My thoughts about Mumbia, India situation

No one has official word about who is behind the terrorist attacks, so to give advice I have to make some assumptions. I'll assume that they represent Islamic believers on the extreme end of the faith scale.

India has put itself into quite a pickle with their deliberate ignoring of their own Christians being tortured, killed, raped, publicly paraded naked, and driven out of their homes into the jungle and camps, where they are homeless and sick. Why does this have an impact on the terrorist attacks? Disdain. One cannot negotiate with Islamic extremists if you are demonstrated unbelievers, who persecute other believers. While many assume that Islamic terrorists only consider fellow Muslims to be believers, when negotiating, one still wants to avoid their contempt and disdain that has resulted from showing that you are a persecutor of believers, especially in such an immodest way. The USA learned that to their extreme discomfort in what they did to some Iraqi prisoners, making them be naked and depraved in prison. Remember also that Islam is a belief based on total equality, where there is no class system, unlike the most repressive class system what was ever created, which still exists in India.

So while I am not saying that the terrorists made their action for any reason other than their own cause, I am giving India some cultural diplomacy advice that they have ignored, including in their dealings with me, at their peril. I find it interesting that there are reports of a Jewish prayer center being occupied with hostages of a rabbi, his wife and others. If true, I think the odds of the hostages surviving are best if they are perceived as believers rather than political representatives. You see what I mean? But this is all guesswork at this point, is it not?

My point is that the "land of Gandhi" has no credibility as far as being perceived by those who have devout and even fanatic motivation by their serving God, whether their actions bring credit to God or not in fact. There is no Muslim who would not be horrified at what treatment the Indian government has ignored (and even the police encouraged), when priests and nuns were stripped, sexually assaulted, tortured, murdered, paraded and defamed. Muslim extremists would make note of the weakness and complicity of the police in attacking Christians. Notice that high ranking police were quickly killed in the assault. You are in a difficult position, in both battle and negotiation, if your opponent has total contempt for you. It creates an "anything goes" mentality in achieving one's objectives, one that is difficult to either thwart or negotiate with, especially as they will gladly achieve what they consider to be martyrdom.

Ten years ago I had a job where I had dozens of Indian green card holders working for me. I was fond of them and defended them against those who poked fun at their Hindu beliefs. Yet, my sense of fondness was drained away as I found that Indian occult beliefs (astrology) informed many of those who stalked and persecuted me. Indians, behind the scenes, stalked and persecuted me, making my life miserable, because of their imaginary beliefs in crazy reincarnation, and their ambition at trying to manipulate the future, rather than trusting in God and having any sort of humility.

One must remember that the way you treat your own people opens the door for how extremists will treat you. That is called "escalation." Even if there is no common ground between people your country persecutes, Christians, in this example, and the presumed Islamic terrorists in Mumbai, they watch TV, they read the papers, they do their research, and they observe whenever a country, especially its police, loses the moral high ground due to their own disgraceful behavior. This is why the terrorists will usually fight to the death, since they are confident they have the moral high ground. It is never helpful in fighting terrorism or negotiating if a country inflates the terrorists perception that indeed, they are fighting immoral and corrupt institutions.

That said, it is never right to take innocent life. But again, we look around the world and see those areas where life is perceived as being "cheap." The tone is first set by the home culture, not by the intruder.