Blogging from the Highlands of Scotland
'From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step' - Diderot

Tuesday 3 July 2007

Controlled explosions "pour encourager les autres"?

This is the kind of hysterical over-reaction that got poor, innocent, Jean-Charles de Menezes shot because his face didn't fit.

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry about some of the quotes attributed to the Police in this article:
- ' Strathclyde Police said there had been "absolutely no specific information" that the car was a threat. '
- "The car did not constitute a threat and we will shortly move into the phase where we will start the forensic examination, firstly with the car in situ, and then later the car will be removed for a full forensic examination."

"THE CAR DID NOT CONSTITUTE A THREAT" - so it was blown up. All perfectly logical.

Sorry to belabour the point (quite a good pun, in view of our current government, doncha think?), but whilst I have absolutely no doubt that the Police thought they had good 'intelligence' (and I use that word advisedly) that the vehicle might pose a risk, this 'intelligence' fiasco is now being dressed-up as some kind of serious operation. I would like to see the Police take a look back and re-examine the source of this 'intelligence' to see whether lessons might be learned for the future. (Of course, I'll look pretty silly if their "full forensic examination" does turn up some important information, but I'll take my chances on this.)

I hope there is more to it than that it was owned by a Moslem and that someone thought that, therefore, it must be suspicious. For example, I have had it remarked to me on at least four separate occasions over the past few weeks and by different people that they "don't like Moslems" - well, there are some things/people I don't like either, but that doesn't give me an excuse to go around demonising a whole demographic, does it? A little bit of calm, rational, appraisal of what we are being drawn into is urgently required, methinks.

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