9 Is Not 11

Cross-posted from TomDispatch.com

We've forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching "India's 9/11." And like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we're expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it's all been said and done before.

As tension in the region builds, U.S. Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that, if it didn't act fast to arrest the "bad guys," he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on "terrorist camps" in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India's 9/11.

But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan, and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

It's odd how, in the last week of November, thousands of people in Kashmir supervised by thousands of Indian troops lined up to cast their vote, while the richest quarters of India's richest city ended up looking like war-torn Kupwara -- one of Kashmir's most ravaged districts.

The Mumbai attacks are only the most recent of a spate of terrorist attacks on Indian towns and cities this year. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur, and Malegaon have all seen serial bomb blasts in which hundreds of ordinary people have been killed and wounded. If the police are right about the people they have arrested as suspects, both Hindu and Muslim, all are Indian nationals, which obviously indicates that something's going very badly wrong in this country.

If you were watching television you might not have heard that ordinary people, too, died in Mumbai. They were mowed down in a busy railway station and a public hospital. The terrorists did not distinguish between poor and rich. They killed both with equal cold-bloodedness.

The Indian media, however, was transfixed by the rising tide of horror that breached the glittering barricades of "India shining" and spread its stench in the marbled lobbies and crystal ballrooms of two incredibly luxurious hotels and a small Jewish center.

We're told that one of these hotels is an icon of the city of Mumbai. That's absolutely true. It's an icon of the easy, obscene injustice that ordinary Indians endure every day. On a day when the newspapers were full of moving obituaries by beautiful people about the hotel rooms they had stayed in, the gourmet restaurants they loved (ironically one was called Kandahar), and the staff who served them, a small box on the top left-hand corner in the inner pages of a national newspaper (sponsored by a pizza company, I think) said, "Hungry, kya?" ("Hungry eh?"). It, then, with the best of intentions I'm sure, informed its readers that, on the international hunger index, India ranked below Sudan and Somalia.

But of course this isn't that war. That one's still being fought in the Dalit bastis (settlements) of our villages; on the banks of the Narmada and the Koel Karo rivers; in the rubber estate in Chengara; in the villages of Nandigram, Singur, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Lalgarh in West Bengal; and the slums and shantytowns of our gigantic cities.

That war isn't on TV. Yet.

So maybe, like everyone else, we should deal with the one that is.

Terrorism and the Need for Context

There is a fierce, unforgiving fault line that runs through the contemporary discourse on terrorism. On one side (let's call it Side A) are those who see terrorism, especially "Islamist" terrorism, as a hateful, insane scourge that spins on its own axis, in its own orbit, and has nothing to do with the world around it, nothing to do with history, geography, or economics. Therefore, Side A says, to try to place it in a political context, or even to try to understand it, amounts to justifying it and is a crime in itself.

Side B believes that, though nothing can ever excuse or justify it, terrorism exists in a particular time, place, and political context, and to refuse to see that will only aggravate the problem and put more and more people in harm's way. Which is a crime in itself.

The sayings of Hafiz Saeed who founded the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) in 1990 and who belongs to the hard-line Salafi tradition of Islam, certainly bolsters the case of Side A. Hafiz Saeed approves of suicide bombing, hates Jews, Shias, and Democracy, and believes that jihad should be waged until Islam, his Islam, rules the world.

Among the things he said are:

"There cannot be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy."

And: "India has shown us this path. We would like to give India a tit-for-tat response and reciprocate in the same way by killing the Hindus, just like it is killing the Muslims in Kashmir."

But where would Side A accommodate the sayings of Babu Bajrangi of Ahmedabad, India, who sees himself as a democrat, not a terrorist? He was one of the major lynchpins of the 2002 Gujarat genocide and has said (on camera):

"We didn't spare a single Muslim shop, we set everything on fire... we hacked, burned, set on fire... we believe in setting them on fire because these bastards don't want to be cremated, they're afraid of it... I have just one last wish... let me be sentenced to death... I don't care if I'm hanged... just give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have a field day in Juhapura where seven or eight lakhs [seven or eight hundred thousand] of these people stay... I will finish them off... let a few more of them die... at least twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand should die."

And where in Side A's scheme of things would we place the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh bible, We, or, Our Nationhood Defined by M. S. Golwalkar , who became head of the RSS in 1944. (The RSS is the ideological heart, the holding company of the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, and its militias. The RSS was founded in 1925. By the 1930s, its founder, Dr. K. B. Hedgewar, a fan of Benito Mussolini's, had begun to model it overtly along the lines of Italian fascism.)

It says:

"Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening."

Or:

"To keep up the purity of its race and culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races -- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here... a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by."

Of course Muslims are not the only people in the gun sights of the Hindu Right. Dalits have been consistently targeted. Recently, in Kandhamal in Orissa, Christians were the target of two and a half months of violence that left more than 40 dead. Forty thousand people have been driven from their homes, half of whom now live in refugee camps.

All these years Hafiz Saeed has lived the life of a respectable man in Lahore as the head of the Jamaat-ud Daawa, which many believe is a front organization for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. He continues to recruit young boys for his own bigoted jihad with his twisted, fiery sermons. On December 11, the United Nations imposed sanctions on the Jamaat-ud-Daawa. The Pakistani government succumbed to international pressure and put Hafiz Saeed under house arrest.

Babu Bajrangi, however, is out on bail and lives the life of a respectable man in Gujarat. A couple of years after the genocide, he left the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, a militia of the RSS) to join the Shiv Sena (another rightwing nationalist party). Narendra Modi, Bajrangi's former mentor, is still the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

So the man who presided over the Gujarat genocide was reelected twice, and is deeply respected by India's biggest corporate houses, Reliance and Tata. Suhel Seth, a TV impresario and corporate spokesperson, recently said, "Modi is God." The policemen who supervised and sometimes even assisted the rampaging Hindu mobs in Gujarat have been rewarded and promoted.

The RSS has 45,000 branches and seven million volunteers preaching its doctrine of hate across India. They include Narendra Modi, but also former Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee, current leader of the opposition L. K. Advani, and a host of other senior politicians, bureaucrats, and police and intelligence officers.

And if that's not enough to complicate our picture of secular democracy, we should place on record that there are plenty of Muslim organizations within India preaching their own narrow bigotry.

So, on balance, if I had to choose between Side A and Side B, I'd pick Side B. We need context. Always.

A Close Embrace of Hatred, Terrifying Familiarity, and Love

On this nuclear subcontinent, that context is Partition. The Radcliffe Line, which separated India and Pakistan and tore through states, districts, villages, fields, communities, water systems, homes, and families, was drawn virtually overnight. It was Britain's final, parting kick to us.

Partition triggered the massacre of more than a million people and the largest migration of a human population in contemporary history. Eight million people, Hindus fleeing the new Pakistan, Muslims fleeing the new kind of India, left their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Each of those people carries, and passes down, a story of unimaginable pain, hate, horror, but yearning too. That wound, those torn but still unsevered muscles, that blood and those splintered bones still lock us together in a close embrace of hatred, terrifying familiarity, but also love. It has left Kashmir trapped in a nightmare from which it can't seem to emerge, a nightmare that has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

Pakistan, the Land of the Pure, became an Islamic Republic, and then very quickly a corrupt, violent military state, openly intolerant of other faiths.

India on the other hand declared herself an inclusive, secular democracy. It was a magnificent undertaking, but Babu Bajrangi's predecessors had been hard at work since the 1920s, dripping poison into India's bloodstream, undermining that idea of India even before it was born.

By 1990, they were ready to make a bid for power. In 1992 Hindu mobs exhorted by L. K. Advani stormed the Babri Masjid and demolished it.

By 1998, the BJP was in power at the center. The U.S. War on Terror put the wind in their sails. It allowed them to do exactly as they pleased, even to commit genocide and then present their fascism as a legitimate form of chaotic democracy.

This happened at a time when India had opened its huge market to international finance and it was in the interests of international corporations and the media houses they owned to project it as a country that could do no wrong. That gave Hindu nationalists all the impetus and the impunity they needed.

This, then, is the larger historical context of terrorism on the subcontinent -- and of the Mumbai attacks. It shouldn't surprise us that Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Taiba is from Shimla (India) and L. K. Advani of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is from Sindh (Pakistan).

In much the same way as it did after the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2002 burning of the Sabarmati Express, and the 2007 bombing of the Samjhauta Express, the government of India announced that it has "incontrovertible" evidence that the Lashkar-e-Taiba, backed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was behind the Mumbai strikes.

The Lashkar has denied involvement, but remains the prime accused. According to the police and intelligence agencies, the Lashkar operates in India through an organization called the "Indian Mujahideen." Two Indian nationals, Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmed, a Special Police Officer working for the Jammu and Kashmir Police, and Tausif Rehman, a resident of Kolkata in West Bengal, have been arrested in connection with the Mumbai attacks.

So already the neat accusation against Pakistan is getting a little messy.

Almost always, when these stories unspool, they reveal a complicated global network of foot soldiers, trainers, recruiters, middlemen, and undercover intelligence and counter-intelligence operatives working not just on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, but in several countries simultaneously.

In today's world, trying to pin down the provenance of a terrorist strike and isolate it within the borders of a single nation state, is very much like trying to pin down the provenance of corporate money. It's almost impossible.

In circumstances like these, air strikes to "take out" terrorist camps may take out the camps, but certainly will not "take out" the terrorists. And neither will war.

Also, in our bid for the moral high ground, let's try not to forget that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE of neighboring Sri Lanka, one of the world's most deadly terrorist groups, were trained by the Indian Army.

Releasing Frankensteins

Thanks largely to the part it was forced to play as America's ally, first in its war in support of the Afghan Islamists and then in its war against them, Pakistan, whose territory is reeling under these contradictions, is careening toward civil war.

As recruiting agents for America's jihad against the Soviet Union, it was the job of the Pakistani Army and the ISI to nurture and channel funds to Islamic fundamentalist organizations. Having wired up these Frankensteins and released them into the world, the U.S. expected it could rein them in like pet mastiffs whenever it wanted to. Certainly it did not expect them to come calling in the heart of the homeland on September 11. So once again, Afghanistan had to be violently remade.

Now the debris of a re-ravaged Afghanistan has washed up on Pakistan's borders.

Nobody, least of all the Pakistani government, denies that it is presiding over a country that is threatening to implode. The terrorist training camps, the fire-breathing mullahs, and the maniacs who believe that Islam will, or should, rule the world are mostly the detritus of two Afghan wars. Their ire rains down on the Pakistani government and Pakistani civilians as much, if not more, than it does on India.

If, at this point, India decides to go to war, perhaps the descent of the whole region into chaos will be complete. The debris of a bankrupt, destroyed Pakistan will wash up on India's shores, endangering us as never before.

If Pakistan collapses, we can look forward to having millions of "non-state actors" with an arsenal of nuclear weapons at their disposal as neighbors.

It's hard to understand why those who steer India's ship are so keen to replicate Pakistan's mistakes and call damnation upon this country by inviting the United States to further meddle clumsily and dangerously in our extremely complicated affairs. A superpower never has allies. It only has agents.

On the plus side, the advantage of going to war is that it's the best way for India to avoid facing up to the serious trouble building on our home front.

The Mumbai attacks were broadcast live (and exclusive!) on all or most of our 67 24-hour news channels and god knows how many international ones. TV anchors in their studios and journalists at "ground zero" kept up an endless stream of excited commentary.

Over three days and three nights we watched in disbelief as a small group of very young men, armed with guns and gadgets, exposed the powerlessness of the police, the elite National Security Guard, and the marine commandos of this supposedly mighty, nuclear-powered nation.

While they did this, they indiscriminately massacred unarmed people, in railway stations, hospitals, and luxury hotels, unmindful of their class, caste, religion, or nationality.

(Part of the helplessness of the security forces had to do with having to worry about hostages. In other situations, in Kashmir for example, their tactics are not so sensitive. Whole buildings are blown up. Human shields are used. The U.S. and Israeli armies don't hesitate to send cruise missiles into buildings and drop daisy cutters on wedding parties in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan.)

But this was different. And it was on TV.

The boy-terrorists' nonchalant willingness to kill -- and be killed -- mesmerized their international audience. They delivered something different from the usual diet of suicide bombings and missile attacks that people have grown inured to on the news.

Here was something new. Die Hard 25. The gruesome performance went on and on. TV ratings soared. Ask any television magnate or corporate advertiser who measures broadcast time in seconds, not minutes, what that's worth.

Eventually the killers died and died hard, all but one. (Perhaps, in the chaos, some escaped. We may never know.)

Throughout the standoff the terrorists made no demands and expressed no desire to negotiate. Their purpose was to kill people, and inflict as much damage as they could, before they were killed themselves. They left us completely bewildered.

Collateral Damage

When we say, "Nothing can justify terrorism," what most of us mean is that nothing can justify the taking of human life. We say this because we respect life, because we think it's precious.

So what are we to make of those who care nothing for life, not even their own? The truth is that we have no idea what to make of them, because we can sense that even before they've died, they've journeyed to another world where we cannot reach them.

One TV channel (India TV) broadcast a phone conversation with one of the attackers, who called himself "Imran Babar." I cannot vouch for the veracity of the conversation, but the things he talked about were the things contained in the "terror emails" that were sent out before several other bomb attacks in India. Things we don't want to talk about any more: the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the genocidal slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, the brutal repression in Kashmir.

"You're surrounded," the anchor told him. "You are definitely going to die. Why don't you surrender?"

"We die every day," he replied in a strange, mechanical way. "It's better to live one day as a lion and then die this way." He didn't seem to want to change the world. He just seemed to want to take it down with him.

If the men were indeed members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, why didn't it matter to them that a large number of their victims were Muslim, or that their action was likely to result in a severe backlash against the Muslim community in India whose rights they claim to be fighting for?

Terrorism is a heartless ideology, and like most ideologies that have their eye on the Big Picture, individuals don't figure in their calculations except as collateral damage.

It has always been a part of, and often even the aim of, terrorist strategy to exacerbate a bad situation in order to expose hidden fault lines. The blood of "martyrs" irrigates terrorism. Hindu terrorists need dead Hindus, Communist terrorists need dead proletarians, Islamist terrorists need dead Muslims. The dead become the demonstration, the proof of victimhood, which is central to the project.

A single act of terrorism is not in itself meant to achieve military victory; at best it is meant to be a catalyst that triggers something else, something much larger than itself, a tectonic shift, a realignment. The act itself is theater, spectacle, and symbolism, and today the stage on which it pirouettes and performs its acts of bestiality is Live TV. Even as TV anchors were being condemned by other TV anchors, the effectiveness of the terror strikes was being magnified a thousand-fold by the TV broadcasts.

Through the endless hours of analysis and the endless op-ed essays, in India at least, there has been very little mention of the elephants in the room: Kashmir, Gujarat, and the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

Instead, we had retired diplomats and strategic experts debate the pros and cons of a war against Pakistan. We had the rich threatening not to pay their taxes unless their security was guaranteed. (Is it alright for the poor to remain unprotected?) We had people suggest that the government step down and each state in India be handed over to a separate corporation.

We had the death of former Prime Minster V. P. Singh, the hero of Dalits and lower castes, and the villain of upper caste Hindus pass without a mention.

We had Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City and co-writer of the Bollywood film Mission Kashmir give us his version of George Bush's famous "Why They Hate Us" speech. His analysis of why religious bigots, both Hindu and Muslim, hate Mumbai: "Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness."

His prescription: "The best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever."

Didn't George Bush ask Americans to go out and shop after 9/11? Ah yes. 9/11, the day we can't seem to get away from.

A Shadowy History of Suspicious Terror Attacks

Though one chapter of horror in Mumbai has ended, another might have just begun. Day after day, a powerful, vociferous section of the Indian elite, goaded by marauding TV anchors who make Fox News look almost radical and left-wing, have taken to mindlessly attacking politicians, all politicians, glorifying the police and the army, and virtually asking for a police state.

It isn't surprising that those who have grown plump on the pickings of democracy (such as it is) should now be calling for a police state. The era of "pickings" is long gone. We're now in the era of Grabbing by Force, and democracy has a terrible habit of getting in the way.

Dangerous, stupid oversimplifications like the Police are Good/Politicians are Bad, Chief Executives are Good/Chief Ministers are Bad, Army is Good/Government is Bad, India is Good/Pakistan is Bad are being bandied about by TV channels that have already whipped their viewers into a state of almost uncontrollable hysteria.

Tragically this regression into intellectual infancy comes at a time when people in India were beginning to see that, in the business of terrorism, victims and perpetrators sometimes exchange roles.

It's an understanding that the people of Kashmir, given their dreadful experiences of the last 20 years, have honed to an exquisite art. On the mainland we're still learning. (If Kashmir won't willingly integrate into India, it's beginning to look as though India will integrate/disintegrate into Kashmir.)

It was after the 2001 Parliament attack that the first serious questions began to be raised. A campaign by a group of lawyers and activists exposed how innocent people had been framed by the police and the press, how evidence was fabricated, how witnesses lied, how due process had been criminally violated at every stage of the investigation.

Eventually, the courts acquitted two out of the four accused, including S. A. R. Geelani, the man whom the police claimed was the mastermind of the operation. A third, Showkat Guru, was acquitted of all the charges brought against him, but was then convicted for a fresh, comparatively minor offense.

The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of another of the accused, Mohammad Afzal. In its judgment the court acknowledged that there was no proof that Mohammed Afzal belonged to any terrorist group, but went on to say, quite shockingly, "The collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender."

Even today we don't really know who the terrorists that attacked the Indian Parliament were and who they worked for.

More recently, on September 19th of this year, we had the controversial "encounter" at Batla House in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, where the Special Cell of the Delhi police gunned down two Muslim students in their rented flat under seriously questionable circumstances, claiming that they were responsible for serial bombings in Delhi, Jaipur, and Ahmedabad in 2008. An assistant commissioner of police, Mohan Chand Sharma, who played a key role in the Parliament attack investigation, lost his life as well. He was one of India's many "encounter specialists," known and rewarded for having summarily executed several "terrorists."

There was an outcry against the Special Cell from a spectrum of people, ranging from eyewitnesses in the local community to senior Congress Party leaders, students, journalists, lawyers, academics, and activists, all of whom demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident.

In response, the BJP and L. K. Advani lauded Mohan Chand Sharma as a "Braveheart" and launched a concerted campaign in which they targeted those who had dared to question the integrity of the police, saying to do so was "suicidal" and calling them "anti-national." Of course, there has been no enquiry.

Only days after the Batla House event, another story about "terrorists" surfaced in the news. In a report submitted to a Sessions Court, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said that a team from Delhi's Special Cell (the same team that led the Batla House encounter, including Mohan Chand Sharma) had abducted two innocent men, Irshad Ali and Moarif Qamar, in December 2005, planted two kilograms of RDX (explosives) and two pistols on them, and then arrested them as "terrorists" who belonged to Al Badr (which operates out of Kashmir).

Ali and Qamar, who have spent years in jail, are only two examples out of hundreds of Muslims who have been similarly jailed, tortured, and even killed on false charges.

This pattern changed in October 2008 when Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which was investigating the September 2008 Malegaon blasts, arrested a Hindu preacher Sadhvi Pragya, a self-styled God man, Swami Dayanand Pande, and Lt. Col. Purohit, a serving officer of the Indian Army. All the arrested belong to Hindu nationalist organizations, including a Hindu supremacist group called Abhinav Bharat.

The Shiv Sena, the BJP, and the RSS condemned the Maharashtra ATS, and vilified its chief, Hemant Karkare, claiming he was part of a political conspiracy and declaring that "Hindus could not be terrorists." L. K. Advani changed his mind about his policy on the police and made rabble rousing speeches to huge gatherings in which he denounced the ATS for daring to cast aspersions on holy men and women.

On November 25th, newspapers reported that the ATS was investigating the high profile VHP chief Pravin Togadia's possible role in the blasts in Malegaon (a predominantly Muslim town). The next day, in an extraordinary twist of fate, Hemant Karkare was killed in the Mumbai attacks. The chances are that the new chief, whoever he is, will find it hard to withstand the political pressure that is bound to be brought on him over the Malegaon investigation.

While the Sangh Parivar does not seem to have come to a final decision over whether or not it is anti-national and suicidal to question the police, Arnab Goswami, anchorperson of Times Now television, has stepped up to the plate. He has taken to naming, demonizing, and openly heckling people who have dared to question the integrity of the police and armed forces.

My name and the name of the well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan have come up several times. At one point, while interviewing a former police officer, Arnab Goswami turned to the camera: "Arundhati Roy and Prashant Bhushan," he said. "I hope you are watching this. We think you are disgusting."

For a TV anchor to do this in an atmosphere as charged and as frenzied as the one that prevails today amounts to incitement, as well as threat, and would probably in different circumstances have cost a journalist his or her job.

So, according to a man aspiring to be the next prime minister of India, and another who is the public face of a mainstream TV channel, citizens have no right to raise questions about the police.

This in a country with a shadowy history of suspicious terror attacks, murky investigations, and fake "encounters." This in a country that boasts of the highest number of custodial deaths in the world, and yet refuses to ratify the international covenant on torture. A country where the ones who make it to torture chambers are the lucky ones because at least they've escaped being "encountered" by our Encounter Specialists. A country where the line between the underworld and the Encounter Specialists virtually does not exist.

The Monster in the Mirror

How should those of us whose hearts have been sickened by the knowledge of all of this view the Mumbai attacks, and what are we to do about them?

There are those who point out that U.S. strategy has been successful inasmuch as the United States has not suffered a major attack on its home ground since 9/11. However, some would say that what America is suffering now is far worse.

If the idea behind the 9/11 terror attacks was to goad America into showing its true colors, what greater success could the terrorists have asked for? The U.S. military is bogged down in two unwinnable wars, which have made the United States the most hated country in the world. Those wars have contributed greatly to the unraveling of the American economy and who knows, perhaps eventually the American empire.

(Could it be that battered, bombed Afghanistan, the graveyard of the Soviet Union, will be the undoing of this one too?)

Hundreds of thousands of people, including thousands of American soldiers, have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The frequency of terrorist strikes on U.S. allies/agents (including India) and U.S. interests in the rest of the world has increased dramatically since 9/11.

George W. Bush, the man who led the U.S. response to 9/11, is a despised figure not just internationally, but also by his own people.

Who can possibly claim that the United States is winning the War on Terror?

Homeland Security has cost the U.S. government billions of dollars. Few countries, certainly not India, can afford that sort of price tag. But even if we could, the fact is that this vast homeland of ours cannot be secured or policed in the way the United States has been. It's not that kind of homeland.

We have a hostile nuclear-weapons state that is slowly spinning out of control as a neighbor; we have a military occupation in Kashmir and a shamefully persecuted, impoverished minority of more than 150 million Muslims who are being targeted as a community and pushed to the wall, whose young see no justice on the horizon, and who, were they to totally lose hope and radicalize, will end up as a threat not just to India, but to the whole world.

If 10 men can hold off the NSG commandos and the police for three days, and if it takes half a million soldiers to hold down the Kashmir valley, do the math. What kind of Homeland Security can secure India?

Nor for that matter will any other quick fix.

Anti-terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists; they're for people that governments don't like. That's why they have a conviction rate of less than 2%. They're just a means of putting inconvenient people away without bail for a long time and eventually letting them go.

Terrorists like those who attacked Mumbai are hardly likely to be deterred by the prospect of being refused bail or being sentenced to death. It's what they want.

What we're experiencing now is blowback, the cumulative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds. The carpet's squelching under our feet.

The only way to contain -- it would be naïve to say end -- terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says "Justice," the other "Civil War." There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose.

Copyright 2008 Arundhati Roy

Comments

[jebamoni4]

WHERE DID YOU GET THE FUNNY IDEA THAT TAMILTIGERS WERE TRAINED BY
INDIAN ARMY? I WISH THEY DO. WHEN A MINORITY GRUOP IS SPPRESSED,
RESISTANCE WILL BE EXHIBITED. TAMILS IN SRILANKA ARE NOT EXEMPT.

[stephanemot]

tagging terror in Madrid, London or Mumbai with the "9/11" label is the commoditization of terror and the negation of identity.

furthermore, giving to Mumbai attacks the same answer as 9/11 would be criminal :
http://e-blogules.blogspot.com/2008/11/lessons-from-mumbai.html

[vakibs]

The debate is not between side (A) and side (B) as Ms. Arundhati Roy says. No amount of apologism can justify murder. Saying just poverty or illiteracy drove these maniacal young people to murder is a clear disgrace. Recently, an Indian minister (Karunanidhi) wrote in the Hindu newspaper about how Muslims are being marginalized and being “forced” to take weapons. Eg: A Muslim boy who is refused a holiday for the Bakrid festival. So what else can he do ? Except join the Jihad ?

How stupid can we get ?

Saying that poverty and illiteracy is where terrorism is “grounded” in, amounts to mocking the spirit of millions of poor people who live their lives in a dignity amidst misery. It amounts to disrespecting their humanity. And for what sake ? Accomodating some murderous people.

Terrorism is a different problem from poverty. Poverty only exacerbates an already existing disease.

This real cause is hatred in black-and-white (1) we are a group that is entirely pure and shining (2) our group is under attack by filthy outsiders. This is outrageously common amongst Muslims. This is the itching which results in the scratching (terrorism).

And it is not just Muslims who are guilty. It is obvious that such types exist everywhere in the world : As Ms Roy says, several Hindutva people subscribe to similar thinking.

But exchanging blame, and highlighting unrelated issues like poverty only amount to apologizing for the brutal acts of murder and hiding the real cause of

[Pejeal]

Vakibs, a peaceful Islam is an oxymoron. The problem, the root, starts with their scripture.

Surah 8:65) “Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): ‘I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them.”

“Verily ye (unbelievers), and the (false) gods that ye worship besides Allah, are (but) fuel for Hell! To it will ye (surely) come!” (Surah 21:98)

Think not of those who are slain in Allah’s way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord.” (Surah 3:169)

“And slay them wherever ye catch them and turn them out from where they have turned you out; For tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.” (2:191)

Allah (thus) directs you as regards your children’s (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females.” (4:11-12)

“O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors; They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust.” (5:51)

And on, and on, and on.....

[AfzaalKhan]

Brother, every holy books verses should be taken in context.

Hinduism is suppose to be non violent religion but we have the famous mahabharat in the same religion and some of the verses can be taken as preaching violence, Same with caste system in Hindu religion.

As a gentleman here mentioned so many verses in Holy Bible and Holy Torah can be taken to be preaching hate and violence. Jews calling non jews, gentiles. etc etc

I think u missed Ms. Roy's point, she is not blaming any one particular religion, culture or defending it, she is just showing that faults do lies on both sides, and no side can claim pure innocence. As per Indian Media abt 80 muslims were killed during those attacks. 80 Indian muslim citizens who were going around minding thier own bussiness and thus were innocent. Do u think terrorists who use Islam took a minute to distinguish who was muslim and who was not when they were doing thier killing spree?

[Marjiecanuck]

Do Muslim countries have human rights organizations that are allowed to report on ill treatment of minorities, journalistic reports on intorelant behaviour of muslims towards non muslims, examples of thriving places of worship for non Muslims, state or government citizen sponsored cultural activities related to non muslims US UK and India can provide hundreds of examples as nations that allow a diverse population to flourish. That is why people world over like to go to these countries. Afghanistan once had Hindus, Budhist and Sikh rulers and population.. There is no trace of any non muslim culture in that country today. It was only in the fifteenth century that a hindu ruler allowed the first mosque to be built in Kashmir which had a population of Hindus and Budhists. The rest is history. Today Kashmir has only a Muslim population. Virtually all non muslims were driven out or killed. Interesting to see if there is one muslim country where artists , actors, academics, military / police personnel, top business people are from non muslim population. Those of us who live in the safety of democtatic countries like US, UK, Canada, India where a diverse population is allowed to flourish should question our loyalty…is to the country where we are allowed to thrive ? Or do our religious leaders tell us where our loyalties should lie? In other words can we think for ourselves? Unless there is acceptance of truth at the grass root level the world at large is doomed

[Danny]

This account by the respected author Ms. Roy brings to my mind the book The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. There are too many contradictions in the narrative to make sense, so it must be part of a plan that pits Hindus, Muslims, Pakistanis, Kashmiris, other actors -- for whose benefit? The authoritarian political class. Just in time.

[Rainman]

Thank you for your thoughts.
I have hope that an enlightened India will listen to the message of Deepak and Gautam Chopra and now to what you have to say. Pakistan too has a chance too to join as brothers in healing the pain.

[Jamesdean]

If I am remember correctly, Hindu extremists burned, raped and killed thousands of Sikhs; Hindu extremists raped and slaughtered hundreds of people in Nellie in Assam; Hindu extremists killed hundreds in Meerut; killed hundreds in Aurangabad; killed and burnt alive several Christians and even raped nuns and set fire to churches in various cities all across the country; raped, burned and killed hundreds of people, including small children and pregnant women, in Gujarat.

I am not saying this to defend anybody but to point out that Hindu extremists have a much worse track record in India then anyone else.

Denying the atrocities or trying to cloak them in some weird logic is a sign that you are not fit to be called a human being.

By the way, if I were you, I would think more about how to bring more prosperity to India then to support, justify and applaud atrocities carried out by either Hindu fundamentalists or Muslim fundamentalists.


After all, killings, rapes and burning down places of worships are not a solution, plus it will never ever achieve any goal or make your country strong.

[Pejeal]

Jamesdean, you are not forgetting, you're totally throwing out bits of info, exaggerations, and cases without context, mentioning only part of the truth. Your prejudice is apparent. For example, where have you seen a Hindu priest proselytizing in another country? In India, the Vatican and the Christian protestant churches from US and Great Britain thrown hundreds of millions of dollars a year in conversion to Christianity, targeting the poor, the uneducated especially in the tribal areas. This violent approach leave behind psychological scars, and uses deceit, lies, like "miracles" when they ask the poor to ask for a bike or a little boar, or TV set, that all of a sudden shows up a few days later and is given after conversion. What do you think other cultures would react when confronted with such tactics?

[Rainman]

Conversion to Hinduism is not possible. There us no pathway to becoming a Hindu. The reason is that you won't know where to place the poor soul in the hindu Caste system. For example is it possible for one to become a hindu and declare that they are Brahmin.

[Calamagrostis]

Peace. Although islam takes the prize for violence today, all religions are irrational if they substitute the word of old books and new preachers for our own ability to reason. I know that there are many millions of atheists around the world, people who long to speak out but are afraid of persecution. Atheists are some of the most vilified minorities in the world, because religious people do not understand how we achieve our moral code and our sense of wonder and purpose without any gods. India at least seems to have some tolerance for our view, islamic countries have much less. Some in the U.S. would make this a christian nation, over my protesting body, and our Constitution. Think and free yourself.

[insyte]

Atrocities commited in the name of religion is inhuman.
India's strength and prosperity is due to it's very diverse and accomodative society. As an example:
India's President is a Muslim
India's Prime Minister is a Sikh
The most powerful politician in India, Sonia Gandhi, is a Christian
The progress made by India since indepence 60 years back, after 800 years of Muslim rule and 200 years of British rule is astounding by any historic measure. And this dynamism comes from India's diversity.
India has shed the yoke of foreign domination and is well on it's way to be a superpower when the time is ripe. I am confident India will emerge even stronger from the attack on it's democracy. Because India embraces unity within it' diversity, and this force is unstoppable.

[liberal-elite]

Do you know that that progress has only been for a small minority. India lags behind sudan and somalia on the world hunger scale. GDP growth is not the only measure of progress.

[Pejeal]

That's one of the problems with India today, the President a Muslim (14% of population), the Prime Minister a Sikh (1 %), and the Boss, a Christian (2.3%), and she is on a Pan-christian crusade, so the question, can't the Hindu majority find someone to lead them?

[cisplatin]

Hmm.....in­teresting! So, according to u Hindu extremists have a much track record than anyone else. Looks like you have spent a lot of time in India. Christian evangelists published books calling Indian gods & goddesses as whores & prostitutes in their zeal to spread the religion. But I guess the Hindus of India should keep quiet & not target churches. Similarly, Islamic invaders committed the largest known genocide on native Indians for not accepting their religion. Muhammad Ghori committed genocide against Hindus at Kol (modern Aligarh), Kalinjar and Varanasi. According to Hasan Nizami's Taj-ul-Maasir 20,000 Hindu prisoners were slaughtered and their heads offered to crows. Muslim emperor Timur himself recorded the invasions in his memoirs, collectively known as Tuzk-i-Timuri, boasting how "in a short space of time all the people in the [Delhi] fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off.

In 1920s, muslims in Kerala went on a rampage killing the majority Hindus for not accepting Islam. (moplah rebellion). They even tortured & killed pregnant women, hacking them to pieces & throwing the unborn fetuses in the bushes.

And as recently as 1990, 1000s of kashmiri pandits were ethnically cleansed by Islamic extremists in India.

But hey, all that is ok. Hindus still should not have hard feelings. After all, they belong to the majority community & so any form of retaliation by them against the peace loving minorities would be unacceptable!

[gsc 99]

Jamesdean,

Hinduism and extremists, those two words don't go together. All the instances you quote above are "reactions," from Hindus after they had been subjected to violence, why do you forget to mention that. The Sikh violence took place because Indian primeminister was assassinated by a Sikh. Look at Greece, just because of death of one common teenager the whole city is rioting.
Assam violence took place because a Hindu monk was assassinated by some Christian hoodlums. Like you I am not justifying the violenve but just clarifying your mis-informing post

It is like saying oh the Americans are so fundamentalists and violent because they bombed Germany and killed Nazis. The reason America went to WWI two was because of the Nazi violence to start with. Hindus have never attacked any country like Christians and Muslims. America belonged to American Indians, as someone said, the whole Indian nation could now fit into a Motel

[liberal-elite]

By your logic if a Hindu does another any wrong or commits a crime then I can hold any non-participant hindu responsible for the one committing the crime. That is un-ethical in most societies. In the international arena it would be considered a war crime. You are very biased in your views and feel you are not here for a discussion but to force your views on those who may not be so eager to research things on their own. Ridiculous!

[Norge]

Wonderfully informative and thank you.

Other works by the author can be found here: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com

[cisplatin]

This article is fundamentally wrong on many counts. Firstly, why is she talking about Muslim oppression here? If Indian muslims are oppressed, then the Indian muslims should have attacked Mumbai, not Pakistanis. So, Christians are oppressed daily in Egypt. (look at the oppression of Coptic christians in Egypt). Are you seeing Christians from USA & other christian countries going there and murdering innocent muslims for revenge? The ultimate aim of the Pakistani LeT group involved in this attack is to convert the Indian subcontinent into Islamic caliphate and it is not just about Kashmir or oppression of muslims. Its funny that Aurundati didnot mention that.

[SaulZ]

Except that increasing numbers of people are now questioning the Mumbai attacks being carried out by terrorists from Pakistan.

The clean-shaved terrorist pictured by an unknown photographer, him wearing a yellow wrist band (the symbol of extremist Hindu RSS cadres), and terrorists going for excessive liquor just before the Mayhem are some factors generally not associated with a typical 'Muslim radical / terrorist'.

[insyte]

Dear SaulZ,
What are the factors generally associated with a typical "Muslim radical/terrorist?

[cisplatin]

Ever heard of something called disguise? Of course, these militants would not dress up with their beards & typical "Osama" like attire when they are going to attack a modern metropolis like Mumbai. Wouldn't that have caused lot of doubts among the people there? And, no, yellow wrist band is not the symbol of Hindu RSS cadres......It seems they tried to act like fishermen (many fishermen wear these kind of threads & not bands as these people had) after they hijacked and killed them to escape scrutiny by the security forces.

I know u wouldn't believe if i say that many Western reporters now have proof that the surviving gun man is a Paksistani. But now even Pakistani news papers like Dawn have met with the father of the surviving gunman in Pakistan and he admitted that he is indeed his son. http://www.dawn.com/2008/12/12/top6.htm

[schwarz]

Dear SaulZ who told you that the terrorists had liquor? did somebody provide you with proof of this? Amazing how conveniently you believe in these things and ask for proof when there is a live terrorist giving out the entire plan and structure.
And what would be the factors that are generally associated with muslim radicals/t­errorists?
So, anyone with a long beard and a mullah cap/pathani suit would be a moslem and anyone wearing a yellow band is a RSS cadre.. gruesome logic my friend ..

[Marjiecanuck]

Liberal Elite..Peace be with you. We should not believe in ‘training’ or ‘ re training’ of the mind, rather have faith in our own power to reason to avoid being manipulated. World has seen countless authors , philosophers , critics of every major religion other than Islam. Muslims know there is dire consequence for independent reasoning .How many muslims have the nerve to change or question what they are taught? Islam, as did Christianity spread through violence. But there have been plenty of critics in the modern world of colonial expansion, of atrocities commited by Christian missionaries etc. But NO ONE dares to question any of the negative aspects of Islamic expansion or the way it is practiced in the Muslim world. During Muslim rule 30,000 hindu temples were destroyed in India. Babri Masjid was built on the base of a destroyed Hindu temple. In order to close old wounds there must be acceptance and reconciliation of grieved parties. Alas followers of the religion of Peace are either brainwashed or too afraid to question any of the negative aspects or how it spread or how it is practiced. That’s why there are thousands of Madrasaas, even in Canada , who preach hatred against non muslims. No wonder the world is a dangerous place about to explode when a billion people , and their governments follow a medieval text as the absolute truth.

[cisplatin]

Well said Marjiecanuck ! You have raised a very important point. As Koenraad Elst writes in his book "Negationism in India - Concealing the Record of Islam" -

"It struck me that this effort to deny the unpleasant facts of Islam's destructive role in Indian history is similar to the attempts by some European writers to deny the Nazi holocaust. European negationists applaud Hitler's reign and deny its horrors. Indian negationists eulogize Islamic rule and deny its millionfold murders and the catastrophe it wrought in Indian cultural, political and religious life."

Indian negationists and authors like Arundathi Roy leave no stone unturned when it comes to criticizing the British Colonial rule on India, which is something i can never understand. That is because, it is 1000 times more peaceful than the brutal Islamic invasion of Indian subcontinent. The massacres perpetuated by ravaging muslims armies are far more worse than even the genocide of Jews. But everyone keeps quiet on this issue. Its is always about how the "cruel white men" from Europe stole the land from the Indians, while the truth is that the muslims themselves stole the land from Indians in the 1st place.

[Pejeal]

Yes, agree, Koenraad Elst and do not forget the great work being done by Francois Gautier.
Many of these India journalists and indeed Hindu-baiters, not differently from Romila Taphar and others.

[liberal-elite]

Elst has a history of hindu bias. A neofascist with a right wing agenda. His views on Islam resembles that of our very own neoconservatives. This is the same guy who fought against the recognition by the Belgium government of Buddhism as a recognized religion. He has also been supported and quoted by the very Hindu politicians implicated in attacks against non-hindus in India. If he is your champion, good luck!

[liberal-elite]

I am afraid that you are not reasoning but spewing out generalities that fit your view of the world. Anything else is not worthy of inspection. There are plenty of right wing christians in this country who would wage war and kill millions in the middle east to achieve their christian view of the end of the world. We have the nazi party and the white power movement often using God and religion to advance their hate. That does not mean all of christianity responsible. We don't see much of that hatred portrayed 24/7 in the west. With respect to muslim rule, some of the greatest cultural and scientific studies were undertaken during those years. Sure, as in many examples of conquest, there has been plenty of atrocities committed. The mongols when laying siege on a city would wipe out everyone in it if they would not surrender. By your method of analysis, we should be afraid of the mongols. History is full of these examples. To blame Islam is equivalent to blaming Christianity and christians for the crusade. I hope during this time of the year we all truly talk of peace. But I am afraid that is not what you wish for. Happy holidays.

[cricket]

what he means is there is no self restraint in islam. no thinkers. no moderate voices. even if they are, they are not heard. they are quickly silenced. honestly india is sick and tired of these kinds of peace arguments. it is we indians who are in the receiving end all the time and after every attack we have people like arundhathi roy and others who come and ask us to be peaceful with pakis. I believe there is a limit for everything.

[insyte]

Ms. Roy detailed article has a fatal flaw. It takes shelter behind false equivalents. By comparing Hindu fundamentalism with Muslim terrorism the article suggests that terrorism is equivalent in extremists of both religions. If she wanted too, she could have chosen selectively from examples of terrorism by extremists from Jewish and Christian religions too. But writing about selective acts of terrorism by extremists from different religions is worthless without context. But a useful tool to create false equivalence.
And the venting of unproductive Hindu mob rage in Gujurat on the innocent Muslims is just one such example in the article. But the context of the rage unleashed by the horror of witnessing Hindus burnt alive in Ghodra train, where Muslim terrorists locked the doors and then torched the train, goes unmentioned in the article. Ommision of this context supports the story line but is clearly a false equivalent.
The tragedy of Kashmir has similar false equivalent. In India. After partition, in India, the Muslim population was 8% whereas it now it is north of 12%. In contrast, in Pakistan, the Hindu population was above 25% after partition and now, after ethnic cleansing, reduced to less than 2%. Similarly, most Hindus have been forced out of Kashmir, but Ms. Roy provides no context of this ethnic cleansing in the article.
Ms. Roy stature demands that she remains loyal to the demand to truth in her writing if she in not to lose her tenous credibility.

[SaulZ]

Dear Insyte:

Since you mentioned Godhra incident, let me at least bring the following to your information:

Two years after the incident Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav appointed Justice U C Banerjee to investigate Godhra incident. On the eve of election in Railway Minister's home state Bihar, Justice U C Banerjee released a report suggesting fire being an accident which resulted out of cooking being carried within the carriage and ruled out the possibility of fire having resulted out of any external attack.

Of course, The Gujarat High Court ruling declared Justice UC Banerjee Committee as "unconstitutional, illegal and void.

[Pejeal]

Not true, many fire experts have stated that the fire from a cook stove could not have spread that fast, at least so so fast to prevent people from escaping the wagon. Now, why did they not escape? What was happening outside the train? What danger was there? But a mob of Muslims armed with knives, swords, etc. There has been several reports, each change, what can;'t change is the origin. Get your facts straight.

[insyte]

Dear SaulZ,
Here is what the Nanavati commision reported about the Godhra terrorism:
The Nanavati Commission, probing the burning of the Sabarmati Express in Gujarat on February 27, 2002, has said that the burning of the train was on account of a conspiracy and was not an accident.
The Nanavati report says the vesitbule between two coaches was cut by Shaukat Lala and Mohd Latika to gain access to the S-6 coach to pour 140 lites of petrol. Hassan Lala, another accused then threw burning rags into the coach to set it on fire. For about 20 minutes the coach was stoned from outside to prevent passengers from coming out.
The conspiracy was hatched at the house of Moulvi Umerji and was executed by Raza Kurjur and Salim Panwala. The petrol for the episode was obtained from a petrol pump in Godhra a day before the incident, the report further says.

[Strategy]

Pakistanis should take care of Pakistani Muslims before talking about Indian muslims.

[cricket]

arundhati,

it wasn't just 10 militants and nsg commandoes. you are forgetting the hostages of not just india but also other nations. if it was only 10 militants and nsg , as it happens often in kashmir, the encounter wouldn't have happened for more than few hours. Look at the encounters of dead salaskar and Nayak who have had multiple encounters with mumbai underworld not last more than few hours.

security should not be defined by the time of encounter but by what that led to this situation. what defined the time of encounter is how equipped the indian commandos which was far below the world standards. but despite without possessing a single ak 47 , the mumbai police smartly barricaded and caught qasab alive. if kasab was dead with no terrorist caught, I am sure this incident would have been more chaos and pakistan employing usual tactic of deny deny and deny as it happened in parliamentary siege. Arm chair criticism is easy arundhati.

[liberal-elite]

cricket, if this would have occurred in Kashmir in a poor neighborhod, the Indian government would have just bombed the terrorists with no regard to the innocent bystanders. No worries, they are either poor or muslims. Then they would deny and deny and probably blame the terrorists for blowing up the building. Just like they coverup the massacres of muslims in gujurat in 2002. Human rights watch, the US state dept has confirmed it. In addition, read Paul Brass, political science professor at University of Washington for a non-biased view. Namaste.

[cricket]

india has never bombed when terrorists holed up in encounters in kashmir. dont allege just for the sake of blurting. muslims have killed lot of hindus in riots all over india especially hyderabad. in my opinion you need two hands to clap.

if hindus were such evil minded rioteers why havent the gone on killing spree or started riots after godhra ?

[Marjiecanuck]

Are there passages in Quoran that promote hatred and intolerance of non muslims ?.How is it that Muslims violently promote conversion to Islam but violently oppose conversions other way round? Why do Islamic preachers always incite ‘ victimhood’ amongst their followers? Religious scholars of most world religions have been questioning negative aspects of their beliefs, and evolving, can we say the same for Islam? What are the objectives of countless Madrasaas and fundamental schools( funded by Saudis and other rich muslim nations) that manufacture terrorists? Why was there no condemnation when the statue of Budha was destroyed in Afghanistan? Why is it that after partition of 1947 Pakistan only has a handful of Hindus and Sikhs? Have temples and Gurudwaras thrived in Pakistan? Why are Muslim countries ethnically cleansed of non muslims, and Kashmir that was once a Hindu state now has no Hindus? Is MS Roy aware of Maldives where all traces of its Hindu and Budhist past have been totally destructed and today it has 100% muslim population with only newly built mosques ? Why do most muslim countries opt for the Sharia law vs democracy and why have their’lot’ not progressed in spite of all the oil wealth ? Would she like to live in the ‘proposed’ world order of muslim fundamentalist? . Finally can Ms Roy live as freely and safely in Pakistan or any other Muslim country as she does in India or could in UK or the US?

[Pejeal]

Thanks for exposing the truth. You re 100% right. What else to say?

[liberal-elite]

Did you know that in many religious text there are plenty of ridiculous commandments. Just look at the b i b l e and the T o r a h. You can pick apart any of these books if you so desired. Did you condemn the Babri masjid destruction, or the destruction and building of bases in afghanistan and Iraq by the US. Did you protest against the hindu massacre of christians and sikhs? Did you condemn the massacre of muslims in gujarat in 2002? Did you or do you protest the apartheid system being set up in Israel and occupied palestine? I can go on and on. Marjie people like you can't be retrained.

[cricket]

torah and bible might have ridiculous commandments but those followers dont follow those today. but muslims do.

[SaulZ]

So what you Marjieceanucks are suggesting is that two wrongs make it right?

[reemar]

When was Kashmir a hindu state?

[schwarz]

a very silly question .. "When!?!" "Kashmir had a Hindu king and was predominantly a land of pandits before the moslems came in". Any fool can ask a question.

[flyingmonkey]

Great article. Thank you.
I hope it gets as many hits as the one about Tara Reed (whoever she is) going to rehab.

[POTUS2008]

I dont care what those crazy people in India and elsewhere do, they can love or hate whatever they want, same for France or England or anywhere I really am all for hands off, and they can do their own thing, but until or unless they attack us then it is our business and it is our constitutional duty to kick their asses.
there is a lot of gray areas of course and that is where we stand now. I say the less we are involved in these other countries the better as it si always a never-ending hornets nest. when we have to we should knock back the ones coming after us, but otherwise i say we should do very little, mostly stay away because even when we think we are helping a "good" side it turns out to sting us or be a stupid corupt side anyway. so lets stay out and work on our economy.

[phlashba]

America the Beautiful. POTUS, thanks for summarizing (in your uneducated attitudes) whats wrong with the U.S.