Indians, and especially Mumbaiites are very angry. They are seething and grinding their teeth and want to hit back hard at the terrorists and their perceived supporters and take strong measures to attack the ‘sources’ and 'supporters' of terrorism. This is very similar an atmosphere to what existed after 9/11 in the US and in fact many parallels are being drawn to the two attacks and the Nov 26 incident is being called as India’s 9/11. Like the US, India has the sympathy of the world and the entire world is behind India in trying to get the terrorists to justice.

What the US did later, that many sensible people at that time tried to restrain and reverse, was to fan the flames of hatred and instead of using the opportunity to get to the roots of terrorism they started a neanderthal revenge cycle and started hitting back at anybody whom they thought would not be in alignment with US interests. The worst part was how the government managed to brainwash a gullible public and embedded hatred in their mind for a big portion of the earth by characterising those countries as against the US and responsible for 9/11. A typical US resident of the heartlands who would not be able to point out Afghanistan from Armenia was deceived into thinking that the common man in a big swath of the earth (and anybody looking like them) hated them and that they hated the freedom that Americans enjoyed and that was the reason why they were attacked. Their minds were twisted for evil benefits into thinking that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Bin Laden and that his country should be attacked to take revenge for 9/11. These actions were taken by the very taken by the very government whose elected officals were chosen for the offices because they should think with a more balanced insight, be calm under difficult situations, and do what is right and just for the country and the world, and not be swept away into rage and fervour like any ordinary citizen. It was deception and betrayal of the highest order and sadly many Americans still think that going to war with Iraq was the right thing.

The best thing about Obama winning, besides the obvious reasons that have been discussed at length, is how the entire republican party, the complete McCain campaign, and your average arrogant, swaggering and fanatic right-winger, like the ones you see in certain Fox News shows, contributed to the victory by waging an (uncharacteristically) stupid campaign against Obama and bringing up such blatantly contrived issues to try to beat Obama that it was almost hilarious.

There are many people (and issues, not to mention the candidate and his campaign’s competency) that ‘deserve’ credit for Obama’s victory but the one person I take most pleasure in pointing out and who set the course for the disastrous McCain campaign was none other than our ‘beloved’ Sean Hannity. He would probably still be kicking himself for that he, with his characteristic pompous look and arrogant smirk, announced a stunning revelation about Obama and his supposed ‘connection’ with ‘terrorist’ Bill Ayers. He proudly bandied the pretty predictable ‘Rovian’ strategy of manipulating information and decimating a candidate’s image by misleading information. Hannity could not control his joy at having dug up an issue that he imagined would rival the ‘swift boating’ and ‘weak on security French poodle’ sledgehammers that rove threw at Kerry. Little did he realize that the issue he brought up was informative at best but mostly hilarious to most people. I’m amazed that the veteran gop guys started jumping on that bandwagon like it was the gravy train and ran (sprinted) with the Ayers story as their leading attack. At least Rove had enough brains to know that if you want to ignite some ‘right wing foreign-policy fanaticism’ in people (2004 Bush voters mainly) then at least try to bring up a ‘foreign’ terrorist angle. The brain-dead Bush voters of 2004 don’t view domestic terrorists the same as a ‘Arabic Islamic Terrorist Rat’. The latter will ignite nativist flames of passion and hatred but somebody like Timothy McVeigh (or Bill Ayers) would ignite faint memories of an oridinary American ‘criminal’.

Obama supporters are confident but cautious, as they should be. The Obama campaign deserves kudos, for every step along the way, but also for not letting any sort of complacency or over-confidence creep in. This is indeed a very crucial time and the McCain campaign all along, as I wrote in my earlier article, seemed to holding back their knock-out punch till the end as that will leave too little time to respond effectively.

A little bit of history is important here. John Kerry was also ahead in the polls, though not by such big margins as Obama, which actually was incredulous considering his disastrous lack of response to the swift-boat campaign. One event that happened at the end, that many believe might have made a small but crucial last-minute difference, was the release of the Bin Laden tape a day before the election. The tape ridiculed Bush for his response to the 9/11 attacks and by indirect inference the American people assumed that the terrorists must have released the tape to help Kerry.

The possible impact to both campaigns was clear even to a layman, but the mind-numbingly moronic Kerry Campaign again decided to play dead and not give any response hoping that the American people wont read too much into the tape (as they did with the swift-boat campaign). Now, you can have a campaign message built around ‘hope’ but your campaign strategy shouldn’t consist of just ‘hope’. You got to take action and get a clear message out to people. The Obama campaign has been outstanding in that respect anf I hope they continue to do so if the equivalent of the Bin Laden tape comes up.

Like I wrote in the article about John Kerry’s missed slam dunk opportunity, the tape was another golden opportunity in disguise. It’s not often that you get to display bluster, which is very important to win over the key swing voters. All Kerry had to say in response to the tape was something like

“We got the news that a coward hiding in a rat-hole has sent a missive, with the hysterically misguided notion that the American people would actually pay attention to the horse waste that he spews and would let that impact the election in any way. I would like to make one thing clear to the deranged barbarian who made the biggest mistake of his life by attacking us on 9/11 “No matter what the outcome of the election will be, we will not rest till we drag you out of your cave and make you pay for every drop of American blood that you spilled. If I were you I would not waste time making any more of these tapes filled with hate speech and would try to run and hide though even that will prove futile for we will hunt you down like the skunk that you are. “ ….

That's all Kerry needed to win the election in 2004.