My friend Frank Dowse is the head of Agemus Group, a security-consulting firm.  Frank's been in the business since his retirment as a Lt.Col from the Marien Corps a few years back. 

Frank was my guest on Wednesday's show as the terror attacks in Mumbai were unfolding. I asked Frank what a CEO should do when he discovers he has employees in an area where a crisis develops.  Frank sent along the this follow-up:

I would like to provide for you and your audience a more direct answer to the question…which was (paraphrasing) “If one is a CEO/COO tonight with people in Mumbai, what can they do?  I’ll preface this with the situation that the attacks are already underway, and that the CEO is reacting, vice mitigating or preventing, security and crisis challenges in the future. A planning assumption is that there is communication with one’s employees, or at least we know what hotel they are staying, and their basic schedule of events.

“I felt totally helpless…What was needed was a Crisis Management Group in addition to the National Authorities to deal with this crisis”

Ratan Tata, CEO of the TATA Group, owner of the Taj Hotel, Mumbai, India

                                        

1. Initiate/Designate a Crisis Response Team: If this is not an inherent function or area of responsibility within your organization, then assign a Point Man (COO/Vice President Level, with PR reps to assist) who can lead, authorize, and decide on behalf of the management, in order to best affect plans and responses as events unfold, and information is gathered. This needs to be a 24 hour operation, and should be given top priority for resources, and manpower.
2. Start a Log, capturing time lines, significant events, persons, and exterior contacts and players.
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From the Telegraph.  If these details are accurate, India will be as eager for reprisals against Kashmiri militants and perhaps Pakistan as the U.S. was against al Qaeda and the Taliban in the aftermath of 9/11.

Still wondering what an uncompromised-by-the-New-York-Times-and-Los Angeles-Times' Swift program might have meant.

MarkDRoberts at his best.

From Blackfive.

Barcepundit has done all the work rounding up the key links.

Mark Steyn summarizes the grim significance of the attacks.

In the ten months before this week’s atrocity, Muslim terrorists killed over 200 people in India and no-one paid much attention. Just business as usual, alas. In Bombay, the perpetrators were cannier. They launched a multiple indiscriminate assault on soft targets, and then in the confusion began singling out A-list prey: Not just wealthy Western tourists, but local orthodox Jews, and municipal law enforcement. They drew prominent officials to selected sites, and then gunned down the head of the antiterrorism squad and two of his most senior lieutenants. They attacked a hospital, the place you’re supposed to take the victims to, thereby destabilizing the city’s emergency-response system.

And, aside from dozens of corpses, they were rewarded with instant, tangible, economic damage to India: the Bombay Stock Exchange was still closed on Friday, and the England cricket team canceled their tour (a shameful act).

What’s relevant about the Mumbai model is that it would work in just about any second-tier city in any democratic state: Seize multiple soft targets and overwhelm the municipal infrastructure to the point where any emergency plan will simply be swamped by the sheer scale of events. Try it in, say, Mayor Nagin’s New Orleans. All you need is the manpower. Given the numbers of gunmen, clearly there was a significant local component. On the other hand, whether or not Pakistan’s deeply sinister ISI had their fingerprints all over it, it would seem unlikely that there was no external involvement. After all, if you look at every jihad front from the London Tube bombings to the Iraqi insurgency, you’ll find local lads and wily outsiders: That’s pretty much a given.

Read the whole, very troubling thing, and then pray that the president-elect has as well.  There's a good chance that Hillary knows the score, and certainly General Jones does.

It his Congressional allies that might not allow President-elect Obama to "grow in office" into a serious proponent of the war against Islamist jihadists.  The early details of the sophisticated nature of the attacks in India in this article underscore the nature of the threat posed by jihadists, and not just in India, but anywhere within reach of a country that does not itself have the means or the will to suppress jihadist activity within its borders.

Perhaps some kind soul will send the Office of the President-elect a crate of The War Against the West.  Every member of the incoming White House staff could use many doses of Wright, Frantz and Collins, Steyn, Burns and the rest.

My latest Townhall.com column looks at the GOP-Dem technology gap.

From Haaretz.

Israeli media, as usual, is far ahead of the American MSM in gathering the details and key background for the story.

UPDATE: The Atlantic's Robert Kaplan, as usual, has more key background.

Two in-depth interviews with Kaplan are included in The War Against The West.

My old associate producer and friend Amy notes the side-effects of moving out after a spell as a returned child.

My guess is that many parents will be sending this link to many children who moved back home for grad school.

There will be a few more offerings next week, including my latest on the rebuilding of the GOP and CD's/downloads Hillsdale President Larry Arnn's sprint through the history of ideas and presidential historian Richard Norton Smith's rapid-fire review of all the presidents, but available now are three possible gifts for the HH Show listener on your list.

The War Against the West brings together the most important interviews I have done in the past four years with experts on the war against Islamist extremism.  These experts range across the political and professional spectrum, but whether it is Looming Tower author Lawrence Wright, historian Victor Davis Hanson, New York Times reporter John Burns or General David Petraeus, each of the experts knows their subject matter thoroughly and brings crucial knowledge on the enemy to the conversation.  The audio version will be available in a few weeks, but the book provides a primer to the essential facts about the enemy. 




For younger readers on your list:  A Guide To Christian Ambition has been issued in paperback, and remains a favorite gift for high school and college students as well as young adults looking ahead to careers in which they hope to influence the world for the good.
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My adopted home is on the ropes, and Joel Kotkin explains why in this fine article about the rise and fall of California.

Kotkin did not forsee the passage of Prop 11, however, (few of us did) and the political crisis he describes could only be resolved through the end of gerrymandering which has driven California liberals over the far-left cliff.  If the redistricting initiative is not undermined by the legislature or the California Supreme Court --which managed to ignite the nastiest political battle in the state since Prop 187-- The elections of 2012 will be across new and very competitive districts and could well draw new energy into Golden State politics which has been a dead end for more than a decade.

The California crisis is a perfect example of liberal interest group governance, and the collapse of its budget and its job creation energy will follow in any political unit that follows its lead, no matter how large.

Key graphs from the Kotkin piece:

You can blame many factors for California’s fall from grace: too much immigration from poor countries, the impact of global competition on technology and aerospace industries, the end of the Cold War, failing schools, and the 12 years of political control by the Texas-centric Bushes. Yet other states have weathered similar storms and still gained ground on the Golden State.

The real problem lies in the decline of the state’s political culture. “Our society may be evolving spectacularly but our politics are devolving,” suggests [Kevin] Starr, the state’s most eminent historian. “California is in no way a role model for anyone from outside the state.”...

California’s shift to the Democrats had become inexorable and, with the fading of a GOP counterweight, influence within the party flowed to its more radical factions further to the political left. As a result, the state moved decisively away from the economic growth focus of Pat Brown. It seemed determined to wage war against its own economy. As pet social programs, entitlements, and state employee pensions soared, infrastructure spending—the hallmark of the Pat Brown regime and once 20 percent of the state budget—shrank to less than 3 percent.

The educational system, closely aligned with the Democrats in the legislature, accelerated its secular decline. Once full of highly skilled workers, California has become increasingly less so. For example, California ranks second in the percentage of its 65-year-olds holding an associate degree or higher and fifth in those with a bachelor’s degree. But when you look at the 25-to-34 age group, those rankings fade to 30th and 24th.

Instead of reversing these trends, the state legislature decided to spend its money on public employees and impose ever more regulatory burdens on business.

The elections of 2010 will see very little in the way of change within the state legislature because of gerrymandered districts, but if either Meg Whitman or Steve Poizner take over from Arnold in two years, a smart and successful new governor with deep experience in business growth and technological innovation will be in place when the class of 2012 arrives from legislative districts drawn without regard to incumbency, and perhaps the state's political class will begin the hard work necessary to restoring California's economic growth, without which nothing else can be renovated or renewed.

I hope you can see a banner above and a box to the side displaying "A Christmas Challenge" on behalf of children in the Dominican Republic.  From now until after Christmas I will be seeking sponsors of children in the DR to join me in helping one or more young girls or boys out of the worst poverty you can imagine and into lives of sufficiency and happiness.

For many in the U.S. it is a very tough season, and that means an economic disaster for thousands more in the DR which depends so heavily on the upside of proximity to the States.  When I visited the DR in July, the residents worried about a soft American tourism sector.  I can only imagine how the national slow-down has impacted the island.

I am reprinting the account of my trip from the summer and hope that you and your family will consider beginning this Thanksgiving-Christmas season with a sponsorship of a DR child.   At the link you will find a profile of one DR boy or girl to consider sponsoring. There are 3,000 children waiting for sponsors in the DR, and our formal goal is to find 250 of them a sponsor.  Children International has been at work for more than 70 years, and they screen the children to find those who not only desperately need the assistance your sponsorship brings but who can also be reached and worked with.

Thank you for considering the request.  Here is the account of my trip there six months ago:

Nine Houses

Children International is a humanitarian relief organization whose sponsors support more than 320,000 children in 11 countries.  I have been working with them since last year when listeners to my radio program signed up to sponsor more than 250 children during the Christmas season, and another 100 in the week before Easter.  (If as a result of today's broadcast or reading this post, you'd like to join in sponsoring a child in the DR, please send me an e-mail with your contact info to hugh@hughhewitt.com.)



Though I had thoroughly investigated CI before agreeing to serve as one of their spokespeople and knew of their very sterling reputation for effectiveness and efficiency, CI suggested that I would be better equipped to explain the program to my audience if I visited one of the 11 countries in which they work.  CI is non-sectarian and establishes community service centers in impoverished regions of the countries in which they work which are staffed with medical and dental personnel, social workers and volunteers drawn from the communities being served.  The aim is to rescue sponsored children from the most abject poverty via years of medical, educational support and small economic interventions aimed at meeting the basic needs of the child while supplementing whatever public education is available through training and workshops geared to the age of the children, culminating in intensive transition training as the child nears adulthood.


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The attacks in India will catapult theABC report of a threat in NYC to the top of every newspaper tomorrow.

Check the Times of India, CounterrorismWatch and Belmont Clubm, for updates.

When highly coordinated attacks like those in India unfold, the families of victims have to wonder whether the attacks might have been prevented but for the blows to surveillance of terrorism suspects brought about by leaks such as those involving the Swift program that tracked terrorist financing.  The New York Times defended its actions and those of the Los Angeles Times at the time, but it is in the aftermath of deadly attacks that we should all revisit the recklessness of MSM in dealing with such matters.

No one will ever be able to prove whether an uncompromised Swift program might have penetrated such a big ring of terrorists, but at the time of the controversy, I did interview the Los Angeles Times' Doyle McManus, who admitted that the story might have helped terrorists elude capture.  When hell breaks loose, we ought to remind ourselves that the media has in the past decided for itself when security could be breached. 

The villains are the terrorists, of course, but their lives are made easier by every leak of a national security secret.

The War Against the West goes on.

Norm Coleman's lead in Minnesota is at 231 votes with 82% of the recount complete.

There are less than 4,000 challenged ballots to be reviewed by the five member State Canvassing Board, so a very clear picture of the final result should be available soon, just in time for the Georgia runoff next week.  Saxby Chambliss appears on today's program, and the Chuck Schumer-led Senate Dems are pouring cash into Georgia to try and get closer to 60.  Please consider one last gift of $25, $50 or $100 to www.Saxby.org, and make sure you call every Republican you know in Georgia and urge them to vote today (the last day for early voting).

Powerline's Scott Johnson runs through various Minnesota recount developments here.

Campaign 2010 will get off to a quick start, and nowhere more quickly than in Pennsylvania, where Arlen Specter will run again.  I supported him in 2004 and will be doing so enthusiastically again in 2010, and hope that Club for Growth's talented Pat Toomey doesn't run against Specter but instead for the Statehouse.  The Los Angeles Times provides an early look at this race and the possible candidacy of MSNBC's likeable liberal Chris Matthews. 

10% of the proceeds goes to WorldVision, so it is a great way to carry Advent with you through the day.

You gotta say so when he is so.

The economics side of Team Obama is impressive, and the GOP should be worried that the president-elect intends to talk left and govern right. 

They should be really, really worried if the senior members of the team start appearing on new media, confident of their views and eager to engage.  (No sign of that to date.) 

The GOP is convinced the Dems will overreach, and it will probably come in the area of cap-and-trade, card-check, plaintiffs' bar gifts etc, crippling the economic growth that the incoming free-marketeers endorse.  Watch for the first clash of the punish-the-rich lefties and the folks who actually know how the markets work.

UPDATE:  Larry Kudlow agrees.  (HT: RobinsonandLong.com)