GOODBYE WASHINGTON POST

A little late to the story, but I was stunned to come across this article highlighting an astonishing point of view from my own local paper. How did I miss this one? The atrocity, the madness, the upside down worldview that parades around as journalism today, uh, leaves me speechless to my core. But in a splendid case of serendipity, if mem'ry serves, I believe that the WP article in question was published about the same time I finally picked up the telephone to cancel my subscription to the Post after 25 years of readership.

Good riddance. Here's the FrontPage complaint:

IN A BOUT OF JOURNALISTIC MALPRACTICE, The Washington Post ran a story Tuesday declaring that officials had uncovered the true motivations of the Mumbai terrorists: 400 years of persecution by the West and the existence of Jews, especially in Israel. WaPo reported:

...Indian officials suspect that the group allegedly behind the attack, Pakistan-based Lashkar-i-Taiba, draws support from security and intelligence forces within that country and is fueled by a growing list of grievances that stretch from the 17th century to the subcontinent's partition in 1947, which created the independent nations of India and Pakistan.

The Post quotes one of the murderers who telephoned officials as simply asking that the destruction of mosques and "killings" be stopped—and that all imprisoned terrorists be set free to kill again.

In addition to presenting the terrorists as a justifiably aggrieved population, laboring under 400 years of "grievances," the Post notes Western provocations against Mohammedans did not end 60 years ago in the postwar world. "The grievances also include India's increasingly warm ties with the United States and Israel, counterterrorism experts say."

During the three-day siege that claimed the lives of more than 170 innocent people, one of the terrorists, Imran Babar, called an Indian television station to discuss his motives. After breaking into the city's only Jewish center, the Chabad House, and killing six people including its spiritual leader, Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, Babar used the slain rabbi's cell phone to call and complain about the Jewish state. Babar voiced outrage that Israeli Major General Avi Mizrahi visited Kashmir in September to discuss counterterrorism with Israel's democratic ally, India:

"You call their army staff to visit Kashmir. Who are they to come to J and K?" Imran told the anchor, referring to the disputed Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. "This is a matter between us and the Hindus, the Hindu government. Why does Israel come here?"

[And yet all of the Muslim world rises up in outrage over the Israeli-Arab conflict. Does the Post detect the double standard? Not on their life. Same tired rhetoric. End of story.]

Like Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, a pretext was fitted to an act of premeditated violence. Nor is this the only incident of blatant provocation the Post could find:

India and Israel have had a defense alliance since 1992, when diplomatic relations between the countries were established. India has become a major purchaser of Israeli weapons, which has angered some of India's Muslims. The visit by the Israeli general was kept secret for days, news reports said, for fear of riots by Muslims in Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim area patrolled by more than 300,000 mostly Hindu Indian troops.

Once again, Jewish merchants and interlopers are setting off waves of Muslim violence around the globe by, being Jews. Inevitably, the very existence of Israel as a state was introduced near the end of the piece, as a summary of the Pakistani terrorists' case:

"Kashmir is a symbol, like Palestine, of a sense of injustice. It is a rallying cry for a much larger anger at India and the West," said Bruce Riedel, author of "The Search for al Qaeda."

Thus, the real problem in India is the existence of Israel. And Kashmir, Kosovo, Andalusian Spain, and any other province that strains against the pressures of Islamic irredentism.

In fairness, the Post story does mention the force of Islamofascism, though, needless to say, not by that term. Lashkar-i-Taiba radicalism is mentioned, though it is given less space than passages that present the terrorists as victims:

"Lashkar has a very specific pan-Islamic vision: the recovery of all Muslim lands once ruled by Muslims, including India, Central Asia and Spain. And they've gone after those countries that they believe were usurped from traditional Muslim rulers," said Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has been tracking Lashkar since 2001. "The goal is very apocalyptic and simple: attack these enemies and the symbols of those enemies," he said.

It is this apocalyptic vision that has led Lashkar to kill hundreds of Indians, at times dressed as Hindu holy men. Whatever the immediate goals of (LIT), the ultimate goal of Islam is worldwide submission to Shari'a law. "No babe is born but [as a Muslim]," said Mohammed. "It is his parents who make him a Jew, or a Christian, or a polytheist." This universal compulsion explains all expressions of Islamic jihad. The recounting of centuries of oppression, overlooking centuries of their oppression of others, explains the depth of self-pity and victimization in the Muslim mind. To place this self-pitying narrative alongside Jewish arms merchants and Indian self-defense is an abrogation of journalism at the highest level.