Khushwant Toor writes from Toronto

MANY will kill and be killed. I face the world as it is. I am Commander in Chief of a Nation at war, said Present Obama while praising his troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and justifying himself while receiving Nobel peace prize in Norway last week.

In his speech, he cited Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Obama praised non-violence as a tool greater than violence. There's nothing weak - nothing passive, nothing naive - in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King,'' Obama said. But he had a different kind of responsibility. ''As a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world” said Obama.

Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize amidst controversy that it was too soon for the Nobel Peace Price Committee to decide awarding the prestigious award to Obama. During his speech while accepting the prize, Obama reminded the audience, which mostly included European dignitaries and the Norwegian Royal couple that, he is "at the beginning, and not the end, of my labours on the world stage".

The award consists of a diploma and a gold medal bearing the etched face of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite who endowed the prize more than a century ago. It carries a $1.4 million (U.S.) award, which the White House has said Obama will donate to charity.

Earlier in October The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to give the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. While deciding the Committee gave special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

The Nobel committee while deciding the peace price commented “ Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

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Dinner Diplomacy and Indian Americans

Dr. Amrik Singh writes from Sacramento

PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s first State dinner in honor of Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on November 24, 2009 became a star attraction of worldwide media. For Indo-American community, the honor was historic as well as a productive achievement.

Indo-American partnership in the emerging global leadership was never as strategic as it is today. Owing to the history of more than a hundred years, Indo-American community has been playing a significant role in restructuring of international relations. Early pioneers, who set foot on this land, brought with them their culture of hard work, spirit of sharing, human rights’ awareness, and commitment to the best thought and practiced in the world. American Revolution had fired their imagination and they embarked on a mission to free their land from the British occupation. The efforts of less than five thousand people in 1913-1914 had international implications. The British colonialists lobbied to secure United States’ military support to suppress German alliance in World War I. The English succeeded in getting American Foreign policy amended accordingly and held San Francisco conspiracy trials in 1917 to prosecute activists of Ghadar movement and their German allies. Scholars view Americans’ uncritical tilt towards the United Kingdom in 1917, as a major drawback of their foreign policy.

Ghadar created a culture in which freedom of spirit became necessary. Efforts of early pioneers continued until after the World War II. A battle for American citizenship was won a few months before India got freedom. Earlier, United States had bluntly told the British to negotiate with Indians about granting their freedom. The British duplicity, however, was exposed as they tried to influence President Roosevelt’s decision against freedom of India. A confidential memo by Ambassador William Phillips, the US special envoy to India in 1943, had created a media sensation as its leakage bewildered the US State Department, and frustrated the British efforts in maligning freedom fighters. The story in Washington Post was path breaking for activists of Indian freedom. It came to light that the President Roosevelt had made British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to consider questions of withdrawal from India and form an interim government until the complete withdrawal. The US had advanced such an argument for India’s full participation in war efforts.

Harold A. Gould’s book : Sikhs, Swamis, Students, and Spies: The Indian Lobby in the United States, 1900-1946, highlights how seeds of freedom sown by Punjabi pioneers grew into so big a campaign as to make the US presidents plead their cause from 1943-1946. The ethno-demographic base of these early pioneers, according to Gould, was “a mélange of South Asians who had found their way to the United States by diverse routes. They were scattered all across the country but, as noted, the bulk of them at first were concentrated on the Pacific coast, in California, Oregon and the state of Washington. Most were Sikhs but there were also Hindus and Muslims plus a few Parsi Zorastrian and Indian Christians as well.”

A few thousands have grown into a mass of 2.7 millions. Their influence is seen in almost every field of American life. Congressman Dalip Singh Saund brought laurels to the community in 1950’s; Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Mayor Kashmir Singh Gill are heroes of today. The social, economic and political clout has increased many times. But something is missing that early pioneers had in abundance: their commitment to serve the country of their origin according to the best ideals of human potential. Today, Indo-Americans sequester themselves in mutually exclusive groups and take refuge in their own superiority.

It appears as if they have no regard for those who kissed noose in the hope of a dream for their country. Early pioneers like Kartar Singh Sarabha wanted nothing except an honorable place in their countrymen’s memory. Their dream never translated into reality. Rather its murder was celebrated on the intervening night of August 14th & 15th 1947. No lessons were learned from blood that streamed in the Indus through its five tributaries. A fence was again erected. Seeds of poison on both sides have grown into a bumper crop. Both sides want to profit from it, but marketing skills of the one are the ruin of the other.

Indo-American community is afraid to go back to the roots. All efforts end in frustration as very few share pioneers’ vision. Indo American community’s time is either spent in securing US visa for discredited leaders like Gujrat CM Narender Modi or celebrating the Independence Day by flaunting national flags in the face of some on the side of the street. People who might have emotional ties with such events have to participate in a different way. Black flags in their hands are interrogatives which remained unanswered for one quarter of a century. Indo-Americans have never joined heads to tell modern politicians of India what early pioneers had dreamed about their country. Why Amnesty International has to write to President Obama to speak to the Indian Prime Minister about what happened in November, 1984? Why couldn’t Indo-American community question Prime Minister to invoke law of the land against perpetrators of mass murders? Any step in this direction would have honored those who paid the price of their lives to just secure a place in the collective memory.

The red carpet welcome to India’s Prime Minister has undoubtedly provided a momentary relief from painful memories of November. Dr. Singh expressed his confidence in President Obama’s leadership in operationalizing Civil Nuclear Deal he entered with former President George W. Bush. He also resolved to jointly end terrorism that threatened the civilized world. President Obama expressed that Al Qaeda’s effectiveness had to be dismantled. While welcoming Dr. Singh, President Obama used Hindi greetings and mentioned celebration of Guru Nanak’s birthday in the White house. He also honored M.K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King in fighting for civil rights of the downtrodden. United States sought India’s partnership in educational exchange, knowledge initiatives, intelligence sharing and fight against infectious diseases.

Obama-Singh negotiations have been described as meeting of minds. Obama’s joint statement with China had created feverish nervousness in Indian circles. Doubts were expressed about a halfhearted treatment to the Indian Prime Minister. But the glitz, glamour and gaiety at the party have squashed all premature reactions.

The mood at the First banquet was celebratory as well as thought provoking. Obama’s presidency seems to be all set to follow a crucial path of making the world a friendlier place. The president asserted that United States stood committed to work with India for a better world. The lavish American hospitality to the Indian PM would have upset China, had Obama not made it to Beijing earlier. In that case, it would have some serious consequences for the struggling economy of the United States as China is a tremendous partner in all efforts for recovery and growth.

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Komagata Maru II

Gurpreet Singh writes from Vancouver

THE recent violence in the industrial city of Ludhiana in Punjab, India which was blamed on the migratory labourers from the eastern part of that country has generated anxiety among the Indo Canadians. Two migrant labourers had sustained bullet injuries while many were detained by the police after a mob blocked the national highway in protest against the police inaction to stop continued robberies early this month.

The labourers, most of whom are Hindus allege that the police had refused to file a complaint when two of their fellow citizens were robbed by a local gang. They say that the police instead of going after the real culprits often harass them. The irate labourers were accused of torching vehicles and resorting to violence that police claim had prompted it to use force. Following this violence many frightened labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar provinces have decided to return.

This whole episode sparked reaction in the Punjabi Sikh community in BC. Many community members squarely blamed the ``outsiders’’ for starting the violence in their native land. Some of those participating in the radio talk shows accused them of threatening the peace of Punjab and trying to outnumber the Sikhs in their own province.

Much like the Sikh immigrants, who started arriving in Canada at the beginning of the 20th century for economical reasons, the labourers from the eastern part of India continue to go to Punjab to earn higher wages. In Ludhiana alone one million migratory labourers reside. They not only work in the industries, but many of them are also employed as farm workers. Despite their contribution to the economic development of Punjab , they face discrimination and are quickly blamed for most criminal activities in the state. They are often referred to as ``Bhaiyas’’ in a derogatory way.

The Sikh separatists, who have their support base in Canada had stepped up a campaign against the ``Bhaiyas’’ in the past, while many of them were murdered by the religious extremists during terrorism. The Punjabi singers and comedians have repeatedly mocked them. At least two comedians made offensive remarks against them while performing in Canada , where the Sikhs had endured racism and same kind of hostilities for years.

In 1913, the Komagata Maru ship full of Punjabi immigrants was forced to return under the discriminatory continuous journey law, for which the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has apologized. While a campaign for ``full apology’’ in the Canadian parliament still continue, the systematic bigotry against the poor in India refuse to die. Apart from the Sikh radicals, the linguistic and regional chauvinists of Maharashtra are also spreading hatred against the people from the eastern part of India . Surprisingly, the Shiv Sena, a Hindu extremist group has targeted their own Hindu brethren from the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar a number of times.

The hypocritical reaction of a section of the Canadian Sikhs to the Ludhiana violence is nothing new. Earlier too a freelance Punjabi essayist, Swaran Singh came under attack for writing passionately in defence of the poor migratory labourers in Punjab and exposing this hypocrisy in The Indo Canadian Times.

Some even argue that these people should not have a right to vote in Punjab . Well. If Ujjal Dosanjh, a Punjabi can become a premier of BC and the first generation Punjabi immigrants can become the members of the Canadian Parliament what’s the problem with people’s right to vote in the same country? Similar views by the White supremacists for the Punjabi immigrants in Canada will be condemned as racist and intolerable. Why then those spitting venom against the ``Bhaiyas’’ should not be called hate mongers? This prejudice should at least stop in Canada where the Punjabis were disfranchised in 1907. The Punjabi immigrants from their experiences and struggles in the history should learn to be more compassionate towards the downtrodden and avoid repeating Komagata Maru episode in their backyard.

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Has White America rejected Obama?

Dr Sawraj Singh writes from Washington

PRESIDENT Obama has not finished his first year in office and already his popularity has gone down, more than 50% of the Americans do not seem to approve his performance. It appears that a majority of white people do not like the way he is handling his job. Former President Jimmie Carter seems to feel that white people are not accepting a black person as their leader. Some journalists have also expressed similar feelings that racial factor may be responsible for decline in Obama’s popularity.

In the year 2008, the biggest news in the world was that a black person got elected the President of America. In the year 2009, the biggest news may be that the white America rejects Obama. Why has there been such a big change in the year? The reason is very simple; a majority of white people are not yet ready to accept diversity. Many white people continue to deny the multicultural nature of the American society. They can accept a black man as a ceremonial and a figure head but cannot really accept his policies of implementing diversity. In the final analysis many white Americans are not yet ready to accept the principle that white and nonwhite Americans are completely equal.

Race is not the only factor which is affecting Obama’s popularity. Obama’s thinking is very ahead of his times. He has already realized that the traditional consumerist capitalism has outlived its usefulness and the old World Order based upon the Western domination cannot last any longer.

Therefore, he feels that the domestic policies should be changed to a more socialized and utilitarian capitalism and the new World order should be based upon the concept of a multipolar World. Many white Americans are not yet ready to accept these concepts. It makes doubly hard for these people to accept new ideas, particularly from a black man.

Racial prejudice and racial discrimination are facts of life in America. Many white people and some minority people feel that there is no racial discrimination in America. They give example of many minorities who have reached very high positions or make a lot of money in business. However, the fact remains that at any level the white people and the minorities are not treated equal. Therefore, the minority people at the top are not treated the same way as the white people at the top similarly the minority people at the bottom are not treated the same way as the white people at the bottom.

Even a black President cannot get the same treatment as the other Presidents got. A very well know black man who happened to be President Obama’s friend was arrested for breaking into his own home because a white neighbor became suspicious and called the police. Obama was very upset because he knows how the white police treat black men. He criticized the police officer but later he was pressured to apologize. A congressman shouted while Obama was addressing the congress that the President was lying. This has never happened in the congress before. The congressman received millions in campaign donations. These people wanted to show appreciation for his behavior.

Obama is being blamed for the failure of Bush’s policies. I can empathize with Obama because I know that sometimes the non white person in America has to take blame for the white man’s mistakes. Obama was not given enough time to fix the mess Bush made during eight years of his presidency. Bush’s domestic and foreign policies failed miserably because Bush’s intellectual level was not above an average American. The job of being the President of the leading country of the world demands at least above average intellect. Obama has the intellectual level but he is not getting the time needed to fix the mess. Already a populist Sarah Palin is being projected as the future leader of America. However, she has about the same intellectual level as President Bush. The only difference between the two is that Bush admitted that he was not an intellectual where as Sarah Palin pretends to be one.

[The writer is practicing physician and Chairman Washington State Network for Human Rights]

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Neo Cons get warm and fuzzy over "War President"

Eli Clifton

U.S. President Barack Obama's plan for a 30,000-troop surge and a troop withdrawal timeline beginning in 18 months has caught criticism from both Democrat and Republican lawmakers. But a small group of hawkish foreign policy experts - who have lobbied the White House since August to escalate U.S. involvement in Afghanistan - are christening Obama the new "War President".

The response to Obama's Tuesday night speech at the West Point Military Academy has largely been less than enthusiastic, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle finding plenty in the administration's Afghanistan plan that fails to live up to their expectations. Republicans have hammered the White House on Obama's decision to begin a drawdown of U.S. forces in 18 months, while Democrats largely expressed ambivalence or dismay over the administration's willingness to commit 30,000 more soldiers to a war seen by many as unwinnable and costly at a time when the U.S. economy is barely in recovery from the global financial crisis.

The White House's rollout of the 30,000 troop surge did little to convince an already sceptical Congress, but foreign policy hawks who have accused the president of "dithering" in making a decision on Afghanistan are praising the administration's willingness to make the "tough" commitment to escalate the U.S. commitment in the war in Afghanistan.

Indeed, their approval of the White House's decision to commit 30,000 troops is the culmination of a campaign led by the newly formed Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).

FPI held its first event in March, titled "Afghanistan: Planning for Success", and a second event in September - "Advancing and Defending Democracy" - which focused on counterinsurgency in combating the Taliban and al Qaeda.

The newly formed group is headed up by the Weekly Standard's editor Bill Kristol; foreign policy adviser to the McCain presidential campaign Robert Kagan; and former policy adviser in the George W. Bush administration Dan Senor.

Kagan and Kristol were also co-founders and directors of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a number of whose 1997 charter members, including the elder Cheney, former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and their two top aides I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Paul Wolfowitz, respectively, played key roles in promoting the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Bush's other first-term policies when the hawks exercised their greatest influence.

The core leadership of FPI has waged their campaign in countless editorials and columns published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard.

These articles have often been highly critical, at times suggesting that Obama's unwillingness to give General Stanley McChrystal the 20,000 to 40,000 troops requested in his September report to Defence Secretary Robert Gates amounted to "dithering" and projected U.S. weakness to the Taliban, al Qaeda, and U.S. allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Senor described himself as, "pleasantly surprised" and "quite encouraged by the president's decision" in a Republican National Committee sponsored conference call.

"It seems to me that Obama deserves even more credit for courage than Bush did, for he has risked much more. By the time Bush decided to support the surge in Iraq in early 2007, his presidency was over and discredited, brought down in large part by his own disastrous decision not to send the right number of troops in 2003, 2004, 2005 or 2006," wrote Kagan in The Washington Post.

"Obama has had to make this decision with most of his presidency still ahead of him. Bush had nothing to lose. Obama could lose everything," Kagan concluded.

The theme of heralding Obama as a stoic decision-maker in the face of an administration and Congress that seek to "manage American decline" - as Kagan wrote - was also echoed by Bill Kristol in The Washington Post on Wednesday.

"By mid-2010, Obama will have more than doubled the number of American troops in Afghanistan since he became president; he will have empowered his general, Stanley McChrystal, to fight the war pretty much as he thinks necessary to in order to win; and he will have retroactively, as it were, acknowledged that he and his party were wrong about the Iraq surge in 2007 – after all, the rationale for this surge is identical to Bush's, and the hope is for a similar success. He will also have embraced the use of military force as a key instrument of national power," wrote Kristol.

The heralding of Obama as "A War President" - which was the title of Kristol's article in The Washington Post - is a striking change of tone from some of the same pundits who were vociferously attacking the administration for every major policy initiative as recently as last week.

"Just what is Barack Obama as president making of our American destiny? The answer, increasingly obvious, is...a hash. It's worse than most of us expected. His dithering on Afghanistan is deplorable, his appeasing of Iran disgraceful, his trying to heap new burdens on a struggling economy destructive. Add to this his sending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for a circus-like court trial," wrote Kristol in the Nov. 23 edition of the Weekly Standard.

"The next three years are going to be long and difficult ones for our economy, our military and our country," he wrote.

The hawkish Wall Street Journal editorial board - which on Sep. 10 suggested that Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize because he sees the U.S. "as weaker than it was and the rest of the planet as stronger", and on Sep. 18 described the administration's decision to scrap a missile defence agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic as following "Mr. Obama's trend of courting adversaries while smacking allies" - also exhibited a noticeable change in tone in praising the White House's decision to surge troop levels.

"We support Mr. Obama's decision, and this national effort, notwithstanding our concerns about the determination of the president and his party to see it through. Now that he's committed, so is the country, and one of our abiding principles is that nations should never start (much less escalate) wars they don't intend to win," said the Journal's editorial board on Wednesday.

The board's qualified endorsement of the White House's war plan seems to reflect both the Republican concerns that Obama may use the 18-month deadline as an excuse to withdraw from Afghanistan before the Taliban and al Qaeda are defeated and foreign policy hawks - such as those at FPI - who are pleased with the administration's decision to commit more fully to the war in Afghanistan.

Hawks, such as Kagan and Kristol, may have to argue in 18 months for an extension of the withdrawal deadline but in similarly worded statements they both expressed confidence that this would not be a problem.

"If we and our Afghan allied partners are succeeding [by July 2011], the timing [of the withdrawal] may make sense. If we aren't it won't. It will not be any easier for Obama to embrace defeat in 18 months than it is today," wrote Kagan in the Washington Post in response to concerns about the timeline for withdrawal.

"[T]he July 2011 date also buys Obama time. It enables him to push off pressure to begin withdrawing, or to rethink the basic strategy, for 18 months. We've come pretty far from all the talk about off ramps at three or six-month intervals in 2010 that we were hearing just a little while ago," Kristol wrote on the Weekly Standard's blog on Tuesday.

For hawks like Kristol, Kagan and Senor who have been calling for a surge in U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan since August, Obama's announcement on Tuesday night was a high-point in their campaign of op-ed's, column's and conference's to push the Obama White House in the direction of an escalation in Afghanistan.

Kristol concluded his blog post on a confident note. "In a way, Obama is now saying: We're surging and fighting for the next 18 months; see you in July 2011. That's about as good as we're going to get." [Courtesy IPS]

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