I posted this on my blog http://www.brownpundits.com/2013/09/...ion-is-now-ok/

Extended excerpt (basic question):
This can be classified as a "Mumbai style attack"...armed men attack a city, pick out one or more prominent civilian targets and slaughter any random person that they find, but may make an effort to spare Muslims. The target may have symbolic value. e.g. educated Westernized left-liberal observers will not have difficulty recognizing an upscale mall as a temple of capitalism, a bastion of imperialism and neo-colonialism, or a shrine to consumerism..in fact, if i had the time I could probably write certain Pakistani-Western academic's next article about the class dimensions of this lumpen-revolutionary act in my sleep....but i dont think the gunmen will bring that up; ..Bin-Laden and Zawahiri used a few random fragments from that discourse, but its not a central part of their propaganda effort. Their propaganda will be simpler and more direct; you attacked us, now we are attacking you. You may drone us or bomb us, but we WILL strike back and make you suffer. We are not weak. We are not scared. We are mujahideen and we will always be back, until you leave our lands and stop your oppressions against Islam.

So my question is this: Their arguments and actions are horrible, tragic, sad, etc. But are they now so routine that they have become in some sense legitimate? That we accept them as part of the nature of war? after all, when more advanced countries fight each other (or weaker countries) and use aircraft to drop bombs or fire missiles, we sort of take it in our stride. War is bad, but when it does happen (and sometimes it happens), this is just how it is. Will we think about Mumbai-style attacks the same way now?

If your first thought is "what a strange question", then you have already accepted what used to be almost unthinkable. We have had bombs going off in cities for over a century. But we have NOT had this for a century. Is it now routine? or is there still some special horror attached to such attacks? does it in some way delegitimate the attackers in your eyes? put them beyond the pale? or are they just another damned armed force doing what humans have always done? fighting for their cause, while we fight for ours? Maye we have to kill them, maybe we can compromise with them? or ignore them? maybe we dont have to care what happens in Kenya or Mumbai?