Not a response to the article, but questioning the motives and credibility of the institution that employs (part time, full time whatever)the person raising the points.
You are welcome to question anything you like, but I haven't seen an Indian paper half as credible or half as moderate as DAWN.
Also, attacking DAWN doesn't change the reality of the events alluded to in the article. These are facts and they have indeed happened. From the staged encounters with Pakistani troops in Siachen, to the real estate scandal and more.
As for those who have missed the rather clear point of the article, it is simply this; that the role of the Indian Army has been quite dubious - due to corruption, a burning desire to appear heroic (ala Siachen fake encounters) and general malice towards Pakistanis & Kashmiris - and that this fact is not/should not be lost upon the US establishment. He further explains that, ignoring the meaningless lollipop handouts, Reidel/Obama's true views on the issue of Kashmir are indeed that it *is* a dispute, and it must be settled. To this end, the US is engaging both China (initially, very publicly) and Pakistan while delivering the message to India that the solution to the region's problems does not lie in undermining Pakistan.
If all of this is done under the cover of two statements which, upon even superficial analysis, are completely meaningless, then so be it. The two statements which are being sung as an endless thumree in India are:
1) Terrorist havens inside Pakistan are unacceptable
2) US welcomes India as it prepares to join the Sec Council as a perm member
If anyone thinks that statement #1 is being made for the first time, or that it hasn't been discussed extensively between the US and Pakistan for the past 9 years, then their name is probably Rip Van Winkle and they just woke up after decades of slumber. Without going into the details, the net-net is that there has been constant give and take on this issue and where we've ended up most recently is that the US has announced an additional $2B of military supplies. If this were such a make or break issue between the US and Pakistan, or Pakistan were under any amount of pressure on this issue, I don't think the US would continue to sweeten the relationship with additional billions. I also think that people within the US establishment have a pretty good memory and they know that most of these "terrorists" were jointly trained with the CIA and the bases, including Afghanistan's famous Tora Bora, were built with CIA assistance. You can express public disappointment or outrage, but it's always hollow when you know you had your fingers in the cookie jar too.
The second statement is the more humorous one. I think Najam Sethi did an excellent job of explaining exactly how meaningless this SC business is in his recent talk show (posted here). The US is welcoming India to a forum which they don't exclusively control entry to!! And India is thrilled just with a mere statement. Kya baat hai! I think the Chinese underscored this very well by issuing a statement the next day describing the conditions under which India could enter the SC: Structural UN reforms. And even then, the Chinese hold a veto on entry as well as reform itself! As I've pointed out previously, under the umbrella of UN reform there has been talk of an OIC seat, an Arab seat (Arab League?), multiple EU seats, Germany, Japan seats and more. This is going to be a very tough issue to address, if it *ever* gets addressed. Obama's statement doesn't do anything to make the actual process any easier or any more rapid (i.e. the process of structural reforms), nor does it create an alternate path of entry for India. So what exactly has he given other than a meaningless statement?
Didn't I hear Indians dismissing similar US statements in the past, such as "Pakistan is our major non-NATO ally" and much else... I tend to believe that words are cheap and the only way to gauge someone's position is to watch their actions. $7.5B in Kerry-Lugar, Bl52 deliveries or $2B in additional weapons means far more than a bumper sticker reading "most major ally". India is free to enthuse itself with statements, but at some point it will become clear that both these statements highlighted above were just that. The US is going to do nothing new or different, in terms of actual actions, to enable India's desires on either of these two items. In the meanwhile, the only action that counts for the US is how many billions India will spend with US companies. Let's see how good of a salesman Obama was...