Pakistan Update: The Missile Attacks Haven't Gone Away....

With all the attention given to Mumbai and its aftermath --- The Washington Post had an editorial today castigating the Zardari Government for "denying the truth" --- the local situation in Pakistan has receded from attention here in Britain.

It shouldn't:

Suspected US missile strikes killed at least eight people Monday in volatile north-west Pakistan.

As The Times of London writes about the links "between [the Pakistani intelligence service] ISI and the likes of LeT [the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba]: it's a monster we created and now we can't get it back in the bottle", it may want to consider what other monsters are being created with events such as yesterday's.

Fact x Importance = News (Dec 8)

• American counterterrorism officials say Pakistan's ISI provided assistance to the Mumbai attackers.


• Lebanon is immune to the global financial collapse.


• One blogger fears a Yugoslavia-style break-up for Canada.


• Fox News is up in arms about "A Lego-style figurine resembling an Islamic terrorist strapped with explosives and made by a small American company." The company, which also produces Nazis, spies, World War 2 marines and a plethora of tiny weaponry, has currently stopped taking orders due to overwhelming demand.

[Photo via BrickArms]

Pilot Podcast: The (Continuing) War on Terror

Enduring America history: following up on yesterday's post about The (Continuing) War on Terror: Kill All the Crazies, this is our pilot podcast.

The Washington Post proposes, in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, “a crackdown on terrorists”.

But how shall we crack down on terrorists? Certainly not by treating them as rational and thus understanding how they could justify these killings.

Listen to podcast

India's 9/11?

BAGnewsNotes had an interesting piece up over the weekend on 'Mumbai And The Visual Legacy Of 9/11':

In a number of news stories, there have been references (by media or by the Indians themselves) to the attacks in Mumbai as "India's 9/11."

If a terror attack's number of deaths and injuries have been the primary determinant of severity, it seems more likely the Mumbai event will acquire distinction for its geographic footprint as well as its maddeningly long duration.

Beyond those two attributes, however, either of which can diminish in static images and two-dimensional space, I believe the distinction of the Mumbai attack could well be its resonance -- in the individual scenes -- with the imagery of 9/11.

The comparisons are certainly striking but personally I can't stand the implication that September 11 2001 was Year Zero for terrorist attacks.

Full article and more photographs here.

Fact x Importance = News (Dec 1)

Mumbai has dominated the news, but what other stories have we been reading?:

• 'Al-Qaeda' has switched its focus from Iraq to Pakistan.


• Some al-Qaeda supporters are unhappy with the international media's pro-Obama bias.


• Vladimir Putin may be considering a return to the presidency.


• Meanwhile Russian warships have been deployed to the Caribbean for the first time since the end of the Cold War, as guests of Venezuela.


• And a Russian investigator claims that Georgia employed foreign female mercenary snipers during last summer's conflict.


• Fewer than 1% of airline passengers singled out by TSA screeners for suspicious behaviour are arrested.