Dear Friend and Reader:
WE’VE ROUNDEDВ upВ the news from India on the aftermath of the Mumbai siege that occurred November 26, 2008 as PlutoВ was leavingВ Sagittarius for Capricorn, including aВ self-critical internal analysis of India’s response to the crisis, an individualВ profileВ on one of the attackers, and the political ramifications for the Indian Prime Minister in the aftermath of the event.
I often cannot rely solely on Western news sources for word on what’s happening in Asia and the Middle East.В During moments in history like Mumbai, I’ve turned toВ professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment for perspective. Cole is a professor of history whose geographic speciality is the Middle East and South Asia, and whoseВ journalism directly accesses the players, the history and the leadup to the eventsВ involved. He seems to be able to keep tabs onВ what’s happening in the hot zones of the planet right now.
We’ve re-printed an op-ed written by Cole on November 30, 2008 as a response and a plea to India as they ponder what to do in the face of their country’s own 9/11:
India: Please Don’t Go Down the Bush-Cheney Road
Many Indians have called the attacks in Mumbai “India’s 9/11.” As an American who lived in India, I can feel that country’s anguish over these horrific and indiscriminate acts of terror.
Most Indian observers, however, were critical in 2001 (and after) of how exactly the Bush administration (i.e. Dick Cheney) responded to September 11. They were right, and they would do well to remember their own critique at this fateful moment.
What where the major mistakes of the United States government, and how might India avoid repeating them?
1) Remember asymmetry
The Bush administration was convinced that 9/11 could not have been the work of a small, independent terrorist organization. They insisted that Iraq must somehow have been behind it. States are used to dealing with other states, and military and intelligence agencies are fixated on state rivals. But Bush and Cheney were wrong. We have entered an era of asymmetrical terrorism threats, in which relatively small groups can inflict substantial damage.
The Bush administration clung to its conviction of an Iraq-al-Qaeda operational cooperation despite the excellent evidence, which the FBI and CIA quickly uncovered, that the money had all come via the UAE from Pakistan and Afghanistan. There was never any money trail back to the Iraqi government.