Monday, August 14, 2006

The cost of Independance for India

The Pakistan connection to the foiled islamic terror plot in England probably comes as no surprise to residents of another nation, long engaged in a war on islamic terror of its own:
India.

August 15 is Independance Day for India, as the country celebrates its independance from Britain, and tension is higher than usual in the wake of credible tip-offs that terror attacks are "likely".

The left is quick to rub our noses in the dollars-and-cents cost of the war on terror, braying that our limited economic growth can in no way sustain heroic adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We can't afford to extinguish the Taliban, they lament; we need to apply that money to health care. We can't afford to unseat plotting anti-american and anti-Israel tyrants like Saddam Hussein, we have to settle for "keeping them in their box", to borrow an expression from Canada's illustrious former leader Jean Chretien; we need that money for subsidizing education.

Personally I don't believe in the "limited pie" view of economics; I have faith in mankind to continually recreate new wealth, faith in an unlimited pie, capable of unlimited growth. Nevertheless, if the lefts sincerely believes in their limited pie worldview, let's take them at their word, let's turn their own financial pre-occupations against them, by measuring the financial cost of the holy trinity of their religion: political correctness, western guilt and moral equivalency.

If the readers of the koran have some kind of culturally justified reason for their hatred of the west, for their murderous assault on the west, and for the ongoing threat that their existence poses for our security, what is their culture costing us?
What kind of financial expenditures, for example, are being incurred by the progressing nation of India, from the danger of being attacked by readers of the koran?
For one day alone, what is the cost of India celebrating its Independance from "colonial exploiters"? Leftists, if you have the courage of your convictions, you will ask yourselves, how many Indian hospitals and schools won't be built, because "India heightens security ahead of I-Day":

NEW DELHI: On the eve of Independence Day, India on Monday raised security around the country to unprecedented levels alarmed by the big terror attack plot in Britain and a US embassy advisory warning of likely terror strikes in metropolitan cities.
Hundreds of security personnel and policemen fanned out across cities and sites considered to be potential terror targets even as safety measures were reinforced in airports with increased deployment of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel.

Across the country, crack anti-terrorist commandos were positioned at vital installations like nuclear plants, national monuments and airports forcing heightened vigil.

Police in over half a dozen states spread across eastern, central and southern India have also increased vigil to prevent attacks by Maoist rebels.

Following last month's bombings, Mumbai has been placed on high alert and a security blanket thrown around key government and private buildings.

The threat was the highest in the capital as the main celebrations on August 15 are centred at the historic Red Fort where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will hoist the national flag and address the nation from its ramparts.

New Delhi has been declared a no-fly zone for the morning of Aug 15 and air defence guns have been placed at strategic locations to ward off possible aerial attacks by unmanned or micro light aircraft.

"The area will be completely sealed late Monday evening as 4000 security personnel will guard the fort. All of them will be heavily armed," said a senior security official.
...
Delhi Police have already unveiled an elaborate list of dos and don'ts for commuters and citizens for August 15, blocking off all vehicular traffic in and around the Red Fort within a radius of three kilometres.
Security has also been beefed up for the Delhi Metro with an additional 3500 personnel deployed at various stations.
Meanwhile, police have thrown a thick security blanket in other states as security arrangements for the I-day celebrations.
In Bangalore, police have deployed CRPF, CISF and BSF platoons, besides lining up 20 batallions of the state armed reserve police force.
For the first time, authorities have banned carrying of bags, water bottles, plastic materials, mobile phones, cameras, umbrella, radios or any other equipment inside the venue.

Sniffer dogs would be pressed into service throughout the function and those attending the ceremonial parade and cultural shows would have to pass through metal detectors, police said. Police personnel have been posted in sizeable numbers to ensure that there will be no security breach during the movement of VVIPs.

Two 'water jet' vehicles and fire tenders have been stationed at the parade grounds, police said. Security has also been beefed up at the railway station, bus terminus, airport and defence establishments, including HAL and ISRO.
...

Let's extend an olive branch to the left, because we do have one point of agreement: we both agree that protecting our freedom is very expensive. Might there be some way to lessen this cost..?
Can both sides, left and right, come to agree that the rising cost for defending our freedom, is being caused by the threat posed by believers in a fundamentalist interpretation of islam? After all, what are all these heightened security measures protecting us from: fundamentalist buddhists? Homicidal readers of the Bhagavad Gita? Suicidal readers of the Torah?
Can the left admit that it is the readers of the koran that are causing us to spend so much money on security instead of health care and education?
Would the left not agree that for as much money to be directed towards social programs as possible, we need readers of the koran to radically transform their religion?
An extremely small minority of muslims are trying to follow their religion by eliminating the passages in the koran inciting violence towards non-believers, violence towards women, and violence towards apostates. Surely the left will concede that this reformation will improve the standard of living for adherents of that religion?
What can both the left and the right do, hand in hand, to facilitate this minority so that their heresy can become the economically affordable version of this old religion?

Come on, leftists... think of the money we'd save!!

1 comment:

truepeers said...

The problem with the materialist left is that they are incapable of conceiving the importance in human affairs of things that are intangible or transcendent. Thus even if they are aware that the need for security is costing us schools, or whatever, they just can't get it through their heads that something intangible - e.g. faith in Allah - is really a "root cause"; rather, it must be the military-industrial complex secretly provoking Muslims and causing all this trouble in order to justify their own expansion.