Quote:
Originally Posted by Craven Morehead
I checked a few days ago for a thread on this but didn't have the time to collect my thoughts and start one. This attack bothers me on several levels, the least of which is the fact that there was no mention of it on TFP.
An attack like this could occur anywhere in the world, even in the US. It was highly orchestrated and from the looks of it very successfully executed. Security in India seems to have been unprepared for this. Seeing the Taj burning for days and reading about hostages held for days made this more successful than it needed to be. There's a new term that was coined for the recognition gained by the ones that created this "celebrity terrorists" or "celebrity terrorism". They had worldwide coverage, probably became celebrities to many. The fact that a boat carrying a load of terrorists were able to bring the terrorists to India without being discovered should give someone in the India government pause. I can't believe their defenses are that low. However, I have no doubt a similarly executed attack could be carried out in any major city in the world: New York, Chicago, LA, London, Paris, you name it. That's what bothers me the most. How do we prevent this from occurring again? Can government (any government) actually protect its citizens against this type of terror?
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While it is possible that an attack could be orchestrated on any large metropolitan city in the U.S., I don't think it would be as widespread, or last as long. When you step back, it's basically an simple assault, but instead of taking hostages (which we're used to anticipating), they're simply opening fire. What made the situation worse, was not that India's military was unprepared, it was that there seemed to be a lack of coordination between their army and Mumbai's police force, possibly made worse by the untimely death of their anti-terrorism chief.
Because firearms are used to commit most crimes in the U.S., our police departments would likely be more prepared to deal with this situation. SWAT-type teams are already trained to deal with situations involving armed gunmen, to include anti-drug operations in locations held by individuals who have the same amount of firepower that these terrorists had.
The two things I noticed from this situation as well was the lack of crowd control and the mishandling of information. Reporters (at least the American ones) were surprised that they were able to make their broadcasts as close to the Taj Mahal as they did, noting that in similar situations in the U.S., they wouldn't even be able to see the building from where the police would push them back to. If people are that close to the situation when it's still that chaotic, you have too many bystanders in danger, not to mention you leave yourself open to a 'sleeper' agent who can do more damage.
The poor flow of information is another problem. Indian authorities told the media three or four times that the Taj was cleared out only to hear explosions and gunfire and see flames coming out from another side of the hotel. The left hand was not talking to the right hand and that could've made things worse, especially if they started letting reporters in to survey the damage without knowing that there was one last holdout.
This isn't to say that this can't happen in the U.S. I've already mentioned that it was possible, but it's apparent that there are serious problems in India's security network. These problems didn't make the attack possible, but it did make a bad situation worse than it should've been.
On another point, the idea that 'celebrity terrorism' is something new is misleading. One of the goals of any terrorist act is to generate as much attention from it. This is why al Queda goes for the truly spectacular attacks like 9/11 and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. The massive proliferation of media outlets (both traditional and non-traditional web-based) means that our collective attention has decreased. Years ago, all it took was the image of a pistol at a pilot's head to get our attention. Now they have to compete with protesters overthrowing their government, financial meltdowns, historic elections, genocides, missing college girls, etc. They need to go above and beyond what their predecessors have done to get the world's attention, and a well-placed suicide bomber doesn't cut it anymore. It's the natural progression of terrorism. We can no longer afford to be shocked and awed by the audacity of their acts if you truly want to fight them.