Open Mumbai thread
Comment away on the terrorist attacks that have stunned Mumbai over the past 48 hours. I don’t have a lot to add, except that this doesn’t feel like a linked-with-Al Qaeda attack. While there’s been carnage, these attacks have also been sloppy and messy. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., the timing of ...
Comment away on the terrorist attacks that have stunned Mumbai over the past 48 hours. I don't have a lot to add, except that this doesn't feel like a linked-with-Al Qaeda attack. While there's been carnage, these attacks have also been sloppy and messy. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., the timing of these attacks guaranteed a low level of American targets and a low level of Ameican attention. In the Wall Street Journal, Sadanand Dhume places some of the blame for the attacks on India's feckless anti-terrorism policies: The country's antiterrorism effort is reactive and episodic rather than proactive and sustained. Its public discourse on Islam oscillates between crude, anti-Muslim bigotry and mindless sympathy for largely unjustified Muslim grievance-mongering. Its failure to either charm or cow its Islamist-friendly neighbors -- Pakistan and Bangladesh -- reveals a limited grasp of statecraft. Finally, India's inability to modernize its 150-million strong Muslim population, the second largest after Indonesia's, has spawned a community that is ill-equipped to seize new economic opportunities and susceptible to militant Islam's faith-based appeal.... In sum, the Indian approach to terrorism has been consistently haphazard and weak-kneed. When faced with fundamentalist demands, India's democratically elected leaders have regularly preferred caving to confrontation on a point of principle. The country's institutions and culture have abetted a widespread sense of Muslim separateness from the national mainstream. The country's diplomats and soldiers have failed to stabilize the neighborhood. The ongoing drama in Mumbai underscores the price both Indians and non-Indians caught unawares must now pay. Wha do you think?
Comment away on the terrorist attacks that have stunned Mumbai over the past 48 hours. I don’t have a lot to add, except that this doesn’t feel like a linked-with-Al Qaeda attack. While there’s been carnage, these attacks have also been sloppy and messy. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., the timing of these attacks guaranteed a low level of American targets and a low level of Ameican attention. In the Wall Street Journal, Sadanand Dhume places some of the blame for the attacks on India’s feckless anti-terrorism policies:
The country’s antiterrorism effort is reactive and episodic rather than proactive and sustained. Its public discourse on Islam oscillates between crude, anti-Muslim bigotry and mindless sympathy for largely unjustified Muslim grievance-mongering. Its failure to either charm or cow its Islamist-friendly neighbors — Pakistan and Bangladesh — reveals a limited grasp of statecraft. Finally, India’s inability to modernize its 150-million strong Muslim population, the second largest after Indonesia’s, has spawned a community that is ill-equipped to seize new economic opportunities and susceptible to militant Islam’s faith-based appeal…. In sum, the Indian approach to terrorism has been consistently haphazard and weak-kneed. When faced with fundamentalist demands, India’s democratically elected leaders have regularly preferred caving to confrontation on a point of principle. The country’s institutions and culture have abetted a widespread sense of Muslim separateness from the national mainstream. The country’s diplomats and soldiers have failed to stabilize the neighborhood. The ongoing drama in Mumbai underscores the price both Indians and non-Indians caught unawares must now pay.
Wha do you think?
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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