Four articles worthy of reading
Understandably the press have started let's say more thoughtful, reflective pieces and having read through a pile I've picked out four IMHO of value.
Breivik's Swamp: Was the Oslo killer radicalized by what he read online? From FP Blog by Tony Archer, a Brit who has lived in Finland and watched the CT scene:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...swamp?page=0,0
The NYT looks at Norway's immigrant population:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/wo..._r=2&ref=world
Which cites an Eritrean refugee:
Quote:
The most important thing is what the majority thinks and the majority is fine with us.
A Norwegian professor's article notes half the immigrants are from Poland and Sweden ends with:
Quote:
..we doubtless woke on Saturday morning to a slightly more paranoid, slightly less pleasant society. A society where we have become aware of our fundamental vulnerability.
Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/thomas-...d-consequences
Finally the 'Five Remedial Lessons from the Norwegian Tragedy' by Paul Pillar;Only the opening line for each
Quote:
1. Don't jump to quick conclusions about responsibility for an attack, let alone spin out instant analysis based on such conclusions. 2. The threat that gets the most attention is not the only threat. 3. Individual incidents are not necessarily indicative of larger trends. 4. Open societies are inherently vulnerable to terrorist attack and ultimately unprotectable. 5. That a previously unknown individual (possibly with some help) could inflict so many casualties (more even than the 7/7 transit bombings in London) should put into perspective the limits of detection and prevention.
Link:http://nationalinterest.org/blog/pau...n-tragedy-5659
A matter of "it could never happen here"?
Thanks to Wikileaks we learn that the Norwegians failed to take the threat of terrorism seriously.
WikiLeaks files show Norway unprepared for terror attack
It seems that it always takes a tragedy before a country (the politicians, security services and the people) starts to get serious about the diverse terrorist threat it faces.
I know some of those guys!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
I have the unpopular opinion that although we generally respond quicker in the U.S. our so called SWAT teams (in many of our smaller cities they're largely composed of overweight, under trained police who obviously don't this responsibility seriously) will wait outside a building (name your school shooting) "assessing" the situation while innocents are being murdered.
That’s just resources, though, isn’t it? Small town law enforcement agencies just can’t afford full-time SWAT types, and even if they could I don’t know that there would be enough individuals with the right mix of talents and motivations to fill the posts, not to mention the time and expense of training up those who do. Now, by ‘small town’ I mean those communities of 500–10,000 people like most in the area where I grew up. But if by ‘smaller cities’ you mean communities of 250,000 or more the reasonable expectations may well be different (and if you have a unit you feel fit to call a SWAT team I would think you could at the very least require the members to be physically fit).
Around here there is little to no shooting of messengers...
Howsomeever, there is a fair amount of shooting at dubious messages and even more at good messages poorly delivered in an antagonistic or condescending tone... ;)
Seems fair. :D