Are you all right, mate ?
Following on from the first wave of London bombings three weeks ago we have seen the second wave of attacks which mercifully failed and have now been followed by the arrest of all four suspected bombers, and the terrible accidental shooting of an innocent man who was mistaken for a suicide bomber.
In the past few days I have signed a book of remembrance commemorating those who died on 7/7 and travelled in London on a
Thursday - to see groups of two or three policemen, often carrying
machine guns, on what seemed like every street corner.
The leader of the investigation into the shooting has criticised the
Home office for releasing partial information about the victim and
suggested that nobody should rush to judgement until the investigation has established all the facts. That is good advice so I shall make no assumption about how the incident happened. But regardless of how they came to make the mistake, the primary moral responsibility for this tragic error does not lie with the police officers who pulled the trigger. It lies with those who planned, supported and carried out the terrorist attacks on 7/7 and 21/7, and who were deliberately trying to create the climate of fear and confusion in which such deadly mistakes are possible.
As even civil rights organisations have agreed, the police are in an
impossible position: if they either fail to stop a real suicide bomber or use lethal force against someone who turns out not to be one, innocent life will be lost. There is no possible set of rules we could ask the police to work by which does not have the potential for one or both of these outcomes. What we can and must do is try to find the balance which minimises the risk to innocent people.
One other thought about the unsuccessful bomb attacks on 21st July. In the immediate aftermath of one of the tube attacks, a passenger who did not immediately realised what had happened saw a terrorist who had just attempted to explode his bomb lying on the floor and looking dazed. He leaned over and asked "Are you all right, mate?"
It is not normally healthy to gloat over someone else's discomfort, but I think we can be forgiven for taking some satisfaction in what that must have felt like for the terrorist. Just consider, he had psyched himself up to die, activated his bomb and presumably expected to find himself in Paradise surrounded by houris. (Though as Islam forbids both suicide and the killing of innocent people, most Muslims would doubt that as strongly as the rest of us.)
Instead he found himself on the floor, with one of the people he had just tried to murder asking him "Are you all right mate ?"
That experience must have been so humiliating that anyone with an atom of human decency remaining in him might have been forced to
reconsider what on earth he thought he was doing. That may be hoping for too much, but if the police have the right people he will have plenty of time for contemplation.
In the past few days I have signed a book of remembrance commemorating those who died on 7/7 and travelled in London on a
Thursday - to see groups of two or three policemen, often carrying
machine guns, on what seemed like every street corner.
The leader of the investigation into the shooting has criticised the
Home office for releasing partial information about the victim and
suggested that nobody should rush to judgement until the investigation has established all the facts. That is good advice so I shall make no assumption about how the incident happened. But regardless of how they came to make the mistake, the primary moral responsibility for this tragic error does not lie with the police officers who pulled the trigger. It lies with those who planned, supported and carried out the terrorist attacks on 7/7 and 21/7, and who were deliberately trying to create the climate of fear and confusion in which such deadly mistakes are possible.
As even civil rights organisations have agreed, the police are in an
impossible position: if they either fail to stop a real suicide bomber or use lethal force against someone who turns out not to be one, innocent life will be lost. There is no possible set of rules we could ask the police to work by which does not have the potential for one or both of these outcomes. What we can and must do is try to find the balance which minimises the risk to innocent people.
One other thought about the unsuccessful bomb attacks on 21st July. In the immediate aftermath of one of the tube attacks, a passenger who did not immediately realised what had happened saw a terrorist who had just attempted to explode his bomb lying on the floor and looking dazed. He leaned over and asked "Are you all right, mate?"
It is not normally healthy to gloat over someone else's discomfort, but I think we can be forgiven for taking some satisfaction in what that must have felt like for the terrorist. Just consider, he had psyched himself up to die, activated his bomb and presumably expected to find himself in Paradise surrounded by houris. (Though as Islam forbids both suicide and the killing of innocent people, most Muslims would doubt that as strongly as the rest of us.)
Instead he found himself on the floor, with one of the people he had just tried to murder asking him "Are you all right mate ?"
That experience must have been so humiliating that anyone with an atom of human decency remaining in him might have been forced to
reconsider what on earth he thought he was doing. That may be hoping for too much, but if the police have the right people he will have plenty of time for contemplation.
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