We must do something with the Pakistani government. They are doing nothing to eliminate terrorism from their country and they are putting the whole world at risk.

Christopher Hamilton
The Right Opinion, for the Right Wing

Posted by: Christopher Hamilton at December 1, 2008 12:24 PM

Cris, I wish it was that easy but it's not. these terrorist outfits gets funding and support from not only many people in the militery and defense departments of pakistan but also from the mosques. when muslims donate to the mosques for the support of kashmir part of it goes to fund these terrorits.
it appears that the general paki public does the most to support islamic terrorism. This also includes mosques in the west. The solution? close all mosques and make all islamic "charity" donations illegal.

Posted by: desidude at December 1, 2008 12:44 PM

Here is an interesting opinion poll, which was recently conducted in Pakistan. The verbiage leans towards down playing some of the stats. Like this one.

Nearly 20% of Pakistanis do not see the activities od violent Islamic militia groups as a threat.

60% want more Sharia.

It appears that Pakis want a democratically elected governement ruled by the principles of sharia. Kind of like what they want for us.

http://worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brasiapacificra/440.php?lb=bras&pnt=440&nid=&id=

Here is a poll on Pakistani public support for attacking Al Qaeda. Weak support at best.

http://worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brasiapacificra/424.php?lb=bras&pnt=424&nid=&id=

Interesting polls, and if you put it all together the Mumbai attacks should not have suprised anyone.

Posted by: ethoman at December 1, 2008 12:51 PM

Any one want to bet that the 'team from the U.S. FBI' is not from the U.S. FBI, but instead a team on the ground advising the U.S. State Department and passing the information along to Pakistan officials, but traveling with FBI credentials?

Posted by: alaskan1000 at December 1, 2008 12:56 PM

"Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has appealed to India not to punish his country for last week's attacks, saying militants could precipitate a war, the Financial Times reported on Monday." The Pakistani government thinks India should just sit tight and wait for more attacks, becuase only 40% of the Pakistani public supports the idea if military intervention in the tribal regions. The Pakistani government feeds lip service, while the Pakistani public supports the exportation of Islamic jihad violence by its refusal to take action against its tribal area. Yeah that is going to go over real well. Pakistan thinks the world is just going to sit around while it exports Islamic jihad, death and destruction on other countries.

Posted by: ethoman at December 1, 2008 1:17 PM

There are a number of festering jihad centers of gravity in the world today that threaten global security. At the top of the list is Pakistan, followed closely by Iran, Indonesia, Chechnya, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Somalia, Xinjiang and a handful of hot spots in the Maghreb.

The Pakistani "government" is only nominally in control of mostly high density urban centers with most of the rural ("tribal") provinces under the control of local warlords who operate according to the 7th century Islamic warrior code of conduct.

The jihadists are a threat to the quasi-secular governments wherever the two cohabit. Pakistan is no different. When Pakistani authorities complain about US drone attacks they are mainly concerned about their own safety, not the abstraction of territorial sovereignty.

Of course the Pakistani government can plausibly deny any involvement in the planning and training of the Mumbai commandos but the Pakistani government cannot be absolved of the sin of omission that allowed the planning, training and execution of the attack to occur.

What the world needs to worry about in Pakistan is that the locals there don't storm the nuclear Bastille.

Posted by: SaracensAtTheGates at December 1, 2008 1:41 PM

It is amusing to consider the reaction of the rich Arabs. It is, after all, they who will also suffer, collectively, from the now-uncontrollable activities of those who were long ago brought the "gift" of Islam -- the Iranians, the Pakistanis -- and they know perfectly well what the texts of Islam inculcate, and why such behavior will not, and cannot, stop. Yet they cannot allow themselves to admit, not least to themselves, what Islam teaches, so everyone in Muslim societies must be engaged in a kind of collective deception of Infidels, and a pretense, with other Muslims, that there is "nothing wrong with Islam."

Of course, a few brave and outspoken people, many of them having lived in the West, try to partly hint at the truth --they dare not go the whole way -- and these people are, in that same West, then held up as encouraging signs or portents of possible changes to come. But they really aren't. Islam is not reformable because the main text, the Qur'an, is held to be the immutable word of God. And it is impossible, given the nature of Authority in Islam -- where Allah Knows Best, and where Islamic scholars more than a millennium ago set in stone the rankings assigned for the "authenticity" of the Hadith -- to assume that there can be any significant change in the nature of Islamic belief, or of the kinds of behavior that would follow, not unnaturally, by those who choose to conduct Jihad not -- as others do -- more slyly, by nonviolent means, but rather, by the violent means, of "instilling terror" in the hearts of Infidels, that is taught them by the Qur'an and the Hadith and the example of Muhammad, the Model of Conduct (uswa hasana), the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil).

The primitive masses of Pakistan, inflamed by Islam, are now damaging the interests of the Arabs, who are just as Muslim but now, with that oil wealth and those palaces to defend, and so much else, that requires that the facade of Islamic peacefulness be minimally maintained, it's those others -- those crazy Pakistanis -- who are ruining it for all the others.

Fantastic.

And the more thoughtful Muslims in India, and in Pakistan, and in Bangladesh, the ones who, in very small numbers of course, are coming to realize that Islam explains the political and economic failures of their societies, Islam explains the stunting of moral and mental growth, Islam is responsible for all that ails them, must be going slightly mad themselves, afraid to quite recognize this truth because, in the societies in which they live, such a recognition can only bring punishment, from total ostracism to death. They are what might be called Muslim prisoners of Islam.

Perhaps it is time for the non-Muslims of India to attempt a kind of mass converstion of Muslims to Hinduism, or Christianity, or whatever it is they wish, by discussing, endlessly, the kinds of conditiions that made the ancestors of those Muslims convert to Islam -- through the threat of death (that is, force directly applied) or through the indirect use of force, by the desire of so many Hindus, enduring the unendurable condition of being dhimmis, to remove all the legal and economic and social disabilites by converting to Islam.

If, every time one were to meet a Muslim from the subcontinent, one alluded to the conditions under which that Muslim's ancestors must surely have converted to Islam, that would be quite a step taken, in the right direction. It would offend, of course, but if it becomes a constant, if such people can no longer avoid having that matter raised again, and again, and again, by well-informed Infidels, eventually some of them may begin to bethink themselves, and imagine those Hindu (or Jain, or Buddhist) ancestors, and who knows? -- perhaps even come to sympathetically identify with them, and find for themselves an alternative identity to Islam, one discovered in their own pasts, that can help them to jettison the ideology that has had them, and their families, and their societies, in such painful thrall for so long.

Posted by: Hugh at December 1, 2008 2:31 PM

Although Islam appears to be an intractable problem today, we might, in the end, have to consider Alexander's solution to another problem, also seemingly intractable at the time - that of the Gordian knot. With one blow of his sword he solved the problem. Should we consider doing the same?

Posted by: Eastview at December 1, 2008 3:14 PM

Hugh:

Exactly what I keep doing -- reminding people that those who are hell bent on destroying India are the descendants of non-Muslim Indians who once were terrorized into joining the Islamic cult.

Warm regards,
Atanu

Posted by: atanu at December 1, 2008 3:15 PM

One item not included in the Reuters comment regarding training was 'they were trainded in satellite communications'.

If they were using 'satellite communications' then the U.S. has those communications. The U.S. has the 'who, where, when, what'.

These 'satellite communications' would condemn the Pakistan goverment.

India should demand this information from the U.S. goverment.

Who else would have this information?

Posted by: alaskan1000 at December 1, 2008 4:09 PM

It appears that India already has the knowledge that the terrorists were in communications with 'handlers' in Pakistan.

http://www.julescrittenden.com/2008/11/30/pak-it-up-3/

Further forensic tracking of the plastic explosives should show it's origin and supplier.

Pakistan will not be able to get out of this. Let India attack from the East and the U.S. Forces can clean up the Northern areas.

Posted by: alaskan1000 at December 1, 2008 5:12 PM

Ethoman wrote:

"Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has appealed to India not to punish his country for last week's attacks, saying militants could precipitate a war, the Financial Times reported on Monday." The Pakistani government thinks India should just sit tight and wait for more attacks, becuase only 40% of the Pakistani public supports the idea if military intervention in the tribal regions.
....................

Exactly--and if India does take any defensive precautions, then *they* will be perceived as the aggressor, since Pakistan appealed to India not to respond.

By the way, Ethoman, is your daughter (Gymgal2) still posting here? I haven't seen her comments for awhile.

Posted by: gravenimage at December 1, 2008 7:25 PM

The author of this piece, an Indian Muslim living in the US, has learned a bit too much from CAIR. Instead of a heartfelt regret that Muslims could have done such a thing, she laments that:

""Muslims are India's new untouchables," I said sadly to my mother, in the room with me. "India is going to explode if it doesn't take care of them.""

and

"Mumbai police said over the weekend that the only gunman they'd captured during the attacks -- which left nearly 200 dead and more than 300 wounded -- claimed to belong to a Pakistani militant group. But even if the trouble was imported, the violence will most certainly turn a spotlight of suspicion on Muslims in India. Already, my relatives are hunkered down for a sectarian backlash they expect from anti-terrorism agencies, police and angry Hindu fundamentalists."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-nomani1-2008dec01,0,4752.story

It is precisely this kind of denial and transference that makes it impossible to reform Islam. Even "moderate" Muslims are quick to blame every other reason for an atrocity but Islam (oppression, poverty, the Mossad, the CIA, etc.) and then start immediately fretting about backlashes that never come (in the US) or, if they come, are 1/10 or less as vicious and frequent as the Islamic attacks.

There is no hope for reformation in Islam so long as these attitudes and reactions among "moderate" Muslims remain, with no compassion and empathy for non-Muslim victims.

Posted by: Purple_Prose at December 1, 2008 8:16 PM

Purple_Prose, why should ordinary Indian Muslims who have nothing at all to do with this have to bear the backlash? The fears expressed are real, the incompetence displayed by the Indian authorities will be compensated for by roughing up the local Muslims to no purpose. The Shiv Sena/BJP toughs - by the way, did you see any of them in action? - will use this opportunity to shake down some Muslim pedlars, cabbies, old folks and whores. Nothing else can be expected from the cowards as they run scared of confronting the Muslim criminal elements, about the only Indians expected to have a hand in this.

Posted by: ivan at December 1, 2008 10:54 PM

2 reasons, Ivan:

1) They funded it with their zakat. For this reason ALL Muslims are terrorists and none are above reproach, not to mention suspicion.

2) Islam is sedition. Decent human beings have no business tolerating it. Why should we? I seeks to destroy us, our nations, and civilization generally.

3) Muslims deserve pogroms just for their victim rhetoric. They should be continualy victimized until they learn to take responsibility for themselves, their actions, and their communities. But there will be no pogroms. Quit your whining and your zakat-paying and maybe, just maybe we'll see fit to tolerate you.

Posted by: jdamn at December 2, 2008 12:43 AM

That was 3. I need coffee.

Posted by: jdamn at December 2, 2008 12:44 AM

ivan

In the aftermath of all this, both in the media and in the public, what we see are calls for unity, denouncements of politicians and other standard platitudes.

Totally ignored in all of this is the fact that while this atrocity was engineered from Pakistan, most of the other terror attacks since 7/11 have been home grown and done by SIMI. SIMI is an Indian group, comprised of Indian Mohammedans, with some logistical support from jihadis in Bangladesh. No mention has been made of them these days, except obliquely. Instead, those fostering communal tensions are the ones denounced, and since the Malegaon blasts (which was genuinely minor, compared to other attacks that had occured), the Congress has pounced on Hindu terrorism, as though a one off event was the equivalent of years of terror from the Mohammedans. So there's no way we can now denounce jihad without denouncing abhinav bharat. All that difference in magnitude, duration and indeed goals (abhinav bharat didn't exist until recently due to the continuing apathy of the government towards Jihad) didn't matter.

So all Indians are supposed to look past their differences and unite, right? Okay, let's see whether that solves terrorism from the home grown front. SIMI draws its support from Indian Mohammedans, and under this plan, nobody is supposed to question them about what they are doing to marginalize the jihadis among them, or show mainstream Indians how to distinguish them from other Mohammedans. And SIMI doesn't just have its support and membership from Mumbai's underworld - they have their support from places all over India, and particularly in Mohammedan pockets of the country.

So sorry, 'innocent Muslims' don't have my sympathy. When I see them saying that 'Islam's goals aren't our goals' instead of the tired old 'This is not true Islam', I'll consider that, factoring in the taquiyya factor. Until then, no deal - Shiv Sena and Abhinav Bharat has my support.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at December 2, 2008 3:24 AM

jdamn do you live in India? How many million Muslims are there in India? You and Infidel Pride rage on, but do any of you care what becomes of India if there is an all out fight? I admit to being a late convert to the BJP/VHP is a menace crowd, mainly because of what happened to the Christians in Orissa and the constant disruption of economic activity by the VHP at every opportunity. The sheer lack of leadership ability in the BJP came to fore, when back in July Advani couldn't support the nuclear treaty with the US even though it was it was a good deal overall. The Shiv Sena fucks that you are pinning your hopes on are just a bunch of goons. If they are JDL material I haven't seen any evidence of it. Where is their Pandit Liberation Front? Where is the fiery Bal Thackeray? Useless jokers the lot of them, good only for terrorising women and children. I say this with no joy whatsoever, the Indians were caught completely flat-footed. The real lesson is that we have a lot to learn in terms of defending our cities. So we'll just have to take our lumps and be better prepared.

Typepad is making life too difficult...

Posted by: ivan at December 2, 2008 4:14 AM

Ivan, I don't recall coming out in support of any particular Indian party, nor would I claim to know enough about any of the parties to do so. Mohammedans all get their ideology from the same set of books. They are the same the world over regardless of place or time, and even if they weren't, which they are, your ideology and your actions as a society are intolerable, so you make it impossible for us to even be willing to make that distinction. Sure, given the supremacy complex that Islam invariably instills all Mohammedans believe themselves to be better than other Mohammedans, so in your sick, deluded versions of reality South Asian Mohammedans think they are better than Arabs and vice versa, Somalis think they are the best but all the other Muslims consider them to be degenerate scum, Egyptians identify themselves as "African" so as to not be associated with the Saudis who feed their politics, their ideology, and everything that makes them Egyptain Muslims, and Saudis consider the Egyptians to be low-life African scum. You're all the same and I have sympathy for none of you. No real Muslim has ever sincerely demonstrated a single shred of decency, nor can they until they apostacize. Stop fishing for sympathy as you seditiously pray for my murder, rape, enslavement, torture, plunder, and extortion five times a day, you mentally ill, malignantly narcissistic sicko. Go prey on some Kos Kids. They live in your sicko/pervert parallel universe. We're literate folks in here who deal in reality and facts.

Posted by: jdamn at December 2, 2008 4:28 AM

ivan

FWIW, I've been posting this stuff from India, and following the news closely. I was at a market in Delhi the day the September blasts happened, and had relatives screaming at me to quit the market, even though I was relatively safe indoors. So don't lecture me on whether I care what happens in India. You're worried about an all-out fight breaking out? Guess what - that's inevitable, because Hindus will either have to keep taking this death by a thousand cuts if they are going to do nothing about the Mohammedans, or at least nothing about the Mohammedans doing nothing about SIMI and the fact that Islamization only marginalizes themselves from the Indian mainstream, or at some point, decide what to do to defend themselves against enemies who are indistinguishable from 'innocent Muslims'. Somehow, I doubt it will be the former.

On the attacks on Christians, I agree with you and if there were other parties that were only anti-Islamic but not anti-Christian, I'd support them. However, if we don't support Hindutva parties, we end up endorsing the pandering of Mohammedans by default, since you know as well as I do that they vote en bloc (unlike Hindus and even Christians) and every party would like to have that 15% of the electorate. As I have noted here several times, Hindutva parties are to be condemned for taking their eye of the ball and thinking that Christian proselytism is as bad/worse than jihad. However, that's not a good enough pretext for me to stop opposing Mohammedans, particularly since Christians have tended to be more anti-Hindu than anti-Islamic as far as India is concerned.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at December 2, 2008 5:05 AM

I look on Islamic militancy bloody as it is, as a rearguard action. They have nothing to offer anyone and really are on the wane. They need the spectacular acts to keep in the public eye. IP, has it occured to you that you are not hearing of SIMI because of effective police action? The people who talk of Muslim appeasement by various Indian governments sound like the critics of the Big Three automakers. Their talking points are from 10-15 years ago, when in the meantime much has changed. The Hindus have not been taking a beating, this is what the VHP would like you to believe. I'll give you an example some years ago there was a bombing campaign by Muslim students in Coimbatore. As a direct result of that one can hardly find a Muslim employed anywhere in that city.

Posted by: ivan at December 2, 2008 8:17 AM

ivan

I disagree. SIMI is not on the wane, or they couldn't have carried out all the attacks that they did this year. Had the police action against SIMI been effective, SIMI would have disappeared long ago. Note that all the attacks up to now, excluding Mumbai last week, were done by SIMI - Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmadabad, Delhi, Assam, and yet, you had politicians like Amar Singh, Laloo Yadav, et al oppose the ban on SIMI, and allege that the police set up fake encounters like in Jamia Nagar. Also, if the police had been effective in dealing with them, there wouldn't have been demands for the home minister's head, which was (figuratively, of course) delivered yesterday, long overdue.

Reason we didn't hear about SIMI last week wasn't just the convenient fact of Paki involvement: we didn't hear about it because it would have torn down that popular mantra of the politicians being the only ones responsible, and that those who divide Indians are the enemy, as opposed to those Indians who target other Indians in terror attacks. You could mention Abhinav Bharat if you like, but the fact remains that that group didn't exist until enough such jihadi attacks had gone unchallenged by the government.

In the mainstream, and when Hindus are not talking to Burkha Dutt, they are sensible enough not to make pizza deliveries to Mohammedan neighborhoods, not to rent out to Mohammedans, not to employ them, and so on. But this is just not good enough, as it leaves the door open for more pandering to Mohammedans by the various political parties. Latest being reservation for Mohammedans in educational institutions, and what's worse - talks about maintaining a quota of Mohammedans in the army.

It's by no means old talking points - it's just less common due to an apathetic attitude by the populace, their made-for-TV fury notwithstanding.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at December 2, 2008 3:02 PM