Mumbai Attacks and their impact

[J Wolfsberger]

You have a mothership (any cargo ship), a handful of dedicated Jihadist lunatics who are very well trained and armed, a few rubber raiding crafts, and a limited support base in the target city to conduct your target reconnaissance and even guide you to your target(s) if required. There are large Muslim populations around the globe from Tokyo to London to Miami etc., and out of that population base it only takes a couple of converts to radical Islam to provide the required support.

Or a terrorist group in the US obtains weapons from a drug cartel or organized gang. Their surveillance activities would be indistinguishable from daily, normal commercial activity.

Here's the scenario, you're the police chief, it's your town, it's 2230hrs, surprise, you now have 10-15 Jihadists running around executing a well rehearsed plan, now respond. Respond with what? Local police? Are they grossly overweight (indicates they are not dedicated) and poorly trained? The national guard? Normally not trained for this type of response, and it would take hours to mobilize them. Federal forces? How long would it take for a credable response?
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The Los Angeles police department is relatively well trained and equipped, and I think most of us remember the challenges they had responding to two bank robbers armed with high powered rifles and effective body armor. My point is that police forces, just like military forces, are trained and equipped (barely) for probable threats. The Mumbai attacks were not a probable attack until last week.

The common misconception is that the police are there to protect you. In fact, most of their training is oriented toward cleaning up the mess afterward. I expect that's just as true in India as here in the US. The ordinary police in Mumbai who went up against the terrorists, matching pistols against grenades and assault weapons, deserve the highest regard for valor. The same would happen here.

In fact, I suspect it would be worse. The Indian government had the troops and processes in place (however efficient or not) to fairly quickly employ appropriately trained personnel in response.

We don't.