Blair’s bungling, flailing approach to fighting terrorism in England just shows how incapable he and Bush are of taking productive action to protect their respective nations from terrorist attacks.

Blair still is claiming that there are no links between the London attacks and the war in Iraq. One obvious link is that the occupation and killings in Iraq are infuriating the Muslim world, helping Al Queda recruit terrorists worldwide.

Instead of reevaluating the Iraq war, and its role in aiding and abetting Al Queda, Blair is pushing a shoot-to-kill policy against people who randomly seem suspicious. This isn’t helping protect Britain, but it is alienating Brazilians. Hundreds of Brazilian friends and relatives of the victim have marched and demanded the arrests of the British officers who fired the fatal shots.

Protest Articles:

Scotsman

Los Angeles Times

Terrorists certainly have made it more dangerous to travel to England. But, now there is another danger: police given orders to shoot to kill anyone who they think might be a terrorist. The killing of an innocent Brazilian man is extremely disturbing. All he did was to do something completely normal on a subway system: running to catch a train.

Tony Blair, a rather wimpy man, is rushing to outdo the macho talk of another wimpy man, George W. Bush. In the process, civil liberties and basic safety have been severely compromised. I am unwilling to let terrorists dictate where I travel, but I also am unwilling to be killed because of insane orders of the government of the travel destination. I’m not willing to take a stray bullet because Tony Blair has lost it.

Even if the policy was limited to those who really are terrorists fleeing from the police, it needs to be reconsidered. Dead terrorists provide no information about other terrorists.

Meanwhile, I’m not traveling to England until this policy is revoked.