Dirk X West

I believe the Sri Lankan minister of defence said that, but didn't offer any concrete evidence to back it up, or hasn't yet. Considering that's there no logical connection between the two, I tend to think that's BS.

As I've alluded to before, the Sri Lankan government has been warned against poking the proverbial bear by attacking the Sri Lankan Muslim community (which they've done by proxy through a group of Buddhist nationalist monks who aren't monks but rather thugs in orange robes that call themselves the Bodu Bala Sena or BBS). So, the question now is have they pushed this group of Sri Lankan Muslims towards radicalization - which would really be a new thing for Sri Lanka - or are these guys just convenient pawns for someone else, like ISIS, or even the same faction of the government that's been supporting, encouraging and protecting the BBS, or both?

Thanks.

Massacre Of The Innocents: Whereto From Here That the massacre is the work of an Islamic terror group is now certain, a conclusion made inescapable by the involvement of several suicide bombers. The attacks on the hotels are barbaric, but part of a comprehensible, global pattern. You want to hurt an economy dependent on tourism; you attack places where tourists congregate, from beaches and ancient ruins to hotels. Not so the targeting of Catholic churches in Sri Lanka. That is where the utter incomprehension stems from. In Sri Lanka, there has been no history of violent animosity between Muslims and Christians/Catholics. Both communities have been targeted by Sinhala-Buddhists on multiple occasions. They were both victims of majoritarian violence, but never responded in kind. Had the suicide bombers targeted state institutions, places of entertainment, Buddhist temples or even Hindu kovils, it would have made sense in terms of vengeance for a real or imagined wrong. Why churches? Why only Catholic churches? Churches have been targeted by Islamic terrorists elsewhere in the world, including Asia; the Surabaya bombings in Indonesia and the Jolo church attacks in the Philippines are cases in point. But every one of those attacks could be placed within a national politico-historical context. There is no such context here in Sri Lanka. Attacks by a lone gunman or a lone bomber might have been comprehensible, the work of a clinically deranged man. But an operation of this complexity and magnitude, involving the willing and knowing cooperation of hundreds of people, is unfathomable. The killers, the human bombs, are believed to be Lankan Muslim men. For any terror organisation, suicide killers would be a valuable possession, something you don’t expend in vain. A suicide killer must be trained and groomed right up to the moment of murder, handled with meticulous care, kept on the pre-prepared path, shielded from every human emotion. Why use such valuable and not easily replaceable weapons on targeting a community that had not done you or your local co-religionists any harm? Were the churches targets of opportunity? In Sri Lanka, churches (along with mosques and kovils) are relatively unprotected and vulnerable. But so are many other institutions and structures, both secular and religious. Was it to gain maximum publicity – bombing churches on Easter Sunday? That would have been a credible explanation had the authors rushed to claim responsibility. But so far, no organisation has claimed responsibility, another unusual occurrence. Generally, after a successful operation, the claim to own it is a race. Terrorists love publicity. That is how they gain new recruits and new resources. So here we are, in a hell both familiar and unfamiliar. How not to plunge from this to a worse hell is the hardest challenge ahead, much harder than identifying, apprehending and punishing the guilty.

Considering that the group responsible is a low level, local bunch who were only previously known to Sri Lankan authorities for vandalizing Buddhist temples, they first have to figure out which outside group helped train and coordinate these guys. I would assume the motives would follow from that. I think I read one of the guys they caught had ties to Pakistan, which is the closest place to SL where you can find proper jihadi activity (and is our strongest traditional ally in the region).

The British used divide and rule tactics in pretty much every place they colonized, and the legacy of that is some sort of factional/sectarian violence in just about every post-colonial Anglophone nation. In some cases, there are Muslims involved, in some there aren't. In Sri Lanka, it's always been about Tamil/Hindu versus Sinhala/Buddhist. The Muslim community there, which is very mixed ethnically (a mixture of Tamils, Malays and even ethnic Arabs - and are mostly merchants that value peace and stability), has mostly kept their heads down until certain factions of the Sinhalese Buddhist community decided they were an easy target.

My only point about the discourse about this in America is that most on the right and many on the left view this all through one framework, i.e. the right wants to condemn all Muslims worldwide and the left wants to make it appear as if it has nothing to do with Islam whatsoever. It has very little to do with the specifics of this particular attack. There was a media blackout in Sri Lanka yesterday. I don't know if it's continued today (people inevitably talk to their family overseas and get news that way if nothing else), but they even tried to suppress the news that it was suicide bombings.

It's odd for the reason I just explained. Muslims in Sri Lanka haven't traditionally had any major issues with Christians in Sri Lanka. I know some of you like to think that Muslims are the same everywhere, but they aren't.

The Sri Lankan government has been suppressing the names of the attackers, not because they love Muslims, but rather because they know that if folks find out it was Muslims while the impact of this is still fresh and people are still upset, there will be immediate reprisals against a whole bunch of innocent people. That's usually how it goes in South Asia.

Buddhists have been terrorizing Muslims in Sri Lanka for a few years now, not unlike in Burma, though not as extensive. The Sri Lankan government, run mostly by Sinhalese Buddhists since independence - since they're the majority community - has been stirring up trouble with minorities for years, as a way to district the common folk from their kleptocratic tendencies. That's how the whole civil war with the Tamils got started. Many people have warned that constant oppression of the Muslims, who are by all accounts a very docile bunch in Sri Lanka, might ultimately radicalize them. That being said, the logical thing would be for them to hit Buddhist and/or government targets, if that's what this was about. The fact that they hit mostly Christians and foreigners is odd, but they've said that these attacks were coordinated from outside, so it might not be explicable by communal politics internal to Sri Lanka.

My wife's father and stepmom were at church in Colombo went this all went down. Thankfully, they're safe. Not a good thing to wake up to on Sunday morning.

Khavon Moore has entered the transfer portal. He evidently has a baby in another state, but it's hard not to think that he couldn't or wouldn't buy in to the program and saw the writing in the wall.

Never actually doing anything certainly hasn't been an impediment to Ted Cruz's career, or to the career of the vast majority of Republicans in Congress.

Republicans in Texas seem to have a remarkable level of insight into the opinions and desires of the voters in a strongly left leaning district in New York.

I had a sub to Willow, but again, most (though not all) matches happen overnight here. My main interests, cricket wise, are Sri Lanka, where my wife is from, and India, where I spent a few years in grad school. I cancelled Willow, as I never seemed to be able to watch the matches live.

Damn, a cricket thread? How did I miss this? I love cricket, but I don't get to watch much of it, seeing as most of the matches are played when I'm asleep.

This is the first place I visit on the internet when I want to know what Jews are thinking.

I remember seeing him at the Catfish Parlor on 71 with a group of Dallas coaches back in the summer of '98 when the Cowboys were still holding their training camp at St. Ed's. I have no strong feeling about the guy one way or the other, but I imagine he would be interesting to talk to.

My boyfriend's going to cry like a baby when I tell him.

Thanks

We're not gonna be able to run amok anymore? That sucks. What's our last day?

What's unclear about that statement exactly?

I think Culver would undoubtedly benefit from another year in college; it's only been since February that he's looked like an NBA 1st rounder (he was great in the tournament until the Final 4). People keep saying lottery pick, though, so how do you pass up that money? Also, yes, I was very happy to see Odiase step up and make a real contribution to the team this season, and in the tournament. He was the one guy from that class with Keenan Evans, Zach Smith, etc., that never seemed to quite fulfill his potential, partly because of injury issues. I was really hoping his FTs would've clinched the game last night, for Tech but also for him.

It's funny how, prior to Hocutt, Tadlock and Beard, our best two programs historically were football and and women's basketball, and now those are arguably our two worst.

And our rim protector barely able to play.