farmdoc's blog post number 230

Over a week after the Mumbai terrorist outrage, here are five personal reflections on it. 1. Terrorism results in many fewer deaths worldwide than say vehicle crashes. And its global impact is insignificant compared with that of global warming and climate change. But it must be curtailed and preferably stopped, because it diverts attention and resources from a serious global response to global warming and climate change. 2. The UK media labelled the Mumbai perpetrators ‘militants’ and ‘gunmen’. This is unhelpful at best; counterproductive at worst. Unquestionably what happened in Mumbai was terrorism. Unless and until terrorism’s recognised for what it is, it can’t be effectively treated and prevented. 3. The deliberate, premeditated targeting of Mumbai’s Chabad House was an indisputable and despicable act of racism. The Jewish people, and specifically those in Israel, are on terrorism’s frontline. Therefore the world’s civilised nations and people must conspicuously stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel in her existential fight against terrorism. 4. As it’s likely all the Mumbai terrorists were Muslim, non-jihadist Muslims – whom I assume are the vast majority – must publicly and unequivocally condemn their violent jihadist co-religionists. 5. Finally, the way to deal with terrorists is not to capitulate to them or accede to their alleged grievances, but to impoverish their petrodictator puppeteers. The main means of achieving this is by accelerating the development and commercialisation of non-petroleum energy sources.