The US would be boxed in if the British leave. Can’t be done.

ps. Haven’t they already been asked to leave

Well, never say never. I still can’t get over what happened to this poor boy. Possibly this is because I have a son of almost the same age, and any parent must feel something special.

There is more news coming out. The Guardian have a good piece today:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1535565,00.html

I think the natural and first reaction is to defend those who are trying to defend us. But that doesn’t mean that as time passes questions won’t need to be asked.

I am convinced now that there are sufficient grounds to justify a thorough Inquiry into the whole sequence of ‘incidents’ from July 7, if only to see what we can learn for the future.

On poor Jean Charles de Menezes the following thoughts occur.

1/. What training was given to the people who were conducting the stakeout? Shouldn’t they - being specialists - have been able to recognise a Latin American from a South Asian, or a North or East African, which is what they were apparently looking for? Has any Latin American at any time, anywhere been associated with Al-qaeda terrorism (this is a question, since I may have missed something, but surely there aren’t many cases, if any)?

2/. The decision to let him get on the bus may not have been a decision, he may simply have surprised them, but having risked public life and limb once, shouldn’t they have apprehended him on alighting if there were really strong grounds for susp?cion?

3/ What was the relation between those who identified the ‘target’ and those who ‘executed’. Obviously the second group carry the responsibility, but they can only take decisions based on prior info from the former. That something didn’t work as it should have seems to have been the case. We need to learn from this before more innocent people die.

A piece of conjecture. Was the really suspicious thing he did to jump the barrier? Is it not common for young people in major European cities to do this for no more sinister motive than to avoid paying the fare? Certainly this is socially reprehensible (I wonder if my son, or one of Tony Blair’s sons, ever does it?) but is hardly a capital offence. Yet if he imagined he was being chased by London Transport security police he may have decided to run and see if he could get away on a train. Imagining he was avoiding a trivial fine, he may never have imagined what was to come next, and really the question of whether he understood English or not wouldn’t have been relevant.

I think it is very important that all these kinds of points are investigated - with transparence - for we surely can understand that many UK minorities may now feel insecure simply because of the colour of their skin.

I would like to endorse completely these sentiments John. Looking at the photos I feel so sad. Such a loss is irreplaceable. And another innocent young man has lost his life. Such difficult days.

I think rather than speculating now, we should come back to this when we have the results of the inquiry.

It?s a cock-up all right. I?d like to know why they didn?t shoot him in the legs before he ran into an underground station. Perhaps the station should have been guarded, if his entry there was the trigger for killing him rather than following him. Police training and guidelines seems not to have laid down precisely how to deal with this kind of eventuality, which is lax.

I feel sorry for the officer concerned, but not half as sorry ? and deeply apologetic on behalf of Britain - as I feel for Mr de Menezes? family.

Let’s hope that it won’t happen again, that there’s an analysis of how it could have been avoided, and that it doesn’t inhibit the police from taking appropriate lethal action when it really is unavoidable.

DSW

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has spent more than 1,800 pounds (US$3,130) of taxpayers’ money on makeup and cosmetic artists over the past six years, according to the government.In a written answer to Parliament, the government revealed Blair’s Downing Street office had spent 1,050.22 pounds (US$1,826.66) on cosmetics for the prime minister’s media appearances since 1999. In the past two years, a further 791.20 pounds (US$1,376.14) had been spent on makeup artists.

Asked if the instructions were to shoot to kill if police believed a suspect was a suicide bomber, he said: “Correct. They have to be that.” “It’s still happening out there, there are still officers having to make those calls as we speak … Somebody else could be shot,” Blair added.

“To give license to people to shoot to kill just like that, on the basis of suspicion, is very frightening,” said Azzam Tamimi of the Muslim Association of Britain.

“They had to kill someone to show the whole population they are working and make the country safe,” Alex Pereira, Menezes’ cousin, told BBC Television. “I ask the people to ask the Metropolitan Police and (Prime Minister) Tony Blair and everybody responsible for that: ‘What kind of job are they doing?”‘

All these statements are valid, and I understand in each case why they were made. The great thing about Britain is that they all have been, and publicised together, without the need to judge one over the other.

Britain - the whole - is greater than the sum of its parts. Anyone who wants to understand how a modern democracy needs to function should go read Max Weber: balances and couter-balances. And if this sounds like me getting patritiotic, it isn’t, but this capacity to combine multiple perspectives within one common vision is one of the things about the UK that I really like.

I have to go with you on this one Jack. You need to go to a very perverse version of conspiracy theory to imagine that the British police intentionally shot an unarmed - and innocent - man five times in the head in front of a large crowd of onlookers, just to convince people it was important to invade Iran. This will make strong policing less, not more, easy. So which is it, the highly efficient British secret state machine at work, or a cock-up (in my language a tragic error)?

where are you on British officialdom now? Is the killing of a Brazilian electrician all part of the propaganda effort you hint at above? While this episode hardly shows Britain in a good light, it is about as inconsistent with your previous comments as it possibly could be.

If you think that London has been gripped by mass hysteria I think you should consider how you are being influenced by the media. Why not make a visit and find out what it is like for yourself?

BTW, I don’t think that could be a misspelling, too many differences…

DSW