On 12/05/06, Prasad J <prasad59(a)gmail.com> wrote: You may be unaware of this detail, but ~3% of the population of the UK is Muslim. If the Metropolitan Police were indeed randomly executing people on the streets purely for being Muslim, then London would be a good bit emptier. This case is somewhat more complex than you suggest. The day before, London was attacked, two weeks after major bombings. The suicide attacks failed; four people were known to be on the run from police, and there were serious worries that they might attack again. The places where the attempted attacks took place were combed for evidence; based on something which was found with an address on, a block of flats was staked out. The next morning, Mr Menezes came out of the flats, and was quietly followed by a policeman, while someone tried to identify him from photographs. At this point, we had the fuckup; someone mistakenly identified him as the suspect. It appears that no-one was actually able to compare him to photographs of the suspect, and was going on verbal descriptions; this part is unclear, because the security services refuse to say anything. But about the time he entered the station, the people on the scene had been told by their control room that he was the man they were after. They followed him onto the train, there was some shouting, he apparently began moving towards him and they decided he was a threat. And then... Yes, he was shot because he was mistaken for a Muslim sucide bomber. But he was not shot because the police saw him and thought "hey, a Muslim, open season!". He was not shot because of some grand policy that all Muslims were suicide bombers. He was shot because the men in front of him had been *told* that he was a probable suicide bomber; they were jumpy, expecting him to try and do something. Then he, tragically, didn't know what was going on and acted in a way that caused them to jump too far. It was a fuckup; it wasn't helped by the underlying racism the Met has failed to shake off, no doubt*, but it's still a fuckup at heart and it's not, generally speaking, evidence for anything more than that. *The Met is the only organisation I know of to dismiss someone for sending racist hatemail... in a case where he himself was the recipient. (He won a court appeal) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On May 12, 2006, at 11:08 AM, Prasad J wrote: That's the Army there, not the Marines. The Nazis attempted to exterminate or enslave everyone of non-German descent living in Europe. It's not even the same thing and it makes you look like a hyperbolic, irrational fanatic for saying so. I don't support the Administration's policies, but the best way to oppose the administration is by making rational arguments against their policies--not by making bad comparisons to the Nazis. Yes, because all the Nazis did was put the Jews into sensory deprivation and ask them questions to try and prevent terrorist attacks. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch