posted March 12, 2008 02:46 PM            

from dictionary.com:

pac·i·fist /ˈp¿səfɪst/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pas-uh-fist] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. a person who believes in pacifism

Since we're just taking convenient definitions I've taken off the rest of the definition, which states, "or is opposed to war or to violence of any kind."

A PERSON WHO BELIVES IN PACIFISM.

pac·i·fism (pâs'ə-fĭz'əm) Pronunciation Key
n.
1. The belief that disputes between nations should and can be settled peacefully.

posted March 12, 2008 03:29 PM            

Only in the fantasy land of leftist non-thought do words mean whatever you want them to mean.

Only in the fantasy land of leftist non-thought could anyone who spent more than 30 years in the military...and served in WW I and WWII...voluntarily and who directed the bombing campaign of German cities...including the firebombing of German industrial cities...not to mention the invasion of Europe from Great Britain...only in leftist fantasy land could that person be said to be opposed to war or violence of any kind.

Your argument cannot be salvaged acoustic. Down the tubes, like all the others you've attempted to float.

Nevertheless, O'Bomber is totally unqualified to be president of the United States. No experience on which to draw, makes outrageous statements which upset friends and allies and add to a feeling of mistrust and American intentions.

posted March 12, 2008 04:22 PM            

quote:

---

makes outrageous statements which upset friends and allies and add to a feeling of mistrust and American intentions.

---

...said the Bush supporter.

posted March 12, 2008 04:36 PM            

You have a real problem conceptionalizing acoustic.

The very definition you attempted to use stated: or is opposed to war or to violence of any kind. Certainly acoustic, those who lead troops in war, those who make war plans, those who send millions into war to kill enemies and destroy their cities, their infrastructure, their shipping, their manufacturing base and bring enemies to their knees through military conquest....those persons cannot possibly be said to be "pacifists".

posted March 12, 2008 05:03 PM            

1. a person who believes in pacifism or is opposed to war or to violence of any kind.

First definition. How many times will I have to reitterate before it sinks in? I gave you the definition of "pacifism" as well. What are you not understanding?

You may think that it's inconceivable that a pacifist can be in and act in the military, but clearly they can. It's not difficult to hold the belief that war should be the last resort rather than the first, or, "that disputes between nations should and can be settled peacefully," as the definition of pacifism states. What military member in their right mind wouldn't prefer disputes between nations to be handled peacefully whenever possible?

Yes, it is sometimes necessary to secure the peace in order to save the nation, and that's exactly what Obama was suggesting he would do in going after Al Qaeda in Pakistan. Al Qaeda is not a nation, and nor is it as a group interested in any sort of diplomacy. Their belief is that they are here to take over the world in the name of Islam. You can't exactly take a "pacifist" route where the enemy wouldn't even consider coming to the table, can you? No politician of ours could meet with Al Qaeda and guarantee Al Qaeda's demands (that we all convert and submit to their religion and ways) will be met. There is no [pacifist] choice in this instance. That said, one's use of military force does not negate one's pacifism.

posted March 12, 2008 05:21 PM            

So...show me where Ike ever said he was a pacifist...or that he believed in pacifism.

You don't get to decide that for Ike acoustic. Only Ike...and in his own words and those words would need to be...I am a pacifist...or I believe in pacifism.

Get back to me when you find Ike quoted as saying either of those 2 statements and I'll wait right here with bated breath.

O'Bomber panting to remove US military forces from Iraq MAKE him the terrorist poster boy for US president.

posted March 12, 2008 07:04 PM            

• Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• The United States strongly seeks a lasting agreement for the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests. We believe that this would be an important step toward reduction of international tensions and would open the way to further agreement on substantial measures of disarmament.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• War settles nothing.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower
  

Ding! Ding! Ding! I think we have a winner!

posted March 12, 2008 07:31 PM            

Of course Ike...as most soldiers do...hated war. That didn't keep Ike from waging war, from volunteering to serve his country in 2 World Wars, from sending millions of allied soldiers into war in Europe.

By your own definition...the one you supplied and seem to be hung up on...Ike was not a pacifist. Hating war does not a pacifist make.

It's always actions which govern acoustic, not words. Ike's actions proved he was no pacifist. Threatening thermonuclear war with
China is not the mark of a pacifist...along with everything else Ike actually did do.

Poor Barak O'Bomber. He's not quite ready for prime time. Threatening to bomb an ally and sovereign nation..and to say so in such a public way is the mark of an unseasoned ninny...but if O'Bomber is to be believed, he's no pacifist either.

posted March 12, 2008 08:05 PM            

You have a lot to learn from Ike.

quote:

---

Hating war does not a pacifist make.

---

It sure as hell does. But Ike went beyond just a hate of war. His actions backed up his sentiments. You're choosing not to see what's there.

quote:

---

Threatening to bomb an ally and sovereign nation..

---

posted March 12, 2008 08:27 PM            

Even though you supplied your own definition of pacifist:

"a person who believes in pacifism or is opposed to war or to violence of any kind."

You don't seem to get it that Ike was not opposed to war in any real sense...since he sent millions of allied troops into war in Europe, planned the invasion of Europe, sent thousands of B-17s to bomb the hell out of Germany, including their cities and citizens, participated in the Military Industrial Complex...ordering thousands of tanks, B-17s, P-51 Mustangs, P-38 Lightnings, P-47 Thunderbolts and all the other implements of war.

These are not the actions of a pacifist...but rather the actioms of a realist who knew Hitler and the Nazis had to be stopped and defeated...in war and with an unconditional surrender of Germany.

This was violence of a kind never seen on earth to that time.

A pacifist would have taken NONE of those actions.

posted March 12, 2008 08:41 PM            

quote:

---

You don't seem to get it that Ike was not opposed to war in any real sense

---

In December 1950, at the request of the European allies, President Harry Truman recalled Eisenhower to become the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, where he directed the buildup of military forces for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In dealing with the creation of a common defense against the threat of Communist aggression, Eisenhower and his allied staff worked within the constraints of a Europe that was recovering from the ravages of World War II and still stood on the edge of economic collapse. His most enduring contribution was developing a sense of partnership and self-confidence among the NATO member nations. Europeans found that they could trust a man who conspicuously shared their desire for peace. Eisenhower believed that his NATO command was unique. It was the first time, as he later commented, that a multinational army was created "to preserve the peace and not to wage war." http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/Ike/ike.htm

"Not opposed to war." Yeah right.

The new President's major concern was the continued quest for international peace that had been his focus in his years with NATO.

In December he proposed the Atoms for Peace program, whereby nations would pool their atomic information for peaceful purposes, an initiative that led to the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1957.

Trying to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union, in 1955 he proposed the Open Skies plan that would allow the United States and the USSR aerial inspection of each other's military bases. http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/Ike/ike.htm

He's rightly been ranked amongst the top 15 presidents in historian polls since 1982, and in the top 10 for seven of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_U.S._Presidents

posted March 12, 2008 09:02 PM            

Ike was not opposed to war to the degree he refused to plan and implement the violence you say pacifists would shun.

Public statements aside, it was what Ike DID which marked him as a non pacifist and rather, a realist.

Your own definition...which I let you use..as opposed to the more accepted definition of a pacifist.

posted March 12, 2008 09:13 PM            

I don't think back in 1950s americans had a choice to fight a war or not to.

posted March 12, 2008 10:30 PM            

One such cause was members of the Nazi party...SS or Gestapo or death camp guards lying about their identity when they made application for US citizenship. They were stripped of their citizenship and deported in some instances.

The US has honored conscientious objector status for a very long time...when objection to fighting in wars was stated clearly and early and the facts were born out in investigations. Quakers and other religious group members whose religious beliefs forbid their participation in wars have been granted conscientious objector status.

posted March 13, 2008 02:34 AM            

quote:

---

Your own definition...which I let you use..as opposed to the more accepted definition of a pacifist.

---

My own definition is the first definition given, which is one who believes in pacifism, the belief that disputes between nations should and can be settled peacefully. You are not seriously suggesting that Ike was against nations settling disputes peacefully, are you? Not after all that I've posted here which speaks so much about that subject. At this point you'd have to be seriously unconscious not to notice the PEACE theme present in all of Eisenhower's acts and words.

There has never been a possibility of me losing this argument. It was won from the moment the initial statement was made. It was an obviously correct statement on the most elementary level to anyone familiar with his biography. You're just slow on the uptake, or contrary because it's me... or you prefer your definitions to the ones in the dictionary. Whatever the case may be, anyone could beat you in this argument. All they have to do is read up on the subject.

• We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• War settles nothing.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.
  Dwight D. Eisenhower
  

posted March 13, 2008 04:24 AM            

Barak O'Bomber isn't a pacifist either...not after threatening to bomb Pakistan.

posted March 13, 2008 06:28 AM              

u however , republican and all ,seem to not be one of the spineless, if i may take the liberty to presume???

kindly take a few moments from ur schedule to substantiate the following statement

-------------------------------------

All I had to prove was that there are terrorists operating inside India. You said they are not. Not only are there terrorists operating inside Kashmir but inside India proper as well.

-----------------------------------------

what is known by me and other civilains, is that the insurgents, many of them of middle eastern origins are graduates from an assortment of Terrorist schools, most of which are BASED in Pakistan. these were hitherto concentrated in Kashmir but have now spread to other states and are using using Religious Jingoism to lure muslim youngsters into their schemes. the suspects of 3 terrorist blasts arrested so far are PAKISTANIS, aided by a random Indian Muslim, usually for money.

So when YOU say terrorists operating inside India, u are once more being the FRAUD that u are.

what i said was NOT that are no terrorists operating inside India, i kicked ur speculations that our Govt, is unable or unwilling to counter terrorism.

FRAUD that u are , to talk like u are an inside authority on such political matters on the other side of the world, i ask you, to prove YOUR OWN claims

1}} that our GOVT is UNWILLING or UNABLE to fight Terrorism.
2}} why on earth would you fail to be clear about what u want to put across that terrorists are operating in India

Failing that, the crap that is ur credibility will be a sight for all to clam their noses at.thank u for digging ur own grave, really couldnt do with the extra work

posted March 13, 2008 06:30 AM              

-------------------------------------
On The Long Road To Freedom, Finally

Pakistan’s emerging middle class begins to stand up to the army, the ‘feudals’ and the fundamentalists in an attempt to shape a democratic future, writes WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

.....................
.......................

WO EVENTS in the last three months have radically changed the course of Indo-Pak relations, and have the potential to radically alter the future direction of South Asian history.

The first of these events took place on November 24, 2007. On this day, a suicide bomber detonated himself beside a bus at the entrance of Camp Hamza, the ISI’s Islamabad headquarters. Around twenty people died in what is the first known attack by an Islamist cell against the Pakistan intelligence services. Many of the dead were ISI staffers. This event, coming as it did after three assassination attempts on General Musharraf, several other bomb attacks on army barracks, and the murder of many captured army personnel in Waziristan, is credited with persuading even the most pro-Islamist elements in the Pakistan army, and the agencies, that the jehadi Frankenstein’s monster they have created now has to be dispatched with a stake in its heart, and as soon possible.

The long debate in the army over what was Pakistan’s real enemy ended that day: India was now no longer perceived as the biggest threat facing the nation, and the army’s principal adversary; instead it has finally and belatedly been accepted that a far more immediate threat comes from the jehadis the army has reared. In such a struggle it is rapidly becoming clear that India, far from being an enemy, could potentially become a future ally.

------------------------------------------
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main38.asp?filename=Ne080308on_the.asp

posted March 13, 2008 07:43 AM            

Until you get your facts straight, it might be a good idea to not call anyone a fraud...unless you refer to yourself. You might want to refer to yourself as a know nothing.

All I had to prove to make your statement false was that terrorists are operating within India. This settles that issue once and for all.

Who they are, where they come from and what their goals are is not relevant to the issue of whether they exist. They do exist, they are terrorists and they are killing civilians within India.

Major terrorist groups operating in India

India lost over 53,000 lives to terrorism and extremism over the last decade. This is certainly cause for alarm, and creates an image of widespread breakdown of law and order – and this is an accurate picture of at least some parts of the country. Across most of its geographical expanse, however, India has remained by and large free of the modern-day scourge of terrorism, as of insurgency and other patterns of extremist political violence (see map).

A review of data relating to civilian fatalities as a result of social and political violence in the country over the period September 1, 1999 – August 31, 2001, (Graph 1) indicated that nearly 36 per cent of all such fatalities occurred in parts of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) alone as a result of the separatist proxy war in that State. Over 33 per cent were accounted for by a range of insurgencies and terrorist movements in India’s Northeast – and these were overwhelmingly concentrated in a small number of districts in four of the seven States in this region. A little less than 21 per cent of civilian fatalities resulted from Left Wing Extremist (referred to as Naxalism in India) and retaliatory violence in some areas of the States of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar. Barely 10 per cent of the total civilian fatalities were spread across the rest of the country, and only a small fraction of these were concentrated in the economically vibrant metropolii.

Separatism constitutes a primary demand of the movement in J&K, and of many of the groups active in India’s Northeast (some Northeast groups do not have clearly defined separatist goals). There has been a proliferation of militant groups in recent times, with as many as 33 identified in J&K, and over 104 in India’s Northeast. Most of these are insignificant gangs and some are now dormant.

J&K is currently the most significant internal security challenge faced by the country (Graph 2), and three Islamist fundamentalist groups – all of them head-quartered in Pakistan – constitute the gravest threat in the State: Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Hizb-ul-Mujahiddeen (HuM). All three seek integration of J&K with Pakistan, and they have entirely replaced groups, such as the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), that sought Kashmiri Independence and who dominated the earlier phase of the militancy. Intelligence sources estimate that 55 per cent of the approximately 4,000 terrorists currently operating in the State are foreigners, primarily Pakistanis, though several other nationalities have also been identified.

The LeT is the terrorist arm of the Markaz-ud-Dawa-Wal-Irshad (MDI), with its headquarters at Muridke in Pakistan. Its entry into J&K was first recorded in 1993 but it was after 1997 that it rose in the priorities of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). The LeT has a specialised ‘suicide’ cadre, the fidayeen, who undertake high-risk missions against security forces. The first of these attacks targeted a residential complex of the Border Security Force (BSF) in Bandipore near Srinagar on July 13, 1999. The most spectacular of these missions was the attack on the headquarters of the Special Operations Group (SOG) at Srinagar on December 27, 1999. LeT operations are characterised by a level of brutality that surpasses that of other terrorist groups in the State. Cases include the cold blooded murder of 23 people in Wandhama on January 23, 1988; the June 19, 1998, massacre of 25 members of a wedding party in Doda, Jammu; and, during President Clinton’s visit to South Asia, the Chattisinghpora massacre of 35 Sikhs on March 20, 2000.

The JeM was set up in Pakistan in February 2000, by Maulana Masood Azhar. Azhar is closely connected with the Binori Seminary, the largest Deobandi madrassa in Pakistan, and was released on December 31, 1999, from an Indian prison in a hostage swap after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines Flight IC 814 to Kandahar, Afghanistan. The rise of the JeM has been rapid. The first of its more dramatic strikes occurred on April 23, 2000, when a youth rammed a car laden with explosives at the gates of the local army headquarters at Badami Bagh in Srinagar. The attack was the first suicide bomb attack in J&K. The Jaish has also claimed credit for the rifle grenade attack on the J&K Secretariat building in Srinagar on June 28, 2001; and the attack on the State Legislative Assembly complex at Srinagar on October 1, 2001, using a car bomb – 38 people, including four fidayeen were killed in the latter. The JeM and the LeT are both closely connected with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.

The HuM is numerically the largest group in J&K, accounting for up to 60 per cent of the total terrorist cadres in the State, though Indian intelligence considers it to be responsible for only about 10 to 20 per cent of current terrorist strikes. The HuM was founded in 1989 as the militant wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami on the prodding of the ISI, as an Islamic counter to the relatively indigenous and secular JKLF. The group is headed by Syed Salahuddin, who is located at Islamabad, Pakistan. The HuM was responsible for setting fire to the Muslim shrine of Charar-e-Sharif in 1995 and collaborated with the LeT in the Chattisinghpora massacre. It has also killed several moderate Kashmiri Muslims. The HuM has indicated a willingness to accept a negotiated solution to the Kashmir problem, and had declared a short-lived unilateral ‘ceasefire’ in J&K in July 2000. It has increasingly been marginalised in the terrorism profile of the State.

Among the proliferation of terrorist organisations in India’s troubled Northeast, two stand out in significance: the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) that seeks the seccession of Assam, and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) [NSCN-IM] that has taken over the leadership of the longest insurgency in the region, seeking Naga independence. While violence by both these groups has seen a recent decline, their influence in the region is overwhelming. They run widespread networks of extortion, drug smuggling and other criminal activities, and also control substantial ‘overground’ business operations. The NSCN-IM has been engaged in negotiations with the Union Government under a ceasefire agreement that has been in place since August 1997. The ULFA has consistently rejected possibilities of a negotiated settlement. The ULFA and the NSCN-IM have, however, continued to extend their spheres of influence in the Northeast region through low-grade violence as well as by training and arming a large number of other terrorist and proxy groups, and are supported by the ISI in their activities. However, no Northeastern terrorist organisation has, till now, sought to extend its sphere of operations outside the region.

The Islamist groups operating with Pakistani support in Kashmir, however, do have a clear pan-Islamist agenda, and are known to have created a network of terrorist cells in a number of other States in India. While an occasional and dramatic strike has been engineered in various cities, including notably, Delhi, Bombay, Coimbatore and Hyderabad over the past decade, they are yet to secure any noticeable and persistent impact on normal life in any of these areas.

posted March 13, 2008 07:52 AM            

Either is sufficient to prove you wrong, tragically wrong about what's happening within your own country...India.

Consider this a job in the public interest and my good deed for the day.

Now VDI, tell me why you couldn't seem to find any of this...or any of the other information about which you were dead wrong.

Terrorist Tentacles In India
By Wilson John
Issue: Vol 21.2

Investigations into the recent terrorist attacks and the subsequent chain of arrests and seizures in different parts of India, particularly rural Maharashtra, have revealed a growing alliance between jehadi groups operating from Pakistan and Bangladesh with ideologically extreme groups in India.

This development signals a new phase of terrorism within India where international terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul- Jehadi al Islami (HuJI) (and through them al Qaida) are likely to exert influence over a small and diffused group of individuals to take up arms against the State in the name of religion. The threat is these small groups can cause immense damage to the country, its economy, its image, its pluralist character by calculated terrorist attacks in specific centres. Terror is not the only agenda these groups profess. As revealed in attacks in market places in Delhi, Varanasi, Ayodhya and Jama Masjid, the primary objective has been to trigger communal riots and widen the historical divide and suspicion which has existed, at subliminal level, between Hindus and Muslims.

There are quite a few other conclusions which can be safely drawn from the recent terrorist incidents and arrests. First and foremost is that various terrorist elements have been successful in creating a network of terrorist brotherhood in India. Second, such a network of different terrorist groups cannot be possible without a mastermind. In this case, it is clear that the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), working on this strategy since the early 90s (Operation K2), has managed to bring together terrorist and extremist groups with different ideologies for a common cause.

Two such groups which the ISI is today using are LeT and HuJI, both have abiding linkages with al Qaida. Of the several Indian groups which the Pakistani agency has tapped, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), banned in several States, is the most resourceful. Almost all the recent arrested terrorists and their sympathisers have links with SIMI, an organisation set up in the late 70s in Aligarh Muslim University to counter the rising Hindu chauvinism, represented in large measure by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its various off-shoots. SIMI had begun as a student wing of Jamat-e-Islami, a moderate religious organisation, but under the influence of Wahabbis (Saudi Arabia, the source of generous funds), the group adopted an extremist ideology and broke away from the parent organisation. Today, its icon is Osama bin Laden. Before its ban, the group had an active membership of 10,000 in different parts of India, particularly Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala and Gujarat. Its support base, according to intelligence reports, was almost 100,000, a base which became dormant after the Indian government ordered a crack down following the Mumbai blasts. Recent events, however, reveal that at least some sections of this support base are being revived by terrorist groups operating from Pakistan to carry out the next phase of proxy war.

This leads to the third conclusion. Islamic terrorism will no longer be confined to Kashmir as has been the case since the early 90s. It is likely to be a major internal security challenge in different parts of the country, particularly west and south India. North and north-east are already afflicted with terrorism. In all likelihood, north-east, especially Assam, will increasingly come under an additional threat from Islamic terrorists operating out of Bangladesh. Fourth point is the profile of the new set of terrorists. They are not exactly bearded, madarsa educated jehadis. A sizeable number of them are well-educated, doctors and engineers, and adept in exploiting latest communication technologies like internet, email and sat phones. This means, and this is the fifth point, these are groups which can tap into the worldwide web of terror which has not only become a virtual university of jehad but also an overarching umbrella of faith, bringing all the faithful together on a single cyber platform. It is ironical that a faith, which is deeply suspicious of technology, especially western, has its share of proponents who are joined together in their mission of destruction and terror by this web of servers and protocols developed by ‘infidels‘.

Sixth, a large number of local recruits are influenced not by any ideology as such but by, what they perceive as, communal hatred and injustice inflicted by certain sections of the society. Although India has witnessed communal riots since Independence, it was the demolition of the disputed mosque in Ayodhya which drove a deep cleave between the two communities, bringing to the fore, perhaps for the first time since the Partition, the clash between the Majority Community and the Minority Community on a pan-India scale. For the Muslim community as a whole, this incident raised the spectre of being totally subjugated in a nation of their choice. Riding on this communal frenzy and hatred, groups like SIMI stoked the fire, supported in no less measure by the ISI and different groups in West Asia, creating the first group of home-grown jehadis who wanted to avenge the demolition of the mosque by inflicting death and pain on the majority community, on the State perceived as a Hindu state.

It can be worthwhile to look at how the first group of home grown jehadis came into existence. A group of angry Muslim young men, some owing allegiance to Ahl-e-Hadis, an Islamic school of thought which aims to cleanse the religion of all its external influences, especially Hindu, and SIMI, met at a mosque in Mominpura, Mumbai, to form Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen (TIM) in 1993. Formed primarily to counter the growing communal posturings of extremist groups like the RSS and Shiv Sena, the group’s cadre adopted the training doctrines (morning cane drills) of the Hindu groups. Among those who attended the meeting were Azam Ghouri, Abdul Karim Tunda and Dr Jalees Ansari, a Maharashtra government doctor. The leader of the group was Ghouri who hailed from Hanmajjpet in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh and was a member of the outlawed People’s War Group (naxal) almost a decade ago. One of Ghauri’s close associate was Abdul Karim Tunda.

Working under the instructions of LeT commander Zaki-ur-Rehman, the trio-Ghauri, Tunda and Ansari-carried out their first act of terror on December 6, 1993, the first anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. They set off seven explosions in trains, in and around Delhi, part of a series of explosions. Ansari, for instance, was scheduled to carry out another series on January 26 the next year, but was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Ghauri fled to Saudi Arabia and was recruited by Hamid Bahajib, a Saudi businessman who has been financing LeT’s activities for long.

Ghori learnt the techniques of creating and using locally available explosive materials to trigger lethal bomb explosions at the terrorist training camps run by the Taliban in Afghanistan. He returned to India to set up another LeT clone in Hyderabad, the Indian Muslim Mohammedi Mujahideen (IMMM), an Indian branch of the Muslim Defence Force founded in Saudi Arabia by Abu Hamsa alias Abdul Bari Hamsa.of Hyderabad. It subsequently had branches in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, apart from Andhra Pradesh. The IMMM was responsible for bomb blasts in Hyderabad, Karim Nagar and Nizamabad. The group’s LeT pedigree was betrayed by two incidents that were hardly noticed by the general media. On February 29, 2000, several newspapers in Andhra Pradesh received a small note announcing the creation of the IMMM. The note was circulated a few days after the three-day annual conference of Markaz Dawa-wal-Irshad, the parent organisation of LeT, decided to set up a new unit in Hyderabad. Abdul Karim Tunda fled to Muzaffarabad after the bomb blasts and took over as the Deputy Commander of Lashkar’s India operations. He later escaped to Bangladesh and helped create a network of LeT operatives and sleeper cells in different parts of India. Ghauri helped him from Saudi Arabia by recruiting a significant number of operatives, some of whom-Amir Hashim, Abdul Qayoom Mohammad Ishtiaq ‘Junaid’and Abdul Aziz Sheikh, drawn from New Delhi and Hyderabad-were instrumental in launching several terrorist attacks in India besides expanding the network. On hindsight, it can be said that it was the beginning of a coalition of extremist and terrorist groups in India which came to the fore with alarming ferocity in the serial blasts in Delhi on October 29, 2005, the Bangalore attack of December 2005 and the March 2006 Varanasi twin blasts, all of which were executed by terrorists owing allegiance to LeT, SIMI, Harkat-ul Jehad al Islami-Bangladesh (HuJI-B) and Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

More critical is the point which most of the Indian policy planners including counter-terrorism strategists would rather overlook, deliberately. A large number of the local terrorists who were arrested, or being hunted, for the attacks were influenced by, and incensed at, the failure of the State to protect Muslims during the 2002 Gujarat riots. The video cds, books, and posters, besides newspaper and television reports of the riots and killings, distributed far and wide (no doubt with generous help and assistance from funders in West Asia and Pakistan) have once again revived the spectre of an onslaught in the minds of a community which is 130-million strong (and hence the term ‘minority‘ can be misleading in the Indian context). With the State, both at the Centre and State level, miserably failing to address the issue, squarely (mouthing homilies like ‘our Muslims are not al Qaida‘ might sound good and placating but can be dangerously supercilious), this small band of jehadis could grow in numbers, threatening not only life and property of Indian citizens but the very fabric of the Indian society.

This brings us to another point which most of us seem to give a miss. There has been no reported instance of any Indian extremist or terrorist group or individual operating in Iraq or Afghanistan or any other parts of the world (barring the recent Canadian case of an Indian origin neo-convert taking to terror). Neither has terrorist upsurge in Iraq or Afghanistan incited the wannabe terrorists in India. The single-most factor which is inciting men to turn to terror against the State is the complete failure of the latter to provide equitable justice and enforce law and order irrespective of colour, creed and caste. This factor has to be factored in any successful counter-terrorism strategy if we were to tackle this growing menace swiftly, without letting it fester like the Kashmir problem.

It is not only the mosque demolition or Gujarat riots which are the lone factors in the emergence of home grown jehadis with linkages in Pakistan and Bangladesh, there are undeniable historical reasons for certain sections of the society to feel the way it feels.

In fact, the ideological moorings for extremist Islam, as represented by jehadis the world over, could be traced to the reformist Islamic movements which emerged in the shadow of the declining power of the Mughal empire and the subsequent rise of non-Muslim powers such as the Jats, the Marathas, the Sikhs and the British. Many in the Muslim community began to feel threatened by these developments and called for going back to ‘true‘ Islam to regain the political supremacy.

Quoting Islam’s noted thinker, Syed Abul Ala Maududi, Pakistani scholar Hussain Haqqani aptly sums up the fundamentals of Islamic revival as:1

“..any programme for Islamic revival must also include a scheme to wrest authority from the hands of un-Islam and practically re-establish government on the pattern described as ‘Caliphate after the pattern of Prophethood’ by the Holy Prophet. Furthermore, Muslim revivalists must not rest content with establishing the Islamic system in one or more countries already inhabited by the Muslims. They must initiate such a strong universal movement as may spread the reformative and revolutionary message of Islam among mankind at large. The final aim….is to enable Islam to become a predominant cultural force in the world and capture the moral, intellectual and political leadership of mankind.”

One of the religious leaders, ulama, who led the campaign for revival of Islam was Shah Waliullah of Delhi.

After studying for two years in Saudi Arabia, Shah Waliullah returned to Delhi in 1732 and began preaching the need for purity in religious beliefs and practices. He was strongly opposed to Islam adopting beliefs and practices from other beliefs. He said only by adopting a purified Islam could the Muslims remain united against the enemies of Islam. A prolific writer, Shah Waliullah popularised the six canonical collections of Hadith of the Sunnis (sihah sitta) and is today considered as the pioneer of Islamic reform by all Sunni schools.2

Waliullah was not content with the theoretic aspects of his preaching and believed that practical steps should be taken to regain political supremacy. In 1760, he invited the Afghan warlord, Ahmad Shah Abdali to get rid of the Marathas. Though Waliullah thought Abdali would be an Islamic mujahid, the latter plundered the areas he captured, killing both Hindus and Muslims, resulting in a major set back to the Islamic revival.

In any case, Waliullah’s teachings did not attract any substantial number of followers.3 A large number of Muslims in India were inclined towards far more liberal interpretation of Islam and remained skeptical of Waliullah’s call for return to a puritanical approach. Many Sunnis felt that Waliullah and his followers were inspired by the Arabian heretical preacher, Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab who despised Sufism and other influences in the religion. While Wahhab’s followers called themselves Wahhabis, Waliullah’s group came to be known as the Ahl-e-Hadith (the People of the Prophetic Tradition). Alongside Ahl-e-Hadith emerged another group, equally attracted by Waliullah’s teachings and legend but more accommodating towards Sufism, Deobandis who set up their centre of learning in a small town, Deoband, in United Province (Uttar Pradesh of today).

The next time the Islamic puritans managed to band together was early 19th century when a group of ulema, in an attempt to counter the gathering strength of the British, traveled to the borderlands of Afghanistan and set up a proto-state where the rule of law was Sharia.

The group was led by one of Waliullah’s grandsons, Shah Ismail and his associate Sayyed Ahmed of Rae Bareilly, inspired mostly by the teachings of Shah Abdul Aziz, one of Waliullah’s sons. A staunch opponent of the British expansion, Aziz had issued a fatwa declaring that India was a dar ul-harb, abode of war.

The Pathans of Afghanistan were not enamored by the puritanical approach of the extremist group resulting in frequent clashes between the two groups. To win popular support, Sayyed Ahmed launched a jehad against the Sikhs, who it felt, were discriminating against the Muslims in Punjab. A large number of Pathans sided with the Sikhs to take on the extremist group in an armed conflict in Balakot in 1831 which ended with the death of Shah Ismail and Sayyed Ahmed.

Though the death of the two top leaders was a crippling setback, many of their followers pursued the path of jehad till the attempts were crushed by the British during the 1857 war of independence. Some of the Ahl-e-Hadith leaders, however, continued to raise the banner of revolt against the British, especially in the North-West Frontier Province till they were finally fatally crippled in the early part of 19th century. Although the group largely opted to remain peaceful thereafter, according to a Hadith scholar, the group had ‘refused to accept the supremacy of the British and the Hindus’, and vowed to carry on the struggle through other means to ‘convert India into an abode of Islam (dar-ul-islam) through jehad. 4. Many madarsas in India, and in Pakistan, even today believe in carrying forward this tradition of jehad.

This historical perspective is important to understand the potential of terrorist groups like LeT, which owes allegiance to the Ahl-e-Hadis group, HuJI and SIMI, Deobandi groups, to come together to recruit and expand the network of terror in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/?p=160

Edit***

I'd be very careful who you call a "hag" VDI. I happen to know Pid is a beautiful, bright, energetic and accomplished woman with whom you do not compare favorably.

Besides which, Pid is not here, is not part of this discussion and good manners...if you have any...dictate you do not talk behind her back...which is cowardly as I've told some others here before.

posted March 13, 2008 10:11 AM            

I was just going to comment on your thorough post detailing terrorism in India. Once again, you come through with facts that cannot be disputed. Then again, I am sure that VDI will have something non sequitor to say LOL... Most likely involving calling others names and making up false facts LOL..

posted March 13, 2008 10:50 AM            

Talk about a barrel full of laughs. These democrats are anything but democratic.

Here, have some popcorn...extra butter

posted March 13, 2008 11:10 AM            

No one has ever been elected on a platform of imperialistic warmongering.

Pacifists DO NOT make plans and implement war plans to kill the leadership and citizens of other nations...even enemy nations.

You're not entitled to your own definitions. Nor are you entitled to extrapolate and bootstrap Ike's verbal utterances to override his actions as a 5 Star General of the US Army....which was anything but pacifist.

posted March 13, 2008 11:18 AM            

Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.
Dwight D. Eisenhower