Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:51:25 -0500 From: "J. Colaco < jc>" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
When will we ever learn that Violence only begets more Violence Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:56:23 -0800 (PST) From: Santosh Helekar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> We have to make certain that the perpetrators of these crimes are caught and punished, and their networks dismantled. We have to do everything to prevent wider communal repercussions of this carnage and oppose anybody who might try to politicize these events. Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 06:40:56 +0530 From: "Marshall Mendonza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I have been repeatedly saying that we need to condemn all acts of hate and violence and speak out. Because that is the only way for the terrorists, extremists and fundamentalists to get the message that we do not approve of their actions. The only way out, as I see it, is to focus on education and economic issues. Once people have a stake in society and their well being they will not have any incentive to indulge in destructive activities. Mario observes: Jose, I beg to disagree with your comment above in the context of the current attack on Mumbai. Only violence will stop the kind of violence we are seeing every few months now in India. India has tried non-violence and the violence against India has only escalated. What violence do you think was perpertated by the 200 or so innocent victims in this assault on Mumbai that it begat the violemce that claimed their lives? What violence has India perpetrated against Muslims recently? Whatever real or imagined grievances are behind such senseless targeting of innocent civilians has already taken place, and cannot be undone. We can go around and around on who fired the first shot, and it will not save a single life. India has been pegged as a "soft target" and these attacks are taking place with regularity now, some 4000 innocent Indians dead since 2004 was the number I heard yesterday which does not include the victims of this attack in Mumbai. As far as how to stop it, this is not Gandhi confronting the Brits, or Martin King confronting the Americans. Neither Gandhi nor King would have been able to impress them, since their alternative is to kill people as a means of going to heaven. These are Islamic heretics whose goals include setting up a radical Caliphate from which to spread their corrupted version of Islam around the world, by force if necessary, and heaven awaits those who die in the attempt. I did not make this up. This concept of a Caliphate is what Osama Bin Laden has proclaimed. However, Osama prefers that other die in the attempt, not he. I believe Osama has his doubts about this particular method of going to heaven because he has shown no inclination to hasten his own journey to meet his maker. If the terror groups are home-grown like the Muslim Students Association, the only way to stop them is to infiltrate these cells, and blow them up from within. I believe this is what the Brits, Americans and Israelis do. If the terror groups are from Pakistan or the middle-east then India needs to STOP their tedious moralizing construing these events as simply India's "karma", and join in the war on terror and force the current forces battling the terrorists to confront the dangerous double-game that Pakistan has been playing for so long of denying that they support the jihadis while not doing enough to curb them. The war on terror must continue at an escalated until the jihadis are either all dead or the cost on them is far too great for them to continue. Otherwise more innocent civilians will die, in India and elsewhere. Marshall, Please let me be the first one to give you the bad news. Condemning these terrorists is not a message that will impress them. Who exactly are you planning to educate and provide with an economic stake? Indian Muslims already have access to education and economic opportunity and the freedom to practice their religion as they choose that they would not have in any Muslim country. Most of them are not involved in such violence as we have just seen in Mumbai. Many of the killings were caused by random firing into crowds of people, whose religion, caste and creed were irrelevent to the shooters. There will be Muslims among the innocent victims. The Police Chief in Mumbai is a Muslim, who would have killed all these Muslim terrorists single-handedly if he could. These terrorists in Mumbai had no grievance that they were willing to discuss or negotiate. This was another suicide attack. They had only one goal - to kill as many as possible before they were killed. In their minds they are all in heaven now. Our goal should be to hasten their journey whenever the opportunity presents itself. Santosh, I agree with your solution. Unfortunately, India has not developed the will or the skill to do what you have suggested. Throughout the 90s terrorists with the same mind-set as the ones who attacked Mumbai attacked the US and US interests, with little or no response. If Jose was correct, this non-violent response should have stopped the violence. What happened was exactly the opposite. Osama Bin Laden was so impressed by what his people had achieved that he proclaimed Al Qaeda a "strong horse" and the US a "weak horse" that did not have the will to defend itself. Thus emboldened, they planned and carried out the attack on 9/11. The response that followed must have shocked Osama because he hasn't been seen since, and Al Qaeda is on the run, not only because they are now defending their own back yard, but their mindless violence is increasingly leading to a backlash among mainstream Muslims, and breaking their self-imposed ceiling on opposing other Muslims under a principle called "Ummah" "Ummah" was designed to protect the religion from external attack. What good is "ummah" when most of the victims of the terrorists are fellow Muslims? Al Qaeda was driven underground or driven out of Iraq because Iraqi Muslims finally turned against them and began to assist the coalition forces. I am hoping that sooner or later so many Muslims in India get so disgusted with the Muslims terrorists whose grievances now are more imagined than real, that they will more actively join other Indians to expose and stamp out these wanton attacks, and even encourage taking a stronger position on cross border terrorism originating in Pakistan or Bangladesh. Here, too, is another view on India's inadequate leadership on the growing terrorist attacks over the last several years: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/mumbaiterrorstrike/Election_Story.aspx?ID=NEWEN20080074494
