To kill one is a tragedy, to kill a million, is a statistic -Joseph Stalin
The London terrorist attacks didn’t kill millions, but it strikes me that Stalin’s quote is entirely relevant to the aftermath of the subway suicide bombings.
I mean, where’s the outrage? Two of the bombers involved in the second terrorist attack on 7/21 were refugees provided with political asylum in Britain. Oh yeah, and one was recieving a free apartment at the expense of British taxpayers and welfare payments. UK tax dollars at wok! And he then turned around and attacked the country that provided him with asylum and subsidized his lifestyle. I can think of few more disgusting revelations from the year thus far.
Yet by far the biggest story since the attacks has been focused on checking every minutia of London police policy after the accidental shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. Perhaps someone should lose their job over the incident, and perhaps policy should be reexamined. But there are far more important issues at hand.
But one death allows the media the time to focus on the victim’s family, his life story, name, and all the rest of the personal details that pull the hearstrings. We’ve heard Menezes name everywhere, but how many of you can name even one of the 56 people killed in the attack, or any of the 700 people injured?
It is an unfortunate fact of life that when facing a terrorist threat in the middle of a free society, there may be casualities. We should be concerned about Menezes death, but it is a secondary consideration to addressing the enemy within (see the aforementioned refugees) and making sure that this kind of suicide bombing doesn’t become a regular occurence.
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Comments to this entry
Chirol
August 21, 2005
1:27 pm
Hell Is Other People
August 21, 2005
1:33 pm
They did so, in this case, on the basis of a policy which had been approved,not by elected politicians, but merely by police officers. It is evident that mistakes were made, and it is entirely appropriate that those mistakes, and the identity of those responsible, should be made public as soon as possible, to ensure both the safety of British citizens and public confidence in the police, without which the police cannot hope to counter terrorist activity.
It is also clear that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, has made a succession of serious errors of judgement before and since the killing, not least comments reflecting his opinion that unearthing the truth about De Menezes' death at the hands of the state is somehow a lower priority than investigating the 52 deaths caused by the bombings.
Chief Wiggum
August 21, 2005
4:02 pm
Criticizing Sir Ian for making the investigation of De Menezes' death a lower priority than investigation the 52 deaths caused by the bombings seems disingenuous. It _is_ a lower priority. While the De Menezes death was an unfortunate error, it is likely that there are still people running around loose who would repeat the terrorist bombing attacks. How can it not be a priority to track down those people and neutralize them?
Curzon
August 22, 2005
7:49 am
HIOP, your comment and your blog just prove my point:
No crap -- the London bombings are about 52 times more important than the Meneze killing, add on more than 700 wounded. Your blog, incessently focusing on the death of one man with barely a mention of late of the bombing itself, just proves that Stalin was indeed right -- butbeing that "you don't even believe Al Qaeda exists,":http://brisso99.blogspot.com/2005/07/its-not-going-to-stop.html I'm not even going to bother following this point further.
Hell Is Other People
August 22, 2005
8:42 am
The post of mine to which you refer states my scepticism about the existence of al-Qaeda. What it does not make explicit, and I'm happy to clarify, is that I am sceptical about the existence of al-Qaeda as some sort of highly-organised, global Bond-villain network. The evidence suggests that it exists, rather, as an idea - much more dangerous in my view.
Nor am I suggesting for one moment that the police and security services should not be straining every sinew to prevent and root out the perpetrators of recent or potential attacks.
My "incessant" focus on the de Menezes killing springs not from any knee-jerk anti-police opportunism, but first, from the concern, expressed in my original comment, that unless we understand what happened there is nothing to stop me or anyone else finding themselves on the wrong end of 11 police bullets; second, again expressed in my original comment, that citizens and police depend on each other if we are successfully to counter bombings, and public confidence in the police is a prerequisite for that; and third, that the killing, and the Met's response to it, has shown an alarming succession of errors, intelligence failures and poor judgement about which you ought to be as concerned as anyone else.
But then we are living through this in the UK, and I appreciate the realities of the situation might not fit with spectators' parlour games about quotations from Stalin!
maskull
August 22, 2005
12:12 pm
Frank P
August 23, 2005
11:35 am
While this may be a minor issue against the backdrop of the recent wanton slaughter on London's transport systems, it is important that he is not allowed to hide behind the larger death and injury statistics of those horrors, when the chaps and (chapesses) under his command bungle an operation and butcher an innocent tube traveller, albeit with the best "“ one hopes "“ of intentions. I don't think I have discerned callous disregard of the victims of the bombings in any of those posts. What they seem to be suggesting is that Metropolitan Policemen dealing with these horrors on the ground need a more experienced and less vain and politically correct man at the apex to prevent such terrible mistakes from recurring.
mark safranski
August 23, 2005
10:15 pm
"What it does not make explicit, and I'm happy to clarify, is that I am sceptical about the existence of al-Qaeda as some sort of highly-organised, global Bond-villain network"
That begs the question of what you would consider to be definitive proof.
Hell Is Other People
August 24, 2005
9:32 pm
Curzon
August 25, 2005
2:18 am
Joe
August 25, 2005
3:47 am
You can do all the random checks, background screening, and Gestapo activity you want, but unless you lock down the entire country like North Korea, terrorists will still get through and they will still cause mayhem. Israel, for all of its security measures, is a dangerous place to be as long as terrorists have eyes on it. And the US, for all its security investment, is still not locked down as tightly as Israel, so what kind of chance do we have?
Real security is going to come from without, not from within. It's going to come from overhauling the states that are the sources of terrorism, not from overhauling the states that are the destinations of terrorism. You can't put the US or the UK or any state in a terrorist-free bubble without destroying that state's ability to function and prosper. You CAN cut terrorism to a trickle by going to the source and shaking heads, whether economically, politically, or with big-ass bombs. Iraq, however, is not a model for this; a better model would be India or Northern Ireland, both countries with terror-filled pasts that they're getting over real quick-like by modernizing and opening up, or alternatively Japan/Germany, both Evil countries that became Good in a brief space of time with some bombs, some surrenders, and plenty of investment.
Most people are good, and they only turn bad when they think their badness is somehow good (textbook cases: Germany and Japan). Bin Laden's message wouldn't sell if he didn't have corrupt/insane/ineffectual regimes that let it keep propagating by allowing kids to think their badness is good. Not to say that the answer is to repeat Iraqi Freedom over and over; the answer is to be more creative in our drive to liberalize and develop the Middle East and Africa. (market forces should help in that area once China and India get too expensive for the MNCs, and I reckon that's not too far off) I think Bush is kind of on the right track in this field, but making lots of major screwups in the process (i.e. Iraq, boondoggle number 1).
The point is, we shouldn't be changing to suit them. They should be changing to suit us. Fuck 'em for holding me up at airport security in Myrtle Beach. Fuck 'em for putting the cops on edge and getting that Brazilian kid killed. Our world doesn't need help; their world definitely does.
maskull
August 25, 2005
8:11 am
Note: Germany and Japan were occupied by our military for many years.
Hell Is Other People
August 25, 2005
9:59 am
Incidentally more police powers - to go back to the original topic - depend on proper democratic scrutiny and the greatest posssible public confidence in the police. Which is why the de Menezes case is as important as other aspects of the London attacks.
One thing I find deeply troubling especially on the blogs, is the gung-ho, War On Terror, witch-hunt rhetoric which misses the point and seems prompted by a search for revenge and an old-style, "symmetric" solution (see Joe's comment above).
Ingrid
August 25, 2005
6:07 pm
After the death of Jean Charles de Menezes I found it odd how his family appeared to be so media savvy and political with prepared statements and demands. Apparently, there was to be a protest outside Downing Street - Monday 22nd August at 6pm - called by "Jean Charles de Menezes Family Campaign."
An article in the Times Aug 20 says: "It emerged last night that prominent members of the Justice4Jean campaign are also members of the Stop the War coalition. Brian Coleman, London Assembly deputy leader, said "cronies"Â? of anti-war campaigner George Galloway, the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, were leading the family's campaign."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1742573,00.html
A commenter at A Speakers Corner blog rightly says "the enemy is not the police, it is the Islamic terrorists who created the situation. The police were focused and determined and believed they were saving lives. People should be thanking the officers for their extrodinary valor in a very difficult situation."
http://finn.blogsome.com/2005/07/24/jean-charles-de-menezes-27/
Hell Is Other People
August 25, 2005
10:23 pm
You quote A Speaker's Corner as saying that the police "believed they were saving lives". For the reasons I have laid out above, that is simply not good enough, and the aggressive news management strategy led by Sir Ian Blair over the past month does his officers no favours whatsoever.
Curzon
August 25, 2005
11:25 pm
As for the Menezes protestors, I saw snippet on Japanese TV. Cronies is one way to put it, and perhaps they are. For me, the word "riffraff" comes to mind. Certainly the people protesting are professional protestors, for whom "Bliar" is a profound and deep intellectual political statement and whom the actual cause in question is irrelevant as long as it gives them a self-righteous reason to protest.
What do I mean by that?
Ingrid
August 26, 2005
10:01 am
The bravery and efficiency of everyone involved, not to mention brilliant detective work, got the transport system and London back to work again with hardly a blip in the stock market. For this, and much more not mentioned in this short comment, I believe we ought to be thankful and appreciative. Obviously I did not intend for my comment to be construed as expecting people to be thankful that any person was killed. Like Curzon says, mistakes are mistakes. It's easy for us armchair critics with hindsight to pick over details and analyse at leisure and say that this, that and the other should have been done. None of us work in those sort of circumstances making split second decisions on life, death and national security. They were faced with Britain's most serious terrorist attack, with threats of further atttacks that may be more than the bombs planted in London's transport system. Like Curzon says, mistakes are mistakes. Nobody is perfect. I feel sure the police took what they believed to be the right course of action at the time.
The point of my initial comment was that perhaps the media concentrated on a molehill and ignored the mountain because of professional media savvy advisers looking to pull down Tony Blair over Iraq. It seems they wasted no time in getting behind the Menezes family to score political points and use the family as another string to their bow. I have seen more comments on Menezes, British police and immigration services but very little outrage over British Muslim terrorists targetting defenceless civilians, including Muslims, in London Thanks Curzon for the telling photo, it's clever how you can post images within a comment. You have a great blog.