The War on Terror

Thursday, August 18, 2005        Today a report was leaked to the British press suggesting the circumstances under which Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazillian worker mistaken for a terrorist and shot eight times (original reports staed five or six times) in the head in the days following the failed London bombings in July, were 'doctored up'.        Seems perhaps he wasn't wearing a padded coat at all and that he never jumped a turn-stile or started running as was reported by police directly following the tragedy.

Sunday, July 24, 2005         I have been against this 'War on Terror' since it's inception.  Not because I didn't think it a good thing to track down, apprehend, and punish ( using any force reasonable and necessary ) lunatics who would harm innocent people.  My problem with this nation's 'War on Terror' was simply this; ; It is not 'OK' to kill and maim innocent people in order to get to guilty ones.        It doesn't matter at all in an ethical sense if the person causing harm to innocents is a moslem extremist like Bin Laden or mighty and powerful leaders like George Bush and Tony Blair.  It is not only Bin Laden who has lost sight of a simple fact -   innocent people have a right to live in peace.   Jean Charles de Menezes is an innocent victim of the 'War on Terror'.  Shot six times in the back of the head and taken out of his life as a result of a misguided 'shoot to kill' policy adopted by the British under the tutaledge of the Isreali military.  ( And we all know what a great job they have done of ending terror. }

My Reaction to the London Bombings

I spent the afternoon of 7/7 building a new bookshelf for my overflow of books.  As I worked I listened attentavely to live reports on my local National Public Radio station, WOUB feed from the scene of the bombings that day in London.  My shock and my horror were were amplified.  Each report was a painful reminder of all I had felt on our own country's tragic day - 9/11.        I also remember wondering, "Was I wrong to think our response to the earlier attack in New York was extra-legal? Were these terrorists exactly as evil and terrible as George Bush had proclaimed they were and, had his administration's doctrine of preemption been justified by these new attacks in London?"

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