When we call a man a terrorist, we bestow a certain status on him. He ceases to be a common criminal, a violent narcissist, a drop-out. He becomes, instead, a man with a cause.

Bellicose young men, in all ages and nations, look for ideologies that justify their aggression. Sometimes, they latch on to an organisation that already exists – the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the IRA, al-Qaeda. Sometimes, as with Anders Behring Breivik or Seung-Hui Cho, they develop their own Weltanschauung – often in language so conceited and hackneyed that, in other
circumstances, it would be laughable.

 

Absolutely right. In the 1980s several  IRA prisoners in Northern Ireland, serving sentences for crimes of murder or aiding and abetting murder, went on hunger strike because they wanted to be granted the status of being called political prisoners. Maggie Thatcher faced them down – she knew that giving  them that status would immediately transform  them into enemy combatants, warriors to be treated with respect outside the battlefield because they were fighting for what they believed was a just cause. So she instructed that they were to be treated as criminals, men and women who  murdered, tortured, kidnapped and robbed law abiding citizens.

Equally do not inflate these murderers egos by describing their victims as being “executed” – that portrays the murder  as a killing sanctioned by higher law and acts as a useful psychological justification tool for those with murder on their mind.

Calling a “terrorist” a criminal  buttresses his own self belief that his gruesome deeds have some sort of moral dimension that takes him far above the child killers, wife beaters and gang enforcers who inhabit the other cells. Calling him a criminal would demean his actions .

The killers of Drummer Rigby in Woolwich were murderers not religious/political activists. The more often we spell that out the less likely shall we hear those weasel words

“Of course I cannot condone these killings BUT……..”

Witnesses testified that Tyson told them he saw two “crackers” — his phrase for white people — walking through the neighborhood and that he intended to rob them. The tourists said they didn’t have any money and begged Tyson to let them go home. The men also told Tyson that they were lost.
“Since you ain’t got no money, then I have something for your ass,” Tyson recounted to a witness, then added that he shot the men several times.

Yes the two British tourists James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, had been drinking when they came across Shawn Tyson. Yes, they were lost…and yes they should have been savvier about dangerous areas. But would everyone from those projects have acted like Shawn Tyson? I hope not.

Watch this clip of two of their friends making statements outside the court. The awkwardness of their delivery serves only to enhance the extent of their contempt for Shawn Tyson.

The Washington Post says the trial and verdict have been big news here in the UK, probably not so much in the USA. But the father of one of the victims still thought it was worth writing a letter to President Obama.

Joe Hallett, a friend of James Kouzaris and James Cooper has spoken of his “dissatisfaction” at the lack of messages of support or condolence from the US government or President Obama.

He said Mr Kouzaris’ father has written to President Obama on three separate occasions and has yet to receive the courtesy of a reply.

Surprisingly there was no response to any of the three letters, even from some lowly member of the White House staff.

But then it is clearly not within the President’s paygrade to comment upon specific crimes…….

Never upset a swordfish

After you have argued with someone it is never advisable to invite them to tattoo your back…

Misogynistic sadists with a medieval mindset doing rather well in some parts of the UK

Am I alone in not caring a fig about Sarah Jessica Parker’s insecurities?

Teachers in Ghana go on strike over students’ “Bowel Protest”

Austrians demand less theory and more practice when it comes to sex education in schools…

Whereas in France if you don’t regularly satisfy your wife in bed a judge will be very displeased…

A man was on the edge of a tower block balcony threatening to jump. Neighbours and police were trying to persuade him to get back but below a crowd gathered shouting “Jump”…they got their wish.

This woman was having a night out with friends and family when she was groped by some guy as she walked across the pub. She slapped his face. He smashed her in the face with a glass, leaving one of her eyes permanently damaged.

A couple were at home when they received a call inviting them to a torture party. They joined in the physical abuse of a young man and enjoyed it so much they invited everyone to take him to their house to make his life even more miserable.

No doubt the BBC/Guardian would blame it on THE CUTS – but old Tom Hobbes would have had a different view of a world where morality is mocked and law is absent from the streets…

no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

….because the British press will stitch you up and hang you out to dry.

25 year old Jo Yeates was last seen in Bristol on December 17th. Two days later her boy friend returned from a visit to relatives and reported her missing. On Christmas morning dog walkers discovered her body three miles from the flat which she and her boy friend rented from Christopher Jefferies.

On December 30th Jefferies was arrested by police on suspicion of murdering Miss Yeates.

Within a matter of hours his picture was on the front page of almost every British newspaper

. He was described as “weird”, “lewd”, “strange”, “creepy”, “angry”, “odd”, “disturbing”, “eccentric”, “a loner” and “unusual” in the course of just one article. That the former English teacher should have liked the classic Oscar Wilde poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol was described by one article as “Chris Jefferies’ favourite poem was about killing wife”. That the teacher should have taught pupils about the horror of the Holocaust and a classic novel by Wilkie Collins was described as him being “obsessed with death”. He was accused of being a ‘peeping tom’ by people who never made a complaint to police about his activities.

The tabloids (The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail etc) took the lead on this but the upmarket Daily Telegraph pushed a similar nudge/nudge, wink/wink storyline.

In the 1970s he began teaching English at Clifton College in Bristol, a £9,000-a-term public school, and quickly made waves with his flamboyant style and passion for poetry. A lifelong bachelor, colleagues speculated that he may be homosexual. Former pupils recalled that he preferred the verse of Percy Shelley, the Romantic poet known for his dark, Gothic themes, to the plays of Shakespeare.
To some pupils, he was an inspiration and part of the “fabric of the school”. Others, however, nicknamed him “The Strange Mr Jefferies”, and remembered him for his short temper and autocratic style. One of his students said: “He was a stickler for discipline and was very traditional. He used to get very angry and shout and throw books and pens across the room.
“He used to touch people’s hands and he’d say, ‘Oh you’re very sweaty. That means you’re sexually active’. He was very flamboyant, the way he talked, walked and acted. I think the girls were more creeped out than the boys. He was weird.” Mr Jefferies began a film society at the school, with a particular focus on international cinema. James Alvis, a sports teacher and student at Clifton College in the 1980s, said: “He showed some dark films, he was particularly keen on French films.”

Lifelong bachelor, passion for poetry, short tempered, flamboyant, keen on French films….notice how these phrases are carefully crafted to present an image of sinister intent.

Jefferies was questioned for two days then released on police bail.

Three weeks later a Dutch engineer Vincent Tabak, 33, also a tenant of Christopher Jefferies, was charged with her murder. At the beginning of May he pleaded guilty at a preliminary hearing with a trial set probably for October.

So the case has moved on but Jefferies remains embittered by his treatment by the police and the media and has announced his intention to sue both Avon & Somerset Police and several neswpapers.

Good for him.

Even better news

The High Court today granted the Attorney General’s Office permission to bring contempt of court proceedings against The Sun and the Daily Mirror over their coverage of murdered architect Joanna Yeates and her landlord Chris Jefferies.
The Attorney General Dominic Grieve QC claims the publication of two reports by the Mirror and one by The Sun following Jefferies’ arrest last year created a risk of prejudicing any future trial.

At the very moment the rich and powerful are using expensive lawyers to secure superinjunctions against anybody reporting their alleged misdeeds a completely private individual’s reputation has been indelibly smeared by media innuendo merely for being a rather eccentric loner.

Scared off by the wealthy and their gold hungry legal hacks but contemptuous of ordinary folk without influence – that’s the UK media.

Editors in jail? Millions in fines? Possible but not likely.

Still one can always hope……