What Happened in Mumbai, Must Stay in Mumbai
The explosive combination of gunfire, bomb detonations and grenade blasts upon Mumbai’s civilian population, business travelers, and tourists over Thanksgiving weekend constituted what some are calling “India’s 9/11.” Adding to the pain, people were taken hostage during this terrifying period. Since there are more questions than answers right now, below is a preliminary breakdown of the key issues surrounding this horrific tragedy. As a citizen of New York City who witnessed 9/11, my heart reaches out to Mumbai and its people.
Who did it? As usual, the Indian national security apparatus got caught with its pants down. Just days after an internationally celebrated victory of the Indian Navy’s dramatic defeat of pirates on the high seas, an attack largely initiated through a daring amphibious landing from that same deep and muddy Arabian Sea is what clipped Delhi’s wings. As usual, the same trio of influences are being blamed: Muslims, Pakistan’s ISI Agency, and the Al-Qaeda affiliated Lashkar-e-Taiba. Once again, the country has done nothing proactive about it except to moan and complain. One of the terrorists appears to have survived and upon interrogation, and he seems to be a Pakistani national affiliated with L-e-T. From the photos of him he looks strikingly like a modern dude- wearing cargo khakis and a T-shirt. Reports show they all wore something similar. The latest is that 10 highly-trained militants accomplished this devastation and nearly shut down the city with their skilled use of various weapons and disciplined coordination. My guess is that there are a lot more such people out there in South Asia, preparing for the next mission as you read this.
What will be done by Indian government in response? Hopefully, something. Hopefully, not the wrong things. My opinions on this international security matter are very clear, as I have written about this exact issue two years ago here following the Mumbai train blasts which killed 200 people.
The globally popular Mumbai milieu movie Slumdog Millionaire provides insight into both how India must proceed, and how it must not proceed to eradicate terrorism on Indian soil. The opening sequence shows an 18-year old Muslim slum boy, Jamal being tortured by a Mumbai police Inspector and his minions. That scene was followed by a graphic depiction of the boy’s Muslim mother being burned to death by Hindu rioters in sectarian slum violence when he was a young child, while cops and gangsters alike sat and watched. If I were to guess, these happenings are not completely out of the ordinary in major Indian cities such as Mumbai or Bangalore or New Delhi. India must not blindly follow America’s bungled and ineffective anti-terrorism efforts such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, where draconian measures, morally questionable detention practices, and an invasion of the wrong country at the wrong time for the wrong reasons have only fueled anti-democratic and anti-American sentiments. Meanwhile Osama bin Laden and his deputies have largely not been caught, dead or alive. If the citizenry is frenzied for a war with Pakistan, a nuclear Hell could literally break loose, which is what L-e-T may be after: chaos, in the same way that the Joker sought it in the latest Batman film.
Slumdog also showed the direction Indian efforts could go in to improve the security situation. Tough-as-nails and street-smart men and women such as the main characters in this brilliant movie should be hired by the government to perform the dirty work of spycraft: infiltrating criminal terror elements both in India and abroad in order to bring them down. Any system, including a terrorist network, has vulnerabilities and can be brought to fail through aggressive law enforcement tactics. Give these people a decent paycheck, fundamental training and education, and the opportunity to get their families out of the slums they live in; therein will you find your ideal agents. I’m sure India’s agencies are doing this already, but the evidence shows they are doing a lousy job just as America did just prior to 9/11 and my guess is that these programs are severely under-funded.
On a related note, various government law enforcement and military agencies from the local, state, and national level need to better coordinate their efforts to deal with terrorism in all major cities- since numerous major cities and regions have now become the victims. Having a federal counter-terrorism NSG only on one base in the country did not serve Mumbai, the nation’s financial hub, well.
Finally, India needs to start putting its technological advantages to good use in protecting itself. India can boast the world’s finest computer professionals and mathematicians, some of the best engineering universities, and among the leading Information Technology (IT) firms globally. Yet India’s infrastructure in signal intelligence, which includes tracking of cellular networks, satellite imagery, and radar capacity must be drastically improved. Communications and Internet expertise needs to be put on the front lines. This attack could have been prevented, as mobile phone records and Naval signals are now showing. The government must aggressively launch a program of improving India’s IT security, using the private sector if necessary.
The NSG warriors, Mumbai cops, EMS, and Indian military were heroes. Let us give credit where credit is due; only one group of people from anywhere has come out looking remotely good in this pogrom, and that’s the commandos and other first responders who raided the buildings to flush out terrorists and save the lives of hostages and innocent bystanders in the immediate aftermath. It was nothing short of a heroic effort, with these men performing an extremely difficult mission, ill-equipped with little information and even less experience in urban warfare to draw upon. The Indian government should do more to make sure these teams are expanded, fully outfitted, and paid an excellent salary. That may help prevent the specter of moles and informants- which I am guessing helped the terrorists kill India’s anti-terrorism chief with inside information, which constitutes a political assassination.
Lessons for the Obama Administration. Unfortunately but fortunately, Western nations are sitting up and paying attention because this time Westerners were some of the victims, and reportedly they were specifically targeted. It’s in vogue for the chattering class to call this Obama’s first “test” or “3 a.m. moment” which so many so-called pundits are saying. How is Co-President Obama, who will soon be leader of the free world, going to respond? If he and his team are any good, they will prevent India and Pakistan from the heated rhetoric that could lead to a war, which is what the Jihadists want. Bush has sent in an FBI team to help investigate, and Obama must support this. And should ask them for a detailed report on who was responsible for the attacks and how and where they planned it. Regardless of where the evidence leads. Preliminary reports show connections to U.S. soil, and that U.S. officials warned their Indian counterparts about a potential attack on Mumbai originating from the sea. It is high time the two countries worked more closely together on both the prevention of, and response to, these types of attacks from the same network of common enemies.
As the world’s only superpower, the United States must act to bring an end to this endless fountain of terrorism. It is time for Obama and Clinton and the entire foreign policy establishment to focus on a viable solution to both the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the Kashmir dispute, executing a plan for agreed-upon borders within the framework of two-state solutions. And we must get the hell out of Dodge when it comes to Iraq, leaving the government there to its devices. Yes, these goals are not easy; but the window of opportunity during which America is the world’s only superpower is rapidly closing. Now is the time to act.
The Source of Conflict. It should no longer surprise us why these young men did what they did. We’ve seen it half a dozen times within India itself in the last 2 years; we’ve also witnessed what happened in Madrid, Bali, and New York. The corrupt government elites in India and Pakistan can no longer afford to marginalize the poor masses in order to help their friends make and keep money. Meanwhile, the alienation of many Muslims across India cannot be ignored, when it comes to equal rights such as fair access to jobs and schools. Hindu terrorists must be shut down with equal zeal when they break the law. Finally and on a related note, the cult of Muslim victimhood must end, just like I pray that America’s black population will move forward from its own collective self-pity now that an African American will occupy the White House. Irrational policies designed to appease Muslims will simply continue to fan the flames of Hindu-Muslim strife. India must use this period, which saw the senseless killings of Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and Christians all in one fell swoop, the bodies next to each other and their blood mingling together in pools of red at restaurants and hospitals and shopping centers to realize THIS IS THE TIME TO FINALLY UNITE. To put aside sectarian, language, caste, North-South, and other small-minded differences to come together as one civilized people for a change, and defeat the forces of terror. I am heartened to see that Muslim leaders from different walks of life have vehemently denounced the attacks, because the terrorists do not speak for them. More of that is needed, in India and abroad.
The Role of Pakistan. As relations are warming between Pakistan and India, it is time for the two governments to continue to reconcile their differences, shake hands, and realize that L-e-T, Al-Qaeda, and similar outfits are the enemies of both states. Pakistan’s economy is currently in the dumpster, only being kept afloat by IMF loans. President Zardari’s hold on power is delicate, as has been the case for every single leader of Pakistan in its sordid history of coup d’etats and palace intrigues, where the same corrupt characters keep re-appearing in the drama. Now more than ever, Pakistan’s people must choose sides: between the Islamic fundamentalist and national security cabal that seeks and profits from war-mongering and bloodshed using the mask of religion to hide their crusade for power; or the forces of law, capitalism and democracy that are going to help Pakistan join the community of civilized nations. Pakistan must cooperate fully with the investigation, and if the evidence leads to its citizens being involved, the government must do all it can to arrest them and try these criminals. Military assault should be the last option to achieve justice when none other is available. Pakistan must shut down the terrorist training camps and madrassas and mosques that recruit terrorists. Finally, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban must be ended, even if foreign assistance is required. This is the best course for the citizens of Pakistan too; they are the biggest losers as the members of one of the world’s economic backwaters, where options to advance your life in any way are limited.
There are few white knights in the story of Mumbai. Leaders in India, Pakistan, the United States, and many other nations are to blame for failure to act on intelligence, for their bone-headed policies, and inexcusable failure to update the apparatus of national security for the 21st century. America has not yet updated its national security apparatus to reflect the fact that the Cold War is over. India and Pakistan continue to orient their armies and navies and nuclear arsenals toward obliterating one another.
India and Pakistan need to wake up and realize it’s not the other one that’s the problem, and it’s not the freezing mountain tops of their disputed border in Kashmir that’s the problem either. Let what happened in Mumbai, stay in Mumbai, never to happen again. It can be done.
