"Helicopterless" Norway & the Utøya massacre

[barracuda]

San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, San Diego, CA, 1984, 22 dead, 19 injured - The massacre began at 3:40 p.m. and lasted for 77 minutes. Initially, law enforcement and emergency crews responded to the McDonald's located at the U.S. International Border with Tijuana at 3:15 p.m., and 15 minutes later changed directions after they learned that the shooting was actually taking place at the McDonald's next to the post office approximately 2 miles away.

Are you defending and praising this response as indicative of the fact that the USA is not quite the disgusting police state you have made it out to be? You know, since painfully slow and inept response times to mass murder are indicative of proudly quaint civil libertarian societies?

I'm neither defending nor praising this response, merely pointing out that it isn't unheard of for mistakes and delays to occur in emergencies of this sort. However, I would certainly rather be living in the police state of the US as it existed in 1984 than as it exists today. People had, it seemed, orders of magnitude more personal freedom back then. But that wasn't my point at all, no.

The incident has some small lessons to draw from in comparison with the Utoya shootings, I think. Good article here.

[stickdog99]

Perhaps so, Jack, considering that at least part of the thrust of this thread seems to be centered around the idea that the Norwegian police state isn't run efficiently enough. Makes you wonder how timely their train schedules are kept. Probably late, late, late.

Because only an Orwellian nightmare state could possibly respond to dozens of youngsters getting murdered (on a day when there was already a nearby bombing attack) in fewer than 78 minutes. And only those advocating such an Orwellian state could possibly be upset by such a response.

No, not only. But when I consider what you'd presumably like to see happen as a result of this incident - a more efficiently run response by the government and police - I have to wonder where you think such improvements might take a society along the road to fascism. Towards it or away?

I prefer a "less-safe" society to a heavily guarded one myself.

Look, if the police would just fess up as to what caused all the delays instead of (IMHO) clearly lying about when they received the first emergency call and pretending that once they got that call they could not have possibly have reacted faster and that they simply didn't have any way of finding helicopter or water transport expeditiously, I would stop pressing the issue.

Yes, they have a tough job. Sure, things can go wrong and people can fuck up royally without any help from conspiratorial overlords. Maybe Norway's cops "went to the wrong McDonald's" as well. Maybe the local cops were understandably fearful and wanted to wait for the big guns, and the big guns promised a much swifter arrival time that they could not manage to deliver on for legitimate reasons. On the other hand, maybe they scrambled the planes in the exact opposite direction because of ghost flight radar signals. I'd just like to hear why the cops took so long each time they delayed a minute or two beyond what one would imagine a competent emergency system and competent officers are capable of, so I could judge for myself whether their explanations are credibly innocent or whether they were more likely "helped" into screwing up.

Furthermore, if we did not have a bunch of people arguing that no explanations are necessary and that to desire any serves only to foment totalitarianism because puzzlingly long delays in critical emergency situations when scores of youngster are getting shot are no big deal and simply SOP, then I would have had no reason to press this issue here.

[barracuda]

Look, if the police would just fess up as to what caused all the delays instead of (IMHO) clearly lying about when they received the first emergency call and pretending that once they got that call they could not have possibly have reacted faster and that they simply didn't have any way of finding helicopter or water transport expeditiously, I would stop pressing the issue.

I think we all understand that you feel that way by this point. It's not as if you've been anything less than insistent and repetitive along those lines. You've certainly done your part and more about making that clear in these discussions. But it should be acknowledged that in all probablility your doggedness in pursuit of that position here on the forum will not actually cause that event to transpire, no matter how earnestly you press it, even were everyone to suddenly agree with you entirely.

At this point, if I could wave a magic wand and make that happen for you, or allow you see into the actual events of the moment from right there within the various police station offices that were involved in this thing, please believe that I surely would.

I'd just like to hear why the cops took so long each time they delayed a minute or two beyond what one would imagine a competent emergency system and competent officers are capable of, so I could judge for myself whether their explanations are credibly innocent or whether they were more likely "helped" into screwing up

.

"Helped into screwing up" sort of sounds as if you're now moving towards at least considering a conspiracy of some sort here. Have you changed your perspective on that? It wouldn't be against the rules if you had.

Furthermore, if we did not have a bunch of people arguing that no explanations are necessary and that to desire any serves only to foment totalitarianism because puzzlingly long delays in critical emergency situations when scores of youngster are getting shot are no big deal and simply SOP, then I would have had no reason to press this issue here.

Ah! That's different though, isn't it? For one thing, I've heard no one saying that no explanations are necessary - quite the opposite. What "a bunch of people" are doing is attempting to offer a variety of explanations which, in their opinion, might be considered as possibly being the cause of the delay (some of which are different from your own opinion on the causes), or trying to puzzle out ways in which the time which you are convinced must be a delay might actually be something else, e.g., a logistical matter we do not yet understand the nature of, &c.

It must occur to you that the police state here in the U.S. was largely brought about by the very mechanism in play in the aftermath of this incident - one or more terrorist events caused a ratcheting up of security precautions which eventually trickled down into the familiarity of domestic life little by little until it seemed for most people unobjectionable. There's absolutely no reason to avoid worrying that the process might repeat itself in yet another democratic state, or to decline to state the obvious here. This incident was caused by right-wing extremism. The practical reaction to the incident should hopefully not turn out to be a movement towards a more intensified police and military status there. Or the you-know-whats have won!

And I hate it when that happens.

[stickdog99]

The current US police state was not brought about by anyone seriously questioning the US government or any US security apparatus. Quite the opposite. And everyone here is smart enough to know that, including you.

[MacCruiskeen]

There's Something Wrong With This Picture, Part 429:

Police forgot to inform public about training exercise

Anti-terror police set off explosive charges during a training exercise in the centre of Oslo, two hundred meters from the Opera, but forgot to notify the public.

HANS O. TORGERSEN Published: 07/31/2011 18.49 Updated: 31/07/2011 18.49


[...]

There's a pretty poor Google translation of the whole article here, but you can certainly get the gist, and more than the gist.

NB, this was just days before [ON EDIT: no, 16 months before! - see below.] the Oslo bombing and the Utøya massacre. And:

It was the emergency squad ["det var beredskapstroppen"], the police's national special anti-terrorism unit, who were practising in the cordoned-off area at Bjørvika pier.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

I read somewhere that the article about the drill near the opera actually is from 2010:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... google.com

^not the place where i read it before but someone saying the same thing

edit: here it is: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/oslo/ ... 569108.ece from 2010

I think the confusion comes from online newspapers for some reason printing the current date automatically no matter how old the articles actually are

[MacCruiskeen]

Pierre:

HANS O. TORGERSEN Published: 07/31/2011 18.49 Updated: 31/07/2011 18.49

That's the date on the Aftenposten site, i.e. today. Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe Aftenposten is being deliberately misleading, but that's the date given there. (Btw, I found the article through the German blogger Andreas Hauss. and not through AJ.)

Whether it took place last year or this year, this exercise is clear proof that Beredskapstroppen had been training for a rapid & effective response to precisely the kind of eventuality that many people here have stubbornly insisted quaint innocent little old Norway couldn't possibly have expected or anticipated or trained for.

ON EDIT: OK, the exercise took place in March 2010. So Beredskapstroppen had been preparing for a terrorist attack in Oslo for at least 16 months before it actually took place.

[barracuda]

Seems to me it also clearly demonstrates a certain lack of communication between various areas of the Norwegian security forces.

[MacCruiskeen]

Seems to me it also clearly demonstrates a certain lack of communication between various areas of the Norwegian security forces.

Ah yes, the Norwegian security services are poor bumbling incompetent Teletubbies, just like the FBI and the CIA and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, so let's not be unduly critical, much less distrustful.

[barracuda]

I'm not sure why you'd take the time to do anything but agree with my statement above, Mac, since it seems to support you contentions that something went wrong last weekend and ought to be investigated. But I realise you have, at this point, a purely reflexive response to any posting of mine, and so I forgive you for your haste to condemn.

[barracuda]

The current US police state was not brought about by anyone seriously questioning the US government or any US security apparatus. Quite the opposite. And everyone here is smart enough to know that, including you.

I don't know. I think a lot of people seriously questioned the effectiveness of the US security apparatus, but what they got in return was anything but what they hoped for. Their questioning and outrage was used as a rationale and a justification for instituting totalitarianism that had been planned by the right wing for years. Just because people on this forum can see through such a gambit certainly doesn't mean most people do, e.g., overwhelming public support for our soldiers' missions in Iraq and Afghanistan coming from the right wing and the conservatives.

I presume you haven't heard the cries of "too many Mexicans!" and "why can't we secure our borders?" which has resulted in the militarisation of the southern border areas and hundreds of deaths each year?

I guess you didn't hear anyone asking why our airplanes aren't secure from highjackers, with the resulting armed military presence at airports, and the increasingly proctological examinations required to get to your gate?

While it's true that these were the wrong questions to have asked in the first place, plenty of people seriously asked them, at least among the folks where I live and in the news I read.

"How could this have happened? We need to be more secure!" is only answered one way in America - "Why yes, you do - and we can make that happen for you. Now drop your trousers."

[MacCruiskeen]

barracuda, you keep conflating two separate and very different things:

a) the prompt and efficient functioning of pre-existing emergency-response teams (which exist in literally every 'developed' country, even in those which are not police states) when an emergency, whether natural or man-made, takes place;

and

b) the establishing of an Orwellian police-state after the emergency has taken place.

The distinction is surely clear, and a) clearly does not entail b).

[barracuda]

I'm not sure I consider it a conflation. I'm pointing out the relationship between:

a) the pre-existing functioning or state of readiness of terrorist-response teams before a terrorist attack takes place in a country in which has not previously experienced such attacks;

and

b) the attendant ratcheting up of the police-state justifications and increased security measures after the terrorist attack has taken place.

One does not by necessity entail the other, though the response does seem typical, even scripted.

[stickdog99]

The current US police state was not brought about by anyone seriously questioning the US government or any US security apparatus. Quite the opposite. And everyone here is smart enough to know that, including you.

I don't know. I think a lot of people seriously questioned the effectiveness of the US security apparatus, but what they got in return was anything but what they hoped for. Their questioning and outrage was used as a rationale and a justification for instituting totalitarianism that had been planned by the right wing for years. Just because people on this forum can see through such a gambit certainly doesn't mean most people do, e.g., overwhelming public support for our soldiers' missions in Iraq and Afghanistan coming from the right wing and the conservatives.

I presume you haven't heard the cries of "too many Mexicans!" and "why can't we secure our borders?" which has resulted in the militarisation of the southern border areas and hundreds of deaths each year?

I guess you didn't hear anyone asking why our airplanes aren't secure from highjackers, with the resulting armed military presence at airports, and the increasingly proctological examinations required to get to your gate?

While it's true that these were the wrong questions to have asked in the first place, plenty of people seriously asked them, at least among the folks where I live and in the news I read.

"How could this have happened? We need to be more secure!" is only answered one way in America - "Why yes, you do - and we can make that happen for you. Now drop your trousers."

We received these horrid "solutions" because nobody in power ever asked for or received any blow by blow, minute by minute explanations of what actually went wrong with an eye toward solving each specifically demonstrable problem, even if it meant (gasp!) assessing blame on the responsible parties. The questions were never asked because the answers would have proven rank incompetence at best and almost certainly malfeasance in addition to this incompetence. Because such specific questioning was deemed too aggressive, despicable and cowardly in the wake of such an awful attack, we were treated to generic police state "solutions" rather than reasonable directed solutions to the actual breakdowns and bottlenecks that occurred.

You know this, I know this and everybody reading this knows this.

[stickdog99]

I'm not sure I consider it a conflation. I'm pointing out the relationship between:

a) the pre-existing functioning or state of readiness of terrorist-response teams before a terrorist attack takes place in a country in which has not previously experienced such attacks;

and

b) the attendant ratcheting up of the police-state justifications and increased security measures after the terrorist attack has taken place.

One does not by necessity entail the other, though the response does seem typical, even scripted.

As long as the actual reasons for the slow and ineffectual police response that day are shrouded in the "fog of war" in order to protect those responsible, the only feasible reaction will be a generic ratcheting up of "alertness" and "precautionary measures" at the cost of a more bloated security state and the expense of civil liberties.

In contrast, a sober and honest appraisal of the emergency response system's actual bottlenecks and inefficiencies that day would (well, should) result in highly directed improvements in responsibilities of command, interdepartment communication requirements and vehicle commandeering protocols that would save lives in the future, assuming good faith on the part of future leaders. Such an appraisal would also present the opportunity to root out any bad actors in positions of power who may have purposefully gummed up the works that day.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant, whether the problem is malfeasance, incompetence or merely organizational inefficiency. You don't get explanations of delays and directed solutions to mitigate these delays when you take the stance that you don't need any explanations because things progressed about as well as could be expected "considering". What you get instead is some extra funding (and perhaps even a whole extra bureaucratic layer) to augment generic police state "alertness" and prevent thoughtcrime. And, yes, the whole charade goes according to script, the same script that is currently being played out in Norway.