This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Pakistan reneges on promise to prosecute 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind


Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace Hotel during the 2008 terror attack

The government of Pakistan has released on bail Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, the mastermind behind the horrendous 26/11 terrorist attack on a number of hotels in Mumbai, India. The attacks began on November 26, 2008, and lasted three days, killing 166 people, and wounding hundreds more. ( “After Mumbai’s ’26/11′ nightmare finally ends, India – Pakistan relations face crisis” from 2008)

The attack was perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Taibi (LeT), a Pakistani terrorist group that was formed in the 1990s by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to fight India in the disputed regions of Kashmir and Jammu. After the attack, India threatened to send its army to attack LeT on Pakistani soil, which might have led to a major war. This was prevented by hard intervention by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Part of the agreement was that Pakistan would track down and prosecute the LeT terrorists who perpetrated the Mumbai attack.

Lakhvi has been kept in prison, but it has been pretty clear for years that Pakistan’s government is reluctant to prosecute him, possibly out of fear that ISI officials had foreknowledge of, or were complicit in, the Mumbai attack. Now, a Pakistani high court has ordered the Lakhvi be released on bail, and it is thought that he will never be prosecuted. Lakhvi is now the leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which is a front group for LeT.

The government of India has expressed fury at the release, saying that Pakistan only wants to prosecute Taliban terrorists who attack targets within Pakistan, but gives a free hand to terrorists like LeT that attack targets in India and Afghanistan. India has launched a formal protest, and suggested that additional retaliatory steps will be taken.

Lakhvi came out of court declaring victory and pumping his fist in a defiant gesture. He was taken to a “secret and secure” location by JuD cadres who were in court on Friday. The News (Pakistan) and Mumbai Mirror

Obama to meet with Cuban leader Raul Castro

President Barack Obama and Cuba’s president Raul Castro are expected to meet on Saturday at the Summit of the Americas Conference in Panama City. The agenda will be to convince Obama to lift embargoes and sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela.

The opening of relations between the US and Cuba became inevitable in 2010, when Cuba announced the end of its Communist economy. (See “16-Sep-10 News — Cuba’s seismic shift has global implications”) Fifty years after the Cuban revolution, all the fanatical survivors of the 1959 war are old or dead, and the younger generations are more anxious to have internet access and new cars than to satisfy the ideological needs of some old Communist geezers.

One thing that is never stated often enough is that communism and socialism have failed every time they have been tried, and have usually ended in a massive bloodbath.

Every now and then you will hear some loony left activist saying that communism is superior to capitalism, which is a moronic thing to say, given the catastrophic experiences of Russia, East Germany, China, Cuba, and other countries. Today, the People’s Paradise of North Korea, led by that Gift from God, Kim Jong-un, is the only major communist economy left.

There is a very simple mathematical proof that socialism and communism will always fail, except for very small populations. If you have a fiefdom of a few hundred people, then you can have the Lord and maybe an assistant or two set prices and make sure that all transactions follow the rules. But as the population increases exponentially, then the number of transactions increases at a much faster exponential rate, so that after a while the number of bureaucrats enforcing the regulations is almost the entire population.

That is why the economies of all the communist countries were stuck in the 1950s before their version of communism collapsed. In Cuba, there are nostalgic stories about all those 1950s cars that everyone drives, but we can expect those to disappear pretty quickly now. Whether you like it or not, after a while every communist economy collapses, and is replaced by some variations of free markets. Cuban News Agency and VOA

Pakistan adopts a neutral stance in the Yemen war

After several days of debate, Pakistan’s parliament has voted a resolution to reject Saudi Arabia’s request for military help in fighting the Houthis in Yemen. The resolution, which was unanimously approved, says that Pakistan’s role will be as a mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Pakistan reaffirmed that Pakistan will stand with Saudi Arabia if its security was threatened, but said that in this case, the war in Yemen was an internal Yemen affair that did not threaten Saudi security. Dunya News (Pakistan)

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, India, Mumbai, Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, Lashkar-e-Taibi, LeT, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, JuD, Cuba, Raul Castro, Russia, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen
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