India strikes back

For years, India has suffered murderous terrorist attacks by Muslim jihadist groups mostly based in Pakistan and, so it's widely believed, clandestinely supported by elements of the regime there.  These have included the bombings in Delhi in 1996 and 2005, the 2001 attack on India's Parliament, the 2008 multiple attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people (following years of jihadist bombings in that city), and many other such mass killings that received less attention in the West.  Last month's Pahalgam massacre in Kashmir was apparently the final straw.

India's response began early this week with blocking the flow of water in the Chenab river, which flows from India into Pakistan.  A small amount of water was released yesterday, but only because heavy rains had raised the water behind India's dams on the river to dangerous levels.

But the main response came on Wednesday, when India launched Operation Sindoor, a series of airstrikes on nine jihadist bases both in Pakistani-occupied Kashmir and in Pakistan itself, all carried out over a period of less than half an hour shortly after midnight.  Video from the scene suggests that the level of force used was substantial:

In contrast to the jihadist attacks in India, which nearly always target defenseless civilians, Sindoor was an extremely limited operation (given the provocation) and carefully designed to minimize civilian casualties.  Nevertheless, given that some of the jihadist bases were apparently within cities, there have likely been some such casualties.

Bolstering the case that the Pakistani military supports terrorism, several Pakistani generals attended the funerals of the jihadists killed in the operation, and the coffins were draped with the Pakistani national flag:

"This is not a scandal, this is a confession."

If Pakistan were a normal responsible state, it would itself have cleaned out the jihadist encampments on the territory it controls, rather than coddling them for decades until India was provoked into doing the job.  Instead, Pakistan has retaliated on the jihadists' behalf, launching a mostly-unsuccessful drone, missile, and shelling attack on Kashmir.  India has shut down a number of airports as a precaution and put its military on alert in case Pakistan tries to escalate the situation further:

Reactions from most governments have comprised the usual mealy-mouthed expressions of "concern" and calls for both countries to "de-escalate", as if years of systematic mass murder of random civilians and efforts to deter any more of the same were roughly equivalent actions.  Israel and the UK, at least, have firmly declared support for India's right of self-defense.

"Both sides" is the lazy response of the ignorant who can't be bothered to learn about the actual background of a conflict.  Those of us who do understand what's happening know that India in this case is as worthy of unstinting support from the West as Ukraine and Israel are.