By now, we have all seen the images of carnage and horror from Mumbai, India. At last count, close to 200 people laid dead, two luxury hotels sat partly in ruins, a Jewish Chabad House was the scene of a calculated massacre, and Mumbai, the nucleus of the nation's financial industry, chaotically attempted to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the most recent terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists. Multiple reports indicated that the perpetrators' mission wasn't nearly as successful as they would have liked; 5,000 victims was the goal.
The immediate consequences of last week's bloodthirsty abomination, widely believed to have been perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic terror group originating in Pakistan, are distressing and potentially calamitous. Principally among them: mounting tensions between the nuclear-armed nations of India and Pakistan; heightened fears over the inability of Pakistan's government to provide the U.S. with a reliable ally in fighting extremism on its western border with Afghanistan; and concerns that the attacks could destabilize significantly an Indian government, one month away from elections, whose lack of anti-terrorism preparedness was made abundantly and torturously clear.
After the resignation of India's home minister, who accepted "moral responsibility" for having not prevented the atrocities, The New York Times reported: "The new home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, the former finance chief, briefly addressed reporters on Monday, promising to respond vigorously to the terrorist threat.
"This is the threat to the very idea of India, the very soul of India, the India that we know, the India that we love - namely a secular, plural, tolerant and open society," he said. "I have no doubt in my mind that ultimately the idea of India will triumph." One can only hope.
Peel away the immediate outrage, condemnations, and condolences and the events in India clearly herald an opportunity for President-elect Obama to take leadership on an issue - terrorism - that many felt was one of his weakest throughout the campaign season. Regardless of one's allegiance or lack thereof to our new president, what we have just witnessed allegedly from the Lashkar-e-Taiba must remind every American of a similar terrorist attack on our nation's soil seven years ago. The same malignant Islamic ideological forces that struck at the heart of our country on 9/11 declared war on India last week.
Unfamiliar with the group alleged to be responsible? The organization subscribes to Wahhabism, a form of Sunnism many experts have linked to Osama bin-Laden. More disturbingly: as distinguished columnist William Kristol noted in Monday's New York Times, "The political arm of [Lashkar-e-Taiba] has conveniently published a pamphlet, "Why Are We Waging Jihad?," that lays out all kinds of reasons why the United States, Israel and India are "existential enemies of Islam." This isn't the fear-mongering opinion of a war-crazy neoconservative; Kristol was quoting from an article in the April 2005 issue of Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, written by Husain Haqqani, a respected journalist and the current Pakistani ambassador to the United States.
In order for the United States and its democratic allies across the world to emerge victorious in a fight against a barbaric enemy, patriotic citizens in these countries must rise up and firmly reject fanaticism, denounce leaders and governments who are politically sympathetic to Islamic Jihad, and remain as diligent, resolute and vigilant as ever in an enduring fight against an enemy whose stated aim is the annihilation of the West and the terrorizing of non-Muslims across the world. The United States must do everything within its power to ensure its support for legitimate national governments that seek assistance in fighting terrorism.
Perhaps as importantly, peace-loving Muslims in nations as unstable as Sudan and as prosperous as India, home to roughly 150 million, must forcefully condemn the attacks in Mumbai.
The triumph of freedom and liberty over nihilistic terror masqueraded as a political agenda is anything but assured. It is a battle that pits decency against depravity and the victorious side will be the one whose conviction of the rightness of its cause is most uncompromising. Our nation's resolve is stretched thin by a two-front war against fanaticism in the Middle East and demoralizing - perhaps even worsening - economic times. But our enemies - India's enemies - do not much care for our troubles. News that the Dow Jones Industrial Index took historic losses or that the unemployment index crept steadily toward 10 percent only makes us more vulnerable, not more sympathetic, to the extremist forces that last week brought terror to southwest Asia.
Finding and killing terrorists, as well as drying up the swamps of political instability and religiously brainwashed fanaticism in which they breed, ought to be as important to the next administration as it was to the last.
President-elect Obama, vociferous in his criticism of the Bush administration's handling of a war against Islamic extremism, will soon have his chance to lead the civilized world's efforts in a fight that has largely shaped and will continue to shape the twenty-first century. Mumbai's massacre, a well-organized attack on one of our most strategically important democratic allies, reminded us once again what losing looks like.
Brad DeFlumeri is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at bdeflume@student.umass.edu.
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