Just after 9 pm on November 26, 2008, major news television channels all over the world broke the story of terrorist attacks in the busy commercial districts of Mumbai simultaneously at eleven separate locations, reportedly by 24 armed men and women. The confounded anchor persons of the Indian television channels, entrusted with keeping the interest of the viewers alive, kept unfolding events with a series of changing versions based on little or flimsy speculative information at their disposal, most of which was picked up by international channels. Immediate inference was drawn to the involvement of Pakistani merchant or navy vessels that transported the militants by sea from Karachi to the fishermen wharves in Mumbai, from where they unobtrusively covered the few miles by road to their targets, hijacking a police vehicle and spraying bullets on the way. The media reported throwing of grenades into a caf frequented by foreign tourists, a Jewish centre and the central railway station and of storming into the Taj Mahal and Trident-Oberoi hotels where guests were taken hostage and several shot dead. The earlier predicted number of the attackers could not be verified although no women were caught either dead or alive. The assailants were reported to be agile, single minded and commando trained young men in their teens or early twenties dressed in fatigues, jeans and tee shirts, quite unlike the usual stereotype bearded Islamic fundamentalists. They were armed just with AK47 assault rifles and grenades and executed an immaculately worked out deadly plan that was perhaps rehearsed to perfection. It took about seventy hours for a contingent of over 1000 elite army commandos and security personnel (ill equipped and chaotic) supported by equally clueless thousands behind the scene to ambush the hotels carrying room to room search and kill nine intruders, who seemingly operated in familiar surroundings, intermittently putting various areas of the hotel on fire. The area was finally declared safe after sustaining nearly 180 casualties and 300 injured. The pretension of being a world power made the Indians to instantly draw a parallel with the 9/11/2001 attack at New York and the Pentagon. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lost no time in hurling unsubstantiated accusations of the complicity of neighbours (meaning Pakistan), threatening with a 'cost' to the attack and hinting at taking out targets inside Pakistan, disregarding the sensitivity of violating the sovereignty of a neighbour nation and its possible irretrievable consequences. George Bush has set an unfortunate precedence of retaliation by invading remote weak countries, but the Indians must assess the regional situation and look inwards before imitating his footsteps that have pushed the United States towards financial ruin and have turned it into the most hated country in the world. The Americans never had to be judged by anyone, be answerable or explain to anyone. They are protected by their isolation and know nothing about ashes and blood. They can fight a war around their idealism in far-flung areas and then return home without a scratch on their nation or any major dent in their economy. India is not yet a super power and a majority of its people suffer from hunger, disease and illiteracy. It exists in a region with close cultural and racial ties with its neighbours and is trying to emerge as an economic regional power, where its competitor is China and not Pakistan. It has to deal with at least nineteen known insurgencies, numerous extremist influential political parties that resort to mass religious, communal, sectarian or criminal violence at the drop of a hat and is confronted with many internal social and religious disparities that it must resolve before any claim to be at par with developed nations can be justified. Any military venture against a nuclear-armed neighbour that has forces to match may not be decisive but will certainly be bloody and will bring both nations to economic ruin. It will also clash with the interests of the western world that has invested considerable time, effort and money in combating terrorism and for whom stability in the region is the key to world peace and global economic prosperity that is presently undergoing deep recession. That is why the whole world is mediating to avert armed hostilities that may put the regional economics behind by several decades and encourage a fresh wave of attacks on Western targets. More than a million people were massacred and thousands of families were dislocated in the 1947 partition of the subcontinent the scars of which have still not obliterated. No sane government would want to open those wounds again that may take a century to heal. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The dismal security and intelligence failures have taken the wind out of the myth of the Indian efficiency that could not detect or prevent a handful of foot soldiers to conquer the waves, dodge the naval ships and coast guards during the alleged 500 nautical miles from Karachi to Mumbai and the land security cordon along the few miles enroute to their targets, much like 'Mission Impossible'. They are still groping in the dark, hiding their incompetence by pointing fingers at the conveniently digestible punching bag that is Pakistan, based on the doubtful evidence of a single alleged attacker that was caught alive. Their much-trumpeted democratic traditions have been exposed as the political parties could not unite, trying to get mileage for the forthcoming general elections by playing with emotions in the face of tragedy. Indian news channels broadcast some appallingly incorrect information that was never retracted and lived up to the reputation of creating sensation at the cost of authenticity by showing unbelievable fictional clips of training camps and dropping names of places like Faridkot, Mansehra, Muzaffarabad and Muridke as the places where the terrorists were trained and originated that could not be corroborated. Our leadership has so far exercised restraint under provocation and our political parties have taken a unified stand on this issue setting aside their differences, for which they are to be commended. However, the apologetic responses of our government have failed to project us as a confident sovereign nation with nothing to hide. The prevailing confusion at the highest level hints at incompetence and lack of coordination, sense of urgency and seriousness. We have failed to exhibit transparency and smack of doublespeak. Why do we not round up the three (or twenty - now forty) people named by the Indians, investigate their involvement and share the outcome with them either to absolve once for all or to level charges and try them in our courts of law? Why have we been trying to unilaterally appease the Indians, sweeping under the carpet the clear and ever present danger from them to our very existence? Why have we not lodged strong protests with India for their meddling in terrorism in Balochistan, FATA, Karachi and for supporting anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan. Terrorism has become a common global cause. Unfortunately, our past diplomatic and policy failures to counter the aggressive western propaganda has isolated and labelled us as a state harbouring terrorists instead of an ally of the Americans in fighting the monster that they had created and then abandoned. No amounts of denials will convince anyone presently that we ourselves are victims of terrorism and not its perpetrators and the Indians would not miss this opportunity to extract their pound of flesh by parroting 'do more'. We must absorb the fact that we are left with no choice but to brace ourselves with a determination to eradicate militancy from our midst, not for the Indians or the Americans but for our own sake, no matter what it takes. 9/11 succeeded in pitching the US and the entire West against the Muslims and changing for worse the way of life of the whole world. India must see through and not succumb to the Mumbai terrorist's goal of pitching it against Pakistan and the Hindus against its own 150 million Muslims that has the potential of triggering a bloodbath that will result in monumental collateral damage to both nations and fulfil someone else's broader objective. The writer is an engineer and an entrepreneur