Out of the Box This war is against Indian culture

Some of the London bombers had college degrees. One was a school teacher. Another'sfather owned a store.

Many of the Saudi hijackers were the best and brightest in their towns.

Hani Hanjour who crashed the plane into the Pentagon, studied English at the University of Arizona. Family members were wealthy merchants from Taif, a resort city in Saudi Arabia.

Most Palestinian suicide bombers have come from middle-class homes.

They didn'tdo what they were expected to do to escape poverty.

And some of the most radical imams in America have doctorates.

Muslim Fundamentalists have an education and an economic future, yet they still terrorise hate. They?re literate enough to liberally interpret their holy books, yet they still embrace jihad against kafirs.

The fourth lesson to learn is that more than the activities of the terrorists in India, the more sinister corrosion of our nation state occurs from within. This corrosion provides ?a force multiplier? to the terrorists.

That is, the terrorists are able to leverage the influence of highly placed individuals in the government, media and academia, who have been compromised by the terrorists and blackmailed on sex, drug money and illegitimate favours, into collaborating with them.

One thing is for sure?terrorists in India of all hues and background have their compromised moles in the India'sestablishment, and hence no anti-terrorist policy can succeed unless these fifth column elements are weeded out. The IB/RAW/MI/CRPF all have files on them and so identifying them is no problem. The political support these traitors have to withdrawn and some have to be made an example of.

It is thus a ridiculous idea that terrorists cannot be deterred because they are irrational, willing to die, and have no ?return address. Our inference here is that terrorist master-minds have political goals and a method in their madness. An effective strategy to deter terrorism is therefore to defeat those political goals and to rubbish them by counter-terrorist action.

(Concluded)

(The writer is former Union Law Minister and can be contacted at swamy@post.harvard.edu)