Is the presence of the United States in the Middle East justified?

An American drone struck North Waziristan located on the Pak-Afghan border at dawn break. Somewhere in the killing fields of the Levant, an Iraqi suicide bomber blew himself up, killing fourteen. And that too before breakfast. Is it a bloodbath today? No, just another Sunday morning.

That is exactly how things are at this moment. These occurrences have become so common that we regard such incidents with a very vocal expression that is a cacophonic medley of abhorrence, disdain and anger. But then let us examine such incidences a bit more closely. Let us ask ourselves a question that is long overdue. Where did it all begin?

Now the Middle East has always been a hotbed of political turbulence. Trying to oversimplify this enormous labyrinth of political ideologies would be tantamount to insulting the intelligence of countless men who have gone before me. Men, whose eminence, charisma and power I cannot even hope to match in this life or the next. All I can do is offer my humble, and very normative (due to the nature of this piece) opinion on this issue.

I see this conflict as a sea which is calm with the pallor of death. And along sails this huge oil tanker, causing ripples in the water. Because this is one word that it all comes down to -oil. The oil must come through, and lives must be traded for it. The only thing I blame Europe for as far as this aspect of the war is concerned is,let’s see, developing the internal combustion engine in the first place. 

Now, I do recognize that all the belligerents in the present war are to blame, and some of the powers opposed to the United States even more so. But as a liberal, I feel that the NATO, as a responsible power has a responsibility to quit acting with such petulant childish anger at every small occurrence in the world. The world has already seen the inefficacy of such devices as sanctions that NATO employs. We have seen how the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions plan against Israel, however uncalled for, backfired. No amount of sanctions could deter Russia from invading Ukraine or Crimea. On the other side of the fence, the American war efforts in Vietnam and Afghanistan proved to be debacles that that cannot be repaired ever even by a generous application of the political antihistamine that is apologetics.

It is time for NATO to come out of its false supremacist ideologue that the world is Eurocentric, and that it must be involved in every little incident that goes on round the globe. They have to come to terms with the fact that they cannot do much if North Korea or Iran develops nuclear weapons. Or the Taliban starts massacring innocents in Afghanistan. They must allow ‘nature’, for lack of a better word, to take its course and carry out timely purges against such elements in the form of civil war.

Events in the contemporary world have conclusively proved that any interference may tip the balance of a war in the short run. But if you stay involved in the long run, or 'camp', such wars end up to be much more disastrous than they would have otherwise been. I can give you detailed analyses of such wars, but as I mentioned, this piece is intended to be normative in nature, and more importantly, short.

The bottom line is that the NATO must now realize that every country must go through certain stages of political significance, before it blossoms into a peace-loving and responsible world power. Sometimes this is attained in a matter of years, while sometimes it takes decades, even centuries to come about. Interference if it is at all required, must, therefore be limited to a point till which it is conducive to the political maturing of the country AS WELL AS popular aspiration. It must evaluate the opportunity cost of military expenditure over economic growth at every stage of the war, and should care more about the popular aspirations of the countries they have a presence in.

Vibhor Kashmira
Y13 Undergraduate, The LNMIIT

जलवायु परिवर्तन

जलवायु मे हो रहा परिवर्तन

क्या मनुष्यों को प्रकृति के सामने करना पड़ेगा आत्मसमर्पण

दूषित हुईनदियाँ कट गए पेड़

मनुष्यों ने अपने फायदे के लिए प्रकृति से खेला खेल

जब खेला है खेल तो प्रकृति कैसे रहती पीछे

उसने भी चली चाल पीछे पीछे

मनुष्यों के प्रहार से प्रकृति ने बदला व्यव्हार

इस व्हाय्व्हार से मनुष्य हुआ बेहाल

तापमान बदला मौसम बदले

प्राकृतिक आपदाओं की हुई भरमार

जलवायु मे हो रहा परिवर्तन

क्या मनुष्यों को प्रकृति के सामने करना पड़ेगा आत्मसमर्पण

अब भी समय है जाग जा मनुष्य

प्रकृति के सामने हार जा मनुष्य

प्रकृति कर देगी तेरा बुरा हाल

समझौता करके रह खुशहाल

पेड़ लगा, प्रदुषण रोक

प्रकृति को मत करने दे तेरा भोग

अपनी धरती माँ को बचा

प्रकृति को तू ना सता

जलवायु मे हो रहा परिवर्तन

क्या मनुष्यों को प्रकृति के सामने करना पड़ेगा आत्मसमर्पण

Gaurav Hans
Y14 Undergraduate, The LNMIIT

 

Reading Between the Lines: The Middle East Crisis

For many of you the American condemnation of Syria for use of chemical weapons might not come as a surprise. The American decision to invade Syria might seem to be an obvious thing for all the people, but what is not obvious is the reason for the invasion. Well it is neither oil nor the use of chemical weapons. It is, actually, much more than that. Why are the Americans so adamant to attack? And what are the exact causes?

Irrespective of what the causes are, it is for sure that the reasons are not what America claims. There is obviously more to it than what meets the eye. After all, how can it be that the world's biggest violator of human rights suddenly turns so benevolent that now it’s actually touched by the death of a thousand people by chemical misuse; and that too halfway across the world, thousands of kilometers from its own land, and mind it, that’s the same country that led to the death of lakhs of Japanese by recklessly dropping two atom bombs in World War II, despite having almost won the war. America is not talking peace but has always brought war upon others. History says that wherever American forces have landed they have brought along nothing but war, misery and death.

Now arises the big question that why is America attacking Syria; or even considering it as an option. This all didn't start a year back or so but has been going on since decades. We all know about Israel, the puppet state ally of USA in the Middle East, Israel has actually fought 5 wars against its Russian-backed neighbors, and in these wars it was not only Israel and its neighbors (Syria, Egypt, Jordan Iran, Iraq), but also America and Russia indirectly fighting. 

Whenever there has been a war in the world, these two super powers have showed up there and started supporting one faction, for e.g. in civil war in Vietnam, South Vietnam was supported by USA and North by Russia (or USSR, at that time) and again, when USSR occupied Afghanistan, it was America who supported Taliban to oppose the USSR, these two countries have always been fighting their battles in the foreign lands.

The disintegration of USSR in 1991 led to the end of the cold war; but the remnants of it can still be seen in the current conflict of Syria, where the current government is Russian friendly, and because of that they are facing the wrath of the most powerful country in the world. America is determined to topple the current regime so that the next American friendly government can be installed leading to the addition of one more ally.

In this game of influence and power the ultimate loser may be the Syrian people as their country may turn into another theater of war between the rivals Russia and America. It may turn into another Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam or Korea and the ultimate price of the conflict will be paid by the Syrian population, thus leading to the revival of the cold war era with America on one side and China or Russia on the other.

However in the past few weeks we have seen the twist in the event, as the events of the diplomatic crises between the USA and Russia unfolded and the dust started to settle. It seems that America has reluctantly accepted the peace offer extended through which Syria offers to self destroy its chemical and biological weapons arsenal. This method seems to be a perfect solution but how come a nation that was hell bent to destroy the current Syrian regime so as to put an USA friendly or at least a neutral government accepted this proposal. It's all there (reason) but you can't see it, it is not the Russian pressure and not even the UN pressure. It is the pressure of the American people; people with their most sophisticated weapon, their voice. This voice can make and break the government.

This weapon was on display in the French revolution in the past. This weapon did its work in the Libya, Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt (twice). It was the power of the people of Syria (their protest against the incumbent regime) that gave America the chance to try and overthrow the Syrian regime. If the power of the people can overthrow the most cruel and authoritative dictators and regimes then where does the USA lies. As soon as the American government or more specifically the President gave a go ahead for the attack on Syria, the popularity of the most famous president of America (in recent times) plummeted to a new low. The American people openly displayed their displeasure on the decision and disregard for president. The US president who was once termed the most powerful person of the world was brought to his knees and forced to give way to the Russian peace offer just because his people said no to war. 

This act of the American people displayed to the whole world that the person whom the whole world termed the most powerful person in the world is actually a just another man who has been assigned the task to look after the country and if he fails in his duty then he too will be fired from the job and a new one will take its place. This display of power of the people in the Middle East and USA made the so-called powerful people of the world realize that the power actually resides with the public. With the Middle East crises all set to fade into oblivion if the negotiations go well as just another chapter in the big book of cold war. The question arises which one of them has won this one, - America, Russia or Syria. The answer is simple none of them and I don't think I need to tell you who did because you know it already, it is already there but you can't see it.

Himanshu Rawat

Y12 Undergraduate, The LNMIIT

Best of all times

We live in a perfect world. This message does not normally hit our ears these days. Rather what is heard all the time is that we are living in a grim economic situation, we are living in an age of terror, Earth is getting warmer, we are running out of water and other vital resources, a billion people are trapped in terrible poverty globally. But this is not exactly the case.

Let us just go through some very positive points. First of all the world is largely at peace. The richest and the powerful countries in the world are not in a geopolitical competition with one another, or fighting wars, engaging in arms race or cold wars. This is a historical rarity. Similar period of peace was hundreds of years ago.

Whenever we hear of a terror attack we indeed think that we are living in dangerous times but going by the facts the number of people who have died as a result of world wars, civil wars and yes terrorism has gone down since the past years. The political stability that the world has experienced has created a very powerful economic system in which the countries are flourishing.

Going by the facts in1980 the number of countries growing at 4% a year (a robust growth) were around 60. By 2007 it has already doubled. According to UN, poverty has been reduced greatly in the last 50 years. Life expectancy has increased dramatically. All this is because of rising standards of living, hygiene and medicine.

Just take a look at our laptops, cell-phones and other gadgets. Doesn't the advancement speak for itself that we have come a long way. Moreover there are so many projects and products, which are yet in their infancy.

The good news just goes on and on. Colleges have increased, the number of college graduates has increased greatly, and women have been empowered massively.

We have had daunting tasks over the last years, Wars, economic crisis, diseases (remember H1N1 and how we fought against it). We reacted, we responded and solved the problem. We are indeed living in a perfect world. All we need is to just not screw everything up!

Mrinal Shrama