Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Mumbai Massacre

For three days in late November, 2008, Muslims terrorists murdered Indians in Bombay with near impunity, the Indian forces incompetent and seemingly unmotivated enough to bring this outrage to a full stop. Ten well-trained Islamic commandos attacked the people of one of India's largest cities, and in fact, one of the world's largest cities, ten men, and they killed hundreds, taking time to torture some of them. Ten killers in a city of many millions. Ten men. Ten Muslims. Ten commandos. It illustrates the old saw," Show me one thousand men who are not afraid to die, and I will show you one hundred men who will rule the world."

There was no attempted take-over to the Indian government in the attack on Bombay. In many ways it had nothing to do with killing people either. The attack wasn't even to prove in the objective world that Islam can kill at will. This attack was more than anything else a show of Indian humiliation. It showed the world, particularly the Muslim world, and specifically the Muslims of Pakistan, that the Indian people, the Hindu people, are powerless to stop a grand attack on Hindus by fewer than a dozen Muslims. The exercise proved to the Muslim world, to Pakistani Muslims, that Hindu Indians are contemptible beings who can be killed without fear of retribution. It might not be the final lesson to be learned from this incident. That we shall see in the course of time.

When people claim that not all Muslims are terrorists, (even though nearly all terrorism is Islam-motivated today,) what, if anything, does it mean? Does it mean that most Muslims are not involved in or complicit in jihad? Or does it mean that bin Laden is correct by implication about Muslims when he states that to vote for American politicians is to negate ones neutrality? Does it mean that by contributing to the tax-base of a military nation that supplies a nation's military ventures that one is complicit in military actions that nation commits? And if so? If passive support of a cause is still support, is one supportive? And what of it? Here's what bin Laden has to contribute:

(3) You may then dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake:

(a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.

(b) The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us .... So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates.

(c) Also the American army is part of the American people. It is this very same people who are shamelessly helping the Jews fight against us.

(d) The American people are the ones who employ both their men and their women in the American Forces which attack us.

(e) This is why the American people cannot be not innocent of all the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against us.

Osama bin Laden, "Letter to America: Why we are fighting you."

Why are Muslims world-wide fighting the world-at-large? Could it be that they are motivated to fight? Motivated by the poligion of Islam? What would make that strange?

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah." [Qu'ran, 9:36]

Osama bin Laden, "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," World Islamic Front Statement. 23 February 1998.

According to orthodox Islam as set out by Mohammed in the Qu'ran, by ibn Ishaq in the Sira, and Bukhari, et al, in the ahadith, and according to the tradition of the four mahadab of accepted Sunni scholars for over 1,000 years, jihad is essential for the right practice of Islam. Against whom? Against all. For the Hindu, then, it's a question of complicity. It's also a matter of passivity. Even trained professionals are useless in combat if they have no motivation. Muslims are motivated. Hindus? In the first of the following pieces we see ineptitude on the part of Indian paramilitary officials. Are they so excluded from the system of which they are ostensible parts that they do not have even the minimal concerns of average citizens? Are the state's armed forces so alienated from the state as employees that they have no interest even in the security of their own lives? If so, in what way are they responsible for anything beyond feeding themselves? Bin Laden and his fellow jihadis kill them regardless.

While searching through a mound of about 150 bags, which police believed were left by the dozens of victims in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station, an officer found a suspicious-looking bag and called the bomb squad, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Bapu Domre. Inside were two 8.8-pound (4-kilogram) bombs, which were taken away and safely detonated, he said.

After the attacks [i.e. four days later], police found unexploded bombs at several of the sites, including two luxury hotels and a Jewish center.

It was not immediately clear why the bags at the station were not examined earlier. The station, which serves hundreds of thousands of commuters, was declared safe and reopened hours after the attack.

The discovery has added to increasing accusations that India's security forces missed warnings and bungled its response to the Nov. 26-29 attacks.

Indian navy chief Sureesh Mehta has called the response to the attacks "a systemic failure." The country's top law enforcement official has resigned amid criticism that the 10 gunmen appeared better coordinated and better armed than police in Mumbai
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hz0C0SXcxgP0NxzlqGA_EI57FBkQD94RM9E80

I raise this in light of the Hindu nationalist entities such as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS.) If the Hindu populace is so alienated by political acts from the natural state, do the people have any legitimate reason to retain a loyalty to the Brahmin class of elitist rulers. Obviously, if this is really the case, few other than the Brahmins would care. Of those few?

According to bin Laden and what he cites as canonical Islamic fiqh, as legitimate Islamic jurisprudence, unassailable according to majority traditional Islam throughout Islamic history, all kuffar, and especially polytheists, mushrikin, such as Hindus, are culpable in the crime of kufr. It is imperative, fard ayn, upon the practicing orthodox Muslim to either kill or convert the polytheist. If it is imperative for Muslims, what imperative do Hindus face when they don't have the motivation to defend themselves from death at the hands of Muslims? If the Brahmins of the Indian elite have so demoralized and emasculated the Hindu people, and if they are still culpable for supporting the non-Islamic state, as bin Laden claims, then what are they to do? Must they simply wander around listless and passive till they are converted or killed?

Mumbai photographer: I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back

Jerome Taylor talks to the photographer whose picture went around the world

Saturday, 29 November 2008

It is the photograph that has dominated the world's front pages, casting an astonishing light on the fresh-faced killers who brought terror to the heart of India's most vibrant city. Now it can be revealed how the astonishing picture came to be taken by a newspaper photographer who hid inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.

Sebastian D'Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus. "I ran into the first carriage of one of the trains on the platform to try and get a shot but couldn't get a good angle, so I moved to the second carriage and waited for the gunmen to walk by," he said. "They were shooting from waist height and fired at anything that moved. I briefly had time to take a couple of frames using a telephoto lens. I think they saw me taking photographs but they didn't seem to care."

The gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded. By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, Mr D'Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back. "I first saw the gunmen outside the station," Mr D'Souza said. "With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles.

"Towards the station entrance, there are a number of bookshops and one of the bookstore owners was trying to close his shop," he recalled. "The gunmen opened fire and the shopkeeper fell down."

But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

As the gunmen fired at policemen taking cover across the street, Mr D'Souza realised a train was pulling into the station unaware of the horror within. "I couldn't believe it. We rushed to the platform and told everyone to head towards the back of the station. Those who were older and couldn't run, we told them to stay put."

The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach. Mr D'Souza added: "I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article14086308.ece

Most people do what most people do. Most people do so passively. We see in the Bombay incident that even the police are passive. We see too that ten motivated and highly trained men can effectively massacre hundreds of people in a major world city with near impunity for three days when they are pitted against hundreds or thousands of ill-trained and unmotivated opponents.

Jeff Brown emails:

Having a lot of people in a group carrying would increase the odds of having an armed person who is willing to engage the terrorists. This would not only provide resistance but also spur others, i.e., frozen police officers, to engage. In an emergency, the first person to engage is the catalyst to move the crowd from onlookers frozen by indecision to action, either to provide assistance or in situation such as Mumbai, to confront.

[....]

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/28582/

When we mention the RSS we hear the usual tiresome canard, "They're all fascists." A pointless and silly complaint. The Hindu nationalist parties are the few activist resistance movements on the sub-continent that comprise non-Muslims. They are, in proportion to the population, a small membership. How many activists can we expect from a Hindu nationalist movement in conflict with the genocidal movement of Islam?

Finally, below, I reprise an old piece that is still relevant today.

We mostly scoff at "arm-chair warriors," sloughing them off as day-dreamers and fools. We read of the brave exploits they would perform if only they could. I'd like to look briefly at those who are out of the arm-chair and in the position to act, who are required to act.

Knowing where bin Laden is will not do us any good at all unless we have men and women who will take it upon themselves to rid us of that beast. And who will those men and women be? Not you or I, I'm sorry to say. Those who will act will be the few of the few. Aside from my anecdotal experiences which back up the following, I'll rely here on the published work of Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing. London: Granta, 1999. (For further information on this topic one may go to Google: "Killology.")

Most soldiers do not kill their enemies. They don't generally even fire their weapons.

"...no matter how thorough the training, it still failed to enable most combatants to fight. During the First World War, it was commonly believed that only 10 per cent of soldiers could be called brave and many military commentators deplored the 'live and let live' principle. [Bourke: p.73.]

During the Second World War,... no more than 15 per cent of men had actually fired at enemy positions or personnel...it would have been possible for 80 per cent of the men to have fired and nearly all men were (at some stage) within firing distance of the enemy. To be counted as a 'firer,' a man would only have had to fire his weapon or lob a grenade 'roughly in the direction of the enemy' once or twice." [Bourke: p.75.]

For all the writing back and forth here about how we are or are not violent and fascistic and hate-filled, when the crunch comes, few if any of us would act any differently in the face of our enemies than did soldiers in WW1, WW2, and the war in Viet Nam, as covered in the book above.

What does this say about us as anti-jihadists? I'll venture that of the 15 per cent of us who think of ourselves as badass guys only 15 per cent of those would ever pull the trigger on bin Laden. And ask yourselves just how many rounds would actually hit the man? We leave these things to professionals for good reason: most of us couldn't shoot a man face-to-face even if he were shooting at us.

"Marshall found that there were some men who identified targets yet did not shoot, and there were other men who were under attack yet did not attempt to use the weapons to retaliate or in self protection. Furthermore, passive troops were not 'green' troops." [Bourke: p. 76.]

The most remarkable thing about the IDF wasn't their professionalism, which most Western soldiers possess to the nth degree, it was their ability to remain Human in the midst of war, to kill the enemy without devolving into animalistic hatred even in the smoke and shock of battle. The enemy, on the other hand, were indistinguishable from maniacs, crazed and screaming, one going so far as to rush head-long into a burning building in search of a phantom. I'm sorry to admit that I'm the only one who laughed.

All the violent words that splash down these columns are so much nothing. There might be a will to triumph over our enemies, but it's passive. That's not a condemnation of our readers. We do not want to be soldiers in the field. If we were, chances are we would not fire our weapons at men who are much like us. That's nothing to be ashamed of.

"The passive 75 per cent of men would generally remain passive. But...even those soldiers who did not fire were crucial to the battle: their presence was essential for morale. Active combatants were too busy fighting to notice what their comrades were (or were not) doing. In fact, it was the presence of passive soldiers which enabled active soldiers to continue fighting. They contributed their weight to the mass of the attack, even if they contributed little to its velocity." [Bourke: p.87.]

What is the serious objection to killing an individual in a crowd, HAMAS co-founder Yassin, for example? The message is clear and precise. One man is responsible for his actions, and that man is dead. Our opponents would set off a car bomb, killing at random, and call it good. Allah is responsible for that action, and the group understands the irrationality of it in its own terms. Our experience in Jugoslavia is contrary: we fired laser-guided missiles from the aether. The average Serb has to this day no idea why that happened. Jets were long past the target before they were seen, and then the fires were raging long since. That speck brought death! There was no sense of who did that or why, because one cannot hate a speck, only an idea one might associate with that speck. And since there is no way to fight a speck, it isn't a defeat no matter how badly one is beaten, for no speck is viable as an enemy. It has no meaning whatsoever. The science of war loses wars because there is no art to war by machines, and there is therefore no enemy to lose to.

If we are to win any war against any enemy, we must have men on the ground, face to face with our enemies so they can see us and fight us man to man till one man is still standing. We will not win any war until the enemy is in the dust begging not for mercy but crying out: "I am you!" When that defeated man sees my face and knows I'm the better man, then he will not be defeated but he will be my ally. When I beat a man who beats a woman, I must beat him till he beats men who beat women. He will do that when he is me and mine. I cannot make him one of mine from inside a tank. I can do that by beating him man-to-man so he knows who I am and what I do. Killing a murderer doesn't make me a murderer, it makes his survivors moral.

Who among us will take up arms and fight man to man against bin Laden? Who will run the man down and kill him face to face? Who will stand with bin Laden's head in hand and say to his former followers: "Now you work for me!"

May 13, 2005

I ask whether we should support Hindu nationalism in its struggle against Islamic imperialism and genocide against the Hindu people. It seems clear that the state forces of India are not capable by nature or training to defend the nation from jihad. Perhaps the Hindu people themselves will find the motivation required to save their own lives rather than waiting for the state to do so. Is that worth supporting? Or will the Indian people continue to suffer the humiliations of Muslim assaults until India, cowed, is reconquered by the Mughals?