Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Mumbai - The Aftermath

Indians and Mumbaiites are rightly enraged by the latest terrorist attack on their soil but we need to wait for all the evidence to come through before we can start finger pointing. Indians need to come up with some constructive solutions which cannot be determined until the investigation is complete. My suggestion would be that the government appoint a 26/11 commission similar to the 911 commission after the terror attacks in the US, which looks at all aspects of the terrorist (where and who trained them), federal government preparedness (what did they know and what did they do about it), local government evacuation plans and emergency response, media zealousness (did their need to be first on a story endanger lives) and separate facts from rumors and innuendoes.

Fortunately there are signs that the government is taking this attack more seriously than it has in the past. The resignation of the Home Minister Shivraj Patil and the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh is a step in this direction. Indian government has rightly publicized that Pakistan hand over the HVT's on India's terror list. India should, with aggressive diplomacy get United States to put pressure on its ally to hand over those HVT's. The Obama administration has stated multiple times that it will focus its GWOT on Afganistan and Pakistan. The fledgling pakistani democracy is more inclined to help than previous pakistani administrations. As they say in India the "tava" (frying pan) is hot and this is the time to strike, diplomatically speaking.

The findings from the investigative body should come up with definitive answers to the following questions:

1) Did the US intelligence warn India of an impending attack? If yes, what actions if any were taken by the federal government.

2) Why was there no security on the Taj and Oberoi hotels?

3) Did the media endanger lives by giving out exact location of the hostages and/or the security forces?

4) How did a boat enter the harbor without the Indian Navy spotting it?

5) Were there only two active fire engines available for the Taj as CNN reported?

6) Did the cops have World War I weapons?

7) Did the cops not have proper bullet proof vests?

8) Did the terrorist call the banned terror group Lashkar-e-taiba in Pakistan?

9) Are five terrorist still at large?

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