Summit Update: Locusts

Gerry Broome/AP

As far as G-8/G-20 summits go, I wouldn’t want to be Canada.

You know you’re not going to keep thousands of angry citizens and anarchists off the streets, so you can take for granted they’re going to show up in the news either facing off with, or even being manhandled by the robocops.

So okay. But what you can’t afford to see — especially if you’ve poured almost a billion (yes, billion) dollars into security — is an image like the one above (which is circulating widely) in which demonstrators not only show the ability to torch your security vehicles but seem to be dropping out of the sky like locusts.

(Of course, the fact they seem to have no problem putting a “shattering” hurt — 1, 2, 3 — on the downtown retail establishment isn’t making the Toronto paramilitary look any smarter or tougher either.)

(caption: Protestors surround a burning police car during demonstrations in Toronto, Saturday, June 26, 2010, as the G20 Summit gets underway.)