Back of the Envelope

Most conservatives have defended the London police for the accidental shooting death of a Brazilian man. The situation is described in the news:

Menezes was killed in a London subway station as police investigated a wave of botched bombings the day before and the deadly transit bombings of July 7.

Witnesses said Menezes was wearing a heavy, padded coat when plainclothes police chased him into a subway car, pinned him to the ground and shot him dead.

While Menezes' relatives said he was working legally in Britain and had no reason to fear police, the British Broadcasting Corp. said Menezes' visa had expired, suggesting a reason for why he ran.

It's pretty easy to see both sides of the story, actually. From the police perspective, they had been monitoring the house, the man was dressed in suspiciously bulky clothing, and he refused to stop when ordered. But the Brazilian was accosted by plain clothes policemen, and depending on his grasp of English language, he may not have understood who they were or what they wanted, which is the point that Mark Steyn makes in his column:

With that in mind, we turn to Jean Charles de Menezes, the supposed "suicide bomber" who turned out to be a Brazilian electrician on his way to work. Unfortunately, by the time the Metropolitan Police figured that out, they'd put five bullets in his head. We're told we shouldn't second-guess split-second decisions that have to be made under great stress by those on the scene, which would be a more persuasive argument if the British constabulary didn't spend so much time doing exactly that to homeowners who make the mistake of defending themselves against violent criminals. And, if summary extrajudicial execution was so urgent, why did the surveillance team let him take a bus ride before eventually cornering him in the Tube?
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We at this newspaper are currently defending British soldiers facing prosecution for situations broadly analogous to those in which the Met found themselves. But there's still a difference. Anyone who rubs up against the military in Iraq knows what to expect: attempt to crash a roadblock and don't be surprised if they open fire. But few of us had an inkling of the Met's new "shoot to kill" policy until they shot and killed Mr de Menezes. And although I've had a ton of e-mails pointing out various sinister aspects of his behaviour - he was wearing a heavy coat! he refused to stop! - it seems to me there are an awful lot of people on the Tube who might easily find themselves in Mr de Menezes's position.

I happened to be passing through London on Friday. It didn't feel terribly warm, but I spend half a year up to my neck in snow so when it climbs to a balmy 48 I start wearing T-shirts. But I can understand why a Brazilian might find 61 and overcast no reason to eschew a heavy jacket. So a man in a suspiciously warm coat refuses to stop for the police. Well, they were a plain-clothes unit - ie, a gang - and confronted by unidentified men brandishing weapons in south London I'd scram, too.

This is one of those difficult situations. While Mark refers to the passive culture which the British have put in effect as the problem, I don't see that a more aggressive culture would have avoided this situation. Perhaps police who were more accustomed to being armed and facing a possibly armed opponent would have dealt with it better, perhaps not. This is best seen as a friendly-fire incident, something which is regrettable, and incidents of which can hopefully be reduced in the future, but which are not entirely avoidable in a time of war. And make no mistake, this is a time of war. It has been declared on us, and it is better to be fighting it than to be passively losing it.

There were more bombings at the end of last week which got less news than the previous ones, both in Egypt and in Lebanon. From Fox News, on the Egyptian bombing:

The bombers who carried out Egypt's worst-ever terrorist attack appear to have entered this Red Sea resort in pickup trucks loaded with explosives that were hidden under vegetables, security officials said Sunday. Police were searching for three suspects believed to have survived the bombings.

One truck headed for the luxury Ghazala Gardens (search) hotel. There, one man planted a bomb in a suitcase in a parking lot, while another slammed the vehicle into the Ghazala hotel's reception area, the security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

As people fled the Ghazala attack, the suitcase exploded and killed at least seven people, said the officials.

A second truck, on a road leading to another major hotel, got stuck in traffic in the Old Market — an area frequented by Egyptian workers in the resort area on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. Two militants inside abandoned the vehicle, apparently setting a timer, and the blast detonated soon after, the officials said.

With an estimated 88 dead, more were killed than in the London attacks, but it's getting a whole lot less press. Egypt's been struck with terrorist attacks before, most recently last October. There are some indications of al Qaeda ties with this latest attack, although it's not certain. The Lebanese attack has no clear link to al Qaeda, and in fact seems to be just the latest in the string of attacks on the anti-Syrian government. These are most likely the work of Hez'bollah, which has long had the support of Syria.

Having said that, the multiple London attacks and the one in Egypt may be part of a larger movement by al Qaeda to strike at the West and its allies with a wave of bombings. This sort of thing is easier to orchestrate than the 9/11 hijackings, and I would be surprised if they were unable to use similar methods to strike at the US. Sustained terrorism is more likely to wear us down than the large, dramatic attacks, and while I hope we can prevent them, I doubt our ability to. The solution remains getting to the root of the problem, and showing that terrorism will only increase our determination, not reduce it.

Someone tried to hit London a second time, this time with three bombs in the subway and one in a bus, just like before. Is this a follow-up of the terrorist attacks, or a copy-cat at work. Either way, they were a lot less successful than before. From Fox News:

Metropolitan police are looking for an unknown number of fugitives connected to four explosions in London Thursday and are hoping the bombing material used can lead them to the terrorists.

Two weeks to the day after terrorist attacks in London killed a total of 56 people, explosions struck three more Underground trains and a bus at lunchtime Thursday.

Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair (search) confirmed that three explosions occurred on subway trains near the Oval and Warren Street stations on the Northern Line and on a train near the Shepherd's Bush station on the Hammersmith and City line, and that a fourth explosion took place on a bus traveling in the Hackney neighborhood of east London.

But none of the presumed bombs appeared to have detonated properly, leaving only one person injured. Officials were hoping that the leftover explosives would provide a wealth of forensic evidence to help investigators hunt down whoever planted them.

Of course, Fox does something here that I can't quite agree with. Compare it to this AP report:

Only one person was reported wounded, but the explosions during the lunch hour caused major disruption in the city and were hauntingly similar to the July 7 bombings in which 52 people and four suicide attackers were killed.

I'd probably say it differently, as while I also would want to make a distinction between the victims and the suicide bombers, I do admit that the bombers are people too: evil, twisted, fanatical people, but that does not put them outside the definition of personhood. Still, you've got to give the AP credit for making the distinction. Of course, it no longer reads that way:

Explosions struck three London Underground stations and a bus at midday Thursday in a chilling but less deadly replay of the suicide bombings that killed 56 people two weeks ago.

As I said, I'd call the terrorists people, but I would definitely make the distinction between the terrorists and their victims. To Fox's credit, they do do that later in the article:

Although not as serious, Thursday's incidents were hauntingly similar to the blasts two weeks ago, which involved explosions at three Underground stations simultaneously — quickly followed by a blast on a double-decker bus. Those bombings, during the morning rush hour, also occurred in the center of London, hitting the Underground railway from various directions. The four homicide bombers, along with 52 others, were killed in those attacks.

That, aside from the term "homicide bombers," which I've always disagreed with, is how I would say it.

I mean really, really angy:

The British suicide bombers and the Iranian nuke demands are genuine crises. The Valerie Plame game is a pseudo-crisis. If you want to talk about Niger or CIA reform, fine. But if you seriously think the only important aspect of a politically motivated narcissist kook's drive-thru intelligence mission to a critical part of the world is the precise sequence of events by which some White House guy came to mention the kook's wife to some reporter, then you've departed the real world and you're frolicking on the wilder shores of Planet Zongo.

What's this really about? It's not difficult. A big chunk of the American elites have decided there is no war; it's all a racket got up by Bush and Cheney. And, even if there is a war somewhere or other, wherever it is, it's not where Bush says it is. Iraq is a ''distraction'' from Afghanistan -- and, if there were no Iraq, Afghanistan would be a distraction from Niger, and Niger's a distraction from Valerie Plame's next photo shoot for Vanity Fair.

I think he's had just about enough of the Plame affair. Frankly, so have I, although I'm usually polite enough not to call people kooks. But no, I don't regard Wilson as a great patriot, and the information which the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence presented on his mission does not put him in a flattering light.

I haven't said anything about the bombings in London, mainly because I couldn't think of what to say. What can you say about something like this? It's heartbreaking and infuriating. It is, at heart, an act of war, and while there's a massive manhunt for those responsible, the only appropriate response is war, but unlike the terrorists, we will target the murderers and fanatics behind it, not innocents.

The bare facts are that three bombs, probably on timers, were set off in the London subway during rush hour on July 7th, and a fourth was set off on a double-decker bus about an hour later, when all traffic had been diverted from the subways. So far, the death toll is 49, but that is likely to grow, and there are hundreds of injured. A group calling itself "The Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe" has claimed responsibility for the attack. It is well-known that many radical Islamists have found a home in England, and that it has done little to rid itself of them. In the aftermath of the attack, Londoners support for the war on terror has grown, and their tolerance for the Islamists in their midst has decreased.

This is all commonly known, so there is little reason for me to repeat the facts. I am glad to see that the Brits are made of sterner stuff than some others, and are set to fight back. They'll need that resolution, as well as a willingness to crack down on the Islamists among them.

Update: At this point, they are now saying that these explosions were the work of suicide bombers. Hmm, it hardly seems necessary for what they were doing, but suicide bombings are the hardest to prevent.

This Reuters headline caught my eye: "Israeli guard shoots dead Palestinian teen -police" Why would anyone shoot a dead body? I wondered. Did some sadistic person prop it up to make it look threatening? The article itself turned out to be less bizarre than the headline indicated:

An Israeli guard killed a Palestinian teenager on Friday while shooting to disperse stone-throwing protesters at a barrier being built near the Israeli-West Bank boundary, Israeli police said.

Medics at Ramallah Hospital confirmed they had the body of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy shot in the chest at the site but would not give further details.

Israeli police said an armed Israeli guard had opened fire when protesters hurled rocks at them near the village of Beit Likiya in the West Bank, killing a Palestinian teenager.

While a grim story, this sort of thing happens so often that the most unique thing about this story is its poorly written headline. And those journalists think bloggers need editors!