No-one argues against more security, if for no other reason than the 'feel-safe' factor, but even an entire army could not have stopped the Moscow attacks, or those on the London Underground in 2005. Just a few well-placed suicide bombers in a public arena (a Rugby World Cup event for example) and a city grinds to a halt for days.
We’ve seen what happens after just one bad traffic accident on the Auckland Harbour Bridge: the city is in total grindlock for hours!There's a naivety that claims attacks like this won’t happen in NZ: it’s harder to blend into the crowd here than in Europe or the Middle East...we’re geographically isolated from trouble...we don’t have "people like that". But conventional wisdom also said women would not become suicide bombers... well, that's just gone out the window! And let's not forget the Maori activists' "terror training camp" incident of 2007. So it would be foolish to think that suicide bombers would never attack in NZ.
Just this month, reporters highlighted gaps in *yawn* Rugby World Cup stadium security. During next year's event, extra security will be added but in the end, if someone is determined, it probably won't matter much: armed officers could not stop Moscow's brazen suicide bombings. But maybe that’s the point: news stories called the attacks "brazen", yet the sad reality is that such attacks today are not really brazen at all. They seem fairly easy to pull off...
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