July 10, 2012

Quote of the day: "Next, we'll probably hear that Lloyd Blankfein over at Goldman Sachs has been tinkering with the rotation of the earth in order to gain a few micro-milliseconds of advantage in his firm's high frequency trading rackets."
-- James Howard Kunstler

There has been a lot of commentary about the confusion regarding the name of the Indian prisoner released from Pakistan. In particular, somebody mentioned that the returning (pardoned) prisoner should keep his trap shut and not blab about being a spy for India, as this makes the task of negotiating the release of other such people all the more difficult. Can't really fault this logic, but I have more fundamental issues: why are we sending folks into enemy territory to engage in such acts (not to mention bombings, if the allegations against Sarabjit Singh have any merit)? This may be a naive view of how foreign policy is conducted, but ahem, we are different, aren't we? Ours is the land of Gandhi and the Buddha -- we would never do these things, things that only other countries do, would we? In my rule book, if a fair and impartial trial (best conducted by a disinterested third country like, say, Iceland (I wanted to say Norway, but some folks may remonstrate against this since Norway is -- was? -- involved in mediation efforts in Sri Lanka and may not fully qualify as a disinterested party)) shows that Sarabjit did commit these things he's accused of, he should hang. Period. No 'My country, right or wrong', 'But he was only doing his patriotic bit for the country' business. Patriotism is taking a gun and defending your border against an enemy, not terrorism or other nefarious activities that would get you peremptorily -- and legally, I think -- executed in wartime. One positive fallout of such an action would be that we can mete out the deserved justice to Kasab as well, instead of waiting on him hand and foot in prison. This will also open the eyes of gullible folks who get railroaded into doing James Bond duty for the country.