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75 Indian paramilitary troops massacred by Maoists

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  • #16
    Very sad. Thoughts go out to their families.

    Hope the government thinks carefully about how to respond rather than doing something that will ultimately make things worse.
    sigpic

    Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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    • #17
      Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
      Hope the government thinks carefully about how to respond rather than doing something that will ultimately make things worse.
      You taking bets?

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      • #18
        Originally posted by ROB View Post
        You taking bets?
        Don't know enough to comment ROB, just hoping. Truth be told there are divergent views on just what the best approach is.
        sigpic

        Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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        • #19
          Sure there are.

          Planes, bombs and soldiers on the rampage mean more votes for incumbents.

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          • #20
            Originally posted by ROB View Post
            Planes, bombs and soldiers on the rampage mean more votes for incumbents.
            Care to expand on that?
            Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
            -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

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            • #21
              Sure.

              It is in the interest of politicians to send in heavy handed military because that is a popular thing to do with the voters.

              See Sri Lanka, Russia (Chechnya), Thailand etc as examples.

              It's kinda like being "tough on crime" - great if you need some votes but retarded if you're actually trying to solve a problem.

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              • #22
                Originally posted by ROB View Post
                Sure.

                It is in the interest of politicians to send in heavy handed military because that is a popular thing to do with the voters.

                See Sri Lanka, Russia (Chechnya), Thailand etc as examples.

                It's kinda like being "tough on crime" - great if you need some votes but retarded if you're actually trying to solve a problem.
                Yes but the Indian government has made it quite clear that the army and air force will be kept away from the fight; and the Maoist insurgency will be left to the Police and paramilitary forces.
                Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
                -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

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                • #23
                  This is more of a sad commentary on the Indian democracy which has failed at multiple levels to deliver services to citizens. Ultimately true freedom does not come through votes, but through economic & social mobility.

                  But unfortunately there seems no guarantee that other systems will succeed where democracy has failed in India. I am no longer against the use of force to change GOI behaviour, though I don't agree with commie agenda.

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Tronic View Post
                    Yes but the Indian government has made it quite clear that the army and air force will be kept away from the fight; and the Maoist insurgency will be left to the Police and paramilitary forces.

                    Yeah, I bet that distinction is really gonna play out well with the locals.
                    Last edited by ROB; 08 Apr 10,, 07:01. Reason: cl

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                    • #25
                      Today on the ground there is no clear cut strategy as the Naxals are spread over different states, which are having their own agendas to prove.

                      While states like Chattisgarh, MP and AP are going all out against the Naxals but due to some strange reasons Govts in West Bengal , Bihar, Jharkand and Orissa are going soft on the Naxals. The reason is the forthcoming elections in these states. These states are proving to be regrouping point for the Naxals.

                      I still remember when the present dispensation at the center came to power around 6 years back, the Security forces in AP had the entire Naxalite leadership surrounded in the forests. But is a starnge gesture the Govt. asked the forces to back off and allowed the Naxals to escape into the forest.
                      This is democracy.

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                      • #26
                        Originally posted by ROB View Post
                        Yeah, I bet that distinction is really gonna play out well with the locals.
                        Errr.. what distinction?? The locals haven't seen the army nor the airforce operate. If you're trying to say that the paramilitary forces should also stop their offensive than thats just wishful thinking. Maoists are criminals and need to be disarmed. Government strategy is to take, hold, develop.
                        Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
                        -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Tronic View Post
                          Government strategy is to take, hold, develop.
                          I just dont see them succeeding with the current force levels they have.
                          You take one area, the enemy simply goes elsewhere. When inevitably your offensive runs out of steam, forces get thinned out, the naxals will again mass and destroy outposts. If we look at the US example, they can afford to use company sized and smaller sized posts because of their superior training, intel and copious CAS. Our paramilitaries have none of these advantages.
                          For Gallifrey! For Victory! For the end of time itself!!

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by ROB View Post
                            Yeah, I bet that distinction is really gonna play out well with the locals.
                            ROB,
                            what do you feel, in your opinion, govt of india should do in this situation.
                            given the following points....
                            1. The maoists will not let development activities take place in the zones where they control - even if govt feels that the years of neglect have to be corrected.
                            2. The intention of the maoists is revolution and overthrow of the indian state - they would like more bloodshed to provoke retaliation and an unending spiral.
                            while the condition of the tribals is ostensibly thier raison d'etre, they wouldnt mind a slaughter of the tribals if it would advance the cause of the revolution.
                            3. Offer of talks do not seem sincere.
                            4. the altrenative to democracy, flawed and corrupt it may be, is a red revolution and blood. these guys seem to be pol pot or mao reincarnated. they certainly do not have the answer.

                            what do you think should be done in this situation - interested in hearing ur views.

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                            • #29
                              Most editorials are saying much the same thing....
                              here's another.

                              Samar Halarnkar, Hindustan Times
                              Email Author
                              April 07, 2010
                              First Published: 23:11 IST(7/4/2010)
                              Last Updated: 23:20 IST(7/4/2010)
                              No time for war

                              First, a disclaimer: I have a deep, emotional connection with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which lost 76 troopers in the forests of Dantewada on Tuesday.

                              My father retired from the CRPF. I’ve lived in their rough camps. I made friends with soldiers from every corner of India, from Kashmiris to Malayalees to Manipuris. I pored over self-loading rifles and 9mm carbines. I felt their silent pain when a soldier fell in some corner of India, the body shipped home to, usually, an uncomprehending family in rural or small-town India.

                              This is the great irony of the growing Maoist attacks on security forces. The men they kill — and get killed by — are not unlike themselves, living and dying in that ill-visited twilight zone between Third World Destitute India and First World Emerging India. Second World India is a violent place, inhabited by people with guns but without real power; locked in feuds over resources, influence and power.

                              These feuds simmer across India, largely ignored as a few commas in eternal India, boiling over into our lives only when the attacks are so brazen as to make it to breaking-new tickers; when the attacks are so bloody as to make us shift uneasily nervously and wonder: Can they reach us?

                              Well, that is their plan.

                              The Maoist strategy, as I wrote last month, is deadlier than jihadi terrorism. The plan is not to terrorise but capture India, starting with a takeover of the countryside and isolating the cities. The Intelligence Bureau (IB), the domestic intelligence agency, has struggled to track Maoist penetration of labour unions and colleges. The IB believes such an infiltration is underway, the precursor to the Maoist dream of ruling India.

                              Hours after Tuesday’s attack, a friend from Pakistan said: “The Naxals are beginning to sound like India’s version of the Taliban!”

                              Should we declare war against the Maoists as Pakistan has against the Taliban? Should we call in the army, send in tanks to Lalgarh and helicopter gunships to Dantewada?

                              As lofty as the Maoist ambition is, as brutal as their growing attacks are, this would be a grave mistake.

                              First, despite what we think, the scale and intensity of Naxal attacks do not match the Taliban’s ceaseless offensive. Air force strikes, US drones and the Pakistani army have reduced the frequency and ferocity of attacks, but the Taliban’s bloody strikes continue. I do not have the precise numbers, but the Taliban claim more lives in a month than the Maoists do in a year.

                              Second, however abhorrent I find Arundhati Roy’s description of the Maoists as “Gandhians with guns”, and however deep my anger at them, the fact is their rebellion emerged because of the horrific inequities and injustices that prevail in second- and third-world India. In Dantewada — the site of Tuesday’s massacre, in the heart of the so-called Maoist “liberated zone” — no more than 30 per cent of the people are literate, less than half the national rate. India’s tribals are dispossessed and discriminated against, and unless their lot improves, the security forces will be occupying armies, the Maoists, liberators. India could indeed use a scorched-earth policy and do what the Sri Lankans did to the Tamil Tigers — if we want to conquer our poorest people.

                              Third, the Maoist insurgency is based not religion but on an ideology of violent revolution first propounded by, obviously, Mao Tse Tung, as a revolutionary peasant struggle against the State and exploiting classes. In a religious, rapidly urbanising nation, a Maoist class struggle, however violent, will always struggle to find sympathisers in cities. The Taliban can strike metropolitan areas because they have support there.

                              Maoist areas of influence now spread across nine Indian states and, theoretically, a third of the nation’s area. Yet, it is an insurgency that grows because of our ineptness at spreading economic development and not making the urgent course corrections that the surge against the Maoists needs.

                              It is easy now to talk of war, but the Maoists have already made that declaration. We didn’t notice, and so never prepared. It is important now to nuance armed responses, review our failing battle plans, training and processes — and bring into our national discussion the injustices being inflicted on the tribal areas.

                              That is the war India needs.

                              Consider the CRPF. With 208 battalions (that’s more than 15,000 men and women), the CRPF is one of the world’s largest paramilitary forces. As the name suggests, it’s supposed to be a federal reserve, to be called up when needed.

                              A third of the CRPF’s battalions are supposed to be in stand-down mode, training and recuperating. With India in a state of continuous ferment, there is no reserve left. The unofficial acronym for the force is ‘Chalte Raho Pyaare’. Keep moving my friend, a reference to the unceasing movement of its battalions from one trouble spot to another.

                              Most Indian police and security forces are overstretched.

                              These forces need reform, modern counter-insurgency tactics and equipment. It is inconceivable that 1,000 or more Maoists could take an Indian security unit completely by surprise. They need not helicopter gunships but drones. It’s obvious that intelligence agencies have little or no penetration of battlefield Naxal formations. How difficult is to have drones sweep areas before and during troop movements? As for tactics, the CRPF units violated a cardinal rule of such operations: never return the same way you went.

                              As Home Minister P. Chidambaram said, something has gone “seriously wrong”. Let’s find out what that is before talking of war.
                              HindustanTimes-Print
                              © Copyright 2009 Hindustan Times

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                              • #30
                                Originally posted by Tronic View Post
                                Errr.. what distinction?? The locals haven't seen the army nor the airforce operate. If you're trying to say that the paramilitary forces should also stop their offensive than thats just wishful thinking. Maoists are criminals and need to be disarmed. Government strategy is to take, hold, develop.
                                And how's that working out for you so far?
                                ROB,
                                what do you feel, in your opinion, govt of india should do in this situation.
                                given the following points....
                                All fair questions....

                                that I will start to answer tomorrow after a good night's sleep.

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