Saturday, January 12, 2013

The World's Most Dangerous Border, Where A Nuclear War Could Result

By Eric Margolis


ISTANBUL – Reports of fighting along Kashmir’s cease-fire line don’t normally receive much attention in the western media. Last week, for example, saw a series of clashes on 8 and 10 January that killed both Pakistani and Indian troops.

One of the Indian soldiers was decapitated, provoking fury across India and calls from its extremist Shiv Sena Hindu party for a nuclear attack on Pakistan.

Gunfire is common on the 1947 cease-fire line known as the Line of Control that divided the beautiful mountain kingdom of Kashmir into Indian and Pakistani-controlled portions. Fighting in that tense region always has the potential to quickly escalate into a major war – or even nuclear conflict.

Having been under fire numerous times on the LOC, I used the experience in my first book, War at the Top of the World to illustrate just how dangerous the simmering Kashmir dispute remains. A dispute that went from bad to critical after India and then Pakistan acquired and deployed nuclear weapons. This, I wrote, was the most dangerous strategic threat facing the globe.

Read the rest here.

5 comments:

  1. yawn. white man's burden.yeah,them brown skinned fellows cant handle their nukes.
    kindly give india and pakistan a break.margolis should advise his own govt which routinely kills more than 2 million every decade.plus it is the only country to have used nukes.

    amuherikans always think that the brown man is crazy,be it iran or india/pak. if the US and soviets could co exist,so can 2 other brown chest thumpers

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    1. yawn. hysterical response that doesn't address any of the points made in the article.

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    2. yawn. hysterical response that doesn't address any of the points made in the article.

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  2. Dyslexic must not be familiar with Margolis. He's no MSM propagandist, cheerleader for the American empire.

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  3. Lets not forget the role US has played in this conflict. It has helped Pakistan for decades in form of aid and weapons in spite of full knowledge that Pakistan army routinely utilizes terrorist organizations. Helping them infiltrate India, in fact the war in 1947 was done based wholly on Afghanistan fighters. But this is a bit of a stretch, "A false report, a flight of birds, and off-course aircraft could provoke a nuclear exchange" . It is a very active area and if this little was required to provoke a nuclear exchange then it would have already happened. Yes there are crazy people on both sides I am sure who propose such things. For example, this "use it or lose it" doctrine was proposed by a Pakistani ideologue. But I don't think this would happen.

    Right now the tension between India and Pakistan which prompted this article I suppose was the beheading of two soldiers on the LOC. Things to remember is that all the escalation of tension is not because 2 were killed but the manner in which they were(this is also not an isolated incident it has happened again where a body of an Indian army soldier was mutilated). People die on LOC everyday. There were 117 violations of LOC in 2012 (as per Indian Army general). There is more tolerance on the LOC than US has ever displayed, one skirmish in US and a country gets bombed.

    This article I am afraid will provide US more ammunition to engage in the region, more money will flow from US to Pakistan. One has to ask if India and Pakistan will have so many resources to spare on military if US wasnt giving aid, wouldnt they be more interested in dealing with their economic problems. Pakistan almost went bankrupt but still keeps on trying to occupy INdian territory! It is crazy! Cannot happen without US aid

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