I understand the Home Office minister - or whatever the department he heads up is called this week - is looking to introduce yet more new "anti-terror" laws.
It seems as if barely a week goes by without yet another new raft of legislation being tabled to tackle the problem of terrorism - without ever explaining who the terrorists are - all of which is utterly ineffective at combating a determined terrorist from committing an atrocity in Britain at some point in the future.
Personally, I'm against the idea of detaining people for longer and longer periods without charge. I'm opposed to the idea of jailing people who haven't actually committed a crime.
But I'm also opposed to the idea of treating terrorism as a crime.
It isn't a crime - it is covert warfare and that is how it should be treated.
6 comments:
Your last sentence seems somewhat truncated:
covert warfare....treated as..
which means WHAT, for poor old Blighty?
I mean that we should treat acts of terrorism as acts of war against us rather than as criminal offences - and that means treating terrorists and terrorist suspects as enemy combatants.
No, I understand that, Stan.
What I thought you might have been alluding to was allowing the Army rather than police to take control, and all that entails.
Thought you had Northern Ireland in the 1970s, in mind!
Even at the height of WW2 the army weren't in control, bernard. What I mean is the government need to wake up and understand that we're fighting a war and need to treat it like that.
I agree Stan. The trouble with Clinton was that he treated terrorists during his term as criminals - it obviously didn't work.
We are at war and it is time most people realised it.
I think most nations treat terrorists as criminals - and that is something terrorists rely on allowing them to manipulate the system to their own ends.
One of the most astonishing factors of recent years, though, is that the Blair government have effectively cut funds to the armed forces while we are at war. As far as I'm aware, this is unprecedented in British history and it seems ridiculous to me - as does the concept of unrestricted immigration and open borders when there are clearly people out there who will take advantage of this to launch attacks from within Britain or use it as a safe haven to escape too when necessary.
So when I say we need to start treating it as a war that means three things.
One - fund the armed services properly (including military intelligence) and arm them appropriately.
Two - Close the borders tight. Forget Schengen and force all non-British citizens to go through immigration.
Three - either expand Customs and Excise or form a new border/immigration enforcement agency whose responsibility it is to maintain the border security and to round up illegal immigrants and deport them immediately - no appeal.
That would be the start, in my opinion. Perhaps then we wouldn;t have this stupid idea of forcing British citizens to carry ID cards.
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