That’s a relief, since CNN was saying 125 and rising yesterday.
I understand how under-reporting death tolls happens, but over-reporting? 
Yeah, but it’s at around 140 now 
There were a dozen or so separate attacks, and indian said in the Pit thread that the news services are now reporting additional attacks that didn’t actually happen.
With that much confusion, I’m sure there are plenty of unrelated or non-existent deaths being reported as part of the terrorism death toll.
“The Burmese sub-inspector and some Indian constables were waiting for me in the quarter where the elephant had been seen. It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palmleaf, winding all over a steep hillside. I remember that it was a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains. We began questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone and, as usual, failed to get any definite information. That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes. Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one direction, some said that he had gone in another, some professed not even to have heard of any elephant.”
– George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant”
I haven’t heard yet (about how this is all the fault of the West-not understanding/respecting islam).
Where are the condemnations?
I think I speak for everyone when I say: What are you talking about?
Here is a compilation of official international responses: Reactions to the November 2008 Mumbai attacks
Anyone heard any conspiracy theories yet? I see Johnny-boy is already on the case.
Evidence Mumbai Attackers were Anglo-American Intel Operatives
- and goes on to insinuate something about Obama. Must suck to be Bush, that not even conspiracy nuts thinks he’s relevant anymore.
How do these nuts dream this shit up, and couldn’t they wait at least until the blood on the pavements has been cleaned up before they do?
Truly terrible. My relatives are all okay but apparently one of the encounter specialists killed was my uncle’s student (he’s the principal of a college in Mumbai). Really great guy apparently. My uncle is pretty upset.
even sven is right, my relatives’ attitudes towards this have always been “when?” rather than “why?”
Or maybe they actually believe it’s their holy duty to spread Islam by the sword and it can’t be reduced to personal pride, poverty, or powerlessness. Islam has spread by the sword throughout history regardless of relative political position.
Johnny-boy? as in Alex Jones? Yep, that site is in the unreliable column when they ignore that there are dispensations or liberties granted to the ones making jihad and also that some extremists already know that drinking is also one of the perks to enjoy before the final mission.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,182746,00.html
They are British apparently. Hopefully the Indians won’t try anuthing stupid. THough to be fair nows the time to strike, Pakistan has an insurgency in the west with two corps tied down, as well as politcal uncertainty. Indians could well strike.
Nobody is denying that some guys interpret Islam in a way that justifies killing people. What we are pointing out is the obvious: that there are other interpretations of Islam which are the majority and which do not support the killing of people.
Just like many Americans justify the killing of people in furtherance of American goals but that does not mean that all Americans justify the killing of people nor that you have to justify the killing of people to be American.
In fact, a higher percentage of Americans justify the killing done in their name than the percentage of Muslims who justify the killing done in their name.
It’s too early to know for sure, but if I had to bet $50,000 on the nominal religion of the perpetrators, I would probably take “Muslim.” And so would everyone else in this thread, I suspect.
Yes, that would be my guess, chances are they are Muslim. So what? Why does that reflect on other, peaceful, Muslims?
Americans are killing Muslims every day and America likes to say they are a peaceful nation. If I had to choose between “Islam is a religion of peace” and “America is a nation of peace” I would choose the first over the second. A higher percentage of Americans support violence than that of Muslims.
I have a second cousin in the State Department. She’s been stationed in New Delhi, although she’s in DC for now. I talked to her at Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. She knows Mumbai well, having visited many times in the course of State Department business. This is devestating to her, she loved India.
True. The common denominator is a conflict between a relatively (or exceptionally) well-armed group and a group that is substantially less well armed. In nearly every case, we are talking about groups who believe they are oppressed or imperilled by armed opposing forces while they do not believe that any duly constituted government will secure their rights or protect them. There is no Muslim component to the Tamil insurrection on Sri Lanka–they are Hindus. There is no Muslim componment to the ongoing strife in the Congo. There is no Muslim component to FARC or Shining path in South America. There is no Muslim component to ETA in Spain and there was no Muslim component to the IRA or its various TLA opponents that begin with the letter U. In fact, we seem to only find a Muslim component to terrorist activities in those parts of the world where Muslims live, even though there are a lot of terrorist activities going on across the globe.
It is true that al Qaida has been able to draw a lot of recruits from many countries and that al Qaida has wielded a lot of power, but it has the advantage of a very high capitalization from bin Laden and several of his like-funded lieutenants. (It also has had a very high profile recruiting agent in the form of the U.S. government.)
There is no question that appeals to religion provide one lure for recruits–particularly when the religion is portrayed as being under atack from “the West,” but all of the Muslim terrorist activities have arisen in countries where authoritarian governments have created a sense of oppression among the people or where outside rule or intervention has created a sense of oppression.
You would have gotten close to correct on this little tirade had you left out the bit regarding “Islam is the motivating cause.” Islam has been an organizing force among a number of groups, but the motivation in every case has been a sense of persecution or oppression associated with a sense that appeals to legitimate government are a waste of time. Heck, even bin Laden, who clearly does have a religious motivation, was spurred to action by his inability to get the Saudi princes to consider or act on his beliefs.
This is nonsense. Islam replaced Christianity in the Middle East and North Africa while advancing with armies and it entered (but did not overwhelm) India with an invading force, but it expanded out across Southeast Asia, carried by missionaries, not armies. Indonesia, Malaysia, and the southern Philipines were never converted by “the sword” and much of Bangladesh was also converted by missionaries rather than by conquest. Similarly, it has made inroads into North America as a missionary religion carried by immigrants without the use of a single scimitar.
= = =
The problem with taking the lazy route and claiming that “Islam” is “responsible” for terrorism is that it leads people to make bad judgments regarding actual situations because it is easier to simply label it “Islam” than it is to make the effort to discover exactly what is going on in each situation and resolving that. This, in turn, gives bin Laden and his crew more fodder for their appeals to the disaffected that “the West” is simply out to crush Islam, bringing in more recruits.
I am not going to be surprised in any way if the perps in Mumbai are Muslim. OTOH, Hindu/Muslim conflict has been an ongoing cultural battle throughout the lives of the nations of India and Pakistan. And there has been substantial harm inflicted upon Muslims by Hindu mobs and terrorists, so the Muslims have ample reason to fell threatened. Muttering simplistic claims that it is jsut the “problem” with Islam will do nothing to resolve that issue.
This doesn’t address what I said at all. The Scimitar was often how Islam spread, pure and simple. Because you can point to peaceful missionary work doesn’t mean that it wasn’t spread by violence throughout history.
Yes, sometimes it was spread by Dawah, but it is also sometimes spread by Violent Jihad.
This isn’t about ‘Western’ anything.
There as Muslim Terrorists in every nation where Muslims exist. Uighur separatist in China, 9/11, train bombings in Spain, and now this in India.
This ‘Religion of Peace’ crap is just as intellectually lazy as the converse that you are accusing people of.
Islam DOES inspire SOME people to violence. There just are no two ways about it. Many people believe Islam not only justifies, but mandates their violent action. Pretending otherwise is what is the “lazy route”.
Actually, I already have. You claim that it has been spread by the sword “throughout history,” yet it has been several hundred years since it has actually been spread by the sword. There are two specific historical events in which Islam spread in association with conquest and they do not make up the bulk of Islamic history, so your claim is a gross generalization that distorts history.
You also used that distorted view of history to support the specious notion that “they” (wthout any qualifications, making it appear that you spoke of all Muslims) believe it their duty to spread Islam specifically by the sword–as if spreading their belief by the sword was the most important aspect of their faith.
It is simply one more example of finding ways to demonize external groups to avoid having to consider actual events or draw from those events actual and relevant conclusions.
I am not a proponent of the “religion of peace” slogan and I am aware that some Muslims probably do want to spread Islam by any means, including violence–just as some Christians, Buddhists, and atheists wish to impose their world views on others regardless of the methods needed to accomplish that goal. I just think it is silly to make categorical claims about people that will interfere with a legitimate examination of any situation, leading to foolish errors on our part.
tomndebb You’re simply wrong. Certainly I would bow to your historical expertise in most regards, but what you are saying is simply false. I would point to Christians in the Levant being expelled in living memory. I would point to copts being killed regularly in Egypt. Just because they haven’t been that SUCCESSFUL and the successes have been so small as to allow a quibble over the meaning of the term, ‘spread’, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been spread by the sword, ‘throughout history’. European Renegadoes joining the Barbary Pirates also come to mind, being that America’s first foreign war was fought against that enemy.
I don’t want to quibble over semantics as to what might be the most socially acceptable term, but when I mean ‘they’, I am referring to Islamists, Jihadists, Al Qaeda types, you know the ‘they’ who just performed a massive coordinated strike in Mumbai as per the thread title. ‘They’ might not be the great bulk of Muslims in the world, but the notion that at any point in history ‘they’ were not a common part of the Muslim world is just silly and patently untrue.
The rest about Christians or anyone else is politically correct double-speak. “They do it too”, isn’t a relevant argument and is completely beside the point as it is not Christian Fundamentalists murdering Rabbis and Anti-Terror chiefs in Mumbai.