In my personal opinion the “War on Terror” in the United States was possibly one of the stupidest things I had ever heard of. And now to hear things like that coming out of India. To hear about how the Mumbai bombings were India’s 9/11. Well, frankly, they were not. The circumstances were entirely different and certainly the impetus behind it were not even close to being the same. Surely there are radicals everywhere but a War on Terror and “trying to keep the country safe” by essentially creating hysteria within the people is dumb. I know that may be a bit much to take for some people but let’s face it how much has this “War on Terror” really done for us? We (the US) are successfully in the middle of two miserably failing wars and on the brink of starting something up with Pakistan that I have no doubt will be equally as ineffective if we try that route. These wars have caused the rest of the world to lose almost all their respect for us, if it weren’t for the fact that world has simply become too globally intertwined I do believe most of it would have turned it’s back on the mighty US a long time ago. In the modern world that is not possible so they simply whisper behind our backs about what fools we are.

This brings me to India. Now why on earth would anyone want to follow such a failing model? I recently read a beautiful article by Arundhati Roy on her thoughts about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. It is truly a well thought out and eloquent piece on the complications of naming the Mumbai bombings “India’s 9/11”. And if anyone needs some historical background on the complexities of India it also illuminates many of the reasons why it can never be “India’s 9/11”. It saddens me to think that such a great democracy is leaning towards becoming a police state.

And I find it atrocious that we only seem to be able to blame Muslims for acts of terror. Wake up, world, there are terrorists of every nationality, religion, race, ethnicity, you name it there is probably one out there. The scale may be different in what they have been able to accomplish but they are out there. I do not think any people should be persecuted simply because of their beliefs. Perhaps we should try to understand the context, understand why they are so angry and try to fix the problem diplomatically instead of by creating more war, more terror, more hurt, more pain and more anger. Perhaps creating a little understanding might be a better way than to keep on increasing radical beliefs.