OUG's contention appears to be that the Mumbai thing is a 'false flag' operation..

But UOG does not then take it the next obvious step of allocating blame.
Seems a bit odd actually.. surely if you have compelling evidence that it's a false flag operation.. you must have an idea about who did it?

Pericles... thus far I'm aware of 2 major themes in this violent outrage.

1/ One (thus far to my knowledge) Islamist group has claimed responsibility.

2/ One of the (reported) 3 groups involved sought out British and American passport holders.

Putting those two facts together, it does not support your view that it is a local squabble.

The underlying idea is most important.

It remains to be known at this point who are all the groups involved, and this should become more apparent by the end of tomorrow I'd guess.

My view is that IF...(and it remains a bit blurry at this point) the seeking out of British and Americans is connected with "They are attacking 'us' in Afghanistan and Iraq" then we need to ask "who is 'us'" in such a statement.

Without even referring to your favorite surah, the idea which must be recognized (if the above is the case) is that of 'Muslim Ummah' i.e..a world community.

Such a community feels attacked even if the attacks are totally unrelated to local events such as in Australia. We now have convicted criminals/terrorists/Islamists to validate this.

The trial in Sydney will most likely further validate this.

On the other hand, if it is just the Kashmir issue, the same issue needs to be looked at. i.e.. The perception among the more adventurous end of the Muslim community that not getting their will, is tantamount to 'we are being attacked' and in accordance with Islamic precedents, and surah 2 this justifies retalliation.

Surah 9 is a step further removed from the simple self defense scenario. It is about outright world conquest.

Actually, I think the seeking out of foreign passport holders fully supports the idea of a local squabble. If they did not do this, how much coverage would they get in the international media? As a tactic to ensure that people discuss their motivations I think it has worked a treat.

Terrorism is about attention. They want you to know who they are and what their squabble is about. This is the same stuff as when the Palestinians hijacked planes and killed Jewish athletes or when the IRA were bombing English pubs. They want you to remember that they are still there.

They aren't going to slaughter you in your bed. They aren't able to take over the world. Taking over the world is an exceptionally difficult thing to do. Just ask any Bond villain.

I hate what they do. And to think that they do for their religion only makes me hate religion even more.

This is an awful act with it the predictable opportunism by some on OLO.

Isn't it bad enough to see this sort of hatred via these sorts of terrorist acts without seeing it reflected in our attitudes towards other religious of differing faiths.

Do we taint the reputation of all Christians by a few nutters like Koresh or the activities of closed communities and sects of the USA bible belt?

We all know terrorism is bad. The issue is what we can do to combat it. Spreading even more hate is not part of the solution.

>>One of the (reported) 3 groups involved sought out British and American passport holders.<<

Can we have a link please? All I've seen so far is that they attacked the wealthy, flashier part of the city, and that people from all parts of the world were killed and injured. I've seen the word 'indiscriminate' used, but not 'targeted'.

I'd be curious to know how they managed to tell the difference between British and American passport holders, and other passport holders. I haven't seen anything to suggest that anyone was asked to produce their passport at gunpoint

Boazpolycarp David must have been on his bike and pedaling within seconds of the first news.
I waited and heard 4or 5 news broadcasts then surfed the on line news first.
No one has yet proved who did it or why.
But if poly is right it supports my view religion divides men not unites them.
Now tell me I am wrong but some Christians posting here display some views that while God created all men he got it wrong with some?
The view that all Muslims are murderers is, well you can not say bigoted can you?
In time we will be forced to fight even harder than we do now against terrorists , we too will see death on our streets.
But why has your God let it come to this people?

I fully agree with Pelican.

Spreading more hatred is not going to
solve matters.

This was a terrorist attack, and I only hope that
retributions will not now take place.

We must keep in mind that the religiously minded
modern person is not a 'card-carrying' fundamentalist.
The latter are a tiny minority. Of whatever faith,
a psychologist would be likely to declare them to be
of unsound mind.

To analyze the situation in India, and the reasons
for why this incident happened, I'm not qualified
to do.

I'll leave that to the experts, people who would know
the situation in the country, and in Mumbai (Bombay).
Outsiders can merely speculate. In any volatile
situation such as this,
there are a variety of issues
that need to be fully researched,
before an intelligent analysis can be
made.