I sure didn’t expect to be spending Thanksgiving morning sucking down instant coffee and flicking channels between CNN and the BBC. But the attacks in Mumbai are so big and, like they keep saying, “brazen,” that I stayed up late and got up early.
By now we all know the basics: Islamist terrorists swarmed over the rich/tourist parts of Mumbai yesterday, took over two luxury hotels and opened fire in the main train station. They’ve also seized several other buildings, though I still haven’t gotten an accurate count; some reporters were saying there were 17 different attacks in all, others 10.
What’s clear is that this was a labor-intensive enterprise. Terrorism is usually a matter of spending as few of your people as you can, but somebody connected with Al Qaeda or its Pakistani fan club decided to spend a lot of lives here. That’s what’s interesting, looking at these attacks cold-bloodedly.
Suppose you’re an Al Qaeda honcho deciding how to get maximum bang for your resources. Until now the solution has been bombs, most of the time. Because bombs can be planted by a few men, and if they set the timers right and keep a low profile, there’s a good chance those men will get away to plant more bombs another day. And since good men are hard to find, especially good men willing to risk having their fingernails pulled out in a police basement, that’s the way most terrorist movements decide to go.
Not this time. If these guys sent men to ten different locations in Mumbai, they spent a lot of lives. They’d have to assume that none of these men will come back alive. About half will die, and the rest will get some serious interrogation, then be shot “trying to escape” or be thrown into a deep, dark cell if they’re very lucky.
Suppose they sent ten men to each location. You need numbers for this sort of frontal assault in a heavily policed city, so that seems like a good number. Even if the real number turns out to be lower, say seven men to each location, that’s 70 supporters’ lives spent in one raid. Not the sort of thing that makes your Human Resources manager happy.
But it comes down to what you might as well call market forces, and in those terms it makes perfect sense. Supply and demand. Supply: it looks like the gunmen came from Pakistan by ship. Supplies of dumb triggerhappy young Pakistanis in a hurry to find martyrdom are basically infinite. Thanks to the CIA, ISI and Saudi funding, there are now more than 4000 madrassas, martyrdom academies, in Pakistan. They’re like the only rec centers da yout’ have there, and they work overtime convincing Pakistan’s young, restless and stupid that volunteering for a suicide mission is like winning a free cruise. Which, if these guys really did come by sea, it was.
Now quality, that’s a different issue. How much is the life of one of these cannon-fodder kids worth, to the movement? That depends on a lot of factors. If you’re that Al Qaeda HR manager and you had to construct your dream recruit, he’d speak unaccented American or British English; he’d be white, or East Asian looking; he’d be comfortable in urban/yuppie life anywhere in the West; he’d have a cool head, know how to smile like a car salesman all the time and talk sports; and underneath he’d have total Terminator dedication to the cause and be immune to the attractions of the evil world you’d be sending him to infiltrate.
But when you look at the recruits the madrassas in Pakistan have been turning out, you see how far short of those goals these rookies are. Most of them are slum kids or village kids who like the free food and the idea of shooting people, the two things any teenage boy is naturally drawn to. They’re willing to pull a trigger and they’re dumb enough to volunteer; that’s about all you can say for them. All kids are game, but that doesn’t mean they got game. These guys don’t know how to blend in the airport world, the business world; they don’t speak English at all, or if they do it’s the sort of mangled Rawalpindi English that sets red lights blinking at every border checkpoint in the world. They look Pakistani, and not that pale, tall kind you get with elite Pakistanis like that cricket guy. They’ve still got plow dirt under their fingernails.
In other words, these are your human resources and they’re, let’s say, of limited value. They’ll never be James al-Bond moles infiltrating Wall Street and the FBI. They’re dumb as mud bricks. But they’re also brave and willing to kill. How do you use assets like that? Not in the classic Al Qaeda way, sending them in one or two at a time to liaise with local Islamists and prepare for the traditional strike where five bombs go off at once. They don’t have the finesse. They’d be spotted as soon as they showed.
But there are a lot of them. You couldn’t get them into Manhattan, or London, but there is a soft target much closer to Pakistan where lots of American and British people hang out. Better yet, it’s the financial heart of India, Pakistan’s hated enemy, which gets the ISI on your side because nothing infuriates the Pakistani intelligence elite more than watching India get rich and popular while Pakistan sinks into miserable chaos.
Now when I say this gets the ISI on the attackers’ side, I’m not saying that every single ISI honcho in Pakistan knew and rubberstamped this plan on official ISI letterhead. Nothing is that simple in Pakistan. Everything is murky in Pakistan, even the air is pure murk. It’s more like some ISI honcho knows about the plan, gives it the unofficial nod of approval and passes it to some poor loser who’s expendable, who can be hanged or handed over to the Western “allies” when it’s all over as the traitor who collaborated with these evil militants.
This cutout lowlevel official sees to it that the ship leaving Karachi full of young, dumb, bloodthirsty madrass products doesn’t get stopped by customs. It steams down the west coast of India right up to the peninsula where all the high-value targets in Mumbai are concentrated. And if you look at a map of Mumbai (for the next few days you’ll have no problem finding maps of Mumbai), you see how easy it would be to land small boats from a ship off the peninsula by night.
The reason this was such a good plan is that it maximized the Islamists’ local assets. These guys aren’t smooth enough to get through normal hotel security to plant a bomb, but they didn’t have to be. They just stormed in through the front door, firing at full automatic.
That’s why this talk about whether security at the hotels was adequate is ridiculous. Hotel security is aimed at stopping sneak attacks, bomb-planters. To stop the sort of heavily-armed suicide squads that hit these hotels, you’d need a full platoon of infantry.
So what you see here is something economists would understand as well or better than traditional military analysts. I hate to sound cold-blooded, putting it this way, but what happened is that Pakistan’s islamists had a surplus of raw labor, and thought of a way to get it to a place where it maximized its global value in terms of pure blood and destruction.
Gary Brecher is the author of the War Nerd. Send your comments to brecher@exiledonline.com.
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139 Comments
Add your own1. Indy | November 27th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Quite a good read
2. Mark | November 27th, 2008 at 10:19 am
I wonder when the rich elites will start to regret their condoning of a festering underclass in their midst…
3. Anders | November 27th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Wouldn’t this be doable with fewer people than 70? The JRA airport attack you’ve written about previously only used up 3 terrorists if I recall correctly and that was a big success. Maybe JRA recruits are of higher quality or something. I’m guessing no figures have been made public, and I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway.
This thing is a great example of how well and truly fucked the west and affiliated countries are when it comes to the intelligence game, which is the only game that matters, really. First of all, you’re right about there being no question about the ISI backing this, at least tacitly. Anyone who doubts that they knew about it is insane. Secondly, is there any way to effectively infiltrate the madrasa world? I guess not since it’s possible to put a huge thing like this together without anyone running their mouth within earshot of anyone reporting to a western intelligence agency.
Great article, as always.
4. svealander | November 27th, 2008 at 10:46 am
looks like it’s from the same stable as the Indian Parliament attack in 2001. No bombs, just suicide squads.
5. Alok | November 27th, 2008 at 11:52 am
It has been tried before, in smaller numbers at Akshardham, Gujarat, at malls in Delhi, and possibly in a failed attempt, at Bangalore as well (the IISc shooting). Most of these were 2-3 guys with a grenade or two and an Ak-47 running amok in a fairly crowded place.
I guess AQ/LeT saw that bombs were becoming quite passe, what with high level security everywhere important, and blase indifference in most places (most markets where bombs were placed reopened the day after). So they wanted to hit hard again, and so another ‘spectacular’.
Expect no reprisals though. Expect a lot of hot air expended in the next few days “condemning”, and calling them cowards and what else and what not. Some poor sods will get picked for being too Muslim, too male and young enough, disappear and re-appear on the headlines as “encounter kills terrorists”. Mumbaikars and other Indians will shrug and hope that their karma will see them getting killed by diabetes rather than terrorists.
Unfortunately for the rest of India, security at most Governmental buildings and MPs’ living quarters continues to remain tight.
6. nick | November 27th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
As usual, the War Nerd is not only spot on, but gets me in stitches as well!!
7. Edmond Dusa | November 27th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Your right again Gary.
These men are(where) of the lowest possible quality. Very poorly trained and led. Any self respecting terrorist organisation would be ashamed of stats like these.
Consider the given: On one side you have a couple of million of unarmed civilans concentrated in a highly dense urban area.
On the other let’s say 70 men armed with AK’s with say 100 rounds of ammo at bare minimum.
Result: They manage to get a two civilians for every one of them killed. They fail to deliver any meaningful grievence message or compelling argument and they corner themselfs into an area that is virtually undefendable from Indian troops.
This operation must be ranked amongst the most stupid and pointless terrorist attack of all time. This makes Bush’s plan for Iraq look semi pro. He at least managed to rack up a respectable body count.
8. Leper | November 27th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
A nice analysis of the attacks.
As you point out, there isn’t really an effective defense against such brute force, low tech attacks. All that’s really needed is the troops, their weapons, reasonable target selection and the logistics to get them to their targets. Sure its easy to increase the amount of security around some high value targets, however its infeasible to sufficiently guard all potential targets.
As others have noted, expect plenty of condemnation and security theatre in response to these attacks. Apart from increasing its intelligence resources to monitor the madrassas, there isn’t much else the Indians can do.
9. Dammerung | November 27th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Can we please replace Gates with Gary Brecher now?
10. Required | November 27th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
You don’t know WTF you’re talking about. And the commenters who think it’s a “good read” should pick up a fucking newspaper and read the fuck up on world issues rather than reading some shithead vomit all over the intarwebs.
cheers.
11. dermot | November 27th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
@ Required:
Go back to your pod, citizen, and keep munching the blue pills. Your trusted MSM overlords will keep you happily blinkered.
“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.” — Mark Twain.
12. Nestor | November 27th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
They actually had one of those in that “American Taliban” kid who was captured in Afghanistan, they didn’t seem to see his potential (Or, more probably didn’t trust him as anything but a grunt)
13. xaipe | November 27th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Well written, but I’ve got to disagree. I don’t think Al Qaeda had anything to do with this. This is an Indian domestic issue, and a direct result of having over 150 million Indian Muslims who are sick of being kicked around by wealthy and/or radical Hindus.
14. doctor k | November 27th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
the people who managed to blow up the world trade center were the ‘dream recruits.’ they managed to live in their target country for several months, get pilot training, and board the same flights without so much as an inquisitive ‘hrm’ in their direction. the american taliban was just a dumb white kid in the completely wrong place at the worst possible time.
15. Paul | November 27th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
another good read by the War Nerd.
fuckin quality man, quality
16. xyz | November 27th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
@Xaipe,
You have no clue what you are talking about or you are just a paki/muslim. In India Muslims have all the rights we Hindus have and more. In no part of India are the Muslims discriminated against except perhaps Kashmir. But the Kashmiri muslims are to blame for this, having initiated a pogrom against Kashmiri Hindus. Hell Muslims India have more special rights than anybody.
@Gary
Gary is clueless as well on this. He is completely lost when it comes to Indo-Pak issues, simply because he has zero knowledge of the historical complexities. Frankly the Al Qaeda is blamed too much for everything. They are not that bright or efficient. This operation was surely planned by the ISI and executed by some variant of Let, Jaish or Indian Mujahideen.
Going by the nature of the attacks, these were not ill trained bumbling village idiots. This operation was executed with tremendous precision and military style professionalism.
@Edmond Dusa
This was a very successful operation. It is not easy to kill even unarmed civilians at a train station. Mumbaikars know to duck and run away from gun shots and not stand around. It also seems that the intent was not just killing civilians but to spread panic and then go for the high profile symbolic targets – Two hotels, a hospital, ATS headquarters and Jewish community center. The city was brought to a standstill for two days. You western city slickers have no idea of the resilience of India and Mumbai, it is not easy to bring down this city for 2 days. Symbolism is everything. On that front the Paki terrorists scored a home run. Lastly the casualty figure is bound to go up.
I agree with others who have said nothing will change in terms of security policy. Indian politicians are busy appeasing Muslims and even terrorist organisations like SIMI all with the intent of getting the 150million Muslim votes. I hang my head in shame as I watch the weak power hungry politicians castrate my country’s will to fight.
17. Merc | November 27th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Interesting read. It makes sense. Al Qaeda had a bunch of raw teens and didn’t want to waste any of their more experienced manpower. They also sent a message to the ISI – “do you really want to help the Americans fight us in the mountains?” India is powerless to stop these types of assualts. So if the ISI does nothing to help the US fight the Taliban, India will get hit. If the ISI does help, Pakistan will get hit. There’s politics for you – pure, simple and to the point.
18. wYSe Guy | November 27th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
@ xyz
I’m a Muslim. Is there a problem with that?
19. swaps | November 27th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
This attack is linked to Marriot bombing in Islamabad. ISI wants to show that India is as vulnerable as Pakistan – typical of them, always comparing against India. These guys are obsessed with us.
Also, they were frustrated that elections in Kashmir saw high turnout. Ideally they would have loved to have Kashmiris boycott the elections. But the huge turnout was construed as a slap on their faces.
20. ibtrippen | November 27th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
@xyz
I remember a little something about that brotherly love you guys show each other.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/world/newsid_1854000/1854366.stm
One train burns–turns out to be an accident–and the Hindu politicians start an anti-Muslim riot.
21. abc | November 27th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
i fully agree with xyz
thanks pal, whatever religion you follow when it comes to India it doesn’t matter.
the problem with pakistan is that you got to fight a state within the state.
the elected government there does not have control on it’s own militery wings wich take any colour it wants for the time.
22. Sriram | November 28th, 2008 at 12:00 am
In terms of an attack strategy (given the limitations you’ve stated), it’s a good tactic because it shows how hours of mental gridlock can be acheived – a bomb goes off, and Mumbai goes to work the next day. Here, TV news media and twitter culture have put everyone on shutdown mode. I’m not sure what the total number of terrorists involved are, but they’ve holed up for a really long time now, and everyone who’s following this story is emotionally exhausted.
Some people are calling it India’s 9/11, and a lot of people are feeding into this frenzy. I hope India doesn’t respond the way America did – that would be stupid, but it begs the question, what can a country like India do against a terrorist attack like this? It seems impossible to prepare against.
23. Raad | November 28th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Wow didn’t figure we had Indian trolls on this site but goddamn the world is full of surprises.
24. wYSe Guy | November 28th, 2008 at 12:51 am
@ Raad
Dude, I should warn you that once you get South Asians out on a comments page, they ain’t gonna stop.
@xyz And his camp followers; I repeat, is there a problem if I am Muslim?
“You have no clue what you are talking about or you are just a paki/muslim”
So if some one disagrees with you, they are either ignorant, or a Muslim, which makes them irrelevant. Is that what you are saying?
That the fact of being a Muslim makes their opinion irrelevant?
In the last 15 years of the internet, we have seen hardcore bigotry amongst Americans of the KKK, White Supremacist kind decline precipitously as the internets streams of information broke these prejudices down. Thus we have seen the power of white supremacy decline. In my life I have seen Islamic extremists soften their hard edges, is it impossible to believe that the World Wide Web has not done the same for hard-core views of other kinds?
25. Edmond Dusa | November 28th, 2008 at 1:36 am
@Xaipe
The potential for damage by a force of 70 well armed men in an urban very highly populated area is enormous. In fact you need not really have to have a well armed force. A force of 70 men with manchetes could produce spectacular results. Just ask the Rwandan death squads. All you need is training, dedication and leadership.
The fact that the town grind to a halt is a given. That would have been achieved no matter how stupid the terrorists where. There is bound to be panic in situations like these.
The success of an terrorist attack has to be measured on some kind of scale. You put in men, material, planning and you get out fame, fear, an overreaction or just publicity. You make your opponent think about why this happened and force attention to your cause.
On the above scale this operation was a complete failure. Unless the indian goverment does something stupid like start a war with north korea things will calm down and the shear incompetence of these guys become more apperent.
26. burbl | November 28th, 2008 at 1:44 am
“I repeat, is there a problem if I am Muslim?”
Likely, but it’s YOUR problem: you gonna be forever in deep shit!
Since you ask for it…
27. Simon | November 28th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Looks like there were about 30 terrorists, not 70-100. From their pictures they look more like middle-class students than peasants.
I’m sceptical that there are many in the ISA who want to start a Pakistan-India nuclear war, which would destroy Pakistan and leave India mostly intact. I can see how Al Qaeda might like the idea of ‘martyring’ Pakistan, but a fully mobilised India would eventually occupy AQ’s home base in the Pashtun belt.
28. Alex | November 28th, 2008 at 2:02 am
Mildly racist and presumptuous:
“They’re dumb as mud bricks.”
I’d go and say that these guys are better educated just because they are Indian/Pakistani, taking into consideration how strict their education system is.
I’m not Indian/Pakistani or Muslim.
29. wengler | November 28th, 2008 at 2:12 am
I think this, even more so than bombings, is the type of attack that makes people piss their pants. You want to make people shake for weeks? You attack multiple targets, both high-value symbolic targets and those with large amounts of people and just watch the chaos ensue.
People seem to forget but what put hysteria in this country over the edge was not necessarily the hijack attacks but the anthrax attacks after them. People were scared to go get the mail, and beyond that they didn’t know when it was OK to feel safe again. Mumbai wasn’t bustling after these attacks because some madrassa graduate with an AK could still burst through the door and start taking out people at the train station or the bus stop.
Al Qaeda thrived on the cinematic flair of their attacks. It’s like they watched crappy American action movies and then ordered their subordinates to recreate it. This is just teenagers shooting up civies. A far more frightening prospect for most people because this one can be replayed over and over and over again all across the country. In a sense it feels more like a siege than a one-off terrorist attack. The hostage taking is an interesting touch that seems more pragmatic than planned.
If I was in India, I would be locking down those coastal cities right now. I would guess an encore is planned, and soon, in order to most effectively sow the seeds of panic.
30. wYSe Guy | November 28th, 2008 at 2:17 am
a lockdown would mean the terrorists have won…
btw, apparently since the (former) ussr was india’s ally, this website seems to have atracted a lot of Indians
31. chrsux | November 28th, 2008 at 2:24 am
@Alex
He’s not talking about Indian/Pakistani public school students. He’s talking about the madrassa students in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan. They really are idiots.
32. Edmond Dusa | November 28th, 2008 at 2:40 am
@wengler
You forget that not all people react like Americans would. Not all people in the world shit their pants when someone commits a terrorist attack against their town or country. Indians are not known for their paranoid nature. Consider that more people die in Mumbai from traffic accidents and tainted food monthly then from this terrorist attack. If anything this has given India more respect and empathy from the world. Also, nobody gives a flying fuck about muslims in the border areas of india/pakistan. You can call it racism or whatever you want but some areas of the world are of no importance. This is not high value land we are talking about. There is no golden mosque, temple mount and 2000 years worth of grievences. This one will be filed under crazy terrorists kill civilians for bullshit reasons no one cares about.
33. techno | November 28th, 2008 at 2:44 am
““I repeat, is there a problem if I am Muslim?”
Likely, but it’s YOUR problem: you gonna be forever in deep shit! Since you ask for it…”
Gentlemen please. Religion is a piss-poor basis for a generalization. Take American Protestants, for example. On one hand, you have highly educated people who are stunning examples of virtuous living. On the other, we have kooks who disbelieve evolution, thinks the state of Israel will be linked in a chain of events that will cause their God to re-appear, believe their crucified Christ would support capital punishment, etc. etc.
My guess is that the ranges of behavior within the Muslim and Hindu traditions are at LEAST as wide.
Always remember, only economics is worth fighting over. Religion is merely something to do to please your mother.
34. ElmerShmelmer | November 28th, 2008 at 2:55 am
interesting POV regarding the human resources of it all – and very relevant I dare say. You had some conflicting points which still work well together: you regard them as dumb as bricks, but they were educated in Madrassas, so their demeanour would be of educated students – with a myopic world view. I cannot understand some commenters’ negative feedback.
From my armchair’s point of view the MO seems to be similar to the Beslan and Moscow theatre tragedies without the long hangover. I think there are some Russian Islamist fundies spilling over to India.
Wahhabism has been rising for 2 centuries from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan (read The White Mughals) and from what I gather most moderate Muslims are wary of their weird ways. They’re like the bigoted, intolerant, militant, bible-thumping, evangelical christians in the US who believe in Intelligent Design.
The CIA used to support and fund christian groups evangelising in Eastern Europe during the cold war. It’s not a stretch to think that they funded Wahhabis infiltrating Islamic Russia and China since the being kicked in the ass by China in the Korean Conflict and Vietnam War. I’m sure this has created a resilient, latent network centred around transoxania that is going to be hard to eradicate unless the security forces of the most stable countries in the region work together to contain this powder keg.
35. zealot | November 28th, 2008 at 3:24 am
that ISI is involved is a given, but i see all sort’s of interpretations on ‘why’.
so here’s mine.
they took some serious risk of heating up rleationships here, but that’s ok. pakistan is falling apart, so awakening a big enemy to have your nation, and the fractious govt, flock back under the protective wings of ISI/military makes perfect sense.
but it also sends a warning of what will happen if pakistan does disintegrate. see, obama, as soon as you put your but in that oval office, stop those drones and incursions, ’cause they’re seriously cramping our style here and we just might have the country slide out of control. and that’s what it’s going to look like in terms of flying splinters.
it could also remind the indians ‘better the devil you know’, although i dont know if they’ll get that.
for these reasons, i’d think this was authorised pretty high.
36. burbl | November 28th, 2008 at 4:01 am
@techno
“Always remember, only economics is worth fighting over. Religion is merely something to do to please your mother.”
Fully agree about economics, and that was more a “philosophical” remark.
I actually have no objection as to what muslims, hindus or any other kind of fundamentalists are doing, since we have a bit of an overpopulation problem some “group-level” Darwin Awards would seem quite welcome.
Of course that could be seen as some sort of waste but arent’t (as they always have been) young testosterone loaded morons an expandable ressource?
37. Nestor | November 28th, 2008 at 4:07 am
You can be educated to within an inch of your life and still be dumb as a post.
38. Plamen Petkov | November 28th, 2008 at 4:07 am
fine analysis, but I am forced to ask:
So Gary, you actually believe a super secret everywhere at once, can’t never catch them but somehow they are always there organization called the toilet as presented in the Western media really does exist?
Man, and I expected you to be above all US propaganda. Shame.
39. mitchell porter | November 28th, 2008 at 4:32 am
I disagree with the analysis. As others have said, these attackers were most likely educated Indian Islamists, not uneducated Pakistani infiltrators. The stereotypical mass-produced jihadi, whose only virtues are an ability to shoot and a willingness to die, would be more use on a battlefield like pre-9/11 Afghanistan, not in an urban operation like this.
So why the huge expenditure of valuable manpower? My interpretation draws an analogy with the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. That was also an audacious operation, and it came just a month after the fall of Kabul. I figure that was the work of someone in or around the ISI (we really need to get a grip on just who or what the ultra-jihad faction in Pakistani deep politics is), who had just lost their best strategic asset (Taliban Afghanistan and all its training camps, which were patronized by the Kashmiri groups just as they were patronized by everyone else), and decided to implement their doomsday operation.
I suspect that this is the same thing over again, only this time the “asset” being lost is the political freedom to operate in Pakistan, as the post-Musharraf government finally starts to squeeze the ultra-jihad faction. Just last weekend the closure of the ISI’s political wing was announced. I can’t say if that was the catalyst, or if it was just one step in a larger process. But that’s my theory: a controller in Pakistan gave the signal for his Indian networks to carry out the big one, as the political tide at home turned against him.
40. imperial | November 28th, 2008 at 4:42 am
@wyse guy
your rant is a sign of the education u recieved in karachi streets. i hope un or some other agency on whose handouts ur country is surviving picks up ur education tab. on the other hand its pretty interesting to sit back and watch the muck your two countries (which we partitioned incidentally) throw at each other. still india got out of the partition hangover but ur country still and would remain consigned in the dustbins of history.
41. Alok | November 28th, 2008 at 4:52 am
The ISI is sending its chief to help India with the intelligence gathering efforts this time… WTF???
If there was any further confirmation required that the ISI is bent on going rogue, this is it.
Note also that when the Parliament was attacked we mobilized and headed off to the Western border with Pakistan hellbent on war. It’s a different matter that when the military got there, the politicos chickened out, and settled for angry words
This time we’ll be lucky if they remember it till the end of next month. That too only because American and other foreigners were killed in the attack.
Don’t expect much of a “response”…
42. Useless 2 Society | November 28th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Bring it On Osama!!!
Way To Go Muzzies!!! Woo Hoo!!!
Sorry but I’m an I.T. guy in Europe who is (was) worried about my job going to India. Now with this cool shit happening, Western business will think twice before replacing me with some curryhead.
Thank You Osama for saving my job.
43. coldequation | November 28th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Gary, do you have anything to say about the reprisals that took place when the Muzzies burnt a trainload of Hindus in 2002?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102501829.html
Here’s an Indian guy who says that the threat of reprisals is the only thing that keeps the Muslims in line in India:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/003862.html
But if he’s right at all, it obviously doesn’t work 100%.
44. boris | November 28th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Hey ” Nick” (no.6) you’re from England, right? Otherwise your name wouldn’t be Nick.
Anyway, don’t say “spot on.” It annoys me.
( I wonder if you also say ” You what?” where most people would say, ” What’s that?” or “What did you say?” Or ” Huh?”)
Man I hate it when the English say ” spot on” or “You what?” Another one I hate is when you say to them, for example, ” Are you going to eat those chips?” as in potato chips and they say, ” I might do.”
45. Rayoslav | November 28th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Brilliant!
46. thomzas | November 28th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
War on drugs – Reagan
War on terror – Bush
Maybe the US should pick a war they stand a chance of winning next time?
47. Marignac | November 28th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I just dug this one. So hot, so cool. Those guys aren’t as bad as some figure them out to be. They killed their share of Indian SF today. Judjing byt the guy in the Versace t-shirt ‘s smirk I wonder what they were on. Cristal Meth ? What do you say WN ? i had that same question for Mohammed Atta…
48. nick | November 28th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
To Boris (yes, you number 44)
let me guess – you are from magnitogorsk? otherwise you’d probably know that CHIPS is the only acceptable term for what is otherwise known as FRENCH FRIES (excuse me – FREEDOM fries), which is usually eaten not with ghastly ketchup but with vinegar and possibly mayo. and with regards to SPOT ON, well, you’re SPOT OFF I’m afraid. Suggest you leave your Walenki behind and move on to the XXI century
49. Anon of Florida | November 28th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Any opinion on Chechen involvement? Or any state involvement other than the usual Pakistatni kind? The official wire http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7752625.stm suggest that there were ‘fair-skinned’ shooters “”They did not look Indian, they looked foreign. One of them, I thought, had blonde hair. The other had a punkish hairstyle. They were neatly dressed,” says Mr Amir. “.
50. Greg | November 28th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Honestly, I think this is a strategic diversion made by a non-pakistani group. The attack, even if it was basic and small, would bring India to assume Pakistani involvement. An attack this big would almost guarantee it in their minds. Pakistan is being pressured by the US to move troops from the border with India to help fight their fight in the North. This attack will cause Pakistan to replay its classic fears of an Indian attack, which they now expect as they know India assumes Pakistan to be responsible, and as a result will keep troops or increase troop levels along the border with India. This gives foreign fighters who have left Iraq to join the resurgent movement in northern pakistan and parts of afghanistan against the main enemy: The US.
By exploiting the region’s traditional security relationship, foreign extremists could potentially increase their per-man power in the primary area of interest with one diversionary strike with a large group of men.
But that was just my initial reaction. We’ll see what happens. Reports claim Pakistan and India are working on intelligence, but that may just be press release material. Senior Indian officials have been claiming meanwhile ‘sophisticated’ backing, probably from Pakistan. This would be the beginning.
51. shMiller | November 28th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Wish I had time to make a real substantive comment …
a really well done piece of editorial-Journalism. I learned more from reading it than I would from watching “CNN” or “Fox” or some other clueless shit for 2 hours …
52. Sam | November 28th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
The Indian gov’t sacrificed everybody in the Orthodox Jewish center there. They got impatient and came rappeling down from helicopters for the news cameras and smashed in the upper floor doors so the jihadis had plenty of time to kill their hostages.
It’s hard to see what could have saved American Chabad Rabbi Gavriel Holzberg and his Israeli wife Rivka since they were such a designated enemy i.e., of a sect that supports and peoples West Bank settlements.
53. Raad | November 28th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
OH GOD DISABLE COMMENTS FOR THE LOVE OF CTHULHU SHUT IT DOWN
54. Dave | November 28th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Astute observations as always Gary.
India’s not in a happy place right now. Between this, the incident with its frigate last week, elections in Kashmir, what little stability Pakistan has had going ass up with nukes zeroed in on Delhi, the economic crisis (It doesn’t take much to imagine what’ll happen in India when US consumers start cutting their spending) and you have a recipe for disaster.
It’s going to be an interesting place to watch, and it could get scary fast. There’s a whole mass of people on the subcontinent that have been really quiet for a long time. If the wheels fall of this wagon we could be looking at a real disaster.
I mean Radical Islam really got off to a bang out of nowhere in 79, I wonder if something like that could happen in India? Or maybe I’m just paying attention to the bad news since that’s what makes it to this side of the world. I dunno.
55. xyz | November 28th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
@ibtrippen
I am an Indian and I remember the events of 2002 very well. I dont need a lame amateurish BBC article to remind me of the riots. But my guess you get all your information from these sources. In any other country if people are burnt alive in a train, the minority community would be lynched. The train burning was no accident as subsequent judicial inquiries have established. One should also remember past terrorist acts committed by Islamic fanatics like Bombay blasts of 1993, the attack on Parliament, attacks on Hindu temple in Akshardham etc. The fact is that Hindus have shown tremendous patience and willingness to accommodate the Muslims. I will not call Muslims terrorists but there is a larger base of fanatics who implicitly support the terrorists. Time for the brotherly love to truly come to an end.
56. xyz | November 28th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I have read plenty of criticism of the Indian response. An Israeli paper suggested the action was too hasty. The Israeli expert feels that the NSG commandos should have taken their time. Honestly this was not a standard hostage situation. When the terrorists shoot indiscriminately in a train station, two hotels and even a hospital (they even tried to blast open the doors to the maternity ward), then the commandos will have to act under the assumption that the terrorists were not looking for hostages but to kill and kill dramatically. Frankly Israel has had it easy on terrorism front. They dont face the same international pressure or criticism when tough action is take. Israel can freely bomb suspected terrorists and kill civilians in the process and yet not face any international repercussions. India is caught in a farmore deadly situation and Israels experience is a bit irrelevant.
57. Observer | November 28th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I found this fascinating:
“News HomeWorldAsia
Mumbai terrorists let go 17 Russian hostages
Friday, November 28, 2008 14:46 [IST]
Moscow: Terrorists holed up inside Mumbai’s Taj and Trident-Oberoi hotels allowed 17 Russian hostages, including nine defence contractors, to leave after checking their passports, following which they were safely evacuated.
Earlier yesterday, spokesman of Russian arms exporting company Rosoboronexport had confirmed that nine of its specialists working on various defence projects in India were safely evacuated from the Taj hotel.
According to the Kommersant daily, eight crew members of Russian Aeroflot airlines dining in the restaurant of Trident-Oberoi were also “politely asked” to follow the hotel staff, who guided them to safety outside the hotel.”
So, whoever was behind this didn’t want to piss off Russia. Interesting – you would think that garden variety Islamicists would have been happy to shoot Russians in revenge for Chechnya.
58. Sam | November 28th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Is this what Russia gets for being Iran’s friend? The Sunni/Shia difference makes it not that simple.
59. RobertD | November 28th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
It’s inevitable that all the initial finger-pointing will be directed at Pakistan. We’re talking about an unstable country with a long history of grieviances against India, and a proven track record of insurgent activity. There is an ongoing dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir province that threatens to boil over into violence at any time. India and Pakistan just plain don’t like each other.
This is the stance that the Indian government are going to take. This is the stance that the Indian media will take. And the US government, which has its own axe to grind with Pakistan right now, is probably going to endorse the general point of view. It’s inevitable then, that the western media, which has long since ceased to conduct serious investigations into Middle Eastern affairs, will fall into line with the “official” opinion.
Blaming Pakistan will suit everybodies’ agendas just fine. It’s not going to be hard to stick them in the frame, evidence or no evidence. The assumption of wrong-doing is already there.
But lets not get too hasty here.
When you’re dealing with violent insurgency the most obvious answer isn’t always the right answer. Especially when everybody is hollering about blame before any evidence has even come to light. Tracking the various strands of militant activity in the Middle East is horrendously complex. You’ve got literally scores of insurgency movements, all with their own little agendas and grieviances. It’s an obscure and messy business.
It’s not so widely reported, and the Indian government doesn’t like to talk about it too much, but India itself has become a hot breeding ground for terrorism in recent years. I’m talking about Indian terrorists born and raised on Indian soil and willing to use violence against the Indian government. Not infiltrators from Pakistan or some other outside source. Hell, the Indian President, Pratibha Patil, has already been on the blower telling anybody who’ll listen that Mumbai was an outside job. That should tell you all you need to know. Quick! – blame Pakistan before people start talking about the fact that India itself is a seething hotbed of violence and hatred.
What you’ve got to understand about India is that this country has been under the control of the Hindi elite for good number of years now, and that the Hindi elite are strongly associated with the economic right and in favour of western integration. India is also going through a heavy period of economic development. That’s great news for the Hindi elite, who are growing wealthy from foreign investment, but bad news for everybody else, especially the Muslim underclass, which is overwhelmingly impoverished and has no participation in the economic growth. We’re talking about a nation with a huge, insurmountable gulf in the division of wealth – one of the most alarming gaps between rich and poor in all the world. When you’ve got a situation like that, there will always be some folks who get mighty angry about it. Folks who’re just plain tired of trying to scratch a living out of growing lentils in the muddy backstreets of some provincial village, and have decided that the best way forward is to take up an AK-47 assault rifle and unleash a little bit of the old ultra-violence against the Hindi masters.
There are now literally hundreds of seperate militant insurgency groups active in India. Indian terrorists, operating on Indian soil. In fact, it’s estimated that some 232 of the country’s 608 districts are afflicted by some level of insurgency at any one time. Those were the figures in 2006 at any rate. Hey, not all of that activity can be funded by Pakistan. The ISI doesn’t have that much spare cash to throw around.
I find stories of Pakistani naval invasions highly unlikely. Ships don’t just waltz into Indian ports from Pakistan and drop off armed insurgents. Yes, Indian authorities have begun investigating Pakistani shipping, but as yet have uncovered no evidence to suggest that this is indeed the source of the attacks. For another thing, witnesses report that the militant gunmen were speaking Hindi with each other. Unlikely, if we are supposed to be dealing with Pakistani militants here, who would surely communicate in Urdu.
Yes, Indian leaders have already clamoured to claim that the attacks derived from an “outside source” (ie Pakistan). Obviously, it’s preferable to blame an outside source than to admit that India itself has extremely troubling internal problems and issues with their own insurgent groups.
But surely it’s easier for local groups to strike within their own country than it is for foreign groups to infiltrate and then strike a neighbouring country. It’s hardly the frist time that Indian insurgents have struck on their own soil. Indian Mujahideen is well established across the country.
Indian Mujahideen, of course, is not exactly a small organisation. It has been growing all the time.They’ve got links with scores of insurgent groups across the country, and access to weapons and equipment. They are very capable. By the way, a group known as Deccan Mujahideen – a group linked with Indian Mujahideen (and an Indian, not Pakistani group) have already laid claim to the attack:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP200405.htm
None of the evidence so far points towards this being a Pakistani operation at all. there’s no reason to believe that there is an “Al Qaeda” involvement here. What’s left of that organisation (or at least its spiritual successors) is tied up in Iraq. They are not in India. Indian Mujahideen is surely perfectly capable of doing something on this scale on their own. They don’t need Al Qaeda and they probably don’t even need the ISI at this stage. That everybody is surprised by the scale of these events is perhaps in itself cause to suspect that India has spent far too much time worrying about dissident activity in Pakistan and not nearly enough time worrying about activity within its own borders.
60. Observer | November 28th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
The Pakistani “cannon fodder kids” theory is looking pretty wobbly. Not only did the terrorists demonstrate a high level of training and professionalism, but according to the UK Telegraph, some of the terrorists were British, and the Indians have captured at least five Blackberries (not a big item in rural Pakistan), which the terrorists were using to monitor Urdu and Arabic web sites in England.
61. Thomas | November 28th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
@ xyz
If the “brotherly love” ends, then India will face a civil war in which a good 14.4% percent of the population would have to be ethnically cleansed. I doubt that would be a good thing for India.
I will agree that the attacks are horrible, but they can be better withstood than a costly civil war which would kill off/run off a large percentage of the population and make the country a complete and utter mess for decades (at best) or generations to come.
62. abc | November 28th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
blaming Pakistan !
wich Pakistan!
the one wich claims as the legitimate government or the one wich does not have a face to show!.
as for Israle Please consider that you don’t have to confront the world opinion and the terror at the same time.
India does not have that luxury !
63. TB003 | November 28th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
ITT: Internet Tough Guys.
64. Stephen | November 29th, 2008 at 1:23 am
I have been waiting for the time when I can sit down with a big bowl of popcorn and watch a spectacular full scale Indo-Pakistani nuke war for a long time now. But I have learnt not to get my hopes up and become too pptimistic every time tensions in the region get a bit high. The most we can probably expect are some muslim masacrering riots. The politicians will probably escalate troop numbers a bit before backing down and realising they want things to return to normal.
65. Karen | November 29th, 2008 at 2:27 am
I think it is ridiculous that the writer of this post is falling prey to cheap stereotypes. it should not be assumed that every terrorist in bombay yday was ‘as dumb as a mud brick’, after all they did manage to play a 3 day long game with every task force in bombay. i cannot gurantee you that every boy/girl coming out of a madrassa turns out into a terrorist and neither can you, so that a false accusation to make. this tragedy couldn’t have been averted but our Indian forces could have been better equipped which could have atleast lessened the impact of the tragedy. It is very prejudiced of the writer to assume that the terrorists were ‘rawalpindi living mangled english speaking village idiots’, it is not only poor village people who go to madrassas and get brainwashed, even though it maybe easy to presume that the uneducated are more vulnerable than the educated, bush and many like him have proved that point wrong.”……..and they work overtime convincing Pakistan’s young, restless and stupid that volunteering for a suicide……”- it is unfair to blame every pakistani of terrorism. this article whos mr gary’s underlying hostility towards muslims, not just pakistani’s. i know a lot of pakistani’s who condemn and absolutely disagree with the bombay terrorism attacks. i would liek to know if mr gary was at the in south bombay during the last 3 days? did he see any of the terrorists? did he hear their mangled-Pakistani-English? save us the day gary….get ur facts right….and the pale(not dark skinned if thats what you mean)elite tall pakistani cricket guy is called Imran Khan. And, by the way I’m Indian, living in a Middle East Muslim Country and not even Muslim. And, i dont have the right to assume every muslim and pakistani is a terrorist and neither should you…save the internet from such dumb-witted typists….
66. Baluch | November 29th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Yes, which Pakistan
The one which opress it own people
http://www.balochvoice.com/index_a.html
or the whole where elite sell their country to the arabs
http://www.pakspectator.com/pakistan-hunting-ground-for-arab-princes/?cp=1
http://offroadpakistan.com/downloads/Hunting_with_the_Sheikhs.pdf
67. eckard | November 29th, 2008 at 2:55 am
Nice one, RobertD. The whole thing is almost certainly home-grown. I’m a big War Nerd fan, but I have to say that this article is sub-par, almost like Gary Brecher/John Dolan (c’mon, it’s the same guy, right?) is writing to a template or something. I don’t read the War Nerd for BS. If I did, I would’ve expected prior stuff along the lines of what pansies the Germans were, what gents the British were, and how the French are in fact cheese-eating surrender monkeys, as accused. And of course I wouldn’t have read crap like that, so I don’t intend to start now.
Other than that … nice one, Nick! Spot on, indeed. And that guy that said shut down comments was right. The Internet provides plenty of free space for retards, we don’t need more at the Exiled.
68. burbl | November 29th, 2008 at 4:18 am
@eckard
“The Internet provides plenty of free space for retards, we don’t need more at the Exiled.”
Is this meant to prove the point?
@Karen
“this article whos mr gary’s underlying hostility towards muslims, not just pakistani’s.”
Given that the muslims “official agenda” (IN THE SCRIPTURE!!!) is to convert or kill everybody else I would say that the “general hostility” towards muslims is surprisingly mild.
69. Baluch | November 29th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Yes, which Pakistan
The one which opress it own people
http://www.balochvoice.com/index_a.html
or the whole where elite sell their country to the despots
http://www.pakspectator.com/pakistan-hunting-ground-for-arab-princes/?cp=1
http://offroadpakistan.com/downloads/Hunting_with_the_Sheikhs.pdf
70. eckard | November 29th, 2008 at 7:36 am
@burbl
Oh Internet Sarcasm 101 … no, it’s *you* that proves the point, you dumb cunt. (The Exiled can’t censor that, not the use of the word ‘cunt’ per se. I mean, it’s the Exiled, right? Checkmate.). Nearly every frigging comment here has been retarded, and indeed provides prime (and free!) fodder for The Daily Inquisition. Again — someone has to pay for this shit, don’t they? Why give space to spastics *and pay for it to boot*? (Umm, I mean give space to spastics like burbl, as if I should have to spell it out in a literate world…but this is the fecking Internet, isn’t it.)
71. burbl | November 29th, 2008 at 9:06 am
@eckard
“Nearly every frigging comment here has been retarded, and indeed provides prime (and free!) fodder for The Daily Inquisition.”
Trying hard to prove your point, eh?
It probably won’t occurs to you that *you* might be mistaken and are “on the wrong side of the fence”.
Thank you very much indeed. 😀
72. Andy | November 29th, 2008 at 9:28 am
I might go one step further and call it not just an attempt on the part of the terrorists to get *something* out of the sorry resources available, but to efficiently dispose of those resources.
There is a long history in the region of Pakistan trying to deflect its own fundamentalists. The ISI happily supported the Taliban (and likely still does) because if gave the Islamists something to do, and got them out of the country.
These thousands of Madrassa graduates are hardly useful for attacking the west, but they fit in all to well in Pakistan itself and are more than capable doing damage there. Could this be some non-Islamist elements in the ISI deciding that “hey, wouldn’t it be great if all of these trouble makers headed next door and killed folks *there*, and better yet, got killed in the process?”
73. Ali Choudhury | November 29th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Hindi and Urdu are the same verbal language.
74. aleke | November 29th, 2008 at 10:26 am
I think some of our readers are having some reading comprehension problems :P. Oh and yes, ali’s right, Urdu and Hindi are basically the same spoken language with some differences in vocabulary.
People who graduate from madrassas are stupid, that’s the norm
75. zedhex | November 29th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
You screwed up this time Gary/John. I guess you were in too much of a rush to be topical, and didn’t wait to check out the facts. Thats a shame, I didn’t expect you’d drop the ball this bad. Current bet is as few as 10 guys boated in, and they were anything but dumb and uneducated. This was a very professional job. Its looking more and more like someone high up in the Pakistani intelligence/political elite needed a good show down with India to save their ass(es). It’s a regional chess game masquerading as Jihad.
76. xyz | November 29th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
@RobertD, You are the standard westerner with little knowledge of India. My guess is you have visited India a few times and reinforced your prejudices and ignorance. Hindi elite that wants to integrate with the west? Never heard such an elite. The Hindi elite has been powerless for a long time. The Hindi elite was never too keen on getting westernization. But there is heterogeneous English speaking elite drawn from all parts of the country. The entrenched English speaking elite of a few metros and christian educated liberal arts elite usually suffers from a colonial inferiority complex, they consistently seek a pat on the back from ignorant western intellectuals. Another section of the English speaking elite is drawn from middle class technical professionals, civil servants and government employees. They speak English but are not very westernised. They are the true cream of India but do not speak out against the westernised elite, for fear of appearing ‘unsecular and unintellectual’. Then there is the political elite drawn from the poorly educated sections whose greed for power leads them to appease the Muslims, whose interests are served by keeping everybody ill educated and poor. Democracy in India is a strange beast, it produces leaders who appeal to the lowest common denominator. That is the political elite. The business elite is again the entrenched westernised business families and the newly rising ‘techie’ businessmen. Nowhere is there a rightwing Hindi speaking elite that controls India.
Muslims in India enjoy more than equal rights. Special provisions give them the option of following sections of Islamic law, special provisions protect their places of worship, their language urdu, and they get subsidies for traveling to Mecca. Muslims are always depicted with an extra dose of patriotism in the movies and the media. We even had Muslim Presidents.
Yet there are strong under currents of religious animosity. There a significant section of Indian muslims who sympathize with Pakistan and Islamic jihad. The reason for this is that the westernised English elite and the under educated political elite have formed a political alliance in which their interests are served by stoking the Muslims’ fears of being ‘overrun’ dirty superstitious cow worshiping Hindus. The Muslim vote is homogeneous and largely goes to a coalition of ‘secular parties’ and can play decisive role because the Hindu vote is not dedicated to any particular extreme ideology.
This is the reason why governments do not enact tough terror laws in India. This is the reason why SIMI, an Islamic students organisation which is responsible for many terror attacks cannot be banned, this is the why the men responsible for the attack on the Indian parliament are almost heroes for the political and sections of the english speaking elite.
Further there is plenty of political gain in insulting Hindus and Hinduism. Hence every government funded historian works overtime to paint the Muslim invasions into India as ‘a fusion of cultures’. In this fusion of cultures, the muslim sultans destroyed the most important and symbolic Hindu temples and on them built mosques. One such temple was Somnath which was reconstructed in the 1950s when the politicians were not yet weak willed.
But today the politicians love to deny that the ‘Babri Masjid’ another mosque stands on a Hindu temple. This has been a point of contention for decades, with the government changing its stance many times to appease the Muslim vote. It is another matter that this mosque was not used prior to 1950 and was of no significance to the Muslims. But the Mullahs were encouraged to turn this debilitated building into a symbol of Islamic survival in India. In 1992 violent Hindu mobs destroyed the Mosque setting off violent riots across the country in which hundreds of Hindus and Muslims died. Every subsequent terrorist attack in India has been justified by the media and political elite as a justified consequence of the destruction of the masjid. In any other country such a mosque would have been brought down not by mobs but by the government.
The media elite got a new reason to paint the Islamic terrorists as victims in 2002 when riots broke out in Gujrat resulting in hundreds of dead muslims. What the media doesnt like to talk about is that the riots were set off because thirty Hindus were burnt alive by fanatical Muslims.
In all this the Pakistani ISI has a major role. The ISI has encircled India. It has training camps in Nepal and Bangladesh. Hundred of thousands of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh flood into India, with many of them having been trained in ISI run terror camps. The important organized criminal gangs in Mumbai have largely been Muslim and have been funded with cheap narcotics, weapons and explosives by the ISI. The ISI is the linchpin of terror. The only way terrorism in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan can be defeated is to destroy the ISI and the madarssas they feed. Tough task since the ISI is essentially elite of the Pakistani army, destroying them means a long drawn out covert war against Pakistan.
77. xyz | November 29th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
@Thomas, actually such repeated terror attacks will inevitably lead to a bloody war in both Pakistan and India with lots of civilian casualties. The Islamic fanatics are not going to go away if Indians decide that the present state of affairs are ‘better’ than possible a war. They will just increase their provocative attacks. The war that India needs to fight now is a long covert dirty war aided by a coherent media campaign to destroy fundamentalist Islam.
This will not lead to ethnic cleansing, Indians have always been too diverse and open minded to indulge in ‘ethnic cleansing’, though the western media loves to apply that term even if just a few hundred muslims have been killed in 60 years. Surely a tough anti terror campaign will kill thousands perhaps tens of thousands, but it must be done to protect India and dare I say the world.
78. xyz | November 29th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
@aleke, Urdu is Hindi mixed with Persian and a smattering of Turkish and Arabic. Urdu as spoken in official Pakistan is not easily understable to Indians and the pure Hindi of North India is not undertable to urdu speakers. But the hybrid Hindi of Mumbai and the Urdu of the streets of Karachi are very similar.
79. xyz | November 29th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
@Imperial, Last I heard Britian was being overrun by Pakis and Indians and the great has been dropped from GB.
80. Sam | November 29th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I really like when people supply facts in their socratic myelin sheaths of clarification but am bored to rage with — and came here to get away from, off boards worse than most know — people deploring each other lexically and ad hominem.
Let’s talk, not rant, for there seems to me to be valuable intellect and info gathered here,whatever we think of the War Nerd or the War.
for an inital corrective let this recovering Irish Catholic from Brooklyn say about
‘Given that the muslims “official agenda” (IN THE SCRIPTURE!!!) is to convert or kill everybody else I would say that the “general hostility” towards muslims is surprisingly mild.’
that Catholic –> Christian Evangelism has a genocidal lead nobody who doesn’t wipe oput the planet twice over can hope to equal.
From my point of view, war is civilizational psychosis, religion is civilizational neurosis, and smart people like here railing against each other instead of using their mutual resources to get at the facts is civilizational ADHD.
I also think Karen said a lot, of which my favorite was ‘And, i dont have the right to assume every muslim and pakistani is a terrorist and neither should you…save the internet from such dumb-witted typists….’
But it also occurs to me there’s one person who should actually be able to explain this from an insider globalist’s perspective, which seems like what we need.
Does anyone know what, if anything, doe Arundhati Roy have to say about all this?
81. sfddfs | November 29th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
This analysis is (for once) totally wrong. This was NOT a labor-intensive operation. Only around 10 terrorists participated in the attack and they were not village hicks.
82. Dave Bell | November 29th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
[Checks times and dates]
I think we might be getting a different set of rumours now.
This could be done with two distinct sorts of people.
1: The cheap gunmen, of which the madrassa-trained Pakistani volunteer is a good example.
2: The team leaders.
And if I had a prisoner who carried a Blackberry, I’d be really interested in what he could tell me, because I wouldn’t expect him to have tech like that just to surf the web.
zedhex, I’m sceptical about there being as few as 10 attackers. That suggests Special Forces levels of military competence, which doesn’t fit well with the apparent no-return nature of the operation.
83. Sam | November 29th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Answered my own question
Arundhati Roy is quoted in
The Mumbai Attacks
http://killingtrain.com/node/664
Justin Podur
November 28, 2008
taken from
http://darwiniana.com/2008/11/28/the-mumbai-attacks/
“Under this relentless pressure, what will most likely happen is that the majority of the Muslim community will resign itself to living in ghettos as second-class citizens, in constant fear, with no civil rights and no recourse to justice. What will daily life be like for them? Any little thing, an altercation in a cinema queue or a fracas at a traffic light, could turn lethal. So they will learn to keep very quiet, to accept their lot, to creep around the edges of the society in which they live. Their fear will transmit itself to other minorities. Many, particularly the young, will probably turn to
militancy. They will do terrible things. Civil society will be called upon to condemn them.”
The article itself seems eminently worth reading. and includes this quote too
‘Badri Raina earlier this week contrasted the changes happening in the Indian Muslim community with the posture of India’s Hindu chauvinists in the Sangh Parivar
“A remarkable dynamic counter to the re-centralizing, purity-oriented turmoil within the Sangh Parivar is currently at work among India’s Muslims. A dynamic that I venture bears the promise of defeating the renewed fascistic call of the Parivar more conclusively than anything else in view.”
‘That dynamic, Raina says, has two parts. On the one hand, a questioning of “social practices supposedly ordained by one clerical authority or the other”, a “condemning the killing of innocents
especially as un-Islamic”, and on the other, the participation of Muslims “increasingly and in great numbers” in “civil rights activities that seek… to reinforce the non-discriminatory exercise of the rule of law.”’
Podur concludes
The political forces that will seek to benefit from this are those who want violence between India and Pakistan and between Hindus and Muslims in India.The trap these forces have set will fail if these attacks fail to derail the positive movement in South Asia for detente between India and Pakistan, and fail to strengthen communalism in India. That Pakistan is publicly cooperating with India will help, as will the fact that the BJP is not in power today.
amen
84. LB | November 29th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I love reading these comments. All the idiot Indians arguing with the Idiot Pakistanis arguing with the idiot Westerners while the intelligent ones from all three regions sit back and manipulate the responses for their own ends.
Who benefits from this attack most, long term? India. It gets an excuse to toughen up on Pakistan, toughen up on local Muslim communities AND it gets worldwide sympathy and, more importantly, Western support or atleast a blind eye to doing whatever the hell it wants RE Muslims.
Does India have the cold-blooded balls to pull something like this on its own people? I would not have thought so, in all honesty. Poorly judged but supremely wel lexecuted attack by Pakistani elements? Most likely.
85. xyz | November 29th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
@LB, India does not benefit from such attacks, simply because Indian politicians and policy makers dont have the balls to crack down ruthlessly against domestic Islamic terrorists and their supporters, neither do they have the courage to up the ante against Pakistan. The least that Indian policy can do is deploy a few more combat divisions on the border forcing Pakistan to do the same. This would at least bleed Pakistan in the northwest provinces. India certainly has more resources to station troops on the border for months always putting pressure on Pakistan. But Indian policy makers dont have the courage to do even this.
86. aadis | November 29th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Well, so far it looks like a very well planned attack. They had intimate knowledge of the hotel layout, a cache of ammunition in the hotel (they engaged the Indian special forces for nearly 50 hours, could not have carried all that ammo on foot). Imagine going without sleep for 50 hours engaging some of the best trained forces (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARCOS_(India) )
The one thing I think they messed up was they couldn’t use the RDX they (supposedly) had. Much more publicity if you can blow up a 100 year old building.
There is anger in the country (and so far it’s not become a hindu-vs-muslim thing). There are calls to overhaul the moribund intelligence network and police department.
Though realistically, I’ll expect everything to be the same in 2 months or so
87. dove | November 29th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
1) Many people killed were indian muslims – rich and poor.
2) Indian muslim terrorists singling out americans and brits and israelis to take revenge on hindus ????
3) Unless the whole indian security apparatus, full of sikh, christian and muslim officers along with hindus at every level of seniority, is lying to protect indian hindus – they have concrete evidence of terrorist nationalities including 2 BRITISH PAKIS.
88. LB | November 29th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Well, that is the issue is it not? India should benefit the most, but it does not have the testicular fortitude to do so. In all honesty I would not think India has the capacity to carry it out. Hell I am not sure Mossad could manage something like this any more.
Muslims certainly do not benefit.
89. Lulldapull | November 30th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Hey Gary, I cannot believe you fell for the total rubbish being pumped out by the bullshiit “war on terror” hillbilly/ Zionist controlled media outlets. That is very unlike your blog.
So far the rubbish coming out of India is that one of these guys was from ‘Faridkot’ in Pakistani Punjab……Bullshiit….when you hold a gun to someone’s head and cut off his testicles, he’ll say whatever you want him to say….
There is no such city in Pakistani Punjab.
The still shown with two kids holding AK-47’s look South Indian. No one from Pakistan looks like that. The pukhtoons in Peshawar will beat the crap out of kids that look like that thinking they are from Karachi and are most likely informants for the intelligence services.
The other bullshiit allegation that the terrorists called ‘Jalalabad’ on the cel phones in ‘Pakistan’ shows the desperation of these media goons.
Any person remotely familiar with the North West Frontier Province or that region knows Jalalabad is in Afghanistan.
Like the Government of Pakistan says….show us a Pakistani citizen who did this….otherwise stop pointing fingers.
Conveniently enough the last terrorist alive just happens to be from ‘Faridkot’ in Pakistani Punjab?…..
Half the ignorant buffoons on this blog fukking crack me up.
90. wYSe Guy | November 30th, 2008 at 3:20 am
HEY Lulldapull
There’s certainly no Faridkot in Pakistan, and definitely not any Jallalabad. But, aside from Afghanistan guess where there is a Jalalabad?
In India!
Thats right, theres a Jalalabad in Indian Punjab, as well as in Uttar Pradesh!!! These retarded Indian reporters and gov. agency types are saying that the hostage takers had “Punjabi” accents, in the hopes of working the stereotype that all Pakistanis are Punjabis.
Well, these Indian hostage takers did turn out to have Punjabi accents….THEIR Punjabi Accents…..LOL
Its hard not to laugh at dumb attempts at media manipulation like this.
91. Lulldapull | November 30th, 2008 at 3:35 am
WYse guy……In all honesty…..can you even imagine those 4 foot tall dark south Indian looking guys in the Frontier attending a madarsa??
Comeon now!
Pukhtoons will kill them on sight thinking what are these ‘infidel’ Indian tourists doing there.
Faridkot in Pakistan?
Jalalabad in pakistan?
4 foot tall dark South Indian Alqaeda kids coming ashore in speed boats hailing from Faridkot in ‘pakistani’ Punjab and making calls to Jalalabad in ‘pakistan’.
BhuWaahahahaaa….
This is worse than the best third class Bollywood can up with their own version of Rajiv Bond in fukkin Mumbai?
Gary….friendly suggestion…..please just erase this article. It’s destroying the credibility of your blog.
92. Lulldapull | November 30th, 2008 at 3:41 am
Wyse guy I forgot to mention…Guess where Faridkot really is….
Indian Punjab!
Hahahahaaaa.
P.S. To misinformed, unaware ppl you can tell anything and they will believe it. Case in point the largely illiterate and brainwashed public in United States. Forgiving the poor Indians in their moment of grief.
93. Lulldapull | November 30th, 2008 at 4:51 am
To xyz…..
in your detailed analysis, (which I will largely believe because most of it is true)….but where you conveniently do not put the blame where it belongs viz a viz the ISI is at the door step of the CIA and the NSA.
Money to run that country (Pakistan) comes from the West. ISI is on the CIA/ NSA payroll. they better fukking be listening to the U.S…..and to not believe that is only deluding yourself.
What shits me is the utter lack of balls with most Indians, which is not to blame the terrorist financier (United States).
Without the CIA indoctrination, money, training, logistics, equipment and intelligence….do you think the ISI has the balls to take on India?
You should put the blame on the door step where it belongs.
It’s easy to blame Pakistan…..difficult to blame the U.S. (The organiser, enabler, financier and nurturer of the ISI, Al-qaeda, Sunni militants in Iraq and many other ‘terror’ death squads across the globe).
Your reasoning will be worthless unless you admit this!
P.S. The only thing that makes sense now is that these terror outfits and this War on terror is a manufactured front. Nothing else makes sense buddy.
94. Sam | November 30th, 2008 at 6:26 am
So this is a lie, right? Is that what you’re saying?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24729305-5005961,00.html
‘THE only gunman captured during the Islamist attacks on Mumbai has confessed to belonging to a Pakistan-based militant group.
Intelligence sources told Indian press that Ajmal Amir Kamal, caught on a CCTV camera wearing a `Versace T-shirt, has identified all the attackers as Pakistani citizens.
The gunman is also alleged to have acknowledged the attackers were trained by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.’
By the way, I’m not saying the US and all of NATO — hell WHITE PEOPLE — aren’t criminally responsible in the most fundamental way. I’m just interested in the chain of custody of this specific load of death, too…
95. Arnold D'Souza | November 30th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Brilliantly written. Probably one of the best posts I’ve read on the issue in the past few days. I love the cold-blooded detachedness, too.
96. Stan N. Museall | November 30th, 2008 at 11:27 am
One of the offspring just returned from India where put to work by an NGO as a teacher, at a pick-up nursery at a building site in Delhi. Turns out the little tykes of the poor are not getting a free public education in India. In that sense, it must be like Pakistan. A lot of loose change rolling around, potentially able to make trouble.
But consider too that our own high schools and even places like Virginia Tech have been scenes of the kind of mayhem which Mumbai experienced.
The root causes are anyone’s guess, but most of the time, people read politics into it.
War Nerd should have thought about that carnage — the USA schools — when he estimated the number of shooters. It seems the Indians now believe a mere 10 men did the job, not 70. And of course, they did a fake-out on hostage-taking. It seems that they killed their hostages outright, then waited for the rescuing police to come into range to be killed.
Now it also seems that they were up a long time. A lot of people who lived to be eye-witnesses remarked on the peaceful or joyful expressions on the faces of the killers. What drug were they given? Can its fingerprint in their blood be used to trace back to its source? I particularly enjoyed my chemistry classes in which we discovered that complex organic chemicals had fingerprints. In much the same way that the anthrax did, making it traceable to a domestic lab.
I hope the Indians are on top of this. But it looks like they are minus a couple of interesting policemen: the chief of terror investigations, and also the one who specialized in investigation of extortion, as this pre-warned event might point to.
Some neo-colonialist sentimentalists in England tried in the press to rally the old Dunkirk spirit with the Americans in telling a story about how it was death to be an American, a Brit or an Israeli as the hopped-up killers who sprayed the hotel lobby went on to play Nazi with peoples’ passports. A horrifying story now thoroughly debunked. This was work above their pay grade, it seems, which they never did. Most of those killed were Indians, in fact, with no special singling out.
Unless, of course, the targets were the police all along.
97. Thomas | November 30th, 2008 at 11:33 am
@xyz
Going tit for tat would only increase the likelihood of a civil war. If a civil war does erupt, then the only way to end it without India disintegrating as a country would be via a sort of ethnic cleansing targeting Muslims or taking a few pages out of the 4th generation war play book and try to get the majority of the people banded together (via the use of nationalism of theology).
India would be better off undermining the reasons for the recruitment of these scum and staying on the strategic defensive with this. Just as the US would have been better off doing the same. As long as they are the ones continuing to instigate shit, they lose anyone who is on the fence about their acts or keep those on the fence who would otherwise be active in obtaining their goals.
98. aleke | November 30th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
You know, xyz, when you talk about muslims in India all I can think of is the way some white racists talk about blacks in America. I’m not saying it’s so clear cut a racism as that, the situation in India extends across many centuries and includes a reversal of fortune for the groups involved.
Not to mention that comparisons across cultures like that are always very tricky since the world is so complex, but still, it seems silly to suggest the Muslims have it easy in India.
99. Lulldapull | November 30th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
To #94 ‘Sam’.
Comeon dude…..Use your head!
What you are saying is along the same lines as stupid hilljacks in the U.S. being spoon fed the same old lie along the lines of that yes….all 9-11 hijackers have confessed to belonging to ‘Al-ciada’, and now they also admit being trained by some general lund-uddin of the pakistani Punjabi ISI?
Bhuwahahahhaaaa…….
Thats laughable.
The ISI knows fairly well who is training in its camps or ex-camps…they have ppl embedded everywhere within that country. So in other words someone training dozens of South Indian boys at some compound in ‘Faridkot’ Pakistan is not believable. neither can I entertain the idea about the highly intolerant Pukhtoons could have hacked it out with south Indian muslims amongst them at the seminaries.
And like that pakistani Punjabi (xyz) guy up top has mentioned that they (terrorists) sounded like Indian Punjabi’s.
P.S. All three photos so far of Mumbai terrorists look like these kids were south Indian.
100. wYSe Guy | November 30th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Lulldapull, I’m actually from Karachi, where are you from?
101. Boarhunter | November 30th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Porkers are always in denial….somebody else did it. The Joos did 9/11, MI5 agents did 7/7, etc.
102. wYSe Guy | November 30th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
LOL Boarhunter you useless piece of scum: this ain’t a Paki: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45251000/jpg/_45251552_-12.jpg
Fucking wait till the Indian gov’mt admits in 48 hours, yeah its Indian Muslims.
103. wYSe Guy | November 30th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Here, this ex-commis sez the same thing:
http://www.counterpunch.org/tariq11272008.html
104. wYSe Guy | November 30th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
/ex-commIE
105. dave | November 30th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
@xyz – (i bite my tongue) you are overdone and irrelevant.
*please dont post anymore*
106. xyz | November 30th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
@Lulldapull, I readily admitted that our Indian government doesnt have the balls to do anything serious. Its not just the Indian government, but the entire mainstream media and chattering ‘intellectuals’ are just wimps who refuse to face tough truths that would shake up their liberal theories. ‘Militant’ Hindu organisations are mostly made of under educated mobs and lead by myopic leaders who are strong enough to vandalize Hallmarks shops on Valentines day to ‘protect’ Indian culture, but dont have the balls to do anything serious. All that remain to stop terrorism are defense forces and some police units and paramilitary forces, but without able political leadership they are useless. There I again admit that Indians dont have the balls for tough action.
You are right when you say that for decades the US has been funding, training and partnering with the ISI and the Pakistani army. For over four decades the US has been talking democracy while imposing sanctions on democratic India and encouraging one military dictator after another in Pakistan. The CIA actively built the Taliban in its war against the Soviets. During the Kargil war Clinton and the CIA ensured that the repercussions on Pakistan would be minimum.
But you make a mistake in believing that the CIA controls the ISI. The ISI is probably a far more efficient and ruthless organisation than the CIA. Over the last few decades the
ISI too has learnt to play the great game and control its CIA masters. The USA too is helpless against the machinations of the ISI. I will go so far as to say that the ISI is perhaps the most potent covert agency today.
107. xyz | November 30th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
@Lulldapull I have no idea why you keep insisting that the terrorists are ‘south indian boys’. I will not take the official story of ‘Faridkot’ at its face value, but your arguments are stupid. I know enough Punjabis who are short and dark. These terrorists could be of Pakistani (punjabi, Karachi/Sindi), bangladeshi or Indian origin. It is almost certain that some of terrorists would be Indian nationals, but your argument about ‘four foot south indian looks’ is stupid.
108. xyz | November 30th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
@dave, I hope you have bitten off your tongue. History is very important, its a bit difficult for Americans and even many Europeans to comprehend that people can fight because of events that happened centuries ago. Westerners find it difficult to understand the myriad religious and ethnic rivalries of Asia and Africa, so instead they try to impose their stupid world view and flaccid theories on the rest of the world. Read up some Indian history and not just the sanitised versions that westernised Indian intellectuals propound. Then you may begin to understand the complex issues of south asia.
109. wYSe Guy | November 30th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
@xyz
“mostly made of under educated mobs and lead by myopic leaders who are strong enough to vandalize Hallmarks shops on Valentines day to ‘protect’ Indian culture, but dont have the balls to do anything serious”
Oh, you mean nothing serious like initiating the pogrom of 2000+ of its own citizens in 2002?
Puh-lease, Let the numbers do the talking:
Muslim Population of India: 150 Million
Hindu Population of India: 850 Million
Oh those terrible, terrible Indian Muslims! Its like……like they outnumber us !!! We So Have to get tough! 😛
God, Gary post something else you War Nerd. This is gonna get old.
110. i | December 1st, 2008 at 2:37 am
having comments on war nerd (think youtube insanity) i think is a bit of a bad idea….maybe you should make a forum instead
111. Lulldapull | December 1st, 2008 at 2:51 am
To #106
xyz……….for you to say that the piece of shit third world naked and hungry ISI is now somehow bigger than its paymaster the CIA/NSA is the biggest joker statement I have recently heard!
Are you kidding yourself?
The Illuminati are openly doing this to India and you are dumb enough to blatantly ignore it?
Who would support this Pakistan if these punjabi’s in the ISI living on CIA scraps start disobeying their paymasters?
What you are implying here is that the third world servant now controls his super power master? bhuwahahahaaaaa…….
What the hell is this some third world bollywood movie?
Without the $10 billion from the U.S. charity dumped on Pakistan since 9-11 happened where would your Pakistan be now had the U.S. decided to end it? But NO! with your ISI’s finger prints all over the 9-11 incident(isn’t that what we believe)?…they instead dumped the $10 billion on Pakistan? What does this tell you?
Hint: The dog wags his tail when the master tells it to! If this high profile operation was planned by the ISI….then you bet your smooth ass that the green light came from Washington.
Reality check for xyz is that the guy who planned the Indian parliament attacks (for which India massed half a million troops on Pakistan’s border for 1 year) and who is currently on death row in India is none other than Mr Afzal guru…..An Indian Kashmiri.
Go on……deny it…….Say that Pakistan and ISI trained him….while he was having a wet dream on Dal lake in Srinagar…..
Bhuwahahaahaaa
Go on….
112. wYSe Guy | December 1st, 2008 at 2:57 am
Wow, bringing in the Illuminatti.
I don’t know who’s more insane; Lulldapull or xyz….
Lulldapull, every one here has identified their nationality; where are you from?
113. Mar C | December 1st, 2008 at 3:33 am
Seems like 9/11 for India. I have a suspicion that the CIA funded the operation to declare Pakistan a terrorist state. Thatway the World Police can send troops to look for bin Laden within Pakistani borders.
114. Lulldapull | December 1st, 2008 at 3:44 am
Marc…..the ‘world police’ already control Pakistan, its ISI and most likely these Mumbai terrorists aswell.
Mr Bin Laden at the head quarters in Langley VA is a series of spliced video clips with voice additions/ deletions as appropriate released on cue when ever is deemed convenient.
xyz…..it’s not important where we are from…who the hell cares about that?
It’s what you know and speak is far more important.
115. xyz | December 1st, 2008 at 6:14 am
@wyse, Gujrat 2002, Mumbai 1992 were aberrations. The reason I wrote such long comments was to give some historical background in the Hindu-Muslim divide in the subcontinent. ‘Pogrom’ is a strong word for the death of 2000 people. Remember that it started with 30 Hindus being burnt alive. A reactionary riot produced in the heat of the heat of the moment is different is from the cold blooded random attacks planned over months. These attacks are on the Indian state, not just some Hindu mobs. You can justify one attack as a revenge for Gujrat 2002, not so many and not so many spread around India. And I wonder why nobody is speaking of revenge for the murder of tens of thousands of Kashmiri Hindus, most would not even call that pogrom, even though the valley was cleansed of the Hindus. It is in this context that I say that Muslims in India have been having it easy. They have literally been able to get away with murder.
116. Mark | December 1st, 2008 at 11:08 am
I agree that the comments should be disabled. The analogy between arguments on the Internet and a race in the Special Olympics is apt here…
117. Anka | December 1st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
More facile gibberish from the Ignacious O’Reilly of warfare.
118. wYSe Guy | December 1st, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Illuminati? World Police??
What kind of right wing Alex Jones freak show did you guys crawl out of?
Have you even been to Pakistan? Do you have any intimate knowledge about that country? Like Gary Brecher have you even read a book? Or did you dredge everything of infowars.com?
Maybe this comment section should be disabled. Either that , or the War Nerd will never be able to write anything on South Asia ever again.
119. Sam | December 1st, 2008 at 12:58 pm
http://www.disinfo.com/content/story.php?title=Arundhati-Roy-Regarding-Events-in-India-%E2%80%93-Only-Question-We-Should-Be-Asking-Ourselves
Here’s Arundhati Roy on the attacks, albeit obliquely, whose opinion I asked for though I’m not happy with what she has to say — but here it is anyway…
120. xyz | December 1st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
@Lulldapull #91. There is a Faridkot Multan. The Indian media is stupid, but they wont make such a mistake. The news release clearly said Faridkot, Multan. Besides this is not yet an official statement, but derived from ‘sources’. Lastly Jalalabad is in Afghanistan but a stones throw from the Paki border. Even Karachiwalas like you should know that these border regions of afghanistan are effectively ISI territory. Have you taken a look at some of the Pakistani cricketers, they are just as dark and some just as short as the ‘south indians’. Even a lot of you Pakis are dark and short, so you fool only the westerners who see Imran Khan as a representative specimen of Pakistan.
121. Lulldapull | December 1st, 2008 at 1:45 pm
xyz, the point I made is that Pukhtoons would not train these ‘Indian’ or for that matter Punjabi types at their FATA locations. Because everyone says that pukhtoons train suicide bombers and attackers in the FATA areas…….That’s bullshit!
Punjabi’s don’t go to the NWFP!
These days if Pukhtoons in the frontier see an Indian or punjabi looking guy walking around in the Frontier, he dies pretty quick.
Now if ‘short/ dark’ Pakistani Punjabi’s are trained by ISI in that small 100 people tehsil of an even smaller village on the outskirts of Multan……Boy! Don’t you think the Punjabi dominated ISI are asking for trouble, taking on India in these tough times, with the U.S. holding a gun to their head?
So the theory that ISI trained short/ dark/ Punjabi duggay (because Pukhtoons would kill them on sight in the present political/ military circumstances) at some remote site called ‘Faridkot’ in Pakistan……fully aware that if one is caught he’d spill the beans….is very difficult to believe, and Pakistan will be again in the spot light over this spectacular terrorist attack.
ISI is no longer in that 80’s business of training and supplying Mirpuri/ Punjabi duggay to go attack India anymore.
The U.S. has outlawed that after 9-11-2001…..and the ISI obeys like a loyal dog.
122. wYSe Guy | December 1st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
“Punjabi’s don’t go to the NWFP”
So what was a Karachi-wallah like me doing visiting Peshawar this summer?
I stopped reading after that sentence.
We agree that Indian Muslims did this in Bombay, but I have to ask:
Lulldapull have you ever been to Pakistan?
Have you ever read a news article through, instead of scanning its headlines?
Go pick up a book. Learn something then come back.
123. xyz | December 1st, 2008 at 5:57 pm
@Lulldapull is crazy. The ISI can pick up recruits from anywhere in the subcontinent. With enough indoctrination and money fanatics will volunteer for a lot of stuff. Multan is not exactly a small town. You write ‘The theory that…’ as if it is mine. It is your bloody ‘theory’. All I said is that your remarks that these guys were Indian since they were dark and short is bullshit. There are enough such people in Punjab and Sind. The photos of the others have not been released, they may just turn out to be fair skinned Pukhtoons. I will readily admit that an operation of this type has to have plenty of support in logistics, planning and even execution from Indian muslims and there are enough fanatical muslims in India to volunteer.
You are totally crazy, talking about world police and international CIA conspiracies. You sounded like the Pakistani ‘analyst’ on TV who was ranting that this whole thing was the work of Indian intelligence along with Zionists and Hindu radicals. The analyst and news commentators were not some illiterates or madarassa educated villagers, but English speaking city slickers in suits. If this is the junk that educated urban Pakistan watches and believes, then the world has a real problem dealing with the Paki cesspool.
124. Dkahh | December 1st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
RobertD, could you perhaps be referring to the “Hindu elite”? I fear that you may be making, amid your logorrhea, that all-too-common mistake of mixing up a religion and a language.
125. Orthodoxy | December 1st, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I have no problem with a comments section, so long as someone gets off their ass and starts delivering some promised censorship! Enough of this heresy!
126. John Smith | December 1st, 2008 at 9:41 pm
#125: That seems unlikely to me, because moderating or even reading long comment threads is such a thankless task, even compared to blogging.
127. burbl | December 1st, 2008 at 10:26 pm
@Mark
“I agree that the comments should be disabled.”
Why do you post any then?
Moron(s)…
128. LB | December 2nd, 2008 at 2:15 am
“I agree that the comments should be disabled. The analogy between arguments on the Internet and a race in the Special Olympics is apt here…”
I assume you mean “Winning an internet debate is like winning in the Special Olympics, you are still a retard”?
Unfortunately the retard who coined this forgot to take into consideration that people who take part in the special olympics are disabled, not retarded. Rather ironic really, unfortunately people who do not realise this still use the rejoinder thus condemning themselves to retardation.
Monsieur Brecher (or is it Comte du Brech?) almost certainly does not read the comments, if he does, he will not give a fuck about the BS any one of us pumps out in said comments, so sit down, shut the fuck up and stop taking it so fucking seriously.
129. Lulldapull | December 2nd, 2008 at 6:14 am
At this Indian Xyz….I told you before that Pakistan does not have the balls to do something this stupid in this prevailing climate.
Lo and behold now the truth is coming out in the media that this entire operation was planned by Indian muslims.
130. PSmith | December 2nd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
> 22 Sriram | November 28th, 2008 at 12:00 am
>I hope India doesn’t respond the way America did – that would be stupid, but it begs the question, what can a country like India do against a terrorist attack like this? It seems impossible to prepare against.
It would indeed be (very) stupid to react as America did. Though America seems to have intended to use such an attack that oh so conveniently ‘happened’ as a pretext for goals of empire.
The sensible answer – Don’t react at all. Or not with the heart. At least not with random violence. React with the head.
The deaths of two hundred in a country of a billion people – one thousand million – is a rounding error.
Were the attacks disgusting? An outrage? Something that cannot be ignored? Certainly. But India certainly has the ability to root out the cancer with microsurgery rather than by lopping of limbs. In particular its own Muslim limbs.
Hopefully the saner elements in India will have learned from the U.S. example of the last eight years and they will not allow their bonkers right wing elements to co-opt the event for their own fanatic aims, as was done in the U.S. We hope.
131. Sam Clemens Twain | December 2nd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
ibtrippen – you alive? Damn you dropped off radar like a while ago. I’m gonna be in Irv. on the 18th, think you can make that?
Oh yeah, on topic: who would benefit the most from the India-Pakistan War? That’s who’s most likely responsible, just my two cents.
132. Sam | December 5th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Now this is news — http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3540964/Mumbai-attacks-Terrorists-took-cocaine-to-stay-awake-during-assault.html — that the Mumbai attackers were on long-term anabolic steroids, injected cocaine and LSD(!). Most striking for the absence of amphetamine, obvious drug of choice for days-long killing sprees ( Will some MD please explain this choice?). strategically, this carnage cocktail suggests a whole new pharmacology of terror that must get interwoven with the religious indoctrination to priovide these guys their ideological boost phase.
Anyone who’s seen “Suicide Killers” — http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0830968/ — the documentary of interviews with failed corset bombers in Israeli prisons — will recall these similarly baby-faced killers explaining, out of straight faces and true-believer sanpaku eyes, how they just knew they needed to die as martyrs in order to have good sex — without a scintilla of doubt apparent!
Such convictions, and how well deluded faithful serve the ends of some Cheney-league cynics on the jihadi side, can’t help but resonate for history fans with Hassan i Sabbah’s 11th Century army of Hashashshim — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan-i_Sabbah — who were indoctrinated in a rhetorically fluid Shia fundamentalism spinnable to justify any action its practitioners fancied, that rewarded successful surviving assassins with a majoun-fueled trip to Hassan’s movie-set Garden of Paradise in his stronghold of Alamout, where similarly-indoctrinated houris gave God’s Soldiers their best approximation of the 600-year orgasm some scripture hints at, then sent them off to slit more Sunni gizzards and earn thereby more stoned unearthly cooze.
What fascinates me most here is how all this drugging must’ve got knotted around fundy doctrine, and what the subjective experience of these Fedayeen must have been as they were basic-trained to search and destroy on roid-rage, blow and acid. I’m guessing they each met the Prophet at least once. Imagine the potential blockbuster: “The Teachings of Sheikh Owsley: a Jihadi Way of Knowledge”
Now that’s serious Gnosticism!
133. Nicholas Dahlheim | December 5th, 2008 at 9:31 am
What a great and interesting analysis of the Mumbai hotel attacks. Pakistan really is a basket case of a country. And it is sure to get worse in that place before long. Maybe the military and intelligence elite in Pakistan want to start another war with India just to share the fun of being a failed state with another volatile polity like India.
134. Sam | December 5th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
On a much downer side, this is the worst historical news yet
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3539171/Mumbai-attacks-Jews-tortured-before-executed-during-hostage-crisis.html
from “The Daily Telegraph” for December 2, it begins:
“Mumbai attacks: Jews tortured before being executed during hostage crisis
Israeli hostages killed by Islamic terrorists during the attacks on Mumbai (formerly Bombay) were tortured by their captors before they were bound together and killed….”
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136. Lulldapull | December 13th, 2008 at 6:08 am
#133 you like other buffoons pointing fingers at pathetic ass Pakistan on this blog are full of shit. Pakistan had nothing to gain by pulling this stupid attack and taking the blame.
look at this:
http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/11/double-cover-1-nothing-can-ever-be-same.html
137. jasim | January 11th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
All the accused are the from the Land of Pure aka Pakistan. Pakistan should be leveled to the ground for international peace
138. glasnost | March 19th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Well Done! I Like it!
139. Johng41 | May 5th, 2014 at 9:46 pm
Hahahahahahaha, this politics related YouTube video is actually so comic, I liked it. Thanks in support of sharing this. dakecdddcede
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