It doesn’t matter one iota what banner they fly, they are all the same people and the only way to negotiate or deal with them is with a bullet to the head.

This is a war. A holy war.

Why is everyone so hesitant to call this what it so obviously is?

Leftist do not understand Jihad. They think that it is related to Western foreign policies. This has nothing to do with it. It is a religious ideological war. They hate our freedom and the way we live. For them, we are all infidels and we must be killed. Their goal is to have a Caliphate and install Sharia Laws all over the planet. Leftists do not understand that. They think that the West is guilty. They think that our foreign policies are what make them mad. Some think it is because they are not educated… wrong, some of the attackers of 9/11 had PhD. They think it is because they are poor… wrong, some of the radicals are very rich. Nothing is so far away from the truth. All these reasons are wrong. They hate everything about us. The way we dress, the things we eat and drink our rights and liberties… everything. They hate our way of living. They all want us to become Muslims and they will never stop till they succeed. Unless we win the terrorist war before they reach their goal.

UPDATED: Dave… apologies! I reclicked on the link. Guess what… The NYT’s *changed* the headline! I typed it in exact in it’s earliest form, as I restated in the paragraph above. OMG! Did they actually get a clue for a change???? Wow…. END UPDATE

And as I stated, it matters not at all that AQ is involved. These are critters of the same cloth as AQ official membership (the only ones US citizens seem to care about) … those bent on attacking civilians in the name of jihad.

Linking this to AQ at all, instead of linking it to the global Islamic jihad movement is the *entire* crux of my post…. a rose by any other name means these terrorists are no different than the US citizen’s concept of “al Qaeda”.

blast… INRE your comment:

I don’t think an Islamic jihad fighter is an Islamic jihad fighter as you say though. We have seen through the Al Anbar awaking where jihad fighters who were shooting at Americans one day turn their sights on AQ instead.

The Anbar fighters who retrained their sites on AQI were not global jihad movement fighters. They were Saddam and/or Sunni loyalists. You cannot convince a global jihad member to turn on his own. You are confusing the variety of alliances and rebels in Iraq with jihad groups.

As you say, you don’t want to “over simplify” things… yet you are doing just that. There were Iraqis who were in power under Saddam, or suddenly found themselves an unrepresented minority (by their own doing…) who battled the new Iraq govt. They bonded with the jihad movements until they saw them assail any and everyone to instigate a needed civil war. It did not work….

But I assure you, they did not have jihad fighters atone, and turn to face their former compadres in Anbar.

The Jerusalem Post has an excellent editorial today on Mumbai and the “whodunit” attitude called In Cold Blood

The bloodbath reminds us that, though Muslim extremism is often traceable to some local grievance, it’s in essence part of a larger conflict between civilizations. Islamists are violently affronted when Hindus, Jews, Buddhist or Christians are sovereign over a Muslim minority.

~~~

Mumbai has been attacked six times since 1993, most recently in 2006 when 200 people were killed in a train-bombing. The nature of the latest attacks, however, with multiple terror teams hitting some 10 targets with explosives, automatic rifle-fire and grenades – in an operation that carried on from one day into the next – suggests a far higher level of coordination and training than anything seen before.

~~~

NO ONE yet knows who carried out these attacks and speculation is rampant. Pakistan has in the past encouraged terrorism in Kashmir. Its doubtful India’s unstable neighbor is explicitly responsible for the aggression (the government there denounced it), but Pakistan has multiple power centers and its intelligence service has previously been linked to the Taliban. Both they and al-Qaida have an interest in diverting attention away from the Pakistan-Afghan border. And coincidentally, Pakistani troops reportedly opened fire on Indian positions along their joint border on Thursday. Still, al-Qaida specializes in mega-attacks using suicide bombers, which was not the case here. Even if it turns out that this outrage was the handiwork of Lashkar-e-Toiba – or one of its front-groups – which wants to turn India into a Muslim state, that still doesn’t unveil the real masterminds.

Whoever did this wanted to create panic, scare off foreigners, undermine India’s economy and turn the country’s people against one another.

We may learn the identities of these young scumbags wreaking death and mayhem in Mumbai…. but we may not know the source who gave the orders. Just as Saddam used jihad groups as an unofficial state weapon, these may be but a small battle in a larger jihad theatre.

But we do know why… this is yet another jihad assault against the west, and western culture. They singled out British and American hostages, picked foreign frequented hotels and sites, and they are none too pleased with India’s relationship with the US, and their love for western capitalism and economics.

Call them AQ or not… they are but a rose by any other name….

Here’s the headline:

“Sophisticated Attacks, but by Whom?”

That simply does not suggest that “it just couldn’t be AQ.”

The article goes on to even-handedly discuss the various opinions (at this early stage) as to who might have been behind the attacks. That is responsible journalism.

I don’t want my conclusions spoon-fed to me by the MSM or FA or anybody else,whether in the headline or the body of the article.

Spoon-feeding leads to the kind of blinkered thinking, full of emotion and devoid of reason, demonstrated in Craig’s post just above yours. Certainly that’s not the kind of “thinking” you want to encourage.

Craig,

Who said they weren’t “bad guys?” The article certainly didn’t. Did you read it? Gunmen who murder innocent people, whatever their cause, are terrorists. The only thing left open in the article was the exact nature of their affiliation, not the morality of their actions.

I’m one of those American leftists you refer to and I don’t hate my country and I don’t love terrorists.

I don’t think an Islamic jihad fighter is an Islamic jihad fighter as you say though. We have seen through the Al Anbar awaking where jihad fighters who were shooting at Americans one day turn their sights on AQ instead. There is much nuance in that area for us to find the right buttons to push, but we did. The media simplifies things too much and we should not either.

No doubt we ALL should be very concerned about men with Caliphate aspirations, but keep in mind there can only be one Caliph in their world, so we will likely see them fight between themselves (as we have seen in the past). Hopefully we can help them kill each other

blast, INRE your comment:

Regardless of what shared ideology the groups might have their methods, motivations and connections are very important distinctions. Just calling them all “bad guys” (or whatever label you want to place on them) is just not good enough in my book. Understanding the unique differences (as there are many) in tribal, ethnic, linguistic and even races within the broader networks offer opportunities to disrupt, destabilize, deconstruct and destroy them.

For intel and counterintel, plus warfare, you are correct that the differences in how each jihad movement organizes and carries out their atrocities has value.

However a jihad Islamic fighter is a jihad Islamic fighter… whether he is an AQ trainee/bonafide member, or whether he heads a rebel break off group.

The problem I try to point out here is that… unfortunately… the US denizen seems to think if the jihad movement isn’t traceable directly to AQ and Osama Bin Laden, they are somehow less ominous… a group to consider as criminal law enforcement, and not worthy of preventative scrutiny as terrorists.

However the shared ideology is most certainly a profile of an enemy that can, and should be pursued. Those that intend to “disrupt, destablize, deconstruct and destroy” us – the west – and establish the Caliphate should be hunted down and isolated/destroyed… whether they call themselves disciples of Osama bin Laden, or if they call themselves the Arab Mohammed Mouse Club.

My problem is when the western media tends to toss off actions as “oh, that’s not al Qaeda, tho”… it minimizes the impact of what the enemy as a whole *is*. They are one cohestive unit with the same shared goal… even if they don’t break bread together regularly. And the media has been derelict in their education (so what’s new…) about just who the enemy is. This India business is serious… yet the NYTs and some in India themselves pass it off lightly as it’s not necessarily a OBL group.

Dumb, and dangerous.

We already know that these attacks in Mumbai were done by Muslims, so they are: Islamic terrorists. Period! The American leftists just love terrorists because they hate USA just as much as they do.

TERRORISM: “The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.”

The article presents both sides of the AQ linkage. That’s journalism. Mata is doing editorial. She is arriving at conclusions. They are two different styles of presentation. We need both.