When the future is not as bright as could be hoped.

[hawkwing_lb]

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html

In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the timing is deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot. Of the over one thousand British Muslims arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, only twelve per cent are ever charged with anything. That is simply harrassment of Muslims on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% are acquitted. Most of the very few - just over two per cent of arrests - who are convicted, are not convicted of anything to do terrorism, but of some minor offence the Police happened upon while trawling through the wreck of the lives they had shattered.

If this lad has his figures right, then, well. I don't know what to say, but that sounds pretty damning.

Reasons for me not to be optimistic about the world I have to live in:

1 - The above.

2 - firebombs in Newry, gas cylinder explosive devices in Louth, and bomb threat disruption of the Dublin-Dundalk-Belfast trainline.*

ETA: For those of you without close personal knowledge of Irish geography, Newry is about 40 km north of me, the nearest large town over the border to Northern Ireland, about an hour's drive. The gas cylinder explosives found in Louth were near the NI border, again only 40km away. The trainline the bomb threats were made to is the same line I ride to Dublin city centre, although the threats were made for a stretch farther north than the one I use. All of these occurences are considered to be the responsibility of dissident members of the IRA: the Real IRA, the same group responsible for the Omagh bombing eight years ago. This makes me very Not Happy, in a does it never end? way.

3 - the world energy situation, leading to

3a - global warming
and
3b - the economy

4 - the current government of the USA, who seem determined to cause as much shit as possible in as little time as possible

5 - Israel, Lebanon, Palestine and the whole neverending violence thing.

6 - the USA and the Middle East

6a - the Middle East all on its own.

7 - warcrimes and repression in regions including, but not limited to, China, the Sudan, the rest of Africa, areas of South America.

8 - warcrimes and repression committed by the USA against its own and foreign citizens.

9 - the increasing use of surveillance and intimidation as political tools in countries that are, damn them, supposed to know better.

10 - the fact that trying to change anything feels like pushing a boulder up a very steep hill: lots of effort for little gain, and you have a good chance of being crushed in the process.

*Links:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4797095.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4783953.stm

Comments

[davefreer.livejournal.com]

dry comment. You have inadequate police to police 55 million people. Of these people a small percentage - all belonging specific religious group -- are involved in repetitive recent atrocities. In order to make sure the religious group don't feel victimised you should use your inadequate fore to harass an equal number of people from each other religious background, despite the fact that the last time that anyone else (but 'discriminated victims') committed a 'religion' based crime was - depending on how you reckon it*, anywhere between 5 years and century ago. Makes perfect sense to me.

Dave
*If you reckon Irish nationalism to be a religious issue.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I am not permitted to discuss politics, because it is bad for my health. That said, however, it is far from clear that the Great Heathrow Exploding Shampoo Plot warranted the response it received.

There have, so far, been no charges for possession of explosives/firearms/conspiracy to commit x/y/z. It's been over a week. They arrested over twenty people. They should have charged someone with something by now.

With the IRA and the other Northern groups, every unjustified - and yes, even justified - arrest created more committed partisans. Apart from small issues of fairness and justice, this is something that disturbs me about arrests that are looking more and more likely to be at least partially politically motivated with every day that passes without charges being brought.

It seems that the impetus for the whole thing started from information obtained in an interrogation in Pakistan, a nation not known for its human rights record. This, combined with both British and American willingness to make political capital out of the alleged threat (before full details are known) is driving me slowly but steadily onto the edges of the camps of the conspiracy theorists. :)

I also dislike the tenor of authoritarianism - approaching fascism - that seems to be seeping into political rhetoric in Britain and America, but that's another issue entirely.

(Irish nationalism was always a religious - or at least sectarian - issue, as communities divided along largely [though not entirel] Catholic-republican / Protestant-unionist lines.)