A blow against Guantanamo

A bit of good news in the "global war on terror"

The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Bush administration does not have the authority to try terrorism suspects by military tribunal.

Good news, that is, for democracy, the rule of law, due process, human rights, and all those sorts of things we've come to expect from free societies. All of those things the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan believe they're fighting for.

If you have evidence against them, charge them in either a criminal court or a court martial, so that the defendants can know and challenge the evidence against them and defend themselves properly.

How can Bush and co. be afraid of that, if these really are "cold blooded killers"? Because the evidence against most of them is flimsy to non-existent, and much of what there is was "confessed" under duress -- we won't say the 't' word.

Maybe now they will close Guantanamo. It is a stain on the honour of America. It's a shameful thing that it took the US Supreme Court to force the issue, but at least it shows the system works, eventually.

Bullies

The civilized world has long believed that collective punishment is wrong.

Spinning the cock-ups better

One way to try and avoid recriminations when you screw something up is: Declare repeatedly that you did the right thing, and lecture everyone that you just need to help them understand you better. This is called spinning (see George Bush and Tony Blair on Iraq). Today, the politicians and police declare that they did everything correctly, and will continue to do things the same way, but that they need better P.R. in the future

The arrests in Forest Gate came after a tip from a credible source, the Metropolitan Police Authority was told.

Maybe not so credible? Since the source was apparently wrong and the police raided, shot, and inappropriately detained an innocent man?

Sir Ian defended the decision to raid the property but said police "did not find what we were looking for and it seems we were wrong". He added: "There will be other raids but the lesson of Forest Gate is that we have to find new methods of engaging with the Muslim community in particular to reassure them of the necessity and appropriateness of police actions."

So, even when the police are wrong and harm innocent people, then focus on damage control instead of justice, what's needed isn't more careful vetting of intelligence, more surveillance of suspects before raids, more evidence, more accountability, and better policing generally. What's needed is "engagement with the community". Better P.R.! Carry on boys, you're doing a heckuva job so far.

Helmet logic

Unfortunately, an American football player wrecked his perfectly good Suzuki Hayabusa last week (his was newer than mine, and black, and customized). He also smashed up his face because he wasn't wearing a helmet. Today CNN says:

The debate over motorcycle helmet safety resurfaced last week when Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, an advocate of helmet-free riding, broke his jaw, nose and several teeth in an accident. He underwent seven hours of surgery.

I guess Ben learned his lesson. I'm glad he survived. Driving a 200 Mph rocket is a lot of fun, but it's a lot more fun if you don't crack your head open. Accidents happen, of course, and I've had a couple of little crackups myself. On one occasion a taxi changed lanes behind me at Hyde Park Corner and clipped my back tyre, sending me out of control. My (helmeted) head made contact with the road, so unfortunately I'm having to claim £200 for a new helmet (among other things) from the taxi driver's insurance company -- but that's better than the cost of brain injury rehabilitation, don't you think? The article continues:

Physicians and insurance companies say helmets are crucial safety gear. But Merritt Island motorcyclist and helmet law opponent Dave Carroll said the helmet law debate is misguided. "What causes most of the crashes is cars," he said. "Usually, it's the car driver turning left at an intersection and causing an accident because they didn't see us coming."

Well that's good logic, Dave. Cars cause accidents therefore we shouldn't have to wear helmets. Isn't that a bit like saying "cars should avoid hitting pedestrians, therefore pedestrians shouldn't have to look both ways before crossing the road"? We don't cause most accidents therefore we shouldn't have to protect ourselves? Do you think that by pointing this out, you're going to change the attentiveness of car drivers? Car drivers aren't getting any better Dave, they're paying less and less attention to the road nowadays because they're talking on the phone, playing with electronic gadgets, and (EEK!) watching television.

If you ride a lot, at some point you'll come off your bike -- maybe it'll be your fault, maybe it won't. The question is whether you want to walk away from it. Dave, you are a tool.

Cock-up: Blair's behind it 101%

Don't inhibit police, Blair says. Because obviously, they're good at this sort of thing.

Tony Blair has told anti-terror police not to be "inhibited" in the wake of controversy over the Forest Gate raid. Mr Blair told MPs he fully endorsed the apology given by Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman for the "hurt" caused in the raid. But he said Mr Hayman's team were doing a superb job and he stood "101%" behind them when they acted on intelligence.

By the way, the apology was phrased as follows:

Mr Hayman said: "I am aware that in mounting this operation we have caused disruption and inconvenience to many residents in Newham and more importantly those that reside at 46 and 48 Lansdowne Road. I apologise for the hurt that we may have caused."

"Hurt we may have caused"? "Disruption and inconvenience"? They shot an innocent man for crying out loud. I've heard that getting shot definitely hurts. Never mind the psychological trauma of having your house stormed by 250 armed, masked policemen in the middle of the night. I'm inconvenienced when my train is late; Do you think this goes a little bit beyond disruption and inconvenience?

Mr. Kahar, the innocent brother who was shot in the botched raid, responded:

Is he 101 per cent behind the bullet which went into my chest? I am the same age as his son. I am as innocent as his son.

Well said, Mr. Kahar. I've never been a victim of overzealous British policing the way you have, or the way David Mery has, but I'm with you 101%. I hope you get all the apology you wish for, and plenty of compensation besides. Sue them blind if you have to, we the taxpayers owe you a lot for the bungling of Blair's anti-terrorism police. Thank goodness they didn't shoot you seven times in the head like Jean-Charles.

By my count, in this armed anti-terrorism campaign, it's shot terrorists: 0, shot innocents: 2. Maybe they should start asking questions first and shooting later.

Cock-up: Resignation calls, politicians involved...

Newspapers are calling (again) for Ian Blair, the Met police chief, to resign:

Senior policing and political figures, including the prime minister, have defended police chief Sir Ian Blair amid growing calls for his resignation.

And politicians including Tony Blair and Red Ken are hopping to his defense:

Tony Blair's spokesman said: "The prime minister continues to give his full support to Ian Blair - full stop."

It's a little scary, even to me, how much of this I predicted (all of it, by my reckoning). However I have to confess that I'm not a clairvoyant; This is just how things happen in Britain. Needless to say I absolutely do not apologize for my cynicism:

• The police are incompetent nincompoops with too many powers.
• The police are a political tool.
• The politicians are incompetent, corrupt nincompoops with wayyy too much power.
• The politicians think we're all fools, but they keep getting away with this stuff so maybe they're right.

Act of war

Apparently, according to the US military, killing yourself can be an "act of war":

The suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amount to acts of war, the US military says. The camp commander said the two Saudis and a Yemeni were "committed" and had killed themselves in "an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us".

A more ridiculous thing I have not heard all day (mind you, I've been out in the garden washing the motorcycle). According to this theory, the inmates did this to make the US look bad, and therefore it was an attack. I'm surprised he stopped short of calling it a terrorist attack.

I have another theory that might be worth exploring: perhaps they killed themselves out of despair at being imprisoned without due process for years on end, possibly tortured, and with no real prospect of a resolution in the near future?

Perhaps it's not these inmates who are making the US look bad? Perhaps Guantanamo Bay makes the US look bad? Perhaps the US has a knack for making itself look bad nowadays? What if maybe it's not merely a case of "looking bad"?

Cock-up: Recriminations begin

The fallout has begun as it becomes clear the Met police focused their big showy terrorism bust on two innocent men (and shooting one of them during the arrest).

"The men, who had been held under the Terrorism Act 2000 and questioned on suspicion of terrorism involvement, were released shortly before 2030 BST on Friday. Through the week outcry at the arrest of the men developed into a protest about the tactics and the way information was leaked out which may have been misleading. ...Of particular concern, he said was "how we find ourselves with one of the brothers shot and quite a lot of the slander, quite honestly, which has been out in the press""

And the police say that the investigation continues -- that they're still looking for the chemical weapon -- implying that the men aren't really innocent. That's unfair too. Just apologize.

Cock-up confirmed

See my previous predictions. Step 1 in cock-up recovery: release the innocent suspects late on a Friday to minimize news coverage.

"Two men arrested after a raid on a house in east London have been released without charge, Scotland Yard said."

If these innocent men spent more time in jail than necessary, to try to minimize embarrassment to politicians, the politicians should be the ones in jail. But of course that's never going to happen.

Anatomy of a cock-up

So this week 250 Met policemen stormed a house in north London in a massive counter-terrorism operation (you probably saw a headline about it somewhere). One of the two brothers arrested was shot, non-fatally, in the shoulder. Various other people in the adjoining house were also arrested and then released.

I, in my innate cynicism, am convinced we are in the midst of seeing a "cock-up recovery".

The first sign of trouble, for me, was the more-or-less immediate concession that they hadn't found the chemical weapon they were looking for (yet). Nor any weapons, they said.

The second sign of trouble was the wishy-washy suggestion I saw on the television news, from "police sources" that one of the brothers might have shot the other. I thought they hadn't found any weapons!? It occurred to me that the Met police were feeling a bit sheepish about having shot this fellow. (This proposition has quietly disappeared from the news). The unsavoury George Galloway, in reference to this incident, characterized it thusly: "People are shot down by the police and then they're slandered by the police afterwards in an attempt to confuse people about the blunders that have been made."

The third sign of trouble was the fact that the police kept searching and searching and (interrogating and interrogating), yet failed to announce a big terror-fighting breakthrough. At this point, I started to wonder whether there was something going on here.

The fourth sign was politicians (ahem, Tony Blair) and Scotland Yard spokesmen leaping to the -- preemptive -- defense of the police, saying that the raid was "absolutely necessary", and that "we had no choice" [based on the intelligence]. This should immediately cause any skeptic to question whether the raid was absolutely necessary, and whether they really had no choice. At this point, I became pretty sure there was something going on here.

"To do otherwise we would have been failing in our duty to make London safer and protect all Londoners."

Quite.

The fifth sign was the application to extend the detention of the suspects. Initially the police had been granted permission to hold the suspects until Wednesday for interrogation. The subsequent request to extend the detention was for another week, until next Wednesday, or failing that until this Friday. At this point I became convinced that there's something going on here.

(I've seen no word on the BBC today about the outcome of the request. Hmm.)

I anticipate and predict the following:

• That the men are innocent. That the arrest was a mistake.
• That the police know there's going to be fallout, and that they know they will be embarrassed.
• That the police only want to extend the detention time so that they can postpone the embarrassment (and distance it from the big arrest headlines, so that it's not so much in the public consciousness).
• That when the men are released, it will happen late on a Friday if possible (see legal application, above), because that's politically the best time to announce bad news (fewer people are paying attention).
• That Tony Blair has leapt to the defense of the Met police because there are going to be more calls for the resignation of police commissioner Ian Blair (no relation).

Ian Blair has been a dead man walking for a long time. He is a buffoon, and he's been screwing things up politically for a long time. For some reason Tony Blair doesn't want him to resign in disgrace.

When, in the wake of this splashy (botched?) terror bust, Andy Hayman, Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner is saying, "We must all pull together. This is not the time for conflict and anger", that suggests we're about to hear a big mea culpa following "the most significant anti-terror operation this year".

If these suspects are innocent, and have their detentions extended -- particularly so that their release comes on a Friday afternoon -- then they have been deliberately deprived of their liberty by people who would knowingly stoop to such things to protect their careers (anyone say politicians?). I don't know if that's actually a crime in Britain -- probably not -- but it damn well should be.

All of this remains to be seen; this is just the way it looks right now. Maybe there'll be more to write tomorrow. Maybe the police will announce a big terror breakthrough. Maybe the suspects will be charged with "public nuisance" (a.k.a. annoying the police) or some other misdemeanor, just to imply that they're not really innocent victims. Maybe they'll be released tomorrow afternoon, shortly after we've all left work and headed for the pub to watch the World Cup and start our weekends. That last possibility sounds like a good bet.

I'll apologize for my cynicism if my predictions turn out to be wrong.