Chicago Man Is Charged in 2008 Attack on Mumbai – NYTimes.com

An American at the center of an international terrorism investigation has been charged with helping plot the 2008 rampage in Mumbai, India, that left 163 people dead, according to a Justice Department complaint unsealed on Monday.
….
The suspect, David C. Headley of Chicago, is accused of helping identify targets for a Pakistan-based terrorist group called Lashkar-e-Taiba, whose two-day attack on luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, a Jewish community center and a crowded train station brought India’s financial capital to a halt and shocked the world. The complaint described Mr. Headley’s repeated scouting visits to the sites nearly two years before the attacks, which have reignited tensions between India and Pakistan.

I really wish people would spent just a little time trying to understand how terrorist organization actually plan and execute attacks.  Instead, we get content-free assertions about safe havens. 

This guy was living in CHICAGO, and seems to have been a major conspirator in the attacks.  He’d also been involved in planning an attack on a Danish newspaper.  He got training from Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002 and 2003… so this was AFTER 9/11 when we might hope this would trigger alarm bells.  Then he traveled on scouting missions to Mumbai five times! 

This gives you a sense of just how hard it is to eliminate the threat of terrorism.  We couldn’t stop Hasan.  We couldn’t stop this guy before Mumbai.  What is the world makes anyone think that Hamid Karzai’s government is going to be able to police Afghanistan better than we can police ourselves?