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Aug. 11th, 2006 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrphI'm feeling very cynical today.
I'd like to think that our security forces have done their work well in the last couple of days, stopping a serious plot that could have caused hundreds of deaths.
I look forward to seeing some of these people convicted and sentenced to long jail terms. Assuming that they're guilty, of course.
The catch is that we really don't have the best track record on this sort of thing. Most recently we've had the Forest Gate "cyanide bomb" fiasco.
We've had tanks at Heathrow. Nobody seems quite sure how this would have helped to stop plain-clothes bombers, but it made for some good headlines at the time.
We've had that very unfortunate incident with Jean Charles de Menezes, mistakenly shot dead.
We've also had the ricin poisoning plot - which did have a man who was genuinely intending to commit acts of terror, but didn't seem to have a terrorist conspiracy (or any ricin...)
Not the best record, really. It doesn't inspire confidence.
As for the political side of things, I'd just like to remind people that this government famously described 9/11 as "a good day to bury bad news".
Even if the security forces did their job perfectly yesterday - and I'd like to believe that they did - then someone behind a desk will be working out how to turn this to their political advantage, to hide bad news or silence opposition.
I'd like to think that our security forces have done their work well in the last couple of days, stopping a serious plot that could have caused hundreds of deaths.
I look forward to seeing some of these people convicted and sentenced to long jail terms. Assuming that they're guilty, of course.
The catch is that we really don't have the best track record on this sort of thing. Most recently we've had the Forest Gate "cyanide bomb" fiasco.
We've had tanks at Heathrow. Nobody seems quite sure how this would have helped to stop plain-clothes bombers, but it made for some good headlines at the time.
We've had that very unfortunate incident with Jean Charles de Menezes, mistakenly shot dead.
We've also had the ricin poisoning plot - which did have a man who was genuinely intending to commit acts of terror, but didn't seem to have a terrorist conspiracy (or any ricin...)
Not the best record, really. It doesn't inspire confidence.
As for the political side of things, I'd just like to remind people that this government famously described 9/11 as "a good day to bury bad news".
Even if the security forces did their job perfectly yesterday - and I'd like to believe that they did - then someone behind a desk will be working out how to turn this to their political advantage, to hide bad news or silence opposition.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 10:35 am (UTC)My guess is that the raid and the plot were probably genuine - but that a decision was taken to try to maximise the publicity for it and increase the public's sense of threat by means of a very carefully choreographed series of announcements, press conferences etc. I don't know whether it was necessary on security grounds to raise the level to 'critical' or to impose all the restrictions on airports. Maybe it was, but I'll never know because like you I just don't know whether I can trust anything they say.