London Banter - View Single Post - Command Crisis

James Bentall · February 4th 04, 02:56 PM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.rec.subterranea

In article ,
(CJG Now Thankfully Living In The North)
wrote:

Personally speaking, if those 3 ever form part of a cabinet in this
country, I will be immediately volunteering to take part in the first
explaratory trips to Mars - that should be just about far enough away to
be safe from their 'decision' making!

James

Although the program was even funnier than I was told it would be.
I wonder just how many people smirking at them making the wrong
decision would be happy to give the order to kill 100 innocent people
without the hindsight of knowing the plane was going to crash into
parliament. How many people would give the order to seal up a tunnel
with a underground train full of injured people on board. Its very
easy to mock and laugh at a fictional set up. Or to give advice and
opnions in this matter. But how many people would in a real life
situation have the guts to order the death of 100's without being 100%
that it will save more lives that it loses.
And also if it was your
wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend/child/parent/realtive on the train
or plane. Would you be so keen to see them die without being 100%
their life would save a lot more?

I appreciate that argument - and yes, it is very easy for me to mock
whilst sitting in my sitting room at home. away from all the pressure,
the noise etc. I still feel however that the two incidents that really
made me think 'O ma word' - allowing a plane known to be piloted by
terrorists to enter London's airspace, and spending 20 minutes
discussing whether to close watertight flood doors or not - particularly
the latter one was a bit of a no brainer. As one of the participants put
it 'if we close the doors and the roof holds, we'll be no worse off, but
if we don't and the roof caves in then we've killed thousands' or words
to that effect.

I would like to think that had there been personal relatives of people
making the decisions involved, that those people would not be required
to make the decision in case they became 'emotionally motivated' or
whatever the latest buzz word is for that.

I guess at the end of it all we have to hope that the scenario the BBC
devised remains a fictional one and none of us are ever called to make
such decisions.

James