The wholesale insanity in Mumbai, India, last week could lead to bigger insanities elsewhere in the months ahead. For example, on November 27th in Spiegel Online there appeared an article entitled "Terror in India: Obama's First Test". See what I mean? Everything is thrown into the lap of Washington. Everyone has gotten accustomed to it. This is a knee-jerk reaction. Somehow, Washington is deemed still to be in charge of the world. The assumption is neither healthy nor realistic. In fact, it is dangerous. Washington has been dysfunctional for years, and is in no position to solve the problem of terrorism taking place in India. True to form, G.W. has dispatched that ineffectual and irrelevant chatterbox, Condoleezza Rice, to the Subcontinent for consultations.

Looking back, it can be persuasively argued that Washington--in its capacity as leader of the Free World in the aftermath of WWII, and then as the "sole surviving Superpower" in the aftermath of the Cold War--has helped to create the circumstances on the Subcontinent which unwittingly facilitated the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. I am referring to Washington's lack of honest leadership and its near-total neglect of the issue of Kashmir, which territory is wedged in between Pakistan and India, with most of it having been invaded and occupied by that wonderful democracy, India, over six decades ago. Of course, almost nobody in America has even heard of the conflict in Kashmir. 

The dispute over Kashmir, which concerns Pakistan and India directly, has been called "the oldest unresolved international conflict in the world" by the Pakistani side. That statement can be made because the dispute dates from 1947, whereas the Nabka in Palestine, to wit, the Zionist takeover there, happened in 1948. So Kashmir wins by a nose. Coincidentally, both conflicts were gifted to the world by the British Empire, during its precipitous collapse after WWII. The inept,  meddling leadership in Whitehall had self-destructed that immense, multicultural empire thanks to pointless world wars in the 20th century. A shameless mountebank by the name of Winston Churchill led the charge in both. 

Whitehall's successor, the White House, has proven to be at least as inept, misguided and presumptuous. There is a further ominous link between Kashmir and Palestine, in addition to a shared Whitehall lineage. The people on the ground there were/are primarily Islamic. (I say "were" with respect to Palestine, because many of its indigenous inhabitants have been ethnically cleansed by that wonderful democracy called "Israel".) This coincidence is not helpful. It has opened the door to further complications.

By the way, Mahatma Gandhi, the iconic holy man who brought down the British Raj through non-violent action after WWII, had this to say about the Zionist incursion into Palestine: "...in my opinion, they [the Jews] have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism... Why should they depend on American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?".  

If the supposedly civilized, sane and responsible world--sometimes called "the international community" or maybe even the UN Security Council--does not address and attempt to right injustices like those long-outstanding in Palestine and in Kashmir, then such injustices will fester. That's just the way it is. We in the West will pay a price, along with the people on the ground. The danger is that insane, fanatical and irresponsible elements who resent military occupation and persecution will take matters into their own hands and commit unspeakable acts of terror to garner attention to their cause. 

We saw that in New York and Washington on September 1lth, 2001 with respect to Palestine. It appears that a similar motive was at work in the Mumbai attacks with respect to Kashmir. The 9/11 attacks led to a fool’s errand known as GWOT, the Global War on Terror, spearheaded by the American “neocons” surrounding Cheney and Bush. GWOT aka “The Clash of Civilizations” ignored the motives for the 9/11 attacks entirely. Instead, it is facilitating the bankruptcy of the United States via perpetual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, the terror in Mumbai could result collaterally in a fourth major war between India and Pakistan, both of whom have nuclear arsenals. Do we need this?

The best way to fight terrorism, it seems to me, is not ex post facto, but by removing the motivation which created the terrorists in the first place. In that way, one can reasonably hope to avoid terrorism altogether.

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Copyright 2008 Patrick Foy