HELPING US ALL UNDERSTAND HOW TO WORK BETTER TOGETHER – MORE ON CHECHNYA AND MUMBAI

(I have asked Jenna to put this on the Main Page and added new material from my last entry in the comment section. As we set basic ground rules for conduct and discussion here, it will make us all more efficient. )

For Ruiz and Nosucthingas...Quite frankly the intellectual dishonesty in both your comments is very disappointing. If you reread my last post again you will see that it is filled with disclaimers saying that I have NOT blamed anyone yet because there is not enough evidence to do that. So, both of you, stop putting words in my mouth. I won't tolerate it with me and I won't tolerate it being done to others on this list. It is you who are unfairly saying that I have already blamed Russia or Chechnya. I could not possibly have qualified that statement more thoroughly. So back off and play fair.

Russia and Chechnya are two opposing entities. I never even thought --and I sure did not write that I thought -- they were working together. That's impossible. I am merely scanning the history of terrorism to find groups or intelligence services that have demonstrated the kinds of capabilities and MOs we have seen in Mumbai. It is a logical and prudent investigative method.

The pseudo/wannabe experts who post ill-informed comments here are either scared to the point of losing rational and critical thought or else they have other agendas. I always welcome healthy, constructive intellectual criticism when it is founded on the reality of something I said and the issues that are on the table for discussion. But neither of you posted your comments in good faith. I'm sorry, but saying "I love you Mike but you are either mentally unstable or egotistical" is still an insult in a velvet glove; in this case an unjustified insult.

I will say this again and it's the last time I will say it. I have drawn no conclusions as to who perpetrated the attacks. I must have said it four or five times in my original post. I am following leads based on available information and building working hypotheses along the way. That's the way a detective works. Right now I must take into account that this attack was so well organized, funded and planned that the attackers had actually penetrated the Mumbai police department and knew its emergency response plan.

In that manner they knew that the three top officials of the police department would walk (or run) into a secondary ambush at the start of the operation. They then decapitated Mumbai's police command and that was CLEARLY a part of the plan. The Viet Cong were masters of this. It was the killing of those three -- I'm almost certain -- that allowed the rest of the attack to succeed and last this long. Sorry folks, but that's something Chechen rebels know how to do and have done. And it may well have been done through ELINT or SIGINT, another thing which SUGGESTS state sponsorship or massive amounts of money far in excess of anything an indigenous terror group might have. The Chechens aren't the only ones, but it is something they do know. It is something Al Qaeda knows. They are that well trained, equipped and financed. It is also clear that the Mumbai terrorists have previous COMBAT experience. Chechnya is full of Muslim combat veterans who also know how to behave like Europeans. Another factor to consider is that, based upon my knowledge, Russia is the only major country that does not have substantial outsourcing in Mumbai.

The alternative question to Who Benefits? is, Who Loses? (Or who loses least?) I don't see Russia losing much here, whereas every other industrial power has a major stake in Mumbai. That alone proves nothing and I may be wrong. It is a dot in a sea of dots that have not yet formed a clear image. But that goes to partially answering the question about Cui bono? Who benefits? I am merely working with available leads and sharing with you all as we think this through together.

And please, when I put in a post (see Rubicon and FTW) about Chechnya that means that if you don't know what I mean, you should get off your butt, go get your copy of Rubicon, look up Chechnya in the index and read the five or six pages in the book that will answer the question for you. You can go to FTW and enter "Chechnya" and partially answer your question as well. I refuse to do this work for you. Participation in this list, with the high-performance souls who contribute so much here, assumes a certain skill level. We are all feeding each other. I refuse to let this list be taken over by people who only wish to eat and who bring nothing to the table for anyone else. That is an essential component of sustainability. I will do everything I can to keep the thoroughbreds running as fast as they can rather than let us be slowed to a crawl by those who have no business picking up a glove in a major league baseball game when they can't play Little League. A basic first lesson is to offer comments on what people actually write rather than on what you wanted to criticize just to make yourself feel like you know something.

Play fair or don't play here. I'm sure that the thoroughbreds are quite capable of wrangling the list and addressing your offensive comments without me and I encourage them to do so. It lightens the load for me and Jenna both.

MCR

P.S. -- For those who aren't in the majors yet... The decades long Russia/Chechen conflict is a place where every medium and large RFM (Radical Fundamentalist Muslim) group sent cadres for the best training and actual, real combat experience for many years. Muslims were sent to Chechnya from West Africa to East Timor. It was the only place to get infantry and combat experience. The Chechens got compensated for the training. They were only too happy to have the bodies. They could teach everything from bomb making to C3. It's like a soldier getting Ranger training. In one case, all roads lead to Chechnya. In the other they lead to Fort Bragg. When I say I smell Chechnya in this I smell people who have been trained and who have fought in Chechnya. I smell people familiar with satellite phones, GPS systems, covert surveillance and recon, and encrypted communications. I smell people with the ability to pre-position necessary supplies well in advance... in secret. That still leaves open the question of where the massive funding and logistics came from. But I can guarantee that this was not indigenous or domestic to India. Many Pakistanis did go to Chechnya to fight and gain experience and training. But Chechnya is the nexus for where the knowledge and experience required to execute this attack came from. I'd bet on it.

As for the people who think Israel or the U.S. did this, please go to Alex Jones' blog and leave us alone. That's the government disinformation site.

It was not necessary to explain any of this to those on this list who make the real contributions and who add to our discussions instead of slowing them down. It wouldn't have been necessary for anyone if they'd picked up Rubicon like I asked, looked up Chechnya, and read a few pages instead of asking or expecting me to rewrite them again.

Half of you tell me to take time off and the other half expects me towork 24/7 over nonsense like this. -- We do not have to be this FUBAR.

I can already tell what the next comment will be. – "Mike, what does FUBAR mean? Pls explain." Some people really get that we are team-building here and that this requires team members to behave in certain ways with each other and to carry their own loads. That's why teams are better than individuals. The learning accelerates. And I will do everything in my power to make this an intellectual speedway.

[Note to NbPatton. I may well be a self-absorbed asshole. But what has been revealed to me as I healed from February on is the knowledge that I am a good, decent, honest and caring asshole. Thank you for the Patton analogy. I do wish sometimes… Ohhh do I wish.]

MCR
************************************************************************************

c. 6 PM EST (i.e before the above post)


Following a phone call and several emails among allies in which he emphasized that his hunch is no more than that, Mike has clarified the MO of the Mumbai attacks which he feels points towards Russian or Chechen origin (underscore "MO;" the motives of the two entities are opposed):

The key fact that everyone seems to have missed is that the operational response plan of the Mumbai police was compromised so that Mumbai's top three police officials walked directly into a secondary ambush at the start of the attacks. THAT WAS OBVIOUSLY PLANNED! Mumbai police security was compromised, and that smacks of state-sponsorship because in almost every case, only national intelligence services even aspire to that kind of penetration. Quite frequently it's technical... eg. PROMIS.

There are as yet not enough dots to make firm connections. But it's interesting to review Russian/Indian relations from this point of view:

In addition to being dependent on Russian energy, India is a major consumer of both Russian and U.S. arms whose manufacturers vye for its business.

The Chinese press nervously reported last week that come January, Russia and India are scheduled to engage in joint biennial naval exercises.

PS: To any readers who are guiltily puzzling over FUBAR (or ELINT or SIGINT) and not daring to voice their quandary: When in doubt, google. The sorts of questions that should be asked on the blog are the sort that cannot be answered by other readily available means.

JO