Thursday, July 28, 2005

Sideshow Alley

Already, PC thinking in the media is beginning to dull the anger over the London terrorist attacks as people become distracted by the Jean Charles de Menezes sideshow.

The Gold Coast Bulletin frontpaged "Executed for wearing an overcoat" in it's usual hysterical style. The ABC predictably gives great play to Menezes parents desire to sue the police. Maybe they should sue Al Qaida instead, I hear they have more money.

But even the normally reliable Mark Steyn runs off track over 'killer cops'.

"...if summary extrajudicial execution was so urgent, why did the surveillance team let him take a bus ride before eventually cornering him in the Tube?"

It was a surveillance operation, Mark. Sometimes you follow someone for quite a while before something they do turns the situation into an emergency.

Thankfully Steyn gives the real war a gee-along at the end:

"...a narrow, reactive law-enforcement approach to terrorism will always penalise the populace more than the terrorists. You win this war militarily (in the badlands of Pakistan and elsewhere) and culturally (which is a much tougher battle)."

Unfortunately, all this verbiage over a mistake - a dreadful mistake to be sure but still a mistake - distracts us from the real issue.

Focus, people, focus. It's about Islamic terrorism.

-- Nick

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