The Friendship Express, which links the Indian capital with the Pakistani city of Lahore, resumed service in 2004 after a two-year hiatus. Last night, terrorists targeted the train with two IEDs, killing no less than 66 people, mostly Pakistanis, in what many analysts are assuming was an attempt to derail the peace process between those two countries. The Belmont Club’s Wretchard posts his thoughts on the attack:
The only — and trite — comment I can make is that attacks such as this will continue for the indefinite future. We are in a Long War. A War without Declarations. Perhaps one even without causes. But hopefully one which has an end.
Attacks on innocents have become part and parcel, even a “feature” of extended negotiations between terrorist entities and civil society. For example whenever some kind of peace initiative is attempted between Palestine and Israel, a suicide bombing is inevitably waiting in the wings. Every time the Iraqi government attempts to achieve some reconciliation between factions, a car bomb is readied in some garage to wreak carnage on an unsuspecting marketplace. Killings have become as much a part of the Peace Process as the green baize table. One may speak of the cost of war. But what of the costs of “engagement”? And at what point do they become indistinguishable?
I suppose I should wait for the meaningless expressions of regret from the United Nations and various and sundry humanitarian and European organizations. Followed by the inevitable dark hints that this was caused by the bad international atmospherics created by the United States.
(HT Hugh Hewitt)
