London's Burning

Crap TV show, but a suitable headline for commentary on the London rioting. Although it's not just London now is it? It spread to Birmingham yesterday and the Scousers of Liverpool got in on the act late last night. Tonight #manchesterriots is the trending hashtag on Twitter. Nottingham, Bristol, Kent and Leeds have also been affected.

The flashpoint was the fatal shooting of an alleged criminal Mark Duggan. Duggan is reported to have resisted arrest and once he was plugged, a .380 converted starter pistol was found in his possession. So just like that Brazilian dude who should have stopped when ordered to do so by Metro police back in '05 - it's likely that despite not firing, Duggan's termination was a righteous kill.

Duggan's family, deluded into believing him to be some sort of saint, decided to hold a protest outside the police station in Tottenham, London. It was not long before the protest became ugly [surprise, surprise] and before long turned into a full scale riot, now in it's 4th night.

But Duggan isn't the reason for the London riots and the copycat riots across the UK right now, no the strange thing is that while most riots are in the name of a cause - these have literally none; other than to loot electrical goods and sportswear, and to cause wanton destruction and terror by destroying homes and businesses.

British Prime Minister David Cameron returned home prematurely from his vacation to condemn the worst violence some of these areas have ever seen. "People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain's streets and to make them safe for the law-abiding" he pledged.

Some have stressed that the police have not done enough and are not heavy handed enough to deter the rioters/looters. There were many calls today from the British public to call in the Army. Sadly these people are of the belief that this would be a solution to the problem and have obviously forgotten and/or are ignorant of the last time the British Army was used to pacify civilian unrest across the water in a little territory called Northern Ireland.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have no moral problem with a British soldier riddling a 13 year old boy with 5.56 NATO on the streets of London - provided he was of course engaged in anti-social behaviour [David Cameron today: "If you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishment"]. The problem is the inevitable misfires, misidentification, misunderstanding and the unfortunate possibility that an innocent person in such a built up and urban area as the ones being affected will also meet the end of a bullet. In Afghanistan such an error is a statistic, but here in the civilised world it's a tragedy and should not be facilitated.

For the same reason my solution of bombing the affected areas like I wanted to do in france in 2005 would also not work here but it's not like I've gone soft in my old-age or anything - no. I believe in the death penalty for certain offences such as terrorism and what we are witnessing in the UK right now judging from the looks of those innocent victims and witnesses to the violence, mark my words - is terrorism.

Source:BBC News / Sky News
Photo Source: The Telegraph