{"id":149442,"date":"2025-05-08T08:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T15:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=149442"},"modified":"2025-05-08T08:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T15:41:08","slug":"a-new-us-cold-war-weaponizes-religious-diasporas-in-south-asia-and-the-indian-ocean-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/05\/08\/a-new-us-cold-war-weaponizes-religious-diasporas-in-south-asia-and-the-indian-ocean-region\/","title":{"rendered":"A New US Cold War Weaponizes Religious Diasporas in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Whither India\u2019s Global Peace Making?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the cover image Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, abbreviated NSF Diego Garcia, is a British Ministry of Defence facility leased to the United States Navy, located on the atoll Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius. Africa), from which US Air Force can use to target Iran<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The writer, Dr. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, is a Social and Medical Anthropologist, based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. <\/em> Links to Gospa News articles have been added by our Editorial Staff<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been several geopolitical developments in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. These include United States Vice President J.D Vance\u2019s visit with his Indian origin wife, Usha and their children to India in April and terror attacks on tourists in Kashmir\u2019s Pahalgam, which were blamed on Pakistan. The same week there was a huge blast in Iran\u2019s port Bandar Abbas<\/a> on the Persian Gulf that opens into the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2025\/05\/01\/israel-on-fire-irans-revenge-for-the-port-massacre-as-we-predicted-24-hours-ago\/embed\/#?secret=eZTNA67sYU#?secret=4OmyFKtENA<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Earlier in the month there were reports of the return of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)<\/a>, operatives to the Bangram Air Base in Afghanistan. This was reportedly in consultation with erstwhile proxy, the Taliban.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

President Trump had stated that former President Biden made a mistake abandoning Bangram Base during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan given its infrastructure investments and proximity to China\u2019s missile sites, not to mention Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Easter week attacks in Kashmir were similar to those of the Easter Sunday attacks in 2019 in Sri Lanka, mysteriously claimed by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).<\/a> These also targeted tourists, as well as, churches and a Chinese research mission in the Seas of Sri Lanka\u2013 in a Hybrid operation.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2024\/02\/10\/hybrid-economic-war-with-neocolonial-debt-bondage-in-the-indian-ocean\/embed\/#?secret=FRXTpGnKw5#?secret=278P9xqJvP<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following, the attacks in Kashmir which killed 26 people, the global corporate media propaganda machine echoed the moment of America\u2019s Global War on Terror\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\u2019s Adani owned NDTV was full of India\u2019s War on Terror\u201d moment, echoing rhetoric after the 9\/11 World Trade Center attacks; cheerleading a hard military response and possible war with Pakistan. This would of course destabilize South Asia, one of the world\u2019s most impoverished regions, despite the Indian growth story economic hype. A war between the nuclear armed neighbors would moreover further weaponize religious diaspora networks and destabilize historically multi-religious South Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What of India\u2019s Push to be a Peace-Maker drawing on Spiritual Traditions?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s recent push to be a global peace-maker in the Russia-Ukraine war, leveraging India\u2019s spiritual traditions of Ahimsa (non-violence) in the Buddhist, Jain and Hindu Yogic and Ghandian legacies, appeared forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather, there was rush to deliver collective punishment to Pakistan\u2019s farmers by withholding Indus Valley Waters, affecting food security, by putting on hold the treaty for sharing of water resources. India and Pakistan were in any case a single country until the retreating British Raj Partitioned India in 1947, as it did Cyprus, Ireland, Palestine and other places as part of its Exit Strategy. Was this in order to retain British imperial and corporate economic and security interests, a different kind of GLADIO-style stay behind operation in the Jewel of the Crown\u201d of a lost Empire?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2023\/03\/16\/the-environmental-cost-of-the-superpower-economic-hybrid-war-games-in-indian-ocean\/embed\/#?secret=L4vc4cpCoR#?secret=vpROoXR4w1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Indian State\u2019s response to the attack in Pahalgam has been the metering out of collective punishment in lieu of a measured, calibrated and targeted response. In addition to holding in abeyance the Indus Water treaty there has been a destruction of the homes of purported terrorists for the collective punishment of their kin. Is India drawn into the I2U2 mimicking the Israeli barbarism of collective punishment in the occupied Palestine\u2019s West Bank and Gaza Strip and forgetting Ahimsa?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diaspora Wags the Dog\u201d: Weaponizing Religion for a new Cold War<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is now increasingly clear that along with the QUAD (the collective of Australia, Japan USA, India) and I2U2 (the collective of Israel, India, United Arab Emirates and USA), in the Western Indian Ocean, set up to target China, the Indian Diaspora in the US are being harnessed to wag the dog\u201d so to speak and lure India into the US military business industrial complex and NATO War Machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Indian Ocean was declared a Zone of Peace on the initiative of the third world at the United Nations in 1971 at the height of the first Cold War it has become highly militarized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bringing India into America\u2019s new Cold War on China would also break the BRICS and Global South unity, perceived as a threat to the hegemony of the US dollar<\/a> and the existing global trade and financial system.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2024\/09\/22\/de-dollarize-to-de-colonize-sri-lanka-must-pivot-to-the-brics-embrace-the-asian-21st-century-after-elections\/embed\/#?secret=nBAKyjaRnr#?secret=lTyGXOPXI1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Working with the Indian Diaspora in North America to draw India seems to be a bi-partisan agreement for Washington\u2019s Republican and Democrat Uni-party.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Was the visit of US Vice President J.D. Vance with his Indian origin wife and children dressed in Desi garb just days before the Kashmir, Pahalgam attacks a coincidence?  Tulsi Gabbard, head of US National Security Agency is a Hindu as is Kash Patel who is the head of the FBI. Kamala Harris the Former Vice President, and Presidential hopeful also had some South Indian roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the Indian diaspora being used to draw India which had stood with Palestine during the hey days of Non-Alignment, to partner with Zionist Israel, which ironically, also works with Saudi Arabian Petrodollars to promote the Muslim Fundamentalist (Muslim Zionist?) Wahabi- Salafi- Islamist \u2013ISIS, ISIL, Al Qaida, Al Nusra, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, Tariq Islam, Towheed Jamat, Lashkar-e-Taiba, off shoots and Islamist terror networks around the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fighting \u2018God-less Communists\u2019 and Independence Movements with Religion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Claiming to fight God-less Communists\u201d during the Cold War against Soviet Russia the United States and its European allies weaponized religion, seen as a conservative forces in the Third World, This to buffer against de-colonization and national Independence movements seeping across Asia and Africa after the end of World War 2. National liberation movements were often Communist or Socialist in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Internal ethno-religious proxy wars <\/a>were promoted in the post-colony to deflect de-colonization and independence struggles and retain the economic and security interests of retreating European empires, or transfer them to the rising American empire.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

All \u2018world religions\u2019 are politically constituted and hence more or less weaponized, Islam is by far the Most Weaponized religion on the planet. That is, excepting Southeast Asian Islam, which is softer and culturally diverse, given proximity to polytheistic Buddhist and Hindu cultural traditions. This is demonstrated in the Indonesian State\u2019s Constitutional commitment to Pancha Sila.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2024\/08\/09\/literary-prize-politics-cold-war-and-the-disinformation-game-on-the-weaponization-of-religion-s-and-decolonizing-history-and-fiction\/embed\/#?secret=fS9qSdPREP#?secret=Jp1GDsse7W<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Cold War, Muslim networks were used at the handmaiden and cat\u2019s paw of the Evangelical Christian Zionist empire to stage violence and destabilize multi-religious countries in Asia and Africa. There was also a concerted attempt to weaponize Buddhism as documented in an excellent book Cold War Monks: Buddhism and America\u2019s Secret Strategy in Southeast Asia\u201d, albeit with less than spectacular results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As academics like Diane Kirby have shown, in Cold War USA, evangelical Christian and the Jewish diaspora networks, particularly, Zionism and the Chabad movement helped fund and underwrite settler colonialism in Palestine. Simultaneously, Muslims were used as the handmaiden and cat\u2019s paw to stage violence in the interest of the US Empire and Israel around the world, with the support of Evangelical Christian Zionist groups. There is of course a long tradition of Israeli security agencies, Shin Bet and MOSSAD working to weaponized religions in Palestine in order to promote settler colonialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Head of the Snake of Islamist Terror and the US Military Business Industrial Complex<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The head of the snake of Islamist Terror around the world was Saudi Arabia that during the Cold War spread Wahabi-Salafi fundamentalist Islam in cooperation with the CIA and Mossad also targeting Persian\/ Iranian Shia Islam which had a more spiritual orientation. The Ayatollahs in Teheran had after all thrown out the US-backed Shah of Iran and nationalized its oil wells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saudi Arabia\u2019s pole position in Islam as the county of the holy site of Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet, and its Petrodollars enabled the spread of Wahabi-Salafi fundamentalist Islam throughout the Muslim world. This was in exchange for regime protection for the house of Saud. The US has massive bases in the Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Of course NATO\u2019s Turkey and other neighbors of Palestine which are complicit in the on-going genocide there<\/a>, along with the UAE, Qatar, Egypt etc. helped. Some were subject to blowback from the Muslim Brotherhood.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2025\/04\/21\/the-hidden-secrets-on-isis-massacres-in-sri-lanka-2019-western-zionist-ties-with-palestine-genocide\/embed\/#?secret=rniZsHq4qE#?secret=UEYYIOePVJ<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the Soviet Union, Red Peril and the Cold War ended in 1991, Islamist Terror became America\u2019s official new enemy. The\u2019 Global war on terror\u201d after the World Trade Center attacks were staged purportedly by Osama bin Laden\u2019s Al Qaida enabled perpetuating the US military business industrial complex with a new Islamist enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is worth recalling here that President Dwight Eisenhower had warned the American people about the threat posed by the US military business industrial complex in his farewell address to the nation. And sure enough, President John F. Kennedy who wanted to draw down the US war machine in Vietnam was assassinated a couple of years later in 1963 reportedly in an internal covert operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2024\/11\/09\/freemasonry-zionism-3-devilish-roots-of-holocaust-in-holy-land-70-of-exterminated-are-children-women-by-netanyahu-thanks-western-neonazis\/embed\/#?secret=lAWzaftctZ#?secret=nBsIZvQwcM<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The covert links between Zionist-Evangelical Christianity and Islamist Wahabi<\/a> groups that go back to the Cold War weaponization of Islam also to fight Russia in Afghanistan may partly explain why the Muslim dominated Middle East and North Africa (MENA Region), is the most violent part of world at this time. Muslim communities and networks around the world were weaponized and used for terror while, others turned a blind eye, to on-going radicalization particularly via the internet, social media and On-line religiosity. As Yasha Levine has detailed in his book, the Internet was a military invention for surveillance and control rather than to promote Democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staging a Clash of Civilizations\u201d between Buddhism and Islam to destroy Asia?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, Prime Minister Modi was in Saudi Arabia when the attacks happened in Pahalagam, Kashmir, and he cut short his visit to the Kingdom to return to Delhi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of the attacks, the global corporate media echo chamber seemed taken with the prospect of a war between nuclear armed India and Pakistan. Although Pakistan had long been a \u2018Garrison State\u2019 with its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), being well oiled by the CIA and funded by Saudi Arabia,<\/a> it was painted as a proxy of China in the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2024\/09\/11\/cia-gate-11-exclusive-unveiling-saudi-network-behind-9-11-former-fbi-agents-revelations\/embed\/#?secret=dYyeANniTr#?secret=OmFYVefBpM<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after the British Partition of India in 1948 as part of its Exit Strategy to continue to dominate the South Asia region, Pakistan was turned into a CIA Garrison State while India allied with the Soviet Union\/Russia. The region has been kept in turmoil ever since\u2013 as a Cold War proxy war site. This also explains the lack of progress in the SAARC in contrast with Southeast Asia\u2019s ASEAN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is increasingly clear that under Trump, the US is now focusing on China and trying to isolate it from Russia (Ukraine Peace deal), and correct the mistake that Biden made of pushing Russia into China\u2019s arms, while trying to break BRICS by courting India. After the Pahalgam attacks, there were Hollywood inspired dreams voiced on Social media of India\u2019s Akand Barath, breaking up Pakistan, and partitioning Baluchistan given the new Chinese built Gwadar Port, which the CIA had deemed one of the String of Pearls\u201d in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2020\/01\/23\/weapons-lobby-4-uk-and-italy-in-the-hands-of-qatars-muslim-brotherhood-rothschild-partner-and-jihadists-funder\/embed\/#?secret=iRZAh8vcwi#?secret=yxr1vMtJqO<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the US and its proxies succeed though a strategy of hybrid maritime and staged terror attacks in drawing India into its security architecture, this would challenge the rise of the BRICS and Global South cooperation which threatens US dollar hegemony. This would also put an end to the Rise of Asia and the Asian Century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this time there are on-going attempts to stage a new \u2018Clash of Civilizations\u2019 between the two great religious communities in Asia, Buddhism and Islam in order to crash the Asian Century. This was signaled back in 2001 with the Taliban blowing up the ancient 6th century Buddhas of Bamiyan on the Silk Route in Afghanistan\u2013 prior to the 9\/11 attacks on the WTC to inaugurate and legitimize America\u2019s \u2018Global War on Islamist Terror\u2019 and is also evident in Myanmar with the Rohingya refugees and human trafficking issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whither India\u2019s \u2018Neighborhood First\u201d policy?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Over the past three years there were US-backed regime change operations in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In 2022 when the popular democratically elected Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted and imprisoned and Pakistan de-stabilized, India, the South Asian regional hegemon, looked on. Khan accused Donald Lu then Secretary of South Asia of spearheading the regime change in collusion with elements in the Pakistani establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same year, India capitalized on the US National Endowment for Democracy and Soros Foundation-funded, social media coordinated Aragalaya protest chaos operation to stage regime change and Sovereign Default in Sri Lanka. As South Asia\u2019s wealthiest country was implausibly declared Bankrupt\u2019 overnight due to a purported lack of US dollars to enable the IMF to upend its economic sovereignty<\/a>, India played the supporting role of good neighbor to the rescue.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2024\/05\/29\/wealth-of-nations-and-the-poverty-of-theory-2-imf-mission-creep-while-green-blue-and-pink-washing-blackrock\/embed\/#?secret=sissqUc5DO#?secret=qiB0NpoVnv<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, last year in August India lost a close ally who had just won the national elections, in Prime Minister Sheik Hasina in Bangladesh to another US-back regime change in South Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the Modi government\u2019s policy of self-interest sans principled Foreign Policy seem to belie proclamations of the \u2018neighbourhood first\u201d, and have paid diminishing returns in the face of America\u2019s over the horizon (OTH), operations and aspiration for Full Spectrum Dominance in South Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it becoming increasingly difficult for India to \u2018run with the hare and hunt with the hounds\u2019? The destabilization that OTH protests curated via remote social media platforms for regime change and staged economic crises have rendered South Asia including India poorer. The case of ASEAN shows clearly that countries develop only when their neighbors are stable and developing too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.gospanews.net\/en\/2023\/08\/04\/great-reset-fed-ecb-imf-ready-to-sell-the-nations-to-blackrock-devilish-plot-rst-thanks-to-interest-rate-hike\/embed\/#?secret=DI3rep4wOz#?secret=YaVQlKGiMO<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasingly, India\u2019s growth story hype is belied by the reality of poverty due to external destabilization and staged OTH crises across South Asia. It may be time to fully embrace the BRICS and Global South in the Asian 21st Century. Otherwise, India may help normalize the Abraham Accords and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza<\/a> that would legitimize a brutal new world order\u201d across the Indian Ocean World, which is entirely contrary to Hindu-Buddhist-Jain traditions of Ahimsa and peace-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=YUTT7cfuCAQ%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26enablejsapi%3D1\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Finally, it is high time for a global movement to shut down the 750 environment-polluting US military bases around the world, particularly those in the Indian Ocean<\/a>, which should be again declared a \u2018Zone of Peace\u2019 in keeping with Principles of Non-Alignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The writer, Dr. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, is a Social and Medical Anthropologist, based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. <\/em> Links to Gospa News articles have been added by our Editorial Staff<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake Whither India\u2019s Global Peace Making? In the cover image Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, abbreviated NSF Diego Garcia, is a British Ministry of Defence facility leased to the United States Navy, located on the atoll Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius. Africa), from which US Air Force can use to target Iran The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-darini-rajasingham-senanayake","category-189"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}