MUMBAI ATTACKS

Look at any newspaper front page in the last day or two and you'll see screaming headlines about the blood and gore in Mumbai, India. As for analysis, there's little, because most people have just not followed India closely. Those people sort of thing, mainly because what's happening is not european or USA focussed (unless, of course, they start counting westerns caught in the mess). Or maybe it's just the holiday this week and people are away eating turkey and we'll read more after they're back from quality family time. Alot of the American bloggers reactions remind me of the reactions to the Georgian invasion into South Ossetia last summer: taken by surprise and a show of ignorance about the area and its politics - and even the media did not do its homework and still (along with both major party candidates) claim it was Russia's provocation.

But on my regular/daily/favourite blog reads, they are paying attention.

Craig Murray

The attacks in Mumbai are appalling, but the truth is that to date the numbers killed are small by the standards of inter-communal religious violence in India.

But this time Westerners are involved, so there is far more media attention than when it is "Only Indians".

Lenin's Tomb goes to some length...

The shocking and depressing news from India would seem to defy any glib conclusions or slogans beyond the patently obvious - namely, that this grotesque hunting and killing of innocents is likely to succeed in (what appears to be) its principle aim of generating both a repressive response from the Indian state and a communal reaction.

Moon of Alabama has some here and here:

There was no clear target.

The major attacks were on a railway station, two big hotels, a multiplex movie theater and a bar. Two taxis were blown up. Two terrorists allegedly were at a hospital.

Of the dead only 6 were foreigners, of the wounded 7. While those hotels and the bar frequently have foreigners those numbers and the attack on the railway station and the cinema do not fit to an "attack on foreigners" scheme.

Ten Percent cites the Tomb article & points us to twitter.

And the commentator Tariq Ali chimes in, too.

The terrorist assault on Mumbai’s five-star hotels was well planned, but did not require a great deal of logistic intelligence: all the targets were soft. The aim was to create mayhem by shining the spotlight on India and its problems and in that the terrorists were successful. The identity of the black-hooded group remains a mystery.

All I can say is

Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.