The major news outlets are falling all over themselves trying to report on the massacres in Mumbai, India that have already killed nearly 200 hundred innocent people and wounded hundreds more in a train station, several hotels and a local Jewish center.
The Washington Post notes the coordination seen in the attack suggests outside “help,” while Indian government forces darkly label neighboring Pakistan as the source of the violence. The Telegraph notes hat ethnic Pakistanis born in Britain – UK citizens – were among those captured.
Given that the “Deccan Mujahadin” were unheard of prior to the attack, fingers are pointing in every direction, including the Kasmiri separatists of Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-al-Mohammed , terrorists groups thought to have been sponsored by the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI – a shadow organization within the government owing loyalty to none but its own opaque purposes. Everyone seems stiffly cautious about labeling the attack an al Qaeda production, for whatever reason.
As if any of that matters.
The al Qaeda that planned and executed the 9/11 attacks on this country from a position of regal splendor atop the Taliban government of Afghanistan no longer exists. It has been decapitated, smashed and flown to hiding, as has the remnants of the splinter “al Qaeda in Iraq” which sought to make Mesopotamia the “central front” in the war on terror and succeeded only in its own root and branch destruction. Its irreconcilable elements tremble in mud huts in Waziristan, producing impotent video threats while starting in mortal fear at every overhead shadow, every sudden, whistling breeze.
Whatever power al Qaeda maintains is its toxic example to legions of the hateful faithful, enraged impotents who believe that most of all, an omnipotent, merciful God wishes them to slaughter as many innocents as they can before security forces cut them down. They will destroy, because that is all that they know how to do. We will rebuild, because we have no other option.
These “armies of the righteous” and “armies of Mohammed” are so degraded even in their own eyes that they view death as a promotion. They have nothing to offer us but revulsion, they have lost even their capacity to shock – we are saddened, but no longer surpised by their barbarisms. We understand them well enough to understand their mad incomprehensibility. We remember New York and Arlington, Dhaka and Bali, Baghdad and Islamabad, London, Tel Aviv and Madrid. Now we will remember Mumbai. We have seen a great deal that would like to be able to forget.
Remembering all of that, does it really matter what they call themselves any more?
No, except that I think that we should be a bit more accurate and call them Islamic Terrorists.
… the Taliban government of Afghanistan no longer exists. It has been decapitated, smashed and flown to hiding, as has the remnants of the splinter “al Qaeda in Iraq” which sought to make Mesopotamia the “central front” in the war on terror and succeeded only in its own root and branch destruction. Its irreconcilable elements tremble in mud huts in Waziristan, producing impotent video threats while starting in mortal fear at every overhead shadow, every sudden, whistling breeze.
Your view is much, much shorter than theirs, O Lexus Rhetoricus. What, really, is any different to a Taliban now and a Taliban of ten years ago? Karzai knows, which is why he desperately pleads with the US and NATO to do his work for him, work he can’t accomplish with Afghanis. AQI may be a back-burner project, but the underlying hatred between Sunni and Shi’a still exists, waiting for a tactically sharper Zarqawi, some new Sunni mahdi, to emerge and re-ignite the flames. As for the irreconcilables, they aren’t trembling, however impotent their video threats may be, because they are looking at the jihad in the context of eternity, not in the context of the 24-hour blogging cycle or the four-year election cycle.
Regrettably, you do not understand them well enough, or you would know that their actions are not mad incomprehensibility, but the very will of Allah, for nothing happens if Allah does not so will it.
Well Zane, the answer then is find them, fix them, kill them. We need to run an introduction service for those 72 virgins.
Mike,
Find, Fix, Kill.
Man, that circle is getting smaller and smaller!
@
Lex, Well done
Time for special meeting of UN delegates and grandees to issue one of their tried and true stern communiques.
That’ll learn ‘em.
Global jihad continues. The targeting of the Chabad is one of the most explicitly anti-Western elements of the attacks.
Thanks for your perspective.
It appears they are trying to point to Bangladesh. Now spelled Dhaka, the capital used to be spelled Decca. Some of the Islamist madness is found there (or anywhere else you find significant numbers of Mohammad followers). While some would like to think Islam is a religion of peace, the Ummah has known little peace.
I despair of there ever being any change in the Haters. And the worst of the Haters are the Islamic Jihadists, by whatever name you designate them. And we already, in our innocence, have let so many of them into our beloved country, have allowed them to gain the precious gift of our citizenship. It depresses me profoundly, because I know, after 80 years of life, that some people are bad to the bone, and will never change. So they sit here, in the center of the most beautiful country in the world, and fester, creating a toxic sore that will never heal.
We can’t just “draw aside the hem of our garments,” as the Bible advises, because the sore festers and grows.
Tell me, Lex and friends, what should we do?
Marianne
Lex, I’ve been thinking about this and started to write about earlier, it just didn’t come out right. Marianne, you ask a very complex question. You use one verse from the Bible rather then the full counsel of the Bible. There are places where God says, “Go in and slay them man, woman and child, even their livestock. Then burn everything, take nothing with you.” Marianne, my counsel, we should do our own homework with the Intel Community. There should be no political meddling from either side. Intel and politics just don’t mix at any time, including the past, present and future. We should move as a Nation and not just the Military. Lastly, you can move fast or slow, but what ever you do, don’t go ‘HALF-FAST’.
Robert Spencer has finally reached the conclusion (late, but better than never) that Muslim immigration needs to be terminated forthwith. Scripture does not require that we dispossess ourselves, or commit suicide. many of the strictures the law placed on Israel were to avoid such infiltration, either religious, or subversion. They didn’t listen and obey God, so they gave in other things and ended up, temporarily, in the dust bin of history.
Islam and subversion are synonymous. All immigration must be strictly controlled, but Islamic immigration must be halted.
Alas, the intel agencies have been completely politicized, just as the GOFO ranks have been. 9/11 was an intel failure with political origins. getting people into the CIA with no political axes to grind will require a lot of pink slips. It didn’t happen after 9/11, it won’t happen now. The government has gone totally soft headed and it is very unlikely that will change in time.
Speaking of what they’re called, what is it with CNN calling them “miltant muslims” vice Islamic Terrorists, etc.
I like the handle that JTAC called ‘em in that video when he called in the LGB on a terrorist postion- “Mujjjh MFs”. That would go good on CNN..”US Marines morted another even dozen “Mujjjh MFs in S. Afghanistan today…”
Godless bastard barbarians. “Grave of the Hundred Head” is all I can think of as usual.
b2
Grumpy, would that be the notion of “Don’t take on Vast Projects with Half-Vast Notions”?
Had something else to include, but can’t get the link right before timing out.
More on the mess in Mumbai: Mumbai photographer: I wish I’d had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back.
Quite a number of pictures linked to the story, which, ironically, comes out of Belfast.
Once upon a time there was a county in Georgia, where it was required by law that each household own and keep a gun in the house. Upon enactment of the law, crime in the surrounding territory dropped precipitously… seemingly overnight.
Thank God that granting a CCW in WA is still in shall-issue status. Oddly enough, even The People’s Republic still has the option in places. Wonder of wonders…
Mongo, feel-free, either comment is appropriate to this rotten situation. But the thing that really got me was the link to “Mubai Photographer…”. As I looked at the picture and it’s subject, something really began to stand out to me. The first being, he appeared “military-trained”. There is something else that just just doesn’t fit.
Grumpy, I guess I see all of this coming to a place in the heartland near to any one of us very soon. What we see elsewhere is simply minor league practice prior to taking it to the majors.
Thankfully our SWAT teams are better equipped and trained than the faithful few in Mumbai, but the Shock and Awe will be heartrending for many.
Sadly too, at some point, America’s Muslims are going to have to decide to be ‘with us or with them’, and act accordingly. We’ve already seen it in action in Iraq with generally satisfactory results. I say sadly because I can empathize with the situation they’ll find themselves in.
Mongo, As I looked at the picture in your earlier link. It is strange for me, there are parts I agree and parts I disagree. Point, “Thankfully our SWAT teams are better trained than the faithful few in Mumbai,….” This is the only section I way disagree with you. I see some SWAT units unable to be able to deal with this type of an assault. The difference is one between tactical and strategic. As I continued to read the same sentence, “…. but the Shock and Awe will be heartrending for many.” Hmm, just maybe the Old Boy, does get it after all.
If that’s a picture of you in the upper right hand corner, it says a GREAT deal. In your last paragraph, you take the ultimate risk of empathy. The American Muslim is in a rough spot. He is put into a dilemma, he must make a choice between two options. Option ‘A’, sucks and Option ‘B’ sucks, as well, no other choices. In this aspect, all I trying to say is I agree with you.
Mongo, fight on! Stay in the fight!
Grumpy, the pic is Huahine in June ‘04, following a 4 week sailing adventure from New Zealand to Papeete. Not quite the Marine that I used to be. :^)
Your point on the SWAT folks is well taken, and perhaps my brush was too broad on that one.
Thanks for the compliment!
And Grumpy, even after they bury me…I’ll still be in the fight. Semper Fi!
Lex,
I posted a couple of updates on my blog. Two news articles. First, the Jewish victims were not just murdered, they were tortured.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/30mumterror-doctors-shocked-at-hostagess-torture.htm
and second, the Rabbi’s wife was six months pregnant.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1091318/Jewish-mother-killed-Mumbai-attacks-pregnant–son-2-beaten-militants.html
I don’t know exactly why those things make it worse, but they do.