07-09-2006, 09:02 PM
<b>Spies & security </b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->7 July 2006: Rather predictably and unimaginatively, the CPI-M has called for reassessing Indo-US ties in the wake of the discovery of a spy ring in the National Security Council (NSC) secretariat. An American diplomat has suspiciously left the country, and one official and a former cyber security specialist in the NSC secretariat have been taken in. This is an extraordinary breach of security, which needs urgent corrective action, but the CPI-M line is unthinkable. The party, while it is at it, has also blamed the opening up to the US under the NDA, which again misses the picture.
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As for the CPI-Mâs charge about openness during the NDA term, that borders on the ridiculous. You cannot engage in the great power game, have and pursue the ambition to sit at the high table of nations, by building and living in a fortress. That is like walling yourself up because rapists and murderers are walking the streets. The sensible thing is to take precautions, cover the risks, judge danger against fair weather, and get a life. Being a nuclear power, with an expanding economy pushing it to the league of top line states, the NDA could not have run a closed house. Criticism against a porous security establishment/ environment is valid, but to fiat against all foreign contacts is silly, counter-productive, and impossible to sustain. Effectively, the CPI-M does not know what it is about, or the criticism is pointsâ scoring, which is entirely avoidable.
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The spying on India is not new, with a history of saleable Union cabinets, the job hasnât been too hard, and the spying is bound to grow as India paces ahead in power and prestige. Even as the intimacies grow, we have to secure ourselves more and more, there is no end to securing ourselves, that is an end in itself. Funnily, even our allies would feel secured by this, no one wants to deal with a leaky state, the classic example is how the Americans hated the Soviet-penetrated British intelligence during the Cold War<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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As for the CPI-Mâs charge about openness during the NDA term, that borders on the ridiculous. You cannot engage in the great power game, have and pursue the ambition to sit at the high table of nations, by building and living in a fortress. That is like walling yourself up because rapists and murderers are walking the streets. The sensible thing is to take precautions, cover the risks, judge danger against fair weather, and get a life. Being a nuclear power, with an expanding economy pushing it to the league of top line states, the NDA could not have run a closed house. Criticism against a porous security establishment/ environment is valid, but to fiat against all foreign contacts is silly, counter-productive, and impossible to sustain. Effectively, the CPI-M does not know what it is about, or the criticism is pointsâ scoring, which is entirely avoidable.
................
The spying on India is not new, with a history of saleable Union cabinets, the job hasnât been too hard, and the spying is bound to grow as India paces ahead in power and prestige. Even as the intimacies grow, we have to secure ourselves more and more, there is no end to securing ourselves, that is an end in itself. Funnily, even our allies would feel secured by this, no one wants to deal with a leaky state, the classic example is how the Americans hated the Soviet-penetrated British intelligence during the Cold War<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->