The news that the man shot dead by police in a London station was not connected with the terror attacks is very disturbing to me. It’s too early to draw any conclusions about whether the police acted properly, but there’s no doubt that, however it happened, this was a win for the terrorists, who have claimed another innocent victim. As the name implies, the main point of terrorism is to create fear, and a situation where people are afraid of the police who are supposed to be protecting them is far worse than anything that can be created by the small risk of being in the wrong place when a bomb goes off.
Terrorism is essentially a criminal activity, and the only way to beat it in the long run is through effective police work. The terrorists of the radical left and right who operated in the 1970s and 1980s were beaten in the end, and the same will be true of the jihadists. But so far at least, the response to the London attacks seems to have more failures than successes. Let’s hope there’s better news soon.
John Quiggin 
Completely agree with the opening post to this thread.
But accroding to the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4711639.stm this was the sequence of events.
Why then did he vault the ticket barriers? Why did he run from the Police? Why did he not stop when ordered/requested. (He lived in Englnad for three years, so even basic English he should have understood). Why did he wear such a bog, winter coat in the middle of summer? Given the hysteria about the Tube being a target for suicide bombers, why did he run down there, and try and jump onto a tube train?
All very odd.
1: Witnesses report seeing up to 20 plain clothes police officers chase a man into Stockwell Tube station from the street
2: One person says the man vaulted the automatic ticket barriers as he made his way to the platforms
3: The most direct route is via this escalator or the staircase that sits alongside it
4: Police challenge the man but he apparently refuses to obey instructions and after running onto a northbound Northern line train, he is shot dead
From what I understand so far, I would have shot him myself.
How tragic, wonder why he behaved in such a fashion?
According to a witness I heard interviewed on the BBC,the police running wildly around the station were all in plain clothes,and she herself ran to escape them fearing they were terrorists. These terrible events are all the products of the terrible policies followed by Blair and his various accomplices. In the US Crai Paul Roberts, a former Asst-Tresurer in Reagan’s cabinet,wrote a few days ago,that as well as withdrawing from Iraq,where clearly the war is lost,Bush and Blair should be put on trial for War Crimes. Not much chance of that,but that a Republican stalwart like Roberts is saying things like that shows how public opinion is changing. even in the USA. In Britain Friday’s poll in The Guardian shows 32% felt Blair was largely the blame tfor the disasters they have follwed the Iraq war,and 32% felt he was partly to blame,so British public oponion is very clearly moving against Blair on a range of issue. In the midst of all this ,The Iraqi P>M> has spent the week in Tehran,meeting his fellow Shiites,and laying a wreath on the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeni…What does Bush make of all that I wonder ?
It certainly appears from the stories I’ve read that all or most of the police were plainclothes officers, which makes “refusing to obey instructions” less clear than it would otherwise be. But there’s not enough info for a clear judgement yet.
Everything beyond the 3rd line of your posting is unrelated ranting Brian, stick to the topic: Citizen minding own business is shot dead by police.
“the police were plainclothes officers”
And so? Is the expectation that police can only arrest someone, if they change into uniforms?
“And so? Is the expectation that police can only arrest someone, if they change into uniforms?”
I think it’s more the point that if someone didn’t know that a bunch of unknown guys chasing him were police, he might think it expedient to flee..particularly given the current environment in London.
On the other hand, I acknowledge entirely that had this unfortunate man actually been a suicide bomber we would be hailing police initiative in preventing mass death.
brian, I think Washington would regard the Iraqi PM laying a wreath on Khomeini’s tomb as smart politics, all things considered…
It amazes me the capacity some have to side instinctively with authority no matter how troubling the circumstances. From disbelief that anybody would ever run from a crew of thugs to the expectation that the police were doing the reasonable thing.
Whether the guy was a bomber is irrelevat to whether the police action was justifiable – which it was. If did have a bomb, the people on the train may have died if they hadnt followed that course of action. Its a sad occurance, but the police did the right thing and thats all there is to it.
Yes, the news that they were plainclothes is pretty disturbing. A bunch of big tough guys yelling out identifying themselves in cockney accents and then running at a man to whom English isn’t a first language is a worry. What I mean is he might just think he’s being chased by hoods.
Very sad all round.
Where is it reported the Police had ‘cockney’ accents Petero. Seems an odd reference.
The Telegraph in London is reporting that the young man was working illegally in London, and hence why he panicked.
It’s just too tragic to say anything at all.
What we can say it has very serious implications if policemen can kill a person in public without charges of murder or at least manslaughter brought against the perpetrator, who of course was acting on orders. This is a description of police state.
If the police had the property under surveilance: Why did they not cover the exit routes, and why did they let a potential suicide bomber run into a railway station and board a train. Why did he run, because he was frightened. Why frighten him in the first place?
I was trying to imagine the situation Elizabeth. If there really are people like you who think the fact that he ran makes it ok to shoot him, then I suggest we as a society are getting into deep trouble.
quote “the guy fell or tripped onto the trasin and then the police unloaded 5 shots into him.” This is from an eyewitness and has been shown repeatedly on the news. So wearing a coat now is enough to get you shot just in case you twitch and it explodes.
Or perhaps it was the cop who twitched. Perhaps the real problem is that the cop couldn’t tell the difference between a brazilian and a pakistani (since it was pakistanis that they were chasing on that day). Damn! All dem darkies look da same! We’ll have to shoot the lot of them just to keep England safe.
I would have shot him myself Petero. Not for running per se, but for declining to stop, after having come from a premises thought to be bristling with possible suicide bombers, entering a tube station on the run, & dashing onto a train. All the while wearing a bulky coat in summer. If he dashed onto you train in such circumstances, would you remain on the carriage? Or bolt for the stairs up to the street?
Kyangadac, your posting is trite.
According to the Sunday Times, the police have changed their story as to the events involving Mr Menezes. The articles says:
“Originally, police had said the man walked from a property in Stockwell to the local Tube station. But later the statement was changed to say he had been under surveillance during a three-mile bus journey from his home to the station.”
While inconsistent, the sequence of events does clear so far.
My initial reaction was anger, then resignation when I read that he’d been followed from a house that was connected to the bombings. But then I realised that they’d let him catch the bus without intervening. What the heck was going on? Why was he no threat on the bus, but a threat on the tube?
Nic, It was not justifiable. We have the rule of law, and the innocent until guilty for a reason; it is to protect us from arbitrary action from government and their policing arms. If our governments and police forces are not going to follow those basic dictums of civilised society then they should just resign and flip burgers, because they are unfit for anything else.
It certainly appears from the stories I’ve read that all or most of the police were plainclothes officers, which makes “refusing to obey instructions� less clear than it would otherwise be.
Yes. But even if they had been in uniform, the fact that the man has been proved innocent nullifies the “if he was innocent why did he run� argument.
He did, and he was.
Summary execution on the streets by death squads now an acceptable part of British justice? Some of you surprise me.
I note that the “Moderate Muslims” in the UK have gone from saying when this man was shot that this was an attack on Muslims to the police must have a right to shoot to kill. Then that may be the way the BBC reports things.
What is it about human beings that makes them go ape over the wrong thing. This is very sad for this man, but to use terminology that excites, he is collateral damage. The issue is that loose in London (and protected and hidden by an even larger group) is a network of Muslim bastards whose intention is to kill as many as they can. The police as it turns out made the wrong call. Now the smart thing to do is to condemn them into inaction!
Always like spectators at a football match we could have played or umpired better from the safety of the stands. And with that greatest of human skills, with hindsight we know what the decision should have been. Combined with that other great skill of humanity, retrospective coherence, we can analyse every random bit of information and put together the perfect approach which the police in the UK have proved to the satisfaction of some, are incapable.
Ah well, if it was Australia Kruddy could be demanding a Royal Commission and the resignation of Ellis and Ruddock and the senior police.
Cameron is already requiring that their be a full investigation and court case before any action may be taken. I am trying not to imagine the smile on the bombers face as he pushes the button while the policeman says, you have the right to remain silent..Boom.
Clearly Sr Menezes was guilty of swarthiness.
The plain clothes cops who chased and shot him were acting on information that had been passed on to them by surveillance police and were therefore doing their duty. The blame for this botch goes further up the line and is likely to end with reference to the culture of pervasive racism of the British Police.
More generally, there are at least two conditions for terrorist success.
1. The subjects of terrorist violence get disheartened and retreat. The COW leaders are doing a lot of tough self-talk to dissuade their electorate from demanding that course of action from their leaders. “Staying the course” “staying until the job is done” are the slogans of this policy.
2. The authorities overreact and create unnecessary enemies. The history of the troubles in Ireland is telling in this regard. When the IRA reformed in the 1970s in the wake of Bloody Sunday and other examples of police and Army terrorism, the majority of the Catholic population supported the moderate Social Democratic Labour Party. In the succeeding 30 years the IRA provoked an overreaction from British authorities. In response, Catholic voters in Ulster have thrown their support behind Sinn Fein. The SDLP has more or less disappeared as an effective political force. This is precisely the opposite of what British authorities wanted to happen.
Now the outcome in Ulster will be determined by the “Battle of the Prams”. Catholics are breeding voters faster than Protestants. And many, if not most, Catholics are implacably opposed to current arrangements in Ulster.
Over-zealous use of police power runs the risk of alienating moderate minorities. The death of Sr Menezes may demonstrate to many that Britain isn’t quite as multi-cultural as it would like to make itself out to be.
The last thing that Britain wants is for British identity to be dictated by the outcome of the “Battle of the Prams”.
Of course there is another solution. Idi Amin in the 1970s expelled thousands of East Indians from Uganda.
Is Idi Amin to be the Poster Boy for the current generation of the “Tough on Terrorism” brigade?
“I would have shot himself.” Bruce Willis, watch your back! Steve, you’re either too young to be at the pub or a worry as a human being. Either way, you remind me of why I stay away from blog commentary. What a way to start the day!
Yukk.
Adieu
Just to point to this important insight:
“Shami Chakrabarti, a human rights lawyer and director of Liberty, the civil rights group, said: “Our hearts go out to the family of the dead man and to the officers involved in this incident.
“No one should rush to judgement. In any case of this kind – especially at a time of heightened tension – there must be a prompt, comprehensive and independent investigation into what happened and it must cover the guidelines and the training of officers.”
But she said that the shoot-to-kill policy was acceptable in exceptional situations. “If the action is carried out by properly trained officers and the authority is given, based on a proper assessment of the risk that innocent people could die, then in those circumstances it could be justified,” Ms Chakrabarti said.
see the following link for the full story
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/muslims-leaders-say-police-shootings-can-be-justified/2005/07/24/1122143730016.htmlhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/world/muslims-leaders-say-police-shootings-can-be-justified/2005/07/24/1122143730016.html
Retreat from what Katz?
The Muslim community in the UK also took swarthiness to mean Muslim. I don’t recall the police claiming Menezes was Muslim
Overreact and create unnecessary enemies. Who are they. More bombers you reckon. Or the Muslim community that is co-operating so well currently. Unless these bastards are the greatest salesmen in history, some of those they seek to enlist must say no. Are they sharing that with the authorities. The lack of any prior information this time would make the answer no. If they are volunteering how do they know who to volunteer to. The information must be out there. The Muslim community is sharing it with the police? Again these circumstances would suggest no.
I find it hard to accept that these tight knit communities don’t have some idea of who is up to what. Maybe it is fear that holds them back from helping, and hiding these bastards. But if they can be forgiven for their fear so may the police and the British public. And the notion that the way to respond to those who despise you as sewer scum is to doff your cap is ridiculous.
Unfortunately the battle of the prams is paying off pretty well for the Muslim adherents as well.
Over zealous use of police power. That is the explanation for the death of Mr Menezes? The obvious is that the police in the UK are racist? Not as shaken and frightened as the general public in the UK. Not making a bad call because of the monstrous level of tension and obligation they have. And damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
But I guess such thoughts just makes me an admirer of Idi. Interestingly I heard on the BBC that the East Indians from Uganda integrated well into Britian. No bombers from there. An explanation given was that they came from a culture where they were a minority and not top dog. Unfortunately these young Pakistanis come from a culture where they are top dog and they return to it on a regular basis. They send their daughters back at thirteen to marry, the British authorities turned a blind eye. They murder their sisters for fighting it. Again the British authorities have been turning a blind eye. They deny their daughters education.
I have no interest in feeling sorry for these arrogant vicious individuals. And I am losing interest in the immediate call, people will be nasty to us, because they are British and intolerant. And listen to a number of these old boys, it is you, not “us”, yours not “ours”. If they don’t think they are part of Britian then why should they stay. Even bugged a BBC reporter.
No way I feel like being nice. And the families of the hundred thousand Aussies in London are probable less empathetic than they used to be.
It was just tough titties for Mr Menezes that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also the wrong colour.
As Lang Hancock said of the men who had contracted mesothelioma while working in his mines, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
This is very sad for this man, but to use terminology that excites, he is collateral damage.
And I hope when it’s your son or daughter, you’ll display the same dispassionate view.
It’s about accountability, folks. This *may* be a tragic case where the coppers did everything right. Or it *may* be outright criminal behaviour by racist cops. More likely, based on eyewitness accounts, it is bungling that rises to the level of negligence needed for manslaughter charges. If so, and those charges are never brought, we are going to see this happening again in the future.
But we don’t really know, and given the way official commisions in the UK – and in Australia too – tend to see their job as being to prevent official embarrassment (Guildford Four, anyone? Bloody Sunday? WMDs?) I don’t expect we’ll ever know.
The irony of cover-ups aimed at preventing official embarrassment, of course, is that over time they *discredit* the authorities in most peoples’ eyes because they sow the seeds of future scandals. Of course, there will always be the faithul who’ve been brought up to believe what authority figures tell them – no amount of mere experience will teach them.
Scanning the above, can’t help noticing the amount of framing of the event/selective quotation to suit pre-ordained ideological positions. Just as it ever was…
Scanning the above, can’t help noticing the amount of framing of the event/selective quotation to suit pre-ordained ideological positions. Just as it ever was…”
The world holds its breath in expectation of ML’s godlike perspective on these events.
“And I hope when it’s your son or daughter, you’ll display the same dispassionate view.”
Why exactly is that relevant?
Cameron, if the police did that all the time, there would be a lot more people dead from terrorist attacks than there are now. Their number one priority is to stop terrorists in that kind of situation, and if that involves taking no chances with someone who appeared to be a bomber, so be it. You just seem to be spouting rhetoric here.
My daughter is there. People she knows have both died and been in carriages with expolding detonators. it is frightening her and making her weep.
She has to ride that underground everyday. Do not come that with me. I might ask you to explain to those whose loved ones have died how it is that your compassion empathy sympathy and understanding for brutal vicious murderers excites you more than the brutal murder of their loved ones.
That poor man is dead because there are a mob of nasty vicious thugs constructing a sense of greatness for themselves out of killing their fellow citizens. Their is nothing noble or righteous or right about those pricks. As there is nothing worthwhile about the sneers and pontifications of my fellow Australians who support them. And support them you do. A policeman has to put his life on hold when behaviour saying danger occurs in a time of national emergency. He must choose to surrender his life and the lives of those he/she is charged to protect. So my fellow Australians can feel good about something.
I wouldn’t mind it so much if it was those who reckon that those charged with protecting us must always surrender their lives if a choice has to be made, were the ones offering their lives. Of course they never are.
Always the argument don’t upset them. Well just once think about the consequences of upsetting us.
Get a grip Ros. None of the posts in this thread have expressed any sympathy for the London terrorists. The argument is about how best to eradicate this threat.
Essentially there are three arguments.
1. The terrorists are isolated maniacs who pose no realistic threat in stimulating popular support in Britain.
2. The terrorists are capable of arousing significant popular support in Britain if the threat they pose is handled clumsily and/or brutally.
3. The terrorists already have significant popular support in Britain who thus pose a difficult and long term threat.
(FWIW, believe that option 2 is the most accurate statement and that careful handling is required to prevent the situation from becoming more like option 3.)
So Katz, first I would if I wanted to reassure my daughter share JQ’s gem with her.
“As the name implies, the main point of terrorism is to create fear, and a situation where people are afraid of the police who are supposed to be protecting them is far worse than anything that can be created by the small risk of being in the wrong place when a bomb goes off.�
Blond bimbo thinks it is terrorists that she has to worry about.
Only we have two slight problems with that position. My can’t get a grip husband said, when the UK cops shoot her in the head (which will happen on a regular basis!) she can at least think as she goes, beats being blown to bits or waking up with no face and no legs. And consider the number of Australians who were killed and injured in relation to the number of us there are. And as I said silly girl made the mistake of knowing people who were victims.
Importantly I will also make the point to her that
“The terrorists are capable of arousing significant popular support in Britain if the threat they pose is handled clumsily and/or brutally.�
And you are right. The conversation on this thread is covert rather than overt. It was probably a John Howard plant who proffered this on a previous thread. Didn’t see your rebuttal, sorry.
“If we look at the recent acts of terror: World Trade centre,The Pentagon, the Bali bombing, Madrid & London. Though not of the conventional type, these appear to me to be well targeted acts of war. To label them something else might have some strategic advantage, but in reality they are still acts of war by peoples that have major grievances. If we want to make progress against this threat of terror we need to look at the root of these grievances and try address them, as well as “increasing our resourcing of police.�
Oppressed people fight against their oppression. If I was oppressed I would fight. The oppression in this case is as usual economic.
It is my supposition that their motivation was based on grievances connected with the poverty and inequality inflicted on countries like Pakistan by the exploitative western powers
This is a war against the first world or people who are benefiting from first world affluence, by people who are being ripped off by the first world
Intellectuals in the wealthy world are moral, honest, and want to alleviate poverty. But they have never been taught how the impoverished world was kept dependent and thus they cannot honestly address those causes. Only by this full understanding of economic history can the impoverished world gain their freedom. Wealthy world intellectuals would not push their nonsense when they know that their audience knows a lot better.�
Selfish bitch, she and those she knows who have been directly in the firing line are guilty because of the beneficence they have had. In passing she and her husband were vigorously opposed to the invasion of Iraq. But the idiots think that the people responsible for killing their fellow Londoners are the 15 seconds of glory and then sitting next to God bastards.
Get a grip! there is a religious group from a particular culture who has a problem with us and will kill us until we kill them.
Again, withdraw from what?
Thanks again Helen. That my daughter has been close to being it, and as she and her husband insist on staying, if she gets it I will apologise to you for my crass immoral perspective. When I fail to be dispassionate.
I am angry and I suspect I am not the only one. Each incident generates many phone calls re the “my daughter the oppressor” and left or right, they don’t tell me that it is John Howard’s fault. 100,000 Aussies in London. Right or wrong their families will all be guilty of not getting a grip and failing to understand who they should be compassionate for.
I have just undertaken some research on a Mr Amir, a melbourne based Muslim wirter/thinker. The link to the full article follows these two paragraphs. He clearly makes the point that (as far as he is concerned) Democracy and related values are an anethema is Islam, and that as per below the must maligned clash of civilisations these does hold true after all!
“The problem that America faces is that the Iraqi project is predicated on the idea that, if given the opportunity, Arabs and Muslims would embrace secularism, democracy, and social liberalism as enthusiastically as a starving man would embrace food. One need only examine America’s forays into “public diplomacy” to understand the cultural hubris that lies at the heart of current White House thinking. Radio Sawa broadcasts American music into Arab homes and Hi Magazine is a lifestyle magazine typical of the sort consumed by youth in the West; marketing Western pop stars, Western fashions and decidedly Western cultural and social attitudes to intrinsically conservative Muslim societies.
Unfortunately, the imposition of American culture and values are not seen by Muslims as being the solution but rather this is the very core of the problem. The campaign to bring secular democracy and Western values to the Muslim world is not preventing the clash of civilizations, because this is the clash of civilizations itself. ”
Quite worrying.
The rest of the article can be found at http://www.atrueword.com/index.php/article/articleview/77/1/1/
Hehe, Petero, Bruce Willis has no need to watch his back, as I don’t swing that way. Sorry to disappoint.
Being prepared to shoot a possible suicide bomber rather than go up with him, (a trait I share with the London Police, & I imagine with every tube & bus rider in London) does not make one a “worry” of a human being.
From your post I deduce that you would not be prepared to shoot such a person. With self preservation instincts like that Petero old chap, your genes will be out of the human pool quicksmart. Adieu indeed!! Heh heh heh
Ros, the option of “retreat” in the context of my first post was in the context of the British in Ireland. However, the principle can be generalised to other contexts.
Thus,
Up to the 1990s the British Government was committed to;
a. Maintaining the gerrymander in Ireland that gave Protestants a disproportionate share of power in local government.
b. Refusing to reinstitute provincial government in Ulster.
c. Denying the right of the Republic of Ireland to have any say in the future of Ulster.
The IRA program of terrorism has assisted in persuading Britain from RETREATING from all those positions. However, this RETREAT has not, so far, persuaded Ulster Catholics to withdraw their support from Sinn Fein. It may be argued that, from a British perspective, their RETREAT was too little, too late. However, it is also true to say that these concessions have resulted in a steep fall in the number of terrorist attacks by the IRA.
A case of post hoc, ergo propter hoc? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. The IRA is now “on the nose” in Nationalist circles in Ulster. The folk of Ulster have withdrawn much popular support from the IRA.
Is there a lesson to be learned here in regard to Islamist terrorists resident in Britain? Perhaps. But on the other hand, perhaps the cost of concession is too great. Too early to tell yet.
Dear Katz, the BBC World Service ran a story last night interviewing and taking comment from a range of people about Iraq. Some comments are at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/4700577.stm, but I highlight just the one response/email from an Iraqis in Iraq:
“Quite obviously, the vast majority of your contributors have little to no idea of what they are talking about. Believe me, the situation on the ground is completely different to that portrayed in the media.”
ASB, Basra, Iraq
London bomb suspect shot
A suspected bomber has been shot five times by “plain-clothes police officers” on a London underground train. The suspect was shot after police “pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him.” Basically, the guy was executed before he could possib…
Justifiable shooting
The block of flats contained terrorists. Jean Charles de Menezes leaves the block of flats. As the flats contain terrorists he is followed by plain clothes police because they don’t want him to know he is being followed, for obvious reasons.
His …
It is true that the methods of terrorism are criminal. But it is not true that terrorism is “essentially criminal” since there is an irreducibly political element in both the source and goals of terrorist activity. The only way to counter terrorist politics is to neutralise it: by reforming sectarian terrorist cultures overseas or by preventing the development of sectarian terrorist cultures at home.
The “overseas reform” method is being tried by evolution and revolution in the ME. The “domestic prevention” method requires a change in state policy, both criminal and civil. We should use criminal law to repress terrorist militants and civil law to integrate sectarian civilians.
“We should use criminal law to repress terrorist militants”.
This is a bit of a give away, isn’t it?
I’m sure you meant that criminal law should be used to punish the guilty. Where’d this “repression” thing come from?
The subjects of terrorist violence get disheartened and retreat. Ok even though your comment was followed by the COW. An unknown term in relation to Ireland. I did suspect you were suggesting that a retreat from Iraq was the option.
We can argue about who or what in a complex system was the cause of the outcome of global terrorism and murder. We may never know which factor brought us to this horrible place. As you say Katz “Is there a lesson to be learned here in regard to Islamist terrorists resident in Britain? Perhaps. But on the other hand, perhaps the cost of concession is too great. Too early to tell yet.” But,
What I do understand is that Iraq was in great part due to the anger of the US at the murder of 3000 of their citizens. The inability of some in the west to understand this makes the eventual price for those pre modern men awful. They have believed those who have told them we will compromise. Wrong, we will be at war with Islam if they don’t stop killing us. It doesn’t matter that there are those in the west that argue that we deserve it. It doesn’t matter that there are those in the world of Islam that say that it is unfair to blame us.
It seems to me that there are many in the west also that underestimate the totality of the response of the west when it is sufficiently aroused. As was said at the time of Sep 11, the sleeping elephant has been aroused. As will the rest of the west become aroused as this attack escalates.
They have believed those who say we have changed, that we no longer fight to the death. We do. We will still fight total war. I don’t like the, look at this war and how it happened. But we did fight the second world war, total destruction, despite the fact that we had paid such a high price for the first. Why tell them that we no longer do that.
They have to know how dangerous we are. That to hide the mad and bad will have a terrible price for those who do.
“They have to know how dangerous we are. That to hide the mad and bad will have a terrible price for those who do.”
I think that they already know how dangerous we are. And that we are mad and bad.
The post Sep 11 sleeping elephant was aroused and did what? Acceded to Bin Laden’s demand to withdraw troops from Saudi Arabia, let Bin Laden escape, and then invaded a country that we know had no involvement.
Duh.
Nic, That is a strawman. Arguing that if the police didnt act this way and get it wrong occasionly (through killing an innocent) to stop terrorist attacks is not a valid argument that can refute the value of the rule of law, and innocent until proven guilty. Arbitrary action is the enemy of liberal democracy.
Cam, we’re going to have to agree to disagree, because I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think “arbitrary action”, as you call it, is sometimes necessary. This was one of those times.
Gotta say Roz I admire your rhetoric, respect your passion and sympathize with your personal concerns – but your dead wrong. The real problem with the shooting in London is not that he was the wrong man but that it took nearly 48 hours for the police to admit it. As a correspondent on ‘Life matters’ said this morning, ‘it left people thinking that they were being kept in the dark and not told all the story’. This is the basis of JQ and others concern about the action. It was denied. Read the Guardians account today, the police new they had the wrong man within two hours.
Your not the only person who is angry about the fact that we are engaged in war without boundaries being prosecuted by fools and gluttons who care only for their own profit or aggrandizement and not a fig for the consequences of their actions to the world at large. And if there is collateral damage because the rules of engagement were not agreed upon – who is to blame the glutton who turns Iraq into a country not disimilar to Cambodia at Year Zero because the oil was a prize more important than a jihadist. The fools, who believed that Musharraf and ISI were not half as important as another colonial adventure in Afghanistan, where they could play with their latest toys and make not one whit of difference.
This particular “mob of nasty vicious thugs” have been shown the ‘collateral damage’ of our foolish and gluttonous rulers in Afghanistan and Iraq again and again on the daily news – there’s no need for a madrassas education. It is not difficult to see how they justified their actions to themselves.
The real kicker though is the perceived threat to their manhood that feminism represents. Western culture is equated with feminism in just the same way that the Catholic church and other patriarchal insitutions equated feminism with immorality 50 years ago. Even though this is real and not just my idea, it still a pathetic excuse.
Remember the men in our culture had to go through exactly the same thing 40 or 50 years ago, they too felt threatened and aggrieved, many still do, some joined the catholic church and became serial child molesters. Most of us realized that free women were not a threat but a delight.
Of course, these people are “a mob of nasty vicious thugs” but they seem to be the only one around that your willing to see. Open your eyes.
The problem with a war on terrorism is that with an undefined enemy and an undefined victory the war never ends. The only reason for prosecuting such a war is the maintenance of a police state(vale George O.). If we dare to define our enemy then we are left with Katz’s options (above).
“The subjects of terrorist violence get disheartened and retreat. Ok even though your comment was followed by the COW. An unknown term in relation to Ireland. I did suspect you were suggesting that a retreat from Iraq was the option.”
Ros, when are you going to start readin for meaning?
Here is what I said that you find objectionable:
“More generally, there are at least two conditions for terrorist success.
1. The subjects of terrorist violence get disheartened and retreat. The COW leaders are doing a lot of tough self-talk to dissuade their electorate from demanding that course of action from their leaders. “Staying the courseâ€? “staying until the job is doneâ€? are the slogans of this policy.”
Please note that the context was “conditions for terrorist success”. Please note that I wasn’t recommending the course of action that entails retreat. But you must realise that even the most powerful states run out of resources and support for hardline policies that seem to fail to produce favourable outcomes. Simply “staying the course” will be unsuccessful in the long run if that course is perceived to lead nowhere.
In short, my argument was: being tough is not enough.
I hope you can see that you waste your time when you knock down straw men of your own creation.
“Dear Katz, the BBC World Service ran a story last night interviewing and taking comment from a range of people about Iraq. Some comments are at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/4700577.stm, but I highlight just the one response/email from an Iraqis in Iraq:”
Elizabeth,
Yes, you have stumbled on a fascinating range of opinion on the likelhood of civil war in Iraq expressed by people with access to the internet. As you may imagine, when it comes to Iraqis, that represents a fairly small and not necessarily representative sample of Iraqi opinion. I’m not questioning their sincerity, nor their bona fides.
Just one question Elizabeth.
How on earth does this vox pop material relate to the topic of this thread: how to deal with domestic British terrorism?