Mumbai Terror

[DogOnPorch]

All religions. The only quaint thing about religion is the art and architecture.

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Ils ne passeront pas!

---French moto @ Verdun

[M.Dancer]

Well some religions have been a force for humanity and civilization.

Before the dusty peoples of the sinai encoded judical parity, the normal retribution was a family for an eye....slavery was for life and your childrens lives...

Malcolm Muggeridge after visiting a hospital run by Mother Theresa mused...that Humanists do not run leprosariums.

Whether we chose to acknowledge it or not, the strides that our civilization has made in regards to human rights were made by deeply religious people in accordance to their convictions.

So if you want to paint all religions as evil, then have a brush ready to paint the Abolitionist movements on both sides of the Atlantic, the civil rights movements of the US, The Red Cross and a legion of other forces for good.

[Smallc]

The real problem with religion is that it tends to be divisive.

[White Doors]

The real problem with religion is that it tends to be divisive.

The real problem with any creed or philosophy is that it tends to be divisive.

[Smallc]

The real problem with any creed or philosophy is that it tends to be divisive.

That's very true, but it seems to be especially true of religion.

[White Doors]

That's very true, but it seems to be especially true of religion.

Moreso that Fascism? Communism? Really? examples?

Thanks!

[Smallc]

Who said that communism or fascism were good things? Communism could be really good in theory, but its not in reality...at least not now.

[M.Dancer]

The real problem with any creed or philosophy is that it tends to be divisive.

Especially ecumenicalism...

[White Doors]

Who said that communism or fascism were good things? Communism could be really good in theory, but its not in reality...at least not now.

You said it was especially true for religion... So I'm asking - compared to what exactly?

[JB Globe]

Damn did this thread get sidetracked or what?

In light of recent developments I'm absolutely certain that the Pakistani ISI is involved in this plot to some degree - to what degree I can't tell yet. The fact that these guys are STILL today running around town with ammo and explosives demonstrates how well-planned this attack was. More gunshots at the (former) Victoria Terminus Station, which was hit in the first wave of attacks.

What concerns me most is that there have been two bombings outside the tourist district, one near the airport - very far away, I'm hoping that this isn't spreading to the whole city.

What's breaking my heart is that I've heard from some people that this attack is going to change the character of the city - I hope that's not the case because I love that place and the energy is what makes it what it is. Mumbai wouldn't be the same without that sense of unbridled optimism and celebration.

The only reason I can think of that the ISI either pulled this off, or gave assistance to groups to pull this off (ie - Kashmiri Separatists) in order to try to provoke a war with India. It's no secret they hate the current PM and government in Pakistan - his wife Bhutto was going to try and reign them in somehow and they either assassinated her, contracted someone to do it, or looked the other way when they got reports of an attempt (either way, they were involved). I think they're hoping that a conflict with India, combined with the fighting with the Taliban in the west of Pakistan will weaken the already weak government enough so that either they or the military can stage a coup and install a dictator who's friendly to them.

The ISI is corrupt as hell, some segments of it are totally rogue and others are glorified drug cartels dealing in Afghani opium - while these intentions make no sense for the well-being of Pakistan in general, they do make sense if you're an ISI agent who's motivated by nothing other than your own self-interest and that of your organization.

[wulf42]

Radical Islam is not compatible with western values and when Canadian's finally figure this out it will be too late,France and alot of Europe is slowly waking up to this growing threat of Islam and if not stopped soon it will destroy western civilization!

Edited November 28, 2008 by wulf42

[eyeball]

The ISI is corrupt as hell, some segments of it are totally rogue and others are glorified drug cartels dealing in Afghani opium - while these intentions make no sense for the well-being of Pakistan in general, they do make sense if you're an ISI agent who's motivated by nothing other than your own self-interest and that of your organization.

Note these are time honoured western values though, just like corruption. Say, hasn't the ISI been receiving most of their military funding and aid etc from the usual suspects?

[M.Dancer]

Note these are time honoured western values though, just like corruption. Say, hasn't the ISI been receiving most of their military funding and aid etc from the usual suspects?

Har...wonderful world of *(evil) fantasy you live in.

Pakistan has a military budget of over 12 billion a year....the US has given about 1 billion a year in military aid since 2001

So MOST of their military funding come from the usual suspect, the pakistanis....

*your clock is still broken

Edited November 28, 2008 by M.Dancer

[WIP]

Well some religions have been a force for humanity and civilization.

And those same religions have been a force for inhumanity and stagnation, as they try to encourage ignorance of new knowledge that questions their claims of having any revelation-based knowledge and wisdom.

Before the dusty peoples of the sinai encoded judical parity, the normal retribution was a family for an eye....slavery was for life and your childrens lives...

Excuse me, but if you're referring to the mythical story of Moses and the Israelites, the laws that were handed down from on high prescribed capital punishment for a whole range of offenses( that could even include gathering sticks on the sabbath), and instead of ending barbaric tribal laws, the Mosaic Law entrenched customs of polygamy, slavery and genocidal warfare by giving them divine justification

Malcolm Muggeridge after visiting a hospital run by Mother Theresa mused...that Humanists do not run leprosariums.

Muggeridge was a self-promoting fraud who created the mythology of sainthood surrounding Mother Theresa! Take a look at "The Missionary Position" by Christopher Hitchens, since he seems to be the only writer willing to risk taking a critical look at the cult of Mother Theresa - Hitch covers many of the important discrepencies surrounding her cult in this Slate Article, written after the Pope put her on the fasttrack to canonization a few years ago. She was a friend of poverty and suffering, not a friend of the poor as the mythical story tries to portray. Many former nurses and volunteers who worked for her mission, have testified to shocking practices such as refusing to provide pain-relieving drugs to people who were dying - stories that no one besides Hitch has the courage to mention in the MSM.

As for humanists doing charitable work, I know Bill Gates has taken a lot of time and spent a good chunk of change on his causes since making his fortune at Microsoft. If it is impossible to get the unreligious to be charitable as Muggeridge claimed, that is not a positive statement on the condition of humanity -- instead it is an indictment, because if it were true, it would mean that the only way you can motivate most people to help others is to promise a future reward in paradise as the carrot, and threaten eternal damnation as the stick, if they do not act charitably to others.

Whether we chose to acknowledge it or not, the strides that our civilization has made in regards to human rights were made by deeply religious people in accordance to their convictions.

And everything was fine and dandy as long as there were no rival religions crowding their turf. From the Renaissance onward, the gradual accumlation of knowledge has revealed to us that we live on a planet circling a star, in a galaxy with at least 100,000,000 stars, with billions of other galaxies separated by immense ridiculously huge expanses of space. The stage doesn't look like the one portrayed in any religious cosmologies, and evolution by natural selection has revealed that we are part of a continuum of living creatures on this planet, and not a special, unique creation.

The deeply religious people have responded to the growing understanding of our nature and that of the universe by going in one of two directions: rejecting new findings and teaching unscientific dogmas as science (since most people are scientifically illiterate, this is easy to do, even in a Western society) or trying to harmonize new findings with their religious interpretations. Maybe we can hope that most religious organizations find the loopholes in religious doctrine to keep in harmony with new discovery, but even the most liberal religions move in fits and starts as they try to absorb new scientific knowledge. Right now, even the most liberal theologians are completely ignoring the flurry of new discoveries about brain function that threaten the dualistic notion of having an immaterial soul running a physical body.

So if you want to paint all religions as evil, then have a brush ready to paint the Abolitionist movements on both sides of the Atlantic, the civil rights movements of the US, The Red Cross and a legion of other forces for good.

The abolitionist movement was a good example of religion reinventing itself as more and more churchmen started to come to the realization that owning people was out of step with the modern world, so they scrounged up some biblical quotations to counter the ones used by slavery advocates. Does the Red Cross do better work than Doctors Without Borders, which doesn't have a religious litmus test?

The only problem I have with organized religion is the demand that their metaphysical beliefs be regarded as fact. On an organizational basis, many churches provide useful services and a sense of community for the members.

[WIP]

Damn did this thread get sidetracked or what?

Okay, now that I've got it out of my system, I'm ready to get back on track.

In light of recent developments I'm absolutely certain that the Pakistani ISI is involved in this plot to some degree - to what degree I can't tell yet. The fact that these guys are STILL today running around town with ammo and explosives demonstrates how well-planned this attack was. More gunshots at the (former) Victoria Terminus Station, which was hit in the first wave of attacks.

Yes, the ISI is corrupt, but what is the root cause of their corruption? It seems that you cannot treat this sickness by just treating symptoms, but that is all that is being done if the focus is on mundane issues like corruption, the opium trade or the terrorist methods used by the perpetrators of these attacks. The elephant in this room that nobody wants to talk about is the religion of the terrorists and their supporters.

I am certainly no friend of neoconservative colonialism; but the common thread of most terrorist attacks, public stonings, female circumcision and other barbarous practices is that they are followers of Islam. I ask many Christians why their religion doesn't improve the behaviour of their adherents, and the same questions need to be asked of the defenders of Islam: if terrorism, sharia punishments, the result of poverty and limited opportunities in modern Muslim nations, then why is Islam synonymous with poverty, terrorism, oppression of women and minorities? If Islam is a beneficial force in the world - why isn't it making life better in the places where it is universally practiced? These are questions that should not be dodged on a phony basis that religion deserves respect!

[Ontario Loyalist]

Never - They come to Canada to escape stupidity. Any one who suggests that this will happen in Canada is a person with vested interests in the "homeland security" - nope....................Canadian immigrants are rejects of the terrorist faction....BUT like the Kdars............a few fools come and assume that hate is tolerated in a free liberal society that they find weakness in.

Oh, yeah, whatever; that's why Serbs and Croats are still at each others' throats, tensions exist and are being stoked amongst Jews and Muslims. They all come here to continue their Old World ways and exist in "communities" amongst themselves...

[Oleg Bach]

So far that terrorists have killed just about everybody from every religion on earth including Muslims. It may be wise not to handle this like the 9 11 boondogle. The should quickly find out what psudeo religious leader put these punks up to this.. Then investigate and find out who funded the operation...go right to the source and deal with it. You can not let blame settle on the heads of raging and stupified terrorist who are the trigger men - Find out who hired the guy to stir up the lunitics and confine that bastard. This whole event is heart breaking - It will not have any effect other than bring about more sadness. The world is tougher now and terrorism simply does not and will not work - It is a common irritant.

[DogOnPorch]

Apparently, the head of Pakistan's ISI is going to India (for the first time ever) to help with the investigation. A twist...

http://voanews.com/english/2008-11-28-voa25.cfm

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But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble's soul; his heart was waterproof.

---Charles Dickens

[JB Globe]

Yes, the ISI is corrupt, but what is the root cause of their corruption?

To answer that you'd need to first answer why Pakistan in general is a corrupt country. And although I'm not qualified enough to give a full analysis on that - I know that you'd want to focus on land ownership by a few wealthy extended families and the positions those families hold in government. The Pakistani military and ISI were created out of this corruption, so it's no surprise that they're affected as well. The difference of course being as at least politicians are SOMEWHAT accountable to the electorate.

The elephant in this room that nobody wants to talk about is the religion of the terrorists and their supporters.

The Pakistani military and it's ISI are both thoroughly secular institutions, IN FACT they pride themselves on being secular institutions because they see themselves as a flag-bearer of modernity in Pakistan and use this to contrast themselves with religiously motivated elements like Madrassa's and Taliban fighters. And as we know, secular institutions are just as capable of acts of terrorism as religion-influenced organizations.

Of course, being opportunists the ISI will not hesitate to link up with other groups if they share the same specific goal. In the case of most attacks in India, they link up with Kashmiri separatists who are comprised both of Islamic groups, and Nationalist groups - some use terror, some practice guerilla warfare on military targets. It's clear that in the case of Kashmir religion is by far not the only factor in the dispute.

The separatists seek to pressure India through military action or violence into seeding part of Kashmir to Pakistan or setting up an independent state. Pakistan and India being at odds for most of their history, the ISI sees the aims of the Kashmiris coincide with their aim of hurting India in whatever way it can - in this case economically and politically (this attack came days before key state elections).

I also believe as I stated before that the aim here specifically with the Mumbai attacks is to provoke a reaction from India that will destabilize the (relatively) pro-India government in Pakistan and allow them to stage a coup and install another general into power. Pursuing peace with India is almost sacrilegious within the military and intelligence establishments in Pakistan and they feel they're justified in opposing the elected government for "reasons of national security."

I believe that in the case of the Mumbai attacks religion plays a minor role, while the over-arching issue is geo-political.

Edited November 29, 2008 by JB Globe

[Oleg Bach]

All media should be banned from reporting any terror attacks. That sound unrealist but it is the only thing that would work - that would stop the spread of this disease. It would be a drastic but completely effective means of ending the emotionall manipulation of the world. Also - let Israeli intelligence trace down the perpetrators - no not the gun men - but the fund men.

[WIP]

To answer that you'd need to first answer why Pakistan in general is a corrupt country. And although I'm not qualified enough to give a full analysis on that - I know that you'd want to focus on land ownership by a few wealthy extended families and the positions those families hold in government.

I'd be willing to bet that every third world country in the world has problems with corruption, since government employees are poorly payed (if at all) and use their positions to collect bribes and kickbacks for carrying out their duties. Reducing corruption depends on the people's ability and capacity to challenge the leaders. If the leaders have the support of religious authorities who are considered to be above criticism, then they are even more difficult to dislodge from power -- and that's why they want support from religious authorities in the first place.

The Pakistani military and ISI were created out of this corruption, so it's no surprise that they're affected as well. The difference of course being as at least politicians are SOMEWHAT accountable to the electorate.

The Pakistani military and it's ISI are both thoroughly secular institutions, IN FACT they pride themselves on being secular institutions because they see themselves as a flag-bearer of modernity in Pakistan and use this to contrast themselves with religiously motivated elements like Madrassa's and Taliban fighters. And as we know, secular institutions are just as capable of acts of terrorism as religion-influenced organizations.

How can you be sure that they are truly "secular" institutions when the most respected foreign analysts conclude that the ISI is a rogue organization (though some claim it is rogue elements within) with the capacity to secure its own funding? According to this CFR report, they are constitutionally answerable to the Prime Minister, but elected leaders exercise no evident control over the organization. The terrorist groups that have been developed and nurtured by the ISI - the Taleban, Kashmiri separatists - are theocratic movements. If they are really for modernity, why is every terrorist group they support trying to replace secular institutions with Islamic government and law?

I believe that in the case of the Mumbai attacks religion plays a minor role, while the over-arching issue is geo-political.

I think religion is the core issue and all of the others are secondary. The reason is that there are indications that India's large Muslim Community has been getting more militant and less secular over the years. Some of this may be in response to the rise of Hindu nationalism, but the influence of Islamism can't be discounted. All of the Wahabbi clerics that have been sent out from Saudi Arabia ever since the oil boom of the 70's began, are having a noticable effect on the way Islam is practiced in non-Arab states.

When you look through the wide-angle lens instead of just focusing on the immediate crisis, you have to start asking what role religion has played, especially when they advocate ruinous longterm strategies like promoting high population growth through a combination banning birth control and restricting education and career opportunities for women, in overpopulated countries where there are shortages of arable land and fresh water. And if people are indoctrinated from childhood to believe that questioning religious authorities and doctrines is forbidden, it is much more difficult to make the kind of large structural changes needed to turn things around and improve living conditions.....and the worse things get, there is more support for the terrorist groups.

[guyser]

All media should be banned from reporting any terror attacks.

We tried that for years , wife beatings, pedophilia , other child abuse all went unreported.

Cant recall, how'd that workout? We dont have any of that now do we?

[Oleg Bach]

We tried that for years , wife beatings, pedophilia , other child abuse all went unreported.

Cant recall, how'd that workout? We dont have any of that now do we?

In toronto they stopped reporting the depressed fu**ks that constantly jumped in front of the Subway - death of sad leapers declined drastically...less reporting and sensationalizm has the effect of not giving the bad boys suggestions that manifest into reality. Cutting media off will not totally cure the problem but it sure will slow it down enough to get a grip on it.

[Oleg Bach]

We made Bin Ladin famous and a legend via media...alive or dead like a chirst he still causes a problem and a curse..we enhance and glorify these coward and call them terrorists - If Bin Laden was so committed to the cause he would have surrendered and allowed himself to be cruxified pulicly to strengthen his cause...but no the rich little spoiled prick likes to play the game but NOT ALL THE WAY _ Cowards should not be made infamous by media.

[GostHacked]

All media should be banned from reporting any terror attacks. That sound unrealist but it is the only thing that would work - that would stop the spread of this disease.

Stop from reporting?? No.

Stop from sensationalizing it all? YES INDEED.

Stop from hyping it way over the top to scare everyone ? YES INDEED.

It would be a drastic but completely effective means of ending the emotionall manipulation of the world.

That is the problem with MSM these days, it is over sensationalized, hyped and ran non stop for hours on end. Even if you stop reporting on it, it will not stop the attacks.