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Mumbai Terrorists Tortured Israelis Before They Were Murdered
[Picture of large amounts of blood on floor]
The floors were smeared with blood after the terrorist assault on the Chabad House in Mumbai. (Ynet)
[Doctor speaking]
Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: “It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood,” one doctor said.
The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil says two boxes containing eight kg RDX each found near the hotel. Enough to kill 5,000 people, he says
8 live grenades found and defused
None of the hostages survived
NSG finds bodies of three killed terrorists on the first and ground floors.
Hotel says no indication of staff involvement in terrorist attack
[cough, cough, “Oh, the house cleaning staff did not notice the hand grenades, the AK47 ammo,the gas cans, and the explosives in the room.” -ed].
The Long War Journal is reporting that the captured jihadi “Kasab has implicated the Pakistani Navy and the Dawood Ibrahim criminal network based in Karachi for providing assistance and training for the Mumbai assault team, police sources told India Today. The plot to attack Mumbai was hatched more than a year ago, Kasab told police.”
This makes it an act of war. We’ll see if India goes to the UN or acts on its own.
India has one constraint to consider when deciding how far to go in dealing with Pakistan. That is China to the North. On paper India now has the cohesion and wealth to crush Pakistan if it chooses to do so. This was not true in the past and given the global economy it may not be true in the future, so there is a pressure for India to act. Other festering problems nearby, Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand also indicate that the future may be less advantageous than the present. Of course those may be a reason to husband resources but the possible correlation of threats needs constant evaluation. Despite India’s historic support for the Tamil insurgents, due to domestic political links to Tamil Nadu, the recent setbacks to the Tamil cause may free India to focus elsewhere. The possibility that Thailand will get much worse could be a future drain on resources, turning a conflict in 10 years into a two front war and endangering the sea lanes. For India to be free to act it must strike a deal with China. The obvious losers in all this are the Tibetans. Strategically they now occupy a similar position in between South, Central and East Asia as the Kurds are in between West Asia, Asia Minor and the Caucasus.
This makes it an act of war. We’ll see if India goes to the UN or acts on its own.
Well Bush sending Condi in there Wednesday, probably to tell India not to “perpetrate the cycle of violence”. She’s really good at that line, she’s said it enough times to Israel. Fully 13% of the people inside India are Muslim, maybe she will suggest a “Two State Solution”.
“The obvious losers in all this are the Tibetans.”
About 60 years too late. China invaded & occupied Tibet in 1949 — the UN may have issued a sternly worded warning.
The Tibetans should start to call themselves the East Palestinians, adopt Islam, and start murdering people at random. Maybe the UN could be persuaded to issue another really, really sternly worded warning to the Chinese.
I wonder if it was part of the plan for one terrorist to be taken alive and plant false stories. I don’t see the Pakistan Navy, assuming they were involved, allowing the terrorist “invaders” to know of their involvement. I’d look for some proof before believing what this fellow Kasab says.
Funny that in ‘The Onion’s’ sarcasm is more insight than you may hear on the network analysis.
India is constrained in many ways, not the least of which is how much a real war would cost. War is easy to start, sometimes hard to finish. As has been said, a bad peace is better than a good war.
The phony peace will continue for a while yet, and more phony, sternly worded messages will be issued from the UN, all the thoughtful people will talk about the ‘root causes’ of the violence, etc., etc., etc.
AS ugly as the last few days have been in Mumbai for the people killed and wounded, a few hours of a real war between Pakistan and India would results in orders of magnitude more death.
I don’t think there is any hope for any kind of real ‘peace’ to break out between Pakistan and India, or in a larger sense, between Islam and the places in the world where there is friction between Islam and conflicting beliefs, whether they are Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish.
There is repeatedly, the undeniable evidence that the Islamists are too stupid to learn, and refuse to face the possible consequence of their actions. But they have a while yet, years at least, before there is a resolution to the conflict. Not enough of the so-called ‘intellectual class’ has yet reached a conclusion beyond ‘conflict resolution’ types of negotiations.
Why does Pakistan want to go to war with India? I mean, they had to know that eventually it would all come out in the wash. This was not going to go undetected for long. What’s Pakistan’s game? They can’t win a war with India. India is much larger, larger and more modern military, bigger and better economy, and now everyone knows that India has a bona fide cassus belli.
Pakistan has everything to lose in this war. EVERYTHING. And who will back the Pakis?
At the very least, I think India should expel all of its Muslims. They are a Fifth Column that could create a lot of long term problems. And no one’s talking about the likely support cell that may be in the Bombay area. You cannot tell me that the primary gunmen did all of the scouting and intel work too? I doubt it. Operations like this require compartmentalization.
@Kinuachdrach.
Do you doubt the awesome influence of Star Power? The Dalai Lama has Richard Gere on his side. The Tibetans are in a hopeless position, but that is no reason for them to act hopeless. China is in a very strong position due to basic geopolitics and the weakness of her neighbors. China is also facing real stability problems going forward and also may be in a position where her power either increases dramatically or declines possibly catastrophically. In other words China faces the same real world opportunities and threats as most nations. Tibet was invaded in 1950 and the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. Given that the Nationalist Chinese government that held the UN China seat at the time had even more extensive claims than the Communist regime’s the lack of response at the time was unsurprising. Besides the UN diplomats were busy during that decade in finding their way around the shiny new headquarters and perfecting the vital diplomatic skills of ignoring parking tickets and chasing the female support staff around the desks.
According to The Long War article, the attackers received “training in boating, rowing and swimming by the Pakistan Navy.” I think the Pakistan Navy probably gives such training routinely to the general public.
People who speculate that the Pakistani Government played any role in these attacks carry a heavy burden of proof. Alleged leaked tidbits from the interrogation of Kasab are practically no proof at all.
India isn’t going to war against Pakistan with the justification that these attackers got boating, rowing and swimming lessons in Pakistan.
@Mike Sylwester,
Generally I agree with the premise that Occam’s razor would indicate that a vast Pakistani government conspiracy is not required to explain the training and logistics needed to carry out the Mumbai attack. However that does not address the equally real possibility that elements within the intelligence service and the navy could have cooperated with groups who coordinated the mission out of some madrassas or linked terror cells. The government of Pakistan is rapidly becoming a legal fiction, like the government of Somalia, which does not have a monopoly on force within its claimed territory and therefore is not truly sovereign. Note that any claim that America’s armed citizenry makes the US government less than competent to act as the sole agent of the sovereign nation will be preemptively dismissed. Since the government of Pakistan is no longer able to prevent attacks on other countries from originating within its territory it is not competent to be treated as a full partner within the international system. It is now like the government of Lebanon only one faction among several that are jockeying for position. India must decide whether to deal with it by engagement, support, isolation, interference or invasion.
Lifeofthemind:
“Since the government of Pakistan is no longer able to prevent attacks on other countries from originating within its territory it is not competent to be treated as a full partner within the international system. ”
——–
True. That’s a major reason why the Pakistani Government has been waging war against these radical organizations during this past year. The Pakistani Government eventually will win that war. In fact, the war might be surprisingly short.
@Mike Sylwester,
Am I correct then in taking it that your advice is that everyone should relax, sit back and wait for the Pakistani army to take care of everything for us? That is asking alot of all concerned. We have to ensure the safety of our army in Afghanistan, right now. India has to respond, right now. This can can not be simply kicked down the road. At a minimum Pakistan should be told to move its forces away from the Indian border and flood them into the tribal area. Personally I think that getting Pakistan to back a move by two Indian Divisions into the Jalalabad region would be worth seriously considering.
The Onion’s summary of the conflict rings true.
Pakistan refuses to acknowledge it’s own internal problems, which make the situation even worse. What is India to do? The UN is useless. We are sending Condi to try to get the Indians to cool off. That is every bit as useless. There is no solution. The Islamic terrorists have the upper hand right now. They can hit India again w/o any risk to Pakistan. Lame duck Bush gov’t, incoming Obama administration. Not good for freedom loving Hindus (or Jews) in the most populous country on the planet.
Fasten your seat belts, folks. This is going to get uglier before it gets better.
Under normal circumstances, China would be inclined to help Pakistan against India. These are not normal circumstances. Pakistan has acted in a manner that makes it difficult for China to intervene on Pakistan’s behalf even if China wanted to help.
What Moscow does in this crisis is important because China will watch Russia before it makes any move. China also seeks hegemony over Asia, and this “soft hegemony” is threatened if China intervenes against India. Besides, China doesn’t like getting manipulated into doing what it doesn’t want to do; China sees Pakistan as the horse and China as the rider, not the other way around.
The Pakistani press is acting in a defensive manner, whipping up “righteous indignation” that Pakistani intelligence could be accused of abetting the Mumbai atrocity. War fever is also gripping Pakistan, with the Taliban offering an unconditional cease-fire to the Pakistani government.
Pakistan is alone. Iran is unlikely to help Pakistan and the Arab states are too scared to fight. Pakistan faces the abyss, for it must either pursue an active civil war or face India’s wrath. One or the other. Either way, it won’t be pretty.
If I were India’s leader, looking at my options, I see nothing but a long history going forward of more Islamic terror coming my way from Pakistan. Paki Land is a cancer. Pakistan delenda est. I has to be burned to the ground. Then, I would expel the Muslims of India into Bangladesh with express orders to never return.
Sorry, wretchard, but sometimes collective guilt is the only way for the innocent to be protected from the jackals. If it means making jackals an extinct species, so be it. They brought it on themselves.
When I suggested the idea of an Indian naval blockade of Karachi, I was intending this as an intermediate step between the present cease-fire and all-out war.
Pakistan must crack down on the Taliban and al-Qaeda in a serious way, yet Pakistani culture (and Muslim culture in general) is so scared of fitna (civil war) that outside powers have good reason to be skeptical of Pakistani protestations of innocence. Pakistani leaders protest that Pakistan has been a major victim of terrorism. The fact that they are right won’t convince outsiders. Pakistani leaders aren’t believed precisely because Pakistani soldiers don’t want to fight against al-Qaeda. Pakistani public opinion bitterly hates the very notion of Pakistanis fighting “America’s war” against al-Qaeda, and this undermines any faith that Pakistan’s leadership do anything to stop al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or its own Inter Services Intelligence.
I don’t want an all-out war. I also realize that telling Indians to “calm down” will have precisely the opposite effect. There is a limit to how much the Indian government (or public opinion) will listen to any outsiders, especially Americans. In such a situation, recommending steps short of all-out war is far preferable to recommending anything that even looks like passivity in the face of provocation.
Quite a lot of the information that the Indians have put out is in the nature of belated self-justification in the face of the success that the Bradford-Pakistani youths have had. For example we have the fact the upto 14 special police officers were killed in short order. How does a team of youths manage that against well-trained men? It is the case that the Indians are gung-ho chargers, the bravery of the Indian serviceman is not to be doubted. I recall that during the Kargil conflict, Indian soldiers were needlessly sacrificed in the initial stages through foolish frontal attacks because the higher-ups had to produce results. On this ocassion we see the same CYA operations playing out. We are told that the CM requested 200 NSG commandos from the Centre. How did he arrive at this figure? Is he an unacknowleged expert on urban guerilla operations?
The words “remorseless killers” were bandied about but anyone who has taken the lessons of Beslan to heart would know that it is part and parcel of the Islamo-terrorist way of fighting. It may even be the whole point. It is really unbecoming of the security forces to act so surprised.
The strategic objective of the Mumbai attack was to undermine the movement by Zardari toward rapprochement with India over Kashmir and to weaken the US in the war against the Taliban and Al Qaida. Both seemed to have been achieved. The jihadist wing of the Pak government does not want peace with India. Much of the Pak military and intelligence agency (the ISI) have been in bed with the Taliban for years.
Our problem (America’s)is that much of the logistics lifeline for the Afghan war runs through Pakistan. If India goes to war against the Paks, or blockades their ports, this lifeline will be broken. So just how do we run the war without this lifeline?
Contrarian, you have a very good question there – and so do a number of others including Elroy.
One way to make a safe corridor would be to render a swathe of Pakistan about 50 miles wide, leading from the coast all the way to Afghanistan, uninhabitable by anyone not wearing a MOPP suit. And with enough provocation, even the empty-suit President-elect might go for that solution. It really is going to get ugly – but eventually, it is going to get a lot uglier for the Dar-al-Islam than anyone else. Briefly.
Contrarian, India is not going to war over 300 or even a 1000 dead. The threshold is much higher. The jihadis don’t have any master plan except one: kill as many infidels as they can. Any advantage they obtain is incidental. For example we now have to worry about Rambo-style jihadis in addition to the salwar khamis types. At some point a sufficient number of us will come to the conclusion that the only way out is to exterminate the brutes. But for now we can still plan on isolating them in their own filth.
“For example we have the fact the upto 14 special police officers were killed in short order. How does a team of youths manage that against well-trained men?” –Ivan
That is a good question.
Another question is how these “trouble making youths” managed to hijack an Indian coast guard boat, kill one of it’s sailors and force the sailor other to drop them off close to the coast without a fight or a signal that something was wrong on the Indian’s side (airlines, police, and airlines has secret codes which let the authorities know they have been hijacked).
Then there are other questions:
How does the Taj’s security team, management and cleaning staff let ammo, hand grenades, gas bombs, and other material be stock piled in the hotel without notice?
How does a fisher man just let a bunch of “youths” disembark from a zodiac boat without notifying the authorities?
There are other questions as to why police at the train station two “youths” shoot up and hand grenade the train station for three hours without challenging or at least calling superior officers and reporting the situation (are hand grenades exploding in a crowded train station a normal thing in India?).
Do taxis packed with RDX just happen to explode with little notice to the police?
[Thanos of lgf]
“Near Gujarat, the terrorists raised a white flag as two officers of the coast guard approached. While the officers questioned them, one of the terrorists grappled with one of them, slit his throat and threw his body into the boat. The group then ordered the other officer to help them get to Mumbai.
On Nov 26, the team reached the Mumbai coast.
Four nautical miles out, they were met by three inflatable speedboats. They killed the other coast guard officer, transferred into the speedboats and proceeded to Colaba jetty as dusk settled. The Kuber was found later with the body of the 30-year-old captain onboard.
At Badhwar Park in Cuffe Parade – just three blocks away from Nariman House – the 10 men got off, stripped off the orange windbreakers they had been wearing and made sure to take out their large, heavy backpacks. It was there that they were spotted by fisherman Prasan Dhanur, who was preparing his boat, and harbour official Kashinath Patil, 72, who was on duty nearby.
“Where are you going?” Patil asked them. “What’s in your bags?” The men replied: “We don’t want any attention. Don’t bother us.”
Thinking little of it, Dhanur and Patil, who said they did not see the guns hidden in the backpacks, did not call the police, and watched the 10 young men walk away. Then the carnage started.
Ledger, yes these Bradford-Pakistanis just happened to meet a lot of helpful Indians on their way to Bombay. Apparently the Taj is one of the hotels deemed safe enough for visiting US and Israeli delegations, yet the hotel security did not detect the RDX, too busy perhaps doing their checklist. This has the makings of a major snafu on the Indian side. Us Indians have to a have a better system than the one we have now that relies on officers with Kitchener moustaches and baleful looks to scare the baddies.
But, don’t fiddle while your Taj Majal burns or you will not survive. Indian’s have plenty of fire power to start eliminating the baddies without out anyone’s help.
Wadeusaf – it may well be that the solution turns out to be a one-state one. To be more explicit; one state plus, on its border, an uninhabitable desert. Perhaps the solution might be applied when the wind is ESE?
If India goes to war against the Paks, or blockades their ports, this lifeline will be broken. So just how do we run the war without this lifeline?
Get new lifelines.
Romania-Georgia-Kazakstan-Turkmenistan. Black Sea and Caspian Sea obstacles. Turkmen could be a problem.
Germany-Poland-Russia-Uzbekistan by rail is already in place, again, with Termez replacing the old Karshi-Khanabad. Subject to extortion from Russia.
Free Baluchistan. Marines to Gwadar. Indian Border Roads Organization builds us an MSR to Kandahar.
While we’re freeing Baluchistan, free Iranian Baluchistan, too. BRO recently built a road across Nimruz connecting the Ring Road to an Iranian port on the Indian Ocean.
#22, Elroy:
“Pakistan refuses to acknowledge it’s own internal problems[...]”
In this Pakistan resembles Chicago. Both have lost control of their respective jurisdictions, civil servants outnumber private parties, and economic and religious victimology are the rallying cries of the ruling majorities.
Has Daley encouraged the proliferation of criminal gangs in his city? Has the Democratic party trained and funded “Community Organizations” to cause a ruckus and lower the city’s civility? And, have these gangs plied their trade outside of Chicago’s gates, like, in Seattle, or New Jersey, or West Palm Beach County, Florida?
Yes, to all three. Crazy: It’s getting to where “layers of deniability” is a symptom of culpability, guys. Al Gore’s “plausible deniability” is a paper-thin fig-leaf for all this urban racketeering. Let’s not let Columbia U’s shell-games fool us.
Pakistan was ruled by a military dictatorship from October 12, 1999, until August 18, 2008, when Pervez Musharraf resigned. Pakistan now has been ruled by a democratically elected government only for the past three months.
During those three months, that democratic government has been waging war effectively and successfully against the country’s radical Moslem groups.
People fighting for democracy are able to fight well and to prevail. People fighting against democracy often switch to the democratic side.
Let’s not blame Pakistan’s democratic government for crimes it did not commit. Let’s give the Pakistanis some more time and our patience as it deals with this difficult situation.
@Cannoneer No. 4,
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
Punishing the Pakistanis and Iranians by hiving off a separate Baluchistan may be a clever theoretical response, and it has the added ironic benefit that it was first championed by the Soviets to cause trouble, but given the realities of who is coming into power in the US it simply is not on. The American army can not be supplied at the sufferance of Russia or through the North and the existing routes are not secure. It is now looking like we need to be getting that army out before it gets trapped, unless the Indians decide to dismember Pakistan and ride to the rescue of our cavalry.
Dec 1, 2008 - 6:40 am40. Insufficiently Sensitive:
The jihadis don’t have any master plan except one: kill as many infidels as they can. Any advantage they obtain is incidental.
No master plan??? Bollocks. Killing infidels is a tactic, worth sacrificing ten jihadis – and the random shooting into crowds cares nothing if some of the faithful are blown away too. The very real advantage they obtain is wholly strategic: the imposition of terror on entire populations, including their elites, who become one degree more paralyzed at each event. Anyone remember how many of America’s heroic First Amendment-defending media organs reproduced the images of the Mohammed cartoons? Lest we forget, about two. Terrorism works.
The drip-drip-drip of MSM stories coverning such events – oh, with such dramatic photos of distressed survivors weeping in each others’ arms, clouds of smoke, and one-sentence clip-quotes from grim helpless leaders and bystanders (and such terrorists as can be quoted) – is part of the process, too.
The Seattle Times is a splendid example of the raw material used by for inspiration by the intrepid makers of the video we see at the top of this article. If you’re interested in how the Mumbai operation developed tactically, the Times of very low value compared to Internet sources such as the Belmont Club. Dramatic content, sure. Random ‘eyewitness’ quotes, half of an entire page, like blind men groping an elephant. The hysterical editors tell us that as many as 16 groups hit at least 10 sites, although their news page had figured out that the lads numbered but 10. Neither editorials nor news pages make a peep about the torture of hostages, Jewish nor gentile. But they make the ritual knowitall attack on the Indians, for failure to anticipate the attack. And they assure us that contrary to earlier reports, it appeared that Westerners were not the gunman’s main targets, carefully excising news of the search by said gunmen for specifically American or British passports among their captives.
No wonder that video hits home – caricature or not, it contains enough perspective on MSM motives to shame the purveyors of news to the masses, if they’re capable of shame.
Certainly the overdramatized and underinformative news media do their bit to spread and advertise the terror and its perpetrators.
WadeUSAF: Ruby: Pakistan is the result of a two state solution.
So was Jordan after Partition in 1948. Its never good enough. Now the Bush Administration wants the Palestinians to have another state within the quarter of the British Mandate land that was assigned to the Jews. And after that happens, the Arab citizens inside Israel will clamor for a “two state solution” and shave off another piece with the blessing of the US. Now apply this procedure to India. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Fletcher,
“One way to make a safe corridor would be to render a swathe of Pakistan about 50 miles wide, leading from the coast all the way to Afghanistan, uninhabitable by anyone not wearing a MOPP suit”
Try this metaphor, folks. Islamic violence, all violence, is like a virus, say rinovirus. Final solutions, such as Pauling’s recommendation of massive doses of Vitamin C, do not work. Neither will nuking Pakistan. Final solutions are too costly and do not work. You just can’t get rid of all the (fill in the blank). You can protect yourself to the degree that you reduce the severity or incident of distress. Don’t lick the handles of carts at Walmart; you will get fewer head colds. Do wash your hands more often, and so forth.
Violence is inherent in human beings; Islam encourages the worst in some (most?) people, as did National Socialism, but worse. The enormous increase in wealth in this world allows the technological enabling of those infected by the virus of violence, for whatever reason, to act out.
For example, the American Indians would certainly have wiping out all the buffalo if they could have, or killed all with different nose shapes, languages, however ‘others’ were defined. They, however, being neolithic savages, lacked the wealth and ensuing technology to fulfill their bloody fantasies.
Most Americans have no idea how out of the main stream your notions of diversity, equality, and tolerance are. Hutus kill Tuzis; Shona kill Metabele. And everybody dislikes Baravarians. No excuse is required. Genocide is the norm. The U.S. an aberration, maybe a miracle.
Islam now has wealth to buy the technology they could never devise themselves, and they will, repeat will, use that technology to kill all ‘others.’
We must live with that fact. No Final Solution exists. Extend the virus metaphor to methods of containing, coexisting with Islam.
The demand for paradise on earth leads to horror, the peace of the graveyard. Evil, like any virus, must be contained and restrained, of course; but accept the fact that it is part of the human condition and do not be seduced by final solutions. Again, they are expensive and, most importantly, they don’t work.
@drjohn,
I am not calling for a “final solution” but I am pointing out that you have not made the logical argument that they do not work. If you want your position to be useful or at least worth considering please explicate your core point and then explain how it would result in a different practical outcome. What do you propose that we do besides issue more CCW permits?
@drjohn,
It should be possible to make an argument that a given result works but is still inadvisable due to other criteriea outside the boundary conditions of the original problem.
Insufficiently sensitive, I’m on the same page as you. My point is that there whatever advantage accrues to the terrorists is incidental to their main goal which is to drink blood and make a splash. They were not looking for a Reichstag fire so that they could take over Pakistan. The Muslim terrorists have no discipline, no rational plan to achieve their goals except to work for chaos. Their masters lack the evil genius of a Hitler or Stalin. Hence the hodge-podge of justifications. They were able to kill so many due to luck, their demonic hatred of infidels, the lethality of modern weapons and most of all the unpreparedness of the Indians. One saw the same phenomena in Iraq, the Al-Queda types couldn’t staunch their bloodlust long enough to stabilise their hold on the local Muslims.
Mike S. I Think its my mom you are wondering about. In some other comments. I searched the web for her name and found your post. She moved to Sweden 1985 and married my father.
Dec 30, 2008 - 3:59 pm
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49 Comments
1. ledger:Mumbai Terrorists Tortured Israelis Before They Were Murdered
[Picture of large amounts of blood on floor]
The floors were smeared with blood after the terrorist assault on the Chabad House in Mumbai. (Ynet)
[Doctor speaking]
Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: “It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood,” one doctor said.
The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/11/mumbai-terrorists-tortured-israelis.html
No comment.
Nov 30, 2008 - 6:15 pm 2. ledger:[Up-date by Outlook India]
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil says two boxes containing eight kg RDX each found near the hotel. Enough to kill 5,000 people, he says
8 live grenades found and defused
None of the hostages survived
NSG finds bodies of three killed terrorists on the first and ground floors.
Hotel says no indication of staff involvement in terrorist attack
[cough, cough, “Oh, the house cleaning staff did not notice the hand grenades, the AK47 ammo,the gas cans, and the explosives in the room.” -ed].
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081128&fname=mumbai&sid=1
Nov 30, 2008 - 6:52 pm 3. Raoul Ortega:At least they didn’t flushed a torah down the toilet after waterboarding their victims.
Nov 30, 2008 - 7:29 pm 4. Paul:The Long War Journal is reporting that the captured jihadi “Kasab has implicated the Pakistani Navy and the Dawood Ibrahim criminal network based in Karachi for providing assistance and training for the Mumbai assault team, police sources told India Today. The plot to attack Mumbai was hatched more than a year ago, Kasab told police.”
This makes it an act of war. We’ll see if India goes to the UN or acts on its own.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/11/captured_mumbai_atta.php
Nov 30, 2008 - 7:46 pm 5. Lifeofthemind:India has one constraint to consider when deciding how far to go in dealing with Pakistan. That is China to the North. On paper India now has the cohesion and wealth to crush Pakistan if it chooses to do so. This was not true in the past and given the global economy it may not be true in the future, so there is a pressure for India to act. Other festering problems nearby, Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand also indicate that the future may be less advantageous than the present. Of course those may be a reason to husband resources but the possible correlation of threats needs constant evaluation. Despite India’s historic support for the Tamil insurgents, due to domestic political links to Tamil Nadu, the recent setbacks to the Tamil cause may free India to focus elsewhere. The possibility that Thailand will get much worse could be a future drain on resources, turning a conflict in 10 years into a two front war and endangering the sea lanes. For India to be free to act it must strike a deal with China. The obvious losers in all this are the Tibetans. Strategically they now occupy a similar position in between South, Central and East Asia as the Kurds are in between West Asia, Asia Minor and the Caucasus.
Nov 30, 2008 - 8:03 pm 6. Mike Sylwester:One of the reasons that India arranged for Pakistan’s chief of intelligence to visit Mumbai might be so that he himself can question Kasab.
Nov 30, 2008 - 8:08 pm 7. Ruby:This makes it an act of war. We’ll see if India goes to the UN or acts on its own.
Well Bush sending Condi in there Wednesday, probably to tell India not to “perpetrate the cycle of violence”. She’s really good at that line, she’s said it enough times to Israel. Fully 13% of the people inside India are Muslim, maybe she will suggest a “Two State Solution”.
Nov 30, 2008 - 8:50 pm 8. Kinuachdrach:“The obvious losers in all this are the Tibetans.”
About 60 years too late. China invaded & occupied Tibet in 1949 — the UN may have issued a sternly worded warning.
The Tibetans should start to call themselves the East Palestinians, adopt Islam, and start murdering people at random. Maybe the UN could be persuaded to issue another really, really sternly worded warning to the Chinese.
Nov 30, 2008 - 9:02 pm 9. hdgreene:I wonder if it was part of the plan for one terrorist to be taken alive and plant false stories. I don’t see the Pakistan Navy, assuming they were involved, allowing the terrorist “invaders” to know of their involvement. I’d look for some proof before believing what this fellow Kasab says.
Nov 30, 2008 - 9:16 pm 10. E. Nigma:Funny that in ‘The Onion’s’ sarcasm is more insight than you may hear on the network analysis.
India is constrained in many ways, not the least of which is how much a real war would cost. War is easy to start, sometimes hard to finish. As has been said, a bad peace is better than a good war.
The phony peace will continue for a while yet, and more phony, sternly worded messages will be issued from the UN, all the thoughtful people will talk about the ‘root causes’ of the violence, etc., etc., etc.
AS ugly as the last few days have been in Mumbai for the people killed and wounded, a few hours of a real war between Pakistan and India would results in orders of magnitude more death.
Nov 30, 2008 - 9:17 pm 11. fred:I don’t think there is any hope for any kind of real ‘peace’ to break out between Pakistan and India, or in a larger sense, between Islam and the places in the world where there is friction between Islam and conflicting beliefs, whether they are Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish.
There is repeatedly, the undeniable evidence that the Islamists are too stupid to learn, and refuse to face the possible consequence of their actions. But they have a while yet, years at least, before there is a resolution to the conflict. Not enough of the so-called ‘intellectual class’ has yet reached a conclusion beyond ‘conflict resolution’ types of negotiations.
Why does Pakistan want to go to war with India? I mean, they had to know that eventually it would all come out in the wash. This was not going to go undetected for long. What’s Pakistan’s game? They can’t win a war with India. India is much larger, larger and more modern military, bigger and better economy, and now everyone knows that India has a bona fide cassus belli.
Pakistan has everything to lose in this war. EVERYTHING. And who will back the Pakis?
Nov 30, 2008 - 9:30 pm 12. fred:At the very least, I think India should expel all of its Muslims. They are a Fifth Column that could create a lot of long term problems. And no one’s talking about the likely support cell that may be in the Bombay area. You cannot tell me that the primary gunmen did all of the scouting and intel work too? I doubt it. Operations like this require compartmentalization.
Nov 30, 2008 - 9:34 pm 13. Lifeofthemind:@Kinuachdrach.
Nov 30, 2008 - 9:38 pm 14. Mike Sylwester:Do you doubt the awesome influence of Star Power? The Dalai Lama has Richard Gere on his side. The Tibetans are in a hopeless position, but that is no reason for them to act hopeless. China is in a very strong position due to basic geopolitics and the weakness of her neighbors. China is also facing real stability problems going forward and also may be in a position where her power either increases dramatically or declines possibly catastrophically. In other words China faces the same real world opportunities and threats as most nations. Tibet was invaded in 1950 and the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. Given that the Nationalist Chinese government that held the UN China seat at the time had even more extensive claims than the Communist regime’s the lack of response at the time was unsurprising. Besides the UN diplomats were busy during that decade in finding their way around the shiny new headquarters and perfecting the vital diplomatic skills of ignoring parking tickets and chasing the female support staff around the desks.
According to The Long War article, the attackers received “training in boating, rowing and swimming by the Pakistan Navy.” I think the Pakistan Navy probably gives such training routinely to the general public.
People who speculate that the Pakistani Government played any role in these attacks carry a heavy burden of proof. Alleged leaked tidbits from the interrogation of Kasab are practically no proof at all.
India isn’t going to war against Pakistan with the justification that these attackers got boating, rowing and swimming lessons in Pakistan.
Nov 30, 2008 - 9:44 pm 15. exhelodrvr:Mike Sylwester,
“I think the Pakistan Navy probably gives such training routinely to the general public”
Absolutely!! The Pakistani Navy is world-famous for their water safety program. And they have a very large budget for that purpose.
Nov 30, 2008 - 10:00 pm 16. Mike Sylwester:Here is a list of incidents involving Lashkar e Toiba since 1996.
satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/terrorist_outfits/lashkar_e_toiba_lt.htm
Nov 30, 2008 - 10:05 pm 17. Lifeofthemind:@Mike Sylwester,
Nov 30, 2008 - 10:07 pm 18. Mike Sylwester:Generally I agree with the premise that Occam’s razor would indicate that a vast Pakistani government conspiracy is not required to explain the training and logistics needed to carry out the Mumbai attack. However that does not address the equally real possibility that elements within the intelligence service and the navy could have cooperated with groups who coordinated the mission out of some madrassas or linked terror cells. The government of Pakistan is rapidly becoming a legal fiction, like the government of Somalia, which does not have a monopoly on force within its claimed territory and therefore is not truly sovereign. Note that any claim that America’s armed citizenry makes the US government less than competent to act as the sole agent of the sovereign nation will be preemptively dismissed. Since the government of Pakistan is no longer able to prevent attacks on other countries from originating within its territory it is not competent to be treated as a full partner within the international system. It is now like the government of Lebanon only one faction among several that are jockeying for position. India must decide whether to deal with it by engagement, support, isolation, interference or invasion.
Yes, exhelodrvr, I do think that the Pakistani Navy probably does provide a water safety program for the general public.
Nov 30, 2008 - 10:11 pm 19. Mike Sylwester:Lifeofthemind:
“Since the government of Pakistan is no longer able to prevent attacks on other countries from originating within its territory it is not competent to be treated as a full partner within the international system. ”
——–
True. That’s a major reason why the Pakistani Government has been waging war against these radical organizations during this past year. The Pakistani Government eventually will win that war. In fact, the war might be surprisingly short.
Nov 30, 2008 - 10:22 pm 20. twobyfour:@ 19. Mike Sylwester
Sure, only government sanctioned jihad would be allowed from that point on.
Nov 30, 2008 - 10:29 pm 21. Lifeofthemind:@Mike Sylwester,
Nov 30, 2008 - 10:31 pm 22. Elroy Jetson:Am I correct then in taking it that your advice is that everyone should relax, sit back and wait for the Pakistani army to take care of everything for us? That is asking alot of all concerned. We have to ensure the safety of our army in Afghanistan, right now. India has to respond, right now. This can can not be simply kicked down the road. At a minimum Pakistan should be told to move its forces away from the Indian border and flood them into the tribal area. Personally I think that getting Pakistan to back a move by two Indian Divisions into the Jalalabad region would be worth seriously considering.
The Onion’s summary of the conflict rings true.
Nov 30, 2008 - 10:46 pm 23. Alexis:Pakistan refuses to acknowledge it’s own internal problems, which make the situation even worse. What is India to do? The UN is useless. We are sending Condi to try to get the Indians to cool off. That is every bit as useless. There is no solution. The Islamic terrorists have the upper hand right now. They can hit India again w/o any risk to Pakistan. Lame duck Bush gov’t, incoming Obama administration. Not good for freedom loving Hindus (or Jews) in the most populous country on the planet.
Fasten your seat belts, folks. This is going to get uglier before it gets better.
Under normal circumstances, China would be inclined to help Pakistan against India. These are not normal circumstances. Pakistan has acted in a manner that makes it difficult for China to intervene on Pakistan’s behalf even if China wanted to help.
What Moscow does in this crisis is important because China will watch Russia before it makes any move. China also seeks hegemony over Asia, and this “soft hegemony” is threatened if China intervenes against India. Besides, China doesn’t like getting manipulated into doing what it doesn’t want to do; China sees Pakistan as the horse and China as the rider, not the other way around.
The Pakistani press is acting in a defensive manner, whipping up “righteous indignation” that Pakistani intelligence could be accused of abetting the Mumbai atrocity. War fever is also gripping Pakistan, with the Taliban offering an unconditional cease-fire to the Pakistani government.
Pakistan is alone. Iran is unlikely to help Pakistan and the Arab states are too scared to fight. Pakistan faces the abyss, for it must either pursue an active civil war or face India’s wrath. One or the other. Either way, it won’t be pretty.
Nov 30, 2008 - 10:51 pm 24. fred:If I were India’s leader, looking at my options, I see nothing but a long history going forward of more Islamic terror coming my way from Pakistan. Paki Land is a cancer. Pakistan delenda est. I has to be burned to the ground. Then, I would expel the Muslims of India into Bangladesh with express orders to never return.
Sorry, wretchard, but sometimes collective guilt is the only way for the innocent to be protected from the jackals. If it means making jackals an extinct species, so be it. They brought it on themselves.
Nov 30, 2008 - 11:03 pm 25. Alexis:When I suggested the idea of an Indian naval blockade of Karachi, I was intending this as an intermediate step between the present cease-fire and all-out war.
Pakistan must crack down on the Taliban and al-Qaeda in a serious way, yet Pakistani culture (and Muslim culture in general) is so scared of fitna (civil war) that outside powers have good reason to be skeptical of Pakistani protestations of innocence. Pakistani leaders protest that Pakistan has been a major victim of terrorism. The fact that they are right won’t convince outsiders. Pakistani leaders aren’t believed precisely because Pakistani soldiers don’t want to fight against al-Qaeda. Pakistani public opinion bitterly hates the very notion of Pakistanis fighting “America’s war” against al-Qaeda, and this undermines any faith that Pakistan’s leadership do anything to stop al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or its own Inter Services Intelligence.
I don’t want an all-out war. I also realize that telling Indians to “calm down” will have precisely the opposite effect. There is a limit to how much the Indian government (or public opinion) will listen to any outsiders, especially Americans. In such a situation, recommending steps short of all-out war is far preferable to recommending anything that even looks like passivity in the face of provocation.
Nov 30, 2008 - 11:13 pm 26. Ivan:Quite a lot of the information that the Indians have put out is in the nature of belated self-justification in the face of the success that the Bradford-Pakistani youths have had. For example we have the fact the upto 14 special police officers were killed in short order. How does a team of youths manage that against well-trained men? It is the case that the Indians are gung-ho chargers, the bravery of the Indian serviceman is not to be doubted. I recall that during the Kargil conflict, Indian soldiers were needlessly sacrificed in the initial stages through foolish frontal attacks because the higher-ups had to produce results. On this ocassion we see the same CYA operations playing out. We are told that the CM requested 200 NSG commandos from the Centre. How did he arrive at this figure? Is he an unacknowleged expert on urban guerilla operations?
The words “remorseless killers” were bandied about but anyone who has taken the lessons of Beslan to heart would know that it is part and parcel of the Islamo-terrorist way of fighting. It may even be the whole point. It is really unbecoming of the security forces to act so surprised.
Nov 30, 2008 - 11:26 pm 27. Contrarian:The strategic objective of the Mumbai attack was to undermine the movement by Zardari toward rapprochement with India over Kashmir and to weaken the US in the war against the Taliban and Al Qaida. Both seemed to have been achieved. The jihadist wing of the Pak government does not want peace with India. Much of the Pak military and intelligence agency (the ISI) have been in bed with the Taliban for years.
Our problem (America’s)is that much of the logistics lifeline for the Afghan war runs through Pakistan. If India goes to war against the Paks, or blockades their ports, this lifeline will be broken. So just how do we run the war without this lifeline?
Dec 1, 2008 - 12:30 am 28. Fletcher Christian:Contrarian, you have a very good question there – and so do a number of others including Elroy.
One way to make a safe corridor would be to render a swathe of Pakistan about 50 miles wide, leading from the coast all the way to Afghanistan, uninhabitable by anyone not wearing a MOPP suit. And with enough provocation, even the empty-suit President-elect might go for that solution. It really is going to get ugly – but eventually, it is going to get a lot uglier for the Dar-al-Islam than anyone else. Briefly.
Dec 1, 2008 - 12:49 am 29. Ivan:Contrarian, India is not going to war over 300 or even a 1000 dead. The threshold is much higher. The jihadis don’t have any master plan except one: kill as many infidels as they can. Any advantage they obtain is incidental. For example we now have to worry about Rambo-style jihadis in addition to the salwar khamis types. At some point a sufficient number of us will come to the conclusion that the only way out is to exterminate the brutes. But for now we can still plan on isolating them in their own filth.
Dec 1, 2008 - 12:53 am 30. ledger:“For example we have the fact the upto 14 special police officers were killed in short order. How does a team of youths manage that against well-trained men?” –Ivan
That is a good question.
Another question is how these “trouble making youths” managed to hijack an Indian coast guard boat, kill one of it’s sailors and force the sailor other to drop them off close to the coast without a fight or a signal that something was wrong on the Indian’s side (airlines, police, and airlines has secret codes which let the authorities know they have been hijacked).
Then there are other questions:
How does the Taj’s security team, management and cleaning staff let ammo, hand grenades, gas bombs, and other material be stock piled in the hotel without notice?
How does a fisher man just let a bunch of “youths” disembark from a zodiac boat without notifying the authorities?
There are other questions as to why police at the train station two “youths” shoot up and hand grenade the train station for three hours without challenging or at least calling superior officers and reporting the situation (are hand grenades exploding in a crowded train station a normal thing in India?).
Do taxis packed with RDX just happen to explode with little notice to the police?
[Thanos of lgf]
“Near Gujarat, the terrorists raised a white flag as two officers of the coast guard approached. While the officers questioned them, one of the terrorists grappled with one of them, slit his throat and threw his body into the boat. The group then ordered the other officer to help them get to Mumbai.
On Nov 26, the team reached the Mumbai coast.
Four nautical miles out, they were met by three inflatable speedboats. They killed the other coast guard officer, transferred into the speedboats and proceeded to Colaba jetty as dusk settled. The Kuber was found later with the body of the 30-year-old captain onboard.
At Badhwar Park in Cuffe Parade – just three blocks away from Nariman House – the 10 men got off, stripped off the orange windbreakers they had been wearing and made sure to take out their large, heavy backpacks. It was there that they were spotted by fisherman Prasan Dhanur, who was preparing his boat, and harbour official Kashinath Patil, 72, who was on duty nearby.
“Where are you going?” Patil asked them. “What’s in your bags?” The men replied: “We don’t want any attention. Don’t bother us.”
Thinking little of it, Dhanur and Patil, who said they did not see the guns hidden in the backpacks, did not call the police, and watched the 10 young men walk away. Then the carnage started.
See: Terrorists Confession
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32047_Mumbai_Terrorists_Confession
See: Terrorists Confession
Someone on the inside helped.
Dec 1, 2008 - 12:55 am 31. Wadeusaf:Pakistan is a failed State.
Where are all the lawyers who were exorcised over Musharrif? Why are they not exorcised over the terrorists in their east and west?
Dec 1, 2008 - 1:20 am 32. Ivan:Ledger, yes these Bradford-Pakistanis just happened to meet a lot of helpful Indians on their way to Bombay. Apparently the Taj is one of the hotels deemed safe enough for visiting US and Israeli delegations, yet the hotel security did not detect the RDX, too busy perhaps doing their checklist. This has the makings of a major snafu on the Indian side. Us Indians have to a have a better system than the one we have now that relies on officers with Kitchener moustaches and baleful looks to scare the baddies.
Dec 1, 2008 - 1:37 am 33. Wadeusaf:Okay, i’ll try it again,
The terror wonk has an interesting anaylsis of the situation.
Ruby: Pakistan is the result of a two state solution.
Dec 1, 2008 - 1:46 am 34. ledger:I agree.
But, don’t fiddle while your Taj Majal burns or you will not survive. Indian’s have plenty of fire power to start eliminating the baddies without out anyone’s help.
Dec 1, 2008 - 3:14 am 35. Fletcher Christian:Wadeusaf – it may well be that the solution turns out to be a one-state one. To be more explicit; one state plus, on its border, an uninhabitable desert. Perhaps the solution might be applied when the wind is ESE?
Dec 1, 2008 - 3:46 am 36. Cannoneer No. 4:If India goes to war against the Paks, or blockades their ports, this lifeline will be broken. So just how do we run the war without this lifeline?
Get new lifelines.
Romania-Georgia-Kazakstan-Turkmenistan. Black Sea and Caspian Sea obstacles. Turkmen could be a problem.
Germany-Poland-Russia-Uzbekistan by rail is already in place, again, with Termez replacing the old Karshi-Khanabad. Subject to extortion from Russia.
Free Baluchistan. Marines to Gwadar. Indian Border Roads Organization builds us an MSR to Kandahar.
While we’re freeing Baluchistan, free Iranian Baluchistan, too. BRO recently built a road across Nimruz connecting the Ring Road to an Iranian port on the Indian Ocean.
Dec 1, 2008 - 4:17 am 37. steveaz:#22, Elroy:
“Pakistan refuses to acknowledge it’s own internal problems[...]”
In this Pakistan resembles Chicago. Both have lost control of their respective jurisdictions, civil servants outnumber private parties, and economic and religious victimology are the rallying cries of the ruling majorities.
Has Daley encouraged the proliferation of criminal gangs in his city? Has the Democratic party trained and funded “Community Organizations” to cause a ruckus and lower the city’s civility? And, have these gangs plied their trade outside of Chicago’s gates, like, in Seattle, or New Jersey, or West Palm Beach County, Florida?
Yes, to all three. Crazy: It’s getting to where “layers of deniability” is a symptom of culpability, guys. Al Gore’s “plausible deniability” is a paper-thin fig-leaf for all this urban racketeering. Let’s not let Columbia U’s shell-games fool us.
Dec 1, 2008 - 6:21 am 38. Mike Sylwester:Pakistan was ruled by a military dictatorship from October 12, 1999, until August 18, 2008, when Pervez Musharraf resigned. Pakistan now has been ruled by a democratically elected government only for the past three months.
During those three months, that democratic government has been waging war effectively and successfully against the country’s radical Moslem groups.
People fighting for democracy are able to fight well and to prevail. People fighting against democracy often switch to the democratic side.
Let’s not blame Pakistan’s democratic government for crimes it did not commit. Let’s give the Pakistanis some more time and our patience as it deals with this difficult situation.
Dec 1, 2008 - 6:29 am 39. Lifeofthemind:@Cannoneer No. 4,
Dec 1, 2008 - 6:40 am 40. Insufficiently Sensitive:Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
Punishing the Pakistanis and Iranians by hiving off a separate Baluchistan may be a clever theoretical response, and it has the added ironic benefit that it was first championed by the Soviets to cause trouble, but given the realities of who is coming into power in the US it simply is not on. The American army can not be supplied at the sufferance of Russia or through the North and the existing routes are not secure. It is now looking like we need to be getting that army out before it gets trapped, unless the Indians decide to dismember Pakistan and ride to the rescue of our cavalry.
The jihadis don’t have any master plan except one: kill as many infidels as they can. Any advantage they obtain is incidental.
No master plan??? Bollocks. Killing infidels is a tactic, worth sacrificing ten jihadis – and the random shooting into crowds cares nothing if some of the faithful are blown away too. The very real advantage they obtain is wholly strategic: the imposition of terror on entire populations, including their elites, who become one degree more paralyzed at each event. Anyone remember how many of America’s heroic First Amendment-defending media organs reproduced the images of the Mohammed cartoons? Lest we forget, about two. Terrorism works.
The drip-drip-drip of MSM stories coverning such events – oh, with such dramatic photos of distressed survivors weeping in each others’ arms, clouds of smoke, and one-sentence clip-quotes from grim helpless leaders and bystanders (and such terrorists as can be quoted) – is part of the process, too.
The Seattle Times is a splendid example of the raw material used by for inspiration by the intrepid makers of the video we see at the top of this article. If you’re interested in how the Mumbai operation developed tactically, the Times of very low value compared to Internet sources such as the Belmont Club. Dramatic content, sure. Random ‘eyewitness’ quotes, half of an entire page, like blind men groping an elephant. The hysterical editors tell us that as many as 16 groups hit at least 10 sites, although their news page had figured out that the lads numbered but 10. Neither editorials nor news pages make a peep about the torture of hostages, Jewish nor gentile. But they make the ritual knowitall attack on the Indians, for failure to anticipate the attack. And they assure us that contrary to earlier reports, it appeared that Westerners were not the gunman’s main targets, carefully excising news of the search by said gunmen for specifically American or British passports among their captives.
No wonder that video hits home – caricature or not, it contains enough perspective on MSM motives to shame the purveyors of news to the masses, if they’re capable of shame.
Certainly the overdramatized and underinformative news media do their bit to spread and advertise the terror and its perpetrators.
Dec 1, 2008 - 6:51 am 41. Ruby:WadeUSAF: Ruby: Pakistan is the result of a two state solution.
So was Jordan after Partition in 1948. Its never good enough. Now the Bush Administration wants the Palestinians to have another state within the quarter of the British Mandate land that was assigned to the Jews. And after that happens, the Arab citizens inside Israel will clamor for a “two state solution” and shave off another piece with the blessing of the US. Now apply this procedure to India. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Dec 1, 2008 - 7:22 am 42. exhelodrvr:Fletcher,
“One way to make a safe corridor would be to render a swathe of Pakistan about 50 miles wide, leading from the coast all the way to Afghanistan, uninhabitable by anyone not wearing a MOPP suit”
Then you can’t bring in supplies over that route.
Dec 1, 2008 - 7:30 am 43. Wadeusaf:The current president of Pakistan is Baluchi. China has finished phase two of an ambitious three part deep water port in Baluchistan.
It is not a mater of loping off a part of Pak, but it may be a matter of survival for Pak, if the choice becomes radical surgery or die.
Dec 1, 2008 - 7:34 am 44. drjohn:Try this metaphor, folks. Islamic violence, all violence, is like a virus, say rinovirus. Final solutions, such as Pauling’s recommendation of massive doses of Vitamin C, do not work. Neither will nuking Pakistan. Final solutions are too costly and do not work. You just can’t get rid of all the (fill in the blank). You can protect yourself to the degree that you reduce the severity or incident of distress. Don’t lick the handles of carts at Walmart; you will get fewer head colds. Do wash your hands more often, and so forth.
Violence is inherent in human beings; Islam encourages the worst in some (most?) people, as did National Socialism, but worse. The enormous increase in wealth in this world allows the technological enabling of those infected by the virus of violence, for whatever reason, to act out.
For example, the American Indians would certainly have wiping out all the buffalo if they could have, or killed all with different nose shapes, languages, however ‘others’ were defined. They, however, being neolithic savages, lacked the wealth and ensuing technology to fulfill their bloody fantasies.
Most Americans have no idea how out of the main stream your notions of diversity, equality, and tolerance are. Hutus kill Tuzis; Shona kill Metabele. And everybody dislikes Baravarians. No excuse is required. Genocide is the norm. The U.S. an aberration, maybe a miracle.
Islam now has wealth to buy the technology they could never devise themselves, and they will, repeat will, use that technology to kill all ‘others.’
We must live with that fact. No Final Solution exists. Extend the virus metaphor to methods of containing, coexisting with Islam.
The demand for paradise on earth leads to horror, the peace of the graveyard. Evil, like any virus, must be contained and restrained, of course; but accept the fact that it is part of the human condition and do not be seduced by final solutions. Again, they are expensive and, most importantly, they don’t work.
Dec 1, 2008 - 8:28 am 45. drjohn:I wash my hands often. And I carry a pistol wherever possible. Same principle applied to different cases.
Dec 1, 2008 - 8:36 am 46. Lifeofthemind:@drjohn,
Dec 1, 2008 - 8:51 am 47. Lifeofthemind:I am not calling for a “final solution” but I am pointing out that you have not made the logical argument that they do not work. If you want your position to be useful or at least worth considering please explicate your core point and then explain how it would result in a different practical outcome. What do you propose that we do besides issue more CCW permits?
@drjohn,
Dec 1, 2008 - 8:54 am 48. Ivan:It should be possible to make an argument that a given result works but is still inadvisable due to other criteriea outside the boundary conditions of the original problem.
Insufficiently sensitive, I’m on the same page as you. My point is that there whatever advantage accrues to the terrorists is incidental to their main goal which is to drink blood and make a splash. They were not looking for a Reichstag fire so that they could take over Pakistan. The Muslim terrorists have no discipline, no rational plan to achieve their goals except to work for chaos. Their masters lack the evil genius of a Hitler or Stalin. Hence the hodge-podge of justifications. They were able to kill so many due to luck, their demonic hatred of infidels, the lethality of modern weapons and most of all the unpreparedness of the Indians. One saw the same phenomena in Iraq, the Al-Queda types couldn’t staunch their bloodlust long enough to stabilise their hold on the local Muslims.
Dec 1, 2008 - 7:44 pm 49. Philip:Mike S. I Think its my mom you are wondering about. In some other comments. I searched the web for her name and found your post. She moved to Sweden 1985 and married my father.
Dec 30, 2008 - 3:59 pmSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.