An attack on a hotel in Mumbai targeted Americans and Britons. Let's hope this is not the start of a bigger threat.

scary shit.

and now i just heard on the news of a possible al qaeda plot to bomb NYC trains and subways.

I was shocked to turn on the TV this evening and see the famed Taj Mahal Hotel in flames. Well-coordinated attacks at 5-star hotels (the Taj and the Oberoi), train station, hospital, and other locations in the financial capital of India.

Ironically, I also saw this evening a commercial for India on CNN. Probably not the best time to advertise tourism to India.

I suppose I could harp on about income disparity which leads to wealth disparity which leads to terrorism.

But I am sure that many will find there are many ways to thwart that equation.

Perhaps a simpler explanation would be that wealth disparity creates jealousy and envy. Through high technology communication the poor are able to become more aware of their condition and its contrast with that of the wealthy.

The leaders of terrorists may be the disaffected among the "middle classes" but they could not burn down the world without the fuel of relative poverty and the disaffected poor that it eventually creates.

It is disheartening to watch our selfishness drag us toward self-destruction, either by conflict between rich and poor, or by the negligence of our common habitat: the planet earth, while we rob and kill each other.

A balance has to be restored by allowing those who work to produce wealth to benefit more from that wealth.

Otherwise we are going to continue to see a logical escalation in violence between the haves and havelesses.

My niece has been working in Nepal for the past few months, and is in transit home, which is Kathmandu to Mumbai, Mumbai to London, London to home.

At this point in time we don't know where she is, and needless to say, my sister is freaking out right now.

Hopefully they decided not to stay in Mumbai for any length of time. Dialing into India right now is very difficult, as you can understand that everyone is trying to phone relatives.

Updated to add:

My niece phoned from the airport in Kathmandu, and her flight to Mumbai was cancelled, so she has managed to switch to a flight direct to Frankfurt, and then on home.

According to her, there are a lot of people in Nepal wanting to go to India, and things are just getting more confusing, so she took the flight to Frankfurt, instead of another choice via Delhi. I think she used a copy of my sisters credit card, but that's exactly why she has it. As her Uncle and Godfather, I'll just be glad when she's home.

From Britain's Daily Mail: The lone surviving terrorist speaks.

A terrible tragedy, and thank God they were not able to slaughter anywhere as many people as they had hoped (5,000), though the nearly 200 dead and double that number injured is horrendous enough.

Good article. Sent that to my partner.

Here's another interesting article put out by the Council on Foreign Relations whose board reads like a Who's Who of bipartisan followers of the international trends in politics and social movements: Terror Groups in India makes it clear that this current attack is hardly isolated and in fact is the culmination - to date - of a history of violence for political purposes that goes back to India's founding.

There are two very disturbing points, perhaps not sufficiently emphasized, in the report:1-Though he is referring to the Naxalites, we in the West have not sufficiently realized that this may be the driving force behind, or making possible, all of the terror movements. 2-This does not bold well for India solving this problem. So far there is finger-pointing at politicians and other countries, not the basic problems.

This timely articlce India ponders the methods of justice by Hamish MacDonald reveals how the fight against terror in India has thus far resembled the Bush doctrines, and it suggests the information gained through these methods could lead to another war between India and Pakistan.

His advice to Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh is sage:But I am not sure how we expect that India with a far worse poverty and wealth distribution probem than the US will be able to forever resist the temptation to distract the public from serious social problems by starting some sort of foreign conflict. And, as stated earlier in the article, undertaking even a "conventional military retaliation" is "a risky proposition".

Even more unclear is the consequence of a nuclear confrontation. We may see a result of the Bush doctrine.

One way we can discourage terrorism is to bring all of those who practice it - whether state or non-state - to justice. Don't hold your breath. India's tactics "favoured by the Soviet KGB" were well-known to the CIA.