Understanding A Little More and Condemning A Little Less

The Aegis Trust, which campaigns against genocide, crimes against humanity and suchlike aspects of British foreign policy, has urged the British government to do more about prosecuting its fellow war criminals. A special unit was established by the Thatcher government, which probably thought war crimes were something committed exclusively by continental Europeans (in Asians, Africans and Argies it's just their natural barbarity coming out); the unit was conveniently disbanded during the late 1990s, but the Aegis Trust thinks we could do with reviving it. The UK Border Agency has managed to expel over five hundred war crimes suspects along with all the children and cancer victims; fifty-one cases have been referred to the Metropolitan Police, but they have apparently been too busy squeezing, smacking and shooting the British population to worry overmuch about some foreigners who were probably doing a wonderful job under difficult circumstances. The head of campaigns at the Aegis Trust astutely compared war criminals to white-collar criminals, another variety of malefactor towards which the Government has consistently displayed a high degree of sympathy and understanding: "You need arrests to prove that the law is a 'credible deterrent'," he said, although he does not seem to have explained why the Glorious Successor, his Minister of Justice or any of his cabinet and other enemies should be interested in deterring the sort of people who engage in shady business practices or who butcher civilians on fictitious pretexts.