Boneheads

[chickenfeet]

I wanted to comment on one aspect of the "liquidation" of the young Brazilian in London. The propriety of the police action will, clearly, be debated for some time and there are most certainly questions that need answers. If it was, as seems highly likely, a complete balls up, then we need to consider the wisdom of allowing the use of lethal force by the incompetent, at the very least.

But, the act itself aside, what I wonder, were the police and government thinking when they announced that the lethal force policy had been adopted on the advice of the Israelis? Now, no-one can deny that the Israelis have a lot of experience of suicide bombers but what muslim (or indeed other reasonable person) is going to believe that an Israeli driven policy is going to balance the rights of innocent people who happen to have the wrong skin colour in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I think it's pretty well recognised that the only way militant Islamic terrorism can be defeated is through the co-operation of the majority of peaceful law abiding muslims. I know it's asking a lot to expect plods and pollies to think before they open their mouths but it wouldn't be a bad idea.

Comments

[ceruleanblue3.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

They beat you to it - as of last night at any rate they aren't talking about Israelis anymore, instead they they have learnt from the Sri Lankans (of all people) who insist on this technique to deal with Tamil Tigers doing similar things.

[scarletdemon.livejournal.com]

This whole fiasco just gets worse and worse.

[tanuja.livejournal.com]

Mr Tanuja was listening to a human rights lawyer on Radio 4 yesterday who came out this interesting fact:

During the 70's & 80's at the height of the IRA bombings, on several occassions Parliament discussed and debated whether to allow the police to go to a shoot to kill policy. On each occassion the debate resulted in Parliament voting not to allow a shoot to kill policy. Since July 7th, Charles Clarke and Tony Blair, apparently without any debate or discussion or approval of Parliament, have approved the Met to use a shoot to kill policy.

I completely agree with your final point that co-operation is the key.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

During the 70's & 80's at the height of the IRA bombings, on several occassions Parliament discussed and debated whether to allow the police to go to a shoot to kill policy. On each occassion the debate resulted in Parliament voting not to allow a shoot to kill policy.

A decision that was ignored on a regular basis. Aside from such high profile cases as the Gibraltar murders, I know from talking to people who served in NI that "shoot to kill" was SOP pretty much whenever they thought they could get away with it. It's over 25 years since an infantry NCO gave me a chilling description of how plastic bullets were actually used. Let's just say it involved a shot to the head at close range.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

But that human rights lawyer must know perfectly well that the huge difference between the IRA and the current stuff is that the IRA (to my knowledge anyway) never went in for suicide bombings. Until July 7th, I don't believe there had ever been any suicide bombings at all on UK territory.

The new threat of suicide bombs removes any possible margin of error the police have. IRA suspects might run away, they might even let you arrest them, or they might try to shoot a policeman or two in the process of being arrested or running away, but they weren't that keen to detonate explosives attached to their person.

The army, as chickenfeet2003 points out, may well be a different story, but it's governed by different rules and (so far, fortunately) hasn't been too prominent on the morning commute.