When the World goes "Tel Lene"

As a 10 year old i was a die-hard John Rambo fan, i always thought War was one-man game where the Hero pumps bullets, rescues the innocent, wins over the girl and eventually saves the day for the world.

I witnessed the Afghanistan War(War on Terror), Iraq War, Libyan War, Donbass War (War in Ukraine), ISIS war and it has made me think over n over. If you see in every case there is one bad guy who was good once upon a time and was accepted by the people, but then he turned rogue, committed Mass killings, torture, rape till one NATO country(US Led or Ally led) jumps in, kills the rogue and saves the day just like John Rambo.

This was till I observed this map recently

The above map is of the OPEC or Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, a list of 12 countries which have 81% of the worlds proven oil reserves,with middle east amounting 66% of the OPEC total.

Now Petrol or Crude Oil controls economies, the higher the price of petrol, the higher the costs of transport incurred eventually leading to rise in prices of basic commodities, that's the reason Petroleum is called "Black Gold" and a change in crude oil price fluctuates stock markets and economies likewise.

Coming to the map, a question comes up, What binds all these 12 countries in the world?, No culture, religion, politics or military aid binds them all, but then there is one common thread that runs through all of them that is Each of them is either a U.S ally or at War with U.S or under an ongoing conflict within itself.

KUWAIT : In 1990, Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait its relatively smaller and richer neighbor over oil-pricing issues, in retaliation Kuwaiti Government paid $60 Billion to the U.S led coalition to help it overthrow Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Uncle Sam readily did so and since then Kuwait has great political relations with U.S.A

U.A.E : There is no question about the friendship between U.S.A and U.A.E, Dubai has huge U.S and western investments which led to its growth in the past 10-15 years. In 2009 U.S signed a bilateral deal which for peaceful nuclear cooperation in U.A.E, it is also a major supplier of Arms and ammunition for the U.A.E army.

IRAQ : In 1970's and 80's Saddam was shown as a good guy by the western media, till he went rogue fighting with Iran, Kuwait and eventually expelled post 2003 Iraq War. Iraq's economy today stands at adverse conditions with its Iraqi Dinar 17 times lower than the Indian Rupee today. Baghdad was once called the "Paris of the Middle East" while today it stands as a extremist infested nation, Vice President of Iraq Nouri Al-Maliki had openly accused the United States of using ISIS as a pretext to maintain its military presence in Iraq

IRAN : U.S and E.U has placed unprecedented Trade sanctions on Iran since 2006, it is said that if the sanctions against Iran are removed crude oil prices could go down by 10% but that I am personally sure would not happen so soon. Iran's economy has been plagued by the sanctions and will keep doing so till it doesn't come out clean on its Nuclear weapons.

SAUDI ARABIA: The Ultra-Conservative Islamic Monarchy made a $60.5 Billion arms purchase, the biggest ever in American History. KSA has always been an important ally to the U.S.A and relations never got affected despite the fact that Osama belonged to the Royal Saudi family and the fact that there are 5000 U.S troops stationed in Saudi since 1993, which increased to 10,000 in 2003. King Abdullah shared a great rapport with U.S.A with King Salman expected of carrying it forward.

QATAR: Though not a great Ally compared to others mentioned here, In 1992, Qatar had built intimate military ties with the United States, and is now the location of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center.In 2014, the United States sold $11 billion worth of arms to Qatar, including AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, Patriot and Javelin systems. U.S thus has two strong military bases in Qatar.

LIBYA: The story of Muammar Gaddafi is not much different compared to Saddam Hussain, Gaddafi was portrayed a bad guy initially because he nationalized oil exporting companies in 1970's, then a good guy just because he signed the International Atomic Energy Agency protocol and then a rogue again when the Libiyan Civil war erupted and the U.S.A helped Libiya overthrow Gaddafi.

NIGERIA: The U.S.A shared great ties with Nigeria which is a predominantly Christian country till Boko Haram caused problems in Nigeria. The U.S.A under its "Leahy Law" does not sells arms to Nigeria for reasons pertaining to Human Rights Violations but interestingly last month the U.S.A lift the ban and is ready to supply arms and ammunition to help Nigeria fight Boko-Haram.

All in all the same story runs in case of Hugo Chavez for Venezuela, and relatively similar stories in cases of Angola, Algeria and Ecuador who buy heavily from the U.S.

To sum it up I call these the "Petrol Wars" which are not meant to rescue a country from a dictator or control Nuclear War heads or rescue civilians from Barbaric acts but with a mission to improve sale of arms, increase trade relations, fluctuate crude oil prices or destroy economies. 

All this has made me realize the "silly me" as a kid, who thought wars stood for truth to prevail and death of the "Ugly Guy".

The Little Boy who slept in the Sea!!

For those not aware of world news, this Tragic image is of a 3 year old Syrian boy who drowned along with his family while crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

To give a certain background of the story, this boy is Aylan Kurdi and just like the 40,00,000 Syrians and 30,00,000 Iraqis was affected by the ISIS, he lost his home and along with his brother Galip, mother Rehan and father Abdullah was trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey to Greece when the boat carrying the refugees tilted killing most of the people on board.

Now the reason this accident occurred was simple, the boat which could take 800 passengers was loaded with 2500 passengers, each having paid 3000-4000 Euros when on a normal day they would charge not more than 600 Euros per person. Honestly I had goosebumps when I saw this Image and couldn't stop thinking the horrors they might have faced and then I thought, Whose fault is it?

ISIS must have bombed the Kid's house, Turkey denied him refugee visa, Greece is going through a financial crisis but tried its level best to help, the boy's family had plans to go to Germany which has already taken 1.6 million refugees, the Middle East blames the U.S, U.S says Assad's downfall led to the creation of ISIS. Middle East blames the West, West says we are doing enough, what have you done?, and the Little boy had no clue what happened.


The problem lies in an Ideology, Mahatma Gandhi had stated An eye for an eye would leave the whole world blind, ISIS has been a creation of Extremism which cannot be blamed on the United States, that's just like suing Royal Enfield because you got caught by the cops for Drunken Driving. The Middle East OPEC nations and the Muslim Brotherhood showed how hypocrite they are by showing zero or minimal support to the refugees. So you are telling me Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran which are easily accessible from Syria and Iraq can't take refugees but Germany, Austria, Netherlands, U.K and Australia are being criticized just because they are not able to take enough immigrants after collectively allowing 2.5 Million immigrants collectively. The whole scenario might just be a political ideology combined with Racism but it all boils down to few simple things in Life.

The World today is moving forward, we can make a 3-D printed heart today but we also made the Dirty Bombs of Bulgaria and Chernobyl, and it all boils down to the fact that If one's mind had peace, the whole world would appear peaceful..




"Supreme Lord, let there be peace in the sky and in the atmosphere. Let there be peace in the plant world and in the forests. Let the cosmic powers be peaceful. Let the Man the true essence and source of life be peaceful.Let there be undiluted and fulfilling peace everywhere.

– Prayer from the Atharva Veda,

The Reverse Proxy-War

July 2008 :

Location : Qala Iktyaruddin, Herat, Afghanistan.

              

"But that's a suicide mission and we can't afford to expose this to the world", exclaimed Arup Sinha, Chief Head, Office of Special Operations, RAW.

"The media has become rampant and people have started believing this new menace called WikiLeaks which has few of our classified information." he further added. The Wikileaks website claims India under RAW has 12 training camps in Balochistan province in Pakistan which trains the Akbar Bugti led Balochistan Liberation Front(BLF) which wants separation from Pakistan, although India has denied any involvement in it.

"Listen Arup!!, times have changed, this is not your open field Kargil War, its a proxy War", said Nabiullah Stanikzai, Director, Khadamat-e Aetla'at-e Dawlat or Khad, the main security and intelligence agency of Afghanistan. 

"Both of us know who the enemy is and what the enemy is capable of, the blast outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul yesterday killed one of your best cadets, not to forget Brigadier Rajiv Datta. You have to realize it was aimed at Indian interests in Afghanistan, we have to answer it back and that can only happen through mutual co-operation".

"Our governments are working hard to rebuild Afghan land, we can't allow ISI backed interests ruin it for our countries" he exclaimed in his strong voice with a hint of Dari accent in his tone.

"Mujh par Bharosa Rakho Arup!!", he said with his hands on Arup Sinha's shoulder while Arup smiled. Nabi Stanikzai like Hamid Karzai had completed his Masters from Punjab University and had managed to learn few bits of Hindi during his stint in India. He had also visited India several times during Afghanistan army's training sessions with India.

"India is like a inseparable brother for us and we can't let the fanatics take over our country again" Nabiullah told while both the heads exchanged honorary salutes and parted ways.

Arup Sinha and his team were given one part of the Historic Herat fort to run operations in Afghanistan since 2 months. The ISI along with selective interests within Taliban and Indian Mujaheddin had for years had a proxy war with India. Pakistan had mastered this art while training under U.S against Soviet Union, this art involved using Sleeper cells, tools like diplomacy, media, spokespersons to cover its activities. Almost every year since 2002 when the War on Terror led by U.S had started, Indian Mujaheddin had fastened its activities in India, almost 4-5 blasts took place each year in various parts of India and the only answer for India was compensation to Blast victims, peace marches, blame game or political diplomacy. Indian politicians were scared to take a stand citing breaking of communal harmony within the country.

Arup Sinha stood at the huge window with a smoke in his hand, overlooking the scenic mountains of Herat, this historic fort had seen several great wars and successions including the accession by Hari Singh Nalwa as part of Sikh Empire and Raghunath Rao under the Maratha Empire. This beautiful fort had seen everything from the Ghaznavids, Durrani's to the Soviets.

"We need a man Yaksh, familiar with this territory, undetectable, most of all some one who is up for it" he exclaimed to his joint secretary Yaksh Desai.

Meanwhile somewhere in the town of Nuhay in Badakshan province of Afghanistan a sniper lay his eyes on a few miscreants. Intelligence reports on the previous day had stated that there were chances of a suicide bomber mission on that day and the United Nations Peace Keeping Force had been deployed with the task of peace operations in the region.

The sniper lay on an old abandoned building in the center of the town with a complete view of its surroundings, the refugee camp was about 800 yards from this building while the city market was about 650 yards from the building. Four snipers from UNPKF lay eye on the complete view of the town, they had orders to inform anything highly suspicious to the nearest patrol team. 2 of the snipers belonged to the Indian army while Adjuant Jean Morrilon was from the French 23rd artillery and Sub-lieutenant Bernard Mckenize  was from the Royal Canadian Artillery.

"Hey Jean!! I had one of your Baguette breads this morning", the indian soldier spoke to Jean with his aim still scrutinizing his direction.

"Did you like it?" asked Jean in his strong french accent.

"It dint smell bad for a change", the Indian soldier laughed.

"French people are so hardcore they Eat pain for breakfast my friend", exclaimed Jean.

Out of no where a police pickup truck zoomed past the refugee camp, speeding right past the camp it tried to enter the camp gate and in this process killed 2 security guards at the entrance gates. The 5 miscreants started running towards the camp which had housed several doctors, volunteers, soldiers apart from the refugees.

The Indian soldier by now realized the critical nature of the situation and there was no time to call the patrol team, the targets were about 900 yards away and running, citing the urgency of the situation and calculating all the aspects he fired his first shot, aiming 8 feet away from the first insurgent's target which hit right on his shoulder, the second target was shot on his hip the next second, while the third target hit the head. Within 5 seconds 3 insurgents had been laid to rest while the other 2 hid themselves behind a pillar and a wall obstructing his target. He committed one mistake which can lead to a sniper being killed, having multiple shots from the same location which leads to bringing the aimer's position out.

The other two suspects panicked at the sight of their comrade falling dead, and intercepting the aimer's position hid themselves, one behind an old half broken wall and the other behind an  old pillar part of the doorway. One of them started the "Stop and Go" Target method where he moved very fast between small cover positions and was very difficult to target, he was probably trying to move towards the refugee tents to get casualties, the Indian soldier had a very small shot time and asked Juan and Bernard to deliberately fire 3 mis-aimed shots, this boosted the insurgents confidence and he took a longer "Stop and Go" time frame, this was enough time for the Indian soldier and he shot the insurgent right on his left shoulder.

The last soldier had gone totally savage by now and started running at an unprecedented pace towards the camp, maybe he was the suicide bomber, it was difficult to find a aim at him from a distance of 800 yards, therefore the Indian soldier aimed his shot at one point and waited for him come at that point, he fired the moment he was 6 feet away from that point, calculating his speed and the bullets deviation and hit a shot on the insurgent's forehead. The insurgency was in control and the day was saved.

"That was awesome mate!, how did you do that?", asked Juan to the Indian soldier.
"Thanks to your Bauguette Breads mate", he smiled as they packed their M-20's after 14 hours of positioning at the building.

The Indian guy was an soldier by the name Lieutenant Colonel Rudra Pratap Gardi, a half Indian, Half Afghan soldier, his father who was also part of the Indian Army Brigadier Fateh Chand Gardi had married his mother Arezu Zadran when he was in erstwhile Soviet occupied Afghanistan part of a delegation, Rudra could speak both Hindi and Pashto, and had been to Afghanistan several times. This time he was part of a the United Nations Peace Keeping Force which had been installed as part of the War on Terror agenda by America.

P.S
The story suffices one Installment of the life of an Indian spy running a counter Proxy war, not every spy wears blazers/Tuxedos, drives flashy cars with Flashy Gadgets, dates the enemy's girlfriend, he has to sometimes live in the most drastic situations in drastic parts of the world for years, sometimes even without an Aim.