Mumbai rampage a grim reminder to the US: War of ideology thrives

NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai in late November. (Photo NATO website)In the U.S. we welcomed family and friends for Thanksgiving, but the usual weekend emphasis on football was usurped by victims of terrorists in Mumbai. For many of us, the parallels to 9/11 were unavoidable. Innocents who decided to have dinner in a restaurant or to board a train were gunned down in cold blood by strangers. Within days a fragile peace between India and Pakistan began to unravel—precisely the outcome the terrorists desire. Both Western and Eastern media suggested responsibility lay with the terror group Lashkar-i-tayyaba (LET). Many media said LET trained in Pakistan. But by Monday, the Taliban was issuing new threats.

The India Times reported the number 2 leader in Pakistan, Hakeem Ullah Mehsud, had declared the Taliban was “poised” to take over Pakistan very soon. Ullah Mehsud said the war was “against nations supporting NATO.”
The Financial Times reported: “Meanwhile, Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president, made an urgent appeal to India on Sunday not to punish his country for the terror unleashed on Mumbai last week, warning that militants had the power to precipitate a war in the region.” The FT exclusive interview quoted Ali Zardari warning that “provocation by rogue ‘non-state actors’ posed the danger of a return to war between the nuclear-armed neighbours.”

No one has conclusively pinned the blame on Al Qaeda, but considering the loose alliances of groups committed to that ideology, coupled with Ullah Mehsud’s threat to Pakistan, it’s not inconceivable. Major W. Thomas Smith, Jr. (SCSG), a military and counter-terrorism expert and former U.S. Marine who provides articles for publications around the globe, puts it succinctly. “Al Qaeda is an idea—a jihadist can live in the U.S. and wake up one morning and decide to blow something up and call himself Al Qaeda.” Smith likens it to a franchise from Osama bin Laden.
The Mumbai attacks are a reminder that a war based on extremist Islamic ideology affects countries around the globe. The U.S. is conducting a defense with some help, but many countries who stand to lose have supported that defense with lip service only.

Western media is largely ineffective in communicating the level of activity in distant places. Once again, the U.S. is waging a lopsided war of information, with very little attention given terrorism by standard media. Only by diligent reading of news from other countries can a cohesive impression be formed. A war of ideology is hard for some to comprehend—at least until innocent people are gunned down as they were in Mumbai.

 Map from CIA World Factbook, US Government