Terrorist Hunt Sends America Over the Edge

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/04/terrorist-hunt-sends-america-nuts.html

by njrc • 13 years ago

33 57 13 years ago

NateDad• 13 years ago

As someone personally affected by the lockdown, I find this highly offensive.

We were not cowering, though it would not be illogical to do so... we're talking about people proven willing to not only kill and injure hundreds of innocent people, they were also willing to get into action-movie style shoot outs with heavily armed police, tossing homemade grenades and pipe bombs, and murdering a police officer in cold blood.

So, maybe keeping people inside for 12 hours isn't that much of a price to pay to make sure they stay safe. But it was really more than that.

It was about finding this S.O.B. before he could get away.

We knew he was in the area, but couldn't be sure exactly where. By shutting down public transportation and keeping people and vehicles off the road, we made it nearly impossible for him to escape. ANYONE walking around, driving a car, is then automatically suspect and can be stopped. There is no crowd you can mingle in, no trains or buses you can slip onto, no taxis you can hail. There are no cars you can carjack. You're trapped.

Suddenly, instead of being able to hide among all the people in the city, you're in an urban ghost town where anything that moves can be pounced on. It's a hell of a lot more effective than just hoping someone recognizes him among the other 2 million people running around.

If you mess with Boston we will shut the whole city down to find you. Yes, we will. And you know what, most people will be glad to do it, to get the guy who killed 4 people and injured almost 200 others. It's just one day. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I think most other people here would too.

We weren't scared. We were pissed.

Camillo6• 13 years ago

Being "pissed" doesn't really make people any more rational than being scared, though.

dakotasmith• 13 years ago

This may have also been done to prevent whatever interference or vigilantism may have occurred from a city who was pissed and not scared.

corresation• 13 years ago

The shutdown of Boston was an incredible event without precedent. It is absolutely correct for people to discuss whether the right choices were made, and it is a little bit frightening to have people declaring such a conversation "offensive".

In the end it was pretty clear that these two perpetrators were not the brightest of terrorists. They operated in plain sight, during a massively photographed event, and then went about their life as if nothing had changed. Their bombs, while sadly effective to a degree, were much less devastating than they could have been (and that they were throwing pressure cookers at police borders on...the word comedic doesn't quite fit given the carnage they have wrought, but it certainly is ridiculous).

Did the lockdown help catch them? We'll never actually know, as the suspect could have been caught using traditional means in a fully operating city. On the flip side, if the suspect wasn't seriously injured, as they purportedly were, they could have been murdering people in house after house during the lockdown.

jrockway• 13 years ago

Where do you draw the line? Would you lock down all of New York City if some mother killed her four children by smothering them with a pillow? Why not? She's armed and dangerous and already has 4 dead to her name!

What happened in Boston was an amateurish overreaction to the task of hunting down and finding someone who had committed a handful of murders -- something that happens every day in the US.

D9u3• 13 years ago

There's really no logical comparison between your fictional scenario and what occurred in Boston.

The Boston Marathon is a world renowned event, and the apprehension of the perpetrators of the attacks was a necessary thing, because, as someone else has mentioned here, sending a message of "We'll catch you" to any would-be criminals is of the utmost importance.

Well done Boston. My condolences to those adversely affected by this tragedy.

anigbrowl5• 13 years ago

someone who had committed a handful of murders -- something that happens every day in the US.

That's extremely disingenuous. Besides the fact that a 'handful of murders' carried out by the same perperator(s) is not actually a daily event, how many regular crimes also result in hundreds of injuries, many traumatic? I'm not very freaked out about bombings, given that I grew up in Ireland and lived in London during a particularly vicious phase of the Troubles, but enough with this BS meme that there's nothing distinctive about a bombing vs. everyday levels of crime. It's an insult to common sense and the experience of anyone who has ever been near to or affected by a bombing.

AdrianRossouw2• 13 years ago

reducto ad absurdum isnt just something harry potter would say...

If the mother killed her children by using home-made explosives in crowded places frequented by innocents, of course. A (perhaps more tempered) version of this response would still have been necessary if not a single person had died.

don't discount the dozens of people who were injured or maimed by the original bombing.

mixmax• 13 years ago

It's a bad way of dealing with terrorism. It's in the name - it's all about terrorising, and the Boston bombers have certainly succeded in that. With this whole spectacle you've let two guys with very little resources put the whole nation into a state of emergency. You're playing their game. This is exactly what they want. They don't deserve that honour.

I wrote about it here a few day sago: http://www.maximise.dk/how-a-great-statesman-would-deal-with...

anigbrowl5• 13 years ago

A true statesman will not put fuel on the bonfire of fear. He will extuingish it by telling us that there is nothing to be afraid of. That these acts are done by moronic twisted people that don’t deserve the attention. He will tell the people that they have nothing to fear but fear itself.

And despite this deathless rhetoric in the face of economic collapse, FDR interned 110,000 Japanese people because they had distinctive ethnic features shared by one group of people engaged in a war against the US, although there was never any attempt to intern German-Americans.

What happened in the Boston is that the authorities requested the cooperation of the public in exceptional circumstances, and got it. If they had tried to impose some sort of lockdown on Monday after the bombing, you might have a point. But they didn't. The city kept operating normally until the suspects resurfaced, got into a shootout with police, and one of them managed to evade his pursuers. Given how many people were affected by the original terrorist incident, I don't find it odd at all that most people chose to facilitate the manhunt by leaving the streets empty.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

"We weren't scared. We were pissed."

Please. The people of Boston were scared shitless. And you know what? There is nothing wrong with admitting that. When you have a couple of insane killers who could have hidden god knows how many bombs out there, being scared is the appropriate response.

What is not appropriate is shutting down the entire city to find those guys. I'm very glad they were caught. But by shutting down public transportation and getting all cars and humans off the streets, Bostonian authorities greatly magnified the scare-factor for Bostonians. It was an overreaction.

Now that I think about it, we are really good at overreacting to terrorism. A bunch of guys rammed planes into the Twin Towers and our response was to invade two countries. Some guy hid a bomb in his shoes and our response was to make tens of millions of people take off their shoes every time they are at the airport. A couple of guys set off bombs at a marathon and our response was to shut down an entire city.

When does it end? When do we learn to respond to terror attacks rationally rather than emotionally?

anigbrowl5• 13 years ago

Thousands of people lined up in the streets Wednesday night for a chance at a seat inside the city's Cathedral for Thursday's memorial service. That doesn't sound like the behavior of a population living in fear, since they were making themselves a target by gathering together in that fashion.

Symbol3• 13 years ago

Thousands showed up in Dorchester on Monday night to mourn the death of one of their residents.

freshhawk• 13 years ago

"I don’t think that’s quite right. I’d bet the American people, if given the opportunity, are as capable as the Israelis and the Brits of withstanding the occasional deadly attack by extremist groups or individuals [...]

It’s the authorities and the media that tend to go a little crazy, and their actions reinforce each other."

So the Israelis and Brits don't have authorities or media? Or are their authorities and media not Israelis and Brits? Or does he mean that the authorities and the media in America are not made up of American people?

Seems quite a stretch to make this distinction without a difference to try and sidestep any actual discussion of why these differences among cultures exist. Cheap rhetorical trick. Not that I can blame him I guess, it's "un-american" to propose rational reactions that might decrease terrorism rather than scorched-earth vengeance seeking.

sopooneo2• 13 years ago

Something to consider: it worked. It would still be presumptuous, but at least a little less misdirected, to Monday-morning-quarterback a team that lost the game.

nekojima• 13 years ago

It didn't work, as the suspect was discovered after the curfew was over, by a man who had been inside his house all day. Had the man been outside his house earlier in the day, and seen the cover of his boat, its all but likely the suspect could have been apprehended 8-12 hours earlier.

sopooneo2• 13 years ago

I'm talking black box QA. Input is suspect identified. Output is that inside 24 hours they had him alive.

Every particular possible outcome has some set of strategy changes that, in retrospect, would have made apprehension quicker. But this success was reached without the benefit of clairvoyance.

awwstn• 13 years ago

Worked === Intended outcome achieved

At the point when the lockdown started, the intended outcome was likely to catch the suspect without any more death, injury or destruction. It worked. You can speculate as to whether it would have also worked with a different approach, but you can't say the selected approach didn't work.

Pitarou6• 13 years ago

> Something to consider: it worked.

Damn right it worked.

INPUT: pressure cookers and gunpowder

OUTPUT: front page headlines around the world; whole city gets shut down

That's pretty damn effective. And it's all thanks to the multiplying effect of hysterical overreaction.

---

EDIT: Updated my description of the bomb, in response to comments below.

anigbrowl5• 13 years ago

INPUT: pressure cooker and household chemicals

Actually, I don't keep any gunpowder under my sink. Why are you deliberately mischaracterizing the inciting incident, and omitting the rather significant context that it involved multiple detonations at a public event?

OUTPUT: front page headlines around the world; whole city gets shut down

Front page headlines - so what, we should censor the news now? As for a city shutdown, that could just as easily be interpreted as 'whole city cooperates to catch bombing suspect.'

sliverstorm8• 13 years ago

Yeah, I'm sure the 19 year old bleeding in the boat was feeling pretty victorious. I'm sure shutting down Boston for a day was basically his life's goal.

If the goal of terrorists is to make Americans live in fear every day, it certainly seems to me like they are losing, badly. If the goal is to make Americans uneasy for a day, whatever. I have no problems admitting I am uneasy about a guy roaming the neighborhood, armed and running from the cops. Did the terrorists just win when I admitted that?

sliverstorm8• 13 years ago

Personally, I wonder if this wasn't exactly the right sort of response. They say that severity of punishment is not nearly as effective a deterrent as certainty. If the image of the entirety of Boston so quickly working against these two men isn't the very picture of swiftness and certainty/inevitability, I don't know what is.

Pitarou6• 13 years ago

Would you advocate shutting down the city every time there's a hit-and-run incident?

Surely, discouraging reckless driving would save FAR more lives than discouraging terrorists.

sliverstorm8• 13 years ago

The next time you see a premeditated hit-and-run incident that critically injures 130+ people and involves TV-style shootouts with the police, people might consider it.

nikster• 13 years ago

Agreed. Any other police job, people wouldn't support to that extent. This was different, and appropriate.

America may have its share of problems but the American peoples ability to help each other in times of crisis is remarkable.

Camillo6• 13 years ago

That's the most unlikely line of argument I have heard today. Do you really think most terrorists expect to get away with their attacks? Haven't you noticed how many of them make suicide a part of the plan? It's as if you've been living under a rock for the last twenty years.

sliverstorm8• 13 years ago

There's clearly two types of terrorists. Some may even hope to die as part of the attack, but if what I have read is to be trusted these guys had a flight booked to Russia, and tried to rush their car out of the shop very shortly after the bombing, which was in for repairs.

I could be wrong here, but I personally associate suicide terrorists with the operations out of the middle east. To my knowledge, terrorism from other sources isn't usually suicidal.

youngerdryas• 13 years ago

"Boston is probably the only major city that if you fuck with them, they will shut down the city, stop everything, and find you."

Happy Gilmore

droithomme2• 13 years ago

These actions went far far beyond martial law powers, and yet martial law was not declared. I don't know what legal authority there was to do this, I assume it exists and comes from some recent Patriot Act like bill. Whatever it is, we see that its power is greater than that of martial law and it is something that doesn't have to be activated in an emergency, the power exists at all times.

That in itself is terrifying and that undeclared power is not what I want for a country that I live in.

The detail that the police ordered everyone to shut down even train service, but with the sole exception being that they requested Dunkin Donuts shops stay open and continue providing free donuts for police is straight out of feudalism.

sliverstorm8• 13 years ago

I'd like to see evidence that the police shut down the city with martial power. I'm inclined to think the Governor said, "Everybody should stay home today", and the author of this article embellished a little.

Symbol3• 13 years ago

This. Exactly.

As a resident of a neighboring town not technically on "lockdown", residents nevertheless acted that way. Streets were empty. Businesses closed. It was very very quiet. This was obviously done by choice, not mandate. Yes, there was some fear driving this, as a police officer a few miles away was killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (cop killings do not occur often in the Boston-area suburbs). However, a large motivator was solidarity with other towns on lockdown. We really wanted to give the police every chance they could to catch this guy. The value judgement was made by private business owners and employers to support that effort.

rdouble• 13 years ago

It's hardly martial law, it's more like a tornado warning. It's been used many times in the past, also.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/04/small-scale-...

tkahn62• 13 years ago

1. I'm getting really good at predicting what the intellectual hipster perspective on a particular issue will be. I knew yesterday we would see op eds like this.

2. Not Hacker News. Flagged.

harlanlewis• 13 years ago

“Everyone has a different definition for hipster. Usually, they just find a person with qualities they don’t like and say “That’s a hipster”.”

http://bearskinrug.co.uk/hipsters/

tkahn62• 13 years ago

I'm using this definition of 'intellectual hipster'.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco...

lttlrck• 13 years ago

Reads like someone was upset their train was canceled.

Pretty damn clear why some airspace needed to be closed isn't? Fool.

kevin_morrill• 13 years ago

I imagine very few people will question the political decisions here because it requires imagination to account for the unseen. Hazlitt famously wrote about this in Economics in One Lesson. What ground breaking research at MIT didn't get done Friday? What important meetings were delayed? And then what does that add up to when you multiply it by millions?

Terrorist Hunt Sends America Over the Edge

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