EDITORIAL: Taradale `bomb' and al Qaeda

PAUL TAGGART
When al Qaeda operatives were planning their next target after the World Trade Centre, the Madrid commuter rail network and the London Underground, it is fairly unlikely that a bicycle stand at Taradale New World would have been top of the list.
It is a soft target, admittedly, but hardly of strategic significance, especially on a quiet Thursday afternoon.
But the Boys in Blue are ever vigilant and a conscientious sergeant who saw a bag which had been inadvertently left there by a shopper considered it an imminent threat to life and limb, resulting in Lee Road being closed, supermarket trolleys being abandoned and residents in the neighbourhood being confined to their homes.
But wait, there's more. Firefighters were called to the scene and army explosives experts were flown in from Linton. It is fair to say that terror can strike anywhere - there was a suitcase bomb in the Wellington Trades Hall back in 1984 that killed caretaker Ernie Abbott. Police still haven't solved that one, so the bomber could still be in the community if he hasn't died of old age.
But it is a bit hard to be persuaded that the constabulary were not jumping at shadows in Taradale and wasting a lot of people's time and taxpayers' money as a consequence. If it was seriously considered there was a genuine threat to the bike stand, what would have prevented any one of the dozen cars in the carpark having 5kg of Semtex in the boot, to do the job properly? Would the Linton bomb squad have blown them all up to ensure there was no risk?
It wouldn't be the first time the bomb squad has been over-enthusiastic. A few years back they blew up an elderly lady's bag in Dickens Street, Napier, covering the shop where she had inadvertently left it with the jam it had contained.
Perhaps the officer who sparked the alert had been listening to New Zealand First leader Winston Peters' claims that New Zealand's Muslim community has a "militant underbelly" with an agenda to promote fundamentalist Islam.
The police and everyday Kiwis do have to be watchful as there is no reason why the scenes of New York, Madrid and London could not spread to Taradale New World. But sometimes these matters require the use of a modicum of common sense. Was there not an easier way to check the bag without calling out an aeroplane full of soldiers? Such as putting a message over the supermarket's sound system to find the bag's owner?
There again, it could have been worse. At least Taradale's electricians got to work safely on Thursday without suffering the same fate as Brazilian sparkie Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder last week when over-enthusiastic British police mistook him for a suicide bomber. And he wasn't even guilty of leaving a bag by a bicycle stand.