Why can't India bombard Pakistan?

By John Cheeran
As Israel whips Hezbollah in Lebanon day after day it finds resonance in India too.
The most relevant question is this -- Why can't India hit Pakistan for its rogue acts on Indian soil?
In 11 minutes India lost more than 185 lives on July 11 in Mumbai. It took the captivity of only two of its soldiers for Israel to launch a full fledged war against Hezbollah terrorists.
Though Pakistan has denied any role in the recurrent terror attacks in India, none has bought that argument in India.
I have always maintained that Pakistan is a rogue nation and it should be treated as such by Indian public as well as the government. Pakistan is that impoverished nation which wants to have its children operated on in Bangalore and but prefers to pay back us with bomb blasts in Mumbai.
Pakistan does not allow Bollywood releases there yet they let the DVD piracy industry in Karachi thrive on Bollywood movies.
Indian Prime Ministers have gone for people-to-people contact measures, but that has only helped in the free flow of terrorists into India. And we, the soft citizens in a soft state, pay the price for being generous withthe lives of our dear ones.
But let us go back to that most important question. Why India is not hammering Pakistan?
India has the fourth largest army in the world but unfortunately it can act only as a deterrent. India is always on the back foot when it comes to dealing with its breakaway landmass.
Defence analysts always point out that the very fact that Pakistan has nuclear warheads make a war against them pyrrhic. Is that so?
Is Israel rummaging Lebanon's backyard and threatening to sear Syria only because its Arab enemies do not have nuclear capability?
May be or may not be.
But mind you, Israel is fighting only a conventional war against its Arab enemies. Israel is not nuking them. Israel at least lives for the day and doesn't care for any consequences other than the right to live and fight for another day.
So the point is, why don't India wage a conventional war on Pakistan? Cut them, bleed them to death.
The crucial factor among India, Israel and Pakistan is the United States. Israel has full support of the US to detox Lebanon of terrorists. But in the sub-continent, Pakistan is, and not India, America's ally on the War Against Terrorism. That's joke, and it is high time Indian Foreign Office say it so to their Washington counterparts.
How can George Bush proclaim the jihad factory as its ally while combating religious fanaticism and terrorism?
The Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer had put it succinctly. Musharraf may be a bastard child, but it is our bastard child, he had reminded the US foreign policy makers while explaining the contradictions in embracing Pakistan as an ally.
Yes, and it is the strategic support from the US that emboldens Musharaff to make grandiose statements such as he made yesterday in Karachi. " Nobody dare take punitive action against Pakistan or cast an evil eye onit, " Musharraf said.
And he has made this statement gloating over his military establishment's nuclear strike potential.
Pakistan would be making a grave mistake if it assumes that India will behave like a coy bride for all seasons to come when it comes to tackling Pakistan's terror trade and tirade.
A shift in the United States's assessment of geo-political realities in South Asia should enable India to shed its inhibition and moral veneer to tear apart its enemies.
But what matters most is a shift in Indian policy makers' mindset. You got to intimidate the enemy and playing cricket is not the best way to achieve that aim.
India had ripped Pakistan's heart apart during the 1971 war to liberate Bangladesh. Neither Pakistan nor India had nuke capacity then. But Indira Gandhi frittered away the gains of that very war behaving like a loser while finalizing the fine print of the Simla Accord, rolling out a redcarpet welcome to a disgraced and defeated Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
More than ever, India now need a ruthless foreign policy to isolate Pakistan on global platforms and the nation should refrain from engaging futile summit exercises with terror merchants.