Saturday, November 29, 2008
Terror Attack, Reactions, and Questions on Reactions
Mumbai struck by terrorists, 150 dead, army flushing out terrorists, media busy covering the events, politicians busy calculating which punch lines would turn in most votes, whole Indian population hooked to their television sets (many thanks to TN govt which distributed many of those sets), some of them SMS-ing TV channels (at Rs 2 per SMS a big part of which goes to the channel itself) things like "we stand united against the terrorists , we are not afraid, etc.," and you are reading this. Thats it pretty much.
I could not stop myself from looking for updates ever now and then neither could most TV-watching/internet-surfing Indians could. In such a scenario, various questions are popping up and I thought it might be a prudent idea to key them down for public review.
Questions to the authority/government/politicians: Our politicians have such a strong network of intelligence that they could find out within minutes who is behind such terrorizing acts even though intelligence inputs never come before the catastrophe and it takes half a day to deploy experts in handling such situation (here NSG). The question is if the government has known, with confidence, who is behind the miseries of Indians for 2 decades now, then why no action has been taken? Are we sort of brave army men or money to carry out actions to ensure security of our countrymen? Or it is that we are so tolerant and peaceful that we prefer our citizen being killed rather than retaliate? BJP says "its India's 9/11" as if it is graceful to have an 9/11. Congress jumps to compete and says "Its an attack on India" and we are incapable of doing anything.
Questions to the media: The media, especially television, has been covering this bloody affair ferociously, 24/7. This news seems to be of such great importance to them that they feel nothing else requires to be told to the viewers. But doesn't 100 people dead by drawning in Tamil Nadu make news? How about hundreds more who will die due to water born diseases since medicines hardly costing Rs 10 is not available in govt hospitals, due to unavailability of drinking water, due to cold since they have lost their homes, or due to hunger since there is no work in fields. Oh! I just missed the point about TRP ratings.
Questions to the masses: Lot of people are SMS-ing to TV channels, blogging, etc., their views. Few such views and my questions to the owners of those views are as follows:
View: Enough is enough.
My Question: What are you going to do, sit in front of the TV, blow few hot opinions in smoke of cigarette with colleagues, send a few forwarded SMS and emails, or at the most burn a few candles benefiting candle manufacturers (don't forget to remind the environmentalist how much pollution so many candles would cause).
V: Lets stand united against terrorism. We are not afraid of this terrorist act. We will teach them a lesson and fight till finish them. I salute those brave soldiers those who sacrificed their lives for the country.
MQ: Are you ready to join anti-terrorism squad and fight those terrorists or prefer the safety of air-conditioned office and endless keyboarding with no risk of getting even a scratch.
V: We should not show any mercy towards the terrorists and they should be punished through fast track court and capital punishment should be given to them so that they should think 100 times before doing such acts.
MQ: What made you think that terrorists will be afraid of death or capital punishment? Isn't their act anything less than suicide?
V: Indian govt should make more stringent laws.
MQ: Does the present laws allow terrorism? And by the way, do you really follow all the laws of the land?
The only sensible comment I could see was "Find root cause. Why they are attacking? Reason of their dissatisfaction.."
These idiotic comments equally from masses and authorities seem more terrorizing to the mind than the terrorist act itself. Please someone stop them from misusing their freedom of expression.
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Militancy
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Dear Ravi...
ReplyDeleteYour questions have been raised by millions before, remain unanswered for hundreds of years, and will so for the next hundred or so years. Before the first fire was kindled, before the first spear was sharpened, before the first stone was hurled, mankind had only one weapon.... FEAR.
Before our "priority list" expanded, man had only one aim, and that was to stay on the safer side of fear. Threaten or be killed. Terrorism has existed since the beginning of mankind.... Its not just a recent expansion of the building of Homeland Security.
Who are these people.... these terrorists? Did somebody at a clinic keep a stamp pad in his office and keep punching "Terrorist" on their forehead as they popped out of their mom's womb? Are they maniacs? What is their cause? Why do they do what they do? What do they want from "us?" Us.... the "civilization?"
We built them... we gave them weapons.... we gave them the reasons.... we are responsible for them.... and for all I care, we DESERVE them.
THESE ARE THE FACTS and these are your true questions... Deal with it.
Every time such an incident occurs, it is inevitable Everybody has their usual suspects.
Goverments have to go... they're irresponsible and they brought the terrorists home. We just elect them and put them in place, (or do we?)we're done with our democracy "thing." Are we responsible for our goverments...? Naah.. Let us be... we have bigger fish to fry
Your answer: We deserve them as we are responsible for them.
The police, the army.... whose arse were they looking up at when all of this was happening? Who cares how many of THEM get killed everyday while we watch the news? They are just numbers for the wrong reasons.. right? Why do they get killed? Who cares??!! Who tells their families the reasons for which they die? Who do they get angry at? Should they be angry? They asked for it when they joined the forces.. right?
The intelligence department? Now thats a joke. We are at war with Pakistan. We are at war with China. We were "almost" at war with Uncle Sam. We could have been nuked a couple of times. We may be breathing engineered air-borne AIDS celluoles. God knows. Who gathers this intelligence? Why do they keep it shoved up their a*&% and take a print-out of it when it qualifies as a "retrospective report?" How many times has India been subject to a hostage situation on this scale....Who is the guy that decides what information is legitamate and is worthy to risk the lives of his team members who go to work with him everyday? What is this guy's error rate?? I heard a news channel report that its strange that the terrorists know more about the TaJ Hotel in Mumbai than our soldiers and jawans. Apparently, its a case of "bad intelligence." Just react on that.. who are the terrorists here???!!! what do we have that these "terrorists" want so badly from us? Where will they be in the next 24 hours? Where were they in the past 24 months? How many of 'em are armed? what weapons do they have? Where do they get it from? What is their escape route? Do they want an escape route? How are they going to get in? Who is going to let them in? Do I know him? If ur a brainmashed maniac who thinks killing ur mom with a grenade will send her to heaven, go figure it out, otherwise... how will you?
Yeah.... we can take em to court, we can haul their deranged psychotic asses to jail, burn them, electrocute them, hang them, drown them, flog them... and say... "Yeh meri maa ke liye... DISHUM." Grant them their "Shaheedi." And then...? Well, we'll just wait for the next upgraded batch to come in out of the sky or crawl out of an abandoned railway tunnel with half a dozen "RDX fusion" babies strapped on their chest and bomb our rocket base. I guess its not a surprise to you that a lot of these "terrorists" are doctors, engineers, software wizards, accountants, shopkeepers, ministers, MNC employees, students with more than "MTV Roadies rearviewing" to do. This is not a metamorphosis. This could be you... tomorrow.
We made them. WE DESERVE THEM.
Deal With It.
What am I going to do? Im leaving... I have my mails to forward and my favorite reality show coming up on my telly after the Mumbai Terror Report. Reality Rules Man!! Ive even started singing practice. Drink my booze and forget this ever happened.. I'll live with it like my teeming million brothers and sisters..
I dont have to worry. I have so many people to question and put the blame on.
TomKat (looks like a codename),
ReplyDeleteMy post of questions was to criticize not what actions has been taken or what is being done, but to CRITICIZE THE IDIOTIC REACTIONS. To decide whether the actions taken to save life or to ensure security of our countrymen is beyond my abilities. Sitting in ones' home and thinking terror combat is like a combat video game we play with endless supply of money and ammunition and then based on our video game experience, we comment on the reality. My post was a common-sense analysis of those comments/reactions. You, however, have touched the essence and the questions you asked are indeed what we must be asking ourselves. Unfortunately, whatever answers we get today of those questions, tomorrow we will need to find different answers for same questions with only thing being common FEAR. Thanks for taking time out to write such an elaborate opinion.