November 14, 2007: While the
fighting in Pakistan gets most of the attention in the news, it's not the
bloodiest conflict going on in South Asia. No, that would be Sri Lanka, where,
so far this month, more were killed in a ten year political and ethnic
rebellions, than in India or Pakistan. Actually, the Maoists in India and
Nepal, and ethnic separatists in northeast India and Sri Lanka, are killing
more people than the Islamic terrorists in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. It's
about 50:50 some of the time, and often mostly Sri Lanka, but the Western media
concentrates on the Islamic radicals, not the other kind. Locally, however, the
political and ethnic terrorists definitely get lots of attention.
The Islamic killers get more
ink because they have carried their war to the West. The non-Islamic groups
keep it local. The West, they have found, is much more convenient as a place to
stash senior leadership and their families, and for fund raising (from exiles,
and local fans in general.)
