Is terrorism reversible?

Salman Rushdie responded to the article by Arundhathi Roy here .

His argument regarding the issues paraded by terrorists is this:
''Ask yourself the question that if the Kashmir problem were resolve tomorrow, if Israel-Palestine reached a lasting peace, do we believe that al-Qaeda would disband? Do we believe that Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad would put their guns down and beat them into plough-shears and say we would now be farmers because our job is done.
I mean the point about is that is laughable, right? And the point about that is that that is not their project. Their project is power. This is a power grab by the most obscurantist, revanchist, old-fashioned, medievalist idea of modern culture that attempts to drag the world back into the middle ages at the point of modern weaponry ...''


There is a problem here. Of course the terrorist outfits will not disband because these are solved. But the terrorism will lose its impetus once the Palestine- Kashmir- Iraq- Iran issues are solved. These outfits are headed by madmen who dream about ruling the world. But they are successful in convincing people. As long as these issues are bleeding actively, there will be people ready to be convinced to become suicide bombers. Because its not very difficult to show that some unfair things are happening in these places.
There are hundreds of cults in the world. Many of them advocate mass murder or ethnic cleansing.(Remember the infamous cult in Japan which released poisonous gas in a subway?)
Why suddenly the current terror outfits enjoy a popularity and power that none of these are able to procure? Its because terrorists are able to capitalise on some genuine suffering that has been going on. Even If you are able to remove that, the leaders will go on preaching. But they wont be enjoying the same following any more.

Is Mumbai attack India's Sept.11?

Following the Mumbai attack I am seeing a blind fury against politicians in blogs. If any reaction is too extreme I am skeptical about the utility of the response. Because its going to be short lasting. Before Mumbai attack was everything going fine in India? Terrorist attacks occurred before also. So why we were not in a blogging frenzy in the intervening period?

Blasts in Assam were around 1 month back. Death toll of 66 or more. Why it didn’t evoke such a reaction as now? Because it was local factions so that it doesn’t threaten us? Or because north east has been always a far off frontier for us? May be we are not sure such a place even exists in India.

What all makes Mumbai attack different from previous terrorist attacks? Definitely the scope and organisation. But do we need it to realise that we are not safe ? We know it for decades! Does this ear mark a new era of our intelligence agency like it did for US? I don’t think so. It cant happen just overnight because politicians are very worked up today. Because good intelligence requires painstaking patience and time. It would take years to infiltrate an organisation. In the scenario of hundreds of parallel cells for every 100 attempts you deflect there will be one successful attempt.
Then why doesn’t it happen in US? Definitely at the cost of privacy and human rights. And fat money also. I know I know you are ready to give all that up. But thank god its not going to happen in India just because you are all worked up. Because its going to be a Faustian bargain.
So what can we really do at this juncture? The greatest thing will be not to have knee jerk reactions. Think about it. Did the terrorists really think that after this attack India will abdicate Kashmir? They need to make the moderate muslim population in India feel vulnerable.What they need is some sharp reactions from the right wing so that the recruitment queues to their cells will fatten. So that they don’t have to come in boats from Pakistan to do what they need to do.

The iron curtain

Some questions hang around uneasily in the aftermath of the Mumbai mayhem. It doesn’t help that we are forced to swallow any information handed over by the officials. There is no option of cross checking.
1) Its said that an attempt of killing 5000 has been foiled. But what exactly has been the plan for the same? Shooting at the crowd and throwing grenades at multiple sites appears to be too wishy washy a plan for doing that.
2) Terrorists held the hotels for at least a day. They are said to have a roomful of RDX. What prevented them from using it?
3) From the account of military it was not a suicidal mission. There was an escape plan involving bargaining with the hostages. Consider the elaborate preparations that had gone in in the form of video coverage including the staff quarters inside the taj hotel. Didn’t a possibility of a military operation cross their minds? Didn’t they have a plan for that? What was the strategy employed by the military to foil such a plan? (Other than storming in disregarding the body count of hostages)
4) It was said at one point that around 6 hostages were killed out of 66 in one hotel during the military operation. What prevented the terrorists from causing a higher casualty among the hostages? That too considering that the military operation was going on for around 1-2 days? Is someone being too boastful regarding the casualties vs saved hostages?

This may not be the right time to be skeptical. But sometimes devil is in the details.