Wednesday, September 27, 2006
THE INDIA AIR FLIGHT 182 INQUIRY
Canada is conducting a horribly long-overdue inquiry into the 1985 Air India Flight 182 terrorist atrocity. Sikh separatists planted a bomb on a 747 airliner bound from Canada via London to Dehli, India. The bomb exploded when the airliner was just off the coast of Ireland, and all 329 people on board died. The great majority of them were Canadian citizens of Indian heritage. 82 of the dead were children. It was the worst terrorist attack involving an airliner up until 9/11.
The story of Flight 182 is an unbearably unhappy one. Evil men slaughtered innocents wholesale and devastated the lives of many more family members. Even among the good guys there are few heroes. The atrocity was the culmination of massive intelligence, law enforcement, and airline failures. Attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice were decades overdue and wholly ineffectual. The case well illustrates that the law enforcement model is just not the way to address terrorists. Terrorists are at war with us, and the only way to deal with them is to be at war with them, with a maximum of "due" and a minimum of "process."
The inquiry started Tuesday fittingly with the testimony of those who lost loved ones. It was impossible to watch and not cry along with the victims over the losses suffered 21 years ago. I guess pain that great is forever raw.
But there have been a few uplifting moments. Yesterday a witness named Susheel Gupta (scroll down) testified. In 1985 Sush was a 12-year-old boy whose mother was on Flight 182 on a trip to visit relatives back in India. A couple of days after the bombing, Air India chartered a plane to take family members of the dead to Cork, Ireland, where bodies recovered from the Atlantic were being accounted for as much as possible. Sush remembered the Irish this way:
The first day in Ireland was spent just sitting at our hotel or walking around the town. Everyone knew who we were, being brown, we certainly stuck out. I didn't understand why when we were walking around, everyone came up to us to hug both me and my father, offer me candy, shop owners came out of their stores and welcomed us. On one particular occasion, it started to drizzle, then rain. Not something unusual in Ireland. Neither my father nor I had a raincoat. As we were walking a group of three Irish came up to us, greeted us, were crying as they hugged us and then took off their own raincoats and handed one to my father as another individual put his jacket on me, buttoned it up and, pulled the hood over my head and told me to "keep the jacket done up or you are going to catch a cold". My father thanked them and we walked along. Further on a nice woman or elderly gentleman walked up to us and begged us to follow him to his home for some tea and soup "to warm us up". We did. While my father had the tea that was offered, I was given a glass of Coke and more cookies than any kid could dream of. Something my parents would never have allowed me to have.
I wish I knew the names of who these wonderful Irish citizens were, but they will hold a place in my heart forever. It is a strange thing to say, but if there is any place in the world where my mother could have been murdered, I am happy it was in Ireland. The generosity and kindness we received was something I have never experienced anywhere else in the world.
The story of Flight 182 is an unbearably unhappy one. Evil men slaughtered innocents wholesale and devastated the lives of many more family members. Even among the good guys there are few heroes. The atrocity was the culmination of massive intelligence, law enforcement, and airline failures. Attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice were decades overdue and wholly ineffectual. The case well illustrates that the law enforcement model is just not the way to address terrorists. Terrorists are at war with us, and the only way to deal with them is to be at war with them, with a maximum of "due" and a minimum of "process."
The inquiry started Tuesday fittingly with the testimony of those who lost loved ones. It was impossible to watch and not cry along with the victims over the losses suffered 21 years ago. I guess pain that great is forever raw.
But there have been a few uplifting moments. Yesterday a witness named Susheel Gupta (scroll down) testified. In 1985 Sush was a 12-year-old boy whose mother was on Flight 182 on a trip to visit relatives back in India. A couple of days after the bombing, Air India chartered a plane to take family members of the dead to Cork, Ireland, where bodies recovered from the Atlantic were being accounted for as much as possible. Sush remembered the Irish this way:
The first day in Ireland was spent just sitting at our hotel or walking around the town. Everyone knew who we were, being brown, we certainly stuck out. I didn't understand why when we were walking around, everyone came up to us to hug both me and my father, offer me candy, shop owners came out of their stores and welcomed us. On one particular occasion, it started to drizzle, then rain. Not something unusual in Ireland. Neither my father nor I had a raincoat. As we were walking a group of three Irish came up to us, greeted us, were crying as they hugged us and then took off their own raincoats and handed one to my father as another individual put his jacket on me, buttoned it up and, pulled the hood over my head and told me to "keep the jacket done up or you are going to catch a cold". My father thanked them and we walked along. Further on a nice woman or elderly gentleman walked up to us and begged us to follow him to his home for some tea and soup "to warm us up". We did. While my father had the tea that was offered, I was given a glass of Coke and more cookies than any kid could dream of. Something my parents would never have allowed me to have.
I wish I knew the names of who these wonderful Irish citizens were, but they will hold a place in my heart forever. It is a strange thing to say, but if there is any place in the world where my mother could have been murdered, I am happy it was in Ireland. The generosity and kindness we received was something I have never experienced anywhere else in the world.
