Menez: Iain Blair Must Resign

The amazing part of the calm, cool statement of "no criminal charges" is just how normal the "error" is made to sound. The CS Monitor writes:

"I concluded that while a number of individuals had made errors in planning and communication, and the cumulative result was the tragic death of Mr. de Menezes, no individual had been culpable to the degree necessary for a criminal offense," said [O'Doherty], senior lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service's Special Crime Division.

"The two officers who fired the fatal shots did so because they thought that Mr. de Menezes had been identified to them as a suicide bomber and that if they did not shoot him, he would blow up the train, killing many people," O'Doherty said in a statement read to reporters.

I have several remarks on this finding.

First off, someone made a very big error. Someone said "this guy is a terrorist" without checking his facts. That's the first big mistake and it should be considered criminal because by flagging this guy as a "terrorist" his death penalty was effectively signed by the police. The moment he was considered a "strong suspect", shoot to kill took over. That was the point in time where no one thought of anything else but "clap this guy on the ground and shoot him in the head". That's what they effectively did.

Secondly, someone else made a big error. That someone else said "let's shoot to kill" without checking the first guy's mistake. The "shoot to kill" decision maker (a.k.a. the "decider") should have verified before giving the order. The second person would have caught the first person's mistake.

Clearly, these are two criminal acts: negligence in identifying potential terrorists, which is an effective death sentence in England, and negligence in ordering "shoot to kill". Sure, there must have been some other people involved in the errors, but at the end of the day, these two people should be punished severely for what can only be criminal negligence. They should be tried for their crimes, because this kind of negligence is a crime.

But finally, since the CPS give a clean bill of health to these guys, the real criminal error must reside in the top command. Clearly, if this kind of "error" can occur, the folks at the top made the wrong call, putting into please a murderous new rule, "shoot to kill", without putting in place the proper safeguards. Organizational disaster. This, too, is a crime, or at least should be.

At any rate, any reasonable person of authority would have already resigned if he had any sense of honor whatsoever. Iain Blair clearly doesn't. Known for his high-level organization, having given the green-light for London "shoot-to-kill" death squads, he really should be sacked for his incompentence. But instead, he's given the option to resign on his own, an option he should take if England is ever to enjoy one day any image of justice on the world front.

We can expect that the fate of Iain Blair will be the same as that of Tony Blair: not long for England's political world.