255 thoughts on “Deafening silence in the blogosphere”

1. The reason why Westerners are not much interested in the story is because they don’t hear a clear message coming from India about terrorism. The Indian ruling coalition has withdrawn legal arrangements to press the terrorists (POTA); it chose not to eliminte dreaded Naxalites when they were cornered in a forest; it has made common cause with Prachanda, the genocidal guerilla from Nepal.

   In addition, there are reports that politicians associated with leading parties have alliances with terrorist groups (and I am not just talking of the Samajwadi MP from Maharashtra).

   Every couple of months there is a massacre or a bombing in some town in India. Every year the Amarnath piligrims are killed.

   India is the best place for the jihadis to do their target practice.

2. The reason liberal bloggers are not playing up the Bombay blasts might be due to the fact that hyping the threat of Islamic terrorism is a justification for the Bush doctrine of perpetual war on terror which in the minds of some liberals (including me) has led to an assault on civil liberties at home.

   The bigger the menace of Islamic terrorism, the better the justification for the Bush administration to be on war footing against Islamic terrorism which has and can lead to an unprecedented expansion of the executive power and some questionable calls by the Bush administration on civil liberties.

   The conservative bloggers like the liberal bloggers have a narrative. For the conservative bloggers, Islamic terrorism is as big a menace as Nazism and Communism and they would relish a total war/occupation of troublesome Muslim nations. Any such attacks neatly fit in the narrative and are thus welcome news for the conservative bloggers.

   On the other hand, liberal bloggers are fighting this narrative of total war and any attacks by Muslim terrorists is not comforting news. People dont usually like to blog about things which make them uncomfortable. I might be wrong though because I dont have a blog.

   Of course all the above is my personal opinion and I am mostly referring to American run of the mill political blogs. I am not talking about smart bloggers like Andrew Sullivans (Right) or Juan Cole (Left) who have serious blogs. I am also not suggesting that most Conservative or Liberal bloggers are foolish, but sadly, most of the popular blogs have to cater to the lowest common denominator. I mean nobody expects serious Republicans like Razib to write hysterical posts about this bombing or for serious liberals like SM to write hysterical posts about Haditha.

3. On a sort of related note – for those SM readers outside India, what has been the response from your colleagues? At least in the average software outfit did any of you get past the Howdy, Wazzup with the non-desis?

   No American at my workplace even mentioned it and they all know I am from Bombay. Only 2 guys at work discussed it with me and showed some concern ,they were both French !

4. I forgot to add that the left parties (like CPM) have generally taken up the cause of the militants.

   Your own leading journalist, Kuldip Nayar, accuses the government of framing innocent people, whenever terrorists are killed.

   I think India is a gone case. In spite of the bravado in Mumbai, the terrorists are only getting stronger by the day in India.

5. I don’t think that the color of anyone’s skin has much to do with the blog coverage in the US or elsewhere. Sure, every country has people who see everything through this prism, but most bloggers are mostly interested in amunition to use against their opponents. Once they figure out how to use the Mumbai bombings in this way they will post. To update an old adage – Sure, Al Qaeda is the opponent, but the Democrats (or Republicans) are the enemy.

   Rick Lockwood Gainesville FL, USA

6. Hey, just wanted to let you know that I, an LGF reader for two years, have been following the story closely. There are now five postings up on LGF on the topic of terrorism in India. It is important to expose and unravel the ties between all of the Islamic terrorist groups. We are fighting the same enemy, operating under different names in different regions.

   Registration on LGF is closed for the time being, but please send newsworthy items on to Charles. I think he will be especially interested in India’s final assessment of the group responsible, and what state is believed to have backed them, as well as first person perspectives on the event.

   I sincerely hope that India brings the terrorists behind the train bombings to justice, and then brings force to bear on whatever power backed them. The jihadis worship at the altar of death, and may death swiftly take them.

7. The Indian ruling coalition has withdrawn legal arrangements to press the terrorists (POTA)

   Martin, you are tripping about POTA. That law was severely misused for all sorts of cases that had nothing to do with terror.

   Do you also think that the Hamdan case demonstrates that the US Supreme Court is soft on terrorists?

8. For international items I have always found The Agonist to be timely and topical. Sure enough. They have it posted there, with comments.

9. I would like to read some informed commentary on the level of radicalization of non Kashmiri Indian Muslims. From what I can tell, most Indian Muslims are not very gung ho on supporting Kashmiri independence from India. In contrast to cities like Lahore and Karachi in Pakistan, where upto very recently, organizations would actively recruit jihadis for Kashmir and enjoyed wide spread support in the masses, it seems to me that the Indian Non Kashmiri Muslims are rather blase about Kashmiri Muslims aspirations of independence from India. Someone can correct if I am wrong, but I have never seen any report of either active fund raising for the Kashmiri Muslim cause in Delhi/Hyderabad or news on Non Kashmiri Indian Muslims actually fighting alongside the Kashmiri Muslims in the valley. Contrat this to the funding and actual Pakistanis who fight in the valley.

   So if this attack came from Non Kashmiri Indian Muslims, would it be safe to presume that their grievances are more home grown if you will, as in Gujarat riots etc.? Also if the attacks came from Kashmiri Muslims, can one presume, that it is not a reflection of the radicalization of Indian Non Kashmiri Muslims? Maybe it was a combination of both, which would complicate things further.

10. A. O’Toole : Your hate mongering is not welcome here. Get lost! – An SM reader.

11. Indian Non Kashmiri Muslims are rather blase about Kashmiri Muslims aspirations of independence from India.

    I agree.

12. It’s a shame that the blogeratti did not focus on the attacks or have much to say. I think there’s a lot of political navel-gazing going on in the US right now with both the right and left gearing up for a big fight in November. There are others, however, like myself who did mention it: http://www.mauricereeves.com/archives/000841.html

    And to answer all of you des who wanted to know whether any of us gora noticed and inquired after people’s families, hai, kuch ham puche.

13. Maurice, You have done a great analysis. Those are the suspects right now – possibly two or three of them combined.

    There was security expert on BBC yesterday, and he pointed out that tragedy in Mumbai has to have a local hand. Picking 8 stations, synchronising the time and all needs fair amount of knowledge about the town – A town like Mumbai can be familiarized in a month.

14. Maurice, thank you very much for your openess and decency.

15. Just a reminder for all those jumping to conclusions, it’s not at all clear who made the attacks. The ‘who’ makes a huge difference to whether this is a widening of the global terror threat, ie AQ, or Pakistani militants whom for years have been fighting over Jammu/Kashmir.

    And yes, I know that Usama was training Paks in Afghanistan and sending them to Jammu/Kashmir until the camps were bombed in ’98, but that was for continued support from Pak army generals and other benefits.

    BTW, at that time, CENTGAS, a consortium of UNOCAL, ARAMCO, and other oil companies were ready to pay millions to the Taliban, hosts of UBL and his camps, for right to run a pipeline through the country. The bombs blew that deal away too.

    All to say that the political situation is very complicated over there. Musharraff doesn’t even have complete control of his own Army, for instance, much less the militants. So let’s wait and see whodunit before we parade the deep, sophisticated knowledge that LGF readership avails us.

16. Genius wrote in reply to gilman:

    What’s your point? Are you an expert on events in every country in the world? Do you respond to every political crime in each and every country? My direct line to all countries is in the shop at the moment, so I’m at a bit of a disadvantage. Even were it working, would it help me figure things out from a distance? In any event, see juancole.com for one bit of speculation.

17. I was a more than a bit ashamed to see the NY Post devote page after page to some idiot husband who, rather than have his Manhattan townhouse sold as part of his divorce settlement, may have blown the thing up. No one died, thank god, not even the husband who was inside.

    And what do we get in that same paper on the terrible crimes committed in Mumbai? Half a page or so on the attacks, a bit more on how the attacks prompted our own NY police to step up subway security.

    Perspective is lacking. God help the injured, and the families of those killed in Mumbai.

18. It’s gotten little coverage because it is overshadowed by the Israeli military action.

19. zathras… i see what you are saying at the end of ur post (#93). i was very surprised by the lack of coverage on the sudan genocide in the american media, esp when the rallies/protests were going on in washington april 30/06. instead, kaavya vishwanathan was all over the media and on several discussion boards. i do have a biased interest in global affairs, but seriously, an ongoing genocide does not take importance over plagiarism?!

    there is also a great difference in american vs canadian coverage, a fact that is not always appreciated in general or represented as well as it can be in this blog imo. it is inevitable i guess when majority of bloggers and participants are american, but being aware of the fact might open minds to a different perspective (this is not meant as a criticism, i am only sharing my personal observation). the canadian coverage in the newspapers and on the news (CTV and CBC) re the mumbai blasts was fairly decent. they did not feel the need to over-emphasize or speculate and create their own theories on the ‘why’ and ‘who’ of the blasts. they were reporting the incident as accurately as possible without adding to the hype in order to sell the news. sometimes i wonder if that is why certain issues are not emphasized as much in the media in the US, because they may not seem palatable or sellable to the public. what on earth does the media and journalism exist for? this is something that seems very obvious to me when i listen to american news, am i the only one? there seems to be a very american-centered, selective reporting of global news/issues.

    i have also grown up in the middle east (kuwait) and come from a very different perspective. having been in kuwait, listening to the cnn during the gulf war in 1990 and also during the ‘war against terror’ (a farce of a name imo), i thought that the cnn coverage of the local situation got quite ridiculous and was a false representation several times. this is still true today. when i go back there and read the newspapers, the focus of the coverage and messages are sometimes quites different on the same issue, when compared to american broadcasting. i agree that both sides have their bias, but how can we make informed opinions when all the discussion here is primarily based on american coverage?

    anyway, getting back to the mumbai blasts… there seems to be a lot of speculation going on hereÂ… and hey, do as you please… but if i may offer some food for thought, ask yourslef where are you coming from? have considered different perspectives with an open mindÂ… one can dissect away all they want in a boxed view, it will still not give a complete understanding or help to solve the greater issues.

20. You have interesting things to say about this subject. It’s a shame your hook is blaming other people for not having interesting things to say. Next time your pitch should be “why this is interesting and important” instead of “why don’t other people have interesting and important things to say about it.”

21. Amfd:

    A. O’Toole : Your hate mongering is not welcome here. Get lost! – An SM reader.

    Now, who’s hate mongering?

22. The silence in the mainstream blogosphere (except a few self serving right wing ones) is a disconcerting phenomenon and an eye opener. Asian matters do not resonate with US citizens as do European or Israeli ones.

    I think there are a few things at play here. The average American is indeed very insular in his/her thinking – the blogs are currently devoted to highly partisan local politics and one-upmanship leading up to the Nov 2006 election. Most Americans feel, (even if they don’t believe it) that global terrorism began on 9/11/2001. They know very little about India’s repeated brush with the menace in the last decade and the role Pakistan has played in the equation. Kashmir is a total mystery. Beyond Al Quaida and Taliban, their eyes glaze over the rest of the alphabet soup of terrorist subsidiaries operating in the subcontinent. And I have a suspicion that beyond racism lite, there is also an unconscious conflation of deaths due to terrorism with those resulting from natural and other disasters like earthquakes, floods, tsunamis and train derailments in which large numbers people periodically perish in these parts of the world. So 200+ people dying in a particular incident, whether by the hand of god or man, is not unusual news coming from some parts of the world. But it is in NYC, London or Madrid. That’s how the thinking goes.

    I will suggest something with which Razib might take issue. Please contact the mainstream blogs you read on a regular basis and ask why they have not carried the story – politely of course. No point contacting the mega blogs. Choose some moderately sized but influential ones where a reader’s voice can be heard. I contacted bloggers at a few liberal academic blogs. Most agreed to look into it and post something soon. One already did.

    As for friends enquring after you and your family, I will report my own experience. Many of my American friends called / emailed me after they heard the news. (As did my dry cleaner when I took my laundry out yesterday.) But then, my friends are all middle aged women – by far the kindest and most considerate section of the population.

23. Well, all I can say is, I wanted to call my cousin up and ask if everything was alright in Bombay. I resisted calling him up when I got one of those stupid click-here-for-a-good-time forwards from him (and decided that this was not a good time for some good ol’ whack-the-nutcase-up physical humour).

    In all seriousness though, Brownie in a Singaporean cubicle here, and nope, no one talked to me about the blasts. In a way, I’m glad they didn’t; really hate “explaining” India each time there’s news from the mother ship. Politely asking if everything’s okay is, I suppose, a different boat altogether, but no, don’t talk to me about South Asian politics if all you wanted to ask was how far Bombay is from Mumbai.

    (Though, truth be told, I suppose mileage might be different here than in the US; coz all media here is regulated/ censored, I pretty much know if my Singaporean colleagues read about the blasts or not.)

24. The reason liberal bloggers are not playing up the Bombay blasts might be due to the fact that hyping the threat of Islamic terrorism is a justification for the Bush doctrine of perpetual war on terror which in the minds of some liberals (including me) has led to an assault on civil liberties at home.

    And liberal bloggers (sic) are unable to delineate the distinction between the hype and the reality of the Mumbai situation, that their best response is crashing silence ? Sounds similar to what happened in the thread about Tariq Ramadan’s visa … in their haste to cheer about a defeat of the Bush government policy they are willing to excuse and look the other way on issues on which they would otherwise express disapproval. Ah the hypocrisy…

25. Al Mujahid for debauchery:

    So if this attack came from Non Kashmiri Indian Muslims, would it be safe to presume that their grievances are more home grown if you will, as in Gujarat riots etc.?

    If this attack came from Non Kashmiri Indian Muslims, where did they get the superior technology to succeed on such a scale. Our ever present neighbor, having aided many other Locals in their aspirations, no doubt was willing to give a helping hand.

26. It’s a shame your hook is blaming other people for not having interesting things to say.

    Wow, what a shame it is to point out the shame of other people’s non-commentary. Horrifying. yawn

    Next time your pitch should be “why this is interesting and important” instead of “why don’t other people have interesting and important things to say about it.”

    He did write why this was interesting and important. See the numbers?

    Of course, he didn’t say it during the “hook” and “pitch”, which I guess is your out.

    Go find a different nit to pick. You’re all wet.

27. where did they get the superior technology

    Are there reports of “superior technology”? I thought all you needed were explosives and a cell phone.

28. In response to sumiti’s remarks, let me say that I am not “coming from” any place in particular with respect to the Mumbai subway bombing — apart from being sorrowful that so many people died or were maimed, as I hope any decent person would be.

    I made an observation upthread that the way these bombings were carried out was characteristic of al Qaeda’s operations in the past. This suggests that al Qaeda involvement was a possibility — but at this point we cannot say more than that. As I believe another poster noted, an operation like this would most likely have had to involve people with local knowledge. These might have been coordinated, trained, inspired — or none of these — by al Qaeda. I don’t know, but for obvious reasons the possibility that this organization might be involved seems to one American a story for American media to take an interest in.

    I see from the Times of India that there is some speculation that a Muslim terror cell formed after the pogrom in Gujarat two years ago. I suppose that is possible.

    Incidentally, the American media most often seen overseen are subsidiaries of corporations the main business of which is entertainment. This was not always the case; indeed in an earlier time foreign news was regarded as entertainment, and if not that as an obligation the public service-oriented newspapers and television stations had to honor. Times changed, and foreign news bureaus came to be seen as an expense more than anything else. Soon after the Soviet Union collapsed most American media started closing them all over the world. It would not surprise me that Canadian media, which feature a government-owned television network and private news organizations that have to compete with it, would be faster on the scene of a story like the Mumbai bombings, especially since the number of Canadians of South Asian descent is, relative to Canada’s size, much larger than the number of Indian-Americans.

29. And liberal bloggers (sic) are unable to delineate the distinction between the hype and the reality of the Mumbai situation, that their best response is crashing silence ?

    I dont think its crashing silence as much as a possible explanation of the slight discrepancy in the amount of coverage. Even some rabid right wingers like Michelle Malkin (one small story), Debbie Schlussel (no story yet)have not extensively covered the blast.

    Ah the hypocrisy…

    Sorry for popping your innocence cherry.

30. Now, who’s hate mongering?

    Manju: Yes, I am the hate monger and LGF crusaders are brave knights defending the honor of the civilized world.

31. Ennis:

    If you would like to add two more angles to the story…

    1. What will be the end result of the growing Anti-Americanism (fueled by American-led war in Iraq, the military operations in Afghanistan and the perceived attack on Islam by the Bush government)among muslim populations in India. Will the next group of terrorists come from India?

    2. Are the Mumbai bombings a retaliation against the Indian government for its growing alliance with American Government, a la Madrid & London? That seems to be the Message sent by the latest bombings considering the date and the method.

    But I could be wrong…

32. Coverage of international events in the U.S. is horrible, to wit Iraq and Palestine – if Americans only knew what was really going on and how bad the conditions are. That’s both intentional on the part of the media and government as a direct means of political manipulation and social class control, and is a function of playing to the depoliticized, chauvinist and provincial nature of large parts of the American population (including many liberals). Some of the personal stories recounted in the discussion here seem indicative of the latter. The train bombings in Mumbai are a horrible crime against the Indian population and undermine efforts to realize the legitimate national rights of the Kashmiri, if in fact that’s what’s behind the bombings. What to say beyond that depends on one’s specific knowledge, focus and point of view. That’s what the author of this blog seems to miss, preferring, it appears from his comments (outrage), to prefer to play a version of the guilt game.

33. The blog Global Guerrillas has covered the Mumbai bombings.

34. Yes, I am the hate monger and LGF crusaders are brave knights defending the honor of the civilized world.

    Are the LGF crusaders any worse than the CAIR fanatics who want “Islam the only accepted religion on earth” ? Yet CAIR is accepted as a legitimate group.

35. The train bombings in Mumbai are a horrible crime against the Indian population and undermine efforts to realize the legitimate national rights of the Kashmiri, if in fact that’s what’s behind the bombings. What to say beyond that depends on one’s specific knowledge, focus and point of view. That’s what the author of this blog seems to miss, preferring, it appears from his comments (outrage), to prefer to play a version of the guilt game.

    You’re right that I do not deal with “root causes” here. Nor do I tackle such deeper implications. My objective here is a narrow one – to address issues of coverage that seem myopic to me.

    You have interesting things to say about this subject. It’s a shame your hook is blaming other people for not having interesting things to say. Next time your pitch should be “why this is interesting and important” instead of “why don’t other people have interesting and important things to say about it.”

    Stork – addressing patterns of media coverage is a well established form of media critique. I went beyond that to make some concrete and constructive suggestions, as an extra. But it’s very legitimate to remark on what the blogorati are and aren’t writing on.

36. Abhi:

    Are there reports of “superior technology”? I thought all you needed were explosives and a cell phone.

    “…it was confirmed from the remains of shattered bogies that the explosives used were of “very high intensity and could probably be RDX.” Union Home Secretary V K Duggal

    I’ve been reading a lot…

37. Gilman:

    Please read my comment #122.

38. Are the LGF crusaders any worse than the CAIR fanatics who want “Islam the only accepted religion on earth” ? Yet CAIR is accepted as a legitimate group.

    Dude, you got to be kidding me. Do you really believe that CAIR people are like the LGF commenters? Are CAIR people advocating for the death/destruction like the LGF commenters routinely do? Here is the CAIR website. Here is the LGF website. Judge for yourself. Btw, I consult with CAIR on Civil Rights issues and comparing CAIR with LGF is beyond ridiculous.

39. Fair enough, ww – not enough facts are in, and I’m hardly impartial. Thanks for taking the time to school me. And AMD – I would find the jihadi worldview sad if it weren’t so dangerous. It’s a psychological trap for young minds. It frightens me that this meme seems to cut across a wide swath of humanity, establishing local subcultures that practice qualitatively new kinds of violence. I find their willful embrace of mass murder challenging to my belief that life has intrinsic value, and that revulses me. Wishing death on them for doing so is childish, and I apologize for lowering the discourse. With that, I’m out… getting late here in Boston. ‘Night, AMD.

40. I certainly recognize that it could be a combination of any of the groups mentioned, and absolutely, they had some local help. I know that much was made in the days after 9/11 by President Bush that there were no desi involved in the attacks because India, while having a large Muslim population is a democracy and that that would prevent people from getting disaffected. The London and Madrid bombings sucked the air out of that argument, but I never really bought it anyway. If all it took was the presence of democracy, we’d never have had Timothy McVeigh in the US, for example.

    I think that in the future, there are going to be more attacks in India, and attacks abroad in the US, Canada, and the UK from the few disaffected Muslim desi that at this point are invisible to our eyes. Again, not to promote myself too much, I spoke about this happening about a year ago: http://www.mauricereeves.com/archives/000621.html

    More terrorists will now come from places like India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. This is occurring now. In western nations, the U.S., Canada, across Europe, desi are a quickly accepted minority, especially in big cities. As more people come from the sub-continent, our comfort level with them grows. This can work against us though. There are many muslim in that region, and some of the more extreme forms of Islam come from that area. Consider, for example, the Deobandi form of Islam, which is what the Taliban practiced. It is Indian in origin. I believe that terrorist groups will work to use our comfort level against us. This will in future manifest as muslims from further East acting as terrorists. In several years we will see people from Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries that are to western eye indistinguishable from Chinese people as terrorists.

    I also wanted to say that several people I know in the US didn’t say anything right away in order to give people time to get in touch with family and friends to make sure that everything was okay. It’s all a matter of personal preference I guess.

41. Dude, you got to be kidding me. Do you really believe that CAIR people are like the LGF commenters? Are CAIR people advocating for the death/destruction like the LGF commenters routinely do?

    Dude, have any LGF members been convicted on charges of supporting terrorism like some CAIR members have been ?

    A number of other CAIR officials have been charged with, and some convicted of, offenses related to the support of Islamist terrorism. Link

42. Vikram:

    Are you aware of the fact that CAIR has 32 chapters across the nation and has hundreds of employees?

43. AMFd: You haven’t answered the question: Have any LGF members been convicted ot terrorism ? Other than some extreme rhetoric what has LGF done that is illegal. CAIR members have broken the law .

44. Vikram:

    Is there anything in specific that CAIR has done to which you object or which shows that CAIR has ties to extremists?

    From what I have personally seen and can tell, there work is no different from the work done by ADL and other similar organizations.

45. So if this attack came from Non Kashmiri Indian Muslims, would it be safe to presume that their grievances are more home grown if you will, as in Gujarat riots etc.?

    Questions like this are very important, but so is taking a step back to see the forrest.

    Take Tim Mcveigh for instance. He was specifically outraged over Ruby Ridge and Waco. Now, it’s relatively mainstream to believe the US govt may have behaved terribly in these instances and one would naturally think if we end such abuse, the subsequent terrorism would also end.

    But when one looks at mcveighs relatonship to white supremacists, his love for the turner diaries, and his involvement in the survivalist movement, you see there is something deeper going on here. Call it simple bigotry or hatred, intolerance, maybe a totalitarian or fascist mindset, or whatever, but I would bet w/ an individual like this, if Waco didn’t happen, something else would set him off.

    Individuals like dawood ibrahim and groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba may have some legitimate grievances, but I daresay that underneath it all, they are fundamentally like Mcveigh.

    Sometimes it’s best to take these groups at their word. If they tell us they want to destroy Hinduism and create an Islamic state, they probably mean it, and this overarching philosophy is driving them to terrorism as much as the specific grievances. That they may be triggered to violence b/c of despicable govt acts is certainly important, but it’s not fundamental.

46. Vikram:

    A lot of things are considered no longer Kosher by US gov’t after 9/11, including MIA and Cat Stevens. That don’t make them terrorists.

47. Where we see a distressing lack of coverage most clearly is amongst political blogs in the top 100 list

    Vat? SM is not on the top 100 political blogs??? I am moving on and stalking Ann Coulter.

    But seriously, I think the point is because no one wants informed or well read wants to opine so quickly on something that can be so inflammatory. The rest of the nation (read non-readers of ), of course, would much rather discuss runaway brides, cats caught in trees and interesting local news of that sort.

    India? It’s a world away and its geopolitical risk is fortunately hedged well. While we might design phallic missiles and ball-istic bombs, the facts remain that a nuclear escalation between the two warring neighbours will (and can) be quickly diffused. In many ways, this has been Ms. Rice’s tightest rope to walk — especially after 9/11 when both India and Pakistan engaged in their one-upmanship to be crowed the official champion of anti-terrorism in the subcontinent. Fortunately for the West, both nations have strong global economic interests which have domestic support within their respective borders. And both are governed by relatively stable centrist governments (although in Pakistan’s case that is coupled with an appalling and strangely effective lack of democracy).

    Pyongyang’s Nodong makes bigger news simply because the risks — and thus the threats — are more palpable to your average coastal blogger. Politics, and political blogs by extension, can never be too removed from emotion. And without the dread that drives bloggers to Freudulently psychoanalyze the proclivities of azimuthally challenged dictators in the Far East, mainstream news is just information — not fodder for rumination and repackaging as opinionated cud.

    Now blasts in Bombay only mean that there could be blasts in Paris, London or New York. But wait, we already knew that.

48. I don’t know if it’s already been mentioned since I’m unwilling to go through this many comments, but The Moderate Voice has at least one terrific post about it, and one or two others as well, I believe.

49. Vikram:

    Is there anything in specific that CAIR has done to which you object or which shows that CAIR has ties to extremists?

    Amfd: To which I object ? Obviously they have done something to warrant getting jail sentences under US law:

    In August 2003, CAIR’s former civil-rights coordinator, Randall “Ismail” Royer [13], along with ten other men known as the “Virginia jihad group” were indicted on 41 counts, including training and participating in jihad activities overseas.[14] The group had connections with Lashkar-e-Taiba and five of them possessed AK-47-style rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

    Isn’t LeT the group suspected in the Mumbai bombings ? There are other examples on the wikipedia link I provided in #141. Once again what has LGF done that is comparable to the above example ?

50. You haven’t answered the question: Have any LGF members been convicted ot terrorism ? Other than some extreme rhetoric what has LGF done that is illegal. CAIR members have broken the law .

    CAIR has not broken the law either. One employee of CAIR has broken the law. Are you going to dig up the grave of Sam Walton because the local Wal Mart manager raped his 3 year old niece?

    I am also glad that you do agree with me that LGF is a chamber for extreme rhetoric. CAIR is a force for peace and justice. CAIR chapters across the nation, do community outreach, help the poor, provide free legal services, help the poor and do their part in promoting a just society.

    I dont know if the 2 or 3 people who run the LGF have a rap sheet or not. What I do know is that LGF is a hateful website which attracts the worse elements of the society, as evidenced by the level of discourse on that site.