Boing Boing: New police guidelines: shoot suicide bomber suspects in head (reported heavily a lot of other places).
Following the recent killing of an innocent electrician in London, the ‘suspected’ part makes you think.
Beside (as noted in the Boing Boing post) making me reconsider my choice of clothing — maybe I should just stay indoors, keeping my skin pale, and go for a more innocent-looking touristy non-gadget-carrying style — it seems as if this approach is incredibly short-sighted.
For how long exactly will suicide-bombers continue to look suspicious prior to setting off their bombs? I rode the Berlin undeground yesterday and during a ticket-inspection, the inspector failed to identify the owner of a bike parked in the car (probably beacuse the owner didn’t want to pay the extra money for it). It’s a pipe bomb on wheels, damnit. Shoot the (possible) owner in the head? Great. Now he can’t push the dead man’s handle which is the only reasonable terrorist approach to trigger-happy policemen looking to kill them.
Suicide bombing is gonna be so last year real soon. Remotes, proxy bombers or surburbian housewives — you can’t expect being able to recognize these people.
What about a religiously and politically indifferent poor housewife from suburbia with a bad conscience, having never really done something good for her kids. Could she be talked into carrying a package for money? Probably. Is shooting jumble-sale mums wearing flowery dresses in the head the answer? I doubt it…