Let's Clean Our Own House First

Amid all the finger-pointing and Pakistan bashing (which I am in no way judging) it is important to ensure we get our house in order first. It was "great" to see the public - and self-proclaimed saviors of the public - the media houses get to work and getting the politicians first to apologize and then to resign. Big victory eh ?

But what about the security officials ? Why isn't their role being questioned ? It sounds unfathomable, unpardonable, impossible to me that a ship that had surely required several hours to travel purportedly from Karachi to Mumbai could not be spotted and identified as hostile.

The Navy has gone and on about disconnects between intelligence, lack of written intelligence (WTF ?) and lack of specificity. So is the Navy completely free of blame. What about the Coast Guards ? Why are these people not being made to pay ? Or is it that just because we saw the Marcos (Marine Commandos) on TV talk about their "heroic" rescue act that their mistakes that are probably the single most important cause of the loss of 200 lives forgotten and forgiven ?

Moving beyond having these people pay, what measures are being taken to make sure the Coast Guard does not make these gaffes again ? Are they being armed with better surveillance equipment ? It can be understood if these actions are not mentioned in the public domain for security concerns but shouldn't we at least be given a notification that "some" action is being taken ? That the people concerned are concerned about this problem ?

I believe India's response in the first few days after 26/11 was reasonable and understandable. The need to stand up and be counted, be vigilant, alert citizens was emphasized. But within two weeks that positive note seems to have been lost. The sole focus now seems to have shifted to getting Pakistan to act and mounting pressure on them - thinking of ways to tackle Pakistan - while it is more important to figure ways of tackling ourselves all the time. Do the media stars feel they have done their job by getting politicians to resign and apologize ? Why are all their efforts now directed to getting them to answer about what is the response to Pakistan ? Why is no one bothered about bringing to justice the men who let us down in our security ? Why is the loss of focus from ourselves ?