Terrorism in Mumbai

The situation is Mumbai is absolutely terrible. I hope everything turns out okay and justice is achieved. As usual though, I always feel the need to keep the bigger context in mind. Nothing happens without a reason, and this incident like many others could be a reaction froma avery long-term situation which has not been addressed.

Got this from Slav is My Name ... I have to agree with him.
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I’ve been reading the CNN and New York Times reports of the atrocities that have occurred in Mumbai over the past 72 hours and although they’re vivid description, the elephant in the room is “why?”

Is this backlash for a particular Western maneuver? Perhaps a warning shot to the president-elect from Al Qaeda or a similar group that U.S. is still doing dirt in Afghanistan and Iraq?

I think so.

Update: So I just checked the front page of the New York Times and there’s a story reporting the latest about who might have committed the acts. I love this sentence high in the story:

“The only claim of responsibility came from a group that may not even exist.”

At the end at least there’s a quote from a political scientist who works for RAND and seems to know her shit.

“Christine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corporation, was careful to say that the identity of the terrorists could not yet be known. But she pointed to India’s domestic problems, and long tensions between Hindus, who make up about 80 percent of India’s population of 1.13 billion, and Muslims, who make up 13.4 percent.

“There are a lot of very, very angry Muslims in India,” Ms. Fair said. “The economic disparities are startling and India has been very slow to publicly embrace its rising Muslim problem. You cannot put lipstick on this pig. This is a major domestic political challenge for India.

“The public political face of India says, ‘Our Muslims have not been radicalized,’ she said. “But the Indian intelligence apparatus knows that’s not true. India’s Muslim communities are being sucked into the global landscape of Islamist jihad.”

“Indians will have a strong incentive to link this to Al Qaeda,” she said. “But this is a domestic issue. This is not India’s 9/11.”