As a result, no charges will be made against the officers who shot the electrician or the senior figures in charge of the operation, the daily said.

Its source, identified as "an authoritative legal" figure, told the newspaper: "Mistakes were made but they do not amount to criminal misconduct.

Fatal error

"The firearms officers were acting under orders. Those in charge of surveillance believed he was a suspect.

"There is no realistic prospect that they will be prosecuted."

The Sun noted, however, that such an outcome may put more pressure on Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police chief, to take responsibility for the fatal error.

Blair has faced calls to resign from friends and relatives of De Menezes.

The Brazilian was killed on a train in Stockwell Underground station in London a day after a failed attempt to mimic the July 7 suicide bombings in the British capital which left 56 people dead.

The 27-year-old was shot by mistake under a controversial shoot-to-kill policy for suspected suicide bombers. Police shot him eight times.

It sounds like a rather academic argument - possibly not one for the bank holiday weekend - and yet Lord Steyn's case is really very important for our democracy. He said: 'Absolute power encourages authoritarianism which is a creeping phenomenon. Our government has been prone to it.'

The thing which defends us against what Lord Hailsham called the 'elected dictatorship' that has grown up with the vast parliamentary majorities for both Labour and Conservative in the last 25 years is an independent judiciary that has its eyes unwaveringly fixed on the rule of law and ministers' tendency to take arbitrary powers to themselves.

He's funny - as much as you can be - about the Home Secretary Charles Clarke who was recently quoted in the New Statesman expressing puzzlement and dismay at 'his inability to have general conversations of principle with the law lords'.

Clarke continued: 'I think some dialogue between the senior judiciary and executive would be beneficial.'

Like his predecessor, David Blunkett, Clarke regards the law lords as an infuriating obstruction and it is clear that he wants to nobble them. 'Mr Clarke apparently fails to understand,' Lord Steyn observed drily, 'that the law lords and cabinet ministers are not on the same side.' That must be right. While the House of Commons is increasingly unable to restrain ministers, politicised civil servants and teams of demonic special advisers, judges sometimes can, which is why they have become so important in our uneasy and shifting constitutional arrangements.

Even though Lord Steyn was born in South Africa, it's possible to hear the soft inland murmur of Britain's ancient democracy in what he says. Actually, it's the same reasonable voice that I've encountered in hundreds of emails sent to me over the past three weeks which express such intelligent concern about ID cards, Labour's attacks on civil liberties and the creep of the surveillance state.

I am beginning to wonder if opinion is on the move. Labour's climbdown last week on the wretched Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill may indicate that the Prime Minister feels exposed on an authoritarian record which is only now coming into public's focus.

The Leg and Reg Bill was cynically presented as a way of allowing ministers to lighten the load of business regulations without the bother of having to go through parliament. In reality, it gave them power to introduce, amend and axe legislation with only the faintest parliamentary scrutiny. As a group of Cambridge lawyers pointed out, it could have been used to abolish jury trial, increase control orders and re-write immigration laws.

But after considerable pressure from the media and opposition, Jim Murphy, the unresponsive cyborg piloting the legislation, has apparently agreed to back down 'so that it can no longer be misconstrued as an attempt by government to take wider constitutional power'.

There never was any misunderstanding. Labour was trying to bypass parliament, just as it did with the unnoticed Inquiries Act 2005, which gives ministers unprecedented control over government inquiries and, in effect, allows them to scrutinise their own behaviour. Under this law, they are able to appoint the members of the inquiry, set its terms, restrict public access, suppress evidence and shut it down without having to explain to anybody. God knows where MPs and the media were when this was being debated, but the crucial and also symbolic point is that inquiry reports are now presented to the minister and not, as they once were, to parliament.

These things are as profoundly significant to the future of our democracy as they are to gaining an idea of what's going on in the minds of those who govern us, even though sometimes it is difficult to know whether they are malign or merely incompetent. The new Terrorism Act 2006 came into force last week which now means that to glorify terrorism is an illegal act. That sounds perfectly reasonable until you understand that it will drive non-violent organisations underground and will have a grave impact on free speech; try praising the freedom fighters in a foreign war of liberation, for instance. These things need to be debated in a robust democracy, but as is clear in the score or more of acts passed by Tony Blair, the very last concern of this government is your freedoms.

The Prime Minister really is a puzzle, for what are we to make of a lawyer who disdains the rule of law at home and abroad, a missionary who preaches the spread of democracy on his foreign tours while removing the freedoms of his own people, a Labour Prime Minister whose policies penalise those least able to defend themselves?

On the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Stuart Mill, it is worth noting a sentence in John Skorupski's critical study of the great liberal philosopher: 'It could be that modern democracy chronically risks falling into a cycle of periods of cultural stagnation, interrupted by brief phases of undiscriminating assault on its vital traditions and institutions: dominated in both phases by the intellectually second-rate but socially and politically effective.'

This is spot on about Blair and us. The general passivity has made us complicit in his programme against freedoms. If the majority of us would care a little more that 24,000 innocent minors had been compelled to provide their DNA to the police data- base; that large numbers of juveniles are given custodial sentences for breaching antisocial behaviour orders when the original act which earned them an Asbo in the first place is rarely a criminal offence; that the DNA of 40 per cent of all black males is retained by the police, while just 10 per cent of white men have been required to provide theirs; that Asbo and terrorism laws are being used to suppress freedom of association and environmental and political protest; that the prison population rose last week to 77,141, which is 17,000 more than when Blair came into power - exactly the number of men now forced to share cells that were built for single occupancy for 22 hours day - then we might have some impact on the government's policies.

One cannot escape the fact that the intellectual and moral tone of British society enables Blair. The critical point in all this is that the common excuses which say: 'My civil liberties are not affected, so I don't need to care about other people's loss of rights' or: 'I've got nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear' are entirely selfish and undemocratic.

For the true democrat must care not just about his own rights, but those of immigrants, prisoners, problem children and environmental and anti-war protesters, however distant he feels to their cause or condition. That is the essence of the rule of law and it will need more than Lord Steyn to protect it for us.

The ruling class knows, of course, that the USA is headed for ruin, but it does not care because it is transnational, by which I mean the corporate structure transcends the nation-state structure. The have no allegiance to any nation or people; their only allegiance is to profit and power. Gary Alan Scott notes, "a steady transformation from manufacturing to capital management," a significant observation because money is the most transnational of assets. He goes on to write

The disappearance of union jobs, outsourcing and downsizing has been the crowning achievement of American business relations over the past 30 years or so. The other factors contributing to what Bigioni calls "the fascist trajectory" includes low taxes, various forms of corporate welfare, the decimation of small businesses, and the ability of corporations to discharge obligations to employees, to the environment, and to the country as a whole.

By the prosecution of war the corporations plunder the riches of this nation while simultaneously intent on gaining control of the entire Middle East region's oil reserves so that they can continue to dominate the world for decades to come.

On the other side of this equation is an American population that resembles spoiled rich children. They are lazy, feel entitled to whatever they want, and have no sense of responsibility to the world community. They are not evil by their own design, but are willfully blind to evil so long as it does not interfere with their comfortable existence. They do not seek out truth, but accept as truth the corporate propaganda stream because it is easy and because it tells them what they want to hear which is that they are the victims, the righteous victims of a terrible outside evil. If they will just surrender their individual rights, their money, their children, their freedom, then the government will make them safe to go on with their empty lives of mass consumption.

I think it will take outside intervention to counter the force of the western corporate military machine, to contain and reverse their belligerent ambitions, to destroy their war making powers, and ultimately to hold them accountable for what they have done. My hope is that one day Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Rice, Feith, Bolton, and the rest of the war making administration will be tried at the international court in the Hague, just as the Nazi war makers were tried in Nuremberg, and I hope that a good number of them will be hanged for what they have done. And we American people will see that we all have blood on our hands and will be shamed by what we have let happen. Our economy will sink and China will rise as the new economic leader, and the world will get on about its business.

All of the great religions of the world indicate that we should strive to treat others as we would like for them to treat us, in essence suggesting that we follow the Golden Rule. However, considering this the gold standard for how we ought to live our lives, it is quite clear that Christian fundamentalists have missed the mark! Regardless of all the wonderful things they have claimed to have done for the world, it is apparent that the fundamentalists have been unable to live up to the most minimal standards for that of a decent life, almost as if they have gone out of their way to "cast a speck out of their neighbor's eye, while refusing to recognize the enormity of the plank in that of their own." With no apology, nor even a hint of remorse, they continue on their way running roughshod over others, with little or no concern for how their victims might feel. Rather than caring for others, disregard and disrespect has become that which defines them as a people.

However, in order to understand the Christian fundamentalist, we must first take a look at what they believe. What is it that these folks, as fundamentalists, hold to be fundamental? What is it that they insist one must do in order to be saved? The answer is threefold: First, in order to be a Christian, a person must believe that the Bible (the holy scriptures) is the one and only infallible, truly inerrant, source of truth, and that the holy books of all other religions are of demonic origin; Secondly, one must believe in an afterlife, that every human being will end up in either Heaven or Hell. And finally, it is essential that one understand that in order to go to Heaven he must accept Jesus Christ (the one and only Son of God) as his own personal savior, otherwise, and without exception, regardless of how good a life he may have lived, he will be sent to the agonizing fires of an eternally burning Hell. That is their doctrine...... that is what they believe to be The Truth of God.

Although not necessarily a fundamental, but as a result of their contention that the Bible indicates that all authority is given (and therefore inspired) by God, fundamentalists have been led to believe that it is unpatriotic, and therefore unchristian, to question the divine right of what our country has found it necessary to do....... regardless of how heinous. That is why Christian fundamentalists have, by choice, chosen to disregard the fact that "From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable systems. In the process, the U.S. bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair." (William Blum, Killing Hope). Thus, there is little doubt that if a Christian fundamentalist was forced to face the fact of what her country has done, she would have little choice but to reject her faith in God. For how would it be possible for one to believe in a God that chose to bless a country that has done such terrible things? It is such that seems to account for the fundamentalist's tendency to have approached the world in such an indiscreet manner. While having regarded themselves as having been among the few who know the truth, they have broached the world with eyes, as well as a mind, that has been, out of necessity, "kept wide shut!"

Fundamentalist Christianity got its start in authority, that one the early years of the twentieth century by having rebelled against two competing historical movements, one a rather humanistic movement known as The Social Gospel (a belief that a Christian's primary responsibility is one of love, peace, and social justice), and the other a loosely coordinated group of scholastics known for their interest in that of Higher Criticism (a belief that the Bible can be understood only if allowed to undergo a process of rational examination, scientific investigation, and historical analysis). However, the spark that ignited the fire, that is burning yet to this day, was that of the John Scopes "Monkey Trial" in Dayton, Tennessee in which reason, in the form of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, was pitted against the faith of Christian fundamentalists who believed that "man," along with all other things, was created by God in six calendar days according to a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis in the Holy Bible. Thus, for the past one hundred years, fundamentalists have been locked in battle with those suggesting that faith in God can be a rational matter, that it is important for one's faith to make sense, that being a Christian involves nothing more than a sincere desire to live one's life like that of Jesus, that one live one's life honoring Jesus' mandate that we love God, our neighbor, as well as that of our enemy.

First on the fundamentalist's agenda was their use of the Bible to make the case for racial separation, that blacks and whites should remain "unto that of their own kind," that black folks and white folks should not mix, that people would be better off if they remained apart. And in looking back at how blacks were treated in earlier years, fundamentalists seemed to have had no problem with the fact that black people, as chattel, had been auctioned off as livestock. Then later on, in the 1950's and 1960's, Christian fundamentalists were at the forefront doing everything they could to prevent black people from achieving civil rights. There is little doubt that The Reverend Martin Luther King, who did so much to enable blacks to take their rightful place in American society, was among those most hated by the fundamentalists for, as it turns out, he was fighting for everything that they in fact were against, the right for black people to be treated as full-fledged human beings. In addition, and as one might expect, the fundamentalists were right there at the side of the Senator from Wisconsin (Joseph Raymond McCarthy) as he did so much to destroy the lives of so many innocent folks accused of being a communist.

Add to this an assortment of other misdeeds such as: an insistence that the United States of America has been blessed by God enabling fundamentalists to fully support our country's many wars of aggression (Viet Nam, a multitude of military intrusions into Latin American, the war in Kosovo, the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and, of course, the egregious invasion of Iraq in 2003); an acceptance of the idea that the United States has the right to overthrow any and all governments whose interests are in conflict with that of our nation's foreign policy; continued attempts to limit civil rights legislation; a desire that women remain in subjection to men; an absolute disdain for the women's liberation movement (even for a women's right to be paid the same as a man); a presumption that young people should not be allowed to think for themselves translated into contempt for public school efforts to teach students critical thinking skills (an expressed abhorrence for that of the values clarification program); a belief that corporal punishment, otherwise known as spanking, is a good thing (spare the rod and spoil the child); a belief in the moral virtues of capital punishment (legalized murder by the state); hatred of homosexuals; xenophobically-inspired efforts to keep Mexicans from entering the United States (unless, of course, needed as low wage/slave laborers); a propensity to support republican congressmen so often controlled by the corporate community; a belief that capitalism (an economic system based upon greed) is God's approved way of doing business; a love affair with guns (as represented by their support for the National Rifle Association); a belief that economic development trumps that of a clean and healthy environment; an ethnocentric tendency to reject anything and everything that is inconsistent with that of the American way of life (e.g., socialism, Islam, and love for one's enemy); a dogmatic insistence that anyone who happens to disagree with their particular version of truth is wrong...... and therefore in danger of going to Hell; and last, but certainly not least, an absolute reluctance to deal with the greatest problem with that of their faith, what I refer to as the vexation of vexations, an insane presumption that a "loving God," such as theirs, would allow such a huge majority, the bulk of the human race (as many as 94% according to the Southern Baptist Convention's Map of Lostness), to be condemned to the eternally burning fires of Hell.

So, as a psychologist, I am compelled to ask: what is it that seems to have motivated such people to have become so depraved, to have chosen a style of life so opposed to everything that Jesus taught? What is it that has led fundamentalists to become such a mean-spirited gathering of folks? What is it that such people have in common, that which might serve to explain why they have led such horrid lives?

The riddle of why such folks, who look upon themselves as being so very good while having behaved so terribly bad, can be understood by realizing that fundamentalists suffer from an axiomatic inability to face who they have, in fact, become. In having followed the dictum to be "in" the world, but certainly not "of" the world, they began to set themselves apart, to disengage from the rest of the world, effectively creating an inner sanctum, a world of their own, an imprisoned partition separating them from the rest of humanity. And, of course, all of such in order to protect themselves from being contaminated by an outer world of sin. Thus in having symbolically reached for the heavens, while yet remaining so deeply mired in a rather cognitively truncated, black and white, world of their own making, they have become unable to even touch the sky. In believing themselves to have become the true remnant of God, the special elect, the keepers of the keys to the kingdom of God, they allowed themselves to have been lulled into worshiping a deity who has turned out to be nothing more than a figment of their own imagination, an extension of their own rather neurotic needs, a red, white, and blue god willingly ready to allay their fears, fill their pockets with gold, and to destroy each and every one of their enemies. Falling right into line, they began to look upon the neo-conservative leadership of our nation (George Walker Bush, Richard Bruce Cheney, Donald Henry Rumsfeld, et al.) as men inspired by God, men, no doubt, appointed by God to take charge of the world, and to do whatever they might deem to be necessary in order to redeem the world. Consequently, the fundamentalists, supposing themselves to be at war with an, as yet, unsaved world, have become convinced that they can do no wrong as long as they continue to faithfully obey the commands of their hallowed leaders, each and every one a crusader, struggling to restore the once lost kingdom of God........ a people crying out for "the blood of the Lamb" to cleanse the world, in perfectly-pitched and four-part harmony, chanting "Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before! Christ the royal master, leads against the foe, forward into battle, see his banner go!"

Perhaps the foregoing has shed a bit of light on the mystery of how, and, perhaps even, why such a self-righteous group of folks has become so terribly evil........ why it is that the Christian fundamentalists have been led to believe they have been set free to do what they may, to live above and beyond the normal restraints of man (a law of the heart requiring that we respect the rights of others), that they, as the faithful followers of the Old Testament's readily rendered red in tooth and claw claim for the right to extract an "eye for an eye," have declared for themselves the divine authority to take charge of, to rule, to plunder and pillage, even, if necessary, to bring on Armageddon ....... and all of such in the name of a "thoroughly providential and loving God."

Doug Soderstrom, Ph.D.

Although the Pentagon initially focused on aircraft, such as the Predator drone, now new ground- and sea-based robots are being developed and tested, military records show. For example:

- The Mobile Detection Assessment Response System, an unmanned vehicle intended to patrol around domestic bases. The Army plans to start using it next year.

- Self-driving convoy trucks. Some variants follow preplanned routes or the vehicle in front. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has held a competition among advanced, satellite-guided versions that plan their own routes and maneuver around roadblocks. The Army is testing driverless versions of its Stryker armored personnel carrier.

- Robots that can enter a building, look for an enemy and send back a map of the interior are being tested for the Marine Corps.

Already in Iraq and Afghanistan are hundreds of small robots to help bomb squads examine or disarm explosives from a safe distance. That's because of the continuing toll caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have been become the largest killer of U.S. troops.

Ninety-five U.S. troops in Iraq have been killed by IEDs in 2006 through April 9, according to military records and the USA TODAY Iraq casualty database. That's 57% of the 167 U.S. fatalities in Iraq during that period.

Records kept by U.S. Central Command, which directs troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, show the number of IED attacks increased 89% in 2005 to 10,593, compared with 5,607 in 2004.

To better detect and stop IEDs, new sensors are being attached to those robots, says Dave Greene of the Army's Test and Evaluation Command, which evaluates the performance of robots and other technologies.

The military also is responding to some creative tinkering by the troops, who have modified their robots to carry grenades and other weapons into buildings or other potentially unsafe targets.

"Soldiers and Marines are very innovative and ... have figured out how to do that," Griffin says.

As a result, the Pentagon is testing a new version of the Talon robot that carries a remote-control M-240 machine gun.

Meanwhile, much larger and more ambitious robot weapons are in testing, including a tank-like, 1,600-pound vehicle called the Gladiator, which can fire a variety of guns, tear gas or almost anything else that fits. It also has loudspeakers to "shout" instructions, such as those to calm a mob.

Those armed robots are like the Predator, which fires only with a human command. The next step - robots that decide themselves when to fire - is much harder.

Robots will become more independent, but having them fight without human control is "not a technology issue, so much as it's a safety issue," says Scott Myers, president of General Dynamics Robotic Systems.

A robot can find a human with its sensors and kill the person, but "we don't want to shoot our own people or children," Myers says. It's hard enough for a human to distinguish between friend and foe, and for machines, "we're a long way from being there."

The goal now is helping troops in the field as quickly as possible, says Col. Gregory Tubbs, head of the Army's Rapid Equipping Force. In the long term, Tubbs says, the Gladiator and other robots will be transitional, as the military shifts to "game changing" robotic technologies that will revolutionize warfare.