Solzhenitsyn’s Line Between Good and Evil Matters

By Barry Brownstein – AIER

Recently, Jonathan Mayo compiled new details of the November 2008 terror attack when ten youthful terrorists from the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba murdered 164 people in Mumbai, India. Their targets were ordinary Mumbai residents, people at a Jewish Center, and visitors at a famed hotel catering to tourists.  

What stood out about the attack is that in real-time, the ten terrorists were in communication with controllers, messaging them from Pakistan. 

Mayo reports that while terrorists were at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, they received messages that the controllers in Pakistan “are furious there is no sign of a fire at the Taj.” The controllers phoned the youthful terrorists: “Nothing is going to happen until you start the fire. When people see the flames they will begin to be afraid. And throw some grenades, my brother. There’s no harm in throwing a few grenades.” 

The terrorists in the hotel seemed “overwhelmed by the opulence of the hotel and [told] their handlers: ‘There are computers here with high tech screens! It’s amazing!’ The controller [insisted] they ‘start a proper fire’ immediately.”

After the attack, one terrorist at the train station drove to a police roadblock and said:  “Please sir, I have done what I came to do. Please kill me.” The young man told police that  “his father, a street seller, sold him to [the terrorist group], telling his son: ‘We’ll have money, we won’t be poor anymore.’”