Last month, when it was revealed that the MoD was siting surface-to-air missiles on the roofs of residential buildings as part of the bloated security measures for the Olympics — estimated to cost at least £1.4 billion, to be paid for by taxpayers — there was a brief flurry of outrage, although not enough to bring the plans to an end. Two weeks ago, during a week-long “military exercise” in London, Simon Jenkins, in the Guardian, captured something of the surreal excesses involved when a pliant government comes up against the extraordinary demands of the International Olympic Committee:

RAF Typhoon jets are to scream back and forth over the Thames. Starstreak surface-to-air missile batteries are being set up in East End parks and on flats in Bow, with 10 soldiers manning each one. Army and navy helicopters will clatter back and forth, with snipers hanging from their doors “to shoot down pilots of terrorist planes”.

Machine-guns will for the first time be toted by guards on the London tube. Police special forces, “trained to kill”, will wear balaclavas to avoid identification. There are to be naval landing craft roaming the coast off Weymouth and submarines at the ready. The Olympics have become a festival of the global security industry, with a running and jumping contest as a sideshow. No one in government dares call a halt. Nero in his prime could not have squandered so much money on circuses.

The Olympics have become an Orwellian parody of what happens when a world agency blackmails a government aching for prestige into spending without limit. Not one defence spokesman has come up with a plausible scenario for the jets and missiles. The latter have a range of just three miles and are said to be usable “only at the express instruction of the prime minister”. What will they shoot down, and on whose head will it crash? Read the rest of this entry »