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Subject: Mumbai, India
HERALD1357    11/27/2008 10:11:15 AM
My prayers are with you and your army this day as your people try to restore order out of the mayhem that certain very evil men unleashed in the name of their sick deranged superstition and their despicable so-called cause. Herald
 
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HERALD1357    It makes me heartsick that latest news......   12/2/2008 8:07:12 PM
and yet there will be those fools who will defend these murdering bandits.
 
Once again, though, I urge less criticism and more analysis. What can be done to fix the shortcomings revealed? Not who is to blame in India for letting these savages murder. As noted above, the North Hollywood Police in that famous US bank robbery were virtually helpless against two armed and armored maniacs until a local gun store owner opened up his store and started handing out semi-automatic rifles with armor piercing bullets to desperate policemen who needed the weapons to gun those two bandits down.
 
Even at that incident, there were fools who complained; "Well the police should have arrested the two bandits so they could have stood trial. The police didn't have to kill them."
 
I kid you not, there were people who said that.
     
That is why I do not criticize here. I analyze and ask.
 
Could the Mumbai police have used better radios and did the hotels and other high profile public buldings need soimething like a bank alarm network to warn the police of attack?
 
Could the Mumbai police use a better equipped special team to handle such a terrorist incident until the Army arrived to help? 
 
Does Mumbai need harbor police? 

These are questions that quuckly occur to me post mortem. Once again these are not criticisms, just questions.
 
Herald
 
 
 
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appleciderus       12/2/2008 10:01:16 PM
Why do we need to examine if the precautions were adequate when the fault lies with the attack?

If one expects to be attacked in perpetuity, and admits that there is no perfect way to defend oneself from said attacks, should not the discussion be the elimination of the source of the attacks?

What sense does it make to absorb the attack, put into action defenses for that attack, while your attacker studies your moves and attacks in a different place or different manner?

Either you resign yourself to being attacked while attempting to minimize the damage to citizens, economies, etc., or you prevent future attacks by eliminating the source of the attack, entirely. Eliminate those that attack, those that fund, those that support, those that sympathize, those that tolerate, those that are indifferent.

Or hope it happens to someone else?


 
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xylene       12/2/2008 10:15:30 PM
The situation was that you had an unknown number of armed trained gunmen attacking multiple parts of the city. At the moment you don't know if they are holed up waiting for a counter attack, if they are mobile, if they have back up teams, if they had booby trapped places. To add to the complexity they have hostages. From pictures, that Taj hotel looks massive, massive interior to clear room by room. Then , how would you identify who is an attacker unless you are close enough to see him (....or her) with a gun?
 
If the same type of attack occurred in a Western city there still would be a lot of dead and injured. Even the biggest US and European cities only have a finite number of SWAT teams.
 
There is not an easy answer. It seems though everything comes full circle back to Pakistan. Either the government there is part of this or it is allowing these groups to operate with impunity. They've given Bin Laden sanctuary for years and the US's response has been to give them more aid. The West seems to want to be referee between the two but maybe the West should sit back and stop giving legitimacy to Pakistan.  We look like the referee in a wrestling match that yells at one guy and while his back is turned the other wrestler is wailing on someone with a steel chair. We are the referee, India is being scolded for using strong language, and Pakistan is hitting everyone with steel chairs. Yet we continue to give them aid.
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan       12/3/2008 2:03:21 AM
Does Mumbai need harbor police?  They need military patrol boats.  Some of the stuff I am reading suggests that the rubber boats that the terrorists used are similar to the stiff rubber speedboats used by Somali pirates, not your lung or foot pump inflated rafting boat.  India does need to defend its harbors, a sub net is also a good idea.
 
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HERALD1357       12/3/2008 9:19:44 AM

Why do we need to examine if the precautions were adequate when the fault lies with the attack?

Because you will be attacked. You prepare for it

If one expects to be attacked in perpetuity, and admits that there is no perfect way to defend oneself from said attacks, should not the discussion be the elimination of the source of the attacks?

That is the other part of the discussion but is something that is best handled in another thread.

What sense does it make to absorb the attack, put into action defenses for that attack, while your attacker studies your moves and attacks in a different place or different manner?

You have a choice of defending against a future Mumbai which you can manage, or possibly risking a major war. I discussed this in the American board with the rather bitter observation that Pakistan is a nation with half the population of the US with an area of France and Germany combined  It is a huge policing problem-even with a cooperative Pak government. If someone has to fight their way in, it will cost thousands possibly hundreds of thousands of lives. War is not an option, unless India or someone is willing to pay that risk price..

Either you resign yourself to being attacked while attempting to minimize the damage to citizens, economies, etc., or you prevent future attacks by eliminating the source of the attack, entirely. Eliminate those that attack, those that fund, those that support, those that sympathize, those that tolerate, those that are indifferent.

I've answered this elsewhwere.The anti-western Pak government is a terrorist state enterprise, bent on causing mayhem via proxy while proclaiming its innocence.. 

Or hope it happens to someone else?
 
It's happened to Britain, France, Spain , Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, India , the United States, Russia, China, wetc.
 
 The common denominator is that, its moslems attacking these nations
 
 One day the rest of the planet will have enough of this fact.
 
Until then each of us, nations,  absorbs these attacks.because we don't like the hideous alternatives we would face.
  


Herald
 
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HERALD1357    Follow up.   12/3/2008 9:30:11 AM
Don't forget that there are moslem or moslem populated nations that also suffered these attacks,
 
Indonesia, Iran, Kiwait. Malaysia, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, the Lebanon, Algeria, Chad-southern Philippines . Innocent or mostly innocent nations these.
 
But like Pakistan, there are other current terrorist mislem states, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, to some extent Iran etc.
 
This is to make clear the distinction between the nation state victim and the nation state perpetrator
 
And let us not forget the chief victims Israel and as I study the history, India.
 
Herald

 
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olive greens       12/3/2008 8:09:20 PM

Saw another article which said that it took the NSG commandoes over nine hours to get to the scene in Mumbai.  Nine hours?  WTF?  Lot of people were dead by the time they got there.  Do the major Indian cities not have SWAT teams in there police forces or are they just not any good?

The NSG is based outside New Delhi, it doesn't have its own dedicated aircraft (it has to use IAF transport or charter planes), so it took 9 hours. Indian government has now authorized 4 centers near each of the four major metros; the recommendation is for for 8 -- 6 near sensitive cities, 2 for strategic reserves.
 
No, Indian cities don't have SWAT teams. If it becomes a SWAT situation, it is no good in India even if India establishes SWAT in all cities. India's best hope lies in fundamental police leg-work and prevention.
 
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olive greens       12/3/2008 8:13:14 PM

However, it looks like heads will now roll. To the Indians' credit, they will punish those responsible and clean up their own house too, firing and/or disciplining those who let this happen.
 
The Indian Home Minister, the National Security Adviser, a Chief Minister have "resigned". It looks like more people will be "resigning" once the courts start ordering independent enquiries.
 
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olive greens       12/3/2008 8:22:07 PM

India did horribly. Granted there is little initial defense against a terrorist attack, but the Indian police were inadequate in their response. Had they been better prepared would just one life been spared? Had the Indian army responded faster would another life had been spared? If the Indian intelligence services acted on credible information, would many lives had been spared?
Yes, India did horribly -- but you are looking at things from a Hollywood/Bollywood point of view, it is no good. The best defense against a terrorist attack is making oneself a very dangerous target to touch -- India failed to do that repeatedly after numerous attacks leading up to this one. It is a strategic failure. The next thing is basic police work has definitely failed at many levels (a honest investigation will reveal it, but rest assured there will be none of it) -- it was an operational failure. Other things are tactical in nature -- putting a systematic fix on them is very difficult and quite useless while the larger issues remain unaddressed.
 
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olive greens       12/3/2008 8:36:25 PM

But the IDF apparently had a high level meeting in India the week before, maybe THEY were the target?  

Very unlikely. The IDF team landed in New Delhi, visited Indian military facilities in north India and flew back. Their visits would have been to areas heavily guarded by military men. Mumbai is hundreds of miles in western India. The attackers chose luxury hotels, prayer halls, railway stations and hospitals -- not Ministry of Defense or a Corps HQ.
 
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