Who's Responsible for Mumbai

There's a long and very complete description of the Mumbai assault at Long War Journal. You should read it, because it's very useful and I'm about to draw heavily on that account.

The link to Pakistan is obvious. Some of the fighters belong to Lakshar e-Taiba that has camps in Lahore; the ship is linked to a port in Karachi, and a sat-phone on board the ship documents a recent call to the city. However, given the nature of transnational terrorist groups, this link is incidental. It doesn't really matter much because it doesn't tell us anything new about Pakistan or terrorist activity. Moreover, it's not really clear just where else they would have come from - it's the only plausible base country within striking distance by sea or land. Sri Lankan terrorists would have better things to do, and everyone else is too far away and not sufficiently Islamic.

The attackers are very clearly your average, run-of-the-mill islamists. They want their fellow Mujahideen released from Indian prisons, they make statements about the suffering and abuse of the Muslim people in India and Kashmir, and they are generally opposed to Hindu control over Muslim lands. There's an important distinction here, because to them, it's not about Pakistan and India and national territory - it's close, but not really the same. It's about Islam, and reclaiming Muslim lands from the infidels, whether they're Hindu infidels or Christian infidels or, sometimes, Muslim Innovators.

So the real question, is how likely and useful would it be for Pakistan to exploit this close-but-not-quite shared interest and help with the attack?

I think that it's very unlikely. People may point to the level of training as evidence of government involvement, but terrorist camps are surprisingly well organized and disciplined. Lots of us labor under the assumption that the terrorist camps are shoddily organized and the trainees can't fight well, but that's not really true. With strong economic support, these camps trained the Afghanis who pushed out the Soviets, so that's worth bearing in mind.

The relative calm over Kashmir has been helpful to both countries, especially to Pakistan who has the US in it's face about their contributions to Afghanistan. It wouldn't pay to foment instability with two nations at once. And while that doesn't mean they're not doing it, it wouldn't help their chances in Kashmir and I'm assuming that the ISI is a rational actor in all this.

But Islamist networks are rational actors too. When they choose targets and methods, they do have a political goal in mind aside from outright murder, even though they are far more likely to resort to outright murder in pursuit of those goals. The Islamists in Mumbai had an agenda, but I seriously doubt that their attack was sponsored by the ISI over Kashmir. They didn't send enough messages about Kashmir specifically, and they spent too much time just being violent Islamists with no message other than their own.

Had they been exceptionally vocal about Kashmir (or even just on-message about it), I'd believe the ISI was in on it somehow. Since they weren't, I'm almost positive that the ISI wasn't involved.

In the end, it looks a lot like the 1994 hijacking of an Air France jet by Islamic militants. Well organized, manifestly political, but it was just terrorists doing what they do, and that's conspiracy enough without dragging government motives into it, even if there are plenty.

What India Needs

You know what India needs most right now?

Not this.



Some of the Mumbai attackers came on a boat from Karachi, Pakistan. It's definitely going to strain the relationship, whether the attack was about Kashmir or not - and there's going to be some reasonable speculation about that.

To me, it doesn't look like it's really about Kashmir, but it's also very hard to tell. Citing Al-Qaeda-like tactics doesn't really hold because that's how these cells operate; that's what decentralization is. They can trade skills and very likely they did, but where they go and how they wage their jihad after that is entirely up to the cell or the individual terrorist, who could direct their efforts to the Balkans, or against Russia in Afghanistan, or in Indonesia. It's been that way since these camps came up, especially with terrorists being trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan in the early to mid 1990s, and the same is probably true of camps in Pakistan's FATA right now. It's pretty likely that these attackers learned their skills in a Pakistani camp.

That said, Pakistan wouldn't benefit from an infuriating attack on India just when things were starting to calm down between the two nations. The way to resolving the question of Kashmir isn't by turning loose a handful of loonies, so it's clear to me that this wasn't an underboard government effort. That said, Islamic terrorists have a habit of both excusing any fatality that they might cause, and aggressively pursuing terror campaigns when they feel that Muslim lands are threatened - and these guys probably felt that way about Kashmir.

It doesn't really matter where these guys came from. They may have trained in Pakistan, but it's very possible that they were Indian muslims before they went off to the camps - the claims that the attacks were done by the Dekan Mujihadeen would seem to support this. Or they may be of Pakistani origin entirely, and chosen India as the front for their individual jihad. Either way it doesn't matter, because it tells us nothing really new about the way terrorists operate. We know Pakistan is a safe haven, we know that terrorist groups - if they are actually operating - are transnational. It's pointless to renew a scuffle with Pakistan over old information.

It does, however, lend the US and India some traction in pursuing the camps in the Pakistani FATA. If Pakistan is supplying trouble for more than one country, it's possible to justify more aggressive action against the camps, which would be very helpful to everyone involved.

Weather

The season still hasn't decided to settle into winter just yet. It was very cold two days ago and now it feels like spring again. I can't help but wonder if Obama decided against Eric Holder; then it would all make sense again...

The Truth About the Market Crash

I have a panic plan, which until yesterday I expected not to need. I figure if the DJIA breaks 7000, then I'm going to radically restructure my budget on the expectation that when the market does get that low, a zombie apocalypse is really more a matter of time than misguided government science.

I'm just glad it didn't happen over halloween, when the zombies might have snuck up on us, dressing up as people dressed as zombies so we wouldn't notice.

It must be almost redeeming for a pretty large portion of the population of Montana that this is happening. I guess building that bunker and living off of canned meat for the last four years has paid off pretty well for them. On the other hand, a state with a population like Montana's is going to look essentially the same both before and after the zombies, so it's not like they'll be able to put all of their stocked arsenal to use against them. There are no atheists in foxholes, and no heroes living off of spam in creepy bunkers.

I think the rocketing firearms sales confirm my suspicions, as well. Obama, whatever else he might bring, is going to bring the zombies fast and hard, and on some level, we all know it.

Technology is Wierd

My new Ipod, the 80-gig classic, failed on me. Fortunately, it was within the valid return period at Target. I traded it back in for a new gen-2 Ipod Touch. It didn't cost me anything extra to trade for it, and it has more or less become the most indescribably useful thing I own in the course of a week. I read all my news on it. I read Instapundit on it. I've sent emails, schedules, and contrived a very elaborate alarm system for myself with it.

It plays music too. 8 gig is enough to hold my entire library and have plenty of space left over.

It's like a tiny little CIA guy that knows everything, can find anything, and doesn't mind singing a song occasionally.

TV hasn't even been around for a hundred years. Just imagine what we'll be able to pull off in twenty years.

We're Not Really That Nice

I think the folks over at PJM a few days ago were making a fairly obvious mistake when it comes to a comparison of the left’s reaction in 2004 to the right’s reaction in 2008, and I’m a little surprised at them to be honest, but post-election blog flurries can do that sometimes.

The 2008 election is nothing like the 2004 election for at least two critical reasons. First, and most obvious, is that the right ought to be expected to behave much more maturely than the left did in 2004 because it hasn’t already lived through four years of an Obama administration. The left in 2004 had already had to deal with four years of George Bush, a man viewed as deeply committed to ideals totally contrary to their own. They had already suffered through four years of conservative rule, which they blamed literally everything on, by the time 2004 rolled around. I have to believe that the right would be reacting very differently if they had already dealt with four years of liberal rule under which the worst terrorist attack in history had taken place. I certainly know that I would be less than charitable. If you have to compare this election to a Bush election, it has to be the election of 2000, where the Presidency changed party hands last. Which brings me to the second reason that we ought to expect to react differently.

The 2000 election was even less like this most recent election than 2004 was, for the simple reason that it was, by all accounts, incredibly bizarre. Further, the results were questionable on a historically significant basis; what happened there had happened only once before, and since that was the obscure Rutherford Hayes versus Samuel Tilden election, it might just as well have never happened before to essentially everyone who wasn’t a biographer of men with incredible beards. 2000 was an extremely close election, neither party was a clear underdog, and as a result both parties had a reasonable expectation of winning. That’s why so many leftists complain about a “stolen” election in 2004; it was too close to call, and somebody called it.

In 2008, some of us may have managed to temporarily fool ourselves about a McCain win, but I think the reality is that we all knew he would be unlikely once the financial crisis hit. On the right, folks were at the very least subconsciously prepared for a loss that they likely saw coming. Losing wasn’t anywhere near the shock that it was to the left in 2000 or 2004. I do have a point in all this aside from discouraging the somewhat overzealous back-patting that’s going on in the center-right blogosphere.

The point is, this is exactly what an election should look like if we’re concerned about elections being viewed as legitimate. It wasn’t too close to call, nobody flipped out except those already prone to the habit, the Supreme Court didn’t get involved, both sides more or less saw the result in advance and had a chance to make peace with it, and once it finally happened, folks were generally ready to bury the hatchet and move forward. At least, that’s the vibe I’m getting now, and I really hope we keep that up. It reflects well not just on the right, but on the democratic system as a whole. It’s an example to the rest of the democracies in the world – some of whom can use the inspiration - as to how these things are supposed to go. It’s a great American statement that says “I don’t know how you folks transfer power in whatever sorta system you got there, but ‘round here nobody dies and everybody celebrates the one headed in and the other headed out, and that’s the peaceful beauty of democracy.” And, while I realize that’s a statement by America as a whole, it sounds really good if you imagine Fred Thompson’s voice saying it.

What I’m much more interested in when it comes to the new attitudes that will be forming on the left and right on each side, is how the left will carry their win. The last eight years have not made it clear that they can lose gracefully, though I admit they were, at least in 2000, sorely tested by the circumstances of the election. It will be interesting to see if they are capable of recognizing the formation of hubris in themselves as readily as they noticed it forming in the Bush administration. The left taught me that word in 2005; I wonder if they’ll know enough to know how to avoid it now.

The most fun part about all this, in the final analysis, is that now, I’m the minority, and the left is the authority. I get to listen to all my favorite punk music again without feeling even slightly like a hypocrite. They seem awfully proud of America when things are going their way. I was proud of us before it was cool.

Leave Bitterness To Its Owners

Remember all that talk in 2004 about how many people were moving to Canada if Bush won again? And remember how they didn't, and how they continued to infest our country with their hippie rage and discontent?

Of course you do. It was the underpinning of the American Left for the last four years. The bumper sticker that said "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention" was like holy scripture, and damn if they didn't live by it. I think we all remember the moonbattery, the preposterously colored costumes, the paper mache puppets, and the sudden resurgence of white females wearing dirty dreadlocks. But it's important to remember something here, especially now.

All of those lunatic, mind-bent people were wearing their bitterness and anger just like they were wearing that stilt costume of Bush dressed as an oil-sucking vampire. It became all they had for a very long time, and it defined their character too.

Let's not do that. I don't want to see conservatives and thoughtful libertarians out in the street wearing feather boas and speedos because they're upset about having a Democrat in office. We owe it to ourselves to leave that territory for the hippies so that in the next 4 years, we can still find something to laugh at.

So to all those conservatives and independents talking about moving to Canada: put the puppets down. You don't really want what comes with that anyway.