In the Face of Terror, Londoners Told to “Run, Hide, Tell”

 

As the London terror attacks were announced late Saturday, the city’s Metropolitan Police Service issued a warning for Londoners to “run, hide, and tell.” (Hence, my Neville Chamberlain Photoshop above.)

The alert system was created after a series of attacks in Paris last year. The UK’s National Counter Terrorism Security Office published advice on what the public should do in a major terror incident. The intention is to get civilians out of the way of both terrorists and security forces, especially since the British public has been effectively disarmed due to aggressive gun and knife control laws.

Instructing Londoners to run, hide, and tell is a dramatic departure from the can-do, stiff-upper-lip, globe-striding empire of a century ago. Here’s how life during wartime looked to Britons not so long ago:

 

Today, the “young lions” are hard to find. The sheep, however, are plentiful.

Published in Culture, Foreign Policy, Islamist Terrorism, Military, Policing
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  1. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Official info translated by Stephan Molyneux…

    • #1
  2. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Tell

    But be very careful what you say or you could be facing charges for hate speech.

    • #2
  3. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    But Jon, at least the sheep are politically correct! People shouldn’t have to be told to do these things. Where is their courage? Where is their fortitude? When the time comes (and someday it will), I hope I act like a force to be reckoned with–even at 5’2″ !

    • #3
  4. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    BTW, isn’t calling yourself “Chief” for your title cultural appropriation? Tsk, tsk.

    • #4
  5. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival
    1. Run
    2. Grab a table leg
    3. Beat the snot-bubbles out of somebody

    Best you can do if they disarm everybody but the bad guys.

    • #5
  6. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Percival (View Comment):

    1. Run
    2. Grab a table leg
    3. Beat the snot-bubbles out of somebody

    Best you can do if they disarm everybody but the bad guys.

    This one got a LOL!!

    • #6
  7. Scott Wilmot Member
    Scott Wilmot
    @ScottWilmot

    You are late to the party on this one Jon.

    http://ricochet.com/435012/breaking-terror-london/#comment-3815703

    http://ricochet.com/435026/america-never-give-up-your-guns/

     

    • #7
  8. Ramadan Drive A Thon Ends June… Inactive
    Ramadan Drive A Thon Ends June…
    @Pseudodionysius

    • #8
  9. BD1 Member
    BD1
    @

    Less tough talk, more immigration control.

    • #9
  10. Goldwaterwoman Thatcher
    Goldwaterwoman
    @goldwaterwoman

    Thatcher and Churchill are turning over in their graves.

    • #10
  11. Ramadan Drive A Thon Ends June… Inactive
    Ramadan Drive A Thon Ends June…
    @Pseudodionysius

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    BTW, isn’t calling yourself “Chief” for your title cultural appropriation? Tsk, tsk.

    And How.

    • #11
  12. drlorentz Member
    drlorentz
    @drlorentz

    Jon Gabriel, Ed.: “Run, Hide, Tell”

    Sounds almost French

    • #12
  13. Hypatia Member
    Hypatia
    @

    Can’t help giggling–I think of John Cleese in the Holy Grail movie: “Run awaaaay!”

    There’s a piece  in American Thinker today, about how many of the Londoners at the scene of the attack, without being told to do so, assumed the classic surrender position, hands clasped over their heads.  They didn’t know why, it just seemed “safer”.

    “Men of Britain! Will you stand for  this?”

    Well, London elected ‘Diq Unwittington as mayor, so I reckon the answer today is, “Stand? Hell, no! (But, wait, wait, we’ll queue up and shuffle away, with our hands in plain sight…”)

    i don’t know how I would react.  Probably–no, assuredly–no more bravely.  I think people have to be in the habit of physical courage.  The guys who began throwing chairs at the stabbers have it; many of us just don’t.  (We haven’t needed it, living in, y’know, civilization, most  of our lives.  We’re like the dodo birds. ) I’ll bet that’s one of the main qualities they cultivate in the jihadi training camps these young gents attend back in the Old Countries.   Courage is a morally neutral virtue.

     

    • #13
  14. Ramadan Drive A Thon Ends June… Inactive
    Ramadan Drive A Thon Ends June…
    @Pseudodionysius

    drlorentz (View Comment):

    Jon Gabriel, Ed.: “Run, Hide, Tell”

    Sounds almost French

    Give me ten men like Clouseau, and I could destroy the world!"

    • #14
  15. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    There are two possible responses to a dispersed threat like an urban terrorist. Option #1 is to clamp down hard on everyone and hope that you catch the terrorists in the same net you’ve cast over the public at large. Option #2 is an empowered, dispersed response that can act quickly, before the official channels can overcome their inertia.

    The United Kingdom (and London in particular) has chosen Option #1, and last night, we saw the results of that choice. The country that brought us Henry V, Richard Francis Burton, Florence Nightingale and Winston Churchill has been reduced (literally) to just a bunch of sniveling cowards.

     

    • #15
  16. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    There were people who attacked the bad guys, though. “Fight” should be the only word on the list. Moreover, Brits should be encouraged to carry cricket bats or other weapons around with them, so they can defend against the next jihadi. I should think a whole nation full of bat-weilding half-drunken Englishmen should give the Lets-Die-For-Allah crowd pause.

    • #16
  17. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    There’s a video of the police entering a pub and making everyone get down. Several networks and media orgs have used it, but they cut out before the end where two distinct views are expressed. Someone bitterly curses the people he assumes are the reason for the argy-bargy (He was correct.) The person filming the event upbraids him for the sentiment, and as he later said on his Twitter feed, the terrorist act  wasn’t conducted by Muslims. “It’s a tiny % cult that use that as a justification for themselves,” he wrote.

    There’s some pushback from dissenting views, and from others a familiar formulation: A) not all Muslims, which is obvious, or B) the people who did this simply were not Muslims. Not that this was a “false flag” op, but that their actions invalidated their self-professed adherence to their religion.

    • #17
  18. profdlp Inactive
    profdlp
    @profdlp

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    …I should think a whole nation full of bat-wielding half-drunken Englishmen should give the Lets-Die-For-Allah crowd pause.

    I’m with you.  If they want to die for allah, I say we give innocent people the tools to quickly and effectively send them on their way.

    (How much do you want to bet that the first time a muslim would-be murderer got the stuffings knocked out of him, the powers-that-be would make it illegal to carry a cricket bat on the street.  Any takers?)

    • #18
  19. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    There’s a video of the police entering a pub and making everyone get down. Several networks and media orgs have used it, but they cut out before the end where two distinct views are expressed. Someone bitterly curses the people he assumes are the reason for the argy-bargy (He was correct.) The person filming the event upbraids him for the sentiment, and as he later said on his Twitter feed, the terrorist act wasn’t conducted by Muslims. “It’s a tiny % cult that use that as a justification for themselves,” he wrote.

    There’s some pushback from dissenting views, and from others a familiar formulation: A) not all Muslims, which is obvious, or B) the people who did this simply were not Muslims. Not that this was a “false flag” op, but that their actions invalidated their self-professed adherence to their religion.

    From Political Correctness Gone Wild’s Facebook posts:

    • #19
  20. Judithann Campbell Member
    Judithann Campbell
    @

    profdlp (View Comment):
    (How much do you want to bet that the first time a muslim would-be murderer got the stuffings knocked out of him, the powers-that-be would make it illegal to carry a cricket bat on the street. Any takers?)

    From what I can tell, they aren’t far from making it illegal to carry cricket bats on the street right now. We have good friends who live in Scotland-they are such nice people, but wow. And our friends aren’t even into political correctness; they are very upset about Islamic terrorism, but they say that they don’t want guns in their country; they also believe that the punishment for carrying a knife  should be more severe. If people started carrying bats, they would want that made illegal too. Sigh.

    • #20
  21. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    profdlp (View Comment):

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    …I should think a whole nation full of bat-wielding half-drunken Englishmen should give the Lets-Die-For-Allah crowd pause.

    I’m with you. If they want to die for allah, I say we give innocent people the tools to quickly and effectively send them on their way.

    (How much do you want to bet that the first time a muslim would-be murderer got the stuffings knocked out of him, the powers-that-be would make it illegal to carry a cricket bat on the street. Any takers?)

    They pretty much already did that during the London riots a few years back.

    • #21
  22. tigerlily Member
    tigerlily
    @tigerlily

    Well, it’s pretty clear what the Brits need to do now, isn’t it? Practice their running and hiding while keeping a stiff upper lip.

    • #22
  23. Pugshot Inactive
    Pugshot
    @Pugshot

    @percival:

    The cartoon sequence you posted ended one panel too soon; the last panel would show the terrorist holding the liberal’s head after he’d cut it off.

    • #23
  24. dittoheadadt Inactive
    dittoheadadt
    @dittoheadadt

    Stiff upper lip?  What the mayor of London needs is a fat upper lip.

    • #24
  25. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Pugshot (View Comment):
    @percival:

    The cartoon sequence you posted ended one panel too soon; the last panel would show the terrorist holding the liberal’s head after he’d cut it off.

    I think it’s meant to be played in a loop.

    • #25
  26. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    Video speaks for itself – its from the London attack with commentary (non-graphic, but language NSFW):

    Its almost as if Liberals have given up solving real problems, so they tackle global warming, “Right Wing Extremist Violence”, and the old standbys of racism and sexism, whilst ignoring the real world of terror, unemployment and crime. Even while under attack, they have durable preconception of the world – that survives even when struck by reality.

    • #26
  27. Larry Koler Inactive
    Larry Koler
    @LarryKoler

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    B) the people who did this simply were not Muslims.

    But, let’s give them Korans if we ever jail them. You know, to show respect.

    • #27
  28. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Larry Koler (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    B) the people who did this simply were not Muslims.

    But, let’s give them Korans if we ever jail them. You know, to show respect.

    Korans untouched by the hand of the infidel.

    • #28
  29. Larry Koler Inactive
    Larry Koler
    @LarryKoler

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Larry Koler (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    B) the people who did this simply were not Muslims.

    But, let’s give them Korans if we ever jail them. You know, to show respect.

    Korans untouched by the hand of the infidel.

    Yes, wrapped in cloth that is blessed by an Imam. Oh, and don’t forget to give them Halal food and prayer rugs.

    Even though it’s in doubt about whether they are really Muslims or not. We need to err on the side of being respectful.

    • #29
  30. Z in MT Member
    Z in MT
    @ZinMT

    I agree with the sentiments here, but in general when you have a disarmed populace this is the best advice.

    • #30
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