Express your voice

Apart from the issues of weapons of mass destruction, dealing with Iraq first has strategic purpose. Iraq, Iran, and Syria are the most dangerous terrorist states in the region. Iran will likely fall from within because of internal pressures and forced regime change next door. America, let us hope, need not fire a single shot in Iran. Syria? Who knows? One hopes America need not apply muscle there, but, if necessary, it should do so. As you know, Syria-occupied Lebanon has the biggest terrorist academy in the world.

The US has no quarrel with India, though I do understand that India has a quarrel with the US. America has ignored India for too long and supports a dictatorship next door to it in the name of the war against Islamist terrorism. It is in the interest of both India and the US to develop closer ties. That India has nuclear weapons should not be cause for concern. Quite frankly, it does concern me that Pakistan has them. Does that mean America will demand Pakistan to disarm? I very much doubt it because the US continues to accommodate Pakistan, but the latter’s current dictatorship and Islamist population do not bode well for the war against Islamist terrorism.
— Donnel Jones

• This is with reference to Tavleen Singh’s column, ‘‘A case for third party mediation in Kashmir’’. It is really unfortunate that our political leadership has never tried to develop a healthy, pragmatic and uniform policy on Kashmir. All our statements and efforts have been no more than an exercise in adhocism and patchwork solutions. At worst, we have condemned Pakistan for its support to terrorism in the Valley and at best, we have patted ourselves for being able to conduct peaceful elections. And between these two extremes, many new terrorist organisations have grown and flourished, resulting in the death of thousands of innocent people. Ironically we have looked helplessly to the whole world, particularly the West, to check Pakistan in its encouragement of cross-border terrorism, but we ourselves have done almost nothing in this direction, except that after every major incident of terrorism we threaten a ‘‘pro-active approach’’ and ‘‘hot-chase’’.

Whenever any other country has tried to suggest a solution, we have bluntly declared that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. But when it comes to initiating a dialogue on this issue, our contention is that Pakistan should first stop its support to cross-border terrorism. While our demand is fully justified, do we hope that Pakistan will one day officially tell us that it has stopped that support to terrorism and the dialogue should be initiated? We seem to have reached a deadlock, which will only breed more terrorism and international disenchantment from our just stand.

At a time when the whole world is fed up with Islamic fundamentalism, it would be to our advantage to make an offer of dialogue to Pakistan. By doing this, if we cannot solve the problem of Kashmir, we can at least hope to expose Pakistan’s support to terrorism.
— Ved Guliani

• In her column, ‘‘More news is good noose’’, Pamela Philipose has sharply attacked TV news channels, in accordance with the feelings of the general viewers. Indian TV news channels are racing fast to ‘‘be first’’, especially when it comes to sensational news which at times prove to be wrong. The ‘‘at-the-spot’’ interviewers are asked silly, irrelevant questions by news anchors.
— Subhash Agrawal