{"id":853765,"date":"2016-09-30T18:25:44","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T13:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/?p=853765"},"modified":"2016-09-30T18:25:44","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T13:25:44","slug":"bilateral-insanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/bilateral-insanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Bilateral Insanity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"PMLN

PMLN activists burn Modi in effigy, Sept. 30, Karachi. Asif Hassan\u2014AFP<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Pakistan and India are continuing to go at each other.<\/h6>\n

India pledged a surgical strike across the Line of Control in Kashmir after 19 of its soldiers were killed in the attack at the brigade headquarters of Uri. The Indian Army thought it could \u201ctake out\u201d Pakistani terrorists lurking in \u201claunch pads\u201d on the other side. It ended up doing nothing surgical, killing two Pakistani soldiers after losing eight of its own. But real \u201csurgical strikes\u201d were being delivered elsewhere. On TV, anchors and discussants were going at each other.<\/p>\n

As reported, the Indian media-persons crossed limits advising an all-out war. Notorious TV scourge Arnab Goswami appealed to India to \u201ccripple\u201d Pakistan and \u201cbring them down to their knees.\u201d Print journalist Minhaz Merchant shouted, \u201cLet guns now talk with Pakistan.\u201d The Indian government got jingoistic in equal measure. \u201cFor one tooth, the complete jaw. So-called days of strategic restraint are over,\u201d Ram Madhav, attack dog of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said on Facebook.<\/p>\n

On the Pakistani side, politicians lied blatantly when declaring that \u201cthe nation\u201d was united and stood like wall filled with lead\u2014somehow quick-to-melt soft metal lead continues to be the symbol of strong defense\u2014while they prepared to bring down the ruling party, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), through street power that shuts down entire cities. Looked at closely, the current Pakistan-India confrontation is a farce. Pakistan wants to unite internally, and India wants to win forthcoming interim polls.<\/p>\n

But if military clashes escalate, they can get close to the nuclear button. What puts off Indians and Pakistanis most is the hardnosed doctrine that nukes are not usable. Politicians are often heard saying nuclear bombs are not for putting on the shelf for decoration. Fired by nationalism, Indians and Pakistanis simply will not accept that rationality makes nuclear weapons a not-to-be-used commodity. If at all handy, they tend to deter nations from beating the war drums too much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pakistan and India are continuing to go at each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":853766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,8],"tags":[1125,84,62,1107,146,303,9044],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/000_GO3FM.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistanstandard.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}