7/11

Frankly, this numerology hocus pocus of Islamofascists is more disturbing than Kim Il Jong's sartorial choices. What kind of a dictator thinks the rest of the world will take him seriously when he chooses to wear sansabelt military garb, mousses his hair, and sports Jackie O sunglasses? It's no surprise his rockets can't launch. A little advice to Dear Leader's haberdashers; throw out the Michael Jackson albums. But I digress. What is the Islamofascist's poetic significance of India's 7/11 except unthinkable carnage exemplified of the news footage of a man still alive, although he has been severed in two, crying for someone to help him? Of course no one could help him. Perhaps that is the poetic significance the Islamofascists were aiming for with 7/11.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers to learn that I know little about India other than being able to pull off a fairly decent chicken Tandoori and with fresh naan without a Tandoori oven in my backyard. There are a few other Indian dishes I can do and Mr. P can mix some delightfully refreshing adult beverages that the boys at the Royal Bombay Yacht Club used to down by the gallon back in the days of the evil British Empire. Also, I happen to know how many free tigers are still allowed to roam about India. The concerned alumni of Princeton, not the group Justice Sam Alito was darkly suspected of belonging to, but a more eco-concerned alumni of Princeton every so often send us letters about the alarmingly low number of free tigers left in India. Since the tiger is the mascot of Princeton it is their firm belief that it is up to Princeton alumni and their deep pockets to ensure tigers still roam freely about India or else Princeton will cease to be Princeton. The funny thing about these *Free Tigers* alumni is that they never suggest importing India's free tigers to America and allowing them to roam freely in their own neighborhoods or on the Princeton campus. Could this be because free tigers have the unfortunate tiger habit of swallowing whole small Indian children who, until they are swallowed whole by a free tiger, are just praying to their gods, playing hopscotch, or making cow patties so that mom can cook the family curry? Who knows? We just know these alumni want free tigers in India and the more the better for Princeton. Now, whichever Islamofascist group that blew up the trains on 7/11 was very clever because none of India's free tigers have been reported to been caught in the malestrom . If, perhaps, let's say a mom free tiger, a dad free tiger and their two free offspring had been severed in two by the bombs, perhaps more elites would be shaken out of their protected enclaves and understand the seriousness of this bombing.

Anatole Kaletsky, of The London Times is one elite who hasn't been shaken. Don't get me wrong. He thinks the bombing is serious but it's no big deal. His attitude is the Teresa Heinz Kerry attitude. More than that, Anatole, no doubt like Mrs. Kerry, is glad the government of India is so unlike the Americans and the Israelis about Islamofascists murdering and maiming their fellow countrymen :

Ice-cool under terror attack

Anatole Kaletsky

Unlike the hysterical reaction of America and Spain, India's restraint under pressure is exemplary

PEOPLE OF GOODWILL have been unanimous in their denunciation of the Bombay terrorist outrage. For once, the whole civilised world could agree with Tony Blair, speaking yesterday in Parliament: “Our message is that we stand in solidarity with the Indian people to defeat this terrorism wherever it exists.” When we see human bodies so cruelly ripped apart, not only in such bastions of “Western imperialism” as New York, Madrid and London, but also in India, Indonesia and Kenya we can all surely agree that the War on Terror is more than just an American or British obsession. This is truly a global war, in which all civilised nations stand united.

United and wrong. For there was one small note of dissent, or at least of nuance, in yesterday’s ringing declarations of solidarity and renewed commitment to the war against terror. Manmohan Singh, the famously cerebral Prime Minister of India, denounced the attack as “a shocking attempt to spread a feeling of fear and terror among our citizens”, but carefully refrained from blaming any specific terrorist group or threatening any particular counter-measures.

Instead of describing this atrocity as “an act of war”, the Indian authorities were treating it essentially as a criminal act. Instead of succumbing to the populist temptation to blame Pakistan, where many anti-Indian terrorist groups enjoy safe haven, Dr Singh did exactly the opposite. “The very first statements from India stressed that dialogue and confidence-building measures with Pakistan would continue,” Professor Radha Kumar, one of India’s leading authorities on inter-communal tensions. noted yesterday.

The people of India seemed equally calm. Bombay, instead of panicking or wallowing in self-pity, went on with its daily business. The shops and markets stayed open. The transport services went on running and passengers were not intimidated from using buses and trains. In all these respects, Bombay’s reaction was similar to London’s and a world apart from the hysteria in New York and Madrid.

This contrast can be tritely explained by clichés about the national character — the fatalism of the Hindus, the stoicism of the British, the passion of the Spaniards and so on. [Notice how Anatole fails to mention any American national character though he has alread slammed America twice] There are, however, more instructive political conclusions.

India, even more than Britain or Spain, has a history of terrorist horrors. Starting with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, moving on through the intercommunal bloodshed after partition to the shooting of Indira Gandhi, the murder of numerous local politicians and the seemingly endless bombings by Kashmiri separatists, Maoists and religious fanatics of all kinds, India probably has more experience of terror than any other nation.

We can draw lessons from India’s cool, self-confident behaviour. The first lesson is that Indians, both politicians and ordinary people, seem to respond much more rationally than Americans to the risks of terrorism. While 170 deaths is a terrible tragedy, the Indians seem to recognise that terrorism remains a negligible risk in the greater scheme of things and need not unduly disrupt their lives.

Even if the bombings in Bombay were repeated weekly, they would represent a smaller risk than crossing an Indian road. Seen as a one-off event, this bombing was a far less destructive tragedy than the earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis and other natural disasters that regularly afflict southern Asia. This sense of proportion should allow Indians to get on with their lives after the bombings and discourage the overreaction, the inter-communal bloodshed and the Indo- Pakistani confrontation that the terrorists obviously want.

The need to deny terrorists their objectives leads to a second conclusion. To treat terrorist attacks as “acts of war”, as President Bush has famously done since 9/11, is the most counterproductive policy imaginable, at least if the objective is genuinely to prevent further terrorism, rather than to wage a never-ending “war on terror”. Equally wrongheaded is to try to draw every country hit by terrorism into an imaginary brotherhood of solidarity against terror, as Tony Blair did in yesterday’s parliamentary statement.

The disastrous consequences of confusing terrorism with war are obvious enough. Observe the confusion of US objectives in Iraq, the descent into anarchy in Afghanistan and, just yesterday, the self-destructive decision of Ehud Olmert to respond to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers as if it were an act of war by the Government of Lebanon. Or note that it is now almost five years since 9/11, yet Osama bin Laden is still at large and the Taleban virus has been transmitted from Afghanistan to nuclear-armed Pakistan. But why has the War on Terror been such a failure? The most plausible explanation was presented last week by Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, at the LSE conference on George Soros’s book, The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror. Liberals such as Mr Soros have long argued that the War on Terror was “a false metaphor” because the “enemy” was not an army or a state, but an abstract concept, implying that the war, with all the attendant restrictions on open civil liberties and political debate, might continue for ever.

But, as Ms Chakrabati pointed out, there is another “hawkish” argument against the War on Terror metaphor, which is even more powerful: the War on Terror has turned common criminals and mass murderers into soldiers and martyrs. As Ms Chakrabarti noted, the greatest aspiration of Irish terrorist groups was to be recognised as soldiers — an aspiration that British governments consistently and rightly denied them. Yet just before the 7/7 attacks in London, the lead bomber was able to write in his testament, without a hint of self-doubt: “We are at war and I am a soldier.”

This is the glamorous image of terrorism that President Bush and Mr Blair have spent five years promoting. Luckily for India, her leaders have greater intelligence and sang-froid.

Now, as a contrast to Anatole's greater intelligence and sang-froid, here is the reaction to 7/11 by a columnist for India's Rediff News, who unlike Anatole, actually lives in India, Saisuresh Sivaswamy :

India has been engaged in a peace process with the very neighbour it knows is out to dismember it through any and every means available to it.

Is it any surprise that terrorists continue to attack India with impunity?

Contrast this with the way America has gone about its business since September 11, 2001, and you will see why that nation has not faced any attack in the last five years. Osama may fume and fret from his mountain hole, but there's little more than that he and his terrorist hordes have been able to achieve against the only remaining superpower.

That is because America understands that war can only be won through war, it cannot be won through peace, a belief India has been labouring under for so long.

You know, I think Patum Peperium ought to start a collection to send one of India's free tigers to roam about in complete peace and harmony in Anatole's garden. Perhaps then Anatole will become less nuanced, hateful, prejudiced and stupid.

Mrs. P

Comments

[MCNS]

I think Mr Kaletsky's column should be read and taken to heart by all Israelis, so they can stop their panicking and wallowing in self-pity.

War? Concerted attacks by jihadis sponsored by terrorist states? Nonsense! Whoever heard of such a ridiculous thing?

[Mrs. Peperium]

Irish Elk, we drank Smuttynoses with Steve M. (Actually, think he stuck to The Old Speckeled Hen with his fellow Latin Masser - not master - Master Cusack) during our holiday and talked (very nicely) of you. Then we return to find you were in Maine at about the same time we were!

You are so right about the Israelis and their self-wallowing - you know they're always wailing at that wall too... Those people just can't move on.

Hizbollah and Hamas are Iranian related. What they're up to is all orchestrated with Iran. Remember how Pakistan and India were battling on their common border at the time of 9/11? UbL is not orchestrating everything this but somehow all this is related. Look for some magnificient flying by some very brave Israeli pilots. Also, look to Turkey as we would need to refuel there if we were to join the Israelis.

[Mrs. Peperium]

AHA!
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/738310.html

[Mark C. N. Sullivan]

Mrs P, Smuttynose IPA is the way to go. Sorry to have missed you in Maine!

[Jacobite]

Mrs. P, as someone who spent quite some time in India recently, I can assure you that both the issues of free tigers and Pakistan-sponsored terrorism are not so simple. There are few tigers left in Indian forests because most have been poached to sell to the Chinese who use various tiger parts in their traditional medicine (e.g. tiger *male-parts* to cure impotence). Also, if you've read any of Jim Corbett's work, you'd know that tigers don't go for humans unless the tiger is old or injured and thus can't get better food. The loss of habitat and natural prey like deer due to illegal forest-cutting and hunting also doesn't help. One solution would be increased protection for India's wildlife sanctuaries.

The terrorism issue can't be resolved by merely declaring war on Pakistan because Pakistan has nukes and won't be afraid to use them. (Reason why Iran should be dealt with ASAP.) Also, when India has gone to war with Pakistan in times past, the results were very bloody since the Indo-Pakistan border is an extremely cold and mountainous region. Not to mention that the US was (and still is) a staunch supporter of Pakistan due to the Cold War. Both India and Afghanistan have been shouting themselves hoarse over Pakistan's sponsorship of terrorism, but the US refuses to give Pakistan a smackdown.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Jacobite, actually I was aware of the poaching of tiger body parts. We have the same problem in this country with the grizzly bear and the rattlesnake - as parts of those beasts also are said to cure Chinese impotence as well. Though the best cure to Chinese impotence would be for the government to lift the one-child policy. Anyway, the eco-alumnis do attribute poaching as the major problem with free tigers in India but since their beloved institution, Princeton, actively promotes complete sexual freedom I wonder which plight, the plight of the free tiger or the plight of the impotent Chinaman would garner more sympathy with Prof. of bio ethics Peter Singer?

Anyway about India. I wasn't necessarily advocating war on Pakistan. However Pakistan and the Palestinians do get special treatment from our government and others. We tend to look the other way though Bush does most firmly assert Israel's right to defend itself. Right Truth has a great post with Mark Steyn on this today. I'm currently awaiting a storm to pass at Mrs. C's so there is not the time to post it, right now.