I wonder if anyone read them their rights? Did somebody offer to sit down and talk to them? See why they're so upset? They obviously have a legitimate grievance. It must be our fault.

I hope they're not sent to Gitmo; I'm worried they might be waterboarded. What about their comfort items? I hope they aren't offended.

I thought key and steveg had covered that aspect ad absurdum. That whatever is happening there and in the Middle East is directly and indirectly a result of western (primarily British) imperialism doesn't even need to be mentioned anymore. After all, who drew all those lines in the sand?

Much more important right now, however, is how this will affect the already and permanently strained Indian-Pakistani relationship. India has experienced terrorism for decades now and has been completely and utterly unable, to deal with it. One reason being the fact that they are woefully under-policed.
Already the blaming finger is pointed at Pakistan - and that just a day or so after what could have been important peace negotiations between the two nations.

That the new US administration has been banking on this is also clear, because with the greater importance Obama has been placing on Afghanistan/Pakistan, he would have liked Pakistan to be less concerned with India, which now will be hard, since hardliners in India will most certainly be hard to placate.

Sending more US troops into the region may not be the way to generate peace in the region ..... but perhaps MrO may just place some "military advisors" into India as well. The whole mess is now moving east ... destabilizing India would be major calamity.

Yeah but it didn't take very long because they haven't got any - mainly because they started bombing and shooting people.


Obviously if they're linking it to Abu Ghraib or the atrocities at Falujah and Haditha it would be your fault but at the moment it's not clear what their motives were.


I don't think they would be because that's an American facility. In any case if any of 'em are British we wouldn't allow them to go to Gitmo because torture and imprisonment without trial are against the laws of England.

km

Yeah w... the Test Match? That's been moved out of Mumbai to Chennai because there was a terr.... Oh! You mean the... I hadn't heard that one - has someone confessed?


Not going far enough back... the nomads of 8,000 BC - it's all their fault.

km

For once I'm in agreement with you . . . I mean, if it hadn't been for the Moghul Empire, there wouldn't have been the division between Hindu and Muslim peoples in the subcontinent, for instance. So why stop with the British Empire, right? At the same time, I do not therefore absolve the British and other European empires of the 18th through early 20th century of a great deal of responsibility.

It's all coming out now... I never knew Ahmadinnerjacket had so much support on the forum... so it was the creation of Israel then? Leave to one side what we said the borders had to be... temporarily overlook who started making up their own borders...

km

As long as Empires remain at home, they don't engage in imperialism. It's when they start that nation building gig that the game changes.
That's why comparing Akhbar the Great with the British Empire doesn't work.

Regardless these disputes should be left up to States to determine through diplomacy .

Al-Queada and those other terrorist groups are nothing more then mercenaries who murder people for money - These Stateless groups who seem to act on their own are nothing but groups that are well funded by another entity whose goal is to control the worlds market , they in tern recruit -via- brain washing using religion to KILL.

If I was a Muslim , I would be embarrassed

IMO

How about comparing the Ottoman Empire to the French Empire, or the Umayyad Empire to the Spanish Empire? It's not Europe alone that has had an imperial past. It is true, of course, that the European empires came into being at a time when global reach made such empires truly global. Had the Moghuls had that opportunity . . . .

I can usually follow your arguments, keymaker, but you leave me behind this time. That European empires have some responsibility--for instance, that Britain invented Kuwait in order to keep a toehold in the area--is not to say that therefore I support Ahmadinejad. On the other hand, I do believe absolutely that Iran has a great deal of reason to distrust the US, who almost made it certain that there would be an Islamist backlash at some point in the history of Iran, in the same way that Queen Mary I made it certain that England would never again become a Catholic country.