07-21-2006, 04:23 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Helpless, us </b>
<i>The Bombay massacre â and the unending mess. </i>
20 July 2006: The questions do not cease about the Bombay blasts. We have gone from blaming Pakistan for them to making peace again, under US pressure, all within a week. Our credibility as a serious nation, a putative middle power, lies shattered. How have we gotten into this mess?
In the first cabinet meeting after the blasts, the national security advisor, M.K.Narayanan, informed that âmacroâ intelligence implicated Pakistan. Was there connecting evidence to the blasts? There was not at that time, it is perhaps unreasonable to expect to get evidence so soon, and if it was there, the G-8 would have done more than perfunctorily condemn the massacre, and the US would have desisted from lecturing us about police work.
Which leads to the question, should the PM have gone to the G-8 without the connecting evidence, even if the âmacroâ evidence implicating Pakistan was strong, as there is no reason to doubt? Probably not. The government should have quietly checked with the G-8 if what India had was enough to nail Pakistan internationally, and if it was not, Manmohan Singh should have stayed home.
Staying home, keeping publicly away from the G-8, would have sent a message, that the massacre was too shocking and heinous for the PM to be able to travel. Staying would be a symbol of deep and abiding commiseration. It would also have signaled that Indiaâs âmacroâ intelligence against Pakistan was serious and compelling to keep the PM home.
Instead of the PM going to the G-8, the tables would have turned. There would have been disquiet in the G-8 about the PM keeping away, and it would have lead to the first of the serious pressuring on Pakistan against its terrorism here â and without our asking. Now, it has gotten off, and we look like fools.
Second, the Bombay ends of the investigations were grossly mishandled. A serious, thinking government would have held fast to that âmacroâ against Pakistan, put a blanket of secrecy on the Bombay anti-terrorist squad (ATS) investigations, and relentlessly turned the diplomatic heat on the Pakistani military regime.
Would the heat have held without presenting that connecting evidence? Any government would understand that evidence takes its own course to reveal, plus, India had the âmacroâ. It is like a card game, you are so convinced of your hand that your opponent buckles under suspense and pressure.
Incidentally, this is not bluffing, you have stuff just short of incriminating, and you are waiting for the connecting link. You will wait a year for it, maybe, who knows. That waiting game would have killed Pakistan, it would have forced the US to take a position than hyphenate us.
But we did not fully understand the gravity of the Bombay investigations, well, obviously, we knew it was important, but we did not think it to be the key. If we had thought it key, we would have shut out any information sharing with the media â and despite being part of the media, we say this. The Maharashtra and Bombay police chiefs would have resolutely gone off the press and TV, the leaks would have been plugged, in short, there would have been a blackout about the investigations.
Now one understands that leaks can be purposive, to mask the intentions of the pursuers, to give the terrorists a false of security, the thousand cat and mouse games that cops and robbers and G-men play. But these leaks emanating from sections of the Bombay Police gave no intimation of a great game, of things being plotted, of brilliant manoeuvres.
It looked like plain ratting about one anotherâs incompetence, dangerous one-upmanship, there was also a lurking sense of sabotaging the investigations, inter-agency, Centre-state rivalries played up, although the Congress leads the government in both state and in the Centre.
From Tripura, one ATS officer, by name, was quoted saying the investigations were at a dead-end. It did not look like a quote to mislead, it seemed like a frustrated outburst. Should such outbursts be allowed? The worst though of all the damaging leaks/ confusions/ insinuations was that the forensic revealed no RDX trace in the blasts, therefore ruling out the Lashkar-e-Toiba, so-called RDX specialists. Soon later, RDX was found by a Bombay lab, RDX plus ammonium nitrate, nitrites and fuel oil.
Who leaked/ set up the no RDX story? We donât know, and it is unlikely we will ever know, although the leaker sought to blow a hole through the Centreâs âmacroâ on Pakistan. And how does the absence or presence of RDX rule out or rule in the Lashkar? Donât terrorist organizations change their footprints?
From being sophisticated, wouldnât the Lashkar, say, want to trigger non-RDX blasts precisely to throw stupid investigators off their tracks, and to increase Pakistanâs deniable hand? And now to claim a mixture of RDX and easily procurable ammonium nitrate â even if this is true, why would Pakistan not reject it as another shoddy attempt to implicate it and the Lashkar?
In J and K terrorism, agencies used to class terrorist groups on the pattern of their terrorism. Some were supposed to be bomb makers, others, the more military types, the Lashkar, Harkat, used mortars and other heavies, the earliest Kashmiri militants tried with rockets, and so on. It can be said with no authority that the terrorists adhered to a pattern of terrorism, almost idiosyncratically, and anyhow, in the great anonymity of urban terrorism, Bombay terrorism, it is idiotic and maybe calamitous to insist on types. Right after the blasts, a section of intelligence discounted SIMI because it had no bomb-makers before, but how could anybody be sure of now? Or indeed that the bombers were SIMI plus the Lashkar?
The point is, bar cases of suicide bombing, or where deniability fails, painstaking police investigation is the only course open in urban terrorism, apart from lucky intelligence breaks, cypher cracking, interceptions, etc. These investigations, especially if deniability holds, can take from days to weeks, months.
Except intended leaks, carefully supervised, it is best to keep the investigations under heavy wraps. If foreign involvement is suspected â the âmacroâ fingering Pakistan â a perception must be created of absolute integrity of investigations. With Pakistan, this may be impossible, but we made it worse. Go through the investigative history, it is blotched from start.
We began truthfully enough, about the âmacroâ. The threats made in respect of the Kashmir peace process and ties overall were entirely reasonable reactions, but we overreached trying to get G-8 without the linking evidence to the massacre. At the G-8, we flunked, and correspondingly, the Bombay investigations trashed themselves. Now, we go peacemaking again with the Pakistanis knowing some of them are the mass murderers of Bombay.
This can only happen in India.
http://www.indiareacts.com/archivedebates/...recno=1442&ctg=
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<i>The Bombay massacre â and the unending mess. </i>
20 July 2006: The questions do not cease about the Bombay blasts. We have gone from blaming Pakistan for them to making peace again, under US pressure, all within a week. Our credibility as a serious nation, a putative middle power, lies shattered. How have we gotten into this mess?
In the first cabinet meeting after the blasts, the national security advisor, M.K.Narayanan, informed that âmacroâ intelligence implicated Pakistan. Was there connecting evidence to the blasts? There was not at that time, it is perhaps unreasonable to expect to get evidence so soon, and if it was there, the G-8 would have done more than perfunctorily condemn the massacre, and the US would have desisted from lecturing us about police work.
Which leads to the question, should the PM have gone to the G-8 without the connecting evidence, even if the âmacroâ evidence implicating Pakistan was strong, as there is no reason to doubt? Probably not. The government should have quietly checked with the G-8 if what India had was enough to nail Pakistan internationally, and if it was not, Manmohan Singh should have stayed home.
Staying home, keeping publicly away from the G-8, would have sent a message, that the massacre was too shocking and heinous for the PM to be able to travel. Staying would be a symbol of deep and abiding commiseration. It would also have signaled that Indiaâs âmacroâ intelligence against Pakistan was serious and compelling to keep the PM home.
Instead of the PM going to the G-8, the tables would have turned. There would have been disquiet in the G-8 about the PM keeping away, and it would have lead to the first of the serious pressuring on Pakistan against its terrorism here â and without our asking. Now, it has gotten off, and we look like fools.
Second, the Bombay ends of the investigations were grossly mishandled. A serious, thinking government would have held fast to that âmacroâ against Pakistan, put a blanket of secrecy on the Bombay anti-terrorist squad (ATS) investigations, and relentlessly turned the diplomatic heat on the Pakistani military regime.
Would the heat have held without presenting that connecting evidence? Any government would understand that evidence takes its own course to reveal, plus, India had the âmacroâ. It is like a card game, you are so convinced of your hand that your opponent buckles under suspense and pressure.
Incidentally, this is not bluffing, you have stuff just short of incriminating, and you are waiting for the connecting link. You will wait a year for it, maybe, who knows. That waiting game would have killed Pakistan, it would have forced the US to take a position than hyphenate us.
But we did not fully understand the gravity of the Bombay investigations, well, obviously, we knew it was important, but we did not think it to be the key. If we had thought it key, we would have shut out any information sharing with the media â and despite being part of the media, we say this. The Maharashtra and Bombay police chiefs would have resolutely gone off the press and TV, the leaks would have been plugged, in short, there would have been a blackout about the investigations.
Now one understands that leaks can be purposive, to mask the intentions of the pursuers, to give the terrorists a false of security, the thousand cat and mouse games that cops and robbers and G-men play. But these leaks emanating from sections of the Bombay Police gave no intimation of a great game, of things being plotted, of brilliant manoeuvres.
It looked like plain ratting about one anotherâs incompetence, dangerous one-upmanship, there was also a lurking sense of sabotaging the investigations, inter-agency, Centre-state rivalries played up, although the Congress leads the government in both state and in the Centre.
From Tripura, one ATS officer, by name, was quoted saying the investigations were at a dead-end. It did not look like a quote to mislead, it seemed like a frustrated outburst. Should such outbursts be allowed? The worst though of all the damaging leaks/ confusions/ insinuations was that the forensic revealed no RDX trace in the blasts, therefore ruling out the Lashkar-e-Toiba, so-called RDX specialists. Soon later, RDX was found by a Bombay lab, RDX plus ammonium nitrate, nitrites and fuel oil.
Who leaked/ set up the no RDX story? We donât know, and it is unlikely we will ever know, although the leaker sought to blow a hole through the Centreâs âmacroâ on Pakistan. And how does the absence or presence of RDX rule out or rule in the Lashkar? Donât terrorist organizations change their footprints?
From being sophisticated, wouldnât the Lashkar, say, want to trigger non-RDX blasts precisely to throw stupid investigators off their tracks, and to increase Pakistanâs deniable hand? And now to claim a mixture of RDX and easily procurable ammonium nitrate â even if this is true, why would Pakistan not reject it as another shoddy attempt to implicate it and the Lashkar?
In J and K terrorism, agencies used to class terrorist groups on the pattern of their terrorism. Some were supposed to be bomb makers, others, the more military types, the Lashkar, Harkat, used mortars and other heavies, the earliest Kashmiri militants tried with rockets, and so on. It can be said with no authority that the terrorists adhered to a pattern of terrorism, almost idiosyncratically, and anyhow, in the great anonymity of urban terrorism, Bombay terrorism, it is idiotic and maybe calamitous to insist on types. Right after the blasts, a section of intelligence discounted SIMI because it had no bomb-makers before, but how could anybody be sure of now? Or indeed that the bombers were SIMI plus the Lashkar?
The point is, bar cases of suicide bombing, or where deniability fails, painstaking police investigation is the only course open in urban terrorism, apart from lucky intelligence breaks, cypher cracking, interceptions, etc. These investigations, especially if deniability holds, can take from days to weeks, months.
Except intended leaks, carefully supervised, it is best to keep the investigations under heavy wraps. If foreign involvement is suspected â the âmacroâ fingering Pakistan â a perception must be created of absolute integrity of investigations. With Pakistan, this may be impossible, but we made it worse. Go through the investigative history, it is blotched from start.
We began truthfully enough, about the âmacroâ. The threats made in respect of the Kashmir peace process and ties overall were entirely reasonable reactions, but we overreached trying to get G-8 without the linking evidence to the massacre. At the G-8, we flunked, and correspondingly, the Bombay investigations trashed themselves. Now, we go peacemaking again with the Pakistanis knowing some of them are the mass murderers of Bombay.
This can only happen in India.
http://www.indiareacts.com/archivedebates/...recno=1442&ctg=
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->