"Bin Laden determined to strike inside the U.S."
Yeah. Americans wouldn't know anything about governmental ineptitude in the face of terrorism.
49
Another example of Religion's role in fomenting discord and violence. Whether it's Belfast, Mississippi or Moscow, religious differences are the major cause of human conflict in the world.
11
People in glass houses may not want to throw stones. We had a thing called 911 that killed app. 3,000 people and dwarfed this tragedy.
We had the biggest military intelligence budget complex in the world, that dwarfed this country and we blew it also big time.
11
Mahinda Rajapakse tried a recent comeback. And failed, as the people would not support him due to his abuse of power. He is the Buddhist hero who defeated the Tamil terrorists and brought peace.
His brother Gothabaya Rajapakse has recently given up his US citizenship and is understood to be making ready to contest political power in SL. He was the defense minister under Mahinda Rajapakse.
On the whole, I feel the Rajapakse hand is not far from the wheel here. Especially as the president Sirisena, who had access to the warnings, and who tried to bring Rajapakse back as prime minister had access to the warnings of the attack, but kept it from the current prime minister.
. It puts the economy on a backfoot, and so takes away support for the government. Tourism has been surging in recent years.
. It calls into question the competence of the government
. It provides popular support for a Rajapakse comeback, bring back the man who fought and won against terrorism.
. Feeds the Buddhist clergy agenda who support Rajapakse.
. And it feeds the general need to keep the attention of the west and get funds from terrorism sponsors who like to see anti western and anti christian action.
There are some strange bedfellows out there these days.
2
No country is immune to such attacks even our own. It takes but the blink of an eye to miss the warning signs, to not see it coming, to fail to prepare. Be always vigilant, for you know not when the hour comes for both good and evil.
2
This egregious attack was successful because security forces lost track of what their most important function is, national security. Politics took precedence. It is blindingly simple to recognize. Dysfunctional governance is another appellation for this monumental misjudgment of purpose.
8
It's a shame that infighting or incompetence at any level led to this failure of government to protect the public from such an obvious mortal danger. Regardless of whether this came from religious, political or personal differences.
Which reminds me that the U.S.A. has been going through political strife for over two years about whom to blame about Russian interference in our 2016 election, yet with virtually no action to prevent such interference from continuing.
9
It's a bit strange that nobody is mentioning the fact that suicide bombings have been going on in Sri Lanka since the 1980's. The Tamil Tigers, a secular group, were one of the early adapters of the modern method of suicide bombing attacks.
1
This is complete fail of SriLankan government. Even they were informed by several sources they didn’t take any actions. We lost more than 300 innocent lives which could have save easily.
Prime minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and President if the country doesn’t know what happens around. The higher officials knew there will be an attack and no one went to churches on Easter Day. Even catholic politicians.
After Mahinda Rajapakse regime no proper intelligence service in Sri Lanka. No proper security services. So rather fingering others Sri Lankan government should take the responsibility and resign.
However this Muslim extremists are cancer for all world. Those terrorist should wipe out form the globe. Hope everyone will join to do this clean soon.
4
We have visited Sri Lanka and enjoyed our stay. But the only way to get things to change there is to hit their pockets. All foreign tourists should boycott the country. Now.
2
Christians specifically are mentioned as the targets of this attack once in this article, far down in the story.
Muslims and Buddhusts are mentioned as targets multiple times much earlier.
It is as if you were trying to even avoid mentioning Chistians.
8
Here is a helpful tip when reading an article: the headline is often an indicator of what the remainder of the content will entail.
This particular headline very clearly indicated that it was about the intelligence failure regarding Sri Lanka’s terrorist attacks; it doesn’t mention religion whatsoever.
However, there have been numerous articles, released both by the New York Times and nearly every other publication alike, wherein the Christian minorities that were targeted on Easter Sunday are specifically mentioned. And, in accordance with my first tip as it pertains to reading comprehension and reasonable expectations on behalf of the reader, the aforementioned headlines also reflect the religious extremism accordingly.
Terrorism, even when fueled by religious ideology, is not simply a religious problem. It’s geopolitical, financial, psychosocial, environmental, and so much more.
In fact, many ex-ISIS fighters have later admitted to not even being Islamic or otherwise religiously motivated, but indicate they joined due to complete lack of job prospects, overwhelming poverty and/or a desire to find a sense of purpose. Many others were forced to join following the massacre of their family and razing of their home, and remain stuck due to a highly reasonable sense of fear, both from the militants and official local governments.
It would be irresponsible of the journalists to only discuss one facet attributing to, and/or aligned with, these persistent atrocities.
11
Because stupid media and western powers were putting pressure on Sri Lanka for human rights. Because of that lot of people from intelligence now in jails.
Even with this information, military did not have enough power to tackle this.
Please leave us we can look after our security.
5
The government of Sri Lanka has long allowed Islamic militants within its borders. It now pays the price.
5
Global Terrorism has become like lave simmering under the surface only to erupt without warning and with full destructive force. By the time Sri Lanka government was warned it was too late for the government to act and have laser focus on preventing this horrific attack firmly and decisively. In hindsight every surprising destructive bombing could have been avoided but it was not. When in denial that such things could happen again and again in any nook and corner of the world we have to be prepared to anticipate such incidences occurring again and again.
Where do we as a human race go from here to make the world safer and less prone to such despicable atrocity and destruction?
1) World needs to unite against all forms of terrorism. No amount of justification for such heinous acts should be acceptable. Terrorism involving mass killings and destruction of civilian structures as means to support a cause should be outlawed.
2) After the 1st bombing of the world trade center before 911, I had proposed the formation of an Int. organization like INTERPOL to exclusively fight terrorism. Such an organization could have intelligence sharing, movement of funds to terrorist organizations, identifying and destroying he training grounds for terrorists and ending the existence of safe havens for terrorists.
3) The real culprits are the masterminds and instigators of terrorist acts and the suicide bombers are the brain washed executors of terror. Identify and deal with the masterminds.
6
Sounds an awful lot like the 9/11 intelligence “failure.” It’s tempting to think that the government let this happen to exert more control over the populace. The strong-arm tactics of internet censorship afterward only confirm this view.
2
The question is not "Why Didn't It Stop Them?" The real question is why no public warnings? If the US Department of State, India and Sri Lanka knew something was coming common sense demands they WARN everyone of an impending attack, no?
12
Sri Lankan Government should take the accountability for all the innocent People who lost their lives from the suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday. It is shame to say The Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Sri Lanka pointing their finger and blaming others about this tragedy, when they fail to carry out their duties, even with adequate prior warning given to them about this attack.
Any individual with bit of common cents could understand this incompetent current government will take any effort for their continued existence not for the nations.
2
Nonsense such as this is why although I believe in God or a higher entity, I have a huge distaste of religion, especially for religion sake.
I can respect another's rights to pray and or communicate with a higher being the way they see it in their eyes, but this stuff of religious purity is beyond me.
It is said these bombers did so in retaliation for some wrong done to them.
If that's the case it ceased to be about religion or God, but politics.
No thank you.
4
How did this complex story get written in such a short time after the event?
1
That's called journalism.
15
The horrific incident was to happen somewhere in the world in
retaliation of the last New Zeland massacre. Sri Lanka known
lately for dirty politics has reached its climax - and I predict that
the President's hands have been dirtied beyond redemption but will engage in shifting the blame by having the IGP resign
(bribed again with an Ambassadorial posting) as Mr Sirisenas
one and only sight is the 2nd Presidential term - such a low
minded person.
Reminds us of another “security blunder”—
George W. Bush‘s briefing of “Al Qaeda determined to attack U.S.”—
With far more deaths.
5
A Sri Lankan woman lost her 13 year-old daughter in this massacre. I have a daughter of similar age. I tried to put myself in her shoes and I found it unbearable. I don't understand this world.
50
@Alan Levitan The reason she empathized specifically with the Sri Lankan woman is because they both have 13 year-old daughters. She makes no judgement calls on tragedy or pain the way your comment implies.
2
On Sunday at the Easter Parade I saw two heavily armed NYPD cops stationed outside St. Patrick's Cathedral. There were three Catholic churches attacked in Sri Lanka. You mean with all the army and police they could not place a couple of well-armed officers outside these three churches? I saw a video this morning of one suicide bomber walking into the church in Colombo with a big backpack. Had officers been placed outside they very well would have been able to stop him from entering the church.
The hotels I stayed in in three cities in Egypt last December all had security. The one in Giza had police in a pickup truck with machine guns outside about 300 feet from the hotel entrance. They all had X-ray machines and metal detectors.
When you look at what happened in Nairobi, Kenya recently at a hotel where men entered and killed guests one has to wonder why these hotels in Sri Lanka had what appears to be lax security? As for infighting between the president and prime minister of Sri Lanka they both need to grow up and put the interests of the nation before personal or partisan politics.
4
@Wayne
..."both need to grow up and put the interests of the nation before personal or partisan politics".
Uh - sound familiar?...as in, Trump and the GOP need to "grow up" and get serious about election interference by Russia, instead of focusing on "personal or partisan politics".
1
@Wayne This is the strangest argument to make. As such SL President accuses India of siding with the SL PM. If India goes about warning SL people bypassing SL govt, how does it look to the SL people for SL sovereignty? India or the US is not running SL govt, this is a independent sovereign country. India and the US did their job as well wisher and neighbor to pass on the Islamist terror threats. Shame of SL president for failing to act when he controls defence and internal security portfolios!!
2
So, the warnings were given to people that could not and would not act. Once the Indian and American agencies knew the warnings were not acted upon immediately they should have made the warnings public and warned everyone publicly and loudly.
Not to have made the warnings public is a grave failure of the United States and India.
There should be a great out-cry and call for investigation to determine why this information was kept secret once it became obvious that authorities in Sri Lanka were totally paralyzed.
Over 300 innocent people are dead and more than 500 have been wounded because of the silence of American and Indian authorities who could have very easily compelled action by making public statements. Why isn't there outrage over this tragic failure?
11
@Jay
Yeah, eventually everything is the fault of the US and particularly President Trump.
Great logic.
8
@Appu Nair - yeah, I live there and heard nothing from my Embassy. I only received a warning AFTER the attacks. So, how are things going for you in California?
4
@Appu Nair
Trump???
What did I miss?
Didn't see his name.
3
Friends of mine were just in Sri Lanka visiting historical Buddhist sites. I was there many years ago, visiting friends of my family who lived in India and Pakistan well over a decade. This is a despicable act that mutes the senses and words fail to express the horror.
The minority Muslim, Hindu and Christian communities in Sri Lanka are clustered quite close together along the coast not far from favored tourist areas. I agree with Mr. Amarasingam; this was an attack where Western tourists stay and it is clear the group wanted to garner international attention. The majority Muslim population is Sunni.
Congress needs to investigate the unbridled acceptance of murder by our administration and the Saudi Royals; and dirty money passing between this White House and the Saudi government; the veto by Trump to cut off what the international community has called the genocide of Yemenis and the impact this may have on offshoots of Sunni inspired terrorist groups such as ISIS.
Saudi Arabia has been untethered well before 9/11. The money needs to be followed and a moral eye placed on this relationship.
305
@H.A. Hyde
The Saudi use of fear of other religions in order to prop up their government is spreading death throughout the world. The issue only gets larger as their royals get richer, and their poor get more and more desperate, and are pointed at the rest of the world as the problem.
17
@H.A. Hyde
Thank you for saying this.
There is no voice of international human right and moral clarity any longer, the US is silent now, yet this century will be the century of refugees, immigrants, and autocrats. Not only Saudi, H.A., but I feel dirty money and murder—in Turkish embassies, English parks, Malaysian airports—all of international lawlessness increases. International law is weak right now. We need an international approach to violence, climate change, money laundering, election fraud.
The money trail is absolutely a way to stop terrorists. Find their means of funding—which comes from any number of sources—imitation designer goods, even:
https://www.ted.com/talks/alastair_gray_how_fake_handbags_fund_terrorism_and_organized_crime/discussion
Money—stop their access to social media, double down on arms manufacture and trade—Heckler and Koch of Germany were guilty of selling guns to Mexican cartels—break the secrecy of Swiss banks.
Stop their money, stop their communication, stop their arms deals. Stop the wealthy who profit off murder, violence misery.
22
@H.A. Hyde
The religion of the majority of the Sri Lankan population is Theravada Buddhism. Perhaps you meant that the majority of the muslim population adhere to Sunni Islam?
2
In order to build a global consensus that rejects terrorism, we must condemn all terrorist attacks, whether by Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, ISIS or those responsible for the attack on the Christian community in Sri Lanka, as well as those individuals who make excuses for or minimize these horrific acts. We can start doing that by specifically condemning Ilhan Omar's comment that on 9/11 "some people did something", a trivialization of the worst terrorist attack in human history. Only when we confront and oppose those who blithely dismiss terrorism can we create a culture in which it will not thrive.
9
It is shocking to know that they had specific details but took no action to prevent this terrible loss of life. Infighting within security services is a very poor excuse to neglect national security.
8
Irrespective of the ethnicities. religions, believes and ideologies people ascribe to, violence is to be condemned in no uncertain terms. All the media reports, and the analysis such as this inform people of opinions and perspectives, and it is so unfortunate that the world (of leaders, influencers and the media) has come to discriminate so harshly on the lives lost in the past.
Where were all these analysis and sentiments when 20,000 plus innocent civilians were murdered by the SL regime in 2009? Were there not lives, or were they mere casualties of an ethnic war??
When atrocities such as this seem to have targeted and affected along the religious and international lines, all the World's media descends on it to disect, to analyse and to pose questions. Isn't this simply ignorance? or does it only mean something or hurt when it's a few of your own country's lives? How are lives different?
My grandma used to say a proverb of olden times 'King avenges on the day, but the God avenges in time'.. I cant help but remember the innocent, poor victims of the ethnic conflict in this context, not at all to justify the killing of innocent lives on this instance, but to remind everyone -- there's a power beyond us, watching over us - if you commit crimes against humanity, there's a price to pay -- perhaps SL as a nation, has a huge deficit in this regard to pay down over time for the crimes of the past in ways that we may not understand..
1
Didn't the CIA have information about the 9/11 attacks but never alerted FBI? Our government works as well as little Sri Lanka's with the same devastating and heart breaking results.
6
Yes. Here is a good article detailing these repeated egregious failures with regard to the Bush Administration and 9/11:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353
1
Hindsight is always 20/20. It's too late to play woulda/coulda/shoulda now.
1
Very predictably, numerous readers are blaming this all on religion.
We have seen, in fairly recent human history, attempts by governments to ban all religions for the reasons many readers have used in their argument.
For as long as mankind exists, there will be religion.
Let that sink in. This will never change.
It is when people use "religion" for their political power that it becomes a weapon.
This world can achieve a secular government model if extremists of any faith are dealt with firmly and quickly.
The alternative is a Soviet style or current Chinese Communist model.
The former failed and the current is on a timeline toward implosion.
JohnInVienna: "The media reporting on the New Zealand massacre was very clear. A white nationalist targeted Muslims worshiping in a Christchurch mosque. Here, there is much less clarity. No where is it reported that Christians were the targets. The media, as well as Obama and Hillary, refer to the victims as "Easter worshipers" or "tourists". Why the difference? Why is there such resistance to report that Christians were targeted and slaughtered by radical Islamic terrorists on Christian's holiest day of the year?"
25
@SC There are some big differences. The targets included hotels, so it was not a focused attack. There is no manifesto, not clear claim of responsibility, no rationale.
4
You want President Obama and HRC to fix this? You do realize neither are in office, correct? They have been private citizens for nearly three years. If you need to point fingers, then start complaining about your current (semi-elected) POTUS.
And, even when Obama WAS in office, he facilitated the capture of Osama bin Laden, an undertaking in which the prior administration was predictably unsuccessful.
1
One of the terrorists involved has been identified by the authorities as Zehran Hashim, a Sri Lankan of Pakistani origin.
According to Sri Lankan authorities, he had been working at a Chinese shipping company at Hambantota, and had traveled to Pakistan thrice in the last year, and to Lebanon once. There are also (recorded pre-attack) videos available, of him spewing hatred against "non-believers".
9
The fact is that here in the US if the FBI received such a memo they would not be allowed to prevent the attack by immediately arresting those named in the memo simply because they were believed to be planning a terror attack. They would have first build a criminal case against them and arrest them for already having committed a crime, such as conspiracy or providing material support for a terrorist organization. The only thing they would be able to do would be to keep them under surveillance. And the authorities in Sri Lanka say they were doing that.
7
My one and only trip to Sri Lanka, for business, was in 2008, just before the final push to resolve the Civil War between the majority Buddhist Sinhalese and minority Tamils. I had flown on Sri Lankan Airlines on a brand new plane as the entire fleet had been destroyed in bombings right on the tarmac of Colombo's airport. We passed several checkpoints between the capital and the airport, but what I ultimately found during this trip surprised me. First was how beautiful the island is - it's possessed of natural beauty unique in Asia. Another was the architecture. I stayed at the Galle Face Hotel, a colonial relic that had sweeping views of the sea. Finally, the people. Everyone seemed very kind and friendly. It was sad to think about the war raging around me or the devastation of the 2004 tsunami that killed over 25,000 people. When peace finally came (albeit at great cost of life), I was glad and in fact thought about returning for a visit to friends I had made. I may still make this visit one day, but how unexpected and tragic that political rivalries that have never been resolved resulted in a security breakdown which resulted in such horrendous and needless loss of life. I never heard about any tensions between Muslims and Christians of all peoples within Sri Lanka, and the devastation of these attacks is impossible to fathom. I hope that lessons have been learned to prevent further such atrocities but the expense of these lessons has been far too high.
61
@ManhattanWilliam
Indeed it makes no sense. As I understand, Muslims and Christians have both been at the receiving end of religious violence perpetrated by the Buddhist majority. So why have the Muslims attacked the Christians?
13
@Dalitdan Don't put blame on the Buddhist majority for this kind of carnage. The Buddhist all over the world did not engage in any kind of carnage after the Taliban's destroyed all the Bamyan Buddhas.
27
@Am Chak
Except for in Burma. Point is that no group has a monopoly on suffering or or on instigating it.
10
In essence, the ego of Sri Lanka's President resulted in the deaths of 300 innocent people. Political infighting takes precedent over safety? Boggles the mind and breaks the heart.
63
sounds familiar.
15
@Lily
We should, however, be careful not to blame the victim. The government clearly failed in its responsibility, which gave us a bitter taste of what these evil people will do if not aggressively pursued with mailed fists. A reminder that everywhere people sleep peacefully in their beds at night, it is because steely-eyed men and women are hard at work through the night tracking,caging and killing people bent on ideological murder. The relentless hidden and sometimes dirty work of anti-terrorism security services against global Islamic terrorism is absolutely indispensable to civilized life and when will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
6
The reason why the little known local Islamic terror group, National Tawheed Jamaat, with the help of the foreign Islamic terror outfirs could execute the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka at such a scale is because of the divided and dysfunctional government that failed to heed the timely intelligence alerts issued by the Srdi Lanka based foreign intelligence agencies.
6
We never seem to hear condemnations from the Saudis or other Sunni dominated nations when one of these events occurs. Trump just vetoed legislation that would have stopped us from supporting Saudi aggression in Yemen. This alone is disturbing. This event also demonstrates what happens when political infighting results in the breakdown of core governmental functions. We see tinges of that here, with our President's attacks on our own Security and Intelligence services. This is an extreme example though and the deaths of over 300 people did not have to happen. There is blood on the hands of officials at the highest levels of Sri Lankan government.
80
@dairyfarmersdaughter Perhaps you should look for those condemnations before deciding they don't exist.
"Saudi Arabia leads global condemnation of Sri Lanka attacks"
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1485841/saudi-arabia
9
@dairyfarmersdaughter Saudi Arabia is purveyer of terrorism every where. It is their money that recruits and trains them every where. Saudi ideology, money and Pakistani training is a deadly mix.
5
Sri Lankan Buddhists invented individual suicide bombing, no doubt taking a hint from their Japanese brethren's government coordinated like minded activity in WW2.
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)
11
The failure to act is horrifying. But imagine that the Sri Lanka security services had done their duty and arrested everybody suspect of links to this radical Islamist group. Wouldn’t we be reading about the unprovoked persecution of Muslims, just as we are reading unending condemnations of China’s treatment of Uighurs? What if all the planners were sent to rot in jail for defacing Buddha statues - wouldn’t we hear calls for “religious tolerance”? Well, there should be no tolerance for the intolerant. Defacing worlds of art is as great a crime as murder - remember the Taliban blowing up the great Buddha statues? The punishment for this should be death, the same as the punishment for planning terrorist acts and preaching murderous hate for infidels.
8
‘Where strident religiosity, on all sides, seems to be increasing’.
This is a sweeping statement which is not supported by the article itself. The one group which does not appear to be ‘strident’ are Christians, yet they were the primary target.
6
I am a middle aged Irishman with a memory of events going back to the 70’s. Specifically the article referred to religion in Sri Lanka, not any other country. Violence in Northern Ireland was condemned day in, day out, by religious leaders on all sides, and never extended to attacks on churches in my memory. Your comment is ‘whataboutery’ at its worst. Problems are best addressed by facing them head on, and calling them what they are. The attacks on Christians in Sri Lanka stem from hatred of Christianity, not from any deep seated hatreds of a perceived advantaged class.
3
Given recent events and history, both advanced democracies and developing countries have failed to prevent terrorist attacks within their borders. I think it is good that certain papers like the NYT report and publish these type of stories.
In the case of Sri Lanka, the country suffered from a long and bloody civil war. Today, political issues within the country and competing security services issues may also have caused this atrocity. Given the importance of the tourist industry in Sri Lanka and that the country will likely be avoided now for a long time, it is the common man/woman in the country employed in hotel and tourism industries that will suffer economic hardship now...as a consequence of this terrible atrocity.
3
No surprises there, Sri Lanka had the intelligence of these attacks but not prepared to act as majority of people killed are from ethnic and religious minorities.
1
"Bitter political infighting may have kept the warning from being shared, and acted upon."
Ring any bells? Though this statement describes the situation in Sri Lanka, it could just as easily be assessing the political climate here in the States.
And I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Republican Party which cannot seem to recover its soul.
The Russians have successfully sown chaos and discord here, and all Sarah Hucka-San can whine about is the Dems' procedural decision to hold a conference call, which appears to be a logically timed strategy effort. However, as with my senile and demented mother, I have learned that applying logic is a waste of time in some situations, and this whitehouse administration is one of them.
4
The thesis of the article is wrongheaded.
The Sri Lankan authorities are not at fault.
The perpetrators motivated by their interpretation of Islam are. We have no problem calling out white supremacy when it is the motivating ideology behind terrorism. That is as it should be. There must be no hesitation in condemning terrorism motivated by Islamic ideology. And no mincing of words in discussing its theological roots. Anything less is dishonest and self-deceptive.
13
@Melvin
I am sorry, but why are the srilankan authorities not at fault? Read the transcript of the intelligence memo. Is this some sort of comedy? Did they call the phone numbers to say "sir, are you a terrorist. No, ok, case closed". No metal detectors, no protection for key places, no notification, no additional security, and the head of defense on a personal tour shows negligence at the highest levels. Worse, the defense officials still wont get their act together after the bombings. They refused to attend a meeting called by the prime minister until the president gives an ok (who was away). What kind of banana republic does that?
1
Ethnic tensions between the Buddhust Sinhalese majority and minorities such as the Tamils and Sunni Muslims have been simmering for decades in Sri Lanka, long before the war that crushed the Tamil Tiger uprising.
There have been many brutal pogroms against Tamils as far back as the 1950's, with the 1983 July riots in which many hundreds, possibly thousands, of Tamils were murdered, being the most serious.
The statement that 'Sri Lanka has been mostly spared the religious driven bloodshed of other South Asian nations in recent decades' is disingenuous. The Sinhalese majority are not known for their ethnic or religious tolerance of any of the numerous minorities living in the island.
3
A Sri Lankan government spokesman says that after receiving the 'possible attack memo' from US and Indian intelligence services, VIP security was enhanced. That is part of the problem in top-heavy democracies. The police are often focused on VIP protection, when they are not otherwise engaged in extortion from the common man for real or imagined traffic violations and such like. In hindsight one sees that churches, and top tier hotels with foreign guests, are natural targets, in a clash of civilizations type of terrorism. Christians would be the natural stand-ins for the Western world which might not be as easy a target.
3
I applaud this work of journalism, which on the face of it shows intelligence and guts, timeliness, and reliance on facts, combined with clear and incisive writing and willingness to draw one or two inferences. Every day should be like this. Thanks, Mr. Gettleman, et al, and the supervisors involved.
10
As a Muslim, I am deeply sadden by what happened in Sri Lanka. I cannot imagine any Muslim in my country would do this. I come from Malaysia, we are a multicultural country, we had issues but not to this extent. A while back, there is a minor bombing (the only one) but the bombers did not look like local people. You can tell from their names. Recently, they have been sentenced to 25 years in jail. Talking about extremist Islamic view, we have had several people nabbed around the country for possibly trying to do something. Malaysia has a strict gun related law. We also has somewhat draconian rule that on one hand allow the authority to move quickly in case like this. At other times, you feel the lack of freedom say compare to Western countries. Given the situation nowadays, perhaps it is not so bad to have some curb in freedom in exchange for peace. Prophet Muhammad(peace be upon him), said that even during war, you cannot harm women and children. You cannot indiscriminately kill people. I cannot understand how people that call themselves Muslim can act this way. I really do not understand. I feel that even though we are far from middle east, the conflict there has far reaching implication and we are somewhat hopeless in stopping it. Whatever Malaysia authority has done, I think it has helped. I'm writing this to let Sri Lankan people know that not all Muslim holds the extremist view. My Islamic education tells me that this is wrong. My heart goes out to everyone affected.
12
@Sad
I appreciate your large-mindedness, if you don't mind me calling it that, and your taking the trouble to share it. It's comforting, I daresay, to us all.
Only don't stop here. Keep it up, publicly and privately.
Thanks.
7
Now with Trump systematically dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and installing clowns in place of what should be professionals, and then tanking morale in the FBI, the CIA and the Secret Service, just how long will it be until our Country suffers the same kinds of terrorist attacks with hundreds or thousands of people blown to bits?
This is one of the main things Congress should be considering when deciding whether to remove him from office ASAP.
Get ready, because under the present circumstances, it’s coming.
17
Depressingly possible.
1
Only after another 9/11 type incident might Congress act, though paradoxically Trump could successfully make the case that we need a strongman and neuter the courts so that he can come down on the Muslims.
2
@Bodyman
Forget impeachment.
Get the tax returns.
5
Confess I haven't read the article. The title says enough.
Sure, blame the Sri Lankan government, not the murderers or the theology that inspired them.
(I know, I know, you can't judge a billion people by the actions of a few. Completely missing the point.)
15
Thanks.
It’s good to be reminded that bigotry stems from willful ignorance.
4
Well, at least your first and last sentences are correct.
4
You also can’t judge an article by the headline. You tend to miss out on some additional pertinent information when you do that. Just a helpful hint going forward.
1
In a country like Sri Lanka with a weak central government and poorly resourced security force, knowing about a threat does not lead to a coherent action to thwart it. We cannot judge them based on our experiences and the resources we have in our country. They do not have the judicial infrastructure to ensure treatment of suspects that measure up to standards of developed countries. They are also acutely aware of criticisms from human rights organizations so they are reluctant to act forcibly before the fact. This can happen in any number of developing nations and is a tragedy.
6
And the FAA failed to act despite the warnings about the Boeing 737. Before people in the USA start throwing accusations around, they should check what their own government is doing... or failing to do.
17
@David A.
Would you mind providing us with a list of which governments we can criticize with a clean conscience? I would love to have a spotless conscience, too.
5
@Dixon Pinfold Criticism is cheap when there is no action to be taken by the critic. That's why it's very important for everyone, in any country, to focus criticism on their own country, primarily. Perhaps being Canadian, you have a hard finding stuff to criticize. If your government's hands are really clean, go ahead, criticize everyone else. For myself though, I have to mute my own criticism of Israel as an Occupier because my own government is a much bigger-time Occupier. I have to mute my criticism of Russia's interference with the elections of other countries because my government has done this for years-- and when the elections still didn't come out as desired, we just organized coups d'etats. I think there have been some problems with Canada's treatments of its original peoples, but for me to say anything, given what the USA has done, would be the height of hypocrisy. As for a spotless conscience-- no idea what you're talking about, but I doubt that I could help you.
1
Just returned from Sri Lanka on Sunday. The police were out in force on traffic duty collecting bribes to fund their New Year celebrations and afterward were nearly invisible. There is so much corruption and incompetence in the government that ordinary citizens are despairingly resigned to it. It is not surprising to see this tragic event could have been avoided but was not.
17
@Simon, I've just returned from Sri Lanka too. I've lived there most of my life. I don't think its true that the police go missing after New Year's.
Unfortunately sri lankan security officials couldn't take action against these groups as countries with dark histories in human rights and so called human rights organizations always accusing them. Terrorism should be treated in same manner in every where but it is also use thses ( so called powerful countries ) countries to tackle their political agendas.
I can see a lot of lawsuits in Europe and the US from the families of the foreigners who lost their lives if it comes through that the SL authorities bungled this up. Having the knowledge of something about to happen and not acting upon it will be dereliction of responsibility.
4
@Konyagi
Wars are not fought in courtrooms.
The Bush Administration and CIA knew about 9/11 months in advance. The warnings were more frequent, and detailed, than those received by Sri Lankan authorities. They knew the terrorists were coming to attack on our soil. 3,000, rather than 300, perished due to this “dereliction of duty,” and I’ve never once heard any of the thousands of victims’ family members, American or otherwise, seriously suggesting a lawsuit against W. Bush.
We have corrupt, inept governments worldwide, along with religious extremism. As a result, these horrible tragedies happen. Overall, Sri Lanka was hardly a notable case in terms of lack of preparedness.
1
George Bush downgraded the anti-terror office of the Clinton administration and retained the Clinton terrorist czar in a diminished role--Richard Clarke. His advice was ignored, When the GOP-led Senate finally agreed to hold hearings on terror threats, late spring, 2001, the White House asked the chair to cancel, because Cheney would head up an anti-terror group, with hearings to be held October 2001. Pity the Sri Lanka authorities didn't know about that and learn from it.
28
Sound familiar? Condi Rice refused to heed Richard Clark's warnings about Bin Laden, Bush ignored Bill Clinton's warnings that he has to be tracked down, then told the CIA agents who visited his farm to tell him, in August, about intelligence on ian immient threat, 'you covered your ... now you can go.' It's easy to see how in Sri Lanka there was no way to stop the attacks regardless, but warnings to the people ... see something say something would've helped ... and here int he USA, if Al Gore had received those attacks, he would've warned the airlines and instilled federal marshalls on the planes, at check in, etc. So much could've been done.
36
@RH
Maybe you’re right, but it sounds like partisan political grievance is the basis for your complaint.
5
@RH
People lack imagination and are unable to judge the real risk of a new event. It is much easier to indulge in childish optimism and "wait and see and hope for the best."
Doing nothing is what we do best. We call it a lack of political will, and it is deadly.
Prior to WW2 Russia compromised with Hitler while the UK appeased (until Churchill) and the US ignored. Whereas a stitch in time could have saved nine, instead 65 million died unnecessarily from a lack of political will.
Doing nothing is happening now with climate change.
And with the global march of fascism.
And with the Republican rigging of election results.
And with the epidemic of chronic diseases.
When the mass of humanity driven by its lowest impulses meets with complexity, it fails.
95% of all species from the past have already gone extinct; apparently history is an extinction machine.
4
What prevented Sri Lankan authorities from acting?
3
@Shillingfarmer
It’s hard to say, but I’ll bet they get many more warnings than they can act on.
4
"As early as April 4, the Indians provided the Sri Lankans with cellphone numbers and information about Mr. Zaharan and his lieutenants who they said were planning suicide attacks on Catholic churches and the Indian Embassy in Sri Lanka, several Sri Lankan and Indian officials said." I'm not one to engage in conspiracy theories, but it's quite possible that Sri Lankan security allowed these terrorist attacks to occur. It sent a powerful message to the Indian government and will discourage their citizens from joining the Catholic church.
5
@GA
You are engaging in theories.
9
@GA
Are there not tips and warnings every day somewhere in the West? Following up properly on all of them is an unenviable job. In particular, it must be difficult believing that a tip is accurate yet have too little to offer a judge in return for an arrest warrant. No doubt very challenging.
But at the end of the day, the problem is not a bungled security apparatus in Sri Lanka. The problem is jihadism.
43
Interesting you should mention that while Trump is so busy attacking and dismantling all of our security services.
7
@Bob Acker Is that what you say about 9/11?
It's such a partisan political thing to say.
Surely that is two problems? Three if you count the upcoming attacks from white separatist, right wing terrorists.
@Bob Acker
Agreed. How many more Somali and Pakistani Uber drivers do we need for Uber’s IPO to be a success?
Radical attacks of any kind are horrible acts of medieval cruelty and medieval mindsets.
One thing here to compare though.
New Zealand:
Islamophobia, far-right, white supremacists.
Sri Lanka:
Some people did something. “Attack on humanity”. “Easter worshipers”.
Nothing to talk about here, sorry.
31
@Alex "Experts said the choice of Christians as a target might mean that a more international extremist group with a broader anti-Christian agenda was involved."
There has been a lot of discussion of the local Islamist group that carried out the bombings, and how people are busy looking for probable connections to ISIS. It's hard to see what your complaint is. The recent attack in New Zealand was motivated by Islamophobia. In this case, there is probably some specific reason the group that had generally been engaged in attacking Buddhist symbols should direct this deadly attack against Catholics. Certainly not random, and yet the group hadn't been notably anti-Catholic until this attack. There's something going on. That raises some questions, and people are looking for answers. Just saying "Islamist terrorists" doesn't explain singling out Catholics instead of Buddhists or Hindus. Of course, it was Easter, but for some reason you don't seem to think they should mention that.
8
@Alex
In both cases just a few people did something. That is a fact.
But there is something evil underlying both. They share equivalent evil. Evil feeds on evil. It all comes from the same place.
Our military and our everywhere forever wars share and feed that evil.
We will never understand by thinking "our" evil is justified and their evil is not.
4
when there is such a colossal and frankly foolish intelligence failure, a part of me suspects it is part of a larger and deliberate plan
in the short term, who should the blame fall on?
in the long term, who benefits politically and financially from the polarization and ethnic hatred
foolishness or cunning?
5
If Sri Lanka authorities knew about possible attacks, they are co-responsible of the massacre for negligence.
7
@Domingo A. Trassens
Agreed Also govts may receive warnings almost nonstop!
1
@Domingo A. Trassens
No. The Sri Lankan government is not responsible. One could just as easily and credibly blame Islam.
The blame lies with the perpetrators, whatever their sick motivation.
1
It’s always easy to blame the government for security lapses once a tragedy occurs but the problem is how to provide foolproof security to people once a suicide bomber decides to terrorise people ? No country in this world can provide it and as such countless terrorist attacks have happened in all parts of the world however sophisticated the country may be security wise.
Religion means harmony. If people simply can’t understand religion in its proper sense, these things keep on happening. This is the problem with the followers of this particular religion. Everywhere they have caused havoc and continue to do so.
I don’t know when will people realise that tolerance of all kind is essentially required for human survival and peaceful living. Unless tolerance is taught by the parents and in schools, there doesn’t appear any hope for peace in the world.
11
@Sivaram Pochiraju: The attacks were on people, and through them, on the economy of Sri Lanka--not on a specific religion. Hotels were attacked. Were they hotels for Christians only? The majority who died were Sri Lankan. Were they Christian? How about the murdered children of a Danish billionaire and those of an English billionaire? Christians? How about the citizens of India who were reps of a political party? Christian?
8
@Des Johnson
Are you kidding? The attack was on Churches which means Christians.
4
@Des Johnson
Oh nonsense. The attack was on Christianity, and Christians for being Christians.
2
Why didn't the Sri Lanka cops stop them? Presumably, for the same reason that the 9/11 disgusting criminals - who were totally known to our cops, and the Boston Marathon disgusting criminals, also totally known to our cops, were not stopped.
Cops are people, and subject to the same frailties as all other humans. Like the rest of us, they make mistakes. Putting on a uniform changes nothing - it's just war-paint.
On the other side of the equation, are the inhuman criminals, who respect no life, including their own. They must be pursued relentlessly; any attempt to view them as human, has disastrous consequences.
21
@Peter Zenger
They are ruthless criminals, motivated by a religious ideology that believes in its destiny to conquer the world. Glossing over that inconvenient truth is a part of the problem.
1
Even though this horrid and abominable event occurred on a small island south of India, it resonates of the breakdown of government and communication within our country.
7
@de'laine Sri Lanka is not a "small" island. Just sayin'...
2
@de'laine
Really? You’re kidding.
This has nothing to do with us.
People should not travel to that Sri Lanka until they get their act together. It is inexcusable to have received a warning and not acted on it. At this time, it is an unsafe country.
9
@david
So is America. Just not for white people.
Intelligence failures happen in all countries, yours included. Before trashing a “third world” country, please make sure your own house is in order.
33
Umm...I sure hope you were advising every other country in the world not to ever travel to the US following 9/11, given Bush knew about the attack months (not weeks) in advance*, and 3,000 died rather than the 300 whom now sadly perished.
* https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353
17
@David
same could have been said of the USA, circa 10/2011
and then Newtown, and Orlando, and Las Vegas, and Boston, and, and, and ....
last one? I can't even remember there have been so many . Why would anyone travel to any place in the USA?
18
One of Sri Lanka's Christian leaders has been covered by the local press there for his cranking up a war on drugs in Colombo. Here is a link to the coverage he was getting at the end of last month: https://www.ucanews.com/news/cardinal-ranjith-declares-war-on-drugs-in-sri-lanka/84826 Outside, foreign influence has also been discussed in the coverage of this massacre and Colombo is a drug-trafficking center. There are several global power centers where massacres are carried out over impingements, not to mention "wars," on drug trafficking. Maybe drugs are the motive of the "outside influence" and that is why the government did not get ahead of the attack.
7
Hundreds dead, probably my over no more than the ego of a few men angling for personal gain.
5
Here we go again. People here are commenting about Saudi Arabia. The attacks were in Sri Lanka, what did that has to do with Saudi Arabia? Think. Be rational. Be unbiased.
5
@Progressive to display a seemingly complete and total unawareness of history and geopolitics and then admonish us to "Think." is the exact definition of irony. Try google, or wikipedia, for starters.
6
@Progressive
Be knowledgeable about what is going on in the world.
2
This is a horrible attack on humanity. The callousnes shown by the srilankan government due to whatever reasons is unfathamable. They let it go because one minority group is attacking other. now they can have laws like american patriot act. this will strengthen the President. Srilankan christians must take action to protect themselves
1
@Joseph It was an attack on Christians, not on humanity.
16
@Castellano Umm, I'm sure there were non-Christians at the hotels and restaurants that were bombed ...
An attack on anyone is an attack on humanity.
23
For Those trying to find a 'rational' explanation for an irrational act of terror , Please consider the fact that Although both Muslims and Christians are a minority in Sri Lanka, This violence is not new. In Neighboring India , during 1999-2001 a little known Islamist Outfit called Deendar E Anjuman targeted several Christian Churches with explosives . It maybe that a lot of poorer Muslims left behind by their religion are being absorbed into the Christian fold in many of these areas and may have incited some sort of revenge from Jihadists who may be testing the waters by targeting even more vulnerable minorities and simultaneously avoid major Anti Muslim backlash. Secondly the Choice of Luxury hotels that has Easter Brunches suggests very much that Westerners and well heeled members of the Christian community were deliberately targeted, possibly as a localized Islamist reaction to the NZ mosque shootings. Lets not twist story lines and offer convenient excuses for Islamists by offering unrelated background Narratives about Buddhists attacking Muslims or the LTTE civil war which had no religious extremism involved. This is a purely ISIS inspired work , maybe a grooming of local ISIS 'directors' who recruit suicide bombers to show the work they are capable of by their potential handlers in Maldives, Pakistan, Saudi, UAE or even Qatar . It may just be testing the waters for bigger more diabolical plans and securing funding from their masters to carry them out.
7
@ArrowB: There is no reason to ignore the resentments that would be stirred up by attacks on Muslims, or the attitudes towards violence that would be found in a society that had been racked by civil war, even if that war and those attacks didn't involve Christians. ISIS may well have directed this attack, but all the details of the local situation contribute to how they would manage a local group. There are no excuses, but if we want to understand the situation, there is a lot we have to learn.
2
Sri Lanka went through a constitutional crisis in 2018, during which their democracy was grossly undermined and they wound up with two prime ministers for a while. Perhaps the turmoil in their domestic politics created a situation in which they could not pay the necessary attention to threats to their national security like a coordinated attack by suicide bombers. We in the US would be well-advised take a lesson from Sri Lanka’s experience, and to mount swift and decisive responses to threats to and interference with our democratic processes, especially those coming from outside the country.
11
@BC The "threats to and interference with our democratic processes" are also emanating from the highest office in our land, no? Surely the Mueller Report elaborates upon many examples of this? Democratic processes are hardly the sought for ideals of our President or his party followers (both his base, and his very base followers higher up).
4
I cannot remember any major terrorist atrocity - anywhere in the world - within the last 25 years, that wasn't eventually attributed to 'a catastrophic failure of intelligence'. Nor any instance where any government or intelligence supremo was properly held to account for these failings. In fact, cover and whitewash seem to be the SOP for the After Action Review.
One of the perpetrators of London's last terrorist attack was served up, on a plate, three weeks before the event, to the British security services by Italian intelligence. Despite the European Union's allegedly 'seamless intelligence service inter-operability', NO action was taken in the UK. The perp had, by accounts, a virtual 'arrest me' sign in flashing neon around his neck.
I'm sure everyone else can think of similar stories. Perhaps the truth is that our Western intelligence services cannot prevent these sort of attacks - that we just have to accept things as they are. Depressing...
13
@nolongeradoc Terror threats are circulated routinely among security agencies on a nearly Daily basis , however there is a lack of actionable intelligence owing to non specificity in these threat reports or threat models. Intelligence agencies have in fact foiled several major plots behind the scenes , its the exceptions that make the news , in many cases these are ambiguous wordings which most agencies cannot immediately act upon. Intelligence agencies are run by human beings and not Gods , and sometimes its the informants that go rogue or mislead by disinformation campaigns made by perpetrators to conceal well laid 'plans' . Other times of course its alleged that agencies let these incidents happen in order to gain some useful political or social leverage or better funding post ipso facto. One cannot ever know the absolute version of the truth .
4
@nolongeradoc
I don’t believe in borders.
Let them all in.
@nolongeradoc
Really? You don't suppose security forces around the world collect intelligence and foil attacks regularly? I wonder why.
1
Very sad indeed.
And a shocking lapse in security. If India provided Sri Lanka with detailed information on this plot two weeks back, it is incredible that the group still pulled off this operation without a hitch!!! Was the Sri Lankan President in cahoots with the terrorist? Was he hoping the Prime Minister would be held to account?
The President should accept blame, resign immediately and go visit the victims families to apologize in person.
10
@Rudran Indian intelligence is discounted because of a trust deficit plus the Chinese orientation the government has. To provide credit for stopping this massacre and acknowledging that Indian help had been provided may have been politically challenging.
Couple that with Rajapakse being indebted to China the Indian angle and support would be a hard one to swallow.
One doesn’t know it as fact but the underlying rationale is plausible
3
@Rudran: My reading is that they weren't provided details of the plot, they were provided details of some of the people involved, and that attacks were planned on Catholic churches. That probably should have been enough to go on, disrupt the attacks. But it isn't as if they had the specific churches, and the times of the attacks... but even so, it sounds like they could have done more.
4
Friends of mine were just in Sri Lanka visiting historical Buddhist sites. I was there many years ago, visiting friends of my family who were living in India and Pakistan. This is a despicable act that mutes the senses and words fail to express the horror.
The minority Muslim, Hindu and Christian communities in Sri Lanka are clustered quite close together along the coasts not far from favored tourist areas. I agree with Mr. Amarasingam (I sent a comment earlier today); this was an attack, not only on local Christians; this is where Western tourists stay and it is clear the group wanted to garner international attention. The majority, if not all of the Muslim population is Sunni.
Congress needs to investigate the unbridled acceptance of murder by our administration (Khashoggi) and the Saudi Royals; the dirty money passing between this White House and the Saudi government; the veto by Trump to cut off what the international community has called the genocide of Yemenis and the impact this may have on offshoots of Sunni inspired terrorist groups such as ISIS and a resurgence of Al Qaeda.
Saudi Arabia has been operating without condemnation well before 9/11. The Republican’s reluctance to sanction them needs to be looked at and the money followed; including all players in this Cabinet.
Finally, a moral eye needs to be aced on this relationship and a re-structuring of our questionable alliances in the region as its’ consequences have worldwide implications.
23
@H.A. Hyde:Everyone but the attackers. That's some kind of rant.
5
The motivations of ISIS in this atrocity are all too clear. They want to create a war between Sri Lanka's muslim minority and the island's Buddhist and Christian populace.
A war like that gives them recruitment incentives; a steady flow of income and fighters into a bloody morass that can have no good end for the parties directly involved, but which gives fanatics like ISIS relevancy. And they chose Sri Lanka for their stage precisely because it has a history of armed guerrilla insurgency and government dysfunction.
The only way they can avoid disaster now is to act with surgical precision in going after the perpetrators and avoid the human rights abuses that are only likely to feed sectarian tensions.
12
Clearly this in not just a locally conceived and executed operation. This is how ISIS and its network continues to create havoc even if they may have been mostly defeated in Syria. They practice an ideology of hate and revenge and anywhere in the world is fair game to them. They grow and sustain by getting new recruits with powerful propaganda of the world vs them. Unless and until their recruitment is effectively disrupted such horror will manifest in soft spots around the world. This requires the civilized world to understand and address the conditions and inequities that enable recruitment. Blaming an entire religion is not the way as it feeds into the recruitment narrative yet that is what we see and hear at least implicitly.
10
Quite frankly Sri Lankans should demand the resignation of the national defense minister and the president. Top cop should resign, any self respecting person would. But any Sri Lankan would tell you that is not going to happen. Politicians there are as thick skinned as crocodiles. It's really hard to kick them out. This top cop did not even have the support of the police force when he was appointed IGP. He was a stooge of the president. There were better cops for the job. There were cops who were senior to him too, if I recall. It's a lot similar to how Donald Trump picks folks for the important posts of federal agencies.
16
Shades of 9/11, important intelligence warning of a devastating terrorist attack that falls through the cracks of agency turf-guarding and petty jealousies. Will we ever learn? This could have been mitigated or even averted if each agency worked together and they simply increased security. In one video, a suicide bomber with a backpack gingerly walks into one of the churches. If there was security, that man surely would have come under suspicion and been stopped. Today's world of terrorism calls for such vigilance and taking nothing for granted. How can the authorities in Sri Lanka face the families of the survivors.
9
@gmt
"This could have been mitigated or even averted if each agency worked together and they simply increased security."
This can be averted IF everyone everywhere is expected to know and accept that others have different beliefs, that there is no religious gain/merit in converting anyone. Monotheism usually declares itself the best and only exalted belief and seeks too often to hurt others to make them believe similarly.
When this is all said and done you looking at 400 dead and a few thousand injured.minimum.
That is a massacre.
This is an act of war anywhere else .
25
In the New Zealand coverage the main topic was the hate. In the Sri Lanka coverage it's not the hate, it's intelligence.
59
@areader The two attacks are different, though racial/religious hatred of course underlie both. The NZ attack was a lone-wolf attack; the Sri Lankan coordinated bombings of several targets takes a more complex organisation, and one more vulnerable to being picked up by the police. So the failure to act on precise intelligence is inexcusable, and at the very least should lead to a slew of resignations.
Another case where government dysfunction ends with governments having blood on their hands...
7
@areader, could not agree more; the coverage of these two atrocities were quite different in the media. Lends a telling glance on how news organizations seek to shape The Narrative.
18
@areader "In the Sri Lanka coverage it's not the hate, it's intelligence." Isn't that because the hate is quite obvious?
4
In this country in South Asia Christians places of worship, hotels, tourists from Europe, and the Indian embassy, were the targets.
In another South Asian country Jewish places of worship and hotels were targetted, as well as random civilians. The latter was the Mumbai attacks. This attack likely has similar origins.
13
So nothing was done to prevent the terror attacks because of political infighting and politicians not doing their jobs? This sounds awfully familiar...... Could the USA suffer similar consequences as the politicians have their eyes off the ball and would rather fight amongst themselves like children. We cannot get infrastructure, immigration, or other tasks accomplished... oh boy!
10
Why didn't W act on the info they had before the 9/11 attacks?
One can speculate, spread blame, but Monday morning quarterbacking is not helpful at all.
btw, IMHO, we (world) suffer the consequences of radical islamists, because of our response to 9/11. It was a crime, no question about it. But it was not an invitation to war across the globe.
13
@c - Monday morning quarterbacking is very helpful it is can stop it from happening again. That is why analysts analyze film AFTER a game.
6
@c
9/11 was not a crime.
It was an act of war.
2
It was? It’s interesting that the US, with it’s ridiculously huge defense budget, simply chose to just roll over afterwards, refusing to retaliate against the invading nation, given said act of war occurred on our own soil.
Hmm, someone should probably let our POTUS know we that we are at war with our current primary ally.
And since Kushner has been tasked with “fixing” the Middle East, perhaps he should also be sent a national security notification via WhatsApp, just letting him know that his BFF, MbS, is the de facto leader of a nation we’ve been at war with for 18 years now.
1
I suspect it didn't stop them for reasons similar to those of the US in not doing anything about possible attacks it was warned about in the summer of 2001.
20
You have a point. But the level of intelligence the Sri Lankan government has was much more detailed and voluminous than the US government had in 2001.
1
There is willful failure to act here. It takes a deliberate decision to not move on these people sooner.
4
Just like before Sept. 11 and Dec. 7. The people "in the trenches" tried to raise an alarm, but no one listened.
27
Clearly, Sri Lankan officials hold Christians in low regard. Maybe if these poor people had been Buddhists, they would have survived.
15
@PC
PLENTY of Christian officials in Sri Lanka....
1
There is a misguided strategy being promulgated by certain better equipped nations (USA. UK. etc) to lesser equipped nations (Sri Lanka) about how to handle surveillance and intervention of terrorist cells.
Its that you always go after the head of the snake. Its a bad strategy that results in general lazy thinking, and slow, and/or too-late reaction times. Sometimes, most times, you just have to cut the snake up from the tail and prevent it from slipping away, or biting you/others in a sudden attack.
Sri Lanka security services should have cut this snake up a long time ago. IMO, from research on this subject - most times its better to keep shutting down these cells before they gain too much momentum, and have the capability of striking at will. Many times, law enforcement unknowingly reveals itself to the cell, or another group that could be surveilling the smaller cell as backup, spots the local authorities and triggers the cell to act.
Its an old spy tactic, to have an oversight agent watching another spy/agent from a distance to see who is watching the lesser operative. As such, the oversight agent notices what the lesser agent can not.
Better to cut these smaller cells up, more often, so they cant gain any traction, thereby frustrating the "home office" and forcing them to expend more money and effort trying to establish cells. And as such make more mistakes.
We're too obsessed with getting to the head of every mature snake. Kill the baby snakes when you see 'em!
9
More grief and more hatred. Different ethnic and religious groups are known to have trouble getting along. The only hope for an antidote is democracy with a strong judicial system. People need equal rights to education and economic advancement. The creation of affirmative action is needed in Sri Lanka. What else can you do?
2
@Jeff Stockwell
"affirmative action" (discrimination) creates resentment and hatred. Get rid of it, and don't introduce it elsewhere.
9
They didn’t stop them because they didn’t want to.
12
@Martha Campbell Truth
1
It has been said that in 2018 Sri Lankan security forces colluded with extremists to bomb Tamil fisherman in the north. Ten years on from the civil war and the legacy remains. Recall that the bombing of Jaffna resulted in a civilian death toll conservatively put at 10,000, over a weekend. The mention of the NZ attack as a contributing factor rings true, there was certainly an outcry over it throughout South East Asia. Its a great pity as the Sri Lankan people have suffered terribly throughout recent history particularly. The legacy of war means normalcy is an illusion, hiding deep distortions. Perpetrators of horrendous crimes from those times hold the reins.
5
I am saddened and sickened by the attacks in Sri Lanka. The people of Sri Lanka deserve better than this from their government.
It seems to me that Intelligence Communities in every government do their job, but if there is no action on the part of the government, then it is useless.
I was in 9/11. Our government had full intelligence on the probable attack that murdered 3,000 of my friends, and fellow New Yorkers. All this intelligence was ignored by our government.
Sri Lanka is now dealing with the same negligence.
5
For a government -- any government -- to respond effectively to an external threat, it must be free of internal disorder.
A government in chaos puts the whole country at risk.
A government humming along smoothly like a well-oiled machine -- all its parts working together in harmony -- can instantly respond with maximum efficiency to threats of harm from outside.
Sri Lanka's tragedy is a lesson for the Trump administration.
21
So much like the lead up to 9/11 that it's beyond painful.
As you'll recall, the FBI had received a tip from a private flight training school that several Middle Easterners -- with no previous U.S. military or civilian aviation backgrounds -- were taking instruction on commercial jet piloting.
An FBI agent tried to share this intelligence with the CIA, but was told by his supervisor (who refused to authorize it) that he wouldn't advance his career by this kind of FBI-CIA communication.
The rest is history -- and misery. And now that history and misery have repeated themselves.
94
@Richard
And weren't much interested in learning how to land the airplane.
12
@Richard
This is all the more reason to get women into more positions of power -- women possess greater moral courage than men. When a woman finds out about impending disaster, she takes steps to protect her people and prevent tragedy.
8
So many people in the comments are falsely claiming that the article "justifies" these attacks by explaining potential causes behind it.
When I was a student, we always learned about the causes of World War II and Hitler's rise to power. This didn't mean my teachers justified it in any way; we discussed it so we wouldn't let history repeat itself. How is talking about the causes or getting in the mind of a killer rationalizing it? I could understand the difference as a teenager; I assume most people can understand it here.
19
Sounds familiar.
A few weeks before 9/11 Condi and the Neocons ignored a report about potential terrorist activity on US soil in the coming weeks.
16
@Django
The problem with conspiracy theories like this commenter's is that unspecific "reports" provide no actionable information. You're told there may be a terrorist attack, or that the Japanese may attack somewhere. You aren't told Pearl Harbor---it might be Singapore. You aren't told airplanes will be hijacked (we already had apparently good airport security---no guns on airplanes)---it might have been a shooting attack on a school. Which one?
1
@Jonathan Katz haha except we've all watched Condi Rice on replay dozens of times tell the Congressional hearing, "I believe the report was titled 'bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States,'" and we all know that the attempt to use airplanes as missiles was well known by national security and they had analyzed it, in writing. It's good to learn the difference between facts and "theories."
9
It’s not a “conspiracy theory” in the slightest; 12 CIA directors confirmed the specificity and urgency of the warnings that culminated in the massive failure to prevent 9/11:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353
The CIA told the administration the details of the attack were imminent, credible and determined it was happening here by the end of July. They knew it would be a catastrophic loss of American lives. They advised Bush, Cheney, Rice et al. They had DAILY MEETINGS about the impending attacks for months.
Their conclusion as to why it occurred? Bush didn’t “take it seriously” due to apparently equating terrorism with random unsourced day-drinking leftist European bombers from the 80s. In 2001. And Rice “doesn’t really remember.”
So, yay for accountability.
No terror group has officially claimed responsibility for the blasts at the three churches and hotels but ISIS supporters have gleefully celebrated the Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks in Sri Lanka. 290 innocent people including women and children dead and close to 500 people injured and these religious fanatics are celebrating!
Thowheed Jamath the terrorist group is probably responsible for this attack, according to some media the attack was in revenge to the mosque attack in New Zealand. This terror group has its presence in several countries including India, UK, Australia and other countries. Who is funding them? the Saudis? this group claims that it is a non-political organization and preach true Islam to Muslims. is this "true Islam"? Sri Lanka government should ban this group.
20
It is very puzzling why these innocent Christians were targeted and on Easter Sunday no less. They have had absolutely no involvement in terrorism against Muslims. It seems they were directing their hate on the Christian community. Why did they attack guests at hotels. I guess they hate them too. This is very worrisome and it appears no one or no institution is safe from terrorists. My heart goes out to the Sri Lankan people and they are in my prayers. This is horrible and should never have occurred.
33
@KMW
"Because" that's the way terrorists are. That's what makes them terrorists.
5
In a world of treachery, citizens throughout the world have only one reliable protection from extremists: Their own police. If the police are corrupt, or inept, and fail to react to timely, actionable intelligence, they betray their fellow citizens and are essentially complicit with destructive acts.
Sri Lanka should clean house--dismissing and even punishing those responsible for failure to act.
7
If the Muslim extremist groups started in reaction to violence from Buddhists, why then did they attack Christian churches? Seems to me that perhaps the government was not very concerned about protecting small minority groups, in addition to have communication issues.
10
What happened in Sri Lanka is possibly a retaliation for the recent New Zealand mosque shooting. Specifically attacking Catholic/Christian churches and choosing hotels which had Easter Brunches and detonating at same dining areas could be aimed at Christians. Their idea of the west being christian and difficulty in attacking the west due to stronger security measures may leave them with the option of targeting Christians of vulnerable countries. Looking at the recent past of Sri Lanka, if the Islamist has a strife with anyone it would be the Buddhists rather than the Christians.
10
More innocent lives gone for no reason. Sri Lanka government knew of individuals but took no action, now the finger pointing begins.
And then in a few weeks the media will drop the conversation like it never happened.
Rinse and repeat.
Reminds me of the time an entire war that was invented by Cheney-Bush-Rumsfeld-Rice-Powell, no one was ever held the least bit accountable.
Rinse and repeat.
16
I visited Sri Lanka 25 YAG at Unawatuna Beach, a few miles below Columbo. The little hotel where I was staying had their restaurant on the beach in a separate building. The chef visited the local fish market daily, although he did not speak English, I drew a picture of a Pompano and he immediately knew what it was. They had no refrigeration or ice and U buy what U need for that day. I arrived on a train from Colombo with a Swiss Air cabin crew and they told me about the great little restaurant so I ordered 3 Pompano. If U have never heard of Pompano, well it is the best fish IMHO and way too expensive in the the big US cities.
We had the Pompano that evening, wine of course was not available. The local people there were very friendly and I found the same in Palestine and Lebanon. Lebanon is an amazing place, many of the locals speak English and were very helpful in finding great places to visit.
The Muslim religion has been hijacked and in 9/11 my best friend in NYC lost his oldest son in the North Tower. I was in his wedding which I vividly remember because the young woman I was walking down with arrived at the last minute, a Captain in the Israeli defense force. Never forget her eyes which were on fire. We must defend ourselves.
7
It is a power ‘struggle’ within the SL govt. The military/defense minister is responsible for ignoring, even inciting, the attacks.
“Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Sunday that neither he nor his cabinet ministers had been informed of the warning, highlighting the power struggle between him and President Maithripala Sirisena, who is also the defense minister. Late last year, the feud led, for a time, to two officials claiming to be the rightful prime minister.”
3
The horrendous nature of this terrorist attack has left me reeling and grieving for all those impacted.
The fact that top security people suspected an impending attack by this very group but did not widely circulate the threat within the government is beyond comprehension.
Was this due to a lapse in communication, poor data sharing practices, or given the strife between the prime minister and president, a deliberate decision not to inform?
The nature of the attack (against Catholics and non-nationals) is atypical in Sri Lanka and makes it very likely they got help from an outside terrorist organization. Did other governments know about this group and possible coordination with ISIS or Al-Qaeda? It seems India has been following them.
These are all legitimate questions that need to be answered.
2
Ironic that a country whose capital is called Colombo couldn't perform the elementary detective work that would have prevented the horrific attacks in Sri Lanka.
12
Ironic that Virginia’s right-wing legislature blocked the data-sharing that would’ve prevented the Virgina Tech shooter from buying two Glock and extended magazines, and murdering more than 30 people.
Doubly ironic that our President recently announced Total Victory over the Islamic State.
11
Hey, these “ lapses” in security are what keeps the war for profit machine cranking out the big bucks and the luxury condo markets in New York and London rolling along, there will be a whole slew of former cabinet members fat on American aid money and money plundered from their own people headed for safe havens to hide behind our laws. Remember 9/11, we had lots of “ lapses” as well you would have made a bundle buying defense stocks in the aftermath that began the longest war in our history, a war not to go after the Saudis who were actually involved in 9/11, but to set the Middle East ablaze for the benefit of our “allies” who will be the only ones left standing at the end of the day.
23
Hmmm... government infighting, rivalries, and ignoring clear warnings - where have we heard that before?!?
Oh, yes - 911 - and that time it resulted in thousands of deaths.
But we dare not say anything about Saudi-sponsored terrorism, because of course, they're our "friends." And the Trump administration and its military industry henchmen want to sell them nuclear technology.
72
And our response has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths of the innocent and never ending wars and the loss of trillions.
2
The headquarters of radical Islam is in Pakistan. For political reasons, China refuses to brand the terrorists in that country as terrorists. There is little Sri Lanka can do about it because they are shackled with China debt. This is NOT a religious strife. It is nothing but a pure terrorists act. Why Sri Lanka? May be a target practice for new recruits.
24
@Kodali
Seems you have knowledge about where the center of terrorism is that is not reflected in multiple other channels— for example, why does the West blacklist Syria, Afghanistan and Iran, but not Pakistan? Let alone Saudi Arabia?
3
Terrorists are senseless but unfortunately a very small percentage of people are capable of doing horrific things like this. We must pay attention to this one very important paragraph in this article:
"The National Thowheeth Jama’ath group emerged around 2015 in the aftermath of attacks against Muslims. But in recent years some Buddhist monks have turned militant and incited followers to attack Muslims, their places of worship and some of their businesses, such as slaughterhouses. The Sri Lankan government’s security services appeared to have turned a blind eye, allowing Buddhist mobs to act with impunity."
This is where the problem lies. Every religion has these small percentage of crazy people. Only inequality and injustice towards a certain group can invoke these fringe elements and provoke them to carry out senseless and heinous acts like this. We have seen atrocities in Myanmar by the govt. and Buddhist monks backed by the govt. against Rohingyas. Now, if a small group of Rohingyas may be instigated to carry out terrorist acts.
We need to eliminate the root cause and every govt. should treat all religion equally and respectfully.
Also, I won't be surprised if something happens in India. The Modi Govt. is openly discriminating Muslims and Hindus are killing Muslims just because they were caught eating Beef. Wow. These things need to stop.
9
@Mark
I condemn ANY killing/discrimination. Following up on most beef related cases, one finds the cause is a land dispute, someone eloped with a forbidden person, someone had a feud, or a debt or was noisy too often. Cows are used an excuse, the cause is elsewhere.
The fact that the conversation is centered around the victims and not the perpetrators is very informative as to who is responsible for the attack. When those on the right say a massacre is a time for grieving and not discussion of gun control, it sparks outrage on the left. How about now? No doubt, an army of toadies will be deployed to obfuscate information and direct the conversation in a politically correct manner. The hypocrisy is unbelievable. Maybe Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
42
@Randeep ChauhanSeem this article has plenty about both perpetrators and victims.
9
We need some context here. How many other terrorist attacks have Sri Lankan authorities been warned of which never materialized. Is this the story of the boy who cried lone wolf?
4
@Jay Orchard
You DON'T know if and/or when Sri Lankan authorities have been warned of such an attack in the past that did not occur.
According to what has been described in the article it is NOT an issue of hindsight being 20/20.
The article CLEARLY states it has been an intelligence failure, perhaps due to lack of coordination and/or turf battles. The government has ALSO acknowledged the same.
Besides, one does NOT take a chance when it comes to terrorism. Since it is an issue of being better safe than sorry, the security authorities should have pounced on the terrorists BEFORE - as they did IMMEDIATELY soon after!!
1
Why didn't Sri Lanka do anything to stop the threatened attacks on Christians in the country? Because Christians make up only 7.4% of the population and a threatened attack on a minority group wasn't important enough to motivate the government of a predominantly Buddhist and Hindu population to stick its neck out.
11
@Jay Orchard
Do you have any evidence at all to support that inflammatory claim? any?
Nope?
Didn't think so.
5
@Tim Crowley
I do but I'm not at liberty to reveal it.
1
Having multiple power centers is never good for any country. But what is distressing is that even after so much death and destruction, the power games continue between the president and prime minister of Srilanka. And no, this is not similar to 9/11. There the intelligence was not as concrete as here. Here they knew 10 days in advance the organization, the targets and the people involved. They even got warnings 2 days and immediately before bombings. And yet this failed to act.
The fact that immediately after the bombings they could arrest the remaining group also confirms the big administrative failure. The fact that Srilankan president and PM are still fighting and the security council wouldn't let the prime minister in its meetings, shows the bad state of affairs at the government level. This is unheard of -- in any country. I wish Srilankans citizens find peace and justice. They deserve better.
16
Actually, the 9/11 warnings were far more frequent AND detailed, per the chief of CIA counterterrorism (at the time):
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353?o=0
And there is no comparison between how equipped, powerful and well-funded the US and Sri Lankan intelligence/defense agencies are.
If we are going to blame the SL government for this, then all ~350 million Americans need to start demanding accountability for the entire Bush administration.
But who am I kidding? We don’t even demand accountability from the current one, and he doesn’t even try to obfuscate his crimes (well, okay, he definitely tries, but also fails spectacularly).
1
This article reveals that when government appears to tolerate group-on-group violence, is reft by emotional infighting or has a damaged link between intelligence services and the executive, there is danger to citizens. Here, tragically, all three appear to be true.
3
Sound familiar?
If only the FBI and CIA (and the incoming administration at the time) had had a little chat among themselves in regards to national security and the known terror threat intelligence - outside the confines of their egos - pre 9-11.
Ditto the laundry list of unhinged gunmen known to exhibit the already textbook traits of dangerous, murderous sociopaths - but they’re never stopped until after the bloodbaths. Then the mountain of evidence is paraded on the national news for the numbed populace to morbidly assess.
May all these innocents Rest In Peace and may their survivors learn to forget the unforgivable. Those who were alerted and looked the other way are equally responsible accomplices in this slaughter.
34
Is it possible the government officials wanted the attacks to take place?
7
@Audaz
In Sri Lanka, maybe. In the U.S. before 9-11...maybe.
9-11 was used to attack Iraq soon after. And to pass the greatest attack on privacy ever, including all of Homeland Security and ICE.
In both cases, they were ready suspiciously fast, considering how incompetent that administration was up to that point. And remember both W and dad were known to (literally) kiss the rings of the Saudi King.
10
@Audaz No. Sri Lanka has problems but not those types of problems.
2
The operating, unmentioned word is wahabbism, the Saudi funded extremist ideology that the Saudi Royal family is spreading throughout Asia with their unlimited wealth. The same Saudi Arabia the 9/11 terrorists hailed from. And the very Saudi Arabia Trump wants to sell nuclear weapons to.
219
@Bogota Keep feeding the mouth that funds the hands that attack.
2
This is an example of blatant governmental incompetence. Impropriety of Sri Lanka's leaders and their incompetence to take seriously disclosed, outside intelligence, lies at the hands of its President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. For starters GET RID OF BOTH. How horrible a thing to ignore voiced threats to one's country!
4
This terrorist attack has the seal of Isis or Al Qaeda, and the shadow of double moral Pakistani intelligence services. They attacked Christians and western tourists to demonstrate that both criminal groups are alive and that they have open new scenarios for their holy war.
14
What went wrong? The advance security alert looks like it was pigeonholed in a deal letter box called "VIP security" so it would not be seen by those who could do something about it.
Why? Looks like some saw political advantage in issuing an advance security notice to cover their butts while concealing it from political opponents so they would be blamed for any disaster due to failure to act.
Who would ever do such a thing? Indeed, who? The answer would be to look closely at who could benefit politically from such a disaster in the midst of Sri Lanka's ongoing political crisis over who runs the national government.
Warning for America: This is what happens when partisans and partisan factions look after personal and partisan interests instead of the national interest.
29
Having just spent five weeks in beautiful Sri Lanka, I mourn for it and its people. So much of the world’s strife is based on religious conflict and many innocent people are made to suffer the consequences. So sad!
6
Guess that’s what happens when government officials ignore or dispute information they get from intelligence sources. Comforting to know that would never happen here.
23
@ET
Also comforting to know that our intelligence services will never be politicized.
2
Vigilance is the price of freedom and security.
In these dangerous times that we live in, complacency, negligence and cowardice will be severely punished.
5
We had much the same security failure before 9/11, and without the excuse of a feud within our government (just a feud between the government and the preceding government. We only learned later about the existence of the intelligence that something big was being planned, and still have little idea about why the warnings were ignored. The ignorers managed to change the subject by invading another country in order to create an atmosphere in which leaders would not be investigated because we were at war.
27
It is clear from the information collected that there was lapse in security foR not letting the COLOMBO intelligence informed from the President's office. The chief of police also be need to be careless in not acting along with the President's office. ONE LAPSE LEADS NOW TO SO MANY CASUALTIES.
“...officers discovered a weapons cache with more than 100 kilograms of explosives, detonators, wire cords, a rifle, bullets, dry rations and religious propaganda.”
Yet more evidence that religion, in all its medieval, patriarchal forms that include American-style evangelical Christianity, is the single most overwhelming reason why humanity is stuck where it is.
Until religion is forcefully wrangled into submission to the highest social good of all citizens no matter the gender, orientation, race, monetary status, or philosophical leanings, we will all be stuck in this warring purgatory of primitive fear of the future that has grossly stunted our potential to solve our problems. Religion, its adherents, and the leaders who use it to consolidate power are the reasons we can’t evolve towards a better future. It’s way past time to stop pandering to it.
15
@left coast finch
Thank you, Karl Marx.
6
@Mark Shyres
Indeed. Amazing isn’t it that 175 years later, Karl Marx’s shrewd observations are still being proven, repeatedly. What better time to revisit the passage?
“...Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again...Man is the world of man – state, society...produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world...and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”
2
@left coast finch
I'm sure that multitudes of people throughout history have thought the same thoughts that you wrote down.
But religion will never be "wrangled into submission" on any substantive level by any group or movement. This is because throughout the ages, religions have satisfied the emotional needs of too many people.
People crave order and meaning in life. Religion gives them a way to organize their fear of the unknown and the incomprehensible. It gives them answers. Religion offers meaning and comfort in hard times that they can't find elsewhere. Even people raised by atheists have ended up following religions later in life.
Most of the religious are addicted to their own religiosity.
One way to undermine the hold that religion has over them would be for the individuals themselves to replace their religion with a different addiction.
Good luck with that.
Sri Lanka had 10 years of no significant terror event. That probably made them lax. Before 9/11 too, the FBI agents had raised alert of trainee pilots not wanting to learn how to land. Before that, in another raid in Malaysia they had found about a plot to attack US using air planes as weapons. The two pieces of information were never connected. Obviously tendency is to focus attention on threats that are ongoing at the cost of surprise threats.
This kind of terrorist threat is now international and can spring up anywhere. There is a need for an international security group that is focused on such possibilities - because many small countries cannot independently judge such threats and they can seek aid from this international body.
3
The Buddhist monks incited violence in the 1980's which lead to three decades of civil war. It seems the monks still have not outgrown their need for violence. Buddhism is based on peace and meditation. How could this possibly happen, and why do the people allow it to escalate?
4
Seems like the Sri Lankan government agencies didn't learn a lesson from the US's lack of cooperation and coordination between agencies like the FBI and CIA, which if shared between them, could possibly have prevented the events of September 11th, 2001.
3
Maybe the Sri Lankan President expected a tiny attack that he shall use against the PM? Now the chief of police will be fired and he will then receive some indirect compensation for guarding the president..
2
Kinda reminds me of "bin laden determined to strike in U.S." It would be nice if security services could figure out how to get past their own egos and bickering and protect their citizens. Different country, different people, different agencies, same old story.
12
“The target selection and attack type make me very skeptical that this was carried out by a local group without any outside involvement,”
There is only one country in the region that has made the export of Islamic terror its camouflaged policy. This is Pakistan.
It is time to call it what it is and hold them accountable.
13
@Konyagi
India would be happy to oblige there.
1
There's something I'm curious about, regarding the threat advisory shown on this page. I'm not an expert, but it all seems to be written in Sinhala- EXCEPT one line, in quotes, that's in English: "INFORMATION OF AN ALLEGED PLAN ATTACK". -WHY would there be just that one line in English - it looks as though it was placed there so that English speaking people who don't know Sinhala will know what's on this advisory (while still remaining UN-advised, since they don't know the language it's written in). ??
2
This is very reminiscent of the Mumbai attacks, and if history is any guide, it will eventually be traced back to the intelligence services - as is the case with almost all so-called "Terrorism." So, now we're getting another convenient proxy war on "Terrorism" which is an intangible Fear-thingamagig lurking in the shadows around every corner based on some self-contradictory "islamist" enemy that is somehow simultaneously nihilistic, impovershed, and highly organized in spite of gazillions spent on the NSA, MI-6, India's super-fancy spy satellites, etc. Why not point out all those fancy security cameras don't do anything? This is a crime - and with every crime you follow the money. Who profits? Arms manufacturers, the existing power structure, and in this case Modi.
Why? Because Eastasia put a whole bunch of money in a port, and now Oceana wants to reassert its influence in its perpetual war. We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
2
@Thomas Busse
Both Modi and the Congress have managed to protect India pretty well because of those weapons. The policy from ALL parties has usually been self defence, not offence.
@Thomas Busse
I know you are referencing 1984 but it couldn’t be more true. Sri Lanka is an important stop on China’s One Belt One Road initiative and derailing that southern route through the Indian Ocean have been an objective by the US and India for a while.
1
Terrible and tragic. Now consider Trumpian chaos and corruption, an executive branch in disarray, cutoff from intelligence agencies that are ignored, disparaged, and labeled as the traitorous deep state. Now imagine something similar happening in the US. Not so hard, is it?
7
It is such a shame that infighting between Sirisena and Wickremsinghe has led to this tragedy.
Sirisena has behaved irresponsibly recently, dismissing Wickremsinghe and this was reversed only because the Supreme Court stepped in. Sirisena has reverted to his previous loyalty to Rajapaksa who has been fomenting communitarian violence.
One would think that a Buddhist nation would be more peaceful in resolving domestic issues but even Buddhist monks have participated in violence towards the minorities, Christians, Tamil speakers and Muslims.
It is important for the Western nations as well as India to support Wickremsinghe as he is the more pragmatic and stable of the 3 leaders.
This is what happens when a government doesn’t feel responsible for serving and protecting ALL of its people. Harmful activity is overlooked, blind eyes turned, information not shared.
We have a president who at best ignores and at worst villainizes anyone who is not his “base”. Let this be a warning to us.
12
@Sarah
So a wall along the Southern border you say?
The root of this evil spreading worldwide can be traced to Saudi Arabia's extensive support (politically and economically) of Wahhabism. These are the folks who brought us 9/11 and are Trump's closest ally. Last week he veto'd a bill denying weapons to Saudi Arabia for their continued slaughter in Yemen. All for oil.
55
@RHH
And Saudi wasn’t our strongest ally before Trump? The Saudi is fighting our war for us and that’s why they got such a free hand to carry on as they did. Look at countries that’s fighting proxy wars against us, a la Iran, and our treatment of them.
1
There is information in Wikipedia page, terrorism Sri Lanka, that shows that the same group committed a terrorist attack on Buddhists in Sri Lanka in 2018, where the same group that did this.
I also read that a Danish billionaire whose a major shareholder in ASOS fashion lost 3 of his 4 children in the attacks while eating breakfast in the hotel they were staying at. The terrorists usually only attack political and religious groups and have never targeted tourists before. Next minute they'll be bombing factories that supply the western world. Sounds like they're shifting their political focus and becoming more sophisticated.
4
@CK
Or maybe they are just finding softer targets?
1
“The warnings appear to have gone back even further. India, a close ally of Sri Lanka’s, has been watching the entire South Asia region for any sign of activity by Al Qaeda or the Islamic State.”
The Saudi’s are the largest financiers of Sunni Radical Islam Wahhabi terrorists in the world. They are also our best ally even while they fund groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS. Wonder their connection here.
237
Labeling those who did this heinous act leading to such tragic loss as terrorists or hate mongers only detracts from goal of understanding which will then work to end such hate. Using words like terrorist or hate monger is a catalyst for more hate and more heinous acts. Sad to see hate being fomented.
@Dr. Las
I disagree.
This is not the same case as a lone shooter looking to go out in a blaze of glory and make everyone aware of his/her grievances.
Naming the problem is often the first step in fixing the problem. We shouldn't be afraid of doing so, even if it goes against what our wishes for an ideal world are.
While fictional, the quote from Harry Potter says it best: "Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself"
This was certainly a terrorist attack, and to call it anything else would be disrespectful to both the victims and those they leave behind.
156
@Dr. Las
With all due respect
Labeling groups or individuals before they might or might not do violence is bigotry and ignorant and wrong.
When an act of this magnitude happens and the perpetrators are known, hatred seems to have been in full fury already.
We seem unable as a species to find ways to coexist, I do agree about the need for understanding each other and we should strive for that but in instances like this, I am completely unable to understand what they hoped to accomplish by murdering innocents.
9
@Dr. Las
" work to end such hate."
Ending the human emotion of hate is probably not realistic.
Trying to arrest and end the terrorists responsible -- that's more realistic.
People have emotions and it may be unrealistic to expect everyone to control their emotions before they even surface. However, it should be reasonable to expect people not to bomb and kill, and to have some self-control as to not act emotion to commit violence.
4
The worst of tragedies of this nature for centuries in the world as especially in the world of Abrahamic are religious wars., Between Catholics and Protestants, Between Christians and Jews, between Christians and Muslims and between the sects of Islam (Sunni and Shi'ia). Think about it. We as humans are totally violent the more we believe in "OUR" VIEW of God and the others are apostates within Christianity (Western
Christian - Catholic v. Orthodox - Eastern), Protestant v. Catholic, Sunni v. Shi'ia,. Killing and terror for those since Nicea of those who are deemed by humans who say they know what is right and what is wrong.
29
The mass slaughters of the 20th century were perpetrated by athiests.
12
@Dick Diamond, And many millions more have been massacred or starved to death by atheist regimes or in genocides that had little or nothing to do with religion - under Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot - or the genocide in Rwanda, just to name a few.
Our own country's genocide of Native Americans and the genocidal enslavement of people of African origin and descent - were these "religious" wars?
We have armed militias right here in the U.S. who are eager to start a "race war" or Civil War 2 against people of color, immigrants, "libruls," etc. What "religion" is that?
I suppose it's comfortable to blame human violence on religion - and uncomfortable, even frightening, to admit that such hatred, violence, and genocidal urges are all part of the dark side of human nature - regardless of our religious beliefs or lack of belief.
Some of us call this "original sin" - or "evil inclination."
I'm not denying that these atrocious murderous attacks were most likely carried out by Islamic extremists. But blaming all wars and violence on religion is denying history - and the tragic reality of human evil.
9
@LarryGr
If you are referring to Hitler, Stalin and Mao, bear in mind that even if they were conclusively atheist, they did not commit their atrocities in the name of atheism or to propagate atheism. Instead they wanted to spread the word about National Socialism, Bolshevik Communist and Maosist Communism respectively.
Religious atrocities on the other hand are done in the name of religion (often while chanting religious verses) and with a religiously defined payoff.
So two very different things.
Atheism is simply a request for evidence when other people make fantastic claims about reality, without proof. A child who demands proof of Santa Claus is no different. It doesn't make the child a believer in the absence of Santa Claus
13
My condolences to the citizens of Sri Lanka.
Uh, government infighting? Sounds familiar. This horrible event targeting so many people should be a warning to us all. While we are looking the other way and fighting amongst ourselves, who knows what horrors are being planned....
41
@Elle Hear, Hear Elle!
When our government is at war with itself, not only do we fail to compete and progress, but the bad guys know their evil deeds will be celebrated by whichever "side" does not get the blame.
And all of this rancor is to see who will get a majority and use it ONLY to keep the majority. Sick. And childish.
4
For the same reasons we failed to stop the 9-11 attacks. Grotesque derelictions of duty.
76
Reports indicate that this coordinated terror attack undertaken by 6 suicide bombers was inspired, if not directly overseen by ISIS.
Recently trump, in his usual self aggrandizing manner declared that he had destroyed ISIS! Unfortunately the self proclaimed very stable genius somehow fails to realize that radical Islamic terrorism is an ideology which cannot be defeated by bombs and bullets. Rather than defeating ISIS, he is serving as their recruiter-in-chief by his overtly xenophobic anti-Islamic rhetoric and actions.
George W. Bush was far from being a genius, but even he realized the danger of anti-Islamism and beginning immediately after 9/11 he was careful to embrace peaceful Muslims and separate them from the extremist fringes.
103
@D. Ben Moshe Wow, you found a way to work Trump into something that had literally nothing to do with him. Good use of Trump Derangement Syndrome
20
@D. Ben Moshe
Yes, and about the same time, he stepped on to an aircraft carrier and under a banner which proclaimed 'Mission Accomplished'.
At that time, there was no ISIS. Exactly what mission was accomplished anyway? I have trouble remembering; it was close to 2 decades ago.
1
A lot of good that did. You can’t stop Islamic terrorism by patronizing them. Bush policies have done more harm to our country than Hitler, Stalin, Mao and their ilk.
Bush was public enemy number one and as you will see his Middle East policy and our continued perpetual war response will
lead to our ultimate destruction. Only Wonder Woman Tulsi Gabbart can save us from ourselves.
1
Christians make up 6% of the population of Sri Lanka.
Have to (sadly) wonder if anti-Christian prejudice was a reason for the foot dragging and ignoring of these really clear warnings?
74
@RLiss Sadly, your speculation is not unfounded. In every major ethnic/religious strife over the years was largely the result of indifference or even complicit of the enforcers of the rule of law.
11
@RLiss Please seek to educate yourself. Sri Lanka is a very religiously tolerant country. The civil war was fought between Tamils and Sinhalese. Despite being predominantly Hindu and Buddhist respectively, the conflict remained an ethnic one rather a sectarian one. Tamils were only demanding a separate state due to perceived discriminatory government policies and mistreatment. Sri Lanka thus has little history of sectarian or religiously-motivated violence. Up till a few days ago, even I would’ve dismissed he notion of attacks against Christians in Sri Lanka given that it was almost unheard of - until now that is. My point is, not everything is motivated by an anti-Christian prejudice. Sometimes people fail to act on a lead because a threat is new in nature.
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@RLiss, that occurred to me too. Perhaps the "powers that be" didn't care that even a few hundred out of a small minority might be killed. Bet they do care now that Sri Lanka's tourist industry is down the tubes.
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You think they might have learned a lesson from George W...
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Terrorism is push-back from losers in a winner-take-all society.
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That's a Marxist viewpoint, that terrorism is somehow caused by the disenfranchised victims of "Capitalism." How then would we explain Osama bin Laden, scion of one of the richest families in the world? What about his followers who were doctors, architects, engineers, airline pilots? The many who abandoned such lucrative professions to join Osama's organization?
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Are you trying to relativize or even justify what happened?
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@Garrett Clay This would even fit in a tweet.
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