WHAT is the difference between dying in an airplane crash and dying in a railway blast? Or what is the difference between seeing your financial center get attacked (NYC) and someone else’s (Mumbai) get attacked by terrorists?
Remember that financial centers in today’s globalized world are all inter-connected, to mean your investment fund portfolio might have some portion of it weighted in a far-off nation’s stock market. So terrorists who strike India should be met with the same resolve as terrorists who strike the United States. But you just don’t see that, save for some lamentations from the West, particularly Washington. Why?
In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush White House decided to enlist the aid of Pakistan to pursue terrorists in Afghanistan when the former’s secret spy agency, the ISI, propped up the Taliban which in turn harbored Al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. Basically, President Bush and his “superb” foreign policy team decided to thumb its nose at India, long a target and victim of Islamists terrorists, and picked Pakistan instead to lead the charge in this war on terror.
Indian leaders at that time were visibly disappointed and went so far as to say, “The United States wants Pakistan as an ally. Good luck to the United States.” India’s parliament at that time in 2001 was led by the Hindu nationalist party or the BJP. Now it is the Congress Party with an alliance of communists and other center-left parties in charge but terrorists acts have not stopped even as the U.S. has stepped up more joint exercises with India because of the latter’s experience in counter-terrorism and which also has a vast navy to help patrol vital sea lanes. Not out of “love” for the world’s largest democracy but out of, as usual, self-interest.
If it is self-interest that drives American foreign policy — and it always has historically (you don’t see an invasion of Myanmar to depose a military, junta) — then why didn’t the U.S. enlist India’s help instead of Pakistan’s, a nation with a poor record of human rights and no democracy to speak of to combat Al-Qaida in Afghanistan?
Remember the Afghan people and the Northern Alliance folks, specifically, were already fighting the Taliban (and Pakistan) before 9/11 with moral support from India. Pakistan should have been isolated.
After clearing Afghanistan, then the attention could have turned to Pakistan which would have been forced to come to terms with its radical past (and present). Terrible misjudgment like going into Iraq, but probably influenced by how much money can be made. Like selling F-16s to Pakistan.

MATT PHILLIPS
Mangilao, Guam