terrorism in norway

[Bob Hubbard]

When your country is mostly a low crime zone, armed troops are not usually necessary. I'm not surprised if that's true.
http://dev.prenhall.com/divisions/hss/worldreference/NO/crime.html

 

[Cirdan]

Is it true that the longest prison sentence this monster can serve is 21 years?

There are two options for a longer sentence. They are rarely used but here I imagine they will.

Crimes against humanity can be sentenced with 30 years.
For particularirly gruesome crimes where there is a risk of repeated offenses, custody can be added to the sentence. This means no chanse of early release and the sentence can be prolonged, in theory to life.

As for the death sentence, the last person executed in Norway was Vidkun Quisling. Most of us would like to keep it that way, even now.

 

[Archangel M]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/26/norway-killer-breivik-surprised-stopped

But Fredrikson said on Tuesday evening it had taken police 47 minutes once they were notified to get counter-terrorism officers to the island and another two minutes on the island until Breivik surrendered.

"I can't see how this could have gone any faster. We would do it the same way if we had the same situation again," he said.

Yikes. I think that these officers need some mind/tactical "expanding" when it comes to active shooter response.

 

[Tez3]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/26/norway-killer-breivik-surprised-stopped



Yikes. I think that these officers need some mind/tactical "expanding" when it comes to active shooter response.

You know the Norwegian landscape and it's people well then? It doesn't matter what you and I think, it's up to the Norwegians to decide what they want and how they deal with things in their country. Your criticisms aren't valid because you don't know the situation, you don't know the countryside or the people so your comments come across as snide and condescending to a people who don't deserve that. You must of read what the Norwegian Prime Minister said how how the country will carry on being open and free, it's a normally peaceful country which doesn't appear to want American style policing, if you don't like that and think you know better I don't think they actually care.

 

[Makalakumu]

Just as a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick, a guy shooting and killing is a guy shooting and killing. Defending against that is not relativistic in the same way that MMA crosses national boundaries. When Michael Bisping fights Jason Miller, the fighters aren't going to take techniques out of there repertoire simply because they are American or British.

When a guy opens fire on a crowd of innocents, you need guns NOW. It's a flaw in their system and it's worth pointing out. Acknowledging this doesn't mean that America is the scheisse and we do everything right. It simply means that their society has taken the best way of defending themselves against that sort of violence away from their citizens.

 

[Tez3]

Just as a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick, a guy shooting and killing is a guy shooting and killing. Defending against that is not relativistic in the same way that MMA crosses national boundaries. When Michael Bisping fights Jason Miller, the fighters aren't going to take techniques out of there repertoire simply because they are American or British.

When a guy opens fire on a crowd of innocents, you need guns NOW. It's a flaw in their system and it's worth pointing out. Acknowledging this doesn't mean that America is the scheisse and we do everything right. It simply means that their society has taken the best way of defending themselves against that sort of violence away from their citizens.

You have to remember though that the last time they had violence like this it was during the German occupation, should they sit there for over seventy years just in case something like this happens? You also have to take into account ther rural nature of places in countries like Norway, you can't have armed police stationed every few miles along the country, it would take at least 45 minutes if something like that happened where I live for police, any police, armed or not to get to us and that's if the weather is good. We have to have an air ambulance here because of the isolation, we have hundreds of miles of moorland and hills to be covered by the emergency services, the Fell rescue teams cover huge distances to rescue walkers.

Actually your MMA analogy is flawed, Bisping would take techniques out or put others in if he's fighting an American. America has a huge tradition of wrestling that we don't have, we don't have any wrestlers who fight, ours are either BJJ or Judo so as we have often noticed here American MMA fights and fighters do differ from ours in the way they fight, sometimes it's quite noticable. It's a cultural difference.

 

[aedrasteia]

[h=1]The Past Is a Foreign Country[/h] [h=6]By JO NESBO Oslo[/h] A FEW days ago, before the bombing here and the shootings on Utoya Island, a friend and I were talking about how the joy of being alive always seems to go hand in hand with the sorrow that things change. Not even the brightest future can make up for the fact that no roads lead back to what came before — to the innocence of childhood or the first time we fell in love.


There is no road back to the scent of the Julys when I was young and leapt from a boulder into the ice-cold meltwater of a Norwegian fjord. No road back to when I stood, 17 years old with 10 francs in my pocket, by the harbor in Cannes, France, and watched two grown men in idiotic white uniforms row a woman and her poodle ashore from a yacht. I realized then for the first time that the egalitarian society I came from was the exception and not the rule. No road back to the first time I looked, wide-eyed, at the guards with automatic weapons surrounding another country’s parliament building — a sight that made me shake my head with a mixture of resignation and self-satisfaction, thinking, we don’t need that sort of thing where I come from.


For many years, it seemed as if nothing changed in Norway. You could leave the country for three months, travel the world, through coups d’état, assassinations, famines, massacres and tsunamis, and come home to find that the only new thing in the newspapers was the crossword puzzle. It was a country where everyone’s material needs were provided for. Political consensus was overwhelming, the debates focused primarily on how to achieve the goals that everyone had already agreed on. Ideological disagreements arose only when the reality of the rest of the world began to encroach, when a nation that until the 1970s had consisted largely of people of the same ethnic and cultural background had to decide whether its new citizens should be allowed to wear the hijab and build mosques.


Still, until Friday, we thought of our country as a virgin — unsullied by the ills of society. An exaggeration, of course. And yet.


In June I was bicycling with the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, and a mutual friend through Oslo, setting out for a hike on a forested mountain slope in this big yet little city. Two bodyguards followed us, also on bicycles. As we stopped at an intersection for a red light, a car drove up beside the prime minister. The driver called out through the open window: “Jens! There’s a little boy here who thinks it would be cool to say hello to you.”


The prime minister smiled and shook hands with the little boy in the passenger seat. “Hi, I’m Jens.” The prime minister wearing his bike helmet; the boy wearing his seat belt; both of them stopped for a red light. The bodyguards had stopped a discreet distance behind. Smiling. It’s an image of safety and mutual trust. Of the ordinary, idyllic society that we all took for granted. How could anything go wrong? We had bike helmets and seat belts, and we were obeying the traffic rules.


Of course something could go wrong. Something can always go wrong.

On Monday night, more than 100,000 citizens gathered in the streets to mourn the victims of the attack. The image was striking. In Norway, “keeping a cool head” is a national virtue, but “keeping a warm heart” is not. Even for those of us who have an automatic aversion to national self-glorification, flags, grandiose words and large and expressive crowds, it makes an indelible impression when people demonstrate that they do mean something, these ideas and values of the society we have inherited and more or less take for granted. The gathering said that Norwegians refuse to let anyone take away our sense of security and trust. That we refuse to lose this battle against fear.
And yet there is no road back to the way it was before.

Yesterday, on the train, I heard a man shouting in fury. Before Friday, my automatic response would have been to turn around, maybe even move a little closer. After all, this could be an interesting disagreement that might entice me to take one side or the other. But now my automatic reaction was to look at my 11-year-old daughter to see whether she was safe, to look for an escape route in case the man was dangerous. I would like to believe that this new response will become tempered over time. But I already know that it will never disappear entirely.


After the bomb went off — an explosion I felt in my home over a mile away — and reports of the shootings out on the island of Utoya began to come in, I asked my daughter whether she was scared. She replied by quoting something I had once said to her: “Yes, but if you’re not scared, you can’t be brave.”


So if there is no road back to how things used to be, to the naïve fearlessness of what was untouched, there is a road forward. To be brave. To keep on as before. To turn the other cheek as we ask: “Is that all you’ve got?” To refuse to let fear change the way we build our society.


Jo Nesbo is the author of the novel “The Snowman.” This article was translated from the Norwegian by Tiina Nunnally.

offered here, with respect, in honor of all those who were killed and injured, their families and the family of Norway, all people of good will, the MT family and Cirdan and Tez. deep gassho to all

 

[billc]

People are beginning to read the manifesto and it is looking a little less clear how this guy would consider himself a "christian conservative..."...

http://bigjournalism.com/edulis/201...letely-destroys-christian-conservative-label/

From the article: the actual passages from the manifesto are in the article...

But Breivik’s actual words completely contradict the “Conservative Christian” caricature. Below, you can see how, to save the environment, he wants the world to rid itself of oil consumption. You can see how he wants a one-child policy, government control of private industries, the breakup of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, the military support of Russia to prevent a possible U.S. invasion of Europe, and the removal of all U.S. military bases from European soil. Yes, the tea party platform through and through, folks!First of all, many thanks to the anonymous blogger Sooper Mexican, who has unearthed this information from the giant screed and organized it in an easily understandable, concise manner. For those who would quibble that this is an untrustworthy source, his post consists of direct quotes from the manifesto with commentary– I repeat, direct quotes. I repeat them here with the blogger’s emphases.
---------------------------------------

Sounding less conservative (american style) and more...socialist...the guy wanted state control of industries...hmmm...what does that sound like....

 

[Makalakumu]

You have to remember though that the last time they had violence like this it was during the German occupation, should they sit there for over seventy years just in case something like this happens? You also have to take into account ther rural nature of places in countries like Norway, you can't have armed police stationed every few miles along the country, it would take at least 45 minutes if something like that happened where I live for police, any police, armed or not to get to us and that's if the weather is good. We have to have an air ambulance here because of the isolation, we have hundreds of miles of moorland and hills to be covered by the emergency services, the Fell rescue teams cover huge distances to rescue walkers.

Actually your MMA analogy is flawed, Bisping would take techniques out or put others in if he's fighting an American. America has a huge tradition of wrestling that we don't have, we don't have any wrestlers who fight, ours are either BJJ or Judo so as we have often noticed here American MMA fights and fighters do differ from ours in the way they fight, sometimes it's quite noticable. It's a cultural difference.

OK, good point about Bisping. The only thing that I can say is that he has to add techniques, not take them away, but anyway...

Guns and shooting. I think it's awesome that Norway has very little violence. I'd love it if every country could be like that. I can hardly imagine this and I know that it slants my point of view. What about hunters though? Certainly, someone has got to have a reason to own a firearm? Even if no one hunts, how could anyone expect a team to be mobilized and stop an active shooter? It's not like Norway is on the other side of the galaxy and just doesn't know that these kinds of things could happen. It's a flawed strategy, peaceful country or not. Perhaps it would be akin to Bisping not practicing wrestling because there are no wrestlers around and then suddenly finding himself fighting a wrestler. The culture can be the excuse for the results, but it doesn't have to be the excuse to repeat those results. KWIM?

 

[Archangel M]

Any professional law enforcement organization should have been looking at incidents like Columbine, Beslan, Mumbai, etc. and PLANNED for it. I've been in briefings analyzing Mumbai and many sources claim the city was targeted due to the Mumbai police being unarmed. The terrorists knew that they would be able to run unopposed for a long time before a response could be mounted. LE having guns and a plan to act immediately is whats required. Even if the plan sucks, cops with guns NOW is a huge step forward.

"IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN HERE" is engraved on too many tombstones. Say whatever you want about how long it would take LE to get to your location. The fact HERE is that there were local LEO's waiting onshore for the "armed response unit" to arrive. That has been proven to be nothing but an opportunity for the BG to kill more people. And on top of that the off-duty LEO on the island was not allowed to be armed and while he did a heroic act by dying to save his son, he may very well have been able to stop the deaths of many if he had the tools to do something about it.

 

[Archangel M]

If your police agencies stand by the "there is nothing we could have done better"..."we would do exactly the same thing"...party line after a tragedy like this you need to demand a more professional police force.

If this were to happen here in my jurisdiction we would most likely still have a blood bath, hopefully it would be smaller than it would have been with antiquated tactics. Afterward we would address what we screwed up and try to prepare for it.

 

[granfire]

Any professional law enforcement organization should have been looking at incidents like Columbine, Beslan, Mumbai, etc. and PLANNED for it.

"IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN HERE" is engraved on too many tombstones. Say whatever you want about how long it would take LE to get to your location. The fact HERE is that there were local LEO's waiting onshore for the "armed response unit" to arrive. That has been proven to be nothing but an opportunity for the BG to kill more people. And on top of that the off-duty LEO on the island was not allowed to be armed and while he did a heroic act by dying to save his son, he may very well have been able to stop the deaths of many if he had the tools to do something about it.

you CAN'T plan for it.
If you do you have already lost to terror.

You have a limited amount of first responders to cover a certain area...not to mention you had 2 attacks....one has to assume many of the island's EMTs were on their way to Oslo....
(when they had the crash at the Ramstein airshow several decades ago, my dad's racing club had a meet...all over sudden their ambulance peeled out, without a word of notice....a good 45 minutes normal driving away from the air strip)

 

[Archangel M]

you CAN'T plan for it.
If you do you have already lost to terror.

What!!! I think I have a tad more operational experience in LE planning and that is (to be blunt) crap. If you can identify a possible threat you plan for it. I've been to 3 different training meetings involving planning for a Mumbai type threat within the last year alone. Thats what we get paid for. Active shooters have been becoming more and more common in Europe lately. Germany has had a few I can remember off the top of my head. In this day and age even thinking about what you would do if some Norweigan hunter took his rifle to the village square should be on a police leaders list of events to possibly deal with. Im pulling no punches here...saying that "this was/is the best we could have done and will do the same the next time" is pathetic coming from an LE organization.

 

[Archangel M]

To be clear I am NOT condemning individual officers. Cops follow their training and the regulations set by their superiors. This is an issue for police supervision and leadership to address for future planning and training.

It's strange that I find myself being the one to criticize LE procedure here while others are trying to defend it. Its a mad...mad...mad world.

 

[elder999]

you CAN'T plan for it.
If you do you have already lost to terror.

You have a limited amount of first responders to cover a certain area...not to mention you had 2 attacks....one has to assume many of the island's EMTs were on their way to Oslo....
(when they had the crash at the Ramstein airshow several decades ago, my dad's racing club had a meet...all over sudden their ambulance peeled out, without a word of notice....a good 45 minutes normal driving away from the air strip)

Sure you can. I spent the better part of a decade training and planning, and conducting training and planning for others, to prepare for an event that has yet to occur at all..........

 

[MaxiMe]

"Failure to plan = Planning to fail"

 

[Archangel M]

Many armchair tacticians think that "planning" means having transport boats on every Norwegian lake now and Cops that have tanks in every village. That's pure ignorance.

 

[Makalakumu]

Sure you can. I spent the better part of a decade training and planning, and conducting training and planning for others, to prepare for an event that has yet to occur at all..........

Let us hope it stays that way...

 

[elder999]

Let us hope it stays that way...

Not a question of "if," but "when," sadly.....soon, I fear.

 

[Archangel M]

Slight tangent, but I just read this interesting column written by a Pakistani writer (Mr. I.A. Rehman is a writer and activist living in Pakistan. He is the director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Secretariat.) his opinions on this tragedy, Islam, Pakistan and other topics is kind of interesting.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/28/are-we-innocent.html