It has long been accepted in the context of criminal justice that there is something wrong with "Blaming the Victim" of a violent crime. For example, it is usually wrong to blame a victim of a mugging or victim of forcible rape by claiming that it was his or her own fault for being outdoors in the evening.
We all recognize in the case of violent crime that the guilt almost always lies primarily or exclusively with the person who committed the crime. "Blaming the victim" is a game that is sometimes played in an effort to distract from the genuine evil that has been committed by the perpetrator of the crime, but we all recognize the game when we see it.
In the global war on terrorism, there is a similar game being played these days. It's called "Blaming the Rescuers."
The rules of the game are simple: Whenever a terrorist incident occurs, blame those who try to prevent the incident, those who try to rescue the victims or capture the perpetrators, or those who are left to clean up the bodies and the mess. Question everything the rescuers did, or failed to do. Also question everything they do to try to prevent the next attack.
The latest example is Russia's issuance of a report that puts blame on local police and local officials for the deaths of 330 victims of terrorism, most of them children, at a school in Beslan in September 2004. The chairman of the Russian commission that conducted a parliamentary investigation, Alexander Torshin, said, "Let's not blame everything on international terrorists. Let's start with ourselves, enforce order in our own home."
In America, there are plenty of other examples of "Blame the Rescuers" that could be cited. Sadly, the game is being played not only in the United States, but in civilized nations around the world. ("Civilized nations" in this context means nations that, unlike terrorists, do not deliberately and routinely target non-combatant civilian men, women and children for murder.)
There is nothing wrong with introspection for the purpose of continuous improvement, but that is not what is happening. What is going on now in civilized nations around the world is continuous disparagement for no apparent purpose other than temporary political advantage or temporary psychological comfort in a terrifying world (it's less frightening to focus blame our own "authorities" than on the terrorists, as Neo-Neocon has noted in one of many thoughtful essays).
Blaming the Rescuers is a cancerous game. It poisons the morale of those most actively engaged in fighting terrorism. Where credit and gratitude is due for bravery and persistence and valor in the face of threats and horrors and challenges, it delivers wet blankets instead. It demands a level of perfection that no human being can achieve, deterring some from even joining in the impossible effort.
The game of Blame the Rescuers eats away the living cells -- the leaders, officials, first responders, soldiers, commanders, police and intelligence agents most actively engaged in fighting the war on terror. Consume these living cells, and terrorism will spread unopposed.
Here are some of the many questions that you'll often hear asked in the effort to Blame the Rescuers. See how many of these questions sound familiar in the war on terror in the United States and around the world:
Why didn't they see it coming? Why didn't they connect the dots? Why didn't they investigate? Why didn't they investigate further? Why are we wasting so much money on investigations when we haven't had any attacks lately?
Why didn't they have more police, soliders, or other "authorities" in place to detect it or stop it? Why didn't they intervene quickly enough upon learning of the terrorist attack?
Why didn't they act immediately?
Why did they rush in without enough advance planning?
Why weren't all the victims saved? Why were so many police or soldiers' lives lost?
Why weren't all the perpetrators caught? Who among the rescuers should be fired for incompetence? Who should be court martialed? Who should be ridiculed? Who should be disciplined? Who should be impeached?
Why are the rescuers so overreaching and heavy-handed in their effort to prevent the next attack? Why are they trampling on peoples' rights? Why are they being so unreasonable? Why are they searching everyone -- do they think everyone is a terrorist? Why are they conducting random searches -- don't they realize that some of the people they are randomly searching are not terrorists? Why are they conducting targeted searches -- don't they realize that most of the people in the target group aren't terrorists? Why are they searching anyone? Don't they realize that it's none of their business and we have a right to privacy?
Why didn't they search the bag that had the bomb? Why was their search so superficial?
Why are they searching every bag? Why is this security screening taking so long?
Why did they shoot an innocent man? Why didn't they take just one more second before shooting?
Why didn't they shoot before the bomb was set off? Why did they delay just one second too long?
Why didn't they know the terrorist attack was coming? Why didn't they conduct any searches at all? Why didn't they search those with suspected terrorist ties? Why did they only search those with suspected terrorist ties -- didn't they realize that a person with a "clean" record would be used to carry out the attack?
Why are we eavesdropping? Why are we spying on our own people?
Why didn't we realize that the attack could come from among our own people? Why didn't we see it coming?
Why are we restricting travel? We aren't we restricting travel?
Why are we getting so many warnings about risks that turn out not to materialize? Why are we wasting money on security to prevent attacks that have never occurred?
Why weren't we warned about the risk that did materialize? Why didn't we do anything to prevent the attack that occurred?
Why haven't we won the war on terror by now? Why don't we have an exit strategy?
Why are we bothering since we know there will always be more terrorist attacks?
Why aren't we winning their hearts and minds? Why are we spending money on propaganda to win their hearts and minds? Why are we building schools there when we need the money here?
Why aren't all the security measures in place yet? Why didn't the security measures we have in place prevent the new form of attack that just occurred?
Why aren't we doing enough? Why didn't we have enough personnel in place to prevent the attack?
Why does it cost so much? Why are we paying for so many personnel to prevent something that has never happened?
Why wasn't there any central coordination of the effort? Why weren't all the agencies coordinated? Why wasn't there enough oversight?
Why weren't local officials in charge of the effort in their own community? Why were agencies prevented from acting individually on they information they had? Why was there so much central bureaucracy?
Why won't anyone take responsibility?
Now that someone has taken responsibility, why doesn't he resign?
The questions that can be asked are endless, but the result of the game "Blame the Rescuers" is always the same: The rescuers lose.
Of course, when the rescuers lose, the terrorists win. But it's easy to ignore that. After all, the terrorists aren't talking. They're just taking notes for their next propaganda video and working on their next series of attacks on innocent men, women and children. You and your loved ones included, eventually.
There will be far too many victims of terrorism in our lifetime -- and in no small part because too many people in the civilized world are devoting massive amounts of time and energy to the game "Blame the Rescuers."
All of our time and energy should be spent ostracizing, penalizing, hunting down, deterring, and stopping the terrorists who have already committed thousands of heinous attacks on innocent civilians worldwide. The terrorists are determined and persistent. If we in the civilized world we are consumed with attacking our own rescuers rather than with fighting the war on terror, we will lose the war, and much more with it.
It may seem unthinkable that your nation will finally lose the war on terror. It may seem unthinkable that the terrorists will take your life and the lives of your loved ones. Yet unthinkable things happen in world history all the time. Remember, the attacks of September 11th were unthinkable to you, and to me, but they happened. The Beslan school massacre was unthinkably cruel; but it happened.
Not all unthinkable things are bad. The fall of the Berlin Wall was unthinkable, but it happened. The collapse of the Soviet Union was unthinkable, but it happened.
Many more unthinkable things will happen in our lifetime. If those of us in the civilized world work together, they can be good unthinkable things rather than the kind of horrors we have yet to imagine.
It's time for the game "Blame the Rescuers" to end.
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For more blog commentary on a few recent examples of "Blame the Rescuers," see Captain's Quarters ("Milking Cookies"), Michelle Malkin ("The Do-Nothing ACLU"), Stop the ACLU ("ACLU Launch Propaganda Against NSA"), Wizbank here ("Bloggers Strike Out on UK Torture Memos") and here ("Picture of The Day - Howard Dean Knows Where You've Been Edition) and Tony Snow at Townhall.com ("Time for the President to Call Their Bluff").
Gina- Really good! You have a great posting here.
Posted by: Jim Hoft | December 30, 2005 at 03:18 AM
We do this all the time in sports -- a coach is given only a mediocre handful of seasons to win, or he's ousted. A high-priced player is benched or discarded if he doesn't bring in a championship win in his first two seasons... we encourage this behavior of unrealistic expectations in our recreational lifes, our social lives, our work lives -- and are chastised when we want to make decisions based on facts, trends, and real analysis.
Those people who wave banners like this are fully aware of how shallow their cries are -- they are banking on their ability to use these cheap ploys to incite mob rule upon an otherwise defensible person or group -- and throw suspicion and threat away from whatever they feel the need to protect.
So long as these methods are allowable by our social standards, the real priorities of safety and self-governance will be obscured from view -- just as successfully as they are today.
It's going to be a long time for any amount of peer pressure to overcome this gleeful misuse of our citizen-sheep frailties.
Thank you for so clearly pointing out what has become a pattern of shame for our media, our politics, our social structure, and our schools.
Posted by: Dan Oblak | January 16, 2008 at 08:29 PM