The infernal device, as they used to call these things, is not new: this happened also in Victoria’s reign, as a group of people called the anarchists tried to disrupt ordinary life, create chaos, diminish confidence in governments, and bring about a sort of political zombie apocalypse, which would have everybody tucked into a private fortress looking for leaders—who, of course, would be—them. Cartoonists of the day pictured these people in black cloaks, slouch hats, and carrying little round bombs with lit fuses. Eventually the anarchy movement died back to the point it quietly stopped.
Now we’ve got people doing much the same thing with much the same motive, destabilize, confuse, and agitate. They’re the footsoldiers. The guys promoting this of course hope to continue to be pundits and princes after the dust has settled.
Most of you know we had our own in OKC: my father worked many years in the Murrah Federal Building; I very often drove him to work there. He’d retired before the bombing, but people he knew were in there. Jane was asleep when the bomb went off; I was outside talking to a neighbor. Sounded as if somebody had taken our chimney off. Jane woke up, thought I’d used the propane weed-burner and blown myself up; I’d grown up near explosions of all sorts (Lawton/Fort Sill, Artillery Capital of the World) and I knew something monstrous had happened. Jane and I met up as I was headed in to turn on the telly to see what was going on—I envisioned a natural gas explosion, a big one. And when we turned the telly on, it was the now-famous helicopter footage of the building. Live. It says something that my dad never mentioned it. At all.
On 9/11 I was trying to get to his bedside— too late: everything shut down; and he passed. I could barely get there for the funeral, and there were no flowers—because flowers are shipped by air. So I don’t like to remember that time. Ever. The happy years are more important. Now is more important. I know he’d like Now, right well.
The way to deal with these anarchists, in my opinion? Stop them where possible, and carry on where we can’t. They can’t destroy our way of life. We’re the ones that can do that, and that’s exactly what our enemies want. While the effects of these actions may reach out and touch us each in various ways, how we react is in our own control, and I refuse to give these bastards the satisfaction of worrying about them. Precautions, yes: if I spot somebody set down a bag, I’ll move away and call 911. Change my plans of where I’ll be and what I’ll do for fear of them, no. My life is under my control, and the odds are vastly in my favor.
I’m not inviting comment on this thread, because this is a politics-free zone, and I want to keep it that way. But I want to acknowledge the courage of people, ordinary people, first responders in all crises, soldiers on the line, and their support personnel. Optimism and determination are our counter-weapons in resisting these enemies of peace; and employing them defeats the purpose of these people, in whatever era we meet them.
Please. No comments of ANY political nature.
May I make a comment pro-education and pro-journalistic standards?
I am a little short of dismayed with a decade of war in Chechnya it was necessary to explain the Chechen/Dagestan angle. I remember when PBS had a weekly show about world news with a panel of respected international journalists, which included displays of regional newspapers’ headlines. I hardly need to speak of how our education sector is failing, mostly through starvation. The noted failings of the current “news” media, rushing to report rumor as news, is but a surface manifestation of deeper failings in journalistic standards, e.g. the emphasis on immmediacy and de-emphasis on accuracy and deeper consideration of consequences.
I do not propose a solution for these issues, political or otherwise, but that we certainly need to be aware of our failings and need of improvement in this globalized world.
My Mama told me once, “When you are afraid, walk like you are a queen”. I have found this to be really good advice. I see that CJ got the same advice from someone. What do the rest of us do? Same stuff?
I thought Ari II stated it elegantly and concisely, in her press conference after the bombing of her hotel. I wanted to look up the quote, but my copy of Cyteen is well buried.
I keep encountering the Mr. Rogers’ quote, the one about looking to see who is running toward a problem, to help, and I have found the stories about these people to be magnificently uplifting. It’s what I will take away from this, as I did from OKC, and 9/11: the images of those who turned toward the fear and faced it, because someone needed help.
YES.
CJ said: “Stop them where possible, and carry on where we can’t. They can’t destroy our way of life. We’re the ones that can do that, and that’s exactly what our enemies want.”
On this point, was it really necessary to shut down the whole of Boston? That seems like a massive over-reaction to me, a case of risk aversion gone crazy.
I can understand closing down Watertown and perhaps the immediately adjacent areas, but the whole of Boston? That seems excessive.
It’s also interesting to note that it wasn’t the massive militarized police operation that caught him in the end, it was just an ordinary home owner who noticed him hiding in his boat – a little way OUTSIDE the area that the police were searching so intensively. And then only because the police LIFTED the stay-indoors order, and he went outside for a smoke.
If it wasn’t so serious, it would be like a scene from a comedy movie.
They underestimated how far he could run before hiding. And instead of doing a quick, reasonably cautious sweep of a larger area, which would have caught him in an hour or two, they opted for an overcautious, overmanned, military-style operation in a tiny area. It was an operation more appropriate for urban warfare against an invading army than for dealing with one untrained, skinny 19 year old with, at most, an automatic rifle and a couple of pipe bombs.
On Chechnya, here is an interesting take on the bombing from Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/04/the-tsarnaev-conundrum/
I do hope Boston donates this householder a boat, just because they can.
Yes, especially since one of his neighbors said, “That boat’s his baby. He takes care of it like you wouldn’t believe. And they told him it’s all shot up. He’s going to be heartbroken.”
“Keep calm and carry on.”
The closest big boom experience we’ve had was a minor earthquake here a couple of years ago (I was hoping it was a meteorite landing nearby, a short sharp shock!) DH and I have managed to inadvertently arrange vacations so that we were in areas with recent terrorist activity. When asked (with some surprise) why we were there and if we weren’t concerned, we said “We’ve planned this vacation for a while, and we will be damned if some loon will scare us away.”
There is a scene from the first Spiderman movie that could equally apply to Boston: Spiderman is about to be smodged by the Green Goblin, when a wrench from an onlooker clocks GG in the head. The construction worker who threw it yells “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!” We have a remarkable ability to pull together in crises.
Yes, I was reading in the Boston Globe today that friends of the boat owner have set up a fund for him for the boat.
I was in Boston today for a meeting: things in general are back to normal with the subway up and running and business outside of the bombing site open as normal. But a friend at the meeting runs a food pantry at Old South Church (I think it is that church and not Trinity) in Copley Square right on Boyleston St. at the bombing and they are still shut with no power/phone (so she can’t even check her voice mail to see if people in need have left messages) and aren’t able to get back into the area yet. Collateral of collateral damage from the bombing: the people who rely on that food pantry for some food and who rely on the social and advocacy services of my friend’s small organization.
Most of the e-mails I have been sending to friends, colleagues and students the past week have contained some version of “I hope you and yours are safe and well” as have theirs to me. The desire to check in with each other and confirm that people are ok is strong.
The boat owner has said that he’d prefer that the money go to The One Fund Boston, which has been set up to help people. He considers the boat to be minor damage.
(https://secure.onefundboston.org/page/-/donate7.html)
GreenWyvern backed away from a comparison to a comedy movie. Jerry Pournelle posted at jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=13471 a comment from one “paradoctor” who suggested the movie was “directed by Edward Wood and scripted by Cordwainer Bird. I want my time refunded. Roger Ebert says thumbs down!”
Read the rest at the link I posted above; it’s a grim sort of funny.
I asked my brother when he was still alive about the Murrah Building. He had been stationed at Tinker AFB for several years, and knew some of the people who had gone on to work in government service in the Murrah Building. What made it so despicable to me was that McVeigh drove the truck into the parking garage right under the nursery. THAT was most reprehensible from a humanity standpoint. I don’t care what his politics were, nor do I care what the politics of the Boston bombers happen to be. I care about the fact that innocent people in both cases were killed by an anonymous weapon, not even realizing they were now combatants in a war they hadn’t even visualized that morning.
The military veteran in me rages at what it considers to be cowardice. The civilian person in me who donates platelets at every opportunity is devastated by the toll in lives, both ended and changed by these events.
ISTR he parked it on the street right in front. Am I misremembering? Perhaps you’re thinking of the first bombing, pre-9/11, of the WTC that was set off in the underground parking garage?
I checked the FBI case history, and it bears your recollection out, Paul.
There’s a good article in the New Yorker about overreaction to the bombing.
This article also links to an article in the Jerusalem Post:
“…There was no lockdown in Israel and there was no order by the mayor to seek shelter.
Instead, people were out in the streets, filling up coffee shops right next to the one that had been bombed or standing at bus stops waiting for the next bus from the same line that had just exploded. This has always impressed me as a sign of true resilience, of a refusal to allow terrorism to change our way of life.
I am not judging the people of Boston and their leaders and yes, there is something to be said about being safe rather than sorry. But, I wonder about the long-term strategic ramifications and if this won’t be viewed as a near-surrender to terrorism.”
And an article about the 7/7 bombing in London:
“I happened to be in London on 7/7 — a far more deadly and frightening terrorist attack — and by 7 P.M. on that horrible day, with the terrorists still at large (they were dead already, but no one knew that) the red double-decker buses were rolling and the traffic was turning and life, though hardly normal, was determinedly going on.”
New Yorker article: Terrorist Hunt Sends America Over the Edge
Green Wyvern,
To be fair to our American cousins, I think they’ve had less practise at this. Lucky them. I suspect it takes some sort of sustained campaign to build up the correct levels of indifference. Whereas the odd, sporadic, incident isn’t the same.
Israel has had constant trouble, and a large percentage of the population have military experience (not just training). It’s amazing what people will get used to. I’ve seen plenty of interviews with people in Damascus who are just trying to carry on a normal life despite the civil war, and constant artillery bombardment, going on around them.
In the UK we have the ‘tribal memory’ of the Blitz spirit. Which I guess sets the pattern for future generations’ behaviour too. I believe the sign that people put up was “business as usual”. Or there was the Windmill Theatre who famously said, “we never closed”. That was an odd place. They staged nude tableaux. I guess it was one of the only public places you might see naked women, but due to censorship it was only art if they didn’t move. So the curtain would open, they’d hold the ‘artistic’ pose for a few minutes, then close. If they moved it became pornography, and the theatre would be shut down by the Lord Chamberlain. A lot of the great comedians of the last century got their start there as well. You had to have something on between the tableaux, and who’d want to perform to a totally disinterested audience waiting for more of the same? So if you could get a laugh, you must be doing something right.
The story goes that one evening a bomb exploded in the next street. Big bang, lights go out, then back on, bits of plaster fall from ceiling. But our young lady on stage doesn’t flinch, scream or run away. Holding her pose she slowly turns towards the sound, raises one hand and sticks two fingers up to Hitler.
When war broke out government closed the cinemas and theatres (not the Windmill for some reason), but soon opened them again. Children were evacuated from the big cities. Though many didn’t go, and many came back quickly. My Nan said she didn’t send hers away as she’d rather stay together, and Granddad had a critical job. Apparently my Mum (aged 3 in 1940) was the family canary. Whenever there was an air raid she’d already have got up, and would be found asleep in the shelter in the garden.
When their house was bombed in 1940 Nan was most concerned about her dinner. She’d managed to get hold of 2 pork chops, with the kidney still attached. Not my thing, but incredibly hard to get hold of under rationing. That was going to be her and Granddad’s dinner. Still in shock, she insisted that the firemen go into the rubble to rescue her precious chops. When they wouldn’t she accused them of stealing them! 50 years later she was still annoyed at the loss, and the destruction of her new saucepans…
We also had 20 years of the IRA campaign, to get used to it. They used to do a delightful ‘Christmas message’ saying that anyone who went Christmas shopping in London was a legitimate target. They bombed Harrods one December, and I think there may have been a rubbish bin (trash can) bombing campaign in another. But it didn’t stop people going. That kind of threat is too vague, and much harder to believe in. Although when they were active it did keep tourist numbers down.
But the IRA were quite calculating and logical. They had an comprehensible aim, and a method to achieve it – to make NI ungovernable and too much effort. They also didn’t want to die themselves. That made them a lot more predictable, easy to deal with, and probably less scary.
I’d imagine that the nightmare for the security planners is the Mumbai attacks. An uncontrolled, moving, gun battle with numbers of heavily armed terrorists. This is much harder to coordinate and will result in larger civilian and police casualties. I don’t know if the Boston police thought this was a possibility and went massively cautious, or what their thinking was. Shutting down a whole city looks a bit of an over-reaction, but it’s easy to say that with hindsight. Not only do the population have to come to terms with ‘getting on with life’, but the people in charge need practise too.
Personally, I can’t imagine the mentality of someone who sets a bomb with the intention of killing and maiming innocent people.
I think we can all take a leaf from the book of the British, and in particular, the Londoners who lived through the Blitz. Their slogan was “Keep calm and carry on.”
WOL, I just wish Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris had taken that same page from that book. He was adamant about bombing civilian targets in Germany, considering military targets such as the ball-bearing factory at Schweinfurt to be “panacea” targets, designed to make the air crews feel better about doing something. If Harris had studied his own peoples’ reactions to the Blitz, he would have realized that there was no difference between the mindset of the London population and the population of say, Hamburg or Schweinfurt. Both of them resolved to “tough it out.”