Category Archives: politIcal discourse

Misreading the Asian Political Scenario: Ameer Ali’s Six Misconceptions

Fair Dinkum

Ameer Ali’s essay of 6 June 2021 in the Colombo Telegraph [reproduced recently in Thuppahi ……… https://thuppahis.com/2021/10/24/betwixt-india-and-china-little-lanka/) suffers from three fatal flaws. First, there is a failure to identify his political affiliations and to show some understanding of how this might influence his opinions. Second, by failing to do so, he presents his claims and arguments as if these were absolute truths. Third, he fails to critically evaluate US, Indian and CBK interests and intentions. He presents a false representation of what is occurring in the world today in the context of US efforts to demonize China as “a threat” in an attempt to undermine its rise. He makes a dangerous recommendation as to how Sri Lanka should manage India and China interests by urging the government to join the US confrontation against China. He is clearly a cheerleader for CBK and the anti-Rajapakse crowd in Colombo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this response essay, I will unpack six claims made by Ameer to explain why each are blatantly false.

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Shock! Terror! 9/11…… From Within CIA Headquarters at Langley

Anbereen Hasan

On 9/11 I was at my desk at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA. We had just started our morning meeting when the planes hit the World Trade Towers in NYC. We sat in stunned silence, trying to absorb the catastrophe before our eyes; then we shifted to frantic action. Overnight, my professional world changed. I was now front and center in our fight against terrorism. The walls outside our embassies only got higher as the world saw the U.S as a target and a threat.

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Vale: Joe Weeramunda, Versatile Anthropologist, Warm Friend

Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana, in The Island, 28 August 2021, with this title  “Appreciation Professor Anton Joseph Weeramunda”

I write this appreciation as one who has been Joe’s classmate at St. Joseph’s, roommate at Marcus Fernando Hall at the University of Peradeniya, and a life-long friend. Joe was an exceptional human being who was quiet, modest, smart, and kind to all and sundry to a fault. His family and friends will miss him terribly. All the friends that I contacted to let them know about Joe’s passing away have written back expressing their profound sorrow to learn about his passing. He was a genuine person that all of us came to admire, like, and be devoted to.

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Betwixt India and China: Little Lanka

ACL Ameer Ali in Colombo Telegraph, 6 June 2021, where the title is “Delhi’s Choice & Colombo’s Highway to Beijing ”  … but note that the highlighting is an imposition of The Editor, Thuppahi

Post-war Sri Lanka has turned into a contestable terrain for a new Great Game played chiefly between two regional powers, India and China with their respective allies. Although India’s presumption of control over the Indian Ocean remained uncontested once the former colonial masters started leaving the region one by one, Indian historians and political strategists like K. M. Panikkar warned Independent India of economic and security perils of surrendering control over Indian Ocean[…]

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Comparative Insights: USA’s Failures in Vietnam and Afghanistan

H.D.S Greenway, in Sri Lanka Guardian, 23 October 2021, … where the title runs thus  = Half century long American misadventures

A veteran war correspondent recalls the ignorance, poor judgement, exceptionalism, and hubris in all of [USA’s]  interventions.

Nearly half a century ago I watched the South Vietnamese army, an army that had been trained and equipped by the United States, simply melt away before a less well equipped but better-motivated army of North Vietnam. The South Vietnamese fled in panic before the North’s final offensive. I saw soldiers taking off their uniforms and fleeing in their underwear. Cities were falling before the North Vietnamese had time to get there.

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LTTE Activists at Work in Britain, 2021 …. stirring both Labour and Tories

Maya Anthony, in Ceylon Today, 14 October 2021,where the title reads  “The LTTE Born Again; Second-Generation Terrorists”

The remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are regrouping in the UK. Like Osama bin Laden groomed Hamza bin Laden to succeed him, the LTTE leaders and members are grooming their own children. Prabhakaran too set an example by training and grooming his children; Charles Anthony, Dwarka and Balachandran. To radicalise their next generation, the separatists are promoting a false narrative. Using funds and votes, the terrorists are planning to penetrate both the Labour and Conservative Parties in the UK. 

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DB Dhanapala’s AMONG THOSE PRESENT

Ravindra Wijewardhane, in Sunday Observer, 25 July 2021, where the title readsv “One of Dhanapala’s best books”

This is a collection of newspaper articles on important people who shaped events in Sri Lanka and even made history. Published in 1962, includes 22 articles or biographical reviews on 22 people – Anagarika Dharmapala, Ananda Coomaraswami, D.S. Senanayake, Dudley Senanayake, John Kotelawala, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, Sirima Bandaranaike, Oliver Goonetileke, Philip Gunawardhane, P. de S. Kularatne, G.P. Malalasekera, L.H. Mettananda, Senarat Paranavitana, G.P. Wickramarachchi, Yakkaduve Thero, Nicholas Attygalle, Herbert Hulugalle, Soliyas Mendis, Nittavela Gunaya, Victor Dhanapala, Arunachalam Mahadeva, Ediriweera Sarathchandra.

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The Religious Threads and Corporate Institutions behind Our World Wars?

Brian Victoria, presenting an article that has appeared in Countercurrents on 19 October 2021 with this title “Something Worse than Slavery?”

With the advent of the Black Lives Matter movement, together with the emergence of Critical Race Theory, the spotlight has once again been shone on the heinous institution that was slavery and its aftermath, racial discrimination. Could anything be worse than a system in which a human being becomes the property of another, to do with as the slave owner sees fit?

For good reason, the ownership of one human being by another is now universally prohibited, at least legally, for the inhumane abomination it has always been. Yet, in rejecting slavery it is easy to overlook one aspect that may be identified, for lack of a better word, as its sole positive feature. Namely, it was not in the slave owner’s interest to kill their slaves outright, for only living slaves made it possible for the owner to profit from their labor.

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The Modern Nation States’ Victims

Adam Henry Hughes, whose original title runs thus “Hiding the Body Bags: The Nation-State, Killing and Death”

During a lecture [in 2010], the famous news correspondent Robert Fisk told a story of the reaction of a Reuter’s news agency (London) to receiving graphic pictures of civilian death and destruction caused in Iraq by British forces. Reuter’s called the pictures “obscene” and therefore not fit to be shown back home.(1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We learn about the abstract war, the war of nationalist or ideological sacrifice and endurance, the achievement of some military objective or another; the war that is remembered in one national cemetery or memorial museum. But we must not see the broken and mutilated bodies—the final state of the human being once steel, bomb, bullet or blade meets flesh.(2)

 

 

 

 

Many died in the Battle at LONE PINE

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Tony Abbott in Taiwan as Gunman for Morrison and ASPI

Bruce Haigh, in Globsal Times, 13 October 2021, where the title readsAbbott extends Morrison’s diplomatic disaster”

Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott blundered his way on stage in Taipei city to deliver a most imprudent speech to the Yushan Regional Security Forum on October 7. Abbott was accorded all the courtesies of a visiting dignitary, including being received by Tsai Ing-wen. Prior to Abbott arriving, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the visit was private yet he was accompanied by a senior Australian representative, Jenny Bloomfield. Her presence conferred official status on Abbott’s presence in Taiwan.

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