Monday, August 01, 2005

Lies and the lying liars who tell them

Met Lie: Jean Charles de Menezes, recently executed by police on a London subway train, was wearing a heavy winter coat in cool but not cold weather (52F).
Truth: He was wearing a denim blue jean jacket, which is appropriate attire for such weather.

Met Lie: Menezes leaped a turnstile to flee police.
Truth: He used his passcard. It turns out that it was a police officer (plainclothes) who leaped the turnstile.

Met Lie: Menezes was challenged by police.
Truth: No witness can recall hearing anybody use the word 'Police'. Met policy itself advises not to challenge potential suicide bombers because they could then set off their bomb, so the police officers would have been violating Met policy if, in fact, they identified themselves.

Met Lie: Menezes was scared of police officers and thus may have run once they identified themselves.
Truth: Menezes was apparently confident enough of the visa stamp in his password that he freely allowed police officers to search him and examine his papers only two days previously (and nobody recalls the police officers ever identifying themselves as such)

Met Lie: Police had no choice but to execute Menezes point blank with 8 shots in the head.
Truth: Police on Friday arrested one of the subway bombers using a Taser and captured him alive.

I think you get the point. What you read in the newspaper in the days following an incident is rarely the truth. Everything we "knew" about this incident the day after it happened was a lie. There was no bulky jacket, there was no jumping of the turnstile, there were no uniformed police officers shouting "Police! Stop!". In fact, it is unknown whether Menezes was even running from the police, plain clothes or not. He may have heard on the loudspeaker that the train was about to leave the station, and ran for the open doors simply because he didn't want to miss his train.

In this case, the lies came out because the parents of Menezes were not satisfied with the hogwash they were being fed, and in turn went to their government and human rights organizations all of whom raised an uproar. But really, should we be surprised? You *do* know that a large portion of what you read in your local newspaper is lies, right? Especially when it concerns government officials, who will always lie when they feel it is to their advantage to do so, and sometimes just on general principle (see: Bob Roberts and his "memory loss" regarding membership in the Federalist Society).

In short, anybody who thinks government officials tell the truth when the truth would be embarrassing to them... hey look, I got this new medicine that will strip the fat off of you and tone you up and make you look really buff! And only $15.95 per bottle of 30 pills! Just send me lotsa money and you, too, could look as buff as this penguin (tee hee hee!).

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Afterward: The Northern Irish just nod, saying that this is typical behavior for the "civilized" Brits...

Comments:

Wow, using the truth to debunk lies, what a concept! Quick, someone notify the MonoMedia!
# posted by Rook : 1/8/05 8:39 PM  

Are you surprised? Obviously you are not Irish. Over half the shit attributited to the IRA was done by the British establishment. So this should surprise no one.
# posted by Darryl : 3/8/05 6:10 AM  

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