The population of the planet increases at three people per second.

There will never be economic justice for everyone since there is no qualifier for what is a need and what is a luxury.

The only solution is to stop breeding more people.

Jihadists are trying to tell us something and it's not "they hate us for our freedom".

Spain listened and attacks stopped.

Why don't we listen?

How can we justify the deaths of millions in WOTs and WODs in the name of "not negotiating with terrorists" or "not sending the wrong message".

You ever notice when the economy tanks, both U.S. and world economy, violence goes way up. After the 1929 stock market crash, folks like Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and the Ma Barker Gang were all over the media
at that time. As far as the violence in India, MSM is trying to say it's terrorists. I think it's just a really, really pissed off bunch of "po folk" who
have had quite enough.

Good article!
I would add- that the corporate news media spin of about this terrorist attack is, once again, whipping the U.S. people into a frenzy of fear, and is helping to hype support for (in the final days of GWBush) the GWOT.

There HAD to be some kind of terrorism event before Georgie left office, right?

The newsmedia are finding it convenient (the attacks are oh-so-usefully timed to the holiday season) to get the American people stirred up just enough to comfort themselves with second helpings of pumpkin pie, topped by a credit-card busting therapuetic shopping spree on Black Friday.

Valuing American lives over any others is such a strong theme in the news it can be difficult to remember not only the dire poverty in most of India (and other nations), but the fact that our military is killing Iraqis on a daily basis, when
only American deaths are ever mentioned and mourned.

The attacks that just took place in India are sickening.
We wonder how Obama will respond.
Is this what was meant (forget who said it) by the warning "he will be tested"?

Diplomacy, an end to extreme income disparities and support for social justice for ALL the world's people is the only effective response.

Let's hope Obama is up to it.

a very comprehensive and truthful article...........

Our planet can not sustain the current reproduction rates.
This president has waged war against family planning and the environment since his first day in office, when he essentially halted our international aid to these essential programs.

Bush’s contribution to over population, as well as his other enviromental crimes, have already caused immeasurable suffering & environmental damage to our planet. Until effective family planning programs can proceed without blockages from such irrational zealots guided by religious right radicals, starvation and environmental degradation from overpopulation can only worsen.

dogwood

Thank you Deena.

I disagree with the premise of this article. As usual, many well-intentioned people on the left try to make a case that there is a strong connection between poverty and terrorism. To them, it is a rather simple cause(poverty) and effect(terrorism) relationship. When it comes to dealing with Islamic terror, the connection is a rather weak one at best. The 9/11 hijackers were mostly middle class, educated Muslims. The London train bombings and other Islamic terrorist acts in the U.K were committed by middle class Muslims. Even the bombings in Spain, and terrorist acts in Russia show virtually no connection to poverty, but do show a connection to radical Islam and centuries of religious and/or ethnic conflicts. There is nothing wrong with bringing attention to poverty, and trying to do something about it, but trying to connect it to issues that have little to do with it is disingenuous. In trying to understand the motives of terrorists, this "it's due to poverty" interpretation misses the mark, in my opinion. Examine various other recent terrorist acts committed by Muslim extremists, and you will notice that poverty almost always has little to do with them. As for crime in general, the crime statistics do not suggest a significant rise in violent crime in most industrialized countries during economic hard times(Depression era U.S for instance comes to mind).

I'm not saying that poverty isn't a serious problem, or has nothing to do with terrorism. It's just that assuming, often erroneously that extreme poverty breeds terrorism misses so many other more important factors. There have even been studies demonstrating that college graduates in Muslim countries are more likely to commit terrorist acts than poorly educated Muslims. Even the terrorist groups who claim responsibility for these atrocious acts usually don't say they are acting on behalf of the world's downtrodden, for the most part; it is an extremist, unquestioning religious faith that makes them act psychotic(and the U.S of course helped arm and finance this so long as they were fighting communists). Even if Islamic terror organizations do claim they are motivated by a desire to fight capitalism on behalf of the world's poor, this is at best a secondary reason; they do this perhaps to make themselves appear more virtuous, and is meant to win the support of much of the world's poor in their war against the west. I see little reason to believe they actually care about the poor, Muslim or not. In some parts of the world Muslims may even have legitimate grievances, and are entitled to self-defense, but this does not justify their wanton murder of civilians. If these terrorist acts were primarily economically motivated, why aren't the terrorists Hindus or both Hindus and Muslims? Indian socialists and communists who engage in violence or terrorism seem to use different tactics than Islamic terrorists, and usually make much less news than Islamic terrorists since they are much quieter.

That said, I do not support the War on Terror and hope that Obama will pull U.S forces out of Iraq. I hope there is no war with Iran, and I also hope there will soon be an independent Palestine. While I disagree with much of the left, the neoconservatives use their own set of lies and distortions to get people to support their war-mongering("they hate our freedom" and other nonsense). The neoconservatives are much more dangerous.