When I was a student I had a professor from Papua New Guinea who had been arrested in Guatemala by police who thought his passport was fraudulent because they had never heard of PNG."Fair enough," he thought. "Why should Guatemala City police know South Pacific geography?" So he convinced them to call Interpol -- but the Interpol officers assigned to Guatemala had never heard of Papua New Guinea either!
Things have changed, apparently, but not by much. The Global War on Terror has been raging for nearly six years now and Ronald Noble, secretary general of Interpol, doesn't understand it yet.
But at least he's asking the right questions.
From AP via the Toronto Star:
The head of Interpol said Monday that Britain's anti-terrorist efforts are "in the wrong century," pointing out that authorities in London had not shared any information from the investigation of three failed car bomb attacks and had not made good use of a passport database.Yes!
"We have received not one name, not one fingerprint, not one telephone number, not one address, nothing, from the U.K., about the recent thwarted terrorist attacks," Ronald Noble, Interpol's secretary general, said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television.
"My view is that the U.K.'s anti-terrorist effort is in the wrong century," Noble said.
"It is not aware of what we are able to do today globally, and they should do more. We don't have one Metropolitan police officer from the anti-terrorist unit assigned to Interpol – not one. Can you explain to me why that is?"
~~~
Dear Mr. Noble,
The so-called Global War On Terror is a fraud.
The Brits don't want any of your information because there are no terrorists in your database. They're the ones with the terrorist database. It's called al-Q'aeda.
They don't want to give you access to their information because you will see at once that the entire murderous charade is bogus.
It's the same in the USA. Homeland Security is a joke -- a joke with weapons and a huge slush fund. It is not a serious attempt at public safety, and that's why
The Bush administration has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the Department of Homeland Security, creating a "gaping hole" in the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat, according to a congressional report to be released today.Today! Today, sir!
On the very day that your question is published, a congressional report will be released containing the answer.
I understand that you weren't expecting your question about Britain to be answered in a report from the United States, but it's a global village now, sir, and this is what we mean by "coalition". The US and the UK are in it together. You can't understand one without the other. And keep tabs on Australia, too.
Please ask more questions, sir.
There's an enormous international war crime going on, and many of us in the blogosphere have been pointing this out for some time, hoping that by drawing attention to it -- and to the fraudulent means by which it has been "justified" -- we can help to get it stopped.
In this regard, it will help quite a bit if we can get Interpol up to speed.
Yours sincerely
WP
~~~
UPDATE:
The government's response to Ronald Noble's charges is feeble.
Home Office denies Interpol criticisms
The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, today defended her department from the head of Interpol's unprecedented criticism that the UK's counter-terror effort is "in the wrong century".Maybe I overstated it a bit. The response would be feeble if it could. It's still striving for feeble.
...
Ms Smith told the Commons work was under way to help police and other agencies access the Interpol databases.
She said that the UK had recorded "all known and suspected terrorists declared by Interpol" on a watch list maintained by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).
Ms Smith did not respond to Mr Noble's complaint that Britain was also failing to pass on its own counter-terrorism information to Interpol, and a ministry spokesman said he had no further comment to make on the matter.