DrEvil wrote:A motorized police RHIB actually, but the engine gave out on them.
OK, thanks for clearing that up, Dr. Evil. I was quoting from memory, sloppily, and these small details do matter. But they don't alter the main point: the delayed response.
They didn't have a chopper immediately available (crew on holiday), and they made the decision to drive rather than wait for another chopper.
This is where it becomes just simply implausible for me. I can't believe that Norway is less well-equipped with helicopters than, say, my native Scotland, where several different regional police forces have several different helicopters available for everything from observing demonstrations and traffic jams to carrying seriously injured people to hospital quickly. Norway, too, has oil rigs, and surely there are many helicopters on standby for emergency rescue operations or just for transporting workers routinely to and from the mainland. Then there's mountain search-and-rescue teams, coastguards, etc. Also radio and TV stations (like the one that filmed the massacre from the air, live), and commercial companies offering expensive aerial sightseeing tours, and god knows what else. Last not least, the Norwegian Army, Navy and Air Force surely have their own choppers too -- including big armoured helicopters specially designed to take off and land safely even in battle zones.
And all of these helicopters will have had their own highly-trained crews, not all of whom will have been "on holiday" that day.
The government quarter of Oslo had just been attacked that morning! A huge explosion, and eight people killed. Surely the entire nation was on high alert, especially the cops? A national State of Emergency was declared after that explosion, right?
The police could have requisitioned any helicopter in the country, immediately. Nor would any of the owners have objected in the slightest. Kids were being massacred in their dozens, for a
long time, while trapped on a tiny island.
Cowardice and bad decision-making were the real culprits in the effed up response.
This is always the kind of explanation given, in every country. "Whoops, gosh darn, I'm such a butterfingers, oops, keep tripping over my own feet, oops again!, didn't see
that coming!", etc., etc. The Incompetence Excuse. The Keystone Cops yarn. "The CIA failed to communicate properly with the FBI, and therefore 9/11 happened. We're a bit crap, sorry, but please be gentle with us." I don't buy it.
Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, Dr Evil, but I have no idea what it could be. I simply do not believe that the Norwegian police could not get hold of a single helicopter, or a single trained crew, literally immediately. All it took was a phone call.
Surely some very serious questions were being asked in Norway, in the aftermath? Or did everyone just accept this "No helicopter, 'cos the crew were on holiday" yarn?
PS Some context: I'm writing this in Germany, where the media have been tying themselves in knots for years now, trying very hard not to ask the ever-more-unavoidable question: Was there high-level complicity, in German police and intelligence circles, with the serial murder of ten immigrants between 2000 and 2007?
- Wiki for convenience (there's very little about it in English):
Bosphorus serial murders - often repulsively referred to as "the kebab murders" ("
Dönermorde").
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966
TESTDEMIC ➝ "CASE"DEMIC