The first public words that George W. Bush uttered on September 11, 2001 were "we’re at war". This marked a dramatic shift from previous acts of terrorism that were committed against United States at home and around the world under the Clinton administration, where these acts were treated simply as crimes.
The battle against Islamic extremists is a war, even though it bears little resemblance to previous wars that were conducted between nation states. although the term "war" has been perhaps overused, such as the war against poverty, the war against drugs, etc, there is no doubt that fighting Islamofascism is a real war. and on July 7, that war moved to England and the British authorities treated it as they should have; as an attack, not a series of crimes.
after the second attack in as many weeks, British police found information in the knapsack of one of the terrorists that led to an apartment building. While the building was under surveillance the next day, a 27-year-old Brazilian immigrant and electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, emerged to go to work. De Menezes was wearing a coat that appeared to be too heavy for the hot weather that London was experiencing. Police followed him and when he was about to enter London’s subway system, ordered him to stop. Instead of stopping de Menezes ran into the station, jumped a turnstile according to witnesses and ran onto a train. Police followed him, took him down and at last account, pumped eight bullets into him; one in the shoulder and the remainder into his head.
Despite the fact that de Menezes had no relation to terrorism and came to the attention of the police because he happened to live in a building that was connected to terrorist acts, he was the author of his own misfortune. Those who blame the police have no shortage of excuses for de Menezes’ actions that day in order to try and show that the police were at fault. To begin with the fact that he was wearing a heavy coat was probably a red herring. The fact that he just happened to live where he did and was a dark skinned male in his 20s would have been enough to capture the interest of the police.
One of the excuses being made for him is that he was obviously not of Middle Eastern descent and the police should have known that he was not a suicide bomber. The police can’t seem to win either way; if they had only been interested in those who "looked like Muslims" they would be accused by these same critics of racial profiling. Then again the 7/7 bomber of Jamaican descent didn’t look "Muslim" either.
another excuse that was made for de Menezes was that he ran because of his experiences with police back in Brazil. But the guy had been in the U.K. for three years; and anyone who is ordered by police to be stopped would naturally be afraid. That didn’t justify his running.
But Jean Charles de Menezes wasn’t shot and killed because he ran away from the police. He died because he ran into the tube and boarded a subway train. The guy was on his way to work as an electrician. To function at his job he had to have at least enough cognitive ability to understand what was happening in London. The day before, the subway system was attacked for the second time in as many weeks. De Menezes must have known that authorities would be present in and around the subway system and that the situation was tense. Yet he ran directly into a subway car; a car similar to the locations where six of the eight successful and unsuccessful explosions took place.
Wearing a heavy coat, running from the police, and boarding a subway train, gave the police no option but to take him out in the way that they did. The shots had to be to the head so as not to trigger an explosion had he in fact been a suicide bomber. and there have to be enough shots to prevent his body from moving and twitching that could set off an explosive device.
Tony Blair was right. It would have been worse had the police backed off and it turned out that he was in fact a bomber and was allowed to set off an explosive device.
There has been little criticism in London of the actions of the police which shows that those who have been exposed to terrorism seem to understand what they are dealing with. It was unfortunate that an innocent person died but the police had no other alternative.
The death of Jean Charles de Menezes is perhaps the clearest example yet that the actions of Muslim terrorists are not merely criminal acts. It is a war.