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We’re also playing terror alert games in India, for some strange reason. On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi issued a strong warning to American citizens about al-Qaeda linked terrorist attacks in India:

The United States Embassy in Delhi warned Americans today that foreign terrorists, possibly linked to Al Qaeda, were planning a series of bomb attacks in India’s major cities in the days leading up to the nation’s Independence Day next week.

In a strongly worded e-mail warning, the embassy urged American citizens living and working in India to “maintain a low profile, and be especially alert and attentive to their surroundings” in the days ahead…

“Likely targets include major airports, key central Indian government offices and major gathering places such as hotels and markets,” the alert added.

The information was gathered by United States intelligence agencies and was passed on to the Indian government.
[…]
Although similar warnings have been issued to American nationals in the past, this alert was unusually specific in the details it gave of the possible timing of the threatened attack. The mention of a possible Al Qaeda link was also new.

Indian officials and other countries dismissed the warning right away. The same NYT story says:

Some Indian officials, however, were dismissive of the warning and the home secretary, Vinod Kumar Duggal, indicated that this was just a routine alert. “It is normal for missions to issue advisories when they have any information,” he told a news conference. “It’s a very innocuous advisory.”

Officials at several other embassies, including the British and German, said they knew nothing of the threat.

Indian media reported on Saturday that the State Department has contradicted the Embassy in New Delhi and declared the warning to be “hypothetical”.

In a strange twist to a US embassy statement in New Delhi that Al Qaeda was planning attacks in India, the State Department has said that the advisory was in “hypothetical terms.”

The advisory issued on Friday that terror attacks might take place in Delhi and Mumbai in the run-up to Independence Day had created a sensation in India although the government had dismissed it as a “very innocuous” warning.

“I really don’t have much that’s beyond what’s in the warden message (issued by the US embassy). But this does speak in somewhat more hypothetical terms,” State Department Acting Spokesman Tom Casey said.

“It’s not definitive information that is there, and we certainly weren’t trying to convey that in the warden message. I think we certainly are concerned in general about activities not only of indigenous terrorist groups, but of the possibility of those linked or in any way associated with Al Qaeda. Any time there’s possibilities like this,” he said.

Asked if there are indications that the advisory could be raised to a travel warning, Casey replied, “I don’t have anything at this point to announce for you. Obviously, we’ll evaluate the information that we have and see if anything more than this is required.”

A strongly worded, unusually specific alarm that’s not based on any specific information, and doesn’t even call for a travel advisory warning. What exactly are we playing at here? At least when the Bush-men pull these stunts at home, it’s clear why they’re doing it. What’s the point of doing it overseas? Is this how they practice for the real thing? (I mean, of course, the real threat-mongering at home.)

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Or maybe it’s foolish to ask why we did this. Maybe this is just more of our usual bungling in the region. Here’s the take of The Telegraph (a major Calcutta newspaper):

The embassy, according to those here (in Washington) who keep a finger on the South Asian pulse, had repeated its bungle (of) four years ago when it issued an evacuation warning to Americans predicting that India and Pakistan were going to war, presumably a nuclear holocaust.

When American citizens in India refused to take the warning seriously, the then US ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, forced unwilling families of his staff at the embassy and three US consulates in India to evacuate to impress on other expatriates across India that the situation was critical.

The evacuation of US diplomats prompted other embassies in New Delhi to follow suit.

Michael T. Clark, who was then executive director of the US-India Business Council, recorded after that brouhaha: “The real impact of the evacuation warnings (was) felt not in India, but in the US, where… American companies new to market in India have been alarmed by perceptions of South Asia as ‘the most dangerous place on earth’.”

Clark wrote that “major new contracts have been indefinitely deferred or diverted to other countries; important investment projects have been shelved or cancelled”.

According to him, “US companies with operations in India kept their own counsel”, but Indians described ‘the notices as ‘the latest sanctions imposed by the US’.

Maybe this is why Tom Casey was at such pains to make clear there will be no travel advisories?

Could it be that we’re running a series of experiments in India as part of a secret project to fine-tune a necessary weapon in our wartime public opinion arsenal—the measured, nuanced, surgical-strike version of the false alarm? To create panic, but not too much panic. Like yelling fire in a crowded theater, except that you don’t yell, and there’s no rising note of panic in your voice.