DOES THE JARGON OF THE "WAR ON TERROR" ENLIGHTEN OR CONFUSE?

I have always been sensitive to words that lose their functional meanings and instead become insults or terms of condemnation. The world "liberal" comes to mind. Whatever the legacy of conservative rule in the United States may be the demonization of the term "liberal" is one of them.

Will the already, we are told, historic Presidency of Barrack Obama embrace the term "liberal" or will the legacy of conservative demonizing the term continue to rule the minds of those who many of us hope will be liberal? Anyway what does liberal mean? The meaning is lost once the term is primarily used to condemn and shut down any real dialogue and any real liberalism!

The term "terrorism" has a certain utility. Sometimes people use the term to mean something specific and clear, like a particular tactic or form of warfare. Yet most of the time the term is used in a way that confuses. The "War on Terror" is one ridiculous example. Terror is not terrorism! I can be terrified by anything and even though some scholars have actually been goofey enough to define "terrorism" as anything that frightens or terrorizes someone that definition is obviously absurd.

Or consider how the term Al Qaeda is used to refer to anyone who sets off a bomb and shares a certain religious identity. Yet, as we now seem to have discovered in India Kashmiri-Pakistani group was behind the attacks in Mumbai. It isn't AQ. Lashkar Al Taiba was deployed like Bin Laden to the war against the Russians decades ago. Then the Pakistani government sent them to fight in Kashmir. Now for whatever reason they murdered a hundred civilians in Mumbai. But it is another group, not AQ.

And what about the "connection" between this or that group or individual and Al Qaeda? What does "connection" signify? What is a connection. I have a connection with Muhammed Ali, I walked past him as a small child and he said HI! What does such a connection mean, not much.

Then we are told that all people are a few degrees, perhaps six degrees separated from one another. That is to say that a link of six people in a chain of acquaintances can link anyone up to just about anyone else. Such a connection is therefore commonplace and hardly worth mentioning. So when I the term "connection" used without any facts or any explanation I am pretty skeptical about the usefulness of the statement. indeed, such a use of the term "connection" is usually misleading.

Incompetent, ignorant and manipulative folks like to confuse and polarize with terminology. Hopefully we can try to use these terms that are so polarizing and infused with emotion in a responsible way if at all.

CERTAIN OBVIOUS FACTS AND MEANINGFUL QUESTIONS

How destructive were these attacks, really?

We have a few hundred dead and a similar number injured. Obviously the casualty figures indicates something other than a typical battle. About ninety people were mowed down at the train station.

How many people die in India from such attacks a year? What percent of the total killed and wounded in this single attack? Is it even one percent?

How many people die from other causes in India every day? Accidents in traveling for example, house fires, domestic violence, nonpolitical crime, etc.?

Was this a military victory for someone?

The terrorists were pretty destructive for fifteen purported assailants.
Still it is no miracle that automatic weapons and grenades can kill a lot of
people in a few minutes.

Ironically, they seem to have been allowed to rampage throughout the area without immediate confrontation. Did they take out existing security officials or were such people absent from the scene until the occupation of the buildings? Or was there just an arrogant sense of invulnerability in that part of the city?

Obviously the stupid destructive mission of these executioners was successful at least in terms of killing a bunch of civilians. Not much of a trick really, massacring scores at a railway station.

Yet at the end of the day the militants were slaughtered and one taken captive. Perhaps five got away. Apparently the source of the attack will be discerned from the captive and an abundance of other evidence.

Mumbai is pretty much back to normal.

Was this a distraction?

The whole event seemed designed to be a spectacle and to a large extent it succeeded in that regard. The refusal of the Indian government to negotiate may have reduced the propaganda value of the mission leaving us with a pile of corpses and not even a crumby excuse for yet another heroic act of martyrdom or maybe something else.

Perhaps someone with bad news elsewhere wants to change the subject.

Was this a provocation?

Many might take it that way but who is doing the provoking? What are the demands of the terrorists. Do we know anything about them or are we just not being told what they want?

If this is just an introduction to some new group it might be thought of as more of an introduction. The Deccan Mujahadeen, is it real, is it really new?

If this is a provocation who would benefit from war between India and Pakistan. Perhaps some Kashmiri groups think they would, perhaps some of the various Islamic militias somewhere, like Pakistan or India think it might achieve some result for them. I suppose AQ will let us know where they want us to think they stand on Mumbai. Elements in Israel or even the United States might like this, don't you think?

What about China? Do they want peace with India, a major economic and political rival? Just asking.



Just another attack in India?

There are so many bombings and militant attacks in India every day that this attack in Mumbai stood out in that it was even noticed outside of India. Of course the targets included Indian and foreign elites so these
people mattered to the corporate media more than the usual targets of such violence. It was good for cable news ratings and perhaps imperial propaganda.

It could be just another attack that was a homicidal outlier, a statistical anomaly. Somehow these dudes were just more potent than many attackers.
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A region of heavily armed folks.

There seems to be an abundance of light arms and explosives in South and West Asia. Militias are all over the place in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. So it should come as no surprise that folks can get a bunch of grenades and AK's and kill folks if they really want to do that.

INDIA ROARS ONWARD

Perhaps we can learn from the Indians not to let this sort of tragedy
drive us crazy. We don't need to make terrorist attacks worse than they are by trying to make everyplace a police state. Mumbai is bustling again and life continues. India is basically not afraid and we shouldn't be afraid either. It is enough to die once, no?

MUMBAI ATTACK LOOKS LIKE AQ MODUS OPERANDI

The attack in Mumbai looks like some of those AQ plots that never quite made it into operation, at least in terms of having so many moving parts. Of course 911 was "successful" but other plots involving even more airplanes never made it into implementation.

Of course it looks like attackers, at least some from abroad, came ashore and proceeded to attack ten or more targets. They were suicidal and seemed interested in killing civilians at their various targets. Of course this maya be related to Jammu and Kashmir. In India there are a lot of attacks by insurgents and terrorists. This was on a larger scale, and obviously meant to be a spectacle.

It sounds a lot like a military operation because of the story that the group came in on a dingey after being left ten nautical miles beyond Indian waters. That requires some discipline. The terrorists reportedly
impressed the Indian forces fighting them with their professionalism with grenades and the AK.

If there is a Deccan Mujahadeen, which is the group we are told takes credit for this then we can wonder if they want to create a Hyderabad emirate. Of course the danger of communal violence after this attack by
people claiming to be doing it for the sake of Islam is heightened. Hopefully moderation and good sense prevail.

We must remember that there may be elements in Pakistan or elements in Islam that have carried out these attacks or supported them in some essential manner. This involvement of a few does not make all Pakistanis or Islamic people guilty of this assault. That is a very irrational idea and I address this admonition to Americans who are likely to need such reminders.

I don't think that the Pakistani government supported this attack although some may want it to look that way, like AQ in particular.

PEACE IN PALESTINE WILL BE EVEN MORE DIFFICULT IF AQ ENTERS THE CONTEST

I hope that Israel and the Palestinians will rapidly deescalate the military struggle against each other and establish the practical peace that will serve the short and long term interests of all parties.

If AQ is able to establish a front in Palestine or Israel this opportunity may be lost. The time for peace and prosperity is now and yes, the main burden is on Israel but the Palestinians must also seek to act before the political equation is changed.

Of course Palestine has long been the least religiously extreme part of the Arab world. Israel's efforts to social engineer the demographics of the Palestinian people has already led to one failure after another.

It is time for Israel, in particular, to reign in its extremists and make peace within its own constituencies so it can come to peace with the Palestinians. An endless game of warfare and war crimes will serve neither side nor the cause of world peace. Otherwise there is one state and can be only one state Israel/Palestine, with one people, the Palestinians confined to bantustan-like nations and subjugated by an Israeli military dictatorship supplemented with widespread Klan-like setter instigated terrorism.

The greatest pillar of peace for Israel is peace with Palestine and Palestinians. That can be accomplished if only Israel can make peace with itself and choose the humanistic side of its heritage even if the struggle is difficult and increasingly urgent for all parties and the peoples of the world.

IS BIN LADEN DECEASED?

I guess a lot of folks believe that the infamous Osama Bin Laden is dead. If this is true it would explain why there have been no communiques from him and the more recent ones seem sort of fake. Could an effort be made by AQ or its opponents to fake OBL communiques on video or otherwise?

Of course the whole construct of AQ is sort of loose and we always hear about how this or that organization is "connected" to Al Qaeda, whatever the word "connected" means.

The Surge Was Directed At Sadr and Shia Militias Not AQ

Yeah, we can count on AQ being a Sunni thing. AQ in Iraq and its variants may be everyone elses target but the surge was against the al Sadr militias primarily and I guess they sort of melted away after a while.

Of course Senator McCain suggested that Iran which is run by a Shia theocracy is adding and abetting Al Qaeda. I guess the well informed and reality based Senator from the West Bank settlements, Joe Lieberman was with him at the time and tried to direct him not to say such incredibly stupid and incompetent things! Yes, these two variants of revolutionary Islam are enemies, not allies. I wonder if John McCain knows that even today?

So lets not confuse the Iraqi AQ and its variants with the Iranian revolution, please! Por favore.

Surge not so great as AQ redeploys to many foreign lands

I just have to say it. Al Qaeda seems to have redeployed the Iraqi recruits to many foreign lands. I believe these must include Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and I don't know where else.

Follow the suicide bombings and we will know where they have gone. It is as simple as that.

So if Iraq was supposed to be some sort of way to contain AQ it has done just the opposite. Iraq has become a laboratory in how to defeat the technology of the one and only superpower. Now this relatively simple but immensely destructive knowledge has been spread to other nations and regions. Iraq has become a mother of AQ cadre that are now being redeployed to other fronts where the United States poses little or no threat.

It seems that suicide bombings are back in Iraq and it will be interesting to see if they intensify or not. You have to wonder if AQ will largely give upon Iraq but maybe they have an unlimited bucket of martyrs. I just don't see how they can accomplish anything there. It is a largely Shia nation and then there are lots of Kurds too.

Elsewhere you read about waves of suicide bombers in Afghanistan as they seek to develop the suicide bomber technique so they can penetrate hardened positions such as American fortresses.

In Pakistan it is interesting to read that hundreds of little Pakistani forts have been overrun in the tribal areas! This is the so called Pakistani Taleban which like the Taleban of Afghanistan is AQ or its equivalent.

AQ may or may not want to attack the U.S. proper. After all, they achieved their apparent goal of luring the one and only superpower into the quagmire of Afghanistan. The Bush focus on Iraq, instead, was something of a boon to AQ which now has had nearly a decade to build up its presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as mounting an impressive nose bloodying operation against the Iraqi occupation.