Eyes Wide Shut

--Terror in DNA, Pavel Constantin (Romania)
RAW thinks this may the most accurate rendering
of terror by a political cartoonist 

The world has moved on 
--The Dark Tower, Stephen King 

How comforting to know we're
the "right sort of people" 
--The Watcher in the Woods (1980)

Nothing's wrong as far as I can see
We make it harder than it has to be
and I can't tell you why
no, baby, I can't tell you why 
--I Can't Tell You Why, The Eagles
_____________________

Some are hung up on the correct nomenclature to describe the recent bombing in Boston, as if not calling it "terrorism" makes it something it is not, which is a crime, and a crime of indiscriminate violence. It is something the world and the United States has seen before, yet the response is more shock, albeit a bit benumbed (save for those directly affected.)  Why should this be?

The main question to arise from the event is, "Why did it occur at all?" The biggest failure was that the Boston Marathon was not identified as a threat environment, and as a result security was deficient. What are the people in the Department of Homeland Security doing if not identifying and training relevant personnel for JUST SUCH AN EVENT? They are not organizing ice cream socials, after all.

Ranger had just written "Commando Cop" the day before the event, questioning the combat posture of regular law enforcement to effectively confront stateside terrorism. The bombing in Boston proves that all the neato paramilitary gear and vehicles in the country will not do what simple vigilance can accomplish: Identify two unattended black backpacks in clear sight, soon to maim and kill.

Such potential threats would not sit long on a parade route in Londonderry, or on a Japanese or Madrid train or an Israeli bus. Those cultures have accepted that acts of terror can occur in any public space, and their police and citizens carry on with due diligence. This loss of naivete is not exactly paranoia, but it is pragmatic.

They are not less free, and we are foolishly naive if we think we can roll back the clock by watching enough episodes of Mad Men; that is no longer our world.  We are also fools if we think the vaunted Seal Team Six will kill the bad guys in their jammies.

Nor will our guns protect us from such crimes. Terrorists do not get into counter productive gun fights; they do not fight fair.  It would be a doomed effort with no attendant benefit to their group (or their person.) All terrorist operations have the goal to increase their funding, to gain new members and to create spectacular terrorist events; this is their raison d'etre.

Even archetypal terrorist Osama bin Laden did not elect to utilize his weapons in such a scenario.  Terrorists engage only soft targets not in a defensive posture. If it is a lone terrorist, getting killed does not allow you the toothsome pleasure of reading about or seeing your maimed victims. Just ask the Unabomber or the BTK killer.

The bombings in Boston show that the U.S. has lost the counter-terrorism knowledge won after the era of 1970's and '80's Euroterrorism. Distracted by our high-tech tools and focusing on far threats, we fail to identify clear and present threat situations in CONUS.

When U.S. military installations were the targets of terror bombings there were standard operating procedure both on post and throughout most NATO nations. Israeli intelligence developed the concept that any unguarded package or case was a possible explosive device. Simple countermeasures like removing trash canisters from crowded areas were adopted. The Boston bombing could have been prevented had one person noted the unguarded backpacks hiding in plain sight.

This is not armchair quarterbacking -- this is a lament for the loss of institutional knowledge from the not-too distant past. The U.S. has spent billions of dollars on counter-terrorism experts, firearms training, SWAT tactics and all the attendant tools, but the simple and obvious was overlooked.

The police failed in crowd control and security, and this is a slam on their training and not their individual capabilities. Photos showing the Boston police drawing their guns after the explosion were both instinctual and tragic, for a gun can't kill a bomb. They were bunched up -- bad if there were a secondary bombing -- when they should have been setting up a cordon and keeping the uninjured away while treating the wounded.

The one apparent success was the Boston trauma team which had been trained by Israeli trauma personnel.  Alasdair Conn, Chief of Emergency Services at Massachusetts General Hospital, credited that training with their success in treating the victim expeditiously.  This fact is not getting the press, but it should, as the Israeli's have gained a hard-won effective protocol against terror attacks. Our police need the commensurate training that those medical personnel received.

To properly counter a terror threat, the government must utilize layers of security and concentric circles around any potential target.  Though anything can be a target, this does not mean counter-terrorism measures are doomed to failure. Effective response requires real coordination between agencies that transcends 9-5 business hours with classified OPLANS hidden insecurity vaults, written by retired soldiers.  This is our world today, and it demands a real-world engagement of all relevant personnel.

Forget analyzing the chaff on the radar, which apparently was not detected in this case. A simple-minded homeless person could have broken up this attack by asking an officer, "What is this back pack doing here?"

In disasters, "It did not happen" beats, "We'll never forget" any day.

--Jim and Lisa

Bring it On!, Redux

--Hajo de Reijger 

Bring 'em on 
--President George W. Bush (2003)

 Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn? 
--Where Have All the Flowers Gone, 
Pete Seeger

 __________________

This is probably the most foolish editorial thus far on the Boston bombing:

 

Op-Ed

Op-Ed Columnist

Bring on the Next Marathon

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

We're just not afraid anymore.

Friedman expresses the same bravado that began the enervating Wars on Terror, namely, "Bring it on!" But that machismo rings false, as any act of terror does not come with a "bring it on" response; your emotions, Mr. Friedman, are tinny and false, disrespectful and callow.

From the Op-Ed,

"We still do not know who set off the Boston Marathon bombs or why. But we do know now, after 9/11, after all the terrorism the world has seen in the last decade, what the right reaction is: wash the sidewalk, wipe away the blood, and let whoever did it know that while they have sickeningly maimed and killed some of our brothers and sisters, they have left no trace on our society or way of life. Terrorists are not strong enough to do that — only we can do that to ourselves — and we must never accommodate them. 

"So let’s repair the sidewalk immediately, fix the windows, fill the holes and leave no trace — no shrines, no flowers, no statues, no plaques — and return life to normal there as fast as possible. Let’s defy the terrorists, by not allowing them to leave even the smallest scar on our streets, and honor the dead by sanctifying our values, by affirming life and all those things that make us stronger and bring us closer together as a country."

"Left no trace"? Oh, Mr. Friedman, you are a little late off the starting block on this one.  The time for arguing "Get on with it!" is past. The U.S. is inextricably committed to a long, feckless war, one which leaves us not one jot safer from the thing with which we claim to tussle -- terrorism. If anything, our wars disallow us to ever return to normal.  Brave words now: Defy the terrorists.

That wasn't your tune a decade ago, so how dare you co-opt the loser's phrase in service of your new-found bravery? "Sanctify our values"? And what exactly would those be? And does your advice hold to those upon whom we are committing violence?  Do they just wash off their streets and commence again?

Your piece is rifled by contradictions: "eyes always on the prize, never on all those 'suspicious' bundles on the curb", yet you admit "The explosives were reportedly packed into six-litre pressure cookers, tucked into black duffel bags and then left on the ground." The Israelis do not ignore untended packages, and perhaps neither should we.  The time for you to laud that "quintessentially American naïveté" is not now. 

How easy to celebrate a human reaction as a rational impulse ("When you watch the video of the bombing aftermath, notice how many people you see running toward the blast within seconds to help, even though more bombs easily could have been set to explode there"), when you might be suggesting helpful lessons which would allow our citizens to live sensibly in the midst of the reality of such actions, while not cowering or being Pollyannaish, either.  Running toward the sight of probable secondary explosions is not helpful.

Now we've moved past the "Friedman Unit" (FU) to the Friedman Ostrich pose; neither are very attractive or functional.