"I hope and I believe that the attacks on London yesterday will be remembered not for how much they changed Londoners and the world but for how much they didn’t." – Jim Gleeson
"We’ll have a few beers, make as many sick jokes about it in pubs up and down the land as we can, and get on with our lives as normal. Other than causing the grief of too many innocent people, these cunts will have achieved precisely fuck all. We shall not be moved." – Nosemonkey (here are some sick jokes, of varying quality)
"An open letter to the terrorist cunts who tried to kill me today: Fuck you. You missed me. Better luck next time." – Non-trivial Andrew
"What the fuck do you think you’re doing? This is London. We’ve dealt with your sort before. You don’t try and pull this on us" – London News Review.
"If a bloke came at you with a knife, you’d fight him, not the guy down the road that he just asked for directions." – Munky.
"A friend of mine visits a strip pub, once a week, down by Grays Inn Road. Despite the bombs, he went along this afternoon, and was the only guy with four girls. But, he told me, he felt he had to do it – ‘otherwise the terrorists would have won’." – Sean Thomas
"I amuse[d] myself by inventing emergency train actions for all other possible colour codes" – Green Fairy
"Who’d have thought the French would take the Olympics so seriously? And if there’s one good thing about all this, at least 7-7 is a date the Americans can get the right way round." – Dave Weeden
"We should take a moment to pay tribute to the Tube… the Tube is a fundamental part of the fabric and personality of London itself." – Atrios
And you should read Ken’s full speech. I’m proud to have him representing my city.
Oh yeah, and to all you idiots suggesting we’ll cravenly give into terrorism, we won against the fucking IRA. They’ve stopped bombing, and Northern Ireland is still British. That’s a result. No, we didn’t murder every Catholic in Ireland: that doesn’t stop us from having won. Cretins.
While I’m enumerating idiots, SIAW are the most appalling bunch of sanctimonious pricks ever to exist. This isn’t news, and is only tangentially related to the bombing. Fuck them. Although R&B singer Omarion is marginally worse: "Omarion… would like his fans to pray that he has a safe trip and a safe return home". Damn, I hate ‘modern R&B’ and the witless posing arseholes who perform it. Oh, and fuck Fox News, even more than usual.
Digressing from the bombings, but staying on right-wing horrendousness, I hope everyone who supports this egregious and sick piece of legislation gets put to death by mistake. And then fucked by necrophiliacs.
Oh yeah, and to all you idiots suggesting we’ll cravenly give into terrorism, we won against the fucking IRA. They’ve stopped bombing, and Northern Ireland is still British. That’s a result. No, we didn’t murder every Catholic in Ireland: that doesn’t stop us from having won.
Can you explain the steps we took to get to this win against the IRA? I ask because I think the very things that forced Sinn Fein/IRA filth into a peace process are the things people like you would wail and scream at if applied to Al Qaeda types. There’s little point in fighting a war on terror if the British Army will be sued every time it kills the enemy. Unfortunately, that has eventually been the way far too often in Northern Ireland. Some of our most successful operations – like the time the SAS managed to kill eight IRA terrorists in one night in the middle of their bombing efforts, and the time we shot dead three IRA terrorists planning another attack in Gibraltar – have been precisely the ones that have been condemned as ‘illegal’ by sinister human rights courts which demand compensation for the families of the terrorists.
"the time we shot dead three IRA terrorists planning another attack in Gibraltar"
I thought they were walking, unarmed, down the street?
Where were the plans?
It’s no use saying that they were known IRA members as an excuse – in the 80s the British authorities knew the identity of about 70% of IRA members, but deemed it politically expedient not to shoot them in the street.
Possibly one of the major factors in ending (more or less) the NI conflict was the end of the Cold War and the consequent disappearance of any strategic value that NI had for the British government. Witness John Major’s public comment that Britain had no "selfish strategic interest" in NI any longer. The IRA would not in the long run have defeated the British, but nor would the British in the long run have defeated the IRA. I think both sides knew this perfectly well.
Although I support the right of the state to defend its interests, I think this must be done within the law. Hence, assassinations are to be deplored, at least in my view. When the SAS kills terrorists, it is easy to know who to sue. When the IRA kills innocent civilians, it is not. Therefore, it is more likely that states will be sued for assassinating terrorists than terrorists will for murdering innocents.
It’s true they were unarmed at the time, but the plans for bombing were at an advanced stage. And the idea that the British Army needs to find ‘excuses’ for killing known terrorists is exactly the mentality I am talking about. What is the point of having armed forces if they are going to be treated like criminals when they successfully kill the enemy? I don’t know John B’s views on Ulster, but if he wants to take pride in Britain’s weakening of the IRA, he has to realise that it involved spilling a lot of Sinn Fein/IRA blood, and so will an equivalent weakening of Al Qaeda.
Although I support the right of the state to defend its interests, I think this must be done within the law. Hence, assassinations are to be deplored, at least in my view.
Is there a law against assassinating terrorist leaders? If there is, then simply changing it would deal with your objections. Israel, after all, was able to bump off Rantisi within the law.
When the SAS kills terrorists, it is easy to know who to sue. When the IRA kills innocent civilians, it is not. Therefore, it is more likely that states will be sued for assassinating terrorists than terrorists will for murdering innocents.
Again, isn’t this simply a legal absurdity – not a normative guide to policy that any decent person could condone? For the legitimate armed forces of a democratic nation to kill terrorist criminals is a good thing. For terrorist criminals to kill innocent civilians is a bad thing.
"Is there a law against assassinating terrorist leaders?"
Yes. It’s the same law that precludes the killing of anyone who is not presenting you with a threat that you might reasonably believe to be mortal.
And that’s "presenting" in the sense of "present", i.e. now.
Whether Israel has such a law, I don’t know, I’m afraid, but I believe that England and Wales does.
"precludes the killing"/"precludes the deliberate killing"
sorry.
Is there a law against assassinating terrorist leaders?
Yes, it’s called murder. You may have heard the term.
And changing the law would not end my objections. I believe in the concept of the rule of law, which in this context means the state obeys the same law as the people.
For the legitimate armed forces of a democratic nation to kill terrorist criminals is a good thing
If you add ", provided the killing is done in a legally prescribed manner after conviction in a fair and equitable trial" then I might agree.
Are you a complete pacifist, Euan? Do you believe it is ever right for an army to kill the enemy? Because unless you authorise the state no right to lethal force beyond what you authorise the individual, your objections fall apart.
Do you believe it is ever right for an army to kill the enemy?
Yes. However, there is a difference between on the one hand killing the enemy in a defined and lawful war, and on the other assassinating people on the street because you think they might be plotting against you.
Just wars and immediate self defense. Otherwise (yes, including capital punishment) it’s murder and therefore a bad thing.
Now, ifthe terrorists would just go and get themselves a state so we can declare war….ah, yes, I see the problems with that one.
If you are at war with a state, you do not need proof to kill the soldiers of that state. The condition of war is sufficient.
However, if you are fighting a terrorist enemy, the major difficulty lies in knowing who the enemy actually is. You can adopt the knee jerk deport-the-wogs approach and say every Moslem is the enemy. This does nothing other than to ensure that every Moslem WILL become your enemy, even if they weren’t to start with. America seems unable to figure this one out, sadly.
If you think that Suspect A is plotting against you, then you can observe him and collect evidence (or arrest him immediately if he’s about to do something). When you have enough evidence, you arrest and charge him. If the court convicts, fine. If not, you have to accept it.
You cannot, however, go around assassinating people as a convenient shortcut. If you don’t have the evidence to convict him, how can you be sure he’s actually a threat? If your evidence is from "secret" sources and you don’t want to reveal it in court, how do you know how reliable that evidence is? You can’t just lock him up without trial, charge or evidence, because this flouts the rule of law and achieves exactly what the terrorist wants – the erosion of our liberties.
It is not enough to imprison or assassinate on the word of a state official. If you think that’s ok, ask yourself how YOU would feel if YOUR son/brother/husband/father/whatever was locked up on evidence neither of you were able to see, with no charge being brought and with no idea when (or if) he was going to be set free. Or even worse, shot. How WOULD you feel? But surely, it’s ok because the state says so, eh?
Think harder.
Gosh, that’s all very intellectual. What about the black humour, eh? I could use some of that this morning. The Canucks around here are either indifferent or intrusively sympathetic & I’m not sure which reaction is worse. I hate these nice bastards ;-).
Amusingly, CBC did a bunch of interviews yesterday to see if Canadians were worried about being on the supposed AQ ‘list’ & discovered nobody’s concerned. Compared to the UK, there’s something very odd about being in a country too uninteresting for people to bother attacking it.
It won’t be any surprise to you that we think much the same of you, dear. But at least we don’t steal lines from other people’s blogs and pass them off as our own, as you have with one of ours. All hail John B: ignorant, smug, as sanctimonious as Chris Bertram and dsquared (which is record-breakingly sanctimonious), wildly and entertainingly irrational, and a sad little plagiarist too.
A bit of graceless whining about what is obviously an ironic-aggressive tribute, padded out with accusations of ‘sanctimony’ – suggesting that irony and sense have long since departed from the repertoire of SIAW.
Cue witless jibe.
Note also the ludicrous committee-speak ‘we’. Not at all cowardly, that.
It’s also amusing how much the smallest jibes upset them. If a bear made a sound in a wood would anyone hear it? Yes, if it was a criticism of siaw, when they’d be overreacting within minutes.
"The bear: your woods-based excretion is about the most sanctimonious, bourgeois thing we’ve heard all day. Like the rest of the Islamist fellow-travellers of the pseudo-left, you can’t even be bothered to dispense with your waste in the appropriate receptacle. You’re outpourings are even duller than those of ‘dsquared’, with whom we are certainly not obsessed."
"The incorrect use of ‘you’re’ in our final sentence was clearly the work of kulaks. Arrest them!"