Posted by Tina
Mumbai’s Lesson: It Pays To Listen, Investors Business Daily
** War On Terror: U.S. warnings beginning in October of an imminent terror attack didn’t save India. And if Democrats continue to doubt the value of aggressive terrorist surveillance, America can expect the same fate. **
** The world was stunned by the murder last week of nearly 200 people in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, apparently by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, which demands the end of Indian rule in Kashmir and Islamist rule throughout South Asia. *** The seven-plus years of remarkable safety America has enjoyed have had the unfortunate side effect of lulling all too many of us into complacency about the reality of the 21st century…The prevention of a repeat of 9/11 wasn’t magic. Nor was it luck. *** An intelligence official told ABC News this week that U.S. intelligence agencies warned India in mid-October of a possible attack “from the sea against hotels and business centers in Mumbai,” while a second government source revealed that the Taj hotel and other specific locations were actually named in the U.S. warning. *** About a month later, on Nov. 18, Indian intelligence intercepted a satellite phone call to a number in Pakistan used by a Lashkar-e-Taiba leader indicating a possible seaborne attack. *** Whether our warnings to India were sufficiently heeded or not, it’s clear that high-tech surveillance is one of the free world’s best methods of preventing terrorism. It should be used as much as possible to prevent the slaughter of more innocents. **