Tag: india-pakistan relations

Does Every Country Have To Have A War On Terror?

by rhealitycheck

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.

The Mumbai Bombings

by rhealitycheck

So the bombings in Bombay have really bothered me. Part of it is that it is a hot topic for the fam and part of it is that I was there just 2 years ago right around this time. I could have easily been one of the people gallivanting around the Taj. And that is really upsetting and disturbing.

And on a slightly different note I’ve had several people take offense to Obama’s hard line stance on Pakistan but really at some point I think we need to look at what Pakistan has been doing for years. They harbor and train terrorists and quite frankly India bears the brunt of a significant chunk of these attacks. It’s amazing that India has chosen not to crush Pakistan quite yet. Everyone knows that just by sheer might it is quite possible and if India were the US it would’ve happened decades ago. But I think that’s part of what makes India so great that they haven’t opted to crush them. In fact there are more Muslims that live in India than in Pakistan and you know what they aren’t persecuting them in the same way the west does. After all is said and done India is the only true democracy where minorities are treated as equally and fairly as possible. Certainly there are discrepancies between the majority and the minorities and there will always be a few extremists everywhere but all in all I think India is handling the whole thing quite well.

Also I would like the US for once in its history to just stay out of it. This is not your problem, this is not your dispute just keep to yourself. I mean it isn’t enough that they gave the terrorists their weapons and training way back when they wanted their puppets in office in Pakistan, all this “help” is really unnecessary. At any rate it is truly tragic for anything of this type to happen and I wish someone would take the time to analyze why there are so many young people filled with so much hate that they would go on these terrorist missions. I think it is an important question that all world leaders need to think about and in particular those in Islamic countries (considering that’s where many of these people cone from). It just doesn’t make sense to me. And to destroy buildings with so much history.

One concluding thought, why would these people target Colaba? It is essentially a tourist destination and yes in India you obviously can’t find anywhere without lots of native Indians but seriously why would they target the largest tourist section of the city? What do you think was the message in there?