BIN THE CRIME BILL

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Saturday April 29, 2006 16:07 by O. McCool - Branskelligs Think Tank oomccool at yahoo dot ie

What Is the Minister So Afraid Of?

Implications of Minister For Justice' comments and actions around the February 25 riots; relationship of same to Minister's re-write of the criminal code currently under consideration by the Dail.

BIN THE CRIME BILL
What Is the Minister So Afraid Of?

Generally speaking, TD Gormley has been insufficiently applauded for calling the Minister For Justice to account for the situation which deteriorated into a full-scale riot in Dublin on February 25, 2006. Mr. Gormley raised a truly fascinating question about the curious nature of said failure, in view of “internet activity” which should have alerted said Ministry that special preparations were called for in Dublin that day.

The Minister’s response was highly significant (insinuating that his critics somehow secretly enlisted rioters to attack political opponents’ offices.) I say “response,” because one can hardly call it a “reply.” On the contrary, Mr. McDowell’s now admittedly irresponsible remarks, regardless of subsequent apologies or retractions, were supremely successful in one regard: they managed to completely deflect the discussion away from Mr. Gormley’s very interesting question; (which, unless I’m mistaken, remains unanswered to this day.)

With an extraordinarily distracting non-denial, The Minister succeeded in deftly maneuvering himself out of the hot-seat of self-defense, and his political opponent into it. The only disappointment was in seeing the bait so well-taken, when Mr. Gormley followed the feint into demands for retraction, rather than remaining focussed on his original, spot-on question; which the Minister thus demonstrated himself willing to do or say anything rather than to answer.

Mr. Gormley made momentary mention of evidence which suggests that Justice’ lack of preparation was not due to ignorance of what kind of trouble might expected in the streets of Dublin on February 25. The Minister’s warmth suggested that this query caught him off guard, with something that he hadn’t expected to be asked. It was a rare opportunity to run the fox to ground, tragically missed.

Mr. McDowell’s logic may be recognizable to those who’ve had the misfortune to live under some of the world’s most vicious political animals. Its complex twists and turns have a shockingly simple underpinning. A skeleton key may be found in the standard reports of corrupt police who beat detainees: invariably, they charge their victims with assaulting an officer. Likewise, murders committed by killers in uniform are frequently recorded in their official reports as “suicide.” Characteristically, FBI agents, after blowing up an environmental activist in her automobile, charged the victim with carrying explosives. (This last, the landmark Bari case, resulted in convictions of FBI agents concerned, and a record-making multi-million dollar lawsuit award. Against, lest we forget, Mr. McDowell’s favorite stateside cronies, the FBI.)

It is far more than merely sad that it was the Minister’s indefensible language that garnered all the subsequent media attention. More than absurd or tragic: while it’s Mr. Gormley’s pertinent question which we all need to ask. (Uh, what was the question?)

A reasonable onlooker may be tempted to wonder at a marvelous confluence of events: a sudden wave of violent crimes, murders and biggest-drug-seizures-in-history (albeit ever apostrophized by the ubiquitous tag “police say.”) Or is it only a sudden wave of constant, shrill hammering of such stories by an increasingly British/American multi-national-owned local press?) All this just at the time that the Minister’s making feverish efforts to shove a complex and poorly understood new criminal code down the legislature’s throats “by summer.”

Is this the sensitive place that Mr. Gormley inadvertently touched, thus drawing on his head Mr. McDowell’s “weapons of mass distraction”?

All a minister in Mr. McDowell’s position need do to create the atmosphere of hysteria most conducive to the acceptance of anything labeled “anti-crime” is . . . do nothing. (Of which the Dublin riots, and other recent national tragedies, may be excellent examples.) Of course, a dependable cadre of corrupt officers, in the highest places, would be invaluable in such a scenario. (Cushy retirement packages, with handsome lump-sum payments, to high-ranking culpables in recent police scandals, may come to mind.)

The lightening speed and destructiveness of Mr. McDowell’s irresponsible comments are a flashing red light for all to see: Do not ask that question. Anyone who asks the Minister for Justice questions which he does not welcome, can expect this kind of immediate, vicious menace, via intimidating abuse of his law enforcement authority. It sends a chilling message about the kind of abuse the country can expect of him. If examined in light of the classic “takes-one-to-know-one” modus operandi of corrupt law enforcement noted above, it is sure to be even more enlightening.

Is this the sort of man fit to write laws for our country? Such cynical opportunism has no business wielding the most dangerous discretionary power over the rights and freedoms of the entire nation. Let alone re-write the rule book to suit his purposes for next summer.

The March 2nd issue of Village Magazine, discussing the riots, noted “since the early 1980s a large segment of working class youths have opted out of society through drugs, violence and criminality.” It was during that same period, “since the 1980s” (that is, throughout the regime of the Minister’s stateside cronies, Bush and his mentor Reagan) an identical process dominated the USA: every year, more “drugs, violence, and criminality”; used by said regime as an excuse for more and more draconian and constitutionally-suspect “anti-crime” legislation. Which somehow never seems to result in anything but more “drugs, violence and criminality,” more & more arbitrary police powers, more prisons, and, of course, more “drugs, violence and criminality”: in an eternally self-perpetuating downward spiral, ad nauseum.

The latest episode in a continual parade of extraordinary conduct by our Minister for Justice is the sudden introduction of over 300 pages of changes to his crime bill, along with a suspiciously bombastic insistence that it become law “by summer.”

Such a move by any legislator at any time can mean only one thing: there’s something buried in that new law that the Minister wants very, very badly. And which he’s very, very afraid might be discovered if anyone looks at it carefully, before it becomes law. Even more afraid than he was of answering Mr. Gormley’s question about Justice’ role in the Dublin riots of February 25.