2007

"In May 2007, Greensburg changed forever. An EF-5 tornado tore through our city, taking 10 lives, injuring many more and destroying 95% of the community. Some thought Greensburg was gone forever. But many dug deep to find a pioneering spirit that has helped bring Greensburg back. Residents and countless new friends have come together through the years to build a newer and stronger community. Nothing can truly replace what we lost. What we have done though is forge ahead, look to the future and improve on what we had."

"There is a lot of destruction. Fortunately, a lot of folks had basements here in this part of the world and lived to see another day. Unfortunately, too many died."

"May 4, 2007 will remain etched in the minds of many people, not just the citizens of Greensburg Kansas as folks from all over the world helped, in part, the rebuilding of the small western Kansas town."

"At ten years old, I was old enough to understand what had happened to my family, but not quite old enough to fully grasp and handle the emotional aspect of it. The devastation we witnessed is hard to put into words. It looked like a bomb had gone off, and nothing in the town was recognizable. When you actually stand in the rubble of what used to be the house you grew up playing in as a child, you just cry. I would never wish something like that on anyone."

"Ironically, the attack took place on the train that symbolised the fight against terrorism. As the name suggested, it was a mark of building trust between the two nations. Targeting this train was a painful wound inflicted upon India, but ascribing it to Hindu organisations only rubbed salt on the injury."

"In the midnight of 18 February 2007, bombs went off in two carriages of the Samjhauta Express, a train service connecting Delhi and Lahore, just after the train passed Diwana station near Panipat in Haryana. The bombings claimed 68 lives. Like the 26/11 attack in Mumbai, there were attempts to link this incident to the RSS. While the script in the former case was written in the form of a book by a hardliner, this one was an official version released by the NIA. Regardless of who the culprit was, there cannot be two opinions about the fact that politics on the Samjhauta Express blasts did immense damage to India’s fight against terrorism."

"The Samjhauta Express blast was one such episode in this vicious cycle. There was ample proof to suggest Lashkar-e-Taiba’s footprint in the strike. The Indian Government had even prepared a 2000-page dossier based on this evidence and handed it over to Pakistan."

"The circumstances, as well as the experiences, pointed fingers at Pak-based Jihadi groups. Haryana Police, who had managed to reach the source of suitcases used in the blasts, conducted the initial investigation. The attacks had clear imprints of involvement of SIMI recruits. The SIMI chief, Safdar Nagori, was said to be the mastermind of the conspiracy. The narcotics, brain mapping and lie detectors conducted upon him confirmed this suspicion. Nagori was also an accused in the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts. It was during the interrogation related to this case that he revealed that some SIMI activists had colluded with Pakistani terrorists to carry out the Samjhauta Express blasts. The advanced explosive used in the terror operation indicated help from across the border."

"All these compelling facts were thrown out of the window based on Aseemanand’s statement. He went only so far as to state that Sunil Joshi had boasted the hand of his own men in the blasts. This could never be corroborated since Sunil Joshi was murdered. There was no change in the modus operandi in the police’s version; only the characters were replaced."

"This was followed by the Samjautha Express blast. This was internationally noticed as this particular train service was started as a symbol of amity between the two feuding neighbours... Interestingly, there is a reference to the Samjhauta blast case included in the series of dossiers shared with Pakistan on every bilateral mechanism. Isn’t this an official acknowledgement of Pakistani involvement? Basically, the dossier is entitled, ‘Dossier on fugitives from Indian law living in Pakistan’... The then official position (in 2007) was that this attack was carried out by an Indian group and some Indians had to stand trial for it (Sameer Kulkarni, Pragya Bharati, Purohit, Aseemananda and others). If that was the position, then why did this incident get included in the Pak dossier? The box of paradox explodes in the face of the then government when answers are sought to my questions. This would perhaps accord a clear opportunity to Pakistanis to grandstand. Or was it an escape route being offered to Pakistan to get away with the charge of fermenting terror in India, because anyone can ask these questions."

"The bogey of “Hindu terror” stands busted with the acquittal of Swami Aseemanand and others in the Samjhauta blast case by a National Investigation Agency (NIA) special court on March 20. This verdict is another testimony to the fact that the Congress led-UPA government manipulated and misused the official machinery to create a false notion of “Hindu terror”. Most importantly, while doing so it ignored the national interest by letting the real culprits off the hook."

"The NIA was forced to file false cases in the Malegaon, Samjhauta and the Mecca Masjid incidents against innocent Hindus while suppressing evidence against the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiyyba (LeT) and key players in the terror apparatus such as Arif Qasmani, David Headley and Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. Information was available in public domain regarding involvement of Karachi-based businessman Qasmani, the LeT and al Qaeda, Headley and his third wife Faiza Outalha with assistance from SIMI terrorists from Indore. But the investigation during the UPA decided to not only ignore this information but sought political capital from a national security issue."

"The way the Samjhauta blast case and some others were manipulated for political gain and fixing its rivals proves that Congress has succumbed to what German-born Italian sociologist Robert Michel called the Iron Law of Oligarchy. It states that all forms of organisation, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies. As a democracy, we should reject such oligarchic tendencies. It is also time to start asking: Who should be held accountable for letting the real perpetrators of Samjhuata blast case off the hook and targeting the innocent Hindus?"

"Similarly, there was enough evidence to prove the involvement of SIMI in the Malegaon mayhem. The US intelligence agencies had proved that the Samjhauta Express blasts had the signature of Lashkar-e-Taiba. But the NIA ignored all these facts to focus its investigation on saffron groups. This is despite the fact that there were clear similarities between the terror incidents of the so-called Hindutva terror phase and those that followed in the coming years. Yet, an argument was put forward that the majority of the people killed in the so-called saffron terrorist attacks were Muslims and that as Islamist terrorists would never have targeted them, only Hindu extremists could have carried out these attacks."

"The story of neoliberalism is quite familiar to the millions across the USA whose lives have been ravaged by the "financial crisis of 2007-2008," which led to countless families losing their life savings, homes, and businesses. Commercial media attempted to neutralize the nastiness of neoliberal policies that led directly to this unseemly situation by calling the global emergency "a financial crisis" or "economic downturn," as if these events were unfolding as part of a historical movement or a cyclical part of economic laws. Yet, it was clear that the situation was a direct and logical outcome of the corporate wilding of America, where years of neoliberal policies have resulted in the greatest wealth gap to date in this country. The resulting scenario is violence - but not necessarily the type of violence that media outlets portray. I am not talking about muggings, robberies, or even shootings. I am pointing to a much deeper and sinister type of violence: the type of violence that can be prevented easily, such as the violence of forcing people, especially children, to go perpetually hungry in a society of great abundance; the violence of having people unprotected from the harsh elements when millions of homes are vacant across the country; and the violence of paying people such low wages that they are unable to secure basic human needs such as clean water, healthy food, dental and medical care, a decent home, affordable transportation, and quality education."

"We cannot go on living like this. The little crash of 2008 was a reminder that unregulated capitalism is its own worst enemy: sooner or later it must fall prey to its own excesses and turn again to the state for rescue. But if we do no more than pick up the pieces and carry on as before, we can look forward to greater upheavals in years to come. And yet we seem unable to conceive of alternatives. This too is something new. Until quite recently, public life in liberal societies was conducted in the shadow of a debate between defenders of ‘capitalism’ and its critics: usually identified with one or another form of ‘socialism’. By the 1970s this debate had lost much of its meaning for both sides; all the same, the ‘Left-Right’ distinction served a useful purpose. It provided a peg on which to hang critical commentary about contemporary affairs. On the Left, Marxism was attractive to generations of young people if only because it offered a way to take one’s distance from the status quo. Much the same was true of classical conservatism: a well-grounded distaste for over-hasty change gave a home to those reluctant to abandon long-established routines. Today, neither Left nor Right can find their footing."

"... ich hasse es, Fragmente zu hinterlassen. Das ist das Vollendungsstreben."

"Ich bin konservativ und liberal, und das darf man in Deutschland nicht sein. [...] Man darf ja auch heute nicht seine Meinung sagen in Deutschland. Versuchen Sie das doch mal! Ein Schritt vom Wege, und Sie sind erledigt."

"Es gibt Achtzigjährige, die sich im Internet wie Skifahrer bewegen."

"Eine dicke, sehr 'gewöhnliche' Mami sah ich ihr Baby mit einer roten PDS-Fahne in der Hand über den Universitätsplatz schieben. In Gedanken hab' ich sie wollüstig in den Arsch getreten, mehrmals."

"Ein Schriftsteller, der kein Tagebuch schreibt, ist irgendwie schief gewickelt, mit dem stimmt was nicht."

"Das Einzige, was mich am Tod wirklich traurig macht, ist, dass man als Toter keine Musik mehr hören kann."