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?

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.