December 5, 2008
Antiwar.com

Washington Arrogance Has Fomented a Muslim Revolution

by Paul Craig Roberts

"In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."--Justice Louis Brandeis

Is Pakistan responsible for the Mumbai attack in India? No.

Is India's repression of its Muslim minority responsible? No.

Is the United States government responsible? Yes.

The attack on Mumbai required radicalized Muslims. Radicalized Muslims resulted from the US overthrowing the elected government in Iran and imposed the Shah; from the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia; from the US invading and attempting to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, bombing weddings, funerals, and children's soccer games; from the US violating international and US law by torturing its Muslim victims; from the US enlisting Pakistan in its war against the Taliban; from the US violating Pakistan's sovereignty by conducting military operations on Pakistani territory, killing Pakistani civilians; from the US government supporting a half century of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their lands, towns and villages; from the assault of American culture on Muslim values; from the US purchasing the government of Egypt to act as its puppet; from US arrogance that America is the supreme arbiter of morality.

As Justice Brandeis said, crime is contagious. Government teaches by example, and America's example is lawlessness. America's brutal crimes against the Muslim world have invited every Muslim to become a law unto himself - a revolutionary. It is not terror that Washington confronts but revolution.

By illegal, uncivilized and undiplomatic behavior, the US has stirred Muslim peoples from their long slumber as serfs of Western colonial powers. Some Muslims have had all that they can take, and their fury drives them to rouse a billion of their fellows to throw off the yoke of foreign hegemony.

The arrogant incompetence of American governments brought this conflict to the American people and inflicted it upon the world. . . .

FULL TEXT

Tweet
Follow @wisdomfund

Enver Masud, "The Mumbai Terror Attacks: 10 Reasons Why We're Not Ready to Draw Conclusions," The Wisdom Fund, November 30, 2008

[A senior official in India's Home Ministry told Asia Times Online that a decision had been made at the highest levels that India will be directly involved in "annihilating" some of the terror infrastructure and personnel based in Pakistan. . . .

According to the official, who declined to be named, these operations will essentially be covert to prevent an all-out war between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Officially, India may continue to deny such actions, all the while taking the battle to the terrorists. . . .

India will also seek out Israel to help implement secret sorties into Pakistan. It is hoped that Israel will also assist in setting up an elaborate intelligence network specifically aimed at neutralizing terror activities.--Siddharth Srivastava, "India sets sights on Pakistani camps," Asia Times, December 6, 2008]

"Muslims in city denounce terror," dnaindia.com, December 6, 2008

Saeed Shah, "Revealed: home of Mumbai's gunman in Pakistan village," Observer, December 7, 2008

[The recent attacks in Mumbai, while largely blamed on Pakistan's state-sponsored militant groups, represent the latest phase in a far more complex and long-term "strategy of tension" in the region; being employed by the Anglo-American-Israeli Axis to ultimately divide and conquer the Middle East and Central Asia. The aim is destabilization of the region, subversion and acquiescence of the region's countries, and control of its economies, all in the name of preserving the West's hegemony over the "Arc of Crisis." . . .

The Mumbai attacks do not aid India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or any nation within the region. The beneficiaries of the Mumbai Massacre are in London and New York, in the boardrooms and shareholders of the largest international banks; which seek total control of the world. Having dominated North America and Europe for much of recent history, these bankers, primarily Anglo-American, but also European, seek to exert their total control over the world's resources, currencies, and populations. There are many concurrent strategies they are employingto achieve this end . . .

If the Mumbai attacks were designed to be blamed on Pakistan - as they likely were - and thus, to possibly start a war between Pakistan and India - which is now a growing reality - what is the ultimate significance of knowing if it was the ISI or Indian elements responsible? Albeit, this is important to know, however, when it comes to understanding the motives behind the attacks, it pales in comparison.--Andrew G. Marshall, "The Mumbai Attacks and the 'Strategy of Tension'," Global Research, December 7, 2008]

"Pakistan cracks down on LeT camp: Report," Times of India, December 8, 2008

[Questions have been raised in India over the police handling of the arrest of a man suspected of handling mobile phone cards used by Mumbai's attackers.

Calcutta police arrested Mukhtar Ahmed for procuring SIM cards for the group without knowing that he was an undercover operative. . . .

He said a SIM card recovered from the mobile of one of the Mumbai gunmen, called Ismail, was among those supplied to Lashkar by Mukhtar Ahmed.--Subir Bhaumik, "Anger at 'blown' Mumbai arrests," BBC News, December 8, 2008]

[The Mumbai attacks are only the most recent of a spate of terrorist attacks on Indian towns and cities this year. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur and Malegaon have all seen serial bomb blasts in which hundreds of ordinary people have been killed and wounded. If the police are right about the people they have arrested as suspects, both Hindu and Muslim, all Indian nationals, it obviously indicates that something's going very badly wrong in this country. . . .

The policemen who supervised and sometimes even assisted the rampaging Hindu mobs in Gujarat have been rewarded and promoted. The RSS has 45,000 branches, its own range of charities and 7 million volunteers preaching its doctrine of hate across India. They include Narendra Modi, but also former prime minister AB Vajpayee, current leader of the opposition LK Advani, and a host of other senior politicians, bureaucrats and police and intelligence officers. . . .

This pattern changed in October 2008 when Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) that was investigating the September 2008 Malegaon blasts arrested a Hindu preacher Sadhvi Pragya, a self-styled God man Swami Dayanand Pande and Lt Col Purohit, a serving officer of the Indian Army. All the arrested belong to Hindu Nationalist organizations including a Hindu Supremacist group called Abhinav Bharat. The Shiv Sena, the BJP and the RSS condemned the Maharashtra ATS, and vilified its chief, Hemant Karkare, claiming he was part of a political conspiracy and declaring that "Hindus could not be terrorists". LK Advani changed his mind about his policy on the police and made rabble rousing speeches to huge gatherings in which he denounced the ATS for daring to cast aspersions on holy men and women.

On the November 25 newspapers reported that the ATS was investigating the high profile VHP Chief Pravin Togadia's possible role in the Malegaon blasts. The next day, in an extraordinary twist of fate, Hemant Karkare was killed in the Mumbai Attacks.--Arundhati Roy, "The monster in the mirror," Guardian, December 12, 2008]

[Pakistan carried out raids on Jamaatut offices throughout the country. Saeed and other leaders have been placed under house arrest, while several Jamaatut leaders have gone underground.

India presented Pakistan with difficult-to-deny evidence through US officials soon after the Mumbai attack and made it quite plain that it wanted action against the LET for its links to the attack. One of the 10 attackers admitted to being trained by the LET.--Syed Saleem Shahzad, "Pakistan's military takes a big hit," Observer, December 13, 2008]

[What the Indian elite is discovering today on the debris of fancy eateries is an acidic truth large numbers of ordinary Indians are forced to swallow every day. Children who die of malnutrition, farmers who commit suicide, dalits who are raped and massacred, tribals who are turfed out of centuryold habitats, peasants whose lands are taken over for car factories, minorities who are bludgeoned into paranoia . . .

Let's track one causal chain. The Congress creates Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to neutralise the Akalis; Bhindranwale creates terrorism; Indira Gandhi moves against terrorism; terrorism assassinates Indira Gandhi; blameless Sikhs are slaughtered in Delhi; in the course of a decade, numberless innocents, militants, and securitymen die. Let's track another. The BJP takes out an inflammatory rath yatra; inflamed kar sewaks pull down the Babri Masjid; riots ensue; vengeful Muslims trigger Mumbai blasts; 10 years later a bogey of kar sewaks is burnt in Gujarat; in the next week 2,000 Muslims are slaughtered; six years later retaliatory violence continues. Let's track one more. In the early 1940s, in the midst of the freedom movement, patrician Muslims demand a separate homeland; Mahatma Gandhi opposes it; the British support it; Partition ensues; a million people are slaughtered; four wars follow; two countries drain each other through rhetoric and poison; nuclear arsenals are built; hotels in Mumbai are attacked.

Let's be clear we are not in a crisis because the Taj hotel was gutted. We are in a crisis because six years after 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered in Gujarat there is still no sign of justice. This is the second thing the elite need to understand after the obscenity of gross inequality. The plinth of every society since the beginning of Man has been set on the notion of justice.--Tarun J Tejpal, "Death Of A Salesman And Other Elite Ironies," Tehelka Magazine, December 13, 2008]

[Kasab was among a group of Pakistanis kidnapped in 2006 from Khatmandu, by the Nepalese security forces under instruction fromÊIndian intelligence agencies.--Dan Qayyum, "The Indian Gameplan Falling Apart," pakalert, December 15, 2008]

Emily Wax, "Calls Shed Light on Gunmen's Motives," Washington Post, December 16, 2008

Hamid Shaikh, "Pakistani Hindus rally to support Islamic charity," Reuters North American News Service, December 16, 2008

[Union Minorities Affairs Minister AR Antulay courted controversy on Wednesday by suspecting the truth behind Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad chief Hemant Karkare's killing during the Mumbai attacks.--"Antulay stirs up controversy, questions Karkare's death," Zeenews Bureau, December 17, 2008]

"Zardari rejects Mumbai 'claims'," BBC News, December 17, 2008

[The major axis controlling fundamentalist Islamic terrorism is composed of the ruling corporate elites in USA and UK, the Saud dynasty and the military establishment in Pakistan.

Robert Pape in "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," ... observed that: "Terrorism is not a supply-limited phenomenon where there are just a few hundred around the world willing to do it because they are religious fanatics. It is a demand-driven phenomenon. That is, it is driven by the presence of foreign forces on the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland."--K. Gajendra Singh, "West-stirred up Muslims terrorise Mumbai," vijayvaani.com, December 18, 2008]

[Amin Solkar filed a public interest litigation (PIL) on December 11, mainly because Karkare was investigating the countrywide Hindutva terror network. The PIL has asked the court to appoint a special investigating team under its supervision.--"India: Lawyer claims Karkare shot by Hindutva terrorists," muslimnews, December 18, 2008]

[Witnesses in Cama hospital say the terrorists spoke fluent Marathi, and this report has been confirmed. . . .

On 12 December, over 60,000 people from all walks of life formed a human chain throughout the length and breadth of Bombay, proclaiming unity and peace in opposition to terrorism, war, communalism and violence.--R. H., "Who Killed Hemant Karkare?," Muslim Observer, December 18, 2008]

Syed A. R. Zaidi, "Mumbai Attacks: Why Should We Believe Kasab and Jadhav's Stories?," email, December 19, 2008

[The only thing we can say for sure regarding this unholy narrative is that both India and Pakistan are incompetent and crooked, that their news media are every bit as untrustworthy as ours, and that we'll never get to the bottom of the story.--Jeff Huber, "The Tailor of Mumbai," military.com, December 23, 2008]

[On Thursday, November 27, in the middle of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, Imran Babar, one of the terrorists, called India TV from Nariman House. He used a cellphone that belonged to Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, the co-director of the Chabad-Lubavitch Center. The following day, Babar and his associates killed Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka. The phone call he made was not long. Babar opened with a comment that made little sense to most people: "You call [Israel's] army staff to visit Kashmir. Who are they to come to J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]? This is a matter between us and Hindus, the Hindu government. Why does Israel come here?" . . .

India cannot afford to mimic Israel's failed neighborhood policy, nor can it follow the U. S. example that seeks to solve its problems by aerial bombardment. South Asia requires a regional solution to what is without doubt a regional problem, one with its roots in the Afghan jihad of the 1980s as much as the unresolved Kashmir question (with close to a million troops in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian government runs what is tantamount to an occupation - they provide the opposite of security for the residents of the state).--Vijay Prashad, "Through Tel Aviv: India's Reckless Road to Washington," counterpunch.org, December 23, 2008]

M K Bhadrakumar, "South Asia descends into terror's vortex," atimes.com, December 25, 2008

Rana Ayub, "The Foreign Hand," tehelka.com, December 27, 2008

Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay, "Pakistan fires official who confirmed Mumbai gunman's identity," McClatchy Newspapers, January 7, 2009

Randeep Ramesh, "Indian Mumbai dossier details gunmen's calls with handlers," Guardian, January 7, 2009

Saeed Shah, "Pakistan dismisses Indian dossier on Mumbai attacks," Guardian, January 14, 2009

[K Madhusudhan Nair is the adhyaksh (chairman) of the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Samaj Seva Trust and a local leader at Macchimar Nagar, situated at Cuffe Parade, south Mumbai [Images], just a few metres away from the spot where the 10 terrorists disembarked from a rubber dinghy on November 26 last year.

He is also a neighbour to Anita Rajendra Udiyar, who runs a scrap shop and has been in the news this week for her alleged trip abroad to give evidence, since she witnessed the terrorists's landing in the city that November evening.

Nair vouches for Udiyar's story. He says he is 100 per cent sure she went abroad because she was to be presented as a witness to give legitimacy to India's claims about the 26/11 attacks--Vaihayasi P Daniel, "Neighbour confirms eyewitness's US story," rediff.com, January 16, 2009]

James Lamont and Farhan Bokhari, "Pakistan to help prosecute militants," Financial Times, January 23, 2009

[The impetus for this new combine and its lobbying is the Mumbai attacks of December 2008. But this is not just about justice for the victims of Mumbai. There is another dynamic involved, which is to walk the Jewish American road, to create a "India Lobby" that resembles the "Israel Lobby."--Vijay Prashad, "The India Lobby Drunk with the Sight of Power," counterpunch.org, January 26, 2009]

[Pakistan was holding in custody the ringleader and five other suspects in the conspiracy behind a militant attack that killed 179 people in Mumbai, the top Pakistani interior ministry official said on Thursday.--Kamran Haider, "Pakistan unveils breakthrough, arrests in Mumbai probe," Reuters, February 12, 2009]

[The leading suspect in the Mumbai (Bombay) attacks trial has retracted his confession.--"Mumbai confession 'was coerced'," BBC News, April 17, 2009]

Vikas Bajaj and Lydia Polgreen, "In Reversal, Mumbai Attacker Pleads Guilty," New York Times, July 21, 2009

M Zeyaul Haque, "Book smashes India's 'Islamic terrorism' myth: New book shows how network seeks to frame Muslims for many bombings in India," middle-east-online.com, October 27, 2009

"Pakistan charges seven over Mumbai attacks," Associated Press, November 25, 2009

"Is Headley an American agent who turned rogue?," Times of India, November 27, 2009

Carrie Johnson, "U.S. citizen David Coleman Headley admits role in Mumbai attacks," Washington Post, March 19, 2010

[What emerges, even if one were to give the benefit of the doubt to the CIA, is that Headley was its agent but he possibly got involved with Pakistan-based terrorist organizations and became a double agent.--M K Bhadrakumar, "A spy unsettles US-India ties," Asia Times, March 23, 2010]

[Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, 22, the sole surviving gunman, was found guilty on charges including murder, waging war on India and possessing explosives.--Delnaaz Irani, "Surviving Mumbai gunman convicted over attacks," BBC News, May 3, 2010]

Raveena Hansa, "From Murder Mystery To Spy Thriller: The Continuing Saga Of The Mumbai Terror Attacks," countercurrents.org, May 13, 2010

"India: Pakistan spy agency executed Mumbai attacks," AP News, July 14, 2010

[David Headley is a Chicago-based Pakistani American, who conspired with Lashkar-e-Taiba to launch the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Since his arrest he has been closely guarded by the US government and access to him restricted. Despite pleading guilty he has not been extradited to India, instead he has been cooperating with the U.S. authorities with matters related to terrorism.--"Terror Alert Fashback: Mumbai Attack Involved CIA and ISI," wideshut.co, October 6, 2010]

[Federal officials acknowledged Saturday that David Coleman Headley, the U.S. businessman who confessed to being a terrorist scout in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was working as a Drug Enforcement Administration informant while training with terrorists in Pakistan. . . .

The revelations came after a report Friday by ProPublica and The Washington Post that the FBI had been warned about Headley's terrorist ties three years before the Mumbai attacks. Headley was arrested 11 months after those attacks.--Sebastian Rotella, "Scout in Mumbai attacks was DEA informant while in terror camp, authorities say," washingtonpost.com, October 17, 2010]

Ginger Thompson, Eric Schmitt and Souad Mekhennet, "D.E.A. Deployed Mumbai Plotter Despite Warning," nytimes.com, November 7, 2010

["The American side is telling us that Lashkar is as much of a threat as al-Qaeda or the Taliban," the senior Pakistani official said.--Sebastian Rotella, "An intricate plot unleashed in Mumbai, the West confronts a new threat," ProPublica, November 15, 2010]

[A federal judge imposed a 35-year prison sentence Thursday on David Coleman Headley--Sebastian Rotella, "Businessman gets 35-year prison sentence for his role in Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008," nytimes.com, January 24, 2013]

Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott Clark, "America sacrificed Mumbai to keep Headley in play," indiatimes.com, November 24, 2013

"OPERATION JANMABHOOMI: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CONSPIRACY BEHIND THE DEMOLITION OF THE BABRI MASJID," cobrapost.com, April 4, 2014