Saturday, July 23, 2005

The murder of an Asian man

A lot of people have noted the execution of an Asian man in London as recounted by witness Mark Whitby to the BBC (my emphasis in bold):

"'I saw an Asian guy. He ran on to the train, he was hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them was wielding a black handgun.

'He half tripped... they pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him," he told BBC News 24.

'As [the suspect] got onto the train I looked at his face, he looked sort of left and right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, a cornered fox.

'He looked absolutely petrified and then he sort of tripped, but they were hotly pursuing him, [they] couldn't have been any more than two or three feet behind him at this time and he half tripped and was half pushed to the floor and the policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand.

'He held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him."

Pursued by a group of men without uniforms, at least one of who has a gun, who wouldn't run? The authorities will claim they had to shoot him as they were afraid he was going to set off a bomb, but since they had him under surveillance, why did they let someone they suspected of carrying a bomb onto a crowded subway train? Did they want him to set off a bomb? It is also highly unlikely that the police would put themselves in that much risk by getting close to him if they really thought he had a bomb he could trigger (watch for them to be lauded as 'heroes').

It is important in creating this kind of strategy of tension to have all the gory details immediately shown to the target community. This will create the anger which will either lead to retaliation or to a plausible claim that retaliation has occurred once the next attack takes place. Thus the violence is rapidly ratcheted up. People like Rudy and Bibi will be around to offer expertise on how to deal with the problem, expertise which can be sold for a lot of money, and which will only make the problem worse.

It appears that the Israeli technical advice involved in Operation Kratos is already in full force, and it is even possible that this whole incident, with so many duds, was just a training exercise for the British police. Asking Israel for advice on how to deal with this problem is particularly funny. I understand why Israel does what it does: it wants to create terrorism so it can use its state terrorism in 'self defense' to eventually drive the Palestinians off the Occupied Territories. But why would the British want to go down this sorry road? With each incident the problem is made worse, and it will take years and years to undo the damage. The domestic security measures taken to attempt to deal with the insecurity, up to an including murdering people who wear coats too heavy for the weather, make life worse for everybody (and the British problems just helped the Americans make the Patriot Act a permanent affront to American civil liberties). Wouldn't it be easier to get rid of Tony, pull out of Iraq, take some steps to alleviate the plight of the Palestinians, and start the process of mending bridges with the Muslim community? Is fighting the 'war on terror' so much fun that it is worth living in fear for the rest of your life?