered publicly and sold.

 Again there are thousand and one public servants to check on it.  It’s anybody’s guess what they do and/or what they’re allowed to do by the practioners of “criminalitics”.

 Education:

 Private schools approved and recognized by the local government for Medical, Engineering, Law, Management, IT, and what not have sprung up all over the country.  Experience indicates in these private schools one who can afford to pay the extraordinary entrance and tuition (in comparison to state run schools and fees) fees have access to it and get out with all kinds of degrees.  Students in these schools what do they learn, is anybody’s guess?  This is one of the good businesses to get in to suck the public if you’ve the clout and capital investment. But they get public service with guaranteed pay cheque irrespective of output and or service to the public.

 Be it High School students or higher classes, in general they’ve no respect for the elders, no respect for the laws, not even self respect, not even the teachers, as I observed.  No manners, no ethics and even hard to believe they possess any humanitarian quality. In general they find it a pride to throw slang at ladies, elders, disabled, and what not?  As experienced, poisoning somebody’s pets, throwing stones at window panes, even hand made bombs, threatening with life, is their pride.  They invariably show respect and salute the practitioner of “criminalitics” and their stooges and “goon squad”.

 Even most of the teachers keep silent about it, so are most of the law and order keepers.

Exceptions, if any, are known as mad caps.

 Leaving aside few state run well renowned autonomous learning institutions, it had been observed anybody can have a degree by one way or the other and hold different local high sounding public service, of course with local blessings of practitioner of “criminalitics”.

 Communications, Telephone and IT:

 This was a monopoly by the public service until recently. Billions are spent from the national exchequer for members of Rajas and their stooges.  People are burdened with fictitious bills and I am told the local law says that you pay the bill first then only the telephone provider will talk.  Most of the web address of the Government Departments don’t function. And the service provider a Government business do not care to provide service and scrupilious enough to pass one’s data to another for few Rupees (in case of Internet) to charge fictitiously and if you go to court it’s another nightmare.

 One does not have any choice to go to court of law to sort out, if at all, in their lifetime.

 Medical:

 As usual, Rajas and members of the family and some public servants who are likely to be stooges of “criminalitics” have free medical even in the costliest paid hospitals and or nursing homes.  Some even go to developed countries of course at the cost of national exchequer to get cured and or for medical treatment.  As seen in the press advertisement, they recruit VIP doctors at the All India Institute of Medical science in New Delhi.

 Mass goes to local government run hospitals that are controlled by “goon squad” in name of “criminalitics”.

 Even the worst victims of accidents and or mishap can get no treatment or admitted in the hospital if it is not patronized and blessed with “goon squad” and or practitioner of “criminalitics”.

 They meet with the eternity in helpless conditions.  The local press is full of news with these news and news of massacre by the “goon squad” where police is either a silent observer or intentionally not present.

 Most state run Government hospitals stink with urine and stool smells and smells of piling garbage.  Even stray diseased dogs and cats find a shelter in the hospitals and medicine stores nearby as people say, sell medicines at exorbitant prices and insiders say that these are medicines that come from government storage to hospitals for the patients.

 About 25 years back I took a patient with swallowing poison to such a government run sub-divisional hospital and the so called doctor attending the patient never heard of a stomach pump and the patient had to die.

 If one goes to court of law to seek redress, the so called local Indian Medical Association will find nothing wrong with the failing doctors for malpractice and or willful negligence.  Very recently a visiting NRI doctor a Professor in Medical College in USA, got his sick wife admitted to a highly expensive medical facility at Calcutta where she died as per the NRI doctor for negligence and malpractice of the doctors.  He took to them court of law and got them jailed.  But the state High Court let these doctors free and as per the press, Indian Medical Association got nothing wrong with these doctors.  It appears all are in hand and glove.

 To add, the local press was full of scorn, false accusations, about this NRI doctor.

 My efforts to start a manufacturing unit with the help of American MNC met with all kinds of handouts, extortions, laying fabricated criminal charges, and the list is endless. And, added to it, were the standard slogans with red flags as taught by practitioner of “criminilitics”.  I just ran out of the country after clearing all the criminal charges and greasing the palms as required and fortunately for me, I found an advocate (who is a High court Judge now) took pity on me and in state High Court, I was cleared of all charges.  But the local judiciary in sub-divisional level who was influenced by the members of “criminalitics”, who had no reasons and or legal ground not to dismiss the charges, did not do so.  This so called sub-divisional judicial magistrate/judge died of cancer and he is fondly called by the bar association as “cancer ghosh”.

 As is seen, state police is just the slaves of the masters of “criminalitics” so called elected public servants and their stooges, in India commonly known as VVIP, VIP and what not.  They’ve no respect of the law of the land and the so called Constitution.

 Besides, even police catches hardened criminals, there will be no witness in the court for the fact, and the “goon squad” has thrown life threat ultimatum to these witnesses, with life, wife, daughter, son and what not! Police do not protect the witnesses.  After all, police is busy as they say “VVIP duty”.  Mass do not count.

 Infrastructure:

 In most parts of the country the roads maintained by the public service are beyond imagination to drive upon, even bicycling.  Ministers and their stooges portray their images with all big sounding words in the press unveiling the beginning of a project by spending millions from national exchequer and that project it appears is never ending and in the process, finds allocated for the project is siphoned off. In spite of all kinds of acts, like Environmental pollution act, Safety, it is taken for granted.  The head of the municipality definitely of ruling goon squad, orders taking out the soil in front of the house supposed to be green area and sell it.  This is definitely a crime and against all Engineering norms to weaken the foundations of residential houses.  Police is a silent on looker and when written complaints are provided to Police which they normally refuse to acknowledge and file suit at the court from experience they appear, are just deaf.  For years, the roads plying heavy vehicles had subsided and instead of bringing the road to the “as built” condition the local members of the “goon squad” finds all kinds of excuses of digging out the soil and haul it. And get some money for it.  Most public servants with the title of Engineers are not regulated any professional organization.  At the whims of “goon squad” anybody can be a Engineer without having any professional recognition.

 What does one expect from this scenario?  Infrastructure funds are for purchases of personal cars, houses and what not?

 These people change the master plan of the municipality to their advantage (mostly money), even though there’s order of the Supreme Court of India that nobody is authorized to change the master plan of a locality.

 Water Supply:

 If there is water on your tap, one is lucky to have mud, worms and all kinds of bacteria and viruses in the water supply.  It is taken for granted.  There are umpteen numbers of glorified titled public servants to ensure that everything is done in line with the standardized norms but, who’s going to stand against the head of the institution that belongs to the groups of Rajas’ goon squad?

After all, they’ll want to live in peace and have their eyes closed.

 Once in Calcutta, I was witnessing a large diameter pipeline being laid and there was a fellow standing like a hero supposedly to be some kind of Engineer and or Supervisor.  When I asked “what’s this going on, this is not being done by engineering norms”.  He showed me the office of the local Superintending Engineer nearby and asked me to tell it to him.  Since, by this time my eyes have opened about the “hand in glove”, and this project was funded by the World Bank, I just fired a letter to then World Bank president Robert McNamara.

 By this time I was gone to my work to civilized countries.  Robert McNamara came to Calcutta and enquired about me and did what he thought prudent to be done.

 Public transport:

 It is regulated by the state vehicles department.  Even the routes are allocated by the members of the “goon squad”.  In residential area these vehicles pass by with electric horns to make a dead to stand on its feet and emanating all emissions both of which are against the Environmental Act and the Master plan of the locality.

 As reported in the press, some state run public buses don’t have route permits.  Well, they say, it’s just the system.

 Local, glorified titled public servants’ roads are blocked by putting iron bars so that no heavy vehicle can pass through.

 Economy:

 There are kinds of statistics, figures thrown in the press by all concerned including VIPs, VIPs and their stooges indicating a 10% annual growth.  Good.  If so, why mass suffers without any basic guarantees of life, added with extortions, killings, tortures and what not, and the so called VIPs, VIPs and their stooges loot the national exchequer!

 Of course, this is the biggest democracy of the world!  (Depends on the definition of democracy).

 -4-

State runs businesses:

 Banking:

State run banks do give a damn about customers.  Employees, bank tellers, are just gossiping and talking to each other about their girls and the customers are standing in mute in line.

 If objected to, state run members of the “criminalitics” who manages the state run unions roughs up the public and unhesitatingly roughs the manager of the bank if he/she takes any disciplinary action against the defaulting employee.

 In 40 years in civilized countries I had no discrepancy with my banking.  None of my requests were ignored.  My monthly remittance to India to Indian nationalized bank for supporting the people India had no discrepancy in inward remittances.  Few remittances were missing.  The reply of the guaranteed pay cheque holder of the Indian bank with a fancy title sternly replied to me it is your bank that did not remit.  How am I going to make this glorified title holders of state run Indian banks that this do not happen in civilized countries.  I just closed my a/c and looked for better of the evils.

 I wrote a cheque for my housekeeper and asked her to deposit it to her account in a state run bank.  She never saw that money.  For years, I’d to fight in the court of law to get that money.

 There are no limits of harassments and damages caused by the Public sectors and the locals take it for granted.  Why they don’t have “hire and fire” if the clients (in this case public) are not provided with service? Who’s going to do it?  As per press reports quite a good number of MPs, MLAs, have umpteen numbers of criminal charges.  But they are still MPs, MLAs, so called law makers.

 It appears that public service in India are there to push peoples’ backs in the wall and in every step of life. Either the mass suffer in mute or those who can and still have finance and energy and time eternal, go to the court of law as a last recourse.  Not that this is a panacea or remedy but one doesn’t have any choice.

 Exceptions are hard to come by.

Transportation:

Railway implemented in India by the British Raj has developed into one of the largest network of railways in the world.

 Like the King George VI, the Railway Minister takes the whole train accompanied by all attendants, personal assistants, Secretaries, and all luxuries, automatic weapon armed security personnel and what not.

 The mass hangs on the hand rails of the railway compartments at the peril of the life and some even travel on top of the train to get electrocuted for the fact there is no room in the railway compartments.

 Well, after all a VVIP, VIP and their stooges, by Indian practice can do so.  Let the mass go to hell, is the clear message every time. Even the sons, daughters, and any other relatives of the railway minister just forces themselves into the air-conditioned compartments of the railway, and paying for it?  You must be joking.  After all they’re minister’s relatives. The ticket checker has only one head on his shoulder.

 Some railway employees take it granted to have their palms greased.

 Air:

 I was having a return ticket by Air India to India and back.  I had confirmed reservation at Ashoka Hotel in Mumbai.  When asked for the hotel to the Air India employee at Mumbai, “yahaa so jaon” (sleep here) was the reply, and he showed me the floor.

 There are VIP lounges at the Airports free of cost for the Indian glorified titled public servants.

 At New Delhi my connecting confirmed reservation by Indian Airlines was denied by the booking clerk (boarding pass issuer).  A slip of INR100.00 note to the porter did the trick.  I got my boarding pass.

 On return journey from Mumbai, sitting behind me I had lady passenger going to New York and she had a baby crying continuously from Mumbai.  She had the calling button pressed and the red light was on. In three or four rows before me there were Indian couple sitting and all the air hostesses, it appeared to me were performing “Bharat natyam” and serving all kinds of drinks, snacks without caring about the crying baby, and the rest of the passengers of a near empty Boeing 747.

 My conclusion that this couple was flying at the cost of national exchequer, i.e. freeloaders and must be glorified titled public servants of India was right. When in international territory, I objected to baby’s crying, and non existent of service. Baby’s mother needed some hot water to make milk to feed the baby. The captain of the flight apologized.  I’d flown pretty well in all airlines in the world.  This experience one can get only in India and in Air India.

 Good bye Air India.

 I had a mind to report it to Heathrow Airport and other international bodies but I just philosophized “no matter what washes are done, coal will not change its color”.

 My schedule for five days at Sanfrascico was cancelled. Since there were no queue in first class booking counter I approached the booking clerk (I was not rudely challenged, as I had experienced in the state run Airlines of India, by the booking clerk why have I got into this counter, since I don’t have a first class ticket) to help me out. My ticket from Sanfracisco to India was immediately rebooked next day by Singapore Airlines at no cost and since my flight arrived late at night in Sanfracisco by Aleyska Airlines; the booking clerk of Singapore Airlines politely provided me complimentary hotel and transportation, although it was not there responsibility. The Airline showed a humanitarian gesture.

 My flight from Edmonton to Calgary was late and the connecting flight to Sanfracisco already left.  Air Canada without any hassle provided with a free five star hotel with food for the night and taxi to and from the hotel and ensured that I’d a confirmed reservation from Edmonton to Sanfracisco and by Singapore Airlines, the next day.

How does it compare with Air India showing me the floor to sleep in at Mumbai Airport, and the crying baby not getting hot water to make milk for feed?

 One Maharaja (locally known as Prime Minister) of India used to fly with two Boeing 747 accompanied with whomsoever he liked and the logic provided to mass is that in case one has technical trouble, Maharaja can take the other one.

 And, the rest of the majority of populations of his kingdom are below poverty level even by Indian standard, let it not be compared with developed countries.

 By laws of average, Rajas and Maharajas of India and their kin and stooges have a free lunch, luxuries, wealth disproportionate to their income.  In practice, they’re above the laws of the land.

Mineral trading in international scenario:

 Iron ore exported with more than 70% Fe contents are reported to have been received at destination with 50% Fe contents.  After all, these are controlled by all regulatory authorities at both ends.  This scenario is very common in all raw minerals trading.

 Energy:

 a. Coal mining is a national sector.  Billions are siphoned off by the mafia from the coal mines and some even have their organized gang with automatic weapon to kill anybody they like.  Rajas, Maharajas and their stooges have, as they say, have their share.

 b. Power generation and distribution:

 Input versus output is nobody’s business.  Propaganda flies all around in all media that some power plants are operating at 150% efficiency factor. Whereas in reality it does not even function at 30% efficiency.

 At the whims of the Rajas and Maharajas power generation units are located even where there is not sufficient water to have one boiler feed of water.  So what? Rajas divert the ever drying river to the power plant site.

 In blatant violation of public safety, naked aluminum conductors are run through localities for distribution to households.  Monkeys, passers by get electrocuted and become dead and by local practice it’s taken for granted.

 It is told that in locality where Rajas and Maharajas and stooges live safety norms are followed.

 Whereas Rajas, Maharajas and their stooges have uninterrupted power supply, in some areas people will be lucky to have six hours’ of power supply, of course at the cost of national exchequer, some call it “free lunch” at the cost of mass who have guaranteed starvation, deprivation, torture and what not? One will be lucky to have 60 watt unit run in constant voltage.

 Unending greed and corruption, guarantee of protection of “goon squad” in different fancy names, guaranteed inefficiency and guarantee of pay cheque are the backbone of all this practice for years since so called independence of India.

 Rajas and Maharajas and their stooges don’t have to bother about their own needs.  Special units are there to ensure that communications, power supply, transportations, luxuries and what not are at top conditions. For the consumer, to have an electric meter functioning properly must be a miracle and fictitious billing is just an accepted way of life.  One has to run around in never ending circles to have the meter checked, and here comes two persons so called meter expert with a light bulb to check the meter?  Telephone requests if answered, do not work.

 As per the local information and the local press stolen transformers of State Electricity Board are sold back to State Electricity Boards.  Again, as per the local reports, spent oil from the transformers are mixed with edible mustard oil to smell it like mustard oil.

 Liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon:

 For the last 50 years it had been a monopoly of state.  Adulterations of the product at the retail outlet, manipulation of metering units are just very common business.

 With international liquid hydrocarbon sky rocketing prices one wonders how every Joe Blow has cars like ships and how do they maintain it?

 And as per UNO statistics the average per capita income of a person in India, is not even $400/year.

 Of course VIPs, VIPs and their stooges don’t have to bother about it?

It’s all at the cost of national exchequer.

-5-

-Bitter medicines-

 From personal knowledge, lot of people of Indian origin suggested in writing to government of India to implement the following:

 (a)    Issuance of Social Insurance numbered card to everybody resident in India.

 (b)    These days IT being the backbone any administration, this number will be tagged with all government departments, i.e. police, judiciary, banking, income tax, social benefits such as medical, medicines, election and what not. Not the present “hotch potch” system of voter identity cards, ration cards, PAN cards and these as one can see is there to manipulate at the convenience of so called elected and their stooges. 

(c)    This will enable to have some control of the situation of anarchy.

 (d)     Implement “hire and fire” in public service (in this case public) complain.

  (e)    In name of democracy abolish parallel administration of “criminalitics” from village level to top hierarchy.

 (f)       The question is, if any Joe Blows are elected in peoples’ vote why would they need security from the public?

 If people are elected by the people, not at “gun point” and / or other coercive method/s why would they need protection?   In all the democratic countries nobody excepting “Head of the State” gets any police protection.

 (h)    Why ambulance and fire brigade is not escorted by police vehicles?

 (i)      Why so called elected and or glorified titled public servants will be spared to face the law like anybody in the country.  Abolish important status and what not.  In democratic country and society who’s more important that others.

 (j)      Who’s got the right to violate others’ right to live in peace and all other rights that a state must guarantee to its residents.

 (k)    Public service is there to provide service to the public not to harass them or push their backs in the wall, a locally standard practice.

 (l)      Those who can afford, why people as a last resort to go to court of law for any public servants’ wrong doing? Why the departmental heads and the responsible Minister do not take remedial steps for any complaints filed by the people? If needed, to show the door.

 (m) In other civilized society as I had seen persons charged with criminal

      charges are not allowed to hold any public office. Look at India?

 (n) It is mandatory in other developed countries that no public servant

      can hold two public offices.

 (o) With national social security numbers, if these super intelligent

people, does not create fabricated national social security numbers there are no scopes of “black money” and or benami (fictitious names) bank accounts and properties spread all over the world.

(p) It appears that cancer has spread in every cells of the national body,       and the question is “who has the desire and guts of curing” it?

All the people are talking about ICBMs, Environment and what not all big

sounding words.  For years after writing to so many doctorates who heads national

and provincial Environmental Protection, I had to seek the recourse of the Kolkata

High Court and surprisingly, (as I know the reality now, it is no surprising to me)

one of the judges rejected my writ petition under article 226 of the Constitution of

India and in the Divisional Bench it was referred to District Magistrate whom I wrote

about a decade back and it was attached with my writ petition.  What a justice now? 

Meanwhile I had been squeezed to death financially by the so called advocates.

Who cares about these big words Microchips, ICBMs, Polymer applications in

Engineering which are very common knowledge these days when everywhere it is

apparent law of the land and International laws are broken with impunity in India and

people die of starvation, lack of  medical treatment.

Let India first learn the science of Human Science and Engineering as a law then

only it can justify its standing in the world.

-6-

Where it is heading to?

 Years back I transferred technology, to the Ministry of Mines and Minerals,(name changes and not practicable for me to keep track) and a Indian Professional body asked my permission to have it published in their journal.

 Assuming that the concerned ministry of Govt. of India had agreed to implement the technology, I wrote a registered letter to the concerned minister stating that I will have the technology implemented with Indian source and manpower and any fees they’re willing to pay may please be remitted to my father (who was then living).  As usual in line with Indian scenario it was not replied.

 One American Engineering organization’s business development manager, one of my ex-coworkers, invites me for lunch near my work place.  Surprisingly, he produced a photocopy of my report and said they’ve the job and their opinion was asked about the report. On my enquiry he replied “we’ve only one skin on our back and ethically, how can we say anything different, you’re in North America and we are working for you on the same technology”.

 “How is that possible”- I enquired.  It’s simple. The minister was here and we did what is to be done.

 I and many of my associates, friends of Indian origin had witnessed many such incidents in our lives.

 Again, when Rajsthan Atomic Power Project was being constructed by Atomic Energy of Canada, having involved in such projects all over the world, I opted to go to Rajsthan and take a working role.  In Canada, the head of the project invited me to have lunch with him.  “Hey we know you, but you’ll not be able to get anything done over there for the fact you’re of Indian origin.  Even we send a white brick layer from here; over there, all of them will call him Sir, and get the job done”.  Such facts are endless.

 Now the question is how long this will continue?

 In Vedas (Gita) it’s stated that I (God) come to this world to destroy the evils and protect the humane religion.

 Again, God get it done by us.  And when the people of India are going to awaken up and do the justification to the so called “biggest democracy of the world”.

 To make stunts here and there, few missiles are fired.  One or few nuclear explosions are done.  Communication satellites are lunched and at the cost of millions of national exchequer all local Rajas, Maharajas and their stooges are welcome at any place with red carpet welcome and garlands whereas, the mass have deprivation, starvation, torture, extortions, and millions of other evils for granted.

 Is it not a “failed state” where people do not have the guaranteed basic needs of life?  They’re guaranteed of starvation, to be bitten by street dogs at Government run hospitals, not treated by medical doctors, if in trouble with “goon squad” the uniformed “goon squad” locally known as police are not there to help, and the list of evils and inhumanity is never ending.

 In 1960s “Hindi-Chini bhai bhai” (India and China are brothers) a slogan originated by the then prime minister of India Nehru, when China butchered the Indian soldiers (I was working in the area then and mandatory salary deduction for defense at that time deposited in bank is a lost cause for me) occupied part of India, still under their occupation, is going to be repeated, or other courses of nature will dictate itself to bring justice to the people of India.  In Mahabharata kaurabs destructed themselves.

 Forget all the tyranny that had been on since 60 years’ of so called inpendence of India.

 Let India learn to take care of its residents not the VIPs, VIPs and their stooges with glorified titles in Public Service and the “goon squad” of practitioners of “criminalitics” locally known as politics.

 It must be done forthwith. Time has run out.  Otherwise, history repeats itself. Hope it does not end up like that.

 Copy right: CRS Registration Number is: 283468976

In Pakistan itself, after a month’s buildup, an unruly mob of some 10,000 anti-Rushdie protesters took to the streets of the capital city of Islamabad. Marching to the American Cultural Center (a fact significant in itself), they attempted with great energy, but without success, to set the heavily fortified building on fire. Six people died in the violence, and many more were injured. These events, in turn, caught the attention of Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary ruler of Iran, who took prompt and drastic action: on February 14, 1989, he called upon “all zealous Muslims quickly to execute” not just Salman Rushdie as the author of The Satanic Verses but “all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content.” This edict led to emergency measures in England to protect Rushdie’s person, and to weeks and months of intense debate among the world’s politicians and intellectuals about the issues of freedom of speech and blasphemy.

When the dust settled, Khomeini had failed in his specific goal of eliminating Rushdie physically: today, over a decade later, the author is once again writing well-received books and accepting literary awards. But if Khomeini did not manage to harm Rushdie, he did accomplish something far more profound: he stirred the souls of many Muslims, reviving a sense of confidence in their faith and a strong impatience with any denigration of it, as well as a determination to take the offensive against anyone perceived to be a blasphemer or even a critic. Although Khomeini himself passed from the scene just weeks after issuing his decree, the spirit it engendered is very much alive.

During the decade since 1989, many efforts have been undertaken by the forces of Islamism – otherwise known as Muslim fundamentalism – to silence critics. Ranging from outright violence to more sophisticated but no less effective techniques, they have produced impressive results.

Some early acts of physical intimidation involved the Rushdie case itself. Translators of The Satanic Verses were stabbed and seriously injured in Norway and Italy and, in Japan, murdered. In Turkey, another translator escaped when a fire set in his hotel failed to kill him, but 37 others died in the blaze. Other acts of violence were designed to punish both Muslims and non-Muslims for a variety of alleged offenses.

Egypt alone offers a number of examples. Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, a professor of literature who wrote that certain references in the Qur’an to supernatural phenomena should be read as metaphors, found his marriage dissolved by an Egyptian court on the grounds that his writings proved him an apostate. (According to Islamic law, a Muslim woman may not be married to a non-Muslim.) Another case involved the author of a nonconformist essay on Islam: he, his publisher, and the book’s printer were each sentenced to eight years in jail on the charge of blasphemy. Farag Foda, an Egyptian intellectual who expressed scorn for the Islamist program, was shot and murdered. And Naguib Mahfouz, the elderly and much-celebrated Nobel Prize laureate for literature, was seriously injured in Cairo when an assailant knifed him in the neck, presumably in revenge for an allegorical novel written decades earlier.

Nor has the campaign been limited to Muslim-majority countries. Makin Morcos, also an Egyptian, was killed in Australia for criticizing the Islamists’ anti-Christian campaign in his native country; Rashad Khalifa, a biochemist from Egypt living in Tucson, Arizona, was stabbed to death in January 1990 to silence his heretical ideas. (A member of Usama bin Laden’s gang has been implicated in the latter murder.) Both these incidents sent a chilling message: you can run but you cannot hide.

Nor, finally, is the campaign in Western countries limited to violence or threats of violence against Muslims; it also extends to non-Muslims. In some cases, purely private matters may be at issue: Jack Briggs, an Englishman, has been on the lam for years, hiding with his wife from her Pakistani family who have vowed to kill both of them (even though they are properly married and even though he converted to Islam to win their approval). Other cases concern publicly expressed views: Steven Emerson, a former Senate aide and investigative reporter for U.S. News & World Report, CNN, and other media, received death threats for Jihad in America, his award-winning television documentary that drew on the Islamists’ own commercial videos to demonstrate their virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American views and activities.

Emerson told his story to a congressional committee in 1998, and it bears quoting at length:

Immediately following the release of Jihad in America, I became the target of radical fundamentalist groups throughout the United States (and internationally) who fiercely denied the existence of “Islamic extremism” and accused me of engaging in an “attack against Islam.” For this “transgression,” my life has been permanently changed.

Explaining the details of just one incident – to pick among a whole series – will help you understand the changes I have been forced to endure. One morning, in late 1995, I was paged by a federal law-enforcement official. When I returned the call, this official immediately instructed me to head downtown to his office and specifically directed me to take a taxi rather than my car. The urgency in this person’s voice was palpable. When I arrived at the office, I was ushered into a room where a group of other law-enforcement officials was waiting. Within minutes, I found out why I had been summoned: I was told a group of radical Islamic fundamentalists had been assigned to carry out an assassination of me. An actual hit team had been dispatched from another country to the United States. The squad, according to the available intelligence, was to rendezvous with its American-based colleagues located in several U.S. cities. Compounding the jolt of being told about this threat was an additional piece of information: the assassination squad had been successfully able to elude law-enforcement surveillance.

I was told that I had limited choices: since I was not a full-time government employee, I was not entitled to 24-hour-a-day police protection. However, I could probably get permission to enter the Witness Security Program under the right circumstances. But the prospect of being spirited away and given a new identity was not acceptable to me – especially since that would afford the terrorists a moral victory in having shut me down. Frankly, however, the alternative option was not that attractive either – being on my own and taking my own chances. And yet that for me was the only effective option.

While Emerson remains doggedly on the trail of Islamists, especially those among them who support terrorism, he has for four years been forced to live at a clandestine address, always watching his movements. Like the case of Rashad Khalifa, murdered in Tucson for his views, the case of Steven Emerson suggests that, despite the Constitution’s guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, when it comes to Islam, unapproved thinking can lead to personal danger or even death.

Still, were force the only weapon in the Islamists’ arsenal, their accomplishments would be limited. In the West, at least, violence and physical intimidation can achieve only so much. But, contrary to stereotype, Islamists are hardly all wild-eyed hit men and suicide bombers; in Western countries, many of them are quite at home with computers, well-versed in the latest lobbying techniques, and adept at the game of victimology. Energetic, determined, and skilled, they employ the tools not of physical but rather of intellectual intimidation. Their aim in doing so is to build an inviolate wall around Islam, endowing it with something like the sacrosanct status it enjoys in traditionally Muslim countries.

Islamists of this latter stripe make full use of every recourse available to them in the laws and customs of the Western liberal democracies themselves. A few examples will illustrate. In France, Marcel Lefebvre, a renegade Catholic bishop, was fined nearly $1,000 under French law for declaring that when the Muslim presence in France becomes stronger, “it is your wives, your daughters, your children who will be kidnapped and dragged off to a certain kind of place as they exist in [Morocco].” In Canada, a Christian activist handing out leaflets protesting the Muslim persecution of Christians was accused by Muslim organizations of “inciting hatred,” found guilty of breaking Canada’s hate-speech laws, and sentenced to 240 hours of community service and six months of probation time in jail. At the United Nations, the decidedly nondiplomatic epithets “blasphemy” and “defamation of Islam” have become part of normal discourse, serving as convenient instruments for shutting off discussion of such unpleasant matters as slavery in Sudan or Muslim anti-Semitism.

In the United States, where the concept of freedom of speech is sturdier than elsewhere, the First Amendment still prevents the government itself from fining or jailing anyone for offensive speech. But, relying on the ethos of political correctness that has resulted in such abridgements of First Amendment freedoms as university speech codes and other restrictive practices, Islamists seek to win what sanction they can to censor others. Thus, they have recently sponsored an innocent-sounding Senate resolution entitled “Supporting Religious Tolerance Toward Muslims.” This resolution states as a fact that “Muslims have been subjected, simply because of their faith, to acts of discrimination and harassment that all too often have led to hate-inspired violence,” and concludes that criticism of Islam, though legal in the strict sense, is morally reprehensible (”the Senate acknowledges that individuals and organizations that foster such intolerance create an atmosphere of hatred and fear that divides the Nation”). Should this resolution pass, and there is every reason to expect that it will, anyone with anything negative to say about Islam or Islamism can expect to be accused of fostering a hate crime.

Who, in the American context, is behind this campaign of mental intimidation and of what, in a journalistic context, would be called prior restraint? Among the many candidates, the leading one is surely the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington-based institution founded in 1994. CAIR presents itself to the world as a standard-issue civil-rights organization, whose mission is to “promote interest and understanding among the general public with regard to Islam and Muslims in North America and conduct educational services.”

Sometimes, indeed, this is what CAIR does. In 1997, for example, it protested when an official at a meeting of a board of education in South Carolina said, “Screw the Buddhists and kill the Muslims.” At other times, it has come to the defense of women who have lost their jobs for insisting on wearing a headscarf, or of men for wearing beards. But these occasional good works serve mostly as a cover for CAIR’s real agenda, which appears to be twofold: to help the radical organization Hamas in its terror campaign against Israel, and to promote the Islamist program in the United States.

In furtherance of the first goal, CAIR regularly sends out “action alerts” to instigate dozens or even hundreds of protests, many of them vulgar and aggressive, whenever anyone dares to suggest publicly that Hamas or other te rrorist networks operate in the United States, or indeed dares to support those who say such things. When Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for the Boston Globe, protested CAIR’s almost successful effort to have Steven Emerson blacklisted from National Public Radio, CAIR cranked up its letter-writing campaign (”Dear JEW,” went a characteristic missive from a CAIR minion, “How dare you defame Islam. . . . There is enough Muslim-bashing going on, I am sure your resigning will not make a difference to our jewish [sic] media”) and, in a bit of raw intimidation, threatened the Globe with legal action.

CAIR’s defense of Islamist violence takes other forms as well: picketing the Dallas Morning News for revealing the Hamas infrastructure in Texas, launching a campaign against the Tampa Tribune for uncovering the Islamic Jihad network in that city. The group has inveighed against the Journal of the American Medical Association for investigating the medical condition of victims of terrorism, and against a children’s magazine, The Weekly Reader’s Current Events, for publishing material on international terrorism. CAIR denounced the Atlantic Monthly for publishing an article on Islamist violence in Sudan, and a Senate Subcommittee for holding a hearing on “Foreign Terrorists in America: Five Years After the World Trade Center Bombing.”

As for its other goal – promoting Islamism in the United States – CAIR focuses on the single tactic of trying to silence those who have anything critical to say about Islam. It attacked the Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles for portraying Ayatollah Khomeini as a Hitler-like enemy of Jews, and it went after the Reader’s Digest for documenting the repression of Christians in several Muslim countries. When James Jatras, a Senate aide, published in his private capacity a stinging critique of Islam (”a self-evident outgrowth not of the Old and New Covenants but of the darkness of heathen Araby”), CAIR took out a full-page newspaper ad in the Washington Times calling for his dismissal. And when Father Richard John Neuhaus, the distinguished author and editor of First Things, outspokenly condemned contemporary Islam’s “resentments and suspicions, alternating with low-grade jihad in the form of the persecution of Christians, international terrorism, and dreams of driving Israel into the sea,” CAIR called on the Catholic Church to “investigate” Neuhaus, and its supporters sent a cascade of abusive mail accusing him of being “obviously mentally ill” and “doing the work of Adolf Hitler.”

Even lesser provocations than these elicit a barrage of CAIR-inspired letters that can leave writers and editors feeling isolated and under siege. A case in point indirectly involves the Oslo peace process. Beginning in May 1995, Yasir Arafat, having entered into negotiations with Israel, took to defending himself before Arab audiences by alluding cryptically to the treaty of Hudaybiyah, signed by the Prophet Muhammad in 628 C.E. Dusting off their history books, American commentators mostly concluded that, in invoking an agreement signed but then subsequently broken by Muhammad when circumstances changed, Arafat was signaling that he, too, did not really mean to keep his pledge. Arafat’s intentions aside, however, it was the suggestion that the Prophet Muhammad had gone back on his word that aroused CAIR’s fury. So impassioned was the reaction when Mortimer B. Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, referred in a column to “the doctrine of the prophet Muhammad of making treaties with enemies while he is weak, violating them when he is strong,” that the magazine ended up printing not one but two apologies.

A flavor of what CAIR and its network of letter writers were capable of producing on this occasion may be gleaned from the pages of the New Republic, where a similar statement had been made by Yehoshua Porath, an eminent professor of Middle East history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This statement (”Muhammad broke the [Hudaybiya] agreement eighteen months after its conclusion”) elicited, according to the magazine’s editors, “hundreds of abusive phone calls, letters, and e-mail accusing us of defamation of the Prophet and worse.” Among the letters published by the editors, all in their original grammar and spelling, one read:

You guys had better watch out, ok? Because this is not going to go on further anymore, ok? You’d better watch out that f*ing Jew . . . tell him where he is coming from, ok? Because you know mother-f*er bastard, mother – his mom is a bastard. ok? He can’t talk about Muslim shit and you get your act together . . . all of you. We don’t want to hear anymore about this problem, ok? You got that right?

Another was more threatening:

The jews from back in history were the ugly decievers and BLOOD SUCKERS. . . . It is importatn that an apology is issued to calm down the MUSLIM all over the world. WE DO NO WANT TO SEE ANOTHER 19 AMERICANS GO A WSAY IN THA LAND OF THE PROPHET ,,, DO WE ??????? !!!!!! I am saying this because the Muslims will never tolerate the actions of the jews agains their religion. And articels like these contribute in the future loss of life of Anmericans all over the Islamic world. . . . We are fed up of filthy jews robbing our lands, and defaming all HOLY concepts we have. Please, save the lives of few Americans by issuing your apology.

Which brings me to my own case. In mid-1999, I published articles in the Los Angeles Times and the National Post (Toronto) emphasizing the distinction between, on the one hand, traditional Muslims who go quietly about their business and ask only to be allowed to practice their faith, and, on the other, radical Islamists with their agenda of transforming society in the image of their beliefs. In reply, CAIR launched fifteen separate attacks on me in the space of two months. Many of these, reaching all the way back to 1983, cited random quotations from articles and books in order to indict me out of my own mouth, or resurrected unflattering appraisals of my work by others. One bulletin attempted to demolish an article I had written about the treaty of Hudaybiya – even though, contrary to other American commentators, I had found that “Muhammad was technically within his rights to abrogate the treaty.” The broadside was titled “Daniel Pipes Smears Prophet Muhammad”: fighting words for many Muslims.

Reverberating through the Internet, CAIR’s attacks were also widely reprinted in Muslim publications, spurring dozens of letters, overwhelmingly negative, to the two newspapers that had carried my articles. One such letter urged me to enroll in sensitivity training (at CAIR, naturally), while others branded me with harsh names (”bigot and racist”), compared me to the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis, or characterized my writings as an “atrocity” filled with “pure poison” and “outright lies.” More alarmingly, the letters accused me either of perpetrating a hate crime against Muslims or of promoting and abetting such crimes. And they did not stop short of vague threats: “Is Pipes ready to answer the Creator for his hatred or is he a secular humanist . . . ? He will soon find out.”

I do not want to leave the impression that CAIR represents the only opinion to be found in the Muslim community, either here or abroad. Shaykh Abdad Hadi Palazzi, for instance, secretary general of the Italian Muslim Association and director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Muslim Community in Rome, has actually denounced CAIR for falsely claiming to represent the entire Muslim community while in reality being bent on launching “hate campaigns against journalists, Congressmen, Senators, and Muslims who interfere with [its] true terrorist agenda.” What is more, Shaykh Palazzi has commended both me and Steven Emerson for daring to challenge the Islamists; though he does “not agree with [our] attitude toward Islam in particular and with [our] secular worldview in general,” nevertheless we are to be lauded for distinguishing “authentic Islam from the counterfeit image presented by the Islamists” – of whom, the Shaykh pointedly concludes, Muslims themselves “are the main victims.”

But Shaykh Palazzi is one among only a few voices of reason and sanity. Within the universe of Muslims who speak and write about Islam and its position in the modern world, the Islamists by far have the upper hand. That is not only a great tragedy for Muslims, but a danger to the rest of us. For if the Islamists have their way, any possibility of speaking the truth not only about them but about Islam itself will be foreclosed. Indeed, to a certain extent, as in the near-successful blacklisting of Steven Emerson at National Public Radio, it already has been.

Bernard Lewis, the renowned scholar of Islam and the Middle East, has noted with asperity that whereas, in a majority-Christian country like the United States, an English-language biographer of Jesus enjoys total latitude to say what he will and as he will, his counterpart working on a biography of Muhammad must look fearfully over his shoulder every step of the way. About my own writing, one correspondent protested to the National Post: “It’s is interesting to me as a Muslim American to hear you, a non-Muslim, speaks about Islam as an expert without you first consulting with an American Muslim organization like CAIR for an example, to get their opinion about what you are about to print.” In other words, one is perfectly free to voice an opinion about Islam, provided that one has vetted its contents beforehand with the Islamists – roughly the situation that now prevails in Iran.

What the Islamists are demanding, in short, is that the United States take a giant step toward applying within its borders the strictures of Islamic law (the shari’a) itself. A basic premise of that body of law is that no one, and especially no non-Muslim, may openly discuss certain subjects – some of the very subjects, as it happens, that CAIR wishes to render taboo. However absurd this may seem to a casual observer – Muslims, after all, make up, at most, 2 percent of the U.S. population – it is a fact that, when the guard of the democratic majority is let down, determined minorities in pursuit of anti-democratic aims can sometimes get their way.