By Lewis Loflin
A week after Muslim terrorists killed nearly 200 people in Bombay (Mumbai), India, we get silence. No Muslims in India or elsewhere have poured into the streets to protest the use of Islam to justify mass murder. Instead, they deflect the atrocity onto Pakistani politics or stories of Muslim victims killed by Hindus. The “experts” and mainstream press are “careful” in what they say and whom they blame. My local newspaper, The Bristol Herald Courier, ran a long story about Alan Scherr (58) and his daughter Naomi Scherr (13), members of a New Age religious cult in Nelson County, VA.
Both died in Bombay in a hail of Muslim terrorist bullets. They were part of a group of 16 Americans, four Canadians, and five Australians in Mumbai on a spiritual pilgrimage. It was great advertising for the Synchronicity Foundation, but no article identified their killers. See Members Virginia New Age Sect Killed in Bombay Terror Attack.
But PC censorship didn’t stop with my local newspaper.
New York Times, November 28, 2008
News reports claim “a hundred shots were heard from inside Nariman House, home to the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad Lubavitch.” The dead included a Jewish Rabbi and his wife, executed by Muslim terrorists. (Their young son was saved by a nanny who fled with him; the child would have been murdered too.) They were among over 170 killed by Islamist gunmen on a random murder spree in Bombay, targeting restaurants, hotels, street vendors, and even a hospital.
Most victims were Hindus. I suppose the Jewish couple was engaged in “Zionist imperialism,” and since they lived in India, killing Indian Hindus must have seemed justified to the terrorists.
“The center is run by Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka. The couple’s 2-year-old son was escorted out of the building several hours after the attack, his clothing soaked in blood, the AP reported. Five non-Indians—an Australian, a Briton, a German, an Italian, and a Japanese—were reported killed.”
The words “Muslim” or “Islam” would never have appeared in the New York Times. In fact, it’d be nearly impossible to discern the killers’ identity or motives. To quote: “There remained much mystery around the group behind the attack, unusual in its scale, its almost theatrical boldness and its targeting of locales frequented by wealthy Indians and foreigners.” It sounds almost like admiration. Two “gunmen” called a local TV station, saying, “Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir? Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims?”
There’s no mystery—they were Muslims who murdered non-Muslims in the name of radical Islam. The Jewish couple and a father and daughter from Virginia had nothing to do with Kashmir. The New York Times, in the name of political correctness, obscured the true nature of this slaughter, deflecting blame and hiding the terrorists’ identity while amplifying their Kashmir grievances.
We know Pakistan was behind this, just as they support Taliban attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan is a de-facto Muslim terrorist state, not a U.S. ally. The money and training likely came from Saudi Arabia, whose state-sponsored Wahhabism underpins Al-Qaeda. They’ve exported this ideology for decades, protected by the U.S. for geopolitical reasons. Saudi funds flow into Pakistan, a violent, dysfunctional Muslim country. The Times wouldn’t say that either.
The incompetent Indian army and police took three days to track down about 10 Muslim “gunmen.” Other reports claimed the terrorists shot up a train station for 40 minutes while police refused to intervene, one man screaming for them to shoot back—all caught on security cameras as a young Muslim killer smiled into one.
“The casualties ran the gamut of Mumbai society. A street vendor was shot and killed near the main train station... A manager at the Oberoi survived a bullet wound to his leg but was taken to the Cama and Albless Hospital, where a shootout erupted; he died after being transferred to a second hospital. A chef at the Taj who had been hiding under a kitchen table for most of the night was discovered by four gunmen, made to stand up and shot from behind…”
Guess the chef was a Zionist too. Under some interpretations of Muslim law, killing pagans like Hindus is permitted. Reports suggest the killers asked victims’ identities, releasing Muslims and executing non-Muslims.
New York Times, November 28, 2008
“The assaults represented a marked departure in scope and ambition from other recent terrorist attacks in India, which have singled out local people rather than foreigners and hit single rather than multiple targets. The Mumbai assault, by contrast, seemed directed at foreigners, involved hostage-taking, and was aimed at multiple and highly symbolic targets.”
Here, the Times hints at other Muslim terror attacks in India without naming them. Further: “Indians will have a strong incentive to link this to Al Qaeda, but this is a domestic issue. This is not India’s 9/11.”
Now it’s the mysterious “Al Qaeda,” a cover for radical Islam. They call the killers “militants” and mention a fictitious “Deccan Mujahedeen”—no such group exists. They note the Indian Mujahedeen, implicated in bombings killing about 200 in India that year, but Christine Fair, a South Asia expert at RAND, was “careful” to say the terrorists’ identity wasn’t yet known. She pointed to India’s domestic tensions between Hindus (80% of 1.13 billion) and Muslims (13.4%). Is everyone scared to say “Muslim” and “Islam”?
“There are a lot of very, very angry Muslims in India,” Ms. Fair said. “The economic disparities are startling and India has been very slow to publicly embrace its rising Muslim problem. You cannot put lipstick on this pig. This is a major domestic political challenge for India.”
India’s public face claims: “Our Muslims have not been radicalized… But the Indian intelligence apparatus knows that’s not true. India’s Muslim communities are being sucked into the global landscape of Islamist jihad.”
The “economic disparities” stem from Muslim culture’s incompatibility with modern economies, unlike successful Hindus who adopt Western models rejected by Islam. Linking this to economics is nonsense—millions of poor Hindus aren’t executing Jews. Where Muslims can’t rule, they often turn to terrorism. While money and training may come from outside, the Muslim problem is internal to India. The West’s refusal to confront political Islam emboldens these tactics.
From the Washington Post:
Shabir Sayed, 30, was buying cigarettes outside Leopold Cafe when he heard gunfire and saw men in black hoodies with guns. “I saw the gunmen, young men in jeans with assault rifles. We were so scared. People were ducking under tables,” he said.
Shane Martens, 25, an Irish tourist, was heading to bed above the cafe when he heard “huge bangs… at first I thought it was horns and firecrackers.” Downstairs, he found mayhem: “People huddled together. Shards of glass, food, and drinks were knocked down. Everyone was terrified.” Over 10 were shot there, witnesses said. Blocks away, gunmen fired into windows and alleys near the Jewish center.
Sanjay Kokate, a local leader with a citizens’ police group, saw random shooting from the Jewish center: “We heard bang-bang in the alleyway and thought it was firecrackers. Then we heard horrible grief—a woman ran out covered in her mother’s blood. Two older women were shot dead while cooking dinner in their kitchens. We helped carry the bodies out. People have been trapped inside ever since. It’s so horrifying.”
More horrifying is the silence of Muslims who refuse to renounce this slaughter. Print a cartoon of Mohammed, and they’ll flood the streets.
New York Times, December 8, 2008
Throngs of Indian Muslims marched in Mumbai and other cities on Sunday, holding banners condemning terrorism and affirming loyalty to India. Though small, these protests saw Muslim leaders refuse burial for the nine slain militants in Islamic cemeteries, deeming them not true Muslims.
But the Times couldn’t resist PC framing: They also suspended the annual Dec. 6 commemoration of a 1992 riot where Hindus destroyed a mosque, to avert communal tension. Muslim scholars and figures issued strong condemnations. Then they mention “Hindu right-wing groups” as if they’re at fault. With 40 Muslims among the victims, that might explain the reaction—we’ll never know.
“Still, many Muslims seem anxious, fearing some anger from the attacks may spark Hindu-Muslim violence that has marred India’s history. ‘It’s a pity we have to prove ourselves as Indians,’ said Mohammed Siddique, a young accountant marching with his family. ‘But we need to speak louder than others, to make clear those people don’t speak for our religion—and that we are not Pakistanis.’”
Wait—now they’re Pakistanis, deflecting from their Muslim identity and motives?
Protest banners included:
“Our Country’s Enemies are Our Enemies”
“Killers of Innocents are Enemies of Islam”
“Pakistan Be Declared Terrorist State”
Unlike the recent attackers, all believed to be Pakistani, four of six in an earlier plot were Indian.
Killings of Muslims, like the 2002 Gujarat riots leaving 1,100 dead (mostly Muslims), are cited. Reports note: “The 2002 riots erupted after 59 Hindu pilgrims died in a train fire, initially blamed on a Muslim mob but later deemed accidental. Investigations allege police failed to protect Muslims, with about 2,000 killed.” On July 28, 2008, in Gujarat, bombings killed 45 and wounded 160; one terrorist linked his act to those riots.
New York Times, December 9, 2008
American officials told the Times that Pakistan’s ISI continued nurturing the group post-9/11, despite pledges to cut ties with militants. Pakistan resists admitting its citizens’ involvement and refuses to hand over 20 suspects demanded by India.
A Pakistani official called it a gradual effort: “Pakistan will do it at its own pace, not at gunpoint,” said a politician anonymously. Indian police identified all 10 gunmen as from Punjab, Pakistan, with evidence like mailboxes and medical kits marked from Pakistan.
“Western denial: The fact that terrorist fish are swimming in a hospitable Muslim sea nearly disappears amidst Western political, journalistic, and academic bleatings. Call it political correctness, multiculturalism, or self-loathing; whatever the name, this mentality produces delusion and dithering.” —D. Pipes
Explore more on Islamist terrorism and radicalism from Sullivan-County.com:
I’d like to thank Grok, an AI by xAI, for helping me format and refine this article. The final edits and perspective are my own. —Lewis Loflin
