International Relations -- Terrorists Strike Mumbai

December 1, 2008

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers

TERRORISM

Terrorist Attacks Strike Mumbai

Last Wednesday, "coordinated terrorist attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India's commercial capital," kicking off a three-day showdown between gunmen and Indian authorities that left nearly 200 people dead and over 300 injured, including at least six Americans. Entering the city by sea, the group of 10 to 15 militants "brought India's largest city to its knees" with a sophisticated attack that spanned 10 sites. "After landing, the gunmen fanned out across the city, most likely in groups of two or three. Within half an hour, they had hit about five sites: the city's main rail station, a Jewish center at the Nariman House, the Leopold Cafe, and the Oberoi and Taj hotels." The terrorists "dug in for sieges" at the two hotels, taking hostages and battling the Indian military for days, before finally being subdued on Saturday. Though early reports said that the attackers were "singling out Americans and Britons," the killing now appears to have been indiscriminate, as the gunmen sprayed gunfire into crowds; the majority of those killed were not foreign-born. On the first night of the attacks, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a televised statement that he believed that "the well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks" probably had "external linkages" and were launched by a group "based outside the country," a not-so subtle reference to Pakistan. The Pakistani government denies that it had any role in the attacks. With Indian and American investigations increasingly focusing on "evidence that a Pakistani militant group based in Kashmir, most likely Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible" for the attacks, recent efforts at reconciliation between long-time rivals India and Pakistan are now at real risk of being derailed.

A UNIQUE ATTACK: In recent years, India has faced an onslaught of terrorist attacks, including a 2001 assault on the Indian parliament and coordinated bomb attacks in Northeast India last October that killed 61 people. Initially, U.S. officials cast the Mumbai attacks as fitting the mold of al Qaeda, noting that the terrorists had staged "simultaneous attacks on high profile targets in the heart of a city's financial district." But various elements mark the strike in Mumbai as something unique. As Time magazine's Bruce Crumley notes, the attacks in Mumbai mark "the emergence of an unprecedented hybrid of terror tactics." "This is essentially a small army sent into the heart of society with orders to kill and keep killing as long as possible," French terrorism specialist Roland Jacquard told Crumley. "So this is more like terrorism fused with insurgency and guerilla warfare." Counterterrorism experts told the Washington Post that the "the scale, sophistication and targets involved in the Mumbai attacks were markedly different from previous terrorist plots in India," suggesting that the assailants received training from outside of the country. "This is a new, horrific milestone in the global jihad," said former CIA South Asia analyst Bruce Riedel.

AN ESCALATION OF TENSIONS: With indications that the attackers may have been supported by groups outside of India like Lashkar-e-Taiba, the "fragile peace process between New Delhi and Islamabad" is at risk. Though Pakistani government denies it had anything to do with the attacks, the Indian government has accused "elements in Pakistan" of having culpability for the violence. "We are a nation outraged right now. And such incidents are always a grave setback to the peace process between India and Pakistan. This time our response will be very serious," Anand Sharma, India's deputy foreign minister, told the Washington Post on Sunday. Sharma, along with other Indians, accuse Pakistan of reneging on a promise made in 2004 not to allow its territory to be used for attacks against India by any groups. The Pakistani government is promising to investigate the role that "nonstate actors" may have had in the attacks, though officials claim India has not presented them with any proof that Pakistanis were involved. On ABC's This Week yesterday, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, said that "we should not see this heinous act in the context of India-Pakistan relations. We should see it in the context of international terrorism." But Indian officials are considering retributive actions such as "calling off the ongoing dialogue with Pakistan or suspending the five-year-old official cease-fire on the border."

A REGIONAL PROBLEM: A recent Center for American Progress report by Caroline Wadhams, Brian Katulis, Lawrence J. Korb, and Colin Cookman emphasizes that "Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan are inextricably linked, and U.S. policy must be formulated accordingly." "These regional challenges will require a fundamentally different U.S. approach that eliminates the bureaucratic separation in Washington between diplomacy, development, intelligence, and military activities in Islamabad, Kabul, and New Delhi," write the report's authors. But the finger-pointing between Pakistan and India over responsibility for the Mumbai attacks could have "deep consequences" for such an American strategy in the region. Both President-elect Barack Obama and new Centcom Commander Gen. David Petraeus view reconciliation between the two countries as an important step that would allow "Pakistan to focus less of its military effort on India, and more on the militants in its lawless tribal regions who are ripping at the soul of Pakistan." But the attacks appear as though they will "sour relations, fuel distrust and hamper, at least for now, America's ambitions for reconciliation in the region."

HEALTH CARE -- NEW MEDICAID RULE FORCES STRUGGLING AMERICANS TO PAY MORE FOR CARE: Last Tuesday, the Bush administration issued a new federal rule that would allow states to "deny care or coverage to Medicaid beneficiaries who do not pay their premiums or their share of the cost for a particular item or service." In what the New York Times describes as a "sea change" in Medicaid, states will now "charge premiums and higher co-payments for doctors' services, hospital care and prescription drugs provided to low-income people under Medicaid." According to the Congressional Budget Office, 13 million low-income people -- about a fifth of Medicaid recipients -- will face new or higher co-payments and "some individuals may choose to delay or forgo care rather than pay their cost-sharing obligations." The rule has elicited criticism from "the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association for Home Care and AARP, among other groups," who said that higher co-payments would make it more difficult for low-income children, homebound people, and older Americans to get care.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS -- BUSH TO RECEIVE AWARD FOR GLOBAL HIV/AIDS FIGHT: Today, World AIDS Day, Pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback church will award President Bush the first "International Medal of PEACE" for his efforts to fight HIV/AIDS worldwide, during his Global Civil Forum. "No U.S. president or political leader has done more for global health than this Administration, which has raised the bar on America's role and responsibility for providing critical humanitarian assistance around the world," Warren said. White House press secretary Dana Perino announced today that as of Sept. 30, Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) "supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for over 2.1 million men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS around the world, including more than two million people in Sub Saharan Africa." While Bush undoubtedly deserves credit for aggressively tackling the problem of AIDS worldwide, his ideological insistence on refusing to fund contraception and forbidding family planning organizations for using their own funds to provide contraception or abortion services has hampered AIDS workers' efforts and cost lives. Two studies by the Government Accountability Office and the Institute of Medicine showed that abstinence-only requirements are "undermining global efforts to prevent 7 million new HIV infections by 2008." Bush has also been criticized for ignoring the spread of AIDS at home: In Washington, DC, the AIDS rate is 1 in 20 -- the same as the overall rate in sub-Saharan Africa.

ADMINISTRATION -- BUSH'S LAST-MINUTE RULE GUTTING WORKER PROTECTIONS MAY VIOLATE HIS OWN GUIDELINES: The Labor Department -- which has been "widely criticized for walking away from its regulatory function across a range of issues, including wage and hour law and workplace safety" -- is attempting to complete a rule making it more difficult to regulate toxic substances and chemicals that affect workers on the job. Public health officials and labor unions say the rule, which has strong support from business groups and is opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, "would delay needed protections for workers, resulting in additional deaths and illnesses." The New York Times noted that this proposal "appears to violate a memorandum issued in early May by Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff." "Except in extraordinary circumstances," Mr. Bolten wrote, "regulations to be finalized in this administration should be proposed no later than June 1, 2008, and final regulations should be issued no later than Nov. 1, 2008." The proposal is "one of about 20 highly contentious rules the Bush administration is planning to issue" in its final weeks.

Today, President-elect Barack Obama named some members of his national security team. The appointments mark "a sweeping shift of priorities and resources" by greatly expanding a "corps of diplomats and aid workers that, in the vision of the incoming Obama administration, would be engaged in projects around the world aimed at preventing conflicts and rebuilding failed states."

In naming Susan Rice his ambassador to the United Nations today, President-elect Obama has picked "a prominent and forceful advocate of stronger action, including military force if necessary, to stop mass killings like those in the Darfur region of Sudan in recent years." Obama will also restore the U.N. ambassadorship to a Cabinet-level position, as it was under President Clinton.

NPR reporter Ivan Watson and three members of NPR's Iraqi staff "narrowly escaped an apparent assassination attempt in Baghdad on Sunday after a hidden 'sticky' bomb exploded underneath their parked, armored BMW."

"When the Iraqi government ratified an agreement last week setting new terms for a continued American presence in Iraq, private contractors working for the Pentagon faced the inevitability that they would be stripped of their immunity from Iraqi law." Some experts said that contractors would be forced to rely much more on Iraqi employees, rather than on Americans.

The 110th Congress passed only about 3.3 percent of all the bills introduced, the lowest success rate since 1976. A full 32 percent "did nothing more than rename a federal building," up from the 25 percent of legislation representing ceremonial bills from the 109th Congress.

The European Space Agency has "identified new rifts on an Antarctic ice shelf that "could lead to it breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula." The ice shelf had "been stable for most of the past century before it began retreating in the 1990s."

The UN continues climate change talks in a new summit that begins today in Poznan, Poland. Delegates from 190 countries will discuss "[p]roposals for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol treaty...with a final agreement planned to be signed in Copenhagen a year from now."

Tanta, the blogging pseudonym of a popular and admired financial blogger Doris Dungey, passed away Sunday morning. Thanks in large part to Tanta's contributions, the blog Calculated Risk became "a crucial source of prescient analysis as the housing market at first faltered, then collapsed and finally spawned a full-blown credit crisis."

And finally: Jonathan Lifschutz, a Long Island supporter of Barack Obama, says he has been forced to hide his OBAMA vanity license plates inside his car because people keep trying to steal them. He said "would-be thieves tried prying off the plates and he even caught one man red-handed. He jokes the Empire State plates one day will be a collector's item -- in someone else's house. So he's taken them off his car and put his old plates back on."

"President George W. Bush will mark World AIDS Day Monday by announcing that his administration has already met its goal of treating two million people living with HIV/AIDS by the end of the year."

THINK PROGRESS: George Will: Economic crisis may only be "a financial problem," "rest of economy is doing rather well."

WONK ROOM: Report: Wage erosion and the decline of labor.

YGLESIAS: Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol's next war.

TPM MUCKRAKER: Unnamed Republican senator blocking appointment of key bailout overseer.

ECONOMY: States' coffers suffer as declining auto sales means declining sales tax revenues.

MASSACHUSETTS: Demand for primary care doctors outpaces supply.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Gov. Mark Sanford (R) leading a "lonely" charge "against a series of massive federal financial bailouts, including plans pushed by governors" to secure a major new public works program.

"This may be much more of a financial problem, that is, one sector, while the rest of the economy is doing rather well."
-- George Will, 11/30/08

VERSUS

"The nation's unemployment rate bolted to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October as another 240,000 jobs were cut, far worse than economists expected and stark proof the economy is deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid pace."
-- AP, 11/7/08

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