Serious Error Of Judgement

[Lonan3]

TIMES ARTICLE

 

For a senior police officer advising the Afghan Government on counter-terrorism it may, with hindsight, have been an unfortunate choice of disguise.

Chief Superintendent Colin Terry has been condemned by his own force for dressing up as Osama bin Laden to take part in a Cornish carnival procession.

Mr Terry’s choice of fancy dress has now been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. He has also been told by Devon and Cornwall Police that were he not on secondment to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office he would be subject to disciplinary measures.

 

Mr Terry, who is believed to have attended a 9/11 anniversary service at the World Trade Centre in New York in 2006, was unmasked after disclosing his identity to a press photographer covering the carnival.

 

Instead of shrugging it off as an unfortunate prank, Devon and Cornwall police released a statement condemning Mr Terry.

A spokesman said: “Devon and Cornwall Constabulary takes any incident such as this very seriously, and were Chief Superintendent Terry currently working for the force misconduct proceedings would be considered.

“The matter has been referred to the IPCC for consideration. The decision to participate in the carnival and the choice of costume were both personal decisions by Chief Superintendent Terry himself.

“While we believe that his actions were misguided rather than malicious, they were clearly inappropriate, and we would condemn any such actions by any police officer as unacceptable.”

 

Chief Superintendent Colin Terry, in his bin Laden outfit

[Chinahand]

The PC crowd really needs to get a life.

 

Are people saying we aren't allowed to ridicule Bin Laden.

 

Heck people need to lighten up. Disciplinary measures for doing what exactly?

[Cret]

The PC crowd really needs to get a life.

 

I think they needed to a long time ago, but sadly are proving over the years that they have no intention of it.

[Jimcalagon]

I imagine these idiots would have complained about people taking the piss out of Hitler during WWII.

[Chinahand]

I imagine these idiots would have complained about people taking the piss out of Hitler during WWII.

Clicky

[mollag]

Cutting thruogh the demonisation and ridicule , has Mr Bin Laden benn convicted of any offense--even in his absence?

 

 

Surely he is innocent till proven guilty?, we are after all a just and democratic people in the West.

 

 

So wots the prob with dressing up as him?

[jimbms]

Cutting thruogh the demonisation and ridicule , has Mr Bin Laden benn convicted of any offense--even in his absence?

 

 

Surely he is innocent till proven guilty?, we are after all a just and democratic people in the West.

 

 

So wots the prob with dressing up as him?

Very true he's no worse than Bush's storm troopers imposing their system on the countries they have violated or them building concentration camps in Guantanamo bay and holding people without trial whilst torturing and brainwashing them.

[bluemonday]

Very true he's no worse than Bush's storm troopers imposing their system on the countries they have violated or them building concentration camps in Guantanamo bay and holding people without trial whilst torturing and brainwashing them.

Translation:- Bush Mode/

Bringing peace and democracy to the world................

[Chinahand]

Very true [bin Laden is] no worse than Bush's storm troopers imposing their system on the countries they have violated or them building concentration camps in Guantanamo bay and holding people without trial whilst torturing and brainwashing them.

 

That is one thought provoking post.

 

I disagree with it - it is possible to twist the Taliban and Saudi into the type of world Bin Laden wishes to create - in that world the things you lament would not be exceptions.

 

The US has created, and has, huge problems - but they are a long way off from being no worse than Bin Laden.

 

This reminds me of people who claimed moral equivelence between the USSR and the USA. I am not saying that "the west" is not a cause of violence, grief and problems in the world, but I can say with little pause Bin Laden is much much worse.

[mollag]

Gawd China, thats an awful lot for one man, he really cannot be that bad or influential. We in the west find it convenient to have an ethnic in the woodpile but dear oh dear step back and look at him--he is/was only a provider, a trainer and facilitator--a sort of one man School of the Americas.

 

As to who is the worst well ask the Vietnamese or Nagasakians for an opinion, no good asking the West, our memories are short.

 

 

I m not an apologist for terrorists but all the ills of the world on Bin Ladens shoulder nah

[Slim]

Cutting thruogh the demonisation and ridicule , has Mr Bin Laden benn convicted of any offense--even in his absence?

Surely he is innocent till proven guilty?, we are after all a just and democratic people in the West.

So wots the prob with dressing up as him?

 

I think we can throw out any suggestion of his innocence since he owned up himself.

 

I read Chinas post more as extreme fundamentalist terrorists vs the west though, and agree with him. There's a lot wrong with US policy, but holding those people in Cuba, people who were clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time and mostly under suspicious circumstances is a world away from murdering thousands of innocent people. Many of those under arrest eventually got to go home.

[Chinahand]

Mollaq - actually I do know quite a few people from Japan. I've only ever chatted with one Vietnamese - he left aged 3 in '73 and lived in Seattle, but I've chatted for many hours with people on either side of China's divide. The Guomingdang in Taiwan massacred native Taiwanese on 228 and enforced (with US support) a military regime very similar to South Vietnam's. I also know lots of South Koreans who have had the super-powers march up and down their nation killing hundreds of thousands and then had the US sponsor its client dictators over them.

 

These people had had Uncle Sam's brand of Freedom enforced on them - look I am not saying there is not great injustice under these regimes, whether in Iraq, Vietnam, South Korea, or Taiwan. They were oppressive, used assassination and censorship.

 

But in talking with these people it was very apparant that they were aware of the alternatives - the Cultural Revolution, the bambo curtain, the generational punishments of North Korea.

 

We can see what the Taliban did to Afghanistan - I'd really recommend you spending a while watching this lecture by Daniel Chirot. I studied under him in Seattle and he makes a cogent case that the Taliban had the capacity to be genocidal.

 

Bin Laden is an exemplar of their philosophy - yes he's just one man, but what I am doing is looking at his philosophy. Compare Bin Laden with even the most cliched example of the neo-cons and I know which side I stand on, and most (not all) of the people who'd suffered under regimes which were pretty good examples of what the neocons can do in Korea, Taiwan and Japan were the same.

[Skeddan]

IMO one thing that differentiates the two is that the US at least pays lip service to international humanitarian law, Geneva Conventions, etc. (though they may try to find excuses which let them get around it in Guantanamo etc.). If you like they know right from wrong in that basic sense, and want to be seen to be on the right side.

 

From what I can see Taliban have no such restraints. Humanitarian law Geneva Conventions, crimes against humanity etc. mean little or nothing. They do not even recognise such principles in the Koran. (If you want a graphic view, look at the Dispatches doco 'Beneath the Veil' on 4oD). Given that, and some warped notion of jihad, I can't see there being any serious doubt that the Taliban have the capacity to be genocidal.

[mollag]

Valid points indeed but i dont see how a man can install such fear without the assistance of people who need that fear to manipulate populations.

The Taliban are what, genocidal?, they dont operate outside their own country so how genocidal? wipe themselves out? Once our ally but by a quirk of fate then our enemy because they allowed Bin Laden to run camps, and outside of their own enviroment a nonesense--we have been boxing with these buggers for some 150 years, we had learned to leave them alone but then came Bush.

 

But back to Bin Laden , he could not in any way fight a global war against any country without the assistance and wealth of others----he does not control an Army, or Air force or Navy he has pitiful amounts of weapons is in permenant hiding and he is facing a ruthless mega force the likes of which the world has never seen before, some world threatening force he turned out to be. I reckon the yanks need him now to justify their actions and expenditure.

 

The biggest enemy the yanks have is themselves, this past few years have seen a build up of resentment to them so big that i dont think they can ever gain respect again.

Perhaps with the resurgance of Russia we can get back to the much missed McCarthy years with the Russ as the bogey man and give Iran and Islam generally a miss.

[Chinahand]

Bin Laden is a Marx not a Lennin or a Stalin. His power rests in his ideas and ideology, not tanks, missiles or even dollars. But Mollaq are you really saying that Bin Laden doesn't inspire violence on a massive scale in Iraq, Algeria or where ever.

 

In Afghanistan there were significant Shi'ite and Christain minorities - these were persecuted - to the extent of Christains having to wear marks on their clothing a la 1930s Germany. It is Taliban policies towards these minorities we are refering to over genocide - remember the Buddhist statues they blew up etc.

 

You are now twisting the debate to the evils of the US - I've never claimed there aren't great evils perpetrated in their name - but in terms of morality I just feel Bin Laden is worse.

 

Which has a greater impact Bin Laden or the US? - that's very difficult. The US does great evil, but also great good - and if you can't see that then I believe you are biased - in trade, aid, international relations the US has helped create a vibrant, successful and stable system.

 

Yes its flawed - I am not denying the wrongs the US have done which have to be weighed against it - and I am aware of the flaws of unitarianism which would try to weigh dead babies over blue jeans or whatever.

 

I think I'd be willing to say that the US does less harm than Islamic fundamentalism re:Bin Laden, but probably only when you net off the evil the US does with its positives.

 

If you compared it death to death they are about equal - maybe the US is worse (though not alot - now most Iraqi casualties are fundamentalist fighting fundamentalist, the same with Algeria), but the US does do good as well, and that is a lot more limited in Bin Laden's case.