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Reactions to the London Attack, Helpful and Unhelpful
Jon, I was prompted to write this when I saw your post this morning.
I spent the day yesterday with two friends who were visiting from London. They live quite close to London Bridge. One used to be a Ricochet member. Both were, until recently, solid Atlanticists — and still are — but they’re both offended beyond words by the tone of hostility and contempt for Britain that’s oozing, non-stop, out of the US these days, starting with the President, and echoed by many Americans on social media. I don’t blame them for being offended.
“Instructing Londoners to run, hide, and tell,” Jon writes, “is a dramatic departure from the can-do, stiff-upper-lip, globe-striding empire of a century ago.”
Actually, it’s not.
This guidance has been in place since 2014. It’s not a dramatic departure from anything, although it is a response to studying hundreds of similar situations around the world, including many in the United States. You’ll note that Britons are being told, explicitly, not to surrender or negotiate. The reason they’re emphasizing the seemingly obvious — run — is that we now, unfortunately, have a lot of evidence about how civilians (everywhere) behave during terrorist attacks and other emergencies. Some small percentage of them do behave as we all like to fantasize we would: They become superheroes who defeat the terrorists using any implement available. Unfortunately, in reality, many people don’t do that. They freeze.
“Freezing” seems to be something like a biologic default. It’s a cross-cultural reaction to fear. So people do in fact need to be told, specifically, not to obey that instinct. They need to be warned that their first response may be to deny what’s happening, or be confused by it, and freeze. They need to hear (often, repetitively) that this is not the reaction most likely to result in their survival.
This is why we get a lot of seemingly-obvious warnings about what to do and not do in other kinds of emergencies — e.g., “If you need to evacuate this plane, do not stop to get your luggage.” The reason we hear that all the time isn’t because the airline officials condescendingly suspect we might be idiots. It’s because they know we are. There’s evidence, and a lot of it, that a significant number of people will try to get their luggage, even though every second matters when you’re trying to evacuate a smoke-filled plane, and even though people who try to get their luggage put everyone behind them in mortal danger. And yes, this happens in the US as well as the UK. An NTSB study found that 50 percent — yes, 50 percent — of the passengers in emergency evacuations tried to take their bags. Now, why would they do such a stupid thing? Because most people have no experience of situations like this, and most people don’t respond heroically — or rationally — to them, unless they’ve had a lot of training. No matter what you think you would do, the reality is that in emergencies, many people do dumb things, and unless you’ve been in the situation yourself, you don’t know for sure you wouldn’t be one of them.
“Run, Hide, Fight” is standard protocol for active-shooter situations in the US, too. Are Americans wimps because we, too, need to be told to run and hide? Ah, but you say, part of the advice we get is to fight. Well, no one is telling the British not to fight: And indeed, they fought — they fought back with everything they had on hand: chairs, pint glasses, bottles, discarded bicycle parts. They’ve emphasized “Tell” over “Fight” because that actually makes a lot of sense if you’re living a country where the cops are armed and the terrorists aren’t, and it makes even more sense if the cops are able to get there and kill all of the terrorists within eight minutes. That is, by the way, an impressive achievement, and the appropriate reaction from allies to that news is, “Well done,” not “You remind us of Neville Chamberlain.”
Larry Barton, an American researcher at the University of Central Florida, is the highest-rated instructor at the FBI Academy and US Marshals Service. His research supports both the “run” advice and the giving of the advice. He analyzed 61 deadly assaults in public places from 2006 to 2016 — mostly in the United States. Among those who survived, 73 percent did so by running. Those who ran wound up with no no injuries or only moderate injuries, e.g., a sprained ankle. Of those who survived by hiding — 20 percent — a third were more seriously injured. “Running” is generally the best strategy. It is not always and everywhere the best strategy; there is no such thing as a universally successful solution. But it’s statistically likely to be the best strategy. A highly pro-Second Amendment group, The Truth About Guns, ran simulations of the Charlie Hebdo attack, for example, in which one or more of the civilians were armed. The civilians “died” in every scenario except immediate flight from the scene. So overall, based on evidence, the responsible advice to give the public — whether it’s armed or not — is “run.”
When Americans respond to an event like this by insinuating that the victims of the attack are wimps, or that they would have performed better under the same circumstances, it — unsurprisingly — offends the victims. It offends them terribly, in fact. And pointlessly. As one of the friends who was visiting me yesterday wrote on my Facebook page (in response to an offensive comment to this effect):
Before you sneer at us, may I remind you that the UK has the longest continuous experience of terrorism on its soil of any western country, and the greatest expertise in stopping it. Yes, we have had far too many terrorist incidents, but they are a drop in the ocean compared with the myriad plots that have been foiled. I think it’s fair to say the 9/11 plot would probably have been detected here. A little respect for us might be in order, too.
I agree. A lot more respect might be in order.
Many Americans believe the British were offended that Obama moved a bust of Churchill. Obama denied that it had been moved. Whether or not it was moved, I’ve never spoken personally to anyone in Britain who was offended by this story. Many have never even heard it. But everyone I know in Britain — and remember, I lived there for seven years, so I do know many people there, and I stay in contact with quite a few of them — is wildly offended by this kind of sneering. It causes real harm to our relationship with the people of Britain. What we say, in fact, on social media and other public fora, causes more offense than anything our politicians say: A politician’s comments can be dismissed, by people with a generous nature, as unrepresentative of the American character. But when ordinary Americans use social media to sneer at our allies, it really leaves a bad taste — and let’s not pretend we would not feel precisely the same way were the situation reversed. We would.
More than 220,000 British personnel have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Ministry of Defence figures, 456 Britons have died in Afghanistan. More than 7,300 have been treated for battlefield injuries, non-combat wounds, or disease related to their service. In Iraq, 179 British service personnel were killed. Some 5,800 were treated in field hospitals. This is a heavy toll. Britain wasn’t attacked on September 11. We were. They are in Afghanistan because we asked them to be. They entered war in Iraq because we asked them to. They did so despite believing it would increase the risk of terrorism on British soil. They did it because they are our allies.
When in response they hear sneering contempt from Americans to the effect that they’re sheeplike, cowardly wusses reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain — illustrated by wartime enlistment posters, clearly meant to suggest that Britons no longer enlist — they respond exactly as Americans would were the situation reversed. They did enlist, and do enlist, and they have been fighting, by our side, since September 11. Here are photographs of British men (and a woman) who died in 2010 in Afghanistan. In this link, you can see more photos of the British men and women who’ve died in every year of that war since it began.
So why would an American, in the wake of an attack on British soil, taunt the British for failing to enlist? Every one of the men above died because they took seriously the promise that an attack on any one of us would be an attack on all of us. Is taunting the British for being “sheeplike” and unwilling to enlist in the fight the right way to show our respect to their families?
Jon posted a photo of the famous “Keep calm and carry on” poster, intimating that the Britain of calm, dignity, and resilience is dead, replaced by a bunch of cowering ninnies. As it happens, that poster — precisely — has been widely circulating on British Twitter in the wake of the attack. But I suspect that if it were a new poster, Americans would be mocking the British for urging calm and normalcy. Our president would be Tweeting, ‘At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and the British are saying, “Keep calm and carry on!”‘
President Trump’s tweets caused grave offense. You may think the offense misplaced, but I can promise you they did cause offense, and I don’t find that offense at all hard to understand. What on earth would possess him to use an occasion like this to criticize the Mayor of London? Jennifer Rubin’s description of this is accurate:
After receiving blowback for that obnoxious missive, he tweeted out, “Whatever the United States can do to help out in London and the U. K., we will be there – WE ARE WITH YOU. GOD BLESS!” But then he decided to slam the mayor of the city attacked, who had calmly warned his fellow Londoners: “Londoners will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. There’s no reason to be alarmed.” Trump took the second part out of context and responded viciously, “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” (The mayor, of course, was telling them not to be alarmed by the heightened police presence.) Trump was not done, however, inanely tweeting, “Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now? That’s because they used knives and a truck!”
The offense caused by this kind of boorishness has real consequences — for us. It’s insane, right before a British general election, to hand ammunition to a politician like Jeremy Corbyn. But that’s exactly what this kind of behavior from Americans does. It puts defenders of the Anglo-American alliance in a terrible position. And this time, the people who are offended aren’t the usual suspects — they’re not British leftists who have always hated Americans and always will. We’re offending people who have always considered Americans their closest allies. And it isn’t because they’re delicate snowflakes, either. It’s because we’re being offensive. The tone of contempt from Americans, above all, is one no amount of rational argument can counter. If American voters didn’t care for being called “deplorable,” how do you imagine British voters feel about being called cowardly, sheeplike, and a disgrace to their heritage?
The UK has committed 1,250 military personnel to the fight against ISIS. Apart from us, the Royal Air Force has conducted more airstrikes in Iraq and Syria than any other Coalition country. It provides intelligence and surveillance to Iraqi Security Forces. It’s trained 39,000 Iraqi soldiers in engineering, medical skills, and infantry. In Syria, UK armed forces are training Syrian opposition groups in infantry, emergency medicine, and explosive disposal. How does undermining this alliance help us?
Why would we mock the British in the wake of a terrorist attack that killed seven innocent people on their soil? We know what it means to be the victims of terrorism. Why would we spit on our friends? What do we get out of it?
My answer: We get nothing out of it. So I suggest we not do it. It’s not in our interests to harm the friendship between the United States and Britain. And more importantly, it’s just not decent.
Published in General
We have been listening to Europeans criticize our gun culture for many decades :) Their solution to everything, including terrorism, it seems, is to surrender all weapons, not just guns, but all weapons, to the government. It doesn’t seem to be working for them. Is it rude to point that out?
I don’t know what the situation is exactly in Chicago, but a recent round up of heroin dealers in Massachusetts found that at least half of them were here illegally. One way to deal with gang violence is to deport criminals who are here illegally.
The only thing I’ll say to this is that the doing is infinitely more important and impressive than the praying.
Actually likely worse, if I recall. Those numbers are what was admitted to. My guess is that some-to-all of those claiming to be Puerto Rican will turn out to be Dominican illegals, etc.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/dominican-national-pleads-guilty-trafficking-identities-puerto-rican-us-citizens
Actually, and I know you don’t yet understand, it’s not.
It’s not rude to point out anything if done with an intellectual rational argument. Unfortunately there are two people on this planet that should get off Twitter, Pope Francis and President Trump. I’m not unhappy that President Trump won the election, but Twitter like alcohol can bring out some character traits that are best left hidden. In President Trump’s case it brings out the rude, obnoxious, and boorish characteristics of the hardened New Yorker, and that’s what people hear. Any valid message he might have is lost in the delivery.
“Resemble” – No. This is falling for the leftist caricature. People do want to attack the people who actually organized the terror attack and supported it. People believed W was doing what could be done, or at least as close as we could expect.
The scenario you give in this paragraph is not just a resemblance. Someone waving an ISIS flag is effectively declaring war on the U.S.A. and should be shut down by whatever means necessary.
The negative reaction comes from not even mentioning fighting back.
This was always the advice authorities want to give. That’s why 3 airplanes hit their targets in 9/11. The fourth was able to see the old advice doesn’t work.
Not everyone should fight rather than flee, and not in every situation. A judgement call needs to be made. You have to consider it an option before you make that judgement call.
The message didn’t draw criticism by itself, either. The idea of only a special few police officers having firearms contributes to the response.
President Trump will be accused of being obnoxious no matter how he communicates; from what I can tell, many Europeans and liberals in general accuse anyone they disagree with of being rude and obnoxious, so I wouldn’t worry much about that accusation. I am not sure it is possible to have an intellectual rational argument with people who want to deem opinions that they disagree with as hate speech; when such people accuse me or anyone else of being rude, obnoxious or boorish, I tune them out.
I don’t pay attention to Trump’s tweets; the only one I am aware of in relation to this most recent attack involved Trump re iterating that we need a travel ban. His detractors accused him of being rude and obnoxious; they didn’t try engage in a rational intellectual argument about the merits of a travel ban, they just started hurling insults.
That’s funny :-)
Wow! Funny but then not so much….
A tree is known by its fruit, eh? I agree. But I think we also have a tendency to see the fruit and forget the tree. That is, we see “oh, hey, people bringing casseroles” and forget that there’s a community, a tradition, a deliberate practice behind these acts of kindness and, very often, a sort of infrastructure that permits the acts of individuals to add up to more than the sum of their parts.
I’m a practical, concrete sort of person, so it is with many, many concrete examples in mind when I say that if you want some act of kindness accomplished, ask your local church, preferably one that does a whole lot of praying.
This shouldn’t surprise us. Prayer is about mindfulness, about paying attention, about consciousness and empathy. Communities of prayer—churches—tend to have resources, if only in the form of a lot of retired women who are awesome at organizing community caregiving.
And when someone is praying, they aren’t (pace Claire’s OP) criticizing.
Take it from me, I lived in NYC for awhile he is rude and obnoxious. Like you I don’t care what people think in the sense that I have no control over what a person thinks. Rude and obnoxious is a trait that is universal, it is no respecter of national boundaries, or political persuasions. Donald Trump is like an alcoholic, a simple statement offering his condolences to the British people, and then he had to criticize the Mayor of London. Like the alcoholic who cannot stop at one drink he has to have just one more Tweet and then another, and another.
The same Mayor of London who has said in the past that terrorism is just a natural part of living in a big city, and we need to get used to it. If the people of London look at Trump, and then look at their mayor, and they think Trump is the bigger problem, that tells us a great deal about how Great Britain came to be what it now is. They value style over substance; let’s not make the same mistake here.
True story: Not much happens at a local boring town meeting, but one year a disgruntled (mentally challenged) citizen got up to speak (unannounced) and pointed a gun! Not much choice but to freeze or get under the chair. But an old lady out in the hall snuck up on him and whacked the hell out of him with her purse and he was apprehended. No one really knows how they would react unless they were in a situation, and courage can be found in the most unlikely places.
I would have left him a special tip.
There is no point in Donald Trump criticizing the Mayor of London. He is the President of the United States. When Londoners are trying to process the attack in a personal way even those who dislike their mayor see it as a personal attack on themselves. The Mayor of London does not run for office in the United States, nor does he have any influence on US foreign policy. I find it interesting that Americans who resent criticism of the US by European politicians are surprised that Europeans resent the same thing.
Agreed, I am not trying to defend Trump in this particular instance, just saying, when your country has experienced three terror attacks in three months, you should maybe have bigger fish to fry than one of Trump’s tweets.
I really do believe that a big part of the problem in Great Britain is that many people there, especially in the elite, value style over substance: this has the effect of intimidating people into silence. People who aren’t totally confident in their ability to be totally sensitive and smooth-which is all of us, at some point or another-feel that they can’t say anything, or else they will be accused of boorishness. This, combined with political correctness, is toxic. I don’t want to see it happen here, which is why I am inclined to cut boorish people a great deal of slack. Substance over style: to put style over substance is to invite tyranny.
Yep, terrorist attacks are a part of daily life here in San Antonio. Not.
Fooled by imagery. Just having the means to ‘pack’ is not enough. Instruction, well guided, intense, repetitive and comprehensive, insistent training, training, and more training, so that there is possibly a chance that not more then a fifth of a troop of chaps only recently exposed to proper training, especially as they have otherwise previously been pacified, demurred, and trained to be passive, and nowadays are often overweight, and tend to be initially falsely selected, most often ill led by people without relevant battle experience, when it matters freeze and fail, misfire or just run. Facts not fiction please. Check the shooting regime, frequency and design of practice, the overall physical and mental fitness required of those you praise for ‘packing’. Then think again, soberly, as to whether you shall rely on them to defend you. Rethink and rely on yourself. Then teach others.
The various populations of Europe will have to learn to trust ordinary, boring, terribly virile men again to defend them. Funnily, it will be women asking for that to happen. Whilst I am not a betting man, I would expect a sea change in middle of the road, centrist party politics from municipal, state/regional, to federal level in a number of countries shortly. ‘Man saved by woman requiring him to save both of them’ due to the imminent threat from the other man. Stunningly simple themes.
@JudithannCampbell they are the pharisees praying loudly on street corners for appearance sake.
I know you believe prayer works (I do, too) but Majestyk has the right of it on this.
He said “big” cities.
Thanks for reminding everyone of that. Mr. Khan is a cameo greenish leftist, regulation obsessed, Islamism appeasing, insidious apologist for those he must hold dearer than the ordinary people who actually have to suffer from this mess. Well then, you get what you vote for. First the age of Red Ken, then Buffoon Boris, now this sodding servile silly sack of rotten ideas. Annus horribilis.
It has become clear to me that there are two factions of the right when it comes to this issue. There are those who are for Muslim immigration and contribute to the death of the west and those who don’t. After so many incidents I am no longer willing to give the the first group the benefit of the doubt, and I am no longer willing to make common cause with them.
I wonder if the main argument here might be flight vs fight? Fighters are calling out flighters and vice versa. I’ve found myself in multiple situations where I was threatened or in danger and I’m definitely a fighter. I don’t consider myself brave. It just seems to come on as a matter of instinct. Bravery is performing under high stress and fear. I and others just seem hard wired to lash out. One isn’t better than the other in my opinion. Flighters are more rational in my opinion and are better under sustained threat. Under instantaneous threat, flighters go into shock and fighters act. Both may need to find common ground and find ways to compliment each other in this crisis?
This isn’t going away soon. I am seeing fatigue. The worst of both instincts is starting to cause fear and tension.
All of them? Every time? Even the ones that do pray?
The question is what we want to do as a matter of policy.
A player gets a neck injury and the other players are right there to help. But they don’t. They’re told to let him be until the trainer gets there. The players helping may do more harm than good.
If I was in charge and I had many many decades of experience with this sort of thing, I wouldn’t want people in my way “helping.”
I have found the most power, is in person, stop right there, and pray for and with the person.
How did I get involved in this part of the thread? I don’t remember saying anything about prayer :)
Europeans have been much less culturally (and therefore imho personally) open to migrants than the US. That’s why the US makes Americans out of migrants so much better than Germany makes Germans out of Gästarbeiters.
i would venture a guess that this is the difference between (to grossly oversimplify) London and the rest of England. London is good at making migrants into Londoners.