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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
A culture of victimhood, a culture that denies individuals the legal right to defend themselves is surrender. It’s surrender on the home front. It’s surrender of your rights to the state. The American left is finding out right now, somewhat to their horror, that a weaponized state cannot always be relied on to do your bidding, and when it’s in someone else’s hand, you reach for the musket over the mantle.
More than that, though, this will go on and on as long as there are a plethora of victims that can be used to further the goals of the Wahabiists.
No victims? No victory for Islamic terror. Look at how “clear and hold” and armed self-defense worked in Iraq. Time for that in Europe.
Or else cut to the chase and sign up for Dhimmitude, because what they’re doing now in Europe clearly ain’t working.
http://thefederalist.com/2017/06/05/london-bridge-world-sick-politicians-downplaying-terrorism/
A far better take of why this disgusting charade.
I wasn’t cracking a joke at Honey Boo Boo’s expense. I like her and I like you – neither of you should be denigrated because I don’t think you have a well thought out pov. That was my point. There’s opinions (right, wrong, in between) and there are human beings. Reasonable?
Social media is proving to be part of the problem – bickering about tweets and getting offended? It’s also how the terrorists are recruiting. The run and hide signs since 2014 are a signal to the terrorists that their strategy is working. I can’t imagine seeing those here in the US. Yes, 3,000 on a watch-list should be the concern – not some stupid tweet.
You once wrote a book called Menace in Europe 2006 – eleven years ago. Opening chapter: “The date was July 3, 2005 – within six months, you wrote, there will be another terrorist attack. Four days later suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured 700 more in central London. ” A big theme of your book was how immigrants and refugees were not integrating into European culture and society, but living in their own country and culture, just on foreign soil. You saw it 11 years ago as a big problem and the book was prophetic. So what is different today? More law enforcement?
Where is the leadership infiltrating and shutting down the Imams and mosques that are recruiting? What is being done to get people to integrate? Do you see this getting better under current conditions?
At the very least, all the police must be armed.
There are two unpleasant outcomes to contemplate. One is that Islamic Supremacy will win, and England will become Syria with Spotted Dick.
The other—IMHO more likely—is that there will be a serious backlash. Nutcases will be elected, genuine hate-crimes with real violence against anyone who appears to be Muslim will erupt and the British public (still 95% non-Muslim) will respond with lethal apathy because they have not been given a positive, reasonable way to defend not just themselves but their culture.
Not only will this be horrible for British muslims and random brown persons, it will be deeply destructive of British self-understanding. The Brits are the good guys, and they deserve the chance to protect their good-guy culture before it becomes, one way or another, bad.
The British political class have already surrendered because they can’t talk honestly about what they’re up against.
You know what the US’ (not so) secret weapon with integration is? Americans.
Not the Govt or Govt policy – the people. Because Americans are essentially open to outsiders, outsiders become Americans.
Yes, America changes on the surface thereby, but that’s also something the people are generally not afraid of. Or weren’t.
When seconds count, the police are minutes away.
Your first outcome is more likely than your second. All those awful anti-Muslim hate crimes that we were told would emerge post 9/11 never really did. Sure, there were a few. But after every terror attack, the left promises outbreaks of violent Islamophobia popping up like Dandelions on a spring lawn.
Neither the “peaceful” label nor the “violent barbarians” label are being stickered to the proper groups.
Theresa May is finally doing that. She’ll likely get hammered for it like Trump.
This is a fascinating statement and cuts to the heart of the issue!
You think people know who the enemy is. But you don’t know that. You think rather than know that because those in European officialdom have pointedly refrained from saying so. (Judging from some remarks made byUK and European officials one might mistake Trump as the real enemy.). They have also declined to take security measures pointed at any particular group. So, inspect bags and purses? Ok. Bollards and security barriers. Check. Increased police presence. Yep. Metal detectors. Sure. These measures are designed to be equally effective if the “extremist” to be defended against is an IRA member, Scottish or Basque Separatist, Red Brigade Member, Trump supporter, al Qaeda or ISIS member. As long as the security measure will apprehend or deter any and all extremists with equal probability, the bureaucrats are fine with it. But. Any measure that might disproportionately impact some particular group is forbidden. That is why the enemy remains unnamed. And that’s why you think but don’t know that people know who the enemy is.
With May it is election frumpary and nothing real. Nothing ever is with her.
From what I understand, advising people to run is good advice. Terror attacks and spree murders are generally successful when they manage to trap people. Unless you have an opportunity to directly engage the attacker, the best thing to do is probably just get yourself and others out of Dodge as quickly as possible. Fewer targets = fewer casualties.
That said, the fact that active resistance is not advised or mentioned is a mistake. Perhaps “Protect” would be better than “Hide.”
I agree with you, @drewinwisconsin. There weren’t a whole lot of islamophobic hate crimes, which is astonishing. Presumably this means that most Britons (and most Americans) still feel reasonably safe and reasonably sure that their government can and will protect them. This may be a matter of sheer demographics—when enough Brits personally know someone who got blown up, stabbed, run over, raped or even just harassed by a Muslim (or someone who appears to be Muslim), the balance may shift.
At what point do unprotected people revert to a violent, don’t-screw-with-me honor culture? One excellent explanation
I could be wrong? Perhaps its a frog-in-hot-water phenomenon and nobody is going to jump until its too late. Maybe the repeated assurances by the government that the water isn’t getting hotter (and if you think it is, you’re a wicked person) really can tamp down awareness until the water is boiling.
It certainly is a major difference, one in our favor.
I haven’t followed this closely for a while, but is there anyone in Britain making a case for armed self-defense? From what I gather, it’s about as popular as calling for the abolition of NIH.
Agreed!
Has anyone on this thread argued otherwise? And yes, I’m including the OP.
That was the gist of the training session I mentioned before. Getting away should be the top priority, but if you have to shelter in place, try to make your hiding place appear unoccupied. If that doesn’t work, use any means necessary to keep the attacker out.
I coach little league baseball and softball. Sometimes when a kid runs to second and reaches safely he carelessly steps off the bag even though the shortstop is holding the ball just inches away. As a coach I yell “Get on the base! Get on the base!” And the other coach yells “Tag him! Tag him!”
The result is always that both kids freeze. Literally just stand there with glazed eyes. Safe or Out is always determined by which kid unfreezes first.
A coach attempts to avoid these situations through coaching and practice. The only real way to overcome this is playing experience.
Assuming we don’t want people experiencing lots of terror attacks and assuming organizing national practice sessions is too difficult a task, then all we’re left with is telling.
If I was an expert terror stopper and I was in charge of telling people what to do, I think “Get the hell out of my way!” would be a lot better thing to say than “Everybody act like Clint Eastwood!”
I think Theresa May will be able to very effectively differentiate her proposed policies from this politically correct coward who is a poor excuse for the potential leader of one of the world’s best remaining examples of a free Country …
Jeremy Corbyn said Isil (aka ISIS) supporters should not be prosecuted for ‘expressing a political point of view’ …
I’m pretty sure that our lack of violence is more because it’s in our nature, generally, (vestiges of the West’s Christian heritage) not to react violently toward others.
Good question, but it might not just be a lack of trust in the government to keep us safe, but witnessing a government doing things that actively endanger us. And I think many governments in Europe are enacting or standing by policies that in fact DO actively endanger their citizens. So if we do see violent reactions, I think it’ll happen in Europe first. Not just because they’re the direct victims of their leaders’ malfeasance, but because Europe is a post-Christian continent.
Complaining about Donald Trump in response to Europe’s dangerous immigration policies is misplaced.
I am continually surprised when I hear British citizens reacting angrily to any mention ofwhat happened in Rotherham instead of expressing anger at the incident itself. It’s like a whole society has swept a horrific incident under the rug and has agreed to pretend it didn’t happen.
Of course the shock factor plays into the hands of terrorists. Guns might help, but only in the hands of trained security. Small establishments probably can’t afford to bear this cost. London isn’t Israel. Here in the U.S. it’s very difficult to carry a weapon in a public place even with a permit in a Second Amendment State. So terrorists who descend on an establishment like in the Orlando shooting have the edge.
Mathematics is the problem. If you invite large numbers of Muslims/refugees/illegals, etc. into your country what percentage will become radicalized? And how many born in the country will buy the Jahid Screed? So call me Islamophobic if it makes you happy, but numbers count.
It’s probably too late now for Europe. but if you had far fewer refugees wouldn’t the police have fewer on their watch list? Mightn’t the situation be more manageable? So perhaps Trump isn’t so racist with his ban that might keep America safer.
Londoners aren’t cowards. Ridiculous to call them such. They reacted just like any of us would. The politicians and their constituents on the left, who wet their pants worrying about being PC enough, are the fools and cowards who bring this curse on their own county.
I take issue with using total body count as a metric. Far more insidious is the way free societies change the way they go about their business, and live their lives–giving precious personal liberty to the state. It’s not the body count, but the frequency with which open society is attacked. True–modern media coverage makes it seem even more scary, but how many parents are going to take their kids to a concert, or a parade, or a festival after Manchester? Suppression of movement within society is a big win too.
We are adults, not children. The analogy fails to that extent. Adult men have responsibilities, and that includes being ready to act. That is a biological requirement.
From my simple comprehension. the OP has emphasized Trump’s tweets and a so called sneering right as the big problem in today’s discussion. It just doesn’t seem to be the main problem to me, but I am always ready to defer to a Common Citizen.
Nonsense. I do it everyday. I only disarm when I have to be in court or the post office.
Not many men being taught that anymore.
I gather the same thing; from what I can tell, anyone in Britain who dared to argue against gun control would be regarded as a monster who didn’t care about the children who have been killed by guns.
Oh boy… where to begin…
Anyway, it is in man’s nature to freeze. To not freeze is taught out of man. The military is very good at teaching that instinct out of man.
Adult men do have a responsibility. One responsibility is to not muck things up. I suppose you’d agree with that.
So you don’t want to tell citizens to Run, Hide, Tell and you don’t want to have them jumping in and mucking things up.
You are in charge, what do you tell people?
I agree. A modicum of practice helps people learn NOT to freeze. Take driving a car as an example: a shouted instruction from an instructor initially may cause a driver to freeze – but with a little work, people learn how to respond with action.
In-effing-credible, that we’ve reached the point where the biggest news, after another horrifying Islamist murder spree, is nitpicking critiques of the reactions of commentators and “leaders” (except for Trump, they don’t deserve that term) on “our” side!
Truly, the terrorists have won, thanks to their allies the leftist media.
Just like Khalid Sheikh Mohamed boasted they would.