How to respond to Mumbai
The terrorist attacks raised India-Pakistan tensions—was that the point?
Snehal Chitte, 9, takes a picture of her dead father's photograph at a memorial for victims of the Mumbai terrorist attack.
(AP Photo/Gautam Singh)
“Now that the immediate crisis in Mumbai is over,” said Rachel Martin in ABC News online, the “questions and accusations are flying.” About 10 gunmen killed more than 180 people, and experts say it is “virtually impossible” that they “carried out the attacks on their own.” The lone surviving terrorist reportedly claims to be part of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri Islamist militia with historical ties to Pakistan’s intelligence agency.
“Even if last week’s terrorist plot was hatched outside India,” said Asra Nomani in the Los Angeles Times, the probable backlash against India’s Muslims, mixed with their institutionalized discrimination and impoverishment, could push some of India’s “disenfranchised Muslim youth” to join the jihad movement. Since India has 150 million Muslims, second only to Indonesia in number, this is more than just India’s problem.
“So jihadists kill innocents in Mumbai” and the problem is “racial profiling”? said William Kristol in The New York Times. Lashkar-e-Taiba is a terrorist threat to the U.S. and Israel as well as to India, but the solution lies in Pakistan, not India’s domestic policies. We need to persuade the Pakistanis to deal with “those in their midst who are complicit” in this, and if they don’t, “other nations may have to act.”
Actually, the best thing India and Pakistan can do now is “a lot of nonreacting,” said The Christian Science Monitor in an editorial. Terrorists try to “evoke fearful reactions that will further their aims,” and in this case the goal was likely to spoil warming relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. They should avoid the trap.
There’s one reaction we’d like from India: come up with an anti-terrorist apparatus, said The Times of India in an editorial. Hundreds have been killed in “serial blasts” across India since 2006, and after each one politicians have promised strong measures but done nothing. “How many deaths will it take”?
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7 Comments
Posted by JoeThePlumber, Monday, December 1, 2008, 11:01 am What? Bill Kristol? Why anyone would listen to anything this joker has to say is beyond me. Take a look back at what this foreign policy genius had to see pre-Iraq war. "other nations may have to act"...??? Another war? Sit down and shut up Bill...we're paying enough already for you and your neocon buddies' "advice"...
Posted by Jerry Friedman, Monday, December 1, 2008, 2:31 pm Grow up "Joe" -- Iraq issues are over and on this isssue of Mumbai, he is right.
Posted by Nick, Monday, December 1, 2008, 4:15 pm Jerry, in which version of reality are Iraq issues "over"?
Posted by Michael J. Gorman, Monday, December 1, 2008, 4:41 pm The political errors (lack of preparedness, etc.) are a lot harder to analyze and solve than the police errors. How did it take three days to quash a murder spree carried on by ten (10) terrorists? In 1999, many of us thought it outrageous that the SWAT teams at Columbine (Colorado) took four (4) hours to take forceful action and do a room by room search. But three days? That is unacceptable no matter what the problems, such as no floor plan of the hotels and no scopes on the rifles of the rescue team. Once even a singel hostage is killed, SWAT teams have to be ready to move in, regardless of weapons being used by the terrorists, possible booby-traps, etc. If you are not ready to take necessary risks, you should not be on a SWAT team, and you certainly shouldn't lead an emergency police squad (whether police or military teams). Quick decisive action not only saves lives, but is a deterrent to future terrorist acts. Whether the emergency police teams act like professionals or ill-equiped clowns has a serious effect on the mindset of the terrorists. Some cops are always the first ones through the door in dangerous jobs, and some are never the first. You want the former on the rescue teams, and the latter on desks somewhere out of sight.
Posted by Muhammad Fatala, Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 12:28 pm The justified way to respond is to lay down your weapons and heathen beliefs and subjigate yourself to Islam and the way of the Prophet and Allah. The martyrs in Mumbai are warriors and the beloved of the Prophet. Durign the Christian crusades the world converted or fell, so shall it be today with the way of the Prophet. As-Salamu Alaykum, Allah Akbar.
Posted by Johnny Reb, Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 12:30 pm Bunch of dirt people...make it all a parking lot and build churches where good folk can worship Jesus. Like they should.
Posted by Michael J. Gorman, Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 2:59 pm Muhammad Fatala, you fool no one. You're a joker. Read another Salman Rusdie book and learn something about the emptiness of your primitive, backward, violent ideology. Hey, let me share a metaphor with you, my Islamist brother: Muhammad Fatala, we're all a--holes to some extent; but you're ALL a--hole, and with the hemorrhoids to boot!
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