outlookindia.com 23.10.2007
OPINION
No Crouching Tigers These

B.RAMAN

Reliable details of the combined air and land attack launched by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on the Anuradhapura air base of the Sri Lankan Air Force early in the morning of October 22, 2007, indicate that it was neither an act of desperation as projected by the embarrassed Sri Lankan military spokesmen nor an act of needless dramatics as suggested by others. It was an act of unbelievable determination, bravery and precision successfully carried out by a 21-member suicide commando group of the Black Tigers--significantly led by a Tamil from the Eastern Province--with the back-up support of two planes of the so-called Tamil Eelam Air Force.

Reliable Western sources say that no other terrorist organisation in the world would have been capable of organising such a raid, which had been preceded by painstaking intelligence collection, planning and rehearsal. The commandoes, divided into groups, infiltrated into the air base from two directions and, within 20 minutes, took the security guards by surprise, overwhelmed them, seized their weapons and communication equipment, neutralised a radar and an anti-aircraft gun position and then intimated their headquarters that they were in effective control of the air base. Only then the two aircraft of the LTTE's air wing flew to Anuradhapura and dropped two bombs on the base and flew back safely to their hide-out.

The commandoes remained in effective occupation of the base from 3 AM to at least 9 AM. During this period, they blew up three helicopters, two fixed-wing aircraft--one of them a trainer-- and three unmanned drones. After losing communication with the air base, the Sri Lankan Air Force base at Vavuniya sent one of its helicopters to Anuradhapura to find out what had happened. As it was approaching the air base, it was shot down by the LTTE commandoes manning the anti-aircraft gun in the air base.

The commandoes also blew up an ammunition storage depot in the air base and damaged its runway. It is learnt that the Black Tiger commandoes remained in communication with their headquarters till 9 AM. Thereafter, all communications ceased, indicating thereby that all of them had either been killed by the Sri Lankan Security Forces or had committed suicide to avoid falling into the hands of the Sri Lankan security forces, who had counter-attacked the base. Thirteen SLAF personnel were killed, nine inside the base and four in the helicopter crash.

The LTTE has been silent on the fate of the commandoes. However, it has released their personal particulars. Two Lieutenant-Colonels, six Majors, 12 Captains and one Lieutenant rank Black Tiger members took part in the operation. A Lieutenant-Colonel who led an attack team was from Trincomalee, two of the members, a Major and a Captain, were from Batticaloa, one from Mullaiththeevu, one from Mannaar, three from Ki'linochchi and eleven members from Jaffna .Three Captains were women.

Initial reports of the raid had indicated that the raid started with an air attack by the LTTE's aircraft and that it was only thereafter that the commandoes had infiltrated into the air base by taking advantage of the confusion. Subsequent reports, however, indicate that the Black Tigers initially infiltrated the base and took control of it and that it was then that the air raid was launched more to test the capability for co-ordination between the air wing and the Black Tigers than to cause damage to the base. Since the Black Tigers were already in effective control of the base, they did not need any air support.

Embarrassed by the spectacular display of the LTTE's prowess, the Sri Lankan authorities have been trying to play down the successes of the LTTE operation. They claim that only two helicopters and one fixed wing aircraft were damaged and another helicopter was destroyed when it crash-landed due to technical reasons.The Colombo correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" of London has reported that the Black Tigers destroyed an expensive Beechcraft surveillance plane worth £14 million, two Mi17 helicopters, two Mi24 helicopters, three unmanned aerial vehicles, a K-8 jet and eight PD6 propeller trainer aircraft.

The Anuradhapura air base was essentially used by the SLAF as a training base. The training command of the SLAF was located there. In addition, it was also providing intelligence support to the SLAF and the Navy through the sophisticated Beechcraft plane fitted with equipment for aerial photography and the collection of electronic and technical intelligence and the unmanned drones.Instructors from Pakistan, China and Israel were periodically attached to the base.

The helicopters destroyed by the Black Tigers were being used as helicopter gun ships or for VIP transport. While the damage sustained by the SLAF is considerable in money terms and reduces its capability for intelligence collection for air and naval operations, its impact on the SLAF's capability for air strikes over the LTTE controlled areas would be limited.

The successful operation would seem to have been launched by the LTTE in retaliation for the recent operations of the Sri Lankan Navy against the transport ships of the LTTE and the air strikes of the SLAF over LTTE positions in the Northern Province. It once again underlines the LTTE's reputation as an organisation with a tremendous tenacity of purpose, grit and sophistication in thinking and planning. Its recent set-backs have not weakened its morale. They have only redoubled its determination to keep fighting for its political objective unmindful of the losses in the Eastern Province.

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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.

You can't lump all terrorists together'

Michael Tomasky asks Hillary Clinton about Iraq, the legacy of the Cold War, Mukasey and ceding executive powers

Tuesday October 23, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

I want to start with some questions about foreign policy and terrorism. If you become president you'll enter the White House with far more power than, say, your husband had. What is your view of this? And what specific powers might you relinquish as president, or renegotiate with Congress - for example the power to declare a US citizen an enemy combatant?

Well, I think it is clear that the power grab undertaken by the Bush-Cheney administration has gone much further than any other president and has been sustained for longer. Other presidents, like Lincoln, have had to take on extraordinary powers but would later go to the Congress for either ratification or rejection. But when you take the view that they're not extraordinary powers, but they're inherent powers that reside in the office and therefore you have neither obligation to request permission nor to ask for ratification, we're in a new territory here. And I think that I'm gonna have to review everything they've done because I've been on the receiving end of that. There were a lot of actions which they took that were clearly beyond any power the Congress would have granted or that in my view that was inherent in the constitution. There were other actions they've taken which could have obtained congressional authorization but they deliberately chose not to pursue it as a matter of principle.

I guess I'm asking, can a president, once in the White House, actually give up some of this power in the name of constitutional principle?

Oh, absolutely, Michael. I mean that has to be part of the review that I undertake when I get to the White House, and I intend to do that.

Interesting. Liberal intellectuals and foreign policy thinkers have, since the start of the Iraq war, been engaged in debate about Iraq and the legacy of Cold War liberalism. Do you think the Iraq war was within the tradition we associate with Truman and Acheson?

You know, that's a very hard question to answer with any certainty or even full intellectual understanding because we are in a post-Cold War world, and I think that the argument has been missing that basic premise. It's hard to take what was a philosophy with respect to the use and containment of power during the Cold War and try to shoehorn it into a post-Cold War context. So I don't really think there is an easy or satisfying answer to that. You know, obviously, if you read my article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, I think we can have an approach that tries to project power and authority in an appropriate way that draws on all aspects of American power, that inspires and attracts as much as coerces, if we avoid false choices driven by ideology and theory. One of the lessons that I think we all should take out of the last six-and-a-half years is that ideologically driven foreign policy that is not rooted in a realistic assessment of the world as we find it today is not likely to result in any positive outcome.

Yeah. Do you think that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, or do you think they have specific geopolitical objectives?

Well, I believe that terrorism is a tool that has been utilized throughout history to achieve certain objectives. Some have been ideological, others territorial. There are personality-driven terroristic objectives. The bottom line is, you can't lump all terrorists together. And I think we've got to do a much better job of clarifying what are the motivations, the raisons d'être of terrorists. I mean, what the Tamil Tigers are fighting for in Sri Lanka, or the Basque separatists in Spain, or the insurgents in al-Anbar province may only be connected by tactics. They may not share all that much in terms of what is the philosophical or ideological underpinning. And I think one of our mistakes has been painting with such a broad brush, which has not been particularly helpful in understanding what it is we were up against when it comes to those who pursue terrorism for whichever ends they're seeking.

It sounds like you're saying it's not particularly useful when Bush and others say terrorists hate us for our freedoms?

Well, some do. But is that a diagnosis? I don't think it's proven to be an effective one.

Just quickly on Iraq. You know 67% of the respondents to a Washington Post poll said either cut off funding or attach it to timetables. Why is hard for Congress to do something 67% of American people say they want done?

Well, actually, I support that position, I have voted against funding, I have voted a number of times for timelines. But the bottom line is we don't have enough Republicans who are willing to depart from the president's policy. And we have a very narrow majority in the Senate, and until we can persuade enough Republicans to defeat a threatened filibuster we can't cut off funding, we can't attach timelines. I think the House could get a vote to attach timelines. I don't know whether they could take the step of cutting off funding, but they might be able to do it as a result of a series of actions. But in the Senate, you know, we have a 51-49 majority, and for most of the year, until Tim Johnson returned, we had a 50-49 majority. And you're not going to see the Republicans lining up until they're absolutely convinced that they have no alternative, and that's what we're trying to convince them of. We've got an election year coming up. I think we'll continue to try to push the president, but the political reality is we don't have the votes.

I want to shift to a couple of domestic issues. In light of some of Michael Mukasey's comments Thursday on torture and waterboarding, will you vote to confirm him?

Well, I'm gonna look at the entire record of the hearing. His questions in a number of areas raised issues for me, so I have to look closely and see what I should do in terms of voting, and I will be doing that.
What were you most concerned about?
Well there were a number of issues. Obviously, I do not believe in as expansive a definition of executive power, and some of the questions on the second day about presidential authority with respect to interrogation also concern me.

Does his longtime friendship with Giuliani trouble you at all?

No.

You know one criticism among some progressives is that you're an overly cautious politician. Can you name one issue during your Senate tenure on which you risked political capital, really stuck your neck out in behalf of a progressive policy goal?

Well, I think, you know, voting against funding. What did we get, 12, 13, 14 votes? A lot of people who consider themselves very progressive who voted against authorizing the war in Iraq were not with me on that vote.

Previously? On domestic issues?

Well, you know I've made so many votes, Mike, and I've tried to vote as I thought was the right thing to do, and if you look at my voting record as it's evaluated by most of the progressive organizations that look at voting records, I have a very, very high percentage of having voted with them, so I don't quite know what their concern is. You know, look what I'm doing in the campaign. I'm obviously running on my plans to change the country, I have very specific policies that I've rolled out day after day, I'm zeroing in on what I think should be done to restore America's leadership in the world and rebuild a strong and prosperous middle class and reform the government. And I think the results speak for themselves. We're getting an enormous amount of support because people understand that change is just a word if you don't have the strength and experience to make it happen.

Last question. Will health reform come first in your administration before the 2010 midterms or will you start smaller?

A: It will be my highest prior as soon as I am inaugurated.