On Wednesday 03 Oct 2007 8:23 pm, Badri Natarajan wrote: > 1. Do you really think the US response to 9/11 (largely the invasions of > Iraq and Afghanistan, plus some silly security measures in the US, and a > few effective things like cutting off terrorist funding networks) have > made the US safer? In other words, if Iraq and Afghanistan had not been > invaded, do you think there would have been another attack on the US > mainland?
The US has "responded robustly" to one single attack on one September day. Would there have been another attack? Your guess is as good as mine - but the US was ripe for a terrorist attack (in my view). The US was sitting pretty and secure in its relative geographical isolation and local hegemony aided by good internal security and rule of law. Nations like the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain that are similarly democratic, developed and wealthy have faced terrorism for decades. Israel and India too have seen terrorism for decades but as we all know terrorism against India was not terrorism until 9-11. Lebanon was a great hot spot. Apart from these terrorism has become commonplace for Sri Lanka, Russia, Thailand, the Phillipines, Egypt and Algeria. Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are new club members. I believe terrorism in the the US was "waiting to happen". But are the specific measures that the US has taken going to be effective? Probably not. Because terrorism central is a US ally. But the US is making itself a fortress - so it will probably take a hit outside the US, So the US may be "safer". Sitting in India - the US looks safe to me. > "nice but ineffective". But as a practical matter, what kind of measures > would you recommend for India to "crack down" on terrorism? Badri - I can answer this in 3 words, but it is not that easy to implement. "Rule of law" I mean constitutional law, and not mob law or sharia. The number of hurdles before that is enormous, but we must keep chipping away. "Security measures" in India, draconian as they may be, are unlikely to go much further unless applied specifically in areas where they are needed urgently - i.e illegal immigration, vote-bank politics that utilise illegal immigrants (North East India), better controls on issuing of passports and other legally valid identity documents, sympathetic and law abiding policing, better police to population ratio, courts with little or no backlog, and incorruptible judges if not politicians. BTW did anyone watch Nandakumar Saravade on TV last night commenting on cyber-crime? shiv
