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Aug. 17th, 2005 11:45 amDue to, I can only assume, magic, I can now read comments normally and reply to them. I mean, what the fuck is going on?
Aug. 17th, 2005
This Brazilian walks on to a train
Aug. 17th, 2005 06:34 pmRight. So it turns out that police weren't able to corroborate the surveillance officer's hunch that Jean Charles de Menezes (fig. 1) was Shepherd's Bush terrorette Hussain Osman (fig. 2), because he was having a piss when de Menezes appeared and therefore couldn't video him to check his identity.
Fig. 1 - Jean Charles de Menezes
Fig. 2 - Hussain Osman
Fig. 3 - Stan Collymore,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cornfedpig's mistaken-identity victim of choice
* Police instructions were to stop de Menezes getting to the Underground station at all costs. This, you cannot fail to have noticed, was not done.
* Instead of the suspiciously bulky "winter jacket" he was said to have had, he was in fact wearing a thin denim jacket.
* Rather than vaulting the ticket barrier at Stockwell tube, as police claimed, he picked up a copy of Metro and walked normally through the barrier; walked, in fact, on to the platform and on to the train. He did this because the police tailing him issued no warnings.
* Once on the train, he was pinioned to his seat by an officer who restrained both his arms. It was in this position that he was shot seven times in the head. Apart from any other questions this raises, it makes a mockery of the idea that his upper body was a no-go area for fear of setting off any impact-detonated explosives.
* Curiously, all the CCTV cameras in the station that could have caught any of this on film "were not working" on the day, so "no film exists" (although we now know the one on the train was working).
* The Met Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, spent the hours following the shooting trying desperately to persuade the Home Office and No. 10 to let the Met investigate the incident themselves, rather than allow it to be handled by an independent body. To his credit, Charles Clarke declined Sir Ian's selfless offer.
Under the circumstances, I think we are permitted to raise a quizzical eyebrow.
De Menezes' family are demanding a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death. The very fact that they have to ask is testament to our ruling elite's notion of justice, and indeed to the ever-bruited British "sense of fair play". For all the noise currently being made about this risible snafu (Carry On The Day Of The Jackal?), it's entirely conceivable that there won't be an inquiry at all.
The fact that the Brazilian police have no qualms about gunning down anyone who gets in their way has been raised in some quarters as some kind of debating point here. I suggest that we shouldn't have to resort to comparing our police force to sinister Latin American paramilitaries before we can start to identify its positive aspects, otherwise we're in more trouble than we thought.
Fig. 1 - Jean Charles de Menezes
Fig. 2 - Hussain Osman
Fig. 3 - Stan Collymore,
cornfedpig's mistaken-identity victim of choice* Police instructions were to stop de Menezes getting to the Underground station at all costs. This, you cannot fail to have noticed, was not done.
* Instead of the suspiciously bulky "winter jacket" he was said to have had, he was in fact wearing a thin denim jacket.
* Rather than vaulting the ticket barrier at Stockwell tube, as police claimed, he picked up a copy of Metro and walked normally through the barrier; walked, in fact, on to the platform and on to the train. He did this because the police tailing him issued no warnings.
* Once on the train, he was pinioned to his seat by an officer who restrained both his arms. It was in this position that he was shot seven times in the head. Apart from any other questions this raises, it makes a mockery of the idea that his upper body was a no-go area for fear of setting off any impact-detonated explosives.
* Curiously, all the CCTV cameras in the station that could have caught any of this on film "were not working" on the day, so "no film exists" (although we now know the one on the train was working).
* The Met Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, spent the hours following the shooting trying desperately to persuade the Home Office and No. 10 to let the Met investigate the incident themselves, rather than allow it to be handled by an independent body. To his credit, Charles Clarke declined Sir Ian's selfless offer.
Under the circumstances, I think we are permitted to raise a quizzical eyebrow.
De Menezes' family are demanding a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death. The very fact that they have to ask is testament to our ruling elite's notion of justice, and indeed to the ever-bruited British "sense of fair play". For all the noise currently being made about this risible snafu (Carry On The Day Of The Jackal?), it's entirely conceivable that there won't be an inquiry at all.
The fact that the Brazilian police have no qualms about gunning down anyone who gets in their way has been raised in some quarters as some kind of debating point here. I suggest that we shouldn't have to resort to comparing our police force to sinister Latin American paramilitaries before we can start to identify its positive aspects, otherwise we're in more trouble than we thought.
A guide for the perplexed
Aug. 17th, 2005 11:30 pmGiven its chronic shortage of water, even the small saving gained by depriving Arab villages helps Israel, and water also played its part in the remarkable Israeli offer to give the Gaza Strip back to the Arabs – if anyone could be found to take it. A senior Israeli minister made the suggestion at the end of 1992, after an upsurge of violence by Hamas, the Islamic movement. No Israeli minister, Likud or Labour, has ever suggested returning the West Bank. The difference between the two areas is plain: Gaza is desperately short of water, a liability, while the West Bank provides Israel with water.
John Bulloch & Adel Darwish, Water Wars - Coming Conflicts in the Middle East, 1993