generalspeaking

God Is Watching

The Divine Spirit sees everything, is everywhere, controls everything, and to Him does the world and all within owe its existence. To believe otherwise is in and of itself blasphemy deserving of death. To act in the name of Allah is to advance oneself closer to divine recognition. What other than the fervent confidence of fanatic believers in the divine wrath of Allah whose blessed martyrs they are, might convince young men to offer themselves, for they are mujahedeen, God's divine warriors.

They came on silent padding feet once they disembarked from the boats that brought them to their target over the dark seas. The why of it is known, the how of it remains a puzzle. It is not, after all, as though India has never suffered from such attacks in the past. Since partition led to the separation of India and Pakistan the two countries have fought several wars. Pakistan's hatred of its neighbour burns fiercely, without abatement over time.

Pakistan's military, obeying and in concert with its government, supported Islamist militants in the Indian state of Kashmir, encouraging local uprisings. And with them bloodshed and suffering. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's government encouraged "the students" foreseeing the Taliban becoming the pacifying administrative force within Afghanistan enabling Pakistan to slowly bring that country into the Pakistani fold.

The Taliban training camps in concert with Pakistani intelligence officers, along with the many Saudi-funded religious schools in the country churned out eager recruits to the irresistible banner of jihad, becoming a welcoming beacon of opportunity to disaffected and restless young Muslim men from around the world. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) offering support in the holy war against the infidel.

And other binding ties, with senior Taliban leaders, friends and associates of Osama bin Laden, finding common cause in a world of diminishing Muslim prestige and economic advancement, held back by the surging tide of Western science, productivity, trade and greed for Muslim-owned energy resources. This violently energetic holy war is fought on many fronts.

Pakistan will not surrender its ambitions, nor its burning enmity for India. A series of violent terrorist attacks against various parts of India, killing countless Hindus and Sikhs and Muslims, injuring far more, encouraged and organized by the ISI, to take back from India that which Pakistan claims for its own. Starting with Kashmir, and reaching into the Punjab.

The burning question, in the wake of the coordinated series of attacks in Mumbai by a crew, a veritable handful of young jihadis armed with grenades and machine guns, seeking out the presence of foreigners as they assaulted two palatial hotels, the city's major railway station, a movie theatre, a famous cafe, a hospital and a Jewish education centre and synagogue, is, where was Indian intelligence?

The stealth advance in the dark of night on Wednesday from the sea to land without detection, enabling the band of determined young jihadis to mount their attacks without interference from law enforcement agencies is, in and of itself, wildly absurd, improbable. How could these sites be so easily breached? Where was the attention of the police, the military, private policing agencies?

Huge hotel complexes taken by no more than four of God's warriors each, throwing the entire security system - if it existed at all - into chaos, taking high-value hostages, engaging in very successful shoot-outs with police, when they eventually entered the scene of carnage, as buildings were being blown up, people shattered into blood and sinew, so many injured that hospitals are unable to cope.

No security measures in place to fend off such attacks? To detect their potential before they became a crucible of death? Security officials simply not as motivated as the jihadists? Official India, despite countless bloody attacks, not yet fully awakened to the ongoing threat against its peace and security, disturbing its advance toward social inclusiveness and stability, and financial success?

Were the countless attacks by mujahedeen merely to be shrugged off as nuisances? With the thought that they would eventually tire of their end-sum game that gained them not so very much? How is it that India could see to dispatch its naval power against Somalian pirates, exerting its influence and military proficiency in the Arabian Gulf, but reacting with a tired torpor of disinterest in apprehending attacks at home?

Is maritime trade that more valuable than the lives of countless Indians? Merchandise trumps innocent lives in the business of taking care of one's own? One initiative smacks of hegemonic reach for dominance, the other of mild disinterest in protecting territorial integrity, sovereignty, safety and security of citizens. Of course this is quite entirely wrong, an erroneous impression, not at all indicative of how India truly feels.

But this latest assault on Indian soil, for the purpose of freeing Indian-held mujahedeen, brothers-in-arms battling the profane of the world for the greater glory of Islam, is breath-taking in the insolence of its arrogant presumption. That a handful of young men barely into functioning adulthood are able to mount an attack of this width and breadth, killing people left and right - oh yes, including the chief of the police anti-terrorist squad in Mumbai.

Does that not speak eloquently of a gross failure of a state to protect itself and its own? It certainly speaks volumes of the corrosive hate of which militant Islam is capable, of the searingly soul-destroying savagery that can be visited upon innocents in the name of God.

Labels: Terrorism, World Crises

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 27, 2008