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An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/13/2012 8:56:59 PM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline 		So, it's been a while since the 22/7 attacks in Norway (youtube; graphic recap), the 40 day trial and the memorial concert (youtube; first two artists) which saw about one in ten people in the capital attending and about one in five citizens watching the live broadcast. Incidentally, for those that have a fondness for The Boss, like me, he took a moment out of his busy schedule to make an appearance for a subdued acoustic performance (youtube). Another welcome addition was one of the most well known native nordic (Saami) artists, Mari Boine (youtube; unrelated, Vuoi Vuoi Mu from the excellent album Idjagieðas).

And thus comes the time for the aftermath.

Earlier today, the report from the independent inquiry was presented, with an airing of dirty laundry the likes of which we haven't seen since the last world war. Its conclusions are unequivocal and appear well founded. Although I am not done reading it yet and reserve the right to change my assesment, it appears fair and accurate. Weighing in at some 500 pages in 19 chapters, it provides a detailed analysis of what we did right and what we did wrong. Most importantly, it delves into what we've been doing wrong for about as long as I've been pointing it out, if not longer. It names names and covers the failure of management and leadership that is to blame for the state of affairs that it criticizes, while recognizing the parts that were handled properly. One might call it something of a foreshadowing that six out of the seven key figures named had already resigned their positions before the report was started.

In brief, as to the attack itself, it concludes that it was the volunteer efforts of campers around Utøya island that prevented an even greater tragedy, making more of a difference than the police effort itself. The contingency unit is a qualified bunch, and excepting a single bad call that cost five lives, they come out of this without a scratch, as well they should. We cannot say the same for those in charge of their logistics, coordination, information, equipment and training. Notably, about twenty lives are directly attributable to inadequate training and equipment for dealing with islands, of which there are several here.

On the ground, people did a great job and a remarkable effort went into this.

In particular, the healthcare system has performed admirably in handling the crisis, dealing with over 260 injured- of which 71 critically- and 76 dead in a country where the relevant institutions receive at most 80 injured on a busy day. Neither blast injuries nor gunshot wounds are a common sight in our ERs. One patient from Utøya island died in the hospital, which is a surprisingly low number, as most received at least one headshot at point blank range.

Moving on, the main conclusions are as follows, paraphrasing from a newspaper summary:
  • The bombing would have been prevented by effectuating the resolutions that had already been passed.
  • The available means could have stopped the massacre on the island earlier, and police could realistically have been expected to respond sooner.
  • Several steps that should have been taken to secure key locations during the crisis were not taken, which would have been disasterous if there had been a second attacker. Several steps to mitigate damages were similarly not taken.
  • The injured, their families and loved ones, were taken care of in a satisfactory manner.
  • Officials did a good job of providing the general population with up to date information. Continuity of vital services and key functions was preserved.
  • The intelligence service had sufficient information to detect, investigate and apprehend the perpetrator prior to the attacks, as well as cause for suspicion. Poor methodology, poor organization, narrow focus and inadequate IT appears to be at fault.
  • The willingness to acknowledge risk and integrate learning points from exercises and rehearsals has been limited.
  • The will to put into practice what has been set forth in terms of plans, training, resolutions, etc., has been absent.
  • Coordination and cooperation has been abysmal.
  • Modern IT is underutilized.
  • The willingness of the leaders of various departments and institutions to assume responsibility, be accountable, establish clear goals and make decisions to arrive at good results has been inadequate.
  • There is little to no need for new laws, major restructuring, reprioritizing or additional funding. The major problems are in leadership, coordination, cooperation, methodology, internal culture and attitudes. Changes in these areas cannot wait.
  • Individuals can, and have, made a significant difference.
Among examples that are covered, the heads of police decided to adopt a system whose developers joined their voices to those of external auditers in stating that it was inadequate and would not perform. As a result, two patrol cars passed the perpetrator on the road while a post-it note back at the office held the licence plate, a description of the car, and a description of the suspect. In most areas, police dispatchers were alerted to the ongoing attacks by relatives of those on the island calling them, while operative coordinators were generally alerted by off duty coworkers that saw it on TV. Where I live, they found out an hour after the national alert was issued, and they didn't find out from an official source. This is the outcome we told them to expect several years ago.

The person that made these decisions was conveniently promoted out of her position a few months earlier by the friend that gave her the job.

Said friend left his own position almost immediately after the attacks, ostensibly to spend more time with his family as his sweeping changes in every area concerned with what happened that day had taken too much time. Most of the persons that are directly responsible for managing such crises- and have been shown not to be able to do so- were appointed by him personally, at times as a means to remove people that opposed his reforms on the basis of experience.

Such are just a few of the boils now being lanced.

In short, Oslogate.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, with everything that went right being the people on the ground, and everything that went wrong being the Labor party- ironically enough the people that were attacked in part precisely for mismanaging the country. The prime minister and government, a coalition between Labor, Socialist Left and Center, are so far pretty clear they're not intending to step down despite the inquiry they commissioned having placed squarely on their shoulders the blame for one of the greatest farces in the postwar era.

What makes it interesting is the upcoming election. The Socialist Left is marginal in the polls now, as is Center, which leaves the Labor Party as the only hardline socialist party in the running and quickly losing the sympathy votes they gained from the attacks. The (Fiscal) Conservative party is almost large enough for a straight majority in the polls, and are likely to form a coalition with the Liberal Left and Progressive parties. Hopefully, we will see the Liberal Left gaining some ground and the Progressives losing a bit, which would potentially result in a non-socialist coalition with a bit more balance to it. It's not what I would prefer, but it's closer.

Anyway, that's a quick update for those that requested it earlier. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

I may also write something about the trial later, if anyone is interested.

— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/14/2012 5:08:26 AM   
kalikshama


Posts: 14805
Joined: 8/8/2010
Status: offline 		There were a few stories on NPR about the independent commission's conclusions yesterday. I can't find the exact one I heard but it was similar to this:

Norway's Massacre Could Have Been Stopped Sooner, Commission Concludes

The bombing that began the July 22, 2011, attacks in Oslo could have been prevented and the massacre that followed on an island outside the city could have been stopped much sooner than it was, according to a report released today by an independent commission.

Eight people were killed by a bomb left inside a vehicle parked outside government offices. Then Anders Behring Breivik, the man responsible, went to an island where a camp was being held for young people interested in politics. There, he killed 69 individuals, most of them teens.

Norway's The Local writes that in today's report the commission says the bombing "could have been prevented through effective implementation of already adopted security measures" and that a "more rapid" reaction by police to the shooting rampage on the island was "a realistic possibility."

According to The Associated Press:

— "Plans to close off the street in front of the government building were approved in 2010, but work on constructing physical barriers had not been completed and no temporary obstacles had been set up. A parking ban in the area was not strictly enforced."

— "The police response [to the island attack] was slowed down by a series of blunders, including flaws in communication systems and the breakdown of an overloaded boat carrying a police anti-terror unit. Meanwhile, Norway's only police helicopter was left unused, its crew on vacation. Breivik's shooting spree lasted for more than one hour before he surrendered to police."

The Local says that "two local police officers who arrived first on the lakeshore should have done everything possible to get to the island, according to police instructions in the event of a shooting. Instead they remained on shore, saying they couldn't find a boat to take them to the island."

When an elite police force finally arrived, its members had to borrow two pleasure boats to go a short distance from shore to the island.

"According to the commission," The Local reports, "if procedures had been respected, police could have been on the island by 6.15 pm, or 12 minutes earlier, which could possibly have spared lives though the commission did not say as much."

The AP notes that "the justice minister and the head of the Norwegian Security Service have already been replaced since the attacks."


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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/14/2012 5:57:42 AM   
LadyHibiscus


Posts: 27124
Joined: 8/15/2005
From: Island Of Misfit Toys
Status: offline 		Please do keep us updated, Aswad. I wish I could say that those findings surprised me...

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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/14/2012 6:18:45 AM   
Rule


Posts: 10479
Joined: 12/5/2005
Status: offline 		Did Breivik develop his ideas on his own, or was there someone who fed them to him?

For example, the Muslim who murdered Theo van Gogh was part of a group who were fed their ideas by a mysterious "Syrian" (who may very well have been an Israelian) who conveniently disappeared after the murder. So this murderer was prepped.

Was Breivik prepped?

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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/14/2012 8:28:03 AM   
Aswad


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Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyHibiscus

Please do keep us updated, Aswad. I wish I could say that those findings surprised me...


One thing did surprise me: an actual independent inquiry seems to have been made, and to have resulted in a reasonable finding.

What they found is no surprise, but that they're saying it clear and bold, with names and firmly pointed fingers, is.

I got a copy of the English version of the report before they pulled it, incidentally.

IWYW,
— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/14/2012 8:50:08 AM   
Aswad


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Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Rule

Did Breivik develop his ideas on his own, or was there someone who fed them to him?


I wasn't really intending to go into the ABB case on this thread, but I don't get the impression that the work done is of a standard that lends itself to assuming professional involvement. The bulk of it is a rehash of existing material from the counterjihadist crowd, notably Fjordman, and other fringe sources such as Theodore Kaczynski (just swap black for muslim and swap red for "cultural marxist", pretty much). I could make a more convincing case in my sleep, for or against, than what ABB managed to do. Still, he did put in a fair bit of work, and apparently that's sort of hard to do for most. As far as I can tell, though, an outside source isn't needed to adequately account for the observables.

It would be interesting, of course, and there's people claiming to be the second cell now, but I'm going to need more to go on before I would be willing to conclude anything out of the ordinary. I do wish they put a bit more effort into answering whether there's actually been others involved, perhaps people that backed out once they got a taste of the scale of the atrocities, but I don't really find it likely at this time. He could have been a pawn to other right wingers, of course, but that's not what you're wondering, is it?

I can't see any reason to suspect a jihadist false flag operation at this time. While the attacks did turn out a major advantage for the muslim population in Norway, it wasn't an unequivocal boon. Also, the ramifications of such an attack are too unpredictable to consider it a viable option for a rational group to choose to attempt a false flag operation. To put it quite simply, if I were a jihadist looking to use a false flag operation for some purpose, I would not have chosen this operation, nor would I have chosen this agent. That isn't to say I can absolutely exclude it, but it raises more questions than it answers, brings nothing new to the table and doesn't seem a plausible conclusion.

Does this answer your question(s), Rule?

IWYW,
— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/14/2012 10:46:34 AM   
Rule


Posts: 10479
Joined: 12/5/2005
Status: offline 		In such cases I always am suspicious of the involvement at a distance of the own secret services. What if a faction in those had some objective? We need more money to spy on our citizens; we want to manipulate society in some way to some objective, we want such and such a person to be eliminated or to be forced to step down from some office.

But I do not have any arguments in favor of such a scenario, and so I am relying on your insights.

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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/15/2012 6:43:32 AM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Rule

In such cases I always am suspicious of the involvement at a distance of the own secret services.


Our secret services aren't competent enough in this regard to be involved, as far as I can tell.

quote:

What if a faction in those had some objective?


They did: to get rid of an incompetent leader. Which said leader accomplished herself when she accidentally outed a Pakistani informant in a live broadcast, forcing her to resign and obviously having some detrimental effects for the informant in question. That's the domestic intelligence service. No idea on the foreign intelligence service, which seems more concerned about being useful for the US and NATO at the moment, as part of the strategy of transforming our military into an offensive one that will spearhead more future international engagements for NATO.

quote:

We need more money to spy on our citizens; we want to manipulate society in some way to some objective, we want such and such a person to be eliminated or to be forced to step down from some office.


Eliminating someone is trivial. Doing it untraceably is easy. Doing it undetected altogether is simple. For a few hundred dollars, you can take out just about any regular citizen. A heavily guarded citizen is a bit more difficult to do undetected, but the people that the attacks killed weren't heavily guarded. The two notable exceptions weren't even present during the attacks, and with a sacrificial agent it would have been easier to take them out some other way, such as a high powered rifle during a public appearance. The only ones stepping down will be good riddance, so not very relevant in terms of a conspiracy (which implies nefarious purposes).

quote:

But I do not have any arguments in favor of such a scenario, and so I am relying on your insights.


I've been expecting something like this to happen in the manner it did, for the reasons it did, and with the outcome it had. I'm not the only one. We've been pointing it out for a long time, along with the flaws in preparedness pointed out in the report. The nobility in the labor movement and labor party have been unwilling to listen, and so they've been digging their own graves for years. Sadly, it was children that were buried in the graves dug by the parents. That, I did not expect, but it's consonant with the goals the perp stated he had. Very few other surprises until this report came out.

Fortunately, campers saved most of the kids, and everything else went as well as it could for us, and as badly as it could for him. The attacker didn't pick any sensitive targets, didn't have the skill to do much harm, and didn't pick any crowded areas to attack. If the same plan had gone well for him, it would have resulted in between 500 and 4000 dead, and about the same number being wounded. Which is just a fraction of the chaos and destruction an attack done with skill or malice could have resulted in. To say nothing of what is possible to someone that actually knows the infrastructure and its dependency hierarchy.

In short, one idea, one man, one bomb, two guns and no agencies.

This address your concerns?

IWYW,
— Aswad.

P.S.: Try thinking like a predator. Eating the lambs rarely requires an elaborate plan.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/15/2012 6:54:16 AM   
ARIES83


Posts: 3648
Status: offline 		Aswad... How fast is your typing speed,
out of curiosity.

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530 DAYS

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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/15/2012 7:08:10 AM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: ARIES83

Aswad... How fast is your typing speed, out of curiosity.


About 60wpm composition when my attention is elsewhere.

That is roughly comparable to a secretary doing diction, if memory serves.

IWYW,
— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/15/2012 9:57:51 AM   
kdsub


Posts: 12180
Joined: 8/16/2007
Status: offline 		Just me of course but I think blame should not be dished out at all. There should only be blame if in the future the lessons learned are ignored.

It is impossible and cost prohibiting to plan for all imaginable attacks by a determined killer or killers. The best we can do is plan for the most likely attacks and provide for rapid responses to them.

I don’t know about you but if I wanted to kill and was determined to do so…no one could stop me. There is no precaution no matter how expensive that can not be overcome. Today I could walk into any number of movie theaters and kill…any number of City council chambers and kill…. any number of schools and kill… any number of shopping malls and kill… There is no answer in stopping these tragedies only quick response to them.

Butch

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I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing

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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/15/2012 10:50:11 AM   
kdsub


Posts: 12180
Joined: 8/16/2007
Status: offline 		Let me give you an example…..Some years ago President Bush visited out local community center one spitting on and off rainy night when campaigning. It is less than a quarter mile from my home.

I am a very good shot…qualified four time expert… battalion shooting instructor….owner of many legal weapons capable of killing at close and long range.

I decided to mosey up the street and see if I could get a glimpse of Bush. I was carrying an oversized folded umbrella on this cool evening. While I was standing less than 50 yards from the exit with about 10 others with umbrellas, Bush and his secret service escort emerged and walked the 50 feet or so to his waiting limo.

I could have easily been carrying a weapon in the umbrella and no one was within 20 feet of me. If I had wanted to I could have drawn and fired with at least a chance of hitting him if I had wanted to sacrifice myself. I am sure I was under observation but I doubt they could have gotten to me before I got a shot off.

I know the area and if I had planned an attack I knew of multiple locations for an ambush with an even greater possibility of success. Yes there is a good chance I would fail and the attack thwarted. The point I am trying to make is I’ve no record of threats…fit no profile of a killer…and there would be no reason to have me under observation…and there are killers out there with profiles like mine.

You just cannot stop determined attackers.

_____________________________

Mark Twain:

I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing

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RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/15/2012 5:17:30 PM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

Just me of course but I think blame should not be dished out at all. There should only be blame if in the future the lessons learned are ignored.


Ignored again, you mean.

Bear in mind, this is a country with no tradition for criticizing or distrusting politicians. If the Watergate scandal had happened here, people would be boycotting the media for being so critical of the gov't when there's "obviously nothing going on, cuz they sez so.". If we were Nazi Germany, at Nuremberg, we would say "mistakes were made.". If GWB were the prime minister and the shitfest in the middle east happened on our watch, we would say "well, those two wars have been learning experiences.". When this sort of thing is levelled from this sort of source up here, that's because it's virtually incomparable in terms of the magnitude of mistakes made, and the extent to which individuals are clearly and unambiguously culpable for the mistakes and the state of affairs that led us to this situation.

This is the first time anyone has gotten the access and the mandate to look into how we run things, and they found what people in the system have been warning for years: it's rotten to the core. We were downright lucky on 22/7, and literally so. For the perp, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. For us, everything that could randomly turn out well, did. The perp was also not particularly competent, nor did he choose his targets for fatalities, but rather exclusively for their symbolic value and connection to the Labor party, explicitly forgoing targets that would have led to excessive civilian casualties not affiliated with the Labor party (it should be noted he had every reason to expect everyone would be above the age of legal culpability, which is relevant since he's arguing they're guilty of treason). And if it weren't for a bunch of civilians that happened to be camping in the area, who chose to risk their lives to save those kids, we would've seen at least twice the death toll on the island.

quote:

It is impossible and cost prohibiting to plan for all imaginable attacks by a determined killer or killers.


The plans were adequate, but politicians and other leaders in the beurocracy defeated them, in many cases putting them on hold indefinitely or cancelling them. They've been alerted again and again by every single relevant organization, institution and dept out there that there were serious problems that could have been fixed, and that this was a silo full of bovine manure waiting to find a fan. Indeed, the prime minister specifically said to shelve the closing off of the ability to drive up to the govt building with a truck full of explosives.

To put it quite simply, there are few things they could have done to make it easier to carry out a successful attack.

Well, I guess they could hand out guns, trucks and explosives to interested parties, but that's about it.

Bear in mind, I'm being pretty literal here. Some time after a threat was delivered by phone, warning of exactly what was going to happen, a guy with no business being there drove up to the main building of the government with a truck full of explosives, parked it next to the building, lit the fuse and walked away. On his way to the island, he passed several police cars while his description, a description of his car and his licence plate was on a post-it note with the dispatcher. When he got there, he found no security, save for an unarmed and off duty police officer that had volunteered to be there to break up fights between kids. People helped him to load his ammunition etc onto the ferry and brought him across while chatting about the bomb in the capital. Then he went around shooting people for an hour after the police got the message before he was apprehended. He called the police himself three times to surrender, and busied himself shooting more kids while waiting for them to return his calls.

About a year prior to the attacks, the postal service, the customs office and the international intelligence and counterterrorism units made the secret services aware that he had ordered barrels of atomized aluminum, gallons of nitromethane, tons of diesel, tons of fertilizer, sacks of picric acid, industrial scale grinding mills, glassware, fuses, a ballistic vest with ceramic inserts, a rifle, a shotgun, a sidearm, several extra clips, a speedloader, high end optics, thousands of rounds of hollowpoint ammunition and a VW Crafter. This file was first examined a couple of days after the attacks.

The FSK (Armed Forces Special Command) was on hot standby with helicopters, snipers and so forth, having trained extensively for just this sort of scenario, while several branches were ready to secure key assets and assist in the efforts in the capital, but the chief of police feared that they would start shooting civilians at random and didn't even want to borrow the helicopters. Which is just insane, as these are people that have so far arrested jihadists and the like in Afghanistan without civilian casualties. They are among the absolute best special forces groups out there, highly experienced, highly trained and highly skilled. Police, by contrast, do not carry firearms at all unless they are responding to shots fired and either have approval from dispatch or are under fire, and they have about 40 hours per year of firearms training, with all practical training voluntary. Delta does 900 hours of training, most of it practical exercises, and 900 hours of regular police work. FSK does 1800 hours of practical training, minus whatever time is spent in the field. Yet the lady in charge figures the regular police forces are best suited to securing the capital, with exactly four policemen on duty that she didn't know where were, save that two of them were far away doing prisoner transport, resulting in six hours before even the parliament building was secured. By contrast, the armed forces had secured all their assets in 20 minutes.

That's just some examples, and not the most objectionable by any stretch of the imagination.

A simpler, equally absurd one, is that the intelligence service can't search their mail... I shit you not.

quote:

The best we can do is plan for the most likely attacks and provide for rapid responses to them.


Yes, that would have been nice.

Realistic risk management is the key element of security, agreed.

And that has been attempted by every other party that has ever been at the helm, and opposed by the Labor party.

quote:

I don’t know about you but if I wanted to kill and was determined to do so…no one could stop me.


If I wanted to kill one person, or a few people, I agree. If I wanted to commit an act of mass murder or terrorism, I would have to admit there is a chance that it could be detected and preempted if people were doing their jobs, or at least that the damages could be reduced if people were doing their jobs. People, however, aren't doing their jobs. And it's important to know who happens to be responsible for that, whether one blames them for choosing 22/7 (which they agruably did) or not.

I would be happy to forego crucifying anyone, though, if they make it clear and unambiguous where the responsibility resides if they keep on making the same well known mistakes, so that they can be solidly crucified to the steel beams on the govt building with a bolt gun the next time the shit hits the fan without any debate about the then-clear culpability. I would say there's currently no question as regards culpability, but it would admittedly be tidier if everyone were on the same page.

In any case, killing a few people is slightly different from blowing up one of the most important govt buildings and decimating a whole generation of future politicians.

I think we can agree that is, and should be, a non-trivial task.

quote:

There is no precaution no matter how expensive that can not be overcome.


I'm quite aware of that. I've done security work, including risk management.

quote:

Today I could walk into any number of movie theaters and kill…any number of City council chambers and kill…. any number of schools and kill… any number of shopping malls and kill…


I take it then you could also walk into Congress and do the same?

Cuz up here, you could.

quote:

There is no answer in stopping these tragedies only quick response to them.


Yeah, that would have been nice.

The names being named are first and foremost those that opted out of having a quick response, despite knowing better.

And most of those names were appointed because they were friends of a couple of politicians that have been making sweeping changes for a long time, replacing competent people who oppose them (precisely because of being competent enough to see that the changes have been horrendously bad ideas) with incompetent people who support them as friends and have no skills and no background in the relevant fields. Many of them have wisely resigned their positions before the report was published, and there are several that have been discreetly shifted into other prestigeous positions in the interrim.

Note also that several have been caught in flat out lies as to what they did.

And, importantly, note that the inquiry report specifically states that no new laws are needed, nor additional resources, to do this properly in the future, and that indeed such efforts would be in vain at best, because the real problems lie with the people in key positions, the rotten culture they have built around themselves, and the broken system they have designed to shield themselves. The whole thing pretty much makes it clear that all of this is a choice that has been made despite knowing better, and that it is something we can only solve by assigning responsibility with attendant culpability and inevitably blame.

The first step to getting better is acknowledging you have a problem.

We just took that first step as a nation, s'all.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

P.S.: The problems are neither smaller in other areas, nor of a different character, nor less well known.

ETA: I'm not talking about killing a politician. This isn't the USA. Our politicians don't even have body guards, most of the time, or even armored cars. If you wanted to kill the prime minister, or any of the ministers, it would be easy enough to do so. I have had that opportunity several times without seeking it out. That's not how we roll here. We want to be able to run after a central politician to hand them the umbrella they dropped without being tazed and jumped on. We want a thousand volunteers combing the streets for a week when a random teenager disappears. We want a convicted axe murderer chopping wood on an ecological farm that serves as a prison to prep him for his return to being a productive member of society. What we do not want, is to add naïvitè to this mix.



< Message edited by Aswad -- 8/15/2012 5:26:53 PM >

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


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Profile   Post #: 13
RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/16/2012 2:47:20 AM   
Tumblweed


Posts: 96
Joined: 8/5/2012
Status: offline 		Having just jumped in here, I don't see how Breivak's success was any sort of epic fail on the part of the Norwegian government. There are some things that you just cannot defend against without wrecking you whole way of life.

Breivik is a Zionist White Supremacist. People like that exist all over the world and always will. In fact I would consider it a fair statement to say that things like this will always happen. Just hope it isn't too often.

Comppare this to the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings in New York. Now people who fly smallcraft, like Cessnas and shit, file a flight plan with the FAA here. Very rarely can you just fly a plane without some sort of acknowledgement. If you go off course too much, they are down your throat in notime. Ask the people I know who used to fly down to Mexico to pick up a bunch of weed. They filed it imcluding a sightseeing trip, a picture taking trip. Had to up and say "Well I dunnio exactly but it'll be around here....". They just didn't mention that private airstrip down there and Juan.......

Now maybe they weren't watched every second, but if they got into certain areas there would be trouble. On September 11th 2001 there was no sonic boom so the planes were not going 700 MPH. They did not take off from New York. There was time.

The fact that they pulled this off proves without a doubt that the USA had absolutley no air defense. If those planes hit those buildings, WTF are they going to do about an ICBM ? Those things fly at what, mach 20 or so ?

I am seriously pissed at this government for letting this happen here, in fact to the point I almost think they let it happen on purpose, but I am not opening that can of worms right now. But really I doubt you can actually fault Norway for not preventing that act. Tell you this, you don't even want them to try. When governments get this paranoia in their head, they will be strip searching your Grandmother. They are ridiculous here, I tell you. I got links if you want them. What's more people are so great here that now TSA agants are stealing shit.

Yeah, "You can't have that - but I can :-)"

Never trade tyour freedom for security, or ANYTHING. Even life itself.

Weed

(in reply to Aswad)
Profile   Post #: 14
RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/16/2012 2:14:59 PM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline 		Hey, Tumblweed.

A fire is not the fault of the government, nor of the fire department.

However, when it turns out the government has decided to cut the fire department's budget, make their primary mandate to flush grafitti from the walls in the tourist areas, have fire trucks operable 9-to-5 and only on weekdays, as well as getting rid of all fire hydrants and putting a veterinarian in charge of the fire department... well... then the inability of the fire department to control a major forest fire happening on a saturday evening becomes the fault of the government. When they've also found this out in drills and evaluations, repeatedly, for many years, through several terms, with their own people saying "the shit most likely to hit the fan in the near future here is a major forest fire", then it simply becomes inexcusable.

That is the crux of the matter, and the report nails some people to that crux.

IWYW,
— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


(in reply to Tumblweed)
Profile   Post #: 15
RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/16/2012 6:08:04 PM   
angelikaJ


Posts: 8641
Joined: 6/22/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

Just me of course but I think blame should not be dished out at all. There should only be blame if in the future the lessons learned are ignored.

It is impossible and cost prohibiting to plan for all imaginable attacks by a determined killer or killers. The best we can do is plan for the most likely attacks and provide for rapid responses to them.

I don’t know about you but if I wanted to kill and was determined to do so…no one could stop me. There is no precaution no matter how expensive that can not be overcome. Today I could walk into any number of movie theaters and kill…any number of City council chambers and kill…. any number of schools and kill… any number of shopping malls and kill… There is no answer in stopping these tragedies only quick response to them.

Butch


This is not aimed at just you or specifically at this post.

The thing is, most of us are not from Norway, so it really doesn't seem as though collectively we have enough knowledge to decide that there should be no blame.

An official inquiry was made and the outcome was was Aswad relayed above.

Perhaps "blame" is not the right word at all.
This is about accountability.

Things didn't happen that should have and other things happened that should not have.
Simple (as in black and white) facts; and there should be accountability for the numerous fuck-ups of both types.

Otherwise, it will happen again.
Simple fact.
And that would be criminal.

Historical tragedies are too often repeated, because we didn't learn the lessons the first, 3rd or 22nd times around.


_____________________________

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(in reply to kdsub)
Profile   Post #: 16
RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/17/2012 1:35:23 AM   
Tumblweed


Posts: 96
Joined: 8/5/2012
Status: offline
quote:

However, when it turns out the government has decided to cut the fire department's budget, make their primary mandate to flush grafitti from the walls in the tourist areas, have fire trucks operable 9-to-5 and only on weekdays, as well as getting rid of all fire hydrants and putting a veterinarian in charge of the fire department...


Did they do that ? If so it's tme for a flush. Can't really do it in the USA because it's like the system is clogged. Don't let that happen.

It's the same shit all over, take more and give less, did you really expect any different ?

Weed

(in reply to Aswad)
Profile   Post #: 17
RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/17/2012 9:11:35 AM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline 		Precisely, angelikaJ, it's about doing better, which requires accountability.

We can't throw up our hands and say the System failed. It's not a deity with an independent existence, howevermuch it subsumes people into its nebulous structure. During the Crusades, it wasn't God, the Bible or Doctrine which cut people down and burned their homes. It was men. As it is now. Men who have power without accountability and fail to hold themselves responsible. The system, in which there is no capital S, is in the hands of such men as we wouldn't let wield a paddle, let alone a whip, at a munch. Now they need to grow up. Take responsibility for the mess they have made and learn not to make another.

Or they need to get out. Before we throw them out.

Nobody is ignorant of the fact that it was one average culture-conservative that bombed the government offices and surrounding streets before proceeding to shoot 2 children, 31 young adults and 36 adults at the Labor party summer camp. The thing which has scared a lot of people is precisely how average he was, and that he was in many ways representative of a large segment of our population. More people than voted for the current government coalition would probably have shrugged if he had omitted the shootings at the summer camp. Hell, many would have cheered. Because the Labor party wasn't just the target of the attacks, but also part of the cause and the primary- if not sole- party responsible for the failure to handle the attacks.

The man with the bomb and the guns is the sole party responsible for attacking, and will receive his sentence in a week or two.

The government, however, is responsible for the complete failure to deal with the actions of an average man. And the government is a group of individual men and women who have a job they are responsible for doing. The System is not a person. It has nothing resembling accountability or responsibility. It is a tool that individuals use to accomplish a goal. A tool made by individuals. If there is a problem with the tool, the people making it and the people using it are where the buck stops. The tool isn't responsible for the job. The individuals are.

And their trial has just begun.

Incidentally, I'm going to retract my criticisms of the current police director. Despite not being the one responsible for the flaws pointed out, he has taken the initiative to resign his position, effective immediately. Since he is a close, personal friend of both the current minister of justice and the prime minister, they would have a conflict of interest regarding him. That makes him untouchable, which would be an obstacle in the process of analyzing and restructuring the police in the manner now called for, and a shield against the accountability that needs to exist throughout the civilian chain of command. He may have the skillsets and capacity required to do the job, but he can't be in the position. That he sees this, demonstrates qualities I can only commend.

I'm not overall optimistic, but I'm slightly hopeful.

The parliament will be getting together for an extraordinary session next week, and a vote of no confidence is not off the table. It should be pointed out that we are not in the habit of calling for heads to roll every time a mistake is made. But if there were to be an election tomorrow, the currently governing coalition would see a result the likes of which has not been seen since the end of the second world war. You can bet they aren't going to be taking that lightly. At this point, they either restore confidence (hopefully by fixing some of the problems), or they leave the helm to someone else, willingly or not.

Part of the problem is in the nature of the beast and how materially wonderful life in Norway is.

We realized a long time ago that the preventative effect of police is the same as random drug testing in sports and random checks at the airports. Except for crimes that require extensive planning, it's about keeping people honest by making sure there is a risk to doing something unlawful. The exact nature of the risk, and the likelihood of getting caught, isn't very relevant. Humans don't judge risk objectively, most of the time, as evidenced by how many fear plane crashes, compared to how many fear car crashes. This is also true of crime. Police could do a tiny fraction of their job and it would still protect the citizens just as well, for the most part. So, we focus on rehailitation and reduction of recidivism. The idea that the best way to pay for your crimes is to contribute to society. And it works pretty damn well, about an order of magnitude better than the USA in all areas.

However, the flip side to this is that when the paint is the only thing you need to keep the boat floating, people can let the hull rot until the whole thing caves in. That is what happened. What this report is pointing out, is that the hull is rusted through, and it will cave in if subjected to any amount of pressure. Like it did on 22/7, when one guy kicked the side of the boat and about 80 people died from the flooding. And they're also pointing out that we don't need a fresh coat of paint, or more paint, or better paint. What we need is rather to fix the hull and start having some regular maintenance and such.

People watching the hull as I have, those have seen the rust building up.

But the general population has only seen that the boat is still floating, and politicians, they're you and me.

Way back when, we finally realized that those who beat their swords to plowshares will be farming for those that don't.

Hopefully, we'll be learning the current lesson as well as we learned that one.

Before the next attack happens, as one inevitably will.

IWYW,
— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


(in reply to angelikaJ)
Profile   Post #: 18
RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/27/2012 11:33:02 PM   
Silentrunner26


Posts: 424
Joined: 7/15/2009
Status: offline 		In a country that never thought this would happen they where taken by surprise . It was a wake up call to the world . We are no long able to defend ourselves from ourselves . We can't just watch it happen to everyone else and say "glad it's not us " because it will be us sooner or later . We can't plan on every type of scenario happening . We can give our police the money to train as best they can and give them our backing . We can teach our kids to know to be on watch and what they may watch for . We ourselves can be ever so watchful . Gone is the day when we can see a stranger and just ask if they need help or a ride . The time of Mayberry is over may it rest in peace . Gods grace be with the dead and his love be with the living .

(in reply to Aswad)
Profile   Post #: 19
RE: An independent inquiry (22/7) - 8/28/2012 7:24:40 PM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline 		Umm... no.

To borrow a Gorean term, the people of Oslo discovered their Home Stone.

My city already has one, upon which we placed our candles as we gathered in the aftermath.

I'm guessing you didn't catch much of what happened, or the response, but if anything it has brought us closer and increased the likelihood of a random stranger asking if you need a hand or a ride.

IWYW,
— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


(in reply to Silentrunner26)
Profile   Post #: 20
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