On 23 Jul 2005 01:31:34 -0700 someone who may be
wrote this:-

Speak to them by all means, but it is the support of the comunity they
come from being withdrawn that will beat them,

So far so good, with the caution that stigmatising a whole community
is a good recruiting sergeant.

and effective use of force in conjunction with the dialogue.

I'm not convinced. Use of force in the Northern Ireland context
seemed only to generate more people keen to take on their enemy.
That seems to be the case whether it is Bloody Sunday or Gibraltar
that one is thinking of.

Things only got better, a relative term, when the rogues in
Westminster stopped their childish posturing about not speaking to
terrorists. I use the term childish posturing because the party
politicians concerned were delighted to speak to some terrorists and
even welcome them to the UK, such as the one involved in the murder
of 91 people by exploding a bomb in the King David Hotel in
Jerusalem. It is that sort of thing that causes many people to have
a low opinion of party politicians.

Of course at present we are
being treated to lots of tv coverage of armed officers all over London,
whilst the cameras seem to ignore the vast majority of other officers
nearby armed with nothing more than an extendable baton and a cs gas
canister. Tends to distort perceptions.

I think this may well be the case, though I watch little television
news. Newspapers also tend to pick their pictures with care.

However, if people are to be killed for (amongst other things)
"refus[ing] to obey police instructions", the words of Mr Blair
quoted in http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1670832005
then I think we need to consider two thoughts:

1) the terrorists have won

2) those responsible for training and drawing up procedures have
been watching too many films and need to experience "the real world"
rather more

I find it particularly disturbing to read in
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1669962005 that, "the
Met has been advised by Israeli security officials". These are the
people who appear to think that firing missiles from a helicopter at
a man in a wheelchair who left the same mosque at the same time
every day is a legitimate operation. Whatever one's views of Mr
Yassin's views and activities the photographs in reports like
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Special%20Reports/Shaikh%20Ahmed%20Yassin's%20Assassination.htm
are unlikely to do anything to calm the situation. I imagine the
Israeli operation was a great boost to those organising attacks on
Israel. Are these the people we should be taking advice from?




--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.