This is war, Mr Prime Minister, not just a crime

This is war, Mr Prime Minister, not just a crime
Tuesday July 18 2006 00:00 IST

S Gurumurthy

Last week, Jihadi terrorists blasted running trains in Mumbai, killing
some 200 innocent commuters returning home and almost killed another
700, who were injured. This was on Tuesday. The next day, Wednesday,
Lebanese terror outfit Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel
is a tiny dot on this earth while India is a huge country in land and
people. See how the two countries responded to the attacks on them.

By Friday, that is, within a couple of days, Israel struck back,
extinguished over 50 Lebanese in air strikes, and almost destroyed
Beirut airport in the next 72 hours. At stake for Israel were two
Israeli soldiers, who are armed combatants, not unarmed innocents,
like Mumbai commuters.

In 48 hours, wilting under Israeli attack Lebanon had begun crying
before the United Nations for a ceasefire. The US President refused to
calm Israel and asked Lebanon to stop cross border terror!

See, in contrast, what India, seen as an emerging super power, does
when over a thousand innocents are roasted and injured on its soil by
terror from across its borders.

Look at the chronology. Terrorists mass slaughter innocent commuters
en masse on Tuesday evening. The next day Prime Minister swears that
'terror will not cow us down', the usual rhetoric.

On Thursday, he is confused as to what to do next. Finally, on Friday
he summons enough courage and declares that the blasts were engineered
by "elements across the border".

He asserts that unless supported from outside, terrorists "could not
hit with such effect." Thus, it takes 72 hours for the Prime Minister
to hint who the criminals are and who harboured them. But in just 48
hours Israel had brought Lebanon, which had harboured Hezbollah
Jihadis, to its knees.

Terror has attacked India hundred times and more, not for the first
time. This time around, governments in Delhi and Mumbai had clear
information about the terrorists who were about to strike Mumbai. They
even knew which indigenous Islamic outfits were to provide logistic
support. The only thing they did not know was the exact time and place
of strike in Mumbai.

Thus, the Prime Minister must have known on Tuesday itself that it was
a cross border terror attack. Yet, he did not say so till Friday. Why?
Only he can explain. The National Security Advisor told the Indian
Cabinet on Friday that it was Lashker-e-Toiba, the Pakistan-sponsored
terror outfit, which bombed and snuffed out or injured over a thousand
in Mumbai.

Not that the terrorists attacked from hundreds of miles away, from
Islamabad, he said. And added that home grown Jihadis and a terror
outfit, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) - which is
certified by some seculars in India as secular - had provided logistic
support.

That evening the Prime Minister charged that Pakistan was involved in
the terror, but three precious days were lost by then. The Pakistan
Foreign Minister seized this opportunity and almost said that the
blast was because the Kashmir issue was hanging without resolution!

Had the Prime Minister told the truth on Wednesday, he could not have
said what he had said. And finally, the Prime Minister of this vast
and powerful nation just calls off the peace talk with Pakistan.

In contrast, Israel is murdering Lebanon for capturing two Israeli
combatants and crushing it to cry before the world!

But, fortunately, the Manmohan Singh's charge against Pakistan for
promoting cross border terror came ahead of the proud claim of the LeT
cousin, Laskher-e-Qahar, that it had carried out the strike!

Secular India's debate on terror ignores that Jihad is war against
infidels, not a crime under the Penal Code. The Jihadis believe that
they operate under a higher law. So, normal laws are inadequate to
counter the Jihadis.

Special laws, even draconian ones, have to be put in place, to contain
terror. Even this can do only part of the job. The other part will
have to be handled by war. But shockingly - yes, it is shocking -
secular India feels anti-terror laws are anti-minority. Nothing is
more anti-minority than equating, by implication, minority to terror.

But secular India has convinced many among the minorities that
anti-terror laws are against them!

This is what makes terror a subject of crime instead of the target of
war. This sets human rights against anti-terror laws. Result, it just
costs hundreds and hundreds of human lives to preserve the human
rights of terrorists!

So, Mr Prime Minister, it is not a crime you are handling, but war.
Pot-bellied police and over-crowded courts are not meant to handle
wars of this kind. Israel understands it and so the US too sides with
it. We cannot act differently with the very same Jihadis, whom Israel
is handling by war methods.

Tail piece: The media adds, at the Friday Cabinet meeting, a senior,
but almost senile, minister told the Cabinet that it was not Jihadis,
but, RSS - yes RSS - which bombed the trains and killed the innocent
commuters!

Why? Just to give a bad name to Muslims! Of course, the Prime Minister
kept quiet as he does on most issues. But imagine how the Pakistan PR
machine would take advantage of such frivolous charge by a senior
minister.