Kashmir News Network (KNN) is dismayed at the most outrageous attack on India by terrorists. While no confirmation is available about the origin of the terrorists, the history of the last 12 years holds sufficient evidence for Pakistan's indictment. In fact, the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament was nearly identical to the one on Jammu and Kashmir's state assembly building in Srinagar on October 1. That attack was attributed to the Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistani terrorist group that collaborated with the Al Qaida and the Taliban.

The December 13 attack symbolizes an affront to democracy that was also seen on September 11 in the United States, and recently in attacks on Israel. Our dismay is due both to the continuing terrorist attacks in India and the lack of Indian response to them. The only effective response to such attacks on democracy is a total, annihilating war on terrorist sponsors. This has been seen in Afghanistan as the United States has systematically obliterated the Al Qaida network and its host Taliban. Israel is taking similar steps against Palestinian terrorists.

Pakistan, however, continues to be an immediate and permanent threat to democracy and secularism in South Asia, and through its more than 700,000 trained jehadis, a long-term threat to the entire world. There can be no compromises, negotiations and restraint with a rogue nation that supported the Taliban even after September 11, and provides sanctuary and hosts terrorist bases for several Al Qaida-related groups.

For 12 years, Pakistan has used nuclear blackmail to intimidate India into non-action against terrorist bases in Pakistani territory. India has no choice now but to call Pakistan's nuclear bluff and launch a full-scale war that will decisively end Pakistan's sponsorship of terror. Any restraint now will confirm to Pakistan that India's secular democracy is too fragile to defeat religious terrorism, and will result in more December 13s and September 11s in New Delhi. The price of such a war may be expensive, including nuclear fallout, but the price of surrendering to religious terrorism will be the slow but sure sundering of the world's largest democracy at the hands of a rogue nation.