Indian government's ineffective war on Islamic terror

Western eyes see India's government fights against Islam's mass murder and mayhem in much the same way that liberals and many Democrats have been urging the U.S. to carry it out.

[excerpt from "Lost Illusions" by Arthur Herman]

. . . India’s record on counterterrorism is abysmal, almost deliberately so. The government in New Delhi steadfastly maintains a wall of separation between law-enforcement agencies like the one that used to separate the FBI and CIA before the Patriot Act, and keeps counterterrorist units underfunded and undermanned. It has repeatedly given way to the demands of Islamic radical groups and fundamentalist lobbyists in the name of “cultural sensitivity.” India was the first non-Islamic country to ban Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses back in 1988.

India has no preventive detention laws; no laws to protect the identity of anti-terrorist witnesses; and no laws to allow domestic wiretapping without court order. In 2004, the new Congress Party government revoked India’s version of the Patriot Act, even as the Indian media was loudly condemning the U.S. for “torture” at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.

In short, the Indian government has waged the war on terror in much the same way that liberals and many Democrats have been urging the U.S. to carry it out. The result is that more than 4,000 Indians have died in attacks since 2004 — more than any other nation in the war on terror besides Iraq.

At the Sivaji rail platform on the November 28, eyewitnesses told the Belfast Telegraph that armed Indian police refused to shoot back when the terrorists opened fire. Even when the terrorists stopped to reload their guns, someone screamed at the police: “Shoot them, they’re sitting ducks!” But the police did nothing, only to be gunned down like everyone else.

Sitting ducks. One reason the Mumbai terrorists sought out Brits and Americans to kill is that they can’t get at them in their own countries. The latest report is that those “evil” U.S. intelligence agencies had actually intercepted threats about possible attacks on hotels in Mumbai, and passed them on to their Indian counterparts — who then failed to take action.

Britain and the United States have learned how to deal effectively with terrorism the hard way. Maybe this time Indians will, as well.

--Arthur Herman is the author of Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age, published this year by Bantam/Dell.

from Lost Illusions
What really happened in Mumbai.
By Arthur Herman
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTM1Y2MyZjMwZTM1ZmM2N2Y5ODdmZWNjMWFkYjZiM2Q=