Mumbai massacre

Sunday, November 30th, 2008

Well, I don't need to repeat all the stuff you have read about on this, awful though it is. There but for the grace of God, I thought since only the day before, I had been looking at an Indian holiday next year.

No, I wish to talk about blame. Now it's all over, I see the blame factory going into overtime and especially on the operation itself. The Home Minister and the head of Internal Security have resigned and there are already comments that the rescue was bungled.

Was it? Think about it. It was nothing like 9/11, nor the various city bombings we have seen in the West nor the isolated single venue bombings we have seen elsewhere nor even Entebbe. This was a multiple, well informed and apparently well-coordinated simultaneous attack on several very large buildings with miles of corridors, hundreds of rooms and untold civilians.

Israel has moaned that it offered help was was refused. Maybe other countries' special forces were offered as well. It seems to me it would have been a nightmare to have the League of Nations in there trying to work together. Think of the language issues for a start. Damned if I understand their call centres let alone the average excited English speaking Indian person.

I am sure that the Indian 'Black Cats' made mistakes but I do ask myself if the SAS or Delta Force could have done better.

We are all too quick to find a scapegoat in this world. Oscar Wilde wasn't it? 'Success has many fathers but failure is always an orphan.'