Gideon Polya, “2008 Mumbai Atrocity. US, UK, Israeli, Muslim or Hindu crime?”, MWC News, 6 December 2008; https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/2008-mumbai-atrocity
2008 Mumbai Atrocity. US, UK, Israeli, Muslim or Hindu crime?
The appalling November 2008 Mumbai Atrocity (at least 188 dead and at least 293 injured) comes over 2 years after the appalling 11 July 2006 Mumbai Bombing atrocity (200 commuters killed, 700 wounded). Back in 2006 the 7/11 Mumbai Atrocity could be dispassionately analysed in terms of classical criminal investigation hypotheses based on Motive, Opportunity and Means (MOM), the Means including preparedness to commit such an atrocity, as evidenced by the historical track-record (see my article on MWC News entitled “Mumbai 7/11 Atrocity. US, Israeli or Indigenous crime?”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/8054/26/ ) . The same Motive, Opportunity and Means (MOM) analysis can be applied to the 2008 Mumbai Atrocity.
MOTIVE
Western candidates for the 2008 and 2006 Mumbai Atrocities (rationales in parentheses) would include the US (destabilization of Pakistan and increased influence with India, leading to US regional and resource domination; to blame “Islamic terrorism”, noting that the CIA is closely linked to Pakistan’s ISI, which in turn is closely linked to Kashmiri separatists, other jihadis and the formerly US-backed Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists; to cover its immense crimes in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Muslim World); Apartheid Israel (to blame “Islamic terrorism” and to cover its current appalling, obscene and violent mass imprisonment of 4 million Occupied Palestinians, noting that Mossad is closely linked to Indian Intelligence); and the UK (for reasons linked to Anglo-American resource and regional hegemony; to cover its immense crimes in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan in which post-invasion excess deaths total 2 million and 4-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.6 million and 2.1 million, respectively; and refugees total 6 million and 4 million, respectively) (see MWC News article “9-11 excuse for US global genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity: millions dead [9-11 million] in Bush Wars”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25184/42/ ).
The prime South Asian candidates for the 2008 and 2006 Mumbai Atrocities would include Hindu extremists both inside and outside the Indian Government and with or without US, UK or Israeli collusion (fostering of communal hatred for political reasons; excuse for further constraints on human rights and political activism in desperately impoverished India in which the prosperous middle and upper classes rule an impoverished majority and annual avoidable deaths from deprivation total about 3.7 million people out of a population of 1.1 billion) (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” , G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ).
The only obvious motive of violent Muslim jihadi groups (notably Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Kashmiri separatists and the formerly CIA- backed Taliban and Al Qaeda) would be revenge for Western or Indian crimes against Muslims, this indeed being the asserted motive trumpeted by the Mainstream media. However the Mumbai commuters and Western tourists targeted in these attacks are utterly innocent of crimes against Muslims. Furthermore, the consequences of the Mumbai Atrocities could clearly be anticipated to be attacks on Muslims in India and elsewhere; more vigorous anti-terrorist activity by governments in South Asia and indeed world-wide; huge damage to their various causes; and huge benefit to anti-Arab anti-Semitic and Islamophobic UK, US and Israeli state terrorism, imperialism and power. The only obvious motive of the US CIA-influenced Pakistan Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) would be to serve US interests – but this would be at the cost of serious detriment to Pakistani economic and security interests, as evidenced by the huge and acutely dangerous global and Indian reaction based on the UK-, US- and Israeli-promoted “Muslim extremist” hypothesis.
OPPORTUNITY
The UK, US and Apartheid Israel have increasingly intimate connections with the Indian Government, Indian military and Indian Intelligence. India is a major holiday destination for Israeli military personnel and there are huge family and business connections between the UK and India. Indian Government, Indian Intelligence and Hindu extremists would have vastly greater access, anonymity and opportunity than foreigners. Conversely, one supposes that Indian Intelligence and other Services would be keeping very close tabs on any people likely to be linked to violent Muslim extremist groups.
MEANS
“The Means” encompasses two distinct areas, namely (a) technical means and (b) preparedness to recruit, train and unleash terrorists to commit mass murder. One supposes that all “groups of interest”, i.e. UK, US, Israeli, Muslim and Hindu groups, would have the technical means to send 10 (possibly 15 or more) well-trained, lethally-equipped gunmen into Mumbai to ultimately kill 188 and wound 293 people. Thus in the US Columbine High School Massacre (1999), 2 un-trained teenage students killed 12 people and wounded 23 others before committing suicide. However preparedness for Governments, Government Agencies or jihadi organizations to recruit and train Indigenous South Asians to commit mass murder is another matter and must be addressed objectively by looking at the historical track records of the various “groups of interests”.
Britain has an appalling record of not only conducting genocide in India but of recruiting willing Indigenous South Asian accessories. Thus the 1757 Battle of Plassey, that delivered Bengal and ultimately all of South Asia into the hands of the British, was won with Indigenous complicity. The subsequent 1769-1770 Great Bengal Famine that killed 10 million Bengalis involved Indigenous Indian tax collectors. The ability of thousands of British soldiers to hold a country of 200-400 million inhabitants for 2 centuries required Indigenous Indian soldiers or sepoys. This broke down in the Indian First War of Independence in 1857 (known to the British as the Indian Mutiny) when sepoys revolted; however the 1857 Rebellion was put down with great ferocity and Indian historian Amaresh Misra in his 2008 book "War of Civilizations: India AD 1857" has estimated that the British murdered 10 million Indians in a genocidal, post-1857 orgy of massacres (see: http://warofcivilisations.blogspot.com/2007/12/10-million-people-killed-in-1857-india.html ). It is estimated from available demographic data that the avoidable deaths (excess deaths) from violence and deprivation in British India, including the Native States, totalled 1.8 billion. In the 1940s Britain deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death in the 1943-1945 Bengal Famine, notwithstanding 2.4 million Indians in the British Indian army and 87,000 Indian military deaths in World War 2. Churchill’s anti-Indian, anti-Muslim and “divide-and-rule” policies bore evil fruit with Partition in 1947 (associated with 1 million dead and 18 million refugees) (see MWC News article “Media lying over Churchill’s crimes. British-Indian Holocaust”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26713/42/ and ““Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2008: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). The UK still uses Indigenous people to kill and violently suppress Subject People in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan
The US has a similar appalling record of use of Indigenous People to subjugate their fellow Subjects. For US post-1945 crimes in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific see William Blum’s “Rogue State”, John Perkins’ “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” and Phillip Agee’s “Inside the Company. CIA Diary” (which reports how US agents organized Ecuadorian groups to bomb Catholic Churches so that Socialists would be blamed for the crimes). Excess Indigenous deaths in post-1950 US Asian wars now total about 25 million and the excess deaths associated with the 1990-2008 Bush Wars total 9-11 million people. 1950-2005 excess deaths in countries occupied in the post-1945 era by the US (excluding Germany and Japan) total 82 million – however the figure for the UK is 727 million and for Apartheid Israel 24 million (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”). The US has an appalling, 3 decade involvement in supporting, training and funding violent, armed Muslim groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan; the US has been the consistent supporter of the Pakistan military; and the US CIA is intimately involved in Pakistan ISI, which is in turn intimately linked to jihadi groups.
Apartheid Israel has an appalling record of using violent Indigenous groups to assist its covert “dirty tricks” in support of the US in Central America, Latin America, Africa and Asia. A notorious example was Israeli involvement in the genocide of Guatemalan Indians at the behest of the US-backed Guatemalan military régime (Guatemala 1960-1996 violent deaths 0.1 million; 1960-1996 excess deaths 1.1 million; 1 million refugees) (see: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Middle_East/Israel_Guatemala.html ). 1950-2005 excess deaths in countries occupied in the post-1945 era by Apartheid Israel total 24 million. In the Occupied Palestinian Territory alone, post-invasion excess deaths total 0.3 million, post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, there are 4 million Palestinians held prisoner in the Apartheid Israeli Bantustans (concentration camps) and over 7 million Palestinian refugees.
In contrast to the estimated 10 million violent and non-violent Muslim deaths due to UK, US and Israeli state terrorism in the last 2 decades, only about 7,000 Western civilians have been killed by Muslim-origin non-state terrorists in the last 40 years (including Israelis and assuming no US involvement in the 9-11 atrocity despite mounting evidence to the contrary e.g. see “US responsible for 9-11?”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/22944/26/ ). No doubt Muslim-origin non-state terrorists are extremely dangerous (the more so in many cases for having been expertly trained by the US and its allies) but their evil lethality in terms of body count does not match that of the UK-US-Israeli alliance which is about one thousand times higher. The annual probability of a Western civilian being killed by a Muslim non-state terrorist is about 10 times LOWER than of being killed by an acquaintance or family member.
South Asian pogroms mounted by Muslim and Hindu fanatics in the former British Raj at the time of Partition killed about 1 million people. The casualties in the insurgency and counter-insurgency in Kashmir since the late 1980s total over 80,000 and tens of thousands of Muslims have left; 0.2-0.7 million Hindu Kashmiri Pandits have been forced out because of Muslim insurgency. Thus both the Kashmiri separatists and the Indian Authorities have shown themselves capable of great violence. In more recent times Hindu mobs have killed thousands of Muslims and Sikhs in terrorism- and politician-inspired communal violence – in the sorts of events that decent people everywhere desperately hope will NOT be initiated through inflammatory Mainstream media “terror hysteria” reportage of the 2008 Mumbai Atrocity.
In terms of Motive, Opportunity and Means (MOM), UK, US and Israeli state terrorism win hands down over Muslim-origin non-state terrorists as likely perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai Atrocity - however, we simply do not know as yet who was responsible.
Similar considerations apply to the identity of the perpetrators of the 9-11 atrocity. A significant difference between the 2008 Mumbai Atrocity and the 9/11 atrocity is the survival in custody of one of the Mumbai perpetrators who (according to Media reports) has confessed that his impoverished Punjabi family would be paid a huge sum (in Third World terms) after his death - evidence of an effective recruitment device by the organizers and the real beneficiaries (see "Mumbai Atrocity revelations": How UK, US and Israeli state terrorists can run Muslim-origin non-state terrorism": http://gideon.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/12/mumbai-atrocity-revelations-how-uk-us-and-israeli.htm ).
In the light of information available to date about the 2008 Mumbai Atrocity, the following conclusions by variously expert and eminent commentators are worth considering.
Amaresh Misra (top Indian writer and historian; author of "War of Civilizations: India AD 1857" launched by the Vice President of India in March 2008; see “Mumbai terror attack: further evidence of the Anglo-American-Mossad-RSS nexus”: http://www.countercurrents.org/misra031208.htm ): “1. Several terrorists might have been white. 2. Were they International mercanaries? If yes, then from which country? Who collected them? It is well known that Mossad and CIA have several mercenary organizations, including so-called Jihadi ones on their list. They create Jihad and manipulate Muslims disaffected by the Islamophobia in the world. Some of them might have been used in the Mumbai attack. But why were they carrying American, British, Mauritian and Malaysian passports?”
Professor Michel Chossudovsky (outstanding humanitarian Canadian economist, University of Ottawa, and editor for the Centre for Research on Globalization); see “India’s 9/11. Who was behind the Mumbai attacks?. Washington is fostering political divisions between India and Pakistan”: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11217 ): “The ISI is America's Trojan Horse, a de facto proxy of the CIA. Pakistani Intelligence has, since the early 1980s, worked in close liaison with its US and British intelligence counterparts. Were the ISI to have been involved in a major covert operation directed against India, the CIA would have prior knowledge regarding the precise nature and timing of the operation. The ISI does not act without the consent of its US intelligence counterpart ... What interests are served by these attacks? Washington is intent on using the Mumbai attacks to: 1) Foster divisions between Pakistan and India and shunt the process of bilateral cooperation and trade between the two countries; 2) Promote internal social, ethnic and sectarian divisions in both India and Pakistan; 3) Justify US military actions inside Pakistan including the killing of civilians in violation of the country's territorial sovereignty; 4) Provide a justification for extending the US led "war on terrorism" into the Indian sub-continent and South East Asia … Both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed are known to be supported by the ISI.”
Jeremy Hammond (editor of Foreign Policy Journal; see “Mumbai attacks: more than meets the eye”: http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/articles/2008/12/04/hammond_mumbai_attacks_more_than_meets_the_eye.htm ): “While the evidence strongly points to LeT and a network of associates affiliated with the group or with each other, that web also includes the CIA and MI6. One early report said that some of the Mumbai terrorists were, like Rashid Rauf, British nationals. This was picked up by numerous press accounts around the globe, but the Indian government official this information was attributed to denied ever having said such a thing. Theories that this was a false flag operation have already begun to spread around the internet, with varying culprits and motives. Whatever the truth is, what is clear from the facts one is able to piece together from media accounts is that there is more to the Mumbai attacks than meets the eye.”
History ignored yields history repeated. The 9-11 atrocity killed 3,000 people and was then used as an excuse for the devastation of Iraq and Afghanistan (estimated post-invasion excess deaths 2 million and 4-6 million, respectively, but carnage IGNORED by Mainstream media). Whoever was responsible for “India’s 9/11”, the 2008 Mumbai Atrocity – the UK, the US, Israel, Muslims or Hindus - it should NOT be used as an excuse for more violence.