Absolutely sad news. Shocking what small group of people want to do a country that is quite happy with it's religion.
Mumbai!
- Thread starter Professor Zoom
- Start date
Yeah...India has quite a few religions. It's quite diverse in fact. True, the predominate religion is Hindu, but...there is quite a lot.
It's also extremely diverse in language and culture.
It's also extremely diverse in language and culture.
Sure, but a president can only do so much.
I think it's a lot more effective that people keep their eyes and ears open. There's nothing paranoid about being alert and attentive to your surroundings.
So...what are you saying? What these people "go through" means it's okay for them to do whatever they like? And if uninvolved people are killed simply because they happened to be there at the time, what their killers "go through" makes it okay? Does this "logic" apply to all acts of terrorism, or are there special criteria that make some more acceptable than others?
If mine is too "simplistic" a viewpoint for you, too bad. Beats the hell out of even appearing to try to justify acts like this.
The likely* cause that those terrorists espouse is not going to get the sympathy of any sane person, anyway. They probably know that, hence the violence. Fear is the only way to (theoretically) change anyone's minds and make them acquiesce to a viewpoint with which they find disgusting. Fundamentally, that is why terrorism exists in the first place. If you have an argument that can draw sympathy on its own merits, why would you need to resort to violence and fear?
*Looks like it's probably more of that horseshit over Kashmir, or the secular government in Pakistan, although I haven't heard any confirmation of what they're after. Those seem to be the usual beefs that involve India.
And since their cause is ultimately religiously based, they would very strongly disagree with the notion that it's not worth a human life. To them, it's worth the lives of every human alive today, who ever existed or ever will exist, because God is more important than them all combined. Which makes sense in a way, if you believe that 1) God created humans and 2) the only point of human existence is to worship God.
I'll give them credit for having an internally consistent belief system. The problem lies in outsiders not understanding what their belief system is. Even though Islamic terrorists have made reasonable attempts to communicate their ideals and goals, there is still a great deal of confusion about this. Pick up a book by Whalid Phares, that's a good place to start.
You'd be giving them exactly what they want: martyrdom and an excuse to recruit more young idiots to pull shit like this.
They are indoctrinated in certain beliefs, such as the notion that human lives are irrelevant and God is all that matters, so killing in the name of God is not only okay but actually a good thing to do, and will get you into heaven. Many of these young idiots probably do live in poverty, in violent cultures that extol mindless obedience to authority and denegrate the value of human life, and whose acts of violence simply spur their enemies to commit violence in return (such as the suggestion for public executions quoted above) in an eternal vicious cycle.
So their lives are pretty bleak and hideous by our standards and I feel sorry for them, but it wouldn't stop me from putting a bullet in their brains if I had a chance, just to mitigate the amount of future damage they would do. It's like killing a rattlesnake in your backyard; it may not be "fair" but it has to be done.
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Mumbai is probably one of the most cosmopolitan and secular cities in Asia. We're predominantly Hindu but it is a huge melting pot of culture and people, definitely more so than the rest of India.
They reported today that the Rabbi at the Chabad center and his wife were among those found dead.
Words can't express just how depressing this situation is.
I feel very sorry for the people caught up and killed in this idiotic clusterfuck (which is still grinding on from the looks of things), but I don't feel much pity for the pathetic, teen yahoos who've carried out this act of moderately well co-ordinated desperation (I guess they've seen Commando a fair few too many times if they came in by inflatable rafts). Of course the real culprits (rogue Pakistani intelligence officers most likely) have covered up their tracks after providing the ground planning and equipment.
I thought you said it was a vicious cycle. They don't come more expendable. For each terrorist who dies there's another 2 in training. They have channels for recruitment. Schools and camps. I agree they shouldn't be granted their martyrdom so easily.
This is a very good post. Sums it up nicely. I have nothing to add, except this: tonight at dinner one of my relatives declared that this is all happening because "the Muslims hate us (Americans)." I tried to explain that a. not all Muslims hate Americans. Gee, some Muslims are Americans; b. we're seeing radicalism here, which is never wholly representative; and c. this might be something to do with Kashmir separatism (I don't know for sure, I can't make it out from the somewhat sketchy news reports) or the India/Pakistan relationship. My cousins didn't know what Kashmir was and thought I was saying that Al-Qaeda wanted to live in Kashmir (because, you see, ALL Muslims=terrorists=Al-Qaeda). One of my cousins kept referring to Muslims as a nationality. "We don't have radical Irish people coming over here!" she told me, "Or radical Autralians!" I had to explain to her that Islam is not a country, and that yes, we do actually have radicals from other faiths or ideologies who have killed. Most strikingly, they felt almost no empathy for the victims there (other than the Americans, of course).
I got angrier than I have ever been at a family gathering and had to leave. I know it wasn't helpful, I just couldn't take it any more.
I just hope they've got the violence under control there and that people are getting in touch with their loved ones.
Thespeckledkiwi
Vice Admiral
So...what are you saying? What these people "go through" means it's okay for them to do whatever they like? And if uninvolved people are killed simply because they happened to be there at the time, what their killers "go through" makes it okay? Does this "logic" apply to all acts of terrorism, or are there special criteria that make some more acceptable than others?
If mine is too "simplistic" a viewpoint for you, too bad. Beats the hell out of even appearing to try to justify acts like this.
So you know this situation completely? You understand each and every mindset of the people sent to do this? You understand why they did this? You understand the economical, political, and social aspects that created these problems, and the historical connotations that these attacks have?
Listen, these aren't justifiable acts but what you are saying is overly simplistic of a policy that has continued since the 1940s. What these acts are, are a continuation of a decade long problem that the Western world has yet to address, and has yet to rectify and work on.
Not every young man (or woman) start out as terrorists. There is something, some event that puts them down that road and we got to figure out what that is. What got to attack that as we dismantle their terrorist networks around the world.
I remember a story about Chechnya and why the woman there attack the Russians on these suicide runs, these completely bizarre attacks like Beslan and the Moscow Theater. They don't start out as terrorists but become terrorists because of the actions of Russia within their country. They kill, rape, kidnap, torture, and completely destroy these people's lives and we wonder why they turn to violence? Many of the women, from what I remember and read, are widows because their husbands were killed or kidnapped and disappeared by Russians.
This cause could be one of many. It could be some of these young men grow up hating India for some odd reason. Others could have been recruited because of the US policy in Pakistan. Others grown up to hate Western culture.
We tend to forget there is also a Persian culture within a place like Iran, that creates such a interesting scenario. They are Muslim, yes, but they are also Persian or in the case of Saudi Arabia, Arabian. Different cultures merging with different cultures.
To be truthful, many of these young men and women grow up in poverty while the higher ups, the ruling community has more wealth than they know what to do with. The ones that own the oil refineries and plants in places like Saudi Arabia.
There is a striking contrast between the haves and the have nots in these places and what they see, what they know is that the US is propping up these corrupt businesses and government. The US could care less because they get their oil, their airbase, to feel good.
And so, they see two enemies: their government but also the US or other Western countries or the entire Western group. And they attack.
Yes, there will always be religious fanatics, seeing it as a jihad, as a Muslim-based war. But in truth, many of the young men they recruit, the young women don't know what they are fighting for, only that they are fighting the great evil that is the Western Culture.
What we need to do is fight those perceptions, those misconnations, those stereotypes and educate them. Education is the key to all of this.
We cannot keep creating more martyrs for them to rally behind. We need to start putting pressure on these governments to clean up corruption, to clean up the mismanagement and the problems with wealth distribution. We need to show that we are not only interested in helping Israel but also Palestine and the other areas.
One of the keys to the Middle East is Iran. Iran is such a progressive but also backwards Middle Eastern state. We could learn much from them but they have much to learn from us. Our policies dealing with Iran is so screwed up that it's hard to not sympathize with their people (not their government).
So what cause are you exactly talking about?
Zionist: "Anti-Semite! Anti-Semite! Sympathiser of Palestinian terrorists!"
With Israel and Palestine there is too much invested interest into Israel and its negative policies amongst millions of very vocal Americans (with the more nutty ones wanting this geopolitical clusterfuck to lead to Armageddon). With harebrained religious nutjobs pushing forward Proposition 8 and the utterly obscene amounts of money being rewarded to bank executives for their incompetence, the United States has its fair share of ingrained problems with fantacism and corruption that need to be negated (with the knock on effects spreading outwards to the Second and Third Worlds).
Geez, aren't you both right? It is appalling that people die for causes they don't fully understand and that won't solve the basic problems they face. And we do have to understand all the social, cultural, religious, and economic reasons behind attacks like these in order to stop them.
Now make up and play nice or I'll be forced to hug someone.
Forgot to ask: Professor Zoom, any word yet on your friends living there?
I have some family living there and it so happened that others were visiting the city at the time - fortunately none of them were in the immediate vicinity of the hotels, though one couple missed being involved in Taj hotel siege by about 4 hours or so! Lucky escape!!
Every one is fine. Most were at home. We were most worried about one couple--she's like 6 months pregnant, but they were both at home watching it unfold on TV.
And another friend was flying into Mumbai at the time.
So, everyone we know is safe.
My wife was there last year for several weeks doing work, and she ate at Cafe Leopold, and knows the other areas personally, so the whole thing had quite a personal punch for her.
Glad to hear that your friends are safe, Professor Zoom. I bet this board lit up like a Christmas tree in 7/7 when bombs went off on London's public transport. What went down in Mumbai was some serious shit and I wouldn't want me or anybody I know to be caught up in it. But as bad as the situation was, more people get killed on India's infamously anarchic roads, so I wouldn't bet on India getting particularily tough on Pakistan.
I'm glad to hear that your family is safe, Holdfast, and your friends are safe, Professor Zoom.
Now hopefully the situation between India and Pakistan won't escalate and result in even more deaths....
Now hopefully the situation between India and Pakistan won't escalate and result in even more deaths....
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