The well attended conventions selecting the candidates for the US presidency, costing Americans millions of dollars, are over and these are the days when there are many debates watched by millions of Americans and millions of people outside . The contenders are debating at well attended gatherings, arguing assiduously for the better of America. The race is between Democrat Obama and Republican McCain and they are making hard proposals as to how the current economic crisis is to be solved. Today, the eighteenth of October with hardly three weeks for the election the candidates are concentrating on their attempts in swing States, giving everyone the impression that it is the vote on November 4 th that really matters in clinching a victory. Isn’t it sad that in the Mother of Democracies the voters have no say whatever in electing the President but they are also being duped- made to believe that they have a voice.

Introduction

A review of India’s military intervention in Sri Lanka (1987-90) now after two decades has the benefit of hindsight. During those two decades a number of global developments have enlarged the concept of strategic security. As a result, Military Intelligence (MI) has undergone changes in form, content and expectations.

Sri Lanka is perhaps the only country in the whole world that feeds and provides medical and surgical care to the very terrorist outfit that it is battling. A UNICEF Chief (James P. Grant) once described Sri Lanka's conflict as a civilised one in that the LTTE's wounded cadres were treated in state-run hospitals. Successive governments have been sending stocks of food and medicine to the LTTE-controlled areas knowing fully well that the LTTE siphons off most of them for military purposes. President Mahinda Rajapaksa recently said he was aware that about 70 per cent of the supplies sent to the Vanni went to the wrong hands. During the military operations in the East, an LTTE bunker fortified with a large number of bags of rice was found!

As India flounders in its pretentious war on terror and an effete Prime Minister touts the emasculating nuclear deal he has negotiated with the Americans as evidence of his derelict Government’s robust health, a resolute Sri Lanka led by a determined President is on the verge of smashing the last stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam which has terrorised that country for the last 25 years. Reports emanating from the battlefront in the north say that the Sri Lankan Army is within striking distance of Kilinochchi. According to Col R Hariharan, who was the head of intelligence of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force during our ill-advised and disastrous entanglement with Sri Lanka from 1987 to 1990, “Six divisions of the Sri Lankan Army have gheraoed Kilinochchi. The situation is critical for both sides.” For the beleaguered LTTE chief Prabhakaran this is possibly the last big battle of his life; for a decisive President Mahinda Rajapakse, Kilinochchi is the last barrier to re-establishing Colombo’s authority on Tamil-majority northern Sri Lanka.