Some Ideas On How To Respond To The Mall Attack In Nairobi

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday about what the police and soldiers are discovering as they enter the shopping mall in Nairobi where terrorists attacked and took hostages. The details are gruesome, and I am not going to post them here. If you are interested in exactly what was done to the hostages, please follow the link above. I will say, however, that it was well outside the bounds of civilized behavior.

Mr. Hinderaker has a few suggestions as to how to deal with al Shabab:

What lessons can be learned for the future? I would suggest three. First, al Shabab should be destroyed. It would make sense for an international force to invade Somalia and hunt down all members of that group. Second, with hindsight, Kenyan authorities waited too long to take definitive action to kill the terrorists. They allowed the siege to stretch out over four days. That may have made sense on the assumption that they were dealing with a “normal” hostage situation, but in the future, terrorists should not be allowed to work their evil deeds for so long. Third, far more civilians need to be armed. The Nairobi attack was carried out, authorities say, by only around 15 terrorists. There were hundreds of innocent people in the mall at that time. Unfortunately, hardly any of them were armed. If only 100 of the shoppers had been carrying firearms, the terrorists–notwithstanding their heavier weaponry, including hand grenades–likely could have been stopped, or at least kept at bay until soldiers arrived.

At some point we have to realize that groups such as al Shabab have no place in civilized society. Their total lack of respect for human life is like a cancer on the world. It has to be stopped totally.

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