There's goes my trip to India . . .

[Aliantha]

Over 120 people confirmed dead now.

[ZenGum]

They're cowardly murdering whacko bastards, but damn, they're effective, efficient, well-organized cowardly murdering whacko bastards.
I'll guess that the core of the group who did it have experience in a regular, disciplined army. Not a bunch of bandits as are found in the Talleban in Afghanistan or the tribal areas of Pakistan, but a regular army.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

They're cowardly murdering whacko bastards, but damn, they're effective, efficient, well-organized cowardly murdering whacko bastards.
I'll guess that the core of the group who did it have experience in a regular, disciplined army. Not a bunch of bandits as are found in the Talleban in Afghanistan or the tribal areas of Pakistan, but a regular army.

They look like teenagers from the pictures. They start them young in the Madrassas. When you have 12 year olds cutting off heads by the time they are 16 they have had plenty of eperience. Not to worry. I am sure they are just a splinter group of radicals, that could never happen again. Anywhere. No worries.

[TheMercenary]

Read with knowledge of the axiom of military intelligence assessments; the first report is always suspect.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...bay-India.html

[TheMercenary]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-Pakistan.html

[wolf]

Originally Posted by Juniper

I know this is twisted, but every time I read or hear something about this tragic situation I get this stupid song running through my head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnuzH1qdBZ4

That is easily the most absurd thing I have ever seen.

The way he throws that turban tail back over his shoulder ... oooh.

[TheMercenary]

Mumbai attacks show the war on terror is global

Con Coughlin at Nov 28, 2008 at 15:02:32

There is a further dimension to Philip Johnston's excellent point about the alleged involvement of British-born terrorists in the Mumbai attacks. Apart from recent instances of British-born Muslims taking part in various terrorist attacks around the world, evidence has also emerged to suggest that British-born Muslims are actually bearing arms and fighting against British forces in Afghanistan.

If this is true then it means that Britain is actually fighting a civil war between those who support democracy and the rule of law and those whose only loyalty is to their faith.

Those involved in this extremist ideology, which rejects the entire ethical and moral foundation of Western civilisation, are, of course, a tiny minority of Britain's Muslim population, the majority of whom fully uphold the values of our government, society and culture.

But the Islamist extremists are a powerful and highly dangerous minority, and the suggestion they have been responsible for the appalling violence in Mumbai illustrates once again that the war on terror is not just confined to the more familiar war zones, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is a truly global conflict, and following the terrorists' success in attacking a major port city such as Mumbai, who is to say they don't have the capability to carry out a similar kind of attack against London?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/con_cou...rror_is_global

[classicman]

...or New York! This is a global situation and I think everyone recognizes that fact. Some just believe that it was the war in Iraq that empowered them or sent smaller groups of them into many other areas like ants or bees scurrying when you kick the nest. Still others believe that America is so involved in Iraq that we cannot adequately defend other areas. Either way its Bush's fault.

[TheMercenary]

tw and his cronies want us to believe that global terrorism is a fantasy. I hope Obama has better advice.

[Cloud]

one CNN commentator kept talking about mobs of "disaffected young men." Now that, I pretty much believe. Maybe the cure for terrorism is simple:

Make sure young men have jobs. Educate the women.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Cloud

one CNN commentator kept talking about mobs of "disaffected young men." Now that, I pretty much believe. Maybe the cure for terrorism is simple:

Make sure young men have jobs. Educate the women.

Shia practice frowns on the education of women. Let's be sure and give the "disaffected" youth jobs and ignore those not so disaffected non-muslim young men who are looking for work as well.

[TheMercenary]

Scarey.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ill-5-000.html

[tw]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

They look like teenagers from the pictures. They start them young in the Madrassas. When you have 12 year olds cutting off heads by the time they are 16 they have had plenty of eperience.

Knowledge based upon classic myth is from the same person who also knows that insurgency is a world wide conspiracy and that we must fight terrorism with a 'big dic' mentality.

Studies repeatedly show that accomplished insurgents are more often from technical educations; featuring people who were more accomplished in non-religious school. But reality does not play well among those who automatically know before learning facts - people who also supported George Jr. This world wide network of terrorism is the same myth that 'assumes' the madrassas are the cause or creators of terrorism.

India is typical of insurgencies in that region. Small groups that hope to promote their agenda of hate by doing what happened in Mumbai. In many cases hoping to create a larger war for the greater glory of their agenda. However those little people are simply naive kids inspired to kill as if it was about something mythical - good verse evil.

What happened in India has nothing to do with threats on America - other than to teach aspiring disaffected persons how to do it better. There is no world wide terrorism group such as Kaos, Spectre, Thrush, or Al Qaeda - or the bogeyman. Instead, we have people easily converted by hate for the same reason that Palin could also promote hate and threats to Obama and for the same reason that right wing Israeli radicals could call for and get Rabin's assassination.

Hate is alive and well. Those who only encourage and promote it, well, view the many distorted posts from TheMercenary and Urbane Guerilla. Same type myths work on and are promoted by extremists on both sides.

Being a moderate and grasping real world facts is most difficult when such insurgency attacks create the usualy myths and inspire wacko extremists on all ends of the spectrum.

[tw]

What makes an insurgent? Eliminate hype by using facts - the reasons why. Knowing why is essential to understanding why insurgents do what they do. From IEEE Spectrum of September 2006:

"Terrorists are not pure evil." says Silverman, director of Penn's Ackoff Center for the Advancement of Systems Approach. "They have a value system, and within that value system they are very consistent. If you re-created their value system, their leader, what they consider to be sacred, what they consider to be violations, if you build up that worldwide view and that framework, it's not surprising or crazy that they do what they do." ...

A jihadist terrorist has a preferred state of the world: the whole world is fundamentalist, and no loose-valued Westerner should walk on the land that Muhammad felt was sacred." ... "Those are long-term preferences - control the land, control of who's allowed to do what. Then he's got standards. It's okay to kill. In fact, I'll go to heaven and be a martyr, and my family will get money."

"It's not a game theory," he adds. "It's people's values."

Silverman does not guess at these values. He works with real-world data provided by leading experts on jihadist terrorists, ... that [Sageman] has since profiled 300 more, including those in the cells responsible for the Madrid train bombing on 11 March 2004.

Sageman's profile of a typical jihadist terrorist is a male who grows up in a decent family, never gets into much trouble, and goes to a religious school. There he learns Islamic fundamentalist credos, and then in many cases he goes abroad to study - often engineering and often in Europe where he feels alienated and has trouble finding work. He gravitates to mosques to find comfort in the familiar, and there he meets men with similar feelings of isolation. Gradually, he is drawn towards a politicized existence and into a terrorist cell.

Ironically, reasons why someone becomes a terrorist are partially found in hate embedded in TheMercenary's many posts. TheMercenary encourages many reasons (ie hate) that cause some to become disaffected and isolated from society. Ironic? People that TheMercenary so hate actually share a common characteristic - values that justify death of 'others'.

Somehow this is all part of some worldwide international terrorism network? Hardly. Little cells of angry people form anywhere once their myopic vision of the world must be imposed on all others. The ones that tend to be more dangerous and successful are products of a more secular world. Notice many small groups of American religious extremists so driven by their hate as to bomb women's clinics and shoot medical doctors for performing abortions. This too must be part of the world wide terrorist movement - according to the philosophy of TheMercenary.

Long before one can blindly believe Rush Limbaugh's, Fox News, and right wing extremist myths of an international terrorism network, one should first learn what inspires individuals active in an insurgency. These are often isolated and independent groups , disaffected people in a society, whose agenda is to save the world from itself even by violence. (Even god knows how both UG and TheMercenary cite violence as a routine to solution to such problems.) People whose values demand that their values be imposed on others who would otherwise trespass.

To understand an insurgency, look not at some international network of terrorists. Instead, grasp what inspires a small group to form an insurgency cell. Small groups that somehow get promoted as a worldwide terrorist organization. Somehow these actions by small groups get translated into an international coordinated network of terrorists - such as Kaos, Spectre, Thrush, and Al Qaeda.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by tw

Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla bla bla...

tw you are a living distortion of reality. Attitudes like your blithering above are what allow these people to act without fear of consequence.