You ain't no Klytus

You're just a little squawky chicken hawk

With a case of gingivitus..

What happened in Gujarat in February 2002 is a terrible warning of internecine blood-lust. I know as little about India as the average outsider but I did try to read "The Last Mughal", which is really about the Maharajahs and their English advisers who became completely absorbed into the Indian way-of-life. I found the book very "heavy going", with so much detail that it impeded the narrative. The era of the Maharajahs is long gone and I did not finish the book I bought some years ago. Knowledge has to be up-dated but, from what I can gather, the Jews of India have enjoyed complete religious freedom in India and Mumbai has many buildings which record the successes of Jewish families such as the Sassoon family, a Jewish family that migrated from Iraq to India many decades ago. One of the English poets of World War 1 was Siegfried Sassoon whose poetry decries the slaughter on the Western Front.

I'm not writing from a position of omniscience, if others are, but the Internet gives people all over the world a chance to exchange opinions and learn what they never learned in classrooms. For instance, agore @ 4:58 am speaks of the Jews who st up the Knesset as "idealistic Europeans" and, as they had come from Europe to Israel, I'm sure that's what's meant but there are also Ethiopian Jews and South African Jews, while some "experts" claim that Arabs and Jews are Semite people. I'm not entering into an argy-bargy about this because I just don't know. What I do know is that whoever, whatever his religion, race, nationality, targeted Nariman House in Mumbai is an exile from the human race. The two year old son of the Rabbi and his wife was saved by his Indian nanny when she seized the chance to escape with the child in her arms before the killings began.

Is fear its very self

Fear is for talky chicken hawks

Ghouls 'n creeps

And flakey Keebler elves

Over 300 Canadian Indians were blown into eternity and Muslims were not the perpetrators. As much information as is available to the general public can be found on Wikipedia. The 9/11 catastrophe was shocking in its extent and it should be remembere that many people from different natioalities died on that day and that it was not simply just an American tragedy. What's also true is that India is not just a huge country divided between a larger number of Hindus and a lesser number of Muslims. There are also Sikhs and Jainists, the latter religion espousing non-violence. It would be helpful if some unbiased (or as objective as possible, anyway) Indian writer wrote about the complexities of Indian society for others to attempt to understand. As usual, the television channels are intent on providing action shots and plenty of gory details without any perceptible analysis.

"There is only people who should be killed and people you don't believe should be killed. After all there's always different sides to every story. Who's to say killing 200 people isn't justified? We're talking 'freedom of expression' here. The ultimate liberal clarion call. Every day I wake up I hope there's another 911, just to drive the point home."

Sadly, you are not the first idiot in America to wish for another 9/11.

September 11, 2001 was a tragedy. It changed the country and paved the way for the worst presidential administration. And yet, we Americans have it so good. We got off so easy. 9/11 happens with frightening regularity all around the world, all the time. We Americans don't need to plan for potential bus bombings, train derailments, suicide bombers or guerilla attacks as part of our daily routine. We Americans don't live under the thumb of bloodthirsty sociopaths who impose their will with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and kill anyone who objects. We Americans don't live in fear of saying the wrong thing (say, expressing a political opinion, or making fun of Our Leader, or questioning a new law) to the wrong person and ending up tortured in prison.

And thank whomever you lease that we live in a country that still has the ability to come to its senses and vote the bums out before we sink into a complete theocratic oligarchy. Thank goodness that, bad as Bush and Co were, they weren't worse, they weren't Pol Pott or Chairman Mao or Stalin or Pinochet or Leopold of Belgium. Thank goodness you live in a place where you can spit such malice and still keep your head.

Even assuming you are being completely sarcastic, your writing is absolutely disgusting.

Ok! SOme one is raising the false issue that intimates if there were no guns avalible there would have not been an attack in India or any place. We'd all learn to live peacefully and solve our argunments in a happy horse crap and friendly way. I'm sorry, but it is not in mans nature to be peaceful and live that way until all other groups have been made into small piles...... The only survivor of the terrorists should be sent home. When he settles There needs to be a carpet bombing of his home and a 20 mile area on any side. There should be nothing left alive and dare them to do this sort of thing again.

Oh well....It was a reasonable thought. The thesis was foolish in itself.

Try living somewhere less comfy where the definition of privation isn't a day without iPhone and gourmet pizza. Why do you think 'terrorism' in the west is so noteworthy? Because you feel entitled to be insulated from it. Because you're soft. Do you honestly believe atrocities, some of which are being committed by the very tyrants and dictators you cheer, every day, aren't being committed on miserable misfortunates the world over? Take Darfur for example. Darfur isn't about 'genocide' whatever that is, it's about how you feel about tossing that word around. But for the vast majority of people in the world who actually have to live amidst this anarchy, this attack or that one is no big thing in the long run. Did you know that more than 8000 people have been killed in drug violence in northern Mexico this year alone? Or that the LTTE in Sri Lanka have slaughtered nearly a hundred thousand people in their decades long so called civil war. Or that Algeria fought their own civil war against Islamists in the 1990's to the tune of 160,000 killed. Or that the ANC in South Africa, before they were 'legitimized' and came to represent the face of peace and reconciliation to the west, worked with the KGB to kill more than 14,000 anti communist Muslims in Zambia and a similar number in Mozambique back in the golden age of terrorism, the late 1970's?

And so called terrorists or freedom fighters or militants or activists or whatever Reuters, CNN and AP call them this month, know this. They didn't shoot up some god forsaken backwater cesspit. That's what the 40 year civil war in Sri Lanka that you don't give a shit about, is for. No, they shot up one of the more westernized places in India. It's like the Tsunami in Indonesia a few years back. What does everyone remember? All the Brits and Aussies on vacation. Who knew?

So shit yeah, you want to do something about terrorism? Then you'd be better served hoping for concerted attacks against yourselves, because attacks against anyone else don't mean shit.