Acts of Terror
So Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair has decided to launch an investigation into the alleged cocaine abuse of Kate Moss after being swayed by the fear that the pictures of Ms Moss taking cocaine could have a damaging effect on "impressionable young people". So from this we can take the fact that the images of the Metropolitan police shooting an innocent Brazilian man dead on a tube in London is perfectly acceptable and will not make an impression on these "impressionable young people". Says a lot about the state of our society that a model who snorts coke and is seen in a photograph doing so is of far more importance and degrading to society than the shoot to kill policy of the police that lead to a man being chased, caught and then coolly shot in the head 8 times by a policeman whilst it appears being held by a security guard who was trying to protect Jean Charles de Menezes from being murdered.But maybe I should delete my comments for I also read today that the Home Secretary is about to introduce a new bill on his war on terror that includes a section about the glorification of terror in history. The state would lock away for 5 years anyone who "glorifies, exalts or celebrates" a terrorist act committed in the past 20 years, even if the glorification was not meant. So what constitutes an act of terror? Would the Menezes killing constitute as an act against the state, or more to the point would the fact that one stands up against the government or the police in this regards be considered as a crime that is punishable by 5 years in prison, a crime that is only stating the truth.
It seems strange that the bill does not cover any acts of terror that include Ireland. Living in Ireland I am not sure how the indigenous Irish population would view this, one the one hand some would see it as an acknowledgement by the British government that the war staged by the IRA was a legal and just war and on the other they will see it as another colonial act by the Imperialistic British who feel that they still have a hold not just on the 6 counties but also on the whole 32 counties of Ireland. The Loyalists on the other hand will see this as a crime against them and that if the war against the IRA was a legal war then this gives gives backing to the thought that the IRA was not an illegal organisation but a legal entity and not the view held by the Loyalists that the IRA was a totally illegal force who perpetrated nothing but acts of terror and were a terrorist organisation. Surely we have short memories? or is this a case that we are all the same and that the only acts of terror can be committed by people of different skin colours not by people of the same colour for they cannot even use the adage that the new terrorists come from a different country for the bombers in London were born and brought up in England, something some of the old IRA were not who will only consider themselves Irish.
There is a good comment made in The Guardian today by Simon Jenkins that is well worth the trouble to read. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1576613,00.html
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