[Deleted]

There is a positive: they will be able to roll up this network with 9 captured. We'll see who the sponsors are, but brazen attacks are desperate attacks.

Amazing how so many people like "Howler" see brown people with guns and immediately think "muslim extremism", and trot out the tired old rhetoric that "gee, that's not a religion of peace!" (As if a couple dozen idiots represent an entire religion...I mean, by that logic my Christian faith is represented by the Abortion Bombers and the McVeigh's of the world...right?)

Psst..you are aware that India is not a Muslim nation right? It's Hindu! For all we know it could be Sikh extremists.

just to re-iterate - the only group to take credit for this is one whom nobody has ever heard of (which often means they didn't do it), and the M.O. (taking hostages) really isn't al Qaeda's thing.

but you go right ahead Howler and make your ridiculous assertion...what's next? Some slam at the content African Americans' character??

Way to keep it classy...

Also, shouldn't you be taking the day off M. Benen?

Go and enjoy yourself...eat, watch parades and football, sleep on the couch...you earned it!

cheers!

It seems to me the attacks were precisely timed to coincide with the US Thanksgiving holiday, to no doubt strike fear into the hearts of American citizens.

http://dave-lucas.blogspot.com/2008/11/mumbai-massacre.html

"Psst..you are aware that India is not a Muslim nation right? It's Hindu! For all we know it could be Sikh extremists."

Except that a groups calling itself a "Mujahadeen" took responsibility, and Jews were clearly targeted. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but it seems like this was an Islamist group.

I'm really frustrated that the media keeps bringing up al Qaeda. It is just irresponsible scaremongering, especially when the attack has so many elements so unlike an al Qaeda atack.

[Moderator here - I will be monitoring this thread closely, and removing comments that I deem inappropriate for reasons of racism, jingoism, ethnocentrism, etc. Anyone who crosses the line more than once will be banned.]

The cable networks devoted considerable coverage to these attacks, as well they should have, but it reminded me of the contrast with coverage of all the violence in Iraq, where somehow the suffering of innocent victims goes unmentioned, and the figures of casualties are read off, if the events are covered at all, dispassionately, as if the quotas for the last five year plan in Oceania were being recited.

We, no, Bush, unleashed a torrent of violence and mayhem on that country that we seem stubbornly resistant to acknowledging. We think of the wreckage of the war as it applies to us, not as it applies to the Iraqis, their infrastructure, their economy, their miserable lives, which has been ever so much more devastating.

I don't understand it. We have this collective shame about torturing, about eroding civil rights, about sending young men and women to their deaths for no reason at all, and yet we feel no collective guilt for the slaughter of 100,000 or more Iraqis, the senseless and devastating upheaval in their lives, the total impoverishment of their nation while trillions of dollars worth of their oil has been denied them, not just for the five years of this insane war, but since the end of Gulf War I when we imposed those crippling sanctions on the people, who have never attacked or harmed or threatened anyone.

Nobody speaks for the Iraqis and the horrors they have had to endure. It really bothers me.

I have no idea what sort of commentary this is receiving on the US networks, and I know next to nothing about India, but some observers on the Japanese channels this evening are suggesting that this orgo probably has future domestic power struggles in mind, and has specifically targeted US and European citizens (and chosen Bombay as the target zone) in order to scare off foreign capital. Smaller pie, more for us, and fewer goodies for the establishment jet-set layer, hence more influence on the state over the long term.

The attackers apparently are Islamic. It's apparently a new banner, no idea what their background is. America's series of bloodly little adventures over the past decade or so has no doubt energized them, but to read this as a US-versus-Islam-o-fascist-menace thing would be, well, pointless and stupid, and will no doubt very soon be accepted history in certain quarters.

Sigh.

I'm really frustrated that the media keeps bringing up al Qaeda.

The fundamentalist Hinduism being exploited by politicians in India has created conflict with the very large Moslem minority. The government's tacit approval of the destruction of mosques and the mass murder of Moslems was not going to escape retaliation. Terrorism may describe the acts in Mumbai, but they are probably a response to domestic violent oppression. Responding in kind to violence doesn't excuse the use of violence. All parties who rationalize the use of violence should learn this lesson, but instead they will escalate its use with righteous rationalizations.

"[Moderator here - I will be monitoring this thread closely, and removing comments that I deem inappropriate for reasons of racism, jingoism, ethnocentrism, etc. Anyone who crosses the line more than once will be banned.]"

Hey, moderator, I'd never be racist. That's a misreading by you or poor writing by me. Let's leave it there.

But I think my idea is valid. I was criticizing neilt for his criticism of howler. He said, "Amazing how so many people like "Howler" see brown people with guns and immediately think "muslim extremism"..."

I mean, howler may have been propagandized to respond as he did, but neilt is so broadminded as to be ridiculous. I have some sympathy for howler, and some sympathy for neilt, but both are too extreme for me. So I asserted my middle way, perhaps too unpleasantly. :-)

[Thanks for your reasoned explanation. Usually I just get called a fascist. :-) There are certain topics that inspire some really hateful comments, and the election brought out the worst in a LOT of people. Actually, the last year has been a tough one to do this job, and I might still be a little on the hypervigilant side - so between the two of us, that one didn't have a prayer I guess. ]

Brian Genchur is a part of Stratfor.com - that's the private intelligence company.